*BOOM … CRACK!*
Startled by the loud sound, William put down his newspaper and stood up, looking around for the source of the sound, he saw the crew also were looking around the ship.
"Capt! One of the new vessels from earlier fired a shot towards Dracule Mihawk!" Yelled a Marine while climbing down the ladder of the crow's nest.
William immediately pulled out his binoculars and turned towards the direction of the new vessels, he saw Mihawk in the air, jumping towards the new vessel. Not long after Mihawk landed on the vessel, he saw the crew immediately attacked Mihawk, Mihawk sent out a black sword wave around him knocking back the men who were attacking him.
"Capt! What should we do? Should we help Hawk-Eye?" Yelled a Marine Officer while running towards where William was.
"No, keep the current course and keep watching the Sabre pirates. Have we got the information about the new vessels yet?" William turned towards the Marine Officer.
"Not yet, capt. I'll ask the information section for any new info right away," Replied the Marine officer, he saluted William then ran down from the stern area.
William turned back towards the new vessel and peeked through his binoculars; he could no longer see what was happening on the ship since the ship suddenly slowed down after Mihawk landed there. Occasionally, he heard loud sounds of swords clashing against another from the direction where Mihawk and the new vessels were.
The Marine Officer from earlier returned a few minutes later bringing some documents with him.
"Report, capt. We received new information regarding the two new vessels that just entered Paradise, this is from the HQ and this is from the East Blue post," Said the Marine officer while giving the two folders to William.
He opened the folder from the East Blue first, skipping the normal reports from East Blue posts, he read the few paragraphs that stated sightings of similar vessels with the new two vessels that just entered Paradise. The first sighting was on Dawn Island, a three-masted frigate with the stern decorated in crimson-red and gold colours was seen leaving the area towards the South a day after the visit of the Celestial Dragon there.
His eyes darted around the document, reading the rest of the document over and over again trying to find any useful information in case they had to confront the new vessels. After reading the reports a few times, he closed the document then opened a small notebook he took out from one of the pockets of his Marine coat, he wrote down some useful information that he found from the reports. Closing the notebook, he put it on the small table in front of him then picked up the document from the HQ.
The document from the HQ had fewer pages in it and said -Classified, only for the commanding officer's eyes- on the front. He opened the document and carefully read the content of the document. Inside the document, he found out that the document was entirely dedicated to the two new vessels, some of the information inside was from the East Blue reports, but there was new information on the document that probably came from the Cipher Pol.
It had pretty much everything about the two new vessels in it, the details of the appearance of the vessels, how many cannons were there on the vessels, how many crew each vessel got, and other information that was impossible to get without an insider. No wonder the Cipher Pol were the elite of the elite, William thought after seeing the compiled bullet points. He picked up his notebook from the table and began to write the new information from the HQ's document.
When he reached the last page of the document, he found two bounty posters placed in a small pocket at the back of the document. He took out the posters and saw two unfamiliar faces, both men on the posters had the look of people from Wano. The first poster was a bounty of a middle-aged man, in the photograph he was topless showing a couple of paws tattoos on top of his chest while holding a large broadsword raised in his right hand and a flintlock gun in his left hand. The man was called The Sea Devil and priced a hundred and fifty million berries, dead or alive.
The second poster was a bounty of a younger man in his mid-twenties dressed in a cowboy outfit while laying back on a beach chair drinking a bottle of beer with a rifle leaned on the railing beside him. He was called Jin The Gunslinger with a hundred million berry on his head, dead or alive.
William closed the document and put it on the small table in front of him on top of the document from the East Blue then write something in his notebook before putting it back into his coat's pocket.
'Huh … they stopped,' William thought after noticing that there was no more sound of swords clashing he was hearing minutes ago. He turned and peeked through his binocular towards the new vessels but only found a small dot on the horizon, they were already hundreds of miles apart since they were still chasing the Sabre pirates while the new vessels slowed down after being confronted by Hawk Eye.
He picked up his Den Den Mushi and called the Crow's Nest Officer.
"Any news from the new vessels?" Asked William.
"Nothing, sir. They just slowed down after the initial contact with Hawk-Eye and eventually stopped with sails all rolled up two minutes ago," Replied the Officer back.
"Something feels wrong," Muttered William, he looked around and saw nothing but the calm sea. "Intercept the Sabre pirates at once!" William suddenly yelled at his crew and his crew immediately jumped into action.
When they were a couple of miles away from the Sabre pirates, a massive galleon burst out of the sea just like a massive sea king bursting out of the sea making a huge splash of water a couple of hundred metres from the Sabre pirates. its rigging draped in seaweed and its sails glowing like fire.
"What in the name of Davy Jones' sweaty socks is that?!" yelled one of the crew.
The massive galleon gained speed towards the Sabre pirates like crazy, she closed the two hundred metres distance in mere a couple of minutes.
"Can we speed up more?!" Yelled William towards his sailing master.
"Negative, capt. We'd be on upwind if we take the straight route, even with paddles going upwind with all of our sails up, our ETA will be the same as our current heading," answered the sailing master.
William racked his brain thinking what he should do, he could geppo his way over there with some boost from his fire, but he didn't know if the two men were there or not. He couldn't lose the only lead he had, he had been watching Mihawk's strange behaviour for the past month, and with the three vessels appearing at the same time with the two unknown vessels seemingly helping the Sabre pirates from Mihawk by engaging him, the Sabre pirates should've known something.
"Relax, capt. We still can get there before they could sink the ship, I've told the mechanics to turn the paddles to the max speed, we'll be there in no time," a female officer walked up to the stern, she had a wavy blonde hair just like William, curvy figure, with pretty tall stature. She wore the standard Marine issued uniform with a coat draped on her shoulders.
"I'm sorry about this Jeanne, I always trusted your capability as a tactician, but I have a feeling that something is off here," William turned towards his fellow Captain in rank.
Jeanne was about to ask William what's wrong when a loud sound came from the direction of the Sabre pirates.
"What was that?!" William turned his attention from his master tactician towards the Sabre pirates and saw the unknown vessel just rammed straight towards the side of the Sabre pirates' ship, the unknown ship's bow was implanted halfway into the side of the Sabre pirates' ship.
"Goddamnit! I'm going over there alone, give me some support fire!" Yelled William towards his marksmen, he took his coat off and was about to jump towards the collided vessels when Jeanne, his master tactician took a hold of his hand.
"Calm down, William. The ship will sink before we could get there and pick you up, you would have nowhere to go after that, did you see that the other ship just emerged from the bottom of the sea?!" Jeanne said while holding him down, preventing him from jumping over.
William just grunted and shook his hand off of Jeanne's, he peeked through his binoculars at the two vessels and saw they were boarding the ship and were fighting each other. Not a second later, he heard the sound of cannons exploding. The Sabre pirates' ship now was split in half while the unknown ship was already freeing itself and manoeuvring their side towards the broken ship, multiple cannons exploded simultaneously with a deafening roar tearing the already broken ship into chunks of burnt wood.
As soon as the Sabre pirates' ship was destroyed into pieces from a single volley, the unknown ship turned its heading towards them.
"They're coming!!" Yelled one of the crew.
"Get us to downwind! And bring all available swivels to the stern, all marksmen to me!!" Yelled William while running towards the back of the ship.
The unknown ship gained speed towards them rapidly with the downwind. William took some deep breaths and readying himself, he rolled up his sleeves, balling one of his fists up and pointing it towards the incoming ship, he turned towards his master tactician who was standing beside him.
"Range?" Said William towards Jeanne. She took out her binoculars then looked towards the speeding unknown ship and started counting.
"A hundred and fifty metres and closing in fast … forty … thirty … twenty … ten … now!"
"HAAA!!" William shot out a massive stream of fire from his fist towards the ship that was chasing them, at the range of one hundred metres, William's fire easily engulfed the entire bow section of the unknown ship. The massive stream of fire produced a deafening roar like it came from an apex predator. He maintained the stream of fire for a couple of minutes before stopping. If he kept shooting out a massive fire like that, he would be out of juice in no time.
The massive stream of fire dissipated as fast as it came, but instead of a burning ship, the ship was nowhere to be seen. The crew cheered and celebrated thinking that their Captain's fire had evaporated the enemy's vessel. Instead of celebrating with their crew, William and Jeanne had a frown on their faces, there's no way William's fire could evaporate a vessel as big as that in mere minutes, granted the size of his fire was massive, but the power was not as strong as his other technique.
William's plan of action with the massive stream of fire was to try burning the sails so they could harass the enemy's vessel from a distance while they were unable to do any manoeuvres. William turned towards Jeanne and said, "scan around the area!" The crew stopped their cheering after hearing William's yell.
The whole ship suddenly turned silent, Jeanne with her eyes closed scanning the area around them with her observation haki, "starboard!" Yelled Jeanne, not a second later, the vessel that was behind them burst out of the sea on their right side.
"To your station! Man the starboard cannons!" Yelled William.
The crew were scrambling around to their post, William and Jeanne ran towards the railing of the starboard side, Jeanne was holding a rifle while William was holding a sabre in his right hand and a pistol in his left hand.
"Fire!" Yelled someone from the enemy's vessel. Multiple cannons blasted in perfect harmony towards the Marine's vessel punching some holes to their side. William also ordered his men to fire their cannons, albeit their enemy got the jump ahead of them first and took out a few of their cannons, William assisted with a concentrated ball of fire that exploded upon contact.
"We can't trade blows with them like this William, they have a lot more cannons than us!" Jeanne said while shooting her rifle.
"We can't outrun them! All we can do is fight. Get me the communication officer right here, now!" William grabbed one of the Marines that was running around, the Marine officer just dropped whatever he was bringing then dashed towards the communication office.
A few seconds later, a Marine officer came towards William while panting out of breath, "order, capt?" William turned around towards the Marine officer while charging another concentrated ball of fire in his right hand and said, "send an emergency message towards HQ and the nearest Marine base, and also include this document with the message!" William shoved the document from the HQ to the Marine officer then turned back towards the enemy's vessel and threw his concentrated ball of fire resulting in another massive explosion.
Seeing his concentrated ball of fire not effective enough, he switched to the normal ball of fire. The two ships kept exchanging volleys for a few minutes until all of their starboard side cannons got blown to pieces, they tried to throw some ropes so they can board the enemy's ship, but every time a rope got to hooked to the enemy's ship, it will get cut in seconds before they could pull the two ships closer.
The enemy's Captain knew that they had the advantage with their superior number of cannons and avoided melee combat. Seeing the worsening situation, William turned towards the helm and saw no one was on the helm, "man the helm, Jeanne. Give us some distance!"
"No, William!" Jeanne was about to grab William, but William was faster this time and geppo his way across to the enemy's ship.
"Roll down all sails!" Yelled Jeanne while turning their ship away from the enemy's ship with tears rolling down her cheeks.
The crew stopped what they were doing for a second and saw their Captain was already aboard the enemy's vessel throwing balls of fire left and right, "what you fuckers are looking at?! Roll down the sails!" Jeanne yelled again towards the crew. They immediately scrambled towards the rigging and let loose all the sails.
While his ship was pulling away, William was throwing balls of fire left and right but he was dumbfounded when the crew got back up again and kept fighting with severe burns on their body. After a while, William stopped and looked around for their Captain, the enemy kept attacking him but it just went straight through his body. Strangely enough, he saw a group of men pushing some kind of wheel attached in the middle of the deck. A circular beam of wood was rising slowly in the middle of the wheel following the pace of the wheel that was being pushed.
He attacked the men who were pushing the wheel, but with each man that got knocked down by his fire, another took his place. He turned his attention towards the wheel and tried to destroy it, but the wheel was surprisingly strong. He returned to attacking the other crew who were attacking him with his fire, knocking some overboard.
The beam eventually reached its peak, not a moment later the beam dropped down with such force, it created a shockwave from the impact. William didn't know what the beam did, but he had a bad feeling from it. The crew who were attacking him suddenly stopped, they backed off from him with menacing smiles on their faces. William felt the ship slowly tilting downward, and soon enough the bow of the ship was already underwater.
The ship gradually sinking faster and faster, William ran towards the stern area where some of the crew were only looking at him. He geppo his way out of the sinking ship, he kept jumping around maintaining his height while looking around for any clue whether the ship would emerge again or not. He saw to his right that his ship was already pretty far away from them, he calculated that he could reach there with a little boost of his fire.
Mid-flight towards his ship, the submerged ship emerged a few hundred metres away from his ship, bow side aimed towards the side of his ship. "No!" Yelled William realising what would happen, the ship instantly picking up speed going straight to ram the side of his ship.
He tried to speed up by boosting his jump with his fire, but the ship was a freak and could sail fast, closing in the couple hundred metres in a few seconds. The two ships eventually collide just like how the Sabre pirates earlier got hit, half of his ship got split into two from the impact with the two sides slowly sinking while the mysterious ship slowly went through the two halves of the broken ship. They fired a few shots towards the two halves of his ship, making his ship sink faster.
He shot out tons of fireballs in rage towards the mysterious ship after seeing his ship and his crew sink. His fire did nothing to the mysterious ship, but he kept throwing his fire regardless. He jumped around desperately trying to find an angle where he could harm the ship to no avail. He was out of juice and exhausted after a while and began to fall from the sky because he couldn't maintain his geppo anymore, he landed on the mysterious ship, panting out of breath while laying on his back.
The ship was silent, and then he heard a set of boots coming towards him in slow steps. A silhouette of a man appeared above his head looking down on him, "welcome aboard the Flying Dutchman, captain. I hope you like the bottom of the sea, rahahaha." Laughed the man above him, then he felt his body became weak and realised that the ship was sinking again. He felt a pair of hands touched him and dragged his body.