A Fun Time, Not A Long Time: Skull Island 1.2 (ch. 2) (Patreon)

"This isn't working," Mikasa half snarled at me while the fairy, Tinkerbell, I found out after a long session of charades, viciously mocked her from my shoulder. "Explain it again," she demanded, her tone so calm it was pretty easy to tell that she was pissed off.

I coughed lightly in my hand, casting a look at Tinkerbell, who once again went through a series of motions and left me to interpret. Nodding to myself, I looked at Mikasa and Kim, both on the ground while I lazily hovered a good five feet above them. "It's about belief. The fairy dust lets you ignore the rules a bit, so you just have to believe that you can fly. It's easy once you get the hang of it."

Kim frowned deeply, "What rules?"

"The rules of the universe! In this case -- 'what goes up must come down' or 'humans can’t fly.' That's just quitters talk that the world is trying to shove down your throat. Mikasa, Kim -- the two of you can fly. You just have to believe that you can," I repeated for what felt like the tenth time this morning. We ended up waking up near dawn, so we had only been doing this for like an hour.

The process was rather simple -- Tinkerbell would go over to them, sprinkle a pinch of fairy dust oin them, and the laws of physics could get fucked. I got it pretty much instantly. Literally in my sleep. But, the two below were having trouble grasping that mentality. I wasn't even sure how to put it in words beyond… I didn't care.

The world said I couldn't fly? Like I gave a shit, I'm gonna do it anyway. And I did, with a little help.

Mikasa and Kim's thinking was, well, too grounded in reality. Both seemed like smart girls, the kind of smart that let them understand the reasons why it was impossible to just take off and fly. I wasn't an idiot -- all evidence to the contrary -- but I always sucked at math. I'm pretty sure I was allergic to physics. And trigonometry. And numbers in general. However, that allergy was working in my favor.

Tinkerbell looked at me, her expression one of 'these people are absolutely useless.'

"Don't be like that, Tink -- they'll get it eventually," I said, my tone confident.

"And I still don't understand how you can understand her," Kim muttered, taking a deep breath, closing her eyes and putting on an expression of intense concentration-

"No, Kim. You can't force it. You have to want it, though," I interrupted, earning myself a frustrated glare. "Alright, how about this -- something that you want is just out of reach. You're on your tippy-toes, but if you just had one extra inch, you could totally grab it. Take that feeling and channel it. Don't think about it. Just do it," I coached, making Kim's lips thin. Her feet remained firmly on the ground, but to my surprise, the advice did Mikasa good.

Her feet slowly rose up off of the ground, her expression… gentle. Almost serene. She rose up to my height, and it was only when I reached out to stop her from bumping into me that she opened her eyes. She looked down in shock, just now realizing that she was flying. Mikasa started to overcorrect, feeling like she had to keep her balance, but I stopped her with a hand on the wrist.

"You're fine. No need to worry about balance or anything," I told her, letting her adjust. Kim looked like she had swallowed an entire lemon tree while Tinkerbell glowered at Mikasa for getting it. Seemed like she was a little possessive of me. Kim, on the other hand, seemed like she had some pretty high expectations of herself and she was becoming increasingly frustrated that she hadn't already gotten it yet.

Which wouldn't help her.

Floating down and leaving Mikasa in the air to get her bearings, I landed behind Kim. "Kim, I know you can get this. Now, take in a deep, deep, deep, breath," I told her, resting my hands on her shoulders. She was incredibly tense, but she did ease up a bit at my touch instead of the other way around. "Hold it. Now, let it out. And again. And again. And again."

"This is stupid," Kim muttered, her tone sour.

"It is," I agreed with her. "But stupid isn't bad. It's not wrong," I told her. Telling her to embrace the stupid would be the wrong approach. Instead, I had to hype her up. "Kim, I've known you all for a day and I can see that you aren't the kind of person that lets anything get in your way. You got this. You know you got this. All that's left is actually doing it. So, do it," I told her and…

I was awesome at motivational speeches because, after that, Kim began to float upwards. It was a stilted and halted thing. She even began to drop down after riding up a few inches, but when I reached out, lightly grabbing her hand, Kim began to fly up with me. When we were level with Mikasa and Tinkerbell, Kim opened her eyes to see me grinning at her. "Told ya'," I remarked smugly.

Mikasa offered a small curt, but approving nod. Tinkerbell, on the other hand, looked at where I was grabbing Kim's hand and wore an expression that could best be summarized as 'Bitch, I will fucking cut you.'

"Yeah, you did," Kim admitted, looking like she was still a bit shaky.

"Alright, now, you two fly ahead. I'll follow," I instructed, flying upwards above the trees with the others. Skull Mountain was a daunting sight -- a literal mountain with no shortage of steep cliffs between us and it. It would have taken us days to reach the mountain. Maybe longer, even though the island didn't seem particularly big. However, with the power of flight, the obstacles between us were trivialized.

Mikasa looked faintly puzzled while Tinkerbell clung to my cheek like glue, glowering at Mikasa and Kim. Neither of whom noticed. "Why…?"

"I mean, I can take point if you're that desperate for an upskirt view," I pointed out, gesturing to my leaf-based clothing. Surprisingly, Mikasa's cheeks colored a fraction with a blush while Kim coughed into a fist. "If not, then lead the way. I'll just follow you two," I decided, gesturing for them to take off. And they did, gently floating forward towards the mountain. It wasn't a fast pace, honestly, it was pretty slow, but it was still faster than it would be if we had been stuck climbing up every cliff.

Flying, I quickly decided, was my new favorite thing. I watched the thick canopy of trees below give way to more rocky terrain. I watched a flock of birds lazily fly above in the bright blue sky without so much as a hint of a cloud. And, as far as I could tell, there was nothing but ocean for miles and miles. No hint of a ship, or a plane, or anything.

Tinkerbell seemed to bask in the fact that I was enjoying myself, and as we flew closer to Skull Mountain. Mikasa and Kim were gaining more confidence, so the speed picked up. I was pretty sure I could go faster, but I let them set the pace while Tinkerbell rubbed her cheek against mine while trying to hug my face.

A trip that would have taken days was cut down to a short thirty minutes as we finally reached the mountain. Mikasa decided that going through its gaping maw was the best choice, and Kim was quick to follow her. The mouth was more of a massive cavern with stalactites and stalagmites acting as long pointed teeth under two burning eyes. The interior of the cavern was noticeably warmer, and it didn't take long to see why.

Skull Mountain was an active volcano. There were lines of magma boiling under a cracked surface of hardened stone. Way in the back, there was an active pool of the stuff, but it was way far back.

What I didn't expect to see were… supplies?

"We aren't the first ones here," I observed rather unnecessarily. There was something of a makeshift camp within the mouth of Skull Mountain -- a handful of tents, a rough looking table, and what looked to be the beginnings of a work camp. The signs of other people was a welcome surprise, but I couldn’t bring myself to be happy about it. Not when I floated over to a table to see a thick layer of dust on it. The table was set for the most part, a couple of cups and plates were on the floor with animal bones scattered about, telling me that animals had eaten what was left of the meal.

“This is about fifteen years' worth of dust,” Kim offered, looking at some crates that were stacked up near the half-finished hull of a ship, brushing off spider webs with a hand.

I blinked, “That’s a pretty specific estimate.” I pointed out, making Kim go still for a moment before she offered a small shrug as an answer. Well, if she was right -- and I didn’t really have any reason to think that she wasn’t -- it meant that no one had been here in a while. A long while. I turned my gaze to the table again, this time sweeping a hand over its surface- “Ack!”

Both Mikasa and Kim looked at me as I sucked out a splinter in my finger before I looked down to the table. That was… “Be on the lookout for bodies,” I gave a warning, getting the splinter out. I knew what old blood looked like. The amount that was on the table wasn’t the kind you walked away from. “Don’t know how many people were here, but at least one of them went out in a bad way,” I informed, making Kim’s face scrunch up in a grimace.

“It might have been about food,” Mikasa offered, kicking over a barrel labeled RATIONS, revealing only crumbs left. The barrel itself was half rotted, breaking on impact, kicking up a plume of dust. She looked around, “I don’t see any corpses.”

“Animals?” I offered, looking under the table to see nothing. Frowning to myself, I started to float upwards, trying to get a bird's eye view of the cavern. The hull was a target of interest. I saw a half dozen logs that were laid out near it, one of which showed signs of being worked on with makeshift tools. All of them were covered in dust or cobwebs, nothing touching them for years and years.

“Most likely,” Kim agreed, sounding disquieted by the possibility. “Do you see anything up there?” She asked, wisely choosing to not look up. Still was going commando, after all.

I was about to say no when I saw it. It would have been impossible to see without nearly touching the ceiling, but across the bed of magma that was sending up a pillar of smoke up, where it escaped from the eyes, was an outcropping. It was well hidden by stalactites, and with the smoke, I would have completely missed it if it wasn’t for the bright scraps of clothing. “Found something!” I shouted out, flying through the smoke after taking a deep breath.

When I neared, I saw that it wasn’t a something. It was a someone. Or, rather, it had been. A skeleton sat in the small outcropping, legs tucked up against its chest while its arms clutched something to its ribcage. Whoever it was, they had been here for a long, long time. Maybe longer than fifteen years. Squatting in from of the corpse, I gave it a once over, seeing bright pink scraps of clothing that seemed modern. I peered at it for a long moment, trying to decipher the gender, but there weren’t signifiers one way or the other. “You’re not going to wake up, right?” I asked the corpse, reaching out to give its skull a poke.

That just made the skull fall to the ground where it lazily rolled to my feet.

Reassuring, but still creepy. The body shifted to reveal two things. Around the spine was a familiar black band. The same kind of black band that was around my ring finger, and on Mikasa and Kim. Secondly, clutched to the skeleton's chest was a book. And old one with uneven pages that were stitched together. Reaching out, I took the black band that would have been a choker before taking the book. The action caused the skeleton to completely fall apart.

“Uh,” I began, feeling a little guilty. “I’ll give you a proper burial later, okay? So don’t go haunting me,” I told the corpse before floating back up and over the lava bed. Both Mikasa and Kim were waiting for me on the other side of it, Kim’s eyes lighting up when she saw the book. Likewise, Mikasa’s expression twisted when she saw the black band in my hand. “Found a dead body. It seemed old. Really old. Not sure what they died of, but they crawled up there and tried to hide from something, I think.”

Touching down on the ground, I cracked the book open while Tink took a seat on my ear, all of us peering down at the pages. The paper was handmade, I realized. The writing on them was made out of chalk with very loopy handwriting. The skeleton was a girl. I was certain of it.

Month 3 or 4

Finally managed to make paper. Took forever to convince everyone that it was worth the effort. If I’m being honest, it totally wasn’t but I don’t know what I would do without you Diary-kun! And I have so much to tell you too!

It’s been months now, but me and eight others found ourselves on this creepy island. Everything here is weird -- the animals, the bugs, and there’s even a freakin’ sea monster swimming around so we can’t even make a boat to get off! We all have these weird black accessories on too and we can’t take them off. I mean, I can pull off a choker, but I don’t want to for the rest of my life, you know?!

I was on a beach for days before Shinji-kun found me! He might seem a little wimpy, but he’s really reliable! He introduced me to all the others and they didn’t have more of a clue than I did. It’s been months and we still don’t know why we’re here.

We-

The rest of the page was marked with a red substance that made the text impossible to read. Blood, I realized, my lips pressing together into a thin line. My gaze flickered up to the others and blood was draining from Kim’s face. Mikasa, however, pressed her lips into a thin line. “Keep reading. We need to know what happened to them.”

I turned the page, and I was struck with a sense of… well… I wasn’t entire sure how to phrase it. I was reading a dead girl's diary. Her innermost thoughts. It felt like an invasion of privacy, even if it was necessary. The next few pages were filled with idle thoughts and some venting. We started to get names for the eight that had appeared on the island -- Shinji, Alan, William, Alim, Samantha, Helga, and Elizebeth. The only name we didn’t get was the owner of the diary.

Both the front and the back of the pages were filled. The girl seemed to understand that she had to get as much use out of the paper as she could, so she tried to fit as many entries into a single page as she could. Initially, every could of days there would be an entry, but after the first ten…

Month 4 Week 1

There were others that came before us. We had to relocate to another beach, and we found traces. They seemed old, though. They had some fishing gear, which came in handy, but they also had a weird fruit. Shinji, the idiot, decided that he would eat it.

He said it tasted disgusting but now he can make barriers. They’re invisible! He keeps shouting ‘Barrier’ like a little kid and he seems so happy with himself every time. It’s unbelievable.

“A fruit that gave powers?” Kim muttered, her brow furrowing. That sounded handy to have. We would need to keep an eye out for that.

“Keep going,” Mikasa instructed, and her expression was grave. It was as if she knew what the next pages contained even before she saw them. And, in hindsight, it was obvious. After all, that was one major shift in the power dynamics.

Month 5 Week 3

I don’t know what happened. Everything just went so wrong so fast. One second we’re all friends and now…

Alan is dead. Elizebeth is dead.

Will found one of those fruits and he ate it. I’m not sure when, but it wasn’t recently. He had too much practice with it. He came to camp and got in a argument with Shinji -- I’m not sure what they were even arguing about. The next thing I know, Shinji is on the ground bleeding and when Alan and Elizebeth went to stop him…

Samatha, Helga, and Alim all escaped into the forest with Shinji. He used his barriers to protect us on the way… but…

He’s going to die.

Month 5 Week 3

Will came to the mountain. Shinji’s holding the barrier to keep him out but we all know it’s only a matter of time before Will gets in.

Month 5 Week 3

Shinji died. Will got in. We fought back… he killed the others, but we killed him. He knows it. I can hear him screaming for me now. How he loved me. How Shinji took me from him. How he’s sorry. He’ll die. We made sure of that, but…

I’m dying, Diary-kun. Sorry for getting so much blood on you.

People came before us and I’m betting that people will come after. I hope they have better luck than we did.

I looked at the final entry for a long moment, my gaze going where the girl had bled out, writing down her last moments and thoughts to the only one left to hear them. Working my jaw for a moment, my gaze turned to the hull. “The diary didn’t mention them building a ship,” I observed and Kim’s expression pinched.

“You… think this happens regularly?” Kim ventured, earning a slow nod from me. The generation that we just read about barely managed to reach the mountain. They all died here. Some other generation, maybe the next one, managed to reach this mountain and start building a ship. Then something killed them.

“There are at least four generations of people showing up here that we know about -- the people that found the fruit that Shinji ate, the generation that wrote this journal, the people that came after them, then us,” I ventured, gently closing the journal. “She didn’t mention finding any corpses or black bands, but we know that they had them. So, we can assume that everyone that shows up does.” Which raised a whole lot of questions.

“And they all die here?” Kim pressed, and to that, I could only offer a shrug.

There was genuinely no way to tell. “Maybe it happens once a year or something, and the people before us got off the island,” I offered with a shrug. Kim didn’t seem to buy it and neither did Mikasa for that matter. “Either way, we have some serious advantages over these guys. For one, I’m strong enough to take on the wild life here,” I said puffing out my chest. “And secondly… we have Tink. We can just fly over the wilderness.”

Tinkerbell was preening. She floated before me, pressing her hands together and resting her chin on her interlocked fingers, fluttering her eyelashes at me. An expression that abruptly dropped when Mikasa spoke, becoming one of murderous intent.

"There were eight in total in the journal," Mikasa began. "Counting us, and the one that died, there could be three more people on the island with us. We need to find them quickly before anything happens to them." That was a very good point.

"Or they haven't shown up yet," I frowned. It could just be that Mikasa woke up later than Kim and I did, but given the circumstances, I wasn't sure if I bought that excuse. "We all woke up on beaches. Let's start there. Maybe we could get lucky and see what brought us here if it drops someone off."

Mikasa offered a curt nod while Kim let out a humorous laugh. "If we were lucky, I don't think we would be here in the first place."

Well, she wasn't wrong there. All the same, I gave her a lopsided smile. "Matter of perspective! We got an opportunity of a lifetime. No one said being lucky meant good luck, after all,” I said and I could see that Kim wanted to argue that point but chose to blow out a sigh. Walking over to the table, I set Diary-kun down. "One of us should stay here to search the place and see if there's anything usable."

"I'll stay and start foraging. We'll need something to eat," Kim offered. That sounded perfect to me. The only thing I've eaten in the past two days is berries. The hunger pains weren't to the point I couldn't ignore them, but that would change soon enough.

"I'll take the North half of the island," Mikasa decided, closing her eyes for a moment before she lifted herself off of the ground. She was getting better with it. I watched her go, accepting the southern half of the island, but I lingered a moment. Glancing down at the black band, rolling it between my fingers, a question started to itch in the back of my mind.

They were connected to how we were here. The question was what did they do?

Gently resting it on the journal, I flashed Kim a smile. "We'll be right back. If you see anything, just shout or fly away," I said, and she just waved me off. She could take care of herself, and she seemed confident in that fact.

With Tinkerbell on my shoulder, I took off, leaving Skull Mountain and flying high above the trees. Looking at it now, the island seemed that much more sinister. How many people came before us? How many managed to get off the island? How many of us were currently on it? The questions were worth thinking about, but I didn't expect to find any answers as I headed towards the beaches on the southern edge of the island.

On the first beach that I visited, I saw traces of human activity. A bunch of branches, a pile of vines that were used to make rope… this was ship-guys beach, I realized. I thought he might have gone straight for building a raft, but when I hovered near a tree that was marked… "This guy was here for a week?" I muttered, frowning to myself. Turning around, I looked out at the ocean to see the massive fin that belonged to the sea monster that circled the island.

With a sigh and a shake of my head, I moved on after making a mental note to come back for the vine-rope. It could come in handy. Floating back up above the treeline, it was as I was flying to another beach that Tinkerbell's attention snapped in a direction. She immediately tried to hide the reaction, and pouted when she saw that I noticed anyway. "See something?"

With a pout, Tinkerbell pointed to her ears. She heard something. Then, however begrudgingly, she pointed in the direction that she heard it. With no better leads, I banked towards the forest. Tinkerbell had a lot better hearing than I did because it wasn't until a solid minute later that I heard a faint echo of… music?

Speeding up, the tree tops blurred underneath me until I caught a glimpse of a small clearing at the edge of a rocky hillside. And there…

"A concert?" I whispered in awe at the unexpected sight.

Around the clearing were a bunch of monkeys -- dozens upon dozens of them that were all hooting and hollering as they danced by stomping their feet and throwing their arms in the air like they just didn't care. That was a sight and a half of its own, but what really got my attention were the two figures that had their backs against the cliff side.

One was a pink haired girl that was absolutely shreddingspreading on a guitar, dressed in a pink tracksuit. There was even a small aAmp that her guitar was plugged into, which broadcasted the music over the dancing monkeys. She was pretty good. She was playing her heart out, like her life depended on it… and based on the bullets that she seemed to be swearing, that might be the case.

Behind her was another girl. The other girl had a dark mane of black hair tied up in a high ponytail. Her black band seemed to be a choker, like Mikasa. She was pretty -- high cheekbones, narrow jawline to a pointed chin. Her clothing was pretty revealing since it amounted to two red straps over her double D breasts, leaving her flat stomach exposed, and a short yellow mini skirt. She played on a drum set at a much more subdued pace.

I didn't recognize the song that they were playing. Actually, I think they might be playing two entirely separate songs over one another.

Touching down on the ground, the monkeys were hollering and dancing and they didn't notice me joining them. I was splashed by a coconut that was cracked open before a monkey gulped the rest down. Another was beating his chest and it sounded like he was singing along. Metal heads, I realized.

These monkeys were metal heads.

"Yeah!" I cheered, joining in on the celebration. There was a moshpit forming and the crowd was getting so loud that it almost got hard to hear the music, but none of the monkeys seemed to care. There were all types in the crowd -- chimpanzees, which technically weren't monkeys, but whatever. Macaques, mandrills, baboons, orangutans, and there was even a monkey with a glorious flowing beard. They didn't seem to notice me as I joined in on the dancing, throwing my arms in the air cheering.

Eventually, I found myself making my way to the front of the crowd, a coconut and a banana in hand. "Wooooo~!" I cheered, taking a big bite out of my banana while a bunch of monkeys copied my cheering. That, however, drew the pink girls notice. This entire time, she has been looking down at her guitar as she played, and she only looked up when she heard me cheering. Her blue eyes met mine…

"Ah-" a strangled gasp escaped her, her fingers going abruptly still. Her pale face slowly turned scarlet with such intensity that I thought steam was about to erupt from her ears.

"Stage fright?" I asked, the monkeys all suddenly stopped dancing and cheering, and they just now seemed to notice me as I chewed on another mouthful of banana.

In response, the pink haired girl exploded. Not like a watermelon hit by a hammer, but more of a balloon popped by a needle. There was even an audible bang as the wind seemed to rush out of her, the guitar falling where she stood while a stray breeze picked the deflated outline of the girl up and began to carry her off.

"B-Bocchi!" The black haired girl cried out, quickly giving chase to Bocchi.

"That was weird," I decided, sparing a glance at the instruments they were leaving behind. Where did they get them, I wondered? My gaze went to the back of the black haired girl to see her pulling out a butterfly net from her chest and trying to catch Bocchi with it. My jaw dropped at the sight, but I wasn't given any time to ponder before I felt a huge hairy hand being placed on my shoulder.

Looking over, I saw it was an orangutan that was being flanked by the crowd of party goers. All of them glaring at me with a silent accusation.

'Killjoy.'

And so it would seem such a crime was punished by death in the primate world.

Smiling, I tossed the peel of my banana over my shoulder. "Bring. It. On! Hahahaha!"

The monkeys roared right back at me as the concert became a brawl and everything became pure chaos.

I don't know what this island was… but goddamn, was I happy to be here.

...

Since it was causing some confusion, I edited the build a little bit. Wasn't much, but here it is: [spoiler]

Starting World: One Piece

Starting budget 225

Walked-In as Acnologia of T8 -0 [225]

Heritage

Under Jolly Roger -60 [165]

Bindings

Tempest Jewelry -10 [155]

Basic Tempest Runes -10 [145]

Lures

Sticky Fingers -5 [140]

Zenryoku Zenkai -20 [120]

Home Perks

Pocket Space -5 [115]

Talents

Athletic free [115]

Martial free [115]

Performance free [115]

Covert free [115]

Template Stacking I x2 [Acnologia has Yoriichi Tsugikuni (Kimetsu no Yaiba/Demon Slayer), Acnologia (Fairy Tail)] -60 [55]

Soul -10 [45]

Defenses

Stress -5 [40]

Defenses discounted for retinue members +5 [45]

Misc Perks

Sexual Calibration -2 [43]

Companions bought -43 [0]

Takemi Tae(T2)[buy] from Shin Megami Tensei

Higashiyama Kobeni(T4)[buy] from Chainsaw Man

Mikasa Ackerman(T3)[buy] from Attack on Titan

Gotou Hitori (Bocchi-chan)(T1)[buy] from Bocchi the Rock!

Kimberley Possible(T3)[buy] from Kim Possible

Yaoyorozu Momo/Creati(T4)[buy] from My Hero Academia

Tinkerbell(T4)[buy] from Disney

[/spoiler]