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 56: To Join or Not to Join

Today was the day. The day that they would tell Whitebeard they're decision on whether or not they wanted to join the Whitebeard Pirates officially or not.

Even though they had come to a decision yesterday, they had still spent the rest of the day wondering just what could happen after agreeing or disagreeing. Thoughts of the pirates turning on them, thoughts of having to call Shanks, or even Gramps, thoughts of the pirates accepting them, only to turn on them when they least expected it. All of it filled their heads as they tried getting through the day.

And now they were going to see just which one of the outcomes that they'd created would come true.

Breakfast was a quiet event that seemed to drag on for the brothers because they knew that the second it ended, they were going to ask to speak to Whitebeard and Marco, to tell them that they would join should they have the freedom to leave if they wanted.

So when they finally finished breakfast and they saw everyone was finishing as well, Sabo spoke up, asking if they could speak with the Captain and first mate. They, of course, agreed, and they all began heading back to the same meeting room that they had always gone to. The walk was quick, silent, and nerve-wracking for the brothers. When they finally were in and sat down, Marco and Whitebeard looked at that, waiting for them to speak.

Sabo took a deep breath, steeling his nerves for whatever could possibly be the outcome of this conversation.

'Same plan as last time, Luffy, if they turn on us grab the snail phone and then we'll run to the lifeboats and call Shanks.' Sabo explained before he said anything. Luffy gave a small nod in understanding, Ace practically on the edge of his seat in anticipation. Looking up at Whitebeard, Sabo got ready to speak.

"It's been a month since you helped us escape from the facility, so we thought we would finally give you an answer on whether we wanted to join your crew officially or not." Sabo started, and Whitebeard and Marco seemed to have expected this, both nodding and remaining silent.

"We just have one question before we agree, or deny, the offer." Sabo continued, to which Whitebeard nodded.

"Ask away." He said a small smile on his face. Normally whenever someone smiled at the brothers in a tense situation such as this, it had bad intentions behind it, but this one was peaceful, even calming. There was no hidden motive, there was no malice, no ill will towards the brothers, just a warm, gentle smile.

"We were wondering if, should we decide to join officially, would we still have the freedom to leave the crew if we wanted to?" Sabo asked, wondering just what the Captain's answer would be. The brothers all watched the Captain carefully, knowing that however he answered would be the deciding factor for them.

"If you do join and decide that, for whatever reason, you want to leave, that would be fine. I would never force someone to stay apart of the crew if they truly didn't want to." Whitebeard said. Now all the brothers needed was Luffy to confirm that Whitebeard had spoken the truth, and when Luffy nodded, telling them he had, they had their answer.

Time to see what the outcome of it would be.

"In that case... we agree to join your crew," Sabo said, a hesitant smile on his face as he said the words. Whitebeard, and even Marco smiled back, seeming pleased with the news.

"Well that's good news. Welcome aboard my sons," Whitebeard said, filling the brothers with a feeling of peace. There was another feeling along with it, and the best that Ace and Sabo could describe it was the warmth that Luffy always tried to explain. If that's what the feeling was, then they now knew why the feeling was like a drug to Luffy, because Ace and Sabo just wanted more of it.

Snapping out of the sensation, Sabo remembered that the brothers had silently agreed to tell them about what had happened in the facility if they joined.

'Are we still telling them everything? Do you guys want to wait?' Sabo asked, not wanting to bring it up if his brothers had changed their minds.

'I think we should tell them.' Luffy replied back a bit nervously because it was nice to have the idea of telling them, but then there was the reality of telling them and having to, once again, relive their past.

'If we're joining we may as well. They would find out eventually whether we wanted them to or not.' Ace said with a minute shrug that looked as if he was just rolling his shoulders. Sabo nodded, knowing his brothers' words were true, and turned to face Whitebeard and Marco.

'Should we tell the other Commanders? Or should we just tell them our powers?' Sabo questioned, wanting to know if he should just ask for them to bring in the Commanders and get everything over at once, or if they should wait.

'I... don't know. Thatch and Izo are good people, and I think the others are good too, like Namur, but I don't know about everyone else yet.' Luffy said, knowing that, like Thatch and Izo, Namur was slowly rising on the list of people he trusted, especially after saving both him and his hat in the water. Despite that though, he hadn't been able to get to know all of the Commanders yet, and even though he knew they were good people, they had saved them from the facility, after all, that didn't mean that he trusted them yet.

'Telling Marco and Whitebeard would mean we would use our powers freely. I think it would be better if we explained everything to all the Commanders so that they don't ask us questions.' Ace said, knowing that once they told this once, they wouldn't be in the mood to tell it again. Besides, they would, of course, find out eventually.

'Are we all sure about this?' Sabo asked one last time in case anyone changed their mind last second. The three brothers looked at each other before nodding. Sabo nodded again, turning back to Whitebeard and Marco who seemed to understand that the brothers were up to something.

"You, uh, might want to call the other Commanders in here," Sabo said, smiling sheepishly as Marco and Whitebeard both raised an eyebrow in interest. The Captain nodded, however, sending Marco to call them in.

It only took a few moments for all of them to file in, sensing that something important was happening and it involved the brothers.

"I'm glad you could all join us. First off, I would like to announce that Ace, Sabo, and Luffy have agreed to become my sons. Your brothers." Whitebeard started, the Commanders smiling and cheering happily, welcoming the brothers to the family, and Luffy basked in all the sudden happiness in the room, feeling himself becoming slightly giddy in response.

"Second, I believe the boys have something to say," Whitebeard said, drawing everyone's attention to the brothers who shifted a bit nervously. Sabo closed his eyes to collect himself, taking a deep breath and getting comfortable in his chair, knowing this was going to be a long, hard, conversation. Clearing his throat, the blonde opened his eyes, looking at the watching Commanders.

"Yes, we do. Thank you all for being accepting of us, but seeing as we're now apart of the crew we thought... we thought we should tell you about the facility. About what they've done." Sabo said. The Commanders understood that this was a hard subject for them to speak about and the smiles slipped from their faces, mixed looks of concern, understanding, and seriousness on their faces.

"I don't think I would be able to tell this twice, so we had everyone come so we didn't have to repeat it." Sabo continued, Luffy twiddling his thumbs and staring at his hands rather than looking at the Commanders watching them. He had a frown on his face, all the memories flooding back.

"Anything you don't want to say, you don't have to," Whitebeard said gently, causing Sabo to smile.

"Truthfully, I don't want to say anything, but its more of a... need to say it really. It would be better if you knew so we don't have to explain later." Sabo said honestly, not wanting to talk about the facility for a third time, but knowing he'd have to if he didn't want to worry about doing it later.

"Where to begin..." Sabo muttered to himself, wondering just how far back he should start. The pirates didn't know about their past like Garp and Shanks did, so he would probably have to explain more than he had to for the other two.

"Well, Ace, Luffy and I grew up on an island in the East Blue. We aren't blood-related, but we're sworn brothers. Garp wasn't always able to come visit us, so whenever he was gone we were left with our caregivers. They weren't exactly... watchful and we normally just took care of ourselves. One day we were out hunting, exploring, and sparring like usual when we were suddenly attacked by three men." Sabo began, giving a quick backstory of their home. The group was listening intently, no one missing a single word that came from Sabo's mouth.

"Of course, we fought them off as best we could, we weren't just going to willingly get kidnapped, but even though we were strong, able to take down most grown men on our home island, we were outmatched here. We had Luffy run back to get our caregiver, but he was never able to reach her before he was caught. He managed to yell for them though, and we're sure the whole island heard the scream." The blonde continued, gauging the reactions of the crew carefully. Luffy was watching the auras of them all, just waiting for a hint of grey to show up, just waiting for malicious feelings towards them to take form.

"We were taken to a ship and locked in a closet for a while. We think it was a month, but there was no way to tell how long we'd really been in there. We were never let out, there was no light other then what came through the crack under the door, and we were fed just enough to keep us alive." Sabo noticed Thatch's look of anger at the mention, and when Luffy said it wasn't directed towards them Sabo supposed it was related to why Thatch was so adamant to make sure they ate regularly.

"Eventually we landed on an island and were dragged out of the room. We stood no chance against the well-fed, trained men and were easily taken off the boat and to our new captors. The... leader of the group was especially glad to see us." Sabo sneered, the brothers all scowling at the memory of Haru.

"His name was..." Sabo always had trouble at this part. Why it was so difficult to say his name, he didn't know, but the past two times he had to mention it, he barely got the word out.

"His name was Haru," Sabo said again, this time managing to get the full name out, though it left a bad taste in his name. The brothers noticed the Commanders looking to Haruta, seeming to connect the dots as to the reason for why they insisted they call him Ruta.

"He injected us with something that knocked us unconscious and took us to what you know as the facility where we were kept for the next seven years of our lives. We were given our number tattoos and thrown into our cell. The facility... it was hell, to put it bluntly. We had no idea where we were when we woke up, and a child in the cell across from us was... kind enough to explain what the place was for us." The memory of the first child they'd seen in the facility, 11049, floated back to Sabo's mind, the memory of them dying as they were speaking, the memory of no one noticing until days later.

He held back the shudder from the memories.

"They explained that, in the facility, nobody lasts long. On average, your life expectancy was two weeks, three if you were lucky. They continued to explain to Ace and I that everyone there was a test subject and the main purpose of the facility was to conduct experiments on those they had taken captive there, us included." Looks of horror and disgust flashed among many of the Commanders faces at the thought, none of them having been expecting that to have been the purpose of the facility.

"E-experiments?" Thatch asked carefully, slightly pale. Sabo nodded while Ace crossed his arms, frowning, and Luffy continued keeping check of everyone's emotions and auras, trying his best not to let the memories get the best of him as he did.

"Yes, experiments. We were now test subjects referred to only by this number on our wrists. We were given breakfast, which wasn't even food if you ask me. Not even good enough to be garbage," Sabo said, face scrunching up in disgust at the memory of how bad the soup had tasted. Aces face was much similar as he remembered as well, and even Luffy wore a similar look despite the fact that he was concentrating on everyone's feelings and auras. The Commanders took notice of this, deciding that they never wanted to know how bad this 'food' actually was.

"And then we were left alone. Until lunch." The brothers frowned again as the story progressed.

"When Luffy was little, before he met both Ace and I, he had met Shanks in the village on our island. Shanks had been visiting for a while. I don't know many of the specifics, I never went to the village, but apparently, he had brought a devil fruit with him on the island. One day, while Shanks' crew was partying at the bar that Luffy's caregiver worked at, Luffy was eating and managed to eat the fruit as well, making him a devil fruit user." Sabo explained, looking to his brother who was watching everyone carefully, knowing that this was only one of the many things they were hiding, and if grey showed up in anyone's auras now, there was no way he was going to share anything else.

A look of shock and surprise was on every single one of the Commanders faces, besides Marcos who merely looked interested and slightly confused. Whitebeard had a similar look to Marco's on his face, and no doubt they were all trying to figure out just how they hadn't noticed.

"A devil fruit? B-but... we saw him fall in the water!" Haruta said in shock, everyone nodding their heads along in agreement, equally confused. Sabo smiled a bit as Luffy cleared them all, telling him it was safe to continue.

"That will be explained shortly. For now, I'll continue where I left off. Luffy had eaten Shanks' fruit, the Gomu Gomu no mi, making him a rubber man." Sabo said, pulling his brother's cheek in demonstration, the Commanders watching with wide, curious eyes as it stretched much further then any normal persons cheek should stretch. Sabo let it go, and it went back to normal with a snap, not even fazing the youngest who had been expecting it.

"The facility knew about this ability, making Luffy an instant favorite among them. After lunch, which was the same garbage as it always was, he was taken from the cell and dragged to... well, there wasn't really a name for it. We all just called it the lab or the testing room. They did experiments, injected him with unknown drugs, cut him open, anything they could think of really. When they brought him back, he was covered in bandages and only wanted to sleep." Ace was silently fuming, and even Sabo was having trouble keeping calm at the memory of their little brother coming back to them in a less than ideal state. Even the Commanders looked angry about it.

"The next day, we were all taken to testing, along with a few other kids there. Everyone in the facility was the same age range as us, I don't think there was ever anyone over 13 there besides us. That was Ace and I's first day in hell. Ace wasn't awake for most of it, all of the drugs that they injected into him put him to sleep so he was in and out for most of it." Sabo said, glancing to the oldest who was now digging his nails into his arms.

"The tests they did to me made me go through waves of pain. Every new injection was a new rush of pain, in my head, in my arms, hands, legs, feet, chest, everywhere. I don't really know what tests they did to Luffy, but they injected him with stuff too before taking him to the table and... well, anyways..." Sabo didn't finish, not wanting to remember seeing them cut into his little brother. The Commanders were smart, they would be able to connect the dots.

"And that's how our first year went. We were given drug after drug and we became lab rats for the doctors' every whim. If they wanted to know something, they figured it out, no matter the cost, no matter the life they needed to take. To them, we were just a disposable resource, one they could replace if needed." The bitterness in the blonde's tone clued the room into how much hatred he felt towards the people at the facility, and, frankly, the Commanders were beginning to feel the same way.

"As the year passed we quickly became famous as the kids who couldn't die. We exceeded the normal life expectancy and the doctors quickly became fascinated with us because of it. We were the favorites, the model test subjects. The fact that Luffy had a devil fruit only made it better to them. We watched children come and go daily, and soon we'd outlived everyone who'd been in there when we first arrived."

"The first, and only, good thing besides escaping was when we met Emily. Normally the same person would bring us our meals, but one day, Emily brought them instead. She was a nice person, one who didn't agree with what was happening in the facility, and she wanted to help us, and the other trapped children, get out. She used to give us chocolates or fruits whenever she brought us our soup, and she gave us chalk to use in our cell when we were bored." Sabo said fondly, the brothers all calming down at the good memories that surrounded the one person they liked in the facility. The Commanders and Captain all smiled as well, seeing that this was someone precious to the brothers, and someone who actually seemed to have some humanity in them.

"She even gave us a map of the entire facility to help us escape. However, like normal, our good luck ran out." Sabo said, tone becoming darker and smile leaving his face. Ace and Luffy smiles dropped as well, instantly causing everyone else's to as well, already fearing the worst.

"One of the new tests the doctors had come up with was seeing what would happen to a devil fruit user if they were injected with liquid sea stone. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty. They injected it into Luffy and he was running a high fever and could barely stay awake. Emily came by and told us she had stolen a cure that the doctors had been developing to flush the sea stone instantly from someone's system. She gave it to us, we injected it into Luffy, and within seconds, he was feeling better." Sabo explained, the Commanders and Captain listening with rapt attention.

"Just as Luffy was feeling better, there was a shot, and Emily was hit. Haru had been suspicious of her and had a feeling she would bring us the serum, so, obviously, the next course of action was to kill her." Sabo spat out hatefully. He never thought he could feel more hatred for someone then he did for Haru. The man was pure evil, someone who he wished he had never come across.

The rest of the room was filling with anger once again, wondering just how much worse Haru could get. It wasn't often you heard about someone that had such a disregard for human life.

"After she died, things went back to the way they were before. The guy who used to give us food was back, and it was as if Emily had never existed. That year of testing and experiments slowly went by, and we realized that the Doctors were building something. We heard construction happening a lot, but never knew what it was."

"We found out eventually though when they finally finished building it. They had spent months constructing an entire room that they dubbed the Training Room. It was made to look like outside, complete with fake grass and blue walls. We were then forced to fight other children that were in the facility. Of course, we resisted at first, we weren't monsters like them, but they had ways of getting us to cooperate." Sabo said, remembering every threat they had been given just so they would beat up some defenseless children for their stupid tests.

"Our home island was full of abnormally large animals that were easily triple the size of normal animals, and to get food you had to be strong to take them down. This, of course, meant that we were much stronger than normal children, even after being malnourished and unable to exercise." Sabo said, and he knew that some Commanders were beginning to figure out that they weren't all that inexperienced at fighting like they had pretended to be.

"So, fighting normal, defenseless children was easy, and also something we didn't want to do. However, as mentioned before, we had no choice, so we fought them. Haru promised any child that could defeat us their freedom, promised that if someone could beat us in a fight, they would be free to go. We tried throwing fights, tried letting the other kids win, but Haru was too smart and saw through it every time to the point that he began threatening us again, telling us to no longer throw the fights or else he would separate us." Sabo said. He could remember the fear he had felt back then, the fear of being separated from his precious brothers, the only ones keeping him sane.

"No one ever beat us after that. Shortly after the opening of the training room, the doctors began doing a different kind of testing, one that we weren't apart of just yet. They were enhancing children's natural abilities. For example, the first kid that we fought with these enhancements was a kid whose speed had been enhanced. He could move so fast, you couldn't see him. Another kid had extremely fast regenerative abilities to the point that any wound he received was immediately healed before our eyes. Needless to say, they were difficult to take down." Sabo explained. Everyone seemed interested in this new information, wondering just how strong the brothers were to take down people with superhuman abilities.

"Of course, with all testing that they did, they experimented on us too. They wanted to enhance our senses like they had done with the others. They messed with my ears, enhancing my hearing range. I can hear things extremely far away. Anything anyone says on this ship, I can hear as if I'm standing right there with them. For example, I believe his name is Cedrick, has just told Frank that he almost slipped a few minutes ago when running away from Roman." Sabo said, focusing in on the conversation easily, the man talking loudly and boisterously. The Commander's eyes widened in shock, and the brothers had to hold in their amusement.

"You can really hear everything?" Namur asked, a slightly skeptical look on his face. Sabo smiled, nodding.

"I can," Sabo affirmed as the Commanders muttered to themselves.

"So you were listening in on us the entire time?" Izo asked, not mad, but curious. Again, Sabo nodded.

"Partly, yes. Whenever I heard someone speaking about us, I would listen closely to that conversation to make sure no one here was suddenly going to attack us. I did not, however, listen to anything I knew was confidential. I have no need to invade anyone's privacy, so anything that had nothing to do with us, I tuned out and focused on listening to something else instead." Sabo said, easing the Commander's minds.

"They didn't just enhance my abilities though. They enhanced Aces eyesight as well, and Luffy's sense of smell too. Ace can see extreme distances with perfect clarity, and can even see in the dark, while Luffy can smell scents that are weeks old and can distinguish a person by scent alone." He explained, Ace looking slightly grumpy at the attention while Luffy merely gave a toothy grin, laughing a bit.

"I bet Marco smells like a sweaty sock." Blamenco joked, nudging the first Commander with a smile. Meanwhile, Marco glared at him and the others laughed.

"No, he smells like ashes... and clouds," Luffy said, visibly smelling the air and shocking the Commanders.

"Clouds? What does a cloud smell like?" Kingdew asked curiously. Even Ace and Sabo were curious. They always knew everyone had a distinct scent, allowing Luffy to distinguish who was who, but they'd never asked what anything smelled like. There was no reason to, after all, they would never smell it like Luffy did.

"Like... water, but not really. It's more like a misty smell, but not like the sea mist, cause that's really salty, but like misty water and rain." Luffy tried explaining. Everyone tried imagining the smell, but it was impossible seeing as they couldn't experience it like Luffy.

"Wait, hold on, that's cool and all, but Ace can see in the dark?!" Thatch asked, suddenly remembering that Sabo had mentioned that. It was like a switch was flipped as everyone's eyes turned to Ace who scowled.

"Yeah, what about it?" He asked, and no one knew what to say about the matter. There was no real way to test if it was true or not at the moment so they would just have to wait for proof.

"Anyways, back to the story," Sabo said, directing the attention off of his irritable older brother. At once, everyone remembered how the brothers had gotten these abilities and were immediately engrossed in Sabo's story, wanting, and needing, to know more.

"They enhanced our abilities. We couldn't control our newly heightened senses, which left us in a lot of pain for weeks. It was hard at first, to suddenly hear everything like the volume had been turned to a hundred, and I had migraines from the loud noises until I was able to filter everything to a reasonable noise. Ace was easily susceptible to bright lights, which we were put under nearly daily, and he was able to get eye strain much easier than normal. He also had bad migraines until his eyes finally adjusted. Luffy could smell everything too well, and the overwhelming stench of medicine and alcohol in the lab burned his nose, giving even him headaches." Sabo explained. The Commanders realized that, even though the brothers had cool, powerful, abilities, they had come at a cost.

"We were forced to fight a lot more after that. It was our third year there that the next big thing happened. The doctors were a little too excited, which was always bad news, and it turned out that they had gotten their hands on a devil fruit. Of course, who better to give it to then one of the longest-lasting children in the facility? So, they gave it to Ace." The Commanders could barely comprehend the fact that the brothers had been able to hide the fact that, not one, but two of them had devil fruits.

"It was the Mera Mera no mi, and it allowed Ace to become and control fire. Now that two of us had devil fruits, the doctors were having a field day. Apparently. that also meant they were ready to do riskier experiments." And suddenly Ace and Luffy were both frowning again, a wave of deep anger and hatred flaming in Aces eyes at whatever Sabo was going to tell the Commanders. Sabo sighed, knowing it had been a traumatizing experience for them all.

"They injected me with a lot of drugs to put it lightly. I guess whatever they gave me didn't mix well because I was suddenly getting really hot and they started to freak out a bit. I don't remember much except the fact that they began clearing the room and started getting a lot of things out." Sabo said, the memory hazy. He had died after all.

"They kept talkin' 'bout your... vitals or whatever dropping. And BP, whatever that means." Ace muttered darkly, the words ingrained in his head, remembering how he had fought to stay in the room once he realized just how wrong Sabo's test had gone.

Everyone frowned at Aces words, and they all began to realize where this was going.

"The drugs had been too much for me I guess and I ended up dying. Of course, being a favorite among the doctors had only one single benefit, and that was that they would do anything to bring me back to life. Obviously, they were able to do just that seeing as I'm here right now, but they did keep me there overnight to make sure I was ok." Sabo said, and the room was once again surprised that the blonde had actually died in that place. Of course, they knew they shouldn't be surprised by anything that happened there anymore, not after everything they'd already heard, but it couldn't be helped.

They had a feeling it was only going to get worse from here.

Sorry everyone for that little mix up with the chapters! I had 56 written at the same time that I was uploading last weeks chapter and instead of updating Chapter 55, I updated it as my unedited chapter 56. Seeing as this is the case, there's a whole chapter that you all missed out on that was supposed to be last weeks chapter! I fixed it now so that chapter 55 is correct, so you can go back and read that if you want. Also, I went through and fixed some things from this chapter so there may be very slight differences compared to what was up before.

As a bit of a, 'sorry I messed up,' I'll also be updating chapter 57 tomorrow so that you guys can see the story progress like you'd hoped to today. It pays to have a few chapters written ahead of time for moments like this. Well, at the same time, that's what caused this issue, but oh well!

Thank you again for everyone telling me about my little mess up, and as stated before, look out for chapter 57 tomorrow!

Oh, and happy 4th of July to anyone that celebrates it!