Force of Nature

A year later

Galan was standing on a roof, holding a long rifle as he looked at a bounty poster next to him. He turned to the target and fired a shot, seeing a person's head explode with his Observation Haki.

Galan turned the gun and fired 3 more shots, dropping three more bodies, leaving only one as he picked up the bounty and jumped off the building, digging his hands into the building he just shot in, sliding down to the bottom as the last target ran out, looking around while holding a pistol and a saber.

Galan dropped from the building and landed on the pirate's legs, snapping them in two. The Pirate screamed at the top of his lungs in pain. Galan turned around and pulled his shotgun from his back, pointing inside the building behind him, firing twice and blasting two more pirates before taking the pistol from the pirate he was standing on.

He dragged him by the hair and walked into the building, unloading the pistol into the rest of the pirates on the scene. One of them grabbed a girl and held a gun to her head, shouting "Stop or I'll shoot! I swear to god!"

Galan stopped and held his hand up, saying "Put her down." The Pirate pointed the gun at him, saying "Don't move!" Galan's eyes sharpened and the people in the building collapsed unconscious.

He walked to the pirate and picked up the pistol, blowing out the guy's brains before finishing off the rest of the pirates in the building, calling in for clean up.

His troops ran in and were used to it by now, cleaning up the mess right away without any questions.

Galan brought the pirate to a room and closed the door, stripping him naked before tossing him onto a bed and chaining him up. A Marine walked in and handed Galan a bag before standing outside the door as a guard.

Galan pulled a table to the bed and pulled out various devices as the pirate woke up, looking around in confusion.

Galan looked at him and said "Where is this man." as he held up a bounty poster. The pirate looked at the poster and shivered from head to toe, shaking his head like a rattle. Galan frowned and took out the handheld snipping shears, putting a toe in between the shears, saying "Speak."

The man shook his head and Galan snipped his toe right off.

The Marines at the door held their rifles, not even flinching as pig butchering screams sounded from the room behind them.

A few minutes later

Galan walked out, tossing a bag to a Marine as he wiped his hands with a rag, saying "Let's go." A Marine went into the room and cleaned up as another asked with a salute "Where to, Vice-Admiral?" Galan took a book of bounties from him, flipping the pages as he replied "Rockstar Island, find all the bounties with last known location on Rockstar. Also look for a name around there 'Denzou Retogatta'"

The Marine nodded and asked "ETD?" Galan looked around and replied "30 minutes." as he walked away. The Marine walked away, sending out orders.

A while later

Galan was sitting in his Quarters, staring at a bounty with a knife in it, sticking it to the wall. He leaned his elbows on his desk, resting his chin on his intertwined fingers as he stared at the bounty.

He would catch this rat fuck no matter where he ran to.

It had been 13 years and Galan was not going to let this asshole run free. Didn't matter if he had a family or who the fuck he was.

This bastard was going to suffer.

But he wasn't so easy to find…

5 years passed just like that

Galan was training on Marineford, coming back from dismantling an entire slave organization in the West Blue. He had a lead on the man responsible for the death of his family but Kong called him back a year ago, telling him to take a break before he became an animal.

Today he was allowed to leave again, but he had to take a kid with him.

Well, 'kid', he was 21 years old while Galan was 26.

The kid was also training with Galan at the moment, his name was Dragon. Garp's son.

Galan had been training Dragon for a year now and was slightly surprised that the kid was so strong already. But not too surprised as Garp probably trained him since he was a kid.

A cement head but he knew how to train!

Galan told Dragon to take a break as they were leaving tomorrow. Dragon didn't talk much, not even after a year of knowing Galan, he just nodded and walked away. Galan didn't really care, he liked that Dragon was all business.

During the year Galan was on Marineford, he saw Tsuru a few times, but she always seemed busy with something. He didn't know what but she seemed worked up about it… And as always, not a flaw on her face from time…

The next day

Galan took Dragon with him, heading for the Grandline to look for a certain man.

During the 5 years of searching, Galan had seen so many pathetic assholes and ended even more of them, but he never found the poor bastard that murdered his family… There were probably thousands of lives ended in Galan's hands alone.

And probably thousands more to come.

Marine work usually worked like this; Galan would find the target, they would spill their guts about the others and Galan would spill their brains before going onto the next piece of shit that happened to be in his crosshairs.

Dragon witnessed everything first hand, acting as Galan's right hand man during the entire time. Garp had always told him that Galan was the meanest son of a bitch he had ever seen and now Dragon got a face full of it.

Galan didn't shy away from showing Dragon a bit of his cards, he figured that Garp's son was a trustworthy guy. Plus everything they were doing was justice, at least in Galan's eyes.

He didn't see anything wrong with eliminating the scumbags and assholes of the world. Every single one of them in the dirt is one less in the world… and Galan was happy with that.

Dragon went from shocked and nauseous, to uncomfortable and dismissive, to completely indifferent within a matter of 3 years.

It wasn't even worth his time to care for these pieces of shit. The things he had seen… He figured they deserved it. Galan had shown him the dark side of pirates while teaching him that not all pirates were like this, for example Roger and Newgate weren't.

Galan told Dragon this because he didn't want him to go around killing every pirate he saw. Some of them were innocent, only guilty of a little piracy like unsupervised sailing or flying a skull and cross bones.

All the dirtiest parts of the world were revealed to Dragon's eyes, the child predators, drug dealers, sex traffickers, slavers, etc.

Dragon deeply remembered one instance a few years ago, when they walked in on their target having his way with a little girl. She barely looked 10 years old. Dragon was so angry he almost killed the target on the spot.

Galan held him back and kicked the guy off the little girl, Dragon remembered the dull and dead look in her eyes. She might've been alive but she was far from living. Galan turned to him and said "Times like these… Saving them is called 'Mercy'." as he grabbed the little girl's neck and snapped it quickly.

Dragon covered his mouth and remembered that these times were the only times Galan showed anything resembling a genuine emotion.

He looked at the corpse in his hand and held her gently, pulling a Sun God Pendant on a thin chain out from his pocket. He held the girl in one hand and the pendant in the other, closing his eyes as he whispered "May you rest in peace." before closing her eyes and laying her on the bed.

Then Dragon watched a scene he would never forget.

They needed the guy for information to their next target, but Galan didn't get anything from him. The man struggled as Galan grabbed his leg, dragging him close before snapping both his knees.

Dragon still remembered the screams as Galan rolled up his sleeves and took off his leather gloves, revealing an abundance of tattoos. Flames, knives, guns, scales, skulls… there was even a tattoo of a series of 4 lines crossed out with a diagonal one.

He remembered asking about it and Galan had told him every line was a year that he hadn't caught the person he was hunting.

Dragon remembered the sound and smell as Galan sat on the man's stomach, kneeling over him as he beat the man to death with his fists. His face didn't flinch or change a shade, Dragon wasn't even sure if Galan blinked at all or not. His eyes stared at the man as he punched over and over until there was nothing left.

Even the floorboards were shattered when Galan was done.

Each punch had little power but a tremendous amount of pain, over and over, for hours.

After the first hour, the twitching stopped.

After the second hour, blood was already pooling under the corpse.

And after the third hour, there was nothing left.

Nothing resembling a human anymore.

That was the day Dragon understood how broken his Vice-Admiral was. This guy, whatever he went through, it broke something inside of him. Something that everyone else had, something that shouldn't've been able to break.

Dragon didn't know what that was, but he knew that his Vice-Admiral was a man who was suffering on the inside. Maybe every moment he was still alive was torture. Dragon didn't know, but what he did know was that whoever broke his Vice-Admiral wasn't going to be as lucky as the mangled corpse on the ground.

That was also the day Dragon began to revere Galan from the bottom of his heart.

This man who had seen evil and bathed in it to destroy it just might've become his hero.