The Marine

Departing from Base-TK, Bill held a weight in one hand and thought about how the last two weeks had gone.

Forki had explained to Bill that there really was no set buyer for the Mink, if the story could be believed, pirates rarely ever hocked their own goods.

Neither Bill nor any of the others had ever seen it, but apparently when pirate ships went into ‘business friendly’ ports, they would often be approached by shrewd merchants who would buy their goods.

For a steep discount, Forki had mentioned incredulously, but insisted that they didn’t even know what the goat was and assumed it was some kind of rare animal.

Having gotten a bit of the information he wanted, Bill had slightly roughed the pirate up and then threw him back in the cell.

After that, for the next week and a half he added re-interrogating the pirates to his daily activities. When he wasn’t in his cabin drawing up blueprints for his laboratory, lifting weights, or watching over the ship he was bringing them in one by one.

These interrogations were not severe as now the goal now had changed, Bill didn’t want a complete story from any of them and instead gained a little information from each interaction.

Information gained in this way was spotty but when Bill had interrogated Forker again, using the knowledge he gained from the other pirates had forced the pirate captain into silence

The base hadn’t given them much trouble and had even bought the Fork Pirates ship. All in all, the venture had gained slightly more than 10m Beli after resupply, and now they were back on their route to Little East Blue island.

Standing on the deck of Frontier Run, Bill saw a flock of News Coo and after throwing up a coin was dropped a paper.

He was mildly surprised that it wasn’t South Blue Times but was instead the Grand Line publication of World Economy News Paper.

Bill had recognized the paper, it was the largest in the world after all, but he didn’t care for it much as this paper only published the most sensational news. This article was no different.

Looking at it, it read.

[Largest Bounty Ever Given to Famed East Blue Pirate!]

- After the unprovoked destruction of half an island, including the entire 16^th East Blue Marine Branch, the notorious pirate known all over the East Blue – Monkey D. Luffy – has been given the largest first-time bounty ever in that Lower Sea. Unofficial reports claim the infamous crew to house many famous evildoers from across the East Blue but being unable to verify these reports no other bounties have been issued. The one thing that is for certain, Wanted Dead or Alive the Straw Hat Pirates are extremely dangerous and this paper will stay on their trail!

Rolled inside the paper was the bounty poster which shown a young-looking man wearing a straw hat and a wide smile.

At this time, Bill frowned but didn’t think much about it and was instead more annoyed that it wasn’t a South Blue Times paper.

Taking a weight in his hand, Bill walked to the main deck as he lifted the 500kg weight in all sorts of weird angles, then putting the paper on the table he used a paper weight and looked around.

Now that they weren’t towing a ship and Fia wasn’t making two meals a day for fifty people the only noise that could be heard was Ranse hammering away in the ships medical bay, making all the adjustments Miyagi had wanted.

The Mink had taken to sleeping in his office and so Ranse was building out a small space for a bed and chest to be placed.

By now Miyagi was formally in the Science Division and held the rank of Warrant Officer, which was what he needed to be as the head doctor of Procurements.

His exact title was ‘Surgeon Officer’ which gave the goat Mink quite the kick when he had first heard it.

He had also been grilled by Sasha in her expertise and had answered her very concisely which had been the solidifying action that led to the offer.

Bill had pondered whether or not he had given the rank out too hastily, after all he didn’t have that many he could assign without oversight, but figured that if Miyagi was a quack, he could simply demote him.

With such a small crew, Bill figured it would be impossible for him not to notice if Miyagi was just good at theory.

One further good sign was that as soon as Miyagi was signed up, he requested for various medical and botany texts, which he would receive at some point in the near future.

Of course, he would not be privy to the classified technology made by the Science Division but when it came to the more mundane knowledge, all doors were open to him.

This satisfied him well enough, and as he walked to the bow of the ship looked forward to the open horizon.

Torino Kingdom was located very close to the Calm Belt, and over the next several days the wind started to slow down.

There was no clear marker that a ship entered the Calm Belt, but the indication was, when the waves stopped altogether you were in it.

With its sails furled, Frontier Run glided on the still water thanks to its seastone haul. There was no movement in any direction, and they were like a ship that moved across a painted ocean.

The trip across the Calm Belt didn’t last long, but it had been a quiet few days.

Because everyone was too tense to make much noise Bill mostly worked on his lab designs and a few gadgets for the ship, Ranse hung on a rope and practiced Moon Step, Ricky and Sasha slowly practiced their sword techniques, Fia organized a catalog with various recipes she had made, and Miyagi mostly slept.

In the afternoons the crew would play cards; they spoke in hushed tones even though there hadn’t been reports that Sea Kings were attracted to noise.

Perhaps it was just a state of mind, where the motionless surroundings affected the crew’s mood, but whatever it was everyone on board was happy when they finally saw waves slowly form on the tenth morning.

When they were sure to be out of the Calm Belt, Fia fired up the grills and they had a proper party. Bill had spent most of his time between Ranse and Miyagi. Even on the nearly empty ship Ranse always seemed to have something to do, and for Miyagi everything was ‘brilliant!’ and ‘stupendous!’.

Fia had whipped up the last of the citrus desserts, and to top it all off, as they sat down to eat Sasha spotted an unknown Jolly Roger on the horizon.

It was lunch time and given the distance the small Marine crew didn’t overreact, instead they finished their food and took turns to occasionally adjust course.

With the speed of Frontier Run it didn’t take but a couple hours until the small pirate ship on the horizon was close enough for Bill to give out attack orders.

This time he took Sasha, having Ricky at the helm with Miyagi as his spotter. Ranse and Fia would stand on deck to move however the situation dictated.

These precautions turned out to be unnecessary, Bill and Sasha proceeded to the pirate ship like a hurricane.

After failing to immediately surrender the swordswoman cleared the decks and Bill moved like a raging torrent underneath, stomping out every pirate he came across.

He mostly used his war hammer instead of his fists. Although he did resort to kicks and was somewhat eager to test his bone-spiked knuckles, the goal was still not to directly kill these long-armed pirates.

By the time Ranse and Fia threw over the grappling hooks and connected the two ships, there wasn’t a single pirate left on their feet.

This time the small Marine crew was a little better as processing the pirates, of course it helped to have an extra pair of hands who was an actual doctor.

Out of sixty pirates, thirty-five had slash wounds and the others all had broken or bruised bones.

 After ferrying the prisoners into Frontier Run’s holding cell Bill, Ricky, and Sasha went on the pirate ship to sort out their catch.

The ship was in worse shape then Forkers, which was somewhat unsurprising given the sea it traveled in.

As Bill estimated how much Ranse could repair Ricky ran to him.

“Hey, look what I found in the captains office!”

Reaching out his hand, Bill looked down at what Ricky had given him, it was an Eternal Pose labelled ‘Water 7’.

“There’s a famous shipyard there, and from my estimates we should be close enough to tow this wreck and sell it!”

Bill nodded his head to this suggestion, and asked: “Do you know if the island has a Marine base?”

Shaking his head quick, Ricky then stopped and said: “Water 7 definitely doesn’t but… I think I remember one being close to there… uh… hold on.”

When he said this, Ricky dashed back off and Bill didn’t question him, instead turning back to inspect the ship.

He was looking around the crews’ quarters and it smelled like stale sweat and other body odor.

There was more material wealth here than on his last catch, and it made Bill consider just how prevalent pirates were.

Sure, he had been out at sea for a few months at this point and had only seen two pirates, but he had traveled in an atypical fashion and had completely avoided trading lanes.

As he went through the pirates’ belongings he found watches, Beli, silverware, silver cups, leather wallets, and other small but higher value items.

As he pulled a sea chest from under a cot, he heard footsteps again and saw Ricky in the doorway.

“Yeah, Sasha said she remembered there was a Marine base near Water 7, but she said Enies Lobby was closer.”

Bill had thought he heard this name before, but asked: “Enies Lobby, the judicial island?”

Of course, Bill and the others had been educated but Ms. Angie had rarely spoken about the World Government, and even when civics had been a topic, relied on local level examples.

Then when Bill had joined the Marines there hadn’t been any kind of ‘crash course’ for the operation and functions of the organization as a whole, after all, he had been in the Science Division and all the information given there had been related to research and development.

Despite all of this, Bill was not ignorant to the world at large. Only he had focused on the space he operated in while relying on his broader knowledge from his time on Earth.

Ricky on the other hand was more or less familiar with the exact functions of the navy and World Government at large, so to Bill’s question he simply nodded his head and said: “Yeah, and they should pay out any bounties there too.”

Nodding his head that he understood Bill tucked the Eternal Pose in his pocket, he was still wearing his regular old blue and white attire, then said: “Alright, sounds like a plan. Keep me updated if you find anything else.”

Acknowledging that, Ricky went back to his search and Bill moved to the cannon deck.

The ship had fired on them several times and would have hit their ship once if not for Bill backhanding the ball.

Even though it hurt, Bill had realized that a cannon shot wouldn’t kill him and so was willing to take such a risk to the amazement of the others.

Looking around, Bill realized that despite the ships worn condition the cannons were all pristine.

They seemed to be a different model that those on Forker’s ship, which could have accounted for the extra shots taken during the initial engagement.

After he took inventory, Bill went around the ship deck by deck. Sometimes he’d cross Sasha and sometimes one of his other crewmates.

There wasn’t a rule saying that half of them had to stay on Frontier Run, only that the prisoners couldn’t be left unattended. After listening to the sounds of feet shuffling onboard, Bill figured Miyagi had stayed on their ship.

Much like their previous catch Ranse immediately began repairing whatever superficial damage he could, Fia scoured the dry storage and took the best pots and utensils, Sasha and Ricky raided the armory and took whatever practical things they thought the venture would need, and Bill reorganized the papers found in the captain’s quarters.

Pirates were many things, but one of their most prominent features was narcissism. Thanks to this fact Bill was able to find three Wanted posters and the names of those men.

With bounties of 15m, 8m, and 5m, these pirates were not major players in the Grand Line but even still the expected profits were nearly triple that of the Fork Pirates Bill and the others had caught in the South Blue.

At the end of the day, sitting in his office, Bill heard Ranse’s opinion on the pirate brig and his estimation totaled its value at around 1m Beli, but that was including the cannons and powder.

Standing beside the cowboy Ricky mentioned that they hadn’t gone through the entire pawn, but so far, they had recovered close to 1m Beli in hard cash and about 500,000 Beli in other small goods.

This was in line with what Bill had thought and he wouldn’t complain due to the three bounties they were going to collect and the Eternal Log which was a prize worth a few million Beli on its own.

Saying that he understood, he told his two officers to take a rest.

Tonight, he was on watch, they would unfurl the sails and make way to their destination.

He was looking forward to seeing this famous shipyard at Water 7.