Erza and Laxus had gone off shift. Juvia and Gajeel had just gotten up to take over. The sun was slipping over the horizon.
"Something doesn't feel right," Gajeel said under his breath.
"The shadows are dancing far too much," Juvia whispered back, "I don't like it."
Gajeel nodded, watching carefully.
"Do you smell them?" Juvia asked.
"I've smelled nothing but demon shit for days," Gajeel scoffed.
Juvia nodded, "Paranoia is setting in. We know it's coming, just not when."
Gajeel sniffed the air again, tensing up, "I think sooner than later."
She placed a hand on his wrist, listening with him. The forest had gone quiet. Absolutely, completely, and totally quiet. They looked at each other as they both heard the slight movement above the trees.
"SHIT!" Juvia spat.
"Incoming!" Gajeel yelled, rousing the others from their sleep. He was attacking before the others had even raised their heads, slashing demons with an iron spear he'd formed in his hands.
Juvia rose a water barrier to give the others time to react and she too jumped into action.
"Sons of bitches!" Natsu sprang from his cold, hard bed, leaving Lucy where she was and lit his hands up, "Why don't you all just FUCK OFF AND LEAVE US ALONE?"
Gray and Laxus were back to back, dealing out blows.
Lucy backed up to a tree, watching as her friends gave their all...again. She was pulling out her whip when she heard the whisper.
"Celestial Mage...you can stop this. Your friends don't have to die."
Lucy was entranced, anxiously looking everywhere around her for the mystery voice.
"And they WILL die, Celestial Mage...unless you do what you know is right."
Levy scripted CRUSH above 3 demons in front of her, effectively smashing them to pieces. She whirled on her heel to go the other way, only to be smacked in the head by an ugly, fat demon. He grabbed both her arms, drool dripping from his mouth as he leaned in to bite her.
"NOOOO!" Lucy screamed, whipping around his neck. She pulled back, whacking the demon into a tree.
Levy nodded her thanks, skipping off to her next opponent.
"They'll all die," the voice whispered, "It must be hard...always being the damsel in distress. Always making everyone come after you to save you."
"My friends love me!" Lucy yelled back, whipping out 2 more demons before transforming into her Leo Star Dress, "And I am NOT WEAK! I WILL PROTECT MY FRIENDS!"
She whirled around, using Regulus to kill another 4 or 5 demons.
The voice tried again. Her self-confidence was not as low as he'd thought. "Do you love the pink haired former demon? He was one of us, you know."
"SHUT UP!" She yelled, dragging her whip around 2 demon bodies and vaporizing them with Regulus.
"He says he loves you, but he's lying. You know that, right? He loves all girls. Especially...what's her name? Lisanna?"
Lucy cringed, finishing off another demon, "That's not true!" she screamed, viciously attacking another group approaching her.
The demon voice smiled. He was distracting her enough that she hadn't realized that she slowly drifted away from the other fighters. He had her just where he wanted her.
Coming out from the shadows, he whispered to her again as he approached her. Her head was dizzy now with the spoken suggestions, even though she knew they weren't true.
"He fucked you because he wanted your body, not you. Actually, he didn't even want your body...you were just...there. There for the taking like the lying slut you are. He doesn't love you. How could he love a girl like you? Awkward. Temperamental. Pathetic."
"You're a liar! Where are you, you bastard?" she turned around, demons creeping on her from every side, "Show yourself!"
"What's the matter, Lucy? Don't like what I'm saying? Let's try a different angle, shall we? I can fuck you too. I can make you forget every memory you have of him. You can be mine."
Lucy screamed, her voice shattering the air, "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
She didn't see the demon Antoine himself drop from the tree above her, effectively knocking her out.
"I don't see Lucy!" Gray realized in a panic.
They'd been fighting for almost an hour. Everyone was getting tired, but the demons kept coming.
"What?" Laxus yelled back, searching the grounds, "Where could she have gone?"
"Natsu!" Gajeel yelled, "Where in the hell is Lucy?"
Natsu lit a demon on fire, desperately searching his mate out, but not finding her.
"I saw her last about a half hour ago," Levy put in, scripting BOULDER above a group of demons.
"SHIT!" Natsu yelled, "We've gotta find her!"
"Is the backpack still hidden?" Erza called out, slicing wildly, but extremely effectively.
Juvia nodded, "I can still see it. It's safe."
They'd hidden the backpack in a tree and Levy had used a combination of rune magic and script magic to cloak it.
"She's this way!" Natsu yelled, sniffing the air, "I have to go after her!"
"We got this," Gray backed up again Gajeel and the two of them resumed kicking ass together.
Suddenly, the lower level demons stopped where they were, all seemingly listening.
Erza took the opportunity to kill as many as she could while they were stopped. There were still hundreds...and for every hundred they seemed to kill, another two hundred seemed to replace them.
The smaller demons screeched, then scampered away.
"Mavis," Levy said under her breath.
Erza and Gray both knew what this meant. The big demons were on their way.
There were 3 demons, each with two heads and large, curled horns. Their skin was a pasty green colour, adorned with sores and pussy wounds. Their eyes were dark yellow. Each foot had talons that if measured would likely be around 6 inches.
"These guys are UGLY!" Gajeel exclaimed.
The Demons 3 did not engage their enemy. They simply emptied their mouths of the breath they held. All non-demons on the battle field collapsed with the heat-like blast, their bodies writhing as they burned.
"Oh! Ms. Hearfilia!" Duke Antoine cackled as Lucy's eyes opened slowly. He was in his human form...the first form she'd seem him in. Beside him, the weird old butler from the house was jumping around excitedly, "How good of you to join us again!"
Lucy's head hurt as she glanced around her surroundings. It looked like a dungeon. She was chained to the walls with heavy cuffs. The stench was unlike anything she'd ever smelled before. Rotting flesh. She glared as she watched a trail of what looked like blood crawled across the floor. She noticed the multitude of bruises over her body and grunted in pain.
"Yes, that IS blood!" he laughed maniacally, following her eyes to the blood trail, "Want to know who's? I'll tell you all in good time. Welcome to my home. OUR home."
She spat at him, "This will never be my home."
"Oh, but it will! You see, you're going to come with me back to the forest and help me get that egg down from the tree. Then we're going to come back here and you're going to open it for me. Then, we will live together in bliss. Myself, Lady Atria, and you."
"Like hell we will!" Lucy gritted her teeth.
"We will," Antoine said confidently.
"And why the hell would you think I'll agree to that?"
He laughed again, sending chills down her body. He slowly turned the wall ahead of her around. She did a double take, suddenly realizing it wasn't a wall at all, but a partition. She saw the blood first, then slowly allowed her eyes to look upward as she saw her precious Natsu tacked to the partition wall. He was bound to the wall the same way she was. His eyes were swollen shut, his head hung down to his chest. Massive wounds were all over his body. Burns even. Lucy shook her head. That was impossible. Natsu couldn't be burned.
"Look what you did to him," Antoine taunted, "I told you I'd leave them alone if you would just surrender to me. You brought this on them. It's your fault...again."
She shrieked, her anger pulling at every corner of her being, "YOU BASTARD!"
"You're a tough cookie," Antoine told her, leaning into her face so their lips were millimeters apart, "You're a lot more confident than I thought you were and I needed to find other 'tactics' to get through to you. It seems someone's self-confidence is better these days than when I last did my research on you," he paused, licking up her face with a maggot-infested tongue. She writhed against the chains in utter disgust, wishing she could get the chain around his neck enough to choke him to death, "And here I thought that white-haired dame we possessed did such a good job."
He laughed, walking over to Natsu, "I will enjoy your body later. But I can go both ways. Your dragon slayer is delicious looking," he ran a finger down Natsu's torso, licking the blood off his own finger with his tongue.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!" Lucy screamed, fighting the urge to throw up.
Antoine dropped his hand,"Okay then, Ms. Heartfilia. It seems you understand what's at stake."
He walked back up to her, running a hand down her cheek lightly, "Take me to the egg," he told her sternly, "Retrieve it for me and I will release one of your friends. Any one you pick!"
"You have them all?" she gasped.
He hit a button. Suddenly, the floor dropped out and they were in an enormous hall. All of her friends were strung up, heads to their chests, and all beaten to a bloody pulp.
"Let them go!" she begged, "I'll...stay with you if they can all go."
"YOU'LL STAY ANYWAY!" Antoine thundered. For the first time since being in the dungeon, Lucy was truly scared. There was a murderous tone to his face, "You rotten bitch! I said ONE. Pick ONE. And only after you've retrieved the egg for me," he stalked up her again, pressing his body fully against hers and licking her cheek. She actually puked this time, right down his torso.
"Understand, Heartfilia bitch...if you cross me in any way while we're going to get the egg, they will all die. Every last one of them. And as for your guild...or what's left of it...well, let's face it...they're toast anyway."
He turned to his butler lackey, "Get her down!" he ordered.