Time for Ch 2! thanks to everyone who showed support for our first chapter!
Lucy was not ashamed to admit the scream that came from her throat when she slammed into the ground sounded anything but human.
She dropped face first into hard, cracked earth, her Panera bag splitting open while her purse emptied its contents into some underbrush. Heart hammering, she pushed herself up on shaky limbs and looked behind her to search for her assailants. Seeing no one around her, she swallowed and rolled onto her knees, panting for breath.
What had happened? One moment she had been pressing against church doors, and the next moment she was... where?
Lucy looked around, climbing to her feet and collecting her scattered belongings. There were trees as far as the eye could see.
Somehow she had managed to land into the woods, and no one else was around. It didn't seem right, but Lucy was too grateful to be out of danger for the moment to think too hard about the why and how.
Peering up at the treeline, a few strange things began to assert themselves as odd. For one, sunlight was filtering through the canopy overhead. Early morning light. Which was impossible, because she had been sprinting to her home at close to 7:30 at night.
None of this seemed possible, and Lucy took a deep breath. Brushing dirt from her skirt and shirt, she plucked leaves from her hair to make herself look a little more presentable since no one was around stalking her.
The next order of business was to locate her phone, and she fished it from her purse a moment later, tapping it on to get reception.
Nothing. No bars, no reception.
Which figured since she was in the middle of the woods...
Frazzled and confused, Lucy had no idea what to do. There was no way she could tell which way was North and which was South. Especially since her internal clock was beyond messed up thanks to this weird sun.
The best she could do was walk until she maybe hit a river.
As Lucy looked for a river that, hopefully, would at least get her back to civilization; there was chaos, if not outright pandemonium, in the celestial realm.
All across the realm spirits were reacting to the gate that had been opened so suddenly. There was excitement, and fear, in them as rumors tore through the starry heavens.
A celestial spirit wizard had been found, and had opened a gate.
What could this mean?
Had the humans found a way to force the gates back open?
No one knew, but the thought was terrifying.
It had been centuries since any human had possessed the ability to summon spirits to their side, let alone open gates on their own. Not since the near apocalypse that had caused the king to seal the gates shut in the first place.
It was a memory that still haunted the spirits. And a story humanity would find only too familiar.
At a time when the stars were open to all who wished to travel to other worlds, there had been a human, Zeref, who had nearly destroyed them all. He had found a way to force the gates to remain open indefinitely, ignoring the spirit's laws about any such thing.
It was something that had initially been met with cheers by the various peoples. At last, they could travel without restriction. Without needing a wizard capable of opening the gates for them. They didn't stop to consider the consequences.
The celestial realm was not like the others. Travel had to be controlled always in order to maintain balance. Without that balance things began to go wrong.
The spirits had pleaded to shut the gates again, but they were ignored. Tensions had grown until finally war had been the result. A war that had led to the loss of many lives, and the spirits sealing their gates shut except to those destined to open them.
And now someone had passed through the gates.
The Celestial Spirit King frowned deeply as he considered his options and turned to his most trusted constellation, "Go Leo, my old friend. Find this wizard and test their worth. I would know if this human is worthy of the stars or if we face another potential war."
The constellation glittered in response, the light glowing and growing in strength until a shape of a man coalesced in the dark sky. His mane of wild orange hair was the first to appear, two feline ears hidden within it.
His body formed and solidified, light personified as golden, shining armor formed last. He was a regal figure, the form of the lion itself. Slowly, his chin lifted and he bent at the waist, dropping a gauntleted hand over his chest, "Of course my king."
In truth, Leo was worried himself about what this could mean. The desperation of the war, the enslavement of the stars to the humans that escaped into the celestial realm, and the result of the sealed gates. There was too much at risk to let something like this go unchecked, and he intended on investigating the human who dared open the forbidden gates again.
He hadn't needed an order from the king. As the leader of the Zodiac, this was something he planned on investigating himself. Especially as he could sustain his form outside of the celestial realm for longer than the other spirits. This just gave him permission.
So with one final nod to his king, Leo departed through the gates to find the human mysterious enough to send ripples throughout the entire celestial realm.
He slithered out of the offending gate, still cracked open behind the human, a sliver of shimmering, yellow light still exposed.
Leo found himself in the woods near the edge of Magnolia. He could tell thanks to the scorched ground and the way the ground was compressed down into hard dirt. The sun was hot overhead, almost desert-like, and it seemed almost natural that a mischievous human would find a way to make his or her way into the most dangerous part Earthland.
This was the battleground between mighty guilds, and the hunting ground of a terrible dragon. Celestial magic or not, Leo had to find this human before something worse did.
Meanwhile, Lucy was stuck between wondering if she'd hit her head or something on that old iron gate, and was dreaming this strange place up, and reality persistently slapping her in the face.
After all, it wasn't like she was likely to dream up a place that felt so hot, even in the early hours, and unforgiving even under the shade of trees.
And she definitely wasn't going to be dreaming about her thirst. Or her hunger, which she'd at least been able to partially take care of. Which meant this had to be real. And if it was real...then her entire world had just turned on its head.
Because reality meant that she really was somehow in an unfamiliar place miles from anywhere even vaguely resembling civilization. And the only way she could've possibly gotten there was through some kind of teleportation.
Which just made her head hurt thinking about.
"C'mon Lucy." She muttered to herself as she shifted her stuff into a more comfortable position, "Whatever is going on there's got to be a rational explanation. Just find a starting point and you're good to go."
Despite her mini-pep talk however, a small whine escaped her throat, "Aw, but I wanna be home reading my book!" She whined pathetically, also to herself as no one else was around, and decided that under the circumstances she could, and would, ignore any and all possible associations with madness talking to herself like that had.
She'd like to see anyone else come up with something better.
She sighed a little and glanced around, hoping for even a landmark to assure her she wasn't going in circles or something.
What she found instead caught her breath.
It was a plane.
At least, she thought it might be a plane. It was made of metal, and in the air, and moving at a decent clip. Though the closer it got the more she thought maybe it was something closer to the helicarrier. Which was weird, but she was willing to go with it.
It was also her very first sign of civilization.
Excited, she rushed forward, hoping to find a clearing to signal them with. If she was lucky they could give her a lift back home and she could pretend the last couple hours or so hadn't happened.
Her relief was neverending when the oddly shaped plane turned in her direction and a wide patch of open earth rested in front of her. Lucy waved her arms and shouted for its attention as she ran past deep slashes in the ground. She paid them little mind, but the writer in her imagination whispered fanciful ideas of some large creature creating those huge rivets.
She wasn't even sure how the ship spotted her among all the woods and trees, but Lucy was so blind with joy she made her way to the clearing, headless of claw marks.
As the heavy plane hovered nearby, Lucy became quite aware it was nothing like an actual plane. In fact that was probably the furthest description of what was actually right in front of her. It was more like a ship.
Its hull had two prongs, and the body was dark and purple in shape. Two black and red wings spun from the very back of the ship which were impractical to carry anything, much less the heavy weight of a ship.
There were two propellers in the back that pushed it forward, however what little Lucy knew about structural engineering, it shouldn't have been able to fly at all. But so long as it was safe, she didn't care what it looked like really. Lucy was too tired, hot and exhausted to complain.
Curling up in her bed, maybe with a glass of wine and a soft comforter sounded fabulous. That, and a nice hot shower.
The sun beat down on her shoulders and Lucy shook her head.
On second thought, perhaps a cold shower would do the trick for her at the moment.
Whatever.
The ship landed, kicking up a fine dusting of dirt that threatened to blind her. She coughed around the mouthful of the filaments clogging her mouth and swore, waving a hand in frustration away from her face.
Coughing up a clod of dirt wasn't exactly what Lucy had in mind when she thought she wanted a meal.
The heart shaped design on the front of the ship split down the center and parted open, giving way to eight people, shadowed by a bright light shining behind them. As far as dramatic entrances went, Lucy found it rather impressive. But she wasn't sure why she was receiving such an involved greeting.
A tall man stood at the front, white hair slicked back into a long ponytail that hung down his back, a single black eyepatch adorned his face. By the way he held himself, he was their leader, and he seemed to exude an air of charisma Lucy immediately didn't trust.
He had the face of a kind man, but held himself with such dignity, Lucy was immediately reminded of the men her father used to do business with. It unsettled her and made her uncomfortable, but she forced herself to bite her tongue when he took long strides in front of her and gave her a small nod of greeting.
"Uhm, hello?" Lucy said, her voice trembling with hesitation. While the man in front of her looked calm and friendly, the others with him all donned expressions of cool detachment.
Some, including a beautiful woman holding a crystal ball, even seemed outright hostile.
The way her sharp eyes followed Lucy's every move, it was as if she were contemplating whether or not to abandon her to her devices in the woods.
"Hello miss," The man straightened, extending a hand towards Lucy. She took it in a very brief handshake, holding on just long enough to be polite. His touch was firm, but cold. Just like a business man with his eye on some goal. He was a shark.
For some reason his single eyed gaze left Lucy feeling like she was chum in the water.
"You are very brave to wander these woods alone," the man continued after his initial greeting, "I take it you need a ride back to the nearest town?"
Lucy swallowed, her eyes slanting over to the rows of his associates. They all gave her a weird feeling, Lucy's stomach clenching down on a sudden flare of intuition that told her perhaps she was better off walking after all. But she wasn't sure when she would find civilization again. She was off in the woods by herself...
Instead she swallowed and caught his first words, using it to buy her some time to size up her would-be rescuers. Could she really afford to be picky? It was probably her remnant fear from being followed earlier that was causing her so much anxiety now. What did she have to fear from these people..
...And their strange Doomsday looking ship?
...Okay, perhaps caution was the better part of valor.
"Brave? Not really?" Lucy swallowed and looked at the man, her throat crackling from thirst. She really was exhausted.
"What's so frightening about the woods?" She asked, her head peering around her back to see around her. The forest was unfriendly and hot, but hardly dangerous from what she had seen.
At those words though, it seemed she attracted the attention of those gathered around. The woman crept in closer to the leader, red lips thinning into a hard line. Her voice dropped, but not nearly low enough for her to actually be discreet.
"Master Hades, we don't have the time to waste here, I can feel it getting hotter ," Her voice came, warning in her tone. The flicker of fear in her eyes was evidence enough there was something in the area worth being afraid of.
"It's true, he'll be here soon. This is his territory," The blond man with wild red yes growled. Something about his words made a shiver run along Lucy's spine.
Who was he?
"I have a plan to deal with him." Hades replied, a sharp edge of excitement under his words that had Lucy grateful she wasn't the focus of it. She'd had enough of predators for a while. Unfortunately, that left her in a bit of a predicament regarding her transport.
She had absolutely no desire to stick around a place, lost and alone, with no signs of civilization and someone that apparently was enough to terrify these people. On the other hand, voluntarily joining a group of people who reminded her so sharply of sharks probably wasn't very conducive to her continued health.
However, she wasn't given a chance to ponder the situation further when a deafening roar of fury washed over them.
Her heart stopped and her breath caught as instinctive terror gripped her. She didn't know what it was. She'd never heard a sound like that in her life. There was nothing in the natural world that sounded like it. But that only made her terrified instincts howl at her even more. She just wished, in the distant part of herself not consumed by fear, that she understood what they were trying to say.
As it was, she instinctively dropped towards the ground in a crouch when the source of the roaring appeared on the horizon.
She gaped at the magnificent sight swooping towards them with complete shock, unable to compute what she was seeing. Her eyes and her brain argued and warred with each other for what felt like an eternity before there could be no doubt.
It was a dragon.
A real, live, red scaled, fire breathing, dragon.
And he looked pissed.
At least, she assumed from the tooth baring snarl that he was pissed.
It certainly seemed like a safe assumption as Hades and his people abruptly broke ranks and began scrambling around urgently. They were barking orders at each other and their crew as the dragon bore down on them.
Before she could react further, she was picked up by a big, fat, powder pale man and slung over his shoulder.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" She yelped, indignant over being picked up and carried like a sack of potatoes.
"Do forgive Kane his lack of ceremony my dear." Hades purred in a way that had her shivering again, "We simply don't have time for niceties now, and you are far safer aboard the ship than you are out there."
He gave her a smile that made her skin crawl as she discovered exactly what it was like to be the focus of his interest, "And once the dragon is dealt with, we'll have a long talk about where you come from and how you know nothing of where you are."
"See she's well taken care of Kane." He ordered as he sped up and moved in a different direction.
"Wait...no!" Lucy cried as Kane carried her off towards the bowels of the ship, "Put me down!"
"Sorry lady." Kane grunted, "I can't do that. Boss' orders. I gotta take care of you. Though I guess I'll forgive you."
"Forgive me for what?!" She demanded, confused and seriously alarmed by this point.
"For throwing yourself at me." The man replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "I guess I can't blame you for not being able to resist such a studly form."
"What?! I didn't throw myself at you!" Lucy shouted, her confusion temporarily forgotten by her outrage, "You picked me up!"
"Well yeah, I picked you up. Boss said to." Came the reply, and Lucy started crying in frustration. Nothing made sense anymore, and talking to this idiot was making her lose brain cells.
"I just wanna go home!" She wailed, only to shriek a little when there was a loud crash against the hull, another deafening roar, and the whole place shook precariously.
It also had the effect of making Kane lose his grip on her and drop her. Which would've been great had he also not started to fall on her. She had just enough time to scream again when a gold blur appeared before her eyes and in an instant she was picked up by a pair of strong arms and carried out of danger.
It took her a moment to register that she was no longer in mortal peril, and look up at her rescuer. This one was a tall man with a wild mane of orange hair and gold armor. The final straw though was the cat ears sticking out of his hair.
She stared at him in complete shock for a moment and promptly fainted.
Special thanks to our two guest reviewers,Alerssa, MadamUranus, Grandwrex, DiagonAlley, Melodymusical8910, Weepingwillowfairy, HalfBlackWolfDemon, Footster26, Princessatj, Mezatron, chelsannful and everyone else who reviews! We read every single word!