At the higher end of the hierarchy within the Deadmen Pirates sits the Four Quartermasters; The four enforcers handpicked by Davy Jones, the Right Hand, and the Left Hand. However, only four may exist at once, and they tend to specialize in one specific thing. Today, we will be looking at the quartermaster who uses Strength
“We’re all animals, trying to survive like we have done since the dawn of mankind. However, we punish people who want to survive instead of rolling on their backs and dying. When did man surpass nature, hm?” - Diego Watson, AKA Wildman Watson
Diego Watson, AKA Wildman Watson, or just simply Watson, is the quartermaster of the Deadmen Pirates who uses Fighting Styles. He’s a gruff, middle-aged man with short black hair and a goatee. He never wears a shirt, and is always seen in a pair of ripped jeans with countless leather straps and belts around the waist. He also wears ancient fighter sandals similar to what gladiators would wear. Watson is a prodigious fighter who believes that the usage of magic, weapons, or relics is a coward’s tactic, and that the gift of sheer might that the gods had given them is the only true way. This has led him to being someone that the crew fears deeply, especially for his habit of killing Colonel-ranked crewmembers in the Kraken’s Maw both for sport and as a display of his power.
He is the crew’s enforcer, and he makes sure the rules are followed, AKA he makes sure everyone is constantly pissing themselves and that they do what they’re told. He’s also in charge of making examples out of mutineers and crew members who murder another member in cold blood. His philosophy of the weak should fear the strong has led him to being incredibly disciplined and emotionless, his voice always monotone and rough while his face remains cold and unexpressive. When he isn’t busy beating others to death in the arena to reinforce that he’s strong and should be feared, he can be heard vigorously training by lifting heavy pieces of solid steel.
Watson’s usual training routine lasts from sun-up to sun-down, with his only breaks being when he has to do his patrols as the enforcer or when Richter yells at him to get something to eat and drink. However, his routine is not always some kind of workout; He engages in mental and spiritual training as well in order to maintain his superhuman pain tolerance and virtually unshakable will. One of these training routines revolves around his usage of a lost martial art known as Hardening. Hardening works much like Iron Leg, except instead of hardening just the feet and legs, the hardening can be done on the entire body. One of the routines involving his fighting style is hardening his entire body and sitting inside the big blast furnace that heats the Slumbering Deep, where he remains for hours before emerging only to be virtually unharmed. His mastery of this art is so extensive that his body will instinctually harden to avoid damage, much like how a Curse User would instinctually turn into their element to avoid an attack.
He does not employ dirty tricks, and sticks to his word no matter what happens. He will face powerful adversaries head-on, taking each blow like a man. He does this for a couple reasons, mainly to psychologically grind down his opponents by displaying that their attacks do not concern him. Once again, he also does it as a display of power. However, he is not a wild, loud, and moralless killer; Watson is always cold, calculating, and emotionless in his acts. He does not taunt or try to poke at someone’s sensitivities, he fights quietly, not even grunting when he is struck. He strikes without hesitation, and he does not toy with his opponents; He is the predator, and you are his prey. And, much like real predators, he wants to kill you while expending as little energy as possible. He does not waste his movements or time, every stride and motion he makes being calculated and done with purpose.
This cold, primal mindset is the result of his upbringing. Watson hails from a very unforgiving and mysterious part of the Aegean Sea known as the ‘Mist Sea.’ This part of the Aegean Sea is perpetually blanketed in a thick fog, and is host to an unusually higher-than-normal magic concentration, resulting in dangerous conditions and very mysterious anomalies. When Watson was a baby, his parents set sail from an island within the Mist Sea towards Sameria, where they intended to go live in order to raise their child in a peaceful environment. Instead, something happened, and this resulted in a cargo crate with baby Watson inside hitting the docks of the Dead Halls at Makinraos within the Nimbus Sea. When he was brought into the Dead Halls, the assassins considered killing him, but Architect Kalliste put an end to that plan, and would raise the boy to be an assassin.
Watson had earned his name after Kalliste had found an old jacket inside with the name ‘Diego Watson’ sewn on the inside. Technically, this would make him Diego Watson Jr, as this was the name of his father. Kalliste made sure Watson was properly educated in academics, and in the art of killing. Due to Watson being born in the Mist Sea, where the magic concentration is higher than normal, he was born with the ability to use Slash magic. Since he could use magic, Kalliste would train Watson to fight in a similar manner as himself. This rough, rigorous training, along with Kalliste instilling a need to be emotionless into the young Watson, would lead to the boy becoming very hardened and cold, which pleased Kalliste. Quickly, Watson was becoming a cold, emotionless killer, just as he hoped.
However, his skill would not go unnoticed. When he turned eighteen, Watson officially became an acolyte in the syndicate and would take on various high-tier targets from all over the War Seas. He quickly reached the rank of Assassin by the age of 21, and his climbing of the ranks would continue. This is when one Overseer, Overseer Bane, would take notice of the young man and become scared. He noticed early that Watson would soon become a threat to his position, and so he formulated a plan to kill Watson in order to maintain his rank.
When Bane arrived at Makrinaos, he disguised his plan as a visit to assess the assassin in the Dead Halls, and ultimately assess Kalliste as well. In other words; He was pretending to come see if the assassins were getting complacent or if they were still maintaining the skill they’d need to keep their rank. During his visit, Bane would attempt to use his Darkness magic in a subtle way to assassinate Watson from multiple rooms away and then pin the blame on his own apprentice who had come with him that also used Darkness magic. When Bane sat down to discuss business matters with Kalliste, he would discretely activate his Darkness magic in order to make a sort of ‘Shadow Clone’ to go kill Watson.
Despite the lack of features this clone had, Watson disposed of it easily. When Bane tried again, that was his fatal mistake. Kalliste would sense Bane’s efforts on the second try, but before he could get up to attack, Bane would gasp and slump over in his chair. Bane was dead, a large cluster of deep lacerations that destroyed his internals covering his back. Bane had slipped up, and Watson had sensed it just like his master had, and in the blink of an eye, he would assassinate Overseer Bane.
After this display by Bane, Watson would grow disgusted with magic and how cowardly the Overseer truly was, which would lead to him refusing to use his magic and faking his death to escape the syndicate, all at the age of 22. Before he would fake his death, Watson would reject magic and anything that was not using your fists to fight head-on with no tricks. Sensing what was to come, Kalliste would challenge Watson to a fight. Ultimately, Kalliste would end up wearing a helmet due to the injuries he sustained during the fight. After all of this, Watson would fake his death and vanish off the syndicate’s radar entirely.
However, Kalliste had secretly helped Watson manage this, assembling the assassins in the Dead Halls for a meeting during the time Watson would send out a decoy sailboat loaded with some barrels of gunpowder that’d detonate and appear as if he had died in the blast. When Kalliste called the meeting, he did it on purpose. During that fight, Kalliste felt something he would show with this one act; Love. Kalliste was able to kill Watson, but during their fight, the memories of raising Watson flooded his mind, and so he let Watson win. Kalliste alone knows the truth, that the one he calls his son is still alive and still out there, and he couldn’t be prouder.
After faking his death, Watson would swim from Makrinaos to Sameria, where he would kill a civilian wandering in an alley and take their clothes. He would then make his way from Amarut to the Sun Serai, where he would meet a then young rookie pirate named Davy Jones. Jones would take notice of Watson’s powerful aura and lack of fear of sitting next to a pirate who is gaining such fast traction. Watson would challenge Davy Jones, but before he could, the Left and Right Hands would stop him and threaten to kill Watson. Davy Jones would call them off, smiling and chuckling, and simply said “Welcome aboard, brother.” With those words, Watson would be one of the earliest members of the Deadmen Pirates.
On their adventures, Watson would prove his immense strength to Davy Jones time and time again, and the now sizable crew of pirates would find themselves hiding out on Harvest island in the Bronze Sea for a short while before going back down south. Here, Watson would meet the recently retired Sarloveze, who would mentor Watson on how to use the Iron Leg style during the Deadmen Pirates’ stay. Watson would quickly learn how to use this style, but he rarely used it, preferring using his bare fists to fight. This did not stop him from using devastating kicks to throw enemies off.
Over time, Watson would begin experimenting with the hardening of Iron Leg, learning to utilize this ability over other parts of his body, and eventually his entire body all at once. After he taught himself how to sustain full-body hardening for long durations, his second experiment happened, and he began to try using his hardening to sort of act as a sort of exoskeleton. He began to lift bigger and bigger things in order to temper the hardening, slowly developing the hardening so much that he could survive point-blank explosions and even getting hit by a cannonball without as much as a scratch. With his full-body hardening so tempered, he could tense his body and muscles so much that he could lift a caravel in each hand and throw them like they were cannonballs. It was feats like these, along with his countless battles, his calculating and emotionless personality, and his loyalty to Davy Jones that would make him the first of the Four Quartermasters, and the uncontested Strength Quartermaster.