The Marine

Not long after Bill identified the familiar pirate and Super Sparrow, a small dot appeared on the horizon which later showed itself to be an island.

Due to the convoy following an Eternal Pose, they hadn’t seen dry land nor heard any news from the outside world for weeks and by now – not to bring up the troubles of the elderly and children – even the middle aged and young adult Merveillians were becoming more and more despondent.

Life on the sea was as severe as it was boring, and even if Bill had tried to set routines for the people it was hard for him to centrally organize effectively for such a wide range of people and with so limited resources.

So, as the island neared, he decided to give his convoy a break before setting off on the final leg of their journey home.

‘Two or three days’ he figured would be enough time to bring the people’s mental strength back up while also replenishing their dwindling stores of wood, water, food, and other necessities.

As for the sighting of Itomimizu and Chuchun, well if they were smart and stayed far away, he decided that he wouldn’t go deliberately searching for that rabble.

 After relaying his plans with the other ships, the small convoy followed the coastline until that happened upon a ramrod straight stream of water that was beside a rather unique stone plateau.

This stone coastline seemed to be perfectly level and was about as high as their smallest ships railing. Interesting as this geological feature was, what was more interesting was that the island seemed to have no gradient shoreline, it was as if the entire island was an underwater plateau.

Still finding himself amazed even after decades of living in this world, Bill wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and docked directly on the side of the island.

Because they had nothing else the Marines lowered long boards onto the stone coast, secured them with rods that they drilled directly into the rock, and allowed the refugees to come down at their own discretion.

Bill had seen that there were no nearby settlements but with the sighting of the pirates still set up a loose perimeter and advised people of the potential risk and started the work of setting up the tents and digging latrines that they would need.

With more power than any piece of construction equipment, and more speed than any work crew could possibly have, these necessary jobs would have been done in just a few hours had not a large commotion driven Bill away from his work.

Walking on a scene which had hundreds of feathered humans as spectators, Yoko and the other younger Marines had a strange animal encircled.

“Commodore!” called out Rapanui as soon as he saw Bill, then when the people’s attention turned, he continued: “What do you think this thing is?”

With hundreds of pairs of eyes on him, Bill observed the gathering before he just shrugged and replied: “It looks like a stretched-out platypus, leave it alone for now. You’re scaring it half to death.”

When he said this, Yoko started laughing loudly and said: “It’s more like a plaaaatypus!” which solicited more laughter from across the crowd and even drew a smile to Bill’s face.

Seeing everyone laughing for the first time in over a week, Bill was in a good mood and when Yoko asked if she and the others could go exploring, he didn’t think about the nearby pirates and just told her to be careful.

Getting the obligatory ‘I will!’ he watched as Yoko, Carrot, Rapanui, Roule, Akisu, and Adelle started to walk off.

Then together with the Marines who weren’t stationed around the perimeter of the campsite and about a 75 of the Merveillian men.

Out of the some 1500 Merveillians who escaped from the floating islands, perhaps only 250 were adult men, and more than half that number were elderly. The ratio between boys and girls was distributed fairly evenly and so it was evident just how dangerous life on those monster infested islands had been.

Even though he had not pried into their personal lives, after seeing their surface-level interactions over the last few weeks, Bill had even begun to suspect that these people were polygamist.

‘Well, if they are, then they feel the need to hide it’ thought he, but then reasoned that it didn’t really matter. Bill would have acted the same way he did regardless of how they organized marriage in their community.

And given the fact that they probably practiced polygamy out of necessity, it made him even less critical.

Putting that in the back of his mind, Bill worked with precision and haste until the outlines of a grid-style camp came into existence.

The island didn’t have many trees but there was enough lumber to use as pegs, tent frameworks, and other small but needed commodities. By far the most labor-intensive building came into constructing the latrines – something so important to Bill that his Marine recruits were required to know how to construct them before graduating boot camp.

But with his strength and eye for detail even that project moved along smoothly and in just a few hours 80 individual stone toilet stalls were constructed together in a moderately sized open-roofed public latrine complex.

By the end of the day, the camp looked outwardly impressive, but Bill knew it was just a threadbare base camp and not one suited for long-term habitation.

Outwardly impressive looking rows of long tents afford people some protection from the elements but came with virtually zero privacy as people where bunked side by side, the latrines were too few and too rudely constructed to offer any real sanitation benefit aside from having people not using pots, the cafeteria was fine but the kitchen area was a paltry place where they could do little more than cook pan-bread and grill whatever seafood could be gotten from the shoreline.

All of this work showed the amount of effort it took to care for over a thousand people in what was set to be a mere three-day stay.

At least, Bill thought, he had Masterson and Toma there to oversee separate projects.

By the time the sun was setting in the distance and dinner was being finished up, Bill walked around looking for the teenage Marines but was given one ‘I haven’t seen them’ after another.

Annoyed, but not really worried since if he knew that even there were pirates around the island, if Yoko was fighting seriously with her new staff, then he – and everyone else – would know about it.

But as if the fate had a way of knowing what he was thinking, because at that very moment there was a change that caught his eye and he nearly stumbled when he noticed it was the [Compliance Tree], which had grown to massive proportions, far in the distance.

Immediately alarms were sounded, and after telling everyone to calm down he organized the Marines to guard the perimeter and put Masterson in charge of things. Then, in the eyes of the worried people Bill turned into a blur as he sped towards the area that the [Compliance Tree] was seen from.

Of course, he couldn’t go at top speed around normal humans – if he did then the shock wave would kill them – but on perfectly flat terrain the Commodore’s speed was incredible, and passing one elongated animal after the next he finally arrived at what could only be described as a massive sports field beside a huge stadium complex.

Stopping abruptly, Bill took a few moments to look around and seeing there were dozens of mask-wearing people in the near distance he quickly erased his presence.

Over the years, Bill had checked on Foxy’s bounty from time to time and though it had been a couple of years since he had done so, he recalled that the Slow Man’s bounty was a mere 24m Beli.

In those earlier days when his Department was just getting off the ground it was that very low figure which had spared the unaware would-be kidnapper pirate from certain capture or worse.

So, with some knowledge of Foxy’s crew, Bill felt more or less assured that no one in the area could detect him as he went towards the crowd.

Invisible to the senses of everyone present, his target was found instantly.

Standing in a square formation with Roule and Akisu in the middle; Yoko, Carrot, Adelle, and Rapanui were braced for combat and in front of Yoko in particular was an unconscious gorilla-like man whom Bill immediately recognized as Hamburg.

“So, you were pirates all along, think you could trick me forever?!” Bill heard Yoko shout and then wondered how on earth the teenagers had gotten themselves into this situation.

Wondering if he should reveal himself or just destroy these people in a heartbeat, Bill heard a laugh that he still remembered.

*Fuehfehfehfeh!*

“Trick you? for what possible reason could I, the great Foxy the Silver Fox, have for possibly tricking a girl such as yourself?”

Standing a mere 20 feet from Foxy, Bill was completely looked over but studied the old pirate’s appearance closely.

Bill didn’t know Foxy’s exact age but figured that he was near 40 now which made sense given the fact he was in his mid-20’s back on Vallipo. Whatever the case, it had been some 13 years since he had last seen the pirate, and 13 years of boozing and sailing had clearly taken their toll on the man.

More round in the belly region, his skin was rougher and eyebrows longer, but most of all were the wrinkles starting to form on the sides of his mouth and around his eyes.

Seeing hilarity ensue when Yoko claimed that they didn’t know who the ‘hell’ Foxy was – language that Bill had never heard her use since sealing most of her Devil Fruit away – he was sort of transfixed on the pirate.

Having once before been young, grew up, and then die of old age. In this life Bill had never really thought about it deeply. But now, seeing Foxy’s aging face reminded Bill about the oath he had taken when he first came to terms with being reincarnated and he momentarily wondered if he had been living up to it.

‘…’

Broken out of his reflections when Foxy asked Yoko if she had a ship, he constantly wondered when he should reveal himself but waited to hear more.

“Yeah, I have a ship, so what? It’s the best frigate you’ve ever seen and even has a seastone hull!”

This was marginally true; Yoko did have command of a small-sized frigate back in [New Haven] that she had named the ‘M.S.S Nimbus’ but calling it her personal ship was not quite accurate.

“Oh?! I see I see! How amazing for a girl of your age to ‘Captain’ a seastone frigate!” Foxy said exaggeratedly, then continued to ask: “and is this your whole crew?”

“Eh, wouldn’t you like to know? Well, I’ll tell you…”

Facing palming on how easily Yoko was being goaded on once her pride was being stoked, Bill decided to wait some more.

After all, with him here the safety of the teenagers was guaranteed. If Foxy couldn’t notice Bill standing directly in front of his face, then there was little chance that there was danger.

If anything, he thought this could be a learning opportunity.

After getting all of the information that he wanted from her, Foxy fetched out three coins from his coat pocket and holding them between his fingers said: “I challenge you to a game!”

“A game?” asked Yoko somewhat confused but eyes narrowing at the perceived challenge.

“That’s right! It’s a game of fun, of drama, of competition, it’s a game where you can win or lose everything!

Are you brave enough to play, missy?!”

Not immediately refusing, Bill wondered if it was progress that Yoko didn’t immediately resort to violence, after all, if this very scene had happened just a couple of years ago then Yoko would have just instantly attacked any person attached to the name ‘pirate’.

Unfortunately, some vices die harder than others and for Yoko her pride was one of those things. When she should have outright refused and gone for backup, with the sun setting behind her, she asked: “Interesting… and what could I win?”

“Anything you see in front of you!” Foxy bellowed with a crooked smile, then subtly dropped the bomb: “See any of these stalls you like? How about getting some of those tiny boats or even a few new crew members for your ship, how about even my [Sexy Foxy] itself?”

To his comment about crew members, Akisu started protesting first followed by Roule. They weren’t alone though as all of the teenagers’ eyes went wide open at the implication.

“You want my crew?!” Yoko snapped, pulling the toothpick sized [Compliance Tree] from behind her ear and extending it full sized.

Seeing the girl’s weapon, the Foxy Pirates eyes went wide too, but Foxy had a mouth sharp enough to control the situation and spoke fast: “The implicit rule of the world (of pirates) is that if a crew doesn’t abide by the will of their captain, then they will have to live a life of shame!”

Only Bill could hear the qualifier ‘of pirates.’ It had been clear to him from the beginning that Foxy knew that the teenagers were Marines.

In fact, by reading his thoughts, Bill could tell that Foxy really thought he was hitting it out of the park. Foxy saw the [Compliance Tree] and knew that Yoko had knocked out Hamburg. For someone who was always looking for ‘talents’ it was no wonder that he wanted to trick Yoko onto his crew.

Why would he even care if she were a young Marine? Foxy thought that the Marines were already too occupied with [Whitebeard] to care about a teenage girl.

“Hey, I’ve heard of that rule…” whispered Rapanui, who may have heard some version of it spoken fifty years ago and forgotten that it was about pirates only.

Foxy capitalized on this confusion, exaggeratedly saying: “See even that boy has heard of it!”

To this, Akisu shouted that they were being fooled, Carrot mentioned that she as a Mink Warrior could never live in shame, and Roule who was always somewhat greedy just wanted to know more about what they could get.

In fact, even though Bill wouldn’t read the thoughts of Yoko and the other teenagers, he knew that Roule commenting on how nice it would be to get Foxy’s ship was what convinced Yoko because when the boy said this her eyes lit up and she said quietly to the others: “Bill was complaining about those leaky ships we’ve been on, how glad would he be to have that nice galleon?!”

Seeing that things had now gotten out of hand; Bill crossed his arms as Yoko agreed to play the games with Foxy if she could win the ship – and for Foxy’s part he was over the moon thinking about his eventual success.

“You all heard her agree, yes?” Foxy asked around and had a series of ‘yeah!’ and ‘Foxy, we love you!’.

“Now on Davy Jones name you can’t take it!” Foxy said, then Yoko, recognizing the name said seriously: “Davy Jones?”

*Fuehfehfehfeh!*

“That’s right! Now that you agreed, if you lose, you’ll join my Pirate Crew or live a life of dishonor and shame!”

“I’m a Marine!” Yoko protested, but still controlling the conversation Foxy didn’t give an inch: “You made an oath to Davy Jones’ Locker! It doesn’t matter if you’re a Marine, a Queen, or even a dog! Now choose, do you play, or do you have no honor?!”

Stomping her feet so hard that the ground cracked, Akisu kept saying ‘Who cares about honor lets get Bill’ but no one listened – not even Foxy who was intent on Yoko’s answer.

“Oh shoot!” finally said Yoko who then turned to her friends and said: “I don’t think they can beat us anyways; that split head doesn’t know who he’s messin with.”

 “But what will we tell…” started Rapanui who was quickly cut off by Roule: “We won’t tell’em anything, we’ll just show up and surprise him with this nice big galleon and he’ll be so thankful he’ll instantly throw us a party.”

Even for Yoko, this claim was far-fetched, she knew in her heart that Bill would tan their hides as soon as he learned about this, but she was also too proud to admit that she’d been taken advantage of and so agreed with a strong nod of the head.

“When do we start?” she turned back to the smirking Foxy who was now standing between several of his crewmen – many of whom Bill recognized from over a decade before.

“You all heard her!

Tomorrow at noon we’re having another [Davy Back Fight]!”

Just shaking his head, Bill wondered if he should just slap Foxy to death but decided to dig around their ship first.

He almost regretted it when Foxy yelled at the retreating teenage Marines to ‘Bring their whole crew, it’s going to be a party for the ages.’