Ay back on that Monday grind. You guys already know.
Enjoy!
Needless to say, Drake wasn't a very good handler of young children. Although given the situation, it was probably best he did have Luke in hand. He did his best to keep the child calm as both parents silently collapsed to their knees, staring at their daughter, alive and well, standing in front of them as though nothing had ever happened.
"H-How is this possible?" Lucy managed to croak out, voice breaking with emotion. "Y-You're dead..."
"I've been getting that a lot recently," Luna replied with a frown, looking over at Drake. For a moment longer, neither Natsu or Lucy said a word. Drake didn't expect them too, they were probably in shock. However, after a few more seconds, it seemed the two became more grounded.
And surged forth to hug Luna together, causing the girl to cry out in surprise. Drake didn't count how long the pair hugged their daughter tightly, but he knew it was a while.
"I can't believe it..." Natsu managed, voice hoarse. "Y-You...You're really here...You smell the same too!" Lucy backed up and cupped Luna's face in her hands, squishing the girls cheeks slightly. This only made Lucy smile like a madwoman.
"You're here." She said. "You're really here!"
"Well, kind of." Luna replied as she raised a hand to her mothers to lower it from her face. "You seem to have forgotten I don't know either of you."
And with that, the reality of the situation came crashing down on the parents once again. Both turned to cast a Drake a look, and he shrugged.
"What?" He asked. Natsu stared at him for a moment before he managed a weak smile.
"You're gonna have to explain yourself at some point, kid." he said. "But I'll overlook it for now."
"Do you really not remember anything?" Lucy asked, seeming upset now. "At all?" Luna shook her head.
"As far as my own memories show, I've never met either of you before." She said, making Lucy frown and look at her feet. "That being said, my brain seems to react to the familiarity around here." Drake made a face at this.
"What do you mean?" He asked. Luna shrugged and buried her mouth into the scarf.
"This scarf," she said. "My old room. The things you guys claim are mine give off this nostalgic familiar vibe. Like I'm supposed to know about it but don't, you know?"
"Like you forgot?" Lucy asked, Luna nodding.
"Yeah." she said. "Like I forgot."
"We were thinking we could call Mest from the Magic Council and see if he could help," Simon said, speaking up. "See if he would be able to crack her head open and help us."
"Not literally," Drake said as Luna looked a little nervous.
"If we tell him what's going on, he could be here in a few hours." Steph said. "He'd waste no time at all." Both Natsu and Lucy looked over at each other, taking a moment before nodding.
"I agree," Natsu said, face going from upset and happy to determined. "I'll call him down, give him the news." As he moved to the phone on the house, Lucy's face lit up.
"I got it!" she said. She ran from the room before anyone could say anything, leaving them all in suspense. As Natsu waited for Mest to pick up, Lucy ran back into the room carrying what looked like a photo album.
"What's that?" Luna asked as she was dragged to the couch and sat down next to her mother.
"It's a photo album silly!" She said. "Of you!" With this Lucy opened it and began to flip through pictures. The first photo was Nashi as an infant, barely old enough to be recognisable. Th next significant photo was that of Nashi as a young child, and Luna's eyes widened up.
"That's me," she breathed slowly. Lucy nodded with a teary smile as she looked over at her daughter.
"Yeah," she replied, choking up again. "It is." Luna slowly took the album from Lucy and began to flip all on her own, looking bewildered as she flipped through the pages. Lucy wrapped an arm around her and brought her close, an action Luna leaned into. Drake couldn't recall Lucy looking so happy in the last year.
"Finally Mest, you prick." Natsu said from the phone, making Drake look over at him. "What's with putting me on hold, huh?...Oh yeah right it's your 'secretary' doing it, uh huh... Alright shut up and listen! This is big news! Nashi's alive!"
The silence that followed was probably on both ends of the conversation.
"No I haven't lost my mind!" Natsu shouted. "She's right here in my living room! Nashi, say hi to Mest!" Issuing his command, Natsu brandished the phone at his surprised daughter, who had still been browsing the photo album.
"Uh, hey Mest." she said. Drake didn't need his sound magic to hear Mest's surprised shouting on the other end. Natsu brought the phone back to his ear and smiled widely.
"Hear that man?!" Natsu asked. "But listen, she doesn't remember anything about who she is, at all. Do you think you could hurry back and help us with this? At all?...Really?! Ah Mest, you're the fucking best! Thanks man!" Natsu hung up the phone and turned to everyone with a triumphant smile. "Mest'll be here in a few hours!"
"He's quick," Lucy said, hand on Luna's head as the girl continued to browse the album. "I expected it but still." Natsu nodded and moved to sit down on the couch as well, also, putting an arm around Luna. Drake was happy that the girl didn't seem to be upset by this motion of affection, leaning into her father as oppose to pushing him away.
"Now," Natsu said. "Care to explain what the hell happened while you were out, Drake?" Drake laughed awkwardly as all eyes shifted to him.
"It's a long story."
"We do have a few hours," Steph reminded him. Drake sighed.
"Yeah, I suppose so." He said. "Well...
After finishing his story, Drake looked exhausted and Natsu and Lucy looked surprised. The story was nothing Damien himself wasn't aware of; Drake heard her coffin was empty, thought he was going crazy. Kept it to himself for a while until he learned from Damien that someone had been brought back from the dead by the Demon Lords. Jellal scanned the scarf, going to Bosco, boom. Story over.
All in all, maybe half an hour had passed.
"Wow..." Lucy said, having taken Luke back from Drake at the start of the story. "So when I found you in the graveyard a while back...That's when you knew?" Drake rubbed the back of neck sheepishly at this.
"Yeah, I suppose so." he said. "Sorry, I thought I was losing my mind back then. Seeing and hearing shit."
"More than understandable," Natsu said, Luna still leaning into him. The two parents had since calmed down a bit, but their crazy smiles hadn't gone anywhere. "I would too."
"We should go to the guild hall." Simon suggested. "If familiarity helps her feel more comfortable, the guild hall should be create a lot."
"I forgot we were in a guild," Luna said. "I mean I know you guys told me but it's been a hectic few days."
"Do you want to go and see everyone else?" Natsu asked, looking down at her. Luna seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding.
"Yeah, let's go!" Smiling at the new (old?) spring in Luna's step, Damien got up with everyone else and left the Dragneel residence, walking down the street towards the guild hall. Luna tried to hid by putting her hood up, but that didn't stop passerby who got to close from recognising her. They paraded her through the snowy city, stopping to talk with anyone who caught sight of them in surprise.
"Do you think we should mention it?" Damien looked over at Bella as she said this. The blonde seemed to be concerned.
"What's that?" He asked.
"The prophecy from Meridia," she said, looking over at him and meeting his eyes. "Drake didn't mention it." Come to think of it, she was right. Drake knew about the prophecy from Meridia, but he didn't say anything about it to Natsu or Lucy. Granted, Damien wouldn't want to spoil the mood either.
"Not right now," Damien replied. "It's not time. We'll do it once everyone is settled in and we have a game plan. Doing it now would just spark confusion and worry when we should be happy and celebrating, you know?" Bella didn't seem to pleased at this.
"Every day we wait is another day of preparation gone," she warned. "We don't know when this is happening, much less what." Damien knew that full well, but it again looped back to his own point. They didn't know who the prophecy talked about, what they were going to do or what was going to happen. Bringing that up now without helping Nashi first would only serve to worsen an already strange situation. It needed time.
"Trust me, we won't wait long." He said. "We just need to tackle one thing at a time or we'll get swamped and won't be able to handle anything. What would we do then?" Bella sighed at this as they approached the guild hall, Luna awing in it's size.
"I suppose you're right," she said. "I just can;t shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen."
"It'll be fine," Damien replied as he took her hand and squeezed it. "We'll handle it, after we handle this." Before Bella could say anything to reply, Natsu kicked the guilds door open, allowing a rush of warm air to mix with the snowy wind outside. The group of ten entered the guild hall, and were greeted by stares by pretty much everyone inside.
"Damien?" Damien looked over to the counter to see his mother had called his name. He cast her a warm smile to push away the uncertainty he felt inside.
"Hey Mom," he said. "It's been a while. How are ya?" After a few seconds, friends and family alike, noticed that Damien and Ultear had both returned, sparking a friendly greeting to goth of them for their return. It didn't last long though.
"Wait a minute!" Damien looked over to find it was none other that Rocky who had silenced the guilds rampant talking. "Who is that with you guys?" Damien figured it would happen sooner or later, but he hadn't expected Rocky of all people to call it out. Looking over, he watched as Luna took a deep breath and flipped her hood up, revealing her face to the entire guild.
Damien didn't ever recall the guild being this quiet in his entire life. No one spoke a word, no one lifted their mug, nothing. You could have heard a pin hit the ground in the basement.
"Natsu..." It was Gray who spoke up first. "...Is that...?" Natsu nodded and slapped Luna on the back, making her stumble forward in surprise.
"You bet it is!" He proclaimed proudly. "Nashi's home everybody!"
It took another moment of silence before the entire guild surged forward in an excited and overwhelmingly positive frenzy. Before anyone could do anything, Drake stepped in front of everyone and excreted a wall of poison from his mouth, stopping everyone in their tracks.
"Drake what the hell are you doing?!" Damien's father demanded, looking quite upset and happy at the same time. "Let us past!"
"Can't do that," Drake replied. "Y'all didn't here the bad news." At this, the guild went silent once more. Drake looked back at Nashi expectantly, making the girl take another deep breath.
"Uh, hello everyone." She greeted awkwardly. "My name is Luna. Or Nashi, I suppose. Though I think I'm still more comfortable with Luna. And, uh, I don't know who any of you are."
Ultear didn't keep track of how long it took for Drake to repeat the same story he'd told Natsu and Lucy, but it must have taken way longer due to all the interruptions. It felt like someone had a question every two seconds about Luna and how they found her and if she really Nashi and whatnot, making it taking forever for Drake to finish, Once he had, no one really had a clue what to say. Thankfully, Ultear and the others had already bypassed that part of the shock.
"We've already called Mest," Natsu said. "So he'll be here soon in order to try and bring her memories back to her. No promises though. So please don't overwhelm her, it's already weird enough." The guild seemed rather upset they couldn't just rush Luna and engulf her. Those who wanted to say hi and reintroduce themselves decided to line up and see her, but Ultear didn't need to do that. She'd already reintroduced herself that morning on the airship.
The airship was only about twenty minutes away from Magnolia at this point, and everyone was getting ready for what they knew was going to happen. Ultear wasn't sure exactly what they were going to do, but she knew it was going to be teary.
"Hey," Ultear made a face and turned to see Luna standing there, watching her carefully.
"Uh, hi." She replied weakly, unsure what to say. "What's up?"
"I just figured I needed to see all of my friends again." She said with a weak smile. "And I haven't spoken to you yet." Ultear managed a smile at this. It was nice to see her taking initiative at this.
"Well, my name is Ultear." she said. "It's nice to meet you again, Luna." Luna nodded at this and met Ultear's outstretched hand with her own, shaking it.
"It's nice to meet you, Ultear." she said. "And, for what it's worth, I'm really sorry for causing you any pain." Ultear ignored the pain in her heart caused by the girls lack of memories and forced out a smile.
"It's fine," she said. "You don't know how happy I am just to know you're alive. We never thought we'd see you again." Luna nodded at this.
"I know," she said. "But I'll make up for lost time however I can. If I really am you're friend, anyway." Well there was no doubt in Ultear's mind that she was, but she knew the girl still had her doubts.
"I appreciate that," she said. "And we'll do whatever we can to help you." Luna smiled even wider at this.
"That's that friends do, right?" she asked. Ultear nodded, pushing her tears back.
"Yeah. What friends do."
"You okay Ul?" Ultear was jerked out of her mind as her fathers words, who was sitting next to her. He'd hand an arm around her since she got back, only after her mother released her actually.
"I'm okay." she said. "Don't worry, I got over my surprise this morning."
"Suppose you had a head start on us, then." he said with a smile as people introduced themselves to Luna. "How was your job going? Finish it alright?"
"...Yep, finished it perfectly." she said, lying through her teeth. She didn't need her parents worrying about her mental state either. It didn't matter anymore.
"Proud of you," he said, kissing her head, which made her smile. It was rare her dad showed affection outright, in contrast to her mother who didn't care who saw. It was nice. "Getting it together after what happened."
"Had to do what I could, you know?" She asked. "Now I need to help Luna regain her memories."
That was what Ultear had decided on that morning. She's found what she was going to live and fight for, which were Luna's memories and her life. If Mest couldn't help them, she didn't know what they were going to do, but they'd find a way. She wouldn't let things get too depressing again.
Before anyone could say anything more, the door to the guild hall was once again burst open. Ultear turned to find Mest sprinting inside, panting heavily.
"Damn you made record time," Natsu said. "How did you do that?"
"I...I teleported as far as I could after I finished my reports," he said. "Unfortunately that took precedence because my stupid peers told me I needed to finish it but they didn't understand this was an emergency so I might have accidentally forgotten some stuff and not finished some of those forma but I'm here now!" Mest had managed to spit out all of that in one breath, which was pretty impressive to be honest.
Granted when he saw Luna his breath was sucked out of him again.
"Wow..." He hissed, hands on his knees. "You guys weren't kidding! She's alive!"
"Of course we weren't," Simon said. "Of course she'a alive."
"And now the family's all here," Damien said with a smirk on his face as he hugged his mother closely. Mest did his best to catch his breath and he walked up to Luna, who was just watching him curiously.
"G-Give me the rundown," he said as he reached her. "What do we know about her condition?"
"She said when we met up that she woke up in a hospital eight months ago," Drake replied. "She doesn't have a clue about anything save for the last eight months. Blank, nothing." Mest hummed at this, watching Luna.
"I see," he said. "Would it be okay for me to scan your mind, Nashi?"
"Sure," Luna replied, bouncing her leg up and down. "I can't lie, I'm really excited now!" Mest smiled down at her before he raised a hand to her head, placing his thumb in the center of her forehead and the rest of his hand on the side of her head. The guild went dead silent as the two closed their eyes, a bright light emanating from Luna's forehead. Ultear almost forgot to breath properly as the light shone brighter, making her eyes hurt a little bit.
After what felt like an eternity, Mest brought his hand back and frowned.
"Fuck," he stated simply.
That didn't sound good.
"What?" Luna asked, looking worried. "What's the matter?"
"Your mind is wiped," Mest replied, looking pretty upset himself as he stared at his feet. "There's nothing there." For a long time nobody said a word, before Natsu let out an awkward laugh.
"What do you mean, Mest?" He asked weakly. "Like her memories were wiped or changed to what they are now?" Mest slowly shook his head.
"I could help her if that were the case," he said. "I mean there's nothing there. There are no memories from Nashi. Her brain has absolutely no recollection of anything prior to waking up in that hospital eight months ago." Looking back at Luna, who was now staring at her feet in surprise, Mest continued.
"She's a complete blank slate. Nothing left from before."
I don't know if this kinda felt rushed, but I don't like dwelling on sappy emotional scenes. Feels drawn out sometimes. And I'm not good at it as we all know I'm a cyborg with no real human emotions.
I also don't know if you guys truly understand how much I enjoy messing with your emotions. Am I a sociopath? Let me know. I hope you enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try and get five!
Chapter 307: Who I Was