Chapter 76

Cross-Brain AN: We know everyone's anxious to know where Cross got Paw-Paw'd to, so we just want to assure you that Cross will be making an appearance in this chapter.

Also, on a less likely-to-be-trolling note, we already said this once, but clearly not enough people paid attention, so let's say it again to our reviewers on FFN: if you ask a question and want an answer? Create an account so we can give it.

"GIVE ME—GRRGH!—BACK—YEARGH!—MY FLASHY CHOPS—WA-A-ARGH!—STRAW HAT!"

Buggy's indignant demands fell on deaf ears. Luffy, busy hopping around in a series of acrobatics that would put an entire circus to shame, instead cheekily shook the duffel bag into which he had crammed Buggy's entire body sans head, hands, and feet after the clown's decision to not just tempt fate but challenge its manhood. It was helping him ignore his first instinct of beating him within an inch of his life.

It also doubled as a way to get a decent look at his surroundings so he could look for a way down. And possibly find a certain okama, though Bentham's absence from this floor was one change Cross had mentioned being almost certain about.

Though… while he bounded around, something in the landscape tickled his mind. Alabasta had given him a lifetime's experience in what a desert felt like. The heat was there. The sand was there. And the mirages were there, he could see the walls moving and everything.

Or were they?

Luffy landed, and rather than bound off again, he walked toward a hazy patch of air, Buggy in close pursuit and Galdino struggling behind them. He reached out his hand…

Sssss! "AAGH!"

And jerked back as though he had been burned. Because he had, consequently finding out the hard way how the Starvation Hell had been revamped: it didn't just look like the cells were moving in the distance—!

"Guys!" Luffy barked, spinning around. "Be careful, the walls are—!"

Luffy's words lodged in his throat at the blank wall not three feet behind him. Acting fast, Luffy jerked forward, shoulder-checking his way clean through the wall. The rubber-man swung his arm out to wave away the dust cloud. All he found was an entirely new set of desiccated cells full of the husks of prisoners, and nary a clown or 'artiste' in sight. Not even any sounds to guide him, either, just the dry howling of the infernal winds and the souls lost on them.

Luffy blinked as he took it all in, particularly the renewed struggling of Buggy's pieces in his bag.

"Well… crap."

-o-

Much like the Crimson Hell, the Eternal Hell of Impel Down had been passed over for upgrades, and for the same reason: with the kind of prisoners kept there, it was an unnecessary expense on top of the already expensive upgrades to the rest of the prison. A complete lack of mention of the sixth Hell in the SBS broadcasts had neatly kneecapped any further argument. If nobody knew the level existed, and the only thing that could intimidate the prisoners within was Magellan's poison, then what was the threat?

And that small number of prisoners not intimidated by the Warden's might shrank further in the face of the world's most beautiful woman stepping into their line of sight. The Eternal Hell's usual silence found itself shattered into a cacophony of catcalls, jeers, and other masculine crudity as Hancock's procession wound its way through the corridors.

It was a familiar scene for Hancock, made mildly unfamiliar solely by the fact that the prisoners shouted obscenities even darker and more perverse than what she usually heard. The crudity issuing from just about every prisoner on that level was doing an excellent job explaining why they had been incarcerated there.

Just their misfortune that news of the BioMEGAs hadn't trickled down to forewarn them of how toxic Magellan's mood was. No, they learned that the hard way when some particularly suicidal idiot reached through the bars in a futile attempt to try and grope the most beautiful woman in the world.

Upon which Magellan doused his cell—and every cell in his general direction—with a wave of venom that left the prisoners writhing and howling in pain.

Actually, they weren't howling so much as screaming. A nasty fate, but at least their wails replaced the… utterances of before. Plus they were still alive and mobile, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Hancock glanced back and up at the Warden with a cocked brow. "I would thank you for that, but not even I am quite that sociopathic."

The venom-man's only response was a derisive snort. "My duty requires no thanks from you. What a foolish notion."

With that, the group proceeded in silence for a few minutes more, before coming to a halt before their destination.

At a glance, it looked like any other cell. But the lack of overt hostility from the captives was both obvious and made them stand out from the others on the floor. Well, most of them lacked any overt hostility. One of the men within, who she idly identified as the 'Maelstrom Spider' Squard, was giving the group with a glare that could peel paint.

As for the others, the only woman in the cell, 'Ice Witch' Whitey Bay, was earning her moniker with a cold, almost bored indifference. In contrast, the entire origin of this endeavor was paradoxically morose: slumped against the wall and hanging slack in his bindings, Portgas D. 'Fire-Fist' Ace was the picture of a defeated man, his spirit so snuffed he didn't even bother to look up at the witnesses to what were almost certainly some of his last hours.

But easily the most surprising of the prisoners was also the largest of them: the one who was staring evenly at the Wardens, Warlord, and Marine with an unflinching expression was a big blue fishman who almost looked fami—wait, what the hell?!

"Jinbe!?" Hancock breathed in shock, boggling at the chained and leering Whale Shark-hybrid. "What in Ouroboros's unending coils are you doing here?!"

The 'Knight of the Sea' shrugged with a clatter of chains. "I disagree as to the necessity of this farce. Call it a conscientious objection."

"He opposed the World Government's order to do his duty and fight for Justice, and this is his punishment," Magellan stated in an acidic tone (not that he had any other). "He has the next 24 hours to recant his decision, or his stay in this cell will become permanent."

"Then my stay in this cell will become permanent," Jinbe replied. "My 'Justice' will not weather murdering a friend to throw the world into chaos." He turned his unavoidably toothy expression on Hancock. "What about you, 'Empress'? What's your take on things?"

Hancock's eyes gave a split-second flick to her 'hosts'. Then she bared her teeth and raised her head to the point where she was showing her chin. "That I, unlike you, have my duty and responsibilities prioritized correctly. I shall do as I am required, I shall do it to the best of my ability, and I shall do it with pride!"

Jinbe's grin widened. "On that point, we can both agree."

"Enough."

The Snake Princess looked up to the source of the venomous order, a literally steaming Magellan who looked about ten seconds away from eating someone's liver raw. With no garlic.

"Boa Hancock. You have 60 seconds. I won't need any more than that to issue a reminder," the Chief Warden intoned, a violet sheen on his skin and the steam revealing itself to be a sickly green gas, prompting the rest of the party to discreetly shuffle away. Then he turned his gaze away from her and towards the rest of the cells. "And speaking of a reminder…"

And that's when things started to get loud again.

Satisfied that he and her watchers were distracted, Hancock stepped up closer to the cage and returned her attention to Ace, now staring at her as hard as Jinbe, Whitey Bay, and Squard were.

"…he's here."

Ace's eyes scrunched shut in an expression of pure misery, slumping down in his chains. Hancock's eyes narrowed in annoyance in response.

"Straighten yourself," Hancock snapped as softly as dared, even with the agonized screams of the surrounding prisoners covering her. "Both because if our watchers suspect anything we're all dead, and because no matter how this has come about, you are now responsible for his survival. So right now, two choices lie before you: you can give up and guarantee you both die, or prepare for when—when—he gives you the opportunity to flee. So, now you tell me."

She leaned in as near to the bars as she dared.

"What sort of person did Whitebeard raise? Someone with strength and will… or just a man?"

It wasn't the first time since waking in hell that someone had tried to provoke him with his captain. But it was the first time that it resulted in a reaction other than more depression: 'Fire-Fist' Ace raised his head and scowled at Hancock, a spark back in his eyes.

"Har har!" Whitey guffawed softly. "Good one, sister! I'd high-five ya, but as ya can see I'm a wee bit tied up at the moment, har!"

"I thought this floor was the one without torture…" Squard groaned.

Ignoring the byplay, Hancock's gaze turned to Jinbe. This time, no words were spoken. None were needed to determine where their loyalties lay. With that, she turned her attention back to her escorts. With her task complete, nothing could make her happier than to be outside again.

It was a matter of sheer good fortune that the only one near enough to possibly overhear Hancock was Tashigi, the other prison workers having scattered to avoid Magellan's Hydra. As the poison oozed away, leaving a handful of prisoners wishing they'd been fatally struck, she re-approached the poison-man.

"You have my gratitude, Warden." She smiled softly. "It's almost a pity that we're unlikely to ever meet again."

With some of his stress worked out, for a brief moment, the Warden's eyes turned to hearts. Then he gave himself a firm shake and turned away, leading the way back to the elevator.

"…though I will say. Puns appear to be an effective torture method even for these criminals."

That made him stop, tense. But after a few moments, he shook his head again and kept going.

"Even we have standards, Empress."

Hancock nearly chuckled, moving to re-enter the elevator…

!

When suddenly she froze, a slight shiver passing over her frame.

"What. Was that?" the Snake Empress bit out, her voice tense and taut and close to a snap.

"…nothing you need concern yourself with," Magellan slowly ground out, his fists clenching and unclenching nervously at his side.

Unseen by the rest of the group, he turned his head slightly so that he could look at a cell. A single cell, innocuous, normal, except for its prisoner. The prisoner, sitting on a bench in the dark. A prisoner who hadn't said a single word, had barely even moved, in the entire time he'd been incarcerated.

A prisoner, whose head was now tilted back. Whose blank, dead eyes were staring straight up.

"Just a problem that we will handle," Magellan muttered as they left the Eternal Hell to its solitude.

-o-

Back in the Starvation Hell, Luffy sat on top of one of the larger dunes, sipping from a small barrel of water he had taken from his bag.

~o~

Right behind Vivi was Carue, who seemed unfazed by the hug Luffy gave her.

"Kind of wackwustah compawed to some of the othews, but you need watah to live. So to make suwe you stay hydwated, I'm putting in my pewsonal jug. Fiwwed to the bwim with genuine Yuba watah, just wation it wisely. Twust me, it's a bad idea to just guzzwe it aww."

Luffy nodded, his smile still in place. "Thanks, Carue." Then he added quietly, "She'll need you more than ever now. Take care of her."

The duck nodded in perfect understanding.

~o~

His face was scrunched up in thought, pondering what to do next. His first inclination was to just wander until he found somebody he could talk to, but that never worked. Well, it never worked in less than a few days, which he didn't have.

Unfortunately, he also had a dire lack of better ideas. Scrunching up his face even harder, Luffy flashed back to some of the lessons he'd overhead Robin giving Vivi and Conis. Most of what she'd said had flown right over his head, but the part about approaching a problem from a different angle had resonated.

"Alright," Luffy asked himself. "What would Zoro do?"

In his mind's eye, a chibi Zoro popped into existence, a bottle of indeterminate booze in his hand. The figure glanced both ways, before shrugging and turning left. Directly towards one of the cell blocks. And then through it with a few swings of his swords.

"Well, that's not helpful!" Luffy groused. "Hmm. What would Nami do?"

Chibi Nami popped into place, talking immediately. "Based on the blah blah of the blah, and the insert-technobabble-here, I have determined that the way down is this way!"

So declaring, Chibi Nami walked off in a random direction.

"Aww, that's even less helpful!" Luffy groaned, tugging at his hood. "Okay. One last try: What would Cross do?"

Chibi Cross poofed into view, a tiny Soundbite on his shoulder. Unlike the cheerful Nami and Zoro, the crew's third mate wore a disgruntled expression.

"Dammit, Luffy, I'm a figment of your imagination! You don't know where to go, so I don't know where to go! Now start wandering until your RNG gets better and something actually happens!"

"Man…" Luffy grumbled to himself as he dutifully started trudging, the heat beating down on him like his grandpa. "Even in my head, my crewmates are smarter than me. I mean, that's why I've got them, but it still stings. And I still don't know where to go, so I'm still lost…"

The rubber-man made it all of five steps before a thought occurred to him that froze him, leg raised mid-step.

"Of course!" he exclaimed, spinning around and smiling up at the cells surrounding him: more specifically, at the nooks on top of them. "I just need to do what I always do whenever I get lost: climb as high as I can and then jump down to wherever I'm going! It's genius!"

Had there been any other figments of Luffy's crew around, they'd have wobbled their hands with an ambiguous 'eh'. But, as there were not, Luffy took a run at the nearest cell, leaped for the roof of the building—!

THUNK! "ACK!"

And slammed into the wall instead when the building spontaneously grew an extra meter, taking Luffy's goal out of his reach. Rather than drop to the floor, however, the Monkey retaliated in the only appropriate way he knew.

CRUNCH!

With overwhelming force by digging his fingers in the stone to keep himself anchored.

The Straw Hat-in-chief looked up at the roof—and the floor in general—with a rebellious growl. "Oh, no, not this time. This time, I'm pushing this place around!"

So saying, the rubber-man heaved his arms and launched himself up and over the building's edge, immediately shooting to his feet and bolting to the summit.

Reaching it, though, was no easy feat. The entire floor veritably heaved in an effort to try and stop him. A pillar of cells abruptly jutted out from the side to block Luffy's path, the rubber man dropping to his knees and bending back near horizontal to slide under. And when, at the edge of the pillar he was on, another stack of stone shot up and kept shooting up, he leaped at it even harder and latched on again, this time riding the stonework up.

A ride that was quickly and rudely interrupted by a wooden beam attached to chains and bristling with spikes visibly swinging his way in his peripheral vision. He didn't immediately react, waiting for the right moment to leap off the pillar. His jump cleared him over the spikes and onto the chains, whereupon he immediately kicked off again and went slim between two stone turrets sliding together.

Which coughed him up right over a spiked pit that hadn't been there when he grabbed the chains.

"Whoa!" he yelped, flailing wildly. "Whoawhoawhoawhoa—!"

His flailing connected with the brickwork of the pit and he latched on for dear life, a mere foot above the gleaming blades. Breathing a sigh of relief, Luffy eyeballed the width of the pit. Nodding, he leaped across the void, jumped off the wall, and then repeated the action until his last bounce took him out of the deathtrap.

"Shishishi! That was pretty cool!" Turning, he noted that the prison hadn't shifted again despite the time spent in the pit. "Huh. Wonder why they haven't moved again?"

-o-

In the central command room for Level 3, one of the guards frantically doused a bank of consoles with a bucket of water. "Get work crews into the mechanisms with all the lubrication oil we have!" another barked.

"I told you moving entire cell blocks that fast would break something!" another snapped back from under a set of consoles.

"Shut it! Did you see that guy move? It was the only chance we had of nailing him! And what about the prisoners?"

"Tumble dry suuuucks…" came a groan from one of the intact consoles.

"We can check them after this whole mess is over, we don't have the manpower with Saldeath dealing with the break-in. As it is, I don't think any of them are going anywhere anytime soon."

"…Did you mean to use three 'anys' at once?"

"Shut up!"

-o-

Shrugging, Luffy said, "Oh well, mystery mechanisms."

With that, he decided to put as much distance between him and the pits—death pits, not ones that led deeper like he needed—by going back to his plan of getting as far off the ground as possible. He squinted to try to spy another wall through the heat haze… which sounded like meat filets… aaaand now he was getting hungry and Sanji was an ocean away. It was official, he now hated this even more than he'd had when this whole ordeal started.

The rubber-man promptly slapped his hands against his cheeks. Concentrate! Cell, chain, prisoner, cell, old man out of a cell, more chains… there! The heat haze was different there. He started to move towards it and was one leap away from embedding his pipe as an anchor before his mind caught up with him, and he looked back at the old man he had seen before.

While at this distance specific details couldn't be made out, Luffy was still able to pick out three important things: that he was wearing green and a horned helmet and not a striped jumpsuit, he was so ancient his limbs had more in common with twigs than human anatomy, and oh yeah, he was lying face-down on the sand, not moving.

Shaking his head, Luffy, looked back up toward his planned vantage point. He couldn't afford to stop and—

Yeah, no, he couldn't finish that thought. Heck, Luffy knew for a fact that the entire reason why he had Buggy and Candle-guy with him this time around was that he couldn't leave well enough alone the first time around. So, honestly, what was one more? With a final wave at the departing train of logic, Luffy leaped off the wall, angling his descent to touch down next to the insensate old man. There, he performed the sole medical technique he knew:

He poked the old man on his bearded cheek.

The old man stirred, a boney finger weakly twitching up as a muffled "'M not dead yet…" croaked through the sand.

Luffy let out a reluctant groan of frustration. "Which means I actually do need to save you. Don't take this the wrong way, but crap." He then cocked his head to the side in silent admission. "Still, at least this'll suck as much for you as it's gonna for me. Long-term, anyway."

So saying, Luffy hooked his hands under the geezer's shoulders, hoisted him up, and politely coerced him back to wakefulness.

"Wha-ha-ha-haaaagh!"

Which is to say that he shook the old coot like a ragdoll until he was groaning properly again.

"Stop the ride, I wanna get off…"

Satisfied, Luffy held the old man in front of him while his eyes stopped rolling in his head and came back into focus. They blinked, and then blinked again.

"Ah, hello… you're not a prison guard, are you?" the old man wheezed, though he seemed like he knew already.

"I'm an intruder," Luffy said, tugging down the cloth around his head to show his face. "You?"

"The same," the old man responded, shaking his head. "Monkey D. Luffy… I didn't think I could be surprised anymore." He frowned in confusion. "Actually, strike that: I'm not surprised that you'd do this, but I don't get why."

"Ace is my brother," Luffy said bluntly.

The old man's eyes lit up in shock, and then he began chuckling. It quickly devolved into a fit of coughing and wheezing, but he started it chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Luffy demanded, his tone one wrong answer away from outrage.

"O-Oh, nothing, nothing…" the old man wheezed, waving one hand while the other pounded his heart back into place. "J-Just amused… at the irony of it all. You see, that's the same reason that I came here. Let me introduce myself: I'm Byojack World, Co-Captain of the World Pirates."

The rubber-man blinked at the old man. "You're a captain? I honestly thought you were a corpse."

"Check again next week…" Byojack sighed in a resigned tone before shaking his head. "A-Anyway… like I said, I'm here for the same reason as you: My own brother and co-captain, Byrnndi, has been trapped in this hole for many years. It was before Roger's time, but he was one of the most powerful pirates out there! And we became pirates for the same reason that you did: we set out for adventure and brought down anyone who tried to stand in our way! But then…" The geezer's gaze expression collapsed into a sorrowful grimace. "Things… things went awry, and we… lost our way."

He shook his head. "A-Anyway, Byrnndi ended up getting captured, and I've spent the last 37 years trying to carry on without him. I love my brother dearly, but it always seemed like a pipe dream to be able to break him out of Impel Down." Byojack then grinned, exposing a patchwork collection of teeth. "Or it was, until your crew came along and destroyed Enies Lobby. After all, if a group of rookies like you could do that—no offense—"

"Offense? That's a compliment!" Luffy grinned.

"Heh, indeed—but as I said, if rookies could do that, then veterans like my crew could pull this off with the right information. Cost us a fortune on the black market, but we found someone with…" Byojack grimaced. "Disturbingly in-depth knowledge of the Government. As in, he gave us a blueprint to plan our assault. It wasn't perfect, a tad outdated—we didn't see this labyrinth coming when we broke in, it split me up from my crew—but it was enough that we made it inside."

Luffy blinked slowly. Normally, he'd let that information pass him by and move on. But anyone who knew more than Cross about this place was dangerous, and while he only knew the first thing about blueprints, that first thing was that they belonged to the builders. "That sounds..." he trailed off warily.

"Yes, I'm perfectly aware that this is all sketchy as sin," Byojack agreed. "Making a deal with a devil, much less one whose face and name I don't know was a drastic and risky move, but those are the moves you have to make if you intend to invade hell and succeed. No sacrifice is too great for my brother's freedom."

And that put Luffy's stirring dread to rest. Given the chance, he'd have done the same thing. And seeing as he currently was in the middle of doing just that—!

Luffy grinned and pumped his fist. "Shishishishi! Well, I need help and from the looks of things, so do you! Whaddaya say we team up?"

Byojack blinked at him in surprise, then grinned eagerly and tried to get up. The key word being 'tried', as his weathered muscles only managed to support him for a few quivering seconds before he collapsed back into the 'sand' (for lack of a less nauseating word) with a tired groan. "I… I'd love to, truly, but… that 'week' I told you about earlier might very well have been an overestimation. I…hurk…" He coughed up a cloud of 'dust'. "I truly feel… I'm at the end of my rope…"

So did Luffy, because he recognized the symptoms he was showing. "Aw, man, it's like Sabo's first jungle summer. Stupid heat." Kneeling down, he carefully hefted Byojack onto his back and directed the barrel of Yuba water towards him. "Make this last, okay? It's the only one I've got."

Byojack seized the barrel but paced himself, carefully downing a few swallows of water and looking much better for it.

"Bless you, Straw Hat," Byojack gasped, wiping his mouth off. "I can't thank you enough!"

"Shishi! You can thank me by navigating," Luffy replied.

"Of course, of course." Luffy heard something rustle and turned his head around to find Byojack digging out an equipment-laden Black Transponder Snail from his pack. "Just give me a bit to tune in, and Gladis and I can listen in on the guards' movements. Shouldn't be too hard to find the important locations."

"Whoa!" Luffy gasped, eyes sparkling. "You're just like my commie!"

"Who—oh, right, of course," Byojack chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Oh, I'm sad to say that my girl's nowhere near Soundbite's capabilities. But she does her job well enough." The snail preened happily under the praise. "Now, one moment…"

It took a few minutes of mystery listening and quite a bit of muttering that reminded Luffy of Franky or Usopp with a particularly tough engineering problem. Jeez, he missed them… Thankfully, Luffy was only just starting to get homesick when Byojack found something.

"Found a big cluster at 97 degrees," he declared.

"Cool!…What's that mean?"

It was then that Byojack, with a rather poleaxed expression, fully realized that he was dealing with Straw Hat Luffy. In other words, an idiot. So he dumbed it down.

"Go right, and keep going right. I'll put you back on the right track if we have to detour."

"Woo! Let's go!"

And with that, Luffy bolted off through the maze of dry and 'dusty' buildings in the blink of an eye!

Before running back just as fast, sheepishly scratching the back of his hood. "Aheheh… whoops? Uh, how are you…?"

"Oh, just let me ride on your back and I'll be fine and dandy!" Byojack replied with an easy laugh. "And don't worry for my sake, I'm used to it! My brother's easily ten times taller than you are! And only half again as smart too!"

"Shishishi! Sounds like my kinda guy, I'm sure we'll be friends when we spring him! Now c'mon!" Luffy turned around and knelt down, hands held at the ready. "Hop on and let's get 'em both!"

Once the senior pirate was safely parked on his back, Luffy set off at an easy, distance-eating jog, Byojack periodically calling out course changes as required. And with the labyrinth unmoving, there was little to impede their progress. In a remarkably short amount of time, the pair crested a set of stairs to find the source of the large cluster of guards Byojack had found. Though what they were 'guarding' was… unusual. And in a prison with a desert, an inferno, and a blizzard in it simultaneously, that was saying something.

"'Two days to retirement?!' 'Two days to retirement,' are you fucking kidding me!? First you humiliate my Blugori, and now this!? You're a dead man, you 'flashy' son of a bitch, you hear me!? The second we get you back in chains, I am going to chop you up, desiccate your pieces in Level 3, broil them in 4, CHILL THEM IN 5, AND THEN FEED YOU TO EVERY ONE OF MY BLUGORI, PIECE BY TWITCHING PIECE!"

Specifically, Saldeath attempting to strangle mini-Buggy—'attempting' due to his missing neck—with Galdino cuffed and looking forlorn at the edge of the impromptu circle the guards had made. Said forlornness most likely due to the knowledge that once the devilman was through with the clown, he was likely next.

"Wow, they really don't like him," Byojack remarked blandly.

"You should've heard what else he said," Luffy replied, his voice just as flat. "I'm pretty sure he caused you and your crew to come here in the first place." He sighed despondently, head hanging. "Still need to save them, though. Hang back, these guys won't take long."

Byojack frowned in discontent, but slowly moved off of his back to stand in the shadow of a nearby building. Nodding to himself, Luffy fingered the zipper on his bag. Did he want to…?

ZIP!

Luffy blinked, glancing down at the bag and its open zipper. "Whoops," he said as Buggy's limbs shot out of the bag and rejoined their owner. Each piece slotted neatly into place, and when they were all back, the clown forcefully threw the warden off and posed dramatically.

"I'm back, baby!" he crowed.

CL-CL-CLICK!

"…blast," Buggy groaned a second later, cringing from all the guns aimed at him.

"Ah, wonderful," Saldeath sneered as he stood up and dusted himself off. "Now you actually have kneecaps that we can shoot out. Men, start there and then work your way up to his face. On your marks—!"

"SORRY FOR THIS!" KA-BLAM!

The guards never got the chance to fire, however, due to Luffy barreling into them from the side and collapsing their line with a whirlwind of kicks, punches, and percussive pipe pummeling. It wasn't long before the guards wisened up enough to back out of grabbing distance, thereby leaving Galdino free enough to stagger up to his erstwhile 'comrades'.

"Gyahaha! Thanks a lot, S—er, friend!" Buggy chortled as he snatched up his discarded and misappropriated axe and brandished it eagerly. "I was almost a dead man!"

"Yeah, probably, but I still need your help to get to Ace," Luffy said with an annoyed glare that sent shivers down the clown's spine. He then refocused on the wardens, glaring bloody murder at them all, but the diminutive warden leading them all who was just staring at him. "Alright, listen: I don't know you and you don't know me, but—!"

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong, imminent inmate," Saldeath interrupted, his tone perfectly even. "Or would you rather I use your real name… Straw Hat Luffy?"

A sinking pit opened up in Luffy's stomach at that declaration, and his grip on his pipe went white. He briefly ran through all the excuses or arguments he could make to outwit or dissuade the shrimpy fiend's correct assumption. Then he slumped in defeat at the notion of him actually managing to 'outwit' anyone. And the memory of every time he'd tried that tactic with his crew. Or brothers. Or any time, really.

"Okay, I'll bite: how did you figure me out? I didn't stretch or anything the whole way here."

"You managed to bullrush your way through three of our floors, brutalized a cutting-edge weapon of mass destruction, and you're not even winded," Saldeath deadpanned. "It was a toss-up between you or Gold Roger reborn, and at this point, those two options aren't mutually exclusive."

"You have no idea…" Buggy groused.

"Quiet you," the demon and the monkey snapped in synch.

Grumbling under his breath, Luffy lowered the cloth covering his face but made no further removals. His disguise may have been blown, but the robes still helped with the heat. That done, he slammed his pipe down in his palm.

"Alright, you recognized me. Good for you, you're pretty smart. Which means you should be smart enough to realize that that's not a good thing for you, because now, I don't need to hold back when I kick all your asses."

Saldeath hummed in quiet agreement. "Very true, so perhaps you might indulge me, for the barest of moments, by answering a simple question? Before you inevitably concuss me, anyways."

"Don't do it, he's buying time for his backup to get here!" Galdino hissed.

"I have to, I need to buy time to think of a plan!" Luffy whispered back, before addressing Saldeath. "What question?"

"Why?"

"Huh? What are you—?"

"Why are you doing this? Why break into Impel Down? We most certainly don't have any of your crewmates here, regardless of how very prepared we are to receive them all, and I highly doubt you're here to pay a visit to any of your prior victories, either. As such, I can discern precisely no motivation for this little suicide run of yours." The demon-man swept his arm out invitingly, if lazily. "If you'd be so kind as to indulge my curiosity…?"

Luffy snorted and shook his head. "Obviously, I'm here to break someone out. But you really think I'd tell you who it is? I'm not that stupid."

"Yes, you are."

"…alright, I am, but Cross told me not to, so there!"

The imp's demeanor darkened. "Tch, even when he's neither present nor opening his maw, that little bastard still manages to give us trouble." Saldeath graced the group with a blistering glare. "Very well then. If you won't tender that answer freely..."

He stood up from his slouch and swept his pitchfork out with a sharp whistle, prompting the surrounding guards and Blugori to snap to attention, weapons unslinging and firearms cocking in a cacophonous chorus of metal. "Then we'll simply rip it out of you along with your fingernails. Allow me to be the first to properly welcome you to Impel Down, Monkey D. Luffy. I'd say that I hope you enjoy your stay… no, let me rephrase, I hope that I enjoy your stay."

"…Actually, you know what? I have an idea I think we'll both like. Buggy, you fight them first, I'll just watch."

"WHAT?!" the clown roared indignantly.

"Hey, we need to buy time and they wanna hurt someone, so we all win!" Luffy hissed.

"I DON'T!" Buggy whisper-screamed.

"Sure you do." Luffy suddenly glared. "I won't want to punch you in the crotch so much."

"…you know, the funny thing is, I know you're playing me. But I'll play along," Saldeath stated blandly.

And all at once, without hesitation, all of the guards' attention turned to Buggy the Clown. His face reddened and his eyes twitched.

"Straw Hat… if I make it out of this alive, I'M GOING TO—!"

"Be very unfortunate. Fire!"

BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!

"AH! OOH! EEE! WATCH IT, YOU FLASHY BASTARDS!"

Bullets blasted at the Chop-Chop man in what should have been an unavoidable wall of lead, but somehow he was dancing and flailing madly enough that every one seemed to miss him. Luffy blinked several times as he watched, his keen eyes taking in the truth of what was happening. His eyes slowly drifted to the other observer beside him.

"How long before that guy notices?" Luffy hissed.

"Not long, I think," Galdino whispered back. "Or he may just—"

"Forget the guns, just crack his skull!" Saldeath barked, slashing down his pitchfork to produce a sharp shriek that goaded the Blugori into action, the blue wall of muscle advancing ominously.

"—do that," he finished lamely as the Blugori charged, reluctantly raising his fists as he coalesced rapidly-melting gloves over his arms, while Luffy's muscles tensed in preparation to deliver a vicious beatdown. Even Buggy grit his teeth in focus, eyes flashing as his own hand whipped up to grip his axe's shaft and he put together a plan.

A plan that ultimately wouldn't come to happen, because as always, fate had its own designs.

KRASH!

Suddenly, everyone was drawn up short by one of the nearby walls bulging ominously, a massive impact sounding out on the other side.

Saldeath's already pasty demeanor lightened even further, and he slowly started to back away. "Oh, no, come on, not here, not now—!"

But it was indeed here, indeed now.

KA-KRASH!

And it started with the wall exploding in a blast of brick and mortar and… oh screw it, people dust, the entire floor was covered in people dust, are you happy now?!

Aaanyway, the wall burst open and disgorged a massive, blue-skinned and black-clad figure who tumbled on exit onto his feet, two crumbling maces in his hands.

He cast them aside just as a spinning brown boulder of gleaming spiky death shot out of the hole like a cannonball and shredded floor headed right for him, while the giant—vanished into thin air?!

The boulder skidded to a halt, unfolding to reveal a wedge-like helmet-head poking out of the gleaming, segmented, spike-festooned shell of what was unmistakably yet another biomechanical monstrosity. Its head creaked up and it inhaled through the slits that passed as its nose before its entire mass spun on the axis of one of its legs.

With the spin, the beast spun its long tail—topped with a ferociously spiked club, because of course there could be no inch on the thing that wasn't immediately lethal—in a massive arc at something unseen. Something that was revealed to be the blue giant in the middle of a frantic dodge, the air unblurring from around him. A dodge that, from the timing, Luffy knew had to have started a fraction before the monster had swung its tail.

"Dammit, how is your sense of smell that good? You don't have a head!" the giant snapped.

"BWOOOOOOH!"

The only response he got was a bone-rattling bass roar from the monster as it began to slide on its one foot to bring its spinning tail towards its opponent.

The giant attempted to retaliate with a punch that seemed to ripple in the air. 'Attempted' being the operative word; it hit only floor, the weird armadillo-thing having rolled out of the way with far too much agility for its massive size and relatively stubby legs and being precariously perched on one at the start of the maneuver.

Both actions plunged the already disarrayed guards into pure chaos, every man and beast for himself, either sprawled on the floor from the ground-shaking punch or frantically scrambling away from the rolling mass of spiked carnage showing absolutely no regard for its 'comrades'.

Luffy took the opportunity to leap back from the area of impact, his own 'comrades' in hand, all three stared dumbfoundedly at the fight. Wotans were a rare breed, to begin with. The giant cyborg thorny devil was about as shocking. Both at once, locked in mortal combat and dismantling the guards that had been troubling them moments ago? They couldn't help but gape, really.

"Luffy? I think now would be a good time to get out of here. As in, now!?"

The trio spun around to find Byojack hobbling towards them as fast as his wizened frame and medical equipment permitted. And also scowling up at the blue-skinned giant.

"AND SEBASTIAN! Watch what you're doing, you could've hurt me!" he snapped, shaking his fist in the manner of old men everywhere.

"Sorry, Byojack, but I can't hold anything back! This sucker's tough," the newly named Sebastian declared, throwing his weight into trying to pin down the monster again.

"Wait, what?! Who in the flashy hell are you two?!" Buggy demanded.

"Byojack, broke in to rescue his brother, don't know who the other guy is," Luffy explained before looking at the old man. "One of your crew?"

"More like my brother's first mate, but close enough," Byojack nodded. "I noticed Sebastian and that… thing fighting nearby, and I told him to bring the brawl over this way to help you out. Thanks for that, Sebastian!" he called over to the giant just as he was tossed clear of the grapple and into a nearby wall.

"I wish I could say it wasn't a problem, but seeing as I'm pretty sure I have person stuck in my gills…" the aquatic titan groused. Sebastian then tensed up as the stony behemoth rolled up in a ball and started to spin up again, snarling in irritation, "Oh, no, you don't! Now I know where to grab!"

Sebastian was as good as his word. When the barreling boulder of death was close enough, he grabbed it on the single spot it was safe to touch: right where the edges of the shell met to close the ball. Unfortunately, he seemed to have misjudged the length of the spines, because several tore strips out of his chest before the spinning stopped.

Nevertheless, in an impressive display of determination and might, in spite of the shredding, he leaned back as hard as possible and lifted, dropping the beast to the floor in a prison-shaking suplex.

Oh, and also through one of the cell blocks, producing a spray of stone shrapnel that did a good job cutting down any guards still on their feet. More stones embedded themselves in the walls, one hole revealing—

"Hey, that's—! Let's go go go!"

A massive steam-filled shaft, visibly sloping downward. Luffy was already moving, his arms wrapped around Buggy and Galdino, much to their mixed feelings.

"Sebastian, I'm heading further down with Straw Hat! Regroup with the others and catch up as soon as you can!"

And Byojack following close behind, leaping onto the Rubber Man's back and hanging on for dear life.

The blue-skinned bruiser let out a grunt of assent, popping up a loose thumbs-up. "I'd say good luck to your face, but I'm a bit too tied up to tell where that is right now!"

Luffy snickered at the call out, before abruptly skidding to a stop, looking back between the hybrid giant and the beast, then down at Byojack. "He's blind?" he asked.

"Never stopped him before," Byojack replied, a bit defensively.

The next second found Luffy dropping his allies to reach into his bag again, withdrawing a pink baseball. Giving it a twist, he threw it with all of the force he could muster—

FWOOOM!

—and flooded everywhere in sight with smoke.

~o~

Gingerly, Lassoo moved forward and deposited a cloth package before Luffy.

"It took a bit out of me, literally, but here's my contribution: a dozen baseball bombs," the dog-gun chuffed. "The timers normally start when I cough them up, but I stopped them for these; just give them a good twist before you throw them, realign the threads, and they'll blow up like they should with anywhere from a 5- to 30-second delay."

Luffy nodded, looking over the bombs—and blinking at the fact that half of the balls were pink instead of white.

"Oh, yeah, and that: I got an upgrade on my smokescreen from Chopper, it's Cani-Haze now. Bigger area and better smell, too. Should be easy to tell them apart from the normal bombs this way," Lassoo explained.

Luffy nodded again, smiling and dropping his hand down on Lassoo's head to give him a firm pet. "I'd rather have you along to tell the difference for me, buddy."

Lassoo stiffened at the gesture, and then relaxed and let his tongue loll out. "Yeah, I wouldn't mind going through hell with you too, but hey, you don't need to be lugging around twice your weight in gun, and Cross does. Just be sure to give them all a piece of hell from me, would ya?"

~o~

"Hey, what the—?!" Sebastian exclaimed.

"It's a smokescreen with a scent!" Luffy called out. "Now that thing can't see or smell you—!"

"But I can tell where it is, hell yes!" Sebastian cackled as he slammed his fist into his palm. "Come here, metalhead! Hope you like the taste of your own tail!"

"BWOOOOOOH!"

At the bass-deep roar that sounded out in response, Sebastian threw himself into the fog in search of his target. A target he found, judging from the crunch of stone and bone and another, far more agonized roar.

"Alright, now let's go!" Luffy yelled, leaping for the exposed shaft again. As he and Byojack pulled ahead, it was with shared disgust and reluctance that Buggy and Galdino followed after him.

…visages of disgust, but not total silence.

"…so, why the charade?"

Buggy grimaced at the question and didn't respond.

"I saw, and Straw Hat saw, and I don't doubt even that two-foot twerp saw it," Galdino pressed. "So why did you only narrowly split your body around those bullets, instead of doing it visibly?"

Found out, the clown's jaw hitched. "Because. Because as flashy as I might be and as brilliant as I am, I'm still smart enough to know what weight class I'm comfortable in. And if you think I'm idiot enough to try punching outside that weight class and bump up everyone's opinions of me, you're just flat-out insane."

Galdino shot a searching look at the pirate. "Then why the hell are you sticking with Straw Hat Luffy, even if he is our best shot at getting out of here?"

At that, Buggy's jaws ground together. "Call it… unfinished business."

-o-

Elsewhere in the desert, the number of Impel Down's prisoners that had yet to succumb to starvation was shrinking rapidly. Whether it was thanks to Buggy, Cross, or someone else that they were there, the Caribou Pirates were emptying every cell they found, and the captives within barely even resisted as they were pulled out of their chains and into the bottomless swamp.

But for all that Caribou was complacent, rule one of kidnapping was to always do it quietly. And so he remained in the shadows, cackling softly to himself as he observed the free-for-all between the monster, the guards, and that oversized fishman. He drooled at the blue-skinned beast; if he could fetch a wotan, it would be the biggest payday he'd ever had.

"Big brother, we've gotta keep going to get our quota," Coribou said, more nervously than usual.

Caribou snapped his eyes shut and shook his head to clear his thoughts, the clear memory of his patron's abilities making him subconsciously grab at his neck. That… That had been a very eventful job offer, a clear memory, and an even clearer message. Right, right. Work first, profit second.

"Right, brother," Caribou agreed, turning his attention away from the brawl and allowing himself to smile devilishly again. "Next block of cells, how many prisoners?"

"I counted seven, big brother."

Caribou snorted in annoyance. "Well, waste not, want not," he muttered, skulking to his next group of victims.

-o-

The atmosphere in the elevator was one of relief when the doors dinged open on the first floor, a mutual feeling that their obligations were complete and they could go their separate ways doing wonders to lighten their spirits.

That atmosphere died mere moments after they disembarked from the lift. The source of their discontent? A pink-clad ginger-haired dominatrix scowling at them, strangling a whip in her hands.

…no, this was not the start of an off-color joke, it actually happened.

"Vice Admiral Momonga," Chief Guard Sadi stated coldly, a very clear and present desire to flay something—or rather, someone—seething below the surface. "I've been… instructed to relay new orders to you." Her lips twisted, baring her teeth in a snarl of fury. "On behalf of Fleet Admiral Sengoku himself."

A tense and heavy silence fell over the group, forcing Momonga to bite the bullet and make the first response. "And those orders would be?"

An outright snarl ripped from Sadi's throat. "You have been assigned to… aid us—" she spat out the words, "—in quelling the unrest that's arisen within our prison. Alongside the other Marines already present. And you are to remain here until the time of Fire-Fist's relocation to Marineford." Her attention then shifted to the Warlord, and her expression flattened to bored dismissal. "The Warlord will be taking your battleship to Mariejois, and is to be escorted there immediately."

Her bad mood was now matched by the Vice Admiral, whose face had turned red with rage, his knuckles whitening around his blade. The temptation to lash out at this woman was strong but swiftly dismissed. It would do nothing to help him, nor would protesting the order to remain while a Warlord sailed off on his battleship. It would earn him nothing but a chastisement.

"…so be it."

Hancock exhaled sharply in dissatisfaction even as she stepped away from the Vice Admiral. She had been counting on more time for her and her sisters to influence him, but once again matters were against her. With that in mind, she turned to look the man in the eyes, and she spoke calmly and evenly.

"Vice Admiral Momonga. Whatever you may think of me, what I do is for my people. It is for them that I shed blood. I leave you this to think about: when you present yourself on the battlefield, who and what is it that you are fighting for?"

She held his gaze for a moment longer before turning away. With a clear air of impatience from all involved, she was released of her binds and escorted out of the entrance, down the boardwalk and back to the battleship. Behind her, the jailers and one Marine descended back down into Hell, where she prayed that Luffy had not yet revealed himself.

"We've been briefed, Empress, we'll be leaving at once," said one Marine as soon as she set foot on board. She gave him a disdainful look, then shook her head and marched to her quarters as fast as she could without appearing undignified.

Sonia and Mari stood up as soon as she entered, tense from holding themselves back from physically swarming her, an action which Salome did not restrain herself from as she coiled about her partner.

"How did it go, sister?" Sandersonia inquired.

"As well as could be expected, in all regards," Hancock answered with a sigh, half-collapsing into her serpent's coils. She gazed upwards, through the ship and into the sky. "Now… the true trial begins."

-o-

At first blush, it was hard to improve upon torture and hard labor in boiling temperatures. It was, after all, the most popular depiction of Hell. But Impel Down's staff had come up with one simple tweak that took the prisoners' suffering to a new level. The prison was mostly made of stone, after all, and while it was blistering hot to the touch, it wasn't a good material for conducting heat.

So the staff of Impel Down plated the floors, walls, and ceiling of Level 4 with steel.

Now in addition to the pained cries of the prisoners and the ever-present bubbling of the central blood vat could be heard a symphony of sizzling feet. And broiling flesh in general thanks to the entire floor's already literally hellish temperature, elevated by a full factor into the realms of the ludicrous.

And it was into precisely this ludicrous hell that Luffy dropped, his troop of ne'er-do-wells in tow.

"AAAAGH!"

"WATCH IT, WATCH IT!"

"SEA OF BLOOD! SEA OF BOILING BLOOD, RIGHT THERE!"

Literally.

Luckily for all involved, the original Straw Hat had considerable experience with freefall, and he was even decent at pulling himself out of freefall. Turning a total wipeout into a semi-survivable controlled landing was something well within his skills.

PSSSHHHH! "OwowowowOWWWWW!"

That did not mean he could do it well, however. Case in point, when the rubber-man's arm lashed out to wrap around the first thing he could find to arrest his momentum, his first thought was that he was facing Eneru again. Burning metal against his skin was an unpleasantness rivaled only by the excessive frostbite he'd gotten climbing to Kureha's castle. But at least then his nerves had had the decency to go numb after a while!

Thankfully, his grip only needed to last a few seconds: long enough to swing him and the passengers he had wrapped in his other arm onto a bridge. A little too close to the giant boiling vat of doom for anyone's idea of comfort—

CRASH!

"OOF!"

"OW!"

"MY ARM! OFF, NOW!"

—but far enough that they crashed onto the bridge instead, albeit rolling painfully on the blazing-hot surface.

Luffy sagged in relief, letting his arm snap back to his side. The limb still burned like hell, at least it could cool down some now!…any second now. Aaany second now. …actually, he could feel his whole body heating up—

"GAH, THAT'S WAY TOO HOT!" Luffy yelped, shooting to his feet and fully ripping off his desert robes. "What the heck?! I thought these were supposed to help keep me cool!"

"Owowoooowww…" Galdino groaned as he worked his way out of the twitching pile of limbs that he'd been flung into. Standing fully on wobbly legs, he shakily readjusted the broken lumps of metal and glass that had once been his glasses before answering, "There's only so much desert clothing like that can do, Straw Hat. Encouraging sweat and being thin enough to radiate heat doesn't matter when the air is hotter than your own body and too humid to let sweat evaporate. Which, consequently…"

Flicking his limp and lifeless topknot out of his face, he produced a bubbling lump of melted wax in his palm. "Means that I am worse than useless in here. I hope you—or at least your tactician—had a plan for this, Straw Hat. Our lucky streak on busting our way down through the floors ends here."

"No chance of us pulling whatever you did on Level 2 to break through this floor," Buggy grimly agreed.

"This does seem difficult," Byojack mused. "Any plans, Luffy? …ah, Luffy?"

Galdino and Buggy followed the old pirate's gaze to Luffy, who was silent and frozen with his robes half back into his bag. His expression, despite a calm serenity, seemed almost resigned.

"…you're right. Our luck has run out," he said, still calmly. "And that was the plan all along."

"…what is that supposed to mean?" Buggy demanded.

"It means run."

"Run?" Byojack asked.

"AS IN, RUN NOW!" he snapped, literally sweeping up the whole group in an arm and yanking them down the bridge—

SPLAT! HISSSSSSSSSS…

—which left them in the perfect position to see the violet puddle where they'd once stood. A puddle currently eating through the bridge. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots from there.

The slow, methodical steps that rang out over the omnipresent din of the Level and the massive, looming shadow approaching through the noxious haze was thus a very big, very deadly, and very unnecessary hint.

For a single moment, they were all, even Luffy, paralyzed in what was best described as unholy terror.

Of course, after that moment, Luffy did what he always did when faced with that sort of terror: he completely ignored any rational sense of self-preservation by advancing on the Warden.

Buggy's head shot off his torso like a rocket and shoved himself into Luffy's face. "You cannot expect to beat him! Not even you are that stupid!"

Grunting in irritation, Luffy grabbed the disembodied head and tossed it over his shoulder.

"I honestly don't," he answered. "Which is the plan."

"WHAT!?"

The rubber-man snapped his finger up, pointing down the bridge. "Stay out of my way, but also stay close. When I go down, grab my bag and run. Then, when they take me down, follow me."

"How the flashy hell are we supposed to do that?!"

"This bag has tools from most of my crew in it. Get creative."

At that, Buggy and Byojack both calmed, nodded, and grabbed Galdino by the arms to sprint away.

"That answered absolutely nothing!" the panicking agent snapped. "What does he expect us to—!"

"Why are you still so—? Oh, wait," Byojack tilted his head as a thought struck him. "The way Level 2 was would make it difficult to have snails up in the same place all the time… you didn't see the Strong World broadcast, did you?"

"What the hell is a 'Strong World' and what does that have to do with—!"

"Just trust us when we say that if the crew left him tools? This'll be a cakewalk," Buggy retorted.

Luffy watched them go out the corner of his eye, most of his attention focused on Magellan in case he went after them. Surprisingly, he didn't, and once they were out of sight, he turned his full attention to the venom-sweating Warden.

"I'm surprised you let them go," he said conversationally. Or at least, as 'conversational' as one can be when their every muscle is tensed and ready to spring.

Magellan was silent as the grave, just staring at Luffy with his dead gaze, before droning in a—if the haze leaving his mouth was anything to go by—literally deadly tone, "Normally, I would focus on detaining all of you at once, but I have a feeling."

Luffy blinked, tilting his head. "A feeling?"

"A feeling," Magellan repeated, the purple sheen covering his body darkening almost to black. "That if I take my attention off of you, for even one second, Monkey D. Luffy, then somehow…" He slowly tilted his head to the side, popping the vertebrae with a CRACK like cannon fire. "I will sorely come to regret it."

Yet more venom bubbled and roiled from Magellan's massive frame, glimmering in the heat as it sloughed off to the stone floor. The liquid miasma sizzled where it dripped onto the hot stone, and Luffy's eyes narrowed at the sickly, off-color haze that rose above it.

"Out of respect from one leader to another, I give you this one chance," Magellan intoned. "Surrender now, and I'll ensure you enjoy a very… comfortable stay in our facilities." He shrugged. "After, of course, I interrogate you to find out who allowed you access to this prison."

Images flashed through Luffy's mind of Hancock's drunken smile at the party, of her existential terror while Stussy stood over her paralyzed body. Of Tashigi spitting bloody hellfire at Cross, of her quiet determination not more than an hour ago. Of however many other faceless people were out there, waiting in the wings to help. They were all comrades, too, people who had and would help him at great risk he was only beginning to understand. With that in mind, plus Ace and his dream, there was only one possible answer to that offer.

Luffy hunched over, kneeling on the balls of his feet, his grip on his pipe snow-white, and he glared into the eyes of the devil. "No chance."

"Hmph," Magellan let out a grunt that almost sounded respectful. "I didn't think so."

And then the battle began as Magellan moved.

To call it 'moving' was honestly a disservice. In spite of his massive bulk, Warden Magellan was a blur as he lunged forward and slammed a knife-hand into the bridge, his acidic venom chewing through the stone like it was wet cardboard. That had not been his target, of course. Before Magellan even reared back his arm, Luffy had leaped back to put some distance between himself and the Warden, pulling out his pipe and something else from his pack as he went.

In the space of a second, Luffy raised his pipe and aimed it at Magellan's face—

"Gum-Gum Blowgun!"

—and spat a massive rush of air through the cylinder, blasting one of Usopp's patented Lead Stars at Magellan's face…for all the good that it did. The Poison-Man's only reaction was to raise his hand and catch the slug in his palm, the pellet dissolving in the venom coating it before it even touched his actual hand.

Grimacing at the lack of effect, Luffy still made use of the distraction and took the opportunity to jump up and grab at one of the chained slabs of wood hanging from the ceiling with his arm. He tried to use the brief breathing room to brainstorm a plan of attack—

"Hydra."

But the trio of screaming dragon-heads of living death that abruptly blasted up after him robbed him of that opportunity. Instead, he was forced to move, making a flying leap for another such block.

Even in spite of Luffy's phenomenal strength, his lack of a proper jumping-off point meant that his leap fell woefully short of his mark, and he started plummeting towards the blood-vat. And while he potentially could have Rocketed to his point of aim, there was a keen lack of surfaces available that wouldn't burn him further.

So instead, the Rubber-Man had to… diversify his moveset a bit, with a little extra help.

~o~

Boss waddled forward and, with great reverence, held out an ornate scroll.

"This is the same guide to the Six Powers that I used to create the Full Shell Style. The extra techniques could help you on your way, so see what you can learn. I don't expect you to master it all as fast as I did, but you can use it during your training after the war, too."

Luffy nodded as he took it and looked it over. After a minute, he rolled it up and stuck it into his bag.

"Thanks, Boss. I should be able to learn at least one of them before I save Ace."

~o~

Luffy hadn't been able to find time to read the entire scroll through, and even if he had, what little he'd read told him it was going to take a while for him to wrap his head around things. But, during the ride over to this hellhole, he'd still managed to skim a few lines.

He'd managed to understand just enough.

"Come on, come on!" Luffy snarled, ramming his leg down and kicking at the air, ramming his foot into it—

FWOOM!

And finally managed to kick off of it with a ramshackle Moonwalk. He only managed the one kick, but it was enough to get him to the platform.

Unfortunately, he reached it at the same time as a roiling purple ball that looked to be filled with gas—!

"Oh, crap," Luffy gulped miserably.

BOMF!

A haze of noxious fumes washed over Luffy, drawing a choked "GAGH!" out of him. He tried to hold his breath, but the raging heat of the floor forced him to gasp in a breath after only a few seconds. Almost immediately, his senses—even hearing in some twisted way—were overtaken by an uncomfortable combination of pepper and pineapple. And the metallic taste that started crawling down the back of his throat likely wasn't a good sign either.

"That technique is the exclusive intellectual property of the World Government, Straw Hat," a dead voice rang through the air. "The fact that you have already earned the death penalty is not an excuse to keep lengthening your list of crimes. It will only result in your execution being all the more excruciating."

And then there was this guy!

"GWO-O-O-OORGH!"

Oh, and also, the Hydras were coming for him again, because why make anything easy in this place?!

"This isn't working, this isn't working—!" Luffy wheezed to himself as he leapt off his perch, Moonwalking—or Moonstumbling, more like—toward a new platform. Not a second too soon, either, for a Hydra head sheared through it like a rancid knife through butter a bare second later. But even when he landed on the roof of a stone cellblock, seemingly safe, that safety was decidedly illusory thanks to the Hydras still following close behind.

"Okay, this isn't working, let's change it up," Luffy gasped to himself, leaning over, hands on his knees. "Gear Second!"

A pump of his legs and steam blasted from his body, the already-unbearable heat rising even further. Luffy broke into a sprint, leaving the slavering Hydras trailing behind him. He made a break for the edge of the building, tensing up to take a flying leap to another cell block—

FWOOSH! "YEARGH!"

And was forced to come to a screeching halt at the edge of the building, followed shortly by him rolling to the side in order to avoid the yet-pursuing Hydras. Luckily, they weren't able to turn around to try and engulf him again. Instead, they ran right into the pillar of blinding, burning light that had so abruptly cut Luffy off, and boiled away into nothingness.

Luffy popped up into a sitting position with a panicked yelp, staring at the pillar in shock. "What the hell is that!?"

"Another alteration we've made to our institution," Magellan called up to Luffy's perch, as he slowly and calmly walked over, entirely unconcerned with the heat or the possibility of Luffy escaping. "Courtesy of the increase in budget we were granted following your crewmate's exposé. A few strategically placed mirrors and dishes along the roof of the Level, and we can refocus the floor's heat to fry whoever we please. Rather ingenious, no?"

"Eh…" the rubber-man hedged, scratching at the back of his head as he stared up at the pillar. "I guess? But I mean, if they're just there all the time, then they're not that scary, are they?"

Magellan let out a dismissive snort as he raised his hand over his head. "The operative word there… is if." And with that, he snapped his fingers, and the pillar started to move. Right for Luffy.

Luffy slapped a hand to his face. "Why do I say things?"

Luckily, he had no time at all to say anything else, for when he removed his hand from his face the rubber man promptly found himself sandwiched between three Hydras and the pillar of fire, which was moving way faster than he'd expected. He weaved and dodged, stretching between the attacks—and completely devoid of any ability to actually attack. He needed something to disrupt one of the two attackers, and luckily, he had something in mind that could do just that.

With a complete disregard of common sense that shouldn't have surprised Magellan at this point, Luffy dove towards his snapping hydras, twisting around them in midair straight for the Warden himself. No fool he, Magellan braced himself despite his disbelief that the pirate had a plan that could break through his guard.

He wasn't prepared for him to pull out a gun and aim straight for his eyes. He was much less prepared—

SCHING! "GYAH, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!"

—for the barrel to shoot light at him. Not a laser that could burn his flesh like Kizaru's, but still one that could burn his eyes.

~o~

"Alright, Straw Hat, here's my present for you."

Franky held out a bizarre metal object, reminiscent of the barrel of a gun with a large button on the back. He pointed it at the floor and pressed the button, and a red dot appeared on the ground.

"Got the idea talking with Soundbite, heard that in Cross's world, they use toys like this to make animals and kids chase after the light. Could come in handy if any of those beasts on Level 2 still have enough instinct; point this where you want them to go, and see if they follow."

Turning off the light, he handed it over with a serious look on his face. "But this laser is no toy, it's a weapon. It may not be Kizaru, but aim it at someone's eyes and almost anyone will flinch. Just don't shine it in your eyes, because I know you would. Two seconds is enough to cause permanent damage."

Luffy rubbed his head and took it, nodding gratefully. "Thanks, Franky."

~o~

The Warden reared back, snarling as he clawed at his face. Luffy, not one to pass up on a golden opportunity, wound up his body and let loose with all the torque he and the laws of physics could give him. And a little extra in the form of an acceleration of his blood didn't hurt either. "Gum-Gum JET HOME RUN!"

The pipe slammed into Magellan's lower abdomen, punching through even his acidic armor and briefly distending his flesh before sending the Warden rocketing away and into a wall. Luffy had no time to celebrate the blow. He not only had to duck back to avoid the splashback from the Warden's armor, but he was given even less time to breathe when not even a second after the impact, fresh Hydras shot out of the dust cloud. It was just his good luck that Magellan's acidic armor couldn't (yet) melt away the seastone part of his pipe that he'd attacked with.

Luffy focused his efforts on dodging, a difficult task with Gear Second running out and leaving him worn out and overheated, and he couldn't afford to make a mistake. Sadly, a mistake was made: the mistake of missing one of the liquid-draconic heads' throats bulging for a moment, right up until its jaw dropped open and it disgorged its own incensed originator.

Magellan's opportunity for attack was brief, and he only managed to ram a single knife-hand strike into Luffy's side before the rubber-man could react. The instant after the strike, Luffy leaped back and away from his opponent, too late to avoid damage. Though the impact hadn't done any physical damage, he was left defying the very strong urge to both clutch the spot and scream in pain. It hurt worse than the last time he'd gotten stabbed!

"Tch," Magellan spat, squinting at the misshapen blob he could barely identify as his target. "My apologies. I meant to aim for your head and take away your senses, end this quickly, mercifully. Now you'll merely suffer an agonizing death from kidney failure over the next seventy-two hours."

"Gee, thanks," Luffy ground out, only just managing to stay upright through an effort of will. He prepped himself to counter or—more likely and sane—dodge whatever the Warden sent his way. So it was well and truly shocking when no reprisal came.

Indeed, Magellan made no further move to attack, which left the rubber man even further on guard than he'd already been, glancing about in search of a sudden Hydra, or some equally deadly surprise. Obviously, he made sure to keep the Warden himself in his peripheral vision. So when Magellan's expression suddenly went from stoic business to seething hatred (or at least, more seething than he'd already been) that was a rather major clue that something had changed.

WUMP! "SCHKREE-KREE-KREEEE!"

The deafening impact of something touching down behind him and subsequently shrieking in tortured outrage gave Luffy a very clear idea of what had drawn his foe's ire.

A quick—if risky—glance over his shoulder while also reaching into his bag confirmed what he'd simultaneously suspected and dreaded: the Blazing Hell's own resident abomination had found them, and was intent on joining the fray.

And it was a horrific specimen, to be sure: a spider, at its most basic—tarantula, specifically—that had been welded together with a hawk in a gruesome fusion. Talons dug at the stonework from the tips of its eight twitching, writhing legs, massive feathered wings that were equal parts metal-plate and leathery canvas flapped between the armored plating of the thorax, and upon its 'head', a twisted and cruel beak gurgled out a noxious, steaming fluid beneath an octet of black, hateful eyes.

Truly, it was every bit the monster that its predecessors had so thoroughly proven themselves to be.

And yet, in spite of all this, and himself no less, Luffy found himself grinning.

"Oh, look, I'm standing in front of your big bad weapon," he droned, ever so innocently, tapping his pipe into his hand. "You can't attack me or you might kill it too."

Magellan, still filled with seething hatred, snapped his indignant snarl at Luffy—! And then froze.

What little restraint the monster had abruptly snapped, and it reared up on its four hind-most limbs, lashing down at Luffy—!

"Hydra."

SPLASH! "SHKREEEEEE!"

And then out of nowhere, a reptilian head of liquid hell shot toward and clean over Luffy's head, swallowing the tortured tarantula-hawk hybrid whole. The abomination was bowled over onto its back, where it collapsed to the stone, screeching and writhing in agony. It lasted a bare handful of seconds before its neurons slowly gave out, gradually paralyzing it into a heap of tortured misery. Its keening gurgles reverberated throughout the halls of the floor for a scarce few seconds more, only for a second Hydra head to slam into it from the side, swiping the entire mess into the boiling crimson abyss.

And like that, as swiftly as it had appeared, it was gone.

"Oh, no," Magellan droned in turn as he adjusted the fit of his gloves, his expression and voice as casual and innocent as his opponent's. "I missed. Now I have to report that because of you, Straw Hat, we lost two of the Government's prototypes. Maybe even three, if the one above us interferes in the clean-up of the mess you caused and has to be put down. How very… tragic."

The two men regarded each other in the sweltering heat. Finally…

"Shishishi!" Luffy snickered as he balanced his pipe across his shoulders and folded his arms over it. "Cross was right! You're a cool guy after all!"

"Praise has never been more flattering, nor more damning," Magellan rumbled back, his own expression not changing a whit. "A pity you're both still pirates."

Luffy grinned wider. "Yeah, well, can't fix that. Pi~ra~tes!"

And with that, Luffy flung something from his bag and onto the ground, resulting in a haze of sakura-scented smoke blasting out. Magellan surged through the cloud with a small tsunami of venom flanking him, rendering the width and a fair chunk of the bridge's length unlivable, but it was for naught. By then, Luffy had gone and regained his elevation, standing on one of the platforms surrounding the boiling blood cauldron and all the cheekier for it.

"Hey, poison-guy!" the criminal shouted, still grinning that stupid grin even as he stuck one of his fingers in his mouth. "Robin once said that this whole 'bite my thumb at you' thing is supposed to be really insulting! Is it working?"

Eyes narrowed, Magellan's response was to spawn a fresh cadre of serpentine heads and send them out to silence the brainless heckler. But, more than a little infuriatingly, the venom reptiles had no more luck than the last times he'd tried. Every attempt was deftly evaded, one or two heads aimlessly diving into the blood and flames and getting evaporated, while a third met its ignominious end by way of the Monkey—who was still biting his own thumb, to Magellan's increasing ire—juking in such a way that the head ran into another heat-pillar.

The message being broadcast was very clear to Magellan: that if he wished for this work to be done properly, he would have to do it himself. Thus, he brought forth yet another trio of Hydras, but this time, only sent two careening after the pirate.

The third, he had slink silently through the air, stretching out not in active pursuit of the pirate, but in prediction of his path, which the other two Hydra were more actively directing him through. A nudge to the left, a dodge up—there!

In a blur of black and purple, Magellan leaped up and through the venom of his construct. The Hydra was poised to disgorge him in the pirate's blindspot, his knife-hand cocked to deliver a final devastating—if not outright lethal—blow.

Of course, Magellan hadn't forgotten that Straw Hat had been forewarned about him and his powers. But the only thing that had granted him was the ability to dodge and stall. This time, the speed from the liquid pressure would ensure that no little tricks would buy him a window. Magellan himself couldn't stop the acceleration that would bring his venom-coated body within striking range, and that pipe of his wouldn't be enough to fight him off. Ten more seconds and this nightmare would be over.

Unfortunately for the Warden, he didn't even have three.

"Got ya."

The taunt and smirk on Luffy's face sent an unfamiliar frisson of uncertainty through Magellan. After seeing it in action only once, Straw Hat had managed to plan around his Venom Road!? Planned on putting Magellan in a position where he couldn't stop if he wanted to?!

But even if he had, what could it matter? Magellan was still safe within the lethal mass of his Hydra, still moving at breakneck speed and still in possession of an advantage in sheer size and strength. How could the rubber-brained buffoon possibly think to—wait, why did he have his other hand in his bag? Again!? AND WHY WAS HE STILL BITING HIS—!?

'Is his forearm supposed to be that big?' Magellan's brain idly noted. Then his brain connected that little detail to the downfall of another seemingly 'invincible' powerhouse, and, well…

'Oh, hell.'

And after that final thought crossed his mind, Magellan didn't have the time or brain capacity to fathom what he witnessed the pirate pull out of his literal bag of tricks, let alone do anything about it.

Luffy, meanwhile, had plenty of time to roar out one thing:

"GUM-GUM—!"

~o~

It was before a sea of dropped jaws that Zoro used two hands to partially withdraw his contribution out of the bag.

"My Titan Barbell," he stated, grunting in exertion. "You'll have at least one good weight for your training. And if you need something that hits harder than your pipe, this'll do the job."

With the care of a professional bodybuilder, he lowered the weight back into the bag, his eyes never leaving his captain's. Luffy nodded.

"Thank you, Zoro. I'll use it as much as I can."

Zoro's only response for him was a half-smirk, a smirk that spoke worlds.

~o~

"—ATLAS COMET!"

Luffy's Giant-sized fist blasted out of his bag, the enormous chunk of metal clenched tight in his grip like a hellish set of brass knuckles. The weight slowed his punch down some, but against a target that was literally headed in his direction, there was no chance to miss. Luffy's fist rammed down the Hydra's throat—

KA-BLANG! "GRAAAAAARGH—!"

—and slammed clean into Magellan, quite literally blasting him out of his own construct. And without his connection to the venom, gravity reasserted itself upon Magellan. Gravity which inexorably yanked him down to a specific and very painful destination.

SPLA—KER-SPLASH!

Magellan slammed into the vat of boiling blood, the liquid surging and frothing and then surging even higher when the barbell landed in the same spot shortly after.

Luffy eyed the vat as he swung down onto another bridge, hissing to himself. Partly due to frustration at himself for losing the barbell, but mostly due to pain. See, Luffy would have held onto the barbell if he could have, but that was a wee bit difficult when everything below his elbow was somehow both numb and in stabbing, bone-gnawing agony.

"Punching a poison hydra on purpose…" Luffy groaned to himself as he massaged the un-envenomed part of his arm. "Yeah, definitely a bad plan. Even for me…"

Still, bad plan or not, that didn't mean it wasn't a necessary plan. No matter how much immunization it meant he had to suffer through over the next two years—and Luffy was pretty damn sure he'd hit Cross's quota on that front with that last stunt—defeating Magellan now was worth it if it meant he could stop the war.

Standing, Luffy eyed the blood-ocean again, frowning, his mood sour from more than just the pain. Frankly, Luffy didn't want to hurt Magellan if he didn't have to. He kept other bad guys where they belonged, and it wasn't like he was a bad guy himself. But he was standing between Luffy and his brother, so it wasn't even a decision.

After a moment of no activity from the blood, the rubber man shrugged and turned around to shuffle off. Hopefully, Magellan would last long enough for his subordinates to drag him out of there, and preferably without permanent damage to his fighting abilities. This would have made it a good idea for Luffy to increase his pace, but it was more than just his arm that was fighting him now.

To be specific, it hurt. His whole body hurt. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, his stomach was doing flip-flops, and his mouth tasted like cotton where the metallic tang of chlorine didn't overpower it. His lungs burned from poisonous fumes, his legs burned from brief contact with hot stone and metal, there was the arm he'd used to plunge Magellan into the drink, and worst of all, the spot where Magellan had hit him had gone completely numb. That couldn't be good.

But hey, he'd beaten Magellan! Probably not permanently, but Luffy figured that after that bad of a beating (or at least a finishing move) he'd have enough time to get to Level 5 and maybe shake the Warden off his trail for a bit, even hampered as he was. He glanced around the level, just managing to spot Buggy and company huddling near some cellblocks a few bridges over. Perfect, he could just join them and—

BLORP!

Luffy blinked at the strangely off-tone gurgle that hit his ears. He looked around for the source and saw that the blood in the floor-wide vat was… bulging? And why was it purple ohcrapcrapcrap—!

"Ngggghrrrr… DAMN IT!" the rubber-man growled, slamming his not-dead hand to his face. In one movement, he stuffed his pipe in his bag, unslung the bag into his hand, spun around, and threw his assembled supplies out over the blood-sea as far as he could manage. "BUGGY IF YOU DON'T CATCH THAT I SWEAR—!"

Thankfully, the threat was unneeded. A pair of disembodied hands swooped out, snatched the bag and yanked it out of sight. Presumably to wherever the rest of Luffy's erstwhile 'allies' had absconded.

Luffy sighed in relief, before letting that relief scurry away in favor of trepidation. Below him, the blood cauldron was frothing again, this time in an angry red-purple color. "Alright… how much did I just piss him off?"

SPLOOOOSH! "SKREEEOOOOOONK!"

The massive Hydra-head that erupted out of the cauldron, screaming loud enough to be heard on Level Two, was a bit of a clue. The head whipped and flailed to and fro in a vicious, blind fury, before its gaze locked onto Luffy, its liquidy mass going stock still.

"Uhhhh…" Luffy grinned and waved his good arm sheepishly. "Hi?"

The Hydra immediately barreled for Luffy so fast that, with his venom-related injuries, the pirate could only flinch. And then it halted a mere meter away from him.

Luffy blinked in surprise, uncurling his arm from his head so that he could properly look at the thing. "Uhhh…?"

The Hydra's maw dropped open, and Luffy had all of one second to smell death.

"Oh, cra—!"

FWOOM!

And that's when the blast of pure miasma hit Luffy, face first.

If he'd been ten minutes from out of commission before, then those ten minutes were straight gone now. The pain he felt was an unholy cross between Crocodile dehydrating him after their second fight and getting sunk to the bottom of Arlong Park's pool: out of everything he'd wanted to experience on his voyage, Luffy had never wanted to learn what it was like to drown on the air itself.

And it was with the world-famous/infamous pirate on his knees, wheezing and gasping for a fresh breath, that the Hydra reared back and worked its throat again. It gagged once, twice, and then in a flood of its own violet scourge, disgorged its creator onto the bridge.

He was huffing, scowling, fuming even. He was bleeding visibly beneath his coat of poison and from his unfocused eyes and swaying gait was likely dealing with a concussion. Yet Chief Warden Magellan was nowhere near tapping out.

Even in agonizing pain, a dozen ideas to keep fighting ran through Luffy's mind. But one look at Magellan's face was enough to put those thoughts to rest. Luffy knew the faces of anger very well, both from facing them regularly and wearing them. He knew cold fury, he knew hot anger, and he definitely knew berserk rage. And the face that the warden was wearing right then? Was none of those.

The expression Magellan wore as he slowly clawed his way to his feet and drew himself to his full height was one of acute annoyance. The rubber-man's best efforts hadn't even been able to make him lose his temper.

"Straw Hat, I must thank you."

And those words in that too-casual tone certainly weren't making Luffy feel any better about his chances, either.

"You may or may not be aware of just how many… problems…"

The word was insufficient to convey the sheer, seething hatred it carried.

"…I've had to deal with this week, completely unable to do anything about them. But now? Now here you come, breaking our perfect record against breaking into this prison, and I find that I now have a problem that I can actually solve. For that… I am grateful. And in case I have not made myself perfectly clear to you over the course of our battle…" Magellan slowly and simultaneously cracked his neck and knuckles. "That is not a good thing for you."

Luffy's breath came in heaving gasps, his whole being focused on getting enough oxygen into his system to force out a question:

"…someone… tried to give you a bloodbath already… didn't they?" he wheezed, as annoyed as his opponent.

Magellan shifted his jaws, visibly wrestling with whether to answer. After a moment, he shrugged, some of the tension sloughing off of him.

"When fighting an Ability-user near a body of liquid, it is a logical strategy. Admittedly, nobody's ever done it quite like that, but still ultimately fruitless. A full-body coating of venom is as much a shield against water as weapons. I only had a few seconds, and that was all that I needed to flood the vat, and give me proper room to breathe."

Scowling, the satanic figure turned on his heel to regard the festering muck he'd pulled himself out of. "Of course, now we're going to have to replace the entire vat before the resulting fumes make this place go from inhospitable to outright lethal. Which will blow our entire slush fund." Magellan turned back around and slammed his fist into his palm. "Which means that now I'm going to have to do something very unprofessional and vent some frustration by beating seven kinds of crap out of you. I'm not quite sure when I'll stop, as I've only ever found five kinds. But, to be fair, you did bring this on yourself."

For a brief moment, Luffy let himself close his eyes, to briefly succumb to the pain and exhaustion. And then they shot open again, blazing with a determination that wouldn't yield to anything. A determination that drove Luffy—even with his body in agony, even with his every muscle screaming at him in rebellion—to shove himself to his feet, despite swaying like a tree in a storm.

In response, Magellan's fists clenched, ready to strike against anything that the pirate did. And yet again, he found himself completely taken aback.

Because Luffy's next action, without flinching and without breaking his defiant stare, was to kneel upon the broiling ground and place his hands behind his head.

"I surrender," he stated.

The Warden did not move. Luffy made no move to get up. They remained that way for what felt like an eternity in the space of a moment, each warily regarding the other and neither ceding an inch.

"…you're playing me," Magellan finally growled, his fingers twitching mutinously. "I. Know. You're playing me."

"Yeah," Luffy agreed, jerking his head tightly without breaking the eye contact. "But you'll do it anyway. Because you're a good man, and you follow the rules."

Shockingly, that did very little to ease Magellan's apprehension-fueled ire. In fact, his outrage visibly mounted within him, his breath coming in snorted gasps, his lips pulling back to show all his fangs in a vicious snarl. And then, in the back of his mind, something audibly snapped.

"RAAAAAGH!"

Magellan lashed out his arm, his death-laced fist shooting straight for Luffy's head. The Straw Hat, for his part, didn't flinch by even a hair.

SMASH!

Not even when the fist landed just to the side of his head and liquified the bridge just behind him.

Magellan stayed in that position for a straight minute, arm extended. He loomed over Luffy, his chest heaving with exerted fury. Finally, he half-snarled-half-sighed out a rancid breath and stood back up straight, readjusting his tie and collar as passive-aggressively as possible.

"I would say that this isn't over, Straw Hat…" the Warden growled, his jaw still grinding in spite of his renewed composure. "But frankly, it is. You're too envenomated; whatever your doctor might have given you, no amount, combination, or potency of antidotes can save you. Soon enough, you will die."

Luffy jerked his head to the side, his expression still painfully neutral. "Maybe… or maybe I can find something you didn't think of."

Magellan cocked a brow. "Such as?"

"A miracle," was the impossibly certain answer.

To that blandly delivered statement, Magellan could only blink in honest and abject surprise. "…a miracle. In the depths of hell?" he deadpanned. Shaking his head, he replied, "Then I wish you luck, Straw Hat. For however little that is worth."

Plastering back on an expression of professional disdain, Magellan signed to the nearest (surviving) Vid-snail. For all his fresh composure, Magellan had seen too much of Luffy's exploits to not suspect some sort of hidden plan, even if he couldn't begin to conceive of what it might be. As such, the Warden only took the risk of turning his back on Luffy when the squad of guards he'd signaled appeared in his peripheral vision. And waiting for him after that turn was his second-in-command sauntering up in front of the guard platoon.

"Truly a week from Hell. In Hell, no less." Hannyabal remarked. "But even Straw Hat Luffy could never win against Impel Down."

Magellan snorted. "He had help that still evades us. This situation must be contained."

"Already on it; Straw Hat gave away their location a minute ago while you were pulling yourself out and the guards have orders to establish a perimeter." The pharaonic man started to stroke his headdress. "Y'know, with you being so tired after dealing with one infiltrator—"

"Finish that sentence and I'll actually put you in charge for the next twenty-four hours if you want it that much," the actual Chief Warden deadpanned to the wannabe.

Hannyabal froze, one hand still on the headdress as his eyes swapped between Magellan, the ruined vat, and the melting remains of the BioMEGA that his superior had 'accidentally' slaughtered.

"…I was just going to suggest putting some extra nightshade in your lunch, doesn't that work like caffeine for you?"

"No. It's a sleeping aid," Magellan dryly corrected. Groaning bone-deep, he brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Though Tartarus knows that I'd gladly kill for some right now, so do yourself a favor and don't tempt me."

The Warden glanced over his shoulder at Straw Hat, currently being doused by the guards with various antivenom agents so that they could safely cuff him, and then spoke quietly, "Vice-Warden Hannyabal."

The wannabe snapped to immediate and total attention.

"Take Straw Hat Luffy to Level 5 and isolate him, the central cell pillar," Magellan ordered, eyes narrowed. "I am letting him out of my sight only because you can still keep him in yours. Do not take your eyes off of him until he breathes his last, and then take the corpse directly to the incinerator. I don't anticipate any miracles, but Level 6 is currently housing two individuals who made assumptions about what this man can or cannot survive."

Magellan abruptly bent in half so that he could properly shove his glowering visage in his underling's face. "We cannot afford to, and thus will not take any chances. He goes in a cell. He dies. He is disposed of. No surprises. No mistakes. Am. I. Clear."

With borderline uncharacteristic sternness, Vice-Warden Hannyabal snapped a sharp salute to his superior before running past him to bark orders to the rest of the men. In short order, Monkey D. Luffy was cuffed, chained, and marched down the bridge. All without the pirate flinching an inch.

Only once Luffy was well away and well out of sight did Magellan allow himself to slump with a tired, pained groan. The titanic warden, meanwhile, grouchily stalked off to the infirmary. He would barely have time to tend to his wounds before his diarrhea started up again.

Truly his life was suffering, but what else could be expected with living and working in Hell.

Patient AN: Is this the real Cross? No, it's just fantasy. Caught in a downfall, no escape to reality…

we'll be stringing you along until the Denouement. Hope you don't mind too much~

And on a more serious note, for anyone crying foul about Magellan being able to withstand being plunged in a pool without immediately becoming powerless, I draw your attention to the fact that a soap bubble was enough protection for a Devil Fruit user when he was at the bottom of the ocean.

Xomniac AN: As well as his own ability to swim through his own venom. So yeah.