"Admit it", Natsu said with a cocky smirk. "You love me."
aAa LINEBREAK aAa
Gray stared at Natsu for a split second before cuffing him round the back of the head and saying; "You wish flame-brain!"
When Natsu started to bristle indignantly at the nickname Gray offered up a small, begrudging, "Thanks..."
Natsu just laughed, showing off his razored canines, and hit him none too gently on the back, making him wince.
Gray face palmed at his enthusiasm, even as they surveyed the damage around them.
Shattered ice, like crystallised glass, scattered the ground in glistening shards, startlingly blue against the green grass that was flattened in a lop-sided circle around them, clearly showing the battle grounds that they stood on.
Unconscious bodies lay strewn around them like afterthoughts, and Gray almost winced at the awkward angles that some limbs lay, and the spots of blood that glistened red under their watchful gaze. Half crumbled statues lay desolately around them, slowly beginning to melt under the suns last smile.
A few metres away lay a shattered tree trunk that Gray could only vaguely remember crashing into and throwing roughly away from him, shredding the skin on his knuckles as he punched it towards an incoming wave of evil henchmen.
Glancing up, Gray noted how the clouds that floated so peacefully above them were lined with gold and stained blood red by the sun that was settling like an old dog, ever so slowly nestling itself between the far away hills of the horizon. The sky was stained like a murderer's mind, and the wind was gradually picking up in ferocity.
When he looked back down again, Natsu was no longer by his side but towering over the man chained to the ground by Gray's hand, glowering down at him.
The man stared up at him, seemingly unfazed by the menacing silhouette encompassing his gaze. Instead he met his gaze coolly, as though he were lying on the beach rather than chained down with ice that burned his bare skin with cold's icy kiss.
"What do you know about this Recall spell?" Natsu asked, staring down at him with an equal mix of disgust and curiosity.
The man startled them both by laughing; a deep booming sound that sound turned into a rasping cough as blood seeped from his lips and painted his teeth in a macabre smile.
"You don't have time to waste questioning a simple mage like me", he said, dissolving into laughter once more.
Gray and Natsu shared a glance - he was clearly mentally unstable, and the height of his attacks could hardly be described as simple, but it was the gravity of his voice that caught Gray's attention.
"What do you mean we don't have time?" He demanded, stepping forward to join Natsu's side.
The man just laughed and laughed, and now Gray noticed the large shard of ice that pierced his side, sending the ground awash in blood and gore. He found it hard to conjure up regret though - the way the man had attacked him so viciously - and recklessly - had deemed it almost impossible for him to avoid any of Gray's equally strong attacks.
Natsu, obviously short-tempered and bored with his maniacal laughter, stooped down so his face was close to the man and his eyes burned into his like embers.
"What. Did. You. Mean?" He set his fist alight and placed it so close to the man's face that his dark hair started to curl from the heat and his eyes widened enough for Gray to see a peculiar outer ring of the lightest blue around his dark iris, which now widened in the slightest show of fear.
"You have until the sunrise to get your shadows back, or you will succumb to the dark forever", he stated, voice rich and gloating.
His ensuing bout of laughter showered Natsu's face in a fine spray of blood, but by then both of them were already running for the town centre, dreading what had happened to the others in the short period of time they had both been busy with their respective battles.
Behind them, the laughter slowly turned to rasping coughs, and then silence.
aAa LINEBREAK aAa
Lucy had been thrown far and wide, landing with a rather unceremonious splash in the river, which was followed by lots of loud expletives and complaints about "my hair! This top was brand new! Oh, when I see that smug faced creep I'll-"
"Lucy!"
Her head whipped up so fast that her long blonde hair, which was pasted to her cheeks and neck with water, spun like a whirlwind around her head.
Erza stood before her, regal and proud, on the river's side, blue skirt slightly torn or singed in places, scarlet hair fanning out behind her at the winds touch, like blood dispelling in water.
Her dark eyes were fierce and determined, and she clutched a thick sword in her left hand, silver glinting in the last of the sun's rays.
Her forearms were spattered with blood, like a misguided artist's canvas, and several cuts and bruises marred her porcelain pale skin.
Lucy stood thigh deep in water, her cerulean blue tank top turned a deep platho blue with the weight of water it dripped down her slightly bare midriff. Her white short shorts were pulled down low on her hips with the weight of water, and she had lost one of her intricate leather sandals to the silt of the riverbed.
Her keys were still, thankfully, fastened on the white belt around her hips, and gold bangles sang merrily from her left wrist when she moved a hand to push her sodden hair out of her eyes.
Grasping the hand Erza offered Lucy hauled herself out of the river, pink lips curling up in faint disgust as mud squelched between the toes of her bare foot.
Pulling the now limp hair tie from her drying hair she quickly and deftly pulled it up in her half-headed ponytail that was her signature hairstyle, brushing the loose strands out of her warm brown eyes as Erza filled her in.
"I was thrown out towards the East of the town", Erza said, as they walked towards the centre of town – or what had been the town - , Lucy practically jogging to keep up with Erza's brisk pace.
"I could see where Natsu was – the plumes of flames and smell of singed hair was enough, and I knew we had to reconvene immediately. I was set upon by a group of dark mages, only a short distance from Natsu, and we assisted each other, before splitting up to find you and Gray."
So that explains the blood and cuts Lucy thought, thoughts straying to the boys', wondering where they were and if they were okay.
Erza's voice once again startled her from her thoughts; "The only way we stand a chance against so many is to fight together. We were obviously set up", she said in anger, clenching an armoured fist in anger, slightly warping the metal.
Lucy gulped and edged ever so slightly away, the display of anger in the town centre still evident in her mind.
"We must find the others immediately!" Erza yelled with determination, and set off at a run towards town, Lucy half a second behind her.
aAa LINEBREAK aAa
Hey guys, hopefully you like the story so far (:
And because I am an attention whore, and reviews make me all warm and fuzzy inside PLEASE REVIEW :3 How else am I meant to know how good/crap my story is?
Ps, I hope you didn't find any of the characters too OOC, but I think Erza does speak very formally etc., and I hope I got the characters right (: