Here we are! I know I said I would try and update every day or every other day, though with how busy I have been... I'll just do my best to keep on updating!
For a long time Natsu and Gray simply stared at Loke, the both of them were struggling to comprehend what the Celestial Spirit had said.
"The only way for Lucy to come back, is for her to become a Celestial Spirit?" Natsu asked dumbly, the information clearly not sitting well in his brain. When Loke nodded, Natsu frowned.
"So let me get this straight," Gray began as he crossed his arms over his now bare chest, "You are telling us that it's possible for a Human to become a Celestial Spirit? Even if that Human has died? That sounds awfully convenient, Loke."
Loke sighed before he lowered both of his hands to his sides, the keys jingled in a familiar way that almost made Natsu cringe.
"I never said that just anybody could go through a change like this," he said with a pained look on his face, "It isn't a change that most people would want anyway, especially since it requires losing most of yourself in order to become something completely different. The process of a becoming a Celestial Spirit is a very particular one, the requirements are extremely difficult to meet."
Both the ice and fire mages stared at Loke, silently willing him to continue.
"The first eliminates most Humans, because it is simply that the candidate must have been a Celestial mage while they were among the living. As I'm sure the both of you already know, Celestial mages are not exactly common in the world. The reason for that is because the magic required to summon Celestial Spirits is a very special kind of magic, a very rare kind of magic. A magic that I do not doubt will be completely exhausted from this world within the next few centuries. Every Celestial mage has their name written in the stars.
"The second, is that they must have had a decent amount of magical power. I'm not sure if you knew, but Lucy always had a lot of latent capabilities. I don't doubt that she would have really grown to become a mage that could rival the both of you in power and battle strength."
This was a fact that surprised both of the Fairy Tail mages.
Of course, they'd known Lucy was strong. Though they also knew that she struggled quite a bit when it came to one-on-one fighting.
"The third," Loke continued, "is that the candidate was on good terms with the Celestial Spirit King before they passed on. Considering how close to impossible it is to even meet him, I'm sure you can figure by now just how close to impossible it is to reach the requirements necessary to become a Celestial Spirit. Lucy… well, she was really a very special person. In every way possible. If she didn't reach almost every necessary requirement, I wouldn't be here right now talking to the two of you."
Natsu was growling again.
"What do you mean almost every necessary requirement?" He demanded, "What requirement doesn't she meet? Why the hell would you tell us all of this, only for it to not be possible to bring her back?"
Loke waved his empty hand around, "Natsu, calm down. I didn't say it was impossible for her to reach the final requirement. That's because the final requirement is her acknowledging the fact that she would be abandoning her past. Accepting that she would have no memory of you or Fairy Tail. The reason I'm so unsure that she will be able to reach that requirement however…" Loke trailed off and he suddenly looked very tired. "Its very difficult for me to believe that Lucy would ever want to do something like that. That she would ever willingly choose to forget about you and Fairy Tail."
Gray looked down, and Natsu tightened his hands into fists.
"There isn't even a small chance she'll remember us? Why does she need to forget?" Natsu asked.
"Well for one, they would be her Human memories. Once she becomes a Celestial Spirit… Lucy would no longer be Human. Her entire bodily and mental structure would change, there is no guarantee that she would even look the same. The only thing that would stay true to her, the only thing that would make it all worth it… is the fact that her soul would remain untouched. The essence of Lucy would still be there."
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
"Well, then I guess we're just going to have to leave our mark on her soul." Natsu said with a confident grin, and a fire of determination that burned in his obsidian eyes. A determination that burned so brightly, Gray immediately began to feel motivated as a grin spread across his face as well.
"Hell yeah we will!"
Now Loke was the one staring at them.
It was only a moment before he chuckled and shook his head, "I knew that you'd come to a conclusion like that, which is why I took it upon myself to get these." He held out two fairly plain looking tickets and both Natsu and Gray took one. Only the word 'Solin' was printed on each one.
"These are boat tickets. The only way for you to get in touch with Lucy as she is right now… is for you to speak with a mage who can make contact with her. A mage that specializes in dealing with Human spirits. Unfortunately, the mages who can do this are generally very lacking in empathy. So there is a good chance they will deny you their assistance. Especially since they are sought out quite often by those who are missing their loved ones.
"However, I don't doubt that the two of you will be able to convince somebody to help you out. You Fairies are pretty good at convincing people to do things that they wouldn't normally do. You have a way of changing people."
Natsu laughed at that.
"Well, you're a Fairy too you know!" He said happily, "So you're stuck with the responsibility of sticking to your guns like the rest of us."
Loke chuckled and would have replied to that had he not noticed that Gray was looking down at the ticket he was holding with a peculiar expression on his face.
"Do you have more of these? I'm pretty sure that everybody is going to want to help out as much as possible."
Loke shook his head, "Truthfully Gray, I was only planning on telling Natsu all of this. The information I just revealed is extremely sensitive. The fewer who know, the better. Besides, if Lucy doesn't remember any of you… wouldn't it be more painful on the others?"
Gray sighed before he shrugged.
"I have faith in the two of you," His eyes then were on Natsu, "Lucy really cared about you, you know." Loke said seriously. "I'm not sure you understand just how deeply her emotions for you ran, Natsu. This is why I knew right away that you were the best bet on being the one who could convince her." Loke walked forward and placed a hand on Natsu's shoulder before offering Lucy's keys. "You're going to need these where you're going, be careful not to lose them."
Natsu accepted the keys and quickly made himself familiar with their weight as he looped them through his belt.
"Take the train to Hargeon and then talk to an old fisherman there named Wes. If you show him those tickets, he will know where to take you. I'd offer to tag along, but I've really got a lot of stuff I need to attend to back home. A lot of preparations to make for Lucy." He winked at them before he took a couple steps back and offered a small bow. "I leave the rest to you."
And then he was gone.
"Well, I guess we should get going! I just wish that I could tell Happy where I'm headed, it doesn't feel right to leave him behind."
Gray sighed for what felt like the millionth time since they'd gotten back to Magnolia.
"You heard Loke, we can't draw too much attention to what we're going to be doing. You're lucky to have me around for this, there is no way in hell you would have been able to do something so complicated like this on your own. Especially since it involves traveling by train and boat."
Natsu turned blue at the mention of all the transportation.
"The sooner we get there, the sooner we get Lucy back. If riding a train or a boat is what it takes…" Natsu swallowed uncomfortably, "Then that's what I'm gonna do. Just… just make sure I get off on time."
Gray nodded and the two split up so that they could get ready for the trip. They didn't really have any idea how long it would take, so they figured it would be safe to prepare for the worst. It wasn't too long before they met up at the train station.
"Erza almost caught me," Gray said grumpily as he approached Natsu, the pink hair really stood out in a crowd. "The train better be leaving soon, I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be able to avoid everybody while we're still in town."
When Natsu didn't reply, or even turn around. Gray frowned.
"Hey, Flame Brain, I'm talking to you." Gray growled as he walked around so that he could yell at him properly.
He froze in place when he saw Happy.
Natsu was trying to calm the sobbing cat down as he pet his head, though it really wasn't working.
"Lucyyy," The cat wailed, drawing out the former Celestial mage's name shakily as he trembled in Natsu's arms.
"Hey, don't worry Happy. Everything is going to be okay, you don't need to cry!" Natsu was saying, though it really was a lame attempt at trying to sooth the poor thing.
"H-How can you say that Natsu?" Happy sniffled loudly, "Lucy is gone! Erza had to tell me since you weren't at the guild… you were just going to leave without telling me? You're so mean Natsu!" Despite his accusations, Happy clung to Natsu as if he was afraid that he would never see the Fire mage again.
Natsu looked so conflicted in that moment, it actually made Gray feel a little bit bad.
Before Gray could say anything, there Loke was.
"It's fine." He said without waiting for a proper reaction, "I suppose that I should have said that it would be okay to bring Happy along, though I guess I kind of figured that would be obvious. I know how practically inseparable the two of you are, I'm not an idiot." Happy stared at Loke, clearly surprised by the appearance of one of Lucy's Spirits.
Having said all he needed to say, Loke disappeared just as quickly as he'd popped in. Which left Gray to explain the situation to Happy since they were now boarding the train and Natsu was soon incapable of doing such a thing.
Thankfully, Happy was actually quite smart. He absorbed all of the information pretty quickly and had finally managed to stop crying. Though the comfort of knowing that Lucy would be able to come back wasn't quite enough to completely take away the pain of the fact that she was no longer alive in that moment. It became clear that Happy was thinking that same exact thing when he spoke again.
"I'm glad that there is a way to get her back and all…" Happy said quietly, "But I miss Lucy now." Natsu groaned loudly in response to Happy's words.
"We all miss her Happy," Gray said after considering his words for a minute, "But I think that we just need to focus on where we're going right now. We need to remember why we are going where we are going, I think that's all we can do. Because Lucy isn't here right now." The words felt heavy on his tongue, and Gray really wished that he didn't have to be the one talking like this. "But she will be if we can keep our heads long enough to do all of this right."
The cat sniffled once more, but he nodded in understanding and didn't say anything else on the matter for the rest of the train ride to Hargeon.
When they finally arrived, Natsu practically kissed the solid ground before swiftly standing up with the appearance that he hadn't just been groaning and complaining the whole trip there. "Alright! Now to find this Wes guy, Loke said he was a fisherman right?"
Gray nodded.
"But… isn't Hargeon a town for fishermen?" Happy asked from where he now sat atop of the bag that Natsu was carrying.
Natsu looked around and almost fell over when he saw that most of the people walking around were carrying fishing poles.
"This might be a little bit more tiresome than we thought it would be," Gray frowned before he shrugged, "Maybe we can just ask around. In a town like this, I wouldn't be surprised if everybody knew everybody. You know? I would definitely always want to know the names of my rivals." He glared pointedly at Natsu who didn't even notice.
In fact, Natsu was already approaching one of the randoms that was carrying a fishing pole.
"Hey! Do you know somebody named Wes? He is a fisherman who lives here, we came here from Magnolia to look for him." Natsu was grinning and the older man seemed to be a bit intimidated by Natsu as he took a few steps back to put some space between them.
Natsu really didn't have any boundaries.
"Wes? I'm sorry, I haven't lived here very long. But I can tell you that if you head to the docks, there are bound to be people there who will know who you're looking for."
"Great! Thanks!" And of course, Natsu took off running towards where the man had gestured, leaving Gray to run off after him. So it really didn't take all that long for them to find where all the docs were located. It appeared to be a very busy day in a fisherman's world, as people were preparing their boats at impressive speeds.
Natsu grabbed the next person to walk by and repeated the question he'd asked the man from before, his eyes just as intense as always.
"Yeah, sure I know Wes. But you're not going to find him here, not right now. He went out a little while ago with a couple others, there is a pretty massive school of fish that's passing through. So everybody is trying to get a piece of that, now if you'll excuse me-" he cut himself off as he pulled away from Natsu, nearly falling over in the process since the Fire mage let the man go.
"Can you at least tell us when he might be back?" Gray spoke up.
The man seemed anxious to get moving, but he nodded. "When you go out on a boat, you could be gone all day. Though because of the sheer amount of fish that are here right now, I'd say they could be back within the hour or next few hours. So just sit tight, the name of his ship is Bertha. Good luck!" The young man then hurried off towards a boat that seemed to have been ready to leave without him.
Natsu groaned in annoyance.
"Calm down, you couldn't have expected to be able to get all of this sorted out immediately right? You can be such an idiot." The Ice mage wasn't surprised at all that they'd come to such a bump in the road almost immediately.
"What was that?!" Natsu demanded, his magic flaring as he turned to face Gray.
"I'm saying, that we went into this knowing that it wasn't going to be all rainbows and butterflies. You need to cool it before you wind up breaking something and get us kicked out before we have the chance to meet with this Wes person." He then smirked at the fighting stance Natsu had assumed, "Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to have the chance to beat your face in. But we really can't risk it, not here. Not right now."
Happy nodded in agreement as he patted Natsu's face.
Natsu sighed before he straightened up, putting visible effort in the small task. He was filled with adrenaline that he hadn't had the chance to vent out.
"I guess all we can do is wait then." Natsu frowned before stomping over to the nearest bench and plopped himself down.
Gray looked out on the horizon, watching all the boats that were leaving and returning and he nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, we just gotta wait."
Yay! They made it! Please be sure to review! I need that feedback my darlings ~