12 First Assignment

Percy woke up groggily and looked around, he was not sure where he was. The room was not familiar to him. It look like an infirmary to him, he looked down and realized that he had bandages wrapped around his arms. He didn't think he would pass out. Last thing Percy remembered was absorbing the explosion caused by Julius and then nothing.

[shit...] Percy cursed. [don't tell me I failed to negate the whole explosion again, I guess I got to work on controlling my powers after I fully recover]. As Percy was self reflecting on his previous battle, the infirmary door exploded and Zed strolled in with a grin on his face.

"Boy, I see that you're fine. Get your ass out of bed, your headed into paradise. ZAZAZAZAZA" Zed turned around and walked right out the door acting like nothing happened.

[One day, I'm gonna kick your ass old man] Percy thought clenching his teeth while changing into his uniform. He didn't even have time to take a shower and he was already being deployed again.

[These damn marines are treating me like a mule, I hope I got a promotion; if not then someone on that ship is going to be my bitch].

As Percy was grumbling to himself, he noticed a figure that was standing at attention at the end of the hallway. Percy looked up and saw an unfamiliar face.

"Can I help you?" He said to the young woman.

"Sergeant Orange Spatula sir! Most people call me Orange. I am your first officer aboard your battleship rear admiral."

[So I did get promoted} Percy thought to himself. [Weird, no one informed me of anything, Zed must have been too lazy, damn teacher].

"Where is my epitaphs?"

"On the ship sir with the crew?"

"Alright Orange. Where are we headed and who is our target?"

"Yes sir, we are headed to an island called Maltese. The King there has requested headquarters' support and we were deployed. The pirates are somewhat infamous in the first half of the grand line. They are known as the Herd pirates because they have two zoan fruit in their crew."

"Oh?" Percy seemed intrigued as they started to sail away, "what kind of animals?"

"According to his soldier's the king said that they are an ocelot and a ram. The vice captain is the ocelot and the captain Jarr is the ram his nickname is the goat"

Percy was silent for a moment before saying silently "the ocelot could be cute," After collecting himself he went on "how much is their total bounties?"

"70 million belli sir. Not too much." Orange replied

Percy nodded his head and stared at his ship. His men were working on preparing for the upcoming battle and he was proud because he used to do that when he was on Garp's ship in the past.

"Are you able to fight devil fruit users sergeant?" Percy asked Orange who was standing next to him.

"...I don't know. In theory I can. I mean I trained in rokushiki to some extent and I have some experience, but against devil fruit users, maybe?"

Percy was silent for a moment before saying to his second in command,

"I don't need useless people next to me, prove to me that you can fight. You will fight against the ocelot user and I will take on the ram. Your battle will determine if you remain on the ship. If you mastered any part of the rokushiki, it should be easy for you, prove your worth. Understand?"

"Understood sir!" Orange said and saluted Percy.

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A couple days passed and finally Percy and his ship reached Maltese island. He thought part of it would be on fire, but surprisingly it was not. Percy and his soldiers filed out of the ship and was greeted by the royal guards on the docks with a tall man standing at the forefront with a gruff face.

"You must be rear admiral Percy" he said extending his hand out, "I am general Stybla of the Maltese military. I was the one who urged the king to request assistance from you."

Percy shook his hand in understanding. He motioned for the general to walk forward,

"What is the situation, and where are those pirates?"

"Right now the pirates are split, half of them in the middle of the forest while the other half is outside the royal castle laying siege to it. We would like to break the siege, but the captain is smart and is the one parked outside the castle, while his vice captain is in the forest doing God knows what."

Percy blinked and considered the situation, [this does not seem normal, why would they split up forces? They must know reinforcements would come eventually, why risk it?]

He looked at Orange and told her and his men

"we have two options, one is to discover what is going on first and then deal with the pirates; the second option is to capture all the pirates and then discover what the pirates are hiding. It all comes down to how confident Orange is on capturing the vice captain successfully."

Orange had a determined look on her face and looked straight into Percy's eyes,

"leave it to me rear admiral."

"Good. Take 2/3 of the troops and a scout into the forest and capture as much of the pirates as possible. If some try to resist, I'm sure headquarters will understand..."

"Yes sir" Orange said as she saluted and motioned her men to head into the forest with a guide.

"Stybla let's go" Percy said as he headed to what he assumed was the royal castle.

When he got there he saw around 50 pirates yelling at the king to leave his throne.

"How about you let me have a night with your wife?" one pirate was shouting at the castle.

"Nah, Me and my buddy here will be much gentler with her" another pirate said while chuckling out loud.

Percy stared at these lowlifes and realized that it was not worth the space and effort to send them to Impel down.

[Black hole] Percy thought as the ground surrounding him started to get surrounded by darkness. Instantly, the pirates were being sucked into the black smoke.

Before Percy could crush all of them, he noticed that one of the pirates was struggling more than the others.

[That must be the captain]. Percy made eye contact with the pirate captain and said smugly

"you must be the goat?"

The captain herd the condescension in Percy's voice and immediately felt fury running through his body. His body started to shift and he quickly shifted into a ram and broke free from the darkness that was plaguing the outer courtyard.

"Oh..." Percy said as he stared at the ram. "that too is kinda cute, makes me wanna pet it on the way to impel down."

"Kurouzu" Percy said as his hand turned black and Jarr was immediately attracted to the outstretched hand. When Jarr touched it, he lost all of his strength and Percy smiled and slammed him into the ground. Blood spurted out of the captain's mouth and he was panting on the ground. Percy was looking at the captain calmly as he quietly said

[Liberation]

Jarr looked in horror as his crewmates, his friends, were spewed out of the smoke, but they were unrecognizable. They became clumps of meat under the sheer pressure of the darkness of Percy. He sat on his knees in horror as his friends were slaughtered in front of him and he could do nothing about it.

[Dark spears] Percy used his darkness and shigan technique on Jarr to make sure there was no more resistance from the captain, and sure enough, there was not. The captain fainted and he motioned to his men to put sea stone cuffs on Jarr to make sure he can't transform anytime soon.

"I assume you can clean up the rest here general Stybla?" Percy said as he looked at the man who had a mouth agape.

The general took a second before responding, "O-Of course sir, no problem. L-leave it to me."

"Good." Percy walked to the forest and wondered to himself,

[I wonder how Orange is doing, I want to pet that ocelot so badly.]