Zeppelin was one of those people who believed patience was rewarded. As she was but a mere “lieutenant” she was not given the chance to fully oversee the details of the mission. Instead a higher ranking officer “took command” and she was left with the rather absurd task of infiltrating the island alone to bring a pirate and his crew to justice. There was something fishy about that and her intuition was practically screaming that she was being set up to fail. It was unfortunate that she couldn’t meet this officer herself as she more than likely could have perceived and deduced his intentions if they conversed face to face. Instead she received the order on paper to take a ship and crew to the island but leave them off the coast to move in only after she defeated the notorious pirate and secured the captives. While she could see the value of having a ship stationed there to intercept the pirates if they tried to escape, not being able to take a few grunts along to the island was a waste of idle manpower. But that was enough of her qualms. She was due to be getting her own crew soon enough and succeeding in this task would help speed things up in that direction. Good things come to those who wait and more so if they spend the time productively.

Landing ashore, she checked the map again for the supposed location of the pirate camp. To be honest the government was rather lucky to have gotten wind of the pirate activities before they could get away from the island. This could very well be their last night there so it was good that Zeppelin’s party arrived first before they could leave. As she made her way through the route she mapped out, she quickly ran through the island’s quirks in her mind to ready herself for the task at hand. A gigantic tree grew in the center of the island with most of the island’s inhabitant living on it. What the pirate crew raided was a small village at the base of the tree. Large carnivorous birds lived near the top of the tree and preyed on anything on the ground. The route she selected had plenty of trees for cover to somewhat mitigate the bird threat but it was not devoid of open clearings where she could be susceptible to attack. The silver lining there was that the predators represented a third party not allied with the pirates and was just as dangerous to them as they were to her. It made her wonder how they were able to set up camp in such a hostile environment. Her guess was that the man leading them was as strong as his reputation claimed.

Oni Mask - real name unknown. He was a fearsome pirate with a physique comparable to a bear. There are reports that even bullets don’t faze him but she surmised that it was only an exaggeration. It was true however that he was the type of monster who could tear an ordinary person in half with his bare hands. Zeppelin was glad that she could proudly say she was not an ordinary person at all. That would be the minimum requirement to even attempt this mission alone.  The last thing the file on the notorious pirate mentioned was that he was reported to be able to turn into a real demon himself. Without a doubt that referred to some sort of Devil Fruit ability. More and more she was considering the potential these fruits held and what she could perhaps accomplish if she ever obtained her own.

Despite being more of an intellectual, Zeppelin had her fair share of adventure in the outdoors back in her training days. In the first place, you couldn’t call yourself a skilled field commander if you didn’t have mastery of the field. Thus she was no stranger to guerilla tactics and moving about in a forested environment. You could even say that she’s the type of person who can really take advantage of a complex terrain The nighttime was great for cover too. Hearing the flapping of wings overhead, she stopped to take refuge under one of the trees as one of the big birds passed by above her position. Those things were going to be a pain to deal with if she was unfortunate to have to fight one of them, or even a flock. That would be a nightmare. After the threat passed, she continued on her way.

As she came across the first clearing on the route, she chanced upon the first bit of action she would see that evening. Two men, pirates from the look of it, were dragging around a young woman in the middle of the forest. She was bruised and looked too exhausted to even struggle to get away from her captors. There was a resigned look on her face as though she had given up hope in escaping from her fate. At first glance it didn’t seem like the pirates were armed. But it was dark out and there was really no confirming for sure unless Zeppelin walked up to them and asked, and so she did. The two seemed to be distracted, intimidating the woman with mean words as walked and laughing among themselves. It was only when the lieutenant was ten paces from them that they finally noticed her walking towards them. Surprised, they hastily dropped their captive and took out knives from their pockets, ready to engage her.

Normally, this would be the part where the pirates shouted to alert their crewmates that there was an enemy, but the presence of large carnivorous predators flying in the air meant drawing attention to themselves was possibly fatal. She was counting on this when she approached them from the front and her assumption proved true. In a way it was test of how these pirates were set to act in the face of an enemy threat. The default setting seemed to be to deal with it themselves. Perfect. The less people she had to deal with at once, the better. As they charged at her with their blades, she found that she could see through their movements fairly easily, even in the dark. She grabbed the wrist of the man who was a bit ahead, swung him around and eventually sent him crashing into the second pirate was supposed to follow-up. The brief collision left them dazed and cause them to drop their weapons, giving Zeppelin an opening. She ran up and kicked one of the men at the back of the head to take him out. The other man put up his arms in a fighting stance but it was obvious he was still a bit winded. Weaving through his wild swings, closed in and finished him off with a palm strike aimed upwards at his chin, knocking him off his feet.

After tying the two men up and ensuring they were out cold, she walked over to the woman from earlier who was still surprised from the turn of events. Doing her best to calm her down, Zeppelin reassured her that everything was going to be alright and helped her up on her feet.

“I’m Lieutenant Zeppelin of the Marines. I’ve come to save you.”

It might have been a bit inconsiderate of her but as soon as the woman she rescued calmed down a bit, Zeppelin went on to ask her if there was anything she could tell the lieutenant about the pirates who attacked them. If possible, she was hoping to get a basic layout of the pirate camp and may be a better estimate of the enemy numbers. Grunts like the one she took out earlier were easy enough to deal with, but a dozen of them at once would probably be too much for her. The woman shared that after the raid on her village, the pirates were attacked by the birds while taking them back to their camp. It was a bloody encounter and they lost a handful of men. The natives were used to bird attacks and managed to survive thanks to their experience. The woman then recounted how there was a huge man among the pirates, standing over 10 feet tall and wearing a menacing mask. He fought off the birds with his bare fists, killing three before the flock decided to retreat. The man was as formidable as the reports suggested. After resting for a bit and checking again that the woman was okay, Zeppelin sent her off to make her way back to her village. That would be safer than staying out here.

As Zeppelin walked on, she would hear the sound of loud squawking and furious flapping. The birds were attacking something? She would come across a clearing with two of the carnivores fighting over the corpse of a dead pirate. She definitely didn’t want to deal with that. As she tried to inch  past them while sticking to the trees, she felt a slight chill down her spine and instinctively looked up. There perched on the tree was a third bird with its eyes locked on her. It was about time she ran into a spot of bad luck.

The bird cawed loudly and flapped its great wings to send a gust of wind at Zeppelin, but she managed to stand her ground. The huge bird looked a bit confused that she was still standing and barely budged, hinting at it possessing some level of intelligence. It soon got over it though and tried pecking her with its large beak. She responded by redirecting it to her left, causing the creature to hit nothing but dirt as its beak jabbed the ground. It was stuck and she figured she would use this opportunity to get away. However the commotion caused the two other birds from earlier to notice her as well. It seemed they were more interested in a moving target than a dead one. They hopped over to where Zeppelin was and she found herself narrowly avoiding getting pecked on by beaks larger than her head as the two birds attacked in concert.

She did not have time to deal with this. As one bird tried to peck her again, she circled around it and managed to climbed on to its back. The large feathery creature tried to shake her off but she hung on. It eventually resorted to trying to fly, which Zeppelin was waiting for. As soon as it attempted to take off, she quickly jumped down and the bird took to the sky without her. The bird with its beak stuck on the ground managed to break free and joined the second bird in going after her as dropped down. By this time she already had a good assessment of the birds’ capabilities and easily saw through their attacking motions. Their size though made dodging require a bit more effort than usual. Their huge beaks narrowly graze her once in a while and almost made her stumble. She eventually managed to back away to the forested area again and the birds couldn’t follow due to their large size. Not wanting to wait until they figured out how to get to her, she quickly made her way forward to her destination.

Or at least she would have. She had barely moved twenty meters from the clearing when she found herself face to face with three pirate goons waiting for her, flintlock pistols loaded and aimed. Behind her, three more popped out from the trees and bushes, also with their guns pointing at her. In hindsight, with the whole forest trying to be quiet to avoid getting attention from the giant birds, the ruckus with the encounter she just had would have definitely alerted anyone nearby. It looked like these men were watching the whole time and probably hoping she would end up as a snack. But since she didn’t, they ambushed her here. Not a bad move for a bunch of pirates. Being this deep in the forest, even if the gunfire was noticed by the birds, there was plenty of cover so them bringing out their guns like this was not just a bluff. She raised her hands up as a sign of surrender. Strong as she was, bullets were not something she could outrun. If there was only one gunman, she would have taken a chance, but six all at once drastically raised the likelihood that someone would get a lucky shot. She found herself bound tight and led to the pirate camp where their boss was waiting. She had been pondering how to infiltrate the place since the mission started but she didn’t imagine it would be like this.

The pirate camp was made up three tents on a hill at the base of the giant tree at the center of the island. As they walked, she spotted two more pirates standing guard outside one of the tents from which she could just barely hear some soft sobbing. Were the captives being held there? It seemed likely. The other two tents did not have any guards outside of them so those were probably where the pirates slept.

Her escorts brought her to the biggest tent where she came face to face with the man responsible for all of this. But from his monstrous appearance, it was hard to call him just a man. There sitting on a makeshift throne at the end of the tent was the pirate Oni Mask. Even while seated, he towered above everyone else in the room. Humans of his size were a rare sight out here in the Blues, though Zeppelin heard they were more common in the Grand Line. His arm alone was as long as she was tall, though they were disproportionately large when compared to his legs. His torso was stocky but muscular. She could see why people would think bullets did not work on him. And then of course there was the origin of his fearsome name. A bright red Oni mask covered his entire face that, combined with his imposing physique, would certainly strike terror in the hearts of your average person. The mask also made his breathing quite audible like a bloodthirsty beast stalking its prey. There were several seconds of silence as Zeppelin and the pirate stared each other down, until one of the grunts finally spoke.

“We found her snooping around the forest, Captain. Two of our boys never returned from their patrol and she probably had something to do with it.”

The large man simply grunted, not really feeling any reason to care as he had always thought of his men was weaklings.

“Er, we also saw her fight off them birds unarmed much like you did sir. I think we should kill her. Too dangerous to be kept-”

The man never finished his sentence as Oni Mask finally seemed a bit more interested and stood up, causing the grunt to shut up. With his full height, Oni’s head nearly touched the ceiling of the tent and was more than twice as tall as the female Marine standing before him. Although Zeppelin couldn’t see his face for obvious reasons, the rest of his body language told her that he was rather irked. This was true. He was a man who kept a rule of fear over his subordinates and anyone whose strength made them nervous was someone he would consider an enemy he should personally grind to the ground. It seemed most of his men picked up on this and backed away from the two.

Zeppelin though kept her cool. She felt she should have introduced herself at some point but the moment for it passed. Now she was face to face with an angry pirate who was likely to slug her any second. Being tied up while in this position was very inconvenient. Her top priority now was to get herself free. She was certain she was already at a disadvantage in terms of strength against the hulking Oni and not being able to use her hands deprived her of any chances at putting up a real fight. Thankfully though the grunts neglected to bind her feet. Perhaps with her speed she could find an opening. The grunts also did not take her weapons, though that was probably because they weren’t recognized as such. She would still need to get her arms free to use them though. The man known as a demon cracked his knuckles and the lieutenant readied herself… to run.

Zeppelin watched carefully as the man pull back his arm, winding up to hit her. Did he really think she would just stand there to take the hit? But she soon learned why he had so much confidence. His huge size came with unexpected speed. What should have been a not so challenging dodge came very close to possibly breaking her arm. It wasn’t clean dodge either as Zeppelin ended up rolling to the ground while the Oni’s punch hit the dirt, making a small crater. It definitely would not have ended well if she had gotten hit there. There was no time to be surprised though. She quickly scrambled back up on her feet and ran towards the closes pirate grunt whom she was eyeing due to his carrying of a visible knife on his waist. The grunt was caught of guard and she managed to tackle him, leaving him winded. She then kicked the knife out of its sheath and propped it up on the ground with her foot to cut her bindings. Strangely, the pirate captain just watched and did not make any visible effort to chase after her as she cut herself loose. Rechecking her positioning, she saw that she was on the side of the tent almost opposite the exit. In other words, he didn’t need to chase her as she would have to go through him is she wanted to get out. The man was probably the type who wanted a good fight anyway and preferred that she was unbound.

Seeing that she was now free, he resumed his advance. He swung another punch at her which she parried to her left. The blow was heavy and she could really feel the force behind it, despite applying her technique. There was a noticeable pause in the Oni’s actions, indicating that he was clearly surprised she managed to redirect his powerful fist to the ground as he was punching downwards due to the difference in their heights. She used this opportunity to kick him in the gut but found that it was almost like colliding with an stone wall. The man responded by swinging his fist back upwards, which she just narrowly avoided by bending her body backwards. She then backflipped a couple of times to put some distance between them.

She had to end this fight somehow or at least get to somewhere more open. The limited space and the grunts surrounding them made it difficult to move around. Plus she wasn’t sure when one of them would just decide to shoot her, though she figured the chances of that would be low due their fear of their captain. Perhaps if she did something differently, she would catch the hulking man off guard. After taking another quick review of their positions, she then dashed towards the Oni, who let out a soft but sinister chuckle, the first sound he made since their fight started. This time he had both of his arms reaching out for her as he himself lunged forward, possibly hoping to grab her. This was what she was waiting for. She ducked underneath his arms and then turned her back on him. In one fluid motion, she grabbed his one of his arms and performed one of her signature throws on the huge man - a feat that would display the fruits of her training in the past couple of months. Her target? The central support pillar of the tent. Oni Mask crashed right into it and as soon as he did, Zeppelin made a run for the exit while the other grunts were still confused at what was happening. She got out just in time as the tent collapsed behind her, hopefully keeping those caught inside trapped for the time being.

Mission accomplished? Not quite. The loud crashing of the tent drew some unwanted attention, first from the two guards stationed outside the captives’ tent and second, from a pair of giant birds making their way down from the giant tree. At first the two guards pointed their muskets at her, but once they saw the birds coming, the opened fire on the feathery beasts instead. The bullets hit their mark but were not enough to take the birds down. It only served to make them angrier and they attacked the gunmen, giving Zeppelin a bit of freedom to act unhindered.

She circled around the chaos and slipped inside the captives’ tent where she found the village women bound and locked up in a big cage. The key for it was nowhere in sight though so she assumed one of the guards had them. It was either that or with Oni Mask. She strongly hoped it was the former. After introducing herself as a Marine and declaring to the women that she was there to rescue them, a few of them cried tears of joy. She passed along a knife that belonged to one of the pirates from earlier so that they could cut themselves loose for now. Before exiting the tent again, she promised she would return after finding the key.

Outside, she found that the battle between the guards and the birds was decided with the gigantic carnivores obviously coming out victorious. The two men were on the ground bleeding badly with their muskets snapped in half some distance away. Pirate or not, she wasn’t about to let people die needlessly and so she prepared herself to somehow try to drive away the birds. Her plans would not see any light though as she was beaten to the punch by a third humongus figure leaping from the darkness and landing on the back of one of the birds. The bird would end up crashing to the ground due to the weight. Seconds later two large furry hands would grab its neck and effortlessly snap it, killing it instantly. Zeppelin suddenly had a bad feeling. The second bird attacked the furry armed monster in retribution, but found that it was also wrestled to the ground rather easily. As it struggled to get back up, a solid punch that would make ground tremble slightly smashed the bird’s head like a watermelon. Blood dripping from its fist, the furry monster then stepped forward where the lieutenant could see it more clearly. Towering above her, she spotted the unmistakable mask of the man she was fighting earlier. She couldn’t help but gulp nervously. The man known as Oni Mask was Zoan Devil Fruit user and the form he took was an apelike creature. A demon ape.

She slowly backed away but Oni already spotted her. An opponent whose fists could kill those birds in one blow? She might be biting off more than she could chew. She heightened her concentration and assumed fighting stance. This was no time to be holding back anything. The furry ape unloaded three quick punches down at her which she dangerously danced around. The good news was his speed was not too much different from earlier and she could still read his movements. Each blow however shook the ground beneath her feet which made it tricky to get a good footing. If he continued to rain down punches on her like that, he would get her eventually. But the ape man was not so patient. Cupping his hands together, the next attack was a double axe handle with all of his strength. Zeppelin instinctively employed her backstep in response as the powerful attack wrecked a portion of the hill, creating a crater nearly 5 meters wide and deep. She found that she ended up just barely outside the range of the attack with her feet about an inch or two from the edge of the broken ground.

The force of the attack was like a small earthquake and Zeppelin actually stumbled a bit. Getting back up, she would have to mount some sort of offense soon. Just running was not going to get her anywhere. But how was she going to get close without getting turned into paste by his monstrous strength? There was only one option. It was to go back to the forest where she could use the trees as cover and find an opening. She egged the man on but she probably didn’t need to. He was hot on her tail as she dashed for the jungle. She turned back to see how he would deal with the thin spaces between the trees, but quite predictably he just crashed right through them like an average human opening a path through some bushes, except these bushes were between 15 to 20 feet tall.

This fight had to be ended in one decisive blow, was what she thought as she weaved through the trees, her opponent pursuing closely. From the Oni’s point of view, that was all it would take really. He possessed enough surplus strength that even Zeppelin was unsure if the techniques she had mastered would be enough to parry his blows as he was currently. Did the lieutenant have anything up her sleeve that could pay him back the same way? She just might. She reached into her pocket for a pair of cartridges and loaded them into a slot in her gloves. The Black Gloves and explosive cartridges were weapons she had intended for use in blasting holes through stone walls. To think that she would be forced to use them on a human target. But he was someone she had to bring down at all costs. She couldn’t afford to lose here when the village women had yet to be rescued.

As she arrived at a clearing, she turned around to face the Oni once more, half hoping that crashing through all those trees had tired him out somehow. It didn’t look like it did, as he was still coming at her at a pace astonishing for his size. Waiting, she expected him to just run at her arms swinging, but instead he stopped just short of the clearing and uprooted the tree beside him. It took her about a second to realize what he was planning. Lifting the log over his shoulders, he tossed it right at the lieutenant who dove to safety as the tree crashed where she was standing seconds ago. One of the branches caught her leg and as she tried to pull it out, the ape man finally managed to close in and attempted to smash her with his fist. She got her leg out in time and managed to roll away, but the impact from the blow sent some rocks flying, hitting her in the back. She winced slightly as she scrambled to get back up on her feet.

A second follow-up punch was coming and she didn’t have time to try dodging. Her body responded with the most natural action in that situation, attempting one of her parries. The blow was several times heavier than what she felt back at the tent, ripping the sleeves covering her forearms as the Oni’s fist passed. It was like her arms were going to snap, despite not taking the full brunt of the attack. But her redirection managed to succeed, though at the cost of possibly a few torn muscles. She would not let this opening go to waste. She would use every ounce of her strength to climb up the ape man’s arm making her way to his shoulder before he could pull his fist out of the ground. Sitting on the back of his neck, she would deliver a double palm strike at the back of his head, activating her loaded cartridges. The resulting explosion would echo through the forest, the force actually blowing her off the pirate’s back as she did not have a good grip on it. She would end up landing awkwardly on the ground, stumbling and rolling a bit before coming to a halt.

She looked up and saw the ape man stay standing for a few seconds before finally collapsing to the ground. The man reverted back to his human form, which was still ridiculously larger than Zeppelin but it didn’t surprise her anymore. She didn’t have time to celebrate just yet though. She looked up at the sky, expecting to see those giant birds again, drawn by the ruckus of their fight. About a minute passed and none came. It was unusual after all the events that happened that night, but she was not complaining. She was already starting to feel the soreness of her arms as she searched the unconscious Oni’s pockets to find the key to the women’s cage. Somehow she had a feeling it would have been on him.

Having finally accomplished her task, she made her way back to the beach to signal the Marine ship to move in to secure the pirates. One of the Ensigns on board apologized to her that they couldn’t lend a hand sooner because of orders but she told him it was fine. Accompanying the squad to the pirate camp, she returned to the women as she had promised and unlocked their cell, setting them free. Zeppelin found herself nearly suffocated by the hugs that came her way and she had to politely tell them that her arms were hurting to get them to take it easy on her. After ensuring all the pirates were captured and all the captives were accounted for, the lieutenant and the Marine squad escorted the women back to the village where the chief thanked the troops for all of their efforts.

Back on the boat ride home, Zeppelin found herself taking a well-earned rest in the officer’s quarters, reminiscing about her dangerous evening. Once more she had to face a Devil Fruit user and was pushed to the brink just trying to fend off his amazing power. She couldn’t help but ponder the thought of her having  such a power too.