"Maxwell Caine. He's our doctor, and one of our longest serving crew members."

The Marigold of the Cotton Pirates was by no means a scrappy place, but Jackie couldn't help noticing it was far less glamorous than the Ivory. The sails were far smaller, the masts were regular old wooden ones, and the ship itself was quite a bit beneath the Ivory in size.

The storm was still fiercely ongoing, despite a brief period of calmness that had lasted about half a day previously. The long red and white cotton coat that Jackie wore was drenched and weighed his body down, which would definitely be a pain in training.

Part of him wanted to go downstairs, down to the galley with walls covered in paintings and surrounded by cute and surprisingly talkative ladies and-

"HEY!" Cotton's yell brought him back to the freezing deck. He blinked, and focused his eyes on the woman in all black. Her long, silky black hair swung across her pale, spotless face in the ferocious winds, prompting her to raise a hand to her head and shield her eyes. He could see spots of tiny water droplets sparkling on her hair and running down the ends, dripping onto the floorboards below.

Despite all her good looks, she was not a flashy dresser. Out of everything she wore, the most noticeable part of her attire was the long pair of silk gloves she wore. They had a space cut out in the shape of a water droplet on the back of the hand, and the fingers were attached to golden rings worn halfway across each finger, revealing her nails delicately painted black.

Now, she stood before him and waved her hand over his eyes, knowing full well it would annoy him. "Pay attention, Jackie. Now, as I was saying, this is Maxwell, and he's going to be helping me in training you today." She said, pointing with her thumb towards the man sitting on the barrel behind her.

He was a short guy, clearly in his mid forties or so, with a slightly oversized white coat and a scar running across his face. His hair was black, but greying at the tips over his face. The tiniest of stubbles joined his scar in decorating the otherwise normal and uninteresting face of his.

"I don't expect to be starstruck by anything you're going to put on display today," He said as he reached into his coat pockets and pulled out a cigar. "But I do expect you to listen to everything you hear from me."

The hell are you taking out a cigar for? Jackie wondered, glancing around at the skies above.

The weather was, to put in a word, appalling. Black clouds were rolling overhead, with the occasional flashes of lightning in the distance. The conditions were far worse than the ones he endured when sparring with Leonardo. Already, the momentary drizzle was growing to a shower. Next would come a full on downpour.

Maxwell ignored the odd glance Jackie gave at his unlit cigar and tucked it between his lips. He had long forgotten how to care about how others percieved him.

"Tell me, then. Jackie, was it?" He asked, stepping down from the barrel and looking up at Jackie. "What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see an enemy?"

Jackie rubbed his chin, the tips of his fingers warping the scar on his jaw. "Hmm...I'd say how fast I can reach them. If not, I want to know how fast I can reach my gun." He patted the trusty revolver gifted to him by Whitebeard on his waist, though it was pretty much useless in the rain.

"Wrong."

Maxwell uttered only a single word, but it felt as though he had already given up on Jackie. "Huh? Why's it wrong? Its the logical thing to think of first!" He argued, but he may as well have talked to the floor.

The man nibbled at the end of the damp cigar. It was a habit he had developed, especially when he was thinking hard. Now, he was thinking about ways to get his lesson to sink into this boy's head.

He tucked his hands into his coat pockets and continued, "You're wrong because of two reasons. One. If you don't pay attention to every bit of detail your opponent allows themselves to show, you're going to get caught off guard. Lose your balance. Get into unexpected scenarios. The key is to control as much of the battle as you possibly can."

He raised his hand from his pocket and flicked out two fingers. "Two. Because it is not the logical thing to think of first. What you said was the primitive thought of anybody with a weapon and knowledge of how to use it. As a Ley user, you must never be behind your opponent. Your thought must not be 'how can I do this?', it must be in sync with your enemy. Every move they make, you should already be prepared for."

He took a few steps closer to the boy, closing the distance. Jackie couldn't help but notice Sue Cotton was now standing a good couple of dozen meters away from them with a smile plastered on her face.

I don't have a good feeling about this. He thought as he raised his arms and rolled up his coat sleeves up to his biceps. This Maxwell guy seemed like trouble.

"Hey. Boy." The sudden hostility in Maxwell's voice made his heart skip a beat. He looked up to find the doc glaring at him with half open eyes, momentarily looking like some sort of a humanoid gargoyle. "How many times do I have to kill you before you draw your cutlass?"

At once, he reached down and pulled his sword from the scabbard. Even as he raised it in front of him, he felt as though he was miles behind Maxwell.

Was this what he was talking about? Being in sync with your opponent?

Except, he thought, he wasn't in sync. Far from it. Far enough to twitch nervously as the man before him brought his hands together to insert them into the opposite sleeves. For a second, his hands disappeared, and then he pulled them out, with four shiny needles in each hand.

"Frankly, I don't care if you die. Whitebeard and Leonardo always go too easy on youngsters like you." He said, lowering his arms to his sides.

"Whatever playing around you've been doing on the Ivory...you can forget all that here. Now, its about life and death."

He paused, and Jackie renewed his focus on him. Something wasn't rig-

It was swift, too swift for him to keep up with. He barely managed to twitch his finger before five of the needles stabbed through his flesh, through his entire body, and poked out through the other side. Three nestled in his chest, just beneath his throat where two had gone right past skin and bone, with the sharp ends exiting from his nape.

Did...did I die? Even as he thought this, he knew that was wrong. There was no blood, for one thing, and he was not choking. But he couldn't move, either. It was as though his body was stuck in some sort of a web, with every part of him glued to the confinement of a carnivorous beast.

Oh yes, but there was a beast, the one standing before him so casually, the one with the oversized coat soaked right through in the worsening rain.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Too slow. Three centimetres to the left, and you'd be a dead man." Maxwell murmured, sounding partly disappointed and partly unsurprised.

And as quickly as he had sent them his way, he retracted them. As though they were attached to strings- no, they were attached to them -the needles slipped out from his body and flew through the damp air and back to his hands.

"It's called acupuncture. A technique used in the East. Makes use of pathways taken by Ki in your body to heal and rejuvenate cells...or to paralyze and torture prisoners." He said, raising one of the needles in front of his eye and examining it.

It was only now that Jackie noticed how absurdly long those things were. Each one was at least seven inches long, bless them, and thin enough to pass through skin seamlessly.

Maxwell raised his hands again. "One more time. You're going to attempt to dodge these needles, or deflect them with your blade. If you can't do either, look for a way to minimise the damage you'll take. This time, I'll use two."

Two or not, Jackie knew, this was gonna be a nightmare. The weather was horrible, the floor was slick, and the wind could easily change the trajectory of those weapons.

"Three centimetres to the left, and you'd be a dead man."

This wasn't just training. He was a hair's length from death. Unforgivingly quick, Maxwell swung the needles at Jackie, this time targeting his left thigh. Despite knowing what to expect, Jackie couldn't get his sword across, and collapsed to the floor with the needles sliding through his flesh.

He couldn't move, and his leg felt as though it was on fire. Once more it was as though he was helplessly stuck in a web, with every inch of his body wrapped in unbreakable silk.

"Stand."

The needles slid out, and sailed through the air to return to Maxwell's hands. "Get up. We've just started." He raised his hands and swung one of the needles his way. Somehow, Jackie rolled away and avoided it, causing the needle to hit the wooden floorboard instead.

Even as he quickly got back up on his wounded knee, he felt a shock of pain travel up his spine. Maxwell was not holding back one bit.

Well, no, he's holding back a crap ton. Two out of eight needles, and I can barely keep up with them. He didn't have time to think. No time to plan out what to do.

"You're not going to surpass me in one day, boy. So I'll give you a challenge. Deflect one of these needles using Basic Ley. Then, you get your break." Maxwell said, raising one needle in each hand.

For a second, Jackie wondered when he had put the others back in his sleeves, and then he realized he had no time. Maxwell was already moving.

"You think too much."

"Would it kill you to turn those eyes black?"

Sue's words.

He weaved to the right and ducked, feeling the air dissipate as the needle missed his neck by a whisker.

No time to think. Don't think. Move.

The target was Maxwell. His weapon was the cutlass in his hand. That was all he needed to know.

And suddenly, life seemed so much simpler. As he ran at Maxwell with each step feeling lighter than the last, he felt something he had never felt before in a battle: liberation. Freedom of movement.

Suddenly, the plan didn't matter anymore. What plan? When he was fighting by himself? There was nobody to protect, nobody to get in his way. Only him and Maxwell.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

He saw Maxwell draw his hand back and swivel it forward. Here it comes. The needle.

He had to deflect it. Deflect it with his blade. Fast. No, not fast enough.

DODGE! Something inside him screamed, and his body complied. With no time to waste, he threw himself to the side and slid across the deck, and saw the string attached to the needle tug the steel piece back to Maxwell's hand. Another attack was coming.

He wasted no time stopping. He moved forward, rising to his feet and raising his cutlass to point at the beast in front of him once again.

Hm. Not bad. Then let's see how quick you react to this! Maxwell thought, and tossed the needle on his right hand towards Jackie's legs, trying to interfere with his balance on the slick wood.

To Jackie, all of a sudden, he felt as though he was in a wild sort of meditation. Everything was moving, yet it felt so extremely slow to him. He could count each raindrop that fell against his skin if he wanted to...but his attention was now on the needle flying towards his legs.

This part of the floor is slippery as hell. Move to the side and I'll probably fall.

He raised his eyes, and realized what to do. And suddenly, time began to move again. He placed all his weight on his right leg and leaped, rising well above the needle that sailed onwards below and into the air, his sword ready to strike.

Something primal urged him on, an instinct that had lurked in him for a long time, never able to come out through the layers of thought and planning he did against opponents. Something that now made him thrust the tip of his cutlass at Maxwell's throat with pure, undiluted need to kill.

Bloodlust.

SHWIP. He barely registered the sound in his ears before he fell, once more completely paralyzed. He made a loud THUD as he landed on his side, and felt a wave of pain rise up from his ribcage like boiling water from a pot.

"Better. But still too slow." He heard Maxwell's voice, but something seemed...different about his tone of voice. Like he had noticed something.

The needle left his body, and he could move again. He wasn't even sure where it had entered through, partly because of the pain in his chest and partly because he just didn't see it, but it didn't matter anyway. "Damn. I almost had you!" He said, jumping back up and pushing his loosened right sleeve back up to his bicep.

Maxwell stared at him, nibbling his cigar with a mild look of interest in his face. "You didn't have shit. I used one needle, boy. One." With that, he looked up at the sky, thinking of what to do next.

The rain was really coming down now, making everything slippery and hard to grip onto. If they were going to continue, it was going to be a nuisance both for Jackie and him.

Too much of a nuisance.

He replaced the needles in his sleeves and walked away, towards the cabin. "That's enough for today. I'm tired, the weather is shit, and you aren't going to make any progress in one day anyway. Go do something else." Jackie stared at his back as he walked off towards the bow of the ship.

He looked around at Sue, who had calmly placed herself atop the same barrel Maxwell was sitting on, and was watching all this underneath her big umbrella. It offered little shade, however, from the fierce winds blowing salt spray and rain drops everywhere.

"Uh, is that it? He's just gonna walk away? No lectures? No advice?" He asked, pointing at Maxwell.

Sue only sighed, although she had the tiniest of smiles rounding the corners of her mouth as she did. "Maxwell is an odd person. He's lazy and kind of a scatterbrain, but I promise you he's a good teacher." She said, in a very matter-of-fact way.

Well, who was he to question Maxwell? She knew him for far longer. As far as Jackie could tell, he was just an oddball with greying hair.

He shrugged, and dragged himself back to the cabin. Dammit. Everything hurts. Whitebeard was right about one thing; his muscles really were for show. Even though his training with him had gotten him noticeably stronger, it still wasn't enough.

When Jackie entered the cabin, Cotton finally skipped down from the barrel and went after Maxwell, who was examining his compass as his sat on the edge of the ship's bow.

"Oi, Wells! Get over here!" She yelled, and he leaped from the bow and stepped back onto the deck. "What do you want?" He asked, replacing the compass in his pocket.

Cotton tapped the floor with her foot impatiently. "What do I want? I want to know what you thought of him of course. He improved, didn't he?"

Instead of answering, he raised an eyebrow at her and leaned back on the railing behind him. "If your definition of improvement is grasping how to use Basic Ley in the midst of battle, then yes. I doubt he fully understands how he did it, but once you do it once, you never have trouble with it again. That's something he doesn't need to worry about now, at least."

Cotton twirled the umbrella around, flinging raindrops everywhere. "Then move on to teaching him how to use it regularly, and Advanced Ley. He catches on to lessons quick."

Maxwell shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. He needs to learn how to move first, Sue. Movement is one of the most important things in battle."

"He can dodge and deflect with the help of Ley as much as he wants to, but if you're in a battle, you will get hit. You're going to bleed. He needs to learn how to avoid guaranteed killing blows and serious injuries, and I plan to teach him as much as I can as a doctor." With that, he turned away and headed for the cabin, with Cotton right behind him.

There was still much to discuss, but for now, she felt it was enough for Jackie. And yet...

"I can't wait to see what his eyes will look like when he's fighting for his life." She said, almost to herself.

Maxwell knew what she was talking about. A tag team match, two on one against Jackie. She planned to drive him to his very limits, both mentally and physically.

They were still far from that stage, but he couldn't help feeling somewhat eager to see how far the boy would have gone by then.

He's talented. Very very talented, that Jackie.