Lara's POV;

It took us until noon to reach the base of the sect. We have anchored a few kilometre away and Lia was spying on them for us. At first, I wanted to question the guy Yosaku knocked out, but it turned out he succumbed to a heart failure.

The shock must have hit him as well, metal is not conducting electricity only to your advantage. Jo tried to stabilise him, but the damage was too great and he had to help Yosaku first.

Well, nothing lost nothing gained. At least we now have six waver-skates. Those alone will help us in the future tremendously. Especially when we want to raid something without risking our ship.

Add a cloud dial from the village and you'll get an effective and fast way to conduct raids or three-dimensional attacks.

“And?” I asked upwards. Lia was hovering a few metre above our crows nest, staring at the almost too far away to be seen island that harbours the sects home base.

“There are around 400 people, all clad in togas and with the same tattoos as our previous guests. Mostly women, but males are not far behind. I can only see a few children and a few old people. A lot of them carry some kind of weapon. And there is one among the old ones that has a lot of accessors on his robes, maybe the leader.” Called Lia back down.

“Maybe, if we take him out the rest might surrender”, voiced Noa his opinion. I agreed somewhat. They either surrender or attack with zealot like fanaticism. Most likely the later, we first would have to take out their fighters.

“Can you see how many there are that would fight?”, I asked.

“Hard to say, all of them have some kind of weapon, at least a knife, even the children. Those that are obviously armed have mostly spears and then a dozen or so on watchtowers have a rifle. A lot of them also have a dial on the inside of their hand. And lastly, there is another dozen who wear waver-skates.

All in all, I would say that everyone will try to fight, but only 50 or so will really be able to. These dozen waver-skate fighters are most likely the highest threat, with their speed and maneuverability.”

I looked at the rest of the crew, “Well, how do you want to do this? We need a Balloon Octopus and preferably a few wavers and other dials. We could try and speak to them”, most of them scoffed and I nodded in agreement, “right, not very likely to work.

“Lia, are there any cannons mounted to the seaside?” Asked Nojiko while staring towards the sky island.

“Not as far as I can see. There are only three watchtowers, each manned with a guard who carries a rifle”, replied Lia instantly.

“You want to sail up close don't you?”, asked Jo, speaking out what I too have thought.

Nojiko nodded and patted Noa and Jonny on the shoulder. “Yes, while we get closer these two will shoot at their towers with our own cannons. Maybe Fiara can test out our three barrelled cannon as well.”

Fiara nodded with a bright smile, completely ignoring the fact that she would kill people with her actions. She turned into something quite strange after my talk with her of when killing was good or not. Now everyone who is deemed a bad guy by us is fair game and will get shot on sight. “Oh, yes, I'd really like that. There is this napalm cannonball or that one that explodes into dozens of smaller shots, each having a small explosive inside as well.”

Tontatta are a strange group of people. Easily impressionable and gullible, yet can be quite brutal if given the right direction or advice.

Nojiko looked a bit put out by the obvious delight in Fiara's voice, yet continued nonetheless. “Well yes, while you three shoot at the watchtowers the rest of us will get ready for the actual fight. I'm gonna give you all cover fire from the crows nest, Jo will act as the support and defence line to our ship. Lara and Yosaku will take on anyone who wants to fight close and personal and lastly Lia will watch out over all of us so that no one gets blindsided or killed because he did something stupid.” The last part was spoken with a direct stare at Yosaku and Jonny.

Both had the decency to look sheepish and not into her eyes. It was well known that Lia and I had to save both of them more than once during a pirate raid. Still, these saves were getting lesser over time and nowadays we hardly have to save their life. Sometimes from a broken bone or cut off hand, but not their life.

Nojiko then turned back to me and smiled, “Anything to add captain?”

I shook my head in denial and looked back up to Lia, “Sis, keep a close eye on the sea, we don't want to fall through a hole, just short of the goal, that would be embarrassing.” Lia nodded and lowered herself back down to the crows nest. Nojiko was already halfway up as well.

Now it was my part to direct the ship, while Noa, Jonny and Fiara manned the cannons. Yosaku and Jo were helping with the sails.

They reacted as we expected. All twelve of the waver-skate fighters were racing towards us with spears drawn and shock dials in their hands. Their number was too high to safely fight on board of our ship, so Nojiko and Lia shot four of them down before they could reach us.

Fiara too did shoot once, the only cannonball that came out of our newest weapon was more like one of these ship mast destroying weapons. Two iron balls connected to a chain. The whirling deadly tripwire hit true and bisected another one of the waver-skate attackers.

That left only seven, three of them jumped on board from the front, the other four tried to pincer us with two from each side.

A diagonal force blade took care of the three in the front. Nojiko shot another one down that came from the left side, while Yosaku cleaved the other one in two parts. That will be a bitch to clean up.

Jo's enemies were taken out way cleaner, both of them got a throwing knife into their throat and then a pierced temple.

We quickly stripped them off of their dials and waver-skates and then threw the bodies overboard. Yosaku then showed that he was not all brawn and washed the blood and gore away with a water supply dial.

Using so much water would be stupid on the sea, but the sky island in front of us must have a water source, so all was good.

We weren't attacked anymore. Our cannons made short work of their towers and another few buck shots from Fiara also took down a good dozen of their warriors. They now have lost almost thirty of their fighting force and it showed on their faces that they knew that this wasn't something they would win.

I never expected from any of them to be even close to dangerous. Enel would have taken those who can fight with him. These were the leftover followers that were fanatic, yet not useful enough for him to keep.

I would feel for them if I would care. I honestly was quite pleased that it was this easy and even more so when the old man with lots of accessors came forward with raised and empty hands.

They surrender, that's good. With close to twenty remaining fighters they will still be able to defend themselves. Seems like I will get spared from the annoying moral moaning Noa, Jo, Jonny and Yosaku would have done.

Nojiko wasn't one to bemoan the death of such people. For her, they were not much better than Arlong. She might not be willing to kill the none fighters, but those who attacked her were fair game. And if it leads to the death of the rest, then that was their problem.

“Please, we surrender, in the name of Enel, stop the attack!”, shouted the old man from a 'safe' distance. The cannon fire and gunfire stopped, but I knew that all of them kept their aim on him and any other potential target.

“We surrender and will give you whatever you want, but please don't kill any more of us”, he further pleaded. Now we are looking like the bad guys. Doing this with Lia alone would have been so much easier.

“Your people attacked us first, we only retaliated. We just wanted to ask if you have a waver or two for sale and if you possibly know how to get your hands on a Balloon Octopus”, I replied with an edge in my voice that told them we were in the right.

“Be that as it may, we were in the wrong and are surrendering. We have children here, please.” I grumbled something about stupid old men that were pulling the children card, to silent for anyone but Lia to hear.

“Do you have what we want?”, I asked instead and looked over the visible part of the village.

“We can give you a fishing waver, we need the rest to feed our family. And we don't have a Balloon Octopus, never needed one. But we know with certainty that Urouge, the rogue monk of Enel, has at least one.” He offered. There is probably more that he can give us, but it might look too much like pillaging and robbery if I demand more.

However, my 'But we don't act like pirates' card wouldn't work anymore if I do that. “Then bring your fishing waver, we will take it in compensation for your unprovoked attack at us”, I said instead and watched how four men carried out a lifeboat sized waver out of the village.

They placed it on the sandy beach and stepped back. I jumped down and carried the whole boat back up to our ship. At least we now have a lifeboat. Haven't had one so far.

“If you attack us again we won't be this reasonable.” I warned while the boys on deck changed the sail. The village elder nodded frantically and we sailed off without being pursued.

We were gathered around the waver and had also the skates laid out. A good pile of 12 pairs of waver-skates, one was broken down by Fiara for learning. We are seven, Fiara is excluded due to her size, that is really good. And now we have this waver as well. Maybe we can get another one from Urouge, but I wouldn't bet on it.

“And, what would you say Fiara?”, I asked the tiny woman. She was inspecting the waver and compared it to the waver-skates.

“As far as I can tell it is the same shell, just larger. The movement itself is recharging the device and would work infinitely, as long as you move in a straight line and have a large enough shell. Theoretically I could build a ship that can drive on these alone. But we would need massive shells for that. I think anything larger than this wouldn't work. They must have a natural limit to their size.

With some help on Noa's side I will be able to rebuild this into a good speedy boat.” Explained Fiara absent mindedly while inspecting the waver. We knew that she would now only react and not activity speak to us. From the short time we had her with us we learned quite a lot of her.

Not yet how she truly came to be at Mock Town, but some of her quirks and her definite interest in technology. She had built her own little workshop inside our storage room. She would often tinker on things there.

“That would be great and might be a project you two can work on once we are back down on the Grand Line. We will also train to move with the waver skates there.” She only nodded once, not looking away from the waver.

“So the next target is this Urouge guy? I heard he is a pirate that is known for his bloodthirstiness and fighting lust. The poster says that he likes to fight with his fists alone and is very strong.” Asked Jo next.

“Who gets to fight him then?”, asked Jonny eagerly.

“It would be unfair for Lara or Lia to get him, we never get the strong guys. He seems like a heavy hitter, these guys have a lot of endurance.” Began Yosaku.

Jonny nodded along. “Nojiko will have problems with him if he manages to get close. And Fiara is out because she is to new and inexperienced. Josef might be good, he could slow him down with precise cuts.

Noa might also be able to try, but his strength is not yet up on par with you Yosaku. I might be good enough, as long as I don't get hit.”

Yosaku crossed his arms over his chest and hummed in agreement. “Yeah, so it will be up to me, the strong and stamina freak of us all. Excluding our monster twins of course.”

“You mean one muscle brain against another one? What will you do, hit each other alternately until one of you falls down?”, scoffed Nojiko in a teasing way.

Yosaku scratched his head and looked at the floor. “Not exactly, I wanted to hit him with my sword until he keels over”, he then admitted to the laughter of us all.

“Fine, I will watch over your fight and you can try your own against him. But be careful, if it looks like you will loose I will take you out and finish him”, I warned and gave him a slight hit on the chest, before walking inside the ship.

“That reminds me, we need to party for our win against the sect. Lia, could you make this pizza thing you've baked us last week again?”, asked Noa with big puppy eyes.

“Sure, I think we also have some pepperoni left, I want to eat something hot today”, answered my sweet little sister/wife. She will surely also put some chicken on it.

She must have seen my own puppy eyes and smiled fondly at me. “Yes Lara, there will be chicken as well.” I whooped in glee, kissed her and then ran inside the ship. There was this tone dial I had to fill.