Chapter 83: Hogback

Chapter 87:

Hogback

"Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy," Chopper chanted, all but bouncing in his seat next to Hildon. Nami and Usopp sat across from them with Merry in the sniper's lap once again; she was fiddling with a piece of rope. The wheels of the carriage creaked and groaned as the odd horses pulled it along. "I can't wait to meet Dr. Hogback! Do you think I could get his autograph?"

"Is this hog guy really that special?" Usopp asked, confused as to why the little reindeer was so excited while they were still anywhere in the creepy forest of Thriller Bark.

"He's only the world's most renowned surgeon!" Chopper answered, scandalized that there was anyone who hadn't heard the name Hogback. "He's the man that everyone in the medical community idolizes! They say that he's saved more lives than there are stars in the sky, but a few years ago, he vanished. No one was ever able to find any evidence of where he'd gone, so eventually everyone gave up and mourned him, but apparently he's here on this island!"

"I'm still not sure about this," Nami muttered uneasily, glancing out the window. She could swear there was something out there. Glancing at the others who weren't paying attention, she drew back the curtains for a clearer look outside. Dozens of creatures that shouldn't exist, such as a tree with a face, were having what seemed to be a party. Nami screamed.

The party outside stopped immediately and the riders in the carriage snapped their attention outside. The other three pirates cried out, Usopp and Chopper in fear and Merry in excitement. The monsters fled into the night.

"Stop!" Nami cried. "Stop the carriage! Hildon! Take us back! Take us back to the shore!"

"Oh fine," the pale creature huffed, his blond hair defying gravity now that he was right-side-up. "Dr. Hogback will be disappointed, but I suppose that can't be helped." With a sigh, Hildon exited the carriage saying that he was going to have the driver turn around.

"But I wanna meet Dr. Hogback," Chopper whined, crying while flopping on the seat like a little kid.

"Listen, Chopper," Usopp muttered. "I know you want to meet this guy, but it's not worth risking our necks. Sorry." The reindeer didn't respond and the four pirates sat in silence for the next ten minutes.

"What is taking so long," Merry sighed. "I'm bored."

"Don't know," Nami shrugged. "I'll check. It really shouldn't take this long to turn around." Carefully, being wary of the monsters they'd seen, Nami opened the door and stepped out. "He ditched us!" she screamed from outside.

"What?!" Usopp demanded, rushing out. "She's right! Even the horses are gone!"

"He left us in a graveyard," Merry observed, eyeing the gravestones around them. Some dirt shifted a dozen feet away.

"What was that?" Usopp questioned, his hand creeping toward Kabuto on his back. A hand covered in bandages burst forth from the ground, dragging the rest of its body up next.

"An old guy with serious injuries?" Merry questioned with a tilt of her head.

"Zombie!" The other three pirates yelled, all of them terrified. More zombies pulled themselves from the ground and the hoard started shuffling toward the pirates.

"Zombies? Woooo!" Merry cheered, pulling her hammer from her pocket. She charged at the mob of undead, shocking them.

"Merry!" Usopp cried, running forward to try to catch the fairy, but the klabautermann had a significant lead on the sniper and reached the zombies rather quickly.

"Merry Hammer!" With a grin, the diminutive, white-haired girl swung her wooden hammer at the first zombie. With a crack, the bandaged corpse flew to the left and tumbled into two others.

"Ow!" the undead yelled. "That hurt!"

"Battering Ram!" The horned girl ignored the zombie she had just attacked and rushed at another, smashing her horns into its chest. The zombie gasped and cirreened backwards with a cry of pain.

"Fireball Star!" Usopp called, his sudden fire warding away a group of undead that were going to blindside the little klabautermann. "Merry! What the Hell are you doing?!"

"Baahahaha!" the girl laughed, swinging her hammer at another zombie. "I'm fighting, of course! Merry Hammer!" Her target's head rolled away, the body chasing after it.

Nami screamed again from somewhere behind them. She and Chopper in his Heavy Point were trying to ward away a part of the mob that had come for them. The navigator swung her Clima-Tact, a lightning bolt arching through the air to fry one of the oncoming undead to ash. A living body would have survived, but the decaying meat and flesh of the zombie stood no chance. A black blob flew off into the night, unseen.

The other zombies jumped back, their faces morphing from panic to rage at the loss of their comrade. With a cry, the hoard charged.

"Run!" Chopper shouted, scooping up Nami with his Walk Point. Usopp did the same to Merry, placing her on his shoulders as the sniper and reindeer fled from the graveyard toward the mansion. The zombies chased them for most of a mile before losing them in the night.

"Why *pant* does *pant* this *pant* keep *pant* happening?" Usopp demanded, bent over his knees while Merry slipped off his shoulders. She looked around, taking in the area in which they had found themselves. The quartet had stopped at the entrance to the giant mansion in the center of the island, a large overhang hiding the sky directly above from view. An unlit spotlight was set into the ground a ways to the left, seeming to focus on an old well next to a set of double doors.

"We're even further from the shore than we were before!" Nami complained.

"Does this mean I'll get to meet Dr. Hogback after all?" Chopper cheered. Suddenly, the rope in the well began writhing, pulling something up quickly as the spotlight snapped on. The three cowards jumped behind Merry, each trying in vain to completely hide themselves behind the second smallest member. Even Chopper, with his smaller stature, could not hide his antlers.

The rope stopped, pulling a woman to the surface. She stood around Nami's height in a simple black dress and had blue skin covered in stitches. Her blonde hair was cut into a princess-style haircut and her dull blue eyes roamed over the group without emotion. Stacked in her hands over her stomach were ten plates.

"Hello," she intoned in an emotionless voice. "Welcome to the lab of Dr. Hogback. You three may enter." She pointed at Nami, Chopper, and Merry. "You may not. One, two, three, four." With each number, a plate from the top of the stack in her hand flew through the air to strike Usopp, shattering upon contact.

"That hurts!" Usopp yelled.

"Five, six, seven, eight."

"Stop it!"

"Nine." As the second-to-last plate flew, Merry jumped in the way, smashing it with her hammer before it could hit the sniper like the other eight had. Something reminiscent of a smile tweaked at the woman's mouth. "I like this one. She breaks plates."

"Come now, Cindrey," a male voice called from inside. "There's no need for that." The door of the mansion opened, revealing a large man dressed in a long-sleeve, fishnet top and dark tights with boots. Two fangs stuck out of his mouth and curved stitches raced over his forehead to connect the top of his eyes. His dark hair seemed to be receding even though he only appeared to be in his late 40's to early 50's and a feathery, purple coat of some kind hung down his back.

"Who are you?" Merry asked. "And what's up with her?"

"My name is Doctor Hogback," the man answered, causing Chopper to go "SQUEEEE!". "As for your other question, this is my assistant, Cindrey. She was once engaged to a wealthy man who claimed to love her dearly, but she wasn't convinced. To test their love, she broke an expensive set of porcelain China, but the man grew angry and severed the marriage. Devastated and disowned by her family, she wandered the seas until finding her way here where she's worked for me ever since. She's also hated plates with a passion ever since that day."

"I wish every plate on earth would break," Cindrey muttered angrily.

"But enough of that," Hogback waved off. "It's almost dinnertime. What do you all say you come inside. I rarely get visitors."

"Sure," Nami agreed, ushering the two smaller and younger crewmembers inside. Usopp moved to follow.

"Ten," Cindey said, the last plate shattering upon contact is Usopp's face.

"Ow!"

The dining table was st up in a spacious room at the base of the mansion, stairs leading out from each side as access to the different parts of the building. Oil paintings of people and animals covered in stitches lined the walls, dropping a creepy feeling on the visitors. On the floor to the side of the table was a bear rug made from a polar bear, its fur as white as snow but also covered in stitches. Sitting at the head of the table was the laughing Dr. Hogback with Chopper and Nami on his left and Usopp and Merry on his right.

"Foooss fosfosfos!" Hogback laughed. "Like I said before, I rarely ever get visitors! What brings you people here? And why are you all so filthy?"

"We were attacked my zombies in the graveyard out there and ran here for cover," Nami answered.

"Zombies?" Hogback questioned, his glasses glinting.

"Yeah!" Merry cheered. "They were really gross and I hit some of them with my hammer! It was a lot of fun!"

"So you... enjoyed... fighting the zombies out there?"

"A whole lot!" Merry nodded, ignoring Usopp's attempts to tell her to be quiet. "I've never been able to fight for myself before!"

"Um, quick question," Nami cut in. "What are the zombies doing on this island?"

"In all truthfulness, I don't know either," Hogback responded. "That's why I'm here. I'm studying them."

"Studying them?" Usopp asked. "Why the heck would you willingly be anywhere around them?"

"When most people hear the word 'zombie'," Hogback began, "they think about monsters, about a sin against nature. But what if we thought about it as a person who came back from the dead? Then it's a miracle! The dream of all doctors! The ability to bring one's loved ones back to the land of the living would be the ultimate medical ability! But people scorned me for thinking that way. 'It's not natural,' they claimed. 'A crime against the order of the world.' That's why I came here, to complete my work in solitude, away from prying eyes!"

"That's amazing!" Chopper gushed with stars in his eyes. "As a doctor, I'm behind you all the way!"

"Why, thank you, Dr. Chopper!"

"Eee!" Chopper squealed, pulling his hat down to try to hide his blush. "Even if you acknowledge me as a doctor, you won't get on my good side, you jerk~!" He held out a white pad and a marker. "C-Could I have your autograph?"

"Why, of course!" He took the pad. "To my dear Doctor Chopper."

"Eee!" Chopper squealed again. Just as the reindeer was taking the signature, Cindrey walked in, dropping custard on the table.

"Cindrey!" Hogback gasped, not hearing Merry's quiet giggles. "Couldn't you at least have put it on a plate?"

"I wish every plate in the world would disappear," the maid responded.

"Foooss fosfosfos!" the world-renowned doctor laughed awkwardly. "Sorry about that. Luckily, I'm used to this, so I always keep the tablecloth clean."

"Ok," Usopp, Chopper, and Merry shrugged, each bending down to suck up their own lump. Nami watched, barely holding in her annoyance. She did not touch her food.

"You people are filthy," Cindrey stated. "I have drawn a bath for you and will escort you there after the meal."

"Thank you," Nami nodded gratefully.

"One more question," Usopp muttered, his tongue still on his custard. "Have you seen a skeleton running around?"

Hogback stopped mid-lick. "A skeleton?"

"Yeah," the sniper nodded. "All bones with this big afro and a pretty cheery mood for a dead guy."

The fanged doctor broke into a cold sweat, beads polling on his forehead to slide down his pointed nose and just miss his custard as they dropped. "Never seen him."

"Oh. Ok."

"Please follow me," the blue-tinted maid insisted, dragging the pirates away from the table. "The women shall bathe first."

"Come on, Merry," Nami smiled. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"Ok!"

End of Chapter 86

Read and Review!

And it's not too late to vote on the poll! I think I'll close it when I hit 101 voters, and let me tell you, it's a CLOSE race. Like, within 5 votes close. Which side will win, Love or Logic?

-SwordOfTheGods