The sky had just turned dark as Ace's boat settled on one of the many darkened piers of the summer island Kyros. Looking around at the starlit sky and the soft moonlight illuminating the beautiful island one thought came predominantly to Ace's mind.
He was hungry. Very very hungry. It had been hours since he had last eaten and honestly with nowhere else to stop on route, and no other crewmates to navigate so he could fish, Ace had been forced to wait five whole hours to finally make it to Kyros so he could eat. Five. Whole. Hours. Ok yes, he still had dry rations left, but frankly he was probably better off just going hungry than trying to eat them.
Still, he had to admit it could be worse, at least he wasn't as bad as Luffy, who probably would have shrivelled up in hunger by now. Smiling slightly at the thought of his baby brother Ace secured his ship and quickly disembarked. Although he was itching to set off and find somewhere to eat Ace paused for a minute taking in the surprising lack of noise, the quiet wasn't unwelcome, but even so it seemed strange.
Shrugging it off, the bounty hunter decided the best course of action was to wander around until he could find some food, after all how hard could it be to find food in such a large city?
As it turns out it was very hard, ten minutes of searching later and Ace hadn't seen a single restaurant open, or even more worryingly a single person. Something was wrong. Rather than the lively atmosphere such an island would usually promote, or even the quiet calm you would expect in the dead of night, the entire town was enveloped in an eerie silence.
Not the kind of silence where there was no sign of human life (though there certainly wasn't much of that either, other than the odd light turning on or the ruffle of a curtain) but rather it was the kind of silence, where you stayed as quiet as you could and prayed no one noticed you. Something was very wrong here.
Treading more cautiously now Ace slunk through the shadows staying as alert as he could be. This was bad, he had been to a few islands with the same atmosphere before, usually they were the ones where the citizens were under some form of tyrannical rule (courtesy of either pirates or overbearing marines) and were afraid to do anything for fear of retribution. But he didn't think that was the case here, or at least he really really hoped not.
Because he knew for a fact this was one of whitebeard's territories which meant that if someone had tried to take over, the elderly Yonkou would have sent one of his commanders to stop them.
Although Ace was a bounty hunter he could acknowledge that Whitebeard took the protection of his islands seriously, so if there was a tyrannical leader in place it meant either a commander hadn't been sent yet or, and this was a much more dangerous option, one had already been sent and had been defeated.
Either way round it wasn't a good situation, and as much Ace would have loved to rush in, he needed information first. For all he knew the islanders could just be having a quiet night in or be in mourning or some other similar yet tragic event that might cause their silence. But deep-down Ace had an uneasy feeling this wasn't the case, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.
Quietly sneaking back to his ship Ace decided to deal with his hunger by eating what little remained of his dry rations before sleeping, he'd gather information in the morning.
It wasn't the noise but rather the streams of light that crept through the curtains that eventually woke up the freckled teen. Seeing the beautiful weather Ace let out a small smile which lasted approximately ten seconds before he realised that though there was some noise the eerie silence from yesterday hadn't quite vanished.
Frowning to himself Ace exited his cabin and quickly surveyed the streets, although there were a few nervous commuters hurrying about with an unknown purpose, the town looked mostly empty. Hiding his frown behind a polite smile Ace jumped down off his boat and tapped on the shoulder of a young teen who just happened to be hurriedly passing by.
Ignoring the boy's obvious flinch Ace gave a small bow "Excuse me, I just arrived here yesterday and was wondering if you could tell me why the town seems so empty?" The boy looked around nervously before dragging Ace into an alleyway "If you just arrived then you need to leave now before they find out about you."
"They?" the boy bit his lip a clearly reluctant look on his face, despite the anger Ace could see shining through his eyes "The serpent claw pirates, bastards showed up a month ago, took most of the girls hostage so we can't act against them. They've also taken to robbing blind any unfortunate travellers who happen to stop by here."
Ace scowled, he knew there were some good pirates out there, pirates like Shanks, hell even Whitebeard if he was being completely honest. But that didn't change the fact that an overwhelmingly large number of pirates who sailed the seas were manipulative jackasses who got off on abusing their power.
Ace had to admit that one of the few things he enjoyed about being a bounty hunter was taking those types of assholes down. But there was still one thing bothering Ace about the whole situation "I thought this island was claimed by whitebeard, shouldn't he have sent help by now?"
The boy shook his head sadly "We haven't been able to contact him, one of the pirates has a devil fruit that can somehow disrupt the den den mushi's but we don't know how yet, we're trying to lay low and not upset the pirates until whitebeards bi-monthly check-up comes around."
Ace nodded at least now the silence made sense, he also felt slightly relieved at the fact that the continued tyranny wasn't because the serpent claw pirates had somehow managed to defeat a commander.
"Do you know how long it is until the next check-up?" The boy shook his head "Not exactly but it should be sometime in the next week. We may not be able to risk anything for fear of casualties, but I have faith that Whitebeard's commanders can take care of it when they manage to show up."
Ace grinned slightly at the kid's enthusiasm before a thoughtful look overtook his face "Kid I don't suppose you know the name of the captain of this pirate group do you?" The boy nodded with a snort "Seeing as he loudly broadcasted it in the middle of his gloating takeover speech a month ago I can tell you with the upmost certainty that his name is Serpent Lios."
Ace's grin widened, he had thought the Serpent claw pirates sounded familiar, as far as he remembered Lios had a bounty of 65,000 Beli on his head "I don't suppose you could point me in his direction, could you?"
A terrified but determined look appeared on the boy's face "I won't let you try and fight him, he's too strong and even if you can take him I won't let you risk the hostage's safety by rushing in there with an ill thought out attack."
Ace looked at the teen assessingly "I can understand your worry, but unfortunately the man has a bounty on his head and if the whitebeards aren't here soon word will get out and more bounty hunters will show up, and most of them won't care about the innocent people caught in the crossfire."
The teen's face gained a white pallor and Ace took a softer tone "Listen kid I'm not trying to scare you but if I try now, I can at least promise to prioritise the hostages, and as an outsider with no ties to the island they're less likely to try and use one of the islanders against me."
The boy looked at him consideringly and Ace gave one last argument "Look worst case scenario I fail, and the hostages are stuck waiting it out until the whitebeards appear. They won't risk killing the girls over an outsider because they're the only leverage they have against you."
The boy nodded cautiously but a wary look had entered his eyes "You swear to prioritise the hostages?" Ace nodded as the boy let out a sigh "Ok, then. They're in the red building in the centre of the town."
Ace grinned and started to move before the kid grabbed his arm "you won't go after the whitebeards either right?" Ace shook his head, he may be reckless, but he wasn't suicidal, he had made a promise to live and he wasn't about to go breaking that promise by picking a fight he would almost certainly lose.
Besides Ace tended to steer clear of the few decent pirates he had found, especially the ones he stood little chance against.
Giving the kid one last smile Ace set off towards the mayors house a blood thirsty grin on his face. It had been a while since he'd fought a fruit user and he was looking forward to it. Ace's basics in haki as well as the seastone dagger he kept secured on his waist made fighting fruit users a hell of a lot easier, but that didn't stop most users from being incredibly creative in a fight which always made it interesting.
Ace himself had, had the chance to become a logia shortly after entering the grand line having found the Mera Mera No Mi a month into his trip. However for a narcoleptic bounty hunter (with a penchant for having sleep attacks at the worst possible moments) and no crewmates to pull him out of the ocean if he fell in, the idea of becoming a devil fruit user was so monumentally stupid it wasn't even worth the consideration, even if fire would be an awesome power to have.
He'd still kept the fruit of course, maybe he'd give it to someone in Luffy's crew when he eventually set off. Or sell it if he was desperate.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts Ace grinned as he approached the large red building currently decorated with the incredibly unartistic jolly Rodger of the serpent claw pirates. Really the thing looked like a skull with a worm crawling out of it and if the situation didn't require stealth Ace would have burst out into laughter by now.
How the weird squiggly line was meant to be serpent Ace was still unsure, but then again most pirates were not known for their artistic sense. Of course while the artistic sense of pirates could be considered bad, the naming sense of most pirates could only be considered worse. Much much worse.
There were so many ridiculously named pirate crews out there that serpent claw wasn't even worth mentioning. Especially when compared to names such as the cannibalistic nargle pirates or the fanged octopus pirates.
Some captains really needed to spend a little more time thinking up some better names and a little less time being generally drunk off their asses, which is how most of the ridiculous pirate crew names seemed to come about.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts Ace stared longingly at the front door, if this had been any normal hunt he would have kicked the front door in and immediately proceed to beat the shit out of everyone present. Unfortunately the bastards inside had hostages and that meant the situation required a touch more stealth then what would usually be necessary. But hey how hard could it be?
Authors note
Hi guys so first of all I'd love to give big thank you to everyone who's read the story so far, I really hope you continue to like it! I'd also like to give a special thank you to zazou-chan and Poison'sKiss for the really nice reviews! I finished this chapter sooner than expected but there might be a couple more days before the next ones ready, also a big thumbs up to anyone who got the nargle reference (as a huge harry potter nerd I felt I had to include it) hope you enjoyed!