Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)
Chapter 12: Fixing One Bond & Improving Another
Wendy's arrival to the guild of Sabertooth had certainly been a surprise to Lucy, but she was happy to see her young friend from Fairy Tail show up for a visit while Happy and Carla had accompanied her. The two girls did have some catching up to do, having not seen each other in an entire month, and Lucy had also hoped that Wendy would be okay with her decision to join Sabertooth. She obviously would not be coming back to her old guild anytime soon, due to Natsu being so rude to her, but what choice did Lucy have?
Sting had also narrowed his blue eyes at the young sky dragon slayer, hoping this wasn't some setup by Natsu to gain information about the rival guild, and Wendy smiled slightly while telling him that she truly was only here to check on her friend. Wendy had missed Lucy, and she had also heard about the drama from Happy. Natsu had been causing many problems in the Fairy Tail guild, and Wendy could clearly see why Lucy had joined another guild. Her new life seemed to be going pretty well, even though this was her first official day in Sabertooth.
Lucy had gotten a plate of waffles for Wendy to eat, as the blue-haired girl pulled up a chair to have a place at the table, and she also informed her friend about the new spell book that she had received from Karen. It really made both girls curious, wondering why Lucy was the destined person for the book of many strange spells, and Lucy easily managed to understand the words in yellow text on some of the pages. A few spells appeared to have been written, most likely as a sign that the book was trying to tell Lucy something, but she refused to read it aloud.
After all, even the first spell of Fire Magic had proven to be pretty dangerous against a fire dragon slayer like Natsu. This new type of magic, presumably the Lightning Magic that Lucy had gained after her fierce battle against Hikari, could be pretty deadly. She didn't want to accidentally blow up the entire Sabertooth guild with her weakest spell of Lightning Magic, and showing too much strength on the first day would probably make her seem arrogant in the eyes of the other mages who would not know what was going on.
She had to test out these new moves in a safe location, also hoping that the place would have the conditions met for Lightning Magic to work, but where in the world could Lucy go without causing much damage? She didn't want to test them out on a beach or in a park, since innocent people might get badly hurt, and she had a bit of frustration in her cocoa brown eyes while explaining her dilemma to her new friends. Orga smirked arrogantly while wanting to have a battle of lightning against lightning, but Sting stepped in with a cocky grin as he chuckled a bit.
"There's no need to worry about a thing, Lucy. I'm going to be your opponent today, and consider this as your entrance exam into the guild of Sabertooth. Just because I like you, I won't go easy on you. After all, higher difficulty will actually help you get better in the long run." The white dragon slayer explained to her in a calm tone, still looking cocky at the thrill of getting to experience this new magic firsthand.
Lucy replied happily while eating her waffles, her cocoa brown eyes beginning to twinkle with the joy of testing out these new spells, "You won't regret having me in your guild, Sting! I'm going to come at you with everything that I've got today! Well, only the Lightning Magic. This book has many rules, and you've seen how conditional it can be at times."
As she sat back down, Lucy could see Sting looking like he was definitely in the mood for this. He wanted to see how much strength she had, but he wouldn't be a rude jerk about it like how Natsu had been. He would be training with her, assisting her in getting better, and Sting also wanted to see how strong he had gotten as well. After all, the girl that he loved had managed to beat the dragon slayer who was considered to be his greatest rival. Sting didn't want to get shown up by either of them, especially since he was now a guild master.
He had also informed Lucy that the Grand Magic Games would be transpiring in a few months from now, determining fairly which guild had the right to earn the title of the best guild in the country of Fiore, but Rogue gave Sting a stern look while reminding him that the masters of the many guilds were not allowed to participate in the tournament. That really made Sting feel discouraged, having wanted to get some redemption for what happened in the tag battle when he and Rogue couldn't even defeat Natsu when he was alone, and Sting sighed a bit while looking down.
However, Rufus countered Rogue's little statement by reminding him and Sting that there were other competitions in Fiore to determine different things. There was even a baking competition for people ho enjoyed cooking, and the winner would get 10 million jewels while winning a trophy for their guild. Even if Sabertooth was not able to win in everything, they could earn wins in other things. That seemed totally fair for them, right? At least they wouldn't be looking like jerks, with Minerva not able to be on their team anymore.
Rufus gave Lucy a kind look while giving her an explanation on something known as the Grand Fiore League, and it was a competition that was different from the Grand Magic Games. There were no strange events involved, no major points for winners while losers got nothing, but there were teams. It was like a tournament of 128 people, involving seven rounds, and the winner would receive a fantastic trophy for their guild while being known as the Champion Mage in the entire country of Fiore. The winner could even challenge the Elite Four and the Champion after the main tournament was done, if they wanted to really win it all.
While Sting had taken Lucy's concerns about safety with the spells into consideration, a small smile formed on his face when he thought of the perfect place to train and help Lucy work with that Lightning Magic. Besides, she would probably like the plan that Sting had in mind. He was going to give her a pretty good fight, but he also knew how to give a girl a very good time as well. Sting had seen that look of ambition in Lucy's cocoa brown eyes, seeing her desire to become much stronger, and work wasn't good without some fun included.
When everyone had finished eating their breakfast, Sting got up from the table and ran out of Sabertooth's entrance doors while having that cocky smirk on his face. He had ran so fast, prompting everyone else to look a bit startled by him suddenly leaving the guild, and Lucy was the first person to run after him. She had wondered what he was up to, since Sting was looking pretty confident, and Lucy hoped that her training with Sting would be great. She was followed by everyone else, including Wendy, and they knew how excited Sting could get. While Sabertooth seemed to be having a good morning, how were things going in Fairy Tail?
At the Fairy Tail guild...
Natsu had stubbornly gotten out of his bed in the guild's infirmary, burning off all of his bandages, and he still could not believe that Lisanna had broken up with him just because of how he had treated Lucy. The fire dragon slayer had thought that Lisanna would be perfectly okay with him taunting Lucy and bugging her, but the white-haired mage was clearly more mature than that. She wasn't the type of person to us others to make someone jealous, and Lisanna pretty much hated Natsu right now for how he acted.
Gray and Erza had even tried their hardest to get some sense into his dense head, but their efforts had fallen on deaf ears. Natsu didn't really care about what they had to say, not even bothering to take any time to look at this whole situation from a different point of view, and he thought that his opinion was the only one that had any real meaning to it. He was so arrogant to think that his view was perfect, acting like he was the one with all of the smarts, and Natsu's bad attitude was really not making a good impression on anybody.
He actually thought that Lucy and Erza were just playing around earlier when the scarlet-haired mage told the brown-eyed girl to leave the Fairy Tail guild for the drama to stop, thinking that Lucy was a weak crybaby who would just be back soon from crying under a tree, but he would really be proven wrong if they ever crossed paths again. Fate had made the blonde mage take a path that Natsu couldn't follow at all, and it had also severed his relationship with Lisanna to teach him a lesson about being too proud to admit when he was wrong.
The fire dragon slayer sat down at a table that was far away from the other members of his former team, and they all looked at him with harsh glares. Lisanna had regret in her blue eyes, though, and she really just couldn't be mean to Natsu. She didn't want the conflict to escalate any further than this point, and all Natsu had to do was apologize. He would also have to change his ways as well, especially if he wanted to get Lisanna back, and Natsu definitely had to turn all of his arrogance into a big plan of intelligence.
He knew that the Grand Magic Games would be taking place in a few months, determining which guild would be the strongest in Fiore, and Natsu knew that Fairy Tail could win once again. He thought that taking down everyone in Sabertooth would be a great way to earn Lisanna's love back, but that really wouldn't solve anything. If he wasn't doing something out of the little bit of goodness in his heart, then how could Lisanna ever trust him again? He really owed her an apology, too, since he treated her more like a pawn than a true girlfriend.
Natsu asked his old team in a worried tone, walking over to them with his plan to get Lisanna back in a relationship with him, "Guys, are you going to hate me forever? I mean, come on. All I did was just taunt Lucy, and you had to get on my case about it like she deserved to be a part of my team. I just made a mistake, and you guys have to admit that you can't do a job without me. That's why we became a team, right? Lisanna, you even liked me."
Lisanna had been smiling a bit when it sounded like Natsu was going to apologize, but his intentional thoughts had certainly not agreed with the spoken words from his mouth. It sounded like he wanted the team to get back together, but then he kept on making the same mistake that caused Erza and Gray to menacingly glare at him. He wanted to have a team, but Natsu was making it all about him. He was acting like the victim in his conflict had been him instead of Lucy, angering Erza, but his words really got Lisanna mad when he had said they couldn't do a job without him. He basically called them weak, when he had ironically been beaten by someone who he thought was weak.
"You know, the key word in your selfish speech actually is 'liked'. I actually used to like you, Natsu, until you started being such a jerk to Lucy while not even focusing much on our relationship at all. Your pride also got in the way, too. You can't act like a huge jerk and expect us to just forgive you, you know. You are really an idiot. You blame Lucy for the drama, but you caused it first. After all this, you even call us weak without you. You just can't see how your mistakes impacted our relationship, and I don't see a future for us at all." Lisanna explained to him with coldness in her blue eyes, seriousness in her voice, making Erza seem really impressed.
The fire dragon slayer felt like every single word from Lisanna had just stabbed him in the chest, having never heard her talk so coldly to him in such an icy manner, and the feeling of rejection really did make a blow to his ego. Natsu thought that he was truly invincible, stronger than everyone else, but he certainly didn't become unscathed in any way from Lisanna and the others turning down his offer to rejoin his team. Natsu would either have to work alone or find new people, and no one in the Fairy Tail guild wanted to be around him.
This was definitely his bad karma for being so rude to Lucy, and Natsu was certainly not enjoying it. He had probably lost Lisanna for good, but he also had to realize that someone's trust had to be earned back. Forgiveness had to be earned as well, and it couldn't be earned on the same day that the climax point of a conflict transpired. Natsu sighed sadly while slamming his head down on the table in frustration, not knowing where he should start in a situation like this, and he really began to wish that he had thought before he acted.
On a beach...
Sting had led Lucy and the others to the beach near the town of Humilau, a resort town that attracted tourists during the summertime with its department store, great waves for surfing, outside pools and many of the tourists had occupied the marvelous-looking villas atop the green grassy hills overlooking the sandy beach and the ocean. The townspeople lived in huts that were on wooden piers, and one of the piers actually led to the Grand Fiore League where the mysterious tournament would be taking place.
The white dragon slayer walked down the beach, seeing no one around right now, and this was the perfect time for him and Lucy to have a training battle. No innocent people would get hurt, and Sting would also try not to damage the beach too much. He wanted to see how powerful he was, and he also wanted to see what Lucy's new spells would be like. Would they be based on power, trickery, succession, or something else? Either way, this made Sting look very excited. He also had given the stamp and color kit to Rogue, since Lucy would be getting her guild mark today.
She opened up her yellow spell book to see that there were only four readable spells of Lightning Magic, certainly a lesser number of moves than what Sting had, but Lucy also knew that he would try to make this a fair fight. He wouldn't make it easy on her, but it would be fair. These unknown spells could probably be what Hikari had used back in the amusement park, but Lucy knew that the book did have its weird way of making some strange spells that could also prove to be very effective in battles. She informed him of the slight drawback, and Sting agreed to keep things even.
Rogue and the others simply sat on one of the grassy hills that stood over the beach, wanting to see what would happen in this battle, and Wendy looked really curious about the book that Lucy was wielding. She wondered about what was in it, wondering what kind of spells Lucy would be using, and the young sky dragon slayer smiled a bit while she began to cheer for her friend. Happy and Carla were also cheering for Lucy as well, but Lector smirked arrogantly as he thought that Sting would definitely win this match.
"All right, Lucy. This will be a practice match between us, and I want to see how strong this new type of magic really is. Since you only have four spells, we'll go by the Grand Magic League rules in battles. This will be a four-on-four fight with one type of magic allowed for each side, and you win by either knocking out your opponent or when the opposing side runs out of magical power. If you're ready, then let's begin." Sting explained calmly with strength in his charming blue eyes, before smirking and going into a combat stance.
She replied confidently with ambition in her brown eyes while her yellow spell book began to glow, as her emotions became fierce for her to take this fight seriously, "I understand, Sting. I'm definitely ready to take you on! Lightning Magic, I need your assistance! I call upon thee, the first spell, Thunder Jolt!"
This spell caused Lucy's body to become surrounded by yellow electricity, and she could feel the voltage charging up from within her. She released all the electricity in the form of seven lightning bolts at Sting, but the white dragon slayer smirked in a cocky manner while dodging all of Lucy's attacks and proceeding to cancel them out with White Dragon's Holy Ray. He fired a copious amount of white beams of light from the space in between his hands as he put them together, and they canceled out Lucy's lightning! Seven miniature blasts of yellow lightning transpired around Lucy, and the side effect of this spell caused the electricity to make Lucy move a little bit faster.
The blonde girl smiled confidently while activating her second spell now, and it was known as Electric Shock. This move made a yellow sphere of Lightning Magic form in between Lucy's hands, and sparks of yellow lightning were coming off of the sphere. She quickly threw it at Sting, only to have him negate her spell with White Dragon's Roar. He unleashed a white laser beam from his mouth, and something strange happened when the two attacks collided. Lucy's sphere actually began to absorb Sting's laser beam, and the sphere of Lightning Magic created a large yellow blast when it exploded.
This attack could not only attack an opponent, but it could also turn other types of magic into lightning to assist Lucy. The sphere could also explode if nothing else had been done to it, and the side effect was that its shock waves would give Lucy some energy while paralyzing any target. Sting wasn't affected, however, since Lucy had absorbed the power of the lightning blast into her hands. She didn't want to majorly damage the beach, and neither did Sting. Lucy smirked a bit, feeling her magical power increase, and that prompted her to use the third spell.
Not knowing what would come from new spells was certainly a risky issue, but Lucy had faith in the yellow spell book. She knew that the next move would probably help her, and it was known as Lightning Rings. This move caused her to jump high into the air, and three electric rings were being worn on both of her arms. She threw the six rings of electricity down at Sting, forming the shape of a perfect hexagon around him, and the rings of electricity began to detonate. The first one made an extremely large blast of Lightning Magic transpire, but the next one wasn't as big. It also had only 5/6 of the first blast's power, and the third blast had 4/6 the amount of power.
Upon seeing the last three blasts also appear to be lower in size and power, Lucy quickly realized that this had to be a chain spell of some kind. However, its power was mainly focused into the first strike. It descended in power with every blast that followed it, but the side effect of the spell made all the electric waves enter Lucy's body. She kept moving much faster than before while she landed on the ground safely, confusing Sting with her fast speed, but Lucy also knew that the power of these spells definitely needed some work.
Sting told her in a calm manner with an impressed grin on his face, having quickly dug a hole in the sand before the blasts of Lightning Magic could even damage him, "That's a pretty interesting spell, Lucy, but you just need to really build it up a lot into one shot for a critical hit to occur. Chain spells can be used in one shot, but you have to do it right. Anyway, that was round three. This is the last round, so prepare yourself!"
"I'm ready, Sting! If the first, second, and third spells won't work, then let's see what the fourth spell will bring! I call upon thee, the fourth spell, Devouring Lightning!" Lucy replied happily, as she looked at the fourth spell of Lightning Magic to see the words in yellow text beginning to glow brightly.
Everyone was surprised to see this spell make four little stingrays of lightning emerge from Lucy's hands, and she looked pretty embarrassed about the attack looking so mediocre. Sting even felt like laughing while the stingrays slowly approached him, and he fired White Dragon's Holy Ray at all of them. Much to everyone's surprise, the lightning stingrays opened their mouths and ate Sting's beams of light! They began to grow in size from eating his magic, and they also started to chase after him when it seemed like they wanted more.
Lucy looked pretty shocked to see the now large stingrays of lightning chasing Sting, and they truly did seem hungry for his magic. Rogue didn't want to see his best friend get electrocuted, and he used Shadow Dragon's Roar to try and stop the stingrays. However, they grew bigger and faster upon eating his magic as well. Wendy even used Sky Dragon's Roar on the tail of one stingray, only to have it absorb her magic and make the stingray grow larger. Sting kept running as fast as he could, but he was still being followed by Lucy's projectiles.
Deciding to end this, even though it was comically funny, Rufus used his Memory-Make Magic to make Lucy's stingrays explode in large yellow blasts of Lightning Magic. The tremendous shock waves were being absorbed into Lucy's body, and the large gale force had certainly startled some of the people who were surfing and water skiing. Rufus had actually commanded his magic to make Lucy's spells proceed to their true effect, and the stingrays only had that much power after eating so much magic. Absorbing an opponent's magic and attacking them with it was certainly two threats in one, was it not?
As Rufus erased the billowing smoke from his memory to clear up the beach and fix any damage, Sting told Lucy with a happy facial expression, "That was totally unexpected, but it was awesome! Your spells give you speed, but the first three need more of a buildup to really become effective. Besides, I think there are still four left to unlock. Anyway, you gave me a great battle."
Lucy responded kindly while hugging Sting, happy to hear those kind words from him, "Thank you so much, Sting! Hearing praise from you is the greatest thing ever to me, and I will definitely do good for Sabertooth!"
Yukino had taken the stamp and color kit from Rogue when he wasn't paying any mind to it, and the woman with light blue hair had informed Lucy that her guild mark was in the color of blue on her left waist, and Lucy decided to get a nice change from Fairy Tail. Since Yukino was her friend, with the added fact that Lucy was intent on leaving her past behind, she requested that her insignia for the Sabertooth guild be in the color green on the right side of her waist. She lifted up her shirt for Yukino to see her navel area, and she put the guild mark on the left side of Lucy's waist.
Wendy didn't want her Fairy Tail guild mark to be removed, but she also wanted to spend more time with Lucy and catch up with her. The girls were like sisters, and Wendy did not want to part ways with Lucy now. She had gone all the way across the sea to find her friend, and the young blue-haired girl asked Lucy if she could join the guild without a mark. Sting and Rogue both seemed puzzled by Wendy asking that, but Lucy and Yukino saw no problem with it. After all, Wendy had helped them out with the Eclipse Project.
Everyone cheered at the fact that Lucy was a new member, and Sting challenged her to a race that would end when one of them reached the donut shop in the nearby place known as Chocolate Town. Feeling her future get much brighter, thanks to a dragon slayer of light, Lucy smiled confidently while she ran after Sting once again. Everyone else followed them in hot pursuit, wanting to have some fun in the race as well, and Yukino's brown eyes noticed something amazing again. Lucy's spell book pulsated with a yellow glow once again, and what was it going to signify?
At the Fairy Tail guild...
Gajeel and Pantherlily had finally returned from their training in the mountains, and the iron dragon slayer seemed a bit grumpy while muttering something as he sat down next to Levy at a table. She blushed a bit from noticing his presence, wondering what he was going to say to her today, and Gajeel was panting heavily. He seemed like him and Lily had just ran from the mountains to get here, or they had used up too much power while actually destroying a mountain. Levy looked a bit concerned, and she gave Gajeel a few spoons to eat.
Natsu also noticed that he had come back, wanting to fight with him once again, but Erza kicked the fire dragon slayer in the face while helping him remember that he couldn't do much while not having a team. His arrogance was truly getting on her nerves, and Natsu really hoped that one of his rivals would not find out that Lucy had beaten him up with his own element. Lily looked somewhat shocked, having seen something interesting up in the mountains, and his words actually reached everyone's ears in the guild.
Levy asked Gajeel in a kind tone, wondering why they came back from training on a mountain that was full of iron, "Are you okay, Gajeel? You didn't get hurt anywhere, did you?"
He responded in a somewhat annoyed manner, giving her a bit of a frustrated look, "I'm perfectly fine, Levy. There's nothing to worry about. I was just shocked to see Bunny-girl up in the mountains, and I could hear her from a distance. She seemed to be playing some kind of instrument, and then she used some kind of purple energy to destroy a faraway mountain. I just turned my head for a split second, and then she was gone. The music had stopped, too."
Erza looked shocked at Gajeel's words, wondering why Lucy would be up in the mountains, and she didn't have a flute with her at all. She had that strange spell book with her, so why would she need a flute? Was that even Lucy, or was it somebody else? Either way, this new mystery was puzzling to everybody. Lucy had been on the beach with Sting and the others, and they hadn't even been to the mountains yet. Her book didn't even have the color purple yet, so what in the world was going on? Could there be more to the book, instead of just being a mysterious item that Karen gave Lucy because she was a pure and innocent maiden?
How was the 12th chapter? Did you like it? Lucy's chemistry with Sting continues to improve, and their practice match proved that they can anticipate each other's moves. They will also show more chemistry in the next chapter when this story's next two OCs show up. What will happen on the next job? Will Lucy and Sting get a bit emotional? Will this situation make Sting help Lucy a little bit more? Standby for the update!