Chapter 74: Loke

Hello there, sorry for the delay. I had a damaged internet cable. Combined with a brutal week at work, which remainded me why i can only write on weekends; it took me way too much too finish and upload this chapter. But hopefully there won´t be anymore problems, probably, maybe, i don´t know. Let´s just hope, anyway on with the chapter.

The shock of the realization stayed only for a brief moment, before being replaced by anger.

"Are you stupid!? Why did you not tell us or the bandits that it was Fairy Tail that accepted the request. We could have changed plans and plan our next steps!" yelled the leader of the dark guild toward the head of the company.

Who in turn covered his head in fear and begun to cry and begun to say, "But… But we… we didn´t had enough time. We needed to ship the goods today, or we would not be able to finish the order in time."

"IDIOT!" yelled the leader of the dark guild, he wanted to yell some other things at him, but he noticed that it had become quiet, and he turned around to look at the situation.

To his terror, all of the members of the dark guild were lying on the floor, some of them dead while others were just unconscious.

Zeldaris and the others were simply standing there and looked at the two people above them.

"Don´t worry about us, just continue." said Zeldaris with a wide smile on his face.

"I… I surrender." said the leader of the dark guild weakly.

Zeldaris and Aversia knocked the two men out and put them over their shoulders.

They would first bring these two back to the city and would later have the troops that were stationed in the city capture the rest of the members of the dark guild, or at least those that were still alive.

Nothing happened on the way back and as they arrived back at the city, they saw that a group of Rune Knights had arrived at the city.

"Looks like the Rune Knights didn´t disappoint in their timing." said Aversia.

"Let's get this over with, so that the council can take this over and we can finish our work here." said Zeldaris.

The five of them walked toward the Rune Knights, who were currently talking with the mayor of the city and the secretary of the company.

Zeldaris and Aversia handed the two men to the Rune Knights, who in turn asked them to explain what they knew.

Zeldaris explained to the Rune Knight captain what he knew about the situation and everything that happened.

The captain was wearing the normal uniform of the Rune Knights, what was a bit strange, since the captains and commanders had a different kind of uniform.

He was a middle-aged man with short black hair and a pretty impressive beard.

The captain stroked his beard while he thought about the things he just heard.

"It is true that there are still some goods being smuggled into Bosco, despite the current situation of the kingdom. Although I may not be allowed to tell you all of this, but the situation in Bosco is getting out of hand. We are constantly getting added information as to how big and widespread all of this had been. We were able to catch them by surprise, thanks to that idiot Bora, but that will not stay for long. We need to capture as many as we can before they can hide their traces and hide in the shadows again."

All of them became stunned after hearing this, they had heard that the situation in Bosco had been kind of extreme, but they would have never imagined that it would have been to that extent.

The captain looked at the five mages of Fairy Tail and said, "Thanks to you, we have another hint that can help us in this situation, you have my utmost gratitude."

Although it had been by sheer coincidence that they had stumbled upon it, this would be a tremendous help for the council in the fight against the underworld and organized crime in all of Ishgar.

After the captain thanked the five mages, he asked them if they could show his troops the way to the dark guild, so that they could capture the other members of the dark guild.

Elfman volunteered himself ready to lead the Rune Knights to the dark guild.

Aversia told the captain that they should take a few coffins with them, so that the dead members of the dark guild could receive a proper burial.

This was one of the things that were excepted by everyone, that everyone, no matter who they were, deserved a proper burial.

Over the next two days helped Zeldaris and the others the Rune Knights with their help, since they were thankful for every help that they could get.

Zeldaris, Aversia and Lisanna helped by helping the Rune Knights going through all of the documents

Ophiuchus and Elfman helped on other things.

But after the second day, there was nothing left with which they could help.

The Rune Knights had interrogated the head of the company, the leader of the bandits and the leader of the dark guild and from them gained a lot of information.

They had also already informed the council about their findings and had received their next orders and would soon leave the city.

The company that had original hired them had sent their ships on their way to Bosco again.

As for Zeldaris, Aversia, Elfman, Lisanna and Ophiuchus, they received not only the original reward from the request but also a bonus from the company and one from the council.

They could finally return back to the guild.

The group returned late at night to the city of Magnolia.

All of them agreed that they would go to the guild tomorrow and returned to their respective home.

On the next day, all five of them got quite the surprise after they go to the construction site of the new guild hall.

It seemed that a lot had happened in the time that the five were on their mission.

Loke had run away from the guild and Lucy found out about him being a celestial spirit and why he could no longer return to the spirit world.

His contractor after Leila had been a mage from Blue Pegasus, a woman called Karen.

She also had Aries´s key and became one of the most popular models of her time.

But Karen didn´t treat Aries and Loke as people and used the two as shields, abuse them, let men play with Aries and other cruel things.

One of her favorite punishments was to keep them in the human world for multiple days.

Both master Bob and Loke had warned her multiple times, but she never listened to both of them and would let her anger out on poor Aries.

That was until Loke had enough and blocked Karen from summoning any other spirit, by staying in the human world using his own magic power.

He gave her an ultimatum, she would cancel her contract with Aries and him and he would close his gate, allowing her to continue her work as a mage.

Celestial Spirit mages are able to open multiple gates at once, but it came at a cost.

Every additional gate would cost multiple times the amount of magic power than before and was considered, because of the huge amount of magic power it costed to open multiple gates and maintain them, a high-ranking technique under Celestial Spirit mages and only few people were strong enough to do so or reached that level.

It also made opening more than two gates a forbidden technique.

Leila and Anna were able to open multiple gates at the same time.

Leila´s record, when she had no problems with her health, was opening three gates.

Anna´s record were four gates.

As for Karen, she was far from able to open and maintain more than one gate at a time.

She refused to cancel her contract with the two spirits, since they were two of the twelve zodiac keys and one of a kind.

Time past and days turned into weeks.

Weeks turned into months.

Loke had almost reached his limit and would not be able to hold on for much longer.

Karen had tried to persuade him multiple times, but she failed because Loke saw that she didn´t meant her words and had not reflected on her actions, and with time she also became increasingly desperate.

But things turned for the worst as Karen had accepted a request out of desperation and died.

(AN: In the manga Loke learned of her death by going to the village where Blue Pegasus had its guild hall, but in the anime, it was Master Bob that went to the ruins and told Loke about Karen´s death.)

And because Loke had been indirectly responsible for the death of Karen, by making her unable to use her magic, he was banished from the spirit world.

This was a death sentence, because the spirits of the spirit world can only recover their energy and magic inside the spirit world.

Meaning that Loke had been sentenced to die and he accepted it, since he blamed himself for Karen´s death. (AN: OK, that name has really aged badly.)

Loke decided that he would spend the rest of his time in a comparable way than Karen did, as an art tribute and to find closer.

Eventually he joined Fairy Tail and knew that he would soon die.

But luckily Lucy found out that Loki was in fact the spirit Leo and found him at Karen`s grave.

Loke told Lucy the entire story and tried to persuade her that it was ok and that he had accepted his fate.

However, Lucy would not accept that and proclaimed that it was unfair and that she would change the rule.

And because of this sentence alone, the spirit king appeared.

Lucy argued with the spirit king about Loke´s punishment and managed to do something that not only stunned Loke, but also the spirit king himself.

Lucy was able to summon all of her spirits at the same time, although only for a few seconds, to show both the king and Loke that all of them agreed that Loke´s punishment was not fair.

(AN: In the manga, Lucy opened six gates, the gates of the five zodiac keys that she had and the gate of Plue¸ but in the anime, Lucy opened the gates of all the spirits with whom she had a contract with.)

Moved by Lucy´s action the king agreed to pardon Loke, but under one condition, that Loke would serve under Lucy as her spirit.

As Zeldaris, Aversia, Ophiuchus, Lisanna and Elfman listened as Lucy and Loke explained what happened, all of them could not believe what happened, especially Ophiuchus.

"The king showed himself, simply because Lucy said that she would change the rule is crazy." said Ophiuchus in a solemn way that was not normal for her.

"How so?" asked Aversia.

"The spirit king is the ruler of the spirit world and the strongest spirit that ever existed. He governs over every spirit and was the one that formed the rules under which every spirit and Celestial Spirit mage operates and also discussed these rules with every government on this planet. Any yet a simple girl shouting that she will change the rules made him appear before her. As far as I know, something like that never happened before." explained Ophiuchus.

"Ophiuchus is right, the spirit king would normally never appear or move for something like that and yet he did." added Loke, he still looked tired, but he was feeling much better now.

"Which leads to the question, what makes you so special, Lucy?" asked Ophiuchus, while inspecting Lucy, trying to find out what makes her different.

But Ophiuchus tried only for a short amount before sighing and shrugging with her shoulders.

"Well, I don´t get it and as far as I can see, you are just a normal girl."

"But nonetheless, we need to thank you for saving our old friend." said Aversia toward Lucy with a voice filled with gratitude.

"Oh… You don´t need to thank me. I just helped a fellow member of the guild, everyone else would have done the same." said Lucy, a bit embarrassed.

"But it was still you that saved him and for that we are thankful. The two of us knew that he was Leo from a long time now, but we didn´t know how to manage the situation and because of it, we were unable to see that he was suffering." said Zeldaris.

"Zeldaris… Aversia… I am sorry. I should have talked with you. But instead, I run away like a coward." said Loke, his voice filled with regrets.

"It should be us that should apologize, Leo." said Aversia.

"Let´s just decide that all three of us are at fault." suggested Zeldaris while smiling.

Both Aversia and Loke agreed.

"You should get some more rest; you look like shit." Aversia said and sighed afterwards, she didn´t really know how to manage this situation and she felt a bit awkward, not that Zeldaris was any better.

"*sigh* You are right, but before that." Loke said before he pulled three tickets out of his pocket and gave them Lucy.

"These are cards for a beach resort hotel. I had planned to go there with my girlfriends, but because I can no longer stay for an extended period of time in the human world there is no way that I can go there, which is why I will give them to you. After all, you have saved my life. I already gave Erza her ticket. Have fun." Loke said with a smile.

Loke than teleported back into the spirit world.

Lucy looked at the tickets, obviously excited and happy about it.

But she soon realized that she had only three tickets, meaning that she could only bring two other people, beside Erza, with her.

"You should go with Natsu and Gray, it would be good for you guys too relax and enjoy yourself." Zeldaris said, trying to make the choice easy for Lucy.

He also said that, so that Gray, Erza and Natsu would not cause so much destruction on for a short amount of time, especially Natsu.

Makarov had already problems with the council again and could really need a break from the trouble that Natsu causes.

As for Natsu and Gray, they were quite excited and were about to snatch the tickets out of Lucy´s hands, if Aversia were not giving them a death glare.

"Are you sure?" Lucy asked, still a bit reluctant.

"Don´t worry about it, besides, I don´t think that you have much time to think about it and should hurry and prepare your things." Zeldaris said with a smirk and pointed toward Erza, who was already ready for the beach and was ready to go at any moment.

Natsu, Ophiuchus, Gray and Lucy could only stare at it with open mouths and wide eyes, the speed with which Erza had been ready was quite astounding.

Zeldaris, Aversia and Lisanna on the other hand were laughing.

Meanwhile at the headquarters of the Magic Council in Era.

Org was about to pull his hair out.

Not only was he and the rest of the council currently over worked with the whole Bosco situation, but the fact that they got they were in this situation in the first place was because of Fairy Tail, was by no means a good thing in his mind.

It was by no means a bad thing that they got into this situation, since the council had hoped to get an opportunity for a strike against the underworld in Ishgar, meaning that Org was upset that it was Fairy Tail that brought them this situation.

That the guild had also helped them by discovering and dealing with the smuggling ring in Hargeon was no help for his mental state.

Org hated Fairy Tail, it had been a troublemaker even before he became a member of the council and that was decades ago.

Yes, even while the founding master, Mavis Vermilion, was the acting master, had the guild been a notorious troublemaker, but because of the achievements and abilities of Mavis was the council more lenient with the guild, although they still made Fairy Tail pay for all of the damage that they caused.

Even with the second master, Precht Gaebolg, had the council somewhat ignored the trouble that the guild had caused, but now with Makarov and the trouble that Salamander in particular was causing had the council reached the end of its patience with the guild.

More of the members of the council were of the opinion that the guild should be disbanded, but there were still some that were against it.

A good example was Yajima, a former member of Fairy Tail, but he was also one of the members that Org had the most respect for.

Yajima was always searching for the most peaceful solution and was always thinking about the lives of others and was one of the humblest members of the council that Org had ever known.

Org respected that about Yajima, even if many people called Yajima naïve.

But Org found that Yajima was a bit too quiet.

But still, why did it have to be Fairy Tail that helped them so much.

On the other hand, Siegrain was heaving quite the enjoyable time as he looked at the tough time that Org had with accepting how much Fairy Tail had helped the council.

But even if that were not the case, he was in a great mood.

The plan on which he had worked for more than eight long years was finally about to finish.

'Now then, it is up to you Jellal. Make your move.'

Far away in the ocean stood a giant tower, it had been built for more than a decade and had recently been completed.

Its name was the tower of heaven. (AN: In the manga it was called the tower of paradise, tower of heaven sounds better in my opinion.)

At the top of the tower was a grand throne room and, on that throne, sat a hooded figure, his name was Jellal.

"It is finally time to bring back the last piece of the puzzle. Have you enjoyed your freedom Erza? With your sacrifice I will utter in a new world and bring world peace. But I am also interested to see your strength, son of Igneel. And the power that had to be sealed inside your bodies, Zeldaris, Aversia."