WHAT! IS! UP!
Greetings one and all to my first miniseries! I have recently taken a break from writing one of my stories to do a fun little side project combining the worlds of Genndy Tartakovsky's primeval masterpiece with Eiichiro Oda's modern-day odyssey! As for why I made such a strange crossover, it was done because I felt like One Piece was missing some genuinely scary themes (Thriller Bark doesn't count and you know it). The closest we ever got to a One Piece horror story was the phenomenal sixth movie, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island.
I was rewatching Primal while brainstorming this and I settled on the one episode that was my all-time favorite: Plague of Madness. So here we are! While the story takes place sometime after the Wano arc, I made Yamato a part of the crew because I felt like she was a huge missed opportunity for the series as a whole but I respect Oda's decision. This won't be a long series, lasting only three chapters, but I hope this will be entertaining to you all.
Primal and One Piece belong to their respective owners, I do not own either of them.
Beta read by Zeroth17
Chapter 1
Prelude to a Nightmare
PREHISTORIC ISLAND
When one traverses the Grand Line, it is important to know that there is no such thing as a normal island. Every island in the New World had its hazards, dangers, environment, and inhabitants. All of which will put any explorer on their toes or in an early grave, yet they also had a strange beauty.
Dotted around the Grand Line were islands inhabited by dinosaurs, as if they had never gone extinct. Their existence had been the subject of numerous debates from paleontologists throughout the world. Some were even riven insane from trying to come up with any kind of logical explanation for how this was even possible. Eventually, they all gave up and accepted it for what it was: the sheer absurdity of the Grand Line mocking them as usual.
This island, in particular, is a sizable landmass occupying a random patch in the Grand Line that was home to a population comprised entirely of dinosaurs. What made this island unique was that it was solely inhabited by herbivores. No Raptors, no Tyrannosaurs, no predators whatsoever. Without any natural threat, peace reigned on the island with the only danger being the freak hurricane once every two years or so.
And it was on this day that the early morning sun shone down upon a herd of sauropods peacefully nesting in a forest clearing; they were a part of the Argentinosaurus family. The herd went about their lives on the island as they had for generations: enjoying each other's company, making nests for their eggs, basking in the tranquility of the island, or foraging for food.
One particular Argentinosaurus had chosen a tree bearing rich-tasting fruit to munch on. It took only a mere few minutes for the reptile to pick the tree clean of fruit and satiate its hunger. It was about to head back over to its herd when it spotted the most peculiar thing on the ground: a single fruit the size of a watermelon lying near a bush with odd swirls decorating its surface. It was light green and, chillingly enough, in the shape of a skull. Due to the sauropod's limited intelligence, it was not aware of the inherent danger this fruit posed as it craned its neck downward to get a better look. It sniffed the fruit but there was no scent that it could pick up. Listening to its growing stomach instead of its common sense, the Argentinosaurus lapped up the fruit with its tongue and began to chew...
THE THOUSAND SUNNY
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
A gentle breeze blew against Monkey D. Luffy's face as he sat upon the head of the Thousand Sunny. It was a cloudy afternoon for the crew of the Strawhat Pirates; a relaxing reprieve from their escapades in Wano. The waves splashed against the hull of the Sunny as the ship sailed through the rarely calm waters of the Grand Line. The crew was currently preoccupied with themselves due to the lull in excitement: Roronoa Zoro was sleeping, Sanji was cleaning the dishes after lunch, Nico Robin was in the library with her nose in a book, Franky was tinkering with his inventions in the workshop, Brook was up in the crow's nest strumming his guitar while Jinbei was steering the ship up at the helm.
But of course, one could not forget Usopp, Nami, Tony Tony Chopper, and their newest crewmate: Yamato. The son of Kaido, dreaming of following in the footsteps of the late Kozuki Oden, was more than eager to join the Strawhats and she was welcomed with open arms. She sat on the main deck in front of the Sniper, Doctor, and Navigator, who were busy recounting their adventures. Yamato was growing more and more enamored with every tale they shared with her: from the East Blue to Whiskey Peak, Drum Kingdom to Alabasta, Jaya to Skypiea, G8 to Long Ring Long Land, Water 7 to Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark to Sabaody, Fishman Island to Punk Hazard, Dressrosa to Zou, and finally Whole Cake Island.
Usopp exaggerated the stories a little bit but that didn't stop Yamato from having a huge smile on her face the whole time. At one point she admitted to wishing that she joined the crew sooner. Luffy listened in on them with an amused smile, never taking his eyes off the crystal clear sea. Luffy kept gazing at the ocean until he spotted the faint silhouette of an island out in the distance. He instantly broke out into a smile as he bounded off the head of the Sunny.
"Everyone! There's an island coming up with our name on it!" He excitedly hollered. One by one, the crew stopped what they were doing and piled out onto the main deck where they saw their captain pointing to a landmass far away from their ship.
Zoro smirked as he folded his arms. "Not just a few days after our last adventure and we're already diving into the next one, eh?"
"Honestly, I wouldn't mind a break from that for a while." Usopp sighed.
"Aw, c'mon! Where is the fun in that?" Luffy pouted. "Nami, what does the Log Pose say?"
Nami checked the Pose and studied the needles. One was pointing towards the island while shaking a bit while the other two needles were still. The navigator hummed, tapping her chin. "It's the only island it can detect, so I'd say we make landfall until the Pose sets."
"Then it's decided! Jinbei, let's head for our mystery island!" Luffy announced.
"Aye, captain." The Fishman proudly intoned as he headed back up to the helm. As the rest of the crew fanned out to get everything ready, Luffy noticed Yamato eagerly looking out towards the island.
"Your first island since leaving Wano. You ready?" Luffy asked.
"How could I not be?" Yamato happily replied.
PREHISTORIC ISLAND
The crew parked the ship a few feet from the beach and set the anchor down. The water was shallow enough for them to walk through up to the shoreline and immediately venture into the forest. Since there were no ports or towns that they could see, they saw no need for someone to stay back with the ship so they all went together. The Strawhats marched through the dense foliage of the forest as birds chirped through the air.
"We just had to land on an island overrun with mosquitoes." Sanji complained as he swatted a bug off his neck.
"Too bad for them, they can't get anything out of these old bones! Yohohohohohoho! SKULL JOKE!" Brook laughed as the pests ineffectually tried to drink from his skeletal limbs.
"Same goes for my SUPER cyborg body!" Franky added. The Shipwright was sporting a rough, messy hairstyle that reached down to his shoulders that gave him a caveman-like look.
"Next time we land at a port, we're buying bug repellant." Nami muttered to herself as she shooed away another mosquito.
A large shadow suddenly flew over the group, causing Usopp to let out a girly shriek. "AAAAAWHATWASTHAT?!"
The pirates glanced upward and saw a bird-like creature with scales. Luffy felt a tingle of nostalgia when he followed after it, the other calling after him and trying to keep up. He raced past the trees until he reached a clearing in the forest and stood atop a small hill. Luffy's jaw dropped when he saw that the bird he was pursuing was a Pterodactyl...and he was staring at an expansive, lush valley with herds of dinosaurs grazing together.
"It's...it's...it's...IT'S ANOTHER DINOSAUR ISLAND!" Luffy shouted with barely retrained excitement as his friends caught up with him and shared his astonishment.
"WOW! This is the first time I'm seeing live dinosaurs!" Chopper exclaimed with stars dancing around his eyes.
"Astounding..." Robin marveled as she got out her notebook and began drawing sketches of a Stegosaurus.
Franky almost immediately started bawling. "IT'S BEAUTIFUL, MAN! IT'S BEAUTIFUL! I'M CRYING CUZ IT'S SO PRETTY!"
Jinbe folded with arms as he stood next to Yamato. "During my time as a Warlord, I would often hear tales of islands like this. Inhabited by animals long thought to be extinct. Seeing the real thing before our eyes is...quite an experience."
"Yeah, it is." Yamato agreed, mystified at the scene before her. It was an almost magical experience: joining a pirate crew and setting out to see the world just like Oden did was like a page straight out of the late Damiyo's journal. It made her heart swell with joy and she wished this feeling would never end. Watching the dinosaurs go about their business, Yamato remembered something. "Say, Usopp, I think I recall you telling me about an island with dinosaurs like this one."
"Oh, yeah! Little Garden! That was when we met Dorry and Broggy while we were helping Vivi." Usopp grinned at the nostalgic memory. "We had some fun times on that island."
Nami pinched Usopp's cheek and gave it a firm tug. "I don't recall fighting several Baroque Works agents or almost getting turned into a wax statue being fun."
"But everything turned out all right in the end." Luffy reasoned, only for Nami to grab him by his nose and forcibly stretch it.
"It did but then I caught a prehistoric disease on that island and if it hadn't been for Chopper and Doctor Kureha, I wouldn't be standing here." Nami irately reminded him.
"Oh. I forgot about that part-AAAAWWWWWKKKKK!" Luffy suddenly admitted before Nami grabbed him by the neck.
"YOU FORGOT?! WELL, I'LL MAKE SURE YOU WON'T FORGET THIS!" Nami snarled as she throttled her captain furiously. Some of the crew sweatdropped at the sight while the rest appeared unconcerned. A faint rumbling sound caught everyone's attention as they turned their heads toward a hilltop at the other end of the valley. Soon enough, multiple large herds of various herbivorous dinosaurs came stampeding over the hill, bellowing loudly in an apparent panic.
"My my, what riled them up?" Brook took note as Nami stopped strangling Luffy. The herd barreled through the valley; the other dinosaurs gave them a wide berth as much as they could. The charging herd kept making loud calls of alarm, prompting the other herds to follow after them.
Robin tapped her lower lip in thought. This was odd behavior for animals, prehistoric or otherwise. "Chopper, can you understand what they're saying?"
Chopper moved a little bit near the edge of the hill and listened in closely. After a few seconds, he sighed and shook his head. "Sorry. I can understand what animals are saying, but it's not the same with dinosaurs. Something scared them pretty badly, I can tell."
Usopp gulped. "W-W-W-W-What did?"
"Aint't obvious?" Zoro answered with an eager grin. "There's probably some predators lurking around here."
"Predators?!" Ussop jumped back. "You mean like T. Rexes?!"
"Wouldn't be a dinosaur island without them." Franky shrugged.
"We won't have to worry about that." Nami remarked as she checked the Log Pose. "The Pose is already set for the next island. That means-"
"We're leaving already?!" Luffy shot up despite being strangled earlier. "We haven't even explored the rest of the island yet! I wanna see more dinosaurs!" He pouted like a child.
"It's my first island! There has to be more that we can discover here!" Yamato implored.
"I would like to catalog more species if that is possible." Robin smiled, knowing full well Nami would eventually relent.
"I...uuurrrrgggh." Nami groaned as she facepalmed. Luffy and Yamato began cheering and dancing around in victory, happy that their adventure was not going to be cut short. Much to Nami's annoyance, however. Now it was like having two Luffys.
"Worry not, my dear Nami." Sanji swooned. "Your prince will protect you from harm! I can beat any kind of dinosaur; I once hunted a tyrannosaurus back on Little Garden."
"Yeah, that was when we had that hunting contest. Which I obviously won." Zoro proclaimed, earning a heated glare from Sanji.
"You must be blind and dumb, mosshead. My catch was bigger than yours." Sanji fired back.
"No, mine was!" Zoro shouted. And thus began another one of Sanji and Zoro's long-winded arguments. For Nami, it was another headache. But for the rest of the crew, it was another source of entertainment.
30 MINUTES LATER
The Strawhats ventured into the deep, primordial forest to explore the rest of the island. Their travel was mostly uneventful, the only other dinosaur they saw was a flock of Archaeopteryx above the treeline. The crew greatly enjoyed the hike but they still kept their eyes open for whatever scared the other dinosaurs earlier. But it was nothing for them to be worried about. They could easily handle whatever came their way after everything they'd been through on their voyage.
"Oh, come now! Surely they both had to have been the same size." Jinbei reasoned, desperate to put an end to the continuing argument between the Swordsman and the Cook.
"MINE WAS BIGGER! WHAT DID YOU SAY MOSSHEAD/ERO-COOK?!" They both snapped at each other as the former Warlord awkwardly backed away from them.
"On the contrary, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was one of the largest apex predators of the prehistoric era." Robin informed, causing Zoro to frown and Sanji's eyes to turn into hearts. "Then again, the Triceratops was just as large and dangerous as well." She resumed. Sanji felt his heart break while Zoro smirked victoriously.
"You just love stringin' them along, don't ya?" Franky whispered to her. Robin giggled in response.
Usopp glanced over his shoulder at Sanji and Zoro as he followed behind Luffy. "It's about time they gave it a rest. After all this time, you'd think they would bury the hatchet-" He was suddenly cut off when he bumped into Luffy; his long nose compacting against the back of his Captain's head. "Jeez, Luffy! Give me some warning next time!"
As Usopp rubbed his nose, he noticed that Luffy didn't respond or move. He walked up next to him and immediately saw his Captain's shock; his eyes transfixed upon something. Usopp followed his gaze and recoiled at the sight of a dead dinosaur lying a few feet from them near a set of knocked-over trees. The rest of the crew caught up with them and saw the dead body before them.
It was a blueish sauropod with a large portion of its body torn open, exposing its ribcage and organs that spilled out onto the grass. Most of the group was repulsed at the sight, some of them gagging a little. Luffy and the others walked around the dead body and into a large clearing...where they entered the aftermath of a literal killing field. Splayed around their area in horrific states of mutilation were seventeen dead sauropods: every one of them either had their bodies ripped asunder, heads crushed, throats bitten out, or thrown against the trees where the sharp branches impaled their necks and abdomens. The once-green grass was stained red with their blood and a putrid stench permeated the air. Their faces were contorted into a terrified rictus as if their last moments in life were spent in fear.
The Strawhat pirates had seen many shocking events throughout their journey but none reached the level of bloody carnage before them. Everyone didn't say a word; the only sounds that could be heard were the distant chirping of birds. The pirates slowly walked past the dead sauropods as they stared at the gruesome scene in mortification. Some of them were close to vomiting as they tiptoed over stray entrails coating the ground, they had never seen so much gore in their lives.
Stopping in the center of the field, everyone surveyed the slaughter in total silence.
"That's...a lot of dead Brachiosaurs..." Sanji found his voice, his cigarette falling out of his mouth.
"They're Argentinosaurus: the largest known dinosaur ever recorded." Robin corrected him. Her eyes carefully studied the bodies of the sauropods unflinchingly.
"It's likely that they were victims of a carnivore." Jinbei deduced as he glanced around the area in case said carnivore was lurking nearby.
"It's nature." Luffy spoke. The crew could hear the blunt, dead-serious affirmation of their captain. "You do what you got to do to survive."
"Well, yeah but it looks like whatever attacked these lizards didn't even finish eating them. I thought the whole purpose of survival was to eat everything on your damn plate!" Franky said.
"No, this wasn't a hunt." Zoro slowly drew one of his swords. "This was a massacre; no survivors."
"You mean something intentionally killed them for sport? But that doesn't make any sense! How could-" Nami began to object until she stepped into something wet and sticky. She looked down at her feet and realized that she had stepped into a puddle of yellow goo. She turned a shade of green when she felt the gunk ooze into her footwear but then she noticed a crushed egg in the puddle. Nami stared at it for a few seconds before looking up ahead of the puddle and gasped when she and a few others saw ten dinosaur nests filled with crushed eggs. The perpetrator of this slaughter was not content with wiping out the whole herd so it went after the unborn hatchlings too. Each nest had a dozen eggs within them, all destroyed and oozing yolk.
"Oh goodness...they weren't even born yet!" Brook whispered to himself as he covered his mouth.
Chopper felt himself grow queasy at the sight of the bodies. He didn't need to make a thorough examination: all of these wounds were fatal. But his instincts were telling him that something was off about the whole situation. He sniffed the air, his nose wrinkling at the horrid scent. He observed the bodies from afar and felt his fur stand on end when the realization hit him. Meanwhile, Usopp and Robin drew close to the bodies to inspect them.
"So what kinda dinosaur do you think killed them?" Usopp asked, dreading the answer.
"Too many to guess." Robin responded as she reached out. "But these wounds-"
"DON'T TOUCH THAT!" Chopped suddenly yelled, startling Robin. "EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM THE BODIES! NOBODY TOUCHES ANYTHING!"
Everyone jumped back away from the bodies as far as they could. "What?! What's wrong?!" Luffy blurted out.
"The corpses are infected with something!" Chopper revealed.
"Infected?" Sanji repeated, almost tripping over a dead sauropod's tail. "What's that supposed to mean? What are they infected with?!"
"I'm not sure yet but whatever it is, it's driving away the animals. Look around you: no flies, no scavengers, there's not even a single carrion bird in the sky!" Chopper gestured around the area.
"He's right!" Yamato realized. "There was something similar like this back at Wano: the bodies of animals poisoned by Orochi's pollutants had become so toxic that nothing would dare try to eat them."
"You guys think this was the cause of it?" Zoro stood near the edge of a watering hole. Everyone went over to him and felt themselves grow sick at the sight of the blood-filled water. It was a dark red cloud intermixed with some kind of green substance no one could discern. Looking back at the dead herd, the crew was already making connections to the bodies at the contaminated watering hole.
"They were poisoned perhaps?" Brook wondered.
"It appears that way but it doesn't explain the wounds on the bodies." Jinbei rubbed his chin.
"Soooooo...the herd drank from the wrong watering hole and then a T. Rex tried to eat them after they keeled over?" Usopp took a wild guess with a shrug. "It's all I've got at this point."
"No. What happened here was much worse." Robin grimly said as she inspected the bodies but did not get too close. "Take a closer look at the bodies. These dinosaurs were indeed attacked but there are no claw marks on their bodies. There are some bite wounds on some of them but the teeth markings don't match that of a Tyrannosaurus. As for the other wounds, it appears to be the result of blunt-force trauma. There are no predators capable of this as they mainly use their claws to inflict lethal wounds upon their prey."
The Strawhats silently listened to Robin's observations, growing more invested by the minute.
"Sauropods of this size would normally require two or more predators to take down and they wouldn't normally try to take on an entire herd by themselves. There aren't any footprints on the ground that belong to a carnivorous species but I have noticed that there is one set of particular bloody footprints that are the same as these sauropods. The only thing that could kill the herd like this would be if the attacker was the same weight class as them." Robin continued.
The crew's eyes slowly widened when the implications surrounding this massacre became clear. "It wasn't a predator that was responsible for killing these sauropods...it was a member of the herd." Robin finished in a chilling tone. Everyone was shocked at her conclusion and confused at the same time.
"One of these things killed their own kin?! That's crazy talk!" Franky exclaimed in disbelief.
"But what about the blood water? Maybe that was what caused one of them to-" A noise was heard behind the Captain, cutting him off immediately. Luffy felt a cold, unnatural chill of fear crawl down his spine as a shadow loomed over him like a storm cloud. He could feel a bead of sweat run down the side of his head; his heart beating faster than usual when he saw the expressions of pure horror his friends were looking up at.
"HRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLGGGGGGGHHHHHHH..."
Luffy felt himself go rigid at the throaty, gurgling noise behind him and slowly looked over his shoulder. The first thing he witnessed was something dripping onto the grass. It was some kind of chunky, greenish-red gunk resembling vomit with chunks of flesh mixed in. Luffy felt bile rise in his throat before focusing on where the ooze was dripping from: one of the Argentinosaurus bodies wasn't entirely dead and had got back up...but something was unbelievably WRONG with it.
Its skin was a horrendous, sickly green and appeared to be melting off of its body. It was covered in open wounds and sores oozing with pus and blood that dribbled from its decaying skin. Exposed, rotting muscles pockmarked its hide and bubbled with diseased pestilence. An unholy stench emanated from the beast like it was a rotten corpse that refused to fully decay. Luffy gulped as his eyes made their way to the sauropod's neck and all the way up to its head. The Captain felt a numb, nerve-fraying jolt of fear when he saw the piercing red eyes of the monster and its shadow-shrouded face. The abomination reared its head back and-
"RRRRRRRHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKK!"
To be continued...
Queen the Plauge's got nothing on this thing!
So as if the title wasn't an indicator enough, the virus in the series is replaced with a Devil Fruit. Not all of them are safe to eat.
This is only the start of the Strawhats rollercoaster of terror as the sauropod will have some extra abilities that I gave it. Hope this miniseries is entertaining for you guys so far! Before you guys ask, I am not adding Spear or Fang into the mix. As much as I want to have the Strawhats interact with our favorite prehistoric duo, I couldn't find a way to fit them in. Apologies.
Don't forget to review but please don't flame.