88 Alice's past

When Flint and Fabien came back they had Alice following behind them slowly with her head down.

"What happened?" Satyr jr asked concerned as he saw Alice with her head down looking at the ground while following behind Flint and Fabien.

Mark also looked over as he removed his arms from Yuri's waist and studied Alice's downcast face.

"I have something to tell you guys," Alice said as she glanced at Mark and company.

"What's wrong?" Mark looked confusedly at Alice as he waited for her to say something.

"As you already know my name is Alice but did you guys know my last name?" Alice quietly asked as she glanced at the Z pirate commanders sitting around the table with a worried look.

Seeing Alice face made Mark feel even more perplexed. What does her last name have anything to do with her current behavior? Mark motioned for her to continue.

"It's Estella, my name is Alice Estella!" Alice said as she looked at Mark with a grave look on her face. Just mentioning this specific name would always shock and scare people. That's why this is the first time she had ever mentioned it.

"Estella?" Capone Bege repeated as he smoked his cigar unconcerned, he didn't seem to understand or care about her last name.

"What!?" Satyr Jr jumped up from his seat as he looked at Alice while trembling.

"It just hit me, I have never known your last name before!" Satyr jr expression changed to an embarrassed and an ashamed look as he scratched the back of his head.

This was his childhood friend we were talking about, and he had never bothered to ask her for her last name, this was truly embarrassing.

Mark looked at Alice dazed as he found himself speechless, he too had never bothered with asking her for her last name. But he didn't let it show on his face as his expression changed back to his usually cold looking face in a matter of seconds.

"How could you not know her last name Satyr!? She is our childhood friend!" Mark shamelessly said as if he had known Alice last name all this time.

"You didn't know her last name either Mark! don't act like you did!" Satyr jr pointed his finger at Mark as he turned the attention towards him while trying to hide his embarrassed and ashamed look.

Satyr jr didn't want to let him off as he exposed him on the scene. He had already lost face when he jumped up from his seat and was shocked by her mentioning her last name.

"Cough... cough... Don't mind him Alice Estella, continue." Mark cleared his throat as he gave an embarrassed cough and shamelessly used her last name as if he already knew it before she mentioned it.

"I'm from the Celestial Dragons Estella family!" Alice continued as she ignored Mark and Satyr jr exchange of words.

Mark and company already knew she was from the Holy Land Mary Geoise, but the Estella family name took them by a surprise.

"No way!" Jewelry Bonney thought silently as she glanced at Alice surprised. Is she from that lunatic family? It can't be! All kinds of thoughts ran through Jewelry Bonney's head as she looked at Alice dumbfounded.

Issho couldn't help but mutter, "A Celestial Dragon!" This truly shocked him, he had never expected a Celestial dragon to actually be part of their pirate crew.

"So what? If you're from a Celestial dragon family?? Didn't you run away?" Mark asked with a strange look on his face as he stared at Alice.

"You don't understand! The Estella family's elders uses a secret method to control the lives of the members in the Estella family to do their binding, they used this technique to kill my little brother when I helped him escape from their control over him and my sister is also locked up by them." Alice continued as her face turned sorrowful.

"What do you mean by controlling other people's lives?" Capone Bege asked curiously as he heard Alice mention something about controlling people. How awesome was that? He didn't have to discuss terms with pirates ever again if he got his hands on that secret technique.

Alice side glanced at him as she looked at Mark with a painful look on her face. It turned out after she was brought away from the foster home, she found herself with a new family filled with love and care. A mother, a father and three siblings. The family also included 5 elders and their children too.

But what she didn't expect was that some shady stuff was going on behind the scenes, the perfect family which she thought she had just found herself in was actually just an illusion.

The elders in the family controlled the lives of the family members as they made them into puppets after turning 20 years old. They used them in politic matters and so on. Alice had with dumb luck found a road poneglyph in the basement of the Estella family main household and read a piece of paper what it was and what it represented when she was trying to escape from the clutches of the elders.

When she found out about this secret, some of the elders in the family tried to silence her by assassinating her.

She warned her little brother and tried to escape with him but got caught and her little brother was unfortunate as he was sentenced to death by the elders, just to prove a statement to Alice.

Her mother and father were also a part of the higher ups in the Estella family as they tried to brainwash Alice into doing everything for the family.

When she had found out the shocking truth, her own father tried to catch her and bring her to the elders but she managed to cut off her father's arm and escape from his grasp, she was then later on rescued by an old pink haired lady.

That pink haired lady turned out to be Jewelry Bonney in disguise who had infiltrated the Holy Land Mary Geoise at that time.

The Estella family had lost face by letting her escape from their grasp which made the elders furious. Alice now knew the dark secrets of the family which shouldn't be known by anyone other than the family itself. This was like a ticking bomb for the Estella family.

They ordered the Marines to catch her and bring her back to the family alive, as they wanted to interrogate her and find out whether she had told these secrets to anyone!

"What a nasty family." Flint couldn't help but remark as he heard Alice tell her story about her past.

Mark's face turned grim when he heard Alice finish her narrating of her devastating past. She had actually experienced so much pain and grief in her childhood.

First, there was the situation with the foster home and the detestable nobles trying to sell her off as a slave and then there was the situation with the Celestial dragons trying to control and manipulate her life and even kill her little brother, just to prove a point!

Alice was already on the verge of crying as Yuri got up from her seat and hugged her.

"It's actually you!?" Jewelry Bonney said excitedly as she looked Alice with a shocked look.

"What a ruthless and inhumane world... sigh." Issho let out a breath of air as he tightens his grip on his sword.

Fabien and Flint both had a tense and angry look on their faces.

Jumbo Jim had just finished the food placed before him as he tried to grab Capone Bege arm and eat that too.

"What the hell! Get the f*** off me!" Capone Bege distanced himself from Jumbo Jim as he had a scared and terrified look on his face, this giant actually wanted to take a bite of his arm.

"Mark! This is the second time! The nobles have crossed our bottom lines!" Satyr Jr face was serious as he clenched his fist in anger, he couldn't be there the first time Mark had taken revenge on the nobles who tried to sell of Alice, but this time he would be the first one to help Alice take revenge on that inhuman family!