Disclaimer : I do not own FT or DGM.
Chapter Three
A boy with dark blue hair tied up in a long ponytail was sitting crossed-legged in the practice room, meditating when a short-haired girl burst in, interrupting him much to his annoyance.
"Kanda!" Lenalee Lee cried, panting as she threw open the door. "Have you seen Allen-kun and Lavi?"
Eyes closed, the samurai exorcist shook his head, trying to focus. He was expecting Lenalee to go and leave him in peace, but he was sadly mistaken.
"Where could they be? Komui-niisan said they were just going on an errand, but it's already past midnight and I'm just so worried! Do you have any idea where they went on their job?"
Again, Kanda shook his head. It wasn't like he was friends with the stupid beansprout and the rabbit anyway.
"What if they were attacked by demons? Or even worse, a Noah? Allen-kun shouldn't be going out at all! I don't know what my brother was thinkin — "
A tick was growing on the side of Kanda's temple. He was getting impatient and was locking his fingers around his sword.
" — he could get seriously hurt and what happens if —"
Now Kanda was trying really hard not to snap at her (he was quite fond of Lenalee, but sometimes she just needs to stop blabbering and get to the freakin' point).
"— so Kanda, can you please come with me to look for them? I'll try to ask my brother, I'm sure he'll allow us, because after all — "
Finally fed up, Kanda held up his Mugen to halt the blabbering girl. Sighing (perhaps out of irritation), he threw on his exorcist coat, buttoned it up, and made his way to the door. Pausing, with his hand on the doorknob, he turned around to face the surprised Lenalee.
"You go look for the stupid beansprout and the rabbit yourself," Kanda said in a would-be-calm voice, "for all we know, they could be dying right now and I don't give a damn."
"I think he's dead!"
"Crap, is he?! I don't think the sign hit him that hard..."
"Damn, he's tall! Look, he's got red hair! Erza, it must be your long-lost brother!"
"Oooh, what about this guy? He has white hair! I think he's related to Lisanna, Mira and Elfman!"
"Whoa, but he has a cool scar on his eye! Look!"
"Dude, this guy has an eyepatch!"
Ouch, my head hurts... Where am I?
"Oh, he's moving! I think he's alive!"
"Whew, I thought I killed him for a second."
Why is everything so noisy? And why is there a table here? Lavi opened his eye with his back aching due to the wooden table he seemed to slept on. He also found his upper head to be intensely painful. Before he can take in anything else, a sudden pink movement nearly banged the table.
"You're finally awake!"
W-What the?! The red-haired exorcist looked freakin' bewildered when he saw a pink-haired guy crouching on the table inches from his face, peering at him.
"I just wanna ask you one thing," the pink-haired guy muttered. His eyes were dark and scary, his breath smelled like ... burned fire? Smoke? What the hell does this guy eat? Lavi, who was, admittedly, scared, watched the guy in front of him, panicking and wondering just how the hell he went from sleeping outside in a peaceful forest to sleeping in a noisy room and waking up with a psycho peering at him.
He suddenly realized something.
Where's Allen?
"Hey, I asked you a question! Say something!" Lavi's attention snapped back to the breath-smells-like-fire guy.
"W-What?" The bewildered exorcist finally managed to answer.
The pink-haired psycho leaned in even further. "I just wanted to ask..." He suddenly straightened up and pointed to something behind him. "Are you related to Erza?!" He asked excitedly, his eyes suddenly bright.
"W-What?!" Lavi said in bewilderment. Looking in the direction the guy pointed, he saw a red-haired figure among the huge crowd, who was wearing an armour with the name Heart Kreuz on the front. "Who's that? Is she suppose to be a sexy female version of me?" Lavi asked. He didn't feel like being in a flirty mood today, something Bookman would actually approve of.
"That's what I thought too!" The psycho exclaimed; he suddenly had a happy-go-lucky feeling about him.
Erza, who looked surprised, merely cleared her throat. "I am no sexy female version of anybody. My name is Erza Scarlet," she said to Lavi.
"Uh, right..." Lavi replied uncertainly. He was still wary of the people in here; they all seemed very suspicious to him and yet at the same time it felt kinda like being back home at the Black Order.
"And I'm Natsu Dragneel!" The psycho finally introduced himself proudly. "Who're you?" he asked.
"Er... Lavi."
"Lavi? Wow! That's almost similar to my name!" A girl with blue hair suddenly exclaimed. She had a colorful bandanna and a bright smile. "I'm Levy McGarden!"
"And I'm Jet!" A skinny guy introduced himself standing beside Levy.
"Droy." A fat guy followed, on the other side.
"Your friend is over here," Erza told Lavi. She lead him over to a black and white bundle that was on the stone floor.
"You gotta be kiddin' me," said Lavi, running his hair through his fingers absentmindedly. I think we're in the tavern... he noticed the room to be full of chairs and tables and there was a pub in the back. The crowd now spilt up, most of them sitting down to a mug of beer and others just standing around, chatting. It was unbelievable how at home Lavi felt. It didn't really feel so different from being back at the Black Order, except all the people here were different.
"We tried to put him on the table, but he seemed to fall over every few seconds," Erza explained, snapping Lavi back to attention.
Yeah, well, who said Allen was a light sleeper... Lavi shook his head at the bundle and glanced up to see a dark-haired boy smiling nervously at him. He was (for some reason) bare chested and Lavi saw a blue insignia on his chest. It looked sort of like a fairy.
"Gray Fullbuster," said the nervous-smiling boy, "I was the one who carried you. And uh, sorry for that," he apologized when Lavi held up his hand to feel his painful head, "the guild isn't too big, and your head hit the sign."
"Guild?" The red-haired boy asked, still gingerly touching his head.
"This is our guild," Gray explained. "Fairy Tail," he added, seeing Lavi's confused expression.
"Fairy Tail?"
"We're gonna be the strongest guild in Fiore!" Natsu suddenly jumped into the conversation. "Your friend is still sleeping? It's already 7 in the morning!" he added in disbelief, watching the bundle that was Allen on the floor.
"Yeah," Lavi said quickly. Now's my chance!
"So what's a guild?" Lavi asked Gray, Erza and Natsu. To his surprise, the whole room went quiet and most of the people had their jaws dropped.
"You don't know what a guild is? And I thought Natsu was stupid!" Gray said incredulously.
"What did you say, Gray?!"
"I said I thought you were stu—"
"A guild," Erza said loudly, cutting off Gray and Natsu, "is an organization of Mages in Fiore."
"Mages?" Lavi felt like he was having a bad dream. This place is weird. If I'm right, Innocence is...
"That's right." A new voice chipped in. Everyone glanced around and most people stepped back to let the newcomer walk forward.
It was Makarov Dreyar, Fairy Tail's 3rd and 6th Master. He walked towards Lavi. "How do you do, young chap?" he reached out a hand and Lavi had to bend down to shake it. "And how about the other fine chap?"
"He's asleep," someone said. Lavi, embarrassed, sighed. Allen has really bad timing.
"I need to ask you something." Makarov eyed the tall boy. He pulled out Yajima's drawing of a stickman with a black and white coat. "Is this you?"
"Um." Lavi looked up and down at his exorcist coat. "Not the hair or anything, but the coat? Yeah."
"Good enough. Erza!" The Master called. Erza walked forward and pulled out this time, an antidote.
"That's!" Lavi gasped as she gave it to him.
"It's yours, right? I was suppose to deliver this to you."
"Thanks!" Lavi said gratefully.
"So now it's time for you to go?" Gray asked, after he and Natsu stopped fighting.
"Yeah." Although I still don't have a good feeling about this place.
"I'll wake up your friend," Erza offered.
"No, I'll carry him. Thanks for everything!"
"Come by again if you can!" Makarov called as Lavi, carrying Allen, exited the tavern into the bright morning, with the guild yelling goodbyes behind them.
"Chief Komui... please open the door..." said the Chief of the Science Division Section One, Reever Wenhamm. He was waiting outside the Chief's study, carrying a huge stack of paperwork.
"Just a second, just a second~" A cheerful voice on the other side of the door called brightly.
Honestly, you have so much work to do. There's no time to be singing and dancing around, Reever thought irritatingly. Just in time (to Reever's relief), the door opened to reveal the Supervisor. He looked most surprised.
"Reever?! What are you doing here? Aren't you sick?" Komui stepped back a little, afraid to catch Reever's contagious germs.
Rolling his eyes, Reever walked into the study and put down the paperwork on Komui's messy desk.
"Chief, stop making excuses to put us all off work."
"What excuses?" Komui asked.
"I'm perfectly healthy, and so is the rest of the Science Department, you know that."
Reever glanced at Komui, who looked shocked.
"Chief?"
"W-Wait, Reever." Komui seemed to be thinking hard. "You're not sick? Nor the Science Department?"
Scratching his head, Reever replied, "Of course not."
"Then..."
"Then?"
"... Who was the one that requested the antidote?"
"What antidote?"
"The antidote to heal your sickness!"
"What sickness?!" Is the Chief seriously messed up today? Reever thought bewilderingly.
"Someone from your department just tipped me off saying the Science Department was sick!"
"What?! No! No one did anything of that sort!"
Shocked, Komui sat down at his desk, his hands on his head. "If it wasn't you guys... then who...?"
Two men from the science department was walking in the hallways when they spotted the storage room door to be slightly, eerily, open.
"That's weird," said the first guy, "didn't we close it this morning?"
"Yeah... it must've opened awhile ago by accident. Just close it," said the second guy.
The first scientist went to close the door when a groan stopped him. "What the?! It's Johnny!"
Johnny Gill was sprawled on the floor of the storage room, groaning in pain with his big glasses lopsided.
"Johnny, what's wrong?!" The two scientists tried to shake their member awake.
"C... Cat." was what came out of poor Johnny's mouth.
"W-What?"
"C...Cat transformed... into... m...me... called... K..." The two scientists stared in horror as Johnny said no more and fainted.
Man, what is this antidote? It's freakin' heavy! Lavi thought to himself as he carried Allen away from the tavern. Since he needed Allen to summon the Ark, he decided he'd better leave the guild in order to order to do so. He had walked deep into the woods so that the tavern of Fairy Tail (he realized that the sign was strangely lopsided and thought it must be due to his head) was no longer in view, and settled Allen on the ground near a small stream.
Now he took the antidote and peered at it. It was full of black liquid, which Lavi found oddly weird, because the bottle felt dense to be just liquid.
Komui said it was just something to help cure sickness for the science department... but I better make sure first...
Carefully, Lavi uncorked the bottle and immediately black shadows started to flow out. Sensing a bad feeling, he quickly corked it. That's not normal... I better go report this in to Komui.
He was about to put the antidote back into his coat pocket when it suddenly slipped and fell onto the ground and the contents spilled.
"Shit!"Lavi cried, picking up the glass shards when he noticed the black liquid seemed to be going in Allen's direction. His eyes widen when he saw Allen was almost covered in the liquid and started to stir.
Allen's skin was turning dark. The white-haired exorcist opened his eyes. They were no longer sliver, but yellow.
Without thinking, Lavi grabbed the younger boy off the ground and threw him into the stream, ignoring Allen's yelps and cries; if Allen was turning into a Noah right now —
"Ouch, Lavi, what was that for!?"
Lavi glanced up and a huge wave of relief spread through his body as he watched Allen's skin turning back into normal and his eyes regaining their original colour; the black liquid didn't have enough time to absorb the younger boy.
"Geez, I'm all wet now..."
"Don't worry about it dude! I just gave you a shower, yeah?" Lavi forced a laugh as Allen huffed and got out of the stream.
That was bad. Whatever that liquid was, Allen reacted to it.
"Man, that sucked," said Natsu. He looked disappointed. "I was so sure he was Erza's long-lost brother... hey, Reedus should've painted them together!"
"It has been a weird day," Makarov sighed, watching the noisy guild continue on with their daily life. The guild doors opened again and this time Lucy, Carla, Happy and Wendy barged in.
"Luce, you just missed the biggest thing ever!"
"Wendy, did you see Elfman's younger brother?"
"Yes, it has," Mirajane agreed, standing beside the Master. The pair of them watched Team Natsu.
"What?! Erza has a brother?!"
"Don't be stupid, Lucy. Of course I don't."
"You know what's even weirder?" Makarov asked the ex-former S class mage. "That letter Yajima sent?"
"What about it?"
"Well, I just found out today. He doesn't send letters."
