Shattered
"I love you, Lucy."
The memory was haunting her, stabbing her painfully in the chest.
"I'll be yours for as long as I live."
When unvoiced screams ripped through her throat, she began begging for it to stop before it became too much.
"Lucy, will you marry me?"
And that was her undoing.
Lucy shot up, her eyes watering as she looked at the date on the calendar: December 18. She suddenly realised why her memories were haunting her: it was her 1 year anniversary with her fiancé, Laxus Dreyar, the man who whispered loving words into her ears, only to forget her the very next day. That's right, Lucy was forgotten. For how many months, she wasn't sure. Four, maybe five months was how long Lucy had spent being ignored by everyone except for Lisanna and the Raijinshuu. Sad, isn't it? The only people who remembered the blonde mage, were the very people who only got to know her through her boyfriend, and the girl who everyone ignored Lucy for. Why they were the only ones that remembered her, Lucy didn't know, but she didn't quite care either. She still had people who loved her. Using that as her courage, Lucy went through her daily routine and walked towards the guild, waving towards those who warned her not to fall into the water.
Lucy wasn't surprised when she heard cheering from the inside of the guild while she was outside, but she was surprised when she saw what caused it. No, it wasn't her baby sister Lisanna, it was something completely and utterly different.
In the middle of the guild, Laxus Dreyar was kissing a surprised Mirajane; her silver-haired little sister and his 'bodyguards' looking on horrified, looking even more so when they spotted Lucy. It seemed that not only had they spotted Lucy, but Laxus and Team Natsu did as well.
Smirking at her, Laxus spoke up, "And let's all hear it for the one I love, Mirajane Strauss!" When more cheers erupted, Lucy's heart cracked even further, crumbling into unrecognisable pieces when she heard the harsh words of Team Natsu, who hadn't kicked her off of the team...until now that is.
"Lucy, why are you here? Haven't we made it obvious that we don't want you here, you useless bitch? Geez. Just so you can get it through that thick blonde head of yours, we'll spell it out for you: no one in this guild wants you here and we don't want you in our team either."
Lucy knew it was coming, she knew it was going to hurt, but did it have to hurt that bad? Gradually closing her eyes and wincing at her own question, Lucy nodded and let one stray tear fall down her face as she backed away from everyone. From her shocked friends that couldn't reach her in time, and from the cheering guild that was glad she was gone. From the very people she had called her own family for so long.
"I hate you all!" Lisanna screamed at her sister and the man who held her, once the girl she had tried so hard to fight the crowd for was gone. Tears leaked out of the younger Strauss' eyes as she fell to her knees and pounded the ground. "I hate you all so much! After all this time, this is what you people do to her?!"
"What are you talking about, Lisanna? Why would we care about that whore? That bloody whore who nearly got my team and you killed? Why would we care about Fu*kerfilia?" Laxus asked, resulting in a wide-eyed and anger drained Lisanna. 'That can't be the man that Lucy-nee fell in love with, right? It can't be, she said he was nicer than this! Wait...Killed?' She thought, staring on aghast.
In the background, Bickslow was closing his eyes in concentration, Evergreen was looking back and forth between the argument and the door, and Freed was positively fuming.
"What are you talking about Laxus?! Lucy never did anything! Lucy has been nothing but good to everyone! Why are you doing this?!" Freed screamed, earning surprised looks from everyone, once they realised that Freed was actually angry at Laxus and had dropped the honorific '-sama'.
"What are you talking about, Freed? Don't you respect Laxus? Why are you treating that whore with respect, and not Laxus?" A petite bookworm chimed in, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, not even caring that she called her once best friend a whore.
Suddenly, Evergreen snapped out of it and went to stand beside a shocked Lisanna and an angry Freed, twisting her mouth up in disgust. "I thought you were better than this, Fairy Tail!" She screamed, causing some to protest, her glare shutting them up.
"What happened to the Fairy Tail that loved their comrades, huh?" Lisanna started, looking towards Freed, who nodded.
"What happened to the times when Lucy was all you needed? The times where if you needed someone to talk to, or just to brighten your mood, you went to her? Whenever you wanted someone to go armor shopping with you, Erza! Or to read books with you, Levy! And even to dance for you, Gajeel! Who did you go to? Lucy! You relied on Lucy for everything! Made her do everything for you, but you ignored her when Lisanna came along...Why? Why don't you believe us? She...She never ever tried to do anything to us, so why?"
When everyone began to protest, their eyes widened in shock and they closed their mouths slowly, realising that Freed and the others were right. With a look of terror on his face, Laxus blinked his eyes and shook his head slowly as if to get rid of the memories of what he had just done. "F-Freed? Evergreen? L-L-Lisanna? I-I didn't just do that to Lucy, did I?" Eventually, when he heard no response, Laxus looked up to three sorrowful faces; faces that made him shake his head in disbelief over and over again until Bickslow cried out, "No! Lucy!"
Snapping his head towards the mage, Laxus' eyes were horrified and silently asking one question: 'Did something happen to Lucy?'
Nodding his head at his leader's unasked question, Bickslow was frantic. "I-I was looking for her soul once she ran away, and it seemed to be getting farther and farther...I thought nothing of it until i-it...h-her soul disappeared, and then 15 spirits with sad, lonely souls appeared straight after...I-I think that...Lucy d-d-di-died..." He choked out, barely voicing the words before his leader had turned into lightning and tried to follow his fiancé's scent.
"Bickslow...You don't mean that, do you?" Lisanna whispered, shaking her head as the rest of the guild followed Laxus to find Lucy. They were so bipolar! One moment calling her a whore and saying she nearly killed them, and the next realising she was all they needed.
Although Lisanna and the others received no answer, they knew the truth; Lucy had died.
Laxus had finally stopped where Lucy's scent was the strongest; Fairy Tail was right behind him, all of them staring at the golden barrier made by Lucy's spirits, whose auras had turned deadly at the sight of them.
Narrowing their eyes, five of the spirits stepped out of the barrier and towards Fairy Tail; they were all looking at Fairy Tail with heated glares. Loke, Aquarius, and Virgo had taken a fighting stance while the other two spirits, surprisingly Aries and Plue, began mouthing expletives, well, Aries was, and Plue growling ferociously, sounding nothing like the shaking animal he was before.
In unison, Loke and Virgo spoke, "You have done enough to Hime/Lucy, leave now." Their request was drowned out by cries of protest, only for those protests to be silenced by Aquarius.
"You still want to argue with us?" she hissed, twirling her urn around her fingers dangerously, "After all of this, after you just killed out master whom we loved very much, you want to fight us? You want us to just hand her over to you? Hand over the girl that was only cared for by four people, who aren't here right now? Hand her over to the guild that ignored her for four or five months, the guild that only spoke to her to call her a whore?" Looking towards Laxus, Aquarius' eyes turned sorrowful and hateful, and her tone became bitter and disgusted. "We thought that you truly loved her, so we let her love you..."
Overcome with rage, Erza screamed, "If you knew all of this was happening, why didn't you stop it, huh? Why didn't you do anything? See, it's your fault as much as it is ours!" This was accompanied with several shouts of agreement and shocked looks from the spirits behind the barrier. When the mermaid's resolve shattered, Aries and Plue stepped forward.
Aries twisted her face in a disgusted manner and tilted her head darkly, "Why didn't we help her, you ask? Do you really want to know why? It's because she force closed our gates with so much magic everyday, that not even Leo or Virgo could get out!" Looks of horror crossed over several people's faces, all of them not trying to believe the spirit.
"Lucy kept us in the Celestial Spirit World thinking that we wouldn't be able to see her slowly rotting away, but we could. She thought she could save us the pain of seeing her die slowly, but she couldn't; spirits can always see and know what happens to our master."
Aries' face suddenly became darker, "Do you know that on several occasions her pain was so great that we felt it? When was it again, hmm? Oh yes, it was when you ignored her on the day Team Natsu was made, brushed her off on her birthday, and mocked her for crying on her mother's birthday. And don't forget what happened today! Let's see, Lucy, our beloved master, walked into the guild to see her fiancé kissing someone who used to be one of her best friends, and her teammates, all of which she loved dearly, kicking her off of the team and calling her useless, and everyone cheering as she left, how nice!" The sarcasm in Aries' voice made everyone cringe, adding onto the pain that they felt when they heard what they had done.
Silence enveloped the spirits and Fairy Tail as the five spirits moved back inside the barrier, still glaring at the others. As the five turned to look towards Lucy, however, all of the spirits dropped to their knees and screamed out in pain, alarming the other mages, causing them to run up to the barrier. When the screaming finally stopped, the Fairy Tail mages let out a sigh of relief and backed away from the wall, only for them to blink in shock. The barrier had disappeared...
"Guys, I think that Lucy is alive..." Everyone's heads snapped up to see Bickslow frowning.
"W-What do you mean, Bickslow? Is my sister alive?" Lisanna whispered, looking hopeful.
"I-I think so...But...She's been corrupted, and I think her spirits are too..." Frowning, Evergreen looked towards the ground.
"Corrupted? How? What does that even mean?!"
"Well, I think it happened after the others arrived because all of a sudden this corrupted soul came towards the spirits, and it performed a high-class magic spell that brought Lucy back to life, but corrupted her in the process. After that she must have touched her keys, because slowly after they became corrupted..."
"Well, what happened to her?!" The others screamed as Bickslow trailed off, looking at the ground. Taking in a deep breath, Bickslow faced the others.
"She disappeared..."
Suddenly, Fairy Tail burst through the door. "What?!"
Hi guys! This is basically going to be the same author's note again and again, so don't read it until it seems longer than usual. Can you please tell me if you find a story that seems like it's the same as mine? I know the story plots in my stories are cliche, but mine do differ in several points, and I would hate to know that my work is being written off as someone elses and they are getting credit for it. I have not given any permission to anyone to use my work or anything, except for RoLu-GaLe-with-Chocostrawberry, who used the name 'The Abandoned Souls'. Anyways, thank you for reading my story! I hope you like it, please read my others, and I'm sorry for any grammatical or spelling errors you might have found-I try hard to edit my work and I usually look over my stories to edit again when I find a mistake. Thank you if you have for followed, reviewed, and/or listed this story as one of your favourites-it means a lot to me!