Nojiko's POV;

We were riding the massive King Bulls through the town, with me shooting incoming cannonballs out of the air. To my right, I could see, and hear, the explosions that Lia was creating with her attacks. Further inland I could see destroyed houses and swats of destruction that showed something has crashed through rows of houses.

Shock waves were coming from the end of the path. Maybe Lara was fighting there. It certainly was impressive. The ground shook occasionally and the force of her hits against her enemy was generating blasts of destruction.

Nami and her friends were sitting right next to me, anxiously waiting for their time to fight. As much as I want to keep Nay-chan away from fighting, or any harm at all, it wouldn't be good.

I knew from Arlong's rule that the world wasn't all sunflower and rainbow, but going with Lia and Lara has truly punctuated that fact. Stories about the World Nobles, the atrocities done by pirates and the suppression under the rule of the World Government painted a good picture of what the world truly is.

A harsh, brutal and unforgiving place.

And sadly, my dear baby sister has decided to venture out into this world and follow this little Straw Hat boy. Don't get me wrong, Straw Hat might have a good heart, but in the end, he is still a boy.

He is rather limited in his thinking ability and cares little for the consequences of his actions.

Someday it will bite his arse and then it won't be only him to suffer the consequences.

But I diverge from what I mean. My Nay-chan is now exposed to the true horrors of this world and she will have to defend herself. Keeping her wrapped up and save isn't going to help her survive.

That is why I may be standing next to her, taking care of anyone who thinks about harming her, but at the same time not stopping her from her coming fight against this CP9.

I was ripped out of my thoughts when suddenly a large explosion hit the King Bull we were riding on. Something has shot it with a different weapon than a normal cannon. The large animal cried in pain and fell to the ground. A giant wound was bleeding at its left side.

I wasted no time, and jumped into the air with a series of geppo, to take a look at the houses further inland and out of my previous view. I could see a lot of mortar positions and a new sort of cannon. These are probably the reason for the successful attack.

The goggles, which were built into the masks by Fiara, allowed me to zoom in onto their positions and made me see them prepare another round of fire. Naturally, I shot them dead with my MK-M5. Three black bullets of my new assault rifle splattered the brain of the gunner all over his friends.

Those died a second later when I shot again. But I couldn't just kill them, there were enough Marines to simply take their place. Another shot at the ammunition made it explode and with it the cannon as well.

I repeated this until I could no longer see any mortars or heavy-duty cannons. I also took care of a few snipers further inland.

With the threat gone, I descended back down and landed next to Nami. They had jumped their transportation in the time I needed to take care of the mortars and were now back on their way to the Court.

“You can do the same thing as the CP9, the air walk stuff. How are you able to do that?” asked Nami in a bewildered tone. She was staring at me with wide shocked eyes. But also a happy expression for my own skills.

“Lara taught me. She and Lia are a well of knowledge and are training all of us. It was Lia who helped me hone my skills in shooting and Lara who is giving me training in the Six Marine Skills. So far I can use geppo, soru, kami-e and the rankyaku. My shigan and tekkai are not really usable, but I'm working on them.” I explained with a wide grin. It was a good feeling to show off in front of Nami.

To punctuate my claims I shot a rankyaku at a nearby tower where half of a dozen Marine snipers were taking aim at us. The flying blade of air pressure raced towards the stone building and cut the upper part off. The stone crumbled down in a loud crash while muting the cries of the falling Marines.

“To think that my sister became this strong...,” muttered Nami in awed shock.

I puffed my chest out but noticed the disbelieving undertone in her words. As if she was more shocked about the possibility than about the fact that it did happen. “Hey, I tell you, I am the...okay, I'm still the weakest of my crew.”

With this sudden realisation, I sat down and stared at the floor in self-pity. All this work and I'm still the weakest of the crew. Jonny was faster, Yosaku stronger, Josef more intelligent and Fiara more deadly. Only Noa was in my range, and he was quickly gaining strength with his new hammers and straining.

“Hey hey, just because you are the weakest does not mean that you are weak. I too am the weakest of my crew,” consoled Nami me with a few pats on my back. I looked at her and saw the truth in her words. I hugged her, a hug she returned.

The rest of our trip we would have both sat together in self-pity if something hadn't stopped us again. This time it were massive balls out of metal. The things were as large as a rescue boat and hurt our King Bull immensely.

The downed King Bull got surrounded by Marines, all bearing weapons on us and ready to fire. We have to move or fight if we don't want to die simply by standing in the way of a wall of lead.

I was just about to jump off when Chopper stopped us.

He said that Gomorrah, that's the name of the animal, WILL bring us to our destination. He will help to free Franky and he won't let us down.

In an act of steel hard will the animal rose again and run straight into a wall. According to Chopper, he got blinded by the attacks. Still, it didn't stop it from continuing its mad dash. Dozens of Marines got crushed under its body. Hundreds of bullets got shot at it without any results and houses got destroyed when it crashed into them with its unseeing eyes.

But it prevailed. With its last strength, it stopped at a large plaza, right in front of the Court. Its body slumped to the ground, too exhausted and wounded to move any more. The Franky Family praised it and got ready to disembark.

As were the Straw Hats and the rest of us. Noa, Josef and I were the only ones who were remaining. I hope Jonny, Yosaku and Fiara are good. Lia and Lara can take care of themselves.

Especially Fiara, the tiny woman can often be a ditz and she is such a sweet girl. I don't want to think about the danger she will be in.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Short switch to Fiara; Third Person POV;

A tiny figure was standing on a burning and deserted street. It was Fiara, her main hands were now holding a grenade launcher. It was empty, its payload was shot into a large warehouse filled with gunpowder.

Said warehouse was no longer in existence. The whole building, as well as a good chunk of the ground and its neighbouring buildings, were gone. Only a burning crater remained. There were no Marines present to stop the expanding fire or the Tontatta who was the cause of the fire. They have learned that staying close to this fire devil would bring only a fiery death.

But not everyone seems to have gotten the memo. A man in a suit came running at Fiara with the speed of a normal soru. He wore a blank mask that had strange protrusions on the top, resembling the eyestalk of a snail or lobster. So far Fiara hadn't noticed his mad dash at her.

He roared and transformed into a giant lobster. Its large claws could easily crush any normal man, the tiny body of Fiara would be easy to cut in half with its sharp edges.

Fiara turned around to look at the charging lobster and was confused for a moment, why was a marine animal here and attacking her? She didn't know why but saw the danger it might pose.

That's why she threw five yellow balls at it. It wouldn't be good if this clearly hostile animal continues its mad dash.

The lobster stopped just before the balls would hit. Its body froze completely. Fiara noticed the strong resemblance to the activation of a tekkai. A skill that Yosaku and Nojiko were learning, but a lobster could not do such a thing. That would be beyond strange.

Whatever the lobster planned to do, it should have tried to evade. Each ball hit it and burst open. A clear liquid splashed over its shell and then instantly lit up in hot blue flames. Normally these flames were hot enough to melt metal and stone with ease, so the hardened shell of a lobster was not really something that could withstand such heat.

Even if it was a Devil Fruit user with skills in tekkai. The flames were still hot. The lobster roared in pain and tried to roll around to extinguish the flames. It was to no avail, the burning liquid stuck to its shell and set the ground aflame as well.

Soon the flesh under the shell began to cook and the trashing got increasingly erratic. Its pained screams made Fiara kinda sad. No animal should suffer. That's why she aimed two of her robotic arms at the thrashing body and charged her lasers. They glowed orange before firing a combined beam at the animal.

The street exploded and ripped the lobster into tiny cooked pieces. Fiara caught one the size of her own body and took a bite out of the cooked meat. It tasted fine, the flesh was cooked to almost perfection.

No second thought was wasted about the strange lobster. Fiara had finished reloading by the time she ate the last bite and then continued with her mission of destruction. She had to burn this place to the ground, only then would there be no one able to harm her or her friends. Lia had explained to her that everyone who wants to harm them was someone bad and that burning them to ashes would stop them from doing harmful things.

Lia explained that these Marines were like the bad man with the pink feathers that was hurting her family. And that burning them will save people in the future. She doesn't want other people to suffer under someone like the pink feathered man. That's why she will burn every single bad Marine to cinders.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to Nojiko's POV, who was now inside the Tower of Justice.

Josef and Noa were standing with me inside the Court. The strange man with three heads, that turned out to be three strange men sitting on each other, was fighting Noa.

Noa easily evaded the attacks, the three men weren't exactly skilled fighters. The fight didn't last long, Noa's right hammer crashed into the shoulder of the right guy and exploded in a blast of fire. The burning man got thrown off of his friend and cried in pain. His friend tried to extinguish the flames but got hit in the face by Noa's other hammer.

With a crackling discharge, the hammer got activated and electrocuted its target. His body began to spasm and smoke before he too fell down. The actual hit would have been enough to end the fight. The electricity on top was overkill.

The last one remaining, who just a few seconds ago sat on the left side of his friend, was cursing up a storm and demanded our execution.

That was when the gate began to lower itself. Seems like the Franky Family managed to reach the levers. Good, now we can cross the bridge, defeat the CP9 and leave this island. I don't want to die here and there were more than a thousand remaining Marines who all disagreed with my wants.

I just had shot into the literal army of Marines when I heard loud explosions from behind. I turned around and saw that the bridge has stopped moving. They must have shot at it with cannons. I was bound to miss a few.

The Marines at the entrance roared in victory and increased their advance with regained moral strength. I disabused them of their sure victory by placing a fire dial on the side of my MK-M5 and activating the rapid fire mode.

Dozens of burning black steel cloud bullets were shot out of my rifle. Each bullet got right through their first target and more often than not only stopped at their fourth or fifth hit. The bullet then exploded and ripped the body part it was lodged into apart.

Blood, organs, bones, and flesh got splattered over their comrades and their morale plummet back down to nothing. For a moment I stared at the carnage that I had created. I did not expect this to be this bloody.

“To think that Fiara of all people was the one who made this weapon,” mumbled Josef from next to me. I nodded in agreement. Fiara was always such an innocent sweet girl when she spoke or interacted with us and other people.

She would only be more aggressive whenever we were fighting Marines or pirates as if it was a service to the world by killing every and all of them. I strongly suspect that it was Lia that put this into Fiara's mind.

“The almost dissociative identity disorder of our resident mechanic aside, what are we going to do now? The abyss is too far to jump for normal people. And we can't carry them if we are under fire,” questioned Josef.

I too had asked myself the same. The Straw Hats must cross the abyss to reach their friend and Franky. And the only way was the bridge. Maybe we can force it down with brute strength?

“Do you hear that?” Asked Paulie suddenly. He was on my other side and using his rope to stop the advance of the Marines. I will have to remember to ask him if he has eaten a rope fruit. There is no way for a normal person to hide so many ropes.

I tried to listen to whatever he was hearing. It's hard to locate a specific sound with the extreme noise around us. There were explosions, yelling, clashing weapons, the screams of dying men and other things that created a background of noise over everything else.

But there was indeed something becoming louder and closer. It sounded like a whistle. Was that a train?

Suddenly the Marines began to panic. They tried to flee, but not everyone managed to get out of the way when the Rocket Man came driving inside the Court. Its wheels were crushing everyone not fast enough to jump aside. Paulie, Josef and I were just in time to react. Both Josef and I had jumped up and grabbed onto the train.

We were carried along and got company by Noa. He too had seen the possible way across the bridge. The spike of his fire hammer lodged itself into the train and he was carried along. The train raced at the halfway lowered bridge and then over the edge.

Mid-flight we hit some guy with blue hair and the Straw Hats landed on top of us as well. Josef and I had just enough time to jump off of the train before it hit the stone wall.

I had grabbed Nami, while Josef had grabbed Noa. Both of us were the only ones able to use geppo. Jonny, Yosaku and Noa weren't able to. Fiara could fly with her dial-skates, something that we could only do if we activate cloud dials to ride on.

The train crashed into the brick wall and broke through. The Straw Hats groaned from the rough ride, while Nami clung to me for dear life, but was visibly relieved to not be in the same situation as of her comrades now.

We touched down and watched how the rest stood up and gathered themselves.