There was an age-old saying: easy come, easy go.
Ellie never paid much mind to it. Nothing in life came easy, she knew this, therefore that saying was a load of stinky bull. It wasn't until today she realized that while the first half of that saying was complete poppycock, the second half hit closer to the truth; all she could do was stare as a group of thieves stood before her. With shiny knives out. Some with even shinier guns.
"Hand over your bag and that'll be the end of it." The one at the front said, daring to grin and show his missing teeth in the process. Others behind him nodded, the way they edged their weapons closer telling her otherwise. Typical. Of course she was being threatened in the New World, in broad daylight, in public.
"Lower your weapons and I'll hand over my bag." Ellie said, mimicking his cadence.
"Tch, you're a funny lass." He wasn't amused.
"And you're a liar." She told him. "I'm not stupid. You're going to stab me as soon as you take my stuff. And that's only if I'm lucky and you leave it at that."
She took a quick glance around her, trying to spot any escape routes she could take.
None. Of course not.
"You know, I really wasn't going to do anything to you if you handed over your bag, but… well, I wouldn't want to disappoint you." The man offered her a nasty smirk, reaching for her bag and snatching it. Ellie didn't try to resist, figuring he would have knocked her down anyway. She did, however, take a step back— focusing her eyes somewhere behind the thieves with great interest.
Let's take a moment to rewind.
In the vast New World, there lived a little island by the name of Alegria. It was one of the unknown islands frequently over-looked by the world, its only neighbors being two different Marine bases. The occasional pirate ship stumbled upon the island, but they usually left within a day because of the close proximity to the Marines.
The interesting thing about Alegria had to be the fact that it housed an organization of thieves. No, they aren't the Thieves Guild of Skyrim; they're too stupid, too unsophisticated to be of that caliber. One sample of their stupidity?
They decided to be badasses and steal from Whitebeard's ship, the Moby Dick.
Whitebeard and his men had been out at sea as usual and, having exhausted all of their supplies, docked at the nearest island: Alegria. Of course word spread quickly about it. It was Whitebeard after all, one of the Four Emperors, Strongest Man in the World, the closest to being Pirate King one can get. And, of course, the thieves heard about it too. Their simplistic thought process went something like this: Whitebeard was one of the Four Emperors. As an Emperor, he must have a whole trove of treasure. The treasure had to be on that gigantic ship of his. His crew, and himself, were out getting supplies. The ship must be empty. Let's steal their mass of treasure.
Maybe we could give them some credit and say their stupidity was bravery and they weren't as big of idiots as they seemed; they actually managed to sneak onto the Moby Dick without being detected— a fluke, maybe? Thatch had fallen asleep while on guard… — and find the treasure room. What they didn't count on was Thatch waking up and seeing them as they took the front entrance to leave.
They didn't even have the decency to look ashamed at being caught.
A good deal of the thieves got their asses handed to them by Thatch then and there; but Thatch was only one person, no matter how skilled he was, and the thieves worked in quantity. Four of them managed to get away, each one with a bag of treasure. Thatch wasted no time in informing his captain and fellow commanders; Whitebeard wasted no time in sending them out to search for the thieves.
Now, maybe we should go back to calling the thieves stupid.
Instead of hiding, instead of laying low after pissing off the world's strongest crew, they decided to mug Ellie. For no real reason, too, other than because she just so happened to be there.
Back to the present.
Ellie, fortunately, wasn't as stupid as them. She knew she wouldn't be able to stop them from taking her bag. She also knew she couldn't fight them— especially since two had knives and two a gun. But she noticed how loose the soil of the dirt path they stood upon was. She noticed how, whenever the wind blew, it picked up the dirt and carried it along. She hoped her luck would lighten up; at least for this one moment.
"What're you staring at?" the thief asked, glancing towards the direction she focused her eyes on with feigned interest.
Without missing a beat, Ellie tensed her leg and kicked into the surface of the ground, kicking up a lot of soil right when the man was returning his gaze to her. It got into his eyes, making him take a few steps back while yelling; he bumped into his buddies, causing them to lose their balance and drop their weapons.
Knowing this wouldn't last for longer than a minute, Ellie decided to abandon her bag and make a run for it. Her legs carried her as fast as they could; the wind bit into her face, making strands of hair whip against her skin with little stings. It didn't take long for her to hear the angry shouts of men behind her; to hear the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of their boots stamping into the ground, to feel their eyes burn into her back like heat rays intensified by a magnifying glass.
Ellie took as many unexpected turns as she could, hoping to deter their speed. How fast they could run alarmed her, and she was starting to get tired. With each turn she made, each step she took, she could hear them getting closer; to the point she could feel their presence beginning to over-come her senses—
Then she smacked into someone.
"Whoa! Sorry there, are you— hey! You're those assholes!"
Ellie adjusted her sunglasses and looked up. The man she ran into sported a brown pompadour and a yellow neck scarf. He was bent over in mid-action, arm reaching for her to help her up. Next to him stood a younger, freckled-face man. For one, tense, moment a stare-down between the men and the thieves happened.
The next moment found the pompadour man chasing after them.
All Ellie could do was blink at the sudden turn of events, still sprawled on the ground from the impact. A hand in front of her face shook her from her daze.
"Sorry about that!" the freckled-faced person said. He pulled her up quickly and, bowing low in apology, looked her once over. "I don't mean to hit-and-run, but I've gotta go."
And just like that, he ran off. As he ran in the direction his friend went, Ellie noticed it; the Whitebeard Jolly Roger tattooed into his back. It took her only a second more to realize the man she smacked into was Thatch, Commander of the Fourth Division, and the freckled one was the Firefist Ace.
The moon hovered in the sky, its white color a stark contrast to the near-black blue of the space around it. More people were out and about at this time, making their way to parties, pubs and local attractions. Ellie sat in one of those pubs, at a table. After a long day of being robbed and chased, she felt she deserved a nice dinner.
Food also helped her thinking.
What was she going to do? She needed that bag. As a traveler, her life was in it. And a good deal of her money, which was one of the important aspects of it. The other, slightly more important one, was those documents she had stashed in there. It relieved her that those idiots wouldn't be able to read them as they were all encoded but that was just the very small silver lining in an otherwise shitty situation. Sighing the sigh of all sighs, she placed her spoon down.
Surveying the room without much gusto, she jolted when she spotted Commander Thatch and Firefist Ace a ways down. They weren't alone; others were with them, and judging by the seriousness etched into their faces she assumed they were unsuccessful in whatever it was Thatch wanted to do to those thieves earlier. She felt a moment of sympathy for them.
Maybe Ellie stared a second too long, though, for she caught Thatch's attention. He squinted in her direction before giving a wave.
"He-e-e-e-e-ey! You're that girl." He called. Before she could even offer an awkward smile, he got up and made his way over to her. He didn't wait for an invitation to sit down.
"Hi." Ellie said, unconsciously straightening.
"I didn't get to apologize for earlier."
It took her a moment to realize what he meant. "Apologize? But I'm the one who ran into you."
He shook his head. "I should've been watching where I was going."
Ellie couldn't shake the feeling that he had it reversed but decided to just leave it alone.
"Ooo-kay, well don't worry about it." With a twitch, she shrugged one shoulder and forced a little smile.
"So uuh… between you and me, what were those guys chasing you for?"
"Oh, well they stole my bag so I threw dirt in their eyes."
"They stole from you too? Damn."
Ellie blinked. Too? So they…
"They stole from the Whitebeard pirates." She couldn't help saying that out loud, furrowing her brow and smile stiffening.
"I know. They're not the brightest." Thatch, voicing her unspoken words, rolled his eyes. "They stole quite a lot from us. We're trying to hunt them down."
An idea bloomed in Ellie's mind. Maybe she could get her bag back after all.
"I know where their hide-out is." Ellie started slowly, lifting her eyebrows in a mock casual manner.
"You do?" Thatch asked.
"I do. Actually, they don't really keep their hide-out a secret 'cause no one's ever dared break into it."
"We've gotta change that, now haven't we?" Thatch grinned, his cordial face donning a hint of malice.
"Yeah. I think so."
A/N- And so ends this first chapter. Or prologue. Whatever you want it to be.
This is my second attempt at writing a fanfiction and I am rustyyyyyyyy. My writing will probably be very choppy at first but please! Critiques are begged for!
I also won't have a regular updating schedule. Between work and school, the time spent writing this story will vary. I will let you know I'm almost done with the second chapter, though.
Also, this story will be slightly AU. Only slight. I'm making my own little changes every here and there and if you'll have a problem with that in the future... well, it's not my problem to care. You've been warned. xD
Reviews would be much loved. :) Thanks for reading!
