Hi, guys! My weekend's gonna be full of stuff for me to do, so I'm posting a day early! Hope you don't mind!
xenocanaan - It is very unlikely, unfortunately. It might be fun, though, if Maria was to come across a Pokemon and befriend it, then send its destructive chaos on all the Strawhat's enemies...mwahahahaha...
Guest: *chuckles* Yup, there's a poltergeist. Probably won't be there for very long, though! Hmm...outfits...well, "she will...and she won't." That little statement will be explained later. Like, "not in this arc" later.
Son of Whitebeard - Scary demons indeed. But you haven't seen the skeletons in Maria's closet...
Let's get to the next chapter!
Chapter 62 (or 4) - Thriller Bark's Monsters
Maria's POV
The waves kept rocking the ship, and Zoro had us running around the deck, trying to see if there was anything that we could do to stabilize the ship - and get closer to the shore so that we could find Nami, Usopp, and Chopper.
So far, we weren't having much luck.
"We're drifting away!" Zoro bellowed over the crashing waves. "Do something, stupid!"
"You got any ideas, genius?" Sanji snarked in reply from the helm. Since I was standing nearby and using my phoenix staff to help keep my balance, I noticed that the helm wasn't turning no matter how hard he pulled. "The wheel won't move an inch!"
Zoro and the others came up onto the front deck, joining Sanji and me. Luffy hadn't moved from his position on the figurehead since Franky's joke about the hot tub.
"Even if we used the paddles, those waves are too high," Franky commented, looking around at the sea as he came up.
"Eh. I'm in no big hurry - and I'm still having some fun." Luffy glanced back at the rest of us. "Besides, this'll take us to the island sooner or later."
I couldn't help but wonder a bit at how calm Luffy was. It was like he had seen far worse than this.
Considering what exactly had happened at Enies Lobby...I guess that some kind of storm was really not all that much trouble.
"Oh yeah?" Sanji glared up at our captain. "What about Nami, huh? You forget about her?"
"What is that?"
I turned to look over at Robin in confusion as Luffy turned to look ahead of us. Then I followed her gaze...and frowned a bit.
"Is that a-"
"-spider's web?" Zoro finished, frowning.
Something suddenly caused the ship to rock forward, and I quickly did what I could to adjust how I was standing. Luffy was sent flying off the figurehead and rammed his head into the stand that the helm was on.
"If we keep going like this, then we're going to be trapped," Robin stated with worry.
Franky picked up on that instantly. "Hurry! Use the paddle - quick!"
"It's too late." Robin's voice became grim. "We're already caught."
"That doesn't sound good..."
The ship, which had been slowly been turning as we had been speaking, suddenly rammed into the spider's web we had seen, rear end first. The force of the collision with the sticky, springy stuff caused us to stumble across the deck. I ended up losing my balance and stumbled back a couple steps before I could plant the butt of my phoenix staff on the deck. By that time, my back was nearly touching the figurehead.
"Damnit!" Franky stood upright and turned to glare at the back of the ship. "What now?"
I looked up, and noticed that the web had managed to spread itself across the sails and over the back half of the ship.
"It's not like the ship took any damage, but I doubt that we're going to be able to sail anytime soon," the cyborg commented, frowning. "By the way, I'd hate to see the spider that spun this thing! It's freakin' huge!"
"It could be a whole nest of spiders," I spoke up, remembering what had happened a few times in the past. "Ariados can make webs that are this big...but I think that the strands are normally smaller..."
Something else came to mind, then, and my expression brightened. "And they were usually pretty flammable. I bet I could burn through this and get us free in no time."
"And risk damaging the Sunny?" Franky shook his head at me. "No can do, lil sis. I don't want to risk it."
Well, there goes that idea. I gained something of a pouting expression. "Well, what now, then?"
Franky frowned up at the spider web. "Well, thanks to this thing, we're dead in the water." He paused. "No pun intended."
"There was a pun in that?" I frowned.
"Something's not right about this..." Zoro had a look on his face that clearly said that he didn't like what was going on around us. I couldn't exactly say that I liked it, either.
"Well, it's not like we'd be leaving, anyway." Sanji turned and started down to the main deck while Luffy grabbed the "ghost-hunting gear" that he had brought out earlier. "We have to find Nami - and the others too, I guess. Who's going to stay and guard the ship and who's going to go to the island?"
"I'm going," Luffy stated seriously. A grin appeared on his face moments later. "I want to catch a ghost!"
"And I'm going to find Nami and make sure that you don't get yourself into trouble." Sanji sent Luffy an annoyed look - which the captain promptly ignored.
"I think it would be interesting to explore this island," Robin commented, sounding intrigued. She turned and looked over at me. "What do you think, Maria-san?"
"Wha-me?" I looked at the archeologist in surprise before looking over at the island through the spider web. My mind started working, and a phrase that seemed to be sung went through my head - Should I stay or should I go?
I mean, I'd been to places that were (supposedly) haunted before...but they were only haunted by Ghost-Types. Now, though...there was an invisible cat-thing that had tried to kill my captain and that weird-looking ghost that had poked its head into the galley when we first ended up arriving here.
That made me nervous, but...there was something that was tugging at me, trying to get me to get off the boat and onto the island. Maybe there was something there that could help me with my memories?
"Well...I guess it wouldn't hurt if I went," I finally stated, looking back at Robin.
"I'm coming too," Franky spoke up suddenly. "I want to see if there's something that we can use to get the spider web off the ship - without doing any damage to the Sunny." He sent me a meaningful look, and I shrugged in response.
"All right. That's five lunches coming right up." Sanji disappeared into the galley, leaving the rest of us standing on the deck.
"Hey, Maria - you might want to get something to hold your lunch in." Luffy looked over at me. "And to hold a ghost in, if you find one."
I blinked a couple times. "Well, I guess I could get my satchel...but I don't know how much that'll end up slowing me down."
"Go get it anyway. Sanji makes big lunches." Luffy gave me a wide grin.
"Well...all right, then." I gave a nod, then turned and ran up to the girl's cabin and grabbed my satchel, making sure that I didn't have my books in it. I left my journal and a quill in there, and would have left the room with just those things were it not for the fact that the bags of Berries I had in the room were bugging me.
Yes, I was still harvesting them from the original trees that I had planted that first day out from Water 7. And, not only did they give Berries completely at random - more like every few days rather than every 24 hours - but I was getting a lot more as a result. So I ended up splitting the crops into thirds - some went to Chopper, some went to Sanji, and I kept the rest in some sacks that Franky had let me take from one of the empty storerooms.
I knew that I had some Berries that could help counteract Ghost-Type attacks, and it didn't take me too long to find those. I grabbed about six of the Kasib Berries and stuffed them into a side pocket on my satchel before I tied the sack shut again and slipped out of the girls' quarters.
"There you are, Maria-san!" Sanji was already standing out on the dock with most of the other crew members, and it looked like he was holding a couple boxes in his hands while trying to keep them away from Luffy. "You might want to hurry if you're going to get your lunch!"
I scrambled down the stairs and across the main deck before pausing for a moment at the deck railing. The jump didn't look too bad - not as bad as jumping off the roof of a building in Water 7, at least - so I got up on the railing and jumped off, landing on the wooden pier. Then I made my way over to Sanji and grabbed one of the boxes out of his hands.
"Thanks!" I dropped it into my satchel and closed the pocket before Luffy could get his hands in there. He gained a pouting expression as Sanji put the remaining box in his green backpack.
"Well, we should get going," Sanji remarked. "I'm not about to let Nami stay out there alone for a minute longer. Let's head out."
"Hey, Zoro!" Luffy looked back at the Sunny. "Get down here already!"
"Even if meeting that skeleton was a fluke, the fact that both the Sunny and the Mini Merry got entangled in this web in the exact same spot is pretty damn fishy," Zoro commented from where he stood on the deck. There was a dark tone to his voice that clearly said he didn't like what was going on.
Wait - the Mini Merry is stuck in this, too? They must have noticed that when I was grabbing my stuff. I craned my neck in order to see what exactly where the Mini Merry was, but I didn't see it. Must have been on the other side of the ship, then.
"Someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure that when we entered this place, it's through the front gate, and nowhere else," Zoro continued.
"Hmmm..." I looked up at the sign that was on top of two stone columns at the end of the dock. The words "Thriller Bark" were there in all caps. Certainly looked like a front gate, all right. I've run into instances where I've only been able to enter the front gate...at first. There may be secret passages or something in the area that'll let us move around more quickly after we've taken the main path for a bit.
"It does seem kinda strange, now that he mentions it, though," I commented aloud. "Usually, this kinda thing only happens if we've managed to get in someone's way enough times, and I don't really recognize the vibe of this place."
"Zoro!" Luffy yelled again. "You're gonna miss all the fun!"
"Are you seriously about to walk into a trap that's so damn obvious that even a headless zombie would have the sense to run away from it?" Zoro demanded in a louder voice.
"Pretty much, yeah. It's not like we have anything better to do. Besides, it'll be fun! And if you don't come, then I'm taking you're lunch." Luffy snickered.
"Son of a-" Zoro let out a growl of annoyance. "Fine. If I leave you alone, then I'll have to rescue you later, so I may just save myself the trouble and help you now." With that, he jumped off the ship and landed on the dock next to me.
"All right! Onward!" Luffy turned and started moving across the rotting dock, Zoro following him with an expression of annoyance. I moved after the two of them, rubbing my phoenix staff absently with my thumb.
"Took you long enough, mosshead," Sanji commented.
"Oh, shut up," Zoro responded shortly as he walked past the cook. Sanji fell into step next to the swordsman, and Robin and Franky moved behind me as we walked through the gate and into a corridor of stone that was open to the dark, foggy sky.
I eyed the sky for a moment, then noticed that Zoro and Sanji were starting to move down, so I returned my attention to what was ahead of us.
"Why is there suddenly a staircase leading down?" Sanji asked as we continued forward.
Something about this wasn't going to be fun. The entire island had an air that wasn't fun. Was this the trap that Zoro had suspected about?
"It's the only way in," Luffy pointed out from the head of the group. "Let's just go with it."
We reached the bottom of the stairs, and I felt my shoes crunch against something. I looked down at the ground and froze up for a moment.
"The floor is covered in skeletons," I hissed in surprise.
Luffy snickered. "I wonder if these can poop, too."
Really, Luffy? These skeletons are clearly dead, and...stepping on people's remains like this gives me the chills. Big chills.
I started to move a little more quickly. The sooner we got out of this trench, the better.
A growling sound started ahead of us, and I looked up from the skeletons. I had to move a bit to look around Zoro in order to see what was ahead of us.
"Ruff!" "Ruff!" "Hooooowl!"
...went the three-headed, blue-and-yellow, large bandaged mismatch of a monster in front of us. And it didn't look friendly, either.
"Yum!" Luffy exclaimed.
Wait, what?
The three-headed beastie didn't look like it understood what Luffy had just said, either.
"Check it out," Sanji commented in his usual manner. "It's Cerberus. We're literally on the path to hell right now."
Cerberus? That name sounds kinda familiar...oh, yeah. Guardian of the Underworld...aka Hell. If this is the real deal...then this isn't a good thing.
"Aw, I think it's kinda cute," Robin remarked.
"C-cute?!" I spluttered, looking away from the monster and looking back at the archeologist. "It looks like it got sent through a meat grinder and sewed back together afterwards!"
"Are they a threat?" Franky asked, frowning at Cerberus. "Cause I'm feelin' super."
If it is a threat...I gripped my phoenix staff with both hands.
"Three heads are overkill," Zoro muttered.
"Says the man who carries three swords," I snarked. Zoro sent me a glare in response.
"Wonder what they taste like!" Luffy's tongue was lolling out of his mouth. Of course our captain would be thinking about food at a time like this.
The dog-thing started to look uneasy, and its three tails lowered. A part of me almost wanted to feel sorry for it...but the rest of me wanted to get that thing out of my sight as soon as possible. Pokemon didn't normally look like they had been through that bad of a scrape - and if they did, then I hadn't run into them...yet.
Luffy snickered...then started making short, high noises that I guess was his version of barking. I ended up flinching a bit...but it looked like Cerberus was enjoying this even less than I was.
"More like a three-headed chicken," Zoro commented.
"I guess," I commented, rubbing one of my ears. "Luffy could have found that out in a different way, though."
The dog-monster stopped flinching back from Luffy and let out a growl before all three heads went off: "Ruff! Ruff! Howl!"
"Weird how they got all riled up all of a sudden."
I frowned a bit and looked back and forth between the monster and Zoro. "Do you think they heard the chicken comment?"
The growling got a little louder.
"Maybe one of the heads remembered that they're supposed to be brave?" Sanji suggested.
"That's possible," Robin commented.
Oh, boy...
Zoro started to reach for one of his swords. "Anyway-"
Luffy held a hand in front of Zoro. "Nuh-uh! Dibs!"
"Dibs on Cerberus?" I blinked a couple times while Zoro looked a little uncertain at our captain's statement.
"I'm gonna tame him!" Luffy declared.
Wait...what?
I gave Luffy an incredulous look while Zoro snorted.
"You idiot. You can't tame it - you do know it's not a regular dog, right?" Zoro frowned disapprovingly at the back of Luffy's head.
"How different can it be?" Luffy took off his blue backpack - probably had his food in it - and dropped his ghost hunting gear on the ground next to it before facing Cerberus with his hands on his hips. Then he started forward, holding out a hand. "Come on - shake!"
Cerberus then proceeded to bite down on Luffy's head, outstretched arm, and one of his legs. I facepalmed.
"I'm going to assume that we all saw this coming?" Franky asked dryly.
"Yeah..." I growled around my hand.
Robin giggled.
I heard a patting noise from ahead of us, and I looked up from my hand...only to see that Luffy was patting the center head with his free hand.
"What big strong teeth you have," Luffy said in a voice that clearly said that he was talking down to the monster. "Now, let go of Uncle Luffy's head...that's a good boys...easy does it."
Slowly, Cerberus actually moved away from Luffy, letting our captain go.
"Whoa. I didn't think that was going to work," I commented, blinking a couple times.
"Now SIT!"
I jumped in surprise and let out a yelp when Luffy suddenly slammed the monster into the wall. "What in the Grand Line?!"
"Roll over," Luffy ordered, pointing at the collapsed, clearly stunned dog.
"Well...that just happened," Sanji commented dryly.
Time Break
Somehow, Luffy managed to get the dog-monster-thing back up on its feet, then got up on it for a ride. He offered room for anyone else who wanted a ride, but no one took him up on it, deciding to walk instead.
"The poor thing's body looks pretty beat up," Robin commented from where she walked next to me. "I'm surprised that it can still walk around."
"I wonder what wise ass put this thing together," Sanji remarked from the other side of the dog. "Whoever it was, they couldn't tell the difference between a dog head and a fox head."
I blinked a couple times. "Fox head...?"
"Yeah. The yellow one. It's definitely a fox head."
I frowned as a flash of red came and went in my head. "I'm used to foxes being red, not yellow."
Luffy laughed from where he sat on the dog. "If this is the first creature that we met on the island, I can't wait to see what other stuff we run into."
I eyed the three heads, which were bowed low in what looked like defeat and unhappiness.
"Cerberus seems pretty down in the mouths," Robin noted, following my gaze.
"Come on, Robin - don't pity him." I could see Zoro on the other side of the dog-monster. "You'll just make him feel worse. Just leave him alone already."
Sanji started moving around in front of us as we passed through a gate and into what looked like a dead forest of some kind. I think I had been in a place that looked similar to this before, but I couldn't really place where exactly.
"Can you hear me, Nami-swan?" the cook called out, moving around on the path. "Hello? Where are you, my feisty truffle?!"
"What kind of nickname is that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Robin chuckled.
"Hey! Wait up!" Franky ran up from where he had stopped at the stairs leading up out of the trench-thing. I glanced back as he came up behind Cerberus, then looked back at the path ahead of us...not that there was really all that much to see.
"Okay, Nami! When I saw sweetie, you say here! Sweetie!"
There wasn't an answer to Sanji's call.
"Doesn't look like they're in the area," I commented, referring to the trio that we had lost.
"Normally, I have a decent sense of direction, but I can hardly tell my Strong Right from my Coup de Boo around here," Franky commented.
"Your what?" I looked at the cyborg in confusion for a moment before I remembered what exactly his "Coup de Boo" was.
"With so much fog around here, for all we know, we could be going in circles," Robin noted.
"I hope not." I frowned slightly, remembering something that had happened to me back in Sinnoh. "If only I had a Pokemon that knew Defog on me...then I might be able to do something about this fog."
Zoro gave a grunt from the other side of the dog-monster.
"Hey, Nami!" Sanji made a sound that seemed almost like he was cursing under his breath. "We would have had better luck if Mosshead had just stayed on the boat."
"How is this my fault?!"
"That's what I'd like to know," I remarked in response to Zoro's annoyed yell at the cook.
There was a strange noise ahead of us, and I paused, blinking for a moment, before turning to look for the whatever it was. As soon as I caught sight of it, though, I flinched back out of disgust.
"Eugh." I stuck my tongue out in disgust when I saw the weird-looking face stuck onto a tree and what looked like a crazed, sick unicorn. The tree-monster was pouring what looked like milk into a glass the unicorn was somehow managing to hold, and it was obvious that the two of them had been startled by us because the cup was overflowing.
It was absolutely disgusting and unnerving, seeing those two things. Like with Cerberus, it was like they had just been patched together...or tossed through a meat grinder and patched up rather sloppily afterwards.
No Pokemon - or other creature, for that matter - was meant to look like that. It's not natural, and just seeing those things sent shivers down my spine.
Nobody said anything for a moment...but then Luffy suddenly gave a loud, excited whoop, jumped off Cerberus, and started running after the tree-monster thing, waving his butterfly net around like it was going to be able to catch it. Both of them were yelling things at once, but I couldn't really tell what was being said - mainly because the tree-monster thing was yelling like it was running from death.
"Hey! Get back here! I'm going to make a wish on you, whether you like it or not!"
I turned my head, and shuddered when I saw that Franky was chasing after the unicorn-monster, which looked equally terrified...but wasn't screaming. I don't think that it was even capable of screaming.
"Strong Right!"
"Gum Gum Pistol!"
Franky's and Luffy's fists went flying at the same time, and the chain that connected Franky's right hand to the rest of him was caught in the unicorn's mouth at the same time that Luffy slammed his net over the tree-thing's nose.
"Look what I caught!" the two declared at once.
I stuck out my tongue out in disgust. "How can you two stand to be close to those things?"
"You spoke of ghosts like they were everyday occurrences," Robin pointed out as Franky and Luffy started moving ahead with their captures.
"When it comes to Pokemon, they're a Type - they're not literal ghosts. People just call them that because they act like what we would imagine ghosts to. Creatures that look like those aren't natural. At all."
"Hey, Luffy!" Zoro moved forward. "What do you want to do with these guys?"
"Don't," Sanji growled in warning.
"How about they join my crew?"
"OVERRULED, DUMBASS!"
I facepalmed at the trio's antics and let out a groan. "Luffy...you can't just ask those things to join our crew. They don't look natural."
"You got that right," Sanji grumbled.
Well. That just happened.
Whelp, I'm thinking that all you guys can guess what's gonna happen next. And let me tell you, it wasn't a very fun chapter to write - I like Maria a lot, but the things she's been through...
Eep! Don't wanna give away any spoilers!
Anyway, I'll see you next week with the next chapter!