Jumping to her left, Yoko dodged a machete and scurried forwards.
Keeping low to the ground she slid out a big tent that once held many full barrels of wine and upon seeing a row of gun barrels pointed at her for a brief moment wondered how she got herself in this situation.
From her scouting on the previous day, she knew that there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pirates on Cannon Cape – and while that number had been somewhat daunting – after so easily taking out the first pirate, she thought she would be done clearing the Cape by lunch and had started circling the forts perimeter leveling one man after the next.
But after beating to death her 31st or 32nd victim, the exact number was unknown to her since she hadn’t been counting and any survivors would have been purely the result of luck, Yoko began to think that ‘defeating’ dozens of pirates was thirsty work and started to feel more and more anxious to sneak back into the wine tent she had discovered on the previous day.
‘I want to go get some now, but the base is so big…’ she mentally agonized while she snuck behind the next man, hit him in the head, and then crudely drug him into a corner where he at least wouldn’t be immediately seen.
The men of Cannon Cape were bona fide pirates of the New World, armed and dangerous, but were caught unsuspecting against a foe who moved like a shadow on all fours. Being low to the ground and as quick as a bullet were one thing, but the major factor in Yoko’s success against these men was her total disregard for the acts of violence she was committing.
Of course, most pirates were not strangers to naked violence, but with her superhuman strength and resulting superhuman speed coupled with her devil-may-care attitude she was able to expertly act out the role of spearhead.
And all of this combined would have made it certainly possible for the teenager to wipe out the majority of her enemies without being noticed, however, as she began to think more and more about the wine that she had stumbled upon yesterday she lost her self-control and after crushing inwards a man’s head, she slightly drooled and quit her plan less than halfway in.
Of course, she didn’t tell herself that she quit because she lacked discipline, she convinced herself that she could finishing destroying the pirates tomorrow and that she had to drink the wine now and not later or else Bill would smell it on her, and she’d thereby be in big trouble.
With her mind made up, Yoko made her way to the other side of the fort using a series of quick-witted strategies to get past groups of pirates who were either gambling, eating, fighting, or just peacefully passing the time before they went on their next violent journey.
By doing whatever she had to do to move unnoticed, it didn’t take long for her to sneak underneath the wine tent and, seeing barrel after barrel, her eyes lit up and her nose instantly developed a level of sensitivity that would shock even the most ardent oenophile.
Some of the wines were fruity, others were nutty, there were those that smelled bitter, those that smelled sour, and even some which stunk like wood.
But her favorite was definitely those which smelled spicy and zeroing in on one particular barrel Yoko tiptoed over and rubbed around the rim gently.
Feeling what she figured was a soft spot, she punched through and after creating a noise, she froze until she was sure no one was coming and then realized that her punch, while strong, had created a jagged hole which would make it awkward to drink from.
Thinking that there was no other way than to spill it, Yoko shrugged but then swore that she would ask Bill to learn the Finger Pistol technique so that the next time she came across a tent full of wine she would be able to drink without damaging the barrel too much.
With final thought, she lifted up and drained its contents either on the ground or in her belly before setting the empty barrel down.
Exceedingly happy with herself, she then moved to one barrel after the next and although much wine was poured on the ground a great deal more went directly into her stomach until she was so full that she started thinking that she was a little tired.
Heavily intoxicated the teenage girl didn’t think twice and curled up beside what would have been her next target, a particularly good smelling drink that smelled like peaches, and slept soundly through the subsequent shouts and alarms as the firsts of her victims were found stashed away in various corners and crates.
If not for the searches inevitably reaching the wine tent, like this she may had slept clear through the next day, but when the pirate entered the tent found the empty barrels he accidentally tipped a couple over which caused her to stir.
Hearing her move, the pirate looked astonished to find this Marine-coat wearing girl covered in red wine juice and brown dried blood.
His brain broke for a split second, just long enough for Yoko to somewhat awaken from her drunken slumber, and yelling out ‘INTRUDER!’ he pulled out his machete and began chopping away.
With her body seeming to move on its own, Yoko dodged several slashes for several moments until her lazy-eyed stupor was replaced with wide-eyed alarm as she heard dozens of footsteps coming from outside.
Thinking she had to beat a quick retreat, Yoko dodged under the tent, and face to face with dozens of gun barrels was where her past memory became present reality.
Standing there Yoko wondered what to do for a second but hearing the machete-wielding pirate behind her spurred her into action.
Deciding to ‘split and spit’ she bit the hairs off her arm and after dodging the first round of bullets she spit out a dozen or more small clones who, despite being unarmed, still carried a portion of her superhuman capabilities.
As she turned to run off to the side while her clones mobbed the nearest pirate riflemen, battering them with punches, teeth, and claws.
The clones initially took the pirates by surprise, but against these men who sailed in the New World it was but a novel ability and soon the clones were being bashed down – puffing back into lifeless hairs and flying back to Yoko’s arm.
Turning this way and that, Yoko found herself continuously cut off and dodging shot after shot. Knocking one pirate aside, two took his place, and in this way, she was being cornered further and further.
Eventually she became trapped in a somewhat large area of flat land between a line of concrete ramparts and a series of trenches. Watching as hundreds of pirates surrounded her, she moved her hand towards her pocket and took out a small signal flare.
Knowing that Boss would be nearby, the girl began to dig a hole with her super strength and the pirates, who wanted nothing to do with this girl who had killed so many of them, they took their positions in the trenches and after a few minutes started chanting ‘Kil-Mie-Back!’ ‘Kil-Mie-Back!’ ‘Kil-Mie-Back!’ when a huge fellow, no shorter than ten feet tall walked out with a grim expression.
He had a huge upper body but small legs and wielded two giant axes. Seeing Yoko did, he shouted gruffly: “Girl! I hope you’ve lived a fine life, because today I’m going to kill you! But first, I’ll skin you alive!”
Hearing this claim, Yoko looked at the huge man and started laughing. Talking between her gasps for air she said: “You, a big gorilla like you?! You’re only lucky you have back up! But juussst you wait!”
Then without another word, she fired the signal flair which sailed high into the sky as it was designed to do and rushed towards the big man with her hammer in hand.
Thinking that she could use her speed and wits to get around until Boss arrived, Yoko let out a ‘Yeep!’ when the big pirate jumped through the air and caught her on the top of her head with his axe.
Massaging her head with one hand, the other hand swung her hammer in a wide arc which connected on the pirates midsection. He went flying, but quickly recovered and the two fought back and forth – which Yoko mostly playing the losing hand.
Time and again she took a hard hit on her hard head, but Kilmie was also not slowing down an inch until finally a buzzing was heard, and, upon seeing the situation, Boss swooped in and breathing fire roasted scores of pirates alive.
These men had taken position in the trench to avoid directly engaging the girl, and now most of them would never leave.
With Boss’s arrival, the pirates finally broke. Running and screaming ‘Marine Monster!’ the huge beetle gored handfuls at a time.
On Yoko’s side, as Boss was crushing the assembled pirates, she was benefitting from Kilmie’s split attention but no matter how many times she hit the man he continued to recover and it was impossible for her to win.
In this fight of life and death, the pirate himself was not idle. Realizing that he couldn’t hurt the girl by hitting her in the head he began to target her chest and limbs. The girl was half his height though, and being quick on her feet, knowing what he had to do was easier than actually doing it.
Jumping around, Yoko tried all kinds of things from using her clones to kicking the big man in his tiny leg, but nothing seemed to do the trick. Thankfully, as she was on her last legs, Boss came to her aid and the final battle in Cape Cannon entered a new phase.
Back at the Marine Base, much to Isaac’s surprise, Bill was stunned to learn about the Pacifista Project.
Isaac described the project as ‘humanized weapons’ but in Bill’s mind he heard ‘human clones being used as cybernetically enhanced slave-soldiers’.
It was a lot to process in such a short amount of time even for him. Did he whole-sale reject the idea of cloning? Well, he thought, perhaps a cloning organs would be beneficial. In fact, he considered that to be entirely a way around using cybernetics to treat physical defects.
Then what about cloning an entire person? Putting aside the aspects of the soul, which worried him greatly, that just seemed morally wrong under almost any circumstance he could imagine. Needless to say, the circumstance to use that clone as a slave soldier was far beyond the pale.
What kept coming back to him as Isaac described his knowledge of the project was the simple thought that Vegapunk had been doing that research right under his nose and he hadn’t seen a single thing.
Of course, he knew that secret programs were normally ‘stovepiped’ even within the same organization that funded them. This had been the case many times but the most famous one that Bill knew about was the Manhattan Project, which even the Vice President knew nothing about for years.
He tried to remember back when he was working with Vegapunk if there had been any ‘tells’ that he missed, and as best as he could remember – and he remembered almost perfectly – there hadn’t been. As best as he could figure it, Vegapunk only had the chance to work on the Pacifista when he was doing Metallurgy.
Speaking to Isaac for hours had been a serious let down. Bill knew for sure that this worlds ethics were not as high as they should be. Poverty, crime, and war happened on Earth, but this world seemed to be in constant wide-spread struggle.
Even the Allied Kingdoms inside the World Government would war from time to time, so it was easy to see how those places not under the World Government umbrella were in constant discord.
‘But for them to make cloned slaves…’ shaking his head, and then rubbing his eyes, he couldn’t get out of his head that it was outright evil.
Seeing Bill act this way, Isaac looked at him and asked what the difference was between his robots and the humanized weapons, to which Bill replied flatly: “Robots are tools, advanced tools, but that’s all... they are not alive.” then shaking his head again, he continued: “The difference is that those clones have been robbed of their humanity. They’ve either been lobotomized or never allowed to develop of functioning mind, but either way it’s wrong.”
While Isaac mulled that over, he made the comment that it wasn’t the worst thing the World Government had done, but Bill just disregarded this.
In his mind, whether it was someone involved with the World Government or not, disassociated acts of cruelty were something that could never be totally stopped in this disconnected Archipelago World.
However, an institutionalized commitment for inhuman treatment was a different story.
Speaking for a while longer, Bill learned that Isaac wanted to know how the Pacifista were impossible to control from the outside, and then guessed that the Wardens robots were probably somewhat easily hacked.
This solution, to him, wasn’t that hard to hypothesize but the ramifications made him want to head to Egghead Island immediately.
“I don’t have a billion Beli.” Bill started, then continued: “And I don’t think Vegapunk will give me the research on the Pacifista, I hadn’t even heard about it until today.”
Looking at the Warden, Bill told him he figured he could understand how the Pacifista security checks would work, and he would tell him, if he reduced the price of his robot research and added in the stabilized di-hydrogen technology as a bonus.
“If your hypothesis furthers my understanding, we can negotiate a fair discount.” Answered Isaac who began to open up the more he saw Bill disconnecting with the World Government.
Knowing that it really didn’t matter how correct his hypothesis was, Bill answered clearly: “It’s the Snails. Snails can communicate with each other over any distance because their souls are connected, and they found ways to control that link.
Sure, the transmissions can be tapped into, but that’s a fault in the transponders and not the Snails themselves. Vegapunk must have found a to link spirits in such a way that doesn’t use the regular transponders. He’s been doing research into Devil Fruits and so its possible that the Pacifista wouldn’t be controlled by electrical waves or anything else you’d be familiar with.”
Nodding slowly to this, Isaac was about to answer when the mini-Transponder Snail that Bill had received from Nelson started going off.
“Case and point.” Bill said, alluding to the fact that these eight snails had a direct connection within the set.
Then, answering the call, he heard Nelson shout: “Captain! One of our signal flares was seen around Cannon Cape!”
Thinking that this was around where Yoko said she had been playing, Bill rushed out of the Marine Base followed by the Warden.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a like!
Yoko's part of the story always feels like a narration, but I think I may like it better that way for her character. Also, there's no way around it, there's gonna be some (or rather a lot of) sci-fi elements as our MC is in the Science Division.
Jumping to her left, Yoko dodged a machete and scurried forwards.
Keeping low to the ground she slid out a big tent that once held many full barrels of wine and upon seeing a row of gun barrels pointed at her for a brief moment wondered how she got herself in this situation.
From her scouting on the previous day, she knew that there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pirates on Cannon Cape – and while that number had been somewhat daunting – after so easily taking out the first pirate, she thought she would be done clearing the Cape by lunch and had started circling the forts perimeter leveling one man after the next.
But after beating to death her 31st or 32nd victim, the exact number was unknown to her since she hadn’t been counting and any survivors would have been purely the result of luck, Yoko began to think that ‘defeating’ dozens of pirates was thirsty work and started to feel more and more anxious to sneak back into the wine tent she had discovered on the previous day.
‘I want to go get some now, but the base is so big…’ she mentally agonized while she snuck behind the next man, hit him in the head, and then crudely drug him into a corner where he at least wouldn’t be immediately seen.
The men of Cannon Cape were bona fide pirates of the New World, armed and dangerous, but were caught unsuspecting against a foe who moved like a shadow on all fours. Being low to the ground and as quick as a bullet were one thing, but the major factor in Yoko’s success against these men was her total disregard for the acts of violence she was committing.
Of course, most pirates were not strangers to naked violence, but with her superhuman strength and resulting superhuman speed coupled with her devil-may-care attitude she was able to expertly act out the role of spearhead.
And all of this combined would have made it certainly possible for the teenager to wipe out the majority of her enemies without being noticed, however, as she began to think more and more about the wine that she had stumbled upon yesterday she lost her self-control and after crushing inwards a man’s head, she slightly drooled and quit her plan less than halfway in.
Of course, she didn’t tell herself that she quit because she lacked discipline, she convinced herself that she could finishing destroying the pirates tomorrow and that she had to drink the wine now and not later or else Bill would smell it on her, and she’d thereby be in big trouble.
With her mind made up, Yoko made her way to the other side of the fort using a series of quick-witted strategies to get past groups of pirates who were either gambling, eating, fighting, or just peacefully passing the time before they went on their next violent journey.
By doing whatever she had to do to move unnoticed, it didn’t take long for her to sneak underneath the wine tent and, seeing barrel after barrel, her eyes lit up and her nose instantly developed a level of sensitivity that would shock even the most ardent oenophile.
Some of the wines were fruity, others were nutty, there were those that smelled bitter, those that smelled sour, and even some which stunk like wood.
But her favorite was definitely those which smelled spicy and zeroing in on one particular barrel Yoko tiptoed over and rubbed around the rim gently.
Feeling what she figured was a soft spot, she punched through and after creating a noise, she froze until she was sure no one was coming and then realized that her punch, while strong, had created a jagged hole which would make it awkward to drink from.
Thinking that there was no other way than to spill it, Yoko shrugged but then swore that she would ask Bill to learn the Finger Pistol technique so that the next time she came across a tent full of wine she would be able to drink without damaging the barrel too much.
With final thought, she lifted up and drained its contents either on the ground or in her belly before setting the empty barrel down.
Exceedingly happy with herself, she then moved to one barrel after the next and although much wine was poured on the ground a great deal more went directly into her stomach until she was so full that she started thinking that she was a little tired.
Heavily intoxicated the teenage girl didn’t think twice and curled up beside what would have been her next target, a particularly good smelling drink that smelled like peaches, and slept soundly through the subsequent shouts and alarms as the firsts of her victims were found stashed away in various corners and crates.
If not for the searches inevitably reaching the wine tent, like this she may had slept clear through the next day, but when the pirate entered the tent found the empty barrels he accidentally tipped a couple over which caused her to stir.
Hearing her move, the pirate looked astonished to find this Marine-coat wearing girl covered in red wine juice and brown dried blood.
His brain broke for a split second, just long enough for Yoko to somewhat awaken from her drunken slumber, and yelling out ‘INTRUDER!’ he pulled out his machete and began chopping away.
With her body seeming to move on its own, Yoko dodged several slashes for several moments until her lazy-eyed stupor was replaced with wide-eyed alarm as she heard dozens of footsteps coming from outside.
Thinking she had to beat a quick retreat, Yoko dodged under the tent, and face to face with dozens of gun barrels was where her past memory became present reality.
Standing there Yoko wondered what to do for a second but hearing the machete-wielding pirate behind her spurred her into action.
Deciding to ‘split and spit’ she bit the hairs off her arm and after dodging the first round of bullets she spit out a dozen or more small clones who, despite being unarmed, still carried a portion of her superhuman capabilities.
As she turned to run off to the side while her clones mobbed the nearest pirate riflemen, battering them with punches, teeth, and claws.
The clones initially took the pirates by surprise, but against these men who sailed in the New World it was but a novel ability and soon the clones were being bashed down – puffing back into lifeless hairs and flying back to Yoko’s arm.
Turning this way and that, Yoko found herself continuously cut off and dodging shot after shot. Knocking one pirate aside, two took his place, and in this way, she was being cornered further and further.
Eventually she became trapped in a somewhat large area of flat land between a line of concrete ramparts and a series of trenches. Watching as hundreds of pirates surrounded her, she moved her hand towards her pocket and took out a small signal flare.
Knowing that Boss would be nearby, the girl began to dig a hole with her super strength and the pirates, who wanted nothing to do with this girl who had killed so many of them, they took their positions in the trenches and after a few minutes started chanting ‘Kil-Mie-Back!’ ‘Kil-Mie-Back!’ ‘Kil-Mie-Back!’ when a huge fellow, no shorter than ten feet tall walked out with a grim expression.
He had a huge upper body but small legs and wielded two giant axes. Seeing Yoko did, he shouted gruffly: “Girl! I hope you’ve lived a fine life, because today I’m going to kill you! But first, I’ll skin you alive!”
Hearing this claim, Yoko looked at the huge man and started laughing. Talking between her gasps for air she said: “You, a big gorilla like you?! You’re only lucky you have back up! But juussst you wait!”
Then without another word, she fired the signal flair which sailed high into the sky as it was designed to do and rushed towards the big man with her hammer in hand.
Thinking that she could use her speed and wits to get around until Boss arrived, Yoko let out a ‘Yeep!’ when the big pirate jumped through the air and caught her on the top of her head with his axe.
Massaging her head with one hand, the other hand swung her hammer in a wide arc which connected on the pirates midsection. He went flying, but quickly recovered and the two fought back and forth – which Yoko mostly playing the losing hand.
Time and again she took a hard hit on her hard head, but Kilmie was also not slowing down an inch until finally a buzzing was heard, and, upon seeing the situation, Boss swooped in and breathing fire roasted scores of pirates alive.
These men had taken position in the trench to avoid directly engaging the girl, and now most of them would never leave.
With Boss’s arrival, the pirates finally broke. Running and screaming ‘Marine Monster!’ the huge beetle gored handfuls at a time.
On Yoko’s side, as Boss was crushing the assembled pirates, she was benefitting from Kilmie’s split attention but no matter how many times she hit the man he continued to recover and it was impossible for her to win.
In this fight of life and death, the pirate himself was not idle. Realizing that he couldn’t hurt the girl by hitting her in the head he began to target her chest and limbs. The girl was half his height though, and being quick on her feet, knowing what he had to do was easier than actually doing it.
Jumping around, Yoko tried all kinds of things from using her clones to kicking the big man in his tiny leg, but nothing seemed to do the trick. Thankfully, as she was on her last legs, Boss came to her aid and the final battle in Cape Cannon entered a new phase.
Back at the Marine Base, much to Isaac’s surprise, Bill was stunned to learn about the Pacifista Project.
Isaac described the project as ‘humanized weapons’ but in Bill’s mind he heard ‘human clones being used as cybernetically enhanced slave-soldiers’.
It was a lot to process in such a short amount of time even for him. Did he whole-sale reject the idea of cloning? Well, he thought, perhaps a cloning organs would be beneficial. In fact, he considered that to be entirely a way around using cybernetics to treat physical defects.
Then what about cloning an entire person? Putting aside the aspects of the soul, which worried him greatly, that just seemed morally wrong under almost any circumstance he could imagine. Needless to say, the circumstance to use that clone as a slave soldier was far beyond the pale.
What kept coming back to him as Isaac described his knowledge of the project was the simple thought that Vegapunk had been doing that research right under his nose and he hadn’t seen a single thing.
Of course, he knew that secret programs were normally ‘stovepiped’ even within the same organization that funded them. This had been the case many times but the most famous one that Bill knew about was the Manhattan Project, which even the Vice President knew nothing about for years.
He tried to remember back when he was working with Vegapunk if there had been any ‘tells’ that he missed, and as best as he could remember – and he remembered almost perfectly – there hadn’t been. As best as he could figure it, Vegapunk only had the chance to work on the Pacifista when he was doing Metallurgy.
Speaking to Isaac for hours had been a serious let down. Bill knew for sure that this worlds ethics were not as high as they should be. Poverty, crime, and war happened on Earth, but this world seemed to be in constant wide-spread struggle.
Even the Allied Kingdoms inside the World Government would war from time to time, so it was easy to see how those places not under the World Government umbrella were in constant discord.
‘But for them to make cloned slaves…’ shaking his head, and then rubbing his eyes, he couldn’t get out of his head that it was outright evil.
Seeing Bill act this way, Isaac looked at him and asked what the difference was between his robots and the humanized weapons, to which Bill replied flatly: “Robots are tools, advanced tools, but that’s all... they are not alive.” then shaking his head again, he continued: “The difference is that those clones have been robbed of their humanity. They’ve either been lobotomized or never allowed to develop of functioning mind, but either way it’s wrong.”
While Isaac mulled that over, he made the comment that it wasn’t the worst thing the World Government had done, but Bill just disregarded this.
In his mind, whether it was someone involved with the World Government or not, disassociated acts of cruelty were something that could never be totally stopped in this disconnected Archipelago World.
However, an institutionalized commitment for inhuman treatment was a different story.
Speaking for a while longer, Bill learned that Isaac wanted to know how the Pacifista were impossible to control from the outside, and then guessed that the Wardens robots were probably somewhat easily hacked.
This solution, to him, wasn’t that hard to hypothesize but the ramifications made him want to head to Egghead Island immediately.
“I don’t have a billion Beli.” Bill started, then continued: “And I don’t think Vegapunk will give me the research on the Pacifista, I hadn’t even heard about it until today.”
Looking at the Warden, Bill told him he figured he could understand how the Pacifista security checks would work, and he would tell him, if he reduced the price of his robot research and added in the stabilized di-hydrogen technology as a bonus.
“If your hypothesis furthers my understanding, we can negotiate a fair discount.” Answered Isaac who began to open up the more he saw Bill disconnecting with the World Government.
Knowing that it really didn’t matter how correct his hypothesis was, Bill answered clearly: “It’s the Snails. Snails can communicate with each other over any distance because their souls are connected, and they found ways to control that link.
Sure, the transmissions can be tapped into, but that’s a fault in the transponders and not the Snails themselves. Vegapunk must have found a to link spirits in such a way that doesn’t use the regular transponders. He’s been doing research into Devil Fruits and so its possible that the Pacifista wouldn’t be controlled by electrical waves or anything else you’d be familiar with.”
Nodding slowly to this, Isaac was about to answer when the mini-Transponder Snail that Bill had received from Nelson started going off.
“Case and point.” Bill said, alluding to the fact that these eight snails had a direct connection within the set.
Then, answering the call, he heard Nelson shout: “Captain! One of our signal flares was seen around Cannon Cape!”
Thinking that this was around where Yoko said she had been playing, Bill rushed out of the Marine Base followed by the Warden.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a like!
Yoko's part of the story always feels like a narration, but I think I may like it better that way for her character. Also, there's no way around it, there's gonna be some (or rather a lot of) sci-fi elements as our MC is in the Science Division.
