Chapter 95: The Replacement

Chapter 99:

The Replacement

"One, two, one, two, one, two!" a trio of tiny zombies chanted, working in tandem as they carried a full coffin over their heads. The road connecting the mansion and the docks stretched out before them, looking that much longer due to their small bodies. Their chanting was the only thing any of them could hear...

That was, until the yelling appeared.

"Gum-Gum Balloon!"

There were only a couple of seconds for the undead to react, not nearly enough time with the burdensome coffin to deal with, so they ditched it. The wood shattered under the force of whatever or whoever crashed down on it like a meteor, a huge dust cloud hiding the road.

"Ooowww," a male voice moaned. "That monkey-spider hits hard. Are you ok, Nami?"

"Y-Yeah," a weaker, female voice answered. "Just a couple bruises and splinters. What did we hit?"

"I don't know. It hurt, though." The dust began to clear, revealing the people who were speaking.

The trio of zombies dashed away before they could be seen, hiding behind a tree just within the forest boundary. The ones who had fallen were a male with a straw hat and a female in a torn wedding dress, the former with an arm wrapped around the shoulders of the latter. Wood from the broken coffin littered the ground, its contents thrown to either side. The woman gasped.

"Coby!" Nami cried, crawling over to the rosette who had ended up on the far left of the road. She shook his shoulder, trying to wake him. "Coby! Get up!"

"Grace is here, too!" Luffy realized, bending down on the other side of the road where the painter had ended up. "Grace, can you hear me?"

"They've had their shadows stolen," Nami commented.

"Then what do we do?" the captain asked. "The others woke up after losing their shadows."

"Grace!" Nami shouted, remembering what Amy had said as the crew splintered into groups. "Your art sucks and it will never go anywhere!"

"Shut your face, you bitch!" the girl yelled, bolting upright. "My art will-!"

"Oh good. You're back."

"Wha-?" Grace blinked in confusion, slightly disoriented for a number of reasons, the most recent of which being the sudden movement of sitting up.

"But that won't work for Coby, will it?" Luffy asked. "He doesn't have any obsessions like that."

"Hmm," his wife hummed in response, a gleaming eye falling on Grace. The girl shivered. "I wouldn't be too sure about that, Luffy."

"What do you mean?"

"Watch and learn, Hun," Nami smirked, patting Luffy's cheek. "Hey, Coby! Someone's trying to marry Grace!"

"I will cut you, bastard!"

"Oooh!" Luffy awed, clapping. The noise attracted the attention of the two younger teens, Coby and Grace blinking at the captain and navigator.

"Captain Luffy?" Coby greeted. "Nami? What are you two doing here? And is that a wedding dress?"

"We'll explain later," Nami waved off. "What happened with you two?"

"The ghosts caught us," Coby admitted. "Turns out they were being created by a Devil Fruit user. She took us prisoner trying to get information on Merry and Chopper."

"Are you alright?" Luffy asked as Grace shuffled around him to help Coby to his feet.

"I think so," Coby answered, brushing some soot off himself from the explosions Perona had put them through. He took a couple steps from Grace before twisting into his Dino Mode to carry her. She didn't have Zoan constitution like he did, so he was worried about any lingering damage from the Exploding Hollows.

"Good to hear!" Luffy nodded. "Now we've gotta go kick Moria's ass!"

"But Moria took our weapons," Grace pointed out. "Coby can still fight without his, but I'm practically useless."

"You haven't been without your weapons before, have you?" Coby realized, turning his head to see the red-haired girl sitting on his back. "I'll teach you some hand-to-hand combat after we get out of this mess."

"That sounds like work," the redhead whined.

"I don't care," Coby stated. "You'll need it."

"You can come with me, Grace," Nami decided. "Luffy and Coby can go after Moria; Luffy would go anyway and he might as well have some backup. Grace, you and I can cover them and take care of any lesser zombies that come along. Turns out you can purify the zombies with salt."

"Where's everyone else?" the problem pink-haired dinosaur asked. "Moria said he had six of our shadows, including ours."

"Nah," the captain waved off. "They're all hunting our zombies, so everyone should have their shadows back soon. Now." He turned toward the mansion in the distance. "Let's go kick that gecko's ass!"

Sanji and Brook

"You undead swordbrain!"

"You living, curly bastard!"

Old cutlass met steel-lined dress shoes from below, the former pushing the latter up. Sanji backflipped with the added momentum, avoiding the following slash that cut through the air where his throat had been. He and Jigoro, Zoro's zombie, had been at it for the past few minutes, the circle around their fight clear of the webbing that covered the rest of the bridge. Tararan, with the help of his faithful spider-mice, had covered most of the battlefield with sticky web, slowing down Brook enough that they could keep track of him. Neither Sanji or Jigoro seemed to care, still glaring daggers at each other.

"You know what, Marimo? I always wanted to kill you. This might not be for real, but it'll help. A lot."

"Only if I don't kill you first!" Jigoro rasped in response through his third sword. "108 Caliber Phoenix!" Firing a trio of slashes that condensed into one, the zombie seemed sure of his imminent victory, only for the smirk on his face to turn into a scowl as the chef leapt over his attack, spinning into a mid-air barrel roll.

"Wolf Fang!" the chef yelled, bringing his leg down on the zombie. His foot caught the back of the undead's head, folding him over at the waist and ripping out the weird bird-thing implanted in Jigoro's head.

"Tower Climb!" the zombie rebuffed, straightening too quick for Sanji to react completely. Twin swords shot up while the chef was still in the air, cutting a pair of slashes into the inside of his right leg. Sanji gasped in pain as he landed and jumped to the edge of the ring, favoring his left leg. That wound was probably going to scar.

"You think this little cut is going to stop me?" Sanji growled. "I've gotten worse cuts chopping onions." Ignoring the pain, but still wincing, the cook shot forward. The zombie mirrored him, swords pointed forward.

"Crab Grab!"

"No you don't!" Sanji rolled forward into a handstand, his body twisting around so his right foot was on a collision course with the pair of swords. Boot and swords stopped as they collided, a ripple of pressurized air shooting from the cook's limb to disperse on the zombie.

"What was that?" Jigoro rumbled through his third cutlass.

"Three-Point Carve!" Sanji yelled, pushing off his hands. His left leg swung out, kicking Jigoro in the side of the head. The zombie stumbled as the cook continued his spin, his right leg moving to catch the undead with the heel. Jigoro stood his ground, dropping one sword to grab the cook's leg. Sanji's visible eye widened as the zombie heaved him over his head to slam him into the ground. Sanji groaned in pain, his body in a small crater from the force. Jigoro stood over him with an evil smile, swords raised.

Gaze hardening, Sanji used his flexibility to push himself into a backbend, one foot moving into a roundhouse kick to redirect the swords. The blades dug into the bridge beside Sanji's head, but he ignored that in exchange of focusing on pushing up to kick the zombie in the mouth. Jigoro's jaw popped out of place with a creak. The undead staggered backwards, leaving one sword stabbed in the bridge as the one in his mouth clattering to the floor..

"You certainly aren't as tough as the real one," Sanji huffed. The zombie growled as one hand shoved his jaw back into place.

"I'll show you!" Jigoro growled, scooping up his dropped sword. "72 Caliber Phoenix!" Jumping over the aerial slash, Sanji lashed out with a front kick, Jigoro dodging backwards but still getting pushed by the wind. "How are you doing that, Shit Cook?!"

"Dodging you is easy when you're so slow, Marimo!"

"I'll skin you alive!" the zombie declared. "Dragon Twister!" Wind whipped around the chef, picking him up and flinging him out of the ring. Sanji splashed down on a clump of sticky webbing, a stuck Brook next to him. The skeleton was valiantly trying to keep his afro up and web-free. Jigoro and Tararan approached slowly, the former cutting his way through the webbing covering the ground.

"Well this is quite the conundrum," Brook commented. "They may very well kill us. Ah! But I'm already dead. Yohohoho!"

"No way!" Sanji roared. "I will not lose to that shitty moss-head, much less his pathetic shadow and this stupid giant sp... sp... spider!" Sanji screamed, his voice hitching up an octave.

"Sanji-san? Are you ok?"

"Spiders!" Sanji almost exploded, flames bursting to life around him. Brook gasped (though he did not need to breath), the heat of the fire melting the webbing around the two pirates. Tararan and Jigoro stumbled backwards from the light.

"What is he doing?" the spider-monkey cried.

"Get the Hell away from me, you freak!" the cook screamed, a burning foot plowing into the face of the larger zombie. Tararan screamed as he felt a burn searing itself into his face.

"Get him off! Get him off!"

"I'll get him!" Jigoro called. "108 Caliber... Gah?"

Brook appeared behind him, his sword sliding back into its sheath. "My apologies, but you should not forget your other opponents, Mr. Swordsman. Three Verse Humming... Arrow Notch Slash!" Jigoro folded over, his head and arms separating from the rest of his body.

"My legs!"

"Eat this, shitty spider bastard!" Brook turned around just in time to see a still on-fire Sanji forcing a handful of salt down the throat of a legless and armless Tararan, the zombie's giant eyes wide with fear. Tararan's eyes started rolling into the back of his head, his body beginning to convalse. The flaming cook literally ripped the shadow from within the giant spider and kicked it into the sky before setting the abandoned body on fire. The spider-mice cried out in panic and fled.

"Was that not a little excessive, Mr. Sanji?" Brook asked, eyeing the makeshift bonfire (though he did not have eyes). The skeleton skirted the flames, giving the chef a wide berth, before stuffing a small lump of salt into the throat of the decapitated and disarmed zombie swordsman.

"I hate spiders," Sanji answered, his eyes never leaving the pire before him.

"Fair enough, Mr. Sanji. Fair enough."

Sanji and Brook vs. Tararan and Jigoro

Winners: Sanji and Brook

Moria

"Well it's certainly not ideal," Moria sighed, his eyes on the thoroughly bound and gagged cyborg before him. Only Franky's eyes could be seen through all the webbing holding him fast, a particularly large clump of it around his mouth. The cyborg had given the spider-mice a terrible time getting him there after he got over the shock of being abducted, burning no less than twenty of them to ashes with his Fresh Fire and smashing another ten with his metal fists. Something that sounded mysteriously like "let me go, you bastard" worked its way through the gag.

"You weren't my first choice, you know," the Warlord scowled. "I'd have rather had Straw Hat, but he's started exhibiting signs of Observation Haki, so the spider-mice couldn't sneak up on him. You'll have to do since your body is the closest in proportion."

Lifting the cyborg with both hands, Moria hung him on the hook he used for shadow stealing. The chains holding said hook groaned, straining under the weight of Franky's metal body. He wiggled, trying to squirm free, but Moria bitch-slapped him as the spotlight came on. The Warlord's special scissors came out without preamble, snipping the pirate's shadow free from his body. Franky's umbral form struggled valiantly even as his real body froze, but shadows have no mass, so its flailing did nothing to release it from Moria's grasp.

"Kiiishishishi! Forget your former master and your identity! I am your new master and you will bow to me!"

The cyborg's black outline slowed to a stop, nodding silently. Abandoning Franky to hang bound, gagged, and unconscious, Moria turned toward where the giant freezer of Thriller Bark was and began taking slow, deliberate steps toward his final destination.

"It's a shame," he mused. "Poor, poor Hogback worked so hard on Number 900 and he won't be here to see its completion. What do you think?" He glanced at the shadow in his grasp. Shadow Franky didn't move. "Yes, I suppose it doesn't matter in the end. Oh well! Let's go get you a body! Kiiishishishishi!"

Moria seemed to giggle all the way to the freezer, one hand coming up to spin the wheel holding the door fast. Cold metal creaked open, frost cracking and shattering over the protesting hinges. Throwing the door open as soon as he could, Moria shivered at the freezing draft that rolled into the room. He pushed forward.

Ice crunched under each footstep, the light at the end of the tunnel growing bigger with each passing second. Finally, the Warlord stepped into a great, circular vault. The walls of the vault, caked with thick layers of ice, were a dull-grey steel that almost sucked the life out of their surroundings. Lights from the ceiling barely cut through the cold mist that hung in the air, basking everything in a glow so little that it was hard to see. Even so, the monstrous form that took up the majority of the room was impossible to miss.

Number 900 was the zombie of one of the most feared creatures to ever live, the demon and Island-Mover known as Oars. The body stood at a height indeterminate save that it dwarfed even the Warlord standing before it. The skin was naturally red, but large areas of other muscles and canvas stretched over parts of the form, the most prominent being around the stomach, and bits of the skin had turned blue or purple from the cold. Long, blond hair tumbled down the titan's back from its head and two horns, each over twice the height of Moria, curved out from its forehead. The demon's square face pronounced an underbite caused by two giant fangs that shot up in place of the lower canines, almost reaching to its closed eyes.

Moving down, Oars' arms were almost shaped like Franky's in the way that his lower arms were much bigger than his upper, leading to large hands that could hold Moria with plenty of room to spare. A giant gut rested on level with the landing the Warlord stood on, filling that view with red, light blue, and dark blue stitched together. A skirt of dry plants woven together to reach the knees was held up by a belt of skulls, each one taller than any of the Straw Hats. Its giant feet, lost in the darkness below, were bare; all the better to squash insects with.

"Now!" Moria exclaimed to no one but himself and the as-of-yet inanimate corpse. "The pinnacle of my undead army shall rise! Live again, Oars, and obey your master!" Smacking the shadow into the side of the humongous zombie, Moria watched as the skin there rippled and the shadow was absorbed. The room was silent for almost a minute before one of the massive arms shifted and the zombie opened one dark eye.

"How are you feeling, Oars?" Moria questioned.

"I... I feel..."

"SUUUUUPEEEER!"

Perona gasped as she came to, the Risky Brother squirrel zombies just finishing removing the pink goo that had held her to the bed so that asshole lying sniper could beat her.

"What was that?" she demanded through her panting, her heart beating far faster than it had ever before. The zombie twins glanced at each other before responding.

"Well, Misteress-"

"-Master Moria recently caught another one of the pirates' shadows-"

"So he decided that it was time to revive 900-"

"At least, that what we heard from the spider-mice-"

"You can never really trust those gossiping rats-"

"Wormtails, all of them."

"Yeah, whatever," Perona waved off, pulling herself out of the bed stiffly. "We're leaving. Thriller Bark is doomed with the amount of damage the Straw Hats have caused. Go grab as many zombies as you can find, non-portrait ones, and get them to meet me at the pirates' ship with all the food and money. And by all, I mean every last bit of it! I'm taking it and getting away from here."

"Yes, Mistress!" the rodents squeaked, turning around to scamper off in two different directions.

"Annoying little shits," the woman muttered. "They're cute, but I think I'll throw them in the ocean after I leave. I won't need messengers, after all. Horo-horo-horo-horo!"

End of Chapter 99

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-SwordOfTheGods