Alliance With An Outlaw

That Bootlegged Couple

"I have a proposal for you, Miss Straw Hat."

"A proposal?"

"If you assist me with my business, I will take you wherever you wish to go. Do you accept?"

"Yes, I do!"

Luffy had accepted the man's proposal. It wasn't a bad deal. She'd help him with what he wanted to do and he'd help her get to wherever she wanted to go. Win-win situation, she smiled to herself. Of course, Dadan would be mad. The old woman would definitely roast her ass and feed it to the crows if she caught her. But Luffy was tired of baking biscuits and meeting suitors day after day ever since her brothers left for a long cattle drive. She didn't want to get married and settle down – she hasn't been anywhere yet!

Everything will change when she gets to Baltigo, she asserts. Often after a job or a journey, her brothers would bring her cool things from that settlement. Shrunken heads, a bottle of shark teeth and a clump of rubber bands – it made her really envious, wishing she'd been there to see everything else as well. She heard the town had a docking area. The thought of ships arriving and departing from there enthralled her.

It would be so wonderful to see all that blue and beyond what they call an ocean. It wasn't food but it was making her internally drool. She'll get there soon, she swore. But for now, Luffy has to help – who was this man again? Ah, Torao was his name, she remembers.

A chance encounter, one would say but for her this Torao is her ticket to freedom. She hadn't really expected him to do something for her after she helped him with his wounds. Luffy wasn't really going to help anyway if not for Bepo. She doesn't exactly have a plan but she knew she just needs to go far and out there. A spur of the moment thing, indeed.

"Oi Miss Straw Hat, I told you that's dangerous." Reprimanded the man. "But I like the view from here!" She retorted, back pressed against the other's broad ones, looking at everything he deemed mundane with confusing excitement.

The horse neighed and sped up at the man's command while Luffy continued to babble about the scenery.

"Look at that cactus! A tumbleweed on top! It looks like an old man. Oh, just –"For a moment, she lost her balance, sweaty fingers slipping from the edge of saddle she had been clutching. But before she fell aside, a gloved covered hand pulled her back.

Law frowned at her. "The next time this happens I'm leaving you in this desert to rot." Her response didn't help lessen it. "Surely you don't mean that!"

His eyebrows twitched in annoyance. Law wasn't sure if this so-called alliance is the best way to go about his plan. Then again, the lass didn't demand much and she posed the least risk among his other unsavoury options. Plus she did more or less helped him back then so it was worth taking note of that.

However, the more days he spent with her, the more he questioned her sanity (and his own for putting up with her). Heck, no lady in her right mind would go with a suspicious stranger like him in the first place. Maybe only those who had no self-preservation, drinking some unknown cacti juice or catching probably poisonous scorpions for dinner. Then again, the one she caught last night tasted somewhat decent. A bit like chicken, maybe.

If there was one thing he was sure of Luffy at this point, it was that the girl just gave a lick and a promise – did things a little too haphazardly.

The man groaned.

It was already nightfall by the time they arrived at the outskirts of the town. And the rumours were right, Punk Hazard is a walled town. There was only one entrance and exit, heavily guarded, impossible to sneak in elsewhere. To pass through, one would need a certain document which would have been legally hard to procure.