Guess who's back? ;)

Chapter 10

The rain poured on as the two girls entered the first stretch of trees near the town's entrance. While the canopy of yellowwood and oaks offered some reprieve from the storm, their field of vision was drastically cut, the world turning so dark that one could only see a few yards ahead.

Lucy sighed, pausing to shove the drenched bangs out of her eyes. Rain steadily fell around them through the gaps of the leafy canopy above. How she wished for Horologium to crawl inside of, but the clock spirit's contract forbade assistance on Sundays unless there were dire circumstances. Besides, she was soak already, so all it would do is protect her from the rain that has already done quite a number. Nevertheless, she pushed on, shoving branches aside as she made her way back to where Clary stood, scribbling runes onto her limbs with her stele.

It was fascinating, watching the petite redhead draw on her arms with the same graceful dexterity as Reedus and his brushes. The glow from the stele provided some much needed light, illuminating the Shadowhunter in an almost halo-like glow.

"Ugh!" the girl grunted, not too gently tucking her stele back into her boots. "No matter how many times I try, the Night Vision and Vision runes aren't working. Maybe the rain is nullifying its effect," she mused, biting her thumbnail absentmindedly. "But, for whatever reason, I won't be able to use them for seeing."

She pushed her water-logged curls back, staring at the awning above. "Man, I wish I had my witchlight," she whined.

Lucy blinked. "Witchlight?"

"Oh!" Clary exclaimed, turning to face the blond. "A witchlight is a smooth, gray stone that emits light in the hands of the Nephilim. Jace gave one to me as a gift claiming it will bring light, even among the darkest of shadows." She sighed in defeat, throwing her hands up. "Sadly, that won't do much good right now, since I left it back at the Institute. I didn't think I would need it for the mission we were going on."

The two girls continued forward, careful to pick their way through with what little light they had. Curiosity flooded Lucy's conscious on Clary's comment.

"So. What exactly were you doing before you ended up in Fiore?"

Clary paused briefly, as if weighing something in her mind. Shaking her head a little, she resumed her progress while answering Lucy's question.

"The five of us were tasked with meeting up with a group of Shadowhunters to help clear out a demon nest. I created the Portal that would allow us to teleport there, but instead, we ended up pulling a Wizard of Oz and crash landing in your forest."

Lucy nodded, although she didn't understand the whole analogy part on some wizard named Oz. Is he some famous wizard there?

The two girls continued to converse about other odds and ends as they slowly picked their way through the darkness. They spoke about their world, where they came from and how they came to know their friends.

"Seriously!" Lucy shouted at one point, spinning to look at the Shadowhunter. "You only met these guys a couple of months ago? It's almost like you've known each other for years."

Clary rubbed the back of her neck self-consciously. "Yeah. I didn't even know the Shadow World existed until I was pretty much dragged into it. I learned a lot about my past in ways I would've never imagined."

"How so?"

"Well…"

Ten minutes later, Clary had given Lucy a rough rundown of her adventures of Shadowhunting up to that point, including the whole ordeal about her screwed up family tree.

"Man," Lucy said awkwardly after she finished. "I know my father was a little messed up, but yours was downright sadistic." Clary could only nod to that.

Lucy then spent a little bit of time talking about her past life and how she joined Fairy Tail. She even shared some of the crazy journeys she had been on with Team Natsu that caused Clary to burst into laughter. They had just gotten to the Edolas journey when Clary broke her off with a laugh.

"Really? This 'other' Natsu can drive a car and evade police while your Natsu is incapacitated by the slightest motion?"

Lucy chuckled. "That's right. Quite a shock just how different everyone is in the other world. Wendy's doppelganger actually has bigger boobs than her, apparently. Talk about cup jealously, Wendy was pouting about it for a whole week."

"That's horrible, but hilarious at the same time," Clary wheezed out in between laughter. The girls, despite their wet condition, were happy talking about and learning more about their different worlds.

"Yep. Eventually we were able to return home, but with some interesting company in tow," Lucy explained, telling her about Gajeel's new miniature companion and Lisanna returning from the dead. When she mentioned Lisanna, Lucy couldn't help but let some sadness dripped into her words. Hopefully, Clary wouldn't notice.

"What's the problem with Lisanna?" Clary asked, her laughter dying down into a more sincere tone. Apparently she had heard her after all.

"It's nothing really," the celestial wizard responded a little too quickly, trying to backpedal and stop any further questions from being raised. Nonetheless, Clary didn't let down, staring deeply in Lucy's eyes, as if her green orbs could pull the truth right out from their very depths.

Lucy sighed. "Lisanna is an old friend of Natsu, presumed dead for some while. However, after she came back, he had spent quite a bit of time with her. I know they were catching up for lost time and everything, but… I don't know, honestly."

"Ahhh…" Clary realized. "You're jealous that Natsu was spending more attention on her than you."

"No no! Not at all!" Lucy cried out, waving her hand ecstatically and her face flushing red in embarrassment. "Besides, Natsu and I are just best friends, that's all. There's nothing going on between us."

"Hmmm…" Clary considered, turning back towards the blond mage and looking at her with the most serious gaze ever. "Are you really sure about that?"

"Huh?"

"Honestly, it's not good to have these types of thoughts, where the two different sides of your feelings battle it out for dominance and understanding. In my opinion, try to puzzle out how your heart feels, and them go from there." With that, Clary turned back around and marched forward into the dark forest.

How my own heart feels? What could she mean by that? Lucy wondered as she chased after the receding redhead as to not lose her in the darkness. Some time passed before their surroundings became brighter, the trees finally taking more distinct shapes.

"Could we approaching an exit?" Clary asked.

"Possibly. Let's hurry up," Lucy replied, and the two girls booked it towards the tree line. Once they broke past the last row of trees, they were forced to shield their eyes at the sudden change in lighting. However, when their eyes finally adjusted, they could only stare in horror at the scene unfolding before them.

X

Clary has seen and been involved in a lot since she joined the Shadow World. She fought off vampires in Hotel Dumort, made her way through an army of Forsaken alongside werewolves, had passed by the gruesome slain figures of Silent Brothers on her way to save Jace, saw a little bit of the fight on Valentine's boat before being taken by a winged demon, ran alongside Jace through the burning streets of Alicante on her way to free Simon, and finally witnessed the murder of Jace, Valentine, and Jace's resurrection at the hands of the Angel. To put it in short words, she had seen some shit. However, it still didn't steel her for what was ahead.

A desolate wasteland awaited beyond the tree line, charred and blacken fields stretching as far as the eye could see. Smoke stacks rose up in the distance, adding to the stormy sky a darker shade of grisly black. The girls slowly wandered from their spot at the tree line and into the scorched grounds, looking about in disbelief and the sort of wariness that accompanied dangerous situations.

What on Earth could destroy this town so badly? Clary mused as she strode further into the soggy wasteland, trying to shield her eyes a little bit to see better in the merciless downpour. Something crunched underfoot and Clary glanced down to see the shattered remains of a femur under her water-logged boots.

"AH!" Clary shouted, stumbling backwards into Lucy, who stared down at the crushed bone. The blond lifted her head, eyes widening as they soaked in their surroundings.

"Oh my god…" she whispered, the words coming out shakily.

Clary, finally ripping her own eyes from the bone, looked up to see what made Lucy so afraid. To her horror, bones and skulls littered the ground where they had not been a moment before, entire skeletons scattered about among the razed field. The rain seemed to pour even more heavily, as if trying desperately to hide the gruesome sight behind a curtain of stinging cold water.

Snapping back into Shadowhunter mode, Clary kneeled into the muddy earth and examined the bones closest to her. The few around her seemed as though they had been there a while, blackened, muddy, and covered in soot. They probably have been here since the first night of the attacks, Clary figured, shifting over to see the others. Lucy catching wind of her actions, began to examine the bones as well, looking for any oddities or inconsistencies. Turned out, majority of the surrounding bones were in a similar state.

"What does this mean?" Lucy asked, setting back down a collection of sooty ribs.

Clary shoved her wet curls out of her face to look at Lucy. The girl was soaked to the bone, her cloths covered in mud, dead grass, and soot. Still, her brown orbs stayed level with Clary's gaze, asking the question Clary wanted to know herself.

"I'm not positive, but maybe the townspeople tried to escape through the fields. Maybe cutting their way towards the mountains to escape whatever was attacking them."

However, as they moved deeper into the wasteland, some of the bones didn't seem as old as the others. In fact, many of them were still fresh, only stained slightly by the recent weather.

These are probably the wizards before us. But why are the bones fresh? If they had died recently, wouldn't we have found bodies instead of skeletons? All of these and more floated in Clary's mind, with no real answers in sight. One thing was for sure though: whatever attacked this town is not natural. We need to regroup and come up with a new plan. I have a bad feeling about –

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" a scream pierced from behind her, high and desperate. Clary whirled around, a seraph blade already in hand to fight off what had attacked their small search party. She froze at the sight, her veins running as cold as the icy rain flooding down.

Lucy was pinned on the ground, her head thrashing wildly and her body bucking violently in an attempt to get the creature that had her restrained off. The creature itself was a giant worm, with tiny beady black eyes and row upon row of razor-sharp teeth. It was trying to get a good grip on the pinned wizard, but was so far unsuccessful for Lucy was using her whip as a barrier between the two. The worm let out a high-pitched wail, causing Clary to slam her hands over her ears to block out the sound.

Clary dashed forward, slicing the worm in half, black fluid gushing out from the wound. This gave Lucy the chance to slip out from under, scrambling to feet and grabbing her keys ready to take on the next creature that attacks.

Almost from nowhere, more of those worms began to slide out, making their way towards where Clary and Lucy stood with weapons raised. They crawled along the charred earth, an unnatural sound rising into the air, almost like a high-pitched growling. The girls prepared for an attack, but their eyes widened in surprise when the worms began to form together, growing in size and height. Clary remembered what the mayor told them back in the town hall, begging them to rid the town of these "monsters." Yet, as Clary watched the giant forms of hundreds of worms writhing and making their way towards the two teens, she realized that they weren't monsters.

They were demons.

Been forever, huh? I'll try to get better at posting, so no more year-long breaks. Thank you to everyone who has still read, favorite, and followed over that long period of time. It makes me happy to see people still like my story despite my inconsistent posting. So, the story is back with an interesting twist. What will happen next time? Also, what do you guys think about possibly bringing in another perspective? I'm thinking of having another point of view for maybe the next few chapters, so let me know what you think. Anyway, enough rambling. Thank you for all the support and I'll see you next time! :D