章 233: Jet Man
Caesar had placed the Straw Hats into a dangerous predicament. For Luffy, who was hardly the most patient individual to start with, this was beyond the point where he could hold back any longer.
Casting aside any ideas of kidnapping Caesar, Luffy instead focused on taking him down as quickly as possible.
"Take care of the snow woman, Zoro, don't let her stop me." Luffy said with unusual seriousness.
Zoro merely nodded his head in understanding. He still felt a bit weird about cutting a woman, but the wisdom of the Sword Hermit had impressed upon him that sometimes a swordsman must cut away lower priorities when the stakes were high, lest your mind would wander off in the midst of battle. Still, he would seek a solution that didn't involve actually cutting Monet if he could.
'I'd rather not have that idiot cook on my case for the next few months either…' Zoro thought, preparing his swords and focusing his intent.
With a single stamp of his leg, Luffy sent his circulatory system into overdrive and engaged Gear Second. This wasn't an ordinary Gear Second, though. His skin became a deep red color instead of the usual pink and began to seep blood from his pores instead of sweat. Rather than thin streams of steam coming off his overheating body, the steam was practically billowing off of him as well as being tinged a red color as well.
What Luffy was doing right now was much more hazardous to his long term health than the normal Gear Second, on top of being extremely painful. Despite that, the amount of improvement of the technique wasn't nearly as great. The only reason he was using this "improved" technique was because it didn't leave him as vulnerable as his new Gear Fourth technique did when it ended, and more importantly he had one of the world's best doctors and a lady with healing powers to fix him up afterwards.
"Gear Second: Jet Man!" Luff felt the need to say out loud for some reason.
*Sprong!* And he was off.
Zoro didn't hesitate for even a single second, sending his strongest three flying slashes in a swirling circle ahead of Luffy, which was pretty difficult to manage due to his captain's speed.
Monet naturally tried to block Luffy's way with her thickest and strongest snow walls, only for them to be shredded apart by Zoro's sword strikes and allowing Luffy to pass through unphased.
Caesar, even in his blind rage, caught sight of the blood soaked Luffy flying at him like a missile. Sadly for him, seeing it didn't mean he could respond at all. Luffy's palmed slammed into Caesar's torso, shattering his ribcage and snapping his spine in multiple places. His internal organs were ruptured instantly, and two hand shaped 3rd degree burns were branded onto his chest.
'I thought he wanted to kidnap me…?' Was the only thought Caesar managed to have before his mind blinked out like a light.
That wasn't the end, however, as Caesar went flying backwards from the momentum of the blow and threatened to slam into the hard concrete wall behind him at the speed of a cannon ball. Such an impact would undoubtedly kill the defenseless Caesar who was already in critical condition. For better or worse, that didn't happen.
"My my my, should have just surrendered when you had the chance, hm? You just had to go and push Luffy too far." Cherry said as she caught Caesar as gently as she could so as to not exacerbate his precarious condition.
Law arrived only a moment later and looked pretty pissed off to find Caesar in his current state. If he knew how back Caesar's organ damage was at the moment, he'd probably start reconsidering whether or not to backstab Luffy after all. Luckily, he would never know as Cherry had already started repairing the damaged clown guts.
Up above, Monet sensed the delicate stalemate from before had completely shattered in the favor of her enemies and thus decided to beat a hasty retreat before they turned on her.
"Agh?!" Monet yelped in pain and tumbled to the ground.
"Where are you going, little birdy? You seemed to have dropped something." Cherry said, holding Monet's heart in her hand which she had found on Caesar.
Monet was a bit confused why Cherry had the heart instead of Law, but she had a quick wit and figured out what had happened. That sneaky Law had given Caesar her heart instead of Smoker's heart as he had claimed.
"Law! Give me back my body! And my heart as well!" Smoker shouted in Tashigi's voice, having caught up with Cherry who had sprinted ahead of the marines.
"Looks like we've got a proper love triangle going on, eh Law? I stole your heart and you stole Smoker's heart, how dramatic! Oh, or it could be a romantic comedy!" Cherry gushed.
Law didn't want to hear any more of Cherry's movie pitches where he was pined over by a gruff, cigar-smoking man and quickly swapped Smoker and Tashigi back to their original bodies and tossed Smoker's heart at him unceremoniously.
"Just stuff it back into your chest, and be careful to get the orientation right." Law said without sparing the marine vice admiral another look, not even bothering to tell him what the right orientation actually was.
Cherry went about the room collecting the poison gas into a compact, non-breathable form before wandering over to Luffy who was swaying a bit on his feet from blood loss. Chopper was almost hysterical from worry, fussing over Luffy and making him lie down so he could start treating him.
"You're an idiot, captain." Cherry said, earning a chuckle from Luffy which she rolled her eyes at disapprovingly. "Don't rely on Chopper and I bailing you out, just get strong enough that you're not half dead after a fight."
"That wasn't even my final form," Luffy said. "I have another one that just tires me out afterwards that's stronger."
*Bonk!* "Ouch!" Luffy cried out in pain.
"If you have a safer transformation, use that instead, idiot!" Cherry admonished seriously.
"Don't hit him, Cherry! You'll make him worse!" Chopper cried out.
"Fine, fine, whatever you say Doc." Cherry said, before placing a hand on Luffy to repair whatever damage he'd done to himself.
"Are you done dragging Caesar around like a sack of potatoes?" Law asked sarcastically, gesturing towards the mad scientist's leg that she had held him by as she wandered around the room before coming to a stop next to Luffy.
Law went about checking Caesar's condition, prepared to perform emergency surgery on him if necessary. After he finished his diagnosis, he was satisfied that Caesar wasn't going to drop dead on him even if he didn't treat him. Law did give Cherry an odd look afterwards though, as though something confused him about Caesar's body that he suspected had something to do with her. He elected not to say anything at the moment at least.
"Save the master!" A distant shout rang out as dozens of hazmat suited goons started to stream into the room.
"Don't take us lightly!" Shouted a G5 marine as they prepared to meet the opposing force of equally mediocre cannon fodder.
"We should get going while they're distracted with each other." Law suggested quietly.
"That'll be difficult with the poison gas outside. That slime creature must have only been an early phase of the weapon test since it seems to have exploded into a huge cloud of gas." Cherry informed, having sensed the dissolution of the devil fruit creature a few minutes ago. The gas had briefly retained some of its former vital energy from when it had been an animate creature before slowly dwindling away as the gas spread across the island.
'I also want to nab the devil fruit that reformed out there.' Cherry thought greedily.
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