Falling Stars - Blondie

Oh look! Another LaLustory!

This is a new story, set in an AU where Lucy never joined Fairy Tailand she and Laxus are mates.
For those who have seen my other stories, yes, Ikind of have an obsession with Laxus and Lucy being together. LaLuFTW!

*Sadly I do not own Fairy Tailor any of its characters.*

Laxus pushed down the last of his queasiness as he and the Raijinshuu stepped off their train. They had arrived in Silver Lake, a medium-sized mining town who had been having trouble with a dark guild lately. Frankly, Laxus was happy to get away from the guild, especially now.
Ever since Lisanna came back from Edolas, she and Natsu had picked up right where they left off and even went so far as to call themselves a couple. The two were inseparable, much to the joy of a certain barmaid, who was looking all too forward to her future nieces and nephews.
It was even worse with Gajeel. Why the old man even let the iron dragon slayer and that water mage join the guild was beyond Laxus. And the fact that most of the guild had accepted them so quickly was even more confusing. Did everyone have short-term memory loss to forget exactly that those two were once a part of Phantom Lord? Granted they hadn't done anything wrong, but Phantom Lord didn't have the best reputation before the guild was mysteriously destroyed. Anyway, Gajeel and that bookworm, Levy, were an item now, much to the devastation of her teammates. Laxus had a sneaking suspicion that the only reason Gajeel joined Fairy Tail was to get close to Levy before making her his mate.
Not that Laxus paid much attention to them or anything, but it was a little hard to not know what was going on in the guild. But why the fuck Natsu and Gajeel were mated before him was beyond rationalization. Laxus was used to women throwing themselves at him, but he had yet to come across a woman he could imagine spending the rest of his life with. He had to wonder how the other dragon slayers had found their mates and how they knew they had found their mates. He recalled Natsu saying that he just knew Lisanna was his mate, while he had yet to hear Gajeel say anything on the matter. Not that Laxus would ever ask.
Laxus and the Thunder Legion walked down the forest's dirt road that same afternoon, on the lookout for anyone waiting to ambush them. Word may have gotten out that the mayor of Silver Lake had hired some Fairy Tail mages to deal with the nearby dark guild, so that may have put the guild on the defensive. But Laxus' senses told him there was only one other person in the area and that they still had a long walk ahead of them to reach the dark guild.
The one other person in their region of the forest was on the dirt road like them, so it could have been a traveler or a ranger for all Laxus knew. The mages and the unknown person came gradually closer; the presence of the other person was masked by the sheer number of trees in the woods and the trail that kept twisting and turning.
Eventually another person came within their sights, just a few hundred feet from them. All they could see of the person was a dark green cloak wrapped around their shoulders and a pair of boots. Laxus sniffed the air and nearly stopped in his tracks. Intermingled with the scent of pine needles all around them, he could smell something...intoxicating. It smelled like honeysuckle and faintly of strawberries. But he could also smell blood. And pain. The woman (as he could tell it was a woman) they were about to meet was injured. Laxus just barely suppressed the growl that bubbled up in his throat, but his teammates looked at him all the same.
"Laxus-sama...should we prepare to fight?" Freed asked his leader, interpreting the growl as some kind of warning.
"No," Laxus quickly said. "She's injured. She won't attack us."
Sure enough, Laxus could make out a face from beneath the raised hood of the cloaked woman as the two parties got closer to one another. Blonde hair fringed around a heart-shaped face while large brown eyes seemed to look through the approaching Thunder Legion. Lightly tanned skin was marred by scratches and bruises; she was also holding her left arm as if to keep it from falling off. When the woman was about ten feet away and moving to sidestep the larger party by going off the dirt path, Freed spoke up.
"You there!" She stopped. "What is your business here?" he demanded to know. The rune mage unknowingly set Laxus on edge. All the dragon slayer wanted to do was bypass this girl and get to the dark guild's hall. There was something about the woman that made the dragon in him pace back and forth, as if there was something ominous about her. And Freed was only agitating his dragon by speaking to this girl.
The girl pushed the hood on her head back a little to reveal her pretty face. She arched a perfect eyebrow at Freed.
"Walking. What are you doing? Y'know, besides talking to random strangers in the middle of the forest," she answered. Her voice, as cynical as her reply was, agitated his dragon even more. There was a want, a need, that Laxus had to sate or he felt he would go insane. It took all of his willpower just to stand still and keep himself from...
A shadow gliding through the forest caught Laxus' eye. He sniffed the air and focused his hearing. There was another person nearby, he could tell, but the woman's presence was so overwhelming for him it was masking the scent of the person, making their location unknown to Laxus. He turned back to the strange woman, who had continued her conversation with Freed.
Mine...a foreign feeling bubbled up in Laxus that seemed to fathom that one word. He didn't even know who this woman was, yet she seemed...important to him somehow. Like a vision from a frequenting dream, she was familiar and strange to him all at the same time. Freed had asked her something, but Laxus hadn't been paying attention; he did hear her reply though.
"I'm on my way back to town. I need to get my arm looked at," she said, clearly indicating her left arm was in need of repair.
"How did you get injured?" Freed asked, continuing his third-degree questioning.
She sighed. "I was fighting some mages from a dark guild near here and got beat up. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get going." She moved to step around Evergreen to pass the four mages. She stopped again, making eye contact with Laxus for the first time. Her chocolate brown eyes shook him to the core.
"What?" she asked.
It was then that Laxus realized he had unknowingly grabbed her cape when she tried to walk past him. He gulped and let go of the fabric in his hand. "Nothing," he said in a low voice, trying to appear indifferent. He looked away from her. He couldn't understand it. Why was her presence making him feel so excited?
She looked at him a moment longer, shrugged her one good shoulder and walked past the group. Laxus continued to follow her with his eyes, even after she had walked around them and was continuing her walk down the forest path. His inner dragon roared at the sight of her walking away.
Again, Laxus saw some movement flicker in the woods. Before he could warn her, a tentacle-like vine whipped out of the wooded forest wrapped itself around the woman; a startled cry left her lips as the vine held her dangling eight feet in the air. Just as the Thunder Legion was about to run over to her, three consecutive balls of fire were launched in their direction from the forest. The four mages easily dodged the attack, letting the fireballs hit the ground and dissipate.
A man in dark robes emerged from the forest, followed by two other dark figures.
One the figures stood in front the Thunder Legion with orange flames licking at his hands. The other figure stood beside him.
The first figure in the black robes was clearly the leader.
"Cliff, Sylvia, deal with these strangers. I want the girl for myself," he said to the other two as he faced the vine holding the girl up.
"So, did you really think you could just run off after we went to all that trouble to catch you? Well you're-"
"Open, Gate of the Bull, Taurus!" the woman shouted. A flash of golden light emanated and a bull-like creature appeared carrying a long-handled axe. The bull swung the axe down and severed the vine holding the girl in the air. She twisted around while in the air and landed nimbly on her feet.
"D-did you just interrupt me?!" the man screeched, his hands fisted at his sides. The girl he was deciding to fight just gave him a hard glare as she unraveled the whip that had been attached to her hip.
Laxus lost track of what happened after that, because the two mages in front of him decided to attack at that moment. A wall of fire appeared behind them, courtesy of the fire mage. The other mage lifted her hands as humanoid shades appeared out of the ground. Both the shades and the fire mage charged Laxus and the Thunder Legion.
They weren't easy to take down, but Laxus and the others managed to defeat the two mages. With both mages knocked unconscious, Laxus stepped over the scorched earth where the wall of fire had been to observe the other fight that was happening.
The mage in the dark robes had animated several trees out of the forest and was using them to attack the blonde mage in addition to the vines which he snapped like whips. The bull she had summoned earlier was chopping the trees in half and the blonde mage was weaving through the obstacle course of vines and trees to get to the man. But the vines kept lifting her up and tossing her to the side. She had lost her cloak some time ago, and was looking even more bruised and scratched up than she was before. But she continued to get back up to charge yet again into the fray.
She seemed to be getting tired when she pulled what looked like a key from her belt and incanted, "Open, Gate of the Fire Bird, Phoenix!"
Another flash of golden light, and a woman with fiery red hair and wings appeared. The blonde mage seemed to be directing the woman, and thanks to his superior hearing, Laxus heard exactly what she said.
"Yes, Princess?" the woman asked.
"Use Fire Wing on the trees and vines," the blonde instructed. The red-haired woman beat her wings and ascended above where the battle was taking place. When she was high enough, she beat her wings forward and feathers made of flames shot out toward the vines and trees. The feathers turned everything they touched to ash.
The man in the dark robes looked flabbergasted, seeing his plants reduced to nothing. The blonde mage took advantage of the moment to swing her own whip around him and throw him into the air, only to bring him slamming back down to the ground.
Laxus heard a groan come from the man as he remained motionless on the ground.
The red-haired woman and the bull approached the blonde girl. She turned to them and smiled warmly.
"Thanks Taurus, thanks Phoenix. You can go back to the Spirit World now," she told them. The bull disappeared with another flash of light, but the redhead remained behind. Concern was etched into the woman's pale face.
"You are injured, Princess. Would you like me to heal you?" she reached out to touch her mistress. But the blonde mage shook her head and continued to smile.
"That's not necessary, Phoenix. It's just a strained muscle. Don't waste any of your power on me," she indicated toward her injured arm. With some regret, the phoenix disappeared as well. Laxus and his teammates approached.

"You are a celestial mage?" was the first thing Freed asked, his eyes sparkling a little like when he was learning something new.

The blonde looked up as she attached her whip to her hip, her gold and silver keys jingling. "Yeah, I am," she confirmed. "And you're all from Fairy Tail, right?" she asked, eyeing their respective guild marks. They nodded. "I guess you're here to take down that dark guild. You might want to tie up those three before heading over there—they're all members," she gestured towards the three unconscious mages with a small smile.

"Didn't that man say that they had captured you?" Evergreen spoke up with suspicion. "Why did they capture you and how did you escape?"

"Oh... they wanted to get a ransom out of my family for me," she answered vaguely. "As for how I escaped? Just lucky, I guess," she shrugged and smiled brightly. Her answer didn't exactly satisfy Laxus, or any of the Thunder Legion, but she turned to leave anyway, heading towards town.

"Well, anyway. I've got to get going. See ya!" she was about to leave when Laxus stepped toward the celestial mage. "You, Blondie," he said to get her attention.

She turned away from the road and looked at him, her eyes widened in surprise. Then her eyes hardened. "It's Lucy, actually," she said with a slight pout.

"Whatever. I want you to fight me," Laxus demanded.

Lucy's eyes once more widened. "Fight you? Right now?"
"No, tomorrow. Meet us in the middle of the town square tomorrow morning at seven."
Her surprise vanished only to be replaced by a hard glare. She crossed her arms. "Why do you want to fight me?" she wanted to know.

Laxus smirked at her. "Curiosity. I'd like to see what a celestial mage is capable of."

"You didn't see that a few minutes ago?"

Laxus was a little stunned by the sass she gave him, but if anything, it just made him more geared up to fight the little minx. His smirk returned. "If you're scared to take on a dragon slayer, I understand," he tried to rile her up. It worked.

"I'm not scared," she returned, but Laxus could see that his words had made her bristle with anger.

"Then we'll see you tomorrow," he turned on his heel walked in the direction of the dark guild, with his team following silently behind, having taken care of the three dark mages while their leader and Lucy were talking. All three members of the Raijinshuu wondered what Laxus had in store for the mysterious celestial mage, but they knew they wouldn't know for sure until the next day.

Did that ending feel rushed? Cause it felt rushed to me...

Oh well. On to the next chapter, then!