CHAPTER 5:

DEAR KABY

The mansion of Duke Everlue was opulent, magnificent, and grand. It reminded her uncomfortably of her old home, uncomfortably because of what her father made her home into. Then again, for all her father's faults, at least his mansion looked tasteful. This…well, while grand, it also seemed rather gaudy, especially in comparison to the mansion they had met Kaby in.

And that was another thing. While Kaby had confessed what his father did, Lucy couldn't help but shake a gut feeling that there was more going on. She wanted to take a look at Daybreak before destroying it. Hell, she wanted Kaby to do the deed himself. Even if there was nothing more to Daybreak than a horrendous novel, Kaby could do with a personal catharsis.

Zekua Melon was noted for clever use of anagrams in his works. And there was something about the title Daybreak that was bothering her.

Not to mention the fact that Virgo was working for Duke Everlue. Which made things even more dangerous. And Everlue could potentially retain the services of another guild to act as his bodyguards and assassins.

Which was why they carefully climbed up to a second storey window, and entered, Natsu melting a hole in the window with his fire magic. They were in a storage room of some kind. Quietly, she said to Natsu, "The most likely place will be in the library, but we'll need to be quiet. Like ninjas."

"…So, we wear bright orange 'target practise' clothes and eat ramen?" Happy asked, wearing a skull on his head.

"Where did that come from?" Lucy asked.

"The skull or the orange clothes?"

"The latter for now."

"No reason."

As they walked out, Lucy noticed a glimmer in the eyes of a wolf pelt draped over a crystal ball. They found themselves on a balcony overlooking a hall, only for a quintet of maids to burst out, their leader, a grotesque mountain of a maid, roaring, "THERE THEY ARE! EXTERMINATE THE INTRUDERS!"

Quickly, Natsu swept them down to the floor below with a burning kick, and Lucy muttered, "That's torn it. Quickly, in here!" She dragged Natsu into a nearby room, locking the door. However, she noticed that, serendipitously, they had ended up in a large private library.

"Do you think it's here?" Natsu asked.

"It's possible," Lucy said, starting to look at the shelves. "Though I'd be impressed if he's even read half of them, even all. Looking for Daybreak in all this…a needle in a haystack comes to mind."

Natsu more or less ignored her as he began looking through the books, commenting as he did so. He found a porn one, Happy found one on fish…and then, they found a golden one. "Hey, Lucy!" Natsu yelled, waving the book.

Lucy wheeled to face him, only to find that he clasped Daybreak in his hand. "Here, give me a look at it before you burn it. We'll take it back and have the client do so."

"Oh dear, oh dearie me…bo yo yo yo…" That voice came from cracks in the floor that weren't there a second ago, before the rotund, potato-like form of Duke Everlue burst out of the floor. "You petty criminals were after Daybreak?! How very rude, and yet, I allowed you enough rope to hang yourselves from! My genius knows no bounds, bo yo yo yo! And yet, you're after a worthless book? Still, I can't let you have what is mine…or tarnish my treasure with your filthy plebeian fingers! Vanish Brothers, come forth!"

A nearby pair of shelves split apart, revealing a pair of forms, one tall with a prominent nose and dark spiky hair, the other average, bald with a ponytail, tattoos on his face, and what looked like an oversized frying pan on his back. "Time to earn our pay," the bald one said.

"Yeah, our mother wants us to work for our bread. These brats are Fairy Tail wizards?"

"They're from Southern Wolf, a bodyguard mage guild!" Happy warned, pointing to the wolf-like symbols on their armbands.

Lucy began flicking through the book. The story seemed appalling, with strange word choices, and yet, there was something there. As Everlue roared out orders for the twin bodyguards to kill them, Lucy fled for the door. "Natsu! Buy me some time! I think there's a secret!"

Lucy was never so glad to have bought some Gale Force Reading Glasses, allowing her to read books at speed. Having made it into the sewers in the basement of the mansion, she began reading through Daybreak, ever aware that either the Duke or his minions would find her. But her hunch was correct. They needed to bring this back to Kaby first.

Just as she stood up, she sensed just in time the Duke's arms reaching out to grab her from the wall. She managed to dodge them. "Ooh, you have Gale Force Glasses? Bo yo yo yo…an avid reader…now, what did you find? What is the secret of the book you found? I MUST KNOW IT!"

"For a duke, you're scum," Lucy sneered, putting a hand in her pocket and activating the Lacrima. "You're an enemy of good literature everywhere."

"How dare you?! My education was of the highest standards, as high as I could afford!" he roared as he emerged from the wall.

"Whereas your standards for your maids is pretty low," Lucy snarked.

Everlue's face twisted in anger. "You libel-ridden chit! Do not mock my lovely ladies! Now, tell me, what is the secret? Is it a treasure map to Zaleon's fortune? You'd better tell me, you uppity girl, as I had Kemu Zaleon write it, and if it has a secret, then it is mine!"

Happy flew in. "Oh, Lucy, you're fine!"

"For the moment. Is Natsu okay?"

"Aye, as far as I know."

Lucy grinned, pulling out the Gate Key for Cancer. "Here's the deal, Everlue. Let us take the book away, and you get away with your hide intact."

"Bo yo yo yo! You may be a Celestial Wizard, but you seem to think you are bargaining from a position of strength. You can't defeat my Diver Magic!" And with that, he disappeared into the sewer floor.

As Lucy dodged away from the Duke trying to attack her, she snarled, "Daybreak's little more than terrible self-insert fiction with you as a main character!"

As Everlue pressed his attack, he snarled back, "I'd make a great hero! But Kemu Zaleon insulted me by penning such a load of excrement!"

"Quality tends to go down when you write it under duress," Lucy snarked. She needed to get him talking before she made any moves to defeat him, get him to confess to his crimes. "You have some nerve, acting all high and mighty."

"I have no need to act!" Everlue sneered. "To write for me is a high honour indeed."

"You blackmailed him into doing so," Lucy retorted.

"Blackmail is such an ugly word. But the fault is his for refusing to do it in the first place!"

"…Your logic is insane."

"I am the most important person in this area, and yet, the fool refused to do as I ordered! Of course, I gave him some incentive out of the goodness of my heart: write it, or I would revoke the rights of citizenship for him and every member of his family!" Once more, Everlue dived into the floor like a bloated porpoise.

"Revoke those rights? But he couldn't join any guilds at all," Happy said, appalled. "Does Everlue have the power to do that?"

"Some places are still under feudal law," Lucy said quietly. "If he's telling the truth, he does have that right, as much as it sickens me." She dived away as Everlue attempted to grab her again.

"Oh, that foolish ingrate wrote it in the end," he sneered, "but his prior recalcitrance roused my anger. So, I had him write it in a setting of perfect isolation, with no disturbances to his muse. In solitary confinement in MY DUNGEONS! BO YO YO YO!"

"You know, you have only the second most annoying laugh I have ever heard," Lucy snarked, thinking back to Kefka.

"Silence! Anyone who is insolent to me, from a lowlife who calls themselves a 'distinguished author' to a weak little girl playing at being a wizard, I'LL BREAK THEM!"

"You bastard," Lucy said quietly. "You tortured him for your own vanity. Three years he spent, battling his own pride, warring between his concern for his family and his integrity as an author."

Everlue hopped out of the floor completely, staring at her. "You voyeuristic bint…how did you learn this?"

"It's in the book. It may be nowhere near the quality of his normal work…but he cast a spell on this book."

"WHAT?! You mean he concealed his hatred for me with a spell?! What an insult!"

"Oh, that's not the full purpose of the book. It has what you did to him…but there's more to it. This book doesn't belong to you. It belongs to someone else. Oh, and incidentally…" Lucy held up the Lacrima. "Thanks for confessing your crimes."

Everlue panicked. Lucy, meanwhile, used the Cancer Gate Key. "OPEN! GATE OF THE CRUSTACEAN PALACE: CANCER!"

Appearing in the sewer with them was a tall, stylishly dressed man wielding scissors, wearing sunglasses, a sextet of crustacean legs protruding from his back, and a hairstyle that resembled crab claws. "It's a crab!" Happy cheered. "Is he going to end his sentences with 'kani'? For 'crab'?"

"Lucy? What hairstyle do you want, ebi?"

Which meant 'shrimp'. Lucy said, "No hairstyle. Just take down the ugly one with the bad hairstyle."

"Got it, ebi."

"Two can play at that game!" Everlue snarled, pulling out a Gate Key of his own. "I won't let you leave this place alive, not now that you can sink me! I COMMAND THE GATE OF THE VIRGIN PALACE TO OPEN: VIRGO!"

The hulking maid from earlier appeared. Oh, that was Virgo? "You called for me, Master?" boomed the massive maid.

"Take the book back, and destroy them!" Everlue roared, only for Everlue, Lucy, and Happy to stare in shock. Natsu was clinging onto Virgo.

That wasn't possible, though. Humans normally couldn't pass through the Celestial Spirit Realm, and Virgo had to go through there in transit to here. Her thoughts, however, were broken when Everlue yelled, "Virgo, I order you to destroy these pests!"

Natsu promptly smashed the Celestial Spirit to the floor with a burning punch. Lucy, meanwhile, pulled out her whip, and lashed out, grabbing Everlue. "You're not going to ground anymore. CANCER!" She swung Everlue through the air, and Cancer intercepted the rotund Duke, attacking him. He plunged to the floor, his hair wafting off him.

Later, they were heading back. The authorities had been summoned, and arrested Everlue when they heard the evidence on the Lacrima. Lucy and Natsu, however, had unfinished business with Kaby Melon. With Everlue brought into custody, his contract with Virgo was broken, and Lucy now had another Gate Key to her name.

Once back with Kaby, she began explaining it. "I know you wanted it destroyed, but something occurred to me. I'm not saying you should read it as it is now. But…I think he meant it for you."

"For me? But he told me himself that it was trash." Kaby sighed. "Thirty-one years ago, my father reappeared after three years. He didn't answer my questions at first, instead saying he would never write again, before he chopped his right hand off with a cleaver. Sometime afterwards, we had an argument while he was in the hospital. He seemed oddly happy, and refused to answer me why he wrote this book. I regretted my last words to him, as shortly afterwards, he killed himself. I hated him for a time, but it became regret. To destroy Daybreak was to be my atonement."

"Maybe…but I think he meant it for you. Hold it, please. Before you set it on fire," Lucy said. "Trust me."

Kaby, reluctantly, did so, only for the book to start glowing. As the letters on the cover lifted off and began shifting around, Lucy said, "Your father was fond of anagrams and encryption. He cast a spell on his last book. Daybreak, Everlue's little self-insert fantasy, was really Dear Kaby."

And indeed, that's what the title of the book ended up as. As Kaby and his wife stared in shock and wonder, along with Happy and Natsu, the book opened, and letters and words filled the air in a display of light and magic, before reassembling themselves. "It's not that he wrote an awful book. That's not why he declared he would never write again. He had written his best, most personal work. A book of his life and times and travels. All for you."

As the spell finished, Kaby caught the book, and began weeping. "…I never understood him as well as I should've."

"That's why reading books is fun," Lucy said.

"Thank you," Kaby said. "I won't burn it after all."

"Well," Natsu said, "we can't accept the payment, either." As Lucy looked at him, Natsu said, with a shrug, "Well, our mission was to destroy it, and we've failed."

Lucy sighed. He had a point. And it wasn't like she went away without anything. She had Virgo's Gate Key, at long last…

As it turned out, Kaby had actually been living in the house of a friend to make it look like they had the money for the mission. Natsu had noticed that they smelled differently to the house. And he pointed out that accepting the money after a failed mission would bring shame on Fairy Tail.

Kaby didn't have much money, despite being the son of a famous author. But in truth, the book he got was priceless. And Everlue was being carted away in chains.

The magic on Daybreak had lasted for three decades. And Lucy found that admirable, given her own inclinations to literature. Maybe she could follow in his footsteps. Her story, the story of her life as Terra, was nearly finished. Maybe one day she could publish it…

Yes, one day.

CHAPTER 5 ANNOTATIONS:

So, there goes the Everlue/Daybreak arc.

The bit about the Lacrima recording came from Gilgamesh The King of Heroes' Nasuverse crossover Lucy the King of Heroes, which heavily inspired this fic.

I cut out Natsu's fight against the two goons because this story is mostly from Lucy's POV. And she wasn't fighting against the Duke much because she's trying to get evidence of his wrongdoings. We'll have more Terra goodness in the next chapter…and the debut of Erza!

No numbered annotations this time.