I Don't own Fairy Tail.

I've made a pic of Pagan - you can find a link on my profile, if interested.

Chapter 4: Magical Vanishings?

"You can do it!" Renma and Maginus shouted encouraging at the same time.

"Shut up! You're distracting me!" Pagan shouted back irritated and spewed some blue flames out her mouth at them, which made them laugh when the flames landed pathetically at her feet.

"Ah! You need to try harder! Your Fire Magic needs more practice!" Renma shouted and doubled over onto the ground as Maginus pushed him forwards.

"That's not what we're doing here." Maginus hummed.

"I know. I know." Renma huffed as he stood up and ruffled dirt out of his black hair. "Spirits." He muttered as he sat down on the large log he had been sitting on.

"Are you two done yet?" Pagan finally asked, at their nods she held up the silver key and took a deep breath. "Open, Gate of the racing unicorn. Monoceros!"

The key shined a bright golden colour and a white horse with a golden horn, blue mane and golden armour appeared. The unicorn looked around as its mane slowly turned from blue to purple.

"Hello." The unicorn greeted. "I'm Monoceros. Which one of you summoned me?" His slightly feminine but still male voice asked.

"That would be me." Pagan responded. "I'm Pagan LeMagson. This is Maginus my master, he's also a Celestial spirit mage and this is Renma." She said and gestured to the two spectators.

The unicorn nodded its head in acknowledgement as its hair turned to a pale yellow. "Lupus did tell me I would be summoned by his mage's apprentice soon." He nodded towards Maginus before turning to Pagan again.

"I'm going to be available weekdays except Wednesdays from twelve in the morning to five in the evening." He said as Pagan took out a small notebook. "I'm not the most combat orientated spirit but I love riding, so I'm more than happy to do that. But it's Sunday today and I have to leave quickly. I have a race I need to win."

"Okay." Pagan said. "I'll be looking forward to working with you."

"Remember to summon me sometime." Monoceros said intensely before disappearing in a flash of golden light as he returned to the spirit world.

"YES! Woooo!" Pagan cheered and jumped around and kissing Monoceros's key. "I did it!" She cheered turning to the two onlookers. "Did you see him? Oh gosh this is so cool! "

"You did it!" Her master cried and pulled her into a fierce hug. "I'm so proud of you! You can now call yourself a Celestial Spirit mage!"

"Congratulations." Renma praised and patted her shoulder.

"This calls for celebration!" Maginus exclaimed. "All the cake you can eat and then some more! And maybe a new quest for tomorrow, we can probably find something with a payment you want."

The party had been big - like end of the world big. Then Master Maginus had said the party was one of the smaller ones they'd had, five smashed tables were apparently not enough for a giant party. No - it would have to be all the tables if it was a giant party. The reason the party could have been worse was apparently Alexander. Since he hadn't been there to smash his crystal hand into tables and make people delirious with his illusions, thus the party was smaller than it could have been.

A part of her didn't really want to know what that kind of party was, she was never a party animal and having to party to the degree he was chatting about, was not something she looked forwards to. So Pagan was infinitely grateful for Alexander and Bloom for not being there. Just thinking about a party of that size made her shudder. Not to mention the damage that would be done to the guildhall if a she was to believe Master Sasha.

"Hey." Neo said putting his face in her face. "Stop day dreaming."

Looking at Neo she remembered their first meeting. He had just returned from a job and came bursting through the front doors with sticks and other objects sticking out of his messy blonde hair, his clothes had been torn in different places as he screamed in anger and he marched up to Bloom and threw down the tattered request. He had hurriedly ordered something to eat.

"Damn slave traders" he had muttered making Blooms and her own eyes flash of recognition - he had been a prey of slave traders distributing fake requests to capture the mages who would take it.

It had begun to become a problem for all the guilds around Fiore and Neo had gotten Lucky, he had been able to get away before the slavers could get him in contact with Magic Sealing Stone. All guilds - even dark guilds were haunted by fake requests, so roughly all of the Guild Master Leagues, had made the decree that all missions had to have at least three mages. two of which, had to be combat compatible.

This leaded to Neo and Renma accompanying Maginus and pagan on a mission, to the city of Luma, since they had to be at the minimum three mages. The request was to help the local Rune Knights with an investigation. They were hired as a search party - they were basically hired as tracking dogs - people had been disappearing for some days now. Pagan had chosen this mission because of the rewards 120,000 Jewels and a Space Container Rune was a good winning for a job Lupus could do blind.

Easy money.

"Pagan."

She rubbed her hands together as she thought about the Rune - the potentials were limitless - she had read about them, they were like a TARDIS or an extension charm, but based on Requib magic. It generates a bigger space in the item it's put on but works like Requib, in that it doesn't require you to put your hand into the bag to revive the item. It was plainly awesome. And amazing. And cool. And other positive words.

Really. Who wouldn't want it.

Crazy people. That's who.

"Pagan! Your spacing again." Neo said forcefully. "Concentrate damn it!"

"Sorry." She apologised turning her attention on Neo. "What is it?"

"We were meeting with the Rune Knights today. That's now, or are you too busy day dreaming." He teased her.

"Oh"

"Yes. Oh." He mocked. "Come on."

Neo quickly turned and walked out the door leaving it open for her to follow. She got to her feet swiftly and ran out after him slamming the door closed in her haste.

They were sitting on some chairs in the mayor's office opposite of the Rune Knight Captain Sarkro Marle - who was a burly man with brown hair and stern blue eyes, Rune Knight Lieutenant Mia Calaslot – who was a smaller lady with Black hair and mischievous brown eyes and another Rune Knight called Frank Seven who had vibrant green hair and brown eyes.

"I am aware we didn't give too much information except that we needed someone who had skills in for tracking." Sarkro told them and held up the request poster which read:

Vanishings in Luma.

Assignment description: There has been people disappearing in Luma in the past couple of days and the Magic Council is requested some experienced mages to help with the investigation.

Requirements: Required skills include tracking.

Reward: 120,000 Jewels from the Rune Knights and a Magic Space container Rune.

"But we don't know what is making people disappear, that's why we need someone who can find the missing people and get them back to their families or at least be able to say for certain that they are deceased." The Lieutenant said handing over a folder to Maginus. "Everyone who disappeared was blonde; but, we are at a standstill. Everything we were able to find is in the folder. But you are free to try and get extra clues or do some extra research 'round town if you think it could help. "

"Why do you need help?" Pagan asked curiously as she pulled out a red lollipop from her mouth. The nice lady at the reception had given it to her, it was one of the bonuses of being a kid again – free candy. "I thought the Council and Knights had plenty of diverse mages in its ranks? Many of them would be able to find the victims without our help adequately."

"To be honest." The captain said with a sigh. "We can't find them, we already tried. Marko our best tracker is one of the people who disappeared and our second best trackers were unable to find anything. No scent or magic trail."

"Why would you think we can find them when the RK's can't? Even if your trackers aren't the best." Neo asked and scratched his head.

"We were hoping that having some new eyes look at the case would help find them." Sarkro admitted.

"I see. We will do our best. Is there more info you could give us?" Maginus asked.

"No. Unfortunately we don't have anything extra; all we could find was that all the targets were blonde. Like Neo-san over here." He said and gestured to the blonde. He stood up and signalled Lieutenant Mia and Frank to follow him. "We will leave you to it, then." He said before they left.

"So..." Neo said as he looked around. "Are we going to do this the hard way or the easy way?"

"We are not using you as bait." Renma bit out angrily and smiled as Maginus and Pagan nodded their heads in agreement.

"The hard way then." Neo concluded frowning. He took the file from Maginus and skimmed trough the contents before splitting it up in four and handing one each to Renma, Pagan and Maginus. "One person for each of you then."

Pagan took the file Neo held out to her and read the title; Disappearance number 4. Ben Carstem.

The file stated that Ben had a normal life, there were nothing out of the ordinary - he had a wife and kids before his untimely end at 40 years. The last anyone saw of him was when he had requested the Rune Knights help for finding his cat. No one had seen him since.

"Maria Farly." Renma said drawing attention to himself. "It says here that she had a strange magic plant growing in one of her fields and had gone to the Rune Knights for help. It might be something, she's the first to disappear - it's been 8 days since then."

"Hmm." Maginus hummed. "Might be something... let's split up. Try and get something that belonged to the person, it'll make tracking them easier." Maginus went to his feet and held out his file to Pagan. "Here, Cristina had an apprentice. I want you to talk to him; he might be more willing to talk to someone around his own age."

She took the file and handed Maginus her own before jumping off the chair and walking out the door with the others.

"We'll meet again back here in two hours' time!"

-Few minutes later.

Looking at the file she had to admit that Cristina Love was definitely more interesting than Ben Carstem.

Her file said that she was the third person to disappear; she was an Ice-Make mage who had an apprentice. Her student was a boy around seventeen years old named Mike. Her life was pretty usual for a mage nonetheless, her parents were part of a guild and taught her magic, she never got married but had been teaching numerous students until she vanished a few days ago at the age of 45.

'Around his age my ass.' Pagan thought grouchily as she read the student Mike's age. Even with her being around ten now, there were seven years of difference. Neo would have been the superior choice, since he's also seventeen.

It was strange. Cristina was at mage and from what the file said she was at S-Class strength, if it was the plant she would have fought back and if it was a person, then she would have fought back as well - it would have left evidence of a struggle. But there were nothing.

Taking a turn to the left she had to acknowledge that she was lost. Taking another turn she just barely missed seeing a green flash as she suddenly walked into something.

'Why do I always walk into stuff? this is ridiculous.' She gave a grunt of annoyance and looked up only to see the Rune Knight Frank. "Oh. Sorry Frank-san." She looked up at him. "What are you doing here?"

He looked sheepish. "I'm actually lost. Me, Sarkro and Mia only arrived here around two weeks ago, so I get lost often."

"I can't stay and chat. I got to go. My master sent me out to interview one of the target's student for some information." Then she remembered. "Actually do you think you could give me a general idea where it is?" The girl said as she presented him the address.

"Hmmm... That way." He said and pointed to her left.

"Thanks!" She shouted running down the way he pointed.

-Around an hour… or two later.

'Finally.' She thought as she looked at the address. What the hell was she thinking? Asking Frank for directions, he was lost too and had sent her in the opposite direction. 'I'm an idiot' at least that nice old lady was able to help her; otherwise she would still have been lost.

'And that would suck ass.'

The door opened a few minutes after she had knocked. A man with brown hair and brown eyes she assumed was Mike, opened the door with a "hello?"

"Hi." Pagan began in her look how sweet and innocent I am voice and raised her left arm to show him her guild mark. "I'm from Static Light; I'm here to locate Cristina Love who vanished a few days ago. Are you Mike? Her student?"

"Yes." He said curiously. "Aren't you a bit too young for a mission like Masters Disappearance?"

"Yes, yes I am." She dismissed. "I've got some old timers with me if that helps. Can I come in? I'd like to ask you some questions. If it is alright with you, of cause."

"Okay. Come in." He said and led lead her inside and sat down at a dinner table. "You know, you could have come with the Rune Knight that was here earlier instead. That would have been easier for all of us."

"There were someone here earlier? Huh. Sorry, I didn't know."

"So what do you want to know?"

"When was the last time you saw her?" She asked and sat down at the table opposite of him.

"Six days ago." He said as he put his hands over his eyes. "Master had gone to the Rune Knights to vouch for me to them, they need mages and I wanted to join. But because I'm not part of a guild the easiest way to get in is to get a recognised independent Mage to vote for you. She... she never returned." At this point he was sobbing quietly in his hands.

"Hey." She said sympathetic. "If you don't want to talk more that's fine. But I'll need something of hers to track her with."

"I – I. Alright." Mike said as he shakily stood up and opened a drawer pulling out a blue scarf. "Here." He said and held it out to her. "She was always wearing her scarf when outside, the Rune Knight who were here earlier found it and gave it back to me. Take it and find her."

"Thank you." The girl said as she took the scarf. "I'll be bringing it back soon. One more thing." Pagan said as she stopped by the door. "Can you think of anyone who would want her gone? Any enemies?"

"No. Master helped the city a lot, everyone adores her." He opened the door for her.

"Okay. Thank you again." She reached up and out a hand on his arm. "We'll find her, even if she's..." Pagan trailed of and looked at the ground.

"Thanks." He said and closed the door after her.

Clutching the scarf she looked up at the sun and realised that she was late for their meeting. Speeding up she began running.

'I don't know the way…' She thought miserably.

-Some time later.

"Alright." Maginus said as he held the scarf out to Lupus who took a long sniff before turning around and examining the air for Cristina's scent. "Can you get a trail this time?" He asked the large wolf.

"I got something." The wolf said and turned down the road with his snout in the air.

"No more delays then." Maginus resolved and walked after the large spirit. "We already lost too much time searching for Pagan." He said as they trailed him.

"Sorry." Pagan mumbled. They had used a long time searching for her, first she got lost trying to find Mike and then she get lost trying to find her master. How embarrassing... She had never had any problem with finding her way around; it had always come naturally to her. But now? She could get lost walking in a straight line. 'Were did my mental compass go?' she thought in dismay.

"Caught it!" Lupus suddenly growled. "There are two scents here, she was not alone." He twisted his large head to the right. "This way!"

He led them through several different turns before ending up outside the city and continued to go inside a large forest, stopping only as they arrived by a small shack. "In here, there are several different scents in there as well." Lupus said and nodded his head towards the old wooden door. "Be careful, the aroma is agonizing and smells strange. I do not know how to describe it other than as evil."

"Thank you Lupus." Maginus said as he dismissed himself back to the spirit world with a flash of gold.

"Let's go in already." Neo said impatiently pacing around.

"Patience Padawan." Pagan soothed before she could stop herself.

"What?"

"Errr... let's just go in."

"Alright." Maginus said as he gently opened the door with his right hand while putting a silver key in the other. As the door opened a strong smell hit them and they held up their arms to block out the smell. Inside the shack was a dark motionless shape slumped forwards in every corner. Maginus raised the key a bit and waved it creating a bit of light with some Celestial Firework. The figure in one of the bends was Maria Farly who had been the first person to disappear, in the other corners was the slumped forms of all the others who had vanished.

"They... they're all dried up..." Pagan breathed in shock as she saw the withered up face of Marko Fia, his face - no. body - looked like it had all the water sucked out of it. "Are the others different?" She asked softly not taking her gaze of the shrunken man.

"Their magic is gone." Neo said and shuffled with something she couldn't see. "Normally when we die there's a small trace of magic left in our bodies- depending on how long we've been dead. But they have nothing; whatever sucked the liquid out of them also removed their magic core. I'm thinking Dark-"

"Pagan." Maginus unexpectedly said harshly, interrupting Neo. "Get the Rune Knights. Quick."

"Err. Right." She said and quickly went up on her feet and pulled out Monoceros key as she ran outside the door.

"Open! Gate of the racing unicorn! Monoceros!" She commanded as she closed the door, the unicorn appeared in in a bright light and turned to her tilting its head in a greeting.

"Yes?" He asked as his mane slowly changed into a dark green.

"I need a ride, it's important that I get to Luma as quickly as possible." She pointed into the forest.

"Get on." He said and turned his side to her, Monoceros's mane turned blue as she jumped up on his armoured back. When he felt her getting into good position he began galloping away from the shack as she griped his mane.

"I think we just need to continue forwards."

"Don't worry Pagan." Monoceros said and curved his head near her a bit as his armor clanked slightly. "I already know where we need to go."

"What? Like a GPS?"

"I don't know what a GPS is, but it's my magic; location force. I only need a name and the general direction of the destination."

Pagan looked at him grinning. "Let's go to the Candy Mountain, Charlie!"

-With Pagan by the Rune Knights headquarters.

"Stay here for a bit, okay?" She asked Monoceros as her feet landed on the ground with a dull thud and stroked his neck. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Swiftly walking up the steps of the local RK headquarters "We found the missing people, someone got to go get them." she said as she opened the door.

The girl stopped abruptly when she didn't get a response from the secretary. "Hey. We found the missing..." She paused when she finally noticed that the secretary was asleep. "Hey? What are you doing sleeping on the job?" She asked as she shook the lady who had nicely given her a lollipop when they had first arrived at their headquarters. The lady continued to remain unresponsive and Pagan put her hand up to the woman's mouth, when she felt the soft breath Pagan sighed loudly in relief. "Alive."

Everyone was asleep, not just the reception lady. Numerous rooms were filled with sleeping Rune Knights.

"No." She wailed in despair as she realised what was going on.

"We need to get back." Pagan said quickly to Monoceros as she ran down the steps to where he was waiting and pulled herself up on his back.

He glanced at her for a second before dashing back the way they had come from. In their rush neither Pagan nor Monoceros noticed the shadow quietly following them.

'Please. Don't let me be too late'

"What's wrong Pagan?" Monoceros asked as he dodged an individual who had come a bit too close.

"I think it's a trap." Pagan admitted as they finally left Lumas gate and raced towards the forest. "Everything fits together. But something doesn't make sense, they would have had no way of knowing that Neo would have had blonde hair" She had realised that the cottage was a trap when she saw that the RK headquarters personnel was all under a sleeping spell of some sorts. They must have been after Neo, he was blonde – all the victims were blonde for some reason and they had all been in contact with the RK's Maria had gone to them about the magic plant, Marko was already a Rune Knight, Cristina had gone to vouch for her student and Ben's cat had been missing.

Neo had said they were missing their magic core - ergo they needed the Magic for something. And they had gone right into the trap, the scarf had been the bait- a Rune Knight had given it to Mike and-

Pagan's train of thought was cut off when Monoceros suddenly went on his rear legs with a loud screech; she had to quickly throw her arms around his neck to keep her from falling off. When he finally landed on all fours she peeked out from behind his neck.

"Frank." She acknowledged with a slight dip of her head. "So it was you. Are we going to have a Cowboy stand off now?" She hopped down from Monoceros back, turning to Frank.

"I'm surprised." The green haired man said. "You did seem like a pretty smart kid, but why don't you return to Luma and then we won't have any problems."

"Please." She scoffed. "Your plan sucked, it relied on you giving Mike the scarf and him giving it to me. If he had decided to give me something else we might not have found that small hut of yours." She strode silently in front of the unicorn. "So why did you do it? Stealing life essence to become immortal or something equally ridiculous?"

"You know kid. I was going to let you go." He took a deep breath and stared ominously at her his eyes glowing as the trees around him began twitching. The branches began moving around him forebodingly. "I like kids. But we can properly use your Magic for the ritual too."

'Pro tip: Don't talk trash to bad guys who are probably stronger than you.' She thought as she dodged the moving branches that dove towards her and Monoceros with surprisingly fast movements and threw out her hand in an arch creating a blade of air towards the man before landing on the ground with a pained grunt.

"Pagan!" Monoceros suddenly shrieked as a branch dove into his stomach and he returned to the Spirit World before she could react.

"Monoceros!" Pagan screamed to her spirit before pain flared agonizingly in her back head and Pagan slipped into oblivion as she hit the ground.

-Inside the shack.

"It's undoubtedly Dark Magic. It's despicable" Renma said as the sounds of Monoceros hooves faded into the distance. "That's why you wanted her gone."

"Yes." Maginus answered tensely.

"You don't think she's ready for the more dark aspects of the world."

"That's not why I sent her away; we needed someone to get the Rune Knights." Maginus replied shortly.

"She's going to learn it anyway. Shielding her might make it worse." Neo said ignoring Maginus's reason. "Besides I was younger when I learned it, she can handle it"

"Or is it because of-" Renma started as he pulled on some gloves and he began pushing aside Cristina's hair to feel if she had any marks on her head, but was interrupted by Maginus.

"We have a job to do." Maginus said forcefully as Neo looked at them confusedly. "Get to it."

The Celestial Spirit mage went to his feet again and held out the key in his left hand. "Open. Gate of the fly. Musca." He said and a small man around 20 years old, with black hair appeared, he was dressed in a black suit, fly eye like goggles and had a pair of fly wings on his back. "Musca can you sense some sort of dark magic or a hidden door?" He asked and began mentally telling Musca the details of the request they were on.

"Here." The fly man said after spending several minutes searching around the room for traces of magic and flew in front of one of the walls; Musca put his hand on it and pushed his goggles up on his forehead revealing dark green eyes. "There's a passage, there's also a magic similar to that disgusting magic essence that surrounds the bodies."

Maginus quickly put his hand where Musca specified. "Neo, come with me." He said as he lightly pushed on the plank, it gave away slightly and some of the floors planks withdrew to reveal a stone staircase.

"Someone's here-" Musca suddenly said as the front door opened.

"Well well." a feminine voice drawled. "What do we have here?"

"You're-!" Neo exclaimed.

Next chapter: Why is Frank doing some sort of ritual that costs lives? Who is it that cut of the others at the shack?

A/N: Wooo! Cliff-hanger! This chapter was longer than the previous ones so I'm very proud of myself.

Can anyone guess who the feminine voice is? I've tried to put up hints. (I think it's a pretty easy puzzle)