"I suggest an immediate investigation," Leon's voice was firm, cutting through the anger in the room.
"And I suggest we pull back more of our forces to defend the Red Line. One person's strength is limited. We must find the hand that is guiding these new threats, and we must find it quickly."
A look of relief washed over Sengoku's face.
Leon was on board.
His professionalism was exactly what they needed.
"Alright!" Sengoku declared, his voice regaining its authority. "We will proceed exactly as Dr. Leon says."
He turned to a nearby adjutant.
"Notify Marine Command. Recall all non-essential deep-sea patrol fleets. I want them back at the Red Line immediately!"
"Sir!" The adjutant saluted and ran from the room.
Sengoku let out a tense breath, but then another thought struck him.
"Dr. Leon, there is one more thing I must ask of you. Please release the final combat footage from the Seraphim. We have to be sure. We must know what the pirates are truly capable of now."
Leon nodded. "I have already extracted the final video logs, Marshal. However, I must ask that you keep what you are about to see confidential. Spreading this information would only cause mass panic."
"Agreed," Sengoku said. "We will hold an emergency meeting to review this footage and implement your suggestions. After that... we will officially consider the new weapons plan you proposed."
Sengoku's face was a mask of calm, but inwardly, his mind was in turmoil.
This footage would decide the future of the Marines.
Facts, unlike people, could not lie.
"I will await your decision, Fleet Admiral" Leon said, and his projection vanished.
He returned to his lab, knowing full well that the final juncture had not yet arrived.
He had to prepare for the worst.
...
In the command center, the Marine leadership waited with bated breath as the first video file was projected onto the main screen.
It was from the patrol 200 nautical miles east of Mariejois.
The footage crackled to life, and a sound filled the room—a high-pitched, gleeful, and utterly unmistakable cackle.
"Mamamama... MAMA!"
The moment they heard it, a cold dread settled over the admirals.
They knew that laugh.
"Big Mom," Admiral Aokiji said, his voice grim. "So she's regained her powers too."
An Emperor of the Sea, personally leading an attack on a Marine patrol.
This confirmed their worst fears.
The pirates who had been stripped of their Devil Fruit abilities had somehow found a way to make a comeback.
The admirals leaned forward, their eyes glued to the screen, desperate to know just how much power the enemy had regained.
On the screen, an impossibly bloated and obese figure, wreathed in dark, soul-flame Homies, was plowing through the sky toward the Seraphim formation.
It was Charlotte Linlin, the Soul Queen, and she was challenging the entire patrol by herself.
The dark flames swirling around her, her personal Homies, were effortlessly absorbing and deflecting the combined laser fire of hundreds of Seraphim.
The terrifying sight of one person tanking their entire army made the blood drain from the faces of the Marine generals.
"What... what kind of monster is she?!" one of them gasped.
The Seraphims, their attacks swift and powerful, were evaporating entire sections of the sea.
But no matter how much firepower they poured on, they couldn't seem to do any real damage to the colossal figure.
Big Mom's face was split in a ferocious grin.
She held her giant sword, Napoleon, in one hand, her aura so immense it seemed to shake the very footage.
"Hmph! A group of ants!" her voice boomed. "Your strength is nothing but numbers! Let's see how many of you it takes to even scratch me!"
With that, she raised her giant sword to the sky.
BOOM!
A deep, deafening peal of thunder echoed as her thundercloud, Zeus, condensed countless bolts of electricity.
A swirling storm of living flames and galloping lightning snakes wreathed her body, roaring as she prepared to unleash hell.
"Is this... the true power of Big Mom?" a Vice Admiral whispered, his voice trembling.
The high-ranking Marine officials stared at the screen, a collective, chilling dread settling over them.
They could feel the sheer, oppressive power even through the recorded footage.
"An attack of that magnitude..." another officer murmured, his face pale.
"It would tear right through Adamantium alloy."
This wasn't the Big Mom they had fought before.
This wasn't the clumsy, reckless Emperor who had been defeated by their technology.
This was something new.
Something resurrected and empowered.
The video played on.
A storm of black lightning and unholy soul-fire, a terrifying combination of her own Devil Fruit and the Necromancer Staff's deathly energy, lit up the screen.
The sky itself seemed to be burning.
Under this relentless, overwhelming assault, the Marine warships were evaporated like paper.
The Seraphim, the pride of the Marines, were being swatted from the sky in droves, their lasers completely ineffective against the wall of dark flames.
The room was silent.
The bodies of several Marine generals trembled.
Their mood, which had been grim but determined, had completely collapsed into despair.
They had never imagined such a powerful, monstrous existence was possible.
The strength Big Mom now displayed had utterly smashed their proudest creation, the Seraphim, into the dust.
"Mamamama... Marines! You are nothing more than that!" her voice boomed from the recording, her face a mask of sadistic glee as she stared down the last of the Seraphim.
The admirals clenched their fists, their faces ugly with humiliation and impotent rage.
They had no way to counter this.
It was a one-sided massacre.
The bloody reality was undeniable: the Seraphim, the core of their military might, were no longer brilliant.
They were obsolete.
The footage continued for another hour, showing the hopeless struggle of the "Overlord-class" Seraphim.
Even these elite units, the pinnacle of Marine combat power, were eventually overwhelmed.
The final one was pierced by a bolt of black thunder and fell, lifeless, into the sea. The video ended in static.
The era of Marine superiority was over.
....
But in his laboratory, deep beneath the ruins, Leon was not affected by the pessimistic mood.
On the contrary, he was buzzing with energy.
He had watched the footage, not with horror, but with a cold, analytical focus.
His desk was covered in printouts of experimental data. He had known this was coming.
The moment the first Seraphim patrol had sent a self-destruct request, he understood that the arms race had entered a new, terrifying phase.
The pirates had been given an upgrade, one that made his own creations obsolete.
But Leon was not discouraged.
He was determined.
The Marines' strength was shattered, but at this critical moment, he still held a glimmer of hope.
He still had the right to speak, and as long as he could propose a countermeasure, he could turn this entire situation around.
He would use his brain and system rewards to drag the Marines back from the brink and return them to the throne as the most powerful force on the seas.
....
Time ticked by.
In the new, temporary Marine Headquarters, Fleet Admiral Sengoku, his face aged and weary, walked into a hidden underground chamber.
The laboratory was more secret and more heavily encrypted than any other facility in the world.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku," Leon's voice echoed from the shadows. "Are you finished?"
Sengoku nodded silently, stepping into the dim light of the lab.
His last, desperate hope now rested entirely on the ten-year-old boy genius waiting for him inside.