An: so sorry for the late update. :/

Sorry for any mistakes! Hope you enjoy it

Ever POV

"Ifyou would let me do more than hit and shock him we would have our answers by now!" Orga glowered at us, as we blocked him from hitting the now unconscious mage. Laxus and I knew that the moment we let Orga have free reign over how to interrogate our prisoner that the moral lines of Fairy Tail would be crossed and we didn't want to deal with Master's wrath, along with the wrath of the council if word got out that we allowed blatant torture.

Encasing the mage in my stone once more, to prevent any more harm to him I placed the key around my neck and tucked it into the top of my dress so I wouldn't accidentally lose it. Dragging the mage into the cave we found a niche in the wall and left him there while we went to explore the cavern. It didn't take enhanced senses to tell that something had died in here a while ago. Plugging my mouth and nose as best I could with a spare scarf I always packed I glared at Laxus and raised my brows in question. How the hell could you not have caught a whiff of this?! I thought in disbelief, it didn't seem possible for anything to hide this atrocious smell, but apparently it had been.

"Lets split up, we'll be able to cover more ground that way." Laxus said, his words muffled by his shirt as he tried to stop the smell from overtaking his nose.

Grunting in acknowledgement of his plan we all took separate paths and ventured further into the cave. Of course I would be stuck with the one that was littered with bones of the dead wyverns. I grumbled as the smell got progressively worse the further down the path I went.

"You shouldn't go any further." I kid's voice said, echoing through the cave. Coming to a sudden stop I looked around for the source of the voice.

"Are we really going to do the invisibility thing again?" I whined, more angry with myself for letting my guard down after we had caught the other man. It was stupid to think that he would stay here alone and to be more preoccupied with the smell of the place instead of my surroundings.

"I'm sorry, I'm used to blending in all of the time... it's safer that way." The child asked, revealing only her head as she looked at me, trying to decide if I could be trusted or not. "I-if you promise not to hurt me I'll get rid of my camouflage so you can see all of me." She offered hesitantly.

"Wow, you're younger than Wendy! What are you doing in a place like this, it isn't safe!" I half whispered, half yelled as I looked around the cave for anybody who would want to hurt such a tiny child. She couldn't be more than ten years old by the look of her, younger if we were going by height. "Come on, we have to find Laxus so he can take you to safety." I urged trying to grab a hold of her hand so I could drag her to him but she kept backing away from me.

When a small whimper of fear escaped her lips and her head disappeared I finally registered that I was scaring her and froze in place. "I'm sorry sweetie, I didn't mean to scare you, I'm just trying to get you out of this horrible cave. I should have started out with this, but its better late than never right?" Kneeling down, so she wouldn't have to look up as much as she watched me from wherever she was hiding, "I promise I won't hurt you." I said hoping I hadn't already ruined my chances of getting her to trust me somewhat. When she didn't emerge from her hiding spot I released a sigh and sat down on the nasty ground after I pulled my dress down enough so my butt would be completely covered. "My name is Evergreen, what's yours?" I asked to the air around me, not even knowing if she was still around.

"Elle" she answered, from the other side of the cave, past the section of floor she said I didn't want to go through.

"Why don't you come on out, I promise I won't hurt you; cross my heart!" I promised with a gentle smile, trying to get her to reveal some part of her again. Not hearing a peep from her I put my hands on my knees and stood up. Giving once last look around the room I continued on the path I was taking before Elle had appeared. Keeping my pace slow in case she was following me, I looked in each of the rooms of the cave finding even more bones than what I had found in the hall way. Taking a closer look I found that not all of the remains belonged to wyverns; there were other animals, varying from rabbits to a mountain lion, but the most shocking discovery was the human skulls that lined the walls.

"You should have listened to me earlier... this is where he liked to keep his trophies." Elle said as her head appeared beside me.

"What do you mean trophies?" I whispered in horror, unable to tear my gaze away from the neatly organized bones in the room.

"Most of them are mages that wandered too close to the caves, or people she told him to get rid off. In the next room is his... play room I guess, at least that's what he called it. He would make the others torture them, while he watched or made us watch as he inflicted the pain. Either way it was unpleasant." She shuddered at the thought, her gaze glued to the bones as she relived the memory of what had happened. "I was lucky, he never made me participate but I always had to watch. He didn't understand how his evilness never rubbed off on me, no matter what he did... but the others were easily corrupted, after months of torturing the mages they turned just as black as he was, and that's when she absorbed their powers and killed them."

"Why didn't it work on you?" I asked finally able to glance away from the bones. Tired of being in the room I made a grab for Elle's arm and was surprised when I caught a hold of her. Dragging her out of the room along with me I leaned against the hallway wall and closed my eyes, trying to erase the images out of my head.

"I'm different from them... After being banished for hundreds of years, I've done some major soul searching. I once let myself be corrupted by the darkness that consumed Alvin, the mage you have captive. The darkness felt freeing, but in the end it controlled me, making me harm those I considered family and those who were innocent. I realize now that I was wrong to follow my previous master blindly, but it was my first time making a contract with a Celestial Mage and I was too trusting. I know that doesn't excuse my behavior in the past, I just wanted to let you know that I won't hurt you...unless my master commands it."

"But you don't have a master anymore, you're free for real this time."

"That would be nice, but it would be so lonely. I want a master I can trust, one who won't work me to the bone... one who actually cares." Her emerald eyes sparkled as she talked about her dream master, as she got this far off look on her face. Even daydreaming she was able to keep the rest of her concealed. Must be those hundred years of practice.

"I have just the mage for you." I said, clearing my throat to get her attention. When she looked startled and confused I repeated myself. "In my guild there's a Celestial Mage that treats her spirits as if they were her family...actually they are her family. Anyways I know she would love to meet you and make a contract with you... if she survives the poison." I ended in a mutter not expecting her to hear me.

"Poison?" She whispered in horror. "It's not the kind of poison Alvin uses is it?"

"Consumes magic, and destroys the body... is that the kind of poison he used? Do you have the antidote?" I eagerly asked, not even waiting for her to confirm or deny that the poison was the same. She didn't answer right away; I think it would have been better if she had answered with a simple no, rather than her already pale skin becoming nearly translucent as she shook her head.

"Elle?" I whispered not liking the guilty look that she was sending my way.

Laxus POV

Finding nothing down my path except for unlit candles and a bedroom of sorts, if you called slab of stone with a blanket over it a bed; backtracking I went to see if Ever or Orga found anything. Scrunching my nose at the smell of fresh urine I entered the area just beyond the entrance of the cave to find Orga standing in front of our prisoner, zipping up his pants. Turning his head to look at me he just shrugged before stalking out of the cave, probably to get some fresh air.

Didn't find anything either. I thought shaking my head at the seemingly dead end Mira sent us to. Walking down Ever's path I quieted my footsteps to nothing when I heard voices up ahead until I was right next to the opening in the wall, leaning against the wall I listened.

"…is that the kind of poison he used? Do you have the antidote?" I heard Ever ask excitedly before an uncomfortable silence descended. "Elle?" She whispered, catching a hint of salt in the air I moved to go to Ever when a child's voice rang through the cave.

"No there isn't… that poison isn't meant to be reversed. The people who handle the poison know that, and if they accidentally poison themselves they know it's a death sentence because Polaris doesn't care where her replenishing powers come from as long as she gets it. Sure she prefers Celestial Mages because other mages' magic isn't nearly as potent for her. She doesn't care how many people get hurt in the end as long as she gets what she wants in the end… freedom to get revenge on everyone who cast her out and betrayed her."

With each word the child spoke, confirming our worst fears, Ever gasped. Not only was our chance to save Blondie dead, our chance of surviving Polaris was dramatically reduced. I knew of Lucy's plan to teach the new squirt what she needed to know but with Lucy out of commission we were screwed. Through Ever's sobs she spoke, getting louder and louder with each word as if that would change anything. "No, no, no, no, NO! There has to be an antidote! Lucy can't just die!" She got out before collapsing in a heap on the ground. A second later I was beside her patting her back in an attempt to comfort not only her, but myself as well.

Way more composed than Ever I faced the wary child. "Do you know how they make the poison?" I asked, thinking that, that couldn't be it; that our weeks of searching weren't done in vain. Feeling ever shift her head off of me enough to look at my face I saw the question in her eyes. "If we can find out how they make it maybe Wendy and Porlyscuia can whip up an antidote. Levy and Gajeel found something that is reversing the magical drain, so that has bought us more time." I explained, brushing away the tears as they fell down her face. Hearing and seeing the girl step away from me I jerked my head and in the next second Orga had the girl trapped in his arms. Making sure to keep his grip firm, but not in a painful way I stood up and pulled out a set of anti-magic cuffs so she couldn't disappear on us.

"We ain't gonna hurt you, girly." Orga said as she kicked and clawed at him. When that didn't work she bit his arm, drawing blood with her surprisingly sharp teeth. "Hey!" Orga yelled shaking the girl in his arms to dislodge her.

"Let me go! I don't know anything!" The kid lied, shifting her gaze away from us as she continued to struggle.

"I can tell you're lyin'. You don't want Polaris to gain her freedom any more than we do, so why keep it a secret?"

"She'd have me killed… for good or torture me like Pheonix-" She yelped covering her mouth at the name, suddenly looking even more scared if that was possible. When her eyes began to water I felt Ever put a staying hand on my shoulder as she walked to Orga ordering him to remove his arms. Looking to me for permission Orga released his hold on the chit when I nodded and pointed to the doorway so he could catch her if she made a run for it.

"She's not going to run… even if she did, she couldn't get very far, I have her key." Ever mumbled, trying to soothe the little girl. "It's alright Elle; they didn't mean to scare you we just really need for you not to lie to us. Our friend is dying, and we can't have that. You don't want that to happen either, she is our only real chance of defeating Polaris – the Celestial King said so."

"So he doesn't know everything. If he did he wouldn't have put his daughter in charge and we wouldn't be in this mess." When Ever just looked at her, Elle sighed. "Fine I've already let something slip and Polaris won't care if it was an accident or not, she'll send someone after me." Distancing herself from Ever she released her invisibility and paced. "There may not be an antidote, but I know where they make it and a little bit of how they make it. If we go there I can slip only one of you into the compound. My powers aren't at full strength as punishment for aiding Polaris in the beginning." She spat out, looking angry all of a sudden and not like the petulant child she'd been a minute ago.

"I'll go." I stated firmly, leaving no room for disagreement. I could tell Ever wanted to argue but she didn't knowing there was no changing my mind.

"Fine, you'll need my key. We need to go to Satan's Peak. It's an active volcano region just past the border. That's where they're keeping him."

"Who are they keeping?"

"You'll see." She said before walking out of the cave. "I have to get some of my stuff; I'll meet you at the front in five." Without saying anything Orga followed after her, only to curse when she disappeared.

"Satan's Peak, isn't that where Natsu-?"

"Yeah it is. It's a week's journey away, but I can just teleport there in a day. I need you and Orga to take the mage back to Fairy Tail and get Mira to question him. We need to know what he knows… everything."

"But… you know what happened the last time Mira questioned someone one." She shivered remembering the beaten and bloody mage who had falsely claimed to have seen Lisanna a month after we thought her to be dead.

"I know. But she's the only one who will get answers. Warn her about the no antidote so she doesn't freak when he spits it out to use it to hurt her."

"Okay. Here is Elle's key, don't let anyone else get a hold of it they'll kill her."

Nodding I slipped the key around my neck and into my shirt. "Yeah I got it. Common let's split up the packs, you're gonna need more for the prisoner."

Leading the way back to the entrance I was surprised to see Orga there, with his arms crossed looking angry as hell. "The little chit led me straight into a trap."

"He deserved it for restraining me. He's lucky I didn't take him down the deadly path." Elle shrugged not looking the least bit sorry. "We have a long way to go, we might as well start."

"Chill, we'll leave in a minute." I handed Ever my pack. After another five minutes of Ever sorting all of the supplies I watched as the three of them descended the mountain.

"Why aren't we going with them, we need to go down there anyways."

"No we don't. It won't take us more than today to get there." Grabbing hold of her I ignored her protests and teleported us away.

Cana POV

"We should have been there already Flametard. Did you give us the wrong directions?" Gray yelled at the pinkette, getting louder the more lost we got. Seeing Natsu grip the edges of the map tightly he stuffed his face into it trying to figure out where we had taken the wrong turn because we had been wandering in a circle around the base of the mountain for the past couple of hours. Any attempts to climb or fly up to the mountain were thwarted by some sort of barrier that was around the mountain. "Squinty Eyes are you listening to me?!"Tearing the map out of his hands Gray looked at it and grinned.

"Hey I was looking at that!" Natsu said trying to snatch it back, when that didn't work he tripped the Ice Mage making him release the map as he fell. Grinning triumphantly at the now crinkled map in his hands Natsu was about to resume his perusal of it when Gray's foot connected with his stomach. Watching the two idiots begin what was surprisingly their first fight of this journey I reached for my alcohol only to sigh for a different reason when I found it missing.

"Are they always like this?" I asked Happy trying to get my mind off of my missing alcohol before I started cursing Mira and my dad for cutting me off before I left.

"Aye." Was all Happy bothered saying before he continued to root for Natsu as he beat Gray into the ground. We were all restless after our long journey to Satan's Peak, but now that we were lost it made things even worse, which is probably why Natsu and Gray finally snapped and ignored Erza, Mira, and Lucy's warning to be on their best behavior and to not fight. Oh how they were going to grovel when it came time for me to give Mira her weekly report. Maybe I'd get them to get me some alcohol and then no one would say anything. I mused before looking at the blue cat I knew would rat us all out at the first signs of fish.

"I can't imagine Erza putting up with this shit while on a job."

"Haha she doesn't, but she usually joins in when she tries to break them up. Then the fight gets even more interesting." Happy said with a scary glint in his eye.

"When do they stop?" I asked, inching towards the forgotten map on the ground, not wanting to be dragged into their fight like I had been in the guild time and time again.

"If it's just the four of us on the job they usually don't stop until after Erza sufficiently beats them but when Lucy's with us- which she usually is- she turns into scary Lucy…" Happy said, visible shivers running down his back. "…all Scary Lucy has to do is say their names and they snap out of it. Erza first, while Natsu and Gray continues to fight, and when that happens that's when they get Lucy Kicked."

"So without Erza or Lucy…"

"Yeah we have to wait it out." He said not sounding the least bit disappointed.

"Great." I muttered to myself as Happy was no longer by my side and had followed Natsu and Gray as their fight moved forward. Smoothing out the map as best I could I sat down on a nearby rock and tried to figure out where we were.

I don't get it… the entrance to the mountain should be right here... I thought looking from the 'x' on the map to the corresponding location on the mountain. Hearing a loud crack as the ground shook the boulder I was sitting on I lifted my feet and crossed my legs as Natsu and Gray rolled towards me. "Will you two knock it off! We are right in front of the enemy's lair and you are acting like fools, this behavior is not going to help Lucy!" I shouted, feeling a headache come on. When they chose to ignore me I pulled out my cards determined to get them to stop.

My good intentions went out the window as one card led to another until I was entrenched in the fight. It didn't matter that we were in front of what was likely one of the largest factions of the Abastors, our stress and worry over Lucy had won and we needed some kind of release from it so we wouldn't go crazy. We fought to the point of exhaustion, to the point where I couldn't distinguish the drops of sweat from the tears the guys pretended weren't there. Happy wasn't fighting but he still watched from above, his tears mingling with ours. It was better that we got this out now instead of in an actual fight for our lives, because our attention was not where it should have been and our attacks were sloppy and weak.

After a shot of ice from Gray knocked me on my ass for the tenth time, I refused to get up and laid on my back, not caring about the dirt that was getting in my hair. I couldn't do it anymore; fighting, breathing and crying at once- something had to go. Not to long after I bowed out of the fight the guys joined me on the ground, breathing heavily.

"Get that out of your systems?" An unexpected voice said above us. Opening my eyes I stuck my tongue out at the unamused Laxus.

"What are you doing here?" Nasty asked worriedly staggering to his feet with the unwilling help of Grays head. "Is it Lucy?"

"My team and I didn't find anything at either of our locations I came to join your group since it's the only one without an S-Class Mage." Although he looked sincere I could tell he wasn't telling us the whole story. "I see I came in time to watch you fall apart. I take it you didn't find anything." He said picking up the map and looking at it.

"They haven't even gotten the door open." Girl said, appearing from behind Laxus.

"Figures." Laxus snorted. The green haired girl walked away from us to stand on top of the boulder I'd sat on and reached for a suspicious looking rock that jutted out of the side of the mountain. Don't tell me we've been wasting our time circling this mountain when the answer was right in front of us. When it looked like Laxus was about to hit the rock himself the girl hissed at him before bouncing on the balls of her feet then launching herself at the rock. directly below the switch a huge chunk of rock shimmered out of place to reveal the long sought after entrance. I need a drink. I thought while we got to our feet to join Laxus and the girl as they entered the mountain.

"Where are the guards?" Gray asked what we were all thinking.

"They don't need guards, no one in their right mind would come here since the volcano is so volatile. This isn't even the main level, just the entrance; there are ten more levels below us and that doesn't include the prisons which is at the very bottom barely above the surface of the constant steam of magma."

"Why do you know so much?" Gray asked suspiciously looking at the little girl.

Laxus and the girl shared a look, "we found Elle at one of the locations we searched... she's one of the six spirits Lucy needs."

"Oh cool, Lucy will be excited when she meets you!" Natsu said, inspecting the poor girl as she led us down the path. "But why are you just a kid? The rest of her spirits are grown up."

"Natsu..." Happy warned unsuccessfully, seeing the tick on Elle's forehead and the twitch of her right eye.

"Shut it Flame Breath." Gray said, punching the dragon slayer to get him to stop talking. "How do we know we can trust her, the damn bird and dragon still look at us like we're the stupidest creatures ever and that they'd rather flay us alive than help us."

"She wants Polaris gone for good as much as we do. If she wants to leave after we've dealt with her that's fine, but until then she's one of us."

Gray was silent after that still looking at Elle, still not completely trusting her.

An: sorry for the sucky ending to the chapter I didn't want to write anymore and didn't know how to finish it. Sorry it took so long for me to update I've been having problems coming up with how I want the rest of the story to go and have been experiencing writers block.

Anyways hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Dragon Queene Layla St Gabriel: the next chapter the possible cure for Lucy will reveal its self. But that's one of the things I've been having problems with I don't know how I want the curing to go. I feel like I can't just have her bounce back and that something significant should happen to her. :/

PremierGoldPineapple: haha

tabodayvonne: sorry for the long wait!

artificialartofficial: haha no. No enemy romance for Evergreen lol. Rogue's chapter is coming up soon.

As you could have guessed my hopeful deadline for the story has died. :( so I'm going to try to write as much as I can before I go away to Disneyland in two weeks.