Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 21: Fashionable Rewards & Ruining Reputations! Lucy's Electric Training & Risa's Bright Fashion Sense! Kotomi's Cruel Theft!
Lucy's POV
I entered the Sabertooth guild with a calm smile on my face while feeling pretty glad about how today was going to be great, and Risa stood by my side. She still seemed uncomfortable from how I had told her that Sting wanted to take me to Parmanie Town, though, and I really hoped that I could motivate her into handling a task that came with a fantastic reward. I wouldn't just save all of our money, however, and the money that we would receive from completing the job would go towards some good goals. Despite how I wanted to help Sting get crucial info about Parmanie Town, I hadn't forgotten about the magazine that Risa showed me two days ago.
The magazine that Risa had shown me in Kogane's fashion store had featured some trendy yellow clothes that were on sale for an entire week in the town of Yamabuki, and the fact that we completed that tough mission while also rescuing Yukino was something that made me feel like Risa really needed to be rewarded. Instead of just getting a portion of the reward money from the bag of jewels that Sting had found in the church, I nicely smiled at how Risa could be cheered up with a shopping spree in the distant town of Yamabuki.
Going to Yamabuki Town for some info and a shopping spree wouldn't stop us from completing a job, however, and I quickly walked over to the request board. There were several new flyers that had been pinned to the board, such as one flyer stating how a client in a distant town needed help with relieving their stress through having a good fight against a mage after seven months of just being a normal mage who also had to handle important orders from their boss, but my orange eyes started to be filled with joy from seeing a banana yellow flyer pinned near the bottom of the request board.
I leaned down to see the flyer mention Yamabuki Town, and the client would be willing to pay ten-thousand jewels for just getting them some vanilla brownies. Apparently, the client was wanting to replicate them to increase the number of customers who entered Yamabuki Town's bakery and they didn't want to go all the way to Kogane to buy some brownies. This seemed like an awesome job for Risa and I to handle, so I gladly unpinned it from the request board. I proceeded to walk towards the guild master's office for Lector to stamp the board, but the moment that I was about to go into the office was the same moment where Sting was exiting the office. Upon seeing him be so close to me again, I kindly smiled while feeling my cheeks blush pink.
"Good morning, Lucy." Sting told me with a nice smile on his face, before rubbing one of my cheeks with his right hand.
I replied while nicely smiling, before his touch made me feel more flustered, "Hi, Sting. It's definitely a good morning. In fact, it's a great morning for buying some delicious vanilla brownies for a client! It's cute when you do that, Sting! I mean, buying brownies is a simple and cute job!"
Risa told me in a snarky manner, after playfully giggling, "If you're that flustered about buying brownies, Lucy, then I wonder how flustered you'd be while making brownies. In fact, Sting would probably watch the kitchen become messier than the brownies if you made them for him."
"Since I need a little break from researching this new town, Lucy, do you mind if I join you on your job?" Sting asked me with a confident facial expression, his grin causing my cheeks to blush rose pink.
I simply kept blushing while accidentally handing the flyer to him, and Sting went back into the office for Lector to make the job be stamped with the insignia of the Sabertooth guild. I got to hear the job quickly be stamped, meaning that it was now my team's responsibility, and seeing Sting run back out of his office with the flyer made me happily smile at him. This mission would not only give Risa the opportunity to shop in Yamabuki Town while I would hopefully get some interesting info on that town called Parmanie, but I would get to spend more time with Sting.
Yesterday's date had been a little short, but now it seemed like Sting and I would now have the chance to check out the pink forest that we had seen below the mountain trail. The dense forest of pink plants didn't just seem like a beautiful place for Sting and I to have fun with sniffing some of the flowers that looked like they had sweet scents, but that place also seemed like it would be the ideal area to test out some new spells of Lightning Magic. Since I had the Saffron Gold Ring that could power up spells involving electricity, I wanted to use them in a place where no innocent people would get hurt.
If there were people in the forest, then Sting would be happy if we went to an area of the forest where tourists wouldn't normally check out plants. That wouldn't just help Sting and I with seeing the power of these spells without harming anyone, but the lightning could probably be hot enough to burn any poisonous pink plants. If we burned them, then they hopefully wouldn't be able to harm us. It seemed like a good idea to test out my spells in that forest, and Sting could be by my side while we waited for Risa to finish shopping at the sale.
"Sting, do you want to watch me use Lightning Magic in that forest near Yamabuki Town?" I asked him while starting to have a curious look on my face, making my blush begin to fade away.
He replied to me with a nice smile of approval appearing on his face, "Sure, Lucy! Show the people of Yamabuki Town that even your Lightning Magic can outclass the electricity that was wielded by a crazy zealot."
After tapping my shoulder to make me turn around, Risa asked me with a slightly worried look on her face, "Lucy, are you sure that's such an idea?"
"Don't worry, Risa. We won't take too long, and we'll quickly get back to Yamabuki Town if things somehow get too dangerous." I told Risa with a calm facial expression, as I would have my personal safety as an important priority during my training.
Speaking of training, that reminded me of how I needed to get a certain book on Lightning Magic from Sabertooth's library. After taking a nap yesterday, I had come back to the guild to just check out a good book that pertained to spells of Lightning Magic. I smiled nicely while walking over to the saffron yellow stairs that led up to the second floor of the Sabertooth guild, and I would be sure to retrieve that book quickly. I really wanted to see if I could give myself a fantastic set of spells to use, since they needed to literally shock any enemies who might try to keep me from getting the fourth legendary ring.
Electrocuting several enemies at once was something that I probably needed to do, since Risa had told me that the people in Parmanie Town had sharp eyes, and hurting multiple snipers with my lightning would be a great way to hurt them before they would have the chance to hurt me. That would probably make it be significantly easier for me to get the next ring, and I would even make sure that my Lightning Magic was capable of defending me from any enemies who preferred to fight in close combat. Being comfortable with fighting at different distances was something that I viewed as important, and I started to smile more confidently at how I was following Risa's recommendation of being really preparing for the next important battle.
As I went up the staircase to go up to the library, my eyes glanced down at Risa for a moment while I hoped that she would tell me or at least tell Sting about her trauma. I wasn't wanting to know about every single memory of why Risa became so sad from remembering her dead mentor, but I didn't want my friend to just keep her problems bottled up to herself. Risa could gladly tell me about how she remembered sad incidents involving her mentor, since I had been through several sad incidents in my life, and helping her get that trauma out of her head would be nice. As I quickly climbed the stairs and wondered if Risa secretly wanted to get payback on someone, I started to smile a bit from how I could relate to that by how I still wanted to get payback on the real Kotomi for stealing my identity.
Meanwhile, at Lucy's apartment... (Narrator POV)
Kotomi woke up to the sound of someone urgently knocking several times on the front door, which prompted her to slowly get out from underneath the pink comforter, and she walked out of the bedroom to go see who was wanting to talk to her. Natsu had usually found ways to get into her apartment, but Kotomi always kicked him out before his eyes could ever see glimpses of her bags that were filled with reward money or the blue Communications Lacrima Crystal on her desk. If he was the person who quickly knocked five times with a strong fist, then Kotomi began to have curiosity in her eyes. If Natsu really wanted to tell her some big news, then couldn't he just wait a few minutes?
The thieving girl groaned in a frustrated manner at how the person who knocked on her door was quite impatient, and she hoped that they wouldn't ask her to go handle any jobs right now. After all, Kotomi did just wake up and she was currently wearing her pink pajamas. She wouldn't put the golden Zodiac Gate keys in her pajamas, since that particular outfit wasn't for mages who would have to handle jobs that involved fighting powerful enemies, and Kotomi decided that she could just change her clothes after seeing who was knocking on the door. She went past the living room to unlock the front door, and Kotomi opened it to see Erza standing there with a stern facial expression.
Kotomi wondered about what made Erza seem upset to where she needed to suddenly take her friend out into the street, and she noticed that a rolled up newspaper was in Erza's left hand. The scarlet-haired woman gently unrolled the newspaper, before turning it around for her friend to see a certain article, and Kotomi feigned a genuine expression of absolute shock at how Seigan Town experienced a horrible theft. The Azure Stone was stolen from its rightful place of being in the Seigan Temple, which was an attraction that many people could visit, and the guards were now looking for the girl who attacked them in front of the temple.
Apparently, the injured guards and some heavily injured witnesses talked about how they could mainly recall golden blasts of energy that were being created by a powerful mage. That thief hadn't destroyed any of the icy monuments in the temple, even leaving the sacred pale blue flames of Ice Magic intact while they were said to be just as powerful as any mage who could wield that color of the icy magic, and going all the way down the temple's bottom floor to steal the Azure Stone was certainly quite a feat. Kotomi didn't smile about her little accomplishment, though, and the fact that maintained her shocked facial expression caused Erza to look quite worried.
"I'm just as concerned as you are about this, Lucy. The perpetrator most likely used Celestial Spirit Magic, and I recall how that girl named Kotomi Takeuchi was featured using a Celestial Mage Ring in a past issue of Sorcerer Magazine." Erza explained to her friend with concern in her voice, as she didn't expect Kotomi to still be committing crimes as a Sabertooth mage.
Lucy's impostor replied with a small smile appearing on her face, "Yeah, it would obviously be her who stole that stone. Erza, I'll get changed and we can go get it back from Kotomi."
Erza told her friend while trying to look a bit hopeful, as she wanted to avoid the worst-case scenario, "If we're lucky, then Kotomi won't need to add the stone's magic to her arsenal. Judging by how she's using Celestial Spirit Magic, I can say that she's being very clever for downplaying her Wind Magic these days."
That only caused Kotomi to reply with a nice smile, before walking back to the apartment, "You're right about, Erza. Anyway, I have to go change my clothes."
Kotomi hastily went back inside the apartment, and she shut the door. Kotomi stood against the door for a moment while her smile changed to being one that showed relief, and the fact that Erza didn't question her about having any involvement with the theft really made Kotomi feel like letting out a soft giggle that was quite cheerful. Erza trusted Lucy Heartfilia so much to where she wouldn't even have any suspicions whatsoever about anything being wrong, and Kotomi ran back to her bedroom while starting to smirk at how Erza suggested that the group's green-haired enemy was responsible for the theft.
She felt joyful at the idea of framing the real Lucy for another theft, since that would make the members of Team Natsu be so fooled to where they would probably make the real Lucy beg them for mercy, and Kotomi would be happy to act as a distraught mage if the actual Lucy Heartfilia accused her of being an impostor again. Framing Lucy for her thievery would probably also let Kotomi see the guild master of Sabertooth kicking the actual Lucy out of the guild, and Kotomi wanted to see her suffer. From her perspective, that mouthy bimbo deserved more pain than happiness in her life.
Kotomi reached her bedroom to see some of the newest clothes that were in the closet, her eyes showing happiness from how she bought them yesterday with a high amount of her money spent, and Kotomi picked out a light blue jean jacket with a black T-shirt that would compliment her long orange skirt and black flat shoes. Kotomi picked out a black lacy bra with black lacy panties, too, and she was glad to be expanding on Lucy Heartfilia's selection of clothes. She quickly put all of her clothes on, before running into the living room to get her ten golden keys off of the coffee table, and Kotomi ran out of the apartment to meet back up with Erza. Upon seeing her turn a page in the newspaper to read about other events that happened in Fiore, Kotomi smiled a bit as she walked towards her.
"What will we be doing today, Erza? Would a job of fighting monsters be great for our team to handle?" Kotomi asked Erza with a curious facial expression, as she watched her turn the page again.
Erza exclaimed with an astounded facial expression, her eyes widening from reading the article, "That's absolutely crazy! Lucy, look at this!"
"What is it?" Kotomi nicely asked Erza, before taking the newspaper out of her hand.
The antagonist nearly dropped her jaw in disbelief from reading an article that talked about how mages from Sabertooth recently defeated a powerful priestess who had been ruling over the town with dangerous electricity, but the photographers for the newspaper unfortunately arrived in Yamabuki Town on the day after the Sabertooth wizards had barged into the church to take down the lightning-wielding leader of the church congregation. Kotomi wasn't shocked at how the people who published the article couldn't get any photos of the wizards who had freed Yamabuki Town from a religious cult, but she was very surprised to hear that a green-haired girl used the power of her ring to beat the priestess.
The article also informed Kotomi of how some eyewitnesses from Yamabuki were supposedly also able to recognize this girl as the person who was infamous at one point for causing havoc in Tokiwa Town, but they were pleased that she became a better person who chose to use her powers to help people instead of continuing to use them for evil purposes. Kotomi softly clenched her fists while narrowing her cocoa brown eyes, and she couldn't believe that the weakling who nearly died from her spells of Wind Magic was now trying to get back at her by being heroic.
Kotomi aggressively shoved the paper back into Erza's hands, which made Erza blink her eyes in a curious manner from wondering if Lucy still had a grudge against Kotomi for making the members of Team Natsu suffer on a previous mission, and Kotomi silently decided that she would have to work much harder with her types of magic if the real Lucy was getting stronger. As she turned around to start walking towards the Fairy Tail guild with Erza requipping from being in her Heart Kreuz Armor to be in her Clear Heart Clothing for the upcoming job that would probably be harsh, Kotomi thought back on how she made it seem like Lucy Heartfilia dealt with Seigan Town's harsh conditions a few days ago during the theft where the Azure Stone was stolen. Kotomi faintly smirked at that memory, especially since her fight for the stone involved some people bleeding from their wounds.
-Kotomi's Flashback, two nights ago-
Kotomi had taken the nighttime train to Seigan Town while wearing a light blue T-shirt with a dark blue miniskirt and some pale blue high heels, happy that she changed her clothes after the members of Team Natsu finished celebrating their success on a somewhat difficult job that was handled earlier in the day, and Kotomi walked out of the train station with a pleasant smile on her face. In fact, being by herself right now was proving to be enjoyable. She had been riding the train for a few hours now, as she had to stop at a different town to unpin a flyer from the request board in Moon Rainbow's guild without any of those wizards in Fairy Tail ever finding out about it. Since the other Fairy Tail mages headed home after the little celebration at the guild, Kotomi could also ride the train to return to Seigan Town without anyone bothering her on this late-night mission.
She had to complete the task of stealing the Water Stone from the Seigan Temple, which was probably on the right side of the branching path that she went down with Team Natsu, and Kotomi ran down the snow-covered street at high speeds. As snow fell from the grey sky to be alongside the icy winds that blew past Kotomi's face, she activated the Kaze's Feather Dance spell to give herself more speed. Two large bird wings in a mint green color fell down from the air to lightly touch her feet, and the moment they faded away was the moment where Kotomi ran quite fast to where anyone who noticed her right now would think that she instantly teleported to the town's ice rink.
As Kotomi arrived at the town's ice rink to see people in winter coats gracefully performing some ice skating tricks while they seemed happy, her cocoa brown eyes looked straight past the ice rink to see a snow-covered path that appeared to go straight ahead to an interesting place. Kotomi decided to check out the path that had its entrance bordered by two trees with white snow completely covering their leaves, and she went around to the other side of the ice rink. Kotomi quickly got there, and she went straight down the path while ignoring how the midway point of this path had two other paths branching outward to the left and right sides. She would just check out those paths later, but getting to the Seigan Temple was her main priority right now.
Kotomi continued to run quite fast, moving at high speeds to where her feet aggressively pushed several thick layers of snow behind her, and she didn't waste any time with reaching the Seigan Temple. It appeared to be a light blue building made from rectangular stone bricks with snow covering the entire roof, as well as the temple's six large pillars that stood on both sides of the temple's entrance, and Kotomi attempted to just walk in. However, she was quickly stopped by a female guard who wore her dark blue hair tied back in a bun. The other female guard who also wore a light blue winter coat sternly looked at Kotomi, and she also stuck out her hand to stop her.
"Sorry, but only the one who shows themselves to be worthy can enter the Seigan Temple. Come back later, Miss." The first guard told Kotomi with a calm look on her face, before gently pushing her away from the temple.
That prompted Kotomi ask her with an arrogant smirk on her face, as she lightly closed her eyes, "Do you plan on making this difficult for me?"
"We're just doing our job, and this is the easy way to handle hasty tourists like you. If you want us to do this the hard way, then you'll regret it." The stern guard replied to Kotomi with harshness in her eyes, as she created several light blue spikes of ice in her hands.
Kotomi responded to her in a relaxed manner, after sighing softly, "It looks like I'll have to show you who will actually regret their decisions tonight."
The blonde-haired villain jumped up high into the air while building up a high amount of magical power for a golden aura to surround her body, and Kotomi aimed her hands down at the two guards. She activated a new spell of Celestial Spirit Magic that was known as Cosmic Star Strike, and Kotomi fired eight star-shaped projectiles from her hands. The stern guard quickly launched her icy spikes up into the air, hitting four of the stars, but making them burst to create gold explosions only resulted in smaller stars coming down while touching the larger stars only made them be engulfed in a golden aura that majorly boosted their power. The smaller stars quickly hit the ground, creating several large golden blasts that injured the guards with their fierce power, and the light from the blasts allowed Kotomi to run into the temple.
Upon entering the temple, Kotomi looked a bit puzzled from only seeing light blue pillars in the room. She walked on the ground that had been dark blue because of all the Water Magic being infused into the ground for it to be denser than normal, and Kotomi didn't care for the appearance of how the interior of this room had pale blue brick walls. She only cared about the sight of a staircase's regular blue steps that led downward, and Kotomi hastily went to the stairs. She headed downward to the next room, and Kotomi's eyes noticed how light blue ice was on the floor with light blue icy rocks on parts of the ice.
Kotomi quickly ran across the ice, before using her high speed to jump quite far, and the thieving girl soon reached the next staircase. Upon hearing larger explosions occur from her spell's slower stars, Kotomi realized that she had to move fast before any other mages barged into the temple. She went down to third floor, which contained light blue ice on the ground while an icy statue of a girl with two pale blue flames still burning in her hands seemed weird, and Kotomi slid across the ground again. Her right hand briefly brushed against the pale blue flames, feeling them to be extremely cold, but Kotomi wasn't interested in collecting the flames that were in a unique shade of blue. She kept herself focused on the next staircase, and reaching the stairs allowed Kotomi to go down to the lowest floor. As she went down the steps and saw some display cases coated by the frost that was forming from the Ice Magic that rose up from the icy floor, Kotomi started to smile in an extremely pleased manner.
"The treasures haven't been touched in many years, so these morons didn't even think of hiding them." Kotomi said aloud to herself with a cocky facial expression from seeing the six square display cases standing in a hexagonal formation around a light blue icy rock.
Kotomi thought to herself while noticing something very interesting about that icy rock, smiling with the feeling of satisfaction in her eyes, "In fact, they made the Azure Stone be a very easy item to get."
The Azure Stone was an elliptical-shaped blue stone with three dark blue bubbles seeming to be inside of it, almost like this was an item pertaining to Water Magic, and Kotomi slid across the ice at high speeds. She managed to stay on her feet while going towards the rock, successfully grabbing the stone with her right hand, and Kotomi slid past that rock to gently land against the wall that was directly across from the stairs. The wall had a circular pattern with six lines also drawn in a dark blue color, and there was weirdly a keyhole in the middle of the wall. Kotomi started to have ambition in her eyes as she smiled, assuming that there was more treasure in this room, but the loud sound of people yelling about who created all the explosions made Kotomi shift her focus to getting out of the temple.
She quickly ran back to the staircase, before going all the way back up to the first floor of the temple. When she got to the highest floor of the Seigan Temple, Kotomi made her footsteps be soft while she saw several people be in front of the injured guards. They had fallen down into the snow with blood leaking out of their wounds, and Kotomi could see how they were barely able to move from the pain. She merely gave them a rude smirk while staying in the shadows of the temple, and Kotomi quietly activated another spell of Celestial Spirit Magic. The spell was known as Celestial Star Retract, and a star-shaped projectile appeared a few feet in front of Kotomi while she noticed that it was connected to a gold string of celestial energy that emerged from her right hand at the same time that the star appeared. Kotomi thrusted her right hand forward, causing the star to go outward to where it multiplied itself into two projectiles after reaching the limit of how far the string would let it go from Kotomi, and the Celestial Spirit Wizard retracted the first star back into her right hand. On its way back to her hand, though, the first star hit the ground three times for duplicates of itself to rise up from the snow. As soon as the projectile touched Kotomi's hand, all of her stars outside of the temple detonated in golden blasts!
As people screamed in excruciating pain from the power of those attacks, Kotomi ran out of the temple with the stone in her hand. She was glad to have stolen it, especially since getting the stone allowed her to try out two more spells that she learned from the book on Celestial Spirit Magic that Loke had retrieved for her, and Kotomi could now take it to the hideout where a client would be waiting for her. Kotomi ran down the straight path, before taking a right to see what was there, and Kotomi took notice of a girl with wavy light blue hair tied back in a long ponytail with two locks hanging down on either side of her head. Kotomi noticed how the girl wore a light blue winter coat with black fur on it while she wore a cerulean blue miniskirt to match her sky blue wedges, and the female's pale blue eyes started to be filled with delight from seeing the stone in Kotomi's hand. She motioned for the other girl to come towards her, and Kotomi hoped that this girl would quickly give her the cash.
"Thank you so much for getting the stone for me, mage. Thanks to you, I'll be showing my partner who's the real loser of our duo. In fact, just know that I'm the strongest mage in our little team." The girl told Kotomi with a calm facial expression, before slightly grinning at how Kotomi handed her the stone.
Kotomi asked her with a curious facial expression, as she hoped her time wouldn't be wasted, "If you're the client who wanted the stone, then where's your private hideout?"
"Here it is." The client nicely replied to Kotomi, as soon as she used her Ice Magic to create a gust of icy wind that blew away a large pile of snow and revealed a dome-shaped igloo of white snow that was concealed by her winds surrounding this area of the street.
As the client went into the large doorway of her igloo to retrieve the money, Kotomi found it a bit interesting how this woman used the wind from her Ice Magic to reveal her igloo. If the wind could blow snow away to reveal things, then wind could also hide things such as igloos by blowing tons of snow on top of them. Kotomi smirked nicely at the idea of creating a new spell of Wind Magic that could allow her to hide in the wind, since that could be useful for eventually eliminating Team Natsu, and Kotomi smirked at that plan. She turned around for a moment to see her footprints that were in the thick snow of this street, and Kotomi created a mint green tornado in her left hand. She hardly put power into it, before throwing it at the ground to see snow get blown in different directions, and Kotomi felt like she needed to work on perfecting her newest move. After all, she couldn't wait to see Team Natsu look shocked at how their kind friend was supposedly strong enough to even make deadly spells of Wind Magic.
Back in the current time, in the pink forest...
Even though the actual Lucy Heartfilia couldn't use Wind Magic right now, she smiled happily while being glad at how she could use her Lightning Magic in the pink forest outside of Yamabuki Town with Sting being right by her side. He smiled confidently from seeing Lucy get ready to unleash the first spell of Lightning Magic that was in the new book she picked out from Sabertooth's library, and Lucy quickly used a spell that was known as Lightning Voltage. She followed the book's instructions of stretching out her left hand, and Lucy ended up shooting out a yellow orb of lightning from her hand. It quickly emerged from her hand to strike a nearby pink tree, before creating a yellow blast of energy that was average-sized while the tree could be heard falling apart, and the smoke cleared up to simply reveal that the tree hit the ground. It interestingly had a yellow aura surrounding it while Lucy could see the electricity flowing around the tree, but that seemed to be the spell's effect.
Lucy looked a bit curious about why the electrified tree wasn't exploding, and that spell's weird effect only made Lucy hope that the second spell would prove to be more useful. Lucy's second attack was known as Thunderbolt Arrow, and this spell required Lucy to stretch out her left hand. She did that, which caused a yellow bow and a yellow arrow to appear in that hand, and Lucy fired the arrow at one of the trees. It surprisingly went off-course to strike the electrified tree, however, and Lucy watched her attack create a yellow blast that was quite large. She covered her eyes to avoid the light, not seeing three yellow arrows appear on top of the bow while the blast's light made them shine in accord, and this spell definitely seemed strong.
When the light faded away, Lucy noticed her shining arrows. She chose to fire all of them at some trees, pulling the bow all the way back to increase her striking power, and Lucy wanted to see what her arrows could do. She quickly built up magical power for the third spell that would hopefully be strong, only to see the three arrows redirect themselves towards the yellow aura around her body, and Lucy had to counter them with her third spell of Lightning Magic. It was known as Electro Shield, and the spell made Lucy's right hand have yellow beams of electric energy emanating from it. She raised that hand upward, causing a tall and wide rectangular wall of electricity with to rise up from the ground while it was surrounded by two gold pillars, and the shield had an emblem shaped like a lightning bolt in its center. The arrows struck the shield, before being bounced off of it to hit some trees, and the Sabertooth mages watched the yellow arrows have a high amount of electricity around them. As they hit the ground to create large yellow blasts and destroy the trees, Lucy noticed the heightened levels of power in her spells.
Normally, the first spell in its weakest form would just create a miniature blast. However, having the Saffron Gold Ring as her third legendary ring must've greatly strengthened Lucy's attacks to a higher level. That made her feel confident enough to use her fourth spell of Lightning Magic, which was known as Sacred Discharge, and Lucy watched the bow in her left hand start to vanish. That was replaced by a thin yellow beam of lightning going out of her left hand to curve upward towards the clouds, and Lucy started to look shocked at how her lightning made a white cloud become yellow from absorbing the electricity. After a few seconds, the lightning came down in the form of a large yellow beam of electricity to hit Lucy. It didn't harm her, but the lightning made a yellow aura engulf her body. She could feel her body having much more strength, and gently sliding to the right for a moment made Lucy surprise Sting how she appeared to do it in the blink of an eye.
"Lucy, you're fast!" Sting told her with an astounded look on his face, as he watched her continue to slide back and forth across the ground to see her new spell's ability.
Lucy replied to Sting while turning to face him, looking puzzled by her spell's name, "I'm very fast, Sting, but this can't be the only effect of the spell."
Sting told her while calmly smiling, having confidence in his eyes, "Lucy, you should probably see how fast you can punch some of the plants."
Lucy decided to take Sting's advice, and she quickly ran up to two trees that were surrounded by pink tulips. Lucy proceeded to aggressively punch the trees several times, which allowed her to see electricity going out of her body, and the electricity went into the trees for them to start being surrounded a yellow aura. Lucy even lightly stepped on three of the tulips for them to become electrically-charged, and Lucy could feel herself be somewhat slower than when she had first used the spell. Hitting enemies to make them be electrocuted was certainly useful, but the fact that Lucy would lose some of her speed made her see that this spell came with a drawback.
As she ran back towards Sting with only half of her increased speed, Lucy got to hear her electrically-charged targets start to detonate. That made her smile a bit, and Lucy turned around to see five large blasts happening simultaneously while the blasts appeared to expand outward. All of the lightning spread to where it electrocuted other trees, as well as electrocuting some nearby flowers, and the yellow clouds of smoke faded away to reveal that Lucy's spell made large craters be in the ground. The spell came with some interesting effects, though, and Lucy wondered if her fifth spell could be just as amazing.
Lucy stretched out both of her hands to activate the fifth spell of Lightning Magic, which had been known as Thunderous Electric Static, and she built up a high amount of magical power. She sent power into her hands while thrusting them forward, only to weirdly see nothing happen at all, and Lucy started to look very confused about how the spell was supposed to work. She pulled out the yellow book from the left pocket of her candy apple red skirt, and Lucy held it in her left hand. She opened it up to the page that featured the spell, and seeing its picture near the spell's instructions about how mages could use it when they were determined to win gave Lucy an idea. She exhaled a soft breath, before feeling intense determination in her mind to where those feelings entered her eyes.
"Thunderous Electric Static!" Lucy shouted with intense determination in her voice while continuing to build up magical power, having her right arm stretched forward.
Sting asked Lucy while blinking his eyes in a stunned manner, seeing how nothing happened, "Isn't something awesome supposed to happen right now? Lucy, what if we were in the middle of a tense battle and the enemies saw your spell not working? Wouldn't their laughter make you very upset?"
"That's right, Sting! I just need to imagine that these large trees and the flowers are like the enemies we had to deal with. After all, I really disliked that disrespectful pop idol and that greedy guild master just as much as I disliked dealing with Kanata! Fifth spell, I call upon thee! THUNDEROUS ELECTRIC STATIC!" Lucy responded to him with a confident facial expression, before clenching her teeth and shouting out the spell with seriousness and fierceness in her voice.
Despite how Lucy shouted the name of her spell up to the sky, the only thing that went through the air was a small pink butterfly flying down from a tree to fly over the craters from earlier. As their eyes followed the butterfly through this part of the forest that was near the entrance to the other town, Lucy and Sting comically looked very shocked. It seemed very fitting for a spell involving electricity to have a way of shocking them, even if it wasn't the type of shock they were hoping to receive from the spell, and Lucy simply closed the book.
Unlike when other spells that gave Lucy trouble, such as when the crimson flames of her Fire Magic weren't doing anything as they were over a volcano's magma, this particular spell didn't do anything at all. That made Lucy start to look down at her red T-shirt in frustration for a moment while wondering why the spell wouldn't come out, and she simply sighed. Lucy started walking away from the pink forest with Sting while surprisingly heading towards the town that had a pink street, but Sting calmly grabbed her hand to pull her back towards him.
Sting playfully smiled at Lucy while giving her a look that told her to not get ahead of herself, and they could gladly walk into that certain town later. For now, though, they needed to get back to Yamabuki Town to see if Risa completed the job of delivering that box of vanilla brownies to the client who wanted them. Sting quickly ran towards the area where the mountain trail began its upward ascent to the town of Yamabuki, and Lucy followed him. As Sting would get himself and Lucy back to Yamabuki Town to see how Risa was doing after their short training session, the white dragon slayer wondered if she was going to take very long with shopping for clothes.
30 minutes later, in Yamabuki Town's fashion store... (Risa's POV)
After being in the town of Yamabuki for at least an entire hour now, I finally found all of the fashionable clothes from the magazine that I had shown to Lucy a few days ago. The high-heeled shoes that were in a shade of yellow resembling blonde hair with lightning bolts designed on the front of the shoes were now in my right hand, along with a yellow crop top, and the fact that all of these cute clothes were on sale made me add two pairs of lemon yellow Capri pants to my stack of items. However, there was still something else in this store that caught my attention.
I walked over to the shop's banana yellow wall that was near the door, and I took notice of how there were some dresses in a pastel yellow bin that was shaped like a lightning bolt. I moved a few of the dresses aside to easily pull out the daffodil yellow dress that had been slightly sticking out from underneath those other dresses, and I nicely smiled at how this dress had straps. The dress had to be laced up in the back, which wouldn't be troublesome for me, and the dress appeared to be in my size. This dress was cute to where I put it on top of the shoes in my stack of fashionable items, and I walked towards the counter.
As I went towards the counter, my eyes took notice of how some lacy yellow bras and lacy yellow panties were on a brown rack's gold hangers. I quickly took eight hangers off of the rack, since Lucy seemed interested in getting some of the clothes here for herself, and she probably wouldn't mind if I paid for everything. That would be my small way of thanking her for sharing that story about her future self with me yesterday, and it was much better than talking about my mentor. Remembering what had happened to my mentor always made me feel pain and sadness, so getting happiness from always making myself purchase fashionable clothes was a great way to distract myself from that trauma.
I simply frowned a bit while adding the undergarments to my growing stack of clothes, and I had worry in my eyes at how Lucy wanted to go to Parmanie Town with Master Sting. They may have even already asked Yukino and Rogue about joining them, and I would hate for my friends to be fooled by the supposedly genuine atmosphere where people seemed so happy. Just because the fourth legendary ring was allegedly in Parmanie, I wouldn't want Lucy to possibly suffer or die there like how my mentor died right in front of my eyes. However, keeping Lucy off of that path to possibly getting her body back would be very wrong of me. Even though I didn't want her in Parmanie Town, Lucy going to great lengths for the good goal of getting back in her own body was just as good as my desire to not see my friends die. We both had genuinely great goals right now, but the thought of my friends dying caused me to shut my eyes as I put the clothes on the counter. I went back to the bin where I saw another nice dress, thinking that I could buy it for Lucy, but the sound of the fashion store's front door opening to let me hear a familiar person gasp in shock made me open my eyes to look over at the store's entrance.
Sting exclaimed to me with impatience in his voice, as I could see that he was looking irked at my habit, "Risa, you didn't deliver the vanilla brownies to the bakery yet?!"
Lucy added while smiling kindly as she walked into the store with Sting and another person behind them, "If you were busy with shopping and your own thoughts, Risa, then I could've made the delivery be my first priority before training."
"The vanilla brownies are here?" Another female's voice asked from behind Lucy, before the green-haired mage stepped away to the side.
I got to see a woman with long blonde hair falling to her hips run into the fashion store, and I merely pointed to a yellow rectangular box that was on the gold counter. Upon hearing Lucy remind me about those brownies, I started to look slightly embarrassed at how they were still on the counter. I planned on delivering them, but all the wonderful clothes that I wanted to buy from the magazine had taken up all my time. I simply watched the brown-eyed woman walk towards the box and pick it up, seeing her have the box pushed against the yellow blouse that matched her white baking apron and brown khaki pants. She opened the box to eat a vanilla brownie, before simply looking at me with a pleased smile on her face from how the brownie tasted so good.
The happy look on her face surprised me, as I thought she would be upset from having to go out and see if the person delivering the brownies was in Yamabuki Town, and I soon saw this woman widen her eyes in shock from looking at me. She turned to face Lucy and Sting, who both had curiosity in their eyes from seeing this woman's reaction to me, and the woman who appeared to be the scared lady from before turned back to face me while maintaining that shocked expression. I wondered if some powder from the brownies had accidentally gotten on my magenta pink blouse that complimented my light pink skirt and my hot pink high heels, and the woman's shocked expression caused other customers to look at me.
The other customers curiously looked at me, before a few of them gasped in a pleased manner from recognizing me as one of the mages who fought alongside Lucy, and I turned back to the counter to see the client walking towards me with the box in her hands. She smiled nicely to show her gratitude, before Sting and Lucy walked behind her, and I wondered if this woman viewed me to be like a celebrity who was taking care of a simple task for her. I wouldn't take credit for defeating Kanata, since Lucy did that, but what would this woman tell me?
"Thank you so much, mage! Yesterday, a young boy told me and others how you were the one saved his life by smashing the church's windows! You saved a child, and he can now grow up to have a prosperous future because of you! In fact, your spell was said to be what started the chaos in the church. We want to thank you, and we'll also honor that nice girl named Kirie. If there's anything you need, please tell me or any other resident about your request!" The woman happily said to me, before tightly hugging me and pulling me close to her.
Lucy asked her from behind while speaking in a calm manner, "If it's possible, could we get more information on a place called Parmanie Town?"
The client turned around to respond to Lucy in a cheerful tone, "Absolutely! First, you mages should know how Parmanie supposedly has a system where new royals periodically take over the town. Apparently, no prince's or princess' rule over that extravagant town has been permanent because of some unchanging policies. If you go there, though, you may have a nice time with sightseeing. Although, going to the Parmanie Forest near here might let you see the Psychic Magic of their townspeople."
I replied sarcastically while trying to get free from the client's tight hug, "Yeah, you'll... totally be enjoying that place."
As the woman ended her hug to let me breathe, I went back towards Sting and Lucy. They both smiled happily while some of the customers pulled out black cameras from their bags or pockets to just take a few pictures of us, and I merely tried to have a genuinely happy smile on my face. Even though I could support Lucy needing to visit Parmanie for that legendary ring, I did feel uncomfortable from how that client viewed Parmanie as a nice place. The people who lived over in that town were really good at creating that particular illusion for the rest of Fiore to just be viewing Parmanie from its facade, so not even the Magic Council had Parmanie in their thoughts these days.
I never forgot how Parmanie Town was truly a place with its own horrible problems, such as how one of those problems was terrible to where it caused me to lose my mentor, and the day that I lost my mentor was when some difficult years of my life began. By going back to a place such as Parmanie, I would just end up putting myself in a bad situation again. To make matters worse, Lucy and Sting would also be putting themselves at risk of getting hurt. I didn't want anyone harming them, Yukino, or Rogue. After all, my friends weren't bad people.
The horrible people in Parmanie were the ones who harmed my mentor for selfish reasons while they didn't want to accept me for being optimistic and snarky in the years that followed, and I believed that running from Parmanie was necessary. Running away hadn't been easy to do in Fiore, though, and I only got lucky to not be chased forever because of the shocking news of a guild having its core members be destroyed on Tenrou Island by a dragon named Acnologia. I walked past Lucy and Master Sting to go purchase all of my fashionable clothes while perceiving myself to be incredibly lucky that I was still alive, but the fact that something shocking took Fiore's attention off of me only made me wish that it took attention off of my mentor long before she met me. What she had been doing was perfectly fine, until the royals made it be seen as a horrible thing because of their jealousy. My mentor had even introduced me to the world of fashion, too, and I was glad to finally purchase these new clothes.
Fashion was the main thing that took my mind off of the trauma of losing her, as that hot spring with other members of Sabertooth had been an activity that was almost relieving, and I just didn't want to lose anyone who I cared about. As I took out thirty-thousand jewels from my skirt's pocket and glanced at the butter yellow tiled floor near Lucy, I wondered about what my mentor would've done if she was in this situation. I started to look worried while ignoring how my fashionable clothes were all being put into a yellow grab bag, and I just hoped that Lucy wouldn't die or have to deal with any awful people from my past.
How was Chapter 21? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy and Sting are having more StiCy moments, and those moments are leading up to them becoming a couple. Speaking of couples, I've been receiving several messages in my inbox about pairing Risa with Rogue. That could work. Speaking of Risa, she's definitely getting her moments to shine in this story! In fact, every bit of buildup with the sunglasses and Risa's trauma and love for fashion has led me to announce something. This is the end of the post-Gold Lightning Arc! The next chapter is where all the fans of Risa will finally get to see her arc finally begin! I'll update soon. :)
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