Chapter 50: Chapter 42.1

“Take COVER!!”

*KaBOOM*

Dropping under a ships railing, a young man grabbed the two men nearest him and ducked for cover under a rain of cannon balls.

Shielding his eyes from splintering timbers, he glanced around to see who nearby.

He had two Gunner Mates on each of his sides, each holding a musket.

These men would be invaluable for the battle ahead, but what the young man needed was a clean shot to take out the pirates’ cannon.

Looking around, he still didn’t leave his cover but saw who it was he was looking for.

Scrambling on deck amid the cannon balls was the crews Culinary Specialist. She wore a black apron and had her shoulder-length sandy brown hair under a net.

“Fia!” called the young man, and as she looked at him, he waved her over to him.

Narrowing her eyes, the young lady seemed to merge into her surroundings, only to reappear before the young man.

“Ranse! Why haven’t you gone over there and stopped them!?”

As she spoke, the pirate ship launched another volley of shots, this time they were chains which tore through the ship’s sails and some rigging came loose.

Over the sound of snapping ropes Ranse looked up as he shouted: “The Captain hasn’t given the order!”

Hearing this, the Chef looked outraged and with two hinges forming on her wrists stood up and fired two fist-sized cannon balls into the large pirate ship.

Seeing his friend make her move, Ranse could only yell: “Careful!” before pulling her back down hard.

Fia: “Ugh!!”

As a Cannon-Human Fia had a bronze body, which was tough, but not totally impervious to musket balls – to say nothing of cannon fire.

Ranse: “Don’t show them your ability! Wait for the order to attack!”

Having said this, Ranse pulled out a pistol and hunkered down, the Marine ship let loose its first broadside, and in the moment before the attack order was given, he thought about his past year in the Marines.

It wasn’t like he thought it would be.

In Ranse’s mind, Marines were supposed to be like the hero sheriffs he had read stories about as a little kid. Those guys who were always suave, smart, and upheld justice were his idols.

He had thought they were all like Commodore Aramaki and Captain Trapano, but it hadn’t taken long for him to realize this wasn’t the reality.

Since he and Fia had graduated from being Chore Boy’s they had been assigned to one ship after another.

His file shown he had been taught a few of the Six Powers, and that his Duo partner had a combat-oriented Devil Fruit.

So, despite the fact he was technically a Carpenter Officer, and she a Culinary Officer, they had been sent around to just about every bad part of the eastern South Blue.

Patrolling around the Red Line for the last year and a half, Ranse had found that every single higher-level officer was flawed. Some of them were too passive, almost scared of the sea, while others were reckless individuals who had spoken about great abilities that they clearly didn’t have.

If there had been one thing Ranse couldn’t complain about was the fact that these senior officers hadn’t been stingy with promotions.

That was how, at just over seventeen, both he and Fia both held the rank of Ensign.

Even though he was not as skilled as a Carpenter as she was a Chef, he seemed to always be the first person pushed out in front during combat and so always was the first for promotion.

Just like now, when he would be the first person to go over the railings into danger Ranse, using a hand mirror, looked over the ships railing as another broadside was let loose.

By now the two ships were nearly side by side, and he saw the pirates’ readying ropes to latch on or swing across to board the Marine ship.

‘Damn’ was the only thing he thought.

The Captain hadn’t called for the counterattack and the pirates probably outnumbered the Marines two to one.

The ship Ranse and Fia was currently on was called the “Big Bopper” and it was a South Blue Headquarters vessel.

Being a ship from HQ, it had no home port and made no routine trade-route patrols. Its main commission was pirate hunting.

When they received this assignment, after barely two months on their previous ship, Ranse had thought they were finally going to be in a place where he could see the professionalism of the Marines.

Unfortunately, he was wrong, and watching the pirates ready to board was more and more frustrated.

Seeing the Gunners to his right and left, Ranse realized he had to make a choice. By now a boarding would be impossible to avoid, so the men needed their moral stoked.

All his experience as a Marine told him that.

In-between the noise of cannon fire Ranse suddenly yelled out: “Gunners! On my mark! Specialists! Get set for boarding action!”

If there had to be a boarding, it was critical that it wasn’t their ship where the fighting took place.

Now he had the option of waiting for another round of fire from the pirate ship or take the risk of grape shot being fired on the Gunners as they left cover.

No matter what he did, there was a risk, but he knew that if he waited too long then the Gunners couldn’t easily reload during boarding combat, and so he held his pistol and took the chance.

At least doing this the men would get at least two shots off each.

Looking through his mirror there was no more hesitation as the Ensign yelled: “Gunners Now!”

As he spoke, Ranse used his right hand on the ships railing to fling his body up and launched the strongest Storm Leg he could muster from that awkward position.

Aiming high so he could hopefully prevent pirates from swinging onboard, Ranse had unintentionally also protected Fia as she jumped high from the deck and used her wrist-cannons to blast the pirate ship’s swivel guns.

Answering this sudden counterattack, most of the Gunners had followed suit and quickly took aim and by the time Ranse had readied his pistol, and Fia started falling back to deck, the Gunners let loose their first volley.

Noticing that not all of the ships Gunners had fired, Ranse yelled out again “Gunners! Fire!” but there was no response until the ships Captain, an egg headed scar-face named Bop, walked from his cabin, and giving Ranse a disgusted look simply ordered ‘Attack’.

With that, the other gunners fired but now without the advantage of surprise, the pirates were able to return fire of their own.

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Blood flew in all directions as both pirate and Marine fell to the decks unmoving.

Throwing down the men nearest to him again, Ranse saved their lives but watched helplessly as the others were gunned down.

The worst part was the Specialists, each armed with either ax or machete, ran towards the side of the ship and threw over grappling hooks and pulled.

Seeing this, Ranse and Fia stood momentarily stunned as they were clearly outnumbered.

‘Fools!’ he yelled in his head.

Ranse and Fia hadn’t been on this ship for long, and they had both been treated as outsiders despite them outranking the majority of the Seamen onboard.

But from what he had seen, these men shouldn’t have been so dumb or this suicidal.

Looking over to his partner, Fia just nodded her head and knew what he had decided.

Like that, in one leap, Ranse and Fia fell on the pirate ship with Ranse launching a 360 degrees Sickle Wind as Fia using her Ten-Finger Cannons to pepper the decks where Ranse’s ability would miss.

With the two of them fighting off scores of pirates, the Marine Specialists boarded the ship and in conjunction with the Gunner’s firing volley after volley the ferocious pirates slowly fell back shouting for their Captain to save them.

When the main deck was secured, Ranse huffed to catch his breath only then to see the pirates captain, a main who probably had giant ancestry, walk from below deck holding a large wooden club.

*Bhubhubhu!*

“Marines! Surrender now and I may spare your pathetic lives!”

Saying this, the part-giant took a few practice swings, seeming to not mind when he knocked several of his men meters away.

Groaning to this spectacle, Ranse got ready to bring the part-giant down while thinking that this was exactly why protocols said to fight pirates at a distance.

That tactic was safer for all parties involved because Marines were incentivized to arrest pirates and pirates were incentivized to not drown.

So instead of subduing groups of armed and potentially dangerous men where they could fight back, Marines preferred to fish them out of the sea only half drown.

Getting ready to make his move before any serious damage could be done, Ranse suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

Turning his head to look at his partner, Fia pointed off to the side where Ranse saw Captain Bop saunter over.

Ranse watched the egg-headed Marine Captain walk confidently in front of the pirate Captain and was looking forward to seeing how an HQ Captain handled himself.

How would this Humpty Dumpty fight against an Ogre?

The answer was obvious, before the egg-headed Marine Captain even got the chance to dress down the large pirate he was smashed directly on top of the head.

After being hit Captain Bop didn’t fly away but instead stood in place as his face spiderwebbed into red veiny mists of blood.

Stunned and mystified, this had all happened so fast that Ranse looked back towards Fia, silently asking her if he had just seen right.

The girl just rolled her eyes and looked around, and groaning Ranse unholstered another one of his three pistols.

In times like these it was always best to act first and talk later.

Ranse: “Shave!”

Appearing beside the pirate Ranse shot the big man in the knee. The pirate had reacted fast but not fast enough as Ranse cartwheeled over, holstered his pistol, and drew his last loaded piece and fired in the same knee all before the time it took for him to finish the cartwheel

Standing back up straight Ranse holstered his last pistol and, as the pirate roared and swung the giant club down in a faltering motion, he kicked out as fast as he could letting out a sharp compressed burst of air that cut the pirate from groin to the top of his head.

Ranse had to give it to the part-giant, that kick would have bisected a normal man, but this fellow’s eyes just rolled back and fainted with a large cut going down the length of his body.

Not letting his surprise show, Ranse gave the stunned pirates his most authoritative face and shouted: “Drop your weapons and you will be spared!

If you do not drop your weapons, you will be killed!”

To push his point home, Fia turned her fingers into ten small cannons and shot near the feet of the still stunned pirates. Seeing her Devil Fruit, they began to surrender one by one until there was a massive wave of pirates begging for pardons and blaming their actions on their former Captain.

This would not move Ranse though, and he methodically began the process of securing prisoners and treating the wounded.

Looking down, Captain Bop would probably need a long time to recover if he ever could, and thankfully none of the crews Lieutenants had to bravery to question Ranse’s orders after seeing his power of display.

The next part of the journey would be hauling back the prisoners and towing the pirate ship. This was something Ranse and Fia had experience with.

Some days later, after they had brought the ship to port and sold off the prisoners, Ranse and Fia stood on a small fishing pier passing back and forth a couple letters.

The first letter, addressed to Ranse McGrew read.

                [On review of exemplary merits rendered in the service of these South Blue Marine Corps, you, Ranse McGrew, have been appointed to the Rank of Commander to serve and uphold Justice in all matters pertaining to the social welfare for the common good of the law-abiding citizenry.

                Signed, Blu Vestito, Rear Admiral of the Sea, Etcetera.]

Fia had a remarkably similar letter appointing her to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, much to her annoyance because all she really wanted to be was a Chef.

There were other papers along with these which detailed their new assignments, as a Commander, Ranse would be given his own ship and have a set patrol area around the island Centaurea.

He was to report to that location within sixty days, which meant the two wouldn’t be able to have any time on shore besides today.

As the two talked on the pier, mostly about work, Fia pointed up to a flock of Mail Coo and seeing them one of the large birds flew down.

Somehow the creature knew how to deliver letters and handing the parcels to the girl it flew away.

Ranse: “What’s that?”

“uhhh” Fia said looking at the name of the sender.

Then turning her head, Fia handed Ranse the letter: “Oh, it’s a letter from Bill!”

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