Celestial Heart (A Fairy Tail Fanfic)

Chapter 24: Stupidity is an Incurable Disease

Winter's POV

Alright. You've ben with me for a while, seen my ups and downs, how shitty my life could be, just how reckless I became in death-defying situations. It was impressive, huh?

Yeah, well, I think my current situation takes the cake for most asinine, most ridiculous thing I'd had happen to me as of yet. And that feeling only intensified when I was awoken by a lovely steel-toed boot rocketing into my gut, knocking me against the wall, cracking my back with a sickening thud and driving every ounce of air from my aching lungs.

Damn, Gajeel, always taking things too far...

I lay there, (pitifully) pulling myself into a semi-sitting position, chest heaving, head pounding, as Gajeel delivered some little speech, boasting about how he always completed a job and how he knew exactly how much force to use to ensure his prey wasn't killed before capture.

Yeah, cause he totally struck me as the kinda guy who would - as he's slamming an iron rod into my skull - calculate the exact amount of force that would only knock me out without causing my brain to implode from the impact or anything. That was Gajeel the Iron Dragon Slayer for you.

And, oh look! The sarcasm was back with a vengeance.

Groggy as I was, I only vaguely recognized that Jose had stepped up to a microphone, probably the very same that connected to the speakers through which all of Magnolia could hear him. 

"All of your Fairy Tail members out there," he began in an annoyingly grandiose fashion, "we have succeeded in capturing Lucy Heartfilia! Our first objective has been achieved."

I wanted to laugh because they most certainly didn't have Lucy Heartfilia - they were stuck with her stubborn bitch of a sister. But I found everything decidedly less humorous when someone (Jose or Gajeel, probably) tangled their grimy hand in my hair and yanked like that wanted me to go completely and irreversibly bald.

Predictably, I shrieked like a goddamn banshee.

There was also a slew of curse words that tore from my lips, which were being broadcast  throughout Magnolia, loud and clear to anyone who bothered listening. I felt kinda guilty about that part. There were children out there!

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Third Person POV

The crowd of Fairies could only gape up at the monstrous guild that towered before them as the scream rippled through the static-charged air, deafening in the unfamiliar silence that had blanketed the usually uproarious guild.

But that wasn't Lucy.

While many of the gathered mages hadn't been in the company of the Heartfilia twins long, they knew enough to recognize the distinctive voices of the two. And that was the wrong Heartfilia screaming over the load speaker.

"Winter...!" Mira gasped, her eyes hazy with the beginnings of fierce tears, her hands pressed over her ears as though she could block out the agonized wailing of her young guild mate. She knew Winter to be reckless from Levy and Loke's complaints after jobs, but for her to do this... To take her sister's place, knowing she may never be in the company of Fairy Tail's members again... 

Reckless and stupid it was, but dishonorable it was not.

"Shit!"

She swung round half-heartedly as Loke jogged to a stop beside her, a still lifeless Lucy in his arms. His body was rigid, holding tight to a fury that sparked off him with vicious intensity, burning in his usually amorous eyes like a raging wildfire. "That idiot! When I got there, she was already..." His arms went taut with repressed rage, unconsciously crushing Lucy to his chest. "I couldn't..." He trailed off, abruptly wrenching his head away from the scene, though Mira didn't miss the shame that doused the growing embers in his hooded eyes.