Anton couldn't help but blush at the praise. He knew he was skilled in his music, but to be complimented on it made it all the more better. "It's the least I can do to repay your kindness," he said with a small smile.

It was only then did the marine notice a couple of men approaching them from the bar. A couple of rather young men, swaggering over with cocky looks on their faces. Judging by the way they swayed, it was pretty obvious that they had been having a bit too much to drink. One of them draped an arm around Anton's shoulder, leaning in too close for comfort. "That was some fine playing you did there," he said. Anton instinctively leaned away. The second leaned on the table between the two of them. "So, what's a pair of pretty ladies like yourselves doing here all on your own?"

"Erm," Anton spoke up, blushing with embarrassment, "I-I'm actually a-" "Yeah," the first guy interrupted, talking over the meek marine, "Pretty little things like you shouldn't be huddled away in the corner like this. Lucky for you, you've got a couple of big, strong guys here who are willing to keep you all company." He turned to look at Anton with a lecherous smile. Anton tried to back away further. "I-I'm trying to tell you, I'm-" "Aw, no need to be shy," he said with a chuckle, "I ain't going to hurt you, I promise." He then slowly started leaning in.

Anton seemed to react purely on instinct. The embarrassment and indignation taking over. He sprung to his feet, suddenly changing into his hybrid form and knocking the guy back. Both men jumped back in shock, surprised to suddenly see the four armed grasshopper man in front of them. "What the hell!?" the second guy yelled out, "What kind of freak are you?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Anton yelled out indignantly, "I. Am. A. GUY! So leave us alone!"

Of course, choosing a discreet corner didn't always keep people away from her. Since leaving Amazon Lily, Linnea had learned that men were not only obcessed with women half the time, but half of those also spent their time being pushy and invading their personal space. For a loner like Linnea, invasions of personal space were treated as a rather serious transgression, and she didn't take kindly to seeing it on their friends.

"Would you mind? We're sitting here precisely so we wouldn't be bothered.", she shooed the two away as politely - smiling gently as so often did as - but the guys (especially the one around Anton) was too busy looking at her with a perverted gaze to even pay attention to the silver haired ranger. Almost reflexively, Lin's hand found its way to the carving knife strapped to her thigh as her soft steel blue gaze turned into a cold glare...

Men were wierd creatures, she had learned that much... Women, especially the women of Amazon Lily, never needed to be shooed away with a weapon: they understood when their company was unwanted before anyone had to get aggressive. But men weren't like that... Often enough they just pushed and pushed, and Linnea couldn't even count the amount of times she had to scare them off with a knife or a loaded arrow. She sighed, exasperated. So far, men were annoying; drunk men even more so. She was a pirate much like any of these guys, even if many didn't see her as such at first, they'd change their mind after getting an arrow to the knee... But then something else happened:

"YOU...!?", suddenly, the whole tension in the air - so thick Lin could cut it with her knife - all vanished in exchange for surprise and bewilderment. Anton not only scared the men off with her Zoan Fruit ability, but also told them she was actually a he?! Was it all a strategy to shoo the guys away? No, it didn't sound like it, the Insectoid transformation would have done that anyways, "...You're a...man? But... you look like a girl!"

The startled Linnea simply spoke with frank, innocent surprise, completely unaware how her comment mught be seen as rude; she came from a culture where there was no such thing as gender identity after all... She was simply surprised an adult male could look so much like a woman; the only thing that might have given him away was the flat chested figure. Fortunately this revelation chased away the pushy guys, even if Lin was too bewildered, she just kept on muttering her questions in a fidgety manner; her prior aggression now completely gone.

"And a Zoan too...", she finally continued as her surprise slowly faded and her cool came back with a faint smile, "You're just full of surprises... Anything else i should know about?"

Well, there was one upside to being an insect zoan, his form was scary enough to scare off drunken idiots and fishmen alike. As the men scrambled to get away from the frightening grasshopper, Lin's words snapped him out of it, drawing his attention towards her. She had thought he was a girl? I mean, Anton wasn't the most masculine of men, but people seemed to have had no problem realizing what gender he was. It almost made him sad. The only way he could get an attractive girl to talk to him was if they thought he was a girl.

But that was minor compared to the sharp shot of fear going through him. Had he frightened her too with his hybrid form? Was she going to see him as some sort of monster? As if responding to his fear and embarrassment, his body immediately reverted back to his human form, looking away as if he was ashamed. However, when he dared look back, he saw that Lin wasn't looking at him with scorn or fear, but rather with a small smile. She wasn't afraid of him? At least she seemed to understand what he was. That was a relief.

He sat back down, still somewhat nervous now. "I-I apologize if I deceived you. I-I didn't even realize you thought I was a girl. If I had known, I would have said something sooner." Even though it wasn't his fault, he still felt bad for it. When she asked if there was anything else about him, he figured he could tell her everything. "Well, if you must know," he gulped before continuing, "I'm also a marine. I was sent here to negotiate possibly starting a marine base here on Karate Island. The island's so close to Reverse Mountain, we need people here to make sure no criminals come in from the Grand Line to cause harm to the South Blue." He held his breath, waiting to see how Lin would take the news.

He didn't need any more than a simple transformation to scare away the nuisances, which actually made it a pretty effective deterrent power. From what she knew Zoan fruits were pretty good on skilled fighters with a trained body who could properly benefit from the enhancements their transformation provided. He transformed back once the drunkards stepped away from them and got back to their booze, and with that she... Uhm, he... sat back down. It was gonna take a while for Lin to get used to treating Anton like a man, he looked like a girl and even lacked those rough, vulgar mannerisms she was used to seeing in most men. If that weren't enough, he was also a Marine... So Linnea had to withold her affiliation. She didn't want to find herself in a situation where she'd be forced to choose between being arrested or killing Anton, he seemed really nice, much nicer than the enemies she normally ran into:

"Don't worry about it, you caused a better impression than most men i've met thus far.", she shrugged it off with a calm, dismissive wave of her hand, chugging a good bit of her beer before wiping the foam off her lips, looking back into his eyes.

Making full use of her calm and cool, her expression betrayed no form of unease at hearing Anton's affiliation, maybe more intrigue and curiosity than anything else. It was hard for her to get a chance to chat with a Marine who wasn't trying to arrest or kill her. Apparently he was here to establish a marine base, which was probably a good idea to curb the rampant corruption she'd seen from Marines around these parts. Though his focus was apparently stopping pirates from entering the Grand Line, an objective that was directly against her own. Yet another reason not to let him know her affiliation:

"So i've heard... Granted I've never seen all those pirates myself, but I heard more than enough.", she commented, nodding affirmatively as she thought back to her own experience in the Grand Line. She didn't see it as an incredibly dangerous place, for her it was just home...

A dangerous home, but home nonetheless. She spoke about it with a slight dreamy nostalgia on her face, smiling and looking up. It had been three years since she'd last seen Amazon Lily...

Anton couldn't be more relieved. Not just her words on him making a better impression than most (which he could imagine, if she constantly had to put up with perverts like those two drunks), but her not immediately freaking out or attacking him for being a marine. "I mean, I know not all pirates are evil and vicious," Anton explained, "From the stories I've heard, some pirates are just people others are afraid of. But then there are those that would harm innocent people." He let out a small, saddened sigh. "It's too bad such people exist. I mean, this world has so many beautiful things and places in it. Why do people have to muck it up by hurting people?" With another sad sigh, he looked back up at her. "But I guess that's why we marines are here. To protect the people from evil like that." His expression fell one again as a thought occurred to him. "Though I wish there wasn't that same evil amongst marines as well." He had heard stories of corruption within the marines, and even though Anton had never encountered anything like that himself, he couldn't help but get the feeling it was true.

He looked back at the white haired woman before him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to prattle on like that. I'm sure there's plenty of interesting things about yourself as well."

He did seem to have the right idea. Indeed not all pirates were evil, Linnea didn't see herself as such, but then who did? She knew she didn't kill people for the hell of it, she didn't rob or kill anyone she deemed gentle or innocent, and all in all, her main focus was having interesting adventures she could write about in the future.

"That's human nature... Well, I might say it is nature itself. It can be as cruel as it is beautiful; but cruelty for its own sake... That's something inherently human.", assessed Lin, actually smiling at the Marine's rambling. He truly seemed different from the ideals of absolute justice most Marines seemed to cling to, "Marines... Pirates... Regardless what symbol they bear, they're both human; there are good and bad people among either side."

It was obvious Linnea didn't mind these debates, after all she had grown in a society that didn't hide itself behind the World Government's banner, but it didn't deem itself a pirate nation either. From this neutral point of view, she had a clearer idea of how the world worked than most who had been born in one of the four blues, ironically given how detached from worldly affairs the Kuja society was...

"Not quite, there's not that much to know about me...", she answered bashfully, looking away with a faint blush.

Anton could only nod his head in agreement. He really liked talking to Lin. Nice, intelligent, understanding. It was hard to meet people like that. Most of his fellow marines would look at him like he was insane for not only feeling that some pirates were good, but also that some marines were evil. It was good to see someone who shared a similar point of view on it as well. After all, they were all human.

As she blushed lightly about herself, Anton was almost about to ask further, but decided against it. If she didn't want to talk about it, she didn't have to. Anton wasn't going to force her.

He finished his cup of tea, setting it down with a soft sigh. After all of this, he didn't feel afraid anymore. Maybe it was the tea, maybe it was him scaring off those drunks, or maybe it was Lin's kindness. But now, Anton didn't feel like he was going to be attacked by anyone anytime soon. [color=red]"I really should get going," he said, rising up from his seat, "After all, I still have a job to do. Thank you so much Lin. This was really what I needed." He gave a warm smile and pulled out some Beli, setting enough down for both of their drinks. "I really hope we meet again. It's good to see some nice people in the world." He almost didn't want to take his eyes off of her, but Anton turned and quietly left the tavern, noticeably more confident in himself than he had been once before.


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