Disc: I have no desire to become a pile of ash, so I refuse to take any responsibility for One Piece and thus that maniac who came after me with a flaming fist. Heaven knows what that was about.

1.2 The Guy

There was certainly something to be said about the beauty of waking up at your own pace. The morning sun would send tendrils of light through your window, tickling your nose, while specks of dust danced merrily around you. In an ideal world, birds would chirp cheerfully out in front of your window. Then you would slowly open your eyes, stifle a yawn, and sign in utter contentment at the feeling of being well rested.

"Lana~"

Lana found out fairly quickly that she wouldn't be able to enjoy this kind of luxury any longer.

"Lana! Are you awake yet? Laaaanaaa~"

She groaned and turned around to bury her face in her pillow. "I swear, if you weren't dead already ..."

"Did you say something?" the owner of the overly chipper and incredibly annoying voice jumped on top of her, apparently still delighting in the fact that she could poke and prod Lana and would meet resistance.

For a ghost of a nine-year-old, she was bloody heavy.

"Gerroff me. 'M sleepin'."

The girl frowned. "No you're not. You're talking to me."

"I'm talking in my sleep."

"You didn't talk until now!"

"Go away."

"But I'm bored!"

"I don't care."

Silence.

"Now are you awake?"

Lana clenched her teeth.

"Fine," she grumbled and sat up, shoving the girl off her in the process. "I'm awake. But I'm not playing with you, or whatever the hell you want me to do, Pigtails."

The little nuisance crossed her arms and pouted. "I'm not that little, you know," she informed her from her new position at the end of the bed. "And my name is Remi. Reeemiiii. You're not very good with names, are you?"

"Whatever." Lana yawned. "And those nine years you've had, totally doesn't make you little. You've told me all about it last night."

She had also been told what felt like the entire, oh-so-exciting life story of a gardener's daughter on an island where no ship ever bothered to come by. Not like she could recall any of it– had the girl even stopped talking before she fell asleep? Well, she certainly wasn't going to cry over it.

With Pigtails busy sulking on her bed, Lana stretched and swung her legs over the edge of her bed. If the girl wasn't blabbering or prodding her, it was easy to pretend she wasn't even there. This might be not be as difficult as she thought, with a little discipline–

"Your hair is weird."

Lana grimaced briefly and took out a new top from her drawer. "Is that so."

"Why is it so short? Doesn't it grow?"

"Of course it does." Lana rolled her eyes. "Ever heard of scissors? Then again, you probably weren't allowed to use them."

Someone knocked on the door to her room.

"Lana, this is your wake-up call," Jet's voice floated through the wood. "... Are you talking to someone?"

"Yes, to me!" Pigtails whooped cheerfully.

Lana closed her eyes and cursed silently. "No, it's just me here, talking to myself," she called. "Sorry, I'll be down in a sec."

"Alright …," Jet trailed off. "Though I wonder why you would think you're not allowed to use scissors ...?"

"Jet," Lana said as neutral as she could manage with the girl giggling in the background, "I've just woken up. I'll be right down, okay?"

"Alright then. If you want to have breakfast before starting, you should get going."

"Yes, Boss."

Jet chuckled and Lana listened to the sound of his fading footsteps. When she was sure that he was out of hearing range, she sharply spun around to the ghost on her bed.

"Now listen, Pigtails," she ground out and waved her finger in the girl's face, "if you must stay with me, there are some rules you better follow, or I won't care if you're a kid and beat. You. Up."

Pigtails tilted her head. "Okay."

Well, that was easy. Lana took a deep breath. "No talking to me loudly while there are living, breathing people are around. Or better, don't talk at all then. Same goes for any tugging, poking or generally touching me. No talk. No touch. Understand?"

The girl blinked. "That's all?"

Lana snorted and bent down to retrieve her shoes. "I'll count myself lucky if you can just manage that."

"Okay." Pigtails grinned and jumped down from the mattress as soon as Lana had finished tying her shoelaces.

The girl leaped ahead through the door before Lana could open it. She rolled her eyes. It would take a lot more than this simple parlour trick to impress her; she might not know the exact extent of a ghosts potential powers, due to a very deliberate lack of trying, but after what she had seen it would be silly to expect a limit. Walls were nothing. The floor, however, was a different level entirely. The only spirit she had witnessed phasing through the floors had been deceased for years. On other instances, what they could and couldn't step on seemed to rely pretty much on instinct. Lana supposed the past experience of how gravity should work was too deeply rooted in their conscience to overcome it without difficulties and deliberate trying—pretty uncommon, since spirits generally had enough trouble letting go of life as it was. So unless the unlikely happened and the girl ever figured it out, she would have to take the stairs with Lana.

"I have some errands for you to run," Jet told her, after she shuffled into the kitchen and sent a murmured "Morning" his way.

Lana reached for the bread. "Sure. Do you have a list for me?"

"Well, it's mostly the usual." The chair creaked under his weight as he sat down at the head of the table to keep her company. He couldn't know that as of a few hours, a little girl had claimed "keeping Lana company" as her personal mission and was currently sauntering through the table, admiring the worn-out tabletop underneath her chest.

"But I'd like you to get some fish this time as well, Harry told me they hauled in a good catch at dawn. Also, there's a trading vessel at the harbour—are you listening to me?"

"Yes." She continued to glare at Pigtails, whose upper body stuck out of the table right were the jug of milk stood, effectively blocking it for Lana. The girl beamed and put a finger to her lips, as if she were saying: See, I'm keeping the rules!

Such a cheeky brat.

Jet followed her gaze. "Something wrong with the milk?" he asked and raised his eyebrows. "It might go sour if you keep sending that death glare."

"No," Lana sighed and gave up on the milk. "You said something … uh, fishy?"

"Fish, Lana, fish," Jet chuckled. "George—I mean, the fisherman—should know which ones, since Harry has already talked to him and—" he hesitated. "Are you sure you're alright? I know yesterday was a tough day for you."

You don't know half of it, she thought grimly between two bites. Out loud, she said, "No, I'm just peachy. Is there something else?"

Jet didn't look convinced, but seemed to let it go. "Ah, it's not that important. I wanted to go have a look for myself, anyway."

"Alright," Lana shrugged and finished the rest of her breakfast, after which Jet gave her some money and ushered her outside with a basket and a grocery list in hand.

As soon as the tavern disappeared behind a corner, Lana addressed her second shadow.

"Okay, Pigtails," she said. "I have another rule for you: Don't get in the bloody way. Got it?"

The girl frowned. "How do I know if I'm in the way?"

Shaking her head, Lana exhaled and turned away. "How about this: Whenever I stare at you like I want to kill you—again—you move."

"That's easy," Pigtails nodded and started skipping alongside her. "Did you know the milk gets better if the cow eats different herbs?"

"No," Lana said curtly, raising a hand to greet a woman who had just stepped out of a house.

And while she passed more and more people on her way to the small harbour, the girl gave her an entirely unwanted lecture about some greenery or other, apparently having already forgotten "Rule number one: No talking" and pretty soon forgoing the second rule as well, tugging at the hem of her top whenever she wanted to emphasise a point. With every tug, Lana's expression fell a little more. She grimaced and kicked a pebble out of her way. It bounced a few times and hit the side of the shipping boat tied at the docks, before plummeting into the sea with a dull plop. The mouldy girl seemed absolutely intent on staying glued to her side. Which meant everything Lana said and did would have to be considered first; if people were around, what would they see and hear?

"—and right now he's checking what herbs that trader has to offer, maybe he's got something to spice things up juuust right, aye?"

She would also need to get used to all this talk about plants. Fast.

"To have a trading vessel come by is so rare. Weren't you on one a few years ago? ... Hello?"

Lana blinked and found the fisherman she was supposed to buy fish from staring at her expectantly. What did he say?

"Yes, sure," she said hurriedly. "I'll take it."

The man chuckled and watched her putting the fish in her basket and cover it. "Never understood you foreigners. I couldn't imagine living somewhere else."

Hell knew how he'd gotten on that subject.

"You get used to it. I never wanted to, either," she said and waved goodbye, leaving the door open behind her.

Pigtails grasped her free hand.

"What's it like where you're from?"

A golden city, surrounded by green hills and filled with laughter. Streets lined with stalls bursting with colour under clay tiled roofs. The sound of marbles chiming against each other. And every evening, the air so sweet and heavy, hailing the seasons of the harvest.

Lana smiled weakly. "Bigger. Sunnier. And famous for its exotic fruits, so it's mostly covered in orchards—rows and rows of trees full of fruits. There's a huge festival in autumn and a parade all the way to the city to celebrate the harvest. We would—" she broke off and cleared her throat.

"Really? That's so awesome!" the girl exclaimed, then frowned,"But why did you leave if—"

"My family moved," and they returned home, hopefully, with nothing holding them back anymore.

"Hm." The girl tugged at one of her pigtails in thought. "I think it'd be brilliant to get to see other places."

"Is that so."

"Of course! Just think of how many different plants and herbs there must be! Gramps always said—"

Here we go again. Lana sighed inwardly. They had reached a small house not far off the harbour, the first one on the round she did every other week for the tavern since she'd begun working for Jet. She smiled gratefully at the woman handing her roots and other vegetables Lana was just about able to identify and wouldn't, if it weren't for her list. The girl was going on and on about plants exactly like Lana remembered some guys back on her island did about exotic fruit varieties. After all, the family business was the favourite thing to discuss—if you didn't know about fruits, you didn't know anything in their eyes. All that knowledge was gone now, forgotten, pushed aside by the more pressing matters that came after.

To Lana's own surprise, she got along fairly quickly—despite having to act as if there wasn't a kid constantly pulling at her limbs and clothes while talking her ears off. Everyone seemed to speed up their transaction today; soon enough, she found herself wrapping up her last purchase and heaved the basket out to the street with one arm.

"And then, he said there's this plant, where the dried milk can make you fall asleep if you ..."

Some people greeted her in passing and Lana nodded absentmindedly in return. There was the woman who fixed her shirt the other day, the bearded man who had built a new table after one was smashed in a bar fight and some topless guy with a weird hat harassing the girl who, for some unfathomable reason, thought Lana was a great listener. Sometimes she would come to whine about how she had two boys she really liked and couldn't decide between them. Actually, one of them was coming down the street now, this was definitely not going to be pretty—wait a minute.

Wait.

Lana stopped short, feeling like she'd run into a solid brick wall.

The topless guy.

Something was off about him. Lana narrowed her eyes against the rising sun, unable to put her finger on it–maybe because that ghost kid had taken to playing with the fingers of Lana's free hand. She was going on about how some herb could ease cramps if you put the leaves on your skin, and suddenly, it hit Lana.

Skin. Topless. This guy had no shirt on. That definitely wasn't normal for this island. Nor was that ridiculous orange cowboy hat or the honest-to-god necklace, if she thought about it. And then the girl's boyfriend walked right through him to greet his girl, who looked up and smiled. She didn't seem to notice how the boy split up in two right before her eyes, the cowboy stepping away with a disappointed frown and confirming Lana's worst suspicions.

"—and gramps said it grows almost anywhere in the world—"

She grabbed the kid's hand and whirled them back to the way they had come, effectively stopping the girl's babbling.

"Where are we going? The tavern is that way."

"Oh, I know, I, uhm—" think, Lana, think, before she sees him "—I was thinking that, since you're so into plants, we ... could make a detour through the fields and—and circle back to the tavern from the back!"

"Oh." Pigtails seemed to mull over this for a moment. Then she broke into a grin. "Alright! I can show you all the really helpful plants!"

Lana breathed in relief while the girl resumed her lecture, this time about about the medical uses of dandelions and stinging nettles and Lana didn't even mind, as long as they were steadily moving away from Topless Guy.

Who was, without a doubt, another bloody spirit.

Where the hell had he come from? Not from here, that much was certain, she'd have noticed. How could he have … had there been anything different today? Just the usual round, but there had to be something she'd missed. She couldn't say if people had been more chatty than usual, since she had basically tuned out on any long speeches due to some little blabbermouth, but they had been in a terrible hurry, because they had wanted ... to get to the harbour.

Lana cursed.

The ship. Of course! There were never any ships docked, only fisher boats. Also, while she was busy sending Pigtails death glares this morning, hadn't Jet said that there was … ugh, what was it … a–a trading vessel in the harbour? Since everyone had wanted to see what they could stock up on this rare occurrence, they had hastened to get rid of her …. but he would leave again. He had to. He would get bored of this dull, dreary rock and return on deck. As soon as the town would finish trading, the ship would pull out and disappear: it shouldn't take more than one or two days, if she considered her own experience of sailing with traders. Until then, she'd only have to stay away and feign ignorance–unlike yesterday, she wouldn't be caught off-guard.

But while her gaze followed the ghost girl's outstretched finger here and there, she missed the one, obvious miscalculation she had made.

Plink-plink, the marbles clinked against the tiles. The rest slipped from your suddenly limp fingers. Plink-plink-plink.

You–you couldn't breathe. Tears spilled over your cheeks as you desperately clawed at the arm of the man who had your neck in an iron grip, your feet dangling uselessly two feet above the ground.

"So you're alive, but can still converse with me and my dead kind, huh?" He smiled and brought you even closer to his face. "Now I bet it means you know of a way for me to come back to life, am I right?"

"Please," you croaked, "I'm so sorry I hit you, I didn't see, I'm sorry! I don't know, please—"

Someone pulled at your feet, yelling at you, screaming, you knew they were still there, might have had gotten mamma and papà, and—

"You see," he said conversationally, "I have a score to settle, and I think you understand how I can't do that in my current state."

A fog creeped over her vision, bringing the grin of the man strangely into focus. You didn't see him moving, but suddenly, there was a blade at your neck, digging into your skin where the fingers of his other hand ended.

"Don't test my patience, girl. You know exactly what I mean," he growled.

The voices of everyone else were blurring into noises in the background and you realized, gasping for air and pleading—

Nobody would be able to save you from something they couldn't see.

A heavy weight slammed into your back. His grip slipped and suddenly, you were on the ground and everything hurt and you didn't understand. He had let go, but your neck was still hurting, burning, it didn't make sense and you wanted it to stop, just stop. Your top clung to your skin, something wet trickling down, drip-drip, but you hadn't cried that much, had you?

There were hands and voices, lots of them, talking and crying and screaming. You were drifting, drowning in the sea of them, but then a few cool, smooth spheres were pressed into your hand.

You clung to them and wondered if it meant the game was over, or if it was still going, but the rules had changed.

The sun was high in the sky and the tavern already bursting at the seams, full of people eager to chatter about the ship and their trades. They also had a lot to say about the trader himself, all alone on his ship. He was said to have been constantly distracted and had declined the invitation to a drink, but the villagers simply explained it away with his foreign origin.

Lana frowned and maneuvered her tray around the ghost girl, who was counting how many times she could jump up and down on one leg. An absent-minded trader alone with a ghost—bloody hell, the noise and the stuffy air made it so hard to think.

"Lana, be a dear and bring this outside?"

Lana blinked and accepted the three tankards Jet thrust into her hands. "Outside?" Then she remembered the table they had on the patio out front. "Oh yeah, outside. Right away."

Pigtails followed after her, still hopping ("... 495, 496 ..."), while Lana pushed open the bat-wing doors with one shoulder. She took a deep breath of fresh air and set down the drinks in front of the three men who murmured their thanks. Behind her, she heard the girl curse "Bilberry!" after missing a step when the doors passed through her and Lana smirked.

The smile faded quickly when she turned and spotted a familiar orange cowboy hat coming down the road.

She forced herself to breathe.

Okay, so he had probably been bound to check out the tavern sooner or later. There he was, now she only had to ignore and pretend she didn't see him. Lana averted her eyes and hurried back to the door.

"Oooooh, who's that? He looks weird!"

Lana froze. No. Oh no. She wouldn't ….

From the corner of her eyes, she saw that mouldy kid jumping down from the patio to the road.

"Lana, look! He's naked!"

Of course she would.

"Come back here," Lana hissed. All she got was confused glances from the men off the side and the back view of a pair of bouncing pigtails.

Lana cursed heaven and hell for her rotten luck. Listening to Pigtails whoop in joy, the wheels whirred frantically in her head. What the bloody hell was she supposed to do now? Should she go back inside? But then, maybe he'd follow her and—oh hell, now the kid was pointing at her, thank God she wasn't looking right at them. Which meant that maybe … maybe she could still pull it off.

She closed her eyes and calmed her breathing, taking a step to the side and holding her face into the sun. Even though she tried her hardest to concentrate solely on the warmth of the rays on her skin, she could still feel them come closer.

"—she can be really mean sometimes, but that's just because she's lonely. Did you see her hair? Isn't it weird?"

"That's nothing," Lana heard him respond. "A friend of mine has hair that makes him look like an overgrown pineapple. Only blonde."

"Really? What's a pine-apple?"

"Err ... a fruit. You've never had one?"

Fruits. Wonderful, her favourite topic.

"No ... Can it do anything useful?"

"Uhm … It uh, tastes good?"

They were standing directly in front of her now. Lana guessed that if the guy had been alive, he would've blocked the sun from her.

"Hey Lana, look! He's a ghost, too! And he says he's been looking for you!"

Lana blinked lazily and stared pointedly right over the girl's head. "The sun sure is nice today."

Puzzled silence.

"Can she really see us?" the guy asked Pigtails.

Lana felt a twinge of triumph and added: "I hope the girl is behaving, though."

Said girl tilted her head. "I think she's talking to me. But I don't know what she means, because I haven't broken any of those rules ..."

Only because I wasn't fast enough, Lana grumbled inwardly. She yawned demonstratively and began to retreat, "Time to get back to work, I guess ..."

"Hey, wait!"

A muscular hand closed around her arm and stopped her in mid-turn. Lana closed her eyes.

"Wha—I can touch her!"

Damn.

"Didn't I tell you?" The girl grinned. "That's the awesomest part!"

The guy pulled Lana around again and lowered his head to look her straight in the eyes.

"So I bet you can hear me, too?"

His black, curious eyes stared her down. Between the sun in her eyes and the glaring colour of that ridiculous hat, she could barely make out a freckled face framed by shaggy black hair. The sun shone right through the outline of his features. Even Lana couldn't miss his ghostly nature anymore, so she sighed in defeat and yanked her arm out of his grip. Throwing a quick look over her shoulder to the men who were thankfully still deep in conversation, she lowered her voice.

"Yes, goddammit. What do you want?"

The guy blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry. I haven't introduced myself properly." He bowed and smiled up at her. "Hello, I'm Ace, pleased to meet you. I'm afraid I'm in need of your assistance."

Lana stared at him. "Yeah, I'm Lana—and I couldn't care less." Abruptly, she swung her gaze to the kid. "Okay, another rule, Pigtails. Don't tell other ghosts about me and don't bloody lead them to me."

The girl frowned. "Why?"

"Because they always want some help I can't give."

With that, Lana began to step back towards the door, but the guy caught her wrist again. "Wait, you don't even know what I was going to ask!"

She cast another glance behind her, but the men still weren't paying attention her. Her voice was probably drowned out by the noise coming through the doorway to the common room.

"Fine. Ask away. But kindly leave if I say no."

"Okay." He dropped her hand and looked down at the girl's curious face and back at her. "Okay. See, I have—had this brother who I've been searching for, but up until a while ago, I thought I was looking for a ghost. But, well, it occurred to me that there's actually a high chance he's still alive, so I need to change tactics."

He looked at her expectantly.

"... So, your point?" Lana asked.

"Someone has to ask around the living and well, I can't do that. I doubt he'd be anywhere but on the Grand Line and—"

"Woah, stop right there." Lana raised a hand in front of her. "You want me to find your possibly dead but also possibly alive brother?"

"Yes."

"On the bloody Grand Line where you're just guessing he is?"

"Yes."

Lana couldn't help but gape at him. "That's the most idiotic idea I've ever heard. Let me think about it for a second." She paused and cocked her head."No."

"Come on ... err, please?" He smiled, as if convinced that adding a little polite word would win her over.

"Forget it," she snorted. "Do you know how many people die there?"

His smile morphed into a condescending smirk. "Don't tell me you're scared."

"Death equals dead people equals ghosts, you moron!" She ran her fingers through her hair, ignoring the exclaim "Oh, can we go?" from the kid. "As you might have noticed, I'm not very fond of your species."

"Oh, she's not fond of us? What a shame."

Lana jumped at the new voice. Another man had come up beside Mr. Cowboy-Hat. The telltale glow of a ghost that surrounded him made her stomach churn. She could feel it and the shivers that this little fact sent down her spine were too familiar.

She cursed and her breath hitched. "Has there been a bloody epidemic lately?!"

"Ah, no," the new guy smiled. He must have been in his late twenties, maybe early thirties when he died; his brown hair was still full, but the first lines had already dug their way into his tanned skin. With his dress shirt hung untugged over long cargo-pants and the scruffy stubble on his face, he radiated careless confidence.

"We travelled all this way just for you, Miss," he said gallantly. "Congratulations on finding her by the way, Mr. Portgas."

His companion raised an eyebrow and seemed to fight a grimace. "Well, I usually find the people I'm looking for in the end."

"Who're you?" blurted Pigtails.

"Why, I'm Jean." He didn't even spare the girl a glance. Instead, he casually pointed back over his shoulder. "And the man coming up behind me is my wonderfully obedient brother, Pierre."

A shadow fell over Lana's feet. The man came to a halt behind the ghosts, even though he could have just walked through them. His skin was sagging in places where muscles, and possibly quite some fat had waned from a formerly stout body. It couldn't have been too long ago, either. What might have been a rich brown colour once upon a time had faded from his unkempt hair. His now oversized shirt was inside out, but his dishevelled appearance wasn't what made Lana feel sick to her stomach.

It was the haunted look in his eyes.

"Hello," she whispered.

He didn't answer. Instead, the ghost brother cleared his throat pointedly.

"While I am sorry to overhear that she has declined your proposition, my dear friend," he said and patted the cowboy on the shoulder, "I'm positive I won't be so unlucky."

The cowboy narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

Cargo-pants ignored him and fixed Lana with his grey eyes. "Since you have the ability to converse with us, I wager you know a way of revival, am I right?"

Heavy silence followed his question. Her heart beat echoed deafening in her ears and the air left her lungs in a whoosh. So maybe she should be surprised, but the ice in her veins only confirmed the dread that had been crawling under her skin all along. What else could he want? He already had his brother hovering behind him in a gruesome twist of the natural order.

The cowboy, on the other hand, was staring at him in slack-jawed.

"What?"

"Can you do that, Lana?" Pigtails asked with huge eyes.

Lana shook her head and took a deep breath. This wasn't like ten years ago; she was not eleven years old anymore.

"No. I'm sorry, but I'm unable to help you," she told Cargo-pants, trying to conceal the shaking in her voice.

Her answer didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. "I'm sure, at least not without a proper life sacrifice ...?"

"You don't mean ..." The cowboy quickly looked behind him at the brother.

Of course he does, Lana felt like screaming at him, but she couldn't. A twitch could be enough and she might slip, loose control and so she needed everything she had to stop from shivering.

"You must see it's entirely unfair that I died while my spineless brother survived ...?"

The cowboy backed away, raising his fists. "You son of a—"

"I'm sorry, but I'm still unable to help you," Lana interrupted him. She pulled an open-mouthed Pigtails behind her and held out her other hand to Cargo-pants. "Good day, Sir."

His lips tightened as he looked down to her hand and back to her face, seemingly unimpressed by the hateful glare he was being pierced with from the side. "I don't believe you," he growled, "I know I can touch you, so believe me, you either do what I tell you of your own free will or else ..." He let his unfinished sentence hang in the air.

Lana nodded. "Okay," she stepped up close to him and smiled up at his expectant face.

"Then go to hell."

With one swift motion, she reached up and pushed down his shoulders, simultaneously bringing up her knee to his midsection. He gasped in pain and surprise, doubling over. But she didn't give him any time to recover. She seized his head with both hands and with one powerful jerk, she wrenched it around to the sweet sound of a snapping neck.

He crumbled to her feet.

"What the—"

She ignored the baffled shouts and stepped over the body to the dazed brother, breathing hard.

"Okay buddy, let me give you a piece of advice you better follow if you don't want to die." She took a deep breath. "Run, as fast as you can. This'll probably be your only chance to get away from him. Just bloody run."

He blinked at her and seemed to see her for the first time. "Wha-?"

She looked down at his brother and saw how his head was slowly but surely shifting around. The neck was readjusting itself; her time was running out. Clenching her teeth, she straightened and grabbed Pigtails' hand. With the ghost girl stumbling after her, she shoved her way past the goddamn idiot who'd gotten himself possessed.

Of course, the men on the patio chose this moment to bring themselves back into the picture. "Hey there, Mr. Trader!" one of them hollered. "Did the young lady want to buy something?"

"She sure was acting strange just now!" another one called.

"I don't kn—"

Right. Customers. "Hey you!" she yelled to the men over her shoulder and sped up, "Tell Jet I'm sorry and–and I'll be back later!"

She didn't wait for a response and raced around the next corner. Her feet were hammering on the ground as the sound of her heavy breathing grated on her ears. She refused to stop and think. As soon as the adrenaline wore off, she would have plenty of time for that. The thoughts would come by themselves, whether she wanted them to or not–but any time now, that spirit-head would face the right direction again.

"Where are we running?"

The timid voice reminded Lana of her baggage, which was slowing her down considerably. Stupid, why did she have to haul the girl along with her? She was dead, practically gone, nothing to worry about—herself, on the other hand ... Lana said nothing and pulled around another corner. She had absolutely no idea where she was going, except for a very clear far, far away. Maybe the idiotic brother was smart enough to do the same, but that ghost might have recovered already. Mouldy spirit regeneration …

"Lana—" the girl panted behind her, "—can we—can we stop now? I'm—I'm tired."

She kept running. "You're dead. You shouldn't get tired."

"But—"

Laughter boomed through the alley.

"And here I thought you were being pretty impressive, up until you ran with your tail between your legs."

Her feet screeched to such a sudden halt that the girl slammed into her back. Lana's eyes darted around wildly for the source of his voice. She found him perched on the roof above her, just as he pushed off and landed in front of her with practiced ease. At the sight of his stupid smirk and idiotic hat and his broad, pretentiously shirtless chest, she felt the carefully crafted ice inside of her chest crack. It didn't matter that she'd long forgotten his name.

"You!" she snarled. "You mouldy idiot brought him here, didn't you! You told him! How the hell did you know about me?!"

His hands came up in an attempt to pacify her. "Oi, calm down! Look, I'm sorry he turned out to be such a bastard." He frowned. "It's just wrong, what he wants—I swear I didn't know—"

"Answer the rotten question!"

"Okay, okay!" He threw up his hands. "Yes, I told him why I was looking for you! He gave me a lift, after all! Otherwise I would have needed months to get here."

She clenched her teeth. "Who else knows?"

"I don't know—Oi, hold your seakings!" he added hurriedly when she took a deep breath to yell some more. "I haven't told anyone else. But that dead old grandpa who told me about you and where to find you might have."

"Dead old—" Then realisation dawned on her. "Oh, that mildewy ...!" she whispered faintly.

Pigtails tugged at her hand. "Who is he talking about?"

Sheer powerlessness threatened to overwhelm her and Lana closed her eyes, bracing herself for the avalanche. Because she remembered, she goddamn remembered the last ghost she had met before that bloody kid started pushing up daisies. She remembered the old man who had missed his chance to travel the world when he was alive and had wanted to make up for it before he left for good. The one who had promised her nothing ever happened on this island when she disembarked three years ago.

"Lana?"

"Oh, God," she gazed ahead, unseeing. "If that old chatterbox is going around telling– who knows how many—oh bloody hell!"

"I hate to interrupt your panicking, but I think you have other things to worry about right now."

Her eyes snapped back to him. His crossed arms revealed a tattoo on his left arm to her, spelling ASCE. How great, as least she had a way to remember the muscle brain's name. She opened her mouth to tell 'Asce' to go to hell, but right then, a deafening crash split the air. It echoed on the streets.

"What's going on?" The kid's grip on her hand tightened. "Lana?"

Asce—no, Ace, if the crossed out letter was anything to go by, tilted his head, "I think that was the patio. Probably the doors, too." Someone screamed, and more voices joined in. "And those—" he fixed her with his black eyes, "—would be the ones who were enjoying a drink in that lovely tavern."

She stared at him. "He wouldn't—"

"Honestly, what did you think was going to happen?" He shook his head in exasperation. "That brother wasn't going to leave, and he wasn't going to give up so easily. Of course he would make him take apart the next best thing you could have hid in!"

In the background, she heard the sound of breaking glass among the tangle of terrified voices, forming a dreadful chorus to accompany her internal battle. Oh God, how she wanted to simply get away, to pretend all of this never happened. She didn't want this, any of it. Because last time … last time she'd stayed and everything went horribly wrong.

Why couldn't they just leave her alone?

"Lana?"

"Oh, shut up!" she snapped at the girl, who recoiled and let go of her hand. "I need to—I need to think—"

"There's nothing to think about." She looked up and saw him smirk. "Fight. You might even beat him."

The anger triggered by that bloody patronising smile of his chased away all the unbidden confusion and fear at once.

He didn't know anything.

"Oh, yeah?" she bit out. "And you think he'll do me the favour and stay down?" She raked her fingers through her hair and turned away. "I don't think so."

Then she paused. Wait a minute.

He was a ghost, too.

She whirled back around. "You," she pointed at him. "Those muscles better not be for show, because you're going to help me chase him back to the sea! It's your fault he's here in the first place."

He grinned and tipped back his hat. "How about this: I promise to help you beat the crap out of the guy, if you promise to help me find my brother."

Lana glared at him. "You are the one that brought him here! It's your rotten duty to help! I have no obligation whatsoever to—"

Another crash in the distance interrupted her and this time, she could swear she heard her newest ghost-friend howl with laughter. Ace looked at her expectantly.

"Time's running out."

Lana took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"Fine," she spat. "I promise to see what I can do. I'll even give you a bloody therapy session and you can whine about all of your itty-bitty regrets and tell me how bloody unfair life is, alright?!"

"Nah, I'll just take the help with searching." He bowed his head. "I give you my thanks for your kind offer! I was itching to introduce him to my fists."

She clenched her teeth and lowered her head level with the wide eyes of the girl.

"Hey, Pigtails," she said and tried to smile, but ended up with something closer to a grimace. "Things are going to get ugly. Remember those rules?" The girl nodded. "They're still effective. Especially the third one."

"Don't be in the way," Pigtails whispered.

"Exactly. So be a nice girl and stay here, alright?"

The girl shook her head vigorously, her pigtails flapping around. "I'm gonna come with you!"

"I've told you, you—"

A particularly loud scream reached her ears. She didn't have time for this. "Fine! Fine. But stay outside of the fight, or I'll get very angry. Okay?"

When the girl nodded, Lana straightened and turned the way she had come.

"Let's get this over with."

A few hundred yards away, across the remnants of what once had been a wooden patio and through a doorway bereft of their usual, merry bat-wing doors, a brawl was in full swing.

Or rather, it might have looked like an all-out brawl to an outsider, but it was actually many patrons trying to help one big, burly barman wrestle down a visitor who, defying his scruffy appearance, proved to be unexpectedly strong.

Jet didn't know what on earth was going on. This morning, the man had seemed exceptionally peaceful, despite being somewhat absentminded. He couldn't explain why he had suddenly gone on a rampage and started attacking his guests; or how the trader, with that half-dried up body, could hold his own against him—him, who could easily break up any quarrels in his tavern with his fists without even breaking a sweat!

But while he tried to make sense of it all while simultaneously blocking blow after blow, he didn't spare a thought for the odd behavior of the girl living under his roof.

That was, until a shadow fell over the entrance.

"Hey you! Still interested in revival?"

The grip of the man went slack and Jet almost landed a hit before he registered who and what had been spoken and his head snapped up in disbelief.

"Lana?!"

Her silhouette was illuminated by the radiant afternoon sunlight, making it seem as if her wild auburn locks had been set on fire. Jet saw how her green eyes flashed grimly in the deep shadows that shrouded her face and it occurred to him, quite suddenly, that even after knowing her all this time–despite everything he had believed–this woman standing before him was a complete stranger.

She took a step back.

"How about we take this outside?"

Reviews are my bread and butter. Don't let me starve, heh? This is actually my first multi-chapter story as well as my first OC-story, so whatever you've got to say, throw it at me!