Love of my Life

Chapter 6

Lucy instinctively grabbed for the keys in her belt.

"Who are you?" she asked loudly, trying to sound intimidating. "Where's Natsu?"

The woman chuckled, clutching her stomach. "Oh, I get it. You must be Lucy, right?" She pointed at Happy, who was standing in battle stance. "And you're Happy, the weird cat! Natsu says hi, don't worry."

"Where is he?" Happy asked through clenched teeth.

"Like I'd tell you."

The woman looked at Lucy, scanning her from top to bottom, like a predator to its prey. Uncomfortable, she whipped out a key from her belt and brandished it.

"Take us to him now. Before this gets ugly."

The woman clucked her tongue. "So you're a celestial wizard, huh?"

Lucy gritted her teeth. This woman was incredibly annoying. "Cancer!" she called as a large crab appeared between them. "Cut her to pieces!"

Cancer followed through swiftly, his scissors flying through the air so fast they became invisible. Holding her breath, Lucy watched the scene unfold. The woman hadn't moved from her position; simply taking all of Cancer's attacks.

"Well, this isn't as fun as it looks," she said eventually. She raised her hands in the air and brought them down suddenly with great force.

"Freeze!"

Lucy watched in horror as Cancer froze, his scissors still open and ready to attack.

"Cancer!" she cried, rushing forward. She gently touched him. He was solid as a rock. "Go back." She closed his gate and turned to the woman, who was looking rather smug.

"What did you do to him?"

She rolled her eyes. "I froze him."

"What are you, an ice wizard?" Lucy asked, trying to regain composure after seeing her friend in such a state.

"Did you see any ice, blondie?" the woman said sarcastically. "All I did was turn his blood vessels into stone and then boom. He can't move, and I win. It's a flawless technique that makes me unstoppable."

"That's despicable."

Happy hadn't moved or said a word since the woman had first arrived, but now he tugged hard on Lucy's leg.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Lucy," he whispered urgently. "She seems really strong."

"What am I supposed to do? We have to find Natsu!"

A waving hand interrupted their conversation. "Not that I'm not enjoying your little talk, but I have a job to do here. If you come quietly, you will avoid the fate of your little friend. Unless..." She clapped her hands excitedly. "You could become a part of our operation!"

"What?"

Water dripped from the ceiling, forming a puddle on the ground. An ominous feeling flooded the room as the woman raised her hands again.

"Run!" Happy cried, as the two of them stumbled over their feet in the hopes that they could outrun the woman's magic.

They could not.

***

Now that he was alone in the room, all Natsu had to keep him company were his own thoughts. After putting two more pairs of handcuffs on him, Harlan and the other man left the room very suddenly to "check up on things". Blythe had not returned either.

The fact that Lucy and Happy could be in danger scared him more than anything in the world. He knew that Lucy was strong, and he never doubted her for an instant. But if that "heart-stopper" found her, he wasn't sure if he would show her mercy. He had to find her before someone else did.

"Gahh!"

Natsu squeezed his eyes shut and tried to summon more fire. That tiny fireball that he had created earlier had taken a large toll on him. It was much harder to use his magic with a handicap, and apparently using a tiny bit of energy was enough to exhaust him.

He looked at his surroundings, searching for anything that would help him. The room was quite long, with a large tube of blue liquid at the end. A long table was in the middle, with three tall, velvet chairs lining the side.

The closest thing to him was a small table with various medical tools lining it. He sniffed towards it as a strange smell entered his nose.

There was a small vial of blue liquid sitting on the edge closest to him; the same color as the large tube. He shimmied around the pole so that he faced it and sniffed more. It was the same smell he had picked up in Reo's bedroom.

Natsu stretched his leg out as far as he could, trying to knock the vile from the table. He was just short. Grunting, he strained and stretched more. His foot slipped and luckily, it caught the edge of the vile and brought it down to the floor.

He winced as he prepared for the sound of glass shattering, but it never came. The vile had landed straight up, without any cracks or spills. He was lucky a cork was plugged in the top, but now he had to get it out.

Once he shimmied around the pole and readjusted himself, Natsu began fiddling with the cork.

"Come on," he mumbled. It kept slipping out of his grasp. One wrong move and the vile would be rolling away and out of his grasp.

Eventually, he managed to wedge a fingernail between the cork and the glass, and with a little force, the cork slipped out. However, he realized he may have pulled too hard as the bottle slipped out of his hands and onto the floor.

He yelped as the cool blue liquid made contact with his hands. It was burning, though it was cold. It was eating away at his skin. Natsu quickly maneuvered out of the spill and rubbed his hands, desperate to get the liquid off of him.

After a few moments, he subconsciously scratched his head with his hands, not realizing that he was free. He furrowed his brow and looked at his hands. All three sets of handcuffs were gone.

Natsu stood, his limbs sore from sitting for so long. He peered around the pole at the blue spill. There was no remnants of any handcuffs. The liquid must of been some kind of acid that burned away the metal. But all of it at once?

Wasting no time, he threw open the door and stepped into a long hallway. It was gray, bleak, and stretched into what looked like infinity. He craned his neck to see down the hall, trying to see if anyone was there. Blythe. Harlan. Lucy.

Seeing no one, he started down a direction, hoping that whichever way he went was the right way. Before he could make it very far, a small black dot caught the corner of his eye. It was a small speck on his left hand, right where his thumb met his palm. He lifted it to his eye to examine it, and decided that it must have been from the strange liquid.

What was worrisome was the fact that it was spreading over his palm.