The Island of Hard Rock was Filled to the Brim with Enemies waiting for the Red Sashes, or so the Windle twins said. And So far, that was proven to be correct. And they hadn't even made it a kilometer into the 3 dozen kilometer long island
"So." Noir began. "You think It's a good idea to trust what they say?" The Chef asked, the cherry of his cigarette glowing a dull orange. "I don't see why we wouldn't" Calli said, interjecting into the question aimed for the captain
"Yeah" Leroy said "Why would they lie? They seemed pretty excited by the fact that it'd end up kicking our asses, and they were proud about that fact." His brow furrowed slightly as he thought."
"Well, it's best to not stick around. There's a chance that fleet that was on the horizon might just come for us from the back." Jeanne said, slinging her rifle across her back and picking up the large bow that Shafe had used, and sliding the quiver onto her hip.
"She's right. Let's get goin…" Kirk said, letting his bo collapse into four sections so that it could hang on his hip
As the Crew began to depart, The viscera of the corpses had began to evaporate and quickly rot away. The bodies already returned to what they once were, as well as the blood on the crew's clothes beginning to go away.
The canopy overhang above shifted from a curved archway, to a thick foliage of trees tangled together before coming face to face with a rocky overhang.
"What the…" Kale asked, a grimace on his face as he looked up at the rocky surface. The structure was a dark red, spikes and strange formations that looked almost like faces were formed into its surface
But it was not from a stone mason, but from the corruption of Kuros Jaku Jaku fruit. When he joined the Hard Rock Fleet, Barbary gave him one mission, go across the entire 140 sq km island and change and shift it all to a nightmare land, and he did just that. It took him an entire week to do so
"Well. Do we go around?" Noir asked. "It might be a good decision to just go forward. If there truly is no way to avoid what's coming to us. Then best not to waste energy on finding a way around and just go head on." Raven said, folding her arms below her chest.
"Yeah, Rav's right." Leroy said, putting his hands on his hips and giving a lopsided frown. "Let's get going!"
He said as he gave a sigh and walked into the overhang that was like a large entrance to a cave.
Quickly the red sky light from the back began to shift into a slight darkness, holes above leaking in through pillars of light.
"Lets get some light in here…" Kirk said, flicking his wrist and causing his staff to snap into place. "Atmo…Sky Sprite…" With another flick, a ball of bright orange light formed, an electric atmospheric phenomenon of floating lighting, using it as a torch to send both ahead and keep one constantly at the tip of his staff as they walked
The cave began to heat up as they walked. The ambient heat of the Island outside doing nothing but increasing the enclosed space.
The formations caused by the Jaku Jaku had formed this cave structure to have small concaves off to the sides. Some were small where they could see bats that looked mangged and almost like they were diseased but did not pay attention to the Crew
There was one noise however that did catch the Crews attention, it was a deep rumbling growl.
"Lets…Uh. Lets ignore that." Cali said, eyes shifting to the hole in the wall.
"Yeah…" Leroy started backing up, but before they could move out of the way, a large creature began to stomp its way out of the hole. Shaking the ground and causing the bats to flutter and shoot through the air and up out of the holes in the sky!
What began to walk out of the side cave, was large. Slamming sharp paws into the ground, deep brown fur covering its arms, but as the light shined higher up, showing that its muscles were exposed beneath the skin. Higher up on its right arm, an entire bone was shown
It was a grizzly bear, standing at 7 feet at the shoulder, its body rotted and the side of its face had its skull exposed. The entirety of its body looked like it was waterlogged, almost perpetually wet. Seaweed hanging from its jaw like a foliage beard. Across its shoulders was columnar coral, bright pink. Clams and barnacles were sprouted across his skin, seagrass sprouted up on its forearm, a sea anemone on its other shoulder
Finally, a starfish was over the empty socket, more seaweed covering it like bangs. With a hard stomp, the bear gave a large roar!
Kirk, Jeanne and Dezzi screamed!
Only for Leroy to punch it hard in the nose, Noir slamming his foot into the side of its head, and Kale delivering a swift stroke, relieving its head from its shoulders.
"A-" The three that screamed said dumbfounded. Cali then spoke, putting her metal hand on her hip "Well that was anticlimactic."
The crew watched as the bear transformed back into the shriveled mummified corpse of a once alive bear that had wandered a forest in another route of the grand line 4 decades ago, left petrified and mummified from the sand dune next to the forest it roamed.
But the roar of this predator…Awoke another deeper within the cave…