The Marine

Shaking his head, Bill turned to look towards the Chore Boy and said: “Yoko, if that things starts breathing fire, I’m going to throw it off the ship.”

Yoko: “He won’t! I told you; Boss is a good beetle!” saying this, the auburn-haired girl patted the insect’s carapace.

Eyeing the bug that had grown to the size of its namesake vehicle, Bill knew that it was smart.

The problem was that despite the fact it had stopped growing larger, the big beetle had started developing other abilities.

Specifically, it could now breath fire and spit out a sticky resin that’s smell was the stuff of nightmares.

“Yoko, Boss is not a dog, just how are you so sure that it even wants to leave the island?”

To answer this, Yoko told Bill to watch as she asked Boss a series of questions, all of which resulted in nods and shakes of the head. To make her point, some of these questions were asked once and then asked in reverse – all resulting in the same answers.

‘Alright.’ Bill thought. He knew the bug was smart, but perhaps he’d underestimated it.

“Fine bring it, but it’s your responsibility!” Said Bill, pointing a finger to the sky and repeating: “Just remember, I will throw it overboard and it’s a far fly back to New Haven.”

“Blimey! You’re going to take that wild animal on a proper war ship?”

Turning his head over to his rotund subordinate, Bill prayed for the first time in a long time by repeatedly thinking: ‘Good Lord give me strength.’

Setting sail on the M.S.S Victory was no easy task; the ship had been renovated by the New Haven’s engineers, but it was still a massive vessel.

Thankfully, there were about 100 Marines left on New Haven who Bill could draw from.

His Department had a total of 197 personnel, including himself, but Sasha had taken a crew of fifteen with the Bluebird into the East Blue and Ranse had taken some forty men with him on the Frontier Run into the first half of the Grand Line.

Though he didn’t suspect that New Haven would be targeted again by pirate raids, Bill couldn’t just take the remainder of his sailors with him, and he had to leave another forty to keep watch on the island.

Masterson was to stay behind on New Haven, and so this left him with about a hundred men and no capable Lieutenants.

100 men was a lot compared to his past expeditions, but the Victory was a ship had needed a minimum of 250 sailors to be considered entirely staffed.

Just steering the ship was a duty that alone took a team of one Helmsmen and nine Mates who acted as lookouts.

“Yes, Nelson. We’re bringing it.”

Saying this calmly, Bill was thinking that it’d be about time to cast off when he heard Nelson continue to complain: “That big beetle can fly and spit fire! Think about it!”

“Yep, so if there’s a battle, we’ll have one more on our side.”

Turning his head back to the men on the docks which were rapidly boarding, Bill waited as Nelson looked at him and gawked.

“One more on our side? Captain, would you care to educate me on just how you plan on controlling that insect? It’s well known that it hates pirates, only good thing about it, but we can’t be having to constantly watch out for the thing!

What if it casually eats someone it thinks is a pirate?!”

Ending his speech by pointing at Boss, he was loud enough that Yoko heard him and came rushing over.

“Boss doesn’t eat people, you eat people!

Bill, I’ve told you there was no way a person could get as fat as him.” Then saying ‘under’ her breath, Yoko spoke just loud enough that Nelson could hear: “Now I think it’s because he ate the real Nelson Royale!”

Bill didn’t often see Nelson get hurt by insults, but he caught a look in Nelson’s eye that made him say: “No, Boss doesn’t eat humans, but Nelson is right about the potential risk.

Bring him back over.”

Looking back and forth between the two men, Yoko rolled her eyes and went to grab the beetle and when she came back Bill asked it a serious of questions.

As the insect was doing its best to assure him that he wouldn’t fly off, Bill was suddenly reminded of Chuchun and Itomimizu.

He hadn’t heard any news about the Foxy Pirates, but Bill hadn’t forgotten about them and would still take them down if they ever chanced upon each other.

After several minutes of questioning, his concerns were lessened and apparently Nelson had nothing left to say either.

The only thing left to do was to weigh anchor and after leaving New Haven’s natural harbor, it was full speed ahead.

Taking roughly a month to travel from New Haven to Alabasta Kingdom in a straight-line, Bill was back in his old routine.

He had brought along the twenty Special Operators who had signed the extended service contracts and trained with them as a group in the mornings.

Although not all of the men had success in the technique, they were the most elite soldiers under him outside of his Lieutenants, and each had a pair of Pulse Boots and Gloves.

Thinking about it a long time, Bill had waffled on what to name this new unit.

Part of him wanted to just call them Spartans or SEALs and be done with it, but another part wanted the name to be more representative to his Division.

After it was known that the group was going to be given a special designation Yoko had campaigned for a name she thought of.

In her words: “In honor of New Havens protector and the equipment they were being given, the group should be called ‘Beetleborgs’.”

Some thought it was funny, and others thought it sounded cool, but since everyone seemed to like the name Bill decided to make it happen.

Like that, these twenty men were his first Beetleborgs. They even thought up elaborate traditions like to be a ‘true’ Beetleborg one had to learn Iron Body – something to do with the skin becoming a carapace, but Bill hadn’t tried to pay too close attention.

‘Just so long as they don’t start breathing fire.’ He thought with a laugh.

Day after day passed this way, and before he knew it three weeks had passed.

One day after bringing the ship through a flash storm, Bill sat on a chair beside Nelson.

Relaxing in the middle of the day wasn’t something he was used to in either life, but he felt he had earned it after the storm and laying under the sun he looked up and spotted a flock of News Coo.

Given the nature of storms in this world it wasn’t surprising to see the flock so soon after bad weather and reaching into his pants pocket, Bill grabbed coin and threw.

One Coo expertly caught the coin, and another bird came over to drop the paper, this was something he never got tired of seeing.

With the paper in his hand, he grimaced that it was World Economy News.

This was Bill’s least favorite paper, even though it followed major pirates and events, the thing always had too much speculation for it to be informative.

Leaning back in his chair, he cracked it opened and rolled his eyes at the title. Scanning the page, he huffed and closed it.

Nelson: “What’s the scoop?”

Bill: “It’s nothing, just World Economy spin.”

Even though he said this, Bill was alarmed by what he read.

[Open Revolution in Alabasta Kingdom!]

• After years of drought and mismanagement, rebels in Alabasta have started to gather near the oasis city of Katoera. The rebellion leaders demand the use of the world wide banned substance known as Dance Powder! To help facilitate a peaceful resolution the Hero of Alabasta, Sir Crocodile, has interceded on behalf of the Kingdom citizens; vowing to protect any innocent person in the crossfires of revolution. It is unknown what measures the Kingdom authorities are taking at this time, as all communications from the castle has seemed to stop. However, an exclusive scoop we have received and verified is the existence of armed shipments flowing into the capital city of Alubarna. This paper awaits new developments and will keep our readership informed on these frightful events.

Below this article was several more about Alabasta Kingdom, most of which detailed the Warlord known as Crocodile.

In fact, there were so many articles that Bill suspected that the paper only ran the story because it involved a Warlord.

Rolling his eyes, Bill stood up, handing the paper to Nelson for him to read and after a couple minutes was joined by Nelson at the ships railing.

“If we’re going to Alabasta we need to be careful, Captain.” Said Nelson who leaned most of his weight on the rails.

This was still a major improvement, the fact that he could walk at all was nothing short of a miracle.

Considering this, Bill looked at his subordinate for a moment before turning back at the ocean and said: “It’s the World Economy News, who knows what’s really going on.”

Nelson: “The paper is sensationalist, but we certainly can not get involved with the Warlords or nobility. Certainly, no matter what, we can only act if we are clearly invited to act.”

Bill knew the regulations that Marines had when it came to the Allied Kingdoms, with few exceptions those Kingdoms were autonomous territories only ruled by their own governments.

This was the difference between Kingdoms and other islands, and it was why Bill had to send his Lieutenants out to physically go and meet with those authorities.

“I’m not going to go join the rebels, Nelson.”

Hearing this, Nelson started laughing and slowly walked back to his chair.

“No no, I don’t think you would! Blimey that would be a sight though!”

Taking his seat, Nelson stopped laughing and said: “But I don’t know how you’ll act towards the Warlord.

Listen to me Captain, those seven are extremely arrogant. Half of them wouldn’t think twice about attacking a Science Division Captain, hells, one of them would try to kidnap you.”

Inadvertently rolling his eyes to that claim, Bill turned around and asked: “Really… Nelson, do you believe I would be kidnapped?”

Seeing his subordinate shake his head, Nelson spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.

“No Captain. I don’t think you would get kidnapped; I’d suppose that you would defeat four of the seven Warlords if it came down to it, but Captain, the ramifications for a fighting a Warlord would be catastrophic.”

Sucking in a breath, Nelson continued: “The World Government could not accept potentially losing those seven Warlords, it would throw off the balance of powers in the world. You must remember that.”

Shaking his head, Bill morally hated the idea of Warlords, but in a world of superpowers things had to be decided based not on morals, but on realities.

Because he didn’t want to get into the ‘right and wrong’ debate, Bill just asked: “You know of those seven personally?”

What he heard next he didn’t expect.

“I was at the Marineford Cadet Academy when the Seven Warlords proposal was accepted.”

Then stopping for a minute to organize his thought, Nelson continued: “This was just under twenty years ago, mind you, but at that time there were just too many pirates for us to handle.

Gold Roger had just executed a few years before, but who knew that he’d turn the world upside down with his last words?!

Red-Haired Shanks, Dracule Mihawk, Marco the Phoenix, and so many others were just popping up out of nowhere.

This was supposed to be the era where the Marines asserted order throughout the seas! But the truth was that we were being attacked on every side, so many died it’s hard to even enumerate…”

Nelson stopped again, and after another minute restarted: “The Seven Warlords system is a disgrace.

You know when they decided to accept the system? It was after they toured the Academy, we were supposed to be the best… but… what are tactics again pure power?!”

Bill suspected the Nelson said this against himself. Despite being a genius tactician, the man was never able to break the barrier into being a superhuman.

This didn’t excuse any of the man’s actions after he had been given command, but Bill could now see how the downward spiral began.

“I remember Instructor Zephyr’s face when Sengoku left the academy that day. He didn’t place the blame on us.” Then wiping his face with a hand, he said finally: “But he should have done so.

That’s why, Bill, you cannot get into conflict with the Warlords. They are not like mere Vice Admirals. Trust me on this.”

Hearing what Nelson said, Bill didn’t respond.

It wasn’t that he thought Nelson was either lying or wrong, but he knew in his heart that he would do what he thought was the right thing.

Bill wasn’t aiming to fight a Warlord, or anybody for that matter.

But if his hand was forced… *Purururu* *Purururu*

Interrupting his thought, the snail in his office started ringing and telling Nelson he’d be back, Bill went to go answer it.

When he picked up the Snail, the creature formed a white cowboy hat on its head and Bill heard Ranse on the other side.

“Bill! King Cobra just kicked us out of the country!”

Being still a week away, Bill grimaced and responded back to his Lieutenant.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”