Chapter Two
"Lucy come quick!" Bisca's panicked voice woke Lucy up and she fell to the floor and crawled out of her room. Bisca's voice came out of the ancient PA system that was to be used only in dire cases. Lucy tumbled down the stairs and as she crossed into the second floor living area, her blood ran cold.
"Zaza?" Her voice was small. Erza was laid out on the floor, Cana trying to stop the bleeding from a wound on Erza's side. Lucy shook her head, pinching her thigh trying to wake herself up. Cana's wild gaze landed on her and she yelled her name. Lucy jerked into action and grabbed Erza's favorite hip knife and ran to the hot plates in the corner and slammed the blade down and cranked the heat to high. She filled a clean pot with water and ran to Erza's side, pulling her long sleeved shirt off and started to shred it. Cana grabbed the water and started to clean the wound.
Lucy flinched. Three long gashes close together and a fourth one a bit below. A dragonoid's claw did that injury. They all knew it. Lucy watched as Erza's face twisted in pain as Cana tried to clean the injury. Lucy in turn returned to the hot plate and grabbed the knife and quickly ran back, pushing Levy out of the way and before anyone could stop her, pressed the red hot blade into the deepest gash. Erza started to scream, and Lucy threw her arm into her friend's mouth, biting her lip as her friend sank her teeth into her arm as the pain of the hot blade tore through her.
"What the hell are you doing?" Cana asked as Erza passed out and Lucy ran back to the hot plate. She turned around and pointed at Erza's side.
"Cauterizing that before she bleeds to death. Get the emergency first aid kit. We'll need to disinfect everything. There's no telling what those dragonoids carry on their claws."
"Lucy…your arm…" Levy whispered horrified, seeing the bloodied bite mark in the pale skin of her friend's arm. Lucy shook off her concern and took the reheated blade back. This time Bisca held a cloth over Erza's mouth in case she came to screaming. Lucy pressed the blade into the next gash. They repeated the treatment until all four gashes had been closed. Lucy sank to the floor and looked at the older girl. Her clothes were destroyed, torn all over, but as she pulled the clothing off, no additional cuts were seen. She'd only gotten tagged once. But once is one time too many in an apocalypse.
Lucy looked at Cana, the brunette looked at her in exhaustion. "Do we know what happened?"
"No…she'd been gone longer than usual but we thought she'd just had to go further into the heart of town. But when she arrived, we knew it was bad. She didn't have anything, not even her sword."
"She lost her sword?" Lucy looked at their protector, her heart breaking.
"Without that sword, we're screwed." Laki wailed, voicing the fear everyone was thinking.
"I can go look for it." Cana said and everyone started to argue. She was about to bark out an order; given she was second in command—now first in command as Erza was in no shape to lead, when Lucy caught her hand.
"We need you here. You're the leader while Erza is incapacitated. We know it's not out of fear." Lucy stood up, and everyone stared. "I'll go."
"No, absolutely not." Levy objected and Lucy shook her head.
"I'm the weakest right now. It's the most logical choice. If I fail, the loss isn't as critical to the survival of the rest of the dorm." Levy's mouth quivered. "I'll be as careful as I can. I'll study her route notes, and leave tonight."
"Lucy…" Cana wanted to object but she knew, deep down, Lucy was being the most logical.
"Promise you'll come back alive."
"I promise to try." Lucy said and Cana nodded. It was the best she could do and they all knew it. Cana, Bisca, Lucy and Levy carefully moved Erza to her room and got her settled. Lucy went to her room and came back with her can of chicken and mushroom soup. She handed them to Cana and looked down at Erza who was starting to sweat in her bed.
"Make sure she eats whenever she comes around. Water the soup down as much as you have to to stretch it out…but don't make it mushroom water. She'll need a punch of nutrients. Keep her as dry as possible. And hydrated."
"Yes ma'am." The older girl nodded and Lucy went to Erza's desk and started to pour over her maps and notes. Cringing at the horrid handwriting of their leader. She closed her eyes and started to pray.
Lucy slowly made her way out of the dorm building. She was leaving a few hours earlier than planned, but she knew if she didn't Levy would either try to stop her or join her. She'd left a note behind. Telling Levy to stay and look after Erza and Cana; especially as Cana was going to need support in being the leader until Erza got better. She had to get better.
Lucy was dressed in layers. She'd put on her black legging and then carefully wrapped her legs with duct tape, and put on a pair of jeans. She wore a pair of hiking boots she'd bought for a spring break trip where she'd ended up not hiking at all. She shook her head at the memory. She'd been so spoiled. A strong breeze tore through the alley way she was making her way down; and she shivered. She'd put on a tank top over her bra; and then the thinnest long sleeved shirt she owned. She'd wrapped more duct tape around her arms from wrist to elbow, then elbow to shoulder. She'd wrapped a towel around her waist and duct taped it to her shirt and then pulled on a black hoodie.
She'd french braided her blonde hair, then pinned it up. Not due to vanity; but to make sure not to give any raider or militant scumbag anything to grab and hold onto. She was carrying a backpack with two bottles of water, the can of strawberry pie filling, her can opener, a set of camping matches—matches in a metal tube to protect them from the elements, her last roll of duct tape and a copy of Erza's maps. She'd spent the day copying the maps and making notes the best she could.
The moon was out tonight and she was both grateful and worried about it. Visibility was nice but also a danger. She spied a pipe laying on the ground and carefully picked it up. It was fairly heavy, but she felt safer with it. She carefully threaded it through the straps of the backpack so she could pull it out quickly without issue if she needed it and kept wandering slowly through the alley. She heard a loud screech and froze. Her eyes looked up and she watched as a dragonoid leapt from the roof to the building on her right to the roof of the one on the left. She closed her eyes momentarily and looked all around. If there was one, there were more. They never went out in packs less than three strong. Another screech and another dragonoid made the leap. Then another, and a fourth jumped silently. She scooted out of the alley way, putting the building they landed on behind her, but walking sideways to keep an eye on the front door of the building.
Luckily small dragonoids couldn't fly. Only large ones could; and she'd only heard of a handful of them; usually not within city limits. Levy had called the flying one the queens; using the beekeeping term to help explain her idea of how they operated to everyone. And in all honestly; you wanted to run into the medium sized dragonoids if you were going to run into them. The smallest of them were venomous; and like baby snakes couldn't control how much of their venom they injected into their pray. The medium sized could control their venom flow; and they typically didn't play with their kills. The medium-large ones toyed more with their prey; like bullies. And the queens flew; and waited to attack.
She pulled out the first map and looked. She had to go up one more street and then head right. She squared her shoulders and looked ahead of her. It was quiet. Almost too quiet. She didn't like it. She looked around again, and decided to duck into a darkened crack between two very close buildings. She squatted down and looked over her and around her. She didn't see or hear anything, but the hairs on her arms were rising. The world grew even quieter. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
As the last of the pent up breathe left her, a roar sounded that shook the glass around her and she bit her first to keep from screaming. A queen landed in front of her, thrashing its head around. She watched as it flung something dark off of her. She wondered if another dragonoid had decided to attack her? She watched, holding her breath as the queen charged the dark lump.
In the moonlight she recognized the light gray colors of the queen. She was the largest dragonoid Lucy had ever seen. The dark figure got to its feet and lunged. Lucy felt her heart clench. It was a black dragonoid. She'd never seen a black one. All of the ones she'd ever seen were shades of gray. But this new one was black. Black with orange eyes opposed to the white eyes of the normal ones. The black one wasn't a queen, it was a medium sized one. The queen didn't seem to consider it too much of a threat but it was obviously annoyed and opened it's mouth and brought it down to snap the black one in half.
Only Lucy didn't see a one bite slaughter. The queen reared back raging, several of it's teeth broken off. The black dragonoid's scales too hard to bite through. Lucy felt dread fill her. Black dragonoids had even harder than normal scales. Not a good thing. Good to learn but bad overall. The black dragon reared back and unfurled a set of wings that glinted in the moonlight. As it tensed up and it's back hunches jerked backwards, Lucy saw several glittery things fly upwards and watched as blood of the gray dragonoid splattered the walls behind it. Her hands clenched over her mouth. The black dragonoids could launch sharp projectiles.
There was a roar and more black dragonoids appeared and took down the gray queen and as quickly as they had appeared, they headed away with their prey. Lucy closed her eyes momentarily and looked around. Bugs were making noise again so she go to her feet and tried not to look at the blood and gore. But then she saw something white shining in the moonlight. It was the broken teeth. She carefully crept into the street and grabbed the teeth and put them in her backpack. She looked around and saw something dark but shiny in the gutter. It was whatever the black one had launched. She picked it up too and added it to her backpack. She prayed that neither the teeth nor the projectile acted as a beacon. But the chance to bring back anything to study was too hard to pass up.
As she followed the route that she was fairly certain Erza had taken the night before; she looked around. This was deeper than they'd been talking about venturing into. She bit her lip. Erza had been taking too many risks to try and find them food. When she got better, they were going to have a talk about that. She was about to turn a corner when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She immediately dropped to the ground and put her back to the wall of the building and looked up. Nothing. She looked down at her feet and didn't see anything following her. So she slowly started to run her eyes around the street across from where she'd come out of.
The sound came again, and she realized it was on the other side of the corner. She hated that she had no way of looking around the corner. She'd debated bringing a compact mirror but had decided it would be too risky; and could have acted like a beacon if the moonlight had hit it wrong.
She closed her eyes and focused on the sound. It came again and she shuddered. It was marching. Dragonoids didn't march. Militias did. This is why they didn't come deep into the heart of downtown. That was militia territory. She got off of her back and looked around. Down the alley next to this building would be a cut through to the street she could hear them marching along. It was dangerous to go in alleys, but staying here would have her visible too quickly. She crept along the wall and down the alley. She kept looking up, remembering the dragonoids she'd seen running on the roofs earlier.
Something stopped her, she couldn't tell what it was, other than possibly instinctual fear, but it stopped her cold behind a dumpster. She squatted down, making herself as small as possible in the corner of the dumpster and the wall. She looked down the alley and didn't see anyone coming up behind her, above her was empty night sky as well. She was about to stand up when she heard it. Steps. Human steps.
She closed her eyes. "Man, I'm getting so tired of this marching."
"Tell me about it." Lucy listened as the two men spoke. "Supposedly one of the scouts spotted a red headed woman down here last night. Boss man thinks there might be group of women around."
"No shit?" Lucy listened trying to figure out why they were broken off from the rest of the marching group. Then she heard it. They were taking a leak. On the other side of the dumpster. She looked down at the ground and was so, so unbelievably grateful that they were downhill from her. "Man, I ain't touched a woman in over a year and a half."
"I know. I can't believe those damn raiders took our women. We went through all the work of catching them, and then they got stolen." Lucy fought the rage that filled her.
"With any luck, we'll find the red head and anyone with her. And we'll have women again."
"Let's hope so." The sound of zippers filled the silence and they walked away. Lucy stayed in her crouching position until her legs protested and then she slowly crept along the rest of the alley and down towards the street. She watched as the last of the marching squad rounded the corner and turned and headed for the yellow awning across the street. It used to be a flower shop and Erza's notes said she would go down the alley next to it and deeper into the next block. There should be a small grocery store there.
Lucy pressed her back against the brick wall of the flower shop and listened. She didn't hear anything besides bugs and the wind. She started down the alley but stopped when clouds blotted out the moon. She bit her lips and waited. The moonlight came back soon and hurried down. Her heart was racing and she felt like she was being watched. But she couldn't see anything. She stopped at the mouth of he alley and looked crossed the way. A large church stood opposite. Its doors ripped open and hanging askew, the glass of the windows long ago broken out. She shook her head, nothing was sacred in an apocalypse. She looked up and down the street and saw the street sign she needed. She felt her heart leap in her chest. She was so close.
She ran across the street but stopped when she heard a rock skip down the road. She dropped to the ground and looked around. She hadn't kicked the rock. She knew that. She looked around. She couldn't see anything and she looked up. Maybe the rock had come from above. She couldn't see anything around the church and looked crossed the street.
Nothing. She looked down the alley and saw the small little orange awning that was the sign Erza had written as being the side door to the small market. She turned her head to do another sweep. Still nothing. She was about to relax when she saw the shadows across the street shift. Three black dragonoids stood up and she felt her stomach drop to her shoes. The black dragonoids were tilting their heads. Looking all around. Then they spread out their wings and Lucy bit her arm to keep from screaming as their projectiles went over her. She looked up and her mouth fell open. Leaping from building beside the church, were orange dragonoids.
They carefully dodged the shiny and sharp projectiles and opened their mouths. Lucy braced for roars, but instead of roars, fire spewed out of their mouths. Fire breathing dragonoids. She felt her body freeze. This was worse than anything she could have had nightmares about. There wasn't just one type of monsters that came from nowhere to ruin the world. There were several kinds and they were at odds with each other. She wanted to cry but she couldn't afford to. Crying would definitely alert them to her presence.
As she watched the dragonoids fighting, she turned and slowly headed down the alley. Her breath caught. She spotted Erza's bag on the ground in front of her and she looked around. She still didn't see anything and she didn't hear anything in the alley with her. So she scurried forward and grabbed the bag. Slashes in it broke her heart, but at the same time; she knew Erza would be happy she could have it back. They could patch it. She looked around. Where was Erza's sword. It had to be close by.
Grawlk.
Lucy froze. She knew that sound. A gray dragonoid. She looked forward and didn't see it, she looked all around her and above her. Nothing. She looked the way it came and saw the head coming around the corner of the flower shop she had just vacated. It came around the corner, growling hyperactively. Lucy looked around and saw the fire escape stairs on the building across from the market. She knew she didn't really stand a chance, There were probably more on the roof, but she wasn't going just stay there and wait to be eaten. She ran, scrambling on top of some garbage cans and boxes and jumped to grab a hold of the fire escape ladder. She pulled herself as the dragonoid ran down towards her. She heard an answering call and looked over her shoulder as she pulled herself through the first opening.
Two more dragonoids were following the first. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"
Lucy scrambled up and around the fire escape ladders. Moving as quickly as she could. She looked in the windows as she raced by them but never saw anything that looked promising.
Growlllck.
One of the dragonoids growled and leapt. It missed the fire escape and landed hard on the dumpster. Lucy watched as it trashed on its back. She froze. She hadn't seen one in that position and it looked like they were having difficulty getting back to its feet. She was about to catch her breath when a new growl echoed down the alley. She whipped her head over and her heart squeezed tight. A black dragonoid was at the end of the alley. It had the leg of an orange one its mouth but dropped it when it saw the gray ones. It's eyes swept the alley and when it saw her, it snarled and started running.
"Holy shit! Holy Shit! No no no!" She swore and her legs instinctively took off towards the roof. Not that it would do any good if that thing flew up. But her body was running on instinct now. She was on the top floor and taking her first step up towards the straight ladder to the roof when there was a swoosh and the entire building shook. She didn't have to look down to hear the dragonoids scrambling up the fire escape after her. The metal groaned under their weight. She was half way up the ladder when there was more roaring and the sound of scrambling turned to the sound of fighting. She looked down through her legs gasped. Now there were two orange ones as well as the gray and black ones.
Lucy scrambled quickly. As her hands gripped the concrete ledge of the roof, the ladder she was on shook. She looked down and started to cry. The black dragonoid was coming through the last hole. She started to pull herself up when the wall shook and the ladder groaned. The dragonoid had leapt up and was actively chewing at the ladder. The chewing causing it to pop loose of the brick and Lucy scrambled to pull herself up. Her stomach hit the ledge right as the ladder tore away and fell down, knocking one of the gray dragonoids off of the fire escape and impaling it through the throat.
Shing. Shing. Ting.
Lucy gasped as two black projectiles flew over her head and one hit the ledge next to her left hand. She braced her worn sneakers on the brick and tried to climb up the wall. She pushed upwards to try and gain leverage but then started to scream as something clamped on her leg. She looked over her shoulder as she continued to scream. The black dragonoid had thrown up one claw and it was wrapping around her lower left leg; but it hadn't punctured through the layers yet. Yet. She started kicking at the claw while trying to keep her hold on the ledge. The dragonoid growled and unfurled its wing and more of its projectiles flew out. One hit her right shoulder and she lost her grip on the ledge as the pain tore through her shoulder.
The last thought she had as she started to fall was that she wasn't going to make it easy on the dragonoid. She started to kick off from the wall, intending to take herself and the dragonoid off of the escape; to fall down the middle of the alley.
But that thought changed at the last second. Because something wrapped around her left hand and her mouth opened to scream as her body was jerked back towards the ledge.