Gild Tesoro didn't become one of the world's most influential men by being a fool.
Once his excitement about the possibility of resurrecting his long lost love, he naturally began to question the authenticity of the outrageous claim that Cherry had made.
Cherry couldn't have known about his sweet Stella to tempt him with such a thing and he didn't have any other people that he particularly cared for either, so that was a point in her favor.
She also shouldn't have known about Morgans being such a momma's boy; nobody but other emperors of the underworld and himself would dare to gossip about that bird. That leant some weight to her claim being the truth as well.
'Seeing is believing, though.' Tesoro thought.
"About that demonstration…" Tesoro brought up the subject again.
"How much would it cost to see it in action?" Cherry asked his question for him.
Tesoro nodded seriously.
"Bring me a corpse, the more recent the better… and the cheaper." Cherry said simply. "Less damage is cheaper too. I'll tell you my price when I see it."
This was an easy thing to obtain for him. He didn't even have to pick someone out to kill, he could just pluck one of the bodies from his golden desert prison. He searched through his connection with the gold within his control for a still body, checked its pulse, and began dragging it up through the nearest pipe.
Tesoro steered the drunken woman to where the body would be produced, and sure enough a somewhat emaciated middle aged man with an oversized head and messy green hair popped out of a large golden pipe. "Here you go, what about this one?"
Tesoro watched her closely for signs of distress or unease, anything that might give away a lie. He found no such signs as Cherry skipped over to the body and placed a hand each on his chest and forehead.
"Hmmm…" Cherry hummed in contemplation. "Dead within the last hour of severe dehydration. Hehe, I suppose it'd have to be severe if he died from it, amiright~?"
"Can you do it and how much?" Tesoro cut to the chase, clearly impatient.
"30 million Beri." Cherry answered after a few seconds of pondering.
"Do it." Tesoro answered instantly. 30 million Beri was barely pocket change to him, he wouldn't even stop to pick that much money off the ground.
"Hehehehehe~!" Cherry cackled and got to work.
Wisps of sickly green energy gathered at her hands before she thrust them at the man's head and chest where she had touched him before.
*GASP* The man instantly took a large breath in and started to cough and hack. The pale color of his skin became healthier and even the flesh on his bones seemed to return somewhat.
Tesoro didn't see it because Cherry was in the way, but the man's eyes alighted with recognition for a short moment when they landed on Cherry. As soon as it appeared, it disappeared and the man went back to composing himself.
Tesoro stepped forward and examined the man with interest. He hadn't known who exactly he'd picked out as his gold wasn't THAT sensitive, but he certainly recognised him now.
"Raise Max! How good to see you again! You really are a lucky man, you know that? Out of all the people who could have been 'rescued' by my lovely companion here, it was you!" Tesoro teased maliciously.
"Rescue? Companion?" Raise Max asked in mild confusion, looking between the two people in front of him. It only took a moment for him to recognize Tesoro and glare at him fiercely. "Gild Tesoro! I don't need any pity from you! I'll survive with my own wits, so send me back to your golden hellscape!"
Tesoro was delighted at his words. Raise Max didn't seem to have the memory problems that he would expect from a man who has been dead for an hour. He was no doctor, but he knew that oxygen deprivation could cause some serious brain damage, especially after almost an hour of being dead. That was his main concern with whatever Cherry's miraculous technique might do to his beloved; there was no point bringing her back if she was brain dead.
"Who's this geezer? Why's he so rude?" Cherry poked at Max's big face, prompting him to weakly wave her hand away.
"Who are you calling a geezer?! I'm only 33!" Raise Max took offense to that.
Cherry blinked at him lazily, then looked to Tesoro. "I can work with old people, but old-looking is out of my hands."
"Screw you!" Raise Max swung at her, but Cherry leaned back a bit and made him topple himself over.
"This is Raise Max. Formerly one of the world's greatest gamblers, though he was ultimately on match for my Gran Tesoro, Hahaha!" Tesoro introduced him casually.
"Your pet luck sucker got him huh~?" Cherry nodded. "Say, I've never had a butler before. Can I have this guy?"
Tesoro gave her a questioning look. "Why? He's so ugly…"
"I can't make any charming ladies toil away with their delicate hands for me, can I? Handsome guys kind of piss me off too, so it has to be a guy with an ugly mug like him." Cherry reasoned.
"I won't do a damn thing for you!" Raise Max refuted. His languid state was noticeably improving, his strength returning to him slowly much to Tesoro's growing satisfaction.
"Oh, you'll do it. I was willing to let you waste away in my dungeon before, but I won't let you go so easily if you refuse my charming guest here. Who knows, maybe after a few decades I'll consider your debt settled, hm? Hahaha!" Tesoro laughed.
Raise Max tried to look defiant, but his heart wasn't in it. Ever since he lost his status as an undefeated gambler, his confidence had vanished and left behind a shell of his former self. "... Fine…"
Tesoro's laughter grew, taking great joy in the once proud gambler's misery and despair. Cherry cackled alongside him and prodded his big face some more, this time without him putting up any resistance.
Tesoro called over some servants and ordered them to get Raise Max cleaned up and outfitted properly for his new role. After Raise Max was taken away, he returned his full attention to Cherry.
"Now I must ask you, can you bring back someone who has been dead for more than a decade?" Tesoro's eyes glittered like gold, awaiting her answer.
"Sure~! It's much easier with a body, mind you, but not entirely necessary." Cherry said, clearly in a good mood.
"How does that work?" Tesoro asked curiously.
"Devil fruit, of course~! One of my former crewmates, the skeleton, has the revive revive fruit that brought him back from the dead. I was able to study it in great detail and while I cannot replicate it to its full potency just yet, I have other abilities to fill in the gaps." Cherry explained quickly.
Tesoro understood now. He had seen the skeleton of course, but he hadn't expected that Cherry was a scientist who could work with devil fruit like Vegapunk. Bringing her to his side was already starting to show its potential dividends.
Putting that aside, he was glad he spent so much time and resources finding his love's body for a proper burial. The celestial pigs had thrown her away like trash when they were done with her, but fortunately they hadn't tossed her into the ocean.
"Only a matter of time, my love…" Tesoro muttered under his breath.
Cherry took in his hopeful expression like one would smell the aroma of a fine wine before partaking in it. His downfall would be so very delicious~!
Cherry and Tesoro parted ways shortly after the demonstration. She was sent off to one of his real V.I.P. rooms that he saved for actually important guests. According to him, they were even nicer than the ones reserved for the celestial dragons, though he'd asked her to keep that quiet.
Cherry found all 7 of the hidden spy den den mushi around the room and gathered them onto the coffee table for a tiny snail tea party which, to her delight, the den den mushi were very interested in. Who knew snails like leaf juice?
As she observed the mini den den mushi sipping at the tiny tea cups she fashioned for them, there was a knock at the door.
Cherry skipped over to the door and swung it wide open, seemingly unworried about what dangers may lie on the other side.
"Oh~! It's a pervert!" Cherry greeted Tanaka with a pleasant smile.
Tanaka's brow twitched in agitation with a forced professional smile plastered onto his face whilst his eyes tried to burn a hole through her skull. Stripping him naked in front of a lady was humiliating, but he was frankly far more annoyed that she found all the bugs in the room she was given. It was an insult to his skills as the head of security on the Gran Tesoro; especially since she let them continue broadcasting what they perceived.
"Here's your 'butler', Miss Harpin." Tanaka said through gritted teeth.
Raise Max stood beside the head of security looking positively downtrodden despite having been dressed up in a high quality staff tuxedo, his face cleanly shaved, and his hair neatly combed, oiled, and parted.
"Ohhh~! He cleans up pretty well, huh? Even his head looks more normal sized when he is standing next to you, hehe~!" Cherry giggled. "Come, Sebastian! A tea party without a lowly servant to pour the tea for you is hardly a tea party at all!"
Tanaka marched away without a word. It was rude to leave without excusing himself properly, but he was afraid that if he opened his mouth then only vitriol would flow out. Thankfully, Cherry didn't kick up a fuss, which is what he expected from an uncouth pirate.
"..." Raise Max stood at the door and watched Tanaka leave before turning his gaze back to Cherry.
"Well? Get your ass in here, Sebastian! Tea won't serve itself!" Cherry demanded.
"Oh… I guess I'm Sebastian now…" Raise Max realized and trudged into the room.
*SLAM* *click click click click click*
Cherry shut the door with some force and started to twist the latches of several deadbolts all around the door. Before turning around and giving Raise Max a smile.
"So, did you have fun being dead?" Cherry asked.
"No, I did not!" Raise Max responded curtly in a low whisper. "Not that I would know, since we both know I wasn't really dead! Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be paralyzed, unable to even breathe, and hoping that whatever power held you hostage in your own body continued to provide the necessary resources to keep you from suffocating; not even knowing when or if the one who did it to you would put you back the way you were?!"
"Don't be a big baby~!" Cherry pouted. "Would you have preferred I kept you unconscious?"
"YES!" Raise Max shouted, before regaining his reason. "Which is exactly what I was trying to tell you before you went ahead and did it to me anyways!"
"It wasn't that bad…" Cherry didn't look the slightest bit sorry.
"You stopped my heart! I languished with a feeling of impending doom for almost an hour, which might as well have been an eternity!" Raise Max countered.
"Pretty neat how you hardly ever noticed your heart beating until it stopped, huh?" Cherry bounced on her heels innocently.
"Yeah… but that's not the point!" Raise Max agreed before forcing himself to be angry again.
Cherry grew bored of his feeble protests and walked over to the den den mushi tea party and plucked one of them off the coffee table. The adorable little snail stretched its little head towards its tiny teacup, trying to get one last sip.
She walked over to Raise Max and held the fingertip sized snail up in the palm of her hand. She put on a nasally voice and said "Testing, testing, can you hear me?"
"That's a miniature surveillance den den mushi, you can't talk through it-'' Raise Max tried to correct her.
"Hello? Who is this?" a voice answered from the tiny snail, causing Raise Max's eyes to bulge in shock.
Although it sounded somewhat diminutive, the voice coming from the tiny den den mushi was undoubtedly one that belonged to one of his comrades, Koala!
"Is that you, Koala-san?!" Raise Max asked hurriedly.
"Max-san?! Is that you?! Did you escape on your own?!" Koala asked back.
"Oh, it's Koala-chan~? I didn't expect you to be the closest one on the revolutionary frequency." Cherry said cheerfully.
"Cherry?! You're there too?! If you're still on the Gran Tesoro, you have to get away quickly! That gold loving bastard who owns it is a real menace in his own territory!" Koala responded.
"No can do~! I've already sold out; no more cherries in stock!" Cherry drawled. "I'm Gild Tesoro's subordinate now, and it'll stay that way until the day he dies~! … Hehehehehe!"
The dark chuckle Cherry attached to the end of her shocking declaration of "loyalty" to Tesoro gave both Koala and Raise Max the impression that "until the day he dies" wasn't a very long time.
"Isn't it fine? Cherry's a big girl, she can handle herself." Sabo chimed in.
"Chief of Staff!" Raise Max saluted involuntarily. Though Koala and Sabo couldn't see him, they heard the click of his heels quite clearly.
"Relax, Max. It always feels strange to have you salute me like that. We're all in this together, remember?" Sabo sighed exasperatedly. This was apparently an ongoing quirk of the man's.
"It's important to set an example, sir!" Raise Max insisted, shifting into an 'at ease' stance. Cherry was giggling at his sudden change of demeanor.
"To who, Max? The den den mushi?" You could almost hear the teasing smile on Sabo's face. "Nevermind that. We were planning to extract you, but it seems the situation has changed? What's your status?"
"I have allied myself with, er, Cherry here. I didn't know you were already acquainted with her, though." Raise Max scratched his cheek, frowning at his missing stubble. "She offered the means for my escape in exchange for helping her with a small matter."
"You can trust her, Max.; she's a good friend to the cause. You haven't been to headquarters in a few years, so you missed meeting her." Sabo explained.
"Wait, how did you know I'm with the Revolutionary Army?" Raise Max raised an interesting question.
"We didn't tell her about you as far as I know…" Sabo spoke.
Cherry smirked. "I rifled through Dragon's desk and found a group photo with you in it."
The sound of four hands slapping against their owners' faces was heard through the den den mushi.
"Damn it, Cherry. We've been looking for a spy for a year and a half because of that…" Sabo groaned.
"Whoops~?" Cherry's smirk widened. "I thought I was pretty sneaky. Guess not, huh? Hehehehehe~!"