The sea breeze carried the scent of roasting garlic, fresh flowers, and spices. Standing at the bow of the Thousand Sunny, Sunny leaned entirely over the railing, his eyes shaped like giant stars. Beside him, rry held him back by his suspenders so he wouldn't fall into the ocean.
"Papa! Papa! Look! It's an island made of rocks and giant mushrooms! And it slls like food!" Sunny cheered.
Ben walked up behind them and placed a hand on both of their heads. He wore a simple, unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt over a white tee, looking entirely too relaxed for a man sailing into the territory of a Warlord of the Sea. "That's Dressrosa, kids. The country of passion, toys, and apparently, a very angry guy with pink feathers."
Behind them, the rest of the crew gathered on the deck. While Luffy and Law's group had already departed for Green Bit to handle the Tontatta and the hostage exchange, the main squad was left to infiltrate the city.
Franky cut the engines. "Docking procedures complete, bro! We are officially parked." Franky said.
The crew hopped off the ship one by one, landing on the stone docks of Acadia. Nami stretched, Robin adjusted her sunglasses, and Bonney cracked her knuckles while chewing on a piece of jerky. Kin'emon, Momonosuke, and Brook brought up the rear.
Once everyone was clear, Ben turned back to the Thousand Sunny. The locals on the dock were already pointing and whispering about the infamous Straw Hat pirate ship.
Ben waved his hand, and the ship was transferred to his personal spatial dinsion.
On the docks, three port workers dropped their clipboards. A marine spy in the distance rubbed his eyes and stared at his empty binoculars.
"I will never get used to that," Nami sighed, shaking her head. "Do you know how much we could save on docking fees if we did that everywhere?"
"Alright, listen up," Ben clapped his hands, drawing the crew's attention. "Doflamingo's people know we're here. We didn't use any cloaking magic. We walked through the front door."
"Why?" Chopper asked, tilting his head.
"Because we want to split his forces," Robin explained smoothly, stepping up beside Ben. She linked her arm through his. "By making a loud entrance, the Donquixote Family will send their enforcers after us. It takes the pressure off Luffy and Law."
"Exactly," Ben nodded. "So, we play the part. We go in, act like tourists, and look for the SAD factory. Let's split up to cover more ground."
Ben wore a sharp, patterned sumr shirt with khaki shorts and a fedora, looking like a man ready for a vacation. Robin wore a sleek, flowing white dancer's dress with a flower in her hair. rry and Sunny were given matching overalls and little straw hats.
Nami chose a breezy sumr dress. Sanji wore a crisp white suit with a blue undershirt. Bonney, keeping it simple, wore a massive sombrero and a poncho. Franky wore a floral shirt with khaki shorts. Brook wore a black suit with a red undershirt.
"Alright," Ben said, handing out polished Kimoyo beads to everyone. "Let's split up: Group One: , Robin, rry, and Sunny. Group Two: Nami, Sanji, Chopper, Franky, and Bonney. Group Three: Brook, Kin'emon, and Momo. Try to blend in."
Ten minutes later, Group One was failing to blend in.
"Papa! Papa! The dog is walking on two legs!" Sunny yelled, pointing at a toy dachshund wearing a top hat.
"I see it, buddy," Ben said, carrying a massive stack of churros.
Dressrosa was vibrant. The architecture was a mix of colorful tiles, grand archways, and cobblestone streets. But the strangest part was the toys. Living, breathing toys walked alongside the humans, holding hands with children, sweeping porches, and carrying groceries.
rry ran up to a toy soldier. "Excuse , what is your power source? Do you use a miniaturized arc reactor or magic cores?"
The toy soldier just stared at her, terrified of the ten-year-old girl asking about his internal components.
Ben sighed, pulling rry back by her collar. "rry, we talked about this. You can't ask people to open up their chests on the first date."
Robin chuckled, taking a churro from Ben's stack. "They have so much energy. You'd think building android children with ship souls would make them like sailing, but they just want to walk everywhere."
"Yeah, I think it is the hito hito no mi affecting them, making them act like children their age," Ben smiled, wrapping his free arm around her waist.
While they walked, appearing to be nothing more than a wealthy tourist family, Robin was working. She subtly crossed her arms. "Très Fleur."
In the alleyways, on the rooftops, and behind trash cans, tiny eyes and ears blood like petals. Robin was actively scanning the city's underbelly, listening to the whispers of thugs and guards, trying to pinpoint the location of the artificial Devil Fruit factory.
"I'm getting a lot of chatter from the Colosseum," Robin murmured quietly to Ben. "And ntions of a toy house."
"Keep digging," Ben said, taking a bite of his food. "We've got ti."
anwhile, Group Two had completely disintegrated in record ti.
Nami was leading the charge down a comrcial street when she stopped dead. Her eyes locked onto a massive red banner hanging over a boutique.
"NINETY PERCENT OFF. EVERYTHING MUST GO."
Nami's pupils morphed into actual Berry symbols. She hunched over, rubbing her hands together like a villain. "Ninety percent... It's practically free. I'd be losing money if I didn't buy it."
"Nami, wait, we have a mission—" Franky started.
Whoosh. Nami left a cartoonish dust cloud in her wake. She crashed through the boutique doors, barking orders at the cashiers to give her everything in a size dium.
Sanji sighed, taking a drag from his cigarette. "Well, let her have her fun. We should stay focused and—"
Suddenly, the sound of rhythmic castanets echoed from the town square. Sanji turned his head. A crowd had ford around a beautiful woman with a rose in her hair, dancing the flanco with incredible passion. Violet.
Sanji's jaw literally unhinged and hit the floor, his eyes popping out of his head on imaginary springs like a cartoon wolf. His heartbeat was visible through his white suit. "LLORINE!"
Sanji spun into a human tornado, rocketing toward the crowd to offer the dancing woman his absolute devotion.
Franky blinked. "Okay, we lost the cook. Chopper, Bonney, we need to stick together—"
Franky turned around. Chopper and Bonney were gone. He looked down the street and saw the two gluttons sitting at a paella concession stand. Bonney was shoving an entire pan of seafood rice into her mouth, while Chopper was eating cotton candy the size of a minivan.
Franky stood alone in the middle of the street. He let out a heavy, tallic sigh. "Why am I the responsible one?"
He tapped his Kimoyo bead. "Ben. Group Two is scattered. The navigator is looting, the cook is simp-ing, and the doctor is eating."
"Sounds about right," Ben's voice crackled back. "Did you find the factory?"
"Working on it," Franky said.
Franky stepped into a quiet alleyway. He cracked his tallic neck. He didn't need to look for a door. He had better tech. Franky closed his eyes. The nanites in his bloodstream surged.
"Build: Sensor Array," Franky muttered.
The skin on Franky's right arm shifted, glowing with blue circuitry. The tal expanded, shifting and folding outward until his entire right arm transford into a massive, high-tech radar dish. He slamd his other hand onto the ground.
"X-Ray and Seismic Scan active," Franky announced.
His eyes glowed bright blue. His vision pierced through the cobblestone streets, down through the dirt, bypassing the sewer lines. He saw the layout of the island like a wirefra model. He scanned past the Colosseum. He scanned past the town center.
"Bingo," Franky grinned. "Found a massive underground port right below the toy house. And lots of weird machinery."
On the far side of town, Group Three was trying to lay low.
"I do not understand this place," Kin'emon grumbled, adjusting his false mustache. "Toys that walk? Won displaying their ankles in public? It is madness."
"It's a very lively island," Brook chuckled, sipping a cup of tea he had bought. "Excuse , miss!" Brook called out to a toy poodle walking by. "May I see your panties?"
The toy poodle barked angrily and bit Brook on the leg.
"YOWWW!" Brook scread, hopping on one foot. "She bit ! Even though I have no at on my bones to bite! Yohohoho!"
Momonosuke clung to Kin'emon's leg, looking terrified. "Father, I do not like these toys. Their eyes are empty."
"Do not fear, Momonosuke-sama. We are samurai. We will not be bested by playthings," Kin'emon said proudly.
"Group Three, this is Ben," the Kimoyo bead on Brook's wrist chid. "Try to make your way toward the Toy House near the center of the city. Franky found an underground port."
"Understood, Ben-dono!" Kin'emon shouted directly into Brook's wrist, spitting a little.
High above the city, inside the royal palace, the Donquixote Family was on the move.
Baby 5, dressed in her maid outfit with heavy artillery strapped to her back, burst into the monitoring room. Senor Pink was sitting on the couch, surrounded by swooning won, drinking a martini out of a baby bottle.
"We have a confird sighting!" Baby 5 yelled. "The Straw Hat crew is here! The ship vanished at the docks, but our scouts spotted them in town. They split up."
Senor Pink adjusted his bonnet. "Did they now? How hardboiled of them to walk into our territory. Who is where?"
"The cyborg, the navigator, the cook, and the glutton are in the comrcial district," Baby 5 read from her report. "The skeleton and the samurai are near the bridge. And the magician is in the town square with Nico Robin and two kids."
"The magician," Senor Pink muttered, standing up. He wiped his mouth. "Dofi wants him dealt with. Take Machvise and Buffalo. We crush them before they find the factory."
Back in the town square, Ben was currently losing a battle against a claw machine.
"Papa, move it to the left! No, the other left!" rry yelled, pressing her face against the glass of the arcade ga.
"I know, I know, the claw is rigged," Ben grumbled. He focused his Observation Haki, trying to predict the exact swing of the tal claw to grab a stuffed bear.
Robin stood a few feet away, leaning against a brick wall. She smiled softly at the scene. But then, her smile faded. The eyes she had blood around the periter picked up movent. Fast movent.
"Ben," Robin said, her tone dropping its playful edge. "We have company."
Ben hit the button on the claw machine. The claw dropped, missed the bear entirely, and pulled up nothing. "Figures."
He turned around. The crowd of tourists and toys in the square was parting in a panic. Coming down the main street were three top officers of the Donquixote Family.
Buffalo, a massive man with a propeller on his head, flew through the air. Baby 5 marched forward, her arms already transforming into twin Gatling guns. Behind them walked Senor Pink, pacifier in his mouth.
"Straw Hat Pirates!" Baby 5 shouted, spinning up her barrels. "By order of the Young Master, you are going to die here!"
Sunny and rry stopped looking at the claw machine. They turned around, blinking at the weirdly dressed attackers.
"Papa," Sunny said, tugging on Ben's shirt. "Can we fight them? I want to test my new lasers."
"Not yet, buddy. Let's see what they can do," Ben said, stepping in front of Robin and the kids. He didn't draw his wand. He didn't activate any armor. He just stood there, looking incredibly bored.
"Die!" Baby 5 scread, unleashing a hail of bullets from her arms.
Ben didn't flinch. He raised his right hand.
A massive, glowing purple magic circle, etched with ancient runes, instantly materialized in the air in front of him.
The bullets hit the magic shield and stopped dead, flattening against the barrier like bugs on a windshield. They dropped to the floor in a pile of useless lead.
Baby 5 stopped firing, her jaw dropping. "What? No Haki? What is that?"
"Basic spatial warding," Ben said lazily. He tapped his Kimoyo bead. "Franky. We've got aggro in the square. How's your end?"
In the comrcial district, Franky had just retracted his radar dish arm when the wall next to him exploded.
Machvise, a massive man with a giant tal plate on his back, crashed through the brickwork, aiming a devastating body press right at Franky's head. "Super Ton Vise!"
Franky didn't even look. He just raised his left arm.
Clang.
Machvise stopped mid-air. Franky had caught the man's entire falling body weight with one hand. The street cracked beneath Franky's feet, but the cyborg didn't budge an inch. The Arc Reactor in his chest humd loudly.
"Hey," Franky said, looking up at the incredibly confused Machvise. "I was on a phone call. That's super rude."
Franky's nanites surged. His hand morphed, shifting from a normal human-looking fist into a massive, spinning chanical drill—the Slam Cannon.
"Get off ," Franky said.
He fired the drill point-blank into Machvise's chest. The impact sounded like a cannon firing. Machvise launched backward, flying through three different buildings before crashing into a distant clock tower.
Franky dusted off his suit jacket, which was now completely ruined. He tapped his bead. "Yeah, Ben. We got company too. I handled mine. Need backup?"
"No, I think we're good," Ben replied over the comms, watching Buffalo try to flank him from the air.
"I'll cut you up from the sky!" Buffalo yelled, spinning his hair like a helicopter blade and diving toward Robin.
Robin didn't move. She just crossed her arms. "Cien Fleur: Clutch."
Instantly, a hundred arms sprouted from Buffalo's spinning body, tangling in his propeller hair and wrapping around his joints. With a sharp twist, Robin snapped Buffalo's back. The man scread, his spinning stopped, and he crashed into a fruit cart in a pile of broken wood and waterlons.
Senor Pink stopped walking. He looked at Buffalo in the fruit cart. He looked at Baby 5's useless bullets. He looked at Ben, who was now conjuring a cup of coffee out of thin air.
"You guys aren't normal pirates, are you?" Señor Pink asked, pulling his pacifier out of his mouth.
Ben took a sip of his coffee. "Pink, buddy, we brought a cyborg with an infinite energy core, an age-manipulating glutton, and an android child to a vacation spot. Normal left the chat a long ti ago."
Ben turned to his son. "Hey Sunny. Rember that laser targeting practice we did yesterday?"
Sunny's eyes lit up. He held up his small hands. "Can I really?"
"Take the shot," Ben smiled.
Sunny pointed his palms at Senor Pink. The ten-year-old boy giggled. ZAAAP. Twin beams of pure, condensed Arc energy shot from the child's hands, blowing a crater into the street right in front of the Donquixote executive, sending Pink flying backward into a fountain.
"Now," Ben said, throwing his coffee cup away. "Let's go find that factory before Nami buys out the entire island."
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