So, I´d like to say that I have a plausible explanation for taking this long with the second chapter, but I don´t. Sorry. I don´t own shit!
„You´re an assassin?" Sabo asked.
"Yep." Amarock confirmed, rummaging in one of her many crates.
Sabo blinked, trying to digest that the girl who picked them up in the forest and gave them food apparently killed people for a living. Of course there were some strange things about her; she ate raw meat after all. And she was nocturnal. And there were dead animals hanging from her ceiling. And she lived in a cave with a batnamed Ash.
Okay, so maybe there were a lot of weird things about her.
But she didn´t seem like a bad person and Luffy obviously thought she was nice too. That was enough to calm him down and not send him running out of the cave with his brothers and the pipes.
Of course, he wasn´t stupid and thus knew that she could have fooled them all, but as far as he knew assassins were not supposed to invite their victims to wherever they lived and give them food or a place to sleep. Or tell them about secret Devil Fruits and organizations.
Also, if Luffy said someone was a good person he was usually right.
Still, she had obviously been the reason there were no animals around the day before and she didn´t even do anything except dozing in a tree.
In the one-and-a-half-ish minutes he spent thinking Amarock pulled out some wool and a crochet hook, sat herself down and started crocheting. Assassins don´t crochet.
The smirk on her lips told Sabo that she knew exactly how little she was helping him understand everything – and the wool certainly didn´t help.
"So you want me to believe that I´m sitting in a cave with a crocheting assassin, who picked up three random kids in a forest, gave them food and let them sleep in her cave. Plus the whole Legendary Devil Fruits stuff you told us." he finally asked for clarification.
"Hmmmm…" Amarock pretended to think it over. "Yes, yes I am!" she exclaimed far too cheerfully.
"Awesome…" Sabo mumbled, somehow making the word sound like its own opposite, as he pinched himself. "Not a dream either…"
The following loud rumble of laughter had the youngest and eldest sibling turning on the cave floor, but luckily Luffy didn´t wake up.
Ace however, did.
After seeing his brothers expression he turned towards Amarock, who was trying to muffle the amused noises escaping her throat with a hand, wool and hook abandoned on the floor.
"Wha´s goin´on?" he slurred.
"So you kill people for a living?" Sabo asked, still a tiny bit shocked and ignoring his brother.
"Well, I don´t kill just anyone, but essentially yes." Amarock answered.
"Woah, wait WHAT?" Ace burst out, effectively waking the youngest sibling.
"Amarock´s an Assassin, Ace." Sabo finally snapped out of it and looked at his brother.
Ace, upon hearing the news, immediately snagged his pipe and placed himself in front of Luffy, ready to protect the youngest if necessary. Amarock only snorted at him.
"Calm down, Freckles. If you were my target you´d be dead by now. And who´d hire an Assassin to feed someone they want dead anyway?"
That … made sense. And explained why Sabo was so calm and hadn't woken them up.
He still wanted to know what exactly happened while he slept though, so he asked. Amarock once again explained her occupation to the three kids after they woke Luffy.
"Blondie here was rummaging through my stuff and found my money." Two heads swivelled around to look at their brother, one glaring, the other curious "Because he´s a clever little shit he noticed that it´s too much to come from simply selling animal skins or whatever. So he asked where it came from and I told him ´bout me being an Assassin. And some other shit I´m sure he´ll tell you later. Just for the record though: I won´t kill anyone who doesn´t deserve it. Or if the clients reason to hate them is stupid. No matter how much they´d pay." She fixed all of them with a glare, daring them to suggest something else.
"So you kill evil people and get paid for it? That´s so cool!" Luffy shouted, breaking the tension before it could even build.
It takes the brothers plus one a couple seconds to process the words before Amarock blinks, much like back when they first met.
"I guess that´s one way to say it …" she drawls, and the brothers laugh.
"So … how many assassins are there? And how does that work anyway?" Ace spoke up.
"No idea. We don´t really work as an organization or whatever. It´s more like one assassin has one or two others they´ll work with on a particularly difficult job but mostly we just travel around taking jobs without ever running into each other. Course there are some people with a reputation, but since we mostly use aliases when on a job no-one knows who those guys really are. Some of us agree to work only for the Marines or a certain Pirate crew, too. Or the revolutionaries" Amarock launches into another explanation.
"Then one assassin could just take anothers alias and nobody would ever know?" Sabo asks. He doesn´t quite know if he likes the idea…
"Well, if you try to impersonate someone alive they´re likely to kill you. On the other hand I took my teachers name for a while after he died, so it does work. The alias system grants us anonymity, but it also means that if an assassin dies and someone else takes the name nobody will notice." The wolf-zoan says. "Now, enough talking! I wanna sleep and you gotta be hungry. Eat something and get outa here!" she takes some more meat from the crate, throws the cooked pieces at them and bites into a raw one.
"Okay …" Sabo sweatdropped at the quick change in mood.
Meanwhile Luffy was already munching away happily. He had been a bit worried something happened when Ace woke him up and both his brothers soul-voices sounded worried-fear-danger?-curious-alert with their future sister´s adding apprehensive-nervous-hopeful to the mix, but now everyone settled down and there were only slight traces of nervousness left in his brothers souls. Amarocks soul-song was happy-content-pleased and he cocked his head to the side, resolving to keep it that way.
A grin stretched across his face, ear to ear, as he jumped up and dragged his brothers back into the woods , shouting an enthusiastic promise to be back for more meat. But for now they´d leave. Amarock did say she was tired after all and you don´t bother people when they want to sleep.
Later Sabo would realise that he forgot to ask about a deal for stuff to sell in Goa Kingdom, but with the whole assassin thing he thinks it´s understandable.
xXxXx
Despite wanting to read some more books it took Sabo a couple days to visit the cave again, simply because he had to convince Ace that he would be fine – his brother could be quite distrustful and overprotective at times. Once he managed that he needed to find a way to keep Luffy from following him after refusing to let the youngest tag along. The only reason he refused anyway was that he´d "only" read and Luffy would be bored. Bad things tended to happen when the rubber boy was bored, so he wanted his younger brother to stay with the older one. That way both Luffy and Ace would be too busy to get stupid ideas. Hopefully.
But now that he was standing in front of the entrance he couldn´t help feeling a tiny bit of nervousness creeping up his spine. Once again he checked the time via sun and let out a long breath. He had chosen to come at noon, because Amarock said she was nocturnal, which meant she should be sleeping right now. If she did, everything would be fine and he´d be gone before she woke up.
If that wasn´t the case it meant she´d lied to them. Since they don't exactly like liars there would likely be a confrontation of some sort … he really didn´t want to think about that. Maybe they could sic Garp on her? Only as a last resort of course, nobody deserved having to deal with that man.
He finally pushed the plants hiding his destination from the world aside and entered the dimly lit tunnel. The cave itself hadn´t changed much: Some of animals hanging from the ceiling and a couple furs had disappeared but those were the only differences. There were still crates everywhere and a fire shed some light.
The one living here however was nowhere to be seen.
Sabo didn´t quite know what to make of that. On the one hand it could mean that she was out and about, doing whatever. Nevertheless, there was nothing even remotely resembling a bed in here and she might just be sleeping somewhere else, seeing how the stone floor had to be pretty uncomfortable.
Ah well, he´d worry about that later. For now he decided to use the chance and follow the second tunnel connecting to the cave-he had been curios about that one. It was pretty similar to the entrance except for being quite a bit shorter.
When he arrived at the end, he was left standing on a small ledge of stone, overlooking the ocean. Far below him, waves lapped against a cliff far too steep and slippery to climb. Said cliff ended in an overhang just a few feet above him, hiding his position from prying eyes.
For any normal (sane) person and most Devil Fruit Users this was a dead end: jumping or falling would be lethal because of the sheer height and well, water for the Fruit Users. The smooth, overhanging rock above also made climbing impossible.
If one was capable of flight, however it presented a near perfect escape route.
The view wasn´t bad either, but the ledge Sabo was standing on didn´t provide a lot of space, so he finished his examination and went back to the main cave.
There he once again tried to figure out where Amarock was. Assuming she hadn't lied about being nocturnal, she should be sleeping somewhere. For obvious reasons he didn't expect her to uphold human standards, which left wolves and bats as basic guidelines …
Bats.
Of course. They couldn´t just meet a completely normal, well-adjusted, SANE human being, could they? Nooo, it had to be an eccentric old Marine, a couple crazy mountain bandits and now a weird teenager who killed people for a living and was currently using her feet to somehow hold onto the stone above him, sleeping soundly. A pair of black membranes was wrapped tightly around her body, still vaguely resembling a human.
A very furry human with bat ears, but still a human.
Finishing his mental rant about insane Marines, emotionally challenged bandit bosses and weird bat-assassins he sat down, sighed and started reading.
He continued visiting at noon first, but soon noticed that he couldn't find any of the referenced works and would also rather spend the days with his brothers than reading. So he started coming at dusk. That worked out pretty well, Amarock was awake (pretty much, the assassin proved to be the utter opposite of a "morning" person) and he wasn't too tired. He also started bringing Luffy along once distracting the boy became to troublesome. Surprisingly his brother didn't cause a lot of chaos.
When asked about it, he responded with "You don't bug people who are tired or sleeping, Sabo! It´s a rule! "and a quite adorable pout. The older teen had no idea where that idea came from, but decided to leave it at that. If it kept him from being woken by a hyperactive rubber ball in the middle of the night, he wasn't about to complain.
Of course, even when being considerate Luffy was still Luffy and so they always had to spend some time getting stuff back where it was apparently supposed to be. And the food inside tended to disappear far faster than what was normal.
Ace however still didn't trust Amarock, though at this point Sabo suspected his brother was only being stubborn. He refused to come anywhere near the cave and if Sabo and Luffy didn't come back on time chaos would ensue.
xXxXx
Thus, the oldest brother didn't see the assassin again until two weeks later.
Even if the only thing he really saw was a big wolf-shaped shadow swooping from the sky, sinking it´s claws into the boar they were hunting and taking off again. With their boar still in its clutches.
By now that was seven days in the past too, but it still irked him. Mainly because Luffy had started talking about Amarock becoming their sister back then and he didn't want that.
After all, then she would know. Who his father was and who Sabos parents are. And about Luffys ability.
And maybe, just maybe he didn't want her to hate them the way everyone else did.
Exactly those thoughts were the reason he was wandering aimlessly under the trees when a voice interrupted his brooding.
"What do you want, Commodore?"
Well that´s not good. What are the Marines doing here?
"I have a job for you assassin."
Assassin?
"So the oh-so-awesome guardians of the world need my help? Never thought I´d see the day."
Wait-he knew that voice. Amarock? Ace started inching towards the arguments origin-this might be worth knowing about.
"Don´t get cocky, scum. The only reason you´re not being hunted down is your little friend."
"Riiiiight. Anyway, what do you want, I don´t have all the time in the world."
By now Ace could see the Marine-who had brought a few of his men along-and Amarocks back. She didn´t seem too pleased with the conversation, judging from the way her hand twitched towards her sword. The group was standing under the trees, a small gap not quite deserving of the name clearing and thus allowing him to come pretty close to the talking pair.
"The World Government recently learned that the Pirate King has a son."
Well Shit.
Time to pack their stuff and get the hell away from here. Though that might not save him from a professional assassin…
"So?"
Wait what? That was not the reaction he expected.
"What do you mean so? So you should be happy to kill him! Rid the world of a monster before it can hurt someone!"
"So you want me to kill a kid because of his father?" her voice was kind of strained by now, the grip on her sword white-knuckled. If Ace had been watching from a different angle, he´d have seen her eyes flash yellow.
When the Commodore nodded, preparing to say something else, Amarock seemed to blur only to end up behind the Marine, blade drawn and bloodied. A split-second later his head fell to the ground as the assassin held up two fingers.
"Okay, two things. One, I don´t do children. Two, I don´t kill people because of their blood relations." The last part was a growl, nearly too deep to come from human throat "Any questions?" she asked the remaining Marines with a cold glare.
Said Sailors seemed to un-freeze and immediately ran off. Probably towards their ship.
Once they were gone, Amarock remained standing for some time, looking like she was waiting for something before turning and heading towards the cave with a shake of her head and a sigh.
After the assassin left, Ace went back towards the treehouse, still somewhat dazed.
Maybe their new … friend … wasn´t all that bad after all.
xXxXx
Somehow nobody was surprised when Ace accompanied his brothers the next time they went to the cave even though he hadn't told anyone about his little spying experience.
He didn´t quite know what to expect once he entered the tunnel, but he knew that Luffy plus Enclosed Space equalled Chaos and so he prepared for exactly that.
Which might have been the reason he spend a minute standing in the entry like an idiot when Luffy simply sat down and started fiddling with something while Sabo went looking for some book at the other end of the cave.
Then he finally entered and also sat down, a bit lost since apparently everyone agreed on ignoring him. And where was Amarock? He started looking around and contemplated following the other tunnel, but decided against it when he saw a strangely shaped lump dangling above Luffys head. It looked kind of like a bat? A very big bat. With a human head?
…
Seriously?
´Well, I guess I should have expected something like this´ he mused. Why hadn´t she woken up though? They had not been the most silent when entering. Weren´t assassins supposed to notice when someone entered their bedroom – or what passed for it?
And … was Luffy seriously trying to crochet over there? Well that definitely was wool …
He spent another minute sitting next to the fire awkwardly and thought up a million other questions until Sabo finally did something.
Granted, he didn´t expect an angry shout of "How often do I have to tell you to fucking organize your books!" and a flying encyclopaedia heading straight for a sleeping assassin, but it was something.
The book hit, and the assassin fell.
Luckily Luffy managed to jump out of the way.
When he refocused on the black lump lying on the floor, Sabo had already descended upon her with the wrath of an angry mother. After only ten seconds of scolding and repeated hitting with the poor book (which he found quite amusing, to be honest) the weird black blob changed to a human form with a tired groan and disentangled her limps.
"I freaking get it, dammit! I´ll do it … sometime … later. Now lemme slee-."
"No I won´t! Ace came today and Luffys vibrating with energy. You will get up, help me organize your books and help Lu with his training!" Sabos voice promised pain if he wasn´t obeyed – he could´ve probably ordered Garp around like that. "Oh and you can join us too if you want, Ace"
´Geez, thanks for remembering me.´
And again, thank you for reading! Leave some feedback please!