Fighting Oblivion

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Sting, Rogue and their partners returned within a few hours and the girls and I were excited to share the progress we made. We started excitedly explaining to the twin slayers all we learned, talking over each other in our haste. Minerva grabbed Sting's hand and led him over to the coffee table. He jerked his arm back out of her reach, an odd look on his face.

"Break it down for me, Princess, I don't need the whole scientific process." That was weird he was being kind of rude to her which didn't make sense from what I knew of their relationship, which was admittedly not much. Minerva just stood there, she looked as stunned as I was at his tone.

"Uh, basically Aquarius' key is on the top of a mountain in the Bargo region of Guiltina, she's waiting for me to come find it and make a new contract, otherwise a shadow monster thing is gonna use it in the potion and end the world. Oh, and we only have two months before whoever it is gets there first. Simple enough for you?" I said the last in the sweetest voice I could. I was teasing him, I realized, trying to break him of his foul mood.

"Sounds good," he turned towards me. "When do we leave?"

"Uhhh...Lucy," Rogue interjected. "I'm gonna need a bit more. How did you figure this out?" Sting just picked up their shopping bags, took them to the dining room and started sorting through them.

"Well, Yukino was right, we have to cross the Blast Sea, following the North Star. The poem said "the ground of frost" so we know it's gotta be in a cold place, snow on the ground. Bargo is still experiencing a heavy winter right now, according to the Official Almanac of Guiltina it's the only region that experiences heavy snow fall this time of year, plus according to the star chart included Polaris sits directly overhead. The poem mentioned the key was 'on high'. Normally I'd think 'on high' would be like a higher authority, but since the key is an object it would make more sense if it was just being kept in a high up place. The perfect view of Polaris, where it would sit directly on top of you, is from a mountain in Bargo called Mount Opasnyy." I spit it all out as fast as I could. I trusted Rogue to keep up and it's not like Sting was interested so I couldn't care less if he understood anything I said. All he wanted was the fight, the background story meant nothing to him.

"And the timeli—" Rogue cut off his own question with a smack to his forehead. "Of course, 'bimestrial soon passes." I nodded, thrilled he figured it out.

"It literally means 'two months.'" He looked just as happy to have figured it out. "But, what about the shadow monster?"

"Ok," I admitted. "We're not sure about that part. It says the darkness seeks the key and it's evil, it's not very specific so I'm going with shadow monster...no offense."

"None taken," he laughed.

"The good news is there's a train that leaves from here to a port city in Iceberg almost daily," Minerva explained. "But there isn't a boat scheduled to leave for Guiltina for another 8 days. It'll take another week to cross the Blast Sea and we have no idea how long it'll take to get from Reino to Bargo. Lucy's got a lot of helpful books here but only a few deal with Guiltina and none of those speak to the type of transportation available." Both dragon slayers let out a groan when she finished. I'm sure they were already dreading the thought of spending so long on a train and then a boat. But hey, they wanted to come, they'd have to tough it out. The thought of it made me giggle. Sting glanced at me, giving me a stink eye.

"So pack up then, let's go." He turned his back and resumed digging through the bags.

"We're not leaving yet," said Minerva. Sting froze, I could see the tension building up in his back. His stupid crop top was so tight I could see every muscle in his back.