You coward!

While Ian was dealing with his problems, the straw hats had been enjoying their day ever since they reached Zou.

Sanji was taking advantage of the mink's females, via minkship, and having the time of his life. The time that he was robbed off, on that hellish island he was thrown to.

Meanwhile, Nami exchanged clothes with Wanda, which was a big part of their culture. The fact that the accessories on the dress were a natural treasure of the mink's showed how much they valued their friends.

Chopper was working with the doctors of the minks in providing help to those injured.

Momonosuke however had not been let out of his room.

The straw hats had been told about the failed invasion of Jack, which was stopped thanks to Ian.

But the fact remained that the invasion was due a person from the land of samurais, as such they were glad that Momo had been in his dragon form when they met the mink's for the first time, and since then they had been hiding him in the room. The fact that the little guy was content there helped too.

Sanji was also responsible for making food, as the mink's had liked it. It was by his choice of course.

But even Bert joined him at some point and helped him up. He could use some tips from Sanji.

But things were not destined to stay quiet this day.

A commotion was raised among the minks as two new visitors showed up to the city.

The first one is a mink resembling a humanoid maned lion. He is relatively tall, as he appears about one head taller than the 5'11 Sanji. He was wearing sunglasses. Despite having large paws for hands, his feet are evidently small enough to fit into the small boots he wears.

He wears a hideous pink suit, black sunglasses, a silver earring on his left ear, a sword on his right hip, and wears black high-heeled boots with white ruffled brims. He also wears a salmon-colored dress shirt underneath his suit jacket.

Currently, he was happily embracing two other minks with tears in his eyes.

The second person was keeping a bit of distance to the front as he was watching the proceedings.

He is a relatively short man with a stocky build whose appearance is somewhat similar to that of a Mafia boss. He sports an oiled-up and slicked-back hairstyle befitting that of a crime don. His facial features have a very stern look to them further accentuated by his rather sharp but hooking beak-like nose.

He was wearing a black-and-white pinstriped attire, complete with a green scarf around his neck, with the excess tucked inside the suit. He was also wearing very expensive golden rings with precious stones mounted on them, and all his fingers have them. As for his personal effects, he has a pirate captain's coat with red and gold trimming and a fedora hat, both of which he only seems to wear for traveling purposes. A cigar was in his mouth.

These two were Big Mom pirates.

The first one was named Pekoms and he was a lion mink.

The second one was named Capon 'Gang' Bege.

When Pekoms had just stepped through the gates of Zou he was anxious to say the least. As surrounding him were various levels of destruction.

Trees were toppled and the ground was unearthed as if a huge battle had taken place.

So he rushed to the city as fast as he could, ignoring the guards telling him to stop so that they can explain.

Since he was pursuing the straw-hats he naturally assumed it was their fault that this had happened.

But when he reached the center of the city he was met by his people.

And then when he asked them who attacked them he was told it was the beast pirates. And that in fact, they had helped heal their injured. Meanwhile, he was told that the one who saved them was Emperor Ian and his crew.

This had him shocked a bit. But he rejoiced that his people were safe at the least while vowing to pay the beast pirates back.

Meanwhile, his companion raised his brows in alarm. Knowing that an emperor was here was troublesome.

Meanwhile, with the straw-hats, they had seen the commotion and noticed immediately that it was the Big Mom pirates that were after them.

Sanji clicked his tongue in distaste. This had just gotten complicated. They didn't want to implicate the Mink's in their problems after all.

Just when he was thinking of what to do, he saw Ian's crewmates come out of the house near them.

Thoughts swirled in his head for a bit, before he sighed and decided not to bother them with his crew's problems.

He knew that they would help absolutely if he asked. And they were strong, he knew that.

But the fact that the emperor of the sea Big Mom was after them was enough to let him abandon that thought.

Ian was strong, but he didn't want him to fight an emperor for them.

He looked at Brook and made eye contact with him.

First, he was going to see what they wanted before he makes any decisions. If they were just after Caesar then this would go much easier than he thought.

But if they were after them due to Luffy picking a fight with her than that was quite problematic.

So after this, both he and Brook led the way into a distant forest where they were going to have their talk.

When he and Brook had reached a distance sufficient enough, they stopped.

Then after a bit of staring off, Sanji decided to speak off.

"What do you guys want?" He asked with a glare.

"Don't cause any trouble here… the people of this country were just in a war. If you need to talk, then talk to me first… If that is not enough then I'm afraid we'll have to take this to another place out of this country!" Sanji spoke up right after.

"We are not going to run or hide!" He then said with conviction.

Pekoms was already planning to thank them up for their help. Since he was told that they had provided healing for the injured.

And the fact that Sanji was willing to do this for the minks by not implicating them in these problems, even after helping them up, was enough for Pekoms to jump at him and hug him.

"All I can say is thank you" Pekoms muttered as he was grinding his cheek against Sanji's face.

This however left everybody there just shocked. Even Bege.

"I will also make sure to thank Emperor Ian later!" Pekoms said next after he sat on the ground. Then he lowered his head and thought for a bit. When he looked back at them his features were more serious.

"Black-Leg, By Mama's order, we have business other than capturing Caesar! It could spell doom for your crew!" He told Sanji as he started to explain things up.

"Doom?" Brook muttered.

"As such I'm going to ask you this, what is your relationship with Emperor Ian?" Pekoms continued on and asked a question.

Sanji was perplexed at this but still replied anyway.

"We are friends!" Sanji said. And it was the truth.

At this, both Bege and Pekoms stayed silent for a bit.

Before Pekoms said.

"Then we'll consider this mission a failure! Just give us Caesar! I'll tell Mama that we couldn't do anything since another Emperor was here!" Pekoms said towards them.

Shocking them all including his companion.

"Oi, Pekoms did you lose your mind, this is Mama we are talking about!" Bege said.

Which did make Pekoms grimace but he then turned to Bege and yelled.

"Shut up newbie, I'll take all the blame for this! We can't handle it if an emperor is after us…" He said resolutely.

But his companion disagreed, however.

"You coward…" His eyes were clouded in anger.

And then he abruptly raised his left hand towards the back of his unsuspecting companion, and bullets started to rain on Pekoms. And blood poured from the wounds opening on his back.

"AHHHHH"

This was absolutely shocking to both Sanji and Brook, that Bege would attack someone from his own crew so coldly.