The cliff face beneath Extraction Point Delta shuddered violently, shedding rock and debris into the churning, black sea below. The Solaris, already under assault, was now being battered by rogue waves generated by the island's death throes.
"They're on the ridge!" Luffy's voice, strained but exhilarated, boomed from their earpieces as Alex's team scrambled onto the precarious ledge. "About time! We were starting to have all the fun!"
Below them, the battle was a chaotic spectacle. Two of Kael's patrol boats were burning, their iron hulls rent and twisted. A third was sinking, its crew leaping into the unforgiving water. Zoro stood like a blood-soaked demon on the Solaris's railing, his three swords a blur, deflecting cannonballs and cutting down any pirate foolish enough to try and board. Luffy, a rubbery comet, bounced between the remaining attacking vessel and their own ship, his fists a barrage of Gum-Gum Gatling, turning its deck into a splintered wreck.
"Nami! Get Viper secured below!" Alex ordered, his eyes scanning the collapsing island behind them, then the approaching Solaris. "Usopp, suppressive fire on any remaining pirates attempting to reach the cliff! Sanji, with me! We clear a path to the ship!"
The air was thick with the roar of explosions from Isle Chimera's core, the unholy shriek of the trapped insect swarm, and the acrid smell of burning chemicals and flesh. The sky above the island was a maelstrom of black smoke and the dying, erratic blue pulses of the destroyed Gate.
Nami, her face grim, helped a dazed Usopp (who was still struggling to process the magnitude of what Alex had ordered him to help initiate) half-carry, half-drag the unconscious Agent Viper towards the rope ladder Luffy was now flinging towards them from the Solaris's deck.
"Hurry!" Luffy yelled. "This whole place is gonna go boom!"
A handful of Kael's desperate, soot-stained pirates, having somehow survived the internal cataclysm and now seeing the Solaris as their only escape, were scrambling up the cliff face from another angle, their eyes wild with terror and rage.
"They won't be joining us," Sanji snarled, his leg igniting with a burst of friction-stoked heat – Diable Jambe, raw and uncontrolled, a testament to the life-or-death pressure of the last few days. He launched himself at the pirates, a fiery black-legged cyclone. His kicks were brutal, sending them tumbling back down into the abyss with broken bones and terrified screams.
Alex, meanwhile, drew a sleek, custom-designed handgun from beneath his coat – a high-caliber, semi-automatic weapon his System had allowed him to "fabricate" using advanced materials. It wasn't a pirate's flintlock; it was a tool of precise, modern lethality. He didn't fire wildly. Each shot was aimed, taking down a pirate who had managed to get too close to Nami and Viper, or one who threatened Usopp as he laid down a surprisingly effective covering fire with his Kabuto, launching smoke pellets and explosive stars that forced the remaining attackers to seek cover.
"Everyone aboard!" Alex commanded, as the last of Kael's immediate pursuers were dealt with. He was the last to grab the swaying rope ladder, his crimson smartphone still active in his other hand, its screen displaying a cascade of telemetry from the dying island. Structural integrity failures were rippling outwards from the destroyed Gate Chamber at an alarming rate.
As the Solaris pulled away from the collapsing cliff, its engines roaring at full power thanks to Sanji scrambling back to the helm after his brief, brutal fight, the entirety of Isle Chimera's central spire gave a final, gargantuan groan. Then, with a sound that was felt more than heard – a deep, resonant **CRUMP** that shook the very ocean – it imploded, a colossal fireball of superheated rock, molten metal, and vaporized insects erupting skyward.
The shockwave hit the fleeing Solaris like a giant's fist, nearly capsizing them.
Luffy, laughing maniacally, held onto the mast. "Shishishi! That was a BIG bang!"
Nami, white-faced, clung to the railing, staring back at the inferno that had been Isle Chimera. "Alex… Smoker… Tashigi… they were…"
Alex, standing impassively at the stern, watched the pillar of fire and smoke rise into the storm-wracked sky. He made no comment on the fate of the Marines, or of Kael, or Portia. His expression was unreadable. His system registered the complete obliteration of the Gate, the annihilation of Shiki's primary East Blue insect repository, and the probable demise of Kael and Portia. It also registered the likely eradication of a significant portion of Kael's pirate forces and, incidentally, any Marine presence in the immediate vicinity.
"Phase one of the East Blue destabilization complete," his internal system noted, a cold, logical assessment. "Probability of significant Marine power vacuum in this sector: 87.4%. Optimal conditions for Guild intervention in Goa Kingdom crisis: rapidly approaching."
He pocketed his smartphone. The world outside saw a pirate crew narrowly escaping a cataclysm of another pirate's making. He saw the first carefully laid stone in the foundation of an empire.
The Solaris, battered but miraculously intact, turned its prow towards the turbulent open waters of the East Blue, leaving behind an island that was now little more than a funeral pyre on a dark sea.