Firefall || Fairy Tail

10 : r e s t . a n d . p r e p a r a t i o n

Kia knew she should have tagged along like Lucy and Gray. There was no doubt in her mind that the eight could take care of themselves, but they had been gone for far too long. A faint glow was forming in the sky to the east as dawn was trying to break.

"They probably got back and passed out in the bar after the long day." Amber tried to ease Kia's nerves, but something was just telling her that everything wasn't alright. At first, she tried to chalk it up to this odd sickness that she was dealing with, but her instincts were saying otherwise.

Verani moved ahead of them, pressing her ear to the door, "I can hear some of them still in there."

"Do you hear any of them?" Kia tried to keep her voice down, not wanting to intrude.

"Are we just supposed to put up with this crap from those jerks?!" Her brother's shouts crept through the door. "Untie me, and I'll go up there and get her right now!"

A hushed voice tried to calm the yelling pyro, but Kia just sighed as she knocked. Those inside went quiet as footsteps grew closer. Mira peeked around the door with a sigh.

"You three might want to hear this." She stepped to the side, giving the girls room to enter.

"Kia! Tell them to untie me!"

"Shut up until I know what's going on!" A growl could be heard in her throat, making her brother immediately do as he was told. She exhaled, taking a second before turning to their Master on the counter of the bar, "What happened?"

He answered, "Lucy has been taken into custody because of some secret military operation."

"What the hell?" Verani exclaimed.

Kia pinched the bridge of her nose as she sighed, "That makes things overly complicated."

"Yes it does." Master started, "We can't afford to take reckless action against the kingdom... And they surely wouldn't want word to spread that they mistreat innocent civilians. But I suppose we should consider her a hostage until this Eclipse Project of theirs is called off."

"Eclipse Project?" Amber asked as she leaned back on the table behind her.

Gray answered, "They have this magical gate that supposedly can be used for time travel."

"Colonel Arcadios said he was planning to travel back in time to take out Zeref before he became immortal." Wendy added.

"Man..." Laxus grumbled, "They got us by the you-know-what don't they?"

Verani and Amber listened intently to everything that the others had to say about what had happened, but Kia's eyes had glazed over. She thought back to the first time she had run into Anna after they were all separated when they had stepped through the Gate. She remembered how the Celestial Wizard had explained that the king had agreed to destroy the Gate, the very thing that was causing their problem right now.

"You're all on the first place team in the games..." Mira pointed out, "High profile. It would be pretty suspicious if you all just didn't show up for the final match tomorrow."

"Mira has a point," Amber chimed in. "Everyone would have noticed if all of you had just disappeared."

Others in the room agreed as they all turned back to their Master, ready to hear what he had been thinking through while they talked. But Kia still wasn't really catching everything that was being said. She bawled her fists as her anger gradually began to manifest. Slow rings of fire started to lick up her body one at a time.

"Kia..."

Though Verani spoke softly, the bar had chosen that moment to get quiet. As everyone shifted their gazes to the girls by the door, their eyes widened. They were a little surprised at how upset the Phoenix Slayer was over Lucy's arrest, but that was only the half they knew.