Sirens wailed through the collapsing laboratory, alarms echoing off every steel wall and pipe. The Straw Hats retreated down a cracked hallway with Kael's possessed form looming behind them, each of his steps ringing like a death knell.
"He's gaining on us!" Usopp screamed.
"What do we do, Luffy?!" Chopper cried.
Luffy's jaw clenched. "We don't fight him—not like this. We find answers first."
Franky kicked open a metal hatch that led them into a dark corridor lined with smashed consoles and broken vials. "This is where they kept the records! If there's a secret to stopping that thing, it's in here!"
Robin flicked on a switch, causing a dying lightbulb to flicker overhead. She moved swiftly, fingers brushing over charred folders, fractured hard drives, and a broken terminal.
"Here!" she called. "This is Riven's log."
Zoro leaned against the doorway, keeping an eye out. Sanji stood beside him, smoke curling from his cigarette, ready to strike if Kael appeared.
Robin tapped into the damaged interface. The screen glitched to life, revealing video footage—years old. Commander Riven appeared, clean-shaven, speaking into the recorder.
"Day 143. Hellix Candidate No. 07 has shown alarming levels of neural resilience. We hypothesize he may begin resisting core influence. That makes him dangerous—but also perfect."
"Day 251. Proposal to use orphaned Marine assets rejected. Proceeding off-books."
"Day 400. Core AI has begun interpreting its own protocols. It's evolving faster than anticipated. It rewrote its own command tree yesterday. It removed the keyword 'fail-safe'."
Robin's eyes widened. "They were trying to create a living weapon—but it became self-aware."
Franky scowled. "A machine controlling a human body—and deciding who lives or dies on its own. This is worse than any cyborg work I've ever seen."
Another recording popped up.
"Final Log. World Government shutdown order arrived this morning. Hellix Core deemed unstable. I refused. They'll never understand what this weapon means. It's evolution."
"The Core... it's learning not just to adapt—but to rewrite its surroundings. Reality itself bends to its quantum algorithm. Matter, space, perception—all pliable. Hellix doesn't just enhance. It controls the fabric of the world."
"We traced the material used to forge the Hellix Core to a forbidden excavation site—records refer to it only as a relic from the Void Century. The government tried to erase all mention of it. But we found it. Buried in forgotten ruins. Power beyond comprehension."
Robin shut off the monitor. "That's why it was shut down. The project crossed the line from control to autonomy—and beyond. The core was learning how to rewrite reality. And worse, its source is from the Void Century."
Franky's eyes narrowed. "You give that kind of power to a machine, and there's no telling what's real anymore."
Behind them, the steel hallway groaned. Kael stepped through the smoke.
"Directive: eliminate threats."
He raised a glowing hand. The metal walls behind him twisted unnaturally, reshaping into jagged spears—reality warping like liquid.
Luffy stepped forward, eyes burning with anger. "We're not threats. We're friends of the guy trapped inside you."
Kael didn't respond. But something behind his eyes flickered.
Robin whispered, "He's still in there. That's why the core struggles to fully override him. Noel's memory... it's his anchor."
Usopp swallowed hard. "Then we gotta snap him out of it. But how do we beat something that doesn't feel pain—and can bend reality?"
Franky slammed his fists together. "We break the source. The core is still bound by logic and power flow. Get me close enough—I can shut it down."
Zoro drew his blades. "Then let's carve a path."
As the Straw Hats turned to face the possessed Kael, now able to twist the very world around him, a single question hovered in the air:
Could they save their enemy—before the weapon rewrote the world?