_________ POV Narration_________
The Marine ships moved as soon as Enel gave them a destination.
"We are going to Jaya..."
"The Trading Port?" "Former safe-haven for pirates in Paradise(first half of Grand Line)?"
The Rear Admirals seemed quite confused with that choice, but they had the supplies to make that journey, with more to spare.
"We're going to be cutting through the Calm Belt, so the journey should only take around 3 weeks..." One of the Rear Admirals said as he traced their journey on the large map they had on the table.
"We don't have an eternal pose for that island though..." The other Rear Admiral said as he looked at the poses they had, which were mostly for marine bases within the Grand Line and larger cities.
"That's fine, I have this one." Enel placed an Eternal Pose on the table, the name that had been written on it was scratched out, but the Rear Admirals decided to just trust Enel on that one.
The ships quickly rose their sails, immediately sporting Jolly Rogers. The Rear Admirals were masquerading as Pirates that had stolen two marine ships, likely an attempt to do their mission covertly.
The marines also changed into attire fitting the operation, most of them wearing casual clothing.
Enel was a bit confused by that, as they had dressed as marines when entering the village.
One of the Rear Admirals did end up informing him that they only dressed as marines because they wanted to calm the residents of the village, and had figured that appearing as Pirates wouldn't have been a great idea.
Both Rear Admirals were now sporting black capes instead of their usual coats, and the ships cut through the high seas with impressive speed.
The wind seemed to be with them, as their escape from the islands pertaining to the Goa Kingdom was smooth and without any form of interception from government agents.
Enel spent some time speaking to the residents of Foosha Village.
Even after a week had passed, many were still mourning the lives lost or shaken by the fact that they now had to uproot their entire lives.
Enel could somewhat sympathise with them, the feeling of guilt he had towards them lessened a lot when Woop Slap, the bandaged-up Mayor, ended up thanking him.
"I guess not all pirates are scum..." Enel didn't really know what to say to that. He remembered Woop Slap being on good terms with Shanks, but he decided not to press the issue too much.
Enel didn't get to speak much with the other residents of Foosha village, Momonga had somehow already woken up, despite his injuries.
The doctors were quite shocked, but Enel wasn't that surprised. 'He's a full-fledged Vice Admiral after all...'
Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals made up a large section of the Navy's fighting power, and many figures among them were strong enough to take on the majority of pirates in the New World.
Momonga was rather happy to speak more to his fellow marines, the Rear Admirals seemed quite concerned with his missing arm, but Momonga himself was able to take it in stride.
"I only lost my arm because I was weak... This only means that I must grow stronger from now on..."
Those were the words that Momonga had given them. Enel could understand that, but he still felt that Momonga was the type to keep silent about his insecurities anyway.
And Enel was right to think that. One time, during the night. He managed to speak to him in private for a bit. Well, 'drink' with him was more accurate.
Momonga was drinking some sake, looking at his bandaged armless shoulder...
Enel could tell that his gaze was complicated, he didn't speak much, he merely sat on the railing of the ship and drank a bit with him.
'Say a lie enough times, and even you will eventually start to believe it.'
That was what Momonga was doing. It was how some people chose to deal with loss. And Enel decided not to do much about it.
He knew Momonga, he had spoken to him before and while in Marineford. But they weren't exactly friends. Acquaintances were a more apt description of their relationship.
Enel drank with him but didn't try to comfort him in any way.
Eventually, Enel managed to steal a newspaper off of a colony of News Coo(Newspaper-carrying seagulls with hats).
The news was about what he and the Rear Admirals had expected.
'Demons of Foosha Village tortured and killed a helpless world noble' All of the residents were in fact branded as demons and were to be hunted by bounty hunters and marines.
They each received a hereditary bounty of 30 million Berry. Even the children.
Enel whistled a bit when seeing their bounties. 'The World Government sure has a lot of money to spare...'
The fact that no bounties were different from one another meant that the World Government didn't actually have eyes on the situation. Well, none that Enel hadn't killed anyway.
After all, Woop Slap was the one to actually kill the World Noble. His bounty would've likely been significantly higher if that was known.
That was a good thing, as it meant that the involvement of the marines would aslo be kept a secret... At least the involvement of some marines.
Momonga didn't get that great of treatment in the press.
'The Noble Killer Momonga' A bloodthirsty former marine that turned against the innocent world noble he was supposed to protect and helped the demons of Foosha Village torture him.
He was also credited with killing all of the 'Marines' inside the nearby fake Marine Base.
Momonga received a bounty of 400 million Berry, unlike the villagers though, he only wanted Alive.
Most likely thanks to Akainu pulling some strings and preparing for some worst-case scenarios.
The villagers were petrified when learning of their new status, not one of them could understand what they had done to deserve such a thing.
Woop Slap did give them some perspective.
"None of us did anything... But our existence happened to annoy someone important, so they simply decided to kill us."
It wasn't a comforting thought, and Enel could see that many were scared when hearing that. So he decided to intervene at that point.
"It can't be helped. From now on, you are all under my protection, so you can rest easy..."
Enel said as he crossed his arms, the villagers looked up at him with confusion. Many of them knew about him, the Emperor of the Sea, the Sky King, the One that had Betrayed the Marines.
He certainly had the strength to protect them... But why did he?
That question Enel didn't bother to answer, as no one ever asked it anyway. But it would answer itself when they eventually reached their destination.
Enel's bounty remained unchanged in that incident, likely because the world government didn't want to admit that he was involved in the matter.
It was either that, or they blew their budget on the bounties of the villagers.
Either way, Enel didn't care. The World Government had made their move, they dug their hole.
Now it was up to Enel to push them into it.
'... I guess it's time to contact Morgan...'
He would do that after transporting the villagers to his home base though, After reaching Jaya, he'd be able to carry them in turns to the Sky Island.
And the journey went smoothly... At least until they reached the Calm Belt.
The storms got stronger, but they didn't last long, as Enel just blew them off with ease. No natural lightning seemed to even dare to strike their ships.
But the Sea Kings were different...
Usually, the marine ships would be able to travel freely through the Sea King-infested Calm Belt, but for some reason, they were a lot more violent than before.
Enel threw around lighting pillars all across the seas, killing anything that attacked them in a gruesome fashion. But the Sea Kings seemed almost mindless in the way they were attacking.
Momonga also seemed to be unable to understand what was happening.
"Usually, Sea Kings are extremely intelligent... But they seemed to have all gone mad..." Momonga also cut the head of one Sea King that got too close to the ship.
He had fought Sea Kings before, so he could recognize the fact that they were behaving strangely.
Enel killed more and more Sea Kings as they cut their way through the Calm Belt, the sea around them was dyed red.
Many of the civilians on the ship were scared by the situation, but they were also scared by Enel's power.
At the very least that power was being used to protect them, so it wasn't exactly a bad thing...
Eventually, Enel caught something in the corner of his comprehension.
He looked to the side, and far into the distance, he could see a black dot. Upon further inspection, it was actually a rowboat, and a single person was sitting inside of it.
Then he heard it within his Observation Haki... The tortured screams of a woman.
It didn't exactly take a genius to realise that the sounds were coming from the ship.
His electromagnetic waves bent around the entire boat as Enel realised that the sound was coming from a speaker.
He narrowed his eyes as he turned to Momonga and said.
"Protect the ship while I do something..."
Enel then proceeded to turn into a bolt of lightning, appearing again above the small rowboat.
This time, he could see and feel a piece of strange equipment on that ship. It seemed to be a speaker, looping the same sounds of a tortured woman over and over again.
Sea Kings seemed to not be attacking that rowboat, but Enel could feel them becoming angrier when they were close to it.
Enel didn't waste any time, appearing in front of the person on the rowboat and looking at him with an empty gaze.
"... A recording of a former Poseidon being tortured? I guess you seem like the type of people to keep that around..."
The agent seemed to be startled by Enel's appearance, it was clear that he was nothing more than small fry.
He was disposable, sent there with an easy-to-replicate piece of equipment. He was likely not expected to return alive from his mission anyway.
'So they were tracking our location after all... I just hope the Pirate ship cover strategy worked out.'
Enel turned the cassette player-looking contraption with ease, as his other hand extended and crushed the man's neck almost instantly.
The mand didn't have the time to react. Then something unexpected happened. The man's body seemed to bloat out instantly, exploding as Enel simply flashed away.
He had grabbed the equipment as he took to the skies.
'Seems pretty nifty... Though a bit twisted.' Was the thought he had as the contraption also glowed a bit in orange light.
Enel simply rolled his eyes, dropping it as it was exploding and reappearing above the two ships he was escorting.
'Of course, they'd have a dead man switch...'
___________________________________________________________________________
Hope you liked the chapter! Didn't really get to write much the entire day.
More about the recording will be said next chapter btw
If u want to support me look up VeganMaster(VeganCult) on Patre_on, you'd also get 10 chapters in advance (or 5 depending on tier)