One Piece: Dream of Immortality

'How many times is this idiot going to walk in circles?' Cherry was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her decision to follow Wapol around like a lost little duckling.

Was fate still messing with her over the thing with Hawkins? She figured that was dying down when she slipped on a random banana peel twenty minutes ago, but maybe it was trying to lure her into a false sense of security. She wasn't familiar with this world's forces of destiny, after all, so anything was possible.

*rumble*

Cherry felt a jolt in the floor beneath her feet, spreading from somewhere up ahead. It was almost like the feeling of a shockwave from a distant explosion, but without the accompanying sound. Curious.

Wapol apparently agreed, because he immediately changed direction to move towards whatever it was that made the shockwave. Cherry followed, naturally.

Despite the distant feeling of the shockwave, the source was apparently quite close by. She first heard the sound of a bullet punching through stone, which was soon followed by faint sounds of a battle from the new hole in the wall.

Wapol pressed himself up against the wall, doing his best to peer into the next room over through the bullet hole. Cherry was about to move him so she could have a look for herself, when he suddenly jerked backwards, falling onto his behind and scrabbling away until he bumped into a pillar.

The shocked look on his face told Cherry that whatever he had just born witness to was probably something he'd get killed over, or at least that he thinks he might.

Cherry ignored Wapol for the moment and bounded over to the hole in the wall. A single glance was all that she needed to see to get the gist of what was happening.

"What the fuck are those things…?" Cherry's eyes widened as she immediately burrowed into the floor below her. "That was close…"

She very nearly got spotted by the occupants of the room. They were monsters the likes of which she had never seen before. Especially the one at the back; just looking at it gave her the heebie-jeebies. Cherry had an inkling that that thing was the source of the wrongness of this place.

More importantly, though, was the fact that King Cobra was at the mercy of those disgusting things, and he was already in rough shape. Sabo was there too, also injured, but compared to Cobra he was in much less danger.

Cherry dug her way through the thick stone floor. She couldn't avoid using Life Sense to navigate, so she kept it to the bare minimum that she needed. Even that forced her to swallow down bile that involuntarily crawled up her throat.

'There!' Cherry found her target.

She burst forth from the stone floor. A massive worm-like creature bore down onto the defenseless king of Alabasta. Cherry grabbed Cobra around the waist and yanked him back down into her tunnel.

The actions undoubtedly saved Cobra's life, but the haste necessary to make it in time caused his already serious injuries to worsen further.

Luckily, she didn't see Sabo anywhere in the room. The scant few seconds that Cobra bought him were enough for a man of his strength to get away, or at least get a head start on doing so.

The two of them fell from the ceiling below them as Cherry broke through it, but they did not hit the floor. Cherry kicked off the air with her legs, pushing herself to the utmost of her speed towards the closest window.

*CRASH*

The worm-thing bulldozed through the ceiling with mountain crushing might and landed on the floor below with a literal earth shattering boom. It took only a moment to locate the escaping duo before it barreled down the hallways after them.

"What the fuck is that thing, dude?!" Cherry hissed at the half-conscious Cobra.

"... Don't… Know… Elders…" Cobra managed to murmur, but his critical state and Cherry's rough handling of him wasn't conducive for giving clear answers to her questions. He probably didn't even know who she was at the moment.

The words he did manage to get out painted an ugly picture for Cherry, though. If he was saying those monsters are the elders of the celestial dragons, then this world was more fucked than she ever imagined.

*Smash!*

Cherry burst through one of the tall windows at the end of the hallway and out into the courtyard. Several members of various royal families looked up in surprise, quickly moving away so as to not get caught up in whatever was happening.

A woman screamed after a second of stunned silence. A young man shouted, "That's King Cobra! Did that brigand kill him?!"

Cherry paid no mind to the crowd. She was more worried about the fact that the worm wasn't giving chase any longer. 'Does it not want to reveal itself, or is it up to something else?'

She didn't stop to mull it over, though. She swept over all of Mary Geoise with her Life Sense, minus the castle itself.

"Damn it…" Cherry cursed. She found the Alabastan guards, but not Vivi. As Cobra's daughter, she may very well be in grave danger as well. If she was in the castle, then there was no easy way for Cherry to find her.

Could Cherry further risk Cobra's life, which was definitely in danger, in order to search for Vivi, who was only possibly in danger?

'Vivi wouldn't want me to.' Of that, Cherry was certain. She was also certain that Cobra would tell her to dump him and save his daughter instead

In the end, one of those two was in her hands right now, and the other wasn't. If she abandoned Cobra, they might both die. She decided to secure Cobra first and come back to Vivi.

"Why did a fun day of messing with self absorbed losers have to turn into a shit fest like this?" Cherry grit her teeth.

She was pretty sure that fate wasn't done with her yet, after all.

*Shing!*

Cherry twisted out of the way of a flying sword slash, one which would have actually hurt her and split Cobra in half if she hadn't moved.

The weirdo with the crescent moon hair watched her with eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Yup, fate was still screwing with her.

"You have to kill them quickly, Garling. Failure isn't an option," a den den mushi in his off hand growled at the man.

"I have them in my sights," Garling responded.

Cherry clicked her tongue and burst into motion directly away from Garling. A veritable storm of slashes seemed to chase after her, ripping into nearby rooftops as they missed their mark.

Cherry hated this. She couldn't fight properly while she was dragging Cobra along, otherwise she'd just charge the bastard and rip him a new asshole. Alas, her opponent was skilled enough that she couldn't ensure the old king's life if she did so.

Escape was the only real option, but at this high altitude she couldn't get the traction she needed on this thin air to properly use the Soru/Geppo combo move, Kamisori. If she wanted more speed, she had to drop to the ground and use regular Soru.

"Just my rotten luck…" Cherry bemoaned.