First Mission

In a small room at the Rain Dinners basement…

I was sitting in front of Nico Robin and staring at a piece of document with a slight frown.

The contents of the document were more complicated that I previously envisioned. After quickly skimming through the first few pages, I found out that my mission required me to infiltrate the royal army of Alabasta itself.

This would be done by me participating in their army recruitment drive, where I would take part and join as a secret Baroque Works spy.

The royal army recruitment drive was still a few months away though…

"So, do you want to go over your mission now?"

Nico Robin propped her head on her hands and focused her gaze on me.

I put the documents away and faced Robin. "Nah, I rather get to know more about the fine woman in front of me."

Nico Robin smiled coyly and leaned closer to me.

"How flattering of you ♥… So, it seems you want to know my past too. Why every organization I join is destroyed? Or how I'm the devil itself?"

I chucked and then replied, "I don't care about your past… I just wanted to know what my new partner liked and disliked."

"What?"

Nico Robin's head tilted to the side.

"You know… Like I enjoy sailing, and I dislike spiders. Oh, I dislike Crocodile too!"

Nico Robin stayed quiet for a moment and then giggled with her hand over her mouth.

"What's so bad about Spiders? The poisonous ones make the best pets. Also…" Nico Robin's expression became more grim as she whispered, "I wouldn't throw any casual insults at Crocodile. He's been known to kill every single person who insulted him…"

Despite Nico Robin's warning out of some goodwill, I didn't bother to take her words too seriously.

"Haha, I already know how much of a loser he is!" The next moment, I grabbed a piece of paper and folded it into the shape of a cigarette. Then, I bit onto it and changed my expression to match Crocodile's face to the best of my abilities. "Tch, I'm Crocodile. I'm so smart, and everyone's dream is so worthless… These worthless dreamers and fools!"

Nico Robin watched my antics with a straight face, until she couldn't take it anymore and broke into laughter.

If Crocodile could see us right now, his personality would have definitely led him to use all his powers to strike me dead.

He would have perhaps have mortally wounded Nico Robin just for laughing too.

"Fufufu… Oh, there's another mission tomorrow that you need to know of."

Nico Robin went under her desk and handed me another document.

Without looking at it, I grabbed it and -rustle- got up from my seat. "It was nice meeting you today, Miss Sunday… I have to leave for my training now."

Soon I left the room and headed back to begin my routine training.

Nico Robin laid her eyes on my leaving figure for a few long moments before returning to the administrative work in her hand.

**

The next day, I was summoned to take part in an important mission. It required me to take a ship and head to the Grand Line sea to engage in some illegal transactions.

Presently, at the deck of the ship, I was standing along with Nico Robin and surveying the ocean.

Since I hadn't been bothered to read the complete Intel on the mission, she was going over a brief summary of what we were doing here.

Turned out we were engaging with some pirates who claimed to have secured us some dance powder, which was a green powder that was used to make artificial rain.

When burnt, the powder would emit a mist like vapor that would rise up in the air and speed up the creation of ice particles in clouds that cause rain. At the same time, those clouds will no longer be able to cause rain at their original destination, resulting in a drought over there.

Even an idiot could tell that this world-wide illegal substance was being bought by Baroque Works to frame the Alabasta King.

"Do you want to me to go over something again, Mr.1?" Nico Robin asked. She was confirming whether I needed some extra briefing.

"Yeah, why the cat? Why not a wolf… maybe a leopard would have been much cooler!"

I pointed at the mask on my face which resembled a cat.

The cat mask was being used to hide my identity from everyone, so that I could smoothly sneak into the royal army later.

"Actually, the mask resembles a sea-cat. They are legendary animals that are sacred to Alabasta… You should be proud of it."

Nico Robin patted my shoulder with a small grin on her face.

"Sigh… Whatever, I'm going to be taking at nap in the captain's quarter."

I was a little annoyed with the cat's mask, since I totally wasn't capable of saying "Nyaah" after every sentence. I just headed to my quarters to avoid strolling about in a mask such as this.

…

The ship with its crew consisting of 'Millions' and 'Billions' of Baroque Works kept sailing without any hindrance.

In time, we had met the ships belonging to the pirates and even begun engaging in trade. All this while, I stayed in my quarters. It seemed my help would not be needed for this operation after all…

Thud…!

Nonetheless, I was wrong.

Nico Robin and a short man, with wavy long gray hair and a sword, barged into my quarters.

"There's a small problem…"

Nico Robin signaled me to come up to the deck. I nodded and followed them to the deck to find out five pirate ships who were all grouped together and aiming their canons at us.

"They said they wanted double the money for the dance powder… or they won't let us go."

"Oh…"

My brows pulled together into a scowl as I examined the formation of the ships closely.

Just then, the short man with the sword, standing next to us, snorted and took strides away from Robin and me. 'Hmph! Let's see what the great Mr.1 and his partner are capable of!"

With a slight frown, I thought, 'What the hell did I do to him?'

That question was instantly answered as Nico Robin shook her head and added, "That guy is Mr.11. He is angry that his position as a frontier agent was taken away after we got promoted without any achievements to back our value… Anyway, I think we can negotiate a fair deal with these pirates. They will be satisfied if w-"

"No need." I exclaimed, my voice loud and clear.

Then, I slowly began to approach the edge of the ship.

When I got close, a large man with fuzzy beard and eyebrows on the enemy ship narrowed his eyes at me. He had a very twisted smile on his face right now.

"Mwahahah! Are you giving us double the gold... or do we fire?! You have a minute to decide!"

I didn't reply but began to channel my gravitational forces in a few directions.

Zoom…!

Soon our ship flew to the sky and began to drift away from the formation of the pirate ships. They couldn't do anything to aim their cannons at the new altitude we were now at.

"W-What's happening?!"

"Their ship is flying away…! What do we do?!"

"I… It must be a Devil-Fruit!"

While the enemy ships began to rack their brain to stop our escape, everyone in my crew including Nico Robin was looking at me with wide eyes. They didn't know I had a Devil-Fruit with such a practical use.

But I just sneered loudly and said, "Everyone, the best part is just coming!!"

Whoosh…!

All of a sudden, a thundering noise that grew louder and louder was heard. The source of the sound was the sky itself.

When people began to turn their head upwards one by one, they couldn't help but begin to tremble uncontrollably or freeze in shock.

There was a single large meteor heading in the direction of the pirate ships… The men in those ships had noticed it too and were all shaking visibly.

"It's h-heading right at us!"

"Ahhh! Jump to the sea for your lives!"

Desperate voices began to come around from the pirates. Even their captain was running around in a frenzy, having lost his sense of sanity.

However, nothing could have helped these desperate people since I had declared them dead. Criminals like us don't have the right to complain when facing death.

If they threatened to kill us, I didn't mind returning the favor at all.

Booooom…!

Soon a massive explosion occurred around the region of the enemy ships. It instantly incinerated the ships and -swishh- caused a mini- tsunami and heavy shock waves to spread from the origin of impact.

Fortunately, our ship was safe as it had flown away a safe distance from the impact.

Our crew, on the other hand, was not doing so good….

Instead of getting back to their stations or bothering to check the status of the enemy, they were still frozen still, not daring to make a sound. In fact, Mr. 11 had fainted from shock and regret it seemed.

Nico Robin was pale too. "How incredibly strong!" She muttered.

Pant-Pant- Meanwhile, I was collecting my breath after this moderately heavy exertion of my Devil-Fruit powers…

'Only one meteor of this size is enough to tire me… Pathetic! I need to get stronger,' I clenched my fists tightly.