Asteria Nightmare
Part five of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma
Note: We've got a new face!
h t t p : / / tinypic . com / r / 33a7x3o / 7
Ain't he just a beaut?
Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, One Piece or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs solely to Eiichiro Oda. The only thing that belongs to me here is the concept for the story.
"He who sings scares away his woes."
~Cervantes
It was only a little past noon when Franky finally finished his work on the Thousand Sunny. He was right on time, just like he'd promised the girlie; a super estimation if there ever was one. He'd even managed to let Brook help with minor tasks, handing down supplies and tools so Franky didn't have to keep climbing up and down from the ship's side to the deck. The skeleton had managed to not mess up once, so they were both feeling especially satisfied right about now.
When he finally clambered back up onto the main deck a little after lunchtime, he neatened his piles of tools and supplies, but didn't put them away just yet. He'd had to replace a few of the torn planks from the ripped open hull with new ones of fresh Adam's Wood, courtesy of his personal remaining stock down in storage. The old broken planks were now lying in a neat pile on deck, awaiting further use. They wouldn't be much good as a part of the hull anymore, but Franky was pretty sure he could still find a use for the valuable wood stock that wasn't torn up, if given enough time. He'd consult with Usopp when the rest of the crew got back later; the sniper might have some innovative ideas for the planks, too.
Their work finished, Franky and Brook waited by the rails on deck, watching the fishing village just ahead of them with increasing states of impatience and worry. From all their talk, Franky had expected the rest of the crew back at some point in mid-afternoon, hopefully with information that might help their captain. But another hour passed, and another, and there was still no sign of Girlie, Curly-Cook, Usopp, Sword-bro, or Robin. They were probably fine, but considering Strawhat's current state, there was no way to be sure.
"I dislike all this waiting," Brook, leaning against the rails nearby, finally confessed softly. His violin was in one hand, and he had been idly playing it for the past hour to keep them entertained, but Franky could easily tell the musician's heart wasn't in it like it usually was.
Franky raised his sunglasses (lowered for the afternoon blaze until now) and cocked an eyebrow at his crew mate. "I figured you were the patient type, Skeleton," he commented absently. "After fifty years—" (fifty heart-wrenchingly sad years, but he was totally not going to cry over that, that'd be very not super) "—what's a couple more hours?"
"I would agree with you normally, but I must confess I am concerned for the well being of the rest of the crew," Brook admitted. "You didn't see that monster, Franky-san, but it was...it was very scary."
This coming from a walking skeleton, the shipwright thought wryly...but he wasn't about to argue. He'd heard the stories last night, and seen what happened to Strawhat, and had to admit he was more than worried himself even if he definitely wasn't going to say it out loud.
"And after all this, I doubt we will even complete our mission in the first place," Brook finished with a dramatic sigh, and a long, mournful wail of the violin as he drew the bow heart-wrenchingly across the strings.
"Our mission?" Franky asked, confused, but then he froze. "You're right! We came here for those Dreamshard things sis was so excited about. I totally forgot after the attack, but I haven't seen any since we've been here."
"They are very beautiful gems," the skeleton agreed. "A sight for sore eyes, even though I have no eyes! But I, too, have not seen any, not even in the fishing village when we explored it yesterday." He gestured absently to the little collection of huts in the distance with the violin bow, and then returned to playing the instrument, creating a sad little dirge that whistled through the empty air and vanished on the tiny breeze.
"Stop doing that, Skelly," Franky complained. "Play something happier, or you're gonna...that is...ah, the wind might scatter dust in my eyes, see?" Brook obliged, and to the much more cheerful, faster tune of 'Bink's Sake,' the cyborg recovered and continued their conversation. "Those Dreamshards sis wants are really valuable, right? Maybe the people here knew it too. Maybe they were hidden, or buried. Like pirate treasure."
"It's very possible, Franky-san!" the skeleton offered cheerfully. His mood seemed to change with his music, and now that he was playing a livelier tune he seemed a little more uplifted. "If some were buried on the beaches it could explain why they get washed away to Adamantina, too. This place seems older than even a skeleton like me, and the beaches could easily be eroded over time!"
"It'd be too bad if we came all this way and Girlie didn't even get her Dreamshards," Franky said, musingly, chin resting on one large hand as he leaned on the rail. "And they were worth a mint back on Adamantina, too. Just one would be enough to pay for dozens of super adjustments to Sunny and her systems. I bet I could even get a hold of more Adam Wood if we needed it."
Brook nodded amicably in agreement, though he volunteered no material desires of his own. He had his violin, and the grand piano they'd taken from Thriller Bark a few weeks ago, which was all he really needed to be happy. But he did pick up the pace in whatever he was playing now—it didn't sound terribly like Bink's Sake, so Franky didn't recognize it anymore—and said delightedly, "Perhaps there is some hidden in the village right now!"
Franky considered, and eyed the village at the end of the stone docks. It was still bright and sunny out, and the streets that he could see from here were completely illuminated in the afternoon sunlight. It wasn't too far away, either, and since there wasn't much else they could do here but wait...
"Let's go look for them," the cyborg said decisively, and reeled back from the rails of the ship, stretching tall.
The ditty Brook was playing ground to a halt with an indignant squawk, and the musician stumbled backwards so fast he almost tipped overboard. "Wh-wh-what? Leave the ship? With those monsters out there? But it wouldn't be safe at all!"
Franky caught his bony arm in one meaty fist before he could pitch backwards into the water and hauled him further to the safety of the deck. "It'll be fine," Franky argued. "There hasn't been a thing out there all day, it's still light out, and we'll stay within sight of the Thousand Sunny. We shouldn't wander too far in case the doc needs us for anything, but if we stay near the docks, everything'll be fine. And besides, if we find one of those Dreamshards, then sis'll be in a super good mood, and we can make the Sunny even stronger too!"
Brook still looked a little skeptical (Franky thought, anyway; sometimes it was hard to tell, seeing as the skeleton was only capable of about three expressions without a face). But after a moment he nodded. "Very well," he said, as he stooped to replace the violin in a case at his feet, and retrieve the cane-sword from where it leaned nearby. "If that is so, then I will accompany you! And perhaps if we are lucky we shall find gems beautiful enough to set a man's heart pounding! ...Well, perhaps yours, but not mine, for I have none—"
"Yeah, yeah," Franky muttered, and headed over to the infirmary door long enough to knock on it and let Chopper know they were heading to the village. The reindeer didn't respond, but peeking through the window the cyborg could see their doctor hard at work at his desk, juggling a variety of vials and studying them intently. Franky let him be, and he and Skeleton climbed down the rope ladder to the stone docks that led to the village beyond.
They poked around the ruined cluster of houses for almost an hour, and it was well into mid-afternoon before the two stopped to take a break and trade findings. There weren't any. They explored all the houses within sight of the Sunny, and while Franky tapped walls and searched for hidden spaces in the stone, and Brook poked his sword cane at the ground in hopes of finding looser soil where something might be buried, they found no trace of the brilliantly shining Dreamshards that they had seen on Adamantina.
Franky was beginning to wonder if the people at the previous island even had the stories right at all—maybe the Dreamshards didn't come from this island at all, but another one nearby—when two screams ripped through the air.
Brook's head snapped up immediately, and face or no, Franky was definitely sure that expression was surprise. "That is the same cry the other creature made last night!" the skeleton announced with a tremble in his voice, but even so his hand was steady as he drew his sword out of its cane sheath.
"There were two that time," Franky responded with a frown, and turned around hastily, searching for the source of the noises.
They didn't have long to wait. There was a loud thud and a resounding crash, and then two creatures barreled into view around an old, run-down building, coming from the direction of the forest beyond the village. The skeleton yelped in surprise— "That's them, Franky-san, that's what the creature looked like!" and Franky stared in disgust and morbid fascination as the strange spider-cat-scorpion aberrations charged towards them, screeching loudly. Both of them, he noted absently, had the sharp blade-like tails at the ends of their bulbous bodies; neither of these were the ones that had hurt Luffy last night.
That made him notice something else, and even as he lowered his body into a combat stance he yelled to Brook, "The tails are armored too, look!"
It was true. The creatures' bodies were covered in a thick chitin-like substance, shinier in the sunlight, and resembled armored plates that ran all the way up their backs to the edge of the bladed tail. So Zoro hadn't found any particular weak spot after all. Those things were armored as well as a tank, and an ordinary sword wouldn't have cut through it. But everyone who had seen the attack last night distinctly recalled Sword-bro chopping the thing's tail straight off. What the hell had happened?
"They're not afraid of the sun either!" the skeleton yelled back. His observation was correct as well. Although the creatures were weaving back and forth into small pools of shadow cast by the buildings when they could, they did not appear particularly afraid of the sun. It was more like they simply disliked the light, rather than feared it. That wasn't a good sign.
The smaller of the two Nightmares was still hissing and shrieking frantically as it flailed its two sets of mandibles, and it was rapidly pulling ahead of its partner. Its eight mismatched legs dug into the ground and rocketed it forward with alarming speed, and its many bulbous eyes were fixated straight on the two of them.
"Look out, Franky-san!" Brook warned, and leapt forward with surprising speed to meet the creature's charge. With a quick flourish of his sword, the skeleton brought his weapon thrusting forward at the Nightmare's head with a cry of "Gavotte Bond en Avant!"
For a moment, Franky was sure the attack would be successful, and the cane-sword would plunge into the Nightmare's skull with a sickening crack and a spurt of blood. But stunningly enough the sword tip scraped up and over the creature's armored head with a teeth-jarring screech, and without even slowing its momentum the Nightmare crashed forward into Brook and seized the nearly weightless skeleton in its clicking mandibles.
It started to lift the musician in the air, but Franky intervened before another two seconds were allowed to pass. His left fist seized Brook's spine, fingers awkwardly fitting into the cavities of the undead man's ribcage, and with a furious twist he ripped his fellow pirate free of the grasping mandibles. He heard cloth tearing, and the creature shrieked angrily, but Franky couldn't care less. His right elbow was already crashing down onto the horror story's head with a roar of anger, and the creature's hiss of protest cut off with a rasping grunt as its jaw was slammed into the dirt.
But for all that, Franky knew he had barely even stunned the thing, let alone injured it. The uncomfortable grating feeling of metal on metal had told him that much; Curly-Cook hadn't been kidding when he said the thing was armored. It wasn't covered in metal, but that natural chitin was almost as good as the metal plating underneath his own skin, and that was going to make beating this thing seriously tricky.
"I can't believe my sword couldn't cut it!" Brook was yammering now. "Zoro-san's sword cut that monster! He is considerably stronger than me in the art of the blade, but still, is there that much of a difference between us?"
"Don't know," Franky growled, "But we're not stopping to find out!" One creature alone was tricky enough as it was, but the second larger but slower Nightmare was still charging up the streets towards them, and without Sword-bro there to help them beat it they'd be in deep trouble. Pushing Brook behind himself, he ripped the glove-like skin coating off his right hand, revealing a solid steel fist, and drew back his arm just as the first, faster Nightmare recovered its balance and raised his head.
"Strong Hammer!" he roared, and put all his fury into the blow. He caught the bristling, angry creature straight between its bulbous eyes, and while his punch wasn't enough to break the chitin armor, it was enough to force the creature back powerfully. The Nightmare shrieked wordlessly as it was sent flying down the street and cannoned into its partner, sending the two of them crashing into a dilapidated building in a tangle of mismatched legs.
"Run!" Franky ordered, and Brook obligingly did so, charging after him on gangly skeletal legs back towards the Sunny. They could hear more terrifying, cold screaming behind them, and not just from the two creatures they had knocked into each other, but further back, from several more directions. Reinforcements were coming.
They were almost at the docks when a new scream, different than the others, sounded from terrifyingly close by. It was lower, an almost rumbling purr, layered over with a growling hiss like an old gas furnace. Before Franky had time to ask the skeleton if he recognized the noise, an old hut two buildings behind them burst in a shower of rubble, and something new slithered out after them.
At first, with a quick glance over his shoulder, Franky thought it was another one of the spider-cat-scorpion Nightmares. It had a multitude of legs like those did, far too many to be acceptable, even more than a centaur should have. Then he realized with a start that this was a completely different creature, arrowing straight towards them with unerring surety. Its body appeared to be that of an enormous python, dark and shadowy in color with a reptilian head. Or perhaps it was supposed to be more like a centipede; this creature, too, was covered in the same chitinous plating that the other Nightmares possessed, and it had six narrowed slit-eyes resting atop its snakelike skull. But instead of a multitude of insect-like legs, this creature possessed arms: dozens of arms, each working independently, fluidly, walking the creature forward at an alarming pace. Franky almost would have thought it was some strange sick joke on Nico Robin's part if he hadn't already known her sense of humor—while morbid—frequently didn't extend to such pranks.
The creature noticed his repeated glances over his shoulder, and hissed, flicking a snakelike tongue—no, three snakelike tongues—out at him as it glided forward in a strange, undulating, half-slither and half-walk. It raised the front third of its body up abruptly, just like a snake really might, leaving three pairs of arms unoccupied with walking—and then lunged forward abruptly, extending its unnatural number of hands straight for the two of them.
Franky jumped with a curse, and while the hands brushed his heels they missed grasping him by a hair. Brook was not so lucky. One of the creature's fists grasped his bony ankle, and with a cry of alarm the skeleton crashed to the ground, arms outstretched in front of him. Instantly the snake-arm thing had scrabbled forward, using its many hands to hold the skeleton down and hissing warningly in the musician's ear.
Brook let out a screech of alarm, and Franky swore again. The arm-creature, whatever the hell it was, was definitely fast! He spun on one heel to head back and help, but a swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach told him he was probably too late to be of any use. According to the others' reports, Luffy had been mysteriously harmed the moment the first type of Nightmares had managed to fully seize hold of him. While Franky had managed to prevent the first Nightmare from getting a good grip on Brook a few minutes ago, this new thing already had their musician cold.
But it didn't bend down to try and consume the skeleton or try to raise him in the air, and while Brook was definitely screeching bloody murder from panic, it didn't sound even remotely like the despairing scream everyone had described yesterday when Luffy had been attacked. It just undulated over the captured skeleton, hissing fearsomely and repeatedly twisting its reptilian head back to look for its companions. It was a long shot, but Franky thought that maybe—just maybe—this creature couldn't use that particular attack.
No good dwelling on it. Whatever it could or couldn't do, it was still dangerous, and it had one of his nakama in its grasp. Now Franky was mad, and he was going to show it. Twisting both of his arms together in front of him, he glared over his fingers at the snake-arm creature and growled, "Better pay attention to me, Scaly!"
The creature whipped around once again and raised its reptilian head higher, glaring at him with six glittering eyes. It opened its mouth wide to let out a rumbling, hissing growl—at the exact same moment that Franky's arms finished charging and he roared, "Coup de Vent!"
The compressed air blast fired straight into the snake-arm's mouth, and the angry hiss turned into a pained wail of surprise as it flew backwards and smashed to the dirt-packed village streets behind it. Brook was momentarily jerked with it, but the creature's hands flew open reflexively and the skeleton dropped to the dirt packed earth some distance from the new Nightmare, scrambling to his feet and charging back towards his crew mate.
"Th-th-thank you!" he managed to stammer, as he staggered past the cyborg—Franky made sure he was in front this time, just in case.
"Thank me later, Skelly, for now just move!" the shipwright ordered sharply. The snake-arm behind them was dazed—apparently its insides weren't as armored as its outsides, although it had been a very lucky shot that he doubted he could duplicate. But it was already staggering to its feet (arms, rather) and swaying drunkenly after them as it shrieked to its companions. Franky had a feeling they didn't want to be there when its backup arrived.
They reached the Thousand Sunny in record time and clambered up onto the decks, pulling the rope ladder up with them. Franky wasn't sure how much good it would even do. Spiders and cats were good at climbing after all, and that snake thing had so many arms it'd be impossible for it not to find a handhold somewhere. But he wasn't going to give the things any aid if he could help it. Both of the pirates stumbled frantically to the front of the ship and stared over the railings, panting as they searched for the enemy creatures.
There were a lot of them. Far too many of them. It was like a spider's nest had been opened, and a fresh swarm of the creatures was heading straight for them, intent and hungry. Franky didn't know where the hell they all came from, but they were swarming out of the village like ants out of an anthill, and they were all coming straight for the Sunny. Most of them were the strange spider-cats, but Franky spotted two more of the snake-arm things too, weaving in and out of the insectoid crowd with their strange undulating walk.
"They're like generals," Franky said, bewildered.
"The...the new things?" Brook asked, after trying and failing to find some sort of name for the snake-monsters.
"Yeah. Look at them. They act smarter than the spider things, less mindless," Franky said, grimacing. "And they're herding the spider things on. I think...the first ones, the spider-cat Nightmares, they must be the things that do the poisoning, but they must have to be ordered to do it or something. That snake-thing didn't try to bite you, or do whatever it did to Luffy to you. It just held you down for the others."
"You make them sound a lot more intelligent than I'd care for, Franky-san," Brook said, and while his skull appeared impassive, the apprehension in the musician's voice was definitely audible.
"Yeah," Franky said with a grimace. "I hear ya there, Skeleton." The creatures were already at the docks now, beginning to scurry down the slippery stone towards the Thousand Sunny, and Franky turned and ran back towards the infirmary. "C'mon, move! I bet those things are after Luffy again, we can't let'em get on the ship!"
"Right!" Brook agreed quickly, and after bending to scoop up his violin he charged after the cyborg.
The thundering clack-clack of the spider-like Nightmare legs were growing closer, along with their hissing hunting shrieks, and now Chopper met them at the infirmary door with a panicked expression on his face. "What's going on, what's going on?" the little reindeer cried, dancing back and forth anxiously on his little hooves. "Those things can't be back, can they?"
"They are," Franky said shortly. "A lot of them. Guard the door, don't let'em get to our captain. I'll try to keep'em off the ship. Skelly, you help the doc, hurry!"
"Right!" the two chorused in unison, and although they were both clearly terrified, Chopper expanded to his gorilla form and Brook raised his sword again, ineffectual as it was.
Franky ran to the edge of the Sunny, planting himself firmly at one of the railings. He could already hear the scraping of spider legs on his masterpiece's hull, and thought furiously of all the damage the creatures would cause before this was over. But if he could shoot them down before they got on deck, they might stand a chance of surviving this fiasco.
Not that he had much hope. He couldn't even beat one of the strange Nightmares, and there had to be dozens of them here, swarming like angry insects. They'd inevitably get on the deck, and he didn't know what they'd do about them then. But he'd try to fight them off, damn it. That was his captain in there that they wanted to eat, and there was no way he'd stand for it!
A new wave of hissing screams rent the air, and Franky raised his left arm in determination, planning to rain all the artillery he had down on the creatures. Then he froze. The creatures weren't screaming with the thrill of the hunt. The sound was exactly the same startled shriek that he'd heard when he sent the snake-arm flying, or when he'd punched the spider Nightmare into one of its kin.
The creatures were in pain.
Stunned, he stared down at the spider things, already halfway up the Sunny's side. Oily black smoke was beginning to pour off the sides of the ship, and for one horrified moment he thought his precious masterpiece was burning. Then he realized it wasn't the ship at all; it was the creatures themselves. Everywhere a clawed leg or armored belly touched the ship, the Nightmares were dissolving into liquid-like black smoke, screeching in agony. Even so, the stubborn abominations still struggled to climb higher, desperate to reach the rails and clamber onto the decks above.
Already the first wave had ground to a halt, buying them a few moments of time. With a sudden burst of new determination, Franky raised his left arm and, aiming very carefully to avoid the Sunny's freshly repaired hull, roared, "Weapons Left!"
Three of the creatures dropped off of the hull into the water, screeching in surprise and still smoking. Franky smirked to himself. His aim was nothing compared to Usopp's sharpshooting skills, but he still wasn't a bad shot himself.
The Nightmares were recovering though, aided by the furious rumbling purrs of the three undulating snake-arms. The spider Nightmares skittered back and forth as though unsure, but at further rumbling screeches that Franky was almost sure were commands, now, a new wave of the spider-cats charged forward and began clambering up the Sunny's side once more.
"Not that smart, are you?" Franky growled, as the fresh spiders began to smoke on contact with the ship. He didn't know what was causing it—maybe the creatures were allergic to Adam Wood, or something—but either way, he knew the Sunny was helping them in this fight. He aimed his left arm again—
And a third wave of the spider Nightmares surged forward, using their dying brethren as ladders to clamber over so that their own bodies would not touch the wood paneling of the great ship.
Franky swore as the creatures swarmed upward, too fast for him to handle. He backpedaled quickly, putting himself back to back with Brook and raising his fists defensively. The new wave of Nightmares reached the decks and crashed down onto the grassy surface, but then these, too, started to smoke, shrieking in pain as they began to disintegrate.
"What's going on?" Chopper yelled behind him. "The Sunny's hurting them!"
"Not sure," Franky said. "Keep your guard up, more are coming and they'll use these ones as a floor!"
And sure enough a fourth wave of them came, mindlessly rushing to their own deaths, carpeting the Sunny with their own twisted, horrific bodies to pave the way for those behind them. They were getting dangerously too close for comfort now, and as more creatures began dying on deck, more combat space was opened for the creatures at the back of the swarm. Whatever the Sunny did to them was powerful, but pretty soon they would be overrun.
"Damn!" the cyborg snarled. "If we could just stun them long enough to let the Sunny finish'em off—"
"Perhaps I can be of assistance!" Brook said suddenly. "If they are Nightmares, perhaps they sleep, as well!" And, ripping open his violin case quickly, he drew the flat of his sword over the instrument's strings and shouted, "Lullaby Flanc!"
"What the hell is that—" Franky began, and then swayed in surprise as a slow, soothing tune shivered to life from the violin. It made his eyelids droop, and Chopper looked confused as well, gripping one edge of the infirmary's doorway to keep upright. "Dammit, Brook," the cyborg continued at a lower volume, "whatever you're doing, it's affecting us!"
"No," Chopper said sleepily, "They don't like it either, look..."
It was true, Franky realized in surprise. While the creatures did not droop with the sudden soothing lullaby, and did not look remotely fatigued, they had frozen in place and trembled with visible exertion. They looked confused and agitated, but despite their obvious dislike of this latest attack, they did not surge forward to stop it.
It clicked suddenly. "Skelly!" Franky yelled over the soothing lullaby tune. "Keep playing music, they don't like it! But something livelier, don't put us to sleep!"
"Understood!" Brook yelled back. Dropping his cane sword, he instead drew the violin's bow free from its case and raised it to the instrument, just as the Nightmares snapped out of their stupor and swayed in place.
"Look out!" Chopper said suddenly, as dozens of the creatures raised their heads and released long, keening shrieks, snapping their blade-like tails to and fro. "Last time they did that—fear—"
Franky remembered the story clearly; how the Nightmare's terror-inducing attack had frozen even Curly-Cook and Sword-bro in place. And now there were dozens of them using it, all at the same time. He grimaced, and the blast of sheer terror and despair hit him like an icy avalanche—at the exact same moment Brook struck up the first few chords of a fast-paced rendition of Bink's Sake.
The music trembled alarmingly, slipped screeching into a series of bad notes as Brook was hit by the terror blast and his whole body began to tremble. But the musical notes, even mistakenly made, had their own effects as well. Franky felt the icy terror and raw despair of the Nightmare's attacks grip at his heart for a fraction of a second, but the warm, lively notes of Brook's violin seemed to wash the terror away almost instantly, like sun beating furiously down on snow.
Franky, Brook and Chopper froze for a fraction of a second as the fear filled them and the music freed them, and then Brook, seizing control of himself once more, launched himself into the most heartfelt and powerful rendition of Bink's Sake any of them had ever heard before. It was quick, cheerful, exciting, and made Franky almost feel like dancing then and there. It was almost impossible to remember that the creatures surrounding them had stifled them with pure terror just a moment before.
And the music had another effect: the Nightmares were not just agitated anymore by the melody. They appeared to have been fastened in place, stunned into immobility just as their own terror had done to their victims moments before.
"Keep it up, Skelly!" Franky encouraged, even as his mind flew frantically for some sort of counterattack now that they had found their unexpected defense.
"Yohohoho! Certainly, Franky-san!" the musician replied, fingers and bow moving so fast over the violin's strings they were a blur.
The creatures were still locked in place, though a few trembled alarmingly, twitching limbs and scratching at their dying kin that they still stood on. Smoke billowed in the air now as the creatures began to disintegrate, and with a sudden, vicious grin Franky came upon the perfect solution to their problem.
Diving forward, the cyborg snatched up two pieces of planking from his repairs earlier. Though splintered from the initial hull breakage, both pieces of Adam Wood were still relatively sturdy, and more importantly, they had also been a part of Sunny until very, very recently. Tossing one plank over his shoulder into Chopper's stunned arms, the cyborg raised the second plank in both huge fists and growled, "Get off my ship, you ugly bugs!" even as he swung it full force.
The plank collided with the nearest frozen spider Nightmare. Franky was expecting it to start smoking, just like the others that had been walking on the ship. What he hadn't expected was that the creature would burst into flames with an ear-bleeding scream and dissolve into oily black smoke in the span of only a few seconds. He stumbled forward in surprise as the plank, no longer meeting resistance, continued to swing, and caught the next nearest Nightmare in the leg. The creature's limb vanished into smoke as well, and seconds later the whole creature went up in a blaze.
"Franky!" Chopper said, looking both stunned and amazed. "How did you do that? That's...that's so cool!" Even in the midst of the terror, or perhaps because of it, the reindeer latched onto any sort of familiar routine of hero-worship that he could.
"Just smack'em with the planks!" Franky yelled back, "they don't like the wood!" and followed his own advice.
Their whole strategy was unexpected, but now that they had stumbled upon it, it worked wonders. Brook kept the Nightmares at bay with his fast paced, lively music—he'd long since finished Bink's Sake and had moved on to other things that Franky couldn't even begin to recognize, but were still fast and furious—while the reindeer and cyborg took advantage of their stunned states to beat them into blazing submission. Every one of the creatures actively attacked by the Sunny's Adam-Wood planks went up in flames and dissolved into liquid-like black smoke, dissipating into the air in minutes as though they never existed. More surged over the sides mindlessly, driven to attack and hunt, but these too were stunned by Brook's musical notes and defeated by Chopper's and Franky's swinging planks.
In the end, the battle finished when one of the snake-arm Nightmares surged over the railings, hissing and weaving wildly as it slither-walked towards them over the bodies of its fallen spider-like soldiers. Franky caught it straight in its ugly reptilian head with the Sunny's plank, roaring wordlessly since he didn't have an attack name quite yet. This creature seemed more durable than its spider-cat relatives, and while a vicious burn seared into its armored scales, sending tendrils of smoke into the air, it did not burst into flames. But it was sent flying from the force of the blow, and crashed straight into the rope-ladder rigging that the crew used to climb the masts and care for the sails. Its many arms tangled in the rope-mesh confines, and with an enraged, pained, rumbling scream the creature finally dissolved into thick smoke, leaving behind a disgusting charred-meat smell.
After that, the creatures retreated, skittering wildly over their fallen kin as they scrambled back over the decks, down the docks, and towards the village. They hissed wildly, fearfully, and even the remaining two snake-arm Nightmares, after giving the Straw-Hats withering looks, vanished into the streets.
"We did it!" Chopper said, amazed. "I can't believe we beat that many of those...those things!"
Brook finally lowered his bow from his violin, and appeared to be panting heavily...somehow. "Indeed we did," the skeleton agreed, "though I am amazed at how many there were to begin with!"
"Too many," Franky agreed. "But at least we know how to beat them now." He demonstrated once again by bringing the plank still in his hands—and no worse for wear after beating in the heads of a dozen armored creatures—crashing down onto the body of a half-dissolved spider Nightmare still laying prone on their decks. The creature burst into flames instantly and was gone in seconds.
"I wonder why they don't like the Sunny," Chopper said, puzzled. He glanced down at the plank in his hands. "Do they not like this special wood?"
"No," Franky said with a frown. "That can't be it. The grass hurt them too, and the rigging. Whatever it is that hurts them, it's all over the Sunny." Which was a little puzzling, though he was pleased to see that his beloved ship could withstand even the most freakish of creatures without any harm.
"I guess," the reindeer agreed, though he looked just as confused as Franky felt. Then, suddenly dropping the plank, he added, "Oh! We have Nightmares here now...maybe I can get a venom sample!"
But it proved impossible, in the end. The creatures dissolved too quickly for them to provide any reasonable specimens to study, and even when Chopper managed to extract a vial of blood from one of them, it vanished into smoke when the rest of the creature did. Chopper looked frustrated and ashamed with himself, but Franky gave him an encouraging pat on the back. "Don't worry about it, doc," he said. "We'll figure out what's wrong with Strawhat. Look, we know these things aren't unbeatable now...and I'm sure the others are finding answers for a cure even now."
"The others?" Chopper asked, puzzled. And then, "Oh, right...the others! Yeah, you're right, they were looking for a clue, and Robin said other villages might know something about these things...yeah, I'm sure the others'll find answers, as long as they don't run...into...the..."
He ground to a halt, and the three of them exchanged frantic glances suddenly.
"They don't know the creatures aren't affected by sunlight, and they don't have the Sunny to protect them," Brook said, sounding concerned. "And they don't have any music to stun them, either, since they don't have a musician with them!"
"They don't even know how to beat these creatures," Chopper moaned softly. "What if another one of them gets bitten? I don't know how I can help them if they can't find a cure—"
"We won't let it get that far," Franky said, slamming a metal fist into an equally metal palm suddenly. "We're going after them, and we're bringing backup with us."
"What about Luffy?" Chopper asked, anxious, as he glanced in the direction of his infirmary.
"We'll take him with us," Franky decided. "I can carry him. And now that we know the Sunny hurts these things, we can defend him, too. If those Nightmares want to take a bite out of us," he finished grimly, "then we'll take the fight to them, and see how well they like it."
As one, the three of them nodded in agreement. The Straw Hat pirates were worried for their nakama, were determined to protect them, were angry—and now, they were also armed.
Every time I imagine Brook playing fast tunes like he used here, I always think of these:
h t t p : / / w w w . youtube . com / watch?v =SSrH_oqnrl0&feature=related
h t t p : / / w w w . youtube . com / watch?v=t1IvsYF3QHA&feature=related
Srsly. You can't watch those and tell me it's not freakin' awesome. I love Brook's old tunes to death too (yohohoho) but seeing him perform one of these would also be wicked.
And a fun fact: the snake-arm critter was not, in fact, inspired by Robin's Hana-Hana powers. My intial idea was to give a snake legs. And then I thought, "What if the legs, were arms," and just kinda rolled with it from there.
You know the drill...if you review, please make it thoughtful, yadda yadda...
~VelkynKarma