The Marine

Feeling himself be moved, Bill only focused on repairing his body.

Taking fats and proteins from where he could spare them, he first worked on his swollen brain, and then work from there.

Bill didn’t feel the passage of time but using his knowledge from the Iron Body technique he pieced his head back together to be more resilient. His skull was strengthened. The grey and white matter in his brain was made to better endure compression.

While he worked, he succeeded in fully reconstructing the blood-brain barrier and finally moved on to cerebrum, cerebellum, and lastly to his brain stem.

During this process, Bill had prioritized restructuring his flesh and bones but strayed away from the millions upon millions of nerve connections he sensed working at a frantic pace. It was that very rate of activity that made him think better of attempting to interfere.

Once his head was finished, Bill was forced to stop and think. He had used pretty much every spare nutrient his body could safely give away. He had no fat left on his body and had even lost a small percentage of his muscle mass.

He could feel that he was currently laid on a bed but was unwilling to awaken as he had ceased nearly every function of his body. His heart still beat, albeit slowly, but he had completely frozen his digestive tract and pain receptors.

Thankfully, his body was being monitored and someone saw as he appeared to wither away and just before he was about to have to awaken, he felt an IV forced into his arm.

Thanking whoever it was, with this outside help, Bill could focus on the rest of himself without concern.

He decided to first repair his bones, specifically his spine, neck, and ribs which had accumulated the most damage.

The fact all of this damage had resulted from only being hit one good time made Bill hyper aware of his bodies shortcomings and working from the head down started with his spinal cord.

This was the nerve that connected the brain stem to the lower body and Bill did his utmost to reinforce its elasticity, much like what he had done with his brain stem.

After his experience reconstructing the various parts of his brain, Bill had become adept in the task and was only slowed by the speed of the IV.

But once again, thankfully someone was monitoring his body and it didn’t take long before he felt another puncture, this time in his other arm.

Now with two sources of nutrients to draw from Bill was a fish in water. He reinforced his spinal cord and moved down to the cervical spine where he systematically moved down build up and recreating his central nervous system.

Like before, Bill was swayed against interfering with the connections between each of his nerves. In his mind, his body had lit up like a Christmas tree and instead of playing around with electricity he focused on improving the wiring that moved the power around.

Once he had finished moving down the spine he went through to his hips and then each limb, completely reinforcing his entire nervous system.

At this point, Bill knew he must had been in the bed for at least several days. After he had finished his with his skull and brain, he had started to time out when his caretaker came to roll him over on each side, and in this way formed an idea about how long it had been.

This observation had been just a curiosity, and as Bill started to reinforce the bones in his neck he didn’t necessarily care.

Starting like he did on his nervous system, Bill quickly found that once again his speed was limited by the IV drips, and once again his caretaker noticed, and he felt a puncture on his neck.

These three sources fueled his efforts, but it still wasn’t enough. As he moved down each vertebrae Bill made sure to not sacrifice mobility for solidity. His bones became harder while his connective tissues became more elastic.

In reality, Bill would not rely on the cartilage between his bones to fully protect himself from a broken neck or back. He would strengthen his muscle connections later, but for now his efforts were on the bone and bone marrow.

Once he got down his spine Bill felt another two IV drip’s put in both of his wrists, with this fuel he continued down and remade the rest of his skeletal structure, sparing no mobility in his joints.

Feeling that at least a week had passed, Bill studied himself and was satisfied with his efforts.

When another IV drip was pushed into his waist, Bill knew he didn’t have much longer on the bed.

Looking inside of his chest his heart had remained strong, but his lungs, stomach, thymus, liver, and intestines had all been damaged to various degrees.

He had given quick patches to the most severe damage, but now he would start from the thymus and move down.

Not surprisingly, he found this work to be much easier and the work on either his brain, bones, or nervous system and he was able to systematically move down his body while reinforcing his internal organs.

With seven outside sources of nutrients, he was also able to move faster. Given his experience, was able to experiment more with the structures of the cells themselves to make them more resilient.

Before Bill could drink any amount of alcohol and never get drunk. This was because he could isolate the poison inside his belly and either throw it up or release it slowly at safe levels.

Now as Bill finished restructuring his liver, he didn’t think getting drunk was even possible.

He decided that he would assume in this crazy world he lived in it would be possible somehow, but traditionally he knew that his blood alcohol content would never overwhelm his body whether or not he isolated the poison as he had done before.

By now he could have restarted his bodily functions, but Bill decided to finish was he started and began with the muscles in his face. From there he moved to his neck, abdomen, back, and so on down the length of his body.

For his muscles, he did not prioritize either white, red, or pink but instead focused on the ratios and where they were in his body.

For example, red muscles are more oxidized and emphasized slower speeds and higher endurance. While these muscles are not made for intense exercise, they are needed for fine motor control and even used to just regularly stand up straight!

He would need this particularly in his hands, fingers, and face.

White muscles emphasized quick movement and instant reactions, but as a result both used far too much energy and lacked the simple motor control, he would need to just write his name. If his body was all white muscle, instead of lifting a hand to grab a paper his arm would involuntarily jerk one way or the other.

He would need this particularly in his shoulders, thighs, and calves.

Then there was the pink muscle. This muscle seemed to be the best as it mixed the benefits of both red and white. Except, from what Bill had discovered was that while this pink muscle was about six times faster to react than the red muscle, it was about three times slower than white.

This meant he would emphasize the ratio in pink muscles in his neck, wrists, forearms, and eyes but never completely rely on it.

After all, no matter what, a person needed to have those muscles fine-tuned for control.

With this in mind, plus being armed with the experience he had gained from restructuring the rest of his body and the fuel he was being provided through the IV’s, Bill went ahead adjusting the ratios of these muscle fibers to how he needed them.

In the process he naturally strengthened them as he did the rest of his body.

This process unexpectedly took him longer than reinforcing and restructuring his skeleton and after another two weeks he was finally done.

Laying in bed Bill used his minds eye to examine himself, seeing the fruits of his efforts he almost couldn’t wait to wake up and test his new body out.

One by one he started his bodily processes again until finally his eyes cracked open.

Despite not being used for a long time, his eyes had no spots in them, and Bill viewed a blue ceiling.

Slightly shifting upwards, he was amused to see the set up this hospital room had. His seven IV drips had been tied to dozens of bags each, nearly lining the walls with bags of protein and nutritional fluids.

There were two chairs on either side of his bed and Bill could hear the speech and footsteps of all of those around him.

Most of these voices were unknown to him, but one particular pair needed no second thought. From several rooms away he heard.

Yoko: “What’s taking so long, didn’t you say he’d be better by now?”

Miyagi: “My lady, his body is in a stupendous condition! I’ve never even heard of anything like it!”

Yoko: “You said that weeks ago! Maybe Fia was right and leaving Bill in your care was a mistake!”

Miyagi: “There’s no mistake! It’s marvelous, and I know you don’t understand, but from the moment the Captain was brought to me I could tell he was actively healing himself. In his condition we simply couldn’t risk surgery!”

Yoko: “You’d better hope so Mr. Goat!”

Miyagi: “No Mr.! only Miyagi, and I don’t hope so, I see it ha….”

Smiling to himself, Bill knew it was time to get out of bed and started pulling the IV’s out of his arms. Doing this he made a note to himself to thank Miyagi because there had been no catheters stuck inside him.

‘Wait, have I really not used the bathroom?’ Bill thought and then laughed because despite shutting his digestive tract down that had never occurred to him.

Standing up from the bed felt weird. Normally a person who had laid down for a month would be weak, but Bill felt like a step would launch him through the roof.

Steadying himself, he quickly reasserted control over his body and walking to the corner of the room didn’t waste time in dressing himself in some of his regular cloths that he assumed Miyagi had prepared.

Like he had in his past life, he always wore a suit jacket or a vest when it wasn’t too hot and in general dressed like an old English teacher whose style had changed very little since the 1950’s.

This had been something that greatly amused his Nanny the first time he was allowed to pick his own clothing, but nothing much was said of it.

So, after pulling on his dark grey pants, he put on his light blue shirt, checkered brown vest and brown dress shoes.

Feeling good Bill fixed his shirt collar and walked out of the room, heading towards the spot he heard Yoko and Miyagi’s voices.

There had been a commotion and he was surprised to see that Yoko had bitten Miyagi on the head and the goat mink had started to run around with her still attached.

Using his long legs, Bill approached the two before they could realize and picked Yoko up off his Departments head doctor, and giving a laugh said: “Don’t break what you can’t fix!”

Hearing his voice, Yoko turned to look up at him and the vicious expression melted away from her face.

Amid Miyagi shouting ‘Stupendous!’ the young girl cried and the three stayed together for quite some time.

When she had calmed down, her outburst had apparently embarrassed her, but Yoko didn’t want to leave the room, and seeing this Bill didn’t ask her to go as he began to question Miyagi.

Bill knew he had been on the bed for a while but wasn’t ready for it when Miyagi said it had been a month and a half since his battle with Dragon.

Miyagi: “Yes, after a few days we knew you would pull through. It was then when the Lieutenant Commanders agreed the Clockwork Island refuges had to be moved!

There were a lot of visitors turned away during that time, but out of our Department only a handful could stay!

Oh, of course my friend, I had to be one of those! You didn’t need active medical interventions per say but you had to be constantly monitored.”

Then thinking to examine Bill, Miyagi jumped over and started to rub his arms and shoulders. Bill knew this was unnecessary but didn’t stop the doctor for doing his work.

“The ones who stayed? Well, it was only myself – as I said before – and Masterson, who has taken to stationing himself on the roof.” Said Miyagi pointing to a building across from the hospital.

“Then the three weirdos.” Said Yoko with a click of her tongue then added: “Danny, Denny, and Donny.”

As if mocking the three men she continued: “They say that their helping with the refugees, but I never even see them doing anything but goofing off!”

“’Ambassadors to the town’ is what they’ve come to call themselves!” added Miyagi, apparently happy without whatever he had learned from feeling Bill’s arms and shoulders.

Nodding his head that he understood, Bill was relieved that Ranse and Sasha moved the people. After selling their gains from the Trump Pirates and buying the supplies there should have been roughly 265m Beli left.

This was a large number but with a hundred new mates their payroll had increased to 1.2m Beli per month, and that money would have been gone quick if they had to feed the others.

 After that the three of them spoke some more and Miyagi mentioned that a portion of the warehouse had been turned into an office for once Bill had recovered.

“A lot has happened over these last six weeks! You know, the man you fought was THE Revolutionary Dragon!

We’ve had direct contact not only from the Science Division but even directly from Marineford!” Said Miyagi.

Before Bill could consider this, Yoko shouted out happily: “And they even gave you an epithet!”

“Oh?” said Bill, waiting for her to say it before asking what it was.

“‘Black Stone’ Bill Ox!” said she, smiling widely.

After this, the three continued to talk and Masterson arrive before Bill decided to go ahead and check out of the hospital.

This didn’t take long, Miyagi having already dealt with any paperwork, and the three made their way to the warehouse.

As they walked the foursome drew many curious eyes and some people even cheered out, but this was nothing compared to the reception that they received at the warehouse.

Over five hundred former Clockwork Island residents received them with thanks and adulation.

Bill wasn’t much surprised that the people at the warehouse was glad to see him, after all he had worked with them for a week straight. What he found surprising was the all-around goodwill he was receiving.

After all, he had lost and presumably the criminal escaped because of that fact.

After meeting with the people, it was late in the afternoon when Bill was finally able to get to the office, they had built for him.

Looking around he saw the place fully equipped and remembering what Miyagi said decided to not waste time in reporting his situation.

Taking a seat at his desk Bill lifted a large Communication Snail and after thinking about the amount of time he had been in the hospital, in addition to the questions he had, started dialing.

*Purupurupuru*

The receiver clicked and a deep familiar voice could be heard:

“This is Commodore Aramaki Ox, identify yourself.”

Taking a serious breath, Bill responded: “It’s Bill, dad. Before I reported to Dr. Vegapunk and Marineford I just wanted to let you and mom know I was fine.”

Then pausing for a second, Bill continued before Aramaki could: “But I also wanted to ask. Who exactly is the Revolutionary Dragon?”