He slowly got up and looked around, not that he had eyes to see with (skull joke). He noticed he was not in the mirror world with nami, Jimbe and chopper, he was surrounded by darkness, but somehow was able to see himself just fine. Brook decided to stand up and perhaps walk somewhere else. Only as he did, he kept only seeing the black.
"Well this is strange." He thought aloud, a habit he still had from his years of isolation. "Where am I, where are the others, is this a dream?". He would have pinched himself to check but alas he had no skin. As he was beginning to feel uneasy, he noticed a figure in the distance. "Hello" he called out "can you perhaps tell me where I am?"
As he got closer, he was shocked at who he say "Brook?!" Usopp called out running towards the bewildered skeleton "is that you, I must be dreaming." Brook gives usopp a quick hug. "Just when I was beginning to think this was a nightmare.".Usopp pulled away from the hug, "but...this is my dream?" Confusion on his face.
Brook pondered this, "that can't be this is my dream." He told the sniper. Just as they were starting to drift apart in fear, they heard a voice call to them, and there they saw, their friends, Nami,Zoro,Franky, Chopper and Robin waving to them and cheering. "Guys!"the two called ignoring their suspicion instead running towards, embracing the friends they missed dearly.
It was a wonderful moment, where even the more stone faced crew members were smiling wide. Franky, usopp, Chopper and Brook hugged each other while tears streamed down their faces. Robin and Nami were chatting happily asking what the other was up to recently. Zoro watched, before getting pulled into the group hug by Franky, despite protesting loudly to it, causing the crew to laugh. They did notice that they were missing two, and felt the missing presence of their captain and cook a lot.
After their love-fest, the crew took a step back, Robin then gained everyone's attention. "As we're all Wondering, from what I've gathered, we seem to be dreaming, however all of us say we are the ones dreaming, but the question is, whose dream is this?" She eyeballed each straw hat with a critical eye and small smile on her face. Before the crew could answer a strong wind came upon them, it was defending and almost blinding, even Zoro was struggling to guard himself from it's blast. When it died down, the noticed a humongous, monster.
It looked like a butterfly, but morphed into something more horrific. It's wings were tattered and torn having blood stains on its white and black patterns. It's body was pure black with grotesque black ooze coming from it, covered in more blood as well as scars. The head had many horns, it's teeth were sharp, forked tongue hanging out, spitting saliva and blood. Underneath the beast a hooded figure stood.
"Hello Strawhats." The echoey voice said, it was in a hushed tone, but easily heard. The strawhats took defensive stances, taking out weapons, ready for a fight if need be. The figure tilted its head, almost as if to mock the group. "well, there's no need for that, I don't plan to hurt any of you."Not moving from their stances, Zoro stepped forward. "what do you want then?" Zoro asked harshly, his narrowed eyes never leaving the stranger. A cruel smile began to spread on the figures face " well you see, my dear, pet here needs to eat-"
"Sorry bro, but none of us want to be monster food today." Franky cut in. The figure just shook their Head, "it does not want you, it wishes to feast on an easier target, a certain cook of yours should do the trick." The beast gave a shriek as if confirming this fact. "But he isn't here, and even if he was, sanji isn't food!" Chopper yelled back from his kung-fu point, a chorus of agreement followed to the doctors statement.
"Poor naive reindeer." It cooed mocking " It feeds on memories, and his will do nicely." Robin's eyes widened, "then this, isn't a dream." She said letting the gravity of her words sink in with her crew. Their shock was evident on their faces as they looked at Robin. "Th-that's not true, if you can just do that why are we here?" Nami asked confused, panic rising in her chest, despite this she still holds her stance gripping her climatic staff tighter. The figure started to laugh,a cruel, a hissing sound almost.
"You strawhats are a riot, so easy to predict what you want, to put it simply, I'm bored and I want to offer you a deal to entertain me." Their hand raised, causing all the strawhats to tense in anticipation, when a flock of butterflies came towards it and dropped something, before leaving. Holding the object for the confused crew to see, the figure continued. "Hidden in the memories of your friend I intend to feed my beast, is a key. Find it, and I leave you be, simple right.". The crew looked at the figure distrust clearly seen on their faces. "And if we lose you're game?" Robin asked, arms folded over her chest ready to attack at any given moment. The figure let their hand drop the key seemingly disappearing from sight, "then he'll do what he does best and feed my beast.".
At that Usopp, had finally heard Enough. "Like we'd let you do that." He shot an exploding star at the figure, the figures made no attempt at dodging, it nearly passed through them harmlessly before falling behind and exploding on the ground. The crew stood there shocked, Zoro and Robin narrowed their eyes. "I knew something was off, my observation haki wasn't detecting you." Zoro growled out. The crew looks even more visibly shaken, who was this stranger. The figure grins "Do we have a deal?", the strawhats look at each other, knowing what they had to do next. "It would appear we don't have a choice in this." Brook finally spoke up. "Very good, remember the key is in the memories, go through and see if you can save him." As the figure turns to go, usopp interrupted " How will we know we found the key?". The figure paused. "You'll know, know go, Before I change my mind. The strong wind that had blown earlier came back, almost twice as strong. When the winds finally died down, the figure and butterfly monster were gone.
The strawhats breathe a sigh of relief before putting their weapons away. They look at one another, the silence was tangabe till chopper broke it. "What did they mean by the memories?" he asked. Franky raised his sunglasses "Seems pretty vague for a challenge if you ask me.".
"It doesn't matter now, what matters is making sure sanji is ok, I don't know what they meant by memories but we have to" Nami interrupted "she bite her lip worry on her face. Zoro let out a big sigh of what seemed to be disappointment"unfortunately, looks like it's up to us to save shit cook." He crossed his as ready for the challenge to begin. "Yohoho, so cruel Zoro-san" Brook told the young swordsman.
They stood around unsure what they were supposed to be waiting for, "uh, when exactly are we going to start the challenge?" Usopp asked. Just as he said that he got his answer, a blinding white light surrounded them, replacing the previous darkness.
Robin's words "Here we go." We're the last thing they heard before the light overtook them.
