Author's Note: So this chapter would be kind of like a diary. It shows the adventures of Lucy during the whole year. Enjoy :)
Chapter 12- Another Year Gone
~Year X792~
~January 7~
Lucy's P.O.V:
"Happy 18th Birthday!" Me and Rina shouted as Emily sat on the living room couch, facing us.
"Thanks," she smiled warmly. "But you don't have to do this."
"Yes we do," I crossed my arms while Rina nodded her head.
The mansion's living room was all decorated. Rina picked out all kinds of flowers from the valley to put into the flower vase on the table, you could practically smell the scent of the flowers from a mile away. Red ribbons hang from the ceiling and soft music could be heard from the radio, which was placed a few feet away from the left armchair.
A triple chocolate cake sat on the coffee table with white icing on the top that reads 'Happy Birthday Emily', written in cursive. Red and blue cream lined the bottom and top edges of the cake. Next to the writing were freshly-picked red strawberries.
"Now for the presents," Rina beamed and picked up a thin rectangular box that's neatly wrapped in silver paper and a golden bow. She handed it to Emily, "This one is from Lucy-san and me."
Emily began unwrapping it and carefully untie the ribbon. She opened the lid of the box and stared at the present. "This?"
"Yeah," I replied. "We need to spend 75, 000 jewels on that one."
Folded and placed in the box was a long, one-shoulder, red satin dress, the skirt shining and glittering as Emily took it out. "You've got to be kidding me."
"It's the truth, Emily-nee," Rina smiled her sweet little smile. "Now, come on. Try it!"
"Is that why you're wearing those dresses? To have like a waltz dancing party?" Emily looked at our clothes, raising her eyebrows. She looked a bit bewildered but amused at the same time.
"Kind of," I stated.
Me and Rina were all putting on our favorite dresses for Emily's birthday.
I was wearing my dark red dress (like the one she wore at the first episode of Fairy Tail), a red headband, the bracelet that Emily gave me, and a pair of matching high heels.
Rina's dress was a short-sleeve, off-the-shoulders one. It's a midnight blue color and the skirt reaches until her knees. She also wore some blue flats and her hair was tied into a high ponytail with a mint green ribbon.
"Let's not waste time," I said to Emily as I pushed her to her room.
Five to ten minutes later, she came out and mine and Rina's eyes gleamed with happiness at the sight of Emily. The dress fitted her perfectly!
"Now, let's open my present first," I said.
"You have more than one present? How many jewels did you spent?" Emily asked.
"Um... Well, the total is... Twice as many jewels of the cost of the dress?" Rina smiled.
"Oh god," Emily sighed and shook her head. "What about for the cake?"
"... 50, 000 jewels," I replied, rubbing the back of my head. "Just open the rest of the presents will you?"
Emily sighed yet again, except this time it's louder. She walked over to mine and Rina's presents and opened each of them. I smiled once she took out the bracelet I got for her and the earrings from Rina. We coordinated and decided to buy matching accessories for the dress.
For the rest of the day, we sang, dance, ate the cake and the rest of the food and watch our favorite movies.
~March 10~
The sun was high in the sky. The air was damp from the rain last night, but it still felt warm and a bit breezy. White clouds floated slowly in the light blue sky, overall, the atmosphere was peaceful and sincere.
"Requip: Spear!" Emily shouted and lunge at me with a long spear in her hands. The edge was sharp and pointed. Surrounding the blade in the middle were many other sharp blades made of metal. (Think of Erza Knightwalker's default spear)
After Emily's birthday, we all began training twice as hard as before, including running twice as many laps in the morning and fighting twice as many dummies for training. We even practiced longer and would fight hand-to-hand combatant three times a day. It was completely tiring, but our magic capacity had increased and we have excellent staminas.
I jumped and sent a flying kick to Emily, she sidestepped and vines shot up from the ground. One of the vines wrapped around my leg and I quickly took out Cancer's gate key from my belt along with my whip, Fleuve d'etoiles. "Gate of the Giant Crab, I open thee, Cancer!"
Cancer appeared and immediately used his scissors to cut up the vines before he vanished in a puff of smoke. "Ebi!"
Landing on the ground, I spun around and got ready to attack with my whip. "Celestial Slash!"
The attack made Emily stumbled backwards, but she regained her balance a moment later. A magic circle appeared underneath her and 50 matching short swords flashed around her. All of them headed towards me and I tried dodging most of them, deflecting the rest with my whip. I was relieved to see that I hadn't got scratched by any of the blades and proceeded to unleash an attack. Before I got the chance to, Emily ran towards me and I blocked her punch with my arm.
"Arc of Thorns!"
Several vines snaked up around me and Emily, they instantly grew into a forest of thorns and I jumped away as one of them nearly clashed with me. I ducked Emily's kick and I backed away, using my whip to cut the thorns.
"20 Holy Stars: Antares Chariot!" I shouted loud enough for a person to hear from a kilometer away.
Beams and pillars of golden light surrounded the area, they shot up towards the direction of the sky and an explosion occurred. Colorful supergiant stars (Antares stars) and meteors fell to the ground, each of them exploding into a bright light when they hit the earth. A circlet of light appeared, circling the battle grounds, and it disappeared in a shower of yellow and bluish-purple dust at the same time the last of the stars and meteors came in contact with the land. Dust was everywhere, mixing with the peculiar light that's resulted by the attack.
I panted since I used my strongest spell and Emily did too.
She was bruised and sweating like I am, she probably got hit by the explosions or the stars.
"You've gotten better," Emily commented and she smiled at me.
"Thanks," I said, returning the smile.
"Good job both of you!" Rina exclaimed from her spot near the entrance of the mansion. We had agreed that we would take turns fighting each other and with Emily so it'll be fair.
"Alright, let's take a break," Emily stated, wiping the beads of sweat off her forehead.
~June 17~
"The water's so warm," Rina commented, dipping her feet into the hot spring.
"It's suppose to be like that. If the water isn't hot, the spa company's going to have a handful of complaints from their customers," Emily replied, jumping into the water instantly.
"But it's more like boiling hot rather than lukewarm," I stated, massaging my fingers with my other hand. I was afraid that it would start blistering the moment I put them in the water for too long, but Emily doesn't seem to mind at all. She swam a few yards away from her original position at the edge and started washing her hair.
"I like going here from time to time, makes me relaxed."
"I'll pass," I said after reluctantly putting my feet into the spring.
"Do you want any food or drinks?" Rina asked and I turned around to see her holding a cup of blueberry ice shave in her hands.
"Where did you get that?" I added while sweat dropping.
"From the dessert stand over there," Rina pointed to her right and I turned my head to see a long wooden table topped with several bowls of fruit punch, ice cream, syrup and shaved ice.
"Oh."
"Come on, let's just grab something," Emily said, climbing out of the spa. (P.S: Lucy, Emily and Rina are all wearing swimsuits)
We all went towards the stand and I decided to just eat some shave ice with strawberry syrup. I held the paper cup in my hands and looked around the spa. The three of us were the only people here, it was peaceful and silent, which makes it enjoyable. I prefer to be alone while bathing in hot springs, but that seems highly unlikely.
"I just remembered something," Rina broke the silence before turning to look at Emily. Her eyes were gleaming from excitement and curiosity, making me smile at her enthusiasm. "Have you decided what to do with your guild yet, Emily-nee?"
"I have some ideas," Emily replied, shoving a spoonful of green tea syrup-covered ice into her mouth.
"What about the name?" I asked. That question has been bugging me since the first time Emily mentioned about creating her own guild, but I was too busy training to bother about it. "And the members. The rest of the members anyways. I'm already technically in your guild aren't I?"
"Of course," Emily stated. "I'm still thinking about the name. The members... I'm sure we'll meet them soon enough. Don't you think? Let's just hope those future members won't be so... Backstabbing and dumb."
"We're all worried about that, Emily-nee," Rina sighed and threw her empty ice shave cup into the provided trash bin next to the desserts stand.
"We sure do," Emily suck in a breath and continued eating the ice.
"I'm sure when the guild is established, there would be tons of members," I smiled, thinking about what would our future hold for us.
~August 2~
My feet nearly slipped on the wet muddy ground as I followed after Emily, who was already three feet away from my reach. A snap of a branch made me look around, only to see Rina stepping on a small wooden stick.
"Sorry about that."
"That's fine, Rin-chan," I replied, using my new nickname for the now 14 year old girl.
Earlier in the morning, Emily decided to go to town to buy groceries and stumbled upon a group of Magic Council officials. They were sending out requests and missions for independent mages and seeing we that we needed more money: Emily decided that Rina, me and herself would go on one. It's just a simple job with a large award of 700, 000 jewels to capture a small guild of illegal dark mages. Since the mission was in Mt. Wendel, we planned to stay in an inn not far from Shirotsume Town. (I just made up the mountain name and the location. It's just outside of Shirotsume and close to a tiny village)
"We're close, we should arrive in ten minutes or less," Emily informed us.
Like she said, we finally got to the inn we're suppose to stay in the village. From what I've heard, there's only 25 houses and a single hotel for traveling mages. All of the buildings resemble the homes of the people in the Japanese feudal era, with the stone covered roofs and the wooden walls.
The inn was fairly different though. The walls seems to be much more thicker and painted in a bright eye-catching color.
"Welcome to Wendel's Golden Inn!" A shrill feminine voice exclaimed and I glance at the middle-aged woman who ran towards us. The lady has light chestnut hair with a few streaks of gray, all tied up into a messy bun at the back of her head. She was dressed in a long-sleeve, plain red kimono with a black obi and a large yellow ribbon tied around it.
"We'll like to rent a large room with three beds please," Emily said to the woman, taking out her navy coin purse.
"That'll be 100, 000 jewels."
"When would dinner be served?" Rina added as Emily handed the woman the money for the room. She counted it with her fingers before looking at Rina with a warm smile on her face. "At 6 o'clock dear. Breakfast would be at 7 a.m until 9 a.m. We have our delicious beef stew and roasted fish. But you could always ask for something light like bread or porridge from the cook."
"That sounds nice," I commented. I haven't eaten anything since 11 a.m and it's probably 4:30 p.m right now.
"Here are your room keys," the lady handed Emily a single brass key with a picture of a mountain carved on the front, presumably Mt. Wendel.
"Excuse me, excuse me!"
We all turned around and saw a girl around me and Emily's age running straight towards us. She was looking behind her and by the time she glance at our direction, she had bumped into the three of us.
I landed on the ground with a thud, my back sore and in pain, but it's nothing I couldn't handle. Emily lay next to me in the same position, huffing when Rina's head crash onto her stomach. The girl that collided with us was sitting in front of the middle-aged woman, on her knees and staring at each one of us apologetically.
"I'm sorry," her voice sounded soft and innocent like Aries, but it's got an edge to it too.
"Maria! What are you doing here?! You're suppose to be at the harbor. You also bumped into my guests!" The lady shouted and the girl flinched a bit.
"Sorry Ms. Kuriko."
"Get back to the port you brat!"
"Hey," I called out while getting up from my position. I brush the invincible dust from my short denim jeans and cross my arms. "Don't call her a brat. She didn't do anything wrong. Sure she bumped into us, but we're fine aren't we?"
"But-" the woman, Ms. Kuriko, protested but Emily cut her off.
"We are fine. Nothing to worry about."
"Are you okay?" Rina asked the girl, who's name seems to be Maria, and held out a hand to help her get off the ground. Hesitantly, she took it and stood up.
Maria has light blonde hair that reaches until her mid-back and a pale skin complexion. Two shoulder-length bangs frame her oval face, bringing out her bright sea blue eyes, and her plump pale lips. I noticed she was wearing a strapless white tube top, a white miniskirt and sky blue short heeled shoes. Something glimmered just below her ear and I saw a pair of diamond-shaped silver earrings, with three tiny green jewels on the bottom, dangling from it.
"Thank you and I apologize."
"You don't need to," Emily replied. "But you could tell us your name."
"It's..." Maria was silent for a second, as if calculating the pros and cons of telling us her name, before finally answering. "Maria Asheline Seika."
"Are you a Mage?" Rina added, looking a bit excited.
"Yes," Maria nodded.
My mind wandered off to the all-female guild Emily wanted to create and a sudden thought came in my mind. "I've got it!"
And that was how we met our first other guild member and the birth of our guild name.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Author's Corner xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CrystalDT: So how was it? Sorry if there's any spelling mistakes or you don't like it as much.
Rina: I can't wait for the next chapter.
Elfman: There's a new OC! That's manly!
Lucy: It's not.
Emily: Honestly, we don't even know we'll meet Maria until now. We always thought our guild members name would be something like 'Jessica' or 'Crescent'.
CrystalDT: Anyways, I've been thinking of guild names and I created a poll for it on my profile page. So be sure to vote, the deadline is in a week. So after that, no more voting. Please check out the poll.
Lucy: Don't forget that readers!
Mirajane: I wonder if there's going to be Crime Sorciere in the fanfic. Then there would surely be Jerza! *starts fantasizing and planning how to matchmake possible couples from the guild*
Erza: *blushes a bit* Jellal...
Happy: Erza liiiiikes him!
Erza: *kicks Happy while donning her Flight Armor*
Happy: Naaaatsssuuuu!
Gray: *comes out of the toilet* Is it me or Erza had said Jellal.
Erza: What?! How could you hear that- *inhales* Wait, I-I didn't say his name! I said... Jelly! Yeah. I didn't say Jellal, I said jelly. Anybody wants jelly here? No, okay. Goodbye! *runs away still in her armor*
CrystalDT: *sweatdrop* Okay then. Please read.
Natsu: Rate
Gray: And review.
Lucy: Bye readers!