•Black Hat•

•5•

When I woke up four males and a huge... purple... person were standing outside our cell. Three of them wore the prisoners outfit, just like I did and the fourth one, the shorter and assumably the younger wore brown Bermuda shorts and a turquoise shirt. He had bandages all over his body and on his head was placed a straw hat decorated with a thick red line. The fifth was huge with Afro-like purple hair and extreme make up so much that he scared me.

What had woken me up was Jinbe's throaty voice. He was asking the man with the straw hat to let him out too.

"I am willing to sacrifice myself for your brother!" I heard him saying and I realized that the boy in front me was Ace's brother.

The boy agreed after learning who Jinbe was from the purple person, whose name apparently was Ivankov.

"Can I..." I muttered desperately but my voice wasn't loud enough to be heard. It was my only chance to escape this hellish place but I was too scared to ask them to join too.

But Jinbe seemed to have heard me.

"Luffy?" He asked the boy as one of the prisoners I had previously seen standing outside unlocked his chains. "This girl here..." he seemed to hesitate. What reason should he use to free me. "Her name is Pearl. She's my subordinate. Would it be possible to take her with us?"

"Hmmm Jinbe. I didn't know you had a human subordinate!" Ivankov shrieked unpleasantly.

"Please!" I asked them. "I can be helpful, if I try I can see miles away and sometimes and if I concentrate a lot I can see in the future for some brief seconds!" The last one was mostly a lie. It had happened to me only a few times but I was hoping that it would be more interesting for them to hear.

"Haki." The huge man muttered. "We'll take her!" He said and signed to the prisoner to unlock my chains too.

My heart almost stopped when I heard these words. I wanted to thank them from the bottom of my heart, kiss their hands and bow to them a million times but I suited myself for a:

"Thank you".

When I got out of the cell I stretched my bony limbs and patted my messy curls in an attempt to tame them. I was as tall as the boy with straw hat, not knowing exactly how tall that was but I was happy. I didn't feel intimidated standing next to him, and as Ace had described him he didn't seem incredibly strong.

-Remember! He breached the world's most feared prison.

I got my hand out for a handshake.

"Pearl" I spoke my name firmly and scanned the boy from tip to toe. "You were late!" I hissed under my breath. I couldn't forgive that to him.

The boy didn't pay attention to my spur comment.

"Luffy!" He said and he smiled with the purest smile I had ever seen. Even though he was all beaten up even though he was late to arrive here and didn't find his brother and that surely was devastating to him, his smile was pure and joyful. I averted my eyes from him. That boy was strong, and didn't need my protection nor my emotional help. "You don't look healthy" he muttered. "You need some meat!" He concluded.

"Lets leave!" Ivankov intruded and I didn't have the opportunity to reply to him.

The man named Crocodile helped us get to level 4 and Jinbe, Luffy, he and I started attacking the guards there. My fighting experience wasn't the greatest one could have. But my rage seeing some of the guards that had previously used me made go frenzy. That combined to my ability, that Ivankov had previously so called Haki helped me put a handful of guards down.

But my craziness didn't hold long. When I saw Luffy fighting I froze in place. He was strong, I thought again. Jinbe brought me back to life.

"Don't zone out in the middle of a fight Pearl!" He yelled throwing away some guards with his kyojin karate moves.

I don't remember much about our way out of Impel Down. At one moment I found myself alone running around the second level trying to figure a way to reach the final level. I was once again saved by Jinbe who threw me on his shoulder and took me till the front gate.

"But how will we leave?" I cried as I saw us approaching the sea. "Magellan will get to us. He will kill us all Jinbe!" I shouted desperately.

Jinbe didn't say a word. He just put me down and jumped in the water.

"I'll be back! Protect Luffy!" He said and disappeared inside the calm sea.

I took some unsteady breaths in an attempt I calm down and closed my eyes forcing myself to look for the boy. I saw him fighting Magellan. Both of them, the warden and the pirate boy seemed tired but Luffy wad in a more dangerous position. Suddenly the wardens words came to my ears.

"I ordered all the ships to disperse!" He said and an evil smirk was formed on his monstrous lips. I fell on my knees. We would never escape!

"JINBE WILL FIND US A SHIP!"

That voice was Luffy's. It shook me to the bone. It felt like he was talking directly to me, that I had started losing faith, but at the same to every single prisoner that feared everything was over.

Have faith, believe to your allies! Jinbe would get us a ship. I could have turned my vision and looked for the Fishman but I preferred to soulfully believe in him. I didn't want to know what was happening or how much he was struggling to get this ship. I would patiently wait for it to arrive and then...

And then we would go to the war!