Chapter 18: Mad scientist Vegapunk
(AN: I'm going to hunt down Oda for making Vegapunk that confusing. If I want to make it as accurate as possible, I need to wait months, or even years, until he explains all the things about Vegapunk. This is my honest and earnest attempt at making this new Vegapunk work. At the moment, I don't feel like rewriting it. Let's just all accept that my Vegapunk is better.
This is five times more than my regular chapter. Sorry for the wait.
Also, there is a link to my Discord server in this comment; join, but there is nothing for you there.)
King POV
They are always off with their estimations by a mile, which is surprisingly good. It's like our ship toggled no collision and is rushing through everything, kind of like cheating. But nobody is getting hurt, so it's fine.
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Every single creature in the sea got hurt when Kings speeding ship named "The Throne" passed by. Abominations of Cthluhu who pushed the ship, while being under it, got really hungry waiting for the next order in that islands underwater caves, so they made calm belt really really calm just by grabbing whatver or whoever was nearby.
Most of the hundreds of creatures mutated even further, growing new fins and limbs to swim faster and faster. At this point, there are only a few ships of the competing with "The Throne" for the title of fastest vessel to ever traverse the seas.
In the meantime Grey Guard as they were named by the people of the Los Angels, and just yesterday oficially by the official decree, enjoyed the new equipment to test their new limits without any rest.
Five tons of bench press? Not even challenging.
One finger push ups with a stick of dynamite thrown at the person every twenty seconds? Boring.
After a few days of travel, they realised their current limits. While their overall power has increased, their equipment wasn't enough. In their training duels and battles, their weapons broke, their clothing tore, but they remained mostly unharmed.
Most of the harm came from the second in command of Grey Guard. Since he took the first and biggest sip of the "Kings Brew" there was nobody amongst his crew who could stand a chance. Since then, he has abrogated his own name, as he considered it a sign of his old, weak self. His shining head was a sign of the hard work he had done to be worthy of such a chance given by King.
Or maybe he said it to himself in order to feel better about the other 32 people around him having stylish grey hair.
In the meantime, King wasted away on writing his script and reading books that they placed in his library. He heard about the island of Ohara that once existed in West Blue. The secrets of this world maybe didn't interest King too much, but it would've been good for some elements in his own story.
During that time, he also started to cook himself a little bit. Medium-rare chicken was a bad experiment. King found out that he actually had a lot of free time to enjoy, as well as a failed attempt to start working out. He did ten push-ups and gave up.
It took them only a staggering week to reach their point of destination. Normal (much lighter) ship took at least twice as long going in a straight line with the wind always blowing in the right direction.
"The Throne" entered the Grand Line. The immensely famous, unpredictable weather has shown itself. There really wasnt a good navigator on board to know how to deal with it. For the crew, King seemed confident enough where they were sailing, but for King, he thought that the crew had everything under control. Ignorance is truly bliss.
Quite soon, an island was seen on the horizon. If you can call it an island. More like a giant blob in the water. A large, white, oddly non-shiny ball was sitting in the water, partially submerged. Unmoving. A menacing object to behold in the sea. ゴゴゴゴ
With a messenger saying the news of their arrival at the destination, King walked up to the deck and looked at the object for a few seconds before saying: "Let's just stop like last time, maybe closer this time."
"As you command."- responded the person behind the steering wheel in a deep, booming voice.
And then King went back to his room to maybe put his jacket back in the closet since it was way hotter here for some damned reason. King already disliked the weather changes.
In the meantime, creatures heard the command and, blindly following the order, continued to carry the ship forward, but slower so that they could stop the movement on a whim of their master.
As the distance closed in, smoke emerged from the side that they were approaching, he heard loud sounds of something opening. King viewed it as a miracle. He crossed his arms to stop them from moving from excitement.
'PLEASE WORK ON ELECTRICITY, PLEASE, PLEASE' King pleaded in his mind over and over.
Electricity means technology. Sweet, sweet technology. It's been more than 5 weeks since he woke up in this strange world. And King missed home very much. People here were mostly nice to him. Some were crazy, but almost no monsters, which was a fresh new experience, but nevermind that, King still wanted to return home and kiss his TV and every single one of his games, even the bad ones.
Water started flowing into the opened vertical gate with amazing speed, slowly revealing the giant room, clearly designed to be a docking station for much bigger vessels. Lighting was done by a big lamps with a warm light on the walls. Looking closer, people couldn't guess the white-grayish material the place was made from, only valid guess is that it is a weird mix of cement and plastic. On the docking platform itself, it had most of the essentials for any kind of ship needing to stop, as well as a poorly lit tunnel in the back, leading somewhere unbeknownst.
As soon as the stern of The Throne fully passed through the gate, the alarms screeched. The lights turned red and began to flash, causing a great deal of panic and confusion to the people on the ship.
*BEEEEEP*
"UNAUTHORISED ENTITIES DETECTED" female robotic voice played from somewhere, but because of the room itself, nobody could point to it exactly. The gate, from which they entered, began to close way faster than it had been opening before.
The ship slowly came to a halt at the end of the docking area as monsters rested, now standing on the artificial underwater bottom. Winds died away, and the ship came to a halt.The Grey Guard's three giants looked up to the King, waiting for orders.
King in a panic, began to think what could have caused this.
'Maybe its me? I'm from other world! What if they experiment on me?'
*BOOM*
The entrance shut down completely, leaving The Throne trapped inside.
Not a second later, circular sections of varying sizes on the walls spun around, revealing many different rays, guns, and turrets mounted all over the place.
They rattled and screeched, turning towards the target. Hundreds of weapons.
Grey Guard grabbed their weapons and arranged themselves to be in a circle around King for protection. Thirty-three giants that were at least 3 meters tall (10 feet) worked well for that. Their faces were full of rage, prepared to do everything.
Because some of the turrets high up on the walls still had lasers at Kings face, he hid his face behind his hand, still trying to think about his fate. Stress overwhelmed him.
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
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King POV
What is this, an evil genius's lair? What am I even supposed to do!?
Frankly, with time I accepted that my death is always behind the corner, but this time its not just death, its horrifying experiments and then maybe death. Mommy!
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
"Did you perhaps bring something highly unique here? Can you lend it to me?"
Who is that? No evil laughter is a good sign.
Maybe it's Vegapunk himself.
I could try to play it off. Do I still have a chance?
I reply: "Is it necessary?"
I need information.
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
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King slowly used his hand to clean his eyes from tears, revealing highly irritated from all these lasers eyes that looked full of rage and fury ready to be unleashed. King Engine sounds were booming through the place. His entire body looked like it was being forcefully controlled not to attack the threat. He slowly looked all over the place, trying to find the man he had just heard. He noticed that the entrance from which they came was already completely closed.
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
"SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD! KING IS HERE, YOU HAVE NO CHANCE!" shouted one of the enraged Grey Guard ready to fight for King. The veins on his hands and head were bulging from the anger he was feeling.
Others stayed in silence, focused, still waiting for orders.
...
A couple seconds later, a large triangle-shaped upper section of the wall started extending towards the ship, reaching further and further right before it.
Half of the crew pointed their guns at it. Muskets looked like small toy pistols in their hands. They had previously had to modify them so their new big fingers could actually use them. They decided that this triangle object would be the biggest weapon, and they were ready for it.
King Engine still worked, adding to the tension of Grey Guard.
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
The triangular prism then popped open in the upper corner and moved two sides to the sides, forming a broad platform with handrails on which stood a person about 180 cm (6') tall.
He wore an all-black three-piece suit with a bowtie. This intimidating man had slick blonde hair, a sleazy nerveous smile, and red eyes burning with intrest. His face was very masculine and strong; his sharp jawline and high cheekbones made him look like a businessman and not like a scientist. Under his vest and jacket, he wore some kind of grey bodysuit, which had "Punk03" on it.
He coughed a couple of times before talking.
Many of the Grey Guards shot at him, but it had no effect as some invisible field before him sparked with blue light and made bullets disappear with blue light. He slightly frowned at this attempt.
"Relax, I was just joking earlier. Let me turn off all of this, takes a while. Please bear with me."
He pulled his sleeve back and began to type something on the device on his right wrist with incredible speed.
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
If their ranged attacks failed, some of the giants began planning to simply jump to the target. But as they were winding up to do it, King spoke.
"This was a joke? ....Was it?"
King at the moment grasped the opportunity, so he acted nice.
It became difficult to breathe for others. Pressure was so immense.
"Ha-ha.....This was extremely fun for all of us." King did the dryest laugh to his shame and complimented the man in hope of making it out alive, face was still tense and nervous, and King Engine active.
"I'm done. I'm done" said the man. Turrets turned back into walls.
Sparks were seen coming out of the platform on which the owner of this place was standing just as he finished speaking. It started to shake suddenly and it slammed down the deck of the ship throwing him out. He couldn't react in time to it and fell on his back just to see people pointing guns at his face, but the man in a suit didn't even blink.
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
He decided to speak before anything else.
"King, Guys, my friends! I just joked a little, that's how I am, punk 03, Edison.", said Edison quickly as he inclined his head backwards to speak face to face with King, ignoring anyone else.
"Is that so?" said King slowly, just to be careful.
Some of the Grey Guard members cracked their fingers which convinced Edison to continue lying on the his back unmoving, looking King straight in the eyes full of sincerity and confusion about what just happened.
*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*
Silence fell. Soon enough, King Engine stopped.
People breathed out.
"You need help standing up?" King asked.
Before giants even came close to do from his back emerged some force got him onto his feet in a moment. He turned to King and smiled once again.
"I'm fine, this suit is tougher than steel ten times over. Helping immidiatly person who ACCIDENTALY pointed at you few hundred weapons, no wonder people call you King, the Hero. Forgiving, are you? Do you help old ladies carry groceries as well?"
"Just King."
"Not the funny type, are you?" asked Edison jokingly.
King ignored his question. He asked instead:
"Are you Vegapunk or not?"
"I am and I am not."
King raised his eyebrow in intrigue. He fell into deep thought as he placed his hand on his chin.
'Clone? A robot? Hologram?'
"Let's go to a more fitting place to talk. You want to check out my lab?"
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King POV
I almost thought he died falling from that thing. And my guys are really not helping, but I couldn't gather the strength to tell them to put their guns away. They are scary, my heart can't keep up.
Honestly, he is like Child Emperor, very....unique person. If he is a genius, as I heard, that makes sense, comes as a package, doesn't it?
I'll do everything in my power to stop him from joking like that. He probably heard many dumb things about me, so bluffing will work to a certain extent.
If he jokes like that, I wonder what happens when he becomes serious? I originally expected him to be an old man. Being the most famous scientist around here and all. He looks forty years old, which is young for someone who is called the greatest.
I wish I knew that he was this crazy before I came here. But this thing of him being Vegapunk and not at the same time is really intresting.
He said he was Punk03, so there is atleast three or four depending if he has number zero.
I'll try to be nice with this Edison, Vegapunk, whatever. Really doesnt help that he is loud and obnoxious mad sicentist with a lot of unknown tech, including invisible force field.
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"I have really nice lounge over there down the tunnel. Let's go guys!" Edison sayed like nothing ever happened. His gait was spilling over confindence, always taking big steps and overall bouncy.
They followed him quietly seeing that King was fine with it.
Not ten steps later he turned back his head.
"Oh, by the way. You are supersoldiers right, can I borrow one to check out what you did improve? I promise minimal cutting." said Edison as he licked his lips as a creep.
Grey Guard were not scared at all. First of all they already seen that he is no match for King but also they tested their regeneration, and that they decided that they would probably survive losing all their limbs.
But King got a little scared by that. He clenched his jaw. Even the thought of blood made him dizzy.
They soon came to a large room with fridges, couches and....
"TV?" King exclaimed. He felt the surge of happiness wash over him, destoying all stress.
It wasnt an old big TV. Edison jumped straight to flat screen giant screen. King felt strong admiration for the inventor.
"What? How do you know its name? I just made it like a week ago?" Edison was taken back. He squinted his eyes. "King... are you.... a wizard? A sorcerer? If you are, please refrain from breaking any more of my stuff."
"...It was a guess. Got lucky." King said calmly.
*Sign*
"Luck? Fine." Edison replied losing his smirk, he looked a little lost and his eyes stared into nothingness as he fell into a deep thought.
In the meantime King approached the TV and looked for a way to turn in on. There was no remote so he touched behind it to find the buttons on the back and so he did.
When he did he stepped back to look what was started playing he saw a slideshow of some high quality photos of flowers, mountains, and selfies with Edison in them. Mostly selfies.
Edison returned from trance, turned to King and said:
"Oh, that is kind of it for the time being. I didn't have time to really create something to watch besides the photos I took as tests for color correction. Any suggestions?"
King took a pause before answering.
"Can we go speak in private?"
Edison became nervous in an instant.
"Um, fine. Just tell your guys to not break anything in here. That's where I meet people who give me more money. It's really important. Follow me." As he said it he pointed his index finger upwards.
King just looked at his crew and thought: 'They are not children.'
And so King and Edison went up to a wall. Edison took a second to do something with the device on his wrist that opened up another passage to a different part of this place.
Grey Guard divided into groups to wait for King in the room, examine the damage of the ships if any, prepare better weapons, and so on.
King and Edison walked through what looked like a labyrinth of chaos. Everything was here.
King looked at suspisous mining cart they passed by full of glowing rocks.
"They found these funny glowing things in a mine and gave it to me. It makes for good candlelight. My skin is itchy lately, maybe I've got an allergy."
King stepped as far away as possible from the cart.
Taking hundreds of turns, they passed by exposed wires lying on the ground, tubes of green liquid with various animals, a giant metallic pod, a big gun under a dusty glasscase that read "BFG 9000", random pieces of scrap, sets of big armor hanging from the ceiling, a pile of electronic circuits, and so much more that King couldn't comprehend how much this place had.
Soon enough, they came to the middle of the room, which turned out to be a center of the entire island, indicated by seeing a dome above them. In the middle, he had a couple hundred bookcases. Good detail in that most of the books were anywhere but on the bookcases. Some were burnt, some were moist, a couple even had a mystical glow to them.
A mountain of junk in the middle is where they stopped.
Edison said:
"It's been quite some time since people came to visit me here. Let me clean up."
And he once again typed something on his wrist device before turning his palm towards the rubble and saying: "Poof!"
*KABOOOM*
From his hand erupted a powerful blast of orange energy, throwing most things to the roof of the building, revealing a bolted down set of nice cushioned chairs and a table. Howewer Edison looked like he hadn't suffered any backlash from that.
A few seconds later, the sounds of many items falling were heard.
King was stunned.
'DAMN! That's some alien tech. I'm not getting on his bad side.'
"Please be seated." said Edison as he pointed to one of the chairs.
King sat down carefully, and Edison sat right in front of him.
"Let's make the explanation quick. I'm Vegapunk, but there is more of me out there."
King paid close attention.
"I worked with the guy who first created clones, and so I took it upon myself to do something different with it. Being a most genius scientist with great ambitions and capabilities is quite limiting when you only have so much time. So I divided myself into six of myself. Me being the third, Punk 03.
We took different approaches to our combined research with different characters we made for ourselves. I'm the ideas guy. I think we have new stuff to create using our knowledge, make basic prototypes and share them with others. I'm also the one who speaks with my employers the most. I wouldn't want them to talk with Lilith a lot; she can be a little intense, but she sure makes good weapons.
I can see why people get confused about this, but my efficency like this skyrocketed way beyond expected 600%. And that's what I care about.
King. I heard a lot about you, and that means something considering I never get out of here. I'm not going to ask how you broke my super armored pod for grettings, but I'd like to know pretty much everything else you did in your research.
So, can we exchange knowledge and work together for a little bit? I'm sure you have something great for me, but my time is valueless."
King took a while to answer. Edison was tapping his foot on the floor impatiently but still had some fear of King, showing in his body language and having his entire body turned to him.
King was a bit overwhelmed by that explanation, but he got the most important details.
"Cool, I guess..... Long story short, I got teleported here from another world. You do have a teleport, right? I'm not sure I can be of any help."
Edison's eyebrows went up and his entire body was now showing absolute attention as he spoke at insane speeds. He stood up from his chair.
"Different world? Like a parallel universe? Do I exist there? Do you exist here?! Damn, I'm getting fired up!"
King was taken aback by this enthusiasm.
"Completly diffrent world. Do you have a way for me to get home?"
Edison waved his hands in a denial, but still excitedly said:
"I'm sorry. Not developed at all. I dabbled in theory made by fellow Vegapunk Shaka, but that was it. And I'm not even sure that works for different dimensions or even universes!"
King face became grim.
"What would it take for you to make something that could?"
Edison placed his hands on his head to think. He walked back and forth. After a few minutes of intense thinking, he speaks:
"If you can get me a devil fruit that can do something in the nature of space distorsion, I think I can feed it to a powerful ray and try to control what comes out. I'll have to work with fellow Vegapunk Shaka, maybe even Pythagoras, about this one, and only after getting the needed devil fruit.
On another note. What can you give me in return?"
As he said the last line, his face became positively greedy. He once again sat down and placed one leg on the other.
King without any hesitation, replied:
"I have an idea for a completely new market. It will make you billions. Worked in my world."
"Billions?" Edison mumbled to himself in shock.
King nodded with all the seriousness he had.
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Two weeks passed by quickly.
King was given a full encyclopedia of devil fruits, in order to know which was which if he even encountered them, but he barely opened it. He spent most of his time with Edison brainstorming ways to create portable game consoles for himself and the public.
It turned out that just adapting a device Edison had on his wrist wasn't enough. It could do many things, but its processing was basic, mostly aimed at giving commands, not executing them. And after many discussions, they finally decided not putting in a gravity gun, much to Edison's disapproval.
But they still had to adapt to the market, so to speak. Not a whole lot of people in this world have electricity, so Edison installed one of his batteries, which has a lifespan of up to 130 years, which was... sufficient.
During the time they worked together, Edison was impressed beyond belief by the level of understanding needed to create the "Perfect Handheld Console". King adjusted the material used, shape, colors, and even weight of the device, adding a little more to it. King explained that a heavier console would feel more valuable and would sell better. (AN: real thing people do irl btw.)
In the end, the design they stuck with was a console that was a mix between Stemdeck and the Nintundo Switch. Big enough to be used by people with larger hands, but kids can still use all the buttons and the touchpad. A big screen with good resolution, and a cooling system King never saw before, which was so effective it could actually freeze the console underwater if needed. The color variants were as follows: deep blue, white, grey, and red.
For those who live in harsh weather conditions, Edison took it upon himself to make it as resistant to everything as possible.
Grey Guard members decided that they could use all the free scrap Edison had lying around and he allowed them to use some. He even occasionally did something he called "rest". During the time he decided he was overwhelmed by current work, he went on to do other, "easier" work, like helping create large suits of incredible armor made out of amazingly tough alloy and giant smart weapons with ammo that was accelerated as it flew through the air and exploded when needed to. But in the end, they had done most of the work making them, not inculding the smart parts, but without a doubt, they all now knew how to fix them up themselves.
There was a time when King asked Edison, if he ever sleeps, reply was:
"Sleep can wait a few months." (AN: no, it cannot, he is insane for a reason)
Edison, from time to time, had to meet guests from the World Government, but nothing major that would change the amount of time Edison had to create a portable device. At least that's what he said.
Since King's knowledge of hardware was very insignificant, he let the mad genius do his thing while he tried to rebuild the basics of the game he played ages ago, that would be enjoyable and not impossible to make. He wrote down every single thing he remembered about Poketmons.
It would have been silly to create the same game, essentially ripping off the original, so King added his own features, improved the game's balance, added more to explore and find out, and so on.
During the time he did that, King really enjoyed the company of the mad scientist. Edison wasn't a bad person; he was just a little too focused on continuing his research, and all that went with it didn't really bother him.
Edison is eager to help and push the limits of technology further in all directions.
King was aware that there were five different Vegapunks who were fundamentally different people, but he could always count on Edison as a pal. Yeah, he occasionally tries to do something stupid, like trying to blow up nearby islands to check his new explosives, but he can be convinced not to do that without much problem. On the other hand, Edison's initial caution and small amount of fear of King died down. He heard that King is extremely powerful, and he instantly proved it first time they met, and then nothing. Just like a gentle warning.
After the incident, King mostly showed himself to be a very capable and calculating person, which are the qualities Vegapunk respects like no other.
This was about the time Edison would start making the game itself. King knew that he would trail off all the time, and so he prepared a strategy. He will remind Edison how much money it will make if it turns out like King says it needs to.
Because of the new equipment of the Grey Guard, their ship, The Throne, couldn't keep up and started to bend under the weight of giants in armor, so they started to work on that, making the ship mostly metal, equipping it with new guns and so on. Most of those were deemed "useless" by Edison, but most people would feel otherwise.
Creatures that were under the ship were willfully ignored and not touched. So the bottom of the ship still had some wooden parts to it.
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King POV
Damn, I haven't had fresh air in a while.
It feels like ages since I last saw sunlight and felt wind on my skin.
I think it's already been a month since I've been here at this lab. It's not like I hate it. I love working on making games. It all feels like it's coming together perfectly so far, and it's also quick as hell. But I have this itching feeling that I missed something.
Hm?
Damn, I'm stupid. How am I going to sell this thing? We have no marketing at all.
Who the hell is going to distribute them? Only things travelling around the world are the birds with hats that pass the newspapers.
Oh. That fixes it all. We need to contact them to put in a ad and make them deliver it afterwards. Sounds easy enough. But no birds fly here since Edison sure hates to pay for anything that isn't for his research or a way to make more money, he gets his news from guests.
I saw a couple fly to our ship while we were still in West Blue. Maybe go somewhere then?
I need to write this down. Where is my notepad? Did I leave it inside the lab?
As I walk from my little room to the place, I hear the excited giggle of Edison from across the place.
Is he again trying to make poketmons real? I already said that it's not a good idea.
"War? Wow! I love those!"
Why does he scream so loudly? What war?
I come up to the middle of the lab, which is still messy. He is talking to a snail again. His one is made out of platinum or something.
"We couldn't contact King, but we know that you can. We suggest that he helps us as a sign of good will at Marineford."
What? The dude sounds so full of himself. Is he one of the celestial dragons?
"Bro, what's going on here?" I ask.
He ignores me and continues to talk with the snail.
"Sure, sure. I will tell him."
Bastard. Say I'm not here. I don't want to go anywhere, especially WAR.
Edison sees me and smiles menacingly.
"I don't know when it is your birthday, but this is my present."
No. I hate him.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Kandro
Kandro 5k words, kill me
Weekly Power Status
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