Spandam threw back his head and laughed his insane laugh. Victory was his. He had Nico Robin, and the CP9 would take care of the pirates. He dragged her behind him, taking her to the processing chamber. She'd probably die before she'd talk, but he could just extract all the information directly from her body.

"Wa ha ha ha ha!" He laughed as he dragged her along the ground. "I can't believe how easy that was! You're going to make me the greatest hero the world has ever known! All I need to do is take the information from your useless body, and I'll be promoted for certain."

Robin sobbed quietly, and dug her heels into the ground, trying to stop the forward motion. She wrenched her arm out of Spandam's grasp, and began running the other way. I just need to hold on a little longer, she thought. Everyone's coming to rescue me!

"Where do you think you're going?" Spandam shouted, pushing her from behind. She tumbled to the floor, crying out as her face hit the solid ground. She tried to get back up, but Spandam was on top of her now, kicking her viciously in the ribs.

"Where are you going to go? The only things back there are your friends' dead bodies!" he shouted as he stomped on her back. "There's nobody coming to save you, you stupid bitch! You belong to us now!"

"They said they would come!" Robin shouted desperately. "Do you even understand what you're doing here? Why you're fighting? Why you're killing people?"

Spandam stopped kicking her, and grabbed her by the front of her dress, holding her teary face at eye level. "I don't care about a reason," he said. "All I want is my promotion. What happens after that is none of my business."

"And them?" Robin asked. "Your lap dogs? Do they know why?"

Spandam burst out laughing again. "Are you kidding, little girl?" he said, throwing his head back. "They know even less than I do, and they don't care. They just follow orders like good little agents."

Robin glared at him, her eyes filled with determination. "Then you will never be able to beat them" she said, her voice laced with conviction. "They will come for me. Everybody's coming to save me."

Spandam reached back a hand to slap her, but before he could he heard a sound. A quiet, pulsating noise. He lost interest in Robin for the moment, looking around to try and identify the source.

The sound was followed by a rumbling, the very ground beneath him vibrating and shaking. Spandam's glaces became more frantic, trying desperately to figure out what was causing the problem.

Could one of them gotten through? He wondered, and then dismissed it. This CP9 was the strongest ever. There was no way that it could lose to some rabble like this--

The ground broke beneath his feet as a the tip of a massive drill thrust through from below. Spandam panicked, tumbling backwards to get out of its way. Robin fell on the other side of it, the intruder cutting Spandam off.

The drill was followed by a giant mecha, bursting through the hole that the drill had left behind. The drill retracted into its hand, and it knelt in the passageway, which was barely large enough to contain its bulk.

It extended on hand down to where Nico Robin was standing, and a smaller drill trust out, piercing the handcuffs that bound her and her powers.

Now free, she stumbled forward. A hatch on the forehead of the robot, hidden below the large tuft of blue 'hair', slid backwards with a hiss, and a gold-and-red cloak burst through the gap, ruffling in the wind.

And arm stretched out from the cockpit, grabbing her gently by the waist, and then retracted, pulling Robin upwards, to where he was waiting.

"Luffy..." she said quietly as the Pirate King held her in his arms.

"I came to save you, Robin," he said. "Just like I promised."

Tears streaming freely down her face, Robin nodded.

Luffy reached down into the cockpit's exterior, and threw a lever foreward. Five drills shot out of the machine's body, impacting the ground in front of them. The top of each opened, and in each stood one of Robin's friends: Zoro. Sanji. Nami. Chopper. The mysterious Sogeking.

"Th-th-this is impossible!" Spandam shouted from the ground. "How could you possibly have defeated my agents? No human being can possibly--"

"Don't underestimate us!" Luffy shouted. "Power, strength, even the entire world's might, they don't mean anything! If our friends are in trouble, we'll surpass the impossible, and kick reason to the curb! That is who we are: the Straw Hat Pirate Crew!"

He dropped down into the cockpit, taking Robin with him. The giant mecha's eyes flared to life, and it stood upwards suddenly, breaking the ceiling and sending rubble tumbling down upon the hapless Spandam.

The robot drew back one hand, forming it into a massive drill, and it thrust forward towards Spandam's panicking form. The CP9's director screamed in terror as the bit spun through the air, on a trajectory that ended right between his eyes.

The drill sheared harmlessly to the side as a shield of light appeared in front of Spandam's face. Sparks flew as it tried to pierce the shield, but it wound up running itself into the ground.

Spandam turned around and saw Rob Lucci's sleek black mecha, in Leopard-man mode, with one hand extended to project the shield.

"Oi, Lucci!" Spandam shouted, kicking the robot angrily in the toe. "What took you so long?! Protecting me is supposed to be your top priority!"

"I apologize, Director," Lucci said smoothly. "I was unavoidably detained."

Spandam turned back to the Straw Hats, confidence returning to his face. "Wa ha ha ha! Now the tables have turned!" he shouted triumphantly. "There's no way you can hope to beat Rob Lucci! His strength is way above normal, even for a rokushiki user!"

"Do you really think that matters!?"

Spandam looked down, to where Chopper was standing with his arms crossed. The reindeer-man was glaring at him, with fire blazing in his eyes.

"It doesn't matter how strong he is. He'll never be able to beat Luffy."

"Oh?" Lucci asked. "And why is that?"

"Because," Chopper said, "he's going to be the Pirate King!"

"What ridiculous nonsense," Lucci said. "As if that had anything to do with it."

Luffy grinned at him from inside his mecha's cockpit. "Wanna try and find out?" he asked.

Lucci's mech shot forward, lunging for Luffy's, but a burst of green light flared between them, sending Lucci flying backwards into a wall.

The five drills closed up again, sealing the crewmembers inside, and then they took off from the ground. Luffy's mech grew, and grew again, and then the drills containing the five crewmembers slammed home, and the whole scene was lost in a brilliant storm of Spiral Energy; A storm which grew, and grew, and grew again, until its size eclipsed the very galaxies. And then a cry went up from its center, so loud that it split the heavens:

"SUUUUUUUUUPERRRRRRRR!"

A hand formed. Then an arm, and a leg, and then the rest of the body. The head came last, bursting roughly out of the top of the torso.

"Even if the whole world should turn against us," Robin began, gripping the controls.

"Our faith in our friends will protect us!" Nami finished from a separate cockpit.

"And when the odds are their longest, and the end seems near," Sanji said, flicking away his cigarette.

"We'll follow our dreams, and they'll see us through to the end!" Zoro said.

Finally, the transformation was complete. As the green light faded, giving a clear view, all of them shouted together:

"Tengen Toppa Battle Franky! Who the hell do you think we are?"