AN: Hey guys, I completely forgot to tell you in the last chapter that I will be changing the day that I update this fic from Sundays to Wednesday/Thursdays. My schedule at work changed so this works out better for me.
Thanks for putting up with me the last month, I promise I am trying my hardest to get a chapter out every week. Love you all!
Enjoy.
Rea POV
"Urggg I can't wait until Lucy wakes up and I can give you back to her!" I said rather loudly as I walked into the guild from the training yard. Seeing several faces turn my way to look at me strangely I slouched and mumbled an apology as I walked up to the bar.
Ow ow ow, ow ow ow.
I wanted to groan out loud with each step I took but I knew that if I did it would give Capricorn an opening to start talking about how out of shape I was, and that was something I wanted to avoid like the plague.
Biting my bottom lip I held in a moan of pain as I hopped onto one of the bar stools. Leaning my head on the counter I turned to look at Yukino as she followed suit, except with less struggle. When she just smirked at me and shrugged I wanted to knock her off of her stool, but I didn't have the energy so I settled with mouthing 'I hate you' at her over and over until Mira arrived to take our orders.
"Hey girls, Capricorn, how was this morning's training session?" Mira asked with fake cheeriness but her eyes showed nothing except sadness; like everyone else.
Ever since Lucy's accident and resulting coma everyone had been extremely morose; definitely not the guild I had heard stories about. Who knew that one person could impact so many lives, it was amazing really and made me wish I had had more time to get to know Lucy before. What was even more amazing was that wven though it was my ball of energy that had hit her, no one blamed me; they didn't even blame Droy who was supposed to have been watching Asuka. They all were nice to me and made sure I was cared for, everyone except Levy... But then again I think her hostile attitude towards me had more to do with the fact that when Lucy's lawyer had come buy to read her will everyone had been shocked. Shocked, because she had one, and more shocked because Lucy had made me her sole beneficiary.
I know Lucy and I had talked about her giving me her keys in the event of death but everything? It was insane! She had just met me when she set this all up! Sure it was on a temporary basis until...well until she died; hopefully she didn't and a cure could be found soon, but imagine the debt I could accumulate or trouble I could get into if I had turned out to be a delinquent. Luckily for her I wasn't, and I refused to use anything of hers beside her keys.
That's when the outward hostility started. The moment I had entered the guild with Lucy's keys on my belt Levy went ballistic and began crying and demanding I take them off. Gajeel had had to restrain her and confine her to one of the offices until she had calmed down. Reluctantly she apologized later saying that seeing me with Lucy's keys made it seem too final, and real. After that things had been tense between us, when I was in the same room as her I could feel her eyes following me around the guild, boring a hole into my hip and back.
So in a way I was glad when Capricorn had demanded I begin my 'real' training, instead of messing around with Yukino. Training with her was completely different than training with Capricorn. Where Yukino was surprisingly encouraging, and let me set my own pace, Capricorn demanded I give a hundred and ten percent and push myself into exhaustion. Sure he was encouraging but he always reminded me of what I needed to accomplish in a short amount of time, and the consequences if I wasn't able to succeed.
After three grueling weeks of physical and magically training I felt like I could take on Erza... although I know I would be flattened by her within minutes, no seconds. I was stronger than I had been before, I was now able to call out my two spirits at the same time, and hold their gates open for a few hours but I was still struggling to hold open one of the Zodiac gates.
The drain on my magic had been astounding when I had first tried to call out Virgo; way more than it took to summon two of the silver keys. That first attempt had knocked me down a peg or two, but I had eventually gotten used to it, and was now trying to summon a second Zodiac before I moved on to one of the Jeweled keys. Realizing what it took to summon the Zodiacs I now looked at Yukino and Lucy, and even my mom with more awe.
"Rea, Rea snap out of it." Yukino said before slapping a hand on my shoulder and shacking me.
Groaning I glared at the offending hand and sat up. "Whaaat?" I whined.
"Mira tried to get your order several times, but when you didn't answer Capricorn ordered for you." Yukino laughed as I stared at her in horror.
"Why didn't you get my attention earlier?!" I yelled, banging my head onto the counter, adding another body part to the long list of ones that ached. "Great now I'll have nothing for lunch except for a chicken salad and one of those awful green smoothies he demands Mira make." At the thought of the smoothie I literally felt like crying, they were so nasty but Capricorn said that the vegetables used for it were from the Spirit World and would help me expand my magic faster.
"Haha, chill. Capricorn got distracted with Asuka, and I ordered you a nice juicy steak with all of the trimmings and a berry shake." She said turning around on her stool so she was facing the guild and leaning back on the counter.
"You're evil." I mumbled in relief. "Lisanna have you seen Wendy or Chelia today?" Instantly Yukino's cheerfulness faded at the mention of the two healers and she looked over her shoulder waiting for the answer.
"Wendy was down here earlier for a few minutes but then Chelia needed her. I don't know how much more those two can take, they hardly have time to take care of themselves!" Lisanna said looking up the stairs.
"Everything will be fine we still have three of the groups out there, they are bound to find something soon, right?" I said optimistically, but inside I was anything but, we hadn't heard from one of the teams and the other two were still checking out their locations without any luck.
"Yeah you're right, it's just hard having nothing I can do to help. We're just sitting here waiting for the next attack, it's frustrating."
At the mention of an attack the distant sounds of shouts penetrated the guild walls and doors. In an instant we were all up and running outside to see what was causing the ruckus. Stepping outside I instantly noticed the huge red and orange bird that was circling the town just barely missing the tops of the buildings with it's wings. "What the hel- heck is that?" I corrected myself when Capricorn cleared his throat.
"That my dear is Phoenix, he is one of the Jeweled spirits we've been looking for." Carpricorn answered looking happier than I had ever seen him as he walked towards the bird that looked like it would swallow him whole when it spotted him.
"Umm... I don't think you should be walking towards him, we don't know why he's here." I said weakly, following after him when he showed no signs of slowing down. Lucy you need to snap out of that coma of yours and take your meddling spirits back. I thought, tired of the constant interruptions, nagging and recklessness of her spirits.
Flying directly above us Phoenix let out a loud screech before descending to the road in front of us. As he got closer a red haze appeared and warmed up the area surrounding us before a man stepped through it and charged at my temporary spirit. I was about to intercept the attack but stopped myself when Capricorn walked past me to meet him head on. Instead of an attack they embraced, thumping each other on the back.
"We're back!" Was shouted from within the haze before Natsu, Laxus, Cana and Happy appeared. With mumbled greetings everyone backed away from Natsu as he came charging towards the guild. "We found the c- Capricorn! You're here, awesome. Where's Lucy?" The pinkette said whipping his head back and forth examining the guild. Taking his girlfriend in his arms he gave her a distracted hug and kiss as he continued to look for Lucy. "Hey Lis, where's Lucy? How did you guys cure the poison?"
"Uh Natsu there's something I have to tell you." Lisanna said cautiously, dragging him into the guild with Happy in tow. No one moved to follow them, instead we all decided that it would be safer to wait outside while Lisanna caught Natsu up on everything that had happened since he left five weeks ago.
From the corner of my eye I saw Mira place a restraining hand on Elfman's arm when he moved to follow them and shake her head when he opened his mouth to protest. Right now the only person capable of calming Natsu down was with him right now and no one else need be in there when he learned that Lucy wasn't doing well.
Natsu POV
"Lis? Can't this wait until after I check on Lucy?" I whined, looking around the guild for my missing best friend.
"You can see her in a minute, but sit first." She said pushing me down onto the nearest bench as she continued to stand and then began to pace as she wrung her hands. "While you were gone there was an accident -"
"An accident? Did you get hurt?" I asked jumping out of my seat and snatching one of her hands as she passed by for the billionth time to hold her in front of me so I could check on her. As I looked for any injuries Happy did his own assessment of her and landed on my head when he found nothing wrong with her.
"No, I'm fine I wasn't in the accident... uh Rea and... Argh! You know what there is no easy way to say this so i'm gona just blurt it out." She said looking me dead in the eye as she pushed me back into my seat and began pacing again after yanking her hand free from mine. "Lucy is the one who got hurt in the training accident the week after you left and has been in a coma ever since." Lis blurted out in a rush, quickly taking my hands in hers to offer what comfort she could.
Lucy...Hurt...Coma. Those were the only words that registered in my mind as I stared.
"Coma?" Happy said just as shocked as me, right before he fell into mine and Lisanna's arms.
"How could this happen, she wasn't supposed to be training, she was supposed to be resting! Why hasn't Wendy woken her up yet?" I yelled as I yanked my hands away from Lisanna's hold on them and surged to my feet ready to charge up the stairs to check on Lucy. But when I moved Lisanna did so too, blocking my path. By the way her lips were moving I knew she was trying to talk to me but I heard none of it. Frustrated with her continual blocking I threw her over my shoulder and took her with me as I climbed the stairs and burst through the door to Lucy's room.
Once I got into the room I paused and took in Lucy lying on the bed that looked entirely too big for her. She looked so different from when I had last seen her, like someone else entirely. Where her hair was once a shiny gold it was now dull and looked light brown. Her skin, once a bit tan from all of her time in the sun had a gray tinge to it. But the worst part of it all was seeing how skinny she had gotten, the feeding tubes may have been providing her with the nutrients she needed but it sure as hell wasn't helping her stay at a healthy weight. She was rail thin, with her arms looking like I could snap them in half with one touch.
Walking slowly towards her, I fell to my knees by her side and gingerly touched her hand with mine, but jerked it back when I felt the bone clearly through her skin. "Lucy..." I whispered, again shocked. When I heard footsteps approach I whipped my head around and growled.
"Natsu stop it!" Wendy scolded as she got closer. With each step she took the smell of her sadness, hurt and anger registered in my mind and when she spoke again I found out why. "Don't you think I would have woken her up if I could? I have spent every day since I got back by her side, trying everything I could to help her, keeping her alive so you could have time to look for the cure."
"Wend-"
"No! You have no right to berate me for something I physically cannot do. I know you're worried about her, but you're not the only one, everyone here has had to deal with the pain of knowing there was nothing we could do to help her, and we decided to spare you that pain so you could focus on finding a cure. So you can't be mad that we didn't tell you."
"The cure!" I yelled, jumping to my feet and smacking my head with my palm, forgetting my earlier anger at everyone for hiding the truth about Lucy from me. "We found it, him. I forgot to say something when I saw Capricorn outside! Wait here." I shouted before racing back outside. Ignoring the way everyone shied away from me I ran towards Nick and grabbed his arm. "Come on you have to see Lucy now." I demanded, not waiting for consent before I hauled him into the guild and up the stairs. Shoving the spirit into the room before me and to the end of Lucy's bed I demanded he heal her.
With barely a glance at her, Nick bowed his head and said the one word I didn't want to hear. "No."
"What do you mean no? We had a deal! You said that you could heal her if she was still alive!" I yelled, angry about the delay.
"No, I said I wouldn't make a decision until I saw her, and determined if she was worth saving. Well I've seen her and I've decided not to heal her." He said, his eyes showing how sorry he was even though he was crushing my hope of Lucy being cured.
"How can you do that? How can you determine if she deserves to be saved by just a glance?" Lisanna asked walking up to my side with her arms protectively wrapped around her middle and leaning her head on my shoulder for support.
"You can't, you can't just take away our only chance of saving her. Not without a good reason, but there is no good reason. She is the most loyal, trustworthy, kind and gracious mage out there. She's my honorary sister, my best friend, my family. You can't just let her die." Levy said, pushing the door open to reveal the whole guild waiting outside of the room.
"I don't make this choice lightly -"
"You sure as hell said no easy enough." Gajeel sneered, standing behind Levy and supporting her as she leaned on him.
There was a chorus of protests from the guild that stood just beyond the door, some in anger and most in disbelief. Nick ignored them all as he tried to exit the room, but we wouldn't let him, essentially trapping him. The protests died down as someone shoved through the crowd and burst into the room with a annoyed huff. Capricorn took one look at the situation, walked up to Nick to grab a hold of him and vanished.
"Capricorn! Bring him back!" I demanded into thin air, somehow expecting him to hear me. Looking around the room for Rea I spotted her and stalked towards her. "Bring him back right now, I know you summoned him."
"I...I can't. I just tried but he's not answering my calls." She stuttered.
"Argh! Where's Corvo?!" I asked no one in particular.
"He disappeared! So did Amie. Her wolves said that she left orders to remain alert and around the guild until she returns." Master said from his position on the balcony of the second floor. "Rea have you tried any of the other spirits?"
"No... hold on." She said, pulling key after key off of Lucy's ring, trying to call out anyone of the spirits with no luck."I... I don't understand! Even my silver keys aren't responding, this has never happened before." She mumbled staring at the keys in her hand in confusion.
Leaving her to continue to try summoning the spirits I found Wendy in the overly crowded room hopping onto the table. With a ear-splitting whistle she got everyone's attention. "Everyone needs to leave this room immediately!" She yelled, looking frazzled.
Doing as she said everyone left, but continued to talk about the abandonment of the Celestial spirits and how they were supposed to save Lucy now. As everyone left I remained by Lucy's side. "Wendy, I didn't mean to blame you. I know you've tried everything you could... it's just-"
"I know Natsu, I miss her too." She said giving my hand and squeeze and sitting down next to me.
An: So I did plan on adding more to this chapter but Rogue's POV wasn't cooperating. :/
Hope you all liked it anyways!
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Alaina Kuski: I know! They've had nothing but rotten luck.
Adabs17: I'm glad you love it. I'm trying but I keep having problems with my internet and have manifested a social life recently.
artificialartofficial: Thats alright. :) Yes Ayame is a she and I'm glad you got a good laugh before you had to return to homework!
Amethyst The Purple Dragon: Thanks! I almost didn't post this fic because I didn't like the summaries I came up with but then I just said screw it and used one of the ones I made up. :)