Chapters · Final Saga › Egghead

Chapter 1114: The Wings of Icarus

Arc: Egghead · Saga: Final Saga · Released: 2024-05-19

Summary

Vegapunk’s pre-recorded broadcast reaches its substance, and the world reels. Across Navy HQ, Mock Town, Water Seven, Impel Down, Ryugu Kingdom, Mariejois, Orange Town and Egghead, listeners react with disbelief, mockery, and dawning fear as the dead scientist predicts that the sea will rise about one meter worldwide, that beaches will be lost for good and some islands rendered uninhabitable — a consequence of a planet-spanning earthquake that, his own recording notes, would strike “in the days after I record this message.” The crowd realizes that quake has already happened today (“How?! He totally nailed it!!”), and the mockery curdles into terror. Vegapunk then confesses his two “sins”: the Mother Flame, his dream of an endless, eternal energy source reaching “to the sun” (his first sin), and his deciphering of the poneglyphs in defiance of WG law (his second sin) — adding “I regret none of this!!” He names the Void Century openly: a hundred-year span from ~900 to ~800 years ago whose every record was deliberately erased, recoverable only through the poneglyphs scattered across the world. As the Gorosei scream for the Navy to silence the snail and “destroy any life-form you can hear,” Vegapunk presses on to the heart of the story — “the main character” — a man born into an impossibly advanced kingdom 900 years ago who, “like the Sun God Nika spoken of in Elbaph legend,” fought with a body that stretched and contracted. His name was JOYBOY, “the very first man on this sea to be called a pirate.” Meanwhile on Egghead, the WG dispatches Mars to guard the Mother Flame chamber at all costs, Marine ships shell the island, and the Straw Hats discover the frontier-dome clouds are being stretched out to the sea so the Sunny can launch onto open water (Edison’s escape plan) — even as a defender urges them off the island and Luffy keeps taking hits.

New reveals

• The broadcast’s apocalypse, stated plainly. Vegapunk predicts the sea will rise ~1 meter worldwide, beaches will be lost for good, and some islands will become uninhabitable — and that a planet-wide earthquake will strike “in the days after I record this message” (pp. 5-6).
• The prediction has already come true. Listeners realize the earthquake Vegapunk forecast struck “today” — “Was that a prophecy?!” / “He totally nailed it!!” — turning ridicule into dread (p. 6). Vegapunk invites doubters to “disregard the rest of this message” if his prediction was wrong — then adds, pointedly, that “this particular earthquake is not exactly what I would call… a natural phenomenon” (i.e., man-made, not natural) (p. 6).
• Vegapunk’s FIRST sin — the Mother Flame. “I dreamt of a source of endless, eternal energy… to push the world forward into the future… THE MOTHER FLAME!!!” — reaching “to the sun,” built “in the lab.” He calls it “the root of my first sin” (pp. 8-9). A reactor chamber labeled S-108 (and a unit marked “A&Mu”) holds a small flame at its core (p. 9).
• The WG’s crown-priority response. A Gorosei orders the power-plant chamber protected “above all else” and dispatches Mars — “I will go!!” (p. 8); the Gorosei also order the broadcast snail destroyed and “any life-form you can hear” killed, with “everything else… secondary” (p. 5).
• Vegapunk’s SECOND sin — deciphering the poneglyphs. “The World Government has made it a crime of the highest order to decipher the message of the poneglyphs. And despite being a member of the government myself… I broke this law. That was my second sin.” He credits “a group of excellent archaeologists” (p. 12).
• The Void Century, named on the open air. A “completely and entirely blank” span from ~900 to ~800 years ago — “We call this the Void Century, because all records from this time were eliminated” — its message preserved only in “poneglyphs scattered across the world” (pp. 11-12).
• JOY BOY canonized as a Void-Century person. “The main character of this story… was born into a kingdom with an impossibly advanced civilization, 900 years ago.” “Like the Sun God Nika spoken of in Elbaph legend… he fought with a body that stretched and contracted. His name was JOYBOY… and he was the very first man on this sea to be called a pirate!!!” (pp. 14-15).
• The “20 kings” founding restated. In Orange Town, a child reading a world map recites: “long, long ago… there were 20 kings who got together… and they created the world” (p. 12) — the popular-history version of the WG’s founding, intercut with Vegapunk’s true-history broadcast.
• Egghead escape mechanic. The island’s frontier-dome clouds are being stretched outward to reach the sea so the Sunny can “touch down on water” — confirming what Edison meant by “making sure we touched down on water” (p. 13). A defender tells the Straw Hats to “git off this island… and don’t let the World Government lay a finger on ya!!”

Foreshadowing seeds planted

Payoffs (seeds from earlier chapters that resolve here)

Mentions / appearances

Vegapunk (recording — “Stella”) · Joy Boy (named in the broadcast) · St. Jaygarcia Saturn / Five Elders (ordering the snail destroyed; at Mariejois) · St. Marcus Mars (dispatched to the Mother-Flame power plant — “I will go!!”) · Luffy (Egghead — taking hits) · Nico Robin · Nami (“Zolo! Jimbei!!” / “LOOK!”) · Brook (“Yoho!!”) · Edison (referenced — the touch-down-on-water escape plan) · Magellan (Impel Down) · King Neptune + Shirahoshi (Ryugu Kingdom / Fish-Man Island) · Chouchou + Orange Town residents (East Blue) · a silent cigar-smoking Marine officer (resembles Smoker, at Marine Headquarters) · Sun God Nika · Poneglyph · Den Den Mushi · Mother Flame · Egghead · Marine Headquarters · New World · Mock Town · Water Seven · Impel Down · Ryugu Kingdom · Mariejois · Orange Town

Notable panels

• Page 1 (cover + title): “THE WINGS OF ICARUS.” Serialized cover story — “Ogre Child Yamato’s Golden Harvest Surrogate Pilgrimage, Vol. 4”: Yamato (thumbs-up) and a Wano elder over a pilgrimage map (“START”); the charge is “go enshrine this sword at Hakumai’senma Shrine in Yasuie’s stead.” (Defer to cover-tracker.)
• Pages 2-4: The worldwide reaction montage — Navy HQ (New World), Mock Town’s laughter, Water Seven (“around here, we believe him…”), Impel Down (Magellan + a snail, “what if seawater floods down into Impel Down?!”), and Ryugu Kingdom (Neptune’s “Whaaale…”, Shirahoshi’s “What is going to happen…?!”).
• Page 5: Recording flashback — a Gorosei orders the snail and “any life-form you can hear” destroyed; a satellite sprints with the broadcast snail (DUN DUN DUN); “How much are you going to tell them, Stella?!”
• Page 8: “I flew too close…” / “the root of my first sin” / “THE MOTHER FLAME!!!”; the Gorosei dispatch Mars to guard the chamber.
• Page 9 (splash): “MOTHER FLAME” title-card over the reactor — chamber S-108 (and an “A&Mu” unit), a small flame at its core; “…to the sun!! …in the lab!!”
• Page 11: Vegapunk names the Void Century over a vista of Mariejois; the Gorosei rage “Make him stop talking!!!”; a young woman with stitched lips at Mariejois asks “Void Century? What is that…?”
• Page 12: Orange Town — Chouchou and a child reading a world map: “20 kings… created the world!!”, intercut with Vegapunk’s “second sin” (deciphering the poneglyphs).
• Page 13: The frontier-dome clouds stretch outward to the sea — the Straw Hats grasp Edison’s “touch down on water” escape.
• Pages 14-15: The Joy Boy reveal — “like the Sun God Nika spoken of in Elbaph legend… he fought with a body that stretched and contracted. His name was JOYBOY… the very first man on this sea to be called a pirate!!!” (“To be continued!”).

Open questions raised

• What is the deeper truth Vegapunk is building toward about Joy Boy — and will the Gorosei silence the broadcast before he reaches it?
• What exactly is the Mother Flame (“S-108”) at the chamber’s core, and why is its power plant the WG’s single highest Egghead priority?
• How did Vegapunk’s sensors predict a planet-wide earthquake to the day — and is the sinking already irreversible?
• Who is the stitched-lip woman reacting at Mariejois?
• Will the cloud-extension escape get the Sunny to open water before the Marine bombardment or Mars’s intervention stops it?