A/N: It's been a while since I've posted anything. Unfortunately, it was not due to good reasons - a long-term family-friend who was as good as my uncle passed away three weeks ago after a very hard battle with cancer. It was incredibly disheartening as he had been told he was in remission a few months ago, but the cancer came back and developed extremely quickly, to the point that he was gone just days after telling my family it was back. He was the life of the party wherever he went and threw jokes around even on the last day I saw him - somehow that made it even more painful to see him go.
Anyway, I had better stop talking about this before I lose it again.
This installment of the 'Our World' series has been a long-time coming for obvious reasons. This is only half, in which the main part of the chapter focuses on the guild, while the next one should focus on Erza and Jellal's point of view. Please keep in mind that I did not have the chance to finish this fic yet (most of what you'll read here has been written for months), so the date when Part II is posted will depend on how fast and inspired I will be to write the missing parts (there is quite a bit written but it still needs a lot of shuffling and brushing up).
"Well, I guess we can just classify this as yet another thing Erza just had to do in the most unorthodox way possible to man."
It was Cana who went ahead and broke the silence that had formed between the several members of the guild present, sitting together as they waited for Erza to have her baby.
Why would Cana say such a thing? Well, aside from the fact that the baby seemed to be coming a few weeks before it was meant to, it was mostly about their surroundings. Surroundings that were nowhere near a hospital, Porlyusica's hut, Erza's house or even the guild. Really, just four walls and a roof would have sufficed… but no, of course that would not be the case.
It had to be in a tent. In Tenrou friggin' Island.
Maybe the story should rewind a bit, roughly twelve hours, back when they were still in mainland.
The whole story had started about a week before, when the Master had announced that year's candidates for the S-Class trials. Jellal, for the first time, had been among them and with his former status as a Wizard Saint and three open spots for promotion that year (as had been the previous year and would be the next one due to the eight years that had gone on without a single promotion), he was considered a shoe-in for S-Class if that guild had ever had one. The matter was, he wasn't all that interested in it.
Surprisingly enough, the reasoning for his lack of interest in taking place in that year's trials was not, as one might have guessed, out of self-sacrificing guilt. He actually had a very legitimate reasons not to want to leave Magnolia and head towards a remote island such as the one that housed Fairy Tail's holy land and would, again, host the trials for financial reasons (because who in their right mind allow an uninsurable guild such as that one do such a thing in their backyard, after all?).
Erza was pregnant. Very, very pregnant. Not quite so pregnant that the baby should already be there, given that there was still something between a month and three weeks to go, but kids came early all the time and Jellal just didn't want to risk not being there when his son decided to make an appearance. So, of course, nobody in their right mind would have given him grief for it.
Unfortunately for Jellal, though, his fiancée was not known for being in her right mind as a rule. And that was exactly what seemed to be happening at the time.
"You are going to the trials," she had declared with a tone of finality. And that was it. Or rather, that was it for her.
The entire week that he was supposed to spend preparing himself for the trials was spent with him arguing his case not to go.
"What if the baby comes early?" he had asked one time.
"He won't," she had replied, as if it was an unquestionable fact.
"How can you be so sure?! It's not that unheard of for babies to come early!"
"Ours won't."
"But how can you know that for sure?"
She'd nearly growled at him, not only because she was annoyed that he was questioning her, but also because he had timed his intervention poorly by making it take place during her daily shoulder massage session – a sacred time of the day, as far as she was concerned. "Jellal, your son will not come out while you're gone, if he knows what's good for him."
Jellal had blinked. Was she threatening the baby into staying where he was?! "Erza, this is an unborn child we are talking about! Of course he won't know what's good for him!"
"Don't insult your son's intelligence!"
"I'm not! I'm just stating a widely-known fact!"
He had slept on the sofa that night and she had woken up looking miserable because she had been unable to use him as a full-body pillow. He'd felt so guilty for a moment that he'd gone to ask Erik to be his partner in the trials since Meredy had already paired up with Juvia after he'd assured her he was 'absolutely without question not going to the trials'. Erik had turned him down.
"The guild is gonna be pretty much empty, so I'm taking Kina away for a few days. And I guess we're going to be living large for those few days 'cause pinkie owes me money – I told her there was no way you'd be able to stick to your guns with Titania," Erik had said, laughing scornfully at him.
"What? But… but… I am sticking to my guns. I'm not going to the trials."
"Then why the fuck are you standing here asking me to be your partner, you moron?!"
"I… er…"
He decided to plead temporary insanity.
Cobra had laughed and told him to go and ask Wendy instead, since she wasn't paired up with anyone yet. Jellal hadn't – instead, he'd gone home to reaffirm his refusal to leave Erza's side for the sake of becoming S-Class.
"Jellal, should you really be stressing a pregnant woman like this?" she had questioned him in return, looking absolutely serious and far more reasonable than she was known to be.
Of course, the ensuing guilt had been enough to shut him up – what was he thinking, making such a nuisance of himself when Erza was in such a delicate state? Just like that, he'd gone out and asked Wendy to be his partner during the trials. She was already going as part of the guild's medical team (a demand from the Master after the Grimoire Heart conundrum) but had gotten permission to team up with him as Porlyusica would (begrudgingly) be standing by as well.
It wasn't until after two days waiting on Erza hand and foot that the guilt vanished and he realized she had played him like a fiddle. She'd used the guilt card like a pro, in a way he never thought her able to before – pregnancy hormones, he'd mused, were making her downright dangerous.
He'd tried to fight back one last time that night by simply stating that he wasn't going after all. Erza had shot it down with one look and one sentence.
"Are you really going to make me drag you all the way to that island by the hair in this state?"
Threats mixed with guilt. He was done for. She wasn't usually one to be violent with him, at least, but he wouldn't put anything beyond her at that point.
She almost had to live up to the threat on the very morning he was supposed to leave and started getting fidgety at Hargeon port. Before he could even start rethinking his decision to go along with her wishes and go, she had all but manhandled him into the boat… and once he was inside, her backup plan came into play.
Nobody was really sure how she managed to rope Freed into trapping Jellal down in the cargo hold with his runes – it might have been bribery, though blackmail or threats were more likely. Regardless of the method, Jellal did getting caught in the unexpected trap while depositing his luggage and became unable to make a run for it at the last minute as he had pondered doing. And so, the former Wizard Saint had found himself having to accept that would probably just have to pray that his son would stay where he was for the next few days.
Shortly before the ship had left, Erza had been spotted by Gray and Lucy heading out, back onto land – that was the last they saw of her… that was, until finding her again hours later and miles away from Hargeon, stowing away in the hold with Jellal.
In her defense, it hadn't been on purpose. She'd simply felt a little guilty all of a sudden and decided to go back down in order to have one last exchange of words with Jellal in order to make sure he wasn't too mad at her.
"I just don't want you to miss out on this over me," she'd said, looking down a little.
He stared. "Erza, I wouldn't be missing out on anything. Being S-Class is not important to me – you are. And the baby. And I just don't want to risk being miles away and leave you alone if… if something happens."
"You wouldn't be leaving me alone, you idiot! How fast can you travel with Meteor? Thousands of miles per hour? More if you really try? With communication lacrimas, if something were to happen, which it won't because I won't let it, you would make it here in no time."
For all his intelligence, that hadn't even crossed his mind. He had been so focused on staying that he hadn't even bothered to think of how to make it back if really had to. And not that he thought of it… well, he felt very, very dumb. "That actually… makes a lot of sense."
"So… you're not angry?" she asked, just to make sure.
He sighed. "It wouldn't have killed you to point that out before it got to this, would it?" he had to state.
She frowned. "Aren't you supposed to be a genius?"
He didn't respond to that question in specific. Just sighed. "I'm not mad, Erza. More like... frustrated."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," he stated. "You can stop worrying about that. Now, could you please call for Fr… oh my god, Erza, don't!" he shouted as he saw her approaching him, clearly intent on kissing him out of thankfulness and relief…
But he was too late. Before he could even react, she took one step too far, activating the runes and found herself just as stranded as he was in her own trap. Oh, the irony…
"Oh," was all she could say in reaction.
Jellal's own was a tad less stoic, shouting for Freed as loudly as his lungs would allow him.
"Don't bother. He won't come. Nobody will, really," Erza told him after a minute.
"What?! Why not?!"
"I may have incited Freed to make his rune barrier soundproof," she mumbled, looking away.
Jellal blinked. "Why?!"
"Because I doubted some people would resist trying to free you if they heard you calling. Such as Wendy or Meredy… and I may have instructed him to pass along my promise of reprisals to whoever even thought of coming down here before Tenrou Island was in sight."
"But what if I felt ill during the trip? What if I needed help?!"
She still couldn't meet his eyes. "…I didn't really think that far."
Why was he even surprised? She never did. "Erza! If you are going to come up with crazy plans, at least try to think them through!"
The redhead didn't repond, although she at least had the decency to look a little ashamed at her carelessness.
He covered his face with his hands. "Oh my god, what are we going to do now?" Jellal spoke, his voice muffled. "You're pregnant! You're really, really pregnant. You can't be trapped in here like this!"
Erza sighed. "Well, I suppose there's no undoing it now, so I guess we're going on an impromptu babymoon… maybe it won't be so bad."
She wasn't nearly as relaxed as she made it sound – by then, she knew she'd messed up by coming up with that utterly ridiculous plan. Honestly, what had she been thinking trapping Jellal in a chair-less, pillow-less, furnished-with-something-remotely-comfortable-less place like a cargo hold for hours? At least she'd been mindful enough to pack some field rations and water in Jellal's luggage, knowing he would need it for the trip, but that divided by two made for no banquet. In all, the journey was set up to be terrible, only a very small slice of her physical comfort having the possibility of being salvaged by Jellal's offer to serve as her armchair, letting her rest her back against his front as he settled himself on the floor against a wall (which only served to make her feel worse).
By the time Freed had come down to liberate Jellal and found her there as well, any hope that the trip might be in any way a refreshing prelude to her impending motherhood had vanished. She was hot, sweaty and uncomfortable, not to mention feeling guilty for the extremely-stressed state that her S-Class-candidate of a fiancé was currently on.
"I'm getting her back home," Jellal had declared, taking the Master and Porlyusica aside, out of Erza's sight, soon after they'd been rescued. "With meteor, I can have her back in mainland in…"
"Are you out of your mind, Astro Brat?" Porlyusica had shouted, looking at him like he was insane. "You really think it is a good idea to subject pregnant woman at her stage to ridiculous speeds like the ones that magic of yours must give you?!"
Jellal was at a loss about that to do. He hadn't thought of that.
"Then can't I just… borrow the ship and take her home?" he asked the Master. "I'll bring it back later. You can start the trials without me, really…"
"It's been a very long journey, Jellal," Makarov pointed out before turning to the medical advisor. "Is it wise to do it twice in a day in her state?"
Porlyusica shook her head. "She's not made of glass or anything, but this trip was made under less-than-ideal conditions. I wouldn't advise doing anything too strenuous again before she has a few hours of rest, at least."
Master nodded. "I guess we could take a break and delay the beginning of the trials for a bit. We'll see how she is doing in a few hours and then decide where to go from there."
And so Jellal found himself having to face the fact that, no, that impromptu babymoon wasn't getting itself canceled just yet. It sounded like the beginning of his worst nightmare.
Master Mavis was waiting for them at the old and battered dock they disembarked into, eager to welcome them into her home as always. The first words that came out of her mouth once she spotted Erza being helped out of one ship were foretelling.
"Uh-oh."
Later, they would think back to how much she had insisted that they set up camp quickly and realize that she probably knew exactly what was about to happen. Maybe they should have guessed it themselves… it was some sort of law, after all, wasn't it? 'Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.'
"Have any of the chairs been unpacked yet?" Erza asked, standing in the middle of the soon-to-be-campground watching it as her guildmates carted things around. Jellal had been put to work carrying stuff from the ship to the camp same as everyone else, mostly in an attempt to get him to stop his mind from wondering into the worst possible scenarios by keeping him busy.
"No. But I think Gajeel said he was bringing them, didn't he Levy-chan?" Lucy asked the bookworm, who was currently arranging some lumber she and Lily had collected around what was going to be their campfire (not that it was needed, given the hot, muggy climate of the island, but the First had been pretty insistent on it).
"He was, but the Master told him to bring all the medical supplies over first because Master Mavis said it was basic strategy that they should prioritize over everything else," Levy replied. "Anyway, someone will get the chairs over here soon enough, Erza. Why don't you just sit on that rock while you wait?" she suggested, gesturing at a nearby boulder.
Erza groaned. "It won't do. I really need some back support right now…"
That appeared to catch Porlyusica's attention as she came back from picking a handful of plants that had caught her eye on the way there. "Your back is bothering you?"
"A little," Erza grudgingly replied, not wanting to show a weaker side of herself to the woman.
Lucy chuckled. "I guess it's to be expected, carrying that bump around all day long… It's got to be murder on your back."
Porlyusica was still looking at her weirdly, though. "Wendy!" she called.
The young Dragon Slayer poked her head out of the Infirmary tent – the only one that had already been set up in the camp in a joint effort between some of Lucy's spirits… again, as per the orders of the First. "Yes, Porlyusica-san?"
"Is everything set up in there?"
"I'm still unpacking some things, but Loke-san is nearly finished assembling the last cot."
"Good enough," the older woman mumbled before nodding at Erza. "You. Get in the tent."
She frowned. "I don't feel lying down. I just want to rest my back against something. Preferably in a mostly-upright position."
The pink-haired woman rolled her eyes. "I'm not offering you a goddamn bed. I'm examining you – you've just spent hours trapped in a ship's cargo hold. It's probably a good idea to make sure everything is in the right place and you're not dehydrated or anything. Your feeble human bodies tend to have issues like that."
"I am not feeble!"
"And aren't you as human as we are?" Levy had to point out.
The other woman ignored her. "Just get in the damn tent, woman! I have better things to do than to waste my time with you – this island is a goldmine of rare medicinal herbs, you know? I'd like to restock my supplies before I leave!"
Erza obeyed, although she did not seem happy about it, and Loke was promptly kicked out of the tent for Porlyusica's examination.
The bomb was dropped in a matter of minutes.
"Tch… should have known you'd bring me nothing but trouble," Porlyusica mumbled.
"What is that supposed to mean?!" Erza demanded.
"Porlyusica-san?" Wendy questioned, sounding confused.
The healer gave Erza a look. "You're in labor."
While Wendy gasped, Erza stared silently for about twenty seconds before uttering a word. "I'm sorry, I think I have misheard you."
"No, you didn't."
"Yes, I did," Erza insisted, sounding almost desperate.
"No, you did not. You heard it perfectly well when I stated that you are, indeed, in labor. From the look of things, you must've been for hours – it was probably the stress of that journey that did you in."
"No. No. I most certainly do not feel in labor. Everything I read said the pain was excruciating."
Porlyusica gave her a look before reaching over and pinching Erza's arm. Hard. She earned herself a glare.
"Porlyusica-san!" Wendy protested on Erza's behalf. "That will bruise!"
"What are you doing?" Erza asked, frowning.
"Describe how that felt," Porlyusica stated.
"Mildly unpleasant."
"My point is made – anybody else would have shrieked at the very least. The way you've been busting yourself since you were a little brat, your pain threshold is probably so high you wouldn't even notice all the tell-tale signs you read about in books. The brat is coming, girlie. Face the music."
No. No. No. That couldn't be. That just… it couldn't! "But it's too early! This is not supposed to happen for at least three more weeks!"
"Babies don't have date planners! They come when they feel like it. And this one seems to be just about as impatient as you are."
"No!" she insisted. "This is not happening. This will not happen until the proper time." She glared down at her bump. "I demand that you stay exactly where you are until I say so, devil child!"
"Oh, yes, I am sure he will obey to that," the Sky Dragon's Edolas counterpart said sarcastically. "I guess my services won't be needed after all, then."
"They won't," Erza replied. "You may go."
"E-Erza-san! You don't mean that!" Wendy protested.
"Yes, I do," Erza insisted. "She can go. There's nothing here for her to do."
She seemed quite set on that so Porlyusica wasted no time in arguing and just got to her feel. "Well, we'll get back to this in around three weeks, then," she said, walking away from the laboring woman in denial.
"What?! Porlyusica-san! You can't go! What about the baby?!"
"Didn't you hear her? It's not coming today, so let's just leave it be."
"But… but… you can't be serious… you…"
They emerged from the tent to find that Lucy and Levy appeared gone and replaced by Makarov and a few other assorted guild members. There was water already boiling over the campfire - again, at the First's urging.
"The girls mentioned you pulled Erza aside for an examination. Is there something wrong?" the Master inquired.
"Yeah, Titania sounded pretty pissed in there," Evergreen added. "What the hell were you doing to her?"
"I was hardly doing anything. She was just being a stubborn moron."
"Concerning what?" Lisanna asked.
"The fact that she is currently in labor. She seems to have decided that her will alone will keep the brat in her womb for as long as she pleases. Humans… your stupidity astounds me."
The entire group blanched blanched.
"Wait, what? She's having the baby? Now?" Bisca spoke for all of them.
"Did I not just say that?" the healer asked, annoyed.
Makarov looked slightly irritated. "I should have known something like this was going to happen. The guild is like a magnet for trouble! What do we do now?!"
"… isn't it too early?" Lisanna asked
"A little earlier than I would like, but not enough that this is a guaranteed tragedy waiting to happen," Porlyusica admitted. She wasn't one to let her mind wonder straight towards the worst. Weekly measurements were not one-hundred percent accurate and she was hoping that she had not overestimated Erza's time… because if she had, they might be in big trouble.
"But shouldn't she go to a hospital just in case?" Bisca replied. "I was in labor for a day and a half – that's more than enough time to get her to Hargeon at least."
Porlyusica rolled her eyes. "From the look of things, I'm willing to bet that if the brat isn't here in a couple of hours at the most, I will spend the rest of my days living happily in community."
People looked grave, knowing she meant business as she might as well have wagered that she would eat her own foot.
"Then what are you doing out here?" Makarov asked. "Shouldn't you be helping her?"
"Did you miss the part when I said she simply refuses to give birth, senile old man?!"
"Oh, for the love of… Erza Scarlet!" he barked, making his way to the tent. "You have five seconds to make yourself decent because I'm coming in!"
"You don't have to wait, Master. I am decent now," Erza said from the inside.
Makarov obeyed and pulled the tent's flap open only to find Erza lounging down with both her arms and legs crossed. She had the mother of all poker faces on, as if a baby wasn't trying to make its way out of her. "What am I hearing about you refusing to acknowledge the fact that you are in labor?" he asked.
"I cannot acknowledge a fact that isn't actually a fact," she said cryptically.
The Master gave her a look. "So we should not expect you to have a baby in the next couple of hours like Porlyusica seems to believe you will?"
"No. This baby will obey my command or face the consequences."
"What consequences? You'll send him to bed without dessert?" Porlyusica asked sarcastically, her head poking into the tent.
"Weren't you leaving?" she asked through her teeth. Her body went very tense all of a sudden, not out of annoyance but due to a sudden wave of pain right on her lower back.
Porlyusica didn't miss the grimace and saw it from what it was: as the labor progressed, the contractions were becoming harder to mistake for general uncomfortableness, even for somebody as desensitized from pain as her. It was moving fast – oh, yes it was. "Well, I thought I'd learn a thing or two from your method of keeping the shorty from coming. Might come in handy in the future," the older woman said blandly.
Erza seemed about to comment but was interrupted by Bisca's voice as she took a third place at the entrance of the tent. "Erza, you can't keep the baby in you if it's ready to come out!" Bisca argued, fairly acquainted with the process of childbirth herself.
"I am an S-Class wizard of Fairy Tail. I have singlehandedly defeated all hundred demons of Pandemonium and regularly bring enemies to their knees. I will not be outdone by an infant lacking in patience! That is just not acceptable!"
"Lecturing the child into submission," Porlyusica observed. "Does anyone have something for me to write on? I feel like I should be taking notes."
"Go to hell you beastly witch!" she yelled, starting to break a sweat. The awareness of what was going on seemed to make the pain impossible to ignore.
"Erza, being an S-Class mage does not give you the power to bend the laws of nature. It does, however, require a certain amount of wisdom that in theory should make you able to realize that if this child needs to come out now, you have no say on the matter," Makarov argued.
She pursed her lips together, looking very, very annoyed. "That's not fair."
"Life's not fair," Porlyusica replied. Recognizing the defeat on Erza's face, she turned to Wendy. "There's water boiling outside. Go and get it, then sterilize everything as best as you can." When Wendy nodded obediently and disappeared out of the tent, Porlyusica faced Lisanna. "You, find the First and see what else she has put together, since clearly she's been preparing for this longer than the rest of us. I expect she'll have towels and blankets ready, among other things." And then, it was Bisca's turn. "You with the green hair…"
"It's Bisca! You've known me for years! You delivered my daughter!"
Porlyusica rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Get the father in here. Make sure he's not about to pass out or anything before you send him in. I really don't have the time or the patience to deal with fainters right now."
Bisca really did not have the chance to live up to the second part of the request, as Jellal sped away at meteor speed as soon as he heard the words 'Erza' and 'labor' in the same sentence. The result was him entering the tent about as pale as a sheet, looking like he might, indeed, drop unconscious at any moment.
Porlyusica scoffed. "You ask for one simple thing…"
Nobody really paid any attention to her words. Erza was too busy fuming at being unable to have her way, even when it concerned her own body, and Jellal was too busy freaking out.
"Oh my God, Erza… oh my God!" he said, sounding utterly lost as he rushed to the side of her cot, looking at her with wide eyes. When he spoke again, his words came disjointed, so deep ran his shock. "You… the baby… labor… here?!"
"I am still not entirely convinced this woman knows what she is talking about…" Erza mumbled.
"I've been delivering brats since long before you were born! I know what a woman in labor looks like!" Porlyusica spat.
Jellal's eyes were wide with worry. "It's too soon… It is, isn't it? Oh, God, it's too soon!"
Erza didn't respond verbally, but Jellal didn't fail to notice how she bit down on her lip and appeared tense upon hearing his words.
Porlyusica made an effort not to look too worried even though, as a medical professional faced with conditions less than ideal, she was. "Tch… could be sooner. Anyway, it's no time for us to be worrying about that. We've got a brat to bring into this world. We can worry about the rest once that's scratched off the list."
"And once your baby is here, we'll do our very best to make sure he's alright, Erza-san, Jellal-san…" Wendy reassured them. "Please rely on us and don't concern yourselves too deeply."
Her words did seem to work on getting them a little calmer, not because of the content of them, but because it reminded them that Wendy was right there. And when delivering a child in a remote island, a Dragon Slayer with powerful healing magic would probably be the at the very top of the list of people one would want nearby.
Sighing, Jellal took his fiancée's hand and squeezed it in his. "This is it, then…"
Erza nodded faintly. "Yes. I guess it is…"
"Do you guys think they'll be okay?" Lucy asked as she sat at a portable table with Gray, Juvia, Levy and Cana. It had been at least an hour since the news of the impending birth of Erza's baby had broken and the base camp was fully set up around the medical tent (from which hadn't come a peep in a while, be it intended of not, though they suspected Master Mavis might be the one responsible for muffling whatever sounds came from within, since she seemed to be fully on top of things). The trials were indefinitely on hold, though, which thankfully no one seemed to really care about at the moment. "I mean, Erza is not that early but things can turn really bad, really fast and if they do, there's no hospital for miles and miles."
"Erza is the strongest of us all," Gray declared confidently. "She's been through stuff way tougher than having a baby. She'll be fine."
"Yeah, but what about the baby?" Levy asked. "Babies are small and fragile. Loads of stuff can go wrong."
"Wendy's there," Cana reminded her. "She'd just heal it."
"But Wendy-san's powers are not without limits," Juvia argued. "Just last winter when Gray-sama caught the flu, she said she could only speed up the healing process by boosting his immune system, not skip it, since it was a natural ailment."
"That's true," Gray admitted, his tone much less confident than before.
"Idiots," a harsh voice came from nearby. They turned around to find Gajeel standing by, munching on a tin can. "You're forgetting something."
Levy frowned. "Please, do enlighten us then."
He snickered. "Jellal has got that power. The one that turns him into a comet or whatever."
"Meteor?" Levy suggested.
"Same difference, Shorty," he told her. "At the speeds he can reach with that thing, he'd reach mainland in five minutes tops."
"But don't you think that if Porlyusica had an issue with him using it with Erza, she won't have it when it concerns a potentially sick newborn?" Lucy remarked.
For about thirty seconds, in which everyone pondered on Lucy's words, there was complete silence.
"Damn… the kid would reach land looking like a pancake…" Gray mumbled.
Somebody cleared their throat to their right. It was Freed, who stood by with the rest of his team. "If I were to cast some runes protecting the child from the speed, that might not be the case. Granted, I have never done anything like that before, but if there was no other choice…"
"Of course there would be," Evergreen supplied. "I could always turn it to stone."
Nearly everyone looked at her in absolute horror. Apparently, every pair of ears in the guild had been overhearing the conversation.
"Evergreen!" Master scolded.
"How can you say something like that?!" Bisca demanded.
"Petrifying babies is not manly!"
Evergreen promptly whacked the latest contributor across the head with her fan. "I'm not aiming for manly, you moron! I'm a woman!" she yelled at him before turning to glare at everybody. "And don't go giving me those looks, you idiots! As long as someone remains petrified by me, they can't die unless they're broken to pieces! Obviously, I'd only turn the kid to stone until we reached a damn hospital! I did it for Freed once when he was bleeding out!"
"It's true," Bixlow stated. "I think I got a hernia on my back carrying him. The scrawny bastard weighed a ton!"
"Well, if that's the case…" Master said. "You have our unreserved apologies, Evergreen."
She looked smug.
"Well, since we're throwing solutions around," Loke piped in, having stayed behind with the guild rather than returning to the Spirit World after he's done Lucy's biding, "I guess I could just point out that now we have a member of our guild who can travel thousands of miles in seconds. And I'm not talking about Jellal or Jet."
"I could totally do it, though… if it weren't for the ocean in between," Jet remarked.
"I could freeze it for you," Gray offered.
"The whole ocean?" Cana asked, doubtfully.
"It wouldn't have to be the entire ocean… just a passageway between here and mainland Fiore," he stated.
"Made of ice, which would be slippery as hell," the drunk pointed out. "He'd just slip off and drown to death."
"Hey!"
Loke cleared his throat. "Like I said, Jet is not the person I'm referring to. I'm talking about Mest… I mean, Doranbolt."
"No, you do mean Mest," Lucy corrected him. "Doranbolt was an alias."
"Are you sure? I clearly remember him going by Mest when he was infiltrating us…" Loke replied. The facts were still a bit iffy in his mind – he didn't spend all that time in the guild these days, and with the time difference between the human world and the spirit world, the news of Mest/Doranbolt's identity were still quite… well, new to him. Honestly, he could have sworn they'd just been fighting Tartarus a couple of weeks ago.
"Yeah – he was using his name as an alias for his actual alias back when he infiltrated Fairy Tail while infiltrating the council… none of which he was apparently aware of," Meredy tried to explain. Loke did not seem enlightened. "Oh, forget it. It sounded bananas too when he explained it to us in Crime Sorciere."
"You can say that again," Loke mumbled.
"Yeah, well… you get used to it," Gray declared with a shrug. "Just stick with 'Mest' and you'll be fine."
The Lion spirit cleared his throat. "Anyway, what I meant is that he can teleport himself on will and he's only one Communication Lacrima call away, if needed."
For a moment, nobody spoke. "That's actually incredibly well-thought," Lisanna observed. "If worse came to worst, he could get Erza and the baby to a hospital in seconds!"
"Oi, how come nobody thought of that before I had to spend hours puking my guts out in a goddamn ship?! He could have gotten us all here!" Gajeel demanded. "The blasted lolicon could have been useful for something other than drooling all over Wendy!"
"Gajeel! You know as well as we do that Mest has never done anything inappropriate to Wendy!" Levy scolded him. "He's really sensitive about that!"
"And he doesn't 'drool'. He dotes on her just as much as you and her other Dragon Slayer 'big brothers' do," Lucy replied.
Gajeel looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Save it," Pantherlily commented. "Everybody knows you have a weakness for small, cute things. Especially the sort that is gifted with blue hair."
The Iron Dragon Slayer appeared outraged while most of the girls giggled and Levy blushed, even though their relationship was the farthest thing from a secret. "Lily, you bastard!"
Meredy sighed. "Back to the Mest solution, though, I hope it doesn't have to come to that… travelling with his power is terrible – it feels like being forced through a meat grinder and then put together again," she said, recalling a few instances in which she'd been put through that when he joined forces with their guild. "The poor baby would be traumatized."
Just then a throat was cleared behind them as Master Makarov and his original predecessor joined into the conversation. "Don't worry," Mavis declared. "I already have the perfect solution thought up! Nothing bad is going to happen to this baby or his mother if I have a say about it." She seemed particularly determined for that to be the case, as if she really, really needed everything to go well. Some among the group wondered if it had something to do with the last birth she had attended – Makarov's – and how horribly wrong it had gone in the end, for which she still blamed herself for.
"Well, what is it, then?" someone urged her to share.
"If either the Seventh or her baby are in trouble, we'll just join our forces and put them inside a Fairy Sphere! It's the ultimate protection spell!"
Everyone looked at her strangely. "Didn't that take years to dispel when it was us in it?" Lisanna asked. "I don't think they would be too happy with that…"
"That was only because it was such a large sphere as I had to engulf the whole island. This one would be smaller! It might last a few months at the most and they would be safe inside it all the while, no matter how dire their state might be," Mavis argued.
"But nobody could reach the sphere when everyone was in it, so how would we be able to move them to a hospital in the meantime?" Juvia asked.
"Easy! We'd bring the hospital here!"
"Is that even possible?" Alzack asked. Really, he wasn't liking that plan at all. What if they got dragged into the sphere too and ended up stuck in it as well – they'd left Asuka back at the guild with the girls from Fairy Hills and he really didn't want to go back to find his daughter all grown up in their absence.
"Yes!" Levy said. "With those military hospital ships!"
"But how would we get our hands on one?" Freed questioned.
"Gihi! We'd steal one!"
"Gajeel!" Levy scolded.
"We could probably blackmail someone in the council," Meredy suggested. "Ultear collected dirt on all the Wizard Saints for a rainy day and she told me loads of stuff over the years about some of them. Did you know that Hyberion guy is a total creep? Apparently, he's kinky as hell. Likes blood play and stuff – yuck! And Wolfheim! I'm sure he wouldn't want it to be made public that he's got half a dozen illegitimate children spread throughout the kingdom…"
The whole guild eyed her a little strangely, suddenly reminded that yes, sweet cheerful Meredy had been a member of a dark guild and was not utterly beyond playing dirty… given strong enough encouragement, of course.
At some point, Makarov cleared his throat. "Alright, kids, that's enough lunacy for a day. It's clear Erza's child's wellbeing will not be lacking in effort," the Master concluded. "Let's all just put our faith on Erza and wait for news. Personally, I'm sure her little one will be perfectly heathy and in a few hours we will be looking back and laughing at all this."
"Yeah, surely it'll be just fine," Lucy said positively.
"It's probably going to be freakishly strong like Erza, anyway," Gray stated.
"That idiot Salamander will be asking to fight it in no time," Gajeel commented. "And then, Titania will pound him into the ground."
Everyone laughed at the mental imagery for a moment before the Master started looking around with an eyebrow raised. "Where is Natsu in any case? I haven't seen that boy since before we left the ship."
"He went flying off with Happy as soon as we spotted dry land," Pantherlily provided.
"Yeah, we hadn't even found Erza at that point," Gray pointed out. "The idiot doesn't even know what's going on right now. He probably thinks the S-Class trials are still taking place."
"Maybe we should send someone to warn him, just in case he's still waiting," Meredy suggested. "He was supposed to challenge one of the contenders for the first test, wasn't he?"
He was, indeed, though not as a competitor but rather as an examiner that year, given that he had actually made S-Class on the previous test, along with Gajeel (who had annoyed a lot of people not only for passing on his very first try but also for endlessly gloating afterwards) and Cana (through five months of self-imposed sobriety, a lot of hard work under a very delighted Gildart's tutelage and quite a bit of luck as well… though, as expected, the sobriety had gone right down the drain during the celebration of her promotion).
Lucy snorted. "Oh, please. It's been two hours. As if he'd have the patience to wait this long for anyone. He's probably already gone off on some adventure of his own with Happy… he'll find his way here eventually."
"Hopefully he won't cause too much trouble before that happens," Makarov grumbled.
"Oh, don't worry. Zeref is probably already with him by now. He'll keep him out of trouble," Mavis pointed out.
No one found that particularly reassuring. If not for Zeref's own troubled past, then at least because they saw no possible way for an incorporeal ghost to anything to stop the hurricane that was Natsu Dragneel, no matter how strong he might have been in life. If anything, they found it funny to picture Dark Wizard Zeref running around after his loose-cannon of a brother in exasperation.
"Anyway," Cana said, reaching for a little notebook on the pocket of her pants. "Since we're all way more cheerful now, I guess it won't be that insensitive for me to take some final bets on the kid anymore. Alright, gender, weight, hair color... any contenders?"
"Well, I don't usually go for bets but since I have enough money saved up for three months of rent, I guess I could place five thousand on it being a girl," Lucy said.
"No way – I'm not taking any gender bets from you, Gray or Natsu, wherever the hell he's gone! Same for you, Meredy. Wendy told me that Erza knows what she's having and you guys are her and Jellal's teams – for all I know, you could have insider knowledge."
"What? We don't!" Lucy said.
"She didn't tell us anything!" Gray joined in.
"You guys may be saying it and it may even be the truth but I have no way to know for sure that you're not bullshitting me," the card mage stated. "So, no gender bets for you. Go for the hair color instead. Or the weight."
"Well, that's not even worth betting on – obviously, the kid's going to be a redhead like Erza," Gray told her. "There's no way Erza's genes won't crush Jellal's like a bug. No offense to the guy – she's just… well, Erza."
"Plus, blue hair is a recessive gene," Levy pointed out. "The odds are in favor of red."
And everyone overwhelmingly agreed, so aside from Meredy, who put a thousand jewel on blue out of loyalty for her team-mate, everyone else who bothered to take that bet put their money on red.
When it came to the weight, Elfman was the first to put his two cents in. "I vote on an eleven-pound man!"
"Eleven pounds? Are you out of your mind?" Freed asked. "It's a premature child. I doubt it will be anything over six."
"Besides, Erza is not that big," Bisca said. "Where would she hide such a humongous baby?"
"Eleven pounds is not 'humongous'," Elfman argued. "I was born with thirteen and a half. Manly from birth!"
"Thirteen and a half pounds?!" Levy shrieked.
"Your poor mother..." Lucy mumbled, feeling herself paling. "And then she went to have Lisanna a year or so later? I'd have sworn off kids after something like that!"
Lisanna sighed, looking down, suddenly reminded that she had not been planned.
"Unlike love-rival, Juvia could have a dozen thirteen-pound babies with no problem whatsoever thanks to her water body," the water mage boasted, sending Gray a look.
"Stop looking at me like that! We're not having kids anytime soon!"
"Hold on, guys! Guys! I'm hearing a lot of bets but no numbers! Show me the money, will you?" Cana requested. "Loke, give me a hand here for the sake of old Team Player and collect it for me."
"Wait... Team Player?" Lucy asked. "You guys had a team? How haven't I heard of this before? And what's up with the weird name?"
"It was a very occasional team," Loke explained. "But, boy did we work well together... she took the guys, I took the girls and it was fun all around! Cana here is one hell of a wing woman."
"Right. And I assume you did jobs somewhere in between," his master blandly commented.
"Of course. Wining and dining doesn't come cheap," he said.
The blonde just sighed.
"Hey! What'cha guys doing here?! I waited for ages!" they heard Natsu calling as he emerged from the trees, covered in dirt and carrying what seemed to be a crate. As predicted, Zeref's ghost followed him, looking extremely harried, like he'd spent all day trying to unsuccessfully tame a wild beast. Happy flew along with them as well, apparently… snickering as he read a book?
"Natsu! You're filthy!" Lucy shrieked.
"I was trying to find you guys but I smelled something hidden underground, so I started digging," he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"I told him not to," Zeref mumbled. "He didn't listen."
"'Course I didn't! And guess what? We found a treasure!"
"A crate full of notebooks and junk hardly counts as a treasure," his brother deadpanned.
Happy snickered. "They have really bad poetry in them!"
Master's eyes widened as he heard the cat's words. "Natsu! Happy! Go put that back right where you found it!" he shouted.
"Why, Gramps? Something you want to hide? Something like... The sour girl comes home./ Hardened beauty glares,/ A broomstick aimed at m..." A massive fist smashing him kept Natsu from finishing the last word and smashed the crate in his hands, revealing quite a bunch of pictures, trinkets and notebooks spreading on the ground. At that point, Zeref was so numb with annoyance that he didn't even flinch at his brother's pained yelp. He was durable enough to take it… plus, he had it coming.
"Was that supposed to be a haiku?" Levy asked in disbelief. Because if it was, it was very, very bad.
"And it sounds like it was about someone familiar," Bickslow teased. "Someone who likes to swat people with a broomstick."
"The Master likes Porlyusica," Happy sang.
"Liked. This seems like the contents of a breakup box to me," Lisanna commented, ignoring the semi-conscious Natsu as she took a peak at the contents of the smashed crate. "They did look cute together, though," she commented, looking at a picture of the young Makarov and Porlyusica.
"So, the Dragon Lady is your ex," Evergreen concluded.
"Shut your traps, brats!" Makarov demanded. "Not another word about it. It was half a century ago!"
"Third," Master Mavis inquired. "Why was this... 'breakup box' hidden in the sacred ground of our guild?"
Makarov looked down. "It was a dark time, Master. I wanted the memories as far away as possible. Please accept my apologies. I will take it back with me."
"That won't be necessary," Mavis said, snapping her fingers and causing all the notebooks to fly her way. "I was in need of some reading material. And I do love poetry and romance... even the kind that ends tragically."
"B-but it's p... priv..."
"Wendy!" Lisanna called, spotting the young Dragon Slayer leaving the tent. "How is Erza? Is everything okay?"
"Everything is great," Wendy said with a big smile. "Erza-san did really well, the baby is healthy and really, really cute."
"Wait... Erza is here too? And she had her baby? What the hell?!" Natsu said in confusion, rubbing his head and pulling a wood chip from his arm as he got up.
"Yeah, a stork brought it for her. You've just missed it," Gray told the Dragon Slayer sarcastically.
"That's not how babies are born! Gildarts told me the basics. It sounds totally gross!"
In the background, Zeref seemed actually relieved by Natsu's words – that was one less embarrassing conversation he'd have to have with Natsu.
"It is gross," Wendy mumbled, sounding a bit… haunted. "But it's the miracle of life, so..."
"Well, what is it, then?" Cana asked. "Boy? Girl? Horned beast?"
"Cana!" the Master scolded.
"Don't look at me! Bacchus bid on it! I'm just doing my job as the guild's bookie," she defended. "So, what is it, Wendy? Boy, girl or third option? Red-haired or blue-haired? Weight? Length? Name? Tattoo or no tattoo?"
"It's a baby! Of course there's no tattoo!" Levy said. "You don't inherit that kind of thing!"
"Who knows? Jellal's tattoo is weird – he can't even hide it with magic. For all we know, it's a genetic thing. Plus, Macao and Wakaba bet on it back home too! Spill it, Wendy!"
"Er... well, there's no tattoo, as far as I could see. They hadn't said anything about the name yet and we didn't check on the weight and length – I really just stepped out to tell you everything was okay. I should probably go right back in now…"
"But the hair! At least tell us about the hair!" Cana moaned. "Is it red? It's red, isn't it?"
"Er… I think it was – it might have been the lighting but at least it wasn't blue."
"Well, there go my thousand jewel," Meredy mumbled.
"What about gender? We need the gender, Wendy! Come on!" Cana demanded as Wendy started to retreat back into the tent.
"Oh, did I forget to tell you? It's little boy."
"Yes! A man!" Elfman shouted.
Whack! "A newborn! Stop acting like a moron!" Evergreen demanded.
"See? I told you she didn't tell us anything about the gender!" Lucy said to Cana.
"You should be thankful, then. I've just saved you from losing five thousand jewel by betting on a girl," the drunkard pointed out.
"Aw, a red-headed little boy," Lisanna said with a smile. "I bet it's going to look just like Erza!"
"Boy Erza! Awesome! Race'ya guys to see him!" Natsu declared, already running to the tent.
"Mavis," Zeref called. He only needed to share a look with her for mere fractions of seconds for her to understand what he wanted from her – something he wasn't quite able to achieve yet. As such, she snapped her fingers and used what little power she had in her current form to tilt one of the barrels standing by Natsu's intended path sideways, causing him to trip on it and fall right on his face.
Somehow, Natsu knew exactly who to blame for that. "Hey! What's your problem, bastard?" he barked at Zeref.
"Not only is it impolite not to give the parents their due privacy before they call for visitors, but also do you really think it is a good idea to go anywhere near a newborn child when you're covered in dirt from head to toe?"
"Your brother is right, Natsu. You're filthy! Go take a bath!" Lucy demanded.
"Lu-ucy!" the Dragon Slayer complained.
"Now!"
"Don't be difficult, Natsu," Zeref advised him. "You used to love bath-time as a toddler. The trouble was getting you out."
Half of the guild snorted at the comment and Natsu glared. "Hey! Don't go around saying embarrassing stuff like that!"
"What, Salamander, can't do it without your rubber duckie?" Gajeel mocked.
"Oi! I'll show you where to put the rubber duck, rust-for-brains!"
"You wanna settle this right now?" the Iron-Dragon-Slayer dared him, punching his own hand.
"Sure, why not?"
The Master seemed to be losing his patience. "Natsu! Gajeel! This is not the time to go around bickering like children! Act like the S-Class mages you are because it's still not too late for me to take your titles away."
"What?!"
"He started it Gramps!"
"Well, I'm ending it! This is not a day to be fighting – it's a day to celebrate the birth of a new life," Makarov declared.
In normal circumstances, Natsu would have protested some more, but that time he was hit hard by Makarov's words. The birth of a new life… Erza's baby. "Wow… Erza is someone's mom now. That is so weird," he commented.
"Super weird," Happy agreed.
Lucy chuckled. "Yeah, now that you mention it…"
"Seems like it was just yesterday that she and Mira used to raise hell at the guild," Levy recalled. "Now she's got a baby and Mira will have two any day now. Crazy."
"Erza will be a great mom," Bisca remarked confidently. "A bit crazy, but great."
Gray snorted. "I wonder how long it'll be before she dresses the little guy in armor."
"Probably around the time the baby starts crawling and she realizes in how much trouble he can get just by moving around," Alzack pointed out, knowing exactly how that felt like.
"Jellal will probably go nuts about that too," Meredy stated. "Sheesh, I'm not even impressed that he's got a kid now. He's always been such a dad."
"I think this calls for a toast," Makarov suggested.
"Did we even bring anything to drink other than water, though?" Levy asked.
"Well, we didn't," Lucy stated. "But I can think of someone who might have."
All heads turned to Cana in that very instant. She didn't seem too happy about it.
"Oh, come on! Sheesh… this kid is already giving me a headache."
To be continued...