Chapter 3- First Mission as Fairy Tail Mages.
Ana woke up and stretched from the nice sleep she had last night. She and Benno had gone to the store last night after dinner to pick up some essential food items. When they came home and put the food away, Benno had started kissing her neck and whispering dirty things in her ear which turned her on enormously and had ended in them having sex in the kitchen, the shower, and the bedroom. Ana gets up and walks to the bathroom wearing only her jewelry and she looks in the mirror to see love bites across her chest and neck. After washing her face she goes back into the bedroom and jumps on top of Benno.
"Good morning my lovely husband." She nuzzles his neck and plays with his hair.
"Are you sure you're my wife? You are never like this in the morning." He smiles up at her and pinches her cheeks. "I have to make sure your face isn't a mask." She slaps his hands away and crosses her arms over her chest.
"I'm not happy with you Bennie." She pouts and looks away from him.
"What is it darling?" He sees the marks on her neck and laughs lightheartedly. "I'm sorry Ana you know I go a little overboard sometimes." He wraps his arms around her and lets his hands rest on her ass. "Plus you did some damage on me too." He points to the bite marks on his shoulders. "And my back is probably tore up as well."
Ana looks quite amused. "Okay, you're forgiven." She kisses him and climbs off. "Get up so I can clean up your back." He grunts and winces as he sits up.
His back was covered in scratches but only a few broke the skin. "This isn't bad at all, only a few bled this time."
"I wish I knew I was going to marry wolverine." He chuckles. "But I am not complaining one bit." He winces as she washes the scratches and bandages them.
They put on their clothes and go to the kitchen and make sausage and pancakes. "So you want to see if there is a good S-class job today?" Benno asks and takes a sip of orange juice.
"Are you that excited to knock me up?" Ana asks sarcastically.
"Well after last night who knows?" He says raising an eyebrow at her.
"Fair point, sooner the better just in case."
They finish their breakfast and begin walking to the guild, Ana made sure to wear a T-shirt that came farther up on her neck to cover the marks but one was still visible even with her hair down. When they get to the guild they say hello to everyone and make their way up the stairs to the S-Class missions.
"Look for a short amount of time and a high pay out." Benno says and she nods looking over the flyers.
"What about this one?" It was toward the bottom of the board and it was $20,000,000. "Search and rescue for the safe return of the heir to Excelpro company from a dark guild. An extra $10,000,000 will be rewarded if the dark guild is destroyed. Sounds pretty basic." Ana shrugs.
"Yeah, shouldn't take us more than a week. Which dark guild is it?" Benno asks looking over her shoulder.
"I've never heard of it before. Carpe Veritatem? Isn't that Latin?" She asks and starts thinking really hard.
"Levy is right down stairs, let's ask her."
"Sounds good."
They go downstairs and sees the little blue headed girl chatting with Lucy at a table next to the bar. "Sorry to interrupt but can I ask a favor Levy?" Ana asks looking desperate.
"Sure, what's up?"
"What does Carpe Veritatem mean? I know carpe means seize but I can't figure out the second word."
"Oh, that one is easy, it means seize the truth in Latin. Is it for a mission?" She smiles and points at the paper.
"Uh yeah, we are going to go on this mission and then take it easy for a while and settle into everyday life here." Ana smiles awkwardly. "I just take this over to Mira to get it approved right?" she asks.
"Yeah, hope you guys have fun." She smiles brightly and points over to Mira.
"Thanks Levy we owe you one." Benno says and then they walk over Mira and get the mission approved.
They start walking out the door when they heard a loud yell from the back of the guild. "I want to fight the Shadow Goddess!" Both Benno and Ana turn around looking confused.
"Natsu, why do you want to fight me?" Ana asks.
"Because there is no way you are as powerful as Benno says you are!" Natsu puffs out his chest as Ana sighs.
"Alright, this will be a good warm up for the mission. Someone find Wendy, Natsu will need her after I kick the shit out of him." She cracks her knuckles and neck.
"Well come on pinky." She gives him a cocky smile and gets into a boxer stance.
He screams and practically flies after her. He sends a strong punch her way which she just deflects and kicks his ribs. And she just backs up as he gets up and starts flaming. He goes after her again and she put up her hand and catches his flaming fist. Her magic wraps around his and it moves up his arm and to his head, covering his eyes and disorientating him.
"Done yet Natsu?" She asks but he doesn't respond as he tries to remove the magic from his face. She sighs and removes her magic from him and then punches him in the head sufficiently knocking him out.
"He will come to in a few hours, when he wakes up he will be confused and dizzy. See you guys in a week." She smiles sweetly at her guild and walks out the door with Benno.
"That is one scary woman." Gray says and goes to help pick up Natsu.
Benno and Ana buy their train tickets and get on the train with a few minutes to spare.
"You were a little rough with Natsu, I know he tends to be annoying but he is just feeling us out so to speak." Benno says gently, careful not to upset his wife.
"I know and I know I was being a bit of an asshole taunting him like that but he is so reckless and he needs to see he can't win every fight and he needs to learn when to back down." She sighs. "I'm already acting like a mother and I'm not even one yet."
Benno laughs lightly. "I was talking with Laxus and apparently Natsu does that to everyone who is more powerful than him. He likes to challenge himself but your right, he could really get hurt some day."
Ana takes a book from her bag and open the cover to reveal the mission sheet. "We only have to take the train to the second stop so it should be like three or four hours at most." Benno nods and lays down in the seat to take a nap.
"Wake me up when we get there, I know you will probably read the whole time." She glances up from her book and nods.
Three Hours Later
"Babe wake up…come on we have to go…God dammit Benno wake the fuck up." Ana kicks the seat he is on and he shoots straight up nearly hitting Ana in the face with his head.
She throws his bag at him and he catches it and she grabs hers and they walk off the train.
They walk out of the train station and look around. "Something doesn't look or feel right about this place." Benno says while trying to get a read on people. "Almost everyone has nothing going on in their head, like they are on autopilot."
"Well let's check into our hotel and then go out and see if we can find someone who isn't foggy." Ana says and shifts her bag to her other shoulder.
They check into their hotel and rummage through their room, making sure everything was okay. "So what are you feeling about this place, I know you have a better read than I do." Ana says while sitting on the bed.
"It kind of feels like mind control with a little bit of memory distortion. It's actually somewhat complex. Other than that, nothing is the same between anyone." He bites his finger in thought.
"What do you mean nothing is the same?" Ana asks.
"Like their objective that they have programmed in them. It's hard to explain but they each have an objection to complete every day but there was only one person who had three objectives."
"And?"
"And the first one was to complete their daily routine, second was to go home and third was to go to base. Which I'm guessing is the dark guild. It seems like some people are being forced into the dark guild." He scratches the side of his face.
"So we just follow that person to the dark guild, beat them up and then take the heir and destroy the guild."
"Sounds like a plan, but I don't think it's a guild, I think it might be a cult kinda thing." Benno looks at the floor and then a memory hits him like a ton of bricks.
"Oh fuck I know who is doing this, no wonder the name of the guild sounded so familiar to us!" He walks quickly to Ana's bag and pulls out the request from her book. "The name seize the truth." Remember that guy who managed to brain wash a few people speaking of 'the truth of his lord'?"
"Uh yeah, how could I forget? Total nutcase in every way. Oh fuck is it really him?"
"I think it is unfortunately him. And this time I think we might have to actually get rid of him to break the magic that is controlling these people." Benno shakes his head.
"Well let's just wait around until that guy leaves and leads us to the cult of weirdos." She sighs and lays back on the bed.
It was around eight when Benno said that the man with the objectives was on the move. They followed his trace and eventually came upon an old log inn.
"Is this really it?" Ana asks. "It just looks like a nice little inn."
"Yeah, this is it, I can feel him inside." The sun starts to go down as they move over to a window to the side and look in.
"Well it's not that many people. I see king crazy and five others." Ana says quietly.
"Okay, let's split up keep your mind open so we can communicate." Benno says and quietly sprints to the other side of the inn.
Ana climbs up the side of the inn and looks through an upstairs window. She sees an empty room with someone slumped over and tied to a chair. "Benno I found our objective." She thinks and she gently slides open the window, careful not to make a sound. "I'm going in the west side upstairs window."
She goes through the window and starts walking into the room. She hears people talking from downstairs and someone walking toward the room. "Fuck" She whispers to herself and bends the light around her to make herself camouflaged. "Do not come and find me yet, someone is coming into the room." She thinks urgently at Benno.
A man walks through the door and toward the heir. "You are going to be a nice little sacrifice for our lord." He chuckles. "This sacrifice will show our power to everyone." Ana almost starts laughing at how stereotypically crazy this guy is being, after doing missions for so long she has started to see the humor in it.
The heir mumbles something that Ana couldn't hear and the man walks up and slaps him hard. "You should be honored to be our sacrifice." With that the man walks out and locks the door behind him.
Ana lets out a breath she had been keeping in. And goes over to the young heir. "Hey are you alright?" She whispers to him.
"Are you here to help me?" He asks quietly.
"Yes, we are from Fairy Tail and we are here to save you." She pulls up her sleeve to reveal the guild mark.
"Thank you." He is almost in tears as she unties him swiftly.
"How old are you kid?" She asks looking concerned.
"I just turned 13 a few weeks ago." He sniffles and hugs her.
"Okay kid, don't thank me yet, we still have to get you out of here and destroy this place." She smiles.
He nods and she walks over to the window and motions for him to come over. She looks out to see Benno below waiting. She quietly opens the window and whispers down to Benno, "You need to catch the objective, I don't think he can climb down in his condition." She looks over to see he is cradling his arm.
"Okay, have him jump down." Benno says.
Ana eventually persuades him to jump down and she is about to crawl out the window when she is jerked away and feels a searing pain in her thigh. She looks back to see a ghastly looking man and a knife in the back of her thigh. "Benno, get the kid to safety I have some loose ends to tie up out here." She says through gritted teeth. She rips the knife out of her thigh and kicks the man away with her other leg. Her blood drips to the floor and her red eyes get a murderous glint.
"You wanna play mother fucker? I will give you something to play with." She throws the knife that was embedded in her leg and it gets lodged into his shoulder.
"Nightmare." She says and her spell is activated. Darkness starts seeping out of her, onto the floor and moving toward him like water. He starts moving toward her but he steps into the darkness and it starts moving up him quickly. It reaches his head and he starts screaming. Ana looks down at her wound to see the bleeding has already stopped and it was beginning to close.
She jumps out the window and starts gaining energy from the night. The shadow part of her power was always more powerful at night while the light was more powerful during the day.
She says a series of words in an unknown language and gathers enough energy to destroy the inn. She releases her magic and the inn concaves and turns to ash. Suddenly she feels very weak and she lets out one last signal to Benno before passing out. "Help"
After getting the boy to the hotel room he hears in the back of his head, "Help." And he tells the boy to stay there as he runs out of the hotel as fast as he can to get to his wife.
After ten minutes of running at top speed he finds nothing but black ash and his wife passed out on the ground. He searches for any wounds and finds a stab mark on the back of her thigh with black surrounding the wound. He starts internally panicking and runs back to the town to find a clinic.
He burst through the door and immediately starts yelling for help, since the magic was broken by Ana everyone was out of their stupor and reacted quickly. Benno set Ana on a medical bed and the nurses swiftly took her away and one stayed behind to gather information from him. He starts explaining quickly, trying to be as calm as possible and the nurse looks horrified to hear what has happened but once she has all the information, she runs to the back to tell the others and to start the correct treatments for Ana.
Benno paces impatiently in the front. He never had to do this before. Ana had to do it plenty of times for him, but he never had to worry about her health till now and it was killing him. He sat in a chair and put his head into his hands. After the longest 20 minutes of his life a nurse came out and said he could go in to see her. He bolted down the hallway to her room and he saw her ripping out her IV much to the doctor's dismay.
"Oh Ana thank God you're okay." Benno hugs her tight and kisses her.
She laughs lightly and hugs him back. "They are going to have to try a lot harder than that to kill me." She glares at the doctor. "I've been trying to tell Dr. Kneel that I'm fine but he insists I need to stay under supervision for at least an hour."
"Let the man do his job Ana." Benno smiles at the doctor. "Thanks for helping her."
"It's part of the job, and its good you got her here while you did. Her leg was trying to heal around a broken piece of a poisoned dagger." Benno sighs.
"You could have told me you got stabbed before I left to take the kid to the hotel." Benno says annoyed.
"I didn't want to worry you and his safety is what matters here." She shrugs.
"We agreed safety before mission a long time ago Ana!" He starts raising her voice, which is something he never does unless he is very upset.
"Yes, I know but it was for his safety!" Ana yells back. The doctor steps out of the room and closes the door.
"He doesn't mean as much as you do! You are my everything Ana! Sitting out there not doing anything and worrying about you was probably the hardest thing I have ever done!" He yells back and she just looks at him.
"Now you know how I feel whenever you get hurt." She says and looks down at her bandaged thigh. "I don't like the fact I regenerate, I don't like the fact that I will probably never die." She starts tearing up. "Seeing you hurt while I'm fine is awful, that's why I'm so protective over you Benno. You know this. I want to spend as much time with you as possible because I know for a fact that I will outlive you." She starts openly crying and he holds her close.
"I know Ana. I know." He holds her until she finishes crying. "Better?"
"Yeah. Let's get out of here." She has Benno help her up since her leg has dramatically decreased speed in healing itself from the poison. She grabs her crutch and hobbles out of the room.
They pay for the medical treatments and they walk back to the hotel. They open their door to see the heir reading her book. He looks up to see Ana limp in and Benno helping her.
"Are you alright?" He asks shyly.
"Yeah I will be fine. Don't worry about it." She smiles and he smiles back.
"Thanks for saving me." He hugs her waist and then hugs Benno as well.
"I already told you it's no problem kiddo." She smiles. "It's just a part of the job."
He cradles his arm again and Benno looks him over. "Is it your arm or shoulder?" Benno asks.
"Shoulder, when they captured me someone pulled really hard on my shoulder and there was a pop noise."
Benno frowns. "It's probably dislocated, I can set it back but it isn't going to feel great when I do it." The heir looked nervous.
"Don't worry, Benno is a pro at this. I get my shoulders dislocated time to time and he just pops it back in. It hurts pretty badly when he does it but after you will feel a lot better, I promise." She smiles and grabs a washcloth from the bathroom. "Bite on this." He takes the washcloth gingerly and bites down on it.
"Are you ready?" Benno asks and the boy nods and looks away. There is an audible pop as the shoulder is put back into place and the boy makes a whimpering noise.
Ana makes a sling for him and pulls it over his head and place his arm inside. "Better?" She asks.
"Yeah, you were right about it feeling a lot better afterward." He smiles.
"Told you." She looks at the clock to see it's almost 12. "Get some sleep. Benno and I will take turns standing guard."
The boy doesn't complain and climbs under the sheets and is out like a light.
"You can sleep first, your body probably needs it." Benno tells Ana and she doesn't argue and lays back in a lounge chair and puts her feet up on a foot stool.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight."