Biting down hard, Bill tightened his entire body and heaved once more before a loud ‘clunk’ was heard.
With steam billowing out of a large hydraulic pressure machine, he breathed in deeply before pulling a breathing apparatus off of his face.
“How was it?” he asked, tired despite his mastery of Life Return and the enriched air provided by large tanks on either side of.
“Amazing! Simply amazing!” Answered Henzo who was staring at a monitor hooked up to the hydraulic press, who then continued: “Captain, you… it won’t be long until you’re lifting mountains!” Not reacting to this, Bill just carefully sat down on his breathing mask and wiped his face on a cotton cloth despite the fact that he wasn’t sweating.
It had been just over a year since he and his assorted crew of Human, Mink, and Fish-men had arrived on New Haven and during that time while there had been numerous dispatches to and from the East Blue, he hadn’t left New Haven at all.
Looking sideways at the steaming machine, Bill reflected back on the last year of his life.
For the first six months after arriving back at his laboratory he and his team of engineers had worked night and day on his [Iron Warden] Project, in addition creating the facilities that were needed to manufacture complex automated systems, they ran over dozens of new modifications to Isaac’s original designs and eventually ending up with more battle-capable but less autonomous robots than were present on Jail Island.
Isaac’s original robots operated on an island-wide network of information that only existed on Jail Island. It was effective but had two main issues. Firstly, they were limited in range to the network itself. Secondly, they were easily hacked by outside forces.
For Bill and the others to get around these problems, inspiration was taken from Henzo’s love of ‘battle suits’ and the [Beetleborgs] long present in their Department. With these factors weighing on their judgements, a Master-Slave code was envisioned.
This Master-Slave program worked such that in any squadron of [Iron Wardens] there would be one main [Mind] machine that directed the targeting systems of the others.
In a world without a proper ‘internet’ this was a clever solution since it meant that only one individual machine needed to have all of the data and expensive targeting software needed to recognize threats and determine appropriate responses.
Even more clever was the recognition that the [Mind] didn’t need to be a machine at all, instead, they could digitally tether 3 or 4 [Iron Wardens] to a single [Beetleborg] who would then be able to direct the robot’s actions in real time.
In terms of battle capabilities, despite still being armed with the equivalent of .50 caliber auto-cannons, the [Iron Wardens] main weapons were low-purity seastone swords.
The reason for arming the high-tech robots with martial weapons was that Bill and the team of researchers had discovered quickly that energy usage was a constant concern. Though they could be powered by batteries which were charged on the ships, and further powered by stabilized di-hydrogen crystals, the average operational time per [Iron Warden] was roughly two hours.
And these two hours was the energy usage just by maintaining flight and battle functions.
Upgraded with the anti-gravity and pulse field technology that Bill had pioneered years before, if the [Iron Wardens] used their full array of abilities freely, they would barely last 20 minutes before falling out of the sky.
Despite this clear drawback, plus the fact that each regular [Iron Warden] would cost his Department in the neighborhood of 15m Beli to manufacture, not to mention the whopping 100m Beli cost to manufacture a [Mind], he and his team believed the Project to be an unqualified success.
And the reason for this was simple.
In pure combat tests the [Iron Wardens] only routinely lost to Sasha, Ranse, Ricky, and Bill himself – and it had to be noted that Ricky could only win thanks to the focused laser beam on his cybernetic arm. In some cases, Willy or a few of the Minks could claim a victory; but thanks to their low purity seastone alloy frames the robots were much harder than steel and just as tough to put down.
Another major success in the project was the low purity seastone alloy by itself. Though it was too weak to negate Devil Fruit abilities outright, using Pearson’s Hole-Hole Fruit to test them showed that these alloys were somewhat resistant to Devil Fruit effects.
Simply put, if Pearson were to create a hole in a wall, he could push an [Iron Warden] through it. It would just take much more power to do so and likewise it would be impossible to create a hole inside the machine without considerable effort.
At around the six-month mark on New Haven, while the Iron Wardens were in their final stages of development before prototypes would be manufactured, Bill received a carrier bat from Samantha who had analyzed the [Vitalvine] flowers chemical makeup.
The postage itself was quite large with a good portion of it being notes on how amazing the plant was and the process she had taken to create a stable compound to replicate the effects.
He was glad she was able to synthesize a suitable substitute, since he would definitely use it, but couldn’t be that excited since it was no longer totally necessary.
This was due to the fact that as soon as he saw the progress being made on the [Iron Wardens], he had sent the other three [Vitalvine] directly to his father, who was so impressed by the nature treasure that he had come personally to New Haven to plant hundreds of the plants around the upper levels of the island.
If there were any downsides to the natural [Vitalvine] it was that individual plants took years to mature, after all, even life-saving panaceas that grew on trees still came with a cost – even if that cost could be simply waiting around for years.
This cost was what normally made the [Vitalvine] so precious, it was only with Aramaki around that the cost could be negated making the impractical, practical.
All of this didn’t mean that Bill would disregard Samantha’s work. Even if the [VitaBoost] formula she created wasn’t quite as potent as the real thing, it still provided him with the best training supplement he could muster for his ever-growing group of Special Operators.
To say nothing of the rank-in-file Special Operators in his Department, even he could benefit from [VitaBoost] and that alone proved its value.
Putting all of that in the back of his mind, Bill ordered Henzo to recalibrate the weight-lifting machines and started to head back to his office.
Leaving the most advanced training room on New Haven he began passing one range after the next. Most ranges were for firing drills, but some were geared for martial training and others were specialized obstacle courses.
Walking past one such obstacle course, Bill looked inside and found Yoko along with the Department’s other dozen or so Chore Boys. There weren’t too many in total, but out of the group there had been a handful of truly talented kids found by his organization over the years.
Most promising of those youths besides Yoko herself was Bascud’s little sister Adelle, followed by Henzo’s childhood friend Rapanui, Borodo’s adopted brother Akisu, the young rabbit Mink named Carrot, and finally Roule – the boy who joined them on Jail Island.
Though Roule and Akisu weren’t physical superhumans like the others, both boys possessed uncanny technical abilities which overshadowed their otherwise status as ‘weakest’ members of the current Chore Boy generation.
Watching them for a minute longer, Bill saw that Yoko was obviously in the lead.
Over the last year, he had restricted her Devil Fruit less and less, which by all accounts was probably a [Mythical Zoan].
It was Ranse of all people who uncovered a legend about a ‘monkey king’ during a trip to an eastern East Blue kingdom to open relations. This story told the tale of a monkey king and described the rascal’s personality.
After reading the small book himself, Bill concluded that it was reasonable to assume this to be the basis of Yoko’s unknown fruit and so simply named it the [Monkey Monkey Fruit, Model: Sun Wukong].
Whether or not this was real didn’t matter that much to Bill as there was no need to officially report it, he saw the similarities, but also noted that Yoko hadn’t demonstrated nearly as many abilities as the fictional ‘Monkey King’.
Putting Yoko aside, Adelle was given the [Badger Badger Fruit, Model: Honey Badger] at the request of her older brother. Until Bill had landed back in New Haven the former bounty hunter had still not received his cut from the raid on Hannabal Island and making the Devil Fruit his payment seemed reasonable enough.
None of the other Chore Boys had Devil Fruit abilities, Rapanui and Carrot were both naturally superhuman and while Rapanui was probably the weakest of the four currently, Bill could foresee a time when the boy was only behind Yoko.
Moving along from the group of teens and preteens, Bill stepped out of the huge training center complex and made his way towards his office.
Over the last year, while they expanded their operations inside the East Blue in all directions, the threat of conflict grew across the Grand Line.
Pulling every lever that he could, Sengoku had toed the World Government line in regard to the imprisonment of Portgas D. Ace.
Though there was no official talk about having the notorious Whitebeard Commander executed, negotiations had stalled as the ‘Strongest Man in the World’ no longer moved according to the World Government’s will.
And it had been made clear to Bill that the notion of “World Government’s will” had been already downgraded several times.
First it was when Whitebeard refused to battle ‘Red Hair’ Shanks. Then after a few months it was when he refused to capture certain high-level criminals. Then after a few more months it was when he refused to stop ‘candy runners’ except when they were in his direct territory. Then it was when he refused to provide information pertaining to black market arms sales that his intelligence network had learned of.
Not to mention that during this entire time the Pirate Emperor had never stopped searching for his traitorous bastard ‘son’ and the newest Warlord, Blackbeard.
And now just over a year after ‘Fire Fist’s’ capture, it was more and more clear than any further demands made on Whitebeard would be directly ignored as the Pirate Emperor stopped allowing Marine vessels into his territory – a move potentially sparking conflict.
Speaking at length to his parents about it, this had put Sengoku in a serious bind. After all, the Marines did not want to go to war with the ‘[Strongest Man in the World]’ and truthfully Bill didn’t blame them. If at the ripe-old age of 22 he had enough strength to nearly lift a small mountain, who knew what Whitebeard would be capable of.
This fact was not lost on the experienced Sengoku, either, as according to Aramaki the [Fleet Commander] had reinforced a number of major bases inside the [New World].
With the Marines repositioning their strength, the informed people of the world shuddered at the real possibility of war between the Navy and Whitebeard pirate coalition.
But all of this was in the back of Bill’s mind as he crossed his island and headed towards his office.
He needed to take care of some financial work as the Department had expanded in the [East Blue] there was a real need to create another branch to oversee the various projects they had.
Ranse had become the ‘Face’ of their Department in the [East Blue] and most island leaders wanted to deal with him alone, but there was still too much for a single person to do. Bill had already sent in his budding [Procurement Intelligence Agency] led by Bascud into the East Blue to scout a suitable location for a home base, but until that was set up, they would be working out of New Haven.
Thinking about the practical work he had to do, Bill didn’t notice how silent the walk to his office had been, getting to his desk he pulled out several newly arrived documents and started to scan them one by one.
*Knock knock knock*
Interrupted from his business, the young Captain looked up and called whoever it was in, and finding it to be Pearson, who was wide-eyed, he asked curiously: “Yes?”
“Ah, well, Captain, are you going to issue a statement?” Asked his capable Lieutenant, to which Bill could only look at confused and respond: “Well, what statement do I need to make?”
Looking at him still wide-eyed, Pearson asked if Bill had read the paper, and when he responded that he had been training all day, the Hole-hole man turned and ran.
Confused, and truthfully a little concerned now, Bill was about to stand up himself but heard rushing steps coming back towards him.
Sure enough, it was Pearson, but now the Marine held a rolled-up newspaper in his hand and offered it to Bill. Unwinding the paper that was offered to him, unconsciously Bill’s mouth opened, and his eyes widened, as he read the huge title…
[BREAKING NEWS: ENIES LOBBY REDUCED TO RUBBLE!!!]
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
I experimented this chapter by putting [brackets] around key terms. I like how it looks but what do ya'll think?
Chore Boys (the one closest to the camera is Rapanui)
Spoiler [collapse]
Biting down hard, Bill tightened his entire body and heaved once more before a loud ‘clunk’ was heard.
With steam billowing out of a large hydraulic pressure machine, he breathed in deeply before pulling a breathing apparatus off of his face.
“How was it?” he asked, tired despite his mastery of Life Return and the enriched air provided by large tanks on either side of.
“Amazing! Simply amazing!” Answered Henzo who was staring at a monitor hooked up to the hydraulic press, who then continued: “Captain, you… it won’t be long until you’re lifting mountains!” Not reacting to this, Bill just carefully sat down on his breathing mask and wiped his face on a cotton cloth despite the fact that he wasn’t sweating.
It had been just over a year since he and his assorted crew of Human, Mink, and Fish-men had arrived on New Haven and during that time while there had been numerous dispatches to and from the East Blue, he hadn’t left New Haven at all.
Looking sideways at the steaming machine, Bill reflected back on the last year of his life.
For the first six months after arriving back at his laboratory he and his team of engineers had worked night and day on his [Iron Warden] Project, in addition creating the facilities that were needed to manufacture complex automated systems, they ran over dozens of new modifications to Isaac’s original designs and eventually ending up with more battle-capable but less autonomous robots than were present on Jail Island.
Isaac’s original robots operated on an island-wide network of information that only existed on Jail Island. It was effective but had two main issues. Firstly, they were limited in range to the network itself. Secondly, they were easily hacked by outside forces.
For Bill and the others to get around these problems, inspiration was taken from Henzo’s love of ‘battle suits’ and the [Beetleborgs] long present in their Department. With these factors weighing on their judgements, a Master-Slave code was envisioned.
This Master-Slave program worked such that in any squadron of [Iron Wardens] there would be one main [Mind] machine that directed the targeting systems of the others.
In a world without a proper ‘internet’ this was a clever solution since it meant that only one individual machine needed to have all of the data and expensive targeting software needed to recognize threats and determine appropriate responses.
Even more clever was the recognition that the [Mind] didn’t need to be a machine at all, instead, they could digitally tether 3 or 4 [Iron Wardens] to a single [Beetleborg] who would then be able to direct the robot’s actions in real time.
In terms of battle capabilities, despite still being armed with the equivalent of .50 caliber auto-cannons, the [Iron Wardens] main weapons were low-purity seastone swords.
The reason for arming the high-tech robots with martial weapons was that Bill and the team of researchers had discovered quickly that energy usage was a constant concern. Though they could be powered by batteries which were charged on the ships, and further powered by stabilized di-hydrogen crystals, the average operational time per [Iron Warden] was roughly two hours.
And these two hours was the energy usage just by maintaining flight and battle functions.
Upgraded with the anti-gravity and pulse field technology that Bill had pioneered years before, if the [Iron Wardens] used their full array of abilities freely, they would barely last 20 minutes before falling out of the sky.
Despite this clear drawback, plus the fact that each regular [Iron Warden] would cost his Department in the neighborhood of 15m Beli to manufacture, not to mention the whopping 100m Beli cost to manufacture a [Mind], he and his team believed the Project to be an unqualified success.
And the reason for this was simple.
In pure combat tests the [Iron Wardens] only routinely lost to Sasha, Ranse, Ricky, and Bill himself – and it had to be noted that Ricky could only win thanks to the focused laser beam on his cybernetic arm. In some cases, Willy or a few of the Minks could claim a victory; but thanks to their low purity seastone alloy frames the robots were much harder than steel and just as tough to put down.
Another major success in the project was the low purity seastone alloy by itself. Though it was too weak to negate Devil Fruit abilities outright, using Pearson’s Hole-Hole Fruit to test them showed that these alloys were somewhat resistant to Devil Fruit effects.
Simply put, if Pearson were to create a hole in a wall, he could push an [Iron Warden] through it. It would just take much more power to do so and likewise it would be impossible to create a hole inside the machine without considerable effort.
At around the six-month mark on New Haven, while the Iron Wardens were in their final stages of development before prototypes would be manufactured, Bill received a carrier bat from Samantha who had analyzed the [Vitalvine] flowers chemical makeup.
The postage itself was quite large with a good portion of it being notes on how amazing the plant was and the process she had taken to create a stable compound to replicate the effects.
He was glad she was able to synthesize a suitable substitute, since he would definitely use it, but couldn’t be that excited since it was no longer totally necessary.
This was due to the fact that as soon as he saw the progress being made on the [Iron Wardens], he had sent the other three [Vitalvine] directly to his father, who was so impressed by the nature treasure that he had come personally to New Haven to plant hundreds of the plants around the upper levels of the island.
If there were any downsides to the natural [Vitalvine] it was that individual plants took years to mature, after all, even life-saving panaceas that grew on trees still came with a cost – even if that cost could be simply waiting around for years.
This cost was what normally made the [Vitalvine] so precious, it was only with Aramaki around that the cost could be negated making the impractical, practical.
All of this didn’t mean that Bill would disregard Samantha’s work. Even if the [VitaBoost] formula she created wasn’t quite as potent as the real thing, it still provided him with the best training supplement he could muster for his ever-growing group of Special Operators.
To say nothing of the rank-in-file Special Operators in his Department, even he could benefit from [VitaBoost] and that alone proved its value.
Putting all of that in the back of his mind, Bill ordered Henzo to recalibrate the weight-lifting machines and started to head back to his office.
Leaving the most advanced training room on New Haven he began passing one range after the next. Most ranges were for firing drills, but some were geared for martial training and others were specialized obstacle courses.
Walking past one such obstacle course, Bill looked inside and found Yoko along with the Department’s other dozen or so Chore Boys. There weren’t too many in total, but out of the group there had been a handful of truly talented kids found by his organization over the years.
Most promising of those youths besides Yoko herself was Bascud’s little sister Adelle, followed by Henzo’s childhood friend Rapanui, Borodo’s adopted brother Akisu, the young rabbit Mink named Carrot, and finally Roule – the boy who joined them on Jail Island.
Though Roule and Akisu weren’t physical superhumans like the others, both boys possessed uncanny technical abilities which overshadowed their otherwise status as ‘weakest’ members of the current Chore Boy generation.
Watching them for a minute longer, Bill saw that Yoko was obviously in the lead.
Over the last year, he had restricted her Devil Fruit less and less, which by all accounts was probably a [Mythical Zoan].
It was Ranse of all people who uncovered a legend about a ‘monkey king’ during a trip to an eastern East Blue kingdom to open relations. This story told the tale of a monkey king and described the rascal’s personality.
After reading the small book himself, Bill concluded that it was reasonable to assume this to be the basis of Yoko’s unknown fruit and so simply named it the [Monkey Monkey Fruit, Model: Sun Wukong].
Whether or not this was real didn’t matter that much to Bill as there was no need to officially report it, he saw the similarities, but also noted that Yoko hadn’t demonstrated nearly as many abilities as the fictional ‘Monkey King’.
Putting Yoko aside, Adelle was given the [Badger Badger Fruit, Model: Honey Badger] at the request of her older brother. Until Bill had landed back in New Haven the former bounty hunter had still not received his cut from the raid on Hannabal Island and making the Devil Fruit his payment seemed reasonable enough.
None of the other Chore Boys had Devil Fruit abilities, Rapanui and Carrot were both naturally superhuman and while Rapanui was probably the weakest of the four currently, Bill could foresee a time when the boy was only behind Yoko.
Moving along from the group of teens and preteens, Bill stepped out of the huge training center complex and made his way towards his office.
Over the last year, while they expanded their operations inside the East Blue in all directions, the threat of conflict grew across the Grand Line.
Pulling every lever that he could, Sengoku had toed the World Government line in regard to the imprisonment of Portgas D. Ace.
Though there was no official talk about having the notorious Whitebeard Commander executed, negotiations had stalled as the ‘Strongest Man in the World’ no longer moved according to the World Government’s will.
And it had been made clear to Bill that the notion of “World Government’s will” had been already downgraded several times.
First it was when Whitebeard refused to battle ‘Red Hair’ Shanks. Then after a few months it was when he refused to capture certain high-level criminals. Then after a few more months it was when he refused to stop ‘candy runners’ except when they were in his direct territory. Then it was when he refused to provide information pertaining to black market arms sales that his intelligence network had learned of.
Not to mention that during this entire time the Pirate Emperor had never stopped searching for his traitorous bastard ‘son’ and the newest Warlord, Blackbeard.
And now just over a year after ‘Fire Fist’s’ capture, it was more and more clear than any further demands made on Whitebeard would be directly ignored as the Pirate Emperor stopped allowing Marine vessels into his territory – a move potentially sparking conflict.
Speaking at length to his parents about it, this had put Sengoku in a serious bind. After all, the Marines did not want to go to war with the ‘[Strongest Man in the World]’ and truthfully Bill didn’t blame them. If at the ripe-old age of 22 he had enough strength to nearly lift a small mountain, who knew what Whitebeard would be capable of.
This fact was not lost on the experienced Sengoku, either, as according to Aramaki the [Fleet Commander] had reinforced a number of major bases inside the [New World].
With the Marines repositioning their strength, the informed people of the world shuddered at the real possibility of war between the Navy and Whitebeard pirate coalition.
But all of this was in the back of Bill’s mind as he crossed his island and headed towards his office.
He needed to take care of some financial work as the Department had expanded in the [East Blue] there was a real need to create another branch to oversee the various projects they had.
Ranse had become the ‘Face’ of their Department in the [East Blue] and most island leaders wanted to deal with him alone, but there was still too much for a single person to do. Bill had already sent in his budding [Procurement Intelligence Agency] led by Bascud into the East Blue to scout a suitable location for a home base, but until that was set up, they would be working out of New Haven.
Thinking about the practical work he had to do, Bill didn’t notice how silent the walk to his office had been, getting to his desk he pulled out several newly arrived documents and started to scan them one by one.
*Knock knock knock*
Interrupted from his business, the young Captain looked up and called whoever it was in, and finding it to be Pearson, who was wide-eyed, he asked curiously: “Yes?”
“Ah, well, Captain, are you going to issue a statement?” Asked his capable Lieutenant, to which Bill could only look at confused and respond: “Well, what statement do I need to make?”
Looking at him still wide-eyed, Pearson asked if Bill had read the paper, and when he responded that he had been training all day, the Hole-hole man turned and ran.
Confused, and truthfully a little concerned now, Bill was about to stand up himself but heard rushing steps coming back towards him.
Sure enough, it was Pearson, but now the Marine held a rolled-up newspaper in his hand and offered it to Bill. Unwinding the paper that was offered to him, unconsciously Bill’s mouth opened, and his eyes widened, as he read the huge title…
[BREAKING NEWS: ENIES LOBBY REDUCED TO RUBBLE!!!]
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
I experimented this chapter by putting [brackets] around key terms. I like how it looks but what do ya'll think?
Chore Boys (the one closest to the camera is Rapanui)
Spoiler [collapse]
