An: To be honest I completely forgot about this week's chapter, I started writing it last weekend but then I got a new laptop and have been playing on that! Finally I have a laptop that can handle games. :)
Anyways, sorry for the wait.
"Why the hell was I put into this team?" Ever complained for the millionth time since we had set out from the guild several weeks ago.
"Ever for the last time deal with it. I'm gettin' sick of your complaints." I growled not bothering to look back at her as we trudged up the mountain, each step we took our feet sinking to our mid calf in the muddy terrain.
"At least let me fly Laxus. Not only are my heels ruined, my dress is going to be permanently damaged. Not to mention the mud bath my legs have gotten." She whined, her disgust clearly evident in the tone of her voice.
Praying for patience to handle one of my closest friends I stopped walking and turned to her. The tired glare I gave her stopped her from continuing her whining. Taking in her mud caked legs, and the muddy hem line of her dress I took a step toward her and scooped her up over my shoulder.
"Oomph. He-hey what are you doing Laxus? Please don't throw me in the mud! I promise I'll quit complaining." She pleaded when I remained silent. Growling I adjusted her over my shoulder, ignoring her high pitched scream, and continued on our path with a snickering Orga beside me. "I can fly! You don't have to carry me."
"You can't fly because there are wire traps all around this fuckin mountain, and as you've noticed this mountain has some strange as weather happening. If a lightning storm suddenly appeared you'd be fried to a crisp. If carrying you is the only way to shut you up then I'll do it. It's not like I haven't done it before. So lay there, shut up and enjoy the ride." When she was about to say something I jolted her to get her to stop.
"I just wanted to say thank you Laxus." She whispered so quietly that I barely heard it. Grunting in acknowledgement I gentled my grip on her and picked up my pace. Speaking of lightning storm. I thought as the smell of rain and electricity surged through the air, surrounding this level of the mountain. At least Ever isn't a flying target.
Steadily hiking up the mountain we searched several more caves to no avail. Each cave we stepped in either had the overwhelming smell of some animal we didn't want to bother with, at least not when we weren't on a time crunch, or no smell other than dirt.
A few days ago Mira had called me while the other two were sleeping to tell me that Lucy wasn't doing well, and to speed up our search at all costs. It turns out Iron Foot and his team already returned empty handed, well that's not true, they did find some bracelet that helped with the magical drain, but it wasn't the antidote we needed. I had also learned that our new 'allies' single handedly, paws actually, defeated a group of thirty or more mages who planned on ambushing the guild out of the thirty or more mages only one survived, and no one could find where the wolves had stashed the bodies. At first I had been hesitant to agree to let them stay, but after hearing what they did, even if they didn't tell anyone, I was glad to say I was wrong.
Since her call I had been pushing my team to cover more ground quicker, but they were losing steam, and Ever was beginning to lose hope. On several accounts she had said we were on the wrong mountain, and that we should be on one of the neighboring ones instead but my nap didn't lie, and neither did Mira. She wouldn't lead us to a location unless she was absolutely certain we would find something, whether it be the fuckers who threatened our guild, or an antidote.
Stomping out of the highest and last cave with Ever on my shoulder I release a roar in annoyance. "This is getting ridiculous!" I growled unceremoniously letting go of my hold on Ever and dumping her on the ground.
"Hey! Least you could do is warn me before to flip me over your shoulder Laxus!" Ever howled as she got to her feet and rubbed her backside free of dirt.
Ignoring her complaints I growled again. "There's nothing here!"
We had checked the remaining caves on the mountain, each time Orga and I couldn't sense a thing coming from them. This was the only place Mira had told us to go, so now we were at a loss of what to do now that the entire mountain had been searched.
"Something has to be here. Your Mage wouldn't have sent us here otherwise." Orga said, containing in his annoyance at our seemingly useless search, and waste of the past few weeks.
"Obviously she was wrong!" I snapped at him letting loose my lightning to release some tension.
"Laxus think about it! When has Mira ever been so off base, that's right never. Even when she was her snotty little self before Lisanna's disappearance she always found what she wanted to find. They never wasted time searching dead ends. And with Lucy's life riding on this she wouldn't fuck up now." Ever said looking around the cave's opening for a clue.
Silence reigned as I put my head in my hands and sat down on a huge ass boulder. Blocking out the sound of the other two searching I mentally retraced our steps. Nothing how can there be nothing in the caves?! Running a hand through my hair I lifted my head and dug out the map from my back pocket; each cave we came by we recorded its location and what we had found. Fifteen caves... and only two had an odor of wyverns. "Have you seen any wyverns around?" I suddenly asked, snapping my head up and looking at the two.
"Ah...didn't we...no there was nothing there...no I haven't." Ever said seemingly surprised by her answer.
"Same here boss man. Had a couple of caves smell like them though." Orga shrugged not connecting the dots nearly as fast as Ever.
"Wyverns are super territorial we should have seen them by now. At least some patrols." Ever pointed out looking at me as if we were the dumbest people in all of Earthland.
"So isn't it a good thing we haven't encountered those beasts?" Ignoring Orga I stood up gathering our shit, while Ever did the same.
"Damn it Laxus! We were so focused on finding the Abastors we totally overlooked it." Ever said berating us.
Too disgusted with myself all I could do was nod as I chucked Orga's backpack in his direction and took off down the mountain after Ever.
"Is someone gonna tell me what's going on in your heads?" Orga asked, being ignored once again, Ever and I too focused on the task at hand. "Are all Fairy Tail mages so weird?" He muttered out loud quickly catching up to us.
"Get used to it." I said catching up to Ever as she lost her footing on some loose rocks. Springing up off of the ground she kept on running, no longer concerned with the state of her clothes or shoes. When it really mattered, she wasn't so whiny, but when we spend weeks traveling and then proceed to hike up a mountain then that side of her came out.
What took us hours to climb, took us minutes to run down, now that we knew where we needed to be looking. Stopping in front of the entrance to one of the two caves that had an odor, Ever looked to me and hugged the wall outside of the entrance and I dragged Orga to the other, pushing him back so our backs were flush with the jagged wall. Cutting off his protests with a shake of my head I nodded to Ever, watching as she tossed a rock into the cave to rouse whatever was in the cave. When we didn't hear the rock land, we exchanged confused looks, only to become even more confused when the rock came sailing back out.
"Bravo, you nimwits finally figured it out." We heard amidst clapping that was coming from just inside the cave. Moving away from the wall, I didn't see any sign of the owner of the voice, I couldn't smell him either. "Don't bother trying to see me Laxus, you might hurt that pea size brain of yours." The voice said, from right behind me. Shifting to look, once again I couldn't sense a single thing. "It truly is a waste of your time, you won't see me, won't smell me and sure as hell won't catch me. You should really just give up."
"What the hell is going on?" Orga asked, sending random bolts of lightning into the places we had heard the voice.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk Orga. Shouldn't you be with your precious guild master? I could have sworn that blade of mine did enough damage to put her down permanently."
Pesky healers they always get in the way of our fun. If I could I'd rid the world of them-"
"Don't you dare lay a hand on her." I snarled in the direction of the deep voice.
"Oooo is that a challenge?" When I just snarled he laughed, mocking my concern for the youngest Dragon Slayer. "If you had let me finish, I was going to say that it would be a waste of my time since we have the only true healer. We don't need your knock offs." Seeing Ever turn towards me I could see her mouth 'true healer'. Her eyes were alight with hope, thinking of our nakama that was lying somewhere dying. "Darn, I've let the cat out of the bag, I guess I'll have to kill you now." He said with a cackle, right before I heard Orga grunt in pain as he doubled over onto his knees. Not smelling any blood, I focused on the surrounding area trying to get a read on our attacker.
It was impossible to tell where he was, unless he was talking but even then he moved so quickly that I couldn't lock onto him. There was no blur running around, and it frustrated me to no end. What use were these powers if I couldn't find one single mage that was right in front of me?
"Ah!" Ever yelled as she was flung towards me. Opening my arms just in time, I planted my feet and caught her. Placing her behind me I shot my lightning haphazardly in every direction, making sure that Ever wouldn't get hit.
"Now that's cheating." The man said, sounding as if he were in pain. Smirking at hitting him, I was unprepared for the knife that sliced open my arm from my elbow to my wrist.
Ignoring the blood dripping down from my arm I sent more lightning out in front of me and behind me, catching the fucker again. This time when he retaliated I saw a glint of metal in the setting sun and avoided the blade altogether, and punched out to where his head should be. It was utterly satisfying when my fist connected with his face; feeling the crunch of his nose breaking, and the watering of his eyes. Drawing my hand away from his face I saw and smelled his blood coating my fist. For a second I could see his blood drops on the ground but a second later they were gone, but I could still smell it but it was extremely faint.
"You're going to regret that." His once deep voice, was now nasally and sounded pissed off. Good, angry mages make mistakes. I thought as a fireball flew towards my head ducking a moment too late it grazed my ear, burning it.
"First invisibility, now fire! This is stupid!" Orga complained, finally getting over his pain.
Whispering to Ever to take off into the air, far enough so our lightning wouldn't reach her Orga and I both let loose making the ground and walls dance with sparks, leaving no patch of land unaffected. Hearing a cry to his right Orga shot out his hand grabbing onto the mage. By the way his hand looked I could tell he had found the throat of the mage. "You nearly killed My Lady with that stunt you pulled at Sabertooth." Orga snarled, his face taking on a look I hadn't seen on him before. It was as if something had taken over him. Hearing the air beneath his hand gasp and the sound of flesh hitting flesh, I assumed Orga was cutting off his air supply, and he was trying to get him to release his hold on him by hitting his arm, and cutting at it with his knife. Once again the once playful mage I thought I had figured out snarled and bared his teeth before he snatched the knife from his flesh and tossed it over the edge of the mountain.
"Laxus, we can't let this continue, we need to question him and the only way we can do that is if he is alive." Ever pointed out, landing beside me. Knowing she was right I put a restraining hand on the God Slayer's shoulder and shook my head.
"You can get your revenge after we get answers out of him. Hold him still though." I said backing up. "Ever."
At her name she walked in front of the unknown mage and removed her glasses. Without any warning, or sound from the mage a statue appeared. Putting her glasses back on she touched the neck of the statue, transforming it back to invisible flesh long enough for Orga to remove his hand. "What the hell! You couldn't have warned me first? A simple, hey Orga don't be alarmed when your hand turns to stone and is permanently attached to the fucker's neck..." While Orga continued on his rant, something had grabbed Ever's attention.
Ever POV
I had been practicing this little trick for quite sometime. It was much easier shifting just the prisoner's head when we wanted to interrogate them, rather than their whole body. It was also decreased the chances of them escaping, when they couldn't use their legs... or magic. Smiling at Orga's rant, I was about to turn the neck back to stone when I noticed an odd shape on the statue's chest. Considering my stone wasn't good with the little details I wouldn't be sure what it was until I unfroze him. Reaching for the annoying man's neck I felt his pulse racing as I looked the chain that should be connected to what I assumed was a necklace. But if you were going to be invisible there was no point to wearing a necklace, because no one could see it. If anything it would increase the chances of losing it, so there must be a reason why he bothered with it at all.
Feeling his pulse jump as I began following the chain with my fingers I let my stone revert back into flesh so I could pry it free and find out why it was so important. Once it was completely free and I slipped it off, over his head the places I had de-stoned him were visible and so was the necklace. Opening my clenched fist I revealed a shimmering key with an iridescent stone in the place of what was supposed to be n eye. "I guess that explains why we couldn't see him." I said more to myself than my companions. Hearing my stone creak and feeling a part of it fly into my hair I turned to my captive annoyed and turned every part of him back to stone.
"What explains it?" Laxus asked walking up to me to see what I had in my hand.
"He's a Celestial Mage? I thought they were supposed to be destroying all of the keys." Orga said peaking over my other shoulder.
"It might be one of the six Lucy was...is looking for." I said, cringing at my use of past tense. Lucy will be fine, we'll find the cure... or the 'true healer.
An: Short chapter compared to the last few but at least I got something out right? I will continue with Ever, Laxus and Orga in the next chapter and we will also see what Natsu and his team have been up to!
Anyways let me know what you thought, please and thank you.
artificialartoficial: Lol no problem! I hope you had fun at camp.
I love all of the fics by GemNika and leoslady4ever. GemNika has a few odd pairings that you probably never would have thought of but they are really good! I'm loving her ElfLu, and her CoLu. =] Lucy's Fury by nikoneko123 is one of my favorites! Oh and I forgot who it is by but the fic - Texting Fire was a cute read and it's now complete.
Hope you find something to read. =]
PremierGoldPineapple: Haha you never know what my brain will come up with! :P