"Any sign of her yet-yoi?" Marco's voice filtered through the mini transponder snail perfectly.

"No." Ace sighed as he held the mouthpiece up. He and Thatch were searching on foot together. In reality, it felt like they were wandering through the woods aimlessly. There was nothing here suggesting she'd come through but the forest made the most sense. "How about on your end, any luck?"

"None. She had to have gone to the forest. Locals said they saw her go that direction and I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise-yoi."

Marco had taken to the skies, searching from above so he could cover more ground.

"She must feel so bad." Thatch tossed his head back and groaned. "I shouldn't have bothered her."

"No one could have guessed that'd happen." Ace frowned. "We'll find her and get this all straightened out."

"Exactly. Keep searching, I'll touch bases with you guys again in a bit. Otherwise, let me or pops know if you found anything-yoi."

Ace hung up and plopped the snail in a pocket of his shorts. "Don't beat yourself up about it Thatch. She probably thinks you're pissed at her but we'll talk and she'll see otherwise."

"I hope so." Thatch touched around his bandaged stitches gingerly. "It's not like she had control, that much was obvious."

"Oh hey, check this out." Ace gained a hopeful tone as they came across a river. His attention had shifted to the muddy bank he was crouched by.

"This is promising." Thatch caught on as he bent over by his friend.

There were large paw prints stuck deep in the mud. As far as they were concerned, there was only one thing that could have left them.

"We should be able to follow the tracks and find her...." Ace trailed off as he got up.

"That'd be great and all, except I don't see any other tracks." Thatch frowned as he followed after his friend.

"We'd be lucky to see any more paw prints, the ground's to hard packed for that. But there's still signs of her passing through here." He pointed to a path of crushed leaved and swept ground cover. "They can be hard to see if you don't know what you're looking for."

"Color me impressed." Thatch gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Where'd you learn how to track?"

"My brothers and I spent a lot of our childhood hunting all kinds of stuff. It was a handy skill at the time, never thought I'd use it now." Ace chuckled.

"Alright, lead the way then. The sooner we get her back, the sooner we can get her back to normal."

They followed the trail for a while before calling Marco again, letting him know the general direction she'd taken and their rough location. They were all feeling almost jittery as they felt they were closer to finding her. They could only imagine what it was like to lose yourself and face the fear of rejection because of it. More than anything, they wanted to let her know none of it was her fault and they'd do what they could to make things easier for her.

But as the sun fell and night set in, they started to worry. After following the trail for some time, it came to an abrupt stop at the other end of the forest. Marco landed beside Ace and Thatch, his wings quickly shifting back to arms.

"She stopped here-yoi?" He asked.

"Yeah...." Ace peered out to the town a little further out. It would've been the first thing she saw after leaving the cover of the trees.

"No." Thatch disagreed. "She changed direction, look."

Sure enough, there was the faint signs of a large creature following the treeline. Even in the dark they could see it if they looked carefully.

"Why do that?" Ace muttered to himself.

They all walked after the trail until Marco's face fell. "There's another dock here."

"Don't tell me....you think she left the island?"

"She might've gone around to avoid being seen and snuck on board a ship-yoi."

"How're we supposed to know if that's what she did?" Thatch ran a hand through his hair, ruining the styling as he worried over having lost his friend.

"Check the beach." Ace picked up the pace and they did as well to keep up. "If the tide hasn't erased them yet or if she didn't walk by the waters edge, there should be prints."

Too impatient to wait on them, Marco sprouted wings and flew over to the water's edge. He skidded to a stop and trotted along the sand. When something caught his eye, he let out a string of curses under his breath. The water had erased most of them, but here and there he could pick out what was left of large canine footprints. They went straight to the docks where only a single ship stood.

Ace and Thatch ran up, panting lightly as they took in what Marco had already seen.

"What're the chances she's on that ship?" Thatch asked.

"Dunno, we'll have to find out-yoi."

"And if she's not?" Ace frowned.

"Then we figure out what other ships were here in the past few hours and track them down."

"Pops isn't going to like this." Thatch said with a sigh. "She's going to be in deep trouble when we find her."

----

Leaving the ship proved to be much more difficult than getting on it. It had ended up leaving that night not long after you boarded it, much to your surprise. But that would make you that much harder to find on the off chance the crew went looking for you.

The trip to wherever the ship was going lasted about a week. In that time, only a few people had bothered to come down to check their stock and even then none of them went all that far back. It made it easy to stay hidden and no one noticed when you'd torn into their crate of extra supplies. The rations were far from great but at least you weren't trying to leave a ship stealthily on an empty stomach.

In the end, you still weren't as sneaky as you wanted to be. The portholes were too small for you to wiggle out of and the crew didn't have so much as a short pause before they started unloading crates. You stayed unseen until you'd gotten about halfway up to the deck. Then of course people started shouting, alerted to your presence and you had to make a mad dash.

Staying out of sight wouldn't have been a big deal except you were pretty sure you'd want to get on another ship. If the locals were on high alert for a giant wolf, it'd make boarding a new one all the more difficult.

Lucky for you, as soon as you were off the ship and out of sight, they left you alone. They'd arrived to the new island around midday and plenty of locals got a good view of you but none of them seemed all that phased. Either they were accustomed to seeing strange creatures or they just didn't care. You figured out what it was that had them so relaxed when you decided to walk through the streets. No one was raising hell so you rolled with it, pausing on occasion to check out their own strange creatures.

The island was full of animals you'd never seen before, all of them wandering through the town like you were without a care in the world. Some went with the people, like pets, while others moved alone.

The first one that caught your eye was a giant, bright red gecko. It was easily about the size of a pony and skittered around the buildings harmlessly. From there, you saw everything from two headed snakes to raptor-like chickens. It was no wonder you weren't something to marvel at, you fit right in.

But even if the people around here didn't mind you based on appearances, it still wasn't a great place to stick around. If you went feral again, someone would get hurt. And while you weren't against killing, mindless murder was out of the question. For now, you'd enjoy the momentary peace of getting to be out among people before finding your way onto another ship.

----

You had a vague idea of how much time passed as you jumped from ship to ship. This was your fourth one and you were sure you'd spent about a month at sea. Needless to say, you were getting tired of hiding away in strange cargo holds with strange people.

Each island you hit was full of people and wouldn't work to settle at. The general grouchy attitude you had while living on Hillrose was making a return and as much as you didn't like it, you couldn't fight it. Being alone again after having adjusted to a social life wasn't easy and it made you bitter.

It didn't help that you were constantly cramped and eating foods that probably weren't the best for you. It made you wonder what Thatch had been cooking up lately and if he healed up alright. You were curious if Ace was still up to his antics, if Marco was reading anything interesting, if everyone was still searching for you.

Probably not.

You still carried guilt from the attack and didn't regret your decision to leave. Thinking about the crew sent pangs of sadness through you all the time, but at least they weren't having to worry about you. A friend shouldn't be a threat and that's exactly what you'd turned into.

Hell, there'd been two recent occasions, besides the initial attack on Whitebeard's ship, when you'd felt yourself going more animalistic. It made you all the more grateful to be away from them and hidden away from other people.

A sudden, muffled shout from on deck stirred you. A few more followed and you had a good idea what was happening. They'd reached land.

You let out a yawn and stood up to stretch and shake out your coat. As soon as they dropped anchor, you'd dash off the ship. Getting off without being seen had proven to be impossible on every other occasion so you'd given up on being subtle. Just get to land as fast as you could and spend some time getting your bearings before hopping on the next ship.

It took about an hour to actually reach the island and as soon as you felt the ship come to a halt, you were on the move. A few unfortunate sailors got in your way and were promptly shoved to the ground as you moved past them and above deck. The first breath of fresh air was pure bliss.

Early morning light warmed your fur and you took a moment to enjoy it before the sound of gunfire sent you running for dry land. They really weren't happy to have spent days at sea to finally realize they had a stowaway. You ran away from the docks and quickly found cover in a nearby wooded area. From there, you were able to take in the island.

It actually looked like a nice place to live. A short distance from the docks was a large town, almost big enough to be considered a city. And that was all completely surrounded by heavily mountainous terrain. The mountains formed a crescent around the town, cradling it nicely. The peaks were tall enough to have snow gathered around them and from the looks of it, there wasn't much in the way of trails leading up to them. Based on sounds and scents, you'd say there was ample wildlife around.

If you made your way up the mountains and found a good spot there, this island could actually work, even with the inhabitants present. Staying up high would keep you separate from them and you could be self sufficient with the animals around. You let out a sigh of relief as you decided you'd give this place a shot. No more cramming yourself in tiny spaces to hide away. If everything worked out how you wanted, this would be the place you'd stay.