Three days have passed since the disaster that nearly destroyed the Marine Headquarters. When the monstrosities that attacked the island were all dead it was up to the survivors to clean up the mess. Not an easy thing to do considering that the base suffered serious damage, and though nobody said anything it was a general consensus that the destruction of the dock was largely the Fleet-Admiral's handiwork. Not that anyone blamed him for it, without his Magu-Magu no Mi the casualties would have been far worse.
Soldiers could be seen moving away the ruble that were once homes and warehouses, often finding some unfortunate person who was either caught in the crossfire or tried to hide into the building only to have it bury the unfortunate soul alive, crushing them underneath its weight.
Slowly a group of Marine warships entered the harbor, the soldiers on the deck staring in shock at the sight that greeted them.
As the ships slowly moved forward they pushed away the driftwood from the sunk ships, the dead soldiers being already gathered out of the water..at least those that didn't end already on the seafloor as fish-food.
Borsalino and the Vice-Admirals that returned didn't really expect this kind of welcome. Squads of Marines were patrolling every street, dragging bazookas and groups of Pacifistas were stationed through out the base as far as they could see.
"Oooohh what have we here..." said Kizaru lazily as he walked down the ship's ramp "It seems we aren't the only ones who were busy..."
"What the hell happened here?" hissed Vice-Admiral Doberman who followed behind the Admiral "It's like after Whitebeard all over again."
"Who knows..." Kizaru drawled out, not in any hurry he proceeded in a slow pace to the Fleet Admirals office.
As he walked up he scanned the surrounding. There was a lot of damage inflicted on the surrounding area, the most noticeable were the heaps of cooled down magma. Oooohh so the Fleet Admiral came down himself...
He glanced up and saw a big chunk missing from the base walls. Whatever hit it was brutal. "Scary..." said the admiral not giving any expression that he was actually afraid.
Examining the faces of the nearby Marines he saw that the soldiers were tense, but even through their discipline fatigue could be noted. Not to mention the fearful look some had when turning around, or glancing up...like something will attack them at any moment.
With a knock he entered the Fleet-Admiral's office and greeted Sakazuki. Akainu didn't immediately respond to Borsalino as he glared at him as if he did something wrong.
That confused the admiral, as far as he knew he did nothing that would upset the Marines...this time. Only after moving away from the door did he notice that the Fleet-Admiral wasn't even paying him any attention and that his scowl was more related to whatever was going through his head.
"Something wrong?..." he asked lazily.
The Fleet-Admiral didn't respond at first but the tightening of his fists indicated that he did indeed hear him.
Borsalino wasn't impatient so he gave him the time too sort his thoughts through. That lasted for a few minutes before Sakazuki stood up.
"We will have a conference in two hours, I will explain everything there" he said as he walked to the window overlooking the demolished docks "what about Zephyr-sensei?"
Kizaru shrugged "We managed to stop him from detonating the Dyna Stones, mostly thanks to Aokiji that froze them over before any had the chance to explode"
At the mention of the ex-Admiral Akainu didn't even blink. He didn't expect Kuzan to be there but a Marine officer or not Aokiji fought for justice.
"The real surprise was the fight between Zephyr-sensei and Straw Hat...kids these days are scary..." again drawled Kizaru, but even though he had that carefree smile on his face his words weren't all sarcasm. To defeat an admiral, even a retired old ex-admiral like Zephyr wasn't easy "after the Straw Hat defeated sensei we decided to eliminate them all together...though the Straw Hats and the ex-Marines Ain and Binz managed to escape the rest of the Neo-Marines were decimated and the survivors rounded up..."
"And sensei?"
Kizaru scratched his cheek "Sensei fought valiantly...we have brought his body back for the funeral. Although a criminal in the end he shouldn't be left to rot like the rest."
"You did well" said the Fleet-Admiral. Kizaru nodded and left, although he was curious what transpired here he wasn't in any rush.
The two hours passed fast and the time for the conference arrived.
There was a heavy atmosphere in the room as the Admirals, Vice-Admirals and Captains gathered around the Fleet-Admiral.
They were surprised that both the former Vice-Admiral Garp and Fleet-Admiral Sengoku were attending it. Most thought that Garp hated Sakazuki to the point of being unable to be in the same room with him.
"Most of you are probably confused about the incident that happened few days ago, even you who were present at the time of the attack have questions that we will address on this meeting" began Sakazuki, at that instant Captain Gorilla walked to the center of the room and activated the big plasma screen "this is the face of the enemy that so arrogantly though that it can do as he pleases."
On the giant plasma TV an armored figure could be seen, one of its arms elongated into a long blade of some sort, while the other hand had long wicked looking claws. The black armor itself was equally awe-inspiring with its spikes...one thing that caught the assembled Marines attention was that they didn't see where the visor in the helmet was, or even where one part of the armor ended and another began.
Akainu allowed Captain Gorilla to present the relevant information to the assembled Marines.
"The photographs you are seeing now are those of an individual that managed to infiltrate us at a still unknown time" his words didn't inspire the gathered soldiers with confidence, the identity and time of infiltration were rather important pieces of information.
The picture on the screen changed to that of Captain Shu, that first confused and then stunned the gathered audience.
"At some point in time it encountered Captain Shu, the target then assumed his identity with the indent to use our resources to help it achieve its goals."
Captain Hina bit her lower lip, her fists itching to punch something, both Fullbody and Jango sensed her anger and wisely took a few steps back. Both men had one black eye already, they didn't wish to have a matching one to compliment it.
"How is it possible we didn't discover something like this sooner?!" asked Vice-Admiral Doberman heatedly "what were the CP agents doing all this time!"
The remaining Captain nodded starting a debate over the Ciper Pol's effectiveness. Ever since Rob Lucci's defeat and the defection of the CP9 the secret police was making one large mistake after another.
A cough from Gorilla made the assembled officers quiet down "I'm sure that many see this as the failing of the intelligence services but further investigation revealed that it was impossible for them to be prepared for this kind of scenario."
„Oooohh...couldn't they simply have asked him to demonstrate his Devil Fruit powers?..." asked Kizaru.
"Normally that would be sufficient, unfortunately in this case it would be futile" stated the Captain confusing the audience "but I will get to that part in a moment."
The picture on the plasma TV returned to that of the armored figure. It wasn't easy to get a good look at the intruder but one of the Pacifistas managed the feat before it was crushed by the colossal monstrosity that in its short time of existence managed to do a lot of damage. Searching through the Pacifista's memory of the night the investigators and engineers managed to extract a perfectly clean picture of the attacker.
"The first warning about the figure we received from the now renegade CP9 member Rob Lucci, two weeks ago he send us a message with a warning about the Hunter as he named the target. A group of Ciper Pol agents and Captains were send to eliminate the former agents four weeks back, one of the Captains on that mission was also Captain Shu, or rather the impersonator."
"You will find more details about it in the files on your desks" Gorilla said indicating the items placed in front of the Marines. He didn't have the time to do an in dept analysis of the mission, or better to say he already did it but now wasn't the time for wasting time by going over the details. Better to stick to the relevant information.
A few of the officers scowled but refrained from interrupting the Captain...this time.
"Shu or rather the imposter managed to find the ex-agents. He attacked them immediately and after a short battle managed to kill three of them. Thanks to Blueno's Doa-Doa ability the remaining four managed to escape."
The news that a few of the traitorous agents were killed didn't bother the assembled Marines much, although they would have preferred that they be punished by the marines judiciary system this was also acceptable.
"Through the battle the CP9 agents managed to witness the target use multiple fruit abilities – something that was only seen being done by Blackbeard" Gorilla observed that that piece of information managed to shock a lot of Marines...except those that had apparently an eternal poker-face...he honestly wondered what thoughts went through the minds of people like T-Bone to be perfectly calm irrelevant of the topic.
"WHAT?!" shouted Vice-Admiral Mozambia, but apologized when his outburst earned him many a glare from the other Marines. Gorilla on the other hand wasn't surprised, the man was a known hothead, a bad character trait to have in a soldier. Something that could easily get him killed, Vice-Admiral or not.
Gorilla coughed and proceeded with the report "Since we received the warning from Lucci about this we kept a close watch on Shu. He didn't do much to incriminate himself until the attack on Captain Coby who is now healing from his injuries."
"This dancing around the subject is unlike you captain Gorilla" said Vice-Admiral Stainless "for starters do we know what the criminal's name is?"
The Captain sighted, so much for his plan. The truth was they knew very little about the attacker, but admitting that would put the investigation unit in a rather bad light...No choice now.
"We don't know" he admitted.
The reaction that followed was as expected. Frowns, a few complains about the investigation and probably a lot of blame being passed on them for this disaster. Like it was easy to gather the needed information...he thought bitterly. A shapeshifter falls out of the blue and suddenly they need to know everything about him. Honestly, investigation work is not easy, and getting any results in under a week is considered good timing in such cases.
"We don't know who he is, what he is, where he came from, where he disappeared too" with every word he could see the Marines start to roll their eye as if to say - Is there something that you do know? Well he might as well tell them now...
"What we do know about the attacker is that his goal is to absorb people with Devil Powers. It already showed a few abilities – water control like a logia, slowing down opponents, rusting of metal, shapeshifting, turning his body into armor, his hands into claws, shields, blades or hammers." With every word the faces of the Marines turned more grim.
"He even displayed the ability to consume memories, that includes even skills a person learned through life – like the Rokushiki. Our investigation points out that the main reason for attacking captain Coby was to take the captains Observation Haki for himself. Gentlemen, what we are dealing here is the securities worst nightmare. No code, fingerprint, voice authorization is safe...he could be in this very room and we simply wouldn't know."
"Oooohh that's problematic..." said Admiral Kizaru.
"It gets worse" commented Gorilla "through the effort of Garp the First we learned that the monstrosities that assaulted the HQ were in fact former Marines that were mutated by the infiltrator." said Gorilla grimly, and as expected many were not unfazed by this revelation. The older more experienced Marines showed rage, while the new blood had a mix of horror, rage, fear and sorrow. But what really disturbed many was that the common rank and file, the fodder can be used in such a way. If this...infiltrator decided to mutate a country or large city there was nothing they could do to stop him in time. And if he manages to turn enough citizens into these mutants...there would be no army strong enough to stop them. A soldier needs a lot of time spend in training to reach even a moderate level of strength. On the other hand their opponent can spawn fodder that can even overpower their Captains, and even Vice-Admirals when in numerical superiority.
Some of the Vice-Admirals looked through the papers on their desks and frowned when they came to the threat assessment. Especially the part about the enemies regeneration was disturbing...
"Your telling me we were killing our comrades?!" gasped one of the Captains completely missing the thing that bothered most of the soldiers in the room.
"No!" said the Fleet-Admiral "the moment they were changed they became nothing more than beast. What you did is give them release from a vile existence, if they could thank you now they surly would." Akainu finally stood up on his feet "We have proven once again that in the end justice prevails. All his abilities, all his monsters couldn't stand before us. He is nothing more than a coward that strikes at the weakest, taking not only lives of innocent people but taking away the fruits of their labor! I tell you now, we will not fold before an ingrate that has no courage to face us openly, choosing rather to stab his victims in the back. We-Will-Prevail!" Akainu knew that he let some of his anger slip into the speech but it served its purpose, the steel and determination he saw in the eyes of every single Marine proved that...well, in all except Borsalino's, the admiral looked like always – a blank look you saw on people who were reading a newspaper simply because there wasn't anything more interesting to do. Though they lost a number of good soldiers, some like Vice-Admiral Bastille were only injured and will return to duty as soon as they recuperate. Also the dead monstrosities were cleaned and their remains burned, only leaving a few dozen that were send to Vegapunk's lab for examination. Hopefully when they arrive the old scientist will find something that could help them with the attacker.
Garp refrained from snorting. The speech only failed to point out that he, Akainu and Sengoku almost kicked the bucket in that fight. It wasn't that the thing was stronger than they were, at least for now. But strategically it held all the cards. It possessed absolute freedom of movement, the ability for growth that no human can match and even outnumber them if it pleases...no that's not it...what made it so dangerous was that apparently it had nothing. No home, no family, no material possessions what so ever. It could run from any disadvantaged fight and take its sweet time, something neither the Marines nor the Yonko could.
It can choose its battlefield...and although Akainu ridiculed the things silent approach it also proved one rather disturbing fact. It doesn't rush, and fighting a smart opponent was far more dangerous than a hot head. His focus shifted back to the meeting...he saw that the discussion changed from Akainu back to Captain Gorilla who started the topic of a wanted poster for the infiltrator. Not to mention what information should be released to the public when the journalists finally arrive.
I'm getting too old for this nonsense...