After everyone calmed down and moved past the incident at the Red Line, nobody spoke of it again.

Instead, they turned their attention to their arrival on an island known as Spider Miles. Apparently, it was an island that was used for waste processing and was littered with mountains upon mountains of scrap metal.

There were some buildings that Buggy guessed to be factories of some sort, but he didn’t pay much attention to those. He only cared about getting directions to Flevance.

The men and women hanging around the docks didn’t know how to get to Flevance, but with some rather helpful directions, they were able to locate someone who could. Turns out, Flevance was only a week’s journey south of where they were.

This was great news. With Devlin’s wind and the Royal Blue’s naturally superior speed, they could be at Flevance in less than four days. It was times like this that Buggy liked to thank the Universe for creating the Blues.

See, in the Blues there were only the dangers of a regular sea. Storms, mild waves, the occasional whirlpool, and the very rare occurrence of an actual threat to him or his crew. Whereas the Grand Line was just danger after perilous danger.

It was nice to be the strongest person within a thousand miles in any direction. Which is exactly what Buggy thought of himself.

“So…you said Flevance was known for its doctors and its Amber Lead.” Buggy nodded. “Is it safe to assume we’re not going to need Amber Lead to rescue your friend?” Solomon was curious. What kind of doctor were they going to need that they required them to travel all the way to the North Blue for one?

He looked at Solomon, internally debating how much to tell them. “The person we know…she’s pregnant. But because there are people…hunting…her, she hasn’t given birth yet.” They shared a grimace.

“So, we’re going to Flevance to get someone who specializes in baby doctoring.” Lilith snorted while Devlin burst out laughing. “Baby doctoring!?”

Buggy’s felt a hot blush of embarrassment spread across his face. “I- I don’t know the actual name, okay!?” He felt even more resentful when Solomon shared in their amusement with a smirk.

“Anyway, after we pick whoever that is up we’ll be heading back to the East Blue. From there we’ll travel across the Calm Belt, make one or two quick stops in the Grand Line before venturing to the Drum kingdom, for another doctor, and finally we’ll travel through a second Calm Belt before entering the South Blue and hauling ass to Baterilla.”

“The only issue should be when we enter the Grand Line. The waters will be excruciating to navigate through. We’ll need an eternal log pose since regular log poses take too long. Hmmm…we might need to hit a Marine base…maybe two…”

Devlin and Lilith looked appalled at the idea of purposely antagonizing a Marine base of all places. Solomon, however, was of a different mindset. “In other words, you want to antagonize the Marines by using their own equipment against them?”

Buggy nodded. At that, Solomon gave him a smile. A twisted, vicious smile that showed he reveled in the thought of striking back at those who permitted his inhumane imprisonment.

He figured that if they could take away his freedom without repercussion, then it was only fair that he take something of theirs in return. And their sense of security was as good a place to start as any.

“Is this going to be an ongoing move for us or a one-time thing out of desperation?” Buggy shrugged his shoulders. “More than likely, we will do this more than once.” The smile deepened.

“I’m in.” Both men turned their heads towards the girls expectantly.

Lilith, who was also a victim of the World Government’s tolerance of slavery, hesitated. “We won’t kill anyone, will we? I mean, we’re just gonna sneak in and sneak out…right?” Even after the year of hell where she’d come to know the true meaning of suffering, revenge just wasn’t her.

She’d rather forget and move on with her life instead of wasting it feeling anger and injustice at the world’s cruelty; she doubted she could ever forgive those responsible. A conclusion she came to during her nights aboard the ship when her and the other slaves all whimpered and cried themselves to sleep.

“No. We don’t kill unless we have to.” Buggy gave a pointed look at Solomon, who just grunted and looked the other way. It didn’t matter though. Buggy would keep him in check if need be.

Now it was down to Devlin. Under the scrutiny of three pairs of eyes, she shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t care either way. But…not all marines are bad…so maybe we shouldn’t go too far if we’re going to do it.”

“Hm. Okay, then. We’ll rob the Marines as non-lethally as we can.” Though, non-lethal didn’t mean they couldn’t be violent and destructive. Oh, yeah. Buggy was going to enjoy taking those assholes down a peg.

-

The next few days were relatively peaceful ones save for the occasional marine ship they’d come across. It forced them to go off course a couple of times in order to evade detection. Annoying, but better than getting into a shootout.

This peace lasted for four days and three nights. On the fourth night, however, Lilith experienced her nightmare yet again.

There were no notable changes in the shadowed man’s features like the last time she’d had it. But instead of the shadowed man trying to speak to her, he did something different. Rather than grabbing her by the shoulders, he raised an arm and pointed behind her.

She was allowed to move this time, whereas before she couldn’t move at all. Following his outstretched finger, she turned, facing away from the ever burning Ohara.

On the deck of the ship stood a man she had never seen before. There were no out of the ordinary features or details that could help him to stand out in a crowd.

He was just standing there staring at her. It was unnerving the way he was so very nonchalant about the whole thing. There he was on a pirate ship and in full view of an entire island being burned to nothingness, and he was smiling as if nothing happening was out of the ordinary.

The stranger suddenly began waving to her. No. That wasn’t quite right. Taking a closer look, she realized the man was waving to someone behind her.

Could there be someone behind her? Was the sight of Ohara distracting her from other details she was clearly not seeing?

Lilith spun on her heels, gasping as she found Ohara was no longer there. Again, that didn’t seem to be accurate. After a quick check, she realized it wasn’t just Ohara that disappeared. The ocean and the ship as well were just…gone.

The man, however, was still there and still smiling so very peacefully. Only difference this time was the woman who was now standing beside him, sharing his smile.

The man must’ve said something funny because they were laughing and holding onto each other. Seeing such a nice scene caused Lilith to smile a bit as well. She was a sucker for happy moments like that one.

Then, the woman had opened her mouth to say something but froze. Curious, Lilith looked back to the man and saw…white.

A large white patch suddenly appeared on his face and extended down into his shirt. His knees began to wobble and then he collapsed with a strangled cry.

The woman began to yell and scream for someone to come help him before she herself had a white patch of her own along her forearm. And just like the man had, she too collapsed to the floor in anguish.

This time, the change in scenery was much more apparent.

It was obviously a large hospital of some sort, perhaps the emergency room, with people running around placing patients into unoccupied beds. But it was hard to tell who the patients were and who the doctors were.

They all had the same affliction it seemed. Large white patches covering their entire bodies.

Had this been the end of it, Lilith might have been able to play this entire thing off as one bad dream bleeding into another.

But, of course, the nightmare always continues. And this time it did so with the sound of gunfire and the terrified screams of what sounded like dozens of people trying to run for their lives echoing from the world outside.

One last time. The scene changed and showed not people getting gunned down or succumbing to the white patches, but random objects. Things that had seemingly no relevance to anything she’d seen before.

Vases, kitchen utensils, watering cans, bowls, buildings, nail polish, farming tools, and an assortment of other things that Lilith could not connect to the all the death and sickness. It just didn’t make any sense for her to be seeing these meaningless things.

“What’s the connection? What’s the connection? What’s the connection? What’s the connection? What’s the-” The final image. The piece that connected it all together. It was a sign. A literal sign.

Welcome to the White City! You are now entering Flevance!

“CONNECTION!?” She shot up in her bed breathing heavily. None of what she’d been seeing before had made sense until now! ‘That was Flevance! Is that what we’re going to see when we get there?’

Which begged the second question, was Ohara going to burn? Oh, she felt sick to her stomach over this. What was she going to do? What could she do? She didn’t-

That’s right. She didn’t, but Buggy might.