16: where's my thank you?
It was no secret that Layla Heartfilia was a sickly woman.
Born into poverty, she was a malnourished child. Her abusive parents didn't help. After they were arrested, 7 year old Layla was put into foster care. The longest she has resided with a foster family was for a year. Nobody wanted to deal with a sickly child. Always moving around and getting abandoned, Layla was forced to learn how to take care of herself. Years later, when she was older, she met Jude Heartfilia when she was working at a restaurant called Love and Lucky.
Jude was a visionary and he had dreams of becoming filthy rich. He's heard that his family, the Heartfilia Clan, was once one of the richest in the country so he wanted to bring his family to its former glory. Layla admired him and even had a crush on him so she decided to help him reach his goal. His goal was reached and the Heartfilia Konzern was born. To add onto that, Jude and Layla got married.
After the birth of Lucy, Layla was the weakest she's ever been. She knew she didn't have much time left. She started to dig into the world of magic and learned that she could do Celestial magic. She started to practice the magic in order to open the gate to the spirit realm. With the gate open, she could negotiate with the spirits and have her lifeforce extended. However, as time went on, she became less interested in extending her life force and more interested in being there for her family. Having only collected 3 keys, she retired from being a wizard and spent her last few years being the light and joy of her family.
Then suddenly, she was no longer sickly.
She could run like it was nothing when in the past, she would have an asthma attack. She was no longer pale and she didn't feel weak after talking. Things had finally brighten up for the family and they were able to do the things they couldn't do because of her health. All was good. Or so they thought. Things fell apart on the night of Lucy's 7th birthday.
7 year old Lucky Lucy Heartfilia couldn't sleep.
It was raining cats and dogs and the thunder kept on shaking the house. Lucy was crying as she tightly clutched the Aquarius key her mother let her sleep with for the night. She knew that in the morning, she'll have to give the key back to Spetto.
"Aquarius...you can do water magic. Can you make the rain go away?" Lucy whispered through her sobs.
The key made no movement.
"Aquarius! Please!" Lucy cried.
A large clap of thunder caused Lucy to scream. "Mommy! Daddy!" She cried, running out of bed.
She exited her room and ran down the halls all the way to her parents' room. When she pushed their door open, however, her parents were nowhere to be seen.
"Mommy? Daddy?" She asked, looking around the room.
"Jude, don't do this!" she heard her mother cry.
The voice was coming from downstairs so Lucy left the room in a hurry and ran down the stairs. When she reached the foot of the stairs, she saw that the front double doors were open. There were her parents standing outside a few feet away from the doorway. The rain was pouring on them.
Jude was holding Layla by the wrist very tightly and was glaring at her darkly. Layla was shaking as tears flowed out of her eyes. They were both in their pajamas.
Are mommy and daddy fighting? Lucy asked, slowly approaching the doorway.
"Let's end this quickly and quietly," Jude hissed.
Layla vigorously shook her head. "Please! Please! Don't do this! What about Lucy! She's so young! She needs a mother!"
Lucy's small little feet were still slowly making their way to the doorway. Her heart was rapidly beating as her eyes moved from one parent to the other.
"You are a demon!" Jude spat out.
In under a second, Jude pulled out a Glock and shot Layla in the chest. The timing was perfect since the thunder had roared simultaneously, disguising the gunshot.
As if everything was in slow motion, Layla coughed up a large amount of blood as she fell onto the ground. She was gasping for air as she turned her head. Her eyes were now locked on the frightened Lucy. She started to slowly crawl towards her daughter.
Jude shot her again, this time in the left leg. The thunder had perfect timing yet again.
Layla squeaked out in pain and held her arm out in order to reach Lucy. "L-L-Lucy...!"
Jude shot her one last time in the head. The thunder roared.
Layla's whole body went limp. Her lifeless eyes stared at Lucy.
All Lucy did was stand there, eyes wide in shock. She didn't blink at all. She didn't move either. It was when Jude slowly turned to look at her was when she moved.
Dropping the Aquarius key, Lucy ran all the way to her bedroom and locked the door. Since she was small, she was able to fit under her bed no problem.
He just killed mommy! Is he coming for me next!? She franticly thought as she put her hands over her mouth in order to muffle her broken sobs. She felt like she was getting suffocated and she was shaking all over. Still, she forced herself to be quiet. She could be next.
She heard someone knock on her door. "Lucy, honey? Are you awake?"
He's here to kill me! Lucy realized the minute she heard her father's voice on the other side of the door.
"Your mother...she's died of an illness," Jude said.
Lucy couldn't stay quiet anymore. She crawled from under her bed and started to look around her room for a weapon to use against her father as she loudly balled her eyes out. However, she couldn't search for long. The room started spinning and she felt light headed.
The doorknob started jiggling. "Lucy!? Are you okay!? Why did you lock the door!? You're lucky I have the key! I'm coming in!" Jude cried.
Lucy fell onto her knees and tried to scream for Jude to go away. Unfortunately, she couldn't. Her throat had closed up and Lucy found that she couldn't breathe. The last thing she remembered was her father opening the door before everything went black.
Present day Lucy closed the book she was holding and took a deep breath. She's never told anyone that story, not even the girls at Fairy Hills, and although it felt refreshing that someone else knows, it wasn't easy for her to recall the events.
Natsu carefully watched her from where he was sitting.
They were in Layla's library. Lucy was telling Natsu the story of Layla's murder as they searched the room for Layla's books on Celestial magic.
Lucy slowly opened her eyes. "Anyway, my father announced to the whole world that my mom died in her sleep because of a heart attack. The story was that she had been moving around too much and her heart couldn't handle it. And for the few people who actually knew what happened, he made sure they were killed. I'm not sure if he knows that I know or not."
She set the book down. "No. He definitely doesn't know that I know. He killed his own wife with no hesitation. Of course he'd kill me the minute he finds out that I know."
Natsu was about to tell her that her father wouldn't do that to his own daughter but then he remembered the conversation Lucy had with her father during dinner. With a frown, he decided not to say anything.
"Maybe..." Lucy started, leaning against the bookshelf. "Maybe if I had helped my mom that night, she'd still be alive. But all I did was just stand there. Natsu, you should have seen her. She was trying to crawl over to me. She was begging for me to help her, but I did nothing. Her very last word was my name. I'm even worse than her killer. I literally stood there and did nothing as she died and tried to get me to help."
"Luce, you were only a kid. Kids do stupid things all the time," Natsu said softly, hoping to reassure her. Judging by the way her eyebrows furrowed, he failed at the task.
"My mom was shot 3 times in front of me! Me being a kid is no excuse!" Lucy cried.
Natsu quietly watched as Lucy regained control of her emotions.
"Anyway, after the whole thing went down, I got two of her keys. The third one, Capricorn, is with one of my former servants Zoldeo who's with Grimoire Heart. I don't know what got into his mind that caused him to up and leave with my mom's key. Then again, he was always insane. At first, I didn't want the keys but I started to read my mom's books on Celestial magic and learned about the spirit realm gate. So, I decided to learn as much Celestial magic I could from her books so I can be powerful enough to open the gate. Then I learned that I had to collect the rest of the keys. I finally had an excuse to runaway so I used it. Now, I'm back at home again," Lucy explained.
"Couldn't you have brought your mom back to life?" Natsu asked.
"Celestial magic doesn't work like that. The spirits are dead and there's no way you can bring them to life. Celestial spirits are spirits that Celestial wizards can meet and form contracts with. The Celestial spirits serve you. But other spirits, they're more complicated. You can't summon them with a simple key. You need all 12 Zodiac keys to open the gate to the spirit realm and enter the spirit realm for a limited amount of time. You can do whatever you want like talking to someone or breaking spiritual links like Yukino wants to do," Lucy explained.
"So you can't drag the spirit out and shove them into someone's body, maybe even a dead body? Like, you take your mom's spirit and put her spirit into her body?" Natsu asked.
Lucy thought about it. "Actually, I'm not sure. But if we can find my mom's books, we might find out the answer. So let's get back to work!" Lucy wanted to get her mind off of the sad memories so she eagerly went back to work.
Natsu stood up. "Sweet!"
Time passed as they searched through the bookshelves for Layla's books and notes. Still, they were unable to find anything.
"I don't get it!" Lucy cried out in frustration.
Natsu was buried in a pile of books. He stuck his head out from the pile. "I can't find any of the books."
"I can't either!" Lucy cried, throwing the book she was holding off to the side.
"Do you think your dad got rid of them?" Natsu asked.
"No, why would he? He wasn't against me learning Celestial magic. In fact, he was really proud of me. He said something about how Celestial magic runs through our family's veins and that I should continue our family's practice," Lucy answered, pacing back and forth.
"But the books are obviously not here," Natsu said as he dug himself out of the pile.
"Did my father have them moved?" Lucy wondered out loud as her pacing came to a stop.
Suddenly, the doors of the library flew open, revealing Spetto.
"Miss Lucy! I've been looking everywhere for you! Your father is furious that you walked out on him!" Spetto cried.
"Spetto! Perfect timing!" Lucy cried.
"Yes, how may I help you?" Spetto asked.
"Where are my mom's books on Celestial magic?" Lucy asked.
Spetto's wide smile quickly turned into a frown. "They're ashes now."
Lucy blinked. "Ashes? What do you mean?"
"When you ran away, your father burned every single one of your mother's books and notes on Celestial magic," Spetto answered.
"What!? Why!?" Lucy cried.
Spetto got down on her knees. "I'm so sorry, Miss Lucy! I don't know! Please don't be angry with me!"
Lucy's eyes softened as she helped Spetto up. "I'm not mad at you. Where's my father now?"
"He's in his study," Spetto answered.
"Thanks," Lucy said before stomping out of the library.
"Looks like we're migrating again," Natsu said, following Lucy.
"Yo! Slow down!" Natsu cried.
Lucy stopped walking and faced Natsu. Natsu stood on alert.
"You stay here," Lucy said.
"Why?" Natsu asked, frowning.
"I don't wanna drag you into my family's problems," Lucy answered.
"But Luc-" Natsu was cut off by Lucy shaking her head. He sighed. "5 minutes."
Good enough, Lucy thought as she made her way to her father's study by herself. She eventually reached her destination and barged in.
"It is rude to walk out on people and it is even more rude to interrupt people when they are working, especially when they must pull an all-nighter in order to get things done," Jude answered without looking up from the papers he was signing at his desk.
Lucy didn't care. With her first clenched by her side, she walked over to her father's desk.
"Father. I want you to look at me." Lucy demanded.
"Lucy, I am busy. It is late. Go to bed," Jude answered without looking up.
"Father. We need to talk," Lucy said, ignoring what her father had just said.
"Lucy, I said I am busy," Jude answered, the tone in his voice growing aggressive.
"Father. Stop ignoring me and face me like a man," Lucy demanded.
"Get out!" Jude yelled, finally looking up.
"Why did you burn mom's Celestial magic books and notes!?" Lucy yelled back.
"That's what you came all the way here in 1 in the morning for!?" Jude yelled.
"I know you know how important those books were for mom! And weren't you supportive of me doing the magic!?" Lucy asked.
"Because at the time, I did not know what you were planning on doing!" Jude cried.
"Oh, and what exactly was I planning on doing!?" Lucy asked.
"Opening the gate to the spirit realm! What is wrong with you!?" Jude cried in a hushed voice.
"Um, I'm a Celestial wizard! That's kinda what we do!" Lucy protested.
"You're collecting all 12 keys in order to open the gate and see your dead mother who, may I remind you, is dead!" Jude cried.
"Yeah! Dead before you killed her!" Lucy cried.
The minute those words left her mouth, Jude gave her a dark look. "Did you...just accuse me of killing your mother...?"
Lucy froze and felt her heart start to rapidly beat. Fuck! I slipped up! She vigorously shook her head. "N-N-No!"
"Lucy. Tell me the truth. Did you or did you not witness the events of that night?" Jude asked, slowly getting up from his desk.
Maybe bringing Natsu here was a good idea...no. I need to solve this family drama! I can't drag him into this! Lucy asked as she forced her nerves to calm down. "Why did you do it?"
"Because that woman was not your mother," Jude answered.
"Yes she was! Or are you just saying that because she suddenly wasn't feeling sick all of the time? That was a huge blessing! Why couldn't you be happy that she was finally healthy!?" Lucy cried as tears ran down her face.
"You should me thanking me!" Jude hissed.
Lucy shook her head as she backed away from her father who was making his way towards her. "No! Why should I thank you!?"
"I told you! That woman was not your mother! She was a demon! I saved your life! Of course you should be thanking me!" Jude yelled.
Lucy covered her ears and looked down as she sobbed. "No! Stop!"
"Lucy, look at me!" Jude demanded over and over again.
"Stop! Stop, please! Stay away from me!" Lucy begged.
She was fining it hard to breathe and she was shaking all over. Everywhere was spinning and she found herself getting lightheaded. She couldn't see her father since her eyes were closed but she knew he was approaching her. It reminded her of the night of her mother's murder. She was reminded of how terrified she was when he was unlocking her door. "Go away!" She screamed.
Suddenly, a gunshot was fired.
Everywhere became quiet. Lucy slowly opened her eyes and looked up. There was Jude standing there with a bullet in his chest. Slowly, Jude felt his chest and removed his hand from it. He saw the blood.
Another shot was fired, this time on the left leg. Jude fell to the ground with a thud. He looked up at Lucy and there was fury in his eyes. "Lucy...!"
"And once in the head," an unknown voice said.
Jude was shot one last time. The shot was to his head. His whole body went limp and his lifeless eyes were staring up at Lucy.
Lucy screamed as she fell back. "W-W-W-W-What!?"
A new set of footsteps walked towards her from behind. "You should be thanking me."
Lucy slowly turned her head. She knew that voice didn't belong to Natsu. When she turned around to see who it was, she saw that it was a middle-aged man with a tiny skull on his forehead.
"Good day, m'lady. My name is Jacob Lessio," the man, Jacob, said.
"A-A-Are you here for me too?" Lucy asked.
Jacob pointed his Glock at Lucy. "Of course...but we can make a deal."
Random Fact: So during the beginning of quarantine, I started to randomly get into baking and now I'm always baking whenever I have free time and patience. The last time I baked was about 3 or 4 weeks ago and my cousin and I made these cupcakes but we didn't get to eat them cuz we thought they were so perfect. Like, we took pictures of them like they were at a photoshoot and I posted the pics I took on Snapchat. Anyway, a few days later my cousin left for college since his classes were starting back up and my other cousin came over the next day to eat my cupcakes after seeing them on my Snap Story. She kept on saying that they were good and she was hyping me up. So eventually, I tried one. It tasted like complete shit. Ever since then, I can't look at cupcakes without feeling nauseous
Wassup!? It's ya gurl sugarsugarrush!
How many arcs have I added into this story so far? Let's see...there was the intro arc and that was the first 3 chapters. The next one was "Lucy Finally Believing Natsu" and that was from chapter 4 to chapter 9. After that, chapters 10 to 13 (maybe 14 even) was the "Everyone's Our Enemy" arc. This current arc, I don't really have a title for it yet. I didn't even realize that I had split this story into arcs until when I was looking through my notes so I could figure out what hints I should drop in this chapter
Reviews:
Amanny- Thank you very much! And your question has been answered!
Copperreign12- Thank you very much! Yeah, it is sad and it's even more sad that back then, people would actually sacrifice other people in order to please their supreme deities. I was in my Humanities class when I learned about the Egyptian Book of the Dead. After learning about it, I started to think about the human sacrifices made back in the day and decided to add the sacrifice thing to the last chapter in a way to connect Lucy's past life and her current life. Jude is an...interesting character
MaraDragneel3113- Awwww! Thank you very much! Lol, fingers crossed that Lucy will realize her feelings!
Yo, so I gotta test that's only open from 6:30am to 8:40am and it's 7:55am and I really gotta take that test so ima end this! Don't forget to PM me or leave me some reviews! Later, yo!
