Walking with long strides through a crowd Bill’s attention was split between making sure nobody touched him, the various conversations between toys and humans, and the black-clothed security personnel who were stationed all over the place.

These people clad in black did seem to be officially recognized, but the sheer number of them stood out.

The fact that they had been there almost instantly to drag away the zebra toy made Bill think that this was the normal state of affairs in Dressrosa Kingdom and not some extra security for the festival going on.

This made him wary, but it wasn’t something he could specifically dwell on since after walking for only a dozen or so minutes he had passed by 4 stabbings, 3 fights that involved either thugs or pirates, and a trio of masked men in the distance that Bill automatically recognized as Cipher Pol Agents!

‘The World Government?’ he thought, stopping for a moment before changing his direction.

With so much strangeness going on, Bill didn’t know what to make of Cipher Pol’s presence, but they seemed to be a better lead than just walking blindly to the Colosseum.

Quickly memorizing their footstep patterns, he tailed them as far away as he could – though without his Observation Haki it wasn’t an amazing distance, it was far enough away that the trio seemed to be none the wiser.

This tail went on for several blocks, and from the best he could guess they were headed towards the palace in the city of the city, and he wondered if they had something to do with Doflamingo but withheld judgement.

After all, even at this point, Bill was still set on finding out what happened to old King Riku first.

Almost entirely focused on following the agents, he was very nearly surprised when not even 30 feet from him there was a flash followed by a ‘Bang!’ in the distance, and then a ‘thud’ back to where the flash had been.

Cutting his head to the side immediately, he saw a familiar face and a woman in a long dress cry: “Oh my Hero! You’re so strong!!”

‘Sanji… from the Straw Hats Crew?’ recognized Bill, but more importantly, the woman who was with the pirate seemed to fit a certain description.

It was a description given to him by Zephyr, and momentarily stopping his tail on the Cipher Pol Agents, Bill walked over to the pair.

Still wearing his Coat of Justice and dressed in his plaid blue suit, Bill looked down at Sanji and said: “Step aside, Straw Hat…” and then turned towards the woman.

He could tell that she was immediately on high alert and ignoring Sanji who started calling him a ‘navy bastard!’, he said: “You fit the description of someone I’m looking for, by chance ma’am, is your name Viola Riku?”

Turning white as ghost, the woman looked up at Bill and then shouted to Sanji: “This is the man! Oh No!! They found me!!!”

Absolutely not expecting that kind of reaction, Bill didn’t even think to stop her as she started to run away!

“Oi! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!”

Turning just in time to block a flaming leg, Bill was surprised but not so surprised that he forgot himself.

Shrugging off Sanji’s attack by deflecting him to the side about ten yards away, he looked at the pirate and shouted: “I don’t even know what she’s talking about! But if you keep it up, I’ll break your legs!!”

This threat was answered immediately…

“Diable Jambe: Flambage Shot!!!”

Virtually teleporting from his position where Bill had thrown him, Sanji kicked at Bills ribs, forcing Bill to grab the smaller man’s legs with a ‘Guh!’

Still on a busy street, he refused to dodge or even counterattack too harshly, so taking the kick square on his side and wrapping Sanji up in a grappling hold Bill spoke through gritted teeth: “Stop! There are people around!!” but was only answered with Sanji quickly positioning himself with space to start kicking at Bill’s thighs with his free leg and pushing away with his hands.

Sanji’s kicks were harsh, but what hampered Bill more than anything was him not wanting to turn the road into mush.

To say nothing of his strength that could hold up and redirect a falling island, Sanji’s strength would simply tear through a human being like it was nothing.

To make matters worse, since Bill was restraining Sanji in such a way that there wouldn’t be any innocent casualties, the people walking the streets – as immune to conflict as they were thanks to all the stabbings – didn’t see the need to run away.

For them, it looked like just any normal brawl… only because Bill was absorbing all the damage with his own body.

Headbutting Sanji hard but not hard enough to put him down, Bill and the cook virtually rolled on the ground, and while they did so, Viola held a pistol in her hand and slowly came back closer.

She didn’t know what that Marine wanted, but she knew the ancestry of Joker, she felt that it couldn’t be anything good.

Marines protected the World Government, and the Celestial Dragons were the World Government.

For this reason, she had to know what the Marine actually wanted from her. She needed to know whether or not it was time to attempt and flee with her niece and father.

Using the lovestruck fool who she had tricked, Viola got within several yards of Bill and Sanji before rushing up at her fastest speed.

Bloodied and slightly woozy already from being headbutted, Sanji saw the women who he ‘loved’ running back and thinking that she was coming for him fought even harder, harder than ever before!

And Bill, controlling Sanji while shouting orders for the people standing around to flee, saw Viola coming with a pistol in her hand.

“Stop!” Bill shouted, not exactly hurting, but sore and then worried when Sanji’s entire lower body turned pitch black and threatened to kick him away.

Having to put even more effort into holding down Sanji, Bill was about to take the cook into the sky and deal with him there when Viola seemed to ‘trip’ and as if in slow motion, while the pistol went flying in one direction, Viola sent one hand up to her eyes and the other just barely touched Bill’s head.

She shouted: “Peeping Mind!!”

****************************************************************

While Bill found himself in a frustrating situation on a crowded street, the Colosseum had started the battle royale’s and already favorites were being chosen from the fighters.

The reward of the Flame Flame Fruit was just too great! Not even Kings could ignore it!!

All across the Kingdom of Dressrosa various factions were cropping up to begin their operations.

Having fun while simultaneously mapping the jungle of Green Bit, Yoko and the others ran across wide tree branches, swung from rope-vines, and only occasionally stopped when they came across a particularly good-looking view.

Green Bit was dangerous, full of insects that hovered around colorful and poisonous mushrooms, but all in all it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the Martial Forest on Monkey Island so even Roule and Akisu found themselves able to simply trust their gear and let loose.

Thinking to himself that these were the best days of his life, as usual Roule brought up the rear of the group.

Wearing his navigation helmet, he charted the route that the team had been moving in with a handheld device that looked like an electronic sextant and completely relying on his Pulse Boots he super-jumped from one branch to the next.

Ahead of him were a trio of Howler Monkey Minks with Bo staffs strapped on their backs, in part to watch out for Roule, but mostly because they were always getting distracted.

In front of them was Akisu wearing a full-body gadget suit that wouldn’t lose out to any of the Beetleborgs armor. In fact, if it wasn’t for the blue swirls of energy pulsing from it, it would look more like a suit of medieval armor than anything else!

Beside Akisu was Adele in her half-transformed state, the [Weasel Weasel Fruit Model: Honey Badger] made her supernaturally strong, nearly immune to poison, and have a pair of long claws which she used to keep up with the ones in front of her.

Because in front of her was Carrot and Rapanui, and leading in front of them was Yoko.

Having spent years in the Martial Forest, even becoming its ‘Big Boss’, Yoko knew a lot about forest and jungle biomes.

And she could not shake the feeling that something was off about this place.

Coming to a stop on a tree branch and was several yards wide, she looked down for a second, after and waiting for the others to catch up she asked: “Does anyone else notice that?”

Her question made the others think, with Roule being the first to speak up: “Ahh! Yeah, I got some mushroom juice in my boot, now the flux capacitor isn’t relaying properly with- “No not that!” she almost laughed.

“Look!” she said waving her arms around: “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this place is a huge garden!”

Shocked by her words, the others began looking around, and looking down at his map Roule said: “Ahh… I haven’t mapped any shapes to indicate that, well what’s this?! Ahhh!”

Expecting him to come up with something, Roule had all eyes on him but after a split second shrugged: “Wait, no, never mind…”

Dropping down with a thud Carrot and the trio of Monkey Minks yelled in unison ‘stop pretending all your life!’ but Yoko continued to look around.

“No… there’s something…” she said slowly, then continued: “We’ll head back to the ship and report this to Zephyr, let’s first get to the beach and then walk around.”

Instantly turning more serious, the group nodded to each other and after waiting for Akisu to fiddle with Roule’s Pulse Boots, they headed off.

From there they were, they were only about 10 minutes from the beach, but before they got there, they saw ‘it’.

Stopping in their tracks, the group saw a massive Battle-Ship class Marine ship intertwined in a bunch of trees.

This class of ship was designed to carry 2,000 personnel and 15 of these ships constituted a Buster Call.

“What do you want to do?” asked Rapanui, but Yoko stood there slightly crouched for a second – listening to any potential noises.

Taking the [Compliance Tree] that was currently being used as a hairpin, she stuck it through her coat sleeve, and looking back said: “Akisu and I will go scout. Rapanui you take position up there…” indicating a higher branch.

“Carrot you’ll stay back for support, Adele and the rest will continue to the beach. Go slow.”

Sending the group to the beach was mostly to protect Roule – who was more or less a physically normal human teenager – but it was also the smartest move because if something did happen then they would at least have a way to call for help.

Following her orders, Rapanui took three javelins off his back and climbed up to a higher branch, Carrot stayed near him, and Yoko pressed forward with Akisu.

With a slight ‘buzz’ a bubble shield appeared and disappeared from Akisu’s gadget suit, and jumping through the air it wasn’t long before they dropped down on the deck of the Marine ship.

It crashed into the trees at an angle, but not so bad that they couldn’t walk, and slowly they made their way to the bridge.

They were moving slow by their standard, but all of this took less than two minutes, and in that time, it was evident to Akisu that the ship was in good working condition.

“I’d have to check the steering column to make sure, but look, there’s not even anything misplaced…” always good with his hands and building things, joining the Science Division at an early age had turned a naturally skilled kid into something special even before the age of 20.

In terms of being a Shipwright, there weren’t many Marines who were his equal in the Neo Marines no matter how long they had been serving.

“Let’s go!” answered Yoko, who felt like something wasn’t right.

Seeing her and Akisu rush down, Rapanui locked on, but quickly fell into pace when he saw Yoko’s signal.

With the 4 of them running at top speed, they reached the beach only a few steps behind Roule and the others, and coming to a stop, they saw a sight they didn’t expect.

Moving herself in front of the group, on the widest beach they had seen on this island there were four individuals staring each other down.

On one side, not too far from there, was a group of 40 or so Marines being led by someone all of the teenagers recognized.

‘Admiral Fujitora!’

Directly across from the Admiral was another man who Yoko recognized, though he was holding a tall, strange man hostage who she couldn’t identify.

‘Trafalgar Law?!’

Standing over to the left was another person Yoko recognized, another [Warlord of the Sea]…

‘Donquixote Doflamingo!’

Finally, standing nearest to the water was a figure that they knew all too well.

With his massive seastone weapon attached to his stump-arm, standing with his back towards the waves and wearing black sunglasses as he faced the other three…

Zephyr’s posture reminded Yoko of something she had seen a long time ago.

It was the same posture he had when it was determined to kill the traitor Vergo.