Hello, everybody!
"Huuggh," Laxus grunted as he went to his Hotel Room, by the time of dinner.
It was the day after he met his demon, Saber, and from what he understood, a demon had already been killed. While the two were a simple conversation, Medusa had been able to already defeat her opponent of the month.
Once he got back to the room with Lucy and the others, he told everyone the information he got from Saber, adding that it could be a lie. Lyserg and Horohoro believed it anyway, as they knew the demon was very honorable, and wouldn't resort to such a thing as lying to manipulate others.
He also told them about his inability of defeating his enemy, which was an incredible suprise for Lucy, but not so much for the others. They would suspect such a thing happening, and Lyserg decided that the great Lightning Dragon Slayer would have to train with the most flexible of the people with them, Medusa, much to her disappointment.
And finally, we had the present day. Laxus had been training from his lunch time to now, trying to increase his flexibily and agility. And he thought he would do fine, since he didn't think he was that bad at those stats. Oh, how wrong he was. Medusa utterly humiliated him in the training, she kept screaming for him to 'stop being such a pussy and get on with it'.
In his opinion, Lucy had a much easier training, "Where is Lucy, anyway?" Laxus sniffed around his bedroom, trying to find her scent. He didn't need to, as the woman soon left bathroom wrapped in a towel. "Seexyyy," He said, jokingly.
"Oh, Laxus, didn't see you there, could you go away and never say that again?" Lucy asked, using an innocent smile.
Laxus only grinned and went to take his own shower, taking a new set of clothes for him to wear afterwards, as his current ones were all covered in dirt, sweat and some scratches in the fabric. "And I lost another set of clothes. Fuck Medusa."
Soon enough, he was standing in the shower, as the hot water went around his sore body. "God, that feels good. I thought I was going to have a training with some stretching and avoiding attacks, simple stuff, but noooo, Medusa just had to go completely overboard and give me a full body workout for eight consecutive hours with a few flexibility exercises. And how the hell did she make it so tough for me to do it? I thought I was strong enough to take care of that stuff, but the beginning exercises were just so tiring." The first exercises had actually been some variations of sit-ups, like the Dragon Flag Sit-Up, the Russian Twist and so on and so forth. It quickly made Laxus' core hurt like hell, even though he was one of the fittest guys in Fairy Tail.
As he thought more and more of his training, the more he remembered, he soon went to a conversation the two had had.
A few hours prior...
"What the hell are you doing?!" Medusa asked, almost screaming.
"Oh God, what is it now?" Laxus asked himself, "What am I doing wrong, now?"
"You are supposed to touch at least your toes with your legs completely stretched, but you are barely past your pants! That's not nearly good enough!"
"Isn't this the kind of thing that I have to get better with ti-"
"OF COURSE NOT! NOT THIS POSITION! This is just stretching, and nowhere near the exercises that you'll have to do to defeat Saber-" she interrupted herself, and tried to breath more calmly. "Let's just try this again, okay?"
Laxus got into position, the best he could anyway, and, unbeknownst to him, Medusa was going around him and sat behind him. She lightly pushed Laxus until he almost reached his toes, but then, "OH FUCKING STOP IT, YOU'RE KILLING ME!" Laxus, under the pain of the exercise, inadvertently charged some lightning on his back, ending up electrecuting Medusa's hands in the process. It didn't do any damage, but it still made her flinch and take them off his back.
She sighed and just said, "Let's take a small break, okay?" Laxus fell backwards almost immediately after the words left her mouth, as he breathed heavily.
"So, when are you going to hook up with Lucy? I suggest you do it whilst in this mission."
"What the-? Why would I want to hook up with Lucy?"
"Well, why not?"
"Good point, but my grandfather told me not to fool around with anybody from the guild. Well, he told me not to fool around with any woman, but he said, and I quote, 'especially women from Fairy Tail', I kind of want to respect that."
"Well, if you aren't as much a pussy as you have been now, you can start doing it for a week and keep it a secret, then after that week it's no longer fooling around, it isn't anything serious, but they aren't random one-night cases anymore. Just do it, what have you got to lose?"
"Is this you're idea of small talk or something? Because I'd like to spend the rest of the break in silence, y'know, before the hell starts again."
"Oh, you think that was hell? Well prepare to reach the pit of it, you shocked me, you're mine now."
"Seriously, fuck Medusa. Planting damn thoughts into my mind like it was nothing. And my back hurts like shit." As a punishment for charging his own back with magic, Medusa planted two snakes on him that would restrict his movements to a certain extent, so that he would have a much harder time doing anything.
He left the bathroom fully clothed and saw Lucy sprawled out in her bed, "Oh, great, you're still here."
"What do you want?" Lucy said, as she sat up to look at him.
"I needed you to do me a favour."
"What is it?"
"Could you massage my back?"
A moment of silence fell for the two of them. Lucy was just staring at him in disbelief, and Laxus was hoping she would say something, more particularly that she would smile and say 'Yeah, sure'.
"I would rather not," Lucy finally admitted, and Laxus just thought "Well, there goes the 'Yeah, sure'."
"Oohh, why not?" Laxus asked.
"Well, not only would I have to see you shirtless and get kinda intimate with you, last time we went to a spa, you kept moaning and groaning. The masseuses were blushing like crazy when we left."
"Oh c'mon, I'm really in pain here, Medusa did a number on me. are you really going to let your guild mate in pain?" Laxus tried to appeal to her most friendly smile, going so much as doing his best puppy-dog-eyes he could. He knew he was convincing her, since she kept avoiding eye-contact.
"Oh, fine! But you promise you'll be quiet, and then you'll do whatever I ask you to!"
"You've got a deal," Laxus said happily. Afterwards, he took of his shirt and laid down on his bed. Lucy got up from hers and went to be next to him, until suddenly, he starts groaning.
"What the hell?! I haven't even touched you yet!"
"That's exactly why I groaned, this bed is just soooo comfy..."
"Well, don't get too comfortable, I want someone to talk to while doing this. Also, I don't think this will work with you laying down, could you sit up?"
"Better idea, could you sit on me?" Laxus proposed, stunning Lucy and making her gap at him.
"This is getting too weird too fast for my liking. Sit up, please," she asked again. He just mumbled something Lucy couldn't make out and sat with his legs crossed. Lucy sat behind him and started to rub his back. Not wanting to risk the start of awkward silence (or rather to start foccusing too much on what was going on), she started talking about her training with Horohoro.
She told him all about how rough he had been, and how he was always saying for her to do everything faster than the usual. She had come back to the room with beeds of sweat latching on every part of her skin. She told him how she went to take an immersion bath and ended up being there for half an hour and how she felt like she had rejuvenated after doing it. That feeling didn't last that long after she actually got up again, because then her legs would just scream for her to sit down again.
In response to her rant about her day, Laxus told her about how Medusa had 'abused' him in putting two snakes on his body, limiting his movements almost too much for him to even breathe. Soon both of them realised that their trainers had been almost too rough on the respective session.
"They are married, you don't think they betted on who would improve more by the end of the day or the week, right?" Lucy asked.
"Let's pay them a little visit," Laxus said, as he got up and put his shirt back on.
Together, they went to the room next door, their trainers' room. Laxus could hear talk about something, but didn't focus enough to make out what they were saying. He knocked and soon got the approval to go in. He opened the door and quickly said, "What's the deal with you two making such a tough training today?"
"Wait a minute, you two actually knock?!" Horohoro said, seemingly surprised, "I thought you two just barge in wherever you want. I thought it was Lyserg or Marie there."
"That doesn't matter right now, answer us!" Laxus replied fast, because he knew Lucy would be frustrated at that particular comment and forget the real reason they were there.
"Look, you two are going to fight incredibly strong demons. Fortunately, they won't attack you until you attack them. But it doesn't mean we have time to spare, so we can't afford to keep using the same training regimen. We needed to make it faster and harder, and so we did," Horohoro explained.
"Oh, so you didn't, like, bet to see which one of us would get better faster?" Lucy asked, getting flustered.
"Oh, yeah, we betted to see which of you would get the most sore by the end of the week," Medusa admitted, and Horohoro glared at her, as if he telling her she shouldn't have said that.
"What the-?! Are you serious?! WHY?!" Lucy started.
"Seriously, fuck you, Medusa," Laxus continued.
"Who in their right mind would think of training other people for the sole purpose of making them suffer the next day? How are we going to be able to properly train tomorrow? How was that a good idea?" Lucy asked again.
"She didn't properly explain it, we were going to use this training either way, we just wanted to know who would be the most tired after it."
"Actually, I-" Medusa was going to speak, until she was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"B-1" was heard.
"He's the only one that still uses that now," Horohoro sighed, then said, "You can come in, Lyserg."
And so he did, "Oh, everyone is here, that's fine. As the two of you know," he said, looking at Medusa and her husband, "me and Marie went to look for our respective opponents. We decided there was no reason to be separated, so we split off. Unfortunately, Archer is a master at hiding and attacking in blind spots, as such I was not able to find him. Marie, however, must have found hers, as I've felt quite the magical peak from her, and by the fact that we agreed to be here at this time. That's all I wanted to say, I'll go back to my room, now."
"Huuh, shouldn't we go and evacuate the ones around the fight? Like we did with Medusa?" Lucy asked.
"Oh no that's not needed, Marie rarely even causes any destruction at all. I'm sure the bypassers will leave," Lyserg said and continued with "I trust her she won't do that kind of thing."
Two blades clashed. Two people were attacking each other, their respective lances clashing again and again, as none of them would back down even so much as an inch.
Their setting didn't help much either. The two fighters were in a narrow alley, one that didn't leave much space for them to simply use their full power, as they feared one the destruction of the building would make an abrupt stop to their fight, something both knew would be terrible.
With a last hit, the man backed off and put some distance between the two of them. "Marvelous, just marvelous! Allow me to just thank you for using that particular weapon. Out of all the forms you have, you showed respect for your opponent and used the Warrior's Weapon. However, are you sure you can defeat me with that? All your weapons end up being some form of lance, so is that all that one can do? Because that is extremely disappointing and will be easily defeated by me, Lancer."
"If I use my full power here, who knows what will happen, so for now I'll stick with using this kind of weapon," Marie replied
"As you wish, m'lady," Lancer said, as he decided to go again. This time, he started to use his Curse, the Friction Curse. The more he moved his lance, and taking into account how much Ethernano there was concetrated in the weapon, different torrents of fire could be created.
The fight restarted. And, like before, their blades clashed again and again, except this time, there were some small sparks leaving Lancer's weapon, sign of how much power he was using. Marie realised what was about to happen, he was just throwing her off, and given the chance, when her blade was far enough, he would use the time needed until they made contact again to charge his weapon and release his flames, ending up burning her.
Of course now that plan was ruined. Why? Because he knew about the strategy, and decided to lead him on. After one final hit, she spun on her heel, and seeing this, so did Lancer. When the weapons were about to make contact again, Marie hit the ground instead, and jumped over her enemy. She planned to go behind him and attack there, but stopped once she noticed something. No fire was ahead.
Lancer turned his head and showed a slight grin, and then turned his lance to a downwards slash, releasing powerful flamesright to Marie. "I knew you would see through my first strategy, so I planned ahead. Since I know you'll be a step ahead of me, I will always make sure to be two steps ahead of MYSELF!"
"What?" Marie deadpanned, "That doesn't make any sense. You can't be two steps ahead of yourself, then you'd be infinite steps ahead, it's a paradox..." she said, and although she demonstrated confidence in her words, her body showed otherwise. Her clothes were churned and there were some second degree burns. It wasn't more because she was able to cast a small protection spell called 'The Warrior's Shield' which was just enough to avoid permanent damage. "However, I realise something. Something truly terrible. The fact I took you as a warrior was misjugdement. You are a demon through and through," Lancer started to frown at her words, and readied himself for an upcoming attack. "If you are a demon, then it's only natural that I too fight as a demon."
Marie started to shine a sort of golden aura, representative of the Ethernano she was releasing at the moment. In front of the covered eye appeared a Magic Seal and soon the golden lance she held changed to a new, red one. Followed by this change, came what seemed to be a bit of a white mask that was covering the aforementioned eye and around a third of her face, as red line patterns started to go around and centering on where the eye would be.
"Well then, shall we start again? As demons this time?" Marie said, a confident smile on her face.
"I thought better of you," Lancer said, his eyes showing the anger he felt within, "You should be better than this, you should have kept your weapon of the warrior, but you only see me as a demon, isn't that right? I don't deserve the full power of the Warrior, is that it?!"
Marie looked at him. Unfazed by the questions, she went forward. The wounds and burns she previously had were still aching in her body, but they slowly started to heal. She swinged her lance at him, but her enemy casually defended it with his own. He then put some distance again between them, by doing a backwards flip. Once his feet reached the floor again, he regained his posture and went forwards, his lance starting to ignite on fire.
He tried to strike Marie, but she blocked the attack with her spear. She foresaw the attack of flames coming to burn her arm, so she mades sure to turn and follow the extension of the lance until she was right beside her enemy, "Goodbye, Lancer," Marie let out a soft smile and extended her hand, "Demon's Bullet!"
In the demon form, Marie was able to use certain spells, one of which was Demon's Bullet which shot a red projectile from her hand. And Lancer just took the hit right to his chest at point-blank range, effectively ending another demon, as Lancer fell down with an open chest. "The change from the Warrior to the Demon disturbed you so much you let yourself be completely open in your attacks. You said you would be a step ahead of me by knowing how I would react to each of your tactics, fortunately I decided my own tactic from the very beginning," she smiled one last time at the dead body as it disappeared and faded away.
It was now a completely dark night. Marie had told everybody about her win in against the demon and said she would now take over Lucy's training until Horohoro had defeated Berserk.
In their room, the Fairy Tail mages were asleep. Lucy fell asleep when she had made Laxus do her a favour, which just turned out to be a massage from him. Pretty simple stuff and Laxus then proposed that they make this a daily thing after they arrive from the training.
Once she did fall asleep, he was careful to lift her and put her in his bed, that had the sheets taken out, so that he could more easily cover her and tuck her in. He looked at her once more before he closed to sleep on her bed. Right before he gave in to sleep, one simple thought came to his mind.
"What do I have to lose?"
And another chapter done, and since I can't seem to get this done fast enough for my liking, I'm already going to start on the next one. Also if any of you are having any problems with this story feel free to review it, I won't hold it against you in any way, just don't say something like 'It's getting boring' without saying a reason.
Well, bye XD