Jade Force
Chapter Fifteen:
GUYS LAPPY TOPPY DIED, I'M SO SORRY I TOOK SO LONG TO UPDATE!(also writers block) But he's mostly fixed now, hurray! (It took three weeks, I was suffering withdrawals something horrid)
To Guest-san – Thank you for your review! *does a Chopper dance*
To Matt-san – it's on the books! The most unfortunate thing about being the Jade Dragon Slayer though is that jade's not as easy to come across as Air or Fire -_-"
Levy McGarden had been not-quite-four when she had been entrusted to Makarov Dreyer, and Fairy Tail. As such, she knew that there were things that she had forgotten, and that they must have been important. For example, there must have been a reason why Makarov had to take her clothes shopping as soon as they'd returned to Magnolia (He said it was for the approaching winter season and the cold, something she'd never experienced on Tenroujima – come on, she was almost four, not stupid. Who wears skirts when it's cold?). And whenever she tried to ask questions about her mother, Makarov always got distracted by or was busy with some guild thing or another, so he could never answer her questions, and for whatever reason, Levy couldn't remember much of anything regarding her mother. She knew that Mama had been pretty, and had the same blue hair that she did, and that her name had been Ardelle … and that was it.
In the years that followed, when that loud-mouthed kid Natsu started talking about having a Dragon for a Dad, that's when Levy, age ten, really started to get suspicious.
"What's a Dad?" She'd asked Laxus slowly.
"What kinda question is that?"
"Humour me."
With a scoff and a sigh, Laxus had told her that dads were the male version of mums and were supposed to protect the whole family, but they were stupid arses who honestly just up and left everyone behind. (Although Levy was pretty sure that last bit was Ivan-specific).
"So, do you need a Dad?"
Laxus went bright red then, and had sputtered out a brief when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much before Levy had interrupted with,
"So when Wakaba says you need two to tango, does that mean you need both a mum and a dad to make a baby?"
"Well, yeah," The poor boy spluttered.
"Oh, ok…. Thanks, Laxus. See ya."
To be honest, Levy had never really thought about a dad, because she had no memory of one. What had happened? A Terrible Event meant that Levy had had to go Fairy Tail for her own protection, but before that, it had only been Levy and Ardelle. She couldn't remember anyone else (not that she could remember a lot as it was). So what had happened to her own father? Was he missing, like Igneel? Had he left, like Ivan? Or maybe he was dead, like Silver? Levy didn't know, and she hated not knowing. That's why she liked books so much – they helped her learn new things.
But now, almost three years after Natsu first joined the guild, Levy's books weren't able to help her the way she wanted them to.
She'd been having strange dreams about Aubrey-san, Natsu's "clutchmate", for a couple of nights a month for a little more than half a year now. Levy knew that something had happened to Aubrey-san, it had made Sorcerer's Weekly, after all, but she didn't know why she kept seeing such things in her dreams. At first she'd chalked it up to her mind coming up with little comforting things to dream over, since she was worrying so much about Aubrey-san in the daytime. But this month was different.
Levy had watched as a scale-covered, glasses-less Aubrey-san bobbed in the water by the prow of a large ship, waiting, just on sunrise. There had been a whistling sound, and Aubrey-san had suddenly shot one of her arms, a pillar of jade, into the air to intercept a cannon ball! Aubrey-san had then ducked under the waves and swum quickly over to another ship that was fast approaching the first one. From there on out, Levy had watched the dream with her mouth agape as it transformed into something like the brawls that happened in the guild some days.
Aubrey-san had launched herself out of the sea and high enough into the air to see over the railings, before launching a breath attack, jade shards and glittery green magic flying over the deck and knocking a whole bunch of people over the side railings. Creating wings to help her glide around the ship (no doubt for her motion sickness, she was worse than Natsu), Aubrey-san ducked suddenly as another cannon ball careened towards her from the deck, where a large man in a suit and a dog mask was shouting something, although Levy couldn't hear the words clearly – she never could, in these dreams.
Aubrey-san scowled back at the strange man and snapped something harshly, before launching what Levy recognised as her Jaberin attack, spear-like shafts of jade flying from a magic circle straight towards the strange man. Levy thought that he'd been able to dodge the javelins, but the damage was still done to the ship; the deck was shattered in the places where Aubrey-san's magic had connected with the wood. There were cracking and pinging noises, and Levy noticed that some of the other people aboard the ship had started to shoot guns at Aubrey-san, who scowled and dipped a little lower, jade scales darkening in colour as she made them denser.
A man in a trench coat and fedora somehow launched himself into the air as well with a series of well-placed kicks, a katana drawn and arching towards Aubrey-san's neck. Using small breath attacks for propulsion, Aubrey-san ducked out of his way, and fired off another set of javelins at close range, which the man managed to dodge, moving incredibly fast.
It was then that the members of the first ship joined the fray, jumping the railing with cutlasses and pistols drawn and ready, taking on the uniformed men left on the deck whilst Aubrey-san conducted her pseudo-aerial battle. Turning back around to the other ship, Levy jumped a little bit when she realised that the flag that flew from the mast was black, a skull with two red stripes over the right eye on top of crossed cutlasses set in the middle… Aubrey-san was sailing with pirates?!
Before the dream could finish, however, Levy was jolted up from the book she'd been using as a pillow by the latest of Fairy Tail's brawls: Erza versus Mira, Natsu versus Gray, and anybody who attempted to interrupt was promptly punched or thrown into a wall – or, as the case had been for poor Droy, into Levy's table.
Levy's fists shook, and there was colour high in her cheeks when she suddenly cast a Solid Script: Sandstorm, knocking everybody in front of her into the far wall.
"You … you!" She struggled. "You idiots!" Running from the guild hall before anyone could see the furious, traitorous tears, Levy decided to head for Fairy Hills and her own room, and avoided everybody for the rest of the day.
She had a lot of thinking to do.
_ * . * . * _
Aubrey and Shanks' crew were making good time in their escape. The man Aubrey had been having her little aerial fight with must have assumed that she had a Devil Fruit, and as such couldn't swim. So when he'd sliced one of her wings and she'd allowed herself to fall into the ocean (after launching a breath attack in retaliation), Aubrey had dived down deep enough that she was confident no one could see her, before swimming back to Shanks' ship and hiding behind the butt of the floating deathtrap, waiting for the signal.
One of the marines taunted that Aubrey had fallen into the ocean, and nobody had gone to rescue her, which promptly lead to the Redhaired pirates jumping back aboard their ship and calling out for Aubrey worriedly. Suddenly, Shanks called out, "Now, Aubrey-chan!"
Twisting herself around and "taping" herself to the back of the ship with her magic, Aubrey released the strongest breath attack she could manage, head just under the water; the force of her breath attack caused the ship to almost fly, it went so fast! The only problem was that Aubrey and the Klabautermann hadn't yet made friends…
Well, at least the fish had a nice meal, afterwards!
Well, it's an end of an era! I finished my job at the dinosaur museum yesterday, so it's back to the property working for my Dad once again. I know my updates have been really sporadic already, and I'm sorry to say that they're going to get worse :( I will try my best to update again when I can, but I'll be doing a lot of travelling between our two places, so…. Yeah. Reviews always help, though!