AN: I feel the need to apologize for the terrible summary of this story. I just couldn't think of a good way to summarize it. So here is a chapter that I didn't plan to release for at least another few days, instead I'm releasing it only a few hours after the release of the first chapter. Thanks to whoever is still reading! Reviews give my fingers life and the need to write! They shrivel up and die without them, so please save my fingers and write a review! I am definitely open to ideas on how this should go, I don't exactly have a specific plot planned for this *sweat drops...*
The chapters are random lengths. I just break it off wherever it feels natural to me.
Disclaimer: Yes, I remembered to say it this time! I don't own a thing! Anything recognizable is not mine!
After many rests stops and lots of running and walking, Lucy and her dogs arrived at a city. It was slightly past dawn, and even Bost and Ryu were getting tired. Lucy had the intention of finding the nearest inn and buying a room for the night earlier, but she was too exhausted to do so at that moment.
Instead, she stumbled into the nearest completely deserted area – a small alley way, and tucked herself up against a corner and snuggled up against the nearest dog, which happened to be Bost. She mumbled out a command to them before falling asleep, "Guard."
Bost and Ryu's ears immediately became alert and they scanned the area for any threats. Ryu sat down in front of Bost and Lucy while Bost rested his head on Lucy's arm. He was feigning being asleep while in reality he was focused on his sense of hearing as he rested, alert for the tiniest sound that was out of place. Ryu was acting as the eyes and nose of the two, breathing in the scents around him and attentively scanning the surroundings while paying less attention to his sense of hearing. Both dogs were tired, and would switch out these rolls occasionally so that both could rest. Lucy has taught them these advanced guarding techniques in a fit of boredom and creativity.
A few hours of this later, one of the dogs heard a noise in the alley. It sounded like voices.
Bost looked at Ryu and they shared a glance. They silently rose to their paws and started nudging their master to wake her up. "Whaaa? Bost? Ryu? Where-Where am I? Oh. I remember now. Why are you waking me up? Is something wrong?"
The large dogs made a small noise and pointed their long snouts towards the direction the noise was coming from. "You guys hear something?" Lucy whispers as she gets up. Lucy almost cursed aloud when she realized, in her earlier tiredness, she chose the single worst possible spot to sleep in. The alley was dark, damp, cold, and worst of all only has one exit. The exit that just happened to be blocked by the men on the other side of the alley.
Lucy looked around for another way out, and only found a single boarded up window. None of the boards looked like it would budge, and she found that to be very true when she pulled on one of the boards.
Bost and Ryu were still standing at attention with their ears perked towards the sound. Lucy could now hear the voices as they steadily began to grow louder. She just had to hope it was a harmless group passing buy that would pay her no mind and leave her alone when they inevitably came upon her.
Lucy then realized that no normal person would be walking around these for any good purpose. She was only there because she was so tired that she couldn't think straight, after all. Not to mention the fact she can hardly be considered a normal person by this point.
"This spot looks perfect boss! Maybe we can-oh lookie what we have here, boys!"
"Oh, we don't even have to look too hard for a pretty catch like this tonight!"
"Are you fools blind? Look at those giant dogs she has with her, and they don't look that happy with us!"
"Ha! They are just a couple of mangy mutts; we can take them out easily."
"Get 'em, boys!"
The gang of hooligans had caught sight of Lucy, who had frozen in fear when she saw the ruffed up, mean looking men all looking right at her. More than of few of them were blatantly staring at her… assets. She wrapped her arms around her chest and looked down at her growling friends that were just waiting for the order to attack.
With one simple word, the dogs were sent flying forward to intercept Lucy's attackers, "Attack!"
Ryu and Bost immediately bit down on the closest humans to them, pinning them down with the force of their charge. All the men around them shouted in surprise before drawing whatever weapons they had.
Bost was hit in the shoulder by a side swipe of a knife before he could jump off of the goon he had pinned.
Ryu narrowly dodged a wildly fired shot of a pistol, whipping around and biting the guy who held the guns arm.
Lucy was trying to stay out of sight the best she could and not draw attention to herself. She was worried sick over Ryu and Bost, but if she tried to help, they would get distracted and possibly hurt.
Bost let out a snarl of pain and bodily jumped onto the man with the knife, knocking him over. He then savagely bit the man, leaving his long muzzle coated with his blood. Three others came up to help and Bost let out a feral snarl as he leapt towards them. They managed to get a few hits on him before he knocked them to the ground, leaving them with quite a few bites in the hope that they don't get back up.
Ryu wasn't doing badly for himself. He had only gotten hit a few times, and his technique of running around them and attacking from behind before they could turn around seemed to be working. The dogs had been taught to never kill, however, and they never got enough time to injure anyone that they attacked enough for them to not be able to get up again before being attacked.
The wave of attackers was seemingly endless. The ones on the ground never stayed down and soon Ryu and Bost were overwhelmed. Soon enough, both of the large black dogs were lying on the ground, unconscious and bleeding heavily. Lucy jumped out of her hiding place before the criminals could finish off her dogs. "Don't hurt them, please! I'll do anything, just don't hurt them anymore!"
The leader of the gang stalked forward. "Not hurt them? After what they did to my men, we are going to rip their guts out and kick their carcasses across this alley like the pieces of trash they are!" He then slapped Lucy, sending her spiraling to the ground.
Lucy could barely see through her tears as she struggled to rise to her feet once again. "Please, don't hurt them!" she tried to plead one last time. The man smiled cruelly down at her, raising his foot to deliver a powerful kick to her side.
His foot never connected. A figure down and intercept the kick, grabbing his foot with one hand and saying, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Happy, check on the Hellhounds."
Lucy rose to her feet and quickly looked over her rescuer. His most noticeable feature was his pink hair, and he looked to be a boy around her age. His muscles were visible as he blocked the man's angered hits. Lucy tore her gaze away from him and back to her heavily injured dogs.
Lucy ran over to the first dog she could reach, kicking her assaulters out of the way. She kneeled down next to Bost, examining the many wounds lacing his body. She immediately noticed the multiple knife wounds and maybe a broken bone from any of the blunt weapons he was hit with while fighting. She stared at the wounds worriedly, not having anything with her to treat the wounds with at that moment.
She decided to then move over to Ryu. Ryu was in much the same condition as Bost, heavily injured and panting heavily even when he wasn't awake.
Lucy felt like she might faint at the gruesome sight of her injured friends, but pushed passed the feeling out of concern. Her pink haired savior came over to stand beside her.
"We need to get them medical attention, and fast. I can carry one and you can take the other. My guild should be able to fix them up right away, so no worries! Follow me!"
With that, the pink haired stranger scooped up Bost into his arms. Blood immediately started to seep onto his vest, but he didn't seem to mind.
"We have to get them medical attention now before they bleed to death." There was no mistaking the urgency and pleading tone of voice Lucy directed at the stranger.
Lucy scooped Ryu into her arms and looked at the teenager carrying Bost as he broke off at a run. Lucy immediately followed, lagging behind due him being a faster runner than her. She sped up in an attempt to keep up and ran as fast as she could.
Ryu was a dead weight in her arms, and Lucy had no idea how she was managing to pick up the massive dog, let alone run with him.
Both of them barged into a large building, screaming for medical help for Lucy's dogs. In no time at all, the dogs were taken from their arms and taken to another room to be treated.