One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #143

After what felt like an hour of wandering aimlessly, Gale decided he must’ve been walking toward the “center” of the island. At least, that’s what he told himself, since with all this fog he could’ve just as easily been pacing in circles like some idiot looking for a bathroom in the dark.

Still, progress was progress.

The mist thinned just enough for him to actually see more than two feet in front of his face. That was a win. No more tripping over every goddamn root, rock, and shrub this cursed place threw at him.

“About time,” Gale muttered, swiping at a cobweb clinging to his hair. “Another hour of that and I’d start tearing shit up.”

He trudged into a small clearing when his Observation Haki suddenly flared. A spark of presence, small but fast, shot straight at him.

Gale’s body reacted before his brain did. He spun, hand darting out—just in time to catch something lunging from the fog.

The creature let out a high-pitched howl and started clawing at his hand like a wildcat on sugar. Its little nails raked furiously against his skin, but Gale barely felt it. He frowned and casually hardened his arm, letting the scratches bounce off while he got a better look.

Green skin. A face twisted into a permanent scowl. Black patches of fur sprouting across its cheeks and jaw. A hooked nose that could spear a fish, and two fangs poking so far out of its mouth Gale wondered how it could even close it.

The thing wore crude hides tied around its torso, like a caveman who’d lost a fight with a thrift store.

Gale blinked. Then, flatly, “...A goblin?”

He tilted his head, studying it as it snarled and writhed in his grip.

On second thought, it wasn’t your average fairy-tale goblin.

The shaggy fur patches gave it more of a “Neanderthal chic” vibe. Like some poor evolutionary reject that got kicked out of the caveman club for being too short and decided to cosplay as folklore instead.

Scratching the back of his head with his free hand, Gale muttered, “No, no… this is more like a goblin caveman. A cave goblin.”

The creature snapped its jaws at him, teeth clicking inches from his knuckles.

Gale gave it a bored look. “Yeah, yeah, scary. Congratulations, you’re uglier than the last hundred things I’ve punched.”

...

Gale sighed, holding the wriggling little freak up at eye level.

“So, Mr. Cave Goblin—” he shook it a little for emphasis, “—you wouldn’t happen to know where I am and how to get the hell out of here, do you?”

The goblin answered with more shrieks, spit, and furious scratching. Not exactly the most cooperative tour guide.

Gale’s eye twitched. “Yeah, that’s about what I figured. Guess Rosetta Stone didn’t offer a ‘Cave Goblin’ language course.”

He was just about ready to start smacking the thing around when his Observation Haki flared like a fire alarm. More presences—dozens maybe—closing fast from the fog.

“Ah, hell.”

Without hesitation, he slammed the goblin into the dirt like a sack of potatoes. The impact cracked the ground and sent a shockwave that briefly parted the fog in a radius around him.

The creature let out one last shriek, clawed weakly at his wrist, then went limp. Unconscious.

“Don’t say I never tucked you in,” Gale muttered, dusting his hands off.

He barely had time to straighten before another shape burst out of the fog, screeching with teeth bared.

“Persistent little shits—”

Gale’s fist met the creature mid-air, snapping its head back and sending it careening across the clearing until it slammed into a tree trunk. The wood rattled, leaves fell, and the thing collapsed in a heap.

For a second, Gale thought that would be the end of it. No such luck.

The goblin groaned, pushed itself up on shaky legs, and limped toward him again. Its body swayed like it could topple at any second, but its eyes still burned with feral aggression.

Gale frowned. “Okay… points for dedication. But also, holy shit, take a nap. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

His haki flared again—two more signatures closing in fast.

Before he could even turn, something slammed into his back. Claws dug at his shoulders, gnashing teeth snapping at his neck. Another one clambered onto his arm, snarling in his face like a rabid dog.

Gale growled through clenched teeth, staggering as the weight bore down on him. “Oh, fantastic. A dog pile. Just what I needed today.”

...

Gale sat like a bored king on a throne of misery—except his throne was a writhing pile of ugly, green-skinned, fur-patched freaks, and his “crown, more like a chair cover,” was a cloak that now weighed about as much as a cart loaded with bricks.

The little bastards thrashed beneath it, wiggling and screeching, eager to break free and, presumably, break something of his.

He leaned his cheek on one hand, unimpressed. With the other, he dangled one of the creatures by the scruff of its neck. More specifically, the one he’d punched into a tree earlier.

Moments ago, the thing looked like it was one stubbed toe away from death’s door. Now? Fit as a fiddle. Fit enough to shriek its horrible banshee-voice while clawing at Gale’s face.

Its stubby arms stretched desperately, claws swiping the air just short of his nose.

“Persistent little bastard, aren’t you?” Gale muttered, pulling it back slightly so it couldn’t scratch his stubble off. “Couple minutes ago you were coughing up blood, now you’re screaming in my ear like a drunk karaoke singer. What are you, the goblin equivalent of Wolverine?”

The thing screeched harder, spit flying. Gale grimaced, tilted his head away, and muttered, “Yup. Wolverine goblins. Gonna put that on your species résumé.”

He flicked the creature on the forehead just to watch it squirm harder.

Underneath him, the pile of goblins writhed, making the cloak ripple like some nightmarish waterbed. Gale sighed. “Great. I’m sitting on a heap of feral stress balls. What the hell is my life?”

The longer he stared at the one in his hand, the more questions started piling up in his head. What the hell were these things? Why did they heal like someone was speedrunning biology? And where in all the blues was he?

His jaw clenched as he glanced at the wall of fog pressing in from all sides again. He could barely see beyond the wriggling pile.

“Fog. Of course it’s fog,” he muttered bitterly. “Why wouldn’t it be fog? Because God knows I don’t have fog PTSD already.”

He spat the next words like venom. “Thanks, Blight. Really appreciate the gift. Now every time I see a cloud I wanna hit something with a stick.”

The goblin shrieked again. Gale looked at it, narrowed his eyes, and muttered, “Don’t test me. We're in a forest... at least I think we are... the point is, there's plenty of sticks!”

The goblin shrieked in his face again, hot spit flecking across his cheek. Gale just stared at it, deadpan, jaw working like he was chewing invisible gum.

“…you really don’t know when to quit, huh?” he muttered.

He held it there for another full minute, glaring into its ugly little scowling mug, waiting for—what? Some spark of intelligence? Some acknowledgment that he wasn’t just holding the world’s angriest rubber chicken?

Nothing. Just more screeching. More scratching. More sheer determination to claw his eyes out.

“Right,” Gale finally sighed, shoulders slumping. “Y’know what? I don’t care anymore. Not my circus. Not my wolverine goblins.”

And with all the ceremony of tossing out a piece of trash, he wound his arm back and hurled the creature into the endless, soupy fog. Its screech trailed away until it vanished, swallowed whole by the mist.

Gale exhaled through his nose, picked up his cloak, and started stomping before the creatures could screech FREEDOM.

One kick. Thud. A goblin went sailing off into the void.

Another kick. Thud. Another vanished, their shrieks fading into nothing.

It became a rhythm—kick, thud, scream, silence. Like some deranged game of goblin soccer.

By the time he was done, the clearing was empty, not a green face or patch of fur in sight.

He swung his cloak back onto his shoulder, dusted his hands like the job was done, and turned on his heel to keep walking into the fog.

“You’re not even worth a one-liner,” he added flatly, like a man who’d already spent his daily quota of patience three hours ago.

And with that, he walked away, swallowed up once again by the white void.