Lara's POV;

I was standing at the front of the Shadow, wondering if it was luck or misfortune. In front of us, just short of the horizon, was our first stop on the Grand Line. It was an island, so far so good, but it was also an island that I knew. Not really, but I have seen it in the manga and anime.

The harbour we were sailing towards was that of Whisky Peak. The island with the cacti like mountains that were in reality graveyards.

“Why is the ship of the Straw Hats already there. I thought you said we left before they did?”, asked Lia from next to me. She could see the ship with her better sight, while I could not.

“We did, but it's the Grand Line. We did not encounter any freak storm they might have. Maybe it made them faster?”, I mused. It should be possible. From what I have read in that book of us the Grand Line was such a strange place. And that was only the first half. I have no fucking clue how to explain the shit that happens in the next one. I mean raining candy?

“Might as well have some fun. These bounty hunters will lose to Zoro anyway. I want to have some fun as well”, I added with a slightly evil grin.

“Killing goons is good as any day, but do you not think it gets boring?” Lia's words had some merit. Killing goons is fun, but only occasionally. They get boring pretty fast.

“Oh, but you forget that the Mr. 5 pair will be here as well”, I reminded her.

“So? A girl that can increase or decrease weight up to ten tons but only uses this for letting herself fall down on something and a guy that uses his boogers as bombs. Not really a challenge.” Her words were punctuated by a dismissive gesture. It was again true, but I always liked the lemon styled girl. She was slightly cruel, pretty and her Devil Fruit can be useful. I especially liked her hat.

“I want the woman of the Mr. 5 team in our crew”, I explained. Her head turned from the island to me. She stared at me for a moment and then sighed.

“And how do you plan to do that? I mean she is not truly loyal to Crocodile sure, but I don't think she will just quit and come to us. And then there is the chance of betrayal.”

“Yes, but just think about it. If she manages to increase the weight of your pebbles from a few gram to a few kilo, the impact force would be way higher, while still easy to be thrown”, I argued. She thought about it for a moment and nodded.

“Sure, however, the same can be done with steel pebbles or other heavier materials. I just want to say that she can sink our ship with her power. How do you plan to bring her in?”

“Fear not for I have a plan. We have her listening in when Vivi let it slip that Crocodile is Mr. 0 this way she is forced to come with us or getting hunted down by the other agents. And then we will show her that staying with us will be fun. I'm sure your food alone will convince her”, I declared proudly. Who wouldn't want to stay when they can eat Lia's chicken dishes?

“That or she just hides on her own and betrays everyone she comes across just to survive. Why can't we just kill her on board of the ship and then search for the fruit that has turned into her Devil Fruit? It would be easier and Yosaku could use it way more than this girl”, countered Lia. Hmm, that would be possible as well. Might even be better. Yosaku will be a heavy hitter in the future, if he's able to increase the weight of his sword as well, then he is pretty good equipped for normal fights.

“You're right, let's do it your way. You will have to kidnap her. Bring her into our room, there we can dispose of her once we are back on the sea.” We waited for the rest of the short trip in silence.

As predicted the town greeted us with cheers and fanfare. Yosaku and Jonny were easily convinced that this was genuine. Nojiko and Jo were not, but stayed silent for now. While Lia and I already knew what will happen.

We anchored next to the Going Merry and were escorted inside the village. The party was already in full swing and most of the noise came from a large house.

We stepped inside and were greeted by cheers. “Look, guys, more pirates have shown up!”, announced someone and the house shouted their welcome out.

“Nami-chan's beautiful sister and the elven goddesses are here as well? This day can only become better”, gushed Sanji the moment he saw us. He twirled and jumped over to us and was promptly ignored by me.

I have spotted something of way higher importance. There, on a table, was a seriously delicious chicken dish. I may have used a Soru to reach it before Luffy's hand could grab my food. And might as well have used a fork to pin his hand down. But that wasn't important, what was was the chicken. It tasted yummy. Almost as good as Lia's. She needs the recipe for this!

“Hey, can we have the recipe for this chicken dish?”, I asked one of the nearby hostesses that carried food into the room. There was a never ending line of them, thanks to Luffy.

“Sure, I will and ask the chef”, replied the woman cheerfully. I nodded and put another piece of deliciousness in my mouth.

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A few hours later, Lia's POV;

I don't know if I should be amused or disapointed by the fact that Lara dismissed every caution the moment she smelled chicken. I mean seriously, she knew that the food was drugged, but she ate seven plates of chicken without any care.

At the end, she passed out with her face first in a bowl of crispy chicken. What was amusing was that even then she didn't stop eating. The bowl was now empty and most were knocked out.

I am currently foraging through the kitchen, the food stock of this village must be big if the throw so many parties. And it was, I already took enough to last a year for me alone. I also found a strange chicken.

It looked like every other common female chicken, only that this one was walking around in the storage room, picking at some vegetables. Why isn't it caged? Might as well kill it for more food.

I slowly walked towards the chicken, so that it would not get spooked and run. Then, once I was close enough I tried to grab it. But the bird jumped over my hands, scratched me once and then flew out of a window with an annoyed sounding “bog bog”.

I was seriously contemplating to hunt it down, but there were other things I still had to do. For example killing the three guys that were trying to sneak up on me.

Admittedly, “die pirate!”, “your bounty will be ours” and “better you than me”, is not the sneaky way to attack, but who cares. They were dead before they reached me anyway. I just stabbed my finger in their direction and used the small wind pressure to create a bastardised Shigan.

It is way cruder than my pebbles and needs more power and less precision. Which is why I used it. I have to train in using more power from now on.

Anyway, their forehead now had a hole and the backside of their head was gone.

“hi-iii!” Oh, someone came in as well and got splattered in brain, blood and bones. It was one of the hostesses that bought Lara her food. The small dagger she had clutched in her hands clattered to the floor and she even lost control over her bladder.

Isn't this their occupation? Why is she so fragile. I walked over to her, but she scrambled backwards until she hit the wall. “Please, don't kill me. I was forced to do this, I had no choice.”

“The recipe”, I just said. She looked at me with tear stricken eyes, not truly understanding what I meant. “My sister asked for the recipe of the chicken dish. You haven't given it to us. The recipe in exchange for your life”, I clarified.

“But, I..I don't know the recipe. Only the cook does”, she stuttered. “But I can lead you to him”, she added hastily. Should be okay as well. I shrugged and gestured for her to walk.

Her steps were shaky and slow, but we managed to reach the kitchen. The sounds of gunfire, explosions and battle were now coming from outside.

Crash! Someone just crashed through the ceiling. The girl stepped next to the four guys that fell down through a hole in the ceiling. They were out cold. “Where is the cook?”, I asked coldly. She twitched and then pointed shakily at one of the downed people.

Great, I grabbed the guy and slapped him lightly. With a groan, he woke up. “What happened?”, he asked, not quite back yet.

“Not important. Tell me the recipe for the chicken dish that one of the pirates ate so much off”, I said.

“Oh right, you need chicken breasts, a marinade made out of black pepper, cayenne, red paprika, red chilly, garlic and some oil. Mix everything and let the chicken suck in the marinade for at least half an hour and then... wait, you're one of the pirate Urgh”. I knocked him back out before he could struggle. At least I got the marinade. The rest shouldn't be so hard.

The girl was watching me, ready to bolt at any moment. “Run and better not get in my sight again”, I told her. She nodded rapidly and then run out of the kitchen.

Now, let's find this lemon girl. I also went outside and could see how Zoro flew through a building.

He shot right back out and clashed his sword with Luffy's sandal. So they are fighting already? That's good, then I only need to catch the lemon girl.

“Wait, you stupid chicken!” Was that Lara? Suddenly, out of nowhere the house right next to me was cleaved in half. And out of the hole came the same chicken that I met in the storage room.

“What was that?”A blue haired girl on a giant duck must be Vivi, looked at the broken house in shock.

“I'll get you and then Lia will cook you!”, shouted Lara. She jumped out of the wrecked house and run right after the fleeing chicken. Her sword drawn and ready to cut the poultry in half. I just wanted to call out to her, but then noticed that her eyes were not really focused. Is she still drugged?

Lara sent another force blade off, it cut the street and left a deep trench, but missed the chicken again. It jumped to the side at the last moment. Sigh might as well help her. I flicked a pebble at the chicken, however, it ducked under the projectile and then flew on top of a house.

How did it do that? I just wanted to send another pebble off but was stopped when Lara run past me. Right at Zoro and Luffy. They haven't noticed her yet and clashed against each other again. Lara then reached them and used Luffy's head as a spring board to launch herself after the chicken.

Mid flight the lemon girl came into view. She was floating right next to Lara.

“What are you doing up here?”, she asked in shock to find someone else so high up.

Lara ignored her and sent another force blade out. The arc of high cutting power cleaved into the village and destroyed more than one building.

The lemon girl was pushed back from the gale wind that was made by such an attack. Weighing only one kilo was a hindrance in such a situation. “How dare you!” She barely managed to not get fully blown away by coming down.

This was my moment. I intercepted her and knocked her out before she could scream for help. Now with my objective in my hands, I jumped up on a nearby house and used the roofs to get to the Shadow. The village was further destroyed. Either by Luffy and Zoro or Lara's strange hunt of the hen. Must be a Grand Line chicken or something if it can evade Lara for so long.

Once inside our quarters I bound the girl with rope and put sea stone shackles on her. With that done I went back to the village and met up with Nami. She was sitting on a crate and listening to a guy with princes's curls.

To the left were houses crashing down, thanks to Lara, and to the right were houses crashing down, thanks to Zoro and Luffy. “Oh hey Lia, what is Lara doing?”, asked Nami the moment she noticed me. She was glancing in the direction of Lara. Her body tense and ready to run in case Lara would come over.

“She is hunting a chicken”, I answered. She stared at me for a moment in disbelieve and then sighed. “I know how you feel”, she then said in a tone that showed sympathy.

“What do you mean? This is normal for Lara, once she sees something she wants she tries to get it”, I asked a little confused.

“She is already disillusioning herself that this is normal. Poor girl”, muttered Nami. She then gave me a hug and whispered that she feels sorry for me. I'm not sure what I have to think about this, did I do something wrong?

“Anyway, let's stop these idiots. Could you fetch Lara? Something important happened”, she then said and walked over to Zoro and Luffy. She punched both into the ground and admonished them for their fight. I turned around to search Lara but found her walking over to us. She still had her sword drawn but her eyes were more focused now.

“Lia, do you know what happened? I just woke up, hunting a chicken that kept evading me. Did I dream that? And if not, where is the chicken?”, she asked in confusion.

“You were drugged, the chicken they gave you had some drugs inside”, I answered and ignored her question about the chicken. Better to diverge her focus away from it.

“These bastards, how can someone drug the food of gods?” She was just short of storming off to kill the chef but stopped when I gave her one of my seldom used 'don't act stupid' glares. Normally I am okay with her antics, but we have to continue. This drill look guy and Vivi have precedence over her chicken crusade.

“Fine,” she pouted and drew small circles in the sand. I patted her head and we waited for the others to come back.

Once they were back Vivi asked us what we knew about Alabasta. None of us said anything. So she explained that it was a desert island with a kingdom that recently fell into a civil war. The war was almost at a stage in which real fights were breaking out and the reason for this was not her father, the king, but the leader of the organisation named Baroque Works.

They were the instigators of this rebellion and wanted to use the chaos to get control of her kingdom. She and Ibaram, that was the guy with princes curls, infiltrated this organisation to their plan out and who the real leader was.

They did, but somehow the leader found them and sent the Mr. 5 pair. At this point, she thanked us again for helping her.

“I see, I can understand now why you refused. A country with these problems will not have so much money”, admitted Nami somewhat sad for having lost so much money.

“Who is this leader anyway?”, asked Luffy now.

“It's best you don't know, Baroque Works would hunt you down if you knew the boss's name”, shouted Vivi in denial. She also crossed her arms.

“Yeah, better leave us out of it. Someone that plans to take over a country has to be dangerous”, laughed Nami.

“Yes, Crocodile, a member of the Warlords is truly fearsome”, agreed Vivi with a calm face. Both Nami and Vivi froze in shock before screaming loudly.

A croak came from the side and we looked over to the top of a house. There, looking down at us, sat a vulture with goggles and an otter with sunglasses who wore a pyjama. They looked at each other once before flying off.

“That were the Unluckies, they report directly to Mr. 0!”, cried Vivi. Nami grabbed her and screamed at her for dooming us all, while Luffy, Zoro and Lara were excited about the opportunity of fighting one so soon.

“Screw this, I'm out!”, declared Nami suddenly she even walked off before stopping in front of the otter who was drawing something on a notepad. He turned the paper over and showed us a finely drawn face of each of us. It was really good.

“Hey, can I have one of them? You caught Lia perfectly”, asked Lara suddenly from right next to the otter. He had a massive sweat-drop from her sudden appearance and gave her the picture of me with shaky hands.

“Thanks a lot”, she thanked him and walked back to us. The otter swished some sweat off of his brow and then jumped on top of the vulture to fly off.

“Why didn't you catch him!?”, screamed Nami and Vivi at the same time.

“Eh, how do you think should they be able to find us if they don't know how we look?”, she asked innocently. Zoro and Luffy laughed loudly and Nami began to cry in a corner. She was mumbling about their coming doom and her foolish joining of Luffy's crew.

“This is so cool, I can't wait to fight this Croco guy.” Zoro agreed with Luffy and Vivi tried to console Nami by offering her 500k of Berry.

“Fear not!” , declared Igaram suddenly. He vanished briefly and was now dressed the same way as Vivi. He had a dress, wore makeup, and even stood in high heels.

“Woah”, wondered Luffy about the ugly man-woman.

“Once the Baroque network learns about what happens they will send out hunter parties. Especially with the defeat of the Mr. 5 pair. Crocodile may not have a bounty now, as he is a sanctioned pirate, but back when he wasn't one his bounty was as high as 80 million Berry.

Straw Hat have you decided yet if you will bring princess Vivi to Alabasta?” Seriously, how can he be so serious looking when he's dressed like that?

“Huh? Sure we can take her with us”, agreed Luffy instantly much to the shock of Nami. Why is she still bothering?

“Good, princess, please give me the eternal Log Pose, I will take these dummies and travel to Alabasta while dressing up as you. This should take the forces of Baroque Works off of your backs”, he then said and took the Pose from Vivi.

“What is an eternal Log Pose?”, asked Nami.

“It's a Log Pose that is set on a specific island. The needle always points at this island no matter what”, informed someone else. It was Nojiko, who was grinning smugly at Nami.

“How do you know something like that?”, asked Nami confused.

“Lia gave me the book about navigation, it held information about Log Poses. There was something else about Porneglyhps but I'm not so far yet”, answered Nojiko with a grin. The others were now also coming out of the house we have partied in.

“Well then, it's time for me to go”, said Igaram. He thanked Luffy one last time and was turning around to leave. But Lara stopped him.

“Why don't you come with us? We can help you”, she proposed. So a direct way to Alabasta? And our ship isn't rigged with explosives. I kept track of the presences around our ship. Only the lemon girl is on it and no one stepped on board during the whole night.

“You would do that? Thank you”, accepted the man dressed in female clothes. This will look so strange.... The presence of someone suddenly rushed off, directly towards our ship.

Oh no, I don't want to furnish another kitchen! I rushed off as well and intercepted Nico Robin just short of our ship. She crossed her hands to activate her devil powers but I activated Haki all over my body. Now she was no longer able to add her hands on me. Her eyes widened slightly in realisation and she turned around to flee.

“Try this again and I will kill you”, I shouted after her and added a pebble that just barely nicked her cheek. It was a warning shot and she knew.

“Why did you rush off?”, asked Nojiko. They followed me as fast as they could but weren't able to see Robin.

“Someone tried to get on board of our ship. I stopped him”, I answered.

“Good, I don't want to think about what could have happened. You think the same one was on board of mine?”, asked Igaram in relieve. I nodded.

“Then let's depart before anything else can happen”, he suggested. We agreed and after a quick good bye and promise to meet again in Alabasta were out on the sea.