The remaining Cipher Pol agents stared at the pile of Seastone bullets at Riven's feet, their minds completely broken. The rules of their world, the bedrock of their power and training, had been shattered. They were facing an anomaly, a demon in a hero's costume who was not bound by the laws of God or Devil Fruits.
"My gods…" one whispered, his rifle hanging limply in his hands.
"Is he… is he even human?" another choked out.
"To catch Seastone bullets… with his bare hands…"
Riven let their terror hang in the air for a moment longer before his wicked smirk returned. He scooped a handful of the heavy slugs from the ground. "You were so eager to give these to me," he said, his voice dangerously calm. "It's only polite that I return the favor."
With a flick of his wrist, he threw the first bullet. It left his hand with a sound like a whip-crack, a tiny, sea-green missile. It wasn't a random toss; it was a feat of impossible, superhuman precision. The bullet struck the rifle of the nearest agent, shattering the weapon's stock and sending it flying from his hands.
Flick. Flick. Flick.
He threw more, each one a blur of motion. Each one a perfect shot. One bullet punched through the barrel of another agent's gun, rendering it useless. Another ricocheted off the ground and slammed into an agent's knee, dropping him with a scream of pain. He wasn't killing them. He was dismantling them. Systematically, efficiently, and terrifyingly. In seconds, the remaining agents were disarmed or disabled, their formation broken, their will to fight utterly extinguished.
"Sir! We need help!" one of the last men standing screamed into his Den Den Mushi, his voice ragged with panic. "This man is too powerful! We're not his opponents! We're his playthings!"
From the safety of the gangplank, Spandine, who had just been clumsily pulled free from the ship's hull by his subordinates, listened to the screams of his defeated men. His face, already pale with fear, turned a sickly shade of green. His grand invasion, his chance for glory, was being single-handedly torn apart by one person.
His terror curdled into a petty, spiteful rage. "This is their fault," he hissed to himself, seeking a justification, any justification. "Ohara isn't just studying history… they're colluding with monsters! With pirates! This isn't on me!"
Having found his excuse, he acted. He snatched the Golden Den Den Mushi from his aide. It was the device used for only one purpose: to summon the full, indiscriminate wrath of the Navy. To call a Buster Call.
"It's their own fault!" he shrieked, slamming his fist down on the button. "Let them all burn! Let Ohara be erased!"
Riven heard the click and the tell-tale cry of the Golden Den Den Mushi. He knew what it meant. Ten warships. Five Vice Admirals. An order to annihilate everything. He knew he couldn't stop the fleet.
But he was a Super Soldier. He was a hero. And he would not stand down.
BOOM!
The first shot came from the lead warship on the horizon. A black cannonball, a harbinger of the apocalypse, arced through the sky. Riven didn't need to guess its target. It was aimed directly at the heart of the island, at the one place he knew Robin would be. The Tree of Knowledge.
"NO!"
The word was a primal roar. In that instant, every fiber of his super-soldier body answered his will. His heart hammered in his chest, a frantic drumbeat pumping enhanced blood through his veins. The world around him slowed, the cannonball's flight a lazy, inexorable crawl across the sky. He could feel the power surging within him, a wellspring of strength and speed he had not yet begun to tap.
Robin is in there. The scholars are in there. They are innocent.
He exploded into motion.
He ran, his powerful legs churning, eating up the ground at a rate that defied human comprehension. He was a blur of red, white, and blue, a living missile streaking across the port.
"What is he doing now?!" Spandine shrieked from his ship, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"Don't tell me… he's going to try and stop it?! That's a naval cannonball! Is he insane?!"
Riven reached the edge of a clearing, his eyes locked on the black star of death as it reached the apex of its arc. He didn't slow down. He planted his feet, channeling all his forward momentum downward. The ground beneath him fractured, sinking under the impossible force of his crouch.
And then he jumped.
BOOM!
The sound of his takeoff was like a cannon shot in its own right. He rocketed into the sky, the world falling away beneath him. He flew, propelled by nothing but sheer leg strength, closing the distance to the descending cannonball with breathtaking speed.
He unslung his shield. Time seemed to stretch. He saw the pitted, imperfect surface of the cannonball. He saw the Tree of Knowledge behind it, so fragile, so vulnerable.
He threw the shield.
It left his hand with a silent, graceful spin, a disc of perfect geometry against the chaos of the sky. It met the cannonball not with a crash, but with a clean, surgical shing. The Vibranium edge, forged by Howard Stark and honed to an impossible sharpness, passed through the cast iron as if it were water.
The cannonball split into two perfectly symmetrical halves. They tumbled harmlessly past the Tree of Knowledge, exploding in the forest far beyond.
The Tree was safe. For now.
"He… he cut it in half…" Spandine whispered, his jaw hanging open. "He cut a cannonball in half… with a shield."
The sight broke the last of his pathetic resolve. "Everyone, back to the ship! Now!" he screamed. "We're leaving! Let the Navy handle this! Let the Buster Call do its work! No one can survive that! Let's go!"
High in the air, Riven caught his shield as it returned to him, its familiar weight a comfort in his hand. He angled it beneath him, bracing for impact as gravity reasserted its claim. He hit the ground with the force of a meteor, but he channeled the impact, rolling into a perfect three-point superhero landing. He rose to his feet, covered in a light dusting of dirt but otherwise unharmed.
He looked out at the sea, where nine more warships were now visible, forming a ring of death around the island.
"The Buster Call has been activated," he said to himself, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fist. "The main force of the Navy will be here any minute." He could feel the power of Captain America coursing through him, a steady, resolute strength. "This is going to be a hard fight."
As if on cue, the voice of the System returned, clear and precise in his mind.
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Riven stood stunned for a second, the words echoing in his mind.
"A Major Event?" he asked, a hundred new questions flooding his thoughts.