Passing through the Gates

"Damn it, what happened to the Chief Warden, Vice Warden, Chief Guards, and Jailer Beasts?!" Head Jailer Domino exclaimed, seeing the situation had spun completely out of control.

Of course they had all been wiped out. The Chief Warden fell by Cherry's hands and the rest were dealt with swiftly by Cherry's allies.

Domino retreated towards the communications room. She wouldn't be able to stop the prison break from happening, but she could still try to maintain contact with Marineford, as well as possibly calling more reinforcements.

When she reached the door to the communications room, she found it locked. This was natural of course, given what was going on. She fumbled around with the keys before finally getting it unlocked and pushed against it once more.

It barely budged, it was barricaded from the other side.

"This is Chief Jailer Domino! Let me in, I need to send a report back to Headquarters!" Domino shouted, but not too loud as to alert anyone nearby.

"How can I trust you?! There's a prisoner who can take on people's appearances, you might be him in disguise!" The communications officer shouted back, voice trembling.

Domino wracked her brain and realized what he said was true, there was a prisoner like that here, Bentham she thought it was.

"Damn it! That's right, I know how I can prove it to you! Two years ago I got you that pineapple upside down cake for your birthday! You couldn't eat it because you're allergic to pineapples!" Domino spoke frantically as the sounds of battle drew ever closer behind her.

She heard a chair scrape against the floor away from the door. She pushed the door open and slammed it shut behind her, locking it once again.

She let out a huge sigh of relief and turned around. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat and her body freeze.

"Oh dear, I would have loved to try that cake. I love pineapples!" The communications officer said in a strange accent, before pirouetting in a quick circle.

All around her colleague were the unconscious forms of the communication staff. Strangely, even the communications officer was slumped against the wall, foaming at the mouth, despite him clearly standing right in front of her with an unnervingly wide grin.

Bon Clay touched his left hand to his face, transforming back into his original body.

"Shit..." Was the last thing she said before getting knocked out by the okama's kick.

Bon Clay turned back into the communications officer and sat down.

"All clear." He spoke the very same words he'd been speaking every 10 minutes.

The door blasted open and Cherry walked inside at a leisurely pace. "Time to go."

Bon Clay nodded and followed her outside where the prisoners had triumphed over the guards and the marines who came inside. All that remained was the other marines outside, which consisted of 4 full ships and two more vice admirals.

The ships sprung into action with the intention of bombarding the surface of the prison when the pirates started to pour out. Unfortunately the giant gate was closed, either due to protocol or because they didn't want to take any chances. All the ships were accounted for, so Cherry at least didn't worry they had sent as ship ahead to ask for help.

The remaining crew from Onigumo's ship tried to quickly get the ship away from the dock platform, but they were too slow and the pirates were already swarming over it.

The other marine ships gave no quarter to their comrades on that ship and started to bombard it at the same time as the dock.

"Hey you, candle boy!" Cherry grabbed Mr. 3 who was hiding amongst the crowd. "Make a small boat with handle grips. Jinbe you can carry some people over that distance can't you?"

"Yes, I can do that." Jinbe spoke simply. Even amongst fishmen known for their great strength, he was particularly strong.

Mr. 3 got to work making a wax raft for Jinbe to carry, meanwhile Cherry bounded through the air, each step making a loud cracking sound that easily carried over the water to the other ships.

The other two Vice Admirals ordered them to focus fire on her, but it was difficult to hit her even with a barrage of bullets and cannon fire.

Meanwhile, Jinbe and the others had the heat taken off them and were able to move much more quickly. Jinbe jumped into the water and their powerhouses got onto the wax raft for him to carry them across, which included Ivankov, Inazuma, Luffy, Ace, Crocodile, Mr. 1, Bon Clay, and Buggy for some reason.

Cherry landed on one of the ships and started wreaking havoc, sending marines flying overboard left and right. The two remaining vice admirals came to confront her, but they were clearly not the cream of the crop among the vice admirals, probably only here to be Onigumo's back up.

As such she was able to fight them both to a stand still. A stalemate against Cherry was basically a loss, however, as she was able to take much more punishment and had far more stamina than they did. She could probably deal with them more quickly, but that would require spending more effort than was necessary when she could just wait until her allies arrived.

And arrive they did. Jinbe used fishman karate to send the wax raft flying into the air and landed them all onto one of the ships.

At that point it was basically over. The ships were quickly captured in short order and Cherry got her back up to take out the vice admirals rather anticlimactically.

The pirates cheered with great gusto at their success.

"Now we just need to get through the gates. You said you'd go over top of them, right Cherry?" Ivankov confirmed.

"Right." Cherry said.

However, it would be necessary for them to open the gate, as it was now starting to open wihtout their interference.

"Damn!" Cherry shouted and dove at Ace who panicked at her sudden tackle.

Cherry dragged him away below the deck of the warship with her hand firmly clasped over his mouth. Seeing him struggle and even try to used his devil fruit to escape her grasp. She slammed a haki coated Hasshoken palm into his head, rattling his brain and instantly knocking him out cold.

Luffy had followed behind and protested in anger. "What are you doing Cherry?!"

Before he could start a fight with her over some misunderstanding, she spoke quickly with a rushed tone. "There's an admiral or something coming, I had to hide him!"

This stopped Luffy's attack, though he was still grumpy about it.

"You should go out there unless you have to either, come here!" Cherry demanded, her voice contained just the right amount of concern that Luffy followed along with her on instinct.

She slowed down his energy circulation as well which made him very lethargic. It would be easy enough to revive the both of them

Then she used her Vital Energy to slow down his natural energy circulation temporarily, thus reducing his 'presence' by a great deal.

The gates finally opened enough for a ship to pass through and they saw a lone marine warship do just that. Except no marines were seen on board. Instead there was a motley crew of powerful pirates, lead by Blackbeard.

"Jihahahaha! Look what we stumbled across, a prison break! Looks like our work will be much easier!" Blackbeard laughed. "That's good, you should go get involved in Whitebeard's war too, sitr up more chaos!"

His ship passed them by and head to the prison, probably to break some of his own new recruits out, or perhaps old friends.

"What are you waiting for, gogogo!" Cherry demanded, which got the scurrying to pass through the open gate.

Once they were safely beyond the threshold, Cherry jumped over to the control tower and figured out how to make it shut. She didn't know what that Blackbeard guy was up to, but it likely didn't align with their goals. Better to stall them in any way they could.

Cherry revived Ace and Luffy who both looked rather annoyed with her.

"Don't be big babies about it. I thought there was an admiral coming through from his strength, but instead it was Blackbeard. Since he's the one who put you in there, it's better he didn't know that we got you out. He seemed to assume you were already taken ahead to Marineford, and he'd have been right if those plans hadn't been delayed indefinitely." Cherry explained.

Ace scowled at Blackbeard's name, but he knew that Cherry was right to do what she did. Blackbeard wasn't to be taken lightly, and he also had his whole crew with him too.

"Nevermind Blackbeard. He's behind us now. All we have to do is get passed Marineford then escape via Enies Lobby and we're home free!" Ivankov said, garnering more cheers from the pirates.