CHAPTER 13
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Sorry for the lateness I was away and there was squat I could do about it. But yesterday I wrote out the next week's chapter in 2 HOURS. I think that's some kind of speed record for me.. ANYWAYS here's the chapter!
DISCLAIMER: ONE PIECE AIN'T MINE
Luffy wakes up in a dark room. The air is grossly muggy with a chemical smell that makes his eyes water. He tries to cover his nose but discovers his hands, feet and neck are bound by chains to the wall behind him.
He looks around with furrowed brows at his surroundings. Luffy was in a small barren room with a concrete roof and rusty metal walls.
However, Luffy noticed that he was not alone. Beside him was Ace, in a similar bruised state. He was just starting to wake up.
"Ace? Ace! Are you okay?" Luffy asks worriedly. Ace blinks his sleepy eyes in confusion before looking at Luffy's face with shock.
"Wh-*cough* what are we doing here? Where is here?" Ace asks. They both examine the room a little panicked. Ace looks over his brother and notices the new wounds that littered his body. There was blood running down the back of his head where his old wound was aggravated once more. Luffy had bruises all along his arms from where he tried to defend himself and cuts where the chains rubbed in.
Ace looks over his own appearance and determines that he wasn't much different. Instead of bruises on his arms though, he had scratches all along his body from presumably being dragged. Ace scowls at their predicament and leans his head back on the wall. Luffy spits to the side, trying to get rid of the blood dripping in his mouth constantly.
There are suddenly both jolted out of their stupor when the door creaks open. They both gasp as the kidnapper enters the room, without his mask.
'Mr. Marshall?!' They both think in unison. Mr. Marshall stalked in front of the boys with a smug look.
"Well you two look horrible. Zehahahaha!" He chuckles. The boys remain in shock at the revelation in front of them. Mr. Marshall? Well, he was always mean to Ace. But it was still completely and utterly unexpected. He was there the whole time! Giving Ace lessons as if there wasn't a problem in the world.
"Wha- why are you-?" Ace begins to ask, when Bellamy walks in. He sneers down at Ace.
"Pfft. I don't know why you think you're such a hot shot. It wasn't that hard to knock you out." He boasts. Ace growls and tries to jump at Bellamy but the chains haul him back.
"Hey! Stay away from my nephew!" Mr. Marshall snaps.
"Nephew?" Luffy questions aloud. Bellamy turns his gaze to Luffy and shoves his face right in front of Luffy's.
"That's right squirt! And you know what, since your Ace's brother, I hate you just as much as him now." he says darkly. Then he slaps Luffy on the face, sending him sprawling on the ground. Ace pulls on his chains to try and get to his brother.
"Luffy! You bastards! How could you do this?!" He demands.
"What?" Bellamy shrugs innocently. "It's not like he hasn't been slapped before." Ace flinches.
"Now now Bellamy, let's calm down a little." Mr. Marshall says, putting a hand on Bellamy's shoulder.
"Zehahahaha though I have to tell you how naive you both are to think you could outsmart me." Ace shook his head in frustration.
"Why bother with all the stupid games? Why didn't you try and kidnap us a long time ago, you had plenty of chances!" Mr. Marshall plants his hands on his hips and looks smugly at Ace.
"I planned this out carefully, I wanted to have a little fun you see. But Bellamy messed up the other day by getting his damn face seen by you two." He scowls.
"He had also broken into Sabo's car to initially grab the house keys, but also messed up there. We had a little spat; do you remember that straw hat? Anyway, instead we had to take more forward measures and take one of you first."
While Mr. Marshall was talking, Luffy snakes a hand into his pocket and tries to fish out his cell phone. He digs around but when he looks up, sees Bellamy waving two cell phones behind his uncle. Lucy grits his teeth and listens to .
"That's when you took Sabo? Wasn't it?!" Ace yells. "Where's Sabo? What did you do to him?" He demands. Bellamy leaves the room for a moment then returns with an unconscious Sabo being dragged by chains.
"SABO!"
"SABO ARE YOU OKAY?!" They scream. They're afraid of Sabo's horrific condition, but find that tears spring from their eyes in relief. He was alive, and they could look after him now.
Bellamy immediately locks his chains to the wall and roughly kicks him aside.
"Stop! What did you do to him?!" Ace demands. Mr. Marshall stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"He was all part of the experiments I'm conducting. You see I develop drugs. No, not just any types of drugs. Special ones. And you all are vital keys to this projects succession." Luffy raises an eyebrow in question.
"Why us specifically? Can't you just get anyone else to do this?" He asks.
"Wow. You don't strike me as the insightful type, more like...moronic." He sneers. Luffy grits his teeth and glowers at the man.
"However, you are right to ask that question. The answer is…because of your parents." He says, raising a finger in exclamation.
"Dragon?" Luffy wonders aloud. A malicious smile appears on Mr. Marshall's face.
"Ding, ding, ding! That's correct! I used to work for Dragon and his partner Roger in the science field of research. I assume you don't know what they do, well I'll tell you. They develop drugs that can mutate the body to have super human capabilities." He pulls out two business cards and shows it to the boys.
"See the similarities in symbols? I developed mine from their official logo." He says, putting them away. Ace and Luffy are left gaping.
"Our father does that?!" Ace asks in disbelief. Mr. Marshall starts doubling over in laughter and does not stop for a while.
"What's so funny?" Luffy asks with narrowed eyes. Mr. Marshall takes awhile to calm down before pushing his face right in front of Ace's. Ace tries to turn his head away from the rancid breath but is grabbed by the hair to face him.
"You think Dragon is your father? Ha! His partner and best friend Roger is your father! You have no real brothers!" Ace stares wide eyed, speechless for a while before glaring at his again.
"You're lying!" He yells. But Mr. Marshall's smile just gets wider.
"I have no reason to! Plus, I worked with them for years, practically a brother!" He pulls Ace's face even closer and grabs ahold of his cheeks with a hand. He turns his face side to side, examining it.
"You even look just like him." Ace's breath hitches and his face is released.
"Back to the earlier topic, I was once a great partner to them. We achieved great feats with my brilliance helping them. Until one day when they kicked me out of the lab for cruel and unsafe methods of experimentation." His face faded from its angry period and he looked away. When he turned around, he had a crazed look in his eyes that made the brothers scoot back.
"I left angry. 'Very angry. But I decided to do my own research and show them the extravagant results, eventually with me gaining control over the company. And on that fateful day nine years ago, I decided to use their sons as the experiments. It would be the perfect way to get back at them for the humiliation. Who better to use than their precious sons who they love so much?"
Both brothers sat in utter stillness, not peeping a word. They couldn't believe their ears. So it was their dad's fault they were like this? They just couldn't process what was happening to them.
"Zehahaha! You both should rest; it's a big day tomorrow. I'll be seeing you, I've got to grade some papers! By the way, call me Teach. Zehahaha!" He cackles as he walks out of the room. Luffy swishes around his mouth and spits at Teach's retreating figure. It misses, and then Bellamy punches Luffy in the face, which makes Luffy clutch his cheek in pain.
"Know your place." He snorts then walks out of the room. As soon as the door closes, Ace turns to Luffy.
"Are you alright Lu? Stupid bastards." He growls. Luffy nods then flicks his gaze to Ace.
"Are you okay?" He asks. Ace hesitates and looks at the ground, suddenly feeling lost about himself.
Luffy is about to comfort him when he notices Sabo stir. They both snap their necks to look at him and smile big when he opens his eyes.
"Sabo! Sabo are you alright?" Luffy asks eagerly. Sabo blinks a few times at them, as if he wasn't sure they were real. Tears start to gather in his eyes but he quickly wipes them away from his shoulder.
"I'm …managing." He says in a hoarse voice. "But how on earth did you get here? Why are you here?"
"Unfortunately we got kidnapped as well." Explains Ace. He feels a sudden burst of emotion as tears run down his cheeks. " But, we're just glad you're alive. We've done everything we could to rescue you and stay away from those creeps. Sorry we couldn't get you out." Sabo has a smile tugging on his lips but hides it away and looks at the brothers seriously.
"You guys should've stayed away. This place isn't much better than death." He says in a husky voice. Luffy and Ace exchange worried glances. Sabo seemed so...broken. That was when Ace noticed something entirely important that shocked him.
"Sabo! You have two arms! Didn't he cut one off?!" He asks, wide eyed. Sabo gives them a questionable look as to how they knew that, but explains.
"That was one of the drugs they tested on me. It was a lizard mutation serum so when I lost a limb it immediately grew back." He says with a shrug.
They stare at Sabo, dumbfounded (This seemed to be happening a lot lately.).
"Um Sabo? What exactly are they going to do to us?" Luffy asks nervously. Sabo inhales deeply before explaining.
"Well, to be simple, they will test drugs on us by injection. It will give us an unusual ability for a varied amount of time. The abilities could be from animals to elements. Some of these drugs may not work at all. Others will hurt a lot more than others mutation wise. If mutation is successful, typically painful experiments are conducted on you until the drug reaches its limit and the mutation wears off. It is unbearable pain. Scary thing is, you have no idea if you are compatible with the drug and may die from any one." Sabo looks down at the ground, spooked and slightly shaken. Luffy sadly looks over his brother then determinedly gets their attention.
"Well at least you won't be going through this alone, right? Now, until we get out of this place, I want you both to promise not to die. But to survive this hell hole." He says calmly.
"Luffy, I don't think you understand the gravity of what's going on here-"
"No!" Luffy cuts Sabo off. "If we have each other, we have something to stay alive for! You've got to have the will to live to get out of here! So let me tell you again, promise not to die!" He yells. The brothers both hesitate, but determinedly promise that they will make it through this ordeal, broken or not.
"I can't believe that idiot went and got himself expelled." Nami complains.
"And what was Ace thinking? He just ran out of the school like a mad man without talking to us." Thatch growls.
"Let's just go talk to them and see what's going on." ViVi says calmly. With school finally done, Nami, Chopper, ViVi, Marco and Thatch are all making their way to the Monkey residence.
"I'm going to beat some sense into them for doing that to their own brother!" Nami cracks her knuckles threateningly.
'I hope Luffy's doing okay, he seemed a little stressed earlier.' ViVi thought. Though she couldn't get that huge smile out of her head when he agreed to go to the movies with her. When she starts to blush, Nami notices immediately.
"Vivi! Your face is all red! What's up?" She asks teasingly. ViVi immediately looks away and waves a hand.
"Oh it's nothing." Chopper walks in front of her and checks for a fever.
"I'm fine Chopper, really!" Nami is about to inquire when ViVi interrupts her.
"Oh look! We're at the house now!" As they walk towards the side door, they notice it's cracked open. They curiously step inside and cautiously walk down the hallway, softly calling Ace and Luffy's names.
When they reach the living room, ViVi heaves an ear splitting scream when she sees blood scattered about the floor. They all look around, flabbergasted, while Marco and Thatch search the rest of the rooms calling out to the brothers. Chopper clung onto Nami's pant leg, hiding his face and letting out choked sobs.
At this point Nami is calling 911 when Marco and Thatch return with nothing.
"There's nothing else in the house-yoi. Their gone." He says sadly. Nami lets out a heartbreaking cry just as the operator picks up.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"My friends are missing and they could be dead! There's so much blood!" She cries. As the operator consults her, they all stare at the blood littering the ground in severe worry.
I'm so tempted to write Blackbeard instead of teach. I write Blackbeard for all my notes anyway.
Roxanne: Don't worry; this one isn't as much of a cliffhanger (internally sad) and me happy you like the chapter, I enjoy writing this fic!
SEllen23: Here's the next chapter! Hope you like this one!
Phoenix: MWAHAHAHA CLIFFHANGERS! But here's a chapter that is less cliffhanger-y
Guest: I apologize for the delay… here it is! ( im glad you are eager for more)
Thanks to all the glorious turkeys who followed and faved and reviewed!
Next time: Police are poop and the drug lab.
See you next time~