Trust Me Not (Part 1)

June 20th, X782

Lucy wasn't sure just when she had become a humanoid squirrel, but she had to admit to herself that it was to be expected considering everything.

For the past year the blonde had been living for various periods of time in forests; sleeping on thick branches and scavenging nuts from trees. The transition to a half-squirrel hybrid was practically inevitable.

And now she was confined to a branch. Actually, she had been stuck in a tree-top for several days now. It was nerve wracking at first, but now it was just annoying.

The Celestial mage's self-imposed confinement to the tall tree she was living in started one night when a large group of people woke her up. She couldn't see much in the dark without exposing herself, but the screams were enough to keep her from moving.

Staying silent had a few upsides, and she even managed to gather some information in the last few days when criminals past under her during patrols; an organized group of criminals who were not mages took a group of children from the village located right outside the forest, holding them hostage and unharmed (for the moment at least) by order of "The Boss".

"The Boss" was apparently a mage, and a power-crazed one at that. He was after a magic gem he was certain the village people were hiding somewhere inside the village, and that they would give it to him if he took their young ones.

She had to admit that it was a great plan. None of the villagers were a mage, or a fighter of any shape or form, so there would be minimal resistance; and really, who would let anything happen to their child?

There was only one big flaw to the amazing plan: the villagers didn't have the gem.

Thanks to Grandpa Crux, Lucy found out that, about a decade ago, a group of bandits took the gem (which wasn't magical at all to begin with, just sort of valuable, but not even that as a matter of fact), which meant that if the mage behind the whole operation was only a little bit smarter and did his research, none of this would have happened.

She did consider trying to save the kids, but she didn't have enough solid information to form a solid plan. The one time she left her tree was when she thought of helping the kids, but once she saw where the kidnappers were hiding, she ran back to the safety of her tree – ashamed but undetected.

She already figured out, thanks to her eavesdropping, that the Boss wasn't only power-hungry, he was also blood-thirsty; making her wonder how much longer it would take before he snapped and went on a killing spree, and if she had enough nuts for the next few days before she had to risk getting out of her tree for more food.

The blonde was snapped out of her musings sometime around noon by the sound of approaching footsteps.

"…in the forest… tch! Useless idiots." The Celestial mage frowned at the male voice. It was a bit familiar, and she didn't like that.

"Can you blame them for not coming in after that psycho chopped one of them into confetti?" a second male voice said, followed by five high-pitched echoes crowing "Confetti! Confetti!"

The first voice, deep and thundering, kept with the second one, occasionally joined with the five echoes. As the voices grew closer, Lucy shifted slowly, trying to stay hidden yet find the sources of the voices with her eyes.

She nearly fell off her tree at the sight of the people walking her way.

It was the same group of mages from the Kinpamus incident! How could she forget the shocked expression on the giant blonde's face when she kicked him in the family jewels?

They weren't too far way, she realized with a start; they were too close actually. The Stellar mage squirmed, trying to re-balance herself when suddenly her foot slipped from under her.

"Eep!" the surprised squeal escaped her lips before she even noticed where her foot was.

The group of mages stopped and the blonde teenager held her breath, quickly pulling her leg back, crouching as close to the tree trunk as she could, and cursing her clumsiness in her head.

'Just keep going, don't notice me, please don't notice me' she repeated in her head.

But she wasn't that lucky – one moment she was crouching on a branch, hugging the tree trunk like it was her life line, and the next, every nerve ending in her body felt like it was singed, as a scream left her lungs and she found herself laying on the ground. Turning her head turned to the left, her vision filled with large, blurry boots.

She groaned, twisting and sitting up.

"What are you doing here?" It took Lucy longer than she liked to admit to realize the question was directed at her, then process the question and think of an answer for it.

She stopped rubbing the skin of her legs and looked up to see a blonde with a lightning shaped scar over his right eye.

"Hello to you too, Blondie. I've been doing just fine, how about you?" she grumbled. And went back to rubbing her sore limbs, trying to sooth the tingling feeling dancing across her skin; then she smirked and looked back down, seemingly focusing on her work again. "How are your balls?"

The scowl on his face deepened and he zapped her again, although with significantly less force this time.

"Ow!" she glared at him. "What's wrong with you?!"

"Absolutely nothing, now answer the question."

The little blonde groaned again, "we're back to that already?"

Not certain if she could stand on both her legs and walk, Lucy crawled back to the tree, then slowly pulled herself up to a standing position. Almost instantly she collapsed back to the ground with a surprised squeak, then huffed and glared at her feet as if they had betrayed her, but nevertheless she sat back against the tree and stretched her legs before her.

When she finally looked up, she was displeased to find four people looking back at her. She hated that feeling of being the focus of attention. Luckily for her, she was well versed in the art of changing subjects.

"What are those?" she pointed at the wooden tiki faces floating around the guy with the skirt and visor.

The guy grinned with his tongue slipping out of his mouth, "They're my babies!" this vague obscure announcement was followed by the five totems flying in circles above his head and chanting "Babies! Babies!"

Well, that explains nothing, Lucy thought. "Okay… so now that we cleared that up, how about we each go our own merry ways and pretend we never met in the first place? Sounds great, doesn't it?" the teenager suggested in a forced cheerful tone.

When none of the mages said anything, only stared at her with half pity and half amusement (except for the dude with the scar – he was just angry and smug and Lucy didn't particularly like him), the Celestial Spirit mage frowned.

It felt like a 4-on-1 staring contest, and Lucy didn't like her odds.

Throughout the contest, Lucy continued to rub her legs, slowly restoring the strength to her body. She knew that she was still unable to fight, but she realized that even with all of her magic power, she probably wouldn't be able to take down all four. Hell, she didn't even think she could push the blonde giant back a single inch, so fighting him was out of the question (although she definitely would if the need arose).

The green haired mage decided at last that the whole thing was beneath him, and with a roll of his eyes he spoke up. "What were you doing in that tree?"

The blonde girl smirked. "Crouching."

The older blonde held back a growl, "You know that's not what he meant."

Lucy crossed her arms across her chest, the image of haughty youth. "He asked what I was doing and I told him, don't be angry just because you didn't get what you want." She considered sticking out her tongue (much like the guy in the visor was doing), but she was at a disadvantage, and she wasn't interested in pushing the Lightning mage over the edge.

In that moment the brunette chose to intervene, hoping to prevent the situation from escalating. "Then why were you crouching? Sounds risky." She said calmly.

The blonde rolled her eyes at that, "no shit; I didn't ask to be blown off the tree, you know-" she suddenly paused, a horrible thought dawning on her. "You blew up all the food I had!" she accused the large blonde.

What an absolute ass! In her anger, she grabbed a small rock and chucked it at the other blonde, but he didn't even have to move to avoid it, which only helped to infuriate her further. What was she supposed to do now?!

The brunette gave her another pitying look, earning herself a glare, but that didn't deter her. "Do you have a name?" she asked softly.

"Yes…" the blonde on the ground sneered.

When it became obvious she wasn't going to say anything else, the brunette chose to continue. "My name is Evergreen, and those are Freed, Bickslow, and Laxus," she pointed at each of the men as she named them. "Is there anything you want us to call you?"

"Nope." Lucy replied, popping the 'p'.

Laxus scowled, interrupting before Evergreen had a chance to say any more, "We're wasting our time, she wouldn't help." They turned to leave then, Bickslow and evergreen somewhat hesitant to do so, but they turned away from her too.

Despite her own reluctance to have company, Lucy wanted to talk to someone, anyone. She mostly avoided people, trying not to attract attention to herself or get attached; she was always alone, always lonely, even when she was in some town or city, she tended to stick to street alleys, once even the sewers.

She refrained from making conversation with people as a rule, but these people were right there, standing in front of her, wanting to talk to her – already talking to her.

Or at least that was how she rationalized what she did next when she thought about it on occasion. "Wait!" she called out to them, "you're guild mages, right? You're here to help the villagers, aren't you?"

The four exchanged suspicious looks between them, "Are you a part of them? No, don't answer that, even if you are, you'll say 'no'." Laxus gave her a calculating look, reassessing her. "What do you know?"

The Celestial Spirit mage still didn't like the other blonde; instead of answering to him she turned to the other girl present.

"I'm not with the kidnappers, I was hiding in the tree. I have no idea how many of them there are, and only their Boss is a mage." She recited, but after a moment of thinking she decided to add: "they occasionally walk around the forest, kind of like patrols, but I don't think that there's a pattern."

The Lightning mage glanced at his green haired friend with a raised brow, but the Rune mage was deep in thought and didn't notice the muscular blonde's attempt at subtly getting his attention.

The four guild mages watched silently as the teen poked her calves and thighs before trying to stand up again, only this time she was successful.

She smiled cheerfully in their direction, flashing the group a row of teeth, "Are you coming or not?"

"Stop." Lucy frowned at what was undoubtedly an order from the towering blonde, not liking being bossed around, although she did stop, raising her brows at him in question.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Uh… to the head psycho's lair? It's not like I can give you directions, I'll just show you the way."

"No," Laxus stopped her from turning away again. "I don't trust you," he narrowed his eyes at her.

"And you'd be an idiot if you did." Lucy contemplated how to phrase her next words for about eight seconds before speaking again. "Look Blondie, I don't trust you either. You can't trust me, and this might be a trap, but either way, I'm your best option of finding those kids; so you can choose to search for them on your own, possibly meet one of them on your way and lose the element of surprise, but probably just get lost in the woods, or, you can follow me, and find what you're looking for, but taking into account that this could be a trap."

She took in their appearance. They probably wouldn't have a problem with the criminals, but leading them sounded like a win-win situation if anyone asked her.

Lucy felt a pang of jealousy as she looked at the four debating their next move without uttering a word. Jealous of their friendship, she looked away.

A minute later Laxus walked past her in the direction she started going to go to earlier. She didn't need him to tell her what they chose to do, instead opting to just smirk smugly and walking ahead, showing them the way.

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(O.O)

Word count: 2224

*looking around scared* Hi~! Look I posted the next one! I know it took a while, but I was swamped and this chapter got all tangled up in itself and I just wanted to finish it already, and I am... out of solid excuses 0_0

But that's not important; the important part is that I already finished the second part of this! it was going to be just one very long chapter, but I was like 'nah, I'll post it now, halfway through, so that the length will be sort of even. Plus, I'm so impatient I think I'll just post it as is and find some time to edit this later!' ^~^

Another important part: THIS FIC GOT 73 FOLLOWERS AFTER I ONLU POSTED THE FIRST CHAPTER. I mean, I'm happy, but why do people like it so much? It's not even that good! (I say that because I just read the first chapter myself a few minutes ago - it was horrible)

AND TO THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS AN! Today is MistressAva's birthday and I wanted to post this as a birthday present for her, especially now that she is officially my beta~ And she's going to fix all of my stupid mistakes ^^

Also, this story got 11 reviews last chapter, I really want at least 11 more before I post the next chapter - which I promise won't be posted in a month from now!

GOOD NIGHT!