More than a year had passed since they met Whitebeard.
Over that year, the biggest change in the Roger Pirates was the addition of two brats aboard the ship.
One had red hair, and the other had a red nose.
Zesi volunteered to take charge of the two of them.
Needless to say, one of them was the future Emperor, Red-Haired Shanks.
And the other was Buggy the King of Clowns.
At first, neither of them was particularly willing to accept Zesi's authority.
Why could someone barely older than them become a full-fledged crewmate?
While they could only be apprentices.
What gave him the right to boss them around? If anyone was going to do that, it should be the captain or the first mate.
But after Zesi gave them an education in morals, intellect, physical fitness, and aesthetics, they obediently started calling him Brother Zesi.
Buggy aside, getting the future Emperor Shanks to call him brother gave Zesi quite a sense of accomplishment.
Now Zesi was full of motivation, busy teaching the two brats a lesson every day-no, training them.
Red Hair was fine. He faithfully completed the training tasks Zesi assigned him.
But Buggy was much craftier, cutting corners and slacking off whenever Zesi wasn't paying attention.
"Hey, hey, Brother Zesi, look! What's that?"
That day, Zesi was training the two of them again when Buggy suddenly cried out.
"What is it this time?"
Zesi thought Buggy was slacking off again and was about to teach him a lesson, but when he followed Buggy's gaze, several enormous Marine warships came into view.
"Marine warships. Judging by their class, whoever's coming probably isn't anyone ordinary!"
In his year or so with the Roger Pirates, Zesi had already been pursued by the Marines several times.
But the Marine warships before him were clearly much larger than the ones he had encountered before.
Warships like these would probably count as large even among the Marines.
It seemed the Marines coming this time were no ordinary bunch.
"Haha, that's Garp's fleet!"
"That old mad dog Garp has caught up again!"
"Captain, Garp really does have a soft spot for you!"
"Hahaha, it's been a while since we last saw him!"
At some point, the rest of the Roger Pirates had all appeared.
"Garp the Hero of the Marines!" Understanding dawned on Zesi's face.
"Haha, Roger, here I come!" Before the Marine warships even arrived, Garp's booming laughter reached them.
"Garp!" Roger called back.
Anyone who didn't know better would have thought they were friends rather than enemies.
"Haha, Roger, I brought an outstanding rookie with me today. He'll definitely become a pillar of the Marines someday!" As the Marine warships approached, Garp could be seen standing proudly at the bow.
It was as though he had come not to arrest Roger, but to show off to him.
"Yo!" A young man beside Garp, looking as though he had just woken up, rolled his dead-fish eyes and greeted the Roger Pirates.
This young man was Kuzan, who had only recently joined the Marines.
There was a hint of curiosity in his eyes as he looked at the Roger Pirates.
He couldn't help being curious.
The Roger Pirates weren't a large pirate crew by New World standards, yet this tiny crew was the strongest in the New World, leaving one legend after another in their wake. Even the World Government and the Marines were extremely wary of them.
"What a coincidence. Our crew has a rookie too. I certainly don't think ours is any worse than yours!"
"Our Marine rookie is definitely much stronger!" Garp said, picking his nose.
"That's not necessarily true!"
"Our Marine rookie is stronger!"
"Our pirate rookie is stronger!"
"Our Marine rookie is stronger!"
"Our pirate rookie is stronger!"
A great pirate and a Marine hero actually started arguing like children.
But both the Roger Pirates and Garp's subordinates seemed completely used to it.
Only Zesi, Shanks, Buggy, and Kuzan wore expressions of utter disbelief.
"Then let's put it to the test! Let's see who's stronger!"
"Fine, let's do it! Who's afraid of you?"
After arguing for a long time, the two finally stopped.
Then they decided to have the two rookies compete.
With the two big shots having made their decision, Zesi and Kuzan stepped forward.
The future Marine Admiral Kuzan still looks so green. How interesting! Looking at Kuzan, Zesi couldn't help curling his lips.
Kuzan, who was only nineteen that year, looked at Zesi with a slight frown.
This pirate looked a little younger than him, yet the curl of his lips made it seem as though everything was under his control. That made Kuzan a little uncomfortable.
After glancing at Zesi, Kuzan jumped straight off the Marine warship and dropped toward the sea.
The instant his feet touched the water, he completely froze the surrounding sea.
With the sea frozen, the Roger Pirates' ship was also trapped in the ice, unable to move.
At the sight, the expressions of everyone in the Roger Pirates changed.
"The pirate ship's frozen in place. It can't move!"
"Haha, now we can't even escape!"
"The Marines didn't freeze us in place on purpose to keep us from escaping, did they?"
Despite seeing their ship frozen in place, none of the Roger Pirates looked anxious at all.
They merely looked toward the Marines thoughtfully.
"Freezing on this scale-that's a Logia Devil Fruit!" Rayleigh said with slight surprise.
"That's right! Haha, what do you think? A Logia Devil Fruit user! Your Roger Pirates rookie probably hasn't even learned Armament Haki yet!" Garp said smugly.
In the New World, being a Logia Devil Fruit user was naturally nothing to get arrogant about.
But his opponent was only a rookie.
At such a young age, he probably hadn't mastered Armament Haki yet.
Against a rookie who hadn't mastered Armament Haki, a Logia Devil Fruit user like Kuzan naturally had victory all but guaranteed.
Without Armament Haki, someone facing a Logia user's elemental transformation could only take a beating.
Not to mention that Kuzan wielded the Ice-Ice Fruit, a powerful fruit even among Logia Devil Fruits.
"Hmph, you're celebrating too soon, Garp," Roger said with a cold laugh.
At that moment, Zesi also stepped out into the air and dropped toward the ice covering the sea.
The instant Zesi's feet landed on the ice, an invisible tremor spread out from beneath them in every direction.
Immediately, the ice beneath Zesi's feet began to shatter, and the destruction quickly spread outward.
In the blink of an eye, all the sea Kuzan had frozen shattered.
The pirate ship was free once more.