The giant Marine battleship slammed into the ice near the plaza with a deafening KA-BOOOM! The shrapnel, ice, and concrete flew everywhere, and the resulting shockwave felt like a giant's hand shoving Leo against the wall.
He coughed, wiping soot from his eyes. From the hole in the ice—the wreckage of the ship—a small, skinny figure emerged, wearing a red vest and a straw hat. Monkey D. Luffy.
"Oh, man," Leo whispered, a strange mix of terror and excitement flooding his senses. "He's here. The chaos just leveled up. Time to switch my strategy from Stealth to Avoid All Collision Damage."
He knew the arrival of the main character meant the entire focus of the Marine forces would pivot. The Boss Fight just got a major distraction.
"Good. Now the whole scene will shift toward Whitebeard, Luffy, and the rest of the gang. I will hide and loot until Red-Haired Shanks arrives."
Leo settled back into his hiding spot, feeling like a player watching a high-level raid in spectator mode. The timer was still his main concern: 2 Hours 00 Minutes Remaining. He needed to stay alive and out of the way.
The scenes unfolded exactly as he remembered, only a hundred times more frantic and terrifying in person.
Luffy was a magnetic force. He immediately rushed the center of the battlefield, somehow managing to talk side-by-side with the towering Whitebeard—the most dangerous man in the world—and even convinced him to team up.
Leo watched as a huge, armored Marine giant—a Vice Admiral—stepped up to block Luffy's path. Luffy, without hesitation, activated his ability.
"Gomu Gomu no…"
Giant Rifle!
The giant flew backward, completely defeated in one hit. Leo shook his head, amazed. "No cooldown, insane attack power, and he's rubber. That Devil Fruit is broken. Talk about an OP class build."
The action moved fast. Luffy ran into Smoker, the relentless Marine Captain with the Smoke-Smoke Fruit. Smoker had Luffy pinned, his smoked fist winding up for a finishing blow.
"This is it for the protagonist, time for the plot device!" Leo muttered, and right on cue, a gorgeous woman with flowing dark hair and an imperious gaze dropped down, delivering a powerful kick. Boa Hancock.
Smoker was thrown back by the sheer force of the kick. Leo, momentarily forgetting the war, felt his jaw drop.
"Wow," he breathed. "She is… she is truly beautiful. And the memes about her ridiculously long forehead are completely false! She is a goddess! What an animation upgrade in real life!"
The Close Call
Luffy, momentarily saved, continued his frantic dash toward the execution platform. Leo allowed himself a moment of relief, thinking the main wave of chaos had passed him by.
But in this war, relief was a short-lived illusion.
From the central plaza, a massive, bear-like figure in a Marine suit, Bartholomew Kuma, was locked in combat with a bizarre, tall figure with a giant, elaborate head and a massive, pink hairdo. Emporio Ivankov.
Ivankov let out a shrill yell. "DEATH WINK!"
A powerful, compressed blast of wind erupted from Ivankov's wink, slamming into Kuma. Kuma, already damaged, flew backward like a cannonball, a huge, black shape hurtling directly toward Leo's hiding spot behind the defeated Rear Admiral.
"WOAH!" Leo screamed, his eyes going wide. His military training, sharper than any game reaction time, took over. He threw himself sideways, scrambling out from behind the wreckage barely a second before Kuma impacted.
CRUNCH!
The massive, cyborg body of Kuma smashed into the Rear Admiral's corpse and the stone wall, sending up a massive cloud of dust, stone fragments, and ice. The stone wall Leo had been hiding behind only seconds before crumbled completely.
Leo lay prone on the ground, shaking, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against the ice.
"H-huff… huff…" He checked his body. No new pain, only terror. "Dodging that was… too close. Was that Kuma? And the one who kicked him… Ivankov? He really does have a big head, but seriously, the power behind that wink is terrifying. I need to get further away from these high-level clashes."
He quickly pushed himself up. His safe spot was gone. The battlefield was shifting, the mid-bosses were starting to activate their powerful attacks, and the chaos was too much to simply watch.
Leo scrambled away from the freshly created crater. He had two hours left, and he needed a new, safer hiding spot, preferably one with a path to the outside docks. The plot was moving too fast to remain stationary.
He ran, focusing only on the numbers in his head: 2 Hours. Survive.