The Celestial Princess and Her Suitors

Chapter Fourteen: Sting Eucliffe

Lucy ran toward the crowd of people and pushed through, trying to see what was going on. She broke through the crowd and found two large men standing in front of a damaged building, a large hole settled in the front with rubble surrounding the spot of impact. Lucy crept forward, trying to see what, or rather, who had caused the large hole. She had taken a few quiet steps forward when she spotted a head of blonde hair that belonged to a small figure laying on top of the rubble. The celestial wizard gasped at the sight of two grown men beating up a child.

Lucy stomped forward, placing herself between the two men and child. She shouted in anger, "what are you doing? You're picking on a child! How could you do such a thing?"

The two men, who were bald, dressed in black, tan-skinned, and were obviously identical twins, had chuckled. One of them responded callously, "that brat was picking a fight. We just smack some sense into him."

The other man followed up with his own question, "do you want a fight too?"

Lucy gritted her teeth. She unhooked Cancer's key, only to freeze upon the instant realization that today was Wednesday. She couldn't summon Cancer on Wednesdays. As the two men cracked their knuckles and smiled menacingly at her, she knew that they were going to attack her. She hooked Cancer's key back on her keyring and wrapped her fingers around Aquarius' key. She looked around, searching for water. Any amount of water.

Her brown eyes soon fell on a puddle, left there by Juvia and her rain. Lucy turned her gaze back to the two men, seeing that they were both engulfed in red fire. Great. They're fire mages. The blonde woman waited for the two men to launch themselves at her, sending a blast of fire toward her. The celestial wizard jumped out of the way, landing with a pained yelp and groan next to the puddle. While laying on her stomach, she unhooked Aquarius' key and placed the blade in the water, calling, "Open! Gate of the Water Bearer: Aquarius!"

In a burst of water and from the puddle and a flash of golden light, Lucy found Aquarius glaring down at her with disdain. Lucy smiled and gave a nervous chuckle. The mermaid spirit sneered, "you interrupted my date with my boyfriend!" She then drew back her urn.

Lucy scrambled to her feet and raised her hands into a defensive position, quickly saying, "wait! Wait, Aquarius! I know that you're mad, but those two men just beat up a child! I need you to teach them a lesson!"

Aquarius scoffed and turned to the two mages. Upon seeing them engulf themselves in red fire again, she yelled, "you dare to threaten me with fire?!" She then raised her urn, releasing a stream of many water bubbles that hit the two mages with great force. Though, these bubbles also hit bystanders, sending the crowd of people running away for safety.

Lucy smiled at the sight of her strongest spirit fighting and not attacking her. She then heard a groan behind her, causing her to turn around and see the child stumbling out of the rubble-filled hole in the building he had been thrown into, quickly collapsing onto his knees. Lucy ran toward him and looked him over quickly, seeing that he was covered in burns, scrapes, and blood. Fortunately, though, he didn't seem to have too bad injuries. He would likely be better with bandaging and about a day of rest.

Not wanting the boy to get injured further, Lucy stood up and pulled off of her keyring, Horologium's key. She pointed the key at the surprised and pained boy, calling out her spirit, "Open! Gate of the Clock Constellation: Horologium!" With a flash of light, the boy was inside the grandfather clock. Lucy instructed her defensive spirit to keep the boy safe before she turned around to capture the two fire mages.

Sting walked through the streets of Crocus, scratching his dirty and itchy scalp as he ignored his aching feet and the looks of disgust that were thrown at him by the people around him. He didn't know where he was going. He no longer had his dragon and didn't have anywhere to go. He just wandered Fiore aimlessly, looking for something that he couldn't name. I didn't know what he was going to do. He had heard of guilds, groups that you could join if you were a wizard. He was a wizard. Maybe he could join a guild. He just had to find one. How was he going to do that?