The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Riot When the Lights Go Out, Part 1
-Blue Pegasus, The Promised Land-
"So," Lucy began idly, "Jellal mentioned that there's been suspicious activity in southern Fiore recently, and he thinks that Avatar might have another hideout there. Think we should go and check it out?"
Zeref gave her a Look.
Lucy got the distinct impression that she was the only person who had seen that Look and lived.
"Did you think I was joking when I said I would drag you to Blue Pegasus by your ankle?" Zeref asked.
"Just trying to lighten the mood a little, sheesh."
He glowered at her, but let it slide.
Still, Lucy kept her mouth shut for the remainder of the journey, just to be on the safe side.
By day, the city of Selinon looked no different to any other. In the morning, after the clockwork tide of grey suits had swept through, awnings unfurled and chalkboard signs sprouted up like daisies through the pavement. Cute cafés, ice cream parlours, coffee shops and restaurants wove a welcoming atmosphere between boastful shopfronts and invisible offices.
By night, the city of Selinon shed this calm cocoon and spread truly spectacular wings. Cafés closed for an hour and reopened as bars. Rare was the tower block whose basement did not hide a high-end club, a luxurious bar. A thousand neon signs blazed a thousand neon colours; the ground hummed with underground music; prismatic light spilled from every open door, as if each disco hall contained its own splendid sun.
Gold glinted at every neck and wrist. Ladies in short dresses sipped shorter cocktails, while gentlemen moved gracefully through the crowds, distinguished from the businessmen only by a top button undone or a glass in their hands. It was almost paradoxical, how a city of leisure could pulse with so much energy.
Blue Pegasus wasn't at the geographical heart of Selinon, as Sabertooth was in Jasmine, but when the sun went down, there could be no doubt that their guildhall was the font from which the abundance of light and sound emanated.
Lucy suspected that on any other day, Selinon would have contained too many nightclubs and too few libraries to appeal to a certain Black Mage, but on that morning, and in a tone of reverence she'd previously assumed he reserved for ancient manuscripts, he raised his arms towards the sky and proclaimed, "At last! I could kiss the ground!"
"Don't speak too soon," she grinned. "Blue Pegasus might have relocated their guildhall in the last twenty-four hours."
"Don't give fate any ideas," he grumbled.
"Or, imagine if Laxus and his team left for a Hundred Year Quest last night-"
"Lucy, I mean it!"
Teasing the most dangerous mage in the world was turning out to be so enjoyable that she was worried it might be tempting her to the dark side. She was starting to see why he did it to her, now. "Zeref, stop freaking out. I can literally see Laxus."
She pointed further down the road, where the unmistakeable silhouettes of the Lightning Dragon Slayer and his ever-loyal team were emerging from a side-street.
"…Oh."
"You hide here," she added, pushing him behind an A-board still advertising two-for-one cocktails from the night before (well, Lucy assumed it had been left out by mistake, but one could never be sure in Selinon), and she hurried off to intercept her targets.
Laxus and the Raijinshuu must have been on their way back from a mission which had started early (or ended late), as they were chatting quietly amongst themselves as they walked, a far cry from the intensity they displayed on the battlefield. Freed saw her first, raising his hand in solemn greeting. She waved back, and recognition filtered through the group until they stopped for her to catch up. Laxus was the last to turn around, his fur-trimmed coat billowing reluctantly after him, and he fixed her with an expression that she was ninety percent sure wasn't supposed to come across as intimidating.
"Hey, Lucy!" Bickslow grinned. "What brings you to our current home?"
"You four, actually. We're getting Fairy Tail back together – we're meeting on the First of September, at the site of the old guildhall. It'd be great if you could join us!"
Freed's one visible eye lit up. Bickslow's dolls let out a cheer. Even Evergreen's lips quirked into a smile.
Laxus said, "Not interested."
Lucy, who had been halfway through an exclamation of "Great!", choked on the word, and by the time she managed to splutter out a more appropriate response – "What?" – all the smiles had disappeared from the conversation.
"I'm not going back to that guild," Laxus reiterated. "You three can go to the reunion, if you want."
"We're staying with you, Laxus," Freed said at once.
"Why don't you want to come back?" Lucy asked.
"None of your business."
"But-"
"You're bothering me now." Laxus turned on his heel, and his coat gave a swish of dismissal. "I have to report the completion of our job to the Master. Leave me alone."
And with that, he set off towards the Blue Pegasus guildhall, his teammates trotting along behind. Not one of them glanced back, although she could have sworn Bickslow's dolls were watching her until the moment they entered the building.
"Oh," said Lucy.
"No!" Zeref exclaimed, running up to her with a look of pure horror upon his face. "He can't do that! That's not how this is supposed to go!"
"Wow," Lucy breezed, flicking non-existent dirt out from underneath her fingernails. "Imagine how much more disappointing that would have been if we'd skipped all our side quests to rush here."
Lucy wasn't sure which amazed her more: that there was a part of her which had thought buying the Black Mage ice cream to cheer him up was a good idea, or that it appeared to be working.
It wasn't yet lunchtime, but her hunch that this wouldn't bother him had been correct. They sat on the bench outside the ice cream parlour, him tackling a mint choc chip cone, and Lucy trying not to eye it too enviously, because she was a responsible adult who ate healthy food at sensible times.
Fortunately, it had eased him from moping into a more pensive mood, and as soon as she felt that she would receive something other than despair in response, she asked, "So, Laxus. Any clue how to entice him back to Fairy Tail?"
"Destroy Blue Pegasus?" Zeref hazarded.
Lucy sighed. "Is that your answer to everything?"
"It seems like a good idea to get a few test runs in before I crush Fairy Tail, don't you think?"
"We're not going to have a guild for you to crush, at this rate," she muttered, sending a choice glare in her companion's direction.
"I don't know what's up with Laxus, Lucy. I've never even met the man."
"I hardly know him either," she pointed out. "I've never really spoken to him one on one. I'm sure Natsu would know how to get through to him, but I wouldn't even know where to start."
Zeref made a non-committal noise.
Running with that idea, she added, "Say, you're the one with all the creepy research on my guild. What do you think Natsu would do in a situation like this?"
Zeref considered this for longer than she had been expecting. "From what I've heard of him," he said evenly, "he'd probably challenge Laxus to single combat, with the condition that if Laxus loses, he has to come back to Fairy Tail."
"He would, as well!" Lucy laughed. "Well, since I'm not completely mental, I'll pass on that plan. I think I'll go talk to Laxus and his team, and find out why he's so opposed to coming back to Fairy Tail."
"I think you're very sensible, Lucy."
She found Bickslow in the Blue Pegasus guildhall.
As one of the most famous mage guilds in Fiore, a certain proportion of the guildhall was filled with familiar features: a Request Board almost as large as Fairy Tail's own; a bar displaying ten times as many brands of liquor as Lucy could name, though Cana would probably have been disappointed; a handful of casually dressed mages hanging out groups, discussing potential jobs.
Unfortunately, the man she was there to see was not one of these mages.
No, Bickslow was in the other part of the guildhall: the room bedecked in velvet drapes and amber lamps, diamonds and pearls, with plush chairs surrounding low tables which ought to have been sticky, but which were eerily smooth and cool. The mage in question was sat in the centre of a two-seater sofa, his arms stretched wide across the back, as if he owned the place. His visor was off, revealing his wild hair and facial markings – and the clash with his cultured surroundings only made him seem more in control.
He was watching her approach from the moment Lucy entered the guildhall, making her glad that Zeref had agreed to explore the town instead of hanging around with her, but it still seemed polite for her to stop and ask, "Can I talk to you?"
"Sure," Bickslow grinned.
He made a slight gesture with his hand, as if inviting her to sit with him on the couch… which he was currently occupying in its entirely. Lucy gave him a dubious look, which he didn't seem to notice. "Uh…"
"Don't mind if I do," Loke chimed in.
"What are you doing here?" Lucy exclaimed.
Not satisfied with merely inviting himself into the conversation, Loke sat himself down on the sofa and proceeded to cuddle up right next to Bickslow.
"L-Loke! What are you-?" Bickslow spluttered.
"Oh?" Loke glanced up into his old friend's face, far too close; all puppy dog eyes and a coy smile. "You only cater for straight men here, then?"
"I don't cater for any men at all!" he retorted. "And you are a straight man!"
The Lion Spirit winked. "I could make an exception for you, sweetie."
"B-but y-you-"
Bickslow's flapping was cut off when Lucy burst into hysterics. "Okay, Loke, that's enough, let him off. I'll get my own chair."
By the time she found a free bar stool and carried it back over, Loke was lounging smugly with most of the sofa to himself. Bickslow was perched very awkwardly on one edge, as far from the Spirit as possible.
"That's how it's done, Lucy," Loke grinned.
"I don't think it would have been quite as effective coming from me, so thanks," she told him.
"And as for you," Loke reprimanded his old friend, "you've picked up some bad habits from Hibiki."
"Sorry," Bickslow said, suitably chagrined. "Though I am technically still on my shift…"
Loke gave him a bemused look. "Isn't it a bit early in the day for that sort of thing?"
"The party never stops in Blue Pegasus," Bickslow assured him. "You've grown too used to Fairy Tail's lax standards these past few years, my friend."
"Wait, you actually work here?" Lucy blurted out. "As, you know- a host?"
"Yeah! It doesn't pay as well as high-level mage work, but demand is pretty constant, so when there's a shortage of jobs, it's perfect. You seem surprised," he added, with a knowing smirk.
"Umm," Lucy waffled, fumbling for a tactful way of framing her words.
Fortunately, Loke had already proven that he wasn't bothered about etiquette. "No offence, mate, but you don't exactly match the whole exclusive host club thing Blue Pegasus have going on here."
In his swish suit and tie, Loke blended perfectly with the extravagant atmosphere – after all, this was probably the guild where he had acquired his current dress sense. But Bickslow simply laughed again, his tongue lolling out as casual as anything. "Tell that to the ladies who are fed up of nice guys. Freed calls it diversifying the guild's portfolio… I call it a damn good deal, having the ladies come to me for a change."
"So, you all do this? All your team?" Lucy wondered, still not entirely sure that she hadn't wandered into some bizarre alternate reality. Somehow her brain had failed to make the connection between Laxus and the Raijinshuu joining Blue Pegasus, and Laxus and the Raijinshuu moonlighting as hosts. Even now that she could see Bickslow thriving in this environment with her own eyes, there was a stubborn part of her brain – closely tied to common sense – still refusing to accept it as reality.
"Freed doesn't. Whenever he's not on a job, he's in the Blue Pegasus Archives. He challenged himself to read every book down there before-" He cut himself off abruptly, gaze roaming the darkened interior before finally settling back on Lucy. "Well, Ever's in her element here. Ninety-five percent of the patrons are terrified of her, but the five percent who aren't… wowee."
"Evergreen, I can imagine," Loke chuckled. "Laxus, not so much. I'm guessing he leaves you to work in the host club – I mean guildhall – while he's off on epic solo quests, right?"
"You couldn't be more wrong," Bickslow smirked. "Laxus is the first person in eight years who's managed to knock Hibiki from the top spot in Blue Pegasus."
Lucy blinked. "By 'top spot', you mean 'strongest mage', right?"
"Nope. I mean 'most successful host'. Blue Pegasus is great and all, but it has a distinct lack of strong, muscled, intimidating men – an oversight which Laxus has apparently set out to remedy singlehandedly. I swear he spends more time working as a professional host than out on jobs."
Weakly, Lucy shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm trying, but I just can't imagine it. Laxus, passing up S-Class mage jobs to sit here and chat with women?"
"You'd better believe it. In fact, he hardly comes on jobs with us at all these days. What you saw this morning was unusual – a job specifically requesting four bodyguards had come in, so Master Bob put it aside for us, and it would have been rude if we hadn't taken it. Ever since we came here, though, Laxus has preferred to do jobs on his own… when he isn't chipping away at Hibiki's record for most-requested male host of all time, that is."
Loke asked, "Do you have any idea why Laxus doesn't want to come back to Fairy Tail?"
"He doesn't want to pass up his chance at that record?" Bickslow laughed. "No clue. You'll have to ask him that."
"And where is he?"
"Not telling."
"Seriously?" Lucy groaned.
"He doesn't want to talk to you, Lucy."
"Oh, come on, please! I only want to know why he's acting the way he is." When her emotional plea didn't faze him, she took a different approach. "You're the same, aren't you? Earlier, you were about to tell me that Freed was trying to read all the books in Blue Pegasus before you went back to Fairy Tail, but you cut yourself off. You, him, and Evergreen – you've all been anticipating that your stay in Blue Pegasus would be temporary! I saw your reactions to the news about the reunion; all three of you were expecting Laxus to say yes!"
"So what?"
"Well, don't you want to know why he didn't?"
"This pestering is exactly why he told us not to tell you where he is, Lucy," Bickslow pointed out. "Laxus told you no, and we told you we're staying with Laxus. End of. I'm sorry you've had a wasted journey, but that's how it goes."
"Well, I'm sorry," she said, getting to her feet, "but I'm not giving up my quest until I've had a satisfactory answer. If he doesn't want to return to Fairy Tail, that's fine, but I think we all have a right to know why – you, Evergreen and Freed especially. And if you won't ask him, I will. Compared to being captured by a fanatical cult and finding out that my magic may or may not be destroying the universe, Laxus being a bit evasive is nothing. I'm going to find him and get to the bottom of this."
Bickslow leaned back on the sofa, and every word was a glittering dare. "Knock yourself out."
She found Evergreen in a café and cornered her as she was about to leave.
"You'd better not be here to ask me where Laxus is," Evergreen stated, with a threatening glower and an even-more-threatening tap of her glasses; a polite reminder that if Lucy wasn't very careful about her choice of words, she'd be spending the rest of her life as a lawn ornament.
"No, I'm not!" Lucy said automatically.
"Is that so? Then what business do you have with me?"
"I wanted to talk to you about… umm…"
"Yes?"
"Elfman!" Lucy blurted out. "I wanted to ask about Elfman."
"I have nothing to say about that buffoon," Evergreen snapped, and Lucy groaned inwardly. Out of the frying pan, and into… well, a bigger frying pan, under the scrutiny of a chef who would eat her alive the moment she stepped out of line, cooked or otherwise.
Warily, Lucy tried, "I ran into him the other day. He's at Sabertooth now."
"Bully for him."
"Have you seen him recently?"
"No. And I don't want to."
"Did you know he has retired from mage work, and is now employed as a professional chef?"
"I couldn't care less how he chooses to waste his time!"
Common sense was screaming at Lucy to back away quickly, but then common sense hadn't had much of a look in since this quest had begun. "Evergreen, you wouldn't happen to be the reason why he's convinced no one in Fairy Tail will accept his career change, would you?"
"Oh, sure, make it out like I'm the villain, why don't you?" she shot back.
"What else can I do, when I've only heard his side of the story?" Lucy countered.
In fact, she was beginning to think that Elfman had withheld some fairly integral details from his tale, but Evergreen's reaction was certainly a vocal one. Lucy wondered how far she dared to push her on the matter…
Well, Zeref could probably undo petrification, right?
"I think you'd better come inside," Evergreen muttered, heading back into the café. Lucy meekly followed her to a table in the corner, far enough from the handful of patrons to dissuade any eavesdroppers, and ordered a lemonade, while Evergreen chose something long and pink and containing enough gin to make Cana proud.
She'd finished one of these and was making good headway into the second before Lucy mustered up the courage to ask, "So, what happened between you and Elfman, exactly?"
"It's… ugh." Evergreen slumped forwards, letting her hair spill glumly around her glass. "When the guild split up, I really thought he was going to ask."
"Ask… what?"
"Ask me to go with him, obviously," she groaned. "Gray and Juvia had gone off together, as had Levy and Gajeel, so why not? Mira and Lisanna had already left, so I knew he wasn't going with them… I mean, what else could he have been planning to do? But I waited, and kept waiting… and nothing happened. In fact, I could have sworn he was avoiding me."
"So, you gave up and went off with your team?"
Lucy had thought that quite an innocent guess, completely undeserving of the death-glare she received in return. "No, I asked him!"
"You asked Elfman out?" Lucy gasped.
"That's not what I said!" Evergreen snapped. "I asked him if he wanted to come with us, that's all!"
Then she glanced away, her cheeks reflecting the same pink light as her cocktail. "Though… in our team, I guess that amounts to the same thing. No one gets to go on jobs with the Raijinshuu. No one. We're family. We hadn't decided where we were going yet – it was either going to be Sabertooth or Lamia Scale. But the four of us were staying together, as always. I had to bring it up with the others, talk them into it, find a way of making it work… and after all that effort, he went and said no!"
Not entirely sure if the appropriate response was sympathy, indignation, or amusement, Lucy went with a neutral "Oh" and hoped Evergreen would interpret it favourably.
"He said he didn't want to join another guild," she continued, breaking an ice cube in two with a single jab of her cocktail umbrella. "He felt responsible for the guildhall being destroyed. Said he wasn't cut out for mage work and wanted to do something else. Not I'd love to come with you and be a chef in whichever guild you join, thanks so much for asking me, but I don't want to be around Fairy Tail mages any more, oh, woe is me. I mean, what was I supposed to do? He pulls all this self-deprecating crap out of nowhere, like he's looking for pity from the woman he literally just rejected!"
Her voice could cut titanium. "So yeah, maybe I told him he was a coward. Maybe I told him what he wanted wasn't good enough. I was pissed at him, alright? Then when Freed and Bickslow arrived and saw how upset I was, they got angry with him, and told him he wasn't acting like a man, and that we'd be ashamed to have someone like that associated with our team…"
"So, you were angry that he'd rejected you – very rudely and thoughtlessly rejected you," Lucy added hastily, catching sight of Evergreen's expression and swearing that she could already feel her toes starting to stiffen. "Whereas he thought you were specifically opposed to his desire to quit being a mage and work as a chef instead."
"Who knows what's going on inside that moron's head?" she snapped.
"It seems to me that Elfman had no idea how significant an invitation to travel with the Raijinshuu was," Lucy pondered.
"Yes, Lucy, that has occurred to me since, thanks."
But it hasn't occurred to you to contact him and clear up the misunderstanding in ten whole months? Lucy thought, but she knew better than to say it out loud. After surviving old enemies and Avatar's torture chamber, she thought Zeref would not be amused if it was a conversation about her acquaintance's definitely-not-boyfriend that marked the end of their quest.
Instead, she offered, "That does sound difficult."
Evergreen sniffed. "Not that I care what happens to him."
"Of course not," Lucy agreed amicably. "And where was Laxus during the argument with Elfman?"
Evergreen's eyes narrowed a little with the return to the taboo topic, but the question must have come across as innocent enough, because she answered it. "He turned up halfway through with Freed and Bickslow, but he just watched it play out. He doesn't interfere in things like that."
A thought occurred to Lucy, then. "Hang on, did you say that the Raijinshuu were deciding between Sabertooth and Lamia Scale?"
"Yeah?"
"So, how did you end up in Blue Pegasus?"
A shrug, quick and dismissive. "How should I know? Laxus picked it after the argument."
"Out of the blue? Didn't you ask him why?"
"Of course I did! He just said something about Master Bob being an old family friend… well, I didn't particularly care. It's a famous guild with plenty of jobs going; that was good enough for me."
"Do you have any idea why he doesn't want to come back to Fairy Tail?"
"No. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. It's none of your business."
"You want to come home, though, don't you?" Lucy tried.
Evergreen pursed her lips. "Home is where my team is. If Laxus stays, so do I."
"But don't you-"
"I'm not going to tell you where he is, Lucy. He specifically asked me not to." She jabbed the cocktail umbrella of her third gin towards her. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your nose out of my team's affairs."
She found Freed in the Blue Pegasus Archives.
By this point, Lucy had been playing Hunt the Lightning Dragon Slayer for several hours, and she was quite frankly fed up of this whole affair.
"I won't tell you-" Freed began, but that was as far as he got before she dropped three books onto the table in front of him.
"Look," she said shortly. "I know you don't want to betray Laxus, but we both know he's acting suspiciously, and furthermore, I think we both have a right to know why he's suddenly rejecting Fairy Tail and dragging you three down with him. So, let's make a deal."
At Freed's quizzical expression, she pushed the books towards him – the three ancient, handwritten tomes that Zeref had been making her lug around for him. "Tell me where Laxus is, and you can have these super-rare books that I, uh… got from a dark mage."
He looked at the books. He looked at Lucy. He looked back at the books.
She felt like she was kicking a puppy.
Lucy added, "If anyone asks, I'll tell them Ichiya told me."
"Done," said Freed.
According to Freed, Laxus had a shift at the host club side of the guildhall starting at 9pm that night. However, Freed also warned her that if she was still lurking around Selinon by then, Laxus was likely to bail – so she had loudly announced to Blue Pegasus her intention to leave the city before doubling back under cover of nightfall.
That was why she was currently hiding behind the guildhall's bar.
It turned out that no one in Blue Pegasus had any clue as to why Laxus didn't want to return to Fairy Tail, either. Like Lamia Scale's Lyon and Sherria, Hibiki and the others had all assumed their new members would leave the moment Fairy Tail came back – a revival which none of them had ever doubted. Jenny, who was working behind the bar that night, had offered Lucy her current hiding place, along with a shot of some dubious clear liquid ("For courage," Jenny had winked) which she had resolved not to touch.
So she was sat upon silver-speckled tiles, in the single safe-looking spot between the slow-dripping cider tap and the third of at least five mini fridges, with her back to the barricade of beer taps and bar stools hiding her from the room, as she watched the light flash hypnotically from Jenny's diamante heels and wondered what on earth she was doing here.
On her list of Most Ridiculous Plans, which (thanks to her membership of a certain troublesome guild) had been embarrassingly long even before stupid Zeref and his stupid quest, this one was worryingly close to the top.
The thing was, she had no idea what she was going to say to Laxus.
She had hoped that by the time she was ready to confront him, she'd have assembled all the pieces of the puzzle and deduced exactly why he was acting as he was. Yet she'd interviewed her witnesses, reviewed the evidence, eliminated the impossible, re-evaluated the improbable… and she still felt like the clueless sergeant whose only purpose was to make the inspector look smarter.
In fact, other than discovering that Elfman's mid-life crisis had been prompted by a misunderstanding with his not-girlfriend, the only new thing she had learnt today was that Laxus was an excellent professional host.
And despite the unsubtle hints Loke had dropped before she'd snapped and forced his gate closed, that was not the kind of information she had come to Blue Pegasus to discover.
Her discussions with the Raijinshuu should have led her to an understanding of Laxus's motives, but she had nothing. And hiding behind the bar, waiting to confront him with her incomplete knowledge, felt a lot like breaking down the doors to the boss room with only three of the five sacred artefacts needed to defeat him… or entering an exam hall knowing she had only revised half the material.
In other words, she was doomed.
Utterly, totally, doomed.
"Lucy!" Jenny hissed. "He's here. You're up."
"Right. Here goes nothing."
Steeling herself, Lucy swallowed her nerves and the shot, and after a minute spent promising her burning throat that she would never do that again, she bounded to her feet, vaulted over the bar, and found herself face to face with the man she most and least wanted to see.
"Oh, hi, Laxus! Fancy running into you here!"
"Lucy…" It was a low, dragon's growl, manifesting as a sudden tension in his shoulders and a slight bearing of too-sharp canines, which she wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't used to a far less subtle version of the same response from Natsu. His eyes flashed with a hunter's efficiency around the guildhall, seeking an escape route, but too many members of Blue Pegasus had been in on her plan, and they were already closing in around the two of them. He couldn't run from her, in front of all those nosy people.
In the far corner, the Raijinshuu had ceased chatting immediately at the disturbance. Evergreen and Bickslow glared at each other, judged each other's innocence with identical expressions of confusion, and then turned as one towards Freed, who clutched one of the old books Lucy had given him to his chest and gave the ceiling a blissful smile.
"I've already told you, I have no intention of returning to Fairy Tail," Laxus stated.
"And that's fine, but I'd like to know why," Lucy retaliated.
"It's none of your business."
"It is my business, because this is my guild and my quest. Not to mention, it's the business of Natsu and Wendy and Erza and the Master and everyone who's hoping – expecting – that you'll come back. And also…" She allowed her gaze to slip to the three mages in the corner. "It's the business of Evergreen and Freed and Bickslow, because your decision affects them too."
"I told them, they're free to do whatever they want."
"Yes," Lucy sighed. "But you know full well that they'll stay with you no matter what, so don't you think they have a right to know why it is that they're not allowed to return home?"
With her powers of deduction proving inadequate, she had no choice but to try and petition him – well, emotionally blackmail him – into giving up the answer of his own accord. She saw his attention turn to his teammates, who shifted awkwardly, caught between their vying wills, and Lucy thought her spontaneous plan might be working.
"Fine," Laxus growled, lowering his voice. "Gramps had no right to disband the guild like he did. A guild doesn't belong to its Master, but to its members. That's why you all got mad at me during the Battle of Fairy Tail, wasn't it? Gramps preaches on about that, then goes and dismisses the guild for his own personal reasons! He doesn't consult us. He doesn't even bother telling us why. He just does whatever the hell he wants with the guild, giving no thought to how it will affect the rest of us."
Lucy understood that well enough. It was difficult for her to share his anger with the Master, because if Zeref was right, Makarov had only been trying to protect the guild. But she had been upset when Natsu had left with equally little explanation, the first link in the chain which had led to her losing her friends and her home. Laxus had only just started to accept the guild as it was. She could only imagine how much worse it had been for him.
And that hurt had caused her to reject Fairy Tail's reunion too – but only because Natsu was the one offering it. She'd had no problems taking Zeref up on that same offer, and yet Laxus had been acting all afternoon as though she was the one responsible for the Master's actions. Her eyes narrowed.
"And do you know what the worst thing was?" he continued. A harsh sound, more like a bark than a laugh, echoed through the silent guildhall. Mages, hosts, and clients alike had abandoned all pretence of doing anything but listen to their conversation. "How everyone just accepted it. No one was angry with him for using the guild for personal gain, like they were when I did it. No one told him he had no right, or tried to keep the guild together without him. They all just… left. Like Fairy Tail meant nothing any more. I don't want to go back to a guild that cares so little."
Closing statement made, Laxus folded his arms, as if daring her to bring on the cross-examination.
"That sounds perfectly reasonable," Lucy said. Then she looked the intimidating man dead in the eye and added, "It's probably what I'd have come up with too, if I'd had all afternoon and evening to think about it."
This time, his expression did not change. His poker face was good, but it turned out her powers of deduction weren't wholly inadequate, just a little late to the party.
"If that's the case," she continued, "why didn't you just say so when I first asked you? I'd have accepted it without question. Furthermore, if you've been seething about this for ten months, why didn't Bickslow or Evergreen know about it? If you'd mentioned being angry with Fairy Tail and the Master to them at any point, surely they'd have made the link between that and your decision now, and yet no one I spoke to had the faintest idea why you would suddenly reject the guild."
"So, I kept it to myself," he scowled. "We don't all like to bother other people with our problems – or appreciate it when other people invite themselves to solve them."
"But that's just the thing!" Lucy insisted, ignoring the hint. "Your problem is easy for you to solve! You claim you're annoyed that the Master disbanded the guild and everyone just went along with it. Well, right now, we're getting the guild back together of our own accord, in defiance of the Master's instructions! We're doing it because we love Fairy Tail! You're right: he doesn't get to decide whether it exists or not; we do! So if you came back to the guild with me, you'd not only be helping to right those wrongs, but you'd be teaching him the very lesson you claim to want him to learn!"
Lucy gazed boldly up at Laxus. She was expecting an angry reaction to her attempt to call his bluff, or perhaps even a flat denial, but Laxus continued to gaze at her impassively. Even Zeref was easier to read.
"So, please!" she tried. "Come back to the guild!"
"Leave me alone," Laxus said dully, and he pushed past her and headed for the door.
Lucy's heart sank as she watched him walk away. He was so obstinate, just like another Dragon Slayer she knew. She'd struggled to communicate with him, too, when it had mattered the most.
How was she supposed to get through to a man like that?
And as he walked away, taking her dreams of a truly reunited Fairy Tail with him, Lucy panicked.
She had no memory of crossing the guildhall. All she knew was that she was standing between Laxus and the door, her arms outstretched, her shout ringing through the stunned silence of the room.
"Laxus Dreyar! I challenge you to single combat, and if you lose, you have to come back to Fairy Tail!"
A/N: This chapter was inspired by all the Death In Paradise re-runs I was watching at the time of writing it. Tune in again next week for the denouement (and, of course, to see Lucy regretting her life choices).
As with Sabertooth, I'm not sure if the city where Blue Pegasus is based is ever named, so I picked a name for it. Selinon is the Ancient Greek name for celery, which is sacred to Poseidon, the father of Pegasus in mythology. Thank you again for all your thoughtful comments and support (and I'm so sorry I can't reply to the guest reviews, I really wish I could!). See you all next Sunday! ~CS