Chapter 8: The Secret of Daybreak
Duke Everlue stood in the doorway, his silhouette making him look like a grotesque, sentient potato. His beady eyes scanned the room, landing on the book in Natsu's hand.
"I do hope you're not planning on checking that out without a library card," he sneered, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. "It seems I have some rats in my library. And I do so hate rats."
Before anyone could react, he did something utterly bizarre. He melted. His solid form dissolved into a liquid-like state, and he sank straight through the floorboards, vanishing without a trace.
"What the-?! He disappeared!" Lucy gasped, looking at the empty spot on the floor.
"It's Diver magic," I projected into her mind, recalling the details from the anime. "He can 'swim' through solid objects."
It's basically a real-life noclip cheat, I added in my own internal monologue. This guy is a walking, talking game glitch.
Suddenly, the floor directly beneath Lucy rippled. "I'll start with the ugly blonde!" Everlue's voice echoed as two pudgy hands reached up, grabbing her ankles.
"Get away from me, you creep!" Lucy shrieked, trying to pull away.
I didn't even hesitate. With a flick of my mind, I wrapped Lucy in a bubble of telekinetic energy and yanked her into the air, leaving Everlue's hands grasping at nothing. He emerged from the floor, sputtering in frustration.
"A floating girl?! What is this?!" he demanded. He then caught sight of me. "You! The strange pink creature! You're the one doing this!"
He glared, then clapped his hands. "No matter! Servants! Dispose of this trash!"
From the shadows of the library, his minions emerged. The two gorilla-maids, who looked very angry about the illusory banana, cracked their massive knuckles. Alongside them appeared two men who looked like they'd stepped out of a bad 80s rock band. They were tall, lanky, had ridiculous hair, and carried giant axes. The Vanish Brothers.
"Finally! A real fight!" Natsu cheered, his fists igniting. He wasn't scared; he was thrilled.
"Lucy, a little help?!" he yelled.
Lucy, now safely on the ground, fumbled for her keys. "Okay! Open, Gate of the Canis Minor! Plue!"
With a little poof, Plue appeared. The small, snowman-like spirit stood there, trembling and wiggling his nose. He was, objectively, the most useless combatant in the history of combat.
"He's so cute!" Happy cheered.
Lucy facepalmed. "Wrong key!"
The Vanish Brothers charged, their axes raised. "Time to vanish, punks!" one of them yelled.
Natsu met their charge head-on, but I decided to offer some support. As the first brother swung his axe, I used a precise telekinetic push on the axe head. It altered the trajectory just enough for it to miss Natsu and instead clang loudly against his brother's axe with a comical CLANG!
While they were stunned, I focused on the gorilla-maids. I didn't attack them. Instead, I created a new illusion in their minds: Duke Everlue, holding two giant, perfectly ripe bananas. The maids stopped dead, looked at their master, and a hungry, determined look entered their eyes.
"What are you fools doing?!" Everlue shrieked as his own bodyguards started lumbering towards him.
He dove back into the floor to escape them, his head popping up a few feet away like a perverted whack-a-mole. "You can't catch me! I am one with my mansion!"
Oh, really? I thought with a smirk.
As he sank back down, I focused my psychic energy on the floorboards around him. I didn't break them. I just increased their density tenfold with a crushing telekinetic force. The next time Everlue tried to "swim" through the floor, he slammed face-first into a section of wood that was now as hard as diamond.
BONK!
He emerged from a spot a few feet away, rubbing a massive lump on his head. "What in the-?!"
He tried again, diving into the wall. BONK!
He tried the ceiling. BONK!
"Why are my walls so hard all of a sudden?!" he screamed in frustration.
While I was busy playing pinball with the Duke, Natsu was finishing up with the Vanish Brothers. He dodged another clumsy swing and unleashed a torrent of fire.
"Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!" he roared, slamming both his arms into the brothers and sending them flying into a bookshelf, where they were promptly buried under an avalanche of encyclopedias.
The gorilla-maids, meanwhile, had cornered the real Duke Everlue, who was now unable to escape into the walls. They were grunting and pointing at him, then at their mouths, clearly demanding the bananas he didn't have.
"The job is to burn the book!" Natsu yelled, remembering the mission. He snatched "Daybreak" from the pedestal, his hand crackling with a small flame. "Time to finish this!"
"Wait, Natsu! Don't!" Lucy cried out, her book-loving heart in agony.
Natsu hesitated. "But the job! The money for your rent!"
"I know, but... it feels wrong!" she insisted. "Kemu Zaleon was a brilliant author! Why would he want his final work destroyed?"
This was the moment. Lucy was on the right track, but she needed a final push. I focused, not on an illusion, but on a feeling. I projected the memory of the client, Koby, not as the arrogant man he was now, but as a small boy, looking up at his father with adoration. I sent that feeling—a father's deep, secret love for his son—directly into Lucy's mind.
She gasped, her eyes widening as the feeling washed over her. She looked at the book in Natsu's hand, and this time, she saw it differently. She noticed the faint magical aura around the binding, the way the letters on the cover seemed to shimmer.
"That's it..." she whispered. "There's a spell on it! It's not just a book!"
She ran over and snatched it from Natsu's hands before he could protest. "Look! The title, 'Daybreak'! It's an anagram! The author, Kemu Zaleon, he put a truth spell on it, one that would rearrange the words for anyone who was truly looking for the 'secret'!"
Her fingers traced the letters, her mind working furiously. "'Dear Kaby'... that's what the client said the book was about, a secret message to his political rival. But that's not right..."
Her eyes lit up with discovery. "The client's name is Koby! The spell rearranges the title! It's not 'Daybreak'! It's... 'Dear Koby'!"
She opened the book, and the words on the page shifted before her eyes. The convoluted plot about Duke Everlue vanished, replaced by a simple, heartbreaking letter.
"'My dearest son, Koby,'" Lucy read aloud, her voice trembling. "'I was never good at expressing my feelings. I buried myself in my work and pushed you away. I wrote this book not to expose my rival, but to tell you, in the only way I knew how, that I have always been proud of you. That I have always loved you. The greatest 'secret' I ever kept was my love for my own son.'"
The room was silent. Natsu's fire had completely vanished. His face, usually so full of reckless energy, was soft. The story of a father unable to connect with his son hit a little too close to home for a boy raised by a dragon who had disappeared.
Duke Everlue, who had finally been cornered by his banana-crazed maids, scoffed. "What sentimental garbage! Who cares about some dead man's feelings?"
That was the wrong thing to say.
Natsu turned, a terrifyingly calm look on his face. He walked over to the Duke, who was being held down by his own servants.
"You know," Natsu said, his voice dangerously quiet. "I really don't like you."
He drew back his fist. "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
The punch sent Everlue flying through the wall (which I had returned to its normal density), leaving a perfect, Duke-shaped hole. He sailed through the night sky, twinkling like a star before disappearing. Team Rocket was blasting off again.
The fight was over. Lucy held the book gently, reverently.
"We can't burn this," she said softly. "We have to give it back to Koby."
Natsu nodded, his expression serious. "Yeah. Family stuff is important." He then looked at Lucy and grinned. "But you're still not getting that 200,000 Jewel."
Lucy's face fell. "My rent..." she whimpered, the reality of her financial situation crashing back down on her.
We left the mansion, the book in hand, leaving the Vanish Brothers buried in literature and the gorilla-maids happily munching on the Duke's private stash of fruit. We hadn't completed the mission as requested, but we had done something better. We had uncovered the truth. And for a guild like Fairy Tail, that was a victory in itself.