I'm here! Hubby took Friday off from work, so I took a short break from writing over the weekend, but I think I've more than made up for it here!
***Remember, if you want the chance to make a request for something to be put in this story, please leave a review on Chapter 47. I'm giving it a week, until Saturday the 3rd, and then I will randomly choose a winner on Sunday! Thanks for everyone who's already reviewed! I'm hoping for a really good request from one of you.
As always, thanks for all the love and happy reading!
"I have to say, I'm not so sure about bringing the small one," Sting said.
Ova nodded. "I agree."
"Then you should have argued with Loke about it," Virgo said.
"I did!" Ova glared at the angel as he crossed his arms. "And I wasn't the only one. Everyone agreed with me."
"I didn't," Mao argued as he clutched his robes around him. Ever since they'd arrived in the Dark, his bravado had been slowly evaporating. "If it was that big of a problem, do you think I would be here?"
"I think Loke was willing to send as many bodies as he could, no matter if they were qualified or not," Ova said. His anger seemed to lessen every time he looked at his mate, who was obviously growing more uncomfortable and scared as the trip went on. He sighed as he moved to stand next to the man and put an arm around him. "You're an idiot," he said fondly.
"That's not what you were saying the last time we were here," Mao said.
"Can we stop the love fest and get a mooove on?" Stier adjusted his axe on his shoulder as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "How much longer until we get to fight something? Le- Loke promised me a fight, and I'm not leaving until I get one."
"Not far," Virgo said as she huffed, "I think. If the Leezars are correct, it shouldn't be much farther, but with the distortion here, I figured it would be better to be safe rather than sorry so we are doing shorter jumps."
"Virgo," Stier put a hand on her shoulder as she worked on catching her breath. "Do you want me to have a go at moving them?"
"No, just be ready to fight when we get there." Virgo took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she straightened her back. "Alright everyone, this should be the last one. Prepare yourselves." She held her arms out away from herself, and when they stopped moving again, they found themselves in a small clearing surrounded by thickets of dead, thorny bushes and dead trees.
"This is it," Mao said. "This clearing contains the entrance, but I don't know how to open it. I've only been here a couple times, and Zalanoon always made me look away when he opened it."
Virgo wiped at her face as she looked around. "That's fine, we don't want to use the entrance anyway. Give me a minute, I'll be right back."
Once she disappeared and her magic circle faded, Stier addressed the whole group. "Alright guys. Once we enter, the Leezars will direct us to where we need to gooo, but it will be up to use to take care of the enemy. Natsu, your primary objective is to get to Luuucy and get her away from whoever has her, and then protect her. The rest of us will be helping you get there and then get out. Virgo and I will take care of Zalanoooon when he shows up. Everyone stay safe, stay sharp, and stay alive, got it?"
Everyone nodded except for Rogue. "Are you sure that you two can handle him? If the stories we've heard are true, we'd be hard pressed to beat him with our entire group against him on his own."
"Don't worry about us," Stier said. "We can handle him."
Rogue looked like he wanted to argue, but chose instead to sink into Sting's shadow to wait.
Meanwhile, Natsu couldn't seem to get comfortable. There was a buzz under his skin that was driving him nuts. He kept itching but it didn't help. It was worse than when he went without his scarf for too long, but he didn't know what to do about it. Just when he was about to start digging a damn hole by himself, Virgo reappeared.
The strain of using her magic was obvious, and Natsu wondered if he should argue against her fighting Zalanoon in her condition. He didn't think anyone would agree with him, so he decided not to bother, instead vowing to keep an eye on her during the fighting. Lucy was his primary focus, but he could also keep an eye on the angel without compromising his mission.
"I found a good place to enter," Virgo said as she moved to stand in the middle of the group. "Everyone get ready." With a deep, steadying breath, she sent them into the ground and into the hidden compound.
Sting immediately jumped up as he landed on the floor. They appeared to have landed in a storage room, so he let his guard down a little. "Not a bad spot, Virgo. Well done."
"Uh…" Sting turned around and found he was alone with Mao. "I don't think it worked. Where are the others?"
"Damn it," Sting said as he moved towards the other man. The weight in his shadow was missing, which meant Rogue had also been pulled somewhere else. He stopped and looked around the room as he sighed.
"Well, now what do we do?"
"Damn it, damn it, damn it." Stier leaned his axe against his hip as he rubbed his face. "I should have known this wooould happen. Why wouldn't he suspect us coming back? He must have figured out how Virgo's magic worked. Damn it."
"Cursing isn't going to help any," Ova said. He crossed his arms as he looked around the empty room they were in. "We need to figure out where we are so we can plan where to go. I won't be able to do that until I see some of the building. As a guard, I patrolled the hallways a lot, but I never came into the rooms. My guess is that Lucy is in the lab, so we should work on finding that first. Mao will be able to help whoever he's with, but we'll just have to hope the others can find a way to either get there or at least stay out of trouble until we get where we need to be. Let's hurry."
Stier sighed as he picked up his weapon again. "Lead the way. If we come across anyone, I'll take care of it, don't worry."
Ova grinned as a long blade appeared in his hand, seemingly from nowhere. "Don't worry, I'm not."
Virgo barely caught herself as she stumbled against the wall. "This… isn't right," she panted. "That took too much… magic. Why did that… take so much magic?"
"Worse, we seem to have lost everyone." Rogue sent his shadows out to search the nearby hallways. "Come on, we need to find cover for a bit while you collect yourself. Can you walk? If we're caught out here, we might ruin everything."
Virgo nodded and let the demon hybrid lead. "Where did the others go? I don't understand what happened."
"My guess is Zalanoon figured out what happened the first time and added some sort of barrier to his facility so we couldn't get in as easily as last time. Come on, there's a closet nearby, let's get out of sight."
Once they were safely inside the closet, Rogue continued to search out the halls and rooms that he could reach with his shadows. "I found the front door, so we didn't make it in very far. We might have to wait until someone else does something."
"What do you mean?" Virgo asked. She was breathing normally now, but she was struggling to keep her head and body upright.
"Well both Mao and Ova are here, right? They both said they know the layout of this place. If we assume that everyone was split up the way we were, that means there are four teams running around, and if they were split up, then two of those groups will know where to go. If we wait, maybe they can get to where they need to go and we can be their back up once everyone else realizes what's happening."
"I don't like that idea, but we'll stick with it for now." Virgo sighed as she leaned back against the corner. "Mostly because I need to rest. I'm not sure why, but I am very low on magic. If I don't recover some before we start fighting, I might not have enough to get us out of here. Keep an ear open and wake me if something happens. I just need a few minutes." As she let out a breath, she fell instantly into a healing sleep.
Rogue began to wonder at the teams that could be running around when he finally realized they had an odd number. If he was right, someone was running around alone. As he wondered who would be the worst to have been left alone, he continued to send his shadows out and slowly mapped out the facility.
As long as Natsu wasn't by himself, they would probably be fine.
Natsu peaked around the corner before sneaking down the next hallway, all the while mentally cursing Virgo. What had happened to split them all up? It wasn't that he was against working alone, but he would have liked to have known it was going to happen. He was flying blind, having no idea how the bunker was set up and his senses were doing nothing for him, again.
He tried to reach out to Lucy through their bond, but he imagined they'd drugged her again, so unless she felt something on her own, that was a dead end.
As he made it to the next intersection, he paused. He couldn't hear or smell anything, and he didn't see anything to give him any idea where he was or where he should go. He'd even welcome a person at this point. Then maybe he could force them to help him find his way.
The itch under his skin intensified until he was ready to set everytyhing around him on fire. Not knowing where Lucy was, but knowing she was in danger, was killing him. It was his job to take care of her, contract or not, and he'd failed. She'd been taken right from under his nose, and he'd been powerless to stop it. She could be dead right now, and it would be all his fault. If they didn't get her back, if Zalanoon succeeded, it would be his fault. How would he live with himself if that happened?
As he sank to the floor, unable to keep himself from wallowing in his self pity, he felt a tug. It wasn't from Lucy- didn't feel the same- but something in him wanted to follow it. Was maybe even what was doing the pulling. Natsu lifted his head from his hands.
There it was again. He wasn't sure if it had to do with his other personality, or perhaps the contract, or if it was just a gut feeling, but he was certain that he needed to take the hallway to the left to find Lucy. He got to his feet and continued to move, trying to relax and follow the instinct that drove his movements. At the next intersection, the pull continued, so he increased his speed and opened up his awareness.
He was going to find her, with or without the others.
Sting yanked Mao into the open door as footsteps echoed through the hallway ahead of them. He put his finger to his lips and hoped the other man understood. Mao nodded and remained still as the footsteps continued passed their room and down the way they'd come. When they finally faded, Sting sighed. "That was too close. We're finding too many people."
"That's because we're in the living quarters," Mao said. "We're two levels above Zalanoon's offices and three above the lab. I don't know what time of day it is, but judging by the foot traffic, I'd say it's around mealtime. They do the changing of the guards during meals as well, so that increases the amount of people moving around in the halls."
"Damn it," Sting said. "This is going to be more difficult with all these people. We need a distraction. Something that will keep a bunch of people busy, but won't alert them to our presence." He sighed as he looked over. "Got any ideas?"
Mao rubbed his chin as he thought. When he began to grin, Sting took a small, involuntary step back. Even though they were working together, he couldn't help but be a little worried about that look.
"You know, I think I have just the idea," Mao said.
Rogue frowned as he felt his shadows reach their limit. Damn it. He'd only been able to reach the top two floors. He hadn't found either of the presences he sought, and he knew there were many more floors that the last place because he hadn't found any of their allies either. If they wanted to be productive, they were going to have to move. At this rate, they would be much too far away to be of any use once the others needed them.
He leaned over and shook Virgo a little. When the angel opened her eyes, she looked through him for a long moment before she seemed to shake herself out of her sleepy state.
"We need to move," Rogue said. "We're in the top floor, and I can't find any of our friends, or our targets up here. If we're going to do anything to help, we need to make our way further into the compound. Can you move?"
"Of course." Virgo stood up, wobbling a little, but she caught herself and moved towards the door. She put her ear against it to listen.
"I didn't find anyone on the first floor," Rogue said, " and there's only half a dozen on the second, but they're in a room together, so they shouldn't be too difficult to avoid."
"Sounds good. Let's go."
As they left the room, an alarm began to sound.
Natsu continued to jog down the hallway he was in as the alarm screamed overhead. He glared up at the flashing lights as he ran, annoyed at the high pitch noise.
"If it was Rogue or Sting that messed up, I'm retracting my favor," he growled to himself. He lurched to a stop and then hid behind a rather large pillar as he heard footsteps. A group of four beings, none of them a race Natsu recognized, ran past him, speaking in hurried voices. Once he was sure they hadn't noticed him, he continued to move.
Three hallways later, he found himself outside of a locked wooden door. He glanced both ways down the hall before he raised a hand to unlock the door. When it didn't respond to his magic, he tried again, with a much more powerful spell. When that also failed to unlock the door, he growled to himself and put his hands together. A small ball of flame began to grow in the gap between his palms. He grew it bigger and bigger, until it was barely contained by his hands. When he unleashed it on the door, the handle and locking mechanisms shattered, sending bits of metal in all directions. Natsu felt the bite of hot shrapnel hit him in a few places, but he ignored them and pushed the door open.
The space he found himself was clean and stark white and exactly the same as the last lab he'd found Lucy in. When his eyes landed on the covered body on the table, he bolted forward to reveal it.
"I wouldn't if I were you."
Natsu flipped around and finally noticed the other presence in the room. A tall person, at least eight feet, with several tentacles wiggling under their lab coat stood quickly sorting through screens on a large monitor.
"Why shouldn't I?" Natsu asked.
"They're dead."
With dread coiling in his gut, Natsu looked behind him again and saw the golden hair barely poking out from under the blanket. With a roar, his change began, and he ran at the other person.
They whipped around at the noise and put up their hands. "Wait, Natsu, stop!"
Natsu didn't. Instead, he swung and sent the other person flying across the room. They landed with a thud as a cloud of dust was emitted by the cracked wall. With a groan, the person landed and then a pop later, a pair of small blue beings were revealed.
"We're friends," one of them said. "I'm Gemi."
"And I'm Mini," the other coughed.
"You're… friends?"
"Piri," they said together.
"We're Gemini, the twins," Gemi informed him. "Virgo said you knew we were helping with guarding Miss Lucy."
"Yes, but she didn't tell me what your powers were, or tell us you were coming with to the Dark." Natsu began to move towards them.
"We didn't tell her," Mini said. "We followed through, once the portal was opened, and moved ourselves on our own power to get here."
Natsu kneeled down. "Well that might not have been the best plan. I'm sorry I threw you. Are you guys okay?"
"Piri. We're angels," Gemi said.
"We can handle it," Mini finished.
"What were you guys doing?" Natsu asked as he helped them stand.
"We were trying to find where Miss Lucy is." The pair began to float and after a moment, there was a dim light and they morphed back into the tall tentacle person.
With a few wipes of their hands, they removed the dust and made their way back across the room. "The computer system is the best way to do that, so we borrowed this researcher's form to try and use it to find her."
"So that's not her under the blanket?"
"No, although it looks like her. We think they were supposed to be bait, since they were disguised as Miss Lucy. We were hoping- ah, there it is."
Natsu moved to read the screen, but he didn't understand the language. "What does it say?"
"It's a memo. Before they reclaimed Lucy, they upgraded this facility. Magic is much harder to use for those who shouldn't be here, and they masked their identities with a special spell, so we can't sniff Miss Lucy out. We were drawn here because of the Lucy decoy, but that's not really her. We have no way of tracking her down without Leo."
"Sure we do," Natsu said. "If we can just get Lucy awake, I can find her." Natsu perked up as he had an idea. "Since you're posing as this tentacle person, do you think you could figure out who's experimenting on her and maybe get them to wake her up? I just need Lucy to feel something, anything, and then I should be able to figure out where she is."
"We could try." Gemini turned around, but before they could do anything, the computers all went black as the power was turned off in their room.
"Damn it," Natsu said as he looked around. He didn't see anything different, but he continued to scan the space as he moved closer to Gemini. "I have a feeling this isn't typical protocol during an alarm. Can you see in the dark?"
"Not in this form, but we can if we turn back." There was a disturbance in the air, and then there were small hands on both of his shoulders.
"We'll stay close," one of them said.
"Good idea. I think we should leave. I didn't exactly enter the room quietly."
"Piri."
Taking that as consent, Natsu began to move forward, but as he stepped, the floor beneath him softened and began to pull him down.
A moment later, he was gone, and the twins were alone.
"It was Natsu, wasn't it?" Stier swung again, knocking out another guard. "I'll have that demon's head on a platter when we get out of here!"
"Don't jump to conclusions," Ova said as he knocked out yet another guard as well. He ducked a swing and then tricked two of the guards into hitting each other. With the last of them down, the pair continued to move. "We don't know that yet."
"It had to be. Who else would have gotten caught already?"
As they rounded a corner, they bounced off a familiar pair. Sting caught himself as he bounced off Stier before he could hit the wall. As Ova helped steady Mao, the smaller Leezar threw himself at the other and knocked them both over.
"I was so worried!" Mao cried.
"Shh, not so loud," Ova said as he hugged his mate to him. He smiled affectionately at him as he whispered, "You idiot, we're trying to be quiet."
"I think we're passed that," Sting said. "Any idea what set the alarms off?"
"No idea," Stier answered.
"Well that's too bad. We were just hatching a plan to create a distraction when they started going off." Sting held out his hand and sent a ball of light down the hall, knocking an incoming guard to the ground. "We should get a move on. I think our timeframe just took a massive cut."
"I'll lead," Ova said as he stood with his mate. Once he had Mao's hand firmly in his, they began to run together down the hall with the others in tow.
Rogue carefully let go of the last of the six guards he and Virgo had taken out as the alarms continued to sound. "Damn, I was hoping we'd have more time."
"Since we don't, there's only one way to get where we need to go." Virgo moved from her last target and put a hand on Rogue's shoulder.
"Hang on," she said.
"Wait," Rogue said as his eyes went wide. "Virgo, you don't have enough-!"
With a pop, they shot into the ground and reappeared a few seconds later.
Virgo wobbled and then fell over as Rogue caught her and then fell against the wall.
"Virgo, that was-" He cut off as he looked around himself. They were in a lab, one that looked like it hadn't been used in a while. Despite that, a few beakers were boiling on bunsen burners nearby, and after Rogue laid Virgo down, he moved forward to look at them. He leaned close enough to get a sniff and jerked back once he had. He knew what those were. If they had any ready… if they'd used one on any of their friends…
"Oh no," he whispered.
Sorry guys, but you should know by now that I love me my cliffhangers!
