Marcus talked with Iceburg about his ship and a few other things for over an hour before Nicholas and Hina showed up. Hina came to hand over the bounty claim vouchers to Marcus and Iceburg while Nicholas came for a spar. Hina also wanted to watch Marcus and Nicholas spar but when they arrived Marcus was about to take Iceburg out on his ship so he invited them along too.
Nicholas with his height had a slight issue entering the bridge and that caused Marcus to plan for some adjustments on the next ship. Once they pulled away from the dock and got up to speed, Marcus engaged the drive train into place as Nicholas asked, "What does that thing do anyways?"
Marcus got on the bike, adjusted the sails slightly and started peddling as he said, "Unlocks my ship's full potential."
Within minutes everyone felt the ship slowly rise up out of the water as it picked up speed. Iceburg was the first to react as he left the bridge and headed towards the canvas deck so he could peak below it. Hina and Nicholas followed along, curious to see what was going on and found Iceburg as he mumbled to himself. A moment later they noticed what he was looking at and under the rushing wind glanced back at Marcus on the bridge who waved at them.
After a few minutes they all returned before Iceburg asked, "That's incredible… Would you mind letting me examine your ship in my dry dock? I wanna look at the hydrofoils in more detail."
Marcus steered the ship around water seven as he said, "Sure, I don't mind. I planned to rest here for a day or two anyway since I haven't slept in a few days."
Everyone stared at Marcus who smiled back as he said, "I'm the only person on the ship so it's kinda hard to sleep while traveling."
"We can spar after you rest properly if you want."
"I've barely been active, besides pedaling on this ship. I can easily do this for another day or two before I really need sleep. A spar with you will probably be a nice warm up for me."
Nicholas frowned slightly as he said, "Fine, we'll spar as soon as we get back."
"Sounds good to me."
Marcus took them completely around Water Seven as he talked with them and answered Iceburg's questions about his ship. Once they were back and the ship was docked, Hina and Iceburg followed after Nicholas and Marcus to watch them spar but for different reasons. Hina to gauge Marcus's strength and Iceburg because Marcus was going with him afterwards to take his ship to dock one's dry dock.
As Marcus faced off against Nicholas he asked, "Rules?"
"Don't use the six styles since I don't know them."
"What about haki?" Marcus asked which caused Nicholas and Hina's eyes to widen.
"You already know haki?!?" Nicholas asked as Iceburg frowned slightly not knowing what they were talking about.
Marcus twisted his hand slightly in front of himself as he said, "I have a basic grasp of it."
"No haki since I can use that either."
Marcus started to loosen up his arms while he stretched and said, "Man you really need to train harder."
Nicholas frowned but nodded slightly as he started stretching himself. After a minute or so they shared a glance and after they nodded slightly to each other, they charged forward. Marcus with his height disadvantage was still faster and past the halfway point as he swung at Nicholas who blocked the punch with his own fist. The clash caused a small explosion of air that blew dirt everywhere but neither of them stopped as they clashed again. Fist against fist smashed together repeatedly and almost sounded like mini cannon blasts.
As they clashed again Marcus smiled as he asked, "You're stronger than I thought. But you're also slow… You've been skipping leg day, huh?"
Their fists slammed together again as Nicholas said, "I've been following the workout routine my father used to reach admiral rank."
"So that's why you're so far behind me in strength and can't even use geppo or soru yet."
Nicholas gritted his teeth as he was pushed back by the next blow and the blow after that. With each punch Marcus stepped forward and slowly pushed Nicholas back as they clashed. The next punch by Marcus he stepped forward into it and Nicholas stumbled backward from the blow. Nicholas looked down at Marcus in shock as he asked, "How the hell are you so strong?"
Marcus threw another punch at Nicholas as he said, "Because out of all the training I've done, I've kept one thing consistent the entire time."
Nicholas blocked the blow with his own fist as he asked, "And what's that?"
"I never stopped pushing to improve myself." Marcus said as he utilized his whole body for his next punch and sent Nicholas skidding backwards about ten feet.
Nicholas rushed back towards Marcus and they clashed but he was overpowered again as Marcus said, "When my grandpa first trained us I thought I would die."
"But each day it got a little easier until we could complete his workout routine without issue. I wasn't satisfied though, I pushed myself each time." Marcus said as he pulled back on his strength to match Nicholas.
"If I did a hundred push ups one day, then I would push myself to do a hundred and ten the next day in the same amount of time."
Marcus pulled Nicholas into his rhythm as he said, "When my brothers relaxed at night, I kept training to the point of collapse where I could barely walk most of the time."
Marcus increased the pressure on Nicholas as he started to push him again while he said, "Doing that every day, year after year is what helped me get this strong."
Marcus pushed Nicholas harder as he said, "You on the other hand are following after your dad and that's why you're behind. Sure you'll reach his level one day…"
Marcus dodged a punch then rushed closer and threw an upper as he jumped forward and said, "But with a mindset like that you'll never surpass him or me."
Nicholas's eyes widened slightly at that comment before Marcus's fist hit his chin and sent him flying. After Nicholas landed on the ground he laid there in a daze as Marcus approached. When Marcus stood over him and blocked out the sun he asked with his hand outstretched, "Are you satisfied with that?"
Nicholas focused on Marcus for a moment before he clasped his hand as he said, "No."
After he helped Nicholas up he said, "Good."
People started to clap before Iceburg said, "That was impressive."
Hina nodded as she said, "I wish to spar with you too."
Marcus smiled as he said, "Sure, I'd love to test myself against your devil fruit power."
"Hina pleased."
Within minutes Hina was faced off against Marcus and after they shared a glance Hina thrust out her arms and said, "Awase Baori!"
Black cage bars shoot out from her sleeves and surrounded Marcus who jumped up as Hina brought her hands together. The cages slammed together but missed Marcus who landed on top of it and then rushed towards Hina. She was forced to let go of the cage as Marcus's foot swung towards her face a moment later. Marcus turned that kick into a back flip off the cage and as he landed on the ground he charged forward with a punch.
Hina raised her arm to block and used her power to create a bar along her forearm. Marcus's punch slammed into the bar and it sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. Hina winced as she stepped backwards while Marcus just grinned and stepped forward with another punch. Hina was basically on the defensive the entire fight and while she used her devil fruit in a few creative ways, Marcus overpowered her in every single aspect.
Once he knocked her to the ground Marcus stopped the fight and helped her up. Hina dusted herself off before she said, "I can't believe you're nine… Hina depressed."
Nicholas nodded as he said, "I thought I've improved since last time but you easily proved me wrong."
"It's never too late to change yourself."
Nicholas nodded as he asked, "You're staying for a couple days right? Wanna train together tomorrow?"
"Sure, sounds good to me." Marcus said before he turned towards Iceburg and asked, "When do you wanna take my ship back to your dry dock?"
"Now is fine with me, nmaa."
Marcus nodded before he turned back to Nicholas as he said, "I'll let you both get back to work, but come find me later and we can chat over dinner. It would be nice to catch up."
As Nicholas nodded Marcus turned to Hina and said, "It was nice to meet you captain Hina and the dinner invitation is open to you as well if you're free."
"It was nice to meet you too, Marcus."
Hina and Nicholas went back to work as Iceburg and Marcus took his boat to the gate one boat lock. The process to get it into the upper city wasn't hard, it just took time as the lock slowly filled with water. Once inside the upper city Iceburg guided Marcus to his dry dock where the ship was lifted out of the water. Marcus told Iceburg to have fun as he decided to take a nap for a few hours. While Marcus was asleep Iceburg and some of his workers studied Marcus's ship and the hydrofoils in detail as they made copies of his blueprints.
A few hours later Marcus woke up when Nicholas and Hina came to find him for dinner. Marcus invited Iceburg along too and they ended up going to a restaurant Iceburg recommended. It wasn't super fancy but Iceburg promised it had some of the best food in Water Seven. As they ate, Marcus swapped stories with everyone at the table and long after dinner was finished.
At some point Hina asked why Marcus had a sword but never used it. At least from her perspective he hadn't touched it once today when fighting the pirates or during their spars. Marcus smiled slightly as he said, "Fighting weak people with my sword is like using a cannon to hunt a rabbit."
Hina narrowed her eyes slightly as she said, "You can't be serious."
Marcus shrugged as he said, "I wouldn't mind a decent duel if you know a powerful swordsman… But they would have to be above your rank to even be a challenge probably."
"Hina knows someone."
Nicholas frowned slightly as he tried to think of who it might be before Hina said, "I'll call them and they can probably be here tomorrow afternoon."
"Sounds good to me, it's been a couple months since I've had a proper spar."
They hung out and chatted for a while longer before they all called it a night. Marcus headed back to his ship and slept on it in the dry dock for the night. Early the next morning he woke up before dawn and stretched before he went to find Nicholas. When he arrived at the ship a handful of marines were awake on watch, so Marcus approached them and asked, "Nicholas said he wanted to train with me today, do you know if he's up yet?"
The marines shared a glance with each other before one of them said, "The lieutenant normally gets up in a couple hours for breakfast."
"Would one of you mind getting him for me? Just tell him Marcus is here to train."
Both of them shared another glance before the lower ranked marine let out a sigh and headed off into the ship. Within a few minutes he returned with a half asleep Nicholas in tow. Marcus took one look at him and asked, "You good or do you still need your beauty sleep princess?"
The guards started to chuckle but a glare from Nicholas caused them to shut up as they quickly snapped to attention. Nicholas rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned before he said, "I forgot you like to wake up before dawn."
"Yup. Now let's get started and see if you can keep up with me." Marcus said with a challenging smirk.
"You're on."
About an hour after sunrise Marcus finally said, "Nice job. Let's go eat breakfast and we can start the real workout."
"That wasn't the workout?"
Marcus raised an eyebrow as he said, "Don't you remember the training camp? That was just the prebreakfast warm up."
Nicholas, who was feeling pretty good about keeping up with Marcus for the past two hours, had a flashback to the camp. His back was instantly covered in a cold sweat as he remembered the crazy things he witnessed Marcus and his brothers doing… Then he remembered what Marcus said yesterday and a fire lit in his eyes with new determination to keep up with Marcus during training today. Nicholas nodded as he said, "Yeah, I remember."
"Good. We do something even more intense now, but you should be able to keep up." Marcus said and Nicholas instantly started having second thoughts.