BOOK 1 - Fairy Tail (Pirates) AU: The Curse of the Black Fairy

CHAPTER X: The Improvised Counterattack

Natsu and Lucy were saved from the island and taken to commodore Loke's ship. There, the duo met with none other than various members of the Celestial Officers: Capricorn, Scorpio, Cancer, Taurus, Virgo, Aries... and of course Loke too.

    "It's nice to see you alive, lady Lucy" Capricorn said.

    "Yeah... I'm glad you are okay, Miss Heartfilia" Aries muttered.

    Then, Loke stepped up front along with Lucy's father, Jude Heartfilia. The moment they saw Natsu alonside Lucy, they ordered the crew to immediately apprehend the pirate. After all, they still couldn't trust him one bit. "Okay people, it's time!" Loke yelled to his crew. "Set course back to Magnolia! We are going home at last!"

    "No! Loke, wait!" Lucy replied. "We need to go save Levy, Gray and the others! There's a whole crew who risked their lives in order to save me!"

    "And they were all pirates. I'm sorry, Lucy. But I'm not risking the precious lives of my people for a group of dirty pirates and 2 traitors who clearly lied about not knowing more about the matter"

    "B-but...!"

    "Commodore Loke is right, Lucy!" Jude claimed firmly. "The lives of those people are not worth risking your safety. I just managed to find you and I'm not losing you again!"

    "But father...!" Lucy didn't know what to say to convince her father and Loke of helping Natsu's crew anymore. But after thinking hard about it for a while, she finally came up with possibly the only solution. "P-please! Loke! If you are not gonna do it for the pirates, then do it for me! As a wedding gift!"

    Natsu, Jude and Loke startled at Lucy's words. Then, Jude asked the blondie if she was being serious about marrying commodore Loke at last. Lucy hesitated a bit, but then nodded in agreement. She really was willing to get married if that meant helping the others. After that, she turned to look at Natsu for a brief moment, and couldn't hide the fact that something was troubling them both.

"Very well..." Loke said. "Everyone! Back to your positions! We are chasing after the Black Phantom!" Everyone obeyed as Loke approached Natsu. He asked him about the Galuna Island's location as the pinkette had no choice but to cooperate.

"Are you sure it's a good idea? Trusting him?" Aries asked Loke.

    "Of course not. But we don't have many choices. We don't know what we are facing after all"

    "And what about the marriage? Are you sure about going through with it even if it's conditioned?"

    Loke startled at Aries's question. "Why do you wanna know that?

    "Ah? W-well... F-for nothing..." Aries left towards her position and didn't say another word. Loke found himself confused about this, but then he shrugged his doubts off and focused on the matter at hand.

<<Meanwhile at the Black Phantom>>

The group of cursed pirates were finally getting close to the Galuna Island. Meanwhile, Natsu's crew was imprisoned in the ship's cells. Juvia and a duo of pirates were cleaning that room. Therefore, Gray took that time to ask such pirates about his father: Silver Fullbuster.

"Ahhh... Silver 'Iceberg' Fullbuster. Indeed we knew him" one of the pirates said. "That old man was one hell of a pirate, though he never really liked the way Jose betrayed our previous captain. Heh... How foolish of him. Captain Jose gave him the chance to join us and be useful. But in the end, he proved to be nothing else than a failure"

"You are wrong" Juvia surprisingly claimed as Gray startled. "He was a great man, so stop making fun of him"

The pirates found interesting the fact that Juvia was defending Gray's father. They approached her and took a grip of her face. "Perhaps you could tell this boy what happened to his daddy. How about it? Wanna do the honors?"