His footsteps resonated as he walked down the corridors of the base. The last few days the Marines were in a frenzy to redeploy their forces, but that wasn't what caught his attention.

He was being watched.

The soldiers thought they were inconspicuous but he didn't miss the sidelong glances.

Perhaps my disguise has expired...

He slowly made his way into the mess hall. It was annoying how he had to act if he still was human, but there was little he could do about it. Borsalino still didn't leave so I have some time left.

He took only a glass of juice and went to sit near a Michel Jackson lookalike he saw on Hina's ship.

"Is this seat taken?"

The man looked at him and shook his head "No Sir."

Alex placed his glass on the table and took a seat beside the man. The soldier didn't really look like the rest of the sheep here, with his heart shaped glasses and colorful shirt but when compared to Captain Nezumi it wasn't that strange.

"I heard that Zephyr was a badass old man in his days" said a soldier on the other side of the table. Alex also remembered seeing him on Hina's ship, mostly hanging around Michael here. The pink haired man didn't even bother to take of his knuckle dusters while he ate.

"I remember that he was an instructor here or something...guess he finally snapped" replied Michael.

"SHUT UP!" came a roar from behind them.

Alex and Michael turned around and saw an angry Smoker holding a full tray glaring at them "Don't run your mouths as if you know anything. Especially you, pirate" he glared at the man that sat beside Mercer.

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the room and Alex could see Michael starting to sweat. The tension evaporated immediately after Smoker grunted and went away.

"What was that all about?" asked Michael as he got his nerves under control, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

His friend could only shake his head "Don't know Jango, perhaps its constipation?"

"You should keep your voices down when talking about topics like these" said Alex "Smoker was one of Zephyr's students and still holds him in high regard" and the man has a short fuse it seems.

They nodded at him.

"You're new so it's understandable you don't know Zephyr's past. He once had a family, but they were murdered by a pirate."

"So that is the reason..." thought the man now identified as Jango.

"Not entirely, he wanted to resign his position as an admiral but was persuaded to stay as an instructor. He did a good job and many of the high rank people you see around were trained by him. That went on until one day a pirate attacked and killed one group of his students and severed his arm, and again he endured the grief that came. But that turned to hate when the World Government appointed the same pirate as a Warlord. The idea that such people would be allowed to go rampant on the seas with no way to bring them to justice is something that he could not tolerate" explained Mercer.

The three sat in silence after that for a time.

"Judging from Smokers comment you were a pirate before joining. How did that happen?" he asked Jango.

The man only shrugged "One of my former captain's plans didn't go as intended and I went my separate way. Probably would have killed me for failing...later I was captured by the Marines and ended up enlisting. That's the short story."

"Then it's not that unusual that Smoker dislikes you. He follows the 'once a pirate always a pirate' way of thinking" Alex said before finishing his drink and threw the plastic cup and straw in the nearby garbage can.

"...Now I'm even more glad I ended up under Captain Hina's command."

The other man smiled and pulled out a small box, opening it Alex and Jango saw a simple golden necklace "Speaking of Captain Hina, I heard her birthday is coming soon, so what do you think about this gift?"

Alex didn't really know how to answer that. Does she love this sort of things? Does she even celebrate a birthdays? In the end it's nothing special in his mind. He stopped celebrating days like Christmas, birthdays and all the others when he started middle school. Not that there's was too much to celebrate, it simply became monotone and more annoying than fun. Of course he still visited his foster parents and Dana if he wasn't working. He bought a few thing he thought they might like more because it was expected then because it would make them happy. And the conversations with them were always the same. Reminiscing about the past and asking trivial questions like; How is work? Are you eating well? Have you found yourself a girlfriend? They had high hopes that his relationship with Karen Parker will enter the marriage stage but instead they broke up.

Alex wondered how he would now answered them...work? I'm unemployed. Eating? So-so, mostly fast food as a good humanitarian should. Girlfriend? He never really had that much of a need to become intimate with anyone, but after being reborn as Blacklight that was absolutely out of the question. He was a walking talking viral bomb for god's sake, what would he do with a woman? Infect her? And not with herpes that's for sure.

Seeing how he finished his drink he turned to leave but was stopped in his tracks by one sentence from Jango.

"Serving under Captain Hina is definitively better then under Captain Kuro."

Mercer slowly turned around "Captain Kuro, the guy that was executed?"

Jango looked up to Mercer and frowned "Actually he wasn't executed, he wasn't caught at all. I'm a hypnotist and Kuro wanted to be free from the Marines that were pursuing him so he had me hypnotize one of our crew and let him be captured instead."

So that man was the original? "Slick black hair, katana gloves, fruit user and crew with a lot of cat ears?"

"Except the fruit user part that does look like him. But again looks aren't everything, the simplest way to know you are dealing with him is by his technique Shakushi."

Interesting "I had a run in with him...you wouldn't know where he would choose a hideout do you?"

The hypnotist shook his head "No, normally he is out on the seas without any bases of operation. He likes to masquerade his ship as a merchant vessel to escape notice, a common tactics done by other commerce raiders."

"Thanks for the information" said Mercer before he left. It was time he made a visit to the prison.

Yesterday he gained a useful piece of information. The Neo-Marine commander Shuzo was still imprisoned here. The newspaper said he was shipped off to Impel Down, but that was a lie. The Marines had questions for him and the interrogators were stationed here and not in the infamous prison, so his trip was delayed.

His steps resonated down the narrow corridor until he reached a long spiraling staircase that leads to the brig.

As he reached the end of the staircase instead of going through the steel door that would lead him to the guards – a squad supported by two pacifists, he instead entered the lavatory whose entrance was beside the steel door.

He moved to the nearest washing basin and opened the faucet before he liquefied his body and entered the plumbing system. He could have done that from any faucet in the base but navigating through the labyrinth wasn't easy so he decided to do it from the nearest possible location to his target.

He followed the pipe to the prison cells and stretched his body to cover all ten cells. Now he only had to wait until someone opened a faucet.

Akira couldn't believe how dumb he was. It was so hard to make it into the Marines and now he placed his career in risk because of a petty theft.

Perhaps they will only give him a warning...it's not like he did anything big, he only took the watch from one of the other soldiers.

Feeling thirsty from all the stress he went to the the sink to drink some water.

He opened the faucet and to his dismay not even a drop of water emerged. He grunted in frustration when only drops started to fall, he didn't even have time to react as a strong torrent of water emerged from the faucet and instead of landing in the sink it twisted and slammed him into the wall.

He rubbed his head from the impact and saw that the water formed into a humanoid shape.

That was the last thing he saw before a watery tentacle snapped his neck.

Mercer returned to his normal form after the human died. Not one to leave things around he consumed the body and again turned into water.

He slowly oozed out of the cell and started his search for Shuzo. Some cells were empty some not but he didn't bother with anything not his prey.

When he reached the last cell he saw a heavily chained man sitting quietly in the corner.

He slowly oozed into the cell.

"If any of you scum is urinating on the corridor I will break your necks!" shouted Shuzo when he saw the fluid approached him slowly.

"Shut up! Some people are trying to sleep here!" came a reply.

The Neo-Marine ignored the voice and watched the liquid approached closer.

If he was able to move he would have walked away but his restrains made that impossible. So he helplessly watched as he ended up siting in an ever growing puddle.

Before he could blink the water shot up and engulfed his head entering through his nose and mouth, filling his lungs and preventing him from screaming.

All his shouts turned into gurgles and the restraints prevented him from defending himself from whatever was trying to drown him.

It didn't last even a minute before his vision started to go bright from the lack of oxygen. His attempts to free himself slowed down before stopping completely.

Then unconsciousness took him.

Mercer solidified his body and consumed the target with all his knowledge, including how to use Armament Haki. A grin spread across his face as he made his way to the faucet through which he retreated without leaving anything besides two empty cells.

After extracting himself from the pipes Alex made his way to the docks. Kizaru will move to confront Zephyr tomorrow and Alex planned to be on that ship.