49 Garp is pissed again…

With a sigh I looked at the calm sea, sitting cross legged on the tip of the ship that was its bow. My face rested on my hands and a bored look was present in my eyes as I looked at the departing land that was Rubeck.

Sorren stood at the front of the ship near the steering wheel, carelessly eating a chicken leg that he had probably nicked from somewhere and enjoying the sea breeze as he controlled the direction that the ship would move in.

Fawkes sounded loudly from the kitchen as he prepared what would be our lunch, while the newest additions to the crew sat at the very middle of the deck.

Angella sat reading a book studiously, one of her hands playing with the curl of her brown hair, while another held up the devil fruit encyclopedia that I had nicked from the Gambino heads personal coffers.

Finally Terrick, our resident assassin and defacto information specialist sat polishing his set of needles, looking carefully at them all.

Honestly, the entire trip within North Blue could be considered a jolly vacation, if the crew did this when we were in the grand line, I was sure that we would end up sunk before we reached our first major kingdom.

On another topic however, I was quite sad as the days went by. Owing to the fact that the bounty that I had been awaiting, was nowhere in sight! 'Come on! if not me, at least give Fawkes a bounty! We killed a warlord! Some respect would be nice!!' I roared in my head for the umpteenth time as I regarded my crew, before returning to the plain sea.

"OK now what Captain?!" Came the voice of the cook and first mate of the crew as he came out of the kitchen wearing an apron.

"Now we set sail to the North pole!" I roared from my seat as I looked over at him with a lazy look. "After that we'll double back to the West Blue, and when we have all the people that our crew could need, we'll enter the Grand line! " I said as I slowly rose to my feet and pointed at the sky with reckless abandon.

With a raucous laugh I looked happily at the white cloud ridden sky, joined by the joy and happiness of the crew that I had taken upon myself would sail with me to the ends of the world…

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

"The flint lock! Get the damn flintlock fool!!" an incensed marine could be heard screaming at a nearby cabin boy, before scowling at him and proceeding to do it himself.

"Vice Admiral, we traced the pirate crew down to this location, the mafia island of Rubeck!" A loud white capped marine called as he looked at the smoking wreck that used to be the northern part of the island.

The land looked like it had been ravaged by a particularly horny storm that had found it to be attractive. Buildings lay crumbled and the ground sat blackened with soot. Surprisingly enough, based on the profile that had been ordered by the grumpy and forgetful Vice Admiral, no civilian had been caught in the crossfire, that seemed to have played out between the mystery pirate crew and the local rulers of the land.

"Sir that one there is the notorious Alferdo San Juan who headed the San Juan family, next to him are some lackeys and the heads of the other families…" the marine said, before promptly lapsing into uncomfortable silence to take in the possibly typhoon-ic view that had been wrought on their bodies.

The head of the Alferdo family looked to have been slapped to death for the swelling on his face had still not subsided, and his flimsy neck had been turned around like the steering wheel of a particularly adventurous ship.

The others seemed not to have suffered the same state, having just been killed by a rib that had pierced the heart or a simple broken neck.

The marine gulped, before he turned to the somber looking Vice Admiral who stared surveying the chaos of the issue.

"Sir, the ones who did this are obviously a pack of highly trained and sadistically empowered lunatics!" he said clearly before sighing.

"Marines! Hear my order! Bring all of the men and load them onto the ship, Wilhem, you shall be in charge of rebuilding and helping the people on this island. Chances are that they do not look favorably on the marines anymore because of our overlooking of the situations here, they might even be hostile, deeming us to be hunting their savior, you are to also deal with changing their attitude towards us for the better!

The rest of you, file into the ships I want the vessels to be sea worthy within an hour! We are chasing down these upstart fools!!" he roared as he stormed out, for once not conforming to the comedic and easy going persona that he usually displayed. He was incensed, at the ones that had caused the damage to the town, himself for his tardiness and even the ideal that he had begun to become numb enough to listen to.

Since Roger's execution he had begun to waver from the conventional marine ideal that he had always believed to be true. Not the execution itself, but the fallout and the massive manhunt that the world Government had initiated getting all the high ranking members of the world's peace keeping force to chase after a child whose only sin had been to be born the son of an adventurous soul.

He had begun questioning, both when he had adopted Ace as his own grandson and more recently when his blood grandson Luffy was born. What if, one day they violated this ideal? Would he be forced to hunt them down with his own hands and slaughter them the same way he had torn down pirate crews in the past?

Once again Garp found himself pondering these philosophical and depressing ideas as he marched onto the ship, for once wishing to have a sake bottle handy so he could have a drink that would wash away all of these thoughts.

'Are the Marines even necessary at this point?'