The realization that her hiding place had been found shouldn't have been so shocking to her, yet it was. Before she could react or even try to find the source of the duke's voice, Lucy found herself grabbed by two long and gangly arms. For the second time in a week she found herself held firmly from behind. She was really getting tired of being held in a helpless position like this.

Somehow in her struggle her keys had been knocked loose. They clattered on the cold stone floor.

"Now tell me," Everlue began, pushing his body out from the wall. In doing so he pushed her lower half forward while he pulled back on her arms. "What secret did you find?"

"Y-you're a monster!" She hissed, her shoulders hurt and Lucy was certain she'd have bruises from how hard he was gripping her arms. "You're an enemy of literature!"

"How dare you call me that! Me? The well-educated and great duke Everlue?"

"Easily!"

In punishment he pulled at her arms roughly, causing her to squeak in pain. "An ugly tramp like you wouldn't appreciate my tastes anyway." He growled. "Regardless, what secret does that book hold? A treasure map? A hidden fortune?" He pulled some more.

Lucy gritted her teeth but stayed silent. His first thought had been about money? How shallow.

Her keys were right there on the ground next to her. She shifted her foot closer. She just needed to get her left hand free; there was no way she was going to drop 'Dear Kaby,' especially not in some sort of sewer.

"Say it!" The duke snapped and pressure increased on her arms. "Say it or I'll break your arms!"

It took everything she had to stick her tongue out at him. It was childish and absolutely not the best course of action but it got her point across. Predictably it enraged the round duke.

"Behave yourself, brat! That's my book!" He shouted as he slowly bent her arms in a way they were not meant to be bent. "I made Kemu Zaleon write it! So whatever he wrote, whatever secret that's in there is mine too!"

She glared down at him. Out of the corner of her eye, however, Lucy caught sight of something small and blue racing towards them. Without a warning to the duke, Happy slammed feet first into his arm. He cried out in pain as he released her.

"Happy!" Lucy didn't know if the cat had broken the man's arm or not, but she sincerely hoped he had. She hadn't heard any kind of crack but, well, arms weren't meant to be bent that way. While Everlue kept screaming in pain, Lucy jerked away from him and snatched her keys from the ground. "Nice! Thanks for the save." She called to the small cat.

She got an answering grin as his wings disappeared. He turned his momentum into a flip and it looked like he was aiming for the other side of the tunnel. Unfortunately he fell short and landed in the sewer water that separated the two sides.

"What's up with that freak cat!" The duke shrieked, finally coming all the way out of the wall and clutching at his arm.

Happy might have said something, but it was obscured by the water. "His name's Happy." Lucy snapped before diverting some of her attention to the blue cat. "You should probably get out of there."

"Da vader veelz good." Luckily his answer was easy enough to figure out.

"It's sewage water. You'll need a bath at the very least after this." She muttered before turning her full attention to the enemy in front of her. "The tables have turned Everlue. If you let us leave peacefully with the book, nothing else needs to happen." All the same, she aimed Cancer's key at him. In such an enclosed space, Taurus would do more harm than good and considering the only source of water Aquarius was right out.

"Ah! Celestial Spirit magic, huh?" He laughed. "You say you're such a fan of literature, yet you used that phrase incorrectly. You should only say 'the tables have turned' when your position has turned from a disadvantage to an advantage!"

"How can you say I haven't gained an advantage? I can move now and use my magic! I even have Happy here to help! My phrasing is correct!"

"No it isn't! Just because you gained more doesn't mean you're not at a disadvantage! Saying you can move and have allies! Byh! That is no advantage! Not with my diver magic!" With that bold proclamation he vanished into the floor.

"He's a mage?" Happy cried out in shock as he pulled himself out of the dirty water.

Now that she was ready for it, Lucy could feel the vibrations of the ground through her shoes. She managed to dodge backwards in time to avoid the fat man breaching the ground and attempting to uppercut her.

"It was all written in this book." She gritted out, "this awful adventure with Everlue as the main character."

"What? Who'd want to read about him?"

"It's wonderful that I'm the main character." Everlue called out as he kept trying to grab at Lucy. However no matter where he popped out from, Lucy managed to avoid him. "But the writing is crap. He is Kemu Zaleon, one of the greatest writers in the world, yet he dared to write such crap!"

Due to his erratic diving and surfacing, the water was starting to drain; something Lucy was grateful for as it gave her more space to move.

It wasn't long before Lucy was forced to stop, a gate separating one part of the sewers from another blocked her from dodging back any further. "You forced him to write it!" She grabbed at the top of the gate and prepared to haul herself up. "How can you act so high and mighty?" She jumped up just as Everlue slammed himself into it, destroying it and giving Lucy some space.

"I am high and mighty!" He stopped, letting the broken gate crash to the ground behind him as he spun to face Lucy. "He should have been honored to write about me!"

"You threatened him!" She shouted as she landed.

"So what?" Everlue twirled his mustache. "It's his own fault for refusing in the first place!"

That caused Lucy to pause for a second. "What are you talking about?"

"I allowed him to write a book about the wonderful and amazing me! But the idiot rejected my offer." He dove down once again and his voice echoed through the tunnel. "That's why I told him that if he wouldn't write it I'd withdraw the citizenship of all his relatives."

"Withdraw their citizenship…But that'd mean they wouldn't be able to join merchant or workmen guilds!" Happy cried out, shocked. "They wouldn't be able to work at all! Does he really have that much power?"

"Give enough money to a person or a place and you'll easily have power there." Lucy answered as she rapidly looked around, searching for wherever Everlue might pop up. Apparently he'd learned how she'd been predicting him before. "That's why, even for someone as creepy as him, he has absolute authority here." It was also why Lord Heartfilia was so dangerous to her even now.

A hand suddenly grabbed her ankle. "In the end, he gave in and wrote it! But I was mad that he refused me at first. So I made him write it in a solitary cell." The duke laughed, squeezing her ankle tightly. "I crushed his pride as a writer!"

Lucy wasn't sure what was worse, what he'd done or the fact that he sounded so gleeful about it. She started stomping on his hand with her other foot. "How could you go so far? Can you imagine what it was like? Being locked in a cell for three years?"

Everlue soon let go of her. "It worked! He realized my greatness!" His head popped out of the ground, far enough away to be out of range of her feet.

"Like hell he did! He had no choice; if he didn't his family would have been in danger! Even if he did give in at the end, his pride as a writer wouldn't allow him to make a proper book about you!"

The rest of his body soon followed his head and the horrible man stood some distance away from Lucy. "You…How do you know so many details?"

She held the book aloft. "It's all written here."

He stared at her in shock. "That's not possible. I've read that book, Kemu Zaleon, or any other details, never appeared in there."

"Of course. If read in the normal manner it's just a disappointing story for any fan of his. But did you forget, he was a mage too."

"No way!"

"Yes way! He used his magic to cast a spell on this book." It was one of the most impressive bits of written magic Lucy had ever seen, it was also subtle enough to be hidden unless it was looked for. Truly Zekua Melon was a genius.

"Did he make it so that his grudge would show up in the words? Unforgivable!"

"Your mind is so shallow. Yes he wrote about the true process of making this book, but that's not the kind of words he wanted to leave behind!" She declared boldly. "The real thing is not for your eyes!"

"What?" He snarled.

"There's only one person who has the right to read this! That's why I won't let you touch it!" She called out to her spirit. "Open Gate of the Great Crab, Cancer!"

With the usual flash of light and doorbell sound Earthland's best hairdresser appeared before her. His skin was orangeish in color and he was lanky with crab legs coming from his back, his hair was also stylized to represent crab claws, however those were the only things really crab like about him. He was clad in tight black pants and a blue pinstriped suit. Twin scissors were in his hand and he had a belt pouch full of other hair care supplies. Dark glasses obscured his eyes.

"Crab!" Happy cheered joyfully. "I bet he says 'snip' at the end of his sentences! I'm 100% sure!" Whatever Happy's response to the crab spirit was going to be, Lucy hadn't expected that. "He's a crab! I know it; that's how it goes!"

"Happy, now's not the time." She muttered to him.

"Lucy," Cancer started, "what kind of hair style would you like? Shrimp?"

"Now's not the time for that either!"

"Shrimp?" Happy cried out in shock.

"We're kind of in the middle of something! Finish off that mustached guy!" She pointed to Everlue.

"Okay. Shrimp."

Happy was muttering something about punches before grabbing at Lucy's shoulder and begging her to send Cancer back.

"He's not here for your entertainment," she hissed at him, "and you reek of sewer water, get off!"

Meanwhile duke Everlue was having some sort of mental breakdown. "No!" He eventually cried out before whipping out a golden key of his own. "Open Gate of the Maiden!"

Lucy stared at him in shock. He had Celestial Spirit magic too? Someone like him?

"Virgo!"

With a poof of smoke the leader of the maid brigade appeared before them. "How may I help you, my master?"

"Virgo! Retrieve that book at once!"

"She was a Celestial Spirit?" Lucy gaped, Cancer seemed to be in just as much shock as she was. However that was nothing compared to surprise that came with realizing who Virgo had inevitably brought with her. "Natsu!" At least he didn't seem to have been injured in the time they'd been separated.

"Why are you with Virgo?" Everlue cried.

Lucy, for once, could sympathize with the horrible duke. "You…How?"

Thankfully Natsu appeared to be just as shocked and freaked out as she was. If he hadn't been, she really would have started to worry about his sanity. "How…She just started moving so I followed her and then suddenly…I don't know what's going on!"

"Follow? You grabbed her!" She shouted, noticing for the first time that Natsu was gripping the back of Virgo's uniform. Then it hit her that he'd been summoned along with Virgo. "Don't tell me you passed through the Celestial Spirit realm? That's impossible!"

"Lucy! What should I do?" Whatever momentum that had been keeping him airborne was starting to fail as gravity took hold of the dragon slayer once again.

Lucy was still in shock at the fact that he'd, however briefly, passed through the Celestial realm and survived. "Virgo! Get rid of all the nuisances right this instant!" The duke's horrible voice quickly brought her out of her shock.

"Knock her out!" She called out, grabbing her whip. However he got here, Natsu was here and that was all that mattered.

"Got it!"

Lucy wasn't at all surprised when the dragon slayer managed to down the spirit with one fiery punch, despite the disadvantage his position had left him in. The duke, however, was not nearly as used to his impossible antics and was stunned enough to be open for her whip.

With a flick of her wrist, the reinforced leather was wrapped around the duke's neck. "You can't escape underground anymore!" Not without choking himself, anyway. "You," she gritted out, using all the strength she had to fling him into the air. "Shouldn't be any more than a one-shot villain!" She finished, as Cancer took care of him.

As he landed on top of Virgo, the duke's hair drifted off of his head.

"Lucy, is that haircut satisfactory?" Cancer asked, sounding quite smug. "Shrimp."

As if that one-liner had been a signal, everyone seemed to relax. The fight was over.

Lucy breathed a sigh of relief and clutched 'Dear Kaby' closer. "It is," she answered her spirit, "very. Thank you Cancer."

With a nod and a small glance to the other Zodiac he headed back to his world.

Natsu smacked her back in a friendly, if forceful, pat. "Great job in that fight, Lucy!"

"Aye! You're a real mage of Fairy Tail."

"Thanks."

"Now let's just burn that book and finish the mission!" Natsu cheerfully continued, much to Lucy's horror.

"No way!" She clutched it tighter, heading towards the closest stairs. "This book's way too important!"

"Eeh! But the job is-"

"I know why Mr. Melon want's this book burned," she interrupted, "but he won't get the closure he needs if this book is gone before he can see it." Lucy sighed, looking back at the more senior guild member. "If he still wants it gone after I've shown him the books true form, then I won't object to him, you, or anyone else burning it. But please, trust me when I say that this job can't end like this."

She held his gaze for a while before Natsu sighed. "Fine," he drew out the word, "I get it. You didn't have to get all serious like that."

"Would you have listened otherwise?" Lucy huffed as they made it to the main floor of the mansion. "Besides," she added, glancing to the ruined railings and beat up bodies on the floor, "haven't you had enough destruction for one day?" She really hoped they wouldn't get arrested for this.

A quick glance showed her that both of them looked confused at the concept. She supposed that compared to destroying several houses, a few broken floors weren't such a big deal. It didn't take long for them to leave the mansion and get into the town on the way to Mr. Melon's house.

"Hey, Lucy," Happy started, "how'd you figure there was something wrong with the book?"

"Well…I'm assuming neither of you have read any other works by Kemu Zaleon," at their nod, she continued. "To say he was the greatest writer of the past generation would not be an exaggeration. The only reason why the king hadn't declared him a national treasure was because he used a pen name." Not that it'd helped when the duke was involved. How did Everlue find out that Kemu Zaleon was Zekua Melon? Was it because they were both local?

She shook that thought from her head and continued. "His works are considered great classics already and they're well known for their wordplay, intriguing plot and engaging characters. This book," she hefted 'Day Break,' "the one duke Everlue forced him to write. Is an adventure novel with the duke as the main character. The grammar and word choice are worse than awful and the plot development…Well the less said about that, the better." It might be kinder to say that it didn't really have a plot. "That's why there was no way anyone would believe that Kemu Zaleon wrote this."

"Couldn't they have just lied?" Happy asked, "I mean, if no one knew his real name, just anyone could say they were him, right?"

She hummed in agreement. "True, but all authors have certain phrases and words that they always use. Like a fingerprint. More than that he always signs his work a specific way. There's no way this book could have been written by anyone other than him. That's why I thought that there was a secret in here." She giggled to herself, "then I proved myself correct!"

Natsu huffed. "Well, whatever. We're here now. Let's finish this job and go home." Despite his words, Natsu didn't seem to be all that impatient as he casually strolled up to the back door and knocked. "You're not going to tell us the secret, are you?"

Lucy smiled. "Nope. Mr. Melon deserves to be the first to know."

He shrugged, "fair enough."

It didn't take long before they were ushered into the mansion by Mrs. Melon, meeting her husband in the foyer. Lucy wasted no time in presenting the startled Mr. Melon with the gold covered book.

"Wha-what's this? I asked you to destroy it."

"It's not that hard to destroy a book, Mr. Melon. It's only made of paper after all. Even you could do it."

She could hear Natsu huff and out of the corner of her eye, she spotted him sulking some distance away mumbling something. Probably about how he could burn it just as easily.

He snatched it from her hands. "Then I will. I don't even want to look at it for another second!"

"I understand," she sighed, "why you can't tolerate this book's existence. It's to protect your father's pride right?" He stared at her in shock and she gave a small smile as she continued. "Your father wrote this book; he's Kemu Zaleon, isn't he?"

That got Natsu and Happy's attention, judging by the startled sounds they made. Mr. Melon just nodded, looking defeated. "How…How did you know?"

"You've never had the chance to read the book, right?"

"Yes. I've only heard about it from my father." He glared down at the novel in his hands. "But even if I could have, it would've been a waste of time to. My father told me that…This book is a piece of trash."

"Is that why you're gonna burn it?" Natsu's voice sounded alarmingly neutral. Lucy could only hope he wouldn't volunteer to incinerate it before the spell broke on the book. Mr. Melon just needed to hold it for a little while longer.

"Yes."

Apparently his thoughts had gone in a significantly different direction than Lucy had first thought. She'd only barely managed to stop the dragon slayer from attacking their client. "Burning it just because it's not a good book? What the hell? Your father wrote that book!"

"Natsu! I just said he wanted to protect his father's pride!" It was an amazing turnaround considering how gun-ho Natsu had been about burning the book before.

Amazingly Mr. Melon had stayed calm throughout Natsu's outburst. "Yes, my father was ashamed to have ever written 'Day break.'" He looked up at them. "You see, 31 years ago, my father came home after being gone for three years…That man, he'd only said three words to me before he tied a rope around his arm. He told me he was never going to write a book again before cutting off his hand. I knew what he'd written, and later the duke came by to yell and complain because of the poor quality of the book. He sued my father and took nearly every penny he had."

Mr. Melon turned his gaze away from the book, his voice was thick with regret and unshed tears. "My father fell sick not long after. The…the last thing I ever said to him…was full of bitter anger and pain. I rejected him and all he'd done. He committed suicide right after." His voice softened. "I hated him, even after he'd passed away."

He swallowed thickly and gathered himself as he finished his explanation. "I came to regret the words I'd spoken, as time went on. Maybe if I hadn't said them, he wouldn't have killed himself."

Natsu didn't look at all impressed. Lucy on the other hand had to fight off tears for both Mr. Melon and his father. To think that that was how Kemu Zaleon had died.

"That's why I wanted to eliminate this piece of trash from the world." He held the book aloft with one hand and dug through his pockets with the other. "Only with this atonement can he regain his pride as a writer." Mr. Melon pulled out a box of matches and struck one. Lucy gritted her teeth. He couldn't burn it, not yet. Hopefully it'd just take a few more seconds.

Their client brought the match closer to the book. "Now, my father will-"

"Wait!" Lucy cried out. The book started to glow almost at the exact same time, startling everyone in the room but her.

"Wha-what is this?" Mr. Melon gasped as the book started to float in the air. The words that made up the title drifted up off the cover.

"The letters are floating?" Happy shouted.

Lucy, however, was completely calm. "Zekua Melon, under the alias Kemu Zaleon, placed a spell on this book."

Mr. Melon glanced quickly up at her. "A spell?"

Even as he spoke the letters from the title started to quickly return to the book. Only the two words they spelt out were not 'Day Break,' rather they shifted around and instead the title became 'Dear Kaby.'

"Dear Kaby?" Half the room read out in shock. Lucy could only smile.

"Yes. You probably don't need me to tell you, but he was a rather famous mage. Specifically a script mage. He placed a spell on the book that shuffled all the letters and other characters around." As she spoke the book opened up and unleashed the letters and words contained in its pages. They floated in the air like ribbons, weaving and winding around everything in the room.

"The reason he quit being a writer," Lucy continued, "was not only because he wrote the worst book in existence but because, at the same time, he also wrote the best book possible for him to write."

The text swirled around, spiraling back into the book in a whirlpool of words.

"Amazing!"

"The characters are dancing!"

Lucy's smile broadened at the sound of her guild mate's exclamations. "The best book in the world; it contains letters written to his son, Kaby." The last of the characters were soon sucked up into the book, making it twist in the air from the force. Mr. Melon quickly caught it before the book could hit the ground. "This is what Kemu Zaleon wanted to leave behind." She finished.

He held the book in trembling hands and he whispered, almost too softly for her to hear. "Dad…" He opened the book and read a few lines before speaking in a louder voice as tears started leaking from his eyes. "I never really…understood him…"

"Of course." Lucy's smile softened. "If you can understand how a writers mind works, you'll lose all the pleasure of reading their book."

"Thank you." He sniffed, "I can't burn this book…"

"Then we won't need our reward either." Natsu crowed, much to the shock of Mr. Melon and Lucy.

"Aye."

"Huh?" While Lucy had kind of expected not to get paid, considering the price of the job, she was surprised at how nonchalant Natsu was about it. More than that, Lucy really did need money.

"We were asked to destroy the book," Natsu explained, "and we failed to accomplish that."

"But…After all that, it wouldn't be right…" Mr. Melon started, however it sounded like he was still in shock.

"I said we don't want it, so we don't want it!" He chirped. Which wasn't entirely true; Lucy wanted it. Then again, Natsu did have a point; they failed the mission, because of Lucy. While Natsu didn't seem too bothered by it, it bothered Lucy somewhat. With that said he spun around and headed for the door. "Let's get going!" He cried out. "You should go back too, Melon. To your own home."

"Heh? Hey, wait!" Lucy trotted to catch up with them, Natsu was quite quick when it came to walking. "How'd you know they didn't live there?"

The dragon slayer gave her a look, as if the answer was obvious. "Their smell was different from the rest of the house. How could you not notice?"

"Most people wouldn't!" How sharp was his sense of smell?

"Anyway, come on. We should make it back by morning."

"Wait, we're walking?"

"Of course! Unless you want to pay for a carriage." Happy spoke, as he said the 'c' word Natsu broke out into a cold sweat, though he quickly recovered.

She sighed, "I can't." She really was going to have to grab another job when she got back. Hopefully it'd be a quick and easy one so she could buy food.

Natsu clapped her back for the second time that day. "Anyway, you did really good for your first job!"

She smiled shyly at him. "Really? You think so? I did kind of…make us fail to complete it."

He grinned in response. "Of course! I have the feeling that even if we did manage to succeed, we would have failed anyway."

"Hm, I guess, in a way." She agreed softly. Now that the conversation with Mr. Melon was over, her thoughts drifted back to what happened in Everlue's mansion and what she'd read. Despite best efforts, tears gathered in her eyes and she couldn't help but sniff.

"He-hey, Lucy? What's wrong?" She looked up to see Natsu and Happy staring at her with concern and thinly veiled panic.

"It's nothing, I just…How could Everlue do that? How could he just treat people like that? Like their suffering, that their pain was nothing! Worse, that he'd be happy that they suffered because of him! And, and then I was thinking, if that was how he treated people, how did he regard Virgo? Was he as horrible to her as he was to everyone else? And if he is, there's nothing I could do about it! Even if we stole her key she'd still be contracted to that man and I.…" She trailed off and swiped at her eyes. "Sorry, I guess it just hit me, all of a sudden."

"Wow…You're …" Natsu started, and Lucy mentally braced herself to be called childish or a crybaby or anything else the other Lucys usually said whenever she got overly emotional. "You're a really nice person."

She froze in surprise before huffing out. "You don't have to be a nice person to think that the duke is awful." She shook herself and got rid of the last of her tears. "Anyway, knowing what Everlue did to him, that just makes me admire Kemu Zaleon even more."

The two of them gave a grin in agreement before the three began to make their way back to Magnolia in earnest.