The Marine

Sitting in the Captains quarters of the [M.S.S Victory] Ranse told himself to remain calm, but the anxiety in his heart could not help but grow with each passing day.

It had been two and a half weeks since Nelson had reported to him that [New Haven] had lost all communications with Bill and the crew that he had taken with him; and every day that news didn’t arrive forced speculations into the young Captains mind.

‘Could Bill really have been KIA?’

‘That’s impossible.’ Were what Ranse’s instincts told him.

While gossip on the Commodore’s personal strength was favorite pastime for nearly every serviceman in their Department, Sasha and he more-or-less knew the extent of Bill’s power.

Or at least, they knew enough to know that unless Bill was targeted by a Marine Admiral or Pirate Emperor there was no chance that he would not be able to escape with his life intact.

Yet as so often happens when a person worries for a period of time, Ranse could not help but think of ever more extreme circumstances that could overcome even Bill’s extraordinary strengths.

And in that list of considerations there was one fear more than anything other that Ranse could not easily dismiss, that was: ‘What if Yoko was taken hostage again?’

He had been there during the raid on [Hannabal Island] and had seen firsthand that Bill would sacrifice himself without question if it came down to the little girl that he had taken in.

On one hand, Ranse resented Yoko for what happened that day, but on the other hand, he understood that Bill loved the girl like a father and so had not overstepped his bounds by bringing that situation up again.

But now with no communications forthcoming he couldn’t simply dismiss the dreadful thought, and to make matters worse, while he sailed to defend [Loguetown], Sasha found herself waylaid time and time again.

At least when it came to the swordswoman there was frequent communication, however, the worrying fact was that the war raging in the [New World] was beginning to boil over into [Paradise] and the three [Blues].

Despite Whitebeards forces being currently contained on the other side of the [Red Line], the amount of Marine manpower to make sure that the fighting stayed over there had drained [Paradise] of virtually all veteran hands.

[Marineford] had turned into a beehive of activity – even going so far as summoning the Warlords, Ranse learned according to Sasha – and to make up for the vast gaps in regular patrols, surveillance, and other duties [Fleet Admiral Sengoku] had given an unthinkable order to redeploy huge numbers of North, South, and West Blue Marines from their home bases into Paradise.

At least, Ranse thought, the [East Blue] was not affected by the general redeployment order. Sengoku apparently did have their crisis in mind – to a small degree anyway.

Still, due to the bureaucratic inefficiency of rebasing so many tens of thousands Marines, many less ‘critical’ areas were just simply left without any Marine presence at all.

This general shortage of manpower, combined with new faces guarding new areas, and the general skill imbalances between the Blues and Paradise, was precisely what had kept Sasha preoccupied.

Time and again, the swordswoman would be making her way to [New Haven] only to get distress calls from islands forcing her and her squadron to turn around and provide help. Every single time that Ranse received a message from Ricky that they were being delayed added another burden to his growing list.

Rubbing his face and getting up, since he knew [Loguetown] was near, Ranse told himself that he needed to settle this giant monster as soon as possible and get back to [New Haven] himself.

If the unthinkable had truly happened, the cowboy Captain resolved himself to bring back whatever remains of his friend existed and see Justice brought to bear on the devil responsible for all this death.

Walking out of his office, he heard a feminine voice walking towards him: “I’ve just spoke to Captain Saxe, Loguetown has four frigates and two cruisers awaiting our arrival.”

Nodding his head to her, Ranse just quietly said: “That’ll do then.” Before making his way to the bow of the ship and leaning on the railing.

Staring off into the distance, it wasn’t long before the first uninhabited island came into view. Loguetown, similar to most settlements located outside of Kingdoms, sat on just one island that was inside a small cluster of islands.

The reason for this was simple, unless people had access to a Kingdom-sized piece of land then resources would need to be economized. For much of this archipelago world the best way to do that was to rotate where raw resources, primarily timber, were harvested from.

At this moment though, Ranse was not thinking about local economics, instead he was looking for the squadron from the Marine Base at Loguetown.

Despite having been in near constant communication with the new Captain stationed here, Ranse’s first thought was that it was good that there were no signs of fire. The monstrous lizard had arrived in the area an entire week before he could make it here, and witnessing the extinction of Orange Town was already more than enough.

Furling their main sails, the M.S.S Victory slowly led the way followed by the frigates [Web Panic] and [Flying Mink] – commanded by Willy and Musatobi respectively.

Already given their orders all three ships had the [King Cannons] unlocked and [Iron Wardens] on standby.

Given the serious nature of the reports they had, if there was anything to look forward to it was simply that this wyvern hadn’t any army of mutated beasts with it.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before that notion was turned completely on its head.

Having first met up with the naval forces of Captain Saxe, the M.S.S Victory led the way as they closed in on the island where the Loguetown Marines claimed the wyvern to be roosting.

Coming up slowly on one of the smaller islands, a mere 10km from the city itself, Ranse was first to spot what looked like an undulating yellow hill but definitely not the last as the ship slowly broke into hushed whispers.

With Fia to his left and Pearson to his right, Ranse narrowed his eyes, lifted up his Communication Snail, and spoke to the men and women of the Science Division: “Alright, wipe your chins. We knew it was gonna be a high binder one way or the other, and now aint the time to turn yellow.”

Having been trained that the best way to alleviate fear was to issue direct orders, he continued: “Gunners, get in position and put that behemoth in your sights. Then wait for my order, it’s so big I won’t take it good if any of y’all miss.”

Just going off what he could see from the distance, it was legitimately hard to believe that this creature was a living being and was beyond the size of any animal Ranse had ever seen. ‘Well, maybe some sea kings.’ He reasoned, but whatever the case, it was clearly out of the scope of any of the Beetleborgs or panther Minks and so all fighting would be done from a distance.

About the time that he given those orders, a Snail in Fia’s hands started to ring and on answering it, it changed into the likeness of a dark-haired Marine wearing studded earrings.

“Captain Saxe, perfect timing.” Ranse slightly nodded, but then waited as the Captain reiterated his concerns.

“Now, I’m grateful that you answered our distress call. Real grateful…” he started before adding: “but one Galleon isn’t going to be nearly enough… Captain McGrew, should we not wait for further reinforcements? I…I mean, it’s very big and maybe if we don’t do anything it’ll go away on its own.”

Looking at the cowboy-hat wearing Snail, ‘Captain’ Maurice de Saxe was tense while waiting for Ranse’s answer.

Like Bill, it was never Ranse’s style to berate others unnecessarily, and thinking that this ‘hill’ didn’t look nearly as dangerous as Bascud had claimed, Ranse said as gently as he could that it was impossible to turn back now. Not only because it was irresponsible to do so, but because his convoy could not stay long in the area.

“Just ready your cannon and follow our lead.” Ranse said with a kind of niceness that didn’t actually allow for dissent.

Hanging up the Snail, Ranse looked to Fia and Pearson and asked if they were ready – ignoring Pearson’s intense sweating, he smiled at Fia, who rolled her eyes before jumping into the air and morphing into a sleeker version of the revolver she had turned into weeks before.

With his finger on the Fia’s trigger, Ranse unconsciously twirled the revolver around on his finger and laughing off Fia’s protests he spoke into the Snail: “Line formation!”

With the Victory at the center, the seven ships line up their broadsides towards the large ‘hill’ and adjusting his hat, Ranse ordered: “Fire!”

Instantly six loud booms were heard followed by six lines of black smoke, after another couple of seconds some thirty other smaller shots were heard fired by Captain Saxe’s vessels.

Watching the lines of smoke zero in on the hill, Ranse was assured the fight was already over.

To this point the [King Cannons] had never failed to perform their purpose and had even been instrumental in destroying the giant Moth which attacked Frauce Kingdom. After all, they were designed to be island destroyers themselves when they were created years ago by the Clockwork Island engineers. They were so powerful that the pirate Bear King had intended to use them to conquer the East Blue.

So, when the shells hit, and enormous amounts black smoke billowed out from the impact, Ranse was sure their job was more or less done.

Turning sideways, he made to say something to Pearson but was cut off by vibrating rumbles that made his eyes widen and the ocean itself shake.

*Hsss-graaar*

*Grrrrrk*

Turning his head back to the smoke that still covered the entire area, Ranse couldn’t help but to gulp when he heard the deepest rumble of them all.

*Brrrrooowwwwl*

Through the blackened smoke, two horned draconic heads emerged. One bloodied but otherwise fully intact. Even from a great distance away the heads were at least three times higher in the sky than any Giant that Ranse had ever come across.

Eying the naval ships with undisguised ferocity, a sudden gust of wind kicked up shaking the ships from side to side – almost directly sinking the smaller cruisers; and steadying himself Ranse saw that the black smoke was mostly dissipated and revealed the true size and shape of the monster.

It was a three headed wyvern of immense proportions, mostly yellow in color besides the splotches of red here and there were the King Cannons struck. It had sharp talons on the ends of its leathery wings, and visible even from a great distance away were two trunk-like legs that by themselves were clearly larger than most citizens of Elbaf.

Scanning the creature, Ranse looked up at the third, central, head that was peacocked high in the sky and realized that it was looking directly at him.

Momentarily intimidated, it was Fia who broke the trance that he was under when she telepathically called: “What are you waiting for!?”

Her call coincided with a rib-cage shattering roar that came from the three heads simultaneously and seeing the thing hunch down Fia telepathically yelled again: “Don’t let it fly!”

Snapped back into reality, Ranse nodded and hollered: “Break Formation!” loud enough for the entire force to hear, then he followed it by taking a few steps back before charging and roaring again: “SKY RIDER!”

Combining his mastery of Shave and Moon Step, Ranse was well equipped for airborne combat, but unlike Bill who had a seeming endless supply of stamina, Ranse knew he had to end the fight as soon as possible.

Behind him, the Science Division ships were the first to break their line formation but for the East Blue navy, those Marines stood dumbfounded as they watched Ranse skip across the air in a zig-zag pattern and watched in awe when they heard him shout out “Big Iron!” followed by five consecutive ‘bangs’ from the large pistol he was holding.

Seeing his five shots having little overall impact on the draconic monster Ranse got even closer, barely dodging under one of the heads and delivering a sideways kick that incorporated his mastery of Tempest Kick with his own flair.

“[ROAN STRIKE]!”

This did draw blood, but only a mere scratch in the grand scheme of things.

Landing on the wyvern’s leg after that attack, Ranse didn’t even try to attack it but instead had to dodged yet again when a whip-like spiked tail came hurling his way.

For what seemed like a long time, Ranse found himself shooting, kicking, but mostly dodging as he put maximum effort into making sure the draconic creature didn’t take off in the air. He could last for a very long time while fighting on land, but the fact was that the sky weren’t no place for a cowboy.

Like a stinging bee, he only aimed for where the shots would hurt the most. He aimed for nostrils, ear holes, the mouth, and eyes.

Instinctively knowing he would never win this way, it was apparent to Pearson, Willy, and Musatobi too when they decided to fire on the monster again with the King Cannon.

With no way to tell Ranse about it though, they waited for as long as they could before deciding it was ‘now or never’.

Launching another ‘Roan Strike!’ Ranse saw six lines of black smoke coming his way and immediately heard Fia yell: “GET DOWN!”

Doing just that, the young Captain ignored the shot he was about to take and grunted as he put his maximum effort into getting behind the behemoth.

Just making it just in time to the other side, the wyvern was hit dead center by the six shells and roared in pain and anger.

For Ranse, even he was affected by the shock-waves produced by the explosions yet had no time to recover when he saw the creature’s wings expand outwards.

If before the monsters beating wings caused enough wind to shake the sea, by now it was so angry that its wings beat so hard as to cause tsunami-sized waves.

And for the first time, the citizens in Loguetown saw the effects of the battle that they had been able to hear for the last couple of hours when those waves crashed onto the shore – destroying everything in their path.

For Captain Saxe’s part, he and his ships had never left the direct area but had followed the lead of the Science Divisions ships by ordering his ships to not fire again. The Frauce Kingdom native had only ever heard of battles like these in stories and had hardly believed to be witnessing one firsthand.

But to credit his courage, when the Science Division ships fired, he ordered his men to do the same – regardless of how inadequate his cannons were.

For Ranse, it was a bitter pill to swallow that through the battle he had only been able to cause the monster to bleed. There was a river of blood, and each of the monster’s side heads were missing an eyeball, but in the grand scheme of things the battle was only just beginning.

Unable to prevent the wings from flapping, Ranse put his head down, cocked Fia’s trigger, and yelled: “[Bronco BUSTER]!”

Starting with a series of kicks, Ranse targeted the neck of the left head and when the thing cricked inwards he pushed his assault.

Now firing beams of light besides iron bullets, Fia was also putting in her best effort by drawing not only from her own willpower, but also somehow tapping into Ranse’s.

Breaking through scales harder than any steel, Ranse subconsciously dodged right and left away from giant teeth and swinging tails until with a roar of his own he shouted: “[HIGH NOON]!”

Then, like the sun sitting high in the sky, a light shown from Fia’s barrel punching through the gaping wound – clear to the other side.

With the large neck and head dropping to the ground, this time the draconic beast roared from pure pain. Cheers from the Marines watching the battle were quickly turned into gasps however when the loss of one head seemed to strengthen the others.

Before the fight had been completely physical, but no sooner than Ranse had slain one head did the others start to coat themselves in yellow lightning.

Tired, but still able to go on, Ranse didn’t retreat but punched off one of the giant tails when it came to strike him. Numbed from the mere touch of the tail, Ranse turned and tried to dodge but was bodied by a giant wing that knocked him into the distance.

The wind caused from these movements were equivalent to localized natural disasters. By now the entire coastline of Loguetown had been evacuated and though the harbor still barely remained intact, it didn’t seem like it would last for much longer.

Hit squarely for the first time had hurt the cowboy Captain a lot, but gritting his teeth he kept battling until he was hit a second and third time.

From the ships, the three Commanders saw Ranse’s predicament and the second time Ranse was hit they started to finally launch the Iron Wardens. Jumping into full mobilization the Flying Squirrel Minks fired up their jet-packs and had their sniper rifles fully loaded while the gunner crews set up for a full bombardment of King Cannon fire.

Hit for a third time before reinforcements could make it in time, numbed from the ambient electrical energy as he was, Ranse could barely avoid being skewed alive by the wyvern’s tail.

Falling to the ground, not totally powerless but in need of breathing space, he was saved when twenty .50 caliber auto-cannons opened up at close range and several dozen snipers were unleashed from over 300 meters away.

Peppered by ammunition of this size naturally didn’t wound the enraged wyvern but did buy Ranse enough time to get down while another round of [King Cannon] fire began.

Urged by Fia to move, Ranse borrowed some of her willpower and hunkered down just far enough away to weather the bombardment of shells that came one after another.

Forced to move by the fact that the ground under his butt was breaking apart, Ranse had counted no less than 20 shells having been fired – more than enough to destroy the tiny island that the draconic bird had been roosting on.

With a ‘huff’ he stood up just in time for there to be a single massive roar and for the ground to break away under his feet.

In a cloud of black smoke that was so massive that not even the beating of giant wings could fully disperse it, a one headed shadow was lit up by crackles of electricity and heard across the island chain by the claps of thunder accompanied by it.

So high in the sky that even regular humans on Loguetown could make out the startling sight, one person just frowned and told his small crew to keep filming.

“But Bascud, shouldn’t you go help him?” asked one red headed woman anxiously.

But for the former bounty hunter, he just looked at her as if she was crazy and replied sharply: “And how the hell am I supposed to do that, Jill?! I told him this monster was potentially D.I 1!”

This was not just cowardice on Bascud’s part. The man himself had grown stronger over the past couple years, but that was in relative terms.

The fact was, Bascud clearly knew, to defeat a superhuman you needed a superhuman of equal or greater power. He could perhaps subdue a 50m Beli bounty pirate, but against the monster threatening Loguetown that didn’t matter whatsoever.

The most he could do was document the battle and regardless of the outcome spin the story in a favorable light for his employer. Currently his informants had informed him of the identity of two other impossibly powerful monsters in the East Blue and neither one was being handled well.

There was a giant ape that was being fought off by the [Revolutionary Army], at great costs of life by all reports, and a giant bipedal lizard who had already destroyed most of [Oykot Kingdom] including a Marine task force brought to bear on it.

Using a high-powered lens, Bascud scanned the area for Ranse and when he saw the cowboy, he breathed a sigh of relief. After all, even if he couldn’t do anything to physically help, he did want his comrade to win.

As for Ranse, when the ground broke underneath him, he closed his eyes and felt where the monster was and even formed an outline of it in his head.

With only a single head left the beast was even more powerful but since there was no turning back, he could only go and stop it before it reached the ships.

Jumping into a virtual tornado, Ranse jumped off the air that wanted to push him back down and opened fire.

[High Noon!]

With beams of light and crackling lightning, the blackened cloud cast long shadows of two beings fighting back and forth.

It was man versus monster, and even from Loguetown the people could look up and follow along with what was happening. With a sense of hope in their hearts they cheered for the man who they didn’t know but watched in suspense as the small figure seemed to be slowing down.

By now, Ranse had been fighting for over 5 hours against a monster of unprecedented scale for the East Blue. A monster that would have been a hegemon in most places even in the [New World].

Now, high in the sky, he held Fia tightly but was almost out of gas. He could feel it, and the people watching could see it.

He could no longer use [Sky Rider] efficiently and when the one headed wyvern pushed forward, he was unable to dodge its tail fully.

Slapped in the midsection by the side of a horn, Ranse was lucky that he wasn’t instantly killed, but also unlucky in that he could do nothing but fall to the ground.

Seeing through bleary eyes, barely an inch from death, he looked at his empty hand – confused for just a moment until he realized that he was missing something important.

No, he realized, not just some important. He was missing the most important thing in his life.

As Ranse looked around wearily, gasps and cries could be heard across the Science Divisions ships and even on the islands below.

But while everyone was gasping for the falling Captain, one man was gasping for something else.

Pearson had loved Fia since the day he saw her on [Hannabal Island]. During that traumatic experience, in his eyes she had been a beautiful Valkyrie who brought light back to a blood-stained world.

His later realization that he would never have her for himself had been devastating, but as sometimes does happen, his love was pure and in his own heart he had decided that as long as she was happy that would be enough for him.

Of course, he tried to find fault with the man who she loved, but the cowboy’s natural charisma had been enough to turn even his most natural enemy into a friend, and so Pearson could only silently anguish and wonder why he couldn’t have met the woman in his heart first.

Knowing fully that if Fia fell into the sea that she was going to die, and that if Ranse could not defeat the draconic monster in front of them then they would all be following her, something ticked inside Pearson and for the first time he stuck out a hand and said: “[Warp Walk].”

Suddenly, nearly a kilometer away, a shimmering portal opened up below Fia who was still in the shape of a revolver and above Ranse who was hurling down to the ocean.

Instantly drawn to the sight above him, the first thing Ranse saw was the girl he had known for more than half his life, and he had never been so happy.

Despite his weary feeling, this time when Fia fell into his hands two hearts united and extending her way up his arm and over his shoulders, Fia morphed into something that clearly stretched the boundaries of what a ‘Cannon’ should be.

With the complete merging of their wills and a giant cannon on his arm, Ranse’s weary eyes opened wide and stopping his fall he yelled loud enough for the surrounding island to hear: “[SKY RIDER]!”

Then, looking eye-to-eye with the draconic bird, the metallic cannon lit up with the ferocity of a star and he yelled once more: “[LONE STAR: TOMBSTONE]!”

Covering their eyes, people from miles around only saw a bright light followed by the crashing down of a headless monster of impossible size and a tiny speck who was their [Hero].

Capturing every moment of this was Bascud, who had an amazed smile on his face, could only think: “I can work with this.”