Bill’s goal in the Marines was never ‘Rank’.

With his abilities he could long ago have transferred away from the Science Division, but over time his desire to see the world had changed to understand how Vegapunks miraculous technology worked.

For Bill, despite his initial doubts, his father’s less than honest intentions in having him recruited into the Science Division had been a huge blessing in disguise.

Had he joined the Marines in a traditional manner, Bill knew his personal strength would probably be greater since he wouldn’t have had the responsibilities of running an island and overseeing numerous projects.

But whether it was the knowledge gained, the people he had met, or the vast amount of freedom offered to him by Dr. Vegapunk, Bill would never take the years he spent struggling on building New Haven, the years he spent handling refugee crisis’s, the early struggles for money and even food, for granted.

A traditional path into the Marines would have made his back stronger but would have made his mind weaker.

Now, at 25 years old, Bill wasn’t the youngest Vice Admiral ever promoted but he was still considered very very young for his position.

At least, that was to the outside.

On New Haven itself though, word spread lightning fast, and his promotion was known about by just about everyone merely hours after he found out.

The first thought in everyone’s mind was simply: ‘oh, that makes sense’.

Naturally, the second thought was: ‘wait is he being transferred away?!’

And normally this would be the case.

Even though Vice Admirals had the highest level of freedom versus responsibility, all Vice Admirals had a direct Commission from Marineford and were assigned by the Fleet Admiral directly.

If the Commission was to command a Marine base, then the Vice Admiral would have more or less freedom within those limits – given the fact that they remain where they were designated.

For Bill to have simultaneously been promoted to Vice Admiral and then told to await further orders was highly irregular.

It was irregular but more importantly, now that he’s sitting at his desk only a couple of hours after hanging up the Snail, it made him wonder what to say to his thousands of personnel.

Whether it was the Navigators, the Special Operators, the Surgeons, the highly valuable research staff of the Robotics Department, or even the average Carpenters and Cooks, every single member of the Procurement Department joined the [Science Division].

But now, in one fell swoop, they were all transferred to the main body of Marines and would be under the direct oversight of Marineford.

Looking at the exact wording of his promotion, Bill recognized that the phrase “Tentatively transferred to Marineford from the Science Division” carried a lot of space for interpretation.

‘Tentatively in the sense that I need further confirmation?’ was what Bill thought, but that didn’t make sense because he was already Promoted to Vice Admiral.

Sitting there at his desk Bill fiddled with a pen and some paper, considering what his next steps had to be.

Before he sent out a general message out to inform the Marines under him that they were no longer merely regulated by the Science Division he needed to know exactly what his authority as Vice Admiral was.

Normally this authority would be obvious – wherever they were stationed Vice Admirals typically had authority directly equal to their personal strength – but he had not been given any Commission.

Thinking about potential Marine transfers, and even about the possibility of being given the responsibility of another Marine Base, he sat there getting all of his ducks in a row.

At least, he told himself, he had been transferred with his entire leadership team and knew those people would not request to be relocated to safer areas.

Making a list of who he was going to inform first, Bill was ready to call Sasha and Ricky down from their mountain training camp when he got a knock on his door.

“Come in…” he said, knowing who it was but still acting as if he didn’t. At Bill’s level of strength, it would be impossible for anyone to make it to his door and he not know about it.

“Righto!

Commo- no should I say Vice Admiral!” Watching Nelson as he walked into the room, with a smile from ear-to-ear, Bill raised eyebrow, essentially telling him to ‘get on with it’ – and Nelson did just that.

“They say that sometimes nothing will happen in a hundred years, but then suddenly, a hundred years will happen in a single day.

Nay, I never believed that, for I have never seen that myself, never before!

Until now…”

Smiling with a smug, shit-eating grin, Bill could tell that Nelson had something to get off his chest and so rolled his eyes and played the role he knew the Frauce Kingdom noble wanted him to.

“And what’s that, exactly?” answered Bill evenly, but Nelson – who seemed to revel in the fact that he had gossip that Bill didn’t know – just sat in on the chair in front of Bills desk and said: “Oh my, it’s quite a story, and so many people were involved!

Oh, I know!

Give us a guess about how you and all of us got transferred to Headquarters. Yes, yes! Give us a guess and we’ll tell you if you’re close.”

At first Bill was willing to play along with his swirly-cheeked friend, but after hearing Nelson’s voice revert back to his ‘noble self’ Bill wondered if he shouldn’t throw Nelson out of the window.

But… that would probably kill the man, Bill figured, so instead of letting his buttons be pushed he looked back down at his paper and with an exaggerated motioned crossed ‘Nelson Royale’ off the list of Officers that he planned to meet with.

Then, he handed the paper to Nelson.

The paper had no additional markers on it since Bill had planned to just give it to a Communications Officer for her to call the people to his office, so looking at the list of names and seeing his crossed off, Nelson’s smile faltered and holding onto the paper he said: “Righto, righto, just as I was saying…

Eh-em… Bill, about your promotion and our transfer… my contact at Headquarters told me quite the story… quite the story- “Who’s your contact?” interrupted Bill, but Nelson just smiled and said: “He wouldn’t be a very good contact if I went around spilling the beans to any tom-dick-or harry who asked…”

Hearing Nelson say this, Bill didn’t believe it.

Nelson had never been popular, even back when he went to the Marineford Academy. He was a Kingdom Noble and that held some sway over others, but nowhere near enough for Nelson to have a spy network that reached into Marine Headquarters.

In truth, the contact that Nelson had this time was none other than the newly promoted [Vice Admiral T-Bone], who reached out for concern and offered himself to act as a mediator on Bill’s behalf.

“… as I was saying…” Nelson continued: “New Marineford is positively a buzz with activity, mere Captains have been promoted to Rear and even Vice Admirals.

With the new appointment of Admiral Green Bull, there’s been quite a lot of consternation about who the final Admiral will be.”

By now it was well known that Admiral Aokiji had left the Marines after his defeat, his current location wasn’t known but Bill didn’t think about that much either way.

Still, he could hear from Nelson’s tone that this had something to do with him, and only an insane idea could be gathered from that.

“Alright.” Bill answered, acknowledging that Nelson had his attention – which the former gloated over but this time didn’t act so overtly.

“So, it turns out that our guest, the Former Admiral and my former Instructor, had some ideas who should fill that final Admiral position. Can you guess who?”

Shaking his head ‘no’ as Nelson was talking, Bill answered quickly: “That’s impossible. There’s no way the Fleet Admiral would have entertained such an idea. Firstly, I’m an unknown person outside of a few, but even if I weren’t, they wouldn’t pass over a longer tenured Marine for a man in his mid-twenties.”

Saying this, Bill didn’t even point out that with his father becoming an Admiral there was no way Headquarters would place so much power inside a single family.

But apparently, he was overthinking because Nelson smirked again and said: “Wrong.”

Then he continued: “As a matter of course, in his old age the Former Admiral has much more influence than you imagine. His exploits during the Whitebeard War are well known, he personally trained nearly half of the upper brass, and he was lobbying for you again the newly promoted Admiral, Green Bull.”

This was what T-Bone had reached out for.

The chivalrous Marine believed that there had been a rift formed between father and son – except Bill didn’t even know about it!

“From what I could gather, this debate had been happening from the time that Zephyr arrived on New Haven… and with the ‘tremendous accomplishment’ of defeating the Flying Pirate for once and for all, he had gained quite a lot of support in his efforts!”

All of Nelson’s statements made Bill think deeply.

He had many many conversations with Zephyr but never once had the Former Admiral indicated that he saw Bill as an immediate Admiral candidate.

This made him somewhat peeved because unlike the promotion to Vice Admiral, Bill truly wasn’t sure if he would have accepted the promotion to Admiral.

Simply put, Admirals were strategic weapons.

The vast majority of the time they could not move freely.

Many times, they weren’t even able to make detours during their deployments because the places they were being sent to took priority over everything else.

But, considering that he wasn’t even offered, Bill knew there had to be more about the story and so looking at Nelson he said: “So, what happened?”

“I knew you’d want to know!” laughed Nelson, before he quickly continued to speak: “Everything was lined up, but then after your little tussle on Monkey Island, Admiral Kizaru came out against you!

With the other two Admirals not showing their support, Fleet Admiral Sakazuki dismissed the effort and now they’re bringing out some blind old man from who-knows-where!

That’s right! They’re bringing in a complete unknown, someone they found in the World Military Draft, directly as an Admiral of all things!”

This shocked Bill, because despite being in this world for 25 years, he could not imagine that only ‘strength’ serving as the qualifier to power in an organization as large as the Marines.

‘Unless he has overwhelming strength…’ Bill thought to himself, and Nelson who saw this, added: “His name is Issho, but I don’t know anything about him. Seems that he was known to Sakazuki from before, but that’s all that I’m aware of.

Anyhows, that isn’t even the most interesting thing…” Nelson added dramatically, and when Bill said ‘Yeah?’ he answered: “Former Admiral Zephyr announced three days ago his unretirement… and was giving a unique Rank, and may I say, a unique Commission.”

“Go on.” Bill said, feeling interested but for some reason apprehensive about what the old Former Admiral had gotten himself into.

“Admiral of the Old World…” Nelson said dramatically once again, and Bill breathed heavily.

If Zephyr was put in charge of the ‘Old World’ that was presumably because Sakazuki and the other Admirals were going to focus on the ‘New World’.

“… but that’s not all, with his knew-found ready cash, the Fleet Admiral has begun calling forth regular soldiers belonging to the Allied Kingdoms. This is going to halt his crusade for almost a year but when it kicks off, blimey Bill, the entire world will shake.”

“And in the so-called Old World, there’s Zephyr.” Bill said, but as if he knew what was going to happen, he couldn’t help but huff again.

He didn’t need Future Sight to understand what the old ‘current’ Admiral had planned, and when Zephyr came to give Bill his orders, Bill could not help but to be silent for a long time.

They would form a Duo.

Zephyr would be the face and prestige of the organization, the so-called ‘Admiral of the Old World’.

And Bill, he would be Zephyr’s Chief of Staff. The only Vice Admiral in the newly formed Department of the Old World.

“It’s not so bad.” Zephyr had told Bill, fully knowing the literal mountain of responsibility he had placed on the younger Marine.

“Of course, New Haven will have to increase its production, and I will have to oversee and direct much of that… but… Bill, I promise you, we’re both going to get what we want.

You will get a platform for supporting your agenda… if its handled right…” Zephyr seemed to look into the distance before saying: “… you will get support from not only from various Kings who’ve been made to send their soldiers to die in the New World, but also from the Marines you are giving orders to.”

This made Bill consider, not for the first time, that Zephyr may hold not only resentment to the pirates but also to the World Government for what had happened to him, to his family, and to his trainees.

But he didn’t voice these thoughts, and let Zephyr continue: “… and to get that support, we will clear the oceans of any craven cutthroat who dares raise the black flag.

Bill, I’ve been doing this my entire life… and the things I’ve seen… the New World is folly. It is impossible to control, the numbers of Marines there do not matter.

But for the rest of the world…” nodding his head yes and still looking out in the distance, Zephyr said: “… we can do something about that. We can, and we will, sink every single sea scum that flies the jolly roger.

This is something we can do, something we must do, something we must do for Justice.”