Hey there people. The name's praeses and this here is my first shot at a One Piece story. Now, there will be quite a few point of view shifts for this first Chapter so whenever you see this: -:- That means I'm cutting somewhere else. Trust me, I won't have too many of these in later Chapters (at least I don't think so at this point in time) should you decide to stick around. Now, time for the disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, only the characters you do not recognize.

Chapter 1: Another Day, Another Aching Muscle

"Everything hurts." -Michelangelo Antonioni

Well... This sucked to say the least. My body hurt like hell and I was starting to get a little stiff from not being able to move around much. I suppose anyone would be stiff after being tied to a chair for an indeterminate amount of time with the only source of light being a solitary lightbulb above my head. So... What did I do to get myself tied to a chair and stuck in a room with rather bad lighting? Well, I suppose I shouldn't beat around the bush. I broke into the Mayor's house. Granted this was probably not my best idea in the world as he's a corrupt asshole, but nothing can stop me from my objectives. I'm just stubborn like that I guess... Heaving a sigh that hurt my ribs, the door to the room opened and in walked my latest interrogator. He was a big guy, most likely to try and intimidate me, and he didn't look all that bright if the dim look in his eye was anything to go by. His footfalls were heavy on the cement floor as he approached. Wonderful... A lumbering oaf who is most likely not going to be all too gentle with me. I fought the urge to sigh again. Looks like it's going to be a long day judging by that knife in his hands.

-:-

The lone lightbulb swung back and forth like a pendulum. The shadows being cast on the walls shifted and writhed with every movement of the light. Normally it would cause a frightening effect and scare anyone who saw it. However, this person was a tad different. Staring at the shadows, they found amusement in watching the shadows dance across the walls and ceiling of the windowless room. Time had become distorted and undeterminable. They could've been sitting there for ten minutes or ten days. Sleep came and went as it pleased and the crick in their neck was getting worse from the slouched sleeping positions their body settled in. Needless to say... They were getting very annoyed with everything. Readjusting their wrists in the cuffs, they tried to find relief of the stinging feeling of having pulled at the cuffs too much. Of course they knew that breaking the cuffs was impossible. It was just that they weren't too much in control of their body when knives were slowly dragged across the tender skin of their arms. Blood trickled down their arms and into the wounds on their wrists, making her wrist stick to the cuffs slightly. They wondered vaguely if they were going to die there... Sighing and rolling their eyes at the thought of death, they felt that sleep had come back to visit. The sole companion of this lowly prisoner had decided to greet them. Closing their eyes, they gladly went to visit their dreams of freedom.

-:-

Looking up on the mansion, a group of men could be seen in front of the wrought iron gate that lead to the cobblestone path to the front door. Apparently, the man who lived there, the mayor, decided to invite them over to "discuss" the men's behavior. Of course the leader of this group wasn't all that happy to be told what to do. So instead of a cordial visit, the mayor would be met with the exact opposite. The gates opened and the men walked through; the leader smirking all the way to the front door.

"Are we really going to rob them?" Someone asked idly.

"Of course," The leader said. "They were the ones who tried to kill us after all."

A few men snickered at the thought. Of course there was some initial suspicion that the mayor was attempting to play a game with them, but then they remembered who their Captain was. Trafalgar Law was someone who knew when others were attempting to manipulate them and often turned the tables on their would be manipulators. So, when Law had told the Heart Pirates that they were going to take the mayor up on the invitation, a few of them knew what was going to happen. Needless to say, the thoughts weren't pretty after what they had done to the local bandits the mayor had hired to "take them out."

Coming up to the front door, the large doors opened revealing a well lit foyer. Due to the size of the foyer, it might as well have been the house itself. Gold colored walls reflected the light from the crystal chandelier overhead, brightening the already well lit area. The tan tiles beneath their feet clacked with every step as they made their way into the study after being shown the way by a very nervous butler. The Captain looked over the house while they walked; noting the darkened landing of the staircase to the second floor and the hallways that vanished into the darkness of the house, it seemed that they only lit the foyer up like a roman candle.

Entering the study, the mayor was sitting at his desk with a horribly fake smile plastered onto his face while a butler clad in black stood by loyally. The mayor was a man in his late forties yet looked two decades older than he actually was. The overhead lights were intense enough to illuminate the oil on his shiny bald head and his beady black eyes were taking in the sight of the pirates that had just made themselves comfortable on the many seats in the study while his butler stared ahead studiously as he stood ramrod straight, belying any sort of impression that he was at ease with the pirates in the room. The mayor's eyes stopped on the young man with a white, brown spotted hat who wore a yellow and black hoodie with the smiling face of their Jolly Roger on it. The young man had taken the seat across from the shiny mahogany desk and was now looking at the mayor with a smirk on his face. Of course the smile didn't sit well with the mayor in the slightest. Ignoring the unsettling smile (and praying to God that his face was just stuck like that), the mayor settled down enough to speak.

"I hope there aren't any hard feelings about the bandits," The mayor began after a moment of silence. "I was just doing what I thought necessary for the safety of the town."

"Of course not Mr. Mayor," Law replied nonchalantly.

"Good, good," The mayor said, smiling a little. He was thinking that things would go his way. "Though I must admit, I was very... Surprised to see what had happened to them."

Surprised hadn't even covered the emotion he felt when he saw what had happened to the bandits. It was more like revolted. Most of the men had had their limbs mixed up. Some had legs for arms and others had two torsos. They were more like grotesque jigsaw puzzles now instead of men. Then there were the luckier ones. The ones who had escaped with only broken bones, bruises, and minor concussions. These pirates were very, very dangerous and the mayor was currently playing with fire rather carelessly.

"Yes, well I don't take kindly to being attacked," Law said, a glint of danger in his storm gray eyes.

The mayor did not catch the look in the pirate's eye. However, the butler did and his nerves steadily grew worse.

A knocking on the study door, however, got everyone's attention. Obviously peeved about being interrupted, the mayor uttered a sharp "come in." The man who appeared got everyone's attention one way or another. The lumbering man, he was well past 6'4", had thinning blonde hair, and black eyes. His pants were stained with blood, along with the green apron he wore. His long sleeved blue shirt also held smears of blood on it as well despite the sleeves being pushed well past his elbows. His face was more or less a blank mask of indifference.

"What?" The mayor snapped. "No answers?"

"No... Barely a reaction this time," The man drawled. "High threshold of pain apparently."

The mayor sighed, less than pleased with the news.

"It seems that our guest is stronger than they appear," He muttered darkly to himself before sighing. "Fine, dismissed. Try again tomorrow. They will break eventually and once that happens, we'll finally get somewhere."

The large man nodded and made his way from the room.

"I apologize for the interruption. We caught a little mouse four days ago and now we're dealing with a pest problem," The mayor wrote it off as nonchalantly as he could.

-:-

The sound of the rusted hinges on the door being opened roused the captive from their light sleep. The noise was loud enough that it grated harshly on their ears like nails on a chalkboard, but keeping their breathing controlled though, they kept up the act of being asleep. Two men had entered the room if the sounds of their footsteps on the tiled floor were anything to go by. When they started speaking, however, it was apparent that there were indeed two of them.

"So..." One of them began. "How long has this one been here?"

"Four days or so," The other said nonchalantly. "Damn... Her arms look horrible."

"I know right," The first one laughed. "Look at all the blood on the floor. There's almost enough there to remind you of a butcher's shop."

The second one laughed shortly.

"Damn. That's a sick analogy," He laughed.

The prisoner in the chair wasn't happy with the way they were talking about her. Granted they thought she was asleep, or rather unconscious, so they thought it was safe to talk about her. Oh, were they so wrong.

"You know," The second man started. "I heard that the boss is gonna show some rookie pirate what's what real soon."

"You mean the pirate that did that to the bandits he sent after them?" The first sounded skeptical at best.

"Yep. I'm not looking forward to it at all," The second admitted. "I don't want to end up with my legs as my arms!"

This rookie pirate, as the men put it, sounded rather interesting to the captive. However, if the mayor was seriously thinking that his guards were powerful enough to stop a crew of pirates, he had another thing coming to him. Though, she'd admit, the only reason why she was in this situation was because of the lumbering man, the one who had tortured her a little while ago, snuck up on her and whacked her upside the head. When she awoke, she was cuffed behind her back with her legs and waist tied to the chair. It was a crappy situation and she knew it.

"So... Where's the poor sap now?" The first one asked.

"In the office with the boss," The second said. "But enough about him. What're we going to do with her?"

So that's where the Mayor was. She had been wondering why she hadn't gotten a visit from him ever since her capture. Footsteps came ever closer to her and before she knew it, one of them was standing next to her.

"Not sure," The first one, his voice sounded right next to her ear now, began. "But I can't imagine that the boss will want to keep her around much longer."

There was silence for a moment. The only thing the prisoner heard was the sound of them breathing.

"Hey, I think she's lost too much blood and passed out," The first one sounded a bit too eager when he said that.

"Come on dude," His counterpart held a tinge of exasperation in his voice. "We were just supposed to check on her and report back."

"I know, I know. Get your mind outta the gutter," The other defended himself. "I'm just wondering if she's even alive."

A devious plan popped into her mind at that. It took most of her self control to not start grinning on the spot as the plan quickly formed in her mind. Loosening her muscles, and hoping that the bad lighting would cover for suddenly going limp, she let her breathing slow.

The effect was almost instantaneous; the guards took notice of her ruse.

"I don't think she's okay, Leon..." The first one sounded wary.

The second, apparently named Leon, walked closer towards his partner and took in the sight of the prisoner in the chair.

"You're right Patrick. She doesn't look good. We have to report this to the Head Guard," Leon said.

Then, the prisoner held her breath.

"Shit! She stopped breathing!" Patrick panicked.

Idiots... If they only knew that releasing her from that chair would land them in a world of hurt.

"We haven't gotten the information out of her yet! She can't kick it just yet!" Leon barked. "Get her out of the chair!"

Success was always a sweet thing to taste, and this was no different. She suppressed a grin as one of them unlocked the shackles on her wrist while the other cut the ropes from around her ankles and waist. As soon as the clanging sound of metal shackles hitting the floor echoed in her ears and the ropes went slack around her ankles and waist, her eyes snapped open. Her right arm shooting out, catching one of them by the upper arm with an iron grip, she threw the guard next to her into the one at her feet. Both of them crying out in surprise, they hit the wall with enough force to bruise their backs and knock the breath out of them. The prisoner got to her feet lightly and sighed contentedly.

"Well gentlemen, we seem to be at an impasse," She said smoothly as she inspected the damage done to her arms. Fine cuts had rendered most of the skin on her arms into a bleeding mess and the skin that wasn't sliced through was coated in blood; making her look as if she wore red gloves.

"W-What?" The one who had rammed into the wall first and the one she recognized as Patrick asked.

Patrick looked to be a young fellow of twenty-five. His blue eyes complimented his black hair rather well, she had to admit, and he retained the more boyish features of his youth with his high cheekbones and small nose. She assumed that he was the bigger idiot of the two for he fell so easily for her tactic.

"I imagine you'd want me to get back in the chair and sit there like a good girl instead of eviscerating the both of you and using your intestines to decorate the nearest tree," It was then that Patrick noticed her eyes. The bronze irises of her eyes shone even in the dull light of the lightbulb overhead. It was in those eyes that he noticed something that made his blood run cold; she was dead serious. "However, I have no intention of sitting down and my wish right now is to, in fact, kick both your asses and string your intestines up like garland. So, we've reached an impasse."

The way she spoke, so nonchalantly about killing the both of them, made the two young men fear for their lives.

"No wonder Boss tied you up..." The other, Leon, said. "You're crazy."

Leon was a young man of twenty-two. His brown hair and brown eyes almost gave him the appearance of a deer. He looked skittish enough to be honest, and his features were still young; but Leon didn't have that boyish look to him. She supposed it was because he was the more mature of the two, but nonetheless, their green uniforms would soon be stained with blood and there was nothing that could help that fact.

"No, I'm not crazy," She denied. "I'm mad. Mad that you tied me up, mad that you cut my arms, and mad that you had the gall to speak as if I wasn't there. A word of advice, next time you feel the need to chat about something, don't speak about where your boss is. Especially in front of the person who was sent to retrieve a certain item that your boss has."

"You'll have to get through us in order to get to him. There are sixty-five guards in the house," Leon said coldly. "You can't win."

A cruel smile spread across her lips. The young woman advanced towards the guards cowering against the wall. They were just useless grunts in the end apparently.

"Silly Leon. I don't need to win. I just have to keep from losing."

Coming to a stop in front of them, her bronze eyes studied the two of them closely. Suddenly, she was crouched in front of them with that same cruel look on her face. Of course it could have just been a smile, they really couldn't tell with the fist shaped bruise on the left side of her face and swollen cheek. It was at this distance that they saw her cracked lower lip and an even more intense look in her eyes took over. With an almost predatory glint in her bronze eyes, she reached out a blood covered arm and clamped her right hand onto Leon's left shoulder. His brown eyes were wide as he looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

A few moments later found the ex-prisoner shoving the heavy steel door to the room she had been incarcerated in open. Her blood soaked clothes clung to her body as she stepped from the dark room into a bright hallway. The red wallpaper was glaring to her eyes that had become so adjusted to the darkness of the room, but it was a welcome sight. Humming a small tune, she spared one more glance to the room she had been held in. Blood covered even more of the room and the crumpled forms of two bodies were seen in the darkness. Smirking, and then wincing at her cracked lip and bruised face, the prisoner studied the cuts on their arms in the better lighting and hid a grimace. They looked even worse in proper lighting... And so did her clothes. Her jeans were dyed red from not only her blood from the torture she had gone through, but Leon and Patrick's blood from when she had given them a proper beating. She had just been lucky that the room had been soundproofed otherwise with the amount of screaming the two men did she would have all sixty-five guards on her tail. The tank-top she wore was spattered in even more blood, though this time it was mostly the dimwitted boys' blood.

Sighing at the sight of the amount of blood on her clothing, she noted the fact that it was also in her hair. Her shoulder length, dark brown hair was starting to stick together due to the blood drying.

'God I need a shower...' She thought as she took in her surroundings.

Left and right were basically the same at this point; red hallways with brown carpeting and sconces lighting the walls. She could already tell that this was going to be fun. Her eyes sliding back and forth between the two directions, she ultimately chose left. Upon walking in the chosen direction, she passed a window. It was nighttime; the darkness of the sky made the stars even brighter. She figured that the fact she was on a Spring Island made the sky seem clearer. Or maybe it was because she hadn't seen the sky in four days... It was probably the latter, but what she learnt was that she was currently on the second floor of the mansion.

"Stop there!" A commanding voice tore the ex-prisoner away from her thoughts.

Snapping her head in the direction of the voice, she spotted the green uniform that all guards wore. Rolling her eyes, she ran towards the much larger guard. Her sandals slapping against the floor, the young woman saw the red-headed guard's eyes widening as she jumped with her right leg out. Flying through the air, her right foot connected with his windpipe and the momentum carried both of them backwards. He landed flat on his back, unconscious, and she kept with the momentum as she tore down the hallway.

Upon turning a sharp corner, she spotted ten more guards at the ready. This time, some had guns and others had swords. Skidding to a stop, she growled lowly as the green clad guards yelled orders to one another. Looking around, she knew that she couldn't take on all of them with her body in the current state that it was in, she tried to find something to defend herself with. Of course, with fate being the bitch that it is, the only thing around her was furniture. Luxurious chairs made of hard wood along with tables that matched lined the walls. Most likely they were there just for decoration, but she'd make do with what she got. Picking up a chair easily, her arms stung with the exertion, but it was a life or death situation... A grin split her face in two at that thought. Oh, how she loved life and death situations.

"Alright boys, let's see what you've got," She said coolly.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Click on the button below then! Next update will be after my finals which are coming up quickly. There's a lot more Law in the next chapter, I promise.