DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ONE PIECE

Chapter Six

"Wake up you good for nothing pirate boy." I was well aware that Londae was addressing me, namely because all week I had been referred to as 'pirate boy', and she was kicking my foot in attempts to wake me, but I ignored her. It was too early to wake up, and I was exhausted from all the walking I had been doing yesterday while I explored the island. In response to her trying to wake me, I grumbled and tucked my head under the pillow.

Londae gave a groan of her own and the next time she spoke, her voice was much closer than before. "This is serious, pirate. You need to get up now."

The urgency in her voice was enough to get my eyes open, noting that she was squatting by my head and frowning. "What's wrong?" I started to sit up, wiping the drool that had trailed to my chin. Londae cringed at the sight and leaned away, giving me enough room to actually sit and look at her from a normal angle that wouldn't hurt my eyes.

Looking to the clock, I wasn't surprised to see that it was just after six in the morning.

"You have to get out of here now." Londae urged, standing up and grabbing my arm, dragging me from the nest of blankets that had been my bed for the past week I had been in her home. I said nothing as she pulled me into her room and threw my dress, cape, and shoes in my direction, a silent order to put them on. "Hurry up, pirate! You don't have time to waste!"

At the evident fear in her voice, I quickly shed the sleep wear that I had donned and shrugged the dress up over my body, strapping the heels to my feet and tying the cape around my shoulders. "Are you going to tell me why I need to get out of here?"

Londae thrust my sheathed blade into my arms, grabbing the hood to my cape from behind my shoulders and pulling it over my head. "His Majesty is coming."

His Majesty…

"Why the hell is Joker coming here? To your house?" She turned her head away, moving to her doorway. She didn't turn fast enough for me to miss the nervous biting of her lip. "You told him." When she didn't deny it, I tightened my grip on my sword and grit my teeth together in frustration. An odd sense of betrayal fell over my shoulders. "Why the hell did you do that?"

She whirled on me, grabbing a newspaper from seemingly out of nowhere, and shoving it in my face. It was dated a week ago-the day after my actions with the Raze Pirates. It had come out in the morning. In big bold letters, my name and the announcement of my 'return from the dead' was spread across the top of the front page. Beneath it was a blurry and extremely out of focus picture of me, in the middle of swiping my blade against someone.

Reading on, I barely noticed that the Raze Pirates were mentioned once, but not Hazel specifically, before Londae started talking again.

"His Majesty tracked down these Raze Pirates, and they were all too willing to give him the information he needed on where they dropped you off at." Of course they were willing to throw me under the rug. Hazel hadn't gotten the bounty increase she was hoping for, and of course I was held responsible for it. "He knows that you're here, so you have to hurry and get out of the house and run."

But something wasn't adding up here. Over the course of the past week, Londae had made it abundantly clear that she had no desire to help me any more than I was forcing her to. She made it clear that she hated me with every ounce of hatred that her body could produce. She already admitted to telling him I was here in her house, so why try to help me? Why, after all of that, was she letting me know that her King was coming here? Why did she want me to get out of here safely? Why did she care if I was killed or not, when I had been nothing more than a thorn in her side since we met?

And how does Joker know where you are?

That metaphorical light bulb went off over my head as I focused back on the woman, watching her stand nervously by the top of the staircase, urging me hurry up with dramatic hand motions. Her eyes, those weird eyes, widened when I spoke into the silence of the house, and I knew I was right in my conclusion.

"This is a trap."

As soon as the words left my mouth, the door downstairs sounded as if it had been blown in by a very powerful kick or punch. Londae jumped, startled, and made a move to run down to where the noise came from, but I was faster than she was. Just as her heel dug into the floor and she faced the stairs, I darted forward and grabbed her hair, pulling her back into the bedroom and shutting the door behind me, throwing her behind me and pushing her vanity desk in front of the door.

Turning to the woman, I looked just in time to dodge the throwing knives that imbedded into the wall behind me, just where my head had been a moment ago. I glared at the offending knives, turning my gaze to her and unsheathing my blade. Her eyes were hard. She was determined.

"I should have seen this coming from the start." I mumbled to myself, kind of angry that I put even an ounce of trust in the woman before me. Behind me, the door thumped. Someone had tried to kick it in. "Was this the plan from the start? You only pretended to fear me to that you could turn me in to Joker?"

Her eyes stayed on the door, looking hopeful that whoever was behind it would kick it in and save her, but as soon as I asked my question, her eyes moved to me and she snorted. "No, I truly did fear you." At least she's honest about it. "But, His Majesty returned yesterday and offered to anyone who could bring you to him alive your bounty." Still have no idea what that is. "I went forward, we hashed out a plan, and now it's panning out."

"Except it's not quite working how you thought it would because I figured it out before you could carry it through all the way...or even half way, for that matter."

At that, Londae had nothing to say.

The door behind me was kicking once more, the vanity desk skidding across the floor a few centimeters, the door opening a crack. I had to get out of here.

I turned to Londae, and quicker than she could react, unsheathed my blade and leapt forward, thrusting the blade into her stomach with one hard push. Her eyes widened even more than they had earlier, blood escaping the corner of her lips as she looked down at the blade sticking through her. I felt only a moment of guilt as her eyes looked back up at me, turning blank and dark before she sagged against my body.

My foot came up and I kicked under where the blade stuck into her stomach, pushing her off my blade and letting the body fall to the ground with a heavy thump. Outside the door, things went eerily still.

"Yo, Londae, is everything alright in there?"

The voice was decidedly male, and more concerned than I think he should have been. I saw my killing Londae as doing her a favour. She wasn't a part of the Donquixote Family, so her helping me before would have been seen as betrayal to Joker, not matter what she would have done to make it up to him. He would have her help bring me in, and then turn around and kill her brutally. I had seen him once before briefly with Mihawk, and that was the kind of man I saw him as. Though, I could be wrong and he could have actually forgave her and things would have worked out.

Well, better safe than sorry.

The voice of the man sounded out again, louder and more concerned than the first time. I debated on whether or not I should just deal with him now, but considered what would happen if I did. Needlessly killing was something that I wanted to avoid. The guilt over killing Londae was already eating away slowly at me, and I didn't need to add another body to my count. However, I could just kill him and escape from here faster without the immediate threat of someone coming after me if I just hop out the window now. And I mean, come on. Could this guy really be that big of a deal? He was still struggling with kicking the door open, and he was alone. Did he really pose too much of a threat for someone like me?

And then the second voice sounded from behind the door, and my decision was made when my feet instinctively carried me to the window and I opened it, jumping out just in time for the door to the bedroom to be kicked open and the two men to discover the body of Londae, as well as the end of my escape.

Airborn for all of two seconds, I landed gracefully on the ground, surprising even myself, and took off at a sprint. I chanced a glance over my shoulder to the open window and sighed in relief when I saw that neither of the men had stuck their heads out yet to see me. Turning back to face what was in front of me, I sharply turned into an alley, slowed to a casual walk, and emerged onto the street, walking with one man in front of me, and a couple behind me consisting of a tall toy person and a man. I pulled the hood securely over my head and walked as normally as I could, working to catch my breath.

Breathing in deeply through my nose, my lungs filled with air and my rapidly beating heart slowed down considerably. I dispelled the air through my lips just as the door to Londae's house flew open, revealing two men of normal stature and angry faces. The man in front of me had to dodge them as they ran down the street, splitting up in order to search for me.

As soon as I couldn't see them anymore, I sighed heavily and let out a shaky laugh. The sword in my hand, which was momentarily forgotten, was no heavy in my relief. How had they not seen it? And why were they running in those directions when I could very well have just hidden in the alleys behind Londae's house?

So many unanswered questions that I didn't have time to ponder as I hurriedly walked forward, bypassing the man in front of me. Right now, I needed to head somewhere that not a lot of people would find me. Sure, I could head to another town, or even hide closer to the enemy, as surely they wouldn't look for me so close by, but I didn't really like either of those plans. Instead, I made my way to the rocky cove that I arrived at a week ago, in hopes that I could hide out there until everything blew over or I found a way off this place.

If only I knew how to swim…

I made my way through the alleys, walking as fast as I dared so as not to draw attention to myself. The morning air was crisp, and there weren't many people around, giving the usually bright and vibrant town a dull and dangerous feel in the grayness. Thankfully, the journey to the edge of town didn't take long with my hurried steps and I was able to slow down once more and work on calming my heart.

Remembering from the last time I had been here, I travelled to the path that lead easily between the areas on either sides of the tall slippery rocks. Taking deliberate steps through the path, looking over my shoulder and gripping my sword in my hand, I must have looked the picture of complete and utter paranoia. And given the circumstances of me even being out here, my paranoia wasn't unwarranted.

I stopped in the middle of the path and my hair stood on end. It was something that I sense, not through Haki or anything like that, but it was the feeling one gets when they have eyes on them, watching their every move. My heart slowly worked up to a fast beat and my palms slicked with sweat. Something bad was about to happen at any moment, and I could only do one thing to prevent it.

Joker.

The sound of amused and sinister laughter reached my ears from behind. I didn't hesitate in pulling out my sword from the sheath, but I didn't attack the man behind me. Instead, I turned the blade inward and started to arc it towards my stomach, intent on driving it through my body as I had done Londae not too long ago.

With the blade mere centimeters from my stomach, my movements halted. I gritted my teeth against the invisible restraints, forcing myself not to cry out at the feeling of these restraints biting into my skin. What the hell was this?

"Ah, Mara, what do you think you're doing?"

Clear as day, Joker's voice rang out in my ear. I tried to turn my head to look at the man, but these restrained prevented even that. I looked as far as I could with my eyes, catching a shocking pink in my peripheral before he stepped in front of me in all his open-shirt glory. I narrowed my eyes when he squatted to level his face with my own.

My fear of the man was present, but I choked it down to reply, hiding said fear with sarcasm-a feat that wasn't always the smartest. "Oh ya know, I was just wondering what it would be like to get stabbed. But you ruined my experiment."

His grin in return turned my blood cold. I couldn't see his eyes through those sunglasses, but he was clearly planning something if that grin was anything to go by. The only question was; what was he planning?

[A/N]: Goodbye Londae, and hello Doffy~

I promise, I will get things kicked into gear and make everything more exciting soon enough. But of course, things in my fic are very different from Canon events, so I need to make things clear and find reasons for everything that happens so that this can kind of follow the same story line as the Manga/Anime. Again, I know it's going kind of slow, but I'm trying guys, so give me some credit.

And hopefully Mara's not too...well, annoying. I've gotten a complaint already that she turned very Mary Sue-ish after the two years (which I don't see, but to each his own I guess). I've tried to develop her character, but maybe I'm not doing good enough? I dunno, but of course, over the course of the fic, you will all find out why she acts the way she does now. Just be patient.

AND I've blabbed on long enough. Love you all and see you soon~!

XoXoXoXo