Chapter Text
Seventy-two hours before the report reached Koby’s hands, an alarm that had been silent for almost two years awoke in the depths of Punk Records.
The control room was submerged in a bluish glow. Endless rows of data ran across the monitors with the speed of invisible currents: magnetic displacements, seismic activity, meteorological variations, intercepted transmissions, and energy fluctuations originating from remote points on the planet.
The place never rested.
Even during the quietest hours, the processing towers emitted a deep, constant hum, akin to the breathing of a sleeping creature. Beneath the translucent floor, beams of light traveled through data conduits that stretched out until they vanished into the core of Punk Records, where Dr. Vegapunk’s expanded mind continued to accumulate knowledge without distinguishing between day and night.
Lilith leaned back against one of the consoles, tapping the surface with her fingers as she reviewed a list of rejected requests.
"They cut the budget for the Sea Beast Weapons again," she muttered. "They ask for cannons capable of piercing an island, but consider it excessive to repair three mechanical creatures after they save a fleet. Then they wonder why I try to charge them for breathing near Egghead."
A few meters away, Pythagoras was leaning over a three-dimensional projection. Several luminous curves slowly rotated in front of his lenses while the key on his head turned with a regular, metallic tick.
Edison, on the other hand, could hardly stay still. His small thrusters kept him hovering as he zipped from one workstation to another, adjusting filters, modifying receivers, and opening new analysis windows before finishing with the previous ones.
"The long-range network keeps losing sensitivity near the Red Line," he protested. "I need six new amplifiers."
Pythagoras raised his head slightly.
"The interference isn't coming from the Red Line."
Edison braked in mid-air.
"Then from where?"
Pythagoras didn't get the chance to answer.
The alarm blared.
It wasn't the usual sound of a mechanical failure or an intrusion. A sharp, metallic tone pierced the room as the blue lighting abruptly shifted to red. The secondary screens shut down, and the central system took over the entire wall with a single map.
The Sabaody Archipelago.
In one of its mangroves, a white dot appeared, expanded, and contracted again, as if a second reality had tried to breathe through an opening that was too small. Edison darted toward the main console.
"Capture the entire signal! Don't apply any filters!"
His fingers moved rapidly over the controls. Lilith dropped her carefree posture and approached the map. Pythagoras connected the historical archives without waiting for instructions.
The protocol flashing in the upper corner of the screens was one they had barely ever used.
Θ-7: uncategorized spatial displacement.
The signal remained active for fourteen seconds.
Then, it disappeared.
The alarm stopped blaring, but the red lights stayed on. The phenomenon was over. The only thing left was the massive amount of information cascading down the monitors like the remnants of a storm.
"Was it an explosion?" Lilith asked.
"No," Pythagoras replied.
He projected three indicators onto the map.
Signature. Intensity. Coherence.
The signature remained almost motionless. The intensity had reached a high point before dropping. The coherence, however, was much greater than in any previous record.
Edison opened an old file.
"It can't be..."
A second graph appeared next to the first one.
It had been recorded almost two years ago, also in Sabaody. It didn't show a clean opening, but rather a violent, distorted discharge: a pulse moving away from the archipelago in an untraceable direction.
At the time, Egghead’s systems had archived it as interference produced by the exceptional activity in the area. Pacifistas, Marine ships, pirates, clashes, and coating technology had oversaturated the measurements.
Pythagoras superimposed both graphs.
"The main shape is different."
"The first one was much more violent," Lilith said. "This one just now seems almost... clean."
"The secondary signal matches," Pythagoras clarified.
A fainter line crossed through both records. It wasn't the force that had produced the displacement, but a residue clinging to whatever had crossed over.
Edison opened another file.
"Wait. There's more."
A third measurement emerged between the two.
It had been picked up several weeks after the first recorded event. Unlike the previous one, it contained two clearly distinct pulses: an outgoing one and an incoming one, separated by less than an hour.
That phenomenon had been more stable than the first, but too brief and weak to allow for a conclusion. For months, Pythagoras and Edison had tried to link it to a Devil Fruit, a new transportation technology, or some alteration caused by Sabaody’s coating.
They found nothing.
Now all three signals were together.
The first: a violent displacement leaving Sabaody.
The second: an entry and an exit through the same point.
The third: a new entry, more precise and stable, without a return pulse.
"Three events." Lilith uncrossed her arms.
"Three recorded events," Pythagoras corrected.
"The last pulse shares the secondary signature of the other two. But its coherence is almost double that of the entry and exit event." Edison magnified the most recent reading.
"Someone improved the mechanism," observed satellite number two.
"Or learned to control it," Pythagoras added.
"How large was the displacement?"
Edison superimposed the mass estimates. The calculations varied due to the humidity, the vegetation, and the archipelago’s activity, but the range was too small to correspond to a ship.
"Between sixty and one hundred and twenty kilograms," he replied. "Maybe slightly more if it was carrying objects."
"A person." Lilith looked at the point on Sabaody.
"A mass compatible with a person," Pythagoras corrected. "We can't be certain it's a living organism."
The door to the room opened, and Shaka walked in unhurriedly. The surface of his helmet reflected for an instant the three graphs suspended in the air.
"I have received the notification for protocol Θ-7," he announced. "Report."
Edison spoke before the others could organize the information.
"The signal has appeared for the third time. The first record shows that something left Sabaody propelled by an unknown force. The second contains an entry and an exit separated by less than an hour. The third just occurred and only registers an arrival. All three share the same residual signature."
Shaka approached the monitors.
"Is the direction of the flow confirmed?"
Pythagoras projected a representation of the planet. A line started from Sabaody and traced across the model until it left it entirely. It didn't end at another island. Nor in the sky, under the sea, or on the other side of the Red Line. It simply exited all known coordinates.
"The main energy of the third pulse did not originate in Sabaody," Pythagoras explained. "It arrived from the opposite end."
"Where is that end located?"
"It is not located within the model."
The room fell silent.
"You're not thinking of reporting this immediately, are you?" Lilith observed the trajectory escaping the map.
"An anomaly has displaced matter into our world."
"Exactly. As soon as the higher-ups hear that, they'll stop seeing it as a phenomenon and start imagining armies, resources, and new ways to chain people up."
"Hiding it would also be dangerous."
"Handing everything over to them would be worse."
Edison continued analyzing the pulses.
"Before we argue with the Government, we should call Stella. This could be the missing piece."
Shaka turned his helmet toward him.
"For what?"
Edison's excitement became more evident.
"For the Dawn Gate Project."
Lilith let out a short laugh.
"That project is dustier than the Poneglyphs."
"It was archived because it couldn't find a destination," Pythagoras said. "Not because the principle was incorrect."
Shaka activated the internal channel, and Stella’s image appeared seconds later above the table. The scientist wore his usual lab coat and bore the apple-shaped structure on his head that connected him to Punk Records. His tongue stuck out slightly as he observed the alarms that were still flashing.
"What happened?"
Pythagoras transferred the logs.
Vegapunk fell silent.
For several minutes, only the hum of the processing towers and Edison's restless hovering could be heard. Stella modified scales, ruled out interferences, and compared the three signals.
The first had a much more aggressive pattern. Something had exerted an abrupt force on the displaced mass and expelled it from Sabaody. The second and third seemed to utilize a narrower corridor, constructed with greater precision.
Even so, all three carried the same residue.
"The secondary signature doesn't belong to any of the mechanisms," Vegapunk finally concluded. "It is attached to whatever crossed over. It could be objects exposed to the same phenomenon, members of the same species, or matter originating from the same place. But the coincidence is too high to ignore."
"Can we call it a portal?" asked Edison.
"No," Vegapunk replied.
Edison descended a few centimeters, disappointed.
"But we can call it a route." Stella smiled.
"That sounded even worse." Lilith raised an eyebrow, grimacing.
"We must report this," Shaka ordered.
Lilith rested both hands on the console.
"We report the anomaly and the risk. Not the full conclusion."
Shaka remained motionless.
"Are you proposing we hide data from the World Government?"
"I am proposing we don't hand them a key before knowing what door it opens."
Edison raised a hand.
"I agree with the evil one."
"Thanks."
"That wasn't a compliment."
Vegapunk remained thoughtful.
Reporting it meant militarizing the investigation. Not reporting it meant that, if the rift opened again and something dangerous came through, Egghead would be held responsible for staying silent.
"We will prepare three copies," he decided. "One for the official report, with the information necessary to justify the investigation. Another will remain in Punk Records. The third will be disconnected from any network."
Edison pointed to himself.
"I can hide it."
"That is exactly what worries me," Shaka replied.
"Then let Pythagoras keep it. No one suspects someone so boring."
Pythagoras's key sped up slightly.
"I have logged that comment."
Lilith smiled.
Shaka began to prepare the classified transmission.
Egghead’s transmission reached the high command before nightfall.
…
The council chamber remained in twilight even as the sun dipped over Mary Geoise. An environment designed to make the outside world seem irrelevant. The chamber of the Five Elders smelled of old paper, sealing wax, and that dense stillness that gathers in places where decisions no one else can question are made.
The projections from the Den Den Mushis had already been turned off. Vegapunk, Akainu, and the vice admirals had vanished from the air as if they had never been there. Only they remained, five motionless silhouettes scattered across the armchairs, observing the map of Sabaody on the center table.
The first, violent.
The second, double.
The third, precise.
Saint Jaygarcia Saturn was the first to break the silence. His long, pale fingers traced the corner of the map as if the texture confirmed what his sight had already told him.
"Vegapunk's conclusion continues to be a hypothesis."
"The displacement is not," replied Saint Marcus Mars. "Something appeared in Sabaody from a point his systems cannot locate."
Topman Warcury observed the line abandoning the map and rapped the table with his knuckles.
"Then his systems are insufficient."
Shepherd Ju Peter shook his head slowly.
"Or the map is."
The words hung suspended over the table.
Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro didn't sit fully; he remained leaning slightly, as if even in rest he were ready to stand up. His voice was low, resting one hand near the graphs.
"It does not yet matter what exists on the other side. The problem is that someone found a route into our world without us being able to prevent it."
Warcury let out an annoyed exhale.
"If it truly originates from another world, it does not even know our authority."
"Then it shall learn of it," Saturn replied.
Mars picked up the top folder. On the cover was only a single seal: DAWN GATE PROJECT. Beneath it, an old code and a date belonging to a time when Vegapunk was not yet the Government's most valuable weapon.
"It was archived for a reason. Too much energy, unstable results, and a margin of error that could affect entire territories."
"Now we possess a route," Ju Peter pointed out.
"We possess the trace of a route," Nusjuro corrected. "And someone else knows how to utilize it better than we do."
"The project will be reactivated," Mars ordered.
Warcury looked up.
"To open it?"
"To understand it. Afterward, we will decide what to do with it."
"Vegapunk will request total freedom."
"He will receive resources in stages. No more than one prototype will be built, and every component will be logged."
"Cipher Pol will monitor the laboratory," Mars added.
"The Marines will establish a perimeter without drawing attention," Ju Peter continued. "If the signal appears in Sabaody again, we will know before anyone else, even Vegapunk."
…
The order reached New Marineford via a sealed line.
Sakazuki listened to the report without interrupting. When the transmission ended, he remained for several seconds staring at the three signals projected onto his desk.
The Marines were to provide security, transport, and an exploration team. However, they would not be allowed to know all the data gathered by the Gorosei. That did not surprise him. Those old men loved playing mysterious, giving him a false sense of control. It irritated him.
He activated a small Den Den Mushi protected by an encryption system. The snail took several seconds to answer.
"Drake here."
His voice came accompanied by the distant noise of conversations and glasses. X Drake still maintained his cover and could not show up at Egghead without destroying years of infiltration.
"I need you to activate your unit," Sakazuki ordered, bothering with no pleasantries.
"Destination?"
"Egghead."
There was a pause.
"What is happening this time?"
"I'll send you the report."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"It's all you need to know."
The Den Den Mushi closed its eyes, mimicking the features of its sender on the other end of the line. It even let out a small sigh before its bulging eyes looked back up at the Fleet Admiral.
"Objective?"
"Assess the project. Until whatever Vegapunk is doing is secure, no one makes a move."
"And the objective they won't put in the report?"
Sakazuki looked at the world map that took up the wall of his office.
"Ensure that nothing goes wrong, and if it does, that the Marines can stop it."
Drake let a few seconds pass. Sakazuki’s jaw tightened at the lack of response. He loathed dealing with that team, always doing as they pleased and stepping all over protocols. They weren't even his direct subordinates; he shouldn't have to be ordering Drake to do anything. But he knew he couldn't send just any group of Marines.
The communication ended.
Hours later, an incomplete order and a carefully censored report would set off toward SWORD.