Chapter Four
Marco sat around the table in the commanders meeting room, eyes flickering over documents about the two bodies that they had dragged back to the base, Sabo had done the research about the two of them and it has come up with nothing.
Only their background information, and their lives up until they dropped off the map four weeks ago, their friends, family, business associates, the places that they regularly visit, nothing, just gone.
Marco sighed deeply, letting the pages drop to the table top, eyes going over to the folder that contained Ace's medical information.
"So you got nothing from the two dead bodies?" Haruta barked, green eyes going over to Ace's glaring at the blonde man, Sabo ignored her in favour of reading Ace's medical file, the rage inside of him burning just as much if not more then everyone else's combined in the room that they are in.
His brother, best friend, the one that he could rely on the most in the world when he had been growing up or even now, when he is dead to everyone in the world, is in the hospital and he might not ever wake up again.
His little sister is being tutored alone with strangers that keep on hurting her, that are only using her…but that isn't the worst of it all, the worst is that she could die, she could die and he would never have the change to apologize for all those tears she cried during his funeral, the nightmares she suffered when she slept as he did who knows what, while she screamed for him to comfort her.
He felt like it's his responsibility, all of it, everything rested on his shoulder because it's his fault…
Everyone in the room is pulled out of their thoughts when the doors were rapped on from the other side.
"Enter!" Whitebeard commandeered after the commanders around the table had closed the files so that they can't be looked at by whoever is to enter, Sabo had moved behind Whitebeard, the largest thing inside the room and hid.
"Pops…sorry, I know it must be important, but Ace said that any messages or packages must be handed…" The man's eyes wandered over the group, not seeing Ace inside the room, his face turned bright red. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know that Ace…"
"I'll take the package, Ace it a little bit occupied with a job, yoi." Marco said, standing up, his hands held out to take the brown box from the nerves man's hands. "Thank you."
"Y-you're wel-wel-welcome." The man stepped back, letting Marco close the door with his foot.
"What is it?" Sabo demanded having gone up to Marco at some point, if Marco hadn't heard the blonde shoes click across the ground behind him, he would have jumped a little bit from the surprise of Sabo's sudden appearance.
"A box, yoi." Marco said going over to the table and placing the shoe sized box down, Sabo stopped the other blonde from opening it.
"It might explode…" The first division commander raised a brow and stepped aside.
"You can look then." Sabo nodded, going over to the brown box, taking in the handwriting, the way that they wrote their T's and R's, his turned it over, looking at it from every angle, then sniffed at it, brow furrowing.
The Whitebeard commanders and the old man himself watched this happen, let the master do his work, they didn't approve when Sabo tore the brown paper from the box and ripped the lid open, he had been the one worried about it exploding after all.
Inside the box is a CD disk inside of a clear plastic cover, then a tiny little box, small with a butterfly on the top of it, it sparkled in the light as Sabo lifted it out of the shoe box.
His fingers trembled as he opened up the little lid and inside lay two fingers, broken and bruised…He dropped it heavily on the table, his hands hitting the table top…
Marco looked inside the box and let out a sigh of frustration, they knew what he would do to her if they messed up…they knew and yet…he closed the lid and slid it across the table to Whitebeard along with the disk.
The old man flips open the box to look over the fingers, eyes gazing over the little limbs that had been cut off, then down at the disk.
"Turn the lights off and set this up!" Whitebeard said, sliding the disk over to Izo, the pretty man opened up the case and moved towards the left of the room, going towards the large television that's set up on the wall.
He pushed the disk into the side of the screen and as he walked back over to his seat, he flicked the lights off, turning the room dark.
Whitebeard pressed play and the screen turned, showing a girl tied to a chair, black hair like Ace's, her skin pale from the situation that she is in, bandages across her head, covering her empty eye socket, the other eye unfocused from drugs and pain.
The man spoke, he talked about what he wanted, while hurting little Luffy who is fighting so strongly, so bravely…and they could all see the trust in her eyes that Ace would come to save her, would save her from the monsters hurting her hands and face. Sabo ended up breaking the table when the bastard touched her, touched her body.
Then when the screen turned black and her screaming is the only thing that could be heard Sabo shook, with rage and grief, he has seen a lot of torture videos, some done by Robin, some he has done by himself, then other videos of torture, but seeing Luffy in that chair, seeing her, hearing her in that situation scared him, terrified him.
Whitebeard turned the video off, his eyes roaming over the faces of his sons and daughter, of his sons brother who looked ready to cry, the old man knew what is in that shipment that had been requested, a friend had sent it to him, to hide it and keep it safe from people that would want to use it for the wrong reasons.
But…
"Marco, Haruta, get the paperwork for crate four-zero-three, have it ready for transport, take it to the address in the video, but place a tracking devise into the crate, Izo take the video and get as much information as you can out of it, Sabo go with him, you might pick up on what Luffy's body language is saying. Thatch, Atmos go stay with Ace just encase he either wakes up or someone tries to attack him. Jiru, Curiel, take the fingers and look them over, I want to know what the video didn't show, Jozu, Vista, Fossa, go to the bridge and search it, get your commands to look in the city to find out where that sniper had been hiding. The rest of you, my sons, keep your commands relaxed and wait until we find the location of just where this bastard is hiding, because when we find it, we'll attack." Everyone stood from their chairs, and walked towards the door, Whitebeard stay seated watching them go, he could hear them shouting out orders to those in their divisions, the hurried steps and he closed his eyes.
He waited until the door closed shut before Newgate reached for the small little black phone resting on top of the table and reached for it, picking it up and typing in the number of his friend.
"Old man Whitebeard!" The voice shouted, overly happy for reasons unknown yet. "I'm in the middle of drinking down the head of my new business branch!"
"Four-zero-three."
"Did you deal with it?"
"Shanks's, a hostage situation as appeared and they have asked for that crate."
"How many hostages?"
"One."
"Let them die, what's in the crate will and could possibly destroy the world."
"You have a personal relationship with Ace don't you?"
"Yes…" The tone in Shanks's voice changed, and from the sounds in the background his men are removing any alcohol and drunken people from the scene. The man's voice also held wariness, he knew the family, after all he had looked after his little sister when she had been seven and living on the streets, had raised the black haired girl four a few years before her brothers had found her.
"Then you must know Ace's little sister Luffy, Shanks, the hostage is Luffy." Whitebeard could hear the phone creaking from Shanks's tight grip, the old man didn't have to see the torment on Shanks's face to know that he is torn between Luffy's life and the world.
"I want to know everything…when does the crate need to be delivered?"
"Soon."
"Give me three hours and set up the landing strip, I need all the information before I can decide."
"Shanks, it's not up for debate, I had just called you to inform you that I'll be handing four-zero-three over to these people in exchange for Luffy."
"DAMN IT WHITEBEARD, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, I'M NOT JOKING ABOUT THE DESTUCTION OF THE WORLD."
"And I'm not going to allow my son to lose an important family member, especially when he asked for my help." Shanks stayed quite on the other end of the phone, debating what to do, he knew that no matter what he said, or told the old man he would still hand over the crate.
"Three hours, landing strip, I'll give you more man power and call up allies to meet up inside the city."