When I regain consciousness, I feel very heavy, very, very heavy. A sharp pain twists my skull. I try to move my body but it refuses to cooperate, as if overcome by a great weakness. All I manage to perceive are borborygms, snatches of voices that resound around me without my being able to grasp their meaning. Exhausted, I finally give in to this torpor that drags me further and further away, and lose consciousness once again.
The second time, I manage to open my eyes. Everything is very dark. I am lying on the ground, the stone is cold under my cheek. The discomfort I felt the last time has subsided but still persists.
« L...ia...L...a... Lu... a... LUCIA! »
I manage to pull myself together and force myself to stay conscious as a voice tries to call me by my first name. I try to get up but soon find that my movements are restricted, my hands are handcuffed behind my back.
Handcuffed??!
I am immediately alert. Not only are my hands handcuffed and chained with seastone, but they are also completely covered, locked in a prison made of the same material. So that's where the uneasy feeling I've been feeling since earlier comes from. A few more glances make me shudder when I see that my ankles are also encircled and chained. Panicking, I raise my head.
In prison. I am in prison. I then try to speak but something blocks my mouth. I have literally been muzzled. My heart rate increases, sweat starts to bead on my back, my vision becomes blurred. I pull like a maniac on these chains, in the futile hope of freeing myself.
"Lucia, calm down! Lucia!"
Second blow, I know that voice. Tears bead at the corner of my eyes, my lips begin to tremble, I refuse to look at him, I refuse to believe what is happening. Despite myself, I lift my head and meet his gaze.
Ace. Chained up too.
What the hell is going on?
He looks at me with a distressed and pained expression.
Tell me I'm dreaming...
In an unreasonable way, I try to get up and pull with all my strength on these chains. I can't control myself anymore, I hate being locked in. I quickly fall back to my knees but I don't stop, the handcuffs pull on the skin of my wrists. I don't even feel the pain if there is any.
Rushing footsteps are heard nearby and after a few seconds I am overwhelmed by hands trying to hold me still on the floor. I struggle with all my strength, trying to scream without success. A massive fist comes crashing down on my temple. The taste of blood fills my mouth.
"How can she have so much strength when she is handcuffed with seastone?"
"I don't know, but she's obviously earned her reputation."
"Stop it, she's just a complete mess," intervenes Ace. "Take off that ridiculous mask so she can at least talk."
"No way," replies a guard, "she could bite us."
"If we inject her with a new dose, she should keep quiet," says her colleague.
I don't have time to think about it when I feel a needle in my neck and immediately the darkness comes over me again.
The third time is also the last, my thoughts are racing in my head, I feel like I have cotton in my brain. I'm on the floor again, my hands and feet still tied. But I notice that I can breathe more easily. Nothing is blocking my mouth any more, I've had that barbaric muzzle removed. I cough.
"How do you feel?"
Ace's hoarse voice echoes off the walls. Immediately, reality hits me in the face.
"Horrible," I mumble. "Please tell me this is a nightmare and that I'm going to wake up."
"I'd love to," he replies. "Sorry princess, it's for real. But you'll have to explain a few things to me because you were the last person I expected to see here."
Here.
I struggle to my feet, my hair falling back over my face. My arms are seriously stiff and it is with great difficulty that I sit down in my suits, leaning against the wall. This simple movement has cost me a considerable amount of energy. I try to wiggle my fingers in these glove-like things that impede my movements.
"What a pain in the ass this thing is..."
I look more closely at the system that hinders me. They are nothing more than seastone cylinders that extend from my forearms to envelop my entire hands. No cracks, no flaws, no openings. I also feel inside that this little novelty is really only there to reinforce the usual handcuffs that still adorn my wrists, despite the fact that I can't see them.
"Aaaaaargh!"
I scan the room I'm in. Well, "the room", it's more like a cell. Portgas D. Ace, known as "Fire Fist Ace" is on my left, chained to the wall, and in front of me I recognize the majestic figure of a man I didn't expect to see here.
"Jinbei, Jinbei First Son of the Sea, is that you? What is a former Warlord doing here? In the maximum security prison, Impel Down?"
"I could ask you the same thing, The Elementalist Lucia," the fish-man replies in his deep voice.
I sigh:
"It's a nasty story, believe me, and the worst part is that I'm not even sure I understand it all."
I quickly return my gaze to Ace, who has not taken his eyes off me. I finally manage to verbalize the bottom of my thoughts:
"So the papers were right... they really got you... "
He lowered his head, annoyed:
"It's pathetic, isn't it?"
"I would have said "too bad" but it's up to you... are they really planning to execute you in Marineford?"
"They want to make an example of me."
"That sucks..." I muttered. "I was planning to show up that day to help Whitebeard."
Ace suddenly looked up:
"You've got to be kidding me! Were you in touch with the old man?"
"No," I admitted, "I just didn't have the time. The day the paper carried the news, I had a little trouble. Nothing too serious, a Warlord, weapons of war and an admiral. It's just usual and daily business for you pirates."
"What are you talking about?"
Uncomfortable, I tried to move and contort my posture while giving an outline of the events on the Sabaody archipelago:
"Let's just say that one or two Celestial Dragons took a beating and that the Navy saw things in a big way. I have no idea how exactly I ended up here, all I remember is Kuma putting his hand on me."
I was deliberately not saying anything about Luffy and his crew to spare Ace any worries about his little brother. By dint of wriggling in all directions, I manage with difficulty but surely to get my legs over the chains that hinder my wrists, thus allowing me to have my hands in front of me and not behind. I sit down again, exhausted for so little, but with my arms relieved.
"Oh, that's better," I sighed. "Anyway, I must admit I didn't expect to find myself at Impel Down any time soon... what exactly are they planning to do to me?"
"You will be executed too Lucia, alongside Ace."
The voice that answers my question comes from outside the cell and I can easily determine who it belongs to. Vice Admiral Garp, Luffy's grandfather, walks towards us and sits down in front of our cell.
"You can't be serious, old man," I gasp, stunned.
"I am, they hesitated but they want to take the opportunity to eliminate you. They're afraid that if they leave you in the cell for too long, you'll end up finding a way to escape again and that's out of the question."
"You can reassure them that I'm not going to get very far," I reply, bitterly.
"Their mind is made up, kid, and I have to tell you that-"
"That you completely agree with them and that you can't wait to see my head roll on the ground, it's okay Garp, I know, you don't have to say it again."
He is silent for a moment, I certainly offended him. But after all, I have no illusions, I know perfectly well what he thinks of me, of who I am.
"Why..." Garp resumed, his voice more hesitant, "why didn't you and Luffy become Navy soldiers like I told you?"
The question is obviously not addressed to me but to Ace, and I can feel the pain in this man's voice, who must be in agony at the thought of losing these little ones he considers his grandchildren, whom he has seen grow and evolve and assert themselves. He nevertheless gives me a black look.
"Hey," I protest, "I had nothing to do with it! I remind you that they wanted to become pirates long before I met them."
"You didn't help them though," he adds, lightning flashing in his eyes.
"I never influenced their decision, they had their own plans and I didn't try to keep them away from them or bring them closer. We were kids and we all had our dreams. Who I am doesn't change the path that Ace or Luffy took afterwards."
"You bet, weed doesn't breed good," he grumbled.
"Thank you," I grumble between my teeth. "I remind you that I'm not the only 'weed' you like to call it. In any case, if I had my hands free I would applaud you: you're going to make a nice double, two for the price of one."
I punctuate my sentence with a very strong look, the meaning of which he knows perfectly well. He sighs.
"Excuse me, both of you."
Ace doesn't say anything, he just listens, patiently. I don't know what's going on in his mind right now. As far as I'm concerned, the information is slowly starting to become more real to me. I really am locked up in Impel Down.
"Old man?" I ask. "How did you catch me?"
"You broke the ceiling of one of the Navy outposts when you fell from the sky, you were unconscious. You were immediately tied up and transferred here before you woke up."
I thought about Kuma's last words, I was supposed to "help" him. Did he gain anything by voluntarily handing me over to the Navy?
"How long before the execution?"
"Two days," Garp replies, his voice devoid of emotion.
I sigh. I hope with all my heart that Luffy and his crew are okay, and Rayleigh and Shakky as well. Now that the Navy knows the pirate king's former first mate is on the Sabaody, there's no reason they won't give him a hard time. I know he can easily defend himself, but he wants to keep his quiet retirement. In the meantime, I can't do anything, I'm condemned to wait here for two days before I can perhaps hope to see the light of day again. I am not yet resigned to accepting my fate. I'm not sure I'll be able to change things, but if I have the chance, I will.