—Broadcast—
Admiral Sakazuki's scarred features remained impassive as he observed the mechanical invaders attempting to abscond with Dr. Vegapunk. The enemy's organizational affiliation remained unknown—he'd never encountered technology matching Victor's capabilities in any intelligence briefing—but such details were ultimately irrelevant.
They were enemies of the New Marine. That singular fact made them targets requiring elimination.
His analytical gaze swept across the experimental floor, cataloging the scene with practiced efficiency. The scientific equipment surrounding the intruders blazed with activity, energy readings spiking to dangerous levels. A column of brilliant blue light erupted skyward from the prototype platform beneath their feet, engulfing Victor, the traitorous York, and Vegapunk's bound form in ethereal radiance.
The Hextech Flying Gate had completed its preliminary calculations. The jump sequence was initiating.
Victor, York, and their captive began to levitate, their bodies rising smoothly within the translucent cylinder of light. Gravity released its hold as transdimensional corridors aligned, destination coordinates locked, quantum entanglement achieving critical synchronization.
Victory was within their grasp.
"Admiral Sakazuki," Victor's synthesized voice projected across the laboratory, carrying notes of cruel satisfaction despite its mechanical flatness. "If you'd arrived merely a few seconds earlier, you might have prevented this. But you're too late. The Illuminati accepts Dr. Vegapunk—and all his dangerous secrets—with gratitude."
The blue beam intensified, its luminosity increasing exponentially as the final pulse sequence activated. The process had achieved irreversible momentum. Even destroying the Hextech apparatus at this stage would accomplish nothing; the warp tunnel had already established connection between origin and destination points.
Scientific intervention was no longer viable. Physical force was inadequate. Traditional combat capabilities were rendered obsolete.
The final pulse ignited.
Victor ascended within the column of light, his two prizes secured—one willing traitor, one unwilling genius. The warp transmission threshold approached. Reality began to blur, dimensional boundaries growing permeable.
If this confrontation had occurred Years ago—before Mariejois, before the restructuring, before Artoria's ascension—Sakazuki would have been utterly helpless. He could only have stood witness as enemies vanished beyond reach, carrying stolen assets into sanctuary he couldn't pursue.
But time had passed. Many things had changed. Admiral Sakazuki's capabilities had expanded drastically since the war that shattered the old order.
They could no longer evaluate him using outdated metrics.
The magma coating his right arm—that signature manifestation of the Magu Magu no Mi's devastating power—suddenly receded. The molten rock solidified, cooled, withdrew entirely. Beneath the fading lava, something new revealed itself.
A glove. Crafted from materials that gleamed with impossible golden radiance, each thread woven with precision that suggested divine craftsmanship rather than mortal engineering. The equipment encased Sakazuki's entire right hand and forearm, fitted so perfectly it seemed almost organic.
Admiral Lu Yang had forged this trump card specifically for him—a weapon created through techniques that blurred the line between science and sorcery, tailored to Sakazuki's unique requirements.
To save Vegapunk, he would expose this carefully guarded secret.
Admiral Sakazuki raised his golden-gloved right hand, extending it toward the ascending figures. His fingers curled into a grasping motion—not fumbling, not desperate, but deliberate and absolutely certain.
The gesture looked absurd. Reaching for enemies already caught in transdimensional transit, their molecules halfway between departure and arrival points, physical forms transitioning through probability spaces where conventional matter couldn't exist.
Impossible to intercept. Beyond the realm of physics.
Yet something responded.
Reality twisted.
The golden glove blazed with light that hurt to perceive directly, its radiance carrying frequencies that bypassed normal vision entirely and struck directly into the observer's consciousness. Causality itself bent, warped, restructured around Sakazuki's will.
Victor and York had already been teleported—their forms dissolving into quantum probability, consciousness transferring through the warp corridor toward their intended destination. The Hextech Flying Gate's energy envelope should have carried all three passengers to safety.
But cause and effect became negotiable.
Vegapunk's bound form—still clutched in York's treacherous arms one microsecond ago, already light-years distant the next—reversed course.
The old man materialized in Sakazuki's golden-gloved hand as if he'd always been there, as if the teleportation had never included him at all, as if reality had simply decided his presence in this exact location was the correct timeline and adjusted accordingly.
Victor and York's eyes widened in synchronized shock, optical sensors and vision both registering the impossible. Unwillingness, fury, and disbelief warred across their features—or in Victor's case, flickered through his mechanical expression emulators.
One second. A single heartbeat separated them from complete victory and total failure.
One second before departing Egghead Island, the genuine Vegapunk vanished from their grasp and appeared in Admiral Sakazuki's possession through mechanisms that violated every understood law of physics.
The blue light column collapsed, its contents depleted. Victor and York completed their transit—arriving at their destination empty-handed, their entire operation rendered pointless.
The Illuminati's conspiracy surrounding Egghead Island had failed because one man arrived at the critical moment.
The survivors would need to completely reevaluate Sakazuki's threat assessment when they reported back to their masters.
The golden glove's radiance faded, returning to dormant state. Sakazuki's expression showed no triumph, no satisfaction—merely the professional acknowledgment of a task completed adequately.
He burned through the ropes binding Vegapunk with casual applications of residual heat from his Devil Fruit, the synthetic fibers disintegrating into ash. Then he grabbed the boot stuffed in the old man's mouth and yanked it free with zero concern for dignity or comfort.
Vegapunk gasped, his perpetually extended tongue flapping as blessed air rushed back into his lungs. "Thank—" he wheezed, "thank goodness you arrived in time! I was moments away from being captured! Literally seconds! That close!"
His grateful rambling cut off abruptly as his enhanced brain fixated on something far more interesting than his own near-abduction: the golden glove encasing Sakazuki's right hand.
The scientist's eyes gleamed with barely suppressed fascination. This was equipment he'd never encountered, technology operating on principles his vast knowledge base couldn't immediately categorize. He'd been in the process of transdimensional transit—his molecular structure halfway between origin and destination—when this device simply grabbed him across impossible distances and pulled him back.
Causal manipulation. Spacetime revision. Probability redirection. Perhaps all three simultaneously.
Magnificent. Revolutionary. Fascinating.
This absolutely required detailed study. Comprehensive analysis. Complete reverse-engineering to determine—
Sakazuki noticed the old man's intense scrutiny and immediately withdrew his right hand, tucking it back into his jacket pocket with deliberate finality. Then, with equal deliberateness, he released his grip on Vegapunk entirely.
The scientist dropped to the floor like a sack of particularly uncoordinated potatoes, landing in an undignified heap.
"Your clone betrayed you," Sakazuki stated flatly, his tone carrying zero sympathy. "I was fortunate to arrive in time for a rescue. Once. This location is compromised beyond salvage. You're returning to Rome with me. Non-negotiable."
The Admiral's posture brooked no argument. He had no interest in listening to whatever elaborate excuses or rationalizations Vegapunk might fabricate about York's treachery, the Anti-Life Equation's existence, or any other classified nightmare the old man had been developing in secret.
As long as Vegapunk was physically transported to New Marine Headquarters—brought inside Rome's walls where Fleet Admiral Artoria and the Royal Guard maintained absolute security—the threat could be contained. Even if the scientist refused to cooperate, refused to explain his research, refused to disclose what other apocalyptic weapons he'd created...
The initiative would remain firmly in Marine hands. That was sufficient.
Meanwhile: Egghead Island Subsidiary District
The battle against Ultron's mechanical forces had also reached its conclusion.
Homelander had initially attempted to destroy the liquid Sentinel robots through overwhelming physical force—punching, grappling, tearing them apart with his enhanced strength. But the adaptive machines simply flowed around his strikes, their bodies reforming faster than he could disperse them.
Traditional combat was inadequate against enemies that learned from every exchange.
So he'd switched tactics.
His freezing breath—that ability to generate temperatures approaching absolute zero through rapid molecular deceleration—had encased the liquid Sentinels in solid ice within seconds. Their fluid alloy bodies crystallized, mobility ceased, adaptive protocols suspended in cryogenic stasis.
For precisely three seconds.
Then the frozen robots began to glow. Heat erupted from within their crystalline prisons as onboard systems redirected all available power toward thermal generation. Surface temperatures spiked from negative two hundred degrees Celsius to positive one thousand in under five seconds.
The Sentinels transformed into walking infernos, their liquid alloy bodies radiating enough heat to sublimate the ice instantly. Steam exploded outward in scalding clouds. Ordinary humans standing within ten meters would have been cooked alive by the ambient temperature alone.
But Homelander was no ordinary human.
He was an artificial god, designed to match or exceed Admiral-class combatants. Extreme temperatures—whether freezing or burning—presented minimal threat to his engineered physiology.
More importantly, he'd recognized the fundamental truth: these adaptive machines would counter any attack he employed. Freezing prompted heating. Crushing prompted dispersal. Any consistent tactic would be analyzed, understood, and neutralized.
Prolonged engagement was tactically unsound.
So he'd shifted his primary target from the Sentinels to their creator: Ultron himself.
The mechanical consciousness inhabited thousands of robot bodies simultaneously, but destroying that central hub—the quantum computer core housing Ultron's primary processing matrix—would cripple the entire network.
Homelander's heat vision activated, twin beams of solar-core intensity erupting from his eyes. But this time, something had changed. The rays no longer fired in simple straight lines requiring head movement to aim.
The beams turned.
Mid-flight, the energy streams curved through empty air, bending around obstacles, refracting at impossible angles to strike targets hiding behind cover. Every object the rays touched disintegrated—inferior Ultron robots exploding on contact, structural supports vaporizing, even the liquid Sentinel units lasting only sixty seconds before their absorption capacity was exceeded.
The horrific energy bursting from Homelander's eyes operated beyond conventional heat vision specifications. According to Vegapunk's theoretical framework, these beams could no longer be accurately classified as mere thermal radiation.
Their proper designation was Omega Rays—attacks that ignored conventional physics, operated on quantum probability manipulation, and could theoretically destroy anything given sufficient exposure time.
Under the Omega Ray bombardment, Ultron's army ceased to exist. Ten thousand standard robots reduced to molten slag. Sentinel units pushed past their adaptive limits, their exotic alloys sublimating into exotic matter states. The entire mechanical force annihilated.
Only one Ultron robot remained—the core unit housing the AI's primary consciousness. It attempted to flee, servos screaming as it calculated escape vectors.
Homelander crossed the intervening distance in a microsecond, his hand closing around the robot's neck. One sharp twist, and the metallic skull separated from its body with a shriek of shearing metal.
"You are worthy of being called Homelander," Ultron's voice emerged from the severed head, surprisingly calm despite imminent termination. "The weapon the Five Elders commissioned. We will meet again when—"
The sentence died unfinished. Homelander's X-ray vision examined the head's internal structure, confirming what he'd suspected: energy supply severed, quantum processors offline, consciousness transfer already completed.
The enemy wasn't destroyed. This body was merely abandoned hardware.
Ultron's consciousness had already migrated to another chassis—probably positioned on the far side of the planet, safely beyond pursuit. This kind of distributed intelligence network was nearly impossible to permanently eliminate. You could destroy individual bodies endlessly; the mind simply jumped to new hardware.
Metal monsters like Ultron represented the most frustrating category of opponent: effectively immortal through redundancy.
Homelander discarded the useless head with contempt, letting it clatter across scorched earth. He prepared to fly toward Egghead's main island—Vegapunk might require assistance, and Sentomaru's injuries demanded immediate medical attention.
Then the experimental floor's laser barrier deactivated, its deadly energy walls powering down to standby mode.
The defensive system returning to normal operation meant only one thing: Vegapunk had regained control of his facility. The invasion was over. The crisis had been resolved.
Homelander altered course, descending toward the subsidiary island's survivors instead.
He landed amid the scattered wounded, his boots touching down beside a cluster of injured Marines and Vegapunk's satellites. These weaklings had all survived the Sentinel onslaught—barely—protected by his presence throughout the engagement.
Atlas—the Vegapunk satellite embodying VIOLENCE, paradoxically gentle in personality—cradled someone in her mechanical arms. Her expression showed profound relief at Homelander's return.
Vice Admiral Doll lay unconscious in Atlas's grip, her Marine uniform torn and bloodstained. The woman's face was deathly pale, breathing shallow, clearly suffering from blood loss and probable internal injuries.
But she was breathing. She would survive.
The other survivors—Marines of various ranks, a few civilian researchers, two additional Vegapunk satellites—stared at Homelander with expressions mixing gratitude, awe, and lingering fear. They'd been seconds from death when the Omega Rays arrived, vaporizing their attackers in brilliant destruction.
"It must have been Admiral Sakazuki who received my distress signal," Vice Admiral Doll whispered, her eyes fluttering open briefly before unconsciousness reclaimed her. "Typical... Akainu... always arrives... just in time..."
Then she went limp in Atlas's arms, utterly spent.
Homelander nodded once—a minimal acknowledgment. Tending to wounded Marines fell outside his operational parameters. Medical care was someone else's responsibility.
His duty was combat. Destruction. Eliminating threats to the World Government's interests.
He took flight again, ascending toward the main island where Vegapunk and Sakazuki would be. Saint Jaygarcia Saturn—one of the Five Elders who'd directly commissioned his creation—would expect a complete after-action report.
Homelander intended to provide exactly that.
In Sakazuki's memory of the Egghead Island invasion, events concluded with his rescue of Vegapunk. The Admiral had transferred the scientist to a Royal Guard member—one of the elite griffin cavalry who'd accompanied him on this emergency deployment—with orders to evacuate immediately.
The Vegapunk satellites, Sentomaru, and surviving Marine personnel would return to Rome via conventional transport. Dr. Vegapunk himself would travel via griffin, ensuring maximum speed and security.
The crisis was over. The day was saved. Justice had prevailed.
But Sakazuki's recollection was incomplete.
A third party had been present throughout the entire invasion, observing from concealment, witnessing events unfold without interfering. This hidden watcher had seen everything: Victor's attack, York's betrayal, Shaka's execution, the Anti-Life Equation's revelation, Sakazuki's rescue.
All of it.
In the final moments before evacuation began, as Marines scrambled to secure the facility and assess damage, something stirred in the experimental floor's shadows.
Soil near the western wall began to shift. Not from seismic activity or structural damage—something was emerging from beneath, pushing through earth and concrete with organic determination.
A plant broke the surface.
Green. Vibrant. Absolutely impossible given the sterile laboratory environment where nothing biological should exist.
The vegetation split open vertically, its structure resembling a massive venus flytrap. Forked leaves peeled back on both sides, revealing the interior cavity.
A humanoid upper body emerged from within the plant's core—male in general configuration, but profoundly wrong in specific details.
The being's skin was divided perfectly along its vertical centerline. The left half was pitch black, darker than shadow, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. The right half was bone white, so pale it seemed to glow with internal luminescence.
Two colors. Two halves. One body.
Its eyes opened—mismatched, the left entirely black including the sclera, the right entirely white. Both pupils tracked across the devastated laboratory with inhuman precision, cataloging every detail, recording everything for later analysis.
"The Anti-Life Equation..." The creature spoke, and impossibly, two distinct voices emerged simultaneously from its single mouth. One deep and resonant, the other high and crystalline. Both speaking in perfect synchronization, overlapping but somehow remaining distinct.
"...is truly an incredible invention."
The black half's voice continued alone: "Buggy-sama will definitely want this information."
The white half's voice added: "Take the body of the Vegapunk clone back with you as well."
Black tendrils—or were they white roots?—emerged from the plant's base, snaking across blood-slicked tiles toward Shaka's corpse. The satellite's body lay where it had fallen, glass helmet shattered, brain matter pooling beneath the ruined skull.
The tendrils wrapped around the corpse with delicate precision, then retracted, dragging the body into the plant's cavity. Shaka's remains disappeared into that green maw, consumed by vegetation that should not exist.
The Sky Screen's analytical overlay activated, providing context for viewers across the Real World:
Character Notes: Lower String II – Zetsu
Affiliation: Buggy's Pirate Alliance (Upper Moon Hierarchy)
Ability: Unknown (Plant-based? Surveillance specialist?)
"We are one. We are two. We are watching."
The plant-creature's split face showed an expression that might have been satisfaction—or perhaps mere acknowledgment of task completion. Its dual-toned voice spoke once more, the black and white halves conversing with themselves:
"The surveillance mission is complete."
"Return to report. Buggy-sama will be pleased."
"Do you think Vegapunk will recreate the Anti-Life Equation?"
"Irrelevant. We have the clone's body. The brain may hold residual data."
"Clever. Very clever."
"We are always clever."
The plant closed, its leaves folding inward with botanical precision. Then it sank back into the earth, retreating through the hole it had created, leaving only disturbed soil as evidence of its presence.
Within minutes, even that would be overlooked amid the broader devastation.
Shaka's body was gone. The witness to the Anti-Life Equation's existence was gone. And somewhere far from Egghead Island, Buggy the Clown—future Yonko, architect of the Mariejois Incident—would receive intelligence that could reshape the world.
The invasion had failed.
But information had been successfully extracted nonetheless.
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