บท 124: Meeting Up With Robin
Cherry's next stop was naturally to go and pick up Robin. She didn't plan to meet with any of the other Straw Hats right now, though perhaps she would pay them a visit in the near future. Who knows what sort of interesting hijinks they're all getting up to?
Well, maybe not Brook, since she didn't have the time to make a vivre card of him. A walking, talking, musical skeleton shouldn't be too hard to find though.
Cherry spent the days cultivating and experimenting with haki, particularly the advanced applications of armament haki that Rayleigh had demonstrated for her.
Originally, Cherry had thought of armament haki as purely a support skill, something to apply to her attacks to increase their power and enable her to harm devil fruit users who would normally be immune to certain kinds of damage. It also added to her already hard to damage body's defenses.
Now, she realized she had underestimated haki, and by a great deal.
'I really need to stop making assumptions...' Cherry admonished herself. She could only sigh and accept the fact that this world was bonkers and she'd never get used to it.
'I could tell that Rayleigh was holding back on me though. Maybe it's just hard to demonstrate the more advanced forms of observation haki, but there's definitely got to be more you can do with conqueror's haki than knock weak willed people out, right?' Cherry wondered.
'Oh! That's right, back when I first met Chinjao he hit me with some sort of mental attack! That's was almost certainly conqueror's haki now that I think about it. Old coot that he is, he ought to know a little more about its applications, shouldn't he?' Cherry smiled as she started looking forward to meeting the old man and his silly grandkids again.
Whilst Cherry had plenty to do and Cabernet, on account of being a ship, was perfectly content to do nothing but sail all day, Perona was dreadfully bored.
At least Hawkeye's castle had had plenty of books to read and was large enough to pass the time wandering its halls.
She had tried to chat with Cabernet, but it wasn't as engaging with a face to look at whilst she did, and talking to Cherry was a recipe for frustration.
She had at least found some amusement in trying to guess which parts of Cabernet's ship form corresponded to her human form's anatomy, as well as testing to see if she was still ticklish in her ship form.
She had actually started to look forward to her training sessions with Cherry out of sheer boredom.
Eventually, Cabernet flew into the calm belt, and it wasn't long after that Perona spotted a ship on the horizon. At first she had assumed it to be marines, after all they were supposedly the only ones who could freely sail across the calm belt, with the exception of the kuja pirates and a rare few other groups.
As they got closer, though, it became apparent that it was not a marine ship, but she did not know who it could be.
The crew of the ship sailing across the calm belt did not miss the sight of Cabernet either, as she was flying at a relatively low altitude. Well below most clouds, but still a ways up above the water.
Naturally, they were concerned about this ship that seemed to be on an intercept course with their own ship. They were revolutionaries, after all, so they were almost always alert for possible dangers to themselves and their comrades.
However, the woman they were escorting back to their headquarters had a different view about the approaching vessel and assured them there was no need to get all worked up over it.
The woman was Nico Robin. She was relaxed on a couch they had kindly brought above deck for her to rest on, as she hadn't been comfortable going below deck.
When the flying ship was almost on top of them, it transformed into a familiar winged woman. On her shoulder sat another woman with piercing eyes, and carried in her arms princess style was a woman with pink hair and clothing.
They landed on the deck and Robin practically skipped over and nearly tackled Cherry as she hopped off Cabernet's shoulder.
"Took you long enough." Robin said after several moments of embracing Cherry, feigning anger with her tone.
"What, I was busy! I couldn't let Luffy's brother go and kick the bucket could I?" Cherry defended herself.
"Um... excuse me..." One of the men on the ship spoke up.
His demeaner seemed to be nervous, excited, and a little bit afraid. Of course he was addressing Cherry, having recognized her for her previous accomplishments at Marineford.
Seeing that he had their attention, he started to speak. "I am Bunny Joe, revolutionary of the eastern army. I was escorting Nico Robin here to our base at Baltigo, perhaps Ms. Harpin would like to accompany us as well? There's no pressure to join us or anything, of course!"
Bunny Joe was a rather ordinary looking fellow with bushy light brown hair at shoulder length. Cherry supposed that was a plus for someone in his line of work, as it meant he could more easily blend into a civilian population.
"Yeah, sure, why not?" Cherry said casually.
Cherry was interested in meeting the infamous Dragon and she wanted to give Cabernet a break from flying anyways. Although Cabernet didn't mind flying for long periods, she was still more of an extrovert and wanted to interact with people.
Bunny Joe was a bit shocked by Cherry's casual decision to waltz into the revolutionary army's headquarters with them. He had at least expected her to think it over. In fact he had been worried that the already apprehensive Robin would be easily persuaded to leave, especially given how close she seemed to be with Cherry.
Bunny Joe hastily gave orders to his crew to get back underway, as if worried they would change their mind.
He noted that Robin seemed to have relaxed considerably after Cherry's arrival, for which he wasn't sure if he should be grateful or worried. After all, Robin didn't even want to go below deck because of her survival instincts from being on the run. If she had no concerns over her safety now, it was because she had complete faith in her and Cherry's group's ability to demolish them if necessary.
Robin sat down on her couch and patted her thighs. Cherry naturally took the opportunity for a lap pillow, whilst Robin started to feed bits of fruit to her with an adoring look on her face.
The crew had become somewhat downcast at the sight of this, realizing their lovely guest was very much taken. Though it was better than seeing a man in Cherry's current position by a million times, for sure.
"Hey, Bunny man. How long is it going to take to get to your headquarters?" Cherry asked and accepted a peeling tangerine slice from Robin.
"At least a week, two at most. Depends on the weather, really. You know how the Grand Line is." He replied.
"I'm impressed that you have paddle boats and enough sea stone to hide them from sea kings. I had been under the impression you were mostly a rag tag group gathered around a few competent people, but it seems you're more equipped than expected." Cherry said.
"Controlling information about our capabilities is good strategy, we are fighting a war after all." He commented.
"Well, you need more than just a way to cross the calm belts to win against the World Government. I'll decide if your worth a damn after I see your headquarters." Cherry spoke rudely.
Bunny Joe wasn't offended at all. It was no simple task to fight a super power that rules most of the world. Many have tried and all so far have failed. Truthfully, there was no guarantee they would succeed either, though he'd like to think they have the best odds of any who came before. Those were just comforting thoughts, however.
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