Again, working on it.
Edited: June 29th, 2015
Juvia was trying to put her luggage in it's compartment when Gray took the bag from her.
"Thanks," she murmured as he stuck his belongings on the shelf as well. Juvia slide into the small space, where Lucy was silently seethed with an unconscious dragon slayer on the floor. Before the bluenette could ask what happened, there was a firm grip on her shoulder. She turned around to see the last member of the team shaking his head at her, wordlessly telling her to simply not ask questions.
Juvia only nodded and sat down next to the window, Gray on her other side. All the blunette really wanted was to simply sleep for a while before arriving at the destination. But with Natsu's motion sickness induced complaining and Happy, who was harassing Lucy with the latter shouting at Natsu not to puke on her and at same time trying to strangle Happy.
"STUPID CAT!" Lucy shouted at the blue furred feline, hovering just above her reach. Happy's paws were covering his mouth, muffling his giggling. "You liiiike him!"
Juvia rolled her eyes and turned her face to look out the window. The rolling hills and mountain were in the far distance, they were so calm and beautiful. Much different from the occupants of the train car.
Then, it was like a freight train had smashed in to her mind, so forceful it almost made her wince. A feeling so heavy that it actually hurt to breathe settled on her. The heavy feeling she's been having lately was suddenly almost unbearable. The rest of the ride was spent to distract herself by engaging in a conversation she couldn't even focus on.
While Lucy was explaining that Natsu might not be able to just burn who ever was causing this to the ground, Gray leaned over to Juvia and quietly whispered a question. "You okay? You seem kind of distracted."
"Juvia is just concerned about the mission and thinking about what this could be and such." Juvia said, not really lying but omitting some information. Gray looked at her, his eye narrowing but he didn't say anything if he doubted her. The rest of the ride was pretty much silent, leaving the rain woman to her own thoughts.
"Welcome to the city of Rhode, if this is your stop please gather you things and exit the train in an orderly manner. The Fiore Rails wishes you a very nice day!"
"Juvia," Lucy said. "Will you please wake up Gray?" Lucy winked at the woman and a light crimson spread across her cheek bones.
The Ice Mage's messy black hair was hanging low in front of his eyes. A thin trail of drool left a trail down his chin and light snores left his parted lips. Juvia couldn't help but smile at his peaceful expression, it was almost cute. Though she had the view of his sleeping face a few times before, it never failed to amaze her at how beautiful he was- even when he wasn't. Juvia reached her hand out to shake him awake, lightly slapping his face. His eyes opened lazily, unfocused before directing his gaze to her face.
"Huh?" Gray looked around the cabin and let out a long and loud yawn while stretching his tense muscles. "Hey Juvia," he said, voice rough from just waking up. "Are we there already?"
"Yes," she said. "You should wipe your mouth, Gray," weakly attempting to stifle a a light laugh. "You're drooling."
"Shit," he cursed while frantically wiping at his mouth. "Is it off?"
After a few minutes of struggling to get everybody's things together, they were finally able to get off the train. Lucy and Juvia went to get a map of area from the souvenir shop in the station.
"What'd you say, Ice Princess?!"
"You heard me, Ash for Brains!"
Of course the Ice age and Dragon Slayer were going at it again. Lucy and Juvia were standing of to the side, debating whether or not they should intervene.
"Natsu," Lucy called, "can you not fight Gray for a few minutes. We need to get started." The menacing look in her eyes sent a shiver down the spine of Natsu, immediately ceasing his pointless fight.
"AYE!" Natsu using Happy's catch phrase in an attempt to save his own skin. Gray laughed out loud, pointing at his teammate, calling him whipped. Behind him though, Juvia cleared her throat. The black haired man stopped laughing and looked at the woman.
"What?" he asked but Juvia just stayed silent as she slightly glared at him. "What?! It was funny!"
"Are we there yet? My feet hurt!" Lucy was starting to trail behind the rest of her team.
"Come on Lucy," Natsu turned his head to look at the blonde, who was lagging behind the group.
"Maybe your feet hurt because of your shoes," Happy jabbed as he flew just out of her reach.
Lucy only groaned and trekked on. For a brief moment or so, the group continued to travel the beaten dirt road when a small sound caught the the attention of Juvia.
Juvia stopped walking suddenly, sending a jet stream of boiling water into the bushes to her left. The only other person even slightly aware of their situation, was the only dragon slayer on the team. Figures dropped down from the trees and jumped out of the bushes.
In an instant, the rest of the team was ready for a fight. There were only about 10 of them, no big challenge to Fairy Tail mages. Lucy had her keys ready, Natsu's first were flaming, Gray was in position and Juvia had orbs of water by her side.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Gray growled out. A few of the attackers came forward, launching attacks.
'Speed magic', Juvia thought as she side stepped a roundhouse kick that could have easily broken her jaw. 'Okay. We can do this your way,' Juvia turned on her heal and she put all her weight behind a kick to her attackers lower stomach. He doubled over from the force and she drove her knee up into his face, breaking his nose and knocking him out.
"JUVIA- LOOK OUT!" Lucy yelled out somewhere to her rear right.
Too late.
She briefly heard Gray and Natsu shouting while Lucy called on one of her spirits.
The amount of magic that was released was enough to kill a normal water mage, but she had faced much worse. Juvia managed to look behind her and see the face of a man who had his arms wrapped around her shoulders, effectively expelling his lightning magic at point blank. The woman couldn't move- the position restricted her from fighting back and the pain was so distracting she couldn't use any spell to defend against him. For a brief second, Juvia thought that if she let herself 'die' at that moment, that would be her best chance to get home for a long time without rising any suspicion. The woman quickly expelled the idea, as she still couldn't bring herself to up and leave the life she made for herself.
"ICE MAKE: GEYSER!"
'Cold-Cold-Cold!'
Even though the freezing pain only lasted for a few seconds, it was still enough to make the former rain woman collapse to the ground, in a passed out heap.
After about ten minutes, Juvia opened her eyes , trying regain her thought and body. She could barely register the orange and pink sky, as well as the worried faces of her team looming over her.
"Is she okay?" Happy whispered.
"I'm sure she will be fine, Happy. Juvia is strong- she can handle a little bit of lightening."
"But she is still made of water... Wait, guys- she's waking up."
"Juvia? Can you hear me?"
It took a minute to find her voice and a quiet, "ouch," was the best thing that her scattered brain could muster.
"You okay, Juvia?" Gray's voice. The young mage sat up and crossed her legs, cradling her head in her hands as she prayed the throbbing would die down sooner rather than later. Natsu held a hand out, offering his assistance to help her stand on her own feet.
"Juvia is okay," as she took the man's hand, pulling herself to her feet. The blunette noticed, for the first time, that all of the attackers were lying around unconscious. "We should continue before it's too late."
"Are you okay to go on, Juvia? We can always take a short break before going on," Lucy was truly concerned for her friend. She had just been electrocuted at point blank by a -not-so-weak mage. Juvia turned and smiled at the blonde.
"Juvia is fine," she said. "It will take a lot more than that to take her down, right? Juvia wants to hurry and get where we need to be now," she turned and continued to walk.
"Juvia is right," Gray stood and began to follow the water mage. "We have a mission to complete and we need to move."
The group trudged forward- never letting their guard down. Gray's gaze never left her back though, whether she knew it or not.. He began to notice that she was becoming fidgety as they continued on their walk. He suddenly had this deeply foreboding feeling in his chest, one that seemed to crush his lungs. The dark haired man brushed the feeling off as concern and worry for the blue beauty.
Soon enough, the sun had set and the group came upon a clearing at the base of a mountain of a rock.
"I smell blood, guys." Natsu whispered. He lifted his hand and pointed to a shadow at the base of the mountain. "And there's somethin' I've never smelled before, too. Coming from in there.
'Just a little more,' Mikeru thought as he poured even more of his diminished magical energy into the vortex of fire in front of him. It was almost time to prepare the body for this goddess, who he was trying to bring into this plane, the Mortal Plane. His destiny of purifying the world through fire was finally about to come true and he would forever be known as the one who saved humanity from themselves- the greatest hero in the history of mankind!
The whirlpool glowed brighter as the heat intensified, signaling that something with inhuman abilities was trying to cross over.
"Bring me the body!" Mikeru shouted to his henchmen. They ran off to fetch the corpse that would be host to the disembodied god.
Not long after that, a silhouette could be seen trying to escape the vortex.
The Goddess Scylla.
The body was set in front of Mikeru and the purple haired man smiled evilly. He had scoured the world— every village on every continent— searching for the woman who best matched the image of the Goddess Scylla: beautiful, big eyes, long orange and red hair, deeply tanned or light brown skin, tall and fit with a perfect figure. This one was the best that they found and couldn't pass up the opportunity, so they killed that woman and persevered her body. The only other reason why he selected her was because she was a mage so the capacity to hold magic was present, though not much- but the space was still there and could be expanded to hold as much as needed.
"Finally my destiny will be complete!" He cackled manically, "It's finally happening after all these years of trying to bring her here— she will finally arrive!"
The body in front of him began to glow as the transformation process began to take place. A small ribbon of magic flowed from the vortex of intensely burning heat and light, into the earthly body. Then the red shadow of a woman emerged from the cyclone and slowly moved towards the body before, finally, making contact and the effect was devastating.
Mikeru was thrown back by the amount and sheer force of the magic, scorched by the heat, and nearly blinded by the light. The force pinned him down to floor of the cavern like gravity had been increased tenfold- and Mikeru was no small man, over six feet tall and extremely well built. But this was a serious amount of magic.
When the light seemed to fade, Mikeru opened his eyes and was once again blinded at the sight in front of him. But he couldn't help the wicked smile that crept on his face as he shielded his eyes.
Scylla.
There she was- in the body that had been prepared for her insane amount of power, sitting on a stone altar in a short, red deep-necked, roman tunic that was longer in the back. On her feet were gold sandals that laced all the up to her knees. Her red hair flowed gracefully down her back and her solid- no white- red orange eyes were fixed on the man lying on the floor in front of her.
"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice drew him in, "are you the one that brought me here?" It took Mikeru a moment to form words through his state of shock, finally remembering the big picture.
"Yes," he bowed to Scylla. "I am Mikeru, it was my destiny-"
All the air was forced out his lungs as another wave of scorching heat ran through the room. Scylla stalked over to Mikeru and grabbed his neck with a burning hand. He struggled as his skin began to sizzle underneath her palm. She began to squeeze.
"Destiny?" She laughed without humor, "destiny is just a reason that you disgusting humans give your selves to continue on with your meaningless lives." Her grip grew tighter and Mikeru's blood began to boil inside his body, the skin beginning to break. "But I guess that not all humans are bad. You created a method that allowed me to cross into this plane and regain a body- so for that I thank you." She squeezed his neck even tighter, making her hand hotter then- pop. His head had given out from the pressure and finally exploded. Blood and brains splattered all over the cave walls and Scylla.
She dropped Mikeru's body and calmly looked at her surroundings; she saw the black of night- the stars twinkling in an inky blue-black pool that was the sky, and began to walk towards it.
So, what do you think about this editing? Same things really, you'll start noticing changes as I move through the next chapters.