Chapter 88: The Dogwin and the Pigeon-Man

Chapter 92:

The Doguin and the Pigeon-Man

"There's something wrong," Luffy muttered to himself, stopping in the middle of an intersection. "I can't tell what, but someone's in trouble."

"Maybe it's us," Usopp hissed. "Did you think about that?" Luffy didn't answer, his head twisting this way and that as he glanced toward all the different auras he was sensing. He frowned.

"I can't feel Sanji or Gin. I can't find Coby or Grace either."

"They're all gone?!" Chopper cried.

"It's not that," Luffy shook his head. "I can tell that they're alive, but it's like snuffing out a candle in a dark room. They're still there, but I just can't see them."

"Oh great!" Usopp whined. "We're screwed, aren't we?"

"It's not that bad, Uncle Usopp!" Merry piped up. "We'll get through this."

"Go, Luffy," Nami urged. "Go find them."

"What about us?!" Usopp yelled.

"We'll be fine!" Merry insisted, pulling Chopper into a one-handed hug. "Isn't that right, Doctor Chopper?"

"Even if you say something like that~!" Chopper danced. "It won't make me take your side, you jerk~!"

"I trust you guys," Luffy nodded, locking eyes with each member of the group. When he got to Nami, he reached out and pulled her into a kiss that lasted a good bit longer than it needed to.

"Gross," Chopper and Merry whined. "Human stuff."

"Be careful," Luffy whispered, pecking his wife on the lips once more before they separated. Nami reached up, replacing his treasured hat back on the captain's head.

"You, too," the navigator whispered back. Picking a direction, Luffy took off in search of their missing members. The now-quartet turned toward the other path, Nami, Usopp, and Merry pulling out their weapons in case they ran into any more zombies. No undead presented themselves, however, despite the passage of several minutes and half-a-dozen corridors.

"I don't like this," Usopp whined.

"When do you like anything?" Nami snarked, getting a snicker out of Merry. "And to think you wanted to go alone to start your journey."

"H-Hey!" the sniper tried to deny. "Things are different back in the East Blue!"

"Baahahaha!" Merry bleated softly.

"Oh, come on!" Usopp complained. "Back me up here, Chopper!"

. . .

"Chopper?" The trio turned around, but their fourth companion was gone, no scuffs or sounds anywhere to be found.

"I think we know that happened to the others," Merry muttered. "I sure hope we find everyone before the sun rises and kills them all."

"Merry!" Usopp gasped.

"That's it!" Nami declared, ignoring the bit of Robin's personality that just came out of the Klabautermann. "We're going back to the Sunny! Can you tell which way, Merry?"

The fairy shook her head. "This whole island is a ship. I can't pinpoint the Sunny at this distance."

"Then we'll try retracing our steps."

Turning back the way they had come from, the group hurried as fast as they dared, making it back to outside Hogback's lab where the skeletal musician had offed the mad scientist. None of the bodies were there. Only a darker red patch on the bright red carpet showed that anything had happened earlier in the night.

"I don't like this," Usopp muttered again.

"This time, I agree with you," Nami whispered.

"Hold on," Merry put in. "I hear something coming this way."

"Coo!"

"A pigeon?" Usopp questioned, lowering his Kabuto. The sound of footsteps echoed along the corridor, growing slowly louder until the light shone on their originator. It wasn't quite a person.

The being was a zombie with the torso, legs, and arms of a lean human, but the head and shoulders of a giant pigeon. Tattooed on its bare chest was "946" in bold lettering and its only clothing, a pair of raggedy yellow pants, sat on its hips, leaving its feet bare. Bandages wrapped around both of its arms and its stomach. Resting in its hands were a pair of regular tonfa, the right one of which was slowly building momentum. With a very non-threatening battle coo, the zombie lunged forward.

The pirates scrambled out of the way, the tonfa continuing on its path to crash into the floor where they had been standing. The tiles gave way, turning to rubble under the force. The zombie turned toward Usopp and Nami and charged once more.

"Exploding Star!" Usopp tried, the pigeon man twisting out of the way of the attack which cracked the hallway wall from the force. The sniper screamed and threw himself to the side, the tonfa that had been coming his way missing by a hair's breadth.

"Hey, Bird Brain!" Nami yelled, the sound causing the zombie to turn toward her. "Eat this! Thunder Ball!"

The pigeon zombie stared at the small attack floating towards it, cocking its head to the side in confusion for a second. The ball came within range, threatening to discharge on its beak.

That was, until the monster opened its mouth, revealing a complete set of human teeth, and ate it.

The bird man shuddered after ingesting the navigator's attack, the electricity getting redirected through its arms and into the tonfa where it was dispersed into the surrounding air. Other than a few ruffled feathers, the zombie was no worse for wear.

"Do you think we found Gin?" Merry questioned, sidestepping toward Nami and Usopp. The zombie regarded the pirates silently, cocking its head to the side.

"What now?" Usopp hissed, pulling a shell out of his bag.

"There's no way that's actually Gin," Nami whispered. "It's probably a zombie with his shadow like that Ryuma swordsman." The zombie lunged forward, ending the pirates' conversation. Merry rolled to the left while Nami dove to the right, leaving Usopp stuck in the middle. The zombie bore down on him.

"Uncle Usopp!" Merry yelled, worried that the sniper would fall at close range. Her fears, however well-grounded they may have been, were unnecessary.

The tonfa the zombie wielded came down quickly, aiming to crush the long-nosed teen with a double over-hand strike. Usopp cowered back and raised his hand. The pink shell he held met both tonfa, all of their momentum absorbed instantly. The pigeon-man tilted its head and attacked again, but Usopp met each attack blow-for-blow, absorbing each one with the dial in his hand. Finally, the zombie stepped back, utterly confused.

"Take this!" Usopp cried, rushing forward despite his shaking legs. He brought the shell up, the apex clicking against the zombie's chest. "Impact!"

With the cumulative force of all the attacks beforehand, the zombie was thrown backwards, Usopp flying the other way as Newton's second law came into effect. Nami and Merry lunged to catch the sniper while the undead had no such companions. Gin's zombie slammed into the far wall, smashing through and kicking up a dust cloud that hid it from view.

"OW!" Usopp gasped, clutching his arm. "Owowow OW!"

"Something like that won't keep it down for long," Nami warned, grabbing the sniper by his good arm and hauling him to his feet. "Let's go while it's distracted!"

"Right!"

Earlier

"So let's take stock here," Franky muttered, he and his group wandering around the base of the castle. "We don't know where Straw Hat is or if he caught up to the others. Cook-Bro and Devil-Bro are MIA. And Dino-Bro and Paint-Sis aren't picking up. The only upside here is that our resident samurai slayer has a new sword."

"Uhh," Amy blinked. "Where's Zoro?"

"Where's-? Oh, you've got to be shitting me!"

"Fufufu," Robin chuckled. "Were you not aware of Mr. Swordsman's sense of direction?"

"I'd heard it was super bad, but he was literally following us!"

"Don't worry about him," Amy waved off. "He'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Frankly wondered aloud.

"Positive," Amy answered. "Anyway, we have bigger things to worry about." She pointed ahead of them. "Namely whatever the Hell those things are and why that skeleton from before is fighting them.."

"I think they're supposed to be animals," Franky commented.

"I think they're king of cute," Robin admitted. The trio slowly entered through the archway into the garden. Ahead of them was Brook, his cane-sword out, defending himself from the zombies of Perona's Wonder Garden. Suddenly, a shockwave rocked the building above.

"Mistress Perona!" the zombie animals cried, turning with worry toward where some of the stonework was starting to come undone.

"Why do I get the sudden feeling that I need to strangle Pinky?" Amy wondered aloud.

"Yohoho!" Brook laughed. "Eat this!" Quickly, the skeleton flicked something into the open mouths of the zombies around him, said undead falling to the ground and convulsing. Black blobs rose from their mouths. "Go on!" Brook cheered. "Return to your masters like mine did before!" The blobs seemed to heed his orders, fully separating from the corpses and flying off into the night.

"Ah, nevermind," the blonde shook her head before stomping into the garden. "What the Hell is going on here? What did you do?"

"Oh dear!" Brook cried, jumping an impressive height in fear. "You nearly scared me out of my skin! Not that I have skin anymore. Yohohoho! Skull joke!"

"Mr. Skeleton," Robin said, stepping forward before Amy could attack the undead musician. "I believe Ms. Valentine here asked you a question?"

"Oh, yes," Brook blinked (or he would have if he had eyes!). "My apologies; I thought you all had turned tail and sailed away like I had asked you to. While you're here though, if it's not too much trouble, could you beautiful ladies please show my your panties?"

"Absolutely not, you undead psycho!" Amy screamed, punching the skeleton into a tree with an increased-mass punch.

"Yohohoho! That one rattled my brain! Not that I have a brain anymore! Skull joke!"

"Ahem," Robin coughed. "The question?"

"Oh, yes." Brook straightened, wiping himself off. "Anywho, what you just saw was me purifying these zombies."

"Purify?" Franky questioned. "With what?"

"Salt."

"Salt?" the pirates parroted.

"Indeed," Brook nodded. "I'd learned of their weakness five years ago when my shadow was stolen from me. Now, however, my shadow has returned! I take it you all had something to do with that?"

"Our swordsman did," Robin affirmed. "There was a zombie swordsman that shared your laugh. Ryuma, I believe."

"Then I must thank him when we meet again!" the skeleton exclaimed, spinning slowly while balanced on one leg. "Imagine my surprise when I'd entered the moonlight to find my shadow beneath my feet once more! I would have cried tears of joy if I still had eyes!"

"But we saw you crying during dinner," Amy muttered. Robin set a hand on the other woman's shoulder, silently telling her to ignore that while their cyborg shipwright cried enough for all four of them.

"Mistress Perona!" a voice called. "We're back!"

"What happened here?!" another voice exclaimed.

The group of four turned to find a trio of penguins, each one wearing a hat and the last of which had a bulldog's face.

"Those are some super freaky zombies!" Franky shouted.

"Indeed!" Brook agreed. "They're scary!"

"But you were just fighting them!" Amy scoffed.

"You pirates have ruined the sanctity of Mistress Perona's Wonder Garden!" the first penguin growled. "As such, we, the Penguin Duo, shall kill you!"

"Penguin Trio!" the doguin put in in a familiar voice. "We're a trio now! I'm the new guy!"

"Was that-?"

"I think so, Franky," Amy agreed. "That was Sanji's voice."

"Oh dear," Robin sighed dramatically, raising a hand to her cheek. "It seems Mr. Cook has been turned into a brainwashed, undead dog-penguin. How will he reach the stove now?"

"Robin!" the other two Straw Hats exclaimed.

"Enough of this!" Penguin #2 yelled. He rushed forward faster than his stubby legs should have allowed, flipper cocked back to attack. Coming within striking distance in the span of a second, his flipper met Franky's metal forearm, sending the cyborg skidding back several inches. The penguin bounced off of the ground as soon as he touched it, launching himself at Amy.

"Don't you dare!" the Sanji-doguin shouted, appearing between his "comrade" and the blonde. The zombie's foot snapped up, catching Penguin #2 by surprise and hurling it away with a strike to the beak.

"What are you doing, rookie!" Penguin #1 cried as #2 rolled to a stop. "Those women are our enemies!"

"I don't know why," Sanji's zombie answered, "but for some reason, I can't let you hit either of these women!"

"Fufufu," Robin chuckled. Using the shock of the Sanji-zombie's declaration on the others, she sprouted four limbs for each of the other two zombies, lifting them up off of the ground by their feet and flippers.

"Let us go!" Penguin #2 yelled, struggling against Robin's grip.

"Hey, Lemon-Hater," Amy grinned. "Give me some of that salt." The blonde didn't even wait for the musician to pass the bag to her before snatching it out of his hand and sauntering over to the struggling undead. "Open wide!"

Without preamble, the ex-assassin shoved two lumps of sodium chloride into the beaks of the zombies. Their struggling slowed to a stop, the shadows within rising out of their mouths and flying away into the night.

"You're beautiful when you're killing my brethren!" the remaining zombie exclaimed with hearts in his eyes, wiggling in ways that should not have been anatomically possible.

"Excuse me, Mr. Zombie," Robin purred, bending down to be chest-to-eye with the now-drooling undead. "Could you please eat this for me?" She held out a lump of salt.

"Anything for a beauty such as yourself!" The zombie willing took the salt and threw it into its mouth, purifying itself in the process. The doguin gagged, coughing up the shadow of the cook which flew off.

"Well that was super easy," Franky muttered. "If that's all that we have to deal with, then this shouldn't be a problem."

"I have a feeling that if they got Sanji, then they have Gin as well," Amy commented. "He's not as stupid as Sanji and we don't know how long their personalities remain. I mean, that zombie had Sanji's ideals, but didn't recognize us."

"I suppose they could have gotten Mr. Swordsman as well," Robin thought aloud. "Little Swordsman, Ms. Goldenweek, and the others, too. Hmm. I wonder what Ms. Ship's zombie would look like."

"If they did capture your friends," Brook put in, "then it's very likely that they are back on your ship. As I believe I said before, after taking a strong crew's shadows, Moria has them put on their ship, the rudder broken, and them sent off to sea to wander in the mist of the Florian Triangle."

"So what?" Franky questioned. "Are we just going to go back to the Sunny and hope everyone else ends up there?"

"It's as good a plan as any," Amy shrugged. "I take it you're going to come with us, Skeleton?"

"Whyever not? I must thank my shadow's rescuer, after all!"

End of Chapter 92

Read and Review!

-SwordOfTheGods