Chapter Six: Spirits
"OK, everyone, up and at 'em!" yelled Erza, "We're setting off early today since you all want to go so much!"
It was the crack of dawn when Erza got up. Naturally, Mira had woken a couple of minutes after her and the two of them decided to spare everyone ten more minutes of sleeping. And ten minutes had passed.
"Erza… Ten more minutes…" groaned Natsu, rolling over.
"I gave you ten minutes!" shouted Erza near his head, "And since you're the one who bothered me until midnight about setting off to find Lucy, we are now so no complaining!"
Happy floated up sleepily, "I'm up."
"Good boy," said Mira, patting him on the head.
At that moment, Gray came back into the cave where they had slept, "I'm back."
"Where the hell were you last night?" said Erza, "I was starting to think someone kidnapped you too when you didn't come back!"
"I slept outside by the waterfall," said Gray, "It's more comfortable than sleeping on a rock."
Erza glared but didn't ask anymore on the topic, instead barking at Natsu, "Get up, Natsu! I'm not repeating myself!"
"Hai, hai," he said finally, getting up, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He yawned and got Happy, "Let's go, Happy."
"Aye sir!" said Happy, flying out of the cave.
The others followed suit and started walking through the forest again. The perfume scent was fading rapidly and they had to move quickly to be able to follow it.
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I woke again, my vision blurry and clouded. I was lying down on the stone ground of my cell again. I pushed up and rubbed my eyes trying to get rid of the blurry vision. It worked and I tried to remember what had happened for me to be knocked out again. Or had I just fallen asleep?
Then it all came rushing back. The old man with a weird sceptre type thing, the oddly heavily guarded room containing bottles with my friends' names on them and when the old man had knocked me out with some sort of magic. I pushed myself up and winced at my still badly sprained ankle. Then I noticed a shadow fall across the room and realised someone was standing outside my door.
I looked up and saw an unfamiliar face looking at me. She was about the same age as me with shining blonde wavy hair, only it was lighter than mine. A large black crown hair comb sat on the top of her hair. I could see her black silk strapless dress which showed off a dark green jewel which I'd seen in the old man's staff strung on a thin gold chain.
"Who are you?" I asked, although my first intuition told me the answer, "Kyrie?"
"I was," she said in a high tone of voice, "But now I'm not, thanks to our great Master Reiki and his assistant, Ochre. They're the head of our guild you know and they changed me."
"They… change you?" I said, not understanding what the heck she was talking about. How could you change a person? What was the point of individuality if people could be changed?
She held up her left hand where a glinting gold charm bracelet gleamed at me, "Do you recognise these? Now I'm the new owner of all these gold keys."
I gave out a little gasp as I recognised the gold items flashing on her bracelet. Aquarius, Gemini, Virgo, Loke…
"My Spirit keys?" I cried, reaching my hand down to my belt. It was empty. It felt so strange now, to not hear the clinking of my keys whenever I moved like I was so used to, "When?"
"You were knocked out," she said matter-of-factly, "It was easy to get your keys off you."
"You can't take my keys!" I cried, after all the hardships I went through just to get them but most importantly…
"They're my friends!" I cried, "You can't just take them away!"
"Well, I am, so…" she said.
"Wait…" I said, realising something, "They have the choice to not obey you; I'm the one who has a contract with them!"
"You're really dense," she said, frowning, "There's a reason why Master Ochre is so respected in our guild. He has a special Lost Magic that was forbidden centuries ago."
"How many people know Lost Magic in your guild?" I said, irritated.
"Just the two," she said pleasantly, "But I'm not spilling the Lost Magic details to you. To put it simply, now I'm the one they have contracts with which means they have to obey me if they don't want me killed and they'll be banished forever into the human world like your little Loke friend."
"How do you know about that?" I said, surprised, "And how is that possible? You can just steal a contract from me…"
"Actually, we can," said Kyrie, "I know a lot about your Spirits, as much as you do. It would be particularly bad if your spirits were to spend their life in the human world. Especially the ones who can't endure as long as Loke did. I wonder how long they would last…?"
"What is your point?" I asked slowly, anger boiling in me.
"I want an official order from you for your Spirits. You have to order them to fight for me otherwise they'll spend their life in pain in the human world. And you won't let them go through that, will you?"
I thought. If I refused to order my Spirits to fight for Kyrie, she would probably die because they'd refuse to fight for her and my Spirits would be held responsible and banished forever into the human world where they would slowly die like Loke nearly did. If I did order them to fight for Kyrie, they would be healthy and well. Besides, someone should defeat a wretch like her soon enough and then maybe my keys would fall into the hands of someone good who would take care of them since their contract would be broken.
"OK," I finally said after a long pause of thinking, "Tell my spirits this message from me: 'Fight for Kyrie. Don't worry about me; I just want you all to be safe. I couldn't bear for anyone to be hurt by being banished into the human world because you all won't fight for her. Please just do that, for me.'"
"God," said Kyrie, "You expect me to remember all that?"
"Are you going to deliver the message to my friends or not?" I snapped at her.
"Yeah, yeah," she said, "Don't you go getting all grouchy since you'll die soon anyway."
"What?" I said.
"We've used you and you're not needed anymore," said Kyrie, "So you'll die." With that, she walked away, the clicking of her heels fading away.
Once she was gone, I slumped against the back wall and started to cry. This guild had taken so much away from me: my father and my Spirit friends. And apparently that wasn't enough for them; they even wanted to harm Fairy Tail. I started to cry harder, my whole body shaking with how hard I was crying.
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On the other side of the wall where Lucy was slumped against, Retina sat there, breathing deeply. She knew this would happen, yet she didn't do anything.
I made the wrong decision, thought Retina, a wave of regret passing through her, pressing her fingers to her head, I should never have let them hurt Lucy so much.
She reached towards her boot and took out a silver key. Lucy's cell's key, but now I've made my choice.
She stood up, stuffing the key back into her boot, tonight, Lucy. Tonight, I'll fight for you.
She looked back at the wall once before running into the forest, Lucy's friends are close and Kyrie's already started to move towards them. I have to help them.
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So… again with the suspenseful end! I know this chapter was a little confusing so I'm sorry for that. :(
But anyways, please review~ :)