61: past

This chapter a bit dark, just a heads up

Quickly rushing up and taking a defensive stance, she summoned her fire across her arms and looked around warily. Franky on seeing her face noticed something wrong as Alex seemed to be having a larger reaction than expected. He expected her to somewhat relax upon realizing she was on the Thousand Sunny with the crew, but she seemed to not realize this yet and was looking around with fear still in her eyes.

The rest of the crew managed to make their way onto the ship during the brief scuffle (beatdown) between Alex and Usopp, noticed that alex wasn't all that there with them at the current moment

"Hey, Alex!"

Luffy yelled out excitedly as he made his way towards Alex, speaking loudly which slightly startled her, and upon hearing Luffy she flinched before focusing her eyes on him

"L-luffy?"

She asked in a small confused voice, unlike her normal boisterous self

"Yea, whats do you want?"

Luffy asked with a confused tilt to his head.

"I see, so I'm back on the ship with the crew?"

"Yea? Did you leave the ship?"

"I see, thats good."

Was all Alex said before she finally relaxed and seemed to turn back to her normal outgoing self, but a few of the crew still managed to notice a difference in the way she holds herself, and how she was constantly on alert now with her eyes darting everywhere as if watching for hidden danger.

Nami and Robin exchanged a quick glance of worry and some understanding between each other before making their way towards ALex

"Hey Alex, we were about to go for a bath join us."

Nami said as she started to drag Alex along with her and Robin towards the bathroom against Alex's slight resistance.

"Im good, i had a shower earlier today and don;t need another yet"

Alex stated as she tried to pull her arm out of Nami's grasp, but who knew that the seemingly weak Nami had quite the strength in her arms and hands. Alex with only her slight resistance was unable to pull her arm away as Nami ignored her and continued to drag her into the bathroom with a silent Robin following behind them and a very Jealous looking sanji watching them leave.

Upon entering the bathroom Nami quickly turned to Alex

"Are you alright?"

"What do you mean?"

Alex asked looking away from Nami's soul searching eyes

"I know that look in your eyes, Alex! What did your remeber to cause you to gain that look?"

nami yelled at Alex causing her to flinch a little

"I don't know what your talking about. If thats all you wanted I'm going to go back to the deck now"

Alex said as she turned to leave, but found Robin standing in front of the door blocker her way out. This cause a slight almost unnoticeable tremor to pass through alex's body, which Robin saw keenly with eyes like a hawk.

Robin locked eyes with Alex

"You've been drugged and touched before haven't you?"

She stated calmly, to which Alex had a noticeable change in her eyes and her body shake.

"We are here to help you Alex, but you need to tell us what happened!"

Nami said with care and concern for her friend in her voice

"I don't want to talk about it."

Alex said as she crossed her arms over her chest

"Did you know I've been raped before in the past?"

Robin said causing Nami and Alex to snap their heads towards her in shock

"Well you guys know that i've been on the run and loving in the underground since young right?"

Robin asked to which both women nodded

"Well once when i was 14, i had just escaped another marine capture and was hiding in an old abandoned building. Well i guess one of the marines happened to see me but unlike other marines who would call out to the rest and try capturing me, he decided that he wanted to have some fun."

Robin said as she hugged herself and gained a slightly hollow look to her face as she recalled the past she has told no one else.

"At the time i wasn't nearly as proficient with my devil fruit as i am now and needed to cross my arms in order to manifest any body part unlike now where i can will them into existence. The marine snuck up on me just as i let my guard down thinking i escaped again, i heard him as he lunged towards me, but i wasn't able to react in time before he managed to pin my arms to the ground. You can guess what happened next, thankfully after he was done his grip loosened allowing me to free my arms, i ended him in a very karmic, and painful way."

Robin said with a small sad smile on her face. Alex and Nami stood in silence for awhile after robin's confession, before Alex spoke in a small voice

"I don't know if i told anyone on the crew this yet but I'm currently nineteen, making it two years since the incident. I just turned seventeen and a couple friends and i decided to go to a bar to celebrate everything was going fine, we were having a good time, and at some point i met a really cute guy, and we hit it off. During the time i was talking with the guy my friends ended up leaving, giving me and the guy some space to ourselves, well as much as we could get in a bar."

Alex stopped to take a couple breathes and collect herself before starting again

"Anyways at some point during our conversations i needed to use the bathroom and when i came back we continued our talk, the only difference was that he seemed to be anticipating something now than before i went to the bathroom. Ended up learning rather quickly that he was waiting for me to have some more of my drink, and as soon as i had another sip he smiled like he just won a prize which i found kinda strange but didn't think to much of it as at that point i was pretty intoxicated."

Alex had to stop again as she was struggling with telling them about this as so far she has never told anyone about this.

"A few minutes go bye and my vision starts getting more and more blurry, the voices and noise i was hearing started to become more and more muffled, at that point i realized something was wrong but it was to late as i was having trouble controlling my body. I then ended up passing out with him chuckling happily next to me, and when i woke up i was gagged and tied to the roof in what appeared to be a warehouse near the sea, i thought this later on as i remember there being a strong fishy smell in the warehouse which can only be found near the sea or market where they store the fish they caught during the day."