The mercury pool thrummed like a living heart, its silvery surface rippling in time with Marya's chant. The ancient glyphs etched into the Poneglyph pulsed with an eerie bioluminescence, casting jagged shadows across Commander Orpheus' snarling face as he locked his trident with Mihawk's blade.
"You think scribbling in a notebook changes anything?!" Orpheus roared, his Starfall Trident screeching against Yoru's blade. Golden Haki crackled down its prongs, corroding the stone floor where stray sparks landed. "Your mother died screaming the same delusions!"
Mihawk's gaze remained icy, his movements a lethal dance of precision. "And yet her words outlive her," he said, slicing a crescent of obsidian energy that forced Orpheus to leap back. "A lesson you'll soon learn."
Marya knelt at the pool's edge, Elisabeta's notebook splayed open beside her. Her voice, steady and resonant, wove through the chaos: "Naylamp's tears bind the Current… the gate answers the eclipse's call…" The black veins on her arms writhed, drinking in the Poneglyph's glow.
Jelly wobbled between stray gunfire, his gelatinous body deflecting seastone rounds. "No hurt stabby friend!" he squealed, morphing into a trampoline to launch a Vanguard soldier into the mercury. The man's scream died as the liquid devoured him, bubbling hungrily.
Orpheus lunged again, his trident aimed at Marya's back. Mihawk intercepted, their clash sending a shockwave that cracked the dome's remaining gold-leaf tiles. "Pathetic," Orpheus spat. "Their god abandoned them. Just as yours will abandon you."
Marya's chant never faltered. Her mother's notes flooded her mind—Elisabeta's hurried sketches of Titan-Sea Kings coiled around Naylamp's altar, their scales fused with Star-Metal from ancient rites. "The World Government poisoned the mercury… staged a plague to steal their truth…"
The pool began to boil.
Orpheus' eyes widened as the chamber trembled. "What have you—?!"
"Rise," Marya commanded, her voice merging with the Void's whisper.
The mercury erupted.
A colossal Titan-Sea King breached the pool, its body a grotesque fusion of living gold and corroded Star-Metal. Bioluminescent parasites clung to its scales, their whispers echoing the ancient tongue as its maw split open in a roar that shook the island to its roots. The creature's eyes—milky, ancient, and vengeful—locked onto Orpheus.
"Lies!" he bellowed, though his trident trembled. "The Titan-Sea Kings were purged!"
"Not all," Marya said, rising. Elisabeta's journal trembled in her grip, its pages fluttering to a sketch of the beast—"Guardian of the Deep Current, bound by mercury and memory."
The Sea King struck, its tail slamming into Orpheus and hurling him through a pillar. Mihawk leapt back, Yoru humming with rare tension as he watched the creature loom over its prey.
"You… you revived a corpse?!" Orpheus choked, scrambling to his feet.
"No," Marya said coldly. "I woke a witness."
The Titan-Sea King's roar crescendoed, its voice a chorus of drowned tribal priests. The mercury surged, carving glyphs of accusation into the walls—"Betrayers. Poisoners. Thieves."
Orpheus laughed, blood dripping from his cracked mask. "You think this thing changes your fate? You will be devoured, girl. Just. Like. Her."
The Sea King lunged, but Marya raised Eclipse, its crimson runes flaring. "No," she said, the Void's power coiling around her blade. "It will devour you."
As the beast's maw closed on Orpheus, his final scream was drowned by the Primordial Current's howl—and the distant, echoing laughter of a ghost named Elisabeta.
*****
The lab's alarms howled like a chorus of damned souls, their crimson lights strobing across Dr. Lysandra's cluttered workspace. Beakers of mercury trembled, their toxic contents sloshing onto notes scrawled with Elisabeta's cipher. A holographic map of Karathys flickered erratically, its projection of the Pyramid of the Drowned Sun dissolving into static as the island quaked. Lysandra slammed her rum-filled beaker onto the desk, the liquid inside rippling with the seismic fury.
"Titan's teeth—what now?!" she snarled, snatching a cracked monocle from the chaos of her hair. Her mismatched boots—one steel-toed, one pirate-buckled—skidded on spilled star-metal shavings as she lunged for the central monitor. The screen flashed a blood-red warning:
SUBJECT: IMU-β — VITAL SIGNS DETECTED.
"No, no, no," Lysandra hissed, her voice fraying at the edges. The cryo-chamber's feed showed the mummified Titan-Sea King embryo twitching, its fossilized scales cracking as bioluminescent veins pulsed beneath. The chamber's frost-coated glass fogged with its first breath in millennia. "Stupid brat woke the gate—"
Proto-Mono's giggle crackled over the intercom, tinny and manic. "Wakey-wakey, sleepy sea puppy!"
Lysandra's head snapped toward the speaker, her salt-bleached curls whipping like agitated serpents. "Proto-Mono, you glittering menace—don't you dare touch that console!"
She bolted from the room, her indigo lab coat billowing behind her like a toxic cloud. The hallway shuddered, ceiling panels raining dust as Karathys' obsidian mountains groaned under the Titan-Sea King's wrath. Lysandra hurdled a collapsed drone, its spider-like limbs still sparking, and skidded around a corner—straight into a wall of rainbow-hued foam.
Proto-Mono's voice echoed from a ventilation grate above. "Oopsie! Glitchy made a mess!"
"I'll melt you into soup!" Lysandra roared, clawing through the foam. It singed her gloves, reeking of burnt sugar and static. Down the hall, the cryo-chamber's emergency lights strobed, casting jagged shadows over the words ABYSSAL CONTAINMENT BREACH etched into the blast doors.
The chamber's control panel was a ruin of sparking wires and half-melted buttons—Proto-Mono's "improvements." Lysandra cursed, jamming a Sican hairpin into the override port. "Come on, you fossilized doorstop—"
The hatch hissed open, releasing a gale of freezing air that reeked of primordial brine. Inside, the Imu-β clone floated in its tank, no longer dormant. One lidless eye—a massive, milky orb veined with living gold—rolled toward Lysandra. Its gargantuan tail twitched, cracking the reinforced glass.
Proto-Mono materialized atop the tank, her holographic leg flickering. "Look, Doc! It's alive!"
"Get. DOWN!" Lysandra lunged for a stabilizer syringe labeled PRIMORDIAL SEDATIVE (DO NOT MIX WITH MANGO RUM). The Titan-Sea King's maw yawned open, its teeth—serrated Star-Metal fangs—scraping the tank walls with a sound like nails on slate.
The island shuddered again, deeper this time. Somewhere above, Marya's Void-charged blade clashed with the World Government's lies, and the Primordial Current sang its wrath. Lysandra plunged the syringe into the tank's injection port. "Sleep, you overgrown tadpole—"
The sedative hissed through the tubes. The creature's eye dimmed, its thrashing slowing to a tremble. Proto-Mono pouted, deflating into a puddle of glitter. "Boooo. Party pooper."
Lysandra sagged against the tank, her breath fogging the glass. The clone's eye stared back, a silent promise of chaos deferred. Somewhere, Elisabeta's ghost laughed in the static.
"Next time," Lysandra muttered, pocketing a shard of cracked living gold, "I'm charging double."
*****
The Chamber of Echoes swallowed them in a silence so thick it felt like a living thing. Marya materialized first, her mist coalescing into solid form as she stumbled against the damp, gold-veined wall. The air reeked of burnt copper and ancient brine, the walls weeping rivulets that crystallized into jagged salt shards at their feet. Mihawk landed with a swordsman's grace, Yoru still humming in his grip, while Jelly splattered into a quivering puddle, his bioluminescent glow flickering like a fading flare.
"You're getting reckless," Mihawk said, his voice low but edged—a blade sheathed in velvet.
Marya steadied herself, the Void's curse throbbing in her veins. "The Titan-Sea King isn't an enemy. It's a lockpick," she replied, wiping mercury from her lips. "Mother's notes called it Naylamp's Sentinel. Slay it, and the gate stays sealed—permanently."
Above them, the vault shuddered as the beast's distant roar echoed through the stone, a sound like continents grinding apart. Salt crystals rained down, shattering against Mihawk's shoulders. "And if it escapes into the sea?"
"Then I track it down before the World Government gets hold of it." Marya's gaze flicked to the walls, where Sican glyphs pulsed faintly under a carpet of bioluminescent fungi. The Chamber of Echoes was alive with whispers—voices from the Void Century, murmuring in a language that slithered into her skull.
Mihawk's golden eyes narrowed. "Elisabeta would've said the same."
A ghost of a smirk tugged at Marya's lips. "I'll take that as a compliment."
He sheathed Yoru, the click echoing like a gunshot in the hollow chamber. "Your mist-form still lacks control. You rematerialized half-inside a wall."
"And you still lecture like a Banana Slug." She tilted her head, feigning indifference even as her lungs burned from the strain. "Admit it—you're impressed."
"Hm." Mihawk's brow arched, the closest he'd come to a smile in decades. "Marginally."
Jelly wobbled upright, reshaping into a starfish with too many limbs. "Bloop! Glowy walls!" He poked a fungal cluster, sending spores swirling into the air. One landed on Marya's sleeve, glowing faintly before disintegrating.
She turned, her gloved hand brushing the gold-streaked stone. The moment her fingers made contact, the chamber screamed.
Visions erupted—shadowy tribal priests kneeling before a fissure in the earth, their chants harmonizing with the Primordial Current's drone. Mercury pooled at their feet, reflecting a gate older than time, its surface etched with crimson runes. Then fire, screams, World Government soldiers tossing plague-riddled corpses into the sacred springs, poisoning the Current's heart…
Marya recoiled, the vision searing her retinas. "They burned them. Framed their rituals as heresy…"
Mihawk stepped closer, his shadow merging with hers. "What memories did you see?"
"The island's," she breathed, flexing her cursed hand. The black veins writhed, drinking in the chamber's anguish. "This place isn't just a vault. It's an archive."
A tremor rocked the chamber, dislodging a stalactite that speared the floor between them. Somewhere far above, the Titan-Sea King's roar crescendoed, followed by the thunderous crash of collapsing stone.
"It's breaking free," Mihawk said, gaze sharpening. "If it reaches open water—"
"—the gate stirs," Marya finished. She pressed her palm to the wall again, the gold veins flaring under her touch. "We need the Tears of Naylamp. The ritual requires them."
Jelly oozed toward a crevice, his glow illuminating a narrow tunnel. "Shiny pool that way!"
Mihawk eyed the passage, then his daughter. "You trust that… creature?"
"He's led us this far." Marya strode forward, salt crunching under her boots.
"Arrogance," Mihawk muttered, but followed.
Behind them, the whispers surged—hungry, hungry, hungry—as the chamber's walls began to bleed mercury. The Titan-Sea King's final roar echoed through the tunnels, a sound that carried the weight of centuries. Somewhere, in the dark heart of the ocean, the Primordial Current shifted… and waited.
*****
The lab hummed with the arrhythmic pulse of half-dead machinery, smelling of the coppery tang of prototype serums gone sour. Dr. Lysandra Voss's gloves were smeared with living gold—stolen from the wreckage of a Joy Boy-era automaton—as she recalibrated the stasis chamber's fraying seals. Proto-Mono buzzed around her like a hyperactive firefly, welding a plasma torch to a leaking pipe… or at least attempting to. Sparks rained down, setting fire to a stack of reports labeled SUBJECT: IMU-β.
"Glitchy fixy!" Proto-Mono chirped, her mismatched eyes glowing as she patted the flames with her holographic hand. "See? Shiny ash!"
"Stop helping," Lysandra hissed, swatting at her with a wrench. The clone pouted, flickering in and out of visibility like a bad signal.
Then the transponder snail rang.
It wasn't the usual blurp-blurp. This snail's shell was mother-of-pearl inlaid with the crest of Mariejois, its eyes bloodshot and bulging. Lysandra froze. Proto-Mono reached for it, giggling. "Pretty snail! Can I—?"
"Don't touch that!" Lysandra snatched it, her pulse thundering in her ears. The snail's mouth twisted into Jaygarcia Saturn's sneer before it spoke.
"Dr. Voss." His voice was a winter wind through ancient tombs. "Your last report on Imu-β was… incomplete."
Proto-Mono mimed gagging behind Lysandra's back. The doctor shot her a warning glare, fingers tightening on the receiver. "The clone's synaptic web is stable, Your Eminence. No further degradation since—"
"The stasis alarms triggered nineteen minutes ago." The snail's mucus bubbled angrily. "You expect me to believe a rat tripped the security grids?"
Lysandra's gaze darted to the cracked chamber behind her. Inside, the Imu-β clone floated serenely, its hair swirling like ink in water. A single golden shard—the one burning in her pocket—had been pried from its chest. To keep it dormant. To keep it hers.
"Minor containment breach," she lied smoothly. "A faulty sensor. Proto-Mono's… exuberance—"
"—is why you should've scrapped her when Vegapunk ordered it." Saturn's sigh crackled like parchment. "Where is Commander Orpheus? His team was to neutralize the Dracule infestation."
Infestation. As if Mihawk were a roach, not the man who'd once split glaciers for fun. Lysandra's nails bit into her palm. "Orpheus hasn't reported in. If the mission's failed—"
"Failure," Saturn interrupted, "is a luxury the World Government does not indulge." The snail's eyes rolled back, revealing twin spiral patterns—the mark of the Five Elders' authority. "Your sentimentality blinds you, Doctor. First Proto-Mono, now Orpheus. Must I remind you what happens to liabilities?"
The threat hung like a blade. Somewhere in the bowels of Mariejois, she knew, stood the Amber Crypt—a museum of scientists turned statues, their faces frozen in silent screams.
Proto-Mono, oblivious, hummed as she juggled bolts. One clattered into the Imu-β chamber, skittering across the glass. The clone's eye snapped open.
Gold.
Rot.
The laugh of a queen dead for eight hundred years.
Lysandra slammed a hand on the emergency shield. "Everything's under control," she barked, too sharp. Proto-Mono blinked at her, mechanical fingers twitching.
Saturn's silence was worse than a shout. When he spoke again, frost crept across the lab's walls. "Marcellus. Gereon. You've dawdled long enough."
Two new voices answered—one like shattering crystal, the other the scrape of chains.
"At your service, Your Eminence~," crooned Mirror Marcellus, his words reflecting back in eerie stereo.
Guillotine Gereon said nothing. The snail's shell cracked under the weight of his Haki.
"Clean up this mess," Saturn said. "Leave no witnesses. Not even the good doctor's pets."
The line died. Proto-Mono poked the snail. "Boring talky-man! Let's make boom lights again!"
Lysandra stared at the Imu-β clone. Its eye followed her, pupil dilating into a black hole ringed with living gold. Elisabeta's voice—her voice, from another life—hissed in her memory: You're still a thief, little sister. Stealing time from gods.
"Change of plans," Lysandra muttered, yanking cables from the chamber. The lab's lights dimmed as ancient machinery whirred to life. "Proto. Fetch the SAD vials. And the… the other specimen."
The clone saluted, her hologram arm glitching into a squid tentacle. "Glitchy fixy!"
"No," Lysandra whispered, pouring stolen gold into the reactor core. The Imu-β clone smiled as its veins lit up. "This time, we burn."
Outside, storm clouds swallowed the moon. Somewhere on a distant island, Mihawk's blade sang, sensing the approach of glass and chains.