Queen of the Pirates

Flashback: Enter Sabo

"Sabo!" Ace shouts. "Sabo! Are you there!?"

"Yeah," another boy's voice replies. "Hey, Ace."

"Sorry, I'm late."

"Yeah, you are late! I already finished a job in town."

"Great! So did I!" And with that, Ace scales the tree to be up with whoever has been waiting for him.

"Wow! You got more than I did! Where'd you get all this money!?"

"By the main gates. I stole it from some street punks! I think they were from a merchant ship."

"Gah! You beat me again!"

"Who cares? We're saving up together to be pirates someday. We've been at this for five years. It's been pretty even."

"Yeah. I wonder how much a pirate ship costs?"

"Don't know. It could be tens or even hundreds of millions. Hurry up and close it. Somebody might see us."

"They want to be pirates too?" I bounce around on my toes as we stand at the base of the tree. "It's quite lucky that we'd want to be friends with others that also want to be pirates. Could you imagine all of us out on the seas together?"

"A pirate ship!?" Luffy blurts out. "You guys wanna be pirates!? Us too!"

Both boys look down at us—Ace with pure anger, and Sabo with total shock. Before I can fully process the entire scene, the two boys are on us with fierce determination to make sure that we don't get away. They use a rope to tie Luffy to the tree with his arms at his sides so he can't try to wriggle out of his confinements. I'm treated a lot better with only a short rope around my hands that they've placed behind my back, but it's definitely not as tight as it should be.

"When'd you get that elbow pad, Ace?" I ask the boy who's sporting the new item on his left elbow. "Are you hurt? I have some bandages in my pocket." I stick out my hip to indicate with pocket of my overalls the bandages are in. "You can take some."

"It's none of your business," Ace snaps.

"Oh," I pout, feeling my bottom lip tremble as the tears build behind my eyes.

"Thanks for the concern," he sighs, "but I'm not hurt."

I blink away the tears, "That's good. It's pretty dangerous getting here. Oh, it's nice to meet you, Sabo," I smile at the other boy.

"For you, the pleasure is all mine, darling," Sabo smiles at me, showing off his missing tooth on the left side. He has big brown eyes, and I can see curly blond hair beneath his black top hat. There's a pair of blue goggles wrapped around his hat, and he's also wearing a blue jacket with the sleeves rolled up, a white cravat over a dark blue shirt, light blue shorts held up by a belt with an elaborate flower-design buckle, and black heeled boots.

"My name's Akari, and that's Luffy," I nod to my best friend.

"So, you come all the way here every single day, huh, Ace?" Luffy speaks up.

"Shut up," Ace commands.

"So, this is the Luffy and Akari you keep talking about?"

"So you finally made it all the way here. I don't take any paths that normal people can use."

"Tell me about it," I huff.