An Unknown Island in the Calm Belt.
Markus and Brago were dropped off at the shore by Garp and Bogard, and after saying goodbye, the two sixteen-year-olds joined the rest of the new recruits, all three hundred of them, standing on the front of the island in waiting for the Drill instructor to arrive.
And when he did arrive, he arrived with force.
" WHAT ARE YOU MAGGOTS DOING STANDING ON MY BEACH! GET TO MY BARRACKS NOW!" Former Admiral Black Arm Zephyr dropped down onto the beach from somewhere on the island. His shout was so loud that most felt like they had gone deaf from the sheer force and magnitude of the old man's voice.
" YES SIR!" All three hundred recruits shouted.
They each started running towards inland,
" HURRY UP! FOLLOW THE PATH! LET'S GO! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!" Zephyr exclaimed.
Markus and Brago quickly took the lead in running the course. With Brago staying just a step ahead of Markus as they followed the stone path that led further into the island.
" Heh! This remind you of anything Brago?" Markus asked the man.
Brago looked back and smirked. " Yeah, feels like when Bogard had us run around Marineford, the Island."
" Hey, we got some company." Brago told the man. Coming up behind them was former Admiral Zephyr himself. He had somehow already passed every other Marine recruit and was nearly catching them.
" I catch you two and there's gonna be some problems! YOU BETTER NOT LET ME CATCH UP!" Zephyr yelled.
It was no surprise to either Markus or Brago that Zephyr was catching up, the man was an admiral once. But he had retired a few years ago, and his level of skill had decline slightly. Meaning that Markus and Brago should have had an advantage, even if Zephyr wasn't a very fast man himself. And knowing the kind of training that Markus and Brago had, Zephyr held the two of them to higher standards than the rest.
Markus and Brago both turned back straight and tried focusing more on running as fast as they could.
" HAAAAAAA! RUN BRAGO!"
" I AM!"
Brago and Markus were really digging into the dirt to try and keep ahead of Zephyr, but slowly the man started catching them and eventually he passed them.
" Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Markus cursed the fact that Zephyr was starting to trail ahead of them.
Four minutes after Zephyr arrived at the beach of the training island, Zephyr along with Markus and Brago arrived at the training center, which was located at the very top of a mountain located in the deepest part of the Island.
Though Zephyr arrived ten seconds a before they did, meaning they were going to be punished for falling behind.
" Damn! I don't remember the last time, I had to catch my breath." Markus gasped. He was a little winded but quickly got over it. He stood back up and sighed, knowing that he was about to catch hell for falling behind.
" Markus, Brago! I have to say I am impressed that you managed to stay so close to me, I never expected you two to be so far ahead of the others. It's almost not fair. But nothing's fair in this world, you two sacrificed years of your childhood training and preparing for this moment, and I won't hamper you for that. But you did fall behind. By my estimate it should take the next batch of recruits about thirty minutes to an hour to reach this facility, if they all follow the proper path. Until then you two do pushups, until every last recruit gets here." Zephyr told the two men.
Markus and Brag both sighed and both of them dropped to the ground with their cases and started doing pushups.
" COUNT THEM OUT!"
" One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-"
thirty minutes later three more recruits arrived, a young girl with long curly black hair, with piercing red eyes, and a mole under the right side of her mouth, wearing a pink shirt and black shorts. Another woman with blonde shoulder length hair and blue eyes wearing an orange shirt with black shorts. And a young man with smokey white hair, he seemed to be slightly younger than the other two recruits though you couldn't tell by the way the man smoked.
" IT'S ABOUT TIME! WHERE HAVE YOU MAGGOS BEEN? YOU SEE THESE TWO HERE?" Zephyr yelled as he pointed to Markus and Brago still doing pushups. " GET TO PUSHIN!"
The three recruits were winded already. They were barely able to hold themselves upright, but Zephyr didn't care. He had a job to do, and he'd be damned if any Marine came out of his camp a weakling.
The three recruits quickly dropped to the ground and did their best to try and produce as many push-ups as they could.
An hour later, and after all Marine recruits had showed up and done their push-ups, Zephyr finally got to starting the introduction ceremony.
" All Right, listen up, my name is Instructor Zephyr. From this day forward you will refer to me as Drill Sergeant. From this day forward the Only two words out of your mouth will be Yes Drill Sergeant and No Drill Sergeant, do you understand?"
" Yes Drill Sergeant!"
" I CAN'T HEAR YOU! DROP!"
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
The recruits were all forced to drop to the ground once more, the only difference is this time Zephyr did not say to do pushups. So, when the recruits started doing pushups, Zephyr flipped.
" DID I SAY TO DO PUSH-UPS?! NO! I SAID DROP! NOW DO PUSH-UPS, UNTIL I SAY STOP!"
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
Markus and Brago were quite used to the ridiculous number of pushups themselves, but even they felt like their arms were growing heavy due to the fact that they had been doing push-ups nonstop for the last hour and thirty minutes.
" From this day forward, you will do what I say, when I say. You will listen to each and every word that I speak. And when you fail to comply, this will be your punishment. OH yes, you're all gonna be strong by the time I'm done with you. Oh yes! You better believe it!"
About five minutes later, Zephyr finally stepped back forward.
" Alright, that's enough! EVERYBODY UP!" Zephyr yelled.
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
The recruits got back to their feet as quickly as they could, but even then, some of them were quite exhausted and struggled to even stand up.
" Good! Now, everyone pay attention. You are going to be handed a small brown satchel. I'm sure you all know how to pack your belongings. You are going to take this satchel and place each and every piece of your jewelry you have on, rings, necklaces, earrings, piercings of any kind, and you are going to place them in this bag." As Zephyr was speaking a group of women came out and passed out to each new recruit a brown satchel for them to place their belongings in. " Does everyone have a satchel?"
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
" Okay, do it now! You have ten seconds."
Their was a loud bustling in the hall, the recruits were in, those with jewelry on quickly placed their belongings in the bag amd when they were done they held the bag out.
" Okay, now any other personal items that you have on your being, watches, pins, anything at all money. You will place it in this bag! Go!"
Once again, there was a sound of bustling as men and women removed the last of their personal vestiges that weren't packed away in their cases into the small bag.
" Okay, on the bags is a string, already pulled out, you are gonna pull that string close down so that your satchel is closed do you understand?"
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
" You will place your left arm and your head through this strap, and you will wear this Satchel crossbody style do you understand?"
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
" Okay, do it now!"
The recruits in the room quickly started pulling their strings and placing their bags on.
" Alright, now everyone is going to fall in line, and we will lead you to processing. You will be assigned an official marine Id, a badge number, and be issued your local uniform. From this day forward, you will wear your uniform every day! You will be inspected on this uniform, every day! Do you understand?!"
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
" Okay! The line will start on this end, and one at a time you will all each stepped towards the booth over there, do you understand?!"
" YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
" Get to it!"
Markus and Brago were the first ones to arrive, meaning they were the first to receive their new gear.
Four hours later, after everyone had received their gear, Zephyr finally moved to start assigning rooms.
Markus and Brago were naturally stuck together.
" Oh man, that was rough." Markus groaned.
" Yeah, that sucked man, I'd hate to have been the others. Those poor fools don't realize how hard things are about to get."
" There's quite a few good lookin babes, out there too. The one with the black hair, and the blonde babe that arrived after us. Smokin."
" Hm! Well, let's worry about ladies later. Tomorrow, the real deal begins."
" Yeah, but I'm not worried, we got this! Nothing is stopping me on the way to the top not even old man Z."
" Well, you got that right, partner."
Markus and Brago shook hands firmly and then quickly finished putting their belongings away before hitting the bed.
This was the start of their journey, the first step into tomorrow.