Gaining Courage: The Search for the Lost Keys (a Fairytail Galu story)

Chapter Eighteen: Blast From The Past

Lucy POV:

I couldn't understand what I was doing here. Sure I was passing through but that didn't mean I had to stop and help fight the local monster. I knew that it had nothing to do with either of my missions but once I heard the word fairy tail I had to check it out. Slowly making my way through the dense forest, I kept trying to hear anything that might lead me in the right direction. It was too bad Pyxis wasn't any use without a fixed location and Reticulum could only see truth not signs of movements. I really needed to see if I could locate a tracker spirit, Canes Venatici or Lupus would be idle. Even Canis Maj... I stopped walking as an intriguing thought popped into my head. Reaching down I grabbed my most well used silver key and sent a burst of power into it. With a ding dong my favourite spirit made an appearance shaking and dancing about. Looking down at Plue I couldn't help smiling at him.

"Hi Plue, How's your day going so far?"

"Pun pun."

"That bad huh. O.k. Plue, I need a favour if you're up to it. There's supposed to be a darkness monster around here somewhere and one of my guild members took the job of getting rid of it. Do you think you can maybe search them out?"

"Pun pun?"

"Please just give it a try, you may be a companion spirit but that doesn't mean you're not a true celestial spirit Canis Minor the little dog and I believe in you."

"Pun pun!"

Smiling at his enthusiasm, I watched as Plue started to wobble slowly along the dirt path. Veering off it after a few minutes, Plue seemed to have found something as the two of us walked in silence further into the woods. Suddenly Plue got excited and started bouncing around.

"Pun pun. Pun pun."

Leaning down so I could reach out and touch him, I patted his head to show it was alright. Before I was all the way to my feet, Plue took off wobble running. Catching up easily I made sure I stayed close, considering the darkness monster wasn't the only beast living in these woods. Something that proved correct when not five minutes later we ran into a pack of dire wolves that wanted Plue for lunch. It seemed I had really grown up lately as before I would have screamed and run for cover now I didn't even flinch as I quickly sent Plue home for safety. Taking my Fleuve d'etoiles I separated the pack then focused on the Alpha quickly tying him up in knots. Giving him a fling into the air, I danced out of the way of the next one and Lucy kicked him as he passed by. I wanted to save as much magic as I could in case I ran into the darkness monster later on so I needed to take them out fast. Virgo appeared as my fingers brushed her key, she was in the ground opening up holes underneath all the wolves as I grabbed the nearest heavy branch with my whip swinging to safety. Once all the wolves were down and out I dropped to a safe spot then started running putting distance between myself and the pack; I just needed to get them out of my way so I could keep moving, which is exactly what I did. After a few minutes of dodging bushes and jumping over tree roots I finally stopped and looked around. Quickly re-summoning Plue I gestured ahead.

"Alright Plue want to give it another shot. Think you can still pick up their trail?"

Plue seemed to look around as if searching for something I couldn't see; wobbling this way and that before he starting walking further into the woods continuing on in the same direction as before. Hopping it wasn't a false lead the two of us walked for what must have been an hour before Plue let out a cry of surprise. It seemed we had reached a section of mountainside and the most likely location for a monster lair.

"Thanks Plue you better head back it could be dangerous from here on out."

Waving goodbye he vanished in a cloud of sparkles leaving me to scout out the rock face looking for a possible cave entrance. Lucky for me it didn't take me long to find what I was looking for as a few minutes into my search I came across an opening partially obscured by foliage. Slowly creeping inside I barely made it a few steps in before realising two things: one this was definitely the right place as the malevolent energy was so thick I could see it and two is was so dark inside going in like this wouldn't work. As I thought what to do the overwhelming feeling of loss hit me: Natsu.