Chapter 28
A/N- I do not own Fairy Tail.
Thank you for reading!
"Kept my room intact, my ass." I said as we crawled out of a hole in the wall. Apparently my room had been turned into a storage room because there were boxes everywhere. It was like a giant labyrinth of boxes. "It would be so much easier to just fly over all of this crap. But nooo… They had to stack everything up to the ceiling."
We made our way through the maze and walked over to the wall that my bed would have been up against. I pushed on the stone wall looking for the right piece. Once I found it, I pulled it out of the wall and out of the carved out part in the back, I took out the key.
"Alright. Let's go Happy. We have to be super quiet now because we are going to be in the hallways now. Everyone should be getting close to our meet up point." I said as I put the now empty brick back into place.
"Aye." He said in a whisper.
Happy and I snuck out of my room quietly and into the hallway. It was eerily quiet. I knew something was going on so I kept my guard up. We still made our way to the throne room in our stealthy way.
"Where are you guys at?" I asked the other teams.
"We are in front of the door you told us about." Wendy said.
"We're at ours too." Sting said.
"We're almost outside of ours. On my count, break your door down and be ready to attack."
Once I gave the signal, we all busted down our doors and got into attack stances. The room was empty however. I put a finger to my lips to signal to everyone to be quiet. After getting nods from them, I then signaled them to follow me.
I walked behind the single throne that was in the very front of the room. There was a cloth that was covering the back of the chair. It was attached to the chair so I had to burn a hole in the fabric to get to what I wanted. Once I found what I was looking for, I put the key I found earlier in the keyhole and opened the next set of doors.
The floor underneath the throne started to shake. I started to walk backwards and watched the floor shift to reveal a secret passageway. I walked down the stairs and into the secret chamber. I could tell that the others were a little hesitant at first but followed me soon after.
"Is this place just a maze of secret tunnels or something?" Sting asked.
"I guess you could say that." I said with a chuckle. Just then, all the lights in the room turned on. We were in a huge circular room. We walked in but not totally into the center in case there was a trap. Of course there was only one exit, and that was the way we came in.
"Welcome back Princess Rochelle!" This voice made me stop in my tracks and cringe slightly.
"Damn… That's a name I haven't heard in over 15 years." I said with a smirk and turning towards the voice. "It's nice to see you, Uncle."
"There's no need for sarcasm." He said while walking towards us. I stepped forward and signaled for the others to stay back.
"Who the hell are you?" Natsu asked annoyed.
"She just said it was her uncle, Salamander. Damn… How stupid are you?" Gajeel said.
"What did you say metal face?" Natsu yelled.
"Guys! Seriously?" I shouted annoyed.
"Are they always like this?" My uncle asked while sweat dropping.
"Yepp… They grow on you over time." I said while face palming. "However, you're not going to be around long enough to see if I'm right. You killed my parents, turned our kingdom into ruins, and caused most of our allies to turn on one another. I've come to clean up the giant mess you created."
"Well, I don't really see how that will be possible. Especially when half of your 'army' is made of cats." He said while smirking. He then snapped his fingers and then an army of his own filed into the huge room and surrounded us. "Looks like you're outnumbered."
"Maybe… But it's nothing that we can't handle." I said with a smirk of my own. "Plus, you have no idea how big my army really is."
After saying that, a part of the wall was smashed and took down many of his soldiers. The dragons walked out of the giant hole that was created.
"Man, is it good to be back." Iggy said sarcastically. Behind him followed more dragons than our original group of dragons and many soldiers that were posing as being on my uncle's side.
"Now that everyone's here…" I started with a dramatic pause. "Let's get this party started!"
The debris from the smashed wall started to shake and was thrown towards my uncle and his lackeys. When the dust cleared, most of the lackeys were taken out but my uncle was surrounded by a protective shield.
"Huh… So you learned to use magic. I'm actually kind of proud." I said faking being impressed.
"Well, I never did like when my brother showed me up. Then you came along and grasped the concept of magic even faster than either of your parents did." He said with spite.
"Trust me... it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's quite exhausting after awhile." I said dismissing him with a wave of my hand. "Now… Let's continue this. I'm getting tired of just standing around and chatting while everyone else is fighting."
The fight continued on with me and him. I would send an attack at him and he would block it. I finally decided that I needed to get up close and personal. That way I could get past his shield. Plus he was never really good at hand to hand either.
"Getting tired old man?" I said smirking while looked down at the man. I had my uncle flat on the ground. He was trying to stand up but could barely lift his head off the ground. I was right about him not being able to defend himself up close.
"You can't beat me. You father had the brawn and passed it to you but I got the brains." He said with a smirk.
"Uh-huh…. You obviously don't know me well at all. Oh yeah! You don't." I said with spite. I then trapped him in a cage made solidly of rock and debris. There was no way he was to escape, even if someone used magic to get him out.
I turned around just in time to see Natsu being thrown across the room and crashing into the wall. Adding dragons to the fight on both sides was not going to go well.
"Natsu! Hey! You alright?" I asked once I had run over to him and helped him stand up.
"Probably not the greatest question to ask someone after they go through a wall." He said sarcastically.
"Yeah… Probably." I said with a small smile. "Alright…What am I missing with the rest of the fight. I've got my guy tied up at the moment. We won't have to worry about him for a minute."
"Well, we could use some help with their dragons. There's only about four."
"Then there are all the humans that we are fighting against too." I said thinking out loud. "Well… Let's get to work. I'm getting fired up!"
"Hey! That's my line!" Natsu yelled at me. I just chuckled and ran off to get back to the task at hand.
Once word was spread between the enemy ranks that I was the princess, the fighting started to cease. They learned that we weren't committing treason for shits and giggles but that I was here to fix all the problems that my uncle created. I came to bring peace back to the land. Some still fought not believing us or because with the fall of most Ryuu, they gained power.
"Alrighty now…" I said walking around my uncle who was currently trapped in a giant fist made of rock. "You are going to renounce your power back to the "rightful owner". Don't ask me why I used air quotes. I have my reasons but you will learn of them later."
"What happens to me if I don't cooperate?" He said with spite.
"Well, if we had one, we could go the Star Wars route and I could feed you to the rancor." I said rubbing my chin in fake thought. I looked around and saw that everyone had confused faces. "Never mind… It's a movie reference from when I was in the other world."
"So what are we really going to do then?" Wes asked.
"Meh… We'll figure it out as we go. It's more fun that way. Surprises are fun sometimes." I said with a smirk. "But everyone that was mean to me shall be… executed."
Now everyone looked a bit worried.
"A Disney movie reference guys…" I said with a sigh. "Why do I even try? I know that none of you know what I'm talking about."
We stood up on the balcony that was high on the castle that looked down on the village below us. My uncle gave some speech about how he failed everyone and blah blah blah… Everyone knew he was full of shit and didn't mean it either.
After a few speeches and some document signings, he was not in control anymore and was sent to the dungeons for further instructions.
"Here yee! Here yee! Sorry, I've always wanted to say that." I said back up on the balcony. "You will probably know me as Princess Rochelle. I've have been gone for a long time but that is a story for later. The important thing is that I have returned and will be putting things back into order. It may take a little time to go back to how my parents had things but I promise we will become a flourishing land again like it was when my parents were both alive." I then walked back inside to finish some things once I finished my speech.
"Nice speech." Natsu said with a smirk as he wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his forehead on mine. My arms snaked around his neck and I gave him a quick peck on the lips.
"Thanks. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done though." I said with a sigh and pulled away. I grabbed his hand and we walked to meet up with the others.
"Alright. Now that everything is just about complete paperwork wise. It's time to get you guys back home." I said to the dragon slayers and exceeds.
"Wait… What do you mean by 'you guys'?" Sting asked.
"I mean that you guys are going back to Earthland and the dragons and I are staying here." I said with a sigh.
"But you'll come back at some point, right?" Wendy asked with concern lacing her voice.
"That's the thing…" I said looking at the ground. I didn't want to see the hurt in their eyes. Especially Natsu's. "The portal that brought us here can only be opened one more time. I'm using that to send you back. Either way, I need to stay here to help get things back to what there were. Plus, the dragons need to take back their roles of power in Ryuu in order to help me."
Natsu stormed over to me and wrapped me in a hug. I was hesitant at first but I soon returned the hug.
"Whether you like it or not, I'm staying here." He said sternly.
"I knew you were going to say that… But you can't…" I said with a soft and sad chuckle.
"I'm not going to lose you again!" He said pulling back and raising his voice. His voice soon softened again. "I can't go through the pain of losing you again but this time not being able to get you back. Plus, I'd be losing two of you now."
"Fine…" I said with a sigh. "But Gramps is going to kill me for us not making it back."
