The Marine

Standing on a ship out in the open ocean, Bill thumbed through a newspaper.

Apparently, the Kid Pirates were still at large in the South Blue, they had miraculously escaped capture by a designated task force sent by South Blue HQ.

Thankfully though, it seemed that due to the efforts made by local authorities their atrocities had ceased for the time being.

Bill was somewhat surprised that such a notorious crew could run free, but then again, he thought, it wouldn’t be long until they sailed in the vicinity of Vallipo Archipelago where his father would sort them out.

It had been over a month on board the ship, one thing Bill found amazing about this large ship was it had its own training ground.

The space wasn’t huge, but he had been able to practice the Moon Walk daily without risking breaking through the floor. At some point Marron and the other MSU recruits had joined him.

Nearly all the recruits used blades of some sort, to some extent Bill knew about swordsmanship due to his contact with Sasha and Ricky but besides a few stances he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to be of any help on that front.

Instead, Bill had taught the group the Meditative Pushup he learned many years ago.

Unfortunately, besides this technique his hands were tied. None of the other recruits were hand-to-hand fighters and he legally couldn’t teach them the Moon Walk technique unless they signed the extended contract.

Out of the bunch, Marron was the strongest, though Bill instantly saw the difference between those recruits who had led mostly normal childhoods versus those who were trained up like he and his friends on Vallipo.

The sixteen-year-old girl was faster and stronger than any Olympic athlete on Earth but compared to Bill who could easily lift many tons the difference couldn’t be well described.

He had hoped with the Meditative Pushup she would start to gain the strength she would need to survive in this world, but also suggested that she should learn the Shave technique.

Of course, signing the extended contract wasn’t a small price to pay, but a normal Marine Recruit could learn one of the Six Powers and still retire at the age of thirty-six.

Learning one of the Six Powers was advisable in his opinion, but Bill had come to learn from his nanny that learning one of the Six Powers was sort of a honey pot.

This was because Marines who mastered one of the Six Powers were usually transferred to more dangerous areas where they would be naturally inclined to learn another for survival.  

The ‘honey pot’ was that there was no extension contract to learn two of the Six Powers, if a Marine wanted, he would be given access to them all but would simply never be able to leave the organization until natural ‘retirement’.

If that Marine had a family, the family would more or less be accommodated for. After all, most Marines were the children of Marines and so in view of the World Government, family formation between service members was not frowned upon.

In light of this, Bill believed the Shave technique was the most useful to not be trapped by circumstance.

Moon Walk couldn’t be dismissed, but swordsmen and gunners would probably be better suited to straight movement speed than they would the crisscross pattern of movement style the Moon Walk favored.

For those hand-to-hand fighters though, Bill thought there was no contest. Moon Walk reigned supreme.

Closing the newspaper, the last thing Bill had read about was that those gangs of children committing robberies turned out to be a pirate group. There wasn’t much information but now the kids, who were all seen on multiple islands, were all Wanted.

Looking back towards the deck, sailors were doing various jobs. On board a Marine Warship everything was done professionally.

These ships carried a lot of people due to there being three shifts. Outside of combat, eight hours on duty, then sixteen hours off was the life of a man at sea.

The night crew was the smallest since the sailors would raise the sails. Interestingly the ship would still be propelled forward at a steady pace by the seastone hauls.

Putting that aside, when he got bored of training the Moon Step, he would lift weights. Though the warships largest weight was one-thousand kilograms, Bill could precisely control which muscle string he was using.

Thinking about what he planned to do today, Bill turned his head and gave one last look in the distance.

So far, they had encountered two pirate ships, but only one was close enough to close in on. He had been ready to help, but Captain Hina turned out to be strong enough for there to be no suspense.

After this encounter he learned she had a devil fruit. It was a perfect tool considering her responsibilities.

By using her ability with the Shave technique, the pirate crew stood no chance. Though the idea of calling her a ‘binding’ woman crossed his mind, he decided not to make that kind of joke.

Despite her tendency to speak in the third person from time to time, she had a pretty stoic personality.

There was also the uncomfortable fact that the men on her crew all seemed to be in love with the Captain, she didn’t reciprocate, and he didn’t want to give them any ideas.

Shaking his head, Bill saw nothing in the distance and so went down to the training area.

Seeing Marron swinging her cutlass Bill shook his head. He had told her that he thought she should train to stab with it, but old habits die hard.

Upon seeing him, she quickly adjusted to an awkward stabbing motion, though Bill figured if she ever learned to throw her cuts maybe the length of the blade didn’t matter anyway.

This world had roughly similar physics as his old one, but a major difference was shown when Bill grabbed a long bar that held three one-thousand-kilogram weights on the other end.

Lifting the roughly one-thousand five-hundred pounds with one extended arm, if this was Earth he would tip over. In this world though, he didn’t want to tip over, and so he willed himself not to.

Lifting the weight slowly up and down, Bill began to meditate. Focusing on his forearm, shoulder, and legs he focused on what he wanted to strengthen.

When Bill had first done this, he had caused a stir on the ship. Apparently the one-thousand-kilogram weights were more for inspiration than practical use.

It seemed while monstrously strong people existed, and were provided for, they weren’t so common to be seen regularly.

This had earned him the respect of MSU recruits and the Marines onboard alike.

After finishing one arm, Bill moved to the other and then did his legs. After mastering the Life Return, he no longer physically needed break days, and he never skipped his legs.

He had seen far too many powerful men who had pitifully tiny legs. For those people, it seemed like their bodies ate their legs and added them to their torso and arms.

Bill refused to have baby legs, so he worked hard.

After his workout, Bill waved to the others inside the room and left to the get something to eat.

As he went to the Mess Hall, he heard a commotion on the main deck.

Lifting his eyebrows, Bill shook his head, he went to the counter and grabbed to loaves of bread and started to walk his way up.

Taking his time, he walked with purpose until roughly halfway he heard a loud crash and the ship swooned over.

‘What the?’

Steadying himself effortlessly, Bill threw the two loaves in his mouth and started to hurry up. These ships were massive, each one was practically a fortress on the water. For something to knock one around it had to be serious.

Getting to the main deck in less than ten seconds, Bill heard the ‘All hands-on deck’ order and saw the commotion.

To the starboard side Bill saw two gigantic sea kings doing battle.

From the distance of the boat, the beasts looked somehow too big and too small. As if their sizes blurred out the horizon and turned the open sea into a puppet theater.

One sea king looked like a huge python while the other looked crocodilian.

Roughly judging distance, Bill thought the sea kings must be ten or more kilometers away. However, their sizes were probably in the range of two or three kilometers in length which made the gap seem insignificant.

As Bill watched the movements of the animals, the Marines hustled from below deck to raise the sails and turn the ship to port.

Thrashing back and forwards the snake seemed to be trying to wrap around the crocodilian while the latter started to barrel role, causing tsunami-height waves.

‘Wait… are they not…?’

By now, due to the waves and commotion on deck, half of Bill’s attention was on what was happening around him while the other studied the two king beasts.

“Science Division! Get below deck!”

Despite all of the noise around him, Bill heard Captain Hina yell in his direction.

Cutting his eyes to look towards her, the ship hit a particularly large wave and six men who were tying down barrels went flying into the air.

Looking at the men, it didn’t take but a split second for Bill to realize they were going to fly overboard.

Jumping into action, Bill knew he’d be able to grab the men before they fell over. Having made it across the deck in a moment, Bill instinctively ducked.

“Lined Feather Cage!”

Looking over, Bill saw the Captain outstretch her arm, like a bird unfolding its wings, a black fence shot along the railing of the ship catching the six marines in midair.

When she did so the men around her jumped into praise, Bill was also impressed but didn’t shout out.

‘She isn’t Captain for nothing.’

Seeing that despite the circumstances the crew had things handled, Bill started over to the stairway.

Although he was following her orders, he didn’t hurry but instead was keeping an eye on the two massive monsters.

Within the couple minutes of the encounter, the ship had successfully turned course but through the currents and waves it hadn’t been able to go far at all.

As he walked slowly, Bill saw the crocodile stop it’s roll and go under the water.

The suction effect of two multi-kilometer long animals plunging down was enormous, and despite its size, the ship lurched backwards to where they fought.

Men screamed as the massive frigate was yanked backwards several kilometers in a second, Bill himself was flung off his feet, but where he was able to stabilize himself most other marines on deck couldn’t.

In this instant Bill heard Captain Hina yell again, and the entire ship was surrounded by her fence.

What she said was unclear, the world began to slow to a crawl. Not thinking, Bill moved as fast as he could towards the Captain.

No sooner than he reached her, the sea exploded behind the frigate as it was still flying backwards.

Tons of water splashed over the ships railing, causing Hina to slump to the floor and her fence disappeared.

Catching the Captain on his left arm, the world speed back up. Turning to see the source of the explosion, Bill saw that the giant crocodile emerged with the python still wrapped around its back.

No sooner than the two beasts resurfaced, the crocodile starting another barrel role, the force was so heavy it blew the massive Marine frigate clear out of the water.

This flight was both a blessing and a curse, for most men had not fallen overboard the upwards motion slammed them on the deck.

For those men who had fallen off when Hina’s cage dissipated, they would probably never be seen again.

The ship did not fly elegantly, but it did fly far.

Throwing Hina down to the deck, Bill instinctively reacted and jumped forward to catch as many men as he could.

In times of crises men are prone to go beyond themselves, and Bill proved this by shouting loudly…

“SKY VAULT!”

Kicking the air as the Moon Step manuscript had described, Bill crisscrossed the sky in the blink of an eye. Throwing sailors to the main deck hard, but at least they were alive.

Landing back down fatigued, Bill could do nothing about the way the ship tilted in the air, but hearing the few cogent men left scream and point, he turned his head to see a vast beach.

‘Oh no…’

With that last thought, the frigate crashed on a shore unseen before the two monsters collided.