The Marine

The contrast between the bleak gray passageways and the ornate accommodation that they had been put up in stirred the Marines into fury of exploration to see where they would be staying.

Even Bill himself couldn’t help but look in surprise at the sheer amount of gold used on the banisters, ceilings, and floors.

Whereas the passageways were all plaster and concrete, these rooms were clad in white marble floors and polished red wooden walls. To top it all off, in addition to the bright electric lights, these rooms which only had two beds in them were the size of penthouse suites.

Walking around the first room that he had happened to come across, Bill went around slowly.

There were lounging areas, complete with mini fridges and pool tables.

There were a kitchen areas, complete with electric stoves and sinks.

In the bedrooms where were even screen-like televisions which were showing a live Turtle-Car Race, audio and all included.

Complete with local-model wireless Communication Snails, safes, mirrors, and even golden silverware, all of the amenities were surprisingly suited for even someone of Bill’s 9ft tall stature.

Moving from the bedroom, he at last went into the bathroom.

White and black checkerboard tile was only further beautified by a literal golden ‘throne’, and had Bill not been pretty much indifferent to wealth, he may have missed the small recess that barely outlined a doorway.

‘Hm…’ he thought to himself, absolutely sure that there was no one else in the suite besides Borodo and Nelson who had come with him.

Rubbing his finger around the outline of the recess, Bill pulled back and realized that some form of residue had been rubbed off on him.

The amount was minuscule, so little in fact that perhaps only a person who had mastered Life Return could feel it rub onto them. ‘It’s not dirt…’ he thought to himself, and after focusing, his eyes became microscopes as he looked deeply at the tip of his finger, he said to himself: ‘Gold dust…?’

It was strange he thought, but not too out of the ordinary. After all, the entire suite was covered with gold. So shrugging his shoulders, he pressed what was obviously the button to open the door, he heard a beep, and a coin slot appeared.

With ‘500 Beli’ written on it Bill immediately understood that whatever was behind the door was a service of some kind, and while he was curious to see what was there, he was even more caught off guard.

Thinking to himself, he thought: ‘What else is monetized in this room…?’ he forgot about the dust and then with that idea, he turned around and with long strides startling Nelson and Borodo who quickly asked him ‘what was wrong’.

“Everything’s fine, but if you would Nelson, gather everyone up. We’re having an assembly.” said he, and walking into the lounge, Bill opened up a fully stocked minifridge.

Though still a minuscule amount, more gold residue rubbed off on his hands, but now Bill was thinking about something else.

In the minifridge there were neatly lined liquor bottles that were all labelled very clearly, but only on the back of the labels were the prices per bottle displayed.

In tiny letters they read:

Mermaid’s Malt – 500Beli

Blueberry Blue’s Gin – 750Beli

Golden Apple Cider – 1,000Beli

Aurum Rum – 1,500Beli

Each bottle was about half the size of Bill’s palm, so not necessarily ‘small’, and not necessarily that expensive, either.

The problem was that a man could casually drink everything inside the fridge over the course of a couple of days, and that the total cost of the minifridge ran up to 20,000 Beli.

How much was 20,000 Beli?

Well, on most islands an orange would cost around 100Beli.

Some cotton candy at a carnival would cost around 500Beli.

A cheap shirt, about 1,000Beli.

A small rural house on a small World Government affiliated island would cost around 1,000,000Beli.

An average sized house in a city of similar size to Loguetown would cost about 4,000,000Beli to buy and furnish.

Or to put it most bluntly, and the way that Bill automatically thought of it as: ‘20,000Beli is a month’s salary for almost every sailor who came on the expedition!’

Moving from the minifridge that he was looking through, Bill moved to the next one and saw the same price system.

Not just that though, whether it was the Communication Snail, the electric stove, or even to use the leg-rests on the recliner chair – almost everything in the room cost money!

Sure you could watch the ‘television’ for free, and he even found a hidden screen in the lounge area, but after only a few seconds of doing so Bill noticed that it was all about gambling!

‘What type of honeypot….’ thought he, while mindlessly brushing his hands off on his pants, and faced with this situation, Bill wondered if he should restrict his Marines to the ship.

But after some thought decided against it.

Though they were young – the average age of his current crew was only 21 years old – they were adults, and as long as they weren’t doing anything against the Departments rules then it wasn’t really his business how they spent their pay.

Of course that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to discourage them from spending their Beli frivolously and thinking by now that Nelson would have rounded everyone up, Bill walked out into the hallway to find it lined with men and women wearing their traditional blue and white uniforms.

120 people were not a whole lot, but in this sort of situation it was hard to talk to them all and so he ordered them back to a junction that they had passed, where they would all be able to fit in lines.

No words of protest were given to the orders, and after making their way back the way they came a group of men and women stood in 15 lines of 8, and since Bill was almost 3ft taller than almost everyone present it was easy for them to see him and he to see them.

“I’m sure many of you have realized this, but we’re just going to go over it together…” Bill started and continued to explain the Department’s regulations when it came to spending Beli while on active duty.

The men and women of the Procurement Department were given almost free reign, but only ‘almost’.

Grouping the Marines into a system of squads had been ingrained in all of the new recruits. And with that framework in place, if one person gambled or drank away more money than they had, it was up to the squad to pay the difference.

Naturally there were ways around this collected punishment, if for example the squad reported individual bad behavior then they would be left off the hook and one of the Officers would deal with the problem.

Going over the regulations and what was expected out of them, none of the Marines looked away or made a noise, but feeling as though they were being watched made Bill somewhat apprehensive.

Without his [Observation Haki] being active, he slowly began to stop restricting his natural senses until his voice sounded like a drum in his own head and he could even hear the heartbeats of the 120 people around him.

“For those who have not already registered their squads…” he started to say, when he heard several gasps and swing his arm around as he turned, he saw Tanaka smirking as he lifted out of the ground.

Bills hand had phased right through the Security Chiefs head, and as if amused by that fact, the man’s smirk became a laugh.

*Suru Suru Suru*

When his laugh died down, and his body had completely lifted from the floor, he still had a smirk on his lips when he said loud enough for everyone nearby to hear: “Oh, Commodore, I expected you all to be enjoying the accommodations we provided.

You know, we didn’t expect the Science Division to bring so many…” he eyed the Marines dismissively before saying: “… subordinates along to do the repairs.”

Thinking this was a weird thing for the big headed man to say – after all 150 Marines on a single Frigate was already quite few – Bill just shrugged and replied they were needed on the ship, to which Tanaka replied: “Oh, the more the merrier…” then smirked when he finished: “Gran Tesoro will accommodate them all, and as a small token of our appreciation it has been decided to give each of your crew a small stipend of 50,000Beli to use at any of our wondrous establishments.”

The majority of the Marines were excited to hear this, and before Bill could reply, Tanaka finished by saying:

*Suru Suru Suru*

“All wins are yours to keep, but all losers belong to the house.”

“All losses, you mean.” Said Bill looking down at Tanaka, which made the Chief laugh and say ‘that’s right’ before moving to the real reason why he had come – which was to fetch Bill to begin the inspection.

Since actual work wouldn’t begin that day, Bill left the majority of the Marines with Nelson while he, Borodo, and 20 others followed Tanaka down another series of passageways until they finally reached a huge lift which could easily be used by an Elbaf giant.

Pushing aside a 15-meter-tall iron gate with no difficulty, walked onto the lift looking at his hand thought: ‘Here too?’

Though very little, there was gold dust on the iron gate.

********************************************************

Halfway across the world standing on a peak of a snowy mountain, a barely clothed woman held a longsword with both of her hands.

Slashing at perfectly aligned angles, each slash cut through the snowy sky as steam from the friction of her sword cutting through the wind had melted away everything within ten meters around her.

Breathing heavy through the lighter air, Sasha’s eyes narrowed, and moved faster than the eye could see.

Five…Ten…Twenty…Forty…Fifty… PHEW!

In the span of a heartbeat, fifty flying slashes roared out from her blackened blade, devastating the surrounding area as she yelled involuntarily: “Pentacontagon!”

Seeing a small portion of the cloudy sky part, Sasha regained her breath to start again.

She had been doing this for months, since she had returned to New Haven and learned what had happened.

Though she would never admit it, Sasha had put aside the fact that she was not as strong as Bill. Due to his natural gifts and the propensity that he had to work harder than 200 men, their ‘rivalry’ had ended before they had even joined the Marines.

But even still, even though she knew he was stronger, she could not accept him being so much more powerful than her.

Was she content that she had parted a piece of the clouds? No.

‘He held up the island…’

That’s what she had told herself, over and over again.

The reason why she trained on the island peak that she was on was a reminder that it was this very island which had been held in the sky by him, however briefly.

And over the course of the year, he had just gotten stronger.

‘Just like that idiotic cowboy…’ she thought about Ranse when she began another round of slashing.

But though she felt irritable at the thought of Ranse, she knew his title as ‘Hero of the East Blue’ wasn’t given simply for propaganda, even now he was being poached by Marineford, only not having already been reassigned due to the Admirals struggling for rank.

 As for the recognition, she didn’t care about others. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to care about the opinion of strangers.

No, she only cared that she not fall behind him.

Spending the next several hours training, trying to go a little faster each time – fifty slashes was only a step towards her goal – she finally took a break and made her way to a little shack that had been built with all the necessities of life.

*purururu purururu purururu*

Throwing her Coat of Justice over her shoulders, she started calling Ricky who was on New Haven. While she had been left in charge of the archipelago it was Ricky who was running the day-to-day operations.

By now, almost 5 months after Bill had left, New Haven was beginning to take real form, all of the infrastructure had been laid including the new technologies granted by Egghead Island.

Before Shiki’s invasion the island of New Haven was a technological island.

Completely electrified, it had as large of an industrial center as most of the largest Marine arsenal islands in the world, with a shipyard capable of producing seastone hulled ships to boot.

And what it had before, now it was only expanded to the point where New Haven could be called a ‘futuristic island’ instead of a more technological one.

With a kingdoms worth of highly valuable land dropped on it, nothing was holding New Haven back besides population – which itself was rapidly expanding due to the East Blue recruits migrating their families over.

Yep, everything was sailing smoothly besides for one thing.

That thing was a 17-year-old girl, a girl that Sasha wanted to strangle sometimes.

Sasha had been livid when the girl didn’t return at the scheduled time from her ‘patrol’ and was only moderately placated when she heard the explanation for what had happened.

In a way it made her proud that the little Marine wouldn’t leave an ally to fend for themselves, but in a much deeper way, Sasha didn’t want Yoko to roam free.

She knew the girls strength was greater than that of the vast majority of Marine HQ Captains, but that was of little assurance.

Like Bill, Sasha loved Yoko too, but like mothers who are always tougher on their daughters, she didn’t give Yoko nearly as much ‘benefit of doubt’.

So, when Ricky answered her call and gave her the daily report the situation naturally turned to the girl in question.

“Nah, no news from the Flying Nimbus, oh yeah, but I did learn one thing…” Ricky said somewhat warily.

Noticing his tone, Sasha asked what it was, and he said: “… it’s just… that ‘Captain Leipon’ who’s sailing aside the Nimbus is one of Zephyrs men, in fact, there’s a high probability that Zephyr himself is at Sabaody right now.”

Hearing this, Sasha naturally thought what Ricky was thinking, and gritting her teeth said firmly: “Gather the crew and ready the Salamander, tomorrow we’re setting sail for Sabaody.”

Losing Ranse would be devastating for the Procurement Department, but one that she and Bill could understand.

But even setting Bill aside, Sasha thought that Zephyr would have to cross her cold dead body before she let him manipulate Yoko’s sense of Justice and take her away from them.

“What about Dr. Indigo?” Asked Ricky, knowing that the main reason why Bill left Sasha behind was to watch over the mad biologist.

Answering decisively, Sasha answered before she hung up the snail: “Both he and that red ape are coming with us.”

Unknown to her, after another two weeks of sailing Yoko stood on the deck of the Flying Nimbus as Sabaody Archipelago came into view.

Towing two ships behind them, she scanned the horizon with Akisu before excitedly tapping hard on his shoulder: “Look look! A pirate!”