Dragon Sorcerer In One Piece

Next day,

Rainbase,

Hades sensed the presence of the Crocodile and Nico Robin in the lower level as he stepped into Rain Dinners, the casino owned by Crocodile and the base of operation of the Baroque Works. This time, Hades is wearing a black suit with silver dress shirts and his signature metal mask of Revan while carrying a metal briefcase, which got everyone's attention the moment he appeared through the casino door.

"Is that Hades? What is he doing here?"

"This is crazy, I owe money to one of the emperors. I'm out of here."

"I heard a rumor that he was recruiting people at Tamarisk."

"No, I heard they were impostors who are now missing."

Various voices could be heard as Hades walked by them and caused the entire casino to pause for a moment due to their customers' attention redirected by the King of the Underworld. For many Hades is an embodiment of fear itself as they clearly remember the cruel display a few weeks ago. Still, few see Hades as a sort of celebrity for his action against World Government by embarrassing one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, a former pirate Doflamingo. Seeing that he got everyone's attention, Hades found one of the poker tables and took a seat which everyone except for the dealer left the table immediately.

"Here are 5 million berries on the table, let's play some poker." Hades places a stack and stacks of berries from his briefcase while everyone watches the huge sum of money build up on the table.

"I'm sorry sir, but you have to exchange your money for the ch.i.p.s." The dealer nervously explains it to Hades as he points his hand at the exchange booth on the right side.

"I'm sure the manager can make this exceptional this time, right? I mean, I brought here 30 million berries total, after all." Hades said to the dealer out loud so everyone can hear his voice. For customers in the casino, 30 million is a huge sum of money just for gambling but for Hades, it is nothing but a small change in his pocket since he now has unlimited income from Underworld.

"But, but…" The dealer tried to explain but before he could even say the sentence, a young lady in mid 20's approach Hades's table. The young woman is tall, has a big b.r.e.a.s.t with a slender figure and black hair reaching her shoulder level. She is wearing a full white coat and matching the color of a cowgirl hat, underneath the coat, she is wearing a purple cowgirl outfit. Hades saw her miles away as 24 years old Nico Robin, a newly appointed manager to the Rain Dinners and partner of the Crocodile jumped in to help the unfortunate poker dealer.

"Don't worry about the ch.i.p.s, I'm sure we can make this case exceptional. I'm the manager of the Rain Dinners and I will personally be the dealer since you are our VIP." Robin explains to Hades as she takes the dealer spot of the table and begins the game. All of this is happening while the owner of the Rain Dinners watches it from the lower level as Dan Dan Mushi projects the images.

"This is something unexpected, a manager dealing cards for me? I guess I have to get serious." Hades happily said to Robin to which the game of high stake poker began. Since it is only Hades himself and Robin on the table, this poker game turned into a match against intellect and will for both players. As the game continues and the stakes become higher, Robin decides to use her devil fruit, Flower Flower fruit to spy on Hades's hand.

"Four of a kind against two pair. I won this round." Robin said to Hades as she collected the money from the table. Hades expects this to happen as he realized that Robin is using her devil fruit power against him.

"You got lucky Miss. Manager, I still have a chance to win." Hades once again bet the money and this time used his full power of Observation Haki and Shadow Khan at his disposal. Similar to Fujitora's 'Mind's Eye', Hades starts to read Robin's true intention and thoughts within her. A slight disturbance depending on Robin's emotions and thoughts will give clues to Hades while Shadow Khan's shadow blocks all of the spying eyes on Hades.

"All in. This will make the winning table worth a total of 78 million berries." Hades placed the whole briefcase on the side of the table as he bet all of his money on the table. Seeing this, the entire casino went into chaos as they never witnessed this much money on the poker table before.

"You either have a sure thing or just playing bluff, a very big bluff," Robin said to Hades in a straight face but began to panic as she wasn't able to see all of his cards before something blocked her view. From what she could gather so far, she has higher cards before the last draw, so she decided to take the chance. Unfortunately for her, Hades made sure he would win this round as he placed another Shadow Khan's shadow on the card shufflers to give him the winning card while giving the losing card to Robin.

"Full house," Robin showed her hand to which many people started to chat among each other. Seeing this, Hades shows his hand to which the entire casino once again erupts into chaos.

"Straight flush, it looks like the house doesn't always win after all," Hades said to Robin as he grabbed the drink he ordered before and took a sip from it.

"This game is my loss, I can see why you are the King of the Underworld after all." Accepting the defeat, Robin orders the assistant manager to secure Hades winning while she will take Hades to meet the owner as a VIP. Leaving the casino floor, Robin escorts Hades to the lower level where Crocodile's office is. The same office where in the anime Luffy, Usopp and Zoro was captured and where Crocodile tormented Vivi for her failure as a princess. Entering the office, Hades saw Sir Crocodile sitting on the long conference table, welcoming Hades.

"Welcome to Rain Dinners, Hades. I didn't expect to see you, well ever." Crocodile said to Hades as Robin walked and stood beside Crocodile. Hades, seeing this, took a seat opposite from the Crocodile.

"Thank you for your hospitality. I didn't expect to play a game of poker with a beautiful and talented lady." Hades gave a compliment as he looked at Robin. In return, Robin giggles with her hand near her mouth but quickly returns to her normal self. On the other hand, Crocodile wasn't amused as he just lost nearly 80 million berries due to Robin's mistake and he never saw her lost before.

"So, Hades. What brings you here? Isn't this a bit of a minor league for you? Coming to Paradise?" Crocodile said to Hades with a smirk on his face while this topic intrigues Robin since Hades's reputation itself is equal to Yonkos' in the New World.

"Are you telling me where I can go and where I can't? Last time I checked, you are one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea just like Doflamingo." Hades said to Crocodile with a little bit of anger while releasing a death aura of the mountain demon. The demonic blood l.u.s.t and killing intent from Hades gave a similar presence to Conqueror's Haki which Crocodile is very familiar with but fails to keep a straight face as he is enduring the pressure.

For Robin, it is a complete 180 for her as she suddenly experienced a wave of what could be described as death itself. Her instinct to self-perseverance and survival kick but because of overwhelming power from Hades, she just collapses onto her knees while putting her hands on the floor to support herself from fainting.

Seeing this, Hades stops his death aura and gets up from his seat. Approaching the other side, he helped Robin get up from the floor and let her sit on the empty chair. After helping her, Hades turns to Crocodile to give his reasoning for coming to Rain Dinners.

"I'm here in person to give you the opportunity to serve me, Crocodile. Relinquish your position as Seven Warlords of the Sea and work under me as my lieutenant. This offer also goes for you, Miss. Manager." Hades said to both Crocodile and Nico Robin, this new information shocked both parties as they didn't expect Hades to personally come here to recruit them. Still, Crocodile wasn't happy that a young man such as Hades has the audacity to make demands of him and tries to steal his partner who is a key to finding the Ancient weapon, Pluton.

"No, I will not join you since I have my reason. This will be the same for her as well." Crocodile said to Hades with a smile but ready to strike first if Hades refuses the answer. For Nico Robin, she just listens quietly since she has no strength to even answer Hades's question.

"Fine, I have no idea why you are here in this desert country but if you have good reason to refuse my invitation after experiencing that, I guess I can't change your mind." Hades then winks at Robin and turns around to leave the Crocodile's office.

After Hades left the room, Crocodile and Robin didn't speak first as they just survived from one of the most dangerous beings in the world. For Crocodile, this experience brought back his memory of him defeated by the Whitebeard. As for Robin, it was the tragic experience of the tragedy of Ohara and Buster Call.

"This never happened, you got it, Miss All Sunday?" Crocodile said to Robin as he attempted to light his cigar but having trouble due to his hand shaking with fear.

"Yes, of course," Robin replies with a simple answer as she looks at the monitors to see Hades walking away with two briefcases.

'I hope I never see him again. Still, if he is this strong, maybe I can hide from the World Government within his organization. No, he attracts way too much attention from the Navy and World Government. It is better for me to hide here and find the poneglyph.' After going over her options, Robin decided to stay with Crocodile and Baroque Works since it was risky to join Hades as she preferred to hide in the shadows.

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Hades managed to tag both Crocodile and Nico Robin with Shadow Khans. More importantly, Hades managed to successfully collect the essence of the earth demon, Dai Gui. With it, Hades is one step closer to collecting all of the demon sorcerers and upgrading talismans' power. Still, Hades needs to find a suitable location to fight the earth demon as currently, Hades is on one island where he is at a disadvantage.

"Since this is an earth demon, maybe I should go to Fisherman island or Sky island since both places have the least amount of earth. I'll just handle this after completing the job with Carina. Now, let's recruit some people in Impel Down.' Hades put away the Panku box back into his inventory and checked his surroundings to make sure no one was watching. Then, he uses the moon demon's teleportation to teleport away, leaving Alabasta.