Chapter Text
Jun kicked her feet a little, moving from one side to the other as if she was bored of standing around, but Wendy could not shake the feeling that her opposite was not in the mood to fight. Neither was Wendy, but some things needed to be dealt with correctly.
She threw a glance at Charla by her side and found her friend looking straight ahead at the enemy equally as confused as she felt. This just didn’t seem like the fighting situation. Wendy didn’t have much experience in comparison to everyone else, but she had some and usually a fearsome or dangerous situation left a sizzle in the air that was incomparable. And now? Now it just seemed like the tension came from the loud footsteps descending stairs down.
Maybe it was just Wendy’s wishful thinking though. In spite of how much she had improved when it came to fighting, she still didn’t enjoy it particularly much. Raised as a healer, it seemed directly opposed to who she was to inflict pain. Even if it was to enemies of the guild that she now called her home.
“You don’t really want to fight either, right, girl?” Jun scratched her nose.
Wendy looked up. Maybe her wishful thinking was actually rewarded. Still, she threw a short look at Charla who had her eyes narrowed so she hardened herself. “I will if I have to,” she made herself sound more confident than she was.
Jun giggled a little. “ Do you have to?”
Yes, Wendy thought in her mind, but her lips needed some more encouragement to say it out loud. “ Yes . For my friends and my guild.”
Charla let out a sighed “ Wendy… ” but Wendy didn’t need her to continue saying what she was always saying when they discussed this exact anxiety of hers. Ad nauseum they had gone in circles since their return to the changed Fairy Tail and Charla had not been able to ease Wendy’s insecurities and probably never could.
There was no way around it, Wendy needed to hold Jun off here, make sure that Gray could reach Juvia to bring her home as they’d promised. It was the only way she could make up for the mistakes she made, show that though 7 years did not pass for her, she still grew from back then. The others often looked at her like a child, but she was capable in her own right, whether she liked fighting or not.
“Your memories were manipulated,” Charla had said for what felt like the 10th time just last night as they had laid side by side in an old bed that smelled like mould and unwashed sheets. “It is not your fault, you will have to stop blaming yourself.”
Charla was sweet and a good partner and friend. They’d been together as long as Wendy could remember, well, a little less than that, but it felt like almost as long. Charla was not an objective voice when it came to Wendy and she had not been there when it all happened. When she had led and aided an enemy right into the heart of the Fairy Island itself.
Right, they’d all been manipulated, yes, but neither of them had spent as much time with the infiltrator as she had and if they had, Wendy was sure of that, they’d noticed that he was an infiltrator much quicker than she could have ever. It frustrated her how wrong she’d been and how useless she had been in the fight that followed. Who needed a dragon slayer that could not slay dragons?
So she needed to help the others find Juvia now. She needed to do something to feel useful to the guild again. It was a selfish need, she realised, but Levy had once told her that teenagers in her age were allowed to be selfish. Of course, there was also this need to bring Juvia back so Wendy could finally take care of that nasty scar sitting on her leg like some bad memory. She didn’t know what happened there, but it could not have been good.
If fighting was necessary to ensure she could feel like she belonged in Fairy Tail better, then fighting it needed to be. Wendy had done it a few times before after all.
Jun crossed her legs and laughed a little: “Your guild sounds difficult if you have no option but to fight for it, even if you don’t want…”
“What do you mean with that Jun-san?” Wendy asked, a little agitated by the insinuation that Fairy Tail was a warmonger guild.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to make you angry,” the other woman waved her hand. “I just think that if your guild loved you as much as they claim they love Juvia then maybe they’d be alright with you not fighting me. Considering that I am much older and also do not wish to fight.”
Wendy exchanged a puzzled look with Charla and then back to Jun: “Didn’t you stop us to fight us?”
“Heavens, no.” Jun laughed. “I mean, I did try to stop you, that is correct, but only because your plan seems to involve stopping this little project I’m part of and I just can’t allow that.” She turned her finger and a line of blood appeared in the air. “But if you promise you are just here to take your member home (though she has expressed her wish to stay), then I would rather just move on without fighting.”
That seemed too good to be true. “So if I promise you I won’t try to stop any of you, you will just let us move forward?” Wendy felt her tension loosen. Maybe she could be useful to the guild without fighting after all. What a relief.
Jun snipped and the line of blood shot right by Wendy’s ear into the wall behind her, causing the girl to scream and jump to the side with surprise. “W-” she began, but was cut off immediately.
“Not only you have to promise it. I have to know that none of your guild mates will attempt it either. Even the ones who were so boastful about it earlier.” Her eyes went from dark and serious back to friendly. “I just don’t want you all to get in our way, is all.”
Charla put a hand into her side: “We can’t promise that. We don’t even know what you are doing here.”
“Also,” Wendy added. “Jellal-san is not a member of Fairy Tail and we can not speak for him.”
Jun sighed so deeply that she seriously sounded disappointed they had opted out of her offer. “So you seriously want to fight me over a cause you would probably agree with…” She combed her hair with her fingers. “That’s a little annoying, not going to lie.”
“Maybe if we knew what was going on, we could guess it better,” Wendy said, seeing her possibility to solve this peacefully slip through her fingers. “Maybe it's not so bad, Jun-san doesn’t seem like bad person,” Wendy added, with a look at Charla.
Charla didn’t look convinced: “With the way this air feels it is unlikely that whatever happens here is a good thing, Wendy…” Wendy didn’t want to admit it, but she sort of agreed to that.
“Fine, fine,” Jun waved with her hands and then crossed them in front of her chest. “I will tell you and then we can decide if it’s worth fighting over or not.” She smiled. “But I would bet you would agree with me.”
Genuinely curious what could have possibly pulled Juvia away from Fairy Tail so much that she felt like not rejoining was doing them a favour. “Yes, I would like that.”
“First things first, Mr. Zeus is going to make sure this world will no longer have any magic power.”
Whatever Wendy expected, it surely wasn’t that. “Get rid of-?” Charla asked, sounding as flabbergasted as Wendy felt.
“Yes, get rid of it. It's a blight on this world, don’t you think? So much fighting and corruption and hurt could be rid in an instance if we were just all normal people. Magic alone is responsible for how rotten the world has become.” Jun spun her finger again and the blood shot out, circling the top once more.
“I did not choose to become a wizard that deals with its own blood. I actually think it’s a little disgusting, but my ties to the master I loved and served were severed and as a victim of experiments with internal magic I have ended up who I am.” Her eyes blurred out for a moment, but then returned. “I got picked up by Mermaid Heel who were great companions and to keep them from experiencing similar pain, we must rid the world of foul magic.”
Wendy pulled her hands into tiny fists again: “I’m sorry this happened to you, Jun-san, but…”
“Have you never had something happen to you that made you sad or upset or lost something that you cared about and then realised that magic was the reason for it? Don’t you think your companions, friends, family are suffering sometimes because it is a burden to them? Your fiery companion is so quick to judge us for what we are doing, when in fact we are doing it to protect who we love. To give them a future.”
“It’s difficult to leave a guild that operates like your family. I must have given Kagura and the others a good headache. But I’m doing this for them . To ensure that they will be happy in the future. After this is over, they will all be better off than they were before.” Jun gripped her arms even tighter and then visibly bit her lower lip.
Wendy took a deep breath. “It is true that magic can be misused for bad..” She thought of fake memories and dark guilds as she said that, “... but it can also lift you up and give you strength. It can form you into a person and help you find yourself. The future is important, yes, but the past is also what makes us. Even if it is a painful one. Friends will help us grow and become stronger, magic is here to aid us.”
Charla left one paw on Wendy’s leg and it empowered the girl to speak on. “The dragon that raised me taught me magic like teaching me love, it was her way to connect to me. Losing it would be like losing that last part of her that I still had. Of course, I also lost people and was deceived by magic used in bad people’s hands, but I would not miss any of these experiences if I had the choice. I walked this way and I’m sure others are proud of the way they walked too.”
Jun let out a loud sound of disapproval, the eyes hardened. “If you went through what I went through, what some of my friends went through, you wouldn’t talk like that. You’ve just lived a sheltered life.”
Wendy wanted to immediately object, but it was Charla that spoke up: “How will you even get rid of magic in this world? That seems like an impossible task.”
The other woman put her head to the side: “Mr. Zeus needs our help with magic power to make sure the device to get rid of the magic energy is ready to be in use. We have been donating our strength as soon as we recover it. That is what you feel in the air.”
Wendy blinked. So they were in a constant state of magic power deficiency? Maybe that was also a reason Jun had decided not to fight.
“There is, however, one other condition.” Jun paused and looked surprisingly dejected in comparison to just ten seconds ago.
Wendy’s stomach turned: “Which is?”
_
Back in the endless tunnel of revolving stairs, so far away from the surface of the earth that Gray almost expected to feel the heat of the earth's core soon, he kept his hand on the ready and his ears stealthed. This feeling that they had not yet faced every storm coming for them would not leave him, even after both Yuuta and Jun had been taken care of.
“How many light guilds are out there?” Gray asked Lucy, who was running just ahead of him. He knew that there had to be at least one more person there, the girl that had gone missing from Lamia Scale, but he wasn’t aware how many other guilds were out there. He’d never heard of Mermaid Heel before today, but it clearly existed.
Lucy almost tripped when she took a look at him over her shoulder, but Natsu steadied her with a movement of his hand before letting go of her again. “ With us?” she asked and it was more of a loud thought than a question so Gray did not reply.
She counted out loud. “Well three, four, five… six. Six . Well not six, there are like hundreds of little ones, but six major ones I guess. If you count us.”
“Why would you not count us?” Natsu asked.
Lucy threw a look at Gray again. “Well there are some people who think Fairy Tail is irrelevant nowadays.” The side effect of their disappearance over the last decade.
Before Natsu could fall back into a tirade about how he was going to push some people if they said things like this, Gray interjected: “So we have to assume that other than the girl from Lamia Scale and Juvia, there are two other magicians in this building, maybe waiting to interject our path?”
He didn’t really need the answer, but Lucy delivered it to him anyway: “Most likely. And we will have to be careful, we haven’t met the Sabertooth guild yet, but I read that they are strong. So whoever it is can be a real danger.”
This time Gray didn’t stop Natsu from letting out a long breath of angry fire. “There is nobody that can beat me,” he boasted. “I will prove Fairy Tail is the strongest guild.” Gray rolled his eyes. He was so simple it was embarrassing sometimes.
Gray listened into the silence that was only interrupted by their footsteps on marble and Happy's wings. There were no explosions coming from above, maybe Erza had already wrapped up her fight and had started to help Wendy out, either way, it didn’t sound like there was a battle happening. It made him feel relieved. She was capable, yes, but she was also young.
“This is such a weird place,” Natsu said and stopped so suddenly that Gray ran straight into him. They toppled over, falling forward into another long hallway of black. Both men growled at each other as they tried to be the first one to get up and at the same time keep the other down.
“Can’t you watch where you are going?”
“Can’t you warn me before you just become a block of ice, idiot?”
“Aren’t you the ice idiot, idiot ?”
“Be careful what you say, I am the leader in this excursion, I can just decide to get rid of you here once and for al-”
Lucy stepped in between them and snipped both their foreheads. “We don’t have time for this, guys. Do you remember that we are in a hurry?” She turned to Gray and snipped him a second time. “ Juvia .”
He rubbed the spot. “Yes, I’m sorry.” He felt like he’d just been scolded by a mother. Natsu on the other hand just pushed dust off his clothes. He didn’t seem like he was ready to apologise until he looked up and found Lucy’s strict eyes on him so he shrugged. “I’m sorry too.” It was the biggest non-apology apology Gray had ever gotten.
But Lucy was right of course, they didn’t have time to bicker here about something that did not matter. Gray stretched himself out and then took in the surroundings. He hated to admit it, but Natsu was right in some way. This place really was odd. Long-winded stairs down on end just to end up in another black marble hallway, not that different from the one they’d been in before.
“What is your nose telling you?” Lucy asked Natsu and he sniffed the air.
“Not here either,” he concluded just a few seconds later. “I can smell her very well now, it should be only a few more floors down.
If it wasn’t really helpful in this very moment and if Gray hadn’t known that Natsu generally had a good nose for smelling he might have actually been upset by the way Natsu had phrased that. Juvia wasn’t smelly, not more smelly than a morning after a rain shower in spring. Fresh and sunny. He felt a little sick somewhere in his stomach area when he thought about it.
“So we move on forward.” Lucy turned around back towards the hallway. “Natsu, you first.” As always, the Salamander followed her suggestion. It really did border on superpower, the way she could sway him. If only she’d joined the guild earlier, maybe Natsu wouldn’t have turned out to be such a massive piece of work.
Gray followed Natsu back into the staircase and could just pull his leg back to himself, when a large wall of ice went up right behind him. “Wha-?” he said as he saw the silvery blue shine right in front of his nose. Who the fuck was able to use ice like that?
Even worse, Lucy was still on the other side. “Gray!” Natsu gestured wildly, “Why did you do that? Lucy and Happy are not here!”
“I didn’t do anything doofus, this is not how my ice looks like. Do you even ever use your eyes?” Gray put his hands on the ice and infused it with his own magic, a way he used often to melt his own magic if necessary. Nothing happened. That was strange. It was almost like the ice’s strength was increased through some sort of wall made out of concrete or earth.
“Let me do it, idiot,” Natsu put his hand on the ice and soon flames flared up all around him. Gray felt so warm again just looking at the flames. Fire magic just looked so very bothersome, he could never deal with it. Still, Natsu couldn’t melt the ice either.
For a moment they just stood speechless staring at the silver in front of them, then they could suddenly hear a voice through the ice. “Natsu, Natsu, we can’t get through.” It was Happy.
“We can’t get rid of this thing either, Happy,” Natsu said exasperated. “I will try everything I can…” He flamed up his magic again and almost set Gray’s hair on fire as he flew by directly into the unmoving and unmelting wall.
“Stop dude,” Gray pulled him back by the scarf. “You're going to kill me if you continue like this.” Then he turned to the wall himself. “Is there someone with you, Happy? I assume you will have to defeat someone from this to come down…”
It was Lucy that replied instead of him: “There are two people here. If I had to take a guess, the one that blessed us with this wall is a former member of Sabertooth…” Her voice sounded a little nervous, as if the idea of going up against such a strong guild scared her a little.
“Two people? You can’t win that alone, Luce-” Natsu began crawling his nails into the ice as if he could rip away parts of the wall if he just pulled hard enough. “I will come get you-”
“She is not alone,” a male voice said from the other side. “I am here.”
Gray breathed a sigh of relief. “Loke, you better make sure you both get out of there.” Lucy was strong on her own, he knew that, but even Erza would struggle against two opponents, especially if it was one that was strong enough to build a wall of this size and strength. With Loke there too they’d at least be evenly matched.
“Yes, go ahead to your girl ”, Loke laughed and Gray made a mental note to pull his stupid cat ears next they met.
Gray turned to Natsu: “Let’s go.”
Natsu didn’t move, his claws still stuck in the ice in front of him. Gray raised a brow: “Do you not trust her to be able to handle this?”
“Of course, I do,” Natsu barked back and then finally turned away. “I just don’t like it.”
“It’s alright, Natsu, I am here to help too!” Happy yelled from the other side.
Gray turned towards the staircase: “ See ?”
“Fine,” Natsu stepped back onto the stairs. “But if everyone gets to fight and I just get to run away then I will eventually just explode into a ball of fire until nothing but ashes is left.”
Gray rolled his eyes again: “Can’t wait to see that.” Then they continued down the spiral into the depths of the building.
Though Natsu led without faltering even for a moment, Gray felt his unease through the way he kept his fist clenched and his shoulders stiff. Just like he had earlier stealthed his ears to hear any sound of a possible fight involving Wendy, he was now using his ears to listen to any signs of Happy and Lucy.
Of course, Gray understood his anxiety, but he had faith in Lucy’s ability to defend herself and trusted Loke more than he had ever and would ever trust himself, so he didn’t feel as nervous as he had felt leaving Wendy and Charla behind. Lucy was going to be fine, she’d made her way through worse and had come out on the other side.
“We are gettin’ close,” Natsu mumbled without looking over his shoulder, the scarf flying in the air as he turned another round downwards. He sounded like he was pressing his teeth together. Maybe he would really eventually turn into a ball of fire and just explode.
As much as Gray loved to see that happen, he needed Natsu right about now, so he wondered what he could do about damage control. Natsu was a stubborn guy, hard to control and stupid. Gray had always had trouble keeping him in line for one and understanding him for the other. He’d also had never seen him be this agitated over something as simple as being separated from a companion.
But maybe they were all on edge after their return from Tenroujima. Natsu, for all his idiotic stupidity, was a normal human being after all and had feelings of regret and disappointment just like the rest of them. Not that Gray would ask him about that, ever .
Or maybe he could make an exception? He was the team leader this time after all. Gray frowned to himself just thinking about the possibility. Talking about feelings to Natsu just seemed like talking about magic power to a civilian – utterly pointless.
He was relieved from his thoughts by Natsu coming to a halt, this time looking over his shoulder to make sure that Gray didn’t crash right into him again. Gray came to a stop right next to him and realised what had made him stop. They had evidently reached the ground floor. From the exact same black corridor stretching out in front of them there were no more ways further down.
“Straight ahead,” Natsu sniffed in the air and then nodded to himself. “We are right here.”
The corridor seemed no different than the ones they had seen earlier. Rows of black stone lining the walls and the floors made it look like it had been cut out right out of the earth. There were no doors lining the hallway except for one heavy double door at the very end of it. They lay, surprisingly enough, at the end of a row of stairs that led up and not further down.
Still, Gray felt the anxiety creep up on him again. He was definitely at the right place. Even without Natsu’s very finely tuned nose he would have suspected that he had gone the right way. Something about the depths of the place and the suffocation he felt from the magic power in the air told him that he had almost reached the centre point of the building.
Natsu didn’t wait a second before jumping forward, making his way towards the staircase in front of him. Gray followed. Running down the hallways he realised that there was a little body of water to his right, almost like a deep mountain river with clearer water than he’d seen in the snow he’d grown up in. Water so deep down was odd, but it at least explained how Juvia got around so quickly.
Then Gray crashed into Natsu’s back again.
“For fucks sa-” Gray shook himself. “I thought I told you not to do that any more idiot.” In his thoughts he took the compliment he’d given Natsu earlier back.
Natsu pulled his scarf out of Gray’s hair: “There is someone there.” Without Lucy present he didn’t seem to have the decency to fake-apologise.
Gray looked up. Natsu was right. Though he was pretty sure she hadn’t been there before, a girl was now blocking their way to the doors. She was small, hair long and in braids on both sides of her head. Half her face was covered with her own bangs. She grinned devilishly. Gray blinked and somehow knew immediately who she was.
“You’re the one from Lamia Scale,” he deduced, from where this thought came he did not know. “The one Lyon is after.”
The girl frowned and Gray awarded himself 100 points for being absolutely correct. “ L-Lyon ?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard that name in 10 years.
“Told me to drag you back,” Gray said, but he was already not interested in the person in front of him. With his eyes he tried to look at the door behind her. It should not be hard to avoid this little person, though he needed to be careful since he had no idea what her magic was. He was still a little upset about the non-melting ice-wall from earlier. “Said you’d always do stupid things.”
“He did?!” Gray looked up to see the girl in front of him blush. Now that really was impossible. Sure, Jellal blushed with Erza around and sure Levy blushed around Gajeel and Juvia… Well either way, blushing because of Lyon ? That just was unheard of.
Before she had a chance to get herself back together, Natsu had already covered his whole body in flames. “This one is mine,” he growled and sounded more excited than he’d been in the last few weeks. “Gray, you just go on ahead. It’s just up ahead. You don’t need me. I’ll take care of this.”
“Sure thing,” Gray didn’t even wait for Natsu to go in, he just ran. In comparison to the others Gray had absolutely no problem leaving Natsu behind. Not only because Natsu could handle himself, but also because if Natsu lost a limp then it would just be for the betterment of the world.
The girl laughed: “The fire dragon wants to try to defeat me ? Dude, I’m a terrible matchup for you. Maybe think twice about it.” She made a gesture to the river flowing at the side and when Gray looked back at it, a wall of water had started building up right beside him, ready to push him away.
“Water Magic?” He froze the wave with ice and expertly slid over it. He didn’t know that there were other water mages besides Juvia, but then again he had not known there were ice wizards except Lyon and clearly that was the case.
“I’m not as talented as Juvia-chan for sure,” the girl said. “But I am good enough to distinguish unnecessarily hot flames.” She gestured to the ice that Gray had built up and a second later it was water again. The whirlpool below his feet almost pulled him back, when he felt flames at his side.
“You get me all fired up,” Natsu said and held his fist into the water, causing it to evaporate and free Gray's feet. The boys looked at each other and Natsu made a head movement to the door. “Go, Gray, go. Don’t hesitate. Just go for it .” Gray wasn’t sure if Natsu meant that only literally or also metaphorically.
Maybe he would just go for it.
He got up on his feet and ran . The door was the only thing in his eyes. In his soul he knew that after the five members they had already taken care of there could only be one person waiting behind this door. The person he’d been chasing for the last week and there was nothing that would keep him away from her now.
Once at the staircase he took three steps at a time, reaching for the door handles within minutes, feeling his heartbeat push against his ribcage so strongly that he wondered for a hot second if he would explode into a ball of ash instead of Natsu.
Water splashed on his sides and he moved his head to look over his shoulder, but Natsu’s voice echoed off the wall. “It’s just ahead Gray, don’t slow down. Just go.” Gray growled. He hated when Natsu told him what to do.
He put his hands on the doors and with a loud crack pushed them both open enough to slip inside.
__
The man was tall, broad, hair long grown and as wild as his beard. He stared forward, almost worried at her. She bit her lip. Quatro Puppy .
The woman was curvy, long black hair hung over her shoulders. Her eyes were almost as yellow as the eyes of the snakes tattooed on her shoulders. She had been the one that had summoned the ice wall that now stood tall behind Lucy. Sabertooth.
She wasn’t scared of either of them, not in that sense, but they were definitely opponents that deserved respect. Lucy had done a little digging since they’d come back from Tenroujima and one thing that she kept stumbling over was that this Sabertooth guild was not only the rising star among the light guilds, they were also only accepting strong members. If it had been her choice, she’d rather not oppose one of their members, but it clearly wasn’t her choice.
“The others weren’t caught in your trap,” the guy noted to the woman. “They moved on forward.”
She let out a sharp hiss: “Well, I guess we have to go after them, Michi. And besides, there is still Rhia.”
Rhia, Lucy supposed, was the last remaining person stuck in this bunker. The person that had run from Lamia Scale. There was no way she’d allow them to follow Gray and Natsu further down. They were counting on Lucy to take care of this here and she would, even if that meant going up alone against two. Or well, Happy was here too.
“I will not allow you to hurt even a tiny hair on that beautiful head,” Loke said to her right and when she looked over to him he straightened out the sleeves of his suit, which was probably meant to be seen as a threat. The only effect it had, however, was that the girl looked irritated and Lucy felt embarrassed.
Truth be told, she’d dreaded the time she would see Loke again, or Aquarius, or any of her spirits. Not because she didn’t love them, but because she had no idea how long it had been since they’d seen her. Many times she’d asked herself how fast time passed for celestial spirits. Slower? Quicker? Had they missed her? Had they worried about her?
When their keys didn’t respawn, did they know she wasn’t really dead?
She wanted to ask and also apologise for any issue she might have caused them, but there had been no time for any of that. Without much thinking about it she was in battle again, relying on all of them, Loke jumping to her aid, without her ever having the chance to properly announce her return.
Lucy turned away from him and faced forward. There was nothing to be done about that now. She needed to fight. “I will not let you move past me to the others,” she declared and fumbled for a key in her holder. “I will prove my worth as a wizard of Fairy Tail!”
The man whistled a little. “I've seen you before in Sorcerer’s Weekly”, he said in a dark voice and then laughed a little. “Really nice pictures you have there, celestial wizard.” Lucy flushed and the key in her hand shook a little. That meant that the opponent was really aware of the kind of magic she was using. They most likely had a plan. She would just have to make her own.
“Thank you for the compliment,” Lucy said and lifted the key. “I’m always up to give adoring readers a little taste.” If she just sounded confident, she eventually would also feel this way, she thought to herself.
“Can you open multiple gates at the same time?” Happy asked, sounding openly concerned for her health. She turned to him and crawled him behind one of his big blue ears. “It’s fine,” she assured, though she wasn’t even sure it was. Her muscles felt a little rusty from the years of dreamless sleep.
Before she had another moment to really think about it her opponents sprung into action. “Let’s finish this quickly, Akami,” Michi gestured to the woman and she summoned ice spikes from the tips of her fingers.
Lucy took a deep breath and then turned the key. “ Taurus !” Only a moment passed until the big cow was standing right in front of her. “Lucy-sa-” He evidently wanted to comment on something about her appearance again, but a suddenly appearing wall of ice stopped him in his tracks. Noticing the danger he turned around and punched his fist right through it.
Meanwhile, Loke circled around both of them, light sparks in his hands, and jumped on Michi who was standing in a relatively dark corner. The guys found themselves in a fist fight with Lucy giving Loke the slight edge over everything.
Still, something weird was going on. With a light noise like the tapping of tiny feet on the ground, a long line of dirt just out of view, ran from Michi’s feet to Akami and now Lucy understood why Gray had not been able to melt the ice before. The next time Akami summoned ice it was thicker, more silver dark and reinforced by the thick earth of Michi’s ability.
“You haven’t seen ice like this before I assume?” Akami asked and as she moved her arms the snakes on them seemed to move along too. “I am not a student of Ur, I didn’t learn magic for fun, I learned it to defend those I love.”
Lucy frowned: “I doubt Gray and Lyon learned it for fun either. They probably learned it because they wanted to feel strong in a world that made them feel weak.”
To her surprise, Akami nodded: “Yes, that’s why it is a terrible thing that needs to go.” Lucy did not know what she meant by that, but before she realised what had happened Taurus was pushed back right into her and then, quicker than she’d ever seen magic be formed, a box of ice closed around her.
It was thicker than anything she’d touched before. “I will take a while to get through this,” Taurus said honestly and bitterly.
“I’m sure she will reinforce it,” Lucy said out loud, but mostly to herself. “There needs to be a way to distract her so we can break free.”
She looked through the rods in front of her and found Loke pushed into a corner. It was hard to see from where she was since both men had disappeared into a part of the hallways that was especially dark. All she could see was that Loke’s light seemed to have faded under a row of darkness and she could not count on him to come help her.
“You are not even human,” MIchi growled at him, pushing him further back and back into the darkness. “You have nothing to care for and protect. You don’t know how it is to look out for others.”
Lucy could not see his face, but she heard the irritation in Loke’s voice: “You think because I am a spirit I don’t have people I care for? You think I don’t have feelings?”
“Not like a human,” Michi shot back. “You people should mind your own business and let us do what we came here to do.”
“I don’t even know why you are doing all of this,” Lucy yelled from her frozen prison. All of them seemed so righteous about their cause, even Juvia had insisted that this was the right course of action. Neither had been forced to come here, so it really must be something they all believed in.
Michi turned his head. Lucy could see his nose in a shimmer of light: “I’m doing this for my family, both dead and alive. I’m the oldest and as the oldest I will make sure their future is full of happiness.” Generally, Lucy agreed with this sentiment, but she didn’t really understand how that correlated with this absolutely evil looking dark underground facility.
There was more she wanted to know, but she suddenly got really aware of the situation she was in. “Right, let's get out of here,” she said to Taurus, who was still there with her waiting for instructions. She looked at Akami who had her snake-like eyes set on the cage she had made. A distraction, Lucy thought.
She fumbled in her holder again and pushed her hand out of the cage. “ Scorpio !” The scorpion appeared a second later. It was a strain having three gates open at once, but Loke had used some of his own magic to be here, so it was doable. Not needing any explanations, Scorpio launched a storm of sand into Akami’s eyes.
Using the opportunity Taurus finally broke the ice of the cage, giving her the opportunity to run back into the hallway and find herself back to back with Loke. She felt the heaviness of her bones so she recalled both Taurus and Scorpio, leaving only Loke behind.
While Loke behind her was still struggling against these little dirt lines that Michi could apparently use, Lucy pulled out her wip and instead engaged in a one on one with Akami. The other woman still used her ice, looking not even close to as exhausted as Lucy already felt, but there was no way around it. They had to keep going.
Forward to attack, backward to defend. The sound of the wip in the air and the sound of ice crashing echoing through the hallway. For a moment they remained like this, always back to back with Loke as they were fighting their opponents. A small stalemate between the four of them.
Then Happy descended on her shoulder. “Lucy,” he said excitedly. “This wild-haired guy is using shadows to fight. I have seen it all.” Lucy looked up to him. She had totally forgotten Happy was also there with them, but now she had realised that he had observed them all from somewhere safe.
“Shadow?” she asked, feeling a little out of breath.
Happy nodded: “I think he always pushes Loke back into corners because they are darker.”
Loke’s ears twitched: “Maybe light could defeat him then.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Happy’s ears twitched in the same way.
Lucy bit her lip and pulled her wip back: “So, if we create too much light he will be rendered unable to fight and we might just knock him out.” It sounded crazy, but it was better than trying nothing.
Loke smiled and showed his sharp corner teeth: “ I have light .” He sounded prouder than he’d ever been of anything.
“I know someone else who has light,” Lucy commented and turned around so she too was now facing Michi. “ Sagittarius !”
“ Hello Hello ,” the archer saluted to her. “Long time no see.” She nodded and though she would have loved to tell him that she too missed seeing him, there was no time. She pointed at the few flaming lanterns on the wall giving guiding light: “Fire the rest of them up, give them more light.”
He saluted again: “Absolutely.”
A second later the hallway was filled with flaming arrows flying all over the place, lighting up the corners that had previously been darkened. Loke, seeing his chance, jumped onto Michi again. Lucy watched them both throw punches in a fist fight as if they were in a world in which magic didn’t exist.
Fast approaching footsteps from the back told her that Akami didn’t take her companion being taken out without at least trying to do something. Ice shot by Lucy’s face and though Saggitarius shot some down for her, she was injured on her left arm by one of them. Akami needed to be held away long enough for Loke to finish the job, she thought.
Sorting through keys in her pouch she took an older one and stared at it for exactly one second before using it. This was a stupid idea, but it might buy just enough time to get the job finished. With a “Hello, goodbye,” Sagittarius disappeared and Lucy pointed the key forward. “ Nicola !”
The little dog appeared momentarily. Terrified, he looked up to the snake-like lady in front of him. Lucy held her breath. Akami, apparently utterly baffled by what was in front of her eyes, hesitated for just a moment too long.
There was a loud crack and a groan behind Lucy and when she turned around she realised that Michi had sunk to the ground. Loke, also heavily breathing now, was standing over him, the light in his palms shining brighter than she’d ever seen it. Lucy quickly turned around to the dog and closed his gate. Inside of her a row of fireworks went off. No way that worked!
Akami let out a deep breath, her nostrils flaring angrily. “I don’t even know why you guys do this,” she said, hot anger in her voice. “Do you have nothing that you care about?”
More ice spikes flew by Lucy’s face. She backed away and soon found herself by Loke’s side again. She felt tired and it would have probably been better if he’d close his gate too, but she valued his company right about now so she told herself she’d push through.
“I care for my celestial spirits, as you see. So don’t give me that, “ Lucy shot back.
“If you would care for them you would want them to be free, don’t you think?” Akami said. “You’d want them to have their own free will. Well they would have it if we could get what we want.”
She had no idea what was going on here. “ They are free . I would never bind them to me if they didn’t want to. They are something I cherish, they are my friends and my companions. I’ll fight until my end if that means we can stay together” From the corner of her eye she could see Loke’s mouth curl a little.
It was easy to say, but the reality looked very different. Lucy felt exceedingly exhausted. The further down they had gone in the building, the heavier the magic power had felt and now it was almost like it was crushing her. Her eyes temporarily blurred out and she took a step to the side, almost falling over if she’d not been held up by Happy behind her.
“Are you alright, Lucy?” Happy asked worriedly.
“Yes, I’m all fine,” she lied. It wasn’t fine, but it had to be. This fight wasn’t over yet.
From somewhere in the deep depths a loud bang was suddenly audible. The building shook and there was a loud noise of stone crashing. Something had collapsed as if a part of the building had just crashed down forever. Lucy threw a look to the staircase and wondered what might have happened to the others.
“Just give up,” Akami said, “You must already realise that you are already too tired to fight. Your companions don’t seem to be doing so well either.” She was referring to the sound Lucy had heard.
She grinned: “Could have been one of yours too.”
The other woman curled her fingers into fists and the next morning the air was filled with ice spikes again: “I will not let you stop me from my plan. This world will be better if magic does not exist.”
Lucy stepped backwards, trying to dodge as much of the spikes as possible: “Is that what you are doing?”
Akami didn’t reply directly, but her mumbling told Lucy everything she needed to know. “If only magic didn’t exist he would have never run away and sought power. He’d be with me where I can look and take care of him. He could be normal. He deserves peace. I will make peace for him.” Then she looked up and said: “Juvia also believes in this cause, and yet you decide to drag her back when she didn’t even ask to do that.
Lucy thought of that for a moment. Akami didn’t seem like a bad or unreasonable person and maybe she had a good conviction for what they did in this place, but it was hard for Lucy to agree that they should just leave Juvia alone. It just didn’t seem like Juvia’s heart was really in this project, not in the way Akami’s apparently was.
Despite all their small, mostly friendly and joking animosity, Lucy had always valued Juvia very highly. Sometimes it felt ages away that she had been the one taking Lucy away to her father. It felt almost like it was a different person, a twin that Lucy had never seen again. Sure, Juvia seemed unnervingly insecure around her, but Lucy liked her so much anyway.
Maybe she wasn’t done with that. Maybe she wanted to get to know Juvia better, become actual friends, ease her anxieties about their affections. Maybe it was selfishness, the idea that Lucy had just lost someone important, though absent, in her life and didn’t want to lose another.
Or maybe it was the fact that Juvia hadn’t looked happy. If the cause was so noble and grand, maybe she should have not looked so sad being in this place. Though earlier when they’d met her she had smiled and assured them that she was alright, she had not looked like she meant it. Whatever that pain on her face was, Lucy really wanted to fix it. Selfish or not.
In front of her Loke broke through an avalanche of ice, leaving a tiny, almost not visible puddle of water behind. Lucy’s eyes fell down to the little water that reflected the light up lanterns on the wall and a light went off in her head.
“Loke, can you go?” she asked friendly. There was no way she could hold all of them at the same time, not in the state she was in. “ Thank you for everything ,” she added. He’d really done so much for her here.
Loke nodded and before saying anything else disappeared into nothing. Lucy quickly went through all of her keys, missing the right one several times. Completely out of breath from lack of energy and trying to not get hit by the raining ice she lifted another key up: “ Gemini! ”
The twins appeared with a little “ Piri ” and as if they lived in her head they knew exactly what to do. They swirled to Akami and, after a round around her, transformed right into her.
“What in the-” Akami asked looking at the mirror image of herself, but then she was already trapped in a box just like Lucy had been trapped in before.
While Akami was cursing her head off, Lucy was heading towards the puddle in front of her. She hesitated for just a moment, praying to heavens or hell or anyone that it would be a good mood day. “ Please don’t kill me for this ,” she murmured and let the key down into the low water.
“ Aquarius! ”
The mermaid rose from the water, majestic as always as she was hovering over the ground. Lucy dared not look up and just hoped it was alright, but then the familiar voice spoke so loud that the echoes bounced off the walls. “ A puddle?! ” Aquarius asked angrily. “You summon me from nothing but a little pile of spit ?!”
Lucy lifted her hands: “I’m sorry, I didn’t really have a choi-”
“Years pass! No word ! And then you summon me in a puddle?! You think you are so grand, don’t you, miss?” Aquarius dangerously moved her water bowl around.
Her eyes felt blurry suddenly, so Lucy’s next words were stuck in her throat. Gemini disappeared, but still she didn’t feel lighter. She was definitely nearing her limit. She stumbled a little backwards until she hit a wall.
“Damn kid, you really are overdoing it here,” Aquarius said with an eye roll. “ Fine , I’ll finish it for you.”
With the ice cage disappeared, Akami was now back in the open. Though her eyes were wide open, she still didn’t see the wave of water coming. Aquarius had mighty strength, Lucy thought. Nobody ever expected her to be as powerful as she was. The waves picked Akami up and pressed her against a wall.
Out of nowhere, Happy appeared, carrying as big of a stone he could hold up. It seemed to have been broken off when Loke had pushed Michi into the wall. With Akami fully unable to move or defend herself, Happy let the stone fall onto her head, knocking her straight out.
“ I did it !” Happy yelled from the other side of the room, while Lucy slowly sank to the ground. “I defeated her!”
Lucy watched Aquarius disappear and wished she could talk to her more, but this needed to be done at another time.
Happy flew over and sat down on her lap: “Lucy, look, I did it !”
“You did it, Happy,” she smiled. “I knew I could count on you.”
Then everything went black.