The World Economic Journal Headquarters.
The building was not so much an office as it was a living, breathing organism hyperventilating on a diet of chaos, ink, and cheap coffee.
It was a hive of frantic activity, a pandemonium of purpose.
Reporters, with their shirts untucked and their eyes wide with a mixture of caffeine and terror, scurried about like ants whose nest had just been kicked.
The air was a cacophony.
Phones rang with a desperate, ceaseless shrill.
Keyboards clattered like a hailstorm on a tin roof.
Printers churned out reams of unverified reports, and in the background, a constant hum of machinery provided the bass note to the symphony of panic.
"Hello?! Get me a source inside G-1! What do you mean, 'all lines are dead'?! Are you useless?! Keep digging! Dig until your fingers bleed!"
"The front page is a ghost town! It's blank! If we don't get a headline in the next hour, the boss is going to have us all for lunch, and I don't mean as guests!"
"Hurry! Get this intel to the printing press! I don't care if it's confirmed, just run it with a question mark! We're running out of time!"
In the eye of this hurricane, in his sprawling top-floor office, "Big News" Morgans was practically vibrating.
He paced back and forth, his taloned feet clicking on the expensive hardwood floor, his bird-like eyes sparkling with an almost manic excitement.
"Hoho! Ohhohoho! It seems the Marines are having a good old-fashioned upheaval!" he cackled to himself, his albatross wings flapping involuntarily.
He clutched several top-secret intelligence reports in his hand, documents obtained at ruinous expense from his web of spies.
Each one was worth a king's ransom.
Morgans, in his usual hybrid form, adjusted his black top hat.
He lived for this.
The smell of a world-changing scoop was more intoxicating to him than any perfume.
"Big news! This is... this is HUGE NEWS!" he slammed his feathered hand on his massive oak desk, scattering stacks of old papers.
"We don't know what's happened, but all the signs are there! Something extraordinary is brewing at Marineford!"
He rubbed his hands together, his beak opening and closing in a series of excited clacks.
He could practically taste the headline.
"Could it be related to Whitebeard?" he mused aloud, tapping a talon on his chin.
"No… no, that's too simple. The execution of Ace was announced ages ago. The Marines wouldn't be this secretive, this… efficient… just for that. This is something else. Something new."
He shook his head, dismissing the idea.
He stared at his "crazy wall," a chaotic mess of photos, maps, and reports all connected by red string.
The Marines were moving, but not in a way that made sense for a war with Whitebeard.
The Warlords had all gone silent, their usual chaotic movements ceasing as if a switch had been thrown.
"A rebellion?" he scoffed. "Even less likely. Those old fossils in the World Government hold the purse strings tighter than a miser's coffin. Without money, who would fight for you? No, no, no…"
He was racking his brain, his mind racing through a thousand possibilities.
"What's the headline? What is the story? What am I missing…?"
He was deep in thought, staring at the name "Mike" that had appeared on a few stray reports from the East Blue and Alabasta, trying to make it fit, when suddenly—
BOOM!
The heavy, reinforced-oak double doors to his private office didn't just open; they exploded inward, vaporizing off their hinges in a cloud of splintered wood and swirling dust.
The cacophony of the newsroom outside died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, terrifying silence.
"Fufufufufu. So this is where the little bird built his nest!"
Donquixote Doflamingo, the "Heavenly Yaksha," swaggered in.
He moved with an arrogant, bow-legged stride, his gaudy pink feather coat sweeping the floor.
Behind him, the top executives of the Donquixote Family—Trebol, Diamante, Pica, and Sugar—fanned out, their mere presence radiating a palpable, killing intent.
"H-Heavenly Yaksha?!" Morgans yelped, his bravado vanishing in a puff of feathers.
He stumbled back, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He whipped his head toward the now-empty doorway, looking for his guards.
He saw them.
They were still standing out in the newsroom, frozen in place like grotesque statues, their bodies contorted at unnatural angles, held aloft by threads so fine they were invisible in the dusty air.
They weren't just bound; they were marionettes whose strings had been viciously tangled, their muffled groans the only sound in the dead-silent building.
"Gah!" Morgans cried out as, with a casual flick of Doflamingo's finger, the priceless intelligence reports were ripped from his grasp.
They flew across the room as if they'd grown wings, landing perfectly in the Warlord's waiting hand.
Doflamingo scanned the documents, his head tilting.
Even behind the dark, angular sunglasses, Morgans could sense the man's surprise.
"Fufufu… You really are like a bloodhound, aren't you, Morgans?" Doflamingo said, a cold smirk playing on his lips.
"Even with the entire New Marine united in a total information blackout, you still managed to sniff out traces of the truth. Impressive."
His fingers twitched.
Suddenly, Morgans felt a thousand pinpricks all over his body.
Countless, nearly invisible threads surged from Doflamingo's fingertips, writhing through the air like ethereal serpents.
They shot past Morgans, attaching to the walls, the ceiling, the floor, until the entire office was enveloped in an inescapable, glittering cage.
A spider's web, with the spider standing right in front of him.
"We can't let you ruin the boss's plans," Doflamingo said, his voice light and casual.
Morgans stared at the dense network of razor-sharp threads, his scalp tingling with a primal terror.
A cold chill shot up his spine, making every feather on his body stand on end.
"D-Doflamingo! W-what do you think you're doing?!" he shouted, trying to mask his fear with his usual bravado, though his voice trembled uncontrollably.
"I'm the president of the World Economic News Agency! I'm the PRESS! If you dare to touch me, aren't you afraid of global condemnation?!"
"Condemnation?" Doflamingo let out a high-pitched, mocking laugh. "Fufufufu! Morgans, do you really, truly think this world runs on public opinion? How hopelessly naive!"
He took a slow step closer, looming over the trembling bird-man, his gaze full of undisguised disdain.
"This world has always belonged to the strong!"
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"And the New Marine is now the strongest force on these seas. The tides have turned, you stupid, obsolete bird."
"!!!"
As the president of the world's largest news agency, Morgans was a man who understood information.
He understood implications.
And Doflamingo's words, combined with the reports in his hand, the impossible silence of the Marines, the Warlords vanishing… it all converged in one, blinding, earth-shattering flash of realization.
'The New Marine. The tides have turned. The tides…'
'My god. My wild conjecture… it was true. It was all true!'
"The Marine…" Morgans whispered, his beak agape in awe and terror.
"It's no longer the World Government's Marine!"
"Fufufu, you finally get it," Doflamingo's smile faded, his tone turning flat and cold, laced with an undeniable killing intent.
"And given your… nature… knowing such a massive secret, what would you do, I wonder?"
He flicked a single finger.
A thin, glistening thread unspooled and coiled lovingly around Morgans's feathered neck.
It tightened, just enough to make him choke.
"Could you resist announcing this to the world?" Doflamingo mused, as if genuinely curious.
"Could you really pass up the chance to break the biggest story in 800 years? No, you couldn't. You're 'Big News' Morgans, after all."
His voice dropped to a final, cold whisper from hell.
"So, goodbye."
With a sharp, dismissive tug of his finger, the razor-thin, Haki-infused thread sliced deep.
Blood gushed, a crimson fountain staining his pristine white shirt and beautiful feathers.
Morgans struggled, his wings beating uselessly against the invisible bonds.
He could only watch, his eyes wide with the horror of his own death, as his life force pulsed out of him.
His mouth gaped, trying to let out one final, defiant cry, but only weak, wet croaks escaped.
"Gah… gah…"
With a final, sickening gurgle, the great news tycoon of the seas fell, his body thudding heavily onto the ink-stained floor.
Doflamingo stared at the corpse, his face a mask of cold, bored expressionlessness.
"Everyone who knows about this, everyone in this building, must be silenced," he ordered, not even looking at his family.
"Leave no one alive. Take over the World Economic Journal. Now. Move quickly."
"Yes, Young Master!"
"Fufufufufu…" Doflamingo turned and strode out of the office, his pink feather coat sweeping past the body of his victim.
"From now on, there will be only one voice on these seas."
"The rise of the New Marine—no one can stop it!"
...
Soon, a report—edited, approved, and released by the Donquixote-controlled World Economic Journal—spread faster than a plague across the seas, landing with a thud on every doorstep and in every port.
The headline, in bold, world-stopping print, read:
"'THE WORLD'S STRONGEST MAN' WHITEBEARD HAS BOWED TO THE MARINES?!"