章 10: Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Even though it was smaller than most ships, Polar Tang was quite well built. Snow didn't think there were many submarines in this world. Anyone who saw a yellow submarine with a light green underside lined with torpedo cannons could tell to whom it belonged. It belonged to Snow the Gravedigger. Soon, it will be feared by pirates and marines all over the world.
Unlike most pirate ships, it was mostly made of metal and ran on engines instead of sails. However, the upper decks were made of wood, and there were two tall masts on both the front and back levels. These two masts had retractable sails that could be used if the engine failed. It certainly was well-designed.
"I want the sails to be repainted," Snow told his crew as he checked on the ship. "The symbol can stay as it is, but change the color to silvery grey and add an umbrella covering the top of the Jolly Roger. Don't be so dour. Silver on black looks way better than red on black. Do none of you have a sense of taste in art?"
No one knew how to reply to Snow, so they just went to work. Dragging the ship to the ground was quite hard and got everyone exhausted, and now the captain was making ridiculous speeches. It was no wonder that they were as enthusiastic as Snow wished they would be. No matter, Snow didn't wish to order his new crew how they should feel, so he returned to his work.
Shachi was close to Snow as he walked around the ship. Snow didn't have much to complain about the build, and if there were any problems with it, Law would have found out about them already. But that didn't mean that it couldn't be improved. Even though the ship was mostly made of metal, there were still quite a few soft spots on it that could be exploited.
Snow could use the liqueur iron he got from King Chap to patch those places up and even add some additional protection to the engine and other important parts of the ship. But he had to be careful not to use too much of it as it would make the ship heavier than it needed to be. The engine might not be able to support that additional weight, and Snow didn't know how to make it more powerful.
"Captain!" Snow heard Penguin yell out as Snow was finishing his plan. "We have visitors."
"Is that so?" Snow asked as he approached the cook and saw three unmarked ships approaching the island. "Do you Have any idea who they are? Pirates? Marines?"
"Neither," Ikkaku, the resident seamstress, answered. "Both pirates and marines love to show off to who they belong. These guys probably want to go unseen, so they are either from criminal organizations, like some kind of smugglers or secret agents belonging to the World Government."
"That makes sense," Snow agreed. "I bet ten thousand berries that they are smugglers."
"I say they are secret agents," Hakugan replied, hiding his expression under his white mask. "Helmsman's intuition tells me that they are on a secret mission."
"Nah, if they were secret agents, they would have turned away after seeing us," Shachi disagreed, putting on his welding-safe glasses. "I bet they are smugglers, probably smuggling weapons, and since they saw our ship and know we are pirates, they will try to sell them to us."
Everyone else quickly joined the bet, too, and eagerly awaited the new guests. The ships the newcomers came in were quite big, close to Marine warships, but they were more worn down. Snow stepped in before his crew and looked as the ships landed. Men in suits quickly came out of the ships armed with rifles before a man with sunglasses and a fedora, smoking a cigar, came out.
The man was clearly the leader as he walked so sure of himself that nothing could hurt him and everything was under his control. There were about two to three hundred of them, and all of them were armed. It was quite a large force for someone in the North Blue, especially if they didn't belong to the World Government.
"Heart pirates, I will give you half an hour to vacate the premises," The man said as he exhaled a puff of smoke.
"Or what?" Snow, not wanting to be outdone, lit up his pipe and exhaled a bigger puff of smoke.
"Or you will be on the receiving end of our weapons," The man replied, facing Snow. "Tell your captain that whatever business he is handling, he should do it sometime later."
"Shachi, you heard the man," Snow turned to the shipwright.
"Yes, captain," Shachi passed the vibe test and saluted Snow. "Captain, whatever business you are handling, you should do it sometime later."
"Should I now?" Snow smiled as he asked. "But I don't want to."
"You think it is some kind of game, boy?" The man put down his cigar before pointing his pistol at Snow's face. "It isn't, and I am not playing."
"Are you going to use that?" Snow asked, stepping closer to the point where the pistol was up his forehead. "Guns aren't for threats. They are for action."
There was a tense silence for a moment before a gunshot rang through the air. Snow's head and body fell backward. His crew got into position to fight. The newcomers raised their weapons, pointing at Snow's crew, ready for action. And just as it looked like Snow was about to fall on his back, he stopped and reeled back with a big smile on his face.
"Now is my turn," Snow said as the bullet fell to the ground from Snow's forehead, which was covered in a metallic sheen.
Before the man realized what happened, his face met with Snow's fist. And then he met up with his ship. Now, the massive warship of theirs had a hole in it. Snow shook his hand, shaking off blood from it, before looking at the grunts pointing their rifles at him. It was quite a good opportunity to warm up and have a feeling of how much his body has improved after Law's operation.
"Handle the scrub I will leave behind," Snow said to his crew. "Don't hurt them too badly, as they did bring us some gifts."
It didn't matter if it was a hundred or a thousand. Once Snow's skin turned into iron and he spread his wings filled with razor-sharp metallic feathers, there wasn't anything that could stop him. All that mattered was that Snow now had some practice dummies against which to test himself. Endless gunshots rang out as Snow ran into the ranks of these bastards.
With his wings spread out, Snow shredded through them, bullets bouncing or deflecting from him. Too bad Snow didn't know how to turn his body only partially. As talons weren't great for running, he liked to have feet. But he liked that he could stab people with his bronze peak, and with a flick of his wings, countless metal feathers would shoot out of him.
Snow was playing around, throwing people around with his talons, jumping into the air before shooting dozens of feathers into the enemy's ranks, and doing various other tricks to keep it interesting. It was a meat grinder, and soon, those still well enough started running for their lives back to their ships.
Snow couldn't let them take the ships away. After all, they were his now, so he flew above them and landed on the ship that now had a hole in it. Snow thought he would scare them a bit and make them surrender, but when he landed on the ship's deck, he found the most disturbing thing he ever has seen. Locked up below the deck, under wooden bars, were dozens of people.
Young, old, women or men, all of them were locked up and chained. They looked at Snow in his bird form with fascination rather than fear. His silvery grey feathers, black torso, and bronze swirls didn't seem to scare them. Snow could only see hope in their eyes as they looked at him. And it made Snow sick as he could only imagine what these people must have gone through.
"Die, you bastard," The leader with a bloodied and broken nose comes up on the deck with a canon in his arms, aiming at Snow.
Snow covered himself with one of his wings as cannonball flew at him. It exploded on contact; fire and smoke filled the space where Snow stood. But when the smoke subsided, Snow was revealed to be completely fine. The leader dropped the cannon as he realized that he fucked up. With speed he didn't know possessed, Snow ran through the leader with one of his wings extended.
Snow looked back at the leader of these scums as he touched his chest before half of his body fell, leaving only his legs and stomach standing. Snow turned back to his human body and walked up to the cage holding dozens of people. With a kick, he smashed the locks before he went down and broke their chains, freeing everyone.
He then went on the other ships and did the same. All the fun was now gone. The scum that came to this island quickly gave up after seeing Snow's expression. They didn't protest as Snow gave the weapons and everything else on these ships to the people who were held against their will. The people who were locked up for who knows how long barely said anything, but their eyes told everything Snow needed to know.
"What the hell happened while I was gone?" Law flew into question the moment he arrived at the scene. "Why are you covered in blood? Why are there one and a half hundred gang members on the ground, and another one and a half hundred are kneeling and being tied down by the people in rags? No, I don't even want to know. I am going to have a nap, and by the time I am awake, we will be leaving for the Grandline."
"Well, we will be leaving now," Penguin said as he pointed at the horizon, where dozens of Marine ships were approaching.
"Law, move the ship to the waters; we are leaving," Snow said, as he didn't want to involve innocent people in a fight with the Marines. "Why are you all standing around? Quickly pack your things. We are leaving."
"Why do I think this will be a normal day from now on?" Bepo asked as he lowered his head. "And I wanted to visit the town before we left."
"Kehehehe, captain sure is amazing. We barely left for a few hours, and the place had already turned into a warzone," Caribou said as he stepped on a downed man and enjoyed the scenery.
"It is all good and all, but we have a problem," Law wasn't having it. "How the hell should I move the ship to the water by myself?"
"With your devil fruit powers, duh," Snow replied, not knowing why Law was so angry all of a sudden.
"Yeah, of course. I will just create a room. Then, I will use shambles to replace the floating plank on the water with our ship," Law did everything he said. "And, of course, it will work; why wouldn't it?"
"Good work, let's go, guys," Snow patted Law on the shoulder on the way to the ship.
"Ahh!" Law was ripping his hair under his hat before giving up. "Fuck it."
Just as the Marines were surrounding them with their ships, everyone finished boarding the ship. Snow made sure that Coribou was with them, too, before he told them to descend underwater and go under the Marines. They were close to the Reverse Mountain, but the Marines would probably do their best not to let them go to the Grand Line.
"By the way, we changed the design of the Jolly Roger while you were gone," Snow informed Law. He showed a half-finished Jolly Roger on the sails that were quickly stuffed inside the ship since they didn't have time to put them on. "Well, it is half finished, but since I am the captain, I thought the world should call us a different name as well. As cool as Heart Pirates sound, I think we can do better."
"I don't care anymore," Law replied as he found a place to sit and ignore Snow.
"Bepo, do you have any suggestions?"
"Me?" Bepo got flustered as everyone's attention was gathered on him. "Ah? Oh! What about Polar Hearts."
"Lame," Bepo deflated under Snow's merciless response. "Hakugan, you go."
"Metal Hats?" Hakugan asked as he scratched his face mask. "Since almost all of us are wearing hats, and the captain's body can turn into metal."
"Firstly, not everyone is wearing hats," Snow replied. "And secondly, it is lame."
"Leave Heart in the name, at least," Law said from the sidelines.
"Heart of Iron?" Ikkaku asked.
"Is it the name of a romance book or the pirate crew name?" Snow asked back.
"Well, if you are so creative, why don't you come up with a name, captain?" Penguin said.
"It is simple because I wanted to give you an opportunity since I already have a name," Snow smiled in response. "From now on, we shall be called the Ironheart Pirates."
Snow spread his arms, waiting for applause. But all he received was Law saying it was lame; of course, Snow ignored it. He was the captain, and he knew better than anyone else how cool it sounded. Nobody had any right to tell him otherwise, even if their silence kind of hurt him.
A.N. As always, If you want more, up to seven advanced chapters, you can support me on pa treon. com \ ironwolf852. And if you have any requests for stories, I will only take them on my pa treon.
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