Jackie and the girl, who had told him her name was Valeria, certainly made an odd pair.

Valeria was 11 years old, with fluffy black hair tied into two long pigtails which dropped over her shoulder. Her eyes were as dark as her hair, though not devoid of the little bright sparkle that most kids her age shared. The grey cloak she wore concealed the dark purple silk top and black skirt she wore, along with the brown belt which held the leather scabbard for her dagger.

"So what's an eleven-year-old girl like you doing threatening to kill people and stealing my pears?" Jackie asked in a mildly strict tone, examining the pears Whitebeard had bought. They didn't seem to be damaged, so he let out a sigh of relief.

Valeria looked down at the ground with a worried look on her face. "I'm...not really comfortable about telling you here. I'll take you to my home, and explain everything." Jackie nodded, and glanced around suspiciously. If she was so visibly hesitant to talk about what led her to this, there could be another party involved.

Valeria saw him searching, but knew she couldn't tell anything to him...at least, not until they were home. "Follow me." She said, and led the way back.

As they walked along, Valeria casually gave him the run-down on Tierra Dorada. "You know, this island is usually called the Dump by the Spanish. It's full of thieves and prisoners of war." This didn't surprise Jackie. During the Great Spanish War, many deserters and traitors were either killed or imprisoned by the Spanish.

She continued, "Most islands or colonies like these under large kingdoms normally have a small governmental system setup to provide security and stability. But this place is just a stopping point for pirates and criminals on the run. And many of them often stay here, so the number of people here keeps constantly increasing." She paused to run up towards a bronze statue of a bearded, heavy-set man in an overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather in it. He was posed with the index finger of his right hand pointing to the sky, right towards where the North Star would be.

Jackie watched Valeria leap on the stone block that the statue stood on. "You know who this is?" She asked, and Jackie replied with a yes. He was the former king of Spain, Philip V, now succeeded by Ferdinand VI.

"I've heard Philip was a great king. He pretty much had full control over the Spanish controlled seas during the times of Collin Devils, the first Ascendant back then." He said.

Valeria laughed. "Devils was notorious, but the second Ascendant was even more fierce. I've heard he tried to take over Majorca three times, and fought the Spanish forces to a draw all three times. That's incredible for a pirate!"

It suddenly hit Jackie how knowledgeable this 11-year-old girl was about history and the world around her. Goodness. Talking to her is so natural to me that I didn't even realise it.

"You sure know a lot about pirates and wars. Do you like learning about them?" He asked, trying not to sound too interested in her reply. She rubbed her forehead with her fingers, thinking hard. "I do like learning about them, I guess. It's super interesting to learn about strong pirates from the previous era, especially the Ascendants."

Jackie gave a curious sideways glance at her as they turned a corner into a much wider road compared to the narrow paths and alleyways they had just walked through. The homes here were quite large, sturdy and made of rock...surprising considering their clear age. Most of these houses looked as though they were at least a couple of decades old.

But despite the improvement in building structure, the neighborhood was seedier than anywhere else he had seen on the island. Broken windows in some of the buildings revealed men in their 40s or 50s, smoking cigars while giving dark stares down at the road below. Broken wine bottles and other garbage littered the street, making the whole area reek of mold and rot.

There was even the sound of a woman moaning erotically coming from one particular building, which was guarded by seven intimidating men, all carrying guns or other weapons. Children living here was almost unthinkable. "A-Are you sure your house is around here?"

Valeria snickered at the question. "I think I know where my home is, don't you?" She asked with a tiny grin on her face. But above those slightly curved lips, her eyes held a look of nervousness.

The nervousness was justified. From nowhere, a rusted bucket filled to the brim with water fell from one of the houses, narrowly missing Valeria's head. It hit the ground with a dull CLANG.

Both completely drenched with freezing cold water, they looked up to see an old lady with a furious expression on her face, her angry eyes set on Valeria. "You should just die, you damned pig! Good that your whore of a mother can't walk around this place anymore! We don't need some former royal slut walking among us!" She yelled at her in a hoarse voice.

Jackie was just about to pull out his pistol when Valeria stopped him. "Let me go. I-"

He saw her eyes and stopped. They were filled with tears, but remained strong and vigilant. "It's fine. Let's just go." Her voice didn't shake either. This girl...just how brave is she? He thought in awe. She was like a mixture of himself and Rosa. "But the way they're talking about your mo-"

"Let's just go. I don't care about them. They can say whatever they want." She said, and pulled him along with her. They continued their walk through the street, all the while being stared at from almost every direction by hostile eyes. As if they were animals in a cage.

He tapped her head with his finger and whispered, "Is every walk home like this for you?" She shook her head.

"Normally, I run home quick enough so that nobody can react to me. But I've got to show you my home today, don't I?" She gave him a bright smile. Ugh. Too damn cute!

She suddenly turned towards one of the buildings, into a narrow gap. Jackie was surprised to see that there was a door at the end of the tiny path through the opening. It was smeared with what looked like red coloured dye, and a rotting pig's head had been thrown in front of the door.

"I-Is this where you live?" Jackie asked Valeria hesitantly, and his heart dropped when she nodded with no emotion in her eyes. Ignoring the head in front of the doorstep, she walked towards the door and opened it.

BANG.

A bullet zipped past Jackie and Valeria. The culprit, a boy with spiky black hair who looked around the same age as her, widened his eyes when he saw who was at the door. "V-Valeria?! Oh for the love of...how many times do I have to tell you to knock the door four times or you'll be shot?" He yelled at her.

Despite the sorry expression on her face, she was far more eager to push Jackie into the house rather than apologize to the boy.

After she shut the door, she put her hands behind her back and looked down at the floor. "S-Sorry, Leo. I messed up, and almost got killed by someone in an alleyway. He saved my life."

Leo looked at Jackie gratefully. "Thanks for saving my sister. She probably didn't tell you, but I'm her twin brother." Now that he said it, Jackie could see that his eyes and frame were remarkably similar to hers. His clothing was made up of a ripped and tattered brown shirt and gray shorts stained with mud and soil. With interest, he noted that Valeria had considerably better clothes than him. He must be a kind brother.

"And as for you-"

As Leo started lecturing Valeria, Jackie looked around the little place. It could hardly be called a home. The room they were in was something of a cross between a living room and a bedroom. There were two straw mats on the floor, presumably one for each sibling. The solitary bed in the room was taken up by a sleeping woman with black hair covered up with a dirty white blanket, who he could only assume was the mother.

A rectangular opening to the right of the room appeared to lead to the kitchen. Though it was difficult to imagine this family having much to feed themselves with. With a sudden feeling of immense guilt, he looked down at the basket of pears he had taken back. Was Valeria the one stealing the pears, or was he the one stealing their food?

He sighed. "Look. Just take these. Alright? Your mom seems pretty sick, and you need something to eat. Take them." He handed over the basket to the two. There were a good eight or nine pears in them. Leo looked at him tearfully and was lost for words. He took the basket to the kitchen, and returned. He was positively beaming with happiness.

Valeria screamed in joy and hugged him. "Thank you! Thank you so much! We...we haven't eaten in two days! We barely got enough to feed mom, so we haven't been eating much of anything!" The stuff she was saying was barely understandable through her gurgling on snot and tears dripping down her face.

"Th-Thanks. I don't think anyone has given us food in a week, ever since mom fell sick and couldn't work anymore." Leo told him. A week? Have these kids been thieving around town for all of last week and more now?

He looked at the mother and glanced back at the kids. "What did the doctors say about her?" He asked, only to be met with Leo shaking his head. "The doctors...all refused to attend to mom. They wanted to be paid, and we had nothing. Me and Valeria used up the last bit of gold mom had for food. But even if we hadn't, that money wouldn't have been enough anyway."

Jackie looked at the woman again. A damp washcloth on her head indicated that the twins knew she had a severe fever, but that was it. There didn't appear to be any type of medicine here, and she looked extremely worn out and perhaps even on her last legs. He was no doctor, but Jackie could see that she wouldn't last much longer without help.

And then something in his head clicked.

"I GOT IT!" He yelled, startling the two children.

He looked at the two with the biggest grin on his face. "You two just wait right here. I know someone who can help you for sure. He's a doctor on my ship, and a damn good one at that. Your mom will be healed in no time!"

Valeria stared at him in confusion. "Your doctor? Are you a ship captain?"

"Yep! I'm a pirate captain, captain Jackie!"

"You're WHAT?!"