One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Cursed Island of the Devil Fruit Gods ❯ Beasts ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

"Sanji...I'm hungry." Chopper whined as they trekked through the jungle in search of the others and food.
"Food shouldn't talk like that." Sanji told him. That shut up the human reindeer.
Sanji found a tree bearing some fruit and he and Chopper ate a little bit of it. "Oi! This tastes awful! Even I couldn't make it taste good!" Sanji spat his out. Chopper wiped his eyes, which had begun to tear up with the awful taste. "Where is everyone?" he whimpered.
"Shut up. Do you hear that?" Sanji whirled around.
"No. Do you hear THAT?" Chopper asked him. Naturally a reindeer would have better hearing than a human; Sanji was hearing things, but Chopper actually heard something real.
The ground began to shake. "Oi! Up in the tree!" Sanji scopped Chopper up into his arms and ran straight up the trunk of a tree, hiding in it.
Several dark figure stalked through the jungle beneath them. "I know I smelled something! Smells like deer!" one of them said in a gruff voice. It grunted, almost sounding like it was a pig with a human voice.
"That's stupid! We hunted the deers to death, there's no more left!" another voice that sounded very raspy disagreed, and an audible smack to the pig-voiced thing's head could be heard.
"Hey! I smell it too!" A voice hissed.
Chopper trembled. They smelled him, he knew it. "Sshh." Sanji whispered. He didn't want Chopper to whimper too loudly.
"Hey! Look! Tracks!" the pig-voice sounded again. "They stop right here...it looks like deer tracks, but they're really tiny...maybe a baby...and...hey! Human tracks!"
"Shit..." Sanji cursed under his breath.
"Look! Muddy prints! Climbing...up...the tree! They're in the tree!" the raspy voice cried.
"SHIT!" Sanji shouted, and grabbed Chopper, leaping into the next tree over just in time; the tree they were in collapsed, sliced down in one stroke from the sound of it.
"After them! It sounds like an outsider!" the hissing voice growled.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Sanji cried, racing along through tree branches with Chopper in tow.
"Sanji, put me down, I can run! Let's split up!" Chopper suggested.
"No, we can't afford to lose track of each other! The others aren't around, we need to stick together!" Sanji said. He didn't mention that he knew Chopper was probably the only edible thing convenient and he didn't want to let him get away...
"There's two of them! They're fast!" the voices were cooperating with one another. "They're heading back toward the village! Maybe we don't need to hunt after all!" they laughed triumphantly.
"SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT!" Sanji stamped his feet, stopping cold on one tree branch. "I think we're trapped. We'll have to fight our way out. You ready?" he asked Chopper.
Chopper grabbed a Rumble Ball from his medical bag. "I hope so..." he gulped. The tree branch they were standing on collapsed and they both leapt off, Chopper transforming into his gorilla-like form, still holding the Rumble Ball.
They were surrounded on three sides now by the dark figures who were now revealed. The pig-voiced one looked like a human wild board, tusks and all. The raspy-voiced one looked like a giant praying mantis. And the hissing one looked like a human lizard. "Shit doesn't even begin to describe this..." Sanji gulped.
"Get 'em!" the boar-man roared, and took a kick to the chin, knocking him upwards so that his head hit another tree branch and knocked him out.
"Brother! You'll pay for that, outsider!" the praying mantis man rasped. He swung at Sanji with his scythe-like claws and Sanji whirled horizontally through the air, dodging. Trees were falling everywhere as the mantis man slashed at Sanji and hit tree trunks instead of the blond-haired cook.
Chopper meanwhile was avoiding the fangs of the lizard man. "You are no normal deer! You appear to be one of us, but are you an outsider as well?!" the lizard questioned the human reindeer.
"I'm a pirate!" Chopper answered, swallowing the Rumble Ball. "Guard Point!" he announced, and the lizard bit into him, getting a mouthful of fuzz and biting it, getting it stuck in his mouth. "Arm Point!" Chopper said next. With his opponent unable to strike back, Chopper gave him a blow to the gut and knocked him back into a tree so hard it left an impression of the lizard man's body in it, then a hard right to knock him completely out. "Sanji! Are you okay?" Chopper called, using Running Point next, to speed up and join his friend.
"I'm fine." Sanji grinned, slipping his foot underneath a fallen tree trunk, kicking upward to get it airborne, and then kicking it forward with the bottom of his foot at the mantis man. Slashing at it with both scythes to get rid of the threat, the mantis didn't notice how swift Sanji was in following-up, and received a lethal blow to the neck. "Collier!" Sanji grunted, and the praying mantis flew several feet into a half-buried boulder, which turned into pebbles upon impact. All three of them were knocked out cold. "Well now we're in trouble. These guys mentioned a village...that means there's more of them." Sanji said.
"That one was asking me if I was an...outsider? But he said I was...one of them?" Chopper asked Sanji confusedly.
"Oi! Check it out!" Sanji pointed the boar-man. In his unconscious state, the man's wild pig appearance faded, until it was revealed that underneath, he was merely a very fat, bald, ugly man in raggedy shorts. "He...he must've eaten the Pig-Pig Fruit, the Wild Boar type. Did those guys...?" he looked around. Both the mantis man and lizard man had transformed back into their normal human forms as well. "Well I'll be...these shit-heads are Devil Fruit users, just like you, Chopper. They must be Zoans. And apparently they don't like company. Let's split and get away from here." Sanji suggested.
"B-but..." Chopper didn't want to leave just yet. "I want to try to talk to them!" Chopper protested.
"Are you baka?! They just tried to kill us!" Sanji cried.
"But they said I'm one of them...maybe they'll help us!" Chopper argued.
Sanji rolled his eyes. "You really think they'll help us? After we kicked the shit out of some of their friends?" he asked.
"We were defending ourselves! And...I smell food cooking." Chopper admitted, his stomach rumbling. Sanji's did as well, and Sanji closed his eyes.
"Okay. Here's what we'll do." Sanji smiled, patting Chopper on the head.

Gorilla-form Chopper dragged Sanji to the village, covered in dirt to make it look like a fight had ensued, into the village, his hands tied to his sides with vines, though it would have been all too easy for Sanji to break them or slip out of them; they were just for show. This village was nothing like the Paramecian village on the other side of the island. There was a mountain of bones that was stacked high even though the base of it appeared to be in a giant crater. They were on the edge of the sea, but high up enough that no waves would hit them. There were no huts, this appeared to be a customized canyon with caves all around. Apparently some of the Paramecians' prejudices weren't exaggerated. "This was a BAD idea..." Sanji said.
"It was your idea." Chopper reminded him. "You didn't have to come, I would have gone alone."
Some of the residents peeked out. They were amazed at such a sight. Some of them approached the two of them cautiously. "Who are you?" some of them demanded.
"Remember the plan." Sanji whispered to Chopper.
"I am Tony Tony Chopper! I am a reindeer! I ate the Hito-Hito no Mi! I am King of the Animals and I come from outside the island!" Chopper announced.
A few of the Zoan villagers gasped and looked rather excited. Chopper continued. "This man is my servant. He gets disobedient sometimes so I beat him up for discipline, or sometimes for fun!"
The villagers were laughing and clapping, apparently they were buying every word and liked what they were hearing.
"You're doing great!" Sanji chuckled under his breath, and Chopper winked back at him.
"I have heard stories that a village of people like me was here and I have come to join you!" Chopper finished.
The villagers all clapped. "The prophecy has come true! The animal with a human soul has come!" they all cheered.
"Uh...what?" Sanji raised an eyebrow. He'd just expected them to start bringing them loads of food and drink, but they were treating Chopper like some kind of savior and he didn't know what to do next. Chopper was trembling, falling silent. He was apparently feeling the same way, though twice as nervous as Sanji.
"Call the King! Call Ryuumaoh!" the villagers all cried.
A very, very large cave at the very top of them all loomed as they all stared up at it. A dark, monstrous thing swooped out of it and circled in the air. Diving swiftly it landed hard on the ground, causing a small earthquake, just for shock value. Sanji stared, terrified, wondering what was going to happen now. He'd just expected everyone to maybe give them some food, then, when they were at full strength again, they could make their escape. The plan had just backfired. Now they were trapped, it seemed. There was no escaping with this monstrous thing in their way.
The dark, monstrous King, this so-called Ryuumaoh, was now visible since he wasn't being looked at while he was in front of the sun in the sky. A scaly, large creature with clawed feet, leathery wings and thick, armor-like plates all over his body, he unfurled his wings that obscured his face. His face was elongated, like a horse's, but scaly and more horrifying than the lizard man, the mantis man and the boar man put together. Glistening fangs grinned as his forked tongue licked them. Glowing yellow eyes stared right through Sanji and the many horns upon his head looked like they could've pierced diamonds. "Sh...it..." Sanji croaked. He was trembling-he could feel that monstrous man's power from ten yards away. The dragon-man's long, scaly, spiked tail whipped back and forth excitedly, almost like a dog's.
"Well, well, well...what have we here?" Ryuumaoh cackled, his voice like one would imagine their worst nightmare to sound like. "The Animal King, is it? There is only one King on this island and it is me, Ryuumaoh. Tell me, Tony Tony Chopper...have you come to join us to rule, or to serve me?" Ryuumaoh asked.
Chopper was trembling too terribly to answer. Ryuumaoh laughed amusedly. "I take that as a compliment! Too afraid to answer! It is a natural reaction to strangers. You may be an outsider but our laws state that one with the curse may join our tribe if they so wish. However, this...eh...'servant' of yours needs to be disposed of; I smell no hint of animal essence on him, he is not a bearer of the curse, and if he is, he is one of the Paramecian breed, and we hate them even more! I shall take care of it, I have not had any entertainment in quite some time." Ryuumaouh licked his fangs in anticipation.
"No!" Chopper protested. The crowd gasped; no one had ever apparently defied Ryuumaoh before. "He's...he's strong! He can do amazing things like we can, without a Devil's Fruit!"
Ryuumaoh scratched his scaly chin with his talons. "Is that so?" he chuckled.
"It's true, your Majesty!" the voices of three who were beaten up agreed, as they were now seen limping back into the village. "He dispatched us with marvelous strength! He is truly a worthy warrior! Perhaps if we force him to become one of us, he will be able to help our side win the war!"
"What? War? One of you? Huh?" Sanji looked back and forth at Ryuumaoh, the three goons he'd beaten up with Chopper before, and the villagers.
"I should like to see it for myself." Ryuumaoh scoffed, looking closely at Sanji. "You smell...strange. Like spice." he commented, taking a whiff of Sanji with his wide nostrils.
"I am a chef. I cook great food for my master here." Sanji told him, motioning to Chopper, playing along with their story, improvising even though he hadn't planned that far ahead. He just hoped this would help keep him alive long enough to think of a way out.
"Oh! Yes, he does! He's the best cook in the whole world!" Chopper nodded quickly, catching on.
Ryuumaoh laughed. "I propose a celebration! To the addition of this Animal King, Tony Tony Chopper into my service, and a wonderful meal tonight prepared by this outsider! And if it is not so, then we shall have a lovely execution tomorrow morning to entertain us!" he announced.
The entire village cheered. Sanji gulped. Chopper gulped. "Good going, Chopper. I went months without food when I was a kid, and you wanted to come here because you had a little rumble in your tummy." Sanji grumbled.

Sanji was imprisoned inside Ryuumaoh's cave, which meant there was no way down except to fly so no chains or bars were necessary. Sanji was given crude instruments and pots and pans to cook, and all the ingredients he requested, or close enough, and prepared a meal fit for a King, all for Ryuumaoh. "Mister Outsider...?" A little girl's voice called from behind Sanji. Sanji whirled around. He saw that she was one of the villagers, in a ragged little dress.
"What is it, sweetie pie?" Sanji smiled, kneeling before her and patting her on the head. "How'd you get up here, anyway...?"
"My daddy wants his dinner now. I'm going to take you down if you're done cooking." she smiled.
"Uh...if you say so." Sanji chuckled. He put all of the food on a platter and followed her to the edge of the cave. "Okay, honey, it's all ready. But what did you mean you're going to-WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Sanji shrieked as he felt himself being lifted by his armpits into the air. He held on tightly to the platter, not daring to insult Ryuumaoh by losing his expected meal, and have an impending execution await him. He carefully looked back at the little girl. She had transformed into a winged butterfly-girl; she was a butterfly Zoan Devil Fruit user. He sighed in relief; he wasn't aware that even tiny children like that were given Devil Fruits on the island. "How long have you been able to do THIS?!" he asked her as they touched down safely.
"Forever. Daddy made me take a Devil's Fruit even before I could walk or talk. Daddy makes all babies drink the juice of the Devil's Fruit. No one is allowed to leave the island or the gods get mad. So he makes sure no one can ever swim away, even before they know how." the little girl explained.
"That's..." Sanji wanted to hurt Ryuumaoh very badly for that. Doing that against someone's will..."What's your name, cutie?" he asked her.
"Chou." the little girl smiled, giggling. "I like you, Mister Outsider. I hope you made good food for my daddy! I don't want him to kill you like the last outsider..."
Sanji laughed weakly at that, and went back to muttering under his breath about being in deep shit.
Chopper was sitting on Ryuumaoh's left side on a large stone throne, while a tall, lanky man sat at his right. "Your name is Sanji, is that true?" Ryuumaoh asked Sanji as he approached.
"Yes, sir." Sanji nodded.
"Kneel before me and hold up my tray. You may stop after I have finished eating this meal. For your sake I hope it is as good as Chopper here tells me." Ryuumaoh ordered him.
"Yes, sir." Sanji reponded, doing as he was asked. "I never do this for anyone but Nami-san or Robin-chan..." He murmured.
"Mmm! This is excellent! This is the most delicious dish I have ever tasted! Sanji, you are astounding!" Ryuumoah laughed out loud. "Oh, I am definitely keeping you! Egetsunai!" Ryuumaoh said to the man sitting to his right, "Go fetch me a Devil's Fruit, I want Sanji to remain with us as part of our tribe!"
"But wait!" Chopper gasped. "Sanji doesn't need a Devil's Fruit to be strong or loyal! He won't leave the island!"
"It is the law of the land. The gods chose it, not us. He will only grow stronger. Better that way, he'll be under my thumb as well." Ryummaoh put his foot down. He finished the food and Sanji stood back up, putting the tray down.
"Sir, I would really prefer not to consume a Devil's Fruit." Sanji told him flatly.
The crowd gasped again. "Why is that, Sanji-kun? Do you not like our tribe? Do you not want to become one of us? Perhaps you would like to wed one of my daughters? Would that sway you?" Ryuumaoh snapped his scaly fingers and the villagers scattered, hurrying back with five girls, and Chou, in tow. "I believe you've already met Chou. She is young, yes, but she will grow into a fine young woman. She deserves a powerful, talented man as her husband so she can bear strong children to be the future leaders of the tribe after I am taken into the gods' realm. You should feel honored that I am even offering."
Sanji looked around at the other five daughters of Ryuumaoh with hearts in his eyes. He was drooling; he had his pick of them, and it was driving him mad. "Oh, Sanji..." Chopper buried his face in his hands, knowing Sanji wouldn't be able to resist.
Egetsunai returned with a wilted-looking, but still edible, Devil's Fruit. "One bite. And you can become the next King after I die." Ryuumaoh grinned. "What shall it be?"
Sanji scurried up to each of them in turn. One of them was rather overweight. "I'm Kaba." she told him, transforming into a Hippopotamus-woman. Sanji cringed and shook her hand quickly, saying "Nice to meet you" before moving on to the next one, who was a good two feet taller than him.
"I'm Tsunobue." she smiled, turning into a moose-woman. Sanji trembled. "Very nice to meet you!" he bowed, before moving onto the third daughter he hadn't met. She was very thin, almost anorexically thin, and Sanji could see her ribcage.
"I'm Hamutori." she giggled, transforming into a hummingbird woman. Sanji coughed. "A pleasure," he smiled softly, kissing her hand (her wings sprouted from her back, not her arms.) Moving on to the next one, Sanji noticed she resembled Miss Monday from Baroque Works, a very muscle-bound young woman who looked like she could break him in half no matter what kind of animal she turned into.
"My name's Seiyuuki." she said, rather boredly, as though she wasn't interested in him; just as well, as she transformed into a gorilla-woman. Sanji gulped and shook her hand vigorously. "Charmed, I'm sure." he said politely, before moving on to his last dismal choice. But what was this? The last of them was a beauty queen, the vision of loveliness, someone who could put Nami and Robin to shame.
She smiled enchantingly, allowing Sanji to kiss her hand. "Please! I must know your name!" he begged her, getting down on one knee and grabbing for the wilted Devil Fruit, as if considering it as a wedding ring.
"I'm Kamonohashi." she grinned.
"Kamonohashi...?" Sanji gulped. That didn't sound like an appropriate name for this goddess of a woman. And sure enough, his love-at-first-sight transformed before his eyes into a hideous duck-billed platypus woman. Sanji burst into tears and fell to his knees, sobbing out loud. "Oh god! I can't marry any of them!"
"Oh, thank goodness he came to his senses..." Chopper sighed with relief. But his eyes were jarred open by what happened next.
"HOW DARE YOU?!" Ryuumoah thundered. "For this insult you shall be executed at sundown! By my right-hand-man Egetsunai himself!"