After thoroughly searching the Amigo Submarine, Bill and his team found so much useful information that he started to think the entire situation was a set up.
It was only after letting this paranoia get out of control that his rational brain checked in and started considering that ‘Commodore Ox’ was a virtually unknown name outside of the Science Division and a few small circles within the Marines, and due to this, Bill just could not believe that the famous pirate from yesteryear was laying any traps specifically for him.
‘Heck’, he thought, even his rank of ‘Commodore’ had been given to him for purely administrative purposes. In terms of actual authority, whether in the Science Division or regular Marines, he had no more or less say than he had four years prior.
Finally able to put those imagined fears to rest, in addition to having learned from Largo about Shiki’s main base and even discovering a manifest of notable pirates already sworn to Shiki, Bill found two key devices.
First was an electronic device labelled [EvoTracker] which acted as both a general location device and individual tracker. To use the individual tracker, the user needed to have the exact code of the beast that they were looking for; but the ‘general locator’ was different. It showed ‘pings’ for all artificially evolved monsters who were in range.
This device was heaven sent due to the current upheaval happening inside the East Blue.
Calling it the [Sea of Schemes], Shiki had made it clear that his first act in his war against the [World Government] would be to make the East Blue a lifeless desert.
The second key thing that Bill found was Amigo Pirate’s Eternal Pose to [Merveille].
The importance of the Eternal Pose didn’t need to be explained and so he first sent the monster tracking device to Henzo to analyze and copy, then ordered his dockyard to prioritize upgrading the submarine’s capabilities – in particular adding a thin layer seastone to the outer shell, and finally started preparing a team of his best Special Operators to impersonate the Amigo Pirates.
The Amigo Pirates goal was to catch Boss and turn him in during the next [Sake Cup Ceremony] held in Merveille. With that, Largo hoped to be named the 51st Division Commander under the [Golden Lion Pirate Armada].
Motivated in response to the attack, while work was quickly getting underway across New Haven, Bill went over the manifest list of pirates who had already sworn allegiance to Shiki.
Interesting enough, he learned from [Thought Reading], the manifest was not a complete document but was a list of would-be rivals to Largo’s grand plans.
Most of the names he didn’t recognize, but quick communications with Marineford made it clear who several of them were.
There was the captain of the ‘Black Cat’ Pirates, a lanky guy named Kuro who was [Wanted Dead or Alive: 15m Beli].
There was a hammerhead shark Fish-man named Gad ‘the Whirling Tide’. He and his entire crew were strangely [Wanted Alive Only: 30m Beli] a piece.
Looking down at the list, Bill found that most of these pirates were worth less than 40m Beli, but also knew that bounties were not always accurate indicators of strength. The case and point being a name that stood out to Bill like a sore thumb.
[Wanted Dead or Alive: Eldoraggo, 32m Beli.]
This individual was the former ‘boss’ of Denny, Danny, and Donny so Bill had heard a lot about him.
According to the three, their old boss was so strong that he tricked them into believing he could actually conquer the world. Of course, they were fools for thinking he could do so, but it did show that even without his Devil Fruit ability the man was clearly very strong.
Largo didn’t carry any manifest containing the names of the direct [Golden Lion Pirates], but he knew that Shiki had been given a massive 1b Beli bounty for his surprise attack on Marineford and assault on the East Blue.
Eventually, Bill put the manifest down and headed to his office to carry out his work.
Crashing the [Sake Cup Ceremony] was a high-risk high-reward gamble and this was made doubly so as neither Sasha nor Ranse were in [New Haven]. Since he couldn’t rely on his two most powerful people, Bill had to be thorough in who to select to go with him.
But sitting there at his desk, mentally crossing off one name after the next, Bill was stumped.
There were about thirty members of the Amigo Pirates in total, and while that lent itself to be easily replicated, Bill did not like the idea of walking dozens of his men into a setup where they would be outnumbered 50 to 1.
He had long understood that he couldn’t babysit the people under his command, but there was a fine line between ‘risky’ and ‘irresponsible’ deployment of forces.
Tapping one finger on his desk, he closed his eyes, leaned back, and sat there for a minute until he reached over to his personal Communication Snail and fiddled with the receiver before putting it back down.
Though he had many associates, the only friends Bill had in the regular Marines were Commodore’s Smoker and Maynard. Unfortunately, both had taken up posts in the [New World] and were unlikely to be able to leave due to the growing conflict with Whitebeard.
‘Well, there doesn’t seem to be any choice…’
Picking up a file, Bill began to start writing down his orders for when he left [New Haven] when he heard someone knock on his door.
“Come in,” said he.
Answering his call entered an auburn-haired sixteen-year-old girl who wore a Coat of Justice with a weighted spear strapped to her back.
Giving the girl a look that said, ‘What do you need?’ Yoko didn’t hesitate to dive into discussion: “Uh… you know, we would have been the first to respond to the sirens, but we were training in the forests, and it just took us a little longer to come down to the docks.”
The ‘we’ she was talking about, Bill knew, was the former Chore Boys of his Department. After years of waiting, most of the kids had turned sixteen and became fully fledged Marines.
Being one of the oldest, the recognized strongest, and most experienced from her time with Bill, Yoko had naturally become the leader of this clique with Carrot and Akisu as her numbers 1 and 2. And while Carrot and Akisu were both special in their own ways, they did not even represent the majority of potential in the group.
Bill never had wild ideas that someone in his Department could reach the level of a true Marine powerhouse, but he had to admit that Yoko’s group had a couple promising youngsters that were at least around the levels of a sixteen-year-old Ranse and Sasha.
‘Well, maybe Ranse’s level without Fia’s help’ he thought tangentially about how the Cannon-Cannon girl had developed her power to literally turn into an oversized revolver that only Ranse could wield.
Seeing that Yoko had stopped talking, Bill spoke for her: “And?”
This started her up again: “And… I’ve heard that you’re getting a group together to- “No.”
Stunned for a second that she was cut off, the girl’s mouth was held ajar before saying: “You didn’t ev- “You were going to ask to come with me, the answer is no.”
For this, Bill didn’t need to use [Thought Reading]. He had known the girl for most of her life and had a good understanding of her personality.
Now almost speaking in a whining tone, Yoko said back: “But without big sister Sasha here, or that cowboy, what are you going to do? I’m the next strongest!”
Though Bill didn’t think she could beat Willy, Ricky, Fia, Masterson, or Toma the claim wasn’t that much of an exaggeration.
Despite most of her soul being restrained Yoko was as strong as he was at her age, at least before he mastered Life Return. In fact, if a sixteen-year-old Bill with Life Return fought an unsuppressed sixteen-year-old Yoko, he wasn’t even sure he’d win. After all, he had been a couple years older when he learned how to use Haki.
But it wasn’t a matter of ability, it was a matter of the heart, when he answered: “Strength isn’t everything. You lack the experience I need on this mission. Furthermore, I’ll need you and your crew to stay on [New Haven] for the time being.”
Hearing this, the girl began to run her mouth as a sixteen-year-old is prone to do.
Accusing Bill of never letting her go or do anything, despite the fact that he had given her the rank of Lieutenant with her own ship and crew. Stating that in any other branch she would have already started catching pirates while he only had her do patrols around New Haven - accompanied by Nelson of all people, and this was true.
As she continued to list her grievances, going into great detail about how always been supervised by Nelson was annoying, Bill couldn’t help himself but to start laughing.
“What…?” she asked warily, and he replied through laughter: “You’ll be staying on the island with Nelson in charge!”
“Bill!” she cried sounding wounded, but he, now laughing slightly less replied more seriously: “Listen girl, you need to see Nelson as a resource. He has the most tactical training of anyone in our Department, furthermore, of course, I have to keep you here. New Haven was attacked, and we can’t have the island undefended when I leave!”
“But what about Instructor’s Masterson and Toma?” said she, but shaking his head, Bill answered: “They don’t know it yet, but they’re coming with me.”
Rolling her eyes, Yoko approached the desk and slumped in the chair across from him and said: “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know, [Merveille] is currently in [Paradise], so it probably won’t be that long.” He said, and no sooner than the words left his mouth, she claimed: “I read that in the past Shiki had a lot of pirates servicing under him. You know, if I went with you, with my ability I would be able to help a lot more now.”
Nodding his head in agreement with her, he said: “Yeah it probably would, but you’re not strong enough yet to control it and besides I do really need you here.” Letting out an exasperated “HUMMM” she finally said ‘ok’ and then stayed in the office while Bill finished the assignments to be done while he was gone.
The Department had a total of 60 [Iron Wardens] and 3 [Minds]. With the average price of each being 15m and 100m Beli respectively, these powerful machines were an incredibly expensive investment.
Added to the costs of the ships, salaries, and other work being done across the [East Blue] their excess reserves of funds had already been drained to a fraction of what they had been.
On the one hand, this was a part of the plan. Bill did not want to be sitting on a large ‘rainy day’ fund where the Science Division would take 20% of it per year in dues on top of the set payment that he was to turn in.
On the other hand, in times of crises such as this, it would have been nice to have several hundred million Beli lying around.
Shaking his head, he had to economize and wrote the orders to halt renovations on the 3 newly acquired frigates and start production on 18 more [Iron Wardens]. He then called Sasha back from her expedition into the other side of Paradise where she had been scouting for business leads, capturing pirates, and getting recruits.
Despite being on the [Salamander], she was at least two months from returning and so he couldn’t rely on her to make it. Instead, he just needed her back in case of an emergency.
With the paperwork done and the orders implemented Bill started working as much as he could to help speed up the manufacturing process of the new machines, and as the dockyard outfitted the Amigo’s ship, a week passed by quickly.
Getting on the Amigo Submarine, Bill stood in front of Masterson, Toma, and an assortment of handpicked Special Operators. The entire group was dressed in long colorful ponchos and wide sombreros.
“Alright. We all know why we’re here. You have your orders and know the roles you will play…” Looking over the group of professionals, Bill knew he didn’t need to say more, and ended with: “Now, let’s go catch us a legend.”
Two days later, as the Submarine was deep beneath the waves, Bill sat looking over the monitors installed to display the images taken by out-facing cameras.
Purururu purururu
‘Hm?’ Having ordered not to be contacted, Bill frowned when he grabbed his Communication Snail.
But that frown quickly turned to stoic resignation when Nelson said: “Commodore, I’ve just learned that the World Government has announced the execution of Portgas D. Ace in six months’ time. War with Whitebeard is certain, damn them.”
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
NOTE: I slightly edited 128.1 and moved it to 129.1 - I think it works better that way.
Toma (reminder)
Spoiler [collapse]Masterson (reminder)
Spoiler [collapse]Eldoraggo
Spoiler [collapse]Kuro
Spoiler [collapse]Gad the Whirling Tide
Spoiler [collapse]Merveille (In the coming chapters you'll see, but this picture does not correctly show just the sheer scale of how big these islands are... just consider that they're big enough to have actual rivers flowing through them.)
Spoiler [collapse]
After thoroughly searching the Amigo Submarine, Bill and his team found so much useful information that he started to think the entire situation was a set up.
It was only after letting this paranoia get out of control that his rational brain checked in and started considering that ‘Commodore Ox’ was a virtually unknown name outside of the Science Division and a few small circles within the Marines, and due to this, Bill just could not believe that the famous pirate from yesteryear was laying any traps specifically for him.
‘Heck’, he thought, even his rank of ‘Commodore’ had been given to him for purely administrative purposes. In terms of actual authority, whether in the Science Division or regular Marines, he had no more or less say than he had four years prior.
Finally able to put those imagined fears to rest, in addition to having learned from Largo about Shiki’s main base and even discovering a manifest of notable pirates already sworn to Shiki, Bill found two key devices.
First was an electronic device labelled [EvoTracker] which acted as both a general location device and individual tracker. To use the individual tracker, the user needed to have the exact code of the beast that they were looking for; but the ‘general locator’ was different. It showed ‘pings’ for all artificially evolved monsters who were in range.
This device was heaven sent due to the current upheaval happening inside the East Blue.
Calling it the [Sea of Schemes], Shiki had made it clear that his first act in his war against the [World Government] would be to make the East Blue a lifeless desert.
The second key thing that Bill found was Amigo Pirate’s Eternal Pose to [Merveille].
The importance of the Eternal Pose didn’t need to be explained and so he first sent the monster tracking device to Henzo to analyze and copy, then ordered his dockyard to prioritize upgrading the submarine’s capabilities – in particular adding a thin layer seastone to the outer shell, and finally started preparing a team of his best Special Operators to impersonate the Amigo Pirates.
The Amigo Pirates goal was to catch Boss and turn him in during the next [Sake Cup Ceremony] held in Merveille. With that, Largo hoped to be named the 51st Division Commander under the [Golden Lion Pirate Armada].
Motivated in response to the attack, while work was quickly getting underway across New Haven, Bill went over the manifest list of pirates who had already sworn allegiance to Shiki.
Interesting enough, he learned from [Thought Reading], the manifest was not a complete document but was a list of would-be rivals to Largo’s grand plans.
Most of the names he didn’t recognize, but quick communications with Marineford made it clear who several of them were.
There was the captain of the ‘Black Cat’ Pirates, a lanky guy named Kuro who was [Wanted Dead or Alive: 15m Beli].
There was a hammerhead shark Fish-man named Gad ‘the Whirling Tide’. He and his entire crew were strangely [Wanted Alive Only: 30m Beli] a piece.
Looking down at the list, Bill found that most of these pirates were worth less than 40m Beli, but also knew that bounties were not always accurate indicators of strength. The case and point being a name that stood out to Bill like a sore thumb.
[Wanted Dead or Alive: Eldoraggo, 32m Beli.]
This individual was the former ‘boss’ of Denny, Danny, and Donny so Bill had heard a lot about him.
According to the three, their old boss was so strong that he tricked them into believing he could actually conquer the world. Of course, they were fools for thinking he could do so, but it did show that even without his Devil Fruit ability the man was clearly very strong.
Largo didn’t carry any manifest containing the names of the direct [Golden Lion Pirates], but he knew that Shiki had been given a massive 1b Beli bounty for his surprise attack on Marineford and assault on the East Blue.
Eventually, Bill put the manifest down and headed to his office to carry out his work.
Crashing the [Sake Cup Ceremony] was a high-risk high-reward gamble and this was made doubly so as neither Sasha nor Ranse were in [New Haven]. Since he couldn’t rely on his two most powerful people, Bill had to be thorough in who to select to go with him.
But sitting there at his desk, mentally crossing off one name after the next, Bill was stumped.
There were about thirty members of the Amigo Pirates in total, and while that lent itself to be easily replicated, Bill did not like the idea of walking dozens of his men into a setup where they would be outnumbered 50 to 1.
He had long understood that he couldn’t babysit the people under his command, but there was a fine line between ‘risky’ and ‘irresponsible’ deployment of forces.
Tapping one finger on his desk, he closed his eyes, leaned back, and sat there for a minute until he reached over to his personal Communication Snail and fiddled with the receiver before putting it back down.
Though he had many associates, the only friends Bill had in the regular Marines were Commodore’s Smoker and Maynard. Unfortunately, both had taken up posts in the [New World] and were unlikely to be able to leave due to the growing conflict with Whitebeard.
‘Well, there doesn’t seem to be any choice…’
Picking up a file, Bill began to start writing down his orders for when he left [New Haven] when he heard someone knock on his door.
“Come in,” said he.
Answering his call entered an auburn-haired sixteen-year-old girl who wore a Coat of Justice with a weighted spear strapped to her back.
Giving the girl a look that said, ‘What do you need?’ Yoko didn’t hesitate to dive into discussion: “Uh… you know, we would have been the first to respond to the sirens, but we were training in the forests, and it just took us a little longer to come down to the docks.”
The ‘we’ she was talking about, Bill knew, was the former Chore Boys of his Department. After years of waiting, most of the kids had turned sixteen and became fully fledged Marines.
Being one of the oldest, the recognized strongest, and most experienced from her time with Bill, Yoko had naturally become the leader of this clique with Carrot and Akisu as her numbers 1 and 2. And while Carrot and Akisu were both special in their own ways, they did not even represent the majority of potential in the group.
Bill never had wild ideas that someone in his Department could reach the level of a true Marine powerhouse, but he had to admit that Yoko’s group had a couple promising youngsters that were at least around the levels of a sixteen-year-old Ranse and Sasha.
‘Well, maybe Ranse’s level without Fia’s help’ he thought tangentially about how the Cannon-Cannon girl had developed her power to literally turn into an oversized revolver that only Ranse could wield.
Seeing that Yoko had stopped talking, Bill spoke for her: “And?”
This started her up again: “And… I’ve heard that you’re getting a group together to- “No.”
Stunned for a second that she was cut off, the girl’s mouth was held ajar before saying: “You didn’t ev- “You were going to ask to come with me, the answer is no.”
For this, Bill didn’t need to use [Thought Reading]. He had known the girl for most of her life and had a good understanding of her personality.
Now almost speaking in a whining tone, Yoko said back: “But without big sister Sasha here, or that cowboy, what are you going to do? I’m the next strongest!”
Though Bill didn’t think she could beat Willy, Ricky, Fia, Masterson, or Toma the claim wasn’t that much of an exaggeration.
Despite most of her soul being restrained Yoko was as strong as he was at her age, at least before he mastered Life Return. In fact, if a sixteen-year-old Bill with Life Return fought an unsuppressed sixteen-year-old Yoko, he wasn’t even sure he’d win. After all, he had been a couple years older when he learned how to use Haki.
But it wasn’t a matter of ability, it was a matter of the heart, when he answered: “Strength isn’t everything. You lack the experience I need on this mission. Furthermore, I’ll need you and your crew to stay on [New Haven] for the time being.”
Hearing this, the girl began to run her mouth as a sixteen-year-old is prone to do.
Accusing Bill of never letting her go or do anything, despite the fact that he had given her the rank of Lieutenant with her own ship and crew. Stating that in any other branch she would have already started catching pirates while he only had her do patrols around New Haven - accompanied by Nelson of all people, and this was true.
As she continued to list her grievances, going into great detail about how always been supervised by Nelson was annoying, Bill couldn’t help himself but to start laughing.
“What…?” she asked warily, and he replied through laughter: “You’ll be staying on the island with Nelson in charge!”
“Bill!” she cried sounding wounded, but he, now laughing slightly less replied more seriously: “Listen girl, you need to see Nelson as a resource. He has the most tactical training of anyone in our Department, furthermore, of course, I have to keep you here. New Haven was attacked, and we can’t have the island undefended when I leave!”
“But what about Instructor’s Masterson and Toma?” said she, but shaking his head, Bill answered: “They don’t know it yet, but they’re coming with me.”
Rolling her eyes, Yoko approached the desk and slumped in the chair across from him and said: “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know, [Merveille] is currently in [Paradise], so it probably won’t be that long.” He said, and no sooner than the words left his mouth, she claimed: “I read that in the past Shiki had a lot of pirates servicing under him. You know, if I went with you, with my ability I would be able to help a lot more now.”
Nodding his head in agreement with her, he said: “Yeah it probably would, but you’re not strong enough yet to control it and besides I do really need you here.” Letting out an exasperated “HUMMM” she finally said ‘ok’ and then stayed in the office while Bill finished the assignments to be done while he was gone.
The Department had a total of 60 [Iron Wardens] and 3 [Minds]. With the average price of each being 15m and 100m Beli respectively, these powerful machines were an incredibly expensive investment.
Added to the costs of the ships, salaries, and other work being done across the [East Blue] their excess reserves of funds had already been drained to a fraction of what they had been.
On the one hand, this was a part of the plan. Bill did not want to be sitting on a large ‘rainy day’ fund where the Science Division would take 20% of it per year in dues on top of the set payment that he was to turn in.
On the other hand, in times of crises such as this, it would have been nice to have several hundred million Beli lying around.
Shaking his head, he had to economize and wrote the orders to halt renovations on the 3 newly acquired frigates and start production on 18 more [Iron Wardens]. He then called Sasha back from her expedition into the other side of Paradise where she had been scouting for business leads, capturing pirates, and getting recruits.
Despite being on the [Salamander], she was at least two months from returning and so he couldn’t rely on her to make it. Instead, he just needed her back in case of an emergency.
With the paperwork done and the orders implemented Bill started working as much as he could to help speed up the manufacturing process of the new machines, and as the dockyard outfitted the Amigo’s ship, a week passed by quickly.
Getting on the Amigo Submarine, Bill stood in front of Masterson, Toma, and an assortment of handpicked Special Operators. The entire group was dressed in long colorful ponchos and wide sombreros.
“Alright. We all know why we’re here. You have your orders and know the roles you will play…” Looking over the group of professionals, Bill knew he didn’t need to say more, and ended with: “Now, let’s go catch us a legend.”
Two days later, as the Submarine was deep beneath the waves, Bill sat looking over the monitors installed to display the images taken by out-facing cameras.
Purururu purururu
‘Hm?’ Having ordered not to be contacted, Bill frowned when he grabbed his Communication Snail.
But that frown quickly turned to stoic resignation when Nelson said: “Commodore, I’ve just learned that the World Government has announced the execution of Portgas D. Ace in six months’ time. War with Whitebeard is certain, damn them.”
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
NOTE: I slightly edited 128.1 and moved it to 129.1 - I think it works better that way.
Toma (reminder)
Spoiler [collapse]Masterson (reminder)
Spoiler [collapse]Eldoraggo
Spoiler [collapse]Kuro
Spoiler [collapse]Gad the Whirling Tide
Spoiler [collapse]Merveille (In the coming chapters you'll see, but this picture does not correctly show just the sheer scale of how big these islands are... just consider that they're big enough to have actual rivers flowing through them.)
Spoiler [collapse]