Chapter 482: Seraphim
"So much to do, so much to do! Let's get started immediately!"
The small, large-headed robot was already bouncing between the laboratory's various machines, flipping through stacks of materials at a speed that suggested he found standing still physically uncomfortable.
His name was Edison. He embodied Thought.
"Hmm. Would this configuration be more effective...?"
A taller robot stood before a spread of engineering schematics, head bowed over them in deep concentration.
His name was Pythagoras. He embodied Wisdom.
"Right then, first order of business: let's break something!"
A tall girl with black and white hair and dog ears was swinging her fists through the air with boundless enthusiasm.
"Go, Atlas! Start with this annoying base!" cheered the short-haired beauty standing beside her, grinning and waving her on.
Atlas, who embodied Violence. Lilith, who embodied Evil.
On the other side of the room, a third woman had settled herself cross-legged on the floor in front of a considerable pile of food, working through it with undivided attention.
York. She embodied Desire.
Brett watched them in sequence, one by one. The only reasonable conclusion was that every one of Vegapunk's satellites had been given a personality to match their domain.
"Alright, enough of that."
Fortunately, satellite number one was entirely composed. The mischievous streak and the dry ironic humor Brett had always associated with the original Vegapunk seemed to have been filtered out of Shaka almost entirely. He stood with his hands in his pockets, and his voice left no room for argument.
"You all know what time it is. Everyone, focus. Pluton's construction and the Seraphim's development must be completed in the shortest possible time."
"Understood!"
"Leave it to us."
Edison and Pythagoras answered without hesitation. Academic types to the core.
"Do we really have to do something this tedious?" Lilith let out a long, suffering sigh.
"I'd much rather be breaking things!" Atlas's fists kept swinging.
"You both know what's at stake in the coming war," Shaka said, unchanged. "If we lose, nothing else matters."
"Fine, fine, we know."
"I'll help. But afterwards I get to break as many things as I want." Atlas looked entirely resolved about this condition.
They got to work.
It was easy to forget, watching the chaos of their personalities, that this was still Vegapunk. Every last one of them was operating at the level of the world's greatest scientific mind, personality quirks notwithstanding. What looked like disorder was actually extraordinary capability expressing itself in six very different directions at once.
The one exception to any semblance of productivity was still eating.
"Is that one going to be alright?" Tesoro looked at York, then looked at Shaka.
"That is her work," Shaka said.
Tesoro waited for more. None came.
"All of us are living beings, not simple machines. We consume energy. We require rest." Shaka glanced briefly toward York. "York's function is to eat and sleep on behalf of the rest of us."
Tesoro stared at him.
Brett was equally at a loss for a moment. The eating part he could work through: some form of remote energy transfer operating through the shared connection they all carried back to Vegapunk's brain. Unusual, but not without precedent in the kind of technology Vegapunk worked with.
But sleeping on behalf of the others? He genuinely could not reconstruct the mechanism.
Then again, when he thought about it a different way, it wasn't entirely without logic. Seven consciousnesses sharing one brain. If one body slept and the brain rested with it, the others could keep working. That was, in its own bizarre way, quite rational.
The laboratory was alive with activity now, every satellite deep in their respective tasks. The room had gone from quiet to buzzing in a matter of minutes.
Brett crossed to where Vegapunk was standing.
"Doctor, what's the current status of the Seraphim project?"
The Navy was replenishing its numbers through recruitment. His side was replenishing its strength through science.
"Coming along beautifully." The old man allowed himself a self-satisfied smile. He moved to one of the control panels, pressed a sequence of keys that Brett couldn't follow, and the floor began to tremble slightly. The five cultivation columns that had held the satellites sank smoothly into the ground. From above, eight new ones descended from the ceiling.
Same glass construction. Same green liquid.
But the things floating inside them this time were not nearly-complete humanoid figures.
They were infants.
Eight of them, each one uniformly dark-skinned, with small wings folded against their backs. Their faces were identical. On each small forehead, a pair of budding horns.
They were unfamiliar now, small and sleeping and unformed. But Brett knew that in time, when they grew, anyone who saw them would recognize the face immediately.
"Seeing all of them grown up at once is going to be alarming," Tesoro said, something in his expression caught between impressed and disturbed.
"It really will be." Brett let out a quiet laugh. "Eight Kaidos."
He couldn't see it yet, looking at the sleeping infants, but he knew. Every one of them, once grown, would carry Kaido's face and Kaido's build.
The original plan had been to use the Warlords as the Seraphim's base template. Brett had talked Vegapunk out of it. If you were going to build artificial soldiers, the logical choice was the strongest available template, and besides, several of the Warlords were allies now. Having copies made of them without permission seemed like exactly the kind of thing that would cause problems.
So the obvious choice had been Kaido.
Kaido was currently sitting at the bottom of the ocean outside Fish-Man Island, going nowhere. Lineage Factor samples were available in whatever quantity Vegapunk needed.
The reason for choosing Kaido over Charlotte Linlin, the only other option of comparable imprisonment, was straightforward. Linlin's one genuine advantage over Kaido was her indestructible body. But that advantage was covered by the Lunarian bloodline already incorporated into the Seraphim design. Kaido was simply the better value.
Having eight copies of the same face was admittedly a little monotonous. But Vegapunk could replicate Devil Fruits. Give each one a different ability and the monotony solved itself. Eight Kaidos in a line, each with a different power. Just imagining the scene was almost entertaining.
"They were only just cultivated, so they'll need considerable time to absorb knowledge and grow," Vegapunk said, watching the columns with something approaching paternal concern. "The goal is to have them combat-ready before Pluton is complete."
Brett nodded.
Even if they weren't quite ready in time, it wasn't the end of the world. Compared to Pluton, their strategic weight was secondary. The decisive factor in the final confrontation was always going to be the ancient weapons.
Eight hundred years ago, Joy Boy had possessed all three ancient weapons and still not been able to bring down Imu. But this time, circumstances were different. And if three weapons weren't enough, well, then they'd use four. He wasn't certain how much Im had modified the fortress ship across eight centuries of sole ownership, but having gone up against it personally and survived, Brett's honest assessment was that it wasn't unbeatable. It was enormous and overwhelming, yes. It was not infallible.
Once every preparation was complete, victory would not be as distant as it seemed right now.
He looked at the sleeping infants in their columns. Eight small shadows curled in green light, completely unaware of what they had been made for, or what was coming.
Grow quickly, he thought.
We're going to need you.
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