As the twelve mages walked deeper into the forest, the leaves continuously shifted, making patterns of sunlight into the ground. Shuffling along, Lucy sniffed the air. "Hmm... I smell something familliar..." She muttered to herself.
A few screeches and roars were heard here and there, but most of the journey continued in silence. Finally turning on the path, the group found a large palace made out of pink bricks, fashioned with plenty of hearts on it. "It's certainly Master Bob's palace..." Erza said weakly as she grimanced. She could already hear "Parfume, Men~," From the old pervert. She shivered.
"Um, Erza-San, daijoubu?" Wendy asked timidly. Bad idea to speak to her while she was like that. She might attack you when you're near her.
Erza abruptly turned around, purple lines of gloom on her face. She tried putting on a smile, but it wasn't fooling anybody. "Y-Yes. I'm okay."
As they walked closer to the doors, it seemed like Erza paled even more for every step she took. Mechanically, she put one foot in front of the other. The other eleven sweatdropped. "Oi, Erza. You okay?" Gray nagged.
"S-Shut up! I said I was fine!" Erza cried out. The others stepped a few feet away cautiosly.
"Okay..." Gray walked up to the doors, motioning for the rest to follow. Reluctantly, the rest of the team walked forward, and stopped in front of the door, like Gray. Lucy suddenly stopped, and frowned. I have a bad feeling about this... She thought skeptically.
The door burst open with a flash of bright lights and a line of rose petals flowed through the air, giving the natural fragrence of roses and lavender. A trio of smooth voices were heard, the outlines of their bodies shining fantly through the light. "Welcome to wonderland, Hime-Sama."
Lucy and Erza grimanced. Through telepathy, Lucy asked, "Erza, can I kill these people?" Erza looked back at Lucy with a shake of her head, practically saying, 'I'll kill them myself, Lucy." Meanwhile, the rest of the females, consisting of Miyuki, Lisanna, Levy, Juvia, and Wendy, were staring in awe. When Wendy first met the team during the Oracion Seis incident, the 'Trimens' didn't harrass her, so she had no idea what was going to happen.
The light dimmed down, with the trio of Hibiki, Eve, and Ren popping up in front of the 'Fairy Tail' part of the team. Hibiki put on a grin as he reconized Lucy. He walked up to her, "Ah, Lucy, welcome back." And wrapped his arms around her shoulders, considerably pissing of the males that were there, mainly Azazel, Gray, and Natsu.
Akwardly, Lucy pushed him off and tried to put on a smile, which was twitching every then and now. "I'm back, Hibiki..." She said half-heartedly. She noticed Eve staring at her. Sweatdropping, she asked, "W-What is it, Eve?"
Eve looked closely at her face. "Nothing, it's just that..." He reached his hand to touch her face, "You're just so beautiful, Lucy." He smiled, a faint blush adorning his cheeks.
Lucy sighed. It won't work to get away from these three... But I'm more worried about Erza... She looked at the enterance. No sign of Ichiya. She looked back to see Ren 'smooth-talking' to Levy. Levy, I feel bad for you. Lucy thought as she watched Levy try to fend off Ren's seductive tactics.
Ren noticed Lucy looking at him out of the corner of his eye. He gave a long whistle. "Damn girl, how do you look so sexy?" He took long strides to where Lucy was as he looked at how much Lucy changed. He hair was a little longer, and she might've been a little taller, but that was pretty much it.
Lucy backed up a bit to the door. "Can we just go inside?" She said, rather than asked. She took a few steps and saw a few people from the guilds that she knew before she left, like Lamia Scale and Quatro Cerberus, while others she didn't know or just learned of recently, like Mermaid Heel. But in one corner of the room was a group of seven, two of them being exceeds.
Lucy's eyes noticed the blond spikes and messy raven hair instantly. "Sting? Rogue?" She asked. The chatter from the seven stopped when she called out their names. The twin dragons turned around, but as if in slow-motion, it seemed as if they took hours to turn their necks.
"Hey, it's the blondie that destroyed Sabertooth!" Sting blurted out. The other five craned their heads to face Lucy. The muscular guy had his veins bulging in his arms, while the other scrawny guy had three tick-marks on his head and a twitchy forced smile that was on from the previous conversation. The two Exeeds were standing back while the pale-skinned woman tried to stay away from the the two outrageous men who now had a dark aura seeping out of them.
Lucy sweatdropped, once again, as she backed away. "Hey, Sting, Rogue." She said, evaluating what Sting blurted out, 'Hey, it's the blondie that destroyed Sabertooth!' She realized that she never told them her name properly. The only time she remembered them hearing it was when the rubble of the roof fell on her. "And by the way, my name is Lucy, you know."
"Yeah, yeah." Sting waved his hand in dismissal. "It took a long time to clean up the mess you made, y'know." He said, huffing a puff of air.
Lucy hunched over, sighing, "Is that so?" She tried to ignore the demon glares that she was getting. Motioning her team to follow her, she took a few steps torward the 'Sabertooth' fraction of the team. Azazel, Miyuki, and Star followed a few paces behind, leaving the rest of the eight outside with the Trimens leading them inside.
"Yeah, it totally took forever. You owe me big time for this, you know." Sting exagerated.
Lucy frowned. "I already took you and Rogue out for dinner! I even paid for the meal!" She didn't have to pay, because Yajima insisted that it was on the house, but she secretly snuck a few thousand Jewel into the register while he wasn't looking.
"Oh, yeah. But you still owe me. I cleaned up after you, and that meal was to 'make up for beating us up', isn't that right?" Sting said slyly, opening one eye up to look at Lucy's expression.
"B-But that was for everything! You practically ate everything! And that took forever!" Lucy declared, when a jolt of electricity passed through her brain. "Wait, Sting..." She looked down at him, a gleam of a sparkle in her eye. Fufufu... Sting, you just said the one thing I needed.
Sting noticed the mischivious grin, and frowned. "W-What is it?"
"You just admitted that I beat you!" Lucy victoriously declared.
Sting sat up instantly, his shoulders flipping out, turning into little spikes. "N-No I didn't!"
Lucy turned, her grin turning into the Cheshire Cat's. "But isn't that what you said? 'Make up for beating us up'? Hmmm?" Lucy pressed.
"I didn't say that!"
"Oh? Then what did you say?" Lucy teased. She seemed to be enjoying Sting's expressions changing to one like a hissing cat to a flustered blush of embarressment.
"I-I-I didn't say that, alright!?"
"That's what you say, but I remember everyting," Lucy snickered.
"I didn't say that, okay!?"
"Sure, sure." Lucy said, dismissively dropping the subject. "So, why are you here?" She asked, sitting down on the couch next to Sting and Rogue. Star sat on her shoulder, while Azazel and Miyuki sat besides her.
With a straight face, Rogue spoke. "We're here for the sme reason as you. The Magic Council asked us to get rid of this guild, Nightmare Unity."
Lucy's face relaxed into her normal look. "Hmmm..." She opened her mouth to asked another question, but was interuppted by a flurry of rose petals. She heard a deep and throaty laugh. The lights flashed to the top of the staircase, where there stood a middle-aged man.
"Men~" She heard Ichiya say. Loud footsteps were heard across the soft carpet of the palace. Lucy turned her head to see Ichiya sniffing Erza, claiming that she still had that 'Excellent Parfume.', then being kicked across the room, into a chandler that was attatched to the ceiling.
A few minutes passed until Ichiya fell back down, paper-flat and as pale as it too. In the next nano-second, he was back to smelling Erza, who, this time, used a spear to fling him across the room... Again. This process repeated several times, with swords, arrows, scythes, daggers, polearms, whatever weapon Erza could get her hands on.
That has to hurt... Lucy thought when Erza shocked him with her Lightning Emperess Armor. Ichiya finally stopped wasting time when Jura cleared his throat. "Ichya-Dono, will you tell us why we are all gathered here today?"
Ichiya stopped, much to Erza's relief. "Yes, men~" He detached himself from Erza and walked to the front of the room. "Ahem! Today, we have been called here by the Magic Council to fight this guild, Nightmare Unity!"
He allowed them to process this, before he started speaking again. "They may be very strong, consisting of five members, but we are stronger!" He declared. Ripples of doubt ran through the crowd, some whispering that they heard Nightmare Unity was working with Zeref, and that Zeref would destroy Earthland, or at least turn it into a firey Hell.
"I won't let that happen!" Lucy cried out, letting all the attention turn to her. "I'll lead! If we ever have to fight Zeref, I'll fight him!"
"Lucy, don't say that! That's suicide!" Erza yelled at her. Whispers of mages filled the room, agreeing with Erza, deciding that they should just run away themselves, or those who said they would help. Lucy couold hear everything, with her enhanced Dragon-Hearing abilities, she could hear every whisper, every word.
"Shut up!" Lucy snapped, she grit her teeth to stop her trembling. A single tear escaped her eyes, her whole life flashing through her eyes. From the soft smile of her mother, the kind hand extended to her by her father, and the arms of Michelle around her before she turned back into a doll. Everything was there, the memories that Lucy wished would just go away.
"My mother and father... Even my little sister Michelle was killed by him! He had the dark guild attack my home--!" Lucy kneeled, trying to stem the flow of tears bursting out of her eyes. She remembered what guild had attacked her as a child, the onle who shot her mother to death. "It was Nightmare Unty!"
Then the image of her mother, cut up and bloody, flashed through her brain. "Zeref killed my family!" She screamed. Her hands covered her ears, to block out the noises of pity that she heard, but there wasn't really any. She was just imagining it.
"Lucy--" Erza took a step closer to her, her hand extended in worry.
Lucy gasped as her father's warm hand ran through her mind. She hugged her knees even tighter, "DON'T COME NEAR ME!" A sphere made of a light orange, the color of the sunset, the color of endings surrounded her. Erza bounced back in shock, falling to the ground.
"Oi, Lucy! What are you doing!?" Gray shouted.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Lucy cried, shaking her head in denial. She didn't want to remember, but she had no choice. Her heart hurt, and the pained faces of her nakama staring at her hurt her even more. The world suddenly seemed blank, dark, cold, and meaningless. Why? Why must this happen to me?
"Lucy..." She heard a soft voice say. She heard the soft warm voice of Layla Heartfilia, her mother.
"Mama..." Lucy looked up, her hands slowly dropping uselessly to her sides. There, she saw a glowing image of her mother. There was no doubt about it. Lucy reached her hand up, to hold Layla's hand once again. Just one more time... Just once more...
"Lucy... You can't give up here." Layla said, the faint outlines of a smile playing on her lips. "You have plenty of people waiting for you here... Look, there's Erza-San, Gray-San, Natsu-San, Azazel-Chan, too... You have everyone here for you."
"Mama..." Lucy let a tear fall before she nodded. "Hai, Mama. I love you." She watched as Layla disappeared into thin air. She let the magic sphere fall, her heart lightend by Layla's words. "I miss you..." She whispered.
"I miss you, too, Lucy."
Lucy dropped to the ground, limp like a doll. Tears overflowed through her eyes, "I-I'm sorry, Minna!" She let the tears fall as she cried. She was enveloped into a group hug, first starting with Azazel, to Sting and Rogue, to Hibiki, Eve, and Ren, and finally to Natsu and Gray.
Others stood about, like Miyuki and Erza, giving her small smiles, to say it was okay. Their bonds were much stronger than that. "It's okay now." Is what they seemed to be saying.
When Lucy calmed down, about an hour later, she stood at the front of the staircase, with Azazel, Miyuki, and Star naturally standing behind her. Her eyes were still red from crying, but she was grinning ear to ear. Lucy clutched her fist tightly in turumph, "Yosh! Minna, this how we'll fight Nightmare Unity!"
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Author's Note:
Hi, guys! How have you been? I'm sorry for not updating for the past two weeks, that's all. I'm not going to make any excuse, it's just my fault. I might've had school and all, but, I still had time to write. Sure, I had homework and like five projects already, but I still have no excuse. I'm trying to update as much as possible for you guys, so thank you for being patient :)
Also, sometime after I finish writing this, I'll go back and try to make previous chapters longer, or combine some of them. I plan for this to have quite a few chapters, but I'm not exactly sure yet. Hopefully, some of you are still reading and haven't given up on waiting.
I tried to make this as long as possible, to make up for my absence, but that didn't really work (-_-')...Originally, while writing this chapter, (For those who don't know, I like to write the chapter while I'm still thinking about it. I just don't like planning my dialogue and the words in the chapter, whatever they may turn out to be. I know what they storyline would be like, but I just go with the flow when writing ^_^) When Lucy was in the magic sphere, Layla was going to be a projection by one of the Nightmare Unity mages, then Lucy would be stabbed and all the guys would be all like, "LUCY!" But I didn't write it like that in the end.
Yeah... That's how it was going to be... (;^;)
But, that's not how it turned out (O^O)
So, thanks for waiting~ I tried not to kill off any characters in this Arc of the story... Yet. >:D
MUHAHAHAHA I'M EVIL >>:D (Not really *^*)
Anyway, thanks for reading~! (And waiting~!)
Hope you guys enjoy the chapter~~
~Aqua★Star2013~ ❤