Chapter 2

Tobitsu Island, Goto Archipelago, Grand Line

"Well well well, It looks like you've finally seen us," Ricky says, walking closer and closer towards me, I can't even back up as I'm frozen in fear, my knuckles going white from how hard I'm holding my pike.

"We've been following you since you left the village you know, a girl with no apparent ties to anyone from around here is a perfect target for someone like us." My eyes widen. 'Is he a kidnapper!?' He stops across the campfire from me, staring into my eyes as he licks his lips.

"I've been in the human trafficking business long enough to know whos going to submit and who's not, and you are already frozen with fear, how pathetic." He sheaths his longsword and he holds both hands forward. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way." He says.

"The easy way," He holds his left hand up, "You come with us without us putting a hand on you, we hand you over to the buyer, and only the lord knows what happens to you after that." He then holds his right hand up, "Or, you try to put up a fight, fail, then we bring to into the buyer all beaten and broken. Your choice, you seem smart enough to see the lesser of two evils." He finishes his monologue and I gulp, trying to wash away my fears. 'Remember, I either make it out here or I try again earlier in the day.'

"I-I guess you pinned me wrong when you said I was smart!" I throw my pike at him and run to the left of me, that's the only gap between the 5 people surrounding me. I turn around to see what I did, only to see that he catches and then rolls his eyes, I turn back around without a second thought.

"Get her!" They all yell out but I don't even acknowledge them, I keep running as my life depends on it. I jump over a small log and I zig-zag through some trees but I just can't seem to lose them, one good thing is that Yval or whatever his name seemed to increase my body's overall fitness, I was still pretty active on earth being a pole-vaulter but it's nothing like I am now, I've been running at max speed for 2 minutes and without any stretching and already moving faster than I've ever on earth.

The bad thing is that it seems everyone in One Piece has these crazy good genetics because no matter how much I try to lose them in the thick forest it only seems like they are only gaining more ground on me, I have to do something or I'll just end up being caught, best case scenario they catch me and kill me so I can avoid them before they get a chance or worst case scenario they capture me and I'm sent off to some human trafficking ring.'

"You can run but you can't hide! It's only a matter of time before we catch you, girl!" Ricky yells out after me and I turn around and see him rapidly gaining on me! I take a sharp left avoiding some vines and then I see a light in the distance where only trees and darkness usually await. 'That's my savior!' I turn directly towards the light and once I get closer I see a little cabin with lights on the inside and an older man reading a newspaper in a chair.

I pick up a small rock and toss it at Ricky's face, hitting him square in the nose, he trips right into some mud. "God dammit girl!" He screams out, giving me enough distance to run up towards the front door.

"HELP ME!" I scream out while rapidly knocking on the front door, checking behind me to see Ricky rubs his nose and then pushes himself back up.

"THERE IS A KIDNAPPER AFTER ME, HE'S RIGHT BEHIND ME!" I yell for a second time while still knocking, I turn around a second time to see the rest of the five goons catch up to me.

"PLEA-" I get shoulder bashed in my back, knocking the door over and pushing me and Ricky onto the floor, I gasp for air as the wind gets knocked out of me but pressure on top of my back makes me unable to properly breathe, I turn my head and see Ricky sitting on my back.

"Look what happens when you try to run, now you're on the ground without any chance of escape, should've picked the first option." Ricky taunts me, taking a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs that looks like seastone. 'There's no way a small-time kidnapper like Ricky would have access to seastone!'

"Hey, what are you doing in my house." I look up and see the old man with a pair of shorts and a floral shirt on, he puts his newspaper on a table and walks towards me.

"Nothing for you to worry about old man, go back into your house and act like this never happened, for your own safety," Ricky says to the old man and he just raises one eyebrow in response, the other five goons start pouring into the house, and one decides to intimidate the old man whie cracking his knuckles. 'If only I had some way to kill myself right now, my adventure will end before it even started!' I start to accept my fate but then the old man starts talking, dragging me out of my own head.

"So you break into my house and expect me not to do anything about it? You're out of your mind if you think that, now go to sleep for some time, kidnappers." He puts his left hand in his shorts pocket while his right arm stays limp at his side. Suddenly the goon walking up to him collapses with his eyes rolling back into his head, then a goon looking through drawers in the entrance, one by one they all start to fall. 'Conquerers Haki? Who is this old guy!'

"Hey! What did you-" Ricky gets cut off by the wave of haki rushing over him, the weight on my back gets lifted and I'm able to stand up again, but the seastone handcuffs are on my hands still, I haven't eaten a devil fruit so they just act as normal, but slightly heavier and more uncomfortable, handcuffs.

"Are you okay girl?" The man walks up to me but I stand up and start to back away. 'I'm not taking any chances, I don't know if this guy is a friend or foe.'

"The keys to the seastone should be in this brat's bag, I just installed this door last week! How annoying." He mutters to himself as he starts to search through Ricky's bag, pulling out ropes, a bottle of chlorophyll, and various other objects and items that could be used to incapacitate people.

"Here we go." He finds the key and holds it out, he walks up to me, inserts the key, and sure enough, the seastone shackles fall to the ground, clanking as they hit the ground.

"Thanks sir, you really saved me there, can I ask what you're name is?" I ask him, rubbing my wrists, trying to get the red rash to fade.

"Adriel, Adriel Haynes. Try not to forget it." He takes the rope he pulled out earlier and starts to tie up the criminals, he turns to me and throws some rope at me, gesturing to help him. "What did you even do to get a well-known human trafficker to target you?" We finish tying up the goons and he starts to bring them inside with him, still only using his left hand to pick them up like a football to drop them inside. I grab Ricky and not being as strong as Mr. Haynes is, I start dragging him into the living room where Mr. Haynes put the other goons.

"That's the problem Mr. Haynes, I woke up on a beachside around 5 hours ago, I was shipwrecked and have slight amnesia so have just been stumbling around since, I was camping in the forest around us when he came out of the darkness." I give him a pretty believable story but he just stares at me before sighing and going back for the goons again.

"Well you only told half the truth, but hey, you're pretty good at lying you know, it's none of my business anyways. If you were being truthful about not having a place to stay, I can let you stay for the night and you can take this brat's bounty to the marines station in Donguri in the morning. It's not like I can turn it in myself anyways." He mutters that last part to himself but I still pick it up and my eyes widen. 'How did he know I was lying? It's not like he should have any suspicions about me.'

"Really Mr. Haynes, Thanks! What do you mean you can't turn in the bounties yourself, your pretty strong if you knocked them out by just looking at them.

"Drop the Mister, Haynes is just fine, I'll let you in on something since you apparently have amnesia and shouldn't know anything about these islands, me telling you this will make you wish you were never shipwrecked here." He gestures over towards his living room, I sit down on the couch where the 5 goons including Ricky are layed out across the floor next to me, The coffee table where he put his newspaper down before is next to this table and the headline is Corrupt marine officer, Axe-hand Morgan has been removed from the Marines!

'Good to know, that means as long as I'm in the East Blue, the Strawhats have a possibility of landing on the archipelago and that means forming a relationship with them early, I'm not too committed to being a pirate yet but just being friends with the Strawhats means a lot.' I turn my attention back to Haynes and respond to him.

"Haynes, are you sure you should be telling me this? If it's that important then wouldn't be a security problem if you just spewed it to an outsider like this?" I ask him as he sits down on a couch across from the one I'm sitting on.

"That's what I like about you, you're always questioning things in a way that won't put any heat on yourself, you look for information like that newspaper on the table, and you make up a believable lie to someone who you don't know the intentions of. You remind me of my younger self." He picks up a cup from the small table separating us with his left hand, takes a sip, then places it down before he continues talking.

"The Goto Archipelago wasn't always like this, having to look out for a criminal every time you leave a big town. If anything, before it was probably one of, if not the safest place you could be in the Grand Line." 'The Grand Line? I guess that sets my Strawhat plan back some months.' "Before that damn Celestial Dragon came!" He scowls and slams his fist against the table, making the coffee cup fly up in the air for a second.

"The World Government didn't like to see a country thriving without their influence at all, so they overthrew our old government by bringing ultimate powerhouses of the marines, the Three Admirals, we never stood a chance. After our defeat, they put a grandchild of a Celestial dragon and some poor pleasure slave on the throne." He says while staring out the window, seemingly trying to calm himself down.

"Ever since that day 20 years ago all that the Goto Archipelago has turned into is a cesspool of crime and kidnapping, the Capital on the easternmost island, Seiten Island, has turned into a faux Mariejois where that damn Celestial Dragon is profiting off the kidnapping and human trafficking ring to buy slaves."

He continues his monologue and all I think about is what could have happened to me if I wasn't saved by him. 'I would've most likely been sold to the Capital and lived my life out as a slave there, and even worse I could've been a pleasure slave!' Just thinking about it makes me sick.

"The bounties given out by the capital are mostly just used to show that World Government that they are trying to remove but crime, but in reality, the marines here are ordered to not arrest any criminal they see. I was lucky enough to escape with my life in the initial attack but I wasn't lucky enough to escape fully intact." I was going to ask what he meant by that but he pulls up his shirt and I see I giant sunken crevice on his right shoulder, with some bandages over it that barely even cover half of the scar.

"I can only really only put up a fight for about 2 hours a day when I got this injury that day, I'm not even specialized in attacking, I was the head investigator and detective for the old government and was considered the best detective on the Grand Line, now all I've turned into is a sorry old man thats right arm movement is severely limited and sometimes doesn't even move it at all." He pulls back down his shirt and continues.

"It's even worst on Tobistu Island, the island that's the farthest away from the capital and the one we are on right now that we need to have a water filtration device under the island running along the river so we can have clean water available at all times." 'So that's why the river and waterfall are so weird.' "So, what did you get out of all of that miss…" He pauses for a second so I give out my name.

"Alani, Alani Reed, just call me Alani." I answer for him. "Yes, so Alani, what did you get out of everything I said." He says so I answer simply.

"You want me to disband the entire criminal organization on the archipelago and overthrow the current government?" I say and he smiles wide, standing up from the couch.

"I can tell I'm going to like you already Alani, of course, I want you to do it discreetly, as my whole skillset is about discrepancy, if you take up my offer you will be taught by the greatest investigator on the Grand Line." He holds out his left hand in front of me and I take his hand while standing up. "So what do you say."

"It's not like I could refuse now, right Haynes." I shake his hand while standing up to meet his gaze, he towers over me at least 6'0, and he laughs out loud at my response.

"Right, you can sleep on the couch for the night, I'll give you an overview of my plan after you turn in these criminals, my little investigator."