Chapter 18

After splitting off from the others, Markus slipped into an alley and got to work. He used Seimei Kikan to make his face fatter while changing from causal clothing into his black and white pinstripe suit. The one he bought back on Alabasta to gamble in Crocodile's casino. Once his change was complete he looked like a radically different person and would be difficult to recognize, even by people who knew him well. He'd even gone a step further in using Semei Kikan to rearrange the natural somewhat-spikey look of his black hair to be slicked back with a greasy appearance. At the moment he looked nothing like his wanted poster.

After getting some directions from a helpful local woman, Markus made his way toward the shipyards. He planned to specifically avoid the Galley-La company as it was where CP9 worked and he didn't want any of them to have anything to do with the creation of his boat. Besides, he needed someone creative and maybe a little crazy to help make his boat. After getting the basic design made with Nami, he'd added some details that would make the boat the single fastest one on the sea.

There was a lot of commotion near the docks that Markus ignored. He'd seen the members of CP9 beating up some pirates that tried to get away with not paying for their repairs with his Haki. He moved to a different section and started asking around for a shipwright that liked to work on more... interesting designs. Eventually, he was guided to a rundown building off on its own that everyone seemed to avoid. Seeing that brought a smile to his face, "Crazy old genius get!"

Markus had spent an hour asking various people and this spot was recommended a few times, along with warnings about the 'crazy coot' that ran the small workshop. Markus was counting on the age-old trope of the 'crazy old man who's really a genius' to kick in. He walked right up to the front door and tried to open it, it was locked. Since the shop door wasn't open, Markus started knocking on it and continued to do so for five minutes straight before he heard an angry male voice shout, "What the hell do you want?! I don't care! Go away!"

Markus grinned broadly and pulled out the plans he and Nami had drawn up for his boat. He held them at eye level and facing out so the first thing anyone would see when opening the door would be the plans. Preparations complete, Markus started knocking again, even harder this time. Even weakened by the seastone bracelet, the rickety door rattled in its frame.

Shouting and cursing came from inside of the building, "Goddamnit! Go away! Can't an old man drink in peace! Fuck! I'm closed! Dammit!"

Soon Markus could hear infuriated stomping as the old man inside of the small building came over to the door. Markus's smile grew and he didn't have to wait long for the man to rip the door open and start shouting, "Listen up you fucker! Leave... me..."

"..."

"..."

Markus let the silence drag out while he peeked around the edge of the blueprints for his boat. In front of him was a short old man wearing dirty overalls, no shirt, and no shoes. Though he was old enough to have a grey beard and bald head, his body was still fit and covered in strong muscle. His brown eyes were open wide as they moved rapidly over the plans for the boat taking in every detail that had been drawn out.

Once he was finished looking over the first page, which just showed the boat's full exterior design, he grabbed the entire stack from Markus to look at the other plans. Without a word he turned around and walked back into his shop, leaving the door wide open, while mumbling to himself. Markus only had one thought in mind as he followed the man into the shop, "Perfect."

The interior of the shop was dingy, dusty, and filled with empty liquor bottles. When he moved further inside, he could see the old man sitting at a table covered in empty bottles, some freshly knocked off to make room for the blueprints. He was still mumbling to himself as he flipped through the pages, sometimes turning to previous ones for reference.

The design Markus had made with Nami was based on his memory of Cigarette Boats in his old world. He'd increased the size a bit and made the bow section into a simple cabin that had enough room for a micro-apartment with everything he would need except a shower. For that, he'd designed a hose system and could take a shower on the top of the bow.

For propulsion, he'd designed two systems. The first was just a bunch of Jet Dials that could lift up and rotate 180 degrees. He'd did that so that when the boat was moving their opening could face the wind while he was moving to charge then turn around and lower into the water for propulsion. The second, and main motor, was designed to be a pair of large and powerful electric motors. Markus still hadn't found any rare earth magnets, but they weren't strictly necessary to make an electric motor. All he really needed was a lot of copper.

Markus cleaned a spare chair of empty bottles and took a seat while crossing one leg over the other and crossing his arms. He said nothing and let the old man focus entirely on the blueprints for his ship. They weren't perfect, very much amateur work, but thanks to Nami's excellent skills it still looked good. The silence continued for almost half an hour before the old man harrumphed, "It's amateur work but the concept is pretty interesting. But it's impossible. I've never heard of these dial things and I don't know how anyone would expect an 'motor' made entirely of copper to even work!"

Markus didn't argue with the man and instead stored his seastone bracelet inside of his inventory before retrieving two objects. The first was a Breath Dial, the second was a small scale version of the electric motor that he'd made. The old man leaned forward and looked curiously at the two items, his eyes practically shining like a kid on Christmas eyeing presents. Markus picked up the Breath Dial first and swung it around a bit to store some air in it. Once he was done, he aimed the opening at the man and pushed the apex of the shell. A strong wind came from the shell and blew the mans beard and the few wisps of hair he had remaining on his head, "This is a Breath Dial, the weaker cousin to the Jet Dials I want to use in the boat. Don't worry, I have all 50 that I want to be used on the boat."

Markus let go of the apex of the shell and it was instantly snatched out of his hand by the old man. He rolled it over in his hands looking at it from every direction, "Fascinating. If you have these, why even worry about a secondary propulsion system?"

"While these are great and the Jet Dials are even better, the motor I designed will be even faster. These are just for when I'm feeling lazy."

Markus gestured to the small-scale electric motor he'd made. The motor was super simple and very basic. Something a child could make with the proper tools. There was an iron bar running through the center of the motor. Attached to the iron bar was a flat circle, like an O, made of one long piece of copper wire that had been wrapped around many times. On either side of the center bar were two more pieces of iron wrapped in many layers of copper wire, electromagnets. From all three of these pieces stretched pieces of wire that had been broken up and weaved together into just two wires, a positive and a negative.

As the man watched, Markus gripped the wires, one in each hand, and used his electricity. The center bar of the motor began to spin and the more power he put into it, the faster it spun. Though, it would be even better if it had bearings to help it out and reduce friction. The old man watched as the axle of the motor spun at various speeds as Markus controlled the output of his electricity. The more he pumped into it, the faster it would spin. When he felt the old man had seen enough, Markus stopped his demonstration.

The old man leaned back in his chair and picked up a half-full bottle of rum to take a swig before asking, "Devil Fruit?"

Markus held up his right hand and generated a few sparks of electricity as his reply. The old man nodded, "Interesting."

Markus crossed his arms over his chest, "The motor I designed is basic and I can explain the concept to you and leave this model for reference. It would be better if I could get my hands on some magnets, or lodestones, to use in its construction. Sadly I couldn't find any so this will have to do."

The old man took another swig of his rum before setting it aside and returning to look over the blueprints, "The basic shape of the boat is fine but the internals and propulsion systems are shit. Tell me everything you can about this 'motor' of yours."

Markus launched into an explanation of the electric motor and used the model to point to the parts he was explaining. He wasn't an expert in the subject but he could remember enough from his high school and college classes and experiments to make a crude version. If he could have remembered more he might have been able to design a more complex and powerful motor. He might be able to in the future after finding some magnets and doing some experiments.

The two talked for an hour with the old man asking questions and Markus answering them to the best of his ability. When the old man was finally satisfied he looked at Markus, "Gimme the Jet Dials, 25 million Belly to buy materials, and a week."

Markus hopped to his feet and cleared a section of the floor, shoving the empty bottles to the side. He started pulling the Jet Dials out of his inventory and lining them up until he had all 50 for the boat pulled out. After that, he dropped a pile of Belly's totally the 25 million. The old man wasn't exactly surprised seeing Markus pulling things out of thin air, he just chalked it up to 'Devil Fruit' and left it at that.

Once everything was out the old man nodded, "Now get the fuck out. I don't want to see you for a week!"

Markus just chuckled and left. He wasn't the least bit worried about the old man running off with his money or Jet Dials. Throughout the entire time he was with the old man, he'd been honest and hadn't shown any signs of deception. Rather, Markus could feel extreme excitement from the man at the thought of building such a unique boat. Another reason was that if the man tried to run off, he wouldn't get very far before Markus would hunt him down and kill him to get his things back.

That was highly unlikely though. The moment Markus had left, he kept a focus on the old man with his Haki and felt the old man suddenly become extremely energetic and excited. He was already hard at work redrawing the blueprints to make the ship even better than the crude version Markus had designed.

That was good enough for Markus and was one less thing he would need to worry about. There would be enough space on the boat for a couple of people to be comfortable but not much more. It didn't matter. He only really wanted it to have a kick-ass way to travel around. It would be boring to teleport everywhere. Though he wouldn't hesitate to if he needed to get somewhere quickly.

As he walked around buying different food ingredients that all began with 'water water' before becoming normal, he paid attention to his Haki and scanned for his friends. He'd gotten to the point where the majority of the information from his passive Observation Haki had become background noise. Only things of interest that were 'negative' in his perception jumped out at him.

As his Haki expanded, he located Luffy, Nami, and Usopp not too far away meeting with a strong presence and a weaker one. As he focused he recognized them as Kalifa and Iceburg. Kalifa had a strong presence thanks to her CP9 training. She was a rather attractive woman but her personality was shit. Then she got her Devil Fruit and it was... weird. He'd leave it at that.

As his scan expanded to cover all of Water 7 and beyond, he noticed multiple things. Robin was following a stranger with a strong life sign, another CP9 agent. Kaku of CP9 was on the Going Merry checking the damage and talking with Zoro. The other CP9 agents seemed to be doing work under their cover. Even if it was a cover, they were damned good at their jobs.

As he watched the goings-on in the city, he came to a cafe and decided to sit down and enjoy a nice cup of tea and a snack. Seeing the almost offended look the waitress gave him because of his fat ugly face made him smirk playfully. Every time she came near him, he would send her a flirty wink and make her disgusted. Ah, how he missed messing with women while he looked so fugly.

In the middle of enjoying his tea and cake, Markus suddenly winced and stuck a finger in his ear to wiggle around while muttering, "Damn Luffy, stop yelling."

Nami and Luffy had just realized the Franky Family had kidnapped Usopp and stolen two-thirds of their money, 200 million Belly. As he sipped his tea he tried to think of a way to sneak a few hundred million more to Franky for the construction of the Sunny. He sighed and decided to distract himself for a bit by looking through his system shop. He'd been hunting for either an Extinct or Ancient Dial ever since they became available, now he finally saw one. Not just any one either, but one he recognized and coveted, the Reject Dial!

Without batting an eye, he purchased the Reject Dial for fifteen million. The moment it appeared inside of his inventory, he pulled it out and began punching it with his full strength over and over again. Why? To build up power in it! Punching the dial felt weird to him because every time his fist touched it, it was like the dial just absorbed everything. It reminded him of punching a super soft pillow. He repeated this process until he felt like stopping.

Even after a hundred hits, the Reject Dial looked perfectly fine and stored all of that kinetic energy. He really wondered if the theory that dials could store something infinitely was true. Either way, the Reject Dial now had a ton of power stored and was ready for use. He finished his tea and cake before finding a clothing store to buy a pair of fingerless gloves from. He wore the gloves with the Reject Dial on the palm of his right hand and an Axe Dial on his left.

As he was admiring his new toys, he suddenly felt several massive spikes of rage at the very edge of his passive Observation Haki range. He expanded his range further to get a better understanding of why Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Chopper were so enraged. When he did, he narrowed his eyes. An instant later he appeared near them and a severely beaten and unconscious Usopp. His eyes narrowed as sparks shot off of him. He'd completely forgotten about Usopp getting so severely beaten in the show.

Usopp wasn't exactly his favorite person but that didn't mean he hated him. It was his attitude and cowardice he hated. Being wary or cautious was one thing but being afraid of your own shadow was another. Regardless of how he felt about Usopp's shortcomings, he was a member of the crew and a friend. The Franky Family needed to pay. Sanji pulled out a cigarette and lit it while veins throbbed on his forehead. Luffy started cracking his knuckles. Zoro wrapped his bandana around his head. Chopper shifted to his large human form. Markus rolled his shoulders while the small sparks around his body became more violent.

Oh yes, the Franky Family was going to pay heavily.