Lara's POV;

I took some distance to Lia and her fight with the cool mafia boss. Seriously, Crocodile is the best antagonist in One Piece. None of the others could rival his character design and badassness. Only his quick downfall against Luffy is cracking his image. Lucci from the CP9 was/is also cool, yet not on his level.

Don Flamingo is close, but his appearance is a serious letdown. A pink feather coat isn't exactly what someone could describe as intimidating. His crew was the same.

Anyway, Crocodile and Lia were fighting while I stood at the side. Crocodile has so far used only some of his sand bullets and a few sand cleaver attacks. The dust that gets thrown up from those attacks is annoying but gets quickly dispelled by Lia's wind pressure attacks.

“So you are also a Devil Fruit user? I see, your gloves make it possible to use sea stone. But what Devil Fruit do you have? Wind?”, questioned Crocodile after evading another of Lia's pebbles. He wasn't taking any chances with those. His body is in a constant state of partial transformation and the full dissolve is possible in the blink of an eye.

Lia's pebbles simply fly through the air when they pass him. He must also use some form of Observation to anticipate her attacks. Still, I can see that Lia isn't aiming with the real intention to hit him. A level 10 skill isn't this weak.

She answers him by sending a palm strike at his body. It is basically only the wind pressure of her strike enhanced by her Devil Fruit and if I'm correct also some Armament. The improvised Palm of Buddha hits Crocodile's sand body and presses him into the sand dune. He grunts from the hit but does not seem to be truly harmed.

Lia never was good with Armament. Enough to slightly enhance her own Devil Fruit and body, but not foreign objects. It allows her to hit Logia user and get some defence against Devil Fruit user herself, but that's mostly it.

Her Observation is the polar opposite, her range is large, her skill to evade and foresee someone's moves is high and her ability to sense and feel others emotions is growing. Maybe she might be good enough as Dogtooth with enough training. Seeing the future would help.

“So you are also able to use Haki, that makes this a little bit more complicated but also interesting”, grumbles Crocodile while he stands up. He glares at Lia and looks briefly over to me, yet has to evade another pebble before he could do anything.

“Seems like I have to get a little serious.” He now raised his hands and sand tendrils flow up from around Lia. They wiggle a little but then form into spears and shoot at her from all sides. One of them also comes up from the ground and tries to impale her. She quickly evades with some Geppo uses.

That would have hit her right between the legs! She isn't used to such thick things, such a brute!

I shake my fist at him in anger, he gets distracted by this and gets a hit from Lia's Palm of Buddha.

His body dissolves and his sand tendrils reach out to me and Lia. There are now over three dozen of them wiggling all over the dune. I'm dissolving them by letting the area around me vibrate with some Armament. The vibration breaks the connection between his sand and my Armament hinders him from regaining control. Effectively making an area of maybe 5 metres in diameter a dead zone for his Devil Fruit.

“Sis, please stop interfering. That wasn't needed”, complained Lia. She is still skilfully evading the sand tendrils and even used one of her sea stone pebbles against them. The tendril dissolved from the impact, but that was not because of the sea stone effect. Crocodile wasn't part of this tendril.

I'm not sure, but I think his real body is a few metres below the surface.

“Sorry, I'll stay out then”, I apologise and jump some dozen meter back. Right next to a hiding Robin. Don't think that I haven't seen you~

She reacts quickly and six hands sprout from my neck and back. They all tried to strangle me but were immobilized by Armament. I also applied a layer on her arms this time. They turned black and stopped moving, the same also happened to her real arms.

“What?!” She was looking at her black arms with curiosity and worry. Yet, not with visible fear.

“Hi, I'm Lara, nice to meet you”, I said and shook one of her hands on my back. It looked a little strange but should work as well.

Robin looked at me with an analysing expression and then dropped her pose, yet her arms did not dissolve. “I'm Miss All-Sunday, what are you doing?”

“How disrespectful, you have to use your real name to introduce yourself to someone else Robin”, I said, rather than answering.

Her expression hardened and her body returned to a fighting position. “How do you know that name?” Some hands sprouted on her own body and she turned herself into some form of Asura. Each hand pulled a dagger from her belt.

“Really? I mean, have you looked at your wanted poster? Your face is basically the same. The eyes are the same, heck even your hair length. But what does it matter?” My words visibly confused her.

“What does it matter? I'm Nico Robin, the Devil Child!” She almost shouted this at me. Someone has a serious case of self-loathing.

“You are out for my bounty aren't you? Your sister is distracting Crocodile, while you try to apprehend me. Too bad that it won't be that easy.” She throws one of the daggers at me and tried to stab me with three more, but I twist my body in such a way that she would have cut her own arms. The arms that are still bound by my Armament Haki on my back. Feels strange to have them there.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

One of the daggers was also deflected by Mrs Chicken Wings beak. She was still sitting on my shoulder and used Armament on it to shatter the metal. Crazy bird!

I then evaded the dagger that originally missed me, again. It got thrown back by another hand of hers. Seems like she does not need to use her position for her Devil Fruit, it might only help her concentrate and strengthen her ability. And new arms also don't seem to be affected by my Armament.

But this is annoying and I can feel someone with a slightly stronger aura coming in our direction. “Would you please stop this idiocy. I'm not here to kill or catch you. I merely wanted to speak with you.” She jumps back from me and stares at me for a moment.

Finally, her posture becomes more relaxed, but her extra arms don't vanish. In return, I stopped the Armament to apply on her extra arms on my back and they vanish instantly into her strange petals.

“Speak!” Short and demanding, she really has to meet the Straw Hats. Her whole posture is too serious.

“Huh? Oh, you think I wanted to speak about something serious? Nah, I just wanted to talk about everyday stuff. Like where did you get your hat? I like hats, they look so cool sometimes. Do you think a beret would look good on me? Maybe a navy blue one.” Her expression changed from confused to angry to emotionless during my long ramble.

But it's the truth, why should I want to speak with her now? She does not see me as friendly and anything I ask her that could really be interesting would make her highly suspicious. Things like the dark age before the World Government or Pluto.

“Are you serious? You just want to talk?” She asked huge amounts of suspicion were in her tone. However, before I could say anything, a white cloud crashed down between us and reformed into Captain Smoker. He was snarling, wearing his common grumpy expression and holding his jute ready to fight.

“Slicer Lara and Devil Child Niko Robin, what are you two doing here and why is True Shot Lia fighting Crocodile?” His voice was also his usual grumpiness.

Oh yes, Lia's fight. I turned around and saw how she finished with a staccato of hyper-compressed air bullets. Each is strong enough to puncture rock with ease. They were punching holes into giant sand hands, hands that tried and failed to grab her.

“We came to play a little in the casino. Sadly we weren't allowed to have a normal day of gambling and even ordered to the owner, my sister decided to have a word with the management. Their argument isn't yet finished. So I would appreciate if you can wait with any attempts of law upholding,” I answered casually and tapped my sword in warning.

He grunted annoyed or amused, you can't be sure with Smoker. “And you Nico Robin? What are you doing here?”

Robin decided to rather not answer and just smiled at him with an obvious fake smile. It was now Tashigi's moment to catch up to her superior officer. She stopped right next to Smoker and panted for a moment without looking at either me or Robin.

“Captain Smoker, please just don't run off without informing us where or why you go. I might not have been able to catch up to you. And there were reports about the Straw Hats coming in.

You said that...,” whatever else she was going to say was stopped by a loud crumbling and crunching sound it came from the battle between Lia and Crocodile.

The arms which were battling Lia were in a downwards lifting position, they moved as if they would lift a body out of water and a head began to form. The upper torso followed and being stopped when it grew in size up to its lower torso.

It was humanoid without any distinction, yet had no legs. The dunes around shrunk from the amount of sand that was used for its body.

A crack formed in its face like a bizarre mouth. A deep crunching sound, followed by a sandstorm came out of it. The storm rushed at Lia's hovering body and tried to enclose her. However, my Lia knew that she couldn't let herself get hit by it or the force would plug her out of the sky, in the ready arms of Crocodile. He would then suck out any water in her body and leave her as a husk.

She used a mid-air Soru to evade and escape the sand attack. The storm itself didn't care, it continued on its way and vanished into the desert.

“Stay still you insufferable little bug!”, roared Crocodile from inside the sand golem. It raised both of its arms in a prayer position and millions of tonnes of sand flooded towards Lia's new position. Still, weak AOE attacks like these will never hit Lia. She is too fast to get entangled by slow-moving mostly grounded attacks.

She jumped over the sand tsunami and gained altitude. But, like the sandstorm from before, the sand tsunami also continued to move forward, only that this time there was something in its way, Rainbase.

“OH NO! The people in Rainbase will get hit!” Tashigi helped in stating the obvious. She began to run back while shouting, “Captain Smoker, we have to do something!”

“Idiot! Stay, you can't help them, this is too big” Smoker cursed when Tashigi didn't listen and pulled her back with a smoke arm.

“But the people will be crushed, they aren't prepared” She was still struggling, not even thinking about her chances. What a nice girl, and stupid.

Should I help? Yes, no? They did have good chicken. Okay, I'll help, for chicken's sake!

“As a thank you for your chicken!” After saying these cool words I drew my sword and concentrated. I enforced my whole body in Armament and permeated my sword as well. Then, with a mighty yell, I let loose and cut the space in front of me.

The ground was cut in half and the blue arc of a giant force blade cut the desert in half. It intercepted the sand tsunami and exploded. The motion energy of the sand fought against the power of my cut and was overcome after only a few seconds.

Don't ask me how that's possible, in One Piece a cutting edge can not only cut a single slice but a whole field. Stupid anime mechanics.

The cut now continued on its way and cut off the left arm of Crocodile's golem, before vanishing in the desert. “Puh, the chicken is saved,” I said with a satisfied nod and re-sheathed my sword. Mrs Chicken Wing clucked in agreement. She seems to have become fond of the cactus fruits that she ate in Rainbase.

“What? But! The... How?” stammered Tashigi. I turned around and noticed that Robin had taken some distance to me. Smoker had a sheen of sweat on his forehead that wasn't there a moment before and Tashigi was gaping at the five meters wide and maybe four hundred meters long trench in the ground. It was deep enough to hit the stone beneath the sand.

I felt like acting a little childish and made a grand pose. Hands on my hips, chest out and nose high. Sadly they didn't praise me and only stared at me. At least Mrs Chicken Wing patted my head, trying to console me.

But I quickly recuperated and looked back to Lia, she was surely planning something when she flew so high up.

“Oh shit!” I cursed when I saw what she was planning. Without saying anything else I grabbed Robin and sprinted away. Far away from Lia.

She was hovering easily a hundred metres in the air, her hands were outstretched and a white basketball sized ball hovered five meters over the ground, right in front of Crocodile's golem.

Crocodile might not have noticed while being sand, but there is most likely no air around him left.

“What are you doing?” Robin was loudly protesting from her position, I simply flung her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Yes, what is going on?”, asked Smoker from my left side, his legs were Smoke and he had Tashigi in a princess carry. Cool, so he is quick to realize that running is good.

“Lia is testing her [Air Pressure Bomb], open your mouths or go deaf” I warned and quickly enhanced my ears with Armament while keeping my mouth open. Not five seconds later a loud explosion of distorted air reached us and shortly after we were lifted off of our feet from the shock wave.

Robin was thrown off from my shoulder and I got flung through the dunes like a rag doll. I didn't hear anything from Tashigi, so Smoker might have saved her. He would not get hurt by the shock wave.

After skipping four times I came to a stop and could look back at the giant cloud of sand and dust that rose where Lia fought. A strong gust of wind blew the cloud away and Lia could be seen, still using Geppo to hover above the desert.

I stood up, petted the sand off and looked for Robin, but couldn't see her. I then used some Soru to get back to her. A crater of sizeable size spanned under her. The sand was completely pushed away, down to the rock and a small patch of blood was coating some of the stone.

“He got away, I managed a light wound on his right arm, but nothing more. The desert isn't a good fighting ground for me. If there was more water in the air I could have changed the air pressure to condense it, but there is too little to matter.

He said that he would like to continue with our little play, but there are things to be done and kingdoms to be overthrown”, answered Lia my unspoken question.

“What do you mean with kingdoms to be overthrown?”, asked Smoker, who listened in on us. He still had Tashigi in his arms. The woman got knocked, probably by the shock wave.

“Hasn't Luffy told you? Crocodile is the reason for the civil war and drought. He wants to overthrow King Cobra and install himself as the new king.

There will be a final showdown in Alubarna, with him in the background.” He raised an eyebrow to my explanation and then turned around, back to Rainbase.

“I'll let you go, for now, there are more important matters to settle first”, he stated gruffly before using his smoke to fly off.