Despite himself, Natsu squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the blow.
He couldn't believe that it was all supposed to end like this. Really not the way he'd ever pictured himself going out, completely useless, lying on the floor, reduced to an unmoving mess which soon wouldn't have a head anymore.
And being killed by his best friend, who probably didn't even know she was doing it…
It took him a lot longer than it should've to realize that the blow wasn't coming. He cracked an eye open, staring at his hands and was extremely glad that all his parts were still were they were supposed to be. A little embarrassed to find that he was shivering, though.
For a moment he debated whether he should look up. He really didn't want to see the blade coming down at him to kill him, but if it hadn't happened yet, maybe…
"What are you waiting for, you stupid bitch?", Lucy's voice suddenly asked, and Natsu was momentarily confused. Had someone else entered the room while he hadn't been looking? He finally looked up and found that Lucy's expression had changed. Her eyes were wide and her lips were moving, but no sound came out.
That wasn't the puppet master. That was her, actually her. He felt relief flooding through him, which only intensified when her hand opened, and the sword fell clattering to the ground.
"Lucy?", he asked tentatively.
"Don't bother, idiot. Stronger minds than hers have tried to get out of my control and they all failed", she announced haughtily, her expression quite suddenly back to that look of superiority that looked completely misplaced on he face.
Well, screw that. Natsu had no idea who those stronger minds were, but he seriously doubted they could hold a candle to Lucy. After all, if she set her mind on something she could be scarier than Erza. He reached up to grab her hand and pulled her down to his eye level, pleased to find almost no resistance. As soon as she'd stopped talking with the puppet master's voice her expression had changed back, and he could see the struggle on her face.
"Lucy, listen to me. You can do this, you can stop doing what he tells you to. I believe in you."
"Save your speeches", she spat. „Even if this one's a little bothersome you'll soon be dead, anyway, at the rate Mikigi's draining you." Natsu absolutely hated agreeing with the stupid asshole that was making Lucy say that, but he did have a point. He didn't have a lot of time before his power was completely gone, but he wouldn't let that distract him. Right now, Lucy was more important.
"Come on. You're Lucy Heartfilia. No one can make you do stuff you don't want to, not me, not your father, or even the entire phantom guild, and definitely not a grown man who plays with dolls!" He was rewarded with a short chuckle as he said that, a hesitant smile that was most definitely Lucy's. It only lasted for an instant, before her features morphed again.
"I'm not playing with dolls! You obviously don't understand the concept of what I'm doing here at all, but that's fine, you're just about dead anyway, oh great Salamander of Fairy Tail." Natsu ignored the words and kept focusing on his partner. When he'd made the joke it had been her that reacted. Because she was surprised, maybe? And it had taken a moment before the guy had been able to get his control back.
So he had to do something. Something that would be so unexpected for Lucy that her reaction would be hers, something so surprising that it would make her snap out of it and be herself again…
He honestly had no idea how his brain came up with his next idea, since it was completely outside of the box he was usually comfortable thinking in, but if it surprised even him, there was no way she could see it coming, right?
For lack of a better idea he decided to just go for it. He reached around her and put a hand on her neck, pulling her closer to him and pressed his lips on hers.
As he was doing it he could do nothing but hope that it was enough to snap her out of it and that the surprise was enough to cover up the fact that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He probably should've been paying attention whenever it had been that everyone else had gotten their mysterious understanding of this kind of stuff, but thinking about that didn't help him right now, either.
He pulled back and really hoped that Lucy would go back to herself, now, instead of being the 'puppet' trying to murder him.
Of course there was always the possibility that she would come back to herself and kill him, anyway.
"N…Natsu", she said in a breathy tone, blinking at him a few times. Before abruptly displaying an evil smirk. „Kissing your executioner, huh? There's a certain tragic romance to that, I guess. I need to make sure to tell your friends once you're dead…" Suddenly Lucy whipped her head around, turning to the side and closing her eyes. „Shut up!" She yelled, still so close to his face that it hurt his ears a little.
"Lucy…?", he asked hesitantly. She whipped her head back to face him and said, „Not you!"
"Oh no you won't!", she suddenly yelled. „A spoiled little princess from a rich family is not going to stop me, and for the record you'll be punished severely for even trying."
"Hell yeah she's stopping you", Natsu interjected, making both Lucy's personalities (it was a little odd to think that it was actually just the one person sitting in front of him. „Cause she's not a spoiled little girl. She's a Fairy Tail mage! And if you understood what that meant, you would have stayed clear of Magnolia altogether, asshole!"
Lucy turned her head to the side again, and Natsu could see that the weird crystal an her neck was now blinking, the greenish light going on and off.
"That's right", she said, her voice low. „Pissing off Fairy Tail is a seriously bad idea. And you'll be sorry you tried to hurt my friends." The light shone a little more brightly one last time, before finally going out.
She turned to look back at him. „Natsu, are you all right?" The concern in her voice was definitely hers. She'd won. Just like he'd known she would.
He grinned at her. „I'm glad you're back", he said. But now that he didn't have to concentrate on getting her sane again, he felt the lack of his magic much more drastically than before. And he was still shivering, because he didn't have his fire protecting him from the cold of the ice floor he was sprawled on. „Would be nice if that girl stopped stealing my magic, though."
"Okay. Hold on, I'll make her stop", Lucy with conviction and stood up, leaving the room quickly.
Well, he really hoped her confidence wasn't misplaced. Because he honestly didn't know how long he could even stay awake.
If Natsu and Gray were to go all out in a fight, the ice mage wouldn't be the one to emerge victorious. As much as he hated to acknowledge the fact (and secretly thought that with his obviously superior intellect he might be able to do something about it) fighting Mikigi made him painfully aware of it.
He'd been cut off from Erza early on, when an ice wall had just appeared between where she and Loki were fighting and where Mikigi had started attacking him. He didn't know where Natsu and Lucy where, either, while Happy was a whimpering heap on the floor behind him, having been the target of one fire dragon's iron fist. Gray had put up an ice shield to stop the blast, which would've worked perfectly if he'd realized just a little sooner that he wasn't the target. When he'd heard the blue feline's scream he felt guilty, but it looked as if his injuries weren't life threatening, and the 'Puppet' hadn't spared him another glance.
She was probably one of the most unnerving opponents he had ever fought against, simply because she didn't say a word. Even Erza, the most disciplined fighter he knew, talked during her battles, but this 'Puppet' was just staring at him with empty eyes. He recognized a lot of the fire eater's signature moves, but Mikigi never named them the way Natsu did. The first few times his mind had helpfully supplied a chorus of 'Fire dragon's… whichever' but as he was driven more and more towards the defensive, he'd stopped.
It actually made him feel a little self conscious about yelling 'Ice Make' all the time, but he knew that if he stopped doing that in the middle of a fight it would just mess up his concentration.
Mikigi wasn't as good with the techniques as Natsu was when properly motivated, which was a blessing, because with motivation the annoying idiot could turn into one of the scariest things ever if you were his opponent, but she didn't tire, and even though Gray knew he hit her and was pretty sure he'd managed to injure her she moved as though she didn't even feel it. And she was using some of Natsu's biggest attacks right after one another without even pausing to breathe.
He'd manage to pretty much ruin her flowing white tunic, which hadn't been his intention, but made the three large black spikes sticking out of her shoulder look even more grotesque. He couldn't figure out what the point of that was.
"Ice Make… Lance!", he cried out, landing another direct hit, which she didn't even seem to notice.
But he definitely noticed when she moved her flaming hands in a way that made him think "with a flaming left hand and a…" Not something Gray would want to get hit by. There was nowhere to hide from the attack, and he didn't trust himself to dodge it, so he hit his fist in his palm and yelled "Ice Make Shield!"
He was a little surprised himself when he realized that he'd made his shield to look exactly like the surrounding walls. His subconscious was apparently much more taken with the whole ice palace concept than he'd realized.
The attack hit and it wasn't too surprising that the shield shattered, but at least Gray himself was unharmed by it. But he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to put up many more shields of that strength, as he was already panting from the exertion. How other people could fight and wear clothes without melting from the heat was really beyond him.
Mikigi stepped over the remains of his shield and looked at it with an interest that didn't fit her former look of complete indifference no matter what happened at all. "Well, you're a talented one, aren't you?", she said, her voice soft, but her tone condescending. A smirk appeared on her face and made her look like a completely different person than the one he'd been fighting against. "Better than my current ice mage, for sure. She'd never put up a wall of that quality that quickly. And during a fight, no less. Maybe I should trade in."
Her demeanor was rapidly changed, and quite closely resembled Lucy when she'd been talking to them before (also an unnerving experience) so Gray concluded that the Puppet Master himself was now controlling Mikigi, or at least controlling her more than he had before.
"You're a guy, though… that's not really what I'm looking for."
"Yeah well I'm looking to be recruited", Gray gave back and got in position for another attack.
"You are good looking though", she went on, completely ignoring what he'd said. "Hm… maybe that could actually be worth a try, be more open minded, broaden the horizons…"
Gray had developed the habit of stripping as a means to stop himself from feeling cold, and by extension it had also stopped him from feeling shame. But as her eyes roamed over his body he wished for the first time in years that he was wearing clothing. He wasn't quite sure what she was getting at, but all the theories he came up with made him wish the silent expressionless opponent from before back. That had actually been less creepy.
"Well… not sure if I'm really into that", Migiki went on. "But maybe I can wait a bit with killing you, in case I change my mind." Her arms were engulfed in flames again. "Doesn't mean I can't hurt you before I do that, though."
"Ice Make Hammer!", Gray yelled instead of answering, because he really wanted to pretend that bit of talk just hadn't happened at all, but for the first time in the entire fight Mikigi dodged his attack, and he was surprised to find that she was actually pretty quick.
But that wasn't the most worrying realization. What was worse was that the flames around her arms were getting weaker. If they're gone it means Natsu's dead, he thought, and even if he wouldn't openly admit to being worried about the dragon slayer, he most certainly wanted to avoid that.
"Stop!" A laboured voice suddenly called and he looked over to one of the numerous doorways to find Lucy, waving one of her keys. She looked towards Gray with glassy eyes that were anything but reassuring, but at least she didn't stare at him like Mikigi did. "Where's Loke?", she asked sounding strained, but sort of like herself again. Gray wasn't sure if he could trust that, but he waved in the general direction of where he supposed Erza and Loki were but with the mess of walls and doorways that weren't all in the same place as they were before he was pretty sure that the gesture was pretty useless.
"LOKE!", Lucy suddenly yelled at the top of her lungs. "Whatever it is you're doing, stop right now, don't kill anybody!" she instructed.
"Oh thank god", came a relieved voice from the direction Gray had been pointing, and it sounded as though the Lion spirit was actually much closer than he'd assumed.
"And you!", Lucy said, turning to Mikigi with a look that could be described as nothing other than psychotic. "You stop, too."
"Don't make me laugh, girl", she replied haughtily. "Don't think your little act of rebellion is gonna last, and even if it could, Mikigi is one of my oldest servants, that even if our connection were severed she'd still do exactly as I asked. So just go save us all some time and cut off the dragon slayer's head like you were supposed to."
"If you're not careful, I'm going to find you and cut off yours for even thinking such a thing", Lucy said in a threatening tone that briefly elevated her scariness level beyond Erza's.
"I'm looking forward to when you're completely under my control again. I like your temperament, I'm sure we can have fun with that", Mikigi said with a laugh. Again, creepiness level through the roof.
Lucy stalked towards the magic stealer and Gray noticed that the weird crystal on her neck had started flashing red instead of green as it had before. Mikigi had one of those as well, steadily glowing green. "Mikigi. You will stop!", Lucy instructed firmly.
"No, she won't. You know I can just let her envelop her hand with some fire for a while longer and your precious friend will bite the dust without any further assistance."
"Stop!", Lucy said again, strain evident in her voice, but her gaze unwavering. The crystal on her neck glowed red again, and for a brief moment so did Mikigi's and as it did her face went from a look of smug superiority to one of pain and confusion and back in a matter of seconds.
"We can get you out of here", Lucy said. "You can be free, all you have to do is stop hurting my friends. We know it's not your fault." The crystal glowed red again, longer this time, and again Mikigi's face looked utterly heartbreaking.
"Stop wasting your breath, Str…" Mikigi stopped in the middle of a sentence, looking confused again, but then went on "-ied, none of them succeeded"
Lucy put her hand on Mikigi's shoulder, the one without the spikes and said, "we'll help you. I promise"
Mikigi's crystal glowed red again and didn't go back to green this time, and she seemed to crumble under Lucy's touch, raising her fists to clumsily hide her face. "No", she said weakly, her voice a lot different from before.
"Just stop. Give Natsu back his magic."
"They'll hurt me", the girl said with a sob. "The pain, I don't… please don't make me…"
"He won't hurt you again, we'll stop him", Lucy said, softer now. Gray wasn't actually sure if they could deliver on that promise, but most of all he was glad to see Lucy being back to herself again. Somehow they'd solve that girl's problems, they always found a way to deliver on their promises in the end.
"You can't", Mikigi whimpered, but she didn't seem quite as scared anymore, slowly letting her hands sink.
"We'll find a way. And you don't really want to hurt anyone, do you?", Lucy said. For the first time, Mikigi looked directly into Lucy's eyes and then tentatively shook her head. "Then stop."
The girl squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and then looked back at Lucy. "I don't have the fire anymore."
Lucy gave her a smile. "Thank you…" She was going to say something else, but was abruptly cut off by a sharp yell, followed by a scream.
A very feminine sounding one.
Gray felt all the blood drain out of his face when he realized the voice was Erza's.
A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Let me know what you think about the new chapter