Chapter Text
The last thing Juvia remembered was turning around after a pointed tap on her shoulder, only to find herself staring into the eyes of an unknown woman, glowing with strange magic, and then everything went cold.
…
There’s a swift CRACK sound that rings out around Juvia’s ears, and the blood begins to rush once more beneath her skin. The cold sensation she had felt before seeps away and as she blinks the sudden light out of her eyes Juvia realizes she is not the only one coming out of a trance. All the other contestants of the Ms. Fairy Tail Contest are in a line with her, each of them looking around in confusion.
“Hey!” Lucy has gotten up in Natsu’s face. “Where is that Evergreen girl? She has some nerve turning me into stone! I bet my face looked so unflattering when she made me a statue. She could have at least given me some warning. And what about my act? I didn’t get to-” She continues berating and questioning Natsu at the same time, the guy just standing there with a blank expression of boredom on his face.
Gajeel steps up to Juvia’s side and whispers, “You okay, Rainy Tail?”
“That’s a new one,” she raises an eyebrow at him, “Was I turned into a statue?”
He nods. “You and the rest of the ladies. That Thunder Legion chick has some sort of weird eye magic that turns people into stone.”
“Oh.” Juvia slumps and water starts churning near her heart rapidly. “Well now I feel quite foolish. How could she have caught me off guard like that?”
Gajeel gives Juvia a light punch to the arm. “Don’t get too gloomy about it, she snuck up on everyone else.” He fills her in on what has happened, with Laxus’ ultimatums and battle royale.
She giggles and narrows her eyes at him steadily. “Are you really stuck here or is it an act? I know how much you love your performances.”
He lets out a snarl, showing off his fanged canines. He takes a step toward Juvia, and yet she doesn’t take a single step back. Although he’s look is usually enough to scare every other foolish wizard, Juvia would sooner let him walk through her than bend to his antics. It’s cute that he’s still trying!
“Wow. So scary. Are you gonna growl some more, you wanna be lizard, or are you going to answer me?”
All she gets is a scoff and the dragon sayer storms off, looking much more gloomy than her, poor guy. She notices a crowd of the others headed toward the banister to look outside. As she joins in, taking a peak at what they are all looking at, she loses her breath in surprise. Floating lacrima circle the entire town of Magnolia, floating hundreds of feet above in the air. They are still and silent, no magic coming off of them as is.
“I got this,” Bisca, the green haired gun-slinger announces, requipping to pull out one of her sniper rifles, knocking her hat back an inch to better look through the scope. A magic circle appears at the end of the gun, and a homing shot fires off, aimed right at one of the lacrimas. It hits in an instant, bursting into millions of shining pieces. The crowd around Juvia cheers but a second later, the air around her buzzes with the familiar tug of…lightning.
Bisca screams louder than Juvia had heard in quite some time, the lightning torturing every cell in her body. Juvia goes completely still eyes widened. Fizzes of light shoot out from her skin, and Juvia stumbles back frantically, almost tripping over herself as she does so. Almost no one notices, still preoccupied with worrying about the young woman on the floor.
But her boot heel makes a final quiet click on the hard floor as she stills herself, and the two dragon slayers, Natsu and Gajeel glance her way, one confused, the other knowingly worried. She wants to jump out of her skin but manages to cool her breathing down. Natsu furrows his brows at her, and juts out his chin as if trying to figure something out, staring at her for only a second, but then shrugs and turns back to Bisca, who is being inspected by Mira and Levy. Juvia’s never been more grateful for the seemingly empty brain of the fire wizard.
Gajeel, apparently done with his moping comes over to talk to her. “It didn’t touch you did it?” He has his eyes trained on Bisca, and Juvia notices one of his arms is turned dark grey, like it is when he’s turned himself to steel. He was ready to conduct the lightning away, should she need it.
“No,” Juvia shakes her head, putting on a relieved smile, “I’m good, Gaj, don’t worry.”
“Good, because the last thing we need to worry about is you and lightning.” He nods towards the open sky. “Don’t go messing with any of those any time soon.”
“Will do,” she gives him a mock salute.
It was truly pathetic, each time Juvia was reminded of it.
Her Water Body magic allows for the almost perfect defense; it was great against magical blasts, physical weapons, human attacks, etc. Any blade ran clean through her.
The only problem comes when science gets involved. Of course, any water-based attacks would land on her, such as Gray’s ice magic or something similar. Juvia had heard of a water-deflecting sword rumored to be in Titania Erza’s massive collection, and she prayed she would never come face to face with it any time soon. But then came things such as steam, a very simple physical change to water that had the ability to scald Juvia bad enough to where it feels like her skin is burning clean off, similar to how flame feels to others. If she were to face off against someone like Natsu, who only uses flame attacks, and whose physical body is substantially higher than most humans, it could cause real trouble for her, even if the steam was made with her own water.
Then came lightning. Lightning terrifies Juvia. Water is a natural conduit of lightning, which is why it’s dangerous to be near a water source in the middle of a storm. But in the case of Juvia, her entire being is water, constantly acting as a conduit of itself. Once lightning hits her, it can’t leave. It just circles her body, striking over and over again until eventually she runs out of magic power, and her body returns to proper matter.
There had been times in her childhood when it’d be a stormy day, not caused by her for once, and lighting would boom everywhere. As Juvia was avidly disliked for her gloomy nature, she was blamed for any disastrous weather. There were times when she would be locked outside of the school buildings or the orphanage, as a way to “keep the storm out.” She’d be hit by lightning while running to shelter, and her child body could barely handle it. She started calling it her “Storm Sickness” as all it took was one strike, and she could be incapacitated for the entire week. As she’s grown older, it’s become much more manageable, only taking her down for the majority of a day before she can be up again. Even then, the lightning lingers in small portions for days after, pricking at her everywhere.
Gajeel had come to find out about this weakness of hers the hard way, when the two were on a mission for Phantom Lord, and a thunderstorm just happened to join in her rain shower. She hadn’t even noticed, she was in the middle of a standoff with another wizard. It wasn’t until Gajeel had started yelling out curses, and her vision went white that she realized he’d been struck hard, attracting the lightning right to him with his metal skin. She had been standing a foot away from him, it wouldn’t have missed her in any case.
Both of them had been struck down in seconds, and it took three days for someone to be sent out to get them and bring them back to the guild. The wizard they had been fighting got the shortest end of the stick. He was stuck between a lightning magnet and a lightning conduit and had been killed due to sheer exposure, his skin fried and veins ruined. According to the others in Phantom, it had been quite a gruesome sight, all spilled blood evaporated and dried into the dirt by the time the sun came out. The wizard was unrecognizable and wasn’t identified by anyone in town. Juvia still had nightmares about him on her worst days.
No. The lightning-filled lacrimas would have to be someone else’s problem.
As if in seconds, all the girls, minus Mira who was looking over a struggling Master, and Levy who was toting in several different tomes on Script Magic to undo the spell on the guild hall, and Bisca, who still remained unconscious, were running out into the city. Lucy calls over Happy and talks about evacuating the citizens of Magnolia, a good idea, Juvia thinks.
“Juvia!” Cana calls out, turning back and pausing just in the opening of the front entrance. “Come with me! Let’s see if we can set these Thunder Legion freaks back a peg. I’ll need your help.” Her face is hard set, and her pouch of cards swings against her as she gestures for Juvia to follow her.
Well, it was a better idea than dealing with Laxus or those lacrimas. She gives one last glance to Gajeel, who waves her away, and then nods curtly at Cana, chasing after her.
Juvia ignores the panic still sitting in her heart.
