Startijenn (n.) a kick of energy; denotes strength in the face of adversity


Chapter V: Startijenn | 1


When Lucy opened her eyes, her world was turned upside down.

Literally.

"Okay..." Lucy lifted her head up to stare at her toes. Even though she wasn't really able to feel them, she could wiggle them. She was entangled in green vines, wrapped around her like her own skin, but they didn't hurt. Lucy tilted her head back to look at her surroundings, which was upside down for her, but nonetheless still beautiful.

Her Safe Haven finally had some color in it; lush shades of green dotted the area. It seemed odd though, since the white space was still present, with the blue crystals still floating around and the area above her ran on for miles on end. Mini forests spotted the area, with several small bodies of water here and there. If she was going to visit this place often, she might as well make it look a little homey.

"Well, this is great." Lucy said aloud to herself, wriggling around in the vines. How she ended up even entangled in them in the first place, she would never know.

"You're an idiot."

Lucy tilted her head back again and saw Aquarius standing behind her, hands on hips with a defined frown. "Aquarius!" Lucy beamed happily. "Help me?"

"I can't believe you saved me." Aquarius sighed through her teeth in annoyance. She sliced her hand in the air and cut the vines with her magic.

Lucy fell ungracefully down on top of a patch of soft grass, landing on her face. "Oof..." She looked up at Aquarius with a sheepish smile.

"Why are you even here? You only visit when you're in a life or death situation." Aquarius raised her eyebrows.

"Actually..." Lucy got up and dusted off her green stained shirt. "I'm pretty sure I'm on the bus right now, a four hour drive to Cedar for the Archery Tournament-"

"You didn't get in, did you?" A smirk was forming on Aquarius's lips with each second.

Lucy snorted, "No, I didn't make it" she quietly admitted, but immediately went into defense mode. "Because of this." She shoved her fingers into her face, revealing the bruised, bloodied, and bandaged fingers. "It still hasn't fully recovered! I'm in pain every time I move them." Lucy let out a frustrated noise. "Whatever, I can do it next year though." She took in a deep breath, still agitated that she wasn't going to be able to attend the tournament.

"What's the point in going then?" Aquarius yawned and settled herself on a tree stump. She slouched forward with her elbow resting on her lap and her hand on her cheek. Recently, and surprisingly, nothing life threatening had been happening in Lucy's daily life. Aside from the fact that Gray was designated to watch over her, but she wasn't entirely sure if he was a code 911. A week in and she was actually able to get some real sleep, which meant when she came to her Safe Haven, her spirits would just hear her chit chat about what was going on in her life.

And Aquarius was the only one who showed how uninterested she was, but Lucy brushed that aside. She was going to break the ice one way or another, even if Aquarius didn't want it.

"I don't know, cheer them on." Lucy shrugged. "Well, actually since we're going to a temple, there's a possibility the Veil might open since a lot of spirits reside there, according to Erza-"

"Lucy, we're here!"

Lucy jumped in her skin before she opened her eyes. Her conversation with Aquarius was cut off short. "O-Oh. Already?" She cleared her throat and grabbed her bags. "Where are the others?"

Lisanna looked confused, "They went in another car, remember?"

"Oh, right!" Lucy laughed nervously. Forgetfulness has been her second nature recently.

"You sleep so much, Luce. I don't know how you do it." Levy playfully punched Lucy's arm as she got out of the bus and spun on her heels to face forward again. "Alright! We get an awesome beach view and the possibility of the Veil opening again-"

"Really preferred if it didn't open at all." Lucy mumbled

"-Plus, the Archery Tournament this year is going to be awesome. We're competing against Lamia Scale this year for the final competition!"

"Lamia Scale, they were good last year weren't they?" Lisanna pondered. "Sabertooth and Lamia are always head to head to get to the final competition since they're in Division one..."

"...and we're in Division 2, which is why we always end up competing against them in the end." Levy finished off with a nervous laugh. "It's okay! We'll do awesome."

"Thanks for letting us ride with your team, Kagura." Lisanna hugged Kagura, causing her to jump up in surprise.

"Oh, no problem. We had extra room, uh, anyways." Kagura awkward pat her back until Lisanna let go. Lisanna was always the hugger type and Kagura was definitely not the affectionate one.

"Heya crew!"

Lucy knew who had wrapped their arm around her shoulders within a heartbeat.

"Natsu, aren't you on 'hiatus'?" Lucy raised an eyebrow and made quotation marks with her fingers.

"Yeah, I am. What about it?" Natsu flipped his sunglasses up to look at Lucy. "I'm here for vacation!"

"Natsu, it's almost winter. You're wearing shorts and a T-shirt." Lucy shivered just looking at him. "And it's cloudy! Why are you wearing sunglasses?!"

"You gotta look good no matter what the season is Luce. If you're near the beach you have to get dressed for the beach." Natsu nodded his head in affirmation of his claim.

"Natsu..." Someone save this boy. Lucy rolled her eyes but let him keep his arm around her. He was pretty warm anyway. "Once Makarov finds out, you're dead."

"Which is why he wont find out." Natsu interjected immediately. "Right?"

"Well," Lucy turned around to face him head on and opened her mouth to snap a snarky remark back at him.

"C'mon lovebirds, continue your flirtations while we walk to book in our stay." Lisanna clasped one hand on Lucy's shoulder and the other on Natsu's, hauling them forward on their feet.

"Flirtations-!" Lucy choked on the word as her face heated up in two seconds. She wouldn't say they were particularly flirting, right?

She fought the urge to glance up at Natsu, because what if he was staring at her? That would make it even more awkward.

Yet despite that, Lucy took a peek up at him.

Luckily he wasn't, but it seemed like he had a six sense because just as she looked at him, he looked down at her. What made it worse was how he gave her a smile. A cute, quirky lopsided smile.

Lucy awkwardly smiled back, her eyes turning into rainbows before she turn her head away.

Goodness, what was wrong with her?


"I shouldn't have come..." Lucy murmured as she scribbled on her homework. It was one thing missing school for two weeks, but missing it again for another week? Impossible. How was she going to make up all the work if she kept on missing class?

"You'll be fine, Lu-Chan. It's only a week." Levy struggled to hang her clothes in the closet since the pole was too tall for her.

"Yeah, that's three weeks of missed classes. Three weeks!" Lucy got up and took Levy's clothes from her arms, helping her hang it up as she read her school book in her other hand. "My dad doesn't even know I'm in this club, let alone missing school frequently."

"Right..." Levy grabbed Lucy's book and pushed it down so that Lucy would be looking at her. "It's fine. The teachers are pretty lenient during this time of the year, you'll catch up in no time." Levy dragged Lucy over to the bed and ushered Lisanna to join.

"No school is lenient near the end of the year. Finals Levy, finals." Lucy exasperated quickly, but Levy waved it off.

"Besides, Makarov is probably informing your dad so you wont get in trouble." She took out a book that was tucked in between her clothes that was left in the luggage and smoothed it out. "Now, time for the real deal. Put your school book away Lu, we're going to find out the mysteries that surround this area!"

"You got classified missions from the FC's?!" Lisanna snatched the book away from Levy's hands, almost swallowing up the book with her eyes. "How'd you get a hold of this?!"

"Weeeell...: Levy mischievously twirled a lock of her blue hair. "I know a person who knows a guy in the FC's and she was able to get the guy to get us some past missions from around this area." Levy snatched the book back from Lisanna's hands. "Anyway, call the guys over so we can have a meeting."

"You are not supposed to be here." Levy jabbed a finger into Natsu's chest, blocking the entry way to the room.

"But Levy-"

"No buts, Natsu. You can't come in."

"That isn't fair-!"

"Maybe if you didn't wreck havoc, Erza wouldn't have put you on probation." Levy shook her head. She gestured toward the thin, metallic bracelet on his wrist. "She even put that on you."

"Yup," Gray looked over Levy's shoulder and smirked. "He got the Death Bracelet."

"What's that?" Lucy got up from the bed, standing beside Gray. The silver, metal bracelet had a blue, dull dot in the middle.

"Once he activates, or tries to use his powers..." Gray created an explosion with his hands. "Boom. Goodbye consciousness for five hours minimum and abilities for a month. Even if you take it off, you wont be able to activate your powers until that month is up."

"Apparently it triggers electricity through your body, which shocks up your magic cells in the body." Lisanna contributed from the couch. "When he uses his powers or something, the blue dot will light up and send the electricity through the body. It basically kills the magic cells and so most people have to wait til a month to be able to stimulate it again."

"Exactly. So there's no harm in letting me in. I can't do anything anyways."

"Heh, now we'll get all the glory for completing the mission and pink head wont get in the way this time." Gajeel shoved Natsu aside to get in and in return, Natsu jumped on his back for access into it.

"Get the hell off of me Salamander!" Gajeel clawed at his back, but Natsu clung onto him as he cackled with laughter.

"Just leave him be, it'll be fine." Lucy waved her hand dismissively.

"You're the best, Luce." He grinned at her and she made sure not to even glance at him as he said that. Who knows how red her face would become.

"Don't get in the way since you're already useless." Gray retorted towards Natsu.

"I can beat you without my powers-" Natsu jumped off of Gajeel's back. He fumed behind Natsu but was dragged away by Levy before he could cause any harm to Natsu and the room.

"Guys. Come on." Levy grumbled as she climbed on top of the bed.

"We're going to go on the bed." It wasn't much of a question and more of a statement. Gajeel crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "Whatever." He mumbled and shook his head before sitting criss cross next to Levy.

Everyone circled around the book on the king sized bed; how it fit six people, Lucy didn't know.

"In all honesty, I looked at it when we were on the bus," Levy started as she flipped the book open, "and from the ones I looked out so far, the Veil generally opened up around this area..." She took out the map of the town and grabbed a red pen out of her bag, circling a large portion of city.

"Wait a sec it's actually in town?" Gajeel's eyebrows scrunched together. "Wouldn't the town be in ruins by now?"

"They probably restore the property while they are in the Haze, so basically each fight we have with the spirits will drain us twice as fast if we're going to fix the destruction and to have a protection spell around the citizens." Levy began drawing smaller circles in different areas. "Obviously the Veil is more visible near the more populated parts of town, since spirits feed off of human energy in general, but they feed off of negative energy more." Levy pointed towards downtown and one of the parks. "But, of course, the appearance of the Veil is mostly at the Shrine, where we are right now." A big fat circle was drawn around the Shrine.

"Wouldn't the prayers or something keep 'em away?" Natsu asked, laying on his back with his feet dangling off the edge of the bed.

"The Veil opens up for both good and bad spirits. Either way the Veil will end up opening at one point around our time here. Most of the missions reported sighting the Veil around this time of the year, with a few anomaly's of course, irregular patterns." Levy folded the map back up and opened the folder. "I did about half of the missions, so let's look at the rest."

"Makarov doesn't want us to do anything with the Veil right now either." Lisanna reminded them. "He just wants us to document the pattern of its appearance."

"We already have a hundred cases on it already from this folder though." Gray frowned as he flipped through the pages. "What more does he need? This is a waste of time if we're not going to do anything."

"You guys should probably find another way to seal it again instead of just documenting its appearance." Natsu chipped in.

"You do know that the shape of the door is different for everyone, right?" Gajeel muttered, pointedly looking at Natsu.

Lucy's phone alarm blared up, causing the tension in the room to ease a little. "The tournament is starting soon, I have to go." Lucy rolled off the bed and landed on her feet with ease. "Tell me what's up afterwards?"

"Hmm... trying to run away from the busy work aren't you?" Gray mused.

Lucy strained a smile back at him. "How did you know?" She lightly replied back.

"Want me to come with-"

"I'll go with her." Natsu stood up from the bed, hands in his pockets. "I'm on vacation anyways, and you've got work to do."

Lucy silently thanked Natsu. After being aware of Gray, she had been wary of him. She couldn't help it and she had the feeling she shouldn't confront to him about it anytime soon, or anyone else but Natsu for that matter.

Lucy bundled herself up before going out, making sure to cover her bruised fingers up, cushioning them with the gloves.

"It's not like we're entering a snow blizzard." Natsu took note of her fluff ball outfit.

"Shut up, I'm cold." Lucy grumbled back, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her coat. "Let's go."


"Hmm..." The blue haired man sheathed his sword back into the case on his waist before bending down to touch the red liquid on the pavement. "Spirits never bleed."

"If it wasn't a spirit then what the hell was it?" The black haired woman turned around to face him as she wiped the blood away onto her muddy pants.

"We better report it to HQ then, we were sent to handle spirits not mutated experiments." The pink haired girl retorted. She popped her lips as she took the lollipop out of her mouth.

"No, let's stay for a bit." The man concluded. "The Veil should be opening up soon, so we should take advantage of it." He took out a vial of milky liquid from his pocket. "Next time we meet one of those things, let's throw some of this at it and contain whatever it's made out of into a glass ball then give it to the lab back in HQ."


"What a nice day today!" Lucy exclaimed as she stretched her arms.

"Luce, it's going to rain soon." Natsu grouched. He never did like the rain, for obvious reasons.

"Maybe you should go back to the dorms then." Gray offered innocently.

Natsu 'tsked', but didn't say anything otherwise. Lucy didn't know why he was irritated with Gray tagging along, since Gray wouldn't even gain any information on her by doing so. All she was going to do was watch the first round.

"You should be back there helping them figure out all that Veil stuff."

"They got Levy, besides I gotta watch out for Lucy since you might drag her into something dangerous again."

"Watch out for her, huh. Yeah. Keepin' tabs-"

Lucy elbowed Natsu in the stomach and gave him a stern look. Don't you dare let him know that we know.

"-yeah we know. We know all of it." Natsu started as he snickered at Gray. Gray shifted uncomfortably on his feet as they continued to walk.

"Hey!" Lucy hissed as she grabbed Natsu's arm in a death grip.

Natsu let out a loud laugh as he stuck his hands to his hips and straightened his posture. "What will Juvia think when I tell her this? That her man is out flirting with the new recruit?!"

"What?!" Lucy and Gray cried out in unison.

Natsu chuckled darkly. "Don't try to hide it Gray, it's obvious." He waved his finger at him. "Another hurricane will happen-"

"Shut it, flame brain." Gray flicked his forehead. "You're an idiot."

"It's ok, I wont tell anyone. As long as you do something for me..."

They continued to bicker back and forth, erasing whatever tension was there beforehand. Lucy was secretly grateful for his quick thinking, but of all things...

They arrived at the tournament right on time, on cue with the rain also. That wouldn't stop the tournament, since it would still continue even if it was snowing.

There were at least a handful of people inside the pit, where the tournament would take place. Each person wielded a pack of arrows and a bow. Lucy spotted Kagura at the bottom, the insignia of her group, Mermaid Heel, was at the bottom of her quiver. Each school had subgroups in their club.

"This year we will be starting with the Sudden Death round! The objective of this round is to eliminate your opponents. Once half of the participants or gone, or once the ten minutes are up, the round will end!" The speaker boomed behind Lucy and the others from the tower. There were at least twenty five people in the pit, and that wasn't even half of all the participants in the whole tournament, since only two people from each group were allowed to enter in this round.

"Once you are hit with an arrow, the clip you attached to your belt will turn red, eliminating you from the round! Don't worry though, you can still gain points after this round from the other upcoming ones. The arrows you have been provided are also holographic, but have the same feel and weight as a real arrow. There will be no real harm done to any!"

"Dang it..." Lucy squirmed from where she stood. She really wanted to join... if only the incident at Sabertooth High didn't happen.

"What?" Natsu asked innocently towards Lucy's stink eye.

"All your fault..." She mumbled and turned away from him.

The ground rumbled as obstacles rose from it, creating protection defenses and even terrain, along with artificial trees, plants, and grass.

"Begin!"

The horn blew off, initiating the Sudden Death.

Lucy's eyes could barely follow anyone since they were moving too fast, arrows flew everywhere and the first out was announced already in just thirty seconds.

"Oooh, that black haired girl from our school is pretty good." Natsu pointed out at pit with his free hand, his other was occupied with holding his head up.

"Kagura, Natsu. Isn't she your upperclassman?" Lucy raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh?" He still looked confused as ever, so Lucy decided to drop it.

On the score board, she had already eliminated three. The highest so far. The announcer never mentioned how he would create obstacles during the tournament, which caught off a lot of the members. Kagura was almost swallowed by a hole that suddenly crumbled beneath her. A girl from another school rammed into a stone wall that shot up from in front of her, and a boy got himself tangled up in some bushes after he tripped over a tree root that popped out of no where.

Lucy squinted across the pit to the other side of the stadium. A flash of striking blue hair caught her eyes. It stood out against the black wall behind him. Another girl with pink hair was fiddling with the hood of his jacket, trying to cover up his hair.

"Hey-" Gray stood a big straighter as he leaned over the railing.

"Oh!" Natsu leaned even farther over the railing, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the trio across from them. "It's J-"

The ground rumbled violently, tossing Lucy in Natsu and Natsu into Gray. They fell in a heap and Gray tossed them off of him as he used the railing as support. "What the hell?!" The shaking abruptly ceased a few seconds later. Lucy's vision was tinted in a slight, pale purple, and the world seemed to have... paused. She looked down at the pit and at the frozen bodies, baffled at what was going on. Her eyes landed on Kagura, who had tossed her bow and arrow aside and had placed her hands on the ground. A strange inscription was circled around her, glowing a dark purple.

"JELLAL!" Her voice vibrated throughout the pit, echoing hauntingly in the silence. Lucy followed the direction of where she was looking at and it landed at the trio they were talking about before. A long sword appeared in her hands out of thin air and from her crouched position, she sprang up towards the blue haired man, Jellal, with alarming speed.


Hello my lovelies! Thank you for reading and I apologize for any mistakes. Inform me if there are!

THINGS ARE GONNA GET PRETTY HEATED (like the current manga chapters I can't my hEART). I'm excited to write the following chapters (^: Sorry for the inconsistent updating though. Tbh I'm surprised I finished this at all... hah.

I'll probably post another chapter during Winter break... maybe.Definitely before January though, I hope. I still got a few college apps, secret santas and finals to do unfortunately.

Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!

Stay golden and stay tuned!

xoxo