The mall was even bigger than the Magnolia marketplace, there were stores for EVERYTHING! I probably would have gotten lost in there had my friends not shown me the way. My heart soared when I saw my friends at the entrance to the large building, Virgo pulling me by the arm. They looked identical to my celestial spirits. Aries was glancing around timidly, her hair still long and pink, curled up at the bottom. She wore a short white dress and boots of white puffy wool. She apologized to anyone who even looked at her. I couldn't help but smile to myself. Aquarius tapped her foot impatiently, a scowl on her face. She was tall, a good 6'4. She wore a short crop top with the symbol of aquarius on the front, and a wave on the back, She wore a pair of ripped blue jeans along with it.
"You're late." She said grumpily, arms crossed with a fiery look in her eyes. I sweat dropped slightly.
"S-sorry... Sting had to pick up something from the pharmacy before we he dropped us off..." I apologized. Her eyes only narrowed.
"Tch. Just don't let it happen again. I'm not a patient person." She grumbled.
"Y-y-yes ma'am!" I stammered nervously. Good to know that she hadn't changed a bit...
"Lucy-sama!" Silver hair tickled my nose as a familiar girl hugged me close.
"Yukino?" I asked. The girl pulled back and grinned at me happily.
"It's so good to see you! Do you have any idea how worried we were? I can't believe you grew so much while you were asleep!" She said happily. I smiled. Same old Yukino. Maybe this world wasn't so bad. I mean, even though there was no magic, so many of my friends hadn't changed! But... could I really be happy here when Natsu, Erza, Wendy, Gajeel, Juvia, and god only knows how many others were so very different? I didn't know. Luckily I didn't have time to dwell on it.
"Can we hurry this along? We're already falling behind and I have a date tonight." Aquarius huffed.
"Sorry!" Aries whimpered. I nodded. Virgo led the way as we walked into the huge building. Stores lined either wall. There were stores for games, stores for clothes, stores for movie lacrymas, stores for candy, everything! I had bought us all some sweets at the candy store to nibble on with the pocket money that Sting had given me. I suppose I needed to get a job soon.
It was like a dream come true. I had always wanted to do something fun like this with my spirits. Something that friends would do together! But since I could only open two gates at once, and never for any period of time, I had never dared hope that it could be possible. We got to the dress shop later where she was waiting.
"You know, I never understood why you enjoyed dress shopping." My hallucination sighed, looking at the dresses on the rack she was leaning on distastefully. "I mean it's so BORING! Give me a fight or some sort of deadly task over this any day." She snorted, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. "Honestly Lucy. What's the point to this? Hellooooo? Oh. The cold shoulder? I see how it is. You think if you ignore me I'll go away right? Well think again. There are things that we need to discuss when you finally listen to me." Her image distorted for a moment. then flickered. She swayed slightly. "Shit." She mumbled before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted. It was only then that I noticed all conversation between the girls had stopped.
"Lucy-sama?" Yukino asked, frowning in concern. I shook my head vigorously, trying to rid myself of that sinking feeling that I always got after a visit from my own insanity.
"Huh? Oh sorry... Lost in thought..." I lied, smiling reassuringly. "Let's try some of these on yeah?" I grinned. The girls smiled happily and began looking around the store for any that caught their eyes.
…...
In the end, Virgo had bought a short black dress that was poofy at the bottom, Aries had purchased a long white dress that went down to her knees and got longer in the back, going down to her ankles. Aquarius had bought a dark royal blue dress that had been layered to almost look like fish scales at the bottom, with glitter across the chest. it went down to her knees and she looked beautiful. I had bought a simple strapless summer dress with little sakura flowers on top of a black background. It was loose and breezy and I loved it. Yukino was the only one to not buy anything, nothing in the store really speaking to her. We were all smiling by the time we were through. I checked my watch.
"Oh jeez! We're going to be late if we don't hurry!" I exclaimed, "We're supposed to be at the skate park in fifteen minutes!" Aries Virgo and I quickly said our goodbyes and departed, picking up lunch for the boys to make up for our late arrival. But when we got there... it wasn't exactly what we were expecting...
…...
"Don't you DARE talk about my sister like that!" Sting roared, his arms pinned behind his back by Rogue. Leo was holding Loke back in a similar fashion.
"He's just baiting you! It's not worth it!" Leo growled, struggling against the strength of his brother. A familiar pinkette stood a few feet away, smirking smugly at the four.
"What? Does it bother you?" He purred. "All I said was that I'd love to use her like the little slut she dresses like."
"TAKE THAT BACK!" He drove his elbow back into Rogue's ribs, swinging his fist at the dragon. Natsu ducked and drove his knee into Sting's gut, causing him to fall. I gasped, running forwards.
"Sting!" I shrieked, running forwards. I heard a clank like armor, and someone pulled me into a bone crushing hold.
"Don't interfere." Erza snapped. My eyes widened. No. No I couldn't believe it! Not Erza!
"Lucyyy!" I saw a flash of pink and green, and a little boy in a pink frog sweater was punching Erza weakly. He had bright green hair and tears in his dark brown eyes. "Let Lucy go!"
"Frosche get away from her!" Rogue yells worriedly from where he and Gajeel stare each other down. Erza's grip seemed to soften slightly. She leaned in and whispered in my ear.
"I don't want to hurt the child. So here's what you're going to do. Punch me in the jaw. Understand? I'll go down, and he won't get hurt." She said quickly. My eyes widened.
"Thank you Erza! I-"
"Just do it." She growled. "Before I change my mind." Her grip slackened and I turned, driving my fist upwards as fast as I could. I felt it connect. It. Hurt. Like. Hell.
I cursed under my breath and cradled my knuckles as the knight fell. hitting the ground and not moving. "Come on!" I tugged on Frosche's wrist, and retreated a short distance away with Aries and Virgo who for some reason was dancing...
"Big brothers say that they'll meet us back at Lucy's." Virgo said, walking away quickly with us. I glanced down at the little boy who kept pulling on my arm to go the other way.
"ROGUE! ROGUE!" He cried as he watched Gajeel punch the black haired man in the face. Rogue retaliated with a punch of his own, but it hardly seemed to phase the large man.
"Come on Frosche." Aries said gently. "But your big brother can take care of himself. There's no need to worry... I'm sorry!" She too kept glancing back, cringing when Leo went down.
….
The boys stumbled into my room a while later, stony faced.
"Those assholes!" Sting grumbled, holding ice over a black eye. Rogue nodded in agreement.
"We were outnumbered. It wasn't fair." He said. "I can't BELIEVE Gajeel pulled a knife on me. He sighed, then glanced at me. "Erza had you. What happened? I was sure that you were going to get kicked or something." Leo sat next to Aries on my bed, and Loke sat next to him. The two had several bruises, but nothing major.
"She let me go because she didn't want to risk hurting Frosche." I said quietly. Leo nodded slowly.
"She's always had a soft spot for kids. That makes sense..." He said. I heard the door open and close downstairs. Then the ddoor open and close downstairs. Then the deep voice of Laxus bellow:
"STING! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!" He yelled angrily. The blonde gulped.
"Uh oh... Think he heard about the-" He didn't have time to finish his sentence before my door opened. My oldest brother (man it was weird calling him that...) stood in the entrance, a dark cloud seeing to hand over him.
"You started a brawl?!" He growled. Sting paled.
"N-N-No! Natsu started it! Laxus they were calling Lucy a-"
"I don't care what they were calling Lucy!" He snapped. "You shouldn't sink to their level! Look what happened to you! Do you really think that Lucy would listen to that dumbass?!" He scolded. I had never seen Laxus as the fatherly type. But right then and there he looked like he was chastising a young child.
"I'm sorry! I just-"
"You're grounded." He said flatly. The rest of us had been dead silent through all of this, not wanting to be at the receiving end of Laxus's fury. Sting scowled, but nodded.
"Fine."
"As for the rest of you, I'm sorry that Sting put you all through that." He said cooly. Then his eyes drifted to a ag in my hand. "What's that?"
"Uh... We picked up lunch... Anybody still hungry?" I joked with a weak smile. The tension and Awkward silence was broken by Aries giggling. She held her stomach in mirth, tears coming to her eyes.
"I'm sorry! But you should see your faces!" She laughed. I looked around at everyone, expressions all very serious as we all stared at the bag of subs. Gradually her laughter caught until we were all struggling to breathe. The tension that had been contained in my gut since the first punch was thrown finally dissolving.
Hi! I'm ssooooooooo sorrrryyyyy! I KEEP PROCRASTINATING! On top of that I have writers block. I've been sitting here for three hours trying to write this... if it's horrible then I apologize. Please leave your reviews, it aLways makes me more eager to continue. and if there are any other stories that you want to be updated ASAP then mention them and I'll prioritize based on that. I'm trying though. SORRRYYYYY! ;-; I'm also trying to start an attack on titan X Fairytail but I can't seem to start it. So if any of you watch or read that too then It'll be coming soon if you wanna read it.