Chapter 38
Chelia was one of the few lucky people who did not have a sad backstory.
Sure, her parents had been killed by Deliora when she was tiny, but her sister had taken care of her, and she was surrounded by a guild that would protect her.
Yes, she had once expressed interest in the entirely too much amount of leg the 'fish-lady' had displayed while turning human in The Little Mermaid, rather than gushing over a prince who was, in her words, "the broccoli of cinema", and their guild leader had been rather unpleasant about it for a few weeks. However, she had had three square meals a day, plus snacks, enough clothes, shelter, and no one had ever refused when she'd asked them to help her with her Sky God Slaying magic.
Then the universe obviously took offense and decided to ruin everything.
The invasion had been going well. There had been four people similar to one Chelia had helped fight a few days ago, and they were really strong, but Lamia Scale had more people. It was a pretty even fight, and the invaders had been trying to capture some of them and kill others. It could even have been judged in favor of Lamia Scale.
Then a fifth, tiny, blue haired invader broke through the roof riding a flying cat, of all things, and called down a wrathful storm (literally) upon them with a wave of her hand. Well, less wrathful and more of a hyperactive, overexcited storm, but it was a storm, nonetheless. And none of them had umbrellas, literal or figurative.
Chelia was now standing behind their guild master, Ooba Babasama, who was brandishing a walking stick at the blue-haired girl.
"Go away! Don't hurt my guild anymore, or I shall annihilate you!"
Wendy wrinkled her nose. "You're smelly." She then turned to Robin. "Can I kill her, at least? I mean, you wouldn't let me kill that girl, or that guy, or that kid", said Wendy, pointing at the aforementioned people one by one.
"Yeah, sure, kid. Go ahead." Robin gave her a thumbs-up, wondering whether kids should be that… trigger-happy.
The guild master threw her hands out and twirled them as Wendy pounced at her, grinning. Her unique magic spun Wendy around, but Wendy merely twirled with the spell and shoved a fist through her stomach, smiling excitedly the whole time.
Ooba turned towards Chelia and mouthed, 'Run!'. Then she coughed out blood. Wendy removed her hand, and the old lady crashed to the ground.
Wendy took a small lick at the blood on her arm, then made a face and shook her hand, using magic to clean the blood. It tasted horrible.
Chelia backed away as fast as she could, navigating around the bodies, both unconscious and dead. She thrusted her hands out and said, "Sky God-"
"Boo!"
To Chelia, it seemed as if the blue haired girl had disappeared and reappeared in front of her. In surprise, she sent the half formed ball of black wind at her.
Then, to her shock, the girl ate it. Chelia's eyes widened, then she turned the other way and ran.
Wendy's eyes fluttered shut in pure bliss. That magic wind tasted like a slice of heaven, not surprising, since in the ancient magical language, Japanese, Sky magic could also be translated as Heavenly magic. Wendy could feel the magic flowing through her veins, energizing her more than normal air ever could, making her body thrum with power.
She opened her eyes to see that her hair had automatically turned pink. Instead of the rough mane it grew to when she made it pink forcefully, it was much smoother. She turned to see her wings and did a double take. They were more than triple the size of the wings she grew normally in Dragon Force, and they were much cleaner. And fluffier too!
Experimentally flapping her wings, she giggled as she shot up a few feet. She twirled through the air gracefully a few times, accidentally creating a tornado that would go on to demolish the rest of the guild hall, and then a nearby mountain.
Getting down to the floor, Wendy looked at Robin with puppy-dog eyes. "Can I keep her? Her magic is yummy!"
Robin, who had been paying close attention to Wendy, now looked at where Chelia had been standing.
"She's gone, kid."
"Aw." Wendy's wings deflated. Then she perked up again. "If we see her again, can I keep her?"
"You'll have to talk to Vlad-" Wendy's eyes became puppy dog eyes again, "-Okay, fine, you can keep her."
"Yay!"
Then some Rune Knights appeared, and they fled from there, Rueben using his magic to levitate the survivors with them, for the blood bank.
Having reached the forest outside the town, Chelia fell to her knees and started gasping, out of breath. Images of her guild members fallen on the ground, covered in blood, assaulted her mind, and she dry-heaved.
She looked around the forest. Tall trees surrounded her, blocking out the sun. She was completely alone.
Bursting into tears, Chelia started gathering magic in her hands and punched the nearest tree. And again. And again. Through her tears, she muttered, "I'm going to kill you, Blue. I'm going to avenge my family, and rebuild my guild!"
That goal sound familiar?
Now, what had Sherrie told her? Yes, if Chelia ever really needed to find her, she needed to go to… Galuna island or something? Chelia set off in a random direction, hoping to run across a town where she could find a map.
On Galuna island, the moment a spark of purple ice, that is, demonic ice, erupted from Gray's fingers, Ur opened her eyes and got up. Or tried to. Knowing demonic biology (his father, the expert in demonic biology, had insisted), Deliora had created the muscles in such a way that when Ur tried to get up, all she managed to do was kick herself in the face.
Then there was a distinct sound of ice snapping.
Gray immediately took over, fixing all instances of demonic biology Deliora had done. This time, Ur got up.
Dusting herself off, Ur sighed. "Well, there's no way I'm using that spell again."
"I don't think you could use it even if-"
As if Gray hadn't spoken, Ur continued, "For you see, I did not know that I would be conscious the whole time. An understandable mistake, of course, since no one has actually tried the spell and then written down it's effects."
She cracked her knuckles. "Where's Lyon, Gray?" she asked in a tone that implied that Lyon was going to be subjected to The Lecture, and if Ur was feeling particularly sadistic, The Eyes of Disappointment.
"Uh, he's over there- Wait! How much do you know about what happened?"
Ur tilted her head to the left. "Well, I remember being stuck in ice form for seven years. Then I remember Lyon bringing me here, the moonlight somehow feeling like hot rods burning into my flesh-" Gray winced "-and trying to suck away Deliora's life force."
"Wait, what?" The demon looked scared.
Ur turned to the demon and glared at it. "I also heard you talking to Deliora about your life's issues. Gray, demons do not make good therapists."
"Hey! I helped the brat work through his issues!"
Ur glared at Deliora again. "You stayed silent the whole time."
Before the conversation escalated and Gray had to discover whether Ur could use magic as an ice sculpture or not, he changed the subject. "Oh, and Ur? We… uh, we found your daughter. Well, your daughter found us, but that's not the point. And then Zeref tried to kill your daughter by controlling Jellal's body, so I controlled Lyon's body and protected her, and she's also in that room, and Erza is there, and now that I think of it, Erza might kill-"
"My daughter?"
"Yes, Erza might kill your daughter." Gray realized that that was not what Ur had meant, but by then she had started walking towards the other room. He followed.
Erza was sitting with her arms crossed, wondering why she was in this position. Ultear was sitting on her knees in front of her, and from a different angle it looked like they were doing some… things. In reality, Ultear had been apologizing, and then had, for some indiscernible reason, broken down in tears.
Uncrossing her arms, Erza took a deep breath before giving the girl a head pat. "There, there", she said, as awkwardly as the mantis-guy from the show Gray liked to watch. Big Bang Theory or something?
That was the scene Ur walked in on.
"Ultear?"
Ultear's head whipped around. Her eyes widened. "M-mother?"
Gray cleared his throat, holding a trumpet made of ice. "Now, you two run towards each other in slow motion and hug, and I'll play the background music."
The moment was ruined as both the mages turned towards Gray in eerie unison, giving him a deadpan look. Gray shrugged as he made his way over to the ice bench, sitting beside Erza. They looked at the mother-daughter hugging, and Ur leading Ultear outside to talk. Gray looked at Erza.
"So, I'm happy you didn't kill her."
Erza shrugged. "I'm not a murderer, y'know."
Gray rolled his eyes. "Tell that to the guy who stole your ca-" Erza elbowed him in the ribs. "Ow!"
Natsu's spar with Lucy had been going really well, until she'd somehow managed to kick the soft tissue below his neck. Battle reflex had taken over, and he had launched a point blank blood dragon roar at her.
She hadn't had time to dodge, so she brought the hand with the magic circle up. The blood was absorbed, and the magic circle disappeared, but the raw force pushed her backwards, and she hit a tree.
Natsu ran to her, worried. Lucy felt as if it was in slow motion. She grinned slightly. He got closer.
And closer.
And closer.
When he was close enough, arms outstretched as if to catch her before he fell, she gripped a branch and kicked upwards at his neck.
Stopping just before she made contact (making contact hurt), she brought it down on his shoulder. Natsu's momentum didn't allow him to stop, and his body pushed her leg up further.
She smirked in victory, gripping the back of his neck with her left elbow. Just one good punch in the neck, she thought, and he's going down.
"Ahem."
They froze as Natsu pushed his hands against the tree to stop himself. They both turned to see Zeref standing there, arms crossed.
"Could you take this somewhere more private?"
Lucy had been too caught up in the battle to notice what her position looked like. A leg was raised straight up, the back of her knee resting on his shoulders. Hs arms were just beside her shoulders, palms on the tree. Her hand was around his neck, her elbow holding him, as if pulling him in for a kiss.
"Kyaah!" Lucy jumped backwards, breaking through the tree. Having lost his arm support, Natsu lost his balance and landed on his face.
"We were sparring, Zeref-brother." Having been taught the ancient magical language, the word Natsu used was nii-chan, hence the weird syntax of Zeref-brother.
Lucy had studied a little bit of the magical language, and frowned. "Nee-chan?" she asked, pronouncing the nee like in the word 'need'. "Doesn't that mean sister?"
"Uh, no, that's pronounced nay-chan", Zeref corrected. "And sure you were sparring, Natsu. Anyway, Deliora has been freed, so you guys can do the mission Happy came with. Wait, what was your mission again?"
There was silence.
"I… forgot", said Natsu.
"Wasn't it something about destroying the moon?" Lucy asked.
Natsu clicked his fingers. "Yup, that's it! Well, let's go!" He set off towards the village.
Smiling, Lucy followed, ready to cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem. Well, who better to destroy the moon with than her boyfriend-significant other-soulmate?
Well, anyone with the ability to fire energy beams from their hands, but good luck explaining that to a love-addled nineteen year old girl.
On the way, Natsu asked, "Hey, Lucy, how about you call your spirits out and show them just how strong you are, and how they were wrong to leave you and all that?"
"Uh, that won't work, because they didn't leave me because I was weak. They left me because my dad stuck them in a fire, remember? I probably would have left too, although I wouldn't have been anywhere close to as harsh as they were while doing it. I would be supportive and tell them to summon me again once they were out of their father's clutches."
This would be a great time to note that Lucy's self-esteem when her spirits had cancelled her contracts had been ridiculously low, so what she felt was harsh was actually an attempt to do exactly what Lucy had said she would.
Granted, everyone voting Aquarius to tell Lucy the bad news, and Aquarius having a very tsun… well, not tsundere, but tsun-something relationship with Lucy, may have had something to do with it.
And while they had not said outright that Lucy should summon them after escaping her father, they had thought it. They had thought it very hard, indeed.
In the Celestial realm, while they were all spying on Lucy, Taurus was broken out of his thoughts ("Should we have thought it harder?") by the sound of Aquarius slamming her head against the table repeatedly.
"Should I replace that table, Mistress?" asked Virgo, already bringing over a replacement table. Sad that her new wizard had never even attempted to call on her, Virgo had picked the most dominant person in Lucy's group of spirits as her mistress.
"Virgo, I'm not your mistress", Aquarius said, possibly for the billionth time. Of course, it didn't work, because Virgo always knew what would follow next.
"Is it time for punishment, Mistress?" And for the billionth time, like a perfectly executed chemistry experiment, Aquarius's eyes went wide and pupilless, a sign of anger in anime, and her teeth turned large and badly illustrated. Her face turned chibi as she stood up, dragging Virgo to another room.
"Damn right it is!", said Aquarius. "Now where's that whip you always keep? And get me the handcuffs! You cheeky brat, you're not gonna be able to walk for days!"
Virgo smirked. Evilly.
A/N See, there's a reason why I update slowly here. A bad reason, but a reason, nonetheless. You see, on Wattpad, it's just Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Author's Note, and Publish. On this site, it's more complicated, so every time I think, I should post today, I end up thinking, eh, I should write more chapters instead, I'll upload it tomorrow.