Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 20: Celebrating With A Date, Cute Compliments, New Thefts, and The Interesting Photo
Lucy woke up in her bedroom at Risa's house to see sunlight slowly starting to shrine through the bedroom window, and she sat up in the bed while letting out a soft yawn. Lucy raised her arms high above her head while beginning to calmly smile at how today was a new day, and she was glad to have enjoyed those eight hours of sleep. After having to take down Kanata in their intense battle that happened at night, Lucy deserved the chance to take the train home with her friends for everyone to have a nice rest. Well, almost everyone probably slept peacefully.
She glanced at her bedroom door that was closed to see that Risa hadn't knocked on her door yet or sent a tray of pancakes towards her with psychic energy, so Lucy wondered if Risa was still trying to get her crucial hours of sleep. Lucy couldn't blame Risa for wanting to sleep, as she had to watch a client die right before her eyes after they chose to not be afraid of Kanata anymore, and the death of Kirie seemed to really make Risa be emotionally shaken. She had even seemed numb at one point as she watched Kirie die, almost like something tragic happened once again to where it would just create more scars to an emotional wound that hadn't fully healed yet.
Lucy remembered how she told Risa that she did nothing wrong for Kirie to feel the need to save her from Kanata's powerful lightning attacks, and Kirie had freely made the decision to save Risa while being completely aware of how her mother's electric spells could possibly result in her death. The client didn't survive to see an important task be completed, but crying about it and feeling extremely guilty would just make Risa get harmed from the pain of blaming herself. Lucy didn't want to see her friend continue to be in pain, and Sting being away from them in the church during that moment made Lucy feel like she had to be the sternly wise teacher who could help Sabertooth's rookie understand that she had to move forward instead of being stuck with feeling guilt that was just going to be sent back at herself.
Still, it wasn't like Risa felt a tremendous amount of pain just from one client's death. There was something else in her mind, something like trauma, and Lucy didn't want Risa to just suppress it for her to loudly snap at Lucy again like how she had done from Lucy simply mentioning how she learn the magenta-colored magic. As Lucy got out of bed and hurriedly open the door to run over to Risa's room that was on the other side of the hallway, she felt some anxiety in her eyes as her fist hesitated to knock on Risa's door. Lucy hoped that her friend wasn't very upset with her for even mentioning that color of her magic, but Lucy would gladly apologize if she accidentally crossed a crucial line by talking about it in a positive light. Lucy closed her eyes while trying to not think about that magic, and she softly knocked on the door three times.
"Risa? If you want me to leave you alone today, then can I just let you know that I'm really sorry for accidentally offending you last night?" Lucy asked her nicely, as she seemed concerned.
Risa responded from behind the door in a sarcastic manner, as she sounded somewhat confused, "Yeah, there's totally nothing puzzling about how you're the one who's apologizing after I yelled at you because of my emotions making me have that misunderstanding when you mentioned that different color of my magic."
Lucy replied kindly while opening her eyes to truly look remorseful, seeing Risa open the bedroom door, "If I added on to a painful memory and hurt your feelings at all, though, then just know that I'm very sorry! Risa, I won't mention that shade of your pink magic ever again!"
That prompted Risa to tell Lucy in a calm tone, as she sighed from thinking about yesterday and what happened in her past, "Lucy, it's not your fault in any way that I remembered an experience that brought me pain. Yesterday, we had so much determination to prove that we weren't weak and something unfortunate still happened. I should probably be saying sorry again, since I overreacted to you and thought that you'd say.. her name."
As Risa proceeded to walk back towards her four-poster pink bed and kept the door open as a way to invite her friend into her room, Lucy looked at Risa to see her wearing a bubblegum pink nightgown with a pale-pink under-dress that complimented her bubblegum pink slippers. Risa's pink outfit definitely went well with the items in her room, such as a pink wardrobe with heart-shaped handles on it, as well as the pink bureau that stood in between the wardrobe and the pink vanity that a heart-shaped mirror with a heart-shaped chair near it, and Risa even had a light pink end table with a hot pink lamp on it near the left side of the bed. To the right of the bed was Risa's pink closet that she used for storing plenty of outfits, and Lucy saw the closet door slightly be open for her to see the green jacket that Risa bought on the very first day that they met.
Risa sat down at the edge of the bed, prompting Lucy to sit next to her, and Risa simply let her cherry red eyes glance down at the room's rose pink wooden floor that complimented how the walls of her bedroom were in a regular shade of pink. The color pink may have been cheerful for Risa most of the time, but now she rested her hands under her chin as she thought about how yesterday's events really displayed how she needed to become much stronger. Risa's left fist tightly clenched from thinking about how Kirie put those sunglasses on her head, which was reminiscent of how a woman weakly placed those same sunglasses on Risa's forehead several years ago, and she hadn't wanted that to happen again.
Lucy comfortingly put one of her hands on one of Risa's shoulders, wondering if the woman who she refused to name was tied to something that made Kirie's recent death heavily impact Risa to where the situation brought back extremely traumatic memories, and she hoped that Risa would want to talk about it at some point. Lucy couldn't demand her to talk about it, since it wasn't her place to do that, and she turned away from Risa to briefly look out the window that had sunlight shining through it. Lucy's eyes glanced down at how the rays of sunlight shined down on some pictures of Risa posing in different outfits such as swimsuits or wearing fashionable outfits that were rare and made by designers, and one picture even featured Risa smiling alongside Sting and Rogue on her first day as a Sabertooth mage. However, Lucy noticed that one of the pictures in a pink picture frame was weirdly turned towards the window. Lucy picked up the frame with the feeling of curiosity entering her eyes, and turned it around to see Risa as a young child while she cheerfully smiled alongside a woman who also had fair skin and long magenta pink hair with spiky bangs on her forehead. Although, the fact that this woman had fuchsia pink eyes instead of cherry red eyes made Lucy be more curious as she looked at how the two females both held up two fingers to make peace signs with Risa even wearing her sunglasses that had cherry red frames at this younger age.
"Risa, did you and your mom take this photo together?" Lucy asked her with a nice smile on her face, as she put the picture in front of her friend's eyes.
That prompted Risa to reply softly while she was starting to look saddened, her eyes showing regret and a bit of guilt from seeing that picture, "She... wasn't my mom. That was... my.. former master."
Lucy asked her with a surprised facial expression, "Your old master? Risa, which guild was she in charge of?"
Risa replied to Lucy while trying to have a nice smile on her face, "She didn't run a guild, Lucy. In fact, our town didn't have one. She taught me everything that I know about Psychic Magic, and she even taught me how to create new spells of it. My master and I were very close, but she's no longer alive."
Lucy gently hugged Risa while being very sorry to hear that Risa's former master was dead, and she started to have an apologetic look on her face from showing Risa that photo. Even though Lucy had been curious about Risa's picture, she didn't want her friend to feel sadder from recalling more memories that would add to her trauma. As Lucy watched a tear slowly fall from Risa's eye to land on her nightgown, Lucy wondered if there was something that she could just bring up that would make Risa want to get those traumatic thoughts out of her head.
She thought about how it may be therapeutic for Risa to hear about the time that Lucy had to watch her future self die after shielding her from a spell that was used by Rogue's future self, since Lucy remembered how she cried as she heard her future self talk about how she didn't close the Eclipse Gate, and thinking about that experience for a moment made Lucy start to understand why Risa felt very upset about how Kirie protected her from getting hit by a fatal attack. Lucy also only knew her protector for a day, which was similar to Risa's situation, but the main difference was that Lucy continued to strive towards wanting the future to be good instead of being traumatized by a past that.
Despite how that experience could make Lucy somewhat relate to Risa, she let out a disappointed sigh from how she couldn't fully relate to what her friend was going through. Lucy watched Risa end the hug, before silently walking towards her closet to change her clothes, and Lucy quickly walked out of her room. She glanced down at her pajamas that were now candy apple red, and Lucy needed to put on some new clothes. She would probably handle a decent task today without Risa's help to just give her friend some time alone, and Lucy could just ask Sting for his assistance.
30 minutes later, at the Sabertooth guild...
Lucy entered the Sabertooth guild to see Sting and Rogue sitting at a table with Frosch, who had luckily managed to stay on Rogue's shoulder during his fight against a mage in Yamabuki Town, and Lector gave Sting a smile of admiration from hearing his somewhat exaggerated story of how he saved Yukino from being brainwashed by the priestess. Lucy simply walked over to their table with a kind smile on her face, feeling very glad to see that her friends, and Sting got up from the table to happily hug Lucy as his way of showing that he was very proud of her for taking down Kanata.
Sting quickly broke the hug to just look at Lucy's outfit, which was a red and white midriff shirt with a ruffled denim skirt in the shade of candy apple red, and Sting personally liked how Lucy wore some red wedges with cherry red socks to match. She even wore a scarlet red headband with a small red flame on the left side of it that looked pretty cute, and Sting thought that Lucy was really paying attention to which clothes look fantastic together to create a really nice outfit. Despite Lucy's outfits mainly being in the color red because of how she didn't spend most of her cash on clothes, she still managed to display a great sense of style with fashionable decisions.
As Sting looked into Lucy's eyes and liked her passion for fashion, his eyes slightly glanced at the doors that were still open. Sting started to look a bit curious at the fact that Lucy showed up to the guild alone, since Risa wasn't standing near her, and he wondered if Risa was still upset over what had happened yesterday. If she was taking a break from work today, then that was perfectly understandable. Risa would need time to gather her thoughts, and she could move on to her next job when she felt ready enough to take on jobs again. Even if she wanted to take an easy job, Sting would be fine with that.
If Lucy was planning to take a job to earn money, though, then Sting felt glad enough to make her not bother with checking out the request board. He decided to pull out a stack of at least ninety-thousand jewels from the left pocket of his black suspenders, and the white dragon slayer handed all that cash to Lucy. That was her fair share of the money, which was quite high from how she fought so hard against Kanata, and Risa would get her portion of the reward money later. Right now, though, being physically close to Lucy and having grown close to her as a person caused Sting to smile more as he felt like surprising her.
"Lucy, since we both have good portions of money from that job, would you like to go out on a date with me? I know that yesterday's job was tense and dark, so would this be a good way for us to kinda have an awesome and relaxing celebration?" Sting asked Lucy with a confident look on his face, before flirtatiously winking at her.
That prompted Lucy to reply with a comically shocked facial expression, as she started to blush light pink, "Date?! Just us, Sting?!"
"Yeah, we can go have some fun in Kogane Town. Lucy, you'll be on a date with the awesome Sting Eucliffe and we can enjoy whatever activities that we do." Sting calmly told her, as he maintained his confident smile.
Lucy nicely responded to him while starting to kindly smile, "I'll go out with you, Sting. At least we'll both get to have fun with choosing some little activities."
The fact that Lucy agreed to go out with Sting prompted him to joyfully grin, as she thankfully said yes instead of rejecting him, and Sting felt very glad that their chemistry built up to this point. However, they couldn't immediately go out on their date. Sting nicely informed Lucy of how she would need to meet him at Kogane Town's fountain in three hours, since there was some more research that he had to do on Parmanie Town before they could go after the fourth legendary ring in their quest to reverse the body-switching spell Kotomi had used on Lucy. He would not only be taking Lucy out on a date, but Sting was serious about helping his friend get back in her own body.
As he walked away from Lucy to go in his office with a small smile on his face, Sting frowned a bit from thinking about Lucy's situation. Despite the fact that Lucy had another successful accomplishment, that was countered by the fact of how Lucy's impostor seemed to be committing crimes while posing as the real Lucy Heartfilia. Sting had seen something in this morning's newspaper about how the Emerald Star was stolen again, along with a recent theft that occurred late last night in the cold town of Seigan, and he withheld this info from Lucy for her to not have more worries putting pressure or anxiety on her.
Sting didn't want Lucy to freak out from seeing that Kotomi was still being a thieving dark mage, and she also needed to have some fun after dealing with yesterday's unsettling and difficult rescue mission. Sting hoped that he could make this day be one where she would giggle happily instead of having to constantly have some worries about what Kotomi would be stealing or doing to Lucy's former teammates, and Sting would gladly handle the task of making sure that Lucy found a crucial treasure before she ever had to see the shocking news of Kotomi finding one. As Sting went into his office and sat in his chair, he got to see Lucy comically start hiding behind Rogue because of Yukino approaching her.
"Yukino, I hope you don't have any Lightning Magic still possessing your mind! If you're still planning on using it before I even learn some electric spells, then face the other way!" Lucy loudly exclaimed while Sting saw her comically look incredibly scared with her waving her hands defensively in front of her body.
Sting blinked his eyes in a surprised manner from seeing Yukino have the feeling of sheer confusion in her hazel eyes to match the perplexed look on her face, "Lightning Magic possessing my mind? Lucy-sama, what are you talking about? Is that why I woke up with only some foggy memories of going to Yamabuki Town?"
Her questions caused Sting to quietly think to himself while looking a bit intrigued, "Whoa. It seems like Kanata's lightning went out of the cult members when she died, so the people who were fully possessed must not even be able to remember what happened while they were brainwashed."
Sting saw Yukino curiously glance down at her white blouse and light blue shorts that were matching her white boots to possibly see if she wore this particular outfit yesterday, and the sight of Lucy inviting Yukino to sit down at the table for her to explain yesterday's events prompted Sting to shift his attention to a book that was currently on his desk. Sting had been reading this book on famous treasures, particularly reading about how a ring could be found in the faraway town of Parmanie, but this book pertaining to treasure only informed Sting of Parmanie Town's history relating to the ring.
Apparently, the ring was guarded by a royal family at one point before the very last royal member who died chose to pass down some important magic to the servants who were required to pass it down to their descendants. That old bit of history seemed interesting, as the book informed Sting about how the ring was always going to be in the possession of whoever was deemed to be considered royalty with their magic, and Sting smiled a bit from reading a few sentences on how there would be an important test for whoever was viewed as worthy to have the ring.
Sting wondered if that test for getting the ring would be a fight against one of the town's powerful elders, as that would be an interesting challenge for Lucy instead of only taking on bad guys, and the thought of Lucy finding a way to win against one of Parmanie's best wizards who was extremely experienced really made Sting smile with excitement. He hoped that Risa would carefully watch Lucy's fight, too, and she could try learning from Lucy to improve her skills to where she could protect clients or her friends. Sting leaned back a bit in his chair while thinking that he would need to get more books on Parmanie to learn more about the town, but he would try to get them before his date with Lucy would occur. He felt like more research on this town was crucial, since the current book said nothing about the town's magic or important landmarks, and Sting got up from his chair. As he walked out of the office to go see if he missed any important books on Parmanie in Sabertooth's library, his blue eyes merely caught a glimpse of the newspaper article about Kotomi's possible thefts being under the book pertaining to treasure as a way of how Sting prioritized the order of tasks that needed to be given attention.
Elsewhere, in a different guild...
Kotomi stood in front of Kirika, who sat down on her green couch that was at the back of the Moon Rainbow guild, and the blonde-haired criminal smiled in a satisfied manner from how she was holding a hefty bag of jewels in her right hand. Kotomi was merely reporting the success of completing her newest job that involved stealing a cerulean blue stone from Seigan Town for a client who would give 600,000 jewels to the wizard who delivered it to their private hideout in that cold town, and she was very happy to have taken the artifact known as the Azure Stone without much difficulty.
That blue stone had been a rare item, since it allowed the holder of the stone to use powerful spells of Water Magic with no difficulty to where they could even create cold ice when their watery spells were cold enough to touch the frosty air that was made by any ice in the area, and anyone who had the stone in their possession could definitely brag about it. Kotomi could definitely brag about how stealing the stone was quite easy, as she took down the guards who were near one of Seigan Town's landmarks without using her most powerful spells of Celestial Spirit Magic to take down any people who witnessed her act of thievery.
Despite how Kotomi had been seen by people, she was smart enough to create gold blasts of celestial energy with a high amount of brightness to also make people be blinded long enough for her to run away from the town. Combining her spells of Celestial Spirit Magic with the spell of Wind Magic known as Kaze's Feather Dance allowed Kotomi to leave Seigan Town incredibly quickly, moving quite fast to where she even drenched people with large amounts of snow as she ran by them, and people who heard the blasts would get to discover that the Azure Stone was missing while some people would be unconscious.
Kirika smirked evilly at how Kotomi did very well on last night's job, feeling quite glad that her beautiful guild member was smart enough to handle another job without having any people get photos of her for a bounty of money that the Magic Council would offer up to anyone who caught Kotomi, and the brown-eyed girl's newest amazing accomplishment made Kirika feel like getting up from the couch. She gave Kotomi a proud smile to show how she loved that Kotomi was such a great thief, and Kirika walked towards Kotomi while seeing her eyes shift to the request board that was on the right side of the guildhall.
"Since you've been doing so well for me, my dear Kotomi, I'm ordering you to take an easy job today. In a few days, though, you can try to steal a beautiful weapon for me instead of getting magic artifacts for people. I'll personally pay you, sweetie." Kirika calmly told Kotomi with a relaxed look in her eyes, before she tried to hide a small and lustful smirk on her face.
Kotomi asked Kirika with a curious look on her face, as her eyes showed a feeling of delight, "How much are you planning to pay me, Mistress Kirika?"
Kirika responded in a soft and sultry whisper, as she didn't want the other guild members to overhear her words, "I'll be paying you with money, and a very relaxing massage if you'd like that."
Kotomi replied to her with a calm smile on her face, "Make it also be a hot bath in addition to that massage, and I'll gladly steal that weapon for you."
Kirika chose to agree to that deal, simply nodding in approval, and she stepped back for a moment to notice how Kotomi wore a dark blue halter top with blue booty shorts that were in a plaid pattern. She liked Kotomi's style today, as the antagonistic girl did seem to be putting more money into making herself presumably be as fashionable as the girl whose identity she had stolen, and Kirika put one of her hands in Kotomi's blonde hair to just feel the softness of her shiny hair. She giggled sweetly at how Kotomi made herself be very attractive, and Kirika's eyes glanced down at the other female's breasts.
She liked how Kotomi chose to wear a halter top that didn't hide how her breasts were quite large, and Kirika's cheeks blushed light pink at the thought of just groping one of Kotomi's breasts for a moment. However, Kotomi started to walk away from her at a fast pace as if she was in a hurry. Kirika simply watched Kotomi's ass move in a sexy way as it looked a bit bigger than before, which showed that Kotomi probably exercised to make her new body be more fit, and she started to groan in frustration at how she missed her chance to just give a soft pinch to Kotomi's ass.
Kirika's loud groan made Kotomi stop walking for a moment, and she turned around to look straight at her frustrated guild master. Upon seeing Kotomi's curious facial expression and other mages looking curious, Kirika merely made her groan be associated with how her pants in a dark purple and lavender houndstooth pattern weren't reaching all the way up to her bellybutton. A certain red-haired girl who sat down at a pale green table near the back of the guildhall chose to playfully giggle at the little issue that her mistress had to deal with, but that only made Kirika walk over to her and be across from her while narrowing her eyes.
"What's so funny, rookie?" Kirika calmly asked the red-haired girl, before making a pink aura surround one of her hands.
The rookie nervously tried to explain herself, looking timid as she shook in her chair from making eye contact with Kirika, "Well,... Mistress Kirika,... I.. I just giggled because.. a job that I... got from the board said... that the client wanted a photo of a woman who seemed to recently get the right amount of curves that show off her beauty!"
"Oh, so you've been observing my body since the time I walked past you this morning?" Kirika asked the girl with a devious smirk on her face, as she wondered if this girl wanted to get punished for possibly lying.
The timid mage responded nicely while pulling out a violet flyer from the right pocket of her red jean jacket, "Y-Yes! Here's the flyer, Mistress Kirika! I... I was going to ask Kotomi, since she's said to be really beautiful now, but.. I really did want to ask you about it earlier!"
Upon seeing the description of the job on the violet flyer, Kirika blinked her eyes in a stunned manner from how the newest mage of Moon Rainbow wasn't just giggling at her pants being unbuttoned for people to possibly see her white lacy panties. She genuinely seemed to want Kirika's help with getting a photo for a client who stated in the job's description that they wanted a woman with nice curves, and that made Kirika start to smile in a scheming manner. She would gladly take off her pants and her white tube top later to let this mage see her body, and Moon Rainbow would be a dark guild supposedly known for its beautiful mages instead of thefts. That way, she could cover up some of Kotomi's awesome accomplishments that involved stealing many beautiful items.
As she heard Kirika chuckle about that conversation with the rookie, Kotomi walked out of the guild with a somewhat offended look on her face from what she had heard. The fact that Kotomi was referred to as being really beautiful now made her fists start to be clenched, and she couldn't believe that a lowly rookie had the audacity to utter those words. If that rookie and other people were now viewing Kotomi differently just because of her new appearance while thinking that they could still look down on her in any way, then she would let them know that their shallow reasons for somewhat liking her would be met with punishment for not giving genuine respect to her accomplishments.
Kotomi glanced at the guildhall's dark green walls and emerald green carpet for a moment while thinking about all her newest accomplishments, such as how she decided to solely handle the job of coming all the way to this town today for a bouquet of black roses that a florist needed to have at her shop in Magnolia, and she even got to stop by her guild before taking on that task. After exiting the guild, Kotomi smirked in a confident manner from how this job would easily get her the reward of seventy-thousand jewels, and Kotomi could add that cash to the large amount of jewels that she wanted to just show Kirika. On top of that brilliant idea, Kotomi could just take the train back home very quickly to reach Magnolia and complete the mission before Team Natsu would need her to go on a mission with them. Not only would they help her obtain more money, but getting to see all their strengths and weaknesses on each mission just kept helping Kotomi figure out the best ways to separately take down those three mages. After ending their lives and taking down the Fairy Tail guild, Kotomi could just kill anyone who was rude to her in Moon Rainbow while she would love to have the beautiful identity of Lucy Heartfilia really go well with her vicious magic. Kotomi began walking to this town's flower shop, and she did love the added benefit of possibly making the real Lucy Heartfilia think about a life where she would have to do an immense amount of repair to her reputation that was continuing to be ruined by Kotomi's crimes.
Three hours later, in Kogane Town...
Instead of thinking about any long-term ideas or malicious plans like Kotomi, Lucy was currently running to the fountain in Kogane Town. Despite the fact that Sting simply wanted her to meet him at the fountain right now, Lucy had been using the past three hours to find a decent dress to wear on her morning date with him. Since Lucy went back to Risa's house to unfortunately see that there were no dresses specifically for morning dates in her wardrobe, that left Lucy with the sole option of purchasing a dress from the fashion store in Kogane Town. She had hoped to find a dress easily, but the fact of how a sale wasn't happening right now meant that Lucy was left with having to choose between many dresses.
She ended up choosing one dress for the low price of thirty-thousand jewels, and Lucy was glad to have changed into it five minutes before the time when Sting would be at the fountain. Lucy ran as fast as she could to reach the fountain, and she soon arrived at the square-shaped plaza to see the circular fountain of blue water in the center of the it. Lucy glanced down at the blue water for a moment, before she looked up to see whose footsteps were lightly coming towards the fountain, and she smiled nicely from seeing that Sting showed up.
Sting tried to smile at Lucy, but his eyes widened in amazement while his jaw lightly dropped in shock from seeing how she wore an orange mini dress with orange high-heeled shoes to match. Her hair was tied into a side ponytail with a cute orange bow, and Lucy had bought the shoes with the bow for an extra payment of five-thousand dollars in the fashion store. She noticed that Sting's cheeks started to lightly blush pink while he was at a loss for words, not even saying how he didn't expect her to even change clothes for this morning date, and Lucy slowly walked up to him.
Lucy waved her hands in front of Sting's face while watching him start to blush in a somewhat deeper shade of pink, and gently poking the top of his head caused Sting to snap out of his thoughts about the dress. He began to just smile proudly at Lucy's nice choice of visiting the fashion store when the orange clothes came in before they were on sale, and he comically gave her a thumbs-up. Lucy merely started to blush in an embarrassed manner, since she didn't expect her outfit to make Sting have such an impressed reaction to it, and she hilariously put her hand under his chin to raise it up when his blue eyes started to glance below her face.
"Sting, just look for where we can have fun on our first date instead of looking at my breasts!" Lucy told him with a slightly irked look on her face, as she hoped that he wouldn't do anything perverted.
That prompted Sting to reply nicely as he took a step back, "All right, all right. We can start things off with a visit to the bakery, Lucy. Since this is our morning date, some brownies would be nice for us to eat."
Lucy simply responded to him with a kind smile on her face, "That makes sense, Sting. They may have vanilla-flavored brownies, too."
Sting asked Lucy with a confident facial expression, before he chuckled, "We'd be eating delicious vanilla brownies in a place where the sun's light also comes through the windows for me to also eat that? Well, aren't you the best at helping me see that my idea was absolutely awesome?"
Sting walked back down the path that was to the left of the fountain while unintentionally grabbing Lucy's left hand with his right hand, and Lucy blushed a light shade of pink while Sting quickly led her to a gold building that had a glass window displaying many delicious treats. Sting let go of Lucy's hand to calmly open the door for her, and she gasped in shock from seeing the bakery look quite nice. The gold wallpaper really complimented the yellow wooden floor, and Lucy noticed how a photo of vanilla brownies was hanging in a gold frame above one of the tables that was in a shade of yellow resembling butter.
Lucy walked over to that table while Sting walked up to the yellow counter to see the delicious treats resting on different shelves behind the cashier, and Lucy turned around for a moment to see a heat vent above one spot on the shelves to show that the pastries had heat being sent down to them. That was nothing compared to the heat still residing in Lucy's cheeks, though, and she continued to blush from how Sting admired her dress. Lucy perceived the outfit to just be an ordinary dress, but she looked over at another table to see that a green-haired woman who ate doughnuts was glancing at her dress with a somewhat surprised facial expression.
That made Lucy wonder if she bought something from the store's newest line of clothes before they were officially going to have reduced prices for an awesome sale, and she felt like Risa would be happy enough later to give Lucy some snarky remarks about how she must've wanted to hurriedly get the dress before having to even make sure that other girls wouldn't fight her for it. On a brighter note, at least Lucy didn't have to deal with Sting hating anything about her current attire. He would've probably criticized her dress without hesitating, but at least he thought that Lucy looked great in it. As Lucy happily smiled about it, Sting arrived at the table with a smile on his face from how he was carrying the yellow rectangular box of thirty vanilla brownies.
"Sting, you got all those brownies for us?" Lucy asked him with an astounded expression appearing on her face.
The white dragon slayer responded calmly, continuing to smile, "Yeah, they're food for our date. We could go get ramen noodles later, if you would want to also have an awesome meal with Fiore's best dragon slayer."
"No thanks, Sting. Not everyone has your enormous appetite." Lucy told him with a soft smile on her face, as she tried to make her cheeks stop blushing.
Sting replied playfully to Lucy, as he admired the cuteness of her smile, "At least not everyone still blushes on a date while having cuteness in looks and personality, Lucy."
That little comment from Sting caused Lucy to comically eat two of his vanilla brownies, before she hastily ran out of the bakery, and Sting watched his friend quickly run away. That caused him follow her to a nearby street, and Sting watched Lucy stop in front of a cute little shop that sold adorable items. He could see her blushing as she appeared to be quite flustered by his comments, her face being filled with a rose pink blush, and Sting started to frown a bit in a concerned manner. He hoped that his compliments didn't make Lucy feel very uncomfortable, since admiring her physical traits and personality didn't necessarily mean that he absolutely liked how Lucy looked while she was stuck in Kotomi Takeuchi's body, and he didn't want Lucy to think that her clothes only looked good on a body that wasn't initially hers.
Even after Lucy got back in her own body, Sting would still think that the orange dress looked amazing on her with those orange shoes because of how he had previously seen her cleverly show some skills with fashionably being stylish in Cramoisi Town. Lucy's intelligence and kind personality, as well as her determination, were things that made Sting feel some attraction to her. Lucy's physical appearance was an added bonus, but she did look beautiful in her own body. Still, he didn't want Lucy to blush from feeling like his perception of her being attractive was just shallow. Sting decided to prove that he found many aspects of Lucy attractive, and he surprised her by quickly going into the cute store. He quickly picked up an item that girls would seem to like, before wasting no time with paying about two-thousand jewels to the cashier, and Sting came out of the store with a nice little gift for Lucy.
She widened her eyes in a surprised manner from feeling Sting put something on the right side of her head, and Lucy touched the item to feel that it was a rose. Sting had put a gold rose plush toy in Lucy's hair as a playful little present, thinking that it complimented her third legendary ring and how she could usually think of ideas at the speed of gold lightning. He simply chuckled at the little gift while hoping that Lucy liked it, and seeing her pull out the toy rose to gently smile at it made him sense that she approved of his little present.
"Thanks, Sting. I'll be sure to water the rose with my nonexistent Water Magic." Lucy playfully told him with a teasing smile on her face, as she began to think about his cute and comical gift.
Sting replied to her with a playful grin, as he proceeded to stand a bit closer to her, "You're welcome, Lucy. Just enjoy that little gift from our nice date. After all, you're the one who led me here. Therefore, that counts as you wanting me to buy you something that's got beauty and cuteness while it compliments your personality."
Lucy put the gold rose back in her hair, before gently placing her palms on Sting's cream-colored shirt and kindly telling him, "You know, you're a true expert on giving compliments while adding more fun to this little date."
"There aren't many exciting things in Kogane Town, but maybe we could take our date all the way to that place called Parmanie. There are awesome attractions, royalty, the fourth ring, and other nice things to see." Sting responded to Lucy with a nice smile on his face, before gently running his fingers through her hair.
His suggestion prompted Lucy to just cutely giggle while she agreed, and she gently hugged Sting for how he wanted this little date to be fun for both of them. He even wanted them to have fun together while helping Lucy get her body back, which was nice, and the way Sting talked about Parmanie Town certainly made it be a place that Lucy wanted to see in the near future. Thinking about the near future caused Lucy to briefly remember how Sting took her to that mountain trail outside of Yamabuki Town last night for them to shockingly see that it had broken apart from something that happened, and she did feel curious about that town on the other side of the mountain. If that was Parmanie, then Lucy would be happy to check out the nearby pink forest with Sting soon. However, she shook her head in a rejecting manner from not wanting to go to that forest until Sting could be definite about the nearby town being Parmanie. Right now, though, there were still some little places that they could visit in Kogane for this little date.
As Lucy turned around to just lead Sting to the next location for their date, she nicely smiled at how he would hopefully let her be around the pink plants in that distant forest. The forest seemed very cute, and it even made Lucy remember how she met Sting in a different forest. He had been the person who found her when she was initially trying to hide from Tokiwa Town's hostile citizens, and Lucy was very grateful to him for that. In fact, she turned back around to happily smile at Sting while deciding to show him all of her gratitude for that. He had been spending money in Lucy during this date, and turning around again to see a nearby place that looked like a tea shop made Lucy feel like she needed to treat him to something nice.
Lucy walked towards a gold building that featured a noticeable white teacup with white clouds of steam painted above it while the teacup was over the doorway of that little shop, and Sting quickly walked to be beside her. He had been enjoying this little date, and Sting liked being near Lucy. He even got to suddenly hear her stomach lightly growl with hunger, which meant that brownies wouldn't entirely satisfy her hunger, and Sting wondered if Lucy would be interested in getting large plates of food that would go well with her tea. As Sting and Lucy walked to the tea house together, the soft feeling of their hands lightly brushing against each other caused them to both blush pink while thinking about how this little date could possibly lead to bigger events in their future.
One hour later, at Risa's house...
After finishing their activity of eating sushi rolls while drinking delicious tea, Lucy and Sting went their separate ways for Sting to continue doing research on Parmanie Town while Lucy went home to continue thinking about the near future. The fact that there was a now a location for the fourth ring made Lucy feel very happy, and she had a cheerful smile on her face while feeling like the idea of having four legendary rings in her possession would be a great way for her to feel optimistic about getting the remaining rings.
The fact that the Sabertooth mages were going to a seemingly beautiful place involving royalty made Lucy giggle happily to where she needed to tell Risa about this news, and Lucy went past the living room to go to Risa's bedroom. As Lucy was about to gently knock on the door, though, the soft sound of crying could be heard. Lucy wondered why Risa was crying, hoping that she didn't accidentally get severely hurt while Lucy was out on her date with Sting, and that caused her to loudly knock on the door five times.
Risa quickly opened the door for Lucy to see that she wore a cropped top with the upper half being light pink while the lower half was magenta pink, and she also wore an orange belt to compliment her fuchsia skirt that was above the bubblegum pink pants matching her black knee-high boots with bubblegum pink horizontal lines near their highest parts. Risa seemed like she was ready to go out on a job, but Lucy took notice of her friend's red puffy eyes while small tears fell down from them. Lucy noticed that a photo frame was in Risa's right hand, and Lucy gently took the picture frame from her to see that it contained the photo of Risa with her mentor.
Lucy gave Risa a concerned look, prompting the pink-haired girl to go sit on the edge of her bed, and Risa simply wiped the tears from her eyes. As Lucy sat down next to her, Risa sighed in a depressed manner from how she had recently been remembering some fun times with her old mentor. Risa even looked at the window to see the sunlight that still shined into her bedroom, making her wonder if that bright sunlight was always silently telling her that she was being watched over by her mentor from heaven, and Risa still felt grief from losing someone who seemed to be more than just her former teacher. Yesterday's mission didn't exactly make that pain go away, since Risa felt like she was too weak to protect the client, and some more tears fell from her eyes as she viewed her teammates to be trying to distance themselves from what happened yesterday while wanting to just move on. Risa thought they wouldn't understand her pain at all, but she heard Lucy start to loudly clear her throat.
"You may not believe this, Risa, but I lost my future self. She died while protecting me from the future Rogue Cheney, and seeing the Lucy Heartfilia from the future die right in front of me only gave me more of a reason to protect the future from all the dragons that could've destroyed the city of Crocus. She may not have been my mentor, but that doesn't keep me from hurting a bit when I think about how we barely even got to know each other." Lucy explained to Risa with a regretful smile on her face, as she wished that she hadn't been frozen with fear on that day.
Risa replied in a saddened manner, after initially looking shocked at Lucy's words, "That's a really harsh loss, Lucy. I'm sorry you had to go through that."
"It's ok, Risa. At least it's good to just talk about what had happened with someone who can somewhat relate to it." Lucy calmly told her friend, as her smile shifted to looking slightly more comfortable.
Risa told Lucy with some sadness still in her eyes, as she clenched her fists in frustration, "I guess that's true. Although, I doubt that we both plan on sitting here for hours to just hear me tell you about each individual day that I spent with my mentor. All that I'll probably need to tell you is that I was able to activate that magenta shade of my magic yesterday because of how her voice guided me to break through my panicked feelings."
Lucy smiled nicely from hearing Risa give her that little explanation, as that did explain how Risa managed to use such a powerful spell during a very stressful moment in that fight, but her smile did change into a slight frown from how Risa wasn't going to disclose everything to her. Lucy couldn't force her to talk about any major or traumatic incidents that occurred back when Risa was with her former mentor, but she hoped that Risa would someday discuss what made her so upset at Kirie putting the sunglasses on her forehead.
Lucy turned around to see Risa's sunglasses with cherry red flames simply resting on one of the bubblegum pink pillows, almost like she had been too occupied with thinking about those past memories to where she forgot to wear her sunglasses on this current day, and Lucy crawled up on the bed for a moment to retrieve those sunglasses. As a mage who liked seeing other people's signature fashion trends sometimes, Lucy thought that Risa couldn't go out of the house without her favorite pair of sunglasses that went well with her pink hair.
Risa smiled nicely from seeing Lucy hand her the neatly folded sunglasses, before unfolding them to place them on her forehead, and she was now ready to go out for the chance to get money from another job. Even though Sting would give Risa her portion of the reward money from yesterday's task being completed, Risa still felt like she would need more money to purchase any new clothes that came into Kogane Town today. She quickly got off of the bed, before turning around to smile at Lucy, but the sight of Lucy in that orange mini dress made Risa comically become shocked while her saddened expression went away.
"Did you seriously buy that new orange dress from one of Kogane's small shipments at retail price, Lucy, or did all those electric blasts zap the part of your mind that thinks about when is the best time to buy new clothes?!" Risa asked Lucy while looking quite shocked, as she sounded very snarky.
Lucy explained with a somewhat embarrassed look on her face, as she started to blush, "Well, Risa, Sting asked me out on a date and I needed something new to wear. At least we had fun, but maybe I'll wait to tell you how the dress impressed Sting and we might have our next date in Parmanie Town to see-"
"Parmanie Town?! Lucy, did you and Sting gain happiness on your date while completely losing your minds in the process?" Risa asked Lucy with a shocked facial expression, before firmly grabbing her friend's wrists.
Risa added while closing her eyes and thinking about her own experiences there, "Lucy... Go learn some Lightning Magic before that next date. If you want to shock others instead of being shocked by what's there, go train hard and put your mind towards learning how your selected spells will work! If you go unprepared, you might get hurt by people who can see things much better than you can."
She let go of Lucy's wrists, and Risa walked away to go out to the Sabertooth guild. She left Lucy with a puzzled facial expression from those cryptic words of how the people in Parmanie Town could see things quite well, which made Lucy start to think about how some close-range and long-range spells of Lightning Magic could be necessary for handling any dangerous mages who specialized in sniping their enemies from a distance, and Lucy hoped that she wouldn't make Risa's trauma be any worse by trying to shield her from any faraway spells that would go towards the group. After all, she wanted Risa to stop feeling so upset.
As Lucy walked out of Risa's room to go back to her own bedroom, she did start to feel more curious about Parmanie Town. This was the second time where merely mentioning that place caused Risa to feel very uncomfortable, and Lucy really wished that Risa would just talk with her or Sting about what exactly made her react so negatively towards Parmanie Town. Since Sting was still doing some more research on the town, at least he would probably be able to ask Risa if the royalty or the town's attractions made her uncomfortable.
The fact that Risa wasn't feeling comfortable with the topic of Parmanie Town made Lucy feel like she needed to find out more about that place on her own. Sting may have found out where the ring was located, but there had to be someone who had tons of info on Parmanie besides Risa. Lucy started to look curious about who would possibly know many things about that far-off town, but she started to calmly smile at how the answer began to appear in her mind. Even if it was a gamble, Lucy could go ask a certain group of people about that interesting place while being glad that their town was on one side of the mountain for her to at least get their perspectives on Parmanie.
How was Chapter 20? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. This may have been Lucy's first major date with Sting, but I only shortened it a bit because of how more StiCy moments will occur in the next few chapters. Also, Team Natsu will appear in the next aftermath chapter. They will eventually get suspicious of Kotomi, so don't worry if things seem stagnant with her. Speaking of Kotomi, Kirika will eventually find out who has the legendary rings. Anyway, Lucy is determined to help Sting get some more information on Parmanie Town. Hopefully, she'll get it. Lastly, this chapter is the start of the post-Gold Lightning Arc! I'll update soon. :)
REVIEWS!
FireBlitz: Thanks! As you see in this chapter, the woman from Risa's memories is her mentor.
OrangeDetermination: Thank you! I'm happy that you're more interested in Risa now.
YellowThunder5: Here it is!
GreenGrass4: Thank you so much!
BlueWater234: Thank you! In the next arc, you may just see how the magenta pink color of Risa's magic gets activated.
PurpleReis155: Thanks!
Matt: Thank you!
jennie: Thanks!
Kiri-chan: Here you go!
Sena: Thank you so much!