Becoming Time

*Chapter 7*

A/N: **This is a major rewrite** I took the liberty of extending the hostile fight between Lucy and Erza .o. And added more details in this chapter. 😃

Please enjoy? 😢

Having hitting the age of 17, things had been more frustrating and difficult. Her mission of finding all of 88 celestial keys are nearly its completion, as she now has 82 keys. 9 golden keys and 72 silver keys. All she needed was six more keys to be able to move on to the next stage of her mission.

All of her missions that the council had offered her had been completed, and after collecting all of the keys from them, she refused to do anymore missions. She don't have the time to be doing missions that does not involve celestial magic or anything the has to do with the prophecy.

For seven years, the time that Lucy had begun her mission, the time that she had never been laid to rest, even temporary, she begins to question everything. Everything that has to do with the prophecy, the keys, Zeref, dark magic, and her purpose. Why her, and not somebody else?

Lucy asked herself that many times when the sun does down. She herself is not all that impressive. She may be strong and smart, but she had met people with better qualities that may had been the right people to be the Great Prophecy. Strong, smart, quick reflexes, confidence, determinations...Lucy questions her own qualities that she has.

Or maybe she is just over-thinking. To be quite honest, Lucy is distraught, physically distraught. She wanted at least a day to where she can just relax and enjoy the feeling of the sun kissing her skin.

"Hopefully the spirits won't kill me." Lucy decided to take the risk, deciding to take at least one day of rest. She don't particularly minded if they were mad at her, but she didn't want to be killed. "I'm sure they would understand." Lucy reassured, mumbling to herself.

Following her intended rebellion for one day, to which she swore that she would get back to work  the next day, Lucy arrived at a city that she had frequented lately. She discovered that the forest surrounding Onibus was a great spot to relax and a good place for a quick get-away. She hoped that it would also be a get-away from her spirits...hopefully.

She walked through a path, decorated with beautiful trees on both sides. With a smile, hidden behind her cloak, Lucy walked forward with a relaxed posture as she looked at the scenery of leaves falling with the wind.

Then she felt a sudden spike of magic, forcing herself to halt her movements. In addition to the sudden appearance of magic power, she could also feel a intent of malicious feelings that seemed to be directed toward to her. Lucy couldn't tell it if it was directed to her directly or not.

In the corner of her eye, she saw a glimpse of something shinny heading straight to her. With quick reflex, Lucy jumped backwards. Just in time, a sword flew straight past the cloaked girl and watched it as it embedded itself in a tree.

Lucy turned her head to where the sword had come from to find its owner. She wasn't particularly happy to be interrupted like this. So with a scowl as she turned her head, she spots a young girl that sprouted long scarlet hair.

What was intriguing to her was that the redhead was wearing armor, which was quite...different. Nonetheless, Lucy was still not happy.

The redhead smirked as she stared at the hooded figure before her. "Heh, took me awhile to find you."

Lucy frowned at this. Another attempt on taking her down from job requests? Lucy mourned for a second before staring at the chocolate eyes of the redhead. "What is it?'

"I'm going to arrest you for your crimes. And return the keys that you had stolen." The redhead summoned a sword as she took a fighting stance.

Lucy sighed as she gritted her teeth. Stealing keys? She would do no such thing! If anything, she won them fair and square. She needed to make extra efforts next time to make sure that the owners that she would fight will not fight dirty by hiring other mages.