The Marine

The mountain on the horizon grew higher and higher as the ship neared.

From the vantage point they were coming from, it looked like a giant circular plateau.

?: “Reef, Port Side!” (A/N Left side)

?: “We got rocks on Starboard!” (A/N Right side)

The ship was still several hundred meters from what could even be considered the islands coast, for there to be rocks and reefs meant this island was inaccessible from this approach.

Hina: “Helmsman! Take us to Port! Maintain distance!”

With only a single mast left standing, the ship handled like a pregnant cow. Still, the crew did it’s best to follow orders and not show their fatigue.

By now it was clear to all that smoke was coming from the island.

The most experienced Gunner Mates manned the ships only mortar, the others were lined on deck armed with muskets and each had either an axe, cutlass, or hammer on their hips.

This time, even Bill had a hammer.

He had made this choice after experiencing the beast horde.

While his fists could break whatever they hit, when he found himself surrounded on all sides, he really wished he had something to give himself space.

Space to move wasn’t the real issue since Bill could move relatively freely with his strength and speed.

What he needed was space to think.

For the first time, Bill had considered using a sword, but after all the back and forth he had with Sasha, he just couldn’t bring himself to use that weapon.

So, he picked up a hammer.

The reason for this was that firstly, a hammer didn’t need much technique, or to be more precise, Bill’s natural fighting style lent itself to bludgeoning very nicely.

And then secondly, and most importantly, Bill thought the hammer was more intimidating than a sword.

His fists were ironically his most dangerous weapon, but in the views of others, getting hammered was definitely scarier.

‘Heh, maybe I’ll get some bricks too!”

While he stood on the deck, he touched the hammer and laughed in his mind.

If he chose the weapon for its psychological aspect, how scary would a man be who could throw bricks like they were cannonballs?

The fear here wasn’t of death, only the knowledge that these things will absolutely break whatever they hit!

This was because even if no one thought they would die, anyone could think they’d break a bone.

Standing at attention, out of the crews remaining one hundred ten men only a mere thirty-four were armed ready to go ashore.

The rest were either still too wounded to be useful in a fight or were needed to sail the ship.

In this thirty-four were included the five MSU recruits who had survived the shipwreck.

Bill grimaced when he thought that out of the fifteen members who had come, five had directly died and three had been hurt.

Thankfully, besides Tom’s fractured leg, the others who had been wounded had healed up over the course of the week. This left the biology student trio, who were staying on the ship, and five MSU recruits who were going on shore.

Thinking that he really would brick a person if any harm came to these recruits, Bill told himself he wouldn’t allow anything to happen to them.

As the ship readjusted course, the tall mountain plateau suddenly dropped to half its original height, thinking this was good news Bill went to the Captain and asked: “Captain Hina, I think I could get up there if I tried, can I scout ahead?”

Thinking about this as the ship moved, Hina suddenly pulled out two old-timey looking fireworks.

“Take these signals. If it’s dangerous, fire red at the ship. If it’s safe, then use the blue.”

Taking the two forearm-length rockets and a fire starter, Bill told Marron and the other recruits to keep sharp.

He didn’t forget to mention somewhat loudly that an island like this was bound to have fresh water.

Of course, most of the older Marines would have known this, but from the few whispers Bill heard, he knew he had just motivated a number of the men.

After all, though the ship hadn’t completely run out of water, what was left didn’t taste good after being stored for over a month.

With that, Bill jumped far in the distance.

He didn’t know his exact limits using the Moon Step but felt like he could cover the couple kilometers to the top of the rock face. As he jumped in the air, Bill made good speed but was noticeably slower than when he was on ground or in the water.

Using the air as a foothold was difficult to say the least.

It took several minutes for Bill to finally reached his destination and started massaging his legs. When he had made the suggestion, he hadn’t considered that he was offering to do the hardest leg workout of his life while having been underfed in two weeks.

As he sat on the ground, for a few seconds, Bill sucked in air and directed the oxygen to his legs. In this way he soon stood up.

Getting a better look at the top of the mountain, Bill was mildly surprised by just how large it was, probably a couple hundred meters by his estimation.

Further, the ground had channels in it from years of condensation pooling up to form dripping streams.

Somewhat oddly there was no vegetation besides an odd shrub here and there. Mostly it was just several square kilometers of plain damp stone.

One thing was for sure, the smoke in the distance indicated a large fire if it could be seen at such distance.

Not wasting time, Bill sped towards the other side of the cliff, covering the couple hundred meters in mere seconds.

Looking over the edge, what he saw was hard to describe.

The island was large, perhaps not as large as Marineford or Vallipo’s main island but still quite big.

It was shaped like a bowl and seemed to have several natural levels which made it look like there were steps up from the beach.

Towards a village which was located in the bottom of the bowl – as far from the beach as possible – each level contained a small woodland.

The lowest level of the island was a massive inferno while the village had buildings burning in an erratic manner.

Seeing this Bill didn’t overreact, he had been expecting something for hours now, and during that time he had obviously considered the smoke could be from burning buildings.

He looked over towards the beach through the smoke where he saw one of the most magnificent natural harbors he’d ever seen.

In that harbor was four ships. One was an obvious Marine vessel, though it was a very small single mast ship, and Bill could just make out the other three having some kinds of Jolly Rogers.

Seeing the Marine ship meant he couldn’t wait for reinforcements, after Bill ran back to the other side of the plateau and fired the red signal, he rushed back to where he had first been standing.

Without any type of telescope, it was impossible to make out anything more specific than an active mess of humanity. So, after less than a minute of surveying to get an idea of the landscape, he jumped off the cliff.

Flying down, a rush of wind beat on his face.

During this time, it never struck the old soul how it was that just after two weeks of first successfully using the Moon Step he was confident enough to jump off a three-hundred-meter-high cliff without a second thought.

As Bill neared the tree line, there was no sense of anticipation. The faster he fell, the more excited he became.

Then, with only a split second before he hit the trees, Bill instinctively yelled:

“SKY VAULT!”

Using the speed from the fall, he vaulted himself forward at a shocking speed.

In this moment there was no pain from his legs, no thought about the town on fire, or the tragedies during the last two weeks.

There was only a man freely flying through the air, and for nearly a minute the sensation of freedom consumed him.

During this brief time, Bill only felt Zen as he watched the town get ever closer.

In this state, he saw what he had to do, and in a miraculous feat even for a man who could run through the air, Bill somersaulted backwards, stopping his extreme speed to land just far enough from the town to not be seen.

Landing on the ground lightly, Bill felt his heart pumping smooth and powerful, for another brief moment he felt invincible.

*SSUUHHH HAHHH*

Taking in a huge breath in and out, Bill somewhat forgot about the feeling and headed forward at an even pace.

From what he had seen on the cliff, this village was very spread out with unique buildings each some distance away from each other.

The town’s most noticeable feature, and the one that had the most activity was a large windmill somewhat near the middle of the area.

Running at a decent speed, Bill felt the hammer’s shaft jostle on his hip and wondered if he should take off his blue and white Marine uniform.

Bills uniform was the standard for Marine recruits, although he was technically made a Lieutenant of the Marine Science Unit, he hadn’t gone through the trouble of changing his attire, the only thing to distinguish him from most others was that he kept short sleeves on his white shirt.

 With three ships in the harbor, there was just enough chance that Bill could slip in the crowd unnoticed, but perhaps being too stubborn, he decided not to.

Coming up to the house on the edge of town, he kept his eyes open, from a short distance away he heard a commotion.

Though he didn’t stop, Bill wondered why anyone would build a mansion that was barely three meters wide.

Moving on to the next house, Bill found it was surrounded by an orange tree grove. From his vantage point Bill found about two dozen orange trees being picked clean by half a dozen pirates.

As he watched from behind a tree, he saw the six men laughing as one took a bite, chewed, and spit out a mouth full of mushed up orange peel.

The man who ate the orange seemed to be the leader, or at least by speaking the most marked himself as a target.

Thinking that he had to take one for questioning, Bill ran through is plan. This would be the first time Bill had ever fought a human with real stakes on the line.

He didn’t know how strong the average pirates were but judged them to be probably somewhere around the strength of the average Marine and the pirate Hollandaise.

Even if they were twice that strong, he could easily take the six men out, and if these men were stronger, he would just take to the sky and run.

Feeling the hammer on his waist, Bill decided not to use it here.

He wouldn’t kill if he didn’t have to, and from what he had seen in this world there was no reason to use maximum strength without a good reason.

After all, he could punch through concrete walls, rip apart iron bars, and much more. If he hit even a mildly strong person at full strength, they would probably explode.

So, he wouldn’t use the hammer in actual combat until he had some notion on how hard he could hit a person.

Waiting for several minutes, after the six men had collected the low-hanging fruits, three of the pirates made to jump on a on a branch.

Seeing how they moved reassured Bill further, and as the three were in midair he pounced.

Moving like lightning, faster than any of the six could react, Bill pulled the first man down hard – crushing his noes on the way down.

Then in fluid motions he proceeded to give a flying knee to the second pirate, a downwards right hook to the third, a vicious left uppercut to the fourth, he skipped the fifth man who spoke too much, and finished off the last with a wet headbutt.

The sixth man had gotten it the worst as he received the momentum off Bills movement through the group. As he was launched several times his body length, Bill turned to the pirate and smiled savagely.

“Friend, you and I are going to have a little talk.”

Seeing a blur and then his friends fall down, whether unconscious or dead, the pirate’s face lost all colors and as Bill spoke, he fell back on his butt.