During the time taken to scout the forest for intruders, a figure was barely seen as a smaller sized monkey mink flash stepped from tree to tree at great speeds.
Usually there was someone on a rotation to protect the Sunken Castle and its surroundings to help better protect the area around the Sunken Castle, the roads, the shipyard and docking areas.
Late at night, it was Nica's turn to scout the area and she had encountered intruders more frequently on the lands lately.
She had it had only been a couple of months since the events within Marineford which made many of the crew members realise that their own powers were still insignificant in the face of the absolute power of certain individuals or groups in the world.
It was not a lie that some of them may of even become a little more lazy and self satisfied with their current power or achievements beforehand but that all changed after the Paramount War.
Many had regained their determination and started working much harder to improve themselves, Nica who had mainly been stuck in her laboratory for a long time, training or occasionally participating in battles eventually stepped outside and regained her senses for battle once more.
Her small figure leapt from tree to tree until her eyes could see far away within the dark forest.
Very far away outside the territory there were a group of fierce looking men and women who were chasing a smaller woman who was carrying a small child in her arms.
The group that chased her seemed to be cursing the woman and they did not hold back as several arrows were fired towards the woman's legs and waist area which she barely avoided as she ran but a large wound until one pierced into her thigh.
She dropped the child in her arms and pushed it to leave her behind, she truly believed that she was being a burden t the child now that she was wounded so she shouted. "Go! Listen please! Quickly go!"
The small child had a look of despair on its face and as tears flowed down their cheeks but as an obedient child, they had no choice but to obey the final request of the woman.
The child got up from the ground clumsily and fled a little further but their small legs could not carry them fast enough to escape which resulted in them both being captured.
Just in their moment of despair, the strange sound came from far away and a metallic bullet shaped object flew from outside the territorial range of the central part of the island which entered the eye of the main fierce looking man who help the woman by her hair as he tried to drag her away.
The bullet passed through his head and entered the shoulder of the man standing nearby due to the positioning of them and the sniper who was firing from a higher place.
The woman used the opportunity that she was freed to grab the dropped weapon and stabbed it into the leg of one of the other men who were nearby and held onto her child.
The child was dropped and another bullet flew into the crowd without much of a pause as it entered the skull of a woman that held a spear in her hands as she aimed it towards the woman.
Each time there would be one to three quick and skilful shots fired within a second or two before there would be a slight flash within the forest far away before another couple of shots followed from another location.
Although Nica had many possibilities for her technology and types of Electro guns and tools, she had not forgotten her basic training about various vantage points and repositioning to not be discovered and fired at or hunted down.
Her agile body and Electro allowed her to escape right after firing a single or a couple of shots and allow her to find a new place to shoot from.
Most of the time, her biggest advantageous place was in a forest area which allowed her more hiding places and vantage points so that was where her talents usually shone.
If it was a defensive battle in her own environment then she would be able to show her potential even more when traps were added into her arsenal.
It took a very short amount of time to kill or inflict a deadly wound upon the group that were pursuing the woman and child.
Meanwhile, Nica sat in contemplation on a tree top as she looked toward the approaching child and woman. "So this must be the feeling that Alyssia had mentioned. The ability to sense things further and especially sense the life signs or aura of others, if I did not have this then I may not have been able to make such a long and complicated shot from this distance."
Although she could vaguely see the overall situation through the lens on her sniper rifle that was made from smaller and less weighted but just as powerful electromagnet parts, she was not capable of achieving such an accurate shot with it from a very long distance with many obstructions in the way while they were moving around.
A single shot could accidentally enter the body of those she was trying to save if her shot was even slightly off target but as she had slowly grasped Observation Haki a little better, she was able to sense the aura of life around her and far away a little more faintly but stronger ones were much clearer.
As she entered a concentrated state while firing, she was able to sense the movements of the animals and trees around her along with the other changes in the environment which allowed her to hit the man in the eye and take out another even from a difficult range and position.
From there she was able to get much closer and gain more of an advantageous position with the first bullets that she had fired before anymore harm came to the woman and child.
Each time, she would fire accurately towards the more aggressive and hostile strong auras to protect the two weak ones until the two weak ones were safe to move through the forest.
She provided cover afterwards to help the two of them reach closer to her and to protect them from the roaming wild beasts that had been attracted by the scent of blood.