Insane

Ring! That! Bell!

"Since you turds have already warmed up, I guess we should go ahead and jump right into the good stuff, shall we?"

Lucy headed to her equipment bag, shooing Natsu out of the way in the process.

"If you're not gonna be training with them, then I suggest watching from the sidelines. Out of the way."

Lucy crouched down to open her bag, taking a large bell and a stand to hold the bell up. She walked back to where her team was and set the bell up behind her. She was at least 5 yards away from the others and the bell was 2 yards behind her.

"Stand in a straight line! Do you turds know what you're going to be doing?"

"Obviously not, blondie."

"Thank you for the sass, miss Strauss. I am here to enlighten you. All you need to do right now, is ring that bell."

"Really? All we have to do is ring the bell?" Erza asked, very hesitant.

"Yup. Seems easy enough, right?" Lucy jumped on the balls of her feet.

"Alright then!" Gray said as he charged forward. As he began running past Lucy, she grabbed his arm which caused him to stop running. During that second of pause that Gray had, Lucy had managed to put her foot on his thigh, hoisting herself up until her legs were wrapped around his neck. She twisted her torso and down he went.

"Back on the line."

"Anyone else wanna have a go at it?"

Juvia ran as fast as her legs could take her. Unfortunately for her, Lucy was faster. Lucy kicked the inside of her knee, causing Juvia to stumble to the ground. From the ground, Juvia lunged towards Lucy, fist aimed towards Lucy's face.

Her fish landed on its mark, but Lucy didn't even flinch.

"She's takin the hits dead on?" Natsu asked himself, barely above a whisper.

Lucy grabbed the fist that was previously on her face and twisted the wrong way. You could hear Juvia's screams from a mile away.

"Back on the line."

Erza walked calmly towards Lucy. Once they were face to face, everything that was different about them stood out.

Red and yellow clashed. Lucy's glinting eyes met Erza's serious ones. Erza's thin lipped and stoic face meet Lucy's grinning one. They were polar opposites.

Erza aimed a punch at Lucy which Lucy blocked with her forearm. The next couple of minutes were a battle of flying fists'. Every punch Erza threw, Lucy blocked it one second later.

Lucy seemed to finally get bored and, with impeccable speed, Lucy backed up and threw herself in the air, twisting as her leg stretched out and made contact with Erza's torso, sending her to the ground.

"Back on the line."

Lucy looked up at Lisanna. "You gonna give it a go?"

Lisanna visibly gulped and said "Maybe after I gain a little more info on your fighting style. Wouldn't want to go running in blind."

Lucy made a face of confusion. "Why do you need to study my fighting style? All you need to do is ring the bell. Why does it require you to study me?"

Realization dawned at Lucy's face. "You just don't wanna get hurt so you'll let your friends do the fighting for you. I got cha."

Lisanna's face reddened in embarrassment and anger. "You don't know anything."

"My college diploma says differently."

"This is ridiculous! What is this going to teach us? Ringing a bell isn't going to do anything!" Erza yelled out impatiently. Everyone seemed to agree with her.

Lucy's eyes darkened with seriousness. "Story time. Do you want to know something Hotchner told me? Let me tell you..."

Flashback

Lucy has been stuck in the hellhole for over a week. She was hanging from the ceiling, chains holding her up. All that's been done to her so far was a couple of stings from a taser gun from one of his goons but every since he kidnapped her, she hasn't actually seen Hotchner yet.

When a door creaked open, her head immediately shot up.

"Well, I'd assume that miss-know-it-all wouldn't have made it this far. Well, you made it this far."

Jack Hotchner walked closer to her and looked her in the eye. Her head dipped down on it's own, not wanting to smell the stench coming from his mouth. He grabbed her chin and lifted her head up.

"Oh, honey. Are you scared? Well you should be. Do you know how annoying it was to listen to your voice everyday, telling me how I need to let go and start making progress. You basically broke my soul.

"So now, I'm gonna return the favor." He let his disgusting yellow and black teeth show. "You see, you got spirit, and I am duly impressed. But I am gonna break that spirit. I'm gonna break your soul and when I'm finished, assuming that your still alive, -I wouldn't bet money on that though- there's gonna be very little of you left for anyone to work with."

End Flashback

"And you know what? He did. He broke my souls and he broke my spirit. But you know what that taught me? Teamwork."

"How does that even remotely correlate to teamwork?" Gray asked, utterly confused.

"I'll tell you how, Gray. You see, before everything happened, I was head strong. I refused to work with anyone below my academic level and I never worked well with the ones that did reach my standards. But after that, I was broken. I had no spirit and I had no soul. That tends to change you. You become vulnerable, and unsure of yourself. And because I couldn't trust myself and my capabilities -mental and physical-, I had to rely on others. I had to rely on my friends. The gang that took me in.

"Each and every one of you will have to go through this one by one, and when I think you've had enough, or don't have the spirit or strength to continue, I'll tell you to devise a plan with each other and take me down together. Only then will you be able to work as a single unit and rely more one each other. Do you understand?"

Each person nodded their head with a single jerk. Natsu, however, kept staring at the blonde wondering what other things had he told her? What other things did he do to her? How did he manage to break her soul and spirit?

He shook his head. It didn't matter. He'd find out eventually

"Lisanna, you're up!" Said girl muttered a curse, obviously not wanting to get beaten up by the blonde.

"Oh, man! I'm gonna enjoy this one!" Lucy positioned herself into a fighting stance that screamed strength and dominance. It's hard to believe that she was -is- broken, to the point when she felt she couldn't go on. That she is the same person that had many sleepless nights, dwelling and sobbing over her misfortunes. The same girl that just wanted to give up and have everything over with.

But she's the same girl, just stronger for being able to go through it and come back alive.

"RING! THAT! BELL!"