章 108: Planning
Cherry returned to Level 5.5, otherwise known as Newkama Land by its residents.
This time she didn't close up the passage as she passed through as she anticipated that she would be using it again, opting only to close the entrances.
Cherry found Ivankov and a now female Inazuma standing over a table with a complex layout of the prison as well as some ideas about how to deal with the various defenses and guards of Impel Down.
"Oh, you're back, Cherry." Inazuma welcomed warmly, catching Cherry somewhat off guard as she had been quite cold and distant as a man.
"I let Ace know he'll be getting rescued. There's a fishman in his cell with him, but I don't think he'll be a problem. Rather I think he'll be helpful, as he seems to be on good terms with Ace and also seems pretty strong." Cherry informed them of her meeting.
"A fishman in level six, huh? That's probably the Shichibukai, Jinbe, who they brought in recently." Ivankov processed the information. "That's good, prospects aren't looking too good so we'll need all the help we can get."
"Hm, it'll really be that difficult? With the number of people you have here it shouldn't be hard to take one of the warships, as well as sail one." Cherry asked. The main problem in her mind was getting out quickly and manning the ship. Both of those problems are solved with more fighters.
"You're forgetting that we're in the calm belt and that the warships outside aren't paddleboats. The only way to sail out of here is through the giant gate, which can only be opened from the inside." Ivankov explained.
"The gate? The gate isn't a problem, I'll just go over top of it and open it myself. Really shouldn't take that long, especially if the marines on the other side are willing to cooperate to avoid the ass kicking of a lifetime." Cherry said.
"How are you going to go over it? Do you have any idea how tall that monstrosity is?" Ivankov asked doubtfully.
"Like this." Cherry said. Then she suddenly vanished and loud cracks could be air in the air around them as Cherry bounced around without landing on any solid surfaces. Cherry landed and place her hands on her hips proudly.
"See? Easy peasy, I can do that all day." Cherry smirked.
"That'll do it. Nhahaha!" Ivankov rubbed his hands together like a villain. "Now we just need to force our way through quick enough so they can't bring in reinforcements."
"Not just that, the current will bring us right passed Marine Headquarters. They have men in constant communication between Impel Down and Marine Headquarters so that if anything at all goes wrong, they'll known the moment it happens that something is wrong. We'll be intercepted for sure." Inazuma pointed out.
"Hm, I think I know someone who could help with that. I'll see if I can get in contact." Cherry said, with a particular person in mind.
"Just bring them here if you can. There's a folk tale of sorts here that people mysteriously vanish from time to time. That what they think happened to many of us here, including myself!" Ivankov said.
Cherry set out into the tunnels once again to get as close as she could to her target on level three, then burrowed a new tunnel to reach them.
Cherry could hear someone shouting above her even through the stone walls.
"Un Deux, Koraaa! OKAMA WAAAAYYY!"
Cherry opened up a hole in the floor. "Bon Clay, come with me. Bring your friends here too."
"Hm? Cherry-chan, is that you?! Hold on, did you... come to break me out of prison?" Bon Clay started to sob from the joy of friendship.
"Nope." Cherry shut him down instantly. "I just need your devil fruit, if I could take that and leave you here I would."
Her words stabbed into his heart without mercy.
"I'm kidding, I definitely didn't plan to leave you here until I needed your skill set." Cherry smirked.
"Y-you shouldn't be mean to your friends! Maybe I won't come with you, huh? How about that?!" Bon Clay said, putting up a false resistance.
"Oh? I guess you don't want to meet Emporio Ivankov then. Have fun rotting here~" Cherry teased, closing up the hole behind her.
"Noooooooooooo, take me with you pleeeeease~ I want to meet Iva-sama~" Bon Clay begged whilst clawing at the place where the hole just was.
Cherry opened it back up and Bon Clay dived inside without giving her the chance to close it again. After bringing the other prisoners in the cell into her tunnel she led them all back to Newkama Land.
Bon Clay started fangirling over Ivankov immediately.
"This is Bon Clay, his devil fruit let's him take the appearance of people he's touched with his right hand. We can use that to replace the marine in communication with Marine Headquarters to buy us as much time as possible." Cherry explained, receiving nods of affirmation.
"So you did just want my devil fruit! You're a monster, a monster!" Bon Clay accused Cherry who could only laugh.
"Don't be angry Bon-chan. Luffy's brother is locked up and scheduled to be executed. Rest assured that I'll do everything in my power to get you out of here as well." Cherry patted him on the shoulder to reassure him.
She wasn't really fond of Bon Clay, but she did respect him at least. After all, his life had been saved by them and he still fought against them in Alabasta. Although he used himself as bait for them to get away afterwards, somewhat redeeming himself, Cherry didn't particularly like his fickle attitude towards the people he called friends.
After talking a bit and ironing out some more details for their plan of action, Cherry decided to turn in for the night.
Over the next few days, Cherry formed a much more robust tunnel system throughout the entirety of Impel Down. Now that she had a clear idea of the layout it was relatively easy to do so, whereas before she was worried about accidentally breaking through to an open space.
They also worked out who would be best to include in their prison break. The prisoners on the upper levels would be easy to control and wouldn't be too harmful to release into the outside world. The prisoners on lower levels were strong, but weren't so easy to control. Many of them also had grudges against Whitebeard, especially those from Level six.
Ivankov said they should involve Crocodile, as Ivankov apparently had some dirt on him that he wouldn't want getting out.
"Oh, what is it that you know that can make a prideful guy like Crocodile become obedient?" Cherry wanted to know, as Ivankov made it sound like some real juicy gossip.
"I won't say anything unless Croco-boy doesn't want to cooperate. Otherwise he wouldn't trust that I'll keep quiet about it." Ivankov said, disappointing her greatly.
"No fun at all~" Cherry pouted.
"We need to make a decision now, we have everything ready to go. Do we do it as soon as possible, or do we wait until the ships that will escort Ace to Marine Headquarters get here? If we wait, then the fight here will be harder, but it will save us some trouble later on." Inazuma stated.
"Personally I'd rather fight the escort here. It's almost certain admirals will get involved when they find out what's happened. Removing some vice admirals and their warships from that fight will improve our chances." Cherry stated her opinion. "Also, it's not unlikely that Luffy will turn up here if Kuma sent him anywhere nearby. I don't want him to be here on his own."
"Mm, that makes sense to me. We'll wait until the day before the execution to make our move! Hee Haw!" Ivankov said.
章 109: Chief Warden Magellan
Cherry went down to level six to fill Ace and Jinbe in on the plan. Garp had paid a visit to Ace earlier in the day before returning to Marine Headquarters. She was grateful for this because it further solidified Ivankov's misunderstanding, that Ace wasn't actually Luffy's brother by blood.
'He doesn't need to know that. I can't afford to lose his help at this point.' Cherry thought.
Cherry opened up the hole in the floor next to Jinbe.
"Hey, we've got the plan worked out and all our preparations are completed. Now we're just waiting for Ace's escort to show up so we can take out the vice admirals here rather than later on. Divide and conquer and all that nonsense." Cherry informed them.
"I am also ready to go." Jinbe stated.
"Luffy isn't here right?" Ace's concern lied elsewhere.
"No, that's also part of the reason we decided to wait. Didn't want Luffy to turn up here and not have any allies to help him get back out." Cherry said. "SPeaking of allies, you don't happen to know of anyone down here that would support us? We have our own list of people we think we can control or trust, but are there any allies of Whitebeard down here that you know about?"
"Not really, there's only losers who hate the old man down here. Not you Jinbe." Ace said. "There also isn't really anyone down here that's easy to control either, as far as I know."
"I see, that's a shame. Having more help would always be better." Cherry said.
"Hm?" Cherry sensed a couple of familiar people enter the range of her Life Sense and arrive at the prison on the surface.
"It would seem that Luffy has come to Impel Down as expected, aboard a vice admiral's ship no less." Cherry narrated.
""What?!"" Ace and Jinbe were shocked.
"How do you even know that?" Ace asked.
"Nevermind how I know. I'll see you later when we start the plan. Right now I need to collect Luffy before he makes a mess of things. The last thing we need right now is the prison going on higher alert." Cherry said, then closed up the wall before they could say or ask anything more.
Cherry swiftly navigated the tunnel network back to Newkama Land. She told Ivankov that Luffy had shown up and to be ready to start the plan immediately if Cherry didn't reach him in time to stop him form making a ruckus.
Then she worked her way to the top of the prison through on of the vertical shafts she'd created for speedy transit for herself.
Cherry had to carve a new tunnel to reach the room that Luffy had stopped inside. There were two other people in the room with him and a surveillance den den mushi. The surprising part was that Luffy was wrapped around the other person who was a devil fruit user.
'They're smuggling him inside perhaps? He's being more thoughtful than he usually is.' Cherry thought.
"We don't suspect you, but procedure states that you have to wear these sea stone cuffs." A woman's voice was heard through the wall.
"Please be gentle~" Another woman's voice said.
"Eh?" The first woman said, then went silent.
Cherry noticed that the second woman's devil fruit activated and a change came over the first woman, as well as the surveillance den den mushi.
"That was close, I was about to just take my chances!" Luffy said, climbing off of the woman.
At this point Cherry opened up the wall and poked her head out.
"Psst! Luffy!" Cherry called out in a whisper.
"Huh? Cherry?!" Luffy exclaimed.
'W-who is this woman?! Why is Luffy so happy to see her?! Is she Luffy's girlfriend perhaps?!' Hancock inwardly panicked, barely maintaining her composure.
Cherry didn't miss the way she was acting and had an idea why as well.
"*Whistle* Wow, Luffy. Only been away for a week and already got yourself beautiful girlfriend." Cherry teased.
"W-what? Girlfriend? A-am I... his..." Hancock didn't finish the thought before she got lost in fantasy land.
"Right, Hancock is my friend. She has helped me a lot!" Luffy smiled.
The sudden and ruthless friend zoning sent Hancock spiraling into depression.
"Anyways, I'm going to bust Ace out soon. Hop into the hole, is Hancock coming too?" Cherry asked.
Hancock shook herself out of her melancholic stupor. "No, I have to keep up this act."
Luffy nodded and thanked her whilst clasping her hands, then resolutely jumped into the tunnel. Cherry closed it behind him and gave Hancock a wink.
Hancock took it as a challenge and swore to be the one who would win Luffy's love and adoration in the end.
"You're going to be surprised, Luffy. There's an old friend waiting for you down there too." Cherry said, patting Luffy on the back as they descended.
"Who?" Luffy asked.
"I won't ruin the surprise, just wait and see." Cherry insisted on keeping her secrets.
When they reached Newkama Land and Cherry opened the door, Bon Clay turned to look and saw Luffy and Luffy saw him.
"Bon-chan!" Luffy cheered.
"Luffy-chan!" Bon Clay cheered.
"You're still alive! Shishishi!" Luffy hugged him and spent some time catching up.
Afterwards, Luffy was filled in on the plan. He wasn't too happy that they wanted to wait, but ultimately he decided it was the best chances they would have.
All that remained was to wait until the time came. The hours passed slowly as the anticipation built up.
Their people were in position to swarm into the prison and cause as much chaos as possible on the first three levels by releasing the prisoners there. Other men would break out select individuals on the lower levels.
Cherry's job was to take out Magellan. Most of his strength came from his poison devil fruit from what Cherry had heard, so she was very confident that she could deal with him. Between her body cultivation and devil fruit, she could easily break down any poison that entered her body.
The time came, Cherry sensed the vice admirals arriving with their warships and signaled the start of the operation. They moved into their positions quickly. Cherry went to find Magellan. Luffy, Ivankov, and Inazuma went to grab Ace, Jinbe, and Crocodile. Bon clay went to the communications room to replace the marine there and keep a false all clear message going through.
Cherry saw that Magellan entered an elevator and moved to the tunnel she made to intercept it.
*Boom*
Cherry brought out her spear and burst through the wall of the elevator shaft, as well as through the wall of the elevator.
"Who the hell are you? Harpin D. Cherry?!" Magellan recognized her quickly. He was a large man in a black trench coat and an almost monstrous face, with his hair pulled up into the shape of horns.
"I'm your worst nightmare!" Cherry charged him.
Magellan's body erupted with purple poison, much to the dismay of the other guards on the elevator. He easily covered Cherry in the toxic goo as she didn't even try to dodge it.
"You're a fool is what you are." Magella spoke calmly, retracting his poison as he believed that she was done for.
Cherry didn't stop and pressed forward. She stabbed out with her spear and Magellan caught it by the shaft.
"You're already slowing down, your fate is sealed." Magellan said.
*Bang*
"Huh?" Magellan put his hand against his abdomen and when he looked at it, he saw it was covered in blood. "Where did you get that gun?"
Cherry suddenly increased the strength with the spear and pierced him on the other side of his abdomen.
"Warden?!" The other guards cried out. They didn't dare to move in for fear of the poison.
Magellan swung at her, but Cherry jumped and kicked him in the head. He collapsed to the floor of the elevator unconscious.
Cherry looked at the guards who were glaring angrily at her. "You should take care of your boss rather than get in my way."
The elevator arrived at the bottom and she stepped out when the doors opened.
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