Author's note:
Guys, please read the note at the bottom and give me an answer. Thanks.
Hope you enjoy.

– Bellamy –

Looking at the frontier town, one wouldn't know that something was amiss. Having been originally founded by displaced farmers from the surrounding kingdoms, it was one of many settlements dotted about on a myriad of tiny, unmarked islands in the open sea. These were, for the most part, outside any of the major shipping lanes and for that matter most of the minor ones as well. They had few subterranean resources, or if there were any they still remained to be found, and were simply were not large enough or fertile enough to support a population of any significant size. In short, the island I was on was one of negligible importance, holding marginal value at best and bearing only the most questionable of potentials. There had been a reason why no kingdoms had been founded here, while even a literal desert had birthed the Kingdom of Alabasta.

Of course, this meant in turn that there was no marine presence anywhere in the near vicinity. It was a similar case to Nami's home island but worse, as these officially unnamed islands were not even afforded the purview of a highly corrupt marine like Nezumi had been. It just had never been worth it and even the vaunted World Government, for all its monstrous size and capabilities, did not possess the ridiculous amount of resources - administrative, military or otherwise - it would require to exert control over every minuscule island in every godforsaken corner of the world.

Perhaps, perhaps if the World Government had access to the Internet or if it had reigned over a solitary ginormous landmass, it might have stood a chance. As it was, the scattered geography of its domain made the idea of centralized governance a pipe dream at best. This was precisely the reason why the Five Elder Stars, and the World Government by extension, didn't even attempt to move away from the current decentralized system, which was akin to a loose federation.

Rather, in exchange for granting the various kingdoms under its banner a large degree of autonomy, they focused their entire attention on maintaining a tight grip on three things. These were, in no particular order, their absolute military superiority over the various member nations, their exhaustive control over the flow of information and the legal right to act as the supreme judiciary within its entire domain. Or to put it shortly, the World Government fought tooth and nail not to lose the ability to isolate and legally snuff out the life of any single member state, something they reminded everyone in the know on a periodic basis.

In this matter, the decentralized geography which had stymied the World Government's ambitions, worked in its favor by making it nearly impossible for the various kingdoms to coordinate and mount any meaningful resistance. The mere fact that Dragon had managed to do precisely that spoke volumes.

Even worse, it wasn't as if the World Government could afford to erase too many kingdoms from the map too quickly. For one, it would have prompted even more kingdoms to reconsider their membership, and two, it could have fractured the greatest force they had at their disposal. Considering that all those Marines had to have come from somewhere and a not insignificant fraction had enlisted to protect their homes and families in a greater capacity than they could in the local military, removing too many kingdoms in too short a span of time would have risked throwing the Marine Corps into turmoil.

So, in conclusion, the World Government was not as absolute as they tried to make themselves out to be and were forced to play a delicate balancing game, one in which the World Government had to wisely decide where to use the limited resources it had available for the greatest gain.

A sleepy frontier town on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere simply didn't make the cut. As you can no doubt imagine, this state of affairs suited the local residents just fine. Unfortunately for them, the reasons that made their island unimportant also made it the perfect place for the Revolutionary Army to set up shop, but at the very least, Dragon was adamant that the base never grow beyond a small outpost to act as an early warning signal. Which was why I had been sent here to find out why the outpost had gone suspiciously silent.

I saw nothing out of the ordinary as I entered the town, only noting a distinct Wild West theme in its architecture with the wooden buildings and dusty roads. The residents themselves only reinforced this image, for they proudly bore their cowboy hats atop their heads as well as the appropriate boots, though I did question the utility of the spurs, considering that I had yet to see a single horse.

"Howdy, old timer!" I called out to the old coot sitting by the road. The man gave out serious, retired prospector vibes as he idly chewed on his pipe, his lone visible ocular organ regarding me with a gimlet eye.

"Who are you calling old, ya pipsqueak?" the old coot spat out, adding to a growing puddle of tobacco laced phlegm on the road next to his rocking chair.

"Nobody. All I see before me is a man in the springtime of youth." I quickly backtracked and gave the man my most winning smile. I wasn't sure if it worked but either way the man just glared at me for a while.

"Whaddya want?" he eventually asked, before growing his puddle again.

"You wouldn't happen to have a saloon around these here parts, would you?"

"It's right over there, are ya blind?" he said, pointing a thumb down the road at the largest building in town. I had, in fact, noticed it right away but assumed it to be the town hall or something. It looked cleaner (or as close to clean as one could get in a frontier town) and newly built, but now that he mentioned it I could faintly hear music coming out of it. Though oddly enough, very little in the way of conversation.

"It certainly looks large enough to house the entire town." I commented. His response was another glob for the puddle.

"Blame the new stranger. We had to rebuild the entire thing to make sure the fatass could fit through the darn door. Or under the roof for that matter." He grumbled. "Odd fella, that guy. Almost never leaves the saloon. At least he does pay for all the swill he drinks, so we let him stay."

"My thanks." I told him, tipping my hat. As none of Sabo's men had been larger than the average human male, this stranger was for now, my most likely suspect. After all, almost nothing ever changed in a town like this, so if something did, it was as good a place to start an investigation as any.

"Don't go starting anything, ya hear me laddie? We don't want no trouble."

"I'll try to get out of your hair as soon as possible." I promised before motioning for my companions to follow me into the saloon. However, what I saw upon shoving the doors open stopped me short, causing Hewitt to bump into my back.

"Say captain, why'd you stop like that?" Hewitt asked, rubbing his nose, while trying to push past me to peer into the main hall. "Give a man a little warning…next…time…"

Hewitt's voice trailed off as he too witnessed what I had, the sight being so beyond his expectations that his brain couldn't come up with an appropriate response.

The building's interior design itself wasn't anything to write home about. Sure, it was large but in the style of your typical saloon, which you could see in every movie and comic about the Wild West. It was also pretty empty, currently being occupied by the bartender, his piano player and three patrons.

What had struck us speechless had been the identity of said patrons, something which Muret couldn't avoid either. However, even as my doctor reeled back in surprise, I couldn't stop a grin from spreading across my face at the sight of Gecko Moria, doing his best to try and drown himself in his own drink.

For all the ridicule Gecko Moria had gotten, one had to remember that this was a man who had clashed with Kaido in his heyday. When one considered how difficult it was to reach an Emperor in the first place, as one would have to fight one's way through their entire crew first, the mere fact that Kaido had deemed Moria a large enough threat to deal with him personally, should be more than enough proof of his potential. Unfortunately for Moria, the moment of his greatest glory had very quickly turned into the most traumatic experience of his life, when the battle had left him bereft of his entire crew and his self-confidence.

In a way, the man had gone insane, his will having been broken and he himself being reduced to an empty husk. By the time he had pulled himself together, all he had left were the fragments of his former dream of becoming the pirate king and a deep founded fear of losing his friends and crew again, which in turn had prompted Moria to fill his crew mostly with zombies. After all, zombies were already dead and hence could not die, and should they ever be destroyed or purified, replacements were relatively easy to come by.

But even as a shadow of his former self, he had managed to inspire a surprising amount of loyalty in his crew and been a promising enough prospect, that the World Government eagerly inducted him into the ranks of the Seven Royal Warlords. No, this man was far from harmless.

Which probably made my decision to walk up to the bar and take a seat next to him…not the smartest decision in the world. Interestingly, neither Absalom nor Hogback did anything to stop me, though they did watch me warily.

"Gecko Moria." I said by way of greeting.

"…" He ignored me.

"Gecko Moria." I tried again.

"…" He kept ignoring me, his only signs of life being the few bubbles which floated to the top of his large saucer of sake. A quick glance at Absalom garnered me only a helpless shrug. His crew had probably tried a lot of things already to get Moria out of his funk, and had obviously failed. Which meant that I probably should do something they would not have dared to.

Prod Moria's trauma.

"I thought you were amazing once, you know? Someone who took the world by storm and faced every obstacle with a never-say-die attitude. Even after you returned from the New World, the old codgers sitting in their ivory chairs invited you to take up the mantle of a Royal Warlord." I told him, but he didn't react. Then again, I hadn't expected him too. Nothing I had just said mattered to him, unlike what I would say next. "But looking at you now, I've got to say that I'm not impressed. Have you ever considered what your old crew mates would say if they were to see you now? Would they blame you, I wonder? Or would they be disappointed that their captain doesn't care about them anymore?"

"SHUT UP!" Moria screeched, sitting up to level a death glare at me, rivulets of alcohol flowing down his face. "You. Know. Nothing! NOTHING!"

Well, that got his attention at least. I didn't like doing it, but reopening his old wounds was an age-old tactic to manipulate someone into a state of heightened emotions. People tended to be more honest then and oddly enough, more accepting of whatever conclusions they drew. Perhaps, it had something to do with how their brain linked the strong emotions they felt at the time with whatever they decided to do, anchoring it so much more firmly into their own psyche.

Of course, first I needed to talk him into making the decision I wanted him to make, which was not going to be easy. After all, why would he listen to me, when I had made him furious? Still, I could work with this, as anger was better than no emotion at all.

"I know enough. I know that you challenged Kaido when you were younger and that you scurried back to Paradise without your crew and with your proverbial tail tucked in between your legs."

"Shut! UP! What do you know about the monster that is Kaido? What could you possibly know of the terror that is to face that invulnerable beast on the battlefield?" he hissed at me, his faced scrunched up in fury. I could have answered his questions, but that would have meant deviating from my train of logic to follow his, and that would have been very counterproductive at the moment. As it was, I was already playing a very delicate and dangerous game, where a single misstep could ruin everything I was trying do.

"I know that you spent a decade creating a crew which could never die, so you'd not have to lose them again. A decade during which you did nothing but make grandiose statements about getting revenge on Kaido and becoming the pirate king, all the while you were content to hide away and let yourself decay."

"I was preparing!" he protested loudly. "In fact, I was almost finished, my ascent was inevitable!"

"And what did all those years of preparation bring you?" I asked him, cutting him off before he could insult me. "Nothing. Everything you had accomplished in that lost decade was nullified by a rookie."

"Monkey D. Luffy!" he ground out, the reminder momentarily distracting him from the ire he felt for me, by bringing a recent memory to the forefront of his mind.

"Exactly. Defeating Kaido? Don't make me laugh." I scoffed, "A single rookie, worth only 300 million belli, was enough to bring your vaunted army and even the strongest zombie in history to its knees."

"Stop it!" Moria demanded, swinging one clawed hand at my head, intent on crushing me against the ground. It was sloppy and had very little weight behind it with Moria, still sat upon his stool, having been unable to bring his full strength to bear. Thus, I had very little difficulty in stopping the blow cold with a single arm of my own.

Personally, I was surprised that it had taken him this long to attack me. At the moment, I couldn't tell if his self-confidence had been eroded so greatly that the idea of fighting a mere rookie like me made him hesitate this much or if it was due to something else. Either way, Moria's attempt served as a signal. Despite having been following our exchange so far with great interest, Absalom leaped into action to attack my undefended back.

"Did you know that they proclaimed your death in the newspaper without confirming anything?" I continued undaunted and unworried. And my trust was proven correct when Hewitt intercepted Absalom, his two meat cleavers blocking the lion-man's bazooka blast. "In fact, with your current miserable state, I wouldn't be surprised if they had tried to get rid of you themselves for being liability."

"How did you…?"

In the meantime, Dr. Hogback had run to a corner and opened a door, revealing two armored zombies wielding a battle axe and a war hammer respectively. Both of which launched themselves at Muret, who pulled out her syringes in response.

"Oh what, it's true? I was just guessing, but what do you know?" I wasn't but he didn't know that. "Who did they send? An Admiral? No that would have been a waste. Another Warlord perhaps? Someone like…Doflamingo?"

Hewitt and Absalom were having a right old bar fight, knocking over tables and smashing glass bottles as they dueled across the main hall. Fist against cleaver, bazooka against a frying pan, the two did their best to beat the other into submission with no regards to their surroundings.

"Shaddap!" Moria screamed in rage, as he drew himself up to his full height and brough his hands crashing down on me in a double fist. I could have dodged. I could have blocked. But as my observation haki didn't warn me of any danger, I stood by and let him flatten me into a pancake. After all, unless he used haki, blunt force trauma was never going to do anything other than temporarily compress my body. As such, when he withdrew his fists, I simply sprang back unharmed and unruffled.

"Don't you want revenge?" I asked him, the magic word causing Moria to freeze. "On Kaido for killing your crew? On the World Government for betraying you? On Doflamingo for trying to murder you?"

It was like magic. As I watched, the madness and berserk fury drained itself out of his eyes, leaving only hatred and cold rationale. If I had to guess, they were the remnants of the veteran captain who had challenged the New World shining through, sensing an opportunity where most would not.

"Color me intrigued, Springtrap." Moria hissed out. "Though I warn you, your next words better be good."

"Let's be honest for a moment and admit that Doflamingo is stronger than either of us, or at the very least, his crew is stronger than ours." I said, holding up a hand to stop his instinctive outrage before it could leave his mouth. "If you want to kill him, you're going to need help and zombies are going to be useless against a literal puppet master like him."

"Go. On." Moria gritted out, not sounding pleased at all but unable to refute my statements.

"I have my own beef with Doflamingo, so I suggest we work together until we take him down."

"Hah, I was patient and gave you a chance even when you insulted me, but that's all you have to say?" Moria scoffed, "What a waste of time. I do not need help from a useless greenhorn like you!"

"I'd be far from useless. Wanna bet?" I gave him my best smirk. Moria responded about as I had expected him to, by summoning his shadow clone, Doppelman, at the same time that I activated my Coil Chassis. I didn't need to elaborate on the process. After all, how the bet was going to be settled had never been in doubt.

"What are the stakes?" he asked, pulling out his giant scissors from his breeches and pulling them apart into two separate blades. Off to the side, Muret was rapidly learning that zombies were impervious to her narcotics, forcing her to abandon her go-to method of incapacitating her opponents.

"I win, we cooperate on even grounds." I suggested. "If you win, you get my shadow or my corpse. You choose."

I was going to become the strongest man alive. How was I ever going to achieve that if I lost to the current Moria of all people?

"Interesting. I accept" He said, before immediately forcing me to divert his blades up and over my head. "Hand over your shadow, Springtrap!"

"No." I told him, before jumping in front of Moria's face and punting him through the saloon door.

Construction Boom

Welcome to Marineford Daily News, your only source of accurate and unbiased truth.

According to the newest reports, the current job market is booming with the demand for unskilled construction labor being especially high. This may not come as too much of a surprise to you, if only one thinks back to the recent wave of anarchists trying to wreak havoc on our peaceful and orderly lives. And nobody can deny that Whitebeard's cowardly ambush hasn't left its scars on our beloved beacon of hope and safety, Marineford.

But like scars, everything can heal and be restored back to a semblance of normalcy. Already, word has reached us that the Marine HQ has been restored to its former glory, even if there are rumors slowly circulating that the new Fleet Admiral Akainu is considering moving the Marine's seat of power to the New World in order to bring the Four (Three) Emperor's to heel.

However, the recent boom in the construction sector wasn't purely due to the repair work being done all around the world. No, the World Government and her patrons were not satisfied with merely undoing the damage others have attempted to inflict upon us, but have sought to create something new.

This is a tradition dating back six hundred years, with the proudest example being Tequila Wolf. It is a project brought into the world and completely funded by our benevolent World Nobles, meant to enrich the lives of every citizen on the planet. By constructing a network of bridges of gigantic proportions between the many individual island kingdoms comprising our great society, the World Nobles sought to facilitate the easy transport of goods and people across the oceans without the need to brave the dangers of the ocean. Piracy on the high seas would have been eliminated in its entirety.

And now, you too have a chance to contribute. The spokesperson of the project has recently announced that they are looking to recruit thousands of new workers to speed up the progress being made on the bridge.

Housing has already been prepared for thousands if not tens of thousands of individuals, guaranteed to keep you warm even in the coldest winter months. There are no predators lurking in the shadows, waiting to make off with your child. Security will be provided by the elite guards, handpicked by the World Nobles themselves. Plentiful food and drinks provided free of charge for all workers for your only every meal. And to top it all off, the World Nobles guarantee your employment for the full length of the project.

It's the job of a lifetime.

This was Marineford Daily reporting.

And as always, please follow us to never miss an update on the best news reports this side of the Red Line.

Author's note:
So I'm guessing that most of you saw this coming (with me asking about Hogback and all). Next time: Bellamy vs his second Warlord.
I've also decided to tack on my Marineford Daily articles at the end of my chapters where appropriate instead of putting them in the extras.

Now, I have another very important question for you guys. How annoyed would you guys be if I turned Bellamy's first date into a disaster? (emotional disaster)