The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Too Long We Stared Into The Sun, Part 3
-The Rescue (or, A Bad Day To Be An Insurance Company In Vistarion)-
For years, international politics had played out exactly as the Alvarez Empire wished it to.
For years, the empire had influenced Ishgar's policies both at home and abroad. Alvarez could put pressure on a government simply by letting a single warship be spotted too close to a shipping route, could trigger political panic by ignoring a letter, could prompt or destroy internal alliances within Ishgar by tweaking one term in a trade deal. No international action could be taken without considering how the Alvarez Empire would respond. It was too powerful to be ignored, and too acrimonious, too volatile, to be treated with complacency.
After all, it was led by an emperor who considered meeting foreign kings to be so far beneath him that he invariably sent subordinates to pretend to negotiate in his place. His diplomats demanded invitations to international summits purely so they could refuse to attend them; his legislators delighted in adding unpalatable amendments to peace treaties the day before they were supposed to be signed.
If diplomacy was a dance, then not only had Alvarez picked the music, the costumes, and the venue, but it had also waited for Fiore to turn up in its prized tuxedo before declaring that it had added sword-swallowing to the tango just for the hell of it.
The empire made its position clear: it wanted Ishgar, and one day it would take Ishgar, as it would the whole world, and the only reason why it hadn't yet done so was the goodwill of their enigmatic emperor.
As far as the Magic Council, the Fiorean royal family, and their allies across Ishgar were aware, this inexplicable source of generosity had finally dried up.
There was, however, one small silver lining to this situation.
Greedy and dispassionate the empire may have been in the eyes of its enemies, but it wasn't led by barbarians. Even in violation of the otherwise generally accepted principle of not invading other countries, there were international codes of conduct and laws of engagement to follow.
Granted, Alvarez did have a tendency to make its own laws and enforce them by, well, force, but there were still certain courtesies it was willing to grant its opponents – such as a declaration of hostile intent, and a statement that it would be willing to accept Fiore's free and unconditional surrender in the place of bloodshed, before any international border was breached by its forces.
Somewhere along the way, it seemed to have slipped the minds of the Alvarez high command that their true opponents didn't care for laws at all.
Thus it came to pass that the very first act of the war wasn't an airship bombardment of Fiore, or a hostile force landing at Hargeon, or even an army sweeping in from the west. For while the Alvarez army's heralds were busy delivering a token demand of surrender to a royal family who would never accept it, a gigantic black serpent was smashing its way through the tidal barriers in the imperial port at Vistarion, Lucy Heartfilia, Cana Alberona, and Levy McGarden on its back.
It was safe to say that the pair of warships left to guard the imperial port hadn't been expecting to see any action that day. The first volley of cannon-fire was sluggish and erratic, sailing clean over Lucy's head, and they scrambled frantically to reload.
Ophiuchus ploughed through the water like a battering ram of sheer, black muscle. It was as if the sea itself was hastening out of the serpent's way, with the terrified trading ships swept along as an afterthought.
They had almost reached the dock before the enemy mages got their act together. Ophiuchus veered aside on some preternatural instinct moments before a white explosion smashed open the ocean's surface, soaking her in a wall of water. Lucy clung on for dear life – with Cana clinging to her, and Levy clinging to her – as Yukino's former Spirit swerved in and out of a sprinkling of explosions and a veritable downpour of displaced seawater.
"Lucy!" Levy called. "Cana and I will distract the warships!"
"Right!" Gingerly, Lucy let one hand slide towards her keys. It was another of Yukino's, and yet she knew it by touch like she knew her own, the magic of the Spirits reaching out to her even as she reached for them. "Open, Gate of the Two Fish!"
As they had planned earlier, Levy and Cana leapt free – one landing on the back of each incarnation of Pisces. The two serpentine fish peeled away from Ophiuchus and hurtled towards the warships.
Lucy could only hope they would prove to be enough of a distraction to turn the enemies' attention away from her. As long as they kept up the bombardment, Ophiuchus didn't have a chance of reaching the shore. She bent low over the huge serpent's back as they continued to weave and weave… and weave.
Whenever you're ready, guys, she thought dryly, as explosions continued all around her. The serpent's evasive manoeuvres were starting to make her feel like Natsu usually looked on a boat.
"Got you now!" cried one of the warship's captains, as an unnaturally large wave of water reared up in front of her.
But before it could break, another wall of water rose up. This one wasn't towering over her – it was casting a shadow over the quailing warship instead, which suddenly looked small.
A familiar voice boomed, "No one tries to drown my owner except me!"
The second wave smashed into the first, pounding it back down into the endless blue. "Aquarius!" Lucy cried joyfully.
"I have no idea how you survived a whole year without me," the mermaid sniffed. She flicked her wet fingers at Lucy, spraying her with droplets. "It's as hard to believe as the fact that you managed to get yourself a boyfriend."
"…You know, I don't recall actually summoning you."
"Well, who'd trust you with knowing what's best?" Aquarius sniffed again. Another flick of her hand drowned an overzealous fireball flung from the warship. Lucy nudged Ophiuchus back into motion as the Alvarez soldiers took advantage of the fact that the trading ships had fled in terror to resume the attack unhindered.
The great serpent zigzagged through the water. To Lucy's surprise, this time, they were easily outpacing the warship. Maybe the sea was too shallow here for it to really pick up pace, or maybe it relied too heavily on non-magical wind to propel it… or maybe it was because the ship was slowly sinking.
It was about then that she realized the bombardment had ceased entirely. She cast a curious glance at the other warship, only to notice that the crew were otherwise preoccupied by the fact that their ship was on fire.
"Eh?" Lucy blinked. The twin incarnations of Pisces drew up alongside her, and their riders gave her similarly identical grins. "What did you do?"
Cana waved her hand airily. "Can you believe these Alvarez soldiers? They actually keep their gunpowder below deck in a store specially enchanted against flames! It took me half the 151-proof rum in my hipflask and the strongest fire spell my cards can produce to start an explosion!"
"Besides," Levy added, with a shrug, "the warships may be warded against magic from the outside, but they're entirely unprotected from the inside. With all the soldiers up on deck firing at you and Ophiuchus, it was easy enough for me to sneak down to the lowest level and let my 'ACID' word burn a hole through the hull."
"You were only supposed to be distracting them!" Lucy exclaimed. "Do you two even know what a stealth mission is?"
Levy raised her hand. "To be fair, my stealth mission to infiltrate Avatar went so badly you had to come and rescue me from it."
"Yeah, and half my genes come from Gildarts," Cana pointed out. "What were you expecting?"
A lengthy sigh escaped Lucy's lips. "And I was trying not to destroy anything on this mission…"
Levy and Cana looked at each other. "Why?" Levy asked.
"They attacked you first," Cana pointed out.
"A bit of collateral damage never hurt anyone."
"Serves that so-called emperor right, anyway, for ditching you."
"Surely not even he's foolish enough to think he can break up with a Fairy Tail mage and come out of it with all his property intact-"
"You two do realize we're not actually here to trash Zeref's palace, right?" Lucy interrupted.
"We're not?" Cana echoed.
"No! What kind of woman do you take me for?"
Levy folded her arms. "How uninspiring."
"You'll get kicked out of the guild for this," Cana seconded.
Lucy interrupted them again, louder this time. "You can't kick me out; I'm the temporary Master. That makes me in charge of this mission – and we are not here to enact vengeance on Zeref, or anything silly like that!"
It was then that Aquarius decided to chip in. "Oh, so this isn't you charging up the river to Vistarion on a giant snake in order to singlehandedly besiege the seat of your ex-boyfriend's power, then?" She sounded disappointed.
Lucy puffed out her cheeks. "No, as it happens, it isn't." Under the combined force of their scrutinizing glares, she shuffled awkwardly atop the great snake's scales. "I don't… I don't have anything against him. I would still be his friend if he would have me. That's not what this is about – we're only here to rescue the real Master, and it would be far better if I didn't run into Zeref at all. So, if you lot are quite done destroying his property, please can we get on with the actual plan to sneak me into Vistarion?"
"Fine, whatever," Aquarius huffed. "Just don't expect any sympathy from me next time you break up with your boyfriend."
"I wasn't expecting any this time, or I'd have formed my strategy around that instead," Lucy retorted.
"Yes… well… good." The Water Bearer scowled at them all before disappearing.
Lucy let her gaze roll across the harbour. As well as the white flash of gulls darting between the array of merchant ships, she could see the metallic gleam of helmets, always so distinctive no matter which warlord's emblem they bore. They were surging towards the mouth of the river. Like Aquarius, they assumed she would be continuing her waterborne assault all the way to the city itself.
"Right," she began. "This is where we part ways. I appreciate you coming this far with me, but I have to do the rest on my own."
"But-" Levy tried one last time, only for Lucy to shake her head.
"No buts. This is between me and Zeref. I feel so much stronger knowing that you two are looking out for me, regardless of- well, what happened between me and him," she stammered, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. It was easy for them to throw around words like boyfriend, but she'd never thought about it that way. It felt wrong to use the word like they did, as if it was something so normal and good that had been ruined by his or her decisions, rather than something that had never been within their grasp.
Levy squeezed one of her hands, and Cana the other. "What are friends for?" Levy smiled.
Cana seconded, "No matter how dubious your life choices, we'll be here to see you through the fallout."
"Thanks," Lucy laughed, though it didn't last. "Pisces will take you to where Jellal has hidden the Mobile Temple. If you don't hear from me within an hour, go back to Fiore. At least that way, you'll have a chance of making it to the guildhall before the army arrives."
After a long moment, Levy nodded. "Alright. Be careful."
The Twin Fish Spirits surged towards the cove where the Mobile Temple was hidden, and Lucy and Ophiuchus resumed their approach. As soon as she felt Pisces vanish, she spun her keyring around her fingers and let the two keys she needed next fall into her palm. Gemini. Libra. She slipped further down Ophiuchus's body as Gemini-Lucy took her place atop the great serpent's head, digging her fingers into the joins between his scales to hold on as Libra's weightless magic took effect. Gritting her teeth against the expenditure of power – switching her Spirits in and out like this was not easy – she focussed all her will towards the black key.
Darkness swept across the port as its might was unleashed. Once, during the Grand Magic Games, Yukino had used the artificial night it had forced upon Domus Flau to try and intimidate her opponent, only to find that Kagura was not so easily cowed – or, perhaps, that fear was not a weapon the inherently gentle Yukino truly knew how to utilize. Lucy wasn't about to try either. Having seen Zeref abuse that power, she wasn't sure she wanted to.
No, she was more interested in the practical side of the black key's eternal night. Namely, the fact that none of the soldiers could see Ophiuchus give a quick flick of his tail and send the near-weightless Lucy soaring into the sky. (The idea, of course, being that this way they would assume Gemini was her, and not just because no one would see the desperate flailing of her arms as she tried very hard not to scream.)
The further she flew from Libra, the weaker the effect of her magic became, and the faster Lucy began to fall. She closed her new Spirit's gate and took that power into herself via Star Dress. Manipulating it instinctively, she was able to bring herself to a gentle halt a few feet above the pavement in a secluded back alley, stepping easily down and cancelling her Star Dress.
By the time the false nightfall had lifted completely, she had become just another part of the uneasy crowd. She bought a ticket using the leftover currency Jellal had given her and boarded the first train to Vistarion Central. Thus she entered Vistarion, the Fortress Capital of Alvarez, indistinguishable from any other citizen doing her best to carry on her normal life in the shadow of the emperor's military ambitions.
Their train was still pulling into the station when she felt it.
Pain burst through her chest, flooding her lungs and crushing her heart. It was as if her magical core had exploded inside her, pouring raw energy over her vulnerable organs. Somehow, she managed to crush her scream into a whimper as she bent over, one hand clutching at her scrunched-up stomach, waiting for it to pass.
Slowly, the pain faded, giving way to confusion. A handful of fellow passengers had glanced at her in concern, but none moved in to take advantage of her momentary incapacitation. What the hell had that been, then, if not an attack?
Still expecting danger, she slipped her hand surreptitiously over her keys. Most were warm from her body heat and their own otherworldly magic, but two were stone cold: Gemini and Ophiuchus. Their gates were closed. She could not feel their magic, their living selves. Something must have happened to them – something serious enough that it had been able to affect her on the other side of the city.
Hoping that they were safely recovering in the Spirit Realm, she forced herself to relax until the attention of her fellow passengers had moved on. If she stopped now, it would defeat the whole purpose of having used them as a decoy in the first place.
It wasn't until the grandiose arches of Vistarion Central loomed up on either side that it occurred to her that, if her decoy had been defeated, the soldiers now knew the real Lucy had to be heading into Vistarion by a different route.
As the train began to slow, a wave of muttering swept through the carriage.
"Is that-? No, it can't be-"
"What's one of the Twelve doing here?"
"Do you think it's to do with that commotion at the port?"
"What if there's a Fiorean assassin hiding on this train?"
Lucy shrunk further into her seat as she caught a flash of vivid green hair through the opposite window. She would recognize that imposing magical presence anywhere. It had been a comfort at her side as Acnologia and Zeref's airship had waged war overhead; now, that familiarity was a warning. There was no point trying to pass herself off as an Alvarez citizen. Brandish would recognize her on sight.
For a moment, Lucy considered turning herself in. Brandish had been polite enough during the battle, if not exactly friendly, but then Zeref had warned her that Brandish considered making friends to be too much effort, so there was no use trying to read too much into it. Perhaps she could convince Brandish to take her to Zeref… but she didn't know what orders Zeref had given his mages. She didn't know how he'd handled their defeat against Acnologia, or how he'd reacted to her awful words, let alone what he had done to cast aside their tentative alliance and turn upon her kingdom once more.
In fact, one glance at the incomprehensibly huge palace that was the true home of the man who had ever so briefly shared her tiny house in Crocus brought home just how much she didn't know about him.
She had asserted to Levy and Cana that Zeref wouldn't hurt her, but the man who had built himself an empire wasn't her Zeref at all, was he?
Right up until the end, he had kept her out of this part of his life. She couldn't imagine the man who had happily assembled a temporary library in her bedroom being comfortable in a palace so large that each wing probably needed its own train station. It was one thing watching him address his mages on the airship, when she'd known how nervous he was inside, and how hard he was trying to hide it. It was quite another seeing the heart of his empire in all its glory – the real, tangible evidence of the other side of him.
He had given up the truth about his brother more readily than he had given up Alvarez. Wasn't that just another sign that he had always intended for things to end this way, on opposite sides of a war? When she had pushed him away, this was where he had gone and who he had become. Why else would he have done that, except that it was as far as possible from her, and from the man who had, to his misfortune, loved her?
She was no longer so confident that the man she loved could be found here.
And that was assuming he hadn't already left with the army. If he had, turning herself in would remove all chances of her reaching Master Makarov, and thereby granting her guild a little hope.
This was about rescuing her Guild Master. Nothing more.
In one fluid move, she was on her feet. The scales of Ophiuchus were her armour, his fang was the broadsword in her hands, and before anyone in the carriage could so much as scream at the sudden materialization of the black knight in their midst, Lucy had smashed the window on the opposite side to Brandish and jumped to freedom.
Straight into the path of an oncoming train.
A freight train, which hadn't been intending to stop in this passenger hub at all.
Lucy was already shifting into her Scorpio form before her feet had touched down between the rails. As the driver slammed on the brakes – thereby proving that, even in this modern, militarized, super-efficient empire, panic could still made technology squeal – Lucy bounded up onto the far platform in the nick of time. The struggling freight train formed a sleek barrier between her and Brandish as she headed for the closest exit.
She didn't get far. What she had taken at a distance to be ticket barriers was, in fact, a metallic line of armoured Alvarez soldiers.
So much for that. She reversed direction, following the helpful exit signs towards a new salvation, only to find that way blocked by another line of soldiers holding spears like stop signs.
That was when Lucy realized that, for the main station of a capital city in the early evening, Vistarion Central was awfully quiet.
In the short time since they'd worked out Ophiuchus and Gemini were mere decoys, had her opponents guessed how she would be entering the city, evacuated the station, and sealed all the exits?
These Alvarez soldiers were so efficient it made her long for a good old dark mage to punch. At least the greed and internal rivalries amongst dark guilds usually helped to drag their organizational skills down to Fairy Tail's level.
And then Lucy was surrounded by a barrage of light.
Distantly, she recalled that Alvarez had no distinction between magical and secular rule, unlike the countries of Ishgar, and that all the guilds on the continent answered directly to the emperor… and if she were the one in charge, she knew exactly who she would be conscripting into her army. Fear stabbed deeper into her than any of her opponents' projectiles – what chance did her friends have against an army of mages? – but the practical part of her mind was too busy trying to survive this situation to worry about the future.
Option one: attack. Out of the question. She couldn't do anything about the fact that Levy and Cana had gleefully grasped the wrong end of the stick on that count, but she herself would uphold the non-aggression pact to the end.
Option two: collapse the ceiling. Also out of the question. She was not here to trash Zeref's house – well, capital city – no matter what her companions insinuated.
Option three: flee.
Fortunately, she was not above fleeing.
Anywhere else, and she would have gone down, using Virgo's power to tunnel to safety. In the heart of the station, though, she had a feeling that the ground would not be a sanctuary, but a death-trap of wires and steel and surging magical connectors.
Up, then. With a satisfying crack, her whip of starlight curled around a steel beam from the industrial half-ceiling and began to pull her upwards. The mezzanine floor, which provided a bridge between too many platforms to count, would offer some cover against the soldiers pouring onto the platforms like a clockwork river.
There was another crack.
This one was a lot less satisfying.
The steel beam around which her whip had locked had snapped in two. Which, she was quick to add mentally, had nothing whatsoever to do with her weight and everything to do with the fact that the sharp-eyed Alvarez soldiers had immediately switched to targeting it. She was almost outraged on Zeref's behalf at their willingness to destroy his train station to get at her.
As she began to fall, she glanced across the station spread out so small below her, and her eyes met Brandish's. The Alvarez mage's arms were folded; she regarded the situation with a disdain that wasn't an incidental effect of wealth or power, but a chosen philosophy of life.
But Lucy knew that expression. It wasn't boredom, though it was trying to pass itself off as such. It was reluctance. If she aided her soldiers, Lucy's struggle would be over in an instant – yet it seemed that Brandish didn't want to have this fight any more than she had wanted to babysit Lucy and Yukino while her friends had fought Acnologia.
That was fine by Lucy. She didn't want to fight either.
Still falling, she transitioned into her Sagittarius form, bow already drawn. Her arrow flew true – and the red signal at the far end of the station winked out.
Down below, the driver of the freight train, still confused by the near-miss, and with two young kids and a punctuality-related bonus waiting at the end of the line, shrugged and floored it. By the time Lucy dropped on top of the final carriage, she and the train were hurtling towards freedom.
Unfortunately, the well-oiled machine of the Alvarez military was sometimes a bit too efficient for its own good.
Where a bunch of dark mages would have stood around cursing as she disappeared into the sunset, the desire to send one last volley of attacks after her was ingrained into those soldiers, despite Brandish's warning shout. Which would have been fine, if the carriage on which Lucy had decided to hitch a ride hadn't been carrying a cargo of natural gas.
The world became a firestorm. She closed her eyes against the blaze of colour and fell into the darkness that lurked beyond.
"Princess!"
Lucy wasn't sure she was awake, at first. She opened her eyes, but the world didn't get any less dark, only more painful, so she let them slide shut again. She could taste burning on her tongue, smell her own toasted hair, breathe in smoke-thickened air hiding something even less pleasant, while the drip-drip-drip of water only intensified the psychosomatic flames in her mouth.
"Princess, are you awake?" Virgo hissed.
Lucy managed to roll onto her side, and from there, manoeuvred herself into a sitting position. "Water," she managed to rasp. "I need water."
"I wouldn't if I were you, Princess," came the matter-of-fact response. "This is a sewer."
Lucy yelped and shrunk down as small as she could go, suddenly finding that she wasn't thirsty at all.
"I dragged you down here during the explosion," the disembodied voice of Virgo continued to explain. "No one's found us yet. Brandish knows you survived, but last I checked, she was too busy shouting at her men for the extra clean-up work they've left her with to start looking for you."
It was easier to breathe, Lucy realized, if she pressed a bunch of hair to her nostrils and scrunched up her top lip to keep it in place like a moustache. The smell of herself burning alive was slightly better than the alternative.
Unfortunately, it was at that moment that a faint golden light appeared above Virgo's palm, and she squinted at her owner through the gloom. "Is this the new fashion in Alvarez, Princess?"
Lucy glowered at her. "No, I'm just trying not to throw up thanks to your choice of hideout. Also, I don't recall summoning you either."
"It's not our fault. As soon as we return to the Spirit Realm, Leo kicks us back here again. He's not taking his key being broken very well." There was a pause. "Though, Princess, given the choice between being punished by him and punished by you-"
"Let's not go there," Lucy sighed, getting to her feet. It hurt, but not as much as it would have done if Virgo hadn't pulled her to safety. "Is there a way out of here?"
"We can tunnel back to the surface, but the situation isn't good. The city was already crawling with soldiers, and now they're on high alert. Vistarion is a fortress-city. According to Aquarius – whose previous owner used to live here, you know – once Vistarion goes into lockdown, there's no way in. The palace walls are built to withstand dragons. Even your ex-boyfriend wouldn't be able to break them down, and he built them."
"Can you please all stop referring to Zeref like that?" she scowled, because it was easier to feign offence at something that didn't really matter than it was to acknowledge the dread sinking into her own stomach. The Master was in that palace. She had to find a way through those impenetrable walls.
Virgo was still giving her a look she didn't like, so Lucy busied herself with adopting her Star Dress form and making her way back to the surface and fresh air.
To her good fortune – something that Lucy had entirely forgotten existed – she popped up in an empty street of shops. A siren was sounding, overlaying the regular thud of iron-shod boots in the distance. Silhouettes flickered in the shop windows, torn between wanting to watch and not wanting to draw attention to themselves. On one hand, being regarded as a likely terrorist left Lucy feeling rather uncomfortable; on the other, it was possible that that fear was the only thing stopping the citizens from running straight to the soldiers. If Aquarius was right about the city's defences, she would need every edge she could get.
Because there, rising over the quaint roofs and welcoming shopfronts, was an enormous black wall.
It was a full stop in stone and magic, the last chord of the symphony that was this tightly woven city, the fireworks marking the end of a decade in thunder. Built in an age when the mad dragons still held sway over Alakitasia, and honed in the forge of a dozen failed revolutions, not even the combined destructive talents of her entire guild would have been able to knock it down. It didn't mock, it didn't laugh; it just stood there like the inevitable end of her journey.
Lucy swallowed.
"I do hope you've got a plan, Princess," Virgo agreed briskly. "And… we may have another problem. Gemini and Ophiuchus haven't returned to the Celestial Spirit Realm."
Chill seeped into Lucy's heart, starting from the same place she had felt that burst of pain from her magical core, from their bond. "What do you mean?"
She felt for her keys, already knowing what she would feel. Their keys were still unnaturally cold. No, not cold. Empty.
"I don't know what happened to them, but they never came home. Please be careful, Princess."
"I-"
"Found you!" a voice trilled.
Lucy and Virgo spun around. The street was no longer empty – a man had popped up in the very centre, arms spread wide, a jack-in-the-box designed to delight children and put anyone who knew better on edge. Here, in this hostile land, both Lucy and her Spirit knew better; Virgo immediately planted herself between the newcomer and her owner.
"Princess! Get to the palace; I'll hold him off!" she shouted.
"Like hell," Lucy retorted, seizing her keys, because surely by now Virgo knew what she was like, even if it meant she had to fight.
The newcomer made a small bow, the confidence of an Alvarez-trained mage and the near-maniacal grin of a gameshow host. "I am Marin of the Brandish unit, and you…" He clapped his hands together in a sound as stark as his dazzling teeth. "You – both – pass!"
Virgo screamed. Her body was dissolving. Lucy shouted too, more out of fright than anything, reaching for her Spirit. Their hands met – passed straight through each other – and then Virgo was gone.
"What did you do to her?" Lucy shrieked.
Marin beamed. "She passed! So, she's gone somewhere wonderful to receive her prize!"
Lucy brandished her keys like a sword. The unnaturally cold sensation against her fingers – not two of her keys any more, but three – was unmistakeable. Only caution at the strange magic he'd used held her back from charging him outright. "Give Virgo back!"
"That's not how the game is played!" he sang.
Then the cameras seemed to shut off, the lights went down, the prime-time audience cut to an ad break, and an ugly sneer took pride of place on Marin's face as he leaned into Lucy's personal space. "And why are you still here, huh? If you use summoning magic within my space, you have to pay the price!"
Lucy's eyes widened. He must not have realized that Virgo had summoned herself. From the cold still sucking the vitality from her fingertips, she knew Gemini and Ophiuchus had been taken the same way, and perhaps only the fact that they had been so far away from her when they'd been caught had prevented the momentary agony she'd felt on the train from becoming something worse.
"You're a cheat!" Marin shouted suddenly. "A fraud! Just like that other you I caught! I thought I'd found a contestant worthy of being invited to my special room, but then she turned into two blue things! Not photogenic at all! And now it turns out you're a cheat too! I take it back – you fail!"
He punctuated this last word by driving his foot into her – from the side. She hadn't seen him move, hadn't felt any magic, but one moment he was looming over her like the irate film director to the hapless young up-and-coming with nothing but a pretty face and his patronage, and the next she was reeling from an impossible blow she couldn't have seen coming.
Her first instinct was to summon a Spirit to retaliate. She fought that feeling down in the nick of time, but the hesitation cost her. The edge of Marin's palm struck her throat, already sore from smoke inhalation. He didn't even give her time to choke, kicking out once, twice, from opposite sides, until she was sprawled on the floor – maybe at his feet, or maybe not; their relative positioning had stopped making sense a while ago.
"You fail!" he yelled, the veins of his cheeks swollen with venomous rage as he stamped repeatedly on her back, shoulder, head. "Why would Brandish let a worm like you get away?"
As a hiss raked its way over her lips, Lucy felt a spark catch on the kindling around her heart. She felt an inexplicable protective urge towards someone who wasn't her friend, but had made it clear that she wasn't her enemy either, because actions mattered far more than the label of 'Alvarez' or 'Fairy Tail'.
"She's always like this!" Marin spat. "Can't be bothered to do anything properly! And it's fine for her; once you're in the Spriggan Twelve you're set for life! But for those of us unlucky enough to be stuck serving her, her attitude is denying any of us the chance for promotion!"
Lucy growled, "There's a difference between inactivity as a result of laziness and inactivity because acting would contravene one's principles. You could do with understanding that before you get hurt."
"Huh?" He stopped kicking her for long enough to grab her collar and drag her partly off the ground. "What would you know, you failure? I'm not going to hand you over to her and let her take all the credit. I'm sure someone in this place will be willing to reward me properly… Bloodman, perhaps. He'd have fun with you."
"I don't care what you do with me," she spat back. "But if you do not give me back my Celestial Spirits, you will regret it."
"No! They failed! They're mine now!"
He vanished again, and at the same time, his foot somehow smashed into her side, sending her flying. A display outside a florist's shop broke her fall in a burst of half-dead petals and stagnant water. She was still stumbling to her feet, soil smeared across her cheek, as her opponent seized a ladder from outside a hardware store and wasted no time in introducing it to her face.
Then he tossed it away, an unneeded prop, as he strode towards her prone form. "Maybe I won't hand you over to anyone. Now that I get a good look at you, I think you might pass after all. Maybe I'll keep you all to myself."
Lucy mumbled something into the ground.
"What was that?" Marin leaned in, seizing her once again with a malice swallowed by his brilliant tombstone smile. "One last snappy soundbite for the camera?"
"I said," Lucy ground out, "to hell with the non-aggression pact."
"Huh?"
That was as far as he got before she punched him in the face.
Yelping, he staggered backwards. "How are you still- no, it doesn't matter. You still fail. Your magic is inherently spatial. There is literally nothing you can do within my territory!"
"Is that what you think?" Lucy retaliated, patience and restraint snapping at once.
There she stood, in the silence of a hostile city, the stink of smoke lathered into her hair and the wet shadow of the sewer squelching in her every footprint, dirt on her cheeks and holes burnt into her clothes – and Marin seemed at last to realize that the star of the show had never been him. This had always been her stage.
"Do you want to know why Brandish didn't want to fight me?" she challenged, taking a step forward. "In the last month alone, I have killed a fire god, taken down a dark cult, been elected Master of the strongest guild in Fiore, and came this close to banishing Acnologia himself into another dimension. You do not know the first thing about my magic, and if you think your pathetic power can suppress it, go ahead and try!"
And then Lucy thrust her keys out before her and screamed, "Virgo! Gemini! Ophiuchus!"
"Impossible!" Marin laughed. "I set the rules here, and no summoning magic is permitted!"
A tremor ran through the air. A sudden darkness fell over the afternoon, criss-crossing shadows despite the perfect brightness of the sun, a celestial revolution and a power that came from somewhere beyond.
There was a rift in the universe itself, and Marin's silly rules meant nothing to it. It was a scar through the veil of World Magic, an imperfection that existed in every mundane tableau he tried to lay over it; he could not cover it any more than he could close it.
Lucy reached into that rift in space and forced it open.
With all her will and all her power, she ripped apart the worlds with divine fury. She had been doing this for months to call the power of the Celestial Gates without opening them, and now she called the Spirits themselves through it. With the walls of the worlds in pieces around her, she reached for them and they answered her call, wrapping around her outstretched hands.
"Im-impossible!" Marin stammered.
Virgo materialized on one side of him. Gemini appeared on the other, turning his own magic against him so he could not escape. Ophiuchus loomed behind Lucy as power flooded through her, becoming black plate armour and a broadsword which sang as she raised it skyward.
Then the great serpent's tail catapulted her towards her hapless opponent.
She struck Marin like two primordial planets colliding.
They went through a window, and then through a wall, and then a clothes shop and a patisserie and a bank, and by the time they finally came to a halt in a dimly lit store room, Marin was well and truly unconscious.
Lucy tried to stand, wobbled, and fell over next to him. Her armour lasted just long enough to absorb the impact, and then it faded into stardust. Her Spirits had gone, too, but all the keys at her hip were warm.
There was a faint smile on her lips as she dragged herself into a sitting position. She knew she shouldn't have done that – the rift in space had probably doubled in size – but her Spirits were safe and that was what mattered. All she had to do now was find a way into the palace…
Then someone whacked her over the head with a broom.
"Ow!" she yelped.
"I'm- I'm warning you!" cried the owner of the broom, in the tone of voice that usually belonged to the one being threatened, rather than the one making the threat. "Do any more magic and I'll- I'll hit you again!"
There was something oddly familiar about that voice. Lucy scrambled to her feet, pushing aside the broom, and her eyes opened wide at the sight of the terrified face behind it. "Mest!"
"T-This isn't a bluff!" he stammered. "I will strike again!"
Lucy glanced from him to his broom and back again, raising her eyebrows. "There's no need for that, Mest. It's me, Lucy!"
He blinked. "I- I think you might have me confused with someone else."
"No, I don't think so. You're definitely Mest – or do you prefer Doranbolt?"
"Uh… my name is Johann? I'm a florist, this is my shop you broke into – and I think I would remember if I had met any terrorists before!"
Lucy stared – and then smacked her forehead with her palm. "Right, I forgot. Zeref altered your memories with your own magic."
"Guards!" Mest shouted over his shoulder, having decided on balance that the broom probably wasn't enough to protect him. "Help! There's- mmph!"
Lucy had clamped her hand over his mouth. "Stop it! I'm not your enemy!"
His frightened gaze flickered to Marin's unconscious form and back.
"He started it! But- but that's not the point! We are on the same side, you just don't remember!"
There was a pause as they regarded each other – and then, triggered by a flurry of footfalls from the not-entirely-intact street outside, Mest's attempts to attract the soldiers' attention redoubled.
Urgently, she shoved him into a back office and locked the door behind them. The forced fragrance of dried flowers didn't quite mask the smell of blood and smoke any more than its herbal calm could quench the fire in her eyes.
"Whatever you do to me, I won't help terrorists!" he tried bravely.
"I'm not – oh, forget it," she sighed. "Look, this is going to sound crazy, but everything you think you know is a lie. Your name's not Johann and you're not a florist. Your entire history is fabricated by magic to stop you from realizing who you really are!"
"You're insane!" he gasped out.
"It's the truth! You're part of my guild, Fairy Tail. You came to Alvarez a few months ago to try and rescue our missing Guild Master, but you got caught, and they altered your memories so that you couldn't return to us! Please, try to remember! This isn't who you are!"
"Guards!" he shouted, hammering on the door. "She's in here- please help me-"
Panicking, Lucy yanked him away from the door again. Genuine fear darted through his eyes, so sure that she would hit him – or worse. It would have hurt seeing that from anyone, but coming from someone who had once been a friend, it cut far deeper than any of the wounds Marin had inflicted.
As the hasty march of feet drew closer, she set her hands on her former guildmate's shoulders as gently as she could. "I know it's hard to believe," she assured him. "But haven't you ever felt that you don't belong here? Like there's something missing?"
"I…"
"You were never meant to have a small shop in a big city – you're a warrior and a hero, trapped in this false life they've given you."
A flicker of uncertainty. Maybe she was getting through to him. Heartened, she slowly let go of him, instead holding up the back of her hand with its proud Fairy Tail mark. "Do you recognise this?"
Almost shyly, his hand went to his shoulder. "It's… it's the same as mine."
"Zeref didn't remove it?" Lucy wondered. And she knew, in the same way she'd known that the seal beneath the guildhall would yield to her, that taking the mark was a contract, and only the Master or the person themselves could break it.
"It's the one thing that never made any sense," he murmured. "I thought I'd got it done one night as a student, when I was drunk, but it always seemed like an odd choice… like it had some meaning, just out of reach. Every time I saw it, I wondered if this was all I was ever meant to be…"
"It's the symbol of our guild – our family," she explained. "You risked everything for us by coming here. You are capable of so much more than this, if you choose it."
"All my life," he murmured, perplexed, "you're the first person I remember ever telling me I could be something more."
In that beautiful silence, something crashed against the door. The hinges groaned but held; Mest's nerve, not quite so tough, wavered. He let out a startled yelp before Lucy could get her hand back over his mouth.
"We know you're in there, fugitive!" boomed the soldier outside. "Surrender, and the law will grant you a merciful death!"
There was only one way out now. Lucy rounded on Mest, who squeaked in fright. "I need you to help me get out of here."
"I can't!" he cried, eyes wide. "That door is the only way-!"
"You can teleport us out with your magic."
"I don't have any magic! I even tried to learn- I couldn't-"
"It isn't real," she told him softly. "Your entire false life was designed to make you think you can't do anything, all so that you would be too afraid to try."
For the first time, it seemed that Mest did not notice the increased hammering on the door. All his attention belonged to her. He repeated, "But I don't have magic…"
"You do. It's still inside you. Zeref couldn't take it away from you – that's why he had to make you forget about it."
"But even if you're right, I don't know how to use magic!"
"Magic is…" Lucy started, and stopped almost straight away.
There were as many different views of magic as there were people who used it. Everyone who had contributed to her training – her mother, Master Makarov, even the Spirits themselves – had left their imprint on her own concept of it, and the view she felt closest to at any given moment was influenced by her mood as much as her logic.
Yet there was one interpretation which had touched her heart and stayed with her, even though the man who had spoken of it to her was gone – one interpretation which encapsulated everyone else's contradictory views, and so much more.
And she smiled. "Magic is life. It is your potential and your heart, and that is why it can never be taken from you."
"That's… not very practical," Mest said weakly, his gaze drifting back to the door.
"Close your eyes," she instructed.
"Seriously?" he squeaked.
She glowered at him until he complied, and then she gently took his hands in her own, dirt-encrusted fingernails and all. Not that long ago, she had sat in a little patch of paradise some absent-minded deity had dropped on the north coast of Fiore while constructing heaven, with Zeref's hands in hers and the entire world singing between them in every breath.
That was what she was thinking of as she said, "Magic is love – the love for your friends and your Guild Master, which drove you to this place. But even if some part of your heart remembers them, your head doesn't. Trying to use that feeling as the focus of your magic would accomplish nothing – and that's okay. Love isn't the only thing that magic is, just as positive emotions aren't the only ones that matter. Accepting life means accepting the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow.
"Magic is fear, too. It's the fear of being caught by the soldiers. It's the desperation of being trapped in a back room, no way out, enemies banging on the door. It's the despair in your heart at knowing you may never return to your real home, with those who respect and empower you. It's the fear that never truly goes away, the doubt in the back of your mind, the crushing realization that you will never become the man you were meant to be, because you will always be stuck – right – here!"
Her words became a shout, and he let out a cry. The world blurred and hummed around them, and then became somewhere else entirely.
Namely, the middle of the street Lucy and Marin's battle had trashed.
"I did it!" Mest cried.
"You could always do it," Lucy smiled.
"There they are! Get them!"
Immediately, spears and swords closed in on every side.
"I did it," Mest repeated, his joy becoming pure, abject horror. "Oh my God, I did it! I helped a terrorist!"
"Yes, now, if you'd like to do it again, and maybe take us a little bit further away this time, that'd be marvellous," Lucy said briskly.
There was another whoosh of reality, and they were standing in a sparsely decorated flat she assumed belonged to 'Johann'. From the way Mest grabbed her arms and stared at her in fright, he wasn't feeling much of a sense of sanctuary from it either. "Oh my God! I'm a fugitive!"
"Don't worry. It'll be okay."
"How will it be okay?"
"Because… well… we'll work something out." Lucy patted his shoulder, trying to distract him from noticing the soldiers she'd just glimpsed out of the window. Zeref had said he'd had people watching Mest in Vistarion. They'd know exactly where he was likely to run to. "But first, I need you to teleport me into the palace."
This proved to be too much for Johann the florist. He had to sit down.
Bleakly, he stared up at her from the floor. "You really are a terrorist, aren't you?" he whispered.
"Believe it or not, I'm actually trying to cause as little disruption as possible," Lucy sighed. "I need to rescue my Guild Master – the same man you were trying to save when you were caught and your memory was altered. Please. I can't get past the palace defences without you."
With an inevitable groan, Mest held out his hand to her. In an instant, they were beyond the outer wall, in a small, deserted courtyard thankfully free of soldiers.
Not that it was likely to remain that way for long, thanks to Mest's wail as he clapped his hands to his cheeks. "Oh God, I broke into the palace! I just committed treason!"
"It'll be okay," Lucy reiterated. "This is what you need to do. About a mile west of the imperial port is an abandoned lighthouse on an overhang of rock. Hidden beneath this, under the water, is a vessel called the Mobile Temple Olympia. Go there, and teleport straight inside."
By now, his eyes were wide enough to have swallowed Acnologia whole. "Without an invitation?"
"It's fine. It's piloted by a man called Jellal, who will know you as Mest, although you probably won't remember him. Levy and Cana should be there too. Tell them that Lucy sent you, and that Zeref reflected your magic back to make you forget who you were. They'll understand, and they'll look after you. Also… tell them that they have to head straight back to Fiore. I've lost too much time; if they don't reach the guildhall before the invading army arrives, we won't stand a chance. I have a plan to get myself home."
"But you- you're going to break into the palace on your own?"
It was quite sweet, how he could be convinced she was a terrorist and still worry about her wellbeing. She hoped it was his heart warring with his false personality, and not an accurate reflection of how the rest of the world perceived actions which, for her guild, were really quite normal. "It'll be okay. I know what I'm doing."
His dubious silence managed to mention a trashed harbour, an exploded freight train, and a palace in lockdown without even opening his mouth.
"I'll be fine! Go!"
It wasn't a request. He went.
A/N: Aww, my girl Lucy proving that she does have the maturity to be Guild Master, even if she can't see it herself. As you can probably guess, this chapter and the next were originally supposed to be a single chapter, but it was stupidly long so I split it. Next week will be the resolution of Lucy's adventures in Vistarion and one of my favourite chapters of the whole story. Unfortunately, we are once again entering Exam Season, followed by Busy Work Season, so updates will probably slow down for a bit as the Alvarez War starts. Next week's chapter will be up as normal though, as I didn't want to leave it halfway through this scene. Hope that's okay, and thank you all for your continued support, it really means a lot to me! ~CS