The Marine

Positioned a few feet back from his desk, Bill sat back on his armchair with his right leg crossed and resting diagonally on his right elbow.

Looking at the inactive [Communication Snail] in front of him, his eyes slowly drifted up and seeing Nelson, Masterson, and Toma sitting in front of him, he said in finality: “I don’t see how we can go until the current situation has been settled.”

To his proclamation Masterson nodded his head in agreement, Toma shook his head in disappointment, and Nelson just seemed to be thinking.

It had been a month since Bill returned and during that seemingly short amount time, as New Haven adapted to the influx of refugees and former Foxy Pirates were being trained, the world had been shaken yet again.

The primary cause for this was due to the fact that the third Marine taskforce sent against Whitebeard and his allies had been destroyed, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Marines and the loss of 40 Galleon-sized Marine warships.

This battle, already labeled the [Action at Salvo Island] by the newspapers, had consisted of a three-pronged attack launched by Marineford against a particularly strong gathering of Whitebeard’s allies.

Bill naturally didn’t know where Sengoku had gotten his information from, but the force that was expected to be there – which was already very large – turned out to be an incredible miscalculation.

In a three-pronged attack led by Admirals Aokiji and Kizaru, who were stationed in the center and right respectively, and with former Admiral Zephyr taking command of the left, the operation was larger than any before it.

Sitting in his chair now, Bill thought about what had happened during that battle and what he had been ordered to do, musing, that Sengoku must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel for any and all reserves to reverse the [Whitebeard War].

Having read the reports himself, Bill understood that the issue had been that Whitebeard himself took to the field.

Despite the combined strength of Admirals Kizaru and Aokiji, a dozen Vice Admirals, key members of Cipher Pol, and many other Navy assets, with the direct involvement of Whitebeard the Marines were given a devastating blow where barely a dozen warships remained to limp back towards the Red Line.

The ‘Strongest Man in the World’ was not a title the old pirate held on reputation alone, Bill thought, and after that climatic battle Sengoku had been put on notice.

This wasn’t to say that the Marines had achieved nothing to be proud of, the left flank led by former Admiral Zephyr on had effectively crippled Whitebeards allied governments naval forces.

For a man who had been a hegemonic power for nearly 40 years, Whitebeards forces were naturally not just ‘pirates.’ Many islands ruled by him operated much the same as they did under the World Government.

Though Bill suspected that the Pirate Emperor had used some form of coercion, it was undoubtably true that when Whitebeard declared war on the World Government he was followed by dozens of islands in addition to his traditional pirate-allies.

If the scale of Whitebeard’s fleet had caused Bill to take extra notice of the [Whitebeard War], then the old Emperors personal power had made Bill concerned.

If this had been all that happened over the last month, Bill wouldn’t have sat still.

Despite everything he had been through in his new life, Bill still had the confidence that many American men and women did. That ingrained confidence that some would call arrogance made Bill think that fighting Whitebeard would be ‘hard’.

Not ‘impossible’ – in Bill’s estimation Americans didn’t think anything was impossible – only ‘hard’.

But whether fortunately or unfortunately, the [Whitebeard War] was not the only thing happening in the world and his priorities had so far kept him out of that conflict.

The very day after returning to New Haven, Bill’s Department Logistic Officers whose tasks were to keep track of convoy movements, set cargo manifests, and keep personnel records, had come to him concerning the strange movements of the beacon he had left on Merveille.

Shiki’s movements had become strange, and for three weeks they had watched the beacon move back and forth, side to side. Traveling a great distance in a circular pattern. 

Seeing this had caused him to reach out to base Commanders across that section of Paradise, for the first time leveraging his name and rank in order to coordinate intelligence gathering.

Between his other duties Bill had worked tirelessly to get any information pertaining to the Flying Pirate, but strangely, instead of a giant flying island that should be easy to spot, it was as if that beacon represented a black hole.

No information came back from any sources, a couple bases had begrudgingly sent out scouting sloops but those small ships had found nothing.

It was during this time that the third taskforce was destroyed, and Sengoku pulled the majority of Marine strength back to Marineford itself. The execution date of Portgas D. Ace was nearing and apparently set to bet everything on one pitched battle, Sengoku had fortified Headquarters and began calling thousands more Marines to report in for duty.

And naturally, Bill had received the summons.

When he got his marching orders, he was given a time and told what his position would be.

‘Platform Guard…’ he thought to himself.

Despite it not being on the front line, in a battle full of superhumans the importance of this position wasn’t lost on him. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that he was ordered to be on the last line of defense before Fleet Admiral himself was forced to act.

But notwithstanding that honor and responsibility, Shiki’s erratic movements caused Bill to want to get back and arrest the Flying Pirate as soon as he was done settling issues at New Haven.

But even if he left right now, which he couldn’t do, Bill didn’t think it would be possible to destroy Shiki and make it to Marineford by the date of the execution.

Thinking it was time to contact Headquarters and tell them his reasoning for not being able to come, Toma suddenly spoke up: “err… Commodore, you know, it’s your choice and we’ll follow you, but I don’t think you should contact Marineford just yet…”

With three pairs of eyes on the Swordsmen Instructor, Bill told the young man to ‘go on’ and so Toma continued: “Uh, I’m thinking it like this. The submarines beacon hasn’t moved in a week, right?

Well, Ace’s execution is in three weeks, so why don’t we just wait two weeks and see if Shiki holds his position. If he does, then you could make it to Marineford in a week if you really pushed yourself. Then you can do as you were ordered and make it back here before Shiki would have time to finish whatever he’s doing.”

Seeing the logic in this, Bill slightly nodded and looked at Nelson and Masterson for their input.

For Masterson it was simple, Bill should report back to Marineford it was impossible to make it there while Shiki was at large. Besides, Masterson added, Bill was needed in New Haven just to help fill the orders coming in from Ranse.

Nelson was much more in line with Tomas’ way of thinking however, when he snapped back at Masterson saying: “Fact of the matter is we’re soldiers, and we’ll bloody follow orders like good soldiers do.” Then turning to Bill, he continued: “Toma’s opinion is the best compromise. If Shiki makes his move then we can give a good account for why you were late.”

Then, slightly eying Masterson, who didn’t much care for Nelson to start with, the Commander said: “Just so, ‘late’.

Commodore, you’ve been ordered to go and so you must under any circumstances appear there. Hells, they won’t be happy if you show up a week late, but you won’t have your commission pulled if Headquarters sees you follow orders.

Though I do declare that none of this would even be an issue if that Captain Zima had followed my orders and returned. If she were here we would be in a better way, and I say, her not following orders is a good case and point for why you ought not to disregard Headquarters call."

Shrugging his shoulders, Bill didn’t agree or disagree with Nelson.

Sasha had been away for almost half a year at this point, and now on her way back she had run into an unknown pirate crew calling themselves the Mecha Pirates.

According to her last report, the leader of the pirate crew was a man named Ratchet who called himself a ‘Lord’ and she had been chasing him down all whilst fighting off an effective army of increasingly incomplete robots.

Interested in her reports, Bill told her to capture the pirate alive and bring him back to New Haven but hadn’t given her exact orders to hurry back.

After all, no matter what Nelson said, Bill believed the Marines’ primary duty was to help the people and if Sasha was seeing evil in front of her own eyes, how could he tell her to deny it?

Perhaps if things were different, he would, but Bill thought that since he beat Shiki once he’d do it again.

“Alright.” He said looking at his three officers.

“We can’t leave matters here unattended but neither can I ignore the summons. We’ll do your plan Toma. Masterson if the time comes then I’ll be gone for two weeks, and I expect you to work with Nelson to the best of your ability.”

Getting a salute, Masterson stood up and he was followed by the other two.

“Nelson, you’ll be put back in charge when I’m not on the island, we’ll work out a tentative schedule beforehand. Understood?”

After getting a ‘Yes, Commodore’ from Nelson, Bill then dismissed them to do their work.

For the next couple of weeks, they were as busy as ever.

Turning over six hundred pirates into Marines was no small task, and Masterson and Toma ran one training program after another.

Some of the former pirates would never make it. Whether because they were lazy, addicted to alcohol, or just somewhat dumb, Bill had settled on the fact that they would be phased out of sailing and become laborers so long as they didn’t commit new crimes.

Nelson mostly continued to work with weapons production projects. The number of weapons requested by Ranse was staggering, but acceptable due to the fact they were charging for every bullet they shipped into the East Blue.

Bill had finished the skeletons of several new apartment buildings. After six weeks of working as a superhuman piece of construction equipment, with Henzo’s new device to assist him, the refugees finally saw their housing come into shape – albeit not fully finished.

Finally, just over a week before Ace’s execution and on the day before Bill was set to leave for Marineford, sitting in his office finalizing plans with Nelson, sirens once more began to scream across the island.

“Hm?” he looked at Nelson who returned his confused stare.

“Alright, let’s go see.” He said, but before he could fully stand up a man burst through his office door hollering: “Commodore! They’re right on top of us!”

Immediately walking around the table, Bill ordered the man to speak, and he did so… but upon walking out his Departments Headquarters, Bill stopped hearing what the man was saying as he looked up.

Looking there in the distance, directly in front of New Haven’s harbor, there were several massive objects floating in the sky, all surrounded by hundreds of tiny dots.

Sirens blaring, Procurement Marines were running helter skelter, not waiting for orders as they rushed to break open the locked armories.

Turning his head to the side, Bill saw Nelson looking up, aghast at the sight.

“Quickly order Masterson to arm the new recruits. Take the Rivet Rifles from the warehouses and hurry!”

At a time like this, Bill would not care why the beacon he planted on Merveille hadn’t moved, or how it was possible for Shiki’s power to exert control over so many objects at such a vast scale.

Getting his orders, Nelsons head bobbed, and just before he turned to run back inside, Bill thought of something and called out: “And tell the King Cannon crews to point their guns straight up!”

Not getting a reaction, though Bill knew Nelson heard him, he jumped through the air and when he was halfway to the fortress overlooking the harbor, he heard a girl’s voice call out: “Bill! Is Shiki attacking us?!”

With her [Compliant Tree] in hand, Yoko’s auburn hair flew back freely and despite her question having an obvious answer, her face looked serious.

Looking back at her, and then towards the floating objects, Bill adjusted his eyes and clearly recognized the small dots for what they were.

There were hundreds of flying ships at the head of Merveille’s two dozen island chain.

Thinking of the scale of what was coming at them “Let’s go” was all he said in response to Yoko’s question. He didn’t want to put her in harm’s way but sending her away would be sending away one of his strongest forces on the island.

Crossing one level of the island after the next, Bill could see residents fleeing towards the caves to take shelter and hoped that the elderly would be taken care of.

With each passing second the Flying Pirates armada drew closer, and the thought of New Haven being barraged from the air forced even Bill to suck in a cold breath.

Quickly landing on the fortress’s overlook, Bill watched as Special Operators led small teams into defensive positions.

Apparently with the idea to hold the pirates at the harbor, Bill took a Communication Snail out of his pocket and overrode the sirens.

“ATTENTION! Only Designations SPO Should Come To The Harbor, All Other Designations Should Find Defensible Locations On The Upper Levels.”

“I Repeat!”

….

‘SPO’ was short for Special Operator, and while Bill wanted the majority of his military strength at the harbor, he knew he couldn’t leave the upper level undefended.

It took barely 30 minutes until the islands came into clear sight for everyone, and in that time, Bill was joined on the outlook by Masterson, Yoko, and the Foxy trio who had just come running.

Looking up with snot hanging down his nose, Foxy cursed Bill for kidnapping him and his crew but steeled himself when Bill laughed saying that he could go tell the ‘Golden Lion’ that.

With over 900 Marine personnel on New Haven, they all steeled themselves as much as they could, but no one expected that the first volley directed at the island wouldn’t be familiar cannon fire.

It would be a bright energy wave.