The Marine

*UMPH!*

*Crash*

Hitting the ground hard, Bill rolled off his back and got to his feet.

It had been two weeks since his written assessment had taken place. Unsurprisingly had passed the requirements to take any of basic programs but had failed in skipping over them to the more specialized areas.

Now he was doing his third physical assessment. His goal was to become a Captain in the Marine Science Unit while still taking the Engineering and Metallurgy programs as far as he was able.

After all, having already lived a full life Bill knew well that at his current age, he should take advantage of whatever opportunities he could.

It was fine to be an unskilled twenty-something, but once a man hit his thirties, he was expected to be accomplished in at least something.

With this mindset, Bill wasn’t anxious to rush but he also wouldn’t waste time.

After his first physical assessment, Bill was directly made a Lieutenant for the MSU but was told that he could only be made Captain by either Vegapunk himself or the MSU’s current sole Captain.

So, now back on his feet, Bill looked at the giant sumo wrestler. The man stood near ten feet tall and wore what looked like a red apron with the word ‘heaven’ written on it.

Although the man was large, Bill wasn’t small himself. Standing just over seven feet tall he could fight back without a comical disadvantage.

Besides height, the biggest differences between them were the man was rounder and bulkier while Bill was broad-shouldered and thin.

Running towards the man as fast as he could, Bill shouted:

“Quake Kick!”

Launching a kick towards the man legs that should have shaken the big man’s foundation, Bill found himself once again hitting a palm that was harder than stone, before getting thrown back a dozen meters.

“Lieutenant Ox, why waste my time here, my ability is world class; I have the tightest defense.

There’s only one Captain in the Marine Science Unit for a reason!”

Picking himself up off the ground yet again, Bill started to grow his air out.

“Hm? You’ve mastered the Life Return?

That’s impressive, but it won’t be enough to win. I have the tightest defense in the world.”

Looking at the big guy, Bill replied: “Sentomaru, just remember, I win if you get knocked out of the ring.”

This victory condition was set during the first physical assessment. After getting knocked around, Bill had goaded the sumo wrestler to use those rules after the big guy claimed that Bill wasn’t even worth using his axe on.

In this way, Bill achieved two things. Firstly, he wouldn’t have to actually beat up Sentomaru and secondly the Captain wouldn’t use his weapon.

Of course, Bill didn’t have any qualms in winning with this kind of condition. After all, Sentomaru had agreed to it, and he was ten years younger than the Captain.

Still, this wasn’t an easy thing to do. It was about twice the size of a normal sumo ring and if nothing else, the Captain was very solid on his feet.

With his hair down, Bill came in fast to the left, this time he wouldn’t try to connect with a big hit but instead tried to get in close.

With the Captain standing in a solid stance, Bill cut hard to the right just before he hit.

As he did so, he spun to connect with a whirlwind kick, which was promptly blocked by a palm.

Still spinning from the kick, Bill was able to dodge the counterattack by a hand length.

Landing down, his hands hit the ground at the same time his feet did, then with his full body he jump launched into a left-handed uppercut.

As he did this, his hair grew at the rate he moved. Sentomaru blocked the uppercut but not before Bill’s hair entangled his legs.

This time, the counterattack was inescapable. Anticipating this, Bill used his right hand to grab his hair and promptly cut it off at the scalp.

Hit hard in his chest, Bill didn’t let go. Despite having the air knocked out of him, he swung around, landed on his feet, and heaved as hard as he could.

But as he did so, he noticed the Captain holding on to the other end of the hair rope.

‘Oh no…’

Then with a smile, Sentomaru heaved the hair too, launching Bill directly towards him.

Unable to get his balance midair, Bill watched in slow motion as the Captain yo-yoed him dozens of meters away.

*GHU!*

Hitting the ground very hard this time, Bill laid on his back for nearly a minute before rolling back over and getting to his feet. Bruised badly, but nothing actually broken it was clear that the Captain was considerably stronger.

“Very impressive Lieutenant! That kick tricked me!

But I’m the man with the tightest defense, you’d need more than that to beat me.”

Hearing this again, something in Bill told him it wasn’t time to stop trying. Sentomaru was strong, but wasn’t he also?

With this fueling him, Bill went at the Captain for over an hour. Until he was emaciated, and his body was more bruise than skin.

As he lay on the ground, the last words he heard from Sentomaru was: “Look at yourself! Get something to eat Lieutenant Ox! I don’t have time for this anymore.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bill watched as Sentomaru left the right, collected his giant axe, and walked away.

Then after lying there for what seemed to be a long time, he rolled himself back on his belly and picked himself up for the last time that day.

After this fight, which he was ashamed to say he only managed to move the Captain once, Bill was starving and went straight to the chow hall.

If there was one thing he had to admit, the sea kings in this world were delicious.

When he had been training in the forests of Vallipo, he had once mentioned to his father that he felt bad eating so much meat each meal. It wasn’t an exaggeration to claim that he could eat a full-sized cow in one sitting.

But to his surprise, when Aramaki heard this, he laughed and laughed before explaining that as far as he knew it was impossible for the sea to run out of fish. To this, he cited that the largest city of true giants numbered around ten thousand mostly ate sea king and that Elbaf had not even cleaned up the fish around the Island!

To this, Bill just shrugged and chalked it up to being a different world.

Entering the chow hall, the tables were practically empty but with his recruit cloths ruffled, and bruises all over his body, the few people present looked at him wide-eyed.

 Hardly noticing the stares, and with no one in line, Bill was able to walk right up and get utensils and a tray.

Getting to the cook he said: “Steak, hard-fried eggs, and a whole mess of biscuits.”

Since he could determine the nutritional value of his food with a bite, Bill normally never ate large amounts of bread, or much other ‘filler’ foods. However, in his current state, he needed the carbs to replenish his body fat.

As he waited for the food, Bill supposed he should be grateful that the Science Division had food services ready around the clock.

He had met the head chefs here on his second day, they were a husband-and-wife pair who apparently had sailed with the navy for a full term of service, before requesting reassignment and signing back up.

Looking around, he didn’t see them now, but it didn’t take long to get his tray filled with a few dozen kilos of hard-fried eggs and juicy steak that looked a bit like salmon.

“We’ll bring the biscuits to you shortly, honey.”

The man who had said this was the first drag queen Bill had ever seen in this world. He hadn’t spoken to the man in any detail, but only because this particular cook seemed to have a shifting schedule.

Still, he thanked the bearded lady and walked to the nearest table.

When he sat down, he grabbed his fork and started on the eggs first. In an emergency Bill could eat like an animal, he could eat and breath at the same time, but in this kind of environment he wouldn’t do something he thought unsightly.

While he ate his eggs, his complexion started to turn better. From the outside he was just eating a moderately quick pace, but on the inside, he was directing his stomach to digest faster and his immune system to repair the many micro-fractures on his skeleton.

Once he started on the steaks, his bruises began to disappear and at some point, the bearded lady cook had dropped off a large wicker bowl of biscuits.

After he was done his steak, he started on his biscuits until he heard a trio of cadets directly walking his way.

Before they got to him, he turned his head and saw it was two boys and a girl who wore glasses, all seemed around the age of sixteen and wore lab coats.

“Yeah?” he said still seated and chewing his biscuit.

Perhaps unexpecting him to speak first, Bill wasn’t sure, but as soon as he spoke the two boys jumped back slightly while the girl winced then spoke.

“We just haven’t seen you before, we didn’t know new cadets could be accepted in the middle of a semester.”

Nodding his head, Bill motioned to the table and offered them to take a seat, which they guardedly accepted.

“Dr. Vegapunk knew me as a baby, I guess he made an exception.”

Getting an ‘oh’ and a ‘lucky’ from the two boys, the girl pushed up her glasses then asked: “Which areas of research are you going in? I haven’t seen you in any classes…”

Nodding his head again, Bill swallowed his last biscuit.

“I’m going to do Metallurgy and Engineering… maybe in the future I’ll work my way up to Bio-Metallics and Neuro-Fabrications. For now, though, I joined the MSU as a Lieutenant… and hopefully it won’t take long until I get Captain for Procurements.

How about you guys?”

As he asked this, he took another bite.

No sooner than he said this one of the boys then said: “You’re taking classes multiple fields?!”

Before Bill could give answer to this, which was something he definitely did not know, the other boy said: “You’re ALREADY Science Unit Lieutenant!?”

To the two boys, the girl told them to settle down. As for Bill who was still chewing, he felt better but was still to exhausted from the days beating that he didn’t react.

Speaking clearly, the girl said: “It’s amazing that you’ve already joined the Science Unit, you know, most people here aren’t interested in it, so they normally bring Marines from the outside to be guards.

What confuses me though is, did you take three different fields? Didn’t you know that every extra field doubles the credits you need to graduate?”

When he heard this, Bill nearly choked, beating his chest, and drinking his water he looked at her and said: “No, Bonaduce failed to mention that.

But it doesn’t really matter I guess, I’ll just try and reach Captain in the next six months, before the next round of classes start. Then I’ll focus on that, I really want to see how seastone and cybernetics work.

So, which field are you all in?”

When he said this, the girl explained to Bill that they were all in Biology and the reason taking multiple fields was strange was because everyone who qualified to be here wanted to be the head of their own research lab.

Apparently, only those at the top of their classes would get that right after graduation. The others would be spread around as Research Assistants. Competition was fierce and so studying multiple fields virtually guaranteed a career as a lacky.

After she finished, Bill asked the obvious question.

“Wait, what about Marine Science Unit Captains?”

When he said this, the trio laughed, before noticing Bills sore face. Then one of the boys chimed in.

“It’s impossible to beat Sentomaru, unless you’re a Marine Vice Admiral or something!”

Then the girl spoke again: “What Tom here means to say is there’s a reason the Science Unit only has one Captain, and he’s the Captain of the Bodyguard.

That’s because Dr. Vegapunk gave him the authority to select the other Captains, and no one here can even move the man, much less beat him in a fight!”

When she said this, Bill smirked. He knew Sentomaru was strong, and he didn’t underestimate the man.

But Bill also knew what he was capable of, and so he put two fingers up and said: “I moved him just today, and within one year I’ll beat him on our terms, and in two years I’ll have him beat fairly!”

After that, the trio laughed also, they ended up speaking together for the next hour about their interests in research.

When they got up to leave, Bill introduced himself, giving out his large hand to the others to shake.

The boys’ named themselves Tom and Jerry, which made Bill laugh.

Then the girl told him, her name was Samantha.