The Marine

Sitting in the Captains Quarters of the newly minted [M.S.S. Showboat] Bill sat in front of Foxy but before he spoke, the two men each recalled the events from three days before.

When he had showed himself, it had flummoxed the great majority of the Foxy Pirates but how could Foxy himself so easily forget the son of the man who chased him out of the [South Blue]?

Looking up at Bill with a white face and shaky legs, Foxy saw the image of Aramaki Ox and in a panic the trickster had tried one last trick.

Starting by making a speech that he and his crew had all been tricked, and that was their failing, would have been enough to take Bill off balance had he not been reading the Silver Fox’s thoughts.

At the end of the speech, Foxy asked a should-be rhetorical question: “Your tricks show your weakness of character!! Now, are you ready for the Captain's Fight?”

For Foxy plan to succeed, when Bill answered he was ready, he would immediately launch his attack, thinking that if he could just hit Bill once with the [Slow-Mo Photons] everything would be solved.

But unfortunately for the career cheater, Bill knew his plan, and ironically slowing down time with his own power, Bill readjusted Foxy’s hand and pointed it at the pirate himself.

Slowed down by his own power, Foxy watched in horror as Bill grabbed him by the trousers and gave him one very very hard pull upwards.

Foxy didn’t hear how Bill then addressed his crew, because as time slowly turned back to normal around him, his face began to comically stretch downwards until he went shooting upwards like a rocket ship.

Flying directly upwards for what seemed like a long time was scary, but even more scary was when he stopped going up, and started falling back down. [Long Ring Long Land] island was only a tiny speck far below, and Foxy could only scream as he fell.

After all, even if he slowed himself with his [Slow-Mo Photons], he would resume the same speed when the effect wore off.

During the fall, Foxy’s life flashed before his eyes.

He was proud of what he had been able to do over the course of his life that was tragically cut short. Being born on an outlawed and unaffiliated World Government island, he had no great natural strength and could only rely on his wits, which was how he had survived.

Inclined to be kindhearted, he had turned into a deviant to save the people he deemed worthy of saving, one was a toddler girl – Porche who had offered him a rat’s tail to eat. The other was an unfortunate looking boy – Hamburg who had not stolen said rat’s tail when he could have.

That was the beginning of the [Foxy Pirates], sly as a fox he was. Now falling to his death, he couldn’t help but remember what his dear ol’ nanna told him before he set sail: "Foxes have many tricks, but hedgehogs have one good one."

Her meaning had been a simple one, comparing the differences between the clever and adaptable fox and the focused and steadfast hedgehog. She advised that while foxes may possess a wide range of strategies and skills, hedgehogs excel at one specific skill, which ultimately led to their success.

But as said before, Foxy didn’t believe he had a single skill to survive on, and so he was determined to be the best fox to ever live – a Silver Fox.

Now that was all in the past, and he didn’t want to see the ground coming and so turned over with his face towards the clouds and closing his eyes, he waited peacefully. He was sure that the great Silver Fox had finally bitten off more than he could chew.

‘Yes…’ Foxy began to aggrandize his life some more while he waited – which was his right as he was assuredly about to die, when suddenly a force like nothing the veteran pirate had ever felt grabbed him by the collar.

Being swung left, right, and every other way, Foxy screamed until he finally came to a halt in mid-air and finally peeking open his eyes saw a big man holding him up with a muscled arm the size of a tree-trunk.

“I’m probably going to regret this.” the man started to speak to him, and getting his bearings, Foxy recognized him for who he was.

But either not noticing or not caring, Bill continued: “Your FORMER crew has begged me and pledged me their undying loyalty if I offer you a pardon. Now, I have not forgotten the fact that you tried to kidnap me as a child, and I shudder even thinking about how many other kids you tricked.”

To this, Foxy wanted to claim that he truly had never kidnapped any children besides those who wanted to be pirates, but he was unable to get a word off as Bill kept speaking: “But, between pardoning you or slaughtering several hundred people today, well, you could say that I’ve seen enough death recently.

So, I’m a man of my word.

Choose now, Foxy the ‘Silver Fox’, will you join the Marines and start to uphold Justice, or will you die for your crimes here today?”

Needless to say, Foxy chose life where life showed itself, and in the subsequent days he was glued to the shameless- no, he was glued to his new ‘Commodore’ as the big man organized the entire crew.

Organizing matters for over two thousand people was no small task, and not knowing Bill was experienced in such matters, Foxy was grudgingly impressed by the commands the Commodore made.

Recalling the words of his ol’ nanna, Foxy just looked at the ‘Hedgehog’ with a mix of jealousy, resentment, and ultimately bitter resignation.

Now, days later, and having liberally read the [Foxy Pirates] thoughts, Bill pretty much knew exactly what the former pirates were thinking and had been busy mitigating friction between them, the Marines, and the Refugees.

Of course, Bill didn’t know what had run through Foxy’s head as he plummeted back down to earth, but the rest of the story was well understood and now sitting in front of the standing Foxy, Bill had given up any hope of winning these former pirates’ loyalty over their had-been Captain.

“Foxy…” Bill started: “how exactly have you been a pirate at large for more than a decade but don’t own a single long-range [Communication Snail]?”

Being still roughly a three-week sail away from [New Haven], Bill desperately wanted to get in touch with Nelson and ask about the events he read about in the [World Economy News Paper].

Answering with his red nose turned up and head to the side, Foxy replied: “Commodore, haven’t you asked about this before? We get the paper and don’t have need for long-range communication. Pirates …” Foxy paused and gestured his hand to an imaginary horizon: “’live for freedom, we take the treasure, have the adventures, kiss the ladies, and sail away into the sunset unburdened.

That’s what it means to be free…” he finished with a tear in his eye, moved by his own speech.

Being drawn into this conversation again and again was impossible to avoid, and Bill snapped back: “That’s what it means to be an irresponsible burden to society!

Foxy!

Where did that treasure you stole come from? Huh?

Where did that sugar come from to make the cotton candy you sold come from? Huh?

Where did all that beer your large crew guzzled down come from? Huh?

The bread…

The tools…

The very clothes on your back!

All of these things came from someone else’s work, work that could only be accomplished because we live in a society!

What you call ‘freedom’ is just self-interest and egotism!

Foxy, you’re over forty years old, it’s time for you to grow up and contribute to that society you benefit so much from?!”

Slamming his fist down on the oaken table, Bill quickly shook his head and calmed himself down. He hadn’t even been this frustrated when Nelson was put under his command and constantly mouthed off to everyone and anyone.

This was because, while Nelson had been a self-centered egomaniac, he had at least understood the value of law and order.

If Nelson’s problem had been that from a young age he had been artificially raised above everyone else under the guise of ‘nobility’, Foxy’s problem – and this could be said about pirates in general – was that he didn’t even recognize any efforts besides his own!

Pirates worked hard, harder than anyone else when they had to, but that labor was always to selfish and ultimately destructive ends.

Calming himself down, Bill dropped that conversation and began to tell Foxy the plans for the journey to [New Haven]. Ignoring Foxy’s attempts at negotiating, Bill informed the former Pirate Captain that his crew was bound to be split up into groups, but that he would work with Foxy to create teams that would stick together through their various assignments.

With over 650 former members of the Foxy Pirates, this task would be time consuming, but Bill figured that they would be finished by the time they reached port.

And with most of the elderly and children onboard the M.S.S. Showboat, they would not be taking any more stops along the way.

As Bill headed home at full speed, Nelson had grown increasingly agitated while in charge of things.

“Listen to me very carefully. Listen so carefully that even you can fully ‘understand’ Captain Zima. The Commodore left ME in charge of New Haven, and therefore the Department, and under that authority I ORDER YOU TO RETURN!”

Ending the communication without waiting for Sasha’s retort, Nelson felt angry and helpless.

He had done everything he could and the last seven weeks the harbor of New Haven had been turned into a fortress under his command.

After receiving reports of the desperate fighting going on across the world, Nelson ignored Bill’s orders for more [Iron Wardens] and had ordered the immediate construction of 15 King Cannon and 500 shells.

Thick black smoke from New Havens foundries could be seen from miles and miles away, the air quality was so bad that the engineers had begun a petition to slow down the forges to a manageable level.

But Nelson would not relent.

More than anyone in the Department Nelson knew what the Commodore was physically capable of, and the fact that Bill hadn’t returned shaken him to the bone. Wondering if the old ‘Golden Lion’ did have enough strength to kill Bill had kept Nelson awake at night more times than he cared to admit.

The others were worried, but their lip service about finding Bill meant nothing to Nelson who had actually been put in charge of guarding the ‘home front’ as it were.

With little information to go off of, he had hard choices to make and that wasn’t even factoring in the massive war happening between Whitebeard and the Marines in the New World.

Thus far the war could only be described as pandemonium.

Over the last month and a half, the Whitebeard Pirates had defeated two Marine taskforces sent into the heart of Whitebeards territory and had destroyed the ring of Marine Bases in the surrounding area before that.

During the last major battle, Whitebeards 1st and 5th Division Commanders had held off Admiral Kizaru and former Admiral Zephyr as an assortment of Whitebeard’s allied pirates and island governments banded together and wrecked the Marine force so thoroughly that retreat was the only option.

Looking over a strategic table with dozens of papers scattered about, Nelson could hardly believe the losses that the Marines had taken in two short months.

More than 10 Vice Admirals had already been declared KIA, but just as devastatingly, scores of lower-level veteran commanding officers were lost.

During this time, Bill and their Department had seemed to be forgotten by everyone besides Zephyr who had requested their immediate aid.

As a former Admiral and Head Instructor for the Marineford Academy, Zephyr had seen a lot in his day and one key to his success was to never forget the location of valuable resources.

Clearly seeing Bill and the Procurement Department was one of those resources, it was no wonder that after the first Marine Taskforce was destroyed the old Marine had called on them to send help.

But Nelson could only disappoint him by informing Zephyr that: ‘Commodore Ox has gone to subdue the Golden Lion’.

At the time, Nelson hadn’t been so panicked, but now? Well, that was over a month ago.

During the 2nd major battle, a battle where Zephyr clearly saw that the Marines needed more heavy hitters, Marineford spared only one [Admiral], and not a single [Warlord].

Left raging at the response of HQ and dismayed by the terrible casualties the Marines had faced because of it, Zephyr began calling in all his contacts but this time when he called on Bill again, he was given a very different kind of response when Nelson’s sharp mouth showed itself.

“You think you’re the only one who needs help?! Listen here old top we have our own problems! The Commodore has been MIA for A MONTH. One of our Captains has been ordered by Sengoku to completely take over the response to the East Blue Beast Wave, and the other of our Captains has found herself waylaid time and time again by the inexperienced Marines that Sengoku called up from the three Blue’s!

While you’re trying, and FAILING, to take the fight to Whitebeard in the New World, we have entire islands being lost to barbarism and worse because I know for a fact that the Revolutionary Army has not let this opportunity slip by!”

Apparently, this news had not been known to Zephyr, as focused on the Whitebeard war as he was, and while Bill being MIA was a huge bomb to the former Admiral – after all the Marines did not have many twenty-year-olds who could defeat Whitebeards 6th Division Commander and put up a decent fight against the 3rd – even more alarming was the news of activity by the Revolutionary Army.

When demanding specific details, Nelson somewhat cooled down and told Zephyr what he knew.

That was, in the East Blue the Revolutionary Army had killed a massive gorilla EvoBeast on Mirror Ball island – one that didn’t fail in comparison to the first two that was slain by Captain McGrew – and despite not publicizing the feat, the reason why it was known to be the R.A. was because it was none other than [Belo Betty] who had roused the citizenry to pick up arms and fight.

In the end, the monster was destroyed.

Along with more than half of the island’s population.

Her actions could only be seen as rash, careless, and criminal to Nelson, to which Zephyr whole-heartedly agreed and to add one further crime, instead of facing Justice when Ranse arrived, she slinked away in the night.

That was all that Nelson had known then, but now, he was aware of at least four other coup attempts that had happened in the last week.

With pirates, revolutionaries, and criminals at all other levels taking advantage of the occupation of the Marines, Nelson could only hope ‘that group’ would not get involved.

Even though he was only a kingdom nobility, Frauce Kingdom was large enough for Nelson to know about ‘their’ existence and hoped that they would stay stationed away on the top of the world.

Rubbing his cheek, just thinking about the God's Knights made Nelson’s stomach churn with a mix of fear and hate.

But before he could think another thought, suddenly for the 2nd time in three months, the sirens of New Haven began wailing their alarms.

Immediately standing up, Nelson was met at his door by a Department Warrant Officer who had been among those rescued from Clockwork Island years ago.

“Sir! Five pirate galleons sighted; they bear no flags that we recognize but as best as we could see each ship has a different figurehead!”

Nodding his head, Nelson continued to walk and spat out orders for the cannons to be manned.

Without any true superhumans on the island, he would never allow an enemy to get close and resolved himself that today he would not be the coward he had been years before.

The Commodore had given him too much and taking his place at the forefront of New Havens defensive line, he looked through electronic binoculars and saw that the leading galleon had a giant fox figurehead.

Judging distance, Nelson waited until the ships were just in range when he gave the order.

“Fire!”