I'm very sorry for posting late! here's the next chapter! *grins and sweatdrops*
Kura, Ren, and Aiko looked up as Lucy went up to their table. "Hey Lucy." "Hey!" "hello." They all greeted her warmly but then recognized the waves of distress coming off of her.
Kura, a purple haired mage that they met a little more than a month ago, wore a simple violet dress with a long black vest on top. She was an Energy Dragon Slayer, meaning she could eat anything that had energy in it, although she still preferred using the sword at her hip. It could change into several different forms. Kura was drinking a cup of coffee as Lucy came forward.
"Lucy, what's wrong?" The purple haired mage lowered her cup and frowned at her friend's obvious anguish.
"Yeah, Lucy you seem sad." Aiko the little purple Exceed pouted. She was a shy little cat that was sensitive to other people's emotions. Aiko had purple fur, a bushy tail, and sprout wings like all Exceeds could if she wished.
Ren, on the other side of the table, was a darker skinned man who wasn't as close as Kura or Aiko was to Lucy. He was broad shouldered and about as tall as Gray, wearing a red and yellow shirt with crimson pants. Team Natsu and Kura and Aiko had saved him from the Clockwork Tower last month, and he was the Energy Dragon Slayer's childhood friend. After all that had happened, Kura and Ren started dating.
Lucy seemed to forget how to speak, and she wasn't sure how to tell them. "Damien is back and he took all of Natsus memories of me!" The blonde blurted. Kura frowned, then completely registered the information and immediately spat out the coffee she was drinking, also spraying Ren in the face. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and handed Ren a napkin sheepishly.
"Ew." Ren commented, cleaning off his limbs.
"But Damien's back!" Kura stood up and Lucy quickly pushed her back down.
"Shhh! Master's about to set up a conference and Natsu will hear you if you get any louder!" she hissed, tears once again forming in her eyes. "We can't have him knowing." Letting go of Kura's shoulders, she was gripping them tightly she noted, she stepped back, wiping away the water and breathing in deeply.
"But, Damien took all of Natsu's memories of you? How is that possible?" Aiko asked.
"All of his memories of me are replaced with Lisanna. He found Lisanna at Hargeon. He got 'DAYBREAK' from Everlue's mansion with Lisanna. Before he 'met me' this morning, I didn't even exist." Lucy pouted and looked away, grabbing her shoulder with one hand. She felt sick. Physically ill. "Damien put this into Natsu's scarf." She held up the note and Kura took it gently. Reading it over, she showed it to Ren and Aiko.
She handed it back. "So Damien didn't die." She said quietly.
"I don't know any other Damien's. And besides, who else would want revenge on Natsu and I other than him when Gray found this conveniently tucked into his scarf?" Lucy asked. Her stomach was churning.
"You're right. We should keep our guard up." They all looked at her and the second mental weight seemed to crash down on her shoulders.
"Everyone!" Master called. The Fairies looked up, where Master Makarov was standing on the banister. Lucy looked around. Natsu wasn't here, but everyone else was. He was likely pushed out.
"We have very disappointing and sad news." He started. The Fairies shifted. If Master got involved with the words 'disappointing' and 'serious' it was likely grim. "Damien, the villain who Team Natsu and Team Kura defeated last month is back. He has stolen all of Natsu's memories of Lucy, most likely for revenge of his defeat. From now on, we will be playing by Natsu's new memories, so act like Lucy is a new member since last night while he is around. Also possibly try to keep them together and hope he remembers who she is.
Master looked up at the ceiling, then refocused on the guild members below him, voice raising. "He dared touch our guild once. He dared hurt two of our guild members. From now on, we will send out search parties to find his whereabouts and send him to jail, where Damien properly belongs." Most of the Fairies cheered, while some members looked concernedly at Lucy in the background.
"Wendy, Lisanna, Team Natsu including Natsu, and Team Kura, you should go look at Lucy's house where this all started. Try to find any clues towards Damien's location."
"Aye." Everyone went off while the named people collected together. Someone found Natsu and pushed him towards the group. Lucy almost cried seeing him, but bit back tears, hardening herself for what was coming. She put on a fake smile.
"So, we shall follow Master's orders and go to Luc—Lisanna's house." Erza corrected herself, glancing at Natsu. The Fire Dragon Slayer didn't seem to notice.
"Natsu, since Lucy's new to the guild we decided to take her with us to try and find Damien!" Gray announced to him. The pink haired boy shrugged.
"Okay, good with me. What magic do you use?" He turned to Lucy, making her uncomfortable.
"C-Celestial Spirit Magic." Natsu frowned.
"What is that magic? I've never heard of it."
Lucy sunk deeper into her pool of misery. Of course he never knew what Celestial Spirit Magic was if he never met her. "I summon Spirits from the Celestial Spirit World."
Natsu smiled. "Sounds good. Nice to have you on the team." But he quickly turned back to Gray and started fighting him. Wendy, the small blue-haired Dragon Slayer looked up at Lucy concernedly.
"Are you okay Lucy-san?"
"I'm fine."
Wendy crossed her arms across her chest. "Lucy, are you really fine?"
Lucy's eyes were hooded. "No, I guess I'm not. It'll just take some getting used to. We don't know how long he'll be like this."
The young Sky Dragon Slayer looked up. "If it's mental problems I could probably help. Healing his mind, but I don't know how much it'll do. If anything, if I healed him only half-way it could scramble his mind even more. But I don't think that's the case." Wendy's eyes turned distant.
"Damien is smart, and he probably checked up on FairyTails databases before doing this. He wouldn't choose a spell so easily dispelled, especially if there's a Sky Dragon Slayer in the guild. My guess is that he used an orb to collect his memories, shifted them, then allowed the babies to swarm back inside his head, leaving the parent memories behind."
Lucy looked at her nakama. "You can do something like that?"
"Yes. It would take a high level of Magic, but I'm pretty sure he could do it. Of course, this type of Magic isn't permanent, but if my theory is true than I can't just heal him. I could easily take out the Baby memories, but this would leave giant gaps in his mind that wouldn't be... easily replaced. It's best to regain the parent memories and put them back into his head, and then get rid of the Babies."
Lucy sighed. "So if that's what happened then we would have to find Damien before we help Natsu, right?" she watched Natsu, who had stopped fighting with Gray to hold hands with Lisanna. The silver-haired mage was very nervous, and kept trying to pull her hand out subtly, but Natsu wouldn't let go. At least he wasn't trying to kiss her, Lucy thought miserably.
They reached Lucy/Lisanna's house shortly, Lucy passing the key to her house so that the other female mage could open it. "Okay, here's the plan." Erza announced. "Wendy, Lucy, Kura and Natsu will go look outside. Gray, Lisanna, and I will look inside. Ren and Aiko will do an aerial spot." Lucy thought it was a good plan. Team her up with Natsu, getting Ren in the air because he had good eyes, Erza to search, and three Dragon Slayers powerful noses to try and sniff Damien out.
The groups headed out to do what Erza commanded. Lucy's group headed towards the canal. "I think the alleyways are the best place to search first." Kura said. She was looking up nervously at her two team mates up in the air, scouting above. Lucy knew what she was worried about. With Damien on the loose it wasn't good enough to be two on your own.
"Yeah, I guess." Lucy was the only non-Dragon Slayer here. Wendy and Natsu had excellent senses, including smell and hearing and possibly sight, and Kura had begun to get improved senses after she realized she was a Dragon Slayer.
Lucy reached into her satchel and grabbed a pair of gloves she always kept around. Putting them on, she followed the main group into the first alleyway and started searching. They found nothing, so they moved onto the next.
Several alleys later, the Dragon Slayers all tensed in front of the second last alley, a little off from the front of Lucy's house. "What's up guys?"
All three started sniffing the air. "It smells funny." Wendy stated.
"For one thing it doesn't really smell like garbage, like it should. There's something masking the odour." Kura said stepping forwards.
"Yeah. It used to be really thick, but the smell must have faded overnight." Natsu frowned, and then went into the alley. The others followed. Lucy didn't smell anything until they got deeper. There was the faint smell of...
"It smells like charcoal." Lucy blinked. It really did.
The three Dragon Slayers turned around. "To me it smells like snakes." Wendy said.
"Vanilla." Natsu said.
"Fresh cut wood" Kura frowned. "Okay, this smell has something wrong. Charcoal, snakes, vanilla, and wood all have very different smells."
"Yeah," The Sky Dragon Slayer said. "For me it clearly smells like snake."
"Let's all go deeper and see if we can still find anything." Lucy said. The group continued walking, quickly checking garbage piles and corners to see if there was any signs of Damien. The smell was getting stronger, and Lucy found herself subconsciously tapping her Gate keys on her belt.
"What's that?" Natsu asked, pointing. It was shattered glass, all in a fairly neat pile. Everyone bent over the mess. It was where the smell was originating from.
"It smells like him." Kura said. Nobody needed help with who 'Him' was. The Energy Dragon Slayer carefully picked up the largest fragment, where something blue, looking like smoke, was trapped. She sniffed it curiously.
"It smells like him." she repeated. The group looked at her in confusion.
"Kura-san, you already said that." The little Sky Dragon Slayer said. Kura looked at her, blinking.
"I did?"
"Maybe the smoke make you forget." Lucy said.
"It makes sense. And look," Wendy pointed to the broken glass. "They're all curved perfectly in the shape of an orb. The orb could have contained the smoke."
Natsu took the glass fragment gently from Kura. "I wanna try." He said, and then smelled it. Almost instantly, he started gagging, and he dropped the glass fragment, shattering it and releasing the smoke.
"Uh, Wendy! We need medical support!" Lucy cried. The little Dragon Slayer was already on it. She hit him on the back, hard, making him cough more, but a little tendril of smoke flew from his mouth. Natsu gasped for air but he seemed fine now. "I could have done that." Lucy muttered.
"Rule number one; don't let Natsu sniff the smoke," Kura said, bending over Natsu and helping him up.
"Why not?" the Fire Dragon Slayer asked, perfectly fine now.
"You forgot. Of course." Lucy couldn't help her old stubborn self come in. Natsu looked at her strangely, and immediately she clammed up. It looked strange that the shy girl that he just met wasn't so shy anymore.
Wendy covered for her. "Well, Natsu, as soon as you sniffed the smoke, you started gagging. It's signs that you have already experienced it. For example, some types of medicine you don't take twice, because the effects become bad for your body. Since you forgot yesterday, you must have inhaled a lot of the smoke to forget that much."
He blinked. "What did I forget?" Wendy clammed up, realizing her mistake. Crap.
Lucy swallowed, preparing to make up yet another lie. "Natsu, you've completely forgot me. We haven't known each other for too long, but for some reason Damien made you forget me." it was a semi-lie, Lucy tried to reassure herself. I'm going to tell him one day, but not now.
"Why would he do that? So I've known you for how long?" Lucy was trying, and failing, to come up with a good lie.
"Well, I came in with Kura and Aiko to the guild. A month ago." Natsu frowned, but didn't push it. He could tell she was lying, but if she didn't want to tell him, he wouldn't cross the barrier.
Natsu looked back at the glass, and Lucy knew that he didn't believe her. She cursed. I will tell him one day.
"Look what I found!" Wendy cried. The group snapped out of its stupor and looked at the Sky Dragon Slayer. She was bent over something.
"it's a Magic-Made feather." She held the pristine white feather up in the air. It hummed softly with Magic.
Lucy took it gently from her hands. "A feather..." she murmured, and then her eyes narrowed. "Eric." She hissed. Eric was the Aera-Magic user that tricked the group last month. He appeared to be a little kid but was really a thieving, conniving mage. "Eric and Damien are the ones behind it." Lucy was accustomed to having Happy shed his feathers in her house sometimes. Even if his wings disappeared, shed feathers didn't.
"Damien was thrown off the tower, but if Eric had wings he could have caught him." Kura stated. "It makes sense. If Damien survived his wounds the two of them could have made a team. Knowing who they wanted revenge on, they targeted you two, deciding to make Natsu forget about Lucy." Kura looked up in the air and sweatdropped as she realized her mistake. "Of course, their plan must have gone wrong. They were aiming for Lisanna's memories, but somehow got them confused with Lucy's and that's why Natsu can no longer remember her." She looked at Wendy and Lucy sheepishly, putting on a wide, guilty smile. The two sweatdropped.
Luckily Natsu didn't notice the slip. "I am gonna punch their faces in the next time I see them." He punched his knuckles together, the temperature suddenly rising. The group exited the alley.
"Everyone! Over here! We found something!" Kura called. Head popped out from the house and Ren in the air dropped down with Aiko. Everyone walked towards their team.
"We found a feather!" Natsu announced.
"What's a feather gonna do?" Gray automatically demanded, in his boxers. The two started fighting, but Lucy and Erza pulled them apart quickly. They clocked them on the head, hard, knocking them out cold. Little chibi ghost flew from their skulls.
"This feather belongs to Eric." Erza bent down, face to face with Gray with her scary look on. "does it need any more description? We now know that Damien and Eric are working together." Gray nodded quickly and she stood up. "We could trace them with this, but we'd need to go quickly, before the smell washes off."
Everyone nodded. "Who volunteers?" Lucy, Erza, and Gray raised their hands, Natsu cried out his approval, and Kura's group nodded. Lisanna and Wendy were the only ones who didn't offer.
Natsu pouted and started whining. "Lis-anna! Why aren't you coming?"
The silver haired mage shot a quick look at Lucy, turning uncomfortable. Her fingers tapped nervously on her arm. "Uh, erm. Natsu, I'm kinda busy here."
"With what? I can stay and help you."
Lisanna looked away. "It's... personal. You go without me." Lucy inwardly groaned. That was the WORST thing you could say to Natsu to get him to leave. He would never leave someone behind.
"But Lisanna! We can't leave you behind!" he said, confirming her suspicions. "And besides, what if Damien comes back and tries to hurt you! I can't help you if you're away from me!"
A vein popped in Lisanna's forehead. "Go, you fiery moron!" Lucy didn't know the polite silver mage had it in her to yell at someone. Chuckling softly as Natsu 'aye-ed' and ran to go with the group, only reminding herself painfully that Lisanna just did what she used to do. Yell at Natsu when he was being endearingly stupid. She was sure that she was just as scary as the Take Over mage was when she was mad.
"Oh, Lu— Lisanna's in her scary mode! Better run Natsu!" Gray teased, sending a sheepish, apologetic half-smile at the Celestial Spirit mage. He always would mock whipped Natsu whenever he became soft when Lucy was angry, and it was another, along with stripping, habit of his now.
"Shaddup, Ice Princess StripperPants!" Natsu roared, sending a quick jet of flame his way. Gray swiped it aside, but coughed as the Dragon Slayer leapt on his chest, making him tumble backwards.
A vein in Lucy's forehead popped. "SHADDUP, YOU IDIOTIC MORONS!" the two quickly stumbled away from each other, Gray looking up with a guilty grin on his face and Natsu looking at her strangely. Lucy looked away shyly. She knew it was bad to act like she knew them fondly, instead of treating them like strangers, but sometimes she messed up. The emotional stress was weighing on her like a pile of bricks, causing her only thoughts to be directed towards her issues. She had a lot of them right now.
The Celestial Spirit mage was dancing on a theoretical greased stage surrounded by emotional knives. If she slipped, she would be impaled straight onto the daggers, but if she stayed she would have to dance and dance for the rest of her life.
The only way out was to find the ring leader.
So, I hope you guys like this chapter! yay!
To my reviewers;
KanaeHitomi, thanks for reviewing! I was aiming for suspense! Expect lots of it, plus action and fluff in the future! :D
Dyeni, unfortunately for you, there'll be a lot happening before the two get closer, since he see's her as a weird, shy/tempered girl at the moment. Hehehe, but expect lots of... *a-hem* moments!
and LifeIsWaiting; thank you for reviewing a lot so much! I love getting reviews from you! lets go scream and fangirl together from absolute fluffiness! [or fanguy. I'm a girl, so I just... yeah. sorry if you're a guy] *grins sheepishly*
Plus, I'm sorry this chapter took so long! arg! I started watching Soul Eater [very good anime, plus it comes in dubs.] I started [and finished] it in an embarrassingly short period of time, but I finally managed to squeeze in some time to write this chapter! I give you permission to hit me because I took so long! {;_;}
The next chapter will be coming soon!