"It looks like they're throwing everything they have at us, good," I remarked with a smirk as I flew in the air, dodging and phasing through burn blasts as I fired my gun, taking down a jet boarding pirate with each bullet.
"More fun for us, so whatever," Wilson replied to my remark, as he charged through the enemy barrages, not even bothering to dodge and creating a bloody bath in the sky.
"Stop showing off, you big oaf," I reprimanded with a frown. "If you keep doing that, then you're going to face an attack that you can't tank sooner or later," I added without as I turned to look at Wilson, still shooting and reloading without even looking.
"If that happens, then you will endanger both your life and that of our crewmates," I concluded as I caught one of the pirates, throwing him to the ground as hard as I could, and balanced myself on his jet board.
"But there's no fun in that," Wilson murmured as he kept cutting through the pirates like a hot knife through butter. "But, you're right, I guess," he added after some thought as he began actually dodging instead of receiving attacks like a meathead.
"And slow down," I instructed as I began trying to steer the jet board like the pirates did. "Don't forget why we're here," I added as I finally started getting the hang of handling the board.
"Still, aren't there too many of them?" Wilson asked as he resumed taking down the pirates but at a slower pace this time. "Are there even any pirates remaining in the palace?" he asked again in a confused tone.
"It would be even better if all of them came after us," I replied while shrugging my shoulder, shooting my gun as I soared through the sky while riding the jet board.
-0-
Third person's point of view:
Lokni sat in his throne room, watching the ensuing battle between Johnny, Wilson, and his subordinates through a complicated device that utilized vision Dials with a frown, tapping his finger at the armrest.
His frown deepened as he watched Johnny and Wilson effortlessly tear through his subordinates. He looked at this scene and scowled as a stream of unpleasant memories began flowing through his mind.
The first memory he recalled was of him trying to raid Spider miles a decade ago, only to be repelled by a local crime family that had nothing but monsters. The monsters annihilated most of his crew, and even he himself barely escaped with his life.
Still, Lokni didn't give up and gathered a new crew after two years and went on to raid another island, having learned the lesson that Spider Miles was off-limits.
No matter how hard he tried, Lokni couldn't remember the name of the island he raided next for some reason, but there was one thing he could never forget.
The goddamned freak. Lokni couldn't forget his creepy, expressionless face no matter how hard he tried. The man known as the magician had casually and selfishly decided his fate like it was nothing.
The freak merely looked at Lokni as he drew several cards from his deck when they faced each other.
"It would be better for you to forget about becoming a pirate. Nothing but mediocrity and eventually death awaits you if you follow this path,"
He would never forget those words, nor the expressionless face of the man that said those words to him while slaughtering his crewmates, leaving him alive for some reason.
Even after such a defeat accompanied by an ominous prophecy, Lokni didn't give up, reforming a new crew again. Still, he didn't even have the chance to raid another island, this time as a pirate with strange spring-like limbs raided the isle he was staying on with his crew.
The springy pirate didn't find raiding and pillaging the island enough as he began chasing after the fleeing Lokni's ship, driving him to a knock-up stream.
Lokni thought this was the end, finally resigning to accepting the harsh reality that he would die without amounting to anything in his life, but fate worked in mysterious ways.
The strange weather phenomena not only saved him from his pursuers instead of killing him, but it had opened many doors for him.
A cloud sea above the blue sea! Lokni wouldn't have believed it if he didn't see it with his own eyes. What's more, the inhabitants of this sea had many powerful weapons, and they were very naïve to boot.
Lady luck had finally smiled upon him! Lokni thought, but little did he know that was only the beginning at the time. The naïve sky-islanders even had a powerful devil fruit that would make whoever ate in invincible!
Lokni had to have that devil fruit as soon as he heard about it, so he began hatching his plan to steal the fruit and take over the Skyguard.
The plan worked without a hitch, much to his satisfaction, and he managed to slaughter or drive out all of the inhabitants of the sky island, taking it for himself.
Lokni reveled in his success after so many failures. Life had finally begun going the way he wanted it to go, and that quickly went to his head.
Lokni's euphoria at his sudden success, and that along with the knowledge that he was invincible because of the cloud-cloud fruit (He didn't know about Haki), made him look down on other people, even his crew.
Still, it was all smooth sailing until that grinning monk showed up on the island, slaughtering his crew left and right without anyone being able to stop him.
After the monk had killed twenty or so of his men, Lokni had finally had enough of the intruder and decided to take care of Urouge with his own hands.
He quickly ordered some of his men to act as bait for the grinning monk while he lurked in the shadow, waiting for Urouge to show himself.
Still, Urouge saw it coming somehow and managed to create a trap for his men, blowing them up to high hell with a lot of breath and flame Dials somehow without even being present.
This new failure drove Lokni drove Lokni mad with rage and made him view his subordinate as nothing but dead weight, so Lokni began sending them on suicide missions to hunt for the monk while slaughtering any who showed the slightest hints of incompetence.
And now there was a new pirate crew on Lokni's turf, and the bastards even reminded him of the monsters who defeated him repeatedly in the past.
"I will let you cut down my dead weight, and then I will take care of you myself," Lokni murmured ominously with an icy expression as he watched Johnny and Wilson destroy his subordinates with smiles on their faces.
-0-
"I wonder what's going on," Urouge said with a frown as they neared the god palace from behind. "There should be at least twelve guards at the back," he added with a thoughtful expression.
"It doesn't matter," Laffite replied with a smile. "The fact that there are no guards right now is better for us," he added as he began approaching the rear entrance.
"Laffite is right," Kozue commented as she carefully followed behind Laffite. "We can worry about the lack of guards after we finish our task," she concluded.
"Wait," Urouge suddenly interrupted, causing everyone to stop dead in their tracks. "There," he said, pointing at a seashell on top of the rear gates.
"That's a vision, Dial," he explained with a frown. "Someone could be watching from inside the palace, so we need to get inside without being in range of the Dial," he concluded while shaking his head.
"I can help with that," Law said with a serious look on his face. "Room," he murmured, creating a wide transparent sphere, and thew a couple of small rocks at a balcony above the vision Dial.
"Shambles," he said as they all found themselves standing atop the balcony in the bling of an eye. "That's handy," Laffite praised with a smile as he slowly opened the door in the balcony, scouting ahead.
"It gets the job done," Law said with a shrug as he followed after Laffite after the latter carefully made his way inside.