The Marine

One splash had followed another in a somber procession that lasted for several hours.

Burying over 1300 Marines at sea had been a terrible sight for Bill’s crew of new recruits, but being weeks away from the nearest island it was a necessity.

After the burial was over it was nearly dark, the crew dispersed to resume their duties.

Most went to eat dinner, but Spotters, Signalmen, and Mechanics stayed working through the first part of the night before being discharged to get some rest.

The Marine Battleship was nearly 5 times the size of the Frontier Run and it was decided by Bill and Nelson that they would tow it behind them.

This would make their travel much slower, but, given that the ship itself was evidence, they wanted to spend more time searching for any clues they might have missed.

From the documents in the Captains Quarters, they had learned a lot about the vessel.

The ship’s name was the [Sayeed], and the beheaded captain of the vessel was one ‘Commodore Omar Omari’. The crew manifest was long and written with pencil but did give them the ratio of Special Operators to skilled sailors, which was amazingly almost 1 to 1.

This meant that the ‘Sayeed’ had come to the South Blue expecting battle.

‘Well, they got that alright.’ Bill thought to himself.

The battleships safe had been picked by Borodo before Bill could get around to breaking it open and contained 85m Beli in mostly 5000 Beli notes and a letter of commission that detailed orders from Marineford to deliver a package from the South Blue.

Bill didn’t know what the package was, as the commission had only arranged a time for pick up and location for drop off, but he thought that it wouldn’t take a genius to connect the package and the attack.

But for now, that was just speculation.

In terms of his next action Bill decided to start heading to the next island where they would hopefully be able to get a local map. With that map, Borodo would be able to chart a course to the nearest Marine Base.

As for the rest, well, his Medical Bay filled to capacity, and Bill hoped that one of the Marines would wake soon to provide critical details.

Using his Communications Snail to report the attack to Marineford, he was surprised by their questions as to why the [Sayeed] was in the South Blue, and he was additionally surprised when in the middle of his report he was put on hold, and some minutes later, told to just patrol around the area until he received further orders.

And if he saw anything suspicious, report it right away before acting.

Well, he was not going to ‘just patrol around’ – even if he wanted to, his small Frigate would simply not be able to do so while towing a Marine Battleship.

And as for reporting anything before acting, well, Bill thought, that would depend on the situation on the ground.

Despite hardly ever being given orders from either Marineford or Vegapunk, Bill was not anyone’s definition of a ‘maverick’.

Still, he did believe that a commander’s judgement in the field should take precedent over plans drawn up in a ‘war room’ somewhere. If that commander was wrong, then that commander should be ready to accept the consequences.

Working through the next morning, a part of Bill’s crew stripped the Battleship’s sails, fastened the rigging's, and secured the anchor as another part began to clean the deck of debris.

Seeing them perform as well as they did, Nelson proposed a round of bonuses, and Bill agreed.

Just a year ago, nearly each of the 150 Marines on the Frontier Run had been living in [Goa Kingdom] as slum dogs and paupers. Many had never even seen any body of water besides a polluted bay, and none of them had ever set foot on a sailing ship.

But here they were, getting the battleship ready to be towed as they had been taught to on Inferno Haven.

It took most of the morning for the ship to be ready, but eventually, with long mooring cables securing the ship, the Frontier Run unfurled its sails and cast away.

They would use the seastone propellers when needed, but the Frigates of the Procurement Department still primarily relied on wind power.

Slowly sailing one day after the next, besides the Spotters who tended to hang around their posts even when off-duty, the ship had returned to a semblance of normalcy.

The injured Marines began to stir, but so far, the ones strong enough to speak didn’t have much information to share.

They all had the same story that the attack came out of ‘nowhere’, and only two injured Marines claimed to even have gotten a good look at their attackers.

Sitting at his desk, Bill looked at a drawing he had made based on those descriptions and couldn’t tell if this pirate crew was supposed to be hipsters or disco maniacs.

‘Either way…’ he thought while shaking his head: ‘… these descriptions are enough to start narrowing down a list of known pirates. A pirate crew in the South Blue capable of destroying a Marine Battleship and killing an HQ Commodore can’t be large.”

Ready to send communications to South Blue Headquarters, suddenly his door burst open, and without saluting, the female Marine said: “Commodore! There’s an anomaly on the water!”

This particular woman was one of the few ladies who aimed to become a Beetleborg, and needless to say, her words held the weight of a highly regarded Special Operator.

Nodding to her, Bill set the Snail Down and didn’t waste time speaking into his hand device: “Call to Maneuvering Watch.”

It had been three days since sailing away from the spot of the attack, not too short and not too long for them to run into anything that may be roaming the area.

After he raised the alarm he followed the young woman out of his office, asking critical details such as when they had spotted the anomaly and what it was.

The woman said that she had rushed to get him as soon as the Spotter pointed something out on the horizon, and as they were walking very fast, Bill adjusted his eyes and saw the ‘anomaly’ before the Special Operator could say.

‘I’ll see…’ he thought, narrowing his eyes in the process.

There in the distance was a small blond-headed figure riding on top of a big lizard that was running across the water. Adjusting his eyes further, he could tell that this figure was probably female and really did seem to be a little girl.

The time between his call to Maneuvering Watch and identifying the anomaly only took a couple of minutes, but already the deck of the Frontier Run was a bustle of activity as Marines began taking their posts.

Turning around just in time to see Nelson running up to him, Bill didn’t wait and started to order: “Get the men onboard the Sayeed back here now! Prepare to cut the mooring lines and tell Foxy to stand guard on the Crow’s Nest!

And if the Spotters see anything strange, anything strange at all, then quickly call to General Quarters!”

Getting an immediate ‘Righto!’ from Nelson, who spun on his heels and started calling for Foxy right away, Bill leaped off the ship without further hesitation.

On the face of it, his orders may have seemed excessive for a small woman and a bipedal lizard, but if this pair was here, then Bill couldn’t discount the possibility that the attackers could appear over the horizon at any time.

For an enemy capable of killing thousands of Marines without even being seen, Bill didn’t want to leave his ship, but he had hope that with Foxy’s [Slow-Mo Photons], any attacker would be slowed down enough for him to make it back.

But even that was predicated on his own speed, so, with an audible *Boom!* Bill sped towards the lizards at a speed faster than sound.

As he quickly neared his target, Bill could get a better and better view of the girl – which he was now sure was a girl.

She had blond hair and was very, very, thin.

Calling her almost skeletal would not be an exaggeration, accompanied by a disproportionately large head, Bill thought that this girl must be dying of starvation.

So far, she hadn’t looked up and was laying on the lizards back, so when Bill made his way above her and shouted: “Halt!” she seemed startled and after weakly turning her head, she mumbled out loud.

“Oh, another stupid, greedy Marine, che-che-che, but he’s not as greedy as me… I’ll use this one to give me some food, before he’s killed like the others… che… che… che…”

Ignoring her ‘che che che’ laugh, Bill – who was following along with the speed of the water-striding lizard – was about to demand who had ‘killed the others’ when he saw that the girls’ eyes had closed, and given her rhythmic breathing, he knew she was unconscious.

‘Alright then…’ he thought, and in a literal second, he dived down, grabbed the lizard by its serpent-like neck, threw the girl over his shoulder, and headed back to the Frontier Run.

Of course, he couldn’t break the sound barrier while carrying these two, so making his way back to the ship slower than he left, he arrived to see everything as he had ordered.

“Vat’s a nice catch you have vere, Commodore!” shouted Foxy from the Crow’s Nest, to which Bill shouted back for him to keep watch.

Landing on the ships deck he was met by a couple dozen familiar faces and putting the struggling lizard down, he said: “Sit.”

Which, to his mild surprise, actually worked and the lizard stopped squirming and just sat down.

Turning his head to the female Special Operator from before, Bill said: “Get this lizard some water and food, serve it meat first since we don’t know what it can eat.”

With that done, Bill took the girl down into the Medical Bay and had Miyagi insert an IV into her.

The girl was clearly very dehydrated, oddly though, her skin wasn’t cracked from being exposed to the open sky.

She was just sort of ‘dried up’.

Her appearance caused a commotion from the injured Marines, so much so that Bill decided to station a squad of his own crew as guards.

Without having access to both of his souls simultaneously Bill couldn’t easily detect the presence of the Devil Fruit entities, and because he didn’t know what this girl was capable of, naturally she had to be under armed guard anyways.

Telling Miyagi to inform him when the girl woke up, Bill went back to the deck of the ship and began to scan the horizon.

There was nothing there, only a choppy sea, but his gut told him to be wary, and on the off chance, the pupil of Bills left eye grew until it encompassed the entire eyeball.

Able to see in the infrared, Bills face sank…

Seeing the heat-outline of a massive battleship pulled up right next to them, Bill didn’t even have time to call his men to attention before jumping off the deck with a sonic boom!

Scores of Marines were suddenly knocked off their feet when the ship lurched hard to the side, and for those who were able to catch themselves, a deep voice could be heard over the waves.

*Quake Kick!*

His immediate actions not only startled his own men, but also the invisible ship which had pulled up beside them.

Ironically unable to react to a surprise attack against themselves, when Bill’s kicked warped a circular hole in the sides of their ships hull, the would-be assassins fired their weapons wildly and randomly.

Still invisible, Bill could only see vague outlines that merged together, and these heat signatures themselves were totally covered when out of nowhere a dozen massive explosions detonated all around the nearby sea.

Kicked up by the explosions, massive waves doused both ships with sea water and the spell on the invisible ship was broken.

With a huge hole in its side, this was a ship like Bill had never seen before!

The vessel was entirely made of steel with dozens of cannon ports in between a hull inlaid with rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds.

Some of these precious gems were larger than he was tall!

Besides the visible wealth of the ship, the vessel was shaped in the form of a giant shark, and in just the instant he had to look, Bill clearly read the words [Mad Treasure] on the ship’s sails.

But there was no time to gawk, and seeing a woman lean over the railing of the shark-shaped ship holding a bow, Bill’s heart sank into his belly when he recognized the red arrows she pulled out.

‘Dyna Stones?!’

He hadn’t even thought about Dyna Stones since he left Jail Island all those years ago. Back then they were nothing but a passing interest due to Warden Issac’s research.

He knew they were absolutely dangerous, but so what? he knew about a lot of dangerous things in the world, and he simply didn’t have time to occupy himself with all of them.

That was even more so the case for a regulated resource no matter how dangerous it was.

Except now, looking down the barrel of a gun, so-to-speak, Bill remembered, and his alarm couldn’t be understated.

Sure, he himself could survive such a blast, but his ship and crew wouldn’t!

Rushing back to this woman with speed, Bill didn’t have time to yell for Foxy to get ready or for anything else.

Zipping through the air so quickly that Shiki himself would be surprised, Bill wasn’t 5 feet away from breaking this woman’s arms when suddenly chains erupted from all direction and to his surprise, a dark-skinned man met his fist head on.