The Marine

On the deck of a medium sized Marine Brigantine, a brutal fight was taking place.

With the Commander of the ship taken out by a petty trick, and the other men in disarray, one young recruit took the lead.

“Sickle Wind!!”

Jumping through a tumult of knives and swords, the battle was fierce; but on this sea, at this time, the will of one teenager made the difference.

Each kick sent a man flying. Each attack was dodged by an arm’s length.

For a person who had been trained by one of the Marines foremost powerhouses, how could a common band of pirates pose a problem?

Yet, despite the effort there were many.

All this started when a Marine warship on a routine patrol sailed upon a wreckage of three ships. The ships had been tied together in a shamble, and as the warship closed in, it appeared to be a normal shipwreck.

The men onboard the wreckage all looked ragged, there was no sign of weapons or banner.

So doing their duty, the Marines went into action to save the survivors. Those survivors outnumbered the Marines on the warship three-to-one at least, but no mind was paid to the numbers at that time.

Pulling close to junked ship, the sailors threw over ladders and lowered makeshift platforms. Clearly this was something they were accustomed doing in the dangerous waters of the South Blue.

Pulling weak survivors up in trios and helping those who could climb on their final step, it wasn’t long until the deck of the small warship was filled.

 Seeing this done, the Commander of the vessel, a local Marine who had patrolled this very route year after year, took no qualms in the heavy lifting.

Pulling hard on the lowered platform, when he saw the older man who spoke out as the Captain of this small, wrecked fleet, he exchanged a few words.

Thanking the Commander over and over, the older Captain then held his chest and fell over.

Seeing the older man fall, the Marine tried to help, but was shot in the gut as his reward.

The fired shot seemed to be the signal, no sooner than the blast was heard did the ‘survivors’ turn on their saviors.

Outnumbered on the deck by fifty percent, with more men climbing overboard by the minute, the Marines fell into disarray.

Then, when things seemed out of control, the newest members of the crew – both raw recruits aged no older than sixteen – stepped above deck.

“Fia blast the wreckage!”

Without missing a beat, Ranse didn’t know exactly what was going on. He only knew about an hour ago a wrecked ship was seen in the distance and the Commander ordered a rescue mission.

As new recruits, specifically as a carpenter and cook, the two were sent bellow deck to do various jobs.

Ranse was told to prepare the water casks while Fia was sent to prep food for the survivors. The two had heard the gun shot and found each other less than a minute.

Nodding her head, Fia almost disappeared. The single martial art she was taught, the Phantom-Step, excelled in the darkness, but was enough to get where she needed.

She went forth, she didn’t have time to think and only moved on instinct. Jumping on the Ratlines, she climbed halfway, reaching her hand towards the wreckage that still held a few dozen men – her fingers formed hinges that fell down revealing five cannons; she shot.

Hearing five consecutive blasts overhead, Ranse knew Fia had done her job and with luck there wouldn’t be any more reinforcements.

It had barely taken him five minutes, but Ranse had cleared a quarter of the ships deck of the attackers.

Now with battle lines forming, overwhelmed Marines were able to show their superior methods, though many were killed in the opening seconds of the fight, those who had survived then, still lived.

This type of fighting couldn’t be called pretty. It was very close hand-to-hand combat. Ranse was scared to let out a full Tempest Kick lest he kill his own side.

Fia was no better. Her Devil Fruit ability was awesome, but her cannons were indiscriminate. So, she dared not fire into the crowds.

As Ranse led the main charge, saving dozens of men, she led the clean up duties finishing off the attackers he deemed too far to get to.

The fight went on for some thirty minutes, until finally, the Marines had wrestled back control over most of the ships main deck.

With all but a handful of pirates either knocked out or overboard, all that was left was the older captain who had tricked the Marine Commander.

“St..stay back! One step closer and I’ll kill him!”

As the Commanders slouched over holding his side, the older captain held a flintlock pistol to his head.

Seeing the threat, Ranse came to a stop, and seeing him do so, filled the pirate captain with false courage.

“Drop your weapons and surrender! If you don’t you can kiss this man goodbye!”

Eyeing his Commander, and the pirate, Ranse brushed the sweat off his forehead but remained still. He looked at the position of the pirates, three of the last twelve had guns, the other nine were armed chains and cutlass.

Using his minds eye, he felt Fia nearly twenty feet away, but with a good enough shot at the pirates with guns – he hoped.

Thinking this through for roughly ten seconds, one thing Ranse didn’t notice was the Marines behind him following his lead.

He didn’t move, so they didn’t move.

Cocking the hammer back, the pirate captain yelled again: “I do it, I swear I’ll do it! Don’t ma-

*SHAVE*

“TEMPEST KICK!”

Reacting on an instant, the teamwork between the two friends was seamless. As Ranse took out pirate captain mid-sentence, Fia burst forward with a three finger-cannon barrage instantly killing the gun-holding pirates.

Once they were out of the way, the other Marines quickly subdued the frantic, leaderless, pirates.

With his legs aching, Ranse didn’t look at the bisected pirate captain, but instead went to the ships Commander.

Putting his hand on the Skippers shoulder, Ranse spoke as calm as he could: “Commander Simon, how is it?”

The man was alert, but blood was coming from his mouth which was obviously a bad sign.

“My left lung was punctured; I’ll live but I can’t move.

You’ve done great here McGrew, the Navigator will get us back to port, but I’m giving you charge of the ship.”

When Ranse heard this, he wasn’t proud or even happy. For now, he just nodded his head and got to work. Because even though he was a recruit, Ranse and Fia had benefited from something very few in this world could.

Touching a badge under his shirt, one given to him by one of his best friends, Ranse moved as he’d been trained to in emergency situations.

He worked tirelessly shackling the pirates who weren’t badly hurt while segregating the wounded from the critically injured.

He was no surgeon but had learned first aid enough to help stitch and clean cuts while the warships single trained medical officer worked on the gunshots.

At the end of the day, as the ship headed back to port, Ranse and Fia stood on the ship’s foredeck.

Looking at Ranse, Fia tried to lighten the mood: “Well, you can brag to the others you got command first, even if it’s temporary.”

Nodding his head, Ranse wanted to smile, but couldn’t.

“I just wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

“We saved a lot of people today, Ranse. Without us, this ship would have been captured and besides the surgeon probably everyone would have been killed.”

Nodding his head again, Ranse just said ‘I know’ several times over.

Then after staying quiet for what seemed like a long time, Ranse looked over and said: “I didn’t even think that I was killing them until the end. Even though I knew what I was doing, I just went somewhere else… did that happen to you?”

Today they had both had many firsts. Out of a crew of forty, ten Marines were killed in the first few seconds of the ambush and half of the remainder had been seriously wounded.

They had taken the head of the pirate captain, though no one on board knew who it was and those pirates who they’d captured became despondent.

Nodding her head in understand, Fia was still firm on this point: “They were bad guys, you shouldn’t have been worried. In that fight you couldn’t have stopped them any other way.

When I shot those pirates on the wreckage, at first, I remembered the first time I used the ability. That day you and Bill chased me on the beach… Well, that memory was far scarier than when I blasted those guys in the ocean.

Because when I shot, I didn’t even think twice about it. I jumped down from the ropes and took care of our comrades.”

Ranse knew in his head that what Fia said was right. These men wanted to kill them, and he did what he could to stop it.

In his heart though, he feared that it was too easy. That if he wasn’t careful, perhaps a time would come here it wouldn’t bother him.

As he thought this, his short brown hair blew in the ocean breeze, and his hand reached for the old [Deputy] badge he had traded for, so many years ago.