Nalu A twist in time

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13 - Phantom Lord Part 1

Natsu ordered Wendy to keep her eyes closed as he pried Lucy off the tree. She really didn't need to see her mother hanging there like some sort of twisted message to their guild. He didn't want to think of the scolding that he would get from Lucy for letting their daughter see something so life scarring.

Natsu gently laid her on the ground trying to keep his hands of her bruises. There were so many that there wasn't an inch for her perfect skin that wasn't covered in blood, bruises or cuts. His blood boiled but the only thing that was keeping him sane and not turning into a monster of mass destruction was the fact that gramps had already declared war and the fact that Lucy needed him right now. He also couldn't just run off and leave Wendy to deal with this on her own.

He had to keep his cool or even more people would get hurt. More of his family would be injured and this time Wendy was here. She hadn't been present the first time they went to war with Phantom and Jose was a twisted son of a bitch. He would hurt her just because she was young.

He had to remember the many ways that this all went to hell the first time and ensure that it didn't happen again. He also needed to keep his head in the game and pay attention to what was happening around him. Things were going differently this time. He couldn't rely on the information from the future but he couldn't disregard it entirely either. He just needed to be aware.

Wendy managed to stop the bleeding. Giving her mother emergency treatment had terrified the young girl. She had never needed to heal someone so badly injured that she cared about so much. It reminded him of the time that she needed healing after Minerva's treatment of her during the naval battle.

It was one if his worst memories and some of the worst injuries she had gotten. It hadn't been the first or the last time that she had been injured but it was one of the few times she needed emergency treatment. He always hated when she was hurt. It always felt like he had failed her when she was like this and he cursed. He should have been here to kick Gajeel in the teeth.

However he also knew that Lucy wanted to be able to fight him. She had been helpless once and now she had spent an entire year dedicated to her magic and training. She wanted to be able to stand against 12 assholes whose magic power was enough to destroy a bloody country. If she couldn't defeat Gajeel then it would be all for nothing. It was never the plan for her to take him on now but it already happened and there was nothing he could do about it.

Looking at the damage all around him he knew that it wasn't for nothing. She was powerful. Some of the blood that he could smell belonged to Gajeel. Lucy wasn't able to take him down yet but she managed to make him bleed and that meant progress. It meant she was getting there one step at a time and she managed to protect her friend. He was proud of her even if he hated the position that she was in now.

Erza stood in front of the fallen form of her friend. The woman that she was quickly coming to see as a little sister while her daughter was left to heal her with tears in her eyes. Erza's eyes burned with anger. There would be retribution for this. She wouldn't let a single person escape her wrath and looking at the members of her guild she knew she would not be alone. This was a sin. An unforgivable sin and they would bow before the Fairy Queen and beg for mercy that she would not give.

"How bad is it Wendy?" she asked.

The young girl took a deep steadying breath. Wendy knew that as a healer many of the people that she would work on would be people in the guild. Her friends and her family but to know that the first person that truly needed her help to save their life was her mother was terrifying. She was scared, so scared that she had to concentrate on ensuring that her hands didn't shake. She didn't want to show her fear to the rest of the people who were counting on her to be able to fix this.