The Marine

“So, would you like me to solve it?”

Speaking once again to the Celestial Dragon in English, the spacesuit-wearing man’s head ticked a few more times and one of the masked men pulled out a sword whose hilt looked like an elephant.

 “You dare speak as an equal to Lord Saint Camael?!

Insolence! Beg for forgiveness before your death!”

Shrugging his shoulders, Bill didn’t spare the masked man a glance, but made a gesture towards him with his head and again directly spoke to the Celestial Dragon: “I don’t think they’re willing to tell you, but I know the way.”

In truth, Bill had never in his life played with a Rubik’s cube for more than a few minutes – but with his mental capabilities, solving the puzzle was child’s play.

“He continues to!” shouted the masked man, then pointing his elephant sword at Bill he turned and screamed: “Lucci! What’re you standing there for?!”

Knowing the dangerous masked man’s name didn’t mean much to Bill, of course he had heard that name before, but didn’t connect it with any Marine agents he knew of.

 Ticking his head side to side, the Celestial Dragon acted as nonchalantly as Bill, and after saying ‘Eh-eh-eh?!’ shut the loudmouth up instantly.

“A slave knows what? Eh-eh??”

Nodding his head yes, Bill didn’t speak but waited for the Celestial Dragon to continue: “These slaves cannot do it, since they could not do it, I would show them the way. This is my-eh-eh-eh burden to bear.”

Listening to the Celestial Dragons thoughts, Bill realized that this fool was not being sarcastic.

‘As if his logic for being superior, no, his belief that he is a literal god, revolves around the ability to solve a puzzle toy.’

Naturally the logic, or self-delusion, of most Celestial Dragon’s extended far below what Bill could see in this moment.

At this moment he could not know the absolutely trivial accomplishments of the so-called gods, or most of them anyway, and how they could shamelessly lie to themselves about how superior they were.

But despite not knowing that, he could clearly see that this Celestial Dragon in front of him was not ‘really’ talking back to him.

Why?

Since Bill could read this mans thoughts, he understood that the Noble in front of him never spoke ‘directly’ to slaves, but instead spoke to himself out loud and interpreted the slaves response as if it was nothing but the wind.

When the Celestial Dragon ‘thought out loud’ like this, mountains moved, the tides were raised, and since that was the case what was the point of communicating with the chattel?

To put it simply, in a matter of mere seconds, Bill could understand that the Celestial Dragon in front of him denied his very humanity.

‘No… he denies everyone’s humanity…’ Bill thought, as the World Noble kept on speaking – or rather ‘thinking out loud’.

But as to what the Celestial Dragon was saying, something about him having discovered a strong slave, Bill barely listened.

Because while he was simply ignoring the ramblings of this obviously insane World Noble, Bill could not help but to look around the room and touch on the thoughts of those presence, it was almost like he had entered the twilight zone.

Between Nelson and the Marines, Bill was surprised that they would be horrified, and outright astonished that Nelson himself was thinking ways to save Bill from being enslaved.

‘Do they actually think that’s possible?’

And between Saint Camael’s Masked Agents, Bill was surprised that most of them were haughtily laughing, thinking that they would see the Celestial Dragon end some ‘Science Division’ Commodore who had gotten too arrogant.

For Bill who had practically zero input on the Science Division, who had never even been to Egghead Island, and would go years without even reporting to Dr. Vegapunk directly, he wondered if there was some tension between the Science Division and World Government that he was just unaware of.

But those thoughts were interrupted by the masked agent with the elephant sword who was especially happy, and who was thinking about what he was going to say to Dr. Vegapunk once the Celestial Dragon had taught the ‘bastard’ in front of them a lesson.

‘.. why would they be happy, do they even know me?’

All of this was going on in the time it took Saint Camael to ramble on about what he had discovered, and to ask his wife – or concubine – Bill couldn’t tell which, if she agreed with his judgement.

Still surrounded by the trio of Gods’ Army soldiers, Bill decided to play it cool and wait for what he had planned, and talking again in English, he didn’t cut off the Celestial Dragon but did speak when the out-of-shape man had to catch his breath.

Because apparently, even talking was tiring…

“Well, if you don’t need me to solve the cube, I’m still here to offer my help in any way that I can. For example, I can accompany you to the Gala if you’d like. I know this ship like the back of my ha… - “He still dares to speak!?!”

At this outburst, the masked man started gesturing his elephant sword at Bill and even the Gods’ Army trio shifted their spears.

The one actually dangerous man in the room moved slightly closer to ‘god’ and Bill again realized that he had entered a place that he clearly didn’t understand.

Even Nelson and the other Marines were screaming and crying in their heads for Bill to just be quiet, but even those desperate thoughts were cut off when Saint Camael started ticking his head to the side.

“Ye-ye-ye-Yes! I will drive this slave to sh-sh-sh-Show! It had been de-clared!”

Seeming very happy with himself, Saint Camael fluttered his hand to the side, and the Gods’ Army removed their encirclement.

Then, ordering the masked agents to get the ‘tools’ he focused back on the cube, the soldiers seemed to go back to the door and the masked agent with the elephant sword smirked.

Reading his mind, Bill’s eyes didn’t widen, he didn’t explode in anger, merely turning his head sideways he wondered if they were actually crazy.

‘They’re thinking of branding me?’

Firstly, slavery was illegal, and Bill knew that to be a matter of fact.

Sure, there were debtors’ prisons and chain gangs, sure there was the wide-scale practice of [Impressment] against criminals to force them to work on ships.

But these things were markedly different from slavery in the sense that even the lowliest of chain gangers still had human rights. After all, prisoners or not, they couldn’t be simply starved, abused, or killed without reason.

With all this running through his mind, Bill watched as the irritating masked agent brought over a metallic rod, which with a flick of a button, started to glow red-hot.

He watched all of this in silence because he could still not get over the fact that even IF slavery was legal, and even IF they could just snatch people off the street, surely, they wouldn’t be so foolish as to kick an iron wall with their bare feet?

But sure enough, as if to spite him and common sense everywhere, the masked man came to him laughing saying: “Drop our coat and present your backside! You’re now lucky to be the property of my Master, Saint Camael!”

 “S..saint!” wept Nelson from the side, evidently unable to watch and hoping to appeal to the World Noble.

After all, even if he was a ‘mutt’ to the World Nobles, Nelson was still a member of the royalty of an Allied Government and could very nominally talk to a Celestial Dragon.

But lifting his big hand to the side, Bill motioned for him to be quiet, and then addressed the masked agent.

“What’s your name?” he first said, and only got a mocking laugh in response.

But though the man didn’t answer, he had naturally ‘thought’ of his own name when asked, and so Bill was able to say: “Spandam, uh?” and that shut the mocking laughter up, but Bill continued:

“It seems you want to brand me, and I’d be more than willing to allow that, but… your tool seems broken…”

Then, as he paused, Bill used his Observation Haki to slow time down by 25% and using his finger like a gun he shattered the metallic brand in less than a blink of an eye.

In fact, it was much faster than that, only just coming of short of breaking the sound barrier, Bills finger moved before the dangerous man – the one Spandam called ‘Lucci’ could intercept the blow.

True to his senses though, the dangerous agent had moved as soon as Bill had, but whereas Lucci’s hand had failed to catch Bills before it broke the brand, Bills free hand was faster struck like a viper.

Gripping Lucci’s right wrist with his left hand, Bill looked down at him.

With his arm turning black from Haki and a black cloud forming around him from a Devil Fruit, Lucci started to pull back, but Bill’s grip was like a vice – his pure strength strong enough to briefly hold up an island in mid-air, and leaning down slightly he whispered:

“You sure you want to do this here?”

Cutting his eyes to the still distracted Celestial Dragon, Lucci’s eyes never left Bills figure, but his arm did revert to its normal color.

When that happened, Bill let him go, and Lucci turned to Spandam and said murderously: “Stop provoking trouble.”

Like that, Lucci went back to the side of the Celestial Dragon, with the black cloud still slightly hanging in the air more wary than ever before.

But Bill was now warier too!

He had been around many Devil Fruit users, he had an intimate knowledge of the devils, and even some knowledge about where they came from, but that black cloud caught him off guard!

It was different but it almost felt like [Shiki].

‘How was it different?’ he asked himself quickly but decided that like during the battle with Shiki, he wouldn’t be able to rely on his [Observation Haki].

For Bill it was just an instinct that except with [Armament Haki] he would never be able to ‘beat’ a Devil Fruit user once they had developed to a certain point.

Why that was?

He didn’t know!

But believing in his instincts, Bill sacrificed his ability to read minds and slow time, and with his Soul of many eyes occupied, his three-headed Soul stood behind him in the ‘shadow’ that he cast in the Warp.

Feeling his Will physically asserting itself more, Bill quickly spoke to his men: “You there, take the Ensign back to the ship and get his wounds checked on.”

Seeing them not move, Bill spoke faster than Spandam, and ordered them again: “Go, that’s an order! Captain Royale and I will attend the Sain- “You arrogant bas-!

Cut off again, Bills face sank and while his eyes turned dark the air inside the spaceship-like room turned heavy as he eyed the masked agent.

 Suddenly, the Gods’ Army trio were back in the room, Lucci crouched down and Bill smelled that he had turned more feline, but Spandam, for all his bluster, fell to the ground gasping.

Looking into Bills pitch black eyes, Spandam convulsed once, but knowing it wasn’t time, Bill didn’t press forward.

Like flipping a switch, Bill’s eyes turned normal color lighting the actual atmosphere, and saying dismissively: “Agent Spandam, the Saint doesn’t care, who are you to speak for him? Do you, speak for the Saint?”

“Gu?!” replied Spandam, but before he could say anything, Saint Camael jumped up shouting with joy: “Eh-eh-eh! It’s done!”

Looking at the cube in his hands, Bill realized that the fool had finished merely one side, but motioning to Nelson to congratulate the Celestial Dragon, the man did so, and Bill got his people out of the room.

He didn’t have time to ask what had happened to Miyagi, but Bill could see that the Goat Mink was missing a few small chunks of flesh – cut out in cubes.

And his heart hardened.

For his other men, the group of would-be future officers and tacticians who Nelson had brought along to train, they were in bad shape too.

It was a different kind of bad shape though, and giving them small orders, it amounted to ‘Wash off in sea water and hide in a bar, don’t stay on the ship.’

Seeing them off, Bill walked back into the room, ready to accompany the Celestial Dragon to the Gala and to suffer any humiliation until that final hour.

In that final hour, he would have to be quick and decisive.

He only hoped that ‘it’ would arrive before the Celestial Dragon’s security detachment of Marines did.