Chapter 15: Battle of Pluton IV
May 14, 801 WG
Lance did not have the ability to be delicate in a fight like Helgram and Dragon could be. He was all brute force when it came to melee. Something he rather despised about himself but it was the only way to keep pace with the other two without getting a devil fruit. He never considered himself the strongest of the three despite his pension for hurling large numbers of opponents into the air with a single swing of his sword.
Lance was far better at getting people and weapons to act in the most efficient way possible to overcome an opponent. Like how he got a non-combat ship like Thousand Sunny to take out seven battleships of the Marines. That was where his talent lay.
So, standing on a ship's deck swinging his claymore like a barbarian with a club, while effective against the chum Marines, just bored him. He wasn't even trying that hard. He kept one eye on Laboon, leaping into the air when the island whale struck the ship. All the Marines fell on their faces, what an embarrassing show, while he came down with another powerful swing aimed at the deck. Men flew backwards and a few tumbled over the railing. Not that he cared. He was aiming for the deck. Cracks appeared wherever he struck.
Lance gritted his teeth. Every crack weakened the ship and would make the internal explosion more effective. Lance could only hope that Luffy would be able to escape the destruction some way.
He's Maryanne's son, he thought. There has to be a way for him to survive this. She always survived the impossible. That thought was the only thing he could cling to for comfort as he fought.
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After several descents and lots of running through long corridors, Luffy found what he was looking for. There had been other closed doors, but he had ignored them. That same instinct telling him they were not what he was seeking. A sense that only machinery lay beyond and possibly Marines that were currently prepping the great gun. The door before him now, was a thick metal slab that rolled sideways rather than out into the narrow corridor. The wall on either side now metal as well instead of the wood of the rest of the ship's passages.
Things seemed to be at the danger point. A high-pitched ringing, just on the edge of his hearing was now a constant presence. He didn't have much time.
Luffy took hold of the latch using his meager weight to pull it down, freeing the clasp from the locking loops. Then he grabbed the great door's handle and pulled. It rolled with only a token amount of resistance; the hinges were in excellent shape. He paused when he saw the interior.
He was expecting barrels of black powder or something equivalent. Instead it was rows of glass cylinders with a golden substance within. It reminded him of that dyno rock stuff that Z had used to try to blow up the Grandline. Only that had been purple rocks not golden-whatever that was filling these containers. It still gave him pause.
This could go worse than expected.
Feeling cold despite the marathon he had just run, Luffy pulled out the Den Den Mushi he had just remembered to bring with him. That felt like the thing he needed to do instead of just lighting it up.
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Nami heard the crackle of the Den Den Mushi as Zoro and Sanji helped to pull the crew of the fatally damaged Polar Tang onto their ship one by one. The navigator turned her attention immediately to the device and picked up the receiver.
"Guys?" Luffy's voice sounded from the snail's mouth. It was shaky and uncertain, very much not the standard Luffy.
"Luffy? What is it?"
"I'm at the armory…" He paused. "You might want to take the Thousand Sunny and get out of here."
Nami felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. "Why?" she asked.
"No, you do need to get away from this ship," said Luffy without answering her question.
"Not without you and Lance, Luffy," said Nami. "Just lay down a trail and get back up here."
"I can't. This isn't gunpowder or any kind of powder. It's more like that dyno stuff from before. And besides, I'm really down in here. I couldn't get out even if it was the powder. Too much time. Besides, I think it's getting ready to fire. This thing is making all sorts of noises."
Nami licked her suddenly dry lips. "Luffy…"
"Just get out of here. You guys can't help me if you get crushed by Pluton's hull when it flies free. I'll be okay."
Liar, she thought. "Luffy, you can't stay in there."
"I don't have any way to set up a timing device or anything. I'm not Usopp or Franky."
"Luffy…"
"Just get out! We're out of time!"
The snail clicked asleep. Luffy had hung up. Nami bit her lip, she did not want to relay that order and an order it was. However, he was right. There was nothing they could do for him or Lance if it was bad as Luffy thought it was and Luffy was a hopeless optimist. Or at least he used to be. No, he still was. Why else would he chase after Law rather than write him off after Law killed him?
She turned to the rest of their comrades. "Hurry up and get Law and the others out of there!" she yelled.
"We're going as fast as we…" started Zoro as he pulled another Hearts Pirate onto their ship.
Nami cut him off. "Luffy says we need to coo-do-burst out now!"
"WHAT?!" everyone cried.
"Franky! Get it set up!" barked Nami. There was no time for explanations. Luffy had sounded frantic. He had said they were preparing to fire. He wouldn't wait for them to argue it out if it meant stopping Pluton from destroying Alabasta. Ann was there and so was Vivi and so was Law's sister, Lami. Along with thousands of people. Luffy was trusting them to get their asses out of there.
Franky hollered an acknowledgement and got to work prepping the machine to send them flying. Jinbei rushed to the helm while Robin, Usopp and Carrot hurried to take in the sails.
Law, the first to emerge since his crew refused to leave him in the water, had managed to dry off enough to start working his ability again. He grunted through the water induced exhaustion as he began shambling the rest of his crew aboard. Nami wondered if his exhaustion was due to diverting torpedoes with his power and not just from prolonged exposure to sea water.
Just before Bepo appeared, a jet of bubbles shot toward the ship. It impacted one of the engines causing it to explode but doing little else. An excellent hit but far too late to do much at this juncture. According to Luffy, the ship was already preparing to fire. Slowing her down was no longer the priority. However, there was some satisfaction in seeing it even if it was little more than a single middle finger elegantly raised to the whole Marine operation.
Then she heard something. A whine or ringing right on the upper edge of her hearing. She looked again at the ship. Laboon hit it and cracks became visible but only because light was shining from within to fill the fissures and expose the damage the ship had actually taken.
Nami paled then screamed, "Cut the ship! We need to fly! NOW!"
Zoro slashed the chains that were binding the Polar Tang to them, the sub vanishing beneath the waves immediately.
"Everyone, hang on!" called Franky from below. Hearts and Straw Hats dropped or grabbed whatever was nearby that was attached to the ship. Thousand Sunny shot into the air just as Pluton, Laboon and everything within their vicinity vanished within a hemisphere of golden light.
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Lance heard the edge of hearing ringing as he struck the deck again in time with Laboon's attack. Cracks ripped open on the deck, accented by a strange light within. The island whale's final strike caused the battered deck to lift up and Lance was struck by the part he had been planning to land on. Pieces of it broke free of the machines within and he and several others fell into the water.
A second later the surface erupted in light.
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Luffy waited for as long as he dared as the gun built up power before finally hurling Usopp's exploding stars at one of the cylinders. They exploded and he followed up with the fire dial, pouring heat onto the section. The glass didn't seem to react to either assault. Luffy swallowed, wondering what it would take to destroy the armory when he noticed the same high-pitched ringing now coming from the direction of the cylinders. He looked again.
While the glass didn't seem to be cracked, the contents were glowing. Then the neighboring cylinders began to glow, and the ringing gained a chorus. Soon the ones next to them starting ringing and glowing.
Uh-oh!
Luffy bolted down the corridor, leaping up the stairs as he rushed for the exit above. Laboon struck the ship again and he was thrown on his face. He scrambled back to his feet, ignoring the bleeding lip and skinned palms. The ringing grew and he felt the ship shivering beneath his feet even as he bolted.
He wasn't going to make it.
Every instinct screamed that he wasn't going to reach the deck, never mind get off the ship before the explosion.
His lungs burned from exertion, his heart threatened to beat itself right out of his chest, but still he ran.
He wasn't going to make it. He needed to be outside, in the water, now! Not in a minute! Now!
Light filled every space around him, and he sensed the floor, the wall and the ceiling vanishing behind him. Fear filled him. Never before had he feared for his own life like this. He thought he could handle dying in pursuit of his dream. He thought if he could achieve his dream thing nothing else mattered.
Ann flashed through his mind. The Malice of the World mocked him. His crew. His brothers.
I don't want to die!
Everything seemed to slow down for him. Light enveloped him.
Then he was flying face first into water.
Huh?!
He went completely under, the water surrounding him. Was he dying again? No, this water tasted of salt. Above him the surface lit up in a golden light for a single second, extending its illumination to the water around him before vanishing as suddenly as it had come. Sunlight seemed so dark by comparison but Luffy saw pieces of Pluton all around him beginning to bob back to the surface.
Luffy flung his arms around. He could move, now that he was no longer a devil fruit user, but he had never had the chance to learn how to swim. He tried to remember how others did it while his lungs burned with the need for air.
He just managed to grab hold of a piece of wreckage that was floating back to the surface and let it carry him up. He gasped once his head breached the surface and looked around.
There was nothing.
Bits of wreckage were bobbing to the surface along with, gruesomely, bits of bodies, but otherwise there was nothing. No ships. Nothing bigger than a few yards of wood appeared in all directions.
Then something large rolled onto the surface as trapped air bubbles escaped it and Luffy paled.
It was a tail, a large tail that once belonged to an even larger aquatic animal. Red blood flowed down the sheared off appendage and into the water. The red spread out turning the blue of the sea into a dark angry shade of crimson.
Luffy realized what he was staring at and swallowed in horror and grief.
Laboon.
Laboon had still been hammering the ship with everything he had in his attempt to destroy it. He had had no warning of the impending explosion and now he was gone.
The tail rolled as the last of the air bubbles within escaped and the giant piece of whale flesh sank. It would soon become a buffet for numerous sharks and other sea predators and scavengers. Luffy looked around for something large enough to climb onto. With all the blood in the water, it would be easy for him to become something's meal if he stayed partially submerged.
He spied a piece of a ship's hull. The near flat nature of it that allowed it to behave like a raft despite the loss of its walls revealed it to be a part of Pluton. The bottom of the boat that had been beneath the water. How it had managed to avoid being destroyed in the internal explosion he didn't know, but it was here, and it would mask his presence from sea predators, so he didn't care.
Luffy may not know how to keep himself from sinking, but it was simple enough to pull himself through the water as long as he kept one arm around the piece of wood that kept him afloat. Without his devil fruit, he was no longer rendered immobile by the sea. It was one advantage gained out of that entire fiasco.
The pirate captain pulled himself up onto the floating remnants of Pluton, catching sight of tell-tale triangular fins beginning to appear in the waters beyond. He let out a sigh of relief only to gasp as he became aware of how much he hurt. The adrenaline that had been pumping through his system had begun to dissipate and now that he was safe, he no longer had the narrow focus to block out all unnecessary and troublesome input from his body.
He hurt. It wasn't the ache of over exerted muscles nor the throb of newly formed bruises. It wasn't stabbing pain or burning pain, either of which he might have expected under the circumstances from being caught in an explosion. It was just pain, pain that was rapidly developing into crippling and near black-out levels.
He couldn't think. He couldn't feel the wood beneath him anymore. He couldn't feel the water that still dripped off him nor the sun that warmed his skin. Everything hurt and his brain felt like it was turning itself inside out. Light spots and dark spots warred in his vision blocking out everything else and his ears rang like a chorus of great bells.
Was he lying on the floating piece of hull or was he rolling around and about to go off the end? He didn't know and he didn't know that he didn't know. His brain refused to even acknowledge that much of his confusion as it burned and twirled and shocked but refused to grant the mercy of unconsciousness.