"H-Help me, Quasar!!"
Dr. Vegapunk cried out for help as he was lifted by the scruff of his neck. His bodyguard, Sentomaru, standing nearby, looked on with exasperation.
"Nah… This time, it's your fault, old man."
"What… And I thought you, at least, were on my side!?"
"I'm your bodyguard, old man, but from what I heard, Punk's the one in the wrong here."
The one holding him aloft was Adonis Ragnell, an executive of Twilight who had traveled from Dressrosa to Egghead. Ragnell's imposing height, exceeding five meters, meant Vegapunk was dangling at a height even Sentomaru had to look up to.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Ragnell demanded.
"No, I truly am sorry… but I have absolutely no memory of it."
"It seems a proper squeezing is necessary after all…!"
"Help me, Quasar!!"
"Enough with that already!!" Sentomaru snapped.
The incident began with a woman named Alpha Maraptonoka. A merchant of death dealing in weapons, armaments, and slaves, slipping through the cracks of Twilight's business… while troublesome, it wasn't enough for Kanata to raise a major fuss. However, turning against Twilight was a different story.
Maraptonoka was the culprit behind the attack on the sky island named Skypiea. Because this woman was, from a general perspective, exceptionally peculiar, Ragnell had come to Egghead to question Vegapunk, deeming it highly likely he was connected.
And her prediction had hit the mark.
"Maraptonoka is indeed my daughter. Though we share no blood…"
"Did you pick her up somewhere?"
"I would prefer if you said created…"
"That detail doesn't matter. The problem is that she is hostile towards us."
"That child should be gathering funds for my research. I can't imagine her doing such a thing."
Maraptonoka surely knew that one of Vegapunk's funding sources was Twilight. If she still acted hostile, there must have been a compelling reason. Or perhaps she had arrogantly assumed her relationship with Vegapunk would never be discovered. Whatever the case, since the incident occurred, appropriate responsibility had to be taken.
"Tell me everything you know about Alpha Maraptonoka. I have orders from the Boss that any false report will result in a budget reduction each time."
"Th-That would be terrible! The government budget alone is nowhere near enough!"
"Then answer truthfully."
"Mmm…"
Shoulders slumping in defeat, Vegapunk finally agreed to sit down and talk. The significant height difference made sharing the same table somewhat difficult, but Ragnell, unconcerned, sat on the floor, ready to listen to Vegapunk's testimony.
"Where should I begin… Her name?"
"We know the name. She seems to have a family name, but where is she from?"
"? That's not a family name. Alpha is more like an identification code. The name Maraptonoka was added later."
"…Her age?"
"In human terms, she'd be in her mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Though, her precise age is unknown. It seems her aging slows considerably once she reaches a certain level of growth."
"...Your answers have been rather strange from the start."
Ragnell had assumed Vegapunk had simply found a child somewhere and fed her a strange Devil Fruit, but his handling of the subject felt off. His answers consistently sounded as if Maraptonoka wasn't human. Assigning the identification code Alpha to a test subject was understandable, but Ragnell couldn't help but frown at the fact that her age was unknown.
"That would be correct. That child isn't human to begin with."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll omit the details, but that child is a special lifeform created in this laboratory."
She was an existence created by collecting the lineage factors of ability users generally known as "Mythical Zoans" and condensing all those factors into a single individual. The experiment originally aimed to create mythical beasts using lineage factors extracted from Mythical Zoan users who could transform into creatures that didn't actually exist. Throwing them all together was purely Vegapunk indulging his own whims. He could have succeeded by creating them one by one over time, but he couldn't suppress his curiosity about what would happen if multiple lineage factors were combined.
"The result was Subject Alpha—Alpha Maraptonoka."
"…I see."
Honestly, Ragnell didn't understand a word he was saying, but she could tell it was ethically questionable. She also understood, even from just these few hours together, that expecting ethical considerations from the man before her was pointless.
"Then, what about the transformation ability characteristic of Zoan types?"
"Ah, about that…"
Vegapunk's eyes darted around, looking extremely reluctant to speak. He glanced at Ragnell, considering trying to bluff his way through with an excuse, but gave up under her murderous glare. Realizing a sudden explanation wouldn't make sense, he prefaced it by saying the topic would shift slightly.
"How much do you know about the 'Satellites' I created?"
"I heard they are clone duplicates synchronized with your memories."
"Hmm. Roughly correct."
There were minor functions like shared and linked basic desires, but those weren't important now. The key fact was that Vegapunk had chosen to multiply himself.
"Faced with insufficient funds, time, thought… various deficiencies for what I wanted to achieve, I thought: If only there were two of me."
"And the result was the Satellites… The thoughts of a genius are incomprehensible."
"Mmm. That aside, I can artificially create Zoan-type Devil Fruits, you know."
"What does that have to do with the current topic… No, wait, surely you don't mean—"
"Indeed. I once created an artificial Devil Fruit using my own lineage factor."
Vegapunk was a genius of rare caliber. Having someone with the same intellect would allow tasks to be divided, and conversing at the same speed of thought could even spark various new ideas from the nuances of conversation. In that sense, an existence with the same intellect but a slightly different thought process was extremely valuable and hard to come by. There wasn't another genius in the world on the same level as Vegapunk.
"In the end, selecting someone to eat the artificial Devil Fruit proved difficult, and the plan was scrapped… but the fruit itself remained, rolling around in storage."
"What about management…" Ragnell muttered.
"Well, carelessness is the only explanation. In any case, that child ate the Devil Fruit and obtained my intellect."
The Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Vegapunk, so to speak. By consuming it, Maraptonoka gained human abilities—and moreover, the brain of a rare genius—and was now apparently doing whatever she pleased.
"…I'm not familiar with lineage factors and the like, but if she ate a Devil Fruit based on you, wouldn't her appearance resemble yours?"
"That's what I wondered too. So I conducted detailed tests, but the results were inconclusive."
Judging by his genuinely frustrated expression, his dissatisfaction likely stemmed from his inability as a scientist to unravel the mystery. Maraptonoka herself was a monstrous creature created by mixing various lineage factors; it wouldn't be strange if some inexplicable phenomena beyond human understanding occurred. Ultimately, Vegapunk had apparently defined her appearance as "his own ideal form."
"Her physical base was the Kyubi no Kitsune. Its ability allows it to change its form at will. I suspect that is likely acting unconsciously… or so I believe."
"…How many lineage factors did you mix?"
"Four."
The base, the Kyubi no Kitsune. Kaido's ability, the Azure Dragon. Kaido's child, Yamato's ability, the Okuchi no Makami. Marco's ability, the Phoenix. Each was powerful enough on its own, but mixing the lineage factors had apparently weakened the individual abilities themselves. As Ragnell listened to Vegapunk, her expression grew increasingly disgusted.
"I just heard something I can't ignore… Kaido has a child?"
"You didn't know? Well, I only learned recently myself…"
If Mythical Zoan creatures could be freely controlled, it would lead to an increase in the government's military strength. Cipher Pol had therefore been very cooperative. Vegapunk had become interested in blood provided by CP0 and asked whose it was and what kind of ability user they were. She told him, asking him to keep the source confidential.
"Kaido's son, who isn't publicly known… A child named Yamato."
"…Yamato, huh."
"Because he's rebellious towards Kaido, he's apparently kept confined with handcuffs and a collar at their base in Wano Country."
"I'll remember that. I must report it to the Boss without fail. But how did you obtain such a thing?"
"Bought it with money. In this sea, the only ones managing finances well are Twilight, Red Hair who benefits from them, and the Navy. The abilities of Whitebeard's commanders were obtained through similar means."
Though the contact for dealing with Whitebeard wasn't CP0, but someone else. Regardless, Alpha Maraptonoka was the result of mixing lineage factors obtained in such ways. She was an opponent who could survive against Komurasaki, even if she was on the defensive. Even Ragnell couldn't afford to be careless. Funneling funds obtained from Twilight and the World Government to hostile forces was something that would normally warrant being thoroughly beaten down, but… dealing with Vegapunk that way wasn't an option, which made things difficult. Twilight also benefited, not insignificantly, from his creations.
"When did you create Alpha Maraptonoka?"
"About… four or five years ago, perhaps. I believe she started working at sea around three years ago."
It wasn't much different from the information Twilight possessed. They had estimated her age to be around her twenties based on her appearance and found it unsettling that her history before becoming a merchant was completely untraceable… but it was simple. There was no history to trace in the first place.
Finally, Ragnell asked, "Can't you make her listen to reason?" Vegapunk shook his head weakly.
"Funds and materials are occasionally sent to me, but we don't communicate frequently. Making her obey me is impossible."
"Can't even keep a leash on her, huh. You've unleashed quite a troublesome one."
"I apologize… If there's anything else I can do, please rely on me, Quasar."
Vegapunk had no intention of causing trouble for his sponsors either. He understood that ordinary business couldn't generate the funds he required, but still, the parental sentiment wished she could live a more honest life.
That aside.
"I've told you everything I know… but what about the funding?"
"It's a fact that she caused us damages. The funding will likely decrease somewhat. The specific amount will be communicated later."
Hearing this, Vegapunk's shoulders slumped dramatically.