Readers, I'm not quite done posting for the night. Hopefully you're excited, because I wrote so much.
Desna owns the Pradesh family, Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail.
Enjoy!
It was two weeks, and three Fairy Check-Ins (as she's come to call her chats with Laxus and/or Gramps) later when Gildarts finally asked to meet all her spirits. He'd seen several, but he couldn't help her with strategy if he didn't know them all - a sentiment she agreed with.
Though, she disagreed that she needed help with strategy, to which he only glared at her until she rolled her eye and caved.
That was the day she told him about Aquarius, and for the first time, Lucy accepted a hug from the overly-affectionate crash mage as he thanked her for saving everyone - especially Cana - when he hadn't been there to help. He'd also assured her that it was very much not her fault, and though she knew that, and she knew that Aquarius didn't blame her either, the guilt she felt refused to leave. She was certain she would live with it until her last day, and she was kind of okay with that. She felt like she deserved it, somehow.
She'd shed no tears, something that surprised her, but she was proud of the strength she was gaining. For the first time in years, she felt like mentally and emotionally, she was growing and moving past her pain.
They moved past that conversation quickly, as it was extremely depressing.
Lucy had decided to just pull out each spirit under her contract one at a time, whether Gildarts had met them or not, just to go through their strengths and their magic types with the crash wizard.
She started with the Spirit King - not calling him, obviously, because she could only do that once a year and she wasn't about to waste it - but she did tell Gildarts about him. Explaining that no, she had no idea what kind of magic he used, or his strengths, but that she was pretty sure calling him would mean the very end of her enemy.
Maybe the end of the world, because he was powerful as fuck, but she didn't feel like mentioning something like that only to have Gildarts squeeze a promise out of her to never call him. So she kind of… glossed over that bit. And by that, she means she didn't mention her concern at all.
After that she called Loke, who rolled his eyes and only said, "You should know my magic by now…" before disappearing of his own accord.
Taurus was next, and she ended up forcing his gate closed when Gildarts and Taurus's conversation strayed from 'magical capabilities' to the every popular topic of 'Breasts or Butt'. Specifically, Lucy's.
Lucy quickly decided that a demonstration with her newly achieved stardress would be enough of an explanation for that particular spirit's strengths.
Cancer came out next, and instead of speaking of his talents, he immediately cut Gildarts hair (much to the older mage's annoyance). Lucy refused to ask Cancer to change it back, because to be honest, his shorter hair made him look significantly less homeless.
And she told him so.
The result was a pile of whining mini-Lucy's climbing all over her mentor for over an hour, and a Gildarts who's hair was still rocking the much shorter hairstyle. Apparently, mini-Lucy's screeching in one's ear for over an hour made a little unwanted haircut seem… acceptable.
Once Lucy had reassembled (something she thought was a very odd sensation overall) and had gotten a few smug jabs in about his new look, she summoned Virgo, who immediately listed off her talents.
Lucy and Gildarts both thought that the encounter was going to be their first normal one, until Virgo pranced over to Gildarts with that same stoic (but hopeful) look in her eye and begged the man for punishment. She even said please. More than once.
A red-faced Lucy had quickly pinched the pink-haired maid's shoulder gently and sent her on her way. She heard loud, satisfied squealing from her mental bond with the spirit for over an hour after that, and had insisted on taking a break to deal with her headache.
They ate lunch, Gildarts easily cubing up the meat for a stew over the fire, and enjoyed the silence for a bit. Lucy was still dealing with Virgo's squealing, but Gildarts, at least, had thought it peaceful.
When Lucy had finally been able to block out her spirit's uncontainable excitement, they began again, this time Lucy calling out Libra.
The spirit was… interesting, to say the least, and Lucy found herself wondering how the soft-spoken, kind Yukino had ever managed a contract with the woman. She was quiet, rarely spoke, yes, but as the spirit of scales and judgement, she was very… Judgemental, for lack of a better word. Lucy liked her immensely, but she tended to teeter between judgy and mean - amusing as hell when it was directed at Gildarts - and overly traditional (kinda like Erza and her steadfast defense of Lucy's honor).
That particular spirit got right to the point, explaining her abilities in as few words as possible, before eyeing Gildarts like he was the scum on the bottom of her shoe. She didn't say anything, but her squinty-eyed stare spoke volumes, and she kept it up for a few minutes before finally disappearing of her own accord.
When Libra finally left, Lucy doubled over in laughter, pointing at her mentor and mumbling something about pervy old men. She did have a mental link to said spirit, after all, and the wordless stare she'd given Gildarts hadn't exactly been wordless to Lucy.
The celestial mage recovered after a few annoyed glares sent her way, and called out Saggitarius. He immediately saluted her, and nodded to her mentor, before calmly and efficiently explaining his abilities.
It would have been the most normal interaction of the day, if it weren't for the fact that Gildarts had never seen the spirit before, and was… extremely thrown off when Lucy called for a 'centaur' and proceeded to summon a 'man in a horse suit'. His face was priceless.
Aries was next, and she didn't explain her abilities at all. She just popped out, hid behind her shirt, and apologized as Lucy explained the spirit's strengths to her trainer. She smiled warmly and patted the spirit's shoulder as she sent her away. She found it pretty intriguing that, through the bond, Aries mental voice was much stronger, almost snarky. If she could get over her shyness, she'd likely be best friends with Ophicus.
Speaking of Ophicus, she was next. Lucy summoned her, but quickly had to send her back because both she and Gildarts got squished under her scales. She was massive, truly, and they just hadn't had enough room.
When Gildarts stood back up and helped Lucy to her feet, he asked about her abilities, to which Lucy didn't have an answer. She asked through the bond and her only response was something like 'I'm a huge snake, what do you think?'
Lucy repeated this to Gildarts, who nodded as if he'd received some actual information.
Rolling her eyes, the celestial mage called for Scorpio, who had been waiting all day for the chance to chat in person with Lucy. Upon arriving on Earthland, he gave his signature hand motion, shouted "we are!" (a phrase Lucy still didn't quite understand. We are what?) and then pulled the blonde into a crushing hug. She would have returned it, but her arms were pinned down painfully to her sides.
"Aquarius sends her love," he told her, to which Lucy likely would have sprung happy tears, if it weren't for her confusion. The scorpion spirit sensed her lack of understanding through the bond, and went on to explain, "She told me to drown you, but we both know what she really meant," he cheered happily, to which Lucy giggled.
She asked him to say hello for her, and dismissed him.
Gildarts pointed out shortly after, as the celestial mage was still standing there, staring at nothing with a smile on her face, that she'd never actually explained his abilities.
That knocked her out of her happy memory Aquarius time, and she proceeded to explain the scorpions affinity for sand before calling out Gemi and Mini.
Gildarts, for as powerful and terrifying as he could be, was a sucker for cuteness. He immediately got little stars in his eyes and hugged the two blue spirits close to him, until they suddenly transformed into the man himself.
That came as a surprise to Lucy, who explained incredulously that they could only copy those people who's magic power was at an equal or lesser level than her own. Gildarts was not surprised, and would have praised her for her strength were it not for the fact that the mischievous little spirits started spewing all his most pervy thoughts concerning the celestial mage out loud. In front of said mage. While he wasn't shy, he wasn't quite sure how far the little bastards would go, and so he quickly clamped a hand over the mouth of his copy and commanded that Lucy send them home.
Lucy blanched, because through the bond she heard what the little mischievous spirits pointed out to her, and she quickly sent them away. Deploying the same blocking efforts on the bond that she had with Virgo's earlier that day, until they both moved on to some other piece of gossip to go on and on about in her mind.
Capricorn came next, being of the last two Zodiacs she had to summon, and as the only spirit in her family that she was certain would behave normally. Thankfully, she was not wrong.
He spoke to Gildarts politely, informing him that his specialty was hand-to-hand combat and that he had always been Lucy's primary magical coach since she'd obtained his key. He bowed to the both of them, and then left on his own.
Lucy took a deep breath, thankful that at least one of her spirits didn't leave her mentally exhausted and half-insane.
"You ready for the last Zodiac, Gil?" Lucy inquired. She'd given up on using his full name last week, claiming it was too long and that she thought his name was stupid. He had wanted to be angry with her rude statement, but he had honestly always hated his name, so he left it alone.
"Yeah, go for it, kiddo," he said, almost tiredly.
"Open, Gate of the Paired Fish, Pices!"
Gildarts stood to the side, and was only mildly surprised when a massive two-headed fish thing that just materialized into thin air, accompanied by an excessively large shower of golden celestial sparkles.
A few minutes passed in relative silence, and Gildarts just cocked an eyebrow when Lucy suddenly shouted excitedly, "Alright, thank you so much for explaining! You can go on back now!"
Both sides of the spirit lowered their heads in a slight bow towards her, before disappearing into another large cloud of golden magic.
Gildarts just looked at her, confused.
She looked back, wondering what was so confusing.
"Lucy, if you had a conversation with that odd-looking massive fish-thing - which, by the way, how does that work? Do spirits have normal bodily functions, like, potty breaks? I'm confused - then you had it in your mind and I have no idea what you talked about."
The blonde slapped a hand over her scarred eye in a face-palm type gesture, "Oh, right. I must be getting senile - hey, is your age contagious?!" she asked him, falsely affronted.
The crash mage dropped his deadpan expression to glare at her, "Oh shut it, you insolent brat," he shot back.
Lucy giggled. She found Gildarts to actually be a really good teacher, and she enjoyed her time spent with him. He was fun.
Not that she'd ever admit that out loud.
"Why are you giggling?"
"You sound like Gramps," she giggled out, doing the pointing and laughing thing again, "See, you are old!"
Gildarts just rolled his eyes and waited for evaluation of Pisces the Weird Fish Creature Thing. Which she did shortly after, making sure to inform him that it was actually weak to water and shouldn't be used in a setting where it might get wet.
He found that odd, as they were fish, but throughout the course of the day he'd come to find that all her spirits were odd, and didn't comment on it.
Deciding a break was in order, they both sat down near their campfire to take a breather.
They'd been sitting like that in comfortable silence for nearly half an hour when Lucy's slightly anxious voice spoke up.
"So, we should get out of this forest before we do anything else…" Lucy said, suddenly thinking through the day they'd had so far. "Uhm ... yeah, it's not like any of my spirits do a great job hiding their energy, and we just spent a whole day summoning them all to one place. We… should go. Now."
"Shit. Didn't think 'a that," Gildarts commented dryly, making no move to leave.
Lucy heaved herself to her feet, laughing, and grabbed Gildarts' hand to heave him to his feet as well, "You never do, Gil. What else is new?" she teased.
"Hey, I have my moments!," he defended, "Actually, I'm having one right now," he added.
"We should probably leave the country before the end of tomorrow, before news of your 'crimes' gets far enough that border crossing becomes a massive pain in my ass. Laxus said yesterday that the Rune Knights were driving themselves nuts chasing their tails, and were considering warning other countries"
Lucy agreed with this, chuckling a little at the image of a surly Captain Lahar travelling all over Fiore trying to track down the spirits that were nowhere near her.
Virgo helped them pack up their stuff, and they started making their way out of Fiore, heading straight to the border with Seven.
"Hey Gil?"
"Yeah, what's up?" he asked, yawning.
"When do you want to meet my silver key spirits?"
"Fuck, you mean there's more?!"