The Marine

Aramaki left New Haven the day after the celebration, and over the next three months Bill was placed into the role of part negotiator, part engineer, part scientist, and part humanoid heavy equipment.

After surveying around Shiki’s main Headquarters, there had been serious discussion whether or not to move their main base of operations to that island.

After all, Shiki’s main island had not only a huge, fortified, stone fortress that was full of moderately advanced technology, but there was also a very expansive harbor and drydock where his armada’s fleet could go to port.

With the ‘Zoo’ cleared out of monstrous beasts there were immense benefits of the island, but in the end, New Haven remained their main island due to two main consideration.

Firstly, and most notably, it already had the fusion reactor installed and disassembling it would not only take months but carried the risk of damaging it.

Secondly, [New Haven] was where the peoples’ hearts were, and they didn’t wish to leave their home for simple comforts – especially when they were all confident that New Haven would be remade even better than it had been before.

With that said, once Sasha and her small fleet returned to the island, Merveille’s former main island was thoroughly plundered for any and all useful materials.

Most of the island’s facilities constituted simple machinery and stone buildings and thus wouldn’t be relocated to New Haven, but nothing would go unused, and in the future, it was decided that Shiki’s former Headquarters would be the central location for the Procurement Departments recruit training center.

Or what would be dubbed [I.N.F.E.R.N.O Haven].

The so-called [Island Nexus for Fearless Expedition, Readiness, and Nightmarish Organism Training] was Bill’s answer to having his Special Operators trained for whatever may come their way.

It was envisioned that the newly dubbed [Inferno Haven] would be the center for his Departments military weapons research, and in general where classes of recruits would be stationed while they did their regular three-to-five-month training program.

As grand as all of that sounded, for Bill and his Lieutenants it wasn’t that big of a leap.

Bill had long been appalled by the horrific losses that the Marines suffered, and as their Department had expanded into the East Blue, even before the [Beast Wave] it was a massive headache to send classes of scores of trainees to New Haven.

Sure, in New Haven they learned plenty taught in books and were drilled relentlessly, but in terms of survival training, clearly the safety of New Haven would never be able to account for real-life scenarios.

This work was time-consuming but was seen as necessary since even in its current nascent form, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Bill’s Department would have the best Marine Recruit training grounds in the world.

The reason for this bold claim was simple, after removing the giant monstrous beasts inside Shiki’s Zoo Bill had repopulated [Inferno Haven] with several species of mid-sized beasts that would provide invaluable training targets.

More than that though, he added several ‘King Beasts’ which would each have their own territories. Some of those so-called Kings were not even animals but were various kinds of man-eating plants.

The fact was that the other landmasses would eventually be cleared of their EvoBeast population to allow human settlements, but [Inferno Haven] would always remain wild and would be a so-called ‘death island’ for a long time to come.

Letting nature determine its own course, Bill had more or less settled the issue revolving around their future training ground and thought proudly that his Departments’ Mates Third Class would be better trained than most Marine Junior Lieutenants.

Sure, they would never be given the appropriate rank compared to those graduating from other institutions, but as Bill saw it, he could offer land from the new lands surrounding New Haven.

Whereas before New Haven was pretty much topping out in terms of sustainable population, now they only inhabited a tiny fraction of the newly available land area.

In other words, if before a 15,000 persons population of New Haven was something they had to make great plans for, now their population could easily surpass 150,000 without them having to even consider it!

Of course, over those three months of building, Bill didn’t dream about New Haven suddenly becoming a metropolis.

During that time, he only ‘dreamed’ about three things.

Firstly, he wanted the 1,000,000,000 Beli Bounty for Shiki – which Marineford was dragging their feet on.

Secondly, he wanted Ranse to hurry back with the M.S.S. Victory – which was loaded with manufacturing equipment bought at great expense.

Thirdly, he wanted Sentomaru to stop stonewalling and have Vegapunk personally contact him – something that irritated him more and more which each passing day.

Each of these issues were annoyances that he lived with constantly, even for Ranse, who Bill knew was coming, it was frustrating to have an island full of engineers and other high-value laborers but nothing to really put their expertise to.

In the end, because he had no other options, Bill just thought that on the bright side the new city layout was going to be done with expert precision.

Years ago, Bill had reclaimed a large piece of land to add Marine barracks and other prefabrication facilities, and due to this, the previous layout New Haven had a somewhat disorganized look.

It was understandable given that the island had grown from a small population of several hundred people to housing over ten thousand permanent residents in the span of a few short years.

But now it would be different, the new city would be not only more beautiful and more organized, but there were also significant efforts put into its defenses.

With rows of foundations being put in place, the levee system and water towers would be expanded to support many times more people than before.

This was possible now that they didn’t need to use the upper levels for grain, fruit, and wool production – those industries could but moved to the newly acquired lands.

The nearness of those islands was both a blessing and a curse.

A curse because it was their very nearness to New Haven was the reason why the tidal waves could destroy the lower levels of the island, but a blessing because now New Haven had a kingdom’s worth of land area to develop.

Sure, that land area was off the coast and not connected via bridges, but it was still easily within distance for Bill to foresee a future where a system of ferries could be used to transport people and goods at routine times.

Working diligently and following along to the new city grid, progress was being steadily made.

While work was constantly ongoing, Bill had to take time to deal with the few hundred prisoners taken from Shiki’s crew.

Most of these poor sods were little more than slave soldiers, and though Bill would put them to work on [INFERNO Haven] as cooks, housekeepers, gardeners, and the like for a period of years, he wouldn’t go overboard and directly execute them.

But then, there were those in Shiki’s Fleet who had survived but were not slave soldiers.

This list amounted to exactly 13 individual pirates who had substantial bounties with known records, and while he would be turning them in for the much-needed Beli, there were two among these that had left him and his lieutenants at a loss.

These were naturally the giant red gorilla [Scarlet] and mad biochemist [Dr. Indigo].

The case of Scarlet was somewhat simpler than Dr. Indigo’s, after all, Scarlet hadn’t actually killed a single Marine – though he had attempted to kill Masterson and Nelson and would have been successful if not for the sacrifice of five valuable [Iron Wardens].

It was Scarlet was the one who had ‘apprehended’ Dr. Indigo at Yoko’s orders and was sincere in his pledge of loyalty to the one he called his ‘Queen’.

Furthermore, it was discovered that Scarlet was in fact just a very ‘evolved’ Del Kong. He was sentient enough to know right from wrong and human-like morals, but in many ways still acted on his animal instinct.

Then lastly, Bill couldn’t easily overlook the fact that Scarlet himself was about as powerful as a low-level Vice Admiral.

If the red gorilla knew [Haki] Bill figured he would be closer to a mid-level Vice Admiral, but in this world except for those very few like Bill himself, it was hard to be very powerful without Haki support.

Putting the fate of Scarlet aside, who would probably be taken onboard as a ‘pet’, there was Dr. Indigo who presented some very tangible pros, along with the massive con that being a ‘mad biochemist’ could entail.

Firstly, as expected in a way, Indigo himself had been the model of a proper prisoner. He only spoke when spoken to and otherwise kept quiet and clean.

For Bill this was a minor thing, but it did at least show the mad Doctor was not so insane that he couldn’t read a room.

And in the vein, of course, the major pro behind Dr. Indigo was the idea of having a super genius-level biologist at his beck and call.

The Doctor himself made this proposition very evident, according to the clown himself, he wanted to push the boundaries of biological research and only used what tools he had available.

Shiki would never let him go, so he claimed, and because the SIQ did show miraculous effects, he of course would use it!

But he was also quick to point out that he had a great love in medicine and was open to the challenge of ‘solving human weakness through holistic and natural means.’

For a clown who acted like a pantomime half the time, Bill discovered that Indigo indeed had a way with words.

Through the many interrogations with Dr. Indigo, Bill would read his thoughts and knew that Indigo absolutely did not want to go to [Impel Down].

Not because the clown was afraid of the pain or loss of freedom, no, it was because Dr. Indigo didn’t want to stop research!

For a trail run, when Sasha had returned, Bill had Dr. Indigo work with Miyagi on his ‘Miracle Drug’.

The Goat Mink, who had been the Department’s first member outside of the original five, was now just a year away from serving out his contract and had let it be known that he had to return to Zou once it was done.

This was a bitter pill for the others, but it was known that as a doctor, Miyagi held a significant position on his home island and if not for Zunesha’s wandering it would not have been possible for him to have been away for as long as he had been.

The mink was still the Departments best medical expert, and Bill chose to use the Mink’s valuable time to test Indigo rather than continuously training their medical Doctors and Surgeons.

As the saying goes there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen, and one morning, out of the blue, Bill received a [Carrier Bat] and a call from Vegapunk in tandem.

The [Carrier Bat] that held onto a golden hard drive, and on this hard drive, according to Vegapunk, was his research into several avenues of technology.

Ranging from [Light-Pressure Gloves] which allowed the wearing to physically touch light particles, to [Warping] which was a form of teleportation by bending space, to [Non-Solid Gates] and [Bubble Shields] which created shielding based on two separate concepts, Vegapunk told Bill that he could have whatever research he wished to pursue.

And hearing this, Bill naturally questioned the morality of Clone Soldiers, to which Vegapunk directly denied existed and hung up the snail.

Dumbfounded by this, Bill was in a rage, but then later on when he went through the golden hard drive sent to him, he discovered the topic of cloning clearly described.

But instead of applications for cloning whole bodies, this was research for cloning body parts through a device called [Organoid].

This type of cloning only used a person’s own DNA, which Bill wasn’t against it, but now wondered if Vegapunk had planned for all of this or not.

In fact, despite himself, Bill found the golden hard drive to consist of only ‘relevant’ research and so questioned what the old doctor was actually trying to accomplish.

But what could he do other than use the tools he was given?

Even if the Warping was not totally worked out, wouldn’t it give him the power to move items around New Haven?

Wasn’t the word ‘defense’ on the lips of every engineer in New Haven, and wouldn’t they be able to use the Non-Solid Gates and Bubble Shields for that very purpose?

Henzo would go wild when he saw Vegapunks research for [Giant Mecha].

Some of the research given didn’t seem to be that useful, but those topics made Bill even more suspicious.

Well one thing was for sure given this new reality, against protests from Ranse and Nelson, Bill moved Dr. Indigo to [Inferno Haven] where the genius doctor would start looking over the research for the [Organoid] as well as natural means to enhance their Marines.

Six months after the attack, Ranse finally arrived with the M.S.S. Victory with a load of disassembled machines needed to restart the industrial capacity of New Haven.

For now, they would have to rely on orders for the raw materials needed to rebuild the city, but with every foundation already in place, even a layman could see that New Haven would grow straight up from the ground.

In the end, people with hope are the most resilient creatures to ever exist and having crossed the most dangerous period for their island, looking ahead they believed in their hearts that they were standing at the start of a golden age.

As for Bill himself, when Ranse arrived in port with his massive shipment, he was calibrating the Fusion Reactor so that one day it would power up a massive island-wide [Non-Solid Gate] which would allow for movement out but would allow nothing to come inside.

The survivors of the attack had pledged that never again would they have to be caught flat-footed by an outside attacker and this was just one of several ways Bill was determined to see that carried out.