“Hey, I think I saw him twitch.”

“Do we still have nerves to twitch?”

“Eh, maybe he’s different. He does have a horn.”

“Well, there were those other guys on Level Three. Maybe he just escaped.”

“Na, those guys don’t do anything unless someone tells them.”

Bon’s eyes opened to a dim light. The unfamiliar softness of a mattress pressed against his back while a pillow kept his head at an angle. Closer to his chitin, gauze and bandages covered the wounds he’d gained before passing out. As his eyes adjusted, they locked onto the source of the light: a small crack between a door and its frame. Vibrant, boisterous sound slipped through the gap too.

Bon’s gradual return to consciousness also allowed him to make out the four azure eyes that stared at him in the dark. One pair of eyes flew over to him and something clasped his shoulder. “Good, you’re up.”

“Eh?” Bon bolted up and rushed out the door.

“Hey! Wait!”

Bon’s eyes were flooded with bright artificial light and his ears were filled with the festive music that had previously been dulled by the door. Disco balls shimmered and multihued bulbs flashed through the room with a pink shade dominating all the other colors. Tables covered the rocky floor, yet only small plates rested atop them. Glasses of every shape and size hung on racks over a well-stocked bar that was lined with seats. Between the glasses were arrays of weapons ranging from minuscule knives to massive muskets. A sound stage loomed over everything else and blazed fast-paced songs.

The occupants of this space danced to the tunes, shared drinks, and raised their hole-filled legs in toasts. Some of their translucent wings fluttered to the rhythm while others just rested at their owners’ sides. Everywhere Bon looked, he saw changelings enjoying the jovial atmosphere and conversing with each other, although many had their eyes on the stage. Not a single one of them had a horn though.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Oi,” said a changeling that emerged from the same room Bon had rushed out of. “You should probably take a seat.”

“No way!” Bon shouted back. “Where’s Mugi-chan? Where is this place? Why is there good music? And drinks? Oh hell, I died, didn’t I? Forgive me, Mugi-chan!”

“Quite a talker for a half-dead man.” Bon spun around and was met with a pony that appeared bisected into white and orange. The divide started at her clover-like mane and went all the way to the tip of her tail. Even her cutie mark, a pair of scissors, was half white and half orange so that only part of it could be seen on either of her flanks. “I suppose ten hours of sleep here helped though.”

“Ten hours? But I just passed out! And who are you anyway?” Bon yelled.

“Oh, I’m Inazuma,” the mare pouted. “You could be a little nicer, you know. You’re lucky I found you and that friend of yours in the snow and took you here.”

“Mugi-chan?” Bon galloped closer to Inazuma. “Where is he?”

“Calm down.” Inazuma raised up a hoof and gestured over to the stage. It had gone dark and the curtain had closed. The music had stopped as well and a hush had fallen over the room. “He’ll explain.”

“Did you sleep well, changeling-boy?” a voice reverberated through a mike. A single spotlight was thrown onto the stage and illuminated a long porous leg that draped itself against the curtain. A fishnet stocking ran up it and snagged in a few places where the holes created sharp points. A low drumbeat began to play and slowly gain speed. “Or should I say Mr. 2?”

“You know me?” Bon asked with a wide mouth.

“Oh, I know everyone that comes here,” the leg’s owner replied in a sultry tone. Another stocking covered leg went out to the stage followed by another and another. The owner’s shape came into view. Its slender legs clashed with its black blocky body that swayed back and forth the beat. Pink glimmering wings rested at its sides. “It’s not easy…” A fanfare of trumpets played. “To get here.” The trumpets blared again. “The prisoners’ paradise.”

Changelings all across the room leaned over their tables in anticipation. The creature on the stage still had its head turned so only its puffy mane with a tiny crown atop it could be made out. The music was getting faster and faster and more rambunctious.

“Prisoners disappear, shadows pass through the cells, and the guards are a complete mess,” the creature continued, singing the words so that they matched along to the beat. “Actually, all the prisoners go here! Dead? Ha! No! Welcome!”

The music stopped and the creature slammed a hoof into the stage. Stage lights went to full power and showered the creature. It spun around as the music returned and swelled with trumpets, drums, percussion, wind, and all other sorts of instruments. Its muzzle was sharp and its eyes covered in a heavy amount of mascara. Its lipstick was so thick that it almost looked like a mustache. A small crooked horn rested above its massive eyelashes and glistened with sparkle powder. “To Level Five Point Five! The Hive of Love in Impel Down’s sea of misery! This is New Kama Land! Hee-haw!”

“N-no way,” Bon stuttered with a mix of a gapping mouth and a grin. “Y-you’re Ivankov!”

Before Iva could answer, a door on the far side of the room flew open. On the other side stood a large grizzled pegasus with a ugly scar instead of a wing on his left side. Mounted on his back was a shotgun-like weapon that was fully cocked. “Emporio Ivankov! You’ll pay for what you did to my father! You made him a crossdresser and ruined my family’s reputation! Now I’m gonna blow up this whole ‘paradise’ of yours!”

“Eh?” Iva screeched and flailed his front hooves around in a panic. “That’s a big gun! It’s dangerous! Don’t shoot it! I’ll die!” He then went onto one knee and tilted his head up. “I won’t die!”

“You got us!” the changeling audience roared in amusement.

The pegasus gritted his teeth and used his workable wing to squeeze the trigger. A cannonball-sized bullet exploded out of the gun and rushed at Iva.

“Oh?” Iva turned to the attack and batted an eye at it. A blast of pressure escaped from his face and smacked into the bullet, sending it back at its owner. “Hell Wink!”

The bullet zoomed backwards and blew up in the pegasus’s face. He fell and slammed into the ground amidst a cloud of smoke and ash. Coughing and scrambling around, disoriented by the explosion, he didn’t see Iva jump forward and leer at him.

Iva ducked her head and sent his horn straight into the pegasus’s side. A few members of the audience gasped at the display, but most watched in interest. “Emporio Estrogen,” Iva said with a malicious grin.

Iva’s horn went out the pegasus’s side as clean as it had gone it. The pegasus stumbled backwards, clenching his side. His form softened and his musculature melted away. His scar changed from harsh and striking to small and faded. His mane and tail, which had both been short and spikey, elongated and gained a bubbly sheen.

“N-no,” he moaned as his voice went up a few pitches. He squirmed on the ground and his body continued to shrink and soften. Finally, his muzzle went from sharp and square to gentle and curvy. The former stallion looked over her new form now that the changes had stopped and turned bright red. She sped out the same door she’d entered from screaming, “This is embarrassing!”

Bon gaped at the spectacle before he faced Iva. “You really are a miracle worker!”

“Ha!” Iva snorted. “Gender? A joke! Human? Pony? Changeling? It doesn’t matter here!” His wings shot out and he fluttered into the air. He raised his forelegs to the audience. “Not in our paradise!”

A wave of cheers went up in response to Iva. Bon surged to the front of the ground and banged his head to the ground. “Emporio Ivankov! I’m really happy to meet you, but right now I have a friend who needs your help!”

Iva flatly held up a hoof and the room went silent. He went to the ground and tucked his wings at his sides. “If you’re talking about the boy with the straw hat, I already know the situation.” He playfully slapped Bon’s back and ushered him to a different part of Level Five Point Five. “Come with me.”

“But how do you know?” Bon asked.

“For one, that boy begged for us to save you… not often you see a dying person so worried about someone else and second…” Iva reached up and shoved a hoof into his mane. When he extruded his hoof, Luna’s stone hung from it. “The nice ladies on the other end of this were very helpful after we cleaned it up.”

“Oh!” Bon’s eyes lit up and he craned his neck over to the stone. “This is Mugi-chan’s!”

“Hello?” Rarity’s voice called from the stone. “Is that Mr. Bon?”

“Ms. Rarity, nice to see… hear you again.” Bon peered closer at the stone and lowered his head. “Forgive me for not helping Mugi-chan.”

“After seeing what that... monster did, I can’t blame you. It sounds like you did your best to help Mr. Luffy afterwards too. I just hope he makes it.”

“He certainly is a fighter,” Iva said with a grin. “And he get around what with getting the whole pony kingdom wrapped up in this break-in. And after hearing the whole story, I’d have to be the coldest creature in the world not to help save him.”

The stone darkened in color to become lavender. “Which wouldn’t be too far from the truth if you were a real changeling queen,” said Twilight.

“I know,” Iva bemoaned and hung her head low. “Such a horrible creature if what the real ones say is true. All feasting on love but no love of their own… hard to tell with how determined they were to find their queen though.”

“I can’t believe she’s still alive,” Twilight muttered.

Bon continued to follow Iva along the path, as the music of the main room grew fainter. “That’s something I’ve been wondering. What’s with the prisoners here?”

“Hmmm…” Iva shook his head back and forth for a moment. “I’m responsible for most of it. A bit of a bonus of being here and the only good part about all these hideous holes is that I can make other changelings with a poke of my horn. I can change people when I’m normal too with my horm-horm powers, but the whole ‘feast on love thing’ is quite useful when you’re short on food. Wish we could do the whole transformation thing.”

“You can’t change?” asked Twilight. “Bon can.”

Iva squinted her eyes at the stone and shifted them over to Bon. They traced along his body and stopped at his horn. “So many mysteries."

Bon glanced up at his horn. “Yeah…you said this was Level Five Point Five, but I’ve never heard of it.”

“Well, it is a secret after all,” Iva replied. “Some devil fruit user with digging powers was nice enough to carve out this spot between Level Five and Six.”

Bon’s eyes widened. “Level Six?”

“Secret Level,” Iva casually explained. “For the worst of the worst, so bad they don’t even ‘exist’ anymore.”

A bloodcurdling scream filled the hallway. Iva and Bon stopped while Bon covered his ears.

“W-what was that?” Bon quivered.

The stone darkened further until it was almost pitch black. Luna voice came through shaky. “Straw Hat.”

“Changing people’s genders isn’t the only thing I can do though,” Iva explained. “I also heal, but there’s only so much I can do without a patients help.”

In the darkened hall, Iva gestured over to a large wooden door flanked by two torches. Two immense iron chains crossed over the door and kept it sealed. Screams, gasps, and gurgles came from behind them and sent a chill up Bon’s spine.

“It’ll take two more days, but I’m amazed Straw-boy has lasted this long already,” Iva said with a grim expression.

“He’s dying!” Bon exclaimed. He rushed over and clasped Iva’s shoulders. “You have to do something!”

Iva deftly twisted his head and slammed it into Bon, knocking him away. “I am! My treatments are called ‘miracles’ for a reason! Your friend had exposure to both poison joke and a swath of Magellan’s worst toxins! It’s a ‘miracle’ because I got his chance of survival up from zero to about two percent. So, stop yelling at me and rest. You’re not in the best condition either.”

Bon clenched his teeth as another one of Luffy’s screams filled the hall. “How long will he be like this?”

“Two days if he can last that long…” Iva’s lips turned downwards and his eyes went to the stone. “It’ll be too late to save his brother, but saving his own life is Straw boy’s priority right now.”

“After everything he went through,” Twilight murmured.

“No.” Bon stomped a hoof into the ground. “You’re right, Mugi-chan went through too much just to barely get away with his life. Until he come out of there, I’m staying right here!”

Bon affixed the stone to a leg and positioned himself in front of the door and yelled, “You can do it! You can do it!”

The stone turned yellow and Fluttershy squeaked, “You can do it.”

A faux-changeling with a bunny ears hat covering his head peaked past a wall. Bon stood in front of the door, still yelling. The bunny hat prisoner turned to another prisoner that had followed him. “He’s crazy, but the love he’s giving off could keep us fed from months.”

“Ya know…” said the other prisoner. “With him being that loud, we’ll never get to sleep. Might as well show some support, get a bit more food to eat.”

A guard rushed forward and saluted in front of a massive bathroom door. “Sir! We have a problem!”

“What now?” Magellan bellowed from his private stall.

“Level Five is…” The guard paused and nervously gulped. “Parts of it are defrosting and the storm inside has died down to nothing.”

“What?” Magellan roared.

“A-also…” the guard stuttered, “it’s t-time to get Portgaz D. Ace.

“Aug,” Chrysalis moaned.

“What now?” the pony with the golden hook snorted.

“Love,” Chrysalis croaked. She pushed her form off the floor and away from the poisonous residue Magellan had covered her in and slumped against a wall. “It’s good.”

“Idiot.”

A trail of green ichor rain down the side of Bon’s muzzle. His compound eyes were clouded, his legs shook, and his wings twitched in bizarre directions. Behind him, the entirety of Level Five Point Five had gathered to cheer. Many looked as tired as him with dry throats, cracked lips, and tired eyes. Party decorations littered the ground and instruments laid on the floor or against walls, their players too spent to use them anymore.

Their hours of cheering had been silenced by a trickled of blood that emanated from the door.

“Mugi-chan,” Bon whimpered.

“Straw Hat,” Luna whispered through the stone, her voice rough from shouting.

The door contorted outwards and the only thing that kept it in place were the chains the bound it. Something smacked against it again and again, filling the Level with its echoes.

“Food!” a voice yelled from beyond the door.

“He did it!” Everyone and everypony exclaimed at once.