Author's Notes: Thank you, eihppas7, for dropping the first review. I wasn't trying to pressure anyone into giving me reviews or make you feel like you're being watched. I'm so sorry! X3 The reviews are only meant to tell me whether or not the audience, or you, want the full expansion of this short story. If you don't want it, then I won't waste my time brainstorming when there's other stories you could read for a better experience.

As I explained to my coworker, I don't know much about pirates and I'm severely behind on One Piece's lore. It's honestly too much for me, hence why I retired from the weeaboo force. He asked me what I did know about pirates, and that's what led me to sharing with him what I knew about privateers and where I stopped with One Piece. That's what set everything in motion. To me, privateers were the true "pirate kings" because they established a hierarchy in piracy without violating the law and ended the era of piracy when countries started to establish peace and healthier relationships with each other. One Piece had always confused me on this particular title, so I watched it to see if that's where the creator was going with it. He... did not, but it's cool. It doesn't really hurt anything. However, I wanted to learn more about Ace, but I only saw him in the one episode before One Piece was taken off air in my area. I don't chase behind anime anymore after what happened to our computer. Long story short, it didn't end well for me or the computer.

When I heard about Ace being a captain of a crew before he joined the Whitebeards, I was hype to learn more about that part of his life. Alas, nothing was mentioned about the Spades, so I don't know how that story really went down. The focus seemed to be more on him being Gol D. Roger's son and hunting Blackbeard down, which was really unfair to me, because he kind of suffers from side character syndrome. But, what can you do? :/

If it'll help, I can give you an idea of what I had in mind for the expanded version of this story. The plan was to make this a political drama as I said before, but I wanted to mature Ace a bit further and villainize Shanks just a hair. Not a lot, just a hair. There was going to be four parts to match the four suits in a deck of cards. Either 52 chapters or 52 episodes were going to be posted in total with 2 what-ifs at the end to represent the jokers. For Ace, I like his role as the captain of the Spades so far, so I was going to share how he obtained his crew of 12 young men in Part 1. Nesi's story would just be copy-paste at the tail end. Part 2 is Ace's fleet so Moga, Schooner, Vangra Fly, and Hedao Murkshade are all in there, but Shanks comes in as the silent antagonist to Nesi. You can't tell that he is because of the way I wrote it, but, when Nesi talks about her dream with him, Shanks can sense that she's going to be a problem politically. He just doesn't know how. That opens up Part 3 where it's a battle of wills and political power on all fronts. Part 4 obviously is where Ace's final moments are and where the reading of his will occurs. Shanks also challenges Nesi to a duel, believing she's a threat to Luffy and all other pirates, due to her role as a privateer.

I think that's all I have for now. This was a long note. I apologize. I just wanted to clarify that you're not being pressured to review. I was kidding. Enjoy the story at your leisure. It's not going anywhere. ;-D

~ ... All-Nighter ... ~

Snore. Snore. Snore.

BOOM!

"Floor scrubber! Wake that ass up!"

"AAAAHHHH!"

Nesi's heart just about thumped in her throat from Ace's violent wake-up call. She clung to the ceiling like a scared cat and turned to Ace slowly. He was fully displeased with something. She just wasn't sure what. She made breakfast on time, the dishes were washed, clothes were drying now, and the shower room was spotless. She did a lot of cleaning the night before since she had some sewing to do. She managed to buy some nice fabrics from an older lady at the last town the Spades docked the ship. She did minor work for the day to earn the money for the fabrics, but the lady was kind enough to just give her what she needed as gratitude. She hoped to sew clothes for the boys to get rid of the tattered remains they were wearing today, but Ace had other plans apparently.

"Aye, captain?" Nesi questioned, shivering.

"Where'd all the money go?" Ace demanded, yanking her off the ceiling and pulling her close to his nose. His freckles were cuter up close as intimidating as he was right now.

"M-mo-money, sir?" Nesi asked, not understanding what he's talking about.

"The loot we've been collecting! Where is it?" Ace demanded, blasting Nesi with a gust of hot air to the face. It may as well have been his fire.

"Oh, the treasury room just a level under the forecastle deck, sir. I thought it'd be safest there since no one goes in that section of the ship. Everything's in there, sir," Nesi explained calmly. She then listed off things on her fingers, "The tools for repairs are in there until I can designate a station for them to go. I moved my pots and pans from there to the kitchen. Fabrics are now in this laundry room. Old woods are being used for firewood to cook, warm water in the shower room, and dry the laundry in case of rain. Woods with potential termite nests in them are to be used first to protect the ship. Cleaning supplies have been moved to a spot just under your cabin, and I'm moving the gardening tools down here until I figure out a space for them. The loot should be in that room towards the back."

Ace was quiet for a moment, but he threw Nesi over his shoulder and walked her to this treasury room she was talking about. She was protesting and squirming, but he ignored all of that in favor of seeing what she meant. She said a level under the forecastle. That was center front. Oh, she installed a door. Baragon was following them, hopping behind the two to see the commotion while the boys were having a panic attack on the deck above. Ace opened the door, faced darkness, and turned to see a lamp next to the door. He used his firepower to light the wick then took it to walk inside. Sure enough, the money was in a chest. It was in the big one that Discount, the tallest man in his crew, was using for clothes. A smaller chest was housing jewelry. There wasn't a space for the weapons yet, but he could see that Nesi was drawing out plans for some shelving for them. She circled "armory room?" with some charcoal, so she must be questioning whether any stolen weapons should go in there or not.

Nesi had installed cubbies for the boys to access their clothes a bit easier rather than having all those luggage cases stacked atop each other. A few of the boys preferred having their clothes in the laundry room to absorb Nesi's fragrances longer, so she made cubbies for them in there, too. Ace's clothes remained in the captain's cabin, so he just needed a wardrobe somewhere. Before, he had his bag with spare clothes in them. Nesi, being a woman, felt that wasn't a proper place for clothes and a waste of space in the bag, so she built a simple rack and shelving on the side. For whatever reason, he kind of liked the awkward angles of it from the varying lengths of wood. He placed his water canteen and other knickknacks on it to make things more personal. The only downside to all this organization was that Nesi stopped sleeping in his cabin with him in favor of staying in the laundry room. While that shouldn't bother him, it did. It felt like... well, that she didn't trust him or something. He didn't want to keep someone he didn't trust on his ship. That wouldn't work.

"When did you do all of this?" Ace asked quietly.

"Oh, uh, just before you let me walk through town," Nesi replied, turning to answer. She felt Ace relax before she was dumped off his shoulder. She let out a painful yelp when she plummeted to the floor, "Ack! Ow! Is this room off limits or something? It was empty."

"You need to tell me when you're doing stuff like this. You could be indirectly responsible for the deaths or injuries of other people if you keep quiet about all these changes," Ace warned, locking eyes with her. He kneeled to her level to emphasize, "Speak up next time."

"Aye, captain," Nesi said, rubbing her bottom. Baragon hopped onto her lap, making her hold him in her arms, and chirped happily. "Was that all, Captain Ace? There's not much for snacks in the kitchen other than bread and cheese. You can have that until lunch. All trash was sorted through and burned this morning. It was mostly old stuff lingering around. The clothes are almost done. I think the humidity is making them take lo - "

Ace put a finger to her lips to stop her ramblings then stood back up to put the lantern down and leave. Nesi shrugged his shoulders as he was diffusing the situation on the deck and blew out his fire. She closed the door then returned to the laundry room with Baragon. She started reading a short article about new fragrances for fresh-smelling clothes and fell asleep again. Not even the boys running to see the treasury room woke her up this time. She was tired from trying to have everything ready for the morning so she could focus on sewing, but that came at a cost for her being tired throughout the day.

BOOM!

"Floor scrubber! Ass! Up!" Ace roared. Nesi didn't freak out that time, only jumped a bit to look at him sleepily. "Where's all my paperwork and your studies?"

"Your cabin, sir. I changed out your for a desk that was being thrown out," Nesi replied, half asleep. "It was still in *yawn* good condition. I just had to level it off. All of your papers should be in the top drawer. My studies are *snore* on the right."

Ace was quiet, watching Nesi sleep, but went back on the deck to his cabin to check. He didn't even notice his table was replaced with a desk. When he walked back into his cabin, the desk was there. The table was merely moved over to form a gutting station. Some sheets and wood carvings about taxidermy were in an information log. She remembered the date he stuffed the beast! Even the date when he got the mount for it! How? At his station was a space for cleaning gutting and stuffing tools. Nothing was there, so she didn't buy anything, but she did have marks on it. The prices for said tools were scribbled on the side. She was working on putting money aside for the purchases. She didn't have to do that; in fact, he'd rather she not do that. But... that was her talent. His grandfather was right. She's good at meticulous work like bookkeeping and woodworking. Looking for her notes, he skimmed through them and saw her chapter summaries. She had all kinds of questions written down and unfamiliar or confusing vocabulary words written on the side. She even wrote an essay on what she learned from the texts and how she planned to apply her knowledge to his commands. She wrote down everything but when she was going to tell Ace that was reorganizing his entire ship!

BOOM!

"Floor scrubber! Ow!"

Baragon bit him on his leg that time. Ace glared at him, making the pink Draco lizard shrink back like a turtle, and quickly picked Baragon up by his tail. Baragon managed to let out a child's squeal that woke Nesi up and made her panic, "Captain! What are you doing to Baragon?"

"Tossin' the little worm to the south of the planet!" Ace replied, reeling back to let loose the dragon cannon.

Nesi got in front of him, placed her hands on his chest, and said just sweetly enough, "Captain, please, I-I-I'll make more food o-o-or buy some ale. I'll do whatever you want! Just don't throw my friend away! Please!"

Ace grew quiet and asked softly, "Are we not friends?"

"Huh?" Nesi chirped. She put a finger to her lip to think about it before replying, "Um... we haven't done anything that would warrant such a relationship. I think we're more like a boss and employee kind of thing. You give me work. I complete it to your standards. Or... well, maybe it's a teacher-student thing, actually. You did show me how to fight cleaner. I practice it. You're usually talking with the boys more than me, so I'm just a background person. I don't know how you define friendship, but this isn't what I would call one, personally."

"I can't keep you here if I can't trust you, Llandala," Ace finally said. "You're more likely to steal from me or worse. I don't need that on my ship."

Ace didn't expect such a hurt look from Nesi, but she looked down at her feet and sighed. She only quietly said, "Okay. You can just drop me off at the next town. Thank you for keeping me for this long, Captain Ace."

Nesi bowed, took Baragon in her arms, smiled softly at him, and started to pack her things without another word. The boys were trying to ask her what was wrong, but she merely replied with a smile that nothing was wrong. She simply was preparing for her next lesson, but her demeanor said otherwise. Something happened. She got through the rest of the day just fine. Meals were cooked, dishes washed, clothes finished, deck cleaned, but she wasn't speaking to anyone at length like before. She hardly spoke at all. Even when the boys tried to steal extra rations, she stopped yelling at them and let them do whatever they wanted. Baragon was cuddlier than before, though. A clear sign that something really was wrong. He normally danced or played, but he wouldn't let anyone come near him. He hissed and growled a couple of times.

"Hey, nee-san?" Corale asked. "What's going on? Did you do something to piss the captain off?"

"No, not that I know of," Nesi answered, cleaning the countertops. "He's giving me a big exam, though. We're supposed to go to an academic center in the next town we find. Maybe he figured out what I'm trying to be. He's a smart man. I don't have the right words for what I'm trying to do, but he took me in so he must have an idea, right?"

"Maybe," Corale replied, folding his arms to think about it.

"Don't worry so much. It's just a written exam. I'm nervous," Nesi said reassuringly, showing that she really was nervous.

Corale didn't push anymore, but she confirmed his suspicions. She wasn't nervous. She was leaving. That night, Nesi did her normal routine on, but she was beyond tired. She was falling asleep while sweeping. Corale offered to take over so she could sleep, earning Baragon's trust again, and watched the two return to the laundry room. Nesi finished packing everything. The boys looked at each other with some concern before they watched Corale stop sweeping altogether to speak with the captain. He didn't know a crewmate was already in the captain's cabin.

"Captain, is Nesi sick?" Deuce asked, concern in his voice.

"No, she's leaving," Corale answered. "Why is she walking around like a ghost? What happened?"

"I don't trust her. Plain and simple," Ace said, twirling his knife around before putting it down. He was serious about it.

"Why? What'd she do? She didn't steal anything. She just organized it. She never comes with us for looting jobs!" Deuce argued.

"She's not doing anything. That's the problem. I don't know if she's plotting something or not. I barely know her at all. She's a ghost. I don't particularly like ghosts," Ace said.

"So, you're going to kick her out instead of try to get to know her?" Corale argued. "What kind of person does that?"

"She said very clearly that we're not friends, just a boss and a worker," Ace answered.

"She's doing what you wanted, Ace!" Deuce argued, raising his voice. "You asked her to be a floor scrubber not a bestie! So, you're mad at her for doing her job instead of slobbering all over you like some dog? I thought you had confidence, not some sick ego!"

"So, you're saying you trust her?" Ace asked, raising a brow.

"Yes," Corale answered seriously. "I'm the one who let her watch you fight. I could've taught her some stuff myself, but she didn't see me save her skin. She saw you. She wanted the strength to save her own skin. I respected that, so I let her around us. I already knew what happened to her before you took her in. That was why I went to find her just before you started training. She's tired because she was up all night organizing, isn't she? She did the same thing when she was learning how to copy your moves. I even acted as a sparring partner from time to time. She's a night owl. She works best in the dark. Guess it takes a real friend to know that."

"Where you goin'?" Deuce questioned, surprised by Corale's seriousness.

"I'm outta here," Corale said, leaving the cabin. He started packing his things up.

Deuce was about to say something more to Ace, but he stopped when the captain started smiling. Why was he smiling? Ace then said proudly, "You can call them both back when they're done fuming. She passed the test."

"What?" Deuce questioned.

"I needed to see if you all trusted her before I teach her anymore. She's completed her studies flawlessly. I would've gladly cheated off her test papers if we were in school together! She needs a sparring partner who won't hold back but who will also encourage her to keep going. I was worried that you all might not have liked her because she doesn't talk to anyone during the day. She does her own thing and spends time with that little worm who adopted her," Ace informed, leaning back in his chair. "She needs to be more social if she wants to carry out her dream. I was concerned about that part."

"Captain, we need to talk!" Cuatro said, bursting into the cabin. The other boys started filing in to complain. "Are you really throwing Nesi out?"

"No, I wanted to make sure you trusted your sister. You can call her back in," Ace said, smiling mischievously.