Exploring the Spooky Thriller Bark
"What the fuck is this?! I'm covered in fire!" The invisible man screams as he tries to put out the fire.
"Who is that invisible jerk! And does he want to join our crew?" Luffy asked surprise and curious.
"Why would you want to recruit someone who is trying to force the ship to that island?" Shirone asked yelling.
"Hey! What the Hell are you trying to do with the Sunny? Better answer us now or else!" Franky demanded with deep anger.
"Damn it! I didn't think I'd get spotted like this, but it doesn't matter since I've already done my job and you'll be on Thriller Bark before you know it." The invisible man smirked.
"So, he really is trying to get us on the island." Sanji grunted, and then suddenly the ship started rocking up and down due to the sudden high waves going on.
"Tell us what's on that island and how many of you are there?" Shirone asked as well.
"Sorry, but I rather not spoil the surprise for the master. You should all be grateful that we want you all alive." The invisible said.
"Hands of the Dead!" The invisible man shouted and suddenly Shirone is pushed away crash onto the wall as she gasps in pain.
"Shirone!" Robin worried for the kitty girl as everyone else is shocked of this.
"Hey, what just happened? Why did you suddenly went flying backward?" Zoro asked.
"I don't know, it felt like I was hit by a cannon." Shirone groaned in pain.
"Oh no, the invisible guy is gone!" Luffy alerted as the flame covering the invisible man faded and now, he is nowhere to be found.
"Hold on, I'll try to find him." Shirone tried to get back up, and she suddenly smacked away and onto Robin who quickly catches her.
"Looks like he's not trying to give you a chance." Robin said.
"Now we're going to be separated from Nami and the others." Sanji cursed his luck for not being able to help Nami right now on that spooky and dangerous island.
"Come on, Franky! You gotta have some kind of secret weapon for a time like this!" Luffy begged as he doesn't want to lose his friends.
"All right, I'll bust out the surprise hot tub!" Franky announced.
"Whee! Sounds like fun!" Luffy smiled.
"Wait, no!" Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji yelled at the same time, realizing this is not the time for a hot tub.
(With Nami and the Boys)
The scene shows closer to the island Thiller Bark where there is a stone wall in front of the water and something below and between the walls, and at the bottom are the four Straw Hat crew.
Usopp groans from the pain on his butt and Gasper is still laying on Chopper's chest who has grown himself into his Heavy Point form, Nami is standing up and looking up at the top of the stone wall.
"That was quite the fall." Nami said.
"No kidding." Gasper agreed scarily.
"That wall must be 6 or 7 meters high. We're lucky we're still okay." Nami stated.
"Chopper, I'm really sorry for landing on you like this." Gasper apologized as he slowly gets back up.
"That's okay, just doing my best to help my friends." Chopper exclaimed as he tries to act tough.
"What is this place anyway?" Chopper asked.
"It's that ghost island, of course." Nami answered.
"Ghost?!" Usopp, Gasper, and Chopper gasped and stood shaking in fear like little babies.
"What? Don't act like you're surprised! We've already been over this, haven't we?" Nami pointed out the facts they already know about the island, despite her body also shaking in fear like the boys.
"But if we were up there, how did we get down here?" Usopp wondered as they look up with Nami.
"I think I remember the Mini Merry hit something hard during our joyride." Gasper said.
"You are correct. We got excited about the Mini Merry and before we know it, we hit the shore." Nami answered, this confuses the boys until she explains further.
"We didn't notice it, but the wall up there is the edge of the island. When we ran into it, we were all thrown off the boat. Then we landed in this moat here." Nami explained what happened.
"Now, I admit that was 100% my fault, but I'm cute, so you'll forgive me, right?" Nami tried to work on the cutie face to make the boys not mad at her.
"Yeah right, after I smack you!" Usopp yelled.
"Actually, Nami, I would like to make an apology to you while we're talking about forgiveness." Gasper said with his head down and one hand up.
"Huh, apology for what?" Nami asked.
"Well, huh, when we were falling… I huh, I… I sort grab your boobs during the fall! I'm so sorry!" Gasper revealed loud.
Both Usopp and Chopper scream in shock while Nami is silent for one second until her eyes became a little wider and something in her mind started to click upon that moment when they hit the stone wall and fell off the Mini Merry.
(Flashback)
Nami and the boys are having fun on the Mini Merry though they go a bit too close to the island and none of them notice the stone wall they're about to hit.
"Wow Nami, you're really good at riding these motor vehicles!" Gasper complimented.
"Thanks! Guess you could say I'm a natural at it!" Nami chuckled.
And right after saying that, the Mini Merry hit the stone wall forcing it into a sudden stop that threw all four pirates off and begun to fall into the wall. And during that very moment is when Gasper moved in too close to Nami with one hand latching onto her breasts, this also made him gasp with his face turning red.
(Flashback End)
"…Gasper." Nami said.
"Yes!" Gasper answered, flinching in fear.
"You will pay me 10,000 berries for that." Nami punished Gasper with money.
"I'm so sorry! I don't have any money right now, but I promise to pay you and make up for it too!" Gasper cried and fell on his knees and hands.
"Damn it, if only I had warned him about Nami charging money for things." Usopp cursed.
"Anyway, what I don't get is why they have a moat on the other side of the wall right at the entrance. What's the point?" Usopp changed the subject back to what's going on here.
"From the looks of things, it's some kind of trap. If you think of it that way, we're lucky we didn't fall on any spears of giant spikes." Nami pointed out.
"Yeah, though I do feel bad about landing on these poor skeletons that broke our fall." Gasper looked down at the giant pile of skeletons they are standing on right now.
Usopp and Chopper look down for a moment realizing this and became scared again.
"Would you stop that already!" Nami yelled.
"Yeah! Have some respect for the dead!" Gasper yelled too.
"Hey, we're still near the entrance, right? If we stay put for a while, Luffy will come and find us!" Usopp believed their captain will come because Luffy would never leave a friend behind.
"He might try, but we're below sea level. Doesn't that put us in a bad spot?" Chopper pointed out this position.
"And I don't think we'll be able to climb up." Gasper looked up at how straight up the wall is.
"Good point on both of you. If we stay here, then they might not notice us." Usopp realized this as well.
"In that case, we should find a way out of this pit and wait for them by the shore." Nami suggested.
But then something starts lurking and walking up to the four which only Gasper was able to sense something is approaching them.
"I guess so, but which way should we go?" Usopp asked.
"Guys, don't move! We're not alone down here!" Gasper alerted.
True to Gasper's words, there is something coming toward them with some soft vicious growling sounds within the darkness and a bit of fog.
"What the heck is that thing? A dog?" Usopp asked as the others become scared.
Then the view of the creature became clearer, showing this creature to be a very strange and dangerous dog with three heads.
"I don't think that's a dog." Nami said.
"Huh? Then what is it?" Usopp asked, starting to freak out a little.
"Oh no, it can't be… C-C-Cerberus?" Chopper recognized that dog what he believes to be.
The dog creature known as Cerberus with two of the heads being blue fur and the third head on its right has yellow fur. It also has three yellow tails, and the dog parts have yellow hair on the top of their heads and backs and one of the tails has white fur on the tip. Its body was covered in sutures and scars. Its zombie number, 82, it's written on its right side. Cerberus wears a red collar with spikes and has bandage covering its neck, along with the left eye of the yellow dog's head, three of the legs, and the upper and lower torso.
Then the four began screaming while running for their lives, and unfortunately, the Cerberus dog is chasing after them probably to devour their flesh.
"Wait! What the fuck's a Cerberus?" Nami asked.
"You don't know?! It's the guardian of the underworld!" Usopp explained with his heart beating fast in fear.
"Oh, come on, there's no way that's real!" Nami refused to believe that even though she's too scared to confront it.
"Well, it's a furred creature with three dog heads and has sharp fangs to take us to the underworld! What other explanation could that dog be?!" Gasper cried in fear.
"So, did we die and go to the underworld?!" Chopper asked, fearing for the worse.
"No?! Don't even say that!" Nami refused to believe they're dead because she can definitely feel her heart beating and the tears of fear running down her face from her eyes.
During the running, Gasper notice something on the piles of skeletons ahead of him that looks like a very strange fruit, but his instincts tell him to pick it up and so he did.
"Gasper! Don't stop! It'll eat us if we stop?!" Usopp reminded him.
"I know! I know!" Gasper cried.
The four kept running and running while Cerberus kept chasing them while all three heads are barking together, but then Chopper started to notice something strange about one of the heads barking sounds very different than the other two.
"Did you notice something, Chopper?" Usopp asked, seeing the reindeer boy turn his head towards Cerberus.
"What is it?" Nami asked.
"Is it something that we can help us survive?" Gasper asked his own question.
"That bark…" Chopper continued listening to the barks, noticing only one is not truly a dog.
"Hey, I'm on to you! One of your heads if a fox head, isn't it?" Chopper asked.
The Cerberus stops when the now revealed fox head gasps in horror that it has been found out and looks down in deep depress.
"I think its depress." Usopp whispered to Nami and Gasper.
"Guess it's sensitive about it." Nami believed.
"It must feel like an outsider to know that." Gasper commented.
Then the Cerberus barks louder and angrier chasing the four pirates again as they run away trying to get further ahead of the dog creature.
"I liked it better when it was yelping!" Usopp cried.
"Usopp, no! You're only going to make things worse for us!" Gasper gasped.
"See! It is sensitive!" Nami yelled.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Chopper apologized repeatedly.
"(Damn it, I think I'm gonna have to eat this fruit now!)" Gasper thought looked down at the fruit in his hands. But this fruit is a purple tomato-shaped fruit with swirl patterns around it and a curly green stem resembling a tail. The fruit is small enough to be held easily in a man's hand.
With no other choice, Gasper starts munching down on the Devil Fruit as fast as he can while running away from Cerberus.
"Gasper, what are you doing?" Chopper asked.
"I'm eating a Devil Fruit!" Gasper answered while still eating it, this shocked all three of them.
"YOU'RE EATING A DEVIL FRUIT AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!" They screamed, but they would have to question Gasper about it later because they need to get away from Cerberus first.
"Look! I see stairs! Now we can get up to the shore!" Nami spotted a big staircase up ahead.
"We're saved!" Gasper, Usopp, and Gasper cried in hope.
The four pirates run up the stairs hoping that maybe Cerberus is guarding the moat, it will have to stop and not allow to leave the place. But unfortunately, that was not the case as the Cerberus kept on chasing them up the stairs and into a forest.
"What now? It won't stop!" Nami asked, hoping for any suggestions.
"I thought the stairs would help!' Chopper said.
"Guessing Cerberus has more guarding position around the island!" Gasper feared.
That's when Usopp has an idea that just might work, he turns around while taking out his slingshot and a small pellet ball from his bag.
"Smoke Star!" Usopp fired the pellet that burst into a giant wall of smoke.
Cerberus runs into the smoke and loses sight of the four intruders for a moment until it jumps out of the smoke but looks around seeing there are no signs of the four pirates anymore as he walks around to try to find them.
Unknown to the three-headed dog, the four Straw Hat members are hiding up on a tree very high from its view.
"For a dog, its sense of smell sure is bad!" Usopp commented.
"Weird, it was almost like it's forgotten about that." Gasper said.
"It's gone." Usopp informed as the monster dog went ahead.
"But what now? It chased us all the way into this creepy forest!" Nami said as she looks around.
"I doubt that monster will go back down the moat anytime soon, it'll probably roam the forest until it finds us." Gasper feared.
"Yeah, if we climb to the ground and wait for help, it could find us again!" Chopper pointed out that as well.
"Quite the quandary, isn't it?" A voice said.
The four are surprised to hear someone very close by and turn to where it came from, and soon met face-to-face with a strange round man with bat wings and literally hanging upside-down from a tree branch.
This causes the four pirates to scream in shock and fear of seeing another strange thing on this island right after Cerberus.
"Who are you?!" Gasper and Usopp asked.
"Pardon my manners, the name's Hildon." Hildon introduced himself.
Hildon has a bat-like body with a black cape that is also his wings that enable him flight, and legs capable of suspending him upside down. He has sharp fangs and claws, a long-stitched nose, pointy ears, and his eyes, if not sunken, seem to have strange tattoos encircling them. Above his right eye is the number 21. He also carries a very large, long-necked bottle of what appears to be liquor on his back. He somewhat resembles a vampire.
"Oh, and speaking of bad manners. I was spying on all of you. That dog really seemed to scare you." Hildon revealed he was watching the whole thing.
"I wasn't scared!" Usopp proclaimed, but he was definitely scared.
The dark forest started to become creeper with more unholy monsters lurking in the darkness and one loud howl can be heard.
"The night has just begun, but already the shadows in the forest are deep. Soon, it shall be transformed into a world of terror, far beyond your worst nightmares." Hildon warned, and then a strange horse creature came in pulling a carriage.
"Might I recommend you take a ride with me in my carriage? We could go to the mansion together." Hildon offered them a ride.
"The mansion we saw?" Gasper asked.
"Of course." Hildon answered, appearing right behind Usopp.
"Dr. Hogback's abode is just up that way." Hildon revealed the man in the mansion, and Chopper became shocked of hearing that name.
"What's up?" Nami wondered what Chopper reacted like that for.
"Do you know him, Chopper?" Usopp asked as Gasper is also curious.
"Doctor Hogback!" Chopper shocked while his friends are confused.
KO a new chapter is done and hope you all enjoy it!
While Shirone and the others on the Sunny are trying to deal with the invisible man problem, Gasper and the others now find themselves right on Thriller Bark and it looks like they're about to meet someone who Chopper seems to recognize by name alone.
KO comment, favorite, and follow through of how this story will go!