Rock Dragon Slayer

Adamine suddenly felt increasingly claustrophobic as she entered the main part of the Fairy Tail guild hall. An entire keg was being drained by one lone woman. An ice mage and a fire mage were duking it out while a massive mountain of muscle was barking about being a man. One red haired woman's cake fell on the floor, and she instantly requipped to get revenge on the two brawlers who'd caused the catastrophe. That was only in one third of the excitable guild. The rest was just as chaotic. To typically calm and quiet Adamine, she felt like she'd just entered another planet.

Despite the light conversation that Levy was keeping between them, Adamine gradually felt herself going as rigid as stone. "Adam?" Levy called when she sat down in front of the bar. "Adam? Over here!" She called once more, but the distance between the stairs and the bar felt like an enormous cavern filled with drunken brawlers.

Gulping for courage, Adamine took the last step from the stairway and entered into utter chaos. A sword slashed inches from her face while she tried to make her way towards Levy. She dodged flaming fists and mallets made of ice before having to leap over a gargantuan beast. Compared to what Adamine had seen of the fairies earlier, this was a complete three sixty. Could Adamine be able to trust these people to return her stuff without breaking it first?

A bottle came flying her way. Levy exclaimed for her to look out, but the glass smashed against her skull before she could move out of its path. The entire guild went silent at Levy's surprised squeak then focused on the newcomer with glass and beer in her hair. The most surprising thing of all? There wasn't a cut on her anywhere.

"Dragon slayer magic," someone breathed when they caught sight of Adamine's body. Instead of her flawless pale skin, Adamine now sported a hard grey shell of rock like someone had carved her on the spot.

Putting one stony hand behind her head, Adam gave out a nervous laugh. Geeze. Everyone was staring at her. Damn her instinctive reaction. She should have just let the bottle hit her. This always happened when someone saw her dragon form.

"Hey! Who's the new dragon slayer?" a male called.

"A stone dragon slayer? I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"Dragon slayer? We already have three of them."

"If we keep collecting slayers like this our guild will be unstoppable!"

Levy leaped from the bar stool to walk towards Adam, giving her some amount of physical comfort in front of these gawking eyes. Adam knew that dragon slayers were somewhat of a commodity. She had been the only one she'd known of for years, and apparently this guild had three.

Letting her instinctive shield down, Adamine's body returned to its normal state of worn out dark moss jean shorts, and a leather crop top vest. Luckily enough, Makarov had captured everyone's attention by leaping on the bar and clearing his throat.

"Fairy Tail," he announced, making a blush arise on Adamine's face. Oh, no. He was going to announce her request like this. "We have a special request! Meet Adamine Terra. She's a traveling mage who Fairy Tail has now taken in for protection."

Adamine began to blush so hard she felt like her entire body was a slowly boiling pot of magma as Makarov went through the details of her request. Being attacked by a dark guild. The ruins of Holden. How she needs to find her tablet since it held a very high value and could not be in the hands of this dark guild. Of course, he added some flair so that Adam wouldn't appear as some lame brain chick who'd passed out on the road and lost her backpack. She would have to thank him for that later, but after all was said and done, the guild didn't even appear to be annoyed by the request. They looked happy to help.

Clearing her throat after Makarov's speech, Adam decided it was time to speak up. She couldn't ask these people to help her and not give them a reward. Once everyone's eyes were back on her, she added, "I'm offering a reward of 300,000 jewel to whoever can get me all of my items back in one bundle. Individual items will be 10,000 a piece."

Voices erupted at the reward and the guild became even more excited to help. As a matter of fact, some people were already leaving, thinking that this would be an easy retrieval mission for a piece of scribbled on stone and two tomes.

"I thought you said that your money was in your backpack?" Levy questioned.

"Huh? Oh, no. There was a reason I was coming to Magnolia in the first place. I have an old friend who lives here. He keeps my finances on lockdown for me while I'm out traveling. As a matter of fact, I would expect for him to be around here somewhere. He and his friends are Fairy Tail wizards. I met him when I crossed the border into Fiore from-"

"Adamine!" a familiar voice called, and she turned her head to face the same guy she was talking about. The familiar green hair was the most telltale sign that Freed was the one calling out her name.

Eagerly, she dashed towards the slightly taller male and wrapped two arms around him.

"Are you okay? Is what the master said true?" He returned her embrace with one of his own, but Adamine could feel the underlying sense of tension in her old friend. Apparently, his sense of loyalty and honor hadn't changed in the time they'd been away. He'd no doubt want to assist her.

"Yeah, it's true, but thanks to Levy and the others I should be able to find my stuff quick. As a matter of fact, I need to get doing that now. The sooner I find it, the sooner-"

"You can get out of here," another familiar voice explained, approaching from behind, and Adam turned around to Bickslow. "Yeah, we already know about that."

Before Adam could respond to that comment, Freed broke in, "How about we help you as well? You said you were working with Levy, right?" He glanced over to the script mage. She appeared to be dumbfounded that the three knew each other.

"Like old times, eh?" she retorted and looked towards Levy. She'd been quiet this whole time. Likely trying to figure out how the Thunder God Tribe knew the rock dragon slayer? "Well, if we're going to do it, then we'd better move. The more time we spend here, the further my stuff is getting."

Freed gave a nod and joined in with Levy and Gajeel. For some reason the look the pierced male was giving Adamine seemed to chill her to the core, an odd feeling for a rock dragon slayer. He was skeptical. Adamine could see that. Hell, she could even understand it.

She was a stranger who had suddenly gotten an entire guild to go looking for the items she'd lost. Anyone in their right mind would be suspicious of her activity.

Deciding to attempt to break the tension, Adamine turned towards Levy. "So, where did you find me at?"


In the streets of Magnolia

Levy looked at Adamine curiously. She would have never suspected the young woman to have connections with the Thunder God Tribe, and if she knew them before the seven year gap that happened on Tenrou Island, that meant she would have to be in her early twenties now. Right? Levy wondered if Adam knew that her friends had been frozen for that amount of time.

Maybe not, she seemed to be chatting with them about what exactly had happened during her time in Holden. Compared to the way she'd acted in the guild, Adam was now completely at ease, smiles coming to her face easily. Perhaps, she was shy?

Throwing that curiosity out of her head, Levy decided to listen to what Adamine had to say. Maybe, some details about her own failed mission would be explained.

"So what's this about that tablet you want translated?" Bickslow wondered aloud, tongue hanging out of his mouth of course. His "babies", dolls that he kept souls within due to his Sieth magic, floated around him in their typical fashion.

"When I was in Holden, I had gotten into a brawl." Bickslow gave a sound as if that was to be expected. Really? She acted so shy when Master Makarov introduced her. Levy couldn't imagine her enjoying brawling. "The guy apparently didn't want women like me in his bar. He took a swing at me, and I turned to stone, breaking his knuckles. After deciding that he wasn't going to leave it at that, I had to mop the floor with the poor man. One of the patrons there had been an archeologist. He'd explained to me that there were thieves stealing artifacts from a site he'd been at, and offered to pay me if I protected the artifacts for them. His name was Radar. He was the one who gave me the tablet when the tomb began to go under fire. He told me to find someone who could help me translate the last portion that I'd gotten stumped on. I mostly want the tablet because the people of Holden had worshiped Firmalione, my mother. The tablet was a scripture written about the ancient priests' sacrificial rituals to Firmalione, but the last part isn't in Dragon Script. So, I can't translate it. I was hoping to come to Magnolia to find Freed, and see if he could help me with it. Well, that and the fact that I needed to get some of my money out of my safe."

Levy turned her eyes over to Gajeel. It seemed like Adamine was a dragon slayer like he was, and she was searching for her mother through scripture. Perhaps, he came because he could smell that she was a dragon slayer?

He hadn't spoken a word the whole time they'd left the guild. Instead, all he'd been doing was analyzing everything Adam said. His eyes looked completely distrustful of the rock dragon slayer.

Stopping in front of an apartment, Levy explained, "This is where I found you, Adam. Do you want to split up so we can search in smaller groups? It doesn't make much sense for us to stay in such a large group." Adam stopped in her story telling to give her a nod. "Alright, how about you search with Freed and Bickslow while Gajeel, Lily, and I search the east of town. You haven't seen them in a while. It'll be a good opportunity for you to catch up with each other." And for me to figure out what's wrong with Gajeel.

Bickslow wrapped an arm around Adamine's shoulders and answered for her. "Of course! That's a great idea! We'd love to take the stoner off your hands." His babies chimed, "Stoner, stoner!" to Adamine's obvious dismay.

After snickering, Levy waved goodbye to Adamine and her new group. One hand grabbed Gajeel's wrist. She led them away in preparation for her soon-to-come questioning.


As soon as the three were alone, Freed asked, "You haven't aged since we've been gone. You were on Tenrou looking for Zeref. Weren't you?" He had one hand calmly resting on his sword hilt, but the worry inside his eyes was obvious enough.

Taken off guard, Adamine gawked up at Freed. So, he'd known? Did that mean that Laxus and Evergreen knew as well? Wait a second. Where were they anyway? Begrudgingly, Adamine admitted, "Yeah, I was, but that wasn't all that I saw."

On a more cheerful note, she added, "I saw you and Bickslow get beaten down by two weaker fairies. Never thought you were such a ladies man, Freed?"

A light blush began to settle across his skin at the memory of the S-class exams. He made the excuse of, "Th-that was nothing more than us throwing the fight for Cana! She deserved to win after what she'd gone through."

"Uh-huh. Sure. It wasn't a ploy at all. Was it, Bickslow?" She tossed her head over to the snickering mage.

"Nah. Freed's definitely a ladies man."

The green haired mage's flush deepened until Adamine grabbed his arm and drug him down the streets. "Come on. Playtime's over. As happy as I am to see you two goons. I have to find that tablet, so I can repay Radar for what happened."

Bickslow asked, "What did happen to him exactly?"