Hell's Gate
The Hammer had now almost won the battle. Sabo went down but he was still conscious and all he had to do was to strike down Reyna. Once he turned into the Balrog form, she never stood a chance, although, she did manage to hit him a few times but nothing was severe.
As he had brought down his sword, Reyna looked up and closed her eyes. Her heart had seemed to stop and she held in a breath. She opened her eyes and she then looked at Sabo, who was near her sight as he was on the ground on top of a pool of his own blood. It was at this point where she had accepted death.
Sabo looked at the new division commander. He realized that they would die here however, they weren't dead yet. There may yet be some hope. However, that hope had died out when he saw Reyna's eyes towards him. Mustering the remaining strength he had left before he lost consciousness, he wanted to say something to jolt her back to life but all he could do was scream out "REY-CHAN!"
*Luffy and Marco*
Once Marco had realized that something wrong with his younger brother, he needed to act quickly. He averted his attention from the vampire woman who he knew he could have beaten very easily. She was nowhere near a threat to Marco. Maybe she was just someone to keep him occupied for some time. Whatever the case was, before he could even act, Luffy had sprung into action and instantly killed the woman who was trying to stop them with a quick and strong punch that almost made no sound. The punch had made a hole through her chest and she was lying down, lifeless and slowly drowning in her own blood.
Marco knew he had to try to calm down Luffy as he didn't understand why this was happening. This was supposed to be under control, yet here he is, having lost his fight with that inner demon inside of him. Marco couldn't do much as the young boy started break all the doors of the cells, which made Marco believe that this was possibly a controlled release, if such thing were possible.
Once Luffy had freed all of the children, Marco had pointed to a direction where they could all escape and all of them ran towards the exits that Marco had directed them to. Luffy however, was already gone from this place. Marco had instantly became a full Phoenix and used his Observation Haki to find Luffy, which he did and just followed him. However, he noticed that there were many people in the way where he was headed and taking a look at Luffy, he was almost steaming from his body. He thought this was odd and would definitely get that checked out by Mika after they found the crew members and got out of the island.
The problem at hand was the enemies that Luffy was about to run head on to. Marco was about to dive down and take them out but he then realized that Luffy moved at such a speed where if he wasn't a veteran, he wouldn't have been able to keep up with. And with this speed, he attacked with such force that it was really starting to scare Marco because Luffy was never this strong. Luffy wasn't weak per say but he wasn't THIS strong. He knew the curse was taking him badly. And Marco wanted to help out his little brother as much as he could but it hurt him so much that he could not be able to. Not only that, he wanted to know what caused all of this. And he knew he was going to beat the hell out of the person who made Luffy lose control.
Still flying through the building, Luffy just broke down walls with his bare fist. This was a new feat that Luffy was apparently capable of doing as he got taken by whatever it was inside of him. Not only that, but Luffy's arua became much more dangerous and dark. It gave off a bloodthirsty feeling and for the first time in Marco's life, he feared for the enemy. He knew that soon enough Jones would be able to sense this and stop Luffy in his tracks but he feared for everything else.
After killing more and more enemies and breaking down wall after wall, the two of them had finally made it out of the place they were in and Marco had scanned the area to see what was going on and his jaw dropped as he looked ahead at what was going on and he was furious. He took a glance at Luffy and he saw the young boy who had lost his mind and was giving off an aura that was similar to when Pops was very pissed off.
*Ace and Thatch*
Both Sandoz and Bane were evenly matched with Thatch and Ace. The two division commanders weren't shocked to see people at their strength, this was the New World after all. There's bound to be strong pirates across the seas. And plus having counters against what the two Whitebeard Pirates were known for was making things slightly more annoying for the two. But they needed to get done with this quickly and get these woman out of here and possibly back to their homes, if they had one.
However, as evenly matched as this fight was going, it was clear for both Ace and Thatch that they were overestimating their opponents too much. Those two seemed to be going all out as they were slowly but surely getting tired from constant fighting. While Ace and Thatch weren't even breaking a sweat. There was one clear difference that was being noticed by Ace. Sandoz could not use Haki. That's what he was trying to find out.
Throughout the fight the two had going on, Ace let himself get hit numerous times however because he knew how to use his devil fruit so well, he was able to let the attack go through him without causing any sort of damage. He had pretended to get hit and dished out attacks without Haki but it was to no avail as Sandoz could easily bring up rocks as shields from any of Ace's attacks.
Bane and Thatch was slightly different. Thatch wasn't having trouble per say, however it was hard to hit Bane. Not only could the man regrow his limbs and heal his internals muscles and organs, he was also very agile and was not letting Thatch hit him at all. Which made him lead to believe that the only way to kill the man was to cut his head off and stab him through the heart right after. He could also use a Haki attack but it's not like a Logia where the powers get cancelled out, this was a Paramecia type devil fruit and this was annoying because the regeneration speed was fast but it was still slower than Marco's healing ability Thatch had thought. Once he figured out that the speed was slower than Marco, a light bulb in his head went off.
"Oi Ace, Roo!" As he now uses Armament Haki to clad his sword. Ace made two fists and covered them with fire. Both enemies had laughed briefly because fire would not work against rock and Bane could regrow anything.
What happened however, was something the two did not expect. On one hand as Thatch was seemingly swinging recklessly, he managed to get near Sandoz as Ace started to slowly make a move to where Bane was.
Through the reckless swinging, Thatch managed to cut off Sandoz's head while Ace punched a hole through the heart of Bane and kept on burning his with so much intense and hot fire that he was able to burn body up until it was nothing but ashes to which then he had kicked to spread out. The heat around the fire was so hot that some of the metal bars had started to melt and Thatch along with the woman were sweating profusely.
When they were done, they helped the woman and started making their way out of this place. Only to sense that all hell's breaking loose when they could feel the intense aura that they could easily tell that "possessed"
Luffy was giving off. They started to follow the direction of Luffy's aura and noticed that they were headed towards the far side of the island. They were rushing as the aura kept on getting by the second and they wondered what was making him go this angry. Usually he had it under control but this was the first in a long time where he lost it, and this was a very bad episode. They needed to help calm him down quick.
When they had arrived to where Luffy's aura was leading them, they were already too late. Ace now surrounded himself with fire while Thatch once again took out both of his swords and this time covered the blades with Armament Haki from the start.
*Jones and Mika*
Jones was getting very anxious throughout walking in the cave. He didn't quite understand why but he had a very bad feeling about something. It wasn't the tunnel that he was getting anxious about, it was elsewhere. He just couldn't pinpoint the exact location. However, he did have Luffy's aura on lock so he knew where Luffy was and if he was in a tight spot. However, the main thing that Jones was focusing on Luffy for was to see if it's him or if he somehow lost to the curse.
In any case, the first thing they needed to do was get out of this place which was going to be slightly difficult. They first had to clear the cave like tunnel that had 35 guards who were patrolling throughout the area. Each of them had night vision goggles on and they were heavily armed.
Jones knew that although Mika had Observation Haki which she could see the auras of the enemy, there was still no light for her to see anything else. So what he decided to do was put her in an area where the guards were not patrolling and he walked right in the middle of everything and all of the guards were surprised that someone was brave and bold enough to do something like this. However, the man that was in front of them was the one who at one point at time was called Roger's Demon. Of course nowadays he was nothing like his old self, he was still just as dangerous and even more stronger now than what he was back then.
All 35 guards had their weapons pointed towards him. A couple had guns and the rest had handheld melee weapons. Jones smiled. He looked at everyone that wanted to kill him and without taking out his weapon or activating his devil fruit. All he did was draw everyone's attention and then suddenly each of them had fell down. The smell of blood was nice to Jones but there was another smell that was more attractive to the man more than blood now days. The smell of Mika's hair was practically calling him, as she was on the other side of the dead bodies, with a sword in her hand. Jones had walked up to her pat her head as he was taller than his girlfriend "That'll do Mika. That'll do."
And just as the two made it to the exit, without word Jones took out his sword. Mika did not know why but she could easily sense that Jones was very angry about something. Almost like he snapped. Mika got worried and sick to her stomach as she saw and felt the anger that was coming out of Jones.
They got out of the door and Jones had ran towards where everything was going down and Mika had wide eyes as she could not believe what she was seeing. However she shook it off as she had a job to do.
Reyna looked up as she heard two swords clash. She thought she was the one to do so but when she was the sword, she smiled and all the energy left in he was gone and she fell on the ground and landed right by Sabo.
"Mika!" Jones said "Stay there for a minute or so… I'm not sending you alone." and with his strength he was easily able to push away the Balrog. Just as Jones was starting to get surrounded by three other people, Marco and Luffy had arrived as Marco was up above flying and Luffy was giving off a very dangerous presence and aura that Jones felt was very familiar. He also could tell that Luffy had become now a bloodthirsty monster.
No one made a move except for Ace and Thatch who had arrived as well. Thatch had his swords out and Ace covered himself in fire. However Jones looked at the situation at hand and said "Mika, take Ace and Luffy and get back to the ship and start sailing. We will catch up with you soon."
She nodded but Ace and Luffy stayed. They wanted to fight and kill the person who did this to Sabo. Jones couldn't move from his spot, however, Marco was above them. Marco looked at the situation and had switched with Jones as the former Roger Pirate grabbed Ace and Luffy and threw them both down. Luffy had calmed down and Ace had no fire surrounding him. "Go with Mika, Sabo needs you. And protect her at all costs and make sure no harm comes to Reyna and Sabo. Now go!" Both boys had now come back to their senses and realized that Mika needed help so they got up quickly and picked up the unconscious bodies of Sabo and Reyna and followed Mika.
Thatch and Jones made sure that no one was following them but he saw one of the people in the area holding up a den-den mushi saying to sound the alarm. Jones exhaled and Thatch gave out a bloodthirsty smile while Marco finally made an angered face.
The whole island now knew of their presence as the alarm had sounded and the three of them knew that Mika's group was going to be followed and even though they were being slowed down due to Reyna's and Sabo's injuries, Mika had Ace and Luffy with her. All they needed to do at the moment was get rid of these guys and catch up with them.
The alarm had sounded and Mika looked worried. The ship was so far and the whole island now knew of their presence. They needed shelter. They knew they couldn't get back to their ship at the moment even though they had the strength to do so, it was still a risk because they were also carrying Sabo and Reyna.
Quickly thinking on her feet, Mika decided that they should take a hospital like building if there were any on the island. This was going to be very unlikely but they could try. Time was being lost fast and they needed every second they could get. The only thing she was able to do for the time being was to bandage the two as best as she could. She didn't have much equipment with her so she needed to take them to safety first but even that was going to be difficult for the time being due to the alarm. Whether they liked it or not, this island really was hell.
The three strongest members of the Whitebeard Pirates (Besides the Old Man himself) looked at their enemies. There was a Balrog and Jones heavily insisted that he would fight them. The three people that were with him were giving Marco provoking looks and since he was going to kick someone's ass, he might as well take them. However, that left Thatch doing nothing for almost a second until suddenly a group of pirates had made their way towards them. He was easily outnumbered 25 to 1 but he just smiled and had his two swords out. Jones had his one sword out but had not transformed into his devil version while Marco was just in his hybrid form. The three of them were going to enjoy this easy but very bloody victory.
The first to make a move was Thatch as a few men had rushed towards him. His two sword like daggers in his hands was something terrifying to look at. Unlike the true swordsman of the Whitebeard Pirates "Flower Blade" Vista or Davy Jones himself, Thatch's use of his daggers were much more bloodthirsty and he fought with a sense of anger whenever he had his daggers out. The few that had rushed towards him were cut down without hesitation and in a blink of an eye. The others that were surrounding Thatch then all rushed towards him, trying to use their numbers advantage. However, that wouldn't work as Thatch was a battle tested man and quite frankly he liked it when he was at a disadvantage. This meant that he could be more brutal in the ways he killed people. His whole personality changes when he gets serious in a fight, or when he fights angry, and on this occasion he was furious.
Easily cutting the many limbs of his opponents and killing them in very unique ways, he invoked fear in the remaining soldiers. With them being afraid of him, it made it a lot easier for him to kill them as well. Thatch was normally a kind and loving prankster with his family but once anyone hurts them, that all goes down the window and he becomes a monster in his own way. And to his opponents right now, monster wasn't even the appropriate word to describe the man as he killed the last one by first stabbing him in the eye with one dagger and slitting his throat with the other.
Marco's case was quite simple. Zoan users fighting a mythical Zoan user and that too being the first mate and vice captain of the Whitebeard Pirates. A 3 on 1 was nothing. He at one point and time used to fight many Vice Admirals on occasion and would take on one of the Admirals. Three thugs of Kaido were not a big deal for him at all. And it really showed as he was way more experienced than the three he was fighting. The first one to attack him was the man who was an unknown bird of some sort and had flown up to dive attack him but Marco had shut that down with a Haki infused kick to the face, snapping the birds neck and ultimately killing the man.
Next came a tiger that leaped right at Marco right after the kick but Marco was ready for it as he moved to the side and had used his shoulder to push the tiger in midair. Once he did that, the man had transformed himself back into a human to brace the impact of the fall and as he rushed towards the first division commander, Marco had picked up a pistol from the ground and shot the man in between his eyes and killed him.
The third guy surrendered as he got down on his knees but Marco wasn't having any of that. Taking out the sword that he took with him, he decapitated the man without hesitation. Now, it would have made sense for him to question the man and get more information out of him, however, Sabo and Reyna were badly injured and they needed to catch up to Mika's group as fast as they could because they needed to get back to the Moby Dick soon enough.
Jones was standing as still as possible but moving his left right to block attacks from the Balrog's sword. The power difference between the two was very far however he understood why Reyna lost to him. Due to the fire surrounding the Balrog, it was weakening the her strength. Small burns that were adding up overtime as the fight went own and the huge size and difference in physical strength was what made her lose. If it was purely based on skill, Reyna could have easily won but the small things was the reason why she lost. He definitely was going to start training her once she got healthy.
This fight did not last long as Jones had got bored of this fight and quickly ended it when he went on the offensive. With one strong attack, he had broken the Balrog's sword and made it disappear and then he had cut the head off of the man in an instant.
Right after all three were done fighting, all around the same time, they looked around for more enemies and had checked the area in a quick search but they could not find anyone else so they decided that they should go after Mika and her group. The three of them hoped that there were more people to kill. They needed to get the frustration and anger out for harming two of the crew members.
*Mika's Group*
Luffy and Ace were moving as fast and as carefully as they could while Mika led the group. They weren't going to make it to the ship back in time so the next best choice was to get to a hospital but that was going to be a difficult task as the alarm was ringing and the entire island was on the lookout for them. Mika's train of thought was not straight as she had to worry about a lot of things. She just hoped that Marco's group would join her as soon as possible because she needed to look after the two patients and didn't want anything to happen to either Luffy or Ace.
Rushing through Dead Land, they searched for anything that looked like hospitals. However, nothing was to be found. All or most of the buildings were already broken down and there was no place to hide. Surely their luck was about to run out soon.
After being on the move without stop, they wanted to catch their breath so they entered a broken down house and stayed there for a few minutes. Ace had checked throughout the house and found that there was no one living in there so that was good for them. Mika did a search for any materials to treat her two patients and found nothing.
They hid for another few minutes as Mika had changed the bandages once again but as she was doing so, her senses were telling her that something bad was about to happen. She tried not to think about anything negative for the time being but her instincts were right as she heard many voices surrounding the house. She looked at the two brothers and took a deep breath before saying "I really hate asking you guys this but could you two hold them off for a few minutes until I get the bandages changed please?"
Both Ace and Luffy's lit up. They wanted revenge for what happened to Reyna and Sabo. No one hurt their family and will get away with it. For them, there was nothing more important to them. Ace finally found a place where he could belong to and happily call family. He even found a father figure in Whitebeard, something which he thought was going to be impossible at one point in time.
Now their job for the time being was to defend the house and make sure Mika has enough time to do whatever she needed to do for both of her patients. And since the older crew members were not there to help them, they needed to make sure they were on point. Even though they knew the enemy was going to be much stronger than them, the trio fought best when there were at least two of them working together. In this case it was Ace and Luffy. One being a fire user and the other one made out of rubber.
The two stepped outside as they told Mika to take her time with everything as they would be able to handle anything together. When the two boys looked at the opposing forces, they were not surprised at the large number of people that had surrounded them. They looked more than ready to fight anyone who came in their way. Since Luffy was in his normal state, he was much more calm and relaxed. Before Ace done anything, he looked at Ace and told him to not fight for a brief moment. Ace looked confused but then he listened to his younger brother. He didn't know what Luffy had in mind, but he trusted the young one.
Luffy closed his eyes and as soon as he did, a voice had called out "Stop him!" and instantly many people rushed towards him but standing in front of them was Ace.
"You're not getting at my younger brother that easily now." he said as he burst into flames and protected Luffy with a wall of fire as he stood right in the middle of it, waiting for anyone to make a move.
Luffy opened his eyes and had released a wave of Conqueror's Haki and instantly many of the people that surrounded him had fell. Even Ace felt it but he didn't pass out as he knew it wasn't going to harm him, however now there were only 6 enemies left. 3 men and 3 women pirates that looked and gave off a much stronger presence than the others were looking at the young boy, with raised eyebrows.
"Oh so that's what you were doing huh Lu… Well shit there goes our fun… At least Mika won't get mad about that."
It was clear that there was a leader among the group as one of the male pirates was behind the others, covering the bottom half of his face with a scarf. He had a strange tattoo on his body however neither of the boys could tell what it looked like. But they could easily tell that he was the strongest one of the group.
It now became a two on five, however, the one at the back was too far to make a move against Ace and Luffy. So currently it was a two on four. Each of the four had a weapon. One had an umbrella, another had a lance, one had a scythe and the last one held an axe. No one had made a move yet but Mika had called out that she was done with her work for the time being and that they could leave but Ace yelled back telling her to hold on for a few minutes. She then stepped out of the house and finally the man at the back stepped forward. He still wasn't close enough to do anything however he was now looking at Mika's every move. He knew she was trouble for the four of them but she stayed still and so did he.
However, the four of them charged at Luffy and Ace but they were ready. Ace used the fire wall once more when they got closer to the duo and once the six of them were in the circle, this is where Luffy and Ace were at their peaks. Being a Logia user was an advantage to Ace as he told Luffy to remain hidden while he took all the damage as the attacks had went through him, and when those attacks missed, Luffy came in and hit them with a long range punch.
However, Ace was still putting up a good fight himself as well. Using his devil fruit combined with his raw and pure strength he was holding back all four of them by himself as the attacks with the weapons were just going through him and whenever he got on the offensive, he was able to hit them with kicks, punches and his fire ability. However, things started to get rough for the duo once the four of them had gotten used to the attacks and started to coat their weapons in Armament Haki. Now, all the two could do for the time being was defend. They could not attack and be reckless because their Haki was not as strong as the four enemies. And this is where things got bad for the duo. Suddenly, the other four pirates started to increase in speed and strength and since they were Haki users, both Ace and Luffy were getting hit. However the could not fall just yet. They needed to hold off for a bit longer because they had hoped for Marco's group to join up. So they took many hits but were also trying to fight back.
The man with a scythe and the axe went for Ace while the one with the lance and umbrella were going for Luffy. They were being overpowered and suddenly, the wall that Ace had had disappeared as he got hit too much and his focus on the wall was lost as he got hit with the Axe in his chest and the scythe had cut his face but neither of the injuries were troublesome.
Luffy got hit with the lance right on his fist as he tried to do a long range punch that he thought was quick enough to be able to hit the man. Then the one with the umbrella had hit him in the face with such force that he had flown back and landed right at the feet of Mika.
Mika looked at the two injured boys and took out her blade with her but she along with everyone else, including the two boys felt three very strong auras coming towards them and the trio looked relieved.
The trio of Marco, Jones and Thatch were following auras and were also following the large group of people that were making their way somewhere and they trio just hoped that nothing was wrong but they could not sense or feel anything wrong so they did not do anything. Gradually getting closer to where Mika's group was, they felt a very strong release of Conquerors Haki and all three of them knew that it was Luffy who did it.
The three were sort of worried but not slightly relaxed as they now knew the large number would have definitely been reduced however they did not know if there were any strong ones who withstood that blast.
As they got closer to Luffy and the rest of them, they had released their own auras to scare away any weaker pirates and thugs that wanted to try to fight them.
Marco landed back into his human form while Thatch and Jones were running, and they made it to the house to where Mika was and saw that she had her sword drawn as Ace and Luffy were heavily injured but none of their injuries were life threatening.
The three looked at the people who attacked them and Marco was the first one who spoke "What the fuck are they doing here?" as he was confused to see the five pirates.
Jones answered "Well that's what we found out… We'll explain on the way out… he knows they can't take me on."
"You?" said Thatch "Last time I checked there were three of us."
"I could kill all of them except maybe him…" clearly pointing to the man at the back.
Not a single one of the opposing pirates moved an inch due to the man at the back telling them to fall back and retreat. They waited to see what would happen but since they thought it was safe for them to fall back, they slowly did. However one of them was stuck from his place. The man with the scythe was filled with terror as he was sweating so much and had a facial expression of pure fear.
The man at the back called for him once, but he did not move. He called him for a second time and still nothing. The man at the back then made a tight grip at the weapon he was carrying which no one could see because of the separated distance but he did not do anything except for that. Instead what happened was that Jones in his devil form stood right in front if the man who was stuck and said "make sure you tell your captain that the demon of Roger sends his regards." and suddenly the man was able to walk again and started running away from Jones and the Whitebeard pirates.
Jones and the man in the back just stared at one another until Mika was able to quickly tend to the wounds of Ace and Luffy. By the time she was finished with that, Ace and Luffy had once again picked up Sabo and Reyna and the full group started to make their way back to the ship.
A den-den mushi had rang somewhere on an island filled with pirates "What is it?" said a man in a deep baritone voice
"They took the bait."
"Excellent." he said and hung up the call. "Now back to business." looking at the people in front of him.
Okay guys chapter done. I hope you guys enjoyed this. I was going to make this a little more longer but since my last chapter was over 8000 words and also because I want to drag this out one or two more chapters longer. Most likely the next chapter will be the last for this arc... I don't know yet... And yes, I quickly mentioned gear 2 Luffy but only because he was in his curse mode, he can't use it regularly.