A/N: Thank you so much @momo for joining our Patreon gang! I'm so glad you enjoyed the story and thought it was good! I'll do even better now! Happy+!
Enjoy!
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A few minutes ago.
Across the hall, Luffy clashed violently with Blackbeard, sending shockwaves through the air.
Marshall D. Teach threw his head back, his obnoxious, rumbling laugh echoing off the damp bedrock. "ZEHAHAHA! You think you half-dead rookies can stop my grand design?! I am going to the top of this era!"
Luffy didn't say a word.
Steam violently hissed from his flushed, rubbery skin. Luffy brought his thumb to his lips and bit down hard into the bone.
Bone Balloon.
Luffy inhaled sharply, blowing a massive volume of air directly into his bones. His right arm violently expanded, growing to the colossal proportions of an Elbaf Giant.
But he didn't stop there. Pushed to the absolute brink of death and back, Luffy's body had forcibly adapted. He gritted his teeth, forcing his raw, untamed willpower into the inflated limb.
A faint, rudimentary sheen of dense, invisible spiritual armor began to aggressively coil around his giant fist, turning the stretched rubber a jagged, imposing black.
"Oh?" Teach raised an eyebrow, his cruel grin widening. "You've picked up some new tricks since Jaya, Straw Hat! But it won't save—"
"Gomu Gomu no..."
Luffy didn't wait.
"GIGANT..."
He blurred into motion, the sheer weight of his massive arm tearing up the bedrock as he swung it forward.
"PISTOL!"
BAM!!
While his crew was busied by the irritable Emporio Ivankov and his army of Okamas, the strike hit Teach like a train. His eyes bulged in absolute shock as the massive, Haki-coated fist completely eclipsed his vision.
The punch slammed directly into the center of Blackbeard's expansive chest.
"GAAAH-AH!"
The sound of Teach's ribs cracking echoed like a cannon shot. The impact lifted the colossal pirate entirely off his feet.
Blackbeard coughed up a massive spray of blood and saliva, flying backward through the air and smashing violently into the thick iron bars of a nearby cell.
THRASH!
"Captain!" Van Augur yelled, instantly raising his long sniper rifle.
"Aaaaaargh! Stay back!" Teach shrieked, rolling onto his hands and knees on the stone floor.
He clutched his stomach, his face contorted in a mask of absolute, agonizing pain. He thrashed against the bedrock, crying out and cursing loudly. For a man who claimed to be a mastermind, his reaction to pain was downright pathetic.
"Dammit! It hurts! It hurts so much!" Teach groaned, slowly forcing himself back onto his feet, a dark, viscous aura beginning to pour heavily from his body.
He wiped the blood from his missing teeth, looking up at Luffy with a dark, manic grin.
"That wasn't half bad, Straw Hat!" Teach laughed, the dark aura swirling around his boots and slowly eating away at the stone floor.
Luffy just looked at the man he had just now dealt a full-force blow to who had gotten up like the hit didn't matter to him.
"But you see, my Yami Yami no Mi... the Darkness Fruit... is the most unique of all the Logias! I have to absorb twice the pain of a normal man!"
"In return... ZEHAHAHA!"
Teach thrust his massive hand forward. The inky blackness swirled into a terrifying, miniature black hole in his palm.
"But in exchange for that pain..." Teach roared, his eyes wide with absolute madness.
"I can absorb the devil itself!"
"Kurouzu!"
(Black Vortex!)
An irresistible, unnatural gravitational pull suddenly seized Luffy's body. The rubber boy gasped as his feet were pulled off the floor.
He tried to stretch, tried to anchor himself, but the darkness was absolute. He was violently dragged through the air, hurtling directly toward Teach's waiting fist.
Teach's hand clamped down brutally around Luffy's throat.
"LUFFYY" "MUGI-CHAN" "MUGIWARI-BOY"
Blackbeard pirates weren't for show.
"Eyes... over here!" Shiryu of the rain barked.
SLASH! BAM!
"WEEEEE-HAH! LOOK HERE! I'M A CHAMPION!"
Once the Straw Hat boy was dead, this loosely-packed alliance would immediately fall apart. They couldn't let the boss be interrupted.
"ZEHAHAHA!"
Instantly, the steam stopped rising from Luffy's skin. The giant arm deflated back to its normal size. The strength drained from his limbs, and his rubbery body felt inexplicably heavy and fragile.
'What? My Gomu Gomu no mi...' Luffy's fruit stopped working.
"ZEHAHAHA! WELL DONE BOYS!"
Looking back at the boy in his palms, he continued, "Your brother couldn't beat me, and neither can you!" Teach laughed, raising his free, massive fist to crush Luffy's skull.
"When I touch you, your Devil Fruit is completely canceled!"
"You're just a frail, ordinary human!"
"GRRRR BASTARD!"
Luffy glared up at the massive pirate.
His devil fruit was gone, but his spirit wasn't.
"To kick your ass!" Luffy growled.
He consciously forced his rudimentary Armament Haki directly into his forehead.
"Rubber... I don't need it!"
With a violent jerk of his neck, Luffy delivered a devastating, Haki-infused headbutt directly into Blackbeard's nose.
BAM!!!
And broke it.
"AGH!" Teach screamed, his eyes watering instantly as blood exploded from his nostrils. The sheer, amplified pain forced his grip to loosen.
Thud!
Luffy dropped to the floor, instantly kicking away to create distance.
"I'll crush you, Straw Hat!" Jesus Burgess roared, charging forward like a runaway freight train.
CRACK.
He ripped a massive, detached slab of solid bedrock from the floor.
WHOOSH!
And hurled it at Luffy with terrifying strength.
"Diable Jambe:..."
Before the boulder could connect, a blazing comet intercepted it.
"Flambage... Shot!"
Sanji dropped from the ceiling, his right leg spinning like a buzzsaw of pure, unadulterated hellfire.
"Keep your grubby hands off my captain!"
The flames of his Diable Jambe were hotter than usual, tinged with the faint, black pressure of his newly awakened Haki.
CRACK... BOOM!
Sanji's kick completely pulverized the massive boulder into fine dust and didn't stop his momentum.
He landed on the rubble and immediately lunged at Burgess, delivering a blistering barrage of fiery kicks directly to the giant wrestler's forearms and chest.
"WEEHAHAHA! You've got some kick to you, cook!" Burgess laughed, blocking the strikes with his massive, armor-clad elbows.
"You're in my way, you oversized meathead," Sanji growled, exhaling a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, his visible eye burning with a cold, protective fury.
To the right of the brawl, a tall, imposing man wearing a dark Impel Down uniform stepped forward.
Shiryu of the Rain, the disgraced former Head Jailer, smiled a bloodthirsty, sadistic grin as he slowly drew his incredibly long, cursed nodachi from its scabbard.
"It's been a long time since I've carved up a decent swordsman," Shiryu murmured, taking a long drag of his cigar.
"Let's see if you rookies have any actual bite."
Shiryu swung his blade. It wasn't a standard slash; it was murderous intent that threatened to slice the opposing rookie in two.
CLANG!
Sparks violently illuminated the dark corridor.
Zoro stood his ground, his boots planted firmly on the bedrock. He held Wado Ichimonji and Sandai Kitetsu in a crossed block, perfectly intercepting Shiryu's massive nodachi. Trailing along the edges of Zoro's blades was the undeniable, ink-like sheen of black Armament Haki.
Shiryu's eyes widened slightly in genuine surprise as he felt the sheer, crushing weight of Zoro's will pressing back against him. "Haki? Interesting."
'These rookies...'
'In Paradise, they mastered Haki?'
Hardly any pirates were capable of that while still being rookies.
But.
'What a shame.'
They couldn't go too far. This was their burial.
"A cursed blade," Zoro noted, feeling the sinister hum of Shiryu's sword vibrating against his own.
"Sorry but..." Zoro growled, violently pushing Shiryu's blade back and immediately launching into an aggressive, three-sword assault.
"Mine's thirstier!"
The whole prison floor had descended into total chaos.
"Now, now..."
Van Augur raised his incredibly long sniper rifle, Senriku, taking aim at Luffy's back.
"I don't think so, candy boy!"
Emporio Ivankov roared, leaping into the line of fire. The massive Revolutionary leaned back, his eyes widening to terrifying proportions.
"HELL WINK!"
BOOM!
A colossal shockwave of pure air pressure erupted from Ivankov's face, completely deflecting Augur's high-velocity bullets into the stone walls.
"You think simple lead can pierce the Okama Way?! Ridiculous!"
"HEEEE-HAAAW!"
"My, my. Such violence," Lafitte chuckled, his tap shoes clicking against the stone as he twirled his cane and dodged the okamas' attacks with skill, attempting to flank the Revolutionaries and hypnotize them.
"Your stage ends here," Inazuma stated coldly. His hands transformed into massive scissors.
CUT. CUT. CUT. SWIRL~
He snipped rapidly through the solid bedrock floor, peeling a massive slab of the stone up like a rug and violently flipping it over Lafitte.
Lafittle was gradually losing his good mood.
"We're outnumbered. Should've expanded the crew further. Tch..." the pale navigator was forced to take flight with his sprouted wings just to avoid being crushed.
Meanwhile, Doc Q coughed sickly, raising his explosive double-bladed scythe from the back of his equally diseased horse, Stronger.
He swung the massive weapon down toward a distracted Bon Clay.
"Don't mess with my friends!"
Bonney, absolutely furious at the indignity she had suffered earlier under the Warden and Hannyabal, sprinted forward.
"DISTORTED FUTURE!"
A pulse of pink energy washed over her body. She didn't turn into a child this time. She rapidly aged herself into her physical prime, her muscles bulging with terrifying, raw Amazonian strength.
"MUSCLE!"
She caught the handle of Doc Q's explosive scythe with her bare hands, completely stopping its momentum.
"HEHE" Bonney grinned.
"What the—?!" Doc Q wheezed.
"Never mess... with a starving girl!" Bonney roared.
"HAAA!"
With a monumental heave, she physically lifted the scythe, Doc Q, and the massive horse entirely off the ground and-
BAMMMMM!
Suplexed all three of them brutally into the bedrock of the Eternal Hell.
The Blackbeard Pirates were reeling.
Teach had recruited strong, vicious men, but as a crew, they hadn't yet been forged in the brutal, coordinated fires of the New World. They hadn't claimed their stolen Devil Fruits yet. And most importantly, they had vastly underestimated the sheer, terrifying willpower and charisma of a Straw Hat crew that had just dragged themselves back from the precipice of death.
"Dammit!" He still had to deal with the Warden and the Reaper, Teach cursed, wiping more blood from his chin as he looked at his struggling crew. He raised both of his hands, the absolute darkness beginning to violently swirl around him, actively devouring the dim light of the torches.
"You brats are starting to piss me off! Let's see you survive this!"
"Black Hole!"
The floor beneath the Straw Hats began to crack and groan as the localized gravity intensified to a lethal degree.
The legendary prisoners locked in the massive Seastone vaults watched the chaotic brawl in sheer awe. The rookies and the rag-tagged group of okamas were actively holding off the man who had defeated Fire Fist Ace.
They waited in the dark, their eyes shifting between the swirling vortex of Blackbeard's power and- oh no, the terrifyingly calm man in the black coat who had just begun walking away from the defeated warden.
Quietly, the air changed.
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A/N: This arc, is close to an end. How do you like the story so far! Leave a review please! Cheers!
{Read 30+ chapters at: patreon(dot)com/Glivaria}