Chapter 46 - The strongest man alive

New World.

Whitebeard's territory.

A ship could be seen stopped a distance away from another ship that is notably much bigger. The smaller ship was barely 50m high, meanwhile the bigger one was three times its size. 160m.

It was Ian's ship the odyssey, and the Moby d.i.c.k belonging to the whitebeard pirates. The ship of the strongest man alive in this world.

The Moby D.i.c.k was a large battleship with a cachalot figurehead or rather s.p.e.r.m whale, and as the name suggests, the whale figurehead was white.

Ian had finally reached his destination. He was on the deck along with the rest of the crew. 'How should I go about this… if I do it forcefully like red haired shanks did, it would be disrespectful to the old man… but I also can't just be too easygoing… hmm' Ian thought to himself.

By now the whitebeard pirates have already known about them.

"Hey guys, listen. I want you to stay here while I go discuss things with the old man okay?" Ian said.

"Roger that captain." Bert said with a smile. He and Ian had gotten real close. But he still won't stop calling Ian with the captain title. Something Ian was working on still.

He of course had gotten closer to Stella too, but since Ian and Bert were males they bonded much easier and faster. Meanwhile Stella and Elene had gotten closer more to Robin. They now treated her as their elder sister, what with her being the oldest.

On their journey, to pass time Ian showed them all how to train to use 'shave'. And among them all, Bert was the only one who managed to use it in such a short amount of time, possibly due to enhanced body from his race.

Stella gave a nod of acknowledgement. She was eying the ship belonging to whitebeard with admiration. After all not many would get the honor to see the legendary figure that is Whitebeard, much less talk to him like Ian was planning to.

Elene though, she just giggled at Ian. Being someone who knew him, she was sure Ian was super excited for this, as just about now he would be meeting, possibly the greatest character he liked in the anime. Of course she wouldn't blame him for that, as she too had a certain female person she wanted to meet and would probably be as much excited, if not more, as him.

Ian knew what her laugh meant, so he just shook his head with a smile as he took off flying to the Moby d.i.c.k.

The crew keeping watch over them were alerted and grabbed their guns, swords and other weapons as they prepared for this intruding person.

From them Ian was able to know only two people. The rest he thought that they were just regular commanders. But he didn't remember all the commanders so he was not sure.

The first one he presumed to be Jozu. Who is a big, very muscular, broad-chested, heavily-armored and dark-skinned man, called a giant by Crocodile. Even when standing in a hunched position, he is roughly twice Crocodile's height. He has a long face with black stripe-like patterns for a beard and hairstyle. His legs are relatively thin in comparison to his muscular arms. He appears battle-hardened and has a perpetual scowl on his face. The dark armor he wears and his hair style are very similar to that of an Aztec warrior, with grey-bolted dark shoulder pads. On his chest he has a rusty red cuirass, whose front and back portions are connected by metal straps that go over both his collarbones. Around his waist there is a big, elaborated golden belt, worn over what looks like a green skirt similar to the ones worn by Aztecs, with golden decorations near the edge. He also wears what look like studded, black and gold large-buckled shoes or boots and matching black studded pants.

The other person he saw, was one he wouldn't mistake at all. Marco the phoenix. He even remembered that he was the first commander of the whitebeard pirates.

Marco is a tall, lean, muscular, blonde-haired man with a rather sleepy look on his face and some stubble around his chin. He wears an open purple jacket and a light blue sash adorned with an elaborate golden-yellow belt around his waist. He has dark gray knee-long pants and black sandals, and on his left leg he wears what appears to be some sort of straw decoration, in a similar fashion to Arlong. While his chest was bare, he has the cross and crescent moon mustache symbol that resembles a black silhouette of Whitebeard's Jolly Roger tattooed on it.

Ian stopped a bit of distance from them in the sky and showed the vivre card to Marco, so that he would know he was not here for trouble. As nobody Marco had given his vivre card would come bearing ill.

"Can I come into the ship?" Ian said towards Marco. He didn't want to be an asshole and just step in. even Red hair shanks sent a messenger before he boarded the ship.

Marco saw the vivre card and relaxed a bit. He looked at his pops for a bit before he waved his hands to his family/crewmates and said.

"Alright guys, lower your weapons and ease up." He said and they all did as he said.

Ian took that as a yes to his request and slowly floated near him.

"Thanks." Ian said to Marco even as he looked to the center of the ship where a huge man was sitting and looking back at him.

While Marco just smiled, and prepared to launch the barrage of questions he had for him. It was true that they were a bunch of easy going people but still they had to know at least a few things.

But as he was about to start Ian interrupted him.

"It's an honor meeting you Marco the phoenix. I got this vivre card from the Old man Ray. I have something urgent to say to your captain." Ian turned back to Marco from looking ahead, stated everything in one full sentence. He was not the type to bullshit about. He liked this person too from the time back in the old world.

As he finished he started walking towards the old man.

Since Ian had made quite a disturbance since he came onto the ship, all the people on the deck were looking at him. When they heard what he said and saw him walking ahead all of them were a bit angry at him.

Few of the regular people of the crew yelled at Ian as he came to stand in his way.

"Hey you bastard, show some respect…" They was still going on, when a deep voice full of authority spoke up.

"You guys, step aside. This guy if he was disrespectful he would have knocked you out directly. All of you combined wouldn't have made a difference to him. This man is strong"

All the crew including the division commanders were shocked by this. They knew their father won't joke about something like this. Instantly they all looked on warily towards Ian.

Ian who had a smile on his face, was still looking ahead at the person he admired. Whitebeard.

He is an abnormally large man, with a height of 666 cm (21'10"). Unlike other large-sized humans, however, he is well-proportioned. He has a long face, ploughed because of the advanced age with many wrinkles around his eyes, and many scars running along his chest, and is very muscular. Ian saw that his eye color is yellow. He wore a black bandanna around his head and adorned himself with a white captain's coat, which hung loosely from his broad shoulders and bore his Jolly Roger symbol. He stood bare-chested, and wore light, loose pants tucked inside his large black boots, and a dark pirate sash around his waist. Ian also noticed that whitebeard is on oxygen and attached to several medical sensor machines, possibly due to health issues concerning his age.

"So, Brat, are you here to challenge the tile of the strongest? You're still 100 years too early for that" Whitebeard said with his deep voice.