Dear Readers,
I know. This is crazy.
I'm... not sure what you're gonna think. I'm actually really nervous about posting this chapter. PLEASE drop a review, I need to know what you think.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail (Hiro Mashima does), I do not own the Pradesh Family (Desna does), and the greatest beta in the world is mine (GoddessxNyte2).
Enjoy!
"...the Konzern? Are you serious?"
She sent Loke off to the Pradesh estate through her bond as soon as she recognized the fancy wallpaper and stifling atmosphere.
Alec, propping himself up against his sword lodged in the marble flooring, chuckled before replying, "Yes, very serious. How amusing, if you'd just thought to check at home you'd have found us. Maybe you'd have stopped me soon enough to save that poor, sad little village in Stella."
Both mages behind Alec flinched when Lucy's magic increased, eyes flashing gold as she transformed into Cancer's stardress. It seemed the runes didn't stop her from using magic inside them. And Loke had no problem summoning himself. She had to anticipate there were restrictions on what she could supply her spirits with.
Gripping the blades, just itching to give the pompous asshole in front of her the same treatment she'd given King Karadin of Peregrande, she sneered at him. How fucking dare he even reference the innocents he'd slaughtered... She couldn't stop herself from imagining violence against him, couldn't help but think Alec's head would look much better separated from his body.
"Who the fuck are you, really, and what do you want from me?" Lucy demanded answers, pushing the point of her right-hand blade right into the glowing wall of runes. It didn't give under the pressure, but it gave her a small amount of satisfaction anyway when Alec took a tiny step backwards. And Bruno and Terra took large ones.
"Amazing, really, that you claim to know so much about spirits, yet you can't even recognize them?"
Loke's voice sounded, frantically, in her mind, 'I can't… I don't believe it. Princess… I'm so sorry. We… we did know them, I just didn't recognize them.'
Said spirit summoned himself to her side, just outside the runes that were blocking her from doing anything. He shot an apologetic look toward Lucy for ignoring her orders to stay away before speaking to Alec directly, "Alnilam…Why? Why are you doing this…?"
The celestial mage observed them, trying to figure out what it was she was missing. She lowered her sword to her side, but didn't drop the stardress.
"Leo, this concerns you only as far as us needing your power. Otherwise, stay out of it," Alec spat out at him.
The lion spirit took a step forward, clenching his fists, "It concerns me, Alni, because we were friends once! Why are you doing this? You massacred a human village, for stars' sake!"
Alec ignored the rage on turned his way by the leader of the Zodiac, and turned his back, speaking in a quiet, menacing tone, "You of all people should understand our position. You're a fellow Fallen, after all."
The red-headed mage (spirit? - Lucy didn't recognize the name Loke used as a constellation, but that's what he claimed to be) walked back toward his 'comrades', and seeing him approach, they both shrank back in obvious discomfort.
Loke looked at them both, pleadingly speaking to them, "Betel...Tabit... Why?"
They wouldn't look at the Zodiac spirit, and didn't answer, but Alec, he seemed done with Loke's pleading. In the next instant he'd pushed the Lion Spirit into the wall, his forearm against his throat as he spoke evenly, "I don't know how the fuck you keep popping out of your own gate without a motion from her, and without her power, but I really don't fucking like it, cat."
Loke's eyes glowed, his rage almost tangible in the air in response to Alec's show of violence. This man, once his friend, now unrecognizable - literally - had tortured the woman who had nearly died to save him all those years ago. Right in front of his eyes. So evil, so changed, that even staring him in the face, he hadn't noticed who he was dealing with. He had slaughtered the innocent people of an entire fucking village without a second thought, and had trashed the guild that had once been his refuge, injuring people who had been his only friends in the process. Loke decided he was well and truly over it, and being the leader of the Zodiacs didn't mean nothing. He refused to stand for it any longer. Lucy was stronger than ever, and so was Loke now, even on Earthland. It was time he showed it.
Activating Regulus, he punched Alec in the chest, hard. The other mage fell back harshly and he tumbled down, still weakened from however he'd managed to pull Lucy from the Pradesh estate hours earlier. Loke, taking slow steps toward the heap of mage on the ground, stood over Alec menacingly, features arranged into intense disappointment, "There is quite a lot about me you never bothered to learn, Alni. And it's about time you learned your fucking place."
Alec got to his feet, his own glare meeting Loke's unflinchingly, "You and Orion, always just the same. Tell me, do you treat Regulus with as much disdain and disregard as Orion did us?" he asked, gesturing to the two others behind him.
The Lion shook his head, "It was never like that, Alnilam, and you'd know that if you paid any bit of attention to anyone outside of yourself-"
"If your loyal Regulus fought for years, pleading for the King to grant him a key, for the adventure that came with it… all that, only to land in the clutches of a terrible, abusive keyholder when that wish was finally granted... Tell me, oh wise leader, would you stand by your king, as Orion did when our comrade fell, meeting his death in the harsh embrace of Earthland's poison? Would you have stood by and watched? Would you?!"
Loke didn't get a chance to answer, as Lucy finally started putting the pieces together, eyes widening in realization, "You're… you're Stars… Literally… Fallen Stars…. How are you alive, why do you seem so… human?"
Stars, they were keys too. Not always, the rules of celestial magic, and relationships between celestial beings were rather complex, but not every key had to be a constellation. In fact, several of her own spirits weren't constellations at all, like Polaris, or Deneb. She had no idea why she'd taken so long to figure it out. Regulus, she knew, was one of Loke's stars. He'd told her once, a constellation's stars were like kin, part of that being's soul, but their own beings themselves. Regulus, Loke often told her, felt like a son to him. And if they were talking about Orion...
Alec stood up and glared at the girl he had locked in celestial runes, drawing her from her thoughts to answer her questions, "Your fucking mother did this to us, you stupid girl," he spoke quietly, "Your mother and that bastard you now call a father. The stars-forsaken KING."
Lucy fought to get her magic under control, because as much as she wanted - no, needed - to crush the man in front of her into little tiny pieces - and no, not the ones that would reform afterwards - she needed to understand. And she was finally starting to, if only just a bit.
"Alnilam. The center star of Orion… Betelgeuse… Tabit… You're... Orion's Fallen?"
Alec, well… Alni, he gave her a slow clap, while at the same time giving her a scathing glare, "Congratulations, girl. It appears you have the smallest amount of brain power, after all. Funny, I was convinced you had none at all."
Lucy didn't rise to the bait. She had more than enough material to be enraged at the spirit-human in front of her for the entirety of her life, a stupid jab at her wouldn't throw her off balance.
"I know your story. Well, parts of it, it seems. But you should be dead? And what does my mother have to do with this?" Lucy asked, trying to make sense of what led them to this moment.
And she wasn't lying about knowing the story. She'd learned of the Orion's Fallen from Loke, years ago, from one of their many conversations around the circumstances of his once-exile.
Saiph, Orion's Sword, had craved adventure. So much so that he couldn't satisfy his hunger for it within the confines of the Celestial Realm, and nearly three decades ago the spirit managed to convince the Spirit King to form him a Key. Orion had fought against this, fearing Saiph's recklessness, and was proven right when three years into his stint on earthland, Saiph murdered his keyholder. Loke hadn't gone into details of why. She knew three more of Orion's Stars had Fallen after that, something about trying to get revenge, but they should have been dead by now, and the exact circumstances of their Fall had been… vague. She truly didn't know what happened, and Loke's sadness at remembering comrades long lost had prevented her from digging further.
Now, though, the full story was going to be heard. She needed to know.
"I have no duty to explain myself to you," Alec spat at her.
Lucy flexed her magic, pushing at the cracks in the rune's she'd noticed earlier with sheer magic power, and they shattered around her. The runes were not nearly as powerful as Freed's, and she'd been practicing to overpower those for months. She made a mental note to thank him later.
"You're wrong, Alnilam. You, you will die today. I am the Starbringer, and your crimes against the humans on Earthland, in the country of Stella, those are mine to judge. Not even the Scales could prevent your death today."
As if to punctuate that statement, Libra appeared at her side, her masked face unreadable. The spirit placed a hand on Lucy's shoulder, a quick nod, and said softly, "The Scales have no objection to your sentence, Starbringer."
Lucy nodded once, and Libra stepped back.
"So," Lucy continued, "If you want any semblance of my mercy," she continued, taking a menacing step forward in the ballroom she'd once despised - noting a small amount of satisfaction at Bruno and Terra's (or Betel and Tabit's) attempts to flee being halted as Capricorn and Ophiuchus summoned themselves to block their escape, "I suggest you explain yourself. You may find some small amount of reprieve from the pain I plan to inflict."
Instead of giving in, Alec jumped into attack mode, launching himself at her. He had no idea who he was messing with, though. The person he'd tortured a year and a half ago was long gone, in her place someone who had trained, fought hard, seen meaningless death, and come out the other side a leader. A protector. An avenger.
She dodged his sword strike, and still in Cancer's stardress, slashed at his back as he stumbled past her. Lucy wouldn't admit to anyone, except maybe Zen, that in that moment the sight of his blood hitting the floor gave her a sick sense of glee. The monument she made in Stella flashed into her mind, and she steeled her resolve. Through her bonds, she ordered her spirits stay out of the fight, as Alec recovered.
"You stupid bitch," Alec spat at her, righting himself. He quickly stabbed his sword into the ground and held both hands in front of him, summoning magic power and blasting it toward her. She dropped her stardress and summoned Ophiuchus', crossing her arms over her chest to block the heated red magic thrown her way, absorbing the magic with the heavy, purple scaled armor. She was pushed back a few inches, but when she dropped her arms, was unharmed.
"You'll have to try harder than that, Alec. I'm much different than you remember."
Lucy rolled popping up next to him and going for a Lucy Kick. He dodged at the last second and caught her armor, melting the section of that covered the spot that same man had once impaled her. He caught sight of her guildmark and smirked, "Something to remember me by, huh?"
With barely a thought, she slipped into Leo's stardress, catching him in the face with a Regulus punch.
He went down as Lucy glared at him. She wanted him to get up. She needed him to, she wasn't nearly finished. So she waited. Her spirits, as well as Bruno and Terra, stood to the side.
Finally, he managed to stand, and launched another attack, this time with his sword. He scratched at her forearm, just barely, before she flipped away. She took two steps forward, summoning her Scorpio stardress as she went, and threw sand his direction from every which way. As soon as he was near enough, she kicked out at his back and he went stumbling forward, stopping himself from falling by digging his sword into the ground in front of him.
He turned quickly, lashing out at her with that same sword once he'd regained his balance, forcing her to fall backward to avoid another painful slice to her face. She very much still remembered that first one, she didn't want to do that again. Almost unconsciously, she rubbed at the scar on her face as she transformed once more into her Sagittarius form, and from a safer distance launched several arrows made of light at his person.
At this point, it was fairly obvious she was playing him, and her spirits watching at her side took notice. He'd been weakened when they started, but Lucy hadn't let up at all. This wasn't what they'd expect from their keyholder.
When Alec had received several painful wounds from the arrows she'd launched, she transformed one last time, into her Libra stardress. She manipulated the gravity around the spirit-man and watched as he fell heavily to the ground, groaning in obvious pain.
When he didn't move, instead still panting on the ground, she summoned Caelum to her side, and had him transform into a long sword. Similar to what Alec himself wielded.
'You're ready, Caelum?'
The chisel spirit never answered in anything like real words, but she felt his acceptance, and she channeled Regulus through him. They'd been working on this for a while, and merging their powers had proved difficult. Now though, they were on the same page, all feeling the same rage, and the power flowed smoothly, if Loke's came a bit hesitantly.
Lucy approached the Fallen mage, and stepping on his chest to keep him down. So similarly to the way he'd held her down all those months ago.
She held Caelum over him, in roughly the same spot that her own scar rested on her torso, and slowly lowered the sword…
His screams fell on deaf ears. For far longer than necessary.
The protests of her own spirits did as well.
It took panicked tugging on her arm for her to even notice them, "PRINCESS!"
Loke's strangled cry broke her overwhelming, all-consuming rage and she stopped. Stepping back, almost unsure of how she'd gotten there Lucy looked around her. Hastily, she sent Caelum back, and dropped her stardress completely.
Her hands shook as she regarded them, almost as if she wasn't sure what had made them so violent. Almost as if they had been the directing force behind her sadistic actions, and not her own mind…
"...shit… what… I-I'd… I'd never do this…" She looked to Loke for answers. He had been desperately pulling on her arm, trying to stop her from doing what he knew she couldn't live with. Not even to someone as vile as what Alnilam had become.
"...it's us, Lucy. We… your spirits, we're affecting you too much. This situation… we are all too enraged over it, and our influence is making you do things you normally wouldn't. You need to stop. We will get answers, we will get justice, and we will leave with the others. They've got to be on their way by now, but you need to pull back from your bonds. You need to do it now."
Nodding, still shaking, she did as she was told, reducing the magic to her bonds. Her head felt clearer, but she was shaken.
She took a deep breath and pulled herself back into the present. There wasn't anything she could do to go back in time and stop herself from doing what she'd done, so she wouldn't dwell on it. This lesson she'd already learned, time and again, and she wouldn't allow herself to fall back into old habits. Not again.
Steeling herself, she spoke to Loke - aloud, still not wanting to test her bonds, "Stay with him. He… he still has to face judgement, but I need answers first. Don't let him move."
He nodded, "Of course."
Lucy walked toward Betel - the man she knew as Bruno, who was being held by Ophiuchus. He was squirming, and he looked terrified, but she needed answers. She did what she could to ignore how his fear made her terrified of herself.
"Tell me. Tell me everything."
The man couldn't find any resolve in himself to disobey her. And so tell her, he did.
"Saiph… W-When Saiph died, Alni, Tabit, and I… we revolted. Against the Spirit King. It wasn't fair, he shouldn't have had to die for the sake of some lowly human..."
When he saw the angry light in her eyes, he amended, "We didn't think he should have to die for the things he did. That law… it was unnecessarily unfair to spirits. The whole magic was. That's why we'd never asked for keys of our own."
Lucy nodded, indicating he should continue.
"We… we lost. We were reckless. We didn't even try and get allies, we just… attacked him. It was stupid, but we were grieving."
Lucy narrowed her eyes, chancing activating her bond with the Spirit King, 'I don't know where this story is headed, old man, but I'm pretty sure at the end of all this I'm going to have to fucking talk to you. I have to fix this mess that I'm half-certain you made right now, but I need you to prepare for a long conversation. Clear your schedule, I'm coming up there.'
'...if you insist, daughter.'
"What happened next, Betel?"
"He locked us within gates, linked those gates with keys we never wanted, and sentenced us to service with Layla Heartfilia, your mother, until the end of her life, or until she saw fit to release us. The King… he really doesn't like being questioned about his rule…"
Lucy waved at Capricorn, indicating he pull Tabit over to them as she sat down. She had a feeling this was going to be a long story.
"Is this true?" she questioned once the woman was close enough.
Terra, or Tabit, whoever the fuck, she nodded.
"Tell me, how did we get from this sentence to where you are now? Someone fill me in, because I fail to see how you being sent to Earthland equals you being turned human somehow, or how it lead to an attack on Fairy Tail, and myself, nor how at the end of it all, a Stellan village had to pay the fucking price," her anger wasn't even thinly veiled, and she fought to calm down, checking on her bonds to ensure they weren't affecting her again.
It was Terra who continued, she seemed the less terrified of the two, "Alni… he convinced us that the best way to get back was to… shorten Layla's life. So… we pulled on her life-force. We refused to answer her call, but we were still connected to her. So, Alni figured if we slowly ate away at her, when she was weakened, we could stop. And she'd die, but it wouldn't have been our fault, not really, when she fell to a sickness in her weakened condition. But we never anticipated she'd use the life-force she had remaining to open the eclipse gate. When she did, she… she died, and we'd not prepared for it. The life force we pulled on became a part of us when she passed away, and not only that, but we'd been the direct, if still a secondary, cause of her death. We received the same sentence that Saiph had suffered."
The celestial mage sat back, trying to sort through her emotions, but… entirely unsure of where to start. She knew of the eclipse gate, it had caused them so much trouble with the dragons, it's not like she could forget. Though, she'd never really considered that her mother's death was anything but natural, and the realization that it wasn't, and that she still didn't fully understand why, was one she very much didn't enjoy.
"...Why did she activate the eclipse gate?"
Terra looked away, "I'm not sure, but the Zodiacs should know… They were all there, apart from Aquarius, as far as I understand."
Lucy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew they kept things from her. Stache Face practically demanded that of them, but about her mother?
Gritting her teeth, Lucy pushed it aside for another day. That had nothing to do with why an entire Stellan village lay dead, so she needed to focus.
"So if you were sentenced to death via exile to earthland, why are you here? And why are you human?"
Bruno tentatively spoke when it became obvious Terra wasn't going to, "The answer to both is because of your mother," he began, "the life-force we stole, that kind of energy is never meant to be used by a spirit, and when she died and we took it in, it.. Changed us. We were still locked in our gates, in our keys, without enough power to summon ourselves, but we were more human than spirit."
Lucy was curious, "How are you here now if you were locked in your keys?"
It was Capricorn, this time, who chimed in, "Miss Lucy, that I believe I can explain. When you had the law changed for the sake of our Leo, the spirit king tied every spirit you saved that day to the service of your bloodline. Every spirit in your care has gotten more powerful than ever under your contract, our power on Earthland is based on your own. Even if we aren't pulling it from you actively, this is how the magic is set up. Eventually, they became strong enough to open their own gates, or so I would assume."
Bruno nodded, "Yeah. But… we aren't spirits, anymore, not really. So we couldn't go back to our gates to replenish our energy. But we aren't fully human either, so Earthland will be toxic to us long before the last of Layla's energy runs its course. And until our punishment for treason is carried out - that punishment seems to have shifted from the length of Layla's life, to the length of your own - we can't return. We… we were fine with that. Terra and I were, we changed our names and were content to live until you died. Alec did so, too, but… he's always been so much angrier than us. And when we heard the news of your status as Princess of the Heavens, and learned of your impending spirit-hood… That meant our punishment went from the length of your human life, to... Forever. We'd never survive."
Lucy's eyes betrayed the smallest amount of understanding.
"There is nothing an immortal fears more than death, Starbringer," Terra spoke softly, almost pleadingly, "Alec… Alnilam, he used that fear to convince us to take action. That is when we attacked your guild."
Lucy frowned, "So what was the point? What was the goal?"
Bruno answered, "You could release us from our bloodline fealty, which would end our punishment. That is what Layla could have done to end our sentence when it was first placed on us. We wanted to force you to do so, after having a hand in your mother's death, we knew you'd never do so willingly. And if you forced our gates upon for us, something only you and the zodiacs could do, the celestial world would have cleansed the tainted energy we stole from your mother from our bodies, returning us to as we once were. Human energy doesn't last long in our world."
The celestial mage sighed, "I… I think you underestimated me. I would never have forced your fealty to me, when you didn't volunteer for it. It would have been a fight with Stache Face to send you home, and I'm not sure I would have, but I would have released you from your fealty if you'd just asked. Now, now you've committed unforgivable acts and I can't save you from them. What did that village in Stella have to do with any of it? Why did they have to die?"
Terra answered, and she looked genuinely ashamed, "That… that was Alni… We refused to be involved in that... But, he used it to draw you out. He needed a lock on your magical signature in order to use his energy to create a gate to you, to bring you here. We…" she looked pleadingly up at Lucy, "we tried to convince him there was another way, fuck, there were so many other ways… He's just… he's so far gone, now…"
Lucy sighed, fighting the urge to just murder the lot of them for what happened for literally no fucking reason, but spoke quietly, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you. Maybe years ago, I could have. Not now. This isn't forgivable."
Alni shouted from across the ballroom, voice bitter, "That's a filthy lie, you can help us if you wanted. You just refuse. You're just like that sadistic spirit that calls himself Sovereign."
Lucy stood, glaring at him, "I don't lie, Alnilam. There is nothing more I can do, nothing more I will do. You will face judgement, you have to."
He scoffed, spitting his words back at her in protest, "You want to prove how righteous you are? How good you are? Open the Benevolent Gate! Cleanse our sins, Starbringer. Send us home."
Lucy stopped mid-step, looking at him, "...you don't know what you're asking of me."
Oh, she had learned of the true nature of the 'Benevolent' Gate… It was one of the few answers she'd actually found since she and White Sea had begun their search. And she knew for a fact… Alnilam didn't understand.
"I knew you wouldn't do it. You'll claim our lives with glee, without a second thought, and walk away like you're some sort of hero."
Lucy glared at him, "You? Of course I would. The two spirits you dragged into your own schemes, the ones you used fear to control? No. I take no joy in their fate. Regardless, my point stands. You don't know what you're asking of me, the Benevolent Gate-"
"Fuck you. Just kill us. If you refuse to save us from this like you claim you want to, then just end us now."
Lucy sighed, and made her decision, "No. I'll do as you ask. Maybe you're right... Maybe it will save your friends. But you, you will regret the suggestion, of that I am sure."
She silently summoned the rest of the Zodiacs, straining her magic extremely to do so, as she directed them to bring the three spirits to kneel in the center of the ballroom.
Just as they were pushed to their knees, the front door to the Konzern was burst open, Zen the first inside. She gave him an apologetic look, before initiating the incantation, all of her spirits taking a stance a circle around her.
Zen saw the look for what it was. An apology. Maybe even… a goodbye…? No, that wasn't right. She couldn't. No.
No...
But he couldn't move fast enough. Before he broke through the line of spirits, the entire room filled with a light so bright nothing could be seen, and a magic so intense that movement for any of the mages, became impossible.
Zen's shout rang out, but went unanswered, "LUCY!"