"What's un...uni...unison mean?"

Laxus hardly glanced up from the newspaper. "It means joint."

"Like in your knee?"

"No," he said slowly as he flipped the page noisily. "Like...together. Like when two people are joined together. Or two things."

"Oh." Moment of silence. Then, "What does raid mean?"

Distracted, the man hardly registered what was being asked as he said, "To take something away from someone. Like when guards raid a building."

"Oh." Then, "But...this doesn't make sen-"

"Okay, here's break- Oh. It's only you two right now?" Mirajane was coming over to the kitchen table the, one large plate housing a bunch of scrambled eggs on it, which she moved to set in the middle of the six seat table. "Mace, I thought I told you all to come to the table?"

"You did," the little boy told his aunt as he continued to stare at his book, staring in confusion down at it. "But Pike had to take a bath and Nate went back to sl-"

"I'm right here, you tattle-tell."

"I'm not tattling!" That got the brown haired child out of his book. "Nathan!"

"Yes, you are!" And the blond one was coming into the kitchen, headed straight for the table. "Mace."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"I don't care what any of you were doing," Laxus grumbled as he peeked at them from over the top of his newspaper. "Just shut the hell up."

"Dragon, behave." Moving then to go back to the counter, Mira picked up the other plate, full of bacon, and brought it to the table as well. She'd been unable to bring it before, with the eggs, because her other arm was currently very occupied with her only daughter, who had been rather clingy since getting up that morning. "Honestly. And Pike! Master! It's time to eat! I mean it!"

"I's takin' my bath, Mommy." Pike hadn't needed beckoning, apparently, as it only took him a moment to appear in the kitchen, only rushing when he noticed that the food was already there and, though he hadn't been given a plate yet, Nate was shoving slices of bacon in his mouth.

"Is no one going to help your mother put out plates? Forks? Huh?" Glaring once more from over the top of his paper, Laxus mostly stared over at his oldest. "Nathan?"

"Why do I gotta-"

"Nathan-"

"It's fine, dragon." Mira was moving to drop their daughter in his lap then, which was the last thing the man wanted at the moment. "Here. Take Ivory. And who wants juice and who wants milk?"

As his boys all called out their requests, Laxus only frowned down at the one-year-old now resting in his lap. She looked about ready to start crying for her mother to come get her back when she felt her father's eyes and, well, when she tilted her head back to meet them she could only giggle.

Ivory loved her daddy.

Forcing his mean mug to stay put, Laxus only glared down at his daughter as, with loud laughter, she reached out to start patting at the newspaper, enjoying the noise it made as she ruined his reading of it. And, with a sigh, Laxus moved to fold it in half and set it to the side. Ivory was fine with this though, as he only took to snuggling her with his now free arms.

Mmm.

She really did love him.

Nate, watching his father nuzzle his head against the baby's, made him frown. Not because he was jealous that Laxus was clearly more loving towards her (outwardly) or even that he had any clue that, when he was that age, Laxus not only wasn't involved in his life, but had he had the option to be, would have chosen not to.

No, rather, Nathan was extremely peeved that stupid Laxus was totally hogging the only sibling he really liked.

Because Pike was a butthead, after the night before, when he told on him and Mace when they locked him in that closet.

It was just a game.

Fine, sure, one that Pike didn't wanna play and that involved leaving him there, in the dark that he was so very afraid of, but how did that mean that Nate and Mace had to go to bed early?

Huh?

"I think Egg wants me," the boy told his father as, the baby in question, only mewled in response to the love she was being lavished with. "Instead of you. You should let her sit with who she wants."

That brought Laxus back to reality. Frowning, he looked to his oldest. "You talking to me? Huh? Like that? I'm not in the mood, Nathan, so-"

"Egg wants me. You can tell."

"Don't call Ivory an egg." Mirajane sat a class of juice in front off her oldest. "I've told you about that."

"She likes it."

"Nate-"

"Uncle Laxus, this doesn't make sense." Mace was back to his book, it seemed, as he glared over at the man. "I've tried to put the words together the way you said, but it doesn't work!"

"What are you talking about?" Laxus typically found his nephew far easier to deal with than his oldest son. "What words?"

"Unison," he said, staring at him with bright blue eyes. "And raid."

"A unison raid?" Mirajane sat a glass in front of Mace and Pike then. "Is that what you're talking about?"

Nodding, Mace said, "Uncle Laxus said that it means that two people get together and take something from a house, but that doesn't make any sense in this book."

"Lax, why would you tell him that?"

"I didn't." He kept a hand wrapped around Ivory as he leaned over, across the table, so he could peek at just what his nephew was flipping through. "Why are you reading a magic book anyways? Mace?"

"I already told you!" His face crumpled a bit, at the man's question. "I'm gonna pick a magic to learn! Don't you listen?"

That was it. Laxus was giving up on both of the older ones. He was officially only gonna care about Ivory, his little baby, and Pike, his big boy that constantly needed to be reminded of this.

"Don't yell at your uncle, sweetie." Mira was returning with plates and silverware. "He has a lot going on recently. He has to work and take care of all of us. And you too."

"Yeah, brat, so watch your tone." Laxus' blank expression alone would have been enough to get an apology out of the boy, but the way he was staring at him at the moment mad Mace freeze up a bit. "I could ship you off to stay with Bickslow and Lisanna until your mother and father get back. Or worse yet; Freed. You wanna live with Freed? Huh?"

"N-No! I-"

"Wait, why wouldn't he?" Nathan frowned over at his father. "Freed's a lot nicer than you!"

"He is not!"

"Well, dragon, you have to admit-" Mira started but Laxus only snorted.

"He'd make you guys do way more chores than I do," was what the slayer finally came up with. "And probably go to bed earlier. And he'd make you read. And learn things and..."

"Oh my goodness." Mira made a stricken face at her husband. "I think I married the wrong person. Freed sounds like a way better father."

"Demon-"

"And don't tease Mace." Mirajane went to get her husband coffee then. "He didn't mean to talk back to you. Did you, Mace?"

"No," he said as Nathan only made a face. Apologizing to Mira was one thing; to Laxus a complete other. "I didn't."

"And you know too, sweetie, that we'd never...ship you off." Mira made a face over at her husband. "You can stay here as long as you'd like."

And honestly, had been with them before his parents even took off on their job. Elfman and Evergreen both cared for Mace very much, but… Well, Elfman was gone all the time on jobs and Ever was too, but when they weren't, they were both rather...flighty. And eccentric. Granted, Mira and Laxus were as well (it was kind of a requirement to join Fairy Tail, it seemed), but theirs rarely caused any conflict between their rearing of their children.

In fact, Mira's quirks were actually rather helpful and Laxus' were easily buried or outshone by his love for his offspring. Mace was easy to fold into their little group, as Mira loved all children, always, and Laxus, while not too keen on footing the bill for the boy's expenses at the beginning, would accept anyone if they hung around long enough.

Plus, the other option was to allow Elfman and Ever to actually attempt raising their own kid and, well, Laxus did not wanna see the outcome of that.

Or worse, Bickslow and Lisanna might have more influence on him. Which...just…

No, he was best right where he was. With Uncle Laxus and Aunt Mirajane.

Or Freed, honestly. Yeah, Laxus was pretty sure he could raise a kid right.

It would be a very odd, extremely well-mannered child, but it would still turn out alright.

"Now say sorry to Uncle Laxus." Mirajane was over at the coffee pot, but did look to her nephew then. "And you tell Laxus sorry too, Nathan, for… What did he do again? Laxus?"

"He-"

"Neither of the did anything. Your husband is just too sensitive."

Great. Makarov was up.

The slayer tried hard not to growl.

"Gramps!" All the boys were excited to see him, though the man, honestly, didn't look too well. He wasn't, honestly, and it prompted Mira to suggest he get back in bed and she'd bring him a plate.

"No, no, my dear." He claimed his seat at the other head of the table, opposite his grandson. "I'm fine. Coffee, please, would help me out however."

"Of course, Master. And oh! Here's the biscuits, boys."

Mace, thinking he was finished with his uncle's wrath (mainly because the man had gone back to snuggling Ivory in an attempt to calm himself down), turned to Makarov.

"Gramps," he asked, cocking his head to the side. "What's a unison raid? Uncle Laxus doesn't know."

"That's because he's not skilled enough to preform one."

"Oh."

"Mira," Laxus grumbled as the woman only giggled at the elderly man's antics. "I'm not in the mood for him. Please let the old geezer in on this. Because you won't like the way I do it."

"Oh, dragon," she giggled as, coming to set the plate of biscuits on the table, she snatched Mace's book from him.

"Hey," he started to complain, but she only shook her head as she went to set the book on the kitchen counter.

"You can have it back after you eat," she said before nodding at the ever dwindling bacon as Nathan and Pike were now in an all out battle to see who could fill their plate with more without getting in trouble.

Not much as, suddenly, Laxus' larger hand was reaching out to drag the plate over to him and his baby, giving both his boys a glare for their selfishness.

"A unison raid, Mace," the slayer said then, getitng the boy's attention as Nate and Pike moved on to trying to get the most eggs on their plate, "is when two skilled mages with like magic combine their powers for a super attack."

"Oh. Wow! That makes more sense." Mace looked to his uncle with wide eyes. "So you've never done one? Uncle Laxus?"

"I-"

"Just told you, my boy," Makarov remarked as Mira came back with coffee for him, as well as to actually scoop what she deemed as too much for each of her sons back onto the serving plates and slide the food down to the elderly man. "Laxus isn't skilled enough to-"

"Mira," Laxus growled.

"Okay, boys, enough." She made a face at both the older Dreyar men. The, to Mace, she said, "Uncle Laxus hasn't ever done a unison raid because he's never needed to do one."

"Then when would you need to?" Mace asked.

"If something super bad was going on," she explained, finally going to take her own seat.

"Super bad stuff happens!" Nathan was back in the conversation then, it seemed. "A lot! How come he never did one when it was going on?"

"Someone would have to be on my level," Laxus said simply, figuring that would put the whole thing to bed. "Or at least close to it."

"Isn't Mommy on your level?" Pike asked, cocking his head to the side. "Daddy?"

"W-Well-"

"How come you don't do a raid?" Nathan asked. "Or is it because you're not on her level?"

"Listen, brat-"

"I guess me and Daddy could do a raid," Mira said thoughtfully, which got all the little boy's attention as well as her men because Mira reigned supreme in the house. Always. "If there was every anything that required it. I mean, our magic is enough alike. Huh, dragon?"

Grunt. He was eating then, around Ivory who he did not want to give up and put in her highchair, at all, leaving him no time to deal with that unison raid nonsense.

"Demon lightnin'," Pike said slowly.

"Demonic," Mira corrected gently, "lightning."

"what sorta time could you use it though?" Mace asked. "Aunt Mira?"

"It'd have to be very perilous a time, my boy," Makarov answered for her. "The two of their power combined… I would not feel comfortable with two of my S-Class mages doing son unless it was directed at such an enemy it could not be defeated otherwise."

"But think about how cool it would be, Gramps!" Nate was already sold on the idea, it seemed. "Like...purple lightnin'."

"That," Laxus remarked, "does sound cool, at least."

"Or electric orbs of dark purple energy." Mirajane hummed. "Although, for what it's worth boys, if this sort of danger was present, you would be nowhere around to see our unison raid."

"Not if the monster popped up outta nowhere," Mace said to which his older cousin nodded.

"Yeah, Mommy," Nate remarked. "If something just showed up, right here, in the kitchen, right now, and ate Pike's face, would you make me and Mace leave before you did a unison raid or-"

Pike dropped his fork. "What?"

"He's just teasing," Mira assured the little white haired child as Laxus sent his oldest a look. "Nothing could get into this house to hurt you, Pike, and you know it."

Uh, no, he didn't. Bad things clearly happened at some point to everyone; why couldn't that exact thing happen to him in the house? What was stopping it from being so?

"What sort of magic have you been looking into? Mace?" Makarov turned his stare onto him then, pausing to take a sip from his mug before saying, "It is very important to take much time out to decide on what sorts of things interest you." Then, realizing who he was around, he added, "unless you're like Nathan and know immediately what you want to be. It helps, being born into a great dynasty."

"He's learning magic from Lisanna." Laxus couldn't help it. Makarov's words annoyed him. Not to mention, bringing up Nathan's birth for legitimately no reason always put him in a foul mood. It was like toying with a the cap on a can of worms for no reason. "Lisanna Strauss. What dynasty?"

"Uh, excuse me, but obviously the dynasty that houses Fairy Tail's top mage," Mira remarked.

"Oh brother."

"I'm serious, dragon. You heard Nate; I'm way stronger than you."

"What does Nathan know?"

The little boy in question sorted. "A lot."

Mace was tired of them keeping him from answering Makarov and finally just said, "I wanna be sure of everything. 'fore I decide. Daddy thinks that I should learn like Nate too and figure out something to do with Take Over, but… I wanna be sure."

"You should be sure," Mira told him to which Laxus snorted.

"You wanna learn a magic, Mace?" the slayer asked him. "Learn anything, but their silly magic."

"At least Aunt Lisanna had to try at her magic!" Nate, typically, wasn't in the mood to defend the woman, but at the moment, he was defending his own magic as well, really. "Didn't just get to be a slayer by shovin' a lacrima down her throat."

"First off, I didn't just get to be anything. And secondly-"

"Take Over is very hard to learn, dragon," Mirajane complained with a frown. "So-"

"You didn't learn it! Not like your brother and sister! If I became a slayer by having a lacrima shoved down in me, then you became a demon from absorbing one during whatever stupid dinky village had going on!"

Mira blinked. "Oh, yeah."

"See?"

"I still had to have the power to take on the-"

"We all have some magic in us though," he continued to argue. "As long as we were descended from mages! So-"

"I don't wanna talk about this," Pike informed them in a rather small voice. He was mostly speaking to his brother who only nodded.

Teasing Laxus always got less and less fun as time went on. And, with the man seemingly going to be home for the duration of the day, he was going to need to space that shit out.

"I think Egg wants me now," Nathan decided loudly as the baby in question was currently nibbling on the little bit of bacon Laxus had given her. She'd eaten, as always, when she first got up a breakfast of mushy foods and a bottle, so she really didn't even need to be in her father's lap, doing this. Honestly.

But he wanted her there and that was all that mattered.

"No," Laxus grumbled. "She doesn't."

"And don't call Ivory an...egg." Mira didn't know why she hated this, but she did.

Immensely.

Mace, looking over at the closet thing to a grandfather he had, asked, "Gramps, have you ever done a unison raid?"

"Hmmm." He bowed his head, Makarov did, as if in thought. Then, slowly, he said, "Not that I recall, no. But you know, my magic isn't exactly built for such a thing. Not everyone can do one with just anyone, as your uncle explained. Your magics have to be at least somewhat compatible. It is more than just coordinating your attacks around another persons. Much goes into it. And-"

"Then I wanna figure out a magic that's close to Nate's!" Mace turned to look at his cousin then who, honestly, was trying to decide if he should battle it out with his father over the remaining bacon or his baby sister. It was not as easy a choice to make though the answer was obvious. Ivory was just so cute and amazing that sometimes she could make him forget that food was the only thing that, truly, mattered. "Then we can do be the best team ever!"

Frowning over at the man, Nate said, "Your not gonna be on my team."

"H-Huh?"

"Your low breed." Nate eve held his head up higher, in his imitation of his father. "I'm high breed. You ca follow me around and deal with tedi...tediou… Stupid stuf that I don't wanna, but you're not on my team."

"Nathan," Mira complained as Laxus only nodded.

"He comes from Thunder Legion, Mirajane," the woman's husband informed her. "Sorry, Mace, but Nate comes from Dreyar breed. You know what that produces? Me." Then, with a shrug, he added, "And that was the only redeemable thing, so yeah, no, Nate, you are on your cousin's level. You little brat. And just for all this, I'm gonna force you to be a team."

"What?" Nate's face heated up. "You can't!"

"I can!"

As they fell into that argument, Pike only said to his cousin, "I'll be on your team, Mace."

The slightly older boy snorted. "You don't even like magic. Or wanna learn it."

"So?" He looked to his mother then. "Mommy doesn't like it, but she's still way more powerful than Daddy. And he cheated by getting a lacrima-"

"Who is plying all of you full of these stories?" Laxus raved. "Is it you, Gramps? That's it, Mira. I warned you to warn him earlier. This is the last straw. He's going to be evicted."

"Oh, dragon."

"I'm not kidding!"

Makarov, after only finishing half his coffee and hardly touching his eggs, only left them to their bickering as he got to his feet. Passing Mace's chair, he patted the boy o the head, "Let us hope, child, that you live in such a world that there never will be a time when a demon and a dragon must combine to destroy an enemy." Then, bowing his head a bit, he tapped his own against the child's as they both listened to Mirajane and Laxus continue to argue over just how rude the slayer was being (very) as well as how inconsiderate she was to his feelings (also very). Eve softer the, Makarov told the child, "But if you ever do need it, believe me when I say, it will surely come."

Mace only grinned, partially from the special attention he'd just received, but mostly because he knew this was true. There was no one manlier than his father and no one darker than his mother, but his aunt and uncle? Not only were the coolest, but as far as he was concerned, they were also the best! At everything! And how lucky then was he to get to spend so much time around the dragon and demon?

Pike, never one to like hearing arguments (joking or not), jumped up and took off after Makarov while Nate only shoved his face with the rest of Pike's food before getting to his feet. Using his father's distraction to his advantage, he scooped up Ivory who, for the record, Nate was completely certain favored him over all others, and made off with her, planning on going to read some comic books aloud to the baby.

She sure liked comic books.

As far as he could tell, anyways.

Alone at the table then, Mace finished eating as Mira and Laxus continued to take small swipes at one another until, inevitably, the word exchange made Mira cry and then Laxus had to comfort her and bleh; kissing.

Once he'd disappeared, with his old beginners magic book, Laxus finally realized he and Mira were alone and that only meant one thing.

"They duped me again," he grumbled, standing there in the kitchen with his arms around his wife. "They all ran off without helping with the dishes and i was too distracted to stop them. And now if I try and go and get them, to come back and do them, you'll say-"

"Oh, dragon, don't bother them." She was tugging him over to the sink then. "We can do the dishes together."

Sigh. For some sinking reasoning, Laxus felt as if he'd only listened to Mace, at least once during the morning, the whole thing could have been avoided.

If only.

So, this year I wasn't going to do a one-shot about any of the series for Miraxus week because I felt like they'd all been left off in their appropriate places, should I get back into writing them. But I didn't know what to do for unison raid and, well, here we are. I figure I'll go ahead and do Last Month and Remember Me on one of the days each because, well, fairness or whatever.