At first blush, it was hard to improve upon torture and hard labour in boiling temperatures. It was, after all, the most popular depiction of Hell. But Impel Down's staff had come up with one simple tweak that took the prisoners' suffering to a new level. The prison was mostly made of stone, after all, and while it was blistering hot to the touch, it wasn't a good conductor of heat.
So the staff of Impel Down plated the floors, walls, and ceiling of Level 4 with steel.
Now, in addition to the pained cries of the prisoners and the ever-present bubbling of the central blood vat, could be heard a symphony of sizzling feet. And broiling flesh in general, thanks to the entire floor's already literally hellish temperature, is elevated by a full factor into the realms of the ludicrous.
And it was into precisely this ludicrous hell that Luffy dropped, his troop of ne'er-do-wells in tow.
"AAAAGH!"
"WATCH IT, WATCH IT!"
"SEA OF BLOOD! SEA OF BOILING BLOOD, RIGHT THERE!"
Literally.
Luckily for all involved, the original Straw Hat had considerable experience with free-fall, and he was even decent at pulling himself out of free-fall. Turning a total wipeout into a semi-survivable controlled landing was something well within his skills.
PSSSHHHH! "OwowowowOWWWWW!"
That did not mean he could do it well, however. Case in point, when the rubber man's arm lashed out to wrap around the first thing he could find to arrest his momentum, his first thought was that he was facing Enel again. Burning metal against his skin was an unpleasantness rivalled only by the excessive frostbite he'd gotten climbing to Kureha's castle. But at least then his nerves had had the decency to go numb after a while!
Thankfully, his grip only needed to last a few seconds: long enough to swing him and the passengers he had wrapped in his other arm onto a bridge. A little too close to the giant boiling vat of doom for anyone's idea of comfort—
CRASH!
"OOF!"
"OW!"
"MY ARM! OFF, NOW!"
—but far enough that they crashed onto the bridge instead, albeit rolling painfully on the blazing-hot surface.
Luffy sagged in relief, letting his arm snap back to his side. The limb still burned like hell, at least it could cool down some now!…any second now. Aaany second now. …actually, he could feel his whole body heating up—
"GAH, THAT'S WAY TOO HOT!" Luffy yelped, shooting to his feet and fully ripping off his desert robes. "What the heck?! I thought these were supposed to help keep me cool!"
"Owowoooowww…" Galdino groaned as he worked his way out of the twitching pile of limbs that he'd been flung into. Standing fully on wobbly legs, he shakily readjusted the broken lumps of metal and glass that had once been his glasses before answering, "There's only so much desert clothing like that can do, Straw Hat. Encouraging sweat and being thin enough to radiate heat don't matter when the air is hotter than your body and too humid for sweat to evaporate. Which, consequently…"
Flicking his limp and lifeless topknot out of his face, he produced a bubbling lump of melted wax in his palm. "Means that I am worse than useless in here. I hope you—or at least your tactician—had a plan for this, Straw Hat. Our lucky streak on busting our way down through the floors ends here."
"No chance of us pulling whatever you did on Level 2 to break through this floor," Buggy grimly agreed.
"This does seem difficult," Byojack mused. "Any plans, Luffy? …ah, Luffy?"
Galdino and Buggy followed the old pirate's gaze to Luffy, who was silent and frozen with his robes half back into his bag. His expression, despite a calm serenity, seemed almost resigned.
"…you're right. Our luck has run out," he said, still calmly. "And that was the plan all along."
"…what is that supposed to mean?" Buggy demanded.
"It means run."
"Run?" Byojack asked.
"AS IN, RUN NOW!" he snapped, literally sweeping up the whole group in an arm and yanking them down the bridge—
SPLAT! HISSSSSSSSSS…
—which left them in the perfect position to see the violet puddle where they'd once stood. A puddle is currently eating through the bridge. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots from there.
The slow, methodical steps that rang out over the omnipresent din of the Level and the massive, looming shadow approaching through the noxious haze were thus a very big, very deadly, and very unnecessary hint.
For a single moment, they were all, even Luffy, paralyzed in what was best described as unholy terror.
Of course, after that moment, Luffy did what he always did when faced with that sort of terror: he completely ignored any rational sense of self-preservation by advancing on the Warden.
Buggy's head shot off his torso like a rocket and shoved himself into Luffy's face. "You cannot expect to beat him! Not even you are that stupid!"
Grunting in irritation, Luffy grabbed the disembodied head and tossed it over his shoulder.
"I honestly don't," he answered. "Which is the plan?"
"WHAT!?"
The rubber man snapped his finger up, pointing down the bridge. "Stay out of my way, but also stay close. When I go down, grab my bag and run. Then, when they take me down, follow me."
"How the flashy hell are we supposed to do that?!"
"This bag has tools from most of my crew in it. Get creative."
At that, Buggy and Byojack both calmed, nodded, and grabbed Galdino by the arms to sprint away.
"That answered absolutely nothing!" the panicking agent snapped. "What does he expect us to—!"
"Why are you still so—? Oh, wait," Byojack tilted his head as a thought struck him. "The way Level 2 was would make it difficult to have snails up in the same place all the time… you didn't see the Strong World broadcast, did you?"
"What the hell is a 'Strong World' and what does that have to do with—!"
"Just trust us when we say that if the crew left him tools? This'll be a cakewalk," Buggy retorted.
Luffy watched them go out of the corner of his eye, most of his attention focused on Magellan in case he went after them. Surprisingly, he didn't, and once they were out of sight, he turned his full attention to the venom-sweating Warden.
"I'm surprised you let them go," he said conversationally. Or at least, as 'conversational' as one can be when their every muscle is tensed and ready to spring.
Magellan was silent as the grave, just staring at Luffy with his dead gaze, before droning in a—if the haze leaving his mouth was anything to go by—literally deadly tone, "Normally, I would focus on detaining all of you at once, but I have a feeling."
Luffy blinked, tilting his head. "A feeling?"
"A feeling," Magellan repeated, the purple sheen covering his body darkening almost to black. "That if I take my attention off of you, for even one second, Monkey D. Luffy, then somehow…" He slowly tilted his head to the side, popping the vertebrae with a CRACK like cannon fire. "I will sorely come to regret it."
Yet more venom bubbled and roiled from Magellan's massive frame, glimmering in the heat as it sloughed off to the stone floor. The liquid miasma sizzled where it dripped onto the hot stone, and Luffy's eyes narrowed at the sickly, off-colour haze that rose above it.
"Out of respect for one leader to another, I give you this one chance," Magellan intoned. "Surrender now, and I'll ensure you enjoy a very… comfortable stay in our facilities." He shrugged. "After, of course, I interrogate you to find out who allowed you access to this prison."
Images flashed through Luffy's mind of Hancock's drunken smile at the party, of her existential terror while Stussy stood over her paralyzed body. Of Tashigi spitting bloody hellfire at Cross, of her quiet determination not more than an hour ago. However, many other faceless people were out there, waiting in the wings to help. They were all comrades, too, people who had and would help him at great risk, he was only beginning to understand. With that in mind, plus Ace and his dream, there was only one possible answer to that offer.
Luffy hunched over, kneeling on the balls of his feet, his grip on his pipe snow-white, and he glared into the eyes of the devil. "No chance."
"Hmph," Magellan let out a grunt that almost sounded respectful. "I didn't think so."
And then the battle began as Magellan moved.
To call it 'moving' was honestly a disservice. In spite of his massive bulk, Warden Magellan was a blur as he lunged forward and slammed a knife-hand into the bridge, his acidic venom chewing through the stone like it was wet cardboard. That had not been his target, of course. Before Magellan even reared back his arm, Luffy had leaped back to put some distance between himself and the Warden, pulling out his pipe and something else from his pack as he went.
In the space of a second, Luffy raised his pipe and aimed it at Magellan's face—
"Gum-Gum Blowgun!"
—and spat a massive rush of air through the cylinder, blasting one of Usopp's patented Lead Stars at Magellan's face…for all the good that it did. The Poison-Man's only reaction was to raise his hand and catch the slug in his palm, the pellet dissolving in the venom coating it before it even touched his actual hand.
Grimacing at the lack of effect, Luffy still made use of the distraction and took the opportunity to jump up and grab one of the chained slabs of wood hanging from the ceiling with his arm. He tried to use the brief breathing room to brainstorm a plan of attack—
"Hydra."
But the trio of screaming dragon-heads of living death that abruptly blasted up after him robbed him of that opportunity. Instead, he was forced to move, making a flying leap for another such block.
Even in spite of Luffy's phenomenal strength, his lack of a proper jumping-off point meant that his leap fell woefully short of his mark, and he started plummeting towards the blood vat. And while he potentially could have Rocketed to his point of aim, there was a keen lack of surfaces available that wouldn't burn him further.
So instead, the Rubber-Man had to… diversify his moveset a bit, with a little extra help.
~o~
Boss waddled forward and, with great reverence, held out an ornate scroll.
"This is the same guide to the Six Powers that I used to create the Full Shell Style. The extra techniques could help you on your way, so see what you can learn. I don't expect you to master it all as fast as I did, but you can use it during your training after the war, too."
Luffy nodded as he took it and looked it over. After a minute, he rolled it up and stuck it into his bag.
"Thanks, Boss. I should be able to learn at least one of them before I save Ace."
~o~
Luffy hadn't been able to find time to read the entire scroll through, and even if he had, what little he'd read told him it was going to take a while for him to wrap his head around things. But, during the ride over to this hellhole, he'd still managed to skim a few lines.
He'd managed to understand just enough.
"Come on, come on!" Luffy snarled, ramming his leg down and kicking at the air, ramming his foot into it—
FWOOM!
And finally managed to kick off with a ramshackle Moonwalk. He only managed the one kick, but it was enough to get him to the platform.
Unfortunately, he reached it at the same time as a roiling purple ball that looked to be filled with gas!
"Oh, crap," Luffy gulped miserably.
BOMF!
A haze of noxious fumes washed over Luffy, drawing a choked "GAGH!" out of him. He tried to hold his breath, but the raging heat of the floor forced him to gasp for breath after only a few seconds. Almost immediately, his senses—even hearing in some twisted way—were overtaken by an uncomfortable combination of pepper and pineapple. And the metallic taste that started crawling down the back of his throat likely wasn't a good sign either.
"That technique is the exclusive intellectual property of the World Government, Straw Hat," a dead voice rang through the air. "The fact that you have already earned the death penalty is not an excuse to keep lengthening your list of crimes. It will only result in your execution being all the more excruciating."
And then there was this guy!
"GWO-O-O-OORGH!"
Oh, and also, the Hydras were coming for him again, because why make anything easy in this place?!
"This isn't working, this isn't working—!" Luffy wheezed to himself as he leapt off his perch, Moonwalking—or Moonstumbling, more like—toward a new platform. Not a second too soon, either, for a Hydra head sheared through it like a rancid knife through butter a bare second later. But even when he landed on the roof of a stone cellblock, seemingly safe, that safety was decidedly illusory thanks to the Hydras still following close behind.
"Okay, this isn't working, let's change it up," Luffy gasped to himself, leaning over, hands on his knees. "Gear Second!"
A pump of his legs and steam blasted from his body, the already-unbearable heat rising even further. Luffy broke into a sprint, leaving the slavering Hydras trailing behind him. He made a break for the edge of the building, tensing up to take a flying leap to another cell block—
FWOOSH! "YEARGH!"
And was forced to come to a screeching halt at the edge of the building, followed shortly by him rolling to the side in order to avoid the yet-pursuing Hydras. Luckily, they weren't able to turn around to try to engulf him again. Instead, they ran right into the pillar of blinding, burning light that had so abruptly cut Luffy off, and boiled away into nothingness.
Luffy popped up into a sitting position with a panicked yelp, staring at the pillar in shock. "What the hell is that!?"
"Another alteration we've made to our institution," Magellan called up to Luffy's perch, as he slowly and calmly walked over, entirely unconcerned with the heat or the possibility of Luffy escaping. "Courtesy of the increase in budget we were granted following your crewmate's exposé. A few strategically placed mirrors and dishes along the roof of the Level, and we can refocus the floor's heat to fry whoever we please. Rather ingenious, no?"
"Eh…" the rubber-man hedged, scratching at the back of his head as he stared up at the pillar. "I guess? But I mean, if they're just there all the time, then they're not that scary, are they?"
Magellan let out a dismissive snort as he raised his hand over his head. "The operative word there… is if." And with that, he snapped his fingers, and the pillar started to move. Right for Luffy.
Luffy slapped a hand to his face. "Why do I say things?"
Luckily, he had no time at all to say anything else, for when he removed his hand from his face, the rubber man promptly found himself sandwiched between three Hydras and the pillar of fire, which was moving way faster than he'd expected. He weaved and dodged, stretching between the attacks—and completely devoid of any ability to actually attack. He needed something to disrupt one of the two attackers, and luckily, he had something in mind that could do just that.
With a complete disregard of common sense that shouldn't have surprised Magellan at this point, Luffy dove towards his snapping hydras, twisting around them in midair straight for the Warden himself. No fool he, Magellan braced himself despite his disbelief that the pirate had a plan that could break through his guard.
He wasn't prepared for him to pull out a gun and aim straight for his eyes. He was much less prepared—
SCHING! "GYAH, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!"
—for the barrel to shoot light at him. Not a laser that could burn his flesh like Kizaru's, but still one that could burn his eyes.
~o~
"Alright, Straw Hat, here's my present for you."
Franky held out a bizarre metal object, reminiscent of a gun barrel, with a large button on the back. He pointed it at the floor and pressed the button, and a red dot appeared on the ground.
"Got the idea talking with Soundbite, heard that in Cross's world, they use toys like this to make animals and kids chase after the light. Could come in handy if any of those beasts on Level 2 still have enough instinct; point this where you want them to go, and see if they follow."
Turning off the light, he handed it over with a serious look on his face. "But this laser is no toy, it's a weapon. It may not be Kizaru, but aim it at someone's eyes, and almost anyone will flinch. Just don't shine it in your eyes, because I know you would. Two seconds is enough to cause permanent damage."
Luffy rubbed his head and took it, nodding gratefully. "Thanks, Franky."
~o~
The Warden reared back, snarling as he clawed at his face. Luffy, not one to pass up on a golden opportunity, wound up his body and let loose with all the torque he and the laws of physics could give him. And a little extra in the form of an acceleration of his blood didn't hurt either. "Gum-Gum JET HOME RUN!"
The pipe slammed into Magellan's lower abdomen, punching through even his acidic armour and briefly distending his flesh before sending the Warden rocketing away and into a wall. Luffy had no time to celebrate the blow. He not only had to duck back to avoid the splashback from the Warden's armour, but he was given even less time to breathe when, not even a second after the impact, fresh Hydras shot out of the dust cloud. It was just his good luck that Magellan's acidic armour couldn't (yet) melt away the seastone part of his pipe that he'd attacked with.
Luffy focused his efforts on dodging, a difficult task with Gear Second running out and leaving him worn out and overheated, and he couldn't afford to make a mistake. Sadly, a mistake was made: the mistake of missing one of the liquid-draconic heads' throats bulging for a moment, right up until its jaw dropped open and it disgorged its own incensed originator.
Magellan's opportunity for attack was brief, and he only managed to ram a single knife-hand strike into Luffy's side before the rubber-man could react. The instant after the strike, Luffy leaped back and away from his opponent, too late to avoid damage. Though the impact hadn't done any physical damage, he was left defying the very strong urge to both clutch the spot and scream in pain. It hurt worse than the last time he'd gotten stabbed!
"Tch," Magellan spat, squinting at the misshapen blob he could barely identify as his target. "My apologies. I meant to aim for your head and take away your senses, end this quickly, mercifully. Now you'll merely suffer an agonizing death from kidney failure over the next seventy-two hours."
"Gee, thanks," Luffy ground out, only just managing to stay upright through an effort of will. He prepped himself to counter or—more likely and sane—dodge whatever the Warden sent his way. So it was well and truly shocking when no reprisal came.
Indeed, Magellan made no further move to attack, which left the rubber man even further on guard than he'd already been, glancing about in search of a sudden Hydra, or some equally deadly surprise. Obviously, he made sure to keep the Warden himself in his peripheral vision. So when Magellan's expression suddenly went from stoic business to seething hatred (or at least, more seething than he'd already been) that was a rather major clue that something had changed.
WUMP! "SCHKREE-KREE-KREEEE!"
The deafening impact of something touching down behind him and subsequently shrieking in tortured outrage gave Luffy a very clear idea of what had drawn his foe's ire.
A quick—if risky—glance over his shoulder while also reaching into his bag confirmed what he'd simultaneously suspected and dreaded: the Blazing Hell's own resident abomination had found them, and was intent on joining the fray.
And it was a horrific specimen, to be sure: a spider, at its most basic—tarantula, specifically—that had been welded together with a hawk in a gruesome fusion. Talons dug at the stonework from the tips of its eight twitching, writhing legs, massive feathered wings that were equal parts metal-plate and leathery canvas flapped between the armoured plating of the thorax, and upon its 'head', a twisted and cruel beak gurgled out a noxious, steaming fluid beneath an octet of black, hateful eyes.
Truly, it was every bit the monster that its predecessors had so thoroughly proven themselves to be.
And yet, in spite of all this, and himself no less, Luffy found himself grinning.
"Oh, look, I'm standing in front of your big bad weapon," he droned, ever so innocently, tapping his pipe into his hand. "You can't attack me, or you might kill it too."
Magellan, still filled with seething hatred, snapped his indignant snarl at Luffy—! And then froze.
What little restraint the monster had abruptly snapped, and it reared up on its four hindmost limbs, lashing down at Luffy—!
"Hydra."
SPLASH! "SHKREEEEEE!"
And then out of nowhere, a reptilian head of liquid hell shot toward and clean over Luffy's head, swallowing the tortured tarantula-hawk hybrid whole. The abomination was bowled over onto its back, where it collapsed to the stone, screeching and writhing in agony. It lasted a bare handful of seconds before its neurons slowly gave out, gradually paralyzing it into a heap of tortured misery. Its keening gurgles reverberated throughout the halls of the floor for a scarce few seconds more, only for a second Hydra head to slam into it from the side, swiping the entire mess into the boiling crimson abyss.
And like that, as swiftly as it had appeared, it was gone.
"Oh, no," Magellan droned in turn as he adjusted the fit of his gloves, his expression and voice as casual and innocent as his opponent's. "I missed. Now I have to report that because of you, Straw Hat, we lost two of the Government's prototypes. Maybe even three, if the one above us interferes in the clean-up of the mess you caused and has to be put down. How very… tragic."
The two men regarded each other in the sweltering heat. Finally…
"Shishishi!" Luffy snickered as he balanced his pipe across his shoulders and folded his arms over it. "Cross was right! You're a cool guy after all!"
"Praise has never been more flattering, nor more damning," Magellan rumbled back, his own expression not changing a whit. "A pity you're both still pirates."
Luffy grinned wider. "Yeah, well, can't fix that. Pi~ra~tes!"
And with that, Luffy flung something from his bag and onto the ground, resulting in a haze of sakura-scented smoke blasting out. Magellan surged through the cloud with a small tsunami of venom flanking him, rendering the width and a fair chunk of the bridge's length unlivable, but it was for naught. By then, Luffy had gone and regained his elevation, standing on one of the platforms surrounding the boiling blood cauldron and all the cheekier for it.
"Hey, poison-guy!" the criminal shouted, still grinning that stupid grin even as he stuck one of his fingers in his mouth. "Robin once said that this whole 'bite my thumb at you' thing is supposed to be really insulting! Is it working?"
Eyes narrowed, Magellan's response was to spawn a fresh cadre of serpentine heads and send them out to silence the brainless heckler. But, more than a little infuriatingly, the venomous reptiles had no more luck than the last times he'd tried. Every attempt was deftly evaded, one or two heads aimlessly diving into the blood and flames and getting evaporated, while a third met its ignominious end by way of the Monkey—who was still biting his own thumb, to Magellan's increasing ire—juking in such a way that the head ran into another heat-pillar.
The message being broadcast was very clear to Magellan: that if he wished for this work to be done properly, he would have to do it himself. Thus, he brought forth yet another trio of Hydras, but this time, he only sent two careening after the pirate.
The third, he had slinked silently through the air, stretching out not in active pursuit of the pirate, but in anticipation of his path, which the other two Hydras were more actively directing him through. A nudge to the left, a dodge up—there!
In a blur of black and purple, Magellan leaped up and through the venom of his construct. The Hydra was poised to disgorge him in the pirate's blind spot, his knife-hand cocked to deliver a final devastating—if not outright lethal—blow.
Of course, Magellan hadn't forgotten that Straw Hat had been forewarned about him and his powers. But the only thing that had been granted to him was the ability to dodge and stall. This time, the speed from the liquid pressure would ensure that no little tricks would buy him a window. Magellan himself couldn't stop the acceleration that would bring his venom-coated body within striking range, and that pipe of his wouldn't be enough to fight him off. Ten more seconds and this nightmare would be over.
Unfortunately for the Warden, he didn't even have three.
"Got ya."
The taunt and smirk on Luffy's face sent an unfamiliar frisson of uncertainty through Magellan. After seeing it in action only once, Straw Hat had managed to plan around his Venom Road!? Planned on putting Magellan in a position where he couldn't stop if he wanted to?!
But even if he had, what could it matter? Magellan was still safe within the lethal mass of his Hydra, still moving at breakneck speed and still in possession of an advantage in sheer size and strength. How could the rubber-brained buffoon possibly think to—wait, why did he have his other hand in his bag? Again!? AND WHY WAS HE STILL BITING HIS—!?
'Is his forearm supposed to be that big?' Magellan's brain idly noted. Then his brain connected that little detail to the downfall of another seemingly 'invincible' powerhouse, and, well…
'Oh, hell.'
And after that final thought crossed his mind, Magellan didn't have the time or brain capacity to fathom what he witnessed the pirate pull out of his literal bag of tricks, let alone do anything about it.
Luffy, meanwhile, had plenty of time to roar out one thing:
"GUM-GUM—!"
~o~
It was before a sea of dropped jaws that Zoro used two hands to partially withdraw his contribution from the bag.
"My Titan Barbell," he stated, grunting in exertion. "You'll have at least one good weight for your training. And if you need something that hits harder than your pipe, this'll do the job."
With the care of a professional bodybuilder, he lowered the weight back into the bag, his eyes never leaving his captain's. Luffy nodded.
"Thank you, Zoro. I'll use it as much as I can."
Zoro's only response to him was a half-smirk, a smirk that spoke worlds.
~o~
"—ATLAS COMET!"
Luffy's Giant-sized fist blasted out of his bag, the enormous chunk of metal clenched tight in his grip like a hellish set of brass knuckles. The weight slowed his punch down some, but against a target that was literally headed in his direction, there was no chance to miss. Luffy's fist rammed down the Hydra's throat—
KA-BLANG! "GRAAAAAARGH—!"
—and slammed clean into Magellan, quite literally blasting him out of his own construct. And without his connection to the venom, gravity reasserted itself upon Magellan. Gravity, which inexorably yanked him down to a specific and very painful destination.
SPLA—KER-SPLASH!
Magellan slammed into the vat of boiling blood, the liquid surging and frothing and then surging even higher when the barbell landed in the same spot shortly after.
Luffy eyed the vat as he swung down onto another bridge, hissing to himself. Partly due to frustration at himself for losing the barbell, but mostly due to pain. See, Luffy would have held onto the barbell if he could have, but that was a wee bit difficult when everything below his elbow was somehow both numb and in stabbing, bone-gnawing agony.
"Punching a poison hydra on purpose…" Luffy groaned to himself as he massaged the un-envenomed part of his arm. "Yeah, definitely a bad plan. Even for me…"
Still, bad plan or not, that didn't mean it wasn't a necessary plan. No matter how much immunization it meant he had to suffer through over the next two years—and Luffy was pretty damn sure he'd hit Cross's quota on that front with that last stunt—defeating Magellan now was worth it if it meant he could stop the war.
Standing, Luffy eyed the blood-ocean again, frowning, his mood sour from more than just the pain. Frankly, Luffy didn't want to hurt Magellan if he didn't have to. He kept other bad guys where they belonged, and it wasn't like he was a bad guy himself. But he was standing between Luffy and his brother, so it wasn't even a decision.
After a moment of no activity from the blood, the rubber man shrugged and turned around to shuffle off. Hopefully, Magellan would last long enough for his subordinates to drag him out of there, and preferably without permanent damage to his fighting abilities. This would have made it a good idea for Luffy to increase his pace, but it was more than just his arm that was fighting him now.
To be specific, it hurt. His whole body hurt. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, his stomach was doing flip-flops, and his mouth tasted like cotton where the metallic tang of chlorine didn't overpower it. His lungs burned from poisonous fumes, his legs burned from brief contact with hot stone and metal, there was the arm he'd used to plunge Magellan into the drink, and worst of all, the spot where Magellan had hit him had gone completely numb. That couldn't be good.
But hey, he'd beaten Magellan! Probably not permanently, but Luffy figured that after that bad of a beating (or at least a finishing move), he'd have enough time to get to Level 5 and maybe shake the Warden off his trail for a bit, even hampered as he was. He glanced around the level, just managing to spot Buggy and company huddling near some cellblocks a few bridges over. Perfect, he could just join them and—
BLORP!
Luffy blinked at the strangely off-tone gurgle that hit his ears. He looked around for the source and saw that the blood in the floor-wide vat was… bulging? And why was it purple ohcrapcrapcrap—!
"Ngggghrrrr… DAMN IT!" the rubber-man growled, slamming his not-dead hand to his face. In one movement, he stuffed his pipe in his bag, unslung the bag into his hand, spun around, and threw his assembled supplies out over the blood-sea as far as he could manage. "BUGGY IF YOU DON'T CATCH THAT I SWEAR—!"
Thankfully, the threat was unnecessary. A pair of disembodied hands swooped out, snatched the bag and yanked it out of sight. Presumably to wherever the rest of Luffy's erstwhile 'allies' had absconded.
Luffy sighed in relief before letting that relief scurry away in favour of trepidation. Below him, the blood cauldron was frothing again, this time in an angry red-purple colour. "Alright… how much did I just piss him off?"
SPLOOOOSH! "SKREEEOOOOOONK!"
The massive Hydra-head that erupted out of the cauldron, screaming loud enough to be heard on Level Two, was a bit of a clue. The head whipped and flailed to and fro in a vicious, blind fury, before its gaze locked onto Luffy, its liquid mass going stock still.
"Uhhhh…" Luffy grinned and waved his good arm sheepishly. "Hi?"
The Hydra immediately barreled for Luffy so fast that, with his venom-related injuries, the pirate could only flinch. And then it halted a mere meter away from him.
Luffy blinked in surprise, uncurling his arm from his head so that he could properly look at the thing. "Uhhh…?"
The Hydra's maw dropped open, and Luffy had all of one second to smell death.
"Oh, cra—!"
FWOOM!
And that's when the blast of pure miasma hit Luffy, face-first.
If he'd been ten minutes from out of commission before, then those ten minutes were straight gone now. The pain he felt was an unholy cross between Crocodile dehydrating him after their second fight and getting sunk to the bottom of Arlong Park's pool: out of everything he'd wanted to experience on his voyage, Luffy had never wanted to learn what it was like to drown on the air itself.
And it was with the world-famous/infamous pirate on his knees, wheezing and gasping for a fresh breath, that the Hydra reared back and worked its throat again. It gagged once, twice, and then, in a flood of its own violet scourge, disgorged its creator onto the bridge.
He was huffing, scowling, fuming, even. He was bleeding visibly beneath his coat of poison, and from his unfocused eyes and swaying gait, he was likely dealing with a concussion. Yet Chief Warden Magellan was nowhere near tapping out.
Even in agonizing pain, a dozen ideas to keep fighting ran through Luffy's mind. But one look at Magellan's face was enough to put those thoughts to rest. Luffy knew the faces of anger very well, both from facing them regularly and wearing them. He knew cold fury, he knew hot anger, and he definitely knew berserk rage. And the face that the warden was wearing right then? Was none of those.
The expression Magellan wore as he slowly clawed his way to his feet and drew himself to his full height was one of acute annoyance. The rubber man's best efforts hadn't even been able to make him lose his temper.
"Straw Hat, I must thank you."
And those words in that too-casual tone certainly weren't making Luffy feel any better about his chances, either.
"You may or may not be aware of just how many… problems…"
The word was insufficient to convey the sheer, seething hatred it carried.
"…I've had to deal with this week, completely unable to do anything about them. But now? Now here you come, breaking our perfect record of not breaking into this prison, and I find that I now have a problem I can actually solve. For that… I am grateful. And in case I have not made myself perfectly clear to you over the course of our battle…" Magellan slowly and simultaneously cracked his neck and knuckles. "That is not a good thing for you."
Luffy's breath came in heaving gasps, his whole being focused on getting enough oxygen into his system to force out a question:
"…someone… tried to give you a bloodbath already… didn't they?" he wheezed, as annoyed as his opponent.
Magellan shifted his jaws, visibly wrestling with whether to answer. After a moment, he shrugged, some of the tension sloughing off of him.
"When fighting an Ability-user near a body of liquid, it is a logical strategy. Admittedly, nobody's ever done it quite like that, but still ultimately fruitless. A full-body coating of venom is as much a shield against water as weapons. I only had a few seconds, and that was all that I needed to flood the vat and give me proper room to breathe."
Scowling, the satanic figure turned on his heel to regard the festering muck he'd pulled himself out of. "Of course, now we're going to have to replace the entire vat before the resulting fumes make this place go from inhospitable to outright lethal. Which will blow our entire slush fund." Magellan turned back around and slammed his fist into his palm. "Which means that now I'm going to have to do something very unprofessional and vent some frustration by beating seven kinds of crap out of you. I'm not quite sure when I'll stop, as I've only ever found five kinds. But, to be fair, you did bring this on yourself."
For a brief moment, Luffy let himself close his eyes to succumb to the pain and exhaustion. And then they shot open again, blazing with a determination that wouldn't yield to anything. A determination that drove Luffy—even with his body in agony, even with his every muscle screaming at him in rebellion—to shove himself to his feet, despite swaying like a tree in a storm.
In response, Magellan's fists clenched, ready to strike against anything that the pirate did. And yet again, he found himself completely taken aback.
Because Luffy's next action, without flinching and without breaking his defiant stare, was to kneel upon the broiling ground and place his hands behind his head.
"I surrender," he stated.
The Warden did not move. Luffy made no move to get up. They remained that way for what felt like an eternity in the space of a moment, each warily regarding the other and neither ceding an inch.
"…you're playing me," Magellan finally growled, his fingers twitching mutinously. "I. Know. You're playing me."
"Yeah," Luffy agreed, jerking his head tightly without breaking eye contact. "But you'll do it anyway. Because you're a good man, and you follow the rules."
Shockingly, that did very little to ease Magellan's apprehension-fueled ire. In fact, his outrage visibly mounted within him, his breath coming in snorted gasps, his lips pulling back to show all his fangs in a vicious snarl. And then, in the back of his mind, something audibly snapped.
"RAAAAAGH!"
Magellan lashed out with his arm, his death-laced fist shooting straight for Luffy's head. The Straw Hat, for his part, didn't flinch by even a hair.
SMASH!
Not even when the fist landed just to the side of his head and liquified the bridge just behind him.
Magellan stayed in that position for a straight minute, arm extended. He loomed over Luffy, his chest heaving with exerted fury. Finally, he half-snarled-half-sighed out a rancid breath and stood back up straight, readjusting his tie and collar as passive-aggressively as possible.
"I would say that this isn't over, Straw Hat…" the Warden growled, his jaw still grinding in spite of his renewed composure. "But frankly, it is. You're too envenomated; whatever your doctor might have given you, no amount, combination, or potency of antidotes can save you. Soon enough, you will die."
Luffy jerked his head to the side, his expression still painfully neutral. "Maybe… or maybe I can find something you didn't think of."
Magellan cocked a brow. "Such as?"
"A miracle," was the impossibly certain answer.
To that blandly delivered statement, Magellan could only blink in honest and abject surprise. "…a miracle. In the depths of hell?" he deadpanned. Shaking his head, he replied, "Then I wish you luck, Straw Hat. For however little that is worth."
Plastering back on an expression of professional disdain, Magellan signed to the nearest (surviving) Vid-snail. For all his fresh composure, Magellan had seen too much of Luffy's exploits not to suspect some sort of hidden plan, even if he couldn't begin to conceive of what it might be. As such, the Warden only took the risk of turning his back on Luffy when the squad of guards he'd signalled appeared in his peripheral vision. And waiting for him after that turn was his second-in-command, sauntering up in front of the guard platoon.
"Truly a week from Hell. In Hell, no less." Hannyabal remarked. "But even Straw Hat Luffy could never win against Impel Down."
Magellan snorted. "He had help that still evades us. This situation must be contained."
"Already on it; Straw Hat gave away their location a minute ago while you were pulling yourself out, and the guards have orders to establish a perimeter." The pharaonic man began stroking his headdress. "Y'know, with you being so tired after dealing with one infiltrator—"
"Finish that sentence, and I'll actually put you in charge for the next twenty-four hours if you want it that much," the actual Chief Warden deadpanned to the wannabe.
Hannyabal froze, one hand still on the headdress as his eyes swapped between Magellan, the ruined vat, and the melting remains of the BioMEGA that his superior had 'accidentally' slaughtered.
"…I was just going to suggest putting some extra nightshade in your lunch, doesn't that work like caffeine for you?"
"No. It's a sleeping aid," Magellan dryly corrected. Groaning bone-deep, he brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Though Tartarus knows that I'd gladly kill for some right now, so do yourself a favour and don't tempt me."
The Warden glanced over his shoulder at Straw Hat, who was being doused by the guards with various antivenom agents so they could safely cuff him, and then spoke quietly, "Vice-Warden Hannyabal."
The wannabe snapped into immediate, total attention.
"Take Straw Hat Luffy to Level 5 and isolate him, the central cell pillar," Magellan ordered, eyes narrowed. "I am letting him out of my sight only because you can still keep him in yours. Do not take your eyes off of him until he breathes his last, and then take the corpse directly to the incinerator. I don't anticipate any miracles, but Level 6 is currently housing two individuals who made assumptions about what this man can or cannot survive."
Magellan abruptly bent in half so that he could properly shove his glowering visage in his underling's face. "We cannot afford to, and thus will not take any chances. He goes into a cell. He dies. He is disposed of. No surprises. No mistakes. Am. I. Clear."
With borderline uncharacteristic sternness, Vice-Warden Hannyabal snapped a sharp salute to his superior before running past him to bark orders to the rest of the men. In short order, Monkey D. Luffy was cuffed, chained, and marched down the bridge. All without the pirate flinching an inch.
Only once Luffy was well away and well out of sight did Magellan allow himself to slump with a tired, pained groan. The titanic warden, meanwhile, grouchily stalked off to the infirmary. He would barely have time to tend to his wounds before his diarrhea started up again.
Truly, his life was suffering, but what else could be expected with living and working in Hell?