[ Third Person POV ]
MarineFord
The World Government had ordered the Marines not to interfere in the battle between Whitebeard and Big Mom.
They heavily insisted on maintaining surveillance without any interference. Implying that they wanted to get more information about the after effects of the battle in order to make the next move.
This mission was solely entrusted to the Cipher Phol organization, who had taken the disguise of a couple of trade members within a fleet belonging to a man named Eustass Cassius. In order to maintain their disguise, they had to act like they were one of the ship's choreboys to keep a low profile.
They hadn't heard anything for a while, but Fleet-Admiral Kong maintained vigilance in hopes of getting news in the future. However, now wasn't the time to think about them, Vice-Admiral Sakazuki had just burst into the room; and he didn't seem to look happy either.
"Fleet-Admiral Kong! Why are we staying in Marineford and twiddling our thumbs when the oppurtunity to capture the Whitebeard, Big Mom, Golden Lion and Roger Pirates is right in front of us?!"
"For once, I agree with the brat. Fleet-Admiral," Vice-Admiral Garp agreed, "you even went as far as to pull me from catching Roger because of the World Government's decision. Didn't they want me to catch him?"
"The circumstances behind Roger and the rest of the parties involved is way too much of a risk to send Marine assets to intervene," Fleet-Admiral Kong replied, "There's always going to be a chance that all of them would gang up just to get rid of us. It isn't a risk worth taking."
"Fleet-Admiral, the rewards of participating in the battle would be staggering. We would be able to single-handedly subdue the so-called 'rulers' of the New World. We would be executing Justice in the finest fashion!" Vice-Admiral Sakazuki replied.
The same sentiment was carried throughout the entirety of the Headquarter's of the Marines. It didn't rub some of the Marines right knowing that they had missed an oppurtunity to put down some notorious and powerful pirates who had been causing chaos within the New World.
"There will come a time where you will be granted the liberty to execute your beliefs without restraint, Sakazuki," Fleet-Admiral Kong responded, "as of now, we have built too much tension with those pirates; Whitebeard Pirates specifically, for us not to be certain that they won't stop their fighting just to attack us instead."
Kuzan slowly approached Sakazuki before patting the man on the shoulder.
"We'll catch them next time, we have other priorities we need to focus on."
"Indeed, and it starts with these," the Fleet-Admiral then spread a bunch of different papers across his desk.
"What is this?" Kuzan asked as he slowly looked over the papers.
"These are areas that the Roger Pirates had been spotted at one point of time. We have information that they are searching for the Poneglyphs," Fleet-Admiral Kong answered.
"Of course they are!" Vice-Admiral Garp exclaimed while picking his nose, "everyone with half of a brain cell knows that!"
"What most people don't know, however, is what kind of Poneglyphs they are looking for," Admiral Sengoku walked in with Vice-Admiral Borusalino.
They were both carrying more files in hand and they both walked up to Fleet-Admiral Kong's desk to dump the files that they had on the Roger Pirate's latest movements.
"Garp, since you're on the case concerning Roger. You should know that he has been looking for a certain type of Poneglyph, and if we can discover one along the route he is on. We can set up an ambush to capture him once and for all."
"I have no interest in using cowardly tactics to catch Roger, Sengoku," Garp replied, "I will catch him with my own ability, and my own two fists!"
"What about the Whitebeard Pirates? How are we going to deal with them?" Vice-Admiral Sakazuki asked. He was still bitter over how Boris left him within an inch of his life.
"Well, we're going to have to play a bit of a waiting game for them," Admiral Sengoku commented, "Whitebeard is slowly nearing his prime. It wouldn't be a great idea to antagonize him when he quite literally destroy the world if he wanted to."
"As for the Storm Dragon, we're going to take a non-aggressive approach with him. As long as we don't antagonize him, I don't think he'll be posing much of a threat," Fleet-Admiral Kong replied.
"Since when do we live in fear of these damn pirates?! Just give me the word, and I'll make sure that I finish the job!" Vice-Admiral Sakazuki declared.
"I'm not letting you go into a suicidal mission. The last time you faced Boris, you almost died," Fleet-Admiral Kong replied, "We're not going to start useless fights when we can avoid them to begin with."
"Anyway," Admiral Sengoku said, "the Big Mom Pirates have always been notorious for shady dealings with the World Government, so we'll leave them to the World Government for now."
"As for the Golden Lion Pirates, we have to wait for the outcome of the battle in order to figure out what to do with him. He has quite the tricky ability, and it would be a headache if we directly antagonized him." Admiral Sengoku commented.
"Actually, raise the priority levels on capturing Shiki. Taking him down can ease the pressure that we have at the moment." Fleet-Admiral Kong interjected, "as for Kaidou, we can't really do anything except catch him and try and execute him with a new method. I heard that he had somehow managed to survive the guillotine."
"Other than those pirates in the New World, we can maintain vigilance with the Blues and Paradise by using the Marine bases," Admiral Sengoku stated, "it shouldn't be too hard considering that we have grown accustomed to the sudden surge of piracy in the waters."
"If we had raided Whole Cake Island. We could have used it as a way to strike fear into the hearts of those damn pirates so that they could stop committing piracy," Vice-Admiral Sakazuki grumbled while Kuzan continued to console him.
The rest of the Marine Officers who were within the Fleet-Admiral's office ignored the Vice-Admiral's complaints as he perused through some more paperwork that Borusalino and Sengoku had brought him.
One piece of information particularly caught his eye, and he looked closer into it for a bit before looking up.
"Was anyone aware that the Storm Dragon had commissioned a ship from Tom, the one who built Roger's and Whitebeard's ship?" Fleet-Admiral Kong asked.
He passed the paper around the office and everyone slowly took in the new piece of news.
"We should apprehend Tom before he can finish building that damned ship!" Sakazuki growled as he burned the paper accidentally.
"No, let's keep watching to see what's going to happen," Vice-Admiral Borusalino spoke for the first time, "who knows? We might find something interesting in the long run~."
Fleet-Admiral Kong could only remain quiet as he continued to ponder over the possibilities that could happen. There were a lot of things that needed to be done after the battle, and the best that they could do at the moment was to predict the possible dangers that they would need to handle immediately after the battle.