A Wish on a Comet (Luffy x OC)

Chapter 37

In Navarone's vast library, minutes before Luffy's rescue mission, Nico Robin is cleverly disguised as a marine inspector. She has already gathered as much information as she could about the base's building design from their blueprints. Sadly, it looks like the only way to escape is through the sea gate, and it's probably closed to keep the pirates trapped in their sea cage.

She can think up a few ways to get her and the crew out of this mess, but before any of these plans can get into action, there is one thing that she wants to look into first. She looks over her shoulder to spot the marines, that are spying on her in between the bookshelves, from the corner of her eye.

She knows that she has to be discreet, so she grabs a map of the base, folds it to put in her pocket, and walks over to the librarian's desk where Wanda is going through some of her files.

When the short elder notices the fake inspector, her ruby lips curl up into a smile. "Now what can I do for you inspector?"

Robin matches the librarian's smile as she looks down at the large index book in front of her. "I need to examine your index to audit the library's book placement."

Wanda nods in understanding before she hands her the book. "Knock yourself out, I can assure you that everything's in place."

"Thank you." Robin takes the red book and flips through the index numbers. She knits her eyebrows in interest to find that not only are the contents organized by genre, but also alphabetically.

When she finds the astronomy section of the index, she follows the identification number until she finds a shelf that holds almost every astronomy book that this library holds.

She looks through the shelf until she finds a book with the same dark blue cover and thick width as the book that she's seen Rose read on the ship. She narrows her eyes on the literature and takes a look to find that it's an encyclopedia on comets. *Could Wind-chan's books be why the marines thought we had something to do with Hell's Comet?*

She looks through the book's table of contents, but there's no chapter on the other worldly comet that has the World Government so frazzled.

"Something you're interested in?" Robin gets her head out of the book to see Wanda walking up to her.

The librarian looks at the book that Robin's holding and gives her a sweet smile. "Ah, so you have an interest in comets, do you? Any in that book catch your eye? I've read every piece here so I can help refer you something more specific."

Robin blinks at the impressive woman before she returns the smile. "Thank you, but it seems that what I'm looking for isn't in here. What I'm looking for is-"

She stops when the building starts to slightly shake from the explosion in the brig.

"What the?!" Wanda looks up in horror to see that some of the books are starting to fall, so she rushes to catch each piece of literature with Robin's help.

The marines that have been spying on Robin don't do the same, and allow the heavy books on the top shelves to fall off and land on the spies' heads. The nearby men fall unconscious, but remain out of sight for the women to notice.

When the tremor fades, the librarian sighs in relief as she holds onto the ten books that are piled in her hands. "Sorry about that, thanks for helping me catch them."

Robin giggles at her peppy attitude as she puts away the five books that she caught. "It's no problem at all. It looks like you care a lot about these books."

Wanda happily grins at her as she gently sets the books down to grab a ladder. "Of course I do! It doesn't matter how strong someone is, without knowledge you're powerless. And the best way to start gaining knowledge is by reading a book."