Homeward Hours
By CrimsonStarbird
Chapter Three – Extraction
"Back again, Miss Heartfilia?" Captain Brennam yawned. "After the fuss you raised last time, one would have thought you'd have walked very quickly away from this place and not looked back."
Oh boy, do you not know me, Lucy thought proudly, even as she smiled with gritted teeth and handed over the application she'd got Warrod to sign for her again.
"I have questions," she said, out loud. "He's the only one with answers."
"Oh? And you think you have a way to make him talk?"
"The worse things get with Natsu and the guild, the more I start to think you may have the right idea of how to deal with him," she answered stiffly.
The Captain gave a chuckle that made her wish she'd not bothered forcing down any breakfast. "I knew you'd come to see things our way in the end. Villains like him deserve nothing less."
Forcing another smile, Lucy asked, "Can I take my notepad in? For my questions?"
He gave the ring-bound notepad and the biro clipped to it no more than a cursory glance – assuming, correctly, that the guards at the earlier checkpoints had done a thorough search, and, incorrectly, that if there was anything suspicious, they would have found it. "Be my guest. Garic, take her down."
This time, the Captain did not bother accompanying her into the cell. Wincing as the too-bright lights overwhelmed her vision, and the stench of decay had another attempt at reuniting her with her breakfast, she knew she wouldn't have spent more time in this room than she had to, either.
If she had any doubts about her plan, even with the guild's support and Master Makarov's approval and Queen Hisui's blessing, watching the huge guard drag the unresisting body of their enemy over to the plastic table and chairs crushed them.
Garic took up a position next to the door. Just as last time, when there were visitors inside the cell, the normal wards to prevent entry were suspended. Only a simple magical seal remained from this side – one that she could not unlock, but which would open at an authorized Rune Knight's touch.
She took the seat opposite the prisoner under Garic's bored eye. "Hello again, Zeref," she began.
No response.
Head slumped forwards, hands hanging limp at his sides, eyes as empty as the too-white room.
Not just defeated, but broken.
"My name is Lucy Heartfilia. I spoke to you two weeks ago. You asked me what year it was. Do you remember?"
No response.
Last time, she had felt his awareness right before he had spoken.
This time, she felt nothing at all from him.
That was going to make this more difficult.
But somewhere out there, Gajeel was busy smashing up the historic headquarters of the Old Conservative Gentlemen's Club (or, as Hisui had called it, the last bastion of the patriarchy in Crocus) in a vain attempt to catch the Phantom Thief Wendell (Wendy in a tailcoat and fake moustache), and drawing the focus of the Rune Knights away from Era in the process.
Somewhere out there, an escaped convict who would have been entirely opposed to freeing Zeref if not for the fact that it would have made him a massive hypocrite was busy using his own knowledge of the Council Headquarters to get him and Erza into the control room without triggering any alarms.
Somewhere, Loke, in the guise of a lost tourist, was flirting with the guard on duty (which he had openly declared to be the best order a Celestial Spirit mage had ever given him) while Virgo attempted to steal back Lucy's keys.
Somewhere, Levy (in her old Rune Knight uniform) and Gray (well, he'd started out in a janitor outfit, but Lucy had no faith that he was still wearing it) were making their way down through the levels towards her…
And it was all for the sake of her ludicrous idea.
She wasn't going to be the one to let the side down.
"We've done some research," Lucy said to the unresponsive prisoner, falling into her cover story, and hoping any nosy watching Captains would interpret her hesitancy as latent anger rather than stage-fright. "We know what you did to Natsu. We know you used a curse on him called… Fytherica ai bydd."
No response.
Lucy managed if she'd managed to butcher the pronunciation Levy had drilled into her. If it had been anyone other than her closest friend who had given her the words, she would have started to suspect some kind of ill-timed practical joke, but Levy had assured her that those awkward words meant 'we're breaking you out of here' in an ancient language Zeref would definitely understand and the guards definitely wouldn't.
From the lack of a response from Garic, Lucy suspected that Levy had got the latter right, but the lack of response from the prisoner was failing to prove the former.
"Fytherica ai bydd," she repeated, and then, switching back: "You understand, don't you?"
No response.
Lucy threw her notebook and its not-quite-normal biro down between them. The folding table flinched more than he did at the sound.
"Alright, then," she said, and she was barely having to fake her frustration this time. "If you won't talk to me, I'll have to make you."
Heart in her mouth, but no trace of it on her face, she stood up from the table and seized the front of his robes. She was almost glad, this time, for the lack of reaction, apologizing in her head even as she watched for Garic's reaction out of the corner of her eye. The guard was watching with new interest, but he made no move to stop her.
"I have tried to be nice. You are going to tell me how to break the curse, or so help me, I will make these guards look like royal butlers!" Limp as he was, she didn't have to shake him much to make the scene look violent. "We've almost unlocked your incantation-" And here she stopped to rattle off another string of words that according to Levy meant 'this is a rescue, I'll explain later, just play along-'
"I have to stay."
The words were barely louder than a breath. Lucy might have thought she had imagined them, if not for the fact that there was no way her imagination would default to something so incomprehensible. "…What?" she asked.
"I have to stay."
She was staring, now, at this man who wasn't staring back at her, but was directing his stupid, baffling words to some unfocussed spot on the wall behind her.
"No, you don't," she said. "You can't. It's awful; I will not let you stay here for a moment longer-"
"I have to stay."
"No!" she exclaimed. She tried to pull him to his feet, but his fingers clutched the edge of the table in an iron grip. His arms were little more than bones wrapped in the idea of some skin; how could they produce such desperate strength?
Ragged robes gave out before he did. She stumbled backwards holding a fistful of fabric, and he slumped forward again.
She wasn't having any of it. She seized his shoulders, pushed him back – and froze.
At last, his gaze met hers, and he looked terrified.
"I have to stay," he mumbled, frantic, pleading. "I have to stay, I have to stay, I have to stay-"
"You don't!" she shouted.
But she heard the crick of poorly set bones as he turned his head to look at the bemused guard, and she saw the first speck of life she'd yet glimpsed from him flash in his eyes, and she knew that after winning the guild's help and convincing Queen Hisui to look the other way and devising a plan that would get her down here, it was the very person she had come here to save that would prove to be her mission's undoing.
As he opened his mouth to warn Garic, Lucy moved.
She seized the biro that wasn't really a biro and drove the tip into the side of Zeref's neck.
The force of it knocked him sideways, out of the chair. The pen spun across the gleaming white floor, a burst of sensation, a glaring profanity in this white world. It had done its job, though. The fast-acting sedative where the ink should have been raced through his veins and quenched his brief flare of rebellion.
He slumped on the floor, unmoving.
Probably wouldn't be moving for a while, since Porlyusica had calculated the dosage for the man-mountain guarding the door behind her, not an emaciated prisoner.
This wasn't the plan.
Between the guards' searches and the magic-detecting gates, that spy pen had been the only weapon she'd had.
"What's going on?" Garic demanded, striding towards her. Typical that he'd look the other way at violence against his prisoner, and then be drawn over by the lack of it.
Mind racing, Lucy dropped to her knees beside Zeref's still form. "I think he's dead," she called.
"Don't be ridiculous. He's immortal."
"I can't feel a pulse." It wasn't a lie. He hadn't been in a good way even before she had pumped him with enough sedative to knock out a wyvern. For the first time since she'd learnt that the Black Mage was about to attack Fairy Tail, she found herself hoping that his immortality really was as absolute as the legends said. "What if it all became too much for him, with his magic suppressed?"
"Good," the guard grunted. "His death's been long overdue."
"We need him alive!" she shouted fiercely. "He has information that my guild needs!"
She had to get Garic to release the door before Captain Brennam came down to investigate. Against one, she had a chance. Against two? They'd ensure she was locked in here with Zeref until the end of her life.
She pressed, "If he has died as a result of your neglect as his jailors, there will be hell to pay. The Council is going to need a scapegoat when my guild turns on them – and how will you defend your conduct then? If you want to still have a career at the end of this, follow protocol. Get the Captain. Now."
"But-" The huge guard tailed off, one hand on his sheathed sword, unwilling to take orders from a guild mage. Her instructions may have been in accordance with prison protocol, but he had already made it clear how little he thought of rules and regulations, when Zeref was involved.
"Get the Captain!"
With a swift nod, he decided his career was more important. He dispelled the final barrier with a touch of his hand. The door slid open.
And Lucy made her move.
No celestial keys at her hip, no Spirits stepping in to help in this magic-less void, no enchanted whip ready to fall into her hand – but Fairy Tail mages were nothing if not resourceful, and she snatched up the nearest folding chair and brought it crashing down on the guard's head.
He staggered, but didn't fall. A startled cry burst from his lips as he lashed out blindly with his sword; Lucy caught the blow against the chair. The blade made it halfway through the cheap plastic seat before losing momentum. Seizing the seat in both hands, she gave a firm twist, and the sword was ripped out of the guard's hand.
Flabbergasted at being disarmed by this girl – and Lucy thought that he should really have paid more attention to just which guild was responsible for putting away the Black Mage in the first place – Garic took a step backwards. "You- but-"
Then hard determination settled into his eyes, and he reached for the door to seal himself in with her.
Lucy was having none of it. Wrenching the blade free from the mangled plastic, she slid the folded camping chair smoothly between his legs and into the doorway. The automatic door crunched against it, whined, and then backed off.
Before the guard could do anything else stupid, the tip of his own blade was pressing into the small of his back. "Don't move," Lucy hissed.
"Why are you doing this?" he shot back.
"Because letting this go on is wrong."
"He's evil."
"Maybe," Lucy told him steadily, "but I am not."
To her relief, the hilt of his sword proved much more effective than a plastic chair when applied to the back of his skull.
So much for subtlety. She was supposed to have sedated the burly guard without a fight in the doorway, the only place in the cell hidden from the view of the guard station's window overhead, but even if Captain Brennam had by some miracle missed the sight of her whacking his subordinate with a plastic chair, he certainly wasn't going to miss her dashing back to the centre of the room to retrieve the unconscious prisoner.
Well, it wasn't really a Fairy Tail raid if they didn't end up having to fight their way out.
Zeref was a wisp in her arms. His robes seemed like the heaviest part of him, too frail, too feeble to possibly sustain life. For once, she was grateful for it, as she slung him over her left shoulder and shifted the stolen blade to her right hand.
She stepped out into the corridor and kicked the folding chair free. The door to that white hell whooshed shut behind her. Gratefully, her pupils began to relax out of the harsh light. Her magical senses slowly uncurled towards the warm feeling of energy in the atmosphere-
Instincts screamed a warning. She jerked to one side, and a violet bolt seared through the air beside her. A flash of her sword deflected a second, and she held it raised and ready, hoping that her opponent wouldn't realize it had been more blind luck than weapon mastery.
"So, you've shown your true colours at last, Miss Heartfilia," Captain Brennam remarked. "Not content with putting villains away, it seems Fairy Tail has now decided to join them."
Lucy's gaze flicked past him, to the stairs that led up through four more levels of security before getting a glimpse of sunlight.
The Captain smiled. If there was one advantage to standing opposite him with a stolen sword in one hand and a half-rescued prisoner in the other, it was that Lucy no longer had to pretend she wasn't sickened by it.
"Oh, no, Miss Heartfilia. I have already sounded the alarm, you see, and you are quite alone."
Maybe so, but he was alone too, and if she could just-
"Where would you go?" the Captain taunted, as if he had read her mind. "Get past me, and you will find yourself up against every guard in this hellhole. Get past them, and you'll have every single Rune Knight in Era racing to arrest you. And even if you do manage to make it out, where will you go? Every soldier, every guild, every half-decent human being on the continent will be after you – and that's assuming your new friend the Black Mage doesn't murder you for your trouble. One way or another, your life ends here, Miss Heartfilia."
Still smiling, the Captain pressed his free palm against a rune embedded in the wall. "Initiate intruder protocol 5-3-1."
Lucy tensed.
Then, slowly, relaxed again.
Brennam's smile faded. He slammed his palm against the wall once more. "Initiate intruder protocol 5-3-1!"
A string of symbols materialized in mid-air, winking in and out of existence. Lucy had the funny feeling that she was looking at a runic error message.
"What do you mean, system rebooting?" Brennam fumed.
Offhandedly, Lucy advised him, "I know the Magic Council has been through a lot of upheaval in the past decade or so, but they really should remember to remove the magical imprints of ex-members from the security systems. It's pretty poor when a single former councillor can force the entire system into shutdown. Especially when said former councillor is himself an escaped criminal."
After a moment of sheer loathing, the Captain's features arranged themselves into a shadow of his smile. "Tricks and traps," he dismissed. "I would prefer to deal with you myself anyway."
With that warning, he lunged. Lucy dodged, all too aware of the ragdoll hanging over her shoulder – but it seemed her opponent was, too. There was only one way she could have moved without putting Zeref in harm's way, and her foot landed on a violet rune the Captain had hurled onto the floor.
Immediately, her leg was locked in place. She tried to stumble away, but the paralysis had already spread across her body. To make things worse, she could hear the tell-tale thud of army-issue boots descending the stairs as Rune Knight reinforcements approached.
As she glared at the Captain – with her eyes alone, as she was unable to move her facial muscles – he lowered his sword. "Is this all the great Fairy Tail is capable of?"
The approaching footsteps revealed themselves as belonging to a Rune Knight dressed in a less-fancy version of the Captain's armour, complete with cape and helmet. Brennam seemed a bit put out by the fact that only one soldier had come to back him up, but it was one more than he needed to deal with a comatose criminal and a paralyzed mage.
"See?" he demanded, gesturing triumphantly towards his victims. "Fairy Tail, caught in the act! Some heroes of Fiore they are-"
The Rune Knight punched him in the face. "Don't you say another word against my guild."
"B-but y-you-" the Captain gasped, and got another blow to the face for good measure. This time, he slumped against the wall and didn't move again.
The purple light binding Lucy faded. She stumbled, but the newcomer was already there, offering her a gallant elbow for support. It was surprisingly restrained of him – until Lucy remembered that the limp body of the Black Mage was still strewn over her shoulder, and no one wanted to sweep him off his feet.
"Never fear," the Rune Knight proclaimed, ripping off his helmet to reveal the fiery orange mane of the Lion Spirit. "Your knight in shining armour is here!"
"Took you long enough," Lucy grinned back. "I thought you said you could defeat the whole army of Rune Knights yourself, if it was for my sake."
"It wasn't the Knights that were the problem," Loke sighed. "It was the destruction our friends left behind after dealing with them! The entire third floor is an ice rink! Levy got bored of waiting for Freed to unravel the fourth checkpoint wards and worked out that she could circumvent them with 'acid' words; there are holes all over the floor! Then Laxus went overboard and shorted out the electricals on the second floor, so all the elevators are out of action, and Elfman decided to make his own stairs with rubble and force. The man's never heard of health and safety regulations. And don't even get me started on what Juvia thinks the word 'subtle' means…"
Loke fixed her with a reproachful glare. "And do you know what the worst bit was? That guard you sent me to flirt with – the young, busty blonde I was promised? She was off sick today! I was stuck with her colleague instead! Her male colleague! And Virgo wouldn't swap roles with me!"
Sniggering, Lucy patted his shoulder. "I'm sure your pride will survive."
"Yes, but the point was, I was supposed to get a date with a busty blonde out of this!" Loke gave her a very pointed look.
"We all have to make sacrifices for the mission," she assured him blandly. "Now, I don't suppose you'd like to give me a hand with our escapee, would you?"
Still grumbling, Loke exchanged Lucy's celestial keys for the Black Mage, and slung him over his own shoulder. "Why's he unconscious?"
"He, uh… wasn't cooperating."
Loke raised his eyebrows. "That bodes well."
A choking laugh rose from behind them. "Do you see what you've done?" Brennam mocked, as a line of blood ran down his chin. "You've made enemies of the entire magical world. You're outcasts, now. There's nowhere you can go – no one you can turn to."
"Fine by us," Lucy told him shortly. "We won't be told what to do by anyone who condones this sort of behaviour. We don't need the Magic Council. We've always done our own thing. The guild looks after its own."
"Including him?" the Captain spat, indicating the shadow of a man draped across Loke's shoulder.
"Yes." Lucy spoke without hesitation, for the time for hesitation had passed. "He's in our custody, now. That makes him one of us."
"You're all fools, Fairy Tail. You'll see that soon enough."
"Yeah?" Lucy and Loke exchanged looks, and then, much to the Captain's astonishment, both of them grinned. "Well, what's new?"
The upper levels of the supposedly secure facility were even more of a disaster zone than Loke had described – not least because, after beating up all the Rune Knights unfortunate enough to have been on duty that day, the mages of Fairy Tail had grown bored. Huffing in frustration as she slid under the huge hammer of ice Gray was currently swinging towards Elfman ("We'll see who defeated the most enemies when your head is sat on top of my pile!"), Lucy sought out Warren as she hurtled towards the extraction point.
"Alright, Warren, we're done here!" she shouted to the telepath. "Tell Mest to retrieve Jellal and Erza from the Council Headquarters. Oh, and let Gajeel know it's time for him and the Phantom Thief Wendell to take their bows."
"Will do!"
The rewarding sight of Warren doing exactly as she instructed was somewhat compromised by the sight of literally everyone else in the room continuing to ignore both her and the plan. Not that she could complain. She was hardly cut out for leadership; it was enough that they'd agreed to join her on this kamikaze mission in the first place. With any luck, Mest would bring Erza here soon, and she would corral the Fairy Tail equivalent of a special ops team back into line. All Lucy had to worry about was getting out.
Fortunately, the ever-reliable Mira was parked right outside in a magic four-wheeler, ready and waiting for Lucy, Loke, and their prisoner.
Less fortunately, Mira turned out to be even worse at driving than Erza. Or better, actually, depending on whether you were looking for an off-road racing driver or someone who could pass a civic driving test. After the longest hour of Lucy's life, she found herself staggering out of the car (or what was left of it, after losing both headlights and a rear door along the way). They had made it back to Magnolia.
The guildhall looked so… peaceful.
Which wasn't a surprise, given that most of their members were currently causing havoc in Crocus and/or Era, but… she had never realized before just how beautiful it was. The guildhall reaching towards the heavens, larger every time they rebuilt it; the limitless expanse of the lake stretching out behind it, an infinity of blue where the water met the sky; the quiet burble of the town around it, sharing the guild's successes, growing symbiotically with Fairy Tail's own renown, offering up to them an abundance of jobs and no shortage of forgiveness.
Her home.
She watched as the unconscious Black Mage was carried into the guildhall by Porlyusica, and wondered if her mad idea was about to accomplish what neither Alvarez nor Acnologia had managed to do, and destroy their indestructible guild.
"What happens now?" Loke wondered.
"Porlyusica's going to check him over and advise us from a medical perspective," Lucy answered. "Then we'll move him into the… facility."
At her other side, Mira chuckled. "We really need a better name for it than that."
"The Den?" Loke volunteered.
"How about something in the vein of Fairy Hills?" Lucy tried. "Like, Fairy Villa or Fairy Springs?"
"That just sounds like we're opening a holiday resort," Loke joked.
"Now there's a thought," Mira piped up. "Maybe I'll run it by the Master once all this has died down. I think we're going to need a holiday after this."
It felt good to smile, but it didn't last. Not with that reminder of what was coming.
Mira asked, serious now, "Lucy, do you want help with the spell? I don't mind doing the first casting."
"No, I'll do it. This was my idea – if something goes wrong, I don't want anyone else paying the price."
"We're in this together, Lucy," Mira reminded her. "Is there anything we can do?"
Lucy shook her head. "The only thing any of us can do now is wait."
Wait for Porlyusica's diagnosis.
Wait for the others to return to the guildhall.
Wait for the Magic Council to catch up with them.
Wait… for the Black Mage Zeref to wake up.