Jade Force
Chapter five: Iceberg
*waves a white flag* I'm so, so sorry about how long it's been! I had really bad writers block for this, and the only reason Eleutheromania was published is because Shibo26 was tossing ideas around with me for ages, and she keeps helping me out when I get stuck. *hint hint?*
Also, the person Aubrey was hearing during the last chapter was Happy – I quoted directly from the first episode.
X 779, Mountain Ranges, Iceberg
"Who goes there?!" The guards on the walls called.
"We're wizards from the guild Mermaid Heel, in Fiore!" Aubrey called back up, her puff-sleeved coat wrapped tightly around herself as the wind whipped her shoulder-length hair about her face. Risley and a violently shivering Arania stood next to her – well, Risley's hair certainly did, anyway. The winds were having a field day with those curls. "Did you get the message that we were coming?"
"Show us your marks, just in case! All of you!"
With a sigh, Aubrey opened her coat to reveal the dark green mark on her right lower stomach; Risley lifted her cape and twisted, showing the dark blue mark on her left lower back, and a suddenly depressed Arania removed her coat and pulled the shoulder of her yellow blouse down, revealing her black guild mark on her upper arm.
"They're legit!" The guards called to someone the girls couldn't see. As the gates opened, the three mages moved inside, reapplying their layers. Arania was looking a bit blue about the gills.
"I'm Aubrey Nephrite, and these are my teammates, Risley Law and Arania Webb!" Aubrey called once the gates were closed behind them. Whispers immediately took up as soon as Aubrey had said her name – "Dragonet", her epithet, raced from person to person. Even two countries over, even in such a remote village, she was known here – had Gajeel-kun heard of her yet? Did he know where to look?
"You are all S-class?" A representative, an aging man with grey hair, asked them.
Aubrey shook her head, pushing her glasses further up her nose and gesturing to her friends as she named them. "Just Arania and myself, though please don't underestimate Risley's abilities."
The representative nodded, and invited them into his house, which they gladly accepted – Aubrey couldn't smell a thing; the ice burnt her nose, and it sucked. A nice warm room should help with that, as well as staving off the cold Arania was no-doubt going to catch when they were finished.
The buildings were all low to the ground and made from thick pine trees from the forests further down the mountain range, and inside, a healthily-sized fire roared in the fireplace. Aubrey steered her friends to stand directly in front of the flames, making sure they were alright before turning back to the town representative, holding out the flyer that had brought them across two countries.
"The request says that your village has been under siege from a dragon for over a month, and that it has taken the lives of many of the people who live here. Can you tell me more details about this?"
The man nodded. "Yes! The dragon is a red one the size of two houses, and it has such a horrible temper! The first time it attacked, it destroyed half of the village, and took one of our young women! Two days later it came again, stealing food and another girl; it comes every second day, taking food we can't spare, as well as another one of our women! And whenever we try to stop it, it kills us!"
Aubrey's eyes narrowed. This didn't sound like any dragon she had ever met.
"Do you know the dragon's name?" She only knew two red dragons, the King, Igneel, and that weirdo-scholar cousin of his, Yeoleum.
"Name?!" Exclaimed the representative. "It's a monster! We weren't going to ask its name!"
Aubrey sighed, rubbing her temples. She hadn't slept well the night before, and now she had this cuckoo saying such things… Was there really a dragon here? What use could one possibly have for human women? Aubrey would be more inclined to believe it was someone with transformation or illusion magic… If only she could use her nose!
"So you don't have any pictures, then, as well?" At the incredulous face the man pulled, Aubrey sighed and bowed her head. "Please tell me you can at least say in which direction the … dragon … has been coming and going from?"
"It comes from any directions, quiet as a wraith! We never know what's happened until the girl's start screaming."
How curious, Aubrey thought. To think I passed up a visit to Fairy Tail just for this…
"As soon as this wind dies down, we'll head out." Aubrey told him authoritatively. "If it is possible for us to stay in front of the fire until then?"
The representative began whining. "But shouldn't you get onto chasing down that monster? He's meant to attack tonight!"
Aubrey allowed a small frown to form. "We can't chase after something dangerous if we don't know where it is, what it looks like, or what it is capable of. That's just stupid." Although it sounds exactly like something that Natsu-kun would try, she thought wryly in regards to Igneel's son. "If tonight is a part of the pattern, though, who do you believe may be the next victim? Has there been any set pattern to the abductions?"
The representative thought for a while, before finally saying that so far it had only been women in their late teens to early twenties, and the only one who still fit that description lived on the other side of town. At this, Aubrey immediately asked to be shown to wherever the girl, Kenzie Sieg, was currently, so that they could set up a protective detail. After a very long-winded five minutes, the girls were finally taken to meet their new charge.
After introductions and explanations had been made, the representative left the four girls together. Kenzie reminded the mages of Nasuada, with her dark curls and deep eyes.
"Do you have any idea why these events have been occurring?" Aubrey asked as her friends once again were sat right in front of the fireplace.
Kenzie hesitated, then shook her head. Aubrey's eyes narrowed.
"A-are you s-s-sure?" Arania chattered, still shivering. She had noticed the hesitation and picked up on Aubrey's disbelief. Hey, you aren't partners for two years and not learn about each other.
Kenzie jumped slightly, nodding her head quickly. All three of the mages were staring her down now.
"Quite sure, Kenzie-san?" Aubrey asked coolly, her glasses reflecting the firelight eerily.
"Y-yes, Nephrite-san!"
"Did you know?" Risley's words were cheerful, but her face was quite dark in comparison.
"The Jade Dragon is the Dragon of truth," Arania joined, not-stuttering by sheer force of will.
Aubrey's smile was positively deadly. "And I'm the Jade Dragon Slayer. So if you'd like to amend that statement?" Jade scales crept from her collar to her cheekbones. As it always did, the routine worked to perfection – Kenzie started spilling the whole story.
"This village is so suffocating! Yeoleum is just trying to help us get out of here!" Ah, so it was him, that half-dragon. "All they expect the women to do is cook and clean and be housewives who bear lots of sons! We're not allowed to have any other dreams, and we can never leave the village walls – and we didn't want that! We wanted to be able to make our own choices, and, well, Yeoleum was travelling through a little while ago, and he had all these books on dragons, and he said he had a kind of dragon magic, and that he'd help get us all away!"
Aubrey shook her head with a soft sigh, running her hand through her white fringe. "He's always been like that, that Yeoleum. When is he going to pick you up? It's tonight, right?"
Kenzie's eyes flew wide. "You can't stop him! Please, I don't want to stay here!"
"Why would I try and stop him?" Aubrey asked crossly. "I'm going to help him. But he's going to answer some questions for me, first."
"O-oh…" Kenzie trailed off. She fidgeted for a moment, before saying, "He's meant to be coming once the winds die down…"
"Right." Aubrey nodded, cracking her knuckles. She turned to her friends. "Let's eat before then, shall we? I plan on having a nice long talk with that Fire Dragon, and I don't want to do it on an empty stomach!"
_ * . * . * _
"You didn't sleep again last night, did you?" Risley murmured to Aubrey whilst Kenzie and Arania weren't listening.
Her friend looked at her out of the corner of her eyes, and sighed. "No, I didn't, Ris-chan. You know I haven't slept properly all week."
"Is it those dreams still? The Futuretell ones?"
"Mm," Aubrey nodded, rubbing her eyes under her glasses. "Last night it was some straw hat. But every other night has been that redheaded man with the scars – the one that looks like Fairy Tail's Gildarts Clive."
"And you're sure it isn't Gildarts?"
Aubrey glared. "I've looked and I've check multiple times, Ris-chan! The hair's wrong, for one, and Gildarts doesn't have the scars, either. And he doesn't have any family, I asked when I went to meet Natsu-kun three months ago. He was married once, he says, but she died a few years ago, and they'd been separated for years before that."
"Is he important to you, in the future, do you think?" Risley asked finally, after they were both quiet.
"He must be." Aubrey sighed in frustration. "Every night, he's asking me to come to sea with him – I don't even like boats! I get motion sickness!"
"Don't underestimate yourself, Au-chan!' Risley told her bracingly. It was at that moment, of course, that Yeoleum chose to 'attack'.
_ * . * . * _
Again, I'm SO sorry with how long I took! I'll try my best to update again soon!
…. If you were curious at all, though, I got accepted into Uni!