Lia's POV;

Lara had eaten the leftover pizza from yesterday, while the rest of the crew ate normal things for breakfast. Like bread or cornflakes. None of us can understand how Lara is able to eat dinner for breakfast but dislikes normal breakfast.

I've seen her cooking fish with hot potatoes in the morning.

Anyway, we were on our way to Urouge's hideout. It was known where he camps. The village we visited at the start, whose name I have already forgotten, told us where we have to sail. From what they said they also have more than one ship, at least three.

This might become an interesting ship to ship battle before one of us decides to jump over and take it up close and personal. Sadly Lara and I are not allowed to do the heavy lifting today, only watching over them.

Well, they need to fight some hard fights as well. I'm really eager for the New World, hopefully, we will find some strong guys then. Momonga was cool, I want more like them, just not them to wound my Lara. She was way too reckless against him. She could have done more.

“What got your knickers in a twist? And can I untwist them?”, asked the cause of my musing from the left top of my shoulder. Lara must have sneaked up on me when she saw that I was not fully focusing on the holes in the sea. Could've gotten deadly for us. I don't like this sea.

“Promise me that you won't limit yourself our fights, once we hit the New World. Momonga got you a nasty cut just because you haven't used everything you know”, I replied with an upwards glance at her large green eyes.

I want to kiss her.

“Sure,” she mumbled after the kiss I gave her. “What brought that up now?”, she then asked while sitting down next to me.

I informed Nojiko about another hole before answering. “I was just thinking about the next fight and that we both aren't allowed to kill the boss. And that made me think about the coming fights in the New World and then about Momonga. He was a New World veteran and you fought him with only your slightly enhanced sword, some Haki and a little some of your sound attacks.”

Lara nodded in understanding. “Okay, I can stop doing that. It will get boring here in Paradise but if you want to I will do it. But you have to as well.” This time it was me who nodded.

“I want to learn how to use the waver-skates. They look so cool, but I don't want to do it here in the sky. We can fall down way too easily and binding a rope to us is annoying.” Complained Lara after a few minutes of silence.

“Yeah, hey there is this new technique I am experimenting with. It uses a highly compressed stream of air. I kinda blow at my enemy. The generated wind will then be compressed and fastened. I think I might use it for close combat”, I started after another pause.

There wasn't much to speak about, I had to concentrate on the sea so couldn't really focus on anything else. Did I mention that I don't like this sea?

“Would be nice, you need more close range attacks and I need more for mid or far away targets. My latest attempt was by using superheated air. It will expand in a flash and hit its surroundings with a wave of heat and the generated blast. Something close to what lightning does to air.” Commented Lara.

“Lara? Can you help me please, I need some metal heated and you are faster than my makeshift furnace”, called Fiara suddenly up to us. Lara gave me another kiss and then jumped down to help Fiara with whatever the tiny woman needed help with.

It was nearly four hours later that something happened. This something was reaching our destination. There were three ships visible for me on the horizon. Two of them were slightly smaller than the Shadow and the remaining one was of the same size.

The larger one must be their main ship. It had a figurehead that looked like a demonic face. There was also some kind of pagoda build on the ship. It wasn't pretty and I personally think it would look better if sunken.

I informed the rest of the crew anyway and watched how Fiara dragged the three-barrelled cannon up on deck and positioned it towards the soon to be hostile ships. Our crew isn't much of a fan for interactions with other pirates.

Most of the time I can spot them before they see us and if that happens we attack them right after. We often shoot a few times at their ship and then board it for a quick raid. That's why we have a lot of money, those pirates always have some kind of valuables on board, stuff that we take from them.

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This won't be any different. We sailed directly at them and Fiara shot a series of three round the moment we were in range. The first shot that hit the smaller ship on the left side exploded in a fiery explosion that set the sails ablaze. The next one was made of the mast killing cannonballs and ripped the one single mast of the ship in two. And last but not least was a shot that exploded right over the ship and shredded anything on deck. Including a group of four pirates.

This ship is down for this fight and probably for a lot longer as well.

Fiara managed to reload and shoot at the other small ship before the Fallen Monk Pirates could do anything. It 'died' the same way as its sister ship.

But now the large ship, their main ship, was starting to move. It began to change its position turning its cannons on the starboard side towards us. There were twelve in total and all of them fired in a row.

The highly explosive black balls of fire death flew at us in a high arc. Two were shot down by Nojiko, something that she has been training to do for quite some time. Four will not be able to hit us and the remaining six exploded prematurely thanks to my trusty pebbles.

The retaliation strike came in the form of three more shots from Fiara. They all crashed into their ship and nothing happened for a moment. That was, until three explosions came from the inside, followed by more than fifty more. Those must have been equipped with a timer. They also must have hit their gunpowder or set cannonballs.

Whatever it was, their ship is gone. The whole thing exploded in an orange ball of flames. There won't be much left to raid from that ship,

Hopefully, Urouge wasn't on board. We kinda decided at yesterdays meal that we will hand him over to the Marines. His bounty will be a good addition to our spending money and it's always funny to see the faces of Marines when we sail into their base.

“Okay guys, that went better than expected, good shooting Fiara. I so much want another thirty of those tiny guys. Alas, we don't have them. Maybe Urouge wasn't on board. If he was too bad, if not get ready for a fight Yosaku. You wanted him, now you have him.” Announced Lara from the deck. Fiara smiled brightly at her for the praise.

The rest nodded along. Mrs Chicken Wing, Nojiko and I will stay on board. Jonny, Yosaku, Noa and Lara will get off board and fight. While Josef will be something like the last line to the ship, he will too jump off board, but he won't seek out the fight itself.

Everyone knew what to do and we sailed past the destroyed ship. They jumped off board and I took my time with killing everyone who was still alive and on board the three ships. Having a good Observation Haki made this easily, as well as the ability to throw stone pebbles through wood.

Luckily, there seem to be twenty or so people on the island. All of them were already close enough to us to be seen, however, the thick foliage of palms and bushes made it almost impossible for me to watch over them. And they won't come back to the beach because fighting in the sand is hard and gives opportunities to slip up.

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Lara's POV;

It was funny to see the outraged and pained looks of the Fallen Monk Pirates. Especially that of Urouge. His face was a mix of loss and rage. He almost began to cry when he saw what we have done to their ship.

“You still want him?” Yosaku asked Jonny. The more lithe man shook his head in denial.

“No thanks man, that was before I knew he would be close to four meters tall.” Answered Jonny. He looked around and spotted someone of equal height to his. “I take this normal guy there. You can have big and ugly.”

“Lara?”, asked Yosaku weakly. Urouge was now almost up to us, screaming hatefully at us, iron pillar raised above his head.

“That one is yours Yosaku, and he isn't that tall”, I replied.

“He is more than twice your height”, countered Yosaku while jumping out of the way of the large iron pillar. The cloudy ground got ripped apart by the force and made the ground shake slightly.

“How dare you! I will kill you all Kage Pirates!”, screamed Urouge, before swinging his pillar horizontally, trying to get a hit on me.

I evaded with a short Soru and positioned myself close to a couple of his subordinates. They were aiming at us with their normal guns. I touched both of their heads for a moment and cooked their brain by increasing the molecular movement.

Jonny was busy with piercing and slicing other crew members of the Fallen Monk Pirates and Yosaku was evading the large pillar of Urouge. His reach was wide and his swings may be slow, but had quite a lot of force behind.

“Oh for fuck's sake, stop swinging that thing around!”, shouted Yosaku after another dodge. He pulled his own sword and cut down at the still lowered pillar. It clinked once and then Urouge's nearly four-metre long pillar was cut in two.

The large man used the now lighter weapon to throw it like a projectile at Yosaku. Our own muscle brain raised his sword to block the incoming attack and skidded back a metre or two from the force of the impact.

Still, neither he or his sword were damaged and Yosaku was quick to evade the follow-up fist that came from Urouge. “I will rip your spines out for what you have done!”

A descriptive death that might hurt, so I would kindly decline. In turn, I cut through four more of his friends. Further enraging him. He made a mistake and overreached with one of his strikes. Yosaku saw the hole and brought his massive cleaver-like sword down on the left side of Urouge's chest.

The cut was deep and blood began to flow freely. Yet, it did so for only a moment. Urouge jumped out of Yosaku's reach and roared. His chest bulged outwards and the muscles pressed the wound closed.

His whole body grew in size and muscle mass and a second later he was at Yosaku again. His attack was slightly slower but had such a force behind them that we could see the air move after each swing.

It was good that Yosaku was the one fighting him. He was still doing damage to the large man and I doubt that Jonny would be able to do that to these hardened muscles. Jonny would have to aim for his joints or head. Any other body part was hardened by muscles.

“Oh shit!”, cursed Yosaku suddenly and I turned back from the newest dead member of the Fallen Monk Pirates.

Urouge has forgone any and all defence and has rushed at Yosaku with wide open arms. Yosaku tried to attack him, but Urouge used his own right arm as a shield. The sword got stuck midway through Urouge's arm and the large man was now close enough to grab Yosaku in a bear hug.

I'm sure that Urouge will be able to squash him into mush with some effort. I had already heard how one of Yosaku's ribs was cracking by the time I reached them.

I punched both of Urouge's shoulders and used a vibration enhancement to pulverise his bones. A quick swipe at his hips and the back side of his knees took care of the bones that made him stand up and the large man could hold himself no longer upright.

With two broken arms Yosaku was also able to get out of Urouge's grip. The once monk turned pirate, tried to hit us anyway, so I destroyed the bones in his elbows as well. And for a good measure also cut the tendons in his arms and legs.

He kept roaring and screaming, so I cut his airflow off, by squeezing his throat shut, until he lost consciousness.

“Next time try to evade a charging enemy”, I told Yosaku.

“Thanks, Sis Lara, didn't think he would be this stupid, nor that my sword would get stuck. I mean his pillar was made out of iron.” Defended and thanked Yosaku at the same time.

I accepted his apology with a nod. “Some people can have harder bodies than steel. I can do the same with my Haki. Just remember that everyone that charges in like that is better evaded and attacked once he charges past you.

Now let us get back to the ship. Jo must look at his wounds, we don't want to let him die, that would decrease the bounty. And you need to be looked upon as well, I heard a rip cracking”, I then said and jogged back to the beach to call for Jo and for a set of sea stone handcuffs. I don't want him to wake up and use his strengthening power. The wounds he got would give him a seriously huge amount of strength.