Guild Leverage

Ch 5

"How the hell did the girls even manage that?" Gajeel pants as he rips off a portion of his shirt to wrap around his arm, one of the irate mothers had thrown him hundreds of feet away into a tree, one of her talons creating a shallow but long gash as she did.

"I don't know but I'm sure it was easier for them than for us when we did it," Bacchus says as he ties his hair back into his bun, all of the men looking disheveled form their little war with the Vulcans.

Laxus grunts in agreement as he walks along the side of Levy's runes before freezing. "Do you guys feel that?" Laxus asks cautiously as the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand up.

"Yep and I don't like it.." Gajeel mumbled before looking forward into the increasing darkness of the forest. "Whatever, or whoever is in there is gonna cause a problem.." The magical pressure around him quickly became overwhelming as the aura become even more dangerous and foreboding.

"Well the runes lead right towards it so I don't now what you want to do but we're gonna have to go..," Bacchus says as he walks forwards, a slight slur in his tone. The alcohol in his system giving him more balls than he usually would have had.

The rest of the men grunt in agreement as they follow close behind him, glad for Levy's change in color of the runes so that they would be able to see them more clearly, proving convenience even to the dragon slayers who nearly had night vision.

"Where the hell are we going?" Cana asks Levy quietly, knowing that after the several times they asked the man himself that they wouldn't be getting any sort of answer.

"I've got no clue, but it's getting darker and harder to walk through the forest so I think that he's leading us into the center of the forest" Levy whispers back.

The man stops suddenly before knocking on a tree, using a certain beat that caused a panel to open up on the side of a large oak. The man turns around, gesturing broadly to the girls to enter through the makeshift doorway. The girls hesitantly at one another before Wendy breaks the silence with a low growl.

"I smell Lucy down there" she mumbles before taking a step forward, the knowledge that she was down there being enough motivation fro all of them to quickly follow behind. They walked down a set of oak stairs, each of them creaking loudly as a dim swinging light lit their way as they walked further into the eerie darkness. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, the winding path of the stairs and corridors taking its toll on the amount of energy the girls had in spare.

The man makes his way to the front of the group to lead the girls to a row of dingy cells with no padlock in sight. The look of the dingy cells made the girl's blood run cold.

"You'll all be staying in one of these until I have a need for you. I'll be back with food for you guys in about 3 hours, you can all stay together as long as you behave, including the celestial mage. If there's a problem I can very easily resolve it." He walks to one of the dark cells before waving his hand, the door swings open at his command before he motions for the girls to walk inside. Their stomachs start doing flips as they think it over, every rational bone in their body telling them to turn away and fight back. Cana looks at them carefully before her head snaps towards the cell where a quiet groan came.

"Lucy?..," Cana whispers before taking a step into the cell, not waiting to see if the rest of the girls had followed her. Ever since the S-class trials she had a new bond with the girl. She loved Lucy ever since she stepped into the guild, she was her sister, her Nakama, but after everything she went through to help her with the trials and her problem with her dad, she had a new found respect for her.

The girls quickly take off after Cana, not wanting to risk being separated They run into the darkness of the cell before Cana throws up a light card, illuminating the room just enough for them to see the man closing the door behind them and stalking off.

"Danmit.," Levy mumbles as she walks forward to the center of the room, allowing Wendy to grab her hand for comfort.

"Lucy!"Are you down here?" Wendy yells, her voice echoing off of the walls.

"Over..here.." Lucy groans, a small smile pulling at her face before she continues her struggle against her binds.

The girls quickly rush over to her, not taking more than a minute to undo her binds. Lucy takes a minute to stretch her sore limbs, rubbing on the rope burn she had on her wrists before glaring at the girls, if looks could kill that would have been it.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS HERE!" Lucy yells.

"We had to come get you, it's not like we could have just left you here," Cana yells back after she composed herself after the initial shock of getting yelled at.

"But why didn't the guild just send the guys!" Lucy yells back, her face getting red from anger.

"First of all we did, second of all we're just a capable as the guys, Lucy" Levy reasons, hoping that if she didn't scream she would be able to calm Lucy down. All this screaming and stress definitely could not be good for the baby.

Lucy takes a deep breath as she tries to calm herself down. "I don't want you guys here because he needs you guys to finish his plans, he cants do it with just me, but now that you guys are here he can start.," Lucy says quietly as her hand subconsciously grabs her stomach. "

"Well, what does he need us for?" Wendy asks cautiously she looks Lucy over, trying to see fi she needed to heal her or not.

"He needs us to open something called the Shi no hoshi no mon. It will resurrect something called Andromalius. Levy needs to make a magic circle around me and some artifact and he needs Wendy to use healing magic on me. He figured out that I can't use my magic without being in excruciating pain so he wants you to use your magic on me so that I can at least somewhat tolerate it. He also needs Cana to time everything out. He knows that I won't be able to keep it up very long so you'll have to time it out for us. "

"Shit.," Levy mumbled, blushing when everyone looks at her with wide eyes.
"Blue's right...we're kinda screwed.."