A/N I hope that you like this newest chapter. I know that to me it jut adds even more questions to the pile that I am going to have to answer later, but that is the fun part! Thank you so much to the Guests, Ebon fire Red waters, Coolanime14, and FairyTail123 for reviewing. And please keep up with the reviewings, it really does remind me to post faster! Thanks!

I do not own Fairy Tail...

Chapter Sixteen: Unanswered Questions

"Did you see that?" A voice asked.

A thick black cloak covered its shoulders and head and swooped down to the grown. If it was to be removed, one would be able to see the stylized lizard insignia that identified her as a member of the dark guild Lizard's Bane. One might also notice how young she was. After being recruited into the guild as a young girl, she was still in her middle teens. Though, age didn't much matter seeing as she had enough power of her own to be the sixth strongest mage of the guild. Sadly that also usually made her the gofer to the higher ups. Something that she despised.

"That girl has both Draco and Phoenix. Of course I saw. It was only a matter of time before they were contracted again, after all." An answering voice said from within the shadows. The first person simply looked into the shadows, wishing not for the first time that she could see the man that had hidden himself within them. She had seen him once, but that had been nearly a decade ago; so long that the image had been long forgotten.

"What will you have me do, Master?" she asked once she let her eyes drift to the wooden floor boards of the barn that had become their guild hall. She was almost afraid to ask the question; the Master did not like it when others questioned him, even if it was just for his own orders. And yet, she always had to in order to know what to do next.

"Isn't that obvious?" The voice scoffed at the girl. "I need you to follow her and report anything and everything to me. And if you even allow them a glimpse of you, I will know and you will be punished severely. And you must keep her alive. Do you understand that? Under no circumstances is she to die!" The voice snapped.

"You want her alive?" She repeated, but sadly she also worded it and said it as if it was a question.

"Of course, simpleton. I need her to gather the other keys like those two!" The man in the shadows roared with anger.

She suppressed her fearful shivers as she said in the strongest voice she could manage, "Of course sir, I will go there right away."

But as she turned to leave, there was a bone rattling chuckle that come from the shadows. "Oh, Della, did you really think that I would let you off the hook for questioning me?" The cold voice asked.

Biting her lip, but not turning around, the young mage shook her head a second before pain was suddenly erupting from all of the nerves in her body. It was the price that one had to pay for questioning the master, and Della was all too familiar with it by now. Not that her ear piercing screams told the same story. She was still young after all.

With Lucy and the Rune Knights:

Lucy was put into a chair with Master Makarov on her left and Loke standing at her right. Across from her sat Doranbolt and Lahar. Each of the men were looking at her skeptically. It probably had to do with what she had told them a moment before.

"What do you mean that you are not able to tell us what has happened?" Lahar asked curtly. He did not have the patients or the time to be dealing with her and the answers that she was unwilling to give to him. Then again, he believed that nothing was confidential when it came to the law. He was a duty bound man who thought that as long as he served to the best of his capabilities, he and the rune knights would be able to do anything that the Magic Council needed of them.

"I don't know how much I am allowed to share if any. You must understand, I only just learned of this a few weeks ago, before this I didn't even know that it would happen. This is very sensitive information that concerns the spirit world. I only know of it because I am the holder of the Thirteen Ecliptic Zodiac Keys. I am not officially, but I am basically under a gag order by the Spirit King." Lucy said it how she felt it was. She didn't want to get in trouble, but the book was warded against anyone else reading it. If it was something that important, then she had a feeling that it was not something that she was allowed to talk about with anyone.

"What can you tell us?" Doranbolt asked as he eyed her with just as much frustration as Lahar was hiding. He was not a man to mince words or hide what he truly thought; a fact that had gotten him in trouble on numerous occasions.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy turned to Loke and asked "Loke, as the leader of the zodiac, what can I tell them? Or would it be easier if you explained?" She asked her spirit with pleading eyes. He knew that she hated that she had to hide things from her friends like this. It was hard for her not to tell Levy anything about it.

"Give me twenty minutes. I'll ask the Spirit King." He whispered to her. Then he looked at the three men and said "I will be back, and when I do I hope that none of you have forced information out of Lucy. To be sure of that, Virgo will be here shortly." Then he disappeared in a burst of sparkles that had barely disappeared before Virgo came in her own flash of light.

"I really don't like all of these damn loop holes. If someone just told us what was going on, we could fix this!" Doranbolt growled.

Lucy was going to answer, but she was cut off when Virgo asked "If your King had shared something with you and had ordered you to keep it a secret, and then when you are on a different land with a different king you were asked to explain it due to similar circumstances, what would you do?"

The two men hadn't thought about it like that, though, Makarov had. Now that it was put into words they both nodded their understanding. Though, they did not answer the question. It still angered them slightly that they were not being given the entire story.

As if the silence was a call to him, Draco suddenly appeared around Lucy's neck and said "Sorry if it is unwelcome, but I really do want to see the reactions to what is about to be said. If I asked the maid or the lion, I don't think it will be as interesting."

Lucy shrugged; if anything the dragon being around her neck offered her a sense of comfort that she was not alone. Virgo had given her that feeling too, but it always helped to have more people around her when she was this nervous. Lucy wouldn't admit this to anyone, but she also knew that she would be even more comfortable if Team Natsu could be in there with her. It was nearly impossible to be anything but happy in their presence.

"If it is not connected to the topic that we are trying to discuss, can you explain the magic that we felt earlier? I have never seen magic like that before." Lahar asked.

Lucy winced at the question. Now that she had thought about it, she had a fairly good hypothesis on what the power actually was. And in order to tell them she had to know if they were cleared to know about the fallen stars or not. So she couldn't say anything until after the explanation that Loke was going to give them.

Right when she was about to speak a deep chuckle came from the dragon on her shoulder and they all looked to Draco as he said "Forgive me, but I'm afraid that it is all interconnected. If you want full answers without the fear of getting only getting hesitant answers, then you should wait until the lion returns. I have a feeling all answers will present themselves if you wait for him."

That was how they spent the next fifteen minutes in complete silence as they all shifted uncomfortably. Of course it didn't help that half way through that Virgo asked for punishment and Lucy had to hang her head and remind the spirit that she never gave out punishment no matter how much she asked for it.

Finally Mater and Lucy breathed in relief when a shimmer of sparkles announced that Loke had returned to give the rune knights the story that they wanted. With a serious glint in his eyes Loke took up the most serious attitude that she had ever seen him use as he spoke.

"The people who attacked today are known as Fallen Stars. You see, one can say that it was in a time before dragons when this dispute started. There was war in the Celestial realm. When it was over, the losing party and his four generals decided that they would rule over Earthland seeing as they couldn't rule over the Celestial Realm. They severed their ties with their stars so that they would never fade away and instead started to absorb their power due to the radiation that comes from the sun. That is how they earned the title of Fallen Stars. We spirits have been fighting them for years. Fate has always managed to bless us with the fact that the thirteen keys come under a single key holder every time that they escape their seals." Loke paused then to make sure that they understood this.

When it seemed to be good, he continued "And now that they are out I am afraid that Lucy is the only person who can even try and defeat them. I believe that this time is different. The magic that you saw Lucy perform against the two fallen stars has been called Star Slaying magic. It could be considered lost, but I would like to call it a legendary magic. Only a few others have been able to use this magic, and I have never seen it used to the extent that Lucy had used it today. Usually, by the time the power manifests, the five had already been sealed, and so there was no need to learn the magic. Considering that it is mostly just a defense against the fallen seeing as it can only be awakened by surviving an encounter with one of them while the mage is in possession of the Thirteen Ecliptic Zodiac Keys." He finished and adjusted his glasses to say that he was done.

Lahar and Doranbolt both seemed to be processing this information as they thought about things. They knew that these people that the spirit were referring to as the Fallen Stars had not been around for a very long time because as far as their history went there was no recollection of any mage having all thirteen of the golden keys. They hadn't even known of the thirteenth key until fairly recently as it was.

"Is there anything else, or can I take Lucy back to where our guild is staying?" Makarov asked as he too had been processing what was being said.

"That spell that you said at the end, what did it do?" Lahar asked as he shifted his glasses. He was quite curious at the extent of the magic. After all, it had altered her eye color, made her attacks stronger, and seemed to have been trying to make wings at the end of the fight. He wanted to know what the spell did that had sent the two opponents into such a painful place.

"Um…" Lucy shrugged as she looked up to Loke, hoping that maybe he could explain it.

With a solemn look in his eyes he said "Oblitus dolor, dolorem Derelicta. It means; Pain of the fallen, pain of the forsaken. If I had to hazard a guess at what it actually did, I would say that it repeats the pain that they had experienced when they severed their connections from their stars. But that is also just a guess. It is still a new magic, we need to train Lucy in it more once the games are done. That will be the only way to gain experience and knowledge with it."

"Is there anything you can tell us about the five so that the council is aware of the situation?" Doranbolt asked.

Again Lucy looked at Loke for the answers.

"Their leader goes by the name of Mordachi. We do not know the extent of their powers seeing as they have been growing over the years, but he is the strongest. And the four generals under him in order of their strength are named Lazarus, Ambrosia, Ezekiel, and Sophronia." His answer was short and concise, and it was also clear that not much was known about the fallen stars.

"Alright, you are free to leave. But be prepared for us to contact you once you are back at your guild. If what the lion spirit said is true and only you can take away this threat that had the Titania and a wizard saint thoroughly defeated, then we might be requesting your talents if we meet up with them in the future." Lahar said as he waived a dismissive hand at her and the master of Fairy Tail.

With a sigh of relief, Loke and Virgo left in a shower of sparkles as Draco continued to laze around on Lucy's shoulder. He quite liked this perch. It allowed him to know things that others didn't. Due to his size and hearing he also knew a lot that he wasn't supposed to. It was also a good thing that Lucy by herself was not nosy, and so he could often get close to privet conversations without them or herself realizing it.

He felt as if it would be good for both the Spirit Realm and his mistress if he stayed on her shoulder for the time being. And even if Lucy would not let her spirits call her master that was still the underlying relationship between them. Granted, they were also friends and a large family, but that would not stop them from doing anything and everything that Lucy ordered. It was just the way things were supposed to be run.

But Draco would be lying to himself if he said that it felt that way. With Lucy he would never question his orders. Through the love that penetrated their bond between her and her spirits, they would all do anything that she asked. It was often a one in a thousand chance to find a key holder that went by bonds of friend ship and love instead of drilling fear and obedience into their spirits. That was another reason that her spirits would protect her with their lives.

Grinning as he let his tail swipe back and forth, he heard the two men they were leaving talk of how they had never heard of this threat. They were determined to find out more, and so it looked as if they were going to go and look through the ancient texts for anything more that they could find on the fallen group. He wished them luck knowing that Leo had already given them the brunt of the information and besides a couple dates at best; they were not going to be finding anything anytime soon.

A/N So that is the end of another chapter. I hope that you liked it and please leave a review if you would. I so love it when people do.