00046. The Gray Terminal Incident

"Do you think those guys will do it?" Ace asked as he fiddled with the cannon in front of him.

Marcus shrugged helplessly as he said, "We offered them a good deal. If they don't do it, we'll just do it ourselves."

"I'm still not sure about this… I mean their pirates and we're just gonna let them go?" Sabo asked.

Marcus placed a hand on the sword on his hip as he said, "My sword didn't want to cut them up, so it should be fine… Besides, aren't you planning on being a pirate yourself?"

"I. I didn't think about that…" Sabo's voice trailed off as he looked at how the cannons were set up before he asked, "Are you sure this is gonna work?"

Marcus double checked the cannon placement before he said, "Probably… Maybe… I mean we won't know for sure until we try it."

"Can't they just run out of the tunnel?" Luffy asked.

"That's why all the cannons are aimed at the tunnel. It should either collapse it or at least damage it enough that they can't run away." Marcus said as he adjusted another cannon slightly.

Sabo examined one of the cannons as he asked, "Are you sure we loaded them correctly? What if those guys lied to us?"

Marcus pointed to the weird setup he created with a bunch of fuses lined up and connected together as he said, "That's in case we loaded it wrong. We should all be off the ship by the time the first cannon fires."

Marcus started checking everything for a final time before he said, "Alright, get off the ship and I'll light the fuse."

As the others left the cannon deck and headed towards the main deck. Marcus took a lighter and after a minute lit the fuse by the stairs and took off. He quickly joined his brothers on the dock and headed towards some boxes for cover as the first cannon went off.

The cannonball slammed into the wall just above the tunnel entrance and exploded with shrapnel spraying everywhere. As people screamed out in pain and confusion, the next cannon went off. It landed close to the same area as the first and caused even more panic among the pirates.

Just before the third cannon went off a loud voice rose above everything else and said, "Stop panicking you idiots and head towards the ship! Whoever attacked us is on it!"

The next cannon fired a moment later but the aim was off and landed a good distance from the tunnel entrance. As the pirates started to charge towards the dock and the ship another cannon fired. The shot was on target this time and another cannonball slammed into the area around the tunnel.

The pirates didn't seem to care and charged forward as the final cannon fired. This cannon was also aimed near the tunnel entrance and ended up collapsing the tunnel entrance. Once Marcus confirmed the tunnel was inaccessible, he glanced at the others and said, "Remember to wait for them to pass us." 

The others nodded in agreement as the first pirates ran past their hiding spot. Marcus studied the group and as it thinned out, he stepped out from the crates and cracked someone over the head. A couple people were close by, but each of them were dropped by the others.

Once the first few were down, Marcus and the others chased after the group to take down the rest. As they started taking them out, a few people who just made it onto the ship noticed and called out, "Enemies behind us on the dock!"

Half of the pirates were already inside the ship, so only about fifteen of them stopped and went to fight Marcus and the others. When the battle started, the boys did their best to end each fight as quickly as possible to not be overwhelmed. It worked well enough at first and ten people were quickly incapacitated.

As the boys engaged the last of the first group, the other pirates emerged from the ship and ran towards the gangplank. Before all of the pirates could make it off the ship, Marcus who just dispatched his opponent took a new stance. He raised his sword over his head before he slashed it downwards.

A small bang rang out as the upper half of his training sword exploded apart. From his swing an air blade shot out and flew towards the gangplank and the ship. It sliced clean through the gangplank and everything else in its way including part of the ship. Some pirates screamed in fright and others in pain as over ten people dropped into the water below.

Now only a handful of people were left on the ship while the rest were on the dock. One of the men on the dock turned out to be Bluejam who apparently led his men in the charge onto the ship. Bluejam was tall, with short black hair styled in rows on the top of his head. He wore a traditional captain's jacket draped over an open white shirt. He led the charge of his men with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.

Bluejam stopped and glanced over his defeated men for a moment as he frowned. His eyes settled on Marcus and the others before he opened his mouth in a cruel smile that displayed half of his teeth were missing in an alternating pattern almost like a zipper. He raised his gun and pointed it at the boys as he said, "You little shits caused me a lot of trouble. I hope you're prepared for the consequences!"

Marcus threw down his broken training sword and placed his hand on the sword at his waist that was oozing bloodthirst as he asked, "Consequences? Do you mean collecting your bounty?"

Bluejam turned his attention towards Marcus and aimed his gun at him as he said, "Since you spoke up, I'll kill you first."

Before Bluejam could fire, Marcus kicked his feet against the ground seven times in less than a second and appeared behind Luffy with his incomplete soru. While not perfected, Bluejam still wasn't able to keep up with the movement but once Marcus stopped behind Luffy he quickly readjusted his aim and fired at Marcus and Luffy. As the first bullet slammed into Luffy's chest and stretched it backwards, Bluejam fired six more shoots until his gun clicked empty.

Bluejam's smile faded as all the bullets shot out of Luffy and took out a couple pirates behind him in the process. Bluejam himself wasn't hit but glared at Luffy and Marcus as he said, "He has a devil fruit… You little shit, you did that on purpose."

Marcus smirked as he said, "Wow, color me impressed. You're not as stupid as you look."

Bluejam raised his sword as he said, "I only planned to kill you originally … But now I'll torture you first and make you beg for death." 

Marcus unsheathed his sword as he said, "You guys take on the rest and I'll hold off Bluejam until you can help."

Bluejam sneered as he said, "The day I get beaten by some kids is the day I quit being a pirate!"

Marcus smirked as he said, "Funny, Porchemy said almost the same thing before we beat him and turned him in for his bounty."

Bluejam's eyes narrowed as he moved towards Marcus and asked, "You're the reason Porchemy disappeared?"

"I just told you I was…" Marcus's voice trailed off before he asked, "Just how stupid are you?"

Bluejam swung his sword down at Marcus in anger as he said, "I'll kill you for insulting me!"

Marcus tentatively parried the blow away as he fought against his own sword that wanted blood. Marcus took on a defensive stance and backed away from Bluejam as he asked in a mocking tone, "I thought you wanted to torture me first? Or did your dumb little pea brain forget already?"

Bluejam let out a yell of frustration as he charged towards Marcus who quickly backed away. Marcus deftly dodged and parried each blow from Bluejam as he quickly led him away from everyone else. Once they were far enough meat, Marcus slowly maneuvered himself so if Bluejam tried to help his men, Marcus could intervene and stop him. Bluejam seemed to be unaware of what Marcus did as his single minded focus was to cut Marcus into pieces.

Bluejam was relentless as he attacked Marcus over and over. Marcus himself never returned any attack and used all of his skill to defend against the onslaught of attacks. After a while the only sound of battle was from two swords that rang out repeatedly every second. Marcus never changed his focus from Bluejam but after a while he said, "It took you long enough."

"We wanted to make sure there were no interruptions." Ace said as he stood off to the side.

At the sound of Ace's voice, Bluejam finished his attack before he finally took a moment to assess the surroundings and found all of his men incapacitated. Bluejam glanced at the other boys for a moment before he said, "Just because you beat some weaklings, doesn't mean you can beat me!"

As he finished talking, Bluejam charged towards Ace and attacked. Ace used the longer reach of his training weapon to parry the attack before Sabo tried to attack Bluejam from the left side. Bluejam easily stepped to the right only to be caught off guard as Luffy attacked. As Luffy's glove-covered fist flew towards Bluejam, Luffy called out, "Gum gum pistol!"

Luffy's slightly stretched out arm connected with Bluejams side and made the man grunt before he pivoted and swung his sword down at Luffy's arm. A clang rang out as Marcus intercepted his blade and held it in place as Luffy's arm retreated. Marcus then twisted his blade and slid it down Bluejam's sword blade to hit the guard for a moment which distracted him from Ace's incoming attack. Ace's naginata slammed into Bluejam's side and staggered him just in time for Sabo's halberd to land on his knee with a sickening crunch.

Bluejam's right knee bent sideways as the man collapsed to the ground screaming in agony. Ace followed up Sabo's attack and used all his strength to hit the man's head. Bluejam scream instantly stopped as he collapsed unconscious from the blow that caved in part of his face. As Ace lifted his weapon up he said, "I thought he would be tougher."

Marcus sheathed his sword that was still vibrating with bloodthirst as he said, "He would be a challenge if one of you fought him alone."

"Are you saying you could have beaten him without issue?" Ace asked in a challenging tone.

Marcus patted his sword's hilt as he said, "If I wasn't afraid of my sword killing him, I could have taken him alone. His skill with a blade was subpar at best."

Ace frowned slightly as Luffy asked, "What do we do now?"

"We make sure we tie up all our prisoners first."

Marcus then pointed at the main pirate ship as he said, "Then we loot that ship first and load up all the treasure we find onto that smaller ship."

"Why are we putting it on the smaller ship?" Luffy asked as he picked his nose.

Sabo and Ace wondered the same thing and looked at Marcus who smiled as he said, "That looks about the perfect size that we can handle. I think we should get some more practice in sailing and take a trip around East Blue with it… And collect more pirate bounties at the same time."

Sabo studied the smaller fancy ship for a few moments before he said, "It's kinda perfect if we are trying to find pirates. It looks like a small pleasure ship for someone who is rich. Just the type of ship pirates would target."

Marcus patted Sabo on the shoulder as he said, "Exactly. So let's borrow it and put it to good use."

The others agreed and then set to work taking care of all the pirates before they transferred anything valuable to the smaller ship. Then Marcus and the others placed a few barrels of oil on the docks before they cracked open a few more and led trails of oil back to the main stash of barrels. Once they were done they forced all the pirates on the main ship and used some ropes to attach the smaller ship to the main pirate ship. Just as the ships started to pull away from the dock, Marcus tossed a torch onto an oil spilled all over the dock.

As the fire quickly spread, the main ship pulled the smaller ship out of the hidden cove. Sabo ended up staying on the smaller ship to control the helm so it didn't drift into anything. Once they cleared the bay entrance a small explosion was heard and before they even reached the coast of Gray Terminal a louder explosion erupted as a massive fireball lit up the already reddish colored sunset sky. A few minutes later the ships cleared the rocky area and came to the coast of Gray Terminal.

What greeted them was a massive fire on the far end to Gray Terminal that was slowly spreading towards the coast. On the very coast itself was a group of people who Marcus quickly recognized, it was the rest of the pirates and the handful who started the fire. It took them an hour to load up all the pirates and give their helpers some money before they set off to turn in the pirates for their bounties.

The ship they wanted to keep was brought with them close to the marine base before they disconnected the ropes and left Luffy to watch over it while it was anchored off the coast. Then they sailed the pirate ship to the dock of the marine base and collected all the bounty money and even blamed the fire in Gray Terminal on the pirates.

The marine captain studied the boys once he heard their explanation and after a moment he asked, "So you took out these pirates but they were still able to somehow start the fire that is raging throughout Gray Terminal?"

Marcus shrugged as he said, "We took them out in groups and the last group started the fire."

The captain glanced over all the pirates now detained in the main courtyard of the base for processing as he asked, "Who was part of the last group that started the fire?"

Sabo let out a helpless sigh as he said, "They were careless and ended up caught in the fire. We couldn't save them."

Ace and Marcus nodded helplessly in agreement and the captain asked with some suspicion, "Why would you try to save pirate scum?"

"The bounty of course!" Marcus said with a smile.