AN: Sorry it took so long to update. I am trying like hell to get this fic done before the New Years.
I keep running the ending through my head and I don't know exactly how to finish it. But it will be done.
Today 12/29 is the one year mark for this fic, and I'm sad that it's not already done. :(
Hope you enjoy!
Lucy POV
"Lucy! Lucy, where are you?" Rogue yelled as he stepped into the looming darkness blindly looking for me.
"I'm right here! Rogue, Rogue stop! You're going the wrong way." I yelled as I chased after him when he appeared to not have heard me and kept walking into danger. As I ran after him the distance between us seemed to grow instead of shrink.
Giving it my all I sped up, ignoring the burning in my lungs as I did so, Rogue was in danger and if I didn't get to him in time he'd die.
Hearing screams in the distance I glanced ahead of me to see where it was coming from. A light was emitting from the darkness, glowong brighter the closer I got to it.
"Rogue go towards the light!" I half demanded and half prayed that he'd do so but he didn't. The nincompoop instead headed deeper into the darkness almost to the point where I couldn't see him.
As I approached the fork in the road the screams became recognizable and turned to shouts of relief. Seeing my team strung up while they were being tortured caused me to come to a grinding halt. Forgetting Rogue for a second I took a step toward my team and then another before I felt a presence behind me just as someone whispered in my ear.
"Ah ah ahh. What about your beloved Rogue? In just a few more steps he'll be gone forever, you must choose who you save. Will it be your friends or your lover?" The woman chuckled, her presence vanishing before I could turn to see her like she did every other time I encountered her. "Times a wasting." She reminded me when I glanced down both paths.
"Lucy! Help us!" Natsu yelled. The others doing the same when they noticed I still hadn't moved since the woman disappeared.
"Lucy where are you?" I heard Rogue screaming in the distance as he searched for me, getting farther and farther away.
"Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy." Was all I could hear from Rogue and my team, the sound of my name driving me insane. "LUCY!" Falling to my knees I grabbed my head with both of my hands and tried to block out the shouts.
"Choose." The woman's voice floated in my head echoing as I continued to kneel on the ground. "Choose. Choose. Choose. Choose."
The shouts of my boyfriend, my team and the mystery woman combined and got progressively louder the longer I ignored them. "Lucy. Choose. Lucy. Choose. LUCY CHOOSE!" They all yelled as I felt the ground beneath me begin to shake.
"NO I WON'T CHOOSE!" I shouted, feeling a wave of power burst free as the darkness dissipated and the torturer and restraints disappeared from my team. Until all that surrounded us was a blinding white light. In the distance I could see Rogue staring at me with a sad smile on his lips, the same with my team.
As I felt myself waking up from the horrid nightmare the woman spoke again, but again her voice came from within my head. "Rest assured Lucy when the time comes you won't be able to wish the decision all away, you will have to choose and when you do I'll enjoy the look of anguish and loss on that pretty face of yours. Soon. Very soon Lucy Dear."
As soon as I woke up I bolted up, knocking away whoever had been shaking me as I did so. "It was just a dream." I said to myself over and over with my eyes closed and my erratic breathing slowly returning to normal. Cautiously opening my eyes I saw Natsu, Erza and Wendy sprawled on the ground by the door groaning.
"Ow Lucy, what was that for?" Natsu asked as he rubbed his head and sat up to glare at me.
"Sorry, I, I didn't mean to. I-" I stopped myself shaking my head and feeling sick to my stomach.
"It's alright Lucy, we shouldn't have tried to wake you, we were just worried when you started pulling out your hair and fighting against your sheets." Erza said getting to her feet. She wanted me to believe that everything was alright but I saw her wince when she extended her hand out to Wendy to help her up. "Not to mention when the shouting started." she said tightly against whatever pain she was feeling.
"Wendy, Erza hurt her shoulder or arm can you take a look at it please?" I asked Wendy as soon as she was on her feet, no signs of injury, thank Mavis.
Startled they both turned to me then to Erza who was blushing and looking uncomfortable probably because she didn't like it when people fussed over her or she didn't like that I had noticed her discomfort. After glancing from me to Erza again, Wendy asked her what arm and got to work when Erza reluctantly held out her arm to the girl.
"Really it's fine, I don't need to be healed." Erza protested, schooling her features so we wouldn't see any signs of pain.
"It looks like a muscle was torn a bit, so it does need healing." Wendy's tone of voice putting a stop to her inching her arms away and any more protests Erza might have.
"Oh, Erza I'm so sorry." I mumbled wanting to hide under my covers. Was this because of the surge of magic I felt in my nightmare? Did I actually do that? I thought, feeling worse because now I was a danger to those I cared about,. "Natsu! Wendy please check him next, his head-" I said pointing to Natsu who was rubbing the back of his head.
"My head is fine." He interrupted backing away from the three of us, ready to bolt if need be.
"That's a matter of opinion." Erza said glaring at Natsu. The three of us laughed at that while Natsu looked at us in mock hurt and confusion. When our laughter died down and Wendy was done with Erza, Wendy turned to Natsu, waiting for his permission. "Let her check you, we were all caught off guard... At least the two of us were." She said looking down at Wendy in question.
"I was just as surprised as the two of you, I just lessened the impact I had against the wall with a blast of air-. Oh Mavis! I should have done it for the two of you! I wasn't thinking, I'm sorry." Wendy said bowing her head as she berated herself, and hid her face from us.
With that lie Natsu and Erza dropped the subject and let Wendy inspect Natsu's head, as was the norm, Natsu somehow came away unscathed, except for the small bump on his head. Once he was given the all clear for his head Wendy checked the rest of him to be sure that he didn't have any torn muscles like Erza had. As she continued her check I stared at Wendy, confused, it was unusual for Wendy to lie to us, but when she does her voice cracks and she nervously wrings her hands just like she had been doing. I was the only one who had noticed her tell, or at least I think I was because Natsu and Erza were stilled focused on each other, bickering about the jibe, that Natsu had just gotten.
Watching as Wendy continued to fidget under my gaze and as pink dusted her cheeks I wondered how she hadn't been surprised when the rest of us were. When Natsu was done being checked out I asked for them to leave, but called Wendy back last reluctantly stopped shy of the door and turned to me with a brow raised.
"Please close the door Wendy, then come sit next to me, please." I ordered, rather than asked. If I left it up to her I knew she'd run off at the first opportunity. "How come you weren't surprised when I woke up like the other two?" I asked, adjusting myself so I faced her.
"I didn't." She muttered before breaking eye contact.
"Come on Wendy you can tell me." I cajoled, grabbing her hand to hold in mine.
"Hah, like you can tell me why I felt more power than you could possibly hold surge from you right before you woke up? Don't talk to me about lying when you've been lying to everyone. You're hiding something from us, something important." She said raising her voice with each word and ripping her hand away from mine.
"Wendy there's no need to shout. Is that what everyone is saying, that I'm hiding something?" I asked, my voice cracking in panic. Wanting to calm her down and myself I reached out for her hand again but she stood up and backed away from me before I could touch her. Wait! I thought looking at my hand and bringing it back to my body so I could hug myself. "Th-that blast of magic was real? I thought it was just in the dream..." I whispered to myself.
"Don't touch me Lucy, and no. All the others are focused on is how happy they are that you're back and what a great idea you came up with. If it were up to them they would have left by now if it weren't for the fact that Blue Pegasus' ship was away on a mission with a bunch of their members. I suspect they all have noticed a change in you no matter how slight it is, but they're all ignoring it because they know you wouldn't lie to us, at least you wouldn't have before and they don't want to upset you.
"You weren't the only one hurt during your coma, we were all in pain, from thinking we might lose you, to realizing that some of the groups were in danger or missing when they wouldn't answer their lacrima. We've done this all for you, so you think the least you could do is be truthful and tell us what is happening, not just the nice version of it either." She finished panting a bit after her tirade."Did something happen to you while you were in the spirit world?" She asked taking a step forward, anticipating my answer.
Shaking my head no as I still thought of how I had unintentionally attacked my friends. It's not right. I can't keep lying to them. I mean hiding it from Loke and the others for a few hours was so different than hiding it from my guild for a week. The guilt of keeping it a secret was eating me alive and I didn't know how much longer I could keep it up, no, I know I can't keep it up. I have to tell her, I have to tell everyone. I thought looking up and opening my mouth to find Wendy walking out of the room and closing the door harder than was necessary. Realizing that I had ignored her question and sat in silence for who knows how long I took several deep breathes and walked to the door, wanting to call her back. Reaching out to open the door I stared at in for a minute, and then two minutes, until several minutes had gone by and my arm started to burn from leaving it hanging there for so long.
"I'm sorry Wendy." I whispered, dropping my arm and head in defeat.
Turning away from the door I slowly made my way to the closet to get dressed. Grabbing a pair of black leggings and a black long sleeve shirt with pink stripes down the arms Erza had gotten me a while back after demanding I needed to train and work in something other than my skirts and tank tops. When I had looked at them skeptically not seeing how they would protect me more than my own clothes she had told me that they were spelled with a resistence to water and fire and a few other things that I don't recall, so Natsu and Gray wouldn't be able to destroy them anymore. Figuring this would the best time to wear them considering that I didnt know what powers the defending Abastors would have, I tossed them on my bed as I walked to the dresser to get the rest of my things. Standing by the bed and looking down at what I had deemed was my war clothes I undressed and then leisurely got dressed. Today was the day, the day that my plan went into motion, the day that I'd finally see Rogue after so much time apart and the beginning of the end of this whole fiasco.
As I had planned we were splitting up into two groups, the first group was heading to Blue Pegasus to ask for their help and to use their airship, while the other group headed out to meet up with Laxus, Gajeel and Gray. But what they didn't know was that I wouldn't be going with them, at least not the real me anyways. While they made the trek to meet up with our search group, Corvo and I will have already made it to the island where I needed to find the last spirit before finding Polaris' tomb. I was already behind schedule because of Blue Pegasus' poorly timed mission, but that gave me more time to get used to the power I now possessed.
Before this morning I would have said that I had it all under control, but I obviously did not. That burst of power that I had released during my nightmare was unexpected and terrifying. It just made me realize I was kidding myself to think in just a week I could learn to control so much excess power that I was stuck with for Mavis knows how long. Every other spirit had centuries to familiarize themselves with their magic but here I was expecting it to happen instantaneously. I was a fool of the worst kind, but I didn't have a choice in the matter not with everything happening.
Rea and Yukino kept asking to let them help, saying that we could summon the spirits together but I didn't want to put them in more danger than they already were in. Putting the last few Celestial Mages in the same group would be stupid, especially when we were going to infiltrate the headquarters of the people who were trying to make our brand of magic extinct outside of their cult. No it was definitely safer for them to stay away from me and each other at least until this thing was all over. If anything happened to me they were out last chance to defeat Polaris and the Abastors knew that which is why they wold be targeted above anyone else.
Standing up straight after I had laced up my boots I looked myself over in the mirror and cringed at the fact that not a single bit of skin was showing besides my hands and face. I hadn't been this covered up since the last day at my dad's and it felt weird. Shrugging off the useless thoughts I tightly tied my hair into my usual half pony tail. Nodding when I was done I slung my belt over my hips and attached my whip and keys to it and opened the door to the rowdy guild. Pausing for a second I smiled at how relaxed everyone appeared to be. They were always so confident that everything would work out for the best. I wish I could borrow some of that confidence. I thought ruefully. Every time I thought things were going our way something went wrong and I just hoped that this time would be different.
Rogue POV
After a week searching the damn compound do for the damn key to get the damn collar of Ayame we were close to giving up. Every room we had checked was a dead end or housed guards that we had to escape after nearly being caught. I guess the compound being so big had one positive and that was that there was no way the guards could constantly watch every room and floor, especially not after Sting and them had destroyed their security room controlling the lacrima cameras watching us. It was a stroke of luck that they had happened upon the room after Sting had read the directions Ayame gave them wrong.
With the security cameras down it would help us and the others when they finally decided to show up. I had talked to Laxus several times over the past week and he kept saying that a giant piece of their plan to help everyone escape after Polaris was dealt with was currently unavailable and we had to wait for the damn pretty boys to return. By pretty boys I assumed he was talking about Blue Pegasus, and groaned. That dude Ichiya creeped me out, a lot, but at least it wasn't their master we had to deal with. I didn't realize that I had stopped our rushed pace until Ayame head butted me in the stomach to get my attention. Looking at her I mumbled an apology and continued to follow her.
"Okay I know we've been over this before but when was the last time you saw the key?" I asked digging through the many drawers in the office we had just found.
"A lifetime ago. As I said before I blacked out a little after the collar was fused closed and saw Angelica give it to someone to take care of, the words that were spoken still escape me. For all I know they could have destroyed the key all of those years ago."
Before she finished speaking I slammed the draw I was looking in shut. "Damn it!" I yelled, half because of the frustration I was feeling at constantly finding nothing and half due to the finger that was now bright red, throbbing in pain from having been in the way when the draw closed. I wasn't the only one who cursed, Ayame had been so startled by my out burst I heard her head bang on something in the closet. "Think! She wouldn't have destroyed it because then you would never have been able to access your full strength if she ever convinced you to turn back to your old self. You've been with her most of her life. and under the Abastors' control for countless years, you have to have some clue where they would have stashed it, and other important shit." I growled, invading her space.
When I saw all emotion seep from her face I knew I had gone too far. It wasn't her fault, she was as much a victim of the Abastors as everyone else at this point. Taking a couple of steps back I turned my back to her and got my breathing under control.
"I'm sorry that was uncalled for." I said after I had calmed down. Facing her I continued. "I don't know how you haven't gone crazy in this place after all of these years. A week in here and I'm ready to claw my way out or die trying. I need all of this to be over, for my guild mates, for Fairy Tail, for you spirits and most certainly Lucy. I want all of us to be able to move on with our lives and not have to watch our backs every second." I finished lamely, not seeing a change in her expression. Mentally berating myself for ranting to Ayame, who had been trapped for centuries, I mumbled another apology returning to the drawers to continue my search.
Minutes went by in awkward silence as we continued our search of the office. Right as we closed the last of our respective drawers several loud noises came from the hallway. Glancing at each other for a second we raced to the door and opened it to see the doorway blocked by mages that had a weapon in one hand and their powers coming from the other. Within seconds of opening the door magic bombarded the door forcing us to close and lock it. Surprisingly the door held under all of the attacks and just shook. Not once did the attacks let up during the five minutes that passed before an audible crack echoed through the room indicating that the door wouldn't last forever. Clearly Ayame and I were on the same page because without a word to each other we began dragging the furniture to the door, effectively barricading ourselves in.
"They stopped." I said straining to hear what was being said in the hallway. Hearing the rattle of keys and then the lock, unlocking I backed up from the door and looked at Ayame.
"I put the chair underneath the door handle, the keys won't help them much we still have time. They're not trying to kill us anyways, they've most likely been ordered to hold us here until Angelica or one of her generals gets here." Ayame said gruffly, looking at the now bare room with a thoughtful look.
"There's something wrong with this room." She whispered. Watching her walk from wall to wall I heard her counting to herself, shaking her head when she reached the end of one wall and the beginning of the next. "Rogue come here." She demanded, not even bothering to look at me.
"What is it?" I asked once I was standing beside her, trying to follow her gaze to whatever she was looking at.
"The room is too small. I had thought as much when we first got here but chalked it up as too much furniture, but now that it's opened up I can definitely tell." She said tilting her head.
"Too small for what, exactly?"
"About fifty years back, this place was renovated to create more rooms for the new followers and their families. This entire floor should have six rooms that are twice this size. The other rooms were, but this one is missing the space, and since none of the other rooms were larger than the others it's safe to assume that someone is hiding the extra space." She said.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST STANDING AROUND?!" Was suddenly screeched from the hallway. "Get that door open! Now if you value your worthless lives!" Angelica demanded, right before we heard the crack of a whip and one of the mages shout in pain.
"Ayame, is it possible this is her office?" I asked keeping one eye on the door and the other on the bear.
"I...I guess, I've only been allowed to follow her when she wanted me to, the rest of the time I was locked away in a cage that I barely fit in." She said, not stopping her inspection of the wall.
"DAMN IT! Where is that useless oaf that was supposed to be watching my door?! Julien, somebody find that idiot." She yelled. When all sounds of attacks ceased we heard another high pitched wail. "It only takes one of you to find him! Get back to work!"
Cringing as another one of the mages got whipped, I briefly felt bad for them.
"Find anything?" I asked.
"Right there. Does that bit of carving look different than the rest?" She asked pointing towards the a section of the carved mural. When I didn't respond right away she sighed and pointed to where I was looking.
"This mural begins when the King banished Polaris and her six celestial lackeys. The six of us were sent to various corners of Earthland, stipped of most of our powers and locked to the place we landed until some mage came and found our keys. It took many years for someone to find my key in the desert, void of the trees I loved and any and all color. So when a Celestial Mage asked to make a contract with me I said yes without thinking and soon we began traveling to all around, collecting other keys including Elle's and Corvo's. At the time we were just happy to have gotten out of our isolation and semi-reunited with each other. But then when we were brought here we knew that our worst nightmare hadn't ended." When Ayame didn't continue with the story I looked past where she had stopped and saw Polaris' prison at the end shattering.
"Does that mean she escapes or is destroyed?" I asked, not likely the uncertainty of the mural.
"It depends on who you ask, but no one knows for certain." She said shaking her head.
Gulping I dragged my eyes away from the unfinished story and looked at the corner where Ayame had pointed. At first glance it looked to go with the mural perfectly, but when I compared it to the other carved crescent moons I could tell that it was more defined than the rest. Gabbing one of the chairs that had been untouched by our barricade I set it against the wall and stood on it. Reaching up I twisted the moon until it was upside down, hoping for the best. With the all of the noise coming from the hallway I almost missed the click of a clock being released. Glancing in the direction of the sound I saw doorway swing open as lacrimas lit up the hidden room.
Making our way to the room we opened the door all of the way and looked for any signs of traps, seeing none we walked in.
Rows upon rows of shelves ran down the length of two of the three walls, all of them holding glass cases that housed hundreds of broken celestial keys. "All of these spirits... I helped her do this. I killed them all." She whispered in horror, having pushed me aside so she could look at the keys.
"No you've been trapped here, forced to bend to her will. This is all on everyone who has willingly followed Polaris' depraved ways." I said putting a comforting hand on her back only to have it shrugged away when she started tearing the boxes that were on the ground to pieces, taking her anger out on them and looking for the key to her collar at the same time. Underneath the lowest row of shelves there were dozens of boxes that Ayame started tearing open with both her claws and teeth. When she didn't find what she was looking for in the boxes she started on the safe that took up the remaining wall. With a roar that shook the walls she attacked the locking mechanism on the safe until there was nothing but a gaping hole. When the door didn't open after that she attacked tore off the hinges with her teeth and spat them out, before she pried the door open.
It was hard to see what the safe held when Ayame began her mad search, but when all noise from her stopped I held my breath waiting to find out if she had found it or not. She was silent for what seemed like the longest time before a flash of light filled the safe and tendrils of it escaped, forcing me to advert my eyes or be blinded. When the light began fading I cautiously turned to see what had happened. Expecting to see the massive bear I had grown to care about I was surprised to see a woman standing there surrounded in a fading golden light.
"Ayame?" I called out, causing the woman to whip her thigh length brown hair over her shoulder as she turned to face me. Hesitantly she nodded, her forest green eyes wide in excitement as she turned her hands over and checked herself over.
"I'm free!" She whispered.
Her joy was short lived however when the sound of furniture hitting the ground echoed through the room.
AN: Thank you everyone who is still hanging on and reading my fic. I really appreciate it!
Let me know what you thought. Please and Thank you!