Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 143 SHADOWS

I was forced awake by my soul ripping out of my body. At least that was how it felt. My eyes bulging I tried to scream through the leather gag in my mouth. I watched helplessly as a hand held onto the black sheet-like shadow of mine and cut it away from me. Like some Peter Pan shadow mine fell away from me and tried to struggle from the grip that held it. 

The man that held it was a huge monster. At least 20 feet tall. He wore a black frilly shirt and yellow pants that covered his wide lower half. He had a body in the shape of a teardrop. His face was pale white, had purple lips and hair, had pointy ears and 2 small horns at his forehead. 

“This is a nice shadow,” the nightmare Count Chocula said. I continued to try to struggle through my restraints. Slowly remembering Brook putting us to sleep I was putting together what had changed between now and the canon. Instead of drawing people to the castle on his ship, Moira just had Brook put people to sleep then captured them. Taking their shadows without any fight. 

“Hogback, do you have a body for it?” The pale Shichibukai Moira asked a figure. 

Behind Moira was another vampire wannabe. A fat man with pointy ears, nose, and fangs stood behind him. “I have the perfect body.” The doctor was wearing fishnet clothes for some reason. Those types of clothes belonged on strippers, not an overweight doctor. He dragged out a hospital patient bed with a very dead chimera man on it. Not chimera cool though, with a lion’s body, snake for a tail, or wings of an eagle. Chimera all wrong. Lizard head, bat wings, and a monkey’s tail. 

I began cursing through my gag. “Oh he is very lively for having his shadow taken,” Hogback said.

“Whatever, I am simply glad I have my shadow for Oars,” Moira said. I cursed louder, looking for the others from the crew. 

“Are we done yet?” A man asked. He had long blonde hair, white skin, a black jacket, and a lion’s snout for a mouth. “I want to say hello to my new brides.” I began cursing and fighting more. I knew that guy was a huge pervert. His brides could only be my Robin and Nami. He ate the Clear-Clear Fruit and could turn invisible. 

“Patience, Absalom,” Moira said. “With Oars complete, we are ready to leave the Triangle, and take on Kaido once more.” Moira stepped over my shadow’s new body and pushed it into the corpse. My shadow latched onto it causing the body to convulse and breathe in deeply. “Rise my zombie warrior,” Moira laughed as he stepped away. 

A girl with long pink hair and clothes that were bought from Hot Topic leaned over my body. “It doesn’t seem that special.” 

“Oh, this man is strong. Thus his shadow is strong. Watch,” Moira said, stepping back. My freak chimera body sat up slowly. His lizard head turning this way and that, he tried to take in his surroundings. 

“I am a ninja,” he hissed. His hands moving into seals I half expected him to make a clone, but he didn’t. The lizard looked down to his hands in surprise. Standing up almost mechanically he walked to a wall and tried walking up it. But to no avail. He simply fell over. 

“What’s wrong with this one?” The pink haired girl asked. 

“The shadow needs to learn its new body,” Moira said. “Give it time to get used to it, and it will be a loyal slave, Perona. You, lizard man.” My shadow’s body looked at Moira. “You are Sphinx. Go out, learn your new body, then come back for orders.” 

My new shadow’s body turned it’s head confused. Then it flipped Moira off. “Fuck you,” it hissed. “Don’t tell me what to do. Only the captain can tell me what to do.” 

The others were shocked, but Moira simply chuckled. The giant man extended his hands. “But I am the captain. The captain of the Thriller Bark Pirates. Of which you will now be a part of.” Moira turned around to walk away. “I’ve wasted enough time on this. Hogback, take this walking corpse,” Moira waved at me, “to the others. We leave the Triangle as soon as Oars is awake.” 

Moira headed off down the hall, the fat doctor walked up to me. Instead of giving me an anesthetic he lifted a giant club and smacked me hard over top of my head. The first one didn’t take as I began cursing him through the gag. He hit me again. By the 3rd I was questioning his doctorate as I passed out.

—

I woke up with a start. Laying in a dingy cell there were a few other Straw Hats around me. Zoro sat against the wall, almost bored. Sanji leaned against the metal bar cell door. Usopp, Chopper, and Luffy were sound asleep as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Franky was playing a game of solitaire with some cards he had snuck in. As I sat up I noticed my restraints were now gone, but my head hurt like no one’s business. 

There were people I didn’t recognize around us. Sharing the large cell. They were all worse for wear. Most too tired to stand up they had apparently given up. Resigned to their fate, trapped inside the cells. 

“What did I miss?” I asked Zoro. 

“Got captured. That skeleton guy put us to sleep allowing the Moira guy to grab us…and our shadows,” Zoro said. I raised my arm up leaning toward a torch light. It was no longer there. My shadow was gone. I had hoped it was a bad dream, but that was all the proof I needed. My original goal had been to storm Thriller Bark. Making sure no one lost their shadows, but Brook’s compliance with Moira threw me off. 

“That’s what we get for bringing strange people onto the ship,” Sanji said. 

“Don’t be like that. I’m sure Moira made the bone guy do it,” I said. Yawning, I got up. My head splitting, it took time to get my bearings. I began to nudge the other 3 to wake up. 

“5 more minutes,” Luffy grumbled. 

“It’s dinner time,” I said. The captain’s eyes shot open. Sniffing deeply he coughed as he rejected whatever he smelled. 

“You liar, Weston! What is that awful smell!” Luffy said. 

“Shit,” I said. There was a corner that everyone was nice enough to use. “We got captured. Our shadows were stolen.”

“Oh no, like what happened to my skeleton friend!” Luffy said angrily. “I need to beat up that Moira guy.”

“Yes, you do,” I said. “Or we will never get a musician.”

“You can’t be serious,” Zoro said. “The guy betrayed us.”

“What? Nami did the same thing,” I reminded. “Just need to fix his problem. And we have a new crew mate.”

“Ugh,” Zoro said, annoyed. “Fine. How do you propose we do that?”

“Can you all shut the hell up?!” A voice yelled from further in the cell. We turned to see an older man with a deep scar across his chest. “Some of us are too tired to listen to you yelling.”

“What’s your problem?!” Luffy yelled. “We are trying to escape.”

“Good luck with that,” the old man scoffed. There were plenty of other men around him that appeared to agree. “You new guys. Always so full of piss and vinegar. We have been here for years. Do you have any idea what we are doing here? We are on the island ship Thriller Bark. Run by the Shichibukai Moira. Day in and out we are forced to row his ship. Thousands of us. All with our shadows taken. All with family on the outside. Just shut up. Resign yourself to it. You’ll never escape. And if you did there is no way you could beat Moira and his crew. Others have tried and died.”

Luffy ground his teeth. “That sucks that you’re stuck here,” I said. “But we aren’t. We are here by choice.”

“Ha! By choice?” The old man asked. The others in the cage joined him in the laughter. “Do you have any idea what Moira does with your shadows? He puts them into zombies. To give them life. All thanks to his shadow powers he takes our opportunity to stand in the sun. Then powers his own army of undead.” He pointed to a very bandaged up zombie just outside of the cell. Watching us numbly. 

“Thanks for the backstory there, old dude,” I said walking to the barred door. The zombie was bandaged to hide the scars from when Hogback put the body together. 

“Luckily we know the weakness of these zombies,” I said, pulling out the Jitte and channeling chakra through it. “Once we get you all out. I expect that you leave the treasures of Moira to us. You know, because you obviously don’t care to fight.” 

Seawater leaked out of my blade into the mouth of the zombie. Unnoticed. Then when enough salt water was absorbed into the body the black shadow spit out of the zombie. It shot out and went right to one of the men in the cell. 

Everyone stood there shocked for a moment. The man cried happy tears as his shadow reentered his body. The people around exclaimed their surprise as he began to cast a shadow once more. 

“If you put salt into the zombies. They are no longer able to hold the shadow,” I said. It didn’t make sense but I remembered that much. I was sure there was enough salt in my seawater, so I risked it. That or because the shadow skill was from a devil fruit it couldn’t hold up against seawater like devil fruit powers couldn’t.

I used the stream of water from my blade to pull the zombie body over. Grabbing the keys at his belt I reached around the cell door. Opening it for all to escape. 

“Prison break,” I said, but instead of cheers we were met with groaning from those in the cells. “What?” 

“I literally just said, it is no use escaping!” The old man yelled. “You still have to go up against Moira, his lieutenants, and the zombies they have attached all of our shadows to. That’s hundreds you need to go up against. Not to mention Moira. He is a Shichibukai. He had a bounty of 320,000,000 berries before the government made him a sanctioned pirate.” 

“Oh, then I guess you should meet our captain,” I said pointing to Luffy. “He has a bounty of 300,000,000 berries.” That surprised more than a few of them. Luffy gave his best smile, all teeth as he walked over to the door beside me. 

“Weston, what’s the plan?” Luffy asked. 

“Why do I have to come up with the plan?” I asked. 

“That’s all you do is plan,” Luffy said, like it was obvious.

“Fine, I woke up when they removed my shadow,” I admitted. “Got the lay of the land a little. Moira is done collecting shadows. He is going to be taking the ship from the Florian Triangle.” 

“What” “No” “That can’t be” The other people from the cell moaned and groaned. 

“Yep, that’s what I heard,” I said bluntly. “Sanj,i you should know, Robin and Nami were taken by a lieutenant that can turn invisible. He said that the girls were his new brides. I’m sure they can fight against him, but I think he might be a pervert. You’re the only one that can fight him.” 

“What?!” Sanji asked angrily. The cigarette in his mouth turned to ash as he sucked it in with one breath. “I will find them,” he said and was out the door without any prompting. The sound of fighting soon escaped down the hall. 

“That was easy,” I noted. “Guys, all we really have to do is fight everything that’s not a zombie. Free the other people here. And every zombie you meet throw salt in their mouths. Anyone know where a kitchen is?” I asked the others. A few raised their hands. “We get salt, and just start beating everything up. Moira is strong though. And his zombies are strong as well. So be careful.” 

“Franky, find the ship. Chopper, there is a doctor Hogback who is making the zombies, see if you can find him. Usopp, there is a girl with pink hair. I need you to beat her up.” 

“What? Why me?” Usopp asked, scared. 

“Trust me, you’re the only one that can. Zoro, just start killing zombies. Luffy, start beating people up.”

“What are you going to be doing?” Luffy asked. 

“I’m going to find our musician and get him back on our side,” I said. I had a quest to complete.