After the outburst from Natsu, Wendy got up and said," Natsu you have the soul symbol on your sword." Natsu looked down to see if she was right. And she was, the black sword had an engraved mark of a fairy on it. He smiled and held out his hand, palm first to Wendy. She high-fived it and then the room started shacking and just like in the last tower a portal opened and Natsu and Wendy walked to it. Lucy too stepped up and looked at Karin and Salamander. "Come on Lucy." Natsu said holding out his hands. She gladly took it and didn't look back as the room fell into ruin as well as the tower.
-^/\^-
A while after the tower collapsed Lucy and Natsu talked for a bit. "I thank you for freeing me from that man's grasps I really am grateful." She said bowing to Natsu. Natsu's cheeks stained red and he stuttered, "th-that's alright you don't have to thank me."
"Yeah I do! I have to thank you." She snapped at him. There was total silence after that. Neither Natsu nor Lucy expected the outburst. The blond bowed her head again and said, "I'm sorry for raising my voice." Natsu chuckled and was brought up to a full out laugh. He clutched his stomach and his eyes started tearing up. Lucy looked at him confused. As the laughter went on she started to get annoyed. "What could possibly be funny?"
"You. The way you act. It doesn't seem fitting." At that point Lucy felt offended.
"Oh! And how so?" she stated with a stern foot. Natsu's fit of laughter screeched to a halt as he looked up and faced Lucy, trying to think of something to say. "Well I mean, you seem like the type of girl to have a bubbly and cheerful personality and I just thought that..." Lucy looked at him with a content smile.
"Well you aren't all wrong there. I was really cheerful when I was a small child. But my days of being that man's slave I guess I changed who I was as a person. Never thinking about the past how cheerful I was." Natsu looked at her and his smile grew. "I know what I'll do. I can travel back to my home country and venture around just to see it." Lucy looked down again at her shackled feet and moved them around a bit. Natsu noticed and drew his sword. He broke the chains in one swift motion. Lucy stared at him and hugged him. He smiled the biggest he ever smiled. And he heard a faint, "thank you"
-^/\^-
A few days had passed since the freedom of the blond slave and the achievement in the tower. The group of friends had decided to head to the city of Hargeon. It was a port town on the west coast of Fiore. It would take a few days to get there on foot. So on the walk there they decided to take the chance to get to know one another a bit better with a game of two truths and a lie.
"Ok Lucy's turn. And Natsu's the guesser" Wendy said. "Alright...um. I've been to the country Alverez, I've never been outside the country or my favorite color is blue." Natsu pondered over the options and finally said, "You've never been outside of the country is the lie because you said earlier that you went to the country of Victoria before for a festival. So ha!" He said triumphantly. Lucy nodded and said, "alright Natsu is the liar this time and Wendy's the guesser."
"Alright! I have 20 bottles of hot sauce in my bag, I learned how to sword fight from a girl or I went surfing with a danger beast." Natsu barely had time to finish before Wendy blurted out. "You had 21 bottles of hot sauce not 20!" Lucy jumped back in surprised and laughed. "Gosh I'm stupid." Natsu said. Wendy gave him a smirk.
Lucy giggled and kept walking. The blond had a new change of clothes since their tower escape. She now wore a white dress with one strap on her right shoulder the dress went up to her mid-thigh with a teal ribbon tied around her waist with a black and gold sash draped over her left shoulder which was tucked into the teal ribbon. It was the cheapest outfit in the market. Lucy paid with her own money because she didn't want Natsu and Wendy to thing like she owed them something. But they insisted and she protested. The game of cat and mouse went on for a while. Until Natsu finally just gave up and let Lucy do her own thing.
"So how's being free so far Luce?" Natsu asked. Lucy looked at him with doe brown eyes and said, "It's pretty good so far, epically with friends." Wendy smiled at the kind, sentimental words. Natsu blushed and said, "Where did you learn how to fight?"
"I was wondering the same thing." Wendy said looking at the two teens. Lucy put her right hand to her chin, in a thinking position and after a few minutes she looked at them with an answer," I didn't have a teacher I just picked up the skills and here I am." She said with a smile.
-^/\^-
Later that day they had run into a town, it was blocked off by a short wall. So they decided to look over it to take a look. The buildings where made out of what seemed to be handmade sandstone from the nearby mines. And there were over hands in the entrances of some buildings with mixed-matched cloths. It was empty the town didn't have people. It was a ghost town. "What the?" Natsu said in a whispery voice. Lucy looked toward the two and said," I've been here before on a business trip for Salamander. The town was abandoned because of the amount of S-class Monsters around here. So I came here to help move people into other villages and slay the monsters."
"What were the beasts like?" Wendy asked. Lucy looked at the bush and said. "There about the size of my hand but their pain in the ass. They spit acid and their really fast. Their fuzzy and look like cooton balls. They camouflage with their surroundings so it's a pain to find them too. "
Natsu nodded at the new information and took out his sword Lucy looked at him in confusion and her eyes widened when she realized what he was doing. "Wait you can't do that! Theirs a village really close by that lives in the forest and if you're looking the blast the creatures away with your sword it ain't gonna work." Natsu lowered his sword with a scowl. "Ok the only way to pass through this village we have to run, like sprint run through this and try to not get touched by them. No weapons no magic. Just run." Lucy said. Wendy nodded and jumped over the wall. Lucy followed as did Natsu. Considering that Wendy was young she was pretty fast, but Lucy and was faster than Natsu and Wendy by a bit. She whizzed past the sandstone building and noticed something from the corner of her eye. It was the S-class Monsters. They were hopping around in a herd and eventually gathered up into a clump. They were also keeping good pass with the Heartfilia and continued to do so. "Crap they don't seem to be losing stamina" Lucy said as she veered a corner. "Ok guys I think we need to go our separate ways to try and loss them."
"Where should we meet up?" Natsu asked frantically. Lucy quickly looked around and spotted a tall tower outside of the town and pointed to it, "There! We'll meet there!" Natsu and Wendy nodded and split up. Natsu veered to the right heading for down town and Wendy heading up for the hill in the city. Lucy sped up knowing that kicking up dust was a good thing now.
-^/\^-
Wendy looked behind her as the Monsters were picking up speed. Some managed to latch on her clothes even. "Why won't these things get off of me?!" she shrieked as she ran up the hill. She was getting pretty winded from running up a steep hill. Wendy panted and looked behind her and some a huge cloud of the monsters right behind her. She yelped and suddenly gained the energy to sprint up the hill. Then she ran into a tall rickety watch tower. So she started to gingerly scale it.
From there she had a pretty good view of the town and where Natsu and Lucy were. She looked to the west where Natsu was and to the south where Lucy was. Where Lucy was she spotted a huge cloud of dust picking up from behind her. "Woah" Wendy managed to say. Then the tower started swaying. Wendy flailed her arms as she tried not the fall off. And to make matters worse there was a pack of monsters waiting for her untimely fall to her doom. "SOMEONE HELP ME! PLEASE!" She yelled at the top of her lungs.
-^/\^-
Natsu ran as fast as he could through the ghost town. He tried juking them, punching them one by one, and even setting them on fire. "Dammit Lucy! You could have told us how to get rid of them!" he yelled to no one. Surprisingly his voice echoed even though the walls on the buildings weren't high enough. Then he heard a scream for help. "Lucy?! Wendy?!" he called out. No answer.
His roar caused the monsters to coward behind him. Then he thought of something brilliant. But a loud crunching noise came to ear. He looked around to see where the noise was coming from. All the monsters looked in that direction too, with big black eyes. He looked to the east to see that Wendy was on top of a hill on the opposite side of town and was balancing on a crumbling tower. 'Crap' he thought as he went out of his hiding spot and ran to save Wendy.
-^/\^-
As Natsu ran to the opposite side of the town Lucy frantically ran to try to get the meeting point. But she noticed Wendy was in trouble as well and decided to be selfless and ran to her rescue, of course with the monsters in tow.
By the time she made the run up the steep hill, Natsu was already there trying to hold the tower in place by throwing his body onto one of the broken pillars. Lucy decided to be the hero and pull him away from it. "Hey what are you doing we need to save Wendy!" Natsu protested. Lucy nodded and said, "I know but I need your help to get her down. This tower is going to collapse and we could catch her but we have to time it right."
Natsu looked at her confused. Lucy shook her head and knelt down to the monsters at her feet. And pet one of them on the head "Wow they seem really friendly actually."
"Really?" Natsu said kneeling down and petting the one Lucy was petting. "Your right but how is this going to help save Wendy?" the pink haired boy asked.
"Like this," Lucy said as she whispered to the animal in her hands. Then she set it down and the monster trotted off to its mob and they all started to move, scatter and spew acid. It seemed like they were trying to create a cushion for Wendy so she could fall on it. "It's a safety net so if we miss Wendy will have something to fall back onto." Lucy said as she looked up and yelled in Wendy, "Wendy! I need you to jump that tower's gonna fall under you if you don't!"
A blue head popped over from the ledge and nodded. Lucy stepped back and said, "Wendy! Jump now." As she said it the tower gave out and Wendy had just enough time to jump down and for Lucy to catch her in her arms.
It was unbelievable to see. Lucy used her strength to launch herself into the air to catch Wendy and was airborne for a while until she came crashing to the ground. Natsu stared in shock and he ran towards them exclaiming, "Wendy, Lucy! Are you two ok?" Both girls nodded, to his relief. Wendy stood up and hugged Natsu repeating, "thank you for coming to my rescue." Lucy was still on the ground looking at the scene smiling. "Hey Luce are you sure you're ok?" Natsu asked concerned.
Lucy stood up and dusted some dirt from her dress and nodded but then winched when something painful felt like it was being driven into her leg. She fell back down and Wendy and Natsu's celebration was at a sudden halt. "Lucy, are you ok?" Natsu said trying to sit Lucy up. Wendy bent down over her leg and inspected it.
"Natsu I think when she launched herself to catch me she twisted her ankle and didn't realize until she stood up." Natsu looked at Lucy. She didn't look like she was in excruciating pain, but just to be safe Natsu carefully picked her up and had her ride piggyback style. She didn't protest but she said a silent 'thank you' at which Natsu blushed and stuttered "A-all right let's get to Hargeon!" Natsu yelled out. Wendy smiled and walked alongside her friends.
Hi everyone! It's been a while. I had originally planned to make this 3,500 words or more but because I wanted this to be uploaded by Christmas morning, but that didn't happen. So it ended up only being 2,300 words. Oh well :P. Um...the next chapter is coming up on February 14. Valentine's Day! (hopefully ). Till then my lovelies bye!
~Casey