Warnings: Dark themes, lots of mentions of death, strong language, human experimentation, experimenting on children, child abduction, graphic descriptions of experimenting, lots of needles, lots of violence, poor descriptions of panic attacks, descriptions of blood, rated M for safety.

*If I need to add anymore warnings please tell me in the reviews or a PM and I'll be sure to add it!*

Chapter 40: Another Infirmary Day

That night Luffy was riddled with nightmares. Sabo understood, he actually expected it, so every time his sensitive hearing picked up on Luffy in another one of them he woke up and helped the youngest.

Ace managed to sleep through everything and wasn't expected to get up for a few days, though Sabo and Luffy knew that he'd probably be awake by the next day.

When the early morning light finally came Sabo and Luffy both had given up on falling into any sort of peaceful sleep, opting instead to get up for the day. The nurses had let them use one of the beds beside Ace seeing as they had more than plenty to spare.

It was probably still really early, Sabo could only hear a few people up, most of them were those on watch or beginning breakfast, meaning it was still some ungodly hour to be up.

"How you feelin' Lu?" Sabo asked softly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His oversensitive ears were begging for silence after just waking up, but he ignored the slight ache from how loud everything seemed.

"Nose hurts," Luffy muttered, rubbing said appendage with a grimace. Sabo gave Luffy a sympathetic look, knowing that if his ears hurt, Luffy's nose hurt ten times worse with the strong smells in the infirmary.

"Sorry Lu, hopefully it'll dull in a bit," Sabo said, rubbing Luffys back as he got out of the bed, moving to the chair beside Ace's bed. Luffy nodded, also getting out of the bed and sitting in a chair. Bandages covered the entirety of Aces chest giving Sabo and Luffy no indication as to how well his wound was healing, but they were sure the nurses would come to check on it eventually.

Time passed slowly, Luffy pleased to see that Aces wave was back to full opacity and brightness, and the two began to wonder just how early they had decided to get up. Before they could think about that for long Ace groaned, alerting them to the fact that he was waking up.

"Ace!" Luffy cheered happily, beaming as he leaned over is waking brother. Sabo stood beside Luffy, watching with a relieved smile.

"Ah, geez, what hurts?" Ace groaned.

"That would be the giant cut across your chest." Whiskeys voice made the brothers jump a bit, none of them having been aware that she had walked in, even with their senses and haki.

That was slightly concerning.

"Cut? What're you talkin' 'bout?" Ace asked, using a hand to slide himself into a sitting position.

"Woah, woah, woah there, you shouldn't be sitting up, not with your injury!" Whiskey cried, trying to urge Ace into laying back down. Although confused and disoriented, Sabo had to give Ace credit that he didn't snap at the nurse.

"It's fine." Ace said, rolling his eyes, but laying back down none the less. Whiskey sighed a breath of relief, lifting her clipboard to look at something.

"Regardless, you also shouldn't be up yet. You need all the rest you can get, but as long as you're up, we should change the bandages." Whiskey said, ticking something off on her board before nodding to herself, walking off, probably for bandages.

"Ace! I'm so happy you're awake! Your wave got really tiny and it was hard to see, and I was scared, but Marco was nice, and Mr. Captain, and-" Once again Sabo had to cut the rambling boy off.

"We're both happy you're awake. Why do you always have to go and scare us though?" Sabo asked, crossing his arms and giving Ace a pointed look.

"Hey, it's not my fault!" Ace countered weakly. Sabo rolled his eyes but smiled, still happy that nothing too bad had happened. Honestly though, this had been pretty bad.

"Now, let's get those old bandages off." Whiskey said as she came back, Sabo and Luffy backing away a bit from the bed to give the nurse more space. All of the brothers watched her carefully, ready to stop her if she pulled anything that wasn't a bandage out.

As she began unwrapping the bandages they got themselves ready for questions that the nurse would surely have after seeing Ace's wound being magically much better then it had been the day previous.

When the bandages began unraveling away enough that they surely should have been showing a nasty gash, Whiskey was confused when she saw that the cut was much smaller then it had been, the wound having closed up a good bit during the night. It wasn't one hundred percent healed, but after what it had looked like yesterday, this was an extreme improvement.

"Wha- How- I don't understand..." Whiskey said, trailing off as she unwrapped the bandages faster, though still mindful not to hurt Ace in the process. The brothers couldn't help but be slightly amused at how at a loss the nurse was.

"What's wrong?" Sabo asked, trying to sound worried instead of amused.

"No, nothings wrong, it's just... you've seemed to heal at an absolutely remarkable rate!" Whiskey said, still amazed as she fully unwrapped the wound, standing back to look.

"What might have caused it?" Sabo asked, continuing to play dumb, watching in amusement as Whiskey tried to figure it out.

"I don't know. This happened last time too though, with the coma. You woke up much earlier then you should have." Whiskey said, thinking for another second before snapping out of it.

"Well, in any case, this means you'll be able to leave by tomorrow then." Whiskey announced, moving to rewrap the wound. As she finished she took a few more notes and did a quick check-up on all three of them before leaving.

"Man am I glad she's gone." Ace said as he sat up again, this time without Whiskey telling him to lie back down.

"Shes just doing her job Ace, but I've gotta agree with you on that one," Sabo said with a sigh, sitting back down in the chair while Luffy had no qualms about getting into the bed with Ace.

"So, what have I missed?" Ace asked as he stretched, wincing when he pulled his arm too far and it stretched the wound as well, sending a pain through him.

"Well, Whitebeard and Marco are both good guys," Sabo said, remembering how they had taken care of Luffy yesterday. Ace raised an eyebrow at that though, wrapping an arm around Luffy to make it more comfortable for the both of them.

"What do you mean? I thought we already knew that." Ace said, thinking back to the fact that Luffy had deemed them good a long time ago.

"We knew they probably wouldn't be the ones to turn on us without warning, but now we know we can trust them, at least, to an extent," Sabo explained, only proving to confuse Ace further.

"What? When did that happen?" The eldest asked, not quite sure how he felt about trusting anyone on this ship.

"Yesterday! Marco was really nice and helped me clean up after you got hurt, and he told me a story about his brother and then Whitebeard told me all these cool stories about his adventures while I waited for Sabo to get me!" Luffy explained with a smile. Ace gave Sabo an incredulous look at that though, eyes wide.

"You left him alone with them?!" Ace practically shouted, though trying his best to stay quiet to keep from drawing attention to them. Sabo sighed, knowing this was bound to happen.

"I wasn't happy about it either Ace, but there was no choice." Sabo tried explaining. Ace scoffed.

"What do you mean, 'no choice'? All you had to do was keep him with you!" Ace said. Sabo tried keeping calm knowing Ace had no idea the state he and Luffy had been in yesterday after he had been attacked.

"I don't think you understand Ace. After you were attacked Luffy was practically hysterical and already on the verge of panicking. When they sent for nurses I wasn't going to just let them take you here without making sure they didn't try doing any tests on you so I had to follow them, but if I had taken Luffy with me he surely would have been thrown into a panic attack." Sabo said, a bit slower than normal to make sure Ace understood every word he was saying.

"Therefore, I had to leave him to at least get himself cleaned up while I watched the nurses. I kept an ear on him the entire time and left him with Marco seeing as we already knew he was a relatively good guy to begin with, but after you went down he saved both you and Luffy from someone trying to attack you. It would have been the perfect excuse to let both of you die because no one could blame him for not getting there fast enough, but he chose to save you two when I couldn't." Sabo continued. Ace was silent now, mulling over his brother's words while Luffy snuggled into Ace at the mention of everything that had happened yesterday.

"...Alright... so Marcos a good guy, and I guess Whitebeards a pretty good guy too, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna trust them with everything!" Ace said defiantly. Sabo sighed in relief, glad that Ace at least trusted the two a bit.

"I didn't expect you to. I don't think even I trust them with everything yet either." Sabo said, Luffy nodding his agreement silently. It fell silent after that, Sabo listening to everything else to figure out around what time it was.

"I think breakfast is ready by the sounds of it. Thatch just said he's coming here, probably with food." Sabo said as he focused on the footsteps of the chef.

"He is, it smells really good, his bacons the best!" Luffy said, mouth watering at the smell of the bacon, toast, eggs, orange juice, muffins, bagels...

The food in general.

Ace pouted at his brother's words, resisting the urge to cross his arms.

"Still think I should have gotten X-Ray vision too. What's the point of super vision if I'm always limited by walls?" Ace asked, glaring at the walls surrounding them. This time Sabo rolled his eyes, slapping Aces arm.

"Don't say that. For all we know that was their next idea." Sabo said. Ace sighed.

"Yeah yeah, those doctors were insane." He muttered with a frown.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Later that day, the Commanders and Captain were in their meeting room going over everything that had happened, not having had time to yesterday with everything that had been going on.

"Do we know how the pirates got close enough to attack without any of us noticing?" Whitebeard asked from where he sat. The Commanders glanced at each other, wondering if anyone knew.

"I overheard that one guy had a devil fruit that they used, but other than that I have no clue," Jiru announced. That seemed the most logical, because without a devil fruit how else would they have gotten so close without any of them detecting them? Not to mention that the enemy ship had literally appeared right beside theirs.

"Anyone else hear anything, yoi?" Marco asked, everyone shaking their heads in response.

"I didn't hear anything, but they had to have had some weird devil fruit for them to appear without any of us sensing them with haki until it was too late," Rakuyo said, everyone, nodding their agreement.

"Speaking of, how did Ace know Luffy was gonna be attacked?" Blenheim asked. Thatch raised an eyebrow.

"Ace knew?" The chef asked. He hadn't been out on deck when the attack started, having been stuck in the kitchen working on lunch since the other chefs were sick.

"Oh yeah, he jumped up from where he was sleeping and pulled Luffy off the railing before he could get hit. Too bad he ended up getting hurt though." Haruta said, remembering back to the events of yesterday.

"I'm telling you guys, they have haki! Remember when I was telling you all about Sabo's uncanny ability to know I was gonna knock?" Thatch said in an, 'I told you so' manner.

"Did you ask them if they had Haki?" Whitebeard asked, curiosity rising.

"Yeah, but Sabo had no clue what I was talking about." Thatch said, confused now too.

"It's rare, but maybe they were born with it?" Izo questioned. There was a collective shrug from everyone seeing as they knew nothing about the brothers.

"Whatever the case, its likely that the brothers have haki so we should keep that in mind, yoi," Marco said, writing something down on a piece of paper.

"How many were injured in the attack?" Whitebeard asked, moving on with the meeting.

"15, including Ace," Namur stated, having been in charge of counting heads and helping people to the infirmary.

"Whiskey should be by soon with her report on the injured," Jozu said, glancing over to the door.

As they waited for the nurse to arrive they went over everything that had happened yesterday once more so they could make sure everything was in order and also making sure Thatch knew what happened. It wasn't too long into the retelling that there was a knock at the door, Whiskey announcing her presence and Whitebeard calling for her to enter.

"I brought the report on the injured Oyaji." She said, waving the file in the air. Whitebeard nodded and she sat down at the end of the table, opening the folder and looking at the contents.

"Well, for starters, almost all of the injuries were minor, just some small cuts and bruises here and there. Kit had a particularly deep cut though that needed a few stitches and Roman got himself a pretty bad sprained ankle so he shouldn't do anything strenuous, but other than that everyone's clear." Whiskey reported, checking over her notes to be sure she mentioned everything, not that there was much to mention.

"What about Ace?" Atmos asked, everyone wondering the same thing. Here Whiskey sighed, slumping down a bit and confusing everyone.

"Is something wrong daughter?" Whitebeard asked, worried that something bad might have happened to Ace regarding his injury. Whitebeard hadn't gotten a good look at it when it had happened, but the glance he did see told him that it was a pretty bad wound.

"No, nothing's wrong, actually, everything's great." Whiskey said, running her fingers through her hair in slight frustration.

"Oook~? So what's the issue?" Thatch asked, raising an eyebrow. Everyone watched her with curiosity, wondering what had Whiskey so thrown.

"As I said, there is no issue. Aces wound initially was life-threatening. After hours of surgery, we managed to stabilize him to the point where we didn't need to worry about him dying on us. I bandaged him up and left him to rest." Whiskey recounted, remembering just how bad the eldest brothers gash had been yesterday.

"Thing is, with how bad it was, he wasn't expected to wake up for at least a few days. Now, it isn't all that surprising that he woke up today, but what is surprising is that, when I went to change his bandages, his injury was almost completely healed!" Whiskey said incredulously, throwing her hands in the air in confusion.

"Wait, almost healed? How's that possible?" Vista asked, causing Whiskey to huff.

"Beats me! That kid should have a painful, throbbing wound right across his chest, and now its barely causing him any pain and nearly healed. It makes no sense!" Whiskey said, looking over the notes she had about Aces wounds again, thinking that there had to be something there that could explain this.

"All I know is that something had to be ramping up his cells, allowing them to multiply faster and repair the wound, but whatever's causing them to do that, I haven't a clue." Whiskey said, reading and rereading her notes in growing frustration.

"Maybe he's just a fast healer?" Haruta asked, knowing it was a stupid suggestion but not having any other ideas.

"Screw fast, he's practically a miracle healer! That wound needed weeks to heal, not days, and much less two. By tomorrow, if his healing continues on this rate, he should be out of the infirmary with just a smaller cut where it was deeper. There also should be scarring based on how deep he was cut, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if there was none." Whiskey said with an exhausted sigh.

"These brothers make less and less sense the more we know about them," Kingdew said, sitting back and crossing his arms.

"Really, we don't know anything about them, everything we think we know is just speculation, yoi." Marco corrected, scribbling some more writing down on his paper.

"When will we get any answers about them?" Thatch whined, throwing his arms back behind his head and tilting his chair back on its back legs.

"I'm sure when they're more comfortable around us and see we mean no harm they'll explain the things we don't understand," Izo said, pulling out his fan to hide his face.

"Well, how long is that gonna take?" Fossa asked.

"Patience my sons, after the trauma those boys have been through its not surprising that they aren't willing to give information so easy," Whitebeard said, trying to soothe his sons.

"Oyaji's right, whatever they've been through has definitely taken its toll on them. I'd say we're lucky we even know as much about them as we do." Whiskey said, trying to find the light in their small victories.

"Yeah, I bet it won't be long now till they see we're not trying to hurt them. After all, just yesterday Sabo left Luffy all alone with us, right?" Haruta asked, remembering that it had been the first time Luffy, or any of the brothers really, had been without the other two at their side.

"He did, didn't he? Maybe they are getting more comfortable here." Vista said fondly, smiling at the thought. With that there wasn't any more to be said so the meeting was ended, the Commanders and Captain all getting up to go do their own things.

"Man, I still can't believe I missed all the fun yesterday." Thatch whined as he stood up and headed to the door.

"Oh, don't worry Thatch, knowing these waters we'll be having another fight in no time!" Rakuyo said, patting the chef on the back as he passed him out the door.

"Yeah, I guess your right... but I totally missed a chance to hang out with little Luffy too!" Thatch cried, crocodile tears forming fast.

"And there'll be more opportunities for that as well," Izo said, rolling his eyes as he also left the room. Thatch huffed, watching as the last commander left the room.

"Why do I always miss those opportunities?"

Welcome back everyone! So, this chapter was more of a transitional chapter which means it was shorter and more boring then usual, and not to mention chock-full of exposition rather than anything else. Next chapter will be similar to this one, though hopefully a slight bit more exciting, but after that, big things will start happening. We're only a couple of chapters away from all the action returning full force, so I hope you all continue to stick around for it!

Also, last time when I said 200 reviews I obviously meant 500, and we've actually reached that now, so thank you all so much! I really never expected to get this much love and support, and I'm actually surprised with myself that I've managed to keep my attention focused on this story for so long as well. I've definitely got you all to thank for that.

So, thank you all for the 500 reviews, the 455 favorites, 608 follows, 3 communities, and last but certainly not least, the 78,863 views!