His Firecracker Her Rock

Chapter 5 - Bountiful Bounties

Chapter 5 - Bountiful Bounties

Bluebell was a small shipwright town with frequent visitors making it an ideal place for Dawn to lay low. After docking Rayleigh's single deckhouse vessel on one of the furthermost moorings she waited until morning when the townsfolk opened their food stands to walk into town. She decided against going to the New World and instead to find a place where she could rediscover herself. She was tempted to go all the way back to the East Blue, it would be nice to see Makino and Mayor again.

After a few hours, Dawn manages to gather up enough supplies to last her a while. She didn't have a lot of berry in hand when she fled the government but she had enough for basic supplies and a drink at a local pub. 'Gojira Pub and Liquor Shack' the sign outside of a beachfront bar read. "Works for me,"

Dawn took a seat at the bar and ordered a rum runner with an extra lime slice. It didn't take long for some guy to walk up and take the seat next to her, despite all the other seats being unused. Dawn politely nodded in his direction and hoped the man would end up leaving her alone. But alas he just had to open his mouth, "What's a pretty little thing like you doing in a place like this? Especially all-"

"I'm gonna stop you before you embarrass yourself anymore than you already have," Dawn said, finishing the last sip of her drink and standing up to leave the bar.

"You know I heard you were stubborn..." The man hummed whilst pulling out a knife, making Dawn feel like a bucket of ice water had just been dropped on her. He took a menacing step forward and tried his best to look intimidating.

"You're mistaken, you don't know me," Dawn lowly stated as she took a step back.

"Really? Cause this says otherwise," He smirked pulling out a wanted poster with her face on it, at the bottom it read $250,000,000 Dead or Alive. A price that high was unheard of for a first bounty. "Don't worry I won't kill you, you see I'm not after you right now."

"Then who are you after?" Dawn questioned the bounty hunter as the two began to slowly circle one another.

"Your brother for starters, then the pirate king's brat!" He shouted and lunged at her. Dawn just rolled her eyes as she moved to the side and watched as he fell out the open window behind her, knocking himself unconscious.

"You couldn't kill a moth with a flamethrower," Dawn rubbed her temples as she felt a migraine coming on.

Dawn turned to leave the bar when she noticed the bounty hunter had dropped a small stack of bounties. She couldn't help herself and picked them up quickly looking through them to find Luffy and Ace's. She knew after their escape from Marineford their bounties would increase but was genuinely surprised by how little they went up. All things considered, only increasing each of their bounties by $100,000,000 felt like an error. "Did they forget a zero?" she wondered out loud, before tossing the bounty stack into the trash.

Meanwhile, Rayleigh had just purchased a newspaper from one of the news coos, and he hadn't expected the government to put a bounty out on Dawn so quickly. Ace, who had stopped training to get a sip of water from the well Dawn had built, choked on his drink when he saw her face on a wanted poster.

"No way. Her first bounty is bigger than mine was!" Ace shouted as his eyes popped out of his head for a split second in surprise.

"Mine as well..." Rayleigh stated in all seriousness. "Have you spoken to Luffy about her yet?"

"I was planning on asking him last night but..." Ace admitted but he had a bad feeling in his gut and was putting it off.

"No time like the present," Rayleigh said as he walked over to Luffy. Ace silently followed at his side not really sure which way this conversation was about to go.

"Luffy, can we ask you a question," Rayleigh spoke first.

"Yeah, sure!" Luffy said with a smile, glad to get a break from training, despite today only being the first of many to come.

"It's about Dawn," Rayleigh continued. Ace had never seen a smile drop so quickly from Luffy's face till his sister's name was said.

"What about her?" Luffy dryly replied wishing he hadn't bothered to stop training.

"We met her," Ace started and waited to continue till Luffy looked at him. "Why didn't you tell me, you have a sister?"

"Because I don't," Luffy gritted his teeth. "Dawn and I couldn't be more different! She's a heartless, cold-blooded Navy dog. She's even worse than my grandpa!"

"Luffy..." Ace couldn't believe his ears. Dawn was right to be cautious. Somehow Luffy got all mixed up, he could never consider her to be heartless, although she could be a bit cold and scary at times definitely not heartless. The two even looked and acted alike.

"I don't want to hear it, Ace. I'm sick of hearing about how successful she is, how I should have joined the Navy and been more like her!" Luffy shouted. It was obvious to Rayleigh and Ace this was more than about Dawn. Luffy never lost his cool like this. All of the stress and pain he had gone through these last few days no doubt was finally surfacing. "I'm going to be king of the pirates, and no one, not even perfect Dawn can stop me!"

"You okay?" Rayleigh asked once Luffy had seemed to calm down a bit.

"Yeah, I actually feel a lot better now," Luffy admitted with a sigh of relief.

"Good because there's something you should see," Rayleigh handed Luffy his sister's wanted poster, rendering him speechless.

"She defied the government, and killed Akainu," Ace told Luffy who couldn't believe his eyes or ears. "To save us..."

"She saved us?" Luffy finally spoke, shaking his head in confusion. "I thought Shanks did,"

"I hate to say it, kid. But I don't think you have the right impression of who your sister is," Rayleigh admitted before messing up Luffy's hair.

"I need to see her, do you know where I could find her?" Luffy suddenly said, taking both of his companions by surprise.

"She probably went to Bluebell, it's the closest Island from here," Rayleigh laughed. Although exhausting at times he found today's youth's energy to be rather refreshing.

"From here? She was here?" Luffy asked with furrowed brows. "Why didn't she wait for me to wake up?"

"She did. She was actually in the room when you woke up but left almost immediately. She's actually the one who built the fort, the well, the path, even the firepit," Ace informed Luffy. "Don't tell her I said this but, her Devil Fruit powers might even rival mine,"

"So she's strong?" Luffy asked excitedly.

"Extremely," Rayleigh said without hesitation. Having seen what she had done at Marineford he certainly would not want to be on her bad side.

"I have to go find her," Luffy proclaimed. "I want her to join my crew!"

"Law left us a small dingy. We can take it to Bluebell but if she's not there, I doubt we'd be able to find her," Ace knew now that Luffy had decided on getting her to join his crew there was no changing his mind.

"That's fine, I need to make a message to my crew anyway. I'll leave another for her if we don't catch up in time," Luffy said as he and Ace ran towards the ship.

"Sounds like a plan," Rayleigh whispers with a smile on his face before walking back to the fort to wait for their return. Hopefully with Dawn in tow. As he sat back down to continue reading his newspaper he realized two more wanted posters were in between the pages. 

Luffy and Ace's; Gol D. Ace - $650,000,000. Monkey D. Luffy - $400,000,000.