Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been 2 weeks out at sea with no land in sight, and Ace’s sanity was taking a dip. Even more so than when he had been in the facility. Luffy was constantly pestering him and every time he looked into those eyes to tell him off, he just couldn’t.

Sabo wasn’t much different, although… the jerk decided to take first watch. And the next watch… and the one after that… Leaving Ace to be the one on Luffy duty.

He sighed.

At least we’re together, he chuckled, where will we go next, though. A huge squawk and a thump resounded behind him and his eye twitched.

Can I get even a moment of peace around here?!, he internally screamed. He turned around, ready to launch himself against… Sabo? Why was he on the floor? And wrestling with a seagull?

“I WON’T GIVE YOU A SINGLE BERI, YOU RIP-OFF!”, Sabo screamed halfway through the scuffle.

Luffy was laughing like a maniac, effectively drawing his attention off of pestering Ace, to Sabo’s… dilemma. Ace failed to stifle a few chuckles of his own.

It seriously looked like Sabo was having a wrestling match with a seagull (he was). And losing. After about five minutes, Sabo was on the ground, breathing hard while the seagull was perched on-top of his rising and falling chest striking a victory pose.

“Sabo!”, Ace called out, “You must be really rusty if you can’t even beat a gull.”.

Sabo gave him an icy-cold glare, though its effect was nullified by the fact that he was on the floor and replied, “I was in chains for 3 years, I had no form of exercise, what do you think?”.

Ace winced at the mention of the three years they were gone, and gave a stiff nod. Sabo sighed, “It’s fine, anyways, this ‘gull’ as you so degradingly called it, is a news coo. We pay it 100 beri and it will give us a version of today’s paper, and due to some people,”, he looked pointedly at Ace, “we’re dirt poor,” he finished.

Ace rubbed the skin on the back of his neck bashfully before snapping his fingers and sending a lance of fire through the gull’s chest. It dropped down dead and the newspapers that it held dropped out of its talons as well.

“That enough to compensate?”, Ace asked, while making a show of blowing the smoke off the top of his finger.

Sabo laughed and took the newspaper from him and offhandedly said, “It’s good that I somewhat remember how to read,”.

Ace and Luffy edged closer to him as he began to read off the newspaper article.

“‘RED HAIRED PIRATES DESTROY ANOTHER MARINE BASE’”,

“Hey! That’s Shanks!”, Luffy cheered, “He really did come looking for us.”.

Sabo and Ace shared a smile and then continued on, “‘GARP MISSING FOR THE THIRD YEAR SINCE MAY 25’”.

Shocked silence descended upon the three brothers.

“That… crappy Jiji… missing?”, Ace stuttered out.

“Jii-chan,”, tears welled up in Luffy’s eyes.

Sabo frantically searched for the paper’s date.

May 25, he noted, the same day we went missing… “He’s been missing ever since we disappeared.”, Sabo gritted out.

A hysterical laugh ripped from Ace’s throat, “What do you know? The Jiji actually loved us!”, he said, with a deranged look in his eye. Then, just as fast as it appeared, it disappeared, almost as if being forcefully shoved down.

“Continue.”, Ace grounded out.

Sabo shakily nodded and forged on, “‘Garp the Fist, the famous Marine Hero has been missing for three years. Today marks the beginning of the times in which pirates have gotten all the more confident with the disappearance of Garp. We all hope and pray for the Hero to return to us once more and save us from the Pirates, but until then, we can only speculate on why he disappeared in the first place, was it because of grief on losing a loved one? Or something else—’”, Ace held up a hand to stop him.

They both shared a look and then turned their heads in their youngest brother’s direction. Said younger brother had been eerily quiet through the entire article. What they saw made him stop cold.

o-o

Luffy was positively livid. For all the time that Sabo had been reading that article, he was thinking. Jiji, where are you? When Sabo was finally stopped from reading, Luffy didn’t feel like Luffy anymore. He felt rage. He felt furious. He felt sad. He felt sad that his Jiji couldn’t stay in the Marines to follow his dreams, sad that they had let themselves be taken by the facility.

Overloaded with so many negative emotions, Luffy was no longer Luffy, but a Devil. A sad Devil, who yearned for hunger, and the subject of his emotion. When denied, he let out a mighty roar and launched himself towards the nearest living, breathing creature, which just so happened to be Sabo.

o-o

Sabo was watching Luffy intently, and saw when his pupils dilated and his eyes turned completely black, with a bright red orb glowing from within, and by all means, that was when he should’ve dragged Ace and left to let Luffy finish his little ‘episode’. That was exactly what he should’ve done, but instead, like the idiot he is, he waited.

That’s when Luffy let out a roar and launched himself towards Sabo with black, intangible, vine-like tendrils licking around the edges of his body. Sabo’s instincts went into overdrive.

He got up, put two arms in front of him and pushed against Luffy’s strength. His canines grew into fangs, and his ears elongated. The behind of his pants ripped and something jutted out. His nails grew longer and fur started popping up on his ankles, his elbows, and the back of his hands. His feet were now a mix of paws and feet, and his pupils slitted and glowed an aura of red around his inherently blue eyes. His face paled, and he stood his ground, skid marks coming from the contest of strength between him and his little brother.

All the while, Ace sat there with awe.

Sabo let out a roar easily matching Luffy’s in volume and pushed back at his little brother. He took a backseat in his brain as he felt his instincts take over his body. Sabo slowly stalked over to Luffy, much like a wolf would do to their prey, and licked one of his gleaming fangs before opening his mouth and aiming for the throat.

In his own mind, Sabo was kicking and screaming for him to stop, to take back control of his body, to not kill his little brother, but all he could do was watch helplessly as his own body would inevitably devour his little brother.

Ha. He thought bitterly, I’m still so useless, aren’t I?

He felt a pain in his side and howled in pain. Sabo’s ears perked up.

Ace? He was overjoyed, Luffy’s saved!

Then, he blacked out.

o-o

After Luffy went crazy, Sabo went crazy. What the hell did they go through in the facility?

Ace was thoroughly confused. Luffy turned into a crazy person, and Sabo turned into a weird cross between two mythical creatures; a vampire and a werewolf. He thought he had perfect enough merit to be confused. He always knew he could just ask what happened in the facility to them, but that would be breaking the unspoken agreement between them.

o-o

It passed a good three hours before Luffy and Sabo awoke, and they both sent questioning glances to Ace, who gave them a surprised look before shrugging them off. They continued reading out the newspaper to each other, Sabo trying to teach them all to read again, while very smartly not questioning the hole in his pants and underwear showing off his butt.

He learned to not question things anymore. He forgot if he learned not to question things when he first met Luffy, or if he learned that in the facility.

When they finished reading out the newspaper, three bounty posters fell out of the folds in the paper.

DEAD OR ALIVE

FENRIR SABO

100,000,000 beri

DEAD OR ALIVE

GOLD ACE

150,000,000 beri

DEAD OR ALIVE

MONKEY D LUFFY

150,000,000 beri

o…o

Marco was watching Thatch and Haruta run away from the Vista while laughing like they just succeeded in taking over the Grand Line. He didn’t know how they managed to do it, but they stole his mustache wax and used it to style his hair into a huge heart.

Marco felt bad for Vista, he definitely did, but he would be lying if he didn’t say that it wasn’t funny. He just couldn’t find the heart in him to laugh at Vista considering he was just pranked this morning.

He woke up to a face full of blue painted turkey.

“Marco, son,” his father rumbled. Marco turned towards the legendary Whitebeard as he sat in his throne and replied, “What, Oyaji?”.

“Take a look at this,”, he gave the newspaper to Marco. All on deck began huddling towards Marco as he began reading through the paper.

“It seems that Garp is still laying low,” Marco said, “It also seems that the Red-haired pirates still haven’t found who they’re looking for,”.

He remembered the day the Red-haired pirates came to their ship like it was yesterday…

o-o

“Hey, old man.”, Shanks said, “Got you some sake,”. He threw a ten-foot tall and wide sake jug to Whitebeard.

“So, brat,” Whitebeard rumbled, “Care to explain why you’re suddenly going rouge, destroying every single Marine Base you cross?”.

Shanks looked up at Whitebeard with a grim look in his eye and said, “I’m searching for someone,”.

Whitebeard gulped down a sip of sake and wiped his mouth before asking, “Who exactly?”.

Shanks gave a wicked smile, “Nunya,”

“Hm?”

“Nunya business,”, Shanks laughed.

o-o

Shanks had refused to tell who he had been talking about, but the fact that he was searching for three years showed that he had a lot of faith in the person. The brat hadn’t visited ever since. Now, Garp on the other hand…

o-o

“Oi! Whitebeard!”, Garp yelled from a dinghy on the open sea, “I’m looking for my grandsons, so if you find them anywhere on the Grand Line, don’t touch a hair on their heads. Until then, I’ll be gone!”, he said flippantly.

Although the man had a jovial tone, anyone with Observation Haki could feel the threatening and serious undertone his words had.

“Very well,”

“Great!”

o-o

They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since. Anyone would think that someone as eccentric as Garp would be sticking out like a sore thumb, so no one on the ship really believed him when he said that he would be ‘gone’.

Oh, how wrong they were.

A bunch of wanted posters fell out of the folds of the newspaper, and Marco bent down to pick them up. He shuffled through them, gaining a surprised look on his face.

He leisurely walked over to his beloved father and gave him the wanted posters. His father shuffled through each one, absently commenting on each one. He would say things like, ‘cocky brat’, or ‘this one is interesting’, or maybe, ‘this one won’t even last’. Most of the wanted posters in general had some sort of threatening air to them in which Marco got a sense of normality.

Oh. Boring, boring normality.

The last three wanted posters completely destroyed that.

Whitebeard had a look on his face when he saw those three bounty posters splayed out in front of him that literally screamed, ‘I want it’.

Out of curiosity, Marco and Thatch walked over to the bounty posters and saw three kids on each one.

Fenrir Sabo, who had a picture of pointed ears with dirty blonde fur at the tips, blue eyes, which were thoroughly broken, and sharp fangs protruding from his top gums.

Gold Ace, who had a picture of a maniacal smile, with tears coming down his face, flames licking around his gray eyes which shone with vengeance.

Monkey D Luffy, the seemingly youngest, who had a picture of a grimly determined look on his face, with longer bangs and a childish scar under his eye.

All of them had one thing in common, they screamed, ‘chained’.

Marco turned to his friend Thatch, who now had a comparative determined look on his face just like the Luffy child. It seemed that he was determined to adopt those three. A metaphorical fire burned in his eyes.

Marco was ready to set a course for paradise, but then realized something he should have when he first read the bounty posters.

“How do we explain this to Garp?”, his father ended up voicing the unspoken question bouncing around in Marco’s head.

He just sighed and went on to plotting the course.

I’ll deal with that later.

o…o

Zoro and Usopp had recently escaped from the facility by a hair thanks to Boris. Whoever that guy was, he was good, Zoro needed to remember that in case for the future. Or at least, until he went on a suicide mission and decided to blow up the entire facility and himself in the process.

This Boris character was weird. He freed certain people, but chained others. If he was like that, at least with some goodwill inside of him, why did he surround himself with… the White-coats?

He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked at the 2 years younger boy next to him. Said boy had a nose almost as long as Pinocchio, but unlike Pinocchio, his eyes weren’t filled with joy. They were dull and broken. The kid’s name was Usopp.

“Zoro, where are we going next?”, the now named Usopp asked.

“Wherever the wind takes us,” Zoro replied.

“Oh.” Usopp walked over to one end of the dinghy and sat down. Zoro looked at Usopp, taking in the changes that the White-coats had done to him. It turned out that Usopp was the first successful experiment they had in a while. He was successfully fused with an eagle, and now had the gift of flight and superior eyesight, with somewhat enhanced strength.

It wasn’t much of a gift when he got it from them, though.

The White-coats broke Usopp through and through, so much so, that gone was the kid, and in place was eyes much older than should belong on that face.

Zoro observed himself soon after. When he told them his name, they all were surprised. What’s so wrong with the surname, ‘Roronoa’? No matter. Whatever they did to him though… it hurt. Badly. All of a sudden, he gained enhanced strength and speed, along with a demonic spirit awakened in his body.

He thought they were scientists, not voodoo whatevers.

They turned him into a full-blooded Asura. But damn if it didn’t feel good when the power rushed into him every time, he shifted forms.

He felt another tug on his sleeve, and looked up to see Usopp pointing to a fairly small-sized ship. Probably could hold around 10-15 people. Maybe they would help them. It would take a little… convincing, though.

Usopp flew over to the mast of the ship and saw three kids, two of which were around Zoro’s age, and the other around his own, reading a newspaper. No, wait, they were reading bounty posters. Never mind.

Zoro climbed up the side of the ship and landed on deck with a thud. He found three kids staring at him. One of which had freckles, another of which had a top-hat, and the last of which had a straw-hat on with long hair that pooled around him. All three were wearing bewildered expressions.

Well, let’s get this over with, Zoro closed his eyes and shifted into the Asura’s form, embracing the rush of power as his arms and heads multiplied by three.

He was ready to attack when the blonde blurted something out which stopped him in his tracks cold.

o…o

Sabo was just reading the newspaper with his brothers, until they found their bounty posters. They had weird pictures. Although, he can’t deny that they had a good angle to take them.

Everything was relatively peaceful until this one guy bounced up on deck and got into a tight attack stance. Or at least, he thought it was an attack stance. Ace was once step away from attacking him, but was stopped when Sabo gave him a pointed look.

Then, when the kid’s arms and heads multiplied, everything went to hell, and Sabo just couldn’t control his mouth.

“You’re from the Facility?”, he blurted out.

The kid adopted a bewildered expression before it contorted into rage, “How do you know?”, he replied.

“We were from there ourself,” Sabo gestured to his brothers, “For the entire last year, I heard rumors that the White-coats were trying to create a demon, and I somewhat remember a bit of my past life before the Facility, and—That’s an Asura, right?”, he asked.

Zoro dropped his attack stance before calling out to someone, “Hey! Get down! Maybe they can actually help us!”.

A cross between a bird and a human, but not quite exactly Fae dropped down in front of the three brothers, before standing up and walking over to the green-headed boy.

Zoro decided to take a leap of faith when he heard that they were from the facility too, and introduced himself.

“I’m Roronoa Zoro, and this is Usopp, who are you?”.

The youngest decided to reply before his brothers, “I’m Monkey D Luffy! Those’re my brothers Ace and Sabo!”, he gestured wildly to the other two, who just waved, before asking, “Hey, Zoro? Usopp? Join my crew!”

Zoro shared a look with Usopp and thought back to his life before the facility. Before the facility, he would’ve stayed far away from offers to join pirates, but at this point, he couldn’t care less. He was kidnapped and taken to the facility for 1 ½ years, and he could honestly care less about who helped him, so long as they helped him. And Usopp too, of course.

The kid came after Zoro, but was tested on more vigorously, broken more quickly. He ended up staying in the facility for an entire year.

How they knew the time? Well, the facility liked to gloat about how long they kept prisoners, and how long said prisoners were stuck, so they kept time on how long who stayed inside.

“Sure.” Zoro replied. Usopp dully looked at him and nodded along.

Luffy grabbed Usopp’s arm and dragged him over to some storage closet before taking out a few fishing lines. He talked animatedly to Usopp for a few seconds, and Zoro could’ve sworn that a spark of light ignited in Usopp’s eyes for a second there. But he could’ve just been imagining it.

No, wait, he didn’t imagine it. Usopp cracked a small smile and that spark in his eyes ignited into a flame. He didn’t know how the kid did it, but he was amazed. Usopp began talking somewhat docilely back to the kid, before slowly accelerated into animated movements and hand-gestures.

2 weeks of trying to heal Usopp on his own, and that kid did it in less than 5 minutes.

He heard a chuckle behind him. Ace was shaking his head in fond exasperation, “Luffy can bring out the best in you, I don’t know how he does it, but he does it.”, the blonde brother cut in.

“Come on, let’s go to the galley, we’re going to need to change the rations we’ve got.”

Zoro smiled and nodded. He was already starting to feel more alive on this ship than he had in the 13 years that he’d lived.

He walked with the older two brothers to the galley, leaving Luffy and Usopp to their devices outside.

BIG MISTAKE.

When Ace opened the galley door again to go out on deck, he was drenched in paint before sneezing from pepper being dropped from above, and speed-drying it onto himself. Luffy and Usopp were laughing their heads off while running from a raging pyromaniac.

He chuckled, I could get used to this.

o…o

Garp sighed and put the newspaper down. Today marks the 3^rd year, he thought, I’m going to have to return to the Marines sooner or later. Otherwise Senny will be mad.

He let out another sigh before clutching his head and kneading a throbbing headache. Tiny crystals pricked at the edges of his eyes, threatening to fall. 3 years, and I still haven’t found my grandsons.

He furiously wiped his eyes and grabbed the bounty posters. He shuffled through all of them, muttering incoherently at each one, before stopping at the last three.

My Grandsons, tears once again pooled at the edges of his eyes, but this time he let them fall, I found you.

o…o

Shanks was sitting on a rock in the light of the sunset, perfectly accenting his grim face and blood-red hair.

3 years, he thought, No sign of Anchor or the other two Garp told me about.

He sighed and grabbed the nearest sake bottle before taking a big sip. He smacked his lips together and closed his eyes, thinking of the time when Anchor accidentally ate his devil fruit, and even then, couldn’t swim, and Makino, who looked at him with kind and soft eyes, and oh! That Mayor Woopslap—no. He shouldn’t be thinking about those things.

Even without thinking about those things, tears seeped out of his eyes, and his nonexistent left arm throbbed in a phantom pain. He was broken out of his reminiscing when Benn ran up to him and shoved three Wanted Posters in his face.

Shanks sat up and took the Wanted Posters off his face before staring at Benn Beckmann, his first mate, with an unreadable look.

Benn was frantic. That wasn’t normal. Normally, it’s Shanks who is frantic and Benn the one to comfort. Shanks absently filtered through the three Wanted Posters before stopping at the last one.

It was Anchor.

He hadn’t felt this happy in a long time.

“MEN! SET SAIL FOR PARADISE!”, he commanded, his voice resonating throughout the entire razed down Marine Base.

A chorus of “““AYE!””” resonated from in front of him.

o…o

Makino was crying. Whether it was from happiness, sadness or anger, she did not know. Happiness, for knowing that the three boys she helped raise were alive, sadness, from knowing that she could do nothing to help them, or anger, from the conditions they were in.

Dadan was in the bar too, she was carefully blank, but anyone with a trained eye could see the unbridled fury in her eyes.

WHO DARES TO DO THIS TO MY BOYS?! She internally roared.

o…o

Whitebeard was gulping a sake gourd and smiling all the while.

We’re in Paradise.