Sailing away from Zou on a ship that had been filled to more than twice its original capacity, Bill sat at his desk wide-eyed as another shanty was started up by a quartet of howler monkey Minks.
With terrible singing and loud dancing going on just outside of his office, he sat there thinking about the previous two days. He wondered if he should have just put his foot down and refused the back and forth ‘gifts’ offered by Dogstorm and Cat Viper.
Returning to Dogstorm the morning after the first night with Cat Viper, the wizened Duke immediately had asked what his rival had done, and upon hearing that Cat Viper declared Bill a ‘Legendary Friend’ and encouraged his people to sign up and sail with the Marine Captain, Dogstorm did likewise and announced to the daytime citizens of Zou that if they wanted to sail then they could speak to Bill ‘Ox’.
Knowing his ship already full and suspecting that most of these Minks didn’t quite understand the differences between being a Marine and a Pirate, Bill had tried to dissuade the Ruler of Day from this announcement.
But when he tried to do so, the ‘wise’ Ruler of Day said stoically: “Captain-gara, you’ve proven your friendship and I know enough about you thanks to the Doctor that I believe our people will be safe under your care.”
Then, when Bill had shaken his head and explained that despite being in the Science Division his Department were still Marines and had experienced many different combat situations, Dogstorm looked at him and replied back: “All Minks are natural born fighters-gara. I do not worry about them in that regard, and I trust that you will protect them from those sinister people inside of that organization.”
When Dogstorm said this, Bill was forced to remember the Pacifista Project and sighed. It would be hard to say he found himself in agreement with many of the current policies held by the World Government.
Whether the Pacifista, Warlords, Cipher Pol, or the deification of World Nobles, he had serious concerns with how the government was handling certain affairs. However, in a disjointed world with superpowers, monsters, and other things, he knew that it was very possible he could be missing something.
After all, he had personally spent days with the Marine Fleet Admiral Sengoku along with the Marine Hero Garp and his protégés. He had met with Admiral Aokiji and several other higher up Marines during his stay at Marineford.
Though they were surely not perfect, he felt they were good people, and this was especially the case for the younger generation that he’d met. Koby was bound to become a heroic figure, perhaps even Grount as well, he thought.
So, with all of this in mind, Bill relented and said that he’d absolutely take care of his own people.
With that, he expected some recruits coming in but did not expect a crowd of over 500 to appear in front of the Dukes palace.
Most of them were monkey-type Minks but there were also rams, bulls, dogs, and even a husband-wife couple of fifteen-foot-tall giraffe Mink.
Looking over the crowd, he was about to start arranging lines to have interviews but was stopped when Miyagi walked beside him and called out: “Only those who can manage their Sulong may apply!”
When this was said a wave of disappointed sighs swept through the crowd, and when Bill looked down to ask, Miyagi answered him simply: “Natural Minks gain magnificent power by gazing into the full moon! Regrettably for undisciplined Minks, that power can corrupt their mind and turn them into savages. Most Minks can’t control their Sulong forms, but many can limit its effect.”
Hearing this surprising piece of information, Bill had felt grateful to Miyagi if not perhaps a bit spiteful to the Dukes but seeing more than half the crowd disperse, he thought it was too late to renege on the offer. For the rest of the morning and into the middle of the day, while the others were resting after the long night, he along with Ricky and Pearson did interview after interview.
Putting the ‘suitable’ candidates into a list, they finished up by dinner time and started to sort out who they would take as recruits.
Howler monkey (guard), howler monkey (carpenter), spider monkey (scout), capuchin(guard)…
It didn’t take long for them to see a pattern. The quality of the monkey Mink candidates were heads and shoulders above the rest.
Though most who were applying to join them were monkey guards; there were also many carpenters, furniture and toy makers, loggers, sculptors, and other skilled labor jobs.
“Why the heck are these results so skewed?” Pearson had asked, and seeing an auburn-haired teenager surrounded by a following of monkey Minks, Bill knew exactly why.
He didn’t know the name of her devil fruit, but inside the sea of souls it took the form of an arrogant monkey, which undoubtedly symbolized its nature.
‘Don’t tell me her devil fruit is the queen of monkeys?’ he laughed to himself, then had got back to work.
Initially accepting just 50, 45 were various kinds of monkey Mink, the others were 3 bighorn ram Minks and the husband-wife giraffe couple.
If only we had left then, Bill now sat at his desk and thought.
But of course, he couldn’t have left without saying goodbye to Cat Viper, and the scenario played out much as it had with Dogstorm, but now Cat Viper urged him to accept 75-night Minks into his crew.
Reading the feline Dukes thoughts, Bill knew Cat Viper wasn’t going to accept ‘no’ and so did as he asked, finally accepting some 25 assorted squirrel-type Minks – mostly flying-squirrels, 25 feline-type Minks – mostly panthers, and finally 25 bovine-type Minks – mostly bison.
Adding an additional 125 bodies on his already over full ship was going to be a serious challenge, and he knew that the rivalry between the two Dukes could make this ‘competition’ spiral out of control. So, taking the initiative, he told Dogstorm the next morning that he would recruit 25 additional-day Minks bringing the total number to an even 150.
Unlike Cat Viper, Dogstorm realized what had happened and embarrassingly accepted Bill’s compromise and offered provisions to help the voyage.
By the time they were lowering their new recruits down Zunesha’s rump, Bill knew they would need another ship. Somewhat surprisingly, aside from the Fish-men, for now the overcrowding didn’t seem to bother the humans or Minks, both of which were in awe of just about everything.
Sailing away from Zou with nearly 500 sailors on a ship originally designed for 200 presented a list of challenges, but he’d make sure they’d make it through, Bill thought as he sat at his desk calculating how long their liquid rations would last.
At least, with the Fish-men they shouldn’t starve.
‘Now if I can just make sure they don’t tip the ship over…’ he whispered to himself while hearing the terrible songs being sung.
Finally unable to take any more songs about life in the trees or just ‘coconuts’ in general, Bill left his office with a paper in his hand and made his way to the howler monkey quartet.
“Aye Captain-gara?” one of the singers asked, stopping his song, and turning the entire ship’s attention to them.
Giving his best, non-irritated smile, Bill looked down at the five-foot tall howler monkeys and said: “Here, try singing these.”
Handing over the paper, the Minks looked at it for a moment and one responded: “Aye’ we can sing these-gara. We just has to know the tune!”
Breathing heavily, Bill said ‘Alright’ and from the middle of the deck a cheer went out. Looking over, he saw there standing in a group Yoko, Roule, Sasha, and Ricky surrounded by a dozen monkey Minks.
From Yoko’s cheer, anticipation built around the crew, and turning back towards the howlers Bill said: “Alright, this is how the first one goes.
Ohh poor ol’ Stormy’s dead and gone! …”
Hearing sailors sing sea shanties was common but hearing sea shanties sung exceptionally well was not. Due to the fact he had mastered Life Return, Bill had complete control over his voice and could naturally sing exceptionally well.
The crew cheered up when he sang: “I dug his grave with a silver spade!”
They ooo’ed when he said: “I lowered him down with a golden chain!”
Once ‘Stormalong John’ was finished, he sang each of the sea shanties he could remember from his previous life – including a rendition of ‘In the Navy’ which was undoubtedly worded wrong, but to the crew who was unaware of the original, sounded particularly awesome.
Singing late into the late afternoon, the first day on board the cramped ship turned out to be not that bad.
Checking the bunks late that night, Bill saw Yoko lying beside a 10-year-old bunny girl who had desperately wanted to sail on the ocean. The girl’s name was Carrot of all things, and was the only Chore Boy he had taken from Zou.
Bill wished he could say that he accepted the rabbit Mink for some high-minded reason, but in actual fact he was just glad to see Yoko make a friend who she didn’t then push around.
Closing the door on the women’s side of the ship, he headed to his office and passed the Fish-men who had set up tents to sleep under. With the regular quarters filled to the brim, it was decided the Fish-men would sleep on the ships deck since they wouldn’t be so bothered if it rained.
Getting into his office, Bill still stayed quiet since Nelson was sleeping on a cot not far from his desk and after taking a seat rested his head on his arms and lightly drifted off into a world of his own.
Thankfully it turned out that the ship was barely two weeks away from a Marine base located on a popular New World resort island. Those two weeks were just about what the crew could have tolerated, Bill and his officers thought.
Since they had been so over capacity Bill had rationed the water starting from day one, and as a result by the time they landed on Secon Island nobody had properly bathed in two weeks. This dirtiness had stripped the awe and wonder of the human and Mink crew had faded their apprehension towards the already ill-tempered Fish-men.
There hadn’t been any fights during those weeks, but Bill wondered how much of that had been due to the reputation of him and his officers.
But that was all in the past, as Bill went to the local base and his crew went to the local spas. He ordered enough uniforms and cloth for the new recruits while they went to get some much-needed shore leave.
While he was at the base, he sent three of the Vitalvine flowers to be analyzed by some of his oldest friends in the Science Division.
While he had been busy building his Department over the last several years Samantha, Tom, and Jerry hadn’t been lazy. All Biologists, Samantha in particular, had risen up to be the Head Assistant to a relatively renown laboratory near Marineford.
Tom and Jerry had stayed with her, and also had some successes in the field, but were likely to one end up as her assistants when she headed her own projects.
Bill had moderately kept in touch with the trio over the years, though their letters had become shorter and waited for longer intervals, he still called them his friends. Which was good since the last thing he wanted to do was go to Vegapunk himself for help.
With five Vitalvine’s in total, he wanted to analyze what the air inside of them contained and reverse engineer that formula into a training supplement.
Having mastered Life Return, he hadn’t thought about adding anything ‘extra’ to his routine, but that was before inhaling the enriched air contained within the flowers. With this formula, even if it was expensive to make, he and his Beetleborgs would benefit immensely.
With that out of the way, the last thing he did was purchase another small frigate.
With the incomes from their various raids and building projects in the East Blue, his Department currently held roughly a billion Beli in hard cash.
Gone were the days of living hand-to-mouth but that didn’t mean they were completely out of the water for good. One thing that inflated the Beli amount was the fact that they were paid upfront for the projects they were doing inside Frauce Kingdom, but that temporary inflation obviously dwindled away as construction continued.
At the same time that they had expenses heading out for payroll and other things, he had given the former Clockwork Island engineers the green light on building two medium-scale factories on the Polestar Islands, near Loguetown.
Due to the large amounts of wool produced near Loguetown, something he had learned about all those years ago when he needed to house refuges, one of those factories was designed to manufacture various grades of cloth and the other was to manufacture ropes, nets, sails, and other key shipping components.
And these were all just the start of the plans they had made across the most stable Blue.
In the end, he found a bare-bones medium sized blue and white frigate for 150m Beli. It’s only redeeming feature being the seastone haul.
Being one size larger than the Frontier Run, it was likewise slower. It was a fine tradeoff, he guessed, and put Nelson in charge of it accompanied by Willy, the Fish-men, and about 150 of the human crew.
After the new ship, which he named the M.S.S Duke, was outfitted properly the two ships sailed away from Secon Island and started back to their base in Paradise.
This time, Bill swore to himself there would be no detours.
They had work to do.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a raiting!
I decided to keep it 'Sulong' rather than 'Moon Lion' for obvious reasons. It doesn't make sense in English to have a rabbit that has a 'Moon Lion' form.
Also, Samantha/Tom/Jerry haven't been 'on screen' since chapter 38 or something but literally no named characters that have gotten more than a single line will be forgotten. They're just off doing their own thing.
Coming up is what I think is a 2 chapter long montage-style time skip, but I'm going to try to get it done in a single chapter, so we'll see.
Carrot
Spoiler [collapse]
Sailing away from Zou on a ship that had been filled to more than twice its original capacity, Bill sat at his desk wide-eyed as another shanty was started up by a quartet of howler monkey Minks.
With terrible singing and loud dancing going on just outside of his office, he sat there thinking about the previous two days. He wondered if he should have just put his foot down and refused the back and forth ‘gifts’ offered by Dogstorm and Cat Viper.
Returning to Dogstorm the morning after the first night with Cat Viper, the wizened Duke immediately had asked what his rival had done, and upon hearing that Cat Viper declared Bill a ‘Legendary Friend’ and encouraged his people to sign up and sail with the Marine Captain, Dogstorm did likewise and announced to the daytime citizens of Zou that if they wanted to sail then they could speak to Bill ‘Ox’.
Knowing his ship already full and suspecting that most of these Minks didn’t quite understand the differences between being a Marine and a Pirate, Bill had tried to dissuade the Ruler of Day from this announcement.
But when he tried to do so, the ‘wise’ Ruler of Day said stoically: “Captain-gara, you’ve proven your friendship and I know enough about you thanks to the Doctor that I believe our people will be safe under your care.”
Then, when Bill had shaken his head and explained that despite being in the Science Division his Department were still Marines and had experienced many different combat situations, Dogstorm looked at him and replied back: “All Minks are natural born fighters-gara. I do not worry about them in that regard, and I trust that you will protect them from those sinister people inside of that organization.”
When Dogstorm said this, Bill was forced to remember the Pacifista Project and sighed. It would be hard to say he found himself in agreement with many of the current policies held by the World Government.
Whether the Pacifista, Warlords, Cipher Pol, or the deification of World Nobles, he had serious concerns with how the government was handling certain affairs. However, in a disjointed world with superpowers, monsters, and other things, he knew that it was very possible he could be missing something.
After all, he had personally spent days with the Marine Fleet Admiral Sengoku along with the Marine Hero Garp and his protégés. He had met with Admiral Aokiji and several other higher up Marines during his stay at Marineford.
Though they were surely not perfect, he felt they were good people, and this was especially the case for the younger generation that he’d met. Koby was bound to become a heroic figure, perhaps even Grount as well, he thought.
So, with all of this in mind, Bill relented and said that he’d absolutely take care of his own people.
With that, he expected some recruits coming in but did not expect a crowd of over 500 to appear in front of the Dukes palace.
Most of them were monkey-type Minks but there were also rams, bulls, dogs, and even a husband-wife couple of fifteen-foot-tall giraffe Mink.
Looking over the crowd, he was about to start arranging lines to have interviews but was stopped when Miyagi walked beside him and called out: “Only those who can manage their Sulong may apply!”
When this was said a wave of disappointed sighs swept through the crowd, and when Bill looked down to ask, Miyagi answered him simply: “Natural Minks gain magnificent power by gazing into the full moon! Regrettably for undisciplined Minks, that power can corrupt their mind and turn them into savages. Most Minks can’t control their Sulong forms, but many can limit its effect.”
Hearing this surprising piece of information, Bill had felt grateful to Miyagi if not perhaps a bit spiteful to the Dukes but seeing more than half the crowd disperse, he thought it was too late to renege on the offer. For the rest of the morning and into the middle of the day, while the others were resting after the long night, he along with Ricky and Pearson did interview after interview.
Putting the ‘suitable’ candidates into a list, they finished up by dinner time and started to sort out who they would take as recruits.
Howler monkey (guard), howler monkey (carpenter), spider monkey (scout), capuchin(guard)…
It didn’t take long for them to see a pattern. The quality of the monkey Mink candidates were heads and shoulders above the rest.
Though most who were applying to join them were monkey guards; there were also many carpenters, furniture and toy makers, loggers, sculptors, and other skilled labor jobs.
“Why the heck are these results so skewed?” Pearson had asked, and seeing an auburn-haired teenager surrounded by a following of monkey Minks, Bill knew exactly why.
He didn’t know the name of her devil fruit, but inside the sea of souls it took the form of an arrogant monkey, which undoubtedly symbolized its nature.
‘Don’t tell me her devil fruit is the queen of monkeys?’ he laughed to himself, then had got back to work.
Initially accepting just 50, 45 were various kinds of monkey Mink, the others were 3 bighorn ram Minks and the husband-wife giraffe couple.
If only we had left then, Bill now sat at his desk and thought.
But of course, he couldn’t have left without saying goodbye to Cat Viper, and the scenario played out much as it had with Dogstorm, but now Cat Viper urged him to accept 75-night Minks into his crew.
Reading the feline Dukes thoughts, Bill knew Cat Viper wasn’t going to accept ‘no’ and so did as he asked, finally accepting some 25 assorted squirrel-type Minks – mostly flying-squirrels, 25 feline-type Minks – mostly panthers, and finally 25 bovine-type Minks – mostly bison.
Adding an additional 125 bodies on his already over full ship was going to be a serious challenge, and he knew that the rivalry between the two Dukes could make this ‘competition’ spiral out of control. So, taking the initiative, he told Dogstorm the next morning that he would recruit 25 additional-day Minks bringing the total number to an even 150.
Unlike Cat Viper, Dogstorm realized what had happened and embarrassingly accepted Bill’s compromise and offered provisions to help the voyage.
By the time they were lowering their new recruits down Zunesha’s rump, Bill knew they would need another ship. Somewhat surprisingly, aside from the Fish-men, for now the overcrowding didn’t seem to bother the humans or Minks, both of which were in awe of just about everything.
Sailing away from Zou with nearly 500 sailors on a ship originally designed for 200 presented a list of challenges, but he’d make sure they’d make it through, Bill thought as he sat at his desk calculating how long their liquid rations would last.
At least, with the Fish-men they shouldn’t starve.
‘Now if I can just make sure they don’t tip the ship over…’ he whispered to himself while hearing the terrible songs being sung.
Finally unable to take any more songs about life in the trees or just ‘coconuts’ in general, Bill left his office with a paper in his hand and made his way to the howler monkey quartet.
“Aye Captain-gara?” one of the singers asked, stopping his song, and turning the entire ship’s attention to them.
Giving his best, non-irritated smile, Bill looked down at the five-foot tall howler monkeys and said: “Here, try singing these.”
Handing over the paper, the Minks looked at it for a moment and one responded: “Aye’ we can sing these-gara. We just has to know the tune!”
Breathing heavily, Bill said ‘Alright’ and from the middle of the deck a cheer went out. Looking over, he saw there standing in a group Yoko, Roule, Sasha, and Ricky surrounded by a dozen monkey Minks.
From Yoko’s cheer, anticipation built around the crew, and turning back towards the howlers Bill said: “Alright, this is how the first one goes.
Ohh poor ol’ Stormy’s dead and gone! …”
Hearing sailors sing sea shanties was common but hearing sea shanties sung exceptionally well was not. Due to the fact he had mastered Life Return, Bill had complete control over his voice and could naturally sing exceptionally well.
The crew cheered up when he sang: “I dug his grave with a silver spade!”
They ooo’ed when he said: “I lowered him down with a golden chain!”
Once ‘Stormalong John’ was finished, he sang each of the sea shanties he could remember from his previous life – including a rendition of ‘In the Navy’ which was undoubtedly worded wrong, but to the crew who was unaware of the original, sounded particularly awesome.
Singing late into the late afternoon, the first day on board the cramped ship turned out to be not that bad.
Checking the bunks late that night, Bill saw Yoko lying beside a 10-year-old bunny girl who had desperately wanted to sail on the ocean. The girl’s name was Carrot of all things, and was the only Chore Boy he had taken from Zou.
Bill wished he could say that he accepted the rabbit Mink for some high-minded reason, but in actual fact he was just glad to see Yoko make a friend who she didn’t then push around.
Closing the door on the women’s side of the ship, he headed to his office and passed the Fish-men who had set up tents to sleep under. With the regular quarters filled to the brim, it was decided the Fish-men would sleep on the ships deck since they wouldn’t be so bothered if it rained.
Getting into his office, Bill still stayed quiet since Nelson was sleeping on a cot not far from his desk and after taking a seat rested his head on his arms and lightly drifted off into a world of his own.
Thankfully it turned out that the ship was barely two weeks away from a Marine base located on a popular New World resort island. Those two weeks were just about what the crew could have tolerated, Bill and his officers thought.
Since they had been so over capacity Bill had rationed the water starting from day one, and as a result by the time they landed on Secon Island nobody had properly bathed in two weeks. This dirtiness had stripped the awe and wonder of the human and Mink crew had faded their apprehension towards the already ill-tempered Fish-men.
There hadn’t been any fights during those weeks, but Bill wondered how much of that had been due to the reputation of him and his officers.
But that was all in the past, as Bill went to the local base and his crew went to the local spas. He ordered enough uniforms and cloth for the new recruits while they went to get some much-needed shore leave.
While he was at the base, he sent three of the Vitalvine flowers to be analyzed by some of his oldest friends in the Science Division.
While he had been busy building his Department over the last several years Samantha, Tom, and Jerry hadn’t been lazy. All Biologists, Samantha in particular, had risen up to be the Head Assistant to a relatively renown laboratory near Marineford.
Tom and Jerry had stayed with her, and also had some successes in the field, but were likely to one end up as her assistants when she headed her own projects.
Bill had moderately kept in touch with the trio over the years, though their letters had become shorter and waited for longer intervals, he still called them his friends. Which was good since the last thing he wanted to do was go to Vegapunk himself for help.
With five Vitalvine’s in total, he wanted to analyze what the air inside of them contained and reverse engineer that formula into a training supplement.
Having mastered Life Return, he hadn’t thought about adding anything ‘extra’ to his routine, but that was before inhaling the enriched air contained within the flowers. With this formula, even if it was expensive to make, he and his Beetleborgs would benefit immensely.
With that out of the way, the last thing he did was purchase another small frigate.
With the incomes from their various raids and building projects in the East Blue, his Department currently held roughly a billion Beli in hard cash.
Gone were the days of living hand-to-mouth but that didn’t mean they were completely out of the water for good. One thing that inflated the Beli amount was the fact that they were paid upfront for the projects they were doing inside Frauce Kingdom, but that temporary inflation obviously dwindled away as construction continued.
At the same time that they had expenses heading out for payroll and other things, he had given the former Clockwork Island engineers the green light on building two medium-scale factories on the Polestar Islands, near Loguetown.
Due to the large amounts of wool produced near Loguetown, something he had learned about all those years ago when he needed to house refuges, one of those factories was designed to manufacture various grades of cloth and the other was to manufacture ropes, nets, sails, and other key shipping components.
And these were all just the start of the plans they had made across the most stable Blue.
In the end, he found a bare-bones medium sized blue and white frigate for 150m Beli. It’s only redeeming feature being the seastone haul.
Being one size larger than the Frontier Run, it was likewise slower. It was a fine tradeoff, he guessed, and put Nelson in charge of it accompanied by Willy, the Fish-men, and about 150 of the human crew.
After the new ship, which he named the M.S.S Duke, was outfitted properly the two ships sailed away from Secon Island and started back to their base in Paradise.
This time, Bill swore to himself there would be no detours.
They had work to do.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a raiting!
I decided to keep it 'Sulong' rather than 'Moon Lion' for obvious reasons. It doesn't make sense in English to have a rabbit that has a 'Moon Lion' form.
Also, Samantha/Tom/Jerry haven't been 'on screen' since chapter 38 or something but literally no named characters that have gotten more than a single line will be forgotten. They're just off doing their own thing.
Coming up is what I think is a 2 chapter long montage-style time skip, but I'm going to try to get it done in a single chapter, so we'll see.
Carrot
Spoiler [collapse]