"Your Help?" Jeanne asked. Causing the cat to roll her eyes. "Tch– Just follow me. Let me show you something." The Cat walked out in front of Leroy, purposefully rubbing up against the captains leg as her back legs swayed just as a typical felines would
The crew looked amongst each other, and then shifted to look to Leroy who gave a slight shrug as he turned and began following the cat.
"I suppose I should Introduce myself. You can call me Kitty." She said as she hopped up onto the slightly raised lining of the cobble road "And are you really–" Dezzi began
"A Cat? Kinda." She shrugs her shoulders mid stride. "But if your asking if I'm human. Yes. I am a human. I ate the Neko Neko no Mi Model: Cheshire"
"Cheshire?" Cali asked "What, do you live under a rock? Said to be mythical cats that wander abandoned paths and find those who are lost"
"Huh." Leroy gave a surprised noise as she continued "But, as for what I wanted to show you…." She suddenly disappeared into a purple mist, causing the others to recoil before reforming a distance, in front of a window with amber light leaking out.
By this point, the crew was beginning to feel just how hot the island was. A dry heat that was like feeling a heat wave from a few feet from a stove. As they stepped onto the grass, they could feel the crunch from the cracking dirt.
The Island of Hard Rock was filled with these aspects. Literal Hard Jagged rock across the island, dry cracking earth, and the ambient heat from the volcano.
The very sky was a slight maroon color from the magma in the mountain. Different than the pitch black sky of the Bleak Stretch
Kitty thumbed a dexterous digit inside the window. "Take a peak will you?" Kitty's smile stretched all the way up to just below her eye.
Peering in the Crew could see a group of men sat around a long dining table. One of them had a black dot of a nose, with what looked to be whiskers on his upper lip a distraught and exhausted look on his face
Another wore a felt hat, and had long scraggly tangled hat, and stared lifelessly into a time piece connected to a chain. "Those two used to make hats together. They sailed the Grand Line thinking it was the best place for their sales was in a place called the pirates graveyard."
"Many such cases. They all think they'll be fine 'We're not Pirates. The Marines will help us. And yet here they are. Wrong place at the right time. That what happened to all of them"
"Everybuilding. All 1,000 buildings in 10 blocks of 100. House over 50,000 people. And each is a slave." She began to walk in a spiral going upward. "And thats not even all of them."
She went into a dive, before disappearing into mist and reappearing directly in front of Leroys face. "Barbary has entire Islands meant to house Slaves. Innsmouth, Chrisdom, and more all in the bleak stretch house hundreds of thousands of slaves that are constantly being shipped all over the world to the Highest bidder…"
A look of shock came over the less stoic of the Crew. "These here, they switch
"What do you mean all of them?" Eddie asked as the crew watched Kitty floated up into the air high above them "Every single person in the town of Kaninchenbau, all cycle out serving at Barnaby's castle."
"Castle Kov-Ulu is at the Tail end of the Island. Built into the Volcano. But to get there you must go through the rest of the Island. Which one its own would be difficult given the predators that lurk within."
"But Barbary wants you here. He planned to trap you here since the beginning. And because of that, he's flooded the entire area between here and Kov-Ulu with his horde and the rest of his crew…."
Leroy looked to Kále, then to Noir and Kirk. "So what do you propose we Do?"
"Well, if you want to take on Barbary. You're gonna have to get to the Castle where he'll be waiting for you to be. Deckard, Kuro, Alma, Caldera, Sir Gigantus and more."
"That still doesn't answer it!" Kirk shouted. Kitty giving a grin, and tilting her head "Well, there are a few options…You could split up and take down each separately. Or you could break into groups. But your best bet would be sticking together to protect one another."
Suddenly a roar broke through the air, causing Kittys grin to fall. "He's already here…." She then disappeared and reappeared to look at the horizon where she could see the ships of Barbarys fleet approaching
With a blur of speed she zoomed back to the crew. "It's now or never, the Fleet's already here and are barricading the Island. If you want to beat Barbary, you need to go now…" She said as she began to fade away into invisibility.
"But I warn you…Beware the Jabberwock…" She said locking eyes with Leroy before those too vanished
"Should one of us Stay with the Ship?!" Calli asked. "The ship will be fine I'm sure! They're trying to block us in…"
Leroy looked around before spotting a way through the town, the Red Sash crew launching into a sprint headed straight for Kov-Ulu!