Inside the Punk Hazard Research Institute, in a hidden underground laboratory.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Violent tremors shook through the thick alloy walls, rattling the hanging lights on the ceiling until bits of plaster rained down.
"What's going on?! What are those explosions outside?!"
A man with long black hair and horns curling from his head stared at the dust falling from above, his face a twisted mix of terror and excitement. He wore a baggy white coat, and a faint layer of pale purple gas clung perpetually to his body.
This was the institute's second-in-command, the user of the Logia-type Gasu Gasu no Mi: Caesar Clown.
A researcher scrambled in, stumbling over his own feet, and stammered out his report: "Master Caesar! Pirates! The Eclipse Pirates wiped out the entire outer defense line! Master Sentoki... he can't hold them!"
"Shurorororo! Sentoki, that axe-swinging idiot, always throwing his weight around just because Vegapunk favors him, and now he can't even stop a bunch of pirates!"
Caesar gritted his teeth, a mad glint flashing in his eyes.
He spun around and strode to the center of the laboratory. There stood a massive transparent glass tank filled with a thick, viscous purple liquid. Beneath it, exhaust valves connected to the ventilation pipes running through the entire institute.
This was the concentrated stockpile of a weapon of mass destruction he had been secretly developing behind Vegapunk's back: a lethal poison gas weapon called Deadland.
"Since the outer defenses are broken, those pirates are about to storm in..."
Caesar's fingers flew across the keyboard of the control console. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime test opportunity!"
"The Eclipse Pirates, who can even wound an admiral? The one-point-five-seven-billion Outlier? Shurorororo!"
Caesar threw his head back and let out an ugly, manic laugh.
"The moment I press this detonator, the entire interior of Punk Hazard becomes a death maze filled with poison gas! Every single one of those arrogant pirate monsters, and that self-righteous old fool Vegapunk who's always bossing me around, will all turn into stiff corpses under my masterpiece!"
"When that happens, the World Government will finally understand that my killing weapons, Caesar Clown's, are the supreme scientific force on these seas! I am the world's greatest scientist!"
Caesar transformed into a cloud of purple gas and floated directly above the control console.
He stretched out his right hand, pale skin trembling with exhilaration, ready to slam down on the red detonation button.
And then.
"What do you think you're doing, you horned idiot."
A flat voice, utterly devoid of emotion, suddenly rang out in the vast, supposedly empty top-secret laboratory.
"Who's there?!"
Caesar's gaseous form contracted sharply, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
He turned, stiff with shock.
Not five meters behind him.
The red-coated pirate with the one-point-five-seven-billion bounty, the one he'd seen plastered across the newspapers countless times, stood there without a sound.
And behind this man stood several others, including the Tyrant Bartholomew Kuma with his round-lensed glasses, and a blue-nosed reindeer whose eyes were filled with pure curiosity.
"P-Portgas D. Ace?!"
Caesar stumbled back a step in fright, but he was a Logia user. After a brief flash of panic, he steadied himself.
"Shurorororo! So it's the infamous Outlier himself! How did you find this place?"
Caesar eyed Ace warily, but his confidence held firm.
"Too late, though! In this sealed laboratory, saturated with gas, I am an invincible god! One snap of my fingers, and the air in here gets sucked out in an instant, or turned straight into a high-explosive gas bomb! Die! Gas Spark!"
Laughing wildly, Caesar clapped his hands together in front of his chest. The special gloves on his hands struck a cascade of sparks.
In an instant, he forcibly drained the air from the laboratory. A cloud of highly flammable, high-concentration gas surged forward as two massive invisible clamps, friction sparks dancing between them, aiming to crush Ace and his group in a devastating explosion.
"Invincible?"
Ace did not even glance at the incoming gas. He simply raised his right hand.
"Dark Water."
WHUUM.
A dense black fog, deeper than the blackest night, so dark it swallowed light and sight whole, erupted from Ace's palm without warning.
An absolute gravitational pull, a force that felt like it could tear matter itself apart, shot straight past the gas in midair and locked onto Caesar's half-elementalized body with a death grip.
"What... what is this?!"
Caesar felt an irresistible, monstrous force latched onto his very soul. His prized Gasu Gasu no Mi powers, the instant they made contact with that black smoke, vanished completely. Like an appliance with its plug ripped from the socket.
"GWAAAAAAAH!"
Caesar let out a pig-slaughter shriek. He was wrenched bodily out of his purple gas state back into solid flesh, arms and legs flailing wildly in the air as he flew helplessly toward Ace.
THUD.
Ace's large, powerful hand clamped around Caesar's throat, hoisting him into the air like a scruffed animal.
"You were saying? In front of whom were you going to detonate what poison gas?"
Ace looked down at the man thrashing desperately in his grip, face swelling purple from suffocation. A cold mockery flickered in his eyes.
"Let... let me go..."
Caesar's hands clawed frantically at Ace's arm. Stripped of his Devil Fruit power, his physical strength in Ace's grip was weaker than a toddler's.
"A Logia's nothing special against a skilled Haki user to begin with, let alone when you run into the Yami Yami no Mi, the sea's ultimate Devil Fruit counter."
Sabo stepped in from the doorway, Flame Dragon Staff resting on his shoulder. He watched Caesar's eyes roll back into his head and shook his head with a chuckle.
"Chopper, check what that purple stuff in the tank is."
Ace casually hurled Caesar into the corner like a piece of trash. The impact landed with a heavy, dull CRACK.
"R-Right, Captain!"
Chopper scurried over to the control console and hopped onto the chair. He pulled down his goggles and studied the massive glass tank and the data scrolling across the adjacent screen.
"Ace! This is an incredibly lethal neurotoxin, compressed into a gel state!"
Chopper's face went pale instantly, his wide eyes filled with shock and fury.
"Human or animal, one tiny whiff of this and the body seizes up on the spot. The gas even assimilates the victim into an immobile stone statue! This is nothing but a pure killing weapon!"
"Oh? A killing weapon?"
Sabo glanced at Caesar, still coughing up blood in the corner. "Looks like under those sheep horns, you've got a heart blacker than a viper's."
"Cough... what do you pirates know!"
Caesar clutched his throat. Even trembling with fear, the madness deep in his bones forced out a hoarse roar: "This is the greatest invention in the world! Once I prove its power to the world, that stubborn old relic Vegapunk will finally see! I, Caesar Clown, am the most genius scientist on these seas!"
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