—Broadcast—
While Homelander remained entangled in the writhing mass of liquid Sentinel robots—their adaptive bodies flowing around his strikes like mercury—the rest of Egghead Island's defenders faced their own desperate struggles. The golden-haired Seraph's overwhelming power meant nothing against enemies that learned from every blow, forcing him into a grinding war of attrition he couldn't win through brute force alone.
For the survivors scattered across the island, their fates now hung by a thread. Whether any of them could escape the relentless pursuit of even a single Sentinel robot would depend entirely on luck, terrain, and whatever desperate tactics they could muster.
With the second-generation Seraph occupied and the island's primary defender neutralized, Egghead had lost its greatest shield. For Victor, breaching the experimental layer to confront the remaining first-generation Seraphim posed barely a challenge at all. The purple gravity field radiating from his mechanical form pinned the four child-sized warriors to the ground with casual efficiency, their Lunarian wings trembling uselessly against the hundredfold increase in weight.
The laboratory that Dr. Vegapunk cherished above all others—his most beloved experimental sanctuary—now stood defenseless before the apprentice he'd never known existed.
"Some people place far too much trust in their creations," Victor's synthesized voice echoed through the shattered corridor, each word dripping with cold mockery. The mechanical lifeform's optical sensors fixed on Sentomaru's broken form sprawled across the debris-strewn floor. "They ignore entirely the people who've lost their homeland. Tell me, how are weaklings like you supposed to survive? You followed the wrong person, bodyguard."
The words landed like physical blows. Sentomaru's remaining hand clenched against the ground, blood seeping through his fingers as his severed shoulder leaked crimson across white tiles. His consciousness wavered, the edges of his vision darkening, but he refused to close his eyes. Not yet. Not while the doctor still needed him.
Victor's third mechanical arm—the one extending from between his shoulder blades—rotated into position with mechanical precision. Its surface began to glow, golden light building along intricate circuitry as the death ray powered up for a final strike. The same attack that had vaporized Sentomaru's arm and shoulder now prepared to erase what remained of Vegapunk's most loyal protector.
The targeting reticle locked onto Sentomaru's exposed chest. Energy built to critical levels. In three seconds, the ray would fire.
"Stop!"
An elderly voice cut through the charged air, halting Victor's execution mid-sequence.
"Stop attacking immediately. If you want to see me, don't hurt Sentomaru any further."
From the depths of the experimental floor, a figure emerged. Barely one meter tall, the old man's most distinctive feature was the half-apple perched atop his elongated skull—a grotesque side effect of his Devil Fruit ability. His white lab coat hung loosely over his frame, stained with chemicals and decades of absent-minded work. The tongue perpetually sticking from his mouth and his unkempt appearance gave him the air of a mad scientist cosplaying as Einstein, complete with wild hair defying all sense of gravity.
The Sky Screen's analytical system activated, overlaying text across the broadcast:
Character Notes: Vegapunk (Original Body)
Devil Fruit: Nō Nō no Mi (Brain-Brain Fruit) – Paramecia
The world's greatest scientific mind. Intelligence increased beyond human limits.
Across the Real World, countless viewers felt a collective sense of disappointment wash over them. This disheveled old man was the legendary Dr. Vegapunk? The genius whose name inspired awe and fear in equal measure? The mastermind behind the Pacifistas, the Seraphim, and weapons that reshaped warfare itself?
The handsome, dignified scientist many had imagined—tall, charismatic, with the bearing of a modern titan—existed nowhere in reality. True scientific research, it seemed, cared nothing for appearances.
Vegapunk's reputation had been carefully worked through decades of Morgans' newspapers: the strongest scientific mind of the century, a man whose research surpassed understanding from hundreds of years ago, a living treasure of human knowledge. The propaganda had worked so thoroughly that most people accepted these titles without question.
Now, seeing the reality, the cognitive dissonance was almost painful.
"Vegapunk." Victor's mechanical voice carried an odd note—something almost resembling nostalgia, though filtered through synthesized speakers it emerged cold and distorted. "I wonder... does a big shot like you still remember a small fry like me?"
The third arm retracted from attack mode, golden glow fading as the death ray powered down. For someone he'd once respected—and someone who still possessed use—Victor could afford this small mercy. Sentomaru's life would be spared.
For now.
However, the purple gravity field remained active, its oppressive weight grinding the four first-generation Seraphim into the floor. S-Hawk's blade-covered arms scraped uselessly against tiles. S-Shark's enhanced muscles strained to lift his own weight. S-Boa's graceful form lay crumpled, unable to even raise her head. S-Bear's paw-pads pressed flat against the ground, all repulsion ability negated.
They were Admiral-level weapons, genetic masterpieces combining Shichibukai DNA with Lunarian durability and Devil Fruit powers.
Against Victor's gravity manipulation, they were helpless children.
From behind Vegapunk's diminutive form, another figure burst forward—Lilith, the "Evil" clone, though her actions now showed anything but malice. The female satellite sprinted to Sentomaru's side, a medical syringe already prepared in her hand. Without hesitation, she jabbed the needle into his intact shoulder and depressed the plunger, flooding his system with emergency medication.
The injection contained powerful analgesics mixed with cellular repair accelerants—not enough to heal his catastrophic injuries, but sufficient to stabilize him and suppress the agony. Within seconds, the pain radiating from his destroyed shoulder began to fade, replaced by cold numbness. Sedative compounds pulled at his consciousness, dragging him toward unconsciousness despite his desperate attempts to remain aware.
His eyes met Lilith's for a brief moment. She nodded once, a silent promise that she would protect the doctor.
Then darkness claimed him.
This invasion of Egghead Island no longer had any place for Vegapunk's bodyguard. The battle ahead belonged to minds, not muscles.
Vegapunk studied the mechanical intruder with analytical precision, his expanded brain processing thousands of calculations simultaneously. The technological sophistication displayed by this machine suggested MADS origins—that much was obvious. The organization's fingerprints were all over the design philosophy: elegant solutions to complex problems, unconventional approaches to power generation, that distinctive blend of mad genius and reckless innovation.
But here was the problem: Vegapunk knew most of MADS's non-staff members personally. He'd worked alongside scientists, engineers, apprentices, even lab assistants during those wild years of unrestricted research. He remembered faces, names, quirks, even the coffee preferences of people he'd barely spoken to.
His Devil Fruit-enhanced brain never forgot anything.
Yet this invader triggered no recognition whatsoever. No memory, no association, nothing. Either this machine had joined MADS after his departure, or...
Or something far more disturbing was at play.
"Just tell me why you're here," Vegapunk demanded, his voice carrying an edge of steel despite his comical appearance. "What do you hope to gain by destroying my island?"
The question hung in the recycled air of the experimental floor. Around them, damaged equipment sparked and sputtered. Broken glass crunched beneath feet and mechanical appendages. The scent of melted circuitry and scorched metal permeated everything.
Victor remained motionless, a silver statue frozen in contemplation.
The silence stretched. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
A full minute passed before the mechanical lifeform moved again.
Then, in full view of both Vegapunk and the billions watching through the Sky Screen, Victor's chest panel irised open with a precise mechanical hiss. Beneath the silver armor, where human organs should have been, a compartment glowed with ethereal blue light.
His mechanical hand reached inside and withdrew something small, angular, and utterly impossible.
A crystal.
But not just any crystal. This one resembled a polygonal puzzle—a three-dimensional Rubik's Cube carved from condensed starlight. Each facet bore intricate inscriptions that pulsed with inner luminescence, ancient symbols from a civilization long forgotten. Between the geometric gaps, blue energy flickered and danced, casting shifting shadows across Victor's metallic features.
He held it aloft on one mechanical palm, presenting it like an offering.
Or a threat.
"Take a good look, Doctor," Victor commanded. "If you can't recognize this, then there's no point in continuing our conversation."
Vegapunk's eyes widened behind his goggles. His entire body went rigid as every processing thread in his enhanced brain converged on the object in Victor's hand. The calculations came fast and furious—energy density analysis, structural composition breakdown, electromagnetic spectrum evaluation.
The results defied every law of thermodynamics he'd spent his life studying.
"This is impossible." The words escaped as barely a whisper. Then, louder, with growing horror: "This is absolutely impossible. How can such a thing exist in the world? This isn't scientific at all!"
The scientist's legendary composure shattered completely. His hands trembled. The tongue that perpetually hung from his mouth actually retracted as his jaw clenched in denial.
Because Vegapunk, the man who never forgot anything, suddenly remembered something he'd tried very hard to forget.
The name emerged from the depths of suppressed memory: Hextech Crystal.
Legends whispered of such minerals—fragments of an ancient civilization's ultimate achievement, power sources that defied entropy itself. Someone from MADS had researched these documents years ago, diving deep into forbidden archives and fragmentary historical records. But the project had been abandoned, left unfinished when that researcher simply... disappeared.
After Vegapunk left MADS to join the World Government, he'd gained access to unlimited funding, state-of-the-art facilities, and resources beyond his wildest dreams. Publicly, he served the Celestial Dragons. Secretly, he pursued a different goal entirely: eternal energy.
He wanted to deliver cheap, inexhaustible power to the entire world. Free energy for everyone, regardless of wealth or status. In his idealistic vision, such a breakthrough would eliminate resource wars, end energy poverty, and create a genuinely better world.
Perpetual peace through perpetual power.
According to the legends, Hextech crystals were the answer. Each one supposedly emitted energy forever—true perpetual motion, perfect efficiency, zero entropy. They were compatible with everything, capable of energizing any object or system. This transcended mere technology. It was closer to magic, to miracles, to the impossible made manifest.
From the beginning, Vegapunk had dismissed such claims as fantasy. Perpetual motion violated fundamental physics. Energy always degraded, always dispersed, always moved toward chaos. The universe itself forbade perfect efficiency.
Yet here it was, glowing in a mechanical hand, mocking every law of thermodynamics he'd built his career upon.
His worldview cracked like stressed glass.
"After you left MADS, I joined that organization for a brief time," Victor explained, his tone almost conversational now. "I saw the experimental data you left behind—all those abandoned projects, unfinished calculations, theoretical frameworks you never completed. I was just a humble apprentice in front of you then."
The mechanical lifeform's optical sensors brightened, twin points of golden light intensifying.
"But now I stand on a higher mountaintop than you, Doctor. I've achieved what you only dreamed of. I've transcended the limitations you accepted. I've become something greater than mere flesh could ever be."
Victor bore no actual hatred for Vegapunk—that much was true. His transformation into a mechanical consciousness had been voluntary, chosen freely despite the agonizing process. The decision to abandon his weak, mortal body and embrace glorious evolution had been his own.
And the source of that transformation, the catalyst for everything, rested in this small blue stone.
"I'm here to make a trade," Victor continued, lowering the Hextech crystal slightly but keeping it clearly visible. "This legendary power source—authentic, functional, capable of revolutionizing your entire field—in exchange for your latest research results. Specifically, the technology hidden in your deepest experimental layer. The one capable of changing the world itself."
The implication hung heavy in the air.
Victor knew. Somehow, despite Vegapunk's most stringent security measures, despite the layers of misdirection and false data trails, despite the fact that only his most trusted satellites even knew of the project's existence...
Victor knew about the Pandora Protocol.
Vegapunk's face went pale beneath his half-apple crown. Panic flashed across his features—raw, unfiltered fear that the billions watching through the Sky Screen could clearly see.
"Don't talk nonsense," the scientist stammered, his usual eloquence deserting him completely. "I don't have any such thing here. And even if I did—science isn't omnipotent. Some things shouldn't be created, shouldn't be studied, shouldn't be—"
"Please, Doctor." Victor's mechanical voice cut through the desperate deflection like a knife. "We both know you're performing now. Badly, I might add."
The machine's expressionless face somehow conveyed complete certainty. Cold. Absolute. Unshakeable.
"You're a man who worships science above all else. Who believes that anything can be created on the material level, given sufficient understanding and resources. That faith is your greatest strength and your fatal weakness."
Victor's analysis was brutally accurate. During his years of reluctant cooperation with Saint Jaygarcia Saturn, Vegapunk had always occupied the disadvantageous position. His clones' lives, his own existence—everything dangled in the Five Elders' hands like marionette strings. He knew too much. He'd seen too much. He'd created too much.
If not for his continued usefulness, CP0 would have eliminated him years ago.
The appearance of second-generation Seraph Homelander had bought him temporary safety, extending his value to the World Government. But it was a reprieve, not a pardon.
And now this.
"How?" Vegapunk finally asked, his voice small and defeated. "How do you know about that project? The security protocols alone should have—"
"Two reasons," Victor interrupted, raising his free hand to display two mechanical fingers. "First, Ultron controls robots globally. It's remarkably easy for someone to establish contact with... interested parties. And second..."
The mechanical lifeform's optical sensors shifted, focusing on something behind Vegapunk.
"You have a traitor among your satellites, Doctor. One of your clones sold you out. The Pandora Protocol's existence was offered to Ultron as a bargaining chip—insurance, they called it. A way to guarantee their own survival when this island inevitably falls."
The words hit Vegapunk like physical blows. His satellites. His clones. Extensions of his own mind and personality, each embodying a different aspect of his psyche.
One of them had betrayed him.
The blue light of the Hextech crystal pulsed steadily, illuminating Victor's skeletal features with ethereal radiance. Behind him, the first-generation Seraphim continued their futile struggle against the gravity field, child-warriors crushing themselves with their own enhanced weight.
Somewhere above, Homelander battled adaptive machines that learned from every strike.
And deep in the experimental layer, hidden behind the most advanced security measures human science could devise, the Pandora Protocol waited.
The thing that should never be opened.
The knowledge that should never be shared.
The technology that could, quite literally, change the world.
Victor extended his hand, offering the impossible crystal.
"So, Doctor... shall we make a deal?"