With sails unfurled and her back against the wind, the Frontier Run was slicing through the waves. Originally built to chase smuggling vessels, the small Frigate was one of the quicker Marine ship designs.
But even so, with no Log Pose to guide them or Snail to call for help, every time Bill looked, the giant white pirate ship was never out of view.
He chided himself for keeping all of their navigation tools in his office and didn’t know what method the ship was using to keep up with them. It was the size of a heavy Galleon and didn’t make sense that they couldn’t lose them in an open stretch of water.
By now they had been sailing for several hours, and after having changed his ragged cloths, Bill never stopped working.
He wasn’t alone, Sasha, Yoko, and the others had been there beside him. Miyagi had been there too before his ‘Miracle Drug’ wore off. The good doctor was absolutely suffering now, however, that had been the price paid in order to save everyone they could.
With barely over eighty crew members left, they were down to only some thirty healthy enough to work. The severity of the wounded varied, but out of the fifty or so of them, thirty would definitely be injured for several weeks at least.
Walking through the throng of casualties laid about on cots; cut faces, broken limbs wrapped up in linens, and bloody eyes swollen shut masked that more serious internal injuries such as broken sternums and ruptured ligaments that would take a long time to heal.
The Medical Bay on the Frontier Run was at capacity and after treating all of the life-threatening injuries offering pain killers and giving comfort was the best thing they could do for the crew.
At least the worst was out of the way now, and except for when he went to the ship deck, Bill and the others were really just constructing better beds for the wounded to lay in.
Rocking along on the tides was a fact of life on any ocean-going vessel, but the priority now was securing dozens of extra cots for when they had to make emergency maneuvers.
The modifications were crude measures. Designed to just keep the person in the cot, Bill walked from one person to the next with a piece of sail, hammer, and nails in hand. With these simple tools he started to loosely secure person inside so that they wouldn’t go flying unto the ground in case of emergency.
Of course, by doing this, if the ship sank then all of these wounded men and women would likely be unable to free themselves and would drown. However, Bill figured that if the ship sank they wouldn’t be able to survive anyway.
Whitebeards 3rd Division Commander, Jozu, was on the ship that was chasing them. It had taken Bill everything he had to just escape the last time they fought.
In the event of another close battle, it pained him to think of the consequences.
As he nailed his crewmember into their could-be coffin, Bill hated the sense of powerlessness he was feeling. He hated that he needed more strength and more knowledge. He hated that they had never gotten around to fully modifying the Frontier Run as they had planned.
The irony that on New Haven they had a fully functional nuclear reactor that electrified the island, the fact that they had the no-how to create cybernetic limbs, and the fact that they could create a stable di-hydrogen fuel from sea water, made it really ridiculous to him that they were using a sailing ship as their primary means of transportation.
The Frontier Run had been electrified to a small degree, they didn’t use oil burning lamps anymore, but installing the turbine had always been put over and shelved for another project.
With all of this going through his head, Bill didn’t let it show but continued to work until he smelled and then heard some of the Yoko clones running down the hall.
Rushing through the Medical Bay doors, they cried out: “Billll!”
“Careful!” He said back quickly, seeing that they weren’t trying to be careful around the crowded together cots.
Hearing him reprimand them, the small monkey-sized clones stopped, looked at each other, and then back at him.
“Heyy!” they started to speak as one, and then continued: “You shouldn’t yell at me like that! I’ve been working so hard this entire tiimmee!”
Their voices had an echoing whiny tone, but when they spoke again it was very clear and precise: “I had important news to tell you, but now I’m not going to talk! Not until you apologize!”
Bill had reinforced his body from the cellular level, and it hadn’t taken him long to completely heal after his fight with Jozu. Even his teeth had regrown. However, out of caution he hadn’t touched his brain and after such a stressful day he could hardly believe what Yoko had just said.
“Apologize?!” He said, standing up and walking over to the Yoko clones.
Dwarfing their three-foot-tall frames, he looked down and continued: “You recklessly almost trampled five people! Girly, recognize the situation, don’t add to my problems by making me discipline you!”
Looking back and forth with each other, the two clones fell to the ground and began to laugh.
As they laughed, he got angrier, but fortunately for them and probably the entire ship, they began to talk through their chuckles: “He doesn’t want us to add to his problems! Haha! He isn’t going to like what we have to tell him thennn!”
Shaking his head, Bill said deeply: “Speak!”
While the clones were replying with ‘only if you apologize’ there was another sound of feet running down the hall. It was a wide-eyed Donny who looked at Bill and a laughing Yoko and cried out: “Captain! What’re you doing?! They’re almost on us!”
When the former pirate said this, Bill felt like he swallowed his heart, and while the clones were ‘booing’ Donny, he replied to them: “You knew this?!”
Leaving the Medical Bay with a ‘don’t think this is over’ look, Bill arrived on the deck in a heartbeat.
Looking back, he could see that the giant white ship was nearing cannon range, and on the deck the 3rd Division Commander was with McGuy staring back at him.
Adjusting his eyes, Bill could see a ball in Jozu’s hand, and immediately shouted out: “Bring up the cannonballs!”
No sooner than he said this, Jozu threw, and Bill used Moon Step to stop the shot from hitting the ship. He protected the ship, but now a new phase of the chase began as Jozu threw one cannonball after the next.
Due to the reliance on the King Cannons, Frontier Run did not have a large supply of regular cannonballs. Numbering just under 400 in total, Bill started intercepting Jozu’s attacks with throws of his own.
The situation was untenable, and since somehow the white ship was slowly getting closer, Bill shouted out: “Willy! Get ropes and pull the ship!”
Though this would work to buy some time, it obviously couldn’t be a solution. The whales were strong but didn’t have the endurance to pull the ship for long distances.
Watching as they broke away, first out of the distance of regular cannons and then from Jozu’s range, Bill decided that they only had one reasonable chance. The King Cannons were powerful weapons and even if Jozu could defend against one Bill knew it was their only chance.
Due to their massive recoil, the only option for him was hoisting one of the large cannons over his shoulder, then braising himself, a human Marine off to the side of him pressed a button.
*BANG!*
The recoil almost knocked him off his feet, but standing strong, Bill watched as the black smoke neared its target. However, this time it was Jozu who intercepted the missile with a throw of his own.
With a loud *BOOM!* the King Cannon shell exploded over the water and kicked up a fierce smokey wind. After waiting for several moments on edge, Bill lamented when he saw the giant white ship come through the cloud.
Knowing that the Fish-men would be getting tired soon and that they only had roughly 50 shells in total, for the next several hours Bill fired a shell around the ship. The huge waves made by the explosions were enough to affect the giant ships speed, and so continued their game of cat and mouse.
By the second day of the chase the wounded were all secured, and the pirate ship was being held at a safe distance.
Down to only some thirty shells left, this method would only buy them a couple more days at most, then it would be Bill in the water with the whales, hoping to stumble on a Marine base capable of fighting off Whitebeards 3rd Commander.
In their dire situation one large explosion after the next could be heard from miles away at regular intervals and the chase entered day three.
After three days, Ricky and Nelson had finally woken up and all of those who still lived would probably survive.
Since Bill had to keep an eye on the pirate ship, in between firing the King Cannon he, Ricky, Sasha, Pearson, and Willy stood around on deck discussing what to do.
Nelson was awake, but he couldn’t speak and so stayed below deck.
“Would they stop if we gave them Blamenco back?” asked Pearson first.
Answering decisively, Sasha replied: “McGuy swore to kill Ricky. If Bill can’t beat Jozu then they have no reason to stop.”
“We killed a lot of pirates on Foodvalten.” Nodded Willy.
“Hey! Let’s just fight!” came a voice from the side and turning their head they found Yoko standing there. Her clones had turned back into hairs on her arm, but even without them the girl had been more and more of nuisance over the past few days.
Being a former parent and grandparent himself, Bill had done his best to raise her in a proper way. He knew the girl had attitude and behavioral issues sometimes, she was only thirteen after all, but he could never had thought that he would come to not like her.
However, since she had eaten the Devil Fruit and gained outrageous powers, he found that her personality wasn’t quite the same as before. She was too playful and even deceitful. She showed too much pride and an unearned sense of self-importance. Worst of all, she seemed to lack a sense remorse.
He had ‘established’ long ago after watching his father that Devil Fruits didn’t interfere with personality, and that made him think that she was always this way and had just been hiding it before.
There hadn’t been enough time to explore her abilities, but Bill was sure that she at least now had a combination of Super Strength, Clones that were half her size and made by hairs, and a Hard Head solid enough that Vergo wasn’t able to break it with a Finger Gun.
“Fighting is the absolute last resort.” He said back dismissively to her.
Not letting it go, she wailed: “But Billl! I’m stronger now!” Then continued snappily: “You can’t hold me back anymore!”
Turning around to look at her, first Bill’s eyes turned black and recognizing the demon in Yoko’s shadow he pressed down on it.
For a Devil Fruit user, their ability became a part of themselves and without any other sort of stimulation the girl instantly recognized that she had lost it.
‘Okay’okay’okay’ she wailed, and ignoring her, Bill said: “I can do this for as long as I like. Do you think I’m the only one with this ability? What will you do now?”
Although it wasn’t that Bill was the only person in the world who could nullify Devil Fruits, he knew he was being slightly deceitful in order to prove a point.
Looking at Bill, then at the others, Yoko said pitifully: “Okay! I swear I won’t go now unless you tell me to! Cross my heart or stick a needle in my eye!”
About to chastise her again, Danny hollered from the Crow’s Nest: “Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy! Starboard!”
His words saved Yoko, whom Bill stopped nullifying.
While she scampered away, Bill and the others saw a black dot on the horizon. It was too far to tell who it was, but Bill was sure it wasn’t a Marine ship.
Thinking that he didn’t want to involve anyone else, Bill slightly changed course and with a sigh, he shot at the pirates behind them and continued on their way.
In the end it was decided that in their last moments, just before they were caught, Bill and the Fish-men would attempt the sink the ship. The Pirate Emperors were no fools though, such a move would have been prepared for, and would result in many more casualties.
The day passed and over the night that had spent their ammunition to a mere five shells.
Finally, on the fourth morning Bill was surprised that the ship they had seen on the horizon was headed their way.
Calling up Nelson, Sasha, and Ricky, he asked them if they recognized what organization it belonged to and though his two childhood friends didn’t know, Nelson’s eyes widened.
Speaking with a gruff whisper he said excitedly: “The White Tiger… I.it’s Instructor Zephyr!”
Knowing that this was a former Admiral, Bill didn’t ask anything else and had the ship turn in that direction.
After the last five days he didn’t want to hope, but couldn’t help thinking that even if the old man couldn’t defeat Jozu that the two of them together could get him in the ocean.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic please hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
Sorry for the delay on this chapter! I thought knew how I wanted this part of the story to go but then started questioning myself! This had me literally going back and forth for the last two days rethinking my original story line. Everything from how strong I wanted out MC to become to what his relations with certain organizations would be...
Well anyways, I think I got it sorted out now and regular chapters will resume.
Just on a personal note, for a long time I criticized the idea of 'power creep'... but now I can see why it happens to authors.
White Tiger
Spoiler [collapse]
With sails unfurled and her back against the wind, the Frontier Run was slicing through the waves. Originally built to chase smuggling vessels, the small Frigate was one of the quicker Marine ship designs.
But even so, with no Log Pose to guide them or Snail to call for help, every time Bill looked, the giant white pirate ship was never out of view.
He chided himself for keeping all of their navigation tools in his office and didn’t know what method the ship was using to keep up with them. It was the size of a heavy Galleon and didn’t make sense that they couldn’t lose them in an open stretch of water.
By now they had been sailing for several hours, and after having changed his ragged cloths, Bill never stopped working.
He wasn’t alone, Sasha, Yoko, and the others had been there beside him. Miyagi had been there too before his ‘Miracle Drug’ wore off. The good doctor was absolutely suffering now, however, that had been the price paid in order to save everyone they could.
With barely over eighty crew members left, they were down to only some thirty healthy enough to work. The severity of the wounded varied, but out of the fifty or so of them, thirty would definitely be injured for several weeks at least.
Walking through the throng of casualties laid about on cots; cut faces, broken limbs wrapped up in linens, and bloody eyes swollen shut masked that more serious internal injuries such as broken sternums and ruptured ligaments that would take a long time to heal.
The Medical Bay on the Frontier Run was at capacity and after treating all of the life-threatening injuries offering pain killers and giving comfort was the best thing they could do for the crew.
At least the worst was out of the way now, and except for when he went to the ship deck, Bill and the others were really just constructing better beds for the wounded to lay in.
Rocking along on the tides was a fact of life on any ocean-going vessel, but the priority now was securing dozens of extra cots for when they had to make emergency maneuvers.
The modifications were crude measures. Designed to just keep the person in the cot, Bill walked from one person to the next with a piece of sail, hammer, and nails in hand. With these simple tools he started to loosely secure person inside so that they wouldn’t go flying unto the ground in case of emergency.
Of course, by doing this, if the ship sank then all of these wounded men and women would likely be unable to free themselves and would drown. However, Bill figured that if the ship sank they wouldn’t be able to survive anyway.
Whitebeards 3rd Division Commander, Jozu, was on the ship that was chasing them. It had taken Bill everything he had to just escape the last time they fought.
In the event of another close battle, it pained him to think of the consequences.
As he nailed his crewmember into their could-be coffin, Bill hated the sense of powerlessness he was feeling. He hated that he needed more strength and more knowledge. He hated that they had never gotten around to fully modifying the Frontier Run as they had planned.
The irony that on New Haven they had a fully functional nuclear reactor that electrified the island, the fact that they had the no-how to create cybernetic limbs, and the fact that they could create a stable di-hydrogen fuel from sea water, made it really ridiculous to him that they were using a sailing ship as their primary means of transportation.
The Frontier Run had been electrified to a small degree, they didn’t use oil burning lamps anymore, but installing the turbine had always been put over and shelved for another project.
With all of this going through his head, Bill didn’t let it show but continued to work until he smelled and then heard some of the Yoko clones running down the hall.
Rushing through the Medical Bay doors, they cried out: “Billll!”
“Careful!” He said back quickly, seeing that they weren’t trying to be careful around the crowded together cots.
Hearing him reprimand them, the small monkey-sized clones stopped, looked at each other, and then back at him.
“Heyy!” they started to speak as one, and then continued: “You shouldn’t yell at me like that! I’ve been working so hard this entire tiimmee!”
Their voices had an echoing whiny tone, but when they spoke again it was very clear and precise: “I had important news to tell you, but now I’m not going to talk! Not until you apologize!”
Bill had reinforced his body from the cellular level, and it hadn’t taken him long to completely heal after his fight with Jozu. Even his teeth had regrown. However, out of caution he hadn’t touched his brain and after such a stressful day he could hardly believe what Yoko had just said.
“Apologize?!” He said, standing up and walking over to the Yoko clones.
Dwarfing their three-foot-tall frames, he looked down and continued: “You recklessly almost trampled five people! Girly, recognize the situation, don’t add to my problems by making me discipline you!”
Looking back and forth with each other, the two clones fell to the ground and began to laugh.
As they laughed, he got angrier, but fortunately for them and probably the entire ship, they began to talk through their chuckles: “He doesn’t want us to add to his problems! Haha! He isn’t going to like what we have to tell him thennn!”
Shaking his head, Bill said deeply: “Speak!”
While the clones were replying with ‘only if you apologize’ there was another sound of feet running down the hall. It was a wide-eyed Donny who looked at Bill and a laughing Yoko and cried out: “Captain! What’re you doing?! They’re almost on us!”
When the former pirate said this, Bill felt like he swallowed his heart, and while the clones were ‘booing’ Donny, he replied to them: “You knew this?!”
Leaving the Medical Bay with a ‘don’t think this is over’ look, Bill arrived on the deck in a heartbeat.
Looking back, he could see that the giant white ship was nearing cannon range, and on the deck the 3rd Division Commander was with McGuy staring back at him.
Adjusting his eyes, Bill could see a ball in Jozu’s hand, and immediately shouted out: “Bring up the cannonballs!”
No sooner than he said this, Jozu threw, and Bill used Moon Step to stop the shot from hitting the ship. He protected the ship, but now a new phase of the chase began as Jozu threw one cannonball after the next.
Due to the reliance on the King Cannons, Frontier Run did not have a large supply of regular cannonballs. Numbering just under 400 in total, Bill started intercepting Jozu’s attacks with throws of his own.
The situation was untenable, and since somehow the white ship was slowly getting closer, Bill shouted out: “Willy! Get ropes and pull the ship!”
Though this would work to buy some time, it obviously couldn’t be a solution. The whales were strong but didn’t have the endurance to pull the ship for long distances.
Watching as they broke away, first out of the distance of regular cannons and then from Jozu’s range, Bill decided that they only had one reasonable chance. The King Cannons were powerful weapons and even if Jozu could defend against one Bill knew it was their only chance.
Due to their massive recoil, the only option for him was hoisting one of the large cannons over his shoulder, then braising himself, a human Marine off to the side of him pressed a button.
*BANG!*
The recoil almost knocked him off his feet, but standing strong, Bill watched as the black smoke neared its target. However, this time it was Jozu who intercepted the missile with a throw of his own.
With a loud *BOOM!* the King Cannon shell exploded over the water and kicked up a fierce smokey wind. After waiting for several moments on edge, Bill lamented when he saw the giant white ship come through the cloud.
Knowing that the Fish-men would be getting tired soon and that they only had roughly 50 shells in total, for the next several hours Bill fired a shell around the ship. The huge waves made by the explosions were enough to affect the giant ships speed, and so continued their game of cat and mouse.
By the second day of the chase the wounded were all secured, and the pirate ship was being held at a safe distance.
Down to only some thirty shells left, this method would only buy them a couple more days at most, then it would be Bill in the water with the whales, hoping to stumble on a Marine base capable of fighting off Whitebeards 3rd Commander.
In their dire situation one large explosion after the next could be heard from miles away at regular intervals and the chase entered day three.
After three days, Ricky and Nelson had finally woken up and all of those who still lived would probably survive.
Since Bill had to keep an eye on the pirate ship, in between firing the King Cannon he, Ricky, Sasha, Pearson, and Willy stood around on deck discussing what to do.
Nelson was awake, but he couldn’t speak and so stayed below deck.
“Would they stop if we gave them Blamenco back?” asked Pearson first.
Answering decisively, Sasha replied: “McGuy swore to kill Ricky. If Bill can’t beat Jozu then they have no reason to stop.”
“We killed a lot of pirates on Foodvalten.” Nodded Willy.
“Hey! Let’s just fight!” came a voice from the side and turning their head they found Yoko standing there. Her clones had turned back into hairs on her arm, but even without them the girl had been more and more of nuisance over the past few days.
Being a former parent and grandparent himself, Bill had done his best to raise her in a proper way. He knew the girl had attitude and behavioral issues sometimes, she was only thirteen after all, but he could never had thought that he would come to not like her.
However, since she had eaten the Devil Fruit and gained outrageous powers, he found that her personality wasn’t quite the same as before. She was too playful and even deceitful. She showed too much pride and an unearned sense of self-importance. Worst of all, she seemed to lack a sense remorse.
He had ‘established’ long ago after watching his father that Devil Fruits didn’t interfere with personality, and that made him think that she was always this way and had just been hiding it before.
There hadn’t been enough time to explore her abilities, but Bill was sure that she at least now had a combination of Super Strength, Clones that were half her size and made by hairs, and a Hard Head solid enough that Vergo wasn’t able to break it with a Finger Gun.
“Fighting is the absolute last resort.” He said back dismissively to her.
Not letting it go, she wailed: “But Billl! I’m stronger now!” Then continued snappily: “You can’t hold me back anymore!”
Turning around to look at her, first Bill’s eyes turned black and recognizing the demon in Yoko’s shadow he pressed down on it.
For a Devil Fruit user, their ability became a part of themselves and without any other sort of stimulation the girl instantly recognized that she had lost it.
‘Okay’okay’okay’ she wailed, and ignoring her, Bill said: “I can do this for as long as I like. Do you think I’m the only one with this ability? What will you do now?”
Although it wasn’t that Bill was the only person in the world who could nullify Devil Fruits, he knew he was being slightly deceitful in order to prove a point.
Looking at Bill, then at the others, Yoko said pitifully: “Okay! I swear I won’t go now unless you tell me to! Cross my heart or stick a needle in my eye!”
About to chastise her again, Danny hollered from the Crow’s Nest: “Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy! Starboard!”
His words saved Yoko, whom Bill stopped nullifying.
While she scampered away, Bill and the others saw a black dot on the horizon. It was too far to tell who it was, but Bill was sure it wasn’t a Marine ship.
Thinking that he didn’t want to involve anyone else, Bill slightly changed course and with a sigh, he shot at the pirates behind them and continued on their way.
In the end it was decided that in their last moments, just before they were caught, Bill and the Fish-men would attempt the sink the ship. The Pirate Emperors were no fools though, such a move would have been prepared for, and would result in many more casualties.
The day passed and over the night that had spent their ammunition to a mere five shells.
Finally, on the fourth morning Bill was surprised that the ship they had seen on the horizon was headed their way.
Calling up Nelson, Sasha, and Ricky, he asked them if they recognized what organization it belonged to and though his two childhood friends didn’t know, Nelson’s eyes widened.
Speaking with a gruff whisper he said excitedly: “The White Tiger… I.it’s Instructor Zephyr!”
Knowing that this was a former Admiral, Bill didn’t ask anything else and had the ship turn in that direction.
After the last five days he didn’t want to hope, but couldn’t help thinking that even if the old man couldn’t defeat Jozu that the two of them together could get him in the ocean.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic please hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
Sorry for the delay on this chapter! I thought knew how I wanted this part of the story to go but then started questioning myself! This had me literally going back and forth for the last two days rethinking my original story line. Everything from how strong I wanted out MC to become to what his relations with certain organizations would be...
Well anyways, I think I got it sorted out now and regular chapters will resume.
Just on a personal note, for a long time I criticized the idea of 'power creep'... but now I can see why it happens to authors.
White Tiger
Spoiler [collapse]