The pirates came looking for Xie Wen far sooner than he had imagined.
Less than two days after they left Fudewi Sky Island, pirate lookouts-or rather, scouts-had already appeared near the Toot Toot Forward, and before long, a large fleet closed in from afar to surround them.
Judging by the pirate flags flying from those ships, although most had never appeared in the manga, they all had considerable reputations on these seas at this point in time. Even the captain of the weakest crew had a bounty of over two hundred million.
In other words, every one of them was at least on the level of a Supernova.
Since Xie Wen's plan had been to lure these pirates to the G-5 Branch and drag Vergo into the mess, he did not have the Toot Toot Forward switch to its Valstrax form. He merely activated its flame jets briefly to break out of their encirclement, then kept sailing ahead with the pirates trailing behind...
Though at the time, he was not sure whether the next island was where the G-5 Branch was located.
Of course, they did not spend the entire journey simply running away. From time to time, they let the restless Jinx Meow and Klee Meow, along with Shirahoshi, who needed practice, fire a few shots at their pursuers. Meowrah occasionally brought out a few new Guardians for testing, too.
That also helped keep the pirates' hostility firmly focused on them, in case anyone clever among them saw through Xie Wen's plan. Whether they intercepted him along the way or slipped away early, either would be a nuisance for him.
There was also another issue...
As the chase continued, more and more pirate ships joined the pursuit. If he did not thin them out first, Vergo might see that