I've gone back to address:
-why only Coby was captured by Kuma
-Lola's crew, and her 'abandoning' of her friends
I had already thought of the first and last point, but typing so much and so fast, they remained stuck in my head instead of finding their way onto the keyboard, thank everyone for pointing those inconsistencies out. And to the few that PM'd me... yeah, Luffy changing course means that Kamie gets either eaten by a Sea King or sold into slavery: I can't really justify the plot bringing the crew to her rescue, especially with Sanji's picture actually on his bounty poster, which cuts away from the story those guys on flying fishes.
And I actually remembered Lucci being a cheetah, and that it was that reason why he was fast enough to keep up and challenge Luffy. I'll correct that soon enough: thank you all for pointing out that he was a leopard-man.
In this version of the story, Iceburg didn't participate into the creation of the new ship, so Thousand Sunny is out, I'm really shit with names though, so, as soon as a good one is offered in the reviews, I'll go back and correct it in the previous chapters.
Shadows of hell
During his life, Bentham had done much, and known more, than many other people. He cared little for that which seemed to push others, although, it maybe was because they all were too mellow to burst out beyond the limitations of their bodies, beyond the categories that their birth put them in. Bentham, once Bon-chan, was an Okama, and proud of it. Once Mr. Two, the user of the Copy-Copy fruit had found paradise in hell, and an angel in the form of Ivankov, the infamous manly queen of an entire realm of people brave enough to be themselves in spite of the circumstances.
Back in Alabasta, he had made friends in the most unexpected of ways, and he had gladly sacrificed himself for their sake, protecting their beautiful ship while he was at it. Even as he walked towards his unavoidable capture, Bentham's heart had been light, and while he wept for the fact that he wouldn't see his friends again, he had also laughed in face of the adversity.
That was just the Okama way.
When the reports told of a pink-haired young man laughing his way through the cold and the wolves in the Fifth Level of Impel Down, also known as the Frozen Hell, Bentham's heart had stuttered: quickly, a retrieval team was mounted, and now Coby was eating and drinking warmth while telling a story. Someone would have thought that the first thing out of his mouth would have been explaining how he got captured, but besides saying that the Straw Hat Pirates were all well and free, he had instead turned with shining eyes towards the man who had once been Mr. 2: "Want to know about the Going Merry, the ship you sailed to safety?"
And what a story it had been! Ivankov herself, in his kingly splendor, had started a celebratory party for such an incredible tale, only for the pink-haired pirate to drop other news when he was proposed by some of the Okama who had listened with rapt attention: "Sorry, I'm married."
That had been cause for another round of celebrations, while Coby finished recovering for the deadly cold of the Frozen Hell. And during each moment, it seemed that there was absolutely no sadness or despair about being a prisoner in Impel Down: there was no trepidation about what he needed to do, and after the celebrations, the Straw Hat Pirates' First Mate ended up in a meeting with Ivankov himself, Inazuma as a trusted advisor, and Bentham, because he had vouched for the pink-haired maverick.
And if his telling of previous tales during the party that saw his crew sail into the sky, raid Enies Lobby, and defeat another of the Seven Knights of the Sea, hadn't shown how silver-tongued he could be what he said later all but nailed that impression into stone: "Are you planning of spending here the rest of your lives?"
The question, provocatory as it was, was delivered with a straight face: if the answer was yes, Bentham knew that Coby would begin his own plans, if the answer was no, then some insane adventure promised to take place soon. And the Okama who had once been Mr. Two knew that he wanted to be a part of it.
No matter how insane, or how utterly impossible-sounding: Bentham only heard a firend asking for help. And he would deliver that help.
That was just the Okama Way as Bentham understood it.
Having a Devil Fruit was utterly unexplainable to those without having eaten one themselves. I sure as hell knew that I would have been unable to explain what I felt and perceived since eating Moria's fruit to my past self, never mind an entirely different person.
I had somewhat hoped that Enel's fruit would reincarnate somewhere that gave me access to it, and when that hadn't happened, I had been disappointed: oh, the things I could do with a Logia, the kind of physics I could leverage with minimal effort... Still, crying about it wouldn't have helped, and the Merry's debacle had taken priority in my mind. Managing to avoid both the Foxy Pirates and Aokiji by having Usopp deliver us directly to Water 7 had been a blessing in truth, and once we began sailing on our new ship, I was left seeking out a way to both help Luffy with Ace's situation, swing Marineford's incoming war to our advantage, and figure out a way for me to become strong enough to earn my position as a First Mate, fast enough for it to be useful.
The Six Powers had been a start, but there was a reason why the strongest people around, save for Garp and Shanks, were Devil Fruit users: the advantages that power kind of power could bring were just too vast to be ignored only for fear of drowning: I'd simply have to rely on Sanji, Zoro, Franky, Nami, and now Lola in case I ever fell overboard.
When the possibilities were a Giraffe Zoan, the Bomb Bomb Fruit, and the Soap thing that Khalifa would have eaten in another life, hoping for Moria's fruit had been the only sensible option. Still, it took some time and liquid courage to take a bite of that, and even more self-control to not rely on that power when it came to 'fight' Kuma.
Even without actively training it, I had been thinking about ways to use the power I now held to maximum effect: I wanted to jailbreak it, I needed a consistent, quick way to cheat myself into power, something that wouldn't leave me high and dry at the worst possible moment, and, as Moria had so quickly demonstrated with his failure against a bunch of rookies, it sure as hell meant relying on quality more than quantity.
The Shadow Shadow fruit was said to make Moria a Ruler of Shadows, instead of a Shadow-man. The Fruit I partook of granted the user the ability to manifest and control shadows of living creatures, including their own, as physical and tangible forms: but why would I limit myself to that instead of using even the shadows of objects?
After all, almost everything cast a shadow, and those things were now mine.
Tapping into that power wasn't quite like turning up a switch, it was more like opening a second set of eyes, tasting with another tongue, feeling with another pair of hands, and so on: and each of those senses spread in a world that wasn't the one my body's inhabited, but one that was made of forgotten corners, of whispers, of quiet.
My shadow was myself, moving freely when I didn't actively will it to do something else, and as it was the reflection, the impression of what I was, the shape I cast on the ground was just as eager to grow mightier as I was. Which was good, as I didn't know how I would have ended up dealing with a rebellious power.
Doflamingo had shown that the Awakening of one's Devil Fruit would truly push the user into a wholly new ballpark, as far as power went: and while even I wasn't so stupid as to believe myself capable of needing only days to turn my power into something that required years to dedicated study, I did love speculating about the potential uses of powers. Mikita and Usopp could attest to it in the first person: besides the wonders of it, there was just some deep satisfaction at having constantly new solutions and combinations come to life only because I had the imagination, and those I helped the will to obtain the needed finesse.
My shadow wasn't my power: the fact that it could move separately from me and I could switch places with parts of it or the whole was merely the most obvious manifestation of the Devil Fruit I ate. It was something that I did take advantage of while fighting my way through the frozen hellscape that saw me hunted by truly rabid, hungry wolves, but it was nothing, compared to what I could do, and even less when compared to what I would eventually be able to do.
I had kept my power quiet during the celebration that was thrown for my arrival thanks to Bentham immediately identifying me, but my shadow knew the importance of being sneaky, and it merely began to listen, to coax whispers and answers out of the shadows surrounding us, passing me slips of impressions and colors of ideas that I was growing accustomed to deciphering.
So when I asked 'Are you planning of spending here the rest of your lives?' I knew that the laughter I was invested with was born out of irritation more than anything else, and I listened attentively when Ivankov spoke: "The guards, Magellan, the warships waiting outside, the Gates of Justice, the current that will bring us straight to Marineford, where we'll either be sunk or left trapped into a triangle that will eventually starve us to death. When the opportunity arises, we'll consider it, otherwise, it will be a meaningless waste of lives."
Instead of seeing that list of difficulties as an insurmountable wall, I merely envisioned it as a ladder: the guards were a joke easily taken care of by freeing enough other prisoners, the warships could be sabotaged, or quietly taken over, the series of Gates of Justice was a problem, but Impel Down was sure to host a slew of shipwrights and engineers, enough of them that someone like me could combine their knowledge, and maybe build an engine to sail, through the Calm Belt. Magellan... my shadow rippled with determination, unnoticed by anyone but me, and I barely held back a smirk: how could venom harm a shadow?
Of course, freeing Ace would probably deliver a lot of firepower, enough to keep an air balloon working indefinitely while I flew us away. Only for it all to come falling apart when the World Government sent Kizaru to blast us out of the sky at the speed of light. I didn't mention it, but the best chance at escape was likely to be a revolt following Ace's being delivered to the Marines, which meant escaping Impel Down only to go to war at Marineford. This meant that shopping for skills and strengths was my first task.
"We'll need to keep the preparations quiet." I mused out loud, plans shifting in my head while my shadow eagerly lapped at my feet, as if waves on a shore.
"Don't talk as if 'we' have agreed to anything, punk!" Ivankov replied while downing a chalice of red wine, "I told you, as things are now, it's impossible."
"I am here because I pissed on the flag of the World Government, I learned some of the Chyper Pol secret techniques, and killed Moria." my shadow decided that it had played a silent part long enough, and a doppelganger made of black shades with a fain hint of purple rose from the floor, leaning on my shoulder with an elbow while casually waving at the other people present.
"You're hardly the first Devil Fruit eater to believe their power great enough to challenge the world." Inazuma was hardly impressed, while my shadow had begun to play rock, paper, and scissors with Bentham, who seemed delighted. Still, my shadow informed me that there was a faint taste of surprise in the revolutionaries' two-dimensional counterparts.
"The prisoners will be the army needed to take over warships and to defeat the mooks that oppose us." I shrugged, "And thanks to Bentham, I think we can noticeably up the threat level of those you trust."
"Me?" the Okama in question was surprised to the point that he stopped playing, "What do you mean, pinky-kun?"
"You've been using your Devil Fruit like it's a Zoan, but it's a Paramecia." I grinned, "The only thing I saw you do were copying the faces and mannerisms of some people, but why didn't you copy yourself? Have you ever tried to copy another's technique? Ryankaku would work well with your style if I remember it right. Or have you tried to create copies of guns? Hell, have you ever tried to copy a knife while throwing it?"
While I spoke, my shadow stretched on the nearest wall and began to mimic what I was talking about: "If we manage to jailbreak you power enough, maybe you can even impart copies of certain skills on chosen people, or mismatch willingly a copy and create something entirely new, who knows?"
With every suggestion, Bentham's jaw lowered towards the floor, while Ivankow, despite himself, rose an eyebrow: "What are you, some Devil Fruit savant?"
"Any idea of how the security system works here?" my grin stretched wider, but I ignored the question, a the answer would be something that Ivankov had to reach on her own after seeing me operate.
"Transponder-snails visually linked to a bigger one in the security room, which projects everything it's witnessed in the first four and the sixth level." Inazuma's glasses his the eyes of the power user, but I could tell that curiosity was rising there without my shadow's informative nudge.
"Shadows are mine to command." if Moria could pull shadows from the people that cast them, using the animals casting those as a puppet should be doable, if nothing else, my doppelganger could take over the lesser shadow and puppeteer it if some odd interaction happened between one specific shadow's and its originator, "Animals have less complex wills than humans, so it should be easy to take it over and have the snail show only what we want to be shown."
"Should?"
"Eh, give me a break, I had this power for like two days." I shrugged, waited for a second, and then added: "And I was drunk during most of them."
Before the two revolutionaries and Bentham could work through the hilarity and disbelief that my words had caused, I went on: "Also, you're probably thinking of spending months taking over, and seizing our chance at some point: it's going to happen in weeks, not months."
"Weeks!?" Ivankov gave a girly screech: "Yeeehav!" only to flip the script completely, "You have brass one, I admit it, but the sheer amount of coordination it'd require..."
"If you don't have plans and a hierarchy ready, it will be a bigger waste of lives than it's already shaping up to be." I shrugged, not really caring about people I never met, "But our chance is coming in weeks, not months." I had awoken already in the fifth level of Impel Down, my clothes swapped for prison garbs, and my glasses left only as a spite to let me see my incoming doom: I didn't know how much time had passed between my encounter with Kuma and my awakening, but knowing how fast he could move, I wagered it had been at most a few days.
"Why are you insisting on weeks, pinky-kun?" Bentham's serious question made me bark out a peal of laughter.
"You should know: my captain is Monkey D. Luffy." I shook my head while ignoring Ivankov's spluttering: "And he knows I'm here, he's coming for me." He'll come here sneaking under Hancock's dress to free his brother, and there will be no need for him to face Magellan if the prison is ready to sail away at his arrival.
"As much as I'd love to take out their security first, I'd rather have a peek at level 6' inmates," I rose from my seat and began to leave the room, "They'll be our best chance at escaping successfully in any case." And I'm murdering Blackbeard's crew while they're defenseless in their cells before he can bust them out. "I need a blade of some sorts, maybe two, I've yet to figure out how to use that..."
A shadowy hand landed on my shoulder while Bentham rose from his seat to follow me, and my attention fell onto my doppelganger, which was showing off its free hand, I felt as it tensed its incorporeal muscles, to the point it dully hurt, as there weren't bones or tendons being compressed or stretched to the limit, and I saw its fingers harden in sharp claws: "Uh, my shadow can use Tekkai." I noted, "That's cool."
My other self gave a silent laugh while grabbing its midsection, as if it feared busting its gut because of the exhilarating hilarity of the situation. And I couldn't help but feel the same way: the die was cast, and my climb to power could truly begin.
The environment was dimly lit, fit only to allow the prisoners to always know that they stood behind bars, and it would lighten only in presence of Magellan or another distinguished visitor.
The one with the faculty to travel to level 6, and beat up the bound prisoners didn't need any more light than the one it was provided: its senses were unnaturally sharp, and instinct guided the being where the harsh training of Sadi didn't directly command it. That instinct was the result of a very specific event, one that brought the animalistic pursuit of survival to subsume the human's need for reassurance about the individual's superiority.
So, as he had not been summoned and it had not been commanded otherwise by the Mistress, the Minotaur of Impel Down dragged its spiked club behind it as it wandered aimlessly, seeking vindication of its strength by beating up those that couldn't match up to his might, because of shackles or because they were weak... it mattered not.
He wore striped pants, a leather belt with a bronze hoof-shaped belt buckle, and no shirt, its eyes were small and beady, and its brain completely swallowed by animalistic pushes, far away from what had once counted as 'human'. When an opponent manifested itself out of the deepest shadows that ruled the entirety of level six of Impel Down, the awakened-zoan didn't hesitate, and it charged.
Its opponent was a much smaller being, a puny, irrelevant spack of purplish black that wavered in and out of the creature's guard, folding on itself unpredictably only to lay blows that didn't manage to do any real damage. Until suddenly, there was the sound of a knife shearing paper, and the Minotaur collapsed.
Clad in shadows against one of the walls interposed among the sea stone bars, was Coby, a short wakizashi in his hand and a humongous, struggling shadow in his other. The first instinct was to eat it, but the pink-haired pirate refrained: he was going to have his hands full in a minute: "Your blows didn't harm it." the voice was quiet as a shadow, but the pink-haired pirate's doppelganger heard perfectly, and sharing its caster's propensity for clever solutions, immediately understood what he was getting at.
With trepidation easy to see in its rippling shape, Coby's shadow grabbed the Minotaur's, and with a motion that wasn't disgusting only because it happened in two dimensions, gobbled it up. The doppelganger visibly chewed on it for a couple of seconds, only to swallow it full: immediately, its shape grew while maintaining the original proportions, and it stretched to the Minotaur's height and bulk while letting out a silent bout of laughter.
Quiet and fast as only shadows could be, the doppelganger attacked Coby.
The punch stopped as it traveled towards the pink-haired pirate, who rose an unimpressed eyebrow, only to keep talking in a tone that was less than a whisper: "I don't know if that's my own idea of a joke, or if the Minotaur's shadow is messing you up."
With an eerie smile, Coby's shadow shrugged, opening its hands as if saying 'Who knows?'. But it was enough for the Straw Hat Pirates' First Mate, who snorted, "Yeah, I figured. Wow, I must be a crazy cunt to play pranks on myself while in an enemy's stronghold."
Not far behind, Bentham was similarly clad in shadows under the other pirate's control, and he was undecided between joining him in his laughter, or letting himself feel the dread that he felt in seeing how much was resting on the shoulders of a man that literally bickered with his own shadow.
A violent *crack* echoed off the broken stone floor where Coby's shadow had kicked it, only to fold onto itself and return to its original size, repeating the motion, which produced the same effect. "So you can do both shock and awe and quiet takeovers."
Then the doppelganger grabbed the spiked mace of the minotaur and easily hefted it over one shoulder, its face opening in a half-moon-shaped hole that was meant to be a smile, and the pink-haired pirate snorted: "You're just fill of surprises, aren't you?"
As if to mock its owner, the shadow made a show of lifting one edge of the part of it that was cast by Coby's jacket, one of the clothes that the Okama had been happy to give him instead of his prison garments, only to stuff the weapon inside. The pink-haired pirate grunted, his weight shifting momentarily until he adjusted: "I feel the weight of the things you take, don't clutter my shadow with useless stuff."
Suitably admonished, the shadow returned to stroll by Coby's side as they walked past the cells, meeting the dangerous eyes inside without flinching, until they found one cage with a single owner: "You Shiryu of the rain?"
"Who wants to know?"
The answer came in a bland tone, but the shadow of the man wasn't as nearly as quiet as it freely spoke of its thirst for blood, of its eagerness for slaughter. Coby was utterly nonplussed as he spoke in the dim lights of the sixth level of Impel Down, knowing that the Minotaur was going to awaken sooner rather than later, and that he and Bentham, who had volunteered to accompany him, would need to disappear before Magellan came looking for whatever had caused one of the awakened-zoans to drop unconscious.
"Let's just say that Magellan made enemies." In hindsight, maybe the prisoners should have simply avoided the Minotaur, but it was too big of an opportunity to discard: vast strength without a proper will to sustain it? Given the ease with which Coby's shadow had overtaken it, it wasn't in doubt that the other awakened-zoans would reach the same end.
"Oh?" the intrigued voice of one of the three and half meters tall man reached Coby as his figure came forward, his eyes keen and unforgiving as the edge of his blade, "And what do you hope to gain from being here?"
"I'm putting together some like-minded people." the lie fell easily from the lips of the pink-haired pirate, "I can get you out, I ate the Dark Dark fruit, so I need you to step closer to the bars."
"And what do you hope to obtain by 'getting me out'?" the most dangerous guard of Impel Down asked sardonically, "I wouldn't be here if I could take on Magellan."
"I need some strong people to keep away the riffraff while I deal with that cunt." Coby shrugged: "Are you in or not? Frankly, it doesn't look like you have anything better to do." All the while, his shadow had been whispering reassurance, singing the same instinctive thirst for blood that characterized the soul of the tall swordsman, and maybe it was that subtle, minimal influence to push the other where he was needed.
"True enough." Shiryu of the rain replied, finally giving a smile that truly matched his personality, "I'll need my sword."
"I'll pass you an electrical torch, you need to angle it to cast your shadow outside your cell, so that my darkness can act as a bridge." the pink-haired pirate explained smoothly as he passed through the wide bars of the small object in question, "There are some other things that could be useful where Raiu is kept."
"You know her name." it was impossible to hide the interest in his voice, "And also where it is?"
"As I said, we're a group of like-minded people." the evil grin sported by the much smaller pirate seemed to stretch wider than it should have, "And a Meito draws attention, especially one as beautiful as that."
"That she does." Shiryu could already feel the blood spurts splattering on the floors once he could hold his weapon once more, and followed Coby's instructions, lighting up the torch in order to cast his shadow beyond the bars.
"It will feel a little odd." Coby smiled dangerously, grasped the man's shadow, and cut it free from its rightful owner before the latter could truly understand what had happened. The sudden severing of the shadow made the tall swordsman fall unconscious, but the pink-haired pirate was already busy fending off the vicious, bloodthirsty thing that had been worked up into a frenzy thanks to Coby's own doppelganger.
"Well then," the pirate's shadow rose to help its owner wrangle into submission Shiryu's, and with a bit of finagling, it was balled up safely into Coby's closed fist, "we'd better get back to Ivankov, I'm going to need a quiet place to bring this one under control."
The room I had been closed in once Bentham and I made our way back to Ivankov was lit by one electrical light, and it had been barred shut from the outside, on my request: eyeing the still struggling form of Shiryu's shadow in my closed fist, I couldn't help but swallow nervously: it couldn't be helped, the swordsman was much older, much stronger, and much more dangerous than I was.
His stealth and swordsmanship were off the charts, while I remembered him getting up after being blasted by Sengoku himself. In short, his overall might obviously dwarfed mine, and while I knew Moria had used Luffy's shadow in the manga despite the latter's uniquely great will, the Shichibukai had been older, experienced in the uses of his power, and had survived Kaido himself. In comparison, I was a gnat particularly good at taking cheap shots.
So, while Bentham had managed to tweak his own power to copy my Soru and Tekkai, I still had no idea of the true limits of my power. And as he tried to make his own two of the Six Powers, only to then teach them to the others he trusted, I was going to make my own metamorphosis: I was going to make Shiryu's shadow mine. And I was going to do so completely, unlike the way in which eaten shadows would be spat out after heavy blows, because without the might that this choice of mine could give me, I'd die at Marineford.
My heart hammered in my chest as violently as it did the first time I offered myself up as bait for a Sea King, relying on Luffy's luck to survive, but when there there had been only elation and exhilarating expectation of success, now there was a twinge of uncertainity. If I failed, I died: I had no idea what could happen to me if Shiryu's shadow managed to overpower me, but it would hardly matter, as I remembered zombie-Luffy after he had eaten shadows to become strong enough to punch Oars Jr.' ancestor. I was putting all of myself, my very soul, on the line, and there was only one acceptable outcome.
If I didn't reach that, it wouldn't matter.
My doppelganger squeezed one shoulder, and after one last deep breath, I ate Shiryu's shadow.
It felt oddly like a liquid jello as it slid down my throat and it immediately suffused my body: my bones strained, my muscles quivered, and my tendons screamed. Shiryu was a 3 meters and half tall man, powerfully built, while I was a regular-sized boy of 16 years of age: no matter how much I had trained and pushed my body, there was simply no comparison, and as I tried to contain that might, I howled in agony. I could feel myself tearing at the seams, too late remembering that maybe Luffy had been able to eat that many shadows because he was made of rubber, while Moria had that unique body of his, and decades of experience.
Worse, I felt something other pushing me aside, singing of promised bloodshed and ashes and ruin, while my breaking down body moved as if to barrel through the barred door that kept me from the others.
As if I didn't matter.
As if I was nothing.
That immediately gave me some ground to stay on: I didn't sail with Luffy to be cast aside as unimportant. I hadn't willingly risked my life time and time again to see my efforts vanish at the first challenge I faced without my captain's prodigious luck backing me up. I hadn't slaved away day and night to help those around me grow stronger, to save the Merry, to cut away the enemies on our path before they could hurt them to be regarded as irrelevant.
I had stuff to do, I couldn't be stopped here: this world had too much to offer, and I wouldn't be stopped by some secondary antagonist nobody cared about.
I would heal under Ivankov's care from the destructive changes my body was undergoing, then, I'd keep readying myself: to all effects, my doppelganger was a Logia when fighting on his own, was he not? And he already had the might of an awakened Zoan to fall upon when needed. But Crocodile had pushed his fruit to the limits, did he not? With his techniques, my shadow could acquire years of mastery in a matter of hours, and there were also Koala, Rhino, and Zebra-based awakened Zoans in Impel Down.
Empty minds holding instinctive wills that I could take on easily, surely it'd be much easier than fighting against Shiryu's shadow: my doppelganger hadn't strained at all to gain the might of the Minotaur, but my body was positively breaking apart as I forced it to adapt to a power that I hadn't gained myself. Would eating an awakened Zoan's shadow tear it apart again? Surely, once I was done with the ongoing process, and healed by Ivankov, my vastly increased physicality could more easily subsume an awakened Zoan than my current body?
It was only a matter of winning against Shiryu's shadow. And win I would.
My body stopped moving despite my muscles breaking and my tendons tearing, the will of Shiryu's shadow slamming hopelessly against mine. I was the Ruler of Shadows, not him.
I was the regular Joe that had managed the impossible, time and time again. Not Him.
But all of that didn't really matter to make my point: I metaphorically stared down the other that tried to take over, the shadow of a man that was little more than a butcher, the echo of a soul that did nothing besides dedicating his existence to cause pain and anguish.
It wasn't I the meaningless one.
It wasn't I to not matter.
I am Charlotte Coby. the thought rang with crystalline clarity in my mind, And. You. Shall. Kneel.
A pressure that I hadn't realized had been building up erupted like a wave from me, a thunder with no sound, a hand squeezing another's into submission, and just like that, Shiryu's will was gone.
Bentham's friend was a decidedly odd one, and not in the best ways: too sure of his role, of his place, of his worth. Unwilling to even entertain the idea of changing gender, Ivankov huffed in annoyance at the beautiful woman it would have made. In his male form, he even considered changing him for the hell of it, letting him discover the joys of his new sex with some cathartic marathon among the Okama, but she held back.
And not only because he and Bentham were friends: not just anyone could celebrate with the Okama never showing even a hint of disgust or distaste for them. Not many would be so readily accepting of one reality not their own, and yet this Coby hadn't batted an eye. Then of course, there was the casual ease shown in off-handedly mentioning unique directions in which Bentham could push his development, fearlessly deciding to share some of the Six Powers, and immediately planning a takeover, logically working through the hurdles that everyone knew were on the way, while doubling down everywhere he could as a measure to fight off any sudden snag.
It was the mind of a strategist, wrapped in the young body of a kid that did its best to keep up with the might holed up inside. Listening to the kid, he had his power for less than a handful of days, and if Bentham's growth was any indication of the pink-haired pirate's understanding of powers, his own learning curve would be as close as vertical for a long while.
Ivankov hadn't been told exactly every detail of Coby's power, which, given that the two didn't know each other, was only smart on the kid's part. But Kuma had shared much of what there was to know about the Shichibukai years before, and the Okama Queen had a good idea of what he had been planning. The potential backfire was great, but there was a single point that stopped the King of Kamabakka Kingdom from squeezing the boy like the gnat he was because he could turn into a dangerous chimaera.
My captain is Monkey D. Luffy. Pride oozed off his voice. A peacock fanned its feathery tail, a lion shook his mane, an artist wept at the results of his endless toil, and Coby felt that exact pride in being in this 'Straw Hat' 's crew.
He's coming for me. Certainty filled the room: the sun rose from the East, there were Four Blues, the Tenryubito were cunts, and his captain was going to storm Impel Down for one of his.
Which were the odds that a Monkey D. Luffy would happen to be this brat's captain? How likely was it that there was no relation between this 'Straw Hat' and Dragon, when there was such unwavering loyalty, and dared Ivankov say it? Faith.
The answers were obvious, especially given the kind of unbound charisma Dragon summoned to his just cause. The King of Kamabakka Kingdom should know, he had felt that on his own skin.
The boy had asked to be closed away from all others while he dealt with a particularly dangerous shadow, after showing Bentham two of the Six Powers. 'So you have something productive to do instead of worrying uselessly.' As if he couldn't fathom why a friend would worry for him. Ivankov had seen some of that zealot-like determination before, and it wasn't hard to understand the entirety of the boy no, of the young man's character: he lived for his crew, that was all. Maybe it was that dedication that had pushed Kuma into manipulating the events to put the pink-haired pirate in level five.
Too much new information surrounded the newcomer, and too much context escaped the King of Kamabakka Kingdom. So, Coby had been allowed to do as he pleased, even if he had been placed into a room that could be flooded with seawater in the blink of an eye. Ivankov didn't know whose shadow had been taken from level 6, but there was a reason why its existence was kept secret from the rest of the world.
Tortured screams echoed from behind the barred door for the better part of an hour, until there was a sudden quiet. It was the quiet of the suicidal before the jump, of the guillotine before being released, of the instant between the flash of a muzzle and the blow of the same gun.
And then nine of the Okama that had been at the ready fell unconscious as a Conqueror's opened his eyes for the first time. Coby's will exploded in a wave out of the closed-off room, and it made Ivankov blink in surprise: "Oh my..."
What followed was perhaps predictable: the door was blown off its hinges by a shadow that moved too fast to be seen, only for the bloodied, bruised, battered form of the pink-haired pirate to walk out of where he had asked to be left alone. His skin was torn in places, while an enormous puddle of blood kept spreading from under his tentative, stumbling steps.
As he left the room and entered the one where Ivankov had been waiting, his shadow followed him, and it stretched both along the walls and towards the ceiling, utterly dwarfing the size of the body that should have been casting it, defying the presence of electrical lights with a defiant body language, and with it, came the receding, echoing effects of the Conqueror's Haki that had just awakened. Ebbing and flowing uncontrolled, if filled the room with the unending determination of seeing the world change to accommodate his wishes. Still too young and untrained, the ability didn't summon anything beyond a faint feel of danger and awe in those strong enough to resist it.
And then Ivankov truly took in the emaciated for of Coby: he stood at two meters of height, with broad shoulders and torn limbs that instead of being gangly despite the muscle on them, like they had been before, now carried the power of an older phisique. "Body..." the voice of the pirate sounded feeble when compared to his presence, but his gaze burned with certainty as it landed on the Miracle Worker, "can't keep up with power."
A hand was slowly raised, only to jab a thumb towards an exposed stretch of muscle: "Growth, healing."
The words weren't slurred as much as munched out, as if Coby had chewed each letter before spitting them through his bloodied lips. But in face of that determination, Ivankov could only nod, quickly walking towards the apparently successful pirate, needles already popping out from under the fuchsia gloves: "It will take several days for your body to adapt, but congratulations, you're in the hands of the best on the planet when it comes down to help foolish youngsters grow accustomed to their new bodies..."
His words were clearly wasted, as Coby lost consciousness as soon as he finished asking for what he needed, but remained standing, the dangerous presence of his shadow holding him up while radiating protective intent.
"Eh, this will be a fun story to tell, Yeehaw!"
AN
Bentham:
Given that Yamato decided he was a man with little build-up to it, I thought that this was Oda taking the chance his editors undoubtedly stopped when Bentham was introduced. With all the friendship at stake during the arc of Alabasta, and the fundamental role he had in Impel Down, I remember that at the time I truly thought he'd be the character to join Luffy's crew from Impel Down.
Still, I used him to introduce Coby's being dropped in the fifth level: not only because going through all the previous ones sounded somewhat wasteful given that we all already know about them, but it is also justified because he's believed to not have a devil fruit and he had more than 300 Million Beli as a bounty.
Also, his fruit is another that can be utterly devastating when cleverly used, and Coby does like finding out how to push Devil Fruits even further.
Impel Down:
This was the cleverest, fastest way I thought of to have Coby both unlock his Conqueror's Haki (for the same reason I had him eat a devil fruit instead of going forward without, it's just mandatory for a truly interesting MC in the One Piece world), and to have him grow up to Luffy's level in time for the War of the Best.
I hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think of this!
