Chapter 11: How Do You Cook An Endangered Species?
Something that Zoro came to realise after just a few minutes of aimless wandering through the jungle was that said jungle had a particular sound.
From the benign and even welcoming sounds of the leaves being rustled by what breeze there was, the faint press of his feet into the grass beneath them, and even the distant waves crashing against the shore, to the far more threatening sounds of low growls and rumbles coming from all directions, heavy footsteps thumping their way through the surrounding terrain, and the ever-so-faint chorus of bones cracking and flesh tearing as every member of the food chain played their part with gusto.
Had he caught a glimpse of what the birds on the island looked like, then the distant bird cries and the flapping of wings would have fallen under the latter category as well.
Of course, the notion of any part of the jungle being 'threatening' was all just in theory- in a recognition of how a normal person was supposed to react. Despite everything that he had seen and everything he could hear, Zoro went about his business with an air of complete relaxation about him, like there was absolutely nothing that he had to fear while he was on Little Garden.
Technically, he was correct.
The sounds of the jungle faded into ubiquitous background noise that was only subconsciously heard, as no part of it was yet presenting itself as notable in any way to him.
And yet, as he continued his walk, he suddenly found himself unable to shake a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something just… wasn't right. His brow furrowed, and the arms that were crossed over his chest uncrossed themselves and drifted towards the swords at his hip. Every step that he took brought that subconscious sense of wrongness to the forefront, until he was consciously aware that something wasn't right, and he stopped in his tracks.
'Is there some predator or something that thinks I'm its next meal?' Zoro wondered to himself, subtly glancing to his left and then to his right without making any sudden movements, 'What's with this feeling?'
Standing there in the middle of the jungle, all by his lonesome as far as he could tell, his heightened focus brought the symphony of his surroundings back to his attention. The leaves, animals, and even the distant ocean and… and…
Something else.
Faintly, amidst everything else he could hear, a bizarre whizzing sound presented itself to the swordsman's ears. It was bizarre in that it wasn't a sound someone would expect to come naturally from the current environment, but it wasn't quite unfamiliar. Rather, it was familiar to him like it was a sound he had heard before, the source of which had been picked up and deposited into the location he was now in.
It was the sound of something spinning.
'It couldn't be…' Zoro thought, focusing in on that spinning until he managed to single out a log that was a few meters away from where he was standing. Striding on over, he placed one foot atop it and leaned over to look at what was behind it:
A dark blue and red spinning mass of rock, which skidded to a sudden stop as soon as Zoro looked at him. Then, slowly, Spinner rotated around on the spot where he was standing some fifty-eight degrees and came to a stop once again.
"Nosepass." The Pokemon uttered with a voice that befitted a living rock with a magnet for a nose. Zoro stared at it.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He said, his tone half demanding and half sheer befuddlement at what he was seeing. Kneeling down, he prodded at the top of the Pokémon's head, feeling how heavy he was as he pushed him slightly to one side, before pushing him along its nose to rotate him counter-clockwise. Once he let go of the nose, Spinner remained in that position for a second, before slowly rotating back to point in the same direction as before.
"You couldn't have swum here, you'd just sink." Zoro mused, "And you couldn't have gotten here on some other ship, meaning the only option is that you stowed-away aboard the Merry."
It was said accusatorily, with his eyes narrowing at Spinner. In return, he got several seconds of tense silence, before Spinner began to slowly spin around on the spot, quickly beginning to pick up speed until he was a blue and red blur. Beneath him, Zoro could see the rigid ridges of his feet digging into the dirt and digging a hole into the ground.
"Nooooooooseeeeeeepaaaaaaaass." Spinner said, his voice somewhat distorted by his spinning.
"Well whatever." Zoro muttered, standing back up and turning away from him, "I don't really care. Our scout can figure out what the hell your deal is if you stow away with us again."
He walked away from Spinner, and continued on his way through the jungle. The sound of stone spinning in the dirt faded into the background along with everything else, and he put it out of his mind.
After roughly a minute of walking, however, it occurred to Zoro that the sound of the spinning was remaining at a constant volume even as he moved, which meant that either it was getting louder the further he moved away from it, or it was following him. Stopping in place once again, he looked in the direction where it was coming from- to his right, this time- and saw that Spinner had moved over to partially hide behind the trunk of a nearby tree. Still spinning, of course.
"Are you following me?" Zoro scowled. Spinner just continued to spin, and so he shook his head and muttered something under his breath before getting back to his walk, only to find himself suddenly face to face with some kind of enormous, reptilian creature. The creature stood on four legs, and possessed three thick horns that protruded from the front of its head, along with a frill on the back of its head. Its eyes were somewhat small for its overall size, staring directly and with some measure of anger at Zoro, while its head was inclined slightly so that its horns were directed at him.
Even in the face of such a monstrous creature which towered over him as it did, Zoro was entirely unperturbed.
'I wonder if this thing's edible…'
It was an innocuous question, posed by Spruce to the canine Pokemon who was sitting atop his head as they strolled through the jungle together, having no particular destination in mind at the moment. By now, the Merry was completely out of sight, as well as both the pirates aboard it and the giant who had been approaching it, and the only other company the two had were the bizarre, prehistoric creatures which inhabited the island. If either of them knew what the word 'prehistoric' meant in the first place, there would be quite a novelty to such a thing.
"Riolu?" Ria murmured, raising a paw to her chin in thought, "Riolu… Lu?"
"No, I don't think it's one of those 'Devil Fruit' things." Spruce said, "Nami called them the giants, like it was some kind of group. Unless that's just what they call everyone who eats that kind of Devil Fruit… what do you think they would call the people who eat Luffy's fruit?"
"Lu. Rio." She said uncertainly.
"That's true, it's kind of hard to imagine more Luffys running around." He said, "That Aura of his… do you think it's just because of the fruit, or is it because of him? Zoro and Sanji are also kinda weird, but it's not really the same…"
"Riolu." She shrugged.
"Yeah… if the giants didn't eat fruits to get that big, makes you wonder how they did it, doesn't it?" He said, "Were they born that big, or were they just like normal babies? If there are giant women, then they'd have to have been giant babies, right? That just makes sense. Mhm."
"Rio. Rio… Lu. Riolu, Lu." She teased him, reaching down to give him a nudge on the side of the head. He scowled and jerked his head back, causing her to tumble back off his head and land on her feet behind him, quickly scurrying ahead to walk in front as they continued through the jungle.
"You sound awfully smug, considering I'm still more than twice your height." He grumbled, "And I'll continue being taller than you even if you evolve, too!"
A moment passed after the words escaped his mouth, and both trainer and Pokemon came to a screeching halt where they were. Two pairs of eyes widened, one with irritation and indignation and one with shock and regret at what had just been said.
"Ria, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-!" He began to apologise, only to be cut off as Ria whirled around to point an accusatory paw at him.
"RIOLU!" She snapped, "Riolu, Riolu! LU! RIO… LU! RIOLU!"
"I know, I know! I was just- I wasn't thinking!" He pleaded, "I wasn't trying to say anything, I was just being dumb!"
"Lu." She huffed, crossing her arms and turning away from him to stick her nose up in the air. He made to say something, but the words got stuck in his throat, and he simply bowed his head shamefully.
As much as the anger in Ria's expression was palpable, so too was the hurt that laid behind it visible to see in her eyes. After a moment, Spruce took a step forwards and squatted down next to her, avoiding any eye-contact. He tried to reach out and place his hand comfortingly atop her head, only for her to bat it away with another huff as she turned her head to face away from him. Spruce lowered the hand, and looked out ahead of them both.
"I shouldn't have brought that kind of thing up in the first place." He apologised quietly, "It hurt you, and it was wrong of me to say. I'm really sorry, I hope you know that I'm happy to be your trainer however you are."
He let the words hang in the air for a few seconds, still just staring ahead, until he felt something ram gently into his leg. Still turned away from him, Ria pressed herself against the limb, wrapping an arm around it and cuddling up to him, and Spruce smiled as he patted her atop the head. His hand lingered there briefly, before he lifted it off to instead close it into a fist which he rested atop an open palm and held out towards her.
Glancing over towards the extended hands, Ria's eyes suddenly lit up as the pain and anger were washed away by a fiery eagerness, and in an instant she had stepped back from him in order to place one paw atop the other and hold them out in response. Their eyes met, and there were no words said. Only fists raised and then slammed back down into open palms.
Once, twice, three times…
Rock, Paper, Scissors-
SHOOT!
Spruce's closed fist opened up into a flattened hand, as he chose to throw paper.
Ria's paw remained entirely unchanged, as it always did when they played this game. Her expression, however, instantly morphed from eagerness to glee as she saw her trainer's hand, and she jumped up and threw her paws in the air in celebration.
"Aw man, scissors?" Spruce groaned, lowering both his hands and standing up, "I just don't get how you keep beating me! Seven-thousand and ninety-two losses…"
"Riolu." Ria said smugly, pointing an equally smug paw at him.
"It'd be nice if that luck came through with Metal Claw." He said pointedly, "Or with Critical Hits."
"Rio… Lu." She replied, slightly sheepishly.
"Or maybe it's just my bad luck…" He added, murmuring to himself, "Dunno… That doesn't matter anyway! Now, how about we go find a nice strong dinosaur for you to punch?"
"LU!" She said with an energetic nod before dashing forwards deeper into the jungle. Spruce smiled at the enthusiasm, and made to follow behind her, only to stop as he heard a sound come from behind him.
THUMP!
Then another.
THUMP!
The very ground on which he stood shook just slightly to go along with the noise, that of some great mass thumping down onto the ground- most likely the footsteps of some large creature. When he turned around to see what had made the noise, he was faced with the sight of a reptilian biped that towered over him, with his head reaching just above its knees. Even then, its body was longer than it was tall, as the creature's body- covered in a scaly brown hide- leaned forwards face-first. Stretching out a considerable length behind its legs was a thick tail, which possibly helped to counterbalance the weight of its front body, which had a pair of thin arms located just below its neck. Those arms both ended in three-fingered hands, and each finger was tipped with a sharp claw, though those claws were greatly overshadowed by the sight of the reptile's astonishing set of teeth. At the end of its neck sat a large cranium, upon which the eyes and nostrils seemed miniscule compared to its gaping jaw. Jagged, razor-sharp teeth lined the inside of the jaw from top to bottom, making Whiskers look positively harmless in comparison. If one were able to drag their attention away from the teeth, they would see that the creature also possessed a fittingly large tongue to occupy such a large mouth.
'This… must be a dinosaur!' Spruce realised as he looked up at the towering beast, which took another mighty step towards where he stood. Its eyes singled in on him, and saliva trickled down the sides of its mouth.
THUMP!
"Wow! It's so big!" He gasped, glancing at Ria and pointing at the dinosaur, "Ria, look at how big this thing is! Isn't that incredible? It's like if Whiskers grew a pair of legs!"
"Riolu…" She cautioned him in response, glaring in response to the creature's approach.
"We can battle it in a second, but don't you just want to really admire it first?" He said, turning back around to look at it, "Just look at all this! That big, beautiful tail! Those adorable, tiny arms! And those teeth… so many of them! And so sharp, too!"
Spruce's eyes were shining with awe and admiration as they took in every inch of the dinosaur that stood before him, and the dinosaur likewise seemed quite fixated on him. Both of them took a step towards each other, and then another, and then another after that, as Spruce continued to marvel at the creature in its entirety.
"That scaly hide of theirs, and how thick those legs are!" He raved, looking back to Ria again, "Just imagine if this thing was a Pokemon, Ria! It would definitely be a really impressive one! It's just a shame these things are apparently extinct everywhere else in the world…"
"Riolu!" Ria urged as the dinosaur took another step towards her trainer.
"Alright, alright!" Spruce acquiesced, "I've taken the dinosaur in, now we can get to-"
CHOMP!
The words Spruce had been saying were cut off by the sudden clamping of the dinosaur's jaws around his body. In one instant, its head shot down to where he was standing and it took him in his entirety into its mouth, almost swallowing him whole then and there. Its gaping jaw was no longer so gaping, and the teeth had become like the walls of a fortress trapping Spruce inside. At first, all Ria could so was stare at the sight of the dinosaur raising its head back up from the ground in stunned silence.
Until….
"Ria help."
A muffled voice came from within the creature's mouth, and she promptly slapped a paw to her face.
On Spruce's end of the situation, he found that he had inexplicably been enveloped by a humid darkness all around him. He couldn't quite see anything where he now was, but the heat was sweltering, and reaching out in just about any direction brought him into contact with a fleshy dampness. There was almost nothing to grab onto, save for a thick, slick muscle that passed under him, and which he hastily wrapped his arms and legs around as tightly as he felt gravity shift beneath him and send him sliding down deeper into the dinosaur's mouth.
The muscle- the tongue, undoubtedly- began to writhe and shake beneath him, trying to dislodge him as the dinosaur threw its head back. Still, he held on tightly, not letting himself slip down its throat. He was swung about by the tongue, slammed into the roof of the mouth and smashed against the teeth, but still he held on, until finally it opened its mouth back up. As light streamed in, a mass of sticky liquid sprayed out of its mouth, washing over Spruce and managing to dislodge him as he was literally spat out onto the ground, now somewhat drenched in the dinosaur's saliva.
"Whew! That was a close one." He said, breathing a sigh of relief, "I must have tasted pretty good for it to try so hard before spitting me out! POKEKEKEKEKE!"
"Riolu…" Ria grumbled. Stepping closer to where he had landed, she took a sniff and instantly froze up. Looking absolutely revolted, she turned away from him and began gagging.
"Hey, I was in there and I wasn't making that much of a fuss!" Spruce protested.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The dinosaur stomped towards the two of them, a very distinct anger appearing in its tiny eyes as it bared its terrifying teeth at them. Its head lowered slightly, getting closer to the level they were on, and its mouth opened even wider before it let out an utterly ferocious raw. An explosion of sound burst out like a tidal wave which washed over both the human and the Pokemon, rattling every tree around them and shaking the very ground on which they stood.
Feeling the rush of hot air that accompanied such a thundering roar, Spruce raised his hands to shield his ears while also angling his face downwards to try and shield it. Beside him, Ria was actually lifted half an inch off the ground entirely and went stumbling back, only managing to regain her balance as the roar came to an end and the dinosaur shut its mouth once again.
"Riolu. Riolu-Riolu!" Ria snapped, waving an angry paw at the dinosaur.
"So loud, too!" Spruce gushed, "I don't think even Whiskers can get that loud."
Glaring at him, the dinosaur swung its head down, trying to snap Spruce up in its jaws once again- though far from intact this time- and the trainer deftly rolled out of the way. Jumping to his feet, he scrambled further away from it, putting Ria between the two of them.
"Alright, now it's time to battle." He announced firmly, "RIA, USE VACUUM WAVE!"
"LU!" She nodded, rearing a paw back, "Rio… LUUU!"
Eyes narrowed, Ria heaved the limb forwards, pushing at the air itself and mustering up a compressed mass of it to hurl straight towards the dinosaur's face. It was an attack so fast that it struck the dinosaur before it had any chance to offer its own offense.
Or rather- it was supposed to be an attack so fast that it struck the dinosaur before it could do anything.
And it was supposed to hurl the wind directly into the dinosaur's face.
Neither of those things happened, though.
What did happen instead, was a light breeze brushing over the dinosaur's lower legs, which may very well have come from the climate and not from Ria herself.
Ria stood there with her paw outstretched for a second, standing as still as a statue as she stared at where something had just not happened, before she finally lowered her arm and turned back to Spruce with a guilty look on her face.
"Riol…. Lu…" She said awkwardly.
"Aw, you haven't gotten the hang of it yet?" Spruce said, "That's alright! I know you're doing your best, and we can work together to keep at it and- DODGE QUICKLY!"
"Rio Lu?" Ria said confusedly, "Ri- OLUUU!!"
Sweeping across the ground came the dinosaur's mighty tail as it turned itself around on the spot, aiming to strike Ria with it from the side. It kicked up a cloud of dust in its path, and Ria only noticed it coming at the very last moment. Jumping up, she managed to land atop the tail just as it completed a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rotation. Feeling the new presence standing on it, the dinosaur shook itself, swinging the tail from left to right, and Ria ducked down and grabbed onto it to hold on tightly and avoid being thrown off.
"I know you can use this one! HIT IT WITH A ROCK SMASH!" Spruce called out.
"RIO!" Ria nodded, still holding onto the tail. After a few more seconds of shaking, the dinosaur seemed to realise it was futile, and it focused its attention back on Spruce instead. Turning back around to face him again, it lumbered towards him, which Ria took as her cue. She stood back up and dashed across the tail and up the creature's back. Reaching the base of its neck, she veered off slightly to the side and then threw herself forwards.
Orange light emanated from Ria's fist. She reared it back, and as she passed by the dinosaur's mouth, she hurled it forwards and slammed the fist right into its teeth.
CRACK!
Teeth shattered and the dinosaur roared in pain, its entire head being jerked to the side with the force of the blow, all while Ria landed back down on the ground. She did a little bow, which got her a double thumbs-up from Spruce, just as the dinosaur got over the pain and came around for another go. It snarled a snarl that was far less threatening than before, what with the missing teeth and all, and tried to snap Ria up in its jaw.
"METAL CLAW!" Spruce ordered.
Ria jumped to the side of the dinosaur just as its mouth snapped shut around where she had been standing. A pair of glimmering metal claws emerged out from the tips of her paws, and she darted to below its neck. Like a ballerina dancing across the stage, she jumped about from below the dinosaur, allowing the claws to rake across its skin again and again. Finally, as it once again roared with pain and threw its head up to bring the neck out of her reach, she changed her target towards its underbelly.
Jumping over to between the legs, she turned back around to face the same direction as it. Aiming both claws upwards, she held them behind her as she leaped into the air. They dug into its tough hide, and she moved them about in a circular motion, bringing them both up and over her head to dig them back out. She landed on the ground once again, and scurried forwards just as a pair of twin gashes lanced up the dinosaur's underside, and the slain creature collapsed into a heap behind her.
"GREAT JOB!" Spruce cheered, hurrying over to share a high-five with her, "Man, talk about taking the Tangrowth for a tango! I think that was a really good start, don't you? And with how big it is, I bet Sanji's gonna be stoked when we bring it to the ship!"
"Riolu!" Ria nodded.
"Yeah! Even Luffy would take a while to get through all that meat." Spruce said, "Uh… Probably."
Amidst the elation, a frown came to Spruce's face. He shook his arms around a little, and then rolled his shoulders back, cringing at the sensation, before finally grabbing his saliva-soaked shirt and peeling it off his body to tie the sleeves around his waist.
"Felt icky." He clarified for Ria, "Didn't like it."
"Rio." She said, "Riolu-Riolu Riolu… Rio… Lu…"
She trailed off as she looked at the dead dinosaur again, and the pride and appreciation in her eyes faded away to be replaced by a growing dread. Hesitantly, she stepped forwards and poked at its skull, before looking back to Spruce grimly.
"Riolu." She said, "Lu. Lu, Rio!"
In the same manner, Spruce's admiration quickly vanished in the place of identical dread.
"Oh no… You're right!" He groaned, "How the heck are we gonna carry it all the way back to the ship?"
This one was a warrior, adorning his head with a spiked helmet and his body with fur-lined red overalls. Hanging from his shoulders was a blue cape that would certainly paint an image of raw majesty were it to flutter behind him in the winds of battle. More indicative of his warrior status, however, were the shield and axe which he carried on his person, as large as the Merry itself as befit a man his size. One hand clasped the handle of the shield, while the axe was strapped to his waist, and his free hand shoved to the side a mighty tree that would otherwise obscure him from the sight of those on the deck. His body was quite round, suggesting that he had not struggled to feed himself in times recent, but the sculpted muscles of such a warrior were no less obvious in the bare arms that were presented for all to see. With scarcely any effort on his part, the trunk of the tree he nudged aside was split almost entirely in half.
It had not just been the appearance of this giant which had elicited screams from Usopp and Nami, however. Moreso it had been his appearance coupled with the opening of his mouth and the spewing of words in their direction. It was a little much for the two of them to handle, not even registering what he said, leaving Sanji as the only member of the crew present not in a state of such fright. The chef was downright stony in comparison to the other two, as he stepped forwards, placing himself between the giant and the other two, and blew out a small puff of smoke from his cigarette.
"We do have some ale aboard." Sanji said, speaking loudly but calmly for the giant to hear. Perhaps not loud enough, as the giant promptly knelt further down, lowering his face closer to Sanji's level. He possessed a magnificent beard of blonde hair, shaped almost like the head of the very axe which he was carrying.
"YOU DO?" The giant asked excitedly, his voice bellowing like thunder, "YOU HAVE ALE?"
"I'm Sanji, I'm the chef for this ship." Sanji said politely with a smile to match, "Can I ask who you are?"
"Who am I? Ah, of course!" The giant nodded, "I am- GRAAAAARGH!"
The giant's mouth opened wide with a scream of pain, bursting out from his mouth so forcefully that it shook the waters of the river itself. The Merry rocked violently along the rough waters. Usopp and Nami let out squeals of fear at the giant's sudden shout, with Sanji's eyes narrowing as they looked out behind him, seeing a similar-sized dinosaur with its teeth sunk into his back and rear end.
"It's…!" Usopp exclaimed.
"A dinosaur!" Nami finished. Both she and the sniper had tears in their eyes, while Sanji's were instead quickly filling with anger.
In an instant, the giant grasped the handle of the axe which he carried on him, and he swung around to cleave right through the neck of the dinosaur that had attacked him. It cut through the tissue like it were cutting through the air, separating head from body, the latter of which collapsed to the ground with a great THUD! Before the head could fall, however, the giant grabbed it with his free hand to raise up along with his axe in a pose of victory.
"BEHOLD THE MIGHTIEST WARRIOR OF ELBAF, BROGY!" Brogy cheered, his roar of triumph resounding all throughout the land, sea and sky.
"HEY, GIANT!" Sanji roared, snapping an accusatory finger and pointing it at the posing giant.
"Hm?" Brogy blinked. He lowered his arms and looked down at where Sanji stood.
"CAN'T YOU SEE YOU SPOOKED THE LADY?!" Sanji said, gesturing to the teary-eyed Nami, whose head whipped around to look at Sanji in horror.
"APOLOGISE, YOU OVERSIZED BRUTE!" Sanji demanded.
"Sanji!" Nami hissed, clamping a hand over his mouth. Registering the contact, Sanji's legs gave out beneath him in a flurry of lovestruck delirium, ultimately ending up with him lying back on the deck with a fervent Nami pressing both hands over his mouth.
"Are you trying to get us killed?!" Usopp whispered furiously, sparing a glance towards Brogy, who seemed outright amused by the whole affair.
"I scared the lady, did I?" Brogy said, "You have my apologies in that case! How impolite to treat my guests like so! Now that we have meat, it is only right that we feast together!"
Slowly, silently, Nami lifted her hands off of Sanji's mouth and scooted back away from him. It took a couple of seconds for the chef to come down from his frenzied state. Once he had, however, he sat up as the words which Brogy had said all ran through his mind, finally processing.
"Thank you for your apology. We would be grateful for the hospitality." He finally said. Rising to his feet, he took a drag of his cigarette and eyed both the head in Brogy's hand as well as the rest of the dinosaur carcass that laid behind him.
"If you would be so generous as to share your ale with me, then a feast is the least I can offer in return!" Brogy said, "Now come, let me take you to my home!"
The giant turned around, tucking the dinosaur skull under his arm as he did so in order to free his hand so that he could grab the neck of the dinosaur and drag it behind him in the direction he had originally come from. Neither Nami nor Usopp moved a muscle, but Sanji didn't hesitate to walk off, heading in the direction of where the ale was kept.
"A-A-Are you sure this is a good idea?" Usopp stuttered.
Sanji stopped in his tracks and raised an eyebrow at the sniper.
"You heard our scout, didn't you?" He said, "The giant's the least dangerous thing we're going to find here on the island."
He turned back around and went to get the ale which Brogy had asked for, while Usopp let out a long-suffering groan.
Such a carefree attitude was far more like that of Luffy, who stood atop the head of a gargantuan blue dinosaur. The dinosaur possessed an incredibly long neck, of such length that it offered Luffy a view across the entire island by standing on it. The dinosaur munched on a mouthful of leaves as Luffy stood on its head. If the pirate were to look down, he would see that its eyes were filled with irritation at his presence, but he remained blissfully unaware of that fact. Instead, he took in the scenery that Little Garden had to offer him.
"I wanna have my lunch up here." Luffy decided, grinning at everything that he could see, "Hey! Volcanoes! And huge caves!"
Down below, Vivi seemed ill at ease. Sitting atop Carue, her eyes were fraught with concern, and she cupped a hand to the side of her mouth in order to call out to Luffy.
"BE CAREFUL!" She yelled, "IT MAY BE GENTLE, BUT IT'S STILL A DINOSAUR!"
"Bonsly?" Bonbon said, shuffling over to the two of them, "Bon-Bonsly. Bon-Bonsly…"
"Quack." Carue quacked, "Quack-Quack!"
"DON'T WORRY. THIS GUY JUST WANTS TO EAT GRASS." Luffy replied, "I BET HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW I'M HERE. NEVER MIND HIM, LOOK AT THOSE BIG CAVES OVER THERE!"
Of course, Luffy said all this without realising what close proximity he was standing in to the dinosaur's ears. With a flick of its head upwards and an opening of its mouth, Luffy was knocked upwards into the air. His trajectory carried him straight up, and then straight down again into the dinosaur's newly opened mouth, which promptly closed itself and trapped Luffy inside.
GULP!
"Uh-Oh!" Were the last words to come out of Luffy's mouth before being swallowed up by the creature and beginning a descent down its exceedingly long throat.
"IT ATE HIM!" Vivi screamed.
"BON-BONSLY?!" Bonbon screeched, turning her attention upwards so fast that she threw herself off her feet and landed on her back.
Just as quickly as the dilemma had made itself apparent to those below, however, so too did the solution appear.
Footsteps thundered across the jungle. Massive footsteps, each one practically an earthquake of its own, and each one accompanied by a cacophony of destroyed foliage.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
SNAP! CRACK! THUD!
Tearing through the jungle came a tower of steel, cloth and muscle. A figure who wore a purple cape and a golden helmet and who moved with the swiftness of the wind itself! In their hands they carried a battle-weary blade, long enough they could carve up the heavens with it, and sharp enough that one great swing was enough to cleave through the dinosaur's neck. Blood spilled out from the wound like torrential crimson rainfall on the ground below, soon to be followed by the two pieces of the fallen dinosaur crashing down.
Human, Pokemon and duck alike had no words to offer. In one instant, they had seen a dinosaur swallow Luffy whole. In the next instant, the dinosaur's head had ceased to be attached to its body thanks to the intervention of a walking mountain. Their eyes were wide, their jaws were agape, and raw surprise was the only sound that escaped them. The whole affair was too much for Carue, who fainted. Bonbon jumped back in surprise as Vivi tumbled off the duck's back. She was quick to kneel at Carue's side to check that he was alright.
"Huh?" Luffy said as his trajectory carried him out through the bottom of the dinosaur's severed neck, as it was no longer attached to the stomach he was supposed to have ended up in.
Instead, what greeted Luffy was the flat, calloused palm of a hand that was as large as he was. The sword-wielding giant, his other hand having a circular shield fastened to it but not otherwise holding anything, had caught Luffy. There was a mild thud as he landed in the palm of the giant's hand.
"HOHOHOHOHO!" The giant bellowed, his long beard of fine brown hair waving slightly in the wind, "Here's a live human! I haven't had a guest in quite a while!"
"Wow! You're huge!" Luffy remarked, standing up on the palm, "Are you human?"
"HOHOHOHOHO! I AM DORRY, THE MIGHTIEST WARRIOR OF ELBAF!" Dorry announced.
"It's- It's a giant!" Vivi gasped, staring up at the behemoth that was Dorry.
"Bonsly?" Bonbon said curiously, "Bon-Bonsly?"
"They're- Giants are a race of, well, gigantic people." Vivi quickly explained, "I've heard of them, but this is my first time ever actually seeing one for myself…."
Seemingly hearing the conversation that was coming from down below, Dorry turned his gaze downwards in the direction of where Vivi and her companions were.
"You're all invited to share in this feast with me at my home!" Dorry informed them cheerfully, a prospect which had the pirate in his hand salivating. Vivi and Carue were hardly as excited by the giant's invitation, the both of them flinching at his sudden address, while Bonbon let out a cheer at the promise of food.
"BONSLY! BON-BON-BON-BONSLY!" She exclaimed, sprinting over to ram face-first into a nearby tree.
'Her attitude here is an improvement, at least.' Vivi thought to herself as she watched Bonbon's antics, 'Talking with this giant could be a good opportunity to gather information about this island, as well.'
Several portions of the meat which had been stripped from the dinosaur's body sat in the fire, cooking. Eyeing up one such portion, Brogy grabbed it from the fire and dropped it- still enveloped in flame- atop a sizeable leaf that had been laid out before his guests as a makeshift plate. It did not take long for the flames to die out, leaving just the steaming meat in its wake. The exterior was crispy and golden, and the meat contained within red and tender.
"There, it's ready. Eat!" Brogy said. Though Nami and Usopp both sat nervously with their hands on their knees, shoulders tense and backs straight, Sanji didn't hesitate to stand up and approach the chunk of meat which, as things were, was larger than he himself was. The chef peered closely at it, leaning in to take a deep, long whiff of its aroma, before circling around it to survey it from all angles. Once he was satisfied, he turned to face Brogy and bowed his head.
"Thank you very much for the food." Sanji said gratefully. Finally, he took out a knife and a fork, and turned back to the food. Attacking it from the side, he carved out a sliver of the meat, getting both the skin and the inside together, and deposited the piece into his mouth. He chewed slowly, a look of deep concentration on his face.
In the meantime, Brogy looked to the other two humans present.
"Don't be shy, eat up! There's plenty to be had!" He urged them, though his words did little to ease the unease that the two were feeling. Neither could raise their heads to meet the giant's gaze. Their eyes were downcast instead, and gazing off to the side, where a pile of human bones sat in plain view.
'Look! Human bones…' Usopp thought as he glanced over to Nami and tried to subtly nod his head in the direction of the pile of remains.
'I see them.' Nami thought, trying not to let her eyes linger on them.
"We're not hungry." Usopp and Nami both said in unison.
'He's gonna eat us too.' Usopp thought grimly, 'Spruce, you liar.'
'He obviously wants to fatten us up so that he can have human meat for a change.' Nami surmised, 'We're so young, we're probably at the peak of our flavour.'
'Sanji! You're our only hope! You need to hold the giant off so we can run for our lives!' Usopp said, looking up slightly to stare pleadingly at the chef.
'This taste and texture… it reminds me of crocodile meat.' Sanji mused to himself through his third bite of dinosaur, 'But not quite. It's also reminiscent of beef and venison. Quite tender and juicy, and somewhat fatty as well. Not quite as earthy as venison. Something of a mix between them all would be the best way to describe it. How would I go about preparing it? Pan-fried with butter, maybe? Maybe sauté some garlic and onions to go alongside it? All options to consider for the future…'
"What kind of seasonings have you found go best with dinosaur meat?" Sanji inquired once he had swallowed his mouthful, "And have you tried other methods of cooking rather than simply over an open fire?"
"HOHOHOHOHO! I'm not the kind of giant to talk to about such things, I'm afraid." Brogy replied, "If the meat is safe to eat, then I consider that a job well-done! I used to sail on a ship just like all of you, and we had a chef of our own. They were the kind of giant who you would ask about such things!"
"I see." Sanji nodded thoughtfully, "You used to sail as well, then? If I can ask, how long have you been on this island for?"
"How long have I been on this island?" Brogy said, "If I'm not mistaken, it's been a hundred years already! HOHOHOHOHO!"
'A HUNDRED YEARS?!' Usopp and Nami both gawked at Brogy, their fear overtaken by befuddlement.
"Well, you're in pretty remarkable condition for your age." Sanji muttered.
"HOHOHOHOHO! We giants live much longer than your human lifespans." Brogy explained, "A hundred years does not mean as much to us as it does to you."
"Being able to feed yourself on an island like this for a whole century is a miracle on its own." Sanji remarked, "Still, it seems unfortunate to not get to enjoy a proper, gourmet meal in all that time. Perhaps in return for this food, I could prepare something for you to eat?"
"You? Cook for me? Filling the stomach of a giant is no small task, do you think you'd be up to it?" Brogy challenged, a cheeky glint in his eyes as he leaned in towards Sanji slightly.
"Yours wouldn't be the biggest appetite I've had to satiate." Sanji retorted coolly. He carved out another slice of the dinosaur and popped it into his mouth, nodding with approval as he savoured its taste and texture.
"MISTER BROGY!" Nami said nervously, louder than she had any need to, leading to an awkward cough, "Uh- ahem. Mister Brogy, can I… ask you a question as well?"
"What is it?" Brogy said as he picked up his own serving of meat from the fire and tore into it with his teeth.
"On this… on this island." Nami said, pausing to take a breath and steel herself, "How long does it take a Log Pose to reset?"
The giant's mouth was stuffed full of meat as the question was posed, and so he had to take a few seconds to chew it up and swallow before he could offer any answer. And once he did give that answer, it was given with the casual air of someone discussing the weather:
"One year."
Both Nami and Usopp let out strangled cries of shock at the revelation, falling back off the log on which they were sitting. Even Sanji took in a sharp inhale and began sputtering as he almost choked on what was in his mouth, before managing to force it down and clear his throat.
"Well, make yourselves comfortable!" Brogy said brightly, "HOHOHOHOHO!"
"This sure is good, Mr. Giant!" Luffy praised as he finished devouring another mouthful.
"HOHOHOHOHO! Your pirate lunchbox wasn't bad, either!" Dorry replied, before adding as an afterthought, "Not very filling, though."
"Of course it's good!" Luffy said, "I'd knock you down if you said you didn't like it!"
"HOHOHO! What a funny little human." Dorry chuckled.
Things weren't just jovial between the pirate and giant, they were downright chummy. It was an air of good-naturedness that had Vivi looking on in mild surprise, as she found her hands absentmindedly fiddling with the green spheres on Bonbon's head.
"These two are getting along like they're old friends." Vivi muttered.
"Bon-Bonsly." Bonbon nodded along to her statement.
"By the way, mister." Luffy said, "Why do you live out here all alone? Don't you have a home, or any friends?"
"I have both of those things." Dorry answered, "I come from a village called Elbaf. It's a village of warriors, it lies elsewhere on the Grand Line. In my village, we lived by a code. When there was a dispute which neither side would back down from, the God of Elbaf decided the matter."
The giant's explanation had everyone else present listening with rapt attention. Vivi's brow furrowed as she took in the words which were being said, and Bonbon in particular looked confused by Dorry's mention of a 'God'. Even Luffy took a break from his meal to listen.
"Our God protects the one who is right and lets them live." Dorry continued, "I got in a very serious argument, and so now I'm here on this island fighting another warrior. Whoever is right will win the battle and live."
Suddenly, inexplicably, Dorry threw his head back and began to laugh uproariously. His deep, hearty bellows practically shook the ground which they all sat upon.
"But we've been at it for a hundred years already!" Dorry laughed, "AND NEITHER OF US HAVE MANAGED TO WIN! HOHOHO!"
"You've been fighting for a hundred years?!" Luffy exclaimed. His surprise was innocent and non-judgemental, whereas the widened eyes of Vivi were filled with distress and an inability to reconcile with what she was hearing as she rose to her feet.
"A hundred years is nothing." Dorry dismissed, "Our lifespans are three times that of humans."
"Even if you do live that long, wouldn't you lose your passion for battle?!" Vivi pressed, "After all this time, what's the point anymore?! DO YOU STILL WANT TO KILL EACH OTHER?!"
POW!
That last yell that came from Vivi's mouth was drowned out by the thunderous bellow of a distant volcano which had just erupted. Volcanic gases billowed out from the top and into the sky, forming a white veil to mask the sky, while small amounts of magma bubbled out after them.
"BOOOOONSLYYYYYYY!" Bonbon wailed at the sound of the eruption, leaping to her feet and running in the opposite direction from the volcano as twin fountains of tears poured from her eyes onto the grass she ran across.
"Wow! That volcano's erupting." Luffy commented, paying no mind to Bonbon whatsoever.
"Bonbon!" Vivi fretted, her objections briefly forgotten as she chased after the Pokémon. As well as sending Bonbon fleeing for the hills, the eruption also prompted Dorry to rise to his feet, with the giant stretching his limbs out as he did so.
"Well, I'd better be going!" The giant announced, reaching around for the hilt of his sword to raise the mighty blade up and off the ground alongside him.
"Huh?" Luffy said.
"It was decided some time ago that those eruptions would be the signal for combat." Dorry clarified. Stepping forwards, his shadow fell over both Luffy and Vivi, just as the latter managed to scoop Bonbon off the ground and calm her down somewhat.
A figure of equal stature to Dorry became just barely visible from the perspective of those on the ground, towering over the treetops in the distance.
Holding Bonbon in her arms, Vivi whirled around to stare incredulously at Dorry. Her eyes were filled with indignation and desperation.
"A hatred that pushes you to fight each other for a hundred years?!" Vivi cried, "THAT'S INSANE! WHAT WAS THE DISPUTE ABOUT IN THE FIRST-?!"
Her yells were silenced by the extended hand of Luffy covering her mouth and muffling what she was saying, with the pirate not even so much as looking in her direction as he did so. Bonbon glared at the extended limb, and swung the spheres on her head into the side of Luffy's arm to try and knock it away. The limb stretched slightly along with the blow, before snapping back like a rubber band that catapulted Bonbon out of Vivi's arms and through the air.
"Quiet!" Luffy said firmly, ignoring what had just happened, "That doesn't matter."
"Indeed!" Dorry said, "This is a matter of honour."
The enormous figure came closer to where they all now were, and began rapidly picking up speed. A stride became a sprint, and Dorry met his charge head-on, with the thundering footfalls of the two giants rocking the island each and every time. As he threw himself into the heated battle with his sword and his shield in hand, Dorry had just a few more words to offer for his guests, before the battle became all that there was:
"THE REASON WE FIGHT IS LONG FORGOTTEN!"
Steel clashed against steel clashed against steel with a great ringing that surely resonated with the heavens themselves as the weapons which each warrior carried- an axe and a sword- dug into the shields that each warrior defended themselves with. Their mountainous muscles strained, already beginning to shine with a sheen of sweat from exertion, as the two pushed against each other, trying to force the other into submission through sheer brute force.
It was a struggle that lasted for several seconds before the two relented. Dorry was the first to act, bringing his sword away from Brogy in a great sweeping motion that smashed through the surrounding trees, and even sent some flying.
"DON'T YOU WISH WE COULD GO HOME, DORRY?" Brogy challenged, the edge of his axe still digging into the surface of his rival's shield.
"ALL THE MORE REASON TO WIN, BROGY, MY FRIEND!" Dorry retorted. With a furious roar, he thrust the tip of his sword forwards, directly towards Brogy's unguarded stomach.
Rather than try to block or parry such an attack, Brogy instead opted to leap high up into the air. Dorry's blade pierced through the air and struck the solid rock of a mountain that Brogy had been in front of. Cracks exploded out across the mountain's side from where the blade struck, sending chunks of stone flying in all directions from the sheer force behind such a blow.
Now in the air, Brogy raised his axe up above his head and returned Dorry's roar with a battle cry of his own as he swung the axe down along with his own descent back towards the ground. There was a WHOOSH as the edge of the axe sliced through the air on its way towards the intended target of Dorry's head, with Brogy aiming to split the giant's skull open. His strike did not land true, however, as Dorry faced down the attack and angled his head at just the angle to allow his gleaming golden helmet to bear the brunt of it, and keep him unharmed.
As Dorry's head was jerked back from Brogy's strike, he swung his sword upwards from the side to try and catch Brogy by surprise. The giant's feet had only barely touched the ground again when he moved his axe into the path of Dorry's sword, maintaining the momentum of his initial attack to defend himself. The cry of clashing steel rang out once again as the blades grinded against each other and sent sparks flying. Were it not for the shifting footing of the giants constantly quashing the ground all around them, some of those sparks may have had the chance to grow and set the jungle ablaze.
Such a dance of brutality and barbarity and sheer unadulterated violence was more than the young princess who watched from Dorry's home could bear. She turned her gaze away from the sight of such crushing and deadly attacks being constantly levied by the two giants at each other, and her eyes instead fell to the ground as she sat down on her knees.
"A hundred years… of this?" She spat, "And for what? I can't even fathom the degree of hatred that would fuel something like this…"
Beside her, Luffy had lain down on the ground with his arms and legs spread out and his eyes fixed on the clear skies above. Like her, he wasn't interested in watching the spectacle of such a battle, but he hardly held the same contempt for said spectacle that she did.
"Bon… Bonsly…" Bonbon called out tentatively, shuffling over from where she had landed to where Vivi was.
"Hm?" Vivi said, glancing back at her.
"Bonsly." Bonbon said firmly, "Bon-Bonsly. Bonsly. Bonsly-Bonsly… Ly… Ly."
She looked straight into Vivi's eyes as she said this, her voice full of conviction. There were no tears. Looking down at her, Vivi was almost given the impression of a much larger, fully-grown tree speaking these words to her.
"Um. Y-Yes…?" Vivi said, nodding along hesitantly to whatever Bonbon was trying to say.
"Yeah, that's true." Luffy agreed, likewise nodding his head, though without the same uncertainty as Vivi.
"Huh?" Vivi said, "You understood that?"
"Look at those giants." Luffy said, sitting up and jerking his thumb in the direction of the battle. Vivi cringed, sparing a glance at the fight before immediately looking away again.
"I can see them." She said, "And hear them."
"Bon-Bonsly." Bonbon said, scurrying over to her. She butted her head against Vivi's side, and then pointed her balls in the direction of the fight, before finally hopping up and down a couple of times.
"Totally, yeah." Luffy nodded again.
"You're just pretending to get all that." Vivi muttered.
"Those giants are fighting right now." Luffy said casually, "And they're fighting really hard. They fought really hard a bunch of times before now as well. Does it look like either of them are mad?"
"Mad? They must both be mad after all this time-!" Vivi began, only for Bonbon to butt her head into Vivi's side again.
"BONSLY!" Bonbon said, gesturing to the fight once again, "Bon-Bonsly! Bon-Bon-Bonsly!"
"You could certainly do with some lessons in manners." Vivi huffed. Still, she did as the Pokémon directed and, as much as the sight disgusted her, observed the battle between Dorry and Brogy once again.
Violence the likes of which could only come after over a hundred years of non-stop combat greeted her. Two giants who fought with absolutely everything that they had, for the sake of something that meant more to them than even their own lives, exchanging blows of all types. Axe, sword, fist, leg, elbow, knee- they attacked in every way that they could, without any hesitation. They defended against and evaded everything thrown at them, practically operating like a well-oiled machine in the mastery over their own bodies.
Yet despite how hard the two fought, despite how long the two had been fighting for, and despite the fact that they did not want the other to walk away from the fight- despite everything, the ear-to-ear grins plastered across the faces of Brogy and Dorry did not waver for a single second. The two fought like hell itself, and were the happiest they had ever been.
And as Princess Vivi looked on and grappled with the uncomfortable reality before her, and what that reality meant, so too did another guest of the giants spectate the fight and find himself faced with something that would irrevocably change him from who he had been before setting foot on the island of Little Garden.
Over where Brogy's home was, the three Straw Hats there all surveyed the ongoing fight. Sanji regarded it with only mild interest, being more focused on scribbling recipe ideas down on a little notepad, while Nami looked more astonished by its sheer scale, and Usopp admired the fight and the two warriors who were part of it.
As Sanji mulled over the culinary venues that would be opened by cooking with dinosaur meat, Nami appeared to be more than ready to depart the giant's abode. She took a couple of steps in the direction of the jungle, and then looked back to see Usopp still transfixed by the giants.
"Usopp!" Nami urged, "Now's our chance, we can get away!"
"You want to head back to the ship, Nami-swan~?" Sanji said.
"Yeah, before that giant comes back and eats us!" She hissed.
"Er, please forgive me for questioning your judgement," Sanji said awkwardly, "but why would Mr. Brogy try to eat us when he comes back?"
"Why would he- look around!" Nami exclaimed, "Look at all those skeletons! I bet the reason he was feeding us was to fatten us up!"
"If the Log Pose really does take a whole year to reset, it stands to reason that those people all died from the other things on the island." Sanji said, "Dinosaurs, illness, possibly even malnutrition or starvation. I think I'll need to talk to Brogy about what he eats here, actually. Assuming giants have the same nutritional requirements as humans, just on a greater scale, there must be some kind of fruit that grows on the island…"
The chef trailed off as he developed a faraway look, clearly mulling over everything that he was saying. He hastily scribbled down a few more notes on his notepad.
"Incredible…" Usopp murmured reverentially from where he stood, "They're fighting like this and they don't even know why!"
Brogy had explained the circumstances that brought him to Little Garden to the three of them, and the code of the giants from Elbaf that demanded the battle which was currently taking place.
"Yeah, it's ridiculous." Nami said.
"What do you know?!" Usopp snapped, "This is a battle between real men!"
"Hey! Show some respect to Nami-swan!" Sanji barked. He glared at Usopp, who only seemed to stand up straighter in the face of the aggression.
"Don't you see?" Usopp said fervently, "It's like they each have a flag on their chest that says 'warrior', and those flags mean more to them than their lives! Those flags are what they've been fighting to protect for these hundred years! Refusing to let them be torn off… this is a battle to the death between true warriors!"
As Usopp sang their praises, Dorry and Brogy remained locked in heated combat. They had beaten and bruised each other, and drawn scarce amounts of blood, and their bodies were soaked in sweat. Still, they seemed completely equal to each other. Completely stalemated.
The words had some effect on Sanji, diffusing his glare just a little. They did very little for Nami, who was still in as much of a rush as ever to leave Brogy's home.
"I don't care about that warrior stuff." Nami said, "Come on, let's get back to the ship!"
"I'm gonna watch a while longer." Usopp announced, staying right where he was standing. There was a fire burning behind his eyes- an honest fire. Sanji eased up further, taking his cigarette out as he went to stand closer to Usopp.
"This is it!" The sniper exclaimed gleefully, and with a great conviction, "This is my goal, to be a brave warrior of the sea! I want to be a man of honour just like these giants!"
His words seemed to have more of an effect on Nami, who sat herself back down on the log and gave Usopp a thoughtful look.
"So you want to be a giant?" She surmised.
"Weren't you listening to what I said?!" Usopp barked, before quickly calming down, "If there's a whole village of warriors just like them, I'd like to go visit someday!"
"I'm sure our captain wouldn't mind visiting such a destination himself." Sanji remarked, "We'll have to see it for these two, who can't."
Such a statement would not always be true. One day, either Dorry or Brogy would be fortunate enough to see their home village once again. But not the two of them. Today was not that day, however, as the two giants continued to trade blows with each other. Their sword and axe were abandoned, having been cast aside in the sheer chaos of the clash, leaving them with only their shields and their fists to attack each other with.
The two fell away from each other as the result of their latest attacks, tumbling back across the ground. They were quick to both rise back up on their feet and pounce on each other, opting to use their shields as weapons. In Brogy's left hand, he held the surface of the shield flat in front of him, and Dorry did very much the same, and they slammed those shields into each other's faces. Limbs moved parallel to each other in opposite directions, culminating in the two giants striking each other in the exact same instant.
"Seventy-three thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight battles…" Brogy rumbled into Dorry's shield.
"Seventy-three thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight draws…" Dorry continued, in very much the same position.
"I guess." Both giants said in unison as they finally fell backwards from each other. They landed on their backs, in the centre of the carnage their clash had brought to the jungle, and were silent for a moment as they took in their injuries. Bleeding, bruising, battering, not to mention utter exhaustion…
Then the moment passed, and both giants began to roar with laughter.
"HOHOHOHOHO! AYE, DORRY, OLD FRIEND!" Brogy bellowed, "HEY, I GOT SOME ALE FROM MY GUESTS!"
"THAT'S GREAT!" Dorry cackled, "I HAVEN'T HAD ANY IN AGES, GIVE ME SOME! HOHOHO!"
From the benign and even welcoming sounds of the leaves being rustled by what breeze there was, the faint press of his feet into the grass beneath them, and even the distant waves crashing against the shore, to the far more threatening sounds of low growls and rumbles coming from all directions, heavy footsteps thumping their way through the surrounding terrain, and the ever-so-faint chorus of bones cracking and flesh tearing as every member of the food chain played their part with gusto.
Had he caught a glimpse of what the birds on the island looked like, then the distant bird cries and the flapping of wings would have fallen under the latter category as well.
Of course, the notion of any part of the jungle being 'threatening' was all just in theory- in a recognition of how a normal person was supposed to react. Despite everything that he had seen and everything he could hear, Zoro went about his business with an air of complete relaxation about him, like there was absolutely nothing that he had to fear while he was on Little Garden.
Technically, he was correct.
The sounds of the jungle faded into ubiquitous background noise that was only subconsciously heard, as no part of it was yet presenting itself as notable in any way to him.
And yet, as he continued his walk, he suddenly found himself unable to shake a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something just… wasn't right. His brow furrowed, and the arms that were crossed over his chest uncrossed themselves and drifted towards the swords at his hip. Every step that he took brought that subconscious sense of wrongness to the forefront, until he was consciously aware that something wasn't right, and he stopped in his tracks.
'Is there some predator or something that thinks I'm its next meal?' Zoro wondered to himself, subtly glancing to his left and then to his right without making any sudden movements, 'What's with this feeling?'
Standing there in the middle of the jungle, all by his lonesome as far as he could tell, his heightened focus brought the symphony of his surroundings back to his attention. The leaves, animals, and even the distant ocean and… and…
Something else.
Faintly, amidst everything else he could hear, a bizarre whizzing sound presented itself to the swordsman's ears. It was bizarre in that it wasn't a sound someone would expect to come naturally from the current environment, but it wasn't quite unfamiliar. Rather, it was familiar to him like it was a sound he had heard before, the source of which had been picked up and deposited into the location he was now in.
It was the sound of something spinning.
'It couldn't be…' Zoro thought, focusing in on that spinning until he managed to single out a log that was a few meters away from where he was standing. Striding on over, he placed one foot atop it and leaned over to look at what was behind it:
A dark blue and red spinning mass of rock, which skidded to a sudden stop as soon as Zoro looked at him. Then, slowly, Spinner rotated around on the spot where he was standing some fifty-eight degrees and came to a stop once again.
"Nosepass." The Pokemon uttered with a voice that befitted a living rock with a magnet for a nose. Zoro stared at it.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He said, his tone half demanding and half sheer befuddlement at what he was seeing. Kneeling down, he prodded at the top of the Pokémon's head, feeling how heavy he was as he pushed him slightly to one side, before pushing him along its nose to rotate him counter-clockwise. Once he let go of the nose, Spinner remained in that position for a second, before slowly rotating back to point in the same direction as before.
"You couldn't have swum here, you'd just sink." Zoro mused, "And you couldn't have gotten here on some other ship, meaning the only option is that you stowed-away aboard the Merry."
It was said accusatorily, with his eyes narrowing at Spinner. In return, he got several seconds of tense silence, before Spinner began to slowly spin around on the spot, quickly beginning to pick up speed until he was a blue and red blur. Beneath him, Zoro could see the rigid ridges of his feet digging into the dirt and digging a hole into the ground.
"Nooooooooseeeeeeepaaaaaaaass." Spinner said, his voice somewhat distorted by his spinning.
"Well whatever." Zoro muttered, standing back up and turning away from him, "I don't really care. Our scout can figure out what the hell your deal is if you stow away with us again."
He walked away from Spinner, and continued on his way through the jungle. The sound of stone spinning in the dirt faded into the background along with everything else, and he put it out of his mind.
After roughly a minute of walking, however, it occurred to Zoro that the sound of the spinning was remaining at a constant volume even as he moved, which meant that either it was getting louder the further he moved away from it, or it was following him. Stopping in place once again, he looked in the direction where it was coming from- to his right, this time- and saw that Spinner had moved over to partially hide behind the trunk of a nearby tree. Still spinning, of course.
"Are you following me?" Zoro scowled. Spinner just continued to spin, and so he shook his head and muttered something under his breath before getting back to his walk, only to find himself suddenly face to face with some kind of enormous, reptilian creature. The creature stood on four legs, and possessed three thick horns that protruded from the front of its head, along with a frill on the back of its head. Its eyes were somewhat small for its overall size, staring directly and with some measure of anger at Zoro, while its head was inclined slightly so that its horns were directed at him.
Even in the face of such a monstrous creature which towered over him as it did, Zoro was entirely unperturbed.
'I wonder if this thing's edible…'
-O-
"What do you think makes them so gigantic?"
It was an innocuous question, posed by Spruce to the canine Pokemon who was sitting atop his head as they strolled through the jungle together, having no particular destination in mind at the moment. By now, the Merry was completely out of sight, as well as both the pirates aboard it and the giant who had been approaching it, and the only other company the two had were the bizarre, prehistoric creatures which inhabited the island. If either of them knew what the word 'prehistoric' meant in the first place, there would be quite a novelty to such a thing.
"Riolu?" Ria murmured, raising a paw to her chin in thought, "Riolu… Lu?"
"No, I don't think it's one of those 'Devil Fruit' things." Spruce said, "Nami called them the giants, like it was some kind of group. Unless that's just what they call everyone who eats that kind of Devil Fruit… what do you think they would call the people who eat Luffy's fruit?"
"Lu. Rio." She said uncertainly.
"That's true, it's kind of hard to imagine more Luffys running around." He said, "That Aura of his… do you think it's just because of the fruit, or is it because of him? Zoro and Sanji are also kinda weird, but it's not really the same…"
"Riolu." She shrugged.
"Yeah… if the giants didn't eat fruits to get that big, makes you wonder how they did it, doesn't it?" He said, "Were they born that big, or were they just like normal babies? If there are giant women, then they'd have to have been giant babies, right? That just makes sense. Mhm."
"Rio. Rio… Lu. Riolu, Lu." She teased him, reaching down to give him a nudge on the side of the head. He scowled and jerked his head back, causing her to tumble back off his head and land on her feet behind him, quickly scurrying ahead to walk in front as they continued through the jungle.
"You sound awfully smug, considering I'm still more than twice your height." He grumbled, "And I'll continue being taller than you even if you evolve, too!"
A moment passed after the words escaped his mouth, and both trainer and Pokemon came to a screeching halt where they were. Two pairs of eyes widened, one with irritation and indignation and one with shock and regret at what had just been said.
"Ria, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-!" He began to apologise, only to be cut off as Ria whirled around to point an accusatory paw at him.
"RIOLU!" She snapped, "Riolu, Riolu! LU! RIO… LU! RIOLU!"
"I know, I know! I was just- I wasn't thinking!" He pleaded, "I wasn't trying to say anything, I was just being dumb!"
"Lu." She huffed, crossing her arms and turning away from him to stick her nose up in the air. He made to say something, but the words got stuck in his throat, and he simply bowed his head shamefully.
As much as the anger in Ria's expression was palpable, so too was the hurt that laid behind it visible to see in her eyes. After a moment, Spruce took a step forwards and squatted down next to her, avoiding any eye-contact. He tried to reach out and place his hand comfortingly atop her head, only for her to bat it away with another huff as she turned her head to face away from him. Spruce lowered the hand, and looked out ahead of them both.
"I shouldn't have brought that kind of thing up in the first place." He apologised quietly, "It hurt you, and it was wrong of me to say. I'm really sorry, I hope you know that I'm happy to be your trainer however you are."
He let the words hang in the air for a few seconds, still just staring ahead, until he felt something ram gently into his leg. Still turned away from him, Ria pressed herself against the limb, wrapping an arm around it and cuddling up to him, and Spruce smiled as he patted her atop the head. His hand lingered there briefly, before he lifted it off to instead close it into a fist which he rested atop an open palm and held out towards her.
Glancing over towards the extended hands, Ria's eyes suddenly lit up as the pain and anger were washed away by a fiery eagerness, and in an instant she had stepped back from him in order to place one paw atop the other and hold them out in response. Their eyes met, and there were no words said. Only fists raised and then slammed back down into open palms.
Once, twice, three times…
Rock, Paper, Scissors-
SHOOT!
Spruce's closed fist opened up into a flattened hand, as he chose to throw paper.
Ria's paw remained entirely unchanged, as it always did when they played this game. Her expression, however, instantly morphed from eagerness to glee as she saw her trainer's hand, and she jumped up and threw her paws in the air in celebration.
"Aw man, scissors?" Spruce groaned, lowering both his hands and standing up, "I just don't get how you keep beating me! Seven-thousand and ninety-two losses…"
"Riolu." Ria said smugly, pointing an equally smug paw at him.
"It'd be nice if that luck came through with Metal Claw." He said pointedly, "Or with Critical Hits."
"Rio… Lu." She replied, slightly sheepishly.
"Or maybe it's just my bad luck…" He added, murmuring to himself, "Dunno… That doesn't matter anyway! Now, how about we go find a nice strong dinosaur for you to punch?"
"LU!" She said with an energetic nod before dashing forwards deeper into the jungle. Spruce smiled at the enthusiasm, and made to follow behind her, only to stop as he heard a sound come from behind him.
THUMP!
Then another.
THUMP!
The very ground on which he stood shook just slightly to go along with the noise, that of some great mass thumping down onto the ground- most likely the footsteps of some large creature. When he turned around to see what had made the noise, he was faced with the sight of a reptilian biped that towered over him, with his head reaching just above its knees. Even then, its body was longer than it was tall, as the creature's body- covered in a scaly brown hide- leaned forwards face-first. Stretching out a considerable length behind its legs was a thick tail, which possibly helped to counterbalance the weight of its front body, which had a pair of thin arms located just below its neck. Those arms both ended in three-fingered hands, and each finger was tipped with a sharp claw, though those claws were greatly overshadowed by the sight of the reptile's astonishing set of teeth. At the end of its neck sat a large cranium, upon which the eyes and nostrils seemed miniscule compared to its gaping jaw. Jagged, razor-sharp teeth lined the inside of the jaw from top to bottom, making Whiskers look positively harmless in comparison. If one were able to drag their attention away from the teeth, they would see that the creature also possessed a fittingly large tongue to occupy such a large mouth.
'This… must be a dinosaur!' Spruce realised as he looked up at the towering beast, which took another mighty step towards where he stood. Its eyes singled in on him, and saliva trickled down the sides of its mouth.
THUMP!
"Wow! It's so big!" He gasped, glancing at Ria and pointing at the dinosaur, "Ria, look at how big this thing is! Isn't that incredible? It's like if Whiskers grew a pair of legs!"
"Riolu…" She cautioned him in response, glaring in response to the creature's approach.
"We can battle it in a second, but don't you just want to really admire it first?" He said, turning back around to look at it, "Just look at all this! That big, beautiful tail! Those adorable, tiny arms! And those teeth… so many of them! And so sharp, too!"
Spruce's eyes were shining with awe and admiration as they took in every inch of the dinosaur that stood before him, and the dinosaur likewise seemed quite fixated on him. Both of them took a step towards each other, and then another, and then another after that, as Spruce continued to marvel at the creature in its entirety.
"That scaly hide of theirs, and how thick those legs are!" He raved, looking back to Ria again, "Just imagine if this thing was a Pokemon, Ria! It would definitely be a really impressive one! It's just a shame these things are apparently extinct everywhere else in the world…"
"Riolu!" Ria urged as the dinosaur took another step towards her trainer.
"Alright, alright!" Spruce acquiesced, "I've taken the dinosaur in, now we can get to-"
CHOMP!
The words Spruce had been saying were cut off by the sudden clamping of the dinosaur's jaws around his body. In one instant, its head shot down to where he was standing and it took him in his entirety into its mouth, almost swallowing him whole then and there. Its gaping jaw was no longer so gaping, and the teeth had become like the walls of a fortress trapping Spruce inside. At first, all Ria could so was stare at the sight of the dinosaur raising its head back up from the ground in stunned silence.
Until….
"Ria help."
A muffled voice came from within the creature's mouth, and she promptly slapped a paw to her face.
On Spruce's end of the situation, he found that he had inexplicably been enveloped by a humid darkness all around him. He couldn't quite see anything where he now was, but the heat was sweltering, and reaching out in just about any direction brought him into contact with a fleshy dampness. There was almost nothing to grab onto, save for a thick, slick muscle that passed under him, and which he hastily wrapped his arms and legs around as tightly as he felt gravity shift beneath him and send him sliding down deeper into the dinosaur's mouth.
The muscle- the tongue, undoubtedly- began to writhe and shake beneath him, trying to dislodge him as the dinosaur threw its head back. Still, he held on tightly, not letting himself slip down its throat. He was swung about by the tongue, slammed into the roof of the mouth and smashed against the teeth, but still he held on, until finally it opened its mouth back up. As light streamed in, a mass of sticky liquid sprayed out of its mouth, washing over Spruce and managing to dislodge him as he was literally spat out onto the ground, now somewhat drenched in the dinosaur's saliva.
"Whew! That was a close one." He said, breathing a sigh of relief, "I must have tasted pretty good for it to try so hard before spitting me out! POKEKEKEKEKE!"
"Riolu…" Ria grumbled. Stepping closer to where he had landed, she took a sniff and instantly froze up. Looking absolutely revolted, she turned away from him and began gagging.
"Hey, I was in there and I wasn't making that much of a fuss!" Spruce protested.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The dinosaur stomped towards the two of them, a very distinct anger appearing in its tiny eyes as it bared its terrifying teeth at them. Its head lowered slightly, getting closer to the level they were on, and its mouth opened even wider before it let out an utterly ferocious raw. An explosion of sound burst out like a tidal wave which washed over both the human and the Pokemon, rattling every tree around them and shaking the very ground on which they stood.
Feeling the rush of hot air that accompanied such a thundering roar, Spruce raised his hands to shield his ears while also angling his face downwards to try and shield it. Beside him, Ria was actually lifted half an inch off the ground entirely and went stumbling back, only managing to regain her balance as the roar came to an end and the dinosaur shut its mouth once again.
"Riolu. Riolu-Riolu!" Ria snapped, waving an angry paw at the dinosaur.
"So loud, too!" Spruce gushed, "I don't think even Whiskers can get that loud."
Glaring at him, the dinosaur swung its head down, trying to snap Spruce up in its jaws once again- though far from intact this time- and the trainer deftly rolled out of the way. Jumping to his feet, he scrambled further away from it, putting Ria between the two of them.
"Alright, now it's time to battle." He announced firmly, "RIA, USE VACUUM WAVE!"
"LU!" She nodded, rearing a paw back, "Rio… LUUU!"
Eyes narrowed, Ria heaved the limb forwards, pushing at the air itself and mustering up a compressed mass of it to hurl straight towards the dinosaur's face. It was an attack so fast that it struck the dinosaur before it had any chance to offer its own offense.
Or rather- it was supposed to be an attack so fast that it struck the dinosaur before it could do anything.
And it was supposed to hurl the wind directly into the dinosaur's face.
Neither of those things happened, though.
What did happen instead, was a light breeze brushing over the dinosaur's lower legs, which may very well have come from the climate and not from Ria herself.
Ria stood there with her paw outstretched for a second, standing as still as a statue as she stared at where something had just not happened, before she finally lowered her arm and turned back to Spruce with a guilty look on her face.
"Riol…. Lu…" She said awkwardly.
"Aw, you haven't gotten the hang of it yet?" Spruce said, "That's alright! I know you're doing your best, and we can work together to keep at it and- DODGE QUICKLY!"
"Rio Lu?" Ria said confusedly, "Ri- OLUUU!!"
Sweeping across the ground came the dinosaur's mighty tail as it turned itself around on the spot, aiming to strike Ria with it from the side. It kicked up a cloud of dust in its path, and Ria only noticed it coming at the very last moment. Jumping up, she managed to land atop the tail just as it completed a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rotation. Feeling the new presence standing on it, the dinosaur shook itself, swinging the tail from left to right, and Ria ducked down and grabbed onto it to hold on tightly and avoid being thrown off.
"I know you can use this one! HIT IT WITH A ROCK SMASH!" Spruce called out.
"RIO!" Ria nodded, still holding onto the tail. After a few more seconds of shaking, the dinosaur seemed to realise it was futile, and it focused its attention back on Spruce instead. Turning back around to face him again, it lumbered towards him, which Ria took as her cue. She stood back up and dashed across the tail and up the creature's back. Reaching the base of its neck, she veered off slightly to the side and then threw herself forwards.
Orange light emanated from Ria's fist. She reared it back, and as she passed by the dinosaur's mouth, she hurled it forwards and slammed the fist right into its teeth.
CRACK!
Teeth shattered and the dinosaur roared in pain, its entire head being jerked to the side with the force of the blow, all while Ria landed back down on the ground. She did a little bow, which got her a double thumbs-up from Spruce, just as the dinosaur got over the pain and came around for another go. It snarled a snarl that was far less threatening than before, what with the missing teeth and all, and tried to snap Ria up in its jaw.
"METAL CLAW!" Spruce ordered.
Ria jumped to the side of the dinosaur just as its mouth snapped shut around where she had been standing. A pair of glimmering metal claws emerged out from the tips of her paws, and she darted to below its neck. Like a ballerina dancing across the stage, she jumped about from below the dinosaur, allowing the claws to rake across its skin again and again. Finally, as it once again roared with pain and threw its head up to bring the neck out of her reach, she changed her target towards its underbelly.
Jumping over to between the legs, she turned back around to face the same direction as it. Aiming both claws upwards, she held them behind her as she leaped into the air. They dug into its tough hide, and she moved them about in a circular motion, bringing them both up and over her head to dig them back out. She landed on the ground once again, and scurried forwards just as a pair of twin gashes lanced up the dinosaur's underside, and the slain creature collapsed into a heap behind her.
"GREAT JOB!" Spruce cheered, hurrying over to share a high-five with her, "Man, talk about taking the Tangrowth for a tango! I think that was a really good start, don't you? And with how big it is, I bet Sanji's gonna be stoked when we bring it to the ship!"
"Riolu!" Ria nodded.
"Yeah! Even Luffy would take a while to get through all that meat." Spruce said, "Uh… Probably."
Amidst the elation, a frown came to Spruce's face. He shook his arms around a little, and then rolled his shoulders back, cringing at the sensation, before finally grabbing his saliva-soaked shirt and peeling it off his body to tie the sleeves around his waist.
"Felt icky." He clarified for Ria, "Didn't like it."
"Rio." She said, "Riolu-Riolu Riolu… Rio… Lu…"
She trailed off as she looked at the dead dinosaur again, and the pride and appreciation in her eyes faded away to be replaced by a growing dread. Hesitantly, she stepped forwards and poked at its skull, before looking back to Spruce grimly.
"Riolu." She said, "Lu. Lu, Rio!"
In the same manner, Spruce's admiration quickly vanished in the place of identical dread.
"Oh no… You're right!" He groaned, "How the heck are we gonna carry it all the way back to the ship?"
-O-
"EEEEEEYAAAAAAH!"
"AAAAAAAAAH!"
The pair of screams cut through their surroundings, echoing out across the island from their point of origin- the deck of the Going Merry- as Usopp and Nami stared with widened eyes up at the absolutely expansive mass of man that loomed over them from the bank of the river. So completely and utterly enormous that even as the man rested on his knees, the single highest point of the ship failed to reach the base of his neck."EEEEEEYAAAAAAH!"
"AAAAAAAAAH!"
This one was a warrior, adorning his head with a spiked helmet and his body with fur-lined red overalls. Hanging from his shoulders was a blue cape that would certainly paint an image of raw majesty were it to flutter behind him in the winds of battle. More indicative of his warrior status, however, were the shield and axe which he carried on his person, as large as the Merry itself as befit a man his size. One hand clasped the handle of the shield, while the axe was strapped to his waist, and his free hand shoved to the side a mighty tree that would otherwise obscure him from the sight of those on the deck. His body was quite round, suggesting that he had not struggled to feed himself in times recent, but the sculpted muscles of such a warrior were no less obvious in the bare arms that were presented for all to see. With scarcely any effort on his part, the trunk of the tree he nudged aside was split almost entirely in half.
It had not just been the appearance of this giant which had elicited screams from Usopp and Nami, however. Moreso it had been his appearance coupled with the opening of his mouth and the spewing of words in their direction. It was a little much for the two of them to handle, not even registering what he said, leaving Sanji as the only member of the crew present not in a state of such fright. The chef was downright stony in comparison to the other two, as he stepped forwards, placing himself between the giant and the other two, and blew out a small puff of smoke from his cigarette.
"We do have some ale aboard." Sanji said, speaking loudly but calmly for the giant to hear. Perhaps not loud enough, as the giant promptly knelt further down, lowering his face closer to Sanji's level. He possessed a magnificent beard of blonde hair, shaped almost like the head of the very axe which he was carrying.
"YOU DO?" The giant asked excitedly, his voice bellowing like thunder, "YOU HAVE ALE?"
"I'm Sanji, I'm the chef for this ship." Sanji said politely with a smile to match, "Can I ask who you are?"
"Who am I? Ah, of course!" The giant nodded, "I am- GRAAAAARGH!"
The giant's mouth opened wide with a scream of pain, bursting out from his mouth so forcefully that it shook the waters of the river itself. The Merry rocked violently along the rough waters. Usopp and Nami let out squeals of fear at the giant's sudden shout, with Sanji's eyes narrowing as they looked out behind him, seeing a similar-sized dinosaur with its teeth sunk into his back and rear end.
"It's…!" Usopp exclaimed.
"A dinosaur!" Nami finished. Both she and the sniper had tears in their eyes, while Sanji's were instead quickly filling with anger.
In an instant, the giant grasped the handle of the axe which he carried on him, and he swung around to cleave right through the neck of the dinosaur that had attacked him. It cut through the tissue like it were cutting through the air, separating head from body, the latter of which collapsed to the ground with a great THUD! Before the head could fall, however, the giant grabbed it with his free hand to raise up along with his axe in a pose of victory.
"BEHOLD THE MIGHTIEST WARRIOR OF ELBAF, BROGY!" Brogy cheered, his roar of triumph resounding all throughout the land, sea and sky.
"HEY, GIANT!" Sanji roared, snapping an accusatory finger and pointing it at the posing giant.
"Hm?" Brogy blinked. He lowered his arms and looked down at where Sanji stood.
"CAN'T YOU SEE YOU SPOOKED THE LADY?!" Sanji said, gesturing to the teary-eyed Nami, whose head whipped around to look at Sanji in horror.
"APOLOGISE, YOU OVERSIZED BRUTE!" Sanji demanded.
"Sanji!" Nami hissed, clamping a hand over his mouth. Registering the contact, Sanji's legs gave out beneath him in a flurry of lovestruck delirium, ultimately ending up with him lying back on the deck with a fervent Nami pressing both hands over his mouth.
"Are you trying to get us killed?!" Usopp whispered furiously, sparing a glance towards Brogy, who seemed outright amused by the whole affair.
"I scared the lady, did I?" Brogy said, "You have my apologies in that case! How impolite to treat my guests like so! Now that we have meat, it is only right that we feast together!"
Slowly, silently, Nami lifted her hands off of Sanji's mouth and scooted back away from him. It took a couple of seconds for the chef to come down from his frenzied state. Once he had, however, he sat up as the words which Brogy had said all ran through his mind, finally processing.
"Thank you for your apology. We would be grateful for the hospitality." He finally said. Rising to his feet, he took a drag of his cigarette and eyed both the head in Brogy's hand as well as the rest of the dinosaur carcass that laid behind him.
"If you would be so generous as to share your ale with me, then a feast is the least I can offer in return!" Brogy said, "Now come, let me take you to my home!"
The giant turned around, tucking the dinosaur skull under his arm as he did so in order to free his hand so that he could grab the neck of the dinosaur and drag it behind him in the direction he had originally come from. Neither Nami nor Usopp moved a muscle, but Sanji didn't hesitate to walk off, heading in the direction of where the ale was kept.
"A-A-Are you sure this is a good idea?" Usopp stuttered.
Sanji stopped in his tracks and raised an eyebrow at the sniper.
"You heard our scout, didn't you?" He said, "The giant's the least dangerous thing we're going to find here on the island."
He turned back around and went to get the ale which Brogy had asked for, while Usopp let out a long-suffering groan.
-O-
"Bonsly! Bonsly-Bonsly-Bonsly~!" Bonbon sang to herself, hopping about in every which way on the grass and paying no mind to the unease of both her trainer and her trainer's duck. Singling out a specific tree among the countless number of them around them, she dashed across the ground in order to ram into it. She bounced off the thick wood and landed on her behind, and giggled as she hopped onto her feet to do the same thing again. Perhaps her complete and utter ignorance of what a 'dinosaur' had helped her not fret so much over being on an island that was populated by them.
Such a carefree attitude was far more like that of Luffy, who stood atop the head of a gargantuan blue dinosaur. The dinosaur possessed an incredibly long neck, of such length that it offered Luffy a view across the entire island by standing on it. The dinosaur munched on a mouthful of leaves as Luffy stood on its head. If the pirate were to look down, he would see that its eyes were filled with irritation at his presence, but he remained blissfully unaware of that fact. Instead, he took in the scenery that Little Garden had to offer him.
"I wanna have my lunch up here." Luffy decided, grinning at everything that he could see, "Hey! Volcanoes! And huge caves!"
Down below, Vivi seemed ill at ease. Sitting atop Carue, her eyes were fraught with concern, and she cupped a hand to the side of her mouth in order to call out to Luffy.
"BE CAREFUL!" She yelled, "IT MAY BE GENTLE, BUT IT'S STILL A DINOSAUR!"
"Bonsly?" Bonbon said, shuffling over to the two of them, "Bon-Bonsly. Bon-Bonsly…"
"Quack." Carue quacked, "Quack-Quack!"
"DON'T WORRY. THIS GUY JUST WANTS TO EAT GRASS." Luffy replied, "I BET HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW I'M HERE. NEVER MIND HIM, LOOK AT THOSE BIG CAVES OVER THERE!"
Of course, Luffy said all this without realising what close proximity he was standing in to the dinosaur's ears. With a flick of its head upwards and an opening of its mouth, Luffy was knocked upwards into the air. His trajectory carried him straight up, and then straight down again into the dinosaur's newly opened mouth, which promptly closed itself and trapped Luffy inside.
GULP!
"Uh-Oh!" Were the last words to come out of Luffy's mouth before being swallowed up by the creature and beginning a descent down its exceedingly long throat.
"IT ATE HIM!" Vivi screamed.
"BON-BONSLY?!" Bonbon screeched, turning her attention upwards so fast that she threw herself off her feet and landed on her back.
Just as quickly as the dilemma had made itself apparent to those below, however, so too did the solution appear.
Footsteps thundered across the jungle. Massive footsteps, each one practically an earthquake of its own, and each one accompanied by a cacophony of destroyed foliage.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
SNAP! CRACK! THUD!
Tearing through the jungle came a tower of steel, cloth and muscle. A figure who wore a purple cape and a golden helmet and who moved with the swiftness of the wind itself! In their hands they carried a battle-weary blade, long enough they could carve up the heavens with it, and sharp enough that one great swing was enough to cleave through the dinosaur's neck. Blood spilled out from the wound like torrential crimson rainfall on the ground below, soon to be followed by the two pieces of the fallen dinosaur crashing down.
Human, Pokemon and duck alike had no words to offer. In one instant, they had seen a dinosaur swallow Luffy whole. In the next instant, the dinosaur's head had ceased to be attached to its body thanks to the intervention of a walking mountain. Their eyes were wide, their jaws were agape, and raw surprise was the only sound that escaped them. The whole affair was too much for Carue, who fainted. Bonbon jumped back in surprise as Vivi tumbled off the duck's back. She was quick to kneel at Carue's side to check that he was alright.
"Huh?" Luffy said as his trajectory carried him out through the bottom of the dinosaur's severed neck, as it was no longer attached to the stomach he was supposed to have ended up in.
Instead, what greeted Luffy was the flat, calloused palm of a hand that was as large as he was. The sword-wielding giant, his other hand having a circular shield fastened to it but not otherwise holding anything, had caught Luffy. There was a mild thud as he landed in the palm of the giant's hand.
"HOHOHOHOHO!" The giant bellowed, his long beard of fine brown hair waving slightly in the wind, "Here's a live human! I haven't had a guest in quite a while!"
"Wow! You're huge!" Luffy remarked, standing up on the palm, "Are you human?"
"HOHOHOHOHO! I AM DORRY, THE MIGHTIEST WARRIOR OF ELBAF!" Dorry announced.
"It's- It's a giant!" Vivi gasped, staring up at the behemoth that was Dorry.
"Bonsly?" Bonbon said curiously, "Bon-Bonsly?"
"They're- Giants are a race of, well, gigantic people." Vivi quickly explained, "I've heard of them, but this is my first time ever actually seeing one for myself…."
Seemingly hearing the conversation that was coming from down below, Dorry turned his gaze downwards in the direction of where Vivi and her companions were.
"You're all invited to share in this feast with me at my home!" Dorry informed them cheerfully, a prospect which had the pirate in his hand salivating. Vivi and Carue were hardly as excited by the giant's invitation, the both of them flinching at his sudden address, while Bonbon let out a cheer at the promise of food.
"BONSLY! BON-BON-BON-BONSLY!" She exclaimed, sprinting over to ram face-first into a nearby tree.
'Her attitude here is an improvement, at least.' Vivi thought to herself as she watched Bonbon's antics, 'Talking with this giant could be a good opportunity to gather information about this island, as well.'
-O-
Heat and flavour filled the air all around Brogy's home, coupled with the sounds of roaring flame and sizzling meat which produced them. The home was essentially an expanse of open space, lacking any signs of a long-term residency such as a proper shelter or even any personal belongings which Brogy did not simply carry on his person, though possessing a suitably big campfire. It was like a campsite, in a way. A wooden log had been set out on its side for the present humans to sit atop, while Brogy himself sat on a large, flat stone. Behind him stood an enormous white cave of some kind, so large that it dwarfed even Brogy himself, which seemed to be the only form of proper shelter around.
Several portions of the meat which had been stripped from the dinosaur's body sat in the fire, cooking. Eyeing up one such portion, Brogy grabbed it from the fire and dropped it- still enveloped in flame- atop a sizeable leaf that had been laid out before his guests as a makeshift plate. It did not take long for the flames to die out, leaving just the steaming meat in its wake. The exterior was crispy and golden, and the meat contained within red and tender.
"There, it's ready. Eat!" Brogy said. Though Nami and Usopp both sat nervously with their hands on their knees, shoulders tense and backs straight, Sanji didn't hesitate to stand up and approach the chunk of meat which, as things were, was larger than he himself was. The chef peered closely at it, leaning in to take a deep, long whiff of its aroma, before circling around it to survey it from all angles. Once he was satisfied, he turned to face Brogy and bowed his head.
"Thank you very much for the food." Sanji said gratefully. Finally, he took out a knife and a fork, and turned back to the food. Attacking it from the side, he carved out a sliver of the meat, getting both the skin and the inside together, and deposited the piece into his mouth. He chewed slowly, a look of deep concentration on his face.
In the meantime, Brogy looked to the other two humans present.
"Don't be shy, eat up! There's plenty to be had!" He urged them, though his words did little to ease the unease that the two were feeling. Neither could raise their heads to meet the giant's gaze. Their eyes were downcast instead, and gazing off to the side, where a pile of human bones sat in plain view.
'Look! Human bones…' Usopp thought as he glanced over to Nami and tried to subtly nod his head in the direction of the pile of remains.
'I see them.' Nami thought, trying not to let her eyes linger on them.
"We're not hungry." Usopp and Nami both said in unison.
'He's gonna eat us too.' Usopp thought grimly, 'Spruce, you liar.'
'He obviously wants to fatten us up so that he can have human meat for a change.' Nami surmised, 'We're so young, we're probably at the peak of our flavour.'
'Sanji! You're our only hope! You need to hold the giant off so we can run for our lives!' Usopp said, looking up slightly to stare pleadingly at the chef.
'This taste and texture… it reminds me of crocodile meat.' Sanji mused to himself through his third bite of dinosaur, 'But not quite. It's also reminiscent of beef and venison. Quite tender and juicy, and somewhat fatty as well. Not quite as earthy as venison. Something of a mix between them all would be the best way to describe it. How would I go about preparing it? Pan-fried with butter, maybe? Maybe sauté some garlic and onions to go alongside it? All options to consider for the future…'
"What kind of seasonings have you found go best with dinosaur meat?" Sanji inquired once he had swallowed his mouthful, "And have you tried other methods of cooking rather than simply over an open fire?"
"HOHOHOHOHO! I'm not the kind of giant to talk to about such things, I'm afraid." Brogy replied, "If the meat is safe to eat, then I consider that a job well-done! I used to sail on a ship just like all of you, and we had a chef of our own. They were the kind of giant who you would ask about such things!"
"I see." Sanji nodded thoughtfully, "You used to sail as well, then? If I can ask, how long have you been on this island for?"
"How long have I been on this island?" Brogy said, "If I'm not mistaken, it's been a hundred years already! HOHOHOHOHO!"
'A HUNDRED YEARS?!' Usopp and Nami both gawked at Brogy, their fear overtaken by befuddlement.
"Well, you're in pretty remarkable condition for your age." Sanji muttered.
"HOHOHOHOHO! We giants live much longer than your human lifespans." Brogy explained, "A hundred years does not mean as much to us as it does to you."
"Being able to feed yourself on an island like this for a whole century is a miracle on its own." Sanji remarked, "Still, it seems unfortunate to not get to enjoy a proper, gourmet meal in all that time. Perhaps in return for this food, I could prepare something for you to eat?"
"You? Cook for me? Filling the stomach of a giant is no small task, do you think you'd be up to it?" Brogy challenged, a cheeky glint in his eyes as he leaned in towards Sanji slightly.
"Yours wouldn't be the biggest appetite I've had to satiate." Sanji retorted coolly. He carved out another slice of the dinosaur and popped it into his mouth, nodding with approval as he savoured its taste and texture.
"MISTER BROGY!" Nami said nervously, louder than she had any need to, leading to an awkward cough, "Uh- ahem. Mister Brogy, can I… ask you a question as well?"
"What is it?" Brogy said as he picked up his own serving of meat from the fire and tore into it with his teeth.
"On this… on this island." Nami said, pausing to take a breath and steel herself, "How long does it take a Log Pose to reset?"
The giant's mouth was stuffed full of meat as the question was posed, and so he had to take a few seconds to chew it up and swallow before he could offer any answer. And once he did give that answer, it was given with the casual air of someone discussing the weather:
"One year."
Both Nami and Usopp let out strangled cries of shock at the revelation, falling back off the log on which they were sitting. Even Sanji took in a sharp inhale and began sputtering as he almost choked on what was in his mouth, before managing to force it down and clear his throat.
"Well, make yourselves comfortable!" Brogy said brightly, "HOHOHOHOHO!"
-O-
The atmosphere and conditions of Brogy's home were almost identical to those of the giant Dorry- even down to the massive white cave which he had situated himself in front of. By now, the meat was done cooking and so the fire had been put out and the food served, with Luffy sitting on top of it and ripping chunks out with his bare hands to shovel into his mouth. Dorry was not indulging in the meal himself, instead clutching the emptied lunchbox which Luffy had been carrying, the contents of which were now in his own stomach. Vivi sat a distance away from the two, with Carue beside her sipping on his drink, and Bonbon resting contentedly in her lap.
"This sure is good, Mr. Giant!" Luffy praised as he finished devouring another mouthful.
"HOHOHOHOHO! Your pirate lunchbox wasn't bad, either!" Dorry replied, before adding as an afterthought, "Not very filling, though."
"Of course it's good!" Luffy said, "I'd knock you down if you said you didn't like it!"
"HOHOHO! What a funny little human." Dorry chuckled.
Things weren't just jovial between the pirate and giant, they were downright chummy. It was an air of good-naturedness that had Vivi looking on in mild surprise, as she found her hands absentmindedly fiddling with the green spheres on Bonbon's head.
"These two are getting along like they're old friends." Vivi muttered.
"Bon-Bonsly." Bonbon nodded along to her statement.
"By the way, mister." Luffy said, "Why do you live out here all alone? Don't you have a home, or any friends?"
"I have both of those things." Dorry answered, "I come from a village called Elbaf. It's a village of warriors, it lies elsewhere on the Grand Line. In my village, we lived by a code. When there was a dispute which neither side would back down from, the God of Elbaf decided the matter."
The giant's explanation had everyone else present listening with rapt attention. Vivi's brow furrowed as she took in the words which were being said, and Bonbon in particular looked confused by Dorry's mention of a 'God'. Even Luffy took a break from his meal to listen.
"Our God protects the one who is right and lets them live." Dorry continued, "I got in a very serious argument, and so now I'm here on this island fighting another warrior. Whoever is right will win the battle and live."
Suddenly, inexplicably, Dorry threw his head back and began to laugh uproariously. His deep, hearty bellows practically shook the ground which they all sat upon.
"But we've been at it for a hundred years already!" Dorry laughed, "AND NEITHER OF US HAVE MANAGED TO WIN! HOHOHO!"
"You've been fighting for a hundred years?!" Luffy exclaimed. His surprise was innocent and non-judgemental, whereas the widened eyes of Vivi were filled with distress and an inability to reconcile with what she was hearing as she rose to her feet.
"A hundred years is nothing." Dorry dismissed, "Our lifespans are three times that of humans."
"Even if you do live that long, wouldn't you lose your passion for battle?!" Vivi pressed, "After all this time, what's the point anymore?! DO YOU STILL WANT TO KILL EACH OTHER?!"
POW!
That last yell that came from Vivi's mouth was drowned out by the thunderous bellow of a distant volcano which had just erupted. Volcanic gases billowed out from the top and into the sky, forming a white veil to mask the sky, while small amounts of magma bubbled out after them.
"BOOOOONSLYYYYYYY!" Bonbon wailed at the sound of the eruption, leaping to her feet and running in the opposite direction from the volcano as twin fountains of tears poured from her eyes onto the grass she ran across.
"Wow! That volcano's erupting." Luffy commented, paying no mind to Bonbon whatsoever.
"Bonbon!" Vivi fretted, her objections briefly forgotten as she chased after the Pokémon. As well as sending Bonbon fleeing for the hills, the eruption also prompted Dorry to rise to his feet, with the giant stretching his limbs out as he did so.
"Well, I'd better be going!" The giant announced, reaching around for the hilt of his sword to raise the mighty blade up and off the ground alongside him.
"Huh?" Luffy said.
"It was decided some time ago that those eruptions would be the signal for combat." Dorry clarified. Stepping forwards, his shadow fell over both Luffy and Vivi, just as the latter managed to scoop Bonbon off the ground and calm her down somewhat.
A figure of equal stature to Dorry became just barely visible from the perspective of those on the ground, towering over the treetops in the distance.
Holding Bonbon in her arms, Vivi whirled around to stare incredulously at Dorry. Her eyes were filled with indignation and desperation.
"A hatred that pushes you to fight each other for a hundred years?!" Vivi cried, "THAT'S INSANE! WHAT WAS THE DISPUTE ABOUT IN THE FIRST-?!"
Her yells were silenced by the extended hand of Luffy covering her mouth and muffling what she was saying, with the pirate not even so much as looking in her direction as he did so. Bonbon glared at the extended limb, and swung the spheres on her head into the side of Luffy's arm to try and knock it away. The limb stretched slightly along with the blow, before snapping back like a rubber band that catapulted Bonbon out of Vivi's arms and through the air.
"Quiet!" Luffy said firmly, ignoring what had just happened, "That doesn't matter."
"Indeed!" Dorry said, "This is a matter of honour."
The enormous figure came closer to where they all now were, and began rapidly picking up speed. A stride became a sprint, and Dorry met his charge head-on, with the thundering footfalls of the two giants rocking the island each and every time. As he threw himself into the heated battle with his sword and his shield in hand, Dorry had just a few more words to offer for his guests, before the battle became all that there was:
"THE REASON WE FIGHT IS LONG FORGOTTEN!"
-O-
The clash of Dorry and Brogy took place halfway between the homes of the two giants, almost dead-centre at the heart of Little Garden. Dinosaurs and other prehistoric fauna of varying sizes all fled, lest they be crushed underfoot by the conflict, as the land and the flora were torn apart by the sheer force of the two warriors coming to blows. Such a tremendous battle was visible from both giants' homes, almost like a show to entertain their guests.
Steel clashed against steel clashed against steel with a great ringing that surely resonated with the heavens themselves as the weapons which each warrior carried- an axe and a sword- dug into the shields that each warrior defended themselves with. Their mountainous muscles strained, already beginning to shine with a sheen of sweat from exertion, as the two pushed against each other, trying to force the other into submission through sheer brute force.
It was a struggle that lasted for several seconds before the two relented. Dorry was the first to act, bringing his sword away from Brogy in a great sweeping motion that smashed through the surrounding trees, and even sent some flying.
"DON'T YOU WISH WE COULD GO HOME, DORRY?" Brogy challenged, the edge of his axe still digging into the surface of his rival's shield.
"ALL THE MORE REASON TO WIN, BROGY, MY FRIEND!" Dorry retorted. With a furious roar, he thrust the tip of his sword forwards, directly towards Brogy's unguarded stomach.
Rather than try to block or parry such an attack, Brogy instead opted to leap high up into the air. Dorry's blade pierced through the air and struck the solid rock of a mountain that Brogy had been in front of. Cracks exploded out across the mountain's side from where the blade struck, sending chunks of stone flying in all directions from the sheer force behind such a blow.
Now in the air, Brogy raised his axe up above his head and returned Dorry's roar with a battle cry of his own as he swung the axe down along with his own descent back towards the ground. There was a WHOOSH as the edge of the axe sliced through the air on its way towards the intended target of Dorry's head, with Brogy aiming to split the giant's skull open. His strike did not land true, however, as Dorry faced down the attack and angled his head at just the angle to allow his gleaming golden helmet to bear the brunt of it, and keep him unharmed.
As Dorry's head was jerked back from Brogy's strike, he swung his sword upwards from the side to try and catch Brogy by surprise. The giant's feet had only barely touched the ground again when he moved his axe into the path of Dorry's sword, maintaining the momentum of his initial attack to defend himself. The cry of clashing steel rang out once again as the blades grinded against each other and sent sparks flying. Were it not for the shifting footing of the giants constantly quashing the ground all around them, some of those sparks may have had the chance to grow and set the jungle ablaze.
Such a dance of brutality and barbarity and sheer unadulterated violence was more than the young princess who watched from Dorry's home could bear. She turned her gaze away from the sight of such crushing and deadly attacks being constantly levied by the two giants at each other, and her eyes instead fell to the ground as she sat down on her knees.
"A hundred years… of this?" She spat, "And for what? I can't even fathom the degree of hatred that would fuel something like this…"
Beside her, Luffy had lain down on the ground with his arms and legs spread out and his eyes fixed on the clear skies above. Like her, he wasn't interested in watching the spectacle of such a battle, but he hardly held the same contempt for said spectacle that she did.
"Bon… Bonsly…" Bonbon called out tentatively, shuffling over from where she had landed to where Vivi was.
"Hm?" Vivi said, glancing back at her.
"Bonsly." Bonbon said firmly, "Bon-Bonsly. Bonsly. Bonsly-Bonsly… Ly… Ly."
She looked straight into Vivi's eyes as she said this, her voice full of conviction. There were no tears. Looking down at her, Vivi was almost given the impression of a much larger, fully-grown tree speaking these words to her.
"Um. Y-Yes…?" Vivi said, nodding along hesitantly to whatever Bonbon was trying to say.
"Yeah, that's true." Luffy agreed, likewise nodding his head, though without the same uncertainty as Vivi.
"Huh?" Vivi said, "You understood that?"
"Look at those giants." Luffy said, sitting up and jerking his thumb in the direction of the battle. Vivi cringed, sparing a glance at the fight before immediately looking away again.
"I can see them." She said, "And hear them."
"Bon-Bonsly." Bonbon said, scurrying over to her. She butted her head against Vivi's side, and then pointed her balls in the direction of the fight, before finally hopping up and down a couple of times.
"Totally, yeah." Luffy nodded again.
"You're just pretending to get all that." Vivi muttered.
"Those giants are fighting right now." Luffy said casually, "And they're fighting really hard. They fought really hard a bunch of times before now as well. Does it look like either of them are mad?"
"Mad? They must both be mad after all this time-!" Vivi began, only for Bonbon to butt her head into Vivi's side again.
"BONSLY!" Bonbon said, gesturing to the fight once again, "Bon-Bonsly! Bon-Bon-Bonsly!"
"You could certainly do with some lessons in manners." Vivi huffed. Still, she did as the Pokémon directed and, as much as the sight disgusted her, observed the battle between Dorry and Brogy once again.
Violence the likes of which could only come after over a hundred years of non-stop combat greeted her. Two giants who fought with absolutely everything that they had, for the sake of something that meant more to them than even their own lives, exchanging blows of all types. Axe, sword, fist, leg, elbow, knee- they attacked in every way that they could, without any hesitation. They defended against and evaded everything thrown at them, practically operating like a well-oiled machine in the mastery over their own bodies.
Yet despite how hard the two fought, despite how long the two had been fighting for, and despite the fact that they did not want the other to walk away from the fight- despite everything, the ear-to-ear grins plastered across the faces of Brogy and Dorry did not waver for a single second. The two fought like hell itself, and were the happiest they had ever been.
And as Princess Vivi looked on and grappled with the uncomfortable reality before her, and what that reality meant, so too did another guest of the giants spectate the fight and find himself faced with something that would irrevocably change him from who he had been before setting foot on the island of Little Garden.
Over where Brogy's home was, the three Straw Hats there all surveyed the ongoing fight. Sanji regarded it with only mild interest, being more focused on scribbling recipe ideas down on a little notepad, while Nami looked more astonished by its sheer scale, and Usopp admired the fight and the two warriors who were part of it.
As Sanji mulled over the culinary venues that would be opened by cooking with dinosaur meat, Nami appeared to be more than ready to depart the giant's abode. She took a couple of steps in the direction of the jungle, and then looked back to see Usopp still transfixed by the giants.
"Usopp!" Nami urged, "Now's our chance, we can get away!"
"You want to head back to the ship, Nami-swan~?" Sanji said.
"Yeah, before that giant comes back and eats us!" She hissed.
"Er, please forgive me for questioning your judgement," Sanji said awkwardly, "but why would Mr. Brogy try to eat us when he comes back?"
"Why would he- look around!" Nami exclaimed, "Look at all those skeletons! I bet the reason he was feeding us was to fatten us up!"
"If the Log Pose really does take a whole year to reset, it stands to reason that those people all died from the other things on the island." Sanji said, "Dinosaurs, illness, possibly even malnutrition or starvation. I think I'll need to talk to Brogy about what he eats here, actually. Assuming giants have the same nutritional requirements as humans, just on a greater scale, there must be some kind of fruit that grows on the island…"
The chef trailed off as he developed a faraway look, clearly mulling over everything that he was saying. He hastily scribbled down a few more notes on his notepad.
"Incredible…" Usopp murmured reverentially from where he stood, "They're fighting like this and they don't even know why!"
Brogy had explained the circumstances that brought him to Little Garden to the three of them, and the code of the giants from Elbaf that demanded the battle which was currently taking place.
"Yeah, it's ridiculous." Nami said.
"What do you know?!" Usopp snapped, "This is a battle between real men!"
"Hey! Show some respect to Nami-swan!" Sanji barked. He glared at Usopp, who only seemed to stand up straighter in the face of the aggression.
"Don't you see?" Usopp said fervently, "It's like they each have a flag on their chest that says 'warrior', and those flags mean more to them than their lives! Those flags are what they've been fighting to protect for these hundred years! Refusing to let them be torn off… this is a battle to the death between true warriors!"
As Usopp sang their praises, Dorry and Brogy remained locked in heated combat. They had beaten and bruised each other, and drawn scarce amounts of blood, and their bodies were soaked in sweat. Still, they seemed completely equal to each other. Completely stalemated.
The words had some effect on Sanji, diffusing his glare just a little. They did very little for Nami, who was still in as much of a rush as ever to leave Brogy's home.
"I don't care about that warrior stuff." Nami said, "Come on, let's get back to the ship!"
"I'm gonna watch a while longer." Usopp announced, staying right where he was standing. There was a fire burning behind his eyes- an honest fire. Sanji eased up further, taking his cigarette out as he went to stand closer to Usopp.
"This is it!" The sniper exclaimed gleefully, and with a great conviction, "This is my goal, to be a brave warrior of the sea! I want to be a man of honour just like these giants!"
His words seemed to have more of an effect on Nami, who sat herself back down on the log and gave Usopp a thoughtful look.
"So you want to be a giant?" She surmised.
"Weren't you listening to what I said?!" Usopp barked, before quickly calming down, "If there's a whole village of warriors just like them, I'd like to go visit someday!"
"I'm sure our captain wouldn't mind visiting such a destination himself." Sanji remarked, "We'll have to see it for these two, who can't."
Such a statement would not always be true. One day, either Dorry or Brogy would be fortunate enough to see their home village once again. But not the two of them. Today was not that day, however, as the two giants continued to trade blows with each other. Their sword and axe were abandoned, having been cast aside in the sheer chaos of the clash, leaving them with only their shields and their fists to attack each other with.
The two fell away from each other as the result of their latest attacks, tumbling back across the ground. They were quick to both rise back up on their feet and pounce on each other, opting to use their shields as weapons. In Brogy's left hand, he held the surface of the shield flat in front of him, and Dorry did very much the same, and they slammed those shields into each other's faces. Limbs moved parallel to each other in opposite directions, culminating in the two giants striking each other in the exact same instant.
"Seventy-three thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight battles…" Brogy rumbled into Dorry's shield.
"Seventy-three thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight draws…" Dorry continued, in very much the same position.
"I guess." Both giants said in unison as they finally fell backwards from each other. They landed on their backs, in the centre of the carnage their clash had brought to the jungle, and were silent for a moment as they took in their injuries. Bleeding, bruising, battering, not to mention utter exhaustion…
Then the moment passed, and both giants began to roar with laughter.
"HOHOHOHOHO! AYE, DORRY, OLD FRIEND!" Brogy bellowed, "HEY, I GOT SOME ALE FROM MY GUESTS!"
"THAT'S GREAT!" Dorry cackled, "I HAVEN'T HAD ANY IN AGES, GIVE ME SOME! HOHOHO!"
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