The Moby was fairly quiet when Namur arrived back with his siblings, Haruta was complaining about being dragged away, while Alex remained quietly in his grip, her body dangled limply like a sack of sand from under his arm. At least one sibling was being reasonably.
"Namur! Lemme go! I need to beat that bastard to a pulp!" Haru yelled for the hundredth time, they pulled at their arm that was being clamped by Namur's hand, trying and failing to get away. They were really starting to get on the shark's nerves, not only were they being loud, they also seemed to think they stood a chance against Denson.
He was a Toxic finger-sponge Fishman, he could absorb most blunt force attacks without any issue, meaning that no matter how many times Haruta hit him with their bamboo sword, it would not matter. Then there was the matter of his body being filled with toxins, that was just plain dangerous to mess with.
Hell when Namur was younger he was told never to bite him, as it would melt his tongue. It was one of the few things that he had actually been told not to do, that almost never happened when he was a kid... Either way Namur had listened, even when he liked to bite everything and everyone around him, the thought of his tongue being melted had scared him enough to make him reconsider.
Though as he glanced down at Alex, the shark's mind drifted back to the image of the girl standing in a path of destruction, Denson laying the rubble of a building. He was still shocked at what she had done, how hard could she hit? It was insane, no way in hell had Namur ever fathomed that this small, sickly kid that had been on death's door could do that much damage... He was glad that it was Denson on the end of that hit and not him...
"Namur? What happened to you?" The teen jumped at the sound of Jozu's quiet voice, he turned looking up into the face of his mentor. His massive form appeared from below deck, his arms crossed, he was followed by Vista who was frowning at the three kids, a look of aspiration written into his features as he gazed down at Haruta, who was still yelling and making a racket. Honestly the oldest teen had kind of learned to block out his sibling, if he didn't he'd probably never use his brain again.
"We ran into some trouble... with someone from my past." The shark explained, his eyes slid down to the wooden planks under his feet.
Jozu's gaze slid down to Namur, his normal calm demeanour was soothing as per usual. "So what happened exactly ? you look in rough shape, I take it this guy wasn't a friend...".
"HE WAS A SON OF BITCH! HE TRIED TO MAKE NAMUR GO BACK TO HIS ASSHOLE DAD!" Haru roared in his ear helpfully, making Namur let go of his sibling and shove his finger into his ear with a scowl. The ginger was looking about ready to book it off the ship again, but thankfully Vista was on the case and grabbed them by their hood pulling them back before they could.
"Don't even think about it Haru..." The swordsman said with a tired sigh, most likely regretting having agreed to become their mentor, Namur couldn't blame him, now Vista had the pleasure of being in charge of them when Pops wasn't around. That wasn't easy, the shark knew from experience, he spent half his life keeping them out of trouble. Honestly, if it wasn't for Namur Haruta probably wouldn't have survived half as long as they had.
Alex seemed to finally come to life, she struggled out from under Namur's arm, he let go, allowing the girl onto her feet. The kid's head was still down, her single eye hidden under her mass of blonde curls, whilst Alex's small body was hunched over, hands hidden against her chest.
"Come on let's get you guys patched up" Vista piped up after a moment, he was staring at Alex with a slight hint of concern, after the week they'd had, it was no surprise that everyone was perhaps a little more on edge than normal. What with Alex on her rock, to her almost dying, to Pops staying up for days and everyone else being extra alert to threats, as their father and captain wasn't exactly in the best shape.
"Right, that sounds like a plan" Namur breathed heavily, he smiled drearily at his two older brothers.
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Alex hated being anywhere near places with medical stuff, let alone a doctors office. The smell alone was enough to make her nose wrinkle in disgust, the scent of medicine, blood and sickness hung in the air making the girl want to barf. However the burning, tearing pain in her hand probably wasn't helping, the acid covered fist was hidden up the oversized hoodie's sleeve she was wearing, the fabric touching the wound wasn't pleasant by any means. But Alex was determined to keep a straight face, she was not going to show weakness to the pirates all round her.
It's fine, I've had worse, I survived those perfectly fine...
Anyway the girl hadn't had much of a choice but to follow along, her friends didn't look in the best shape and the dumb pirates weren't exactly pushovers. She knew them from their bounty posters, these two were strong, division commander level strong. Alex knew she stood no chance in getting away and anyway there was no way she was going to leave Namur and Haruta.
The doctor lady from that morning was tutting over the teenagers, the stupid fire chicken was there as well, he looked tired and irritable as he scribbled down notes.
Haruta yelped again as the lady dabbed a cotton bud over a nasty black dent of a bruise in their side, they jumped up trying to get away. Only to be shoved back down again by the black haired dude, the man looked like he was out of a children's magic show. Alex couldn't remember what his name was, she knew he was one of the division commanders, but that was about it.
"Haruta! I barely touched you! Sit down! Do you want an infection?" The woman snapped, once again going back to treat their wound, only for the ginger to squeal sharply before the cotton bud even made contact with their skin, making Alex's sensitive ears hurt.
Over the other side of the room, Namur had been treated, though his wounds hadn't been all that bad according to the dumb bird, he just had a couple of scrapes and bruises nothing serious. He sat on the bed, legs crossed, once again munching contentedly on a chocolate bar, his shark teeth making quite the noise as he chewed.
The guy that looked like a brick was listening intently to Namur as he recounted what had happened, Haruta chipped in every so often to add wanting to break the squishy purple Fishman face. If she remembered correctly the brick wall's name was Jozu, he was the 3rd division commander. The hulking man was huge by human standards, he was built out of nothing muscle, his cornrows only helped to add to his blocky physique. Alex found this guy pretty scary, the serious expression he had plastered over his heavy square shaped face as he listened didn't help.
"How did you manage to get away, yoi" asked the burnt chicken nugget after Namur had finished explaining, the brick wall grunted in agreement, his arms crossed over his chest giving the shark boy a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, sounded like you guys were in quite the predicament? Especially if this guy was unaffected by blunt force attacks and he's as poisonous as you say, then you couldn't have bitten him...?" The magician guy chipped in, Haruta had been finally treated and he had his attention now focused on Namur.
"Uh? Well-" The older teen was cut off abruptly by the ginger's loud excited voice. "Al hit him! The asshole got thrown into a whole building, the whole wall broke and the street got all messed up!"
All eyes were suddenly turned to the small girl perched in the corner of the room, she'd been trying so hard to be invisible and it had almost worked too. Now she could feel their stares burning her which only made Alex shrink more. She hated people looking at her, the kid got it enough on a regular basis, but having a bunch of very strong pirates paying attention to her made her knees feel like jelly, it took all her strength not to react with fear or at the very least not show it...
"I'm sorry what, yoi?" Palm tree turkey was the first to blurt out a response. Alex bristled, her long hair bushing up instinctively like a cat, a sad attempt at making herself look bigger. Followed by Magic man whose face screwed up as he grinned mockingly "The kid that acts like an angry house cat?" Brick face snorted in amusement at 'Mr trying to look cool with his dumb cape and fuzzy moustache's comment, a lopsided smile appealing on his very square mug.
"No... Haru is right... Alex decked him that hard, I wish I could say they were exaggerating. I wouldn't be surprised if Denson walks it off, he's pretty tough, even by Fishman standards. He used to deal with a lot of my "fathers" bad deals... Speaking of which... Alex, are you okay? You did hit him with your bare hand." Namur asked, now sounding much more concerned which only made the blonde tense up more, why on earth was he worrying about her? He was the one who had met with someone like that from his past. Honestly she was more surprised that the shark wasn't more upset and worried over it.
I hope I didn't make everything worse for him? Sun god I probably did! I hadn't even thought about that when I lost my temper! I just made that guy angry! What if he comes after Namur because of me?! What if he hurts them because of my stupid behaviour! I need to f-
"Al? You good? You're sweating?" Haruta's voice broke Alex out of her panicked thoughts, they immediately made the girl jump as the teen was suddenly two inches from her face. When did they get that close? Alexandra tried to back off but she didn't exactly have the room to, the corner she had sat herself in was doing the opposite to what she wanted, instead of making her feel safe, it just made her claustrophobic.
She could feel sweat running down her back, as the realisation of how much trouble she was in hit the girl's stomach, which started to twist and turn, her heart rate increasing rapidly as she started to panic. Alex was injured in a small office which was full of some of his strongest crew, her lion instincts started to kick in, her hair was standing on end and the small blonde's single blue eye shrank to a sharp slit.
The overgrown pigeon made his way over to the now freaking out Alex and the clueless ginger, nudging Haruta away so he could lean forwards, his tired eyes scanned over the girl. Then his gaze fell on her hidden hand, Alex hissed pulling her injured arm towards her more, before angrily yelling "GET AWAY FROM ME DUMB ROASTED COCKATIEL!"
"Let me look at your arm, yoi" The stupid chicken said with a bored voice, he reached out, but Alex was having none of it, the younger zoan just bared her fanged teeth and growled a warning. His lack of reaction to her aggression just worked up Alex more, this time she managed to get to her feet, as she tried to leap over to the relative safety of the other side of the room where the door was located. The operative word being "tried", instead the girl landed in a heap on the floor after jumping too high and hitting the ceiling with a loud thump.
"We're just trying to help you, so calm down before you hurt yourself more, yoi" The blond man sighed, once again bending over, going in to grab her arm again, however Alex rolled onto her legs pulling away from him the best she could in the cramped doctors office.
"I don't need your help!" She snarled, clutching her hand away from the dumb palm tree man, all he did in return was look mildly annoyed, his eyes half-lidded and exhausted. Haruta peered out from behind him, giving Alex a confused look.
"Great we have another Pops, yoi" Fire turkey groaned. Alex did not like that one bit, the fear was briefly replaced with the most disgusted expression imaginable, her lips pulled down into a grimace, her eye twisting into a deep wince of horror. "She looks disgusted..." Haruta added helpfully if nobody else could tell.
"I ain't nothin' like that ol'geezer!" Alexandra roared outraged by that comment, she was way too offended to be scared for that moment, her face was bent into an exaggerated scowl of anger.
"That face really isn't helping to convince me, yoi" The stupid sky rat said deadpan, which of course only riled up Alex even more. She puffed herself up more, until she looked like a sentient yellow bush and roared "TAKE THAT BACK YOU OVERGROWN WEED WACKER!"
Still said weed wacker had no visible signs that her insult had affected him in the slightest, the most she got was a half shrug and a bemused smirk. Finally he made a move, snatching the girl's sleeve and went to drag the small girl over to the slightly more concerned doctor lady.
Only Alex had decided she wasn't getting dragged anywhere, a Giant's pride and maybe some other very stubborn gene had taken over, the girl didn't budge an inch. She tore her arm out of the surprised pigeon's grip, which admittedly did hurt her quite a fair bit. It made a jolt of burning pain travel up from her hand to her shoulder, though she didn't so much as flinch. Warrior's don't show weakness to their enemies, Alex was a warrior so she refused to express how much she wanted to scream in agony.
Irritated by Alex's refusal to be helped, the doctor in training, snagging her by the collar of the shirt, he tugged the little brat expecting her to be easy enough to wrangle over to the medical table. She was not, the kid instead shook him off without issue. Stumbling backwards a bit, Alex hunched over in a much more animalistic demeanour, a rumble in the back of her throat vibrating into the air.
Marco tried to grab the kid around the waist this time, but she simply shoved him off and when he meant shoved, he meant the tiny 4.3ft girl threw him into a bed, it didn't hurt him of course, but the shock of it was enough to paralyse him for a second longer than normal.
The Phoenix knew that this girl was supposedly a half-Giant, which at first he'd been sceptical of, but now... he was definitely starting to see it. He'd always assumed that a Giant was so strong because they were bigger than almost everything around them. However that may not have exactly been the case, maybe they were just naturally strong and adding their size to the mix is what made them so powerful. They had a reputation for a reason after all.
It's not like he hadn't realised that Alex was a bit stronger than one would first expect, hell the child had been lugging around an anchor like some kind of paperweight. But he'd expected that it was her strange devil fruit powers doing, which for the record still made little to no sense to him. What was up with it? All he could figure was that Alex was a Mythical Zoan, what kind of mythical creature it was beyond him. He didn't know enough myths to figure it out, Pops may have had an idea but he hadn't been the state for such discussions.
The kid's face now looked blank, steady and serious. A total switch up to a moment earlier, Marco found himself getting to his feet, there he stood in complete bewilderment. The Phoenix met Tam's gaze, her spine rigid, arms folded and lips pursed. A clear sign his sister was starting to get worried, it wasn't like they weren't used to stubborn patients, but normally these patients weren't so freakishly strong.
Marco was fuming at this point, not only was this damn kid injured and still recovering from a week's coma of almost dying, she was pushing him around like he was nothing but feathers. And what's more he didn't want to hurt the girl, there were lots of ways he could get her to cooperate but that would just damage the almost non existent trust she had...
He turned to Jozu with a sigh "Jozu hel-" The blond man was suddenly disrupted by Namur, the boy had put his hand up to them, a firm frown on his face as he sent them silent plea for him to try something. Marco and Jozu exchanged a glance, Tam nodded for their little brother to go ahead, she didn't want a scene and the young doctor understood that. He'd rather that as well, less work and shouting the better.
Alex was fixed to her spot, her hand throbbed sharply as she hid it against her chest, her breathing was becoming heavy as the panic and fear ran rampant throughout her shaking body. She stared down the pirates surrounding her, hair still standing on end, her claws out but they hurt her burning hand, her instincts refusing to sheath them.
Whatever was being said was lost in the white noise roaring in her ears, her heartbeat so loud that it sounded like a drum beating inside her skull. The girl's eye stung raw, it felt like it was a dry ball of salt rolling inside her eye socket, the scene before the small girl was a blurred image of dangerous shapes all seemingly encroaching on her.
Then a blue blur came into view, it was familiar, round and friend-shaped, the scent that rolled off that person was that of sea air, sugary sweet chocolates and a very strong fishy smell... then Alex was jolted back to her reality, as a voice broke apart her terrified and lonely world "Remember what I told you? About me and Haru?"
Namur was there, standing over her, a gentle and patient smile in place. Alex's legs started to shake violently, the pain in her arm building and the adrenaline that had kept her from showing from her pain faded, as weakness took hold of the child.
"Alex... listen you don't have to trust them, but will you at least trust us?" Namur continued, placing his hand on her shoulder, keeping her from falling. Alex stayed still, single eye so wide that it grew hot and began to become fuzzy at the edges, for a second it was like the world had frozen. A memory surfaced, the final moments of her Papi before- her eye slammed shut as the scene played inside her head.
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"YOU'LL BE ON THE NEXT ISLAND RIGHT!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, so desperate for reassurance, she wanted to know that the man who had lovingly raised her would be okay. Alex's grandfather was the most important person in her life, all she wanted was them to live together happily, not this!
"OF COURSE I WILL, I'M NOT THIS ISLAND'S PROTECTOR FOR NOTHING" Her Grandfather boomed, it filled the cave with a powerful energy, his voice filled with such conviction, that Alex had believed him...
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Tears poured down her cheek as Alex cried out "Yes... I do... and I still do..." and with that her mind went black.