Chapter 34

It took almost three hours before he finished explaining the fight with Compote and everything that followed, with Rouge frequently interrupting with exclamations of dismay and furious curses directed at the Charlotte daughter. At one point while his sister was putting her hard-earned vocabulary of foul language to use, he blew a strand of hair out of his eyes and frowned thoughtfully. His bangs were in need of a trim, and since there was no time like the present...

Rouge paused mid-rant when she heard the odd swish-snip sounds coming through her snail. There was a beat of silence, then she asked incredulously, "are you cutting your hair?"

"Just my bangs!" Marshall immediately defended himself, grumbling that he honestly thought Vertara would kill him if he even thought of cutting the waterfall of hair that by that point had grown to hang down to mid-calf. Rouge's chimed agreement earned her a scowl that vanished a second later as they both burst out laughing. Just like that, the sliver of worry coloring Rouge's words vanished, the topic turning to lighter subjects such as what she and her crew had been up to now that she was sure her brother and his crew were really okay.

("So that Andrea woman that was following you around joined your crew?"

"Yup, decided to invite her after the fourth last minute save. Turns out she's a swordsman."

"Huh, might have to introduce her to Feral."

"Bro, please don't kill my swordsman, I just got her."

"I make no promises.")

It turned out that he and his crew weren't the only ones having an exciting time; by the time Rouge was done recounting her adventures, he could barely breathe through his laughter. His cheeks hurt from grinning, and he chuckled breathlessly as he wiped tears from his eyes, he and Rouge saying their goodbyes. After hanging up, both he and Chuckles breathed a sigh of relief. Giving the snail some lettuce, he stood up and stretched before heading towards the deck where his haki was telling him his crew was gathered.

Walking out of his quarters, Marshall arrived on deck to sound of excited and dumbfounded shouting, his eyes landing on his crew crowded around something on the deck. The press of bodies meant he couldn't see what it was that was causing the commotion until he got closer, but when he did...

"Why is there a fishman caught in that net?" He asked blankly, because there was. A fishman. In one of the Coddi's fishing nets.

A fishman.

The irony was almost physically painful, and judging by the fishman's angry swearing the sea denizen wasn't fond of it either. He - and it was a he as far as Marshall could tell - was almost ten feet tall, more lean than bulky but clearly powerful. The fishman also had a powerful set of lungs, he thought with a snort, stepping forward and interrupting the litany of threats with a quick burst of haki and a sharp, "that's enough."

The fishman froze gratifyingly quickly but still glared, round eyes the color of old silver.

Crossing his arms, Marshall raised an eyebrow and asked the air, "is there any particular reason he's still in the net?" Vertara and Wilde immediately moved to untangle the ocean dweller as Feral stepped forward and explained how there came to be a fishman stuck in a net on deck in the first place. Parsing the short sentences and reading between the lines, he facepalmed because of course he would have the only crew able to catch a fishman while fishing for Sea King with a regular-sized fishing net.

Now free, the fishman stood up, proving Marshall's guess about his height to be correct, looking around warily but curiously as he asked the guy who was clearly the captain, "hey, you okay man?"

"I'm fine, just marveling at the stupidity," Marshall ground out.

The fishman looked a bit sheepish, rubbing the back of his head and ruffling the spiky dark blue hair as he agreed, "yeah, not exactly my proudest moment." Despite his intimidating appearance, the fishman turned out to be surprisingly laidback, cheerfully introducing himself, "name's Zarazan, barracuda fishman." He grinned, which with his slight underbite and visibly fang-filled mouth might have looked frightening to regular people, but to them it wasn't anything worth noticing. Zarazan's grin changed, becoming more natural, which proved that the earlier expression had been a test.

His crew all introduced themselves, Rune pointing to Trax and introducing him as the tiger proudly chuffed. Vertara even added an apology for catching him, which Zarazan waved away with a comment about it being his own fault for not paying attention. Planting his hands on his hips and surveying the assembled crew after a few minutes more of talking, Zarazan abruptly asked, "so there any openings in your crew?"

Marshall didn't even blink, just looked at the barracuda fishman standing with ease and confidence in front of him and his crew. Dressed in a pair of pants and shortsleeved shirt that were more holes than cloth, he could see a myriad of scars on the other's body that could only have come from truly vicious fights. Putting together all the other details he'd noted with the other's dark gray skin, gills, and fins on his forearms, there was one position he was perfect for.

"...Fine. My name's Marshall D. Teach and you're now the designated swimmer. It's your job to save Wilde the next time he jumps into the ocean to escape an amorous walrus."

"That was one time, damn it!" Wilde howled as the rest of the crew cracked up.

After everyone calmed down (he found Wilde's threats to leave all of them seeing stars until they died hilarious), Marshall gave one last chuckle then clapped his hands, saying, "right, first thing's first: Olivia." The doctor immediately straightened. "Give your new crewmate a check-up and establish a baseline while I go start making lunch, the rest of you pack up the net."

With that, he spun on his heel and headed to the kitchen.

("Hey, I was just wondering, what's the deal with the jewelry?" Zarazan asked, wordlessly pointing to the bead bracelet around her wrist when the doctor looked confused. "Every one of your crew has one, even the kid and the swordsman."

Glancing at the warm golden beads as she recorded Zarazan's medical information, Olivia smiled.

"Don't worry, you'll find out...when is your birthday?")

Three months later, they once more came across Charlotte Compote.

The battle was short and bloody, but Marshall was proud to say that his crew did a lot better this time, using teamwork to cover each other's weaknesses and minimize injuries. But as much as they'd improved, it still came down to a fight between him and Compote in the end.

Zarazan did pretty well in his first major battle with the crew, covering the retreat and displaying a high level of Fishman Karate even with a broken arm.

They met Compote again a month later.

Then again two months after that.

Then barely three weeks after that.

Each time there was a battle, but during the third encounter he had the feeling that Compote was going easy on his crew, just injuring them enough that they had to retreat while not giving him the same courtesy. Each time they clashed it was a fight for their lives, and he was proud to say that he had gotten strong enough to put up a good fight. Compote left the battlefield with more and more wounds each time, but he thought she seemed happy about it?

He didn't understand how they were running into her so much, but one day while he was in the navigation room, it clicked. At first he just thought a certain group of islands looked familiar, then several more bits of information connected and he realized why he recognized them and oh shit they were right in the middle of where Totland would be.

Well, at least that explained the blueberry fog from a few days ago.

"Fuck."