"Happy? Are you alright?" Erza asked gently.

"What happened to you? Are you here to fight?" Usopp questioned Law in a very loud and panicky voice.

"Room" Law moved his hand and his fingers and a bubble-looking dome surrounded them and went into the thick fog, "shambles."

Suddenly, two more people showed up in the ship's deck, next to Law himself. They both had messy hair and torn clothes and were unconscious.

"Lucy!"

"Sanji!"

Erza and Usopp looked at one another, each having said one different name. Robin, in the meantime, sprouted hands to move them both into a more comfortable position.

"We were attacked, I drew them away so the crew could escape," Law explained while the trio looked between him, the flying cat and the two unconscious blonde haired people.

"Someone managed to force you to escape?" Usopp shivered, "are they following you? Hey! Are they? Robin! We should toss him out and run! And wake Sanji up to fight!"

"Toss him out where?" Erza turned to Usopp, "there's only water around us."

"Erza! L-Lucy… we have to wake up Lucy!" Happy spoke, and the redhead looked down at the exceed again, "we have to save Natsu!"

Erza frowned.

"Someone attacked you and managed to win against Natsu? When Lucy was around?" She asked, impressed. It was no secret that Natsu fought thrice as hard when the blond was in danger.

Happy shook his head negatively.

"My job here is done, tell the mage that I am willing to break a deal to help her if she's still interested," Law spoke up, interrupting them, before using his Devil Fruit again and disappearing. A small paper appeared in his place. Erza picked it up and looked at it curiously.

"A Vivre Card," Robin spoke, looking at it, "Lucy, your friend, should be able to find him again with this if she so wishes. Before you tell them what happened, little cat, can we agree to keep following the Eternal Pose? It's unwise to stay still in this area for long."

Everyone agreed, so Robin asked Usopp to help her while Erza nd Happy went to the center of the deck, where they sat down to talk. Happy tried to wake Lucy and Sanji up but to no avail.

"I am assuming I should be thanking that guy for taking my friends along?" Erza asked Happy, who nodded.

"They only took me and Lucy because we asked," Happy shrugged, "we were the attackers' target. Someone's been hunting us down ever since we arrived here. Law and Sanji helped fight them and keep Lucy safe. Sanji seemed really determined to protect Lucy. He seems to like her."

Usopp slapped his own forehead looking a mixture of exasperated and annoyed.

"This sounds like Sanji alright," he muttered,

"Since Luffy doesn't want to meet anytime soon, there's no reason why he shouldn't help her. We could, too, I guess," Robin pointed out.

"Luffy is your captain, too?" Happy asked Usopp and Robin, and they both nodded, "so Nami and Zoro are your friends, right?"

"You've seen them?" Usopp smiled instantly.

"Aye! They're with Wendy and Charle," Happy looked at Erza, who relaxed a little at the mention of the group's youngest member, "the people who attacked us might attack them, too. Lucy thinks they're after all seven of us," he added.

"So we really are in danger!" Usopp whined, wiping sweat off his forehead.

They took turns telling what each of them had been doing up to their meeting, with everyone but Happy speaking.

"What happened to Lucy then?" Erza asked Happy.

"We were in a foggy area," he started, looking at the Florian Triangle that stayed behind, "and suddenly another submarine appeared and attacked us. Bepo had to move the submarine we were on above water so Law could fight back, but there were four other ships waiting," Usopp's eyes widened, "Sanji fought, too, but when some of the attackers got closer, he chose to protect Lucy. She started running out of magic, it's been happening a lot since we got here."

Erza frowned.

"She's been running out of magic?" Erza repeated, wondering if magic there was somewhat harder to use. Maybe Lucy had been using it more often than Erza herself, which is why the redhead hadn't noticed it yet.

"Aye! She said this world consumes it faster or something. Maybe that's how they captured Natsu, right?"

"Who captured Natsu, Happy? You never mentioned him in this story."

"This is giving me a headache," Usopp complained, rubbing his head.

"Aye! It's confusing!" Happy said in a high pitched voice, though it wasn't as cheery as his usual self, "but then the whole battle became confusing, and Lucy asked me to fly her away so the enemies would follow us. When we started flying, someone shot me down and Law suddenly disappeared and reappeared everywhere, it was fast and confusing… but he started drawing them away... until he fell on the water. So I dropped Lucy with Sanji and went to catch him, but when I did that a man with weird hands caught up to Lucy and did something that made the two of them pass out. They were about to be taken when you rescued us and Law used his power to bring them here."

Erza nodded, barely believing their luck. If they had been just a tad slower, Lucy would have been captured.

"They'll wake up and we're a bigger group now, we can fight back if we have to," she assured Happy, "we'll find Gray, Wendy, Charle and Natsu and figure out how to go home soon, ok?" Though I still don't understand what Natsu's got to do with this story."

"I don't know much about that either. Lucy had a dream and said he is in danger, and she was scared and weird," he shrugged, his huge eyes looking clueless and worried.

Erza nodded.

"We'll find him too. Robin, you said you think your crew will meet up in the place we're heading to, right?"

"Before our captain told us to wait, yes. Now I'm not sure. But if Nami and Zoro are with your friend, they might help her meet up with the rest of your group."

Erza nodded.

"So we try to do that, focus on finding the group that Wendy's with. It should be easier to track down infamous pirates than it would be to track down our group since we're all unknown in this world. Plus, assuming Natsu really is trapped, Wendy is the only Dragon Slayer left and we will need her senses. Her powers, too."

Happy nodded, and they all turned to Robin and Usopp for guidance on how to help sailing the ship. Every now and then, they checked on Lucy and Sanji.

This time there was fire.

It burned everywhere.

He could almost feel it touching his skin. Almost taste it.

The hunger was unbearable. His stomach hurt - his entire body hurt, and food was right there! A few inches away.

If he could just eat, he could break out.

A female laughter caught his attention and he turned. Long thin fingers touched his cheek through the cage, almost like caressing a domestic animal.

Only he wasn't anything like a quiet settled type, and she knew it, for she retreated her hand fast.

"Hungry, are we? We know your food preferences. This must be torture," she smiled provocatively and moved away from him. She picked up a burning stick and drove it close to him. He instinctively moved towards it, opening his mouth...

She moved it away.

He growled. The sound was animalistic, beastly even, almost as if he really were a creature, not a human being.

He surely felt an animalistic urge to attack her. Attack anyone and anything that could provide him some sort of food.

She turned around and left him. He saw her walk away, through some stone ruins, and on one of them there was a message written in blood. His blood.

The Turnabout Point.

Lucy woke up gasping.

Nami's heart was beating so fast she was pretty sure it would fly off. She still couldn't believe the situation they ended up in, and couldn't even decide whether they had been lucky or unlucky.

When Blackbeard, the man who stole Whitebeard's Devil Fruit and orchestrated the entire war to begin with by capturing Ace, appeared in front of them, darkess - pure, empty, darkness, surrounding him and making it seem like time had stopped still, she was one hundred per cent sure they were done for.

Ace actually froze for a slight second, too, probably out of rage, not fear, but whatever it was, saved their lives.

Wendy screamed, covering her ears and saying something about noise. It didn't seem like the regular, battlefield related, noise was bothering her - it hadn't been before. She started when Blackbeard appeared with his darkness. Nami wondered if she could sense something nobody else could out of that.

It was Gray who saved their asses. Taking advantage of Ace's split-second hesitation, the mage pushed the pirate away and made an exact replica of Ace - even his pose - out of ice. Nami, picking up on his idea without even asking him, used her mirage tempo to make a second one, with color, next to it, and then a bunch of others.

Slowly they were surrounded by mirage-Aces, so many that Charle and Chopper managed to sneak away with the real one.

Leaving Nami, Wendy and Gray alone to face off a very annoyed Blackbeard, who didn't think their little trick was funny or impressive. Apparently seeing Ace made him think he had failed at the one thing he worked hard to accomplish (well, one of a few things, but one of them nonetheless) and Blackbeard wasn't a man who fancied working hard for stuff: he usually just let everything up to fate.

So having kids (as he called them) pretending like fate was against Blackbeard was something unforgivable.

Gray seemed ready to fight when he said such words, and told his men to aprehend the trio, but Nami put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"I can't fight, not enough to defeat his men anyway, there are too many of them, and she's in no condition either," she pointed at Wendy who looked terrified and in shock and pain.

She was shaking and covering her ears, her eyes were wide and tearful.

Gray nodded and put a protective hand on each of their shoulders, in a 'won't let them separate us' sort of way. Nami found it rather endearing, and thought of Luffy.

His skills would have been useful there: he could have just flung them away with his rubber arms.

On second thought, Luffy would have chosen to fight.

After leaving the Galley-la company members for his crewmates to handle - whoever those people were - Blackbeard enlisted Lafitte to escort the three prisioners to a separate area of the town. They also put seastone cuffs on each of them - assuming that Gray's powers came from a Paramecia Fruit, probably.

So now they were being escorted by Blackbeard and Lafitte, and Nami couldn't control her heartbeat. She tried to repeat to herself that they'd be fine: Gray and Wendy had no problem using their powers with seastone, and Zoro and Ace were out there somewhere too. If Blackbeard decided to just imprision them and deal with them later, they'd have no problem escaping.

If the pirate decided to punish them first, however...

"Can your ice do something within that darkness of his?" Nami wondered, staring at Gray.

"ZEHAHAHAHA. Not even Aokiji's powers can do anything against mine, foolish girl," Blackbeard's loud laughter made her jump, startled, not having realized she had asked the question in a loud voice. "The skills of you two combined are useful, however. What about instead of getting rid of you, we get you with us?"

Nami frowned. Didn't he know who she was?

"Sir, she's with Strawhat's crew," Lafitte spoke, and she cursed inwardly. Him not knowing increased her chances of getting out of there, "she was in Mock Town with Strawhat and Roronoa."

Blackbeard's expression lightened up a bit - he looked interested and amused at that fact.

He reached out to touch her, and she stepped away quickly, with Gray positioning himself to fight.

Gray, however, never moved a muscle. Blackbeard's hand touched not Nami's shoulder, but the sharp side of a blade.

Nami smiled, relief running through her veins. However strong Gray was, it still felt better, safer, with another crewmate there.

"What took you so long to find us, idiot?"

"Sorry," the reply was muffled by the sword in his mouth, "got lost."