Thanks so much for the reviews so far. You may not think they're a big deal, but I really value every review I recieve. In fact I was getting a little - not so much depressed as that's too strong a word - but rather dejected from the lack of reviews lately. So please don't hesitate to give me your thoughts on how this story is going so far. I take all comments constructively so don't be afraid to tell me what you really think. Okay enough of my rant, let's move on to the next chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 2: Elves or Fairies?

Roderick was the first to wake up as he found his company stranded ashore a small sandy beach. "Thank goodness..." he sighed with his hand pressed against his chest. He whirled on his knees to find Farnese sleeping just above the tide. So too were Schierke, Caska and her infant as well as the boy Isidro...All of them, even the elves Puck and Everall, were laid out quite neatly along the shoreline as though someone had placed them there to rest.

"Morning Roderick," the nobleman Magnifico said as he sunk his feet into the dry sand with each step. Serpico was also by his side.

"Great job resting them up away from the water," Roderick thanked the other two men with great sincerity.

"Actually, when we woke up, they were already lined up there just like that," The fox-eyed man had observed. "We've just been searching the shallows for any other survivors.

"And..."

"Unfortunately we haven't been able to recover any more of our crew," The faint-hearted Magnifico shook his head with an exhaustive sigh.

Roderick snapped up to his feet. "Then what about the Black Swordsman?"

Both of them merely answered with the swift shake of their heads.

"Then..." Roderick lowered his gaze. "The Black Swordsman must have sacrificed himself to save us."

"Guts has..." The faint voice of Farnese arrived into the conversation. With fresh tears appearing in her salted face her voice wavered as she spoke. "He didn't make it through the storm?"

"No way!" Isidro had also woken up, shouting in protest. "Guts would never die from something like that! You'll see, he'll definitely find us here in no time."

"Yeah! If I know that big lug of iron at all, some lame Sea God wouldn't be enough to bring him down for good," the cheeky elf Puck added as he soared around the gathering humans.

"Schierke, come on wake up," the more sensible of the elves plucked at her companions cheek until the young witch began grumbling out of her slumber.

"Ugh, what happened did we..." sitting up, after a quick scan of her group Schierke almost immediately noticed something was amiss. "Guts! Where did he go?"

"According to the others, he didn't make it back to this shore with us," Schierke's trusted elf companion explained.

The young witch looked down at her legs, clutching her blue robes as a few stray tears wet her otherwise dry clothes. "It's my fault. I lost contact with him during that battle...Now he will no longer be able to see his best friend cured," she grit her teeth as the tears continued pattering down her robes. She felt like someone was watching over her shoulder and lifted her sorrowful gaze meeting with the curious eyes of Casca and Gut's child. Though still very much secured in his mother's arms, the child appeared quite intrigued by the young girl's tears.

But after seeing those inquisitive and childish dishes of eyes, Schierke was soon at ease. She remembered that this quest was to save Caska and provide a happy future for her son. Guts would want them to continue forward to the land of the Elves for both Caska and the child's sake.

"Well, perhaps we should search for the native folk around here," Roderick declared as the rest of the group followed behind.

"Yeah! I bet Guts has already made friends with the Elves, mermaids, Apostles or whoever lives on this Island." The ever confident young boy Isidro added as he hopped by the adults side.

It wasn't long before the small troupe had found the first signs of life. As they peered over the small shrubbery dividing this beach from the mainland, they were instantly greeted with a flourishing town. The layout was spectacular, nestled at the basin of a large valley, it was nearly symmetrical in design apart from the river that sharply cut through the middle of the town.

"Well, at least we won't need to worry about foraging for poisonous berries," Magnifico said in his odd banter.

"Wow! That's a huge town!" Isidro was jumping for joy. "I wonder if this is the place we were looking for?"

But Schierke's elf displayed a more pessimistic tone. "Whatever place this is we have found ourselves...it is definitely not Elfhelm..."

{~} {~}

"Uuuughh...why couldn't we have just walked to the markets instead?" a young pink haired man waddled through the busy crowds as he held a hand to his stomach. "You knew what catching the train would do to me."

"Oh loosen up Natsu," the busty young blonde woman responded. "Besides the walking would have worn out my boots."

"Lucy would marry those boots of hers if she could...Wouldn't you...?" a cheeky blue cat stirred the young blonde as he hovered in the air above the two individuals shoulders.

"Put a sock in it Happy!" Lucy snapped back at the flying cat as they continued navigating through the intense crowds. "Let's just go and get our job done and snag our Jewel."

{~} {~}

"Is it just me or have you noticed something rather peculiar about the locals?" Roderick made his observation as the group whisked their way down one of commercial quarters of this town.

"I know! Everyone keeps staring at me!" Magnifico pulled his collar nervously. "What if these people are...cannibals?"

"Don't be ridiculous brother." Farnese interjected as she passed by a florist's stand. "These people are just like the people from any other village in Midland."

"Then why does that man have an egg shaped nose?" Isidro pointed out an odd shaped fellow like the typical boy he was. "And why are those twins joined like a horseshoe?...And that boy there has a pinocchio nose...Oh look at that freak over there!"

"Stop being so rude," Schierke scolded the boy as if she were his mother. "If anything, we are the ones who must stand out to them."

"Not us elves though eh?" Puck snickered to Evergreen. "We can adapt to pretty much any human environment."

"I still haven't adapted to you though," Evergreen whipped her back away from the cocky winged creature.

Roderick came up with an idea. "Well, perhaps if Magnifico and I inspect a few of the inns around here for accommodation and Serpico can accompany the rest of you around town, we might be able to find out some useful information about this place and how we can get to Elfhelm from here.

Isidro was keen enough on that idea with a bouncing salute. "Alright!"

{~} {~}

"It should be around here somewhere." Lucy noted their location from a small address on the back of a job flyer. They could just see it through the thick forest of people wading through the markets.

"Yep, that's the one," Happy confirmed from his aerial vision.

"So that's the guy we get to beat up today?" Natsu cracked his knuckles together with a confident grin. "Now I'm all fired up!"

{~} {~}

"Come on you slowpoke," Schierke tugged Isidro's hand as she dragged him through the busy streets.

"Ow! You're gonna break my arm. How are you so strong anyway?" Isidro whined as he tried to keep his pace up with the girl.

"Wait for us too Schierke," Farnese laughed a little as she guided Caska through the crowd.

"And I thought I was meant to be accompanying you, but it seems Schierke's leading the way," Serpico mentioned as he stayed at the back of the group.

"Wait! Something is going on up ahead," Schierke's elf flew back down after spotting something from above.

"Yeah! There totally a fight going on up ahead!" Puck cheered as he flew down afterwards.

"Oh no!" the kind witch suddenly covered her mouth in shock, her other hand still gripped around Isidro's. "We better be careful then or we might-"

"A FIGHT! I'M TOTALLY IN!" now the young boy seemed to have gotten his energy back with that magical word as he now dragged Schierke along towards the now circling crowd.

"HEY STOP ISIDRO WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY A-r-r-r-r-r-e!-!-!-!" Schierke's voice was carried away into the sea of townsfolk just as Serpico and the others were were following behind.

"That kid's so reckless." Farnese tucked as they went into the thick crowd as well. Serpico gripped the handle of his sword just in case.

{~}{~}

"You really want to fight me in front of all these villagers?" one of the combatants taunted as he held a hat down on top of his long curly hair.

"Hell yeah!" The pink haired fighter answered back. "I love it when there's an audience!"

"Watch out Natsu, we don't know what this guy's magic ability is?" Happy gave some much needed advice as he hovered just over the brawling pink-head's shoulder.

"Doesn't matter if I kick his arse before he can even use his power." And when he punched his fists together, summoning an intense ball of flames around his forearms, the fire conjuring pink-head charged straight into his opponent, seemingly unhesitating despite all the closely packed crowd around them.

"Hehe," the thuggish fugitive looked as though he was already cooking from Natsu's flames even from this distance. With a thick trail of sweat trailing down his crude mug, the man threw his arms down to his side shifting his gaze towards the crowd.

"Stop running Isidro!"

"But we're almost there! If I could just get past these dam adults..."

"Get ready to piss out vapour for the next eight weeks!" Natsu roared with a fanged glare as she zeroed in on his shifty-eyed opponent.

"Aha!" but just as Natsu looked ready to roast this thug the man's arms extended and looped around themselves, growing like tentacles as the arms slunk around his lanky body latching around the waist of his victim – a victim who just so happened to be Isidro. "You wouldn't want to hurt a child now would you?"

"GAH! LEMME GO YOU FREAK!" Isidro kicked out his legs at this man's thighs and groin, even bashing his head down onto his triangular nose, but the man didn't seem even the slightest bothered by the boys struggles. His face merely flattened out like putty as the aggressive boy continued pummelling his head against his captors.

"Oh no!" Schierke had finally caught up to find his buddy already stuck in a situation.

"Oh brother." Everall shrugged her insect wings as though she knew this was coming.

"I thought I heard Isidro-" Farnese stopped herself when she and the rest of the group finally shimmied their way through the crowd.

"So Salamander...What will you do now that I have me a hostage?" The freaky tentacle armed man taunted the fire conjurer. "Looks like those flaming fists of yours are just for circus performances afterall."

"Damn you..." Natsu growled as the fire built up in his blood instead.

"Natsu calm down," Lucy went rushing over to the raging pink-head's side. "I think we can still work out a way to stop him."

"GRRRNN!" meanwhile Isidro still squirmed and wriggled desperately trying to free himself from the creepy caper's grasp. As his tentacles clung tighter around his waist, the versatile little warrior resorted to a more desperate strategy and clamped his teeth onto one of the captor's arms, wringing and tearing at the arm as if he were a wolf tearing at a piece of meat.

"GYAAAOOWW!" with a great howl, the odd flexible fugitive fumbled as he released his grip on the carnivorous boy.

"Natsu now's your chance!" Lucy gave the fire generator a quick nudge on the back of the shoulder, but from the rising grimace on the fiery lad's face, he didn't require such guidance.

"Alright! I'm all fired up now!" and with his right fist searing with flames he roared like a Dragon on heat as he leapt into the air, his flaming fist flying square into the creepy crim's teeth; managing to open a few dark windows in his jawline and inflating his bottom lip as the thug flew backwards nearly crashing into the crowd as he landed just by Schierke and the rest of her company's feet.

"~Uye-uye-uye~" The disgusting thug rolled his head around in a daze as he stared up at the others. "I'm seeing fairies!" he noted before he dropped his head onto the ground, seeing nothing but darkness now.

"Well that was pretty easy," Natsu lightly brushed his exposed shoulder as he looked down at the target. When he noticed the hostage boy looking up at him he gave him a little smile. "Hey there kid, hope we didn't scare ya or anything...That guy won't be bothering anyone for a while."

But rather than feel traumatised or shocked from the situation, Isidro had a completely opposite expression in his eyes. As he looked up at the fiery fellow his eyes lit up as pumped his fists into the air. "YOU'RE MY FREAKING HERO!"

At that moment, Schierke, Farnese, Everall and Serpico all shook their heads and frowned. "Looks like we've made a great first impression here."

Whew, two chapters in and we've finally seen some Fairy Tail action. Next chapter we find out what's really happened to our anti-hero Guts. So make sure you don't miss the next intriguing chapter!