Vergo is Having a Rough Couple of Days

Several of Vergo's teeth flew out of his head as he was punched hard in the jaw twice in quick succession. First by Cabernet's overwhelming might, which propelled him towards Luffy who easily breached his armament haki by pounding him into the ground in much the same fashion that he had towards a certain spring man years ago.

Vergo had had hopes that he might even defeat Luffy before the young master could catch up, thus redeeming himself for his previous failure somewhat.

Unfortunately for him, he failed to imagine that Cabernet could harm him through his haki with brute force alone and that his own haki coated attacks would hardly do a thing to her. Straw Hat himself also turned out to be a monster in his own right.

Buffalo and Baby 5 were no help at all. Cabernet would intercept almost all of Baby 5's attacks and the one's she missed would end up hitting him. How? Because that damnable Law would swap him with the previous target at the last second.

Vergo just didn't have any experience teaming up with Baby 5 and Buffalo since he's been in the marines for the entire time they've been with the crew, so they couldn't coordinate very well.

*BOOM!!!*

An enormous crash was heard from the direction of the colosseum.

""Young Master?!"" Buffalo and Baby 5 cried out before racing away in the sky.

Vergo's eyes widened as he realized what had made them so worked up. Donquixote Doflamingo sailed through the air and smashed through the roof of his own palace.

This explosion distracted his three adversaries momentarily, so seeing that his young master wasn't going to be coming he slipped away into an alley.

He might be pretty beat up and have a broken jaw, but his current condition still doesn't compare to the injuries he suffered from his encounter with Cherry. She might have made his armament haki look like tissue paper, but that didn't mean he wasn't a tough son of a bitch to most others.

He wouldn't get into trouble for leaving now, not after Baby 5 and Buffalo abandoned him and the lunarian woman's interference.

""Ah?! He disappeared?!"" Luffy and Cabernet exclaimed at the same time when they noticed that Vergo had slunk away.

"He didn't disappear. He might have a brick for a brain, but don't underestimate the sneakiness of a spy." Law said, groaning as he stood up.

He was still feeling incredibly sore, but he had managed to do some emergency treatment on himself thanks to Luffy and Cabernet keeping the heat off of him at least.

"What a mess…" Law heaved a sigh. "Did you work out where the factory is yet, Straw Hat-ya? We need to hurry up and destroy it, then get our asses out of here."

Something strange seemed to shoot up and out of the palace at that moment. Whatever it was, it branched out high in the air above and formed a shape like a cage. A bird cage.

"Damn it…" Law cursed his luck.

…

Cherry carefully concealed her victim inside a hole in the stone walls and shut him inside like some kind of horrifying living burial. There was a breathing hole, though, so any trauma he may develop was his own fault as far as she was concerned. Shouldn't have decided to work for an asshole if he didn't want to be buried alive.

She then donned the standard Donquixote family uniform they all wore and shifted her form to match that of her victim, or at least approximate it well enough that no one would suspect her. Thankfully the man had worn sunglasses so concealing her sharp red eyes was easy and would fit right in.

'Who wears sunglasses indoors, anyways?' Cherry thought to herself.

Now she was all set to explore this underground dockyard. Though the docks themselves weren't very interesting to her.

No, what she wanted most was the factory. It would be such a waste to merely destroy it. Think of all the things she could do with that S.A.D. juice and all those artificial devil fruits! Not to mention that she suspected the drill devil fruit was hidden within.

'It's really nice that those three devil fruit users are in a separate building altogether. That makes my job super easy!' Cherry smirked maliciously.

Whilst she was paying attention to said devil fruit users, one of them seemed to stretch down below the water level to where other people were. The appendage snatched somebody up and dragged them back up into the building at the center of the shipyard.

'Now what are you doing with that guy? I think he was one of the fighters in the tournament if I recall correctly.' Cherry thought, continuing to observe.

One of the other two fruit users moved towards the individual snatched up from the depths and…

'Oh, a toy just appeared out of… nowhere…? That… doesn't sound right…?' Cherry felt very confused. 'Why was I paying such close attention to this…?'

A moment passed for Cherry in her perplexment before a possibility popped into her head. 'If I'm confused, then it means somebody is messing with my head again!'

Cherry grit her teeth and pulled out her vivre card book. After flipping through the pages and confirming that she still remembered the identities of each one, she was satisfied that she probably hadn't forgotten anyone important.  Anyone else at least, she didn't know how important the fellow she already was to her.

As much as she would like to charge in there and kill everyone inside, she had to be a bit cautious. She didn't know the mechanics of whatever devil fruit ability this was. She supposed she had to be sure that the person doing it was doing so willingly as well, and not under any kind of duress.

Cherry snuck through the docks, keeping a low profile as she wrapped around to the S.M.I.L.E. factory. Before anything else, she was going to get the things she needed for increasing her own strength.

"Oh, hey Tomothy. What are you doing at the S.M.I.L.E. factory? You're posted on dock 3 today aren't you?" asked the guard standing in front of the factory.

"Boss is moving a few more men over here just in case. You heard the explosions, right?" Cherry answered in a voice that mimicked the man she was impersonating.

"I guess that makes sense. Where are the others?" He asked.

Cherry shrugged. "Probably not far behind me if they haven't gotten here already."

"Alright, go inside. We can always use extra hands to keep the midgets in line, hehe." He chuckled darkly.

Cherry noted his name down on a mental list of people whose teeth she needed to kick in and headed inside lazily.

The inside of the factory was pretty interesting in her opinion. She'd never seen an indoor greenhouse of this magnitude that didn't use celestial energy to replace sunlight. Perhaps the tiny people who worked as slaves here had a way with plants? That was probably the case as there was no reason to use them otherwise.

Whilst the state of the plants left her in awe, the state of the slaves made her seethe. Even now, before her very eyes, those brutes were swinging their whips at them while they were doing their best. The naive little people didn't even need to be forced given how gullible they were, but they did it anyway just for cruelty's sake.

"Time to rampage." Cherry spoke aloud.

"What was that?" asked one of the guards nearby, who had no idea that his question was about to be answered the hard way.