Chapter 7: Time to head out
Lucy was on her way home from the guild. She had a strange day so far. She spent her morning talking to herself in the mirror, practising how to confess to Natsu. Then she was dragged into the closet by the dragon slayer she loved and was convinced to illegally go on an S-class mission. Then Carla apparently had a strange vision, even thought Lucy didn't know what the vision was about.
She was on the streets of Magnolia, kicking her feet as she walked on the side walk towards her apartment. She stopped by a few shops to pick up supplies for her, no doubt, difficult mission tomorrow. She was walking with her celestial spirit Plue to keep her company.
"Me and Natsu are going on an S-class mission tomorrow. I'm a little nervous to be honest." Lucy said to her spirit.
"Puun puuuun!" he replied.
"We're supposed to take down this really dangerous mage. The whole thing kinda creeps me out. But Natsu assured me that he'd protect me."
"Puuun!"
Lucy smiled. "I know, he always does."
Lucy would always reply to Plue's sounds, pretending that she knew what he was saying so that she could converse with him and so he could properly keep her company.
"I know if the going gets though tomorrow, he'll keep me safe. Like he always has. He really is my guardian isn't he?"
"Pun pun!"
Lucy started to blush.
"Maybe I'll finally confess tomorrow. I'll stop beating around the bush and just straight up tell him."
"Puuuun?"
"Yeah. When would a good time be? After or before the mission?"
"Pun."
"Yeah, your right. I'll just wait until I know what moment feels right."
It wasn't much longer until Lucy was at her apartment. She unlocked the door and stepped in.
Her and Plue took a bath, and got ready for bed.
Lucy sat on her bed, cross legged, while Plue also sat facing her.
"I'm still really nervous about tomorrow." She said.
"Puun Puun?" Plue replied.
"Half because of the mission, and half because of Natsu."
She laid back, lying down face up on her bead with her head on her pillow.
"I've made my mind up though. I'm gonna commit to doing both. To being brave and taking this dangerous job on, and to confessing to Natsu."
"Puuun!"
"I'm still pretty worried, but I can do it. I'm strong, and I can't hide my feelings anymore!"
"Pun Puuuun!" Plue said as he spun around.
"Haha, thanks Plue! I'll talk to you later. Goodnight!"
And with that, Lucy's cute little spirit waved goodbye and poofed back into the spirit world.
She pulled the covers over her and closed her eyes.
"Don't let me down tomorrow Natsu." Lucy thought before she drifted to sleep.
It was the next morning. Lucy was on her way to the guild where her and Natsu were going to meet before they departed on their mission.
As Lucy neared the guild she couldn't help but have second thoughts about the mission she was about to embark on. She couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of something going wrong. She had this unsettling feeling in her gut.
Not much longer, she arrived in front of the guild where Natsu was waiting for her.
He noticed her approaching and gave her a big grin.
"Good morning Lucy!" he said
She smiled back. "And good morning to you too."
"You ready to go?" Natsu asked.
Lucy nodded. "Ready when you are"
The two then started to make their way to the train station.
As they were walking Natsu looked at Lucy. He stared at her for a bit. Examining her.
His eyes ran from the blue converse sneakers she was wearing, then to her black ridiculously tight skinny jeans, then to her light blue t-shirt and her blue stripped sleeveless cardigan, then to her chest which her blue t-shirt revealed very much of (like most of her clothes), then to her face, and then to her chest again. Then his eyes moved back up to her face. For some reason, he was awestruck by how pretty Lucy was today.
"Was Lucy always this pretty? Well I suppose she was. But why am I only noticing this now?" he thought to himself.
Then his eyes rolled back down to her chest again.
"I've always known those have been awesome though."
Lucy caught him mid-stare.
She crossed her arms in front of her voluptuous chest.
Natsu looked at her face. She was giving Natsu a very stern glare, signalling how obvious he was.
"Heh heh um sorry Lucy! I was just... uh..." Natsu stammered has he shot his eyes away from Lucy.
Lucy couldn't help but smile a little. Maybe if she wasn't in love with Natsu, she would of smacked him. But because she was, she liked that he was checking her out.
"Hahaha, try not to be so obvious next time. That might offend some other girls." she said
"S-sorry. It's just that... you look... really cute today." he confessed
A slightly surprised look appeared on Lucy's face. She blushed and then smiled.
"T-thanks Natsu."
The two continued to walk side by side, not saying anything to each other for a bit. Then Natsu decided to break the silence.
"So it's about time we went on a good job right? This should be exciting!"
Lucy looked down as she walked. Her face started to look a bit worried again and that uneasy feeling appeared in her gut again.
"I was actually thinking about that on the way over here. Maybe... maybe this isn't such a good idea after all." Lucy admitted
"What?!" Natsu said in a shocked voice and stopped in his tracks. 'What're you talkin' about?"
"This mission might be too much for the both of us. I mean... what if something goes wrong? What if you get hurt? I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you." Lucy said
Natsu's stared at Lucy with a shocked and confused face. Then he noticed how unsure and worried she looked.
"Lucy, you don't gotta worry about me. Just worry about yourself okay?"
"I'm worried for the both of us!" Lucy said with a raised voice
"Lucy, we can do this." Lucy looked away, still unsure about going on.
Natsu grabbed Lucy's hands. She looked up at him.
"I believe in us. More importantly, I believe in you. Can't you believe in me?"
Lucy just started at Natsu. Her cheeks blushed and then a small smile appeared on her face.
"I've always believed in you. I'll go, but you have to promise me that you'll be okay!"
"Okay, I promise." Natsu said with a smile
"Pinky promise!" Lucy said as she extended her pinky.
"Pinky promise." Natsu said and he grabbed her pinky with his own.
She smiled at him and he smiled back at her.
"Now c'mon! The train leaves soon!" Natsu said as he began to run towards the train station.
"H-hey! Wait up, dork!" Lucy shouted and she ran after Natsu.
"Uuuuuuugh... how much longer?" Natsu asked as he was lying down on the train seat across from Lucy. His face was green from his infamous motion sickness.
"We only left 15 minutes ago! And we still have another 2 hours yet." Lucy answered.
"I'm gonna -hugh- I'm gonna die before we get there..." Natsu managed to say
"Poor baby." Lucy said as she stuck her bottom lip out jokingly.
"Why don't you stop -hurk- stop making fun of me and try to make me feel better." Natsu pleaded.
Normally Erza would put Natsu out of his misery and would knock him out, but Lucy wasn't capable of that.
"Fine I suppose. Come over here." she said as she signalled Natsu to sit next to her.
"Thank you!" he said as he crawled over to the same seat as Lucy and sat next to her. He laid his head on her shoulder.
"No no. That's no good." Lucy said.
She moved Natsu's head off of her shoulder and onto her lap where he could lie down and rest his head. Lucy put one hand onto the side of his head. Natsu's head faced the seat he was just sitting in.
"This isn't helping." he said.
Then he turned over in his seat so that his face was pressed into Lucy's stomach.
She twitched slightly at Natu's action. She blushed as she looked down at the helpless dragon slayer face's cuddled into her stomach. She smiled and began to run her fingers through his pink hair. His hair was surprising soft and silky.
Natsu let out a muffled sigh of relief. "You're pretty good at this Luce, I feel a bit better already."
Lucy just smiled and giggled.
An hour had passed since they left Magnolia. Natsu was still lying on Lucy's lap with her fingers in his hair.
Lucy lowered hear head slightly to tell Natsu they were half way there.
"Natsu, there's only an hour left until we arrive."
Natsu didn't answer.
"Natsu?"
Very gently, Lucy moved Natsu's head so she could see his face. He was after falling asleep in Lucy's lap.
Lucy laughed as she moved his head back down.
"This has got to be the cutest thing that has ever happened to me." Lucy said as she continued to stroke Natu's head.
After another hour they had finally arrived at their destination.
"Natsu wake up. We're here." Lucy said as she lightly shook Natsu awake.
"Hmm? What?" he said as he got up from Lucy's lap and rubbed his eyes.
"We're here, doofis."
Natsu let out a big yawn. "Wow, that train ride wasn't awful at all. Lucy, your lap is like the most comfortable thing ever. I'm napping on it every time we go on a mission."
Lucy blushed and let out a small laugh. "Well I'm glad I helped."
The two mages made their way off the train.
They took in the town's atmosphere.
It was a small and peaceful town. They people seems oddly calm and relaxed even when there was a killer roaming the outskirts of their town. This place was almost kinda boring and bland.
"This place is really nice and peaceful." Lucy said
"Yeah. And quite. Too quite... it's suspicious." Natsu said with narrowed eyes.
Lucy arched a brow at Natsu.
"Try to not disrupt this peaceful town. Something tells me these people aren't used to action." Lucy said
"That's what's so suspicious!"
Lucy just sighed.
"C'mon, lets find our client so we can get this over with and get paid."
Natsu nodded.
The two made their way to the village library where their client was supposed to be waiting.
It was old and small. It looked like it had been there for over 50 years seeing how aged the wood of the building was and how old the door handles looked.
"Hello? I'm looking for a Mr. Elsworth?" Lucy said as her and Natsu entered the small building.
"Hello. That would be me." A man said as he came out from behind a book shelf.
He was an older man. He had short grey hair and a big grey moustache. He had on a green coat and a council badge.
"Hi! I'm Lucy, and this is Natsu. We're the mages you hired to track down and defeat the dark mage." Lucy said to the man
"It's a pleasure to meet you both. Is it just the two of you?" the man asked, quite surprised that Natsu and Lucy were the only ones.
"Well uh yes actually. Is that a problem?" Lucy asked
"Well not exactly. I just would of suspected that more would be accompanying you. This is quite the difficult task I am asking you to complete."
"You don't have to worry about a thing old man! We're the only two you'll need!" Natsu said with confidence.
"Right, well I'm glad to see you're confident and up to the task. As you already know, I represent part of the magic council. That part that deals with small criminal organizations such as bandits and small dark mage guilds. Normally we don't ask for help but this one person has proven to be quite a difficult catch."
"What is making this so difficult for you exactly? I mean you're part of the council, this should be no problem right?" Lucy asked
"Normally you'd be right, but we've already sent in 3 groups of soldiers. None of them have yet to return."
Lucy gasped and Natsu got serious.
"Because of our current ranking, we aren't permitted to ask for the service of the higher council members. Until this person is proven to be a great danger to a large population of people, he's our problem. But because he's so strong, I've come to realize that my troops aren't skilled enough to take this murderer down. So I employed the help of guild mages such as yourselves. And if I'm am correct, you hail from Fairytail. So your status precedes you. Correct?"
"You're damn right!" Natsu said as he slammed his fists together. "Fairytail is the best of the best!"
"Excellent." The man took out a map and laid in on a table. "I've marked off places on this map that the dark mage may be lurking. There is a small forest north/east from here, and the ruins of a small fortress to the north. He's is in one of the two places."
"Alright." Lucy nodded. "Leave it to us!"
"Right!" Natsu added
"Great. I wish you both the best of luck." the man said.
Just as the two mages stepped out of the library they were stopped by Mr. Elsworth.
"Listen you two. I commend your bravery, but if you both really don't feel up to the task later on, there's no shame in turning back. You're lives are worth more that your bank accounts are."
"We don't know the meaning of turning back, mister. We'll be back before you know it!" Natsu said with a big grin.
"Very well. Good luck Natsu and Lucy."
The two then started walking through town, towards the woods.
"Natsu, I know you'd never run from a fight, but if things start to look bleak, we're turning around okay?" Lucy said
"Relax Luce. Everything will go fine." Natsu reassured her.
She smiled and nodded in comprehension.
But even though Natsu was here to protect her, and he reassured her things would be fine multiple times, she couldn't shake that unsettling feeling that remained in her gut the second they stepped off the train.
