Lara's POV:

Jonny and Yosaku were still mightily proud of their cool act and were strutting the plank to the Shadow up like two glorious knights. It highly amused me. As well as the three dozen dead or dying men that seem to have tried to gain access to our ship. All of them were laying on the pier and moaning or bleeding out.

“Finally! Come on board you five, I want to set sail and leave this shit hole. We have to set course for a new island. Our log pose is acting freakish, it shows upwards”, came Nojiko's voice from above. She was sitting in the crows nest and looking down at us.

“Aye aye ma'am”, replied Yosaku and Jonny dutifully. Both quickly went to work and began to undo the thaws that would keep the ship secured. A few short minutes later we left the harbour and sailed away from the island.

It was then when we were out of sight from the island, that Lia suddenly perked up and walked off. I was slightly interested in what she would do but too lazy to follow her. As it turned out I did not have to, she came back with a barrel of ammunition. Mrs Chicken Wing was standing on it and picking on the lid.

“Someone is inside this barrel. I could only feel her/him when we left the hustle of auras that comes from a crowded town. Mrs Chicken Wing, was by then already pecking at the lid. I don't think he or she is hostile, more frightened”, explained Lia while putting the barrel down.

We all gathered around the barrel and it was Noa, who lost the draw, that opened the lit. He was greeted by four mechanical tentacle arms. The tip of each had a three-fingered claw, not dissimilar to what Dr Octopus from Spiderman has had.

They grabbed the top of the barrel and lifted someone out of the darkness. It was a small woman. Not even reaching beyond my knee. The tentacles came out of her back and she wore a mechanic overall without arms. There was also a blue ball formed bushy tail coming out of her lower back.

Her skin colour was caramel coloured, her face was round with strangely navy blue hair on the top. “Please don't hurt me”, squeaked the girl in fright, two of her tentacle arms were moving protectively above her head.

I also now realised that her mechanic overall had no arms because she had none. There were no arms or hands visible. “We won't hurt you”, I offered in a friendly tone. The, for now, was left unspoken.

She instantly relaxed and sat down on the rim of the barrel, her feet dangling down, with and two robot arms keeping her anchored. Her guard was completely down. “Oh thank you.”

For a moment we stared at the obviously Tontatta girl, not really believing that she was so gullible as to instantly believe us. “You know, normally someone isn't as trusting towards unknown pirates”, offered Noa in an unsure tone. Yosaku and Jonny nodded in agreement.

The girl froze then mouthed a big O and looked at us with unnaturally wide eyes. “Right! I forgot, do you want to hurt me?” I saw that her left eye was closed with scar tissue around the eye, the other eye had a silver iris and seemed to be fully functional.

“No?”, asked Jo more than said, the rest of us nodded.

Again, she instantly relaxed and was unguarded. “Ah, that is good to hear. My name is Fiara T. Sprocket”, she introduced herself with a wave of one of her tentacle arms.

One after the other introduced him/herself with me at the end. “I'm Lara, the captain of the Kage pirates. Fiara, why did you hide on our ship?”

“Because I wanted to leave the island. My previous boss deceived me and only wanted to use my skills as an engineer. I rigged his workbench to explode the next time he tries to make bullets and then hid inside the barrel that was the closest to the front.

I want to go back to Dressrosa and free my people.” Declared the tiny woman. Her chest was puffed out and her 'arms' clacked in agreement.

“We don't have Dressrosa as our goal, at least not now. You can stay with us for some time if you want. In return, you teach one of us how to operate a special cannon okay?”, I offered with a look at the rest of the crew. None of them said something against my offer.

“Really? That would be nice, the old man thought me some stuff before I left”, thanked Fiarain relieve. She reached out to me with one of her tentacle arms. It took me a moment to realise that she wanted to shake hands, and the shake itself was rather awkward.

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With that settled the crew slowly dispersed again, until only Jo, Nojiko and I were left. “Hmm, I think I have seen this kind of metal from before. Say Fiara, from where did you gain these robotic arms?” Asked Jo while inspecting one of her arms closer.

“Old man Vega made them for me. He said he is no good with building human like prostheses, especially some that need to be as small as mine, so he made me these instead.” Answered the tiny girl proudly. The claws of her arms clacked rapidly and changed between tools and even hand like appendages.

“Vega, as in Vegapunk? You mean Vegapunk, the scientist of the Marines, gave you these? No wonder I seem to know this metal. It is of his design. He found a way to mix a special steel alloy with grounded sea stone. It's not enough to have an active effect against Devil Fruit user over short terms, but still enough to give the metal an extreme endurance.

It's not his finished product as far as I know, but still some serious good material. At least he said it wasn't the finished version.” The awe in Jo's voice was easy to perceive. He had deep respect for Vegapunk, scientifically. It would be interesting to see what Vegapunk would say to metal alloys used in other universes, like Halo or Star Gate.

“Oh yes, my four friends are almost indestructible. Old man Vega really helped me out with them. Since the storm I had no arms”, nodded Fiara along. Slight movements could be seen from where her arms should be. Maybe a stump is left?

“Mind telling me what happened? I am quite good in making prostheses. With the right machines I could build you a pair of new arms. Or possibly even an eye, if I'm correct and your left one is gone. It would need time and some special equipment, but it is possible”, offered Jo. The glint of a scientist that has a new project was burning in his eyes, yet also the desire to help in his tone.

“Really? Yay!” Fiara jumped off from the barrel and landed nimbly on the deck, from where she run up to Jo. She then used two of her mechanic tentacle arms to jump up and hugged Jo mid-section with all four arms.

Jo in return grunted from the sudden flying hug and then groaned slightly from the pressure the mechanical 'arms' were putting on him. “Fiara, please a little less strength in you hug. You are breaking my rips”, he pressed out.

Fiara let go of him and her four arms began to frantically pet him down, searching for some visible wound that wasn't there. “I'm sorry, I sometimes forget how strong they are.”

“No problem. So Fiara, do you want to travel with us until we reach a new harbour or do you want to join our crew? I promise we will visit Dressrosa at some point and if we are strong enough free it from Doflamingo's influence”, I said with an amused grin aimed at Jo, who was prodding his rips for any damage.

She looked at me, then down and shuffled a little with her feet. Two of her mechanical arms were pushing against each other as if she would rub her hands nervously. “The last crew used me as their technique freak. They made me build all kinds of things and then dumped me in Mock Town once they needed me no longer.

Will you do the same?”

“No, once part of our crew you will stay with us. We will help you, as you will help us, we are friends. It, however, would also mean that once we have freed Dressrosa that you are still part of our crew.” I assured.

She instantly beamed a large smile at me, jumped up and down and was clapping with her 'arms' in joy. “Yay, I will have friends again. I will do my best to help you.” We watched with amusement how the little girl declared joyously how she will be a good crew member, and I withheld the urge to tell her that being this trustful is exactly why her last crew used her.

It was Nojiko who addressed her after a long moment of happy dancing. “Fiara, would you mind telling us what you can do? Each of us has some job here on the ship. Josef is our doctor, Lara is the captain, I am the navigator, Noa is our shipwright, Lia the cook, Jonny something like a guard with Yosaku helping him.

You've said that you were the engineer of your last crew, does that mean that you are skilled with building weapons or using the cannons?”

Her single large eye focused on Nojiko for a moment before she slowly nodded, suddenly way more serious than before. “I am indeed, old man Vega taught me a lot while I stayed with him, but even before I was interested in the creation and invention of new things.

Just so you know, I won't build weapons for you. I did it once, the result wasn't pretty and the crew that talked me into it is now dead. They killed each other, greedily trying to get their hands on the best weapon I could create. I will help you with your cannons, but not develop more, at least not when I don't know you enough.” Some would be swayed into an attempt to force her anyway, if there wasn't the threatening golden glow that came from the middle of her claw like hands.

Many would not know what this might be, but I have seen the anime and manga. Fiara had Kuma's laser in each of her arms. Her firing four of those, even weakened in size, would destroy the ship. I don't know if she is really able to use them, the energy requirements should be enormous for someone so small, still, I did not want to risk it.

From the looks of it Jo knew as well, he was pale in the face and glanced at me. “That won't be necessary Fiara, we don't need your weapons. We do have one we are not sure how to use and maintain and would like your help with it, but more importantly would be a new boiler. Heating the water for a shower takes ages”, I said with a smile and tried to joke at the end.

Nojiko wasn't stupid and knew that she should not press. “That's good then. It's not that I don't want to help you, but before I know that you won't kill each other with them I won't make any for you. And a puny boiler will be fixed in seconds.” Fiara was instantly back in her happy persona and her 'arms' curled together to take less room.

“Your help is appreciated. Nojiko will show you your quarter and Jo will want to start a medical folder for you. All of us have one, in case there is something he has to look out for”, I continued and closed the topic of weapons for now. Having a few nice ones for the ship would be great, but we as a crew don't need them.

Nojiko will soon learn how to use the black dial weapons. We still have a wide variation in our inventory. With Lia and me having each one as well. Lia has a big pistol that shoots steel cloud bullets. It has a recoil that is too strong for Nojiko and the fire rate is also low. Yet, it packs enough punch to nick my blade. It's like a Desert Eagle.

I myself will have something that is similar to a sawed shotgun. No reach at all, but has enough punch to dislocate my shoulder when shot, if I'm not careful.

Nojiko will have two normal pistols, a sniper rifle and a normal rifle. We also think we should show her the skate wavers. However, black dial wavers might still have too much power, better find her some normal ones before.

Would be nice to come across a nock up-stream visiting a sky island would help us in explaining the black dials.

Anyway, Nojiko has just escorted Fiara inside the ship, when Lia came running out while throwing pebbles to the west. A few seconds later I heard the explosion of half a dozen bullets.

“What's going on?” I asked while looking out to the sea. From here I couldn't see it very well, but there seemed to be a ship out there with its course directly at us.

“It's a large raft, Blackbeard and his crew are standing on it and their gunman just now fired another six shots at us”, explained Lia, while throwing six more pebbles. Some distance away they collided with the bullets and small explosions filled the sky.

“They are in our way and are using oars to increase their speed. Do you want to outrun them?”, she further asked and looked at me briefly. The others were also on deck, waiting for my reply.

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