Chapter 19: A Life Lost and a Life Gained

"What are we going to do with Sylvia?" Lucy asked immediately.

I closed my eyes in thought, silence, then turned to look at her with a manic grin. Oh, I can see why the Doctor always has that grin. These crazy ideas really gives you the rush of your life!

"Lucy fancy of doing a prison break with me?"

"You're mad!" she immediately said without her usual exuberant smile. I guess there's a limit to how much she could take.

"Yes, but I'm being perfectly serious." I was already fiddling with the controls. A map showed on the screen and searched for the nearest jail she could possibly be held captive in.

"You're just going to turn her into a fugitive!"

"Not with my plan, she won't!"

With a twist and a turn, and a flurry of movement. I transported TORRI on top of the bell tower. The walls changed into glass and we could see the clear horizon of the city. Houses and high buildings gave a sense of otherworldly to me, who had long seen a horizon of skyscraper throughout my life and I found myself appreciating again the beauty this world gave me. The place was beautiful, just as much as it was corrupted.

I looked through the horizon and spotted the prison it was one of the few buildings we got to spot from high above the bell tower. However, to confirm that it is the place I reckoned it was, I made another push of the button and the glass walls became more of a see through monitor as yellow pop ups began to point out where all the famous landmarks of this city were.

"So, what's your plan anyway?"

"My plan involves my magic, a bomb, and an angry ass spirit to kick things off."

Lucy snorted, "Good luck finding the last one, where will you conveniently get a spirit?"

I didn't answer, I just stared long and hard at her head before the look made her quizzically look at me before realization dawned at her.

"You're going to use my spirit?!"

""No, I'm going to use your doll you have in your room to switch her with it without letting anyone notice."

"Uh..."

"Of course your spirits! Who else here has a rare gold key celestial spirit in their pocket." I snarked, my eyes rolling.

"You just want to meet Aquarius again, don't you?" she accused me with her innocent brown beady eyes at me.

I gaped at her, "Goldie, I worship her beauty and her sass. That does not twist my plan into some kind of ulterior motive to meet her."

The pointed look she gave me spelt out well enough that she didn't believe me but she sighed and let it go for now. When I had first met Aquarius, my all time favorite character in all her mermaid glory. I went down on my one knee and confessed my profound love for her. I just couldn't help it.

Hey, this is the Fairy Tail universe! It's given I would have one strange quirk or two. I just preferred it to be my childhood love for Lucy's spirit as I did idolize her character so I wasn't ashamed to admit that when she was first summoned and scowled at me, I instantly squealed and praised her beauty equal to the waves of the blue ocean that gave a breath of refreshment of the windy sea.

She seemed pleased by my praise, if the blush hidden beneath her scowl showed any indication.

Lucy broke me out of my thoughts when she questioned me what the rest of my plan was going to be, I grinned in excitement as I vocalized my idea.

. . .

The prison, Max Cemere, is a building placed on the edge of the city of Sula. It was a circular prison with a tower on top by the centre. The closer you were to the middle, the harsher their punishments were and the more dangerous the people being incarcerated. The tower itself had a calling of its own; 'The Tower of No Return.' The second worse punishment, other than execution; being imprisoned there with no light, no human contact, it was a prison of isolation.

But that information wouldn't be relevant for a long time in this, it was but a convenient stronghold for Roy to enact his plan and lessen the risk of casualty. Trying to gain information was easy enough with the built in Archive Lacrima installed in TORRI, that did not deter Roy from getting secondhand information and making sure there were plans up to Plan M all of them accounting for every possible mishap that could happen.

And just as Roy would have hoped, the High Class would remain cursing his name through decades to come.

Sylvia Carell, a single mother of three who lived her life humbly, was placed at the outer Prison Wall where most of her 'fellow' heretic and other minor criminals. She still couldn't believe how she got into this mess. She had expected today to be a normal day just like all her previous days where she shopped for food, watched her kids play, and preparing for Little Nadia's birthday next week. She teared up at the thought of her kids, who was going to take care of them now?

In her white prison gown, she was forced to reside alongside her prison mate, a burly mid-age woman that tied her gray streaked hair into pigtails and had lips red from thick lipstick. Where she kept it, she has no idea.

Sylvia was frightened for her life and for her kids. She has heard many rumors surrounding the prison and she would have never imagined that she would be on this end. But she couldn't blame anyone but herself. Afterall, had she remembered her place and kneeled in time, she wouldn't be here. It was all her fault that she left her kids alone without anyone to care for them. She could only hope her brother would make sure they were safe and taken care of.

Yes, she only had herself to blame.

"So what did you get in here for?" Her burly cellmate asked. Sylvia jumped a bit at the sudden question and found herself not being able to form words with how scared she was. The Cellmate noticed this and brushed off her fear with a light tone and a wave of her hand, "Relax, I'm not going to eat you or nothing. I only make myself look intimidating so no one would mess with me. Oh, and the name's Karen by the way." She extended her hand and Sylvia found her fear unwarranted as she took it with a smile, her whole hand grasped underneath Karen's.

"M...My name is Sylvia and I..,I am here because I had been rude to the mages by standing before them. It was a blunder of my side while talking to the Children of Ethernano who knew nothing of our ways."

Karen was silent as she assessed her, "You believe you were in the wrong?"

Sylvia tilted her head, "Why off course, how could I not be?" she said as if it was an obvious thing.

Karen sighed and mumbled something about 'another one of you' and her face became guarded once more as she settled back at the corner of her bed.

"What about you?" Sylvia asked, "What brought you here in this place?"

"Oh, I just punched a mage in the face."

Sylvia gasped, "No...how could you? Have you lost your mind?"

She snorted, "Worth it though. The guy was taking things without buying and ruining stalls just for the heck of it. Some knights they are." Karen grumbled the last part.

"Surely there must have been a misunderstanding, a person of High Class would never do such barbaric things."

Karen would have argued that yes, most High Class would do such barbaric things. Yet she didn't and let Sylvia believe the things she believed in. Because she knew Sylvia couldn't be reasoned with. One that even being showed the proof over and over that changing the view of an adult who had grown up being taught and believing one thing above anything else? No, it would be impossible to change her mind .

Alarms blared and Sylvia jumped at the loud high pitched sound, many guards began to move, leaving their post in a hazy panic.

"What's going on?" one of them cried.

"We have a flood!"

"What do you mean we have flood? We're nowhere near a lake or a river."

"I just said we have a flood, I don't bloody know how we got it!"

The prisoners were all confused by the turn of events, some were asking - or shouting - questions some pleaded to let them out in fear of the unknown, some choose to stay quiet and let the trouble pass.

Outside, people would witness what one would say was an impossibility, would be one of the sheer possibility of magic.

Next to the prison building a water tank was currently gushing out water from a giant hole on the side. It was sprouting out more water then it could have possibly held, magic causing the liquid to flow out endlessly.

Anyone who tried to get closer would risk being swept away, the fact that the water was being redirected into the prison, flooding the place and drowning the guards. They all tried to use their magic to stop the flow but trying to do that while keeping yourself afloat is not easy for an average mage. Besides, the spirit currently residing inside the tank was called one of the strongest spirits for a reason; she would always make sure to show everyone who the boss was around here.

"Those two brats better make this worth it, I'm late for my date because of them," the water-bearer spirit grumbled. "Lucy is lucky to have a boy with a smooth mouth or else I would have never agreed to any of this."

While everyone was panicking, the Keeper of Keys, Ronald, kept still in his post. The two guards hanging beside him had stern sour faces while Ronald kept a calm facade as he ate noodles for dinner.

The three of them however, then broke out into a shocked gasp as they watched, right before their eyes, a big red box materializing right in front of them. Ronald couldn't help the single strand of noodle that slipped out of his mouth and the pair of chopsticks that fell out of his hand.

It shocked them even more when the door to the red box and out came out was a boy. No less than 12 or 13 perhaps. He spared a brief glance to his surrounding It came to look like a regular guardsman's post office. Not the small kind the British used, just a small white room, with a desk, a lamp, and a few books on the side.

He then prompted a wide grin when he spotted the three.

"Ah, quick question. Are you the Key Keeper perhaps?"

Finally, the two guards broke out of their stupor and aimed their weapons - a spear and a sword - at him. "Who are you? I demand you state your name and purpose here!" one of them ordered.

"Hmm? My name? You want to know who I am?!" the boy said with all the exaggeration he could muster. His arms spread wide, followed with a giggle, "I've always wanted to greet people with a sort of pizzaz y'now. It was the kind of greeting you'd never expect from someone and became stuck in your head for life."

The boy danced around as he babbled it all in one breath, never leaving out of sight from the guardsmen. Yet he then stepped forwards with the kind of smile and body language one would use to greet a friend and that caught them off guard causing them to hesitate even as the boy patted their backs with an innocent enough gesture.

To them anyway.

"Okay, here goes, now honestly tell me what you think." The boy took a deep breath and stood straight. "Hello, I'm The Captain and I'm here to kick your ass," and with a quick one word writing of a rune letter, the marks on the guard's backs glowed purple and pulled them towards each other so they were forcibly put back to back. Another word was written that said 'Pull', they were now being pulled to the side and stuck to the wall like a bug caught in a spider trap. Their weapons left on the ground a few feet away.

"That went better than I expected." Roy admitted in genuine surprise, "I should do that more often."

"What did you...how did you…" Ronald muttered with wide eyes.

"Oh, just a simple use of my teleportation rune. A little tweak and not only can I now teleport myself or other stuff. I could now teleport words as well. Long distance Rune Writing, clever don't you think?"

Ronald whimpered and back away, his short legs betrayed him and made him trip himself. Roy rolled his eyes in response, "Save the acting Mr. Mage. Did you really think they would trust the keys to the whole prison cell to one man who can't defend himself properly? Plus, I have a good talent in sensing ethernano and you my friend, have the making of an S-Rank Mage."

Immediately the whimpering stopped, his hazel eyes hardened and his short body straightened as he brushed his strawberry blond bangs back.

"So a kid, but a smart kid at that. You have no idea how many people fall for that whimpering act I used and fell victim to me."

"...are you sure it's not because you're short?"

Roy sidestepped a purple arrow that was aimed for his leg. He looked back at an angry Ronald, who now had a bow and stack of arrows on his back, making Roy groan at the sight.

'Great, another weapon. Guess this country is more used to weapon oriented magic.'

Ronald drew back another arrow, a confident smirk made its way to his lips. I put my hands up and waved for him to paused, "Wait, wait, wait a bit...just...for a tiny...bit of a moment with you. You remembered when I said I can sense your magic and deduced correctly that you are an S-Class Mage, yes?"

Ronald wasn't sure where he was going with this, but nodded nonetheless.

"Well then, do you honestly think I would walk in here without a plan against a person who I know would be S-Class material?" The door to TORRI shot open and from the inside, he shot out chains that immediately wrapped Ronald from head to toe. Making him look like a metal worm.

. . .

"Anti-magic chains, expensive stuff to the common folk but good news is I'm not common." I said proudly to The Keeper, who tried to wiggle his way out but to no avail.

"You Sonnova-"

I didn't let him finish as I requipped a bubblegum ball into my hand and threw it to his mouth. Sealing him from making tangible words. It was originally made for pranks but I guess it has its other uses.

Then with one smooth move, I kicked the side of his head and he crumpled down. I looked down at him, and gave him a light kick this time to confirm he was unconscious and wouldn't wake up anytime soon.

I shot a grin to my AI with a thumbs up, "Nice going TORRI!"

[Always a pleasure to be at service Sir.]

Lucy took that moment to pop her head out and asked "Is it over yet?"

"Yup," I said and popping the 'p' in the end. I sat on one knee and rummaged inside his pocket to find the Master Keys all round up in a bundle of chains used for all prison cells. One of them was the key that opened all the cells for the Outer Wall Prison.

Lucy and I both exchanged eager looks, but before we rushed toward the cell where Sylvia was kept, I said one thing and one thing only;

"Allons-y Goldilocks!"

Good God, you don't know just how long I've been waiting to say that!

But maybe I should find my own trademark word for next time. Can't have everything be the same, now can we?

Anyway, with my magic I was able to track down Sylvia up to the third floor, I passed the many cells where prisoners were banging on their metal bars and shouting something, but the cacophony made it all intangible to my hearing.

Finally we stopped at one cell and there, in her white prisoner gown that showed off her tanned skin with chinese features, her long thick black hair looking disheveled from stress, was Sylvia.

I began trying keys one by one, "What are you doing?" Sylvia asked but I ignored her as I found the right key and opened the locked door, much to both her and her cellmate's surprise.

I threw them a cocky smirk and threw the one master key I used to the burly woman and told her, "Free one, free all?" Her surprised face turned to one of satisfaction and she began to unlock more of the cells around her and before long, there was a mass breakout.

Lucy nudged me with her elbow and I looked down at her at her concerned face, "Roy, I trust you, but is it a good thing that we're releasing all the inmates here?"

"Not all Lucy. Just the one from the Outer Wall Prison. They usually served here only for petty crime or talking back to the "High Society" nothing serious, BUT!" Lucy still looked unconvinced but I already have a failsafe just in case, "I put magic on the surrounding prison. If any inmates got out with the intention of harming anyone or anything outside this prison than they would not be able to get out from their cell, so those who deserved it gets a second chance, satisfied?"

Lucy's grin brightened, "Very."

I nodded and made a turn to Sylvia, "Now then Miss Sylvia, I believe you have kids waiting for your return." I fully turned to her and was surprised that she was closing her own cell and locking herself up again.

"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, confused and distraught at her action.

"I must not be released nor should you have released those prisoners. We are here for our sins and we must pay for our crimes."

"You can't be serious?!" Lucy cried, "You were only standing and they put you out and you think you've done a crime. They should be the one being locked up!" She said indignantly then turned to me in silent plea that I should say something as well.

However, once again I was at lost for words. It was like when the Gaudy One had instructed his guard to take Sylvia away for just standing at his presence. I was too distraught and in disbelief at the scene that was actually happening in front of me, I would have never thought those kind of irrational things happened here in this universe.

But it did.

Sylvia shook her head and gave us two a sad smile, "I appreciate what you did for me, a stranger you only met for barely any time and yet you-" she chuckled, "you tried to break me out of prison. I doubt anyone I know would have ever done that for me. However, don't blame yourself for that. It is my own doing that put me here for the crime against a mage and I must pay for it. Do not worry about me Children."

"Then what about your children?" my voice finally came out, I looked into her eyes and hoped to God she would change her mind because this wasn't right. This isn't the kind of life people should consider living. With how the mages took hold of their beliefs to the point of even making a mage angry would be considered blasphemy. "Is paying for your crimes worth leaving your kids to live without their mother, is that truly what you think?"

For a brief moment, I saw the hesitation flash in her eyes before her lips pressed together. Then she closed her eyes and when she opened them that flash was gone and her eyes had hardened. "If that is the will of our mages then yes," she said with conviction.

"But that's-" I cut Lucy off, placing my hand on her shoulder and shook my head slowly. "Wh...why? This isn't right. Why would you let this happen?" I didn't say anything, instead I showed her that I felt just as devastated as her. Lucy couldn't say anything else.

Reluctantly we left the spot, leaving Sylvia to her choice. It didn't make it any better that some of the opened cells still had prisoners in them with no intention to leave. I tried ignoring them as I let the incident take its place without the one who we truly wanted to release.

We dashed back to TORRI hand in hand, Not looking at each other, neither of us wanted any reminder of our failure from the disappointed face we both must be wearing. We maneuvered our way back throughout the chaos the prison was in, letting it be the distraction we needed to get back. Once we were in our ship, we stayed there quietly with our backs on the door until Lucy break the silence. "Let's go home," she quietly suggested.

Wordlessly, I set the coordinates for home. TORRI shuddered and quickly we held on the railings from the bumpy ride we were in. When he stopped, we looked outside and found ourselves back to the forest we had left on. The hill we were on gave us a perfect view of the sunrise, meaning we had stayed up all night, the fatigue finally hit us hard as we lay on the grass beside our ship, followed with an exhausted sigh from me. It would have been a great way to start or end our day and in another time we would have appreciated its beauty. However, not even the rising sun that colored the sky in a mix of purple, red, pink and yellow could cheer us up from our ordeal.

"Why…" Lucy found herself asking, "Why did she stay in prison, why would she even insist in staying and leaving her kids like that? It doesn't make sense."

"People don't make sense sometimes Lucy. She grew up in a world where everyone was told that Mages were better than them. It was normal and a well known fact there, just like how you and I believe people should be free to practice magic. It's twisted and shouldn't be like that but the world isn't simply black and white, good and evil, it's complicated and has so many different shades and patterns... It's hard, so, so hard to know that and yet..." I trailed off. It wasn't the answer she was looking for, nor did it make her feel any better.

"We couldn't save her."

I thought about her words and shifted to lay beside her so we could look at one another, "People are weird that way. We couldn't save her because she didn't want to be saved and sometimes, sometimes we can't save everyone. This is just one of those days."

"I don't like it," she said in a childish tone, making me snort in agreement.

"Me neither."

We stayed that way for awhile, letting the warm heat from the sun brush our cheeks. Breathing in the cold air of the forest and the smell of the morning dew help soothed our souls. It didn't make us well, but it did make us feel better.

Then my ears perked up with the sound of my name being called. I sat straight, Lucy followed along and we both turned in synch when we saw Rebecca hiking up the hill. A flash of panic coursed through me at her presence, but then it turned to confusion when she wasn't looking worried, or angry, or anything that would make me feel like I was in trouble.

She was smiling, a wide giddy excited smile that stretched across her face. "Roy, Lucy, oh thank God I finally found you. Come, come! It's almost time and you've got to see it!" Rebecca didn't give us time to respond or ask questions before our hands were snatched and pulled alongside with her as we ran down the hill.

"Rebecca you're not making any sense. Where are you taking us? What is it time for? Can you please tell us what's going on?!"

Rebecca didn't stop rushing us as she kept her plastered grin at me and told me why, "It's almost time for the hatching!"

My eyes was round as saucer and my eyebrows raised high, "You mean-"

She nodded.

A genuine grin finally made its way on my face as I turned to a still confused Lucy, "You're going to love this Lucy!" I said, followed with an eager laugh as we rushed down toward the mansion.

Finally coming toward my room, I saw Nick hugging his egg. It was shining dimly and a crack began to form around it. He put the egg down and all four of us circled it. The sound of more cracks forming and the egg shining more brightly was the cue for the it to explode and out came, up in the air, was an orange flying kitten.

All of us smiled at the sight. The dark cloud that had hung on Lucy and me was cleared at the sight of the birth of a new life in front of us. The kitten flew down gently until it stopped on top of Nick. Making herself at home in his messy thick hair.

"So Nick, do you have a name in mind for her?"

Nick closed his eyes and groaned for a long while before he opened his eyes in determination kind of look and said with a straight face, "I got nothing!"

The rest of us facepalmed at his statement.

Lucy nudged my side and gave a knowing smile at me, "Why don't you name her Roy. You always have like giving things names right?"

"It's Nick's cat though, he should be naming her."

"Then how about we named him Nono, or Peterpa, or Swirly or…"

"Never mind. I'll name her."

I looked back at the exceed in front of me, still nestled sleepily on Nick's head. I had the urge to just call her Sleepy but that wouldn't be any good since there won't be 7 exceeds and we'll only have two cats with the proper Dwarf name anyway. I then thought back to the first time we encountered the egg. How it had fell from the sky right when we were at the middle of a Demon Raid, when everything felt like it was all at a loss. She fell like a miracle coming down on us.

Like she was giving us a small speck of- "Hope, her name is Hope."

As if she concurred with the name, Hope took that moment to wake up and smile brightly at us, "Hope!" she repeated me.

All of us smiled and laughed giddily as we welcomed our new family.

AN: Hello there, did your heart shatter from this story? My new beta-ist said so and I'm proud on what I've done, muahahahaha.

Anyway, for anyone who thinks I'm disrespecting a culture I hope you understand that it was never my intention to do so. Heck, I based this culture on the Celestial Dragon from ONE-FREAKING-PIECE! Had I copy their action, Sylvia would have died on the spot because the Mages wanted to and I wanted to downplay it a bit to this. After all, this is a whole new universe, I refuse to believe that there's no such thing as a society where they don't put mages in a pedestal and revered them as deities or some kind. Making the Fairy Tail universe as close to realistic as possible is one of my goal here, and I'm sorry if I disrespect anyone when I had based this culture on fiction. I want my story to be enjoyed not to offend people.

Aaaaaaand that's it for my rant.

Also, I decided to rewrite a bit on my whole fic since I've been kindly pointed that my english sucks. (No, I'm not crying, you're crying!) So I will remedied this with my new Beta-ist. Another good news, there's only one last leg left before we plunged into cannon!

Stay tuned everyone, R&R

With Love, Author.