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 92: Dark Revelations
The walk back to the beach happened in such a blur that the brothers weren't even quite sure how much time had passed. All of them were lost in both their thoughts and their feelings to notice something as fickle as the passing of time. Eventually, though, they were stepping out of the dense forest and onto the soft, uneven ground of the sandy beach, the Striker resting exactly where they had left it earlier that day.
Like their walk through the forest, getting the Striker in the water and beginning their return to the Moby could have taken minutes, or even hours and the brothers wouldn't have had any clue.
When they finally reached the massive ship, however, that blur of time finally broke, and it was as if they were waking up.
"Hey, you guys are back earlier than expected." One of the shipwrights said as he continued prepping boats, most likely for anyone who wanted to visit the island they'd just numbly left.
"Do you know where Oyaji and Marco are?" Sabo asked for the brothers, noticing that Luffy still looked in no shape to even be standing and Ace was still too lost in thought to speak.
"Yeah, I think they're both out on deck still. The nurses were hounding Pops about resting in his room but I'm pretty sure he ignored them and is still in his chair. Marco was helping groups that wanted to go relax on the island get sorted and ready to go." The shipwright said, pausing in their work to examine the brothers some more, his eyebrows furrowing in a mixture of confusion and worry.
"You three alright? You don't look so good." He said, taking in their pale skin and almost haunted looks.
"Y-yeah, we're fine, we just need to talk to them about something is all," Sabo replied weakly, and it was obvious his ship brother didn't agree, but he nodded none-the-less, still looking skeptical.
"If you say so." He said before returning to his work, eyeing the brothers as they began making their leave.
The walk to Whitebeard was made in silence, and even though they passed many of their shipmates- many of which greeted and welcomed the brothers back- they merely ignored them in favor of getting to their father figure faster. They didn't mean or want to be rude, but with the revelations they'd just had on the island, being rude paled in comparison to the worries they had.
Reaching the deck Ace was quick to spot Whitebeard, sitting in his chair as the shipwright had suspected, and he immediately headed his way. Sabo and Luffy followed behind their eldest brother wordlessly, both of them still processing what they'd seen, heard, and felt.
"Welcome back my sons." Whitebeard greeted as they walked up to him, but within moments his warm smile was turning into a frown of worry once he took in their appearances.
"Is everything alright?" He asked. A few of their crew members were watching them, having noticed the brothers' strange demeanor as they walked up to Whitebeard, but once they saw that their Captain was handling it they turned away, leaving the brothers to their semi-private conversation. Really though, it could only get so private when you were standing on an open deck with hundreds of pirates milling around you.
"Oyaji, we uh..." Sabo trailed off, his mind not connecting correctly to his tongue, making it difficult to tell Whitebeard everything on his mind at that moment.
"We found something. On the island." Ace spoke up instead, voice steely and hard as he clenched his fists tightly, nails biting into his palms and sending spikes of pain through his hands, which he promptly ignored.
"What was it?" Whitebeard prodded gently, taking notice of how much this thing the brothers had found was affecting them.
"It was a building, out in a clearing opposite of where the town is and surrounded by the forest. We got a little closer to see what it could be and-" Ace stopped speaking, not trusting his voice to continue at that moment. Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to calm down as much as possible, he continued.
"We think... we think it might be a facility." Ace finished, voice low and quiet now, as if someone might overhear, which was possible out on the deck.
Whitebeards frown deepened, and suddenly the brothers' demeanor made sense to him. Why they would return to the ship hours earlier then they had planned to, why they looked so pale, and most of all why they looked so terrified. The one thing they hated the most, feared the most, could lay on the island they had been exploring only moments earlier.
"You're sure that is what it was?" Whitebeard asked, not because he didn't believe them, but because he wanted to be sure.
"Not entirely," Sabo said now, his voice also quiet like Aces had been.
"We got close enough that I was able to hear what was going on inside, and from the sounds of it, its definitely a facility, but we weren't close enough for Ace to see anything," Sabo explained.
"I could feel the bad feelings too, like sadness, and fear, and darkness," Luffy added meekly, eyes trained on the ground as he tried letting Whitebeards warmth push away all the bad feelings he was experiencing. It didn't help that he was inadvertently letting in both Ace and Sabo's fear and worry as well, only further influencing his own emotions to an unmanageable extent.
"This is troubling news. We'll have to make sure that this building really is a facility, and if that's the case we should try and help any children who may be inside." Whitebeard said, looking to be thinking deeply now.
"Luffy, would you mind getting Marco? He's on the upper deck." Whitebeard said, gesturing towards the area he knew the Commander to be in. Luffy nodded and immediately headed off, following Marco's scent to find him faster.
While Luffy did this Ace and Sabo stayed with Whitebeard, still trying to deal with the idea that there could be more than one facility. The thought had crossed the brothers' minds back on Fishman Island all that time ago, but they had been proven wrong at the time.
Hopefully the same would happen this time.
"What's going on, yoi?" Marco asked as he and Luffy walked up. He looked worried, which made sense seeing as not only were the brothers back early from the island but now they were also having a pow-wow with Whitebeard.
"It seems there could possibly be a facility on this island my son," Whitebeard explained with a sigh. Marco's eyebrows raised in surprise, glancing at the brothers and suddenly understanding.
"I see." He replied, thoughts moving a mile a minute.
"Yes. We don't know for sure, however, the brothers here have strong suspicions about it. I believe we should send a small group to go and scout this building. If it turns out to be a facility then we will try and rescue the children that may be held inside." Whitebeard told Marco.
"Of course. I can go get Ruta and Izo, they would be best for scouting. Maybe Jiru as well, yoi." Marco said, thinking out loud. It would be best to bring a small group along to avoid suspicion and their chances of being caught, and those three were the most inconspicuous of the Commanders.
"That's a good idea. Why don't you go and round them up." Whitebeard suggested, to which Marco nodded and headed off to do just that, leaving the brothers with Whitebeard again.
"I understand that this may be difficult for you three and I also understand if you don't want to, but with your abilities, it would be best if you went along as well," Whitebeard said to the brothers, watching them carefully as he spoke to gauge how they were handling all of this. He would never ask any of his sons or daughters to do something they truly didn't want to do without reason, and the brothers were no exception.
"I'm going. Even if these aren't the same doctors from our facility, it'll still feel good to punch them in the face." Ace growled out, fists still clenched tightly at his sides that it was nearly drawing blood now.
"I know that the facility is a big source of distress for you three, and you have every right to want to get even a bit of revenge, but you're going to have to put that aside for now. There are children here that need your help, just as you needed ours all that time ago. The children come first in this situation, my sons." Whitebeard said gently. It was asking the three a lot, to put aside their trauma and think of someone else instead, but it was necessary if they were going to join the recon group. The children there couldn't defend themselves like they could. They needed their help, and if they went in thinking only about revenge, it could put the children at more risk then they were already in.
"We understand," Luffy spoke up suddenly, shocking both Ace and Sabo. They had thought Luffy would have a hard time deciding if he wanted to go or not, especially since he'd been in shock since they saw the possible facility, but there he stood, tall and determined as he looked Whitebeard in the eye and agreed to the Captains words.
"I assume that means you're going as well my son," Whitebeard said with a warm smile to the youngest.
"Mm!" Luffy hummed in acknowledgment. It took another second of processing before Sabo sighed.
"I'm going too. Someone has to keep an ear on these two." He said, pointing his thumbs to his brothers on either side of him. Ace gave him a look of indignance as if he couldn't fathom the idea that he caused any trouble, while Luffy laughed quietly to himself, owning up to the fact that he had a tendency to cause trouble.
In his defense, he didn't mean to get into trouble. Most times at least.
At this point, Marco was returning with the other three commanders, each wearing various faces of worry or seriousness.
"Marco says there might be a facility on the island?" Jiru asked, wondering if Whitebeard would confirm the words.
"It seems so, yes," Whitebeard answered with a nod.
"I'm sending you four, as well as Ace, Sabo, and Luffy to go and scout out the building. Figure out whether this building is really a facility or not. If so, your priority is to get any children inside out and back here to the Moby. On the off chance that this is a facility I'll have the Moby moved closer to this building." Whitebeard explained to the group.
"I've got my mini den den, yoi. If this is a facility I'll call and ask for reinforcements to help clear the building out." Marco said, pulling out the small, sleeping snail from his pocket.
"Good. I'll make sure the nurses are informed and ready for possible patients." Whitebeard continued, glancing around the deck and working out who he was going to have perform what task. They would need groups to be ready to fight if this was a facility as well as groups ready to help escort children to the infirmary. If the children were anything like the brothers had been, they would need all the help they could get. He would also have to have the chefs get started on a large amount of food for the children.
It was going to be a lot of work, but they'd done it once without any foreknowledge, and they could do it now.
"Stay safe my sons," Whitebeard said to the group who nodded in response.
"We'll do our best Oyaji," Izo affirmed before they all began leaving, heading to the boats that would take them back to the island.
As the group walked away from the Captain they were watched closely by their surrounding crew members. Many had picked up on the fact that something seemed to be happening, especially with how the brothers had returned to the ship, and naturally, they were curious. The group ignored them, knowing that someone would explain it to them eventually.
Once below deck, the brothers all piled back onto the Striker while Izo, Haruta, and Jiru got into one of the boats. Marco opted to fly ahead in his phoenix form to scout the forest nearby the beach on the chance that someone may have seen the brothers earlier and followed them back. The brothers had been too out of it before to even think about the idea that they could have been spotted and followed.
Ace fired up the Striker, and off they went, the other Commanders following behind. When they all reached the beach Marco returned, informing them that the nearby forest still seemed to be empty, indicating the brothers hadn't been spotted. When the boats were pulled up safely away from the water they began to devise a plan on how they were going to return to this building.
It was decided that Ace and Marco were taking the high ground, Ace sticking to the tops of the trees and staying on the lookout for anyone roaming the forest while Marco flew above the trees in his phoenix form and helped keep a lookout from there. Luffy would stick to moving through the trees- though he'd stay in the lower branches- and use his sense of smell to make sure no one had come by recently. Apparently, according to Luffy, it was easier for him to smell from the trees instead of being in the group with the others where their scent would distract him. Meanwhile, Sabo, Jiru, Izo, and Haruta would stay on the ground while Sabo kept an ear on Ace, Marco and Luffy in case they found something.
Plan set, the group split up, Ace, Marco, and Luffy heading upwards while the rest began walking to the dense forest ahead. Luffy stuck to the lower branches, barely visible to the group, but Ace and Marco were gone from their vision the second they walked into the thick of the trees.
At first, they walked in silence, everyone tense with the possibilities of what they could be walking into, but eventually someone, Haruta namely, spoke up.
"So, uh, how are you guys doing? You know, after finding out there might be another, um, facility." Haruta questioned hesitantly. He hadn't been around when the brothers got back, hadn't seen their pale, terrified faces, so he had no clue if they were handling this well at all.
"We're... managing," Sabo answered after a moment of thought, glancing upwards to Luffy who continued on a bit ahead of them, not hearing the conversation.
"I mean, this isn't exactly something we were expecting, but..." He trailed off, gaze focusing back to the trees ahead rather than looking at anyone as he tried processing what he was feeling. No one pushed him to continue, all of them understanding this was a difficult time for not only him, but Ace and Luffy as well. If they didn't want to talk about it, they wouldn't force them to.
"Well, honestly, I'm not really sure how I feel at the moment. I guess I could ask Luffy, he'd probably know, but that's a little... strange." Sabo started, eyebrows furrowing at the thought. It was a strange concept, that someone else had the ability to know his own feelings more then he did, but Luffy was a strange person, abilities or not.
"That makes sense, given the history you have with the place. Regardless of whether this really is a facility or not, it doesn't mean it didn't bring up bad memories or feelings in you three." Izo assured. He'd had his own share of traumas in the past, almost all of the crew had. Whether it was the passing of a crew mate, a family member, or just a friend, whether it was witnessing a devastating fire, or watching a corrupt government like the Marines allow people like the Celestial Dragons to take people and make them slaves, they'd all had something they'd lived through that was difficult for them to get past.
Sure, those traumas weren't exactly on the same level as the brothers' seven years of torture, but they were traumas none-the-less, and they knew how fickle triggers could be, how debilitating they could be.
"When we first realized that this building might be a facility we all kind of went into shock I think," Sabo admitted to the listening commanders. He knew from his experience with Whiskey that talking through things like this could be helpful, and he knew for a fact the brothers would have plenty to talk about at their next session with the nurse.
"I'm not even sure how long ago it was that we found the building. Time just kind of... stopped. I don't even really remember getting back to the Moby. Luffy was the worse of all of us and I'm a little surprised he wanted to come along. Ace and I had to snap him out of it once we realized we should tell Oyaji about the building." Sabo said, once again looking towards his brother with a mixture of worry and wonder.
"He's always been fairly resilient," Jiru commented, also turning to look at the young teen. Over the year that the crew had gotten to know the brothers they noticed that all three of them had a tendency to bounce back from things, Luffy especially.
"Yeah, he's always been like that. Truthfully, I'm a bit jealous of his ability to take things in stride all of the time." The blonde said with a light chuckle.
"He's an enigma. I don't know if the worlds ready for someone like him quite yet." Izo said with a sigh, knowing of the youngest's dream to become the pirate king. It had come up in conversation more than once until eventually the whole crew knew of their ship brother's plan to leave them at 17 to form his own crew. Many of them were a bit bummed out at the idea that Luffy would leave them, but Whitebeard had merely laughed and told them that all children had to leave the nest eventually, the rest of them were just late bloomers.
That had almost caused a riot, one in which their Captain did nothing but laugh about.
The group grew silent again after that, the only sounds around them being those of the animals hiding in the trees or the rustling of the leaves and branches as Luffy jumped from tree to tree with practiced ease. It took about a half-hour of walking for them to finally be close enough. Sabo heard it seconds before Ace was telling him he could see it, and hearing the sounds for a second time just cemented the idea for Sabo that this was a facility. Hearing numbers being called, tests being announced, crying, screaming.
It was almost too much to handle.
He was given a bit of reprieve as the sound of Luffy, Ace, and Marco descending distracted him from the muffled sounds coming from the building.
"We're close enough now. Marco and Ace are coming down." Sabo told the group. Luffy sat on the lowest branch, visible to everyone now as he waited for the two to reach them.
"Whats it lookin' like?" Jiru asked the two Commanders as they appeared from the trees, landing safely on the ground.
"No one around from what I saw," Marco said, arms flaring as they returned to two human arms rather than the flaming blue wings they'd been previously.
"I could see the building through the taller trees. It looks to be about three stories tall." Ace informed them, glancing towards where he knew the building to be. Now that he was back on the ground he couldn't quite see the building anymore, too many trees blocking his line of sight.
"There were big glass windows on the front of the building from what I could see. It was on the first floor so it was too low down for me to see what was in there. The windows got smaller as they went up the floors, the second-floor windows weren't nearly as big, just regular-sized, but the third floor windows were so small that I don't think I'd be able to see in them that well." Ace commented, thinking back to how tiny the top floor windows had looked in comparison to all the other windows.
"If you were closer do you think you'd be able to at least see through the bigger windows?" Haruta asked. They needed a way to know what they were walking into, so it would be helpful if this were the case.
"Yeah, definitely. I think those windows took up the whole wall of the first floor." Ace said with a slight scoff to his words.
"I might even be able to see in the second-floor windows too, but the third floors a no go." He continued.
"In that case, why don't you get as close as necessary and try and see as much as you can. You would get a better vantage point from the tops of the trees, but don't stick out of the top, yoi. That way it'll be more difficult to spot you." Marco told Ace, to which he nodded.
"Sure, I'll tell Sabo anything that I can see." Ace said before jumping back into the trees. Sabo took this time to sit down against a tree and focus on listening, not that he hadn't been before, but this time primarily on Ace. The sounds from the facility were still there, buzzing in his ears, but he tried once more to block those sounds from registering, instead listening to Aces every movement.
"I can feel the bad feelings again," Luffy uttered quietly, shivering almost unnoticeably. He'd had to deal with Ace and Sabo's worry and fear on the way here, along with his own mixed emotions on this, but now that they were close to the possible facility again he was getting an onslaught of negative emotions that he didn't like one bit.
"What kind of bad feelings?" Izo asked him in concern, all of them knowing the effect bad emotions had on Luffy.
"Like the sad ones, and the scared ones, and even the darkness." The youngest said, voice still low.
"How dark?" Marco asked.
"Not as dark as Teach or the weird devil fruit, but like a lot of people with grey colors," Luffy said, trying to put the feeling into words. It didn't feel like just one person's darkness, it felt like a multitude of them, all combining into one mass that made Luffy more and more uncomfortable as he felt it.
"Ne, Luffy, remember that time Curiel accidentally made that smoke bomb?" Haruta suddenly asked, confusing all of them with the sudden change of subject at a time like this. Luffy looked just as confused, eyebrows furrowed as he both tried recalling the situation as well as tried to figure out why Haruta was bringing it up.
"Yeah! It smelled really bad and made my nose hurt." Luffy said, face scrunching up at the memory.
"And he bought you that bronze figurine of a ship at the next island because he felt so bad!" Haruta said with a smile. Luffy laughed, smiling as well.
"And he asked Thatch to make me cupcakes! Those were so good." He said, mouth salivating and stomach rumbling at the thought of the delicious baked treats.
"It's a good thing we brought Ruta along," Izo said with a smile as he realized just what the young Commander had been up to.
"He's surprisingly good at distracting him." Jiru agreed, watching as the two somehow turned the reminiscing into an excuse to play a weird version of tag in the lower branches. Of course, Haruta had difficulty even getting into the tree which made Luffy laugh gleefully as he jumped away from the Commander and safely into the nearby tree.
"Oi, that's not fair! Get on the ground and run like a man!"
"No way, running through the trees is better!"
"Not long ago Ruta was the youngest Commander. Besides, he's always been the more childish of us all so it really is no wonder he and Luffy get along so well, yoi." Marco observed, smiling as well as he watched the two. From where he sat on the ground Sabo smiled as well, happy that someone had been able to distract Luffy, even if it was only for a moment.
The two continued playing for another few minutes, but once Sabo announced that Ace was getting close enough to the building they stopped, returning to the others as they all waited for Sabo to relay Aces words to them.
"Almost there... Ok, he's made it. He says he's not at the edge of the tree line, but he's close enough that he can see in the bottom floor windows. Apparently, it looks like a waiting room or something catered to children. There's toys on the floor and chairs against the walls and a desk facing the door that looks like a receptionist's desk." Sabo said, listening to his brothers words carefully before relaying them.
"He says that he was right about the third-floor windows, they're made of frosted glass and are too small anyways for him to see anything. A lot of the blinds are drawn on the second-floor windows so he can't see inside of them- oh, he found one that wasn't closed all the way. He can't see clearly enough though so he's going to get a little closer." Sabo relayed, all of them listening with rapt attention. He was silent a moment as he listened to Ace shuffle closer to the building, praying his brother was being careful to stay out of sight. Even if he was hiding in the tops of the trees there was still a chance someone might look out a window and spot him.
"He's closer now. He can't see the whole room but he can see a desk and some filing cabinets. There are a lot of papers scattered around the desk and- someone just walked into the room. He can only see their feet at the moment." Another minute of silence.
"They're getting closer to the window. He can see that they're wearing a doctor's coat and holding a file in their hands but he can't see their face. They're sitting at the desk now with their back to Ace and opening the file. The papers inside are out of his view so he can't see what they say. Ok, they're picking them up and he can see some of the words over their shoulder." Sabo settled further against the tree, taking a deep breath as he heard the beginnings of what Ace was seeing, hearing the dark growl to his brother's words as they both realized what the eldest of the trio was seeing.
"Subject #29343 Status: Terminated, Cause of Death: Cardiac Arrest, Test Last Administered: #897281. They're turning to a new page. Test #897281 Objective: Brain Enhancing Serum, Goal: To enhance the users natural intelligence to that of someone beyond comprehension, Number of Times Tested: 27, Number of Successes: 0, Number of Failures: 27, Effects Upon Failure: Subjects brain goes into overdrive which in turn forces the heart to work harder until it can't anymore, resulting in a fatal stopping of the heart." Sabo spoke through clenched teeth as he came to the conclusion that this was definitely a facility. With the things he was hearing, the things Ace was seeing and the things Luffy was feeling, there was no more question in his mind.
"I think that was all the evidence we needed," Haruta said softly, eyebrows slanted and a faint look of disgust on his face.
"Ace thought so too, he's on his way back right now," Sabo said, taking another deep breath and standing up, dusting the dirt from his clothes as he did.
"I'm going to call Oyaji and tell him about this," Marco said, walking off a bit further into the trees as he pulled out his mini den den. It didn't take long for Ace to return to them, only a few minutes, and by the time he did Marco was returning as well.
"Oyaji says the Mobys almost close enough to anchor, and once that happens he'll send the reinforcements our way, yoi. He has the nurses ready and groups prepared to help bring the children back to the Moby." Marco told them.
"So what's the plan? Barge in and start kicking the bastards' asses?" Jiru asked, arms crossed and frowning.
"It might have to be, yoi. Ace, did you see any other way we could enter the building? A backdoor or a side entrance maybe?" Marco asked.
"No, I didn't see anything except the big glass doors in the front." He said, shaking his head. He'd made sure to do a quick loop around the building in search of just that, but he'd only seen windows.
"In that case, we'll have to go straight in the front. In your facility, you were being held in the basement." Izo said, trying to figure out what their plan of action should be once they were inside.
"True, but our building hadn't been three stories tall, it'd only had the ground floor and then the basement." Sabo pointed out.
"You think the children are on the upper floors?" Haruta asked, pondering the idea.
"Most likely. Like I said before, the windows on the top floor were too small, and they were high up too, almost as if they were at the top of the wall. Not to mention they had frosted glass. It didn't look like that was someplace they'd put their offices." Ace said arms crossed over his chest as well as he thought back to everything he'd seen.
"I can smell for sweaty people. We'd be able to find 'em that way." Luffy piped up from where he sat on his tree branch, feet swinging in the air.
"Sweaty people?" Izo questioned, eyebrow raised. Luffy nodded.
"Mm. When we were in the facility we got all sweaty and smelly because we couldn't take baths. I could smell for the kids that way." Luffy said, face not showing any of his emotions.
"Good thinking, Lu." Sabo praised, smiling to his brother who returned it.
"Then we'll head in the front and Luffy will smell for the kids, yoi. We'll most likely need to find stairs so we should keep an eye out for those. Our first priority is to clear the building of any doctors or security that might be inside, yoi, that way we can get the kids out without having to worry that they'll get hurt on the way out. When it's safe we'll start getting all of them out and to the Moby." Marco explained, all of them nodding in understanding.
"When we get to the second floor though we might want to check it out. If what Ace saw is the same for all the other rooms on that floor it might be where they keep their information. We can check it out and maybe get some answers on what the facility's purpose is and why the marines allow them." Haruta added.
"True. Alright, Ruta and Sabo, you two will go and check the second floor once you reach it and gather as much information as you can. Luffy, you'll guide everyone to the kids, Ace, Izo and Jiru will go with you, yoi. I'm going to stay outside and lead the reinforcements to the building and then join you all after." Marco said. Once they all understood the plan they began making their way closer to the building, making sure to stay behind the cover of the trees as they got closer. It'd do them no good to be spotted now and have anyone inside prepare for their attack.
Once they deemed themselves close enough, lying just on the outskirts of the clearing, each of them hiding behind their own tree, Marco gave the signal indicating that they could begin. At once, they began charging towards the building, Marco turning into his phoenix form and heading towards the Moby instead.
Reaching the giant glass doors, there was no hesitation before Ace was kicking them open with a loud bang, shocking the receptionist at the desk so bad that they literally fell out of their chair, eyes wide.
"Where to Lu?" Sabo asked his brother, the youngest's nose scrunching in discomfort at the sudden blast of the medicine and alcohol smell that greeted him the second they entered the building. Under the intense, strong smell, however, was the smell he'd predicted. The smell of a lot of sweaty, bloody, dirty children inside the building.
"That way." He said, pointing to a door on the wall behind the receptionist's desk. Sabo nodded, but before they headed that way Ace looked to the receptionist who still sat on the ground in a mixture and shock.
"Hey, you, where're the stairs in this place?" Ace growled out as he glared at the man. The man lifted a shaky finger, pointing to the door Luffy had pointed to before.
"B-back there, first d-door on your right." He said shakily. With all the information they needed they all charged off into the door without hesitation.
"I'm so getting fired for this." Sabo heard the receptionist say, and only seconds after an alarm was blaring in his ears, making him wince. It had been loud and sudden, but as it continued blaring he tried to dull it, ignore it in favor of listening to the many footsteps he could hear running their way.
For all intents and purposes, the first floor seemed to be completely empty sans the receptionist in the front. Every door they passed they made sure to check inside, but each one was as empty as the last. The entire left wall was covered in doors, while there was nothing on their right like the receptionist implied. The hall looked like a classic hospital hallway, stark white walls, and linoleum tiles, and each room they peeked into looked like a room where a child would stay. They were painted with light pastel colors and had some toys in them, yet there were no children inside. They also passed what looked like a staff room of sorts, but again, no one was inside.
It seemed that the hallway wrapped around a central block in the center of the building and would eventually lead back to the waiting room in the front, which they determined when they made the only turn they could to the right and saw that down the hall was another turn to the right.
They didn't need to worry about that though because on the right wall, there were two doors.
"That ones the stairs right?" Jiru asked, pointing to the door closest to them.
"Either that or a trap," Izo replied, ready for either option.
"I'm guessing stairs. We're about to get some visitors." Sabo said, grabbing the pipe off his back in preparation for the people he could hear behind the door. Realizing what Sabo meant, everyone else got into battle-ready stances, and just in time too. The aforementioned door burst open and a crowd of people dressed in what looked like security or guard outfits all ran out. It took the crowd only a second to spot them, and once they did they immediately charged toward them.
Izo stayed put and began firing shots off at the crowd while the others ran forward to meet them before they could get any closer. It was a flurry of punches, kicks, and headbutts as they took down man after man. After looking at their auras, Luffy felt absolutely no remorse in doing so once he saw the mass of grey and dark grey colors. The darkest it got was a shade lighter than black, which made him a bit grateful there were no black auras but annoyed at how they could all be such bad people.
Once they had mowed down enough guards to get by, they ran to the doors. Izo stayed close, shooting at anyone who tried following them, and soon enough they were reaching the stairs and closing the door, blocking those outside of it from getting in.
"You guys go on ahead, I'll stay here and take care of these guys and meet up with you after," Izo said, holding the door that the guards were now banging on in an attempt to get open. They agreed, knowing Izo could handle himself and believed he would be fine before running up the stairs to the second floor.
"This is our stop," Haruta said, looking to the door on their left as they reached the top of the first flight of stairs.
"I can hear Marco and the others on their way here. They should get here within a few minutes." Sabo told Ace, Luffy and Jiru, all of whom nodded in understanding. Sabo walked up to the door, looking to Haruta for a second before pushing it open and swinging his body behind the door, pushing it forward and slamming it into a guards face who had attempted to run into the stairwell. Sabo's head poked around at them from behind the door, grinning.
"We should hurry up, the rest are headed this way. This guy had the misfortune of being ahead of them." Sabo explained, gesturing to the fallen body. Haruta grinned as well, wishing the three still in the stairwell luck before running off with Sabo, the second-floor door closing behind them. Sounds of a fight could be heard from behind the door, but they didn't have time to waste so the group of three began making their way up the next flight of stairs.
Once at the top they were met with a door right in front of them. No more stairs, no forks in the hall, just a singular door and the option to either open it or turn around and go back.
Of course, they were going with the former option with that one which was why Ace moved carefully towards the door, none of them knowing what to expect once they opened it.
'Kids are here. Smell is stronger.' Luffy tapped to them, just in case someone was close enough to the door to hear them. All of the Commanders and Whitebeard himself had gotten accustomed to using the silent language in times like this and were just as good at reading the taps as the brothers were. Sometimes there was a word or two they didn't know, but the brothers made sure to teach it to them whenever that was the case.
With Luffy's information, Ace pushed the door open ever so slightly, holding it tightly in his hand to keep it from swinging open too far. Once there was a barely visible crack, the fire user peeked through it, trying to gauge the situation behind the door as clear as he could before they went out there.
'Lots of doctors here. I think all the guards are downstairs- wait, no, there's a few here. Like the first floor, doors on the other wall and the hall goes left and right. Luffy and I can take the right, Jiru you go left and we'll meet once we clear the halls.' Ace tapped. Agreeing to the plan, Ace stepped back from the door a step before raising his foot and kicking it in much the same way he'd kicked the glass doors. It shocked the scrambling doctors enough that Jiru was able to slip through the door and to the left, all while knocking out the dumbfounded doctors watching. Ace and Luffy, as planned, went right and did the same as Jiru, knocking down doctor after doctor, as well as the occasional guard.
It was safe to assume that most of the guards had gone to the lower floors in an attempt to stop them before they got this high up and because of that there was a severe lack of them up here. This being the case meant that the two brothers were fighting the defenseless doctors as easily as taking down rookie pirates from the Blues.
As they made their way through the hall they slowly met back up with Jiru who was finishing off his own group of doctors, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a bullet thanks to his haki and knocking out the guard who had attempted to shoot him.
"All good?" Ace asked him as they finished fighting, all of them barely even panting.
"Yup. You?" He asked, looking over the brothers for any injuries, even if they were just scrapes.
"Same. Time to start getting these kids out." Ace said, changing the attention to the kids who were all watching them through tiny windows on their metal doors. The doors lined the entire left side of the halls, and in all of them, there was a tiny child, standing on their tiptoes as they watched the carnage happening outside their rooms.
"Right. I'm sure everyone else is here by now if Sabo was right in his estimate, but just in case I'll head down and make sure the way is safe to bring them down." Jiru said, turning to head back to the stairs.
"If you see Marco tell him to get the groups that are helping escort the kids out." Ace called to him before he turned the corner and disappeared.
"Alright Lu, time to get to work." Ace said, turning to the first metal door and inspecting it carefully.
"Mm. I'll get the other side." Luffy told him, leaving his brother just as he warned a kid to step away from the door, kicking it down once they did as told. With the two brothers working together they made quick work of opening the doors, each using their monstrous strength to kick the doors down once they made sure the child, or even children, inside was safely out of the way.
This facility was, despite its tall exterior, smaller then the brothers' facility had been. Even though this building was three stories tall while theirs had been one with a basement, most of this facility was wasted space. The entire first floor was completely empty and the second floor was... well, Ace and Luffy didn't know because they hadn't seen it, but even the third floor was smaller than their basement had been. Where their facility had easily housed about 30 kids, this one barely reached 20, most rooms having more than one kid to them.
Another difference was the rooms themselves. In place of the cold, empty, damp, dark basement they'd had, these kids had rooms with windows and beds with pillows and blankets. Sure, the beds looked crappy, the pillows looked flat and the blankets were ratty with holes, but they were small comforts that the brothers had been denied in their cells. Even the window was a luxury that Ace felt himself envying. To know when it was morning, when it was night, the passing of time. They hadn't had that. All they'd had was the meal times giving them a vague idea of what time it was, and even then they could have been fed breakfast at midnight and not known any differently. It had been insanity-inducing.
As Ace helped child after child leave their room, he couldn't shake the part of him that wished he'd been given these same luxuries. Seven years in that hell and they hadn't even been given proper clothing while these kids were given decked out rooms he would have killed for.
Of course, he knew how crazy it was to feel this way- to be envious of another tortured child's cell- but he couldn't help himself.
Forcing himself to focus on the kids and not the rooms, Ace swallowed that envy down, knowing that if Luffy felt his emotions he would ask questions Ace didn't want to answer. Their ship brothers were here now, helping escort the children to the stairs and to the Moby while Luffy and Ace did one last check of the floor to make sure no one was hiding or there weren't any children they missed.
Because of this, they found the lab where no doubt the kids were taken to be tested on. They also found a room with giant tanks filled with water, but Ace was quick to shut that door before Luffy could peek in, telling his brother it was empty instead. Just towel storage. Luffy felt his lie, and Ace knew he did, but the youngest didn't ask about it and instead, they moved onto the other rooms.
Meanwhile, before Ace, Luffy, and Jiru had started the process of saving children, Sabo and Haruta were finishing up the guards on the second floor.
"Man, that was a good work out!" Haruta said, stretching his arms as the last guard crumpled to the ground in front of him. Sabo smiled to him, strapping his pipe to his back again.
"That's for sure. Ace, Luffy, and Jiru have started fighting on the floor above us and reinforcements came and are helping Izo clear the first floor. Marcos heading up towards us." Sabo relayed to Haruta since the commander didn't have his hearing.
"That ability of yours is still so cool," Haruta said with a sigh, shaking his head as he moved to the door closest to him and opened it, peeking inside.
"Its got its perks, that's for sure." Sabo agreed as he went to his own door. Knowing no one was inside any of the rooms, Sabo didn't hesitate as he walked in, taking in the room that looked as Ace had described it. The far wall had windows on it with filing cabinets underneath it and a desk in the front of it. Bookshelves lined the wall beside the door and there was an armchair in the corner with a lamp beside it. Papers were strewn all over the desk and cabinets and there were books aplenty on the shelves.
It was going to take a while, but Sabo was determined to find out what information this place held.
He and Haruta worked together strategically to check every paper, every book, every note, trying to get any information on this place that they could. And information they got. Test notes, subject details, even doctor and guard information. It was all extremely recent and there wasn't a paper Sabo could find that dated back more then a couple of days, but he was learning more about the facility from these two days of papers then he'd learned in his seven years stuck in his prison.
At some point, Marco had joined them and Sabo could hear everyone else going to the third floor to help get the children to the Moby, but Sabo paid that no mind, instead scouring the pages in front of him. He sat cross-legged on the floor, piles of papers in front of him as he read over each one as quick, yet as thoroughly, as he could. When Marco walked in he barely even looked up to greet him.
"Ace and Luffy have gotten all the kids out of their rooms, yoi," Marco told him, standing in the doorway and watching as Sabo poured himself over the notes in front of him.
"That's good." Sabo said shortly, grabbing another page to read.
"There were about 20 of them from what I gathered." Marco continued, eyebrow raised now as he continued watching Sabo.
"Oh. Smaller than ours." Sabo noted, again, keeping his sentences short. Marco couldn't help but smile slightly as he walked further into the room.
"Find anything interesting, yoi?" He asked, thinking Sabo might talk more if it was about what he was so obviously invested in.
"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. There's a lot of notes here on the tests they were doing for the past two days, but anything before that I don't know. There isn't a single paper in here or any of the other rooms that I checked that date back further than two days ago." Sabo said, glancing around the room for any papers he might have missed.
"When we checked your facility we couldn't find anything. Maybe they get rid of their information systematically, yoi." Marco suggested, thinking back to when they'd saved Ace, Sabo, and Luffy from their facility. No matter how hard they'd looked, they hadn't found a single paper that talked about what they did in the place, but here it was if the place was brand new.
"Maybe," Sabo mumbled in agreement, grabbing another file and opening it up. From the front label, it was another doctor file that detailed who worked here, but Sabo was having trouble figuring out exactly what he was seeing in these files. There were too many abbreviations he didn't understand, like SST and FST which were always followed by numbers, some smaller than others. Each file had a picture of the doctor and a number next to them. Most of the doctors he'd seen in here had had the number 293 besides their picture, but occasionally he saw a number 670 or 351.
Opening this new file and glancing at it, his whole body froze up. Marco was quick to catch the change in demeanor and was immediately worried.
"Sabo, yoi? What's wrong?" Marco asked, trying to look at the file Sabo was staring at. Swallowing was hard, but Sabo managed it, still not looking up.
"Hey, Marco?" He asked, voice deathly quiet and void of emotion. Marco gave him a questioning look, still trying to understand what was happening.
"When you got us out of our facility... when you fought all those doctors..." Sabo started, and still, Marco was confused.
"Did-... did," Sabo couldn't find the right way to express his question, after all, it'd been a year ago and to Marco and the rest, they hadn't realized the significance of who they'd been fighting.
"Did you fight this man?" Sabo asked, pulling the paper clipped image from the file and showing it to Marco. The first commander's eyebrows furrowed, but he looked at the picture, trying to remember back to if he had seen him at the time or not. He didn't look familiar but it'd been dark in that basement and there was a possibility someone else had fought him instead.
"I couldn't say, yoi. Why, who is that?" Marco asked curiously. If possible, Sabo got paler, looking sick, and honestly, Marco was worried he was going to hurl right then and there.
"This-... It's Haru, and according to this file he was working here two days ago."
So, I lost this entire chapter. I had written over 8,000 words, spent days on it, was extremely happy with how I had everything playing out, and then my computer froze and my file got corrupted. This sucks, obviously, and I don't know if I was able to replicate this chapter the way it was before, but I did my best. Honestly, it was a bit demoralizing to reboot my computer and see an empty document that was 50 kb large, but after hours spent googling a solution and coming up with nothing, the only thing I could do was rewrite this as fast as possible and hope it was even a smidge as good as it was originally.
With that said, if you notice any mistakes or this chapter seems a tad rushed, it may be because I just wanted this chapter to be done with, which sucks because I had been so excited about this chapter before and had a lot of fun writing it before its unfortunate demise.
A moment of silence for our fallen chapter.
RIP Original Chapter 92, you will be forever missed.
Anyway, despite the misfortune that fell upon me while writing this chapter, I still love this story all the same and won't let this get me down. I still gave this chapter my all, even if I was writing through my disappointment, and I liked it enough that I felt it was ok to post. If I hadn't liked it, I would have delayed this update to make sure I did, but it didn't have to come down to that. All things considered, I'm still happy with the way this chapter turned out, and I'm as excited as ever for the rest of this arc.
Now, like I said last chapter, I got the idea for this arc when I thought of an event for a future event that will take place in this story's sequel. The only way I could have that event happen though was if a certain someone was still alive; that someone being Haru.
Since the beginning of this story, I never really knew what I wanted to have happen to Haru exactly. At first, I was fine with his being killed alongside many of the other doctors in the facility. Then, I was alright with it never really being addressed. No one would really know if he was actually dead or alive and because of that there would always be a feeling of unease. Haru could come back, but no one would ever know for sure if he would or not. In the end, however, I found I was happiest with this idea. Sabo has found out that Haru is still alive and is still working in facilities.
Now, after both an extremely long chapter and authors note, I think I'll end it here. As always, thank you all for your support! I'll see you Friday with the next chapter!