Shells Town boiled over.
At first it was just kids chanting "Marine Hero!",
then the grown-ups started waving their arms and joining in.
Net-Addict Girl stared, a little stunned.
"So this is what a hero's name does to a town…?"
Her curiosity—and the curiosity of the 28 million people piled into the four-way stream—fixed on the same thing: what would the Hero actually look like?
Numbers ticked like a metronome in the corner of her HUD. Twenty million. Twenty-one. Twenty-three. By the time the dog-headed silhouette of a battleship shouldered up to the quay, the counter smashed thirty million. On other screens, the three co-hosts cut their own feeds.
White-Robed Drunk: "I'll be back—gotta see the Hero with my own eyes."
Little Fisherman / Sword-Shadow Flow: "Same here—brb!"
Net-Addict Girl swallowed. Not long ago she'd been thrilled by thirty thousand viewers. Today, the sea had carried her to a peak she'd never imagined—though she knew perfectly well: they weren't here for her. They were here for Garp.
She elbowed through the crowd until there was nothing between her and the gangway.
A dog-headed prow kissed stone. A gangplank slammed down. A man nearly three meters tall strode into the light—white suit, Justice cloak, shoulders like fortress walls, and a ridiculous shaggy dog cap that somehow made him more dangerous, not less. At his side paced a hawk-eyed officer in gray—Bogard—and a file of Marine field-grades.
[That aura… even the lowest rank around him looks like a colonel!]
[And that one beside him—different insignia. The adjutant? A rear admiral?]
[The cap is killing me. Hero or grandpa next door? 😂]
Net-Addict Girl couldn't hear chat anymore. All she heard was a ding in her vision.
[Congratulations. You are the first player to meet the Marine Hero, Iron Fist Garp.
Marine Hall of Fame special reward unlocked: GOLDEN ABILITY CARD.]
"Golden… ability card?" she murmured, a beat slow.
Chat detonated.
[GOLD?!!!]
[Chest tiers go Diamond > Dark-Gold > Purple-Gold > Blue-Silver > Green-Wood—so where does GOLD sit?!]
[If it's Dark-Gold tier, that's a million points equivalent!]
Little Fisherman chimed in with veteran calm:
[Ability cards copy a target's skill, or roll a random one. With GOLD, you might copy something from Garp himself. Even random should be busted.]
"Thanks, Fisherman," she whispered—and when Garp's shadow fell over her, she lifted her hand and willed the card to fire.
[Using GOLDEN Ability Card. Target: Marine Hero, Iron Fist Garp.
Scanning target's golden abilities…]
[Ding! You have obtained: Fist-Bone Iron Fist.]
[Your Body Techniques advanced to Beginner. Your level rose to Lv.10. Reward: +1 Free Attribute Point.]
She blinked and pulled up her panel.
Abilities: Body Techniques (Beginner 0/3), Fist-Bone Iron Fist (Beginner 0/3)
"Fist-Bone Iron Fist… what did I just get?"
Chat didn't need a manual. It connected the dots between Iron Fist the title and the thing now glowing on her sheet—and went feral.
[Names don't lie. They call him Iron Fist for a reason.]
[She just yanked the signature out of the Hero?!]
[Auto-boosted to Lv.10, BT to Beginner—gold card is insane.]
Across the network, someone kept getting @'d.
White-Robed stared at his screen until feeling left his face.
That should've been his event.
That should've been his reward.
[Alright stop @-ing him, he's already a corpse inside]
[…one last @ tho]
[@WhiteRobedOldThief remember when you bragged? how's the view from there 😂]
Sword-Shadow couldn't resist either.
Sword-Shadow: "Moral of the story: don't hop too hard."
White-Robed: "Get to Loguetown so I can arrest you."
Sword-Shadow: "Anytime. 1v1."
White-Robed: "Hope your Little Snake likes being snapped by Clear Sake."
Sword-Shadow: "Try it."
Flags planted. Chat foamed.
…
On the quay, the ceremony ground on. Marines marched. Cameras shook. Garp reappeared, escorting a shackled Captain Morgan toward the gangway.
And then the Hero… nodded off.
A comic-book bubble of snot ballooned from under the dog cap. Snoring like cannon fire.
"Eh?"
The town froze. So did Net-Addict Girl.
[He… fell asleep WALKING?]
[Hero of the Marines, ladies and gents]
In that slack jaw of surprise, Morgan ripped free, lunged, and hacked downward—axe whistling for Garp's chest.
Steel hit cloth—
thunk—
and the Hero pitched backwards in a spray of red.
Gasps. Screams. And one hot, clear thread through the noise where Morgan grabbed for Helmeppo and bolted—
Net-Addict Girl moved.
Beginner-tier body strength snapped awake, Fist-Bone humming in her knuckles. She cut Morgan off in two strides, planted, and threw the punch her bones seemed born to make.
"Iron Fist!"
BOOM.
His right shoulder caved sideways, axe and arm sagging like wet rope.
He turned—expecting a base officer—
and found a pink-haired girl.
No time to compute.
BOOM.
The second fist kissed his temple; lights went out like someone flipped a breaker. Morgan hit the planks with eyes wide, seeing ghosts of a long-ago broken jaw.
Marines surged and dog-piled. Even the HQ officers stared; Coby and Helmeppo gaped like fish.
"Th-that— how?" Coby whispered.
Bogard stepped forward, expression tight—glanced once at Morgan's wrecked shoulder and silently conceded there wasn't much left to "control."
"You a Marine?" he asked.
The new local officer answered first. "Negative, Rear Admiral Bogard—she's not ours."
Bogard's eyes narrowed, replaying the girl's form, the bark she'd thrown with the punch.
Iron Fist?
He drew a long breath. "You want to be?"
He added, almost apologetic, "Garp will like you. Might even take you as a student."
He looked aside at the snoring mountain bleeding from the chest and sighed. His boss really did make recruitment awkward.
Net-Addict Girl smiled. "No better place to go."
She accepted.
On the stones beside them, the "unconscious" Hero snored on—
then, behind the dog cap, one eye cracked open.
The snot bubble popped. The blood on his chest… barely a scratch.
A grin tugged the corner of his mouth.
Hook: A mission ping blinked in Net-Addict Girl's UI:
[Marine Induction: Report to Vice Admiral Garp for evaluation. Sub-objective: "What did you really see?"]
◇ I'll be dropping one bonus chapters for every 10 reviews. comment
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on P@treon if you're interested: patreon.com/HorizonStudios0