(c) Eichiro Oda. All rights to One Piece characters and plot belongs to Eichiro Oda. Oc's belong to me.

Enjoy! Chapter 4!

Crystal jumps up from her sleeping place next to Ace and walks backwards. She looks for the weight that was just on her stomach and finds on the floor the body of said weight.

"Luffy!" Crystal yells as she lets out a huff of exasperation.

"I thought I'd wake you up! You were the last to wake!" Luffy said with his normal smile.

Crystal looks around the room and notices that Ace, who she fell asleep by, was now gone along with a missing Sabo.

"Where did they go?" Crystal asks as she grabs her shorts that Makino gave her and pulled them underneath Ace's shirt.

Luffy smiles an even bigger smile and grabs Crystal's hand. He tugs her outside and past DanDan as said bandit yells at him to dosome work around the house. She tries to pull out of his grasp, but nothing works as the determined boy tugs her through the Gray Terminal and into the forest. He stops underneath a tree and smiles at her.

"You are the first and only girl allowed in our awesome tree house!" Luffy says as he points up into the tree.

Crystal looks up, but doesn't find anything. She looks back at Luffy and gives him the 'what tree house' look. He thrusts his arm up again and she tries to look more closely; she follows the rope and finally sights something darker up in the leaves. Her eyes widen as she realizes that in this tree that is over 20 stories high and there is a tree house placed at almost the very top. She looks at Luffy incredulously, his smile, if possible, broadens even more as he lightly pushes her towards the tree.

"Go ahead. Climb up." Luffy says.

Crystal smiles at Luffy. "Race you up there."

Luffy smirks and flings himself up into the air using his Gomu Gomu powers.

"Hey! That's cheating!" Crystal yells at him, but smiles as she speedily climbs up the tree.

Once she reaches a nice thick branch she starts to jump from one to the other and soon they became close enough she just had to reach out her leg and walk across them. She caught up to Luffy and started to up her speed. She pushes past him and he frowns at the realization that he is being beat. They fight for first all the way up into the tree until the tree house is almost in reach. Luffy reaches out with his hand beating Crystal, when she jumps and uses Luffy's arm as a branch and jumps into the tree house.

"No fair!" Luffy says as he flings himself in.

"You cheated in the beginning using your powers. I thought that I could hold off my payback till the end." Crystal says with a mischievous smirk.

Luffy opens his mouth but shuts it knowing she's right. "That doesn't mean you're better than me at fighting!"

Crystal laughs at Luffy's pouting face and pats his head. "No, I'll leave it up to you to be a man and protect the girl."

Luffy's face beams with pride. He jumps at Crystal and hugs her causing them both to fall to the floor. "I'll protect Crystal! I'll become stronger than Sabo and Ace!" Luffy smirks at her again as she smiles up at him. "I can already beat Sabo and Ace anyway!"

"Who can you beat?" Ace asks as he comes in the light with a smirk. He sighs as he plucks Crystal up off the floor and lifts her up. She wraps her arms around his neck and smiles. "If anyone can protect her it'd be me! You're too weak to protect her."

Luffy fumes at what Ace says and threatens him once again about how one day he will be King of the Pirates and will beat Ace. Crystal laughs at their little brawl as she wanders out of Ace's grasp. Ace stops arguing as he feels her leave watching Crystal walk over to the staircase leading up to the crow's nest and climb up it.

"Crystal! Hey!" Sabo yells down at her with a smile.

"Hi!" Crystal yells back over the wind. She climbs up into the crow's nest with Sabo and gapes at the sight before her. "So pretty!"
Ace and Luffy smile at her face beaming with light. She's been with them for a week now and each and every day she smiles more and more and every time it makes them feel warm inside to see her happy.

"How did you guys do this?" Crystal asks as she walks over to them. She trips on a loose board and Ace catches her with a proud smirk.

"Clumsy as usual." He says making fun of her.

Her cheeks puff up as she punches his shoulder. "Shut up!" Ace laughs and Crystal follows suit out of light heartedness. "Did Garp or DanDan help you build this?"

"Nope! We did this on our own!" Sabo says proud of their work. "Do you like it?"

"No," Crystal says causing all of them to stare at her in shock. She smiles at them, "I love it!"

They smile as they stare out over the landscape expanding before them. "One day we're going to sail out there! We're all going to become pirates! This ocean seems like a great place to sail on!"

"It is." Crystal says remember the one who took her in like a father. "It's dangerous and can be scary and hard, but it's beautiful and worth living out there. My daddy showed me all kinds of things out there. How to survive, how to sail, how to meet people, and most of all, how to have fun and enjoy it all! My father always lives his life to the greatest!"

"But I thought your parents hated you." Luffy says confused.

"Luffy!" Ace and Sabo yell as they punch him in the head leaving two big welts.

Crystal laughs at their protectiveness. "You're right my parents do hate me. But this daddy is the one who took me in when my real parents took everything away from me. To me he is my real parent and the other two are just people who are cruel to others."

"OH!" Luffy says understanding. "Crystal! When I become a captain, you have to join my crew!"

"What if I want her to join my crew?" Sabo says angrily.

"No! She's joining my crew! I'm the strongest of us all!" Ace says hitting them both on the head.

They start to fight each other in the crow's nest, not leaving much room to back up away from them. Crystal frowns and sucks in a breath.

"STOP!" she yells making them freeze. She composes herself again as she pats her dress for imaginary dust and smiles. "I'll join who I want when that time comes. But I can't make any promises." She points at them with a finger and smiles as she acts like she's thinking. "I guess we'll just have to see who is strongest at the time."

The boys smile at each other sending a knowing glance that the challenge was on to become stronger.

"What else do you guys have here?" Crystal asks getting bored.

"We're building a ship!" Luffy automatically yells.

Ace and Sabo punch him on the head once again to shut him up.

"Can I see?" Crystal asks with a smile.

Ace and Sabo rub their necks not knowing how to say no to the smiling girl. Ace sighs and reaches his hand out. Her smile widens as she takes his hand and they head to the cove where their ship was being built. They show her the ship and introduce her to the man who is helping them build said ship for the sea. They decide to work on the ship and spend the rest of their day out there.

As the sun heads down they decide to head back to the mountain bandits house. What they didn't know was that one of them wasn't planning on staying for long. He was planning to pack his stuff and head out to sea the next day.