*Author's Note*
This story is a collaboration between my brilliantly creative friend, SHSL Hope G Komaeda and I. I can't thank him enough for all his wonderful ideas and time! (I highly recommend reading his stories, they're great!)
Chapter One
The barking had begun around thirty minutes before Titania actually got out of bed. Other than that, Yuki had been pretty quiet. He had snuggled against Titania's feet and slept alongside her through the whole night. Then, at around 6 A.M., the little white puppy had begun to bark loudly.
"You want food, Yuki?" Titania murmured, sleep present in her voice. It was now 6:30 A.M. The dog yipped in response and scampered into the kitchen. "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh." Titania groaned. She brushed her scarlet hair out of her eyes, but the bangs fell right back over her left eye in their usual place. Titania closed her eyes and stretched before snapping them open. Sleep had been quickly been replaced with determination in her green-blue gaze.
"Right, time for my day to begin."
After feeding Yuki and giving him some attention, Titania showered and then requipped into her custom Heart Kruez armor. She took a moment to admire the armor. It was one of her favorites, especially due to the circumstances of its manufacture. The armor had originally been a replica of the armor worn by Titania's ancestor, Erza Scarlet. Titania admired Erza quite a lot, and so had set out to get the limited armor. While she had eventually succeeded after a lot of intimidation, the armor didn't fit her. So, Titania marched straight back to the shop and had demanded the armor be fixed. Once Titania's ancestry had been revealed, Heart Kreuz was more than happy to fix the armor. In short, the armor still greatly resembled Erza's armor, but had been adjusted to fit Titania's petite frame and had been made to look a bit more modest in the chest area. Titania breathed out a proud sigh. She then opened the door to her apartment.
"I'm off, Yuki! Be good! I'll be home the usual time!" Titania called before closing the door. She took a deep breath before letting her family's trademark glare cover her face. "Time to create order." She stormed through Magnolia straight to its biggest building: Fairy Tail.
"Titania, Nya. Looking as serious as ever." G greeted. He was walking away from the guild and just happened to pass by Titania as she stomped toward it. You could never tell with him, he could've planned the meeting. G was very mysterious person, having earned his epithet 'Fairy Tail's Mysterious Rookie', or just 'Mystery Mask'. He always wore the same outfit; a green masquerade mask to hide his face, a thick black cloak that concealed his body, and long white gloves that covered his arms, both of which bore a green Fairy Tail guild mark on the top of where his hands were. The only visible part of his body was parts of his head. His golden blonde hair fell over his mask in some places, and people could always see his mouth mysteriously smiling, like he currently was.
"What are the fools up to?" Titania asked darkly.
"Tetsuyo and Gabi are fighting again." G said, beginning to walk away. "Wrecking the guild hall. I've got a job to do, so see you later, Nya!"
"Those IDIOTS!" Titania growled, seemingly ignoring the rest of G's sentence and stomping the rest of the way to the guild hall. "Idiots! Stop this at once!" Titania threw the guild doors open. The whole guild immediately stopped mid-battle. Gabi and Tetsuyo were at the center of the crowd.
Gabi's long and wild black hair looked more messy than usual, Titania remarked to herself that it was probably from all that fighting.
"Hehe... Hey, Titania... How's it... Going...?" Tetsuyo grinned weakly. He had his arm wrapped around Gabi's head like a headlock. Titania could sense the fear that shown in his crimson eyes, his dark brown hair somehow managed to stay immaculate as well as his clothes. She often wished that his sophisticated sense of style would match his personality, seeing that he always wore nice sweaters over button-up shirts with khakis. His white scale-patterned scarf, handed down from his ancestor Natsu, was wrapped around his arm like a band.
"How's your... Sword... Stuff..." Gabi also had a very nervous grin plastered across her face, but her hazel eyes dared not to meet Titania's gaze. Titania was somewhat fond of Gabi due to her great skill at sword creation. Titania never showed it, of course. Gabi was in constant need of discipline.
"And what exactly are you two doing?" Titania raised an eyebrow.
"Oh... You know... Just... Hanging out..." Tetsuyo kept his too-wide grin.
"With Gabi in a headlock?" Titania asked skeptically.
"It's just... Um... Wrestling..." Beads of sweat ran down Gabi's face.
"Right. Maybe you should drop the headlock." Titania said in a tone that suggested more than 'maybe'.
"Yes ma'am!" The two fighters quickly stood at attention. Titania looked them over with one eyebrow raised before just sighing.
"Honestly... What am I going to do with all of you... The guild hall costs money, you can't just break it." Titania walked over to Gabi and Tetsuyo and quickly smacked their heads together, KOing them. "I expect all of you to behave yourselves from now on." Titania ordered, looking around the guild hall. She found the next person in need of discipline. "Fullbuster!"
"Urk!" Aero Fullbuster stopped short. He was a well built young man with cornflower blue hair. His black guild mark was on the left part of his chest, and was currently visible because he had stripped down to his underwear.
"Stop stripping in the guild hall! Clothes! On! Now!" Titania barked.
"What are you... Oh come on!" Aero yelped. He started foraging around the ground for his clothes, and pulled them on as he found them.
"That's not all." Titania hissed.
"Eh?!" Aero stood up straight, having gotten all his clothes on.
"You just got back yesterday after disappearing for almost a month... Yet you have competed a total of ZERO jobs the whole month long! What are you doing?!" Titania glared straight at him. "This is unacceptable!"
"Er... Well... I've been looking for Surrea..." Aero rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. If the guild had been silent before, it was silent now. Even Titania had to take a moment to compose herself.
"I really wish you would all be this quiet every day. It's much more pleasant." A voice quickly broke the silence, followed by the sound of drinking.
"Thanks for always being so nice to everyone." Titania rolled her eyes. She glared at the person who had made the comment. "Anything else you'd like to share, Gwendolyn?"
"You should call me Gwen. I've grown accustomed to the nickname." Gwen was one of the few members of the guild who were around Titania's height. Titania wasn't quite sure what Gwen's natural hair color was, but she was quite sure it wasn't any of the colors the hair currently was. Gwen had dyed her hair completely black and highlighted it blue, green, and purple. Her dark purple guild mark was visible on her left hand when she used it to pour tea. Gwen always had the same tea set that she carried everywhere she went. Her favorite pastime seemed to be sipping tea from it, as it was usually what she was seen doing. Gwen's outfit was even more striking than her hair. Gwen wore a black dress with silver ribbons that circled her body, one tied above her sizable chest, one below, and the final one slightly lower than the second one. At the end of the sleeves were slightly frilly white cuffs that fluttered gracefully whenever her arms moved. She wore long black stockings that picked up almost immediately where her dress left off, and her feet were delicately placed in black high heels. Gwen's strange appearance and size had earned her the epithet "Fairy Tail's Goth Lolita". When Gwen was around at the guild hall, she was always quietly sipping her tea and making comments in a cold voice. Titania generally held back criticism of her, but only because the girls were both S-class mages. While Titania would never admit it to anyone, she often got the feeling that Gwen was many levels above her in strength. Titania had never seen Gwen fight, and so often observed her closely when possible.
"It's not very proper." Titania frowned.
"That proper attitude is what makes you so uptight, Titania-Chan! Open up a bit!" The girl sitting next to Gwen giggled. Maryanne Dreyar, or just Mary, had very light blonde hair with white streaks in it. Her hair was styled like her ancestor, Mirajane Strauss, when she was a teenager. Mary wore a very revealing pink dress (which Titania personally quite disapproved of, especially since it showed far too much of her cleavage) which showed off the white guild mark on her right breast. Mary had added a pink outline to the guild mark to fit her clothing style. Said clothing style included a wardrobe of mostly white and pink clothing. Mary was very cheerful, and an exceptionally powerful mage, having become S-Class at age 10. Smokey, the black cat snuggled against Mary's leg, had been a stray that Mary had taken in. Though not very social to most of the guild, Smokey was extremely affectionate toward Mary and even insisted on accompanying her on missions. Smokey had the ability to talk, but mainly decided to use telepathy whenever he actually wanted to talk to anyone. Despite being a cat, Smokey had attained S-Class and sported great magic prowess.
"Indeed. I find it quite boring." Gwen smiled, backing up her friend's comment. Mary seemed to be the only person who could actually make Gwen smile.
"I don't think it's uptight..." Titania turned her path on the two, ignoring their laughter. She refused to let them see that they had gotten to her. She might have to confirm with G about her uptightness, though.
"My search would go faster if you just told me where Surrea is, Goth Lolita-Chan..." Aero finally said. Gwen flat out ignored him, and the guild members were beginning to chat again.
"Gwen doesn't know where she is, none of us do." Titania dismissed. "Now, your lack of completed jobs is unacceptable. Since you can't be trusted, you'll just have to come with me on one. We'll get a few more of these delinquents to come as well." At that, Titania grabbed Aero by the shoulder and forcefully dragged him over to Tetsuyo and Gabi. "Tetsuyo! You need to learn a thing or two about jobs, so you're coming as well!" Titania easily tossed Tetsuyo over her shoulder. "Now..." The petite redhead glanced around the room before spotting her next victim. "Alice!"
"Y- yes?!" A girl with long, straight blonde hair and blue eyes froze, knowing that she had been caught. Alice had been sitting quietly in the corner of a booth, hoping not to draw any attention because she figured that Titania would decide to drag her into something sooner or later.
"You need to be more confident about going jobs, so you're coming with me too." Titania then walked over to the bar. Alice sighed and straightened out her yellow sundress as she got up and walked over to Titania.
"Master! I'll be bringing these louts and Alice on an S-Class quest. Is that alright?" Titania asked as soon as she reached the bar.
"That sounds just fine to me." Fairy Tail's guildmaster was a young man named Luxord Dreyar. Luxord was only in his early twenties, but had shown so much skill and wisdom that he had been made guildmaster recently when the previous one died. Luxord was built much like his ancestor Laxus, tall and heavily muscled. He also had similarly styled hair of the same color, over all making him look a lot like Laxus. Luxord was Mary's older brother, and the siblings and their team, the Neo Lightning Gods, were known to be incredibly strong, making them Fairy Tail's strongest team. All of the members of the team were now S-class, having displayed incredible growth in strength since they joined the team. Most people considered Luxord to be Fairy Tail's strongest mage, which secretly made Titania jealous. Luxord usually had himself set up at the bar doing paperwork or other guildmaster-ly things. Luxord always gave the pretense that the bar was near the job board, but Titania secretly suspected he just wanted to drink a lot. However, Luxord had proven himself to be a dependable guildmaster, so Titania kept her suspicions to herself.
"Ah, you're going on a team job! That sounds like fun, Titania!" Libery Redfox was Gabi's younger sister. Libery greatly resembled her ancestor Levy, including her short stature. Libery was a very sweet girl who was friends with most every guild member, and was best friends with Titania and Alice. She mostly helped Luxord sort out paperwork nowadays, but had previously been a pretty successful mage in her own right. Despite her resemblance to Levy both in size and personality, Libery looked up to her ancestor Gajeel and had taken to wearing black clothing.
"It seems to be the only way to properly teach fools and Alice how to do work." Titania sighed.
"I wish I could come." Libery smiled.
"Why don't you? You'd be a good role model for the two idiots." Titania replied.
"Master probably needs my help..." Libery quickly replied.
"You can go on a job. I think I've mostly gotten the hang of the paperwork. Besides, it isn't good to sit in the guild all day." Luxord cut in.
"Thank you!" Libery smiled really widely and skipped over to Titania.
"I already have a job for us, so let's get going." Titania started walking out the door abruptly.
"Titania... I can walk on my own... You don't have to drag me..." Aero meekly said.
"Is Tetsuyo going to wake up? Is he okay?" Alice worriedly asked. "Titania, you can't just take knocked out people on missions without their permission..."
"Nonsense, it's for their own good anyways." Titania stated, keeping her eyes on the road ahead.
Libery just smiled and followed the team.