Note: Hello, thanks for your comments last chapter. Here we are again, the beginning of the end...

It was all a waiting game. Perhaps it hadn't been so unfortunate after all, despite how her heart had sunk when he'd stopped in front of her. Still, she remained resilient. She had already been to Hell and back, and this wasn't Hell. Fate was going to have to work a lot harder for her to change her mind.

Her eyes darted to the sword sitting over the mantle of the fireplace. It was old and obviously meant for decoration, but it was still sharp. The object would fulfill its purpose. Although it had only been a couple of days, she had spent every waking moment going over the plan in her mind. The setup was so convenient, it had barely taken her any effort at all to come up with an escape plan. The lantern on the wall was sitting right above the cabinet full of liquor, and on top? More liquor of course.

She wouldn't call herself physically strong, but her mind was and she was certain she had enough energy to pull this off. As the guard in front of her approached the liquor cabinet, her eyes darted up to the lantern. The pull of magic came from within her more easily than it had in months and the light-source crashed into the bottle of whiskey. Amazing how much a full belly could change.

"The hell—?" the guard in front of her yelped as she leapt aside. The guard that had been behind her frantically joined the other in trying to put out the flames. With both of them now hovering over the cabinet, she summoned her magic again.

Heavy bodies splintered wood without any difficulty and the fire quickly worsened. She ignored the screams of the guards as she headed back to the fireplace only steps away from them. Grabbing the hilt of the sword, she pulled it from the wall like a sheathe. The effect was instant. Suddenly she was in control again, and all the time she'd spent on that ship feeling so uncertain if she would make it out alive seemed like it was years ago. With a sword in her hand, everything felt so clear.

Screams and a fire. More guards were sure to come, but she was going to walk out of here regardless. She had no problem cutting down every single one of them.

Branded by HawkofNavarre

Chapter 14

Control

"I see..."

Gray stared across the table at his Master, looking for answers to come from the person who always had one in some form or another. However, there was only silence as Makarov's brow creased.

"We could never have anticipated that Phantom Lord would be caught up in the same objective we have," Erza said, taking a few strides from her spot beside Makarov. "I can see why they would be threatened by Levy's sleuthing, but that's still no excuse for what they did."

Makarov nodded. "Agreed. But for now, the only thing we can do is wait."

"What?" Gray lunged forward in his seat. "Didn't you hear what I said? They're closing in on Lucy as we speak. We can't let them find her first and take her to another place against her will!"

"And that is exactly why we'll wait," the Master replied, folding his arms pensively. "We have gone down every possible avenue to find Lucy and the bottom line is that we can't find that ship without Juvia. Unless we know where it's going to be, we're better off monitoring Phantom Lord's movements in whatever capacity we can."

"I hate to state the obvious, but there's no way we can monitor them that closely now that they know we want the same things. If they see us spying on their members, it's going to start a war," Erza said. "And, well, you saw what happened to Jet, Droy, and Levy. She's not okay."

"Yes, and we can't have that with innocent lives on the line."

Gray grasped the edge of the table, his nails digging into the wood as he followed their line of thought. The logic made total sense, and that was what was infuriating about this entire thing. The conclusion hadn't changed at all. He was going to leave this room today just as helpless and worthless as he was when he'd first walked in.

He shook his head and stood from his seat. "I don't care. I'm going to keep looking."

"My advice would be to invest your energy in something more productive, but I'm hardly going to dissuade you," Makarov replied, a heavy sigh following. "Do as you must. Just don't be stupid about it."

Hah, like he was one to go running around town, beating people up until he got answers. "Yeah, yeah, I got it."

Gray had barely gotten two steps out the door when Erza came up beside him. "Hey," she said, her voice loud enough to get him to stop in his tracks. "I know you're trying to help out, but that's not the only thing this is about, is it?"

"Of course not," he replied, his hands curling into fists. "I didn't want anything to do with this mission in the first place. Now I'm in way too deep and I can't do a damn thing."

"You did the right thing."

"I know I did." Gray ran a hand through his hair as he leaned back against the wall. "That doesn't make me feel any better. I did everything I was supposed to, lied to someone who didn't deserve it, and I have nothing to show for it."

"It's true that we might not have found Lucy, but I think you have something to show for it," Erza said.

He snorted. "And what's that?"

"Maybe you can't see it, but I can." The redhead moved around to settle against the wall next to him. "There's no going back. Once you feel something like that, it's part of you. It can be the most wonderful thing in the world or completely destroy you. The best thing you can do is find a balance. Everything right now feels awful, I know, but it's not forever. You just don't know what to do with it."

Gray didn't think of himself as a thick person, but in this case, he had no idea what Erza was getting at. He raised an eyebrow as he glanced at her. "I don't know what to do with what?"

She shrugged, crossing her arms casually. "Think about it. This fixation on controlling what's going on around you—that's not something you would normally do. People act irrationally when their emotions are strong enough."

"This isn't exactly a normal situation."

"I never said it was. All I'm saying is that you never cared this much when Natsu first came back here with that bottle."

He clenched his jaw. Of course he hadn't cared as much back then. The whole thing sounded like a stupid prank when he'd first heard about it, and he would never have doubted that Natsu would fall for literally any prank ever. Really, a message in a bottle? That was completely unorthodox no matter how you looked at it.

But that letter had come with names, many of which he could now match to faces even if he'd never seen them with his own two eyes. These were real people. It made Lucy's plight real, and then he developed a very real relationship with a woman who wasn't even supposed to be talking to him. All of the sudden, there were stakes.

Too bad they were losing at everything.

"Is there a point to this conversation?" he asked irritably. The only thing worse than not being able to do anything was thinking about his part in everything transpired. While Gray wouldn't go back and change any of his actions, it didn't make him dislike them any less.

"Of course. And it'll do more for you than running around aimlessly looking for clues is," she said. "You don't know Lucy. I'm sure you want to help her as much as any of us do, but it's not her you're working so hard for, is it?"

Gray's inclination was to say it was just so that Erza would leave him alone, but that was more likely to land him in the infirmary when he was lying through his teeth and delivering it the most derisive manner possible. Instead, he turned his head away from her. "I don't know what you're insinuating. I've barely known Juvia for a month."

"It's the time spent together that matters," she replied. "You're not going out of your mind for no reason. You feel for her—you feel a lot for her, and pretending that you feel the same way as Natsu isn't going to do you any good."

As much as he absolutely loathed every single word coming out of Erza's mouth, the logical part of him knew that what she was saying wasn't wrong. The women in his guild were like family to him, and he'd known several of them for years, yet he didn't feel for any of them the same way he felt for Juvia. It wasn't as though it was denial; he was very aware of how deep his feelings ran when it came to her, but it wasn't the time or place or—or anything. The circumstances were not appropriate in any way. It was just a waste of time. Their guilds were on opposite sides of a major conflict with innocent lives on the line and even if that weren't the case, Juvia was unlikely to give him the time of day ever again. A violation of trust was hard to come back from for people who actually were friends.

It was just...pointless. There was no use in thinking of her in any other way than the girl from Phantom Lord.

"Yeah," he said, his voice soft, "yeah, I do, but what does it matter?"

Erza was smiling. "That's not easy to come by. You should hold on to it."

He raised an eyebrow at that suggestion, a little incredulous it was something that she of all people was saying. "And how did that work out for you?"

"Horribly," she replied with a sardonic chuckle, "but I don't regret it, and it feels a lot better not to lie about it."

"I wasn't lying about it. It's just...not worth thinking about. I knew the plan from the start was to build a relationship that was destined to fail and I accepted it because I thought I was going to help someone who needed it, but I got shit out of it."

"Your problem is that you're trying to make something out to be nothing," she said.

Pushing off from the wall, he decided he'd had enough of this conversation. His heart was stinging and his head was spinning, so there was no way she was going to convince him that anything positive had come from this. It was Natsu's turn to sit back while Gray raced on at full speed ahead.

"It is nothing," Gray retorted as he opened the entrance to the guild hall. "Unless we can save Lucy, it was all for nothing."

And for the next few days, that feeling didn't go away. Searching for any further leads that wouldn't cause anymore friction with Phantom Lord was like finding a needle in a haystack. Juvia had probably gotten in contact with Bora by now and was simply waiting to meet up with him. Gray was going out of his mind trying to find something that would get him the information he needed.

He just never expected it to turn up on their front doorstep in torn clothes and a sword in hand.

"I need to talk to Natsu Dragneel," she said. "It's about Lucy Heartfilia."

He'd been about to depart on a mission when he was urgently called into the guild by Max. When he was told there was a girl requesting his presence, he undoubtedly had the foolish hope that the girl was Lucy and she'd come looking for him after freeing herself from Bora's captivity. He knew that he would probably never be presented with such a scenario, but he still found himself hoping for that as he walked through the entrance of the guild hall.

Natsu quickly came face-to-face with Gray who looked up from his seat atop one of the nearby tables. The dark circles around his eyes were more prominent than ever and he hadn't even bothered to remove an article of his clothing. Gray looked at bad as Natsu had felt the day Aquarius shown up.

"She's in the infirmary," Gray spoke without prompting. "She'll only speak to you."

No other words were exchanged and Natsu nodded before sprinting towards the infirmary with Happy on his tail. When he finally walked through the door, there was a girl who was waiting for him by one of the beds, but she didn't have blonde hair or blue eyes. Heart sinking a little, he did his best to tamp down his hopes when all he'd been expecting was sitting right in front of him.

This girl had long, dark hair, obviously a bit unruly from whatever journey she'd taken to get here. Her arms looked strong, but her frame was as gaunt as her face. However, the most noticeable thing about her was her eyes. They were piercing, unyielding, as if her spirit would not give up even if her body did.

He was about to introduce himself when she decided to go for the first word. "Who are you?" she demanded, eyes narrowing.

"I'm the one you want to talk to," he replied. Knowing exactly what an attack stance looked like, he decided to stay put instead of getting closer. There was at least a couple of metres between them and she would have to move toward him to strike him in any way. "I'm Natsu."

Her expression was unmoved. "No you're not."

"Yes he is!" Happy chimed in from Natsu's side.

"Natsu's a girl."

"Huh? I'm what?"

"Lucy told me that Natsu is a girl."

The dragon slayer exchanged a look with his friend, completely boggled. How could she not know that he was male? It was generally a fair assumption; Natsu was more commonly a girl's name, but he never used female articles in his letters. Yukino would have noticed if he'd...

The next thought that hit him came with a loud groan. "Yukino..." he said, recalling how the younger girl was the primary writer for whatever message they were going to send back. Natsu's penmanship wasn't great, so of course he relegated the duty to her. He would write down what he wanted to say and then have her copy it onto the actual parchment. Lucy probably thought he was just a girl that spoke in a very masculine way. If—when—they met, it was going to be a very awkward meeting.

"One of my friends helped me write the messages, but I'm Natsu."

"How can I be sure of that?"

Natsu pulled the letter out of his pocket and handed it to her without hesitation. The girl continued to look on in skepticism as she unraveled the paper to read it. It was only a few seconds, but she returned the letter to him before sparing a quick glance at Happy.

"Okay, I believe you. You're Natsu." She seemed to relax a little as she seated herself on the bed she'd been leaning on and nudged her head toward the cat. "But he's not, so he goes."

Natsu was about to protest when Happy piped up himself. "Aye, I'll go..." he said, and then left without another word. To have a best friend like him was a really fortunate thing.

As the door closed behind Happy, the girl stood from the bed. "My name is Kagura. Until only a few days ago, I was captive on a ship run by a mage called Bora. He kidnapped various women and branded them as his own slaves." She lifted the side of the skirt she was wearing for a second to reveal a dark skull seared into her skin without blinking. "Lucy was another person on this ship. She told me that Natsu of Fairy Tail could track Bora's ship if there was a strong enough magical signal, so I came here."

"Yeah, there's...someone here who can," he answered, a little astonished. His original fantasy hadn't come to life, but something as fortunate as this wasn't exactly on his radar either. "But if you were on that ship too, then why are you here and Lucy's not?"

"I was sold into slavery by Bora and escaped my captor." The way she spoke of it almost sounded as if she was completely apathetic to the entire experience. "I headed here as soon as I could. The last time I saw Lucy...she wasn't doing well. I'm not sure how much longer she can survive on that ship."

Natsu clenched his jaw. "We've been trying everything we can to find it, but..."

"That's why I'm here," Kagura said as she held out her hand. In her palm was a fragment of some sort of gem. "When I was still on the ship, Lucy told me you would be able to find us if there was an identifiable magical signal coming from there, so I got one for you. It took some extreme measures, but this is a piece of the Lacrima on Bora's ship. Is it enough for what you need?"

He accepted the small piece of crystal from her, bringing it to eye-level to examine it more closely. It was definitely part of a bigger Lacrima; that much he could tell, but there was no way of knowing whether Levy could track a magical energy source from something so small unless she tried. If she couldn't...well, she had to.

"There are more girls on that ship than just Lucy. Is it enough?" she asked again.

They were on the brink of war with Phantom Lord with no other leads and then this girl who'd escaped Hell dropped them this lifeline. Natsu would make sure it was enough.

He clutched the Lacrima fragment in his palm. "Yeah, it's enough."

She spent three days trapped inside the Closet. The guards opened the door for her only three times each day; once to give her meager meal and twice to bring her to the washroom. She did not cooperate when it came to doing any of those things. Lucy wasn't trying to kill herself, but she was past the point of letting Bora have his way. He wanted to keep her alive for his own selfish reasons and she would rather die if it meant him losing. Maybe soon he would try to sedate her, break her down like he had Fumiko, but she had watched her only friend on this ship be sold as a slave—as a piece of property—into another life she might never escape from. Lucy wasn't even sure she could break any further.

When she was brought back to her room, the natural light stung her eyes. She resigned herself to her mattress and silently seethed as she stared at the empty one across from hers, Nikora tightly clutched in one hand. There was no way to win anymore. She couldn't do this without Kagura and Natsu had no hope of finding her. She was just a product to him, his brand burned onto her hip. Lucy wanted desperately to scratch it off. If she was heading out, it was going to be on her own terms.

Lucy was completely passed out for several hours, feeling groggy when she was woken by the door slamming open. "All of you up! Now!" the guard yelled as he banged on the walls. She rolled over in response and let her eyes open to the light of the early morning, but didn't bother to get off her mattress.

"Holy crap, we're getting up! Just shut up!" she heard Arisa say. "You bitches better move right now, 'cause I'm way too tired to deal with him stomping around here!"

To be rebellious here seemed more like it would just annoy the guard, so Lucy chose to listen. She was not going to waste whatever life she had left on a petty act on some nameless henchman; she was going to use it on a petty act against Bora.

Not for the first time, Lucy thought about how strange it felt when the three of them left the room. Three, not four like it had been just a few days ago. She fervently hoped that Kagura was okay as they were escorted into Bora's entertainment room. Things appeared even more strange when she realized that every female on the ship had been gathered in this room and none of them had been tasked with serving the captain.

The guard shoved her in line with the other girls. It was the worst case of deja vu, except this time, there was no fear at all. Bora was standing mere meters away from her, fuming if she had to guess. Lucy was tempted to just throttle him and see how much pain she could inflict before they put her out of her misery, but that wouldn't be satisfying given how exhausted she was already.

"Does anyone know what this is?" Bora asked as he held up a small, folded piece of paper, staring down each one of them. "Anyone? Hm?"

Lucy only needed a second to realize that she did, in fact, know what it was. That was one of the small pieces of stationery Natsu and Yukino wrote to her with. Suddenly, it dawned on her that she had never read the message Bora was holding in his hand, because she'd lost it in Elsie's dressing room prior to the slave sale. Well, it'd been a few days since then, but clearly someone found it and Bora wasn't too happy about it.

"You see, there's a nice little message on this piece of paper for one of you, or from one of you," he continued when none of the girls spoke. "Maybe a couple of you thought you would just have a little fun, hm? Is that right?" His boots thumped against the floorboards as he paced back and forth. It was an intimidation tactic that was clearly working on a few of the girls. "Well, that wouldn't be so bad. I can understand. All girls need to have some fun. The problem is, I don't know if this note is just for 'a little fun' or not. How could I? After all, I don't know who wrote it. More importantly, I don't know how someone wrote it."

Of course he didn't. She was usually so careful to leave no trace behind that there was any contact whatsoever from the outside world.

"I'm not mad, and I won't be if the person who received this message just comes forward," Bora said. The compassion in his voice was so staged he should've saved it for the theatre.

He ceased his pacing to stare them down, silence overtaking the room. Seconds passed, and then another minute before Bora stormed over to the table next to his chair and swept his arm across the surface. Three dirty wine glasses shattered on the floor, a few of the girls jumping at the noise.

"One of you..." he began lowly, "had better speak up!" He punctuated this by slamming his foot into the table, sending it crashing into the wall. "RIGHT NOW! Do you think I'm going to be nice forever?"

Bora flung his chair over, snarling as he looked for the next nearest object to destroy, which just so happened to be his contact Lacrima. It whizzed right by the head of one of his guards and smashed against the wall. Moving over to the mounted shelves, he continued his tantrum. A roar burst from his throat as he tore down their middle, leaving some of the objects to clatter to the ground. Others he picked up himself to hurl around the room in a further expression of rage.

He was screaming, throwing a tantrum so thoroughly that even his henchmen seemed a little unsettled. Once everything within his reach was broken, Lucy saw fire licking at his fingertips.

A giggle bubbled in her throat, then progressed into full blown laughter. All eyes landed on her as she descended almost into hysterics. It was just so damn hilarious! What did he plan on doing? Setting the boat on fire while he was on it? How funny that all she'd had to do this entire time was actually reveal to Bora that there was conspiracy afoot to make him fly off the handle. She wondered how he must feel to be so thoughtless and full of devastating rage—desperate to change things.

She wondered how he must feel to finally be the one with no control.

"Do you have something to say?" Bora demanded.

The last vestiges of Lucy's laughter faded until only a smile remained upon her face. Bora looked like he was likely to use the magic on his hand to set her aflame any minute. But that didn't matter, because his eyes were where she wanted them to be. She wanted him to know the person who'd made him feel that way.

"Yes," she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. "You want to know what's been going on? If there's someone who's been plotting against you? Well, yes, yes there is. It's me."