Metal Justice 2 (Patreon)

Meta Justice 2 - or ‘How a Lowly Villain became the most dangerous thing to the World Government from within’ (One Piece, Spadam!SI)

Marineford, Paradise Region.

It was the current base of the Marines’ Headquarters and where the Fleet Admiral of the Marines has his entire leadership located and living in. The place was deemed by many a fortress, an impossible wall that nothing and no one could ever hope to taint by capture or destruction.

Knowing a bit of the future lore, I could say that they weren’t that sure of that if Sakazuki had it relocated somewhere else after the Marineford Arc. I don’t know enough of this place to give a proper estimation of what was different to what it would become in about thirty years from now.

The place was massive as one would expect it to be at the time, especially with the large settlement of civilians with connections with high-ranking officers. All in all, this place was as one would expect the largest navy base of this world to be. There was, however, a flaw in the system- a ‘glitch’ or a ‘bug’.

The place may be safe from external threats, but there was a thing about ‘high gangs’ that were made by kids of high-officers that could get away with punishment. Marineford was a beacon for the Marine Corps indeed- outwardly clean, but with some shit within.

I was pretty much alone when I stepped out of the boat, with Spandine having to ‘skip’ this encounter to avoid ‘embarrassing himself’ as he didn’t have the ‘right quality to support his strong son’.

I wasn’t going to whine about this, but I could have thought of other fake reasons to just skip it. Then I remembered the world worked on odd logics at times, so I just shrugged this off as part of that.

I was on my way to the big fortress where I had been invited to, wearing the simple Marine uniform I was given when I passed the test. It wasn’t much, but there were other people around with that sort of outfit. The real gripe was that I was the shortest, and I was a bit nervous before the notion of being stopped for being ‘too young to be a Marine’ kind of bullshit.

Luckily for me, that didn’t exactly happen, but the guards by the entrance held me up for a while as they were double-checking the letter I received. At first, I could tell they were quite distrusting of what I told them, but the more the calling reached higher levels, the more it became clear to them that the Fleet Admiral had indeed written the letter.

Many apologies later, I was now strolling through the main building, going left and right while still thinking of the indications I had received. The confusing delivery driven by the two guards trying to ‘make up for the mistake’ kind of left me in a very perplexed and somewhat lost state of mind. Clarity was by my side, still, and I managed to ultimately find the Fleet Admiral’s office.

The scene I was met with when I was allowed inside was a bit terrifying in terms of ‘magnitude’. While being invited by the current Fleet Admiral was still an impressive thing, the fact that the room had five relevant individuals inside that I recognized at first glance was… terrifying.

Kong himself was a monster- not just by size alone, but I could tell, deep inside, that he was strong enough to be worthy of the position that would soon be of Sengoku. Speaking of the Golden Buddha himself, the man was also there too, together with Vice Admiral Tsuru, Vice Admiral Garp, and… Admiral Zephyr?

That last character caught me off-guard as I was quite sure Canon tended to exclude movie-related content. Still… I guess I can’t exactly feel it was a bad thing since Zephyr was fitting for the circumstance itself.

“Spandam, Seaman First Class by recommendation and… twelve years-old boy,” Kong quietly remarked in a dry greeting. “You were summoned to this meeting due to anomalies found in your exam- instructors said that you exhibited strength uncommon for a mere teen your age. And in the questionnaire, you answered ‘No’ to having ingested a Devil Fruit.”

“Sir, I regularly swim from time to time as part of my training,” I admitted bluntly, yet quietly.

This comment was met with a nod. “What I would like to understand, kid, is how a normal child from a normal family was able to muster the potential that goes beyond what a normal marine in their early adulthood should be able to achieve.”

“Sir, I trained for three years and this is as much as I can do.”

“That’s a weak excuse,” Tsuru pointed out. “I am sorry, boy, but that’s the only thing you can say?”

I didn’t return the comment as Kong sighed loudly. “Tsuru… I am not done with my questions.”

The woman bowed her head and Kong shifted his attention once more to me.

“Now, Spandam, your training. What’s the composition?”

“Well…” I took a moment to think of the latest regiment I went through. “I normally go through two phases. The first one is ‘conditioning’, which is to… make my body stressed through regular exercises- at this point it’s a hundred pushups, fifty squats for two turns, a full hour of plank, and two-hundred jumping jacks.”

Some looked surprised, but none was willing to believe this much from someone they didn’t know much about. Especially from a kid out of all potential candidates.

“The second phase?”

“It’s… simpler,” I admitted nervously. “I kind of got this from a monk that some servants were talking about in a mocking way. The old man said something about ‘a simple exercise done several thousands times can then become key to proper meditation’. So I took this and gave it a test by… punching nothing for ten thousand times, then meditated.”

“And?” Kong was getting impatient and I nodded.

“And for a year, nothing much changed beyond the exercise feeling easier to handle. The second year, I needed less time to commit the punching and… now, I kind of do it quite faster and can meditate much more.”

“A kid meditating is… anomalous,” Zephyr remarked with a perplexed tone. “Why did you engage in this training?”

No retort from Kong- it had to be a question the Fleet Admiral had wanted to know too.

“I… My father is the head of CP9. While that may not sound like much, I always thought that it was the sort of job that taxed an individual and put them at risk quite constantly. So, since father is always busy with his good job, I thought I could make myself ready for what was to come as… I really want to be a marine.”

“Why?” Sengoku finally spoke, his tone pressing on this very ‘relevant’ question. “Why do you want to be a marine?”

I blinked, then smiled. “I want to be a man of justice.”

That was a simple answer, but far from the only answer.

“I also wish for justice to be clearer as I have heard from my father that many men and women that have grand power in the navy tend to give justice their own connotations. I think Justice should be Factual rather than driven by… emotion.”

“Emotion is what makes us humans,” Tsuru shot back, but I frowned.

“That’s right, yes. But I was more concerned about how emotions tend to go unrestrained at times. One thing that I also don’t understand is if justice has to be absolute and unbreakable, how come we allow it to show weakness in how some cases are handled so briefly. A criminal? Then that man or woman has forfeited their lives to live- not a single introspection is given in most occasions, out of the fact that many don’t have the time and interest to pursue legitimate justice.”

…

I may have gone a bit off with my rant there but-

“You’re dreaming far, Spandam. But this virtue of yours… What about pirates? Would you give them mercy?”

“I will give them justice depending on their sins. But the ultimate justice, the unforgivable ruthlessness, shall always be destined to those that call themselves revolutionaries.”

A slow nod, and the massive man… sighed loudly.

“You’re a confusing brat.”

“He really is,” Garp whined quietly, getting a soft slap on his arm by Tsuru for that reaction.

Still, I took that as a compliment-

“But words matter little when I have yet to see if what you’re saying is true.”

Kong stood up and walked around his chair, the man towering over me as he gestured to me to get up from the chair and stand up.

“Sir?”

“I want you to… punch me.”

“...Oh?”

“I don’t want you to punch me a little, or punch me at mid-strength. I want your all in. Understood?”

I just nodded and shrugged, the other occupants got curious at this event, some ruling it out as a fluke already but one in particular, Garp, sensing something as he shifted in his seat to lean closer to the action.

I was no Saitama, I was no Goku, or Naruto in that regard- but I could still hit very hard as I had tested this on a pot. Now, Fleet Admiral was no small pot from back home which was possibly bought at an excessive price despite its cheap appearance, but I have to say that the overall ‘splash’ effect of the punch.

Due to the momentum carried by my punch and the way it was angled after years of training the precise arching for my arm to follow to maximize the hit, I would end up causing a rather ‘spread’ damage on anything I hit.

In this case, Kong’s arms felt the overall brunt of the attack, but the wall behind him didn’t have the same resilience during that very moment. There was silence, shock, but it was briefer than before and Garp… started to laugh at the sheer destruction.

Kong blinked, then glanced behind his shoulder and took notice of the overall damage I committed and… He sighed loudly. I just have this feeling it’s his own thing.

“I guess I should have been more mindful of this chance but… This is as good of a proof as it could get.”

A tiny smile appeared on his face.

“We are not making him Rear Admiral,” Sengoku quipped, his stern voice showing that this was not the first time something like this happened but…

I was saddened to learn I wasn’t going to be made a ‘Rear Admiral’. The official reason was my age, but I had a feeling Kong was going to write down something like ‘Sengoku is a brat’.

I was given a room to use while staying at Marineford within the big fortress, and also given a rank nonetheless for my current advanced power but tied to a specialized kind of job that Kong wanted to discuss with me at a later time and on a more private disposition.

Master Chief Petty Officer. Heh, I can already hear the Halo’s theme in the background…