28: escape

Along their escape the crew finally noticed Alex's disguise and were shocked at how well she managed to look like a whole new person, as the only thing the same is her piercings, hair and eyes, everything else is different. Even her gender! They managed to meet multiple groups of marines but luffy took them out using his gatling punch and they broke outside, where they saw the commander of the base Jonathan on a balcony above them. Luffy stops to talk to him about how he freed his friends and they were going to escape from here, this gives the marines enough time to aim the cannons at them. The marines fired a volley of shots at them causing them ti run away from that area or be crushed by either the cannons or the rocks falling due to the cannons.

Usopp led them to the docks but to get there they have to cross a bridge that looks like the perfect place for a trap, before anyone could think about how to cross it luffy charged straight ahead without thinking, causing the rest to chase after him. When they reached the halfway point they were surrounded by marines, who hid underneath snd on top of the bridge waiting for them. The marines charge at the crew who separated to fight better causing it to be a group brawl rather tham one side vs the other, alex who as soon as she saw the marines brought out her yo-yos and started her fight.

Alex made the yoyo an extension of her body using it in every strike and every dodge. She was calculating to ensure that the yo-yos are in continuous motion, be they striking the enemy, blocking attacks, redirecting focus or helping alex dodge by grabbing items and pulling herself towards them, they were in constant use like a whirlwind around Alex's location. Alex used the yo-yos to block strikes by placing them in her hand and putting them in the path of the strike, using the motion of the yoyo to hit the attack in another direction or using the string to move the strikes direction while simultaneously changing the direction of the yoyo into an un-expecting person.

The crew was fighting well until luffy ended up breaking part if the bridge and dropping them all into the water below, this caused luffy and alex to be unable to fight and needing to be dragged to shore. Usopp then Leads them the rest of the way to their ship at dock 88 where they are greeted by multiple marines waiting for them, where they are immediately fired at. Luffy balloons and bounces the bullets back at the marines. The commander then orders they fire tear gas at the crew from bazookas, which caused the crew minus usopp who was wearing goggles to struggle to see through their tears and coughing.

The marines seeing this rush the crew while wearing goggles to fight in close combat, this is a horrible idea as the strawhats are a mainly close combat type of crew where the only person doing attacks from a distance is usopp. Luffy uses gum gum gatling and whip sending everyone in-front of his flying this includes alex, sanji and zoro who are then thrown into the crowd of fallen marines getting up sanji and zoro yell at luffy and each other. Alex sneaks back into the crowd of marines which was quite easy as shes still dressed as one, and made her way towards the merry.

On her way to the merry she hears screaming back by the crew so she turn and looks just in time to watch usopp get run over by a hospital bed! Seeing nami, chopper and a random doctor were the cause alex continued to the merry ignoring everything else as she had faith that her crew would be able to make it to the merry. When she gets to the merry alex sees the old man who talked to usopp off to the side working on what looks to be the chain keeping their ship on the ramp, seeing as he looks like he knows what to do to free the shop alex walked over to him.

"Hey what do i need to do to free the ship?"

Alex asked the old man who looks her over and seeing her uniform starts to berate her for questioning her senior. Alex quickly interrupts his rant saying she is part of the long nose guys crew and she saw him talking to him earlier, he then tells her that the crank he's turning amd the lever next to it would free the ship making alex take over to finish faster. As she was pulling the lever she hears the command to attack, and she frees the ship a second later which causes all to pause and look at the ship in question. Alex thanks the old man before jumping into the ship and yelling for the crew

"Hurry up or I'm going to leave you!"

Which caused luffy to sling everyone onto the ship brutally crashing them into the deck if the ship as it sets off from the docks. The marines seeing the, escape could only fire warning shots as they thought nami was a hostage and were afraid of injuring her by mistake. The crew then sail merry along the on side of the fort, making it so they would only be able to fire cannons from one side and not both.

Robin came swinging in using her devil fruit and handed a map of the fort to nami causing her to start crying about how only robin is on her side. Nami them leads them to the gate blocking the only way out if the fort before telling usopp to get the cannons ready to break through, he comes back telling her that all the cannon balls and anything they could use for explosives was missing. The marines near the gate all fire their cannons at thinking to sink it as they were trapped. This worked against them as luffy ballooned and bounced all the cannon balls back into the gate keeping them trapped causing it to explode and clear the way for them, while also causing hige amounts of smoke to block everyones view.

Nami after thinking for a bit realizes that if they took all their weapons then they must have taken the gold, causing her to freak out until alex said

"If your worried about the gold, don't be. I took all of our gold with me before leaving the ship, i also raided the treasury of the base on my way ti free zoro so we now have even more gold than what we started with."

This caused nami to start crying and tried to claim the money instantly, which alex shut down as if she frees the gold the ship would be slower. Alex them asked if they have enough supplies to be able to make it to the next island, which caused the crew to look before finding they didn't have enough for even a few days of travel! Nami then got them to turn the ship in the cloud and head back into the fortress, effectively disappearing from the marines who charged out of the fortress in what they though as a chase of the pirates.

Nami as the excellent navigator that she is managed to make her way through the smoke dodging the incoming marines by listening to their warning bells used to alert other marine ships nearby so they don't crash into each other. The crew watched with baited breathes as nami got them passed each ship, even if some of them came close to crashing into them. Usopp pointed out that as soon as they leave the cloud they would be sitting ducks for the multiple turrets around the fort, which caused robin to bring out another map of the fortress and point out it used ti have more people and ships but due to a military downsizes the base has been in decline making many unused docks around the base.

Nami then lead them to an unused dock where they hide the merry before sitting down and discussing about how to get the supplies, which caused Alex to volunteer her skills in disguising them. After they talked for awhile luffy decided that they need a shipwright for their crew as they need the merry repaired as soon as possible, as it is their home and they need to be able to tale proper care of it. Usopp got everyone to help make the merry look like a navy ship from the outside before setting out a plan to get the supplies amd the waver which nami left behind. He split the crew into teams with one team going to get the supplies, one getting the waver and one to watch the ship which alex volunteered for, the split was luffy, zoro, robin and himself for getting supplies, nami, and sanji getting the waver and chopper and alex watching the ship.

The crew split up and alex went to her room to change out of her disguise chest was getting sore after wearing the open front bind for so long, she came out dressed in her leather jacket, a cream v-neck t-shirt, orange cargo shorts, combat boots and her hat, she also went back to her normal 8'4 size. Alex came out to see chopper pacing seeming worried, just as she was about to ask whats bothering him Nami and Sanji returned on the waver. Nami asked if the rest were back yet and when she learned they weren't she left sanji and went out to see whats taking them so long.

After awhile zoro, robin and usopp returned saying that nami took luffy to get the supplies as the commander of the base had them moved to his office as bait for the crew, and that they would meet them near the port. The crew then set sail and watched for nami and luffy who returned shortly and they made their way to the gate out to sea, while following a navy ship that was heading there in front of them.

As they passed the navy ship they smashed the disguise on the merry off by hitting the side of the marine ship, which caused the navy ship to crash letting them pass unchallenged on their way to the gate. As they were sailing the marine ship behind them dropped anchor which started to worry nami until they heard the sound of rushing water like that of a river, which csused her to realize that there is a outward going low tide at this time.

Nami then explains hwo she was at first confused why the entrance to the island was by reefs and why there was specific time of entrance and exit for ships, but she understands now as it allows the fort to become an inescapable net of mother nature when the tide hits. The ship them hits a reef causing a hole to appear in the hull and luffy to fall into the water, before the crew could work on fixing the hole and saving luffy the water disappeared leaving the shop stranded on the ground. As they were grounded the commander came onto speaker phones and spoke to them about surrendering, this caused luffy to laugh. The crew gathers as usopp explains how he could use the inlact dial to get the ship to float, but they would them sink when they land back inti the waters causing them to wish they had the octopus as of they could re inflate it they could then fly away, as they each took turns around the circle they were in wishing they had the octopus luffy said he had it when it was his turn, this caused the, to each say he has it in turn around the circle.

Ass they finally realized what luffy said they were shocked taht he kept it, luffy them pulls it out of his oants as the crew asked why he still has it

"It saved out lives ln our way back from the sky"

Was his reply as sanji, and zoro asked if it felt gross confusing luffy as he didn't know what they meant. Usopp now having sll the tools needed asked who would be the one to use the impact dial, causing the crew to look at him with black covering their eyes with a star shinning from where the eye should be while asking who's impact it was and how whosever it was would have to use it. This made usopp despair!

The crew then blasts off into the sky using the impact dial while robin and nami inflate the octopus with a breath dial and luffy uses a flame dial to make the air rise but they still start falling, Usopp then blasts the impact dial again causing them to start flying over the mountain made walls of the fortress. As they were passing a cannon that was aimed at them a rocket hit the cliff above it causing the rocks to fall into the cannon, alex looked to see where it came from and saw inspector shepherd amd decided to have fun in the way out

"Thank you for all your help Condoriano!! We couldn't have made it this far without you!!"

The crew then made it out of the fortress leaving behind.