One Piece: My Evolving Aircraft

Next Bonus, 100!!

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At that very moment, Magellan—the undisputed God of the Restroom—was presently occupied on the toilet, flipping through a copy of Entertainment Weekly.

The serialized novel Battle Through the Seas, after running for over two years, was finally reaching its climax.

As the user of the Paramecia Venom-Venom Fruit, Magellan possessed raw destructive power on par with a Marine Admiral. However, his fruit was a double-edged sword. He suffered from chronic food poisoning caused by his own venom, effectively chaining him to the toilet for hours a day.

The novels in Entertainment Weekly were his primary source of distraction during these agonizingly long stints.

The ambient temperature on Level 4 was hellish. It was a massive iron cauldron, filled with boiling pools of blood and raging infernos.

Beep... beep...

"Alert. Unauthorized activation of the main freight elevator from Level 1. Approaching Level 4."

"Hm??"

Inside the security control room stood an elegant woman with a lithe figure. She wore dark reddish-brown sunglasses and a cap tilted rakishly to obscure her right eye. Long, wavy blonde hair cascaded down her back. She was dressed in a crisp white shirt, a black tie, a brown jacket, and matching shorts, completed with dark red, thigh-high boots and long gloves.

She was the epitome of deadly efficiency.

Domino, the Deputy Head Jailer.

"Who is it?" she demanded into the comms. "Sadi, take a squad of Jailer Beasts and intercept them at the elevator."

"Understood, mmm~" Sadi purred over the line. "Where's the Chief Warden?"

"Occupied..." Domino sighed.

Inside the descending elevator.

"Luffy, this lift goes straight to the Chief Warden's office on Level 4," Jinbe said, his voice grim. "I'll hold the line there. You need to push straight through to Level 6. You have to get Ace out before Momonga and his men arrive to transfer him."

Luffy nodded, his expression dead serious.

The moment the doors hissed open, Jinbe lunged forward. With a devastating display of Fish-Man Karate, he instantly crushed the vanguard of Jailer Beasts, clearing a path for Luffy to sprint deeper into the prison.

"We can't take this place on our own," Jinbe yelled after him. "Release as many prisoners as you can! We need absolute chaos to create an opening!"

They split up, methodically shattering the locks on every cell they passed.

The freed prisoners immediately began freeing others. The riot swelled exponentially, a snowball rolling down a mountain.

Most of the cells housed multiple inmates, usually seven or eight to a room. Only the most psychotically violent or politically dangerous prisoners were afforded solitary confinement.

The sudden, violent uprising swept through the level like wildfire.

Vice Warden Hannyabal and Chief Guard Sadi rushed in with reinforcements, while Domino sprinted to the restrooms to brief Magellan.

Magellan was completely unfazed.

He had already received a heads-up from Marine Headquarters; he knew an infiltration was likely. Taking preemptive action, he had ordered Ace to be transferred to the surface level early.

The intruders had entirely missed their target.

"I will handle the transfer with Vice Admirals Momonga and Onigumo first," Magellan stated, his tone chillingly calm. "Then, I will return to cull this little riot."

He took a private lift to the surface, arriving just as Momonga's fleet docked.

He handed over the heavily shackled Ace without incident.

His primary duty fulfilled, Magellan turned back toward the abyss, rallying his elite guards to crush the insurrection.

Meanwhile, the riot on Level 4 was successfully holding the line. Luffy and Jinbe had breached Level 5.

There, they were met by Saldeath, the Chief Guard of the freezing hell, commanding his brutal "Blugori" squad.

Knowing time was running out, Jinbe ordered Luffy to push forward to Level 6 while he stayed behind to hold off Saldeath's forces.

They separated once again.

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Simultaneously, Blackbeard Teach and his crew breached the prison. Finding the upper levels strangely devoid of heavy guard patrols, Teach let out a booming laugh.

With Jinbe, Luffy, and the mass breakout drawing the entirety of Impel Down's security forces upward, Teach's crew strolled down to the lower levels practically unopposed.

Level 6. The Eternal Hell.

A place utterly devoid of light. Spend enough time down here, and the very concept of time dissolves into madness. It felt simultaneously instantaneous and agonizingly eternal.

CRASH!

A heavy iron gate was violently ripped from its hinges.

"Zehahahaha! Greetings, gentlemen!"

The exaggerated, arrogant laughter echoed through the abyssal silence of Level 6.

"Hm??"

Pairs of predatory eyes snapped toward the sound.

"Who the hell is that?"

"What's going on up there?"

"Fresh meat?"

The murmurs rippled through the darkness.

Teach swaggered down the central corridor. Behind him, Laffitte, Doc Q, and Burgess twirled key rings on their fingers.

"Listen up, you miserable wretches," Teach bellowed. "You're all rotting away in these cages, waiting to die with your dreams crushed. Since your lives are already forfeit, how about you hear me out?"

"I propose a little game. A battle royale, right here in these cells. Fight to the death!"

"The last men standing... will sail with me as my crew!"

His voice boomed through the cavernous level.

"I'm offering you a ticket back to freedom!"

Freedom...

A word that meant absolutely nothing until you had spent decades locked in a lightless box.

It was the most precious commodity in the world. More valuable than life. More intoxicating than love.

For the inmates of Level 6, freedom was the ultimate aphrodisiac.

It was the smell of salt air, the warmth of golden sunlight, the endless expanse of the blue ocean.

They had been buried alive for far too long. They hungered for it.

The moment Blackbeard finished his pitch, Level 6 erupted. It was like tossing a lit match into a powder keg.

The "beasts" within the cages turned on each other with feral desperation, clawing and tearing at their cellmates for a single chance at liberation.

It was pure, unadulterated carnage.

Blood painted the stone walls.

Yet, amidst the slaughter, several cells remained entirely silent. Unbothered. Untouched.

Level 6 was reserved for the worst monsters in the world, but even among monsters, there was a hierarchy.

The ones currently tearing each other apart were the mid-to-lower-tier inmates. They had to fight for scraps just to survive. They didn't care that Blackbeard was a relative nobody; he held the keys.

After all, news didn't exactly travel fast down here. Only the most legendary names commanded instant respect. And Teach, having only recently made his move, wasn't one of them.

"Blackbeard? Who the hell is that?"

"Never heard of him."

"Back in my day, a scrub like that wouldn't even be fit to swab the deck."

The true apex predators—the ones sitting at the absolute pinnacle of infamy—scoffed at the idea of fighting like dogs to serve under an upstart.

Teach understood this perfectly.

His goal wasn't to recruit the absolute strongest; it was to recruit the strong who were still manageable.

He didn't want to poke the sleeping dragons, nor did he want them on his ship. It was a simple matter of logistics. He was looking for subordinates, not a new boss.

In the pirate world, might makes right. If he recruited someone stronger than himself, who would actually be giving the orders? If a mutiny happened, he'd be the one taking a dirt nap.

Why invite that kind of trouble?

Therefore, after the bloodbath concluded, Blackbeard selectively unlocked the cells of the victors—the ones whose strength he knew he could reliably suppress.

"Corrupt King" Avalo Pizarro!

"Crescent Moon Hunter" Catarina Devon!

"Heavy Drinker" Vasco Shot!

"Colossal Battleship" San Juan Wolf!

As they moved down the block, Burgess spotted the cell housing Douglas Bullet. He reached for the lock.

"Leave that one alone!" Teach snapped, grabbing Burgess's arm.

Teach had recognized the man instantly, a cold sweat pricking his brow.

'He's still alive?? The man they call the Demon Heir??'

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Teach didn't linger. With his new crew secured, he beat a hasty retreat.

But his departure did not bring peace to Level 6.

If anything, the atmosphere grew even more frenzied.

The fact that an upstart like Teach could waltz into Level 6 and casually free prisoners meant only one thing: Impel Down's security grid had catastrophically collapsed.

Whatever the cause, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The prisoners, driven to a frenzy, began attacking the infrastructure of the level.

While many on Level 6 were Devil Fruit users bound by Seastone, a significant portion relied purely on monstrous physical strength or Haki.

Furthermore, Teach had deliberately sabotaged the locking mechanisms on the remaining cells before he left. He needed these loose cannons to draw the guards' fire and buy his crew time to escape.

CRASH!

A heavy iron grate was obliterated by a single, devastating punch.

Douglas Bullet stepped out of his cell.

He unleashed a suffocating wave of Conqueror's Haki. Every pirate in the surrounding cells was instantly driven to their knees, gasping for breath, paralyzed by terror.

Screeeech!

Another heavy iron door swung open.

Patrick Redfield—the "Red Count"—stepped out, his movements elegant and refined, completely unaffected by Bullet's oppressive aura.

A legendary pirate from the era of Roger and Whitebeard, he possessed strength so absolute that he was considered an equal to both, despite operating entirely alone.

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Marineford.

"What?" Sengoku barked into the receiver. "A massive prison break at Impel Down??"

"Has Ace been successfully transferred??"

"He has? Good!"

Sengoku let out a massive sigh of relief. Ace was the bait required to lure Whitebeard into the kill zone. As long as the boy was secure, the plan was still on track.

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