Sorry this one is so late!
I've had a crap couple of weeks, so the ideas just haven't been coming to me as well lately. But trust me, I'm definitely finishing this! Because I know the frustration of getting into a story just to have the author suddenly stop writing… -_-
So I'm not gonna do that to you guys! Because you've all been so awesome and you don't deserve to be left hanging like that forever!
Disclaimer: Like other people, I wish I owned Fairy Tail, but I don't
Council's Ruling
"WE'RE BACK!"
"Welcome back guys!"
The guild was once again bustling, being a beautiful day around lunch time. Some of the mages were sitting at the tables, eating their serves of food, while others huddled around the request board, almost fighting each other for the jobs pinned up for grabs. A few people enjoyed their time outside, relaxing around the pool and enjoying the calm weather. The recently returned 'Strongest Team in Fairy Tail', casually, but noisily, made their way to the bar where Mirajane was waiting, starving for some food.
"How was your mission in Tatakai?" Mirajane asked with a sweet smile on her face.
Natsu sat down on a stool, his head slumping onto the bench and replied "Booooriiiiing…"
Erza perched herself between him and Gray, and added "The client posted the wrong destination for his escort in the request, so it took longer than we were expecting."
"Not to mention the bandits that ambushed us halfway." Gray nonchalantly said. He then froze under Erza's sudden glare and slowly looked down to find the cause of her anger being that he had spontaneously stripped again, and quickly rustled through his bag for anything to wear so she would calm down before she hurt him.
"Yeah, but they were so weak…" Natsu mumbled in disinterest. He quickly perked up as the young barmaid placed a plate of his favorite, fiery food right in front of him, and he messily devoured it within minutes. Erza shook her head and slapped the salamander over the back of the head for his lack of manners, smacking his face right into his plate.
She then turned to her fellow S-class mage and asked "How has Lucy been doing without us?"
"Oh, she's been just fine! She's been keeping herself very busy with Loke."
The three mages' eyes widened in unison.
Happy jumped up and down in glee, shouting "I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!" In his excitement, his wings sprouted from his back and he darted outside, circling the guild as many times as possible with his newfound excess energy. The others were still speechless as their jaws dropped, a few crumbs of food tumbled out of Natsu's mouth. None of them knew how to respond, as they were unsure as to whether it really meant what they thought. They just exchanged gob smacked glances, with Mirajane looking at them, clueless to their reaction.
There was a sudden bang against the guild doors, and the sound of grunting and groaning from outside. Silence overwhelmed the guild as their attention turned towards the source of the racket.
"Come… on!" There was a light scraping sound and a deep growl, along with the straining voice of a girl. "Stop being… such… a baby…" The silent questions hanging in the room, regarding the noise outside, were answered when the doors opened to reveal a rather exhausted Lucy dragging, with great difficulty, a giant, white lion inside. The two stopped struggling against each other upon entry and glanced over the confused faces of everyone in the guild. The silence was broken when Mirajane cheerfully welcomed them.
"Hi Lucy! Hi Loke!" Then there was another silence, followed by a few snickers which quickly erupted into laughter. Natsu fell off his stool and began rolling on the floor in a fit. Even Gray and Erza couldn't help themselves. Lucy just sighed as Loke let out a small, pitiful cry and shrank behind her to make himself as small as possible, his ears flattening against his head, which was now restrained with a brand new muzzle. Accepting defeat, he continued to hide behind his master as she made her way across the room to where her team sat, ignoring the obviously amused mages around her. Mirajane quickly moved over to Lucy and smiled down at Loke, who was now trying to curl up into a ball.
"He looks so cute!" Lucy rolled her eyes, seeing as Mirajane had been saying that about her spirit since she first saw him in his lion form. "Is that a new accessory for him?"
The celestial mage slapped her forehead and replied "No… THIS…" she held up a long piece of leather that was attached to the back of Loke's muzzle, "is us getting a leash law enforced on us."
"Oh? What happened?"
"Well…"
-THREE DAYS AGO-
"I am a messenger from the council. We have been notified of some concerns regarding your… pet."
Lucy and Loke blinked at the stranger in unison, then looked at each other.
"Concerns? He's only been like this for a day…" Lucy said, feeling very confused.
"Yes, but many people, especially parents, fear for everyone's safety with a lion freely walking the streets." The young blonde stared at the messenger for a few seconds before waving her arms back and forth madly.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Loke isn't an ordinary lion, he's one of my celestial spirits! He's staying with me for a while until he changes back to normal and can go back home. Watch…" She turned to her furry companion and, much to his surprise, spread her arms wide open and said "Give me a hug." Delighted, he raised himself up onto his back legs and wrapped his front paws around her shoulders, rubbing his face against hers. She laughed and pushed him off her before once again facing the council messenger.
"That is impressive, however…" Lucy and Loke's faces fell at the negative turn. "Whether he is an ordinary lion or a magical lion, he is considered a major hazard as long as he is roaming the streets in such a state. Therefore…" She clapped her hands, and within seconds several military mages appeared from around the corners, surrounding the area.
"I am impounding him until you take appropriate measures to properly restrain him for your outings."
-PRESENT-
"So I had to go down to the local pet store and buy a muzzle that doesn't even let him open his mouth and a leash that suppresses his strength and amplifies my own before I could go and get him from the council." Lucy sighed, leaning down onto the bench and dropping the leash at her feet. Her faithful spirit was curled up between her stool and the bar, looking like he would rather to go back home than deal with the humiliation he was suffering. The laughter had finally died down, but he could still feel the entire guild staring at him. He felt his pride slowly die away. "One lousy day and he ends up at the pound…" Lucy mumbled into the wooden bench.
"Oh? I've never heard of a leash like that." Mirajane said, interested.
"It makes it virtually impossible for him to pull away from me, and makes it really easy for me to pull him along. It's designed so weaker people can control larger animals with enormous amounts of strength." Lucy looked down at the lion on the ground, who was lying down and attempting to hide his face under his paws.
"This… is really… Loke?" Natsu asked, out of breath, as he approached Lucy, entering the discussion.
"Oh yeah, you haven't been here, so you wouldn't have seen him like this." Natsu crouched down in front of the lion and brought his face closer, his nose twitching slightly. Loke didn't move an inch, he just stared back at the fire mage through half closed eyelids.
"Well, it definitely smells like him!" He announced to the rest of the team.
"How did this happen to him?" Erza asked, unable to take her eyes off their former guild mate.
"Loooong story…" The blonde replied in a tired voice. She was getting sick of explaining the situation over and over again. The conversation was interrupted when Happy finally returned from his laps.
"Natsu! Natsu! You should have seen! Juvia just pushed Cana into the pool and…" The little blue cat's rant stopped the moment he laid his eyes on the lion on the floor. Happy froze for a bit, but gasped and lunged at Loke, shouting "A GROWN-UP CAT!" and latching onto him. Loke growled and stood up, shaking his coat to try and force the little, excited cat to let go, but failed. Lucy was a little more successful in yanking him off her poor spirit by the tail.
"Happy, leave him alone!" She scolded.
"But… but…"
"Yeah Happy," Natsu added as he looked over Lucy's shoulder at his companion. "Loke's not feeling so good."
"EH?" The winged cat's eyes widened at the realization of who the lion on the ground was. "That's Loke?" The humans around him nodded, then his mouth turned upwards into a large grin. "Cooool…" He swiftly jumped out of the Celestial mage's hold and back down in front of Loke and said "Can you do this all the time? How come you haven't turned into a cat before?" Loke merely looked at the small feline before him with a look of annoyance and snorted, blowing Happy back a little bit, before turning away and continuing to sulk. Normally he was patient with Happy, but he just wasn't in the mood at that time. "Lucy! Loke's being mean!" Happy cried.
"He's been through a lot lately, just leave him alone." She said sternly. Happy slowly nodded and jumped up onto the bench next to Natsu.
"So… why is he here? Shouldn't he be in the Spirit World?" Gray asked before yelping in pain as Erza smacked his hand, which had been creeping towards the top button of his shirt.
Deciding to give them the short version, Lucy replied "Basically we believe Loke will turn back to his human self if he stays here in the human world for a while, away from the Spirit World." She sighed as she received several confused expressions. "Look, I can't explain it all now, but that's how it's supposed to work. Anyway…" She stood up before crouching down and retrieving the leather lead that sat on the floor, "I have to pick up a few things from the stores, so we'll be off now." She turned to walk away, but then faced her teammates once more, pointing a finger at them. "And I don't want to see any unexpected visitors when I get home. Understand?"
"But Lucy," Natsu said cheerfully, "you should expect us to be around there lots by now!"
"Arrrgh!" She clenched her fist as she growled. "I don't want to see you guys, or any evidence of you guys being there, when I get home, understand?" The four mages she was glaring at all nodded in unison. "Good." Lucy huffed and quickly tugged on the lead, jerking Loke out of his own little world and signaling him to follow behind. There were a few last little chuckles as they walked the long, painful walk to the doors and out onto the streets of Magnolia.
"I'm sorry Loke," Lucy sighed, looking down at her friend, who hung his head as he walked beside her on a slack leash. "I didn't expect Natsu and the others to be back because they'd been gone longer than they said they would." Loke growled in response and gave a small, forced smile, although it was hard to see through the muzzle. "And I didn't expect the guild to be so packed either. This is probably going to ruin your image for a while." The two of them sighed and continued to walk in silence for a while, before they finally stopped outside a shop. They stood staring at the products in the window for a minute before entering.
Upon walking through the door, a loud voice boomed "Out! No pets allowed!" The two jumped at the sudden outburst and quickly backed up, fearing the elderly lady's wrath. They then looked back at the window, where a small, easy to miss sign that said 'No pets permitted on premises' sat. Lucy sighed and stared at a nearby lamp post, then at her spirit.
"I'm sorry for doing this to you, but I don't want to have to deal with the council again, and I'm sure you don't either." Loke nodded and shivered slightly. His experience at the pound wasn't exactly the best, seeing as the council didn't really have any respect for animals and didn't give him food or water, so he let her fasten the lead around the pole, tugging on it a couple of times to make sure it wouldn't come undone so she looked like a responsible owner. She petted him a few times on the head and whispered "I'll be real quick, I promise." Loke moaned and watched her walk out of sight before sitting against the lamp post, observing his surroundings, grateful that there was no-one around that he recognized.
Lucy reentered the store, bowed lowly and quickly said "I'm really sorry, I honestly didn't see that sign! It won't happen again!" The old lady behind the counter just huffed and turned to the shelves behind her, leaving Lucy to scour the store for the items she needed. 'Hopefully I won't need to come here again." She thought to herself, slightly offended by the lady's rude attitude. She looked out the window as she heard the sound of children yelling in the street, and saw three boys running around in a circle, occasionally getting in the way of people passing by. She smiled, but then continued searching for what she came for.
Levy wanted some strange herb that could only be purchased in that store for some strange spell she wanted to try, but was too busy to pick it up so she had asked Lucy to buy it for her. The teenage mage didn't really know what she was looking for, so she turned to the shopkeeper and politely asked "Excuse me, do you stock Girdenweed?" The woman pointed a wrinkled finger at the shelves on the far wall, in between two tables. Lucy eventually found the labeled item, quickly snatched up a couple just to make sure she had enough and paid the old lady, who glared at her until she had finally left the shop.
Upon exiting, Lucy tucked the herbs into her handbag and shivered as she pulled her jacket tighter around her body. The sky had darkened and the wind had picked up a little, but it was what Lucy saw, or didn't see, which made her blood run cold.
The lamp post was still there, but Loke was missing, muzzle, leash and all.
Oh boy did this take some effort to write. I kept getting distracted by other things while I was trying to write this chapter.
Anyways, reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated, but not necessary ^_^
No flames though, of course. I already live with a pyromaniac, so I don't need any more of those…
Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll update soon!
~Piplup~