The next morning Lucy again woke up without a Nightmare, all thanks to Cer cuddling up to her. This time though she remembered him and just cuddles a little more with him, before she needs to stand up.
After breakfast they made their way to the hospital to offer their help. Luckily most of the injured, even if serious, were already mostly healed. So Lucy let Nix heal all of them a little bit to help speed up the process. At first the people started to panic because of the way Nix heals but after a short explanation everyone calmed down and let him heal them.
Arriving at the train station they see that the next train to Acacia leaves in one and a half hour. Lucy thinking that this is a perfect moment to start her training searches for a quiet place to meditate.
"Hey Cer, should I call one of my Spirits to spend time with you while I meditate with Capricorn? For example Vul or Plue?", Lucy asked him. "That would be nice but who is Plue?", a confused looking Cer replied. "Ohh... Plue is one of my Silver Keys, he is the Spirit of the Canis Minor, meaning little dog, I always call him to keep me company when I'm alone." Lucy answers him. "Hmm.. Vul I know already, so maybe it would be nice to meet one of your other Spirits.", he smiles at her, hoping he will become great friends with all of her Spirits.
"Then it will be Plue. Open Gate of the Goat and Canis Minor, Capricorn and Plue!" "Puun Pupuun" "Hello Miss Lucy, what can I do for you? And who is this man beside you?", Capricorn asked while bowing. "Hello Plue, Capricorn. I have a little bit time before my train starts, so I thought I can start with meditating. I would like it if you can help me with that, Capricorn? And this is Cerberus, or in short Cer, I thought that Loke would have told you of him. He is a hell hound and my new friend, I hope you will get along well! Plue I want to ask you if you can keep him company? And maybe tell him about our other celestial friends?"
"Pun!" Plue nodded happily while dancing. So Cer again changed in his puppy form, but this time in his normal form with three heads. Lucy told him when they are alone he can change into what ever form he want, just when many people are around she asked him to change in a form with just one head to not scare other people. He is truly happy that she accepts him for who he is and just asks him to change to not scare other people, but isn't scared of him herself. They both begin to play and talk to each other.
In the mean time Lucy settles herself on the floor and waits for instructions from Capricorn.
"Please close your eyes and start breathing slowly and evenly. Try to just focus on your breathing. Ignore the sounds around you, just listen to my voice and your breathing. When you are finished with this, your next step will be to find your magic. Reach into yourself and find the source of your magic. That would be your first origin. If you have found this source try to steadily release your magic. Hold this for as long as possible. I think today it would be best to just work with your first origin, we will add the second origin when you have enough control."
Capricorn observed as Lucy slowly began to release her magic power, her magic manifesting in a golden glow around her body. At first this glow wavers a bit, meaning that she has not completely control over her magic but after a few minutes the glow get steadier, until it's completely steady. He looks proudly down at her, seeing that she has this much control over her magic is quite a big feat. Further he is very proud that she can hold it for this long, it's so much longer then when they trained for the Grand Magic Games. Well this is really no wonder, her calling three Spirits and the Spirit King gave her quite the power up, and now the added three new Silver Keys. Every added Key expands the magic container, Gold Keys more than Silver Keys and of course the Diamond Keys even more than Gold Keys, of course you still need to train to really increase the magic but adding more Keys helps.
The golden glow slowly starts to expand around her and gets brighter, meaning that she is releasing more magic. The magic pressure increased, moving the air around her. Several minutes later Capricorn sees that sweat is slowly forming and that Lucy breathes harder, seeing this as his signal to continue with his instructions he begins speaking.
"Miss Lucy, if you think you can't go any further start to slowly pull back your magic inside your body. When you have safely pulled all your magic back try to pull more magic inside of you, this is the step that will expand your magic containers. You won't be able to pull much extra magic inside of you, since you can't expand your container very much at one time."
After his explanation Capricorn again begins to observe her.
Lucy slowly begins to feel that she can't go on further, so she begins just as instructed to pull her magic back. She sees her magic flow inside of her in golden swirls, thinking how beautiful this is and wishing she could see how it looked on the outside. Feeling all her magic back inside her, she once again reached out to pull more magic back inside of her. And if she thought that before was exhausting than this is on a whole new level. Her own magic flowed back inside of her on its own because that is where it came from. But now she needs to kind of force the magic inside of her and simultaneously will her her magic container to expand, otherwise she couldn't hold this new added magic. Noticing that there is no way to pull more magic inside of her she slowly stops her meditation and falls back in exhaustion, breathing heavily.
Capricorn let her rest for a few minutes before he starts speaking, "I am very proud of you, Miss Lucy. You hold your meditation for nearly a half hour. The incidents, even if rather sadly, which happend lately increased your magic power more than I thought possible. Leo told me of your new Diamond Keys, I believe you just need a few more meditation sessions before you can call them and hold their Gates open for at least a few minutes." At his praise Lucy smiles brightly at him, happy to have improved so much. Her happiness deflates shortly at the mention of the incident which caused her to loose Aquarius, but she pushed these thoughts aside for another time. Not wanting to cry right now.
"You really believe this, Capricorn? Thank you so much, that means a lot to me!", she answered him. "I think we should go back to the train station. Thank you for your help, Capricorn! Plue do you want to go back or stay with us?" "I am happy to be helpful, Miss Lucy. I will take my leave then.", he one again bowed before leaving. Plue replied that he too, would like to go back.
So Cer and Lucy made their way to the train station, on their way they stop to eat a fast lunch.
Two and a half hour later they arrived at Acacia. Seeing that it's rather late, they decide to start the job the next morning. For now they want to find a hotel and enjoy the town a bit.
"Hey Cer, I think I want to walk to Picea where my next job is. So lets buy some camping stuff before dinner. Maybe we can do some other shopping to? I think it would be nice to have some new clothes, for me and for you. You need more than one outfit even if you will be most times in your dog form. But if you don't want to, you don't have to, I know must guys don't like to go shopping..."
"Naahh... I believe a few hours are okay. And you are right, it would be nice to have some more clothes for myself. And I like the idea of walking to your next job. This will give you some time to train and I can run in the forest in my normal form.", he smiles at her.
So that's exactly what they do. At first they buy all the necessities for camping and then go shopping for new clothes.
"Hmm.. I think I want to change my outfit a bit, but not to much.. But I think I should start to show my Aquarius Tattoo. Maybe this will help me a bit to move on. This is after all something I should be proud of! It's a gift from her, I should not hide it from anyone! Even if it still hurts to think about..", Lucy mumbles to herself. Cer with his good hearing hears it nonetheless, but decides that now is not a good time to ask after seeing her sad face. So he does his best to distract her.
"Hey look Lucy, what's with this shop? Maybe a little change for you? I think I will find here something for me too. Hey I have an idea, you go looking for yourself and I for myself but I will surprise you with some outfits for you?" Lucy didn't know, if he heard her and want to distract her but is grateful anyway, so she nods and smiles at him before disappearing in the shop. Cer sighs before following her relieved that the sadness in her eyes vanished for now.
Ohh this is sweet! And this too! And something sexy doesn't hurt sometimes... I wonder what Cer will bring me... I could imagine it's something super sexy.. maybe to sexy for my taste, well I have to wait to find out.
When Lucy has an arm full of new clothes she goes to the changing room.
In the end Lucy's decision falls on one blue lace off-shoulder flare dress, a black ripped high-waist shorts and two new crop-tops, one in dark blue and the other in dark red. The red one has long sleeves.
Now that she had tried on all of her choices she has to wait for Cer.
A few minutes later he arrives. Having decided his own new clothes already he just needs to bring the ones he found for Lucy to her.
As I thought, the most of his things a really sexy and very revealing.. But oh wow, how could I fail to see this one?
Lucy comes out of the changing room with a gold crop-top with a dark blue overlay. "Wow Lucy, you should definitely buy this one! I can't stop looking at you! Heh, I believe this one will help you to many guys.", he winks at her. His compliment brings a heavy blush to Lucy's face and she hurries back to the changing room. Most of the next she tries on are much to sexy for her, so she doesn't even show them. Although two of them she just needs to show.
The first one is dark purple and looks like it's wrapped around Lucy but has a zipper in the middle of the back. When Lucy steps out of the changing room Cer just whistles at her, her blush once again back. Though Cer has a little blush too. Even if this is a little embarrassing Lucy decides to buy it.
The second one is an off-shoulder crop-top completely in black. The front is closed but the back is just laced with many thin strings, you can almost say it's backless.
Stepping out of the changing room Lucy sees Cer with a nosebleed. Even though he is technically a hell hound he still is male. And with something like this.. Well all males are kind of the same.. Lucy sighs at his reaction but then remembers her outfit and blushes immediately. Since Cerberus can't really speak right now he just gives a thump up and Lucy disappears again.
Dressed again in her old clothes they go paying, rather Lucy goes paying since she is the only one with money. On their way Lucy finds some black combat boots, which are all the way up to her mid thigh with a small heel but are still pretty comfy. They look similar to the boots she got from Virgo during the Dragon attack at the GMG.
Having found everything they need, Lucy calls for Virgo to store the bags in the Spirit World. After that they go looking for a place to eat dinner. Cer in his puppy form again.
"Oh look! What do we have here? All alone little girl? You do know this is not really safe for you or not? Me and my friends just want your money. And maybe some fun too? Now that I see you, I say fun too! What do you think guys?", a bulking man appears before Lucy. "Oh yeah, I say we have some fun with her! I can see here a fine piece of ass!" "Yeah and look at these tits!" , two more man said.
Around Lucy and Cer appeared a total of five guys. All of them rather big and bulking but nothing compared to Elfman or Laxus.
Lucy knows that she is really exhausted from the meditation earlier but hoped that she still can call enough Spirits to handle these guys.
"Yeah I think we are going to have fun! Especially when I'm done with beating you up and hand you over to the Rune Knights. I assume you are the group of bandits who is responsible for breaking in and robbing these villagers? And here I thought I need to search everywhere for you. This makes my job a lot easier!", Lucy replies hoping that they didn't noticed her slight fear.
"Oh so you are a mage? Don't get to cocky! After all you are just one little girl, what can you do against five guys alone?", one of the man taunts her.
This though makes her angry, Lucy really hates it when people think that she is weak! Since she doesn't feel any magic and sees no weapons she needs to be careful who she calls.
"Cer, please wait again if possible. Open Gate of the Lion and Ram, Loke and Aries!" "Lucy did you miss me? Your prince in shining armor has arrived!" "So-sorry!"
"Aries, use your Wool Bomb to trap these guys! Loke help me to take them out. But please fast since I'm low on magic from my earlier meditation!", Lucy orders her Spirits.
"Wool Bomb! So-sorry!" "Regulus Impact" "Lucy Kick!" And just like that, they were all knocked out. At this they all sweat dropped, even Aries for once. "Ahh.. Uhh.. Wow.. I didn't see that coming. I thought they would put up more of a fight.. Well thank you anyway, Aries and Loke! Oh and Aries? I didn't introduce you to Cerberus.. So this is Cerberus my new Friend! And Cerberus this is Aries one of my Celestial Spirits and Friends! I hope you will get along!", she smiles at them both.
Aries walks shyly to Cerberus. They both talk for a short time before Aries goes back, due to Lucy's low magic levels.
"I will go back too, my sweet Lucy! Call me whenever you want, for whatever you want!", he winks at her and disappears before Lucy can yell at him.
Lucy still a little bit red turns to Cerberus, finding him looking at her with an amused glint in his eyes, "You have quite the interesting bunch of Spirits."
"Oh, shut up! Better help me with these guys! We need to bring them to the police and then go to the mayor to asked if these were the bandits from our job.", Lucy huffs at him. "Alright... alright... On we go."
They begin dragging the five bandits behind them to the police station but after a short while Lucy has enough and calls Taurus to help them. A few minutes later they arrive and hand over the bandits. The police confirms that these were the bandits and sends them to the mayor for the reward. Telling them that they still need to find the stolen things before the job is finished the police tells them, that they would to it, since they can just question the bandits so that they don't need to search everywhere.
Since it's rather late they walked fast to the mayor to collect the reward. Telling him that the police will search the stolen items after questioning the bandits, Lucy says that she doesn't need the whole reward since she did just some part of the job. The mayor declines and still gives her the whole reward.
Deciding that they, or rather Lucy, are to exhausted to eat at a Restaurant they go back to the hotel. Arrived they order some room service.
"I'll shower first!", Lucy practically yells and runs to the bathroom. Cer just chuckles at her and waits for his turn.
After dinner Lucy calls Master Makarov and reports him about the surprisingly already finished job. At first he is a little bit angry that she didn't call him before starting but than laughs when he hears the full story. Furthermore Lucy tells him about her plan to walk to her next destination.
After a little more small talk they end the call.
Lucy again to exhausted to do anything else falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.
