Emet

Standing as tall as the Ancient Giants, Emet is a rusted, moss-grown hulk worn down by centuries of neglect. A horned helmet caps its head, though the left horn snapped off more than two centuries back and stays lost, while grilled plates of vertical bars guard its face and lower body. Old injuries scar it: a length of metal rod was once driven through the right side of its grilled belly, and a deep gash cuts its left shoulder. Back during the Void Century it was flawless, its arms edged in white around a black center bearing a white X, dressed in fur-trimmed overalls. The Egghead clash added new harm, costing it its left arm and breaking exhaust ports along its back.

Machine though it is, Emet plainly possesses sentience and emotion. Toward Joy Boy it was affectionate and devoted, savoring his company and intending to crown him king of something. Roused from its long sleep, it offered Joy Boy an apology for having failed the task it had been set and went looking for him out of pure nostalgia, recognizing the beat of the Drums of Liberation as a sound its old friend used to make.

Constructed some nine hundred years back, the Iron Giant befriended Joy Boy during the Void Century. Anticipating a time he could no longer guard it, Joy Boy locked a share of his Supreme King Haki into a knot on the machine, a single-use safeguard Emet could loose to defend itself or anyone it held dear. Its full power stays unclear, since its energy drained away before it could do real damage in earlier outings, yet it climbed the Red Line, ran on a mysterious Ancient Energy that even Vegapunk could not copy, and later inspired the Vegaforce-01. Its plating laughs off blasts, searing heat, and a Buster Call bombardment alike.

Two centuries ago it abruptly assailed Mary Geoise before its power failed. The World Government ordered its destruction, but Jaygarcia Saturn covertly had the scientists conceal and study it, and it eventually came into Vegapunk's keeping on Egghead. There Luffy, Chopper, Jinbe, and Bonney chanced upon it, and Luffy, finding nowhere inside to pilot it, judged that it must move on its own. When his Gear 5 sounded the Drums of Liberation, the robot's eyes glowed and it began to move, then strode through the flames of a Buster Call to protect the Den Den Mushi carrying Vegapunk's broadcast.

The Five Elders, knowing the machine from the Mary Geoise raid, surrounded it, and Topman Warcury knocked it into the sea. Stirred by another round of the Drums, Emet burst back out and struck Warcury hard enough to snap a tusk and draw blood, damage that Luffy's own Gear 5 had failed to inflict. Reaching Luffy by way of the Voice of All Things while still taking him for Joy Boy, it reached for a weapon that age had jammed and lost an arm to Shepherd Ju Peter's bite. Battered once more and learning that Luffy bore the Will of D., the robot voiced its gratitude for getting to hear the Drums a final time, untied the knot, and discharged Joy Boy's stored Haki in a vast wave that drove the transformed Five Elders back to Mary Geoise. Recalling Joy Boy fondly, the Iron Giant shut down as Luffy shouted one last thanks while fleeing Egghead.