Lara's POV;
Jo seems to be in higher spirits since we spoke yesterday. That's good, having my crew happy is always good. That's also why I am on my way to Noa. I feel like I have done too little to include him in our group.
I practically know nothing about him, other than that he was apprenticed to the old man, he likes to build ships and fights with hammers.
I found him down in our storage for wood and other supplies. He sat in front of a crate, a lamp was next to him. He was sorting through some wood. “Hey Noa, what are you doing?”, I greeted and stepped next to him.
Noa looked up from his position and showed me a block of wood. “Hi Lara, I am going through our wood supplies and found these rests. Thought I might use them to build us some stuff. Nojiko was telling me a few days ago that a chair in her room was starting to break down.”
“Nice of you to make her a new one. May I help?” I asked, he shrugged and patted the floor next to him.
“Sure, I still need some wood for the backrest and then stuffing for the seat.” With a nod, I opened another crate, one labelled as cloth and inlay. I rummaged a bit and quickly found the stuffing.
“What colour do you want the seat to have?” I asked while showing him a piece of green fabric and another one in blue.
“She said she liked to have a red one”, answered Noa. His whole upper body was inside the crate occasionally pulling small slats out of it.
Wordlessly I put the fabrics back and pulled a piece of wine red cloth out. It was big enough to cover a normal chair and a backrest.
Noa finished shortly after too and we walked back on deck to begin our work. Building a chair was better done where there is enough light to see properly.
Up under the sun, we put our stuff down and Noa explained what he had planned. It will be a wooden chair with armrests and a backrest. The armrests, seat and parts of the backrest will be covered in the wine red cloth and padded.
“Do you know how to craft a chair?” asked Noa once he finished explaining his vision for the chair.
“No, but I can do the padding. My mom taught me how to sew”, I answered. I do think that I would manage to build a chair, but I am no real crafter.
“That would be good as well. I was never good at that.” Admitted Noa. We then began to work, he on the chair and I on the padding.
“So Noa, we will most likely reach Water 7 in a few weeks, anyone special you want to meet?”, I asked while sewing a cushion out of the cloth.
“I did hope to see Iceburg and ask him some questions about a few problems I came across while building the Fox. Those were, however, answered in the book you gave me. So now I only want to ask for some tips that are not commonly known. I also heard that his shipwright crew is really good. Maybe they will let me watch them work, that would be great.
Other than that I did promise the old man to introduce myself to a friend of his. Marvin is his name, an old master of the craft. The old man and he were once running a shipyard, back when they were younger.”
“Water 7 will be where we will have to stay the longest. I need to make a few weapons and you will have to make a new ship. The Shadow is still a ship built for the East Blue, we can't use it for the New World. It's remarkable that it can even hold out in Paradise.” Noa nodded sadly. I have noticed that he put a lot of time into taking care of the ship.
“Yes, I don't like it, a ship should stay with its crew. But there are things that can't be done. I promise you that I will build the best possible ship. Maybe Marvin will help us, the old man said that they were really good.” Both of us continued to work in relative silence.
The rest of the crew was mingling around us. Jonny was carving something, he is steadily improving. His last work, a dog, is even used as our kitchen decoration.
Yosaku, who was up in the crows nest and drawing, had given us a picture that showed all of us together. It's rather well done and is now proudly displayed on the wall near our dinner table.
Nojiko was taking care of her tangerines, with Jo sitting in their shade and reading a medical text.
Lia was sitting on the main mast with closed eyes. She is either sleeping or training her Devil Fruit.
“How come you two decided to form a pirate crew?”, asked Noa suddenly, breaking the silence and for the first time looking at me since we started to work.
I took a moment to think about how much of what I want to say before answering. “There were...circumstances that forced our family to leave the Grand Line and settle down in the East Blue. The same circumstances would have made a career as a Marine impossible and a life as a boring villager is not something either my sister nor I want to have.
And then we ate our Devil Fruits and it became even more unlikely to have a normal life. At first, we thought about becoming a pirate hunter, but we are too much against the World Government. At one point or another, we would have clashed, so we decided to go pirate from the start.”
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“What about you, why did you become a shipwright? Did you have any plans before joining us?”, I then asked.
“My parents died when I was young. My father was a Marine and died, we were never told how, why or where. He was simply gone. He was not high on the chain, only an Ensign under the command of the now Admiral Akainu. Then he was still Vice Admiral.
My mom was raising me on her own most of the time, to begin with. But money got tighter after dads death. She was a good seamstress, so we managed. Once I was ten I tried to get work with the local shipyards. To ease the pressure on my mom.
None wanted to take me in, said I was too young. The old man did, he couldn't pay me much, but he thought me a lot and gave me a meal each day. That allowed mom to put some money on the high shelf.
Money we needed when I turned fourteen, she got sick and we had to buy the medicine.” By now he had stopped working and was fumbling with his two hammers.
“The medicine worked, she was going to get better, but then died in an accident. A simple, tiny mistake. She fell down a ladder and broke her neck while cleaning the house.
Ironic isn't it? Surviving a deadly disease, just to then die in a stupid accident.” Noa chuckled weakly, he had stopped to fumble with his hammers and was now staring out on the sea.
I did not know what to say. Sure a 'sorry to hear' would be the normal thing, but are those words spoken without meaning to? I would rather say must have sucked, yet that isn't appreciated by most. Even if it is the most matching descriptions of one's feelings at that time.
Thankfully I didn't have to say anying. Noa shook his head and smiled weakly at me. “The old man took me in and I lived with him from then on. I think I simply wanted to leave the island, the place where I am constantly reminded of my mother.
You and your sister gave me the perfect opportunity and the Marines that were firing on us made it impossible to delay my leave any longer than what it already was. I wanted to leave for a year now but always told myself that I still had things to do.
So yeah, that's my life. Maybe you might tell me your circumstances at one point.”
I glanced at Lia to see what she thinks about that. She had an eye cracked open and nodded briefly. So she too does not think that hiding our early childhood is important. As pirates, we are already on a death sentence. And we can always kill ourselves if getting captured.
“Lia and I were born into slavery to the World Nobles, our parents escaped with us and we settled down in the East Blue”, I told him. He went pale, sucked in a sharp breath and stared at me with wide eyes.
“And here I thought my story sucks. I, eh, I don't know what to say. Slavery huh, I am happy for you that you managed to escape. Being an ex-slave is a fairly good reason to not become a Marine.”
I nodded briefly and we became silent again. It was a comfortable silence and we finished our work with little difficulty. The complete chair was placed in Nojiko's room and the old one was salvaged for reusable parts.
The day finished with a nice potato sea king dish, it was a chicken-like Sea King and tasted accordingly.
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At the same time:
Marine HQ, Third Person's POV;
Admiral Kizaru was storming through the hallways of the Marine HQ. He was highly annoyed when he found himself crashing into Rivers Mountain. His inability to stop unplanned diverges from his flight path were and still is one of his biggest weaknesses.
Thankfully he had only a few of those. One other was that he had to force the speed he thought with down. Otherwise, he would think so fast that time freezes. It helps in formulating plans, but acting in real time was a hassle and needed concentration. It makes him look slow for anyone not knowing how much he had to restrain himself.
Many would see his Devil Fruit as extremely overpowered, with him being able to travel at the speed of light and the ability to fire laser attacks. And it is. Still, it has certain drawbacks as well. That was why he was only travelling in one direction, with short bursts of speed.
Approaching his enemy with a directly followed attack that is equally fast would feel like an eternity for him, as he has to think fast enough to move his leg or arm, which would again slow down his perception of time.
So he developed a fighting style with which he could get instantly close enough to attack, then stop the movement and follow up with another light fast attack. The follow-up, however, has only the enhancement of his Devil Fruit on the attacking limb.
It is way easier and the brief stop can only be taken advantage off by the strongest fighters in the world. And against those, he is willing to endure the feeling of thinking at the speed of light.
Anyway, the reason for his anger was the humiliation he received when he got beaten by a chicken. Oh, he knew about Poultry and its inhabitants. But those feathered monsters are secluded and under the constant watch of a special unit, as well as twenty super-sized warships.
There should not be a single escapee. And yet, somehow, there was. And after thinking over the short fight he also realized who it was. How she managed to escape the island is a mystery to him.
The latest reports stated that she was still grieving the 'death' of her husband. How she found out that he was alive is a riddle. And her attack on the facility wasn't a one-man job. He spoke with a heavily wounded Momonga, who told him that the protecting fleet was under heavy attack.
He was beaten by a short woman with quite a lot of skill in Haki, while his men were killed by someone who could fly and shoot at them with pinpoint precision.
Reports show that the projectiles were small steel bullets without any chemical propulsion, meaning that they were thrown. There are only two people who are known to fight like that. Garp and True Shot Lia.
It would explain their strength in Haki if they get trained by this feathered monster. And make their crew a lot more dangerous.
The door in front of him marked his destination and he swung it open with such force that it crashed into the wall, where it got stuck.
“GARP! How often did I tell you to open the door more carefully!?” Shouted an angry voice from inside. It was Sengoku, he looked up from his papers, his mouth open to continue his rant but then stopped when he saw who came inside. “Borsalino? What are you doing here?”
“We have a problem, Batilda managed to escape Poultry and she seems to be part of the Kage pirates. I encountered her during my check in on Project Feather. The whole facility is gone”, answered Borsalino before sitting down in a chair.
“WHAT!? How did she escape? I got no reports about this!” Raged the man that led the Marines.
“Separating her from her husband almost killed me and Garp, we can't have her reunite with him”, he then continued while grabbing a Transponder Snail.
A short dial later and the snail was staring its call. “Bulle, bulle, bulle...bulle,bulle,bulle...bulle, bu..gocha.” “Yes? Here's Magellan?”, answered them a man on the other end. The face of the snail got a beard and two black horns suddenly.
“Magellan, here is Sengoku. I hereby order you to increase the protection of inmate Basilisk. He is to be under constant guard and put inside a sea stone coffin.” Ordered Senkogu with a snarl.
“Sir, it will be done. Is there anything else?”, answered Magellan without pause. He will not question orders from this high up.
“Batilda is on the loose, she might find out that her husband is in Impel Down and come for him, if that is the case I want an instant report. We can't let her free him.” Continued Sengoku. The snail went pale and began to sweat heavily.
“Yes Sir, it will be done!” Sengoku grunted once and ended the call, a headache was already starting to grow.
“Who was it you said she was travelling with?” asked Senkogu after calming himself down with a few dozen deep breaths.
“The Kage pirates. They were masked and hid their faces, yet we found signs of True Shot Lia's fighting style. There is no one else in Paradise that has this fighting style. Momonga was badly beaten and almost critically wounded by Slicer Lara both can match a Vice Admiral. The last part is disturbing, they are too strong for a free pirate group.” Answered Kizaru.
“Yes, maybe we should offer them a place with the Seven Warlords? Crocodile did flee a fight from True Shot and her sister seems to be even stronger. We also know little about the rest of their crew.
Other than Josef Mengele we know nothing. Having them close to us would be a good opportunity.
Then again, if what Laffite said and if his captain can deliver then we can't choose Slicer Lara. For now, we will keep a closer eye on the Kage crew and decide then.” Agreed Sengoku, while also remembering the meeting with the remaining Seven Warlords.
“Are we going to increase their bounty?” Sengoku thought about it for a moment and then nodded.
“Yes, that might be the best. Increase True Shot Lia's up to 145 million and Slicer Lara's to 200 million. It might spur some of the stronger bounty hunters to take a shot and hopefully get rid of her.
Give Batilda a bounty as well, the civilians will not believe it, but it's necessary. Maybe we get lucky and someone takes her out. Give her something appropriate”
“I will hand in the documents for that, should we send a CP group to find out more about the rest of their crew?”, questioned Kizaru, while standing up.
“Yes, might as well do now and get some intelligence. CP 3 is the best at this, send a squad”, his orders said Sengoku looked back to his paperwork. Seems like some headache-inducing trouble is coming in the near future.