It was the third day of their voyage and finally getting tired of juggling numbers on the paper Mercer turned to think about his powers. Both Shu's and Foxy's ability were useful but limited in use.
The ability to rust metal made him basically immune to any metallic attack not strengthened by sea stones. It also gave him a rather handy ability against people like Kuma and Daz Bones. He also started to experiment with the power not only oxidizing metals, but also controlling the created oxides. especially the toxic Nickle.
It wasn't the best way to poison someone, but at least it was something.
The Noro Noro beam was a powerful one-trick pony, the problem is its use is heavily dependent on the users imagination. And beside slowing someone down before ripping him apart he couldn't think of any other use.
A knock made him stop his experiments "Come in."
A marine carrying a plate entered his cabin "Good day sir" he said as he placed the tray on the table.
"Thank you" said Mercer as he returned to experimenting with his rust powers.
"Em..captain..." said the soldier nervously.
"Yes?"
"We seem to be running low on food."
Now that is strange "As I recall we took more than enough provisions for a crew four times larger than our current number..."
The man nodded "Yes, and we don't understand how it happened, first we suspected there was an intruder on board, but we found nobody."
"Normal food portions were served?"
The soldier nodded.
Mercer thought for a second "Place a pair of guards for now in front of the kitchen. There is always a possibility of rodents taking food" he personally didn't believe that and neither did the soldier. It is always easy to identify when an animal was taking food, they leave some kind of hints. Teeth marks, crumbs etc...
But then the marines would not have searched for an intruder, meaning who ever was taking food was doing a good job of cleaning up after...something animals normally don't do.
The soldier nodded and left.
Alex returned to his experiment Seems I will have something to hunt tonight.
While the two guards spend their time chatting away outside of the kitchen Mercer used this opportunity to enter the kitchen through the window.
It was too small for a man his size, but lacking any bones he was rather flexible. He pushed his right arm through the window and slowly send his biomass from his body to his hand.
It was like connecting two water balloons, one full one empty. Simply sending the content of one into the other made it irrelevant how large the opening was.
Now standing in the kitchen he activated his thermal vision.
Nothing...well it is still early, better wait. He found a dark corner and observed his surroundings.
He had no idea how many hours he stood there but his patience was rewarded.
A small heat signature carefully made its way into the kitchen through the same window he entered.
A monkey...a Macaca fascicularis if I'm not mistaken.
The animal looked around itself as good as it could with its limited eyesight. Satisfied that it could not smell or hear anything it made its way to the food storage.
It started by taking a pair of apples and devoured them in one move.
Alex could hardly believe that an animal of that size could eat this much. He was watching the primate devour food stuff for a half an hour without any problems.
What the hell...not even a human could eat that much...well what ever though Mercer as he silently moved to catch the animal, its appetite was only the last in the long list of peculiarities he encountered on this world.
The monkey screeched when Alex grabbed him by the neck "Got you."
But Mercer's victory was short lived, the animal he was holding suddenly turned to water and slipped through his fingers.
He looked down on the hissing water monkey.
Don't tell me...
His thoughts were interrupted when the primate send a blast of water that easily shot him through the wall, making him stop when he slammed in the ship's mast.
He glared at the opening where the monkey was doing a victory dance.
"Captain!" came a shout as the solders guarding the kitchen rushed out. They looked at the hole and the monkey confusedly "Sir what happened here?"
Mercer nodded to the animal "The monkey is a logia, its been raiding our supplies at night."
"Logia?!" the soldiers panicked, and pointed their guns at the animal "how in gods name did it get a logia devil fruit?!"
Mercer snorted "Like anyone else, it found it. Animals are far more likely to come across some devil fruit and eat it then a human. There are probably hundreds of animals with abilities that live in the wields but never developed them."
He dusted himself off I can't do anything against a logia..."You two go into the armory and look if we have any sea stone nets on board, if we do bring them here"
They nodded and rushed off leaving Mercer alone with the monkey. From the animals behavior it knew that he couldn't touch it, and displayed that by making faces and shaking its rear to Alex.
Mercer looked keenly at the animal, its behavior suggested a rather high degree of intelligence, it actually understood the concept of emotions - mockery and mirth. Fascinating...
The two soldiers soon returned with a handful of nets and the remaining soldiers "Captain we found four of them" said one of the marines and handed one of the nets over to Alex.
Mercer could only stare at the marine that was offering him to take the net "You do know that I can't touch these things?" he lied.
That made the man blink stupidly and smile sheepishly "Umm sorry Captain...kinda slipped my mind..."
"Then I would be grateful if you used those nets and captured our little friend over there" said Alex as he pointed to the monkey.
The soldiers saluted and rushed the animal as they would any other...and failed miserably. As they were a few feet away from their target the ape jumped over them causing the human stampede to fall over each other.
Mercer could only roll his eyes at the ham-fisted approach they took, and it didn't get any better after that.
The animal used its agility to full advantage as the soldiers tried and failed to catch it all over the deck.
One soldier even got so annoyed with the monkey he used his rifle on it. And as expected the bullet simply passed through the target and pierced the mast, leaving a smoking hole a few centimeters from Mercer's head.
It wasn't dangerous, Shu's power would have rusted the bullet on contact, and even if it by some miracle managed to hit him he would simply regenerate.
What actually made him glare at the marine was the sheer stupidity of that action "How long are you in the marines again?"
The man had a hard time looking Mercer in the eye "...two weeks..."
"And the basic training?"
"..."
So either he somehow muddled through or he had some connections that he doesn't want to implicate"Seems we will have to be strengthen our drill regiment a bit."
"Continued the hunt, I will be back in a minute" he said to the soldiers as he left through the hole in the wall.
Alex came back with a sack of flour, he saw that the marines only managed to entertain the animal and nothing else well that's why I left the hunt to them.
He watched keenly the right moment...and then threw the sack at the wall behind the monkey.
The hit made the sack burst open and cover the animal in flour. Before the coughing ape could recover Mercer used one of the soldiers swords to hook a sea stone net with its tip and launch it at his target.
Alex grinned at the incapacitated nuisance.
"You did it captain!" shouted a marine.
"I would have never thought of using flour to blind the thing" said another.
"Its main purpose wasn't to blind him" Alex answered "its to prevent him from turning into water."
"...what?"
"Water is a very useful ability because of its flexible nature, but it also has some glaring weaknesses. One of them being the ability to dissolve minerals and mix with other substances."
„...I don't understand" said one of the marines.
"You don't have to." In short the ape can't turn into water when covered by flour because it would mix and create dough killing the logia, so it remains solid. The same would have happened with cement.
Freezing it or evaporating wouldn't do mush good, both steam and ice are still water only with its state changed. The only effective ways to eliminate water would be through electrocution to split it on the atomic level or mix it with something else until water ceases to exist as a separate form.
Mercer used the sword to lift the net and the flour monkey from the deck. Its strength drained by the sea stone in the net prevented any resistance except weak shrieks of protest to its capture.
"Show's over, you are free to go back" he told the marines who nodded and left, some yawning and others sulking as it was their guard shift.
Returning to his cabin he placed the animal on the table while he took a seat at his desk.
Next morning Alex finally finished the blueprint for a prototype of one of Tesla's inventions when a knock on his door interrupted his thinking process.
A marine holding a new inventory list entered the cabin and saluted "Captain, we have checked the armory and the kitchen. We will have to resupply in a week, maximum two. For the armory report..." he paused while he shuffled through the papers "we have sufficient small arms ammo, no artillery ammo – since we have no cannons – three sea stone nets, since we lost one when it fell overboard and ten sea stone handcuffs."
Mercer nodded "Good work, we will resupply on the first island we come across, probably in three or four days if the weather plays along."
The marine nodded and turned to leave, but then he spotted the empty sea stone net "Captain, what happened to the ape?"
Mercer looked down on the empty net "There was no point keeping the animal so I disposed of it."
"...wasn't that...a bit harsh sir?"
"You know how dangerous devil fruits users are, logia especially. It's all for the greater good."
The soldier nodded, he didn't like it but whats done is done. With a salute he left Shu's cabin.
Mercer didn't spare another glance at the closed door before he returned back to his papers.
He hummed happily while writing things down "...And it's so easy when you're evil... Your tears are all the pay I'll ever need."