Once again, I present to you a CFLA challenge fic! And as ever, I endeavor to be the proverbial cold shower to the rest of the group's fluff/smut contributions. So let me know how I did! (Although I personally think this ended up a little fluffier than I'd intended.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
"S-Sorry, sir?" Jason stuttered in front of his boss, hoping that he'd heard the man incorrectly.
"You heard me, Jason." The heavyset man laced his fingers together and rested his head upon them. "Out of respect to the guild and our past good relations with them, we've put this off as long as we've can. I would think you'd jump at a chance to do such a high profile article. It'll do wonders for your career as a journalist."
The blonde reporter's hands flexed at his sides, wanting to do something but he wasn't sure what. Deck his boss for his callousness? Throw something? Neither option appealed to the professional but he hated feeling useless and adrift. "I can't refuse, can I." It wasn't a question.
At least his boss afforded him the courtesy of not pretending it was. "It's been a year, Jason." Sorrow and mild concern for his employee appeared then upon his countenance. "It's going to be done either way – I have a whole company's reputation to consider, after all. I picked you to write this article because you were their friend. Who better to tell their story than the one person at this magazine that cared for them the most?"
Swallowing thickly, Jason nodded. "I understand. When is the deadline?"
"My source says the Rune Knights are making the announcement next week."
"I got it." Dejected, and feeling like he was betraying the coolest people in the world, he turned to leave. "If that's all, I'll get started right away."
"Wait, Jason."
Jason glanced back at his boss.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
Only barely managing to nod in acknowledgment at the condolence, Jason all but fled his superior's office.
The man swiftly bypassed his own office, and ignored the cheerful greetings of his co-workers. Curious stares followed him out of the building, but Jason didn't care at the moment. He would be sure to apologize to everyone when next he returned.
Luckily his apartment wasn't too far from Sorcerer Weekly's headquarters – it took him a mere ten minutes to secure himself within his home.
As soon as the door was shut and locked behind him, Jason slid to the ground and sobbed.
One full year. How does time pass that fast? It felt like yesterday Jason had learned of Tenrou Island's erasure by a dragon. He'd cried, then, too. Overflowing rivulets of water had ruined everything he'd tried to write for weeks and the reporter had even needed to take a short leave of absence from his job. It was his shame at the time that he hadn't been able to do his job and write the article about the event. Jason was a journalist, and at its heart his profession was about reporting the hard truths regardless of the personal cost to the one who put pen to paper about it.
But he hadn't been able to do that. Jason had found himself unable to set aside his grief to do his friends the justice they deserved, and honor their lives as the coolest people in all of Earthland.
If it had been any other guild to disappear, Jason would have felt sorry but he would have written that article. It was so uncool of him.
The announcement the morning after that catastrophic event was something Jason could never forget. Walking into the office, he'd been thinking about the interview he would have to schedule once his favorite mages returned from their S-Class trial. How he would frame the piece would change depending upon who the victor was.
If it was Natsu, he would showcase the enthusiasm with which he approached life. Gray's would be a deeper, more somber article about persevering even when up against teammates. Freed's would be about the continuation of a legacy, and Levy's would show how it didn't matter what you looked like or how "weak" your magic was so long as you were clever nothing could stand in your way. An article about Elfman would have to be about being MANLY because quite frankly there was no way to prevent an interview with the Take Over mage from devolving into a discussion on what it means to be MANLY. Jason was really looking forward to writing an article about Juvia or Cana should they triumph over the competition – for Cana would prove to the world that as long as you never gave up, anything was possible; for Juvia, staying true to yourself despite how it would make you appear in front of your crush would be an inspiration to all women struggling with self-identity. Last but far from least was Mest. Jason could vaguely recall someone by that name being a part of the Fairy Tail guild long ago but he hadn't seen nor heard anything about that member in a very long time. It would be interesting to make up for the oversight and Jason was particularly curious about the man's choice of partner in the young Wendy Marvell.
All of those plans and expectations came crashing down around his ears. Jason had barely settled himself at his desk before everyone had been called out to the bullpen for an announcement. Normally indicative of interesting or extremely important news, Jason was rather excited as he made his way there.
And then the President and Vice-President had informed the collective of journalists and photographers the horrendous news they'd received from a source within the Rune Knights.
Even thought the rest of the day was writ in perfect clarity upon Jason's brain, how the reporter had gone from the bullpen back to his office was still a mystery. He did recall, however, sitting down and crying like he'd never done before. As a journalist, even for a mostly gossip magazine like Sorcerer Weekly, Jason had seen his fair share of terrible things in the world – had written about them, had taken photographs that still churned his stomach to look upon.
The news that his friends at Fairy Tail were gone had nearly destroyed him.
And now… now he was being asked to write an article for them.
One year since the island's obliteration by the black dragon, Acnologia. Six months since the search crews had been called off – though Jason knew Blue Pegasus and Lamia Scale yet desperately searched the blue waters for signs of their friends.
Now the Rune Knights were preparing to launch a statement proclaiming the missing mages legally dead.
It wasn't as if everyone (with the sole exception of Blue Pegasus, Lamia Scale, and the remaining members of Fairy Tail) didn't already know that they were gone for good. Surviving an attack like that would take a miracle, and even if they had there was no longer any land within swimming distance. Plus, it had been a year – if survivors were going to appear they would have done so long before now.
But it was still like losing them all over again.
This time, though… Jason would write his article. He would create a tribute worthy of their lives and legacy.
Jason would write the greatest article in the world in commemoration of some of the coolest people Earthland had ever seen.
Later, much more composed than when he'd first arrived home, Jason dug through old boxes full of photographs and articles he'd written about Fairy Tail. There were more than he'd realized, and it was difficult to not become sidetracked and take a trip or five down memory lane.
Pulling out his favorite photographs, he arranged them around himself in a circle on the floor. The reporter would start with these, and potentially take a trip down to the now much reduced guild for anecdotes.
Where to begin, however?
The voice of Jason's mentor from his early days at Sorcerer Weekly resounded in his head – the echo of another ghost long since gone. "If you're going to start an article, do so at the beginning. Obviously. Yeesh. What are they teaching young pups these days, anyway? Back in my heyday…"
Jason mentally cut off the recollection. Even from beyond the grave that man could drone on and on…
He wondered if the crotchety old fart was partying with the others in wherever the souls of the dead ended up. Because let's face it, no matter if they were in a good place or in a bad one, Fairy Tail was going to party. Makarov and his former mentor would probably hit it off immediately.
The beginning, huh?
It was simple to locate the photos he would use, after he had decided that. One in particular he held up for inspection. It was almost four years old, now… though Jason still considered it the most beautiful picture he'd ever taken.
Jason trudged through the small town he'd been sent to this time for his assignment. It was early spring, and persistent rains had churned the ground until was nigh impassable muck. Slogging through it was a chore, and the young reporter had been doing so for a couple of hours already since the town wasn't even major enough to have a railway running through it yet. Hell, he was having a hard time remembering the name of the town.
This was just the latest journey in a series of such the journalist's mentor had decided to send him off on a whim.
What was he supposed to be covering, again? The muck was starting to invade his brain, Jason feared. He was sort of disappointed in where his career had taken him so far. Although aware that he needed to start at the bottom and work his way up the ladder to better assignments, it was difficult to want to do so when schlepping about in grasping, sucking mud.
It could be worse, though. He could've been assigned to cover the mating habits of Vulcans in the wild as another one of his colleagues had earlier in the week. Poor guy. The female Vulcans were just as bad as the males, really. Jason wondered who he had pissed off to earn him the humiliating torture he was no doubt enduring at that very moment.
Oh, now he remembered what he was supposed to be covering. The tulip fields. There were supposed to be a large number of them in the area, and quite breathtaking to view.
Much more enticing a prospect than Vulcans. He should feel a little more grateful for his lot.
Then the muck stole his boot, though it took Jason a second too long to realize this. His foot planted itself solidly in the greedy, wet earth.
Uncool.
Once his foot was again safely ensconced within the boot, Jason resumed his rather miserable trek. Unfortunately, now that his foot had tasted freedom it refused to stay within the confines of his boot for longer than a few minutes. Jason found himself repeatedly pulling it out of the mud, only for it to squelch unpleasantly when it did stay where it was supposed to.
So he was somewhat relieved when he finally reached the town and paved streets once more. Not only that, there was someone waiting to show him to the fields immediately – rather impatiently waiting, it must be said as Jason was a good hour later than he'd intended.
It wasn't long before he was snapping his camera away at the seemingly unending flower fields. He'd already conducted the interviews he'd needed to take care of for the bulk of the article itself. Several of the tulip farms had even extended an invitation to return the next year just for the sake of enjoying the flowers.
They really were gorgeous. It was a hellish journey to arrive at their location but they were well worth it. Jason was almost ready to thank his mentor for the assignment.
And then a gargantuan monster appeared from nowhere, tearing through the fields with reckless abandon.
Petals of decimated flowers fluttered all around and clods of dirt soared as the beast rampaged in front of the dumfounded rookie reporter.
Jason slowly raised his camera and took a few snapshots of the thing.
Then, thorough his telescoping lens, he spotted something amazing.
The monster wasn't just destroying the tulips for the fun of it. It was chasing something.
Or rather, someone.
Jason's jaw dropped, and he almost forgot how to breathe.
Fortunately his shutter finger was quicker on the uptake.
Below the small rise upon which he observed, a small girl did battle with a monster more than ten times her size. Silver-white hair flying, she grinned at her opponent and kicked its leg out from under it. She was shouting something at it, but her voice was lost to the distance between where Jason watched and she… ruled.
The telltale click of his camera running out of film had Jason's fingers fumbling for a spare roll. With shaking hands, he exchanged the roll without looking much at what he was doing. He just couldn't tear his eyes away from the fight that raged on.
New roll in place, Jason resumed his frantic photo session.
To his utter shock and amazement, the girl changed. Scales rippled along her arms, fins jutting out. Her fingernails lengthened and curved into golden talons and her hands twisted to become claws capable of supporting them. A long, thick black tail sprouted from her lower spine and whipped in the air as she roared at her adversary.
It was a terrifying sound he could hear even from where he sat on his hillock. Then the girl ripped wings out of her back and took to the air, a spell charging between her claws.
Frame by frame, Jason captured the battle on his camera's film.
He had nearly run out again by the time it concluded with the victory going to the small mage.
Once she had departed again, dragging the corpse of the massive beast behind her, Jason finally looked down at his camera again. He'd run through an entire roll of film, just on her. Though he didn't regret it in the slightest.
"That was…" he whispered in awe, a grin spreading across his face, "so… COOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!" Jason proclaimed it to the sky, his fist pumping. Enthusiastically, he jumped around on the grassy knoll. "Cool! Cool! Cool!" he shouted in excitement. "I've never seen something so cool, before!"
Jason nervously approached his mentor's desk. The man had asked to see him a day after reading through the article he'd prepared on the tulip fields. Although proud of the photographs he'd taken of the battle between the demon girl and the monster, Jason had omitted them from his submission to his mentor. Mostly because it was illegal to take someone's photograph without their knowledge.
He had included a summary of the events in his article, however. And a couple pictures of the monster.
Maybe he shouldn't have, and that was why he was being called into his mentor's office. To be reprimanded for not sticking to the original topic.
Instead, he was quite surprised when his mentor grasped of his hands in both of his own and vigorously pumped the limb up again down. "Fantastic article, Jason! Well done, not only on the writing itself but improvising when the situation changed! You'll make a career for yourself yet and damned if it hasn't captured the attention of some of the guys further up the food chain!"
The fledgling reporter flushed at the praise. "N-no problem," he stuttered.
"And that picture of the girl was just exquisite!"
Jason froze. "Girl?"
Confused, his mentor held out the packet he'd submitted. "Yeah, the photograph of the girl standing on top of the monster."
Quickly tearing through the sheaves of paper, Jason froze when he came upon the photograph in question. Indeed, there it was. The white-haired girl standing atop the monster, her ponytail blowing in the breeze and making her look for the entire world like a queen.
"Sir… I didn't mean to include this." Jason gulped. "I mean… I didn't have her permission to take the photograph let alone submit it for publishing!"
"Oh," his mentor commented. "Is that all? Don't worry about it. It's already been submitted for the issue coming out in a couple of days. It's too late to recall it now, and if the girl comes forward and complains we'll just pay her for what the photograph is worth. So just sit back and bask in the glory of your article making it to the front page of the magazine, my boy! It's a high honor for a rookie such as yourself."
Somehow, Jason doubted it would be that simple.
He was right.
When a knock came on his apartment door over a week later, Jason was just finishing up packing for another harebrained assignment his mentor believed would 'build character'. Thinking it was just his mentor come to give him a final sendoff or a last minute addendum to his task, Jason opened the door without first checking to see who was beyond it.
A copy of the magazine was promptly shoved into his face, the photograph he'd taken emblazoned upon it for the world to see.
"What," a low, feminine voice growled beyond the glossy wood pulp, "is the meaning of this?"
Jason gulped; all of a sudden very much afraid he knew exactly who it was that had come calling. "Um…" he began, feeling as if death had finally come for his soul in the form of a white-haired demon-girl, "Hi?"
The magazine was yanked out of his face and indeed before him stood its star.
She was even fiercer and more terrifying in person.
She was so damn cool Jason was having a difficult time not declaring it from the rooftops.
"You," she hissed, "How dare you take my photograph without my permission and publish it." With a forceful shove of her hand, Jason was sent careening backward into his apartment. "I hate having my picture taken," she growled, stepping into the apartment and kicking the door shut behind her. "So tell me, little reporter just what you're going to do to fix this."
"I'm sorry!" Jason squeaked. "I didn't mean to include that photograph – I swear I didn't mean for it to end up in the magazine. I even brought it to the attention of my boss but he said there was nothing we could do since it had already gone to print. I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do to make it up to you, ma'am?!"
The girl bristled. "Ma'am, is it? I'll have you know my name is Mirajane Strauss, a proud member of Fairy Tail!" she declared. "Now, I asked you what YOU were going to do to make it up to me. Figure it out, media trash!"
Jason gulped, his life flashing before his eyes as Mirajane glared down at him. "You can have all the photographs that I took that day." It killed him to have to give them up – they were by far the best he'd ever taken. But they belonged to the person they featured, after all.
"That's a start."
Scrambling to gather them up, Jason presented them to her in short order.
Mirajane rifled through them. "Is this all of them?"
He nodded enthusiastically.
The Fairy Tail mage's hands stilled as she looked through some of the later ones. "You even…" Her shoulders started to shake, and Jason was struck with the horrifying realization that she was about to cry. "You even took some of this ugly thing!"
Ugly? Jason didn't recall taking any ugly photos that day. Some of them had turned out less than stellar, it was true, but that was mostly because of fuzzy backgrounds and his thumb sometimes partially obscuring a few of the frames.
Curious, he looked at the photograph she had stalled upon.
"I'm not sure I understand," he remarked in confusion. "What exactly is the issue with this one?" When she turned her baleful stare upon him again, he threw his hands up in a helpless shrug. "I'm a professional. If I made an error I want to know how to correct it."
Furiously, Mirajane indicted a section of the photograph. "Right there!" she hissed at him. "That… ugly thing!"
With horror, Jason realized that she was pointing towards herself. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with it – other than the fact it had been taken while she had been in demon form.
Incredulous, he turned a blank stare towards her. "It's not ugly at all."
"You're wrong!" she declared, shaking in earnest with the force of unshed tears.
Did she… hate her demon form?
It occurred to Jason to wonder just how old Mirajane was. He hadn't really thought about it before, but now that he really looked at her, she couldn't be more than sixteen. Seventeen, at the outside.
The thought that this utterly cool person – albeit downright terrifying – girl could find any part of herself and her amazing abilities unworthy boggled Jason's mind.
So he reached out to the stack of photographs. "May I?" he asked.
Sniffling and trying desperately to hide it, she returned them to him.
After a moment, Jason extricated one photograph in particular and handed it to her. "This one is my favorite," he informed her. "It's the best work of my career."
Mirajane stared at it, struck silent by it. In the photograph, there she flew in her demon form. Her wings were outstretched behind her, and her tail lashed the sky. Dark magic eddied and pooled all around her flying self. But Jason's truly treasured aspect of it was the expression upon her face. One of sheer, fierce delight as she reveled in the power she commanded.
"It's pretty," she whispered. "How is it so pretty?"
"Because you're so cooooool!" Jason couldn't stop himself from declaring.
Startled, she looked up at him. "Y-You think so?" A light blush stained her pale cheeks.
"The coolest ever! Your fight was the coolest thing I've ever seen, with the way you thrashed that monster! And this form! Truly cool!"
She gulped, and returned it back to him. "Here," she muttered, looking at her feet. "You keep them after all. It's fine."
Jason took back the photograph. "That doesn't seem very cool of me," he muttered. Then the journalist brightened. "I know! How about I send you copies?! It'll be so cool!"
A giggle, at odds with the tough demeanor she had set forth earlier, fell from her lips. "I would like that. What's your name again?"
"Jason! I'm your number one fan!"
"Jason." Mirajane smiled at him. "Send them to the Fairy Tail guild." She paused, and then added, "I hope to see you again soon."
"Me, too! Coooooooool!"
Looking back on it now, four years later, Jason reflected that that had been the launch of both their careers. Mirajane had taken up Sorcerer Weekly's invitation to model for them, with the stipulation that Jason be her photographer and interviewer because he, "knew how to capture my best sides".
They had become close friends. Eventually, she had invited him up to Fairy Tail to do an exclusive on the guild members. Through that, he had been able to meet the absolute coolest people in all of Earthland.
He missed Mirajane dearly.
He missed all of them.
But he would pay them the appropriate homage. He would do his best by all of his friends.
And so he began to write his article.
"It was this reporter's great honor to not only be the main interviewer for the members of Fairy Tail, but to be considered amongst their close circle of friends…"
I had a lot more fun writing Jason than I'd thought I would! I do have to say I hated writing all the cools' though. I kept shouting at my computer, "Use a different adjective, for the love of sanity!" But then I realized that I couldn't really use another adjective and so just despaired and procrastinated by writing other fics and taking naps.
Chrys Stone: CFLA- How Far Will You Go? (Lucy, Jason, Yukino); Rated M
GemNika: CFLA- Catalyst (Jason, Mira); Rated T
Kairrie: CFLA- Behind the Scenes (Gajeel, Laxus, Jason); Rated M
LittlePrincessNana: CFLA- You're the Coolest (Jason, Levy); Rated T
Leoslady4ever: CFLA- Hold Your Tongue (Jason, Lucy); Rated M
Eien Ni Touko: CFLA- Participant Observation (Jason, Lucy); Rated T
NIchiki: CFLA- Code Name Shutterbug (Jason, Lucy); Rated T
NIchiki: CFLA- A Fluffy Sandwich (Jason, Aries); Rated T
Dragon'Host: CFLA- Commemoration (Jason-centric, JasonxMira friendship); Rated T
If you'd like to find these or any of the other monthly collaborations that have been written by members of The Crack Fiction Liberation Army, then please visit:
(fanfiction) community/CFLA-Archives/118692/3/0/1/
The next prompt, for the month of April, will be: Girl Power: Under loved Female Characters.
I'm thinking Coco for mine…
See you next time!