"HAPPY BIRTHDAY WENDY!"
The guild erupted with a drunken slur of cheers and congratulations as the young sky maiden pushed through the large wooden doors. Streamers of blue and green haphazardly hung from the rafters while colored lacrima lights floated just above everyones' heads, turning the floor and ceiling into palettes of swirling colors. A huge banner for the event was stretched across the entirety of the guild hall, right above the bar where Mira continued to pass out party hats to her inebriated comrades.
"You guys..." Wendy whined as she tried, and failed, to keep herself from blushing at what she saw. Though she was no where near as shy as she was when she first joined Fairy Tail—and her "brothers" went as far as to say that she could be downright snarky—the good-natured girl still got embarrassed from lots of attention.
She should have expected it, really. For her birthday last year, the guild threw her the traditional Fairy Tail celebration, complete with over-the-top partying and a wide range of shenanigans, but this year was just something else. Wendy couldn't help but smile as she looked at the decorations and the hall itself. It had clearly taken a lot of time and manpower to move most of the tables and chairs out and to set up a large wooden dance floor in their stead. An elegant buffet was set up on long tables on either side of the hall. As her eyes passed over the decorations once again, her right eye twitched when it saw the frozen monstrosity that someone had clearly plunked down in the middle of a buffet table as a decoration.
"Gray was feeling left out, so we let him help with the centerpiece," Lucy said as she walked up to the still-shocked Wendy. The older blonde let out a nervous chuckle as she added, "We didn't realize that it'd be quite so...um..."
"Tacky?" Wendy finished for her, giggling at her older brother's artistic incompetence.
Lucy's head fell back as she let out a hearty laugh. "The guys weren't kidding about how hard you are on them."
"Whatever, I'm being nice—because...I mean...damn," Wendy retorted, putting her hands on her hips as she continued to stare at what she thought looked like a pained turtle humping a blob of something...an egg maybe? An egg crossed with a jellyfish? Hell if she knew.
"Lord, you are such a teenager," Lucy chuckled. "Aesthetically-challenged ice sculptures aside, happy sweet sixteen, Wendy!" Lucy beamed at her friend, squeezing her in a tight hug. She pulled back, keeping her arms on Wendy's shoulders, and a devious grin crept across her face. "Now let's go get you ready." Wendy was suddenly spun to the side by her shoulders and pushed around the dance floor to a back room. People raised their glasses and shouted birthday greetings to her as she passed by. That's when she noticed it.
"Hey, Lucy, why is everyone so dressed up?" Wendy looked around at her guild mates, all of whom were dressed in black-tie formal attire, and more than half of whom were completely sloshed. Nobody has spilled beer on their clothing yet. I wonder how that happened? Wendy thought. Did Mira spell the cups somehow? She turned her head to look at Lucy. "I know it's my sweet sixteen and all, but you guys didn't have to go this far. Everyone is going to mess up their nice clothes."
"You'll see," Lucy replied, devious grin still intact. Wendy simply shrugged and turned her head to look forward again. After spending several years with the females of Fairy Tail, she knew better than to push for information when they had that look on their faces. Wendy could try, but it would be a waste of breath and only result in frustration.
I probably don't want to know what they have planned anyways, she mused. It was a well established fact that when the girls withheld information on their latest scheme from you, you were in for a world of teasing and/or embarrassment. And frankly, it was better not to know. The apprehension that came with knowing was way, way worse than being kept in the dark. With these girls, ignorance was more than just bliss; it was a blessing.
"I CAN TELL YOU! KEEHEE!" Cobra yelled from across the room, waving a beer stein at her. Asshole mind-readers. She'll never get used to it. Thank God she was too young to have any dirty, thus interesting, thoughts.
"ME TOO, BENDY WENDY!"
"BENDY WENDY! BENDY WENDY!"
Bixlow had one arm around Cobra as the pair swayed back and forth, coming up with new nicknames for the teenage dragon slayer for Bixlow's babies to repeat at maximum volume.
Lucy stopped and turned towards the idiot duo. She looked straight at Cobra and frowned.
I'll tell Kinana about that thing I heard you guys talking about.
Cobra quickly shut up and sat down before reaching an arm up to pull Bixlow to a chair as well. One does not take Lucy's threats lightly.
Wendy was pondering being called "bendy" when Lucy shoved her into one of the back rooms behind the bar. When the guild won the Grand Magic Games several years back, they used their prize money to buy back their old building and added a few extra rooms on the first floor to be used as temporary bedrooms. There were a few upstairs already, but the whole purpose of the extra rooms was to keep passed-out guild members off of the floor and furniture while they slept off their fun evening. However, the stairs had proven rather challenging for most drunks, and the upstairs rooms became "random crap" rooms from the time the new guild hall was built up until the building was foreclosed. When the downstairs rooms were added, the ones upstairs were joined up and turned into an additional infirmary.
It turned out to be exactly what the guild needed, especially after Cobra joined their ranks. His participation in subduing the dragon invasion after the Grand Magic Games allowed him to be released from the Magic Council. They changed his punishment from life in prison to a 400 million jewel fine. Apparently the Magic Council had accrued some serious debt, and if Master Makarov could more-or-less handle several unruly dragon slayers, including one who had nailed three of the man's children to a tree, one more dragon slayer wouldn't faze him. If Cobra acted up, the Council would've probably sent a request to Fairy Tail to help handle him anyways, so why not just keep the convict with his potential bounty hunters? It also didn't hurt that Fairy Tail's waitress Kinana had that boy trained so bad that you could hear the whip cracking a mile away. Yes, Fairy Tail was the perfect place for this particular mage.
When Cobra first joined up, though, Natsu was less than pleased. Or so he claimed. Nobody is sure if he actually cared or if he really just wanted to fight Cobra all-out again. Most figured the latter. As soon as Cobra opened the door, Natsu pounced on him like a rabid dog and immediately started throwing flaming punches. The doors started to catch fire, causing someone to panic and shout for Gray and Juvia, both of whom shot their magic in the general direction of the entrance. Instead of hitting the doors, though, Laxus had the pleasure of being drenched with a mountain of water that subsequently froze as he ran towards the entrance to pull the idiotic fire mage off of their new comrade.
Laxus was trying harder now that he was back in the guild, which meant acting like a mature adult. Unfortunately, a damp and partially frozen Laxus was a cranky Laxus—all efforts toward acting like a grown-up went out the window when he threw a chair at Gray. Juvia had escaped to follow and put out Natsu's trail of fire, but Laxus was content with being able to hurl furniture at all. Acting mature had him seriously repressed. Gray, however, being a veteran of guild brawls, ducked just in time for the chair to smack a laughing Gajeel in the face, who then decided it was time for him to "finish" Laxus. The pair quickly resumed their on-going match, and the guild hall was just as quickly decimated.
Natsu, who later claimed that he had been "too focused," didn't notice any of what happened around him, and therefore didn't see the giant ice slick that he landed and unceremoniously face-planted on. Gray laughed hysterically at the sight, only stopping when Natsu ran his bruised head into Gray's stomach at full speed, whipped around behind him, and put the ice mage into a headlock. Throughout all of this, Cobra, pissed as all hell that he had been jumped and slightly emasculated in front of Kinana, ran after Natsu, yanked his scarf, and pulled both the fire dragon slayer and the ice mage to the floor. Erza, sadly, was away, handling Cobra's paperwork with the Council in the Master's stead, meaning that the brawl rapidly escalated past the usual semi-destructive daily fights and spilled out into the streets. More than half of the guild members joined in, and having an extra infirmary to separate Natsu and Cobra turned out to be a marvelous idea.
"Um, Wendy? You OK?" Cana was waving a hand in front of Wendy's face.
"Yeah, sorry. I was just remembering some things and zoned out a little. I guess I'm still a bit tired from my mission." It was true, she had literally just gotten back from a tedious mission only to be overwhelmed, albeit pleasantly, by a party.
"Here, drink this." Cana shoved a glass of ale in Wendy's face. "It'll perk ya right up!"
"No, Cana, booze makes most people sleepy." Erza appeared out of nowhere and pushed Wendy towards the bathroom. "What she needs is to get cleaned up and make her debut."
"My what?" Wendy frowned in confusion. She was no debutant, so what was Erza talking about?
"Shower now. Questions later. Hurry up!"
Wendy stumbled into the bathroom and quickly closed the door before squeaking out a "Yes ma'am!" Something was irritating Erza, and she really didn't want to fuel that fire.
She turned on the shower to let the water heat up, yanked off her dress and boots and was about to jump in the shower when she saw her reflection in the mirror. She sighed. She knew she was pretty—tall and slender, long, shiny blue hair that fell in soft waves to her mid back, clear skin and bright eyes—but, like every woman ever, she found herself lacking. Granted, being surrounded by women with unnaturally large chests could seriously mess with a girl's understanding of what normal women look like, but her barely-B cup breasts and overall "tube" shape seriously dug into her self esteem. To make things worse, when she cut her hair short a few months back, thinking it would be easier to take care of during missions, she looked like a boy. A hot boy, yes, judging by the number of swooning fourteen year old girls that followed her around, but a boy all the same. She wasn't rescued from her new fan club until Lucy gave her a hair-growth potion two weeks later.
Ugh, I hope that Mira's right and that I fill out soon, she thought to herself before getting in the shower.
Meanwhile, Erza, Lucy, Cana, Levy, and Lisanna were waiting outside the bathroom. The women were all excited, but also a little tense.
Levy was a bit more nervous than the rest. "Do you think she has any idea?"
"None. I think she even forgot it was her birthday, or else why would she have taken that mission?"
"Lucy, you're forgetting that she doesn't really know when her birthday is. She just remembers that Grandine would say she is a year older at the end of winter."
"I suppose that's true...but then why are we doing this now instead of waiting for proof? You said it would be pretty obvious, right?"
Levy sighed. She didn't want to share the full truth just yet and ruin the party, especially with Wendy and her sensitive ears in the next room.
"Wait, I'm confused. What's obvious?" Lisanna was looking at Levy and Lucy, hoping for some kind of answer.
"Yeah, I thought we were just usin' this as an excuse to dress her up pretty for lover boy," Cana giggled. Her smile faded quickly, though, when she saw the concerned expression on Levy and Erza's faces. "Erza, you know what's goin on?"
Erza sighed and folded her arms. "No, but if Levy looks that worried, I figured I should be too. Care to explain?"
All the girls were looking at Levy, who suddenly felt incredibly small. I suppose I have no choice now. She took a deep breathe and looked up.
"We have a little bit of a problem. Our 'little sister' is about to become a plague on the teenage male population of Magnolia."