Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece. Just my OC's Ava, Jasper, and Kyle and any characters needed to help the story along.


Chapter 3

Uncle and I had a deal worked out; I bring home meat and help clean the bar...sometimes. When I do he gives me choice on that night's intel for robberies. It was a crude agreement, but we decide the simpler the agreement, the better, since there would be less loopholes. This worked for both of us because we both knew the other would weedle out of any loophole they could find. Tonight uncle had given me intel on a merchant house that was going to be empty tonight since there was a party in the next town over. Merchants are the best to hit with robberies because you can get money and goods to sell. That way you have insurance for future profit, so if one of your robberies doesn't pay, you already have money from the last job. Now Kyle and I could hunt and we didn't have any pressing needs, so all of our money went into our adventure chest, for when we set sail.

Once we had reached our target, the merchant's house and his shop next door, Kyle and I settled on top of the houses across the street to wait for the family to leave, and to make a break-in plan. The security was two large dogs, or small bears it was hard to tell in the fading light. So it was going to be a simple job, knock out the dogs, break the lock, and grab the stuff. Soon after we arrived the Merchant and his family left for this party, we waited a few minutes to make sure they were really gone and then we jumped to the street below. The dogs started to growl softly when we landed, quickly before they could alert the neighbors Kyle had pressed his staff into their throats, pinning the beasts. I ran after him and used my staff to knock one out and then the other. Painless, for us anyway. After the dogs were taken care of, we went to the door to break the lock. Unfortunately for us the merchant used deadbolts, making it impossible for us to go through the door. I mean we couldn't break down the door; one, it was solid wood and we didn't have the strength, and two, the neighbors would definitely hear us.

I start to pace, a nervous habit I picked up from one of the convicts that had first taught me and Kyle to fight. "Shit. What do we do now? Do you want to call it quits and try another job tomorrow? We have already gotten a decent amount of money from pickpocketing this week." Kyle says as he puts a hand on my shoulder to stop my pacing.

I stop and look at the house, "No. We aren't quitters, I refuse to be a quitter. We go through the window." The window is always a risky move, for us at least. Since we were too short to reach the window to open it cleanly, even if Kyle stood on my shoulders we wouldn't be steady enough, and it would be worse If I tried on his shoulders, because of my one eye. This meant we had to break the window, as quietly as possible. Kyle sighed and took a piece of heavy cloth out of his coat. Our usual plan for windows is try to muffle the sound as much as possible when we hit the glass. Most robbers can cut the glass and just slip in, this is one of the few disadvantages of being child thieves. Most of the time being short and having round baby-fat filled faces lets you get away clean, or stake out a robbery no suspicion aroused.

Kyle wrapped the end of his staff in the cloth and jumps on my shoulders. Once he's steady he jabs the bottom corner of the window. I watch as the glass splinters and then fall around us. The goal is to get the glass inside the window, away from where you're hitting, but if you mess up and hit in the wrong place the glass falls out onto you. This is quite painful because you have a lot of sharp glass falling down on top of you, it also is louder when it hits the ground. I wince as the glass rains down around us, giving me some small cuts on my arms and a large cut on my cheek. Quickly we scrambled through the broken window and into the house.

One of the few rules Uncle set out, for him to turn a blind eye to my fighting is that I can never be caught. As soon as I'm caught he'll tell Smoker and I'll be locked in a rubber room for the rest of my life. There have been a few close calls but so far no rubber room. A thing Kyle had learned before he meet me was that the less you take from the rich, the less the cops care. He taught me this and that is the reason even though we try to do as few robberies as possible. Most of our money comes from other robbers, we hit them after they think they have gotten away with their money. It's easier to deal with crooks then the cops, crooks want to beat you up, cops want to lock you up. It's easier to hide bruises and cuts in plain sight when the old man comes along. When you're in a jail cell, you can almost count on seeing a rubber room soon in your future. That being so, crooks know to get rid of their money quick, or like us hide it. If we want to get of this fucking island before we rot, we have to do some big robberies.

We hadn't done a job in about a month so we needed a large amount of cash soon. If we messed this job up Uncle would be reluctant to give us a job anytime soon. As soon as the window we we're in the house looking for anything of value. We had 5 minutes tops, since someone was sure to have heard the glass breaking. I found the jewelry section and stuffed anything I could grab into the bag I brought, then I ran back to the window, out of time. I waited a few seconds and then Kyle showed up. we nodded to each other and jumped out the window. As soon as we were outside I heard shouts down the street, I looked up and saw cops running towards us, "Shit." Kyle sees them as well, and looks at me. He hands me his bag, then takes off towards them. I watch for a second then take off in the opposite direction.

After I stash the money I sit down to wait. We've done this before, Kyle risks capture so I can get away with the loot. We meet up again after he's lost the cops. I always argue that I should be the decoy sometimes, but he always says he'd rather he end up in jail, where he might be able to escape from, then have me end up with Smoker, where I'll never escape from. So far he had never been caught.

I wait.

And wait.

After about 3 hours I knew he wasn't coming back. I got up from where I had been sitting by our hideout and head back to the bar. I expected to sneak in before Uncle called Last Call and grab a few hours of sleep before I would figure out how to get Kyle in the morning. What I found was a small bloody body on the steps. Actually it wasn't a body, yet. I could tell because once it saw me it perked up. I groan as I recognize Jasper under the black eyes and blood soaked shirt. I couldn't deal with anyone right now, all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and cry. It was my fault I would probably never see my best friend again. If I hadn't insisted on completing the job, if he didn't have to support my weak ass every single time, if I wasn't crippled with both the old man and a missing eye.

'Suck it up and shut up,' I tell myself, 'you will get him out of this.'

I glare as Jasper comes running up to me and tries to give me a hug. "Ava! You're back!" I hold up a hand and he runs into it, holding him at arm's length with my palm on his swollen forehead he calms down a little. Well he stopped jumping up and down. "I tried to follow you but you disappeared! Then these guys tried to mug me! I told them I was looking for you and they laughed and then beat me up! It didn't hurt as much as when dad hits me so it's ok. Anyway I got back here, but Uncle said you were out on a job. What kind of job? Was it fun? I can't believe you have a job! I wish I was cool like you! Anyway I forgive you for earlier, it didn't hurt that much. But really I tried to get food from Uncle but he just kicked me out of the bar! I can't belie-"

I took my hand off his forehead and covered his mouth, "Do you ever SHUT UP?" Sheesh the kid talked so fast it made my head hurt. And he had no real train of thought, so it was basically impossible to follow what he was saying. "Look kid-"

"Ja-per" He says, muffled by my hand.

"Jasper, whatever, I can't fucking deal with you right now, I have other things I need to deal with, so why don't you just go back to your old man and go on living your spoiled marine life."

"No!" Even muffled that was easy to understand. He grabs my hand away from his mouth to say, "I don't want to be a marine! I want to be a pirate!"

"I don't fucking care what you want to be, I WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE!" I walk past him and into the bar. Uncle was already asleep like a dog in his room, you could hear his snores as you passed, so I walked quietly to my blanket and curl up into a ball. I had just settled when the talk-your-ear-off dork found me, again.

But instead of talking to me he just grabs another blanket beside mine. One I hadn't seen before, Uncle probably set it out for him, how nice, I'd had to find mine. Uncle cares more about Smokers precious son than me with evil blood running through my veins. But who wouldn't? Who wouldn't choose the great Marine's son over his daughter? I closed my eyes and tried not to cry myself to sleep.

The next morning I woke up early and avoided the snoring form of Jasper who had rolled over in his sleep to take up most of the closet. Once I made it out of the bar I broke into a run towards the holding cells. I sneak past the outside guards and climb up one of the support beams of the building. People rarely look up so I was as safe as I could be in a marine building. I make my way along the ceiling beams towards the prisoners. I have to stop a couple of times when people walk blow me, eyes are drawn to movement so even if they wouldn't normally look up a slight movement might give me away. One time I stopped when two people were walking toward me, one was a marine, the other a weather-beaten old man with an evil glint to his eyes. I tried to not even breath when the stopped almost directly below me, but I listened to what they were saying.

"-little room left in the cells, we need you to do your pick up earlier." the marine was saying.

The gruff man laughed, "Don't want to waste any money on a bigger jail yet? The soonest I can take them off your hands is next week, I need to get rid of my previous cargo, and this cities markets are slow right now."

"As long as you make them disappear so no one ever knows what happened to them."

"That is why you hire me, to dispose of your prisoners in a way that gains you profit but doesn't raise suspicion."

"Correct, and you know any word of this operation and I can just blame it all on you so don't go getting any ideas."

A laugh from the gruff man, "When have I let you down?" the marine just scowls at him and they move on.

I don't even want to think about what I just heard, I knew some of the marines were corrupt but selling the prisoners to slavers just to get them off your hands without dirtying them as wrong. I swallow and continue to the prisoners. It isn't long before I see them. I scan the cells until I see a small figure huddled in a corner. Even after just one night in the jail he looked older. His hair was caked in mud and who knows what else, some with his face. Even with all the mud you could see the dried blood and bruises over his body. I sighed in relief, Kyle still looked ten times better than most of the prisoners, and best of all he wasn't dead. That was one of my biggest worries since we had robbed most of the people in these cells at least once. But apparently they didn't recognize him, it wasn't like he was the only kid in the cells, there were at least 5 others I could see.

I moved forward as far as I could on the beam and took out a slip of paper I brought, and a piece of charcoal. I was glad Smoker had insisted Uncle had to teach me to read and write, even if his teaching methods were a bit brutal. Kyle knew a little bit and I had helped him learn more. I scrawled as best I could in the charcoal 'im geting u out'. Once I had done that I tied the note to a small rock with a piece of string. I aimed as best I could and dropped the rock next to his hand. I sighed as the other prisoners didn't even look up as the small rock hit the ground. Kyle picked it up, read the note, and glance up. When his eyes found me he shook his head. I stared at him in confusion, why didn't he want to escape? He glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to him, no one was, and held up two fingers and then crossed his arms in an "X", our sign for danger. Too dangerous? So what? He was my best friend, my only friend. The person who accepted me for me even though he knew who my father was. I shook my head back at him - I would get him out of there. It was my fault he was in there in the first place, I reminded myself. He glared at me but I ignored him and started to make my way out of the jail.

I said I would get him out, but I had no idea how I would do that. It would be hard to get him out of that packed cell, and I couldn't even imagine what I would do if he was one of the prisoners that slave trader was going to pick up next week. I had to get him out before that happened. I thought and thought through plans as I made my way back to the bar. I didn't notice my shadow until I was almost there. I stop and turn around ready to fight. But all I see is the still-swollen face of Jasper. I growl, "What the fuck do you want? I told you to get away from me!"

He just shook his head and said, "But you're my friend."

I stare at him for a moment, "What crap have you been smoking? Did you steal stuff from Uncle's stash? 'Cause you're dead if you did, Smoker's son or not."

He stared at me in confusion and I rolled my eyes mentally, he wouldn't know what I was talking about, he'd grown up in a place that drugs where probably never mentioned. "Where did you get the idea we were friends? I led you into a trap yesterday."

He just stared at me and then asked, "If you're not my friend then I would be alone, and I don't want to be alone any more, I want a friend." I flinch mentally; he was speaking as if he'd never had a friend before, like me before I met Kyle.

"I'm sure you have a lot of friends, or at least people who want to be your friend." He'd grown up in luxury after all.

But he shook his head again, "Dad was always putting me through training to become a marine so I never saw people, and when I did they only wanted favors from Dad."

So maybe he hadn't had everything, but he still got to train. "I'm busy, find someone else to babysit you."

He grew mad at this, "I'm not a baby! And I won't get in your way!"

"NO! I have to get my friend out of jail, it's my fault he's in there!"

"I can help! Besides, any friend of yours is a friend of mine!"

"I'M NOT YOUR FRIEND!" Why was I arguing with this idiot? I turn around and head back to the bar, and he doesn't follow me.

For the next three days I try to think of a plan to get Kyle out. Nothing is working and I'm getting a bit desperate. The only thing that might work is asking Uncle for help and even that would mean getting Uncle in on my idea which is basically impossible. I'm glad that Jasper's stopped clinging since I yelled at him. In fact, the only time I saw him was when he came in to sleep.

On the morning of the fourth day I was preparing myself to ask Uncle for his help, when Jasper comes into our room. I was surprised, I hadn't even noticed him gone that morning, usually he was spread out, taking up the room. The first thing I notice is a brand new black-eye, most of the swelling from the gang had gone down by now, so the new bruise was easy to see. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I know how to get your friend out."