Chapter 2: The New Friend! Nice to Meet You, Sabo!

Five years have passed since Ace and I were brought to Curly Dadan. I'd say we settled in decently well. Well, as well as one could with a group of bandits. Ace would do some of the tiny chores around the hut due to still being so young, while my chores were fishing and salvaging anything usable in Gray Terminal.

Our lives were decent, but it definitely hadn't been perfect. Ace and I would go to town together occasionally. When we did, Ace sometimes asked what people thought if Gol D. Roger had had children. The responses were never pleasant. If the response went a little overboard, he would start a fight with the people and I would have to pull him away. Whenever these things happened, he would get frustrated and run off to his usual spot near the cliffs that overlooked the sea. It got to the point where I had to keep a first-aid kit near the spot. Since he picked fights often, I would always be the one to tend to his wounds. I get where he is coming from, and it can be hard to hear. These people didn't know they were talking to the spawn of Roger when they said these things... but that didn't mean I wouldn't join in once in a while.

One time, when I was done with my chores and couldn't find Ace, I found him at his spot, all beaten up and injured. I gave a sigh, grabbed the kit, and said as I walked over to him with a sigh, "Let me see the damage."

Ace stubbornly turned his head away but stayed silent, as he knew he would not be able to resist my aid. As I was bandaging him up, Dadan ended up coming and giving him a lecture about all of the trouble he causes. Once she left, he had a deep scowl on his face. "So," I started to ask as I finished tending to his injuries as I put the last band-aid on his nose, "did you really almost beat some guys to death this time?"

Ace was silent for a moment before muttering, "They started it. Besides, it's not like I asked to be the son of the pirate king. Sometimes, I wonder if I should have been born at all…"

I immediately embraced Ace tightly. I moved him out at arms-length by his shoulders so that I could look him straight in his dark eyes. "Ace, I love you and I will never let you be alone. You often say that you feel worthless, but to me, you are worth more than everything in this world. I don't care what everyone else says. I'm glad you were born, because that means I get to have an awesome brother like you. Next time you hear someone badmouthing you, you just come to me! I'll personally take care of them myself!"

Ace was stunned. He smirked and gave a snicker, "I'm not a baby, you know. Besides, you're supposed to tell me when someone says bad things about you! That's what brothers are for! They protect their sisters!"

"I won't take it back," I told him as I crossed my arms and a raised eyebrow. "You still need to tell me if someone bothers you, because that's what older siblings are for!"

Ace and I poked fun at each for a little longer until he decided to head to Gray Terminal, saying he had something he needed to go do. I decided to stay on the bluff a little while longer. Sitting at the edge of the cliff, I dangled my feet over it, my sandals hanging loosely off my feet . I closed my eyes to take in this peaceful moment. The sound of the crashing waves, the salty sea scent, and my favorite, the ocean breeze blowing through my long, dark hair. Windy days like these were my favorite on the island. The wind always seemed to have a new sensation to it. Today, the ocean's salty smell was the strongest, but the other day it was the smell of freshly baked goods from town. The day before that, the wind was so gentle, it hardly moved a hair on my head, but had a strong fishy odor to it.

Just as I was getting lost in the moment, Ace came rushing back calling my name with excitement. "Anne! Anne! Come with me! There's someone you gotta meet!"

Looking over my shoulder, I asked Ace what was up. Ace, wanting to introduce me to someone? Since when did he have friends?!

He simply insisted that I follow him and said he would not take no for an answer. I carefully got up from the bluff and followed behind him. He led me through the forest and up the tallest tree. As we climbed up, I saw a boy with blonde hair, a white shirt, and brown suspenders sitting on a branch. "Sabo," Ace called to the boy. "I'm back! And I brought my sister, just like I said I would."

Ace and I got up to the same branch that the boy, Sabo, was on and we all sat. "I see that," Sabo chuckled. He turned to me with a grin. "So you're Ace's sister? Nice to meet you. My name's Sabo."

"Hi, Sabo," I said with a big smile back. "I'm Gol D. Anne. I'm so happy Ace actually made a friend!"

"AAAAANNE," Ace groaned with a pout.

"What, did I embarrass you," I teased as I gave Ace a nudge. "But really, nice to meet you, Sabo!"

"Wait, did you say… Gol," Sabo asked with wide eyes. "You know, like that pirate king, Gol D. Roger?"

"Don't mention that guy's name," Ace hissed with a glare.

I turned to the confused Sabo and told him with a sigh, "Sorry, he's not a fan of our dad… It's best not to talk about him around Ace." Sabo was stunned for a moment, taking in what was just told to him. You could see he had a million questions going through his mind, but he was afraid to ask any of them because of Ace. "I'll give you the 'Ace-friendly' summary of you-know-who. So 'that guy' was executed before Ace was even born, and I don't remember much about him since I was only 1 and a half when it happened. He was also always sailing and then the whole execution thing, so there's not much to tell."

"Oh," was all that Sabo could say. It was silent for a moment as we twiddled our thumbs. "Well, I bet pirates like him are freer than we are! Could you imagine? Being able to go wherever we want, whenever we want?!"

"Yeah," Ace chimed in. "No one telling us what to do, and if they try, we could just beat them up!"

"You already do that," I teased him with a laugh. "But that sounds nice, sailing on a ship to anywhere we want, being as free as the wind…"

"Then it's decided," Ace shouted with pride as he stood up with his hands on his hips. "We'll become pirates one day! All three of us! We'll start saving up now, get us a ship, and leave this place!'

"That sounds like a great idea," Sabo exclaimed as he stood up as well in excitement.

"Do you think we can actually do it," I asked as I kicked my feet back and forth.

"Of course," Ace said. He then pointed to me, then him and Sabo as he continued, "You can be in charge of the planning and schemes since you're the older one, and Sabo and I can do the stealing and money getting!"

"Sounds good to me," Sabo said happily with a huge, toothy smile. "But is Anne good at planning?"

"Psh, hahaha," Ace started to laugh hard. "Is she good? She's GREAT! She's always coming up with these cool schemes! Once, she was able to take everything from a vender's stall with just a dog, a stale biscuit, and rotten tomato! And another time, she took everything on a noble without him noticing, with her being the decoy and my sneaky hands! You really should have been there when the guy realized what happened!"

"Then I guess Anne'll be the strategist, and we'll be the thieves," Sabo said, putting his fists on his hips.

"I can also protect the treasure while you guys are out, too," I suggested. "That gives me more time to think of things we can do for money and treasure! And if I got time, I could also hunt and scavenge food for us if we have long days!"

"I think we just might have a team," Sabo said happily. "Anne the brain, Ace the brawn, and I can do traps, too!"

Ace shot one of his fists into the air as he shouted, "To being pirates!"

Sabo and I joined in, raising our fists up high as we shouted, "To being pirates!"

And thus was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and the long road of piracy.

Our escapades were something to behold over the years. Most of the schemes I came up with, Ace and Sabo would come out unscathed with a good amount of loot, but there were the occasional ones that did not turn out that well, and we'd all have a few bruises and scrapes. Even after the failed schemes, they still placed their faith in me. I took pride in keeping the two safe if they had to steal, and I had to make sure that every contingency was accounted for when coming up with the plans. I knew that one small mistake could cost us if we weren't careful. That's why I would burn each written out plan after it was committed. That way, other people couldn't tie it back to us when they realized their treasure was gone. Most of the time, they would still connect it back to us since we were mischievous children, but, by then, it was too late and their stuff was gone. People even somehow found out that I was the tactician, but that's why I would hang back and go unnoticed when we carried out plans. The last thing we needed were people seeing me and realizing we had a scheme in motion and be on alert.

We did this for four years and we were doing fantastic! We had a secret treasure spot in our tree, nine year-old Ace and 12 year-old I were receiving survival and fighting lessons from Gramps, nine year-old Sabo had been improving on his traps, my schemes were getting more complicated by the day, and Ace and I had gotten much stronger.

One day, while the three of us were putting the day's haul with the rest of our loot, I mentioned, "We've stashed quite a bit already! I know we've planned to use a good amount to get us a ship later, but do we really need to buy a ship?"

"Hm? What'cha mean," Sabo asked as he covered the stash up.

"I mean, why don't we try building one," I pointed out. "I'm sure we could get all of the materials easily. It would be fun to do, too! I'm sure we could do it if we tried, and it would save us a lot of money!"

"Ya know," Ace started to say with a cocky grin, "that's not a bad idea! But… do either of you know how to make a ship?"

We sat there in silence for a moment before shrugging. "I mean," I started to say as I stood up, "how hard could it possibly be, especially if all three of us put our minds to it!"

The other two stood up and we all fist-bumped as we cheered, "Yeah!"

We immediately made our way to the shore and into a secret cove I once found while exploring. "This will be a great place to set off once we have a ship," Ace said as he made a rectangle with his index fingers and thumbs as if he were taking a picture. "Alright! Our first task is to get the supplies! But… what should we get?"

"Well, Miss Tactician," Sabo joked as he elbowed my side. "What are your thoughts?"

I held my chin with my index and thumb as I thought. "Well, we're obviously going to need some wood or logs for the base of the boat, as well as some for the mast. Speaking of the mast, we'll need a blanket or cloth of some kind to act as the sail. We'll also need some rope to tie everything together…"

I continued to name things off and Sabo would write everything I named off into the sand with a stick. "Okay," Sabo said once I finished. "So looking at this list, we can split it up between the three of us. Who do you think should get what?"

"I've actually thought of that, too," I said proudly. "So, we're going to need a lot of wood and logs for this, so it should be a two person job. I was thinking you two can get those, as they're the easiest things to get since we live next to a forest. I can go and sneak some cloth and ropes from town. I mean, it would be harder for you two since most people basically know your faces by now, with all of the trouble you've caused there recently…"

"You start one fight and you never hear the end of it," Ace complained as he rolled his eyes.

"It's been 23 times, Ace! 23," I corrected. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "If I go, the people are less likely to suspect something since they don't usually see me during the heists. They usually believe that if they see me, there isn't an elaborate plan going on. You know, I could use that as and advantage for the next scheme... Anyhow, the lady who lives near the market is bound to be drying her sheets today on the clothesline soon. That should be easy to get once she goes to the market to pick up her eggs around one o'clock. As for rope, ol' man Harper still doesn't know that I stole his coin purse a few weeks ago, so he's bound to still like me. I could probably convince him to let me have some rope. If he doesn't, I could always take the rope from his grand kids' old tire swing. The three of them go to visit the port to welcome the fishers back around four o'clock, so I'll go then."

"Um, Anne," Sabo started to ask with slight concern, "how do you know everyone's schedule?"

I gave a maniacal laugh before explaining, "How else do you think most of my plans work? Everyone seems to have their own carefree schedule whenever they aren't having to scrape by. They do things leisurely and do not have to fear anything messing up their schedule. It's not that hard to plan around once you know it. It almost becomes too easy."

"That's our mastermind," Ace laughed. "I still can't believe you've fooled that old man Garp into thinking you're the perfect angel."

"I… actually don't know either," I said with an awkward laugh.

"It's because she's a girl and girls are the innocent ones," Sabo said as he rolled his eyes.

"First off, that's sexist," I told him as I smacked him upside the head. "Second off, I AM an angel compared to Ace. I mean, he doesn't make it that hard…"

"Hey-," Ace began to protest.

"Twenty… three… fights…" I growled. "And just remember who always ends up patching you up after every single one."

"Okay, okay," Sabo interrupted as he got in between Ace and me. "Now we know what we need and how we need to do it, so let's do this!"

We gave one last hoo-rah before we parted ways to get our supplies. While the boys headed towards the forest, I made my way through Gray Terminal and into the town. I passed through the streets, and I would get the occasional glares from the people who caught us stealing before.

After a few minutes, I made it to the lady's house. Just as I thought, she had just finished hanging up her sheets and was about to head to the market. However, just as she had shut the small gate to her yard behind her, she happened to spot me. She stood there for a moment with a glare, glanced back at her sheets, and was about to head back to put her sheets back inside. Before she could, I hopped over her fence in a second, yanked a few large sheets off the line, and started to quickly flee.

I could hear her cursing me from behind, but I didn't notice the decently sized rock she had hurled at me. As I turned to make sure she wasn't right on my heels, it hit me on the side of my forehead, causing me to stumble to the ground. I quickly scrambled back to my feet and scooped up the blankets, tripping a few more times along the way. I managing to lose her by weaving through many alley ways nearby.

Once I lost her, I checked myself over for any major damage. I noticed that I had scraped my knees when I fell back there and the wound on my head was still bleeding down my face. I took one of the blankets I managed to snag and tore a few small strips off of it. I used some small pieces of fabric to clean up my knees, which stopped bleeding pretty quickly. Then, I used a piece of cloth to wipe the blood off of my face, and tied a longer strip of cloth around my head like a bandanna to help put pressure on the wound. It also helped to make it look less conspicuous. The last thing I needed was Ace to give me hell "for causing trouble like him".

I straightened up the makeshift headband, pulled my shorts down lower to try and hide my knees, and hid the sheets before heading towards Old Man Harper's place. When I got there, I saw he was gathering up his older grand kids to take them to the port, as on schedule. The old man saw me walking over, looked me up and down, and said with a chuckle, "My, that's quite the look you're going for, almost like a ruffian or pirate."

"Y-Yeah! My friends and I are playing Marines and Pirates," I lied between my teeth, but then saw this as an opportunity. "Actually, that's why I'm here! I was wondering if you had some spare rope that you could give me?"

He looked puzzled for a moment. "Rope, huh" he asked. "What exactly would you need rope for?"

"You know," I said, attempting to sound confident. "We need it to make… lassos for the Marines! They have to catch the pirates somehow!"

"Really now," Harper said with suspicion. "Do you even know how to make a lasso?"

My eyes lit up. Finally, some of my useless knowledge would come to fruition! "Of course," I cheerfully said. "I'd personally use a Honda knot! But only after a loose overhand knot and weaving the tail end of the rope around and through!"

"Oh my, you really do know your knots," Harper said with a laugh. "Alright, just wait here with my grand kids for a moment. I should have some rope that I can't use anymore, if that's all you need it for."

Old Man Harper made his way into his house, leaving me here with his grandchildren, who were a few years older than me. "Ugh, Grandpa is far too kind to the street rats," the well-kept boy spat.

"Indeed, indeed," the tidy girl said with venom on her words. "She seems to know knots, so maybe she could knot the rope to make a noose for herself."

I gave a sharp glare at her. "That's not even funny," I growled. "Don't even joke about the end of a life."

She looked to her brother and they both started to walk towards me ominously. I was fully ready to take them on if I needed to defend myself, but while I was watching the closer one, the other charged me and knocked me down onto my side, causing me to scrape and bruise the side of my thigh and arm. While the boy held me down, the girl came over with a switchblade she pulled out, then bent down next to me. "Ya know, I'm pretty sure you're the girl of rumors some of the people have been gossiping about. 'The daughter of the pirate king', huh? Don't deny it, my friend overheard you and the other brat going around once asking about that pirate's kids and the boy nearly killing those who spoke the truth about his trash kids. I also know you're nothing but a dirty thief. I personally saw you a couple of times! I even told Grampa about you stealing money from him before, and all he did was shrug and say you must have needed it more than him! You know what, you'll never learn if you aren't taught your place!"

The girl took the blade and used it to slash me few times on the arms, legs, and even across my right eye. All the while, I was kicking and scream as loud as I could, just hoping someone would hear and come save me. The boy was straddling me, keeping me pinned to the ground as the girl continued to run the blade across my palm.

Luckily, the old man finally came out and saw what was happening. "Hey, you two, knock it off," Harper scowled as he rushed over. "Get off the poor lass!"

"But Grandpa," the girl started to say as she and the boy got up, "it's easy to tell she wants to cause you trouble. I bet if you hadn't given her the rope, she probably would have robbed our home with her little street rat gang while we were gone!"

"She might even do it, still," the boy added, acting like he was terrified. "She's dangerous, Pops!"

Tears threatened to spill over, but I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I just shot daggers at the two of them, slightly feeling guilty that I really would have probably taken the rope without permission. It would have just been the rope they weren't using, though. These two were painting me out to be worse than I was though. However, Harper handed me the bundle of frayed rope and it was a lot more than I thought. "Sir, this is far too much for me to take," I told him, still hoping he wouldn't take it back since it was probably the right amount for our raft.

"I insist," Harper told me with a kind and gentle smile. "Think of it as a way to make up for the way my grandchildren treated you. I will also try to give you a treat later and some bandages for your stash."

"But Pops," the boy tried to protest.

"You hush up and get moving already," Harper continued to scold. He then turned to me and told me before walking off, "The rope may be a bit worn out, but it should be usable. Between you and me, I hope the pirates win in your little Pirate vs Marines game."

I thanked him one last time and ran back to fetch the sheets I had hidden earlier. Once I got to them, I tore off some more fabric to clean up my new wounds and used a strip of cloth to make a makeshift eye-patch to hide the scratch on my eye from the boys. After treating myself with what I had, I put the rope around the bundle of sheets and made my way back to the cove.

As it came into view, I could see Sabo and Ace laughing about something as they sat on a pile of logs. Once they saw me, they began waving happily to me. "It's about time you showed up," Ace teased as I approached the stack. "We started thinking you failed or gave up and went home! But it looks like you were just getting ready to be a pirate!"

"Since when do I give up," I smugly said as I laid my supplies down. "It's not like you two had to sneak around town or anything. But, as you can see, I got what I needed, plus more!"

Sabo bent down to look at the supplies and said as he held the rope, "You did, but… the rope you got looks questionable. Are you sure we should use this?"

"Hey, Ol' Man Harper gave it to me without any issues, so I think it's worth a shot," I told him. "Besides, if it breaks and that's the only issue we have, then that's a win! That'd just mean we'd need different rope and that's all!"

"I guess you make a point, but," Sabo was saying, then stopped when he saw the numerous scrapes and cuts. "Oh my gosh, Anne! What happened to you?!"

I clenched the bottom of my shorts and tried to pull it lower to hide the scratches and bruises before Ace saw, but he was already rushing over. "N-Nothing," I tried to protest.

Ace then ripped my headband and eye-patch off as soon as he got to me. "Nothing, my ass," Ace angrily exclaimed, looking over my arms and legs. "Who the hell did this to you?! And why were you trying to hide it from us?!"

"Because I knew you would overreact," I told him as I let go of my shorts. I put my hands on my arms, trying to hide the wounds. Ace is the one needs me to care for his wounds, not the other way around. I should need to worry him, it's the least I can do. "It's nothing, really."

"Like hell! It's not nothing," Ace yelled. "Tell me the deadman who did this to you!"

"I'm telling you I handled it already, so back off," I snapped back at him. "I'm not some damsel in distress who needs you to save me! Besides, what do you plan to do, anyway? Last thing I need is for you to go and get unnecessarily hurt, as well!"

"Guys," Sabo interrupted, getting between Ace and me like always. "Shouldn't we be treating those injuries properly right now?!"

Ace and I glared at each other for another second before sharply turning our heads away in a pout. While Sabo went to fetch the first-aid kit, Ace laid one of the spare sheets out on the log pile for me to sit on, that I wouldn't get sand in any of the cuts. Ace leaned against the pile while I sat cross-legged in silence on the log pile. It was this way for a few minutes, until Ace piped up, "It was because we're the kids of 'him', wasn't it?"

"What? No," I started to say. "Well, not completely. I was careless, that's all."

"I swear, if I find out who did this, I'll kill 'um," Ace growled.

"And that is precisely why I am not telling you," I said with a roll of the eyes. "I promise, it only looks worse than it actually is."

"Anne, you have a cut on your eyelid, the wound on your head is still bleeding, and you have cuts all over your body," Ace shouted as he spun to face me with an aggravated expression on his face. "What if that cut on your eye was deeper and you lost it? What if the bleeding doesn't stop or the wound gets infected? What if you were stabbed instead of just cuts?! You're passing all of this off as nothing, but they could turn into something worse in the future-"

Before he could continue fretting, we both noticed Sabo running as fast as he could towards us with the first-aid kit. "I… I got it," Sabo called out, out of breath.

Sabo made it over to us and set the kit on top of the pile next to me, right before collapsing onto the sand in exhaustion. "Good job, Sabo," Ace praised him, opening the kit up and getting out the supplies.

Ace climbed up next to me and instructed me to look his way. I obliged and, using a sterile gauze and disinfectant, he began wiping up the injuries on my face and head, just like how I usually do it for him. As soon as the disinfectant hit the open wounds, I would wince back instinctively, causing Ace to yell at me not to move. "This is weird," I randomly said. "This feels unnatural, since usually you're the one with the injuries."

"Welcome to the dark side, Miss Angel," Ace teased as he finished cleaning the deep cut on the side of my forehead. "Besides, it's not like it's the first time you've been like this. Remember when you were caught by that gang leader and had your arm broken? You sure got off lucky."

He held a piece of gauze on the wound as he wrapped a bandage around my head and pinned it together. It wasn't the neatest, but it was the effort that counted.

Next, he took a cotton swab and disinfected the cut on my eyelid. That was no fun, as the fumes from the disinfectant caused my eyes to burn and water.

The rest of the cuts weren't too deep, so all they needed was a little bit of disinfectant and band-aids. I looked like a hot mess when I was done getting bandaged. My arms and legs had bruises on the sides, as well as several cuts, I had a bandage wrapped around my head, and I had a small cut on my eye.

Once Ace was done playing doctor, we both hopped off the log pile.

"Alright," I said with excitement. "Enough delay! Let's get to designing!"

"Well, you're the most knowledgeable of this," Sabo said as he scratched the back of his head, "so, what do you think?"

Looking around, I picked up the stick that Sabo had used early and started to draw out the kind of log raft we should try and build. I instructed the boys how to lay the logs and we attempted to use the ropes to tie them all together. Next was the mast, which we used a thin, long piece of wood and stuck it between a pair of logs in the middle. We tied another lumber piece horizontal to the base to the vertical mast, then moved onto the sail. We made vertical cuts into a large sheet, making little ties for us to knot together around the mast.

After a few days and a bit of trial-and-error, we finally had an iffy raft built. We didn't care if it looked iffy, it was our very first prototype! We made this ourselves! We were ecstatic with the end results. The three of us high-fived each other and we were literally jumping with joy. "Alright! So what now," Ace asked with a huge grin.

"Obviously, we gotta test it out," I told them, "but we all shouldn't be on it yet. We need to observe it from different angles. In case something goes wrong, we need to be able to tell what happened so that we can fix it. I'm thinking we have one person stay on the cove, one person up on the cliff to get an overhead view, and, needless to say, one of us on the raft."

We all looked at each other, before we all shouted, "I call raft!!!"

We glared at each other before we agreed on solving this with a game of rock-paper-scissors. Now, I don't want to say this game was a little rigged in my favor, but… I basically knew what they would do since they were still nine years old. They were still kids, odds were that they would instinctively throw out rock. When we threw out our hands, they had, indeed, both thrown out rock while I threw out paper. They both pouted, but they didn't complain (too much).

We all got into position. Ace took his place up on the cliffs while Sabo helped me move the raft to the edge of the water. "You… do know how to swim, right," Sabo asked in fear.

"Of course, it's one of my favorite things to do, besides feeling the wind from the top of our tree," I said with a reassuring smile.

Sabo was comforted and nodded. He took his place on the beach while I made the final push and hopped on the raft. I unrolled the sail and angled it to take me out of the cove opening. "It's sailing," we all cheered in unison.

The raft actually managed to make it out of the cove in one piece! … Until I reached the crashing waves outside of the calm cove. It shook the raft a bit, but it was nothing to worry about. At least, that's what I thought before I heard Ace shout, "Anne! Huge wave, nine o'clock!!!"

As I turned my head, I was too late to react as a seven foot wave crashed right down onto the raft and me. The raft's frayed ropes couldn't handle the wave's impact, causing them to snap, letting all of the logs come undone and separate. Unable to continue standing on the raft, I lost my balance and fell into the ocean, getting swept under by more incoming waves. I could hear Ace and Sabo shouting my name as I struggled to keep my head above water, but I kept getting hit by a barrage of barreling waves.

I really could have sworn it wasn't this windy just minutes ago, but I didn't have that much time to think about it as a wave crashed right down onto me, knocking me out as I saw Ace and Sabo diving into the water to try and save me...