After they hashed out a basic plan, the boys rushed back to Gray Terminal to figure out how to accomplish it. The first thing they needed to do was figure out how the fire was going to be started and how it would be spread throughout all of Gray Terminal. Once they had that information they could figure out a way to modify it for their own needs.
Since Marcus knew that Bluejam was in charge of setting everything up for the nobles, he suggested they start near the coast and work inland from there. When the boys arrived at the port area for Gray Terminal it was a couple hours past noon.
While it wasn't like a traditional port like in Foosha Village, it acted like one for the people of Gray Terminal. It was where a good part of the citizens procured food by fishing in pieced together rafts and boats. The boys started their search in this area and turned up nothing after an hour.
As far as they could tell, nothing seemed weird and they couldn't find anything after digging through some of the trash piles. With only a few hours of daylight left to work with, Marcus said, "How about we split up and check around the area for a bit. We can meet back here in an hour or so."
When no one had a better suggestion the boys split up and started to search on their own. While the others headed deeper into Gray Terminal, Marcus headed down the coast some more. He had a pretty good idea that Bluejam's base was hidden somewhere on the coast along with his ship. He just had no idea where it was exactly so he was forced to search for it.
Marcus quickly made his way along the coast as he glanced around the area. As Marcus moved farther up the coast the less people appeared and after fifteen minutes he was basically alone. The coast area itself became more rocky and some seaside cliffs rose up from the ground a few hundred yards in front of him.
The cliffs were Marcus's main destination as it was the best place for Bluejam to hide his ship. Once he reached the cliffs Marcus quickly scaled the first one and used the added height to scan the area. For almost half an hour Marcus searched the area until he gave up and headed back to join the others.
Marcus ended up being the last to arrive and when he did Ace said, "I think I found who is setting everything up for the fire."
"Really? Where are they at?" Marcus asked.
Ace pointed over his shoulder towards the massive wall that surrounded the Goa Kingdom as he said, "Found some people moving barrels out from a hidden tunnel near the wall and stuffing them into trash piles."
Luffy started to walk towards where Ace pointed as he said, "Alright! Let's go check it out."
Marcus grabbed Luffy by the shoulder as he said, "Hold on for a minute Luffy. Let's go find one of those barrels first and find out what's inside."
Ace and Sabo nodded in agreement before Ace said, "I'll show you where they placed a couple of them."
About fifteen minutes later they removed two decent sized barrels from a couple of trash piles and tried to open them up. Once the lid was off one of them the boys scrunched up their noses at the overwhelming smell. The barrels contained some time of nasty smelling oil that none of the boys could identify.
As Marcus and the others checked out the two barrels, a couple of burly men in tattered clothes appeared and one of them asked, "What do you little punks think you're doing?"
"None of your business." Sabo said as he took a defensive stance.
"It is when you're messing with our stuff." One of the men said as he glanced at the two barrels.
"We found them in the trash piles, how can they be yours?" Luffy asked.
The other man stepped forward as he said to his companion, "Let's just kill them and put the barrels back in the trash heaps with their corpses."
Before the other man could respond Marcus rushed forward in a flash and attacked. Within moments both men were on the ground bruised and moaning in pain. Marcus rested his training sword on one of the men's faces and said, "Tell me who you're working for."
When the man didn't respond after a minute Marcus jabbed the tip of his sword into the man's crotch with all his strength. Everyone except Luffy instinctively grabbed their own crotch in a protective manner as the man howled in pain. Marcus turned to the other man and asked, "Do you wanna be next?"
The man quickly shook his head as he said, "We work for Bluejam! We were hired by some nobles to place the barrels."
"How many people are helping place barrels?" Marcus asked as he stepped closer to the man and tapped the mans hands that were still protecting his crotch with his sword.
The man started sweating as he said, "The whole crew, almost a hundred people."
"Is everyone working in groups?"
The man nodded as he said, "Two or three man teams."
"How many barrels have already been placed?"
"I think a couple hundred, maybe…" The man said before Marcus tapped his hands again and he quickly added, "I'm really not sure. We were given the barrels by the nobles and we haven't even placed half of them yet."
"Do you know where they were all placed?"
The man shook his head as he said, "Not the exact locations, but we were told to plant them all around the edges of Gray Terminal first."
"Where are the barrels stored?" Marcus asked.
"A hidden port the nobles use to work with smugglers."
Marcus glanced at the others as he asked, "Anything else you can think of to ask?"
When the others shook their heads, Marcus turned back to the man and said, "Thanks for your cooperation."
Before the man could respond Marcus cracked him over the head with his training sword which knocked him out. He then turned towards the others as he asked, "So should we attack them now or start the fire first?"
"If we attack them first, would we still need to worry about the fire?" Luffy asked.
"They would just find someone else to do it once we take out Bluejam and his crew. Might as well start the fire ourselves in a somewhat controlled manner." Marcus said.
"Makes sense to me." Sabo said and Ace nodded in agreement.
"So attack or fire?"
"Attack." Everyone said at the same time.
After they tied up the two men Marcus beat up, they headed towards the hidden cove Ace found. On the way they knocked out a few more groups of pirates and hid them in the trash piles. By the time they reached the hidden tunnel, over twenty pirates were already dealt with.
Instead of charging directly into the tunnel and fighting the people inside, Marcus forced everyone to hide a certain distance from the entrance. He wanted to thin the herd some more before they went inside since fighting eighty pirates would be a tough task for them. As they wanted for a group to appear Luffy asked, "Why can't we just charge in? These guys are weak."
Marcus glanced at Luffy for a moment before he turned his attention back to the area around the tunnel entrance as he said, "Because not all of them will be that weak. I am pretty sure Bluejam will be a challenge for all of us even if we work together."
Ace and the others looked excited at the challenge of fighting a tough opponent. But agreed not to make things harder than they needed to be. With that in mind all the boys settled into a couple spots around their ambush point and waited for pirates to show up.
They didn't need to wait long before three people appeared from the tunnel each carrying a barrel. Once they reached the ambush spot, Marcus and the others quickly disabled them and tossed them in the trash heap along with the barrels. It actually took longer to hide them, then it was to beat them up.
Over an hour and a half passed by as the boys took out group after group of men. While it was only two or three people each time, it quickly added up and the boys had taken out over sixty pirates including the others. The only issue now was the pirates seemed to have caught on, since they stopped coming out of the tunnel about fifteen minutes ago and no more pirates were caught heading back.
After waiting another half hour with no movement from the tunnel, Marcus turned to the others and said, "It looks like they finally caught on."
"There should be around forty people left, Bluejam being one of them and maybe an officer or two that might be strong…So what do you want to do now?" Marcus asked as he glanced at the others.
"Let's go in and beat them up!" Luffy said with a smile.
Sabo smiled as he shook his head and said, "We should try to lure them out or thin the numbers more before we go in."
Marcus nodded in agreement before he said, "How about we try and scout the tunnel and gain some information first."
"Oh, I wanna go! I'll do it!" Luffy excitedly said as he raised his hand in the air.
The others shared a glance before Ace asked, "So we're in agreement in not sending Luffy?"
"Hey! Why can't I go?"
The others ignored Luffy and quickly nodded as Ace asked, "So who wants to go?"
"I'll do it." Sabo said.
"I'll join you."
The others turned to Marcus who shrugged and said, "It'll be safer if we scout it together."
"Yeah, let's all go!" Luffy said.
Marcus shook his head as he said, "No, just Sabo and I will scout. You stay here with Ace."
Luffy pouted as he said, "But I wanna go too!"
Marcus placed his hand on Luffy's shoulder as he said, "You can't come because you and Ace have an important job to do."
"We do!?!" Luffy asked as Ace smirked slightly.
Marcus nodded his head as he said, "You both have to wait here and make sure no more groups leave or come back. It's very important and I can only trust this to you."
Ace rolled his eyes as Luffy nodded seriously and said, "Okay!"
Marcus turned to Sabo as he said, "Good, let's head out, Sabo."
Instead of going through the hidden tunnel the pirates used, Marcus and Sabo took a longer path and headed towards the coast. As they reached the water Sabo asked, "Why are we headed this way?"
"Because there should be an entrance over here for their ship."
"Oh, you wanna swim in, through the water?" Sabo asked.
Marcus shook his head and started to climb onto the wall as he said, "Not if I can help it."
Sabo's eyes lit up in understanding as he quickly joined Marcus on the wall and followed along behind him. It took them about half an hour to scale the wall around to the hidden water entrance of the cove. But their cliff training with Garp proved useful as neither boy fell off the almost vertical surface.
Once inside it took another twenty minutes or so to reach the hidden cove itself. It was a large hidden port with only two ships currently anchored at the dock. One was a massive three mast ship with a pirate flag proudly on display. The other was an elegant single main mast ship with a smaller mast on the rear deck. It looked like something a noble would use for a pleasure cruise.
The port was the only thing in the hidden cove itself and there were only two exits beside the water. One of them was clearly the exit the boys were watching the past few hours. While the other exit was sealed with an iron door that led into the Goa Kingdom.
The port itself was pretty empty with only a handful of people gathered near the exit tunnel leading towards Gray Terminal. Marcus took note of the amount of people and after a few minutes realized it should be everyone they missed. The distance was pretty far so he couldn't tell if Bluejam was there or not. But it didn't matter too much since they mainly wanted to scout the area.
Marcus and Sabo took half an hour as they watched the whole area and enemy's movements from a secluded spot. Once finished they climbed back out using the cave wall and went to meet back up with Ace and Luffy.
"What did you find out?" Ace asked.
"About forty people are turtled up just inside the end of the tunnel. It looks like they are waiting for an attack, but I couldn't make out if Bluejam was with them or not." Marcus said.
"So what should we do? Wait for them to let their guard down?"
Marcus smiled as he said, "I have an idea, but we would need to make sure they can't escape from the hidden cove. And it also depends on us being able to use a cannon."