AN: I'm so sorry. I just didn't have the energy to write this but still not abandoned.
I'm here, I'm alive not sick or anything. Just working.
Can someone tell me how Yukino and Angels ages work? In the anime they're sisters and Yukino remembers her but Angel should be the same age as Lucy right now or maybe a year or two older. If Angel was taken as a slave as a young child then Yukino shouldn't be born or she should be too young to have any memories of her sister.
Remember Yukino and Lucy are close in age because they were frozen in time for seven years. Angel aged into her twenties in that time and Yukino became a teenager. If Angel was taken as a young child then Yukino shouldn't know her. So how does she recognize her and why does Angel know her?
So since I couldn't figure it out I created my own idea for how that works.
EDITED: 07/12/2020 – some of you pointed out that a part of the story had been repeated. I finally got the time to go back and read the chapter and I realized that I published the wrong version of this chapter. If you go back and re-read this chapter you'll find some changes to the story and while the major parts are the same I did add in some paragraphs. This is the correct version of chapter 28.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and waited so long for this chapter to come out. I love you all and to anyone who leaves comments thanks for not giving up on this story. There was a point when I just wanted to write abandoned and leave it to die in a corner but your overwhelming love for the story won out in the end.
Chapter Twenty eight
Lucy stared at Angel for the first time since they had returned to this timeline. In a way Angel had been someone who had changed her life. She had taught her much about the world outside of the cocoon that her father and her guild mates had kept her in.
Lucy had been known as the Light of the Fairies in the original timeline however she was not known as one of the most powerful members of the guild. She had been protected and often compared to a princess. She was the one who when harmed had an army of powerful ass kickers who were more than willing to hurt whoever had hurt her.
During their missions and when facing any enemy she was always protected. While she had managed to save her friends she had somehow always ended up being saved or kept out of the major areas of a fight. No one had the confidence that if Lucy went into a fight she would be able to win against a powerful enemy. Lucy herself would have doubted whether or not she could win.
The day Lucy fought against Angel was the first time she has ever truly fought for her life without Natsu, Erza or Gray there to help or save her.
Angel had been her first real life lesson and in some ways it was also like looking in a mirror and seeing how she could have turned out differently if she had lost her compassion.
Angel had once been a mage who shared her power but they had not walked the same path when it came to their magic. It was like meeting her evil twin or something. Karen had once been kind to her spirits but as time passed she had become consumed with her need for fame.
She had not been cruel starting out. She had become that way as the power went to her head and she slowly stopped seeing her spirits as her companions and only saw them as tools.
Angel had never seen them as her companions. All they had ever been were tools to her while to Lucy they had always been her friends.
Lucy had to fight against this cruel woman who had treated her spirits as tools which had always been something that she had loathed. It was also due to the bond that Loke shared with Aries that she tried to convince Angel to free the gentle spirit from her contract.
It had been her love for her spirits that had reached Gemini who refused to kill her.
It had been that bond that led Hibiki to upload the spell Urano Metria into her mind just in time since he had been falling into the darkness. Hibiki had finally found the woman who had murdered the person he loved and Loke's previous owner Karen.
His actions led to Lucy's defeat of Angel in the previous timeline while adding in an ultra powerful spell to her arsenal. While she didn't consciously defeat Angel on her own it had been her magic that defeated her.
Lucy had fought against Angel but it wasn't with every bit of her power. She had been more concerned about getting Aries free of her contract. She didn't really think she could defeat Angel and take her keys. She just tried to convince Angel to free Aries so that she could reunite with Loke.
Lucy had seen a spirit vs. spirit battle and it sickened her to her core. She just wanted the violence to end. She had also been a fairly new mage who was not accustomed to seeing such cruelty and violence. Her team always managed to keep the worst people away from her.
She had fought against bad guys before but this had been the first time she had faced off against a person who had been cruel simply for the sake of cruelty. There had been a part of Angel who had enjoyed causing pain. She had been a genuinely ruthless person.
For her dream she was willing to go to any length no matter the cost.
Lucy had naively tried to reach Angel through kindness and compassion even though the woman had made no attempts towards redemption. Well, maybe it wasn't naivety it was a kind of desperation.
There had to be something she could have traded to Angel to have her release Aries but the woman wasn't willing to compromise her power for something she considered to be a tool.
Angel had in some ways taught her much about the world.
It had been a harsh lesson and not the first beating she had taken but it was one that she had taken all on her own. She had chosen to fight against Angel and there had been no one to interfere in the fight and come save her. It had been her responsibility to stop Angel and she had managed to do it.
While Lucy would never turn her back on kindness and compassion she was also warier of those who refused the olive branch offered. This fight with Angel had helped her mature into a better mage and showed her a much darker part of the world. One that while she knew existed had never truly experienced on her own.
Lucy had heard many stories of the cruelty of mages from her mother. There were hints dropped by other spirits of the cruelty they had suffered but Lucy had never seen it before in person. It was one thing to know about it but it was completely different to see it for yourself.
Her original battle with Angel had left her with three gold keys in her hands and a new look on how the world works. She had grown up a lot after her battle with Angel and it had been one of her biggest harvests after a battle.
Angel had indirectly taught her a lot about summoning her spirits and managing her magic during a solo battle. Lucy had put into practice everything that Angel had once laughed at her for when she called her naïve and inexperienced.
Her battle against Angel had been more of a one sided beating however she had learned about magic control. Lucy had never considered her own magic reserves when it came to fighting but she had run out of power when facing against Angel. It was something she never forgot again and became more aware of her battle power. She had also learned much about her spirits and their battle powers.
Now though Lucy stared at the long haired, blue eyed girl and she felt pity. There was also a gleam of maliciousness in Angels eyes that once intimidated Lucy. Now though instead of fear she looked upon the white haired girl with sorrow. There was also a detachment in her eyes that still freaked her out.
Angels eyes were dead unless she was enjoying the pain of others. It honestly still scared her of how much suffering she had gone through to end up with such lifeless looking eyes.
There had been a reason as to why she didn't want to face this woman in her original timeline.
Lucy was well-aware of her strengths and weaknesses. Angel had been well-versed in combat and she was merciless. Lucy knew that she didn't have the skill set to go against this woman before but now things were different.
She knew that Angel had come from the tower of Heaven. The tower was the same place that Erza had been held prisoner, the tower that they had saved Siegrain from and the tower that he destroyed once he was freed from his madness.
Brain had taken them away from the Tower for this exact purpose. He had sought mages with powerful magical abilities who would be able to seal his other personality away. However Lucy was unsure with how history had rewritten itself.
When she awoke in her sixteen year old body she already held all the gold keys.
Angel had been arrested for the murder of Karen but Brain and his friends rescued her before she got thrown in prison. According to the records they rescued her while she was being transported to the prison. However her keys were to be taken to the council separately.
Brain and the rest of her team mates were able to free her but how her keys went missing was still unknown. How it ended up in her hands was still a mystery and Lucy really hoped it wouldn't come back to bite her in the ass someday.
Then there was Yukino. Yukino was the younger sister of Angel or Lucy thought of her real name which was actually Sorano.
She remembered Sorano for a brief moment. The look in her eyes was no longer cold or dead but had softened to something a little kinder and also regretful. She was able to actually smile even though there had been pain and shame hiding in her eyes.
Lucy stared at Angel's ice cold blue eyes. She could see the cruelty and determination in her eyes but there were traces of her friend to be found. They had the same hair color and the shape of their eyes and mouth were similar. It freaked her out a little to see that she could still see traces of Yukino in Angel even though it was twisted into something so lifeless.
Yukino never held herself as above anyone. Apart from the aloof feeling that came off from Angel there was a touch of arrogance. She knew she was a powerful woman and she wore that power like a cloak. She would never allow someone to see weakness in her now after everything she had suffered.
In the original time line Yukino eventually held herself with confidence but she never looked arrogant. Yukino was always kind, her eyes were always warm. She never looked this cold or indifferent. However the sisters shared the same determination. Both sisters would never allow someone to move them once they made up their mind.
"We don't have to do this." said Lucy after pulling herself from her thoughts.
She knew that Angel wouldn't give up without a fight but she couldn't help but try to reach her. There was a part of Lucy who wanted to reach Sorano. However she already knew that it was highly unlikely she would be able to reach this girl yet.
You couldn't save someone who doesn't want to be saved.
However in her other life she wanted to reach Angel for the sake of Aries. Now though she wanted to reach Sorano because of the friendship she shared with Yukino. She didn't want Angel to suffer any more than she already had.
She didn't know if Angel knew about Yukino yet but as much as she hoped that reuniting the sisters would help she doubted that it would. Angel was already around the same age as she was and Yukino was roughly six or seven years old now.
Yukino had never actually met her elder sister.
It was her mother who told her about her sister, showing her pictures of Sorano before she was taken in a raid. It had also been Yukino's mother who told her that Sorano had celestial magic. She only had a single silver key when she had been taken which had probably been taken from her or lost.
As far as Lucy knew Angel only came to find out about Yukino when she joined Siegrain and his quest for redemption. She looked into her past to see if she had any family left and she found Yukino. Unable to face her little sister as a criminal she refused to reach out to her not wanting to disrupt her life.
Yukino on the other hand grew up hearing stories of her amazing elder sister. She had pursued the path of a celestial mage so that she could share the same magic as her sister. She wanted to live up to the perfect image of her sister in her mind and eventually she too found out that Angel was actually Sorano.
Sabertooth had searched for her but Sorano refused to contact her until she had washed away the sins of her past. The sisters had eventually reunited during the battle with Zeref. Yukino's death had not only thrown Sting into a rage but had also caused Sorano to go on a rampage that led to her own death.
Angel sneered at the blonde woman in front her after dismissing the child and her companions. The child had been easily knocked out while the two men were unable to fight against her magic. Men had always been weaker to her magic compared to women.
"You and your little friends are pests. I won't let you ruin our plans."
Her words came out ice cold but there was a hysterical gleam in her eye. Lucy sighed to herself as she readied herself for whatever Angel was about to throw at her because she knew this would happen. Brain had promised Angel her dream, to disappear into the sky and become an angel.
She wanted to be free from all the pain and suffering that she had endured during her childhood. The idea of someone taking everything she had worked for from her especially when she was so close to her goal was making her a little erratic.
No matter how much Lucy didn't want to hurt Sorano the fact was that Angel stood in front her. Sorano had been buried in her memories and hidden behind the many layers she had used to protect herself from everything that was going on around her.
The idea of someone taking away everything that she had worked towards for so long, the promise of all that pain and suffering finally ending was not something that she was willing to give up.
Lucy prepared to summon someone to fight beside her when everything went white. Her eyes widened as she found herself in a barren land filled with fog. There were people around her walking towards something but she couldn't help but lose herself within in the crowd.
Lucy wandered around the crowd confused until she finally caught a flash of pink in the corner of her eye. She had been wandering around this foggy land filled with unknown people without any indicators of who these people were.
She raced towards the pink something finally bursting through a door. She stood stunned as she found herself in her mothers closet. She peered through the crack in the door and saw Layla Heartfilia for the first time in years.
"Mama."
Lucy stumbled out of the closed, trying to touch her mother only to find her fading into the air.
The colors in the room fading away as Lucy was struck by a sense of loneliness as the walls seemed to close in on her. She remembered this feeling.
Lucy felt herself shrinking down going back to a time when she had been a young child trapped in this house. This cold empty house filled with pretty things and expensive furniture where she was always so alone. It was a feeling that never truly went away.
Even when she found herself in Fairy Tail she always hated to be alone. She always surrounded herself with the people who loved her terrified of being alone. She may have hated it when her team broke into her old apartment but she secretly did love it when everyone was home. It reminded her that she wasn't alone anymore.
Lucy lost herself to the feeling of isolation until she saw another flash of pink. This time it wasn't her mothers dress but her husbands hair.
There were two sets of memories of the first time they met. Once when they met in Hargeon and another time when he crashed through the roof of her mansion, the feeling of isolation suddenly being burned away.
She felt herself returning to her normal appearance as she tried to understand what just happened and what she missed because she knew that Angel had something. There was a faint pounding in her head telling her that something had happened.
Angels eyes widened as she realized that she wasn't able to capture Lucy's heart as she awakened.
"What was that?" she asked Angel and her mouth twisted into an ugly snarl, "No one should be able to wake up once I cast my magic. I didn't set you free nor did I get what I wanted."
Lucy's eyes flashed as she summoned her whip to her hand and set it on fire. She lashed out at Angel making the woman dive out of the way as she tried to understand why her magic didn't work.
Angels eyes flashed white again and for the first time Lucy saw her eyes turn misty white. Lucy found herself drawn into another memory. This time instead of loneliness she felt anger. She had often felt anger towards her father and the way he had raised her but Lucy had always been a forgiving person.
Her anger never lasted long no matter how justified it was.
She would always somehow end up working through the anger and finding herself sad at the situation. She would feel wronged by her father and his cold treatment towards her but at the same time she never spent much energy being angry with him.
Lucy had never managed to hate Jude Heartfilia. Anger often led towards hatred but she had never been able to hold a grudge towards him and his treatment of her in the past. Instead of hating him she often ended up disappointed in him. She missed the man she had known when she was younger.
She always ended up crying and missing her mother and the way it used to be before Layla died. She never liked dwelling on her anger nor did she hold his coldness against him. She always wished things had been different and in one life she had accepted him for who he had been.
In this life she had managed to mend her relationship with her father. While she would never get the lost time back she knew that she always had a place to go back home.
Now though the anger burned in her veins and she wanted revenge. She wanted to make everyone and anyone feel the same pain that she felt. She wanted to hurt, rage and burn down the entire world.
She felt someone trying to find something else to latch onto but there was nothing there. Anger was one of the most foreign emotions for Lucy to experience. The only person she had ever truly been angry with was her father and it wasn't long before she always somehow managed to forgive him and move past it.
This time she saw a flash of blue of the corner of her eyes and the anger once more drained away. The Heartfilia mansion once more started to fade away as Lucy saw Wendy. She found herself being snapped her out of the memories and found herself standing face to face with Angel.
"What are you doing to me?" whispered Lucy.
Angel spread out her hands and beams of white energy flew towards her forcing Lucy to throw herself out of the way or get hit with that energy. Lucy turned towards the trees and she could see the wood smoking from where it had been hit.
Whatever type of energy Angel was throwing around was able to explode wood. It would probably break her bones if she managed to get hit with those beams.
"No one can hide their heart from me." shouted Angel, "Feelings are so powerful that we lose ourselves to them. How can you control yours?"
Lucy looked at the hysterical woman with pity in her eyes, "Loneliness and anger are not feelings that I lose myself in. If we allow ourselves to be ruled by such negative emotions then we stop living. We become no better than ghosts drifting through life with no purpose."
Angels face twisted with hatred as the white energy in her hands created a circle and shot towards her. Lucy called the cancer blades to her hands to counter the blasts. The blasts were sent flying away from her when they hit her blades, destroying whatever she deflected them to hit.
"Everyone feels loneliness, anger, jealousy and even fear. Those are our ugliest emotions but also the most powerful, the most dominating moments in our lives. No matter how much time passes one never forgets how low they had once fallen. Its easy to see your secrets once you hit rock bottom. I shall break you Lucy Dragneel."
Lucy shook her head, "Everyone feels ashamed its true. No matter how much we might want to forget about our embarrassing moments its not the most dominating moments in our lives. It doesn't matter how low you fall as long as you get up again."
Angels eyes flashed white and this time Lucy found herself in several different memories. Ones where she wasn't good enough for father, not good enough with her magic, different memories from different timelines when she felt worthless or jealous.
This time she saw a flash of red. Erza stood there looking at her with a soft smile.
"You don't have to be anyone except Lucy."
She had told her that once when she felt incompetent due to the fact that she wasn't as strong as the other members of her team. There had been plenty of times that she had doubted her worth and he place on their team but the truth was that she was the center of the team.
Without her to keep them all grounded none of them would have made it as far as they did. Someone had to be the voice of reason and someone had to be there for them to look out for or they would all just destroy everything in their path.
Angel let out a snarl or maybe it was a growl when Lucy broke the illusion once again. The sound wasn't entirely human but it was definitely one of frustration. While it was rare for her to have to try twice on a person she had never met someone who had managed to break through her illusions three times.
Lucy kept breaking apart her spells so quickly that she wasn't able to pry out any answers from her mind either. Her magic allowed her to trap her consciousness of a person in their memories where they felt terrible about themselves.
It was when they were at their weakest and bringing them back to that moment allowed her access to their mind. This was the first time she had to work so hard on infiltrating someones mind.
Lucy summoned Scorpio deciding that she was tired of becoming lost in her memories and it was time to limit Angels vision a little. Her head was starting to ache and she could feel her temples pounding in pain. Angel accessing her memories were hurting her physically and mentally.
The sandstorm caused Angel to lose sight of her target and caused general chaos on the battlefield. It also gave Lucy a much needed breather and a moment to center herself. She had gone through so many emotions that her mind was a mess.
Lucy donned her star dress Cancer and went after Angel with her blades. In one life she didn't really remember Angel fighting hand to hand. They were both holder mages which meant that their close combat skills were lacking compared to other mages.
However Angel gave as good as she got in this fight. The white magic being so cold it actually burned when it touched her. Lucy ended up bruises and a busted lip although she couldn't help the grin when she realized that she broke Angels nose and she was covered in cuts and bruises.
It seemed that even though Angel was giving as good as she got Lucy had managed to come out on top of their fight physically. Angel had taken more damage as she spat out a mouthful of blood. In a way it was good to see Angel in such a sorry state. It had taken weeks for the bruises she had gotten from Angel to go away in the other timeline.
"You may have overcome your other memories but every living being has something that they fear."
Lucy felt her heart grow cold because she already knew what her greatest fear would be.
It was failure.
She knew that the war was coming and she was terrified that she and Natsu wouldn't be able to stop what was coming. She honestly couldn't say if she would be able to snap herself out of it if she became lost in her memories of her fears. The war already haunted her nightmares. She had frozen when she thought that her interference in the timeline had caused Gray's death.
Angel smirked as she finally found an emotion that was able to draw terror into the blond womans eyes. She had been surprised when the woman managed to break her spell the first time. However by the third time she had slowly started to feel some sense of panic until this moment.
Her magic had never failed her before. While this was something that had never happened before she was able to draw out fear in her opponent. Her trump card had never lost and even now she knew that even her opponent did not have the confidence to fight another round with her.
She was sure that the weakness she felt in the blonde womans heart would be able to defeat her on her first go. The easiest emotion had been loneliness for her to feed upon. It was an emotion that she obviously felt on a daily basis for a long time.
Angel didn't expect Lucy to be able to break that illusion. Not many people had the strength of mind to break through their lowest moments in their life. Often they would look back on those moments and feel too ashamed to move forward.
The second emotion she had been able to find had been anger. It wasn't rare for Angel to find someone who harbored anger in their heart. It was common to find anger in almost everyone who felt that they had been wronged by someone.
However Angel knew from the moment she had grasped onto the emotion that it wasn't one that had the most strength. This woman was someone who easily forgave people no matter what they did to her and while to some it would be impressive to Angel it was weakness.
She couldn't even hold onto her anger which made her incapable of hating someone.
Anger was not an emotion easily controlled and it was almost always an emotion that could push someone who dearly loved you towards hatred. Anger and jealousy went hand in hand but this woman broke through both those emotions easily.
It was almost as if she had stared down those emotions and decided that they were not something that she could be controlled by. Fear on the other hand was one emotion that no one could overcome.
While most people fell to the first emotion she got a hold off when pushed to her limits her trump card would always be fear.
Every single living being no matter how powerful had something that they feared above all else.
Lucy threw herself towards Angel determined to knock her out before she cast spell again since she still didn't know how to stop her from casting this spell.
Angel however was faster and her eyes glowed white and Lucy lost herself once more.
Lucy found herself in the ruins of the guild, with the blood red sky hanging above her and the smoke filled air surrounding her. She looked at the streets filled with broken glass, burning buildings and corpses on the ground. They had evacuated all the civilians however the bodies of the mages had filled the streets.
She could hear the screams of people dying, people searching for their loved ones and the noise of the battle. Her heart and mind had been over taken with terror as she recognized the corpses on the ground as her family. Many of the corpses were either marked with the fairy tail guild mark or she recognized their faces.
The scent of blood and death lingered in the air and she felt her legs weaken as she collapsed in a heap onto the ground, her eyes filling with terror. She couldn't do this again. She had already lived through this moment once before as she lost her family to this war. After everything she had done to escape this very same fate it came back to the same thing again.
Angel smiled in victory as Lucy hit her knees as her magic began to disperse, her eyes blankly looking forward as she lost herself to her fear. Angel gave a delicate flip of her wrist and Lucy's body rose with her command. Once the mind was lost to the memories Angel was free to command their body.
She was able to learn anything she wanted from Lucy's unprotected mind. All she had to do was think of the question and the answer would appear in her mind. She had become linked to Lucy's mind since her consciousness was locked away in her memories.
"I win Celestial Queen." Sneered Angel.
She turned to look at the other unconscious mages as she wondered which of them to kill first.
Meanwhile Lucy stared at the bodies of her friends for too long. There was a tiny part of her telling her that this wasn't real but it wasn't strong enough to break through the illusion.
"Now what did you get yourself into Luce?"
Lucy's head snapped towards the voice as she stared at him in shock, "Natsu!" she cried the tears pouring down her cheeks unable to stop crying.
"I promised you didn't I?"
"But we failed Natsu."
He laughed at her pressing his forehead to hers, "You need to wake up Lucy. A Fairy always gets back up even if this is where we end up. You don't stop fighting not until your heart stops beating so you can come home to me."
Lucy blinked the illusion out of her eyes as she felt the foreign magic in her mind. Usually the illusion broke too fast for her to feel the impact of Angels magic on her mind.
Now she could feel the connection clearly. She grabbed hold of the magic with her own and ruthlessly cut the connection between their minds.
Angel screamed as her magic rebounded. Her own consciousness being wounded as Lucy destroyed the connection between their minds rendering her unable to use the spell again.
Lucy awoke changing into her star dress Taurus and using earth wave. Angel was sent flying through the air as blood leaked from her nose from the backlash of her spell gone wrong. Lucy flew after Angel kicking her in the stomach and sending her crashing into the river.
"How could you do that?" cried Angel as Lucy stared down at her.
"A fairy always gets back up. You choose to wallow in those terrible emotions and use it as an excuse for rooting yourself in the past. I acknowledge my past and I use it to empower me to be stronger."
Lucy flashed gold once more donning her Aquarius star dress.
Angel made one last desperate attempt at winning by sending out a wave of white magic.
Lucy reflected the magic at her using a water shield.
Angel was sent crashing through the river and being swept away by the current unconscious.
In the caves where Brain had once kept Wendy he felt one of his seals shake as Angel lost consciousness.
He looked towards the river realizing that Angel had been defeated and his nails dug into his palms in anger. He could feel the blood dripping down his hand as he realized that his pests had managed to shake his pillars.
"Your defeat will not go unavenged." He promised with a malicious gleam in his eyes and floating down the river Angel closed her eyes knowing that while she had been defeated this would not go unanswered.