บท 76: Chapter 12

Seeing four of their comrades vanish so easily made everyone distraught. Nami and Luffy both fell to their knees in shock while Chopper had tears streaming from his eyes. Markus slowly sheathed Shodai on his waist while doing nothing to hide or cover up his tears. Real men could cry without feeling shame, any male who said otherwise wasn't a man.

Rayleigh grumbled, "It looks like they're in serious trouble... I'd like to lend them a hand but I'm not as young as I used to be."

Kizaru almost seemed offended by Rayleigh's remarks, "You're holding off a Marine Admiral and you still want more? Come now, you're embarrassing me here!"

As Rayleigh and Kizaru continued to clash swords, Kuma appeared beside them, "Dark King Rayleigh..."

Kizaru looked at the large man, "Kuma!"

Kuma completely ignored Kizaru and proceeded to have a whispered conversation with Rayleigh. Markus wasn't sure how Kuma did it, probably with his Devil Fruit, but even he couldn't hear what the two said to each other. A moment later, whatever Kuma was doing stopped and Markus, along with everyone else listening, could hear Rayleigh speak once more, "And you expect me to believe what you say?"

Kuma's expression was as unchanging as ever, "That is up to you... Even I have doubts about this matter."

Kizaru didn't look happy as he questioned Kuma, "What are you up to?"

"We have no obligation to cooperate with the marines save where the government is directly involved. Your question shall remain unanswered."

Luffy became enraged at Kuma's indifferent attitude, "YOU BASTARD!" Steam erupted around him, "Gear Second!"

Luffy dashed at Kuma, but the big man was even faster. Before Luffy could get close to him, he had already appeared in front of Franky and Nami as they tried to get away. Not one to go down without a fight, Franky launched his cybernetic right hand at Kuma's face. Kuma blocked it without even straining. The Pacifista's might be tough and durable, but they really had nothing on Kuma when it came to absolute strength.

Luffy dashed at Kuma once more and fired off a Jet Pistol but Kuma easily deflected it, and Luffy, to crash into the ground. One swipe later and Franky vanished just like the others. As Luffy tried to recover, Kuma closed in on Nami. Desperate, Nami turned to look at Markus covered in electricity, "Markus..."

The next moment she was gone. Markus grimaced and hoped Nami would forgive him. Where she was going was the perfect place for her. He couldn't take her with him, maybe when they met again he would be a true man worthy of being her friend. He could only hope. Chopper and Robin soon followed the others leaving only Markus and Luffy behind. Luffy punched the ground and looked over at Markus. A mixture of anguish and rage on his face, "MARKUS! YOU'RE STRONG! WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM?!"

Markus sighed and placed his hand on the sheath of his katana, "Because I couldn't. I hope... I hope one day you will understand... We'll meet again soon Luffy..."

As the last word left Markus's mouth, Kuma pat Luffy on the back and caused him to vanish. Markus looked up at the sky while lifting his right arm and using his sleeve to wipe the tears from his face. Aside from Luffy, it would be a long two years before he could meet his friends once again. When he lowered his arm and head, Kuma was standing directly in front of him, "Silvers D. Markus... I wish to claim my favor."

Markus nodded. This was the last chance Kuma would have to cash in that favor before losing the last vestiges of himself. Doctor Vegapunk would soon lobotomize him and turn him into nothing but a human-shaped weapon. Kuma looked down at Markus and whispered just two words, "Help Dragon."

The sparks surrounding Markus vanished as he canceled his Lightning Armor. Without his friends around anymore, he could no longer use it permanently. His Willpower regeneration simply wasn't enough to keep up with its expenditure for long. Markus let out a small sigh and nodded, "I promise. Now... I suppose it's my turn?"

Kuma didn't say anything. Instead, he reached out and placed his hand on Markus's shoulder. With a soft sound, Markus joined his friends in flying through the air to a new destination. Markus felt... weird. That was the only word he could use to describe the sensation of flying through the air under someone else's power. He was trapped in a transparent bubble shaped like a paw flying through the air at a respectable speed. Still, the speed was nothing compared to his own.

A few moments into his flight he got something he'd been expecting.

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Quest Complete!

Escape!

Admiral Kizaru and a small army of Pacifista's are on their way to capture or kill you and your crewmates. The deaths of two World Nobles has raised the stakes. They won't stop coming for you until you are dead and buried.

Objective 1: Defend against or Defeat Admiral Kizaru. (Completed!)

Objective 2: Destroy Pacifista's. (Completed!)

Objective 3: Escape from Sabaody Archipelago. (Completed!)

Failure Conditions: Death, Capture, Death of a crewmember, Capture of a crewmember

Rewards:

Objective 1: Reward TBD (Black Den Den Mushi)

Objective 2: Skill Book: Technological Knowledge

Objective 3: Blank Eternal Log Pose

Your Item has been placed on your wrist.

Your Item has been deposited into your inventory.

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Markus first looked at his wrist where a new bracelet, which looked much like a large watch, had appeared with a small black snail resting within it. The black Den Den Mushi's were special among their species. Instead of being used as a telephone they intercepted calls between other Den Den Mushi. Basically, it was good for wiretapping and eavesdropping. Not a bad prize at all. Though calls could be encrypted rendering the black snail useless. However, the encrypting snails were rare.

When he finished examining the snail, Markus opened his inventory to look at his spoils from the events on Sabaody. He'd gained quite a bit, two nearly perfect Pacifista's, a 'Blank' Eternal Log Pose, and a new skill book. There was also the skill book for King Punch still sitting inside of his inventory as well. He hadn't used it yet because it was practically useless in a real battle so the odds of him ever using it were minimal. But... What the hell? Why not? He pulled out both skill books and the Blank Eternal Log Pose. He used the skill books first.

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New Skill!

King Punch

[Active, Level 1, 0.0% Experience]

The signature technique of King Elizabello II, the King Punch is a punch of exceptionally concentrated strength. It is capable of releasing an immense amount of air pressure that can cause massive damage to the surroundings. However, this power comes at a cost. The user is required to warm up for a specific amount of time before the attack can be released at full power. Though it can be released earlier, the effect of the skill will be drastically reduced.

[Minimum]

+500% Damage

Cost: 250 Willpower

Charge Time: 5 Minutes

[Maximum]

+5,000% Damage

Cost: 2,500 Willpower

Charge Time: 1 Hour

New Skill!

Technological Knowledge

[Passive, Level 1, 0.0% Experience]

This skill gives the user information on technological devices such as how to create, repair, and deconstruct them properly. As the level of the skill increases, the information in the user's mind will increase allowing the user to improve existing items or even create all new ones. The more technology the user studies, the more experience this skill can gain.

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Blank Eternal Log Pose

All Eternal Pose's come from somewhere right? This Eternal Pose is currently blank and can have one island's location stored within it. To store a log withing this Eternal Pose you must simply remain on an island until it would normally store a log within a Log Pose. However, instead of pointing to the next island in the chain, the location of the current island will be permanently stored.

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Markus looked over his gains and nodded in appreciation. Though King punch was extremely powerful, even more potent than his Railgun skill was at level one, it took way too much time to charge. Even five minutes was too much time in real combat. Hopefully, leveling it up would reduce the charge time, and if it didn't then he would never use it in real combat. Simple as that.

Markus looked around but he could only see the blue sky with white clouds above him and the cold blue ocean below him. With nothing to do but pass the time, he closed his eyes and entered his Image Training. It was yet another way the system had taught him and molded him into who he was. He was constantly killing people within it. Image Training had made him callous toward life and lowered its value to him. He shook his head as he stood in an empty space. If he didn't need to push his skills to the limit to prepare for the war, he would avoid using this skill.

For the moment, he wanted to push his new Lightning Armor to higher levels. He would need the boosts it provided to him when the war came. Those boosts would come in especially handy against the Admirals, Sengoku, and some of the Shichibukai. If he could drastically boost his reaction time and reflexes it would give him just the edge he would need to defeat them. For that, he summoned a plain marine private with a rifle as his opponent.

Once the private appeared, he sat down with his legs crossed and activated his Lightning Armor followed by his Meditation. Stacking both skills would allow him to keep the Lightning Armor going for longer but he would still run out of Willpower, eventually. To keep up with the expenditure of Lightning Armor, he needed to regenerate at least 450 Willpower every thirty seconds. At the moment, he could only regenerate 190 Willpower every thirty seconds, though Meditation upped it that to 337. Still not nearly enough. It wasn't all bad though. He could keep it up for a full forty-three minutes in this state.

Even after he mastered his Meditation skill and maxed out the bonus to 100%, he could still only keep Lightning Armor active for 70 minutes before running out of juice. For the three days of his flight, Markus only ate, slept, and trained his Lightning Armor skill. There really wasn't much else to do and the slow flight would be boring otherwise.

On the third day, he sensed something from within his Image Training so he canceled it and opened his eyes. After looking around he found the source of the feeling. He was approaching an island, one he didn't recognize. The entire island was dark due to the thick black cloud cover hanging over it. Lightning constantly flashed in the sky and struck the island as if the lightning itself were regular rain. What really drew his attention was the color of the lightning, purple!

A short time later he was certain that the island before him was his destination. The three days were almost up and he was drawing closer and closer to it with every passing moment. As he moved nearer to the island, the weird feeling became stronger. He felt... attracted to the feeling. He liked it and it made him feel... good. The closer he got to the island, the better he felt.

Once he arrived beneath the storm all hell broke loose. Every lightning bolt nearby suddenly diverted course and blasted toward him. Markus wasn't the least bit afraid of the lightning, he was living electricity, what possible harm could the lightning do to him?

Apparently, a lot.

The first few strikes didn't bother him in the least. They felt quite good, energizing even. That's where the problem began. His Willpower had been low from practicing his Lightning Armor and each strike of lightning refilled a portion of his Willpower, similar to drinking a Willpower potion would. But once his reserves were full...

As bolt after bolt of lightning slammed into his body he suddenly had sympathy for water balloons. When they were empty they could be easily filled but if you filled one too much, it would burst. With the excess energy flowing into his body, Markus felt like he was about to burst. The image of his body exploding into pieces flashed through his mind. He didn't want to die in such a stupid way and instantly arrived at a solution. If the lightning was going to refill his Willpower, he just needed to drain it!

Observation Haki, Armament Haki over his whole body, Tekkai, and Lightning Armor were all activated simultaneously to immediately begin to drain his Willpower. Having those four skills running actively drained over 1,600 Willpower a minute. He felt some relief, for the moment. But as he came in for a landing on the island more and more lightning began to strike him nonstop. Even with such a huge drain on his resources, he was beginning to recover faster than he could drain it. He was in trouble and he needed a solution, fast, or he was going to explode!

Markus quickly opened his list of skills and started scrolling through them to find one that could add even more of a drain to his Willpower. If he couldn't find one he would have to use his Quick Travel option to get the hell out of dodge and pick another spot to train at. Given the approach of Ace's execution, he only had a couple of days. Originally, he planned to leave the island Kuma sent him to right away to find his goal but how could he resist the dangerous allure of overflowing power? He needed to spend at least one day here. Just one!

As he browsed his skills he found the perfect one to save his life. A skill he'd never used before because its cost was so absurdly high. But here? On this island? He could use it as much as he wanted! Raiju! The skill fusion between his footwork and his Lightning Speed. It allowed him to combine the two together for unparalleled speed but at the drastic price of 250 Willpower per second. The moment he saw the skill he activated it. His consumption jumped from 1,600 a minute to 16,600 a minute!

The moment he activated the new skill, the lightning surrounding his body went berserk. Bolts blasted off of him and scoured the ground leaving behind small craters and carving trails. He felt... invincible. Raiju and Lightning Armor both enhanced his body but the feeling coming from the Raiju skill felt unparalleled.

He quickly calmed down to keep the power from going to his head. Without the lightning on the island, he could only keep Raiju going for about twenty seconds on his own. Fortunately, activating Raiju brought him into a sort of balance with the island's lightning. His Willpower was draining but doing so ever so slowly. If the lightning wasn't so attracted to him it wouldn't be much of a problem but as long as it was he would need to continue to drain his Willpower constantly.

His first order of business, find a place of safety. He could easily stay up for 24 hours straight but he didn't want to if he didn't have to. His mind could grow dull resulting in accidents. He couldn't risk that at the moment. He was going to do something supremely dangerous soon so being even slightly dull was not an option. He looked toward the mountains of the island and decided to head there. Hopefully, he could find a nice deep cave to protect him from the loving embrace of the lightning on the island. Even now he was being struck by one or two bolts every second.

With what felt like a step, he teleported from where he was to the base of the nearest mountain. It took no effort, he barely even felt like he was moving. It was a surreal experience. He looked around trying to find the entrance to a cave, even using his Observation Haki to try and find any clues. Unfortunately, the lightning constantly striking his body made it difficult for him to sense anything beyond a few dozen feet. He'd had his Observation Haki so long that he almost felt blind without it. On the other hand, it was rather nice not to be actively preventing sensory overload.

He took another 'step' and ended up traveling thousands of feet to a new location. The speed he moved at was staggering but he was slowly becoming used to it. His enhanced perception from Lightning Armor was playing a big part in that. He looked around and when he found nothing, he moved to another location. He repeated this process several times until he finally spotted the gaping maw of a large cave in one of the mountains.

Not wanting to get lost or slam into a wall at supersonic speeds, he deactivated Raiju and ran into the cave as fast as he could under the other buffs he had active. His Willpower was filling quickly but he made it into the cave before it became too dangerous. He didn't stop running until he was a good fifty feet or so inside. Thankfully, the lightning didn't do anything crazy to follow him inside. Though, it did continue to rain down on the mountain just above his location.

Markus let out a sigh and collapsed to the ground while deactivating all of his buffs. He felt exhausted. He couldn't let himself rest, though. After digging through his inventory for a bit, he retrieved his Devil Fruit Locator. The item was small and looked just like a compass, only with a button on the side that could be pressed. He did exactly that while saying, "Gura Gura no Mi."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the needle of the compass spun and faced a certain direction. Markus followed the direction with his eyes to stare at a cave wall, "Just hold on, old man. I'll be visiting you soon."