Disclaimer - Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima & all things Pradesh belong to DESNA
A/N - Things are taking a bit of a turn with this Chapter but it should all come together over the next few. Enjoy and as always, please review!
It had been three weeks and they were getting nowhere. There were no more attacks. No more riots reported anywhere. They were currently in Oshibana, taking a break while somewhat hoping the upcoming museum display of artifacts attracted the dark guild. It was also a railway hub which allowed them to easily follow any lead quickly. On the plus side, Lucy's quest to get to know Jellal was going swimmingly. She found him quite the conversationalist when the topic interested him and he was an amazing listener. She used that to her advantage to discuss her concerns about a few of her guildmates. Obviously that included quite a bit about Juvia. Jellal had a lot of sympathy for her beginnings with Fairy Tail. He knew the difficult path to redemption quite well.
Currently, the three were split up in the town. Jellal was doing research and she and Meredy were shopping. The two girls had very different ideas about shopping so they went their separate ways. Lucy was currently perusing the jewelry at a street vendor's stall. A long dangling necklace with a beautifully polished azure stone with gold flecks had caught her eye. She was about to ask the price when she was bumped from behind and nearly knocked over. She turned to give the person a piece of her mind when the vendor jumped to her side of the stall and yelled at her accoster about leaving his customers alone. Soon enough the two were arguing loudly and a crowd began to draw.
It wasn't but a few minutes before one of them threw a punch. The crowd jeered and pressed in closer, Lucy pulled back to get out of the way before she ended up an unwilling part of it. Luckily she was able to get out in time and snuck to the other side of the street watching in bewilderment as people in the crowd started to get involved instead of just spectating. She could actually feel the rage flowing from those involved and it seemed to just draw in more and more people. Suddenly sensing anger and jealousy right next to her she backed up into a fruit vendor's cart and startled herself. When she turned to pick up the apples she accidently knocked loose a small hand reached out from behind the cart and grabbed the apples. She heard little footsteps run in the other direction.
She wasn't sure why, but she felt compelled to race after the apple thief, the feeling of anger and jealousy ahead of her, rage behind her.
As she ran, she called out Loke to try to get ahead of him and stop him and between the two they finally captured him on the edge of town. Loke held the squirming thief down while Lucy caught up. "Princess?" Loke looked to her to see what she wanted him to do. She really wasn't even sure herself.
"We aren't going to hurt you, I just want to talk." She tried to calm them down as she got a better look. They were small, dirty, and wearing tattered clothes. She slowly pulled the hood away from their face and took a deep breath in. Aqua eyes glared at her from the boy's face. His hair color was hard to determine with all the dirt caked in it, but she thought maybe a light brown.
He didn't speak, just glared. She never felt so much anger and fear from a person before and it nearly broke her heart to see it come from what she guessed was a 10 or 11 year old boy. "It's not working!" the kid finally growled out in frustration. "Why doesn't it work on you? Do you have a bracelet too?"
Lucy wasn't sure what he was shouting about, but a tear slowly streaked down her face as she ripped him out of Loke's grasp to hug him tightly to her chest. "I am so sorry for whatever you've gone through, but you are safe now. Let me help you." She looked up to Loke and added, "Let us help you."
Vander strolled into Fairy Tail using the front door for once since he was with his brother. He was avoiding his father who was now in full on get grandbabies mode now that Cristoff was mated. Fiore was a good a place as any to hide out, he could hang out with his brother, the poison slayer and tease his favorite blonde. Bickslow ran upstairs to talk to Laxus, and he looked around noticing that neither Cobra nor Lucy were there.
"Hey Mira, Cobra on a mission?" he asked as he strolled to the bar and ordered a beer.
"Not one of ours, he's avoiding Jellal I think." She pointed over to a blue haired man with a red face tattoo sitting with a giggling pink haired girl in matching blue cloaks. "He used to be a part of their guild." Mira added as explanation.
"So where is mia stella?" Mira smirked just a little. This was her chance to work on her most favorite ship of all.
She put on her most innocent face and shrugged. "She went on a mission with Crime Sorciere a few months ago and hasn't come back." Quickly, before she lost her composure she turned around and picked up some already clean glasses to pretend clean them again.
A low voice growled out behind her, "What do you mean she hasn't returned?"