Thank you so much for being patient! Life blindsinded me so badly, I completely forgot about fanfiction for a loooong while. Thank you for all your faves, follows, reviews and such! I appreciate every single one of them!

The reason for the false alarm was that I tried copypasting the chapter directly, but Fanfiction formatting kicked its ass and I only noticed once I'd already posted! I had to take it off, and do it again.. Anyways, enjoy!

Borsalino or, Don't Underestimate Children ( Especially Magical Ones)

Anna sneezed, for the umpteenth time since they'd gotten in the tunnels. To be fair, they were cold, breezy and dusty, as well as cramped: even with her measuring a measly 4 feet and 7 inches, she had to bend her head to avoid bumping it on the uneven ceiling. Bonney was faring even worse: as a fifteen year old nearing the end of her massive growth spurt, she still had trouble adjusting to her long limbs. The tunnels frequently echoed eerily with the sounds of muffled thumps followed by increasingly creative curses.

"We're nearly there," Bonney paused, and sniffed the air. " The air is getting fresher, and there's the smell of the ocean."

Anne sniffed the air as well, and caught the particular scents of salt and decomposing seaweed that made up ocean-smell. "Let's get going, we're wasting time."

The two sisters continued to drag their suitcases along. They didn't speak at all, except to tell the other whenever they found the red crosses that marked the right tunnel to take. Both had too many things going on in their minds.

Bonney was thinking about the terrified faces their parents had worn when they thought she wasn't looking, just before she and her sister had left for the escape routes. It was jarring to see those people, who'd always looked so strong and self-assured, look so scared. Of course, she'd heard of Buster Calls. As the daughter of Ex-Marines, she knew they were the epitome of what was wrong with the World Government: an armada so destructive it laid waste to entire islands that dared to rail against the Government, killing all dissidents in one fell swoop.

Kaa-chan had said that a good government should always leave a voice for the oppositionists, except if those people were trying to stir hatred in the hearts of the people. But if the Government didn't take critique in account, they were stagnating, useless, rotting – fit to be replaced. In fact, Bonney hadn't really mentioned it to her parents, but she admired pirate crews for living under their own power, for being rebels in a world that was ready to do away with them all. Of course, Bonney knew pirates weren't always good –she'd heard stories, mostly from the Aunties and the Uncles of the Village, of pirate scum that pillaged.

But she'd also heard far, far worse things about the WG – tales of Islands being ransomed, their people exploited and discriminated against. The few ex-slaves Fishmen that lived on the Island were the living proof of that: on Oase, they bared their branded backs proudly, owning their status as liberated slaves.

When the nights were warm, during the short Oase-an summers, she'd sometimes slip away with Anne to the Village and ask for their stories, on the sun-warmed sand of the beach, facing the South Blue. The Fishmen were always glad to talk about their pasts, to share their stories with a willing ear. They censured their stories when they were too young to know about certain things, but as the pink-haired sisters grew older, they added the details that they'd kept from them before, about the Tenryuubito and the abuse that they had rained down on them as their "property".

The first one to open up about his past, to truly reveal everything was Venja, a merman old enough to have grown his fish-legs. That night, they'd learned the origin of the horrific scars lining his grey skin - countless tiny half-moon puckered marks peppered it, interspersed with sheets of smooth scar skin.

"One day," he said, eyes haunted, "They dropped me in an aquarium. I didn't understand at first, but I quickly got it when they dumped a bucketful of blood in the water. The tank was full of wolf fish…they're nasty things, wolf fish: they get about as big as a cat, and they're carnivores." He swallowed and continued on, voice choked. "The blood worked them into a feeding frenzy. At first, I was quick enough to avoid them, but after a while, I got tired…"

He'd stopped there, and Bonney and Anne'd filled in the blanks.

Venja's wasn't the only horrific story, and as the voices of the Fishmen filled those warm summer nights, the Jewelry sisters grew to hate the World Government more and more.

No, Bonney knew full well the World Government wasn't anything like they set themselves up to be, the shiny moral paragons of Justice this and Justice that. Pirates weren't much better, but they still trumped the WG in the fact that they never pretended to be moral examples. In fact, most pirates gleefully put themselves out there as everything an upstanding citizen shouldn't be. Bonney found that those stories were usually the most entertaining and wild.

Anne for her part quietly thought about what was waiting for them outside the tunnels. Her magic had been stirring unnaturally in her body, restlessly cycling and making the ends of her limbs tingle. It also made her ears pound, and her hearing swing between hypersensitive, to the point where she could hear Bonney's heartbeat, to near-on deafness. It grew worse as they walked, and Anne finally spoke up.

"Bonney… I don't feel so good." She whimpered. The tingling had grown worse and worse, and was now outright pain. Her hearing had been on hypersensitive for a couple of meters, and every little sound she could now hear was downright painful. Anne crumpled to the ground, and Bonney threw herself to the ground and caught her head before it connected with the ground.

"What's wrong, Annie? What's happening?"

Anne flinched; her head felt like it was going to explode. "My magic… I don't know, it's never happened…It's too loud. My ears, they're so sensitive…" Even hearing her own voice was painful, despite the fact that she was whispering.

Bonnie was panicking. "It's going to be okay. Hold on, I'll get you on my back. I'm leaving the bags behind, unless you can levitate one."

Anne nodded and paled even more when the motion made the world do a nauseating spin. The suitcases still rose up a few seconds later, shakily but surely.

The elder Jewelry sister sighed and manoeuvred her arms underneath her sibling's legs before coaxing her thin arms to rest across her front and lifting her. Bonnet moved as quietly and smoothly as possible along the tunnel again, taking care not to jostle the frail body hanging on her back. Annie was so light; she barely noticed her weight. "Come on Annie. We're nearly there."

Fortunately the light was still there, obnoxiously bobbing cheerfully ahead, so Bonney could see where she was going. The tunnels gave her the creeps, and now this? A stupid magic-weird thingy that made her sister sick? This situation was already crappy, and it was getting even worse.

Borsalino perched on the edge of the crow's nest, his long legs hanging out, swinging lazily in the light breeze that blew tonight. His newly bought pair of sunglasses made it difficult to see in the night, but even with them on, Oase was clear ahead. He grinned slowly, as the ship neared the shore, which was black with people. "This is where you've been hiding, Aury, Mary, huuuuuuh?"

Aurelius and Marigold Jewelry, ex-Marines, high-ranked too: they knew a lot about the World Government's less than savoury deals, what with the embezzlement, the fraud and the what-not that came with running a super-power.

The Den-Den Mushi in his pocket started to ringng, vibrating with a gentle "puru-puru" sound and the Light Logia slowly took it out, holding the transmitter to his mouth, and picked up.

"Borsalino," Sakazuki's voice immediately came out of the Den Den Mushi's receiver, terse as ever. "Get down here. We're starting the attack in 15 minutes. The announcement will be broadcasted soon."

"Maaaa, Sakazuki, calm down, huuuuuh? If it's fifteen minutes, I have plenty of time, yeeees?"

The Den Den Mushi's face reddened, and it frowned. " No. That's an order. Get down here, now. I won't have Absolute Justice fail because you weren't serious enough. These truants need to be punished, and to do that, the Buster Call must go off without a hitch." The bionic snail closed its eyes, and the call disconnected. Borsalino sighed, but shoved the little critter away in his pocket.

"Sakazuki's too eager, he needs to calm down, huuh? It's so scaaaary when he gets into that Absolute Justice thing." He said to no one, before jumping down to the deck. Down there, with the usual brisk efficiency of the Marines, soldiers were already formed into squadrons, and were repeating over the plans they'd made with the information the Oase-an traitor Kawaguchi had given them. He had to give credit where credit was due; the Oase-ans had really gone all out with the escape plans. Too bad all those efforts were for nothing – once you knew the layout of the Island, everything fell apart. Two stealth ships that had navigated the whirlpool rich waters on the other side of the Island had already set up ambushes to wait for the escapees.

Borsalino turned around when he felt, rather smelt Sakazuki's presence behind his back. Ever since the Red Hound of the Marines had eaten that Devil Fruit of his, a cloud of superheated air and the unpleasant smell of sulphur followed him around, like he was a Devil fresh out of Hell.

"Borsalino. You know what you have to do. Don't let anybody escape, especially not the children of the Jewelrys: their bloodline must not be allowed to continue."

"Yeah, yeaaah. You don't have to nag, huuuh?"

The Yellow Monkey of the Marines disappeared in a flash of light, to take his place on the stealth ships as cleanup.

Sakazuki gritted his teeth and turned around, to face the shore. A fanatical light gleamed in his eyes as he watched over those he would punish, running around on the shore like so many ants to be crushed. Their very lives were an insult to the World Government. Escaped slaves, former pirates, deserters from the Marines, they all needed to die. A sick grin twisted his features. Tonight, Absolute Justice would prevail.

"Start the broadcasting."

"Bonney…" Anne whispered tiredly. "Bonney, where are the others?"

Bonney frowned and turned her head slightly. "What do you mean, Annie?"

"The others… The other villagers, the other refugees… Where..."

Understanding dawned on Bonney's face. "They're prolly behind us, Annie. Don't worry so much. Are.. Are you feeling any better?"

"Hmm-mm. My ears are still really sensitive though. I can tell we're really near the end of the tunnels… But it's weird. I can also hear men.. shouting?"

The elder Jewelry sister froze. "What do you mean, shouting? What are they saying? Are you sure they're men?"

Anne wiggled to signal she wanted to get down. She dropped to her feet with a tap that nearly overwhelmed her hearing, but she managed to contain the reflexive wince. "I, I don't know what they're saying exactly… They're angry, and I can hear people crying…I think something bad happened."

Just then, the unmistakeable bang of a gunshot pierced through the shouting and the wailing and the heartbeats and all the little sounds that were clogging her ears. Bonney stiffened, signalling she'd heard it too.

"What was that?"

Anne looked grim. "I think the escape route's been compromised."

Now the wailing had stopped, but the shouting was getting nearer, and louder, much louder, along with the sounds of a lot of footsteps. "Bonney! People are storming the tunnels, from the other side! I think they're Marines!"

Bonney swore, and quickly drew two hunting knives she always kept on her, handing one to her sister when she'd assured she was feeling good enough to fight. Anne took it and quickly ripped a piece of cloth from her nightdress with it, wrapping it around her head to block her ears, alleviating some of the hypersensitivity. The footsteps were getting so close that even Bonney could hear them now.

Three Stupefys flew like so many little red fireflies, and the first three Marines heading the squadron dropped. It was a small squadron of about ten men or so, armed to the teeth, but they were well-trained, immediately, they lifted their weapons and began firing.

Anne, dodged the bullets as best as she could with her eyes bandaged, throwing up spilt-second Protegos the rest of the time and sneaking nasty hexes between the spray. Bonney was a sight to behold as she shed all her clumsiness in battle, her knives flashing up to parry the bullets with as fast as they came.

The Marines eventually saw that bullets were next to useless, and stopped firing, instead charging with their bayonets drawn. Anne rushed ahead, slipping under the guard of one particularly brawny Marine, and delivered a nasty heel-first kick into his vulnerable stomach, following it up with a palm strike to his nose that drew a satisfying crunch from it. The Marine fell backwards, dead, and Anne vaulted back to avoid a sideways swipe, letting Bonney grab the bladed weapon between her knives, before she fired a point-blank Sectusempra on the extended arms. The spell cut through the flesh to the bone, and the Marine to whom they belonged had just the time to scream before his throat was slit by a vengeful Bonney,

"Anne, can you apparate from the tunnel?"

The 10 year old shook her head. "I don't want to to risk it, I don't feel so well and I don't know how far I can go."

Bonney cursed, " We have to get out of the tunnel, without being seen. The others are probably dead," Anne winced, " Listen, Anne, if anything goes wrong, Mom and Dad would kill me if you got hurt. That's why I want you to take the first chance you get to Apparate away, even if you have to leave me behind." Bonney's purple eyes were hard, cutting into her with laser intensity.

Shoulders shaking with repressed sobs, Anne shook her head. "Bonney, I ca-can't l-leave you behind! I don't kn-know anything!"

A hand dropped on her head, and ruffled her chin length hair. " Yeah you do. You'll do fine, and anyway, that's worst-case scenario! We don't have much time, so let's get going, but remember: anything goes wrong, and you Apparate without me, no matter what. Yeah?"

"Y-yeah," Anne sniffled.

"Oooooh, how touching. The looove of two sisters is really something to see, huuuuh?"

Anne and Bonney choked and whirled around. A man, who hadn't been there not even half a second ago, was lounging on the wall, his left hand a ball of yellow light reflecting off his dark eyes ominously.

"Noooow, I don't know, but might you be the daughters of Aurelius and Marygold? You look juuuuust like them, you knooooow?"

Bonney hissed at him ferally, moving to put her younger sister behind her. " What's it to you old man?"

"Oh, noooothing," Borsalino drawled. "Your parents just have a kill-on sight order, and coincidentally, so do their potential children. Sooooo irresponsible of them to leave the Marines, and have children, am I riiiiiiight?"

"Shut up, you bastard! You don't know our parents! They're good people, unlike you Marines, the dogs of the World Government!" Bonney growled, hackles raised like a cornered wolf.

"Myyyyyyyy, myyyyyy! You have your mother's tempeeerr! How touuuuchy! And who's that behind you? Your little sister? Helloooooo, sweetheart."

"Don't you touch her, you scum! I'll kill you!"

Borsalino sighed, and in a flash, Bonney was crashing against the wall of the tunnel, slumping in the hole her body had made by crashing into the solid rock. The man had moved at the speed of light and kicked her in the midsection. He now walked leisurely towards Anne, tutting.

"I hope you're more poliiite than your sister, little girl."

Anne shuddered at his oily, nonchalant tone, still trying to understand what had happened. One minute, Bonney was in front of her, the next she was gone.

"What's the matter? Are you scareeeed?" Borslaino asked, smiling at the trembling form of the ten year old. "You should be. Your paaaaarents? They're dead. The other Oase-ans? Dead tooooooo. And soooooooon, you and you sister will be the latest casualties and Oase will become another island wiped ooooff the face of the world for Justiiiiiice. So. Are you scaaaaaaaaared?"

Anne who'd been staring at the floor looked up, eyes filled with hate and flashing a dangerous poison-green. During the stranger's speech, anger had pooled in her chest, hot and painful and itching to have an outlet. She had the life she'd wanted all along, and now it was being taken from her, and this man was taunting her about it, like it was a joke. "No. I'm angry."

And then the tunnel resounded with the name of a single spell she'd managed to cat only twice Before, screamed with all the breath in Anne's lungs.

"Crucio!"

Borsalino immediately crumpled, hit by the Torture curse's red light point blank. He contorted on the ground helplessly under the ravages of the curse that Anne continually fed with all her weakening anger and energy as she backed away slowly to where her sister was already stirring in the wall. Bonney struggled free of the hole just as Anne fell to the ground, legs giving out form under her. She was very cold to the touch, and her eyes held a fevered light, like she'd just gotten a hit of some kind of drug. Bonney winced when Anne struggled a bit in her arms: obviously she'd broken more than a few bones when she'd hit that wall. Ribs, too, if the pain that flared anytime she breathed or Anne dug her bony elbows in her chest was any indication.

"Come on, Anne, we gotta go," the elder sister croaked lowly, throat clogged with dust and fear.

Anne struggled even more, whimpering quietly before an unwelcome voice cut in again, too soon, they hadn't gotten enough time, Crucio wasn't enough, was this the power of Logias?

"Thaaaaaaaat. Was very painful, little girl." The Marine who'd crumpled to the ground and was screaming his throat raw not even two minutes ago coughed, winded from the surge of pain that had engulfed his body. Light now poured from his skin in pulses, each one brighter than the last until the whole tunnel was illuminated by a man-shaped miniature sun. "I was willing to let you play around a bit, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to finish this," the sun sighed, before coughing some more. "Figuuuuuures Marygold and Aurelius would have such troublesome children."

Anne growled, mind wild with fear and the needs to protect, to hurt, to avenge, to run, to go away from the danger. The man was made of pure magic now, and it shined bright, inviting, beautiful, warm, and delicious, even as her core gaped, empty, hungry.

And then several things happened at once. Borsalino let loose a stream of pure deadly light, a lance made from sunlight itself.

Bonney tightened her hold against Anne, not caring about the pain, her eyes widened as the lance of light zoomed closer, unbelievably fast.

But Anne opened her magical core and her mouth and her self wide, and devoured the beam of light, wrestling it from the control of the Logia, inhaled it and melded it to her own magic. It filled the core up to the brim, it overflowed, and soon she was glowing too, as bright, no brighter than Borsalino. If he'd been a sun, she was a supernova, an explosion of brute force and power, heat and light and flames and raw untamed power.

And then Anne tore through the fabric of the world, and Apparated as far as she could, farther then she could have thought possible, not even having a destination in mind, the need to get away stronger than anything she'd known saw what had happened.

Borsalino barely had time to see the child take his power and make it her own, before the sonic boom of air rushing to fill up the space that had been cleaved straight form this corner of reality deafened him as he had been blinded by the child-supernova.

When his senses returned to him, the two children had disappeared, along with a perfect sphere of the rock bed that the tunnels had been made of, its centre being the subject of his thoughts. Anne D. Jewelry was dangerous.

Also, Sakazuki was going to kill him.

When Anne woke up, it was alone on a rocky beach with a lock of long pink hair, longer than her own by far.

When Bonney woke up, she was shivering, her small sleeping short unfit for the freezing tundra she'd found herself in.

It would be years before they found each other again.

Again, thank you for waiting so patiently! Hope you enjoyed, and don't forget to tell me what you thought by leaving a review!

Cheers, Tetris Remix