Last Edited 04/16/2019
Here's the next chapter, new and improved!
Enjoy.
Chapter 03
"—can't believe how loud a person and a cat can be," Lucy was saying, her back to me as she fiddled with her dress a bit. "It took an hour for my ears to stop ringing!"
I gave a noncommittal noise in agreement to show I was listening, but she'd been complaining since we got back to the hotel room we'd booked upon arrival in Hargeon this morning, so it wasn't exactly anything new. She'd finish up here in a bit, I knew, when her excitement over the coming party took over. Personally, I just wanted to get it over with; the sooner we dealt with Bora, the sooner we could leave Hargeon behind and get on with joining Fairy Tail.
"I mean, I know they were just happy we bought food for them, but that was a bit too much gratitude for me," Lucy continued, and I hummed a little, contemplating which skirt style to go for with the two-piece dress I was going to be wearing. I'd already decided on the halter top variation to avoid any mishaps with cleavage, but the skirt was proving more difficult. Which, technically, the different pieces went to different dresses, but they were made of similar fabric and they'd all come from the same company, so it didn't really matter all that much, especially since I'd found the bunch at a huge discount brought on by a going-out-of-business sale.
"Hey, what do you think about this?" Lucy asked a moment later, and I looked up from my decision-making to glance at her. "Is this color good, or do you think I should change it?"
Lucy was wearing what appeared to be the same dress from the series, if my memory had it right; it was a long halter strap dress with a slit going up the right leg, but rather than the burgundy shade I was sure it had been, this one was a deep teal blue. The color was gorgeous, of course; Lucy's fair skin was more neutral than anything, so we'd found that she looked good in most any color.
"It looks great, but I kind of thought you'd pick something more like red or pink," I told her honestly, tilting my head a bit as I surveyed her appearance. "What made you choose this?"
"You did, Silly," she responded with a rather fond eye roll, gesturing at the dress. "You told me to be careful, so I thought a cooler color would be less bold, maybe, make it easier to be overlooked in a crowd." I blinked and a look of mild shock came over my face; I hadn't expected her to actually take my words so literally, but somehow, Lucy always found a way to surprise me. "And I was wondering if you could help me find a good place for my keys?"
"Don't you have a thigh holster you could use?" I asked her, remembering when she'd bought it just weeks after we'd found the dresses; it had been intentional, on her part, to make sure she had a place for them, no matter what she was wearing.
"Well, yeah, but don't you think that might be too obvious? If we're trying to be cautious, then we'd want to keep stuff like that hidden, right, and there's no way to hide the holster in this dress. The slit's too high for that."
"Wow, you've really thought this through, haven't you?" I asked, and affection filled me as I looked at her. "I'm actually impressed; I didn't expect you to go this far when I told you to be careful."
What, did you expect me to ignore you, or something?" Lucy asked, placing her hands on her hips. "Even I can tell this guy is majorly foul, even if he can get us into Fairy Tail, and I trust your judgement, besides. You're rarely wrong about these things, and I'd be stupid to disregard that."
I couldn't help the smile that crept onto my face, at her words; Lucy had come far in all the years we'd been sisters, so much farther than I'd ever thought my influence alone could bring her, and it never ceased to amaze me just how much my opinion mattered, how deeply she cared for the girl who should never have existed.
It made me feel, for an instant, like I truly belonged in this world.
"So, all we have to do is follow all these other girls, and we'll find the party?" Lucy asked, looking doubtfully back and forth between me and the group of women just down the street ahead of us.
"Are you saying you have a better idea?" I asked in return, crossing my arms definitively underneath my chest. "This is our best shot; Salamander never actually told us how to get there. We don't even know which ship we're looking for."
"Yeah, I know." Lucy sighed and hung her head a little. "I just don't like following people; it makes me feel like we're sneaking around, or something."
"I get it; I really do," I told her, lifting a hand to point down the street, "but if we don't hurry, we'll lose them, and then, we'll never find the party in time."
Lucy jumped and made a little noise of shock, reaching out to grab my hand. "Let's go, then! I am not missing this party!"
And then, we were off, bounding along behind the small group of women, dressed to the nines and completely unaware of their surroundings as they chittered back and forth. We walked for about half an hour and past three other sections at the docks before the ship came into view, and I knew it was the right one the moment I saw it, despite the other ships in port. It was larger than the others, more elaborate, but what made me so sure it was the right one was the large banner hanging right by the walkway that'd been set up for all the girls. It was the same dark purple as Bora's cape with the same image on the front, round and appearing to me almost like a ship's steering wheel; there was a man standing on each side of the gangplank, likely to be part of Bora's crew, and I could already see women starting to board.
"Well, I guess this is it," I murmured, apprehension for the night ahead filling me.
"Yeah." Lucy took a deep breath and shot me a nervous smile. "Let's go."
Stepping onto the ship led us right onto the main deck, and when most of the women ahead of us branched off to the left, Lucy and I decided, automatically, to follow them. The space we found ourselves walking was almost like an outdoor hallway, of sorts, leading to a more open area about a hundred feet down, and as we rounded the final corner, I found myself less than impressed. Bora and his men had clearly not put a lot of effort into this party; there were round tables set up around the deck space, each covered in simple white tablecloths and with about six chairs surrounding them. A longer table had been set up along one side, atop which was placed a selection of wine and glasses to drink it from. There were no other refreshments, and a glance around confirmed an absolute lack of entertainment. As far as parties went, it wasn't shaping up to be a very good one, and that was without taking Bora's deeper motivations into account.
And to think, we hadn't even left port yet, and I already hated being here.
Bora came for us roughly ten minutes after the ship set sail, likely because we weren't drinking the wine like all the other women. Lucy wasn't much of a drinker, though the legal limit was as low as fifteen in Fiore, but I'd opted out because I was about ninety percent sure it was drugged. I couldn't recall the specifics, of course, but drugging seemed the most likely option for knocking out a group of women this large. I imagine it'd really be an issue if some of them didn't drink and happened to be standing there when everyone else passed out.
"Come, come, Ladies," Bora was saying, gesturing to the doorway he was holding open for us. "I keep all my best wine over here; you'll love it, I assure you."
Nonetheless, we had followed him reluctantly down a hallway leading right up nearly to the rear of the ship, and as I glanced into the room ahead of us, the part that stood out the most was the large white curtain spanning the length of the left wall. There was a round table and a couch placed in front of it, with a tall wooden cabinet along the opposite wall, accompanied on either side by decorative end tables.
"Thank you," Lucy said, her voice strained and her shoulders stiff as she stepped past us into the room. "How kind of you."
I followed without a word or a glance to Bora, carefully smoothing out the skirt of my dress (a long double-slit I'd paired with stretchy short-shorts for modesty) as I settled down next to her, and though I could sense nothing behind the curtain, I wondered if Bora's men had been put in place yet. I might not have been all that great with remembering the series' finer details, but that was one thing that was clear to my memory, even now.
"I don't believe I've had the pleasure of learning your names, yet," Bora said, looking over his shoulder at us as he made his way over to the cabinet, fiddling around inside it.
"My name is Lucy," My sister said with a reluctant glance at me, "and this is Lori."
Bora turned and walked over to us, a bottle of wine and three glasses in his hands. "Lovely names for equally lovely ladies," he told us with a smirk, setting the glasses down on the table and popping the cork on the wine in one swift movement. "Let's start with a toast, shall we?"
"Don't you have to attend to other girls," Lucy asked nervously, meeting my eyes briefly as Bora began pouring wine into two of the three glasses.
"It's okay," He said, setting the wine bottle onto the table and lifting his hand above the glasses. "I'd rather have a drink with the two of you."
He snapped his fingers and some of the wine floated into the air, hovering like raindrops between us. "Try opening your mouths," he told us, pushing the wine forward telekinetically with a little smirk, "and pearls of wine will slowly float inside for you."
Lucy's expression soured and her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but Bora ignored the look in favor of hovering the wine closer to us. I met Lucy's eyes briefly, and in the next instant, we rose from the couch together, Lucy throwing aside the wine droplets with a sweep of her arm. "What, did you think a sleeping drug would fool us?" She asked, and I took that as my cue, using a bit of telekinesis to sweep aside the curtain behind us.
Lucy gasped at the action, glancing behind us at the shocked group of men who'd previously been hiding there, and I called magic into my hands, the color shining a deep, angry red, throwing it out at them like a shockwave. They all went tumbling at the action, yelling and cursing, and I turned to glare at Bora and he glared back with a rather nasty smirk. "Next time, maybe try something a little less obvious than a curtain in the middle of the room."
"I'll remember that," He said, lifting his arms in preparation, and beside me, Lucy reached through the slit in her dress, tugging her keys from the holster we'd attached to the opposite leg. "But really, if you'd just gone to sleep peacefully like good little girls, you wouldn't have to get hurt!"
Bora hurled a stream of his purple fire at us, and I threw out a blast of my own to block it, the crimson magic exploding upon contact with his. Smoke erupted between us, and Bora cried out with anger, preparing another attack just as the other men came in for round two.
"Open! Gate of the Giant Crab!" Lucy called, holding the golden key out between us. "Cancer!"
He appeared in an instant, pristine and well-groomed as always, and immediately went to work on the larger group, and I focused entirely on Bora, conjuring a little barrier to block the next bit of fire he hurled at us and watching carefully as his magic swirled and swished through the air in ways that fire didn't usually do. Dropping my shield the moment his attack faded, I held out a hand and rapid-fired a set of bullets made entirely of blood red light, my anger at the situation giving strength to the attack, and Bora threw himself to the side to dodge it just as Lucy shrieked behind me. I turned to look at her just in time to spot Cancer fading out, and I noted that a great deal of the men were done, either bald, half-naked, or bleeding from cuts made by Cancer's scissors. The few that had escaped the worst of it were closing in on Lucy now, and as she reached for her keys once more, the ceiling exploded inward. Debris rained down in the space between us and Bora, accompanied by a body clothed in red, and the whole room seemed to erupt in shock.
"It's that brat from earlier!" Bora exclaimed as the dust cleared to reveal Natsu, and in the instant before his motion-sickness kicked in, the serious look on his face spoke volumes.
"Hey, it's Natsu!" Lucy exclaimed, and a look of nausea came over Natsu's face as he crumpled to the ground with a hand over his mouth. "Seriously?! That's so lame!"
"What's going on?!" Bora questioned loudly, looking from Natsu to the hole in the ceiling and back. "Why would a brat fall from the sky?!"
"Lucy? Lori?" A high-pitched voice spoke from above us, and I looked up, catching sight of Happy floating in the hole Natsu had made with his landing. "What are you doing here?"
"What's it look like we're doing?" I returned, eyes focused curiously on the wings flapping along behind the little blue cat.
"This jerk tricked us!" Lucy was quick to explain, pointing over at Bora accusingly. "He said he was going to let us join Fairy Tail!"
Said man was looking very angry and much too ready to continue the fight we'd started, and I pooled magic into my hand, my growing anger at Bora keeping the color firmly at a deep, blood red. "Happy, get Lucy out of here!"
Happy shot down between us in an instant, clearly not wanting to question me while my hand was glowing, and as Bora's magic erupted in response, I threw out a blast to block it, as before; I heard Lucy shrieking in the next moment as she was pulled into the air and straight up through the hole. Bora screeched in anger, throwing out another blast of fire aimed at Lucy and Happy, and I hurled a burst of spectral magic right at it, the attacks exploding on contact above us.
"Don't let them get away! We can't let them report us to the magic council!" Bora ordered, and several of the men who still could ran out of the room, intending to do just that. "You're really starting to get on my nerves, Lady!" He told me, sneering a moment later when what sounded like gunfire erupted outside.
"Yeah, well, the feeling's mutual," I countered, glaring at him with my hands held up between us, magic at the ready.
"Still," He continued with a despicable smirk. "Someone with your kind of power could make me a lot of money on the black market; why don't you be a good girl and come quietly so I don't have to ruin that pretty face?"
"I think we've already established what kind of girl I am," I shot back at him, muscles tensing in preparation for his next attack. "Blind obedience just isn't my thing."
It happened abruptly. The ship rocked violently, and my feet left the ground as I was hurled with a shriek into the nearest wall; the room tilted sideways as the ship twisted about over the water, sending furniture and people tumbling every which way. Hastily, I threw my arms out on either side of me, and a shimmering goldenrod-colored bubble appeared around me just as I was sent flying across the room. I hit the wall bubble-first and bounced off with a screech, hurtling over and around everyone else until I was rebounding from one wall to another like a human pinball, and as the ocean roared loudly in my ears, I felt almost dizzy enough to hurl. My impromptu bubble bounced once or twice more as the world seemed to slow to a stop around me, and I let the magic fade away, slipping down onto shaky knees and clapping a hand over my mouth while I waited for the queasiness to subside.
"What the hell is going on?" Bora asked in shocked confusion, the question sounding out amid a chorus of groaning and shuffling from the men who were still conscious, and I squinted past the dizziness in an effort to see who'd landed where.
Natsu was several feet in front of me, just past the curtain that had originally divided the room, and over by the wall across from us were Bora and several of his men, a few of which had been knocked out in all the commotion. The door we'd come in through was on the right, and I realized then that we'd somehow switched places because I was currently kneeling about where most of the men had been hiding, before. At least the ship was still mostly upright and intact, despite being grounded; too much worse, and someone could easily have gotten hurt or killed in the chaos.
"It stopped," I heard Natsu mumbling as he rose slowly to his feet, and as my stomach began to settle, I lowered my hand to my lap. "The rocking stopped."
He stood there for a moment just watching Bora, who was glaring back at us like we were a couple of pests that needed to be squashed. Abruptly, the door slammed open, and Lucy appeared, dripping wet and completely barefoot.
"Lori! Natsu!" She yelled with a panicked look on her face. "Are you okay?!" She froze, then, wide eyes trained on Natsu, and I found myself wondering at the expression she found there; I was too far behind him to see it properly, myself.
"Are you a mage of Fairy Tail?" Natsu asked with his eyes on Bora, his voice fierce and angry now that he no longer had to worry about his motion-sickness getting in the way.
"What of it, Brat? You know, you shouldn't get onto other people's ships without permission," Bora replied while scratching his chin, and as he turned to glance back at his men, Natsu moved to take off his jacket. "Hey, throw him out, already!"
A couple of them ran at us, aiming for Natsu, and Lucy squealed and reached for her keys, but Happy, who'd snuck up behind her when no one was looking, held up a small blue paw to stop her, murmuring something I didn't quite catch from this distance. Lucy shrieked in surprise, and as I rose carefully to my feet in anticipation of the fight to come, I wondered briefly just what he'd said to her. Ahead of me, Natsu removed his jacket completely and threw it behind him at me just as the men drew within feet of him, and I reached out to catch it, as he did; he lifted his right arm and slammed the two of them roughly to the side, his gaze still clearly fixed on Bora.
"I'm Natsu from Fairy Tail, and I've never seen you before!" he stated, fury lacing every word, and Bora screeched in frightful disbelief.
"Fairy Tail?!" Lucy exclaimed incredulously, her face going wide with shock. "Natsu is a mage from Fairy Tail?!"
"That mark!"
"This guy's the real deal, Bora!"
"Idiot!" Bora yelled, turning to glare back at the men who had spoken. "Don't call me that!"
"I don't care what kind of person you are," Natsu said, his voice fierce and angry. "Good or bad, it doesn't matter, but I can't forgive you for using our good name!"
"You noisy brat!" Bora exclaimed, throwing a large burst of his purple magic in our direction, and instinctively, I took a step forward, pulling magic into my hand to block it.
"Don't," Natsu murmured, turning his head a fraction to glance at me over his shoulder, and I found myself hesitating.
The attack eclipsed him, and I lifted an arm to shield my face from the heat; peeking through my fingers, I watched in awe as Natsu took in a great breath, and Bora's magic curved toward his face in midair, disappearing into him within seconds. I'd forgotten for a moment that Bora's magic was fire-based and that Natsu could eat it, but the real thing was so much better than the vague mental images I'd always conjured up when thinking about him.
Natsu's magic was truly amazing.
"Man, that was nasty," Natsu commented in disgust, seeming unaffected by the wide-eyed, terrified stares of Bora and his crew, and off to the side, Lucy watched the whole thing in a state of open-mouthed shock. "But thanks for the food," Natsu said, his voice mocking, and Bora visibly recoiled. "I feel stronger, already."
"What the hell are you?!" Bora cried, stepping back against the wall in horror.
"No way!" Another man exclaimed disbelievingly. "Did he just eat fire?!"
Natsu ignored them and braced himself, and I could feel the magic power growing and building within him to a level that was almost unreal for just one technique. "Here I come!" He warned, drawing back, and I saw his hands come up to cup around his mouth.
"Bora! I've seen him before!" One of the men shouted, but I didn't have it in me to look away from Natsu, just then. The magic built and built, and he was sucking in more air than one person should have been able to hold, and for some reason, it all made my heart beat a little faster than before. "Rosy hair and a scarf like scales, there's no doubt! He's the real…"
In the next instant, flames spewed from Natsu's mouth in a wide arc heading straight for Bora and what remained of his crew, and I took a step back at the sheer heat of it, so intense I could feel it even several feet behind him. The force of it threw up a fierce wind, and I shielded my face with his jacket as the room exploded outward, the men screaming as they were sent flying out beyond the ship. Natsu, ignoring everything else, went bounding off after them with a yell, and I was left standing among the remains with Lucy and Happy.
"Salamander…"
End Chapter
I am most definitely going to come back and edit all this later. And yes, I ended it before the original manga chapter would have, but I already have the next bit planned out, anyway, and this chapter was getting on my nerves. The stuff with Lori's fight came easily enough, but Natsu's side of things did not want to go right. I ended up cutting out a lot of the explanations and side-convos, too, because it just didn't seem to fit in a situation where that stuff is happening, real-time, and since most of this came from the manga chapter (minus a few bits of dialogue, where the anime said it better), there aren't actually any attacks called out, like in the anime. I didn't even realize it wasn't there until I got to writing, so I'm probably going to end up going back and forth with characters calling out attacks, depending on the situation. Maybe, make it a personal preference that changes from mage to mage, or something? I don't really read the manga, so I never knew there was a difference with calling stuff out, between the two.
Anyway, future edits on this chapter will probably just be more about the confrontations and the fighting than anything else, as I'm not fully comfortable with it, just yet. Once I get further into the story and get the battles and stuff situated with my writing style, I'll go back over everything else, to make sure it all matches up the same way, but none of these edits should affect the plot, and they likely won't happen for a while, anyway. So, as far as that goes, you guys should be totally fine.