Author's Note:
Hello all! It's Wednesday! And you know what that means. ;D
As always huge wonderful toasty warm thanks to all my fantastic reviewers out there! Big hugs and kisses to my repeat reviewers: WisdomDragon27, TheJSmooth, ravenqueen162, Lucinda, thetrywriter, Firefly9917, Syfenos U, SunnieDayys, RabbitMelody, valerioux, The Age of Awesomeness, and Leomae2.0. Equally big hugs and kisses to my newest reviewer: aliciacevbra.
And now on with the show! Stay tuned till the end for a sneak peek of next chapter. ;D
The next day they proceeded as planned, with the two girls flying high above while Natsu ran full tilt down on the ground. They had managed to procure directions to the capitol from the person who checked them out of their room, and thankfully it was relatively close by and easy to get to. So by evening, they had made it all the way to the much larger and greatly populated capitol city.
At that point, they found a cheap inn where the two cats could lay low, while Natsu, Wendy, and Lucy headed out to try and find out more about the situation and what they could do about it. It didn't take long to gather that the lacrima was in the courtyard of the palace, since everyone was talking about it – at the top of their lungs – so to the palace they went. The closer they got though, the more agitated people seemed to become and the mood on the streets began to shift from happy to perturbed. By the time they reached the empty cobblestoned space that was supposed to hold a giant crystal, the crowds were downright close to rioting, making a huge fuss and yelling and shoving each other for a better spot.
Given the scorch mark in the center of the courtyard and the guards that were running around like they didn't know what was going on, something big had taken place not too long ago.
"What the heck happened?"
"I dunno, but if the lacrima isn't here, then where is it?"
"I don't like this…" Wendy's concerned comment was cut off when the crowd went silent, and they all turned to see what had grabbed everyone's attention so thoroughly.
The sight of the king himself up on a balcony was obviously the source of everyone's distraction, and it successfully grabbed their attention as well.
"My beloved citizens! Please calm yourselves! Never fear. At this very moment, my men are investigating the destruction and disappearance of the lacrima crystal on display in this courtyard. However! It is only a small piece of the crystal that I have created! So do not be afraid, we still have magic in abundance!"
There was a great cheer from the crowd and everyone's spirits visibly lifted… while the three Earthlanders felt a sinking mixture of negative emotions instead. None of them knew what exactly happened to the lacrima. If it was destroyed, did that mean that some of their guildmates had been destroyed as well? Although, the king also said that it had disappeared, which suggested that this incident might have been the doing of their comrades – if they were able to find a way here. Lucy still wasn't sure if the others had even been able to join them in Edolas, or if they'd been left behind.
For the time being though, there wasn't any use in worrying about the fate of one shard, not if there was a much larger crystal that they now needed to find. All they could do was hope that this small crystal had been taken by their friends and that it was now safe. They waited until the king's speech was over – just in case he mentioned where they could find the other crystal. Of course he didn't.
So that left them almost back at square one. Which meant they reconvened at the hotel room and tried to make a new plan, such as it was. Really, at this point none of them were sure what to do. Here they were, stuck in a completely different world – a situation which was starting to really sink in hard by now – unable to use magic, separated from the rest of their group, who may or may not have made it, and had just lost their lead. Even the ever-positive Natsu was somewhat stumped. It had taken them most of the day just to get to the capitol, and after expending so much effort just to discover that they had lost the crystal (or at least a shard of it) was pretty depressing.
Now they had to find some ginormous lacrima instead – if the king was even to be believed that there was one. For all they knew, he was lying and had just made it up to pacify the crowd. But it was all they had to go off, so they didn't really have a choice.
"So now what?" Wendy asked, looking depressed.
"Now…we go and find the rest of the crystal. The others got that one, so it's up to us to get the big one." Natsu answered after a long pause, a hint of his normal grin starting to rev back up on his face.
"What makes you so sure the others got that crystal? And by 'get' what do we even think they did?! I mean, it can't be a good thing to blow it up!"
He just shrugged. "I smelled them. And if blowing up the crystal is what they did, then it's gotta be the way to set our guildmates free. Besides, we don't even know if they did blow it up, just that it was 'broken' or something and then disappeared."
For once, Natsu was playing the part of being level-headed while Lucy was left flapping her gums, irritated and itchy at her boyfriend for withholding some important information. Letting it go…for now…she decided to focus on the matter at hand instead of why he didn't tell her right off the bat that he knew for sure their friends had been there.
"Okay. So if we know for sure that Gajeel, Laxus, and Mystogen were involved with whatever happened, let's not worry about that crystal for now. Instead, we've gotta focus on at least finding the other, and then we'll worry about what to do with it. Do you think you could track the others?"
Natsu shook his head. "No way in hell. I caught a whiff of their scents, but with all the other people around – not to mention the food, fireworks, booze, vomit-"
Lucy cringed and cut him off. "Ew. Okay, I get the idea, you can stop now."
Wendy's head was swinging back and forth, watching them like a game of tennis. Meanwhile, the two cats were more interested in fish (Happy) and avoiding the fish being lovingly forced on them (Carla).
"So, we've gotta find the thing. Any ideas how?"
"Not a clue. Can't you just sniff it out with that great nose of yours?"
"Do I need to go through the list of smells goin' on right now again Luce?"
She let out a long-suffering sigh. "Yeah, yeah, that's what I figured. Darn it all…there's got to be some way to hunt it down without having to infiltrate…"
At the word, 'infiltrate,' Natsu's eyes took on a dangerous gleam. "What've you got in mind?"
With a wince, Lucy considered her options before speaking without thinking. Knowing Natsu, if she was careless in the way she worded it, he'd be out of the hotel room and knocking down the palace doors before she could snag his scaly scarf and leash him. At this rate though, that was exactly what they were going to have to do – minus the part where they made a huge mess and attracted all the palace guards' attention. Obviously the only people who would know anything were on the inside of the palace…. the guards probably didn't even know where the lacrima was. So that meant they were going to have to sneak in and either capture someone for questioning, or overhear some conversations, or steal some important documents.
All of this involved sneaking around – which wasn't exactly Natsu's forte, despite having done it on multiple missions. Although they had successfully kept their cover a handful of times, at least 90 percent of the time Natsu lost his patience and ended up just barging in and making a scene. That was bad enough while he was still an all-powerful dragon and she had access to all of her spirits, but in this circumstance it would basically be suicidal.
So, the first thing she said was, "Alright. Here's the deal. You're going to have to curb your natural enthusiasm and actually exercise some patience, or you will get us killed. Not in the metaphorical sense, but actually dead or captured – which we do NOT want. Understand?"
She emphasized how serious she was by pointing a finger right in his face, and he nearly went cross-eyed trying to eyeball the tip almost touching his nose.
"Right. Got it."
Given the mostly serious look on his face, she figured it was safe to say the rest of what she needed to. "Okay. Good. So…as far as I can tell, the only place we're going to find the information we need is inside the palace. Obviously nobody out here knows where it is, only the king and whoever else is in on this thing is going to know anything about it. We could risk trying to capture one of the guards, but somehow I doubt any of them know anything."
"So we're going to have to sneak into the castle?" Wendy asked, sounding very worried… and rightly so. It was not a quest to be taken lightly in their current magicless predicament.
Lucy grimaced at her. "I can't see any other way."
"But how are we even going to sneak in?" the blue-haired girl continued, looking more and more frightened and averse to this plan by the second. "It's a stone castle! And it's huge! We can't just go through the front door, and I didn't see any sort of entrance other than the one in the courtyard."
"Well…we didn't go around the whole circumference. I'm sure there has to be some sort of servant's entrance…maybe we could dress up like servants or something…"
Natsu snorted, obviously not impressed with that plan. She sent him a sharp look. "We are not busting in through the front door this time Natsu. We have no magic, and if we get caught we couldn't fight them off. It would be game over."
He scowled, but didn't argue, which was a good sign. Maybe he did grasp the seriousness of the situation after all. That might be a little optimistic of her…but one could always hope right?
Turning back to Wendy – who, for one, definitely understood just how much risk this was entailing – Lucy continued planning with her. Or would have, if Carla hadn't decided to interject.
"Actually…there's…a secret passage."
Everyone turned to look at the white cat and stared with surprise and a good deal of questions.
"What?" Natsu asked first, cocking his head the way he did when something just didn't compute in that pink fuzzy head of his.
"I said, there's a secret passage. Under the castle."
"Okay…and how do you know this?" Lucy was the next questioner and voiced the main one they all had currently.
It also seemed to make Carla very uncomfortable, and she fidgeted for a long moment before mumbling, "I don't suppose you would just take me at my word and not ask me how I know…would you?"
Wordlessly they all shook their heads, except for Happy of course. But even he looked a little doubtful.
After a great deal more fidgeting, where she untied and retied the pink ribbon on her tail approximately five times, she finally sighed and gave in. "It's…well you see…I…"
"Just spit it out already would ya?!" Natsu finally lost his patience of course.
She jumped, and her tail puffed up like a fluffy marshmallow. "Alright! Fine! I can sort of…well, see things. Sometimes."
"Carla? What do you mean exactly by 'see things'?" Wendy asked gently.
"Different things. Things other people can't see…like…the future sometimes. Or possible futures. They don't always come true, and they're just glimpses, sometimes scattered and disjointed. They don't always make sense."
"Wow…I had no idea! That's so cool!" At Wendy's excited exclamations, Carla risked a glance up, looking hopeful.
"You…you think it's cool? I always thought the visions were strange and that you would think I was … different, I guess, if I told you…" She glanced around at all of them, including them all in the 'you.'
"Na! It's awesome, like Wendy said!" That was Natsu, and a bright grin followed up the statement.
"Absolutely." Lucy confirmed, and Happy didn't even need to say anything to convey his awe. His big sparkly eyes said it all for him.
After a moment where they all praised her, Lucy redirected the conversation. "So, if you can see the future sometimes, how did you see the secret passage?"
"I saw us walking down it and caught glimpses of the entrance and how to get there. I'm sure I could find it."
"So now we know how we're gonna get in!"
"What are we going to do once we get in though?" Wendy asked, which caused them all to pause and consider.
"Well, I guess it depends on where we get spit out of the secret tunnel. If we could ambush some guards or something and steal some uniforms, that would make things much easier."
"That'll be easy." Natsu grinned wolfishly. "I can take on a couple of guards even without magic, no problem."
"We'll wanna do that tonight then, when there aren't many guards around, so we can snag two without anyone else noticing. In fact, we should probably just infiltrate tonight too…the sooner the better. And there'll probably be less chance of getting caught at night."
And so a plan was hatched.
As soon as dark fell, they all set out. Natsu found himself a secluded clearing pretty deep in the woods where he could take out the guards. Wendy stayed with him, while Lucy, Happy, and Carla flew up into the sky under the cover of nightfall. They scouted the city, looking for palace guards who were by themselves, maybe just coming off duty. They got lucky after hunting for an hour or so when they spotted one just entering a bar. That was Lucy's cue.
She hopped down in a back alley and made her way into the bar. She spied the guard, already letting himself go a little with his first beer, and she approached. By doing a lot of gross flirting, she quickly got him hooked, and just in case he did know something, she pumped him for information. As expected though, he didn't know anything about the big lacrima, so she quickly went to phase two.
This wasn't the first time she'd lured someone out of a joint with her charms, and it was ridiculously easy to do – especially after getting a few drinks in the guy. Just thirty minutes later, she dragged him out behind her, and he was only too eager to follow her into the dark alley behind the bar with the promise of "more" dangled temptingly in front of his nose.
She didn't even need Natsu to take this guy out. He was obviously an amateur, and it just took one Lucy Kick to knock him out. Happy and Carla descended from the roof shortly after, to find the target face first on the ground with his butt sticking up in the air and Lucy dusting off her hands.
"Nice one Lucy!" Happy crowed, completely unsurprised.
Carla, on the other hand, stared with shocked eyes. "You did this?!"
"Of course." Lucy answered smugly, realizing that Carla hadn't been on many missions with her.
Without too many words over the matter, Happy picked up Lucy and Carla picked up the unconscious guard. A few minutes later, they were dropping down into the clearing and Natsu was rushing over with eager eyes, only to droop with disappointment when he saw that he didn't get to fight. "Aw Luce…you couldn't even let me get one hit in?!"
"He keeled over with one Lucy Kick. What can I do?" She just shrugged.
They made quick work stripping off his uniform, leaving his underclothes of course. Then they tied him to a tree very solidly and gagged him. He was so far out into the woods that nobody would hear him anyways, but it didn't hurt. Then, after taking a good look at the clothes and judging them for size, they determined that they would fit Lucy, but not Natsu. So she had to go back out and look for someone who was approximately Natsu's size, alone, and preferably drunk.
This time it took several hours to find someone who was both alone and looked like a similar height and build as Natsu. Unfortunately, he was not drunk… not even close. In fact, he was still on duty, and they spied him breaking up a drunken fight. Also, he wasn't an amateur, and they could already predict problems getting him – but hopefully it wouldn't be too much trouble if they stuck to the plan.
Waiting until he had finished scolding the two drunkards and was back on patrol, they picked a time when he was almost completely alone to swoop in. There were only a few people on the streets this late, and most were drunks stumbling home or passed out – given the heavy celebrations and the shady neighborhood – so it was pretty safe.
Carla swooped down first and snagged the guy's heels before scooping him up and dragging him high into the air. He let out a yell that could wake the dead, so they gained altitude fast, with him struggling the whole time.
Carla grunted and strained. "I can't hold him for too long like this…I'm going to drop him!"
Lucy and Happy had to intervene. She got face-to-face with the guy, nearly getting clocked in the nose for her effort. "Look down! You really don't want to get dropped do you?!"
He snarled, but looked down as she'd suggested. And then he went a funny shade of pale as he took in the fact that they were really, really high up right now. Instantly, he froze and started sweating profusely.
"What do you people want with me?!"
"Do you know where they're keeping the giant lacrima?" she quickly asked, and he shook his head.
"No! None of us were told anything about it! The first we heard of it was today too! And we haven't been given any more information since! Who are you people? Why do you want to know?"
She didn't bother answering that. He was still now and had answered her question, so there wasn't anything else to be gained from engaging with him.
As they came to the clearing, she addressed Carla. "We're going in first to warn Natsu, then you come in hot. He's going to fight as soon as we're low enough, so just drop him when you're over the clearing. It won't hurt him too badly."
The white cat nodded, still looking like she was straining to keep airborne, even though he wasn't fighting any more. He was definitely much heavier than Wendy, that was for sure.
As planned, Happy swooped in first and Lucy yelled, "We've got a live one, get ready Natsu! Carla's gonna drop him on you!"
All she heard in response was a whoop of joy, and Happy took her to where Wendy was standing at the edge of the clearing. A few seconds later, the once again snarling and spitting guard was dropped into the clearing and hit the ground running. Natsu wasn't having any of that though and pounced, engaging the guy in a fist fight before he could try to make an escape.
Lucy's prediction was correct, the guard they'd bagged was no pushover, but he also wasn't any match for a dragon in human skin either and was soon knocked out cold. He put up a good fight though and managed to land a few good punches… enough that Natsu was grinning from ear to ear after. They quickly stripped him and tied him up too, much more securely than the first guy though.
Then, they left them there and changed into the uniforms. Wendy didn't need one, because she planned to stay in the secret tunnel and wait for Natsu and Lucy to get information. This was just too dangerous for her without magic. Lucy and Natsu at least had a chance of maybe getting away if they were caught, but Wendy…not so much. She was a strong sky dragon slayer, but she was still a preteen with a penchant for tripping over absolutely nothing.
And so, once Lucy and Natsu had on their disguises, they all made their way to the secret passageway. It was a mineshaft, or at least looked like one from the outside, and was located out in the woods behind the castle. There was no way anyone would have been able to find it if they hadn't known it was there, and even if they did, it wouldn't have looked like a secret passage into the castle.
Inside the tunnel it was dark and dank, and they couldn't see very far at all in front of them. The only light came from small glowworms and glowing moss on the walls, which didn't provide much luminesces, so they did a lot of tripping and some soft cussing as they stumbled along.
Wendy did more tripping than any of them, and if the very dim light hadn't shown her constant face-planting, they would have heard it with the loud squeal she let out each time.
Eventually, Lucy murmured, "Um, Wendy? I know it's dark and you can't help tripping, but try not to scream every time okay? We don't want to alert anyone that we're here."
"Oh…right…sorry…" the young girl mumbled, her tone saying that she was embarrassed.
However, true to word, the next time she fell, she didn't scream. There was only a muffled thump to indicate she had one again eaten dirt.
As for Lucy and Natsu, they did plenty of stumbling but rarely fell down completely. Still, the trip was filled with quiet cusses and the sound of stubbed toes on loose rocks.
The darkness and constant stumbling left them on edge, so when a sudden racket sounded from all around them, they all jumped – and in the case of the cats, puffed out like Cheetos.
It was so dark that they hadn't seen the soldiers surrounding them until they were suddenly encircled by the glowing tips of magical spears. While people didn't have innate magic here in Edolas, all the guards apparently carried spears that were imbedded with magic. Being surrounded by those spears was a very bad thing, especially when they were taken completely by surprise and hadn't been the slightest bit prepared for an attack.
So when someone shouted, "Fire!" none of them really had an appropriate response, aside from yelling various random sounds and incomprehensible mashups of consonants and vowels…mostly vowels.
First, they were all thoroughly zapped with strong electrical currents, which had them flopping to the ground in twitching heaps that were good for little more than groaning pathetically. Then, when a second shout of, "bind them!" sounded, they couldn't do anything at all.
White sticky something-or-other was shot at them, and they ended up thoroughly immobilized. As for Lucy, she had conked her head on a random rock when falling and did her very best to stay conscious, but she lost the fight soon after being bound, and the dim light faded as total darkness took her.
Meanwhile, Happy and Carla were not bound.
Instead, one of the guards – probably the leader – stepped forwards and bowed, saying, "Thank you, great Exceeds, for assisting us in the capture of these trespassers. Queen Shagotte said you would be bringing them this way."
Out from behind that man stepped an Exceed, a very fancy one, who gestured and said, "Yes! Well done! Now, let's return home and report your successful mission."
"But we didn't -!"
"…hush…" Carla quickly shushed Happy.
The only way she could see them getting out of this mess, was to play along with whatever was going on and then escape when they had the chance. Once they escaped, they could then rescue their captured friends. But if they made a scene now, they'd probably be taken captive too, and then there would be no hope of saving Lucy, Natsu, and Wendy.
"Um…yes…of course…" she muttered, and Happy scowled at her. She sent him a stern shake of the head and pleaded with her eyes for him to stay quiet.
They followed the Exceed, who led them out of the tunnel and into the castle, and then they flew out of the first window they came to. From there, they flew up, up, and up, until they reached an extremely large floating island high in the sky. A whole city was built on it, and smaller floating islands around it had apparently been turned into farms.
"Welcome to Extalia! Your homeland!" their guide said cheerfully.
Then, once they had landed, he added, "Come! I have orders to take you directly to the queen."
Carla and Happy glanced around, but after a brief consideration of their options, Carla decided that meeting this Queen could give them good information. So, she followed the other Exceed, and Happy followed her.
"Carla!" he whispered urgently in her ear. "What are we doing?! Why did we leave the others down there? And why are we going with this guy?!"
"First of all, Tomcat, if we had made a fuss back there, we could have been captured too. And there wouldn't be any way to save Lucy, Natsu, and Wendy if we get captured. Second, I believe we might be able to get some important information from this Queen person."
"Ooooh! Aye Sir! You're so smart Carla!" he whispered back happily, fully on board now.
They were led through an absolutely beautiful city, and then into an equally beautiful castle. Eventually, they emerged into a huge throne room, and there they came face-to-face with a large white Exceed, who seemed to be the size and shape of a human, but with all the other features of a cat.
"Ah! Carla! You came!" she said, sounding almost eager. "And who is this young male with you?"
"I'm Happy!" Happy said, and everyone present seemed confused.
"Oh…uh…that's nice dear. And what's your name?"
He blinked in confusion, and Carla sighed. "His name is Happy. And you must be Queen Shagotte…"
"Yes indeed."
"I have some questions for you…"
At Carla's almost snappish statement, the advisors surrounding Queen Shagotte all stood and scowled heavily before sputtering, "How dare you address her majesty in such an impudent manner?!"
Queen Shagotte, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the outburst, and regally held up her hand to silence the small crowd of high officials.
"I will hear your questions."
"Good. First of all, why did those soldiers say that you sent us to lead Natsu, Lucy, and Wendy to them? You've never even met us! And how did those soldiers know we were coming?! Did you have something to do with that?"
Once again, all the advisors revved up for a round of scolding, but the queen merely shushed them and answered Carla's question. "I told the soldiers that you were working for me, and that you would be coming. So yes, I did orchestrate your friends' capture, and for that I am sorry."
"Why?! And how did you even know we were there?!"
"I knew you were there in the same way that I suspect you knew how to find that tunnel. With clairvoyance. As for why I did it…if you were captured, you could have jeopardized all of us…and you could have been killed. I did what I had to, to protect you and the country."
By that point, they both had so many questions, and Happy was completely swamped. Carla, on the other hand, just did her best to prioritize her questions and ask them in the appropriate order.
"Why would us being captured endanger your country? Why would you care about us dying? And how do you have clairvoyance?"
"My, you do have a lot of questions…" the queen sighed, looking troubled. "I will answer them all to the best of my ability, I owe that much to you…." Once again she waved off her advisors, who were all clamoring for her attention. "You being captured could have endangered us simply because the country of Extalia and the country of Edolas are currently in a very tremulous peace. Most humans fear us, because we have natural inborn magic and they don't. We used that and cultivated it to the best of our ability… even using my clairvoyance to give "decrees" on who would die. Even though I have no control over those people's deaths, their belief that I am all-powerful has kept them at bay for a while. But it won't last long, and if they were to sense any weakness – such as the ability to capture one of us – then our peace would break, and they would invade us. The current king of Edolas is power-hungry and has had his eye on us and our magic for some time now."
"Is…is that why you sent us away? To try and protect us?" Happy asked, his voice small and hopeful. It was obvious that he was afraid they'd simply been cast aside for a different reason.
The queen's eyes softened and she nodded. "Yes…all of the citizens are aware that we might be dealing with war soon – possibly extinction – and many of us decided to send our children to Earthland in the hope that they would have a future there. I, too, sent my only daughter there…"
When her eyes landed on Carla, the white cat suddenly had a shiver up her spine. Though she wanted to ask the obvious, she chose not to, preferring not to know.
"What could the humans possibly do? You live up here in the sky. And they have no magic… at least no inborn magic."
"True, but they have been building weapons that they can use against beings like us. As I'm sure you know, those lacrimas that suddenly appeared are people from Earthland turned into crystals. They've been using that same technology to develop weapons as well…which would be able to turn us into lacrima crystals too."
Her eyes closed and she frowned, looking deeply concerned. "Perhaps even more worrisome, they have also been developing devises that can harvest our magic without killing us. Eventually, I'm sure they intend to capture and imprison us while they harvest our magic like a crop. It would be a never-ending supply of magic for them."
Both Happy and Carla were horrified. "And what are they going to do to our friends? Are they…?"
"Probably."
"We have to save them!"
"It's too dangerous! I can't let you expose how weak we are to the world! Our only protection right now is their fear of us!"
"If what you say is true, then your peace isn't going to last much longer anyways. We aren't going to stay here safe and sound while our friends are hurt. And if I were you, I would stop hiding behind a pretense and go down there and make some allies! Maybe if people knew you were good and weren't killing off random citizens, they wouldn't let you get taken over! A king can only rule so long as he has the support of his people! But you've villainized yourselves, so he doesn't even have to do that part! You've given them the perfect excuse to invade!"
"Be that as it may, I simply cannot allow you to go down there. It's much too dangerous."
She nodded to the guards, who grabbed Happy and Carla. They both fought to escape, but were dragged off anyways and locked into a very comfortable – and very secure – room.
"I'm very sorry about this, but Queen Shagotte was very clear that you are to be confined here until further notice. But don't worry! You'll get plenty of food and whatever else you might want." the fancy Exceed said with a smile as the door was closed in their faces.
"Now what Carla?" Happy asked, looking around with watery eyes.
"I…I don't know…" she sniffled back, finally feeling the stress catching up to her.
At the sight of her tears, Happy's instantly dried, and he gritted his teeth and clenched his paws. Nobody made Carla cry!
"We're gonna escape! That's what we're gonna do!"
She turned big brown eyes on him, and he felt himself just about melt, but for once stayed focused. They had to get out of here, and not just for Carla's sake, but for Lucy and Natsu and Wendy's too! So he proceeded to run around the room, sniffing and eyeballing it for any potential escape routes. The windows were barred, but out of them he saw something that thoroughly distracted him.
"Carla come here! Look at this!"
"What is it?"
She gasped when she looked out the window and saw the positively massive lacrima sitting on another nearby floating island. "That's it! That's the rest of the lacrima we were looking for! We have to tell the others!"
"Aye Sir! Let's get out of this dump!" Happy agreed.
They both ran around the room now like their tails had been singed, and eventually determined that their only likely method of escape was going to be good old-fashioned deception. Happy surprisingly turned out to have some really good ideas on how to skunk the guards, and soon he was shouting frantically for help.
"Help! Help! Carla's passed out! I think she had a panic attack! She was wheezing and gasping and then suddenly just keeled over!" He banged on the door and shouted and screamed until the door was opened and several concerned guards came in to see what was going on.
Carla was lying in the center of the room, so the guards had to come in to get a look at her. When their backs were turned, Happy grabbed up a hidden chair leg that he'd tucked near the door and smacked them both in the backs of the heads, while Carla suddenly jumped up and ran. The two guards were stunned, and they were able to run out the door past the other set of guards.
The second set of guards were so surprised that, by the time they had recovered, Happy and Carla had both sprouted their wings and gone into high speed, crashing through the first unbarred window they came to.
"Alright! Let's go find Laxus, Gajeel, and Mystogen and tell them about the lacrima! And they can help us rescue Lucy, Natsu, and Wendy!"
…
Meanwhile, Lucy, Natsu, and Wendy were being shackled – and the gummy white stuff was removed. Then they were dragged off to a cell.
So when Lucy came to again, it was to the sensation of cold metal biting into her skin and someone doing their best to sit her up more comfortably. A chunk of her hair got pulled unpleasantly, and she yelped, squirming around in whatever had a hold of her.
"Oi…shhtay shtill." Natsu growled through his teeth, and the warm breath on her neck told her that he was trying to pull her up by the back of her shirt…using his mouth.
That was great, especially since she could feel how painful her cheek was from probably slamming face-first into the ground when they were tossed in here…wherever here was. But it was certainly an unorthodox method, and he'd grabbed some of her hair with the material of her shirt.
"Natsu…you're pulling out my hair." she grumbled.
He mumbled, "Shhorry," around her shirt, but kept pulling her up.
She helped by trying to get her knees under her, and between the two of them they got her sitting upright. Who knew having your hands tied behind your back could cause so many problems?
"Are you okay Lucy?"
The sound of Wendy's voice had her turning to look behind her, and she spotted the young blue-haired mage leaning up against the wall, also bound of course. She had a nasty looking bruise already starting to form on her shoulder – probably where she had landed – but otherwise she looked okay thankfully. Glancing back at Natsu, Lucy determined that he must have headbutted the ground, due to the trickle of blood sneaking out of his pink hairline. As for herself – thanks to the raw throbbing on her cheek and jaw – she knew good and well where she landed.
"What happened? How did we get caught?"
"Dunno. After you passed out, some Exceeds in uniform came marching in and took Happy and Carla. The guards thanked them for the tip and then we were taken away."
"So it was the Exceeds who tipped off the guards? How in the heck did they know?"
A passing guard sneered into the cell. "You really aren't from around here are you? The queen of the Exceeds knows everything. She sees everything. She's all powerful. Sometimes she even decides who lives and dies. You stupid idiots were duped, those Exceeds you were with were on a mission to bring you to us, as a present from the queen."
"You don't know Happy and Carla! They would never do something like that!" Natsu yelled, lunging at the bars. The guard just laughed and continued walking on down the line of cells.
"So somehow the Exceeds knew that we were coming…and then fed the guards some story about Happy and Carla tricking us." Lucy surmised, her brain working quickly.
"How did they know?" Wendy whispered. "Do you think there's another Exceed like Carla that's clairvoyant?"
"That's an excellent point. That might explain this whole thing."
"Either way, they're wrong! Happy and Carla haven't ever even met this queen person." Natsu snarled, still spitfire mad about the insinuation about their friends.
"Obviously. But maybe we shouldn't fight it too hard… it might put Happy and Carla in danger." Lucy pointed out, and he growled, looking highly displeased about it all.
After a long pause, Wendy quietly whispered, "Now what?"
"Now…we wait." Natsu said, looking more serious than Lucy had remembered in a long time. Serious, and seriously pissed.
They didn't have to wait long.
Sneak Peek:
In short order, they were tied down securely to upright metal slabs that looked like surgical tables on their ends…. and judging by all the cogs and gears, Lucy had no doubt that they could probably turn into just that if he so wished.
For Lucy and Wendy, they were both restrained relatively normally, with leather cuffs that attached to either end of the table securely. The ones for their wrists were adjusted so that their arms ended up stretched above their heads…leaving them very little wiggle room. Matching cuffs secured their ankles to the bottom of the table.