Emotionless
Chapter 73, Dragon Eye
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail
"Freedom is never given; it is won." - A. Philip Randolph
Previously
"Tell me, why are you submitting yourself?" She asked with an arm resting against a knee. The defeated dragon looked at her, closed his eyes, then spoke, "I am no match for your strength, a disgrace to my own kind..."
"No," Lucy began causing the dragon to shift slightly to her in question. "I meant why are you allowing a human to control you, isn't that the disgrace you are feeling?"
"The human male which controls me... captured me and placed me in a cage to be tamed. Pretending to be so would allow my release. I thought I would do as he asked before taking off, but seeing as that had went..." Riisovzun said, not bothering to switch into his own tongue.
Lucy sighed before nodding. "I'll allow you to go free," the dragon relaxed. "However you must do something for me first. It will benefit you as well, getting rid of the man who made you feel so enslaved."
"...what did you have in mind?"
Normal Pov
The sound of wings fluttering to a slow was the only noise that could be heard as the pegasi landed in front of the lone lake house sitting at the edge of the ocean on a hill surrounded by berry bushes, they had traveled to for some time. Gray was silent as he helped Elizabeth off the horse who nearly kissed the ground she was so happy. When she glanced at the Fairy Tail mage beside her though her sorrow for his loss kicked in.
Even though she hardly met Lucy she could see how strong the young women was and knew that her death was a great impact on him and his guild. She was safe but why did her safety have to come at the cost of another person's life. The money, her life, everything felt meaningless as the heavy toll settled in her stomach. Someone was dead because of her, she felt like someone had punched her in the stomach and slowly collapsed to the ground on her knees.
"Elizabeth?" The ice mage's soft monotone calm met her ears. She looked up unable to hold back the tears any longer and began to sob heavily. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" She repeated over and over in a mantra. Strong arms wrapped around her and comforted her as she sobbed, and slowly let a single icy tear escape from his dark eyes.
"It's not your fault," He whispered to her and embraced her tightly as the loss hit him full swing when he realized he would never see Lucy again if she is dead.
He was alone again.
Night had befallen among the land and not much could be seen beside the thick seemingly endless forest below. In the sky a dragon flew about with a mage as a ride on its neck looking down as Riisovzun led the way to the camp of the man they were after.
Unknown to both of them it was inside the forest that everything was going wrong for the men. Dark eyes glared down at his men who had been attacked by the very creatures they had been attacking.
"Rorik! Why have they turned against us?" Their leader demanded, furious that his perfect army had turned against him. "We had done everything to tame them and now its as if it never happened!"
"Dontrell, it could only mean one thing... behemoth must've left. We left the dragon tamed in order to lead the others, without him the other creatures turn against us."
"Damnit," Dontrell said to himself, not understanding where he went wrong. Suddenly a roar echoed through the distance and he looked up to see the form of Behemoth or Riisovzun landing in their clearing with a stranger on his back and at that moment Dontrell knew whose fault it was that his invasion had become a failure. And he promised to destroy her.
"You!" The blonde mage shouted as she climbed off the back of the dragon's neck, eyes glowing blue against the darkness of the night. "Why are you after Elizabeth Sharpe!" She demanded, standing beside Riisovzun's head.
Black hair whipped against the wind as the mercenary leader looked down at Lucy. "Ah, so you're the mage they hired for their escape."
"Escape? What the hell are you talking about?" Lucy asked, taking a warning step forward causing the main to smirk.
"Don't you know? Miss Sharpe's parents hid a magical artifact away and by doing so that is a capital offense. But with her parents gone the Magic Council decided to put their property under seize to search for clues. I'm not sure what artifact they hid away, I just know they want it very bad. Enough to want Elizabeth's memories to be exact?"
"Her memories?"
"They hired me and my men to capture miss Sharpe and bring her back so the Council could extract her memories."
"What happens when they do that?" Lucy couldn't help but ask.
"She dies in everything but her body, but the Magic Council cares very little for the loss of human life."
"So why help them?!" Lucy exploded, "I get that you're playing the bad guy but is money really worth a human life?"
The man grinned at her before shaking his head. "Despite the amount of jewels they offered I couldn't help but wonder how one artifact could lead to such eager. So I looked into the girl's history and realized that she was adopted."
"What does that have to do with anything," Lucy asked knowing adoption mattered little when it came to inheritance.
"Everything!" The man announced, swinging his arms outward. "She is the key to everything, don't you see? The Sharpes never had a child until after their mission to find the artifact. The announcement of their heir hit the news the same time the artifact was announced missing. And I know it's not a coincidence!"
Lucy watched him warily as the man walked to his thrown only to pick up a necklace that caused Lucy's eyes to widen in familiarity. In his hands hung a amulet with a red dragon's eye.
"I had found this in one of the underground bunkers the Sharpe family had kept under lock and key. It was the only thing down there, so I knew it had to mean something," He continued, but Lucy's mind had flashed elsewhere:
"I can't let you do that." Lucy tells him as he finishes before adding, "You're the first decent non-judgmental person I've met in a long time and I can't let you die as a pawn for this war."
Rogue sighs softly and silently, his breath slightly brushing the front of her hair.
"It's our best chance against her, and giving you the advantage over her is our best course of action. We're here not just to stop the Leviathans but to secure the one's we love. Our family. Even though I know your guild has wronged you, they are still your family inside. We both know this, you just don't want to forgive them yet. I understand. We are fighting for them, not for the magic council, not for the good and the evil but for the ones we love in our hearts."
Lucy clenches her jaw but nods. "Fine.. you're right, I just don't want to lose anyone else." She says before reaching up to her neck and unhooking the necklace along her neck before reaching it out as an offering to Rogue. "But this is war, and we have to do what we have to do. Since your going against her alone, I want you to take this. For luck."
The necklace was on a long silver chain and had a quarter sized pendent at the end. The pendent was circular and looked as though a dragon's red eye was looking back at you.
Rogue gently took it from her hands before looking at the eye of the pendent. "What is it?" he asked her.
"I found it a while ago, in some old antique shop. The owner told me that the red eye was formed from dragon blood and over time hardened after thousands of years. It was eventually reshaped to appear as an eye of a dragon. He told me he got it a few years ago from a trading merchant and he discovered that the pendent has enchantments. For one it was meant for dragon slayers because it enhances your abilities. I don't know how but the guy said it was something about the blood knowing it's kin. It should enhance you senses as well, but that's all he told me so the rest I'm sure you'll find out during the battle." She told him, watching as he hooked it around his neck loosely so the pendent was just between his breast-bones.
"Thank you." He told her with sincerity in his voice.
Lucy grinned. "Your welcome, besides I wasn't about to give it to any of the dragon slayers in Fairy Tail, even Wendy. It wasn't doing me any good besides looking cool but at least now it can come into use."
"Dragon's blood," Lucy whispered quietly, catching Riisovzun's eye. "Does that mean he's a dragon-slayer?"
Oblivious to Lucy's thoughts Dontrell continued speaking, "I brought it to a specialist who told me it wasn't an actual dragon's eye but rather the blood of the dragon. As time passed I spent weeks trying to figure out why dragon's blood, this amulet, was so important it had to be hidden away in an underground bunker." He smiled and turned around to her. "When no answers came I decided to seek the answer myself, and though at first nothing came out of my researching later on something magnificent happened."
Dontrell was walking through the streets of the Black Market when he came across one store shadowed behind all the others. Stepping into it her was met with an old, very ancient looking man studying books in the corner of the shop. When Dontrell walked in the man looked up before standing to greet him. "What kind of book are you searching for, coming here it would have to be one... quite forbidden and lost." The old man told him, giving him a look that was trying to read him.
Dontrell smiled and pulled out the red dragon's eye necklace and revealed it to the man. "That... is very rare. I see now, why you have come to me."
"Do you?" Dontrell questioned, looking over at the man who pulled a black book with a strange symbol on the cover out and opened it out to a seeming random page to Dontrell but by the look on the man's face it wasn't just a random page for show, this man really knew what he was doing.
"I don't know where or how you got a hold of that amulet nor do I want to know but I assume you want to know all about it and its value," at Dontrell's nod he continued by the flip of a page.
"The amulet is not an actual dragon's eye but rather the blood of a dragon that has been hardened and shaped to fit inside that locket. What makes this amulet so special however is the fact that those amulets had been created to be worn by dragon slayer's believed to enhance their power when in truth it merely gave the slayers the scent of the dragon which told the dragon's and other beasts they fought to think they had killed enough dragons to literally have the scent of one. When the war had ended and the Magic Council had formed they demanded all amulets to be destroyed but a rumor began a legend where the man the Council hired disagreed with them and instead took all thirteen amulets to a gate."
"What's so special about this gate?" Dontrell asked, not finding a point in the story yet.
"The gate was said to be one that bypassed all time and dimension. That it was an entity that belonged nowhere, that it was the gateway to another world. This gate was called Eclipse. When the man, Hikaru Kuroichi went to the gate he placed the amulets in each of its holder and watched as the amulets lit up in a golden light before disappearing along with the Eclipse Gate itself. It is said that neither he nor anyone else saw the Gate again and the Magic Council never found out about the Eclipse but one cannot help but wonder why they wanted the amulets destroyed so badly, while now they are searching for a lost artifact. I doubt its a coincidence."
"So how is it I have one when they're lost?" Dontrell asked, trying to grasp all the pieces of the puzzle. The elder man closed the book and looked up at him with a strange glint in his grey eyes. "My best guess is that it was obtained by someone who had seen the gate. I do not know how they could have obtained the amulet however since the only way the Eclipse gate is rumored to open is by the golden zodiac keys by a celestial wizard. Perhaps... Eclipse had given it to them in hopes the amulets could reunite with each other, it is unknown."
Dontrell smiled grimly up at Lucy. "After that I went in search for the gate but was never able to find anything but fan sketches of it. It wasn't until I was close to giving up that I saw it, but in a dream."
He stood alone in darkness, there was no sound, no light, and he couldn't move. Suddenly light dimmed in the distance and slowly approached him. The sound of steel cringing and slamming against each other woke his body up from its frozen state and he was able to move his head enough to see the humongous gate which stood before him. White flames danced around the blue and black gate as though celebrating Dontrell's presence. Slowly an eye opened from the gate and looked down at him, blinking once at him before the gates open and Dontrell realized only seconds later that he was holding the amulet up to the gate.
Suddenly a claw reached up, grasping the doors of the gates before a head peaked through and came into Dontrell's line of sight. He stood shocked at the sight of the huge black and purple dragon in front of him, trying to claw its way outside the gate but wasn't allowed to. It was then he realized something about the creature, it had no eyes. The dragon struggled and sniffed the air, knowing he was there but unable to reach him and its sight.
Dontrell wasn't sure what he was supposed to do but supposed the answer was in the amulet itself. Flipping it upside down he looked at the steel clasp before wrapping the black chain around the thin gap out of instinct and watched as the chains seemed to fit perfectly inside the trench of the necklace before he heard a click and sharply turned the steel clasp to the side and watched as it pooped open. Removing the steel cover he held the half sphere in his palm and stared at the black sphere surrounded by the hardened blood. Slowly he pulled the black orb from the container before looking at it curiously.
Following his instinct once again he twisted the orb and watched in surprise at the orb began liquid in his palm revealing a small white diamond inside. When he pulled out the diamond rock the black liquid became a solid sphere again and rolled out of his hand back into its space between the hardened blood. Dontrell then closed it with the steel clasp and wrapped the black chain around his neck feeling it burn against his chest as he tilted his head back and dropped the diamond rock down his throat.
"I woke up in immense pain and found the amulet looking just the same on my chest yet something just felt different... I threw up then but blood slowly came out of my mouth like a river and I felt like I was there for days as blood left my body through my mouth and slowly formed a creature before me."
Dontrell looked over at Riisovzun. "That creature was Behemoth. The same dragon I had seen in my dream with the Eclipse Gate. The only difference was he had eyes, red ones just the same as the blood within this amulet. The same color as the blood within me."
Riisovzun looked surprised by this news and then ashamed. Ashamed that he was only alive - if that was even what he was - because a human had given it to him.
"I allowed you to be apart of this world, Behemoth. You betrayed me however and just as I brought you into this world I can bring you out of it!" Dontrell lifted the amulet then and suddenly the dragon's eye came to life, the black part silting and glowing brilliantly. Suddenly Riisovzun's body lit up in the same light until that light became flames slowly burning away his entity. Lucy stumbled away from Riisovzun with widened eyes and could only watch as Riisovzun disappeared into the white flames that was sucked into the amulet until the light faded and Dontrell and Lucy stood alone.
"Amazing, isn't it. A beast controlled so easily such as a dragon." Dontrell told her as he released the amulet allowing it to thump against his chest soundlessly.
Seeing a being taken control of in such a way snapped something deep within her. It made her imagine Jade and Winter disappearing in such a way and decided at that moment she wouldn't allow another person do the same thing to a dragon ever again. Even if it meant she had to travel the world to find all the amulets she would do so, because these dragons still had souls whether locked away inside the Eclipse or inside an amulet and no soul should be bended and twisted to another person's will in such a way.
"You're dead," and so the battle for a dragon's soul began.
So what did you guys think? I would've gone longer but my computer started getting slow when I hit three-thousand words and decided to stop it here. Fortunately its not too horrible a cliff-hanger.
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Thanks for everyone's support and just the fact that you guy's are reading it.
Wish me luck on this weekend's drill okay? I'm gonna need all the luck I can get ;)
Sincerely,
-Gothic Rain