"I never knew I could witness such beauty before my death," tears fell down the sides of his eyes—tears that should have fallen downward, now moving upward as the two plummeted at full force.
"Ah..." Micheal wanted to scream but gritted his teeth, fearing he might bite off his tongue.
He continued to hug Ironbeard's arm, like a sloth holding on to a tree branch.
Ironbeard paid him no heed, his gaze looking upwards.
Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!
High-caliber bullets rained down at them.
The cyber police, dressed in full-body armor suits similar to the Ratnik-3 Combat Exoskeleton Prototype, but more refined.
They looked down at the falling duo, firing bullet after bullet, each skillfully aimed at Ironbeard, none touching Micheal.
"F*CK, don't hit me," Micheal cussed internally, his eyes shut, unwilling to witness the raining bullets above nor the rapidly approaching demise below.
Ironbeard, on the other hand, had his body riddled with holes, yet his eyes remained fierce, his gaze no longer on the police above, but scanning the quickly approaching clouds, seemingly searching for something.
"Where are you, Lucy?" he murmured, and as if on cue, the clouds below began to stir, rising and falling like the waves of the ocean.
"Unusual activities spotted in the clouds." The cyber police halted their rain of assault, gazes directed to the unusual movement of the clouds.
One such cyber police tapped the side of his headgear, the visor glowed, zooming in on the clouds.
Unable to see clearly, he switched its vision to hyperspectral vision, a glitchy image of a ...
"Is that a giant ship?" the police muttered.
"It's the Lucy, get backup now ..." he realized.
"They would get away." The police quickly headed inside; they weren't going to let the notorious Ironbeard escape.
"That's my girl..." Ironbeard grinned, crimson red and an unknown black substance dyeing his teeth.
"Brace yourself, boy," he warned Micheal, not that he could hear with all the wind rushing past his ears.
The clouds parted, and glitching into reality was a giant 17th-century pirate ship, with a touch of the future.
The ship hung in the air, suspended by massive jet propellers thrumming like a whirlwind, stirring the clouds below.
The ship's body was sleek, pristine black metal, polished to a reflective shine that seemed to swallow the sun's brilliance.
The sail rippled, shimmering with each wave, solar fiber one of the many power sources of the giant.
At the prow was a figure, a rusted iron stature of a mermaid crying.
Eyes gouged out. Black substance dripped slowly down to its blossom.
The figure empty eyes stared ahead.
Hollow yet filled with the malevolence of the Ironbeard pirates.
The pirate ship, Lucy, a master of camouflage.
"Hahahaha!"
With a thud, Ironbeard skillfully landed on the deck, his crewmates quickly coming to his aid.
"Cap'n, what in Davy Jones' locker happened?"
"Which scurvy dog done this to ye?!"
"..."
His crewmates, all unique in their own rights, bombarded him with questions upon questions.
"Quiet yer tongue an' hoist the sails this instant, ye lubbers!" He switched to pirate slang, his breath haggard; the bullets were taking their toll.
They quickly rushed toward their posts, Lucy humming with vigor as it set sail, riding the sea of clouds like a ship on the sea.
Thud!!
Out of nowhere, Trijack landed on the deck.
He was not in good shape, even worse off than Ironbeard.
His human side was disfigured, millions of bullet wounds oozing with blood, his arm disfigured, leaving his humerus and a few tendons exposed.
No one needed to ask about the other two, as it was evident they didn't survive.
Trijack, enraged, turned to Ironbeard—not quite—but to Micheal, who still held on to Ironbeard's arm, his body limp.
Though he hadn't suffered direct bullet wounds, some bullets bounced off of Ironbeard, making their way to him—not to mention the wound he had sustained earlier from Ironbeard at the door.
He was lucky; none had hit his vitals, only scraping his body. It seemed the police force knew what they were doing.
They weren't going to kill their whistleblower.
"Cap'n, let me end that scurvy dog" Trijack approached Ironbeard, his eyes glowing with seething rage.
Micheal had caused the death of two of his comrades and even wounded him to this degree.
Tearing off a limb or two wouldn't suffice; even killing him wouldn't be enough.
He wished to torture him, watch him scream in agony till he felt satisfied, yet...
" Don't ye do it — I need 'im!" Ironbeard said weakly, Trijack halting in confusion.
This guy was just a delivery boy—what was so important about him?
He wanted to ask, wanted to act on his rage, but wouldn't risk insubordination for something so trivial.
They were cyberpunks; their lives as short as mayflies, death always a hand's stretch away.
"..." He stood there dumbfounded. He wanted to question his captain, but he knew this wasn't the time.
"Ye take the helm — make sure we lose 'em off our stern. I've gotta do somethin'!" Ironbeard headed to his cabin, his steps slow.
"Aye aye" Trijack dropped his head, his back turned to the captain, his gaze fixed on Micheal.
"I'll fetch ye once the Cap'n's through with ye!"
he stepped, also heading to his cabin for treatment.
The rest of the crewmates knew what to do; they were veterans, after all.
Meanwhile...
The police had settled in their aircraft.
Military planes with delta-style wings, integrated giant jet engines, engineered for speed and maneuvering.
Equipped with their weapons, they set off one after the other, all locked onto the Lucy.
"This isn't a drill. The states of Euryo and Aether are after them. We get them, we get a raise," the commander of the troops exclaimed, the rest cheering in unison, their resolve strengthened, motivated to catch these cyberpunks.
...
Back on the Lucy:
Micheal was strapped to a large mechanical chair, connected to it were numerous giant cables that led to a cylindrical pillar, adorned with neon-lit circuits blinking intermittently.
He lay there unconscious, a neuralink headset on his head.
"Hmm, what's going on?" he muttered, opening his eyes only to meet the blinking, multicolored neon circuits of the headset, quickly recognizing what they were.
"A neuro-transfer headset,"