Hello boys and girls. I'd like to tell a story.
Apparently, my girlfriend tells me the other day that April 1st through the 7th is Gruvia Week. What the hell? Why wasn't I told sooner? Maybe I wanted to participate.
And so I did. I've come up with seven quick fics. Nothing major. Just a distraction. I promise I will get back to the A-Z fics after this. But I'll focus on this. So expect seven updates in the next seven days.
And so we begin my newest idea.
WHY WE ARE STRONG
Friendship
Juvia Lockser had always been alone for a very long time.
Her parents left her at a very early age in an orphanage. Why? She will probably never know. Perhaps they were being pursued by bandits and hid her, hoping to reunite with her. Perhaps they were having a salacious affair, like the ones in the harlequin romances where a noble woman and a rogue meet in secret and she was the product of that love. Perhaps they were evil people who terrorized the countryside but then they were killed. But someone took pity on her and sent her to orphanage to be cared for. But maybe the worst thought that came through her head was that they didn't want her and sent her away.
Juvia had never shed a tear throughout it all. She didn't have to. The sky cried for her. The rain would be her friend...her only friend. And it was a jealous friend. It kept others away from her. For most of her childhood and teenage years, Juvia was alone. No one wanted to get close to her. No one liked her as a person. She became a pariah, trapped within the rain which kept everyone away from her.
Even as a mage, Juvia had no friends. The people in Phantom Lord only tolerated her because of her immense power. The lower ranked mages never hung out with her because of the rain she brought, her fellow Element Four stayed with her only because her power was essential to the guild's Abyss Break. Gajeel dismissed her but then again he dismissed everyone. Master Jose only wanted her power. Even so, the guild accepted her. Juvia, for the first time in her life, was wanted. It was odd, though. She was surrounded by people...and yet she was still so alone.
Gray, to this day, can hardly remember his parents' faces. He can hardly remember them at all. There were vague recollections here and there, blips about them that he couldn't really tell if they happened or not. But one memory still does to this day. It was during Deliora's attack. They were hiding in their basement when the monster's rampage destroyed their house. The next thing he could remember was being surrounded by debris and detritus. The worst part? His parents had used their bodies to protect them. The young man couldn't remember how long he cried. Suffice to say that he stayed there for a long time.
Even though he didn't want to, Gray Fullbuster left his destroyed house. With his mother and father gone, there was nothing left for him here. When he looked at the ruins of his house and the ruins of his town, something started stirring in his belly. It was anger. He was angry at the demon who just destroyed his town like it was nothing. He wanted revenge. He needed revenge.
The only way to get revenge was to learn magic. And the only way to learn magic was to find a mage. While he was wandering the world, there were mentions of a woman who knew powerful ice magic. Gray soon learned her name. Ur, the woman who had the strength of a Wizard Saint. Surely she must be powerful enough to teach him how to get revenge. When Gray found Ur, he had convinced her to take him on as an apprentice, even though she had already had one in Lyon Vastia.
Her training method was... unusual, to say the least. Ur made him strip to his undies and run in the snow. At the beginning, he thought she was crazy...or a pervert who preyed on kids. But when his teacher had explained that the reason for the stripping is to adjust the body to the cold. That way, the Ice Make magic would be easier to perform. With that, he earnestly poured himself into his training.
If Gray was honest with himself, the time he spent with Ur were some of the happiest moments in his life. He learned so much from her. Plus she was fun to be around, especially when they weren't doing training and were just goofing off. And he would have probably stayed with her forever if fate hadn't stepped in to pop his happy bubble.
A rumor was going around town that Deliora was coming. The anger he had felt as a young child started stirring again. This was his chance. This was his moment to finally avenge his parents. Gray had asked Ur to teach him her most powerful magics in order to defeat the demon. However, she had forbidden him to combat Deliora. That made Gray mad. How could this woman understand what he had gone through? Ur never had his family ripped apart from him so violently. She didn't have the corpses of her parents lying on top of her afterwards. The whole point of learning magic was to kill this monster and avenge their deaths. Despite the threat of expulsion, Gray left to fight Deliora.
He was no match for Deliora, Gray realized only after he had tried to combat the demon. As he laid bruised and bloodied, he regretted not being stronger. He was going to die and never get his revenge... Well that would have happened if not for the intervention of his teacher, Ur. She and Lyon came to his rescue. And that's when she did it. She used Iced Shell to freeze Deliora for all eternity and with it, Gray's darkness. But using that spell cost Ur her life.
Ur's sacrifice scarred him, just like his parents before. This time, though, he was directly responsible for her death. If Gray hadn't gone after Deliora, he reasoned, Ur would still be alive. Lyon intimated that much. The white haired boy yelled at Gray for taking away his dream of surpassing Ur. Gray didn't argue because he knew in his heart that Lyon was right.
After Ur's death, a purposeless Gray headed south where he was found by Fairy Tail's guild master, Makarov. The tiny master recognized that Gray was alone and hurting, which is why he invited him to join his guild. The young ice mage really had no other place to go so he accepting Makarov's offer.
There were many kids just like him in Fairy Tail and he quickly bonded with them. He formed a bitter rivalry with Natsu, developed a healthy fear of Erza and Mirajane, had a friendship with Cana and got along with the rest of the kids. However, there was a part of him that kept his heart from truly connecting with the others. Though he was friendly with everyone, his heart was surrounded by a very thick wall of ice. Gray just didn't want to get hurt again. And he vowed never to let anyone get that close to him again.
It was only after the events of Galuna Island that his heart truly started to heal. Seeing the physical representation of his nightmares disintegrate before his eyes lifted the burden from his heart. Ur had told Gray that she would free him from his darkness. It took over ten years but it finally happened. He was free. He was finally free. And now, he could finally begin to melt the ice around his heart.
Perhaps it was fate then that led Gray to Juvia. When they had first faced off against each other, he was subconsciously drawn to her. The ice mage only realized long after the fight that she was just as lonely as he was so long ago. Maybe that's why he saved her from falling after defeating Juvia. His heart saw what his eyes didn't. It saw her loneliness and despair, something Gray wanted to save her from.
From little acorns spring mighty oaks. So too did that fight pave the way for something greater than either could have hoped for.
Gray's magic was able to (quite literally) drive away the dark rainclouds that hovered over Juvia. With those gone, she was finally able to be a new woman. She was free. She was finally free. Juvia could be with anyone she wanted, do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. And yet, her thoughts were never far from that man who saved her. How ironic. She was the enemy who had a huge role in the kidnapping of one of this man's guildmates and yet, she was the one who was saved. And funnily enough, she was the one who fell in love with him.
Though Juvia got work as an independent mage, she never strayed far from her savior. The water mage followed him everywhere, adoring him from afar, secretly tending to his needs, until she could stand it no more. She approached Gray and told him of her desires to join Fairy Tail. Gray told her that it was up to the master but he had no problem with it. And they would have talked more if it weren't for the fact that they were attacked.
But Gray and Juvia, along with Natsu, Lucy, Happy and Erza were able to save the day. In that moment, Juvia had proved her intentions to not only Gray but the others as well. She was welcomed into Fairy Tail with open arms.
It was such a marvelous experience to Juvia. For someone who had always been alone all of her life, being surrounded by people who didn't want her because of her magic but just because they liked her. It was such a warm feeling. This is what friendship is, she thought. And it was all thanks to Gray.
A thought hit Juvia one day while was sitting in the guild by herself. She had just completed a mission when someone handed her an Orange Julius and a caramade frank. She followed the hand that gave it to her and was surprised. It was Gray Fullbuster. She couldn't believe it.
"Gray-sama." She shrieked.
"Hey." Gray greeted. "Mira told me that you had never had a caramade frank before. We have to fix that."
"What's a caramade frank?" Juvia asked.
"That's why you are going to have one right now." Gray told her.
Juvia opened up the food package and saw a... well it's kinda hard to explain. It's like a large hot-dog smothered in a orange marinade. It looked, well, different, and it was something she wouldn't have gotten for herself. But if her beloved Gray-sama got it for her, she would eat it.
As she was eating it, a thought occurred to her.
"Gray-sama." Juvia whispered.
"Yeah." He responded.
"Juvia understands now...why Fairy Tail is so strong." She told him. "It's this."
Gray furrowed his eyebrows. "Caramade franks?"
Juvia chuckled a bit. "Friendship." She explained. "There was no friendship in Phantom Lord. All that mattered was power. Phantom Lord would not have fought like Fairy Tail did for one of their own. That's why we lost."
Gray put his hand on Juvia's, causing her to blush. "That's why they lost." He answered. "You were never really a part of that guild. They were just using you."
Juvia looked at Gray with misty eyes. "Gray-sama." She murmured.
"I understand you a bit now." Gray said. "You were very lonely...like I was."
"Gray-sama was alone?" She asked. Juvia couldn't believe it. "But he was in Fairy Tail."
"Yeah, I was." He answered. "But I didn't open up. I hid my heart because I didn't want to be hurt anymore."
"Juvia did the same thing." She responded, looking down. Her next words were barely above a whisper. "Has Gray opened his heart?"
Gray gave Juvia a small smile. "A little." He admitted. "A little more day by day."
There was a question that she wanted to ask him but she was afraid of the answer. But she needed to know. "Are Gray-sama and Juvia friends?"
A light chuckle escaped his lips. "Tch. As if you had to ask." Gray smirked. "Of course we are."
And that chapter 1. Again, it's nothing major. I wanted something simple and easy to relate to, so I chose friendship as the first chapter.
Well, love it? Hate it? No opinion one way or the other? Leave me a review. I'd love to hear from you.
And I guess I'll update tomorrow. Hope you'll like these stories.
A. Angel
