The Monster Within

Sanji and Amy

"You know, I like being a girl as much as the next chick, but this is too much." Amy's opinion seemed sound, her and Sanji having found themselves in a bedroom covered in pink. Pink walls, pink floor, pink sheets. There were even pink stuffed animals in the corner. "I mean, yellow is so much better than pink, anyway."

"This is definitely weird for an assassin's bedroom," Sanji agreed. "I bet it belongs to that Pigeon Guy."

"I'm afraid this isn't Lucci's," a female voice denied, the open door behind the pirates closing. They turned to find Khalifa leaving against the wood, her hand turning the lock behind her. She was dressed in all-black clothing with a very low-cut shirt. "Why don't you two stay a while? I'll make some tea."

"That's a great idea!" Sanji exclaimed with hearts in his eyes, his arms waving and wiggling in the air as if he'd lost all the bones therein.

"You moron!" the female pirate yelled, punching her fellow blond with an increased-mass punch to the face.

"I'm sorry, Amy-chwan!" Sanji cried as he flew into a dresser, crushing it into kindling.

"I was hoping you would just accept my invitation," Khalifa whined cutely, batting her eyelashes at the pirates. Amy wasn't falling for it.

"Look, lady," the chocolatier spat, leveling her umbrella at the other woman. "You may have that idiot fooled, but every pretty face has that idiot flopping like a fish out of water. Me? I'm an assassin, too. And a professional one, at that. I know what I'm doing."

"Oh?" Khalifa chuckled. "An assassin? And where was this that you were an assassin?"

"Baroque Works," Amy answered. "I was a number agent, though I doubt you've heard the name Ms. Valentine. Mr. 5 and I were very thorough with our jobs."

"Indeed, Crocodile kept his operations very secret, even after we captured or confirmed the deaths of every member we could find. However, the other members arrested weren't so tight-lipped and Crocodile kept detailed records. Less than five agents got away in total. We know of both you and Ms. Goldenweek. Or should I say, Amy Palant and your sister, Grace?"

"You've done your research," Amy admitted. "I don't know how, but-"

"Tea's done!" Sanji noodled by a table with a pink tablecloth. Amy palmed her face as Khalifa smirked and sauntered over to the chef, making sure her hips swayed. Sanji couldn't keep his eyes off of the woman as she sat down and gingerly lifted the cup to her lips.

"Why are most men on the crew such dumbasses?" Amy questioned herself. Khalifa was facing away from her now, sitting down and drinking her tea, so Amy decided that maybe she could end this fight quickly. She raised her parasol up and increased its mass before swinging it down on the agent's head.

The attack was ineffective. Amy's parasol seemed to slip down the woman's light brown hair, becoming smoother than it ever should have been. She pulled away, only to see that her beloved umbrella had rounded like solid plastic at the edges.

"What?" She gasped. "What did you do?!" Sanji said nothing, he was still staring, unabashed, at Khalifa's cleavage.

"Do you like it?" the agent asked, taking a sip of the tea Sanji had made. "It's a new technique I've been working on." Standing suddenly, Khalifa ignored Amy's shouts and Sanji's staring as she walked over the pull out a changing wall. With the press of a button, the top of the bed slid backward to become a tub that began filling with water. Clothes then began falling from behind the curtain.

"Is now really the time for that?!" Amy screamed. Next to her, Sanji had a nosebleed and passed out.

"Why of course it is," Khalifa purred, stepping out from behind the curtain with nothing but a towel and lowering herself into the bath. Bubbles arose in the water unnaturally fast.

"I'm going to deal with you right here and now," Amy growled, running her power into her umbrella. "Parasol Club!"

Nami and Gin

Nami and Gin ran down a hallway side-by-side, little scorch marks showing Gin's progress through the tower. He was dutifully following his captain's lover as she searched for an opponent, or a safe, or a vault... Actually, he believed Nami was looking for money rather than an enemy to fight. Unfortunately for her, an enemy found them.

"Yoi yoi!" Kumadori cried as the two turned a corner. He was using his huge body to block the way, his pink hair wiggling randomly like little snakes. He spoke very slowly, making sure to define every syllable that come out of his mouth. "Oh, how the blessings of the god of war has fallen upon my lowly form! For he has granted me not one, but two messengers to the afterlife!"

"Listen, pal," Gin growled. "We've got places to be and people to save. Get out of our way."

"You shall not escape me!" Kumadori voiced, his hair wrapping around both of the pirates who began to struggle. "You will help me send-!" He didn't finish as Gin's limbs all but exploded, lightning shooting out to shock the man and burn his hair. Gin reformed outside of the sage's reach, drawing his flintlock pistol and pointing it at the man. He fired.

Kumadori, however, was not a CP9 agent for nothing. Using his staff, he deflected the bullet back at the man who let it pass through his incorporeal form.

"Let the Donna go."

"A Logia, I see," Kumadori observed, rubbing his chin as his hair shifted Nami to the side, her hand just brushing by his chest. "A ghost of a man, you are. Not fully human, and yet you retain your shape. An anomaly of nature just like the shifting of the seasons."

"I said," Gin growled, tossing his empty gun to the side. "Let the Donna go!" He launched forward, his sparking tonfa burning through locks of the agent's hair to free the navigator who backed away from the kabuki-themed man.

"I need somewhere more open!" Nami coughed, rubbing her sore throat from were the agent had his hair wrapped around it and taking off back the way they had come. Gin had no choice but to follow, Kumadori chasing them so as to not lose his prey.

"Though a man may train to move at the speed of light, he cannot escape death! Shave!" Suddenly, the agent was in front of Nami, trying to wrap her in his hair again. Gin came to her rescue, diving in to hit the man in the chest with both of his weapons.

"3000 Watt Slam!"

"Ack!" Kumadori fell back, clutching his chest where his heart should be.

"Come on!" Gin yelled, he and Nami taking off past the gasping man. "I put enough power into that to stop a man's heart, but I don't think it'll work on this guy!" The two ran, angry shouts from the agent behind them spurring Nami to run faster. Finally reaching the center room with the staircases, the pirates turned back to face their opponent.

"Have you finally come to accept your deaths?" Kumadori slowly emerged from the shadows of the hallway, his hair still waving, the ends blackened.

"Get him, Gin!" Nami ordered, her Clima-Tact sending out Cool Balls and Heat Balls on either side of her. Gin nodded and launched forward.

"Yes, Donna. Spinning Death: Lightning Strikes!" As the name implied, Gin started attacking at the speed of lightning, electricity sparking off of his weapons.

"Armarment!" Kumadori countered, his hands and staff being covered in a black substance and the staff and tonfa clashed. Flashing back to his fight with Aokiji, Gin deduced that the black stuff was meant to somehow hurt him. He didn't want to find out.

"What is that?" Nami questioned, having never seen the technique before. Gin and Kumadori broke apart, the agent spinning his now-black staff.

"My Life Return Technique allows me to control even my internal organs with the force of my will alone!" Kumadori began. "However, this is not the only technique I posses. My Armarment Haki allows me to coat my staff as well as parts of my body in pure willpower, giving me the ability to hit even Logias!"

"Oh shit," Gin cursed.

"Prepare to die! Finger Pistol: Cue!" Stabbing forward with his staff like a pool cue, the agent tried to hit both of the pirates who dodged in opposite directions.

"Lightning Shot!" Gin yelled, firing a blast of electricity from between his tonfa. Stopping his aggressive movements, the sage pulled his staff back to spin it and diffuse the attack. He continued the centrifugal motion, swinging the club out to where it caught Gin in the side. He coughed blood at the staff batted him into the far wall.

"You will have to do better than that!" Kumadori taunted.

"Thunderbolt Tempo!" As if in response, massive lightning bolts shot from the storm cloud that Nami had formed above them. Kumadori's eyes widened as the bolts trained down around him. He knew that a strike from one of them had a good chance of killing him, so he vanished, retreating with a Shave. When the lightning cleared, he was gone.

"Dammit!" Gin raged, crushing a wall with a blast of extra electrical energy from one tonfa. "How are we supposed to track him?!"

"We don't have to," Nami answered, holding up the key she had pickpocketed after first meeting their foe. "Getting the key was the easy part. We just have to hope that-"

WHAM! Two somethings slammed into the floor on their right, forming craters. Twisting around to see them, Nami and Gin found Sanji face down and Amy face up, but they were completely smooth and covered in blood. They appeared to be like human-shaped balloons, even their hands having been rounded out to seem ovular. Amy's parasol came next, clattering to the for next to its owner in a similar state.

"Sanji!" Gin shouted. "Amy! What happened?" The Man-Demon flashed over, gingerly raising Amy's upper body off the floor.

"That girl that was Iceberg's secretary," Amy coughed. Only Nami had seen Khalifa without a disguise in Water 7, but since there was only one female CP9 agent, it wasn't hard for Gin to understand. "She was the one I fought earlier. I... I couldn't beat her and Sanji's damn chivalry wouldn't let him kick her. I'm sorry." Amy's consciousness floated away and she slumped backwards.

"Don't worry," Gin growled, lowering Amy to the floor. "Rest up. The Donna and I will handle her."

"Oh will you now?" Nami and Gin looked up, surprised to see the woman with nothing but bubbles covering her most private areas leaning on the railing above them.

"I bet you Sanji passed out before the fight began," Gin stated.

"No dice," Nami responded. "Thieves don't take suckers' bets. Let's go."

Franky and Chopper

"This way!" Chopper called, running in his Walk Point ahead of his cyborg partner. He took a sharp left down a hallway, only to bump into something and come rolling back.

"Reindeer Bro!" Franky yelled, skidding to a stop by the doctor. "You ok?"

"Yeah," Chopper grunted, reverting to his Brain Point. "What did I hit?"

"Chapapa! It was I, Fukurou, the silent lover of rumors, chapapa." Fukurou was standing in the hallway to the kitchen, his body taking up nearly the entire space. "You will not get by me, chapapa."

"Oh great," Franky moaned. "Not this clown again. Stand back, Reindeer Bro. I'll super deal with him."

"You can try," Fukurou chuckled, "but I will not let you pass, chapapa!"

"Strong Right!"

"Iron Body!" Franky's fist met the agent's stomach, a cough coming from Fukurou as he took a step back.

"It's cool how you CP9 guys as make your bodies as hard as iron," Franky admitted, "but my hands are the super genuine article." Reaching over with his left hand, the cyborg pulled off the skin of his right, revealing that it was just a flesh-like covering for his iron hand.

"That's so cool!" Chopper gasped, stars in his eyes. Franky ignored him for the moment, focusing on their opponent who was glaring at the cyborg.

"Strong Hammer!" Franky moved forward to punch the man again.

"Shave!" The agent vanished in a burst of speed many would think impossible for his body type. Reappearing in front of Chopper, Fukurou prepared to stab the little doctor with his finger.

"Heavy Point!" Chopper yelled, surprising the self-proclaimed Lover of Rumors. With a strong punch, Chopper was able to send the agent rolling back toward the cyborg who batted him away with his fists. Fukurou crashed into the wall.

"Weapons Left!" Opening his wrist hatch, Franky aimed and fired with the last of his cola. The wall exploded into a dust cloud, but there was no blood or body. "Damn it. The coward dodged."

"What was that about me being a coward, chapapa?" Fukurou had positioned himself above the pirate and shipwright, holding himself up with his arms and legs.

"Rumble," Chopper growled, chomping down on one of his Rumble Balls. "Jump Point!" Shifting into a leaner form, Franky watched in awe as the doctor launched himself at the government assassin. Fukurou, however, was ready this time and avoided him with a Shave.

"Get back here!" Chopper ordered, jumping off the wall to aim for the agent. "Arm Point: Cloven Hoof!"

"Moonwalk!" Chopper's ridiculously-oversized arms slammed into the ground where the government man had been, carving a clover shape into the concrete.

"Keep him busy, Reindeer Bro!" Franky called. "I'll super be back after I've refilled!"

"Don't leave me!" Chopper panicked.

"Shave!" With two motions, Fukurou punched Chopper and appeared in front of the native of Water 7 with his fist raised. Franky blocked the first punch with his forearm, but the second clipped his chin, sending him through the wall behind him.

"Franky!" Chopper yelled.

"I'm not done with you, yet, chapapa." Fukurou launched toward the reindeer with his hand out. "Finger Pistol!"

"Guard Point!" Chopper cried. Once again caught by surprise, the assassin's attack was too slowed by the fur to hurt, becoming only a light poke. Shedding the fur, Chopper threw it on the agent and transformed again, this time into his Horn Point. Pawing the ground while his opponent flailed around, Chopper charged. His horns lightly stabbed the man, only going deep enough to draw blood but pushing the green-haired thing back regardless. The two went through the hole Franky's body had made to enter a big room with a giant refrigerator on one wall.

"Finally!" Franky shouted from behind the open refrigerator door. The door slammed shut, revealing Franky with three oddly-shaped bottles clutched in one hand. The cyborg opened his stomach and stuffed the bottles inside. Slowly, his hair waved without a breeze and began to defy gravity again. "I'm feeling super again!"

"So you drank some cola," Fukurou brushed off, backhanding Chopper into a wall to his right. "It's not going to make a difference, chapapa."

"That's where you're super wrong, bastard," Franky smirked. "Strong Right!" Shooting his hand forward with more power than he'd had in hours, the cyborg's fist met the agent's face and threw him backwards.

"You did it!" Chopper cheered as he reverted back to his Brain Point.

"He's not down yet," Franky stated, glaring at the agent as Fukurou pulled himself up.

"You've done it now, chapapa. Now I'm pissed, chapapapapapa!" Bending down, the round agent took off toward the duo he was fighting. "Secret Art, Owl Barrage!" As he ran, Fukurou seemed to split into ten differed copies, each one see-through. They split up, five attacking each opponent.

"Guard Point!" Chopper panicked. The fur managed to protect the reindeer from the worst of the damage, save for a face punch every now and then. Franky, however, did not have that luxury. The fists rained down on him without relief.

"Beans Left!" the cyborg yelled, firing bullet-like shots from his left wrist. None of them hit anything. Fukurou continued to pelt both intruders with his fists, even after Chopper's Rumble Ball timed out.

"Chapapapapapapa!"

"Get the Hell off!" Franky shouted, throwing his arms out in either direction in the hope of hitting something. He got lucky, his left fist crashing into Fukurou's stomach. All of the copies faded as the man slid away. Franky charged him, punching the agent through several walls to where he landed outside.

"You got him!" Chopper cheered again.

"Nah," Franky denied. "He's still got some steam. Leave him to me." Loosening the joints in his robotic hands, the cyborg stepped out of the building.

"So cool!" Chopper whispered to himself.

"What haaaaappened in heeeerrreee?" The doctor nearly panicked, spinning around to find the agent with pink hair in the hole to the hallway. Seeing him, Chopper shifted into his Heavy Point and prepared to fight. "Hmm?" Kumadori hummed, seeing the reindeer. "What are you, my dear gorilla?"

"I'm a reindeer! What are you, an octopus?"

"I'm a lion! For that insult, I shall send you into the afterlife in a spray of red! Shave! Finger Pistol: Cue!"

"Ahh!" Chopper screamed, jumping away from the staff which stabbed into the floor. He whirled around to punch the agent in the face.

"Iron Body," the sage countered. Chopper pulled back, cradling his hand.

"Life Return: Hair Restraints!" The man's hair wiggled out, wrapping around Chopper's arms, legs, and neck. "Yoi, yoi! This is where you die. Please, when you get to the afterlife, find my dear deceased mother and tell her that I am alive and well. And that my killer instincts are as strong as ever. Finger Pistol: Cue!"

"Brain Point!" Chopper cried, avoiding the stab by inches. "Rumble!" Desperate, Chopper crunched down on a second Rumble Ball. "Arm Point!"

But it wasn't Arm Point he got, but Walk Point. Kumadori didn't seem to care, batting the doctor into a far wall with his staff.

"Guard Point!" Chopper prayed, but it was Jump Point that slammed into the concrete. "Damn it. I can't control my transformations."

"You cheated death once already," Kumadori stated. "Have you accepted your fate?"

"No!" Chopper shouted. "I will take you down!" The reindeer changed again, hoping to get one of the two transformations he had that would be useful. He was lucky.

"Shishi-kabob!" Kumadori cried, lighting the top of his staff on fire. He swung at the approaching Arm Point, smacking the pirate in the face. Chopper tried to shake it off, continuing to run forward despite the dizziness in his mind.

"Carving Hoof Sakura!" Leaving pink marks in the shape of the attack's namesake, Chopper expended the last of his energy as his hooves battered at the agent. Kumadori was still for five seconds, his mouth gaping and his nose bloody as he tried to hold onto his consciousness. Unfortunately for the doctor, he succeeded.

"AHHHH!" Kumadori screamed, sweeping his staff forward to throw the human-reindeer into another far wall. Blood seeped from cuts and gashes on Chopper's small body while his foe was only covered in large bruises with a trail of blood running down from the side of his mouth and nose.

He had no other options. With a shaky hand, Chopper raised his third and final Rumble Ball.

"I'm sorry, Doctorine," Chopper whispered, coughing up blood. "I couldn't keep my promise. Rumble."

"RAAAAWWWWRRR!"