Disclaimer: One Piece is the property of Eiichiro Oda. Many of the characters in this story are property of me. Do not use this story or its characters without my permission. Thank you.
The blood finally left his arms after being suspended above his head for so long. The tragedy of his situation finally sank in. After such a fleetingly short time on the high seas, Ramone was caught. Cornered, captured, beaten and now imprisoned in the worst possible place imaginable. At least, until his torture moved him to the lower floors. Thank the stars he was born under, those cursed lights, they only kept him at the second level for now. Still it was insulting. A man with so many lives left to float on the waves and sink to the depths only held at the second level of Impel Down. Ramone sometimes, when the other prisoners conversed above the hissings of the mad beasts all over the floor, wished he was down on the third floor. It was rare, but that fame had passed him by and his chances were all gone.
"Ggggg...." Ramone growled. The beasts in the darkness growled back with hissing maws and glowing, white eyes. One moved forward, its muscular paw stomping on the ground and its claws raking at the stone tile. Ramone looked up under his brow stained with dried blood from his previous injuries and tortures. His glare pierced the darkness like a bullet and his eyes flashed gravely. The beast blinked and waveringly retreated its previous step. Ramone turned his head back to the floor and tried to muster up a grin...
Damn he thought. It's gotten so bad that I can't physically smile anymore...those sick bastards... Hell began for Ramone. His shame, grief, tormenting lamentation weighed on his so heavily that he couldn't even move his head up anymore. It was stuck on the floor just as his mouth was paralyzed into a permanent frowning scowl.
His time there, brief as it was, scarred him for life. When the beasts were feeling particularly charismatic they would scratch and slash and bite at him, sinking their fangs into his flesh without tearing it away, leaving him with bleeding wounds that the guards would look past to torment him by throwing his food just out of his reach. His arms were bound and his feet were covered with the musty grime of the floor, unsuitable to pick up and handle food properly. His only choice was to let the beasts eat it when they pleased, allowing the food to be torn and thrown and slathered all over the place in the hopes that it would land close by or on his face.
There were times when the guards stationed at the monitor room had thought of interfering with his torture. Once he seemed to kill a beast with a simple press into its throat as it was gnawing on his shoulder. He never gave up on the hope of escaping, it seemed, for once that beast died it took a whole week for the other monsters to shake off the trauma and he was left alone to heal himself. The guards didn't interfere, however, due to the return of the beasts who only clawed and bit at him away from his hands. Ramone returned to his demoralized and depressed state thereafter.
It seemed, after all his life of training and preparation, mastering a seemingly impossible martial art from his homeland and becoming a nefarious pirate, even on the Grand Line, Ramone's life was lost in this dank, dark dungeon. Ramone abandoned all his hopes for fulfilling his dreams, then forgot them just the same. He was a shell of a man who only survived in defiance with his own creator and destroyer, a man too stubborn to simply sit back and die. Seeing him thoroughly demoralized like that, the Vice-Chief Warden had him placed in a regular cell. His torture was withheld so long as he didn't act up inappropriately.
That's when fate came into Ramone's life. However, despite how luck had saved his life, Ramone didn't and still continues not to acknowledge it as a force in his life. The stubbornness for survival he had learned in that monster pit stuck with him, made itself an unwanted part of him...
"Hey new guy!" an inmate shouted. Ramone barely lifted his head from its slump. The inmate, greedily munching away at his meal, tossed him a piece of food that bounced from his head and next to his lap. "Eat up!" The inmates started chuckling and a large, chestnut-shaped one leaned over with a big smile across his thick lips.
"If you're gonna survive in Hell" he said "you'll need to eat once in a while!"
"Hey newbie!" another inmate began, "Cheer up! It's only Hell!" Their delight in Ramone's utter lethargy for living made him secretly livid. He longed to work up that despicable growl of his and frighten them off, just as he could the turgid beasts that made pacing outside the cage bars and swipes to scare the prisoners away, but the deep depression of his removal from life had left him mute. He took the food anyway, a tiny piece of red fruit, no bigger than a walnut, and ate it slowly. It tasted disgusting. Like wax made form some detestable insect. He coughed out when he swallowed the thing and smacked his lips with his tongue. The waxy texture left him thirsty.
"Want some water?" the chestnut-man asked, holding up a beaten cup. He pitched the cup hard and hit Ramone in the head. All the inmates recoiled back in fear, all the way to the other side of the cage. They quivered audibly in fear. All of the beasts in the hall outside shrank away from the cage and stared in its direction. A rare little common fly that had long ago infiltrated the Gaol to breed flew down and swept into the cage, landing on Ramone's cheek. It crawled up into the hole the cup had opened, flaky and crumbling slowly, and vanished into Ramone's open skull. Ramone raised his head and straightened his back slowly. His very skin began peeling and cracking off like a dried-up wasp nest breaking apart in a sharp wind. He felt an odd sense of power and parted his lips slightly. The fly crawled out and flew from his mouth as he let out his deepest, most fierce growl he had ever used.
"Ggggggg......." The inmates, mysteriously, were found beaten and bloodied the next morning. The cell door was open as well, but no escape was attempted. The beasts had simply gone in, mauled a few prisoners, and left Ramone to sleep in his own corner the whole night long...the first in a long line of mysteries centered around the nefarious demon pirate, the 'Ghost Killer' Cervantes.
"Hannyabal, sir!" a guard shouted in report. The large-gutted, tall, demonic-looking Vice Warden sat on a stone bench twiddling his thumbs and staring straight forward in a day-dreamy daze.
"I wonder" Hannyabal began, "just how long I must wait for that useless warden to die..."
"Uh...sir?" the guard said, listening in on his mumblings accidentally. Hannyabal snapped to attention and stood up stuttering.
"You heard nothing, alright!?" Hannyabal demanded. He took his pitchfork from the wall and stabbed it to the stone ground. "Now then, what is it?" The guard took a clipboard and folded up a piece of paper he had attached.
"One of the inmates on Level 2" the guard began, "was found the previous morning with his other cellmates beaten and torn up by the Manticores. He, however, remained completely harmless and was left in the cell alone after the guards took the injured bodies out and transported them to the infirmary."
"So?" Hannyabal asked.
"Well sir" the guard began, "we suspect some fowl play is about. That man is Ramone 'Ghost Killer' Cervantes." Hannyabal was picking his nose.
"Just one of a myriad of upstart pirates" Hannyabal said, flicking his booger away. "You want my decision on such a minor manner? Are you serious? Can't you just handle his judgement on your own!?"
"Well" the guard said, already turning slowly around, "I suppose I could go and ask the Warden himself...but when he finds out that you douldn't even handle such a minor problem on your own..." A lightning strike to Hannyabal's ego, a piercing stab through his chest.
"He would say that!" the Vice-Warden blared. "That bastard just would say that about me! He just knows I'm next in line for his title! He'd do anything to see that I don't get it, the bastard! ARRRRGH!!" Hiding his laughter, the guard turned around with a withheld grin.
"Your orders, then?" the guard asked. Hannyabal slammed his spear once more against the stone floor and held up a turned-down thumb.
"Immediate execution!" Hannyabal ordered.
"Isn't that extreme!?" the guard protested.
"It's what a first-class warden would do" Hannyabal said. "That man's already proven himself to be a dangerous criminal, and I heard that he killed one of the manticores during his torture. He's not only endangered the other prisoners with his rampant penchant for murder, but he's already compromised the manticore pack of the second level! Such intolerance cannot be tolerated!"
"Very well" the guard said, more complacent. "I will make the arrangements. How should we go about it?" Hannyabal cupped his broad, jutting chin for a moment and looked up to make his brain think harder. Suddenly, with the passion of a too-be Warden, Hannyabal decided with a sadistic, very incremental upturning of his mouth in a smile.
"We shall take him outside the Gaol" he began "and place him under a guillotine! The last thing he will see will be the unreachable ocean, a final blow that will set all the other prisoners in place!"
"Very well, sir" the guard said, walking out with a salute. As he closed the door behind him he couldn't help but smile and press his fingers into his tired eyes. "It's almost too easy!" the guard quietly exclaimed...
A troop of Gaolers assisted by Blugori to keep the manticores at bay was dispatched to retrieve Ramone. He was alone in his cell, eating a small ration of bread and rotten fruits, insects crawling all around him. Such small, tame and minor creatures scurried over him at odd occasions. The Gaolers with sharp eyes and minds wondered how in hell they reached him, but their job preceded wonderment. Ramone was taken away, up through the levels to the top floor, and heavily escorted outside. The bright sun stung his eyes. He was forced to close them and keep from seeing the sun at long last. He didn't want them open anyway. He simply wished the darkness would persist forever so the sadness of his past wouldn't come flooding back to him.
Then he heard it, the grand and infinite ocean clashing softly with the sides of the Gaol at the sea's level. Waves built up from the constant, stirring movement of Sea Kings down below kept on splashing against the sides of the artificial harbor. He remembered the sounds of waves that hit against the sides of his own ship. He remembered groaning and griping about the constant rocking and noise those waves created and when one would crest upon his deck he would roar curses into the sea to try and tame it. His rage would never subside and his crew would chuckle behind his back, thinking he couldn't hear them, but in the end he smiled over his antics as well. Ramone was stopped and was forced to look up by the hand of a Gaoler. He opened his eyes and stared up to the sky. He hadn't seen anything so blue in what felt like years.
He actually began to cry...
Down in some unknown darkness the guard from before liberally applied his favorite color of lipstick and mascara to his eyes. He had taken down his formal uniform to a much more skimpy, tight-fitting type of garb made from glistening, pink leather and stranger orange furs that draped over his shoulders and down his fishnet-gilded legs to his spiked heels. He grinned into the mirror, smooched, and exited into the rowdy, raucous scene of the Newkama Land headquarters on level 5.5. With his undercover mission over he went to the center of the room where a beastly looking man with an enormous head sat conversion with a group of cross-dressers.
"Sir Emperio Ivankov" the man said, clicking his heels and saluting his manicured hand. "I am here to give you my report!" The huge head turned around and looked down through one giant, winking eye at the overly formal man.
"Vat's vith the formality, hnnn?" Ivankov, the King of Drag Queens, asked through his huge lips. "Now that I remember, you used to be a woman, yes? Perhaps too many testosterone hormones have vorked their vay into your system. I vill need to make a slight change..." Emperio raised up his huge arm, flexed claws out of his fingers and activated his graciously-given Devil Fruit ability over hormones. With a sudden stab Emperio charged the guard's body with female hormones and, in a matter of seconds, the man's body was changed to fit its suit with a particularly announced feminine curve.
"Thank you, Iva" the woman now said with a dainty, curtsey. Her hair cascaded over her left eye and barely stayed floating above her right eye. "I have completed my mission."
"Ah!" the giant-faced man moaned. "So, that 'Ghost Killer' boy is free, yes?"
"Well...not quite yet" the woman said hesitantly. "I did as was instructed, however. The rest is up to him."
"Well then" Ivankov said, leaning back and creaking his chair and looking up with a satisfied grin. "I suppose we vill just have to vait...that boy will stir up some trouble yet, just you see!" All that faith was set aside for the single moment that took place in the bright day sun far above.
Ramone's head was set into the vice of a guillotine rack with the razor sharp blade poised high over his neck, waiting to end his life and let roll his wretched face. So many memories, all returning in this instant, all his years of piracy and his experience, lost utterly to the mischance of fate that the heavens delivered to him. All his life for naught...so thought the guards. The Gaolers, unused to the bright sun as well from nearly endless days working down in the darkness of the Gaol, went about to hurry the execution with an utter disregard for the life they held in their hands.
"Damn it's bright out!" one Gaoler shouted. "It's so damn bright I can barely see!"
"What's worse" another Gaoler added "is we can't get out of these damn outfits for once. And it's windless here on the Calm Belt, so there's no breeze to cool us down."
"No clouds either" a particularly whiny Gaoler added. "Why can't we just cut off his arms and chuck him in the sea, already? It was murder getting that damn guillotine out here by ourselves!"
"Why even come out here?" another Gaoler demanded. "Why not just kill him inside!?"
"Hannyabal's orders" the other Gaoler said with a sigh and a shrug. "He threatened to report us to Magellen for deriliction of duty if we didn't do it exactly as he instructed."
"Speaking of which..." began the head Gaoler of the group, who held the fatal trap at hair-pin tension. He stepped over, keeping a hand on the lever that would release the grip of the rope, and grabbed Ramone by the chin, forcing him to stretch his neck and look up. Ramone's neck began to flake at the skin... "Take one last look, killer boy!" Ramone took a careful glance from side to side to side, drawing out invisible plans before his head was thrown back down, nearly snapping off from its own, brittle construction. The insects gathered within Ramone did their best to stay silent and unseen, all flies and beetles and other miscreant vermin who would ultimately aide in Ramone's perfect escape.
"Men, ready!" the head Gaoler shouted. The others ran into a straight line, spear tips held up to the sky. He took the lever in hand and grinned. "Farewell, Ramone Cervantes!" With one swift thrust of the lever the blade dropped down with a stinging metal song as it sliced through the air and then snapped back into the set position witout a single obstacle in its way. Ramone's body fell with a soft thud to the ground and his head followed soon after, simply rolling until it hit its own side and then stopping to gaze ahead with unrivaled apathy into the cold blue sky.
"Alright" the head Gaoler said, wiping his sweaty brow. "Let's get the hell back inside...Hell."
"I don't wanna!" a Gaoler whined.
"I was just starting to like it out here" another complained. "At least it's cooler then the Inferno or the Sand torture. I can't stand being down there, even if I get to drink!"
"My water always boils and evaporated before I can drink it" another Gaoler complained. "They don't let us live enough down there."
"Oh well" the head said once more. "It's Hell alright. Pity that poor bastard for getting to leave already!" Ramone heard them and smiled. His grin broke apart the flaky skin on his hive-like face and began to crumble apart, one flake of skin at a time. The insects from inside his body flew out in a black, buzzing cloud and picked up his head and body, carrying them out into the harbor where a ship was setting out to sea already. One of the Gaolers, an unfortunate soul, took one last look back at the blazing sun and saw the enigmatic shadows move in such terrible ways. His eyes, deceived him, he thought, for he swore the corpse of the Ghost Killer was flying off to sea while the head looked back at him and growled...
All too soon had his story ended when in reality it had just begun. After successfully running a Marine Battleship ashore a distant South Blue island across the Calm Belt, Ramone departed for land in the stolen garb of a Marine captain he had slaughtered to gain possession of the ship. The rest of the crew was gone as well, all dumped to the sea so his bugs wouldn't abandon him. They were his crew for the time he was out at sea. Now he was home, a lawless port of refugees, bandits and worst of all mercenaries all waiting for a chance to go somewhere new and fight someone strong. Among these ne'er-do-wells was a beautiful young girl sporting elegant fashion stolen from some other port by a band of woman-hungry men. She modeled for them apathetically, blushing against her own knowledge.
"Yeah baby!" a man hooted.
"Turn around!" another pleaded. She did so, turning and arching her back, stretching her leg straight out and brushing her lovely blonde hair up from behind. She received many hoots of acknowledgment for this, none of it aimed at her bandage-wrapped arm that the silken garments hung so precariously to. "Work it!"
'You got it, babe!' 'Puff out yer chest!' 'Work those clothes!' 'Shake it, cutie!' Such were the disgusting cries from the crowd she aimed to please so she could keep what little items of value she had in her life. Her eyes remained distant and haunting, as if staring at some nostalgic cloud off in the sky.
"Hey baby!" a particularly ugly, beefy man said as he leaned up close to her. "You look good in dem rags!" His breath smelled like salted vinegar-soaked bile. She tried to shy away, but his huge arm wrapped around her and drew her in uncomfortably close while he took in a deep whiff of her scent. "I bet you look better without dem, dough!" The rest of the nefarious gentlemen around her shouted encouragements. The man got a firm grip on her right shoulder but she still pulled away and ran. He came out of it with a torn strand of her clothes and the whole of her bandages. A sudden hush fell over the men who watched the girl retreat into a corner with her blistered, burned and disfigured right arm in plain sight.
"What..." one began, breaking the tension, "what the hell's up with that arm!?"
"What are you?" another shouted. "Some kind of freak!?"
"I bet she's sick!" another added. The girl, Colleen, fell to her knees and buried her face into the palm of her terrible hand, only inciting more disgusted clamor from her crowd.
Don't tease me she pleaded silently. Please, it's not my fault...it's not my fault! She was suddenly struck with pain. The same overly flirtatious pirate grabbed her and lifted her up by the arm, apparently undaunted by it. "P...put me down...please" Colleen shyly asked.
"Naw" the pirate said. "Your face is still pretty...and I bet you don't got any burns anywhere else!" This stirred the pirates back into their perverted frenzy and only made Colleen a bit more angry. Therefore, she retaliated with a stern kick to the man's jutting jaw. He was still smiling, apparently unaffected by her attack which the other pirates only laughed at. Then they began to move in while the silent and huge man continued to hold her up.
"Don't be too aggressive" a pirate with demented eyes and a drawn dagger said. "We like our girls nice and submissive!"
"I don't mind a fighter!" another shouted, holding an ax. "It makes things more fun! HEHEHE!!!" The man holding Colleen suddenly snorted out a huge amount of blood and mucus that covered his fuzzy upper and lower lips. His eyes slowly drifted open as his jaw slowly gaped wider until it was fully down and his eyes fully white. Then, with slight slivers of blood drifting out from his mouth, the pirate fell forward and let Colleen go. All eyes went bulging from the pirate's body up to Colleen's leg. She looked about, feeling their accusatory gazes, and began shaking her head in denial.
"No, no!" she demanded. "It wasn't me, I swear! I only kicked him! He couldn't be dead from just that!"
"GGGGGGGGG" That familiar, debilitating roar. It froze all the pirates in place but sent Colleen's heart fluttering up into her throat. Perhaps it too was a fear, but what followed was rapturous happiness. Ramone Cervantes, a man pronounced legally dead, stood in the doorway with a living cloud buzzing at the brim of his tattered, bloodied coat. On his head a wide-brimmed hat, green as the sea with a band of black around the top, and under that had in the shadow that clouded his face pierced two white eyes. "You dirty bastards..." he began, "I'll kill you all!"
"...Captain!" Colleen finally mustered up. Ramone's eyes turned to her and the shadow left his face. There was nothing there, nothing she remembered. The confidence, the daring drive, the handsome defiance, the caring creases of his brow; all that Hell had left him was a mean mask to wear, a waxy replica of the face she had fallen in love with. Now, with much less enthusiasm and much more horror, Colleen fell to her knees and held her hands to her face. "...captain..."
"Kill him!" a pirate shouted. All swords turned to Ramone, who held up his hand and summoned up his legion of demonic minions. The Ghost Killer was gone now, a Killer Ghost stepping into its place. The aptly renamed, mysterious pirate who stole the name of another set to the seas in a yet again stolen pirate ship with a crew of over a hundred. They called themselves the Ghost Killers and sailed under the same flag as deceased pirate Ramone Cervantes. Only now the only known name of their enigmatic captain was his title as given by his devil fruit, the Hive Hive Fruit.
The Lord of the Flies. Ramone Cervantes always smiled at that name and killed whoever would say it, reminding them as they died that he was 'the Ghost Killer himself'...
