A Lost Boy

Chapter 27

The pirates were excited to finally be leaving Tendrou Island. Enough of constantly chasing children and rotting away on this ship instead of doing more important things like hunting treasure and ransacking towns. They didn't know how they were going to leave this island but they didn't care. They were just glad to be going. However their excitement would soon be lost when they noticed the clouds clearing away, the sun coming back out, the winter climate was changing to a warmer one which could only mean one thing.

"On no." Mr. Capricorn said when he realized where this was going. He raised up three fingers and counted them off. "Three...Two...One."

"He's alive!" Captain Hades shouted in a voice of rage that terrified almost everyone on that ship. "How?! How could he still live?! He is just a human boy! It makes no sense!"

It drove him mad to no end. It was like no matter what he did it would change nothing. Everything he tried, every plot, every intrigue, all complete failures. It was as if nothing could kill that boy or at least cripple him. But no, no he had to have some kind of weakness. Any kind. Even if it's just one, he just had to have something that could break his spirit and bring him to his knees. But what? What was it? How could he discover it?

The gaze of his eyes then fell upon Juvia still tied to the mast and looking so frightened. He put it together in his mind that maybe she knew something. He stormed toward her, she desperately wanted to get as far away from him as possible but the ropes kept her bound in her place.

"I'll have a story before you die." He told her. "The story of Gray Fullbuster. You know how it starts right? Once upon a time..."

"Once upon a time." She started while trembling with fear. "There was a boy named Gray Fullbuster who decided not to grow up."

"Skip the prologue!" He demanded impatiently.

"So he flew away to Tendrou Island where the pirates are."

"Was one of them called Kawazu?" One of the pirates asked.

"Yes." She answered.

"Captain did you hear? I am in a story."

But Hades just shot him dead with his pistol. Natsu, Romeo, and the lost boys screamed and shouted in terror as his dead body dropped to the floor.

"What fun he must have had." Hades said turning his attention back to Juvia.

"Yes." She confirmed. "Lots of fun. Everyday was an adventure for him. But he was rather lonely." 

"Lonely?" Hades inquired as the very idea of the boy feeling that way had never crossed his mind. 

"Yes. What good is all the fun in the world if you're all alone? So he brought other children here. Like the lost boys."

"But he needed someone to help him to look after them didn't he? He needed a lady." 

"I need a lady." Kain said but that was a mistake on his part because he too was shot dead by the captain for that remark, much to the horror of the children.

"Two dead already." Capricorn observed. "A new record."

"Why did he want you?" Hades asked Juvia. "What is about you that gave him the desire to bring you here?"

"He liked my stories." 

"What stories?"

"Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty."

"Love stories?"

"Adventures in which good triumphs over evil." 

The boys all cheered in the belief that the notion of good conquering evil was true only to quickly be silenced by the death glares of the pirates.