Coming home

Chapter 3: tough questions and crazy moments

Mira shut the door quietly behind her as she exited the heartfilia household. She inhaled and exhaled rapidly through her mouth as she had just wasted some energy running out of there. What had just happened? The two mages sat in front of each other, quietly talking with the other of common things. They were both smiling until a look of discomfort crossed lucy's face as she doubled over her upper half into her lap, trying to tame whatever was causing her this sudden stab of pain. Mira quickly raised from her spot and was over to lucy in no time. "Lucy! What happened?" asked the concern mage, putting a hand in solace for her on her elbow and knee. As skin made contact with other skin, lucy let out a blood curdling scream as if her body had been brought to life as her nerves sent billions of signals to her brain to stop the pain. But there was no pain to be stopped, no bleeding from her bandages, nothing. Lucy knew what this was though and realized that if Mira stayed any longer she would see it. "Mira...... go.... while you can. " Lucy grimaced as she spoke each teeth gritted word, looking to the side to find the wide blue orbs of mira strauss.Her vocalizing just before had not been her regular voice, it had gotten three frequencies deeper. That meant it was coming sooner than any other time the evil villain decided to visit her."what? No! I can't just leave you here! You need-" "GO! WHILE YOU CAN! RUN AWAY FROM THE MONSTER I'M ABOUT TO BECOME!" The blaring voice of lucy heartfilia echoed throughout the hills of her mountain house, rumbling down to the outer parts of magnolia and slowly inching in. Her voice pleaded with mira to run from the thing her body would form into. Her eyes had changed color to white as her skin seemed to discolor to pitch black, slithering and spreading around her entire body. Mira was almost too shocked to move until she saw the beast look at her. She didn't dare call it lucy because lucy could never have had that bloodlust look in her eyes could she? She could never want to feel organisms blood trickling down her throat, the metal taste soothing her mentality for only a day. She could never want that, or maybe not. Mira had known a totally different sunshine haired girl a year before. She had to ask again. What had happened in the time she was gone with her trainer? what had she gained, and what had she lost? She quickly rose from her spot, gathering her items and fled from her house, never once looking back upon the skin chilling monster. That is where we have mira strauss as of right now, panting for breath as she continues to run from the monster just inside those walls. Images of lucy just minutes before she left flashed into her mind as she ran down the hillside to the safety of the guild. She gritted her teeth in sadness as salt water tears formed in her eyes, clouding her vision. Lucy, how long have you had to go through this? Mira thought. She continued on her path until she reached the doors of the guild. She flung them outwards as everyone turned to her dirty clothed self. Extreme worry and perplexment came over the faces. She huffed out one last sentence before collapsing into a chair from exhaustion "lucy.... somethings wrong with her!"
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She couldn't breathe. The demon overtaking her soul was suffocating her and her soul, and yet she saw her chest rise up and down in rhythm. She continued to scream non stop, her throat now turning scratchy. That wouldn't be for long though either, the monster would crawl up her throat as well. That would be the final place to slither into her skin and take over her full body. A full monster in bloom, she didn't and wouldn't know what she would look like to everyone around her. She wouldn't let that happen though. She would stay conscious as she waited for the being to have enough of its fun and retreat back to where it came from, in her heart. That would be never though, because he never got enough out of lucy's screams. His mocking tone kept ringing in her ears. Is that the best you can sing my angel? I think you could take it up a tone! Take deep breaths, don't let him control you, those words bounced off in waves in her mind as well from her sensei when she had almost fully no control of the demon residing inside her. It hadn't made sense at the time why he wanted her to take deep breaths. She could barely stay from fading into the dark depths of despair, how could she manage to breath? She hadn't realized then what her teacher meant, but as the voice of hell called out to her in her subconscious her brain put two and two together. He meant fight it enough so that you could breath deep, and slowly he would go away. So lucy struggled with all her might to raise a hand she did not control for a while and slammed down an unbreakable punch onto her own head, now melted into a flat ball shape. Her body collapsed to the ground but her mind stayed awake. She now breathed large gulps of air like water, chugging it down as she relished the feeling of breathing again. She couldn't move at the moment as the morphed body that used to be hers felt heavy but soon it would be shrunk down to Lucy's original shape and she'd be able to stand and walk around again. A long time period was before then and now so she began to think and her thoughts wandered until she ended up wondering about the guild and Mira, how she ran away from her in fright of the horrid being she was about to become. When mira would get back with the guild, which she knew would inevitably happen, mira would ask her even more questions than their previous conversation. Man, she thought, I keep everything from my friends don't I? There's a monster hiding inside me, I can wield a sword, theres so much I want to tell them and yet I can't drag them down with me. She had already told mira about the sword roughly and showed it once in front of everyone and that was already too much. They would all die by my hands, and that would make it even worse than it already was. She had to stay strong too, and that meant not confiding in other people, because that would be a sign of weakness and the demon would expose it and come out by himself. She had tried to stay vague with her answers to mira's very personal questions in lucy's opinion. " What's your swords name?" " Its called a katana. Nothing really specific" Liar, it has a name, maybe you should tell your friend scratched the high pitched voice in the back of her head. She ignored it and pushed its crawling thoughts away as she spoke to mira. "When did you learn how to use a sword?" " In the year natsu was gone, when else?" she replied stating the imprecise time of her gaining the overflowing power. "okay, How do you use it?" mira replied with just a hint of irritation. "You swing it up and then down, like any other sword." Teased the blonde mage, making the barmaid look like a complete fool as she baby talked her. "Enough with the damn stupid unspecific answers lucy! I want the truth, now." Mira suddenly stood, shaking the table before them causing lucy's drink to spill over and drip onto the floor. Lucy looked at it, the liquid flowing together until it reached the edge of the coffee table and formed droplets which plopped in rhythm on the ground, then sighed as she ignored it and turned to mira unaffected by the spilling of her friends drink. She was seething with anger and had no time for apologies right now. Lucy had been giving undetailed answers from the start. Whenever mira asked anything, she got a clouded response from lucy, leaving her with more questions than answers. She wanted the truth from lucy, for her to stop running and face her head on and give her what she craved. "look mira, answers aren't what you want. You want to gain information about me, get to know me. Its because i'm such a loner at the guild and i'm the best victim for a petty story in the weekly-" "don't take yourself so lightly Lucy!" The sudden outburst from Mira surprised the blonde as tears welled up into her wide orbs, her being shaking from the way lucy took herself as a weak fool who didn't know how to do anything to function and move on in life. Mira's voice shook with raw emotion as she spoke "That's not true, and you know it! You're the strongest person I know, physically and mentally. It must've been so painful for you when natsu left while the rest of us were celebrating in joy. When you went out on a mission and that happened." Lucy winced at the thought of it. That had been the first mission without natsu and happy by her side. When she still had relationships with her spirits. There wasn't a demon inside her trying to fight its way to control her. That of course was before she had left, those few days in peace were probably the best of her last year and a half. "but now look at you, you've overcome the odds and became stronger than most of us thought possible. You dont have anything to fear or turn away from." lucy smiled to herself at that. Your friend seems to have high hopes of your abilities, but are they correct? I'd say you're even weaker than before you met me. That same malicious voice rung throughout her head. Her smile turned into a scowl as her brows wrinkled in thought. "mira, you tell me over and over again that I am strong. and yet I don't feel strong. When I clench my fists I don't feel power rush through me, and when I hold my sword and use it, I don't feel myself being connected to it or it acting like a second limb. When I face the monster..." lucy caught herself before she could say inside me and instead spoke " in a battle, I cower at the sight of their evil eyes. So you see mira, i'm not really strong in my definition." Lucy finished trying to explain to her friend that she truly wasn't all that strong. She could barely even control the monster dwelling within her, so pathetic. "What's your definition of strength then lucy?" Mira asked. That was tough. What was her definition of strength?What was everything she wasn't? " I...." She started to speak but could not finish as her thoughts weren't fully complete. "When you don't have a definition of Strength, you can't judge yourself harshly. You know that Lucy, don't you?" Mira pleaded to her after minutes of silence that felt like hours, years even. Lucy's eyes widened in realization. Mira was acting like a mother, a mother who has died when she was young. Mira was so right, she had been an even bigger fool than before. Lucy started to cry as she ran into the mage's arms, sobbing hard into her chest. Lucy felt arms wrap around her as her mother would do when she came in after getting a wound. They weren't as comforting as a certain dragon slayers would be but at the time she thought they were the best. She corrected her mind on that last statement. No, she didn't need him. She wasn't strong, but she wasn't weak either. She didn't need him she convinced herself. In the back of her mind though a little voice cried out in rejection of that thought. The old her was still apart of her being. As lucy regained the strength she had lost her face broke out in a smile, before everything went to darkness. Lucy feared it was the evil creeping in again, but she remembered that it could only come for short periods of time at the moment, never more than maybe 2 hours. So she was fainting instead, the thought comforted her as she drifted to a very somewhat long sleep.