#law needs to cut vergo into pieces while he is busy fighting smoker.... please... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

neverwatchedonepiece · 5 years

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603-604: "Launching the Counter Attack! Luffy and Law's Great Escape!" and "Get to Building R! The Pirate Alliance's Great Advance!"

DING, DING, DING! It’s round two. And you know Luffy ain’t playing this time.

Not a huge amount happened over episodes 603 and 604. Still, the episodes were essential. The story needed a transition phase to tie up the plot threads and set everything up for the final push against Caesar.

Everyone is safe inside the lab, the Strawhats are all accounted for (sans Chopper, who is still in Caesar’s lounge), Luffy is in an alliance with Trafalgar Law and - I never thought I’d say this - Vice-Admiral Smoker of the Marines!

Actually, what the hell am I talking about?

Loads of big things happened.

Including this sweet and juicy nugget of off-island context that has me rubbing my hands with glee.

Juicy Opening Reveal Alert!

Attention: Kidd, Hawkins and Scratchman Apoo are discussing an alliance. This is not a drill.

It started out fairly innocuously. I say “fairly”. The Brokers and Dodgy Characters of the OPverse were kicking back and watching Caesar’s madness play out. Pekoms and Tamago had some lines, so I focused in on them.

“How did those big names get caught by Caesar?” Pekoms asked. “So that’s where they are now. What should we do?”

“We wait a bit and see how things play out,” Tamago answered.

This was a teeny tiny scene. But it was interesting. Why? It revealed Pekoms and Tamago know Caesar by name. Maybe Caesar introduced himself to his audience and I missed it, but if he didn’t, then that’s interesting.

After that, the action switched back to Kidd, who had also been watching Caesar’s broadcast. Kidd has earned himself a 470 million bounty, which is impressive. His right hand man, Killer, has a 200 million bounty. Less impressive. Kidd seemed happy Luffy had finally made some moves. He switched off the feed. “You’re not the kind of guy who wants to play an arms dealer, are you Killer?”

Not sure what Kidd meant by that. Does he mean Killer’s not interested in what Caesar has to offer? Or that he doesn’t want to get involved with an obvious head case like Caesar?

They walked off through their extra edgy hideout complete with gloomy paint job and atmospheric candelabras (lol). They discussed Law and his shenanigans on Punk Hazard. Kidd couldn’t believe they were all there together. He thought Law had lost his mind when he became the World Government’s lapdog. But now... Law was definitely up to something. Kidd does not want to fall behind, so they’d have to make a move too.

Upon opening the door an explosion boomed them right in the face. It was Scratchman! At first I thought, is this an assassination attempt? Then the camera panned to Hawkins and I thought.... okay, so a team-assassination attempt?

Nope. Killer had called them to Kidd’s hideout to discuss forming an alliance.

This is cool. I like this seemingly random development. Oda has made a good move here showing the other rookies in the Worst Generation are also working hard behind the scenes. They’re in the New World now. The Yonko are a-callin’. If they don’t team up, they’ll be destroyed. (R.I.P. Gangster Pirate dude and dinosaur guy. Still not sure what Urouge is up to.)

I kind of hope their alliance works a little more smoothly than the Strawhat/Heart Pirate alliance does at the moment. xD

Just Get Out of the Damned Cage, I Don’t Even Care Anymore...

There are a few teething problems but I’m sure Law has now realised that Luffy is a major loose cannon and will learn how to point him in the right direction. Maybe. At some point. In the distant future. (Ahh, that golden moment when Robin and Franky straight up told Law not to turn his back on Luffy because he’ll be off like a rocket, yelling their secret plans at the top of his lungs.)

Law’s cunning plan from the episode 402 cliffhanger was revealed. It was surprisingly simple and dangerous. But then if it’s not dangerous, is it really a good One Piece plan?

Absolutely not.

Law asked if anyone could set the nearby broken ship on fire. Franky obliged.(That fireball was badass, by the way. Just need that on record.) Once the rising smoke had obscured Caesar’s view of the cage, Law revealed his sneaky ruse. While he had freeloaded at Caesar’s house, he swapped most of the seastone chains with normal ones. Law broke free from his and freed Luffy, Robin and Franky.

Once he had failed to convince Luffy to stop cheering like a madman, Law dealt with a spot of business.

Smoker and Tashigi. They knew too much. They knew Joker’s real identity. He had their destiny in his hands. I knew he wouldn’t kill them (not evidence for that, I just didn’t think Oda would go there) but I was not prepared for what would happen next.

Law unshambled them and struck a deal: he would spare their lives because if they made it back to Marine HQ it would make life difficult for Vergo. In exchange, Smoker and Tashigi were to FORGET everything they had heard about Law and Joker. This was not a favour. It was a condition of their release.

Now, this had me bewildered. Why, if Law is no longer working for Doflamingo, is he still protecting the guy? If Doflamingo goes down, then surely Vergo will also go down and the whole operation will fall to pieces? Unless what you guys hinted at is bigger than I thought and Doflamingo has so many side hustles that some Marines being mad at him is small potatoes.

At any rate, the deal was accepted, despite Smoker’s pride, because of Tashigi’s sense of duty and practicality overcame it. She basically said, “Yes, untie us for the love of god. We need to live because if we don’t, we can’t save our people from Vergo and we can’t rescue Caesar’s experiment kiddies!”

So the deal was done. The neatness of Law’s plan was totally ruined when Luffy bent the bars of the cage and pinged out in a fit of enthusiasm. Then Franky basically turned to Law and said, “Yeah, I’m gonna pass on the plan. I’m off to look after Sunny.”

Then he farted himself out of the plot.

I think I just made a new sentence there.

Deal done, Law roomed them all to the back door, whereupon the sneaked inside the lab and pulled a Very Important Lever that meant the Fodder Marines outside did not die a horrible, painful death from Caesar’s chemical weapon.

Yay!

And there was this great, dramatic reveal moment.

Look. Look at this Beautiful Shot

While Luffy, Law and Smoker stood with their backs to Caesar’s bemused minions like total badasses, the poison gas rolled over the island.

Zoro, Sanji, Brook and Foxfire still hadn’t caught up to the dragon. However, Sanji because super motivated by tits and found a sudden burst of speed. The only thing was, the dragon wasn’t quite good enough on its own. It was tiring too.

Luckily, Nami and Usopp rode up on the back of Brownbeard and caught Brook just as he fell off the dragon. They all leapt on Brownbeard’s back (dragon included) and galloped to the front door.

Which was rapidly closing, as the Marines had all scuttled safely inside!

Indoors, the Marines squinted. What was that white, powdery cloud in the distance approaching at speed?

It was the rest of the Strawhats trying really damned hard not to die.

Zoro and Kinemon teamed up to slash the doors and force their way in. I thought it was majorly dumb at first (to be fair, so did most of the other characters). But the Fodder Marines patched up the hole with a speed that makes me think they’ve missed their calling and should be flipping houses instead.

Still think the gas would probably seep through those gaps but maybe Caesar’s got some wicked air filtration system going on. I mean, it is a state of the art lab specialising in chemical weapons research.

Have I Left the Stove On?

There was a moment after the Strawhats reunited where the action cut to a shot of the devastation Caesar’s weapon had wreaked across Punk Hazard.

If you thought the island was screwed before, it’s beyond help now. Utterly Pompeii’d. Every inch of it is covered in petrifying, poisonous ash. There is nowhere on Punk Hazard that is now habitable. Caesar took immense pride in this achievement. Some people just love destroying stuff, right? The only thing that survived outside was a single DDM protected by a bubble for Caesar’s broadcast.

Brook’s ghostly form confirmed it. Going outside would be a Bad Idea.

Inside, a lot of guns were pointed at the Strawhats and Brownbeard (Brownbeard was just pleased the Marines had remembered his name. Awww...you’re infamous now, Brownbeard. Just like Luffy. Enjoy it!)

Once the plot threads and outstanding issues of the whole reuniting scene were dealt with (Law unshambled Nami and Sanji and also told Smoker not to let his men stand in the way of the pirates), the plan to fight back against Caesar and escape the hell of Punk Hazard began.

As Law had been a guest at Caesar’s Weird Hotel, he knew the layout of the labs. They were in the foyer of Building A. To escape, they must force a path through to Building B, the large central area. There, they would find a gate at the back leading to Building R and a door marked R-66. Behind that door, is a passage to the sea that would be unaffected by any poison gas.

Law declared he’d rather not have to create a massacre, but could only give everyone about two hours. To anyone staying longer than that, Law could not guarantee their safety.

And the idiots still tried to attack the Strawhats, so I don’t have much hope for them.

One of the most interesting scenes here was the one between Zoro and Luffy. While fighting Marines, Usopp updated Zoro on what had happened. Caesar had soloed everyone with his de-oxygenation trick. Even Luffy had fallen for it. Zoro took that hard. He had flashbacks to Sabaody, to everything he had trained for in the past two years. What the hell? How could Luffy just lose like that?

Luffy (who had hatched a secret plan with Robin I know nothing about yet because Oda did let us hear it), was heading for the next room. Zoro caught him before Luffy barged his way through.

“LUFFY! GET A GRIP. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW WORLD!”

And Luffy replied, “YEAH, SORRY. I WON’T LET MY GUARD DOWN AGAIN.”

Then he tried out a hilariously dumb UFO move on the Fodder Marines and Zoro performed a mental facepalm.

I liked that glimpse of the relationship between Luffy and Zoro there. Sometimes, even though Zoro has his moments, he’s always there to give Luffy a kick up the arse and deliver some home truths on occasion. And because Luffy respects Zoro, he will take them on board and acknowledge them. But of course he’ll still have a damned good time and try out dumb moves on fodders because when else can you do that, am I right?

He Did Not Leave The Stove On

In the lounge, Caesar was about to take a special delivery from the Bad News Fairy.

One of the nice things about Caesar is that he is not a total dumbass. He looked at that cage. He noticed there were no petrified bodies clawing at the front door. He *knew* something wasn’t quite right. He asked Monet and Vergo. Vergo actually hypothesised that the Strawhats had broken free and helped the Fodder Marines escape too. But Caesar ignored him.

Then the Bad News Fairy arrived. A minion burst through the door. “Master! All of the enemies have entered the lobby with Strawhat Luffy in the lead!”

You all probably remember Spandam and Enel and those golden freakout faces. Caesar is giving them a run for their money. I love how he can shift seamlessly from twirling round the room in joyful glee, to “wait a minute....” suspicion, followed by shrieking outrage.

Two in-universe hours, Caesar. That’s how long you have.

Can’t wait to see what nasty tricks you’ll pull in your increasingly futile attempts to cling to power in Punk Hazard.

And they will be futile, because if there’s one thing we all know about Luffy, it’s that he always, always learns from his mistakes.

He is going to kick your ass and kidnap you.

At least he recycles?

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