Cerberus?

"We found Simon! He's with this man." An excited man carried Rogge's wanted poster into a tavern deep in an alley.

"Whew!"

"Simon, huh? He was supposed to be R's partner, wasn't he? Too bad not just anyone can work with her." The speaker was a woman with a pipe, deep-blue hair, and a waist slender enough to encircle with one hand. She was one of Baroque Works' senior agents, though she had only joined recently.

"No wonder you came to me. He must be tough to handle. A pirate with a fifty-million-Beli bounty calls for me and R1. He's in Rainbase too, so bring him in. Get more of you Billions together as well. Those pirates probably have men under them." The woman smiled.

"Yes, Miss Doublefinger."

Miss Doublefinger smiled. She looked friendly enough now, but anyone who knew her understood that she was no lily. She was a rose covered in thorns.

At the restaurant, Rogge and the others finally ate their fill. Nearly every cook in the kitchen had collapsed, and the owner had stopped serving anyone else. In more than thirty years of running the place, he had never seen appetites like theirs.

"So full." Rogge leaned back in his chair, his belly swollen, with no desire to move.

"It's been ages since I ate without holding back." Ham picked his teeth with a toothpick.

"Who brought money?" Rogge asked after a quiet moment.

"Not me," Ham said with a grin.

"Me neither," Jelly said, smiling.

Cook shook his head to show he hadn't brought any either.

Jerry had never cared much about money, so there was no point asking him. That left Simon and Ares.

"I didn't bring any," Simon said with a laugh.

Everyone turned to the last one: Ares.

Ares's face tightened. Gritting his teeth, he pulled out a pouch. He had known these bastards were going to stick him with the bill. No wonder they had asked whether he had money before they left the ship. They had been setting him up all along.

"Boss, the bill." Rogge took Ares's pouch, poured out ten gold coins, and tossed them to the owner.

The owner caught the coins in both hands. Each bore its denomination, and the number of Beli a standard gold coin could be exchanged for was fixed. There was more than enough to cover the bill.

The owner was dumbfounded. He hadn't expected pirates to pay for their meal. Had he misjudged them? His face reddened when he remembered notifying the bounty hunters.

Though he felt bad about what he had done to Rogge and the others, he would not apologize. He preferred to avoid the trouble. Some people denied their mistakes to save face, only to keep making worse ones until they committed a terrible wrong.

It was best not to befriend such people. If someone refused to compromise or admit fault, insisted on having everything their own way, and only wanted to take without giving, their friends would inevitably be the ones hurt.

The owner went off delighted with his payment. Rogge and the others, full of food and drink, brewed a pot of tea and sat for a while to let their meal settle before getting to their feet.

"Let's go to the casino," Rogge said, striding out.

"Did you bring money?" Jelly asked, glancing at him.

"Didn't Ares?" Rogge said with a grin.

"That's my own money, not the group's!" Ares shouted, clutching his pouch.

"Relax. We'll reimburse you when we get back. Just lend it to us for now," Ham said with a smile.

"That's more like it. But you've wasted my time, so you'll have to pay a little extra," Ares said.

"No problem." They had plenty of money now, so Ham, the group's treasurer, waved a generous hand. He would reimburse Ares and pay him extra.

The group arrived at the largest casino in Rainbase.

Rain Dinners looked like a pyramid from the outside. It was the largest casino in Alabasta, and no one dared cause trouble there. People could gamble without worry because its owner was Crocodile, one of the Shichibukai.

"Casinos all look the same." Rogge found nothing remarkable about the lavish decor. The first things they saw inside were the slot machines.

Those machines swallowed the most money, and because they were electronic, they were also the easiest to rig.

They exchanged money for chips and started gambling. Some won and some lost. Rogge lost all his money, as did Jelly, Cook, and Simon.

The winners turned out to be Jerry, Ares, and the wily old Ham. Jerry was a simpleton with sheer luck on his side: whatever he bet on came up, and he won the most. Ham came next. He knew his way around a card game and doubled his chips without trouble.

Ares brought up the rear with a small profit. He played all sorts of games like a guerrilla fighter, placing a little bet here and another there.

Once they had played enough, Rogge's Den Den Mushi began to cry loudly from inside his coat.

"What's wrong?" Cook asked.

"Thieves have come to the ship. Let's go back. We're not letting them take what we fought so hard to steal." Rogge looked down at the crying Den Den Mushi.

"Let's go."

Jelly, who had lost his money long ago, couldn't wait to leave. He wanted to get more money from the ship, then come back for another round.

Meanwhile, the Asura lay anchored behind a rock. They were pirates; they could hardly leave their ship sitting openly in the harbor and invite someone to steal it. Ham had moored it in a secluded spot.

Now a crowd had gathered around the pirate ship, smiling at the sight of it offshore.

"So they hid their ship here. No wonder it took us so long to find. Good thing we followed the coastline," said the Billions agent leading them.

"Should we destroy their ship?" a man beside him asked.

The Billions agent shook his head. "There's bound to be treasure aboard a pirate ship, and this one looks pretty good. We could use another ship. Let's steal it."

The group climbed aboard. They failed to notice the Den Den Mushi on the mast watching them and raising the alarm for Rogge.

They boarded carefully. Plenty of pirate ships had traps, and sometimes someone would hide in a corner, waiting to ambush intruders. They had to stay alert.

Weapons in hand, they searched the deck. Finding nothing suspicious, they climbed the mast and inspected the place where Rogge trained, then shook their heads. Nothing there.

The cabins were next. The group approached the entrance cautiously.

"Awooo!"

The howl startled them so badly that every one of them jumped like a grasshopper.

"A wild beast!"

"It must be one they keep. Sounds like a hyena!"

"No, that's not a dog. It's a wolf—a vicious gray wolf."

"Then why does it sound like a dog to me?"

"It couldn't be the legendary Cerberus, could it?"