A/N

Anni: Thank you guys so much for the support! It makes me so warm and fuzzy inside to know that you're enjoying this story!

To pizzafan123: It's more about nakama but there will be a few fluffy parts.

To casie200: I will try to update at least once a week, if not more.

Enjoy!

P.S. I'm not caught up with the plot of One Piece yet, so if I make up a Devil's Fruit that is used later in the series, please tell me so I can change it.

Anni's POV

Leaving Zoro and Sanji in the street, I ran back into the bar.

"Hey! Clara!" I yelled upstairs.

"What is it? If it's about those guys that took Cathy and Nico, then scram!" Clara yelled back. "You three have got some ass-kicking to do."

Grinning, I sprinted back out to the road where the two men were waiting.

A voice drifted out from the bar behind me.

"And be back in time for dinner!"

As the three of us ran towards the cemetery, Sanji turned to me and asked, "So what's it like hanging around that lady all the time? She seems ready to kill anyone, anytime. That said, why're you going to fetch those kids instead of her? Or just leaving it to us? I don't recognize your face from the wanted posters, and I don't think that a marine would work as a barmaid."

Feeling sort of overwhelmed by all the questions, I replied, "I'm just Anni. Act first, questions later."

Then, grinning, I said, "I'm the one going to get the squirts because if I left it to two rookies and an old lady, nothing would get done."

"Hey! Who're you calling a rookie?" Was the chorused response.

Zoro grinned and looked over at me. "I like your attitude. After we get the kids back, you've gotta tell us why you're so confident. Unless, of course, that was all talk."

I glared at him. "You'll see. And you have to tell me about this pirate obsession that's going on in this town. It's seriously confusing."

Nodding, the two men continued running in silence.

XxX

When we reached the cemetery, we found the three men waiting for us just in front of the entrance. Seeing us come up, they glared when they saw that we hadn't brought any money with us, but their leader started to laugh.

"So you three must think you're pretty hot stuff, coming to stand up to the Hitoshi Brothers. If you don't have that money we asked for, you should go home and get it. It might save your pretty faces."

He smirked, obviously thinking that we were no match for him and his subordinates.

I thought about what he said for a moment, and then a thought struck me.

"Hmm... pretty faces as in plural? Are you saying that you find these two guys' faces pretty?" Grinning at everyone's discomfort, I continued. "Are you saying that you're gay?"

The man's face reddened like a tomato eating chili peppers.

"NO YOU STUPID PUNK! I AM HITOSHI OF THE HITOSHI BROTHERS! HOW DARE YOU INSULT ME LIKE THAT?"

I shrugged innocently and looked away. "That's just what it sounded like. I'm just stating the obvious 'cuz no one else was gonna."

The three men in front of me cracked their knuckles and growled.

"You've got some nerve, talking to us that way." The one on the left said.

The one on the right nodded silently, pulling out a pair of giant machetes. They looked furious, and I was willing to bet that if I provoked them some more, they would lose their cool and be easier to beat.

Relying on my allies' improvisation skills, I turned to Sanji and asked, "You said you're a lover of ladies. From your experience, what do you think about this man's life?"

Acknowledging what I was doing, he lit a cigarette and sighed. "I think that from his reaction to what you said, you were probably completely right."

I nodded and turned to Zoro. "And you? I can guess that you've hung out with Sanji for a while, and from that, you must have picked up some things. What do you say?"

He scowled at me. "I'll be damned if this Love Cook is rubbing off on me... but I think he's right. This guy is totally gay."

The three men in front of us were nearly quivering with anger at our comments.

My expression turned to one of demonic excitement. "Alright! Let's get started! I call the big guy."

Zoro nodded.

"I'll be there to back you up if you need help, barmaid-chan!" said Sanji, trying to reassure me.

I rolled my eyes and-

-blocked a punch coming straight to my face. The impact sent shivers down my arm. Man, this guy had one killer punch! I would have to ask for his exercise routine later, after I beat the crap out of him of course.

I looked at him with The Clara Glare and he might have flinched a little.

"Oi. I wasn't done talking yet. Geez, people have got to have better manners than this." I said conversationally, and kicked him in the gut.

He flew across the path and thudded into the metal fence surrounding the cemetery. Coughing up blood, he said, "Better manners, eh? You insult me, call me gay, try to interfere with my plans, and you have the guts to say I have bad manners?"

I grinned with an evil look in my eye. "Yep. Ya know why?"

He struggled to his feet. "No, and I don't care," he said, jumping towards me and sending a roundhouse kick at my stomach.

I dodged not so gracefully, tripping on a loose rock. When I regained my balance, another punch was coming my way. I grabbed the fist heading towards me and redirected it's force into a nearby tree. The man managed to dodge the tree, but crashed into another one just behind it.

I scowled and said, "It's because you tried to interfere with the lives of my friends, demand money that you didn't work for, and threatened innocent people. For that you deserve to never see daylight again. Fortunately for you, I'm in a merciful mood today, so I think I'll just hand you over to the authorities and let them do the dirty work."

The man laughed. "I'll admit that you have a solid punch, but what will you do about this?"

He started to shake, and the injured parts of his skin slid off to reveal yellow-green scales underneath. He grew a foot or so, but his limbs seemed thinner and more bendy than before. When the shaking finished, he looked like a cross between a snake and a human, but with the same face.

Eeeewwww...

I just stared, horrified at what had happened to the seemingly normal man. Had he taken some sort of genetic enhancement drug?

"Okay, skipping the 'eew', what the hell happened to you? You're a ... humasnake." I said with a grossed out look on my face.

The 'humasnake' looked absolutely furious with his new nickname. "I'm not a humasnake, I simply ate the Hebi Hebi Fruit. I can turn into a snake and adopt the powers of this amazing reptile, using them to smash your face in."

Confused with this 'Hebi Hebi Fruit' buisness, I decided to just roll with it. I leaped across the path between us and experimentally punched at his face. Or, where his face should have been. He had stretched his neck to the side at an unnatural angle to avoid the hit. My fist hit the tree and stuck momentarily in the tree bark behind me, but a moment was all that was needed for the humasnake to slither up my arm and trap my body. I struggled, but I couldn't move an inch.

Suddenly another great idea struck me. "Okay, I've changed my mind. You're gay and a pervert." I hoped that this would work like the last one and get him all riled up.

"What?!" He let his grip slide a little, but that was all I needed to squirm free.

Unfortunately, the snake transformation made him faster than I expected. He caught my ankle and I fell to the ground with a thunk.

He laughed at my ungraceful fall. "You don't stand a chance against me in this form."

Hmm... snakes didn't like fire, right? So if I lit myself on fire, I should be safe, right? I was on a roll with these great ideas! This was my third this fight. I tried to not overuse my fire-style powers, but this was definitely the time to use them.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated hard on my spiritual energy, or whatever you want to call it. I felt the fire burning inside my mind, and coaxed it out. I didn't have automatic control over my powers and they could sometimes rage out of my control, but that didn't happen often.

I opened my eyes and grinned. I loved this feeling of overwhelming power. Focusing it, I willed my body to light itself on fire. I had never burned myself before, not counting the time I accidentally rested my hand on a frying pan when I was learning to make pancakes. Yeah, that was embarrassing.

The eyes of my opponent widened when he saw the flames raging around me.

"W-What are you? Are you a d-demon?" he stuttered, backing away from me.

I smirked. "I'm not sure about that, but what I do know is that I'm gonna kick your snake ass to the moon and back. Forget the authorities, you're not even worth it."

As I started to run towards him he cringed and was about to yell something, but I punched his gut and he went flying into a boulder. Following the path of his flight, I appeared and kept rapid-fire (no pun intended... or maybe it was intended) punching him until a red haze crossed my field of vision and all I wanted to do was make him feel the pain he deserved for hurting my friends.

Suddenly, my arms stopped moving. The haze cleared, and I could see Zoro and Sanji each holding one of my arms back, slightly wincing at the heat of the fire surrounding me. In front of me was something that resembled a burnt, bloody, almost dead snake-humanoid.

Horrified at what I had done, I extinguished the fire that was burning away at the men's hands. Stepping back, they released my arms. The bloody mess in front of me slid to the ground.

I felt sick at my own actions, but then I remembered that he had threatened the people that I felt a responsibility to protect. Even if I couldn't quite justify my actions, he had hurt people that I was close to, and he had deserved it.

Jolting out of my zoned-out phase, I saw that Zoro and Sanji had piled up the three bodies. All of them were slightly groaning, which meant that they were alive.

"How did you..."

Sanji smirked. "You asked us to explain the pirate obsession. It's not an obsession. There are pirates everywhere, and we're some of them. This is the age of pirates."

I struggled to comprehend that fact completely. "Okay..."

With a sigh of relief, a wave of fatigue washed over me and I slumped to the ground, but then I remembered that Nico and Cathy were still somewhere.

I was almost too tired to breathe, but I managed to murmur, "We need to go find the kids. They've gotta get back for dinner..."

I heard a laugh from Sanji. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Zoro just went to get them."

I fell the other half of the distance to the ground. "Thank goodness... but are you sure he'll be all right?" I asked, tiredly, "Doesn't he have some kind of problems with directions?"

The world was slowly turning black, and the last thing I saw was the blonde running in the direction Zoro had taken with a, "Shit! Who knows where that marimo will end up!"

XxX

I woke up to two little hands poking my face. I sat up in confusion, and stared at my surroundings. I was in the upper level of the bar, lying on a couch in the small family room with Nico and Cathy's concerned faces looking up at me. They had expressions of pure joy on their faces as I looked around.

"Yayyy! Anni-san is okay!" Came the piercing squeals as they danced around the room. "Yay! She beat the bad men! Yay! Yay! Yay!"

The door opened and Clara came in, followed by Zoro and Sanji, who was holding a bag. Clara looked at me with a proud look. "I'm very proud of you for taking down that gang. You did a very good job, BUT WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK HAPPENED WHEN I SAW YOU BEING CARRIED IN HERE HALF-DEAD, AND THESE TWO YOUNG MEN TOLD ME THAT YOU'D TAKEN DOWN THE LEADER OF THE HITOSHI BROTHERS!" She screamed at me, obviously worried.

I bowed my head. "I'm sorry for worrying you, but I was just protecting my friends. You and Nico and Clara have been like my family for the past week and a half, so I was only doing what was natural." I looked up with a grin. "I'm glad that you cared about my health though."

She glared. "By the way, these young men have something to talk to you about," she said, gesturing to Zoro and Sanji. "so we'll go get lunch. And by the way, you were back in time for dinner."

With a smile, she ushered the two dancing kids out of the room.

I turned to the two men. "You want to know what happened, right?"

They both nodded silently, with serious looks on their faces.

I sighed. "Well, even I'm not sure, but when I activated my fire-style powers, it triggered my pent-up rage at that guy. All I could think about was what he had done to my friends and I wanted him to feel the same pain that they were feeling. If you guys hadn't stopped me, who knows what I would have done," I said, staring at my knees.

Sanji coughed. "Well, it's just good luck that it worked. I mean, you were on fire and we aren't exactly fire-proof."

It was then that I noticed the white bandages wrapped around each of their hands.

"No. How bad are the burns?" I asked, with a horrified look on my face.

Zoro spoke quietly, like someone was going to overhear our conversation. "We weren't burned as bad as you think. We figured that it was because you were so focused on the fight in front of you that we didn't feel the full force of it. You were directing it at Hitoshi, not us."

I thought back to the event. "Yeah, that was probably a big part of it. Also, I think it was because I think of you guys as my friends as well, and I didn't want you to get hurt. The fire probably responded to this and avoided burning you as much as possible."

"Anyways, we wanted to tell you that we took the men to the authorities, and this is your reward." Sanji dumped the bag I had noticed earlier onto the couch next to me. "1,000,000 beli."

I gasped at the amount. "Whaa..."

He grinned. "It's the guy's bounty. We decided you deserved it 'cuz you took him down yourself."

I had never earned this much money in such a short time in my life. It felt ... unreal.

Zoro grinned at me like I had done something incredibly dumb, but smart. "Also, you made a name for yourself through that fight. They're calling you the Demon's Daughter, Anni."

I laughed. "Well, it could be worse."

His expression changed to a slightly darker one. "But if you do this again, you might get a bounty on your own head. That would mean people could try to do the same thing as Hitoshi, but to try to get to you, instead."

I thought about it. If it happened again, I would do the exact same thing. And then get a bounty. And then people would hurt Clara and Nico and Cathy. I couldn't let that happen. But what if... no. That couldn't happen. They wouldn't.

Sanji smiled like he knew every thought in my head. "We talked about it with our captain. He has something to ask you."

As the door opened again, I was surprised to see a teenager with black hair, a red vest, and a straw hat walk in.

He smiled. "Hi! I'm Luffy. Zoro and Sanji told me about you. Come be one of our nakama!"

Nakama? Me?

A/N

Anni: Sorry about the cliff hanger, but you can all guess what happens next. I decided to cut it of here 'cuz it was getting a little long. I love the feeling that you guys are enjoying by my work, and I hope to keep you entertained. I want to have the next chapter out within a week like last time.

P.S. Hitoshi's name is a pun, because it means level-headed or calm.

See ya!