Chapter 13

With the Devil Fruit Locator locked onto Whitebeard's position, Markus didn't have anything else he needed to do at the moment. Instead, he closed his eyes and relaxed to get some sleep. Honestly, sleeping in a cave wasn't too much of an issue for him. He'd spent a month sleeping on the ground back on his little island so sleeping on the cave floor felt nostalgic to him.

After his nap, Markus ate some food and decided to do a little training. Originally he wanted to head straight for Whitebeard but ignoring the infinite energy around him was just something he couldn't do. He could train all of his skills and freely recharge himself using the island's unique conditions. Kuma had outdone himself by sending Markus here.

Once he was ready, Markus immediately activated two skills he needed to focus on training right now, Lightning Armor and Raiju. Technically, Raiju didn't have any levels to it. Instead, using Raiju gave the two skills that made it up, Pussyfoot Maneuver and Lightning Speed, experience. Pussyfoot Maneuver was nearly to level 100 and his Lightning Speed was currently level 2. That gave him a base speed of 1,222 miles per second, add in the +930% movement speed bonus from his footwork and it became a monstrous 12,586 miles per second. For reference, the entire circumference of Earth was just under 25,000 miles. With that speed, he could travel around the entirety of Earth in two seconds.

As amazing as that sounded, it was still far off from the speed of light which was 186,000 miles per second. Hopefully, it wouldn't really matter for what he had planned. Kizaru could potentially reach such a high speed but that didn't mean he could react at that speed or think at that speed. With how lazy and laid back he was it seemed likely that even if he was on guard and fully focused, his reaction speed would still only be higher than a base human. If Kizaru could truly think, react, and move at light speed, then he should have been capable of crushing Rayleigh in an instant. Even with Observation Haki, Rayleigh couldn't move or react at light speed.

This was all theoretical of course, but Markus was hedging his bets that he was correct. Hence his focus on leveling up Lightning Armor. If he could process and react to information faster, he could gain the edge he would need in a speed-based battle against Kizaru.

With his mind made up, Markus quickly exited the cave and welcomed the lightning strikes with his body. His reserves began to fill rapidly but with only the two skills active, they were refilling faster than he could drain them. To help drain his reserves faster, he sat on the ground with his legs crossed and Shodai Kitetsu on his lap and entered his Image Training.

Within his Image Training, he decided to fight against stronger opponents. He had the Vice Admirals and Captains from the attack on Enies Lobby to fight against so he picked them one at a time. Devil Fruits, Haki, experience, strength, the people he summoned had it all and proved to be decent opponents. While fighting them, Markus used as many skills as he could that expended Willpower.

He found himself to be stronger than he expected. A single blow combining Armament Haki with Shigan proved enough to kill a Vice Admiral in a single blow to the head. By stacking similar effects with each other an average blow became a death blow. Stacking Hasshoken on top of any Haki enhanced melee blow became a deadly strike as well. True Damage, damage that ignored all defenses, was not something to joke about and was deadly even when the target used their Armament Haki to defend.

He spent four hours training to gain skill levels in Lightning Armor. Even though his main goal was to level the skill, defeating such strong opponents had the side effect of increasing his level as well. He didn't bother with it though. He could spend his points later. The only skill he didn't bother to train at all was his King Punch. Wasting minutes to an hour to charge it up was inefficient and he was on a bit of a time crunch.

To streamline his training he worked for four hours, then took a short break to rest and eat something before returning to his training one more. He did this for the entire day and some of the night, though it was harder to tell which was which on the perpetually cloud covered island. After his four training sessions, he had one final meal and went to sleep. Once he woke up he planned to track down Whitebeard.

In the short sixteen hours or so that he had trained, he had made considerable progress in the skills he wanted to level up. Most importantly, his Lightning Armor had reached level 44! Being able to have it on for 16 hours straight should have been completely impossible for him, but thanks to the island it proved to be far too easy. Add in trying to perceive his own movements while Raiju was activated and it just blew up in level due to heavy use.

With his Lighting Armor so nicely leveled, he now had a 220% bonus to his perception and reaction speeds. If they were rated at 10 before, when he activated Lightning Armor they would jump to 32 now. His perception and reflexes were essentially three times faster than other people. It would come in extremely handy with the speeds he would be moving at. He pondered how things would change soon. He hoped his meeting with Whitebeard would go well. These thoughts bounced around in his mind as he fell asleep.

When he woke up, it was time for him to leave the island. Thankfully, he could easily return to the island in the future using his Quick Travel skill. In fact... He opened his map and switched to the world view. Whitebeard should already be on his way to Marineford which meant he would be close to Sabaody right about now, relatively speaking. Markus selected Grove 41 from his map and hit the travel button. It was his first time using his Quick Travel so he was rather excited about experiencing it.

The instant he pressed the confirmation button, his entire body transformed into a bolt of lightning and streaked through the sky. He was moving at a speed far beyond his ability to comprehend. All he could see was a black blur as everything combined together into a muddled image in his mind. From an outside perspective, a lightning bolt flew out of a cave and shot high up into the air where it traveled at its maximum speed. The lightning bolt made a massive arc through the air before coming down and striking the ground of Sabaody Archipelago, Grove 41.

As he landed just a second or two after taking off, Markus looked around to observe his situation. From his perspective, he'd started out in the cave, seen black for a few moments, and arrived at his destination. Grove 41 was peaceful at the moment with no one in sight. He could sense some people a distance away from him but no one seemed to be alerted to his presence on the island. That was good. He moved from where he was and looked around, the Sunny had already been moved to another grove so it was no longer in sight. It didn't matter, the ship would be safe for the next few years and he had nothing important on it to recover.

The only person on the island that drew a little extra attention from him was Jewelry Bonney. She'd managed to hide from the Marines and was still on the island. From what he could remember, she stayed on the island until after the war. Shortly after that, she was captured by the marines and he wasn't exactly sure how. He thought about it and decided to sta... follow her and her crew then rescue her from capture. He couldn't remember the exact details of her capture so if he interfered in the wrong way it could end up worse for both of them.

After rescuing her, he planned to immediately ask for the favor to be returned by sending her to Drum Island and Doctor Kureha. He wanted to keep his promise to return Kureha's youth to her. Bonney was the perfect, and only, way he knew of to accomplish that. Bonney was safe for now, he'd return here after the war. Until then...

Markus walked to the edge of the island where he looked at the Devil Fruit Tracker to see which direction he needed to travel in. It looked like he needed to head East. Judging by the direction, it looked like Whitebeard was coming from Fishman Island. It made sense since he couldn't travel past the Red Line any other way. It didn't hurt that Fishman Island was also his territory and under his protection.

Since it wasn't very far, Markus pulled his Cigarette Boat out of his inventory and set it in the water. After jumping onto it, he got comfortable and used the electric engines to drive in the direction his tracker indicated. He pushed his boat to go as fast as it could without hydroplaning off of the small waves. Even though he didn't have Nami's senses of her expertise, she still taught him a bit about navigating. Even without a skill for it, he could be considered, in Nami's words, competent. Of course, sailing in great weather with a device to show your fixed direction wasn't exactly difficult.

After driving for a short time, he could see the Red Line in the distance, the closer he got to it, the larger the cliffs became in his sight. This world really was strange. The biggest landmass was the Red Line that completely circumnavigated the globe along its longitude. Then the Grand Line circumnavigated the latitude of the world splitting it into four quarters, the four blue seas. Considering most of the globe seemed to be nothing but deep oceans, it was really a dangerous place for power holders.

As Markus got closer to the wall, the needle of the compass started to slowly change direction. He slowed to a stop and watched the needle closely. To pass through the Red Line, Whitebeard's ship, the Moby Dick, would have to pass underwater. So... the ship was likely going to pass beneath him. He would need to wait until they surfaced to perform a new coating for their attack on Marineford in the next couple of days.

While waiting for the Moby Dick to surface, Markus dug through his inventory to retrieve two items, a long stick, and a white shirt. He planned to wave a white flag immediately so that Whitebeard wouldn't order him attacked. Whitebeard was the strongest man in the world, for now, and an honorable man but he was still a pirate. He didn't want Whitebeard blowing him out of the water to protect the secret of his arrival. Even if the Marines were already fully prepared and expecting him.

After setting up his white flag, he slowly turned his boat around and slowly followed the signal his tracker was receiving. Half an hour after he faced away from the cliffs of the Red Line, he spotted a shadow beneath the water. Seconds later the water's surface began to bulge before a gigantic ship popped out and rested on the surface. The ship was massive. Bigger than the majority of ships he'd seen in his short life. The Moby Dick had four masts, was lined with cannons on the sides, and a huge figurehead that looked like a sperm whale from the front.

Markus made one hundred percent sure that his white flag was completely visible. Unsurprising, his bright red flame covered boat was instantly spotted. With the Moby Dick well within the range of his Haki, even in passive mode, he could hear the conversations happening. He couldn't pay much attention to them though. On the deck of the ship, he could feel a gigantic powerful man sitting on a chair designed for his stature. He only snapped out of his reverie when the man sitting on the chair, Whitebeard, spoke, "Seems that we have company waiting for us. Who is it, Marco?"

Markus felt another strong individual walking to the side of the ship to look in his direction with a pair of binoculars. In response, Markus held his hands up and gestured to the white flag. He made zero effort to hide himself or his peaceful intentions. It helped that his intentions really were peaceful. Marco looked him over a bit before informing Whitebeard, "It looks like 'Thunder Beast' Silvers D. Markus. He's alone and flying a white flag. What shall we do?"

"Hou? The little upstart with that old man Rayleigh's surname? Interesting. Let him approach but if he makes the wrong move, sink him."

Markus let out a sigh of relief and continued to slowly approach the Moby Dick. With so many powerful figures on the ship, making the wrong move would cost him dearly. He wouldn't die or anything but having his precious boat sunk would be terrible! When he arrived at the side of the ship a rope and rope ladder were lowered. He tied his boat to the Moby Dick with the rope, then proceeded to climb up the rope ladder to the deck of the ship.

As soon as he set foot on the deck, dozens of pistols and swords were pointed in his direction. All of them were held by the stronger members of Whitebeard's crew. The only unarmed person was Marco, but he had a Mythical Zoan that was on par with a Logia, he had little to fear due to his regeneration and flames ready to go at a moment's notice. Markus slowly raised his hands, "I'm not here for a fight. I'm here to help save Ace."

Whitebeard's crew continued to look suspiciously at Markus while sending the occasional glance to Marco. Marco was a tall, lean, and muscular man with a shock of blond hair on the very top of his head. He wore an open purple jacket that showed of his muscles and the tattoo on his chest that looked like a cross with the mustache from their Jolly Roger on it. He also wore a blue sash around dark grey knee-long pants and black sandals. Macro looked Markus over before calmly asking, "And why would you want to help rescue Ace?"

Markus crossed his arms over his chest but kept his hands away from Shodai and his Devil's Flintlock, "Easy. Ace is the brother of my captain, Monkey D. Luffy. If I didn't do my best to help then what kind of scum would that make me?"

Marco went to answer but was interrupted by a loud voice, "Marco, bring him over here. Let me get a good look at the little punk."

Marco looked over his shoulder before making a gesture for the men around Markus to make a path. He was still surrounded but Markus could now see a clear path that led all the way to a giant of a man. Edward Newgate, more commonly known as Whitebeard, sat on a giant seat hooked up to IV's and a breathing machine. This was the first time Markus had laid eyes on the man in person and man did his memories not do the man justice.

Whitebeard had a massive height of nearly 22 feet. However, unlike other massively tall people, Whitebeard had a properly proportioned body covered in thick, powerful muscles. It was clear that despite his old age, Whitebeard was still a very powerful individual. Still, beneath the power radiating off of him, Markus could feel something cold, he assumed it to be Whitebeard's approaching death. Whitebeard wore a white captain's coat, similar to a Marine's coat on his shoulders with no shirt. He prominently displayed his powerful muscles and a myriad of scars earned over his lifetime. Around his waist, he wore a sash that held up loose pants tucked into black boots.

Even while sitting on his chair beneath one of the masts on the ship, Whitebeard still towered over Markus. No wonder Whitebeard considered pretty much everyone a child, compared to his size everyone was child-sized! Markus showed no fear and walked closer to Whitebeard. Whitebeard held his giant naginata, Murakumogiri in his left hand as he looked down at Markus. Murakumogiri was one of the 12 supreme grade (Saijo O Wazamono) swords on par with Markus's own Shodai Kitetsu. Whitebeard showed a stern look as he gazed down at Markus, "You say you're here to help rescue Ace. What makes you think we need the help of some upstart little brat like you? Do you think we're weak and need the help of some noobie?"

Markus stood before Whitebeard and showed no fear. He really had nothing to fear from him as long as he didn't do something to piss the old man off. So, he calmly answered his question, "Not at all. I'm sure that you're aware this is all a trap just to kill you. Sengoku and all three Admirals, along with the Vice Admirals, the surviving Shichibukai, and Garp are all happily awaiting your arrival at Marineford."

Whitebeard snorted, "Tell me something I don't know, brat."

"Blackbeard will be there too."

Whitebeard's eyes narrowed dangerously as a powerful pressure began to emit from his body as he focused a part of his Conqueror's Haki onto Markus and Markus alone. Markus showed no reaction at all and continued to stand calmly. Whitebeard continued to increase the pressure as he asked, "And how do you know that? Are you one of his flunkies?"

Markus shook his head, "My Captain is Monkey D. Luffy, not some traitor. I only wish to help with rescuing Ace."

Whitebeard continued to put more and more pressure on Markus but it was completely useless. His passive 'Life is but a Game' protected his mind and prevented even Whitebeard's Conquerors Haki from having any effect on him. Whitebeard let the silence drag out as the pressure built enough to cause the decking beneath Markus to crack but after seeing no result for a full minute, he finally relented and leaned back in his chair, "Hou. You might have a tiny bit of potential..."

He kept his eyes on Markus, "Why look for us. You could just show up to the fight."

Markus looked directly into Whitebeard's eyes. Now was the time to explain why he was here. Lying to Whitebeard was a fool's errand. The only way forward was to tell Whitebeard the full unfiltered truth.