Chương 9: Preparations

'That…is unexpected. I wonder how many soldiers the marines will mobilize? Such an attack, if not repelled swiftly, will leave quite the smirch on the reputation of the world government.' Daz thought after listening to the repeated broadcast of the main channel belonging to the marines, usually used for the relay of large scale operations or situations requiring a lot of manpower.

For smaller or more direct orders different channels were available, which could be a bit confusing if you had no idea how a transponder snail worked, as it obviously didn't come with an operating manual.

'Are they also after the plans for the ancient weapons? Or do they have a different objective in mind? I mean, some pirates would be mad enough to attack the world government without a real reason, but those crews usually never survived very long anyway…' A tug at his sleeve brought Daz out of his musings though, and looking down to his left he saw the munchkin worrying her lip again, a habit he doubted she was really aware of having.

"What are we going to do now?" By the looks directed at him from the rest of the former slaves, her thoughts mirrored theirs rather clearly, which Daz was pretty much expecting from a group of civilians, no matter how much shit they went through.

"Nothing." He responded, earning him a round of disbelieving looks from the people standing around him and the transponder snail sat before him on the table.

"Nothing? B-but we can't do nothing! They'll catch us!" one of the women said, her voice shaking slightly in fear, which caused a wave of murmuring to go through the small group of people.

Daz sighed, not really in the mood to explain why exactly they needed to do just that, but saw no other way out of the rising tension and thus began to explain to them what the hell would happen in the next few hours.

"Listen, because I'll only explain this once." Daz began, grabbing the munchkin and putting her into his lap absentmindedly, before continuing.

"We are currently on a ship only used ´by the Tenryuubito. Every marine captain worth anything and with a bit of a brain knows not to fuck with a ship of a Tenryuubito. So long as we don't do anything to disavow them of their impression that there is indeed a Tenryuubito on board this ship, they'll do absolutely nothing to impede our course.

Besides having the best disguise we could get our hands on in the situation we found ourselves in, there is currently, as you've all heard just now through the transponder snail, an invasion of Enies Lobby underway.

As Enies Lobby is a part of the world government and the public office for the Cipher Pol agency, the marines will leave no stone overturned on that island in order to take out the pirates stupid enough to attack said place.

I doubt the marines would actually send an admiral over there but it's not an impossibility, due to the proximity of Enies Lobby to the marine Headquarters and the entrance to Mary Geoise.

This presents us with the ideal opportunity to slip right through the gates of Justice without raising any attention and disappearing amongst the many ships the marines no doubt will send over to deal with the pirates.

That coupled with our disguise will, pretty much, guarantee that we will get out of this without a hair of ours out of place." Daz finished his explanation and was once more met with blank faces before the group around him visibly relaxed after hearing his words.

"Still, we have a few more hours left and need to take a few precautions before we can begin with the undertaking.

First of all, you all need to grab yourselves actual uniforms belonging to the marines. Those uniforms should be somewhere below deck. That not only will present a better cover for us but will also help you all once we are out of here. Marines are rather well liked on most islands around the Grandline, so you'll have no trouble getting back into society. Though, I would advice you to grab a different pair of clothes as soon as you can. But that's just advice on my part.

Besides those uniforms, you'll also have to act the part and not lounge around on deck but patrol around the ship or clean the deck at all times. There are never idle hands upon a Marine ship, so ours should try to emulate said part just as well.

The last part you'll have to do is not panic. No matter what happens, stay the fuck calm or our cover will be blown away like a leaf in the wind. If you manage to do all that, we'll be fine." Daz finished, the munchkin on his lap meanwhile yawned rather prominently, which prompted Daz to put her down onto her feet, after which she walked up to the railing, sat down, and swiftly fell asleep.

Meanwhile the former group of slaves began to animatedly talk with each other, hyping and motivating one another before they all together walked into the ship to find those uniforms Daz had talked about.

Daz though was lost in thought. Enies Lobby meant that the CP9 would be there. True, the old members were either dead or retired into a position of less danger and adrenalin filled missions, but Daz had nonetheless been to Enies Lobby a couple of times in the last six months and was unsure how he should go forward.

If he were seen on Enies Lobby, which was a big if, as he was no slouch at stealth operations, not his forte admittedly but he didn't suck at them either, he would be required to lend a hand.

This, of course, would be impossible if he wanted to keep the munchkin out of the conflict, and even though he had faith in his ability to protect her, he also knew of the chaos that was war.

Not to mention, he had, for on his part at least, severed ties with the world government, so they couldn't really do shit to him if he didn't want to help them clean up their own mess.

With a grunt of annoyance, Daz leaned back into his chair and stuck another lollipop through the opening of his mask, just big enough to fit right through and end up in his mouth.

'What an annoying clusterfuck…Oh well, could be worse I suppose…' He thought to himself and closed his eyes behind his white mask and drifted of into a small nap as well.