Alice walked out to the roaring crowd, waving to her fans, the girls shrieking louder as she returned their gesture, and many of the male's falling off their seats with a heavy blush on their cheeks.
The previous day Blue Pegasus, along with Fairy Tail, had been contacted, telling them how, due to the lack of a winner in the final fight between Erza and Alice, they called for a final game. Each guild was to send their strongest member out, and for Blue Pegasus the choice was obvious, and they would participate in a game dubbed 'Fear Maze'. Alice didn't have a clue who her opponent was, and what exactly she had to do, but she would win it.
For Blue Pegasus.
For Master Bob, who accepted her with her problems and her pain, and looked after her when she needed him.
For her guild mates, who stood by her side when she had lost everything, for not questioning her, for cheering her on, and not digging too deep into why she kept her distance from them.
She looked to the massive arena, it had all but tripled in size, and yet it was completely filled.
With a maze.
The title seemed fitting, it was a massive complex structure that spread across the whole area, and Alice couldn't see who she was up against, they were obscured by the large wall so the maze. But Alice looked past the cheering Blue Pegasus stand, over to that of Fairy Tail. She saw Laxus, Gajeel, Gray and Juvia all standing in a line, clapping and cheering for their teammate. It was Erza who was not cheering, and she looked Alice in the eye, and for a moment Alice's heart was thudding in her chest. Erza was her older sister, and she couldn't bear this, this shift in their relationship, because Erza knew the truth, she knew why Alice couldn't come back. The redhead looked away, and Alice barely supressed her emotions, the wave of pain that rolled over her at her idol's rejection.
But she held her head up high.
"Welcome, to the extra day of the Grand Magic Games!" Chapati announced, "Today, we will see a deadly faceoff between each guild's strongest mage, and see how strong they really are… When they face their fears! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the title says it all! In 'Fear Maze' the contestant's fears literally come to life! The aim of this challenge is for the contestant to reach the other side of the maze before their opponent. Inside this maze, their nightmares will come to life! But not only that! With a new device, we will supress the mage's magical power, meaning they are just like you and I, no magic to defend themselves, because being strong doesn't mean you have to have magic. This is the thrilling final battle where we will see who really is strong!"
A number of people directed Alice forward, to the entrance to her side of the maze. A man approached her, two gold bangles in his hands, and she pushed her wrists forward, the man clamping the golden bars around her wrists, and the Wonderland mage held in her hiss of pain as she felt part of her become caged in.
"The contestants can enter the maze when the light flashes!" Chapati instructed, and Alice smiled, she didn't know who she was against, and what she was up against, but she would do it.
She would win.
The light flashed, the crowd roaring as Alice ran into the maze. The white walls surrounded her, and she stopped for a second, trying to think logically of how she could get through it as quickly as possible. She shut her eyes, focusing, toning out the sound of the roaring crowd, ignoring the people chanting her name, calming her mind and her beating heart.
Forwards.
Alice walked ahead, keeping her pace slow, she would not run, because she did not need to. She passed another turning, sticking to stay straight ahead. Distantly she heard Chapati shouting something, and she tuned back in, eager ot hear what he was saying.
"Ooh! Look!" Chapati cried, "Fairy Tail has run into his first fear! And… Oh my God! It's a dragon! He's scared of a dragon!"
Alice had to hold back a laugh, Chapati wasn't very good at this secrecy thing. But now she knew who her opponent was, and that make her heart pang as she realised this was a fight she didn't want to fight.
She was up against Natsu.
"No wait!" Chapati exclaimed, "He's not scared of the dragon! That must be Igneel, his foster father! All of the known Dragon Slayers say that their dragon's left them on the seventh of July X777, so his first fear must be of being abandoned."
Alice's mind whirled, seeing how Natsu's first fear was loss, her mother? No, that was too obvious, and that didn't scare her, she had come to accept it. Then… A fear of hers that related to her family… Something she hadn't overcome, something she hid deep within herself and never wanted to show.
Alice's breathing quickened in fear as she realised what was coming, and she started to walk with more speed, desperate to see if she could out pace it.
But she wasn't fast enough.
"You disgusting pathetic child," a familiar voice snarled, and Alice visibly flinched, and the roaring crowd turned silent. Alice refused to turn around, refused to look at the man who haunted her dreams, the man she had forgiven, but could never forget.
"You're scum," the man hissed, and she could hear his footsteps as he walked closer to her, and she refused to close her eyes, knowing if she did she would start to cry, "I'm ashamed that my blood runs in your veins."
Alice refused to turn round, and instead she continued to walk on, ignoring as the man taunted her. The audience watched in shock, the man shouted insults at her, his face too blurred for them to work out who it was.
For them to know she was Lucy Heartfilia.
"Look! Alice has run into her first fear!" Chapati yelled into his microphone, "And it looks to be… a man? Oh wow… Is that her father? Nothing official has been said about Alice's past, could that be because it wasn't very nice?"
Erza was in the audience, watching intently as Alice walked away from the faceless form of Jude Heartfilia, her father. Gray was next to her, the two of them watching her closely. Erza was slightly confused, Lucy had never mentioned that Jude gave her not only rejection, but verbal abuse too.
"You can't run away from me, freak!" Jude yelled, and Alice held her shaking fists by her sides, refusing to stop, "You're a disgusting freak! You're stupid spirits can't save you from yourself!"
Alice kept up her pace, and Jude's voice faded into the distance. The Wonderland mage did not look back, because that was how she lived; not looking back.
Alice walked on, further into the maze, taking turns as she heard Chapati chat with his co-hosts about how exciting it was, and how a Fairy putting up a fight was different from the previous years where Fairy Tia had been at the bottom, and now they were fighting for victory.
"Ooh!" Chapati screamed, "Fairy Tail has run into another fear! And… Oh… This is just heart breaking… It's Fairy Tail's lost angel, Lucy Heartfilia."
That made Alice stop where she stood.
Natsu had just been running through the maze, hoping to get over with these stupid fears and stupid maze, not really seeing the point in it. Of course, he wanted to make his guild proud, but his mind was elsewhere.
He was worried about Lucy.
She was his sister, and of course, it was all but instinct for him to worry about her, but his mind was whirling, he knew it was something to do with this maze.
But he hadn't expected her to become his second fear.
"Natsu!" her voice had called to him, and he had frozen in shock before he spun around and saw her, a smile on her face as she beamed at him.
"Lucy…?" he whispered, and she gave him a smile.
"Ne Natsu…" she whined, "Why did you leave me behind?"
"I-I didn't know…" Natsu tried to explain.
"But Natsu…" Lucy pouted as she spoke, "I'm dead now…"
Natsu could only stare, transfixed in horror as she was his fear, the thought in the back of his head that refused to leave him alone. That Lucy had died, and he had not been with her. That she died alone, that she felt alone, because he had left her.
"It hurt Natsu…" she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes and flowing down her cheeks, "I took a mission, I needed the money… But I wasn't strong enough… They beat me up and watched me bleed out… They watched me die Natsu…"
"Lucy…" he murmured.
"You should have been there!" she yelled, pointing her finger at her accusingly, "You should have protected me! But you left me! I hate you Natsu Dragneel! You let me die! You killed me!"
"No… No! I didn't kill you!" Natsu denied, tears rolling down his checks.
"But you didn't stop it either," Lucy hissed, and she disappeared in a swirl of mist.
Leaving behind a very unstable Natsu Dragneel.
"That was heart breaking!" Chapati exclaimed, and then his eyes moved from the pink haired Salamander to the blonde of Blue Pegasus, and his eyes widened, "But look at Alice! Her second fear's coming!"
Alice walked on, eager to miss this fear.
"Alice," a voice called for her, but she hastily kept on walking, and she heard gasps from the audience as they saw Erza appear behind the Wonderland mage, and her heart thumped as she hoped her cover would not be blown.
"Alice," another voice, this time belonging to Gray, called out to her, and he members of Fairy Tail were watching in shock and surprise to this person who seemed to fear them.
Alice tried to walk on, but she felt an ice cold arm reach out and grab her, and she looked into the cold eyes of Gray.
"You can't just run away," he taunted her, "Although that is what you do, isn't it?"
"You ran away from home," Erza pointed out, joining Gray in mocking her, "You ran away from Fairy Tail. But the thing that hurts, is how you never look back."
"You gave up on us," Gray snarled.
"You abandoned your nakama," Erza hissed.
"So you must be punished," the both growled in unison, and pure fear took control of Alice, and she sprinted for dear life, away from the people she feared. But the gas forms of Gray and Erza split, the gas following Alice as she ran, taking the form of guild mates faces, taunting her, shouting at her for abandoning her.
"How can this be…?" Chapati whispered into his microphone, "Alice… was in Fairy Tail? Before the core members left?"
The mist swirled in front of Alice, forming the shape of Lucy Heartfilia.
"I'm disgusted by who you've become," Lucy sneered, taking a lock of Alice's blonde hair and twirling it around her finger, glaring at Alice as she did, "I used to wish to be like you, now I fear you."
Lucy disappeared into the swirling murkiness of mist, and Alice breathed in a series of deep breaths, trying to calm herself. From the stand, Erza looked on with tears welling up in her real eye, guilt tugging at her heart painfully as she thought of how hard she had been on Lucy, not realising the extent of the Wonderland mage's own suffering.
For a moment Alice shut her eyes, clamping them shut as she cleared her mind, refusing to let her fears control her and determined to win the games for her guild.
"You don't scare me," Alice hissed muttered her breath, "I am not afraid."
Alice walked forward, thinking carefully as she took lefts and right through the maze. She did not falter, following the pathway as it turned and twisted, but her emotion remaining blank.
"Throughout this maze, there are three different fears," Chapati announced, explaining the game further to the crowd and his colleagues in the commentating box, "The fear is manifested by a gas that is pumped into certain areas of the maze. So if they continue along roughly the same paths, both Fairy Tail and Blue Pegasus will have only one more fear left. Currently, it looks like Blue Pegasus is nearer their exit than Fairy Tail."
"Their fears are linked, aren't they?" Yajima questioned, "Fairy Tail saw a dragon, with him behind a dragon slayer, and Blue Pegasus saw who we guess to be her father, so the first fear was family. The second, Fairy Tail saw the lost member, Lucy Heartfilia, who also appeared in Blue Pegasus' along with Fairy Tail's Erza Scarlet and Gray Fullbuster, so I'm guessing it was fear of hatred, that someone was angry or hating them."
"Good point Yajima," Chapati commented, "What do you think the last fear is, using your logic?"
"If the previous fear was of hatred," Yajima pondered, "Then I would guess the next fear would be of love. Fear of rejection by someone they truly love to deeply care about."
"Well, we'll see if you're right," Chapati responded, "Because Blue Pegasus seems to, according to this map, entered an area where the fear gas is pumped out."
Alice froze at that, and for a second she considered covering her mouth and nose and making a run for it, but the sound of footsteps let her know it was too late. A split second was all she had to decide fight or flight, and she went to run, but a hand grabbed her wrist, a very familiar hand that she would never forget.
"No…" she whispered, clamping her eyes shut because she really didn't want to see this fear.
"Oh come on," the voice chuckled, the low masculine tone teasing her as he kept his hand on her wrist but used his other to peel her eyes open.
It was the Hatter.
A mad smirk plastered on his face, his ginger hair pointing out at sharp angles as his eyes twinkled while he regarded her. In the audience, unknown to Alice, the Mad Hatter froze, wide eyes as he stared at the screen, not expecting himself to appear to her.
"It's her teammate, the Mad Hatter!" Chapati exclaimed, "Seems Yajima was right, there are many rumours about a relationship between Team Wonderland's leader and the Hatter, although earlier in the games it was revealed that Team Wonderland was Alice's spirits, so a relationship between spirit and master? Has that ever happened before?"
"Come on Alice!" the Fear-Hatter taunted as Alice threw herself backwards, desperate to get herself away from the Hatter.
"It's not real," she whispered to herself, chanting it over and over again, "It's not real. It's not real."
"Oh, that's just silly," the Fear-Hatter chuckled darkly, approaching her as she tried to press herself even closer against the wall, "Chanting like a determined believer, thinking that your belief can save you. But I'm sorry princess-"
The Fear-Hatter stopped, his hand reaching out and clamping around Alice's throat as he lifted her off her feet, pressing her neck tight against the wall. Her feet kicked as she tried to free herself, her hands scratching his in her desperation to survive as she seemed to lose oxygen, her head becoming dizzy. The Fear version of the Hatter moved forward, his head coming into her neck as he took a deep breath, smelling her sweet scent, before he moved his head upwards and opened his mouth, licking the sick of her face as she struggled for breath.
"Um… Chapati-kabo?" Mato questioned, "I thought you said the fears couldn't harm the contestants?"
"I thought they couldn't…" Chapati murmured.
"Fools," Fear-Hatter muttered with a sadistic grin as he pulled back, reaching deep into his back pocket and pulling out a long thin knife. The audience gasped, and Alice tried to struggle, but her vision was darkening and lightheaded skull all but falling to her side. The Fear-Hatter slashed the knife against Alice's upper arm, the crowd screaming as blood poured down her arm. The Fear-Hatter dropped Alice, the Wonderland Mage limply falling to the floor. Alice opened her eyes, feebly trying to push herself up, but the Fear-Hatter's foot stepped on her hand with such a heavy weight her bones snapped, breaking under the force while the Fear-Hatter laughed loudly over her cries of pain.
The fear gas that had created the Hatter thickened, turning from an invisible gas to a thick, murky slime that seemed to converge on Alice. Her eyes widened with horror as the slime like substance seemed to move closer to Alice. She screamed as the substance slivered up her arm, pushing itself into her body.
"Oh My God!" Hibiki screamed from the audience, "Somebody help her! That fear is real!"
"Alice!" Erza yelled.
The crowd screamed, Chapati shouting things over the speaker system, begging people to stay calm and in their seats, but he was ignored as people jumped out of their seats and banged on the doors, desperate to get free. Natsu could hear all of this, and he started to sprint, not concerned about the competition anymore, but about Alice.
He turned a corner, sliding slightly due to his immense speed.
He saw the Fear-Hatter clutching his stomach with laughter as he watched Alice scream and shriek before going completely still.
"Leave her alone!" Natsu shouted, running towards the Fear version of the Mad Hatter, raising his hand, waiting for it to be alight in flames.
But it didn't.
Then he remembered, looking down to the gold clamps around his wrists, he couldn't use magic in the maze. He cursed under his breath. The Fear-Hatter's laughing rang out in his ears as he let out a small growl, glaring at the laughing mage.
"Shut up!" Natsu roared, his fist clenched as he charged at the Fear-Hatter, who simply leaped out of the way at the last moment, Natsu hissing in annoyance as he turned around. He noticed that Alice started to move, her arms twitching as she moved to push herself up, "Stay down Alice, I can beat this guy, he's not even real!"
"There you're right, Dragon Boy," Fear-Hatter sneered, "I may be an incantation of little Alice's deepest darkest fears, but that doesn't mean I can't hurt you, I thought hurting Alice showed you that?"
"Leave her alone!" Natsu growled, and he heard a loud groan escape from Alice's lips, and he turned to her, "Alice, I told you to stay down!"
Alice pushed herself up, her shaking arms holding up her weight as she moved her legs to get herself on her feet. Her hair fell in front of her face as she stretched out her legs, standing straight, the Fear-Hatter chuckling manically at her side. Natsu couldn't shake the dread that seemed to have settled in his stomach.
"Alice…?" he called to her softly, and she looked up.
Her eyes, the previously sky blue orbs were no longer bright and light. Her whole eyes seemed to have been swamped by her pupils, no whites or irises, only black darkness.
Natsu stumbled backwards in shock, wide eyed as he looked between Alice and the Fear-Hatter.
"She was chosen," the Fear-Hatter chuckled, "You failed Natsu, you were supposed to be strong enough, it was all timed and organised, and yet you ruined it."
"What are you on about?!" Natsu yelled.
"It is foretold in the heavens that Natsu Dragneel will be his killer," the Fear-Hatter snarled, "You were supposed to kill him, but you were not strong enough, you were too weak. My Lord is desperate, he needs this, and so he chose another. She is strong, stronger than you, she had defeated so many of his followers and so many of his subjects, even surviving his own magic. She has taken your role, she will do what you failed to complete."
"What do you mean?!" Natsu demanded.
"SHE WILL SLAY ZEREF!" The Fear-Hatter screamed, "She will do what you could not. But she is known to my master, she would not go willingly, he knew that. He sent the Dragon to test her, to make sure she was strong enough and that he wasn't getting his hopes up. He knew her wills and her naivety would hold her back, would mean she would not do the deed, so here I am. Zeref infected the fear gas, after all, he has contacts in the lab it was created. He made sure I would be able to carry out my task and that I would not betray my lord."
"I won't let you take her!" Natsu declared.
"Try and stop her from coming," The Fear-Hatter sneered, and Natsu opened to his mouth to protest but was instead pushed up against the wall, the Fear-Hatter laughing as he pinned the Fire Dragon Slayer to the concrete.
Alice's eyes glowed black, the cold darkness all but radiating out of her as she moved forward, walking past Natsu as her arms and legs moved robotically.
"A-Alice! S-s-stop!" Natsu demanded in a choked breath as the little air that could make its way up his throat wheezed out in his shout. Alice seemed to stop, freezing all of a sudden.
"Natsu?" she whispered, and Natsu struggled with all his might, the Fear-Hatter's gaze was focused on the frozen Wonderland Mage so his grip on the Dragon Slayer's neck lessened ever so slightly, letting the Salamander breathe.
"Alice!" he yelled, struggling in the Fear-Hatter's grip, still the fear was too distracted by Alice to even bat an eyelash.
"Natsu! Help me!" Alice screamed, her expression not changing as her eyes welled up with tears, "I don't know where I am! It's too dark! Help me Natsu! Please! It hurts Natsu! Stop the pain! Help me!"
"I'm coming!" Natsu roared, "I'll save you! I swear!"
"I'm scared Natsu," Alice whimpered, the tears rolling down her cheeks, "You said you'd always protect me, but you weren't there…"
"What?" Natsu questioned, his voice quieter than before.
"YOU LEFT ME!" Alice roared, her features changing, twisting in anger as she spun around and snarled at Natsu, her eyes a mixture of the black darkness and a colour Natsu dared hope for.
A warm chocolate brown.
A particular shade he would recognise anywhere.
Lucy.
"Lucy…?" he whispered in shock.
Lucy started to scream, her hands reaching up for her head, clutching it like she was in pain. The Fear-Hatter totally disregarded Natsu, releasing Natsu from his grip and the Dragon slayer fell to the floor for a moment before he pushed himself up, moving towards Alice, who he knew to be Lucy.
"This isn't possible!" The Fear-Hatter exclaimed, "My Master told me she could not resist! She is more powerful than even he predicted! Oh, she is glorious! She will do it! She is strong!"
"LUCY!" Natsu yelled, reaching out for Lucy's shaking form, clutching her close to him. She was shaking, shuddering as she sobbed. Natsu watched as her tears turned from clear water to thick blobs of sickly black slime that splattered across the floor.
"No! This isn't possible!" The Fear-Hatter shrieked.
Lucy grabbed onto Natsu for a second, taking a few deep breaths as she looked up to him with her warm chocolate brown eyes. In a second they changed, swirling in gold for only a second before they changed to their usual sky blue. She looked up at him with fear etched in her features, before her gaze moved to the Fear-Hatter behind him. Her features twisted, tightening as she reached down the golden clamps around her wrists and with a single movement ripped them off her. She pushed herself up, out of Natsu's warm embrace, and stormed over to the Fear-Hatter who was watching her with wide eyes and an awestruck smile on his face.
"What does he want with me?" she growled at him, and he only laughed.
"My duty's done," he whispered, and before Alice could demanded answers from him, he disappeared into the fear gas.
Alice took a shocked step backwards, and Natsu moved to stand behind her. She turned around, looking right into his onyx orbs that seemed to trap her where she stood.
"It was you…" he whispered, staring at her, "All this time you were right under our noses…"
"I told Erza," Alice admitted, "Then Hatter told me Gray worked it out, and I told Hibiki too, and Master Bob when I joined Blue Pegasus, but that's it."
Natsu looked to her, seeing how his best friend had grown up without him, seeing how powerful she was and knowing her many great achievements. She wasn't Celestial partner anymore, she wasn't going to moan to him about rent or whine about him destroying too much meaning they lost the money or tell him to keep out of her diary.
She was different.
She had grown up, moved on, without her Dragon Slayer partner. She had bloomed into a beautiful woman, a strong independent mage.
The truth hit him hard, an ache forming in his heart as he looked to her face, the same age as she had been when he had left, and yet it seemed to have aged so much. He reached out his hand, gently stroking the side of her face as she looked up to him with her big blue eyes.
"You're eyes…" Natsu murmured, "They're blue…"
"I had to change them," Lucy answered in a small voice, looking away slightly, "People might recognise me, they say the eyes are the window to the soul."
"I didn't even recognise you…" Natsu confessed, his voice quiet as his hand dropped his to his side.
"That was the point," Lucy let out a saddened laugh than seemed more like a sob, "Well, I didn't want people to recognise me, I never thought you'd see me like this."
"Didn't you know we'd come back?" Natsu questioned, and Lucy could tell his real question through his words and the saddened expression that came across his face, did you give up on us?
"I got Absolem to research," Lucy explained, her voice no louder than a whisper, "I made him research every spell, every possible scenario that could have happened to you. I even sailed out to Tenrou and found there was nothing. I spent five months travelling, searching for even the smallest sign that you guys were okay, that you were alive. Then Macao… He called a funeral for you guys, said we needed to close it off, that we could still hope, but the people… They wanted closure. The Magic Council demanded your funeral and Fairy Tail couldn't defy them, not without you guys, it didn't feel right."
"I threw my life away," Lucy continued, not looking Natsu in the eye, "I forgot to sleep, to eat, sometimes to even breathe, I remember how Loke would shout at me for days on end that I was throwing my life away. But I kept on searching, I wouldn't be weak, I would be strong for you guys. So when Absolem, I mean Crux, came up with the option of converting part of my physical body to the Celestial World, it meant I could not eat and not sleep and spend the rest of my life searching for you guys, an eternity to find my lost nakama, so of course I accepted."
"I'm sorry," Natsu apologised, "I'm sorry for hurting you, for leaving you alone, for making you suffer."
"It wasn't your fault," Lucy smiled softly, "I should've been stronger, I shouldn't have let your disappearance get me down, I should have been the strength my nakama needed, not the coward that abandoned them."
"You didn't need to be anyone else," Natsu brushed off her concerns, "All you needed to be was Lucy."
"But I'm not even her now, am I?" Lucy sniffled, looking to Natsu as her words seemed to pierce his heart, "I'm a completely different person, so twisted that you couldn't even recognise me. Tell me Natsu, if you, my best friend, couldn't tell who I am, how can I still be the same person?"
Natsu was stumped, he opened his mouth, to offer some sort of comfort, some reasoning that he had known who she was, that he would never forget his best friend. But… He hadn't known, he hadn't had a clue, not even suspected that Alice could have at all related to his best friend.
"Lucy…" he whispered, unsure of how to comfort his best friend, and he watched as her eyes, her blue eyes, hardened, and he knew her shields were up, no longer was he comforting his best friend, the person he loved like a sister and had hurt, but Alice, the cold queen of Wonderland, the best actress there was.
"I haven't been called that for years," she stated, her voice closed off and colder than it had been, "And now I remember why. Because it hurts. It hurts to think that we can't go back, that I can't be Lucy of Fairy Tail, that I'm Alice of Wonderland, crazy strong S-Class mage."
"You will always be my nakama," Natsu argued fiercely, and Alice pulled back, moving away from him. She straightened her clothes, brushing off the little dirt that had fallen on her skirt, and hissed as her fingers gently stroked her neck, feeling the harsh bruises that covered her neck from the Fear-Hatter's strong grip.
"ALICE!" a voice that Alice would recognise in a split second yelled, and she spun around to see the Hatter, the real Celestial Spirit of the Lion, sprinting towards her. Unconsciously she let out a deep breath, one that Natsu with his Dragon Slayer Senses picked up on in a moment, and he watched as the Hatter approached her, checking over that she was still alive, and watched as the Celestial Spirit's jaw clenched as he saw the dark purple bruises that marred her throat and the deep cut that sliced open her arm, the blood having just dried up. As soon as she was close enough the Hatter reached out and grabbed her, shutting his eyes as he body was flush against his and he held her close. Alice smiled softly in the embrace, before he let her go and he started to fuss over her, she rolled her eyes at some points, but overall Natsu noticed that she seemed happier, more relaxed when the Hatter was by her side, she had always relied on Loke.
"I'm fine Hatter," Alice reassured her partner for the seventh time, letting out a small chuckle under her breath as he looked again at the cut that marred her arm, "Stop fussing."
"Can I not be concerned?" the Hatter retorted, and Natsu watched closely, having stood up to his full height, as the Hatter, who he knew to be Loke, fussed over Alice, checking over every speck of dirt.
"I told you, I'm fine," Alice repeated, looking the Hatter in the eye as she smiled at him, "No harm done."
"Except being controlled and cut, nothing else I'm guessing?" the Hatter retorted, and Alice rolled her eyes letting out a chuckle.
"Nothing big," she countered.
"Sure," the Hatter teased, elongating the word, "Nothing bad at all."
"I can take it," Alice declared.
"Of course you can, my strong princess," the Hatter purred, and a light blush dusted Alice's cheeks as she pouted and turned away from the Hatter.
"Whatever," she declared, pouting ever so slightly as she looked back at the Hatter who playfully moved closer to her.
"Can I lick you too?" the Hatter flirted, and Alice turned to him with wide, shocked eyes as her heat was a deep shade of red and she spluttered.
"W-Wha?" she managed to get out.
"You know, Yajima said that third fear was love…" the Hatter all but purred.
Alice moved closer to him, so their bodies were but a few millimetres apart, and she put her hands on his chest, feeling his pounding celestial heart that was caged in his chest and hammering through his body. She leant on her tip toes, pressing her body up against his as she moved her head closer to his face, and the Hatter's pupils were dilated, staring right at her as she moved ever so much closer to him. He watched her lips as they moved towards his.
And then they moved across the side of his face, her cheek brushing his cheek bone as her lips went to his ear, and moved to whisper words.
"Of course I love you," she whispered seductively, and she laughed as she pulled back, the Hatter frowning at her teasing while she moved over to Natsu and smiled at him as the sound of pounding footsteps broke through the maze, the rest of the guild approaching.
"These games really are cursed," Natsu commented.
"It's almost like someone doesn't want a winner…" Alice murmured.
A/N Hey Guys! So I'm really sorry about such a long wait for an update. I hit my head and got concussion, so I've had weeks of dizziness, nausea, headaches, double vision and all that stuff. But worst of all, I'm stuck with temporary memory loss. I keep on forgetting where I am or what I'm doing, but even worse, I've forgotten my ideas for this story. I can't remember where I was going with it and was the twists were, it's all just gone. So I need some help, if you could tell me what you thought was going in, not directly, because I read over the story so I remembered, but in the background. I'd nearly finished this chapter, that's how I was able to post another chapter. Does this make any sense? I hope it does, because I really want to write, but my mind is just so slow right now it might take ages, so again I apologise for that.
xxchatonxx: I'm sorry it took so long! Well, that is the question, Lucy or Alice? Although they're alike in many ways, the real question is her old life, or her new one? :D
Alison W: I'm glad you like it! Wow… I'm honoured! I don't think it's that good! Thank you, you're an amazing reviewer! Your review made me smile!
Amanda: I thought I'd make it intense, not so light as other chapters, building up the pressure. I thought Gray should, because he's a close friend of Loke's and a brother to Lucy. I'm glad you liked it! Hehehe! Yes indeed, GO LOKE! I hope you like this update, and can forgive me for it being so long!
Rosamea: Yay! I'm glad you like it! I love your dedication!
Guest: Sorry it's take so long, but sometimes I can barely think with concussion, yet alone write.
I'm sorry I haven't responded to everyone's reviews! I'll get right onto that, I just thought I should post a chapter as soon as possible!
THANKS EVERYONE!
Becney :P