Chapter 14

Lucy had quickly gotten changed and now walked to the area Jellal had specified to be their training ground. It amazed her how much had happened yesterday! She arrived at the place and saw Jellal was already there, setting something up. It looked like some kind of person.

Hearing Lucy's footsteps, Jellal turned around facing her. He immediately thought of the moment they had shared back at the water fall but pushed the though from his mind. After all, this was his time to train Lucy and he wasn't going to waste it.

"This is a magical training device." He told her, gesturing to the cut out. "When magic is sent at it, it will activate and begin moving around. This is what we'll be training with most of the time."

Lucy nodded and took her position. Jellal activated his magic, went over and touched dummy. Immediately, it seemed to come to life and began running about, hiding and dodging. Lucy grabbed her bow, which she had with a quiver on her shoulder.

Nocking an arrow, she shot. It would have been a perfect shot had the dummy not rolled out of the way, landing on its feet. Lucy shot again with the same result.

This went on for about an hour until Lucy realised she was wasting time when she had to reach for another arrow. She picked two arrows out, knocking one and holding the other ready. Drawing back the bow, she shot, then incredibly quickly drew and shot again.

It hit the center of the dummy's chest, disabling it. Jellal smiled at her. "Good job. However, that was only the lowest setting. You've got a long way to go!" Nodding, they moved to a log to discuss the next exercise.

With Laxus and Freed…

After the two had left for testing and training, Laxus and Freed weren't quite sure what to do. Looking around the camp, Freed suddenly had an idea. Jumping to his feet, he started running into the forest.

Laxus wasn't alarmed though. His friend did this a lot after all. He'd have an idea then completely abandon everything else while he pursued it. However, he did become curious when a tree some one hundred meters away fell over. Jogging towards the location of the crash, he found Freed standing beside a large tree trunk.

"What the.." He said, his voice trailing off. Freed grinned and got Laxus to help him lift the log. Heading back towards the camp, he explained his idea. "Seeing as we don't have anything to do currently, I thought we'd build a simple cabin for us to sleep in. It'd be much more comfortable and it wouldn't take us long at all."

Laxus smiled at Freed, agreeing with his idea. They made their way back to the clearing, carrying the large log with relative ease. Sitting it down, Freed began to cut it up, fashioning planks as Laxus walked away to get more logs.

The two of the continued working like this for the rest of the day, only taking a break to have lunch. Their work payed off too, as at the end of the day, there was a large yet simple log cabin in the space their tents had occupied.

Moving everyone's belongings inside, Freed noticed a noise coming from his own bag. Frowning, he opened it to be greeted with Mira's face, looking up at him. Startled, he dropped the bag, causing a large, resounding 'thunk'

Laxus, hearing the noise came into the cabin. By this point, Freed had taken the lacrima screen out of his bag and answered Mira's call. "Oh, hey Mira." He said.

Mira smiled at him, then turned her attention back to Freed. "So, how's it going?"

Freed blushed slightly. "Nothing much has happened. Except maybe with Lucy's magic. It increased incredibly!"

Mira smiled. "And how are things going with your attempts to cour" Mira's face cut off the screen as Freed hit the end call button. Lucy and Jellal had just walked through the door, marvelling at the cabin.

"Wow" Lucy said, looking around. There were three rooms, one for Lucy, one for the three boys and a main area. "Thanks you two!"

Laxus grinned, then decided Freed really wasn't taking enough credit for the idea. "That okay Luce, it wasn't hard. You should really be thanking Freed. He was the one to think up the idea."

Lucy turned to Freed, walking over and giving him a big hug. "Thanks Freed." She whispered into his ear. "This means a lot to me!"

Freed, stunned by the blonde's hug, became a statue. He froze up, not moving at all. Lucy pulled back, concerned. But even that didn't snap him out of his moment. Laxus shrugged and suggested they all have an early night. Everyone nodded and went off into their rooms, leaving Freed standing there, still completely still!

Lucy changed into her pyjamas and hopped into her sleeping bag, turning off her lacrima crystal powered light. However, try as she might, she could not get too sleep. Eventually, she gave up and sat up, slipping out of her bag and tip-toeing out of her room and into the common area.

Looking around, she noted that Freed must have regained consciousness at some point as he had disappeared. Opening the makeshift door, she began making her way towards the waterfall. Reaching her destination, she sat on a rock, shifting around a couple of times to get comfortable. There, watching the water flow down and over the rocks, she thought about all that had happened in the last couple of days. She had lost her keys, gone to the spirit world, gained amazing powers, lost the ability to summon her silver keys, allowed an attack on Fairy Tail, been kidnapped, come back to the normal plane and begun training with three amazing guys. Such a lot has happened.

As she thought through this, she began to feel slightly drowsy. Slipping down, she fell asleep.