The bonds of the soul

Chapter 19: Lesson

Rogue was trying to make sense of what was going on but no one was really helping since Natsu was snarling, his demon horns and tattoo back as he looked ready to rip someone's throat out. Gray wasn't much better seeing as he had frost rolling off him and over half of his body was covered in his demon slayer tattoo and all the others were staying away from him seeing as he had already frozen a table solid. Sting had placed Lector, Happy, Rufus, Orga and Dobengal behind him so that they wouldn't get in the way of the raging males and accidentally get hurt.
"That's enough!" Rogue yelled out, making both Gray and Natsu stop since it wasn't every day that Rogue raised his voice.
"Now that you two have stopped acting like brainless idiots, how about we sit down and try to find out what happened to Lucy so that we can help her?" Rogue said, making them ready to protest.
"If you aren't going to help us then sit down and shut up, you have wasted enough of our time" He scowled and Sting walked over with the others while Frosch headed to the other exceeds.
"Lucy dropped our lunch off for us and then she told us that she was heading out for a bit but wouldn't be gone for more than an hour or two but she's been gone for five hours when Natsu got back" Rufus explained.
"Did she mention where she was going?" Sting asked since he and Rogue were the only ones keeping their heads at the moment. Dobengal had decided to take the three exceeds over to the bar and gave them drinks before distracting them by making animals out of the napkins.
"No, just that she was going out" Orga answered while eyeing Gray and Natsu, making sure that he put himself between them and Rufus who was still shivering slightly.
"Luce always keeps her word so if she didn't come back in an hour or two like she said she would then someone is stopping her from coming back" Natsu growled but stopped at the warning that Sting's eyes held when he saw Rogue's fist clench.
"Knowing Lucy she is going to be in one of two places, both of which we can access though the second one is going to be harder" Rogue hummed already drawing up plans in his mind as to what they should do next.
"Where do you think she would have gone?" Gray asked, his tattoo had yet to fade but he was trying his best to keep himself calm.
"Isn't it obvious? Either she got caught by the Princess that wanted her or she went after Sabertooth. Lucy isn't someone to stand around while someone is getting hurt even if it would get us kicked out of the games" Sting pointed out making both Natsu and Gray blink since they didn't even think about that. Since what happened two years ago they knew that Lucy could be harsh and brutal when it came to people getting hurt when they couldn't fight back.
"So what's the plan then? We aren't about to let anything happen to Luce" Natsu said and while he had calmed down his eyes were still alight with fire that promised pain to anyone that hurt Lucy.

*A few hours earlier Lucy's POV*

While the others headed out to spend some time around Crocus I busied myself with tidying up our room before checking in with Orga and Rufus to see that they were awake.
"How are you two feeling this morning? Other than sore of course" I asked as I opened up the curtains and windows so that they could have some fresh air.
"I am feeling better than I was last night" Rufus whispered and Orga grunted in reply.
"That's good, your injuries have been seen to and there is no perminate damage. Do you want to talk about what happened? You don't have to if you don't want to, I just thought that it might make you feel better if you had someone to talk to" I explained.
"We don't want to burden you with everything that you are already doing for us" Orga said and I could tell that they were uncomfortable with talking about it. More than likely because they thought that it made them look and seem weak.
"Do you know that for the last two years, Gray, Natsu, Happy and myself later joined by Rogue, Sting, Frosch and Lector have been in a guild? Even though we once belonged to different guilds?" I started even though it was common knowledge seeing as we were fighting in the Grand Magical Games against the two in the beds, or at least we were.
"You, Gray, Natsu and Happy were all part of Fairy tail right? But then something happened and you all disappeared and then only showed yourselves again for this year's Grand Magical Games right?" Rufus asked and I nodded.
"Yes, it wasn't just something that happened though, our trust was betrayed and our whole world crumbled, mine more them boys. On the way home from a mission I was attacked by a group of bandits and I was taken down pretty easily and they took my keys away from me. You can probably guess that they had other things on their minds as well" Lucy said with a weak smile. Even though Orga had already heard what had happened both of them showed fury at the possibility of 'that' happening to someone. Even as bad as Sabertooth was, that was one line that they would never cross.
"Gray, Natsu and Happy came across that scene before anything could happen and they lost control and killed the bandits but then they found out that someone from Fairy tail had hired the bandits to do that to me" I said and both boys felt their eyes go wide and their jaws dropped. They couldn't believe what they were hearing, like most people their age they had grown up hearing about how awesome and amazing Fairy tail was but to hear what I was saying was making them rethink everything they ever thought about the Fairy guild.
"After that we couldn't trust the guild anymore so we left after Natsu got my keys back for me and we travelled a lot before we come across Rogue, Sting, Frosch and Lector and decided to build our own guild to show everyone what a guild should really be like" I smiled before I stood up.
"Lunch should be ready by now, I'll bring yours up here and then I'm going to slip out for an hour or two. Make sure that you talk about what happened even if it is with each other or someone else that you trust" I advised knowing just what holding everything in could lead to. I could still remember that dark time in which I had nearly thrown everything out because my thoughts got too much for me. Shaking my head I headed downstairs and collected lunch before I made sure that they had enough stuff to keep them preoccupied so they wouldn't do something stupid like leaving the inn.