About three months after Uta and the others left, Marcus took everyone out to go hunt pirates again. While no one had really complained, he figured it was about time. Plus they should go to Loguetown and check the progress of Zeff's restaurant, there was a chance it could already be done. There was also another reason they needed to hunt pirates, they were almost out of money and while the villagers would probably give them food for what they did. Marcus didn't want to do that, he knew the village was kinda poor overall and living off charity from them didn't sit right with him.
So he told everyone to get ready and even invited Nami and Nojiko to join them. Bellemere was slightly hesitant to let her girls leave, so she pulled Marcus aside a few days before they left and said, "I'll let my daughters go with you, but you need to promise me they'll be safe."
"Of course I'll keep them alive."
Bellemere narrowed her eyes as she said, "Promise me you'll keep my daughters safe."
Marcus shook his head as he said, "I can't do that…"
Bellemere looked like she was about to yell at Marcus when he added, "The point of this trip is to help them get real combat experience. If I keep them safe the whole time it would just be a complete waste of their training and my time."
Bellemere frowned but before she could speak Marcus said, "What I can do is promise that I'll keep them alive and bring them back to you. I'll also make sure they don't lose any limbs, but they will definitely get roughed up."
Bellemere placed a hand on Marcus's head and rubbed it as she said, "Fine brat… But if they don't come back I'll kill you."
"Sure, sure, how about you go find Genzo while we're gone and make them a couple of siblings." Marcus said with a smirk and a wink.
Bellemere blushed then went to smack Marcus but as her hand passed through his face, his after image disappeared. A moment later Marcus's teasing voice called out from behind as he said, "If I was a little older I'd do it myself, but then again you aren't my type. Nami on the other hand…"
"You cheeky brat! You better stay away from my daughters while you're gone!" Bellemere roared as she spun around and found herself alone in her orchard.
A couple days later Nami, Nojiko and Bellemere showed up at the ship with some bags. After a tear filled farewell, the girls boarded the ship and Marcus put them in the room with Kuina and Tashigi. It would be a little cramped, but they were still kids so it wouldn't be that bad. After their stuff was put away, he had them get to work and had them shadow the others to learn the ropes.
When the ship finally started to depart, Bellemere, Genzo and a handful of other villagers came out to see them off. Marcus was at the helm and Nami was next to him as Bellemere's voice rang out, "You girls stay safe! Mommy loves you both! Also stay away from Marcus, that boy is a pervert!"
Nami glanced at Marcus with widened eyes as he frowned and said, "Take the wheel and hold it steady."
Nami cautiously took the wheel and Marcus marched over to the back railing and glanced at Bellemere and Genzo standing next to each other before he yelled out, "Genzo! Take your woman back home and stuff something in her mouth to shut her up!"
Both Genzo and Bellemere blushed as the people around them burst into laughter. Bellemere was the first to recover and yelled back, "You little pervert! You better stay away from my daughters!"
"If anyone's a pervert it's you! The first time we met you offered me your body!"
Bellemere couldn't retort because that actually happened, so she gritted her teeth as everyone on the dock laughed harder, since they knew that was one of her favorite things to say to people. Marcus watched as Bellemere blushed in embarrassment before he waved and returned to the helm. He didn't take it over but stood near Nami and guided her on how to control the ship. He also took time to explain what and why he was doing it as he called out orders to everyone else.
Around noon Marcus took over the helm again and sent Nami to go eat lunch with everyone else. Sabo came up half an hour later and traded with Marcus so he could go eat. After lunch Marcus had Nami take back over the helm as he coached her on what to do. While Nami had a lot of book smarts, she had no practical experience but she ended up being a fast learner. A week passed quickly as they headed towards Loguetown and Marcus had Nami on the helm for at least ten hours or more a day. Nami never complained once and loved every minute of it as she was really excited to learn more.
Their ships course wasn't Loguetown directly, but took a wider course around it towards the route people used to enter the Grandline. Marcus's goal was to hunt down pirates and it would be the best place to find them. With their roundabout route, it wasn't until day ten that they finally ran into another ship. Unfortunately it was only a merchant ship, but the strange thing was the ship headed straight for them once they spotted each other.
Even though the ship was flying merchant colors, Marcus kid over the helm from Nami and yelled out, "Trim the sails and prepare for battle, they might be flying false colors!"
Nami who was next to Marcus nervously asked, "Are we gonna have to fight them?"
"Only if they're pirates. Now go get ready and you better fight, I'm not gonna let you slack off." Marcus said as he waved her away.
With both ship's speeds, they closed the distance quickly and once they were only a couple hundred yards away from each other a voice called out, "Ahoy there!"
"Ahoy! What can we help you with?" Marcus yelled back.
"We just wanted to warn you, two pirate ships are in the direction you're heading! We saw them and changed course, you should do the same!"
"What direction are they in?!?" Marcus yelled back in an excited tone.
"South western, about three hours ago!"
Marcus pulled out his compass and checked the ship's current direction and started turning the ship as he yelled out, "Thanks!"
Once the ship was going in the right direction Marcus yelled out, "Everyone full sails, we have pirates to hunt!"
"Yes, captain!" Everyone replied.
The merchant ship who just gave them the warning stared in shock as Marcus's ship sped past them headed directly towards the pirates they saw earlier. The captain of the ship shook his head before he said to his second in command, "Just idiots looking for an early death… Make best course for Loguetown, we need to warn the marines. Hopefully they can save them before they get killed."
Marcus, unaware of what the other ship's captain planned to do, focused on getting the best possible speed for his ship. The other ship quickly turned into a dot and before long disappeared over the horizon as Marcus checked his course. He made a small adjustment before he continued along making sure they had the best speed. After almost three hours, Marcus found nothing in the direction they traveled. He wasn't upset since they were last seen over six hours ago and he didn't think he would be that lucky.
"Usopp! Scan the area, see if you can find any trace of them!" Marcus called out to Usopp who was in the crows nest.
After a few minutes Usopp pointed at something in the water as he said, "I see a barrel off the port side!"
Marcus quickly turned to port and with the help of his own spyglass he found the barrel bobbing in the water. As they approached it Usopp called out, "I see some chunks of wood floating in the water straight ahead… "
As they closed in on the barrel Marcus said, "Everyone, reef the main sail for a minute. Ace, Sabo, see if you can grab that barrel."
With the main sail reefed, the ship slowed down considerably and they were able to bring the barrel on board. As they opened up the main sail and picked up speed, Ace checked the barrel before he said, "It looks like a sealed barrel of wine."
"Lash it down for now so it doesn't move and we'll deal with it later." Marcus called back as he adjusted the ship slightly to follow a trail of wreckage.
Over the next couple hours Usopp called out correction changes as he spotted more things in the water. Most of it was just wood and other miscellaneous items that could easily float. It was about an hour after lunch that Usopp finally called out, "Spotted something in the distance off the port side!"
Marcus adjusted course before he pulled out his spyglass and checked himself. Almost directly ahead he saw a small black dot on the very edge of the horizon. As they chased after that dot, Marcus did everything he could to get the best speed. Slowly over the next hour that dot grew until they could clearly make out that it flew a black flag. The only issue was it was just a single ship, not the two that the other ship reported about.
As they slowly got closer, Marcus took time to study the massive seven mast ship with his spyglass and noticed heavy signs of battle. Most likely when that other ship noticed them, they were already engaged in combat which is why they didn't chase it. The pirate ship itself didn't seem to care that Marcus's ship was chasing it, since it made no move to engage them or slow down. But they were catching up and it wouldn't be long before the pirates had to do something about them.
Another half an hour passed by before the pirates finally started to react and turned their ship. As they did Marcus turned his ship slightly to port so if they were fired upon they would be harder to hit. A few minutes later a cannon blast went off and a few seconds later the cannon ball splashed down in the water near the ship. Marcus frowned slightly since the shot was pretty accurate for being the first attempt.
Marcus quickly called out, "Ace, take the helm and keep us on a zig zag pattern!"
As Ace ran towards the helm two more cannon blasts erupted from the enemy ship and Marcus rushed towards the front of the ship. A second later he was in the air and sliced a cannon ball in half that was about to hit the ship. His timely cut caused it to split to both sides of the ship and miss it entirely. The other shot landed just shy of hitting the front of the ship.
It took about a minute for the cannons to reload, but the next barrage was from four cannons. Marcus picked up the balls with his observation haki and targeted the two that would hit the ship. Instead of slicing them apart, he jumped into the air and used his sword to direct them away from the ship. Another minute later another four cannon blasts roared out and Marcus was forced to intercept all four of them.
This repeated for almost half an hour until it seemed like the enemy either gave up or ran out of cannon balls. Once that happened, the ship changed course and attempted to run away again. But by that time Marcus and his ship were only a few hundred yards away at that point. As they approached closer Marcus used his spyglass to get a better idea of what they were up against. He was forced to use geppo so he could see the enemy deck properly and found it flooded with people. It was just unlucky that most of them looked injured and in no shape to fight.
Since the pirate crew didn't look in the mood to fight and definitely wouldn't reef their own sails, Marcus used geppo to quickly reach the other ship and cut the main lines for the sails. Within moments all of the sails dropped and the ship was quickly slowing down. The pirates on the deck started to freak out as they scrambled to fix the issue but Marcus used his limited conqueror's haki and knocked most of them out.
The one's still awake freaked out even more and didn't notice the grapple lines being attached to the ship. Within a minute Marcus's brothers and his crew boarded the ship and started to attack the rest of the pirates. Only a couple people even put up a real fight which ended up being the captain and his lieutenants. One of which was the cannon master who was not only a crack shot but also a pretty tough brawler. Luffy was able to take the man down in the end, but if it wasn't for his rubber body he would have lost.
As for the people he wanted to test, Nami and Nojiko beat a couple people each. But both of them were bruised up from lack of experience. Nami ended up with two black eyes from being over confident after winning her first fight. While Nojiko took a small knife wound along her arm. But she was lucky since it was just a graze, so it didn't need stitches.
Once the fighting was over and the pirates were tied up properly, Marcus had the crew loot the ship. During that process they unexpectedly found more pirates tied up below deck. After a bit of investigation, it turned out they were survivors from the other pirate ship. It was only a handful of them and they consisted mostly of the captain and his strongest fighters. Apparently the captain of the winning ship wanted them to join his own crew, but was smart enough not to trust them yet. Fortunately that ended up giving Marcus a few more bounties to turn in.
With the ship secured, they transferred the most valuable things over which mostly consisted of money, gold and jewelry. Everything else was left on the other ship and after the rigging was repaired, both ships set sail for Loguetown. Marcus took over command of the pirate ship with Zoe and the other women helping out, as he left Ace in command of their ship. Since they were only a day or so away from Loguetown it didn't take long for them to run into a marine battleship early the next morning.
At first Marcus planned to ignore them, since he'd long removed the pirates flag from the ship. But the marines headed straight for them once they were spotted on the horizon. After an hour it didn't take long to see why, standing at the head of the ship was someone Marcus knew well. And also someone he didn't expect to see here at this time…
A younger looking Captain Smoker stood with a cigar in his mouth as the marine battleship closed in.