im so happy that you guys enjoyed my first chapter. Thanks so much! heres the next one, hope you guys like it*
Chapter 2
"How long are you going to have to stay at my house Happy?" I asked half groaning. It was the end of the day and we were walking back to my place.
"I don't know Lucy. I want to go back home but I'm not sure if Natsu wants me there. I don't want to disturb him." Happy replied. I was a little surprised of Happy's behavior.
"Since when have you been so respectful of Natsu's privacy? Aren't you just even a little curios to why Natsu is acting this way?" I asked him. Happy looked at me with an annoyed face.
"Of course I am curious! I'm a cat, I'm naturally curious." Happy responded. I stopped walking for a little bit.
"Then why aren't you doing anything about it?" I asked him. Happy looked down sadly. I let out a sigh to try to calm down.
"Because he seems hurt right now." Happy said. "I don't want to make it worse. You know how he can get." I looked at him with a little sympathy.
"I understand Happy." I said. "But what if it doesn't get better? What if he stays like this for a while? Then when will there be a good time to ask him?" He looked at me. He opened his mouth to say something but he stayed quiet. He then let out a sigh.
"I guess you're right. We should find out what's going on before it gets worse." He said. I smiled and patted his head.
"Don't worry, we will." I said. I clasped my hands together. "So, where should we start?" I saw his face light up in surprise.
"You want to start now?" He said. I nodded.
"I think we should start as soon as we can so that we can get to the bottom of this." I said firmly.
"Get to the bottom of what exactly?" I heard. I squealed and flipped around. Gray and Erza suddenly jumped in front of me.
"Where did you guys come from?" I asked nervously.
"We were walking by when we heard you talking about Natsu." Erza said, giving me a somewhat weird stare. I gulped.
"What happened to what you said about leaving Natsu with his privacy?" Gray asked. I let out a sigh and held my head in shame.
"I'm sorry guys but I'm really worried about Natsu. I've never seen him like this." I said.
"We're worried too Lucy." Erza said. "Which is why we want to join you with this search." I looked at her surprised.
"Are you serious?" I said. Both of them nodded. I was still surprised for a second but then I smiled at them.
"So, where are we going to start?" Gray asked. I thought for a second.
"We could go to the house." Happy said quietly. We all looked at him.
"Do you think he'll have any clues there?" Erza asked. Happy shrugged his shoulders.
"We won't know until we look." He said. I looked back at Gray and Erza. Gray shrugged his shoulders while Erza simply nodded. I nodded back and turned to Happy.
"Alright, let's go." I said. Happy nodded and his wings appeared. He started flying towards their house and we followed.
* * *
We made it to the house just in time to catch our breath. We practically ran all the way here so we were tired. I got on my knees and pant real hard.
"You guys wait here a bit. I'll check the inside to see if he's there." Happy said. I nodded my head and he flew into the house. I heard Erza's armour clank as she sat down on a tree. Gray sat next to her.
"Never seen you this tired before." He joked.
"I am only human Gray." She said smiling. I smiled as I walked over and sat down next to Gray.
"Hey, don't you have a spirit that is like a dictionary?" Gray said. I looked at him confused. It took me a while for me to finally understand what he was talking about.
"Are you talking about Grampa Crux?" I asked.
"I don't know his name but sure." He said.
"Do you think he will know who this Ellie is?" Erza asked.
"I'm pretty sure he will but we need more information first before we ask or we'll be searching for a bunch of other Ellies." I said. Gray groaned.
"Well that's jsut great." He said. Erza chuckled a little.
"Don't fret Gray. We'll find out what's going on." She said. She reached for his head and pulled it toward her chest. His head made a loud clunk.
"Ow, that hurts." He said. I chuckled a little. I then heard something like Happy flying toward us. I turned to see him getting closer to us.
"No one's home. Let's hurry before he gets back." He said. I nodded and got up. Gray and Erza followed. We quickly walked up to the entrance and opened the door. The doorway let in enough light for us to see that the whole place was mess. I groaned at the sight.
"How can you two live like this Happy?" I asked. He looked at me.
"Because we're not you Lucy." He answered. I made a face at him before I walked inside.
"Where are we supposed to look? What are we supposed to look for?" Gray asked. Happy looked around the house.
"He might have something in his personal stuff. We could start there." He said. He pointed to a chest at the edge of the wall. We all walked up to it Gray tried to open it but it wouldn't budge.
"It's locked." He said.
"Is there anyway we can open it without making it look like something happen here?" I asked. Gray looked down at his hands.
"Maybe." He replied. He put his hands together. Cold air started to come from his hands. When he released them, two small ice pieces appeared in his hands.
"I didn't know you knew how to lockpick Gray." Erza said surprised.
"I dabble." He replied. "This might take a while though since I'm not that good yet."
"Fine, I'll look around the house more while you open this. Erza, can you keep watch for Natsu?" I said.
"Of course Lucy. If I see Natsu coming, I'll throw something through that window" She said pointint to the window. I nodded at her. She turned and walked out of the house. I turned back around and looked around the house.
"Ok, if I were Natsu, where would I keep my secrets?" I asked myself. I shrugged my shoulders. "What secrets? Natsu doesn't have secrets." I looked over at Happy who was trying to help Gray pick the lock. "Happy, is there any other place Natsu could have any other personal stuff?" He shook his head.
"Not really. You said it yourself, Natsu doesn't really keep secrets." He said looking around the house. I let out a sigh. I can't give up yet. I thought to myself. I have to find out what's up with Natsu. I walked around the house to see if there were anymore clues.
I shifted around all the messy clothes and trash to be thorough. Ugh this is just gross. I thought. I suddenly bumped into something. I looked up to see my old maid uniform. Oh that's right. I turned my head to see the billboard. It had all of the jobs and journeys he ever took. I smiled as I saw the post of our first job together, Duke Everlue's mansion. It brought back good and bad memories, like having to deal with that sick old man and his stupid ego. It made me groan thinking about it. Regardless, it was still a good day for our first job, even if we did end up completely destroying the whole mansion. Now days, it's not a big deal but I was still new to the guild so it was pretty horrifying at first.
"Are you going to stare at that all night?" I heard a squeaky voice behind me say. I turned to see Happy in the air.
"Sorry." I said turning back to the billboard. "Got caught up in the moment." He flew next to me.
"I get what you mean. I do it too." He said. "Pretty amazing, isn't it?" I nodded at this.
"Yeah." I replied. I ended up staring at the the board for so long, I didn't notice Happy fly up to it. He took a piece of paper and a picture from it. He turned to face me.
"I don't remember these being up here." He said. He held them to me and I took them. One was a picture of an open space in the middle of a forest. There was visible dirt patches in the middle with a small gravestone there. I looked at the other paper, which only had a sentence written there, "It's my fault." I looked back at the picture. I looked closely to try to see the name on the on the gravestone. It was too blurry to see correctly but I could make out the name "Ellie" on it. I let out a small gasp.
"Happy, this gravestone says Ellie on it." I said. He flew beside me to see. I saw his eys go wide.
"What do you think it could mean?" He asked me.
"I have no idea." I said. I suddenly heard something land near me. I looked down to see Erza's sword near me. I looked up in surprise. "Natsu's coming." I said. I turned to Gray, who was digging in the chest. "Natsu's coming Gray." I told him. He turned to me and saw Erza's sword. He nodded and closed the chest. Once he was done, we made our way to the door. I peeked out to see if Natsu was anywhere in sight. Once it was clear, i made a motion with my hand signaling for us to go. We all ran out of the house and deeper in the the woods. We eneded up running into Erza there.
"Did you find anything?" She asked. I nodded.
"I found a picture of a gravestone with Ellie's name on it and a paper that says 'it's my fault'." I replied.
"Ellie? Like on the request paper?" Gray asked. I nodded at him.
"He must've posted that on the board today. I've never seen it before now." Happy said.
"So this Ellie must've been someone from his past." Erza said.
"Yeah but what kind of job did he do to get payed only 70,000 Jewel?" Gray asked. I was deep in thought when I heard do someone walking at the house.
"We'll have to figure it out later. We need to get out of here before Natsu notices anything." I said. They all nodded at once.
"We'll meet up in the guild archive tomorrow to see if we can find out more about this." Gray said. I nodded and he and Erza ran back into town. Before I left, I turned back at the houshouse one last time. I could barely make out someone walking up to the doorway and entering. I let out a small smile.
"I hope you're ok Natsu." I said softly. With that, Happy and said goodbye and went our separate ways.
END
getting intense isn't it? You finally have a few answers but now you have more questions. Who is Ellie? What happened that was Natsu's fault? Why is he acting this way? and what exactly was the job he took? let's see what happens in the next chapter! thanks for reading guys!*