"Don't underestimate the technology of Germa 66!"
Vinsmoke Judge's voice trembled with both rage and desperation. His heart had nearly given out under the suffocating pressure of Douglas Bullet's aura, and a moment earlier he had already decided to abandon everything—his soldiers, his kingdom, all of Germa's steel walls—just to escape with his wife and children from the North Sea.
But Bullet's words froze him in midair.
That contempt. That sneer. That challenge.
If Dr. Vegapunk was the Pirate King of the scientific world, then Vinsmoke Judge considered himself its Four Emperor—a rival monarch of science. And how could an emperor endure the mockery of a brute like Douglas Bullet?
His greatest creations, his children—the bloodline-modified cyborgs—were not yet perfected, not yet ready to be unleashed. But even so, his pride in Germa's technology would not allow this humiliation to stand.
Bullet's grin widened.
"Excuse me," he said with a dismissive shrug, his tone cruel. "But it's really hard not to underestimate weapons of this level."
He spread his fingers. "Forget it. Let me show you what a real weapon is."
…
Bullet's palm flipped downward, and from his skin oozed a tide of thick, violet liquid—the signature manifestation of his Fusion-Fusion Fruit. The living metal cascaded like molten tidewater, engulfing the crashed B-2 bomber at his feet.
He had not come with only one weapon. The bomber's cabin was packed with spare steel, munitions, and raw materials, prepared for this very purpose. With his ability, every gun, every shell, every plate of steel became malleable clay. A battlefield such as this—steel walls, mechanical laboratories, ships—was a paradise of material for him to reshape at will.
The bomber groaned, its cabin hatch opening with the sound of grinding iron.
And from within, a figure emerged.
His face was sharp, chiseled as if cut by a blade. His features were not handsome, but his expression carried the cold, unyielding stillness of a weapon forged for war.
Judge sneered. "This is your weapon? He's clearly human."
But his scorn lasted only a second.
Clang—!
The figure extended an arm. In an instant, flesh rippled and reshaped, the entire limb transforming into gleaming silver steel—a blade. With lethal precision, he drove the sword through the throat of the nearest clone soldier.
Blood sprayed. The clone crumpled.
"Fire!"
Rifles roared. Gunfire thundered like a storm. Bullets slammed into the intruder's body, riddling him with holes until he looked like nothing more than shredded meat.
But Judge's smirk died.
The wounds did not bleed. They rippled. They closed.
Liquid metal knit itself whole, as though nothing had happened.
Judge's eyes widened. "He… is he a Devil Fruit user?"
Bullet barked a laugh. "No." His arms crossed over his chest, and he spoke with disdain as the figure reformed, standing untouched.
"He's just a weapon."
The cruel grin on Bullet's face deepened.
"The Admiral calls this one the Terminator T-1000."
And as Judge's disbelief twisted into horror, the hatch of the bomber opened again.
A second figure emerged. Identical face. Identical height. Identical cold, steel gaze.
…
Rosen had foreseen this.
Once he learned of the Fusion-Fusion Fruit's properties, he had commanded Bullet to attempt this creation. If the bomber could be reshaped into a fortress, why not mold steel into soldiers?
Why not craft the image of unstoppable, self-healing war machines?
And so, the Terminator T-1000 was born.
…
Judge's face twisted with both rage and denial.
"What Terminator T-1000?!" he spat. "This is nothing but bloodline factor work! Don't tell me a thug like you understands such advanced science!"
But his words were hollow.
Inside, despair coiled in his gut.
His own children—Reiju, Ichi, Niji, Yonji—were still only prototypes, their bloodline modifications unstable, their fates uncertain. Years of research, and he had yet to perfect them.
Yet here stood Bullet, a man who didn't even understand science, who had forged something beyond his reach in a matter of days.
Bullet shrugged, unconcerned.
"I don't care about bloodline factors. I don't care about science. What I care about—" his arms extended, fingers flexing as the hatch behind him thundered open wider—"is weapons."
One after another, identical figures poured forth.
Five. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
Thirty soldiers, each one a Terminator T-1000. Each one indistinguishable from the next.
Bullet snapped his fingers.
"Show him."
…
The thirty Terminators moved as one, a tide of silver rushing forward with the speed of predators unleashed from their cage.
Clone soldiers opened fire in reflex, their training ingrained too deep to hesitate. Bullets tore into the enemy, shells blasted their chests apart, explosions ripped silver flesh into splattered pools of liquid metal.
For a moment, it looked like victory.
But then the liquid surged. And every wound sealed.
They advanced again.
The clash was merciless. Blades sprouted from arms, liquid steel hardening into swords and spears that sliced through clone soldiers like wheat before a scythe. Guns torn from dead hands were turned against their own comrades.
A battle of attrition unfolded: fearless clones without retreat, against invincible weapons without weakness.
At first, sheer numbers gave the clones a fragile advantage.
Bullets slowed the Terminators, blasts sent them crashing backward. For fleeting minutes, it seemed Germa's army might hold.
But inevitability revealed itself.
A clone's magazine emptied. A Terminator reached him. Steel split his throat. Another soldier fell, then another.
The balance tipped.
And once it tipped, it never righted itself again.
…
The battlefield of Germa drowned in blood.
The clones fought to their last breath, but courage could not replace mortality. Every bullet they fired killed nothing. Every strike they endured was fatal.
Their numbers dwindled. Ten fell, then twenty, then fifty. The tide of Terminators remained untouched, thirty shadows of liquid steel reaping without pause.
Until, at last—
Silence.
The last clone dropped, his chest pierced through by a silver blade. His body fell among the countless corpses of his brothers.
The thirty Terminators withdrew, their metallic forms reforming into human likeness once more. In unison, they raised their right hands and extended a single finger upward—mocking, disdainful—at the lone figure hovering in the sky.
At Vinsmoke Judge.
…
Below, Germa's proud clone army lay broken. The sea kingdom was littered with cold corpses, the once-perfect soldiers now nothing more than butchered flesh.
Above, Judge's cape fluttered in the wind. His eyes reflected the thirty identical figures staring back at him with mocking silence.
For the first time, his pride in Germa's science collapsed.
A king without an army.
A scientist without superiority.
A man stripped of everything.
At that moment, Vinsmoke Judge was no longer a monarch of technology—only the king of a fallen nation, left trembling before the Admiral's weapon.