Chapter 66: Robin's Goodbye

Chapter 72:

Robin's Goodbye

"You mean to tell us that we are now the main suspects of an attempted assassination?" Gin demanded through the snail on Zoro's wrist. Neither Sanji or Chopper said anything from their end as Coby confirmed that, yes, that was what he'd said.

"Dammit," Zoro cursed over the snail phone.

"And this big storm in coming tonight," Sanji added. "Everyone is blocking their houses and evacuating. Apparently, it's an annual thing."

"Just what we needed," Usopp whined. "More problems."

"I know, righ-? Hey, Chopper! Where're you going?!" Through the snail came the sounds of Sanji running and Chopper falling down a flight of stairs. "Chopper! You ok? ... Chopper?" There was a gasp. "Robin!"

"Robin!" Chopper cried, the snails transmitting his voice mirroring his tears. "I don't know if something I did upset you, but I'm sorry! Please come back!"

"We have to get back to the ship, Robin," Sanji insisted, the running call on his wrist forgotten. There seemed to be no answer, but there was the sound of Sanji catching something.

"I apologize for dropping the blame of such a heavy crime on you all," Robin's voice said through the snail. "While you may be innocent, my part in the papers was true. I'm leaving the crew, so take that den-den back to Luffy and forget about me. We will never see each other again. As a final warning, things are only going to get worse, so you should run while you can. Goodbye."

"Robin!" Sanji and Chopper cried. They received no answer as she walked away.

"Dammit, Chopper," Gin cursed from his side of the snail call. "You jinxed us. Somebody left the crew."

"Everyone," Coby sputtered, trying to hold back his tears. "Should we head back to the Merry?"

"Yes," Zoro grunted in a flat tone with no emotion whatsoever. "As First Mate, I'm ordering everyone to get back to the Going Merry. We'll wait for Luffy there."

"Right!"

"So that's what happened," Coby finished after telling Grace and Amy about the happenings of the day.

"I know I'd heard stories about her while in Baroque Works," Amy muttered, "but I didn't think they were true."

"Either way," Zoro grunted, "we need to figure out what we're going to do next. Leaving isn't an option since they said Merry couldn't make it to the next island."

"Robin said things are going to get worse," Nami jumped in. "That must mean there's something planned for tonight, and I'd bet my tangerines it's going to have something to do with Iceberg."

"So what, Donna?" Gin questioned. "Are we going to stake out Iceberg's house waiting for Robin and whoever is blackmailing her to show up?"

"Do we know she's being blackmailed?" Usopp asked.

"Ice-Pops said Robin was with a big masked man," Luffy growled, remembering his conversation with the mayor of Water 7 after his fight with Franky in the shipyard. "He must be the one forcing Robin to do all this stuff, so we just have to beat him up and take Robin back."

"I'll take that as a yes to the stake out," Sanji sighed. "I hope you guys don't mind, but I'm going to try something a little different. You can handle it without me, right?"

"Of course we can," Zoro snarked. "We can handle everything without you, Love Cook."

"You wanna say that to my face, Marimo?!"

"I'll say it to your stupid eyebrow!"

"Then let's go, Mosshead!"

Two figures rocketed over the buildings, the first carrying the second. An extended limb latched onto a branch in a tree in front of Galley-La's HQ, pulling its owner and their green-haired cargo with it. Another two figures followed seconds afterward, this time jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Silent as the wind, the furred thing jumped into the tree and set down its own ginger-haired passenger. There was a soft 'bzzzt' as a fifth form seemed to materialize on another branch, charring the wood. The sixth form arrived using a grabbing tool that latched onto a third limb and the seventh landed weightlessly next to the fifth before passing them a cloth.

The final two arrived only seconds later, much like the second pair. The first of the two kept shifting form, growing taller just before jumping and shrinking into a flip to land on the next roof. Landing on a different branch, Coby and Grace were the last ones to arrive. The nine Straw Hats ducked within the leaves, scattered throughout the tree, as they eyed the building guarded by nearly 200 shipwrights armed with large saws.

"That's a lot of guards," Chopper muttered quietly. No one responded as they all settled down to observe.

Nine o'clock struck with a bang, an explosion on the front left corner of the building incinerating three shipwrights instantly and killing another four with shockwaves and debris. Chopper gasped as he witnessed the destruction through the crew's singular pair of binoculars. As the guards scrambled about to try to put out the fire, two cloaked figures jumped down from one of the walls and made a beeline for the door only to be redirected when half of the shipwrights abandoned the fire to chase them down.

"Do you think one of those two is Robin?" Chopper asked as he eyed the pair of intruders. More shouts drew the pirates' attentions to the roof where another cloaked figure was beating away their opponents with a barbed whip while literally jumping on air.

"Someone who can fly," Zoro observed, "with two other unknowns, one of them possibly Robin. How are we going to play this?"

"I've never met someone else who could fly," Amy stated, fiddling with her umbrella. "I want to fight them." As she said this, the two figures on the ground were cornered against a wall, the shipwrights aiming a plethora of guns at them.

"Gin, you're the only one who can get there in time. Go!" With a nod to his captain, the lightning-man threw his headband away and vanished, reappearing in between the two figures, his tonfa moving even before his limbs had fully materialized.

"What?" a male voice gasped, the weapon hitting him in the head. The guards stared in shock.

"Hello, Robin," Gin grunted.

"What are you doing here?" the woman demanded. She never received an answer as her companion was back on his feet. With a rubber-glove-covered hand, the man punched Gin into the crowd, threw up his cape, and disappeared with Robin in tow.

"Damn!" Gin swore, accidentally shocking a couple of shipwrights. "They got away." Cursing his uselessness, Gin zapped away as quickly as he'd came.

On the other side of the building, the slender figure was still attacking in the open, their whip cutting into shipwrights with every swing. That part of the battle was taking place in one of the courtyards.

"10,000 Kilogram Press!" With a yell, Amy arrived, forcing the figure to dive out of the way.

"Who are you?" the masked person questioned with an ambiguous voice, eyeing Amy as she floated out of the crater to gently set down on the rim.

"I could ask you the same thing," the blonde responded. "I take it you are part of the group that abducted Nico Robin from us?"

"She came to us of her own free will."

Leveling her umbrella at the person while running her power through it to make in as sturdy as a club, Amy spoke. "You and I both know that's bullshit. I'll ask this once. Where is Robin?"

"You pirates are always so stubborn," the figure sighed. "You never know when to give in." The figure jumped twice, once from the ground and once from the air, before striking with their whip. Amy responded quickly, batting aside the barbs and jumping impossibly high to try to stab the woman.

"Devil Fruit," the masked person gasped, jumping away with a cry of "Moonwalk!".

"You're not the only one who can fly!" Amy shouted, a burst from the breath dials in her umbrella pushing her toward her foe. "Get back here!"

"I'm sorry, Don Luffy," Gin apologized, appearing with a whiff of ozone next to the running group as they headed to Galley-La. "That guy got me with a rubber glove. I'll have to worry about those now. They got away, but one of them was Robin."

"Then we know she's in there," Luffy replied as they reached the gate. "I'm going on ahead! Jump in if you think you need to!" With that, the captain shot his arm forward blindly and grabbed the ledge before letting them retract.

He smashed through a window into Iceberg's office. There were three people in there, two masked figures and Paulie. One of the men wore a bull costume's head while the other had a skull with big yellow eyes and a fez. The foreman was on the ground in a pool of his own blood, but he was breathing shallowly.

"Straw Hat?" the blond shipwright coughed.

"What's going on in here?"

"Straw Hat Luffy," Skull Guy said. "How nice of you to set yourself up to take the blame."

"Hey, Rope Guy," Luffy muttered. "These the bastards who attacked Ice-Pops?"

"Yeah," Paulie grunted, coughing up blood.

"Then let me fight them," Luffy replied, cracking his knuckles.

"We don't have time for this," Bull Man growled. "Just restrain them quickly so we can leave."

"Right." Skull Guy pulled out several half-rings of various sizes and began throwing them at the pirate, said pirate quickly ducking away.

"Tempest Kick!" Skull Guy yelled, snapping his leg out in two kicks that sent a cross wave like Zoro's 36 Caliber Phoenix.

"Gum-Gum Whip!" Luffy retaliated, jumping out of the way.

"Iron Body," Skull Guy whispered just before Luffy's leg struck. It was like his leg met an immovable wall, all his momentum absorbed. Grabbing the shocked pirate's leg, the intruder flipped Luffy over his head to slam him into the floor next to Paulie. While Luffy was trying to catch his breath, Skull Guy took one of his largest half rings and shoved in into the floor so it pinned the pirate's body to the ground. He then repeated the action with both of Luffy's legs, wrists, and neck before doing the same to Paulie. Satisfied with their work, the two agents left.

"Damn it!" Luffy shouted as he began trying to pull his arms out of the restraints. "Come on, rubber body. Work!"

"We've hit a little snag in the plan. Come to the bedroom at once," the little snail ordered from the masked agent's left hand, their other holding the whip that was wrapped around Amy's umbrella and hands. The blonde growled, narrowing her eyes through the pain of the barbs digging into her flesh. All through their fight, none of the shipwrights had attacked, yet the courtyard was a disaster area covered in slashes and craters.

"This has been fun," the agent chuckled, tucking the snail into one of their pockets, "but I really must be going." The figure rushed forward, a fist aimed for Amy's midsection.

"Dense Defense," Amy countered, increasing the mass of her body as much as she could. The agent's punch connected, but the pirate didn't move an inch.

"Impressive," the masked person complemented before they brought their leg up in a perfect split. "That's almost as good as the Iron Body, but it's not good enough." The figure brought their leg down right between Amy's neck and collar bone. The pirate's mass prevented the ax kick from breaking her bones and killing her, but it still knocked her unconscious. The blonde crumpled with a nasty bruise forming both where she had been kicked and where the punch had landed.

"Tata!" the agent taunted as they jumped away from the stupified shipwrights. Only half of them had the mindset and gull to chase after them. A minute later, just as the remaining 20 or so guards were coming back to their senses, two more people jumped down from the roof.

"Amy!" a tall boy with pink hair called.

"Big Sister!" the redhead with him shouted. She ran to the downed woman's side and tried to shake her awake, but it was futile. "Big Sister, no!"

"Don't worry," the rosette, whom the shipwrights finally identified as an older Tri-Horn Coby, said as he rested a hand on the girl's shoulder. "She's breathing; that means she's alive. We need to go get Chopper."

"What are you pirates doing here?" a shipwright demanded, his saw pointed at the young outlaws.

"Looking for answers," Coby shot back with the same tone. "Someone took our friend. We're getting them back."

"Like we believe that!" another man spat. "You're here to kill Iceberg, aren't you?"

"They aren't going to listen to us," Coby grunted unhappily, his hands resting on the hilts of his swords. Grace stood with the hat Robin had given her so long ago shading her eyes, her back pressed against Coby's as she pulled out her pallet.

"I'll give you one chance," Grace growled in a tone Coby had never heard from her before. There was no laziness or mischievousness in her voice, only a burning desire to find the person that had hurt her sister. "Let us through to the person that did this to my Big Sister, or we'll force our way through."

"Get them!" The guards charged, not slowing even when Coby changed into his Hybrid Mode.

"No choice, then," the rosette sighed. "Five Point Style: Meteor Swords!"

"Colors Trap: Rainbow of Emotion!" Taking off in opposite directions, Coby charged his group of foes head on, catching one man's saw with his horns while his swords caught another two. Coby turned, twisting the tools out of his foes' hands before batting them away with his tail. Four more men ran in with their own saws raised, but Coby saw them coming and shrunk into his Human Mode to roll away, leaving their attacks to hit nothing but the ground. The Zoan user quickly spun, shifting into his Dino Mode to fling the shipwrights away with his tail.

Grace, on the other side, was using her smaller body to weave around her foes, dodging their saws while her paintbrush danced over their bodies in a myriad of colors. The artist left chaos in her wake as her victims did everything from fall to the ground crying, burst into laughter, attack each other, or sit down to peacefully stare at the stars. Seeing as her own group of opponents were now preoccupied, the redhead turned back to Coby's side of the fight. She ran over, jumping on her crewmate's back as paint splattered.

"Combination Attack!" the two called together as the shipwrights wiped red paint out of their eyes. "Color of Extinction!" Quickly, Grace painted a small red symbol on the back of Coby's crown. The dinosaur's eyes seemed to take on an eerie red glow as he locked onto the crimson paint on the remaining shipwrights.

"Sorry about this!" Coby yelled, charging forward. The duo's adversaries tried to dodge out of the way, but Coby turned without conscious thought to stab one of the men in the shoulder with a horn, right were the paint was.

"Son of a bitch!" the shipwright cried, dropping his saw to clutch at his shoulder.

"But that turn shouldn't have been possible!" another shipwright yelled.

"Sorry to disappoint," Coby grunted, "but as long as you've got that paint on you, I can't miss. Don't worry, though. It's not like I'm going to kill any of you."

"M-Monster!"

"Mmm, maybe," Coby agreed. "I'd say I've come a long way from the scared, little runt I was when I met Captain Luffy. But let me tell you, he's a real monster."

"Get on with it," Grace muttered.

"Fine. Ruin my fun why don't you. I was hoping this wouldn't be too serious. Oh well. Cretaceous Charge!"

End of Chapter 72

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-SwordOfTheGods