Chapter 491: Discovery
"The news has been relentless lately."
Brett was turning through a newspaper in Vegapunk's laboratory. "Momousagi defected? What's the situation there?"
The very first headline had hit him like a door swinging open without warning.
The same Vice Admiral Momousagi who had escaped the NEO Navy at great cost, exposed the location of their base, and caused them enormous losses, had apparently betrayed the World Government?
Real, or fabricated?
He genuinely couldn't tell. He didn't have enough information to work out what had happened.
Then, further down the page.
"Making quite a splash, Ace." Brett let out a soft sound of amusement.
The next story had come out of the New World just a few days ago, and it was the kind of report that made waves all on its own.
The rookie pirate who had been carving his name into the New World over the past two years, Portgas D. Ace, had made contact with the Whitebeard Pirates.
On its own, news about Ace wasn't quite major headline material. He was capable, genuinely so, but he hadn't yet built up the kind of standing that made the world hold its breath.
When Whitebeard was involved, though, everything changed.
That man was a living legend of the sea, one who had walked the ocean since the era of Rocks. The one who carried the title of world's strongest. And with the original three Emperors, he was the sole survivor still standing.
Every move that man made drew the eyes of the entire world.
The paper didn't describe what had actually happened when they met. That was to be expected. No reporter with any sense of self-preservation was going to insert themselves into a confrontation involving Whitebeard.
"Ha ha, that kid has probably been thoroughly flattened by now."
A fuzzy head appeared over Brett's shoulder, accompanied by a clear, cheerful voice that carried rather more malicious glee than the situation warranted.
Brett glanced sideways at the woman who had pushed herself into the space beside him. "Lilith. Shouldn't you be working right now?"
Externally: a remarkably beautiful woman. Internally: the old man's embodiment of evil.
"It's slacking-off time." She waved a hand carelessly. "Edison and the others aren't going to slack off. Someone has to maintain the balance."
Fitting, for the embodiment of evil.
"Brett, that kid's one of your people, right? How does it feel watching someone you know walk into something like this?" Her expression had settled comfortably into the particular satisfaction of someone who enjoys other people's misfortune.
She shared a brain with Vegapunk, after all. She remembered perfectly well what Brett had done for Ace once.
"Ace is someone I know. So is Whitebeard." Brett smiled slightly. "Walking into his death? I doubt it."
"Eh? What a shame."
Can't you want good things for anyone?
Somewhere in the New World. An island.
"That's just, absurd strength."
Ace was covered in cuts and scrapes, breathing hard, looking up at the man in front of him.
The sunlight fell from behind the enormous figure, and the shadow it cast reached all the way to where Ace was standing. "I didn't stand a chance."
"Don't give me that rubbish, brat. If I lost to you, what face would I have left to keep standing in this New World?"
The man with the white crescent mustache laughed, loud and genuine. Then he stopped and looked at the young man in front of him carefully, studying him. "But you, kid."
There were scorch marks on him. The boy's flames had actually touched him.
"Ha ha, I'm not that impressive!" Ace half-deflected and half-showed off, scratching the back of his head with a goofy grin. "I've still got a long way to go before I'm anywhere near Brett's level."
He had seen with his own eyes exactly how strong Brett was. That was a real measuring stick.
In the crowd of Whitebeard Pirates watching from the sides, Vista of the Flower Swords had gone quiet, his expression the one that appears when someone processes something they didn't expect. "Just now, was that, Conqueror's Haki wrapped around the attack..."
"Kids today are honestly terrifying." Marco, the first division commander, was shaking his head. "Every generation gets more ridiculous."
The fact that this fire brat had been pushed to his absolute limit in a fight with Pops and come out of it having grasped Conqueror's Haki coating, that was something. He'd actually managed to land a clean hit on Pops. There were very few people in the world who could say that.
Was this a second Brett?
"Alright, brat. State your purpose." Whitebeard drove the butt of his naginata into the ground, and the earth, or perhaps the entire island, seemed to shudder with it. "I'll decide what to do with you depending on the answer."
"Ha ha ha, you're terrifying!" Ace said this without any particular terror in his voice. "Well. First objective accomplished. I wanted to see for myself what the strongest man in the world could do. Though I'll be honest, a little disappointing."
"Hey, brat." Vista's brow furrowed. "What did you just say?"
"Obviously because Brett is stronger."
Ace said it the way you state a fact about the weather.
"This kid really just says whatever he wants." Marco shook his head slowly.
Though, if it was Brett they were talking about...
"Gurararara!" Whitebeard's laugh came from deep in his chest, unbothered. "Brat with a mouth on him! Get to the second reason, then!"
Already itching to knock him down again, was he?
Ace grinned and scratched his jaw. "The second reason. I want to ask you about a man. Gol D. Roger. What kind of person was he?"
"Roger?"
Whitebeard paused. Actually paused.
Why bring that man up now?
Hold on.
He looked at the kid again. Carefully, this time.
The resemblance hit him.
He had known Roger since they were both young. He could pick out that face. And this boy, looking at him now, the resemblance to that bastard in his younger years was unmistakable.
So that was it. That was where this impossible level of power came from at this age.
"Gurararara!"
The laugh that followed was warmer than the ones before it. "A brat who comes looking for the past. That's rare enough."
"I just really need to understand," Ace said, drawing in a breath, "what kind of man he actually was. Brett told me, if I wanted the answer to that, I should go ask the people who lived in the same era as him."
Mentioning Brett first probably couldn't hurt.
He was honestly a little nervous about being killed.
"Is that right."
Whitebeard was quiet for a moment. Then his mouth curved up.
"That's not a story you tell in one or two sentences! Boys! Set up a feast!"
"Pops seems happy about this." Vista was visibly puzzled. "What's the situation?"
"Probably because that kid," Marco said, putting it together, "is someone close to an old friend of his."
Fish-Man Island.
As Pluton's construction progressed and the Seraphim continued to develop, Brett had been spending most of his days in Vegapunk's laboratory. He needed to be there to catch any potential problems before they became real ones. The lab wasn't far from Fish-Man Island anyway, and anything that needed his attention on the island could be brought to him, and he could return quickly if something happened.
But on this particular day, something unexpected came up.
"Brett!"
Arlong, who had been serving as Fish-Man Island's head of intelligence, arrived in a hurry, his expression urgent. "We've got a situation."
"A Government operative?" Brett straightened immediately. The timing was the worst possible, with Pluton's construction at a critical stage.
"I don't know if that's what this is." Arlong was serious. "That woman has appeared on Fish-Man Island."
"That woman?" Brett raised an eyebrow. "Which woman?"
"The one with the one billion six hundred million bounty on her head."