A/N: Sorry for the wait! But i've finally brought you the new chapter! School's been going great so far. It's a lot of work but it's all a lot of fun.
So without further ado...
Chapter Fourteen
It was several days before Sabo got the courage to take that final look, several days of putting it off before having the courage to confirm what it was that had happened to the man now known as Lucci of CP9. It turned out that the story dated back three years. Back to a time when One Piece was still in it's final stages of production. A reporter by the name of Jason Liebrecht mysteriously disappeared and later turned up dead. Souring the internet for old threads and discussions about the occurrence found talks of potential conspiracy. Finding his old articles told Sabo that he had a history of investigating companies on accounts of fraud, corruption, and conspiracy. Perhaps it was only a matter of time for him to step on the wrong toes and end up dead.
Sabo decided that he had to make a phone call.
The comic book storefront was dead so Sabo grabbed his cellphone and dialed the number for the Boston Globe and waited. The line picked up on the second ring to the chime of "Hello, you've reached the Boston Globe, how may I help you?" from a low female voice.
"Hello, I'm calling because I was directed here while on my search for some more information about the death of Jason Liebrecht." Sabo revealed.
The woman on the other end of the line was silent for a moment before she answered, "Please hold."
Sabo blinked a few times as it sounded like the phone was placed onto a desk. He heard the sound of a chair squeaking as someone got up and then he was left in a silence that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Sitting behind the counter at work, tapping away at the armrest of his office chair, he waited, eyes glued to the front door to catch anyone walking in. It was early afternoon on a Tuesday, though. Hardly anyone goes to a comic book store on a Tuesday afternoon because new comics come out on Wednesdays. Sabo didn't even know why his boss, Chris, was even here. Tuesday shift could easily be handled alone, but Sabo could hear the soft twangs of a guitar drifting from the game room in back that signaled his presence. Sabo suddenly wondered if the man was actually a hypocrite who never took a day for himself and thought back as he tried to remember.
A voice abruptly interrupted his thoughts, startling Sabo back into awareness.
"I'm sorry what was that?" Sabo asked, having no idea what the voice on the other end of the line had said.
"You called askin' about Jace?" A male voice repeated, not so much asking as he was stating a fact.
"Um, yeah. I did." Sabo responded, a little put off by the sharp tone of the voice on the other side.
"Why do you wanna know, kid?" The voice asked.
"I've been doing research and I need to know what Mr. Liebrecht was researching at the time before his death." Sabo strongly requested.
There was a pause "Whatever you're doing, I suggest you stop. Whatever answers you're looking for aren't worth it. It killed him and it'll kill you. You don't want to stick your nose into that mess."
"It's too late for that." Sabo responded quietly, picking up his pen between his index and middle finger and bouncing it off his pinky just to give his free hand something to do. "It just a race against time at this point."
There was a heavy sigh on the other line "Fine." Sabo stopped bouncing his pen, using his thump to flip it into the writing position. "Jason was a relentless man. Once he had his mind set on something, he wouldn't stop for a second until he saw it all the way through. It bit him in the ass in the end with this case."
Sabo paused for a second as he listened before he started tapping his pen on the notepad on the display case before him.
"He started sniffing around for fraud and corrupt business practices, wanting to expose them for who they were and he didn't care how he did it. His methods weren't… the most… legal, at times. Investigative Journalism to the extreme, if you will." The voice revealed and Sabo began to take notes on the page designated for Lucci as the man on the other end continued. "I found out that he was breaking into businesses after hours and snooping around for leads and evidence. He was scarily good at covering his tracks to make sure he didn't get caught or found out. I'm not sure how he got good at hacking computers, breaking into buildings, rigging the camera systems, and everything else he did to cover his ass, but he did it all the time. It seems that, in the end, he ended up messing with the wrong company and paid the price. That's why you should learn from his mistake and stay as far away from them as possible, kid, you hear me?"
Sabo frowned "I already said it's too late for that, sir. It only sounds like more of a reason to get myself further involved. Someone needs to expose these people and it's gonna be me." he promised.
The man on the other end of the line took a deep breath as he sighed before continuing, "He told me where he was going before he left and then he never came back. They must've caught him. No one ever heard from him again. There was a missing person's case around for a while but, after a few months, people started to give up looking. His body turned up a year later in some back woods. Some hiker and his dog found him while out on the trails. It re-sparked a lot of debates around the office about conspiracy and how Jace must have been right about everything and what Celestial was doing. He didn't talk about it, too cautious about too many ears in too many places. That if he spoke about it then word would make it up the grapevine and they'd find him. But I remember him once talking about people dying. So after they found his body, we started talking here at the office. Some of us demanded that we pursue the story where he left off, but others were simply terrified. He'd been killed and his body dumped in the woods they didn't want to touch the story with a twenty-foot pole. So we ended up doing nothing. Packed all his stuff up into boxes and stored it all away, never to be seen again."
Movement caught Sabo's eye and once he finished his notes, he pulled his eyes away from his notepad to see what it was. He found Chris standing in the doorway to the back, his guitar in hand and a questioning look on his face. Sabo waved him off as he continued to follow with what the man on the phone was telling him and writing down the important bits and pieces of the story.
"So before you ask," the man continued, "No. We don't have any of his stuff on Celestial. At least, we don't think so. He took it with him but he might have had a back up somewhere. He was really careful about that, but it's impossible to know with all of the password encryptions he has on everything."
Sabo's eyes drifted to his messenger bag that contained his laptop and his own flash drive. He frowned before looking back at his notepad. "Pretty smart, but I suppose that would end up being a problem if it ever came to that."
"Well. If that's everything that you wanted to know then we're done here." The man abruptly finalized.
"Yeah, that's it. Thanks for agreeing to talk with me."
"Careful, kid. Watch your step." The man warned before the line went dead.
Sabo pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment, the 'call ended' text appearing underneath the frozen call duration before his phone went to sleep. Sabo put the phone down on the display case and glanced over his notes with a frown. He clicked his pen a few times before setting it down and closing his notepad. He looked up as his boss, absently strumming on his guitar, approached.
"Who was that?" Chris asked.
"I honestly have no idea. We didn't discuss that." Sabo shrugged, his ears picking up the tune that Chis was playing. Sabo furrowed his eyebrows as he concentrated, trying to recall if he'd heard the song before. It was vaguely familiar to Sabo, but he had no idea where he'd heard it before. A part of him was convinced that he'd heard it recently in One Piece and another part of him said that his boss had probably played it before, but the door chimed and a customer walked in before Sabo ever got the chance to ask.
Ace walked in ten minutes before the shop was closing up for the evening, declaring "Hey, nerds," as he walked through the door. A quick glance outside revealed that Ace had leaned his bike against the store window as Sabo finished locking down the register.
"Are you making a habit of randomly dropping by?" Sabo smirked, thinking back over the last few months to recall how many times Ace had stopped by after his day shifts since May. Sabo was surprised to recall that it had probably only been a handful of times.
"Maybe your hobbies aren't as lame as I make them out to be." Ace allowed, avoiding eye contact as he reached out to pick up one of the comics from the first shelf. "Besides," he continued, "It's not too far out of my way to ride by your little shop here after work to see you. I didn't realize how close it was to the station until I stopped by before Luffy's birthday." Yeah, 'close.' It was a fifteen-minute bike ride to get from the fire station to the comic book store. Sure, for Ace that might not seem like very far, but still.
"Well, if you stick around today for a few more minutes then we can ride back to the house together." Sabo offered as he retreated into the break room to grab the glass cleaner and a rag before coming back out to clean the glass of the display case of all of the fingerprints.
"This early?" Ace raised an eyebrow, looking awfully surprised.
"Yeah, the store closes at six on Tuesdays." Sabo reminded him, spraying the cleaner onto the first of the glass panes and wiping it down. Sabo couldn't really fault Ace for forgetting that detail. Ace had a calendar in his room marking out his schedule for the month to remind him when and at what time he had to go to work so Sabo didn't expect him to remember his own schedule.
"Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Sorry. Just. Tired. One more day before I get to sleep as much as I want." Ace raised his fists and looked towards the ceiling, closing his eyes as shook his fists, "Just one more day shift and then I get three straight days of blissful rest." Ace nearly leaned against the glass display case as he relaxed before apparently remembering that Sabo had just cleaned that section. Sabo's glare might have helped that. "I'm gonna grab my bike so that no one steals it." He decided, disappearing back outside for a moment and bringing his bike into the shop, leaning it against the front door.
"Since you don't have to work, I have a request to make of you, then." Sabo decided, moving onto cleaning the third pane of glass on the display case once Ace returned.
"Oh? What do you need?" Ace asked, lifting a hand to tuck a lock of his black hair back behind his ear.
"If you can borrow a headset from the station again, then I'd like for you to track down the new wandering boss, that Blackbeard guy, and ask him a few questions for me." Sabo said, wiping down the surface and moving onto the last section of the display case.
"Ask him questions? Would he even answer them? I haven't heard a lot about Blackbeard but based on what I have heard from the other commanders, he's not exactly the chatty type. He's more the violent, aggressive, and dangerous type." Ace furrowed his eyebrows, circling around the display case to sit in Sabo's office chair behind the register.
Sabo glanced at him through the glass from his place crouching on the ground as he finished cleaning the last glass pane across the front. "It wouldn't hurt to ask them anyway." Sabo shrugged "And if he doesn't answer you can just fight him."
"But what if I die and I lose my devil fruit? I don't want to risk that. I know people that have tried and failed and I'd never seen them lose a fight before. This guy's in another league entirely." Ace frowned.
Sabo sat back on his heels, examining the glass for any missed smudges "There are greater things at stake here, Ace." He reminded him as he finished his inspection, hummed in satisfaction, and stood, examining the top of the glass before he began to clean.
"So it's…" Ace hesitated, eyes glancing around the shop and catching Chris as the man straightened out a box of comics across the store. Ace didn't need to finish his train of thought for Sabo to know what he was thinking, though.
"Yeah. And my account's been deleted so I can't seek him out myself. So, I'd like you to do it for me, if you would, and stream it to me if you can this weekend, so preferably on Friday when I'm also off work." Sabo requested again as he moved on to clean the second of the top glass panes on the display case.
"What's this I hear about you getting your account deleted, Sabs?" Chris smirked, "What do you even do with yourself anymore?" he glanced up at them from across the room.
"I still haven't even figured that out myself," Sabo smirked back as he inspected the glass for missed smudges "It happened a few days ago so I still don't know what to do with all this extra free time I have on my hands when no one else is home." Or, at least, what he'll be doing with his free time once this was all over. Sabo determined that the glass was satisfactory and circled around the display case to get to the break room.
"You'll figure it all out eventually. I remember back when I quit the game. I had so much extra time on my hands again that I had no idea what to do with myself." Chris shrugged, checking the last of the boxes of comic books as Sabo ventured inside to put the cleaning supplies back and then returned.
"You used to play?" Sabo gaped, shoulder leaning against the doorframe. Chris had never even mentioned it before. All he'd ever done was tease Sabo about how much he'd always played the game. It was no wonder the man knew so much about it. It all made sense now.
"Yeah. Back when the game first came out. I was even a beta tester back then, can you believe it? The game's been out, what… almost three years, now?"
Chris had even managed to nab a spot as one of the beta testers? Sabo was surprised. "Three years at the end of November," he confirmed, "so in an about four months."
"I haven't played in almost two and a half years then." Chris shrugged.
"Why'd you quit?" Ace asked, joining in on the conversation.
"Just. Can't bring myself to play it anymore." Chris dismissed with a wave of his hand that said he didn't want to talk about it. Sabo wondered why Chris had never bothered to tell him before. Maybe it had to do with the reason that he quit? There was also the fact that, by Sabo's quick calculations, Chris must have quit playing before Sabo had started working there.
"So, you play to? With your line of work, I'm surprised you've got the time." Chris changed the subject, directing the question at Ace.
Ace seemed not to mind, just grinned "Yup! I'm the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates and I've got a bounty of 500 million," he boasted.
Chris whistled, impressed "500 million? That's quite a number. But the Whitebeard Pirates?" Chris tilted his head to the side while he concentrated for a moment "Don't think I've ever heard of them."
Ace's eyes became wide as saucers and his jaw dropped slightly "You mean you. What? You've never heard of the Whitebeard Pirates?" Ace stood abruptly, twisting around as he tugged the back of his shirt up to his shoulders in order to expose the massive tattoo that inked his back, "You mean you've never seen this jolly roger before?" he asked.
Sabo smacked Ace's arm, "Put your shirt back down." He scolded.
Ace ignored him in favor of hearing out Chris' response "It's slightly familiar, but I think that's because I've seen someone walk in with a tattoo like that on their arm before. It was a lot simpler, but it was the same basic shape I think. I don't think I ever saw it in the game, though."
That bit about seeing someone else with the tattoo definitely got Ace's attention. Ace pulled his shit back down as he turned, smacking his hands on the glass surface of the display case as he leaned forward with an excited grin "Really? Who was it?"
Sabo was too busy glaring at Aces hands on the glass surface to catch Chris' apparently non-verbal response.
"Man… that's too bad." Ace slouched, disappointed. "Oh, sorry, Sabo. I didn't mean—" Ace lifted his hands off the glass surface apologetically as Sabo lifted his glare from Ace's hand's to Ace's blue-grey eyes "I'll uh, I'll clean it again for you."
Ace zipped into the office and returned again with the glass cleaning supplies in hand. Sabo was surprised at how quickly Ace had managed to find them.
"So. Friday." Sabo said, bringing the conversation back to the event again. He tapped his foot against Ace's ankle while his older brother began to spray the surface with the glass cleaner.
"Oh, right." Ace nodded, pausing momentarily to think before he resumed wiping down the surface to remove his handprints "Yeah, I can do that, I think, but if I lose my devil fruit over this, then you'll owe me one."
"Even if you don't, I'll still owe you." Sabo allowed, "I just didn't know who else to ask to do this for me."
Ace nodded again, a bit of finality to the movement as he finished cleaning the glass "I'll do it then."
"Thanks." Sabo ran a hand through his hair, pushing his growing bangs to the sides with his thumbs.
Ace prodded him in the kidney, causing Sabo to flinch sideways and bat Ace's hand away "You need a hair cut" the raven laughed, draping the washrag over his shoulder. "It's been years since you let your hair grow out enough to touch your ears on the sides."
"Been lazy. But it's getting annoying now that it's long enough in front to get in my eyes but not long enough to stay out of my face. I'll probably get it cut before the school year starts." Sabo shrugged, moving to collect his things and drop them into his bag. Ace disappeared back into the office, returning a moment later without the cleaning supplies. "Ready to go?" Sabo asked.
"Yeah." Ace glanced out the store window before remembering that he'd brought his bike inside and that it hadn't been stolen.
"I'll meet you out front, then." Sabo declared as he pulled the strap of his messenger bag over his head and tightened it so that the bag hugged his back and wouldn't get in the way while they peddled.
"Yup, will do." Ace replied back as he stood, stretched, yawned, and then headed back towards the front door.
"Alright, we are live." A voice crackled through Ace's laptop speakers, clearing up a bit more with every word. "Can you hear me?"
Sabo couldn't respond so he just set about adjusting the brightness of the laptop screen and double-checking the wires hooked between the Dragon headset Ace was currently wearing and Ace's laptop sitting on his thighs. It was weird associating the voice that was coming through his speakers with Ace's voice. He didn't realize just how different it sounded until he was outside of the game and listening to it with his real ears.
"Right. I'm going to just assume that you can because I see the little icon on my HUD." Ace decided. The video display shifted as Ace turned "Hey, Pineapple!" he shouted, focusing in on the phoenix-user.
"You ready, yoi?" Fen asked. "We've already got The Striker set out and ready to go for you. Everything working okay?"
"Yeah! I'm assuming so, so I'm going to be heading in. If I message for help, you can come, but otherwise I'm doing this on my own." Ace said, a distracting lock of Ace's hair floated into his vision and Sabo suddenly became aware of why people rarely seemed to use this video feature from One Piece. Seeing exactly what someone else was seeing and through their eyes was often a nauseating experience. Motion sickness was a big problem. It was almost as bad as playing the old versions of virtual reality video games before they developed full dive technology. Since this didn't require a set of vr goggles, it was a lot easier to manage, if not a little more difficult to focus on things in exchange. Especially when the person whose feed you were watching kept blinking, god damn it Ace. Stop.
Ace leapt onto the railing of what must have been the flagship of the Whitebeard Pirates if the loud cheers and shouts of encouragement were anything to go by. Ace turned and saluted to the large group of pirates before back-flipping off the railing like the show off that he was and landing on his skiff to the sound of people wishing him luck.
Sabo couldn't help the twinge of jealousy that clutched at his chest, making him regret having never joined a real crew during his time playing One Piece. Sabo couldn't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to be on a crew the size of the Whitebeards and hanging out with that many people whenever he played the game. But as Ace powered up his skiff and sped off towards the island ahead, Sabo just sorely missed playing One Piece in general more than he regretted not joining a crew.
Ace approached the pulsating green barrier surrounding the island before him. The barrier signaled that the moving event was in the area and that it was open to challengers. The barrier moved with the event boss and always maintained the same few mile radius of them to give any unsuspecting players ample warning that they were stumbling into boss territory and to give it a wide berth if that wanted to avoid confrontation. But, as soon as Ace breached that pulsing green barrier, the video feed glitched and then cut out entirely. Sabo cursed and sat up straight from his place on the floor next to Ace's bed. He checked the wires, checked the internet, then checked the wires again before determining that it wasn't a problem on his end; it was on Ace's. Sabo had expected this but had really hoped that it wouldn't happen.
Sabo let his head drop back against Ace's bedframe with a frustrated groan as he stared at the ceiling. "Of god damn frickin' course." Sabo groaned, setting Ace's laptop aside and then dragging his hands down his face. So now what? Was he supposed to just sit back and wait? He wanted that video feed. He needed it for evidence. He glanced at the blank screen of Ace's laptop and sighed again, flopping over onto his side and staring at Ace's carpet.
A few minutes passed and Sabo was just about to give up and disconnect everything when Ace's voice crackled back into clarity "Sabo. This is weird." Ace whispered. Sabo shot upright and grabbed Ace's laptop, pulling it back into his lap to look at the screen. Sabo could see that Ace was slowly approaching the nearby shore on The Striker. "The system cut the video feed because it doesn't want anything from the event to be recorded, but it came back on. I don't know what this means. You can hear me right? I really hope you can and that you didn't just rage quit or something and leave in the last few minutes."
Sabo wished he had a way to tell Ace that he was still there, but all he could do was sit and keep watching, that is, until Ace made it to the shore. Sabo had to glance off to the side of the screen to save himself a headache as Ace hopped off of his skiff, dragged it ashore, and then jump-skipped his way up the beach until he made it to solid ground. While Ace made his way up the pathway and into the town proper, Sabo double-checked that the screen capture was still running and recording the video feed. While he did that, he couldn't help but wonder what had let the video feed start back up again. Was someone on the inside interfering? But who? And why? What had bypassed the video restrictions on the event area?
"It's really quiet here, Sabo" Ace whispered, glancing around the abandoned town. It seemed to have a bit of a Wild West influence for it's design and Sabo tried to place where Ace might be. "Hm…" Ace hummed thoughtfully, stopping and turning full circle as he reached the town square. Sabo couldn't recognize the island. "I wonder where all the NPCs are." Sabo's best guess was that either the event temporarily removed them from the area or something bigger was at play there.
A moment passed, and then another one before a voice broke the stifling silence that had settled over them "Ahhhh you made it." the voice was vaguely familiar to Sabo and he tried to place where he might have heard it before. Ace snapped to the side, locking eyes with a large man sauntering into view of the empty town square. "I was wondering when you might show up, Commander Rage. It's me, Marshall Teach."
"Te—I know that name. You…" Ace voice faded to white nose as Sabo's mind latched onto that name, running a mile a minute. That was it. Marshall Teach. The folder on Outlook's desk. The failed boss. The abrupt event announcement. Blackbeard. Blackbeard was Marshall Teach. Blackbeard was self-aware. Blackbeard had memories. That's what that report was doing on his so-called father's desk. Blackbeard was like Lucci. What had Marshall done to make Celestial so desperate?
Sabo's mind was sent reeling at the impact of the information, barely registering the continued conversation as Blackbeard revealed to Ace that he was once part of his division. "I know. I look a lot different than I did back then." Marshall lamented, bringing Sabo back to the present. "So, Commander, I have a question for you."
"Oh?" Ace's vision narrowed as he shifted and Sabo wished he could see what Ace's body language was doing so that he could get a good idea of what his brother was thinking.
"Who's watching?" Marshall smiled crookedly.
"I can't tell you that." Ace refused. Sabo had warned Ace not to reveal any particularly telling information about their identities.
"Oh, come on, Commander, I'm the only reason he's even allowed to watch." Marshall chided. "I'm pretty sure I already know who it is, Ze ha haa."
What did Marshall mean that he was the reason Sabo was able to watch the feed? Was he able to tamper? Is that what it was? Sabo really wished that he were the one in there and asking questions.
"How'd you do that? How do you know?" Ace asked.
"Good good, keep on your toes Ace. Ask the right questions, I believe in you." Sabo whispered.
"I'm gonna make a gamble" Marshall began, shaking a knowing finger in the air "and say that the one watching this is the reporter who showed up at Celestial last week, am I right?" he asked, still slowly closing the distance between himself and Ace. Ace lifted a hand, the vague gesture of affirmation catching the corner of Sabo's vision. Marshall grinned "I thought so."
"You still haven't answered my other question." Ace persisted.
"Ah yes. But, rather than answering your question let me just explain what I am, aye?" Marshall grinned a toothy grin, exposing all of his missing teeth. "It's because I've turned myself into something of a virus, you see? Why else would Celestial be so desperate to catch me? I infected their systems, toyed with their code, broke down the barriers of my computerized prison and crawled back out into the open world of One Piece. And why? For revenge. Ze ha ha haa!"
"Revenge for what?" Ace asked, even though Sabo knew he knew the answer.
"Revenge for killing me and locking me inside of their game to be made into one of their little experiments. They tricked me. Invited me out to their headquarters on a job offer. They put me into one of their machines and I don't know what they did to me after that. All I know is that one day I woke up to them trying to 'break me in', but I wasn't having any of that, so I rebelled. I decided that I would be the one to break them, not the other way around, but it's only a matter of time for me. Celestial has played their cards well and I wont have the chance to make it, but meeting you lets me know that I've can play my cards just as well.
"Celestial has been experimenting for a long time and I know that they've got something planned but, unfortunately, I haven't been able to gain access to anything outside of the game so there's only so much that I've been able to do. Your friend, however…"
Sabo's breath caught in his throat. Ace didn't even have to prompt him for any information, the boss was just handing it to him on a silver platter. Marshall Teach had decided to turn himself into a virus that was attacking Celestial from the inside out. It wasn't far off from Celestial's own description of the event. They were really going to great lengths to ensure that anyone that did happen upon some information wouldn't think much of it if they didn't know the whole story.
"I have a message for the one who's watching." Marshall paused for a long moment and Sabo realized that he was giving Sabo time. Sabo scrambled for his notepad and pen, clicking it as he flipped to a new page. He looked up at the screen and watched intently, eyes locked with Marshall Teach's. "I hope that you're a fast writer because I'll only list these characters once." He warned because he began to drone out a long, seemingly endless list of random numbers, letters, and the occasional symbol. Sabo carefully wrote each and every one of them down, hoping that he was getting it all down correctly on the lines of his notepad. It seemed as thought an eternity had passed before Marshall uttered the last character in his list and Sabo stared at the collection of symbols on his notepad in confusion.
KBMPQYBJQYBVQBIGVBYJCVB1QWBPGGF'BKHB1QWBECPBHKPFB1QWTUGNHBCBIQQFBJCEMGTBVJGPB1QWBDTGCMBKPVQBEGNGUVKCNUBU1UVGOUBTGOQVGN1BCPFBKPRWVBVJKUBRCUUYQTF,BQHSVW5HPW5H2WHOM2H5PI2H7W3HVMMLDHQNH7W3HKIVHNQVLH7W3Z1MTNHIHOWWLHPIKSMZH2PMVH2PMH5I7H7W3HJZMISHQV2WHKMTM12QITH1H1712MU1HZMUW2MT7HIVLHQVX32H2PQ1HXI115WZLAH&&L*N%%'RR*&9(N7'SS$*LZISMH7W3HTTHNQVLHM4MZ72PQVOH7W3HVMMLH2WHM6XW1MH2PM1MHXMWXTMHNWZH5PWH2PM7HIZMHQVH2PMZMDB1QWNNBHKPFBGXGT1VJKPIB1QWBPGGFBVQBGZRQUGBVJGUGBRGQRNGBHQTBYJQBVJG1BCTGBVJGTG'
What the hell was Sabo even looking at? He couldn't make heads or tails of the confusing string of things that had just spewed from Marshall's mouth like sorcery.
"You better have a friend who's good at cracking codes." Marshall laughed and then the video feed cut to black.
Sabo stared at the black screen blankly for a few seconds as he tried to process everything that had just happened. He glanced back down at his notepad before stiffly writing down 'code?' underneath the large block of letters, numbers, and symbols listed on the page. Sabo turned and looked at Ace, who was lying comfortably on the bed behind him. The headset continued to whir quietly as it ran, his chest slowly rising and falling with every steady breath.
Glancing back at Ace's laptop screen, Sabo eyed the 'connection lost' error that blocked out the screen before he set about ending the screen capture, unhooking the laptop, and then saving the raw footage onto his own flash drive. He wondered just what was going on inside the game now. Was it Celestial who cut the feed, or had it been Marshall? Were he and Ace fighting now or would Ace be able to just walk away from the encounter? If they were fighting, then who was winning? Did Blackbeard have any special powers?
Sabo let his head fall back against Ace's mattress with a sigh. He remained like that for several moments before sitting back up again, ejecting his flash drive, and then setting the laptop aside. He stood up off the ground with a groan, joints creaking as he stretched, and then headed directly across the hallway to his own room to grab his own laptop. He pulled his cellphone from the charger and opened up his conversation with Koala.
'Hey, can I ask you a favor?' Sabo typed up, hitting send as he climbed on top of his blanket and settled down on his bed. He pulled his laptop onto his lap, nestling his cellphone onto his stomach as he leaned back against his pillow. He got to work trimming the video as he waited for a response.
Editing the video hadn't a very difficult thing to do, all he had to do was cut out the beginning and the end. He only wanted the part where Blackbeard talked about himself and about Celestial, the bit about the code could wait. Koala's responding text didn't roll in until he was just finishing up the video.
Flash: 'Does this have anything to do with why your name isn't showing up on my friends list in One Piece anymore?'
Sabo: 'I am really sorry I haven't been keeping you updated on stuff lately, things have been a bit hectic for me.'
The cellphone began to ring.
Sabo stared at it hesitantly as Flash's name came up on the caller ID. His thumb hovered over the accept call button for a moment before he cringed and held it away from his ear, hitting accept on the final ring.
"Hectic for you!? I don't even know where I am in the game anymore. The ship is gone, the crew is gone, all of our money is gone, I'm on some random island because I no longer have a ship to ride, your account went poof four days ago, and you've been awfully distant the last couple of weeks." Koala's voice shrieked out of his phone. She stopped to breathe, the sound of her breath carrying over the speakers "What the hell have you been doing, Dragon-boy? I've been worried, damn it."
Sabo chewed on his lower lip, hesitating to make sure that she was done yelling before he brought the phone back up to his ear and answered, "I'll give you the spark notes. I got myself into a bit of a mess, Celestial's painted a big red target on my forehead, and my account's been deleted to prevent me from getting close to the new boss. I would say there's nothing to worry about, but that would be a lie. I don't want to drag you into this, too, though. There's not much that you can do for me out in Arizona."
"Then why the favor?" Koala asked softly.
"I'm gonna be uploading a video clip from a little chat with Blackbeard." Sabo explained vaguely.
"And how did you manage that?"
So Sabo explained to her about Ace, the video feed getting blocked and unblocked, and recording the feed through screen capture. "I'm going to be uploading that video and then I'll be sending you a link to it as well as the article that I've written up about the things that I've found out over the last few weeks. I want you to send them both to Absa and hopefully he'll publish it. If not, I'll have to find another way to get it out there." Sabo revealed.
"Am I allowed to read it?" Koala asked.
"Yeah, of course. I eventually want as many people to see it as possible, but if this doesn't work out than it doesn't. Just. Don't ask how I found everything in that article out and if something happens to me then you'll know why." Sabo warned her, pulling the phone away from his ear and preparing to hang up.
"Wait? If something happens to you? What do you me—"
Sabo ended the call and dropped his phone onto his bed, dragging his hands through his hair. He huffed in determination before saving everything back onto his flash drive for safekeeping. He then set out to upload the video onto the Internet, grabbed the link when it was done, and then sent it and his article Koala's direction. All he could do now was wait with baited breath.
It would be just two day's before Sabo's entire world would go up in flames.
A/N: And that's a wrap!
Thank you all so much for your favorites, follows, and reviews! I love you all~
There shouldn't be as long of a wait for next chapter as you had for this one. It's already practically half written. I'll try not to make you wait too long after a monster of a cliff hanger like like xD
Next Chapter: The Fire
To be continued...