Recovery

"They flew too close to the sun and got burned." I slammed my fist into the screen, shattering it before looking around the lab and sending out waves of observation haki. "Evos, where are you, I know you're hurt, but I can help you."

For the past three months, Dr. Vega had experimented on Evos, trying to make the perfect soldier and win the war. After the sea essence proved to be too expensive to produce, one ton of sea stone only equated to one hundred pounds of deadly poison.

The bastard used the same technology to make Pacifistas on Evos though the last report glimpsed how Evos was displaying signs of heightened agitation while it took more and more sea essence to weaken him.

'His natural resistance to poison must have helped him somewhat.' Leaving the lab back the way I came, I flew back to the strawhats waiting for me on the beach.

"What's going on, Soren-San." Luffy was the first to step forward, "Everyone is dead, the five elders, and all the marines. It seems they were experimenting on my crewmate, and he killed them all. The plans changed. You all need to get back to the ship. As you are right now, none of you stand a chance against Evos."

"That isn't fair, you've trained all of us for three weeks, and now you're telling us that everyone is dead and some psycho is on the loose." Nami was indignant as always, and I was in no mood for her attitude.

"Listen," I snapped, "I don't know what state Evos is in but just think he took down that entire compound. So get back on the ship. I'm going to call for some help. When it gets here, find a tall woman with goat horns and teller her what happened."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a copper Den Den Mushi and pressed the button on top. The snail was connected back to the main island and would signal everyone to prepare for an emergency battle.

I waited a few moments before straining to open a portal, breaking time and space to connect two points separated by several hundred miles. Creating a clone, I had it maintain the doorway before I turned back to the strawhats one last time.

"No one is to step on the island. Evos' devil fruit ability can wipe out entire armies if they can't escape in time." Without waiting for a response, I flew away, catching a glimpse of the ships starting to sail through the portal.

Back in the fortress expanded my haki to encompass the entire island. In the fort, I didn't find any life signatures. But in one place, there seemed to be a void or a dead zone.

Creating a portal, I stepped into the dead zone only to find a large underground cavern. Looking behind me, I saw a tunnel leading to the surface, but the scene in front of me was much grander.

A mountain of gold and treasure piled almost up to the cave ceiling, but none of that matter as the real prize was engraved into the large metal sheet embedded into the wall.

Walking over, I ran my hand over metal and realized that it was creating the dead zone. The writing was written in Poneglyphs, and I didn't have the time or patience to translate the lengthy narrative.

Flying out of the tunnel, I scanned the island again when I felt a single mote of life come from above me. Looking above, I saw a group of large clouds, and I quickly flew up.

Breaking through the clouds, I looked around before spotting a lone figure seemingly standing in thin air. Flying over, I entered within a few meters when the figure suddenly spun around and fired a single beam of bright energy.

I easily avoided the single attack before suppressing my attacker with my haki. They started to fall before I caught them and slowly lowered us to the ground.

Once we were on the ground, I froze when I recognized Evos though his face was horribly misshapen and a metal contraption covered the right side of his head.

That single image combined with the full knowledge of what he had been through stunned me, giving Evos enough time to recover. There was no recognition in his gaze as he fired a beam from his right eye, hitting me straight in the chest.

Slamming my hand into the ground, I stopped myself from flying away as I looked at Evos, the boy I treated like a son. Holding out my hand, I grabbed his forehead and shut off his brain, causing him to collapse to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Gritting my teeth, I started the long process of undoing all the changes done to Evos. Almost all parts of his brains had been changed either through mechanical means or through sheer trauma.

It pained me when I reached the memories and went through them when I was done going through the three months from his point of view. A single tear trailed down my face, "I'm sorry I let this happen to you."

I took out a blanket and wrapped Evos in it after ridding him of his bloodstained clothes. Looking at his face I decided not to get rid of his memories.

I didn't know if he would recover but It felt wrong to manipulate him more.