Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)
Chapter 3: The Second Spell
Sting had taken Lucy down a manhole in the town of Castelia to help her with this job of taking down a gang of criminals who used Poison Magic, and the sewers unsurprisingly had a very putrid smell. The brown water certainly looked murky and highly unsafe to drink, and there was also purple gunk on the walls. Seriously, though, couldn't the bandits pick a less disgusting place to use as their hideout?
The white dragon slayer had made light surround his hands to not make things dark for himself and Lucy, but he could see the blonde mage from Fairy Tail looking nervous while she walked beside him. Lucy was trembling a bit while still being in her pink pajamas, and she was more scared of the rats that scurried by quickly than being scared of the bandits.
Lucy hoped that this job could be finished rather quickly, since she did not like the foul smell of the sewer or the sounds of rats squeaking. She had planned to summon Aquarius to destroy them all with a large vortex of water, but the Celestial Spirit would probably be very irritated with Lucy for making her gather up nasty water that contained so much sewage.
The concrete walkways thankfully had some wooden bridges connecting them together, so Lucy wouldn't really have to worry about slipping in the disgusting water and getting dirty. She kept chattering her teeth from some cold air flowing through the sewers, and Lucy honestly regretted taking this job. She was really lucky to have Sting helping her, though.
Sting whispered to her in a calm manner, looking stern while smelling something a bit different, "Someone else is down here, and they're right around this corner. Let's give these criminals a big surprise, Lucy."
The blonde mage responded as she smiled softly, "You're right, Sting. We'll be calm, quiet, and they won't even know we're-"
She was about to finish that sentence, but Lucy shuddered in fear at the feeling of something touching the back of her left leg. She felt something like an animal, and the loud squeak immediately informed her that it was a rat. Lucy screamed in fear from having this vermin touch her, and she panicked while using the Aqua Ball to send it into the water where it belonged.
Sting felt like facepalming himself from hearing Lucy's screams, especially since they caused the bandits to wonder who else was down here and check out the noise. Sting narrowed his blue eyes while seeing that these bandits wore black pirate hats with a white 'X' on each of them, and they also had black masks over their mouths while they wore black vests and wore grey pants with black leather boots to match.
When the eight bandits ran towards Sting, they threw small purple balls at his feet. He thought that this was some kind of mediocre trick, but they immediately exploded and trapped him in a large purple cloud of poisonous gas. Sting held his breath through his mouth and nose, not wanting to inhale any of the toxic fumes, and the bandits were laughing while hitting him with all sorts of sneaky punches and kicks.
Lucy knew eight against one was unfair, and she suddenly noticed a blue blast of energy transpiring in the water behind her. That must've been the effect of Aqua Ball from when she hit the rat, and Lucy had realization in her cocoa brown eyes from understanding that this spell took a few seconds to show its true effect. She had to help Sting, and Lucy knew just how to do it.
She used the Aqua Ball spell on the purple smoke that was giving Sting's enemies an unfair advantage against him, and Lucy waited a few seconds for a miniature blue blast to occur and blow all the smoke away. Three of the bandits were caught off guard by this attack, but Lucy hit them three times each with the Aqua Ball attack for fighting dirty against Sting.
"Forget about the loud dragon slayer who boasts about his success from above, boys! Take out the girl!" The sole female bandit with red hair commanded in a stern tone, obviously being the ringleader while not caring about the blasts that were decimating three of her teammates.
The remaining four male bandits used their Poison Magic to shoot a copious amount of purple needles from their hands, and the projectiles headed straight for Lucy. The female bandit lowered her black mask and smirked evilly, knowing those poison needles would turn into long rapiers that would go right through Lucy to finish her off, but Lucy's blue spell book suddenly began to radiate with a cerulean glow!
She wasted no time opening up the book, and Lucy's brown eyes widened in shock from seeing that the next two lines on the first page were readable in blue text. This meant that a new spell had been written, and it was known as Imprisoning Bubble. In an instant, a large blue bubble appeared in front of Lucy and it had steam coming out of it. Lucy placed her hand near the bubble, feeling heat emanating from it, and she wondered what would happen.
The poisonous needles all made contact with the bubble, and they were quickly destroyed when they went inside of it. Implosions seemed to be occurring from inside the bubble, each implosion becoming more powerful than the last, and there had been 128 implosions. That made Lucy see that the Water Magic she had was requiring her to use the spells in succession for great effects, and she smiled with a look of confidence while knowing she could comply with the rules of her spells.
Her bubble of scalding water glowed brightly before bursting in a massive blue blast of energy that obliterated part of the Castelia Sewers, and the scalding water created a large wave that burned and slammed down on the female bandit and her friends while sending them down into the ocean near the piers of the town. The rest of the water carried Sting and Lucy over to a nearby ladder, and both of the mages were wet while climbing the rungs up to the surface for some fresh air.
Lucy whined a bit while sadly looking down at her drenched pink pajamas and having displeasure in her brown eyes from smelling like the sewer, "We got the job done, but I smell so bad! That job was totally not good at all, Sting!"
The white dragon slayer responded with an impressed look on his face, his charming blue eyes twinkling, "Man, that was awesome! Lucy, you pretty much got the job finished with those two radical spells!"
While she thanked him for his praise, Lucy noticed that a golden bag of money had appeared right beside her. Its heaviness certainly had the weight of 800,000 jewels, but the client was nowhere to be found. Lucy wondered if they were a shy person, but she now had some money for herself on the vacation that she was currently on.
Speaking of money, an important thought made its way into Lucy's mind. If she was on vacation, where exactly did she plan on staying in Castelia Town? The hotels probably weren't even cheap with their prices for staying a few nights, and even the room service fees would probably be expensive. She needed a place to stay, but where could she go?
She didn't even know her way around a large town like this, and Lucy definitely hadn't thought things through before she left Magnolia. It was smarter to go on vacation after having a place to stay, and Lucy knew that her rent wasn't even due until the end of the month. She could still go back to her apartment for the time being, right?
Of course, going back to Magnolia would also mean that Lucy would be running into Natsu and Lisanna more often. She didn't want them rubbing their love in her face, and seeing Natsu kiss the white-haired mage would just break Lucy's heart even more. She had lost him to another woman, the fire dragon slayer's affections being pointed elsewhere, and Lucy looked utterly miffed.
"Just imagining them together makes my emotions go all over the place! He nonchalantly kicked me off the team, everyone pays attention to her, and I just want time away from my broken heart!" Lucy shouted aloud with an irritated facial expression while her cocoa brown eyes shifted from feelings of frustration towards Lisanna to the despairing sadness of losing Natsu.
Sting asked her while looking curious, "Are you talking about Natsu? What exactly happened between you two?"
Lucy knew that it wasn't good to keep things bottled up and reserved to herself, but her feelings were making tears leak out of her eyes while sobs began to wrack her body. The blonde mage looked incredibly saddened from being replaced by Lisanna, thrown away like she was of no use to any team at all, and Lucy tried wiping her tears away before looking at Sting.
"Natsu kicked me off of his team because I wasn't strong enough, and I really had high hopes on loving him! However, he sent me crashing down into rejection and replaced me with Lisanna! That's why I want to get stronger, to show him that I'm not weak!" Lucy explained while tears ran down her cheeks before she fell to her knees with her hands over her eyes.
Sting looked a bit panicky right now, having never really been in the position of comforting a crying woman, and he wished that Rogue was here with him right now to help him handle the situation. Sting had always comforted Yukino when she was sad about not doing as well as she hoped to do on some jobs, but he had never handled a woman who was suffering from rejection and heartbreak. However, the white dragon slayer knew that he had to apologize to Lucy for his rude behavior earlier and try to comfort her in one way or another.
He told her in a calm tone while smiling slightly, "You shouldn't let his rudeness get in the way of your happiness, Lucy. You shouldn't focus on proving anything to him because the best opinion of yourself comes from you. When you prove something to yourself, that will make you see that you've gotten stronger."
Lucy wiped away her tears as she heard Sting's words, and she was even more surprised when she saw him activate White Drive. In a few seconds, as he put his left hand on her right shoulder, Lucy noticed that she and Sting weren't smelling bad from the sewer anymore. He had said in his match with Natsu and Gajeel that the light of the White Dragon purifies all things, thus including a person's smell. (I know that's not a canon ability of White Drive, but just go along with it.)
She was a bit shocked to find some comfort from a member of the Sabertooth guild, but Lucy knew that she couldn't judge them all in the same light because of what Minerva had done in last year's Grand Magic Games. Sting may have been a pretty arrogant person, but his confidence could lift up a person's spirits when it was necessary.
"Thank you, Sting. You really know how to cheer someone up, and I feel better now." Lucy replied with a small smile on her face, now feeling happier from the white dragon slayer's kind words.
He grinned a bit in a cocky manner, knowing he was awesome enough to handle anyone's problems, and a great idea made its way into his head. If Lucy wanted to become much stronger while being away from Natsu, he could be the one to train her. Sting had been told by many mages that he was an excellent guild master of Sabertooth, and how could he not be an excellent teacher when it came to magic?
"All right, Lucy. Starting tomorrow, I am going to train you and help you become much stronger. In the meantime, you definitely need to go back to Magnolia and rest a bit. Spells are similar to Celestial Spirits, and chain spells take up a lot of magical power." Sting informed her while posing victoriously, grinning with confidence as his blue eyes looked quite charming.
From hearing those words, Lucy's cocoa brown eyes were filled with happiness. She was going to not only become stronger, but be trained by the rival of Natsu Dragneel? She wanted to become stronger, aspiring to become much more powerful than ever before, and Lucy also believed in the powers of her blue spell book. She believed that her Water Magic could improve, making her twice as strong, and Lucy gave Sting a look of confidence that told him she would work hard and not let him down.
While Sting walked towards the farthest left street with Lucy to get her home on the ship and back to her unattended luggage, neither of them noticed that the blue book was pulsating with a bright glow once again. The cerulean blue shining occurred not once, but twice in those few moments. Was Lucy's belief of having the ability to succeed causing the book to react with her positive attitude?
Sting and Lucy also walked off a little too early before they could see Karen emerge from the shadow of a building. She had actually been the one to get that bag of 800,000 jewels from the shadows by using Shadow-Make Magic, a type of Molding Magic, and she had certainly heard the massive blast that transpired from Lucy's second spell.
"That second spell made quite a ruckus, but the girl clearly does have the magical power to use it and not collapse from exhaustion. However, she must develop and become even stronger. After all, that is the only way for my master to truly be alive. If she's going back to Magnolia, it's time to do some research." Karen thought to herself with a dark grin, before sinking into the building's shadow to move through the darkness once more.
Meanwhile, at Fairy Tail...
Erza and Gray kept pacing back and forth around the table where Team Natsu was located, hoping they could apologize to Lucy for Natsu's behavior yesterday, and they both sternly glared at the guild's closed entrance doors while waiting for Lucy to show her face. She normally arrived at 7:00 a.m. sharp, and the time was now 7:10. What could Lucy be doing?
Erza honestly thought that Lucy wouldn't even want to be at the guild today, especially after the way that Natsu had crushed her heart in such a dense way, and the scarlet-haired mage knew he was bad at handling situations. Lucy was probably sulking about how she had lost her chance with Natsu, and she probably would just want to ignore him.
Lisanna felt bad about the heartbreak that Lucy was going through, and she looked a bit hopeful about Lucy walking through Fairy Tail's entrance doors. This way, Lisanna could give her an adequate apology for how Natsu had kicked her off the team. She didn't want the blonde mage to be hurt and saddened, since they were part of the same guild.
Natsu asked his girlfriend with a cheerful grin while he giggled, "Lisanna, do you want to go on a job with me and look like the happiest couple ever?"
The white-haired mage responded while frowning, hoping Natsu actually paid attention to the current situation, "Let's just wait for Lucy to arrive and then we'll go out somewhere."
The fire dragon slayer didn't know why his teammates were worried about someone who wasn't exactly up to par with their fighting skills, and Natsu really cared more for his girlfriend. He didn't know why she was worried about Lucy being upset with Natsu choosing Lisana over her, and he really didn't know much about love triangles or relationships.
Natsu didn't really care if Lucy was sleeping late or something to help herself ease her soul and pick up the pieces of her heart, but he really did care that his team was suddenly giving her so much attention instead of taking a job from the request board. They really did see Lucy as one of their nakama, not just judging her by her strength, but Natsu really couldn't see that.
However, as he looked over at the request board, Natsu thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. A woman with silvery-blue hair came out of a shadow and unpinned a flyer from the request board, before sinking down into the shadow of a nearby table with a cunning look on her face. What in the world was she trying to do?
"Get back here, bitch!" Natsu shouted loudly to the thief, right as Erza was walking towards the guild's front doors to go check on Lucy at her apartment.
She turned around and asked Natsu with a stern facial expression, "I'm sorry, what did you call me?!"
Natsu looked scared of feeling Erza's wrath once again, not wanting to get beat up when he wasn't fighting with Gray, and the fire dragon slayer pointed at the table where he saw Karen disappear into the darkness with a job request like she owned the Fairy Tail guild or something. She didn't even care that anyone saw her, and Natsu stammered nervously while pointing at the table. However, when Erza ran over there to check it out, she moved the table aside to find nothing.
How was the 3rd chapter? Sorry if this chapter wasn't long enough, but the StiCy is getting started. I don't want to reveal too many details early on, so standby for the update!