Ezra Phantoms: The Cursed Sword

16

A few days had passed after I brought Lucy to Outer City, and she had gotten acquainted with all of my friends. She wasn't necessarily outgoing, but she wasn't completely cold towards us either. I had already figured it wouldn't be easy to gain her trust considering everything she had been going through. The day before, I asked her if she wanted to hang out, and she responded with, "don't get our relationship confused. Right now, we are just acquaintances who share the same goal. We both want to take Zero down. I appreciate you saying you would heal my mother with the power of the Trident of Destruction, and the Cursed Sword. But, we aren't friends."

"That's because you haven't let me in yet," I replied.

"Look," she started. "Throughout my life, I've been taken advantage of by people who were supposedly my 'friends,' and I don't want that to happen again. I'll help you out as much as I can as a partner, but not as a friend."

"Zero is one of those people, I'm guessing?"

"Yes. He's the worst one. He said if I didn't do all sorts of things, he wouldn't heal my mother anymore. I was basically his slave."

"It sounds like you were the only one given this type of treatment out of all the people working for him."

"I was."

"Why?"

"I-I...think it was because he found me...a-attractive..." Lucy said, showing clear signs of discomfort as the words escaped from her mouth. It took me a second to fully register what she was trying to convey, but when I did, I was so taken aback by what she was trying to say.

"So, when you say...he had you do all sorts of things...does that include...s-"

"Yes..." she said. I wasn't even able to finish my sentence, but from her answer, I had a feeling she most likely knew what I wasn't able to say. This made me despise Zero even more than I already did.

"I-I'm so sorry-"

"I don't need your pity, alright?" She snapped. "We're simply working together towards a common goal. We're not friends." Without wasting time, she swiftly exited the conversation. I wanted to say, "Lucy wait" so badly. However, I knew it would be better to just let her walk away. If I was her, I'd have trust issues as well.

Now, the gang and I were heading back to New Roseland City in the ship Phoebe stole from Dark Phoenix. According to Phoebe, there was a super fun festival occurring there that day that we had to go to. I didn't doubt her claims though. The last time we were there, it seemed like a pretty fun, and vibrant place. Well, it did until Dark Phoenix invaded it.

Other than wanting to enjoy ourselves, there was also a serious reason we were going. After I completely explained my situation about End, the Cursed Sword, and how I had to acquire all ten Cursed Stones to everyone, Phoebe had asked some Outers to look out for any rumors about a stone that looked like the two in my sword.

She got told that there was supposedly two necklaces with stones that looked similar to the ones in my sword that are being given out as prizes to a couple for winning a dancing competition at the festival. For that reason, we decided to go there, have two of us enter the competition, and win so we can obtain what could potentially be Cursed Stones.

We tried to get Lucy to tag along as well, but she refused to go. Once she heard we were going to try to enter a dancing competition at a festival in an attempt to get stones that could potentially be Cursed Stones, she walked away. I couldn't really blame her. It wasn't like we actually knew they were Cursed Stones or not. For all we knew, it could've just been a big waste of time. Also, we really only needed two people to go.

I loved everything about this trip. The fact that we could have fun, and maybe make some progress with my goal was great. The only thing I didn't love at all was the fact that Bowie was tagging along as well. When I first met him, he didn't seem like someone I would hate. He seemed like a pretty chill, normal guy. And he was. However, this chill, normal guy had a pretty obvious romantic thing with Phoebe. I asked her if they were dating, and she said no. I could just tell from the way they spoke to each other that there was definitely something going on though. If they weren't together yet, they were definitely going to be soon. Which is why I hated him.