Chapter 46 - We Can’t Help

Fairy Tail: Paths of the Soul

Following the staircase, the Blazing Soul mages, plus Jak, came to another room. This resembled a wide hallway, a line of doors along one wall, with a large, barred window on the other. A trio of dull light-bulbs lit up the room, hanging from a crudely wired string that stretched above the window.

Shelly ran to the window first, searching for any clue as to their location. In the dead of night, all she could make out where shadows. The full moon sat high in the cloudless sky, giving everything on the horizon a dark silhouette. They had to be at least a few stories off the ground, maybe more, but where definitely still within a city. What was strange was that none of the nearby buildings where lit up; a cluster of lights a few miles in the distance on the horizon sure, but everything around them was dark and eerily silent.

Finally stepping away and sighing in disappointment, Shelly shook her head. "Where are we?"

"Cell Block-C..." Geno muttered. "And... Cell Block-D." The girls both turned around to see him looking up at the wall, where the word's he'd just spoken where painted in big, dark blue paint above two of the doors. "This some kind of prison or something?"

Amber took a look out the window as well, but saw no more than Shelly had. She thought a moment, keeping an eye on the door at the far end of the room. "Didn't... Someone say a lot of Creighurst town was abandoned?"

"Isa..." Shelly said instantly, and a look of regret fell over her face. "I wish I'd listened to her now..." Amber nodded in agreement. Even if she didn't want to go in the first place, she was glad that the guild master asked her to come. Not that she could tell Shelly that.

"So... A bunch of bandits set up shop in some hollowed-out neighborhood, and pick an old prison as their hideout?" He clutched his forehead as he began to chuckle, still feeling the effects of the Knock-Out-Shrooms. "Anyone see the Irony in that?"

Standing near the staircase, Jak was simply observing the others while they tired to decipher where they where. Suddenly, he glared down the room at the far door with an animalistic grin. "I hear someone!"

The others all froze, listening to hear whatever Jak had heard. A few nervous seconds ticked by, but none of them could hear anything. Amber slowly turned to him, looking skeptical. "Are you sure?"

There was another bright flash, and Jak disappeared. In his place, stood what looked like a large bat. It was huddled down on two human like legs, with both it's three fingered hands cupped around it's huge ears. Leathery folds of skin lined both it's forearms, giving it a rather slender appearance.

They where all surprised by his sudden change, Geno flattened against the far wall and Shelly clung to Amber's arm. She was holding her so tight that Amber could swear she could feel Shelly's heartbeat against her skin. The bat opened it's mouth slightly, letting out a short, sudden exhale. Amber felt her ears sting for a moment, clasping at them in pain while Jak said. "Yeah. Bunch of them. All coming from down there."

Getting over the shock, Shelly glared angrily at him. "Can you warn us the next time you do that. Please?"

Jak nodded, but just as he was about to respond a commotion emanated from the other door. Everyone looked to the staircase just in time to see around a dozen people pile into the room. "Found 'em!" One of them shouted.

Amber backed up, feeling Shelly grab her arm again. Another bandit stepped up, but they all froze when the saw the human sized bat squatting on he floor. "Oh shit, is..." He stuttered, leveling a shaking finger at them. "Is that Jak?"

The others all went rigid, their confidence seemingly disappearing at the mere mention of Jak's name. "Are you nuts!?" Another of them yelled. "You let that freak out of his cage?"

Their reaction was surprising. Amber watched them slowly back away, not knowing what to think. What kind of person would be able to elicit such fear in the one's who had kidnapped them?

A low, animalistic growl drew all their attention to the giant bat standing among them. A needle toothed grin cut across Jak's bat-like face, and his arms shot towards the ceiling. Wings unfurled from the lumps of skin on his forearms, and with a single flap he crossed the room in a split second.

An unearthly shriek filled the hallways, and Jak's clawed feet closed around the necks of two of the bandits. They all fell to the ground, but Jak rolled with the motion and swatted another three of them aside with his wing. One of the bandits drew his gun, but didn't even have enough time to fire before Jak sunk his fangs into the man's forearm.

By now, the room was in chaos. Some of the bandits where scrambling for the stairs, others trying to help their friends. It was clear that none wanted to fight Jak, not as he was now. It wasn't like any fight Amber had ever seen.

Only a few seconds passed before the bandits had fled, leaving three of their wounded behind. Jak, hanging off the barred window like a, well, bat, dropped one of the men from his teeth and glared at the staircase. "Oh, no you don't!" He scrambled along the ceiling like something out of a nightmare, straight after the bandits with a strange giddiness in his voice. "Get back here and fight me!"

The others where stunned, listening to the screams of their retreating captors. "Was that...?" Geno stuttered. "Did he...?" So many questions all at once, none of which even beginning to convey their confusion. "What the hell just-?"

"We need to follow him." Shelly stammered, the first to regain her nerve. "We can't get separated now."

The three of them nodded and headed for the stairs. Even if they didn't really get why, the members of Bloody Smile where afraid of Jak. And with the condition they where in right now, they'd need any advantage they could find.

Suddenly, a voice cut through the darkness from one of the cell blocks. A woman's voice. "Is someone there!?"

Shelly stopped dead, causing Amber to run into her. Geno bumped into them both, and Shelly fell to her knees just as another voice called. "Please, help us!"

They all looked back down the room, and Shelly quickly jumped back to her feet. "People..." She mumbled. "There are other people here!"

She took two quick steppes, the beginnings of a full-on sprint, before Amber grabbed her by the arm. "Wait, Shelly wait! We can't go down there."

A look of desperation fell over Shelly's face as she spun around. "But there are people, Amber! We can't just abandon them!"

"If we let them out, they're likely to just get hurt." Geno began rubbing the back of his neck, looking like he wasn't too fond of the idea either. "These assholes are already on high alert looking for us. Moving in a large group would definitely get us noticed."

Shelly stopped pulling; apparently that thought hadn't occurred to her. Amber took the opportunity, trying to sound as calm as she could, to get their priority's straight. "We can't help them right now." She stopped a moment, waiting for her heart to stop beating in her throat. "We'll escape, come back with help, then rescue them. But we can't do anything right now; we need to help ourselves first."

Shelly looked back at the cell block, paralyzed with indecision. "Is anyone there?!" A boy's voice called this time.

Silence followed. Amber considered that it could be a trap, but that seemed a little too elaborate for these guys to pull off. Still, it was something she couldn't put out of her mind. And even if it wasn't, Geno had a point. More people would only increase the likelihood that they'd be found. And subsequently: captured.

Amber shook her head, realizing that they where wasting time, and reached out to her. "Shelly..."

"We'll come back!" Shelly called quickly, before pushing past Amber and Geno to the stairs. They followed her up without a word, but Amber could tell the choice was tearing her up inside. Forced to save herself rather than help someone else definitely wasn't in Shelly's nature.

They raced up the spiral staircase as fast as their exhaustion would allow, occasionally stepping over a bandit that had fallen to Jak's wrath. Round and around they went; there where no other entrances, just the occasional window letting in just enough light to illuminate their path.

Finally, they came into another room. This one was large as well; wide, concrete floors lined with metal tables and chairs all aligned in rows. It also had a second story balcony, and even had a bar top with a window into another room. "Oh, where the bloody hell are we now?" Geno huffed in annoyance.

"And where's Jak?" Shelly asked, scanning the room over. There was no evidence of a fight however, the room was completely empty. There where several other doors as well; Jak, and whoever he was still chasing, could have gone anywhere.

While trying to decide their next course of action, Amber caught a glint of something from the second story balcony. She barely turned to look at it before she realised it was whistling through the air at them. Pushing Shelly out of the way, Amber dove just as a sword blade shot out of the darkness, missing her nose by barely an inch and jabbing into the floor.

She stumbled back into a table, while Geno and Shelly ducked for cover. The blade retracted into the darkened corner, shortening itself to be barely two feet long when it's owner rested it across his shoulder. "Woah..." The man whistled, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the metal banister. "You got quick reflexes, girly."

The three of them all took a fighting stance, while them man stepped into the light. He had dark brown here, and wore a red bandanna and black baseball cap that hid his eyes. A silver necklace hung around his neck, and he donned a black, short sleeved jacket with the top two buttons undone. "Who are you!?" Shelly shouted at him.

"Name's Hyde." He spoke casually, almost with respect. "I'm the one who's suppose to be rounding you lot up. Orders from big boss man." He began slowly walking across the balcony, bouncing his sword on his shoulder while making his way to the staircase to the lower level. "I swore I had the drop on ya though. Guess I'm getting cocky, huh?"

Hyde began to laugh, like he was having the whole conversation by himself. Geno inched closer to the others, rubbing his knuckles together. "We don't have time for this. You two go find a way out, I'll deal with him."

Shelly shook her head. "We can't just leave." She stopped herself, realizing she’d spoke much louder than she meant too. "We have him outnumbered three to one."

"Except only two of us can defend against a weapon like that." Geno shook his head, sharply cracking his knuckles. "And one of us can fly, right lass?"

Amber perked up when they both turned to her. She didn't want to leave either, but knew exactly what Geno was hinting at. "Are you still-?"

"Sick?" Geno said with a grin. "Naw, I got over it. All the walking probably helped too." He rolled his arms a few times, looking like he was warming up for a typical sparing match. "Get to the roof and get the hell out of here. Bring the whole damn Council down on these pricks."

Convinced that they should stay, Shelly didn't move. Amber however, slowly nodded and began leading Shelly away by the shoulders. "C'mon, we have to keep moving."

"What?" Despite her best efforts, Shelly couldn't wriggle out of Amber's grasp. "No! Amber, we-." The two of them headed through another door, and Shelly's protests soon turned into a barely echoing muffle.

By the time they'd made their exit, Hyde had made it to the bottom step on the staircase. He didn't try to interfere, but only watched the girls leave with a lazy smile. "Tryin' to be the big hero huh?" He chuckled to himself, gesturing with his sword to the door Amber and Shelly had left though. "How chivalrous of you."

"Don't kiss my ass." Geno growled. "The two of them are a lot smarter than I am. If anyone's going to find a way out of here, it'll be them." Finishing his warm-up, Geno placed a hand on his hip and the other on a nearby chair. "That, and I really hate you dark mages. Wouldn't feel right kicking your ass if it where three on one."

"Oh..." Hyde seemed surprised, only for that to be overturned by a more sarcastic tone. "Well, how scary. I suppose I'll have to..." Hyde suddenly stabbed the air with his weapon, and the blade streaked across the room.

Geno barely had enough time to react; he gripped the chair next to him and threw it up in defense. The blade sliced right through the chair without so much as slowing down, leaving a shallow cut along Geno's shoulder. But the ploy had worked, he'd knocked the blade off coarse, and soon it embedded itself in the opposite wall.

Cupping his bleeding shoulder in one hand and what remained of the chair in the other, Geno stumbled over towards a table to rest. "Bastard..." He cursed under his breath.

Hyde began to chuckle as the blade retracted once again. "Nice, ain't it? Took this one off some bounty hunter a few months back." His tone seemed a little more upbeat now, like he was finally taking his job seriously. "I fancy myself a bit of a collector, see? I can't just pick up and use any old sword i find, now can I?" He said, holding up his weapon for Geno to admire. "This one's a bit light for my liking, but it get's the job done."

"Scox!" Using the blood from his shoulder, Geno drew a rune on his hip and summoned his insectoid chain blade. Doing so filled him with a haze the moment his eye began to glow a violent red, his ailment was coming back! "Well, I got some weapons I guarantee you've never seen before, lad." Undeterred, he caught Scox backhand and readied for a fight. "Come take'em from me, If ya can."

Elsewhere, the girls continued to wind their way up the staircase. The mess hall where they'd parted ways with Geno seemed to be at the heart of the complex, and occasionally they'd have to duck for cover when the heard a group of bandits approaching. They hadn't seen any evidence of Jak either, so they assumed they'd lost him. That didn't matter so much now though, they had another plan in mind. Get to the roof and get to safety.

Trudging ahead, Amber was too focused on where she was doing to hear Shelly speak. "He's not ok..." It took a second for her to process that, but by that time turned around to ask, Shelly repeated herself. "We shouldn't have left Geno behind."

Amber slowed her pace and eventually came to a stop. Both to rest, and ask what she meant. "He'll be fine. It's only one guy, and he looked kind of scrawny." She tried to sound assuring; though through her tired gasps for breath, she wasn't very successful. "We could be surrounded if we all get into a fight, and-."

"He's still sick." Shelly interrupted.

Amber did a double take. "But he said-."

Shelly shook her head. "He lied."

She opened her mouth to respond, but Amber found herself without the words. Of coarse he was still sick. it'd been twenty minutes since they'd broken out of their cells, how could she have believed he wasn't sick? He looked fine for the most part, but if Shelly had said he lied then… Well, she did have an uncanny ability to see through every lie told to her, after all.

Going back seemed like the obvious course of action, but the longer they spent here, the more likely it became that someone would find them. "Dammit..." Amber swung her fist into the cold, stone wall, instantly regretting her actions when her fingers began to hurt. "It's too late to go back. We can't be that far from the roof now."

Nodding her head, Shelly followed along as Amber set off again. Their pace was a lot slower this time; they where both tired, and Amber's bare feet where beginning to bleed from running around on the rough concrete floors.

A few hallways and one staircase later, Shelly spoke up again. "Amber, am I holding you back?"

Amber stopped dead. "What?"

She spun around to see Shelly staring at the floor, gripping at the pockets of her sweatpants and nervously shuffling from one foot to the other. "Geno said we had to run from that sword guy, because only you and him use weapons..." She still didn't look her in the eye, but Amber could tell this had been on her mind for a while. "I can't fight, I can't think straight... I'm scared, Amber." Amber bit her lip, not knowing what to say. "I couldn’t even help you get out of our cell..."

"Well... Jak got us out." It was a small detail, but Amber was just trying to avoid the subject. She honestly didn't know what to say, but there was no way she was going to let Shelly convince her to leave her behind. "Look, I'm scared too, but we can't just stay here. Geno gave us a chance to keep going, so we need to keep going."

Taking a step back, Shelly shook her head. "But I can't-."

"Just keep fighting." Amber interrupted her. "Remember?"

This time, her expression changed. She took a deep breath and wiped her forearm. When Shelly looked back at her, she wore a small smile. "Ok." Her voice still shook when she spoke, but she seemed better now. "Just keep fighting..."

Nodding in return, Amber turned and began moving again. The next door they came upon lead into another staircase. This one was different though; it was straight, not spiraled like the others, and the stairs where made of metal. Shelly clung to the back of her shirt the whole way, keeping as close to her as she could.

Now though, Amber had a new worry on her mind. On top of being recaptured, or overwhelmed in a fight, now she had to keep Shelly from breaking down. It was hard to see the usually upbeat girl looking so timid, and Amber swore to herself that she'd keep her from harm.

After all, that was the only reason she came along on this mission in the first place.

Next Chapter – The Fulbore Brothers