Marcus was seated in Shakky's bar having spent the last couple hours catching up with Rayleigh and Shakky while Marcus and his crew devoured everything Shakky cooked for them. Uta and Baby Five helped with cooking at first, but Shakky forced them to go eat too after a while. Marcus placed the last plate onto a large stack of them as he said with a satisfied smile, "That hit the spot, thank you Shakky."
"You should be glad I like you brat."
Marcus smiled at Shakky for a moment before he glanced over the others and said, "We should probably get out of here soon, it would be best if we were gone long before that psycho shows up."
"You caused all that trouble again and you're just going to run away?" Rayleigh asked with an amused smile before he finished the drink in his hand.
Marcus shrugged as he said, "While I'm confident I would do better this time, I'm not one hundred percent sure if I'd win the fight. He's likely gotten stronger and he definitely won't come alone this time."
"We can help fight him!" Uta said as she raised her fist and shook it in the air.
"Baby Five might have issues fighting her former crewmates." Marcus said before he pointed at Nicholas as he added, "Besides he's with us and technically can't fight Doflamingo. Plus think about what would happen if I beat Doflamingo in a fight…"
"But Nicholas fought with him last time…" Uta said with a frown as she tilted her head slightly to think while Yamato asked, "You get all of his treasure?"
"I get labeled a pirate with a bounty and forced to take over his position or be chased by the marines."
"What? Why would that happen?"
"Because me beating Doflamingo would be a slap in the face to the Navy and the World Government. They wouldn't let that go even if I'm not a pirate." Marcus said with a helpless shrug.
"But you almost beat him last time."
Marcus shook his head as he chuckled before he said, "Almost isn't the same as actually winning. Plus I have no idea how much he still had in the tank and my grandpa took care of the aftermath. If I actually won, there's no way my grandpa could stop the fallout."
"Besides, the goal here was to drop off the cargo we had for Rayleigh." Marcus said as he motioned towards one of the barrels they brought from Elbaph.
They ended up spending another hour in the bar talking before Marcus forced his group to leave. At the hidden dock, Rayleigh and Shakky saw them off and within half an hour their ship sailed away from the coastline of Sabaody. Once the island disappeared from view, Marcus handed the ship over to Nicholas and moved to prepare his small boat for launch.
As Marcus started checking over the boat, Uta came up and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Getting ready to leave for a bit."
"I'm coming with you!"
Marcus glanced up from his work as he said, "No, I'm just going to pick someone up and then I'll catch up to everyone. Worst case I'll meet you at Water Seven."
Uta placed her hands on her hips as she glared at Marcus and said in an annoyed tone, "I knew it, you're going to pick up another girl!"
Marcus stared at Uta for a few moments before he burst into laughter and said, "Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean I'm going to pick up a girl."
"Then take me with you to make sure!"
Marcus rolled his eyes as he said, "No, I'm going alone. Be good and stay with the others."
"Handsome scumbag!" Uta said with no heat in her voice before she puffed out her cheeks and turned her head away as she glanced at Marcus from the corner of her eyes.
Marcus flicked her forehead which caused her to help and clutch her head as Marcus turned back to check the boat. Half an hour later Marcus had food and water prepared for the trip and a couple of vivre card pieces so he could find everyone once he was finished. Afterwards he waited on the ship until they spotted a massive fog bank in the distance.
Marcus studied the fog with a spy glass for a while before he said, "Alright, this is my stop. Help me lower the boat and then I want you to sail around the fog bank."
"You're really going to enter the Florian Triangle?"
Marcus was already at the winch as he prepared to lower the boat down and said, "I'll be fine, I'm just going to find someone."
"But they say over a hundred ships disappear inside of it each year." Uta said in a worried tone with a frown on her face.
"It'll be fine, I already know what causes it. Besides, my little boat is the fastest thing on the water. If I come across any trouble, I'll just run away."
Marcus jumped over to his boat and unhooked it from the ship as he said, "I'll see all of you soon."
With a wave goodbye, Marcus disappeared into the boat and ignored Uta's pouting. A few moments later the boats split apart and Marcus increased the power before he disappeared into the distant fog a minute later. Uta watched the fog for a while as she muttered, "You better stay safe you stupid handsome jerk!"
The inside of the fog was thick and heavy which cut down visibility to only a few dozen feet from the boat. Marcus mostly ignored what he could see and focused on his observation haki as he cruised through the fog. While Marcus wouldn't be able to completely sense other ships or objects around him, he could at least get a vague outline of them and if they carried people he would easily sense them instead. So Marcus pushed his observation haki to his absolute limit as he explored the fog.
Without the sun and no clock on the small boat, Marcus didn't notice the time until it started to darken. With the heavy fog in place it went from dim light to darkness quickly and Marcus was forced to slow down his search. Throughout the night Marcus ran into two other ships, both of which were empty and looked only minutes away from sinking with how damaged they were.
It might have been luck or just the sheer size of the vessel, but Marcus found Thriller Bark as the fog brightened the next day. When Marcus first noticed Thriller Bark, it was just a dark spot in the fog ahead. But as he approached the spot it only grew bigger until his little boat looked like an ant next to its outer wall. The wall itself was massive and Marcus had no idea what its true height could be as it easily disappeared into the fog above him.
Once he was beside the wall, Marcus didn't waste time and increased speed to search for the main gate. Marcus wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually he found the main gate that looked like a mouth. The gate itself was closed when he arrived, so Marcus looked around the entrance for a place he could tie off and dock his boat at.
What Marcus found was a small spot in the wall that was damaged and acted almost like a small cave. Any normal ship wouldn't even notice the spot in the thick fog and choppy water. But Marcus's boat was only slightly bigger than most dinghy's and sat low in the water even when it hydroplaned.
Marcus slowed down when he spotted the small hole and steered towards it. As he approached closer, he studied the hole and after a minute headed directly for it. The hole was tiny compared to the size of the wall, but it easily held Marcus's boat inside of it. After Marcus secured his boat inside with ropes, he placed his sword on his waist and used geppo to leave the cave.
When Marcus arrived on top of the wall, he checked his position compared to the main gate before he jumped off. Inside the wall was a large stretch of water and it took a few minutes before Marcus spotted the main island itself through the fog. Marcus couldn't see the mansion through the thick fog, but he spotted some derelict ships and a large forest hidden behind another castle style wall.
Unlike the outside wall and gate, the inner wall was broken in several areas which is where all the ships were at. The ships themselves were in bad shape, with only a handful that looked sea worthy. Marcus traveled through the air to the ships first and after a while found what he was looking for. Marcus landed on the deck of a ship that carried a faded pirate logo on its main mast.
Marcus studied it and compared it to the one in his memories before he nodded to himself and moved to explore the ship. In the main cargo hold Marcus found sealed coffins, neatly arranged with care along with a small altar and some day old flowers placed upon it. Satisfied he found his target, Marcus decided to go explore the island and have some fun as he looked for Brook.
Compared to the fog outside of Thriller Bark, the fog inside of it was thick and heavy which made it cling to everything like cold syrup. Marcus landed in an empty spot next to the forest and started to walk at a leisurely pace as he tried to look around through the fog. While his vision was mostly obscured, his observation haki sensed weird life fluctuations around him.
Most of them were underground, a few were hidden in the forest and some were spread out in the area further ahead. Unfortunately none of them felt like a normal person, but something in between which meant they were most likely shadow puppets. They could also be the unfortunate people who had their shadows stolen, but Marcus couldn't tell that through his senses.
After walking for a while, the thick fog around Marcus started to clear and he felt more of the weird presences grouped together up ahead which turned out to be a cemetery. Marcus confidently walked into it and looked around at the countless headstones that disappeared into the distant fog. As Marcus walked deeper, he felt the weird half lifeforms underground stir. Most of them only seemed to move around slightly, but a few started to move towards the surface. Not long after a rotten hand shot out of the ground in front of Marcus before more quickly joined it.
Marcus stopped as he glanced at the corpses in different states of decay clawed themselves out of the ground. In his memories from the original work, Marcus remembered that the shadow puppets were basically stitched together and wrapped in bandages but otherwise looked kinda normal. There were exceptions of course, the ones with animal parts, extra limbs, the paintings and the rest.
But the ones climbing out of the ground in front of Marcus now were nothing like that. While it seemed like something was used to help preserve them. Each one looked like it stepped out of a horror movie and smelled worse to boot. The one closest to Marcus was half out of the ground, it was missing an eye and inside of the empty socket was a large worm that wiggled around. The zombie had bits of its flesh missing and some spots showed bone. But the worst spot was its stomach that was ripped open and showed its rotten intestines that were partly hanging out covered in dirt.
With a frown of disgust on his face, Marcus gripped his sword hilt and with a flash the closest zombie lost its head. Unfortunately the zombie kept moving, even without its head so Marcus diced it into pieces until a shadow flew out of it. Afterwards the zombie completely stopped moving for good and Marcus started on the next one. Even though there were numerous zombies that climbed up around him, Marcus was so quick that they never overwhelmed him.
While Marcus could easily use his sword's power to turn all of them into ash. Marcus wanted to hide his abilities for now and really didn't want to smell these things after they were cooked. So he used pure swordsmanship to cut down everything that came in front of him. As he walked a massive line of chopped up corpses piled up behind him.
After a while the zombies seemed to get an order and started to back away. But Marcus gave them no opportunity to retreat as he asked with a predatory smile, "Who gave you permission to leave?"
All of the zombies around him froze in place before one of them yelled, "Run!"
Marcus glanced at the zombies as they turned to run while he channeled power into his sword to burn off everything on it. Afterwards he sheathed his sword and bent his knees as he took a stance and said, "Thunder clap and…"
"FLASH!"
The ground under Marcus's feet cratered as he disappeared into a flash of light. Within a few hundred feet of the crater flashes of silver arc'd into existence like lightning before zombie after zombie fell into pieces. A minute later Marcus reappeared with his sword sheathed in front of the crater and calmly walked away humming a tune.