Chapter 17

"Halt! Put your hands up and-! Argh!"

Crunch!

Marshall pulled his hand out of the wall he'd slammed the Marine's head into, blood spilling from the resulting hole as he snarled, "Of course! Of fucking course we find the only island in the New World with a Marine presence on it!" He ranted, stalking through the halls of the base, his Observation Haki running at full power. He'd gotten separated from Vertara when they'd tracked the thief to the base, Vertara running ahead while he'd been stuck dealing with the guards.

Apparently you weren't allowed to just waltz into a New World Marine base, or so the guards had said, laughing when he'd asked - politely! - for them to let him by. He didn't waste time explaining why he wanted inside (he recognized the stubbornly condescending look on their faces), deciding fuck it. Before the thought was finished, his fist was buried in one guard's face and it felt so good. So he did it again. And again. The guard collapsed, face a bloody mess. His partner tried to interfere and received the same treatment.

Five minutes later, he walked through the front door into a scene straight out of a horror movie. There had been a group of Marines training in the courtyard when Vertara came through; blood and viscera were everywhere. He could hear the sounds of fighting coming from the right, Vertara's cackling mingling discordantly with the screams of fear and pain from whoever she was fighting.

Deciding to let her have her fun, he opened his Observation Haki to the max and headed in a different direction. It didn't take long for him to run into the first squad of reinforcements, and he snarled and proceeded to cut loose.

By the time he'd put that Marine's head through the wall, half the population of the base was dead. His arms were caked in red up to his elbows, the walls and floor were covered in blood, some even splattered on the ceiling, and he still hadn't found that damn thief! He'd checked every Marine he killed for Vertara's claw marks and found nothing, much to his irritation. The direction Vertara had taken had gotten quiet, so she might have had more luck. He sensed someone decently strong headed in that direction, likely the second in command of the base, but the strongest person he could sense was still further back in the base. He was going in that direction, but progress was slow because he was checking bodies and dragging anyone he sensed on his route out of their hiding places.

As it turned out, Vertara beat him to the Base Commander. He scowled when he walked through the ruins of a formerly sturdy door and found the man barely on his feet and bleeding profusely. It painted an odd picture; a burly, bald-headed man facing off against a slender, voluptuous redhead and clearly losing. The bald man was covered in blood and so was Vertara, none of it hers. The Base Commander was also missing several chunks of flesh from his arms and shoulders, so obviously Vertara was having fun, which didn't help his mood.

"Why are you playing around?" He demanded, and then noticed something that had him facepalming, an action he swiftly regretted when the blood on his hand flaked off on his face. "Why are you naked?" He nearly groaned in exasperation when Vertara looked down at herself and shrugged. With the exception of her necklace and a thorough coating of blood, she was completely nude.

Vertara didn't understand his reaction, instead shrugging again and explaining, "I followed the trail of the thief and found this room. The man over there was trying to kill the thief, so I stopped him for you,"

Two other people were in the room, which was the very definition of the word 'trashed', one boy and one girl, both looking barely older than teenagers. The boy was down on the ground, unconscious or close to it, the girl kneeling at his side and crying, and Vertara was pointing to the boy.

His mood promptly changed from exasperated to murderous, face darkening as his hand lowered and he looked at the thief with undisguised rage. Looking at the Base Commander, whose face was a mixture of anger and relief at being ignored, Marshall roared.

"No way in hell are you killing that thieving bastard before I do!"

The Marine recoiled, then snorted and exerted obvious effort as he straightened up, "So, the Devil Fruit that brat ate is yours, is it?"

"He already ate it?!"

Inching away from his aura of killing intent, Vertara squeaked when he turned burning eyes towards her and wordlessly growled.

Receiving the message, she stopped playing with her food. As Marshall stalked over to the two teens, the only sound coming from the bald man were high-pitched screams.

(To the Marine's credit, he was strong enough that she had to use the trick that Marshall taught her, the one that turned her claws black.)

In the end, he didn't kill the thief. After seeing just how young he was (if that kid was over eighteen he would eat his boots), it just wouldn't have felt right, because while he might be a murderous bastard, he was a murderous bastard with Standards. Killing kids was a big no in his book. The girl begging him not to hurt the boy might or might not have factored into his decision.

The boy woke up right around then, took one look at Marshall looming over him and looking none too happy and promptly paled and shoved the girl behind him in a protective gesture. Then he saw Vertara striding over, gnawing on the Base Commander's severed arm and covered in blood, and his face rapidly changed from white to green.

On closer inspection, it was clear that he and Vertara had interrupted something. The girl was wearing a wedding dress, for Davy Jones' sake! The boy's injuries were pretty serious; aside from the slices on his back from Vertara's claws, he also had almost a dozen broken bones, and his haki was telling him there was a good amount of internal bleeding. It was clear the kid had had his ass kicked, very thoroughly at that. The girl was crying harder now, eyes wide and silently pleading with him not to kill him. Just like that, his rage vanishing like water down a drain.

He obviously didn't know the whole story, so with a long, resigned sigh, he grabbed the two teens and held them under his arm. Turning on his heel and marching through the bloody hallways, he called back to Vertara, "Catch up when you get done!" Ignoring the struggles of the boy, honestly not even feeling any of the feeble blows - bad angle, not enough space to gather momentum, he analysed - as he walked. It didn't take him long to get back to the front gate, though he didn't expect to be greeted by the sight of a large mob of people milling about when he stepped outside.

Blinking, he started wondering whether or not he was going to have to fight off an angry mob. He hoped not, he saw some elderly people in the crowd and like he said, standards. Before anything could happen, the girl under his arm started struggling. She'd been such a model passenger (aka captive) until then that he obliged her unspoken request to be set down. The boy he was somewhat less gentle with, but the brat deserved it. Much to his surprise, the girl stood facing the crowd, throwing her arms out and standing in front of him and the boy. "Wait!" She cried, "There's no need to attack! This man and his friend killed the Marine's here!" Taking a deep breath, she yelled, pouring every ounce of feeling into her voice that she could, "This man and his friend saved us!"

A tense veil of silence descended, broken only when an older woman hobbled to the front of the crowd, leaning heavily on her cane as she asked, "Is that true, Krystalene?" The hand gripping her cane trembled, her voice hoarse with emotion and her eyes bright with desperate hope. Abruptly, he was sure that she and the girl were related, a fact confirmed by the girl's next words.

"Yes, mother, it's true. Wilde tried to save me, but Vice-Admiral Bruno was too strong. Wilde and likely I would be dead if this man and his friend hadn't launched an attack on the base."

A storm of muttering began as the girl turned, somehow elegant despite her torn, stained wedding dress and dropped into a formal curtsy. "I cannot thank you enough for saving us, but please accept the sincerest gratitude of both the island and myself for freeing us."

As if on cue, a jubilant cheer erupted from the crowd. Any lingering anger was lost beneath confusion as he looked at the celebrating people, the girl and her mother now hugging and crying in joy.

Okay, obviously he was missing something. Mentally throwing up his hands, he gave up and let the brewing celebration sweep him away. Vertara would catch up later, and in the meantime he'd get the thief patched up so he could kick his ass.

Eventually he got the full story from the girl in the wedding dress, whose name was Amaranda Krystalene. Krystalene was considered the most beautiful girl on the island, and the fact that she looked attractive even while crying her eyes out supported that opinion. She was eighteen, just like he thought, with long blonde tresses, crystal blue eyes, and delicate complexion. She also had a perfect hourglass figure and stood confidently, comfortable in her own skin even when she was scared out of her mind.

(She could probably rival Boa Hancock for the title of 'Most Beautiful Woman on the Sea'...wait, had Hancock even been born yet?)

Unfortunately, it was because of her beauty that she caught the eye of Vice-Admiral Baldwin 'Bear Claw' Bruno, who wanted her at first sight. She was in love with her childhood friend Jesse Wilde and refused his offer, which was more like a poorly veiled threat. Baldwin didn't take no for an answer, badly breaking Krystalene's mother's leg in an attempt to force her compliance. She still refused, and he took it out on the Islanders.

Taxes, accidents, stolen goods, you name it, he did it until even the Islanders reluctantly urged her to just marry the man so he and his underlings would leave them alone. But, she whispered, lips twisted into a bitter smile, the Vice-Admiral never had any such plan. Wilde protected her as best he could, but he just wasn't a match for the Vice-Admiral, and time had been running out. After the man threatened both her mother and the one she loved, she'd given in, agreeing to marry him as long as he left the two of them alone.

(Her eyes glittered like jagged shards of ice; ready to pierce and draw blood at the slightest movement. The islanders had tried to give her away to save their own skins, and then thought that coming to meet her after it was all over meant they were forgiven, but he knew better. This girl cared for only two others now.)

Wilde hadn't been able to accept it. Though he was a year younger than her (called it!), he'd always watched out for her. His parents, both dead, had been thieves and liars and everyone said that he was the same, but Krystalene thought differently. She was the only one who gave him a chance, but one chance was all he needed. He was determined to save her, but the fact of the matter was that he was no match for the Vice-Admiral in direct combat. But he knew a way to even the odds, she explained.

"Please forgive him, Mr. Marshall," she pleaded earnestly, "Wilde was desperate - Devil Fruits are rare, and he had no time to find another after seeing yours, that's why he took it."

She then described the brief battle between Wilde and the Vice-Admiral after Wilde had showed up after eating the Devil Fruit. Wilde's new powers had given him a brief edge, but the Vice-Admiral had adapted before the boy could press his advantage.

When he heard which fruit it was, he grit his teeth, eye twitching because Davy Jones damn it!

(The worst part, he later ranted to Rouge after the party wound down and he got back to his ship and relayed the story, was that he couldn't even kill the boy for it. Rouge just laughed at his whining. Why was he friends with her again?)

"So, why were you naked?" He asked Vertara as she climbed through the window of the room at the inn the people gave him, skin and hair free of blood and freshly clothed.

"One of the enemy was decently strong." She replied.

It took him a moment to figure out what that meant, but when he did he groaned and knocked the back of his head against the wall he was leaning on. "...You hate-fucked him, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"He's not going to show up later for revenge, is he?" He asked, part serious and part morbid curiosity.

"No, I ate him afterwards." She assured him, which...yeah. He wasn't going to touch that with a pole as long as Whitebeard.

"So what were you up to aside from showering?" He himself had washed up as soon as he'd been directed to the village inn and given their best room, glad to get the blood from under his nails. He had a few scratches from some attacks he hadn't bothered dodging, but nothing that would need medical attention. Which was good, since Wilde the thief was still being treated at the doctor's office.

Vertara stretched, walking over to sit next to him and snuggling into his side. "Looting," she answered cheerfully. At his raised eyebrow, she elaborated, "I searched the base and grabbed all of the money and supplies I could find, a large amount of clothes, some of which might even fit you, and all the books and papers I could carry."

Good, she had the basics down. He nodded in approval. He curled his arm around her and returned her grin with one of his own.

Shifting so they were lying down, he yawned so widely his ears popped and mumbled, "Get some sleep. The villagers are setting up a party so we might hang around a few days to take advantage. I think you'll like Krystalene, the girl we found with the thief. Girl has a heart of ice underneath that pretty face."

"And the thief?" She asked, amused.

"Fuck no."

They left a week later, only to discover some unintended cargo three days out.

"No." He spoke firmly, crossing his arms, "No, you are not coming with us. I can respect the balls it took to sneak onto my ship, but I will still kick your ass."

Jesse Wilde met Marshall's irritated gaze defiantly, staring at him in challenge. "Just try it, old man." He bit out, and putting aside the question of how old Wilde thought he was, Marshall was not pleased. It didn't help that Vertara was standing off to the side and watching in delight.

"I don't know why you thought this was a good idea, but we are turning right back and taking you back to your girlfriend!" He stated.

"No you aren't!" Wilde snapped, now glaring even as he blushed at the thought of Krystalene as his girlfriend. He wasn't worthy of her, he hadn't even come close to saving her, and that was the reason why he'd snuck aboard in the first place. He needed to get stronger, he thought, his hands clenched at his sides.

Marshall watched the teen with narrow eyes. He suspected the reason for the stowaway's presence, but that didn't change anything. He headed to the wheel to turn them around, grumbling to himself and shooting Vertara an irritated look when the woman laughed.