Chapter 51

Xomniac AN: Sorry for the massive delay, people, this just didn't wanna be written! And hey, look: posted from France! Woot!

Patient AN: Credit to the Ego for the planning of the chapter-long fight. Credit to the Superego for the writing of the chapter-long fight. And… well… I guess I may have helped some, too?

Hornet AN: We apologize for the relatively short length, but we refuse to stretch the chapter, and honestly, I think you'd all prefer getting the chapter ASAP.

My first thought upon waking was 'Owwwwwwwwww…' My second was… non-printable because of the stream of omni-offensive profanity that spewed from my metaphorical mouth, a sliver of it actually managing to claw its way out of my throat. It was only with my third thought that my brain decided to get its shit together and 'helpfully' inform me that I was still alive. My natural response to that, of course, was to stir and attempt to sit up, only to feel a familiar pair of hooves still my movement.

"Easy, easy," Chopper said in a somewhat loud but definitely fear-choked whisper. "I just finished packing and bandaging that wound in your side, I'd rather you not spill your intestines all over the ground… again."

SMASH!

The Spark of Genius cast a fearful glance up and to the side as the sound of something getting smashed somewhere else rang out. "Also, really don't want you inadvertently provoking the shadow-wielding psychopath."

I followed his gaze up to a solid wall of dirt, then further up to a roiling mass of black. Right. Moria. Awakening. And in other news, owwwwww son-of-a-biiiiiiitch! I curled up, trembling from the mother of all gut-burns, and it was several seconds before it subsided enough to crack an eye open at Chopper. "What'd I miss?" I whispered back.

Chopper let out a miserable snort and shook his head as he started working on an injured Rolling Pirate, one that I couldn't help but notice was practically cut to ribbons, and much more importantly, one of a whole hell of a lot of them that were lying around us in the… trench? Yeah, I think it was a trench, earth was ripped up around us but it was still a—

Right, Chopper speaking, focus. Though, there was something odd about the dirt…

"Not much," the reindeer grit out as he worked on patching the allied pirate up. "It's just that, ah… h-he basically made every shadow around us become… tangible at the same time. After that…" He shook his head. "Yeah, I don't know the exact specifics and I doubt anyone could follow it. Just, one second there was absolute chaos and the next the ground was ripped up and Moria was stalking around attacking anyone he could find!"

"And we haven't run yet why, exactly?"

"Because of that."

I followed the doctor's hoof, found he was pointing at the mass of black that extended above the dirt wall's edge, and paled as I realized that it wasn't just writhing black, it was a shadowy and fully mobile thorn hedge, one that would have made even Maleficent herself applaud.

And it was then that I realized something else, something that had been bugging me and made my stomach practically fall out of my ass. The trench was too bright. There was no shadow.

"…that's a damn good reason."

As another thunderous smash sounded out, noticeably further away than the first one, I turned to look at my partner, who was shivering within his shell. "Soundbite?"

"Come out, come out, wherever you are~!"

I shivered at the distinctly unhinged voice that washed over me, rife with sadistic glee. "Ooookay, did not need to hear that."

"Wasn't me…"

You can damn well be sure that I stiffened at that little whisper. "I beg your pardon?"

Soundbite poked his quivering eyestalks out of his shell to give me a panicked look. "IT'S THE SHADOWS… THE SHADOWS THEMSELVES are speaking with him!"

Well, that was a thing. "Okay, so, before I go completely catatonic from totally justified mind-rending terror…" I blinked, realizing I didn't actually know what Moria was doing. "Actually, hang on. What is he doing, exactly?"

Chopper hesitated briefly, but then hung his head with a weary groan. "Well, seeing as your guts aren't in any danger of falling out right this moment and no one else is going to keel over if I don't get to them immediately… it'll be easier if I just show you."

And with that, the Zoan-doctor helped me get to my feet—not an easy feat given how it felt like I had a freaking red-hot rod through my side—and helped me make my way up the slope of our trench. Once at the top, we peeked over the edge and beheld… well, hell.

It's… hard to come up with a better name for it, really. Imagine the war-torn fields of No Man's Land that arose in World War One: barren plains crisscrossed with trenches and blown all to hell and back. What I saw was that cranked to a 100: the trenches were less purposeful structures and more gouges that had been ripped open in the earth, and the eviscerated remains of the long-deceased covered practically every square inch of the scarred ground.

And what better to complete an image of hell than a devil stalking the field of the damned?

It was a little hard to tell what Moria's exact mental state was at the moment, seeing as his back was to me, but going by how his foot was encased in a colossal spiked boot made of shadow that he was using to stomp one of the trenches flat, it wasn't hard to guess the gist. The fact that he was twitching like a tweaker and laughing like a loon was also kinda a hint.

Aaaand then there was the song:

"All the little bugs Hiding in their holes~ Should come out to play!" Moria crooned in the wispy Voice of the Legion he'd adopted, before suddenly snarling as he tripled the rate at which he was smashing his shadow-encased foot into the ground. "OR ELSE I'LL TURN YOU ALL TO PASTE AND BE DONE WITH YOU!"

I gurgled miserably under my breath at the display of literally insane violence. "And nobody's tried to put him down yet why, exactly?"

"Weeeell…" Chopper dragged out with a grimace. "First off…"

"SKREEEEEOOOOONK!"

Chopper was cut off by a very sudden and familiar roar splitting the air, prompting both us and Moria to snap our heads around.

Turns out that either Chopper was an even better surgeon than we thought or Franky was better with his designs, but either way the end result was the same: A fire-belching robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex that was back on its taloned feet, barreling towards Moria like a runaway sea train.

CHOMP!

And that then proceeded to sink its fangs into Moria's neck like a rabid Sea King.

For an intense and… somewhat confusing minute, I felt hope at the sight of a fellow… human? Let's go with 'sapient' being, being devoured by the king of all lizards.

"Useless…" Soundbite whispered in terror.

And then that hope was cruelly extinguished by 'Moria's' pitch-black head suddenly rotating a full 180 degrees to unveil the rabidly-grinning face of a Doppleman, which let loose an ethereal cackle as it grabbed the instantly panicked cyber-dino's throat and held it in place.

"He keeps doing that," Chopper gulped, shivering in place. "And then… there's the others."

Before I could question what he meant by 'others', I was answered by two other shadow-men rising from the shade around the dino-borg's feet. The trio of umbral marauders all howled with maddened glee and raised their unnaturally taloned hands. And then…

"SKREEOOOOORRRRGghgghhhhr…."

"KISHISHISHISHISHI!"

"Oh, fucking hell!" Gagging, I ducked my head back into the trench, fighting to keep my bile in check. I'd heard the words 'ripped limb from limb' plenty of times over the years, but no way did I ever expect to actually see it in action! "How the hell is he doing that?!"

"A complete psychotic break for starters, but I'm fairly certain the fact that he was almost certainly a sociopath of the highest order to begin with doesn't help," Chopper droned in a dead voice muffled by the dirt he'd buried his face in.

"No, I mean literally!" I hissed frantically. "Moria only ever showed the ability to produce a single Doppleman out of his own shadow! Even if he could make more than one, they'd have to be smaller from division of resources! How does he have more than one of that thing that are at full size!?"

"Devil Fruits are bullshit, Awakened Devil Fruits make mere bullshit their bitch?" Soundbite replied in my voice.

"What are you—ah," I finished lamely as I recalled exactly how this whole shitshow had started. "You're… certain he—?"

"Beyond the MACRO-UMBRAKINESIS HE'S SLINGING, YOU MEAN?" my partner in slime snarked. He then shuddered and lowered his eyestalks. "I… I heard it happen. And lemme tell you, ON TOP OF WHAT WE ALREADY DID TO HIM?"

"Come out, little buggy-bugs!" Moria's voice floated through the air. "COME OUT SO THAT I CAN RIP YOUR SKIN OFF WITH MY FINGERS!"

Soundbite shivered in terror. "In case it isn't obvious, he's gone chair-leg savaging, carpet gnawing, baying-at-the-moon bonkers."

"Fucking…" I groaned, dragging my hand down my face. That done, I shoved my mind into gear. "Alright, first things first: roll call, who's still conscious and who's down for the count?"

"Vivi, Carue, Merry, the TDWS, and most of Lola's crew all went down with you in the opening attack," Chopper answered with a grimace. "I treated them first, but they already took too much damage in the fights before this; they won't be waking up anytime soon. Conis got hit pretty hard, too; I'm pretty sure that Su's the only thing keeping her awake at this point."

"Franky has plenty of fight left, but he's out of cola," Soundbite picked up. "Lassoo and Funkfreed are playing dead in their weapon forms at different spots, which is the only THING THEY CAN DO SEEING AS THEY'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE KILLING FIELD!"

"The rest of us are ready to fight," Robin's voice came in softly. "Unfortunately, however, everyone aside from Usopp and myself are dealing with varying degrees of weariness from the fights up until this point, especially Luffy, Zoro, and Nami."

I grimaced miserably as I ran the numbers. That was half of our crew out of commission, and while we still had the Monster Trio and Boss, it did a fat lot of good for us when Moria had a seriousface killzone going on around him.

Still, priorities. "Alright… not necessarily good, but it's better than nobody…" I sighed heavily, flinching at the sound of Moria smashing another trench flat. "Next, before we do jack—!"

"Hmm… what's this~?"

I froze as Moria suddenly spoke up, a distinct tone of menace undercutting his otherwise serene (if insane) query.

"None of the bugs want to come out and play? Well, if that's how it is…"

A slight rustling noise drew my attention, and my gut froze when I noticed the thorn hedge keeping us penned in beginning to shift.

"I'LL JUST SQUASH YOU FLAT RIGHT NOW!"

"We need to move, now!" Not waiting for a response, I grabbed Chopper and began sprinting down the trench. "Before he floods the trenches with thorns and turns us all into slurry!"

"Wait, Cross, if I move these guys—"

The reindeer-man cut himself off with a choked gurgle when the tip of a thorny vine began to poke through the soil of one of the trench walls.

"That is a great plan and I will get right on it!" Chopper yelped, suddenly shifting into Heavy Point. "HEY, MORIA, HEADS UP!" Reaching into his pouch, he grabbed and flung a vial at the rabid Warlord. "CHERRY BLOSSOM!"

A glance over the edge showed Moria turning a bloodshot glare on the vial. "Pest," he rumbled dismissively, a Doppleman popping up to swat the glass—

FWOOSH!

"GWAH!"

Only to yelp in shock when he and a lot of the field was suddenly consumed by a pink haze.

"HAZE!" Chopper concluded victoriously, standing proud for a second. After that second, he promptly shrank back down and shot me a frantic look. "Alright, he's distracted. Now what do we do!? We're still trapped!"

"Uh…" I erred uncertainly as I drew a raging blank. Damn it, I must have been woozier than I thought; I usually only got bitten in the ass on the second step ahead, not the first!

"THE MANOR!"

"Wha—?" I jumped when Soundbite suddenly barked.

"EVERYONE INTO THE MANOR!" he ordered. "IT'S A TOTAL MAZE IN THERE! WITH ANY LUCK, WE CAN LOSE him in the corridors!"

"But won't we get pretty lost, too?" Luffy pointed out.

"I knew it, it IS the apocalypse!" Usopp sobbed miserably.

"JUST TRUST ME, DAMN IT! I know what I'm doing!"

"Alright, good enough for me! Come on guys, let's do what he says!"

"I really wish you'd stop pinballing and make up your mind about whether or not the world is ending, Luffy…" Nami groaned wearily.

"Enough, let's just go before Moria stops bothering to aim!" I cut in.

"But what about everyone who's hurt!?" Chopper demanded, casting a desperate gaze over his patients.

"We leave them, and they'll be fine!" I hastily added when Chopper's eyes flashed blue. "Because Moria's looking for a fight, he wants live targets! So long as he knows the 'bugs' are in his manor, he'll ignore everyone else to focus on us, alright?"

The cyan faded, but the way Chopper was biting his lip made it clear that he was still uncomfortable with the plan. Nonetheless, he ran with me as I made a beeline through the fog, stumbling over corpses and writhing shadows as I headed for the haunted mansion. I detoured just enough to follow Soundbite's directions to where Lassoo and Funkfreed lay, strapping them on my back as I ran. As a result, I fell far behind Chopper and the rest of the crew, leaving none of them in sight when I crossed the mansion's threshold.

"And nine… ten… TWELVE… and the rest of the Rolling Pirates arrrrre CLEAR! NOW, SOMEONE TAKE A POTSHOT TO LURE HIM TO US!" Soundbite barked.

"We can't see anything through this fog!" came several voices. A pause…

"…This is the first time in my life that I'm resenting being such a good marksman," Usopp moaned. "Alright, alright… Special Attack: NOVA STAR!"

FWA-BANG! A blast of insanely bright light, coupled with an ear-shattering explosion of noise, penetrated the pink haze.

"GYAGH!" Moria howled irately, his silhouette flailing about. "YOU MISERABLE BASTARDS! I'LL RIP YOUR SPINES OUT THROUGH YOUR—!"

Suddenly, the threat was cut short, Soundbite making a face. "I LIKE PROFANITY AS MUCH AS THE NEXT GUY, BUT even I have my limits," he deadpanned. "And by the way, doesn't that attack literally TRANSLATE TO 'STAR STAR'?"

"LESS SNARK, MORE STRATEGY!" Usopp shot back. "We need to figure out some way to finish him, before—!"

"So, infesting my humble abode, are you?" I came to a screeching halt as Moria's voice suddenly rolled over me like a wave of tar. "Well, if you want to play… THEN LET'S PLAY!"

I twitched as the Warlord's voice suddenly took on an unmistakably homicidal tone. "Uh… are there suddenly more of him?"

"By my count?" Soundbite replied flatly. "About a dozen more TO BE SPECIFIC, ALL PURE SHADOW."

"FEE FI FO FUM!" the chorus of the deranged cackled. "READY OR NOT, YOU'RE ALL DEAD!"

"I hate ruined rhymes," someone muttered.

"I hate the fact that even though I'd already resigned myself to an odd death the second I joined this crew, this tops everything I could have possibly imagined," Nami deadpanned.

Before anyone could pitch in with more snark, Soundbite suddenly barked "EVERYONE, DUCK!" I didn't question it, immediately throwing myself to the floor.

SMASH!

And a good fucking thing, too, as I felt something ruffle my hair before smashing into the other wall of the dining room. I chanced a glance up, catching a glimpse of a spiral spear the size of a large tree sitting on a pile of shattered wood and plaster that promptly unfolded into one of the Doppelmen, which then proceeded to turn around and split in half at its too-too wide mouOH FUCK ME!

"NOPE," I summarized, promptly spinning on my heel and running like—oh, I'm sorry, I mean because hell was right on my ass. And going by the plethora of screams I could hear echoing through the halls of the manor, I wasn't the only one being chased.

After sprinting a dozen or so meters down the hallway, I caught sight of an upcoming intersection. I tried to decide on which path to take—

"HANG A LEFT and then duck behind the SUIT OF ARMOR!"

When my partner's hasty hiss directed me to a side of the passage I was currently traveling. I followed his instructions, and the wall proceeded to—why was I even surprised? Of course the haunted mansion had secret passageways built into it for normal people, not just the spider-mice. I ducked inside and closed the 'door' behind me, leaning against it with my heart pounding in my chest as I awaited either my salvation or my inevitable demise.

Thankfully, the continued shaking of the ground from the Doppelman's stomps indicated that the umbral homunculus had passed me by and that I was safe for however long I could keep dodging it.

"That was too close, thanks for that, Soundbite," I sighed in relief, before affixing my partner with a confused look. "But… how did you do that exactly?"

"Ah, t-that's right…" Conis bit out, Soundbite's bleary look communicating her effort to stay conscious. "Weren't you… having a hard time mapping out the manor? Because of… uh…"

"Because of the zombies being so damned silent, right?!" Su prompted, no small amount of desperation in her voice.

"Y-Yes, that…"

"New move of mine I JUST WORKED OUT," Soundbite informed us tightly, his expression one of pure concentration. "BY BOUNCING SOUNDS OFF OF OBJECTS, I CAN GET A GOODLY MAP OF MY SURROUNDINGS. Trying to ping the whole of my radius wouldn't fly, but I can manage for just the manor."

"Gastro-Sonar, got it," I nodded in understanding, before frowning as a thought struck me. "But… wait, why are you only using this now? Why not before?"

"Before, I could only THROW MY VOICE SOMEWHERE AND THAT WAS THAT. BUT NOW, I CAN TELL WHERE I CAN AND CAN'T raise a racket and build a map based off of that—!"

"—thanks to your Awakening!" I divined before scowling acridly. "Okay, seriously!? Soundbite, if this is what Awakened Devil Fruits can do, why the hell didn't you do anything like this at Enies Lobby?!"

"BECAUSE I WAS HALF-DEAD IN MY SHELL THEN, AND I AIN'T FEELING SO HOT NOW EITHER!" my snail snapped back with just as much venom. "DO YOU KNOW MUCH energy it takes to piledrive reality?! I'VE TRIED PRACTICING MY ABILITIES BEFORE, AND EVERY TIME IT ALMOST WIPES ME OUT IN TWO MINUTES!"

I winced as the sound of splintering wood and shattering rock echoed throughout the manse, and promptly used it to rally my indignation. "Doesn't seem to be a problem for him!"

"Some 'God of Noise' you are when you're the only one on equal ground with Moria and you're as helpless as the rest of us!" Su barked furiously, though I think a load of her temper came from the way Conis was groaning.

I jumped enough that I actually fell down as what sounded very much like a freaking sonic boom split the air. I glanced at my shoulder intent on asking about it, only to immediately come to the correct conclusion. Scarlet skin instead of gray and a more ferocious expression than any snail had the right to have on their face? It wasn't hard to figure out that I had just heard Soundbite's composure snap. And then he exploded in a rant.

"Equal grounds?! EQUAL GROUNDS?! I A̴M̕ A ͞F̛R҉EA͘K͢I̷N̸G ̢SN͢ĄIL! ḐO ̨YOU ͏REAĹLY̸ THI̧N̴Ḱ I ́H͜AV̶E̕N'T BE̛EŃ TŖYÍNG̕ ̸T͜O̵ CHA͞N̨N͜EL M͘Y ͢POWER͠S ͞ḾORE̷ ͜AF͠T̛ER I ͘AWAK̨E͘N̷ED?!̨ ̨AFTE̡R͜ ҉C̢ROSS ̕G͏O͞T ͝S͝CAR͏RÈD F̡OR ͜LI̕FE A̢GAI̛N͏ M̸̢̛Y ́B̴̵Ó͠DY̨̕'̵S̨ ̨̛JÚS̵̡T͘ ̨̕N̶̶͝O̵T̡ ͟B̀͜͜U̶̕͡Į̸̡L̢T̸̷ T͞O͞ ̵C̢̧͡H͘̕͜AN҉̛̀Ń̀̀EL͜͢ ̕T̴͢H̵͏ÀT ̧̧M͝U͏C͟H͡ E̕NE̕R̶̡G͜͏͏Ỳ͡͞ Ą͡T͢ O̡͡Ǹ͜C͠͞Ę!́ MY LIM͟I̧TS͏ ͟GR̴O҉W ͏THE͠ M̸ORE ͞I̡ PR͜A҉C̛TIC̴E͢,̕ ͡B̛U͡T̛ T̵HE̕Y'̧RE̴ ͡S͠TIL̴L̛ ̸LOW͢!҉"

"E-Even Awakened?" Chopper asked hesitantly, obviously as off-kilter as I was from my partner's sudden outburst.

"E̶SPE̶CIALLY ͞AW҉AKE̷NE҉D̨! ͜IT'S͜ ̛GO̢D-̧TIE͟R ŔEA̡LI̵T̶Y W͏A̸RṔING,̵ and҉ y̕ou ̀cąn't ͡us͏e̶ ̷t͜h̶a͠t͟ wi͏thou̸t ͟GOD̷-TĮE͝R EN̷ERGY!" Soundbite fired back, turning his gaze in Moria's general direction. "EVEN MORIA IS PUSHING IT, DOING THIS MUCH RIGHT AFTER HE AWAKENED! He might be hopped up on rage and adrenaline, but take it from me: that shit doesn't last forever! EVEN IF I HAD TEN TIMES MY ENERGY, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO USE THIS MUCH POWER FOR MORE THAN TEN MINUTES BEFORE—"

Soundbite's tirade abruptly ceased, the rage on his face fading as both his eyes and mine widened in realization.

"Before burnout," we breathed in realization.

I promptly broke out in a massive grin as I high-eyed my partner-in-slime. "And that is why we stick together!"

"That and you wipe my ass!"

"W-W-W-Wait, let me see if I've got this right…" Usopp stammered hopefully. "S-S-S-So w-we don't need to beat him? We just need to outl-l-last him?"

"Bingo," I confirmed. "He can only last so long the way he is, and with his sanity shot he won't see his crash coming until it whacks him upside the head. All we have to do is wait for his energy levels to flatline—!"

"WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU BASTARDS!?"

I flinched as the manor shook around us from the force of the bellow, a worrying amount of dust falling on my head and prompting me to start scrambling down the cranny we were stuffed into.

"…which could take awhile, during which time he could still find us all and grind us into paste, so I think we'd better burn the candle at both ends by giving him a push," I continued. "In pursuit of that goal, our first order of business is to figure out what exactly Moria can do now. Right off the bat, the most obvious thing is that he's not just capable of controlling his own shadow anymore, but others around him."

"Well, if it's any comfort, I don't think he can control our shadows!" Brook commented, with at least a hint of positivity. "He's passed me close by once or twice, but he hasn't taken the opportunity to parade me out and torture me for his amusement." Above us, Moria let loose another deranged cackle. "And I don't think he's quite mad enough to willingly pass up that opportunity."

I nodded in agreement. "Makes sense. He always needed a big pair of scissors and a particularly bright light to steal someone's shadow, he couldn't just take it without effort, so controlling them must still be out of his wheelhouse even now."

"But wait…" Nami interjected. "Shouldn't he still be able to tell where we are from the places he can't control, like with Soundbite's sonar?"

"DOUBT IT," Soundbite interjected. "HIS RANGE JUST SKYROCKETED TO WAY BEYOND what he normally operates with. It'd be like trying to pick a half-dozen specific dots out of AN ABSTRACT PAINTING.Trust me, learning how to handle that much awareness isn't something you do fast, EVEN WITH A CLEAR HEAD. JUST LOOK AT ME: I've had a mile- long range for months now, and I still miss things."

"Still, I assume we're not going to just push our luck and stay where we are?" Sanji asked dryly.

"If you've been sitting still like an idiot this whole time, then you deserve whatever comes to you, swirly," Zoro snorted.

"…Note to self: come up with a technique that imitates a meat grinder after we're out of this mess," Sanji grumbled.

"Ugh. Those two morons aside, what's the strategy here, Cross?" Nami asked. "Waiting him out is suicide, but so is confronting him head-on, and it's going to be next to impossible to pull a sneak attack if the shadows literally have eyes and ears."

"Not as hard as you'd think, actually…"

"Robin?" I queried.

"I think that Moria has less control over the shadows than we previously assumed," our archaeologist clarified. "He's consciously controlling the shadows he's immediately aware of, certainly, but when he's not paying attention, I believe his powers are tapping into his subconscious."

I blinked in confusion. "The hell? What led you to that—?"

I feel like I should have been used to having my question answered before I finished asking it by now. Maybe I was overthinking… but then again, how the hell could I have expected the secret passageway I was in to let out into a crowd of shades?

To be specific, I found myself standing dumbstruck in a lightly bustling crowd of effigies made of shadow, half-people as corporeal as wisps of smoke. An experimental whiff of my hand minimally disrupted one, but it re-coalesced just as swiftly without even a hint of acknowledgment.

I shuddered, pulling back my hand. "I retract the question."

"Why the hell AM I GETTING AN ADDAMS FAMILY REUNION VIBE?" Soundbite swallowed nervously.

"Greetings, dearest brother."

"GAH!" Soundbite and I yelped in sync, nearing jumping out of our respective shell and skin as we wheeled around to face… Robin, reclining on an overstuffed armchair, swirling a goblet of champagne!?

"I see you've walked into my parlor," she smirked.

"Withdrawn. TOTALLY WITHDRAWN," Soundbite shivered.

I spared a moment to nod in agreement before casting a look at Robin's drink. "Tell me, creepiest sister, do you really think it's wise to be drinking in this situation?"

"Considering how I'm fairly certain I'm down three fingers for the rest of the fight?" she remarked, holding up the hand not holding the goblet and displaying a trio of bandaged and bloodied digits.

I winced sympathetically. "Carry on."

"…I'm going to get started on that meat grinder technique now, actually," Sanji said, his voice as calm as a fresh, unmarked minefield.

"Duly noted," Lola grunted in understanding. "But back to the matter at hand, this helps us how, exactly?"

"Well, I, uh—Eh?" My stream-of-consciousness brainstorming was strangled in its crib by a sudden shuffling of motion. Turning around, I was treated to the sight of the umbral assembly parting clean down the middle. "What the heck?"

"Well, now," Robin mused, standing from her seat to peer over the crowd. "It would appear that we have a guest of honor."

"Do we, now…?" I wondered. Curious, I tentatively edged my way through the crowd, passing through several shades before finally making it into the cleared path. Indeed, there was a procession marching down the aisle, with one figure in particular surrounded by others.

A… familiar figure…

A familiar figure with an unmistakable smile!

I watched, dumbstruck, as the smiling shadow was led past me. "Holy… that's… that's Gold Roger."

"What?!" Robin reeled in surprise.

"QUE!?" Soundbite concurred.

"WHAT!?" piped up… preeeetty much everyone else.

"THE PIRATE KING?! AAAAWESOOOOME!" Luffy exclaimed. "WHERE IS HE? WHERE ARE YOU?! I WANNA MEET HIM, I WANNA MEET HIM!"

"Ah, no no!" I hastily clarified. "Not the real Roger, just… a copy, an imitation, a fake that the shadows are drawing from Moria's memory."

"How the actual… wasn't Roger before Moria's time?" Franky asked.

"For the most part, yeah…" I nodded slowly. "Moria never actually met Roger, but he was present for his last day alive."

"Interesting…" Robin cupped her chin thoughtfully. "So we're standing in the middle of a shadow theatre that's recreating Moria's memory of Gold Roger's Execution…"

"His powers must have been able to pick it out of his head at random because of how broken his psyche is, and I doubt that this is the only scene like it that's going on at the moment," I added, tacking on a sympathetic wince as a thought occurred to me. "Eesh, with how his brain is right now, I bet if he walked in on one of these displays, he wouldn't be able… to…"

I trailed off as my synapses started to fire on overdrive.

"Your stunned silence is either very reassuring or an indicator of doom, Cross. Mind doing us all a favor by not leaving us in suspense?" Boss demanded.

"Oh, sure, kill my coping mechanism," I scoffed before smirking. "But fine. I just came up with a plan. Just two questions first. Franky, have you refilled yet?"

"Soundbite led me to the kitchen as soon as we got to the manor, Cross."

"Just making sure. Other question: does anyone have any objections to preying on a mentally infirm person's trauma?"

The responses ran the gamut from "No,", "Nah," and "Nope," to "Fuck this bastard but good."

I steepled my fingers with a malevolent grin. "Excellent."

BOOM!

We all glanced up nervously as the room suddenly shook, dust falling from the ceiling.

"Might want to RUSH IT, CROSS. Moria's tired enough of looking for things that move THAT NOW HE'S ATTACKING THINGS THAT DON'T."

"Rushing," I confirmed with a wince. "Here's what we'll do…"

-o-

Gecko Moria, Warlord of the Sea and currently mad as a hatter, snarled and muttered like a scorned ex-boyfriend, his berserk but widespread awareness amplifying his senses and keeping his search for someone, anyone he could attack. Unfortunately for him, nothing was forthcoming. The only bodies he came across were the purified corpses of his zombie army, which did very little to help his mentality, his already frayed sanity unraveling at a pace that would have terrified most telepaths.

Lashing out at another wall, punching a Doppelman-shaped hole through it like a macabre cartoon, his frustration made itself known in an enraged roar.

"Where the unholy Aesir ARE THOSE PESTS?!"

Before his rant could pick up speed, however, a flash of movement in the corner of Moria's bloodshot vision caught his attention. Grinning malevolently and moving with a swiftness his mass didn't do a thing to belie, he spun around, swung up a shade-wreathed arm—!

"CAPTAIN! HELP!"

And froze when a voice echoed from somewhere far off. It came to him loud and… well alright, the voice wasn't that clear, but… through the haze of his rage, he thought it sounded familiar.

"Ơ̕̕H̶̴͜ ̷G̵͝O҉́͠D̢̕ ̛̛́͝N̛Ơ̧̧͜͠!̴̛͘͟?" he called out, slowly and hesitantly turning towards the voice. "Ơ̕̕H̶̴͜ ̷G̵͝O҉́͠D̢̕ ̛̛́͝N̛Ơ̧̧͜͠!̴̛͘͟,is… is that you?"

"C-CAPTAIN!" the voice wailed, becoming clearer and clearer with every word. "Y-YOU HAVE TO SAVE US CAPTAIN! H-HE'S TOO STRONG! WE'RE BEING—AGH!"

"NO!" Moria cried desperately as the unmistakable voice of Ơ̕̕H̶̴͜ ̷G̵͝O҉́͠D̢̕ ̛̛́͝N̛Ơ̧̧͜͠!̴̛͘͟, his navigator, cried out in agony. "Nonono, this can't be happening… hang on, Ơ̕̕H̶̴͜ ̷G̵͝O҉́͠D̢̕ ̛̛́͝N̛Ơ̧̧͜͠!̴̛͘͟! I'm on my way!"

All thoughts of infamous rookies/monsters/beasts and purified zombies/army/comrades fled his mind as he rushed down the halls of the manor, his subconscious plunging him into the nightmare he had never awakened from… and yet, his eyes refused to close, even as they piped reminders of that tragedy straight to his brain. There on one side as he ran… a group of tatters that bore his cook ̨͝H̷̵͏҉E̵̢̧͢L̷̀̀͏̶Ṕ̵̷̧͢ ̴̷́͡M̸̷̵̢͡É̶̶!͢͡'s symbol. Over there, the shattered remains of a familiar helmet and stave, which ̶̧́H҉͏E̕͡҉̢͢'̛͘͜͝͞S̷̨̡͘͏ ̷́͢͝K̶̴̵̡͠I̴̢͠͞Ļ̷̷̷ĻI̢͜͡͝͡N̵̢Ģ̶ ̴̧͞Ù͢͏҉S̢̧!͘͏̀̕͡ would never have parted with, unless he wa—-! And those swords… those giant swords, shattered and strewn about like trash, they could only belong to ͟M̷̨̛̕o̸̡͜͠m̴̛͟͝m̨̛̕ỳ̷̕̕.̡̡…̀m͢҉ờ̵̧́ḿ̕͡͡͝m̡͢͡͞y͏̨̡̕͜.̴̴̴̛…, one of his strongest fighters. But if all these precious items were here, then… then…

"No… my precious crew… my precious crew…" Moria breathed, tears of rage and agony trickling from his eyes, even as he moved even faster towards the one he knew/hoped/prayed was yet alive.

Time lost all meaning as he ran for what felt like hours/days/years, and the world blurred into a dull obscurity around him. The terrified captain sucked in massive gulps of air as panic sank its claws into his heart, the frigid air stabbing into his lungs like a knife. It was cold, so cold, he could barely feel anything at all… save for the blood.

Moria choked out a horrified gasp as he waded forwards, the putrid liquid sticking to his feet. Blood, blood everywhere, a lake, an ocean, extending as far as he could see. There was no horizon, for the crimson of the setting sun melded perfectly with the soiled earth. The only thing interrupting the liquid death/life/death, proving that there was actually ground beneath it… were the physical remains. Piles of bodies, dozens of them, each higher than the last and each mangled worse than the one before. Crushed, ripped apart, decapitated, slaughtered… the only thing that couldn't be found in this hellscape was the merest sliver of mercy.

"Cap…tain…"

But in spite of all the death, there was still one fragment of life remaining. A single mangled hand, belonging to a single mangled body, shakily reaching out to grasp at something, anything.

"No!" Moria gasped, falling to his knees and grabbing the survivor's hand. That voice, their face… he could barely believe the state his first mate was in. "No, nonono… C̛̛̛̀͡a̸͠p͞.͞.҉̛́.̵͘t̛͘͠͝à̷̛̛ì̴̡n̕͢͢.̶͟…͜w͏h̸̨́y҉̧.͏̴͘҉.̢̕͝.̸̸̡̕?̶̀͞͞͠, C̛̛̛̀͡a̸͠p͞.͞.҉̛́.̵͘t̛͘͠͝à̷̛̛ì̴̡n̕͢͢.̶͟…͜w͏h̸̨́y҉̧.͏̴͘҉.̢̕͝.̸̸̡̕?̶̀͞͞͠, stay with me! Y-You can't—! E-Everyone else is… y-y-you can't—!"

"Cap… tain…" C̛̛̛̀͡a̸͠p͞.͞.҉̛́.̵͘t̛͘͠͝à̷̛̛ì̴̡n̕͢͢.̶͟…͜w͏h̸̨́y҉̧.͏̴͘҉.̢̕͝.̸̸̡̕?̶̀͞͞͠ panted, blank eyes staring past Moria. "You… have… to run… he's… coming…"

"Who?!" Moria demanded desperately, shaking his first mate as much as he dared. "Who's coming? Who did this to you? W-Who did this to my crew!?"

"ME."

Moria froze as the world suddenly fell dark. But not because of the sun completing its descent. Rather, darkness fell because everything was shrouded in the deepest, most tar-like shadow Moria had ever seen.

Slowly, so slowly, the pirate turned his shaking head skyward… and beheld a mountain, a devil, THE Devil, silhouetted against the crimson expanses of heaven.

In the face of such might, what else could Moria do but shiver and tremble in terror, gasping for air. "Ah… a-ah…"

"HM?" the Devil's head shifted slightly, as though it had only just now taken notice of him. "OH, A LITTLE BUG CRAWLING IN THE MUD." The devil shifted, and Moria's world was engulfed by a hand. "BETTER CRUSH IT."

That was all Moria's shattered mind could handle. With a shriek of terror, the shell of a pirate turned and made to run as fast as he could, scrambling on the slick ground—!

"NOW!" BANG!

"GAH!" Said shell then howled and threw his hands up in agony when the world suddenly exploded into pure light and heat and PAIN!

-o-

Time on target, a concept Conis had told us about once while maintaining her arsenal. Basically, it was firing a barrage of ranged attacks of different types in such a way that they all hit at once. From what she'd described, it was something that usually took a lot of practice.

As it turns out, blind desperation worked in a pinch, as evidenced by the slew of attacks that pierced the air at once. To summarize, the horde consisted of…

"LIGHTNING BOLT TEMPO!"

A tangle of crackling electrical tendrils;

"BURN BAZOOKA!"

A pillar of hyper-heated and iridescent air;

"GASTRO-CANI COMBO: BASS MORTAR!"

A second pillar of hyper-heated air, only this one was surrounded by a shimmer of dangerously vibrating air.

"108-CALIBER PHOENIX!"

A wave of razor-keen air.

"ULTRA SPECIAL ATTACK: FLOCKING FIREBIRD STAR!"

And finally, a half-dozen blazing bird-shaped infernos.

That half the attacks were fire-based helped, too. In any case, every one of them struck Moria clean in the middle of his face, eliciting a howl of pain and rage liberally tinged with fear and, more importantly, sending the Warlord staggering back, and resulting in his teetering on the very edge of Freezer 900's cavernous interior.

Unfortunately, Moria chose then to show just why he'd been selected to be a Warlord by exhibiting enough wherewithal to hold his balance when he hit the freezer's railing, in spite of the clear agony written on his features. Still, that was something that could easily be rectified.

"Robin!" I ordered hastily.

"Cien Fleur!" Robin exclaimed, crossing her arms.

Arms sprouted like ivy all around Moria, grabbing at the pale bastard's body and doing their best to either push or pull him off the edge of the abyss. Unfortunately, the instant the hands made contact with Moria, everything once again went to pot.

"RAAAAAAAAGH!" Namely, he appeared to snap for a second time if that was possible, throwing his head back and howling to the heavens as the shadows exploded in a torrent of jet-black madness.

"DODGE!" Soundbite warned me.

"Sonnuva—!" I only just managed to duck under a pillar of shadow that came way too close to knocking my block off for comfort—!

"GAH!" "AGH!" "GRGH!"

But apparently they came even closer for several others.

I spun around in panic, watching with naked horror as several of our crewmates and allies were batted around like rodents; Usopp was slammed into the ceiling and spit up a mouthful of blood, Conis was laid out flat by a knock to her temple that had Su frantically shaking her shoulder, and the Rolling Pirates that were still with us were bowled over by a stampede of shade.

But the worst part was catching sight of what looked for all the world like a many-fingered claw lancing at a Brain-Point Chopper, whose mind had stalled in panic.

"Shell Body: Hermit Sta—GAH!"

And then, just like that, Boss was standing before Chopper, his arms spread wide defensively… and the spears punching through his shell.

"T-To protect your comrades…" the dugong coughed out, blood spurting around his gritted teeth. "Even at the cost of your own body… that… is the greatest… of all… Man's… Gugh…" That was as far as Boss got before collapsing as the spears retracted from his shell and removed any support his limp body had left.

I could only stare at the display in numb shock, trying and failing to work out what I should react to first—!

"Look out!"

"Gah!" I grunted in shock when I was suddenly shoved from behind. I turned around to see what the deal was, and my blood froze.

Robin coughed in pain as she swayed on her feet, trying to stem the flow of blood that was flowing around the spike of shadow that had rammed through her side. She grimaced briefly before giving me a shaky grin. "Look on… the bright side… now we… match…" That was all she managed to get out before collapsing against the corridor's wall.

My next course of action became as clear as my vision was RED.

"PACHY-CHARGE!" I roared at the top of my lungs as I ripped Funkfreed from his scabbard and stabbed him at the rampaging Warlord, intent on treating him to a faceful of stampeding ivory and steel.

And going by the simultaneous roars that erupted from behind me?

"GUM-GUM JET BAZOOKA!"

"FLAMBÉ SHOT!"

"CLOVEN ROSEO METEL!"

"SUPER! STRONG RIGHT!"

"AUBADE COUP DROIT!"

I was so not the only one pissed off at that. Specifically, Luffy, Sanji, Franky, Brook and Chopper all rammed their respective limbs into Moria's gut at the same time that Funkfreed gored him.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment as the Warlord was bombarded by our attacks, his face a mask of agony and outrage. And then time resumed and the pale bastard was sent flying as he so justly deserved. He shot out over the edge of the freezer's pit, and even went so far as to slam into and stick to Oars' horn for a second before peeling off and plummeting into the darkness of the abyss that lay below us.

I panted heavily as I stood on the edge of the freezer, combing the pit for any signs of life or movement before heaving a sigh of relief as all remained quiet. "If that didn't kill that bastard, then at least it bought us some breathing room."

"He had better still be alive; he's done too much to get off that easily," Zoro snarled, shades of Asura flickering around him as he nursed a quilt of slashes layered across his body. "Not even Aokiji did this much damage to our crew."

"Only because he wasn't really trying to kill us," Chopper bit out as he knelt beside Robin, hastily working to patch her up. "The one advantage of fighting somebody fit for a mental ward: they don't actually aim when they fire. If he did, I wouldn't have to put in half as much effort as I am now."

Robin gave her current caretaker a bemused (if dizzy from blood loss) look. "Feeling a bit jaded, I take it?"

"Put it this way: I'm starting to see why Doctorine's tolerance for alcohol is so high," Chopper grumbled acridly as he stitched her up. "And you shouldn't be awake for this, so—" Without further ado, the Human Zoan jabbed a needle in her neck. It was a credit to how far his aptitude with chemicals had progressed that Robin blacked out with barely even a press of the plunger.

"Ergh, well at least she's getting taken care of, and everyone else doesn't look to be in too critical a condition, so…" Lola grit out as she nursed a particularly nasty-looking bruise to her face. "While we have a moment of peace, would you mind explaining what the hell that freak show was while we were luring that bastard here!?"

I shuddered in agreement, inching away from the shadows nearest me. The Captain of the Rolling Pirates definitely had a point there; if ever there had been a case of a plan working too well, then that was it by far!

See, the plan itself had been simple enough: Soundbite called out to Moria with a voice that was incredibly generic, thus allowing Moria to mistake it for that of one of his old crewmates, Moria follows the voice into Oars's freezer while getting enmeshed in his shadow theatre and regressing to the loss of his crew, and finally, upon catching sight of Oars and flipping out, we beat the tar out of him. Easy, right?

Yeah, turns out we got leagues more than we bargained for where the shadow aspect of our plan was concerned. To be specific, we sure as hell didn't expect Moria's sick, twisted mind to vomit out a scene yanked straight from Resident Evil! I still swear that there was texture to that ocean of… I don't even wanna imagine what he thought he was wading through.

"Got me beat," I said, shaking my head. "I know that Kaido wiped his crew out, sure, but even for an Emperor I don't see how he could have possibly created a scene straight out of hell like that!"

"Unless I miss my guess, I imagine that that scene never actually occurred in reality."

We all looked at Brook in surprise as he observed Oars' corpse with an even more inscrutable expression than usual.

"W-Wait, you mean that Moria just imagined that whole thing?" Nami asked in disbelief. "But wasn't he supposed to be remembering the day his crew died?"

"And that's exactly what he did," Brook nodded morosely. "He reproduced not how that scene actually occurred, but the memory he is in possession of today. A memory that has been corrupted with his every recollection of the event, degrading over time until it is little more than a fleeting nightmare he dares not consider for even a moment. I'm quite familiar with the phenomenon…" He bowed his head sadly. "The final battle I fought with my crew suffered a very similar fate."

We all shared a moment of silence as we considered the implications of that particular statement before Luffy raised a questioning hand. "Sooo… if you know that, do you know what that creepy stuff he was saying was too?"

We all held our breaths as Brook raised his head. "I," he stated with great import and portentousness. "Have no earthly idea."

My head and most everyone else's heads bounced slightly as they jerked downwards. "Oooof course not," I sighed.

"Yeah, well… whatever it was, I can definitely say that it was creepy as all hell." Nami's Eisen Tempo hugged her as she shuddered. "I could barely even tell what he was saying, his voice was so garbled."

"Except… that wasn't HIS voice…"

I glanced at Soundbite in surprise, both at the fact that he'd spoken up after staying quiet for so long and on account of how his expression was ungodly wan. "You know what that was?"

Soundbite swayed his eyes noncommittally. "I CAN GUESS… like I said, the shadows WEREN'T SPEAKING IN HIS VOICE. And going by their words…" Soundbite grimaced, his face descending into the utmost of ashenness he was capable of. "I-I THINK HE WAS TRYING TO CALL OUT HIS CREWMATES' NAMES… but instead, all he could say were… were…"

Chopper's eyes widened as he made the connection. "All he could identify his old crew by…" he whispered in horror. "Was… their final words…"

Zoro snorted and shook his head. "He's barely even a person anymore. He's just a husk, every bit of substance he had utterly consumed by that one day." I did my best to ignore the tone of familiarity his voice held.

"Yeah, well, he's a husk that could still kill us if that didn't take him out," I quite reasonably pointed out. "Anyone want to place any bets on that?"

Silence for a few seconds, then Nami spoke up. "If someone placed that bet, I'd actually feel sorry for taking their money." Another pause as everyone, myself included, stared at her in shock. She shuffled back and forth on her feet, looking sheepish. "I mean, I'd still take the money, and I'd only feel sorry for maybe ten seconds…"

Ah, that was the Nami I knew.

"Point is, we need a plan for if—or knowing our luck and how hard-headed most all Warlords are, when—he climbs out of that pit," I continued, indicating said gaping void. "Now, I don't have any ideas off the top of my head, but with a little brainstorming, I'm sure that—!"

"Uh, Cross?" I heard Luffy's voice echo from towards the pit what. I snapped around to catch sight of my captain crouching on the railing and peering into the chasm, his head tilted to the side curiously. "Was the dark down there always so… uh, y'know, dark?"

With no small amount of trepidation, I inched over next to Luffy, leaned over the railing… aaand promptly choked on my spit as I found myself staring into the kind of absolute abyss that loves to stare back.

"Ahhh, sonnuva—!"

"HVERGELMIR!"

And just like that, before any of us could so much as twitch, the abyss broke the staring contest by, for all means and purposes, puking itself in our faces. In the space of a second, we were all devoured by the unholy bastard spawn of a riptide and a tidal wave, composed entirely of shadows.

It was hectic, absolutely out of control, nauseating even in spite of the fact that my stomach was bone dry… Basically? Soundbite had been right about one thing, way back when: spin cycle sucks.

After what felt like both an instant and an eternity, our unwelcome ride concluded with all of us—if the chorus of groans and cries of surprise around me being anything to go by—being unceremoniously dumped on our asses… somewhere. I would have looked around and confirmed where we were, but I had one pressing bit of business to handle first.

"BLARGHRL! Urk…" I wiped my mouth off with a bone-deep shudder. "I officially hate this island…"

"Get in line…" Brook gurgled as he worked his way into a sitting position, his calcium cheekbones somehow managing to look green. The fact that Chopper jostled him in his rush to get to our downed comrades didn't do him any favors either.

"Ugh…" Nami shook her head miserably as she recovered from her own gastrointestinal distress before warily glancing around. "Where… are we?"

"Erm…" Lola swung her head around and blinked in surprise. "It looks like… we're back outside? In the courtyard, even? What the…?"

I quickly surveyed our environs myself and realized that she was right: we'd landed in the very same enclosure that the crew had fought Oars in in the story. The place hadn't been ripped a new one by a rampaging titan, but it was hard to mistake the place, what with Perona's Garden hanging above us and the mast that propelled this maritime hellhole looming so close.

"Whoa…" Franky breathed, craning his head back as he tried and failed to spy the top of the mast. Then his face contorted into a scowl. "He went to this much effort, and still neglected it after it was done…"

"Of course he didn't care for it," I tsked darkly. "After all, what 'king' pays a second thought to their carriage when they think their throne lies right around the bend?"

The cyborg clenched his jaw, metal creaking. "When I get my hands on that bastard's slimy neck, I swear I'm going to—!"

"Shut up, Franky," Zoro ordered, not even looking at him.

"You son of a—!" Franky jerked towards the swordsman.

"He means shut up and listen, Franky," Sanji interrupted him, glaring intensely into the air.

We all hushed up, trying to listen for whatever it was they were talking about. It took some straining, but we found it. And I almost wished we didn't; the chorus of whispers that was echoing from the shadows was so much ice in our veins.

"Oh, now that's just disturbing," Nami muttered, shuddering as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees.

"W-What's it saying?" Chopper swallowed heavily.

"Er…" I strained my ears, slowly starting to make it out. "I… think it's just one word, over and over again. Sounds like… 'Draugr'?" It took all of two seconds for that to sink in, following which I stiffened and exchanged a panicked look with Soundbite. "Ohshit."

"Draugr… I think I recognize that," Brook tapped his jaw thoughtfully. "Isn't that a creature out of Norse mythology? The 'again walk—'…ah." Aaand that was when the beri dropped like a supersonic meteor.

Though the sound of groaning and pounding feet that suddenly rose up was also a source of concern.

"Uhh… guuuuys?" Luffy asked slowly, a rare hint of uncertainty in his voice.

Soundbite shuddered with a grimace. "Well, we're officially a few hundred steps closer to burnout, AT THE COST OF A FEW HUNDRED MORE THINGS FOR US TO FIGHT!"

"But how!?" Brook demanded, strangling his sword's hilt. "We couldn't have missed that many!"

"That's because they're NOT ZOMBIES, THEY'RE DRAUGR!" my snail clarified. "REMEMBER WHEN I SAID his range skyrocketed? RATHER THAN INFUSING THEM WITH LIVE SOULS, he's just shoved them full of inert shadows AND IS USING THEM TO PLAY PUPPETMASTER. TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY… they're literal meat-puppets."

And as the horde of undead came into view, I could see the difference. It was subtle, all things considered. Like a sledgehammer to the face, which was particularly pertinent in that most of these rotting bastards looked like they'd suffered just that.

See, where before the zombies had at least been acting like relatively normal if malformed humans, now they were far more similar to the classical Romero zombie. Their movements were stiff, jerky… the perfect picture of shambling corpses.

But what really sold it were their faces. The zombies, they were undead, sure, but at least they'd had souls; stolen souls, imperfect substitutes for life, but they had emotional range, to an extent. But the creatures that were swarming towards us now, these, these draugr… empty, hollow rage and nothing more. If ever there was an example of unlife upon this island, we were staring them down right this moment.

"So, feeding them salt won't do any good anymore?" Sanji growled.

"Probably not, there's no tenuous bond to snap. BUT WORTH A TRY anyway, before we resort to PLAN B… OR A, SEEING AS THIS IS US WE'RE TALKING ABOUT."

"No sooner said than done," Brook stated, running towards the draugr and slashing faster than I could see. Some of the corpses turned and tried to grasp after him as he weaved through their ranks, but they didn't even come close to the skeleton's speed. A few seconds later, arms, legs, and heads severed off of a good chunk of the mob, but they hardly even slowed down. And more to the point, they were right on top of us.

"GO-TO TACTICS it is! Cross, PUT ME ON FUNKFREED!"

I nodded, picking the snail off my shoulder and planting him on the elephant-blade's crossguard. He took a second to properly anchor himself to the flat of the blade, and then screwed his eyes up in concentration.

"GET READY, 'CAUSE this is gonna tickle! GASTRO-PACHY COMBO!"

I was forced to strengthen my grip on Funkfreed's hilt when his blade suddenly started to vibrate, the sharp metal becoming fuzzy to the eye.

"TREBLE BLADE!"

Even in the face of the oncoming horde, I couldn't help but grin like a maniac at the fact that I was currently holding a frikin vibroblade in my hands. I… think at that point something just clicked in my head, because my grin widened malevolently as my adrenaline shot through the roof. "Alright, you undead rotting mooks," I hissed, slowly raising my left hand over my shoulder. "I know you can't understand me anymore and I don't care. Because I'm gonna say what needs to be said, no matter what."

I grabbed Lassoo's grip and wrenched him into position, spreading my arms and weapons wide in invitation, accompanied by an absolutely mad cackle. "PREPARE TO DIE THRICE, YOU ZOMBIE BASTARDS! PFHAHAHAHAAAAA!"

Lassoo punctuated that point with a salvo of baseballs that exploded in the mass of zombies, blowing massive holes in their ranks. And then the wave of zombies hit us. The front line promptly melted away like snow in a spring rain, only to be followed by another line. And then another. And another.

In most ways, it was Alubarna or the Bridge of Hesitation all over again: a frantic defense not only against an enemy that outnumbered us, but also against our own exhaustion and injuries, thankfully mitigated by the fact that we were individually superior to all of said opponents. In that last respect, I was actually better off than before; between Lassoo blasting chunks out of the horde as they approached and Soundbite and Funkfreed's combination practically disintegrating any zombies it hit, my partners and I were probably accounting for the most draugr of any of us.

Unfortunately, the one way it was different from those fights was rather important: namely, the draugr just didn't. Stop. Coming. Seriously, these guys were persistent past even the regular zombies, because those didn't have their limbs or severed torsos try to keep crawling after us. They also didn't break, and probably would never break. Even the age-old method of decapitation didn't help. That just left a headless body shambling towards us and a head snapping its jaws on the ground that we had to avoid.

Surprisingly enough, Nami actually seemed to be having the easiest time out of all of us, for all that one could have an easy time in the midst of a zombie horde. She was still hard-pressed to pay attention to where all the undead were striking from, of course, but her Eisen Tempo was doing a frighteningly admirable job of keeping them all at bay. If ever there was any doubt that Nami made a habit of holding back the full extent of her Clima-Tact's power, the charred and blackened corpses her lightning left in its wake did a good job of laying that doubt to rest.

But even Nami's style of attack, effective though it was, meant she had to fight three battles we all had to fight: against the walking dead, against our exhaustion and pain, and against the severed limbs and heads that littered the ground like so many land mines. And lemme tell ya, having to watch your every step was exhausting. The only solution seemed to be to destroy the bodies entirely, and actually destroying a human body is miles harder than it has any right to be!

…That would sound so wrong out of context.

Anyway, the result of it all was that we very quickly had to start giving ground, lest the zombie horde trip us up and then overrun us. We had no margin: lose one fighter, and our entire defense crumbled. Whiiiich would mean all of our wounded were dead meat. So yeah, noooo pressure.

"SERIOUSLY?" Lola yelled as a freshly decapitated draugr kept walking towards her, hastily kicking it in the chest in order to give herself some breathing room, which was just as swiftly filled by a de-limbed draugr from behind. "We're chopping these things to pieces and they're not stopping!"

"I say we go back to anti-zombie plan number one," Franky growled, bashing away one corpse before rearing back his head—

"Fresh… FIRE!"

And spewing flames at the disassembled corpses. They kept moving, of course, but unlike with the shadow-zombies it was clear that the flames were doing their job. The wrecked bodies fell apart even faster under the flames. And yes, they were falling apart, whole chunks of flesh falling off at a time before we even touched them, I could see it now that my blood had cooled enough for my vision to clear.

"I think he's right," I said, glancing at the cannon balanced on my shoulder as I shifted him forwards. "Lassoo, Plaster-Palm Combo!"

My cannon chuffed in agreement before vomiting forth a spray of viscous tar that coated the fore portion of the horde, which he then followed up with a lick of flame that lit up the fuel. The entire front line of zombies lit afire and began to crumble away, and the zombies stepping over them also befell the same fate.

I paused in surprise as I watched the conflagration spread with an almost disturbing efficiency. "Huh. Fire's working a lot better than it did before," I remarked as I dove back into the fray, Funkfreed quite literally shaking entire sections of the horde to pieces while Lassoo's bulk doubled as both a hefty shield and a brutal club.

"I actually have a theory on that," Chopper cut in via Soundbite. "I can't confirm without seeing things, but Moria's almost certainly pushing the corpses too hard. Without the pseudo-soul of a stolen shadow, all of these corpses are just that: corpses long past any prime they might have had. And now that they're dead again, rigor mortis is setting in and they're becoming stiff. Basically, by puppeting the bodies like this, Moria is literally making his army fight itself to pieces!"

"Well, that's… great…" Zoro grunted as he quartered another shambling husk. "Still… way too many… of these… things…!"

"You know we're in deep shit," Nami grunted as she wrenched the her staff back and forth in an effort to dislodge it from the ribcage she'd accidentally rammed it through. "When our battle-hungry first mate is complaining about the fight."

"Don't you dare keel over yet, Mosshead," Sanji growled. After me and Nami, he was probably doing the best of us all, treating the zombies like so many soccer balls. Though the fact that he had been using Diable Jambe from the start might have had something to do with it, too. "We fall, the girls die horrible, messy deaths."

"And why should I," Zoro snorted aggressively as he tore through another throng of draugr. "Care if your prissy ass gets torn apart?"

"'Cause then they'll get the rest of the crew, too!" Luffy provided with the utmost gravity he was capable of.

"…damn it," our swordsman snarled as he redoubled his aggressive efforts.

Almost immediately, however, a diving draugr nearly bowled him over before being kicked off, and everyone shut up in favor of dodging or knocking out of the air the many draugr that had decided dive-bombing us was a great idea. And the worst part of it was that it actually was a great idea, splitting our attention even more ways.

As I descended back into the unconscious flow of the fight, I was considering what the hell Moria was thinking. Swamping us in numbers would work, yes, what with all the corpses he had available, but it would be a slow process. Even the dive-bombing draugr were unlikely to speed up the process, too. With how utterly deranged Moria was now, I seriously doubted he had the patience for that. No, this was a distraction while he got something big pulled together, and I was really not looking forward to that.

On the other hand, maybe the draugr horde would take us out fast after all, judging from the groans coming from behind us oh son of a—!

"Fuck! We've—"

"Been flanked, we know!" Lola bit out as she cast a venomous glance over her shoulder. "If we turn away, these… draugr will overwhelm us!"

"They're going to overwhelm us anyway if we don't deal with the flankers!" I snapped. "Lassoo, can you—?"

"Belay that, Cross!"

I gave a shaky grin as a Heavy Pointed Chopper waded into the thankfully thin line of draugr behind us, sending bodies flying with every sweep of his arms. With that immediate concern taken care of, I could share the thought I'd had earlier.

"Heads up, everyone!" I called out. "I think Moria's planning something big, and this is just a distraction!"

"Warn us again when you've got some kind of IDEA what we need to watch out for!"

I winced as Chopper snapped at me; this situation must have really been getting to him.

"He has a point, though; there's not much to plan on if you just say 'something… big…'" Lassoo's voice took on a whimper as he seemed to realize something. "Unless by 'big' you mean 'titan'."

The meaning sunk in fast for me, and I wasn't the only one. Every eye darted towards the manor to find… nothing. Any relief we felt was short-lived, mostly because the draugr took advantage of our distractedness to push a full-court press that sent us scrambling back, but also because of a thought that followed shortly on the heels of the first.

"So… we got a plan… for when that thing… does come out…?" Sanji huffed and puffed.

"No, but—"

Suddenly, Funkfreed went through air instead of necrotized flesh, and yes, that did feel different, vibroblade or not. I barely had time to process that the draugr had just stopped when—

KRASH-BOOM!

…Okay. Oars had been scary enough when he was just an immobile mountain of meat locked in a freezer. Him bursting out of Thriller Bark's manor like some demented parody of the Kool-Aid Man? Utterly terrifying. And that was before I got a good look at the changes to his appearance.

For starters, there was no life in his eyes, or his movements. His eyes were black holes in his skull, his jaw hung limply from its sockets, and his body was both stiff and fluid in unnatural ways, as though he had bones in all the wrong places. By contrast, the roiling mass of black in his belly snaking up and around and all over, leaving no doubt that Moria was still in the damn driver's seat, was barely a footnote.

And then his gaze fell on us, and it all coalesced into one horrific whole, for as much as he lacked life, this thing that had once been Oars' corpse still had all the hallmarks of intelligence. Like, y'know, scanning his surroundings and picking a target. Namely us.

"JO…TUN…" the behemoth rumbled, slowly but definitely starting to trudge its way towards us.

"Mister Cross," Brook said in a voice that would have been calm if not for how he was shaking in his boots. "I believe this is the part where you either come up with an outstanding plan to deal with this monster or you lose a large measure of your credibility as a tactician."

"I get it, I get it, I'm working on it," I responded, wiping away the sweat from my brow as I ran through the situation.

One second to review: Oars, titanic giant—whoops, I mean gigantic titan—standing there and being puppeted by Moria. Capable of flattening us effortlessly if we gave him an inch, but going by his current state, undoubtedly hindered by the apparent frailty of draugr in general and the spinal damage we'd inflicted… and the ice too, if the way tracts of his skin were cracking were anything to go by. So, he wouldn't last long. Our goal wasn't to beat him to pieces, it was to accelerate how soon Moria caused the corpse to tear itself apart.

Another second as Oars wound up a fist: in the story, it took a whole-crew combination attack to just get him down… including that 'Pirate Emperor' thing, good thing I'd butterflied that abomination away—FOCUS! How did they get one up on him?

Yet another second as it came flying, even as I started to run like hell: they brought him down, beat his face in (to little effect), failed attempt at the Pirate Emperor, then the thing with Luffy's weakness to meat, and after that—eureka moment.

Fourth second as I took a flying leap, bracing myself and flinching as the shockwave from the literal megaton punch smacked me in the gut, mentally running through the eight fighters we had and their capabilities, and confirming one: "Chopper, are you good to use a Rumble Ball?"

"Wha—maybe? I took one in the freezer; I can take one more without going berserk, but I won't be able to control what form I change to!"

And that was five seconds as I landed and rolled into a ready position. "That'll do, just cycle through them as fast as you can. Here's the plan, everyone: Gum-Gum, Waver, Sky Walk, Jumping Point, and Bone Skinny, it doesn't matter how you do it, just get up on that thing's body, make sure it knows where you are and keep moving. It's literally all brawn and no brains, so it won't hesitate to bash itself to pieces with its full power! And everyone else—" I took aim with Lassoo. "Go for its feet!"

"RIGHT!" everyone shouted as they sprung into action.

"CANI-CANNON BARRAGE!" I pulled the trigger, and explosive baseballs bracketed one of the feet, tearing off flesh in chunks, while Zoro, Franky and Lola went to town on the other limb.

Meanwhile, our more acrobatic combatants started shooting around the undead titan like demented fleas: Chopper and Brook leapt into the air, landing gracefully on the Jotun's arm and darting for the torso. Luffy grabbed the other arm and rocketed up, reaching out at the apex of his arc to grab one of the horns. Sanji kicked off the air itself, positioning himself opposite Luffy, and Nami rode her Waver up its legs.

And then, all at once, they lashed out. Two feet, one at the end of a stretched leg and the other blazing, slammed into opposite temples. Hoof and blade carved into the chest, leaving deep trenches behind. And I could hear the lightning crawling up its back.

The giant, of course, reacted immediately, but poorly, by trying to simultaneously slap its chest, stomp one foot, and scratch its back at the same time. The massive overextension of muscles and the strain on the already-stressed tendons must have been massive, but the boom of the open palm hitting the chest and the resultant air-pressure was… less than encouraging.

But never mind that! Oars was shifting its foot! Opportunity!

"CANI-SLICK!"

Black oil sprayed out of Lassoo's muzzle, coating the ground beneath the Jotun's colossal foot, and I could only pray that the ground team got my idea.

"STRONG HAMMER!"

I shouldn't have worried. Franky immediately slammed his fist into the back of the Jotun's ankle. There was an almighty snap as something important broke, and more importantly, the foot slid forward on the slick, losing any remaining grip it had.

Five figures darted off the body as it suddenly described a 180-degree turn, flailing limbs demolishing more of the manor as it crashed onto the back of its neck - right on the spot where we'd powderized a few vertebra.

We weren't done, of course. High above the body, a foot fit for a giant ballooned into existence before rising even higher into the air. For a brief moment, it hung there, and then it came crashing down, slamming into the titan's chest to a chorus of snapping bone.

Still the titan attempted to rise, only for a black and red meteor to streak out of the sky and slam into the Jotun's forehead in a burst of flame. Bone shattered, shortly drowned out by the colossal skull impacting the packed earth below.

And still the damn thing was trying to get up! Despite the massive footprint in its chest, despite one leg not working at all, despite everything above its shoulders looking like it was made of so much jelly, it attempted to lift itself on its arms. And yet, it was clear to everyone that it wasn't going to last much longer. Just needed one… last… damn… push!

"HEY, MORIA!" Soundbite roared, his jaw set in a murderous scowl. "HOW'S THIS FOR A LITTLE DITTY! GASTRO-NATION!"

Without warning, the air was suddenly filled with the most skull-churning, gut-shredding grindcore I'd ever heard. On its own it was pretty bad.

"AAAAAAAAARGH!"

But going by how the shadows around us suddenly screamed and Oars' corpse started to writhe like it was undergoing an exorcism? I think there was more going on than what I was hearing.

"Gastro-Nation?" I asked quietly, warily eyeing Soundbite as he ground his teeth, a look of intense concentration on his face.

"For 'domination'," he grit out. "It's a triple-threat assault. FIRST LAYER IS TO MUTE THE AREA. YOU THINK WHAT YOU'RE HEARING IS LOUD? IT'S UP TO ELEVEN IN THERE. Second is that there's some Phony mixed in to stir the guts. But third? Ohohoh..." He shook his head slowly as a distinctly vindictive tone entered his voice. "THIRD IS WHEN I MAKE HIS BRAIN AND SKULL VIBRATE JUST SO. In the simplest of terms, it feels like his gray matter is grinding itself to paste from the inside out." Soundbite's grin grew absolutely satanic. "NEAT, RIGHT?"

"That's one word for it…" I muttered under my breath. I was silent for a bit before giving him an accusatory glance. "…you're gonna be blowing chunks because of this, aren't you?"

"Somebody get me a bucket…" he moaned queasily, letting his eyestalks hang. And despite quickly perking up, he still looked rather green. "OR COTTONTAIL'S TAIL."

"Somebody help me, I'm actually considering it," Su said offhandedly with no small amount of deserved awe as she watched Oars' corpse literally shake itself to pieces in its agonized convulsions. Massive chunks of flesh were sloughing off and shattering into chunks, though thankfully the flailing arms weren't producing oh for the love of—!

"DUCK!" I yelped as one of Oars' fingers soared towards us. Following my own advice, I threw myself to the ground, feeling a cold wind of a stupidly close miss brush my everything, followed by a loud crash. "Victory has never sucked so hard," I groused.

"Stupid giant… why couldn't Moria have used a sea king or something else that would be tasty?" Luffy grumbled as he got out from under the finger he's been slammed with.

"Wow, that nearly took your head off," Su blandly remarked.

"Get your LAST LICKS in, COTTONTAIL," Soundbite moaned. "'Cause I'm about to go MUTE. HURP!"

I repositioned my partner so that he was free to hock his lunch anywhere but on me as I watched the end of the body that had once been Oars the Titan. And what an end it was: simply put, the corpse gave up the ghost by just… literally falling apart at the seams. Every joint, every single one came undone, and just as soon as it had started thrashing, the being fell still. There was simply nothing left that it could possibly move. It… wasn't even a corpse, really. Just a pile of rotting, freezerburned meat.

"I-Is it over?"

Hey, I knew that quavering voice! I turned around to find Usopp, leaning heavily on a tree branch, walking towards us. "Hey, you sure you're healthy enough to be walking around?"

"He's fine!" Chopper called out. "He wasn't hit as badly as everyone else, and if he didn't think he could handle it he wouldn't be doing it. That's just who he is."

I thought over that, and then shrugged. If our doctor said so…

"Well, then, to answer your question, probably," I explained, indicating the mountain of flesh. "That was Moria's big trump card, and it's gone. Soundbite also rattled Moria's bell in the process." I frowned. "Though, Oars went down pretty easy compared to canon. But then again, Moria was overstressing it, and we'd already damaged it pretty badly, so I guess that makes sense?"

"Cross," Nami started testily as her halo started to darken. "If you are actually complaining about us having an easy time taking down a multi-story goliath, then so help me—!"

"I'm not complaining!" I hastily assured her. "Just… with our luck, if things turn out easier than expected, wouldn't you want to try and think of anything you might have missed?"

"Kill… you…"

"Gurk…" I choked, going ramrod straight. "Like, for example, a certain raging bastard still somehow having the strength to remain conscious?!"

Nobody had a response to that, on account of how they'd all apparently turned to stare at the renewed threat in gape-mouthed horror, and the second I joined them I completely understood why.

Bloodshot eyes completely rolled up in their sockets, a topographical map of bulging veins, pink foam dribbling from both corners of his mouth, and all tied together by the kind of shivering you only ever saw in the most hardcore of junkies and the kind of looks you only ever get by going through a meat grinder besides? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we were currently witnessing Gecko Moria at the all-time lowest point in his life.

If he were anyone else, I'd probably find this kind of tenacity admirable. Given who he was, what he'd done and what he was most likely planning to do to us, however…

"Kill… you…" Moria gargled through all the blood and whatever other fluids were clogging his throat. "Kill… you…"

Yeah, not my idea of fun.

"Okay…" I breathed sotto voce as I delicately raised Lassoo's barrel. "Everybody, he's still stalling out from pure rage. No sudden movements, nothing to set him off. Just get ready to take him out all at once, very, very—!"

"Kill… you… Kill… kill… kill…"

Ooooh that vocal devolution was not a good sign.

CR-CR-CRACK!

Nor Moria's teeth cracking in his mouth from just how hard he was clenching them. "KILL YOU ALL! NIIIIIDHOOOOOOOGG!"

The yell to attack was on the tip of my tongue when a mass of blackness that I barely recognized as a Doppelman erupted between Moria and us. I braced myself for an assault from the ragged simulacrum, but the rather than attack us, the shady demon instead started clawing at the ground, ripping out handful after handful of… of…

"Uh… guys…" Luffy asked slowly, his voice rife with confusion. "How come the shadow's eating other shadows?"

As much as the very idea sounds utterly ludicrous… indeed, the Doppelman was shredding what shadows it could get its ragged claws on, tearing them out by the talonful and shoving them down its gaping gullet. I honestly couldn't comprehend the action until I noticed the thing starting to swell, and suddenly everything clicked into place like the gears of a freaking doomsday device.

"No… no fucking way…" I drew out in breathless terror, already starting to inch away on trembling legs. Fuck adrenaline rushes, if what I thought was happening was actually happening—!

"Cross! Talk! NOW!" Nami snapped, her panicked voice managing to ground me in reality.

"M-Moria once showed that he could manipulate reality, actual flesh, via manipulating the shape of someone's shadow!" I babbled. "How he warped it was harmless enough, b-but they still had the same general mass. B-But now, his own shadow, i-it's taking in extra mass from the shadows! A-And that name, Nidhogg…"

I gulped audibly, trying and failing to clear the ash that had filled my mouth.

"That's the name of… a dragon…" I finally croaked, staring at the gradually distending gut of the shadow demon in horror. "The dragon… of the end of the world."

It took all of two seconds for that to sink in, and as Doppelman began devouring a straight-up stream of shadows from the earth and both it and its caster really started to swell up, everyone recoiled in horror.

"Cross," Nami whispered with rapidly mounting dread. "Are you trying to say that Moria's going to turn himself into a dragon!?"

I shook my head, slowly at first but accelerating as my panic really started to hit its stride. "I think he's going to damn well try," I hissed, spinning around and throwing Funkfreed. "And I'm not planning on sticking around to find out!" I was halfway up the elephant's back before he'd even fully transformed, and he was stamping his legs impatiently as was.

"Hey, Cross, wait a—!" Luffy started to protest.

"LUFFY!" Chopper barked. He was carrying Robin, Conis, and a frantic Su on his shoulders, the latter two clearly still unable to move. "We can stay here and fight Moria or we can get our friends somewhere safe, but if we try and do both then someone's going to get hurt in a way I won't be able to fix!"

That brought Luffy up short. The rubber man cast a final glance at the Asgard-sized blimp that Moria had become before gritting his teeth, shooting an arm out to snag Boss and booking it like Garp was on his ass. "EVERYONE RUN!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!" Funkfreed brayed as he stampeded after our captain as fast as he could, Franky and Lola grabbing their way onto the sword's bulk as he passed.

And so, for the first time in the crew's history, the Straw Hat Pirates began retreating from the battlefield, hauling ass and hauling our friends' asses besides. What we would do once we got them to safety was still up in the air, but it was better than leaving them where they could easily be trampled in the pummeling, no matter who was on the receiving end. For now, I was just glad that the attack took so much setup, because it was buying us the time we needed to put distance between ourselves and the doubly mad Warlord.

Which was a damn good thing, because looking over my shoulder, I could scarcely believe how rapidly the situation had devolved: Moria and his shadow were both massively gorged, and the shadow's suction had grown to the point where, judging by how trails of shadow were lancing through the air to its maw, it was devouring the very same thorn hedge Moria had used to pen us all in. That was both encouraging, and a reason for yet more panic.

Still, either way, the build-up meant we had time. I just hoped we had enough.

"Uh, guys?" Franky shouted warily. "Don't wanna start any panic or nuthin', but that shadow-puppet thing just stopped eating!"

I started to turn in my seat to look back—

KRNCHRRRCH!

And then I snapped my head forward and kept my eyes locked firmly dead ahead, because there was no way in hell that I was going to so much as glance at the source of that… that… ergh, even the mere thought brings me inches from tossing my entire digestive tract.

The closest approximation I can think of would be a meat grinder. A titanic, industrial-grade meat grinder. Snapping, crunching, squishing, ripping, grinding, all these sounds and more sounded through the air, and each was more flesh-filled than the noise ever had any right to be.

However, just as soon as the noises started, they stopped dead, leaving behind a far-too-still silence that permeated the air as thickly as the Florian's fog.

If only it could have lasted.

"GROOOOOOOAAAAAAARGH!"

"GAH!"

I let loose a yelp of both shock and pain as I was literally slapped upside the back of my head by a wall of pure sound and air pressure. So strong was the force of the bellow that we were all sent tumbling due to our mere proximity, not even Funkfreed's massive bulk capable of doing keeping him upright. The sound of shattering glass echoed in my ringing ears, the shards thankfully going nowhere near us. Instead, we were engulfed in wind-blown grit and ballistic bits of dead flesh, and I'm honestly unsure what was worse.

Lemme tell you, regaining your wits only to find yourself lying face down in a pile of desiccated human flesh and feeling like you've been worked over by the mob? Not an experience you want to have twice in one day, or at all. And yet, here I was having undergone that very same experience twice in the span of hours.

"Hate… this… island…" I moaned as I sat up and clutched my throbbing skull.

"You, me, and everyone who's been living on it for any amount of time," Lola tsked, wincing as she pushed herself to her feet.

"Contemplate burning this hellhole down later…" Nami grit out as she used a wall to claw her way to her feet, her clouds hastily patting down any dirt or rubble that the blast might have caked on her. "Figure out what just happened now. Did… did Moria really just—?"

"GROOOOARGH!"

We all froze as another roar echoed behind us. It was quieter, thankfully, but in all honesty? The lowered volume just made things worse. After all, higher volume leaves a bigger impact, but lower volume has all the details.

The gorey, echoing, twisted details.

In a moment of foolish thoughtlessness, I glanced over my shoulder in an effort to catch sight of our enemy—

"HURGH!"

And just as swiftly I snapped my head back, hunched forwards and clamped my hand over my mouth in order to arrest a second helping of bile. I-I hadn't actually seen Moria's form in that glance, the dust and fog were still hanging too thick for that, but I'd seen its silhouette, and that was enough. Sweet Lucifer's hellfire, it was more than enough for a lifetime.

As it turns out, I'd been both right and wrong in my assumption. Right in that Moria had obviously tried to turn himself into a dragon, but wrong in that he'd failed. At least, I considered it a failure, because the silhouette of the thing I could see in the distance, roaring and thrashing and demolishing section after section of the manor with its every careless movement? That… that was absolutely no dragon.

It was stretched, twisted, warped in ways I can't even begin to conceive of, and at its core, the very core of its being, this thing was every kind of wrong possible, but the one thing I absolutely refused to call it besides human was 'dragon'. Because this thing… this was another beast entirely, and I… I don't rightly know what.

Chopper was curled up on his knees, heaving violently as he clamped his hooves over his nose. "I-I-I can't even… I don't… the trauma he just put his body through! How is he still alive… t-this is just… just…"

"You know what?" I heard Lola say with a strained but flat voice. "I've done a lot of crazy shit on these oceans, done a lot of crazy shit today for this crew. But no way in hell am I fighting that."

I winced and turned my head to reply, and then I froze up as I noticed something crucial. "That's… actually a very good and very viable idea because that thing ate the thorn hedge!"

"What!?" most everyone yelped in shock, spinning around to confirm that, yes, the writhing wall of shadows was gone and the route to the forest and freedom was indeed free and clear.

"I have never been more thankful for an enemy getting high on rage in my entire life," Lassoo breathed reverentially.

"And I never thought I'd say this, but same here," Zoro grunted, yanking Conis onto his shoulder. "Now come on, everyone grab a body with a pulse and let's get out of here!"

Everyone gave signs of assent, and we started moving accordingly—

"Go on without me."

When a very familiar voice caused everyone to freeze, and turn to see our captain tossing his hat behind him and crouching down. Nami's clouds caught it automatically as Luffy's body turned red and began steaming.

"The plan all along was for me to kick Moria's ass, and I owe him that even more after what he's done to us," our captain spoke in a tone that didn't allow for even a hint of protest. "I'll finish him off. You guys go on and get back."

I exchanged hasty looks with my fellow officers before we all gave Luffy firm looks of our own. "We'll fall back to the treeline," I conceded. "But no way are we leaving you alone."

Luffy nodded with a steam-filled snort. "Good enough. Now, get moving. Franky!" He turned a side-glare on our shipwright.

"Right! Gimme a second, aaaand… there!" Said shipwright shifted around a bit in place before procuring a writhing bundle of darkness from… somewhere. "75 shadows, right up the old address! All yours, Luffy!" And with that, he tossed the umbral bundle at and into our captain, who hunched forwards with a groan.

As Luffy transformed and Moria remained occupied with wrecking his own domain, I couldn't help but feel a slight inkling of curiosity. Sure, I knew that we'd kept a cache of shadows in reserve for this exact sort of situation, but I hadn't known Franky had been hanging onto them this whole time. I guess I'd kind of assumed he'd lost them at some point. After all…

"Where… exactly were you keeping those shadows?" I asked slowly as I gave his wardrobe, or rather lack thereof, a onceover.

Franky grinned. "Oh, I kept them in my—!"

"On second thought, never mind, I really don't wanna—!"

"GrrrrRRRAAAAGH! HEY! MORIA!"

Our collective attention was suddenly arrested by a very pissed and now very big and very blue Luffy shooting forward, skidding to a halt in front of the smoky shadow that was once Moria—no, that was Nidhogg now—and bellowing in outrage.

Then, Luffy sucked in a chest-expanding whoosh of air…

"I AM THE MAN WHO WILL BECOME THE PIRATE KING!"

And shook us all to our very souls with a bellow that was accompanied… not so much by a —statement of fact, but more like a divine mandate. And while it inspired awe in most of us, others reacted a bit more… viscerally.

"GRR… GRAAAAAAAGH!" roared the unholy love child of Smaug and Tim Curry, head flung back.

Outrage that Luffy weathered with ease, glaring at the wyrm with neither fear nor hesitation, but simply primal disgust. "I'm going to be the Pirate King," Luffy repeated frigidly, with all the finality of declaring that the sky was blue. "And not you. It'll never be you. You can't be the Pirate King, because besides the fact it's gonna be me?"

Luffy crossed his arms with and stared down the monster.

"You're not actually a pirate."

I swear you could have sliced the following tension and silence both with a rusty spoon. But of course, like all tense silences, it was born only to be broken. In this case?

"GROOOOOOOAAAAAAARGH!"

By another ear-rending pseudo-draconian roar that, while it didn't send us all sprawling, still hit us like a semi-physical wave and left us all clutching our ears in agony.

All, of course, save Luffy, whose entirely sane reaction was to blur forwards, reel his arm back—

"GUM-GUM JET PISTOL!" CRUNCH!

And extend his fist into Nidhogg's jaw, sending the wyrm reeling. While the monstrosity was still reorienting itself, Luffy charged past its bulk and disappeared into the dust, heading into the manor's ruins. And once Nidhogg recovered, it ignored us in favor of giving chase with as much speed as its bloated, mangled frame could manage.

For a few seconds, we stared silently in the direction the two had gone. Then I felt a jab in my shoulder and I glanced over to Funkfreed.

"One night, and I've gone from having a lifetime of no combat to almost too much," he breathed. "It's official: even if I don't survive this, I made the right choice joining the Straw Hat Pirates."

"We get it, we get it," Lassoo chuffed as he started wandering around and grabbing the TDWS onto his back. "Now less talking, more hauling!"

And so we all set about gathering up our fallen comrades from where we'd left them without a moment's hesitation. Well, actually some hesitation.

"Hey, does anyone have any idea what the hell Luffy was on about?" Franky asked, wincing as he heaved Carue onto his back.

"Hell if I know, but I imagine he's going to break it down for Moria in the same breath he breaks his face," I replied, before nearly face-planting as their blows shook the ship again. "In the meantime, let's get a little more distance, shall we? Being on the same island as this shitshow's gonna be bad enough, I am not intent on experiencing ground zero!"

-o-

Monkey D. Luffy winces as he ducks under a grasping claw, eyeing his right arm, recently returned from a meeting with Nidhogg's soft core. Even with seventy-five shadows strengthening his rubber body's natural toughness, thin tracks of blood crisscross the limb.

Another claw comes in, and he hops back, rearing back one leg. "GUM-GUM JET STAMP!" he roars, one sandal-clad foot slamming into Nidhogg and pushing it back. This limb, too, comes back bloody, the sandal reduced to so many straw scraps. The beast roars in pain and rage, and somewhere in his heart he understands the unspoken question.

"Pirates sail the seas for a reason!" he yells, hopping over an overhead smash. As he winds back a fist, he continues to speak. "They sail for freedom! They sail for their dreams! I've run into a lot of people who called themselves pirates until now, but they had some kind of reason that kept them going, even if it was something stupid like money or power! You can't eat money, you can't eat power, and they don't help you get friends!"

The blow lands, pain stinging the limb like all the other blows. He ignores this, for he can take it, and his opponent is the one coming off the worst. That the shadows now grasp the limb is far more of a problem. He only has time for an exclaimed "OH—!" before Nidhogg slams into him and doesn't stop. The shadows lick at his chest and gut and vest, stinging like so many mosquitoes, and the two crash into the manor, wood and plaster and even stone giving way under their far stronger bodies. This is too much for the much-abused building, and the walls give way, collapsing the structure on top of their heads.

But even this doesn't stop Nidhogg, and it outraces the destruction, throwing him through the far wall. It shows no sign of stopping. He must stop it.

His sandals clap together, his muscles tense, and he roars: "GUM-GUM JET SPEAR!" A spearhead, formed by clasped toes, slams into Nidhogg's midsection, breaking its weakened grip and sending it flying back into the still-settling wreckage of the manor. For a moment, he takes his chance to catch his breath—and with a sudden pulse, he nearly loses control, his chest swelling up as the umbral souls empowering him attempt to return to their rightful place.

Time to end this.

Setting his feet, he pumps his fists in front of him, waiting for Nidhogg to reappear. And the shadow beast does not disappoint, erupting from the manorial wreckage roaring its defiance and accompanied by a plume of splinters and rock dust. With no regard to thought or strategy, it charges head-on at him.

It is perhaps the worst thing it could do.

"GUM-GUM JET GATLING!"

This time, it is not a single blow that the shadows can grasp and tear. It is not a single blow that Nidhogg's form, long past caring about damage, can simply shrug off. It is a barrage, fast and unrelenting and offering no purchase.

It is with the one hundred and seventy-third blow that the inevitable happens: he freezes, slumping to his knees, veins rising all over his body… and in a burst of the darkest of black, seventy-five shadows flee the body of Monkey D. Luffy, his skin reverting back to the usual bronze. He doesn't move. He can't.

And Nidhogg is in no better shape. The great beast writhes on the ground, roaring—or perhaps screaming—in pain and rage and grief and a hundred other emotions. Through his exhaustion, he eyes the great mast looming above him, and knows that he will need to draw it up that towering trunk.

But he is tired, so tired. His muscles ache with strain and lactic acid, his heart gallops like a panicked horse, lungs vainly trying to suck in enough oxygen. His very soul and will quiver with exhaustion, and a dozen different wounds sting him with pain.

And yet.

And yet every time his mind screams 'Fall!', he cannot. For he sees the monster in front of him, and he sees the smiles of his crew, his friends, and he knows down to his bones that he cannot let the two meet.

He will not fall. Only when the monster of shadow and hate falls, and not a second before. And it must fall soon, otherwise the decision becomes not his.

"BUT YOU!" he roars, briefly glancing up. "You don't care about any of that! All you want is the throne, and for what!?" Standing to his feet, he pins it with the best glare he has. "For revenge?! Because you lost your friends?! You don't even remember them! You're just sailing because of your pain! Because you don't know what else to do! And you're making everyone else hurt too, just because! You're not a pirate! You're not even a person! You're a shadow! A ghost! YOU DIED WITH YOUR CREW!"

Astoundingly, Nidhogg falls silent. A creature that roared and spat and snarled for its entire existence, that was always roiling and twitching and moving, freezes, utterly quiet. For several seconds that may actually be an eternity, the two stare at each other, and then he shuffles one foot back.

That movement provokes the beast, Nidhogg flipping to its feet and charging forward, still utterly silent. He stretches his arms up, grasping a spar and soaring into the sky as the rubber pulls back. Below, Nidhogg skids to a halt, reverses, and grasps the mast with its claws, beginning to climb. It climbs steadily, but slowly; he climbs in bursts, each taking him further up the mast. Blades of shadow shoot up, seeking to impale him, but swinging in the air as he does allows him to avoid all but minor nicks.

Within minutes, he has reached the top of the mast, the fog encompassing all even at this atmosphere and Nidhogg two spars down but rising fast. Gritting his teeth, he bites into his thumb, and blows. His arm swells, the air flowing into his chest and then other arm as he continues to blow. Within seconds, both arms are fit for a giant, and he cuts the flow in favor of taking a colossal breath into his chest, ribs stretching to fit. Sandaled feet grasp the mast and muscles in the back and chest flex, spinning him around into a tightly wound spring.

"GUUUUM-GUUUUM—!"

And then Nidhogg is there, faster than he had any right to be. Shadow skitters off the massive arms, merely adding to the thin lines already present, but umbral jaws find purchase in his gut.

"Gah!"

Air hisses out from the punctured torso, and he knows he must act now. And thankfully, his opponent is right there. Two massive arms pump, smashing into Nidhogg from above, dislodging him and sending him spiraling towards the ground far below.

"GIAAAANT STOOOORM!"

And he follows, screaming, spinning like a top. Each fist is a meteor with the weight of a mountain, and they fall like a monsoon rain, swift and unrelenting. The fists are too large to receive damage, and in any case, Nidhogg is now utterly senseless, unable to counterattack.

The torment is only ended when it is squashed between titanic fist and the small landmass floating on the sea. Dark shadows and a small dot in black and blue and bronze and red fly away, signifying to all one thing:

This fight is over.

-o-

K-K-K-KRACK!

"Sonnuvabitch!" I yelped, cartwheeling my arms in panic as the flipping island shattered beneath us.

I mean, it was to be expected of course after the cataclysmic beatdown we'd just seen Luffy deliver, of course, but it was another entirely to feel the very earth tremble beneath your feet. And then it was a tier all of its own when you and everyone around you had to scramble to stay together as massive rents and cracks ripped the earth apart, and seawater sloshed up and sprayed us in drenching, salty gouts.

Thankfully, the devastation was as swift as it was brutal, and as soon as it was over, we were left panting in shock, wet, dumbstruck… but alive.

Zoro huffed heavily as he stared at the crack before glancing at me. "Is this… going to be a regular thing?" he managed to get out.

I shook my head, a slight jerk in the motion. "Not until New World, that's for damn sure."

That got me a heck of a lot of attention, several people opening their mouths to speak at once—

"Wait…" Usopp cut in, hand shading his eyes. "Is that… Luffy?"

When they were all silenced by that query, and followed his line of vision.

And indeed, right there in the sky, sailing on the breeze of his own rapidly exhaling breath...

"WHO-O-O-O-O-OA! SOMEONE CA-A-A-ATCH ME!"

Was our captain, and the winner of this long and arduous fight, Monkey D. 'That Freaking GLORIOUS Straw Hat' Luffy!

"Oh, yeah, forgot he tends to do that…" I commented weakly. I paused briefly, tilting my head. "Somebody should catch him before he falls in the drink, huh?"

"I got this," Chopper said, weary but fond. Shifting to Heavy Point, he stepped forward, and then right, and then forward again, just in time for him to catch Luffy against his chest. His head leaned down, several curious hums coming from him, and then he turned around with a sunny grin. "Alright, he's not going to keel over immediately or bleed out anytime soon, so I hope you don't mind if I take a moment to celebrate the fact that we fucking survived that!"

I allowed a massive sigh of relief to exit my lungs, now that we were safe at last from that monster that Moria had somehow become. And out the corner of my eye I could see everyone else—Zoro, Sanji, Nami, Franky, Brook, Lola, Usopp, Lassoo, and Funkfreed—doing the same. But it couldn't be that simple; the second I began thinking about the whole fight with a perfectly clear head, my blood ran cold as I realized that there was something I had overlooked.

"Hold everything, guys."

"Not that tone, please not that tone, not now of all times, Cross," Usopp moaned, he and everyone else immediately on their guard.

"Sorry, Usopp, but I have to," I said, Lassoo and Funkfreed moving back towards me as I scanned around. "Thinking over the situation, all of the zombies were purified. All of the Mysterious Three were taken out. All of our allies were present and accounted for. And the mansion was a long way away from the graveyard, isolated from all the noise we were making. I wasn't able to spare enough thought for this until now with Moria's Awakened rampage, but thinking about it now?"

I turned so that I was facing everyone.

"If we sedated him—which we didwho or what woke him up from it?"

I registered the looks of horrified realization come onto my friends' faces… but just barely. What happened next was Eneru all over again, it just happened so freaking fast. A dark shadow looming behind me, the sound of fabric leaving flesh, and a soft, almost gentle voice, speaking a single word.

"Me."

I barely had enough time to start panicking when I felt something touch my head. Then everything went dark.

Cross-Brain AN: Some things simply cannot change…

Hornet AN: On a lighter note, when Moria was hit by the Nova Star, he was going to say "Rip your spines out through your nostrils." How that's anatomically possible will be left as an exercise to you, dear reader.