Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)


Chapter 29: Suspicions, Part one


Two days later, Sting and Lucy were now outside a cafe in the town of Castelia. They were both enjoying some plates of blueberry pancakes for breakfast, having whip cream on both stacks of pancakes, and the two Sabertooth mages sat down together at a black patio table. These past few mornings had been really quiet with not much happening, but there were other things that could be done to take the place of doing a bunch of jobs. After all, the matter of training was also something that was pretty important.

Sting had been helping Lucy work with her Fire Magic in Reversal Mountain, and he also knew that fusion spells were not everything in that book of strange spells. Her first eight spells had all evolved to greater levels, being much stronger than they had previously been, and the effects of consuming lava had also helped Lucy do some pretty serious amounts of damage. She had really become more fiery than Natsu could ever be, able to have spells that could easily make a blaze with a simple explosion, and Lucy had become quite proud of herself.

Some spells like Fire Trick had definitely evolved, now having fire spiraling around the cherry red sphere while it bounced in a zigzag motion, and this spell's effect had really improved. When the sphere had bounced ten times to hit a rock, ten fiery explosions had transpired as a result. Each explosion had been much more powerful than the last, and this spell could also give Lucy some more flames to eat when she really needed some energy. Her fourth spell did not consume much magical power, but it was pretty useful.

Lucy had also improved with some spells like Flame Cutter, too. This spell had caused her fingernails to become long and red, and Flame Cutter gave Lucy the ability to set objects on fire when she slashed at them. This spell could also be used offensively, letting Lucy turn the flames into volcanic liquid to severely burn her opponents. The evolved version of this spell had caused Flame Cutter to have the effects of explosive combustion when Lucy threw the liquid at an object, causing a powerful explosion of fire to occur, making it useful as well.

The blonde mage was currently examining the red book, reading the names of the evolved spells to see that their descriptions had been made longer for full explanations, and Lucy smiled a bit at how she had definitely improved with this type of magic. The spells of Fire Magic had certainly grown to a pretty high level, and Lucy also took notice of the fact that Thorn's fourth fusion spell of Fire Magic had appeared in her red spell book, even though the blonde mage had not even learned it yet. Fiery Ring Chain was the strongest spell of Fire Magic in the red book, by the way.

"Now that everything is going well with my Fire Magic, Sting, can we test out one of the other types of magic now? Can we see how it's evolved, as well as seeing the fusion spells that come with it?" Lucy asked Sting in a kind tone while brushing her beautiful blonde hair, before nicely smiling at her boyfriend.

Sting responded in a calm manner, feeling a bit cautious, "I'll admit that you were pretty hot with all of that Fire Magic, Lucy, but we can't show off your explosiveness so much. After all, anybody could have trying to eavesdrop on us in Reversal Mountain. If they see how powerful you are with many different types of magic, then that person could end up exposing all of your weak spots. For now, I think that we just need to take a little break from training today and try to figure out a pretty effective strategy."

He really hated seeing the flaws in his own plans, but Sting was a pretty cautious guy. No matter how cocky he may have been in the past, the white dragon slayer knew that it was never good to let all of a person's powers be seen in only one instance. Observing people was a pretty great way to gather information on them, and Sting did not want anyone spying on his girlfriend. After all, she already had enough drama from having to deal with guys like Natsu. Lucy certainly did not need anymore enemies.

He was still really curious about the spell book, though. Even though the spells had evolved, there were still many mysteries surrounding it. For instance, what were the exact languages in the spell book? If those eight languages of olden times could be fluently understood by Sting or Lucy, then that would make things so much easier. If they had known the languages prior to everything that had happened up to this point, then Lucy could have easily become a great sorceress. However, that would take away the fun of the mysteries.

As Sting took notice of the fact that Lucy was wearing a green T-shirt with some blue jeans, his blue eyes caught sight of something strange. Lucy had just placed the red spell book on to the black patio table, and now the book was turning orange. This was strange to Sting, since the book normally changed color if Lucy had a sudden burst in emotions, but that was not happening at all right now. She looked pretty content while eating her pancakes, and the blonde mage did not even notice what had happened to her book.

While it was true that Sting had helped Lucy shake off the fact that she was a descendant of the infamous Thorn Heartfilia, he just could not shake this feeling that something was going on. He kept on having this eerie feeling like him and Lucy were being kept in the dark about something that was pretty important, something that was pretty crucial to the mystery about this strange book, and Sting did not know what it was. He had not even asked Lucy about why Karen had given her the book, and he looked a bit frustrated while knowing that he should've done it back when he saw them talking in Crocus during the Grand Magic Games.


Meanwhile, at Fairy Tail...

Natsu had returned from the job in the ruins, not finding a criminal at all, and he also felt like the worst guy in the world right now. Not only had Thorn abandoned him at some point while they were searching the ancient ruins, the violet-haired woman obviously moving through the shadows to find her next victims from the Fairy Tail guild, but the fire dragon slayer could not stop thinking about how he had presumably killed two of his closest friends in the guild. Erza had definitely questioned him about why Thorn had not come back with him, but Natsu could not give an acceptable answer.

He currently sat down at a table with Erza and Gray, since they had now noticed how Natsu was acting pretty guilty about something, but the fire dragon slayer could not tell them that he had killed Elfman and Evergreen to protect Thorn from the criminal in the ancient ruins. Saying that he made a mistake would not bring back his friends, and it would really make Lisanna end up hating him forever. There was no way that he could even say that Thorn had been responsible for powering up his attacks, since her abilities were unknown to everyone else.

Natsu still couldn't believe that she had just left him there when he was in utter shock, being unable to stop a spell that had enhanced his own flames, and Natsu could not eat his own flames to stop the attack. He also could not eat Thorn's flames, since those were the flames of a demon, and only Lucy would be capable of eating demonic flames. The guilt weighing down on Natsu was incredible, and he knew that something like this would cause him to be put in jail for a very long period of time.

The fire dragon slayer would definitely be in a lot of trouble with Lisanna, since this would be the worst thing that he had ever done to her. Taking the life of her older brother because of a girl's assumption was certainly not forgivable in any way, and Natsu would probably get hell from Laxus for killing a member of the Thunder God Tribe. After all, Evergreen was one of his best friends. Mira would also make Natsu feel her wrath in a torturous way, since killing her younger brother was something that was completely inexcusable.

He knew that people would start asking questions, wondering where Evergreen and Elfman were, and the cloud of suspicion would just continue to keep on growing larger while time passed by. After all, there probably were witnesses who saw them following Natsu and Thorn two days ago. People were also wondering why Thorn had been with Natsu, thinking that the fire dragon slayer was going to mess around with yet another woman, and they had just assumed that the poor girl was crying right now from heartbreak.

Natsu could envision everything that would occur when people found out that he was the killer of two innocent Fairy Tail mages, and it was certainly not going to be a good set of fantasies. Erza would harshly yell at him before trying to kill him, and Gray would definitely assist her with that task. Natsu kept closing his eyes while shaking in terror, not wanting any of his dark thoughts to come to light, and the fire dragon slayer knew that it would not be possible to keep something like this hidden forever.

Suddenly, much to his surprise, Fairy Tail's entrance doors opened up to reveal that Thorn had indeed been alive. She was now wearing a white top with a black miniskirt to match, and she smiled a bit from seeing Natsu look at her in a state of shock. He had thought that she abandoned him forever after he had presumably gotten rid of two people who were mages of Fairy Tail, but it looked like Thorn had come back to the guild. No matter how dense Natsu could be, that certainly did not leave him out of Thorn's plans.

"Hello, Natsu. I'm totally sorry about ditching you in the ruins like that, but somebody grabbed me from behind and put their hand over my eyes. When my vision was restored, I ended up in a different part of the ruins. The person who abducted me was gone, and I could not find you anywhere. I missed you so much, Natsu. You are a very great friend, and I should've called out to you." Thorn explained nicely while looking concerned for Natsu, hugging him tightly while shaking in fear to make her manipulation seem believable to him and the people who were currently watching.

The fire dragon slayer replied in a somewhat surprised manner, whispering these words quietly for nobody to really freak out and hear what he was saying, "It's good to see you, too, but you could've still warned me when it was just Elfman and Evergreen. They weren't the criminals in the ruins at all, and I ended up killing two of my closest friends. I can't tell anyone about this, or they will totally freak out and lash out at me. This big feeling of guilt is really starting to get on my nerves, and it's not getting any better."

To surprise him even more, Thorn had let Natsu know that his two friends were upstairs in the Fairy Tail guild's infirmary. They were in full body casts, having taken intense amounts of damage from that charged up Fire Dragon's Roar, and the burns were not going to go away anytime soon. Thorn had let Natsu know that his friends only had a ten percent chance of surviving from the attack that he had dealt to them, meaning that they could most likely die, but that was another lie. The two wounded mages were in the infirmary, but their shadows had only taken their physical forms to take the explosive fire head-on while the waves of the blast sent the real mages blasting off to a faraway land.

Thorn was going to manipulate Natsu in many ways before she would throw him away like a piece of garbage, but every good manipulator had to get on the good side of whoever they were manipulating. As Natsu tightly hugged Thorn for some comfort, the violet-haired mage smirked evilly from noticing that she was playing him as easily as she could play the violin back in the X600s. Natsu's dark feelings of pain and despair were things that Thorn fed off of to make herself stronger, absorbing the darkness of a person's emotions, and she would make sure that Natsu was like an unlimited energy source for her.

However, Thorn's blood red eyes suddenly widened in surprise from the fact that she could sense that the spell book had now undergone a change of color. This meant that one of the eight types of magic would soon be in use, and Thorn would be able to use it for some sweet destruction. She closed her eyes for a moment, getting the sense of the book changing from Fire Magic to Earth Magic, so that meant some more fusion spells would soon become usable. With more spells in the book, coupled with the fact that Thorn now had a pawn in Fairy Tail, her plot was a step closer to its completion.


While she was certainly having a fun time with Natsu, Lisanna Strauss had been watching Natsu with his new partner. The white-haired mage seemed pretty freaked out by the fact that Natsu seemed to be admired by someone that he did not even know, and even he did not seem to know what her motive was for liking him. Lisanna could tell when Natsu had a plan of some kind, but this was not planned by him at all. He had only met Thorn two days ago, and the fact that they were hugging so close together made Lisanna's heart ache.

She had not blackmailed the fire dragon slayer as a way of embarrassing him, but she had done it to try and get him to return to his old self. If he had done that, then Natsu would have gained Lisanna's trust back while he could have also tried to reclaim her love. She had not moved on to any other guys, trying to hold out hope for Natsu to become the caring guy that he once was, but now another girl was trying to swoop him up. Lisanna did not want to ask Natsu about his supposedly new relationship, but she did find it necessary to know who the girl taking her place would be.

The blue-eyed girl looked a bit saddened while knowing full well that she still had feelings for that dense idiot with the pink hair, no matter how much her heart tried to do away with those feelings, and Lisanna still did love him. She was just really mad at him for everything that he had done, but Lisanna had still tried to believe that the Natsu she loved was still around. She wanted the old, happy, fun-loving, cheerful Natsu to return. He was such a decent guy back then, and Lisanna was actually missing the chemistry that they once had.

Now she definitely knew how Lucy felt at first when she was no longer going to be a major part in Natsu's life, and the feeling of being replaced was never good for anybody. No one liked to be kicked off of team or have their lover's pride overshadowing the romance, and Lisanna found it very suspicious that Thorn had shown up to the guild without a single mark on her body after she had claimed to be abducted by someone in the ancient ruins. If she had been abducted for two days, fighting against someone for two days, would she not at least get one single scratch?

Lisanna could see how Thorn was smirking while she ended her hug with Natsu, almost like she had some kind of plan up her sleeve, but taking the direct approach to break them up was not a good option. Lisanna knew that looks could be deceiving, meaning that she thought that a graceful-looking girl like Thorn could also be pretty powerful, and the white-haired mage knew that trying to battle her would also be a bad way out of this. Either way, Lisanna could tell that Natsu's new partner was no ordinary girl.

However, Lisanna also knew that simply stressing about Natsu would not do any good for either of them. If he was truly moving on to Thorn, then she really could not get in the way of that. It would make her look no better than when he came between Lisanna's desire to be friends with Lucy, and Lisanna did not want to look like a total jerk. She sighed in a frustrated manner while getting up from the table with a flyer for a job that she would do today, and Lisanna walked out of the guild while only taking a small glance at Natsu.

Unknown to the white-haired mage, she would have a bit of shadowy company today. Thorn had seen Lisanna look a bit jealous while she passed by the newly formed duo, and Thorn was pretty good at reading the body language of other people. Lisanna's body language had let Thorn know that the white-haired mage would be watching out for Natsu, keeping her eyes on what Thorn would be doing, and the malicious woman certainly did not take kindly to anyone who would dare try and interfere with her plans.


How was Chapter 29? Did you like it? This is the first part of the "Thorn's Black Roses" arc. The Fire Magic chapters were merely prologue, just so you know. I will try to include more StiCy into this, since it's been lacking the romance lately. Also, since everyone was safe in the prologue, the chapter with the Earth Magic shall technically have two deaths. Anyway, standby for the update!