Sorry that this chapter has taken longer than I originally anticipated to get out. It is more filler than what I wanted to but it will be setting up the next few chapters up nicely. Thank you so much for your nice reviews! I really appreciate them and you for sticking with me! I promise the next chapter will not take as long for me to post up! Enjoy!
While the Fairy Tail mages were running around their guild's front yard doing damage control, the two remaining men from Twilight Ogre where waiting not so patiently for their partner to come back. They were close, but not too close, to the guildhall, sitting in the bushes that came right before the trees that lined the clearing where the old windmill sat.
"Where is he," the fat leader grumbled, watching the path that lead from the back of the guild like a hawk for any sign of the short man's return. The tall man was standing beside him, twitching with nervousness at the thought of being caught.
"Maybe they saw him… What are we going to do? I don't know if blowing up a tree was the best idea to distract them, they looked seriously pissed off," the tall man cringed at the memory of watching the outraged mages finding the wreckage from the explosion. They hadn't anticipated more than the handful of members in the guild hall at the time to show up so soon. Just their luck that not one, but two teams had already been on their way back and close when they heard the bang. Mayhem had followed; some of them started attacking each other in the confusion, others ran around trying to find something other than their comrades to attack and a few even attacked some of the larger pieces of tree like they were going to transform into enemies at any moment. The only sane one had been the pretty blonde girl in a short skirt holding what looked like a tiny shaking snowman. After dodging a couple of random attacks from her fellow guild member's bad aim, she ripped off the whip attached to her belt and cracked it into the air with a loud snap.
"Listen, all you idiots!" She had yelled. "We need to start putting out these fires before they spread down into the town! Innocent people will get hurt!" That had seemed to wake everyone up and they started scrambling around putting out fires (or eating the fire like one pink haired guy) and more Fairy Tail mages had eventually started trickling in from the town to help with clean up. Seeing that their plan of getting everyone out of the guild had worked (well except for the drunk girl), the two men moved closer to the building and started waiting. Now they were sure almost every Fairy Tail member was back at their headquarters, their time to get the kid without anyone seeing was running out.
"If that idiot got caught, he better hope they kill him because if they don't I will," the leader growled to the tall man.
"Maybe we should get closer and see what is going on?" The tall man suggested nervously. He waited for the fat man to yell at him again, but before he could, they heard somebody coming. Instead of their missing partner, two men broke through the bush and started walking towards their hiding spot.
"I don't think the debris from the explosion reached this far," a green haired man was telling his companion, who was big and blonde. "But it's that we do not know who or what caused the explosion to begin with that worries me. Do you think this could be an attack on Fairy Tail like the battle with Phantom Lord?"
The big man crossed his arms as he shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he answered in a deep voice. "I do know that trees do not blow up by themselves, but if it was an attack on the guild, then why didn't they attack?"
"That is the question," the other man agreed. "It also happened while the Master was away; maybe they thought we would be more vulnerable to attack and our sudden arrival was unexpected. Mirajane did say that only she, Erza and Cana were in the guild hall at the time. Some unsuspecting person could have believed it was defenseless." At that the blonde man laughed, "Between Mira and Erza they could have handled anything short of an army. Any decent rival guild would have known that, this had to be something other than an attack." They stopped walking just in front of the bushed where the Twilight Ogre men were hiding. The tall man tried not to breathe too loud, but his unease was rising by the second. There was more to this guild than they thought, not only are their members strong but these ones are smart too. They needed to get out of here and find out what happened to the short man before they really did figure out what was going on.
"Well," the big man said after a few minutes of looking around for anything suspicious. "I guess you can go help Evergreen make sure there aren't any big pieces of wood stuck in the trees, the last thing we need is for one of the knuckle heads to get clobbered by a falling log. I will go see if Bixlow found Lisanna to calm down Mirajane," the man grimaced like it was really the last thing he wanted to do. "That woman can be a real demon when she gets upset."
"As you wish," the other man responded quietly. "We will find out who threatened Fairy Tail and then we will make them regret they had." Something in his voice made the tall man shiver and wish he could melt into the ground. The blonde man just grunted and rolled his eyes.
"Whatever, as long as they didn't attack and no one got hurt, maybe it was just a prank gone wrong. All I promised the old man when he left is that the guild would be standing when they got back, that's it. Let the knuckle heads deal with it the way they want to, I don't really care." The green haired man nodded and they turned around to go back to where they came from. Just then there was a loud crack and the tall man whipped his head over to see the fat man frozen in place beside him.
"What was that!" The smaller man had pulled the sword out of his belt and was pointing it right at their bush. The tall man swallowed his heart rate rising again, just waiting for him to come storming at them. The big blonde man just rolled his eyes again and turned back to the trees and started walking.
"Come on Freed, it was probably just a squirrel, or a deer. There is nothing here, let's go back."
"As you wish," the green haired mage replied again. He scanned the bushes one more time before following his partner.
The two men hiding in the bushes said nothing for a long minute and then suddenly the fat man whacked the tall man across the back of the head.
"What do you think you're doing making noise with them right here?" he whispered angrily in case the two mages were still close by.
"ME?" The tall man replied, trying to whisper as well but it came out being more like a high pitched squeal. "I didn't move a muscle, I swear!" The fat man grunted and turned back to where they had disappeared in the trees.
"Do you know who that was?" The fat man whispered again fiercely. "That was Laxus Dreyar, Guildmaster Makarov's grandson. He is one of the most powerful mages in Fairy Tail now, and that man with him is a part of the Raijinshuu, his personal guard, Freed Justine. If either one of them catches us, we're toast, both of them together and would never find anything to bury." The tall man tried swallowing the hard lump that had formed in his throat, this was way more dangerous then they had planned it to be. Just then the fat man stood up and started climbing out of the bush.
"What are you doing?" The tall man asked in shock, he tried standing as well but ended up getting caught in the branches.
"Moving closer, we have to find out what happened and it is too late to turn back now, if the boss knows we got this far and didn't get the girl he will punish us for sure." As the tall man continued to try and untangle himself from the bush the fat man started following the two mages. Although it was the last thing he wanted to do, the tall man knew he would have to go too, he only hoped it wouldn't actually be the last thing he would ever do.
By that time most of Fairy Tail had found their way to the garden beside the guildhall. Mirajane was still mourning the loss of her beloved pumpkin, but Lisanna was comforting her along with her brother Elfman who had finally gotten back from his job. By then most of the flaming logs had been put out and they were trying to figure out what to do next. Fairy Tail was used to cleaning up after wild barfights and rebuilding things inside the guild, but what to do about a mysterious exploding tree had them stumped.
"I supposed we should pull all of the bigger pieces around back and chop them up for firewood," said Erza to the group of mages standing in the garden.
"That means we will have to probably go and convince Gajeel to come and chop them up since he is only one who could cut through pieces of log that thick. Laki can probably give him a hand too, where is she?" Bixlow added while leaning on one of the storage sheds.
"She and Kinana went to find Evergreen and see how she is doing looking up in the trees for pieces of wood stuck up there," Jet answered him. Droy, who was standing beside him, was trying to shove a whole apple pie in his mouth and was being quite successful.
"Ok, well somebody should probably go out to find her and tell her we need her back here right now and someone else do the same for Gajeel," Erza studied the group as if trying to bully them into volunteering.
"Um, we will go find Laki," Jet replied quickly and pulled Droy away from his pie. "Common." The fat man grumbled but followed his partner off to the trees.
"So who wants to go find Gajeel? Levy, why don't you-"
"NO!" The small blue haired girl's voice ripped though the air. Erza wiped a trickle of blood from her busted ear drum and looked around again. "Anyone else?"
"I will go!" Wendy put up her hand; she had just finished healing Juvia's leg and knew that she wouldn't be too helpful doing anything else.
"Alright then, you and Carle will go find him and tell him to come here right away. The rest of you have jobs, now get to it!" The red head's voice rang out and everyone scrambled to be where they should. Lucy looked around at everyone leaving, unsure of what she was supposed to do. When Juvia had come back carrying Asuka, Lucy had volunteered to watch the little girl while she got her leg healed. Asuka was now playing in the flower garden, quite oblivious to what the people around her were doing.
"Um," Lucy started looking around for someone to ask and spotted Erza. "What am I supposed to do with her?" She asked her cautiously. The tall girl thought for a second before answering.
"Well, things are going to get very busy around here and it might be dangerous for a child. Mira is supposed to be in charge of her, but we might need her here. Why don't you take Asuka to the park where she can play and be safe while we clean up this mess? Take Natsu with you, right now he isn't a big help to us either." She looked over under one of the trees nearby where the pink haired dragon slayer was groaning and holding his swollen belly. "Too… much… food…" he whimpered quietly.
"He won't be much good to me either…" the blonde girl whispered under her breath, "but I will take him along!" She added louder before Erza could give her the look of death. Lucy picked up Asuka from the flower garden and walked over to the tree.
"Common Natsu," she kicked the dragon slayer's foot lightly. "You've been ordered to come to the park with Asuka and me."
"Luuuucyy," Natsu groaned as he tried to move. "I think I'm going to be sick."
"JUST GET UP AND GET A MOVE ON ALREADY! I TOLD YOU NOT TO EAT ALL THAT FIRE SO FAST…!"as she continued to yell at the boy, she swung her leg back to kick him again. Natsu was quicker than she though and managed to roll out of her foot's way, popping up off the ground in the process.
"Ok then! The park? Let's go!" He took off towards the town, leaving Lucy to shriek in surprise before rushing after him. Asuka was being shaken around as Lucy had to run to catch up with her team mate, but she didn't care. Lucy understood the importance of a well placed kick, and Asuka liked that about her, and the fact that when she yelled, people did what she told them. She was excited when she heard they where going to the park, it was her second most favorite place to visit besides the guild. Asuka smiled as Lucy continued to run down the hill, this was going to be fun!
The two men from Twilight Ogre where still following Laxus and Freed when something else caught their eye unexpectedly, it was the blonde girl from before carrying the kid they were supposed to be kidnapping! The fat man stopped in surprise and the tall man nearly bumped into him.
"There she is!" he whispered furiously. "That fool failed! Then where is he? No matter, we will follow them and find a way to take her from those people," the fat man asked quickly and didn't give the tall man a chance to reply. He didn't know if it was a good idea going after the blonde girl, from what he saw she was a force to be reckoned with when she was mad, but the fat man had already changed directions to follow her and the kid. The tall man still had a bad feeling about this, but once again, there was nothing he could do but follow blindly after the little girl and her babysitters.
Sorry if there are any mistakes I didn't catch! I wanted to get this out quickly. I hope it was worth the wait!