The Marine

Quickly making his way out of the pirates’ cove, Bill barely looked as he passed the hundred or so surrendered pirates who were tying up their former compatriots and was of no mind to find out what was happening on the levels below.

*CRASH* *BANG*

If he would have looked, Bill would have found Bascud to be in a very bad way.

Perhaps it was luck, but the Bounty Hunter had not found the traitor Gasparde on his ship the Salamander and instead had run into the traitor Captains’ right-hand, the pirate known as Needless.

*WACK* *THUD*

‘Needless’ was not the former Chore Boy’s name, but in the sprawling bureaucracy that was the World Government, it wasn’t important.

The boy, now man, was a monster thoroughly created by the traitor Gasparde and it was needless for the World Government to know more.

*GAH!*

After a long, long struggle, the Bounty Hunter hit the ground completely spent.

He had come to get revenge for the death of his family, for the destruction of his home, and for the memory of his baby sister being swept away out to sea.

But now-

*FUU*

Receiving a kick to the mid-section, Bascud was launched sideways and clipped a hard corner of Navigators’ cabin.

Crashing through the sturdy wood, Bascud felt something slip in his back and didn’t move again. The entire deck of the ship was littered with holes, mostly created with him as the wrecking ball, but this random kick had hurt him more than rest combined.

As Bascud lay prone on the ground, Needless was thorough despite his own wounds and weariness.

Feeling himself picked up off the ground, Bascud felt tingling in his toes and finally a cold metallic hook which cut him from collar bone to his hip.

As Bascud fell to the ground free of any movement or thought, several miles away another scene played out in reverse.

*SPLASH!*

*HU!!* *COUGH* *COUGH*

Sucking in air and pulling himself out of the river, Ranse crawled on shore and looked around at the scores of cetacean Fish-men laid out all around him.

“I told you!” he shouted and coughed as he staggered to his feet.

Walking over to the last whale he ‘beached’, Ranse shouted again at Willy.

“You should have surrendered when you had the chance! You should have!

I told you to! And you can put that under your hat!”

Cetacean, or ‘Whale’, Fish-men were notoriously dangerous and after being pushed into the water Ranse had fought with his life on the line.

Because he had no blade and his revolvers were useless underwater, he had fought off just over sixty whale fish-men with nothing but waterlogged kicks and punches.

He almost drowned several times too, because although these cetacean Fish-men also needed to breathe air, unlike their human opponent they were used to fighting while holding their breath!

Making his way to Willy, Ranse rolled the big Fish-man over.

Willy’s face was a gruesome mask of caked red blood and flabby swollen folds of skin, he had fought hard, but paid the price once Ranse got a hold of him.

On Ranse’s part, his knuckles were bleeding, and the arms and legs of his cloths were tattered, his Coat of Justice and cowboy hat were missing, and he had a gash running down the left side of his chest.

Ranse hated losing his coat and hat but as long as he still had his revolvers and the old [Deputy] badge Bill had given him; the other losses were fine.

It was only thanks to his skill and Observation that he wasn’t bit into pieces while trapped underwater, but now that he was back on land there would be hell to pay.

“I know you ain’t dead!” said Ranse looking down at Willy: “You look worse than shit, but you ain’t dead!”

Although he was different to Ricky in his ways, like Ricky, Ranse was always one to gloat and perhaps that was why the two never got along.

Giving Willy another kick to the stomach, Ranse was about to lay into him more until the Fish-man put an arm up and said weakly: “F.f.ok… I surrender… no more… please…”

Ranse: “And here I thought I was going to have to give you the boots some more. Yeah, damn right you’ll surrender! I told you to! And you ought to have put that under your hat and come along quietly!”

Willy: “y.Yeah, you’re right, but pl..ease let the other ‘go.”

“If you climb in a saddle, be ready for the ride.” Said Ranse as he took out one of his revolvers and started inspecting it.

Once he surveyed the damage, he pulled out his other pistol and kept on talking: “Nah, you lot tried to kill me. I figure, you know that I can’t let you go.”

Willy started beathing heavily, and once Ranse was done inspecting his weapon he said in finality: “But I won’t kill ya’ll, like you’d done to me. Nah, I figure I’m better that.

You pirates will be bound and transported safely, just as long as you behave yourselves. Then you’ll spend a period of time either in a cell or working, that’s just the way things’ll have to go.”

Once Ranse stopped talking, Willy huffed and tried to sit up before stumbling back down. Speaking heavily, he replied: “N.no they won’t pu.t us in cells… they’ll put the c.collars on us an.d m.make us slaves.”

Before Ranse could answer, the Fish-man spoke with a little more energy: “I got to pay the price for trying to kill you, but the rest of my crew don’t deserve it.

They were only following my orders.” Then as if that sentence stole his strength he said: “L.let’em go. I wo.nt resist.”

Shaking his head, Ranse gave a ‘million dollar’ smile and taking off one of his boots he poured the water out and said: “Partner, slavery is outlawed, can’t you think of a better excuse than that?

And who’d want a bunch of Fish-men as slaves anyways…”

Ranse was about to say that he could understand if it were merfolk, who were at least beautiful, but his eye caught movement off to the east and for the first time since he crawled out of the water he saw smoke rising from the city.

He vaguely heard Willy’s protests to his claim about slavery being outlawed, what was raging through Ranse’s mind was just how long it took him to subdue the Fish-men and how he could have been so stupid.

Of course, he hadn’t been stupid, he had been trapped under water and had it not been for the Six Powers and a lifetime of training he would have certainly died.

“Alright!” Ranse said, cutting Willy off who was cursing him for denying what would happen to his crew.

“I don’t know anything about slavery, where we come from there ain’t slaves and there wouldn’t be anyone to stand for it even if there were.

I’ll tell you what, my Captain is a good man; he’s my best friend and he’ll hear you out. I can’t make a promise, but he’ll hear you out if what you say is true. I have to go now, but don’t cut stick and don’t try to get lucky, or I’ll tract you down.”

Then repeating himself with a serious voice, Ranse said: “I will track you down if you run, you can put that under your hat.”

Getting a weak ‘ok’ Ranse put his shoe back on and winced when he took two steps.

Having one shoe soaked was somehow worse then having them both wet, but there wasn’t nothing he could do now. He had to see what caused the fire.

Bill had arrived on the scene just minutes before Ranse had pulled himself on shore, but unlike Ranse, who had to run across the rooftops – tired as he was from fighting underwater, Bill was able to use Moon Step to fly through the air.

He knew the situation would be bad, that was all he thought about since Nelson had frantically reported the situation.

Yet, Bill hadn’t expected to see what he saw. A scene that made him so furious that he couldn’t even smell the twisted o-zone of the traitor Marines devil fruit.

There was a factory and a fire, and off to the side of the fire he saw Boss laid out and unmoving.

But those sights were irrelevant to a large degree. What Bill saw that made him crazy was little Yoko standing almost naked in the middle of a pond of green sludge with a man as large as himself standing over top of her.

People tend to love those who they do things for more than anything else, and in Bill’s mind, Yoko was still the little eight-year-old girl who he met peeking in at him in Ryudo’s house.

Seeing her like this, and seeing the man about to strike her down, he lost his mind.

The traitor Marine had the Candy nature system Devil Fruit. Using this power, he could create and manipulate razor-sharp blades made of hardened sugar.

 Of course, these blades weren’t as sturdy as iron, but they didn’t need to be.

Gasparde could create as many as he needed to, and if he were in a favorable environment – say outside of a candy factory, there was no limit to how much he could manipulate.

This was why Gasparde had chosen to come here instead of fleeing on his ship.

He was a brutal pragmatist, and since he knew that whichever Marine came to Hannabal was not an Admiral, Gasparde decided he would just lure and kill them in his territory.

He also decided that after killing the Marines, he may well also just kill the entire island. Someone had ratted out his location, and he would kill a thousand innocents to catch one guilty.

Gasparde had been a fugitive for ten long years, his stomping ground was the Grand Line, not some backwater Blue.

His success lay in the fact that he knew how the Marines operated and he knew how to get information on the whereabouts of the Admirals and certain dangerous Vice Admirals.

So, when looking at this unknown Captain, Gasparde didn’t fret. The Captain was fast enough to catch his blade, but so what? Gasparde could use Shave too. The Captain was looking at him with rage enough to kill, but so what? Gasparde had seen this same look many times.

If he had any sense, Gasparde would have looked down. He would have realized that this particular Captain had caught his razor-sharp candy blade with his bare hands and not lost a drop of blood.

If he had any sense, Gasparde would have then run into the factory and tried to use any number of measures against the unknown Captain in order to escape.

But Gasparde had no sense, it was why he betrayed the Marines in the first place.

Looking at the traitor eye to eye, Bill crushed the sugar blade with his left hand and followed up with a diagonal kick which bisected the man long ways.

If Bill hadn’t been so angry, he would have suppressed the traitors Devil Fruit and this kick may have killed him instantly.

But perhaps Bill didn’t want to kill the man instantly.

After seeing Yoko standing there half naked and nearly killed, Bill only felt outrage and, like a mad bull, he pressed his attack on Gasparde.

Barely noticing that half of the candy factory behind Gasparde had been destroyed by his first kick, Bill’s knuckles and elbows grew sharp bone spurs and, despite the fact he wasn’t using Haki, the pressure from his blows forced the traitor Marine back.

During the onslaught, Gasparde did fight back. The traitor would form his arms and legs into puddles of syrup only to shape them into harden spears the instant Bill’s boney fists would connect.

Sometimes these hardened spears were sharp enough to stab into Bill’s iron skin only to be instantly shattered, and then replaced by several others.

The more Bill fought, the more he let loose. He was possessed with rage and the thoughts of his mistakes burrowed into his mind and made him forget himself.

In this way, it had taken Bill and Gasparde less than ten minutes to completely destroy the area. The factory was replaced with fuzzy rubble and if one looked closely, they would notice that the fuzz was in fact a carpet of wickedly sharp glass candy needles.

But Bill wouldn’t have noticed.

Like Gasparde who continued to reshape himself after getting destroyed, Bill continued to mend himself throughout the battle. So, in spite of being stabbed countless times by those syringe-like needles, Bill hadn’t shed a single drop of his blood.

Jumping slightly into the air, Bill delivered an elbow to the top of Gasparde’s head and as the man crumpled down he morphed into a puddle.

Bringing down a big boot, candy syrup splashed in all directions, but instead of pressing forward for the who-knows how many time, Bill was seized by the presence of another person and remembered something important.

‘Oh, no…’ he thought frantically as he practically teleported from the area that he had been fighting Gasparde in.

He reached his destination quickly and looked in horror as another large man stood behind Yoko with a metallic hook on her neck.

The girl was now standing up straight, but not moving as the blades pressed into her skins, and the traitor Marines right hand man said coldly.

“That’s enough.

Either you surrender, or she’s dead.”

And as Needless spoke, Bill felt Gasparde form behind him and he was suddenly struck by the awful smell of o-zone.