The Marine

Meeting fist with fist, Bill raised an eyebrow before quickly retracting his hand and swiftly delivered a knee to the dark-skinned man’s torso which sent him flying off several meters away.

With the crew of assassins running helter-skelter, he briefly looked down at his hand, confused despite himself.

He hadn’t used even half of his strength for that punch but even at that reduced level it was hard for him to believe that anybody in the South Blue could take that kind of punch without losing a limb in the process.

Landing down on the enemy ships deck, Bill started to move towards the dark-skinned man, whose arms were now covered in Haki, when he felt a blow on his back.

His skin wasn’t broken by this attack and turning around quickly to see no one there, he suddenly understood something, and with that understanding, even with his Observation Haki sealed away, Bill began to swing his fists in every direction until he hit something with a heavy *thud*.

When he hit his attacker, the man reappeared flying away, but Bill knew instinctively that he hadn’t actually finished the fellow off.

‘What in the world is going on?’ he thought, not mad that he hadn’t instantly defeated those two – Bill had complete confidence in himself – but confused as to where these people came from.

‘Well, if that’s how its going to be!’ he thought to himself, and unfortunately for the next man who attempted to attack him from the side, Bill grabbed the man’s skull with his left hand and smashed his face into pulp with a terrifying right hook.

By now, the dark-skinned man had come back to him with his arms covered in chains and blackened by Haki.

Punching harder now, with maybe 65% of his strength, when Bills fists landed on the man’s chain armor accompanied by flashing lights and crackling air.

Swiftly smashing the chains into countless tiny links, he was only stopped from pressing onward when another assailant got in the way. Ducking this strike and delivering a low leg sweep, which literally took the man’s shins out from under him, Bill pushed forward again.

Dodging one attacker after another, Bill began methodically destroying each person who was brave enough to try.

When arrows were fired at him from multiple sides, he picked up a couple bodies that lay on the ground, blocked the arrows with said bodies, and launched them at the attackers.

When a group of swordsmen charged at him, he closed the distance in an instant and using his fingers like fishhooks tore left and right.

As for a group of gunners? They got the same treatment as the archers except instead of human bodies being thrown at them, Bill ripped up chunks out of the ship’s steel deck and threw them so hard that even he had a hard time seeing how fast they went.

But through all of that, they still came.

The dark-skinned man wrapped more in chains now started going crazy; demanding and screaming to know Bill’s identity and that he had better return the package or face the consequences.

To these mad shouts and proclamations, Bill demanded for them to surrender, and it was getting more and more frustrated until he noticed that on the other side of the metallic battleship, scores of men and women were swinging on ropes onboard the Frontier Run.

 Seeing this, his face changed, and rushing to the railing of the enemies’ ship he looked down to see a massive brawl taking place on the Frontier Run’s deck.

Scanning the scene quickly, he saw his Lieutenants fighting multiple people and even saw Foxy wearing spiked boxing gloves battling against that swordsmen who he punched earlier!

At the same time that Bill turned around to face the probable leader of this crew, now actually angry, scurrying along the far side railing of the Frontier Run was a small blond-headed girl and green lizard.

Having woken up from her comatose state when the ship lurched to the side, the girl had expertly pulled out the IV in her arm and took the chance to run when her guards rushed to aid the dozens of still severely injured Marines who had been toppled out of their cots.

Leaving behind shouts like ‘tie them down!’ and ‘stem the bleeding!’ she made her way to the deck and found her partner.

Despite herself she couldn’t help but be depressed, after all, escaping to the surface was never easy and took her a lot of preparation!

So, shaking her head in dismay, she whispered to her lizard companion: “They found us too quick this time, Elizabeth… It seems that we’ve come out at a bad time, this time, wait, I know!” her voice suddenly turned from depressed to sinister: “When we return to Lord Bonbori, we can, in the process, watch all these unsophisticated people die! Che-che-che!”

Saying this, now sadistically happy, the girl jumped on the back of the lizard and jumping off the ship’s deck she stuck her hand into the sea.

Back on the assassins’ ship, Bill had already killed a number of them, and seeing the situation on the Frontier Run he had wanted to head back over and assist his people but caught sight of the female archer pulling out a trio of Dyna Stone capped arrows.

These arrows may not be that dangerous for him, but they were more than enough to destroy his ship!

“Stop!” he yelled, running at the narrow-eyed woman, who seeing him rush towards her, smartly ran away.

Crossing the ship’s deck, still more people came to attack him – spirits still apparently high despite their incredible losses.

Now practically every person who came within Bill’s reach would never be the same again, those lucky enough to survive had suffered horrible wounds and were visibly mangled from powerful punches, kicks, and slams.

Running into a new wave of weighted chain attacks, the dark-skinned man had wised up and gone for range combat, but Bill just snapped those links that got close to him.

Not wanting to fight like a mindless juggernaut, Bill had never let go of the Art of 9 Limbs, nevertheless spirit he knew what he should do.

The Art of 9 Limbs was a ferocious martial art, but one obviously suited for more evenly matched combatants.

Breathing heavily and looking at the dead bodies scattered all around him, Bill stopped for a second, and just started walking towards the man he presumed to be the leader of this ship.

What was the need for clinches, headbutts, elbows, knees, and takedowns when he could literally walk through cannon fire unhindered?

It didn’t take long, a surprisingly short amount of time given the length of the battle, but as Bill walked toward his target, he left a small part of what made him human behind.

The crew of the man wrapped in chains was strong, very strong by human standards.

But when they rushed towards Bill, he walked through them.

Seeing the effortless massacre of his people, even if the mad man didn’t care about them, he cared about himself and hollered: “Damn you! Who are you?! Do you know who I am?! I am Mad Treasure and I work for the ruler of the South Blue!”

As Mad Treasure was saying this, Bill didn’t listen, instead, he looked past the man and saw the female archer again ready to fire.

He’d never allow her to fire those explosives, and really, he thought, he didn’t need to physically reach her.

He had never read any of the [Six Powers] besides [Moon Step] and [Iron Body], but as strong as he was and as well as he knew those two techniques, it was easy for him to copy their effects.

So, digging the tips of his toes into the steel ship deck, Bill kicked up and the shock-wave destroyed everything in its path.

The noise from fragmenting metal sounded like a massive explosion, and from the decks of the Frontier Run the fighting had momentarily ceased.

Marines and their attackers alike watched open mouthed as tons of steel, gold, silver, gems, and treasured items erupted from the deck of the battleship!

Then hearing another series of explosions, grunts, and cries that lasted for a couple of minutes, a figure wearing a white Coat of Justice and blue checkered suit appeared over the railing.

Gaping at the sight, it started with one, but then dozens of Marines started cheering.

That was because, in one of the large Marines hands was Mad Treasure, and in the other was the female archer.

Suddenly, over the din of cheers, a deep voice said: “You are all under arrest… surrender and face your day in court… or die!”

It wasn’t known who threw down their arms first, but one by one the attackers surrendered until the whole mass acted like their precious weapons were fire.

Ready to give more orders, Bill put his foot on the railing of the metallic ship but suddenly jerked his head to the side.

At first the bulge wasn’t noticeable since it spanned miles in both directions but having lived a life on the water at this point, Bill’s judgement couldn’t be wrong.

Looking wide eyed and with his mouth involuntarily opening in surprise, he quickly dropped his two prisoners and ignoring the others confused looks yelled: “START THE ENGINES! FULL SPEED AHEAD!”

Jumping behind the ship, Bill was about to start pushing the frigate as fast as he could!

His actions, which were too surprising for even the trained members in his crew, stupefied them into stillness.

But not for long, since after barely 30 seconds after Bill started pushing the frigate – and by extension the Marine Battleship because he hadn’t the time to think about cutting the mooring lines – even the greenest of new sailors could see the virtual mountain raising from the sea.

Mountain? No!

For Nelson watching this scene, dumbfounded he thought, this was an entire mountain range lifting out from the sea!

“Bl..Blo…BLOODY HELL! START THE ENGINES!”

With this shout the spell was broken, and if the battle before had been a ruckus mob, now things were truly pandemonium!

Hundreds of Marines and their attacks ran whichever way they thought they needed to, having been pushed far away from the metallic ship to easily go back, now the would-be attackers began to chop at the mooring lines with reckless abandon!

However, those mooring cables were strong, and as the mountain range came more and more into view a wave of apocalyptic proportions was created.

Sitting on a green lizards, watching this from a good safe distance, the blond-headed girl had a devilish grin plastered on her face.

“Che-che-che! You thought you could get me, but how about now? Can you survive [Lord Bonbori]?”

Of course, she knew that she would also not be able to outrun ‘Lord Bonbori’ but unlike those ‘unsophisticated fools’ she had Elizabeth!

With Bill pushing as fast as he could, he had to make sure the ship didn’t tip over on the wave and couldn’t see what the crew was looking at…

Gigangtic teeth, huge beyond measure.

Nelson, Borodo, and Foxy had all heard of this type of creature before but not one of them had ever seen one in real life.

A true [Island Eater]!

“FOXY! SLOW IT DOWN!” shouted Nelson, to which Foxy didn’t respond or even look at the person making the foolish demand.

He believed in his Slow-Mo Photons more than anything, but how could he possibly cover such a wide creature?!

Soon enough, though, their shouts didn’t matter.

Seeing the island eater had sucked the fight out of the people. Even the new recruits from Goa Kingdom wished they were in their old poor homes.

As for Bill, he just kept pushing and pushing until the point that the gigantic breech wave turned into a vortex that sucked everything inside.

Turning his head upwards to finally get a look at the monster, he was caught off guard and hit by the Marine Battleship which had ripped itself free from the cables.

Bill was sucked in to the right and the Frontier Run was sucked in to the left.