Nexus HWR 6.3 Aragog:
On the side of a cliff over a dozen people sat around putting away their sleeping bags and taking drinks from their canteens. Most of them were excited about the upcoming days, looking forward to having lots of adventures.
One of the travelers stood right at the edge looking out over the landscape past their resting place. "Are you ready?" Ben asked. The man on the ledge turned to the shorter boy. He had jet black hair spiked up and to the sides. Strangely he was wearing a black shirt instead of his usual shirtless self.
Gray Fullbuster looked at Ben and then around at everyone who seemed excited to get going. He opened his mouth to give them another warning, but sighed and closed it again. He had barely slept at all, planning all night on the path they should take through the harsh terrain at the base of the cliff. Despite all his warnings about the danger of this continent, everyone was still in high spirits. Even with the new absences of Goku and Timmy everyone seemed to feel confident in their ability to make a trek across Aebrith's wilderness.
"Yeah, I'm ready," Gray replied finally, looking back over the cliff and into the distance. Out there, somewhere, my team is waiting. Axel, Gon, Cloud, Soul, Black Star, Tsubaki, Rambo, Mario, Kuwabara, Kiba, and even Akamaru... He could imagine the dog barking in his ear after he thought its name.
"I still think we should wait some more for Timmy," Nami started as everyone was getting ready near the edge of the cliff. A few of them looked back at her but most of them just kept staring off the cliff at the thousands of miles before them they had to traverse. The pit with a giant invisible demon (at least to most of them), the canyon they were heading to, and the forest that seemed a lot spookier after a story Gray told them the night before. They looked at giant monsters made of red molten rocks and snakes as tall as trees and thrice as wide. The Heartless wandering around the tar pits directly below were mainly Shadows, but there were some other creatures they spotted inside the tar, slimy creatures with two heads and white beady eyes that Sora claimed were also Heartless.
The crew gathered at the ledge of the cliff, and a few people were watching from the edge of Dressrosa. Kyros stood there with his wife at his side, and their daughter in front of them. The three stared out at these heroes who saved their lives from servitude under Doflamingo, who freed them from the bodies Sugar trapped them him. Scarlett gasped as half of them simultaneously hopped off the ledge of the cliff. The rest followed, stepping off the ledge and trying to skid down the steep slope, or just hopping because they knew they could handle the drop. "Thank you," Rebecca whispered.
Kyros nodded his head once they were all gone, then turned and looked back into the mostly rubble city of Dressrosa. Now, it is time to rebuild. Son Goku, Captain Usopp, everyone, thank you.
The heroes that hopped off the cliff's edge dropped over a hundred feet before the slant of the cliff started back up and they landed down on it. Sora, Riku, and Kairi skid together in a line of three, then when they were almost at the bottom, Riku changed directions to skid to the left instead. He skid right up to a large protruding boulder and when his feet hit it he did three frontflips over the start of the tar pits. Keyblades appeared in his hands as he snapped his body flat over the black smelly pits beneath him, and the tips of those weapons started to glow white though with a dark coating on the outside of the glow.
Riku landed beyond the first twenty pits or so, then turned his head and looked back at the scores of Heartless in the area that turned their heads and looked his way. They stood there staring at him with tiny beady eyes for a few moments, and then they all just started looking back around aimlessly. The others who skid down the cliffs first, expecting a battle when they arrived, held their fists up with confused expressions on their faces, because the Heartless were not attacking them.
"Good job Riku," Kairi called his way as her and Sora continued to run forward through the tar pits. Luffy, Kirito, Natsu, and Rin all snapped their heads up and saw the engaged teenagers running far ahead of them, ignoring the Heartless they were running in between.
Most of the others realized the Heartless were not going to attack them and started running after their friends, but Okumura Rin stayed planted to the spot while he stared at a small figure on four legs on his right. The tiny beast was looking away from him, but it slowly turned around and lifted its head to look him right in the eyes.
Nami had just gotten to the bottom of the cliff and she smacked Sanji's chest to get the chef she demanded help from to put her down. She brushed herself off, then as she was about to start jogging through a solid path in the tar pits to follow the others, she froze at the sight of the teenager in front of her. Nami's eyes opened wide as Rin's face was twisting in rage, and in her mind she imagined him somewhere else.
We were so high up in Castle Oblivion. Ansem had him guarding one of the top floors, after Gohan, and the Teen Titans, and Franky, and Timmy, and Aokiji… Mandy stopped him from getting to us, but that room was a mess when we came back through it on the way out. Nami saw Sanji walk forward in front of her, and the blond man smacked a hand down on Rin's shoulder as he was walking past. The teenager jumped, almost like he was being snapped out of a trance and he spun to Sanji with a surprised expression. "Come on, no point in fighting them now," the chef said.
Sanji kept walking, and he called after Robin and Juvia who were just ahead of him to wait up. Rin stared at Sanji's back for a second or two, then shook his head around and a smile formed on his face. He started running forward and ignored the creatures on his sides that were drawing his attention.
Nami smiled at Rin and Sanji's backs, and she thought, That was nice of you Sanji. And for another guy no less. She chuckled to herself and was about to start running forward as well when she heard a deep growl behind her. Her eyes opened wide as in her vision she could see almost every person in their group, at least all the ones she would want next to her if something just growled menacingly. The Heartless in front of her and in her peripheral vision were not doing anything violent, so she spun around expecting maybe another monster hiding in the tar pits to have emerged behind her.
When Nami turned around, her eyes turned into saucers and her jaw dropped. "Grrr," the deep voice growled, the noise coming from his throat. Nami stared in shock at the man behind her with a long nose, holding a slingshot up in his hand, pulling it back and letting fly Pop Greens to either side of him where giant plants emerged and started attacking the Heartless who would not even fight back after being attacked. "Take that, and that," Usopp snapped, firing over and over again at creatures that did not need to be enemies.
"Usopp," Nami whispered, and Usopp snapped his furious gaze forward at the orange haired navigator looking back at him. He still looked enraged after a few seconds of looking in her eyes, and Nami continued, "You're wasting your ammo."
"Wasting?" he muttered. He looked around and nothing was attacking him. Even with the plants he had forming around the tar pits to attack them, the Heartless did nothing but wander around aimlessly.
Riku looked back from the huge bear-like Gohma he and Luffy were battling and all the way back to the tar pits. Luffy continued to fight the monster with glowing orange eyes, black skin, and red protrusions coming out of every joint in its body and lining his skeleton brightly so it could be seen outside its skin. There were many other Gohma like it around, but the twenty foot tall bear was the largest of them. Riku got distracted as he felt the Heartless behind him get destroyed, and he grimaced at the sight of Usopp's enraged expression back there.
"Just calm down and let's get going," Nami scolded, though she did so in a soft voice to the man whose grip on his slingshot was so tight the weapon was trembling. She turned from him and jogged away, closing her eyes as she did. Sorry Usopp.
Usopp glared forward at the backs of all his friends, none of whom were paying any attention to the Heartless anymore. He snapped his head around at all the monsters he wanted to "waste" his entire arsenal of Pop Greens on. These monsters are mindless though. The one who really enslaved me was not them, it was Ansem! Usopp's head snapped back up and he glared into the distance, straight into Riku's eyes as the other nineteen year old stared right back at him. Usopp glared furiously for a second, before weakening his expression at the pained one on Riku's face. That isn't Ansem! Stop treating him like him. He's your comrade, your friend.
The sniper started walking forward and he ignored all the Heartless around him, focusing instead on his friends who after exiting the tar pits, cut hard to the right to head towards the canyons. Usopp ran close to Riku as he was leaving the pits and he mumbled, "Thanks, for stopping them." Riku's eyes widened and he nodded his head at the long-nosed pirate who he did not know where he stood with. Back when they first met after only a month on Nexus, the two of them became friends. Ever since the Underworld base where it was revealed that Ansem was trapped inside Riku's body though, Usopp had treated him differently. They were still friends, but Usopp hated a part of him with his entire being, and it was straining their relationship.
Riku tried to ignore those feelings he got from Usopp though, and he only focused on the thanks Usopp just gave him. He has a right to be mad though. You did make him do some awful things. I don't remember everything, but Usopp was your very first slave. For two years, you- "That is in the past. He will get over it." Riku was not entirely expecting a response from the voice in his mind that had been rather quiet lately, only emerging when Ansem wanted to take over like back during his fight against Lao G in Dressrosa.
"This way," Gray called out. The ice mage was looking around and although they were only just out of the tar pits and there was a lot of flat stone ground between them and the gaping hole in the planet, he did not want to get any closer to the monster sticking out of it. Most of the threats around them had been taken down, and he spotted Luffy getting too close to that hole by fighting some Aragami that crawled out of the ground near it. "Luffy! Don't go any farther! Just run from the Aragami if you can, defeating them without special technology is difficult!"
Luffy frowned as not even his hardest attacks were keeping down these scary monsters for very long. Aragami huh? He bent his legs down and his skin pumped, "Gear Second." He held up an open palm and a fist near his head, "Triple Jet Pistol!" Three fists shot forward faster than most of them could see, and all of the creatures went flying back towards the pit that Luffy was trying to knock them into. "Shishi, got-" he stopped talking as the monsters slammed into something right after going past the edge of the hole. They hit something invisible, and six members of their group gawked at Luffy's stupidity.
"That's not good," Riku muttered, making Ben and Dash look at their older friend confusedly. Riku stared with a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of his face as the giant monster sticking out of the pit slowly turned its head around. The Aragami that slammed into it were falling back to the edge of the hole, but three purple tentacles shot down from where they were waving around above it, and they grabbed the creatures before they hit the floor.
The monsters roared and Luffy took a step back as they looked to be screaming in pain. They got thrown miles up into the air by whips of tentacles, all except for one that just got lifted up above the giant demon that most of them could not see, then wrapped up on both sides by multiple tentacles that pulled different directions until they ripped the monster apart. "Let's get out of here!" Nami screamed, and she started sprinting for the canyon.
"Come on Luffy!" Sanji called back to his Captain who was still steaming and standing not far from the giant hole.
"You won't be able to sense it with Haki," Gray yelled at the pirate Captain. Luffy was expecting to sense an attack coming that he could dodge and then fight the monster that way, so Gray's shout made him grimace and hop backwards, just in time too as the ground where he just was got slammed by something that made dust fly up. He could not see it, but not all the tentacles slammed into the ground, some of them curved and followed him away. Gray tssked but sprinted back the way he just came from, smacked his right fist into his left palm while he twisted his body, and yelled, "Ice-Make Unlimited: One Sided Chaotic Dance!"
Around Gray's body, ice started to spin like a saw blade going round and round him while extending all the time. When it finally stopped spinning, anyone looking at him saw that he suddenly had a dozen huge circles of ice swords surrounding his body. The point in between his hands was glowing bright blue, and he spun around while spreading out his arms, sending all of the swords around him flying in the same direction at once. All of the swords flew straight at Luffy, but as the pirate's eyes went wide thinking some of those weapons were about to cut him before he landed, the blades stopped in midair for some strange reason.
Only a few of them were able to see the swords imbed themselves inside the tentacles and make blood splash out of them. The monstrous head sticking out of the pit roared as dozens of its tentacles were impaled and even shredded when enough blades were focused in the same place. "Get a move on!" Gray yelled, only his voice was not coming from the him sprinting towards the demon. Everyone spun around and saw Gray already at the edge of the canyon, waving them towards one of the stone bridges that cut over the ravine to the south.
"If he's there," Usopp wondered to Franky as they ran towards the canyon together. "Then who's that?" He pointed at the other Gray sprinting haphazardly towards Luffy who finally turned and started running after the rest of them, though no longer in Gear Second.
"Ice-Make: Clone," Gray announced, right before the version of him closer to the pit got slammed by something hard and shattered into hundreds of ice shards.
"Gray-sama!" Juvia shouted in horror, even as the man she was shouting about was only ten feet on the other side of her.
"I'm fine," he said and rolled his eyes.
Juvia spun and brought her hands together in front of her chest. "Even watching Gray-sama's visage being broken is too much for Juvia to bear. Hold me."
"Not now," Gray told his girlfriend, then spun around to look over the canyon that looked a little more precarious than he first thought when suggesting taking it as their route. He glanced over the sides and grimaced as he saw movement at the bottom of the ravine that was not all that deep. The walls were covered in winged creatures sitting in little inlets, but at the very bottom he saw nonstop movement of beings that gave him the chills. "Don't look down, and make sure you don't fall off the sides," he called out, then started moving carefully but quickly over the rocky bridge.
The others were not far behind him, cautiously stepping onto the thin land bridge that would not fit more than two of them wide. Ben and Dash walked on next to each other and the first thing they did was the opposite of what Gray told them. The two of them looked down. Their faces from their chins to their foreheads turned blue and they snapped their gazes back in front of them to the backs of their comrades.
"Did you see that?" Dash whispered.
"See what?" Ben asked.
"Nothing," Dash said quickly.
The two of them kept walking while Usopp got on the bridge behind them and started laughing at their expressions that he caught a glimpse of when they spun forward. "What are they so-" he leaned over the side to get a look and he froze mid-sentence. The sniper's face turned blue, then purple, then ghostly white before he finally looked up again. "Oh," he said in a hoarse, high-pitched voice. He took a step forward in a daze from the horrifying sight at the bottom of the canyon… Crack.
Usopp froze. Everyone behind and in front of him snapped their heads to him, while Usopp's gaze shot to his foot that he just put all his weight on. The outside of his foot was a few inches in from the side of the bridge, but a full foot of rock cracked, then crumbled out from beneath him. He spun around and grabbed the bridge right as he was about to fall past, and everyone watching let out sighs of relief as his hands grabbed onto the ledge. None of them wanted to run forward and risk cracking the bridge more as there were areas around where he fell that looked like they were just as close to cracking if not more than what Usopp stepped on, making each of them very cautious.
"Baka," Nami scolded the man a few feet in front of her. "Watch where you're-"
The rock ledge Usopp grabbed onto crumbled, "EEEeeee!" Usopp screamed, falling down into the ravine while his friends all yelled his name.
"Idiot," Sanji hopped off the wall from behind Nami and Robin where he preferred to walk, and he shot down into the ravine fast to catch the falling sniper. He kicked the air behind him to speed up, and then out of nowhere a huge black centipede shot out of a hole in the wall on his right and snapped its pincers at him. Sanji had to kick below him to do a backflip over the beast's head, but Usopp kept falling in front of him.
"Usopp!" Luffy shouted and already dove after the sniper himself.
"You idiots!" Gray shouted back at them as he watched one after the other people were jumping off the safety of their bridge.
Luffy threw an arm down to catch Usopp, but Usopp was not going to just let himself get smushed anyway. He frantically pulled out a Pop Green and with only seconds to spare, screamed, "Midori Boshi: Trampoline!" He fired and the green trampoline emerged directly under his body, not even fully popping out before he slammed down into it, pressed it down, and then bounced back up right into Luffy's arm that smacked him in the back of the head and made him start flipping around in the air. "Ahhahhahhahh!"
Luffy fell down to Usopp's level and he grinned in at his sharpshooter as they both dropped back down on the plant that looked like a trampoline. "Shishi, you're okay," Luffy said, a grin on his face.
"L-L-L-Luffy," Usopp's teeth were chattering and he curled up as he lifted a shaking arm to point behind his Captain.
Luffy turned around and his face got some sweat on it too, not nearly as bad as Usopp's, but he still looked pretty nervous as he grinned. The two of them stopped bouncing and landed in between the trampoline, and the army of eight-legged creatures that started surrounding them on all sides, climbing up the walls around them, and up the pillars that held the bridges together above them. The spiders came in all different sizes, but the massive horde of them in front of the two pirates started to move to the side, making a path in the middle that neither of them were happy to see.
Deep footsteps echoed around the bottom of the canyon full of hissing noises. Sanji dropped down to the floor in between Usopp and Luffy and he whispered, "Let's get out of here now."
"I can't let you do that," a voice echoed around them. Sanji snapped his head left and he grimaced at the sight of even the smallest spiders, probably the babies, that were almost as tall as him. The voice that seemed even deeper as it got louder continued, "My children will not be denied a meal when it presents itself so easily." The path that the spiders opened up got darker as something stepped into view far down it.
"L-Luffy, I agree with Sanji, we should go," Usopp whispered in a high-pitched whisper.
A monster was marching down the open aisle of spiders towards them. It was twice as tall as any of the pirates, and had an eighteen-foot wide leg-span between its two front legs. It had eight horrifying eyes with fur on them like the rest of its disgusting body covered in brown fur. It moved forward one leg at a time and it snapped the pincers in front of its face together a few times. "Who are you?" Luffy called to the spider that seemed to be the biggest one there and the one talking to them.
The spider stopped walking when it was only ten meters in front of Luffy. Both Sanji and Usopp had subconsciously stepped back and were looking around them at the spiders on every side of them. Luffy stared this spider straight in the eyes though, and it looked into his just as closely. The Acromantulas around the pirates were waiting, and the leader of them spoke again, "I do not sense fear in you. I am Aragog."
"I'm Monkey D. Luffy," Luffy replied without waiting to be asked for his own name. "I'm going to be the King of the Pirates!"
"King of the Pirates… no. That cannot be." Luffy's grin wiped from his face and his comrades behind him suddenly got very nervous. "That title belongs to another, but even if it did not, you will not be leaving this place alive."
The giant spiders around them all moved in. Sanji rose up a leg that covered in flames, Usopp pulled back his slingshot, and Luffy took a step towards Aragog. The pirate captain stomped his right foot down in front of him while his body turned sideways, he glared into the spider leader's eyes, and his own pupils dilated with smaller white circles appearing inside of them.
An aura shot off of Luffy's body and expanded around the entire bottom of the canyon. Those at the top of the bridge looking down, waiting to see if their friends needed their help to get Usopp back, stumbled away from the ledge as the entire bridge shook. Down at the bottom, one by one the spiders fell to the ground, their legs coming out from under them. Many of them fell on their backs, but some others just stayed where they were and did not falter. These were only the biggest spiders, ones close to Aragog in size who were strong enough not to collapse, though the threatening looks they were giving the pirates did vanish and they started slowly stepping backwards.
"Gol D. Roger," Aragog said, his voice echoing around the canyon while his children fell from its walls. "You are not him, but…" Aragog took a step back, then another, then the giant spider turned itself around and walked back the way it came.
"How the Hell does the King of the Pirates know that, thing?" Sanji muttered, still a lot of sweat on his face even as the spiders taller than him that were glaring at him from the shadows backed off.
Luffy continued staring after Aragog as it left, then, the pirate spun around and his eyes opened up wide. He opened his mouth to shout, but before he could, everyone on top and inside the ravine heard, "RROOOAAARRR!" It came from down in the ravine, from a deeper darker part farther south than where Luffy and his comrades currently were.
Luffy's eyes started shining, but Usopp yelled, "Let's get back to the top!"
"Agreed," Sanji said, jumping off the floor then Sky Walking his way to the ladies.
"Luffy, help me up there," Usopp begged his Captain who looked way too excited about the approaching sound of heavy footsteps from the south. "Luffy please!" Usopp exclaimed.
The rubberman frowned, but he turned to Usopp, wrapped an arm around him, and threw his other arm to the top of the bridge in the middle of the canyon to send them launching up there. "Gum Gum Rocket!" He yelled, as he and Usopp came flying above the ledge and dropping back down with a hard thud. Doof… Crack-cr-cr-cr- Every single person on top of that bridge froze, and they slowly turned their heads to Luffy and Usopp. The stone under their feet was cracking, and smaller cracks branched off of the bigger ones in every direction. Cracks went down the pillars supporting the bridge and cut straight through where it was weakest.
"You are going to be the death of me," Gray whispered under his breath, right before he let out a scream like everyone else on the bridge as it collapsed out from beneath them.
"Go go go!" Sora yelled, trying to run ahead to keep ahead of the collapsing part of the bridge. He grabbed Kairi by the hand and continued running, but he stepped on a loosening piece of ground and the two of them tripped. They hit the ground, and then the ground broke from beneath them and they started going down.
"Sora, fly!" Riku yelled down at his friend who wrapped Kairi in his arms as they fell to protect her from falling rocks.
"Oh yeah!" Sora shouted and his clenched eyes snapped open. He froze where he was in midair, then turned left and spotted Kirito stop falling as well, floating there in midair with a tiny aura of white around him. Kirito's aura was flickering and he kept dipping down before lifting up again only to fall even farther the next time. Kirito's wings snapped out behind his back to keep him up there, and he sighed in relief and started panting as using ki to control his flight like Goku tried teaching him was a lot harder than using the wings Timmy provided him.
The black haired teenager turned his head slightly and glanced back at his fairy wings that were sleek yet powerful and kept him up with very little movement on his part. Timmy really made them exactly how I wanted. It feels like ALO controls, except I can do more in the real world than I ever could in virtual reality.
Those who could not fly fell to the bottom of the ravine, where despite the lack of Acromantulas, there were still a lot of creepy-looking bugs and monsters down there. There were also the loud footsteps getting progressively closer, so loud now that the entire group, after getting back up on their feet, turned to the south, the direction the noises were coming from. They looked that way and more than half of them dropped their jaws at the sight of the monster walking towards them.
"You have to be frickin' kidding me," Ben said, taking a step back nervously.
"So cool," Dash whispered, though he also stared in a little bit of fear at the prehistoric monster marching their way. It had tiny arms, but very muscular legs, and a head that was eighty percent mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. The Tyrannosaurus-Rex snapped its head forward and at the top of its lungs roared again at the crew, many of whom stumbled or leaned backwards from it.
Some of them did not back away though, like a boy with spiky brown hair who dropped out of the air yelling, "A dinosaur!"
"Sora, maybe we shouldn't get too close," Kairi suggested to her fiancé.
"Pshh," Sora scoffed, the excited look of a child's on his face. He turned to the girl in his arms and she could not help but giggle at his expression of giddiness. "That's a dinosaur," he repeated to her, almost like she did not get what he was saying.
"I see it," she replied, a brighter smile coming to her face now as she got excited as well. She giggled some more as she looked down, then lifted her gaze back to the young man holding her, "You want to ride it?"
Sora's eyes lit up like the idea had never even crossed his mind, but now that it had it was the best idea he had ever heard. Sora leaned in and kissed Kairi on the lips, then leaned back and nodded his head fast at the girl who was red in the face for a second before she started laughing with him.
Meanwhile, Luffy and the others were all raising their fists and getting ready to attack the monster much bigger than Aragog and with a lot more sharp teeth. The T-Rex stomped forward, then a couple of teens landed on its back, and Sora rose up his arms that he put on either side of its neck. "Whoa there!" He called out. The beast roared and bucked a few times while Kairi held on for dear life and Sora patted the monster on the back of its neck. "Alright, here goes," he shouted, and he rose up one arm and created a Keyblade in it. His Kingdom Key glowed at the tip, and out from the glowing tip shot two glowing golden lines that wrapped around the mouth of the dinosaur and down under its neck.
"What is he doing?" Nami whispered to her best friend.
Robin shook her head and replied, "I have no- oh," the older woman smiled and started chuckling under her breath. Nami shot her a confused look, then turned back and her eyes opened wide as the golden lines wrapping around the dinosaur's head became more defined, becoming easily recognizable as reins that Sora then pulled back on and made the T-Rex rear up swinging its tiny arms around madly. Sora pulled hard to the right and the dinosaur turned that way, swinging its tail behind it and almost taking out their friends at the front of the group as it did. They hopped back, then stared forward in shock as the tail that almost hit them flattened down to the ground.
Nico Robin stepped forward while the others were mostly just standing there confusedly. "I believe," she began as she stepped in front of even Luffy, Natsu, and Gray. "Sora-san is telling us to climb aboard." She did not hesitate to step on the dinosaur's tail and she calmly climbed up its large back towards Kairi who started waving the rest of them up as well.
"They can not be serious," Gray muttered, only to drop his jaw as one by one his other comrades walked by him to climb the dinosaur.
"Yeah, we just want a quick ride through this canyon," Sora continued whispering from where he was sitting with his legs on either side of the T-Rex's neck. He was leaning forward with the top half of his body against the back of the dinosaur's head, and he was whispering into the hole on the left side of its big grayish-green head. "It's your home right? That means you know it pretty well."
"Raaarrr!" the Tyrannosaurus roared.
"Raaarr back at you!" Sora called out, then started laughing.
The others who hesitantly got on the dinosaur's back felt it start shaking and Dash whispered to his right, "What's going on?"
Killua's jaw was dropped, but the spiky haired kid turned left and he whispered back, "I think the T-Rex is laughing."
"I've got it," Sora said, leaning back from his new friend's head. He patted the top of the dinosaur's head a few times as he turned around, and he called out, "Hey guys! This is our new friend! His name, is Icarus!"
The dinosaur leaned its head back and opened its mouth that was no longer restrained by the golden lights that were much looser reins around its neck now. Icarus roared out in agreement with its new name, while Kairi turned to her future-husband with a soft smile. "Icarus? After-"
"Yeah," he replied. Kairi brought a hand to her chest and her smile got less defined, more nostalgic, and even a little sad. Sora saw that look and he gained one similar for a second, but then spun around and got excited again by the fact that, I'm riding a dinosaur! He pointed a hand forward over the head of his new friend and yelled, "Icarus! Straight ahead! Get us to the south-easternmost part of this canyon!"
Icarus started marching forward through the canyon, and the passengers on its back noticed a lot of smaller monsters around them were staying closer to the sides to avoid it. "Looks like we got that ride you wanted after all bro," Franky said to the dark haired Fairy Tail mage sitting on his right. The back of the dinosaur was slanted enough that they could all sit or lay down without falling off, but most of them were grabbing onto some bump or spike coming out of Icarus' skin for extra help in case the ride got bumpy. Gray humphed and nodded to the cyborg, but he could not help but look worried as he was not planning on traversing the bottom of the canyon at all.
"I still say we should have walked," Nami whispered nervously.
"Are you kidding?" Ben asked the woman up above him a few spots on their dinosaur's back. "We're riding a T-Rex! This is awesome!"
"Woohoo!" Dash threw his arms up and yelled.
Natsu looked off the right side of the dinosaur he was barely hanging onto as there really was not enough back space for the seventeen of them, plus a cat. Rin opened up the top flap of the backpack he was wearing like so many of them were, and Kuro popped his head out of it to look around in amazement as they rode on a dinosaur. "Ever think we'd be doing this?" Rin whispered to his left where Kirito was sitting.
Kirito looked to the boy a year younger than him and shook his head no. The two of them had figured out they came from similar worlds, and unlike Dash, Ben, and Timmy who did as well, the two of them were both from Japan, not America. "T-Rexes extinct on your world too?" Kirito questioned quietly, and Rin nodded back at him. Kirito sighed and then chuckled a few times, which received a confused look from his other black-haired teenage comrade. "It's just," Kirito began, and he chuckled again, "Goku told me a story about fighting a dinosaur once. Apparently his Earth was full of them."
Rin's bottom lip dropped, but a kid with spiky white hair slightly above them on Icarus's back looked down. "Are you really that surprised?" Killua questioned.
The seventeen year old looked up at Killua, and after a second he shrugged and said, "Guess you're right Kil. With the things I've seen that guy do, it would be harder to imagine he did not come from a ridiculous world like that."
"Coming from a demon," Killua whispered, which made Rin frown at him. Killua held up a hand defensively, "Just kidding."
"Hmph," Rin looked away with a pout, but he did not seem all that angry which made Killua chuckle some more and Kirito re-cracked the smile he lost when Killua made the joke.
"Sanji, would you mind making us a snack?" Nico Robin questioned. About half of the dinosaur's back's riders heard her, and half of that half's stomachs started rumbling.
Sanji's eyes popped out of his sockets in the shapes of hearts and he yelled, "Of course Robin-chwan!" Sanji was still smiling brightly as he turned the other way and started calling out, "Tim-" He froze and his face covered in sweat as his eyes reverted to normal. "Shit," he muttered.
Everyone on Icarus's back spun to the chef who was responsible for all their food. Natsu's face twisted into fury and he shouted, "What was that 'shit' for? What did you do?!"
"Watch your mouth!" Nami shouted up at the Dragon Slayer. Natsu glared down at her and was going to retort, but he spotted Ben and Dash near her and frowned, realizing she may have had a point. Nami then turned to Sanji and was going to snap at him for cursing too, but something more important was on her mind. "What about Timmy?"
"Well," Sanji said, and he scratched the back of his head nervously. "Most of the food we got from Dressrosa, it was in his bottomless sack." He did not realize until now as they had eaten every meal before this inside Dressrosa to prevent from eating the food they were given for the road.
Everyone started yelling at Sanji at once, even Icarus who roared just to be part of the group. The one sitting farthest up on the dinosaur's back did not shout though, he just turned around with a calm expression and looked down at everyone down below. "Don't worry guys," they all looked up together at Sora whose smile put them at ease. "I filled up my own bag too with food. It's not as big as Timmy's, but it's still pretty huge on the inside. I figured it was better to have more than not enough. So…"
"Sora!" Luffy exclaimed, not recalling a time he had been happier to see his friend.
"Nice thinking," Riku said, and he actually had to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead as that was almost very bad. Guess we could have gone back to Dressrosa, but they already gave us everything they could spare, the silver haired Keybearer thought. Can't take any more from them, but if it comes down to it, it shouldn't be all that hard for me, Sora, or Kirito to head out and find some food. Then again, Gray says we should stick together, and from what I've seen so far, he's right.
"You saved us," Nami said with a sigh of relief.
Sora lifted his head high and soaked in all the praise. "I know, I'm amazing." The boastful teen laughed loudly and the praises from behind him turned more teasing. He spun and started arguing with Kirito who said the high horse he was sitting on was a little scaly, shouting about how Icarus isn't a horse, to which Ben yelled up that it was a T-Rex, something he liked to say a lot. Gray looked cautiously off either side of the dinosaur over and over, until Juvia grabbed his right arm and held it tight, telling him how romantic the ride was which made him sweatdrop and Natsu and Nami start laughing. Sanji jumped up to Sora and Sora handed him some food that they started whipping up together right on Icarus's head. The dinosaur made a noise when the food started smelling and Sora told it not to worry, he would give it some food too. Sanji Sky Walked around the dinosaur's back and handed meals out to everyone, even the demonic cat and T-Rex. They started their journey from Awul with nineteen members, and although Timmy and Goku were still gone, for the moment, they had reached that lucky number once again.
A/N Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! The monster that Luffy and Riku were fighting, the Gohma, are the enemies from Asura's Wrath. Aragog is the giant spider that was Hagrid's pet in the Forbidden Forest, so from Harry Potter. Going to try and keep up these rapid fire chapter updates as long as I have chapters ready to post, and there are a lot of them! 'Till next time!
Darugus
Ok zoro became a shinigami now did not expect that I don't think anyone would hopefully luffy gets the ability to see supernatural beings soon also I hope he gets stronger so he catches up to him
Thanks for the review! Not being able to see some of their enemies is going to be a big problem for our heroes, so hopefully before they find Zoro, they find a way to see them! Hope you enjoyed the latest chapter!