Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)
Chapter 33: Calm and Windy, Cool and Tricky
Lucy and Sting sat down at a table in the Sabertooth guild, starting off this new day with two cups of hot chocolate to drink for breakfast, and they were both eating plates of delicious waffles covered in maple syrup. They definitely needed to have breakfast this morning, since this was now the day after Lucy and Sting had found out that Hakutai Town had been destroyed in what seemed to be a set of powerful blasts. It also seemed like the air had been used to slice up the town as well, since it did seem like a slicing object had destroyed those trees.
Lucy still had Gray's note with her, having it down on the brown round table, and she still seemed very miffed about the fact that Karen was supposedly using her like a puppet. The blonde mage really hated coming across anyone who seemed to be nothing more than a person who shared the ideals of her former friend named Natsu Dragneel, and she really could not believe that Karen had just been using her the entire time for some strange purpose. It honestly made no sense to Lucy, making her groan in frustration.
For one thing, she was the only one who was capable of reading the spells in the strange book. Even Karen seemed unable to read anything in the book when she had first given it to Lucy, and the woman with silvery-blue hair had stated herself that the book would only work for the one who was able to break its magical seal to open it up. Since Karen had even stated that the book would not open for someone like her, there was really no way for her to even use the spells. Lucy would be the one becoming stronger, you know.
Also, Karen seemed really nice to Lucy when they first met. She was not manipulative at all, just wanting to see if the girl with cocoa brown eyes was capable of reading the book. If Lucy had not been able to read the book from the very beginning, then Karen would have just gone on her merry way. In fact, even though Lucy had never really taken notice of it, Karen had been watching over her while not even trying to attack her at any point. If somebody really wanted power, then wouldn't they just try to take it for themselves?
There actually was a type of magic for transferring souls, allowing the user to take over an opponent's body, but Karen had the ability of moving through shadows. She was not capable of manipulating the hearts and souls of people, because she would have taken a pure soul and taken it for herself while switching it out with her own. That would definitely make her become capable of reading the book, and Karen could also get her hands on it if she was able to swap hearts. However, she was incapable of doing either of those tasks.
Lucy asked Sting in a frustrated manner, having her hands on her head while sighing, "Why did Gray have to leave us with this note, Sting? Seriously, why did he not just bring the paper and ink along with him to tell us who he was fighting? Wouldn't that have made a lot more sense, instead of informing me about how Karen is supposedly using me? This just makes no sense at all to me, and I'm so worried about Gray right now. It's not like him to fight somebody, but just leave something behind. He's a good friend who would stick around to tell me what happened."
While Sting was also curious about that note, he also had to wonder why neither Gray or the opponent would be around at the scene of the fight. He knew that Karen was up to something, having told Lucy so much about the book and who Thorn was, but why would the supposed antagonist be trying to get rid of Gray? Sting could tell that something was definitely off about this whole thing, and he really had to wonder if what he and Lucy saw was what had actually happened in the town of Hakutai.
Even though Sting was really suspicious of Karen, wondering what exactly her intentions would be for Lucy and the book, he also wondered why she would possibly try to get rid of Gray. If he had found out her intentions, that would be a plausible reason to get him out of the way, but would she really go about it in the cliched manner with people finding Gray's disappearance to be suspicious? Sting could tell that the book was a very important clue in all of this, and it was holding some of the keys to the mysteries surrounding it.
"Listen, Lucy. Do not stress yourself out about this, ok? Getting riled up is exactly what Karen or any prankster would want you to do right now, and don't fall for their trap. You should never fall for obvious bait like that, since all that it is really going to do is just drive you crazy. After all, look at how the pieces just do not add up here. You once told me how your friend Gray is pretty smart, and he wouldn't do anything stupid like fighting Karen head-on. Her skills are unorthodox, like yours, but I have yet to see her use any actual attacks."
From hearing Sting's advice, Lucy's cocoa brown eyes widened from that realization. She had remembered from watching the Grand Magic Games that Karen could not really use any attacks, merely using the shadows to help her like assist spells, and she was not really the fighter on Team Sweet Melancholy. She had been using those shadowy replicas of the original girls to help her in the tournament, using them like four pawns, and all that Karen had done was merely use the shadows to pull someone down into a hole or send them flying high into the air. Therefore, she could not have killed Gray or caused that much damage to the town of Hakutai.
Lucy was very glad that she had Sting with her to help her figure out this mystery, since she really felt like it would be impossible to handle this on her own. Either way, Lucy could now tell that the note she had received was definitely real. It probably was from Gray, since Lucy did know his handwriting, but what had stopped him from delivering this note to her? On top of that, had Gray even gotten the right information? Lucy had heard once from Sting that disinformation could be worse than having no information at all, and nothing could really be assumed until every piece was in its place on the chessboard.
To calm his girlfriend down, Sting informed her that they were now going to train at a new place for her to test out those new fusion spells of Wind Magic. The book had now merged Lucy's Wind Magic with Plant Magic to give it a very decent power boost, but it was also going to let Lucy know that this would not really be much of a big power boost for when tougher people would come along. Besides, Lucy also knew that Plant Magic was one of the most conditional types of magic. It could only work in a place with plants, so Lucy could possibly not be able to use it in icy areas or mountainous areas.
The blonde mage smiled softly at the fact that Sting would be helping her train once again, and she hoped that their training session would be just as romantic as the day that they had the practice battle on the beach. Sting's large picnic was a really nice lunch for the date, too. Lucy knew Sting would take her out to a good place for their training, especially if it would help her work with an evolved version of her magic. However, she really hoped that the book would not ignore her commands and use the spells that it thought were appropriate for different situations.
As Sting walked towards the entrance doors of the Sabertooth guild with Lucy, the blonde girl checked her appearance in the reflection of a nearby glass window. She currently wore an emerald green T-shirt with a light green miniskirt to match, and her flat shoes were black. She had her hair in a ponytail on the left side of her head, looking quite fashionable as always, and Lucy gave Sting a soft kiss on the lips for helping her handle the issue that surrounded her friend named Karen. While they walked towards the entrance doors, getting closer, Lucy did not notice that the forest green aura for Plant Magic in her spell book had hightailed it out of the group and went off to somewhere else.
At the Fairy Tail guild...
Thorn had finally returned to the Fairy Tail guild after having taken care of Gray for knowing her secret, and she was now back in her teenage form with her hair being a violet color. She had been smiling happily while going over to a table near the guild's entrance doors, knowing that her plan to rule the world was now going to go off without any flaws in it at all, and the antagonist sat down at a table where Natsu was located. Even though she had not been manipulating him much in her quest for power, Thorn still needed a valuable pawn.
She had made Natsu stay away from Hakutai Town yesterday, having left him lost in the forest by confusing him with her Darkness Magic to keep him from seeing what she would be up to in the town that specialized in Plant Magic, and Thorn's little tricks of deception were certainly making things go in her favor. Natsu blushed a light shade of pink while looking at Thorn's beauty, seeing her to be a beautiful woman who just would not reveal all of her strength to him, and he was falling for her dark charms.
Natsu had really began to enjoy going on jobs with Thorn, finding her to be the most useful partner that he had ever been with on a team, and the way how she helped him move through shadows to avoid certain dangers was one of the things that made the fire dragon slayer love the demonic woman. She was not exactly controlling his heart or soul to make him love her, but Thorn was simply playing all of her cards to target his unhappiness. After all, Natsu definitely did need comfort after Lisanna had broken up with him.
Thorn was simply helping him pick up all the pieces of his shattered heart, simply leading him on while making him think that he was freed of all the bad karma that had been following him, but she would definitely reveal to him in the end that any "love" that they had was simply a ruse for Thorn to get what she had really wanted. After all, an ancient sorceress would never need love for the prospect of becoming powerful. Besides, Thorn also did not even really think that Natsu was cute. He was more like the puppy that she kept on its leash, until she would throw it in he trash.
As the violet-haired girl made the shadows emerge from underneath to table with a cup of hot cocoa in it with marshmallows to help her soothe her mind to act like nothing had happened when the rest of the Fairy Tail guild would start panicking about Gray being gone, Thorn's arrogance had really proven that the spells of a demonic sorceress were inferior to the fact that fate could be tempted to make a person really get the shock of their lives. In this case, Thorn was actually getting the surprise of her afterlife.
When she looked around in the guild to see who would be saddened by her chaos, hoping that people would be distraught by Gray while Hakutai Town would be on the news for getting totally destroyed yesterday, Thorn noticed that the guild members were all just sitting at tables and chatting with each other about random topics. She continued to drink from her large cup of hot cocoa, enjoying the chocolate taste, but Thorn nearly choked on it when she heard a certain Rain Woman sigh affectionately while sitting next to the one she loved.
Juvia exclaimed happily with love in her eyes that were blue like beautiful water, as she was listening to Gray's story of how he had succeeded on a job where he had to find fire stones near the volcano on Cinnabar Island yesterday, "Gray-sama, Juvia thinks that you are very brave for what you did! Going into the heat of a volcano for a job, your ice must've melted from being near the heat of it, and Juvia even sees you as being much hotter than lava itself! Gray-sama, your jobs are always really awesome!"
From hearing what Juvia had just happily said, Thorn had accidentally spat out her hot cocoa into Natsu's face while coughing as the rest of her drink managed to smoothly go down her esophagus. She could not believe that Gray was still alive, seeing as she had killed him yesterday, and Thorn knew very well that she had gone down into the shadows with his body to dispose of him. Karen could even be her witness in this whole thing, since she was even there to see Thorn give Gray a very merciless beating.
When Thorn frowned in anger and looked over at the table where Gray and Juvia were both sitting with Erza, she noticed that the ice mage was not even damaged at all. He did not have a single injury or a mark on him, almost like the fight had never happened yesterday, and Thorn clenched her fists with pure rage. She seemed very miffed that someone would go really far to not only have Gray be listening in on her plans, but now somebody was trying to alter her plans in some way that would keep her from achieving total world conquest?
There had to be some explanation for what was happening right now, since it had made no sense to Thorn. She had killed Gray for sure, and even the ice mage himself seemed like he had no recollection of the events that had taken place yesterday. It was almost like something had happened for Gray to not be injured at all, and Thorn knew that she was not weak. She had used enough power to kill him with her Plant Magic being infused with Wind Magic, so it was clear that somebody had to be messing with her plans.
Natsu asked his partner in a calm tone, seeing Thorn look pretty angry right now, "What's wrong, Thorn? What's getting you so upset? You're not interested in that stupid ice stripper, are you? Why are you looking over at Gray like him or Juvia is pissing you off?"
Thorn responded nicely, changing her emotions very quickly to not have Natsu be suspicious of her in any way, "Oh, it's nothing. I was just thinking about how the job really failed yesterday. It was a total failure, and I couldn't even get it done. Whatever happened, I totally underestimated the enemy. I will be more prepared next time, I can promise you that. Natsu, let's go on a job to anywhere right now. We need to do some serious plotting, and I have the perfect plan for you to see how I can succeed after one defeat."
Before Natsu could even respond, Thorn pulled him into the shadows to help him travel with her to wherever their destination may have been. Unknown to Thorn, the real Gray had actually been smirking while he had overheard her conversation with Natsu. He had definitely pulled a good trick on that ancient sorceress, and it was actually a pretty simple trick. When Gray had used the Ice-Make: Ice Impact spell on Thorn yesterday, he had actually made that spell have a little side ally. He knew that beating the person who beat down Natsu and Erza in the tag-team battle was impossible, and Gray knew that Molding Magic gave freedom to its user.
Right before Thorn had used the Plant Acid spell to destroy Gray's third spell, he had actually given a unique ability to Ice Impact. Since it was a spell of Molding Magic, with Gray knowing full well that Thorn would do something unorthodox to counter it, he had matched Thorn's infusion of Wind Magic and Plant Magic by blending two spells of his own. Ice-Make: Ice Impact had been infused with a spell known as Ice-Make: Light Reflector, and that spell showed Gray's reflection in his large icy hammer. The spell caused the real Gray to switch places with the one in the reflection, and the real Gray had actually walked through an ice cave in that reflected dimension to reach Magnolia. (I apologize for the Naruto reference with dimensions to make Gray be non-canon, but please go along with the plot twist.)
Even though he had done this early in the fight, Gray still allowed his clone to have speech skills to fool Thorn. He knew that no one would believe him, if he tried to get on the case of Thorn in her teenage form for trying to stop him, and Gray could tell that this was mainly on Lucy's shoulders now. He also had given Ice-Make: Ice Reflector the ability to restore damage, and the ice shards on the ground actually reflected Hakutai Town before it was damaged for it to be rebuilt after an hour had passed by. That would explain why the town being damaged had not made big news, since it was repaired because of Gray's spell.
Despite Gray's success with evading a very close death at the hands of Thorn, he knew that pure luck was on his side. He had escaped a pretty big beating from Thorn, since he could see all the explosions all the way from the guild of Fairy Tail, and Gray knew that he had to be much more careful with how he would go about doing things now. Trying to convince Natsu that Thorn was just using him for her own personal gain would not work at all, and the ice mage began to see that a demon of shadows could only be countered with an angel of light.
Meanwhile...
In order for Lucy to really get to test out these new spells of Wind Magic, Sting let her know that he would not be her opponent this time. He just wanted Lucy to test out the spells in the grassy countryside near the town of Gateau, and Sting noticed that the wooden windmills that used to be in this area had been replaced with white turbine windmills. He wanted to see just how powerful these new spells could be, making him wonder what would come from them as well, and Sting simply stood by a windmill while smirking confidently at Lucy.
The blonde mage smiled a bit while she knew that things would go well with Sting by her side, and she just had to remember his advice. Stressing about anything would just be causing Lucy to drive herself crazy, and she just needed to be calm like the soft breeze that would sometimes blow through grassy parks with meadows of flowers. She just had to focus on her emotions of confidence, knowing that anger and determination were not always necessary to make the spells work, and Lucy sent her feelings of positive energy into the emerald green spell book.
As the green book began to glow with beams of light in that respective color shining from the words for the first fusion spell of Wind Magic, Lucy shouted out the name of the attack that she was going to use. It was known as Wind Sword, and this spell appeared to be simple. It made a katana appear in Lucy's left hand, and there was nothing to sheathe the metal blade. While Sting thought that Lucy would strike a nearby windmill with it, he looked surprised to see her slice the air like something was there.
In a few seconds, an extremely large green blast of energy transpired all the way down in the pasture where some cows were eating grass. Lucy's jaw dropped in pure amazement while she saw this occur far from where the windmills had been located, and she had checked the emerald green spell book to see that this was a conditionally offensive spell. It was meant to be used on distant foes, since the power of the spell would grow with the amount of distance between the user and the target.
Lucy looked at the green spell book once again, and she was now going to use the second fusion spell of Wind Magic. It was known as Air Vacuum, and this spell caused the blonde girl to inhale a large amount of air into her lungs. She quickly exhaled it all in the form of a massive green vortex of winds, and the wind vortex headed straight for three windmills! When it made contact with them, another emerald green blast transpired! The vortex was powerful enough to obliterate the windmills, but the book also let Lucy know this spell could be used defensively to simply blow enemies far away if they ever got too close.
The third spell had given Lucy the ability to surround a windmill with a large green tornado of wind, and this tornado had actually been used for shielding Lucy from attacks. She could command it to move around the area, and this tornado could reflect projectiles of many kinds back at whoever sent them. When an attack hit the tornado, it would be surrounded by some air to create another large tornado. In other words, this spell could create numerous shields while Lucy could also command the tornadoes to detonate if she wanted them to. They could be moved around by Lucy, too.
The final fusion spell was known as Wind Demon's Miniature Malice, and the name honestly made Lucy blush in slight embarrassment while it made Sting chuckle from hearing it. This spell caused an emerald green ball of wind to float in midair in front of Lucy's face, and the ball soon became surrounded by six light green tornadoes that were half its size. The user, who was Lucy, could fire the tornadoes at the opponent. They may not have looked large now, but they would become bigger upon her command. The tornadoes would spin in a high-speed manner, attacking in any formation that Lucy thought would be appropriate, and six large light green blasts of Wind Magic would occur.
Each one would be bigger than the last, and every blast would make the emerald green sphere grow stronger for it to be in a class of its own. Every blast would create air, and the emerald green sphere would absorb all of that air. It would then increase in power and speed, moving faster every time air was taken in, and Lucy could command the sphere to strike an opponent. When she made it strike a windmill that was distant from her, a tremendous emerald green blast of Wind Magic occurred! Its power was strong enough to send both Lucy and Sting flying into the air, making them be sent far enough to where they landed in the flowery meadow of Gateau Town.
Sting exclaimed with a happy facial expression, having had a soft landing on his back while Lucy had gently landed in his arms, "Whoa, now that is definitely a good way to ride the wind! Lucy, those spells of Wind magic totally rocked! They can not only be used for attacks, but you could use the wind for taking some flying lessons as well. Even though I'm your great boyfriend with so much confidence, I sadly can't teach you how to fly."
Lucy replied nicely while blushing a light shade of pink, giggling at Sting's high levels of confidence while having joy in her cocoa brown eyes, "Thank you so much, Sting! My spells only worked because of me being completely calm, and your advice always helps me out whenever I need it. Even if that incident yesterday was the aftermath of Natsu being totally reckless with a fake note included to tease me, since it really made no sense that Hakutai's supposed destruction did not make headlines in the newspaper, then we're just lucky that we didn't have to deal with him annoying us."
The white dragon slayer blushed a bit from noticing that Lucy was still in his arms, happy that she had the best boyfriend to be with when they were training together, and he simply gave her a kiss on the lips to take away any worries that she might've been hiding from him. It was true that they had not found Karen at all, meaning that they wouldn't get to know everything about the book, but Sting knew that fate would guide him and his girlfriend to the happiest times in their lives. Even though that green book was cursed, it did unintentionally make Sting and Lucy cross paths for their love to bloom like a great blessing.
Elsewhere...
Thorn had kept Natsu down in the shadows while she had to meet with Karen in the back alley of Magnolia to find out about what had happened yesterday during the fight with Gray, and the main antagonist had changed into her adult form while looking miffed. She was not going to let Gray try to spoil her plans for what would end up coming to Lucy, and Thorn knew that she had to try once more to get rid of him. However, getting rid of Gray would require a brand new plan to be made. That took some scheming, and Thorn needed to make some ideas.
She angrily slammed her fist against a wall while taking note of her strong point being manipulation, and not destruction. That was her second-best idea, and Thorn really needed to work on her strategies. After all, that was how Mavis had beaten her in the showdown that they had back in the past. Thorn did not want to relive the feeling of defeat, having been humiliated enough already by Gray mocking her by escaping like that, and she could only guess that the ice decoy had been made somehow by the black-haired male during their short fight.
As Thorn was breathing heavily in frustration at the fact that her plan failed, malice in her blood red eyes, she really had to wonder if Gray had not fled the scene and left some clone of his behind to fight for him. She had made the forest green aura of Plant Magic return into her hands, crushing it into her fists because she merely saw it as filler magic for now, and Thorn began to giggle a bit. She knew that most people in this lifetime were like prey, and the prey always had to save its own skins by distracting the predator with a little decoy. However, how in the world had Gray managed to escape?
Karen explained to Thorn with a calm look on her face while emerging from the shadow of a trash can, smirking while having some joy in her silvery-blue eyes, "Master, you became much too heated by some simple words of determination and friendship that were uttered by the icy decoy that the boy had left for you to fight. He saw you try to brutalize Natsu and Erza in the Grand Magic Games, so he's know that you two are in fairy different leagues. He will not make any bold moves towards you, lest he end up like Lisanna. In other words, you have experienced what is known as a fake-out."
From hearing that revelation, it made Thorn widen her eyes while she began to have an idea and reply to Karen with an evil smirk on her face as she spoke in a cold manner, "In other words, he really does not even know about how much power I truly possess. He evaded me, that's true, but this just makes things far more interesting. I saw no marks on his body, and he would even have the scars if someone had tried to heal him. If he wants to play innocent in this game and be a total bishop to me, then I'll keep using Natsu while taunting the mages of Fairy Tail with a few tastes of their own medicines."
How was Chapter 33? Did you like it? Due to all the complaints I received about taking away Gray from the story, I brought him back with a plot twist. I also improved the StiCy with Sting and Lucy by putting them in a scenario of comfort and calmness being needed, too. The Plant Magic is gone, since this makes the last chapter technically become a semi-filler, and I did not want Lucy becoming too godly. Anyway, standby for the update!