Grand Voyage- Log 96

Log 96: The Animal King
As it turned out, sailing uncontrollably through the air was not an entirely unpleasant experience. In fact, when he looked back on the event a few years later, Knave would have described it as one of the more fun things he had done in the first half of the Grand Line. What wasn’t fun, on the other hand, was the fact that he was struggling to merely stay conscious, thanks to the sickness he had been afflicted with. On the other hand, he didn’t have much control over his overall movement, so he was able to put next to no effort into any movement of his... and feel the sickness fully every inch of the way.

All in all, it really was a unique sort of occurrence.

As the marimo lad continued to soar uncontrollably through the air, he allowed his thoughts to sink back into the farther reaches of his mind (something that was not too hard to do), and focused only on relieving the symptoms of his illness.

And finally, after over three hours of nonstop hurtling through the air, Knave began to descend, and finally arrived at his destination: Crown Island.

Knave arrived on the island with something of a bang. First, he collided rather violently with a mountain on the outskirts of the island, knocking the marimo into the air once more! He came down again, smashing into the side of the mountain and rolling down at an incredible pace, the combined impacts keeping him decently silent for the time being. Still rolling down the side of the mountain, Knave ran into a massive grove of bushes, trees, and other shrubbery, and plowed through them, though not without gaining a great amount of debris on his person. This debris appeared to mostly consist of branches and leaves.

He continued to roll down the end of the mountain, finally pushing through yet another group of bushes, before coming to a complete stop at the foot of the behemoth, which turned out to be a decently sized clearing. Knave lay there, completely dazed by the fall, as slowly but surely, a variety of creatures began to push their way out of the nearby forest to get a good look at the newcomer.

At first glance, they appeared to be ordinary animals, such as rhinos, horses, cows, pigs, the works. However, if one bothered to take a closer look and actually inspect them, they would have noticed that the creatures had an odd aura about them, one more brimming with vitality, life, and a greater amount of intelligence than one would expect from animals of their type and caliber. At the lead of the procession that had decided to examine Knave where two animals in particular: an odd-looking bird and a parrot with an amazing bald plate that practically reflected the entirety of the sun’s rays.

“I don’t know about this, Karasuke,” the bald parrot said first and worriedly, “just picking up some drifter who’s crashed here is something that I’d consider risky, y’know?”

“Well, we couldn’t just let one of our own die right here,” the bird, Karasuke, answered, “and after all, look at the poor animal. They’re clearly heavily injured. There’s even blood leaking out from between their feathers!”

“Hmph,” came the voice of a third figure. A panda walked out from the forest, holding a sake bottle in his hand, as he approached the three, taking a swig from it as he did so. “Doesn’t matter,” the panda hmphed as it finished the drink, “Karasuke would force us to take him anyway, right?”

The bird reluctantly nodded, and the bald parrot sighed, taking a few steps backwards and massaging his forehead with his wing. “Don’t start up again, you two,” he said, “we need to get this animal to safety, after all...”

“You’re agreeing with me NOW?!” Karasuke asked his parrot companion, raising one of his eyebrows.

“If it means getting you and Kumasuke out of each other’s hair, then it’s worth it,” the bald parrot confirmed, nodding his head in a sad way.

“Damn panda stole my name,” Karasuke huffed as he walked over to Knave’s unconscious and completely disguised form, reaching behind him, and seizing the back of his neck with his beak, “now could you please help me carry him?”

“STOP CHANGING WHO’S IDEA THIS IS!” Kumasuke and the bald parrot cried in frustration.

“Ugh...” Knave groaned as his eyes slowly forced themselves open. After a few moments of waiting for his vision to clear completely, the marimo lad sat up, and noticed the immense amounts of leaves and other foliage that covered his body. Before he could brush himself off, however, he elected to take a look around.

He was lying in what appeared to be a cave or den of some sort, and surrounding him on all sides were a variety of animals, who had all taken a few steps back upon seeing him wake. Finally, the three animals from earlier stepped up, giving a brief bow as a means of greeting.

“Welcome to Crown Island!” Karasuke quickly said, leaping up into the air briefly with a few strokes of his wings, “you arrived here quite damaged, I assure you, but we managed to patch you up quickly enough!”

“And ended up wasting a damn load of our medicinal herbs,” Kumasuke grumbled, taking another swig from his sake cup.

“The point is,” the bald parrot said forcefully, sighing even harder than before, “that you’re here now, and you’re safe. Now, tell me, are you one of the animals who managed to acquire the ability of speech?”

“Animal?” Knave asked, titling his head, and then noticing a certain sensation had vanished, “hey! I’m not sick anymore!” The marimo lad leaped out of the mound of straw the animals had made for him, leaping around a few times and laughing out loud as he celebrated his newfound health!

“Ah, yes,” Karasuke calmed himself down a bit right as Knave’s energy exploded, “you suffered from a terrible fever when we arrived, but thankfully we managed to cure you. Some sort of parasite managed to get in there, but it’s one we’ve faced before. Only took a pile of herbs and it cleared right up!”

“Thanks!” Knave stopped his motion abruptly, causing some of the animals to recoil, before bowing deeply before them, “it really sucks to be sick, y’know, so thanks for stopping it before it got worse!”

As the marimo lad lifted his head up, he noticed a variety of animals had placed their heads together, whispering to each other and conversing about some matter that Knave knew not. So, he resorted to the simplest counter-strategy to this behavior that he knew of.

“What the hell are they talking about?” he huffed, crossing his arms and noticing once more the foliage that was wrapped about his person. He gave it a few milliseconds of consideration, before giving a simple shrug about the situation. “At least it looks cool,” he said to himself.

“What looks cool?” Karasuke asked, flying up beside the marimo lad and perching on his shoulder, “and I must say, I congratulate you on standing on your hind legs like that. Not many of us can.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Knave said apologetically, giving his ‘fur’ a quick tug to illustrate his point, “what are the other guys talking about anyway?”

“That’s a much more complicated matter,” the bald parrot said, walking up to the young pirate as well, “but if you want to discuss it, we can talk about it a bit aways from here.”

“Okay!” Knave answered, giving a contended nod despite not giving his decision the slightest bit of thought.

“Most excellent!” Karasuke said, flapping into the air slightly again, “Kumasuke, you take care of the other animals while we discuss things, okay?”

“Humph,” Kumasuke answered, taking yet another swig, “better then listening to you chuckleheads talking about your stupid mythos.” And with that, the panda began herding and leading the other animals away from the cave, while Knave, Karasuke, and the bald parrot headed out as well...

“The Animal King?”

The three where now perched on an outcropping of sorts, looking over a massive expanse of the island, showing off its variety of ecosystems and climates, as if it had been designed specifically for all kinds of animals.

“Precisely,” the bald parrot answered Knave’s question, “since antiquity, there’s been a legend on this island. That a new arrival will fall from the sky, and he will be our King, leading us to an age of prosperity and peace. When he is crowned-” and with this the parrot gestured around the island, “-a variety of volcanoes will erupt under the sea, causing a massive rise of water that resembles a crown. It is because of this that we have given the island this name, and the humans have even adopted it as well.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Knave yawned, leaning back and crossing his hands behind his head, staring up at the sky.

“Everytime there’s a new arrival, the animals get all up in a tizzy!” Karasuke exposited, still flapping up and down in the air thanks to his excitement, “because that animal could be our King, right? And we’ve gone through some tough times. Heck, an organization that you humans use once tried to take over the entire island!”

“Organization?” Knave asked.

“All the animals are hoping that you’ll be the one!” Karasuke steamrolled on through, “but that’s unproven, and there are always skeptics like Kumasuke, who won’t believe it until it bites them on the ass!”

“How vulgar, Karasuke,” the bald parrot sighed.

“Shut up! I can say whatever I want!”

“Ciaosusususu!” Knave laughed, “you guys are funny! I think I’ll be staying here for a little while... at least until my crew comes to get me. Which shouldn’t be long, now that I think about it.”

However, the two animals ignored Knave, too focused on their argument. So, the marimo lad simply plopped down on the ground, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

“Ah, here we are,” Blitzkrieg said happily as he disembarked on the edge of the island, his sniper rifle still wrapped around his shoulder. He lifted up his Den Den Mushi, speaking directly into it.

“I’ve arrived safely, boss.”

“Good,” the silky smooth, basso voice rumbled from the other side, “then proceed with your mission. Failure will absolutely not be tolerated.”

“Don’t have to worry about that, sir,” Blitzkrief answered, unclasping his rifle and swinging it around until he was holding it squarely in his hands, “I don’t plan on failing anytime soon. Consider the pirate brat and his crew dead already.”

And with that, the sniping bounty hunter rushed for the highest vantage point he could find...

“Okay, everything all set?” D’Artagnan asked as he stood at the helm of the Shooting Star, “Sid, do we have a good headwind?”

“The best I’ve seen in awhile!” Sid answered, lifting up his wrist with the Log Pose confidently, “looks like luck’s on our side this time!”

“Mercuia, don’t be afraid to give us a boost if we run out of wind, okay?” Art turned around to face the other crewmates.

Mercuia nodded, smiling. “Of course!”

“Everyone else ready?” the Majin first mate turned towards the ocean that lay before them once more.

“Yep,” Pura answered simply, her expression a mixture of seriousness and happiness.

“Gao!” Gopher leaped into the air, punching both fists into the air!

“You bet,” Stormy nodded, a smile on her lips as well.

“Y-yeah!” Kagome said, raising up her fist to match Gopher’s action.

“Then,” Art said as he raised his own fist into the air....

“LET’S GO RESCUE OUR CAPTAIN!”

“AYE!”

~End of Log~

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