Brutal Awakening
The first thing I felt was pain. Not sharp pain, no. Rather like every cell in my body was waking up after a thousand-year sleep, violently protesting this return to consciousness.
Then came light. Blinding. Unbearable.
I blinked several times before my vision finally cleared. A blue sky. Too blue. Almost unreal in its intensity. White clouds lazily drifted above me.
"What the...?"
My voice was hoarse, as if I hadn't spoken in years. I tried to sit up, and that's when I noticed it: my body wasn't mine. Well, yes it was, but... different. Younger. More vigorous.
[SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
The message appeared directly in my field of vision, in phosphorescent green letters. I jumped so hard I fell back on my back.
"What the hell?!"
[WELCOME, DIRECTOR]
[INITIALIZING RECOVERY PROTOCOL...]
[LOADING DATA...]
Information began scrolling before my eyes like an invisible computer screen. Memories that weren't mine overlaid the real ones. A previous life. A car accident. Then... nothingness. And now, this.
[MISSION BRIEFING]
Primary Objective: Recover all escaped SCP entities in this dimension.
Current Location: East Blue, One Piece World
Foundation Status: Parallel installation operational
Detected Entities Nearby: 0
Foundation Access: AUTHORIZED
I remained frozen, trying to digest the information. One Piece? Like the manga? And SCPs... the SCP Foundation? That fictional organization dedicated to capturing and containing anomalies?
"You're kidding me..."
[NEGATIVE. CRITICAL SITUATION DETECTED.]
[AN XK-CLASS EVENT CAUSED THE EVACUATION OF MULTIPLE ENTITIES INTO THIS DIMENSION.]
[AS THE NEW DIRECTOR, YOU ARE TASKED WITH RECOVERING THEM.]
I slowly stood up, observing my hands. Young. Firm. This body was maybe twenty years old, no more. Around me stretched a deserted beach, bordered by a dense tropical forest.
"Okay... let's say. How am I supposed to capture them? With what?"
[FOUNDATION ACCESS AVAILABLE VIA DIMENSIONAL DOOR.]
[SUMMONING POSSIBLE AT ANY TIME.]
"Show me."
A luminous rectangle materialized in the air a few meters from me. Gradually, it took on substance until it formed a perfectly ordinary metal door, planted there in the middle of the sand as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
A gray door, industrial, with a plate screwed on it: SITE-███ - RESTRICTED ACCESS - LEVEL 5 REQUIRED
I cautiously approached and placed my hand on the handle. Cold. Real. I took a deep breath and pushed.
The Ghost Foundation
The other side of the door didn't lead to the beach. Obviously.
I found myself in a corridor. Long. Sterile. Lit by white neon lights that buzzed slightly. The floor was tiled in white, the walls painted institutional gray. The air smelled of disinfectant and... nothing else. No human presence. No sound of footsteps or voices.
The silence was deafening.
[WELCOME TO SITE-███]
[PERSONNEL PRESENT: 1 (YOU)]
[SUBJECTS CONTAINED: 0]
[D-CLASS AVAILABLE: 0]
I walked slowly down the corridor, my footsteps echoing strangely. Doors lined each side, all closed, all identical. Plates indicated their function:
OBSERVATION ROOM 01 STANDARD CONTAINMENT CELL 02 RESEARCH LABORATORY 05 ARMORY
I opened the first door I came across. A cell. Four meters by four, reinforced concrete walls, tiled floor, a camera in the upper corner. Empty. Clean. Ready to welcome something... or someone.
"It's huge," I murmured as I continued my exploration.
The system was right. The Foundation was divided into three main quarters, connected by corridors and security doors:
Detention Quarter - D-Class
Dormitories. Communal showers. A cafeteria. Interrogation rooms. Everything was there, functional, but desperately empty. Not an unmade bed. Not a tray on the tables. As if no one had ever lived here.
Laboratory Quarter
This was where things got interesting. I opened doors at random and discovered equipment I had never seen, even in my memories from before. Futuristic machines, holographic touch screens, sophisticated scanners. A scientific arsenal that far surpassed One Piece's technology... and probably my old world's too.
A medical laboratory with machines capable of real-time DNA analysis. An engineering workshop with molecular 3D printers. A psychological testing room equipped with virtual reality headsets. Everything worked. Everything was operational.
But no one to use them.
Containment Quarter
The largest. The most disturbing.
Standard cells with reinforced walls. Containment chambers for hostile entities with security airlocks. Sensory isolation zones. Liquid containment tanks. Suspended cages. Armored rooms with eight-level locking systems.
All empty.
All... waiting.
I stopped in front of a particularly massive cell. The plate read: HIGH SECURITY CONTAINMENT - KETER
"For now, no one," I said aloud, as if to reassure myself. "But you want me to fill all this, is that it?"
[AFFIRMATIVE.]
[ESTIMATED ESCAPED ENTITIES: UNKNOWN]
[PROBABLE CLASSES: SAFE, EUCLID, KETER, THAUMIEL]
[RECOMMENDATION: BEGIN TRACKING IMMEDIATELY]
I sighed and returned to the entrance door. Before leaving, I took one last look at this ghost Foundation. My Foundation, apparently.
"And how am I supposed to know what's an SCP and what belongs to this world?"
[THE SYSTEM WILL AUTOMATICALLY IDENTIFY ANOMALIES IN YOUR VICINITY.]
[DETECTION RADIUS: 50 METERS]
[SOUND ALERT ACTIVATED BY DEFAULT]
"Convenient."
I walked through the door and found myself instantly back on the beach. The door disappeared behind me as if it had never existed.
The sun was beginning to set. I needed to find food, shelter, and above all... understand where I was exactly in the One Piece timeline.
[ADVICE: JOINING A PIRATE CREW WILL INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF ENCOUNTERING ANOMALIES]
[SUGGESTION: MONKEY D. LUFFY]
I rolled my eyes. "Obviously. The protagonist. Because that's where everything happens."
A smile stretched across my lips despite myself. If I was really in One Piece, and if I really had to hunt SCPs...
Might as well make the adventure memorable.
"Alright," I said, stretching, "first step: find a future Pirate King. That should be easy, he wears a straw hat and shouts that he's going to become Pirate King every five minutes."
[GOOD LUCK, DIRECTOR]
I began walking along the beach, my steps sinking into the warm sand. Somewhere in this world, anomalies were roaming freely. Things that should never have existed here.
And me, an SCP fan reincarnated in One Piece with a personal Foundation in my pocket...
I was going to have to catch them all.
[END OF CHAPTER 1]
[ANOMALIES CAPTURED: 0/???]
[NEXT OBJECTIVE: LOCATE MONKEY D. LUFFY]