Chapter 9 - Feeding Time

Fairy Tail: Paths of the Soul

"This isn't working..." Zeke complained, having grown tired of carrying Axel for most of the morning. After almost four hours of looking, the group hadn't had any success in finding their missing vessel. What was worse, incredible humidity and the barrage of bug bites made the search feel even longer.

They had decided to take a small break to let Zeke rest and brainstorm a new plan. The opportunity came when they happened upon a large flat rock that shot up a few feet above the dark green water, and they all gathered around Shelly to think.

"I don't get it. We've been to over half the places where the water gets shallow, and we still haven't found it yet." Shelly continued to pour over the map, convinced that there was some tiny detail she had overlooked, occasionally swatting at the bugs that landed on her.

"Maybe they hit a tree root instead?" Amber suggested. "Something like that wouldn't be on a map, would it?"

"If it did, we'll be at this for days." Geno added, swatting at the back of his neck.

"Maybe, but we-." Shelly stopped to smack a bug on her knee, then grunted in annoyance. "Ugh, I can't think with all these bugs everywhere!" She ran her hands through her hair, frustrated by her inability to think of a new plan.

Sitting a little farther away, Axel had decided to remove himself from the planning. He didn't seem as annoyed by the bugs as the others, for every time one got too close a small jolt of electricity would jump from his skin and fry it on the spot. Hearing Shelly complain gave him an idea, for he hopped to his feet and cracked his knuckles a second later. "Hold on, I'mma try something."

Shelly sighed, having watched what he had been doing every time she heard the buzz of electricity. "Axel, I don't-."

Magic suddenly filled the air, and Geno pulled both Amber and Shelly away as Axel began to glow. "Get down!" Just as they hit the ground bolts of lightning arced out in all directions, followed by a clap of thunder loud enough to ripple the water below.

Amber's hands shot over her ears and she tucked into a ball in an attempt to keep the noise out. It was over in less than a second, but everyone remained where they had landed from the shock. She slowly looked in his direction, hesitant to check at first, only to see him standing amongst a cloud burning insect remains. Fright quickly turned to anger, but Geno jumped back to his feet before she could say anything. "What the hell was that, dumbass?" He yelled, smacking Axel upside the head, "You could have fried us all!"

"Well, everyone was complaining about the bugs. So I thought I'd do something about them." He argued, glairing back at Geno and rubbing the spot where he had been hit. "Besides, everyone’s ok right?"

Silence followed, broken only by the sound of Zeke coughing on something. "I think I swallowed one."

Shelly began to giggle as she rolled up to a sitting position. However seeing Amber crouching next to her reminded her of what happened that morning, and her smile turned into a stern glair. "Axel, don't do that again."

Axel seemed taken aback. "I was just-."

"There's water everywhere." She interrupted, pointing to a few small puddles littered over their perch. "You might hit one and shock us by accident." Axel seemed like he was about to argue, but looked around himself and nodded begrudgingly.

Amber's stomach growled suddenly, making her blush as everyone turned to look at her. "Guess it’s around lunch time, huh?” Geno quipped, rubbing at his stomach. "All in favour, say aye."

"Aye!" Zeke yelled. He landed on Axel's shoulder and pointed off into the trees. "C'mon Axel, let's go get something to eat." Axel nodded without a word, looking apologetically at Amber.

Amber glared right back at him as Shelly said. "I'll get a fire started." With that both Geno and Axel leapt off in different directions, jumping from tree branch to tree branch, leaving the girls alone on the rock.

After a moment, Shelly began gathering leaves and small sticks together, pilling them into a mound the center of the rock. As she did so, Amber looked down each of the paths Geno and Axel had taken and asked. "Want me to do anything?"

Shelly shook her head. "I can make fire with my magic, so it's ok." Just as her pile of dead wood was completed, she pointed at it and said. "Solid Script: Flames!" Fire burst to life on the pile, spelling out the word Shelly had called. At first it as only a few sticks, but it was all set alight after just a moment. After admiring her work, Shelly continued. "You can help find something to eat if you want. But the guys shouldn't be too long."

Looking out over the water, Amber nodded and touched her belt again. "Armeria. King’s shield." Her belt flew from her waist again, reshaping into the same blue shield just above the water. As she stepped onto it again, she took a jagged branch and a vine off of a low hanging tree and tied the two together.

Still tending to her fire, Shelly had grown curious as to what Amber was up too, more so when she began swatting at a tree branch with her stick. "What are you doing?" She asked as fallen leaves began to litter the water.

"Hold on." Amber held her spear over her head, poised to throw it at any moment as she hovered over the water. Seconds turned into minuets, but eventually a shadow appeared below the swamp's murky surface. Amber stayed focused on it, waiting until a shape became visible just below the surface.

A bug, dislodged from its perch amongst the leaves, disappeared under the water and Amber threw her spear at it like a bolt of lightning. Whatever it was thrashed in the water for a moment, then disappeared again. Amber used the vine she had tied to the end of her spear to reel in her catch, and soon pulled a fish almost two feet in length from the water.

"Wow." Shelly clapped her hands "Where'd you learn to do all that?"

"My dad taught me." Amber said with pride, stepping off of Armeria and back onto the rock to join her. "All about how to find my own food and stuff."

As she knelt down to inspect Amber's catch, Shelly asked. "You never mentioned your dad before." Amber froze up, realising that she had said more than she meant too. Shelly seemed to not notice however, and pressed on. "Where is he now?"

Amber opened her mouth to say something, but the sudden cry of a bird cut her off. Both the girls were startled, and spun around to see a large bird of prey staring at them from a tree branch not ten feet away. It was covered in grey feathers and studied them with its unnerving grey eyes. They both rose to their feet, and the bird began flapping it’s wings and screeching at them again.

"You think we’re in its territory?" Shelly asked sheepishly. Amber shrugged, but slowly knelt down to pick up Armeria's shield form just in case. It didn't matter though, as the second she did the bird leapt from its perch and flew out of sight over the trees.

"That was weird." Amber mumbled, returning Armeria to her belt form around her waist.

A dull thud behind them drew their attention away from the bird, and they both looked back to see that Geno had returned. He dropped a lizard off his shoulder next to Amber's fish and looked up at them with a grin. "I miss anything?"

Zeke carried Axel back a second later, holding what looked like a large fruit in his arms. Zeke however saw Amber's fish and let go of Axel immediately, dropping him into the water just a foot from the rock. "A fish! You guy's got a fish!" He said, flying at Amber's chest. "You’re the best, Amber!"

Axel popped back out of the water a second later, holding his fruit above his head with an annoyed look on his face. "Oh yeah, thanks Zeke. I needed a swim." He crawled out of the muck and added his catch to the pile, then set about wiping the mud off his pants.

Amber blushed slightly, pulling Zeke off of her chest while Geno laughed. Shelly however, looked between the pile of food the others had gathered and then back at her tiny campfire. "You know, I'm starting to feel like I don't pull my weight." She mumbled, apparently a little depressed.

Zeke landed on the top of Shelly's head as the others tried to look apologetic. "Come on Shelly, you're the thinker." He said, trying to make her feel better. "Axel and Geno can't plan stuff. All they do is break things."

Axel shot him an annoyed look, though Geno seemed to shrug in agreement. Shelly began to laugh though, and the mood lightened. "Alright fine. But next time Axel can start the fire." She said with a sly smile. "He's always been good at that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked in an annoyed tone.

Shelly decided to ignore him however, focusing instead on the food her teammates had gathered. "Now let's get cooking, I'm hungry." Axel grumbled something, but nobody seemed to hear it as he set about getting the food ready to eat.

Amber sat back and watched as he worked. She had to admit, compared to everything else she had seen him do this was relatively impressive. A few minutes later, her fish and Geno's lizard had been stuck on some sticks and where roasting over the fire, and Axel had divided up his fruit for them all to share.

Sitting near the water's edge, Amber found herself enjoying the calm that had settled around them. The bugs that plagued them before had cleared the area, thanks to Axel's little stunt, leaving Amber with some time to think. Of all things, she found herself thinking about what she would do after their job was finished. She still didn't know if she trusted them yet, but had to admit that she was enjoying her time with the others. Even if seeing Axel still made her jump a little.

The smell of food pulled her attention again, and she glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Axel holding out a pair of cooked meat sticks. "What'll ya' have?" Amber slid away a little, surprised by his abruptness. He had apparently forgotten about her yelling at him the previous night, though that didn't make Amber any less nervous around him. "If you don't want 'em, I'll eat them both." Axel said with a grin.

Amber forgot about her worries when her stomach growled again, and looked at both choices to see what looked better. If they were really part of two different animals, Amber couldn't tell; and after a second she just took the closer one and nodded. "Thanks."

"You're welcome to join us you know." Shelly called, watching them from next to the camp fire. "Work as a team, eat as a team. Or something like that." Amber nodded, finding a smile growing on her face, and jumped to her feet to join the others around their campfire. Even with everything that weighed on her mind, Amber was glad that things had gone smoothly so far.

Just as they had all taken their first bite, a splash broke the calm around them. Everyone turned to look, but all they could see was the ripples lapping against the rock they were on. The silence soon returned and everyone seemed to forget about it after a second, though Amber continued to watch the water for any movement as she ate.

Seconds ticked bye, and still nothing happened. "Must have been nothing." Amber thought to herself, taking a piece of the fruit Axel had brought back. Despite its sour taste, Amber smiled again as she looked back out over the water; where something caught her eye.

Something moved just below the surface of the swamp, noticeable only by the small wake it left behind. A bushel of reeds swayed unnaturally against the water's flow, and Amber caught a glimpse of something small and round brake the surface. It took a second for Amber to figure out what it was, but when she did a chill shot up her back.

It was an eye, and it was staring straight at them.

"Hey, everyone?" She said nervously, pointing out over the water. "Something's out there." She glanced away for just a second, but had lost sight of it just as the others looked for themselves.

Zeke flew out over the water to investigate, squinting his eyes to see through the murk. He hovered there for a moment, before spinning to face them with his paws on his hips. "I don't see anything."

Axel sighed, watching as his companion bob up and down in the air over the water. "Zeke, get back here. If something's out there, then you're just asking-." As he spoke, a shadow appeared on the water right under where Zeke was. "Zeke, move!" He shouted suddenly.

Zeke looked down just in time to see a massive set of jaws erupt out of the water around him, barely having enough time to get out of the way as they snapped closed. Water rained down on them all, extinguishing their campfire, and Zeke came screaming into Axel's chest. "Axel, there's something in the water!" He shouted, as if they hadn't seen it already.

The now closed jaws smacked back down on the water, sending a wave washing over the rock they stood on. Shelly was quick enough to grab her bag before it got wet, however the boat she had made to get them there was capsized instantly. "We need to go!" She shouted, digging through her bag for her sketchbook.

"No time for that.” Geno grabbed Shelly around the waist and leapt into the trees. “Scatter!”

Whatever was attacking them shot out of the water again, visible only as a shadow against the glaring sun. Both Axel and Amber leapt to safety just as their hunter crashed down on top of the rock, pulling themselves up into the trees with the others. After a collective deep breath, the group looked back to get a batter look at their assailant.

Resting on top of the rock they had made lunch on was a massive alligator like creature with bright red scales. At least, it looked like an alligator. Two rows of webbed blue spins flicked up on its back, and it began crawling over the rock and back into the water. Its head disappeared into the murk first, and a wide body and hind legs soon crawled up from the water. Finally came the tail, or more correctly a pair of tails, revealing the monster to be almost forty feet in length.

None of them had ever seen a creature like it before, though the occasional cluster of bubbles belching up to the surface told them that it hadn't gone far. "What do we do?" Zeke asked franticly, clinging to Axel's shoulder.

"We could try fighting it." Geno suggested.

Shelly looked at Axel quickly, then noticed that every one of them had been soaked in swamp water during the alligator's surprise attack. "We should run. None of us can fight underwater." Shelly announced, shaking some of the water out of her hair. She hopped to a different branch from Geno and pointed into the swamp again. "This way."

Axel and Geno both nodded in agreement, climbing between the densely packed branches all around them. Zeke carried Shelly up in front and Amber glided along behind them with her shield, watching back for the alligator to return.

Sure enough, only a moment after departing a shadow appeared on the water and two sets of webbed spines rose up to cut through the surface. "Guys, it's still following us." Amber said, flying higher above the water to keep out of reach.

"Just keep going." Shelly called back. "The map said there was an island this way. We should be able to lose it there."

Just as Shelly had said, flats of grass and overgrown rocks soon clustered together into a densely forested island. The group traveled inland until the water was out of sight, hoping that was enough of a deterrent for their pursuer to lose interest. The ground was soft and spongy, and each of their footfalls sank if they stood in one place for too long, but it was a nice compromise when compared to being followed by a massive alligator.

"That was close." Zeke complained, beginning to grow tired after carrying someone for most of the day.

"I still say we should have fought it." Geno quipped. "Gator meat is pretty good."

Shelly rolled her eyes again. "We just ate, Geno. We don't need-." She leaned back on a nearby tree to rest, but cut herself off when she felt her hand land in something sticky. She immediately tried to pull away, however her arm from wrist to elbow remained in place. "I'm stuck!" She tried pulling harder to get free, and to an extend it worked. Whatever she was stuck to stretched a little, still connecting Shelly to the tree with a mess if thin grey fibres. "Ugh, what is it?"

Everyone had gathered around her now, trying to figure out what she had stuck herself in. Amber leaned closer for a better look. "It looks like a..." She stopped herself, noticing more gray strands winding up the tree and blanketing the branches above. "Spider web?"

Shelly's face instantly lost all color, and she began flailing her hand in an attempt to shake it off. "Eew, get it off, get it off!" She cried.

"Hey Shelly, I wouldn't squirm so much." Geno suggested, just as Axel and Amber pulled her arm free of the webs. "If that really is a spider web, then chances are a spider isn't too far-." A loud thud behind them interrupted Geno's explanation, and they all slowly turned around to look for a source.

A shadow loomed just beyond the trees, accompanied by a number of soft footfalls moving in their direction. A set of four spindly legs stepped into the light, and soon a large spider crawled out from behind one of the trees. It was roughly the size of a large dog, though even at that size its insect features made it seem like something out of a nightmare.

"I hate being right..." Geno crooned.

The lower half of its face seemed to split open, revealing a set of large fangs and snapping jaws as it emitted a loud hissing noise. Amber's hand landed on her belt, readying for a fight, when someone grabbed it and pulled her away. "Spider!" Shelly yelled in panic, running as fast as she could and dragging Amber behind her.

The spider jumped at them the second she moved, and everyone scattered to get out of the way. It crashed hard against the tree, bating at its face a few times with its forelegs, and turned on them again. Amber heard its legs stamping just behind her, and she quickly pulled Shelly In a different direction to get out of its path. It slid on the mud, bumping into fallen log, and spit a ball of webbing after them.

Axel threw a bolt of lightning from his hand, splattering the webs across the trees. As he did, Geno swung a rotted log at the spider, which broke over its abdomen upon impact. It collapsed to the ground, stunned for the moment, as the two of them stared it down. "Not exactly edible, but I'm up for a fight." Geno quipped, cracking his knuckles in preparation for battle.

Axel nodded, watching as the trees behind the spider brake and fall away. After a moment the red scaled alligator with two tails burst through the brush, growling at them through its massive teeth. The spider rolled upright again, caught in the circle of Geno, Axel, and the alligator. Electricity sparked in the air around Axel, who grinned at the challenge. "Let’s go!"

Shelly continued to rush between the trees, dragging Amber along behind her. Amber had to admit; for someone so small she could run very fast, even though the rough terrain of the swamp. "Slow down." She called, beginning to have a hard time keeping up. They turned around another tree so fast that Amber stumbled. "Stop pulling!" Her shoulder began to hurt, and she suddenly yanked her arm back. "Shelly, that hurts!"

Amber pulled her hand free just as they passed into a clearing, skidding to a halt through the grass. Shelly kept going for a few more steps before falling to her knees, apparently exhausted from her sudden sprint to safety. "S-sorry." She said between gasps for air. Despite still looking deathly pale, she put on a smile to try and look sincere. "I hate spiders."

Amber thought about reprimanding her, but remembering how she had confessed her own phobia of loud noises that morning made her more accepting of Shelly's excuse. "There you are." A voice came from the woods, and Zeke flew at them a second later to land on Amber’s chest. Amber stumbled back a bit as he wrapped his tiny paws around her, looking up at her with teary eyes. "You guys just ran off..."

Amber pulled him away, growing annoyed with this habit of flying at her chest that he seemed to have developed, while Shelly began to chuckle. "We're ok Zeke. Thanks for worrying."

"Where are we though?" Amber wondered aloud, quickly glancing around. The clearing was few dozen meters across, and opened up to the swamp to allow water to fill most of its center. Something caught her eye as she scanned the opposite bank, propped up next to the trees. "Hey, what's that?"

Shelly and Zeke both looked as well, squinting their eyes to get a better look. Whatever it was, it was made of wood, and from the looks of it, hadn't been there for very long. "Is that, a boat?" Shelly asked, getting back to her feet.

Zeke flew across the water, stopping half way across once he could see it better. "It is! We found it!" He called excitedly. "We found the ship!"

The girls exchanged glances, then smiled at the prospect of completing their quest. Zeke flew back to join them, having remembered the last time he ventured over the swamp on his own, and they all took off running around the water.

Just as they were about half-way there, Amber saw a dark blur shot out of the trees at them. "Move!" She screamed, pushing Shelly forwards to get out of harm's way.

Shelly stumbled forwards and the black mass crashed into Amber, knocking her to the ground. Something pressed down on her shoulders to keep her from getting up and she looked back at par of red eyes glairing down at her, belonging to a tiger like beast with black fur and long saber fangs.

"Amber!" Shelly cried, retching into her bag to retrieve her sketchbook. Before she could however, a large bird dove down at her from the sky, jabbing at the side of her head with its beak before moving on to swat Zeke out of the air with its wing. Zeke's wings disappeared in a flash, and Shelly stumbled to the ground with blood dripping down the side of her face.

Amber watched the whole scene unfold, unable to do anything for the large cat standing over her. The bird landed on a nearby tree branch and began squawking as Shelly and Zeke tried to recover from the assault. It was in that moment that Amber recognised it; grey feathers, dull eyes, a hooked beak. It was the same one they had seen while they camped out on the rock.

It spread its wings to take flight again as Shelly pushed herself up to her knees, holding the side of her head for the pain, when a sudden whistling echoed out from the direction of the derelict boat. Everyone, including the beasts that had attacked them, turned to investigate; finding a single woman with long, light purple hair and a long black coat approaching them. She stopped a few meters away, looking over the scene with a look of what could only be considered contempt.

The bird folded its wings again as the woman crossed her arms. "Who are you?" She demanded.

Next Chapter – Primal