I was kind of nervous about surviving on my own in the woods at first, but it's been wonderful so far!

Ok. Maybe wonderful is a little bit of an exaggeration, but it honestly hasn't been that bad! I grew up enrolled in the BSA and went hunting and camping often when I was growing up, so I knew how to prepare an animal and cook it. I knew how to pick a good spot for a shelter and how to build a good one. I knew how to make a fire. I even had a lucky cooking pot, even if getting it was a bit of an adventure. Basically what I'm saying is, all my needs are currently met with my current setup, so I can probably start hardcore training whenever I want.

I sighed as I poked at my fire with a stick. It's been six days since I left the orphanage. I try not to regret it too much. I know I probably should have left a note or something, but I needed to get out of there. They are probably wondering where I am. I hope they're not wasting too much time and energy looking.

Leaving had been surprisingly obstacle free. After the talk with Lia, everyone was already in bed, so she had retired to her room. I know she read romance novels, so maybe that's what she was doing. Hell, maybe she went to sleep! I honestly don't know how she takes care of all of us without passing out in her breakfast. That's One Piece stamina for you.

I went back to my room just like she had expected me to, and changed back out of my pajamas and into my day clothes, which consisted of a t shirt, shorts, and homemade adjustable sandals made of leather. I could have taken my other outfits (I had two more and a set of pjs) but there was a lot of hand-me-downing going on in the orphanage, and I could make due without them. Hedge's shirts had been looking a bit small lately, and I was a bit bigger than he was. I didn't really have any physical possessions I could take with me, save for a little dog figurine I had carved out of wood a while ago, which I left as well. I may have been proud of how good it looked, but it would serve well as a toy for someone else. I wasn't -that- attached to it.

Because I didn't have much, I didn't need to pack and therefore made little noise. I made sure not to wake any of the other boys in my room, and I made sure to walk along the edges of the hallway so I could avoid the squeakier floorboards in the center. As I passed by the two large meal tables on my way to the front door, I looked back past the dining area toward the kitchen. I would need a pot to boil water, and some kind of blade would be useful as well… but no. I wouldn't steal from Lia. I wouldn't steal from the other children.

I would steal from people I didn't like however, like the people in town! I know it wasn't any better, it was still theft after all, but I'd sure feel a lot better about it! What? I'm not a saint.

My mind made up on where to get survival essentials, I left the house through the front window. I would have used the front door, but I knew from experience that the hinges hadn't been oiled in a while and would squeak loudly when opened. I carefully lowered myself from the windowsill to the ground outside, and paused to listen if anyone had noticed I was leaving. I carefully heel-toe walked as softly as possible along the main path, so that the dirt and pebbles didn't crunch and give me away to whoever might be listening. Once I got from the orphanage path to the main dirt road, I figured I was far enough along and picked up the pace, not caring how loud my footfalls were.

As I crested the hill on the way to the town, I took a look back at the orphanage. All the lights were off, even Lia's. I guess she was asleep then. I felt…weird. Like it should have been harder. I had almost expected Lia to catch me as I was climbing through the front window, or for Risa to have anticipated me and waited outside, ready to confront me about why I was leaving, to demand to know the reason! But I did my job too well. Lia and all the kids were asleep, and none of them new I was gone. I almost wished my "escape" had failed.

Almost.

I took a deep breath, turned away, and walked towards town. I had a pot and a blade to steal.

—

As I entered the town proper, I didn't have as hard a time being quiet. The roads weren't dirt, they were cobblestone, so as long as I didn't run, I could be pretty much silent just by walking carefully. My problem with being in town was that pretty much everyone actually thought I was a real life baby stealing demon. Because of those hunters trying so hard to find my family, pretty much everyone in town knew my general appearance. If anyone got close enough to recognize me and found out that I specifically was sneaking around at night, I would most likely be attacked.

Lucky for me it was pretty dark, as long as my silhouette didn't look too suspicious, I hoped people wouldn't pay attention. I stuck to back roads, and didn't go anywhere near the bustling little Main Street they had going on. Even at this time of night there would still be plenty of people active around the taverns and bars. It was dark, but it wasn't that late, maybe like 10:30pm.

I snuck silently through a lot of people's backyards, trying to find an empty house so I wouldn't have to worry about anyone waking up and catching me. Eventually, I found a house that fit the bill. It was a small single bedroom place, and I took a risk and looked in the bedroom window.

Nobody home. Perfect! From the looks of it, a young couple lived here, which probably meant they were out on the town. While the quality of technology in One Piece is pretty weird and inconsistent, I knew silent alarms and security cameras weren't a thing. While I didn't actually expect a random house in north blue to have the same level of security as impel down, I still did a quick once over on the walls to make sure there weren't any video snails. Call me paranoid all you want, but my reputation was bad enough. I REALLY didn't want to get caught.

As I walked around the house, I checked all the potential entrances, but all of them were locked, even the windows! Just as I was about to forget silent entry and commit the "breaking" part of breaking and entering, I noticed something. It was the summer time, and AC wasn't a thing. While all the ground floor entrances were locked, they had an attic window that was left open for airflow. It was high up, and too small for an adult man to fit through, so they probably thought they were fine.

Unfortunately for them, they were dealing with a ten year old with the ability to jump from ground level onto the roofs of one story buildings! I easily cleared the distance and caught the bottom edge of the circular attic window, and quietly pulled myself up and into the house. As settled onto the attic floor, the window almost fell shut, but I caught it before it could slam closed and propped it back up more or less where it was before.

Yikes. Even with the window open it was pretty fucking hot, and I almost immediately began sweating like a pig. Sweet mercy, it's fucking night time! Chill out world!

I looked around at the stuff they had stored up here. I wasn't expecting the Goonies attic or anything, but maybe they had an old camp kit stored away, and I wouldn't need to go down into the house itself to get what I needed. There were a bunch of barrels filled with dried grain, and a smaller one I assumed was filled with some kind of booze. I couldn't actually check as it was sealed and opening it would leave a trace, but it had a place in the wood to hammer in a spout, so I was pretty sure. Other than the barrels, there wasn't much else up here, just a few bundles of cloth, a rolled up rug, and an old dresser. Despite my better judgement, I checked the dresser drawers. I didn't actually expect to find a cooking pot in them, but I'll admit I checked them anyway out of simple curiosity.

The first drawer was filled with a bunch of old knickknacks and souvenirs, and a whole bunch of pictures of the same man with some of them also featuring a little girl in various stages of growth. Was this girl in the photos one of the two who lived in this house? The man in the pictures was probably her dad, and judging by the fact that all his personal stuff was in an attic, the man was most likely dead.

Not gonna lie, I was starting to feel a bit guilty.

Buuuuut… not nearly guilty enough to not steal a cooking pot and blade like I needed. I left the souvenirs and knickknacks alone though, even though there was a locket that was made of gold. It would have been super shitty of me to take it. I was hesitant to check the other drawer, but I'm SO glad I did. At first glance, it seemed like an old leather captains coat had been stuffed in without being folded. But I thought the lumps underneath looked a bit suspicious, so I lifted it off, and when I did, I found that the coat had been deliberately placed to cover up three items, and I gasped in wonder when I saw them!

The first was an old style flint lock pistol that hat been customized with a longer barrel for accuracy. The metal on it was engraved beautifully with flowery designs, and on the wood of the grip was carved a Jolly Roger of a scull and cross-swords with a flower clutched between the sculls teeth. The second item was a beautiful long bladed cutlass with brass plating on the guard and a gem on the pommel. The guard was engraved with the same Jolly Roger as the pistol, and the blade was housed in a sheath made of high quality black leather. While these items were high quality, they were also quite distinctive, and thus off limits. What exited me most however, was the third item which almost looked out of place compared to the other two.

It was a machete! There were no brass fittings, no flowery engravings, no incriminating Jolly Rogers, just plain old wood, leather, and steel. The sheathe was brown and plain and the grip was polished wood with a steel pommel for striking. I pulled the blade halfway out of the sheathe to see if it was rusty, but it was beautifully maintained. The sheath even had a little side pouch with a whetstone and oil in it! The only distinct marking was a pair of initials scratched into the leather of the sheath, which wasn't even that noticeable.

When I was searching for a blade, I was thinking I could make do with a kitchen knife or something, but a machete? Hell yeah! I closed up the dresser and put everything back just the way it was minus the machete, which I had with me. It had a strap connected to the sheathe, so I slung it over my back. I still needed the pot though, so I looked around for the attic entrance so I could descend into the house. When I finally found it, the trapdoor wouldn't open. I gently pushed and pulled at the handle a few times, hoping it was just a little stuck and eventually it would swing open. It didn't. Did they have a lock for their attic entrance?!

Then it occurred to me.

Of course they have a fucking lock on their attic entrance! They're hiding pirate shit up here! It wouldn't do to have a nosey guest going up into your attic and finding contraband! Was just owning pirate stuff illegal? I didn't actually know, but judging by how anal the marines are about everything else, I wouldn't doubt it! Shit! A blade was important, but a pot was essential. I needed one to purify water, which was the most important resource when camping for long periods of time. I needed a pot. Maybe there was some other way of purifying water, but if there was, I sure as hell didn't know it! Are iodine tablets a thing here? I don't fucking know!

Wait!

I took a deep breath.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Even if I can't get into this house, pots are pretty common! I can get one from a different house. Ideally I'd want any crime I commit to go undetected for a long time, so I don't want to go smashing windows. I'll just have to find a different house. I stood, and made to leave, but I had a thought. "Am I sure it's actually locked? Maybe it's just stuck really bad?" I hesitated. I really didn't want to spend extra time in town, and if I had to scope out another house it increased the chances of discovery. I'd check again just in case.

I crouched back down, and gave it a good shove just to make sure. I put my weight into it, so when the trapdoor swung open with an awful crunch, I fell right through it! As I fell down into a closet, my right shoulder hit a shelf, tearing it out of the wall, and I landed with a crash in a dusty heap on the floor. Looking up, I saw that the attic door did in fact have a lock, and I had just torn it right out of the wood.

Guess I don't know my own strength hehe…

FUCK!

To make matters worse, I heard I muffled, "What the hell was that?!" Come from outside the house!

Were they just now getting home?!

fuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK

Thinking quickly, I grabbed a few of the coats that had been hanging in the closet and slung them over my head to hide my hair and face! Making sure the machete was covered too I sprinted into the kitchen and threw open a cabinet! No pots!

From right outside the front door I heard the voice again, "Hey! Who the hell is in there!" I could hear the key scrabbling the lock as he tried and failed to properly put it in. I slammed open another cabinet, no pot! Another, cups! Another, plates! Another, JACKPOT!

It was a medium sized soup pot with handles on either side, a bit bigger than I'd prefer but I couldn't exactly be choosy! I ripped it out of the cabinet, spilling a bunch of bowls on the ground, and sprinted in the general direction I thought the back door would be. The angry person had apparently given up on fitting the key into the lock and with a crash, he busted the door open with his shoulder! Another more feminine voice sounded out, "What the hell Jack?!"

As I found myself in their bedroom, I realized I had chosen the wrong path. This wasn't where the back door was! I could hear the aforementioned 'Jack' speeding closer as his footsteps thudded the ground. Well, they already knew someone broke in! Nothing for it! I held the pot over my head, using it to hold down the three or so coats I had draped over me, and just as 'Jack' threw open the bedroom door, red faced and huffing like a bull, I dove headfirst through their bedroom window, the pot and the coats protecting me from the shards of shattered glass.

I landed poorly on the ground outside with an "OOF", then quickly scrambled to my feet, sprinting towards the front gate! I used one hand to keep the pot from covering my eyes, and the other to help me vault over the gate, landing in the street with a smack of my leather sandals on the cobblestone. I sprinted down the street as fast as a could, not caring which way I was going so long as it was away from here! 'Jack' apparently hadn't been willing to follow me through the glass riddled window, but the woman had been more or less by the front door still, and she burst through the front gate after me, her high heels in her hands. I heard the man call out after her, "Get 'em Brandy!"

Even compared to most adults I was pretty damn fast, and as I pulled ahead of her, I thought I was in the clear. As I was laughing in triumph however, I heard a click, and a loud BANG!

Something immediately struck the back of the soup pot, ringing it like a bell and sending me stumbling forward. I bounced myself back up with the hand not holding the pot handle, and whipped left onto a side road. I kept sprinting for a few more seconds before I registered what the hell just happened, and when I did, I nearly tripped.

She shot at me.

She's shooting at me!

Like, with a GUN!

I kept sprinting but glanced back, and saw her whip around the corner after me, furiously loading more powder and another lead ball into her flintlock as she ran.

HOLY SHIT!

I skidded frantically around another corner, a right turn this time, and paled as I met the dead end wall of an alleyway. She must have been familiar with the layout of the town because I heard her shout from around the corner, "HA! I've got you now you little brat! Gimme back my coat!" Thinking fast, I saw that the walls of the two buildings were made out of cobblestone just like the street, and taking advantage of the natural handholds, I sprung from one wall to the other and back, wall jumping like megaman until I had the height to get over the wall onto the other side. She came barreling around the corner just as I made it over the wall, and I heard her shout, "Nooo! That's my favorite cooooaaaat!"

I felt kinda bad, I hadn't even meant to steal the coats, so I untangled them from my head, wadded them into a ball, and chucked them back over the wall. I was in some kind of closed off, grassy courtyard, and it seemed like the only way out was a staircase that led to a door that was almost certainly locked. I ran up the stairs, jumped on the railing, and used it as a leg up to vault onto the roof of one of the buildings. I scrambled up over the edge, staying low and looking around frantically to make sure I wasn't in her line of fire.

I didn't see her at first, but when I finally spotted where she was, she was walking cheerfully back to her house, the coats in her arms.

Wow. She really likes those coats!

I took the pot off my head and turned it around in my hands, inspecting the damage. It was dented and there was a splash of lead where the bullet hit, but a look on the inside showed that none of it had made it through. I put it back on my head, I still had to hide my hair after all, and I patted it for a job well done. "Good job pot, You saved my life!" I stated happily, "I guess this means you're a lucky pot now huh?" The pot, of course, said nothing, because pots can't talk.

—

A particularly loud bird call brought me out of my thoughts, and I looked at my lucky pot, the bottom already blackened by soot from boiling water on the campfire. The dent on the side was still there. I probably could have pounded it straight, but I didn't want to. The dent was what made it lucky after all! I sat on my log bench and took a bite of roasted rabbit leg. I should probably pay the orphanage a visit. I left like a dad getting milk, that was kind of sucky of me. I should at least swing by and let them know I'm doing ok, so they don't worry. Satisfied with my plan, I returned back to the task at hand. It was time to start my training for real. I had a basic plan of what I would do, but now that I had everything set up, I could really get started.

A/N: I'M SOOOORRYY!

I know I said last time that Jasper would start his training in this chapter, but the first half of the one I had planned ballooned spectacularly into an entire chapter by itself! Jasper's return visit to the orphanage, their reactions, and the actual start to his training will be in the next chapter! I promise! In return, here is a little something extra ;)

Brandy POV:

She had to admit, that pot wearing little shit was fast as hell.

Brandy smiled, her favorite coat (along with two others that she also liked quite a lot) was nestled safely in her arms. As it should be! All growing up, Daddy made sure to teach her everything he knew about sailing the seas and about defending what was valuable. She could shoot a pistol, and shoot it well. She could fight with a cutlass just like he could, and she could even navigate by the stars when the weather allowed and a compass and landmarks when it didn't.

As she drew closer to the home she shared with her boyfriend Jack, she picked up both high heels where she had dropped them, and balanced them on top of her coats, as she didn't feel like putting them on. Jack was wonderfully attentive, and very funny when he really got going, but he was a bit impatient, and he had a temper that while never violent, was sometimes quite embarrassing.

Still, she loved him a lot, and hadn't yet regretted the decision to let him move in with her, though she had to install a lock on the attic door for when his father visited. Jack's father was both incredibly nosy, and notoriously bad at keeping his fool mouth shut when around his friends, one of which was the captain of the marine base here in town! They had had a few close calls, but they managed to always catch him snooping in time, and once they got the lock he had seemed to give up. When she and Jack had returned from their wonderful evening, she had initially assumed it was Jacks father that was in their house. She certainly wouldn't be surprised. Jack was wonderful, but his father was a slimy bastard!

As Brandy walked back in past the gate, she found Jack going around the house, trying all the windows. Curious what he was up to, she called out to him, "What's wrong, Jack? Locked yourself out? You might need to break down the back door too~" He looked up at her, a smile on his face, but she could see he was still pissed about the break in. "Oh ha ha, very funny. You know I can fix this up in a jiffy." She smiled, Jack was very good with his hands, one of the many reasons she liked him so much. He continued, "the only thing I can't figure out is how the little felon got in in the first place."

He put his hand on his hip, ran his eyes over the house once more and gestured frustratedly with his other hand, illustrating his words, "from what I figure, they were trying to get into the attic by force, and they actually were able to yank the door open right around when we got home, which is what made all that racket." Brandy walked into the house to see what he was talking about, and whistled when she saw the door to the attic. Both the pin lock that normally held the door up and the padlock she had installed had been fully ripped out of the ceiling.

He had followed her into the house and after she had seen the attic door, he continued, "after we pulled up, they got spooked, grabbed a disguise and a helmet and busted through the window and got away." He scratched his face, puzzled, "The part I'm stuck at is how they got in! None of the windows were broken till they went through the bedroom, even if they could pick locks they wouldn't have locked themselves in, they would have left an escape open! It just doesn't make sense."

Brandy looked at all the chaos, thinking. "Did they take anything?" She asked. "No." He responded. "Not from what it looks like, I've checked around down here and all they got was the pot and the coats. I don't think they were here for very long. You got your coats back, did you catch 'em?"

"No, I lost the little brat when they hopped the wall between Tony's and Sun-dried Sundries, they threw the coats back over after."

Jack smiled, "So they returned the coats, but not the pot, who knows? Maybe all they broke in for was a way to make soup!"

She snorted and rolled her eyes at the bad joke. What kind of dumbass would break into a place just for a pot?

Jack blinked a few times, and seemed to register the other part of what Brandy said.

"Wait a minute, they hopped the wall?! That's like 20 feet up!"

"I know, I saw it myself and I still have trouble believing it."

She looked at the attic door again and noticed something strange. The bottom handle of the door should have ripped off long before the padlock, but it was firmly on. The inner handle however was loose, like someone had hung from it.

Hang on…

A cold hand gripped Brandy's heart as she marched outside, looking up at the attic window. It was open.

And slightly off kilter.

She rushed back inside and grabbed the stepladder, flicking it open and climbing up hurriedly. Jack came over, concerned, "What is it? What's wrong?"

"The attic window. that's how they got in"

Jack's eyes widened, "Shit!"

Brandy hauled herself up into the attic, and ran over to the dresser, throwing open the first drawer, and breathed a sigh of relief as everything remained, even the gold locket.

A bit more relaxed, she opened the second drawer, peeled away her fathers coat, and froze.

Fathers things were still there, but her Machete was gone.

Her machete that daddy had given her on her 12th birthday.

Her machete that she had carried near constantly when she was on his ship, to the point where the first mate had sown a strap to the sheathe.

Her Machete that she had held in her arms when her father breathed his last, promising him through tears that she'd be strong.

Her pirate's cutlass

Her memory

Her treasure

And some dead rat had taken it.

She'd track that little shit stain down if it was the last thing she did, and she'd show them exactly why it's a bad idea to steal from a pirate!