Control

ⅩⅤ

Rin rose from her bed and winced at the bright light pouring in from the balcony. Her hand rushed to grip her head from the pounding occurring in her cranium. Tears welled in her eyes from the intense pain. She shot up and ran to the curtains to shut them and take away any light that was hurting her eyes. Leese flew up as well due to the sudden panic in the room.

    "What's wrong?!" Rin merely growled out an answer.

    "Hangover..." The Exceed sighed with a roll of her eyes.

    "That's what you get. I agreed to go to the bar with you last night, not be your chaperone to watch as you get wasted!"

    "Well, I'm sorry that yesterday sucked and I wanted to drink away my problems!" Leese sighed again.

    "Is this about Sting?" Rin glared at the cat. She made a 'tch' sound and averted her gaze to the floor.

    "Of course. The other day, things had been so good with him, I kinda forgot that I hated him and Sabertooth. But what he did yesterday really hurt..." Rin's hard expression softened as she stared at her feet. She sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her arms with a pout. "I can't believe I'm doing what the universe wants and falling for him!" She groaned loudly. Leese chuckled and patted her partner on the shoulder.

    "If it's meant to be, you'll work things out." A smile graced the girl's lips but she did her best not to show it.

    "Anyways, what happened last night? I can hardly remember anything." Leese's face turned grim and she held a heavy frown.

    "Last night... Well... Gajeel, Wendy, Natsu and Lucy went to the arena to go explore the cavern." Rin grimaced. "Apparently, with Wendy's magic, they were able to contact one of the dragons' spirits. After that, they were found out by a man from the palace, but something happened. They didn't go into detail, but Lucy was taken into captivity and Master made a plan. We can't do anything much right now or we'll get caught, so he pushed it off until tomorrow during the games."

    "What's this big plan?"

    "The team will participate as planned, however, Natsu will form a team with Wendy, Mira, and us Exceeds to go rescue Lucy. That leaves a spot open for someone to be in the final round." Rin cocked an eyebrow. "Master wants you to do it." The brunette released a heavy sigh of relief.

    "Thank god, I thought you were gonna say someone else had taken the spot." Leese chuckled. "Now, I have to deal with this hangover-" There was a knock at the door. The two partners craned their necks to look over. Rin stood from her seat on the bed and walked over. She swung the door open to reveal a slightly emo looking boy with black bangs covering one of his red eyes. "Didn't expect to see you. What brings you to my room, Rogue?"

    "If you would, I need a favor." Rin walked back in the room, silently inviting the male in.

    "You should ask someone else to do it. I'm suffering from a hangover right now."

    "It has to be you." Rin cocked an eyebrow. "It's Sting." She scoffed.

    "Then I'm definitely not helping. I don't owe him anything." Leese stood in the background, clawing at her own face at the change of her friend's mood. Only minutes ago, she was sad about everything with Sting, but now she fully resented him.

    She makes no sense...

    "Rin, please-"

    "I'll only go if it's to beat some sense into him-"

    "It's Lector!" Rin stopped in her place and zipped her lips to listen to the boy. "Last night..." Rin had trouble taking in the information Rogue was feeding her, but each detail filled her with more and more dread. A scene unraveled in her head as she simply imagined what it must have been like. She even replaced Lector with Leese and immediately decided that she would do whatever to help. She couldn't imagine losing her best friend like Sting had.