Part 1.11

I've been told that Impel Down is located in the middle of something called the Calm Belt. A portion of the world's ocean that surrounds the Grand Line and has absolutely no weather whatsoever, or no wind specifically. It makes travel very difficult. More than that, it's the breeding ground for giant sea monsters called Sea Kings.

The only way to reliably get through the Calm Belt is to have a steam powered ship with a seastone coated bottom. Even then, it doesn't always work and you may still be attacked. To get to Impel Down you can take a special ocean current that leads from a special courthouse, to Marineford (where the Marines are based), to here.

The reason Impel Down isn't attacked 24/7 by the giant sea monsters is because of a few factors. First, there's a hell of a literal rip-tide. Say a fishman or aquatic person tries to swim to Impel Down, the rip-tide will tear their body to shreds if they aren't tough enough. Second, Blue Gorillas, or Blugori if you prefer. They're giant gorrilas that have been tamed and help guard Impel Down. Not only do they abuse prisoners, these insane Beasts swim outside and hunt the Sea Kings everyone is afraid of for food.

Glop is made partially from the food the Blugori bring back.

Lastly, Sea Kings don't attack Impel Down because of the large amounts of seastone we have. The prison contain mountains of seastone material, and the prison itself is coated in it in some places. Sea Kings seem to think that seastone is part of the sea itself, and they ignore it for the most part.

All that being said, there's an important saying I want to relay to you. This came to me from an old pirate, so it's probably chock full of wisdom. He said, 'The Grand Line will screw with you just because it can.'

Truer words have probably never been spoken before.

Let me tell you an example.

Fredigar and I were chopping wood, nothing new. I had thrown a chunk of wood through someone earlier and Fredigar had laughed. We were talking about how I could possibly increase the size of the wood so that way we could do less work, but decided against it when we realized that neither of us knew exactly when my Moa Moa ability would turn something back to normal size.

That's when the floor exploded.

Let me explain. There's a few points on Level Four where the Blugori can swim out and kill some Sea Kings for their food. These places are in the floor and are pools of super heated water connected to tunnels leading to the ocean outside.

There's nothing stopping something from coming into the prison through these tunnels. Which is what happened.

Crabs. Giant yellow and pink striped crabs with four eyes. Hoards of them began to pour out of these tunnels attacking anything and everything they could. There must had been more than four thousand of these crabs, each one larger than me. Monsters, guards, and prisoners alike were all attacked.

There were a few long moments of confusion where the crabs gained momentum. They swarmed all over Level Four everywhere I could see and began to rampage.

That was a mistake. One does not attack Impel Down.

Four seconds after they all emerged, I began to hear whips cracking. Everywhere. Large stone wheels and cogs set in the walls began to turn and the gates connecting the different sections of Level Four began to open. Then came the command. The surveillance Den Den Mushi began to broadcast a message.

"All personnel of Impel Down. This is not a drill. I repeat. This is not a drill. Destroy the intruders. I repeat. Destroy the intruders."

The guards picked up all their weapons, brandishing them menacingly. Most of the prisoners ran away from the horde of crustaceans, but several stayed. Including myself and Fredigar.

The guards didn't tell me to fight these crabs, but I would do it anyways. I have one source of pride. I know it's a sin, but I still have a place in my heart for this idea. Impel Down is the most impenetrable and ferocious place ever, and I would fight to keep it that way. I would hate for Impel Down, in all of its terrible and cruel glory, to become something it isn't.

Whips cracked, and the guards and crabs charged each other. Bullets went flying and limbs and chitin alike flew apart. I charged as well.

The guards looked surprised to see me fighting, but they did nothing to stop me. I smashed crab after crab, their bodies crunching under my fists impact.

Behind me, Fredigar was laughing. He was stomping on the crabs one by one and watching them pop. While I was watching him, a larger than average crab came up behind me. I was standing on a small pile of gravel and I got a good idea.

I leaned down quickly go dodge the crab's pincers and grabbed a handful of rocks at the same time. I put some distance between myself and the seafood then tried out my new idea.

"Moa Moa Hundred-Fold Scatter-Gun."

I flung the rocks as hard as I could in the crabs general direction and accelerated their speed by a hundred times.

Not only did the rocks tear the crab apart. Oh no. They also went through the crab to kill the crab behind that one and the rocks went wide, flying far and crippling crustaceans in my peripheral vision. I laughed. I don't know why, but I did.

I fought and fought for what seemed like hours. In the end, I was standing in a pile of juices that used to belong to the sea life that attacked the prison. The boiling air of Level Four was already hard at work, and was cooking the exposed flesh of the crabs.

It smelled so good.

Fredigar didn't hesitate and was popping the crabs into his mouth whole. He was chewing noisily and spraying chunks of crab meat everywhere.

I took a bite as well. It tasted even better than it smelled.

"This would be better with some butter my tiny friend!"

"What's butter?"

"I'm not sure... But it's delicious! Anyways, how lucky are we to see Millennium Crabs here in Impel Down. Crazy huh."

"What are Millennium Crabs?"

Fredigar began to noisily suck crab meat from a leg. When he was done he explained. "Millennium Crabs are giant crabs that are known for migrating around the entire world. They travel in large groups along the ocean floor. It's said that it takes a single group of these crabs a thousand years to go around the entire world, and they spawn when two groups meet while wandering. They're very rare. So rare that recently they were thought to be extinct."

A fallen crab twitched and without thinking I stomped it hard, unconsciously multiplying my speed, and shattered some of the floor in the process. "Well, I guess they might be now."

Fredigar started laughing so hard, crab meat began shooting out of his nose. "Hah! People from Impel Down are the most brutal!"

I was going to eat some more of the crab, but then I heard someone coughing behind me. I turned to look but no one was there. I turned back to a crab's corpse that was slowly roasting in the open air when I heard the cough again. This time a I turned around and looked down.

There was a small man in a Chief Guard uniform with a flute in one hand and a miniature pitchfork in the other. He was giving me a bored look and his eyes seemed slightly glazed.

"Hello sir." I greeted him cordially. The same way I greet every guard.

"Hello. You did quite a number on those monsters huh?"

"Yes sir. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

He nodded. "So it was. So it was. But I noticed you killed quite the number of them. You and your giant friend."

Fredigar perked up. He looked at me and the Guard, then looked away. "I'm not with him."

I got a sinking feeling where this was going. My shoulders slumped and I felt my strength leaving me.

"Level Five?" I asked weakly.

The tiny guard nodded his head. "Level Five." He raised the flute to his lips and began to play a quick and jumpy tune.

Some Blugori nearby pushing corpses out of the way perked up when they heard that and ran over. They grabbed me by my chains and began carrying me away. I didn't fight back. Fighting back would not be good behavior.

Another hole entered my field of vision as I was walked over. It was dark down that hole, and I swear I could hear a distant howling noise.

The little guard nodded, and I was thrown in.

Have you ever heard the term, 'when hell freezes over'? Well, Level Five quickly taught me that he'll could most definitely freeze over. It was so cold that my teeth were already chattering and I hadn't even reached the bottom of the floor yet where it was likely colder still.

I saw the bottom and thought it would be a fluffy pile of snow. I thought wrong. It was a pile of snow frozen solid into a lump of metal hardness.

I landed with a crunching and the cold immediately got to my bones. It was so cold, I swore I could feel frost in my blood.

Immediately upon landing, I heard a growling noise. Surprised, I looked up. Giant white wolves with crazed eyes surrounded me. I got into a standing position slowly. I cracked my neck to one side. Then to the other.

Then I stood up straight and raised my fists.

"Alright. Now I'm ready."

They lunged, teeth glistening in the pale light and rimmed with frozen blood.

XoXoXoX

At age 15, Prisoner 10013 was sent to Level Five of Impel Down. He was sent after a Chief Guard evaluated his strength was too strong for Level Four. At the same time, Cipher Pol agent 'Keystone' was assigned to his file for record keeping purposes. He was very intrigued when he examined the contents.