Law heard the pig mount's words and just sighed as he activated his room ability. And with a circular 360 swing of his sword, all the surprised zombies froze, only to collapse on the ground a second later, bisected in half.
"Bepo..." Law muttered as he turned to the polar bear mink, gesturing with his chin, and Bepo understood the assignment as he started pouring slat into the bisected zombies' throats.
However, Law moved towards the mounted pig head before Bepo could administer the salt, stepping on its head as he pulled it from the wall into the ground.
"We've already searched everywhere, but we didn't find Hogback's lab. Where is it?" Law demanded, increasing the pressure on the mounted pig's head while waving a bag of salt in front of it.
"I don't know how you people know about our weakness, but I ain't telling squat, Buhihihi," the mounted pig head replied, defiantly laughing as it glared at Law.
"Go ahead and purify me. Lord Moria will bring me back to life once he turns you all into obedient zombies!" the pig mount concluded, a smug expression on its face.
However, a loud rumbling noise from the fireplace's direction caused the pig mount's satisfied expression to turn into one of horror. The mounted pig head turned to look at the fireplace and squealed in surprise at the sight of Doc standing in front of the demolished wall behind it.
"Why are you acting so surprised, little piggy?" Doc asked with a chuckle, raising an eyebrow as he noticed the pig head's horrified expression.
"Even an idiot would notice this fireplace is too clean with no soot or ash on its walls," Doc added, dismissively waving his hand to the side.
"It was only a matter of knocking on it a couple of times to realize there was a passage behind it," he concluded, shrugging his shoulders.
The pig head tried to retort. However, it couldn't as Law kicked its head towards Bepo. The polar bear mink acted quickly, pouring a bag's worth of salt into the pig head's mouth and stepping back to watch the black shadow inside it fly away.
"Let's get going," Doc remarked as he stepped into the secret passage behind the fireplace, Law and Bepo following right behind him.
...
"Hm? What's that?" Elly remarked, tilting her head to the side as she looked at a small flying, ghostly creature, flopping its limbs up and down as it stared down at the Black Pearl.
"That should be one of the Negative Hollows the captain warned us about, Miss Jones," Bob replied, standing beside her and twirling his mustache as he stared at the Negative Hollow.
"How much do I have to tell you to stop calling me Miss for you finally stop, bob?" Elly remarked, pouting and rolling her eyes at her former butler.
"My apologies, I won't do it again, Miss Jones," Bob replied, politely bowing his head, much to Elly's exasperation.
"Any is that thing tasty/strong?" Wilson and Domino, who weren't paying attention to Johnny's warnings, said in one voice, respectively, as they spotted the flying creature.
"By all means, there's nothing stopping you from finding out..." Bob replied, sending the duo a brief side glance, narrowing his eyes and looking into the distance.
Elly, confused by Bob's subtle action, turned to look in the same direction, and although it took her a moment, she spotted what the former butler was looking at just the same.
Elly quickly reached for her rifle, preparing to fire, but Bob put a hand on her shoulder, making her stop as she gave him a confused look.
"There's no rush. Give it a minute," Bob remarked, a crafty light flashing through his eyes as he turned to Domino and Wilson, who looked ready to lung at the Negative Hollow.
Elly immediately understood what Bob meant, and although she hesitated for a second, curiosity got the better of her. She let go of her rifle as she expectantly turned to observe Wilson and Domino.
"Come to me, you delicious-looking morsel!"
Wilson was the first to make a move, turning into his Hybrid form. He lunged at the Negative Hollow with his massive maw, full of sharp teeth, opened wide as he tried to devour it in one go.
The Negative Hollow passed right through Wilson's head, and the four-armed gorilla was on his knees, projecting an all-encompassing aura of despair.
"I'm sorry I was born as a gorilla. I'm a shame to my primate ancestors! I should have been born as a dung beetle or something!" Wilson exclaimed, smacking Black Pearl's deck with his fists.
"Aren't you happy you waited? We got to see something interesting because of it," Bob said in a clearly amused tone, twirling his mustache as Wilson recovered from his depression.
Wilson, who got to his feet with a beet-red face, heard Bob's words and immediately flew into a rage, lunging at the cook and grabbing him by the collar.
"What did you say just now, shitty mustache?! Repeat it! I dare you!" Bob exclaimed, proceeding to shake back and forth to vent his rage.
"I'm sorry..." Bob calmly said, much to Wilson's confusion, causing the four-armed gorilla to scoff and let go. "I'm sorry I wasn't born as a dung beetle..." Bob added, looking at Wilson with the most obnoxious, mocking expression possible for a human being.
"You bastard, I knew you'd say something like this," Wilson exclaimed, punching Bob's face. The former butler retaliated, and the two were quickly in an all-out brawl, beating the living crap out of each other.
"Men..." Elly muttered, rolling her eyes as she reached for her rifle, aiming at the pink-haired girl standing on Thriller Bark's shore, watching the happenings on the black pearl through a spyglass, clearly amused by what she saw.
Elly smiled as the pink-haired girl turned to look at her, their eyes meeting. The pink head immediately panicked as she realized what was about to happen. However, it was too late.
Elly quickly fired, sending the bullet flying right towards the girl's forehead, and it hit, creating a loud bang and yellow flash. Though the bullet was nonlethal, it worked just fine in knocking the poor girl out as she shrieked a strangely familiar scream that reverberated all across Thriller Bark.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH?!"
...
"Did you guys hear that? I wonder who keeps screaming like that, and what the hell is happening to them..." Byron asked as he stopped at the end of the chain leading to the mainmast.
"Who cares? We have more important things to worry about right now," Kozue replied, shaking her head and gesturing for Byron to make haste.
"I know, I know, it's just..." Byron replied, suddenly freezing as he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to see a man wearing a white, traditional geta, a purple waste cloth with light blue patterns on his waste, standing there while holding a katana.
"Your beautiful companion is right. You have to worry about me too now, yohohoho," the man spoke, laughing like Brook. However, his laugh was remarkably colder, lacking the warmth and humor in the cheerful skeleton's laugh.
Byron carefully looked at the man and noticed his rotten face, empty eye sockets, the many bandages covering his boney face that was not but bone, and rotted yellow skin.
"Hey, Brook, isn't that...? Byron exclaimed, suddenly freezing as both the zombified man and Brook appeared infront of him, cane-sword and katana locked as they glared at one another through their empty eye sockets.
"It's been a while, humming Brook..." the zombie leisurely remarked, slightly smiling as he jumped backward, light as a feather, landing on his feet and brandishing his katana to the side.
"It has been a while indeed, Ryuma..."
...
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