A/N: Fairy Tail is the property of Hiro Mashima.
I Won't Be Weak
a Fairy Tail fanfic
by Rhov
Lucy hated to be called weak.
Despite everything she had done, despite helping to take down Oración Seis, fighting in Edolas, the crap they went through on Tenrou Island, and being chosen to represent the guild in the Grand Magic Games, still she heard people whisper behind her back.
That weak Lucy...
Levy and Mira urged her not to compare herself to the likes of Natsu, Gray, and Erza. Still, if she didn't compare herself to her own teammates, who could she compare herself to? Jet and Droy? (No offense to Jet and Droy, of course, she would quickly amend.)
How much more did she have to prove herself? How much did it take? Did they think it was easy summoning Spirits? Did they not realize what a challenge it was for normal spirit mages to summon even one Zodiac Spirit, let alone two at one time? Did they merely see a fragile girl waving a key and then cowering behind a skilled fighter?
Never had she fought that way! She never used her Spirits as shields. She fought alongside them, even when they protested and wanted to protect her. Her Spirits knew perfectly well that Lucy was not that sort of spirit mage. It was a stereotype that haunted her.
She just had to prove them all wrong! She had to get stronger.
"Open the Gate of the Crab. Cancer!"
A poof, then, "Ebi!"
"Close the Gate of the Crab!" She grabbed up another gold key. "Open the Gate of the Ram. Aries!"
Poof! "I'm sorry!"
"Close the Gate of the Ram!"
"Sorryyyyyyy!" the nervous little lamb squealed. Poof!
Lucy pulled out another key. "Open the Gate of the Golden Bull. Taurus!"
Poof! "Moooo! Lucy, your boobs are looks particularly fine today."
She cringed at his pervy gaze, force-closed that gate fast, then grabbed another key. "Open the Gate of the Goat. Capricorn!"
Poof! "It seems your training is going well, Lucy-sama," the Goat praised.
"Thanks, Capricorn, but it's still not enough. Warn all the other Zodiacs, I'll be training like this all day."
"I shall, Lucy-sama. Don't overdo it," he warned, then vanished back to the Spirit World on his own.
Lucy flipped to another key and stuck it in a bucket of water she had prepared. "Open the Gate to the Water-bearer. Aquarius!"
There was a splash instead of a poof this time, and the blue-haired mermaid came out looking pissed. "You disturbed my time with Scorpio. I'll kill you!"
Instead, Lucy pulled out a second key. "Open the Gate of the Scorpion. Scorpio!"
"What?" Aquarius gasped, and she quickly smoothed her hair back. When the red-and-white-haired Spirit appeared, Aquarius instantly began to fawn over him. "Scorpio, you're so handsome even in this world."
"We are! Good luck, Lucy, yeah!" he cheered.
"Thanks, Scorpio." Lucy swished both keys with one hand. "Force close!"
"Hey, you bitc-..." Aquarius was cut off as they both vanished.
Lucy leaned over, sweating, panting, her head starting to hurt from the rapid magic consumption. Suddenly the summer sun felt freezing cold.
"Not enough," she growled. She pulled out one more key. "Open the Gate of the Lion. Leo!"
In a flash of light, Loke appeared and instantly lifted Lucy's hand up to his lips. "Your skin is glowing brighter than starlight this morning, my love," he said flirtatiously.
"I'm not in the mood," she snapped. "I need to practice aiming my whip."
"You can whip me any day, babe!"
"Loke!" she growled.
"Right, right, sorry," he laughed playfully. "You need someone fast enough to evade, and I'm the best of all your Spirits."
"No, Aries is the most nimble. However, she cries the entire time and distracts me. Besides, I can't bring myself to actually want to hit her, which defeats the purpose. Whereas if I whip you, you won't sob and fear me."
Loke leaned in close to her. "Lucy, none of us would ever fear or hate you. All of your spirits love you dearly. Especially me. If I can help you train this way, then please, seriously aim to hit me. If you succeed, I won't complain. I'll probably enjoy it!" he smirked.
That irked her, and she snapped Fleuve d'étoiles at Loke. He easily sidestepped the glowing whip.
"Saucy today!" he laughed.
In anger, she cracked the whip again, and the Lion leaped to the side.
"If I manage to evade ten out of ten strikes, you have to go on a date with me," Loke declared.
"I'm not agreeing to that," Lucy shouted back. She snapped the whip again, and Loke twirled away just in time to miss having it catch his sleeve.
"That's three. If I evade seven more you get treated to the finest seafood restaurant in Magnolia. Although that might make you purposely miss me."
"Like hell!" she yelled, and released the glowing whip again. This time it nipped Loke's coat tails, tearing a little bit of the fabric.
"Hey, I like this suit," he whined, yet he had to jump back as the spirit whip came in for a secondary strike. "That counts of five, you know."
"Grrrr, you're so annoying! Force close the Lion's Gate!"
"But Lucy..." Loke protested, yet he vanished in a blink of light.
"Stupid Lion," she muttered. "I really should practice my whip more than calling keys. If I want to get strong like Erza, Gray, and Natsu, that's what I need to focus on. Nobody will take me seriously if I can't fight beside my spirits. Stupid playboy!"
Still, she reached for her keyring again.
"Open the Gate of the Archer. Sagittarius!"
"Moshi-moshi!"
"Open the Gate of the Virgin. Virgo!"
"Will I be punished?"
"Open the Gate of the Twins. Gemini!"
"Piri piri!"
That was all the gold ones. Lucy's face had sweat dripping down heavily from exhaustion. "No, still not enough. I won't give in to fatigue! I won't be weak! Again!" she shouted. "Aries!"
"Waaah, I'm sorry!"
"Close! Next, Aquarius!"
"That's it, I'm gonna kill you..."
"Close!" she yelled, yet Lucy began to lean over at the waist in exhaustion. "L-...Le..."
Arms wrapped around her. Lucy let them hold her as her vision began to black out. Slowly, her knees gave way, and the strong arms guided her down to the grass.
"Stop it already," Loke said, hugging her tightly.
"But I'm weak," she sobbed. "They all say that, 'weak Lucy,' 'that weak cheerleader'...no matter what I do for Fairy Tail, no matter what insane missions Natsu takes us on...I'm always the weak one."
"Anyone who thinks that has never seen you fight," Loke said soothingly.
Suddenly Lucy's stronger Spirits, the ones who could open their own gates, began to appear around her. Virgo stood stiff with her hands primly in front of her. Gemini came looking like an exact copy of Lucy. Taurus had a beaming smile on his bovine face. Sagittarius saluted her with a "moshi-moshi" greeting. Scorpio appeared, and Aries was with him smiling bashfully. Capricorn gave Lucy a tender smile like a doting uncle. He had also brought along Plue, who squirmed out of the Goat's arms and ran up to Lucy to hug her legs while whining puun as if telling her to stop hurting herself.
"You guys," Lucy laughed, smiling in thanks.
"See," Loke grinned, hugging her close. "We all think you're strong."
"You are the strongest celestial spirit mage in the world," Aries said with encouragement.
Capricorn nodded in concurrence. "Such strength and caring would make Layla-sama proud."
"We kick butt!" Gemini cheered.
"Pu-puun!" Plue agreed.
Taurus declare, "Lucy's boobs are the best!"
Scorpio gave a playful sign with his hand. "Fighting with you is fun because you fight with us, yeah!"
"Tiring yourself to death won't help you, moshi-moshi," Sagittarius warned gently.
"Princess mustn't punish herself," Virgo said stoically. She suddenly pulled a riding crop whip out of thin air. "I can help, if you wish."
Lucy cringed back. "No, sorry. Not into that sort of punishment."
Loke's arms let her go, and he moved aside to stand with the other celestial spirits. Instantly, other arms hugged Lucy even tighter. She stiffened as she saw a red guild mark on the muscular bicep and felt the scaly white scarf that belonged to only one man.
"Lucy," Natsu said into her ear, giving her a chill. "No one on the team thinks you're weak. Maybe when you first joined, Happy and I would pick missions we hoped you'd like, but it wasn't because we thought you were too weak for the big missions. We just wanted to pick ones you'd think were fun. You got more keys, and you got a lot stronger. All of us got stronger! You're super strong!" he declared. "I don't know if I'm the strongest dragon slayer in the world, but I do know that you're the strongest celestial spirit mage. I feel like I need to work harder to catch up to you."
Tears came to Lucy's eyes. "Natsu," she sniffled. "Everyone, thank you. This is why I love my spirits so much. You're true friends."
They all smiled warmly to her. The spirits poofed away one at a time before they tired out. Only Loke stayed. He knelt down in front of her and wiped her tears away with his handkerchief.
With determination, Loke told her, "All of your spirits will keep training so we can be strong enough to support you no matter what crazy enemies you face. You called out all of us in one day. I don't know of any other spirit mage who can do that. You are definitely strong, Lucy. Don't let anyone tell you differently."
"That's right," Natsu grinned. "That's why I wanted you on my team. You're nice, you're strong, and you smell good."
She glared back at him. "You picked me because of my smell?"
He laughed happily and shrugged. "Sure! I wouldn't want to hang out with you if you stank really bad. That's why I like sleeping in your bed. It smells like you, and your smell makes me feel really comfortable, like I can sleep with you all night," he said with a beaming smile.
Lucy turned bright red, and Loke face-palmed with a groaning mutter. "This guy..."
"Anyway," Natsu went on, not at all realizing what he just said. "Happy and I have another mission if you wanna come. Or are you too tired?"
Lucy firmed up her determination. "I'll go. I can test out my whip techniques."
Loke had a predatory grin. "I would love to see your techniques!"
Lucy yanked away from him. "Kyaa, you're as bad as that pervy Bull. Force close Leo's Gate!"
"Aww, but Lucy..." Before Loke could protest, he flashed and vanished back to the Spirit World.
Lucy took Natsu's hand, and he helped her up. She dusted off her knees, secured her key ring, and turned to him. "Let's go. I'll show everyone just how strong me and my spirits are. I'll prove to them that I'm not weak!"
The End