"How come the school has never seen this village… if it does exist?" Natsu inquired of the man, who was now leading the way, Gray not far behind. While he didn't seem quite keen on giving them many answers, Bobo seemed to think this simple question was okay for him to give a proper response to.
"The village is hidden by large trees." He explained, "In truth, they probably know about the lake and the island, but think it is uninhabited. The only one who is permitted to leave is Deliora or his personal guard, I barely managed to escape myself."
"You're leaving a lot of unanswered questions." Lucy held up one finger, as if in concentration, her delicate eyebrows furrowed. Gray had noticed she did that a lot when she was thinking, as if that one finger could give her the answers.
Bobo didn't answer that one, instead pushing aside a large hanging branch obscuring their view of up ahead, to reveal the lake.
To say it looked mysterious was an understatement, the blue waters were completely flat, as if no living things had touched the surface in many years. It was such a deep royal blue that it looked almost coloured in by crayons, the color was so absolute. A small beach full of white sand stretched along the entire permitter, although no plants were planted on the soft silty substance. In fact, no plants came within a hundred feet of the lake, as if some deathly curse had been laid upon the waters.
Then came the island, rising up so absurdly in the middle like a great beast. It was basically one hill, but you could not see any of the ground level, save for a strip of beach at the front, as it was so covered by trees. It was easy to see how a small village had been missed, the canopies were so dense you couldn't hope to see anyone. No one could hope to be saved.
Gray caught his breath, his blue eyes closing for the briefest moment before he opened them again. He knew the island of course, having seen it from his Mother's paintings when he was younger, she was was always painting it, as if it's very existence was decided by the swift movements of her brush. He was determined to find Deliora even more now, now that he knew it wasn't a man going by the same name. It couldn't be, not with the addition of the island into play now.
A small boat was docked at the beach, bobbing quietly in the waves. There was something wrong there, Gray thought. Surely if Deliora was so intent on no one escaping, certainly the boat wouldn't be left out in the open. He pushed away the nagging thought, mostly because it was useless. It wouldn't do him any good to question the one man who had brought him to his life's dedication.
"Please, take a seat." The man gestured to the tiny row boat. Gray climbed in at once, sitting on the opposite side the man would be ,and Lucy, seemingly determined to see this one through, fell down into the boat with a bump after him, her vanilla scented hair brushing against his face. Not as pleasant as strawberries. He thought before he could stop himself, and then directed his thoughts from pointless matters onto more focused ones.
"We must be crazy." He heard Lucy murmur under her breath, "Getting into a boat with a complete stranger."
"You know it." Natsu replied quietly, but Gray had a feeling the pink haired boy was more ecstatic about this situation then he let on. Natsu, at least to him, seemed like the type who would jump into any sort of danger no matter what the cost. A bad quality one might say. Gray thought any quality would look bad on Natsu.
"You both don't have to come." He snapped, because it would be simpler if they stayed back.
"We're your friend, Gray." Lucy pressed, "We can't let you go on alone." The blonde girl attempted to look him in the eyes, but he avoided her gaze, he didn't want her to know what he was thinking.
Somehow he seemed to have made another friend, and it wasn't something he wanted necessarily. If he was being honest, he cared about the two people jammed in the rowboat beside him, and he didn't want them to see Deliora. He didn't want them to see the darkness inside him.
Still, he couldn't face it alone he supposed, and since Lyon and Ultear were back in his hometown, Natsu and Lucy would have to suffice.
"Off we go." The man whispered, dipping his oar into the water and pushing off from the bay. The once smooth lake rippled with the force of the small boat, and when Gray looked down, he could see his own distorted reflection, his own blue eyes glaring back at him. He couldn't see her smiling face in his eyes anymore that space was instead taken up by a steely determination to win this time. "I hope you should know," The man began, "This island is cursed. If Deliora catches you, he will keep you here for the rest of your lives."
He heard Lucy let loose a squeak of fear, but it seemed to energise Natsu.
"I'm all fired up." He said, and Gray almost wanted to mock him for his comment, but something about it made him feel like anything was possible… although he couldn't put his finger on why it made him feel that way.
"I'm glad." The man whispered, and for whatever reason, whether it was the spray from the lake getting in their eyes (Lucy), or looking at Lucy to closely (Natsu), or simply because he wanted to (Gray), they all shut their eyes at once. And when they opened them, the man was gone.
"WHAT THE HELL?" Lucy screamed, her brown eyes frantically darting back and forth.
"We have bigger problems." Natsu said in a tiny voice, his finger pointing behind them. Both Lucy and Gray whirled around to see a colossal wave coming towards them, something that certainly shouldn't be possible in a lake. Especially a lake that was still a moment ago.
It hit their rowboat and sent it spiralling, all three of them screaming and clutching to the sides as if it could save them, but the weak wood splintered apart at the mercy of the wave and suddenly they found themselves inside the wave itself, caught in it's grasp.
Gray tried to fight his way to the surface, he already had no air in his lungs. A flash of blonde shot past him and he grabbed a handful of Lucy's hair and pulled her towards him, she was unconscious, air bubbles flying out of her mouth. He wrapped both his arms around her waist and kicked towards the surface, but the water sent them both shooting towards the island, until it spit them up onto the shore.
Gray coughed for air, water trickling out of his mouth, his chest heaving. Lucy coughed, water spurting out of her own mouth, and he turned towards her with a relieved nod of his head.
"Nat-su." The blonde croaked, struggling to her feet and pushing her blonde hair back. "Where is he?"
"What the hell happened?" The sand beneath Gray twitched, and he let out a cry, rolling to the side as a sand covered wet Natsu sat up. "You were sitting on me!" he accused Gray, his eyes narrowing into slits.
"Your own fault flame ass." Gray rubbed his forehead.
"Whatever Pervert."
"You wanna go?"
"Will you two shut up already!" Lucy screeched, stepping in-between the two with her palms outstretched. "Where's the village?" Gray turned to look at the trees, but they were so dense he couldn't imagine any one living in them like Bobo had stated.
"The more important question is; where did Bobo go?" Natsu inquired of the pair, shaking his head so the sand would fall out of his hair.
"He just disappeared." Lucy murmured, turning back to the lake with a look of concentration on her face. "Maybe he saw the wave coming before we did and jumped ship? But how did the wave get there in the first place?"
"Whatever it is, I don't care." Gray snapped. Despite the fact he had saved Lucy, the sight of the trees, the sand, everything, reminded him of the reason why he didn't let himself get close to people. Especially not people like Natsu and Lucy, who probably had just as twisted back-stories as he did, who might actually know what he was feeling. Still, that made it easier for them to get all the more closer to him, until the moment where he could possibly place his life in their hands. He couldn't allow that to happen. "Let's just find this damn village."
He started towards the trees, his feet crunching over the sand. Bobo said that they should be through the trees, so therefore that was where he would look first.
Erza did not have an easy passage to the island like the others. Luckily for her, she stumbled upon the lake by accident, the result of falling down the hill like an idiot. She wasn't used to the rough terrain, and her usual graceful feet were failing her in their mission.
The lake glittered like a coin, flat and smooth, save a tiny brown boat floating on it's surface. Erza closed her eye (probably at the same time that Natsu, Gray and Lucy did) mostly because a bug flew into them. When she opened them, a huge roaring blue wave was in front of her, something that shouldn't be possible. It couldn't be possible, waves like that weren't created by a lake. When the lake settled down, splashing against the island, Erza thought she caught sight of a blue haired woman, but she blinked and the woman was gone, evidentially a piece of her imagination.
She squinted into the distance, trying to see the shore of the island to see if the people who owned the row boat were washed up onto the shore. Three sprawled figures soon stood up, and even from this distance she could see the black, pink, and blonde colors of their hair. What are they doing? She fumed to herself, breaking the rules to get shipwrecked on some island.
She looked around on the small beach she was standing on, trying to find something she could use to get to the island. There was absolutely nothing, save for a few twigs and one log. Her eyebrows narrowed when she looked back and saw them retreating into the forest on the island, she had to go now or she'd lose them.
Seeing no other alternative, she stripped off her sweater (but of course she had a tank top underneath) and rolled up the legs on her pants, ditching her shoes. She'd come back for all of them later. Then, taking a deep breath, she took a deep breath and dove into the water, heading for the island.
It wasn't what Gray suspected, the village was simply shielded by only a couple of dense trees, and was in fact right off the beach. He thought it would be farther away, but was happy to be proven wrong. He didn't want to waste his energy trying to find it, when he needed to be saving it for something else.
"Gray, put back on your shirt." Lucy hissed, and he looked at her in confusion. "We need to blend in as best we can if we're going to do this like ninjas."
"Ninjas?" Natsu demanded, a delighted smile lighting up his face as he lifted his scarf to his mouth and wrapped it around his face, "I can be ninja." He whispered.
"It's 'I can be a ninja'." Lucy corrected him, sighing at his poor grammar use. Gray ignored them both but lifted the fallen shirt over his head, wishing it wasn't quite so wet and clingy.
"Who're you?" A small voice demanded, and all three of them turned around at once, panic setting in their stomachs. They hadn't even entered the village and yet they were already caught. A small girl, perhaps six stood behind them, a woven basket full of herbs in her arms. She had tiny blonde pig tails, large blue eyes,and her small face looked hungry and pinched. "Are you here to save us?" She asked, her smile big enough to shock the sun. "Did my Momma send ya?"
"Who's your Mother?" Lucy asked carefully, kneeling down beside the small child.
"Mary Ann Wilkins!" the girl stated proudly, "She weren't with me when I went exploring this place, so she is safe!" Gray realised about the same time that the others did. If Deliora catches you, he will keep you here for the rest of your lives.
Who knows how long the little girl had been away from her Mother, caught on the island and forced to live here, who knows what sort of horrors she'd experienced. Somehow Gray realised then, that he wasn't going to stop trying to free these people until he died, or they were back with their families. Who knew who else had wandered onto the island (perhaps led here by Bobo) and forced to remain on its shores? All because of Deliora.
"We're here to save you." Gray assured her, bending down next to Lucy to place his hand on her tiny shoulder. "I promise."
"Lemme take you to Ms. Heidi then!" the little girl smiled and skipped towards the village. She turned back and shot them a grin. "It doesn't matter being Ninja. He already knows you're here."
"What?" Lucy asked, looking quite alarmed.
"Bobo tricked us." Gray said, because it was all becoming so very clear now, "We were watched from the moment we set foot on this island." Lucy shivered.
"But we'll find a way off right?" She questioned.
"Maybe." Gray replied, and followed the girl into the village.
The village was a collection of brown tents, the roofs poorly made… like something from movies. The streets were dirt, everything startlingly looked like it belonged from times hundreds of years back. People looked up at them, their eyes wide and curious. Nobody looked happy, their faces pale and stretched, their eyes empty. It was scary.
"Miss Heidi!" The little girl stopped at the last hut, which left Gray wondering where Deliora stayed. He certainly wouldn't stay somewhere so… low class. "I brought the new comers like you asked!"
"Oh, very good Penny." A motherly looking woman with lots of brown stingy hair turned around when the girl spoke. She had a very plain face, her brown eyes dead like everyone else's. "There's another one."
"Another person has come to the island?" Lucy questioned, her brown eyes wide.
"Yes, The Master's men just reported. Scarlet hair they said, swimming here of all things."
Gray froze. His thoughts began to do cartwheels, his body immobilized as he realized the one person Heidi could mean. Not her, he begged anybody, anything, anyone but her.
"Shall I fetch her Miss?" Penny asked in her small cute voice, setting her basket on the ground.
"You know her don't you?" Heidi questioned the three. Natsu was the one who nodded in reply. "Yes please, Penny." Heidi instructed, and the little girl ran off again.
"Will someone explain to me what the hells going on?!" Lucy looked like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Her brown eyes were much to large for her face, her lips set in a straight line and her eyebrows drawn downwards. Her whole body was quivering, like she was afraid.
"Calm down, child." Heidi spoke. "There is no use telling you three until your comrade gets here. You're not running short on time, none of us are. So relax." While her tone was motherly, Gray felt like she was rather exasperated with this conversation, like she'd had it many times before. "I've been here for the past twenty years, and believe me, while I'm sure you promised little Penny what everyone promises her, you have no more a chance of getting off this island than I do. People have tried to escape countless times, it simply doesn't happen."
"Bobo escaped." Lucy protested. Heidi's eyebrows narrowed.
"So he fed you the same shit he feeds everyone else. That's what happens when Deliora gets angry after all, he wants more people in his town to do his work for him. So what does he do? Lures souls like you in with a man like Bobo, claiming to be in search of help, and foolish idiots like you believe him." Heidi's face was red at the end of her sentence, and she quickly turned her flushed cheeks away from them.
The interior of the hut was not much fancier than the outside, two flat cotton bed rolls were stretched out on the floor, and a large pot was simmering over an open flame, the smoke rising through a gap in the ceiling. There was nothing about it to suggest that a little girl might live here, no dolls or princess posters, no sign of personality. It was like they had moved back in time to a place where technology and freedom didn't exist, where some evil lord ruled over them all, forcing them to do his bidding. That stuff usually only happened in fairy tales.
Gray watched his comrades for a moment, noticing their behaviours, trying to decide if they were frightened at the possibility of spending the rest of their lives here. Natsu looked like he was in Mathematics class, his eyes glazed over as they stared at the fire, his hand reaching up to scratch occasionally at various parts of his body. His body was still rather sandy, but he didn't look uncomfortable... just like he always did. Like he wasn't covered in gritty sand and the threat of living here all his life wasn't hanging over his head.
Lucy looked a little more nervous. While she had stopped her shaking, her large brown eyes flitted back and forth, a dirty hand twirling a strand of gold, while her teeth gnawed at her lips. Still, she wasn't crying or making a fuss, just quietly waiting for their explanation with the arrival of Erza.
For a moment Gray contemplated his own feelings, wondering why the thought of living here didn't scare him. He considered the notion that to him this was simply a punishment for things that had happened in the past, that his subconsious knew this was his path, and that perhaps this was the way he would live out his days, or how he would die. Either way, he wasn't afraid. As long as he got to kill the man that had ruined his life.
Just then, while he was lost in his thoughts, Penny skipped through the tent again. Gray, Natsu, and Lucy's heads all shot up, their eyes boring into the doorway, waiting for her to step through.
As soon as she did, the teenage boy part of Gray's brain took over. NO HE WAS NOT A PERVERT DESPITE HIS STRIPPING HABIT! He was simply distracted from his mission for a few mere moments when, quite like a super model, Erza Scarlet stepped in.
It was like something from a shampoo commercial, her long scarlet hair was soaked, clinging to her neck and forehead delicately, each strand clumped together perfectly. Her brown eyes were blinking rapidly, as if getting used to the lighting distance, and with every bat of her eyelash he could practically see the drops from the lake splattering off of them. That wasn't what distracted him from his mission temporarily however. You see, he had only seen Erza wearing very loose tops and pants before. Now, she was wearing a tight tank top which clung to her like a second skin, showing off all of her curves. Not to mention, when her eyes locked with his, a warm familiar brown, he almost felt relieved. He almost forgot why he was here for a her eye narrowed down into a glare.
He remembered why he was here. That moment of relief flew out through the door, replaced by a hard anger, directed towards her. Why had she, of all people, decided to come after them? Why couldn't someone else?
"Penny told me you were going to explain somethings to us." Erza didn't even look at the others, but kept her one eyed gaze locked with his. She reached up a hand, her bangs still irritatingly covering one side of her face, and removed something white and cotton from behind her curtain of hair, flinging it to the ground.
"I will now." Heidi spoke up for the first time in several minutes. "Now for most of you, I believe you were led here by a man named Bobo," there were several nods in agreement. "That man works for the Master of this place, a man named Deliora."
"Deliora?" Erza questioned, her one eye widening in surprise. Gray looked away then, only now the eye contact was making him uncomfortable.
"Yes. Deliora started out as a neurosurgeon, working somewhere in the North. He had a... disorder that caused him to lose control and turn into an awful man who would hurt people for fun. He hated that part of himself, and he strived to fix the part of his brain that had that disability. He was coming close to the answers when someone from the government knocked on the door, claiming to have some sort of instant cure. Deliora, desperate to fix this part of himself took it eagerly... but it turned him into a monster permanently. He was given this island by the government, and every once and a while they send people his way to torture so he doesn't attack the citizens of this country. Without us, without his play toys, he would most likely destroy the nearest town, as he did with so many others before they contained him on this island. That's why you're here, that's why Penny's here, that's why I'm here."
"Can't you give any more information?" Lucy begged, "Anybody who escaped?"
"There was one." Heidi said, but her eyes grew sad. "Deliora found out. He went berserk, attacking the town where she was with her family-"
"That's enough." Gray snapped, his voice coming out brutal. "That woman lived many years outside this island. It wasn't her fault that he attacked the town. Don't even suggest that."
"I don't care about any of this." Erza suddenly spoke up. "We could get back to the school- perhaps notify the authorities- or if it's safer for everyone, leave it a secret."
"So abandon everyone?" Gray asked her, whirling around.
"You're breaking school rules by being out here." Erza snapped right back, "The Master sent me to collect you and so I will."
"Can anything get behind that thick skull of yours?" Gray asked her, stepping right up so he was inches away from his face. "We can't leave unless we defeat him. He'll always find us."
"Well maybe none of this wouldn't happen if that woman had reported it when she escaped-" Erza broke off for a moment, her eye shutting. "Oh..." She trailed off. "She was your Mother."
"A+ for the genius over here!" Gray spit out.
"You're Ul's son?" Heidi asked, and for the first time, something like hope raised in her voice.
"Yes." Gray spoke carefully, but didn't look away from Erza.
"What happened- I mean- how did she die?"
"Listen, if the bastard doesn't want to talk about it I understand-" Natsu began, speaking up for the first time. (HOW THE HECK DID I FORGET ABOUT NATSU?!)
"Fine. I'll tell you." Gray whispered, his eyes shutting for the briefest moment as he moved away from Erza, their moment passing. "It was ten years ago..."
I cannot believe I actually had time to finish this chappie. I SERIOUSLY HATE SCHOOL.
Anyways, tell me your opinions, and next chapter will have RoWen I promise. And maybe NaLu and GrayZa.