Chapter 2 - Starting Over

Fairy Tail: Paths of the Soul

Waking Dream
Amber pulled a large blanket over her head, protecting herself from the loud bangs and frequent flashes emanating from outside a window next to her bed. Shutting her eyes and holding a pillow over her ears did little to help the situation, giving Amber no other choice but to wait it out. Soon the sounds drowned away and the flashes subsided into darkness, and Amber poked her head out from under the covers to investigate.

She could see to the edges of the bed, however there was nothing but complete darkness stretching out in every direction. The silhouette of a door appeared a few feet from the foot of her bed, illuminated by a strange orange light on the other side. Amber hopped of the bed to investigate and found herself much shorter than she remembered being. She tried to think back but found nothing familiar about her surroundings, or how she came to be there in the first place.

She reached up to the doorknob and slowly pushed the door open, revealing a narrow hallway with pipes and machinery lining the walls and ceiling. A small synthetic light hung from the ceiling above another door a bit farther away, but it didn't illuminate much else. Amber preceded slowly down the hallway, keeping her hand on one of the pipes on the wall to reassure herself in the dark.

She heard a squishing noise just as she stepped into the light again, and looked down to find herself standing in a puddle of black fluid. She stepped back to examine it, but couldn't make it out for the strange orange light offsetting the color. She followed a trail of it to the other door, and heard a voice echo from within. "Amber? Is that you?"

Amber pushed the door aside and entered just as the light from the hallway clicked off, leaving only an inky blackness behind her. A man lay in a reclined chair in the center of the room; at least, he looked like a man. His face was covered by a strange mask, and his clothes appeared tattered. The most remarkable thing however, was the state of his body. His right leg was missing just below the knee, however bits of machinery stuck through a rubbery skin instead of flesh and blood.

The same sort of machinery made up his right arm, as well as most of his stomach. He plugged a small tube hanging from the ceiling into his chest with his other hand, also mechanical from the wrist down, and he turned his head to look in Amber's direction. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

Amber shook her head as she stepped closer, looking him over with a childlike curiosity. The light in the room faded, and an endless darkness swallowed everything except for a small circle around Amber and the man in the chair. "What happened?" She asked sheepishly.

"Oh, just a fight." He said, reaching out to pat her on the head with his mechanical arm. "Don't worry, I'll keep you safe." She was about to say something when the man's mechanical arm broke off at the shoulder with a sudden snap, falling onto the metal floor with a loud thud. "Aww, guess I have to repair that too..."

Amber reached down to pick up the man's wayward limb, however an ear splitting screech rang out before she could so much as touch it. She clasped her hands over her ears but it did little to help against the noise, which seemed to be coming from everywhere. Oblivious to what was happening, the man leaned back in his chair. "Go back to your room Amber. I'll probably be at this for quite a while."

Amber collapsed to the floor, the noise seemingly growing louder than ever, and the man and his chair began to slowly drift away. "Don't leave!" She begged, reaching out to him. "Help me!" The man disappeared from sight, and Amber lost sight of everything for the darkness that had slowly been creeping in around her. "Don't leave me here!"

Opening her eyes to a blinding light, Amber sat up abruptly and reached out. "Don't go!" Her surroundings had changed, much to her surprise, and she found herself back in a bed again. She now sat in a small wooden walled room with a desk and chair at the foot of the bed, as well as a few cupboards closer to the roof on the wall across from her. She could see sunlight shining through a large window next to the bed, and a small planter sitting on the windowsill.

She heard a creaking sound behind her, and spun around to see a grey haired woman with an eye patch watching her from a wooden chair next to the door. "Alright..." She said slowly, studying Amber with a single red eye. "I'm not going anywhere."

"N-no, I didn't mean..." Amber drew her covers up, realising she had just woken up and was covered in a cold sweat. "What happened?" She began to feel lightheaded, and reached up to find a bandage wrapped around her forehead. "Where am I?"

"Don't worry, your safe." The woman assured, standing up and beginning to rifle through a desk. Amber noticed a strange thud with every other step, and looked down to see she had a peg leg that began just below her left knee. "My name is Jaina Donwheel. I'm the one who patched up that nasty bump on your head." She spun back to face Amber again, handing out a glass of water. Watching her turn, Amber also noticed that she was missing her right arm from the shoulder. "Good thing you woke up when you did. Sounded you were having a nightmare."

"Yeah, I..." Amber accepted the glass and took a drink, realising she was far thirstier than she thought. She rested her hands on her lap after finishing the glass and she began feeling around her waist for something, becoming visibly upset when she didn't find it "Wait, where's Armeria?"

Before Jaina could answer, the door burst open and the two she had met in the arena flooded into the room. "You're up!" Zeke shouted excitedly, swooping down at Amber's stomach. "You're not dead! Axel, she's not dead!"

"Are you alright?" Axel asked, pulling his Exceed brother away. "That dog thing got you pretty good."

Amber seemed too preoccupied with searching for her lost property to really listen to any of them, soon looking the room over for any sign of it. "Where did Armeria go?" She demanded.

"Your sword thing?" Axel reached around the frame of the door and produced the blade Amber had summoned during the battle in the mansion. "We grabbed it on the way out. After you hit your head."

The sword flashed before anyone could say anything and disassembled itself into several small pieces. Each one flowed over the bed in front of Amber, reassembling themselves back together into what looked like a small imp like creature in a large stone helmet. "I'm here, Amber." It said in a somewhat feminine voice, and Amber pulled the creature in close with a big hug.

The others watched for a moment, studying the creature Amber seemed to value so much. It had black skin with a white colored face and belly, as well as blue markings running all over its body. Its helmet had two horns, and covered one of her eyes with what looked like a built in eye patch. Black and orange hair came out the top of the helmet, and a pair of pointed ears stuck out either side of her head. It looked more like a stuffed toy than a living being, even as it moved to return Amber's hug.

Though Axel and Zeke looked confused, Jaina seemed figure out what it was fairly quickly. "A familiar..." Amber nodded, turning Armeria around to sit on her lap. "Guess that explains why you wanted to find her so much."

"Yeah... We've been together for a really long time." Amber slumped over, resting her head between Armeria's horns. "I don't know what I'd do without her." Axel and Zeke looked at each other with confusion, and Amber sat up again with a suspicious look on her face. "Wait, how long have I been asleep for? And how did I get here in the first place?"

"Yeah Axel, how did she get here?" Jaina added, slumping back in her chair. "Last I remember, you were supposed to be in Johdine. So how exactly did she get from there to here?"

"Hey, I went to Johdine just like you said." Axel stepped back a bit, growing tense as Jaina began impatiently tapping her peg leg against the floor. "We couldn't find your medicine, so we took a job to make up for it. Then we ran into her and she got hurt."

"So... instead of taking her to the hospital there, or the one here in town, you dragged her all the way back to my house?" Jaina seemed to grow more annoyed the more she thought about it, however something puzzling soon came to her mind. "Wait, they let you board a ship with some unconscious girl slumped over your shoulder?"

Amber blushed a little at the thought, however Axel shook his head. "No, Zeke flew us out from shore." Jaina's jaw dropped, and Axel became defensive again. "The boat had already left, and council mages where everywhere. What was I supposed to do?"

"Alright let me get this straight..." Jaina said, holding up an arm to stop him. "You entered into an illegal underground fighting ring, fled from the authorities, committed what could technically be considered kidnaping, stowed away on a ship, and to top it all off you to bring everything back to my doorstep..." A vein began to grow in Jaina's forehead, and Axel took a step back with each point she brought up. "I didn't miss anything, did I?"

Axel stayed silent, afraid to so much as move, when Zeke piped up. "We didn't get your medicine ether."

"Dammit! Both of you out! Get out now!" She screamed, grabbing a book off the shelf next to her and swinging it at Axel. Both he and Zeke shot through the door, slamming it shut behind them just in time to avoid getting hit. Amber winced away from the sound, tightening her grip on Armeria as Jaina slumped down in her chair with a sigh. "Ugh, I can't deal with them..." She massaged the bridge of her nose for a moment, then glanced back at Amber again. "Look, I'm really sorry about all of this, miss...?"

Amber slowly looked back in Jaina's direction, finding her rummaging through one of the room’s many cabinets "Amber..." Jaina put her search on hold for a moment and motioned for her to continue. "Oh, Amber Rymoon."

"Ms. Rymoon... The guild can pay to send you wherever you were going." She sat back down again, biting the cork off of a newly found bottle of alcohol and taking a long drink. "Though you're welcome to stick around a bit if you like. You're damn near exhausted from what I could tell."

"Well, thank you for taking care of me, but I feel fine now." She looked down at Armeria again, who turned her head to stare back at her. "And I don't really have anywhere to go ether."

Jaina waved the thought off. "You must have friends though, right? Family members who are waiting to hear from you." She was about to take another drink, but stopped herself when Amber didn't say anything. "Come on. Someone's got to be looking for you, right?"

Amber paused for a moment, then slowly shook her head. "No, I'm on my own." She spun Armeria around again, seemingly showing her off to Jaina. "Well, I've got her, so I’m not alone. But it's just been us for a while."

Jaina stared at Armeria for a moment, watching her blank gaze with only a pair of eyes between them. "Just the two of you, huh?" She took another long drink, seemingly mulling the information over in her head, then wiped her mouth and said. "You know, I bet you never got paid for the arena fight thing, did you?" Amber thought for a moment then sat Armeria down on the bed next to her and nodded. "If you’re pinched for cash, why don't you swing by the guild to pick up a job or two?"

Amber retreated a little. "N-no it's ok, I'll find something on my own. You don't have to worry."

Jaina stood up and took Amber's hand, pulling her off the bed and up to her feet. "Don't be stubborn. You need a job, we got jobs. Axel must have mentioned he was part of a guild right? We can't get him to shut up about it." She brushed the door open with the stump of her shoulder, pulling Amber into what looked like a living room full of medical equipment. "Besides, I got to keep an eye on you for a bit. It would be irresponsible of me to cut ya' lose with that bump on your head. You know, seeing as how I'm your doctor and all."

Armeria walked out of the bedroom after Jaina and Amber, who was still trying to get loose from the white haired woman's grip. "Ms. Jaina, really I'm-."

"Just Jaina." She interrupted, sounding a little annoyed. "Calling me Ms. makes me feel old."

Amber continued to stumble along behind her, becoming somewhat annoyed that she was being ignored. "Jaina then; you really don't have to do anything for me. I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, I'm sure you can. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you should." Amber stopped abruptly, and Jaina finally let go of her hand. "Being having someone around to watch your back isn't half bad either." Jaina poked Amber's forehead, making her wound sting a bit. "That, and you look like the saddest little girl I've ever seen."

Amber froze in place, trying to think of a way to back out of the situation. Her mind went blank, unable to focus on anything else except what Jaina had just said. As she frozen in thought, the front door burst open and Axel entered in a panic. "Jaina, the council's coming."

Jaina glanced out the window, seeing an elderly man in a red uniform approach down the road. "Aw hell, it's Zephyr." Jaina rubbed the back of her neck, then looked over her shoulder at Amber. "Ok, wait for me here alright?" Then over at Axel and Zeke. "And you two, not so much as a peep until he leaves. Clear?" All three of them nodded, and Jaina stepped out to meet the councilman. She stepped around the house and half way through what looked like a garden, while their guest stopped just outside of a small wooden fence lining the property. "Hey there Zephyr... Having a nice stroll?"

"I am here on business Ms. Donwheel." Jaina grunted in annoyance, watching the old man's thick mustache move as he spoke. "Mr. Longshaw said he encountered your guilds Dragonslayer while bringing down an underground combat organisation." Zephyr's narrow eyes shifted past Jaina to Axel, Zeke, and Amber watching them from around the corner. "I came to investigate why."

"Do you really have to ask old man?" Jaina snorted. "Axel's always getting himself into trouble. And seeing how you came here on your own, I doubt you came to arrest him. So you must know he was just a bystander, right?"

"You're correct. But that is not what I came to look into." Zephyr kept his hands clasped behind his back, but there was still something intimidating about being in his presence. "The report indicates that Mr. Dawngrave fled the scene with another person in tow." His vision shifted to Amber, making her blood go cold. "Am I correct in assuming that refers to you miss?"

There was a brief pause, then Jaina cut in. "Yeah, Amber's thinking about joining up with us. She was just getting the feel for the place when we stuck her with Axel and the fur ball." Zeke jumped up to say something, but Axel caught him to keep him quiet before he had the chance. "They ran back here after your big friend crashed the place."

Zephyr stared at Amber, seemingly trying to look straight through her. "Are you alright miss? You appear to be injured." Magic power suddenly built up in the air, however it wasn't quite enough to be considered a threat. At least, not yet. "Is everything as Ms. Donwheel says it is?"

Jaina grunted again and Amber felt herself take a sudden breath under Zephyr's gaze, the first she remembered taking in a while. It took a moment, but she realised the sort of position she was in now. She didn't want Axel and Jaina to get in trouble for trying to help her, even if they had her best interests in mind at the time, and it didn't look like this Zephyr person was particularly lenient. "Y-yeah, I'm fine." She reached up to the bandage on her head, trying her best to smile through the old councilman's glair. "I just hit my head is all..."

"And you're planning on joining the Blazing Soul guild?" Zephyr added. "Or considering it at least?"

"Y-yeah..." Amber spoke before thinking, and it wasn't long before she realised it. Backtracking seemed like the obvious course of action, but no matter how much she tried she couldn't put Jaina's offer out of her mind. She couldn't find anything meaningful to add, still nervous while under Zephyr’s watchful eye, and she found herself more attracted to the idea of joining with each passing second. A small smile grew on her face as she looked up at Zephyr again. "Yeah, I am."

Zephyr’s steely gaze flowed over them all, looking for any sign of a lie, then he sighed. "I see." He turned around and began to walk away, and the magic power in the air faded almost immediately. "Then I apologise for disturbing you all."

Jaina placed her hand on her hip, somewhat annoyed by his sudden departure. "Just like that?"

"I have no evidence to contradict your claim, so I must assume you are telling me the truth." Zephyr glanced over his shoulder, fixing his gaze on Jaina again. "You are telling the truth, are you not?"

Jaina exhaled sharply, then put on a not entirely sincere smile and began to wave goodbye. "Bye Zephyr. Tell Payla I still hate her." Zephyr didn't respond, but resumed his long trek back to the nearby city. Amber and Axel sunk to the ground as soon as he was out of sight, feeling the tension of the old man's presence finally lift. Jaina sighed as well while the shoulder of her missing arm begin to ach. "Dammit. I hate it when they just drop by like that."

Axel slowly rose to his feet, while Amber remained in a state of shock. "Who was that?"

Jaina offered Amber a hand to help her up. "His name's Zephyr Odinshire. He's top dog for the Magic Council in Bantia." After Amber was back on her feet, Jaina sat down on her porch and began massaging the stump of her shoulder. "He's sort of a hard ass, but he's the best kind of person to have running the show."

"The intimidating kind?" Zeke asked timidly.

"No, fur ball. The calculating kind." Zeke sunk down behind Axel's shoulder, however a smile crept across Jaina’s face as she looked up at Amber again. "But odds are you'll run onto him again sometime, so enough about the Council. I'm more interested in what you said about you considering joining the guild?" Jaina began twirling a lock of her silver hair around her finger, looking more and more childish as she did so. "You weren't just lying to get him off our backs now, where you?"

"I uh..." Amber was caught off guard, remembering that she had spoken without thinking. In truth she still hadn't decided one way or the other what she was going to do, but it sounded like the easiest thing to say at the time. "I don't know..." She tried her best to avoid looking Jaina in the eye, staring at the ground and crossing her arms in front of her stomach. "I-I've just been on my own for a while. And, well..."

"Well what? You already told Zephyr your thinking about it, so why not drop by and see what we're all about?" Amber didn't answer, causing Jaina to sigh. "Are you afraid we won't like you or something? Come on girl, have a little more faith in us than that."

"N-no, it's not that..." Amber took a step back, bumping into Axel in the process. She quickly spun around and stepped away from him, her face becoming red again. "I haven't been part of a group for a real long time. I wouldn't really know what to say to anyone."

"You could start by saying hi!" Zeke barked from Axel's shoulder.

Axel quickly shushed him and Jaina continued. "The fur ball's right. Introduce yourself and see where it goes. If you like someone, great. If not... Well, it's a big guild. Odds are there'll be someone you'd want to talk to."

Through their conversation, nobody had noticed Armeria slowly exiting Jaina's house through one of the windows and walked up to Amber. "Amber, we should go with them." Everyone was surprised by her appearance, though Amber got over it first and picked the tiny familiar up in her arms. "It sounds like a nice place to call home."

"Even if you don't like it, you can always hit the road whenever ya get bored with us." Jaina added. "Totally up to you."

Considering her options, Amber leaned against the wall of Jaina's house. Looking at everyone around her, she began to smile, then tapped Armeria on the head. "Come on, carry mode." Armeria's usual blank expression was broken by a small smile, and she then disassembled herself like before and reformed into a large belt around Amber's waste.

Jaina grinned. "I'll take that as a yes." She got up to her feet and offered Amber a hand. "Come on new girl, time to meet the rest of this crazy family."

"Just, hold on... One more thing." She back stepped to keep out of Jaina's reach. "Why do all this for me?" Jaina seamed confused. "I mean I'm grateful to you for taking care of me, but you're doing an awful lot to help someone you just met."

"A few reasons honestly." Jaina began. "You push others away and insist on being on your own. The closest thing to a companion is that Familiar thing that follows you around. And you have nightmares so bad you wake up screaming." Amber blushed again, becoming more embarrassed with each point Jaina brought up. "You sound like a lonely little girl just looking for a place to be. Lucky for you, pretty much all of us are in the same boat. So we should have plenty in common already."

Jaina laughed to herself and began walking down the same path Zephyr had taken minuets ago, gesturing for the others to follow after her. Amber followed like she was asked, and soon felt Zeke land on her shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, she's always been kind of weird." He whispered in her ear. "Though normally she’d have to drink a lot more."

"I can hear you, fur ball!" Jaina shouted back at them.

Zeke screamed and flew behind Axel to hide, while Amber and Axel chuckled a bit. "You'd really like it though." Axel assured reaching back to pull Zeke up to his shoulder. "It's the best guild in the entire country."

Hearing this, Amber envisioned a massive and lavish building, much like the mansion from before except with no cages. She imagined it filled to the brim with people of all sorts, and more flying cats like Zeke. She fell into a daze, absentmindedly walking along behind the others and occasionally laughing at what she predicted the place to be like. Amber suddenly found herself grow self-conscious, she shook her head to get back to the moment before anyone else noticed her giggling to herself. "What do you do there?"

"Tons of stuff." Axel exclaimed. "You can get food. Take jobs. There's an arena out back that we use to fight each other. There are a bunch of people there, and allot of them are pretty strong. The guild master lets us battle each other sometimes."

Amber blinked a few times. "All you do is fight each other?"

"You could also make a team." Zeke added. "Like me and Axel did."

"Well, technically we joined a team; but yeah, there's more than just battling." He continued to think, however he became a little less enthusiastic after mentioning the arena. "Some of our members are kind of young, so sometimes we teach them about magic..." Axel thought a bit more, though it soon became clear that he wasn't as interested in any of the guild's other activities, if there were any at all. "There's a library too. You know, if you like books and stuff."

"Hey Axel, your ruining the moment." Amber looked ahead to see Jaina leaning on a large wooden gate with her hand on her hip. Studying the gate, she came across a large sign above the doors, reading Blazing Soul in large red letters. Before she could make anything of it, she felt Jaina's hand on her shoulder and was pushed through the entrance. "Welcome to Blazing Soul, little girl."

Next Chapter - The New Girl