Storm

I was finally fifteen. My grandpa decided to send me straight to Marineford to train and become a marine. During this time, almost nothing changed in my life, except for a decade of bad news from Marine Headquarters, when my parents were lost in a storm after a battle with pirates, along with the entire crew and captured pirates. My Grandoa was a bit of a wreck after the news, he was still a cheerful old man in my eye, but unfortunately he was sad outside of it. I didn’t want to leave him, but Grandpa had insisted I go to Marineford so I wouldn’t be here with him. And there was another reason for going. According to my grandpa, there was going to be a battle between the World Government and the Revolutionary Army, which our King Kuma had begun to support. It’s a good thing that Grandpa will soon be leaving Sorbe for a neighbouring kingdom. During this time, I improved my use of fruit and perfected my dodging skills. My grandpa and his training sometimes helped me a lot, it’s no longer an intuitive ability to understand the enemy’s line of attack, but the beginning of an observant haki. I am now able to feel a stone thrown at my back. Although the power of my fruit allows me to feel anything that cuts through the air near me. In my mind, the air is me. By the way, I’m pretty good at fighting even without the power of the fruit. My grandpa also taught me martial arts. He even gave me his knuckles, which have a bit of Kairōseki in them. Except that they’re more likely to hurt me than help me in battle. The gift is more of a sentimental value than any real use. He couldn’t teach me something like Shigan because he said he was too old to show and teach me. And from his words alone, I couldn’t repeat the technique. During one of my attempts at Shigan, I broke a finger while practising. After that incident I stopped practising on my own. In general, people in this world have almost no limit to their development. For example, I can easily lift more than three hundred and ninety pounds, which is a little more than three of me. And my body, like almost everyone else’s, has incredible stamina. Running ten miles without getting out of breath? Child’s play. And when you harness the power of your fruit, it’s very fast. I once tried to measure my speed using fruit power. It came out to be about a hundred feet per second. When my grandpa heard the result, he was happy. I’m moving like some people with Soru. Except that I react slower than I move. Besides, I don’t need to learn Geppō to fly. I can do it myself. To be honest, I’m still not sure I want to become a Marine and go to Marineford. They remind me a lot of the private army of the World Noble. Not even the one hundred and seventy kingdoms of the World Government, but World Noble. A Marines can do nothing against them, has to obey and follow all their orders. And that’s what pisses me off the most. I still don’t like to obey anyone, to do anything other than what my heart and conscience tell me to do. Leaving my grandpa was a bit awkward. He just gave me a hug and a goodbye kick to remember him and not forget him, then he turned and walked away. I boarded the Marine ship, which was about to leave for Marineford. I expected more from the trip, but we only stopped at one island for a few hours to replenish our supplies and then set off again. New recruits like me weren’t even allowed to go ashore. Yes, I wasn’t sailing alone, there were twenty other people besides me. Two girls and all the other men. There are women on Marines too, but more on bases or at headquarters than on the ship. The sex ratio is usually nine to one. By the second day I was tired of staring at the sea, so I decided to make friends and chat with the new recruits, but they were almost all kind of withdrawn, and the ones who could carry on a dialogue were a bit dumb. So I turned to the marine themselves and asked them to tell me what they had seen, who they had met and so on. For some reason, their stories reminded me of drunken sailors' tales, and I would have thought they were joking if I hadn’t known that some of the things and islands in their stories were real. Thank you, Grandpa, for your wealth of knowledge. While we crossed the Calm Belt, I offered to help the captain. I was prepared to blow the ship’s sails with the wind. I didn’t mind such work, especially as it was good training. The captain was very pleased when he found that he could cross the Calm Belt a little faster with my help. It seemed to me that with the help of my tailwind we were sailing even faster than in South Blue. After asking some officers, I was convinced. We crossed the Calm Belt in record time. Finally we reached a crescent-shaped island. This was the destination of our journey. Marineford was majestic and magnificent. I’m sure those who designed it wanted to show the power and might of the Marines. I can say that they succeeded. Even the Gates of Justice shook me to the core, it was very interesting to know how exactly they worked and what would happen if, for example, they jammed. The city was made almost entirely of grey stone, not a single leaf of grass or tree to be seen, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Marines and their families were everywhere. Life was much more active here than in my village. It was a shame that Marineford would be destroyed by the Whitebeard Pirates in about five years time. Our group of twenty-one was met by two marines. One introduced himself as Coach Bob, the other as Senior Instructor Dean. I didn’t understand the difference between their positions even after I had finished my studies. “Welcome to Marineford, new recruits. You have all come here on recommendation to become who?” Instructor Dean asked, “I’m asking to become who?” This time our crowd muttered that they were marines. I couldn’t resist a joke and shouted from the sidelines: “Pirate King!” The marine immediately turned his head in the direction he thought the madman was standing, but it was empty. When he didn’t see anyone, he looked at his mate, who just shrugged, as if to say he didn’t understand. But the same could not be said of the guys who were on the same ship with me. Such a trick with the power of my fruit is possible if you know what sound is. And sound, to put it simply, is a physical phenomenon in which vibrations propagate, including vibrations in the air. Our marine training began. It was boring and uninteresting. Grandpa could teach the material much better, but his physical training was sometimes painful. I knew almost everything they taught here. And now I didn’t understand why my grandpa had gone to so much trouble to teach me something when I would have learnt it already in Marineford. It was funny during the martial arts training when the instructor tried to hit me with a stick to teach me how to dodge sword blows. He couldn’t hit me, but he was proud of himself and said: 'Look, instructor, how quickly I teach new recruits, and can you do it too? The instructor couldn’t, but he was good at close combat. The next day he sparred with me. When his hand went through me, he was very surprised, and so was I. I was used to Grandpa hitting me with his Kairoseki knuckles. “Eiglis, are you a fruit user?” “Who, me? No,” I replied, trying to put on my most honest face. “All right, it must have been my imagination.” “Did he believe it?!” — There was an exclamation not far away. There were thirty people in our group, and the instructor kicked almost every one of us in the arse. His kung fu was better than the others. We had almost no free time.We only had two hours before lights out to do our own thing. I used to play cards with other future Marine officers. It seemed to me that we were made up of very different physical features, constitutions and mindsets. Although there are plenty of individualists in this world who stand out from the grey masses. Speaking of society. It’s more open and friendly here. It’s like a friendship cartoon or anime. Nya-ha-ha-ha-ha. “So, in today’s class we’re going to practice our shooting skills, but before you grab a gun like Eiglis,” the trainer mumbled, “you must first learn a simple instruction with its handling so that” *boom* “you don’t shoot yourself like Eiglis… get up, stop messing around, I’ve already realised that you’re a Logia.” “B-r-a-i-n-s,” I started to stand up, stretching my arms out towards my mates. “Z-zombies! Run!” and one did run away. “…” I was too bored in these classes, so sometimes I tried to make jokes. It wasn’t always funny enough to make me laugh to my stomach, but it definitely made the group laugh. And I wasn’t reprimanded for it because, again, there were a lot of people in this world with some kind of weirdness. I wasn’t the only joker. The second one was the one who ran away. I’m not the only fruit user, by the way. There was also a guy who could turn part of his body into a telescope or a microscope. Yeah, that’s a pretty weird fruit. And a girl who could understand and speak any language, and with that power she could easily negotiate with birds to peck you. There were no ciphers for her, and I think she could also read body language, which made her fruit a terrible weapon, as she could understand everything about you just by looking at you. A truly terrifying power indeed. As the days went by, the studies continued. They tried to force us to study to fill our empty heads. In the end, after six months, there was an examination that showed all the skills and knowledge of the new recruits. And on the basis of the result, the rank and assignment to some sea with the branch were given. I passed perfectly all theoretical subjects and has show a good result on practical ones. Even in close combat, when the instructor, with a vengeful look on his face, pulled out a pair of brass knuckles with an added Kairoseki from behind his back.