Lucy found Loke at Karen's grave. He was fading slightly in and out. She felt her heart break for the spirit. She had no idea how Leo had come to be in this predicament, but she had a solid guess.
She fought for him, using all of her power. The Celestial Spirit King had made an appearance and, though Lucy felt honored, she was angry. She fought for her friend. She fought for Leo to take his place back in the stars.
Lucy feared it wouldn't be enough, that she wouldn't be enough. She was wrong. The King had reinstated Loke as a celestial spirit. She'd saved him and gained a new key. One she would cherish for all of time.
Feeling accomplished, Lucy made her way back into town with a large smile on her face. That smile was wiped away as she was met with a very pissed on Lightning Mage. Laxus loomed over her and she found herself shivering and praying that he wouldn't be too angry with her. She'd only tried to save a friend and it wasn't even one of the ones she was banned from seeing.
"How can you still use magic? You broke our contract."
Lucy shuffled her feet nervously. "I'd planned on coming back," She said, staring at the ground. "Our contract is only broken if I leave with no intentions of returning within a 24-hour period. It's only been five hours."
She looked up at the grunt and rushed to follow the still fuming mage. She was sad that he was so angry but she had planned on returning to him. At this point, she couldn't even be sure it was to protect her nakama and her magic. She truly did wish to please Laxus.
As they laid in bed for the night, Lucy fought with herself. She knew what was happening and was truly unresisting to the pull of her mind to the man who was, for all intents and purposes, her captor. She knew her mind was faltering and dared not to prevent such a thing from happening.
Lucy looked over at the mage who laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling. She smiled softly at him, he looked so dark and brooding. She could practically hear the wheels turning in his mind. He was planning something.
"Laxus?"
His stormy eyes darted over to her, sending a shiver down her spine. "What?" His tone was slightly annoyed. She'd interrupted his thought process. Mental note.
"What are you thinking about?"
He smirked at her. "Taking over the guild," His smirk grew when he saw her discomfort by his words. "By force."
Lucy chewed her lip, she should say something to stop him. But what could she really say? That the guild was her home? Her salvation? That wasn't really true anymore, was it?
No. Laxus had become her home in a matter of days. She knew the psychological break that had occurred in herself. It had effected all of her thoughts on such matters. All she could really consider was how to make the man happy and possibly make him love her.
What did she truly feel for him? It had to be the empathy that had made her bridge the gap between the way Laxus acted and how she had been after leaving the Heartfilia Konzern. She'd felt the way her father had been pressuring her to be what he wanted and the inability to change anything in her life for herself.
This is almost what was happening with Laxus. He was rebelling against his grandfather because he wanted the guild to succeed and didn't see that happening with how reckless Makarov allowed the mages within the guild to behave. Hell, they'd caused almost as much damage to the country as the dark guilds, bandits, and monsters they were hired to stop. That in itself was a reason to want to change the way things ran.
Lucy's mind ran a mile a minute as she worked through the possibilities. She was raised to run a business and running a guild appeared to be no different. There were many ways to change how things were to make the guild less of a laughing stock and more of an efficient, yet still family-oriented, machine.
Maybe she could help Laxus while also preventing an unsavory civil war from breaking out within the guild she'd come to cherish.
A/N; What do you all think? Is this version of chapter 7 better? I am going to keep it as a LaLu story after much consideration and this rewrite has begun from this chapter onwards. Let me know your opinions on the subject!
