Tea

Cherry and Tesoro parted ways shortly after the demonstration. She was sent off to one of his real V.I.P. rooms that he saved for actually important guests. According to him, they were even nicer than the ones reserved for the celestial dragons, though he'd asked her to keep that quiet.

Cherry found all 7 of the hidden spy den den mushi around the room and gathered them onto the coffee table for a tiny snail tea party which, to her delight, the den den mushi were very interested in. Who knew snails like leaf juice?

As she observed the mini den den mushi sipping at the tiny tea cups she fashioned for them, there was a knock at the door.

Cherry skipped over to the door and swung it wide open, seemingly unworried about what dangers may lie on the other side.

"Oh~! It's a pervert!" Cherry greeted Tanaka with a pleasant smile.

Tanaka's brow twitched in agitation with a forced professional smile plastered onto his face whilst his eyes tried to burn a hole through her skull. Stripping him naked in front of a lady was humiliating, but he was frankly far more annoyed that she found all the bugs in the room she was given. It was an insult to his skills as the head of security on the Gran Tesoro; especially since she let them continue broadcasting what they perceived.

"Here's your 'butler', Miss Harpin." Tanaka said through gritted teeth.

Raise Max stood beside the head of security looking positively downtrodden despite having been dressed up in a high quality staff tuxedo, his face cleanly shaved, and his hair neatly combed, oiled, and parted.

"Ohhh~! He cleans up pretty well, huh? Even his head looks more normal sized when he is standing next to you, hehe~!" Cherry giggled. "Come, Sebastian! A tea party without a lowly servant to pour the tea for you is hardly a tea party at all!"

Tanaka marched away without a word. It was rude to leave without excusing himself properly, but he was afraid that if he opened his mouth then only vitriol would flow out. Thankfully, Cherry didn't kick up a fuss, which is what he expected from an uncouth pirate.

"..." Raise Max stood at the door and watched Tanaka leave before turning his gaze back to Cherry.

"Well? Get your ass in here, Sebastian! Tea won't serve itself!" Cherry demanded.

"Oh… I guess I'm Sebastian now…" Raise Max realized and trudged into the room.

*SLAM* *click click click click click*

Cherry shut the door with some force and started to twist the latches of several deadbolts all around the door. Before turning around and giving Raise Max a smile.

"So, did you have fun being dead?" Cherry asked.

"No, I did not!" Raise Max responded curtly in a low whisper. "Not that I would know, since we both know I wasn't really dead! Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be paralyzed, unable to even breathe, and hoping that whatever power held you hostage in your own body continued to provide the necessary resources to keep you from suffocating; not even knowing when or if the one who did it to you would put you back the way you were?!"

"Don't be a big baby~!" Cherry pouted. "Would you have preferred I kept you unconscious?"

"YES!" Raise Max shouted, before regaining his reason. "Which is exactly what I was trying to tell you before you went ahead and did it to me anyways!"

"It wasn't that bad…" Cherry didn't look the slightest bit sorry.

"You stopped my heart! I languished with a feeling of impending doom for almost an hour, which might as well have been an eternity!" Raise Max countered.

"Pretty neat how you hardly ever noticed your heart beating until it stopped, huh?" Cherry bounced on her heels innocently.

"Yeah… but that's not the point!" Raise Max agreed before forcing himself to be angry again.

Cherry grew bored of his feeble protests and walked over to the den den mushi tea party and plucked one of them off the coffee table. The adorable little snail stretched its little head towards its tiny teacup, trying to get one last sip.

She walked over to Raise Max and held the fingertip sized snail up in the palm of her hand. She put on a nasally voice and said "Testing, testing, can you hear me?"

"That's a miniature surveillance den den mushi, you can't talk through it-'' Raise Max tried to correct her.

"Hello? Who is this?" a voice answered from the tiny snail, causing Raise Max's eyes to bulge in shock.

Although it sounded somewhat diminutive, the voice coming from the tiny den den mushi was undoubtedly one that belonged to one of his comrades, Koala!

"Is that you, Koala-san?!" Raise Max asked hurriedly.

"Max-san?! Is that you?! Did you escape on your own?!" Koala asked back.

"Oh, it's Koala-chan~? I didn't expect you to be the closest one on the revolutionary frequency." Cherry said cheerfully.

"Cherry?! You're there too?! If you're still on the Gran Tesoro, you have to get away quickly! That gold loving bastard who owns it is a real menace in his own territory!" Koala responded.

"No can do~! I've already sold out; no more cherries in stock!" Cherry drawled. "I'm Gild Tesoro's subordinate now, and it'll stay that way until the day he dies~! … Hehehehehe!"

The dark chuckle Cherry attached to the end of her shocking declaration of "loyalty" to Tesoro gave both Koala and Raise Max the impression that "until the day he dies" wasn't a very long time.

"Isn't it fine? Cherry's a big girl, she can handle herself." Sabo chimed in.

"Chief of Staff!" Raise Max saluted involuntarily. Though Koala and Sabo couldn't see him, they heard the click of his heels quite clearly.

"Relax, Max. It always feels strange to have you salute me like that. We're all in this together, remember?" Sabo sighed exasperatedly. This was apparently an ongoing quirk of the man's.

"It's important to set an example, sir!" Raise Max insisted, shifting into an 'at ease' stance. Cherry was giggling at his sudden change of demeanor.

"To who, Max? The den den mushi?" You could almost hear the teasing smile on Sabo's face. "Nevermind that. We were planning to extract you, but it seems the situation has changed? What's your status?"

"I have allied myself with, er, Cherry here. I didn't know you were already acquainted with her, though." Raise Max scratched his cheek, frowning at his missing stubble. "She offered the means for my escape in exchange for helping her with a small matter."

"You can trust her, Max.; she's a good friend to the cause. You haven't been to headquarters in a few years, so you missed meeting her." Sabo explained.

"Wait, how did you know I'm with the Revolutionary Army?" Raise Max raised an interesting question.

"We didn't tell her about you as far as I know…" Sabo spoke.

Cherry smirked. "I rifled through Dragon's desk and found a group photo with you in it."

The sound of four hands slapping against their owners' faces was heard through the den den mushi.

"Damn it, Cherry. We've been looking for a spy for a year and a half because of that…" Sabo groaned.

"Whoops~?" Cherry's smirk widened. "I thought I was pretty sneaky. Guess not, huh? Hehehehehe~!"