Chapter 13
"She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire."― Charles Bukowski
He'd texted her at eight-thirty PM and had gotten the call at nine.
"Natsu!" The call had started, Levy panicking down the phone. "Have you heard from Lucy at all?"
The conversation had escalated rapidly from there. In the half-hour since he'd been left on read by his girlfriend, a fire had broken out at MagMa, and he knew Lucy was somewhere wrapped up in it.
For all Natsu knew, Lucy was waiting completely unharmed outside of the disaster. She wouldn't leave until every student and member of staff was safe and accounted for, but that possibility still didn't settle him, no matter how much more likely.
He was now speeding down Magnolia's roads, barely holding the nerve to disobey every traffic law just to get to the school quicker. His truck obviously hadn't gotten the memo as it was creaking and making horrible noises in protest of the rough treatment the dragon slayer was giving.
"C'mon, Luce. You gotta be safe." Natsu muttered underneath his breath.
He finally pulled into the school's parking lot, not oblivious to the raging inferno very present on the roof of the cathedral. From the looks of the blown-out windows on the top floor, the fire had already burnt out anything standing on that level. He just prayed Lucy was safe. He couldn't lose anyone like he had Igneel again.
He didn't spend long getting out of his truck. Its windows were already thick with soot even from such a distance from the fire. His nerves were shot with adrenaline as he raced towards the crowds gathered in front of the school. It was difficult to see through the blue siren light flashing every couple of seconds from the police cars littering the grass. Even with this hindrance, Natsu searched for a head of blonde hair, desperate to at least see that she was safe, nevermind whether he could actually go up to her and hug her. She would be way too busy, he knew.
Instead, he found Levy and Gajeel. Well, more like they found him. Gajeel had grabbed his cousin by the arm, stopping Natsu from shoving through any more people.
"Don't bother," Gajeel grumbled out, staring the guy down with his usual domineering glare.
Natsu broke his arm free but didn't proceed with his frantic search. Clearly, his friends had information. "What do you mean?"
"She's in there, Natsu," Levy explained, her voice shaking. "The matron confirmed that Lucy was up there when the fire started. Everyone's accounted for except Lucy and some children. The children should be with Lucy, but the firefighters haven't been able to get to the top floor yet. They're stuck two floors down. Apparently, the cathedral had some building work being done on the third floor. The fire caught onto the scaffolding and has completely blocked any entrances to it."
"So Lucy and the kids are stuck up there?"
Levy only nodded, turning into her boyfriend to smother the tears that had begun leaking down her face. A few noises escaped her, but Natsu ignored them to begin thinking things through.
"Don't do anything stupid, hot head." his cousin goaded. Natsu didn't lose the look on his face, though, forcing Gajeel to give further warning. "Those firefighters are trained for their job. All you have is a couple years of training from Igneel and a couple trips to the gym each week. Just let them do their job. You can't help here."
Natsu shook his head. "We both know that's bullshit, Gajeel."
"The stars can't help you now, Natsu."
The fire continued to blaze around them, consuming the stairs up and down from the third floor. The children were all huddled around their teacher, who had instructed them to stay low while she figured a way out.
In all truthfulness, Lucy couldn't see a single one. The heat was so overpowering. She didn't know how they had lasted this long. Maybe something to do with mages having stronger bodies than regular non-magic humans? Regardless, she knew there were only minutes between her and the children succumbing to the flames. She had to think fast.
Her mind kept going over the events of the night: The story, the ghost, the noise in the attic, then... Well, the fire.
Lucy laughed a little, or as much as she could considering her lungs felt like she'd been sucking on a tailpipe. She shouldn't be laughing in such a dire situation, but she couldn't stop herself. You see, Lucy had had one dream when she was a little girl. No, she hadn't wanted to be a princess- those dreams had died when her mother had gone, and her father started neglecting her. Lucy had wanted to be a writer.
She remembered mentioning it briefly to Natsu right at the beginning of their friendship. And Lucy loved a good drama, too. This fire; This sort of suspense; This not knowing whether the main character was going to make it out alive- Lucy would've eaten this sort of thing up.
But writing wasn't going to save her now. She couldn't wave a magic wand pen and whisk her and the children away to safety.
...Or could she?!
She shrugged her shoulders so her blanket could be held by one hand instead of two, using her free hand to grab the necklace hidden beneath her collar.
"Miss Ashley." One of the kids choked as they spoke. "We're going to die in here, aren't we?"
Lucy just shook her head, unable to comfort the scared boy. Even words at this point were a struggle for her, and she had to keep her head focused. Fiddling with the clasp of the chain, it took her a few seconds to pinch it so the necklace became slack, and the key the necklace was holding slid down.
But those were seconds she didn't have.
The pupils screamed as the beam above them ripped apart. Fire flooded through, nearly scorching the children as they ran further into the room, Lucy following. In the commotion, the key slipped from her hand. She hadn't meant to lose it! She'd simply had no time to react!
"Kids!" she croaked from where she was crouched, a little outside the clump the kids had created on the ground. "Can you see a small gold object anywhere? It should be shaped like a key!"
"What?" A few of the kids let out mumbled confusion but were too desperate to question their teacher. It only took a couple seconds for several of the kids to spot the object Lucy required.
But it was all the way across the corridor.
On the other side of the fire.
That key was the only way out, it seemed, and Lucy wasn't about to give up. Luckily (well, nothing about this situation was 'lucky'), the area in which Lucy had dropped the key had burnt over quickly, leaving a thin veil of flames between her and the key. This meant she only had to reach through and grab the small object.
Yeah... Easier said than done.
The smoke was slowly overcoming her, and her mind wasn't working as clearly as it could. She tried to fight through it, planning her way around the fire to the dropped celestial key. It was now that she was incredibly thankful that she'd followed the compromise she'd made with Loke. Nevermind her own health, having a key on her may be the saving act of twenty-four children.
"All of you, stay here," she commanded, prepping herself for what she deemed to be the most stupid move of her life... possibly assuming she didn't live to top the stupidity of this action.
Lucy crawled, ignoring the piles of ash that crumbled underneath her weight. She prayed the savaged floor was strong enough to hold her weight. She really didn't need to add a list of fall injuries to what she was sure was an already long list of respiratory issues thanks to the fire.
The planks creaked and moaned underneath the headmistress, barely taking the pressure. She placed a knee in one wrong space, causing that leg to plummet abruptly through a new hole. It wasn't enough to throw her off, though. She pulled her leg up from the hole, the smoke too thick for her to even see the appendage for any potential wounds.
Lucy continued crawling until she was half a meter away from the dying flames. She didn't have time to wait for the flames to die out quickly- One: because she and the children were slowly choking to death on carbon monoxide. And Two: because the floorboards beneath her felt weak enough, nevermind adding another thirty seconds of weight.
She thrust her hands through the flames, the instinct to scream occurring in under a second. Being so close to the fire felt like Lucy's skin was melting, yearning for something much, much colder. It took a moment of scrabbling around the space blindly with her scorched hand to find the key and was only too thankful to withdraw it, the stinging from the flames still shaking her left forearm and hand.
'Great.' She thought. Now all she needed was water.
Lucy shuffled back to the kids, aware that some of them with their smaller lung capacities were on the brink of passing out. She scanned the room with what little visibility she had and managed to recognize the pipes along the wall that connected MagMa dormitories' sprinkler system.
A question Lucy hadn't asked yet was why the sprinkler system hadn't activated despite the raging inferno tearing through the building. But, this was a question that she didn't want to ask. Knowing that regardless of the high maintenance standards she oversaw for the school, there was a plausibility that the sprinklers had malfunctioned at their most needed time.
She stood on her knees, feeling up the wall for a part of the pipe she could grab on to. The CPVC piping resisted the temperature of the fire, making it easy for Lucy to pull on it without fearing further burns. In doing so, liquid spilled out almost immediately, flooding the bit of floor Lucy was standing on. She acted quickly, pressing her key under the water flow before sputtering the required words.
"Open, gate of the water bearer, Aquarius!"
The room filled with a new, even brighter light than the flames.
Natsu was on the edge of running into the burning building and eating all the fire himself. After all, the only thing stopping the dragon slayer now was the fire marshal claiming that there was some law prohibiting them from allowing a civilian like Natsu from running into an active fire. What could they do? Arrest him for saving a bunch of children's lives?
"Actually, yes, Salamander." Gajeel had answered when Natsu presented his argument.
"Emergency services don't understand dragon slayer magic." Levy had given a more relaxed explanation. "If you run in there, you're endangering yourself and potentially everyone else in that building. They'd have no choice but to detain you on the spot. It happens all the time when tenants of burning houses and apartments trying to run back in."
Natsu protested still. "But I can help! And I'm not endangering anybody!"
"Natsu, just shut up!"
If Natsu was riling Levy up enough for him to scold her, he knew that he couldn't cross another line in front of her Gajeel.
So he walked away from them, pushing through the crowd until he was touching the police tape line surrounding the repurposed cathedral and castle. He had a good sight of the thick spruce double doors that made up the dormitory entrance from where he was stood, even through the grey air and floating embers.
Natsu scrutinized the cathedral, recalling what Lucy had told him about the place: In order to turn it into a suitable living for MagMa borders, the main open room of the cathedral had been converted into four floors, removing any interior element of the once-grand place. In fact, if you were inside the building, you probably couldn't tell that it wasn't a dormitory for the majority of its life. The entire renovation had cost upwards of 1.5 billion Jewel, which in hindsight was probably a lot, but Lucy had wanted the best for the children.
Natsu's hands scrunched with anxiety, running his knuckles against each other. His eyes rested on every window he could even slightly see, hoping to find some movement amongst the flames that could possibly be a living person.
In fact, he saw quite the opposite.
Blue flames were now sprouting amongst the orange on the third floor, dancing in a battle where the blue was quickly overtaking. The blue blaze ran throughout the building, seemingly nothing obstructing the dominant force.
Officers and firefighters were suddenly backing away at the sight, all sharing some new and vital knowledge over their radios- some of which Natsu's sharp ears could catch.
"We have a flash fire. The building's about to blow."
"Emmerson, Montgomery, we need you to evac. Do you copy?"
The radios barely had time to glitch out a message from the two firefighters still in the building before the entire place was lit up. A noticeable high pitched whine rung through the air before the doors to the cathedral were blown off, debris clattering through every opening.
Natsu felt the blood drain from every part of his body. He couldn't control himself. His limbs moved on their own, pulling the police line over his head to run closer to the emerging smoke cloud. Arms wrapped around him from behind, the owner of the arms having predicted his desperate actions.
Every part of him felt numb. There was no way on Earthland that anyone had survived that, but he couldn't stop the feeling that Lucy still needed him to rescue her.
But Lucy was gone, right?
He gave up the assault on his captor, the scratching and wriggling ceasing as his legs failed underneath him. Natsu dropped to the ground, the supporting arms seeing the need to let him go.
The grass around him was dirtied ash and soot. He was honestly sick of the fire he could produce as part of his magic. Actually, he felt sick about a lot of things right now, but none of it compared to the feeling of absolute perpetual loss.
Natsu grabbed at the grass, willing the tears on his face to stop, to reverse and go back to that morning where he had Lucy in her bed. He'd had her! His throat was raw from the screams he didn't even know he was letting out. He was just choking them out as if there was no end to them in sight.
Because she was gone.
Lucy Ashley was dead.
Natsu shook, hands and knees pressed firmly to the ground. Gajeel held his crying girlfriend, unable to stop the tears cascading down his own face. Admittedly, he found Lucy a little strange. She was way too dramatic for his liking, but somehow she had the gumption to set up and manage an entire school. If it wasn't for his foster father, Metalicana, Gajeel would've been one of those kids from the street Lucy had brought to her school.
Levy hadn't lived apart from her best friend in eight years. From the moment Lucy had walked into their shared room at Mag-U and Levy had seen the mountain of books Lucy was struggling to carry with her suitcase, Levy had known they'd be good friends. They were inseparable. But now Levy felt as if she'd been the worst best friend in existence. She'd neglected her relationship with Lucy over the past few months. Things with Gajeel had just been getting so intense, and she hadn't thought to slow down to check up on how her best friend was doing.
Lucy had been struggling a little before she'd met Natsu. MagMa had been sucking everything from her for a good five or so years, and the effects of Lucy's stupidly long workweeks -something Levy hadn't properly considered to protest- had finally been catching up to her.
Natsu had been heaven-sent. For the first time in years, Levy had seen her best friend truly smile. Lucy was laughing again and actually socializing! It was at this point that Levy had taken her foot off the gas. She'd no longer felt the need to bother Lucy until she agreed to have a girls' night or a bar-crawl. As a result, her relationship with Gajeel had prospered, and both she and Lucy had begun to see less and less of each other.
And it was too late now to fix that.
Or so she thought...
Emerging through a cloud of smoke, twenty kids came running out of the Cathedral, each one coughing and spluttering, thankful to catch a breath free of poisonous gasses. Levy and Gajeel watched astonished as firefighters and paramedics swarmed in to sweep the kids off to safety.
The smoke seemed to settle for a second as if it wasn't expecting another disturbance of children to come running through. Levy cried out when she saw the smoke rise again, parting like the red sea to let four dirty children and their headmistress through.
"LUCY!" She screamed, catching the attention of the dragon slayer moping on the floor.
The trio stumbled to where Lucy was passing her wards off to the EMTs, enveloping the woman in a hug as soon as the last child had left her arms. Lucy convulsed in their arms. She hadn't stopped shaking the entire time she was in that building. She could hardly believe she was out!
But she wasn't out of the woods yet.
Her skull was pounding, feeling as if it was going to break through her skin. And she couldn't seem to get enough oxygen. She wheezed into her boyfriend's shoulder, coughing and coughing again, unable to wiggle free and explain to him how she felt.
She didn't need to, though. Soon enough, EMTs had a gurney by her friends and were lifting Lucy onto it. An oxygen mask was being pressed to her mouth and she was ordered by several people to take deep breaths.
Lucy didn't hear the rest of the situation. She didn't even feel the clunk of the stretcher wheels as she was lifted into the ambulance. Nor did she hear the arguing between her best friend and her boyfriend as to who would go with her to the hospital.
When Lucy was safely in the ambulance, Natsu took his time to breathe. He'd agreed, or more accurately compromised, with Levy and Gajeel that he should be the one to go with her. Lucy was his everything, even though their relationship was less than two months strong. Dragonslayers were protective, especially over those they considered family.
And he would protect Lucy to the ends of Earthland if he had to. Even if he hadn't been there to protect her tonight.
That's it for the first story arc!I've reconsidered my college schedule and I'll hopefully have the next chapter, the start of the next story arc, out by Wednesday. This was an absolute bitch to write in twenty-four hours, but it was so worth it for me.Thank you to valerioux and Copperreign12 for your reviews! And thank you to TheQueenOfAnime for your question! In answer to it: I do a lot of research before I write every chapter of my fics. 15 Billion felt generous, yes, but also made sense with how much you'd have to think out in terms of funding (e.g. Building costs, teacher salaries, annual expenses). You also made me look back at my original notes for chapter one and I found that I had originally intended to write the currency and Jewel, meaning it would be worth around 100x less (as 1 jewel is equivalent to 100 USD). I've now changed this detail in chapter one, so I hope this satisfies your query.