Chapter 6:
A Hand to Drag Her Out
He was scared of her. Why the fuck am I scared of her? I'm Laxus Dreyer! Not even flamethrower can beat me! So why am I scared of a little girl? Looking down, he noticed something shocking Shit... my hands are shaking...
"Laxus.." the desperate whisper came from beside him as they both scanned the corners and dark filled areas for any sign of their hunter. Hunter? That's right... she's the hunter and today we're the prey...
"What?" Laxus replied hoarsely.
"She's not using her magic! Why isn't she using her magic?" Gajeel asked, eyes still desperately flicking from one direction to the next, looking for any sign of another attack.
"Why, you ask?" She giggled like a child. "Simple Gajeel-kun. I want to to feel your bones crunch beneath my own hands and I want to coat my hands with your blood." The only sound was her laughter, and not even their dragon-slayer hearing could pinpoint where the source was.
She shot between their legs, knives slashing against the backs of their knees causing them to fall to the floor, their legs no longer able to support them for very long. She came again, kicking them apart and in an instant she was face to face with Laxus. He stared at the ground out of fear of meeting the eyes that now held no trace of Lucy. Her index finger pressed against the bottom of his chin, forcing him to look into her eyes and watch the sadistic smile spread across her face as she raised her other knife to his cheek and pressed it into his skin, causing him to flinch.
"Mmmm..." She groaned as she leaned forward, placing the tip of her tongue to where a small droplet of blood had made it's way down his face to his chin. Her tongue followed the trail up to the cut and she licked across it. "I can taste the power in your blood." she sighed into his ear. "It tastes amazing."
Tapping her index finger against her chin she contemplated something, then leant forward so her breath against his ear made him flinch away from her, "I wonder if Makarov will taste that good." She chuckled. Lightning crackled at his fingertips as the thought of her hurting Makarov penetrated his thoughts.
"Uh uh uuuh..." she tutted, shaking her finger in front of his face. "We wouldn't want Lucy to be hurt, now would we!" Raising her fist and punching Laxus so hard that he was knocked unconscious.
"Laxus!" Gajeel yelled. "Come on, man! Get up!"
"Oh... he won't be getting up for a while now. But don't worry! I haven't finished my game yet, so he'll at least be alive for a few more hours."
With a mighty battle cry Gajeel pushed himself up off of the ground, much to the protest of his legs, and launched himself at Lucy. "Talons of the Iron Dragon!" He swung his claws, aiming to clip her on the temple. Lucy dodged, amusement flickered across her face as she watched the spectacle.
"Why do you care what I do to Laxus?"
"We are Fairy Tail! We fight for each others safety!" He yelled, rage making his voice all the more powerful.
"You didn't seem to care about other people's safety before. Hell, you probably would've killed them yourself if they got in your way."
"It's different now!" He said, still swinging. Lucy had yet to throw a punch.
"Oh? How's that?"
"I-" He faltered, she took her opportunity, and clipped him across the chin, snapping him back into battle mode. "I'm part of Fairy Tail now. They're my family! Family sticks together!They look out for each other!"
"They, huh?" Raising her right hand, she looked at the pink mark on it. "Well, this symbol says I'm Fairy Tail too." She calmly replied. Finally one of Gajeel's blows was able to connect, and Lucy went stumbling backwards, with a small smile on her lips.
"Now, now Gajeel-kun. I thought we were family."
"You're sick, Lucy. Let me take you home so we can you back to the Lucy we love."
"Love?" She stopped moving instantly, causing Gajeel to halt his attacks. "Love, you say? No one loves me! No one will ever LOVE ME! EVER! Don't you get it? Lucy Heartfilia doesn't get loved! She gets left behind!" Rage and pain etched into her features as she sent a flurry of punches at Gajeel's face.
"You're wrong! You are loved! I promise, Lucy! We won't leave you behind! Please, just come back to Fairy Tail with me. Come home! I won't leave you. I promise."
Tears ran down her face.
"no! No! NO! You don't get to make promises." Her voice bubbled with tears and she closed her eyes to stop the tears. Her heart felt broken, Gajeel had reached in a rubbed salt into the wound. Nothing could make it better. Taking advantage of Lucy's closed eyes, Gajeel clocked her over the head and watched her eyes snap open in surprise and then closed again as she fell to the ground. Gajeel caught her halfway, cradling her in his arms. Walking towards the guild doors, he grasped Laxus by the back of his fur coat and dragged him outside.
How could this have happened to some so nice, and pure? He thought, looking down at Lucy's unconscious face. Something caught his eye just below the hair line at the back of her neck. It looked like some sort of snake was moving around just beneath her skin.
"The fuck...?" His face twisted in confusion as he watched the lump disappear as the 'snake' slithered deeper inside her body.
Back at Fairy Tail, Natsu, Gray, Erza, Wendy and Lisanna sat at a table near the front of the guild. They were worried. Well, most of them were. Lisanna sat there playing with Natsu's hands as he sat there thinking about anything but Lisanna.
"She'll be fine." Erza assured, more to herself than to anyone else. "She's strong, and smart, and she can take care of herself."
"Right," Gray confirmed, "Besides, she went out with Gajeel and Laxus, so if anything does go wrong, they'll take care of her."
"But they went on an S class mission... that was one of the strongest dark guilds out there." Natsu thought out loud, completely obliterating whatever Erza and Gray had used to not be worried about their team mate. Well, their old team mate. But they hadn't seen Lucy in so long, others at the guild had said she came in, had a drink with Gajeel and Laxus then left with them on another mission. Usually that would've been fine, but something didn't feel right.
Their concerns were well placed because not two minutes later, a badly wounded Gajeel stumbled through the guild doors, carrying an unconscious Lucy, and dragging a badly beaten and unconscious Laxus. Panting, Gajeel did a last ditch effort to push all three of them into the building, throwing Laxus just that little bit more forward before turning around and collapsing so he was stomach up with Lucy sprawled on top of him. Strangely, to the guilds fascination, she was the least battered out of the three of them. The reason they would discover later.
Erza jumped up from her seat and sprinted to the collapsed three, dropping to her knees next to the barely conscious Gajeel. "What happened?" She demanded.
Gajeel shook his head as an indication that he still wasn't really sure, before exhaustion dragged him into a pit of darkness inside his head.
Hours later, Laxus and Gajeel were the first to come to. An unconscious Lucy lay in the bed between them in the infirmary. The first thing they did when they saw her face was back pedal as fast as possible, not caring that they dropped right out of their beds, or even that they tipped them over. Using his bed as a shield, Laxus picked up a broom that lay in the corner of the room and used the shaft to poke Lucy on the shoulder, causing her to groan and turn over. Lucy's movement made the boys cower behind their bed/shields.
Hearing the slam of the beds hitting the floor team Natsu raced upstairs, thinking something had happened, or they had gotten attacked in their sleep. Storming through the door to the infirmary, Natsu scanned the room at caught sight of the two men cowering behind their flipped over beds.
"You're awake." Erza said, calmly looking at them.
"Luckily..." Laxus muttered, and stood
"She was gonna kill us." Gajeel stated, also getting to his feet.
"She?" Gray asked, coming in behind Erza with Wendy in tow. Lisanna stood out in the hall trying to see over everyone's shoulders to no avail. Gajeel and Laxus hesitantly looked at the still sleeping blonde mage with clear fear in their eyes.
"Her." They said in unison, pointing.
"Lucy?" Natsu said, not believing that two of the most powerful mages in Fairy Tail were afraid of Lucy, who couldn't even hold a candle to Levy's power, let alone Gajeel and Laxus.
Taking a few steps back till they were safely on the other side of the room to Lucy's bed they began to tell their tale. Gajeel omitting the bit where he promised not to leave her.
When the two finished talking Erza was posing thoughtfully, Natsu stared at them like they'd grown mushrooms on their heads, Gray and Wendy were staring at Lucy and Lisanna was still denied access to the room.
"Lucy went insane." Erza stated, Laxus and Gajeel nodded. "She knocked out Laxus after thoroughly whooping his ass." met with another nod. "And then Gajeel beat her when she went on a huge ranting rampage and tried to kill him too." only Gajeel nodded. "I find that very difficult to believe." She said with a shrug.
"I don't care!" Laxus raged, quietly, cautious not to wake the source of his fear. "It happened and if we don't tie her up before she wakes up then she's going to kill us all!"
A groan came from the bed. Gajeel and Laxus comically slowly turned to face her as she opened her eyes. At the sight of them Lucy was first shocked, but then a smile spread across her face.
"Laxus-nii, Gajeel-kun. I'm so glad you're ok!" She said throwing her arms round both their shoulders and pulling them in for a hug, whispering something into their ears that made their faces go slack before she drew back with concern pasted masterfully on her face.
"I was so scared that they had gotten you! I got caught and didn't know what I was going to do! I thought they'd caught you too!" Looking at Erza, Lucy's face went cold.
"Oh... Erza.. you're here." Looking around at the group emotionlessly. "And LOOK! It's Team Natsu! Come to save the day! Oh wait. You're a bit late. These two boys almost got themselves killed because of your ragtag team of amateurs."
"Because of us? What the hell did we do? We weren't even there!" Natsu exclaimed, not noticing the look of irritation melt away to a way too sweet smile as she once again reached for her knives.
"You made me hate you"
"Oh shit!" Gajeel and Laxus lunged at Lucy, Gajeel pinning her head against his chest as Laxus tried to wrestle the knives out of her hands. "Do you believe us now?!" They demanded as the whole of Team Natsu recoiled from the thrashing Lucy.
"What happened to her?" Gray gasped. "She looks like some kind of animal!"
Natsu stood there silently, he had missed her so much and when she finally comes back she wasn't Lucy anymore. Not just that but she hates him. Does that make it his fault that she was like this? He was shaken from his thoughts by her high pitched screaming that would make a dragon's ears bleed. Erza was tying her to a chair, while Gajeel and Laxus held her down.
"What are you doing!" Natsu yelled.
"What needs to be done." Erza's voice was strained as she had to dodge Lucy's thrashing legs, while barking orders at Laxus and Gajeel, the rest of Team Natsu stood in shock.
Once safely tied to the chair, everyone stood in a semi-circle around her. Cronus walked into the room after Erza had passed orders out to Lisanna to summon him.
"You called, Titania?" He asked.
"Cronus!" Lucy said, "Long time no see! Wanna help a girl out?"
"Sorry Luce. You need this." He shrugged. Erza looked at him quizzically.
"So you have seen this side of her before."
"Yes, ma'am. Remember when Lucy went -" He stopped explaining when he took in their blank stares, so that's what she meant when no one cared about her, these guys completely cut all ties. "Well, Lucy went on this mission to detain a bunch of bandits in Waas Forest. Those bandits happened to be my team. Needless to say, it didn't go as predicted, instead of detaining them, she killed them. All 30 of them, without even using her magic. And when she went up against me, I'm less ashamed to say now, that she completely levelled me."
"But she didn't kill you." Erza said.
"Clearly."
"Why?"
"She knocked herself out." Blunt and to the point.
"She did what?"
"She knocked herself out. Why? I have no idea. She just did. For a second it seemed like she was the madness anymore, she seemed sad and scared. Then she knocked herself out."
"Yea that makes sense." Laxus mused. "She told us to hit her. 'Course neither of us did, and that was probably the biggest mistake I ever made."
"So if she goes back to normal whenever she's knocked unconscious, why does it still have a hold on her?"
"Well for that I'd need to know what 'it' is." Said a deep voice coming from the doorway. Everyone parted to clear the way for the little man the voice belonged to.
"Master." Erza said, relieved that she finally had someone to lean on.
"Lucy, my child, what has happened to make you like this?"
"I'm free, master." Tossing her head to scream to the heavens "I'M FREE!"
"Free of what?"
"Of what? Everything. Of caring, of hurting, of being scared. I'm free and I don't ever want to go back to the cage that 'Just Lucy' lived in. I don't need you, or friends, or this guild for that matter."
"My dear child," Master Makarov sighed, "If anything, we need you." Lucy's face dropped and she stared at him.
"Don't lie, Master. Lying is bad."