The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Too Long We Stared Into The Sun, Part 2
-A Little Bit of Rain, A Little Bit of Thunder-
It was not raining in Helvola Village.
Said about any other settlement anywhere in the kingdom, it could have been a political statement about climate change, a sensible comment on the feasibility of a day trip, or even a last-ditch attempt to salvage the conversation of a disastrous date.
Only in Helvola Village could that statement be interpreted as a prayer. Then again, Helvola Village was also the only settlement in Fiore which had flooded during the driest July on record. There were some houses which had only just dried out, and the residents were prepared to do anything to keep them that way, including but not limited to enlisting the help of any deity who might be listening.
The man trudging through the village did not notice the rain, or lack thereof. He had left Helvola long before it began, and was only returning now, to find the walls almost entirely free of mud and the carpets only slightly smelling of damp. In fact, he did not notice anything out of the ordinary until he reached the house at the end of the road, and found the door locked.
He knocked.
No response.
After a long deliberation, he shifted the crude-cut walking stick to his other hand, and leaned heavily on it as he fished around in his pocket. He retrieved a key, which clunked into the lock at the end of trembling fingers. The door swung open with an embarrassed creak.
"Juvia?" he rasped.
No response.
He shuffled into the room, step-step-thunk.
"Juvia…?"
There, on the dining room table, lay a note.
My darling Gray,
Juvia is glad you are reading this, because it means that you are alive and well, and have made it back home. However, this house is no longer home for Juvia. Fairy Tail is reuniting, and Juvia cannot wait for you any longer knowing that her guild needs her once more. Juvia is therefore returning to her old room in Fairy Hills, until such time as you are able to join her in Magnolia.
Juvia hopes to see you in Fairy Tail again soon.
He set the letter back down without a word.
It was not raining in Helvola Village.
Juvia had moved on.
And as the first tear trickled down Gray's cheek, he sank into the chair, threw back his head, and began a hollow laugh.
Daybreak over Fairy Tail brought its own unique twist to the dawn chorus. The typical melody of birdsong was supported by a percussion of buzzing chainsaws and enthusiastic hammers as the guild focussed on fortifying their not-quite-rebuilt guildhall. Elfman's food cart added pops, hisses, and squeaks as he served up breakfast, and the army-led evacuation of Magnolia contributed a backing track of musical shouts and military trumpets.
And all of it was set to the drumbeat of Lucy repeatedly hitting her forehead against the table.
"What's up?" Cana yawned, dropping into the seat opposite her with a bacon butty in hand.
"I don't know why I ever thought I could do this," Lucy mumbled into the table. "I don't even know where to start."
Levy, who was sat on her left, patted her shoulder comfortingly.
Cana pointed out, "To be fair, Lucy, you never claimed to be able to do this. In fact, wasn't 'I don't think I can do this' the cornerstone of your election manifesto?"
"Well, yes, but…"
"But you expected too much of yourself, as usual," Levy sighed.
Lucy shook her head. "I want to do everything I can to help Fairy Tail survive this war, but so far, I haven't achieved a thing. We were up all night devising potential strategies to use against Zeref and the mages we know about, but without knowing how he's going to attack us, we're not getting anywhere." She knew Zeref well, maybe better than anyone else alive, but strangely enough, they'd never discussed the optimal direction from which to attack Magnolia.
"This would be a lot easier if the First Master were here," Cana agreed. "She'd work it all out for us, just like the final of the Grand Magic Games."
"That's a good point," Levy frowned. "Has anyone seen the First recently? It's not like her to stay out of a battle to defend the guild."
"No, I haven't," Lucy said.
Cana nodded in agreement. "That reminds me – Fairy Glitter disappeared. Do you think that's linked to the fact that no one's seen her?"
"When did this happen?"
"About a week ago? Not sure. Before the fight with Acnologia, definitely."
"But what does it mean?" Lucy persisted.
"No clue. I thought maybe the First had given Fairy Glitter to someone else instead, but if she did, they've not started gloating yet." A devilish smirk crossed her face. "Anyway, shouldn't you be telling me? You're the Guild Master."
Lucy's forehead went back onto the table with a grunt. "Ugh. I wish the real Master were here."
Levy made a perfectly balanced noise – expressing sympathy, but not too much sympathy, in case Lucy took it to mean she had no faith in her whatsoever – and resumed patting her shoulder.
Cana, however, took a different approach. "You know, if Zeref isn't going to attack until midnight at the earliest, we could always just go and get the old Master back."
Levy's eyes opened so wide she could have read an entire book in a single glance. "You mean launch a pre-emptive strike against Alvarez? Are you out of your mind?"
"I actually had more of a stealth operation in mind, but I like the way you think," grinned Cana. "Remind me what your job was when the guild disbanded, again? Hooligan? Career criminal?"
"You're not funny," Levy sighed.
Slowly, tentatively, Lucy raised her head. "That's a good point, actually. Why can't I go and rescue the Master?"
"You mean we, right?" Cana checked.
"No, I mean me."
Cana and Levy exchanged a not-at-all subtle glance. The latter pointed out, "I don't recall reading anything about only Masters being able to rescue other Masters in the guild's charter."
"It's not that," Lucy argued. "It's just… Even if my going to Alvarez is construed as an early termination of our non-aggression pact, which would not be unreasonable, I don't think Zeref will hurt me. Maybe imprison me, but I don't think he'd- you know. But I can't say the same for anyone else. Besides, the more people who go, the more threatened he'll feel – and the more unpredictable he'll be. I have to go, and I have to go on my own."
Another shared glance. "I'm going off this idea, now," Cana grumbled. "How, exactly, are you planning on getting to Alvarez?"
"By boa… oh."
"There are no boats. As Invel learnt the hard way."
Lucy drummed her fingers on the table, then snapped them. "There are no civilian boats. If I explained the situation, I'm sure Princess Hisui would lend me a warship-"
"Yes, because nothing says non-aggression pact like sailing a warship into their harbour," Cana drawled. "If Arcadios is telling the truth, the Alvarez ships won't even approach the shore yet because of your agreement with Zeref. I can't see them letting you get away with it in their territory."
"A speedboat, then," Lucy tried stubbornly. "You and Invel managed it."
Leaning forward, Levy piped up, "I really want to know who this Invel person is, now."
"Some guy I met from Alvarez," Cana shrugged. "Though, if my dad asks, he's my boyfriend."
Levy spat out her coffee.
"He's not some guy, he's the emperor's Chief of Staff and a very powerful ice mage," Lucy corrected, frowning. "But why would Gildarts think he's your-?"
"A-ny-way," Cana cut in, "you can't take a speedboat all the way to Alakitasia. Caracol Island isn't that far from Fiore, and the sea's pretty calm and shallow. Out on the open ocean between continents, you have no chance."
"Then I'll go by air," Lucy countered. "Maybe Blue Pegasus will lend me Christina-"
"Bye-bye, stealth mission; hello, imperial dogfighters," Cana yawned.
"There has to be a way!"
Levy spoke up gently. "I'm sorry, Lucy, but Cana has a point. Any vessel big enough to manage the ocean crossing is too much for one person and far too much for a tenuous non-aggression pact."
Just like that, all the fight went out of her. "Yeah, I know," Lucy sighed. "I was just really hoping there would be a way to get him back. I don't know what possessed me when I said I would be Master. It's not as though being voted in gives me a miraculous wisdom boost or anything…"
She tailed off, her attention caught by something over Cana's shoulder.
"What's up?" Cana checked, following her gaze.
"I was just wondering, has that trapdoor always been there, or did they add it in to the new guildhall?"
"What trapdoor?"
"The one behind the bar. Look, you can just see it poking out from behind the counter."
Levy craned her neck. "Can you?"
"Yeah. See, Mira just stepped on the corner."
"I don't see a trapdoor," Cana shrugged.
"Me neither," Levy seconded. "I've not read about the guildhall having one, and we did rebuild on the same foundations as the old one…"
"It's right there!" Lucy exclaimed, and was rewarded by two very strange looks.
"I think you should get some sleep, Lucy," Cana advised. "You were up all night coming up with strategies to use against Zeref's army, weren't you?"
"Yes, but…" Her gaze drifted once more to the trapdoor, which point-blank refused to disappear the way Levy and Cana insisted it should.
"Go get some rest," Cana insisted. "You won't be much use to anyone if you're that tired. Come on, Levy, let's go get seconds from Elfman before he sells out."
"I don't really want a second breakfast-" Levy tried, but the look Cana shot her was so pointed, Lucy had to duck to avoid it.
The moment they left, Lucy's attention snapped back to the trapdoor like a magnet. Something was definitely off here, and she was not about to let that slide.
Every step across the shiny new floor brought her closer to the trapdoor. It was still there when she crouched down beside it. It was still there when she felt around for the concealed but very real latch, and it sprung open with a definitely non-hallucinatory click.
Beneath it, stone stairs led down into the basement Fairy Tail didn't have.
"Does anyone know what's down…?" Lucy started, but her voice faded as rapidly as the shadows beneath the trapdoor swallowed the morning sunlight.
No one was paying attention to her. Not one person looked up from their breakfasts at her half-formed question; not one person seemed to care that she had marched across the guildhall and discovered a secret chamber in full view of everyone. When Mira swung past her to fetch a clean coffee cup from the cupboard, her gaze slid right over Lucy as if she wasn't there at all.
"Weird," Lucy murmured.
It seemed she was on her own for this one. Not that that had stopped her for a long time now, so she set off down the stairs. It was mostly the horror books she had read that prompted her to leave the trapdoor open behind her, but she was curious about it, too. Would falling through the trapdoor cause someone to notice it? Or did the same mystical phenomenon which kept people from seeing it also somehow keep them from getting close enough to interact with it accidentally?
It was with a pang of pain, as if her own brain had decided to punish her further, that she realized Zeref would have been able to tell her straight away. She managed to give the memory a trembling smile, and consoled herself with the thought that although he would have been able to tell her, he would probably have chosen not to.
By the time the stairs levelled out into a tunnel of stone, she was far below ground level. Torches hung in brackets at regular intervals. As she approached, they ignited of their own accord, and doused themselves once she had passed. It was eerie, but not threatening.
Before long, she didn't need the torches at all. The corridor ended in a set of doors at least twice her height – extravagant indeed, for a corridor no one but her could see. The doors were sealed by an equally extravagant magic circle. It was this which shed the welcoming golden light, so confident in its own might that it actively invited burglars to have a go at breaking it down.
Lucy didn't know where to start dispelling a magical ward like that – but as she reached out to touch it, it immediately vanished into nothing.
"What…?" she murmured, into the emptiness.
But not even she could doubt that she was meant to be here any more, so she stepped inside.
The vast chamber beyond would have looked more appropriate within the walls of a palace than buried under her guildhall. In fact, although she had descended quite far underground, it hadn't been far enough to house a room of this size, and if she concentrated, she could sense an unusual magic blurring the ceiling and disappearing into the corners. Like the stairs and passageway, the chamber was too perfect to have been carved by hand, and it was suffused by a velvety glow which had no apparent source. There was a hushed reverence to it, an undisturbed solemnity, and Lucy was tiptoeing forwards without realizing she was doing it.
And in the very centre was an island. It was surrounded by a void which pressed from the island to the walls themselves, darker than dark and impossibly deep. Given the space-distorting magic already at work here, she wouldn't have been surprised to find that it really did go down forever. A single span of stone crossed from the entrance to the centre, and she duly followed where it led.
On the island lay a plinth, and on that lay the body of the First Master.
She was as beautiful as her ghost had appeared to them. Her body had been untouched by the ravages of time in life and death alike; it was hard to believe that their founder had been dead for almost a hundred years. There was no coffin. Instead, tiny flowers of crystal had grown up from the plinth, so that she lay in a meadow of diamond. She seemed to smile at Lucy from somewhere very far away.
There was something so right about it, that their founder would lie in peaceful repose beneath the guildhall.
And yet it wasn't right at all. Mavis Vermillion was buried on Tenrou Island, wasn't she? And besides, why couldn't anyone else see the trapdoor? Why did a burial chamber need such heavy protections – and such secrecy?
"Huh," a voice remarked. "That looked a bit different last time I was down here."
Lucy whipped around. The blueish light distorted colour, giving the man walking towards her a black cloak, black boots, and almost-black hair – but she'd recognize that overwhelming magical presence anywhere, and her face broke out into a more joyful smile than this solemn chamber had ever seen. "Gildarts! What are you doing down here?"
"I saw the trapdoor open and figured I should probably make sure no one's stealing anything," he shrugged back, crossing the span of stone with the casual stroll of a man who had no fear of falling, because the void would probably be so frightened it would spit him straight back out.
"You can see the trapdoor too?" Lucy blurted out.
"Sure. It's a Guild Master thing." Scratching at the back of his neck, Gildarts grumbled, "Turns out resigning doesn't absolve you of all responsibilities…"
Lucy, however, couldn't have been happier. "I'm so glad you're here! We were worried that we weren't going to be able to find you ahead of the invasion, but now that you're here, we might actually have a chance!"
"What invasion?"
"The invasion. You know, that thing where the Alvarez Empire is going to attack Fairy Tail at midnight…" She blinked. "That is why you came back to the guild, right?"
"Can't say it is, no," he frowned. "I'm here to find this man and tear him limb from limb for daring to think he's good enough for my little girl."
"Uh."
By way of an explanation, Gildarts pulled a photograph out of his wallet and handed it over.
As Lucy stared at the picture of Cana in her bikini with her arm around Invel and a sun-sea-sky backdrop that looked like it had been cut from a tourism brochure for paradise, she had the distinct feeling that she had fallen into another dimension.
International wars and secret chambers under the guildhall seemed suddenly rather straightforward to deal with. She had to wonder how Gildarts could ignore the evil glint in Cana's eyes and Invel's disgruntled expression to interpret the scene as some kind of blissful relationship… but there was no denying a doting father's ability to override common sense.
Lucy shivered at the thought. She'd liked Invel. Enemy or not, he didn't deserve this.
With a nervous smile, she tried, "Don't you think Cana's old enough to decide who she wants to date?"
"Sure she is," Gildarts grunted. "But I missed the years when she wasn't, and I've gotta make up for it somehow."
"It's a cliché, not a law," Lucy sighed. Given Cana's carefully worded note to her father on the back of the photo, though, she knew it was a lost cause. Handing it back, she changed to a topic with which she thought she might have a little more luck. "So… what is this place?"
"Fairy Tail's greatest secret!" he proclaimed. "According to Makarov, anyway. He showed me right before he decided he was going to make me Master whether I liked it or not. I should have known something was up when he said that only the Masters were allowed to know about it."
"I'm not really a Master," Lucy said nervously. "I'm just filling in until we get Master Makarov back."
Gildarts scrutinized her for a moment. "Nah, you got down here on your own, so you're good. This is the hiding place of Lumen Histoire, also known as Fairy Heart." He gestured grandly towards the plinth, and the smile slid off his face. "Or, at least, it used to be."
"What do you mean?" Lucy inquired, wondering if she'd managed to break something already.
"Just that it didn't look like this back when Makarov showed it to me. It was…" His hands flopped around in a gesture slightly less eloquent than his words. "More of a big crystal with the First's body inside."
"What? Why?"
"Well, the technicalities escape me, but apparently when she died, she didn't really die. The Second Master sealed her body in a lacrima and bombarded her with all sorts of experimental magic to try and revive her. But, instead of bringing her back, he discovered that she had become a source of infinite magic which could be harnessed via the stasis lacrima. So he destroyed all the records and hid her away, because if word got out, every ne'er-do-well on the continent would want to steal her body and use it as a weapon. Some ne'er-do-wells from other continents, too."
Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Alvarez?"
"Yeah. From what Doranbolt or whatever his name is said – back when he was spying on the Council for us – Makarov suspected that the guy in charge over there somehow knew about Fairy Heart, and wanted to steal it. He was never able to prove it, though. Not as far as I was aware."
What was it Zeref had said to her, all the way back in Marguerite Town? Makarov has something that I want. There are no circumstances under which he'll give it to me, and there are no circumstances under which I'll say 'oh well, I guess I don't need it after all.' What else could he have been talking about, except this? Master Makarov would never hand over their founder – who had spoken to them, guided them, protected them! – to be used as a weapon.
"Still," Gildarts mused, "I gotta admit, I'm not really sensing infinite power. Are you?"
Infinite serenity, perhaps; a strength that triumphed over death. But if that was the purpose of this room, Lucy thought the Second Master would have been mad to hide it away.
Besides, she knew what infinite magic was like – she had been there when Arlock had stabbed that cursed blade through Zeref's heart. She would never forget that eclipsing shadow of pain.
There was no pain here, only love.
"I don't think Fairy Heart exists any more," Lucy murmured, becoming more and more certain with every word. "Maybe that's why no one has seen the First Master's ghost recently. I think she's moved on."
"That's what I thought, too." Gildarts stared at her final resting place, and nodded once, decisively. "Good. I never liked the feel of that thing. She seems a lot happier now."
Lucy murmured an acknowledgement.
"Gotta wonder what happened, though. If it wasn't you or me who laid her to rest properly, and Makarov's still missing – and I'm pretty sure no one told Macao the truth about Fairy Heart, even if he did manage to ever stumble down here – then how did she come to be like this?"
Lucy had no answer for him.
A moment's contemplation was enough for the unenthusiastic Fifth Master, and he shrugged. "Ah well, a mystery for another day. I've got a boyfriend to terrorize. See you round, Seventh."
"I'm not really the Seventh-" she shouted after him, but he was already gone.
Lucy puffed out her cheeks. Of course he would call her that; he was in favour of anything that would reduce his own burden of responsibility. Not that she could begrudge him that, when she was so glad he was here to help…
"I know its selfish of me," she murmured, to their long-deceased founder, "but I really do wish you were able to give me some advice."
As she sighed, her hand fell to her side, and then jerked back in surprise. Her keys were warm. Not hot enough to burn her, but hotter than they should have been.
Yet she had used no magic herself, nor had any Spirits appeared – and besides, the only magic which had ever caused her keys to heat up like this was…
"Zeref?" she murmured. Her breath caught; her heart thudded in her chest. "Zeref, are you there?"
The silence stretched on until she had no choice except to exhale. Of course he wouldn't be here. Not to mention, if he had teleported in or frozen time, the heat would have been sharper and hotter, not this sustained, gentle warmth.
Still, she hadn't felt it at all from the top of the stairs. On impulse, she moved her hand closer to the First Master, and she felt the warmth of her keys increase even through her clothes.
Her fingers could feel nothing, not even a smooth flow of magic, but her keys knew better. There was a field of temporal magic here – and not any mundane temporal magic, but a fragment of World Magic, drawn through the same crack in the universe she and Yukino had tried and failed to close.
It was Zeref's magic, preserving and protecting the First Master of the guild he wanted to destroy. And she didn't know how or why, but she looked at Mavis in her peaceful slumber and knew he would have needed no greater reason than that.
How she loved him for it.
How she missed him.
She gripped the edges of the plinth tightly as the tears threatened to resurface. She would not cry. They had made their promises. They would face each other with honour, with respect, and without malice – and as she had vowed, Fairy Tail would rise.
She couldn't sit around waiting for some crafty scheme to hit her. That wasn't how Fairy Tail fought. Planning and strategy was how Zeref did things; she jumped in without looking and didn't hold back.
If that meant striking first and rescuing Makarov, that was what she was going to do.
So she ran. Back over the endless chasm, back through double doors which sealed themselves firmly behind her, back out of the trapdoor which closed of its own accord, with more and more people slowly registering her presence as she tore across the guildhall.
"Lucy!"
Levy tried to catch her attention as Lucy veered to grab her bag from their table, but she shook her head without slowing down. She had to get Makarov back. He was the only one who might be able to explain the situation with Fairy Heart and Alvarez, and even if not, they needed him if they were to have any chance of winning this fight.
Restoring proper leadership to the guild was the duty of the temporary Guild Master, after all.
If only her newfound conviction was capable of shipbuilding, she'd have been in Alvarez already.
But she still had no solution to the problem of transport. She finally came to a halt somewhere amidst Magnolia's abandoned market, the usual aromas of fish, earth and spices replaced by the tang of steel and the pining of shadows in the wake of the evacuation. Maybe she should ask Princess Hisui for a boat. She could deal with the non-aggression pact later; any Alvarez ships which came close enough to attack would be close enough to communicate with, and they might be persuaded to take her to Zeref, as a prisoner or otherwise-
"Lucy! Stop running away!"
Cana barrelled out of a side-street, Levy right behind her. Lucy glanced between their disgruntled expressions and sighed. "I'm sorry, I really am, but I have to get to Alvarez-"
"We know!" Cana said loudly. "That's why you would probably benefit from calming down for a moment and listening to us."
"We've talked about it, and we think we can get you to Alvarez," Levy continued. "But, on one condition. We're coming with you."
"No," Lucy said at once. "We've just had this conversation. If I go-"
"Lucy, we get it!" Cana interrupted. "It's personal. It's not about the war, it's about you and Zeref, and that's fine. But Zeref might have left Alvarez already. This whole setup could be a trap for Natsu and Gray and that lot – who'd be bound to try and rescue the Master if they weren't missing themselves. Besides, we may have fought alongside some of Zeref's allies against Acnologia, but given how that ended, how much do you trust them? And what about the entire rest of his army, who won't have the faintest idea who you are and are as likely to kill you on sight as they are to take you to him? Who knows what dangers you'll have to face before you even reach your ex?"
Lucy, who had been preparing a counteroffensive, blanched at the blunt phrasing, and Levy took the chance to jump in. "Look what happened the last time a Master of Fairy Tail thought they could do this on their own. A guild shattered, a year spent as a captive, and for what? Master Makarov failed because he forgot the very thing that makes us strong. You are not going on your own, Lucy. You owe that to your guild."
Ashamed, Lucy glanced down at her feet. "I suppose that you can come as far as Vistarion," she mumbled, and Levy and Cana high-fived each other in triumph. "How are you planning to get us there, though?"
"That's easy," Levy beamed, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "He's going to give us a lift."
Lucy glanced over in surprise as, somewhat hesitantly, Jellal stepped out of the shadows. She tried to smile in greeting, but the memory of the judgement in his eyes as he'd consoled Sorano at her sister's funeral made it difficult to even fake happiness, and she swallowed. "Jellal, what are you doing here?"
"Erza explained the situation to us, so my guild and I have come to help. But these two had other plans for me, it seems." He glanced away. It felt like a weight had been lifted. "To be perfectly honest with you, Lucy, I do not think that going to Alvarez is a good idea, nor that it will be safe, even for you. But…"
At last, he met her gaze again, and she could see how much he meant these words. Enough, at least, to tackle the elephant in the room head-on. "Please don't think I hold you responsible for Yukino's death. The only person to blame for that was Acnologia, for forcing us into that battle in the first place."
As she stared, too surprised to respond, he added, "I didn't trust you when you needed me in Malva. I didn't consider you capable of making your own choices, or of knowing more than I did about the situation, and I do not know how to apologise for that, except by offering to help you now. If you think that trying to steal Makarov out from under Zeref's nose is the best thing to do, then I will support you as best I can."
"Thank you," she smiled, and found, this time, that it was genuine. "But how? There are no ships-"
"The same way we smuggled Sorano into the country after Mest asked us to send someone undercover," he answered. "The Mobile Temple Olympia can travel underwater. It's a lot faster than it looks, and Alvarez won't be on the lookout for an enemy from below the surface."
"I can understand why – it wouldn't seem possible," Lucy pointed out, her mind conjuring up a landscape of midday darkness, bizarre chasms, and depths that could swallow a mountain and still not have its peak breaking the surface.
"The Mobile Temple is a remarkable piece of technology," Jellal agreed. "I dare say that roaming the land in it like we do is a terrible waste of its potential, but nothing else would help us live so effectively on the fringes of society."
"How did you get it? The Temple, I mean."
"We took it from a mad scientist we defeated, who was kidnapping people to use as test subjects for his terrible experiments." Then he paused, and added, reluctantly, "To be honest, Lucy, I have no doubt that incredibly dark magic was involved in its creation. Although many of the enchantments on it are common, to make them permanent while retaining such power is only possible through the use of dark rituals. And when I say dark rituals, I mean ones involving human sacrifice. By all rights, we should have turned it straight over to the Council… but they would have destroyed it without a second thought. We can use it, and we can study it, and perhaps, in the process, find ways of replicating its abilities without the cost."
There was something slightly fierce growing in his tone, something that reminded her of those wonderful days spent with a man who felt just as strongly about the same topic, something maybe even Avatar would have envied, and she couldn't help smiling. "Well, by rights, you should also have turned yourself over to the Council, so I'm rather glad you're not in the habit of doing that. Can I take you up on that offer? All three of you?"
"Absolutely," he nodded, and Levy and Cana grinned. "Let's take the fight to Alvarez."
Lucy didn't remember falling asleep.
She'd initially taken up a seat by the window – or was porthole a better word? – of the Mobile Temple, watching the darkness of the submerged world blur past, wishing it could whip away her thoughts so easily. Jellal had promised that the Mobile Temple was fast, and it undoubtedly was compared to mundane transport, but crossing the ocean still took several hours of racing along the seabed at a breakneck pace – several hours for which Lucy would rather not have been alone with her guilt and her doubts.
And she hadn't been alone for long. Because Fairy Tail was back now, and her friends were by her side – and for some reason none of them blamed her for the situation in which Fairy Tail found itself, even after she'd sat with Levy on one side and Cana on the other and Jellal trying not to listen from the controls even though he had more right to know than anyone, and told them everything that had happened between her and Zeref.
Long ago, beneath a blanket of stars and eternity, Zeref had told her about his past, and it had set him free. She wasn't sure that this was something from which she could – or should – be freed. It wasn't the distant past that haunted her, but decisions so recent she could almost reach back and touch them, emotions that hadn't had the chance to settle in the wake of his passage through her life, consequences that were continuing to unfold with every minute that went by.
But it did help. Knowing that her closest friends knew, and had chosen to stand by her anyway. Knowing that it wasn't all on her any more.
At some point, the exhaustion of preparing for the invasion with her guild must have caught up with her, for her eyes slid shut in the darkness of the ocean floor and opened again to a world that was red and black and deafening, a waterfall of sensation. She closed her eyes and opened them once more, and this time she managed to wake up properly. The overload of sensory data peeled away, separating into strands of sight and sound and touch – the flashing crimson of a warning light, the wail of proximity alerts, the paralysis of lingering half-sleep.
A familiar face suddenly loomed large in her vision. "Hey, welcome back," Levy grinned.
Expelling the panic from her lungs with a deep breath, Lucy swung her numbed legs out from under her and stood. Considering the uncomfortable position in which she must have fallen asleep, she was pleasantly surprised to find herself steady. Jellal was also on his feet, his back turned to her as he hammered at various buttons and switches with a fury previously reserved for Zeref himself.
"What's going on?" Lucy asked Levy.
"Jellal says they know we're here."
"Here?" she wondered. Her memories continued slowly reassembling themselves until they seemed sturdy enough for trains of thought to run along once more, and her eyes widened. "Vistarion? We're here already?"
"I did tell you not to stay up all night strategizing; you've slept for pretty much the whole trip," Cana lectured her. She was stood beside Jellal, and as she turned back to the monitors, her expression became unusually business-like. "Yes, we're here. A few hundred metres outside the imperial port. Unfortunately, they know that too."
"I thought you said they wouldn't be looking out for an enemy underwater," Lucy frowned.
Jellal grimaced, "They weren't last time – but they also weren't at war. They've got two fully primed warships in the harbour, and their active scans have picked up our magical signature."
So much for getting in unnoticed, then. "Are we under attack?"
"Not yet. I don't think they know what to make of us. The enchantments on the Mobile Temple give peculiar results under ordinary detection spells." His hand hovered over a lever, and then withdrew. "However, I think they'll reach a conclusion fairly quickly if we get any closer to the port. Lucy, I feel as though I should have mentioned this earlier, but the Mobile Temple is designed for, well, mobility. It won't hold out for long in a fight, let alone with an Alvarez warship. If we charge in with guns blazing, we might make it to the shore, but the Mobile Temple won't."
"Do you think they'll let us turn around and walk – swim – away?"
"I would be surprised if they did. I don't think we're going to get out of here unless those warships are taken down."
"We can't do that. We're not at war yet." But when the other three merely exchanged glances, Lucy felt her trepidation rise. "What is it?"
Levy explained, quietly, "We might be at war. The Mobile Temple travels extraordinarily quickly, but we still had an awful lot of ground to cover. The local time is 6:15 in the evening… making it quarter past midnight in Fiore."
"Meaning the attack could already have started," Lucy finished, trying to ignore the sick feeling welling up in her stomach. She had never specified precisely which time zone her non-aggression pact should be rooted in. She had never expected it to come to this, and there was still some part of her logical mind struggling to accept what her gut already knew: that the Alvarez army might even now be cutting its way towards Magnolia.
She asserted, "We have to press on. When we return, it will be with Master Makarov and a strategy for defending the city. Jellal, last time you came to Vistarion, how did you get ashore? Presumably, even in a time of peace – or whatever passes for peace when Alvarez is involved – you couldn't just march into the port."
Jellal jabbed at the controls, and a projected image appeared in mid-air, showing the port she imagined she would see if they were sailing across the ocean's surface rather than trundling along beneath it. There was no mistaking the hulking shapes of two warships nestled amongst the trading vessels, far more old-school than the airship they had used against Acnologia, but characterized by the same sleek power. Behind them towered buildings larger than she had ever seen. Jellal flicked through the images, zooming in on a rocky patch a mile or so along the coastline from the port.
"Beneath that abandoned lighthouse is a cove hidden by an overhang. It is entirely invisible from the shore, and inaccessible except by entirely submersible vehicles. We hid there, and Mest teleported Sorano inland."
"If we distract the warships, do you think you can get the Mobile Temple into that hiding spot without the warships noticing?"
Jellal hesitated. "Yes, although I am not comfortable with the thought of you three going into Vistarion alone."
"I am not asking you to be comfortable with it," Lucy said. "I am asking if you will do it knowing that you are not."
He gave her a piercing look. She shifted, uncomfortable, her mind automatically searching for whatever guilty secret she was hiding from him this time, and then he snorted with mirth.
"What?" she demanded.
"I wonder who you picked that up from," he said dryly. "And I wonder why it is so much harder to say no to you than it ever was to him. I will do as you ask, Lucy. I will await your return in the hidden cove. Take care, all of you."
"Looks like we're up, then," Levy spoke up, stretching in readiness.
"I'm great at dealing with boats," Cana seconded. "Just the other day, Invel and I blew up a pirate ship."
With a slightly dubious glance at her, Levy continued, "We'll draw their attention, Jellal can get to the rendezvous point, and you'll have a clear run through to the palace, Lucy. I would rather we came with you all the way, but…"
"No," Lucy said firmly, for what felt like the hundredth time. "This is a stealth mission, not an invasion. There's less chance of being detected if it's just me – and less danger if I am."
The others nodded reluctantly.
Another flick of Jellal's hand brought back the image of the port. One of the warships was markedly closer than before. "Although the imperial port is technically part of Vistarion, the city proper lies a few miles further inland, and the palace is at its heart. The fastest way to reach it is by train. And, Lucy?"
"Yes?"
"Good luck."