"Oh no you don't!" Abigail shouted. She took her hand off the target and hurried over to the sword as quickly as she could. She grabbed hold of it and pulled as hard as she could. Turns out she didn't need to do that since it wasn't buried as deep as she thought and the extra force almost caused her to lose her balance. She managed to keep from falling and swirled on her heels to face the enemy,. "Your not getting out of this again." Without waiting for a reply or signal. She took the handle in both hands and it glowed with power.

"Zypha get out of the way." She didn't wait for a response and closed the distance. Then she swung for Yami's neck, hoping to cut clean through or if not at least deep enough to let her pour her power in.

"Give 'em Hell!" Zypha shouted as she released her grip at the last possible moment and catapulted away as Abigail swung for Yami's neck. There was nothing else for her to do but retreat, she had done her best to keep Yami locked down and now it was time for her partner to finish the job. Everyone was pretty battered and bruised at this point and the battle would no doubt finish one way or another in the next few moments.

"Hope you have the time of your life!"

Yami tugged at hard as he could, but couldn't escape Zypha's grip. Although he could move his feet, he found it too difficult to push Zypha off of his back with his battered shell. The pain was far too much to cope with. "Get, off- No!" Yami cried as Abigail neared him with her blade. "I won't be defeated by a group of filthy Pirates!!!" Yami flexed his neck, disallowing her blade to dig very deep at all. He braced himself as best he could when he felt Zypha jump off of his back. Abigail's power poured into his body and coursed through his shell in a torrent of searing pain. "GRAAAAAAAA~HAAAAAAAA~RAAAH!" As Abigail's energy waned, Yami retreated into his shell again, tossing Abigail's sword aside as he spun 360 degrees before landing hard on his four massive feet. A few moments passed before he reverted back to his human form, his body smoking, and his marine jacket completely torn from his flesh. "Reh~Hah~heh~heh~hah... That's... That's not enough to take down a marine-"...

Yami stood silent for a moment, the darkness in his eyes slowly fading to a pale shade of white as his mouth hung open. He was motionless for a few moments, but it wasn't for long. The Marine captain shook for a moment in place before falling to his knees, his head pointed towards the broken hole in the ceiling above him. Light poured onto his face, glistening off the slow flow of blood near the left side of his neck. "-God..."

Yami fell forward, landing on his chest, motionless on the ground before Abigail and Zypha.

At last, the pirates were victorious. The last Marine was beaten. There were two doors at the end of the main room with names on them. One of them had 'Storage Room' on it, while the other had 'Captain's Office.' Regardless, there were no more threats remaining on the island.

When Zypha and Abigail returned back to the village to tell everyone the good news, the villagers shouted in happyness as they were finally freed from the tyranny of the Marines. The villagers headed for the marine base. They headed into the storage room, and found all the supplies that the marines had stolen from them. They also checked the Captain's Office, but only found a desk, a chair, and a small monitor screen that didn't seem to be working, and a transponder snail. They also found sea prism chains. Some of the villagers headed into the rooms towards the defeated Marines, Lenny and Yami, and chained them tightly. Eventually, they used the device to reopen the doors to Sophia's room, who willingly surrendered herself as she was also chained. After this, the villagers gathered all the supplies and the captured marines, and headed back to the village. Due to what Zypha and Abigail had done for the people of the island, they were allowed to stay in the village to recover from their injuries.

Two days later, the two pirates were ready to go back to sea. All the villagers stood at the small dock to say goodbye to the pirates. Kira, the small girl from before, ran over to Zypha. "Thank you! thank you!" She shouted happily, hugging Zypha. The village elder stepped forward as well. He held Asus's Log Pose in his left hand. "We found this Log Pose on the body of your dead companion. It seems that Yami's attack didn't end up crushing his arm, so the Log Pose remained intact. It will have gotten used to the magnetic field of this island by now, so the needle will be pointing to the next." He said, pointing at the Log pose. It was aimed firmly to the west. "We also loaded plenty of food, medical supplies, materials to fix and perhaps upgrade your ship and whatnot onto your ship. A little thank you for what you did for us." The old man said. "We have also used the transponder snail that we found in the Captain's Office, and managed to contact the Navy. They said they will send a new squad of Marines to protect us, ones who will actually live by the World Government's rules. They will also take the Marines you defeated into custody. They will arrive here tomorrow, but you may want to leave quickly just in case." He finished.

It had been a decent two days despite the aches and pains, thankfully the pirates were tough and healed quickly; however they were down to just two crew now. Zypha had managed to recover all her equipment, though her jacket had been pretty much destroyed in the battle, thankfully the kind villages had been more than happy to modify one of the marine's jackets to her liking. The coat was dyed black with a white, twin lotus symbol and skull attached to the back of the coat, it was a design that had been floating in her mind for a few days and so had some of the villagers help her with the tailoring.

The villagers had been kind enough to supply them with quite a bit of material so they would have no trouble, except for the fact that they were now a crew of two which would make managing even their small ship a full time job; thankfully, Zypha had a lot of strength and endurance along with Abigail. The two were now at the docks, ready to board their ship as the villages saw them off.

"Well you guys make for for a decent vacation spot I must say. Much appreciated." Zypha gave a wry smile with her comment that was both sarcasim and fact. She was going to say more when she was ambushed by Kira who rushed her and embraced the somewhat manly female pirate. Zypha was unsure of what exactly to do at first, but she managed to awkwardly pat the girls head. As she did this she could not help but have a few flashbacks to her own childhood, but they were few as most of her memories were not bright and cheerful.

"Ya ya, just don't be a pain alright and learn to grow up big and strong so you can take care of yourself! That said I expect you lot to help out as well, got it!" Zypha stared down the crowd with a serious face though the effect was somewhat lessened by the little girl attached to her waist.

As the Village elder spoke Zypha took all the information in. "Abigail, meh I'll just call you Abi, can you get the log post from the old geezer? I have to rub off a barnacle off my hull." The barnacle being the little girl and the hull being Zypha's body. It took some coaxing as she was trying not to hurt the girl but she finally managed to extract herself from the little leech.

"Thank ya'all for your hospitality, but like you said we pirates and the world government tend not to mix well so we'll be leaving now before the next batch of marines come." Zypha climbed onto the ship and started to get everything prepared for sailing. "Good luck people, make sure you act like real people from now on!" As usually Zypha could not help but speak rather bluntly and harshly but ultimately she meant well.

"Come on Abi, time to leave."

Abigail wasn't big on people. It wasn't that she had anything against them, or even wished them the slightest bit of ill. It was just she couldn't handle crowds or getting to know new individuals on a reoccurring basis. Even so the tiny island, with its kind individuals had grown on her. Not that she wanted to stay any longer than was absolutely necessary.

While her lone partner talked to the group as they were getting to leave, Abigail did her best not to glare impatiently at the woman. Zypha was much more of a social butterfly than herself, which could cause some annoyance later on, but that didn't do anything to diminish the woman in her eyes. Aside from having a lovely figure her only crew mate was a fighter she was happy to have on her side. So while she spoke, Abigail lit a fat cigar and crossed her hands over her chest while she waited for the goodbye speech to settle down.

She blinked when her name was mentioned and looked around. It took a few seconds for her to register what Zypha had told her. "Oh. Yes, sure." She moved over to the older man and took the log post. With a nod, and nearly silent "Thank you." She stood back and waited while Zypha finished up.

When Zypha called, Abigail nodded. "It's about time." Still, she smiled and gave the village a brief wave.

As the pirates got on the ship and it headed for the west, they quickly left Erdol Island behind them. About a week later, they would see a new island at the horizon. It was Iwa Island, a somewhat small island.



As the ship got closer, they would spot a large dock with four ships near the island. The island itself was mostly covered in rocks and some hills, with a few trees here and there. It appeared that none of the ships had a crew within, except for one. The ship began to sail towards the Lotus ship at great speed, faster then the Lotus ship could move. It's flag had crossbones with a grey sword piercing a skull. However, there were several pieces missing of the blade, and a few holes within with orange outlines.

As the ship closed in, they moved to the Lotus ship's right side. There appeared to be a total of 10 pirates on deck. Three pirates rushed towards the ledge and each pushed a cannon in front of them. They took aim at the Lotus ship as their ship came to a halt. "FIRE!" A man shouted. Judging by his clothing and his grey cape, he was most likely the captain of the ship. The cannons fired in unison, and three cannonballs were headed towards the right side of the Lotus ship. However, there was still quite a distance between the Lotus ship and the pirate ship, which meant that neither of the crews could jump on the other ship. And the Lotus ship could still move out of the way.



Meanwhile, below deck, there was a hallway that was well guarded by five pirates. There was one door on the right of the hallway. It appeared to be a cell room. Within, there were three people. August was lying against the left wall, Croma was sitting at the opposite end, and there was a man sitting right next to August. They could hear the cannon fire from above deck. The walls and cell door all had sea prism stone within them, making it impossible for a Devil Fruit user to break out of the room. Croma's katana had been taken, and had been put carelessly against the wall of the hallway. Regardless, it was still out of her reach. There was a small window in the cell door, with bars made out of sea prism stone. A pirate poked his head in front of the window. "Hahaha! Yall are gunna sell well as slaves to da Nobles!" He taunted, laughing as he walked off.

Croma walked up and down her prison cell going over the day’s events, being that she passed out there wasn’t much of meditate over rolling her eyes at her own lapse in judgement she had passed out again because she forgot to take care of her body again. Her stomach was growling so loud and made her uncomfortable just as much as it did everyone else cringe with just how painful it sounded but first things first, escaping. Thankfully, she wasn’t handcuffed or even restrained in any way but her sword was taken from her apparently and although she could see it she couldn’t reach it. Picking up a sharp pick like rock and began to file it down to a sharp point until it was enough that she could begin picking away at the lock to her cage looking up at the cell window hoping no one caught her before she was out.

“hmm” she hummed little her lock picking skills a little rusty but it should work out…maybe

It was a bit of a long journey for just two people to take, especially since on the high seas there always needed to be someone on the lookout for enemies and to navigate the ship, meaning they kept having to switch off. They had some conversation about what they were going to do but other than getting to the next island and having Zypha be kind of the stand-in captain, not too much they could do. They had a ship though, but it really need an actual crew before they could do much of anything and a terrible duo was not going to cut it.

Zypha had been been on a fairly regular schedule for a while now: Ship duty, a work out that mostly used her own body such as single-handed push ups, eating, and sleeping, though not necessarily in that order. "Well looks like we're almost there, about time!" Zypha took the wheel as the small vessel made its way to port, but it appeared that another pirate ship had decided their little vessel would be fine prey.

"Tch, well Abi, looks like we got ourselves some admirers." Zypha lightly bit her bottom lip in thought as the enemy vessel made its way toward them. Frankly with how understaffed and outgunned they were, there was little chance for them to win in a ship to ship battle. The enemy ship was bigger, faster, and just better in every way but its flag. Escape was not an option.

"We can't get away in this hand-me-down." Zypha considered their options, annoyingly their best bet was to force a man-to-man battle, which meant they had to get closer. While she thought about it, the enemy vessel came up to their broadside and started to open fire on their ship.

Zypha quickly spun the wheel to turn the ship toward the pirate vessel, so that they could get closer and to become a much smaller target to hit as well. "Well guess we have no choice but to charge ahead as quickly as possible, we can't afford to get sunk here!"

Zypha was at the wheel. So Abigail took the crow's nest. Which she quickly came to regret. It wasn't a lot of work, but that was the quickest way to get exhausted and before too long she started making up scenarios in her head. Sometimes there were sea kings and other times there were marines. One time they got attacked by a group of merpeople. Currently she was fantasizing about an enemy ship that was launching cannon balls at them, at least she thought it was a fantasy. That all came to an end when Zypha mentioned them having admirers.

"What?" Abigail blinked and blinked but the image wouldn't disappear. "Oh crap! That's an actual enemy ship!" Since Zypha had noticed them too she didn't have to call anything out and used that time to hurry down to deck to stand next to the more dominant member of the two crewed ship. "What did I miss? Did they send some kind of warning I didn't see or did they just start firing for no reason?" She scratched her nose and leaned forward on a railing to try and get a better look at the approaching vessel. "Those aren't marines so why fire at us?" She turned her attention back to Zypha. "By any chance is there some kind of dark and mysterious past that's coming back out of the mist filled ocean?" It was a bright and sunny day, but that wasn't the point!

She nodded in agreement with Zypha's decision to get closer. "That sounds like a plan. I doubt they'd be expecting that. I know I wouldn't." She paused and watch the other ship start to get bigger as they moved closer. "So are we going to ram them when we get there, or try and board their ship? There's always that famous option of looking like we're going to ram them and then don't. Just move a bit to the side and sail right past them. Then they'll lose time due to having to turn the ship around to chase us."

"Can't say I would, bucko!" The man sitting next to August retorted, chuckling like a hyena to himself. "Why so obsessed with the whole gender-thing, amigo? The only thin of the utmost importance is that we get off this ship, posthaste, chumbo!" He began cackling to himself, and fell over onto his right side, shaking and laughing with his hands still bound by sea-stone handcuffs. The chains rattled violently for a few moments before he ran out of steam and sat back up, silently frowning at the corner of the cell. "Aint it a shame, though, friend..." He rasped.

Croma finally got the lock open and pushed her cell door to walk out, looking down at her fellow prisoners having completely ignored their conversation for the most part, an unavoidable side effect from being focused her brain caught her up with the topic fast enough. Raising one eyebrow the samurai woman was slightly confused, didn’t they want freedom until she noticed the bars to the prison felt like the metal skeleton of her sheath, sea prism. If they were joking around because they couldn’t leave anyway, like she was then that would explain it, Croma walked over and grabbed her sword she turned to face both of them and attempted to unsheathe it with the sword facing them only to hear a loud ‘clank’, Kichi would not be drawn thus resulting in a loud sigh.

“Nobles are all one of two categories, old or ugly sometimes both why would you want an ugly woman as a master?” She asked light heartedly figuring she owed them on the count of if Kichi had drawn she’d have murdered these two without a second thought.

Swinging her still sheathed sword the swordswoman shattered the lock into pieces causing the door to open freely, “I’d say we focus on escaping… I don’t know what to do about the sea prism shackles guess one of them out there has a key?” Croma continued talking her voice cracking being extremely thirsty and her stomach began to growl like a starving beast all over again

As Zypha spun the wheel and turned the ship to face the enemy ship, two of the cannonballs completely missed as they crashed into the water beside it. The middle cannonball struck it's target however and exploded, leaving a deep crack in the front side of the ship. Fortunately there was no gaping hole, but it wasn't in very good shape. Before the enemy pirates could do anything else, the Lotus ship rammed into their ship with full force. Most of the pirates, including the captain, lost their balance and fell over. The three cannoneers managed to remain standing due to holding onto the cannons. "Oi, get yer ass offa me!" A pirate shouted. "What are ya dolts waiting for?! Kill em already!" The captain barked as he slowly began to get back onto his feet.

The first cannoneer on the left unsheathed his blade, and leaped onto the Lotus ship's deck, slashing diagonally at Abigail's chest. The second one hopped onto the deck as well, and pulled out a flintlock pistol, quickly firing it at Zypha. The third cannoneer began to reload his cannon, readying another cannonball.



"OI! The prisoners are escaping!" One of the pirates barked, as Chroma broke the door open. The closest pirate charged at her immediately, and grabbed his broadaxe. He swung it downward at her head.

The other four pirates readied their weapons in the meantime. Two of them grabbed their blades while a third aimed his rifle. The fourth one pulled out two flintlock pistols and took aim as well. They could not interfere yet as the hallway was rather thin, and the first pirate was blocking their vision. Right after this, a massive shockwave went through the ship as the Lotus ship rammed into it, knocking everyone off-balance for a moment.

While Zypha piloted their ship, Abigail stood by her side, arms crossed, watching their voyage towards the attacking ship. Her dark eyes watched at the cannonballs fell harmlessly into the water around them, at least most of them fell harmlessly into the water around them. There was a third one, and it hit. "Ooo...ouch." Abigail winces at the sight of the new damage on their ship. "That's not going to be cheap to repair, you know?"

No sooner had she spoken than their ship smashed into the attacking vessel. "Wow! This thing can really move when it wants to." There was a clatter on the other ship as commands were made and people started rushing on to twin lotus's ship. "Damn1 Everyone wants a piece of us." Abigail reached for her sword but it was too late, there was already a soldier swinging his sword at her chest.

This wasn't a new situation to the redheaded pirate. She'd experienced it a few times in the past few days and had a pretty good idea how to handle it. She pulled her body back so the blade's tip merely cut cloth and then lunged forward. She grabbed the attacking pirate's arm and held it there while she closed the rest of the distance. She snaked her leg around the man's and then pushed him back, hoping he'd trip and land on his back.

If it weren’t for that yell Croma might have not noticed the pirate barreling her way with a large double headed Ax, thankfully she did and it allowed her to dodge him jumping further back against the wall. She readied her sword and tried to draw it only to hear a familiar *Clank clank* sound of Kichi refusing to come out. With Kichi refusing to fight yet again this left Croma with only one real choice, to use her special brand of sword play; getting into a ‘Ko Gasumi’ stance where the sword is raised above one’s head, tilted at a jaunty angle and staring down the enemy. Twisting her body forward, she swung her sword backwards and then right up again under the pirate aiming for his entire lower jaw, because shes been forced to exclusively train with her sword in her sheath combined with the fact the sheath itself is obnoxiously heavy her basic strikes tend to carry the same force that’s expected.

“Unsheathe style – Rising river!” She called out every motion she made was fluid.

Zypha had considered attempting to skirt around the enemy at one point to head for the harbor, but once the ship was hit by a cannonball her only real choice was to attack. The Lotus rammed the pirate ship full force, making Zypha wince as she heard the cracking and splintering of wood as the vessels collided; thankfully she managed to hold onto the wheel hard enough to not fall when the collision occurred. "That is going to leave a nasty mark, hope we can make it to port without sinking."

Zypha left the wheel, the ship essentially being stuck on the other ship for the time being which allowed her to leave her post. Zypha then saw two of the cannon users jump onto their ship, one went for Abigail and the other for her. Zypha didn't need to worry about Abigail as she was a good fighter, but of course the other pirate tried to use a gun on her.

"You guys are pretty brazen to attack us so close to port. Well guess that just means we'll get more credit then!"

Crouching low Zypha zipped along the deck, her new jacket dangled off her shoulders, the sleeves dragging behind her since she did not put her arms in the sleeves. Making sure to zigzag as the pirate fired, the bullet zinged past her and poked a hole through her jacket. Ignoring that, Zypha reached for her scythe around her waist and lashed out at the pirate with both weapons.

If she managed to take out the pirate right away her next move would be to climb up on the enemy ship to throw a chain-scythe at the third cannoneer to take him out before he could fire another cannonball. While she would ditch the old boat eventually now was not the time to have the vessel sink on them. At the moment Zypha identified this cannoneer as their biggest threat.

As Abigail made the man trip, his head ended up slamming into the railing of the boat, knocking him out instantly. The man that missed Zypha with his bullet was cut down instantly by her scythes. The third man smirked as he managed to reload the cannon and took aim. But before he was able to fire, Zypha's thrown scythe pierced his neck. Blood gushed out as the man collapsed on the ground.

"There's only TWO of them! Incompetent fools!" The captain shouted, who succesfully regained his balance. There were now seven pirates remaining on deck, including the captain. "Just shoot them!" He barked, as the six other pirates grabbed their rifles. They began to shoot at Abigail and Zypha in a rather unorganized manner.



As Croma swung her sheathed blade at the pirate, the metal sheath slammed hard into his head. The man staggered back for a moment and collapsed into the ground, knocked out. The remaining four pirates stared in shock for a moment, as the man with the rifle took aim and fired a bullet at her chest. The man with the flint lock pistols began to aim at her as well, not having pulled the triggers yet. The men with the blades stood at the ready as well.

The strange looking man rose to his feet in an instant upon being questions, smiling from ear to ear. His shaggy black hair obscured most of his face, but it was easy to tell that he was ecstatic to have been acknowledged. "Simple, my friend! I'm keeping myself from being a nuisance, these are my handcuffs! Ahahaha!" The man then sauntered out of the room like a maniac, casually stepping past August, Croma, and the unconscious Marine with little regard for the situation. As he made his way towards the exit, he screamed something in a joyful tone that everyone on the ship would hear: