Part Four: Laxus

December, X784

Damn, but those three were annoying. I wonder why I miss them so much. Freed, Bickslow, Evergreen... each of their names seem to resound in my heart, making me wonder if convincing them to stay in Fairy Tail was really the right decision.

Then I scold myself for being selfish: of course it was the right decision. Freed had agreed, and Freed usually knew what was up. Although, knowing those three, they're still probably waiting around for my exile to be lifted and me to return. Not sitting around, but just keeping busy until I came back. Yeah, that sounds about right.

I turn onto my side, watching the flickering flames of the campfire crackle and fizz: somehow, it only serves to send me deeper into my state of nostalgia, remembering when I first met each of them...

I met Freed first, out of all of them. Before I even got my scar. Actually, it was about seven years ago, sometime this month that he joined Fairy Tail. I can still remember my first thoughts about him: Skinny, skittish kid, weird green hair, strange sense of style. I mean, he was wearing a freaking knee-length coat, for crying out loud. Complete with elaborately knotted ascot. Not to mention his weird white boots. And his way too long-for a guy, at least- hair. That was for some reason, green. I never really found out why that was, come to think of it. But beyond that, I didn't really feel obliged to talk to him, after all, Freed's arrival unfortunately coincided with Dad troubles.

Dad never spent more time at the guild than he could manage, and every time Gramps saw him, they'd begin a shouting match that usually ended with a table or three smashed to pieces by Dad's shikigami. How paper dolls could destroy anything was beyond me, but since it was Dad's magic, and it worked for him, who was I to question it?

Anyway, Dad troubles usually left me grouchy and leaning against one of the pillars of the guild, listening to my music and trying my best to tune out all of the noise that the little punks- by which I mean Gray, Natsu, Erza, and Mirajane,- made. Geez, but even I knew that the guild was going to be a mess in a few years, after those four grew up.

I think the only reason I even spoke to Freed in the first place was that we had a common goal: to get out of that noisy guild hall!

Well, we did reach for the same request at exactly the same time. I remember the staring contest we had, each trying to get the other to relinquish the request, neither one of us willing to give up.

"Gimme the request, punk." I ordered. Freed's eyebrow arched as he regarded me, cold and calculating.

"No." He said flatly. "I saw it first."

That got everyone's attention. Even Natsu and Gray stopped punching each other for a moment. No one had dared to refuse me something for a long time: not since I passed the S-class exam.

We continued staring each other down until finally Gramps cleared his throat from behind us.

"Laxus." Aw crap, I remember thinking, that's his warning tone.

"Yeah, Gramps?" I asked, not daring to break the steely battle of wills that was currently unfolding.

"Why don't you two boys team up? That's not a request that one person can complete on their own, even if you are an S-class mage, Laxus."

I glanced at the request, which now sported a few small tears from being pulled in two directions at once, and saw that Gramps was right. An extermination job was usually most effective when you were part of a team, but I had no desire to team up with any of my noisy guildmates.

I looked again at the green-haired kid- although I suppose he only looked about three years younger than me- and conceded. From what I had observed, Freed was infinitely quieter than just about any of the other guild members, Natsu and Gray especially.

"Fine, newbie." I scowled. "Let's get going already."

He scowled right back at me, but finally shrugged. "Fine. Don't keep me waiting."

Lemme tell you, that really pissed me off. But with Gramps right there, waiting for me to get going, I had little choice but to go. After all, I told myself, it's only one job. Then I'll be rid of this punk.

"Oh, Freed, wait a moment, would you? I have something I'd like to ask you. Laxus, you go on." Gramps waved me off, and I sauntered out of the guild, feeling incredibly annoyed with it all. As I left, I could hear the sounds of temporarily paused fights resuming, and a particularly loud shout from Natsu to Gray:

"What'd you say to me?! Huh?! Ya won't get away with it this time, ya droopy-eyed bastard!"

This was a particularly impressive shout, as I was easily able to hear it over one of my loudest tracks. I ignored it as best I could, and loitered around, waiting for Freed to hurry the hell up, though only because he still had the sheet of paper with the request on it.

Eventually, the green-haired weirdo exited the guild, deftly dodging a flying beer mug on his way out. He looked at me with apparent annoyance for a second before abruptly turning away. I wasn't quite sure, but I thought I heard a noise that sounded something like

"Tch," come from him.

"Got everything you need, punk?" I asked him, although I was hardly prepared either.

"No. I need to go back to my apartment and retrieve my travel belongings. I notice that you seem to be lacking luggage, so why don't we meet back here in fifteen minutes? Then we can decide how we're getting to where we're going." All of this he said in relatively the same tone of voice: a sort of quiet, controlled hostility.

"Whatever." I rolled my eyes and headed for home to grab my traveling bag, something that I kept neatly packed at all times.

Fourteen minutes later, I was back out in the front of the guild, waiting for damn Freed again. About ten seconds later, he strode around the corner, looking incredibly irritated.

"About damn time!" I scowled at him, and I was about to complain some more, but his glare actually shut me up, which was practically a miracle in and of itself: since I'd become an S-class mage, I hadn't thought there was anyone in the guild, barring Gramps and possibly my father, who could make me shut up like that.

"Let's head out." he said quietly.

"Yeah. Fine. Whatever." I muttered. I barely noticed as we headed through the streets of Magnolia, but eventually I caught on that Freed was leading us towards the train station, and I stopped short.

Damn kid was halfway down the street before he noticed I wasn't following anymore.

He turned around, still looking bad-tempered. "What is it?" he asked.

I glared at him. "There's no freaking way I'm going on a train."

He arched an eyebrow testily. "Unless you can think of a better mode of transportation, the train is the only way we can get where we're going on time. So we're taking the train."

I really didn't want him to know my one weakness: bad enough that I was stuck doing a job with this weirdo, there was no way I was going to let him know that I got motion sickness.

"I know, why don't I travel there by lightning, and you can take the train?" I said desperately. At that point in time, I wasn't actually very good at my lightning-travel, and could only do it over extremely short distances, as it really drained my magic power.

"No." Freed said flatly. "That's against the orders I was given."

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised. Too surprised to say anything for a moment. Then I scowled. "Oh yeah? And what orders would those be?"

He looked at me evenly, if a bit testily. "Master's orders. He told me that we shouldn't allow ourselves to be separated on this job."

I could hardly believe it. Was Gramps trying to kill me?!

"Yeah, but we're not on the job yet. We're going to the job." I tried to reason, but my reasoning fell on deaf ears.

"I have my orders." He said stiffly.

I rolled my eyes. "So? No one has to know."

He glared at me then, even more irritatedly than he'd done outside the guild.

"We're taking the train." he said, and I didn't argue. I did wonder, however, what sort of magic he used: why his glare was so intimidating.

It might have had something to do with the fact that his right eye had gone from green and white to purple and black. At least, I think it had. I couldn't see it very well, as it was mostly hidden underneath his weirdly green bangs.

"Fine, Freak Justine." I muttered, actually quite pleased with coming up with such a clever insult.

I didn't think he heard me, but apparently, he did. Freed dropped his bag on the cobblestone road and stood completely still for a moment. Then, moving faster than even I could have thought, he whirled around and punched me in the stomach with more force than I would have thought possible from a small guy like him.

I doubled over, more surprised than hurt, really, and saw these weird purple letters hovering around him as he seemed to grow horns and fangs. I have to admit, he looked pretty badass right then: he must have been really pissed at me.

A moment later, he was turned away from me, muttering to himself and trying to force the horns back into his head with his new claws. "No. No. No. No. No." He mumbled through his fangs. "I promised Father. This isn't happening. This can't happen. No matter how much I hate this jerk-"

"Hey!" I protested loudly, though I knew it was true. I was a jerk.

He glared at me. "Shut up, unless you want to die." he told me, then went back to his mumbling. I didn't doubt that he was serious, but I was kind of pissed off at him for punching me.

So I punched him back.

In the stomach.

He coughed up blood.

His claw raked its way down the right side of my face in a jagged pattern, and blood poured from my face.

But he went back to normal: well, as normal as he could be, being him.

"What the hell was that for?!" He demanded, examining the blood now on his hands and staining his clothes.

"Just returning a favour." I said, smirking, even though I could have screamed from the pain of my new scar. "You sort of piss me off."

"You piss me off, too." He muttered, wiping some blood from his mouth, then, gathering as much dignity as he could, he picked up his bag, walking a bit bent over and holding his stomach uncomfortably.

I followed, knowing that I'd lost the argument about the train, but I'd at least won the fight. I always did, after all.

After a few steps, Freed paused and looked back at me, wincing at the sight of my face. "Sorry about your face." he said. I shrugged nonchalantly, even though it hurt like the dickens.

"I've had worse." I lied. "Sorry for calling you names."

A few days later, when we got back to the guild, my scar still hadn't quite stopped bleeding, but I'd been patched up pretty well by Freed and the lady who'd sent the request in the first place.

"Laxus, you're back. How was the-" Gramps started, but stopped short at the sight of me. "What the hell happened? I thought that was a simple monster repression job!"

Freed froze, looking guilty, but I only shrugged. "'S nothing, Gramps. I was a little careless, that's all."

"Should I get Porlyusica? Is your eye all right?"

I shrugged apathetically. "Eye's fine." I grunted, a bit embarrassed at the amount of attention Gramps was paying to me for once. It was weird: it made me feel like I was a kid again.

I left him at the bar, worrying about me, and made a beeline for the pillar I usually leaned against, before changing my mind and sitting next to Freed instead.

Evidently, my behaviour had shocked him into not reading his book, a first for him.

"Why'd you lie?" he asked me in a low voice. I smirked.

"What can I say? I didn't want to lose face. No pun intended." I grinned.

"Yes, but..." He frowned. "The fact that I was the one who gave you that scar is surely information enough to warrant my expulsion from the guild."

I laughed, something I guess I hadn't done for way too long, because everyone suddenly stopped whatever they were doing (for most of the younger kids, that "whatever" was fighting with each other,) and stared at me. I shut up immediately and glared at them until they went back to what they'd been doing, if a little halfheartedly.

"Quit talkin' like that, Freed. You're the only decent person in this guild that's around my age. Who else am I gonna hang out with?" I patted him on the back, nearly knocking him off of the bench. Geez was this kid delicate. It was hard to think that he could turn into a monster that might even be able to give me a run for my money.

That was as close as I'd ever come to announcing that I wanted to be friends with someone, but I kind of ruined it by adding "And anyway, you owe me big, don't you? First I save your sorry life on the job, then I leave out the convenient detail that it's your fault that I'm going to have a scar across my face for the rest of my life when I'm talkin' to Gramps. I'd like to hear how you're gonna repay me for that."

I watched him sputter for awhile, then I laughed again, though more quietly this time, so that the entire guild wouldn't be staring at me. "Tell ya what, kid, why don't you help me on jobs for awhile?"

"I do actually need money of my own." he pointed out preemptively. I waved that away.

"Fine then. Why don't you be my bodyguard? I can't fight every moron who tries-" my point was doubly proven by Natsu, who interrupted me by shouting his usual

"FIGHT ME, LAXUS!" To which I rolled my eyes. My right eye really hurt.

Freed laughed weakly, but nodded. "Fine. I could see why you might need a bodyguard."

"Great. You can start right now." I jabbed a thumb in Natsu's direction. "Get rid of that pest for awhile, will ya?"

And then there was Bickslow. Man, he's even stranger than Freed ever was. Just like with Freed, I still can picture Bickslow the way I first saw him almost perfectly: balanced precariously on a lamppost, his grubby sneakers and ragged pants marking him as a teenager down on his luck and most likely on his own for whatever reason, but his brand-new blue t-shirt seemed to contradict that image. His hair was sloppy and uneven: it looked like he'd cut it himself, though it had been dyed a dark blue. Or most of it anyway. He was also flanked by these creepy little floating dolls, whose names I still can't ever remember. I've tried. I just can't seem to remember them all: I always get at least one name wrong.

Oh, and don't get me started on his bizarre face tattoo. Geez is that thing creepy.

Anyway, it was a few months after I'd met Freed, and after becoming my bodyguard, the kid had attached himself to me as though he were a limpet. I would have been annoyed with him if he wasn't quieter than the rest of our guildmates ever were. And, I gotta admit, I liked the attention.

But there Freed and I were, walking down the street. I think I was complaining loudly about something (probably Natsu) when this kid crowed something (very loudly) and leaped onto a lamppost.

That, suffice it to say, was Bickslow.

"Yo!" he shouted at us. "You're Laxus, right?!" he pointed at me.

Freed and I stared up at him for a moment, completely speechless. Then Freed, conscious of his role as my 'bodyguard,' stepped in.

"And who are you?" he asked suspiciously.

The teenager (Bickslow,) leaped down from the top of the lamppost, seeming oddly weightless as he landed neatly on his toes.

"Name's Bickslow." Bickslow grinned, holding out his hand to Freed, who shook it apprehensively.

"I'm Freed Justine. What do you want with Laxus?"

"Oh, so that is Laxus Dreyar, then. Yo!" Pushing past Freed, Bickslow shook my hand exuberantly.

"Yo! Yo!" his creepy little wooden dolls echoed.

"Uh, yeah. So what is it?" I asked. I didn't know quite what to make of this weird teenager who seemed to hero-worship me almost to the extent that Freed did. And I didn't even know him.

"Aw, not much. Just introducing myself to my new guild's Number-One S-class mage." he grinned.

"Number one!" the dolls echoed excitedly.

"You're in Fairy Tail, then? You're new, I guess." I eyed the floating dolls apprehensively as I tugged my hand away from Bickslow's death-grip of a handshake.

"Where's your guild mark?" Freed asked, still sounding suspicious.

"And do we even want to know?" I muttered to myself.

Bickslow grinned even wider before he stuck his tongue out.

At first, I didn't process what was happening, thinking that he was just being amazingly immature and rude, even for a teenage boy who was about a year younger than me.

Then I saw his guild mark.

"Oh." Freed was the first to speak.

"Took the words right out of my mouth." I agreed.

"That's a very... unorthodox... place to put your guild mark, Bickslow." Freed told him.

"I would have said 'weird.'" I confessed. Bickslow grinned even more widely.

"I prefer the term 'unusual.' But you're both right." He said.

"So what is it?" I asked, changing the topic quickly. Bickslow shrugged.

"Eh. Mind if I hang out with you guys for awhile? It's kind of really noisy in the guild. Why are there so many kids there? And why are they all fighting each other?"

"Heh. Good question. Who knows." I said, my approval of this new mage immediately rising with his words. "I was actually just saying to Freed..."

And yeah, that's how I met Bickslow. He didn't even have to permanently scar me in order to be friends. But I have never, not once, tried to reason out his weirdness. I think it's better just to accept him the way he is: really kind of twisted.

As for Ever, she was the last of the Raijinnshuu to join Fairy Tail, and, well, I'm pretty sure she only joined because of the name. She sort of has this thing for fairies.

It was a couple years after Freed and I had become friends with Bickslow, and just after Bickslow bought that damn mask of his. Freed always said it made him look even more creepy than he already did, and, privately, I agreed.

It was the annual Hanami festival, and I was in a murderous sort of mood, seeing as how not too long ago, my dad had been expelled from the guild by Gramps. Despite my foul mood, however, Bickslow and Freed had somehow managed to convince me to attend the bingo tournament, and I'm glad they did: because otherwise I'd never have met Ever, I think.

Bickslow was the first to notice her.

"Hey, have either of you noticed that chick over there? I think she's checking you out, Laxus." he said, jerking his head vaguely in the direction of a cherry tree.

"You'll have to be more specific than a head jerk, Bickslow." I said, concentrating on my bingo card.

"Right behind that tree right there. She's got brown hair and glasses."

"Doesn't sound like my type." I said vaguely, feeling quietly furious at Gramps as I missed yet another number.

"She's also got these really huge boobs." Bickslow added smugly.

Suddenly I was paying much more attention to him than the bingo game. "Which tree did you say, again?" Bickslow smirked, and Freed rolled his one visible eye, apparently fed up with our immaturity.

"B-6!" Gramps called, and Freed jumped up excitedly.

"Bingo!" he called loudly, waving his card like a trophy above his head.

I looked at the cherry tree that Bickslow had pointed out, and saw that he was right: the girl hiding behind the tree, who had to be about Freed's age, had light brown hair, glasses, and a pair of very nice breasts.

The bingo tournament was nearly over by the time the mysterious girl approached us. Bickslow, who nudged me in warning: he hadn't taken his eyes off of the girl since he'd noticed her. "Hey, she's headed this way. Her soul's not bad-lookin' either. You play your cards right and..." he trailed off, but only because the girl had come within earshot and he knew that I knew what he was talking about.

"Um..." she began nervously, a faint blush colouring her cheeks. I found myself realizing that it wasn't just her chest that I found attractive as she fiddled nervously with her fingernails. Finally, she stuck a hand out to me awkwardly. "I'm Evergreen... I'm... I'm a mage, like you guys." I looked at her blankly for a moment before it dawned on me that I should introduce myself.

"I'm Laxus." I said, smiling politely. Quickly, and I hope unobtrusively, I looked her up and down, and saw no guild mark. Also, her breasts looked even nicer up close. "You want to join Fairy Tail?"

She went even redder then, and nodded, seeming unable to speak. I had to grin. "These are my friends, Freed and Bickslow." I said, nodding to each of them in turn, and waited patiently as she shook hands with each of them. "Let's go talk to the old man, then. I'm sure he'll let you in. You seem nice."

Not sure why I said that, but as I made my way over to find Gramps, (my anger becoming momentarily forgotten,) I had to admit to myself that it wasn't a lie. Evergreen really did seem nice, and not in a bad way, either.

Geez. What's wrong with me? I wonder as I turn onto my back and look up at the stars above me, ignoring the dark scudding clouds at the edge of my vision.

I can't go back to Fairy Tail now. No matter how much I miss those three, I can't. Putting the whole 'I tried to forcibly take the guild over' thing, I'm being eaten alive by guilt. I mean, I did use them. Freed, Bickslow, and Ever may have been willing, but that doesn't change the fact that I used them.

Friends aren't meant to be used like that, and I have to admit that I was a monster. Especially to Freed: he tried to help me out of at least some of the trouble I was putting myself in, but I ignored him.

I don't think I can face them until I face myself for awhile.

I'm sorry guys. I didn't mean it.

I'm a real bastard, ain't I?

Author's Note: Oh Laxus, do you ever shut up? Just kidding, I still adore you. Anyway, yeah, this is the Laxus chapter: he's really down on himself, ain't he? Anyway, I wasn't even sure if this was going to happen, so sorry it took so long, but it was sort of a necessity, wasn't it? Anyway, I know it's long, but Laxus has a lot to think about, so bear with it. And yeah, this will be the last one for this story, I promise. Also, I'm not sure why, but the first copy I put up of this chapter had it going over twice. Weird, huh? Ah, well, it's fixed now.

Rock on,

~Lucy