The Marine

Laying on the side of a hill, looking up at the stars, Bill sighed thinking how wrong his prediction of ‘two days’ had been.

Though the village of just over 1,400 seemed like a tight-nit community, years of living in fear of Shiki and having monsters at their doorsteps had caused some of the people to completely disregard any hope of being able to leave.

And in that mindset, not only had they been resistant to the topic of fleeing, but some people expressed outrage that it even be brought up.

Trying to lessen their fears, while [Hollandaise] was doing his part at the fortress, Bill secretly met with one family group after another to try and convince them to leave.

He was able to convince many of them, but even using his [Thought Reading] to try and come up with the best responses he could, some people were just unable to take that first step – having thoroughly become frightened slaves they did not know the language or the ideas of anything else.

Now that time had run out and they were starting to leave at sunrise it was with a heavy heart that he lay looking up at the beautiful night sky.  The night sky in this world had always been beautiful but on these floating island the stars were so clear that it felt like he could just reach out and touch them.

He lay like that for a while then, just as he was about to close his eyes, a curious blinking light caught his attention.

For the first moment of watching this blinking light just there high above him, Bill didn’t think much of it, but then, startled by a memory of more than 70 years old, Bill jumped to his feet and stared wide-eyed. Truly dumbfounded for the first time.

‘A satellite?!’ he thought, and then, quickly bending down, he pulled a fist-sized chunk of stone from the ground and briefly wondered if he should try and hit it.

Born in the 1930’s on [Earth], Bill had been a part of the groups of Americans who had watched [Sputnik] fly over. Though he later learned his fears were unfounded at that time; the fear of an electronic spy watching him never quite left the back of his mind.

Watching whatever the thing was pass overhead, Bill would never know that in some place at the top of the world there stood an exalted being who was watching him back.

With a [crown of antennas] sticking out from the top of its ‘head’ the being focused its electric eyes on Bill, and calculated the chance that the man would throw the stone in his hands.

‘30%...26%....18%....’ and so on, until it ruled out the possibility of being attacked. Then, with Bill’s face logged in its memory, it summoned five elderly men and ordered them to find out more about this person.

After seeing the satellite, Bill was unnerved but still laid down to rest. Closing his eyes, he was awoken by the first light that peeked over the wide horizon.

Not dwelling on what he had seen the night before, he got up without the need to stretch or orient himself and went to rouse his Marines.

No living creature liked the smell of the [Daft Green Tree], but for Minks it was especially bad.

Having blocked their noses in all manners of ways, the otherwise fearsome troop of howler monkeys looked rather comical as they stumbled to their feet, so affected by the smell that they almost looked drunk.

Yoko and Adelle were also affected but to a lesser degree, with was especially the case for the auburn-haired Yoko who would always try to put up a strong face in front of anyone – that is, in front of everyone besides Bill, who, when she wasn’t getting her way, believed tears to work better than arguments or negotiations.

It didn’t take long to wake everyone up, then started the much longer process of preparing those who would be leaving. Bill knew it would be a hard day, since even with his mastery of [Moon Step] lifting hundreds and hundreds of people through the air for hours would take a lot of stamina.

The plan was to steal the ships that very night. They only need to hide the people for the day, and by then Hollandaise would have set up the parachutes and off on their way they would go.

As an extra diversion, Bill had set a timer for the [Mind] to destroy the [Daft Green] trees around Shiki’s Headquarters.

In the confusion that would certainly result, he would see the people and his Marines to safety before returning alone to finish off the Flying Pirate.

And that was how it should have been.

But a couple of hours before noon, when the first group of the [Merveillians] were all packed and ready to head off, a shadow covered the entire town.

At this same moment, walking out of a rundown house near the lake that supplied water to the community, Bill looked up and saw a gigantic flat slab of stone floating down at an angle which blotted out the sun.

And he wasn’t the only one, but whereas the people panicked, and Yoko and the Marines quickly reached for whatever weapons they had, he just watched and thought that someone had ratted them out.

He wasn’t mad, not really.

The fact was, he had read these people’s thoughts and not one of them thought about informing Shiki the entire time, and that had made him more complacent than he otherwise might have been.

But after sitting on the information for a while, someone must have changed their mind.

At the end of the day, Bill figured he had just unreasonably expected that these people would act the same as those residents from [Clockwork Island] had.

But unlike those residents of [Clockwork Island], who had been under the thumb of [Bear King] for less than ten years, these people had been captive slaves of Shiki for over two decades while always being at the mercy of sickness, monsters, and starvation.

He had been ratted out, and standing there, Bill made the decision that he would never search for the person who had done it. He would only do what he could now.

Steeling himself, he thought about whether or not he should go ahead and start subjugating the pirates, but hearing the terrified cries from behind, decided to try to negotiate first.

In practically no time at all the stone slab hovered slightly off to the side of the town, still within the border created by the [Daft Green] trees but far enough away that the stone couldn’t just fall on the people now fleeing to the other side of area.

“Jihahahaha!”

Laughing loud enough for the entire area to hear him, Shiki showed finally himself and spoke deeply: “Now now, pathetic Marine, did you really think I wouldn’t learn of your schemes?”

Giving out another laugh, Shiki raised his right hand and from the giant slab of stone emerged [Hollandaise], beaten so badly that if Bill hadn’t recognized the scraps of clothing left on the old man’s body, then perhaps, he wouldn’t have even recognized him at all.

Thinking quickly that the informant may not have been in the village after all, Bill listed as Shiki continued to speak: “I think that you’d better be at choosing your conspirators next time, eh? Jihahaha!”

And as he spoke, Yoko and the rest of the Marines were rushing to stand behind Bill. With roughly 60 altogether, there were a scant 25 armed with any kind of rifle and with every monkey Mink armed with a martial weapon.

Undeterred by this, Shiki began insulting the Marines and expounded his ideas to change the world.

With one mind on the civilians behind them, Bill just let Shiki talk, until the Flying Pirate dismissed the notion to explain any further to ‘dead men’.

Now his turn to speak in a voice loud enough for everyone in the area to hear, Bill purposely spoke deeper and louder when he said: “Shiki, you are charged with numerous crimes but today does not have to be your last. Allow me to take these people away safely, and until I come back you can enjoy freedom!

But more importantly…” Bill said looking up: “You can take the time to better prepare yourself. Raise your defenses and gather your strengths. Think carefully, if you let these people go now, you will still have time left. How about it?”

To Bill’s serious suggestion, Shiki laughed yet again, and in defiance threw Hollandaise in the Marines directions.

“Yoko, catch him!” shouted Bill just loud enough to be heard by the nearby Marines, then, bending his knees the land cratered as he took off into the air.

Breaking the sound barrier and more, there were audible pops as Bill crossed the distance between Shiki and him in mere heartbeats.

Surprised by a level of power that he had no way of knowing Bill possessed, Shiki was nevertheless not a rival of Rogers for nothing and reacted fast enough to attempt to block a fist that radiated with raw power.

However, Bill would never leave it with just one fist and after delivering a powerful right hook he got even closer, throwing an elbow that hit Shiki on the shoulder and sending him tumbling away.

In the brief moment before pursuing the Flying Pirate, Bill was alarmed to see that the hovering slab carried hundreds of people dressed in hazmat suites and dozens of barrels who-knows-what.

Leaving Shiki alone for the time being, Bill shot up high and descending like a meteor roared: “COMET SMASH!!”

While the huge slab of stone fragmented in front of their very eyes, Yoko extended her [Compliant Tree] and manipulated one of the two leaves to grow out and catch Hollandaise. She didn’t know who this person was, but for Bill to want him safe was enough.

Masterson had jumped into action too, seeing that Bill meant to fight seriously, he knew that the battle was not one that they could interfere with and so ordered the Marines to stop gawking at the Commodore and help the civilians to safety.

Safety to where? Masterson hadn’t a clue, but his plan was firm until Toma pointed and shouted out: “Enemies!”

Following the swordsman’s gaze, Masterson saw hundreds of people falling down from where the slab had broken up. Only a couple hundred feet off the ground he still instantly judged that they were likely to never walk again from the shockwave of the hit that Bill created.

And so, in a rare error in judgement, Masterson shouted for the Marines to ignore it and still help the people evacuate further away.

What he couldn’t have known was that Shiki had not been fully dealt with, and after seeing his marauders falling to the ground had enough sense to both fight off both Bill’s terrible speed and strength while ensuring that they landed alive.

They had a job to do, Shiki didn’t care if they died afterwards, but they would do the job. Being bodied over and over again, Shiki was hurting but thanks to [Future Sight] was always able to leave just enough room to get away.

For Bill, the short encounter had been frustrating and after two dozen partial hits decided to just let loose.

With half of his soul tied up, he couldn’t [Nullify] Shiki’s Devil Fruit, but truthfully Bill didn’t think he needed to. Hit after hit, despite the slight alteration after slight alteration, Bill knew that he was going to wear Shiki down eventually.

The Flying Pirate was incredibly agile in the air, but so was Bill, and Shiki’s [Future Sight] could not make up the difference between the 23-year-old Marine Commodore and 60-year-old Legendary Pirate.

Noticing this too, Shiki sneered and flying back at great speed shouted: “You seem to be under the false assumption that we are equals!! But now behold the Lions Strength: EARTHBIND!”

With this said, Bill was hit with an intense smell of ozone, and watched as a mountain rose from the ground, uprooting trees and destroying everything, only to then take the form of dozens of roaring lion heads.

Still with only his [Observation Haki] at his disposal, looking at the sneering Shiki and the scene of destruction all around, Bill knew he was up against a formidable foe.

Against the powers of a Devil Fruit, Future Sight, Swordsmanship, and a host of other not yet seen abilities, Bill decided to a power of his own.

Though it was beyond his abilities to read the future, he was not incapable of fooling around with the notion of ‘time’.

Sucking in air, he spoke the words at a normal speed, but for the others, perceived it as an intelligible high-pitched squeal.

He said: “[Time Warp].”

Like that, the world around him slowed down.