Phaedra's POV

It took all of my willpower not to rip away Gray's arms that were circled tight around my body as I sped towards the direction I hoped we would find Wendy. His added weight slowed me down more than I had anticipated, but after he stopped the Ice Wyvern from attacking me I owed him and I couldn't very well leave him to be torn to shreds. A familiar sound caught my attention and I corrected my trajectory, digging in and bursting forward to reach Erza just as she was yelling at Natsu for breaking another ice lily's roots.

Lucy shrieked in fright as I let go of my magic and stumbled forward. The effort of carrying Gray with me had sapped me of more strength than I had been expecting and my knees buckled. Gray also seemed rather shaky and we both ended up falling into the snow. He scrambled away from me quickly, kneeling down and asking if I was okay. I noticed that his entire body was trembling slightly and I wondered how difficult it had been for him to keep hold of me in our mad dash here.

"Phaedra-san!" Groaning quietly I forced myself to sit up and look at Wendy, who had run over and immediately began waving her hands over me. A cool relief washed through me and my tight muscles began to relax. I smiled gratefully at her and nodded towards Gray. Wendy immediately went to him and began relaxing his muscles as well.

"Are you two alright?" Lucy asked, having gotten over her fright from our sudden appearance.

"We need to go," I said firmly, looking over at Erza who was stepping carefully out of a ring of beautiful white lilies with dark green stems and leaves. The petals each had a beautiful light blue design on them, marking them as the very rare and useful ice lilies that we had been searching for.

"What happened?" Erza asked, meeting my eye with a calm expression.

"Gray was able to knock out the Ice Wyvern and we got the saliva. But I must have miscalculated. Did you hear those animal cries a while ago?"

"What, the ones from a few seconds ago?" Natsu asked while tilting his head.

"That was the Ice Wyvern's cry for help. Usually, they live by themselves, but during mating season they can get into groups as big as four or five at a time. We need to leave before they find us," I explained quickly but calmly so my accent wouldn't slip out. Erza frowned and looked back in the direction we had come from.

"You think they'll pose a threat?" Erza asked while casually summoning a sword into her hand from thin air.

"In a big enough group yes. They have their own powers and if they surround us then we'll be in trouble," I said, pulling myself into a standing position. Erza regarded me and then nodded, glancing around at her teammates.

"If we can avoid a fight then I think that would be best. Everyone pack up," Erza called out authoritatively. Lucy and Wendy immediately began doing just that, but Natsu let out a laugh.

"Aw, come on, Erza! Gray knocked one of them out, let's just go give them some trouble!" Natsu said, breathing out small flames from his nose in the process, which seemed extremely uncomfortable in my own opinion.

"This is the Ice Wyverns home, Natsu. We're stealing their food as it is, we shouldn't hurt them unless they attack," Erza said firmly. Natsu frowned but after a moment seemed to accept what she said.

We quickly packed up the lilies they were able to gather and began making our way down the mountain as quickly as we could. My feet itched to run at light speed, but there was no way I could carry everyone here behind me so I did my best to urge everyone along. They didn't know the dangers a pack of Ice Wyverns presented and I hoped they would never have to experience it.

Several shrieks coming from nearby dashed my hopes of us getting off the mountain undetected. Turning to look over my shoulder, my eyes widened when I saw five shadowy figures dipping under the cloud cover.

"Run!"

Everyone began awkwardly jump-running through the deep snow. I scanned the huge expanse of snow that surrounded us, looking for somewhere we could hide.

"Over there!" Erza yelled, pointing to a small opening of what looked like a cave. The screams of the Ice Wyverns roared even closer as their powerful wings launched them towards us.

"Shararu, take Wendy!" I yelled, turning around to face the oncoming wyverns. To my surprise, Gray suddenly appeared on my left and Natsu came to stand on my right.

"Oy, keep running you three!" Erza called back to us as Shararu and Happy took Wendy and Lucy and began flying swiftly towards the cave opening.

"I'll buy you some time, so hurry up and go!" I yelled at Erza and the two boys on my side.

"Che, as if I'll let you have all the fun. Roar of the Fire Dragon!" Natsu yelled, breathing in deeply and then letting loose a huge blast of swirling fire up into the sky and straight toward the wyverns descending on us.

Instead of dodging it though, all five Wyverns lifted their wings and, as one, flapped down hard. A vortex of wind burst into existence headed for the oncoming fire and turning it back towards us on the ground. Clenching my jaw I raised my hands and called up a huge light barrier. The reversed fire smacked against it, causing the barrier to shimmer so brightly I had to close my eyes from the intensity of it. The Ice Wyverns shrieked in pain from the light and I turned, grabbing the two boys at my side by their wrists and began pulling them behind me. They both protested but I ignored them. Gripping them tightly I ran as fast as I could, tapping only briefly into my magic to boost my speed to the point where they could still keep up.

We caught up to Erza just outside the cave's entrance. Irate screams from the wyverns, who must have gotten over their temporary blindness, sounded so close that the hair on the back of my neck stood up. A huge burst of wind suddenly caught us and I felt my feet leave the ground as I turned end over end through the air.

"Aries, catch them!"

A flash of pink burst into existence and instead of smacking into the hard cave wall, I found myself sinking into a bed of fluffy wool. The feeling of such wondrous softness momentarily stunned me and I blinked in confusion as I realized that I had landed upside down. Wendy and Lucy ran over, looking at all four of us who had landed in the plush wool heaven with worry.

"Are you alright?" Lucy asked, reaching up and offering Natsu a hand.

"We're fine. Thanks for the soft landing, Aries!" he said, turning to look at a spot behind Lucy. I followed his gaze and blinked a few times as I tried to understand what the upside-down thing I was looking at was. It seemed to be a young girl with a two-piece outfit made of wool and horns growing from out of the sides of her head.

"I-i-i hope I was helpful. I'm so sorry!" the girl I assumed was Aries said, looking completely abashed.

"You were amazing, Aries! Thank you very much," Lucy said with a kind smile, going over and giving the bashful girl a hug.

It must be one of Lucy's celestial spirits. But... what is it supposed to be? I wondered curiously. I didn't know much about celestial mages here in Ishgar, but back home I had never heard of a spirit called Aries. As Lucy waved one of her golden keys Aries disappeared, along with her heavenly wool padding. I quickly threw my legs forward and fell to the ground. The Ice Wyverns were still screaming angrily outside of the cave entrance and freezing wind was spiralling around my legs as the wyverns displeasure seemed to be trying to reach inside for us.

"Yeesh, those guys don't give up easily, do they? And how did they beat back my fire like that?" Natsu asked, seeming miffed.

"It's their ability. They can turn away any magical attacks against them. Only physical attacks can get past their defense," I explained, glancing around and realizing that even though the opening had been small, the cave was a lot bigger than I had been expecting.

"And what attack was that you did?" Gray asked, looking at me with both confusion and what seemed like slight admiration. Grimacing slightly I shook y head.

"It wasn't an attack. My light barrier blocks everything but light that tries to pass through. However, fire has a lot of light, so when I blocked it the flames were pushed back but all of their light-soaked through and made the barrier shine like that," I explained slowly, not sure if I really wanted to be giving details about my magical ability to these people. However, since I was now indebted to Gray I wanted to get rid of the debt as quickly as possible and if I answered his questions it felt like I was chipping away at that debt.

Several shrieks interrupted whatever Gray was going to say in response and a blast of wind shoved all of us back several steps. Once more I looked over at the open maw of the tunnel and I heard Erza sigh lightly.

"Well, I guess we'll have to see where this goes then," Erza said, pointing towards the tunnel that seemed to lead deeper into the center of the mountain.

Natsu nearly lit Happy's tail on fire as he lit three torches that Erza somehow procured, earning him an angry lecture from the singed cat. He just laughed and apologized though and Happy seemed to forget the instance had happened. As we walked through the tunnels the shrieking of the Ice Wyverns eventually died out and soon it seemed like we had been swallowed whole by the mountain itself.

I flinched in surprise when a small body snuggled up against my side after we had been walking for nearly thirty minutes. Wendy was shivering slightly as she pressed herself next to me. Carefully, I lowered the torch I was holding so that it was in front of Wendy and she immediately reached out her fingers, which were red from the cold, and sighed under her breath.

"Thank you, Phaedra-san," she said with a bashful smile.

"Thank you for helping me recover my strength. Your magic is really impressive. I thought that healing magic had been lost," I said quietly.

"Grandeeney taught me," Wendy said with a small, sad smile as she looked at the flames of the bouncing torch.

Wendy and Natsu had mentioned at several points during our journey that they had been raised by dragons when they were small and that was where they had learned their dragon slayer magic. The thought of dragons being real and not just a story was something that had taken time to come to terms with, but I knew that Wendy believed it with all her heart so I believed her. She seemed to have become lost in her thoughts so I turned away and looked over my shoulder at where Lucy and Gray were speaking animatedly with Erza.

"Lucy..." I said hesitantly, not sure if I should be interrupting their conversation. She immediately turned to look at me, her soft brown eyes widening in surprise and a little bit of excitement.

"Yes, Phaedra?" she said eagerly. I blinked, surprised at her obvious desire to talk to me, but decided to plunge forward.

"You are a Celestial Mage, is that correct?" I asked carefully. Gray and Erza also were regarding me with looks with varying degrees of surprise, as if they were shocked I was starting a conversation. I had to admit, it was a little out of the norm, but I just couldn't keep my curiosity at bay.

"That's right!" she agreed happily. "My mother left me her keys when she passed away and I've been able to get a pretty good collection of keys since then," she said with a happy grin, displaying her key ring proudly. I moved the torch briefly so I could look at the keys more closely before returning it to the position in front of my chest where Wendy could keep her fingers warm. Lucy quickened her pace to come walk on my other side.

"And what spirit did you summon when you caught us?" I asked quietly. Lucy selected one of the gold keys from her ring and held it up for me to see.

"This is Aries, one of the twelve zodiacs. I have a contract with ten of the zodiac spirits and they are all really precious to me."

I felt my brow furrow in confusion but I tried to school my expression into one of polite interest as she explained all of the other keys she had. I wasn't an expert on celestial mages, but I had known a mage who used magic like this and she had gold zodiac keys as well. However, I had never heard of any of the zodiac symbols that Lucy was showing me.

Do we have a different zodiac on Prekt? How could that be possible? I wondered to myself in utter confusion.

"And do you transform when you summon your zodiac spirits?" I asked once she had finished going through all of her keys. Lucy blinked up at me with a confused look and tilted her head to the side, causing her side ponytail to swish briefly.

"Transform? What do you mean?"

"Ah, forgive me. I guess not." Turning my head away from her I inwardly berated myself for even starting his conversation. I had no desire to draw attention to myself and if I accidentally ask something strange it might make them begin to wonder more than they already were about me.

I need to leave these people as soon as I can. I'm starting to get too comfortable with them, I thought to myself anxiously.

"Wait, but what did you mean by that?" Lucy asked, gripping my arm lightly in her hands and pulling it as if to try to drag me back into our conversation.

A small sigh escaped through my nose as I turned to look at her head-on. I had planned to tell her I had misspoken, but the curiosity and excitement radiating from her made the words catch in my throat. After a moment I cleared my throat and reluctantly spoke my mind.

"It's just that... I knew a celestial mage and she was able to channel some of her spirits powers into herself to give her a boosted capability to fight," Lucy's eyes widened in shock and her mouth dropped open in a silent "o". "Normally when she channeled the power then her clothes would change and she called it a transformation. I just wondered if you could do the same thing..." I finished, glad that I had been able to explain without revealing any sensitive details about my past.

"Wow. I've never heard of anything like that! But I know who would know if it's possible," Lucy said excitedly. I was surprised to see that as she breathed out her breath was actually fogging up in the air. Glancing around us I saw that large patches of ice seemed to be climbing up the sides of the cave and I wondered why it was getting colder the further we traveled.

"Open, Gate of the Goat!"

An echoing doorbell sound rang out as Lucy struck a pose with one of her golden keys. I jerked back as a huge spirit with the body of a man and the face of a goat wearing a butler's uniform and sunglasses materialized in front of us. He looked to be nearly seven feet tall and I watched nervously as he sketched a bow to Lucy, completely ignoring me and our other companions.

"Yes, Lady Lucy?" he said humbly.

"Capricorn, have you ever heard of celestial mages being able to use the powers of their spirits and transform their clothes in the process?" she asked as we continued to follow after Natsu and Happy.

"Yes, Lady Lucy. There have been several wizards in the past who were able to become conduits for their spirits power and temporarily be able to use them themselves in order to fight. Although this is an incredibly high level skill," Capricorn explained confidently. Lucy gasped with delight, but then she seemed to wither in front of me.

"Do you... do you think I could do that?" she asked with obvious hints of self-doubt in her voice. Before Capricorn could respond though Natsu turned around and fixed her with a wide, open smile.

"Of course you can, Lucy! You're an awesome mage!" he said confidently. Looking out of the corner of my eyes I saw Lucy blush lightly and then her facial expression softened into a hopeful smile.

"You really think so, Natsu?" she asked quietly.

"Of course!" he responded immediately. Lucy looked like she was about to respond when Natsu chuckled. "Plus, once you get that extra power then we can finally fight! I'd love to wipe the floor with you after you get even more powerful!" he said with a flash of fire behind his eyes. All of the softness vanished from Lucy's expression to be replaced by anger and disbelief.

"Natsu!" she yelled angrily. He just laughed, continuing to walk backwards. Lucy and Natsu bickered back and forth for a while before Lucy closed Capricorn's gate with a promise to start training for this new power the next day.

"Those two are always fighting," Shararu commented with a disapproving sigh.

"But they are always smiling, even if they are fighting," Wendy responded through chattering teeth. My eyes slid to the caves walls one more time and I frowned when I saw that the ice patches were getting thicker and more connecting, making it look like the walls of the tunnel were completely made of ice at some points.

Crack.

My head whipped over towards Natsu, Lucy, and Happy and the loud cracking sound that had just come from that direction. Natsu stopped and looked around, sniffing the air as if he could smell what had caused the loud noise.

"What was that?" Gray asked, coming up closer to Wendy and I. Slowly I held out a hand, motioning for Wendy to stay where she was.

"Who knows, it was probably nothing though," Natsu said with a nonchalant shrug. He took another step forward and another loud CRACK echoed through the cave. Lucy squeaked at the loud noise and I looked towards the floor.

"Natsu, don't move," I ordered quietly as I began to half slide, half shuffle towards where he was now standing a step away from Lucy. As I moved, small splintering sounds could be heard and I tried to keep my breathing even and calm.

Once I was standing next to Lucy I slowly knelt down and, after sending a desperate plea that I was wrong to whoever was listening, I brushed my hand across the floor. The dirt and snow moved away easily and the flames of the torch I was holding were reflected in the thin layer of ice that I had just uncovered. Lucy gasped, involuntarily taking a small step backwards and another loud crack rang out from the ice underneath us.

"Shhh," I whispered soothingly, glancing back and frowning when I realized that Gray had followed behind me.

"I'll just reinforce the ice," he said calmly.

As he got into position though, Natsu also turned to look at what I had found and a huge crack in the ice spread underneath my feet. I made a split-second decision and threw my hands out, creating two large light barriers that pushed Lucy and Gray away from me and towards Erza and Wendy. Just as they were flung off the ice patch I felt it shatter underneath me and Natsu and I both dropped as the floor fell from underneath our feet.

"Natsu!" Happy yelled, diving after us. I watched as Happy zoomed down, but he was so focused on catching Natsu that he smacked into a low hanging rock where he stuck, his arms and wings twitching from the unexpected impact. I turned my attention back to my own predicament and I frowned as I saw the bottom of the tunnel, which looked like a humongous, natural slide, coming closer and closer to me.

Natsu smacked into the ground first and promptly began rolling like crazy. I landed a little more gracefully, getting my feet underneath me and I desperately tried to stay in a surfing position as the tunnel fell steeply. But with all the twists and turns I eventually lost my footing and began to slide like crazy on my back.

I tried to gather enough concentration to create a light barrier to bring us to a stop, but everything was going so fast that I couldn't do it. Not to mention that Natsu was yelling like a banshee as he tumbled down the steep slide which didn't help anything.

I had lost track of how long we had been sliding down the slick tunnel which was mostly covered in ice thankfully, or else Natsu and I probably would have been cut up like ribbons. Just when I was about to try and clear my mind to once again attempt to call up a light barrier suddenly a light at the end of the tunnel appeared and I watched in shock as Natsu zoomed out of the tunnel with me right behind him. As the tunnel spat us out of the side of the mountain I twisted in the air to try and find Natsu, who was tumbling end over end towards the ground which was at least 100 yards beneath us.

Mizza Zante, I cursed silently to myself as the wind rushing past me caused my eyes to water.

A/N So, I love Lucy's different transformations from the newest season of Fairy Tail so I decided to introduce them this way. Hopefully this wasn't too big of a cliff hanger and I will try to update as soon as I can. Thanks for reading!