Lingering madness
Brace yourselves everyone an epic battle is coming but it's not the marines.
War against piracy
(The tree of knowledge: Ohara)
*Knock! Knock! Knock!* "Hello is there anyone in there!" Marcus shouted as he knocked on the front door to the library.
This library to be exact is the tree of knowledge with a library built inside of the tree, an impressive structure that has stood for over four thousand years according to his father. Marcus has heard of it before but only through pictures, in truth this is his first time visiting the place.
"Hai Hai, what do you want?" a voice of a woman called out rather annoyed.
"Are you the friends of Nico Robin?"
"Yes, why what do you want with her?" she asked cautiously
"I have robin with me; she has been through a troubling situation."
Then the door then clicked and then the door suddenly flew and out came an irate woman.
She was young average sized woman, with short blond hair under a purple cap. She wore a coat that matched her hat, with a light blue shirt underneath that was darker blue at the collar, and had four white buttons. And blue jeans and brown boots.
She stomped out of the door and grabbed his collar pulling him to her face. "Damn it why can't you idiots just leave her alone, she is not a monster, she is just a sweet little gi-EH?" She paused mid-sentence when she realised that she wasn't staring into any eyes but red lenses from an intimidating mask and helmet that was giving of a red hue of light off of them. Not to mention his apparel was also intimidating with his black trench coat with white insignias on his chest plate, shoulder guards and biceps on his coat, some of the insignias shows an eagle with its wings spread out and its talons digging into a human skull, and another insignia he had was what looked like a rank of some sort.
"Errrrr-Ehehehe" she laughed nervously and with a few beads of sweat dropping down her face as the figure was staring right back at her, she then spotted the insignia for a rank on his left shoulder. She gulped and regained her courage and asked him with her narrowing her eyes "what could the marines want with a little girl eh?"
Marcus raised an eyebrow and tilted his head in confusion "what makes you think I am a marine? If you are referring to me belonging to a military then yes I am."
The woman was now incredibly cautious then asked him "so what do you want from robin then, what she did to you to deserve punishment then, are you so prejudice against people who have special powers. What do you want with her!" she accused Marcus
"Nothing, I was just looking for her friends so I can return her here for medical attention after an accident down by the North West coastline, there is no need to act so hostile she is right here." Marcus said calmly as he presented robin from behind her still clutching his leg while looking dirty,damp,bruised,bleeding and her sundress had been torn in certain areas.
"Robin!" She gasped in shock "what happened to you."
"I fell inside a cliff that collapsed below me and I landed inside a cavern" she answered her "and then I was chased by a giant scary fish."
"A giant fish?" she said with a bit of scepticism
"mm." Robin nodded "but Marcus san dealt with it by shooting at it and throwing bombs at it.
"So, that's what the noise was about, we heard people saying that they heard shrieking, gunshots and explosions coming from the north west of the island, and that was you and this fish who was making all of that noise." She questioned Marcus who replied with a nod. "is it dead?
He shook his head. "No, I doubt it. Even though it is wounded badly it can still fight with brutal results. We almost didn't make it if robin here didn't save us." Marcus patted robin on the head as she blushed.
The woman smiled at robin and turned back to Marcus "I'm sorry I reacted badly, its just that the locals here don't take too kindly to robin here." She said sadly
"I know she told me about her…..burden and gift."
"And what do you think of her about that fact." She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
"Nothing and why should I hate her out of sheer ignorance? It's their fault for not understanding because the adults refuse to believe that she is still a normal girl at heart and that they fear her abilities while they themselves have none, probably because some desire power. The kids are just as bad because they follow their parent's example towards robin and that they think it's acceptable to torment her." He concluded.
"HMMM?" she went. She scrutinized his opinion and then finally nodded in acceptance. "Alright I will put you in my good books for now, come in." she moved her arm to the door in a welcoming manner.
"Thanks, my names Marcus by the way. "He introduced himself.
The woman smiled and gave out her hand which he took and shook it "Hocha is the name; I'm one of the archaeologists around here."
"So I have heard." He said nodding
He then walked inside the library to see an abundance of books stacked so high on shelves that scale up the base of the tree, there was also a big globe with the moons orbiting it in the centre of the room.
When he stepped inside he noticed that all activity seemed to have stopped as everyone stopped what they were doing and were staring nervously at the intimidating stranger.
"Err Marcus San" Marcus turned back to see Hocha gesturing with both of her hands near her neck and raising it indicating him to remove his helmet.
"Ah I forgot I was still wearing this scary mask, give me a sec." he reached for his helmets safety release switch and pressed it, his helmet depressurized and he took his helmet and mask off revealing a young man who didn't fit the appearance of a warrior. Instead they saw that he was handsome young man with that looked like it was chisled to have a face of a fighter while still retaining the handsome looks, also with a height at 6ft and he looked dressed like he was going to war.
Hocha was certainly feeling the effects of when he removed his helmet, revealing that handsome face and his alluring blue eyes of his slightly covered by his wild looking hair that was not flattened by the helmet and it looked like it hasn't been cut in a while (Think of Getsuga himself in bleach only without the hair reaching his lower back) and she couldn't help but stare at him.
"Hocha….Hocha! Marcus said nudging her " eh? W-w-what?" she stuttered shook her head back into reality.
Marcus pointed at her face "your face is lit up like a cherry and you're drooling, are you feeling okay?" he pointed out whilst feeling her head with his hand.
Hocha's face was now distinctively lighting up into a darker shade of red as his hand made contact with her face "H-h-h-hai! *covers her mouth for blurting out loud* I'm fine." She whispered in an embarrassed tone.
Marcus blinked in confusion at the sudden outburst she made. "Ahem" and then another figure stepped forward towards the three making himself known.
The elderly man wore a red-and-white striped shirt with a large belt at his waist, pants and a blue-and-black jacket. He also had a shaved head with his hair and beard that…..' wtf is with his hair and beard, why the hell does it look like a four leaf clover?' he thought with a straight face.
The elderly man chuckled at the scene and then turned his sights over to robin "okay hocha that will do for now, but what I would like to know is why this young man is here and why robin has got all of those injuries." The elderly man questioned with a frown.
"Robin, why don't you explain your situation first?" Marcus said to robin to which she nodded back and began her side of the story.
(5 minutes of explaining later)
*sigh* "I was afraid that something like this would happen, Roji has gone too far this time." The old man sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose. "Honestly I have no idea how Oran puts up with her (Oran is robins uncle).
"Has he ever actually tried to put a stop to her abuse towards Robin?" Marcus asked
"Oran isn't a bad person, he does try to step in every now and then but he could only do so much. And Mizuria is not on good terms with Robin; sometimes she takes up after her mother." He shook his head disappointment.
Marcus stood leaning against a pillar with a frown on his face.
The professor then raised his head and faced Marcus. "Now that I heard her story, what about your story. Why did robin find you in a frozen submarine and why was she hurt?"
Marcus sighed and scratched the back of his neck and then he explained "Look professor… " "clover" the professor said to him. "I come from a place very far from here from what I can guess, I was fighting a war in my country and then I find myself in a frozen cavern standing in front of robin and I am now hundreds or a thousand miles away from home." He explained his situation to the professor and the archaeologists now forming a crowd around them. One of the archaeologists in the crowd said. "what war? We haven't heard anything from the newspapers yet, and one just came by today."
"Could I borrow it, I need to know what's going on" he asked him and he passed it over to him.
Marcus read the front cover of the newspaper and noticed something differently about it. The news headlines were about the escape of a pirate named Shiki the golden lion. 'never heard of him, not important and I don't even care' was his output as he flicked through some of the contents about polotics,murders and the weird shit that goes on in the world. There were even news stories inside the newspaper about government policies issued by the gorosei and the world government. 'World government? gorosei? Who the fucks are they? No somethings not right here We have been trying to unite this world for years but the monarchies and imperialists are just far too stubborn and will never work with the likes of us. It will be cold millennia before they do accept our terms for a unified world government, They just don't like us because our leaders earn power through respect and trust and the fact that they see us as filthy commoners who are threatening their power only cements their stubbornness and hatred of us. So why now and when the hell did this thing happen anyway?' Marcus turned back to the front cover and discovered something impossibly wrong.
"What the hell is up with the date?" he eyed at the newspaper in scrutiny.
"what is wrong with the newspaper? nothing is wrong with it, that is the latest issue. The same man confirmed to him but it only added more fuel to his anxiety.
"Is something wrong Marcus san" robin asked, worried.
"Everything is wrong robin, first it was October where I was, and now here it's July. And second why does it say the year is 1502?" he asked in uneasiness.
Choka was now confused " what do you mean, that is the year today."
Marcus was now stunned by what he has found out, clover then asked him on what was on his mind.
"Robin did say she found you climbing out of a pod inside of a submarine that was frozen, and then it heated up and then you climbed out. From what I can gather is that you have been frozen for a very long time.
Marcus's face lit up in realisation about what happened after when they were at the docking bay. Marcus was now clenching his fist and brought out his pip boy and connected to the sub's computer via his pip boy's wireless capabilities. He logged in and selected the data for the cryo freezer, what he found made his eyes widen in shock and his blood freeze.
Apparently the cryo freezer was set to thaw in just a few years but the system suffered a severe glitch and system damge and pushed the date much further forward making it almost indefinite to when he will come out or be trapped in the pod forever. In fact he was saved by fate or a little miracle by the name of Robin.
Marcus just sighed in the palm of his hand covering his hand; the day has just been too stressful for him.
"Can we move on to something else now? I'd rather move on now."
Clover nodded understanding his situation even if his archaeological mind wanted to ask him about the past, but relented. "Robin mentioned something about you fighting of a monster fish, could you describe it for us?" he asked
"Well I could show you the combat footage that I recorded onto here, give me a sec, a-nd done," Marcus brought up a holographic screen that had colour that was incredibly detailed with the 4k resolution setting.
The archaeologists were amazed by the pip boy's capabilities, at first they were intrigued by the device but the footage caught their attention.
"Where was this filmed exactly" clover asked Marcus as the mystery of the ice caver under Ohara confused him. "north east of the island, and if you wait a minute after the snowball fight you will see him….. now." He paused until he got a full picture of the fish.
"Hmmm, now this is interesting, and troubling. Now our dock will be under threat by this monster.
"You don't have to worry about that, the entrance to the cavern is blocked off due to a collapse, and it is too far down into the cavern for it to swim back up and out of the cavern."
Clover now scratched his beard in thought. "Based on the look of this fish, I think it is a tateobesu. This fish is said to be either prehistoric or a demon in a fishes form as it is said that when you see it and lose sight of it, you never know when it will strike you when your back is turned."
"Believe me I know, look here," Marcus pointed out to a scene where the fish just vanished.
"Hmm what a troublesome fish, it's almost as bad as a sea king."
"A what?"
"You cannot be serious, how can you not have heard of these monstrous beings that roam the deep blue sea." Choka said to him in disbelief
"It's not my fault that I was cryogenically frozen for god knows how long! And last time I checked there were no such thing as sea kings." he countered
*Ahem*"so now that we have cleared this up, what are you going to do now?" said clover
Marcus paused and brought his hand up to his chin grasping it and mused in his thoughts. 'He's right, what am I going to do, I know nothing of this world and this point in time, so much has changed.' He then turned to the professor with his answer. "To be honest, I haven't got a clue. I know next to nothing about how this world runs now, also my home appears to be long gone. He said dejectedly.
"Well if it's not much trouble for you, you could always stay with us, besides Robin has taken a liking to you and a friend of robin is a friend of us." Clover proposed to him
"Yeah, you seem like a good person even though you look scary. But you took good care of robin, so that earns you points in my book." Said choka with a smile.
Marcus stood their surprised; here he was an absolute stranger being offered a place to stay, all for saving this one girl and not being prejudice towards her. These were good people, which was a rarity in this world from what he was told.
Marcus was just about to reply when there was a man running into the library shouting "Pirates! Pirates have invaded!" He shouted in fear.
"tch, I knew this would happen eventually with the great pirate age going on after gold roger said those words. " clover palmed his face as he scowled.
"So pirates are a frequent thing around here?" Marcus asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Not just here in west blue, everywhere around the world is infested with pirate wannabes, most are weak but there are a lot that have quickly made name of themselves who are after the fabled treasure that was left behind by the late pirate king gold roger." Clover explained and then he turned back to the panicked man. "Do know who the pirates are?"
"Its an alliance of three galleon sized ships consisting of The westside pirates, the Tanktop Crew and the pirate slavers.
"Worst names for a pirate crew I have ever heard, anyone noteworthy within them." Marcus snorted at some of the names.
"The pirate captains for each crew all have bounties, here we have the posters." Hocha handed the posters over to marcus and when he looked at them he couldn't help but facefault.
The posters were so damn ironic it wasn't even funny, it explained why they called their pirate crews with those names.
On one poster was a man named Scumbag Darrel with a bounty of 14 million berries who was the captain of the Westside pirates, their pirate crew was based on a gangsta theme, not mafia gangsters, it wasthe ghetto gangsta. This man had the face of a drug addict which apparently that was his crime; he was wanted for drug running around the west blue sea and multiple counts of violence, Destruction of property, rape and murder. Not much difference to the ones he was familiar with, they just look like the typical wannabe gangstas wearing saggy pants/tracksuits below their waist and poor choice of clothes, caps and bandanas. And the captain is the sort of man who would think he is the important person around but would betray your ass and leave you in the kill zone while he makes off with your earnings and fame.
The tank top captain from looks alone looked like he runs a crew of bodybuilders who runs on steroids and has anger management issues. This man was called Tank top Titan, and he looked like one too. His crime was multiple counts of murder, violence and destruction of property. His bounty was the highest of all three with a decent number of twenty two million. He seemed to be hiding most of his head in a bandana for his head and face like he doesn't want to be recognised. And his hands looked disturbing to look at as there were veins clearly visible from his hand and fingers like he was doing monstrous workouts for his fingers.
And finally the captain of the slavers was a man called sweet daddy A , he looks like he runs a mixed crew of pimps from the 1970s and a French noble with a gay flamboyant style from the French revolution of old earth. This guy had a purple hat and wore long bushy feather stuck on the top and a white bushy fox scarf around his neck and frills. His crime was abducting many women and forcing them into sex slavery, and then probably murder them if they didn't perform satisfactory results or threaten to extort them. His bounty was 19 million.
"Why are all three of them here?" Marcus asked the frantic man.
"Apparently someone on this island has made a deal with the Westside pirates with their drug produce, but he wanted to turn a new leaf for his family so he turned his back on the deal. They didn't like that so they tracked him down to here. The other two had similar stories, some of the slave girls escaped from their ship and managed to land on ohara but they tracked them down to here. And the tank top crew, they wanted to kill this man that looked at them funny. So the westside and the tank tops were hired by the slavers to be their bodyguards in a sense" He explained to Marcus where he face faulted at the last one with the tanktops.
"I will enquire about my living arrangements later, but first." He snapped his fingers and the same clones that were with him prior were wearing the elite ranger uniform only with a few alterations just so there wouldn't be any confusion between them (AN: They are wearing the original NCR ranger armour that's coloured in brown, whereas Marcus is wearing the same armour shown in the cover image with armour ceramics but not as bulky as the elite riot armour and he has the antenna sticking out of the left side of his helmet). and several more clones set into squads of eight each came out of the flames fully armed to the teeth. They were equipped with a mixture of uniforms and weapons fit for a counter terrorism unit back on the old earth in the past.
The clones that were with Marcus before looked different in comparison, one of them had a trench coat with a hood covering his head, he didn't have his respirator/helmet but he did have a face scarf with white skull painted on it and a pair of red tinted goggles (Custom call of duty ghosts mask) and he was equipped with a 338 Lapua AR10 semi auto sniper rifle. And an mp7 with an RDS sight and a suppressor.
The other clone was taller and more heavily armoured than the others as he was wearing armour that would stop most armour piercing rounds, along with his trench coat. And he was wearing a dark grey with red tinted lensed ballistic face mask with white tribal marks streamlined down the forehead and between the eyes and around the bridge of his nose and across his mouth. He was armed with the M60-E4 LMG with a 200 round ammo box, fore grip and bipod and a holographic sight.
And the last clone was the first clone Marcus created; he was wearing the advanced riot armour where Marcus had the elite because the first clone seemed to know a lot about his powers and he was the closest to his skills. He still had his Ak12 with him but had a few more attachments for it such as: a GP- 25 underslung grenade launcher, Acog scope with an adjustable AR stock.
The spawned in counter terrorism units were all equipped in their standard uniforms with all of their gear and weapons issued to them. In total there were forty five men including Marcus to deal with the pirate threat.
Marcus pulled both of his sequoias out of his holsters held them up pointing up and arms curled towards his chest. "We hunt those that will oppress others." Marcus proclaimed while the platoon size of soldiers locked and loaded their weapons. And the Marcus started spinning his magnum revolvers with his index finger with skill, he was spinning it forwards then backwards, turned the gun on its side and spun it and juggled it (AN: revolver ocelot's gun spinning in Metal gear solid 3) "You feed a deal with a criminal for free that will make great profit for them, they will be back asking for more. Feed them a bullet, you will never hear from them again." He said holstering both of his magnum revolvers back in the holster and made his way out of the library with his platoon.
Everyone stared at the spectacle in awe and surprise at when Marcus just spawned in a platoon of soldiers out of nothing. And then sweat dropped at when he decided to show off by performing impressive tricks with his pistols at a time like this. They all then decided to follow Marcus to see what he was going to do.
Marcus and the platoon of 5 squads and his own team split up to scout out the situation.
Marcus and his team were moving towards the village and the first clone decided to talk with him " "Marcus there is something else that you should know about using your powers, you can't keep using it to spawn countless armies of spec ops soldiers."
"Why not…err what should I call you." Marcus asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Call me whatever you like, I am just a physical sentient being that you created so you should name me whatever. And as to why, it's because the more men or women you spawn in the more energy it will cost you to spawn in quantity, whereas if you spawn a few soldiers with the elite training then it will be more expensive for you to spawn in numbers. So pretty much it's all the quality vs quantity crap that this is all about." He explained
"Oh ok, in that case for your name I am going to call you Hank." He announced with a smile.
The now named hank just nodded "any specific reason behind that name, or was it just random"
"Marcus shrugged. "Don't know it just fits." He said smiling. Hank just rolled his eyes and shook his head in amusement.
Then Marcus hit his palm with his fist in remembrance "Oh yeah." He turns around to the other two clones "you will be called Sanford *Marcus points to the heavily armoured/armed clone, and then he points over to the marksman.*"and you will be called Deimos."
The two clones looked at each other and then back to Marcus and then shrugged "Ok, it's a hell of a lot better than being referred to as just clone because we did look alike." Sanford said in a hoarse voice.
"Hm." Marcus nodded and then turned back to hank "back to what you were saying, so if I spawn in like 300 regular soldiers it would be more cheaper than just spawning in elite spec ops."
Hank nodded "yes exactly what I said before, the quality of the equipment also varies. So pretty much it would be more cost effective to equip your soldiers with bolt action rifles rather than a more expensive Railgun and laserrifles. What I would recommend is spawning out a decent sized force with enough training to deal with this kind of threat."
"I'm not sure what to arm them with; I mean what the pirates are equipped with anyway."
"Well if I were to guess it would be a combination of firearms, blunt weapons and swords."
Marcus paused and then brought out his hands and snapped his fingers for 200 armoured Riot police officers armed with riot shields, expandable steel police baton. Reinforced ceramic armour for the chest area, legs and arms and a reinforced helmet. Some of them were armed with m1911 pistols to pick off any threats coming towards them. They also had tar gas and flashbangs to disperse the crowd of pirates. And the rest had a mix of MP5s AR15s M16s and Mossberg's 590s
Marcus now discovered the effects of using his fruit was tiring him out. "is there any way around this negative effect.
"Not unless you train your body, your fruit is still technically fresh even though you have been frozen for god knows how long. If you keep on training then you will be able to spawn in a lot more soldiers and weapons that have more destructive capability."
"can I spawn in vehicles?" marcus asked.
"Well yes, but I really wouldn't do too often if you want the authorities hounding after you."
"Ah true point; I wonder if there is anything that this fruit cannot do?" he said that as he spawned in a bacon sandwich.
"Actually you can't spawn in whatever you want, there is a certain limit to what you can and cannot spawn, for instance the way you are right now you can barely pull off spawning a few tanks or several. And you can forget spawning in WMDs or battleships because you simply don't have the energy for it right now. Hank explained to Marcus again.
Marcus pouted "Alright I will sort that out in the meantime. But first we need to deal with these pirates."
"I will give you this positive tip on using your clones effectively, the clones are a part of you so you can witness what they experienced through their memories, and this is useful in raising your skills in combat, logic and scouting." Hank explained
"Huh, ok so how do I experience what one of my clones is currently doing?" Marcus asked him.
"You just concentrate on the clone's presence and you should be able to look through their point of view, but they will share their memories with you if they were killed." Hank explained.
Marcus decided to do just that and he mentally reached out for a clone that was in an advantageous spot in the small port town.
He was now looking through the eyes of one of the sniper clones who was wielding an SV-98 and he was partnered with a spotter with a spotting scope and an AKs 74U that were currently surveying the area on top of the rooftop of a church tower that overlooked the town square and the docks where the pirate ships were stationed.
'Also another useful thing, because they are technically a part of you, you can communicate with them through thought. Give it a go.' Hank voice was heard through his mind.
'What's the situation?' he thought to them
'The Westside pirates are mostly plundering and stealing anything they can find that has value and they are threatening to kill the locals if anyone tries to interfere , the tank top crew are harassing the innocent even assaulting them which sometimes ends up with someone getting killed , and destroying property. And the slavers are searching for their missing property and they are even kidnapping some of the local girls here.' The spetsnaz sniper said in his thoughts whilst clicking his tongue in distaste.
'The Alpha and bravo team are going to storm the ships to release the prisoners that are held captive, Charlie and Delta team are planning to storm a few buildings that have a lot of pirate activity in and hostages, more notably the tavern, marketplace, the bank and the gambling dens which have a lot of them around. And we are on lookout for any potential threats like one of the captains which we haven't heard from them yet, one of the SAS operators named Lloyd reckons one of them may be still on their ships.'
'Are they holding their position?' Marcus inquired
'No, we are waiting for your orders' The sniper clone replied
'Good, hold your position for now and everyone will engage when they can hear the sounds of the beast .'
The sniper clone raised his eyebrow in confusion 'How will we know what this beast sounds like.'
Marcus smiled' trust me you will know it when you hear it.' And he cut off the mind link.
'…..Eh?' the spetsnaz scratched his cheek in confusion. 'Oh well back to recon'
(5 minutes later)
The pirates were in a temporary alliance and had their eyes on Ohara for some time to which they just found the right excuse to invade the island altogether. Not to mention the numbers they came with were more than enough to take over the island.
All three pirate ships were quite spacious as they can accommodate quite a large force of men to form a small armada for an invasion. The total number of pirates was thought to be 605 men in total.
The Westside pirates were armed with the basic pirate weapons from the pistol's and rifles that looked exactly like a flintlock but they are semi-automatic for some odd reason. They also had themselves armed with old blades and crude weapons like machetes, cutlasses axes/Hatchets, spiked clubs and iron pipes.
They also severely lacked any protection for their bodies as they were only wearing simple tracksuit pants/trousers and jackets, wife beater vests (That name though) hats with their pirate mark on it, and even some hoodies and beanie hats. Their appearance also looked messy/scruffy and some of them looked they were a jittering wreck.
They were ransacking the place for all of its worth like stealing cash off of people and market stalls and shops to stealing personal possessions and property. They were all in it for the money out of desperation.
The tanktop crew were the hired muscle of the whole invasion so they were there to protect to protect the two other pirate crews when they did their business. All in all they were there to prevent anyone from rising up against them. Money didn't concern them much they only cared for strength and to torment the weak below them.
The slaver pirates seemed to be the brains of the invasion as some of them were with the other crews searching through building to building for the pimps missing property. Other than that they would kidnap some of the young girls and women to do their sick biddings.
"Shit man, these folks are dirt poor I only managed to grab a few thousand Berri "One of the Westside pirates complained
"Don't expect a large amount man, most of the islands we been to don't have much anyway, only the islands that are protected by the marines have a lot of profit due to the higher class society. Because of that they tend to ignore the non-important islands like this." The other Westside pirate added.
"What about that library tree up there, I heard about these archaeologists up there they must have relics that could fetch up quite a price."
"Yea maybe you're right, they must have something that could totally rake up millions up there."
"Yo big guy, we are going to that big tree library thing up there" Westside pirate 1 said to the heavily built muscle man with stripe tiger pattern on his tank top and and a black and blonde striped hairstyle.
The tanktop crewman was currently pounding an innocent man because he simply looked at him funny. He turned around and squinted his left eye and looked at the two westside pirates in a threatening manner. "Ehhhh, don't try and order me around you weak ants ." he said as he dropped the heavily beaten man ungracefully onto the unforgiving stone path.
"Oh come on tiger san we are all in this together, we were also hired the same ways as you remember you can't just threaten us like that." The Pirate argued to him.
"Tch, why should I give a shit for all of you pathetic weak Druggies? you only want the money just so you can get high again and become wasted. And those prissy boys piss me the fuck off."
"What did you call us you bastard!" he pulled out his sword
"Shh! Can you hear that?"
"Hear what?
*WOO! WOO! WOO! WOO! WOO! WOO!* a collection of loud blaring noises that was coming over the hill and that they could hear the noise coming closer to the town.
And then they saw a convoy of moving black armoured vehicles speeding towards the town with flashing red and blue lights.
(Play Assault: Devil may cry 2 soundtrack)
The sniper clone sweat dropped at the reference that was the signal from Marcus to engage the enemy. And the he heard a micro phone being switched on by one of the armoured trucks which happened to be one of several lenco bearcats used by the Pre-war SWAT team only with machine guns fixed onto them. They were escorting armoured trucks with semi-trailers that were also armoured and meant to carry a lot of troops within them. He heard one of the clone riot soldiers singing out of his Trucks microphone like an idiot.
("Woop-woop! That's the sound of da police! Woop- Woop! That's the sound of da beast!" X2)
("Deimos for fuck sake pack it in! *wham!*)
The pirates that were ransacking the buildings in one of the streets had heard the loud sirens and weird singing and stopped what they were doing and went out on the streets, only to be met with an armoured speeding vehicle going 50MPH down the street and ploughed straight into a group of pirates were not aware of them approaching when they exited on of the alleyways.
The pirates realised the threat these new arrivals posed and brought out their firearms and open fired onto the moving convoy. Only for it to be proven ineffective against the moving targets as it just bounced of the metal exterior of the vehicles exterior and the glass was too strong to break through the obsolete use of flintlock firearms and lead balls (AN: which strangely enough they are semi-automatic, only in one piece can they bend the laws of realism.).
The bearcats came in with 10 with 5 at the front escorting the 2 armoured trucks with the Semi-trailer and 5 at the back protecting the rear. The bearcats were mounted with with 4 M2 browning HMGs and 6 FN m240s on the roof of the vehicles. When the pirates started attacking them with the gunfire of the flintlocks they returned their firepower with more ferocity.
The 12 vehicles were making their way towards the town centre in a diamond formation with the two Lorries in the centre of the formation and Marcus at the front leading the charge; all of the vehicles were performing drive by shootings along the way on any pirate that were attacking them. The firepower of heavy and light machine guns was proven as devastating towards their enemies as each shot from a 50 calibre round or a 7.62mm round coming from the lmgs as they tore through the opposition.
The Westside pirates' riflemen along the street were taken down with ease as the heavy round tore chunks of flesh from their torso's or even severing limbs and exploding body parts. Their shooting was appalling and messy and they had little strategy that proved to not do much whatsoever, some of them just stood there in the open firing from the hip and some went into a mad charge in an attempt to be intimidating towards their foes, nobody does that. There were some that did know how to fight in urban warfare when there are guns involved and they stuck together with their crew and allies.
The tank top crew as expected were dumb, all muscle with little brains pretty much. They attacked recklessly disregarding their own safety. Their strength was nothing to laugh at though as some of them attempted to charge at the oncoming armoured cars using their sheer size and strength to try and stop even one of them. Some of them were torn apart by the 50 and 7.62 calibre rounds, others were literally road killed by sheer weight and speed they were going at shattering their bones upon impact as they were not strong enough to take them on. One of the bigger tanktop crewmen got lucky as he managed to force a bearcat off the road by running out of an alleyway and shoulder barging into the left rear side of the armoured car which was a car at the front of the formation behind Marcus. The shoulder barge had caused it to veer off course and crash into one of the café building's just outside the market. The car just ploughed straight through the building's entrance and large window, scattered all of the chairs and tables everywhere and smashed another wall leading to the kitchen. fortunately the driver and passengers were fine, unfortunately for some slaver pirates were relaxing in the café when all of a sudden a large black armoured vehicle just bulldozing its way through the café running over their nakama and smashing one straight through the wall of the kitchen.
"We've lost one!" cried out one of the drivers. "Should we go back for them?" called out another driver.
"Negative Delta 3 stay on course, they can handle themselves. We need to escort the Lorries to the town centre, we can't afford any distractions." Marcus said calmly.
'It's alright we have them covered.' Four soldiers from the rooftop units said through the mind link.
'Copy that, make sure they have got themselves out of the café building and re-join us at the town centre.' Marcus ordered as he was shooting out of the passenger window at another group of pirates running out to the streets when they heard the noise with an Mp7 submachine gun.
The pirates started bringing in heavier firepower as they discovered that their firearms are just not going to stop them. The tanktop crew started bringing out their hand held cannons or even cannons that some of them were artillery cannons with a rifle stock and trigger converted onto the cannon.
"Hey they got cannons, that is so stone age." One of the clones laughed.
Then he fired at the oncoming lorry hitting the trailer with the cannonball exploding in a fireball. Fortunately the armour held with only a few dents, scratches and the paintwork burnt off.
'Oi, Is everyone okay in there!?' Marcus called out to the Lorry.
'We're alive, I suppose if they were very lucky they could've given us a headache with that cannon.' The lorry driver replied in a humorous tone.
"Heads-up, we are approaching the town centre."
'Alright I want all of the bearcats to form a defensive formation around the Lorries whilst they unload the Riot troopers, then I want every one with guns to provide fire support for the Melee soldiers. And watch your fire there are civvies in the area'
'Roger that.' Said every clone soldier in the vehicles.
Marcus grabbed his shot gun and pumped it (AN: not in that way.) "We may be too late to save our country from war but that doesn't stop me from preventing innocents from dying by the hands of evil." He said firmly.
The convoy arrived at the town centre and skidded to a halt in front of a small army of pirates that looked pretty pissed at the fact that somebody had the nerve to stand up against them.
The convoy entered the town centre by smashing straight into a pirate grunt completely disfiguring his face and crushing his bones and organs by a bearcat as they all formed a defensive formation and all of the soldiers exited their vehicles.
And then the lorries skidded to a halt and a ramp dropped down at the back of the trailer as 100 riot troopers with 50 in both of the trailers armed with riot shields and expandable stun batons and standard issue riot gear marched out of their trailers and got in front of the bearcats shields raised and batons over their shoulders in a threatening manner and the other soldiers who are armed with the guns took cover in the nearest buildings or behind anything that provided decent cover as they too raised their weapons against the threat.
The pirates were not taking this well at all, they expected this to be a simple takeover but they lost some of their men in the process.
One of the pirates that was the second mate to scumbag Darrel who had a bounty of 7,500,000 bellis stepped forward to the front of the growing crowd that he was leading to plunder the place. He wore a tattered black hoodie with the hood up, a red bandana face mask, dirty and ripped black tracksuit with white outlines on the side, his face looked like he was rotting on the outside due to all of the drugs he has takeing.
This pirates name was desperate Shaun, he was called that because he is always desperate for money so he could purchase more drugs and other things to indulge himself in, so desperate that he would do any evil act for money. When things don't go his way or suffers from withdrawal he will start getting violent to anyone who does get in his way. In fact he has a lot of anger issues and violent tendencies if he doesn't calm down as what the information says about him.
Shaun stood in front of the large group of pirates trembling from the withdrawal symptoms and rage
"Who the fuck are You to fuck with us! He shouted to them while biting his lip from the unbearable sensation of the withdrawal. "Do you Know who the Fuck We Are!"
Marcus had an intercom in his hands connected to the microphones on the outside of his car; he hoisted himself up on the passenger door and stood on his seat with his microphone near where his mouth/helmet speakers are.
"No, nor do we care. You are endangering the lives of innocents on this island, leave now or we will respond with lethal and deadly force" Marcus ordered.
Shaun's face was now seething with rage as his face held a crazed look in his eyes. To go back to his ship with nothing, how much longer does he need to suffer through the damn withdrawal. 'No!' shaun defiantly shouted in his head, he was not going to take their shit by walking away, he needed his fix, he just needed profit from this island to make the money, this town has it somewhere it has to be.
Shaun raised his crude weapon of a club with nails with blood dried onto the metal. "NOO! I aint going back with barely fuck all again, you fucking pricks think you can beat us? We outnumber you!" He screamed at them with so much maddened rage.
Marcus frowned inside his helmet." That does not mean that we can overpower you, now I will ask you again. Leave now or suffer the consequences." he warned them menacingly.
Shaun unfortunately took that threat as a challenge "Fuck you we will not leave this island until we strip it clean! and once I am done I am going to start having some fun fucking the hot women here, starting with that bitch over there, crazy bitch tried to stab me when she was protecting her child, maybe the child can watch us in despair while I have my way with her mother!." He roared back at them pointing at a mother sitting at a front doorway at a house holding her child protectively while her face was bleeding her face held a lot of fear and tears pouring ou of her eyes as she tried to shuffle back inside.
Marcus was now glaring out of the mask with the mask multiplying the glare with its red lenses that seemed to glow brighter.
"Suit yourself; just don't blame me when all of the blood of your nakama will be on your hands." he said through the intercom.
"Oh I will enjoy killing you, KILL THEM! Kill these damned marines." Shaun ordered to them
"OAAHHHH!" the roared out their battle cry, but Marcus and his clones were not intimidated by the likes of them.
'Marines, Who are they?' he thought questionably.
He ignored that thought for later and focused at the task in hand.
He ordered both of the two riot platoons to form a fifty by fifty line to initiate Close quarter combat with the pirates who are wielding melee weapons or just going in baring their fists and raw strength. The company of gunmen cocked their guns as did the mounted gunners that are providing the suppressive fire for the CQC platoons.
The pirates cocked their rifles and pistols, loaded their cannon rifles, swords were drawn as were the hatchets, clubs or whatever they used to prepare to kill their foes.
(AN: Play monkeys from hell: black hole)
With a mad battle cry they charged at the defensive line with foolish and stubborn determination.
Marcus knew he was outnumbered but that didn't stop him from running away at the face of evil and madness that had consumed the hearts of these men.
As the pirates were fast approaching the defensive line of the riot troopers, Marcus muttered one word that was loud enough for his men to hear.
"Fire" and that word alone signalled a deadly force of Warfighters out to the slaughter against these unfortunate pirates.
*RATATATATAT!* A mixture of fully automatic HMG, LMG Assault Rifles, Assault carbines, sub machine guns,shotguns and pistols were all that was heard all over the island as a volley of auto/semi auto gunfire tore into the mass wave of pirates. The large amount of gun flashes lit up the night sky; it was bright enough for the archaeologists to see the action all the way from the tree.
Many pirates fell from the automatic gunfire as blood was flying out of their bodies as the rounds were so powerful some of them blew chunks of flesh off of them.
Some pirates started to think properly and the gun wielding pirates started focusing their fire on Marcus's Assault Company and the mounted gunners. Even the cannon wielding soldiers were focusing their fire on the armoured vehicles.
The clone soldiers started to shift their focus onto the riflemen and heavy weapon pirates.
The attention shift gave Shaun and the melee pirates the chance they wanted to get in close, so they made a mad dash towards the Defensive line held by the riot soldiers.
The riot soldiers saw them coming and braced themselves for the impact of a lot of desperate and pissed off pirates. But they were not going to let them have the upper hand in this situation, the second line of riot soldiers brought out a canister and pulled the pin out to prime it and chucked it in front of the charging pirates.
The charging pirates saw the soldiers throwing canisters right in front of them and bounced harmlessly off the ground. They smirked and thought nothing of it thinking that they were just throwing blunt projectiles at them but with a bad throwing arm.
*BANG!* they were proven wrong as a multitude of bright flashes lit up the town centre like a miniature sun, blinding the chargers in their attack, causing some of them to stumble and collapse during their charge and the others just carried on blinded and unaware of the danger that is now in front of them.
The riot soldiers begun their counter charge as they collided their riot shields against the pirates sending them flying and knocking some of them unconscious from the impact, even breaking or fracturing a few bones.
The pirates soon recovered from the unpleasant experience that was the flashbang, they reengaged their assault to kill the interference in front of them. The pirates raised their weapons and smashed them against the metal and bulletproof riot shields not even denting it. They had no strategy, they just trying to overpower them with brute strength and violence. The soldiers responded back with a shield bash to the face and swipe to the jaw with their expandable stun baton dislocating them with blood, teeth and spit flying out of their mouths, along with sheer pain of electricity coming straight from the weapon.
The pirates that were shooting the clone riflemen were fairing much better as they were pinned down severely by gunfire that had a ridiculous rate of fire and penetration that proved to be incredibly lethal. Several of the pirates were either shooting on top of rooftops of the buildings/houses or inside of the buildings/houses shooting from the first or second floor windows. Where other pirates were taking cover behind walls in the town centre or alleyways, but didn't do much either as the heavier machine guns just demolished their cover and them on the other side.
The gun wielding clone soldiers were also providing support for the riot soldiers by picking off any dangerous threats by taking out the occasional tanktop crew berserker as they proved to be quite stubborn when it came to a lethal situation and would just refuse to just die. The pistol calibres and the 12 gauge slugs didn't do much to them, while it did penetrate them but they would just shrug off the pain, the rifle calibres worked decently enough against them, but the 50 cal worked like a treat as the deadly round will just go straight through them leaving a nasty wound.
The brutes were targeted mainly because some of them charged straight into the defensive line and knocked some of the riot soldiers down with their strength disorienting them. Some pirates even got a few lucky hits on the soldiers as they tried to pour through the gap that was made. But the defenders regained the defensive line and held on strong.
As the pirates were starting to lose ground and morale a large explosion hit two of the bearcats destroying them and the occupants inside were killed, it was then followed by more explosions that hit the surrounding area killing a few more clones that were caught in the blast.
Marcus knew where those explosions came from; it was from the dock where the ships were held and they resorted to using artillery on a civilian populated area.
That just won't do at all.
He reached out to the Alpha team and the Bravo team. 'Oi we are getting hammered over here, I want those cannons taken out ASAP!?' he asked them
'Copy that, but we are going to need some support over here, would you kindly lend us some bearcats our way?' An SAS operative requested to him.
'Will do.' Marcus noddedas he signalled three bearcats loaded with 10 men each to assault the pier, as he did that he sent two bearcats loaded with men to the neighbourhood to clear the streets from the pirate infestation. While the rest stayed to eliminate the swarm of pirates in the town centre.
Marcus climbed into his bearcat to assault the pier he turned to Sanford " Sanford you're in charge of this area! Deimos sweep the streets and buildings of anymore pirates around the area, and assist the Charlie,Delta and Echo teams if you see them, They should be handling the hostage situation over at their end, Hank you're with me! "Marcus ordered them
"Yes commander!" they complied as two of them entered their vehicles and the other held his position.
Marcus got back into his bearcat's passenger seat and they took off heading straight for the Docks.
(Rooftops)
*BANG!* a pirates head was now halved.
A clone sniper marksman lifted the bolt on his rifle and pulled it back to insert another cartridge into the chamber and then pushed the bolt back into place along with cartridge being pushed into the chamber. He focused on his next target which happened to be a pirate holding a young woman hostage. He was backed into a corner surrounded by his friendly soldiers who had their sidearms drawn and pointed at him. It was more or less a shouting match between the two as the soldiers were ordering this coward of a man in a voice of authority to release the woman or face lethal action, but the pirate was acting on fear and desperation and would just not react or listen to reason. he was demanding them to back off or he would kill the woman as he held a dagger against her throat.
The Sniper clone focused on the centre of the crosshairs where the pirates head is and pulled the trigger.
*BANG! * The bullet closed the distance within less than half a second and struck the pirate right between the eyes and blasting out the back out of his head.
'There's nothing to feel threatened about him, it's just a knife and bullets are faster than an average person's reactions to move the knife.' He thought.
The soldiers rushed up to the woman who in distress as she latched on to one of the soldiers trembling, and was clutching into him while she was sobbing into his uniform.
The soldier comforted her for a brief moment and then moved her into a house nearby as the pirates were now getting a bit more fierce and desperate in their attacks.
*KRAK!* * VWOOM! PING! Loud echo!* a loud noise echoed over the streets as the clone sniper's spotter had just been shot in the head, luckily his helmet had saved him but the impact had knocked him unconscious.
The rest of his team were too far separated and they were very preoccupied on their end to provide any assistance, he knew he had to hack it on his own.
As he ducked behind cover behind a corner wall on the roof of a building, he brought out a small mirror and taped it onto his combat knife and slowly moved his hand towards the corner and peeked through the mirror's reflection out of cover to reveal the layout of the building across the street.
'Now where is he? By tracing the sound of the shot, I'm guessing it came from over….. Are you fucking shitting me!?' he face faulted at what he was seeing in the reflection of his mirror.
Down the street about 600 metres away in the second floor of a clothing shop window was a bright fluffy pink feather sticking out of the sharpshooters hiding place.
"You cannot be any more obvious than that, I mean come on." He shook his head in disbelief.
The snobbish looking pirate slaver had slowly stuck his head out and the spetsnaz had him in his sights, but he was out of bullets in his magazine. 'shit, how amateurish of me to forget the total number of rounds left in the magazine.'
The pimp sharpshooter took the advantage of his blunder and fired a shot at him, forcing him to jump back into cover to reload.
Once the clone finished reloading his rifle he began thinking of a plan to get the upper hand on him.
The sniper across the street had the advantage over him because if the he moves out of cover he would most likely die once he shows his head.
He then thought of a good tactic to use against his foe, all he needed to do was borrow it from his teammate.
(Across the street)
On the second floor window was the sugar daddy pirate's marksmen sweet shot as he was smirking in his egotistical way.
"Fopopopop No filthy peasent can kill Maximilian the magnificent Marksman, nobody is a better shot than the greatest that is fopopopop" he chuckled to himself.
He was looking down his lens sight of his gold rifle at the building where the soldier was.
"Come on you coward I haven't got all day to play with filthy commoners such as yourself. Stick your head out and die for your betters" He said
And just like that he saw movement in a shape of a head. "Bingo, say goodnight peasent" he said as he pulled the trigger.
*BANG!* and the round bullet met its target.
*PING* a loud pinging noise was heard as he sawwhat was not a head but a helmet flying out of cover, but there was no blood.
At the moment when he shot the helmet, his target flew out of cover with his rifle aimed straight at him.
"Nani!?" he said in shock
*BANG!*
He saw the flash for a brief moment when suddenly his right eye just blacked out all of suddenand why does it feel like it's on fire? He looked at his rifle with his left eye to see that the lens has been shot through.
"I-i-i-iv'e been, he shot me. But that shot, is he a better shot then I am? No, nonono its just luck, yes that's it, Fopopop luck you hear me luck!" he screamed as he jumped out of cover and brought his rifle to his target, only for it to be shot out of his hands.
He stared in shock at his rifle and then he felt his hat blown of his head, he looked across the street to see the Sharpshooter aiming his sidearm straight him. 'He's going to shoot from that distance with a pistol? Impossible!' he shouted in denial.
"Just luck you say! Tell me then, what do you think of this!? He said tauntingly as he shot his MP412 REX loaded with a 357 magnum round.
The round hit him directly in the pirates Adams apple and exited the back of his neck fracturing his spine. 'Impossible, someone is a better shot than me,a commoner? Ludicrous, I refuse to accept this.' He said in further denial as he fell out the window and hitting his head on the unforgiving stone floor.
(Back with the Sharpshooter/sniper clone)
"Fool, it's not just about accuracy to be the best sniper, accuracy is the least important trait to be a good sniper. There are three things other than accuracy you severely lack in, and that is discipline, patience and cunningness. Also stealth is another thing that you obviously don't know anything about, is that you never ever go in hostile territory in a bright coloured fluffy fur coat and a hat with a feather on it."
He went over to his team mate to wake him up. "Oh and another thing, that helmet peering out of cover is the simplest trick against snipers, I cannot believe you actually fell for that one." He said while shaking his head in disappointment.
(Over to the Alpha and Bravo squads)
A few minute prior to the town centre assault, there were 16 men moving with stealth through the shadows and their objective was to infiltrate the three ships anchored at the docks.
They were currently near the shore line next to the docks hiding in a shed loaded with four rowing boats that can hold four people.
They were currently waiting for the right opportunity to bring out the boats and head out to their objectives. The main problem was that there were too many pirates roaming about, there were a few moments where they could've been caught but thanks to quick thinking and reaction the pirates were taken out swiftly with either a knife to the jugular or a bullet to the head through a suppressed gun.
When they heard the chaos that was happening in the town centre they immediately got to work.
They distraction for the pirates was working very effectively as the sirens, explosions and the gunfire was heard all over the island, for a spec ops team it is always a preferred tactic to enter a building when there is a lot of ambient noise drowning out the enemies hearing so that they are unaware of your presence.
They exited the shed and they made their way through the dark alleyways towards their objective.
7 minutes later after avoiding involvement in the chaos that littered the streets and shooting more pirates that would've found them out and they made it to the docks through the blacksmiths building.
They looked out of the windows to see three large ships that belonged to the pirate alliance.
There was a ship that looked old, dirty and ragged, it didn't look like it was well maintained as from the look of it there were some rotten wood visible along the hull of the ship and there were graffiti marks all over the ship and the deck was littered with rotten food, empty bottles and leftover drugs . The figure head was a Hyena that looked like it has seen better days.
The second ship had a more refined look to it as it had marble statues of naked women on the deck and the figurehead along with a peacock on top and the floor boards of the deck was smooth and shiny from the polish. Their pirate mark was a skull and crossbones with a fancy nobles ball mask (Ball as in like social gatherings and parties) and a feather hat.
The last ship was the biggest because of its abnormal size and bulkiness, their figurehead was a raging rhino and their pirate mark on the sails and the flag was a beefy looking skull and weights behind the skull crossed together.
Ignoring their unusual appearance they were obviously well armed as they were seen prepping their cannons and aiming them towards the plaza and the surrounding area.
"Bollocks they are about to fire on the town centre where the commander is at, we must act now." Called out an clone.
"No need to worry I got this." Called out A soldier who apparently was holding a panzerfaust 3 in his arms which nobody knew where he got that from and aiming he was aiming it at a ship…..indoors?
"What are you doing you spaz!? Why would you be this crazy to fire that thing off indoors, and in an enclosed position? And where did you get that from" A clone next to him said to him in aggravation.
"Yeah I know it's technically impossible to fire off a PanzerFaust from an enclosed position, don't read the fucking manual next time and you won't care so much. Besides wasn't it him that said that we needed to act now, well here is your answer to your situation. And to where I got it from you should easily now the answer to that one." Said the soldier with the panzerfaust 3 who shrugged.
"True I did say that but for fucks sake you are not firing that in here. Now what I suggest to do Is make our way down the-"
"ACHOO!" *BANG! FWOOOM!BOOM!* "Woops." The clone leader was cut off from the PanzerFaust firing, kicking up dust and furniture and ornament everywhere, the windows shattered from the shockwave and the back blast tore a hole through the wall behind them.
Even though the shot was accidental it still hit its target which was a cannon port of the Westside pirates' own ship that was located at the front of the ship where the stern is. The port was apparently large enough to fit a rocket through there which surprisingly the rocket went straight through the cannon port and into an ammunition stockpile. The rocket caused an almighty explosion and started multiple chain reactions across the ship, the fire started to consume the stern of the ship making its way through.
However the soldiers were absolutely livid and disoriented from the rocket launcher and the action. "What the hell was that?! Are you trying to get us fucking killed?!" yelled the leading clone.
"I swear that was not on purpose, I just sneezed." tHe guilty clone said in his defense.
"Sneezing whilst pulling the trigger does not excuse the fact that we are now compromised!"
"Ah but look on the bright side now that one of their ships is crippled severely."
"That's beside the point, and now that plan of yours is going to get us killed."
"We all don't always have the best kind of plan, but that's ok."
"Oh for fu-
"Excuse me sir, but we should really get out of here."
"Hm?" He looked out of the window to see one of ships prepping their cannons against them, and a large group of pirates started rushing towards their position, most of their pirates were pissed and wanted blood to fuel their vengeance for their ship and drugs stash.
"Ahh shit, everybody get off the second floor."
"There are more pirates coming from our behind, they are trying to surround us"
"Fortify this position! Take out as many of these bastards as you can!"
Their weapons were primed and they took their positions across the street to hold their current position.
They could hear battle cries that were more aggressive than before coming closer, they took cover behind walls inside a few buildings and inside the blacksmiths forge.
"Here they come" one of the clones whispered as he brought up his HK417.
The pirates were in full view as they rounded the street corners and over some hills.
"Fire!" one soldier gave out the order as the rest of them fired a suppressing onslaught of bullets against them.
The pirates were getting more aggressive in their assault against them as their stash of drugs and money was right where the stern of the ship is before they blew up the front portion of it off. And now they were resorting to more dangerous tactics by performing mad dashes towards their position, only to get gunned down in the process.
*Boom! Boom! Boom!* the sound of cannon fire was heard over at the docks and not a few seconds later did they see and hear explosions over at the town centre.
'Oi we are getting hammered over here, I want those cannons taken out ASAP!?' Called outMarcus
The leading clone of alpha team peered out of cover to see more pirates flooding into the area determined to kill them.
'Copy that, but we are going to need some support over here, would you kindly lend us some bearcats our way?'
'Will do' Marcus replied as he cut off the mind link
The leader sighed to himself "And now we wait." He muttered as he brought his M4 Sopmod to his target and put down the lunatic that was 8 meters away from him, charging at him with a slightly rusted sword and a crazed look in his eyes.
"Don't let them get close to you!"
"Easy for you to say!" a clone from bravo team shouted back who was focusing his fire at the enemy gunners.
One clone unfortunately ran out of bullets in his clip just as he saw one of the pirates running towards him with an axe in his hands and held up high, but he was quickly spotted out due to the reason was that he was shouting his battle cry just before he decided to attack him.
Fortunately he was saved by one of his teammates who stabbed the charging pirate in the eye with his KM2000 knife, then spun around and blocked and redirected blade heading straight for him with his knife, pulled out his Glock sidearm and shot him in the face. He then felt a massive weight hitting his chest along with a loud bang. He looked down and noticed that he had been shot, but there was no penetration, just a nasty bruise. He looked up and saw a Westside pirate limping towards him with a busted leg that was shot by a bullet that severed his Achilles tendon, the pirate didn't seem to notice that fact or he simply didn't care due to the rage that was fuelling his adrenaline.
He was still limping towards his target, pistol in his right hand struggling to line up his shot.
He fired a shot at him…missed.
He fired again…. grazed his helmet.
He fired another shot that was way off
The clone soldier decided he had enough of the spectacle and shot his supporting leg. The bullet hit his femoral artery which caused him to collapse on the ground and knocked him unconscious and the clone just curb stomped his head twice to put him out of his miserable life, he lifted up his boot to see that there was a bit of brain matter on it…lovely.
The cannon fire was making things more and more difficult for them as time went by, where was there support?
'Alright guys I want you to make your way to the tanktop crew's ship, I am going to draw their attention away from you guys, the bearcats should arrive at your position in a minute or so.' Marcus informed them.
'Yes sir'
"Alright our pickups are going to be here shortly, let's wrap this up quickly lads." He said as he primed a grenade and threw it at a group of pirates that were shooting directly from an open area and detonated right in front of them sending shrapnel everywhere and instantly killing them through severed limbs or the shock that came after that.
"Kill them you dumb fucks! There is only 16 of them, are you really this pathetic!" called out a pimp pirate who looked to be the one giving out the orders from the back of the small mob of pirates.
"HONK HONK MOTHERFUCKER!" A loud voice from a microphone called out, and roaring noises were heard heading straight for the mob.
"NANI!" the pirate leader of the small group's eyes widened in surprise and horror as he turned around to face a blinding light that illuminated the whole street. He couldn't react in time as the armoured car's front bumper collided into his chest completely caving it in.
The armoured car then braked suddenly, launching the pirate off the car and skidding face first across the ground leaving a bloody trail.
The mounted gunners cocked their M240 machine guns and sprayed into the hostile crowd in a deadly hailstorm spewing bloody mists and splatters off of the pirates.
"There's our pickup lads, let's take these guys out quickly." The squad leader called out as he brought up his assault carbine rifle and burst fired straight into another charging pirate into his chest.
"Let's move out people"
All of the soldiers got out of cover and advanced forward towards the armoured cars
"We need to get to the transport quickly; we are running low on ammo here." One clone soldier called out.
"Switch to CQC or melee if you have to, just focus on getting to the transport, they will cover us on our way" Some soldiers did just that by switching to either there combat knives, machetes, entrenching tools and other miscellaneous blades, tools and even martial arts that they used against the pirates with such skill and ferocity.
Even though the pirates that were fighting up close were strong to say the least, but their skills were sloppy and savage. Some of the drug addicted pirates were all over the place due to rage that was caused from some after effects from drug withdrawal symptoms 'whatever that drug it is must be highly addictive for them to react this violently from the withdrawal symptoms.' the squad leader mused to himself. Their fighting style seemed to be a mix of Melee and ranged, but their weapons were old and not well maintained, some were crude like fixing nails onto clubs and tying knives onto sticks, their firearms didn't look much better as they were either homemade from scrap metal and leftover wood or older and obsolete models that was bought second hand.
The pirates that looked like body builders were just throwing themselves into the fray too much, they can absorb pain quite well from the physical attacks but they were slow and relatively stupid. Bullets can take them down effectively enough but it would take more bullets to take them down if you are shooting at them in the chest area with a smaller calibre like a 9mm. you can still take them down quickly if you aim for the head. They preferred to fight up-close and personal with their fists, but some of them were seen wielding small cannons and blunt weapons.
The slaver pirates were too cowardly to fight upfront so they preferred to fire from a distance but they did have blades on them that were cane swords, rapiers and sabre swords but it was quite rare to see them have some courage to fight one of these black clad soldiers up close and personal. They also appear to be the ones calling the shots…barely, they just couldn't control the rabid crowd that is out for blood suffering from a drug crazed frenzy and load of hot heads itching for a fight.
The difference in skill however was laughable; the clone soldiers that were adaptations of the original person that were spawned with a vast alternating array of combat skills. Some fought while dual wielding a pair of combat machetes and then he sliced through three pirates like butter. One of them went in unarmed but just using his kicks and punches. He was seen jumping towards a pirate and delivering a knee to his face and then intercepting an attacker with a club in his hands by grasping his hand and delivering an uppercut to his jaw, then an elbow down on his shoulder, chop to his neck, twisted his arm and the soldier turned around and flung him over his shoulder straight through a vegetable stall.
Another clone was seen hopping onto one of the tanktop crew member's back and hung on his left shoulder and pulled out a Ka-bar knife and started slashing and stabbing repeatedly across his neck until his neck turned into mush. From the stabbing and slashing at his jugular vein it spurted out like a full bottle of blood against the clone soldier's face, covering his mask in red. The muscle freak started thrashing about trying to get him off of his shoulder but it was no use as he quickly lost his strength and collapsed onto the cold stone floor.
The soldier hopped off of his back in front of a slaver pirate who was terrified at the bloody display he saw a few seconds ago. Fearing for his life he pulled out his rapier sword and with a quick shout of en garde and then he thrusted his blade to his aggressor, the clone soldier was not at all fazed by this and just cut off his his sword with just his knife. The pirate gawked at his sword in horror and then he looked back up to see the soldier approaching threateningly, he screamed like a girl and did something he instantly regretted, he back handed him across his face.
The backhand only redirected the pain back to the pirate's hand because apparently it did not occur to him that he was wearing some kind of metal mask that was harder than steel.
Just after he struck him across his face, the soldier barely flinched from the impact. He looked at him with an unamused expression, not that he could see that through his mask. Now he was glaring at him like he did the worst thing he could ever to someone. "W-w-w-wait a minute! I didn't mean it, just don't kill me!" he pleaded rather pathetically.
That didn't deter him as he kept on walking towards him as he was backpedalling himself towards a wall. He could see that he was undeterred by his plea, so instead he tried to barter with him.
"I-I know how about we make an exchange." He said trying to put on his best business smile while sweating nervously.
The clone only deadpanned in response 'Really? He is seriously trying to bargain his way out of this, meh might as well humour him.' Thought the clone in a sigh, he then crossed his arms and then said to him "Go on."
The pirate then smiled in response thinking he has him interested. "Excellent, now I propose a deal between the two of us, my end of the deal is that I get to keep my life and for you is whatever you want that is on our ship. So it is it that you want? Weapons, gold, money or even women. Take your pick." He said with a wicked business smile.
"I want all of the people that you have taken prisoner on your ship, give up all of your gold to this island so these people can use it to repair their homes and I want and my commander is for all of you pirates off this island." the soldier demanded.
"H-h-hold on don't you think that you are asking for too much here!?."
"No it is not, your life is on the line and a life worth's much more than mere essentials."
"But they will kill me if I release all of the women"
"How's about this, we will just kill every pirate on this island and take everything that you owned, because that's how piracy goes does it not? And what they will do to you does not concern me in any way, not till I kill you first before they do." He said while grasping his jaw and the back of his neck.
"N-nooo! Please do-!" he screamed desperately but… *CRACK!* The clone soldier put him out of his miserable life by snapping his neck.
"Foolish coward, only people like you make a deal for their own lives, you will always end up getting killed." He muttered to while he was still grasping his limp head and his dangling body.
He then turned around bringing up the dead pirate in front of him to shield him from the gunfire coming from the pirates and he pulled out his sidearm and his Sig p228 and fired back at them while dragging his dead human shield towards the car. Each shot that hit his shield plashed blood over his mask and onto his lenses which he growled in annoyance as he wiped the blood splatter off his face and lenses with his sleeve.
It took a while for them to reach the car from being shot at but they eventually made it. They opened up the backdoor's of both bearcats and climbed in.
The squad leader banged on the driver's window inside of the car "alright that's all of us, let's go!"
The driver nodded and hit the acceleration pedal, both cars roared to life as their tires spun and launched down the road not stopping for anyone but their objective.
"There is some more ammunition and weapons in the back if you need it." Said the driver.
"Alright thanks, alright gear up and reload lads we have about two minutes before we reach the docks". The clone squad leader gave out the order.
"That's if we can get their without much trouble, the pirates are in disarray and there is no leadership amongst them." Called out the driver.
"Do what you can and get us their safely, Commander Marcus will need our help in raiding their ships." He replied back
The armoured cars thundered down the road with the mounted gunners blasting any unfortunate pirates as they pass by and the occupants were also taking pot-shots on any pirate they see from the inside of their vehicles using the holes on the bulletproof windows.
"Hold on I think I've found a short cut" the driver said as he turned off the main road and into a field along with the following car."
"As long as it gets us there, then I'm fine with it." Said the squad leader.
(Back at the town centre)
"Hmm, this is certainly troublesome." Sanford mused to himself as he looked over towards the battlefield that was once the town centre. There was fire spreading all over the place as the cannon fire was destroying the surrounding buildings and there were a lot of dead pirates are scattered everywhere.
After Marcus went to assault the pirate ships he was left here to fight this onslaught of pirates that didn't know how to give up, well two pirate crew's didn't the other he could see was way over on the other side of the battlefield out of harm's way leading them from the back, he could clearly tell that they were doing a horrendous job in leadership. In fact most of the pirates here seemed to follow the actions of the 2nd in command of the Westside pirates, desperate Shaun who was right in the thick of it bashing his crude weapon against the riot trooper's shields. That man fought like a berserker as he relentlessly kept on bashing his weapon against their shields and he even took a few shocking hits across his body and head from the stun batons, but he still kept on going despite the pain.
Sanford was shooting behind a wall with his M60E4 LMG against the riflemen and cannon wielding pirates along with four other clones armed with M16s and AR15s and an Mp5. Sanford took many hits against his chest and helmet but ignored the impacts and just kept on focusing on his enemy, the feeling of being shot at nearly every side and with multiple pirates focusing on him felt like he was baptised in a firefight where he could not afford to slip up now.
Suddenly there was stick of dynamite thrown his way, but that was quickly dealt with as he simply caught it and threw it back at the one who threw it which ended up killing him and anyone nearby.
As he fired another long burst fire from his M60, his gun gave off a loud click which signalled him that he needed to reload which he reached behind his back, but there was no spare ammo left on him.
"Does anyone have enough ammo on them!?" he called to anyone nearby.
"Negative we are about to run out eventually, we only have our melee and sidearms/ secondary's with us." Replied a nearby clone who voiced out everyone's dilemma.
"Then we just have to kill them in Close quarter combat." Sanford said as he pulled out his desert eagle .50 cal pistol and a matte black combat machete that is about as long as his arm. He gave a few practice swings and loaded his Deagle. "Follow my lead, lets show them how real warriors fight!" he rallied to his clone comrades as they brought out similar weapons to his and some were different. Some clones had a sword in one hand like a wakizashi , a katana, a kukri knife or even a tomahawk, and in the other hand was either a pistol or a machine pistol like a sig sauer p228, a fully automatic glock, a MAC11 and some clone soldiers had a model 1887 lever action shot gun.
"Let's go!" he shouted as he and the soldiers behind him charged at the pirates.
The firefight soon ended when both sides did not have enough ammo and soon evolved into a bloody melee, the pirates still outnumbered the clone soldiers greatly but they suffered heavy losses through the heavy automatic gunfire. But as most of the armoured beasts left the battle to go elsewhere, they started to gather up more morale and went jumping back into the fray again. The pirate gunners were targeted the most for the clone riflemen and the mounted gunners because they kept on taking pot-shots at the riot clone soldiers attempting to break the defensive line. But now they soon began to face the same problem as the soldiers because they too have limited ammo and soon they joined in the bloody melee.
Sanford sprinted towards the defensive line and made the mental command for someone to toss in a flashbang which someone had a few left. The flash bang was tossed right in front of a crowd of pirates that were trying to break through their defences but they were relentlessly pushed back. Then they saw the familiar looking canister again, some covered their eyes as they remembered their unpleasant experience, others were not so lucky this time.
The flashbang detonated with a bright flash and a loud bang that disoriented the pirates that were close to it. They instinctively shut their eyes or looked away and covered their ears. of course, they expected that to happen at any moment because they have had that detestable thing thrown at them many time, but what they didn't expect was a man standing at 6ft 5 come charging right between the defensive line as the soldiers carrying the shield just shifted to make way for him to come through.
Sanford completely stampeded through the unfortunate pirate grunts as he shot .50 cal bullets that blasted through them with little difficulty and then he swiped his left arm wielding the large and deadly machete that simply cut through them like a carving knife.
The clone soldiers also followed his lead and launched their assault.
The pirates saw their eagerness for a melee and responded back in kind as they raised their weapons and fists in the air and roared in challenge as they charged the small the army.
The clones clocked incoming strikes with their shields and counter attacked by either bashing them in the face with their shields or striking them across the head or limbs with an electrified stun baton which brought them down really effectively.
The other soldiers used up whatever remaining ammo they had left for the pirates as they were fighting in CQC situation, pirates collided into their shields only to be shoved back or the soldiers flipped the pirates over them. The soldiers that wielded blades were also very efficient in melee combat against them as hacked slashed an stabbed their way through the pirate horde.
The pirates had their heads decapitated, their limbs dismembered and their torsos mutilated. Overall the pirates were getting massacred by a small force who they thought were marines. The pirates only managed to inflict serious injuries on a few clones and luckily for them only several were killed, but that didn't put off the clone soldiers one bit.
Sanford who was right in the thick of the action was preoccupied with slaughtering his enemies right before him as he slashed two pirates across their throats and turned to his right and fired two shots at two pirates running towards him weapons raised, only to get bullets shot through their head.
And then all of a sudden he heard a whoosh go right beside his head, as he turned around he saw a pirate had managed to sneak behind him with his weapon raised above his head. He still had his weapon raised above but the pirate was severely slowed down to a shuffling pace and he barely could hold his sword as he was trembling from his fleeting strength.
When the pirate got within range he used all of his remaining strength to bring down his sword onto Sanford's right shoulder. But the hit was too weak and futile because his armoured shoulder guards.
The pirate was gasping and coughing up blood, he could barely keep himself stood up. But through the rage he felt for his opponent he slowly brought up his sword again while trembling from the weakness he felt and he was going to swing at him again until…
*Bang!*
The pirate was interrupted mid swing as the same loud bang before was heard as he flew back with his back gaining another nasty exit wound out of his back, causing him to be launched away from Sanford.
Sanford traced the trajectory of the bullet and the shot of where it was taken and saw that it was one of the sniper teams camping up top on a story house's roof. He saw him pulling back the bolt on his sniper rifle and pushing it back again and then gave Sanford a two finger salute.
Sanford returned the salute back in thanks, only for a few seconds later he sidestepped a pirate who was also swinging his weapon at him from behind. Just as he side stepped him he struck the pirate on the back of the head with the pommel of the machete that would normally knock average men unconscious with ease or give them a nasty concussion.
But this pirate stood his ground even after painful hit across the back of his head. He turned around dragging his crude weapon that had gotten a bit worn from the battle, it even had a bit of blood on it but it was slowly smouldering. The pirate fully turned around to reveal the face of a bloody and heavily beaten Shaun.
His injuries were horrific to look at on a normal point of view as his skin was peeling in certain, revealing patches of muscle or bone. He also had black eye that covered the whole of his left eye with a nasty gash above it and there was blood pouring from his lips that seemed to have pieces of it missing.
From observing the state of him he most likely had a bloody brawl against the riot soldiers, and he probably took out a few of his clone brothers. But he didn't get letoff with killing them lightly due to the looks of his injurie, so why isn't he backing down from those injuries.
"You." He growled out in a raspy voice that sounded really heavy and forced due to all of the blood pouring out of his mouth. "You were with that asshole, where is he!" he roared in heavy voice.
"Cleaning up the source of the scum that blight this area." He replied back coolly.
Shaun just scowled murderously at Sanford's answer as if he was not satisfied with it. He raised his crude weapon up and pointed it at him " I asked you a question teme, where is your shitty leader so I can fucking tear his throat out."
"Second verse, same as the first. Now quit your bitching so I can put you in an unmarked grave."
"Che, you think you can kill me? Just try it, many have tried but failed to kill me.
"There is always a first." Sanford answered without a care as he raised he magnum pistol and shot twice into his spleen and into one of his lungs.
The pirate was launched back from the impact as two new holes punctured right through him and he began to fall backwards.
"Come on, that didn't really kill you, did it?" he questioned Shaun
The answer came with a foot moving backwards and a hand on the floor to support him. Sanford raised his eyebrow at this display 'Hmm this is unusual' he mused to himself.
Shaun laughed quietly "see, what' did I tell ya. It's impossible to kill me, although that weapon hurt more than your average pistol.
'Pfft, average?' Sanford snorted at that.
When he stood back up he was suddenly shot again, this time by the sniper who emptied his clip of five shots into his chest that would normally kill a man.
The pirate's chest was now stained crimson with a few large holes across it.
Sanford then raised his pistol again to aim for his head and fired, only for his bullet to ping off his skull.
Now Sanford was surprised and realised his prediciment. Why protect the head but not the body, the answer is simple.
"Surprised aren't ya? That's right." He points to his forehead where there was something that was coloured in a blue-greenish rocky substance "see this here, that's kairoseki. It is said to be harder than diamond I tell ya. I was lucky to find this work of wonder." He boasted
Sanford was confused at what kairoseki is, he will have to look into that later.
"Interesting stone. What are its uses for exactly?"
"Ehh! You don't know, hahaha you an idiot or something. It drains the energy of Akuma No Mi users." He answered back in a mocking manner.
'Devil fruit? Does he mean the Eden's fruit? Why call it that?
"That does sound useful; I think I will take it."
"Over my dead body." Shaun growled
Sanford raised his machete. "that's the idea." Sanford challenged him
"Try me." he smirked as he grasped his crude club embedded with nails and charged at Sanford.
Sanford was not at all impressed at the level of speed he produced in his sprint as he simply raised he blade to intercept his weapon. When the weapons clashed together Sanford widened his eyes a little at the surprising amount of strength he felt from his opponent at the fact that he still had strength in his body, actually it was more like where was his strength coming from in that small frame of his and the damage he has taken during the battle.
Shaun measured at a 5ft 10 inches and he looked like your everyday average Joe, meaning he looked like no one special. But he had the strength of a raging bull if not more than that.
But to Sanford it is like a cute puppy jumping up at his leg.
Sanford sighed at his rather pathetic display to overpower him." That's adorable." He said as he kneed him in his abdomen causing him to cough up more blood and spit, putting further pressure on his spleen and other organs. "But that is still not enough to take me down.
"RAAGH!" he swung ,again this time even harder at his blade.
Sanford blocked the weapon again to discover that he was packing more punch this time.
'So that's what he is? A berserker. Well that will explain why he is ignoring all of the excruciating pain with that incredible pain tolerance of his. But impressive as it is foolish, he can still die.' Sanford thought as he kicked Shaun away straight through a wall of somebody's house.
Sanford walked through the house to see a cowering family of four in the living room. "
"Ah" he stopped and brought his hand to his sides and bowed. "Sorry about the mess and pardon me for the sudden intrusion." He said politely to them
"KYAAA!" the mother screamed as she pointed behind Sanford.
Shaun was up already after that strong kick he inflicted, and he was pissed.
Sanford turned around and was met with a weapon striking against his protected head. It didn't do much, only minor scratches to the paint work. But it was more of an annoyance than anything as the force that inflicted to him was enough to daze someone else wearing a helmet.
He tsked in irritation and Sanford simply just head-butted him to the ground with a mighty clang as the durable helmet/mask collided against the hard as diamond kairoseki which caused him to be embedded into the floor
Shaun quickly recovered from the concussive head-butt and retaliated with another head-butt that managed to send Sanford out of the front door and to drop his machete.
Shaun tackled him by jabbing his weapon into Sanford's chest and brought it out for another swing only for him to get disarmed by him from intercepting his strike by grasping and hitting it out of his hand.
Shaun just knocked his arm away and grabbed his head punched it. Normally that would beak his knuckles because he was wearing a face mask made of durable metal but Sanford suspected that it was tipped with another hard substance like either metal or this kairoseki. To sanford it was getting stranger to him as he felt that his limbs were not so much of flesh and bone.
Shaun grunted as he kept on delivering punch after punch and even a few knees to his opponents head, but Sanford retaliated with a 360 rotating haymaker to Shaun's face, dislocating his jaw and twisting his neck in the process.
"Admirable spirit, but mistaken." He commented nonchalantly
Shaun just got back up with his head twisted the wrong way, he grasped his head and twisted it back with a loud grunt. He also had his jaw hanging open loosely which was soon put back into place.
"Mistaken? Ha! You are wrong about that man, all of this pain that I am feeling will feed me more rage and power, something that you will fail to grasp."
"Oooh so you think Rage is your ally, how foolish. You just merely adopted the word but you have never truly embraced it. What you are now is nothing more than a child throwing a temper tantrum." He said dismissing his boasting
The effect it had on Shaun burst a few other blood vessels in his head.
Shaun gritted his teeth together, chipping it a little. And resumed on with his attack.
Sanford simply blocked his attacks with superior martial arts training and counter attacked with an over shoulder throw by grabbing his attacking arm.
Fortunately for him he landed right beside his weapon. He picked it up and charged right back at him. Only to get interrupted by a flashbang grenade that detonated a few metres in front of him completely blinding him.
"Take him out!" the riot soldiers shouted as they discharged their pistol ammo right at him. Eight of the riot soldiers had their shields raised and pistols shotguns and the last of their SMG ammo firing at Shaun, peppering him with live ammunition. Some of the soldiers were armed with frag grenades and they chucked in two just for safe measures or simply to get the job done even if it was considered overkill.
Shaun was screaming from all of the pain being inflicted on him by the hailstorm of bullets and buckshot and slugs that was forcing him back to a wall as his body continually got bombarded. Then the grenades exploded right in front of him and the screaming stopped and his figure disappeared behind a dust and smoke cloud that was kicked up from the blast.
After 30 seconds of nonstop shooting and dust kicking up everywhere and segments of the wall was getting torn off by the excessive gunfire and explosions, Sanford gave the order "Ceasefire! Ceasefire!" he shouted out. The clone soldiers complied with the order and stood down, but still had their weapons trained on what's in front of them.
A long unnerving silence fell on Sanford and his comrades as they stood there waiting for any signs of movement. Normally anyone would presume from that level of gunfire anyone would be killed instantly. But Sanford had the instinctual feeling that this is a different matter than all of the logical aspects put together. And it was starting to prove him right.
Sparks of electricity were sparking around a body in the dust and smoke cloud along with a mixture of buzzing and whirring noises omitting from behind the dust cloud that put Sanford and the clones on edge.
A wild wind suddenly blew the dust away to reveal a brutally battered Shaun who was covered in crimson blood and lot of flesh wounds and gashes and his right arm was dismembered. But that wasn't what caught their attention. It was the fact that his body revealed machine parts inside him. His heart was artificial; his limbs were metallic and his hands shown more kairoseki parts specifically on the knuckles. His eyes were also artificial as well as it happened to have a red hue light humming out of it. But what was disturbing was that he still had some of his organs but they were nearly destroyed from the brutality he just received. So pretty much all that is left that is keeping him alive is his brain (assuming if he has an organic brain) and his artificial heart. If that didnt work, destroy his body completely.
"By looking at your state, I'm guessing cyborg correct? But you only look half complete by my guess" sanford asked with curiosity.
"Yea, that's right." He said sombrely.
"How in the nine circles of hell did an everyday run of the mill swashbuckling pirate crew get a hold of you?"
"I was a disposed test subject, a weapon for the marines, a shining example of justice. But it was all bullshit I tell ya. You see there is this project that this scientist devised called the pacifista and its in its prototype stages, I'm one of the examples but from a different maker. The bastard who kidnapped me and experimented on my body against my will was by a man called Caesar clown who tried to replicate vegapunks creation with his own. But he couldn't make me better than his own designs, so he disposed me." he growled as he was reminiscing his past.
"That still does not explain why you are with these average pirates. From looking at you im guessing you are the strongest out of all of them."
Shaun smirked "Yep. Well you are half right. You see my captain is a joke, the reason he was famous because he stole the infamy and recognition that was actually supposed to be mine when I destroyed a marine base and its occupants. My bastard of a captain boasted that it was all him and they believed him leading him to be the pirate captain of my ship because he has got the backing of all of the crew. He also lies and steals all of our money and treasure and keeps it for himself, even if it's for our drugs, no he wouldn't care if we suffered. It explains why he is called by his title scumbag."
"That is pretty sad, but that does not excuse you for attacking an island filed with innocent lives just for sick pleasure and personal gain just so you can forget your past." Sanford said to him coldly.
"Tch, just what I would expect from a marine and the world government. Always preaching about justice to the public society, the innocents that are protected by you and that word justice is nothing more than a lie. I mean look at me, I used to be a merchant over at Sabaody Archipelago and I loved my job, really good at it too. But one day I messed up my normal life so bad when I unintentionally messed with the wrong people. I just had to play the hero and save a mother from being abducted by a world noble just because her child decided to spill her ice cream all over a Tenryūbito's leg. Then I stepped in to stop a woman from getting separated from her child, so they decided to take me instead for some reason. Unfortunately for me that same Tenryūbito was fascinated in cruel inhumane scientific experimentation on humans that he took me to Caesar clown to be experimented on. And now here I am. How I wished that I should've looked the other way just like all of the other cowards, instead I am forced into a life always on the run playing pirates of all things."
Sanford frowned at his explanation of his life story and his description of society and the government. 'If what he said is true about society and the government today then how far has this world fallen after our absence?' He pondered.
"Have you ever considered revenge or played the good guy, have you even tried to consider it or try for that matter?"
"All the time and yes I have once done that, failed miserably."
"So that's it then, you give up and just run away from your problems."
"Pretty much, it's impossible for me to fight the government and the marines all for some petty revenge against a super powered scientist and military backed world nobles and those ignorant marines. Their justice is absolute but blinding to one's self; no one can go against them and defeat them."
"Nothing is impossible, their absolute power can get them so far but in the end it will all fall apart. All you need are the right people to do the job."
"You mean gold roger and whitebeard? Pfthahaha! That is pretty funny. But no, just as you said great power will eventually fall just like Roger, and Whitebeard is not too far behind. They both may have strong crews but the world government's influence spans worldwide."
"You never know who will turn up in the spotlight, could be anyone."
"You mean your group. Noo you're not marines you're not ignorant and idiotic enough for that job. Who are you lot, vigilantes?"
"We are complicated, that's all that matters at this point in time."
"Tsk suit yourself shitstain, besides." shaun said while leaning forward. "I aint even calmed down yet."
"Here he comes!" Sanford warned his clone comrades.
Shaun suddenly leapt forward faster than he was before and he quickly closed the distance before any of the clone soldiers could fire off a shot and he punched the metal shield of one of the riot soldiers. The impact from the punch dented the shield greatly but sent the soldier flying back into a wooden cart full of fruit and veg.
'Bastard got more faster than before.' Sanford thought to himself with slightly widened eyes in surprise and frowned. 'Don't let your guard down, he wasn't bluffing when he said he will get stronger the angrier he gets. "He called out to his nearby comrades to which they nodded to him in understanding.
The downed clone that was embedded into the fruit and veg cart was in a daze as he felt like he was just hit by a car doing 80.
As he coughed and spluttered at the impact he felt from the cyborg and the cart, he tried to get back up only to wince from the pain from his arm that wielded the shield. He looked up to find shaun's left fist embedding itself into his face. Cracking his skull open in the process and splitting his brain apart.
Shaun watched scrutinizing the fact that this soldier was smouldering away just like the others he killed. He then turned to sanford who was frowning behind his mask in cold fury but Shaun couldn't see that.
"What's with these people anyway? Every time I kill one of these they just burn away. Is this a devil fruit that you or your leader has consumed?" he questioned sanford.
Sanford raised his eyebrow in confusion "What's with that name anyway, and how did you know of the fruits own existence? No one supposed to know that." He asked with a bit of hostility in his voice as he suspected him of espionage.
"Hey hey hey I'm just saying. Even though the fruits own existence is actually pretty common around the grand line and in some areas of the four blue's oceans it is actually pretty rare thing to find, so many people consider it to be a common myth, well depends where you live exactly. And the name of the fruit has always been called that; don't know why though but probably it was created by someone who was considered to be the devil." He explained it simply like if it was common knowledge to anyone else.
Sanford frowned at that piece of information 'how did the knowledge of the fruits get out?' he thought 'And the professor was not a devil, the true devils were the ones who lusted after our power and knowledge to appease their greed.'
Shaun was suddenly brought out of his musings after a fully automatic submachine gun fire was pelting him with more bullets. The damage meant little to him as the bullets tore off more fake flesh and either failed to penetrate or ricocheted off of his metal and sea rock bones.
Shaun held an arm in front of his face as he was aiming for his head and it was pissing him off so he kicked up a harpoon lying about near a dead pirate and threw it directly at the soldier impaling him on his shoulder from the force he threw it at.
The clone howled in pain as he gnashed his teeth together and his right hand on his wounded shoulder.
Shaun observed the scene with interest "Hmm, it seems that these soldier or whatever they are quite durable too. So kind of power does this type of fruit do exactly? "he asked curiously.
"Spawning or the power to create, in other words objects or living things can be spawned in by thoughts from a creative mind." Sanford explained
Shaun looked intrigued with such a power "*impressed whistle* now that is a power I wouldn't mind having, it surely has its own uses that are far superior than having a fruit that contains a force of nature or some other useless crap power that I am aware of today. But why tell me this when I am your enemy?"
"It doesn't matter who I tell it too, what matters is that you won't live to tell about it anyway." Sanford glowered at him while he picked up a stun baton from a downed riot soldier.
"We'll see about that." He said while he took off in a sprint towards Sanford.
While Shaun closed the distance halfway he didn't expect to meet Sanford already, no…Sanford was coming towards him at a speed that surpassed his. It was already too late to form up a facial expression of shock as Sanford grasped Shaun's face with his right hand, picked him up and smashed him to the ground forming a small crater burying his head. Sanford then let go of his head and started punching it repeatedly like a blurwith the same hand getting harder faster and more powerful each hit he dealt to him. He then dealt the final punch that left a shockwave through the town that shattered several window and an even bigger crater the buried parts of his upper torso and head.
Sanford then raised his right hand with his palm wide open and after two seconds a panzerfaust 3 rocket launcher flew through the air straight towards Sanford to which he caught the weapon by the pistol like grip with the trigger on it. He then hoisted the weapon on to his shoulder and flicked the safety off and jumped back at a safe distance. "Now we will see." He said as he pointed the antitank weapon straight at Shaun's downed body with one hand from five feet away and squeezed the trigger.
*FWOOM! BOOM!*
The rocket hit dead centre to his centre torso as the rocket exploded in a tremendous shockwave and fireball, sending black smoke, shrapnel, rocks and dirt everywhere.
Sanford waited for anymore movement within the flames not wanting to have any more surprises. He noticed that the fire started to flicker and shift from a sign of movement. "for a half completed cyborg he is pretty tough and stubborn." Sanford muttered to himself.
Within the fire was Shaun trembling from all of the damage he received. From what Sanford could see within the flames was that most of Shaun's skin was burned off of his face revealing more of the kairoseki covering his forehead and face that he mentioned but his jaw was made of normal metal along with more metal exteriors on the sides and back of his skull. But his face looked pretty much intact apart from the jaw and the other metal parts covering his skull and upper torso.
Shaun was seen crawling out of the fiery crater with sparks emitting off his body more frequently and more stronger than from the sheer damage dealt the the last time.
But what was weird about him was he spoke
*FZZZKKT!* [Error 114, damage critical.] said a strange electronic voice"No! I'm not done yet. I can still kill him. "Shaun said in a metallic voice sounding rather frantic about the voice. [Probability scenario minimal, your body is in a critical state, recommended case of action is to retreat and repair the damages. "You expect me to run away like a coward!" shaun's fear was quickly replaced by anger as his eyes lit up more brightly in red as the eyes were replaced by a lense of what looks to be from a camera with a red LED inside it. [it is necessary for you to fall back and tend to the damage, it is impossible for you to proceed on fighting in your current position. You will retreat.] the electronic sounded serious about that like he was ordering him to follow it. "NOO! Fuck you! I'll kill this fucker, he aint stronger than me!" Shaun roared to the electronic voice. [your naivety will be the death of you, you cannot win against him, he is not the one you should be fighting in the first place. he is merely a clone that you have lost against.] SHUT THE FUCK UP! AND GET OUT OF MY HEAD! I'm going to kill this mother fucker myself and you cannot stop me! […..Have it your way then.]
After that strange argument which to anyone else would've thought he was arguing with his split personality, but Sanford knew that their must've been a protocol uploaded into his brain to follow order, but he somehow bypassed it but that protocol sounded like it was sentient and more intelligent than it should.
Shaun lifted himself up and started crawling along the ground with his remaining arm, but his body below his chest was getting separated from his body and he dragged it along the ground with the remaining wires still attached to it and blood and oil fluids that didn't belong in a human body started to spill out.
Shaun started to pick up the speed in his crawl as the pain was starting to become unbearable and his faster crawling ended up separating his legs from his waist from his chest. When the wires were cut off from his body Shaun gathered up his remaining strength he had left in his mutilated body and leapt at Sanford at a surprising speed.
But Sanford was not impressed at his stubbornness and his false certainty that he can still beat him. He spun the panzerfaust 3 under his armpit and swung the rocket launcher at shaun knocking him into the town centre's fountain.
Sanford dropped the anti-tank weapon and quickly dashed over to Shaun, picking up another stun baton along the way.
Shaun attempted to recover from the knock back he just received but the water in the fountain was messing his body up and then he suddenly got a boot stamping him back into bowl of the fountain that still had the water in.
Sanford stood above Shaun flicking the switch on for both of the stun batons and turned up the voltage to maximum output and spun both weapons into a reverser grip. "Clear." Sanford said before ramming both weapons down and delivering a powerful electrical discharge right into Shaun's exposed artificial heart.
Shaun's heart literally stopped from the electrical discharge that caused it to short-circuit. Shaun tried to scream but he couldn't because his lungs felt so heavy and his body was collapsing from the blood suddenly stopping. He clawed at his own heart and tried to hit his heart to try and restart it, but it was proving futile.
Shaun was now starting to black out from the blood that stopped flowing into his head. But as he was nearing death, the voice came back to torment him for the last time. [I told you didn't I, beaten by a mere creation of the original person that you were supposed to target. How pathetic of you to not get your targets right. You really are a useless man; you should've ignored that mother and child so you can carry on with your worthless ignorance that you call a life. But you couldn't succeed in your role as a weapon, a tool. But no, you are nothing more than a defect created by that loser of a scientist Caesar clown, he had one job and he blew it.
"sh-ut *coughs up blood* up." Shaun managed to cough out weakly.
[Oh well, you got your wish that you wanted for so long, you can finally die now. It's not so bad is it, death. In fact I get quite worked up from it. Come on Shaun, just die already. One little push, and off. You .pop.]
The cyborg known as Shaun had finally got his wish.
Sanford looked at the exposed face/skull of Shaun as his eyes dimmed and at last it flickered off as his life left him.
Sanford exhaled in relief as his battle was done, and so did the rest of the soldiers in the town centre as they were thrashing the pirates as they saw their second in command dead. With their morale crushed they started fleeing with their tails between their legs like cowards as they fled back to their ships.
Sanford looked on at the sight rather pleased with himself and his troops but then he was suddenly knocked out of his thoughts.
[You look like you had the time of your life didn't you.] The same electronic voice was heard from Shaun's body.
Sanford's head spun back to the downed cyborg's corpse in shock and surprise. "How are you still alive after that?"
[Back up power darling, he did have one spare if his main heart stopped functioning. Bu-ut he didn't need it, besides I have to make room for myself in this cramped up body of his.]
Sanford scowled as this mocking voice that was now taking over its host's body. "what are you?"
[you should know who I am by now, at least Marcus does. This guy knows me too well as he found me rather tricky to deal with.]
Sanford widend his eyes a bit after he heard the one specific word he recognised. "So you're tricky." XD got it one! Well done. Well I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience but this worthless piece of trash was supposed to go after the creator, not the creation. But what made it worse is that he lost to the creation. LOL! What a loser that Caesar clown! ROFLMAO! XD. still that proves Marcus is getting into the hang of things which is good for him because now he is not a total noob now.
"What do you want with Marcus anyway?" Sanford asked him.
[For now nothing. in the future, that depends if he can hack it.]
"hack what?
[why this messed up world of course, it is not the same as it used to be 800 years ago. Oooh wait a minute he still doesn't know, oh dear now that is a problem for him LOL]
Sanford's eye widened in shock at he revelation "And our home what happened to it!?" he asked him in a loud tone.
[Don't you mean Marcus's home? Who knows? 800 years is a long time for anything to happen to it but I assure you it is still there, well barely. But it is nearly impossible to get to, not unless if you are the pirate king Gol D roger himself, but that old swab intentionally got himself arrested and executed by the marines and the world government and his crew has split up and scattered, sooo, bad luck I'm afraid. And in Marcus's current state and position, he wouldn't last a year out in the seas against the bigshots. He is still green.]
"We can manage thank you very much." Sanford" said frowning
[Su-re you will, grow up. Times have changed your people are long extinct in this world and there are more powerful forces in this world than this trash here. Marcus will die if he doesn't face reality soon.]
"What has this got to do with him? Do you want to kill him like you dd with sending that cyborg."
[ononono I don't want to kill him, well not just yet. But that was more of a warm up exercise intended for him. Well I will find another suitable test for him soon.]
"You are treading on thin ice in messing with an elite ranger, someday we will find you."
[Now you see that's where you are wrong, neither Marcus nor you or anyone will ever find Me. because I found him first.]
"You are welcome to try us anytime, but you will fail to kill Marcus because we are his soldiers and he is our commander."
[I intend to do just that soldier-san but it is way too early to reveal myself as of yet. So I think I will linger about just a while longer. And tell Marcus that there are more dangerous things in this world than me that he has to worry about. Until then, ja ne *Kiss* oh and shaun will self-destruct just about…now]
"Nani!?" Sanford panicked and jumped off just before the cyborg blew up, completely destroying the fountain and several market stalls and buildings. It also managed to flip an armoured car onto its side while it was driving around and several soldiers and pirates were caught in the blast as well.
Sanford unfortunately was launched straight into the second floor house's bedroom window but fortunately there was a king-size bed for soft landing. Sanford groaned to himself his head was spinning. "That Tricky mother fucker is so dead whenever I find him." He thought to himself with a frown.
"Hey, sanford! Are you okay over there?" Marcus called him with his mind chat.
Fan fucking tastic. It turns out I drew the short straw and got the most powerful crew mat out of them all."
"Really? Ah bollocks, what a fucking disappointment that was. I already faced two of their captains and they barely lasted the time it takes for me to feel the adrenaline pumping."
"Mine wasn't that bad, but he was relentless in his attacks, actually managed to hit me but only scratch my armour.
"Not bad for an average looking pirate."
"Oh and I didn't mention the fact that he is a cyborg."
"Seriously, where the fuck did they get him?"
"Some mad scientist made him but was not pleased with his creation so he disposed of him but not properly. I will tel you later though"
"Fair enough."
"By the way how is the situation on your end"
Marcus could be heard doing an exasperated sigh
"All three ships have been secured, but what we found in the ships was worse than we thought."
(Location: Docks. 20 minutes before)
Marcus and hank and a recently arrived Deimos had successfully captured the pirate ships using blitzkrieg tactics with the armoured cars to storm through the streets. The cars used their heavy mounted 50 calibre and 7.62mm rounds against the crew and the cannons on the ship tearing the wooden framework and hull to pieces. They avoided damaging the more majestic looking pirate ship because of the slaves on the ship and the treasure on the others, but the treasure can still be salvageable.
Now Marcus was with hank along with an assault team garbed in a black kit used for counter terrorism hostage situations and building clearance. Marcus was armed with his Remington 870 shotgun with a bungee sling attached to it and slung over his shoulder so that he can use to hang it on his side so he can quickly switch to different weapons.
There were also other teams that Marcus sent to siege the other ships to clear out the pirates and slavers that were hiding on their ships.
Marcus, hank and the other cloned soldiers were in the crew's quarters and the cargo hold clearing through every room on the slave ship for anyone or anything. They reached a thick and heavy looking door and they all gathered around the door which was locked, but it wouldn't be for any longer as Marcus spawned in an enforcer battering ram and passed it to one of the clones and he smashed it against the door's lock. The lock broke instantly and hank and two other clones rushed before chucking in a flashbang for a safe measure in case if anyone's hiding in a locked room.
It turned out there were a few slavers hiding in a locked room, five of them to be exact. As the flash bang detonated and lit up the large room in a bright flash and the loud bang echoed off the walls temporally stunning their senses.
Marcus, hank and the clones rushed in guns pointed at their targets and fired at the slavers. The clones with their MP5s took out two of them taking cover behind a stack of barrels, hank let loose a barrage of 13 bullets on one slaver who was thrashing about rubbing his eyes frantically, he also accidently let off a shot and hit his nakama in his ankle by mistake. The slaver that got shot was put out of his misery from his scream in pain by Marcus with his Remington shot discharging a slug right into his upper chest area, blasting him backwards into a several stacked crates of alcohol.
With Marcus giving out the all clear, the team was free to search the room of anything of importance. Since this was a storage room they expected something valuable but it was mostly food and alcohol, nothing much of anything else.
What they did find was lot of slaves from different backgrounds. Most, if not all of them were women, young teenage girls and even children were here kept in cages like animals, even chained up on the walls. There appeared to be quite a lot of slaves kept in really cramped up places and there were some kept in the bottom of the ship under the floor boards where the keel of the ship is and it was really damp and cold down there.
'How far has this world fallen when we were gone' Marcus thought in fury as he tightened his grip on his gun.
The women and girls were all cowering in the corner of the room wearing nothing but rags and some of them looked sick and starved, even some of them had bruises and cuts on their faces.
Marcus could see the looks in each of and every female's eyes which held the look of fear. Their bodies were trembling from either the cold or fear of the fact that their captors were killed right before them by strange men dressed in black. They were probably more scared more of what they would do to them.
Marcus walked forward to the caged cell slowly and that seemed to set them off as they all crawled backwards towards the wall. Marcus raised both of his hands signalling that he comes in peace and slowly lowered his gun to his side and crouched down to the cage.
"It's alright ladies; I'm not here to hurt any of you. We are here to get you out of here."
The women eyes lit up in hope as their eyes seemed to shimmer with tears flowing out and then they all flocked around the cages iron bars and stuck their arms out pleading to him to save them, desperation mixed in their cries.
"Are you an angel?" a young girl asked sweetly.
"Please help us. Help my child" pleaded a mother holding her child up to her chest.
"Arigato,arigato, arigato." A woman thanked repeatedly.
"Do you have food mister?" Another child asked innocently
"I will do anything for you, just please get me out of here." A beautiful woman despite the state she was in sounded desperate that she would bargain her body for freedom.
All of this made Marcus's heart clench tightly from the sight. He thought angrily that this is still a norm in this world. This was why they wanted to push for an abolishment of slavery and introduce a republic or democratic policies and other things that would benefit the people and for the greater good for peace in this world. But some people will just never let go of their nasty habits. Marcus thought that they should've been more forceful in the changes but they were to passive during the whole ordeal.
"Are you marines?" asked a woman.
Marcus was confused with whom these marines were and before he could answer her. "No they're not, these guys fight differently and have different equipment than the ones that you are more familiar with. And I have never seen these guys nor heard of them during my time with the marines. Hey you are you from Cipher Pol?" a stern female voice made itself known from the shadows on the far side of the cell and she looked like she was being hung up on the wall by her wrists.
Marcus got up and picked up a lantern that was sitting on top of a crate and walked over to the owner of the voice. Marcus brought his arm up shined the light over the woman who was chained up to the wall. The light reached her face and revealed the owner of the stern voice. The woman was obviously from a military background because of her calm poker face expression was doing its job and she had the aura of one and a ruined military uniform that was torn in places revealing quite a bit of skin underneath but that didn't seem to bother her much. She had blue eyes with long eyelashes and her waist-length blond hair is noticeably curled at the ends despite being otherwise relatively straight. Though she did look slender despite the ruined military uniform but she also sports a rather muscular build, which gives off a clear air of authority and command.
"No we are not from the marines nor this Cipher pol you mentioned. Who are you to ask?"
"It is appropriate to the ones who stormed in here to introduce themselves first." Said the mystery woman.
Marcus smirked "if you insist. I am 2nd lieutenant-." "Former! Now commander!" one of the clones corrected him by interrupting him.
Marcus's face went blank and narrowed his eyes at the clone. "Ok what he said. I am Commander Alexander D Marcus."
"You never told me your occupation." The woman raised her eyebrow.
"I don't feel that compelled to tell you my secrets. Besides, now it's your turn to introduce yourself." Marcus replied coolly and didn't budge from that piercing cold gaze of hers.
"Hm very well, I am former vice admiral Olivier Mira Armstrong of the marines."
Marcus raised an eyebrow with mild curiosity "Former? Why, did something happen between you and the marines. Which could probably explain the situation that you apparently gotten yourself into."
Olivier glared back at Marcus "be careful what you ask for boy. And as a matter of fact yes there was something between me and the marines, they betrayed me."
"For?" Marcus asked.
"For doing something that they didn't agree to me doing. I was following my own kind of justice at the time and they got upset with that. They threatened to court martial me and throw me in to impel down for disobeying the laws of justice, just not their kind of justice. I ended up here because I ignored their threats as nothing. I found a slaver ship that was abducting people from their homes and without hesitation I ordered my men to attack the slavers and free the hostages. Little did I expect was that the slavers were working indirectly with a tenryubito and ironically he was on board of that ship to witness the whole event. In my attack I wounded him badly and the rest of his men too. But the world noble's status ended up scaring most of the recruits under my command, even some of the elite marines and officers. Then soon after the noble gave out the order to arrest me and most of my men cowardly obeyed. Only a few marines that were loyal only to me stayed by my side and fought them off, even they don't follow the laws of absolute justice." Olivier explained sombrely.
"They sound like good men. A good commander needs men like those." Said Marcus
Olivier sighed "They were, although at most times I can be harsh on them but they were the damn finest marines I ever had the honour of commanding. But even after we slew many of them, that magma bastard intervened. Apparently he was the nobles escort at the time and he is vice admiral same as me. He was too powerful for my men so I fought against him myself. It was going so fine until I shot from behind by the damn noble which was a catastrophic mistake on my part, but he shot me with a sleeping dart instead of a bullet because he wanted me. And so then I woke up discovering that all of my men are dead and I'm here with the rest of these women and girls."
"Yea onee-sama is so cool, she can make those evil men wet themselves, even make them faint by staring at them." An innocent looking girl called out in excitement, obviously holding a lot of admiration for this woman.
"Hush Annie" Mother shushed her daughter.
"Do you regret it? Playing the hero for these women, even if it costed the lives of your most trusted men." Marcus enquired her.
Olivier shook "Never, my men would never forgive me if I regretted over my actions. Their justice follows my example of justice. The rest of the marines that betrayed me were either from somebody else that transferred them over here or they were fresh recruits that were too damn conceited and selfish for their own good that they choose the justice that was force fed to most of the marines today." She said sharply.
Marcus nodded and borrowed the enforcer battering ram, walked up to the cage door and smashed the padlock off. The female slaves moved away from the door as it was unlocked through force, their eyes lit up in hope at the opportunity that was given to them, a chance to regain their freedom.
"Found the keys sir." A soldier called out before throwing the key chain with a different set of keys with one for the cage to Marcus who caught them with one hand.
Marcus face faulted inside of his armoured gasmask and glared at the soldier 'you just had to ruin the moment didn't you? In front of many women, Are you trying to kill me from embarrassment?.' He said mentally to him.
The soldier sweat dropped at that and rubbed the back of his helmet 'Ehehehe sorry but those key could release that military chick.' He pointed out
'Fair enough' Marcus nodded at that and moved towards Olivier who saw him approaching her.'
"What are you doing?" she asked
"What, isn't it obvious? Said Marcus as he inserted the key into the hole of the cuffs and with a *Click* on both of the cuffs, she is free.
Olivier felt the shackles off of her wrists which were reunited with the damp moist air. She gave them a rub after wearing it for so long. She tried to walk forward but felt her legs give out on her which Marcus quickly caught her.
"Damn it, the paralysis poison is still affecting my body." She said weakly.
"Do we have a medic around?"
"Yea we should have one nearby, hold on." Hank walks out of the room and shouts down the corridor "Medic!"
A few seconds later they heard running on the floorboards and kit shuffling on the medic. "Hai! Who needs to be looked at." Said a feminine voice of a person who just came through the door, normally if Marcus was an average late teenage male then he would be busting a lot of blood vessels out of his nose and an eternal raging hard on. Marcus should be fine when dealing with the opposite sex but not when this woman who just walked in wearing the standard Ranger armour with the medic cross on her helmet, right breast area and shoulders. She had long straightblond hair just like oliviers hair that flows down to her lower back. She was curvy as the armour and uniform looked like it was custom made exclusively for her as it fitted her hips, her backside and especially those….tho-se, Melons.
'I don't remember you spawning her.' Hank said suspiciously looking at me with a furrowed brow expressing his suspicion of me like I'm being suspected of a sexual crime. 'Even though I am a part of you I never knew you had a fetish for big breasted doctors, medics or nurses.' He said with a amused smile plastered on his face.
'You are so not helping here. What's worse is that I can feel an icy glare piercing my skull from the woman behind me. He replied with multiple sweat drops forming from Olivier's accusing glare and the Girls were just staring at the medic's chest in a mix of envy and awe. 'And why is one of my clone's female?
'I just told you before whenever you spawn in an army, they're randomized like Different skills, different looks, gender, personality, body proportions and strength and agility. It is actually faster this way than thinking of the individual's stats for every one of your soldiers. It's just the more power you put into creating those clones the better the soldier they will become."
Marcus accepted it and turned around to see the icy glare that was locked onto his eyes through the lenses on his mask. "Oh don't look at me like that I didn't do anything." Marcus said while brushing off her glare.
Olivier kept on glaring art Marcus "you let women fight in dangerous areas often?" she asked
"Yes we do have women in our ranks who are soldiers and take on other dangerous roles." He explained.
Olivier narrowed her eyes "Does your army harass them in anyway because if you do i-.
"No! Fucking hell no we don't do that. Although that is unfortunate that the discrimination is not uncommon because I have met some very good soldiers who were female." He reassured her.
Oliver accepted his answer. "That is good to hear but it is sad that the marines are a poor example for female marines living in the ranks. Annoyingly there is a large majority of hopeless perverts among them that do nothing but stare at you with those lecherous of theirs. The higher ups are even worse as they expect me to obey fully, they ignore my suggestions, and they discriminate me every chance they get and even some tried to get me to sleep with them. The missions they send me on were either near suicidal or demeaning all because they hated my attitude towards them."
"That's pretty rough, but enough of that lets get you healed." He waved the medic over and she came into the cage and pulled out a syringe with an antidote and some sort of drug that gives her an adrenaline boost.
"Oh I never introduced myself. I am seargent Shizuka Marikawa and it's a pleasure to work with you Marcus-Sama." She introduced herself rather innocently.
"Sama?" Olivier looked to me as if I did something wrong.
"Urk! Errr anyway we should probably move out now. We still haven't found the captain to these ships yet so we should get back to searching the ships." He quickly changed the subject to dodge the bullet. Marcus told some of his men and the medic to see to the rest of the women and escort them safely off the ship.
"Matte! I am coming with you."
"Are you sure about that you were recently poisoned."
"Your concern is not needed I can take care of myself. Do I make myself clear?" Olivier said sternly.
"Crystal." He said with a sweat drop.
"I will need to get my sword back from the captain so right I need a sword."
"Any particular type?"
"Sabre sword and a pistol like the ones you have."
Marcus held out his hand and a strong curved sabre sword came out of the flames wich seemed to intrigue Olivier at the potential of this man's devil fruit.
Marcus then spawned in a pistil like she had asked and spawned in a M1911A1 pistol with an extended mag and proper sights along with plentiful ammo.
"It is simple to reload this just take this clip here *Holds the clip* then insert it into this slot at the bottom of the grip *inserts the clip into the gun* pull the slider back to cock the gun and disengage the safety (You get the hint.) and if you need to reload just press this button on the side of the gun to release the clip if you spent all of the ammo in that clip." He explained
Olivier nodded and takes the handgun from his hand and observed the peculiar looking pistol.
"what an odd looking pistol and the ammo are not balls either."
"That's because the ammo are brass cylinders with a mixture of different metals round fixed on top of the cylinder and gunpowder compressed into the cartridges."
"Impressive I can see why that can be useful." She said while she was impressed….almost.
So they all headed out of the room and continued along the long corridors on the huge galleon.
We soon reached a room that looked like a mess hall with multiple pirates in it that were apparently still eating their food or absolutely drunk as fuck which would explain how they haven't reacted to al. of the noise happening outside of the ship or even inside or they are just that lazy.
they all prepared to storm the room with frame explosives stuck onto a wall. When Marcus detonates the charge every soldier stormed the room but just as they let off no more than four shots, Olivier just kicked the double doors right off the hinges and into some unfortunate pirates that were enjoying their food. And then she charged at them leaving a deep imprint of her foot into the ground.
'Fuck me she wasn't joking about being Vice admiral. Why would anyone try to get rid of her, she's badass.' Marcus thought while his eyes were widened in surprise and shock.
And then she swung her sabre which let off a powerful blue energy shooting off the blade in a crescent sweep. And hit a many of the pirates in the mess hall blasting them all to the other side of the hall and blew up several rooms inside the ship.
Marcus, hank and the several clones who were watching stood with their jaws wide even though no one could see them through their masks.
"Hm I'm a bit rusty even though I was holding back, must be the effects that are still in my body"
'Are you serious? That wasn't her 100% output and she was holding back. That attack could easily sink this ship.' Marcus deadpanned.
Marcus and the others shook out of their shock and reengaged the pirates with brutal efficiency.
Marcus fired three shots in to a crowd of angry drunk pirates that seemed to ignore the display of power earlier and charged with drunken bravado which proved to do jack shit against Marcus and his men.
Olivier however was like a typhoon against the pirates. Her swordplay and handgun accuracy was frightening. She could outdo most of Marcus's superior officers in combat
With her swordplay combined with her gunplay it was a deadly dance to behold as she swiftly cut through the pirates like nothing and it was a surprise to see the sword still going strong even through the abuse it is going through right now.
Marcus was no pushover either as his sleight of hand shooting blasted through many pirates with his shot gun and when he ran out of shells he quickly drew his dual Sequoias with few quick spins on his index finger and ran on top of a table with a smooth and slippery surface and tray on top of it. He slid on top of the table surface and aimed both of his sequoia magnums at the pirates on each side of the table and fired every shot out of both magnums with one aimed at a side while the other is pointed at the other. Marcus was discharging shot after shot into pirates that made mincemeat out of several and one of the bullets insta killed three via headshot that was just lined up perfectly. After reaching halfway on the table he ran out of bullets in the cylinder so he withdrew his magnums and spawned in dual fully automatic Uzis with an extended mag on both guns. He aimed both guns at the pirates again as he sped across the table and he squeezed the trigger and fired a hailstorm of 9mm bullets.
Marcus reached the end of long rows of tables and he kicked off the tray and performed a front flip and then started to spin whilst he was still shooting (Think of Lance corporal Levi from Attack on Titan when he spins into a ball shape with his blades pointing out but with Sub machine guns instead.) which cleared a path for him as landed on the floor in a crouch. Both clips slid out of their guns and Marcus threw them into the air and spawned in to extra clips one in each hand on the bottom and slammed the clips into the lower receiver which then sent them back into the air and causing it to spin forward and Marcus caught them on the way back down whilst it was spinning.
"Enough with the grunts already where are your captains!" Marcus yelled out to the pirates who were visibly shaken at the deadly force. They then proceeded to shake even more when they heard the ground shaken and heavy footsteps as it came closer and closer. Then a set of door just flew off and shattered as a heavily muscled giant of a man who just walked in, he was not literally a giant only around 7ft,2 and arms and legs like huge logs but with veins clearly visible.
He was wearing a black tank top with his pirate symbol on it and he was wearing olive green cargo shorts that reached his knees. His face was scarred and heavily tanned. He had messy unkempt blond hair and a thick moustache and eyebrows with his pirate symbol carved into his forehead.
Now as he smashed through the double doors he did hit a few pirates in the crossfire, not that he cared about them.
"T- Tank top Titan taicho." Called out a tanktop pirate fearfully.
"Yosha now you are going to pay for messing with us. Jones do what you do and tear them apart limb from limb." A slaver cheered who sounds like an officer of the ship who was eager to see Marcus and his soldiers dead. Although his excitement was matched by the all but the tank top pirates who looked like they feared him.
Unfortunately his excitement quickly died out as jones approached him and as quickly as anyone saw the slavers throat was ripped out of his neck all too quickly for a normal person to see.
"Who gave you the rights to order me around you pathetic weak slavers?"
"Oi Titan you can't just kill him we are supposed to be allies." Shouted out another slaver
"I don't care about any of you weak shits. You are all just lambs for the slaughter. If any of you get in my way I will rip out your spine so quick that you won't feel it for a few seconds because you will be dead by the time you felt the pain."
"Hm. Tanktop titan but your real name is johness the dissector, I know of you. The cities and towns of west blue echo with the stories of your brutal mass murders." She spoke to him uninterested.
"They ain't heard nothing yet." He glowered at Olivier.
The other pirates and the slavers gasped in fear as they recognised that infamous name. while the tank top crew seemed to already know the truth behind their captains real identity. But were too afraid to stand against him.
Marcus observed this incredibly tall and bulky man and looked into his large piercing blue eyes. He could easily tell that he was a psychopathic individual who took great pleasure in slaughtering his victims. He also notice that there were visible veins on his hands and fingers which points out that brutal grip he's got when he tore out that slaver pirate's throat…niceee.
"How bad was he?" hank asked Olivier.
"From what the media managed to leak out they reported that he killed 146 people in three towns and one city. But what the marines managed to gather on him it was 346 people. 112 of them were marines; some of them were officers and a captain was even ripped apart. After that he was issued a bounty of 98 million berries"
"If he is really that bad as you say he is then why has he currently got such a low bounty?"
"He went into hiding after gold rogers execution. With all of the pirates running loose it took most of the attention off of him and onto the new pirate era. Now from the looks of it he started his own pirate crew. But it looks like he hasn't got the trust of his crewmates, they fear him. So he must've forcefully took over the captains position by killing him. Am I right so far johness kane?"
"Don't even mention that name to me in my presence. That man who was the previous captain of this shitty crew was pitifully weak. Oh how I hated that name. that name reminds me of how I hated him, of how I hated …...being him." Marcus blinked in confusion. 'Is he pointing out that he has a split personality' were the thought of his. "His stupid pitiful l little family life of his. And that stupid fucking worthless job of he had. It took me 20 years of me screaming and clawing and breaking him down. Years of calling out to him, trying to get him to set me free. But he was such a weak coward. Then one night it had finally happened. One night I called to him, and he answered. And when he did answer my call, I killed him. For my first murders I chose the perfect victims, the perfect family…..his family." He explained with that cold expressionless face. And his harsh voice completed the image of a psychotic killer and left no trace of the family man he used to be.
Marcus scowled angrily at this man, or thing. This thing was no man; it didn't deserve to be called human anymore. "how can that man be a coward if he managed to keep a demon like you down for so long though." Olivier asked him.
"Because he was so adamant that he was so happy with his life, but in truth he was not. I came into his life when he was at Goa Kingdom's Academy. The kid at the time was clever but he was an easy target for bullies in the upper classes and in his own class. They tormented him pretty badly back then. But annoyingly when I offered him a chance to pay them back, he refused. He kept on striving on and on claiming that things will get better, even though I told it won't. I came pretty close once too when he nearly reached rock bottom one day when the bullies upped their game. Then that girl came into his life. That bitch ruined my chances and continued to be an obstacle for years even after they got married. He sounded so smug when he rubbed it into my face saying that things did get better, but I am never wrong. Things did get better with their relationship and he always loved his family, but his life outside of it got more progressively worse as time went on. The bullies eventually found him again and started robbing money off of him and threatening his family if he didn't comply and then continued where they left off and kicked his sorry ass. His boss was a cruel man, even though he was a loving father himself but at work he was a monster towards his staff. He was losing money and he was suffering from depression from it. But his loving wife still supported him all the way. But he made the mistake of ignoring his wife's advice when he turned to Me." he explained
"So you killed the one thing in his life that kept him happy all because you hated him for being weak. You are one fucked up being that does not deserve to even breath. I will be glad to kill your wretched existence off this planet." Marcus clenched the grip of his guns hard as he stared at him in cold fury.
"I have been called many things and that what you just said is quite adorable. And you…..Kill me *points to marcus and then himself. * I think there is a mistake on your behalf. This not going to be a killing,it's going to be a slaughter. The sounds of madness and The tricky one demands that one of us must die, you do not have my sympathy because, IT WILL NOT BE ME! he roared out that last part as he charged towards marcus with his right arm reaching out to grab him.
Marcus almost faltered but he shook it off and immediately went into his shooting stance with his guns,until.
"Soru." *SHINK!* SWISH!*PSSSHINK*
Olivier was just standing a few feet away from where I was and all of a sudden she just appeared
N-n-nani. What is—hap-….. I feel so…..cold" said johness weakly as he felt his body getting weaker and colder. He looked down to see a bloody crimson stain on his tank top where there was a hole visible on his chest and tanktop just where the heart was located.
"What happened" johness looked behind him to see Olivier holding a brown paper bag which was pulsating and stained red and blood was dripping out of the bottom of the bag . To johness he knew exactly what it was "That's my heart, give it back you fucking bitch." He hissed, albeit tried to. and he tried to drag himself towards Olivier.
"Your heart? I think you are mistaken because I don't see your name on it. This belonged to a strong hearted man of a loving family he could've grown stronger on his own. He was weak as you so believed because he feared the demon that could ruin his life. He could've grown stronger without any interference from you anyway.
"That man is dead, he will always be weak, he will never win without me. and once I get MY heart back I'm going to" he snarled "Disappear" he said although it uncharacteristic of him but it sounded like someone else as his tone just changed all of a sudden.
"! YOU! What are you doing back here" he got no answer as his right arm just grasped his own neck and his nails were right next to the jugular vein. And dug deep into his neck with what's left of his depleting strength
"Let go, I need to get my heart back! Don't you understand we will die without it!"
"…..Good, then I can finally re-join my family and apoligize after all that has happened"
"No! damn you! You and your fucking happy family! I needed you to prove myself to Tricky sama!"
Marcus's eyes lit up momentarily 'it's that goddamn name again.'
"I couldn't care less you selfish bastard. You ruined my life and now it's my turn to do the same."
"No, don't you even think about it!" he tried to grab his arm with his left arm only for it to get sliced off by Olivier."
"ARGH! YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKINGCUNT!" the pshyco voice cussed angrily.
And then johness jabbed his fingers into his neck only for a lot of blood to pour out. He pulled out and his face lit up into a kind fatherly smile "Thank you." He whispered to Olivier. As the last heartbeat thumped in the bag, johness collapsed onto the ground with his right arm stretched out and his palm open. Olivier handed back the heart to him and placed it on his hand looking at the body with some signs of respect.
Marcus, hank and the clones just stood there slak jawed and sweating nervously at the scene they just witnessed. 'This woman, she is way out of our league.' Said hank in the mind chat. 'No shit, she just cut out an oversized man's heart and we didn't even see her. And what was that move she did, no one was taught that back in the rangers.'
Then all of a sudden another figure just dashed out with a sabre sword and made an overhead swing down on olivier. But she easily blocked it by unsheathing the blade out slightly as she turned around and glared at him straight into the eyes with ice cold hostility.
"You I hold no guilt about killing." She seethed menacingly.
The unfortunate man who had the nerve to attack her when her back was turned was the slaver captain of this ship. And he did not look happy at all, or he was pissing himself from the fear or maybe both.
"You should've stayed in the cage ice client is paying me big money for your pretty face and body. Now why don't you go back into your cage like a good girl before I have to scar that pretty face of yours. But then I would have to punish you for trying to escape" he leered at her lecherously.
Olivier ignored him in favour of eyeing the sword he was wielding and he just tried to strike her with. "Is that my sword?" she asked in an accusing way.
"Eh?" he didn't manage to say another word as his thoughts were interrupted by an explosive pain that erupted inside of his gut as Olivier pulled out the handgun she was using minutes ago while she was still pushing against her opponents blade with her current blade that was given to her.
"Ergh!" he collapsed on his knees and dropped the sword he was holding (The same sword Olivier uses from FMA brotherhood) and coughed out a mouth full of blood onto the floor. Olivier caught her stolen sword and held both swords in a scissor together like scissors against the slaver captain's neck.
"M-m-matte! Please don't kill me, i-i-i-ican give anything you want just—" he begged .
"The only thing I want is vengeance for my crew's death, sakazuki's head along with the nobles who imprisoned me. I already know I can't kill the nobles because most of the time they are always at their precious holy city or that damned human auction house at saobady. You however cannot help me in that area so your life means nothing to me."
"Noo! Please do-"*SHINK!* Olivier cut him off literally by slashing his head off with both of the swords outwards with her arms extended out along with her swords and slashed downwards to remove the blood on both swords. As the blood splattered on the floor she spun her swords and sheathed both of the swords into their respective scabbards
Marcus's eyes hardened and looked at the scene warily and had a few extra nervous beads of sweat forming on his forehead that was thankfuly covered by the mask. 'That foolish slaver deserved to pay the price in underestimating her. She is definitely not some poor defenceless damsel in distress, she will most likely kill for thinking of her in that way." He scrutinized at the scene that was played out.
Olivier turned around and looked at Marcus in the eyes and smirked a little bit "You are a truly impressive fighter I must say along with your men,far better than most of the recruits and some of the superior officers below lieutenant or a captain depending on which one. But I do apologize for intervening against you and johness but I couldn't allow you to fight him because johness is too strong for the likes of you at your current level." She said to him in a matter of fact.
Marcus frowned at that "And why is that? I'm not weak mind you and you shouldn't underestimate me and my men." He said to her.
"I wasn't saying you were I'm just saying that he is stronger than you think. he could take on most captains and commodore and leave them with brutal wounds or kill them in the end as eyewitness reports stated. Now don't get me wrong I have observed you and your soldier's fighting form and it is indeed effective against most opponents, but there are many opponents that will prove to be much stronger than you. You could take him on indeed but you lack the training and experience to face opponents like him."
Marcus sighed frustratingly "well truthfully I was still in training and it had to be cancelled due to emergency deployment. And after what I saw what you did, I wouldn't be surprised. What was that speed move called?"
"It's called soru, a speed technique belonging to the cipher pol's very exclusive super human martial art called the rokushiki."
"So if I learn the rokushiki will have a better chance against this grandline place."
"You would have a better chance yes but that's not the only reason why you could still get killed. The devil fruit users are also another matter some of them have the power to destroy islands and some just too weak to even bother with." She explained
"Well I'm not that desperate to go there just yet so I will keep on training on this island for a while. What will you do now that you are free?"
"I can't go anywhere without watching my back. No doubt the marine headquarters will issue a high bounty on my head. So I guess I would have to lay low for now."
"that would be the best choice for now." Marcus nodded at her answer and then turned to hank "have we located the third captain yet?"
Hank shook his head "Negative,he's been the quietest so far and there have been a few reports of sightings around town and near the ships. And…. No wait im getting something from one of our men near the docks. It appears captain Darrel has abandoned his ship and men and ran off with the treasure and he's completely overloaded his boat and he's complety visible from a mile off because the moon light is not helping him at all in his current situation. You should be able to see him outside the window in the captains off ice down here." Hank told Marcus and led him and Olivier to the office.
They opened the window and looked out towards the distance and hank was right, the moonlight was not helping him at all. All of the gold and silver was being lit up like a beacon with how bright the moon was tonight.
Marcus just face palmed his own mask and sighed "What is that wanker doing?"
"Fits his name doesn't it. He really is a scumbag." Olivier commented while staring at the spectacle with no interest.
"Shouldn't we stop him, I mean he running off with most of the gold and money and this town could really use it for the repairs."
"Good point."
"It is but sadly that money was previously stolen and some of the marines will let them use that money."
"And they are supposed to be the good guys?" Marcus inquired
"The marines are just the puppets backed by the world government and they are the real puppet masters who are pulling the strings behind everyone's backs."
Marcus stretched his arms out and spawned in an L115A3 sniper rifle
"Are you sure you can hit him at this distance, he looks to be about just a kilometre away." She estimated while Marcus had him in his sights.
"Don't underestimate these weapons they are nothing like those crude muskets that they use." Marcus clarified.
"Then you best take the shot quickly then."
*BANG!* Marcus took the shot just after Olivier had finished her sentence and after two seconds the 338 struck right into Darrel's chest just under his right collar bone near the shoulder and launched him off of the boat.
"Target neutralized." Marcus pulled the bolt and a casing came out and slid another one into the chamber.
Olivier eyed the rifle and the weapons the clones were carrying and the casings that fell to the floor and she picked the 338 lapua casing up and observed the contents. "This is intriguing, revolutionary even." She eyed at the weapons with interest.
"Marvel at it all you want but these weapons are exclusive to me and to anyone that I trust."
Olvier gazed at Marcus with a raised eyebrow. "Oh? And by chance am I one of those you people you trust?"
Marcus chuckled at looked back at Oliver and said "More than that Olivier." Marcus held his hand out towards Olivier " I think you deserve my friendship."
Oliver gazed at the open hand and looked back up to Marcus and chuckled. "Friends you say, you will need to earn a lot more of my trust for me to call you a friend. But I suppose I could throw you the bone as I have a request for you."
"What would that be?" marcus briefly saw regret in her eyes and replaced with resolved determination.
"You work for me and help me and I will help you with your training, simple as that." Oliver offered while holding her hand out to Marcus.
Marcus stared at her hand and contemplated on whether to accept or not.
'Bear in mind that she was betrayed by her own government and military and she has nowhere to go and to trust. And her eyes show some malice towards someone but overall there is sorrow. I guess she did take it hard at losing all of her most trusted soldiers in her unit. But it's up to you whether you to work under her or not.' hank gave his input on the matter.
'So she wants my trust in assisting her with her vengeance against the ones who betrayed her, can't say I'm too happy about that. But she is offering to train me which is kind of selfish of me but I really need to this. Besides I need to find more information on these marines and world government and see if they are that bad as they say they are.' He mused deeply in to his thought until he decided.
"Alright I will do it, you have my word that I will assist you in whatever you plan to do in return that you help me become stronger and learn more about this world." he accepted her offer and took her hand and sealed the deal.
Olivier smiled "welcome aboard Lieutenant Marcus."
And we are finally stopping right here.
It's done I'm not doing any more on this chapter. I never intended it to be this long.
And yes I plan to have Olivier Mira Armstrong from FMA Brotherhood as his new Commanding officer.
And in case you were wondering johness is the name of the mass serial killer in hunter x hunter who got insta killed by killua during the hunter exams through the same method of tearing out his heart. But I made him have a split personality like sweet tooth in twisted metal.
I edited a few things on this chapter so there might have been a few words out of place.
And I do apologise for the delay because I had a bit of technical problems with email and my account and home life and summer holiday going on.
Also there is another Fic I plan on doing much later so I may be more drawn to writing that but im still thinking about it.