Just to let you guys know, this is indeed the finale of Glass Hearts, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!
Glass Hearts
Chapter 12: Payment In Kind
Knives drove forwards, ice spears flew, wind raged, fire exploded viciously, cat cries rose over the grunts of attacks as tree vines fell.
"We're getting nowhere!" Gray hissed, quickly ducking under a root shooting past his face. A fresh pump of adrenalin hit the ice mage's blood stream, recalling Magnus' words- "Don't let the vines touch you, graze you or ever get a hold of you. They sap the power straight from your soul and can damage it with a toxic you can't cure. Our soul-bodies inside Lucy's consciousness are linked to our physical bodies. You die in here, you die out there too."- It still sent shivers down the ice mage's spine to think of what might happen to him. But fear, like any emotion, was a weapon against them and helped to protect him from his carelessness.
"They keep coming and coming." Erza said, using Heaven's wheel to open up a space of defense around her. Heavy breaths were coming from each and everyone one of them, their ethereal bodies exhausted to the point of near collapse. Time was warped in the white world, it felt like they had been fighting for days, yet Magnus had told them it had been only minutes.
"Don't give up!" Natsu shouted from the air above. Happy's paws clutched the white scale scarf around the slayer's neck, dodging and weaving from the spears of shoots trying to knock them from the endless white sky above. "We must save Lucy!"
"Aye sir!" Happy agreed. Gray shook his head, wondering how on Earthland the dragon slayer could ever think the ice mage would give up so easily.
They desperately continued their pursuit, closing in a few inches every few minutes. Magnus' bright eyes watched the tree in the distance with dreaded feelings. Their was so much intensity in his stare at every leaf that fell and crumbled, that he could have bore a hole through them quicker than they could turn to ash. There was almost half the amount of the leaves left on the trees. The vines were using the raw energy to stop the internal attack, which helped stopped their explosive consummative path, but it wasn't good for Lucy. Even if the chances of explosion were reduced by a little bit, the speed they were absorbing Lucy's energy was still lethal. The bare tree branches were making him feel that daunting despair that always followed him, riding on the back of the guilt that was sure to haunt him, should he not be able to save her.
"Lucy!" Natsu's voice raged on, constantly on repeat as he shouted and shouted her name. His attempt to rouse her from her slumber were futile, even if it was her best friend calling. Still, it seemed to be some kind of motivation for him, and Magnus wouldn't be the one to take it away.
"I wish we could get Gildarts or master in here." Happy muttered, gasped and dropped below a vine doing a right angle towards them.
"You heard Magnus, we're familiar with Lucy's conciousness and Magnus isn't able to bring in anyone stronger than him." A small pout sat on the dragon slayer's lips, hidden beneath his fighting expression. It annoyed him that Magnus' explanation was a backwards insult towards the dragon slayer and his team, telling them they're not stronger than him. He didn't want to admit it, but when he was fighting Magnus at first in the alley, he was pretty impossible to defeat and it took a lot of difficulty to eventually overpower him. And that was only at a fraction of his strength -limited by the transfer spell item thing he had, and the fact he was so close to Lucy as a vessel. It irritated Natsu more than he would have liked to believe.
"Woah!" Gray's voice erupted with a series of yelps following. Natsu and Happy were tossed from the sky, collapsing onto the reverberating ground. The quaking ground beneath their feet threw their equilibrium and refused to let them stand no matter how hard they tried. Even Magnus struggled to stay on one knee.
"What's going on?" Natsu roared over the tremendous boom on the shaking floor.
"Look!" He yelled, pointing towards the epicentre of the shaking. He aimed his finger at the centre tree where Lucy's body was wrapped inside. Confused Natsu just shook his head at the red headed wizard. "Her eyes!"
Dragon eyes looked closer at the tree, at the blonde girl's face, at her brown eyes. Wait! Eyes? Sure enough, Lucy's brown eyes were open, revealed beneath the flutter of eye lids fluttering between conciousness and sleep. "LUCY!" Natsu roared, launching forwards. He toppled as his feet hit the ground, but he wasn't pushed by the ground, but instead an arm- Magnus' arm.
"What are you doing?" Natsu snapped.
"Look closer." Natsu pushed his eyes as strong as he could, looking back at Lucy's eyes. That's when he saw it. What he thought was brown, wasn't brown at all. It was black. Swirling darkness raged in her eyes, consuming any speckle of chocolate irises trying to creep forwards.
"What's happening to her?"
"I don't know." Magnus looked confused and concerned and everything else all at once. His face went a slight shade paler, his face damp with a colder layer of sweat. There was look on his face that said there was something he wasn't saying. It was a look Natsu didn't like.
"MAGNUS!" Natsu roared, louder than he imaged he ever could. The red head whipped around to the slayer, immediately captures by the eyes staring at him. They were strong, consuming, making him unable to pull away, unable to ignore him, unable to do anything but listen. " . .her?"
"I...we need to get out of here now." It wasn't the direct answer Natsu was looking for, but the answer he received was all the same. Magnus shook off the dragon slayer's gaze, shooting it towards the blonde with remorse and bitter guilt.
"No." Natsu hissed. "I'm not leaving her."
"You have no choice."
"I'm not leaving her!"
Magnus ignored the slayer, looking over at the other guild mates, fumbling to their feet under the shaking ground. "We're leaving!"
"What?" Erza turned, her face dumbfounded and confused.
"We aren't leaving until we get Lucy." Gray growled.
A gasp caught his attention as he averted his eyes to the blue haired girl beside him. A heavy weight of dread caught him by the stomach and twisted, as he dared to follow her line of sight. During the midst of the chaos and fighting, he had been so focused on cutting through the vines without getting touched that he hadn't even been looking at the tree. It was pitch black. The bark that entangled the blonde haired girl was a charred coal. But there was more difference in the blonde girl herself- she was no longer blonde, her hair an almost pale white, skin bled of all colour, and eyes, brown eyes were a pitch, swallowing black.
"What the- she was fine a few minutes ago!" Gray exclaimed in disbelief.
"It happened in seconds- during the Earthquakes." Magnus spoke, his voice soft over the rumbling ground. Green eyes were consumed in emotion, looking at the stunned guilt members. "We're leaving." His voice became firm.
"Like hell we are." Gray hissed back immediately.
"We're not leaving Lucy." Erza said, stepping shakily forwards.
"Like I said before, you have no choice." Magnus said. "I thought if we fought at the rate we were going, the magic it was consuming would be burned off and delay enough time in its magic consuming that Natsu may have been able to get close and break her free but that's impossible now. It must have seen us as too big of a threat and squeezed all the magic power it could get at once. She'll explode any second now."
"No way..." Wendy whimpered. "But...we can't leave Lucy. We can't."
"There's no way to save her anymore and I'm not letting you go down with her."
Magnus took in a deep breath, his eyes falling closed.
"WAIT-" Erza jumped, but it was already took late.
In the guild...
"ERZA!" Voice jumped the second her eyes flew open. She launched straight up, almost flying out of the infirmary bed. Cracks of wood alerted her to the other mage's flying forwards. Gray, Wendy, Carla, Happy- Magnus. Erza flew from where she sat in a second, ignoring the ache of her body. Her hands were around his neck in a second, almost snapping his neck in two.
"SEND US BACK!" She demanded, slamming his body down against the bed to enforce her point. Magnus choked and gasped for air, trying but failing to wriggle free of her grip. He managed a small shake from his neck, eyes looking up at her with grief and heartache.
"It's too late for her now." Magnus muttered. Erza's shaking hands fell limp, stumbling off the side of the bed.
"It...It can't-" Her voice fell into silence, staring dazed at the red-haired man, as if it was all a dream- a nightmare. But this nightmare wouldn't end.
"You're lying!" Gray hissed, his eyes alight with the same anger Erza's was. Except, instead of explosive rage, his was controlled, and it was taking every once of him not to send a spear straight through the red-haired man's head. It would have been easy to ignore all the emotion on his face, the pain and the turmoil, and dish him out the punishment he really deserved. If Lucy was to die, it would be his fault.
"I wish we could go back too." Magnus said softly, to which Gray scoffed. Happy sat with tears in his eyes as he and Wendy and Carla watched nervously from the bed next to them. "It absorbed it too quickly, her body is a ticking time bomb, we need to move her as far away as possible into uninhabited area before she explodes."
"'Her body'!" Happy hissed. "That's Lucy!"
"Lucy's gone."
"She isn't gone!" Gray yelled. "She-"
"Hey!" Lisanna's voice cut through the shouting, snapping their attention to her- and for a moment, forgetting Magnus. She looked pale, hovering over the bedside next to Lucy's, a look of confusion and panic on her face. "Natsu's not waking up!"
"What?" Magnus launched forwards, pushing aside Gray who was a split second away from murdering him. He pressed his hand against Natsu's forehead and closed his eyes. Everyone stared for a tense few seconds, watching the bruises come out against the skin of his neck as his blood pulse with a controlled calmness beneath it. "DAMMIT!" Magnus roared, pulling loose. "He slipped loose of me, the-" His words cut off, with the force of a tornado slamming into him.
"What do you mean he slipped loose?" Gildarts stormed forwards, the wood shivering beneath his feet. "Get him out of there!"
"I...I can't."
Inside Lucy's mind...
Grounds still shook and quivered with energy, the air was thick and heavy like black smoke, and the world was fading from a stark white into a deep gray and growing darker. "LUCY!" Natsu bellowed over the rumbling floor, struggling to his feet. All his energy was almost sucked out of him. The fight to break free from Magnus almost tore him in two as he tried to drag his soul back. But he had managed to wriggle free of his grip at the last second, determined not to leave. Everyone else had gotten out, and to Natsu, that was a relief. They were safe, and they could not stop him from what he was about to do. Using whatever energy he had left, he drove straight into the nest of the roots.
They came at him faster and more desperate than ever, fearing as he drove closer and closer without stopping. Flames exploded from him left and right, dissolving the black roots into ash before two grew in their place. "LUCY!" His voice rang out. "Lucy! Wake up!" Dark eyes looked forwards, the brown that was fighting before, almost vacant. "Don't let it get to you! You're Fairy Tail remember! You're my nakama! Don't you dare lose to this!" He pressed and pressed his feet further, darting and flying past the knives of wood with murderous intent. "Lucy! Please! I can't lose you! We're going to find Igneel together, remember? I'm gonna find him, and you're going to be right by my side!"
His foot hooked the base of a roots, tripping and sending him rolling him over the ground. He rolled and rolled with increasing speed, crashing and flying over thick and painful roots. A heavy crack echoed in his ears as his head bounced from the root that stopped him. Dark patches fluttered across his vision, sickness churning in his stomach, tempting to drag him into unconsciousness. But he couldn't let it! "Luce..." He mumbled, dragging his aching, painful body up from the ground.
His back hit a thick, vertical root and he bounded backwards in surprise. No poison spread across his body, instead, a warm tingle sent welcomed, happy heat through his body, making him involuntarily smile. When he looked to the trunk, he realised why.
Lucy's lifeless body hung in the twisted grasp of the tree's trunk, still burning with a small hint of golden radiance. Her eyes were open, small flecks of brown flickering like embers almost dying. "Lucy..." He muttered. At that moment, he realised with sudden shock, that the vines had stopped. He threw himself around, and realised that wasn't the case. The vine's were still fighting, but they weren't fighting him. Warm, golden brown branches reached forwards in a lattice around the dragon slayer, fending off the attacks of the black roots trying to kill him.
"Lucy!" He exclaimed, recognising the warmth that had flowed through him. He bounded up through the tree in an instant, holding on against the growing strength of the shaking. It was getting worse and worse the more he climbed. The shrills of the black roots screamed at deafening levels through the air. It was almost impossible to breath with the weight of it. But he could still call her name.
"Lucy! Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!" Natsu rasped, holding her cold face between his palms, brushing the strands of greyish yellow hair from her face. "Lucy, wake up. I know you're in there. Wake up. Please wake up. Please!" Water welled up in his eyes, feeling the desperation flooding his veins and heart.
"N...tsu..." Her voice was so quiet, that Natsu almost missed it. He heard her and the world -just for a moment- seemed okay again.
"Lucy!" The tears threatened to fall and he had to quickly rub them away, as he brought his face closer to hers.
The brown in her eyes grew a little bit bigger, still fighting to break free of the consuming darkness. A crash in the distance echoed through the white chamber, and cracks broke through the floor. It was beginning.
"Lucy," Natsu roused her with urgency. "You need to stop feeding it your magic. I'm gonna get you out of here. I promise I'll save you, I swear!"
"I...can't..." Lucy uttered. "Go...natsu." The sound of the tree lattice cracking echoed behind him, and he knew the vines were seconds from breaking through.
"No." Natsu growled. "I said I'm not going anywhere without you, so I won't."
"...there's ...no time...go..."
"No."
"Na...ts-"
"No."
"Na-"
"How can I go to a world where you aren't there, Luce?" Tears finally rolled over his cheeks, wrapping his arms around the torso he could reach. He pressed his body as close to hers as possible, breathing in the warmth, the scent, the beauty of her existence. "You're my best friend, my teammate, my nakama. I can't leave you behind. I can't go where you won't be." For a moment, Natsu's voice choked on his sobs. A small shakey breath came from his lips, dark tear-filled eyes looked deep into hers. "I can't live without you."
"Natsu..." Lucy whispered, the brown swelling in her eyes with the water flowing from her damp cheeks. The little bit of the life fighting in the tree sparked forwards. Darkness replied and spread twice as fast, killing her significant burst of hope. The seconds they had left were gone. The lattice broke free, the vines surged forwards, the ground collapsed around them. Light burst from the cracks in the ground with a increasing cry. Natsu wrapped his arms around Lucy tighter, whispering something she couldn't catch.
In the guild...
"What's going on!" Erza screaming, vibrations shooting through the air. Earthquakes ruptured throughout the whole city. Echoes of crying and shouts came from the open window as Magnolia shook violently.
Light burst from Lucy's body, levitating up into the air with winds storming around her, throwing everything and everyone backwards.
"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" Makarov's voice boomed, barriers shooting up and over the mage's in the last few seconds before the light exploded.
Everything went white, a boom echoing through the streets of Magnolia, died in the screeched of the explosion rippling through the town. And then it was over.
Magnolia, of what was left from the quaking, was cloaked in a sheet of silence. There was no a hint of life, or sound coming from the once lively city as it stood still in the wake of what happened.
In the streets of Magnolia, where everyone once lives, stood the frozen bodies of the citizens. The explosion's death toll could be counted at a glance.
"...za...Er...za...Erza!" A voice called from the distance. A ringing echoed in her head, a warm fuzz rolling over her body. She felt happy, and joyful, something beautiful blooming inside of her. Dark eyes fluttered open with a smile on her face.
Gray's dark eyes looked down on her with concern, but she could see the same adoration in his eyes that she felt. Slowly she sat up, her memories coming back to her. "What happened?" Everyone else looked just as confused as she did. Her eyes jumped, seeing everything but two beds laid scattered in pieces in the room, like a tornado had just come through. Both Natsu and Lucy laid still and undisturbed in their beds, deep within a lifeless slumber. "Did the explosion not go off?"
As the unsure Gildarts hesitated before opening his mouth, Magnus cut him off. "It happened." He said, stood still and preen without any out of place on him. He caught the attention of all the concious and confused guild members. "Just not the way you expected it to."
"Then-" She was cut off with the burst of noise from outside the window. Chatter and life and sounds of cheers and happiness came from the outside world. The city of Magnolia radiating what it was that she was feeling. The feeling of love she recognised and felt, like the world was complete- where had it come from? What was it?
Somewhere else...
"Well that went well..." Natsu said, bounding around in search of direction, recognition and navigation. He stopped a few feet forwards, looked around and pouted. "I don't know where we are. It's all white." The gloom disappeared quickly from his face with the absence of response. "Luce?"
He turned around the blonde hair girl stood behind him. Her face snapped out of deep thought with surprise. She flashed towards Natsu, and almost just as quick, she turned away. Natsu pouted again, rushing up to the blonde haired girl who gave a small squeak as he neared and tried to back out of his space. Her eyes averted his gaze, her face a deep red. "What is it Luce? Is there something wrong?"
"Nothing." Lucy snapped, desperate to keep her voice steady. She could hear the girlish tone of her voice and cursed herself for giving herself away. Thankfully, Natsu was the most oblivious person she knew, and he didn't catch on. Her body was still reeling from the explosion of emotions that were raging inside of her. After everything went white, she felt all Natsu's emotions sink into her, and the most prominent one in there. Her face was beat red every time she looked at him and remembered the emotion she felt, recalling the words he said right before the explosion went off. She hadn't heard them at the time, but the second she woke up in the white wonderland they were walking -probably limbo- she couldn't stop hearing them repeat over and over in her heard.
The rumble of a soft laugh catches her attention as she turns back to the dragon slayer. A small heart-melting smile curved on his lips as he extended his hand out to her. "Shall we go home?" He grinned.
In the guild...
"So Magnus cleared off while we weren't looking, huh?" Gray growled irritable from his seat.
"Probably couldn't stand your ugly mug." Natsu replied.
"You were the ones in a coma for three days!" Gray roared, flying up from his seats, and crashing heads with the dragon slayer. The pair crippled over in pain on the floor.
"Idiots." Lucy laughed. Erza sat besides her, re-reading the note Magnus had left her before he had left. It explained what had happened with the dragon slayer and celestial mage, and other things. Apparently, instead of the magic exploding destructively, Natsu and Lucy had managed to distribute it across the land. The ripple that went through Magnolia had been the spread of empathy. It wasn't concentrated enough to do the damage that it had to Lucy and Magnus and the previous empaths. Everyone in Magnolia were now more sensitive of others' feelings and that was it. He sensed where Natsu and Lucy were, which was indeed a sort of limbo, and helped direct the pair to waking up. Though he had managed to escape the second the pair did wake up.
Magnus left to go back to his guild after fifty years, certain it was still there -wherever there was. And for the next few months, Magnolia was a peaceful and happy place, the feeling of love in the air. And in the guild. There was a dating outbreak through the guild, everyone was going out and getting girlfriends and boyfriends and sometimes one of each. But what Lucy couldn't help but notice, was the looks. Lucy almost died when Erza had told her what happened, including the lovey-dovey feelings they felt. They knew. Everybody knew.
She sat on the hill, looking over the happy, lovey Magnolia with a hot blush on her cheeks. She just managed to escape from Mira's gaze as she went to fetch drinks for the hundredth party going on in the guild. She thought a little of the party and her guild mates, but like always, those thoughts didn't linger for long. All her thoughts always seemed to come back to the very reason Mira was looking at her. The words echoed in her mind again, and she couldn't help but blush.
"So you love me, huh?" She spoke aloud, following with a tiresome sigh. "...I love you too."
"Who'd you love?" A voice popped up behind her. Lucy screeched in surprise, almost flying a kick straight at the pink-haired dragon slayer. He caught her foot easily in his palm and raised an eyebrow at it. She shook him free and turned away. "You're a strange girl, Luce. Talkin' to yourself."
There was a moment of silent as the dragon slayer waited for a response. When he thought he wasn't getting one, he began to move towards her, but he stopped when he voice finally came.
"Thanks-for-saving-me." Lucy spoke in a quick rush that Natsu barely caught her words. He wasn't expecting her to say that, she hadn't mentioned anything since she had woken up about what happened. And except the lectures from everyone else about her attempted self-sacrifice, no one had said anything either. Nevertheless, he smiled, throwing an arm over her stiff shoulders.
"I meant it." He chuckled, pulling her close.
"Meant what?" She replied, caving to his warmth.
"That I can't live without you."
Lucy's face turned a deep crimson red, hot flashes burning through her body. Her voice got stuck in her throat, tangled in surprise. What a sneaky dragon slayer, managing to catching her off guard.
"We'll be friends forever!" Natsu proclaimed loudly into the horizon.
"I doubt that." Lucy mumbled. Of course, Natsu heard. He leapt away, a wounded look across his face.
"Why?" He whimpered, tears pricking the corner of his eyes.
Lucy looked torn for a split second before turning on the slayer. His scarf jerked forwards at her pull and stumbled a step or two. He stopped as he met the warm lips pressed against his. Electricity bolted through his body, his heart racing a mile a minutes, body overwhelmed with emotion.
When Lucy pulled back, Natsu was too stunned to speak, eyes lost in hers.
"That's why." She said confidentially, turning and strutting back to the guild. It was his turn to be surprised.
Natsu's dark eyes followed after her, unable to look away from her radiating back. That heart that seemed so much like glass, was stronger than it ever was before. Natsu whistled, a smile set deep on his lips. "There's no going back now..." Not that he would ever want to. There was just one task ahead- or maybe it was just a repeat of that task.
He was going to have to pay her back for that kiss.
The End
Unfortunately, that is the end of Glass Hearts. I want to thank all you guys for following this story and the favorite and everything else you've done to support the production of this story. I hope you recommend it to others and keep an eye out for possibly an extra chapter- which I'm known to do -Maybe about Magnus- (I will post news if I'm writing one on my wall) and look forward to my other stories. -I'm really sad this story is over...I really enjoyed writing it. (╥﹏╥)
If you liked Glass Hearts try checking out some of my other stories.
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-A-ccentric