Lara's POV;

In the end, we decided to sail directly towards the island and fight the sea king within the shallow water. Everything worked perfectly, we were not attacked on our war and soon had the island in view. And that was the moment the whole plan got shot, executed and buried.

Surprisingly it was Yosaku who noticed it. “Eh, guys is the sea king even able to see us? I mean, don't we got some kind of stone on the underside of our ship that makes it impossible for sea kings to notice us without directly coming out of the water before?”

I facepalmed, Noa facepalmed, Fiara hit her robot arms into her face and Lia started to laugh loudly.

Yes, indeed, we totally forgot that the sea king would have no idea of us coming closer to the island.

The question was, what now?

“So, do we raid the island itself? We can attack it, the raiding groups must stand in contact with their base in some form. They should come back if we attack their base.” Suggested Jo. It showed that he came a long way from his slightly pacifistic behaviour. Attacking an island just because we want to fight a sea king wouldn't have been something he would have done half a year ago.

He still wouldn't do it if the people on that island had not done anything to him or others. But these guys were actively hunting other ships for loot, so pirates in his eyes. I wisely did not point out that there are probably a lot of normal families on the island itself.

So we executed plan B, yes plan B was a thing and not put together just now.

We sailed closer to the island and shot a few shots at its harbour, not into the city. We don't want to kill too many none combatants, Nojiko has pointed their existence out in the last minute.

Their last guard ship began to leave their port but was subsequently shot and sunken. The harbour cannons and defence positions were bombarded under the hawk eye like attack of Fiara and Nojiko who took care of any mortars on the island's hills.

These guys were very well defended against normal attacks.

And then we waited. If that beast does not come up, then we simply raid the island and loot the gold they have so far. We already have doomed them to a living on their island. Once we go they won't be able to defend themselves and the sea king won't protect them if it does not get its gold.

Wow, for once we really are the evil ones, nice.

It took them three hours to haul one of the remaining hunting groups back. Four ships in total, all of them build for a speedy attack. We could have shot them out of the water without problems, their cannons were way out of range in comparison to our own.

However, I asked if one of us wants to sink them personally. As training against future bigger attack forces, where we will have to fight alongside the ship.

Nojiko wanted to test herself, she snapped a pair of waver-skates on her feet and took a cloud dial to race over. Her assault rifle ready and aiming at the closest ship.

That was when I had an idea to get the sea king to show itself. If our ship can't get spotted by it, then it just has to see us.

“Hey Fiara, did you ever come around and make a small speedboat with a dial?” I asked out of the blue.

The tiny woman looked away from the ship controls for a moment and nodded slowly. “Yes, it is stored in our submarine bay.”

“We have a submarine bay? Wait, we have a submarine? Since when?” I didn't know that, did they forget to mention it during the tour?

“Oh, Noa and I forgot to tell you. There is a submarine bay in the deepest part of the ship, we have a small submarine that can transport two people and our speedboat stored inside. Noa can show you,” she answered happily.

I nodded dumbly and followed Noa into the bowls of our ship, deep inside and beyond the engine room. He opened an unassuming door and we stepped into a mini port. There was a small submarine, designed like a torpedo, hanging from the ceiling and a speedboat anchored near the wall. Both were secured against moving around.

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“Driving is fairly easy, you get faster by pushing this lever forward and move around by turning the steering wheel. At top speed, it is as fast as Jonny with his Soru.” Explained Noa while we prepared the boat.

I jumped inside and took a look at the control panel. There was the lever for speed, the steering wheel and some more buttons. “What are the buttons for?” I asked with interest.

“Those? Fiara can clink herself into this boat as well, it has a torpedo and a minigun, but you'll need a second passenger if you want to use them without her.” Explained Noa quickly. He then pushed a button and the wall to my side moved away.

I steered the boat into the now free passage and pushed the lever forward. The speedboat shot out of the port and through the tiny tunnel, into the light of the outside. The boat scrapped over wood, before flying out of the front side of our ship.

A quick look back revealed that the galleons figure has moved upwards and made way for the exist. So we not only have a particle laser in the mouth of our eagle, but also a hidden pathway? Our ship is awesome.

With a laugh, I pulled the lever and the boat speed off. A fountain of water shot up from behind me and I raced over to the four ships Nojiko was fighting. Her cloud dial has had spun a web of pathways for her.

She herself was riding on them and shooting with her rifle occasionally. People on the ship shot back, but she was way too fast on her waver-skates. Her already small frame shot through the air and made it hard to hit her. Those that did manage to come dangerously close were easily evaded by kami-e.

I was close to her when she threw something at one of the ships. It were Fiara's yellow burn bombs, they exploded on the deck of the ship and set it on fire. The few remaining soldiers tried to put the fire out, but the liquid fire jumped over and burned them to crisp as well.

The burning ship was now dead in the water and Nojiko turned her attention to its three friends they tried to flee towards the island. Not that they could. In short order, Nojiko had thrown her payload at them as well and we now had four brightly glowing bonfires slash sea funerals.

I was waving at her from my position inside the speedboat when she saw me. She waved back and then stopped moving, before aiming at me. For a moment I was confused, but then I looked over the ship railing and into the water. It was as blue as normally.

Suddenly my ship made a lurch forward and increased in speed so fast that I lifted off of the water and into the air. Am I flying now? I took another look overboard and could now see a shadow inside the water.

No wonder I couldn't see anything, the sea king was filling my whole view. That thing is fucking huge. And coming out of the water...

And coming out of the water!

A massive head parted the water surface, easily larger than the Raptor. Its face was that of a magpie, with beak and colouration, just more fishy.

It screeched loudly and bit down at me, but my ship made another lurch forward and escaped the massive rows of teeth by a hairs length. Each tooth was as long as a small tree.

It bit only water and generated a water fountain that was as tall as our ship. The head alone must weight hundreds of tons. No wonder the Marines couldn't kill this thing, that is a fully grown sea king. As large as those that carried Noah on fisher island.

I quickly drew my Lunare and let a force blade loose. The blue energy attack crashed into its teeth and made a loud clack sound. Yet only left a tiny scratch mark. I'd have to get pretty serious if I want to damage those.

Nojiko took her assault rifle and shot electric bullets at the sea kings eyes, they had no visible effect, maybe they annoyed it?

I jumped out of my boat and let Lia fly it back to our ship or out of the fight while using geppo to keep myself afloat.

The sea king was eyeing the distancing boat and then tried to headbutt Nojiko. She only evaded in the last second by a series of hasty geppo. The massive head was simply too big to evade by a single one.

It now had a third of its body out of the water. Two wing-like arms were on its side, they had the black-white colouration of a magpie as well. So this thing is gathering shiny things because it has roots to magpies?

It raised one of its arms to attack Nojiko but got distracted by a series of cannonballs. Ten cannonballs crashed into its wing, followed by another ten quickly after. Each exploded in a rather small fireball, but I could see how the hard steel like scales began to fall off.

Those must be the bunker breaker cannonballs Fiara has spoken about.

Another ten hit it, almost at the same place as the previous twenty. It roared in pain and some blood came out of its wound. We are able to wound it, after thirty hits at the same place. And the wound looks to be equal to a deep scratch. We'd need hundreds of those to kill it. And the wings of a bird are always the most fragile part of its body.

I was about to attack it on my own when it stopped moving, it sucked in a big amount of air, and then pulled its massive head up into the sky. It let loose a loud roar/screech, so loudly that the water rippled. I was reminded of Laboon, just worse.

A wave of something that was kinda like Haki hit me. A sound-based Armament Haki enhanced attack. I was too close to defend myself and got the hit full on.

The effect was doubled against me with my already sensitive ears but Nojiko wasn't left unscathed as well. She was clutching her head in pain while staying on a cloud.

I wasn't as lucky and couldn't hold myself afloat any longer, I need to concentrate at least a little bit to use geppo, but the screech hurt and made me dizzy. I dropped out of the sky and saw how Nojiko was eaten by the sea king. I would have fallen into the water if the sea king hasn't had eaten me as well.