Last chapter, the dastardly duo along with an unwilling Seric start a heist and escape mission from The Long Sleeved Pirates ship, but it's not easy as giant mobs start to attack them, along with an enraged Popshot. Luckily they get through these troubles, and make it to the deck in which Seric just jumped off of to the watery depths below.

Seric's P.O.V.

"AHHHHHHH!" I yell out in fright and excitement as I make a huge and painful splash into the water below, and a second later I hear another. Not wanting to destroy my eyes I frantically swim up to the surface with my eyelids shut, luckily with the ocean not being too wavy as of now.

"Hey, My Best Friend!" I call out desperately not wanting to be in this giant void that hides killer creatures a second longer, and just like that my pure semi-neon white boat appears from thin air right in front of me next to the giant mass of Adesia's silver galleon.

Without hesitation Karia swims over to and climbs onto the boat with relative ease, running over to the back of it to pull my smaller self up.

"Phew... wait, where's King Metallica and his stupid bags that weigh a t-"

"YAAAAAAAAAASHASHASHA!" I'm interrupted as a huge robotic laugh and scream comes out of nowhere, and looking above me where the sound is coming from I can briefly see a small blur of silver and two giant blurs of white zooming down towards our ship.

*CRASH*

"That was quite the merry landing!" King Metallica says in a carefree tone after he lands on top of me, as I'm currently being crushed under one of the giant bags.

"Where's Seric, we can't finish a heist without the awesome, speedy, getaway driver!" He says obliviously to which I can't even respond, and I can also hear Karia laughing her ass off.

She stops laughing for a second, "Oh, he just wanted some of that sweet loot." And resumes right after of course.

"Hey, Seric! Where are ya pal?!" King Metallica yells out as he drags the bag across my face, until I'm guessing Karia finally points in my direction and he lifts it off of me.

"Ah! Come on stop slacking, I'm not paying you for nothing eh!" He says with enthusiasm as he yanks me up with his cold metal hands, dusting off my shirt and pushing me towards the giant joystick in the middle of the small deck of the pure white boat.

"Ugh, leave me alone..." I say in an annoyed tone as I try to pull the joystick back but I'm still too damaged to.

"Tick tock kid or you may just find yourself under another bag!" Karia says impatiently as she walks up to me and flicks my head.

"PISS O-"

"Hah... that was far too embarrassing, I thought my crew would at least be able to do something against the likes of you three." I hear someone yell down in a calm voice, and looking up Adesia and her crew are leaning off the railing staring our puny "crew" down.

"Oh shit!" I yell out as I snap back to reality and pull back the long joystick, until Karia forcibly removes my hand from it.

"Wait Seric. So, I bet you regret what you did now flame bitch." Karia yells back up with her arms crossed and a cocky grin.

"No, not quite, after all it was only fair. One of my men overheard your and that stupid bots evil and "genius plan" through your infirmary rooms door last night and reported it to me immediately in the room next door. Since my crew was quite weak against the likes of you and Seric, I thought making all of them work together to take you three down would be good training. In the end all I got was a whole bunch of destroyed people and buildings..." Adesia says as she closed her eyes and sighs.

"YASHASHASHA, that's what they get for making a mess of my glorious, luxurious shiny metal face- and my pal of course!" King Metallica yells up as he runs his hand over his punctured cheek.

"Oh shut up you King of Nothing, this is why we tossed you out." Adesia says with an annoyed tone and a satisfied smile which enrages King Metallica as he yells incoherent words and shakes his fist at her like an old man.

"Oh, also by the way sorry about all of this Seric! I know you were most likely forced into this, I congratulate you on taking me out, and we enjoyed having you as company!" Adesia yells down at me.

"Yeah, haha, I'm so sorry about that man I really thought you were evil like your friends! But hey, you took my full powered hits like a boss so it's all good right?!" I hear someone yell down to me, and looking up closer I can see Popshot leaving over the railing with his hands by his mouth.

"...Yeah, don't worry about it!" I respond semi honestly, as I don't want to leave us off on bad terms. "And I'm so sorry for what these two idiots did you guys, I'll give you the loot bac-" I yell up to them until Karia punches me in the face with her good arm and King Metallica turns his attention towards us.

"Alright you've said enough,
let's go." Karia says with an angry look on her face.

"Are you stupid, like hell I'm letting us keep all of this!" I retaliate back at her with a short fuze which causes her to look at me with a scary and blank face.

"Seric, the loot is all yours. I got some of my crew to replace practically everything valuable in the vault with useless fakes we had laying around just before the robbery. Anything that we didn't replace just consider it a parting gift from us to you." Adesia yells, saving me from whatever Karia was about to do.

"Oh, seriously! Thanks a lot then, once again I'm so sorry for the trouble these guys caused you!" I yell back up in relief with a smile.

"Hmph, well played. If we ever meet again though I'm taking you out for good." Karia yells back up to Adesia with a cocky and evil smirk planted on her face.

"Of course, the same goes to you. Although I doubt you'll ever be able to take the heat of me." Adesia yells back down in a tone just as cocky.

"...Let's get out of here, the trials aren't gonna do themselves. Oh wait, you wanna say anything King Metallica?" Karia says as she turns over to our robotic friend who's just been standing next to us this entire time with the two bags next to him.

"...Well, even if you guys were my 99th group of pals and we ended off on some not-so-friendly-but-well-deserved terms, you guys still really weren't so talkative BUT awesome, so thanks for having me around!" King Metallica yells up to the crew as he frantically waves his red robe covered arms at them.

"..." The Long Sleeved Pirates stare down at him with no response, and a second later walk out of sight away from the railings without a word.

Me and Karia both look at each other behind his back and start cringing at the brutal response, but King Metallica seems rather unfazed and only slows down his waving.

"...I wonder, why don't my pals ever say goodbye?" King Metallica says in a much less energetic tone.

"Uh, they were probably just too sad. Sometimes people just can't come to terms with saying a final goodbye to a person they care a lot about." I lie as there's no way I have the heart to tell him the cold hard truth that was most likely the exact same for his other 99 retainers- friends.

"Yeah of course, that's one hundred percent, pure astonishing top-gun genius! That must be why!" King Metallica exclaims which puts a small smile on my face.

"Actually why the hell am I even smiling, are you guys actually kidding me?! After everything they did for all three of us, you decide to goddamn rob them?!" I scold them both in a fit of rage as even after we stole from Adesia's crew they were still kind to us- well me the innocent one in the end.

This doesn't seem to get through to them as King Metallica simply spins around to one of the giant bags of fake loot and starts ripping it open, while Karia looks at me with an annoyed face.

"Is your head okay?! They tried to kill me for fucks sake her crew had it coming!" Karia replies in a just as angry tone as she bends down to my level.

"Oh please, you act so tough but can't even take a cut on your arm that's entirely your fault, grow up." I reply with zero empathy and feel terrible a second later in a fit of rage, as she almost ruined my and Popshot's friendship.

"...What? I'm obviously not mad about that dipshit, I mean-... Oh wait. We didn't tell you did we." Karia replies with an awkward laugh and a hand behind her head.

"Hm?" I ask as I continue to impatiently stare her down.

"The gel they rubbed on my burns was poisonous, if I kept it on me and actually went to sleep last night my skin would have absorbed it and I would have been dead by now." Karia responds seriously now as she clenches her fists.

"Wait what, seriously?! No way, you just want an excuse for what you did." I reply with a scoff.

"Don't believe me huh? Hey King Metallica, pass him the test subject." She looks behind her to the two bags of loot, as I didn't notice that just a few feet from us by the edge of the ship he already opened the giant bag of loot and is scouring through it, only King Metallica's crown on his head bobbing up over the giant white mass.

"Sure thing!" He replies happily as his crown stops bobbing, and a second later something flies high overtop of the bag and in my direction.

I'm about to catch it until I look closer at the small flying mass and shout "AAAHAHAHA WHAT THE HELLLL?!", trying to dodge the aerodynamic object but it's too late as it flies straight into my gaping mouth.

I immediately cough it out onto the pure white floor,"BLEGH, FUCKING HELL, GROOOOOSS!" I yell out as I try to spit out and pick the fur of the object from my mouth, which turned out to be a gray, dead, vile rat.

"Wow, now that's what I call a deepthroa- AHA!" Karia tries to say but fails miserably and starts to laugh like a mad man.

"What's wrong pal, shocked about the stunning, vile, despicable discovery?!" King Metallica asks with some concern as he quickly walks around the giant white bag towards my bent over self.

I don't respond and instead rush over to our sink and start frantically rinsing my mouth out.

🐀🐀🐀
A while of mouth washing later...
🐀🐀🐀

"Ok, so how does this rat prove anything again?" I finally ask after briefly scolding King Metallica for his terrible aim, after all it was an accident. I also don't want to waste any more time floating next to the Long Sleeved Pirate's giant silver ship who haven't moved yet either.

"Hm? Oh right I almost forgot. Take a closer look at the thing." Karia responds as she briefly looks up at me and returns to using her tablet, leaning it on her bandaged arm and tapping with her good one as she sits on one of the handy built in seats on the side of my boat.

I then bend down to the floor and examine the now slimy rat. I don't notice anything at first, but looking closer through it's fur the skin of the thing is pitch red and even melted in some places, exposing some bone.

"Wait seriously, this is the stuff they used on you?! No way, it probably just has a bad reaction on rats." I say in denial as there's no way the friendly crew would do that, after all they were so nice to me.

"Yep, and nope. There's a reason why they came up with the word "lab rat" you know, and I wouldn't go doubting Hopian science if I were you, which King Metallica luckily had access to." Karia replies as she looks at me with a tired-of-your-shit look.

I then give her the same look when I realize something else. "...You know, her crew probably had at least a thousand people. A fraction of that would be the people who treated you. So, tell me, did you not think about the fact, that I don't know, just maybe, that there was just one or two rogues in the lot?" I ask and Karia finally takes her full attention off of the tablet and seems to open her eyes wide for a second until she returns to her normal face.

"...Well. They are pirates after all, they probably loot people all the time so I guess you can say it's only right that they do too one time... Besides! Adesia was trying to piss me the hell off, she's lucky I didn't bring my crippled self over to her room and beat her ass again." She responds with unease as she looks back down at her tablet.

"What?! You're telling me you told me a big, fat, juicy lie that made me hurt the feelings of my old pals?! HOW DAR-"

"What about your face though?" Karia cooly interferes with a small grin.

King Metallica then runs his silver hand over the puncture wounds of his solid silver face with his white eyes with small black pupils looking off into the distance.

"..." He then reaches into his robe pocket, pulls out a piece of the fake loot he pillaged, and chucks it at Karia's head causing her arms to flail as she almost falls off of the boat.

"Now that she's been punished, where are we going next Seric?" King Metallica asks as he turns back to me, staring at me as I look back at his metal humanoid face. I wonder, how much of him on the inside is human?

"Oh, uh, well I don't know for sure. The whole reason for why I'm traveling with Karia in the first place is to complete these things called trials around the Hopian Territory because of some deal she made with someone named Bersia with her Blessing, "Carry Me On"." I reply, temporarily forgetting about Karia's stupidity since there's no way to 100% know that the entire crew wasn't in on the act.

"Cool, that's certainly a first for me! A grand adventure, I'm just steaming with excitement why don't we head there right now?!" King Metallica asks with enthusiasm and impatience as he curls his fists and starts to shake his arms up and down in front of him like a kid.

I smile a bit and respond, "Sorry to burst your bubble but I don't think so. We've already done one trial and it was pretty intensive, so I don't think jumping the gun and doing the next one while Karia's injured is the best idea. Oh crap, speaking of which are you okay Karia? After all you haven't had any proper treatment for your burns have you?" I ask with concern as I turn to said companion as she puts down her device on the floor and stretches her arm.

"Yep, King Metallica knew where the actual medical supplies were and I rubbed it on them with his help. And no, no events happened during that interaction which involved a bad plot and cameras." Karia says as she looks in my direction, waiting for me to do something while King Metallica picks up the rat and chucks it off of the ship by it's tail.

"Oh, that's good ." I reply in relief with a confused look.

"Haha, why would we be making a story in there Karia?" King Metallica laughs as he looks in anticipation towards Karia along with me.

"Ughhhh, that was comedy gold. I've gotta teach you more things about the world. Although that stuff is hard to find now..." Karia says with a puzzled look on her face.

"Yeah do tell. Anyways, I guess that's that. Where we going Karia?" I ask as I walk not even a foot to the joystick, having the two bags of loot right behind me.

"Well you are right, doing it now would be stupid since I can't even fight properly. I guess what we can do though is scout it out and camp on the small island it's on for a bit until I actually am ready." Karia replies as she leans down and once again picks up her tablet from the floor.

"Yeah that's smart." I say back to her as I sit on another one of the handy pure white built in seats stuck on the inner side of the boat and look off into the ocean opposite to the side of Adesia's ship.

I take a sigh of relief, feeling much more relaxed due to the fact of ending on decent terms with my new friends, as well as having a new super-powered companion.

A/N: And that's that! The Long Sleeved Pirates Arc has come to a conclusion, but a new beginning with a crewmate has just begun!

To be honest I'm really surprised this arc lasted longer than Magthera, although I guess it's because I revealed the meaning of the title of the book in this arc too lol.

I hope you guys consider voting or commenting if you enjoyed, and see you next week!