It was a cloudy day in dawn city, a chilly wind blew past the tall, ancient buildings.
Freed, Bickslow and Evergreen were still in hospital recovering, Laxus stood by the window of their hospital room, looking out at the abandoned streets.
Whilst it may have seemed as though the monsters had been defeated; it was unfortunately not the case. Laxus looked back at his injured teammates and creased his eyebrows. Things had certainly taken a turn for the worst.
He walked into an empty hospital room, with its crisp white sheets and pale-yellow walls. The air smelt sterile with a faint smell of disinfectant still in the air. The only colour in the room came from the small balcony outside the room which had flowers bordering the perimeter.
Ruby was standing on the edge of the balcony with her feet dangling over the edge, she turned around as Laxus walked in and gave him a pressed smile.
"Did you find anything?" Laxus asked as he walked up to her.
"Yeah, it turns out there's a deeper mystery coming into play here." Ruby looked concerned as the wrung her hands together.
"They are called Obscurums. They originate from an incantation spell and unless we destroy the source, they wont stop coming." Ruby continued.
Laxus was quite perplexed from what Ruby had found. Incantation spells are a form of dark magic that's typically used to summon demons and monster. For this particular spell, not only would the source have to be somewhere near the city, but the Obscurums must have also been awakened by a mage.
A mage powerful enough to cast a spell like this… It must have been someone who knows how to use dark magic well. But why would someone want to attack Dawn city of all places?
"We need to do something fast." Laxus whispered under his breath.
"I think we should track down an Obscurum and follow it back to where it came from." Ruby looked back at the city streets with a forlorn expression.
The market stalls had all been abandoned, the people who lived here were too afraid to come out of their own homes. She remembered just a few weeks ago how people would flood the streets as they bartered various items from the stalls. The road looked like an explosion of colour from the exotic fruit to the regal clothes that were displayed for everyone to admire.
"How about the two of us go back to that field where we last saw them?" Laxus asked with an easy-going smile, hoping to get a lead.
"Sounds like a plan." Ruby still looked upset, but the sooner they could find an Obscurum, the sooner everything could return to normal.
Sure enough, when the pair went back to the field where the last battle had taken place, they found three Obscurums near the dirt road nearby. The two of them were new crouched behind a thick bush which hid them as they observed the Obscurums.
"Seems like they've gotten larger after last time." Laxus whispered.
"They must grow when they absorb magic energy." Ruby replied.
Ruby turned to look at him and realised Laxus was mere inched away from her face. He looked straight at her and for some reason Ruby felt her face begin to redden.
That's way too close!
She half jumped backwards but ended up landing on a bunch of dry branches. She could see Laxus' smirk as he tried to stifle his laughter. As she rolled her eyes, she noticed one of the Obscurum had stopped moving and seemed to be looking straight at her. She froze in place, praying that they would go unnoticed but the monster slowly began to move towards them.
Laxus grabbed her arm and yanked her towards a large tree nearby. The Obscurum's movement seemed slower than before, with its feet hitting the ground with a loud thud every time.
Ruby could hear the Obscurum's ragged breathing as it stood where she and Laxus were once crouched. She held her breath, not daring to see how close they were to the monster.
After a few moments passed, they heard the Obscurum start to move again but didn't move until they couldn't hear it anymore.
"Thank goodness." Ruby let out a sigh and looked visible relieved.
"You should be more careful you know." Laxus murmured as he grinned at Ruby.
Ruby just noticed that he had pinned her against the tree and despite herself, she found herself grinning back at him.
"And who's fault is that again? I seem to remember a certain someone finding this mission as an opportunity to try and flirt with me." Ruby said coolly.
"I'm not so sure, I'd say it's working pretty well." Laxus had a mischievous glint in his eye as he looked at Ruby.
A loud screech came from nearby interrupted the moment. It seemed like the Obscurums were on the move.
"Let's follow them." Ruby's eyes were trained on the monsters once again.
They had kept to the foliage as much as possible as they followed the Obscurums. After a few minutes they had made it to the beaches near Dawn city.
"Why have they come here?" Laxus surveyed the area, apart from the beach, there were two medium sized islands off the coast, one was an arch and the other seemed to spike out of the sea like a small mountain.
"I'm not so sure. There aren't any underwater caved nearby and those rock formations there have never been inhabited." Ruby looked closely as the Obscurums walked along the beach.
"Let's get a closer look." Laxus went from where they stood by the trees and crouched behind a large boulder that was on the beach.
The Obscurums went into the water as they made their way to the stone arch island. They looked like black jet streams as they dived underwater, leaving no traces of their existence behind.
They went up to the giant archway and after a brief flash of light, they disappeared.
"Did you just see that?!" Ruby exclaimed.
"Something's not right here…." Laxus walked up to the shore and looked at the large stone arch in front of him.
"Is it just me, or does the rock look almost back?" Laxus said as he gestured towards the small island.
"It does look strange." Ruby replied.
After taking a small boat to the island, they stood in front of the arch. Ruby put her right hand through the door like hole in the black stone, but nothing happened.
"Well, that's a bit anti-climactic." Ruby sighed.
"Maybe it needs to be activated? It looked like some type of portal." Laxus looked at the border of the arch, but it was covered with plants.
"There seems to be some writing on this side!" Ruby was on the left of the arch, gesturing at what looked like a faint engraving in the stone.
Laxus tore away some of the ivy wrapping the stone and sure enough, there seemed to be some form of writing along the border of the arch.
"But how does it work?" Laxus didn't recognise the language – and one wrong move could end up with the whole thing blowing up in their faces – quite literally for that matter.
"How about we try putting in some magical energy into it?" Ruby looked somewhat confident, but they didn't really have any other options to go with.
"Alright, I trust you." Laxus gave a small smile as he put his hand on the strange writing just like Ruby had.
The arch once again burst into life, giving off a strangely dim grey light. They were both so close that this time, they could see the spell properly. It was indeed a grey magic circle but it was more elongated than usual, one half was facing them and the other half was bent over on the other side of the archway.
"Well, should we finish what we started?" Laxus asked as he looked at Ruby.
"Let's go in together." Ruby smiled and they both walked into the portal together.
After they had stepped in, the writing of the magic circle suddenly changed. Now it was glowing black, and the once lush green plants on the small island changed into a sickly black colour before they turned into ash.
~A few months ago, Sabertooth~
The city was a mess. The newly reconstructed building had been destroyed anew from the battle with the dark guild. The dam that had blocked the water from the nearby river had broken, the flood water remained a foot high in the nearby streets and an increasingly large number of people had begun to accumulate outside the city hall. Some were looking for shelter, others were looking at who to blame for their lives being torn apart yet again by the dangers of misusing magic.
Sting had just come back from a series of meetings with the town mayor and in the guild hall, he was greeted by his guild members who were still exhausted from the battle.
"Sting! How did the meeting go? I was wondering if you could help sort out the reconstruction plans for the church..." Yukino had a bright smile as usual, but after looking at Sting's tired face, she began to trail off.
"Um, I'm a bit busy at the moment with the work from the mayor. How about you ask Rogue to help you out?" Sting had a to do list with around a hundred things on it, not that he really wanted to do them anyways.
Truth be told he wanted to forget about the work he had to do, secretly hoping Yukino would insist on working with him and they could spend the afternoon together like they used to before.
"Alright then, I'll go ask Rogue for help." Yukino looked even more cheery than before, if that was even possible.
"I can help you with your work if you want." Hiyori chimed in as she leaned on Sting's shoulder to get a look at the list Sting was holding.
"Thanks Hiyori, that would help a lot." Sting gave a gentle smile as he saw Hiyori's eagerness.
"I'm sure guild master work will be a bit too complex for you Hiyori, you need to know more about magic first." Yukino couldn't help but feel annoyed at Hiyori, who seemed to be with Sting constantly whenever he was at the guild.
"It's alright, this might be the best way for you to learn." Sting knew Hiyori worked at the city research centre before, so she would be very useful at helping him with the stacks of paperwork he had to get through.
As Hiyori followed Sting into his office, Yukino couldn't help but feel annoyed.
Why is he ok with her being there the whole time? I know she's new to the guild but that doesn't mean she can just cling on to him! Yukino sighed, jealousy seemed to feel like an all-consuming flame that was eating her up.
I'll just have to show him the difference between an experienced mage and a new one. Yukino thought that if she just wowed everyone with her magical power then Sting would give up his attachment to the fledgling mage once and for all.
On her way she noticed the school building that had been destroyed in the battle, a middle-aged man with light blond hair stood at the tattered entrance.
"Are you alright sir?" Yukino asked the man.
"I'm a teacher at this school you know, I was just so upset seeing it was destroyed by some mage." The man replied.
"What mage? It was reported that this building collapsed because of poor structural integrity." Yukino was confused to say the least, she was curious about why this teacher thought it was done on purpose.
"What? No, I was here just before the building collapsed. There was a large magic circle around the back here." He pointed towards the back of the building and there was indeed a faint mark of a magic circle that could be traced on the building.
"What did the magic circle look like? Do remember the colour?" Yukino knew each magic type had a unique colour associated with the person. It was often used to track down criminals.
"Ahh well I'm not quite sure… it was either a neon pink magic circle or it could have been a neon …" before he could continue, Yukino interrupted.
"You should go to the city council and report this! They can help catch the real culprit." Yukino looked at the broken building, slightly relieved that it wasn't her fault the building collapsed.
Neon pink just like Hiyori's. I knew there was something wrong about her! No mage can ever conjure a magic circle that large for their first spell. She must have known she could do magic… But why would she lie?
"How about I meet you there tomorrow." Yukino added before she left back towards the guild hall.
…
Back in Sting's office, there were stacks and stacks of papers and files, with a depressed Sting behind the largest heap of paper.
"I thought this would get easier after time, but the works only gotten harder." Sting was frustrated with himself. He had chosen to take on the responsibility of guild master but didn't know that this would be the consequence. The magic council was always breathing down his neck and he had a lot of bills to pay for the damages some of the people in the guild inadvertently caused.
"What do you think of this?" Sting gave Hiyori a piece of paper. After a few moments, Hiyori's eyes widened and she looked back up at Sting.
"The reward for this is insane!" She exclaimed.
"Yeah, the bigger the reward, the more impossible it is to do." Sting was amused at Hiyori's still shocked face.
"It says here that if you make a defence spell that can protect the whole city, the reward will be ten million Jewels!" Hiyori looked very excited as she finished reading the letter.
"My magic focuses more on attach rather than defence… It's actually part of the reason I was so glad I found a mage like you. Together we might actually be able to make a spell that powerful." Sting was glad Hiyori was so eager. If this worked out then the guild wouldn't have to worry about their money problems for a long while.
"Well, if it means protecting everyone, I'd love to try. I'm not sure how helpful I will be though." Hiyori started to fiddle with her hair, as she often did when she was nervous.
"Are you kidding me? You are probably the only person that could make this whole thing work!" Sting gave her a bright smile.
Before he could continue, Minerva ran into the office.
"Sting, we've got trouble." She said before turning back towards the door.
"What happened?" Sting rushed out after her to see a woman in her early thirty's in the entrance, clutching a small child with her right hand.
"Do you know who I am?" The woman demanded.
"I'm afraid I don't. However, if you could tell us what your problem is, we would be more than happy to help you." Sting said as politely as possible.
"I'm Alex Smith! One of your guild members – Yukino Agria – nearly murdered my son!" half yelled, half screamed at Sting.
"I'm sure there's been a misunderstanding. Yukino would never do anything like that." Sting said in a calm voice.
"I saw it myself! That mage Yukino had summoned two terrifyingly large monsters and they knocked over a large tree! My son was frozen in fear, he was seconds away from being killed!" She was close to tears, and when Sting looked into her eyes, he didn't see any malice or ill intent. He saw the fear of a mother who had very nearly witnessed her son's death.
"It's true. Yukino summoned Pisces to take out the fire and they knocked over a tree… I managed to swoop in and save that kid but it was a pretty close call." Lector felt guilty for admitting what had happened, but it was also true that they should have been more careful.
Sting looked at him with wide eyes, they hadn't mentioned anything about the incident so far and he was surprised by the revelation. He wanted to apologise to but he couldn't bear to look at her face. Her son was no more than three years old and far too young to be thrown into such danger.
"Where is that mage! Yukino Agria! I demand for her to face the consequences of what she did!" was clearly still distraught, but the only response Sting could give was silence. Her soon stood next to her, almost hiding behind his mother. He looked very pale and had an empty look in his eyes.
"It wasn't Yukino's fault." To everyone's surprise, it was Hiyori who spoke up.
"She was only trying to help put out the fire. I know I wasn't there, and I have no right to be speaking to you like this, but everyone in this guild has worked hard to protect this city." Maybe it was because Hiyori felt strangely at home in the guild, maybe it was because Sting had shown her a great deal of kindness after she had lost everything, but she knew she had to say something.
"I know that we should have been more careful, but Lector did save your son. He's part of our guild and like everyone else, we were just trying to help." Hiyori wanted to be the voice of reason. After all, whilst that moment could have ended up a tragedy, it wasn't intentional.
"Don't think I won't be reporting your guild! You won't get away with this so easily!" Alex Smith picked up her son, hugging him tightly as she walked out of the guild hall.
"Thanks, Hiyori." Sting whispered.
"What are friends for." Hiyori replied.
After a few minutes the doors of the guild hall opened again, this time it was Yukino who walked into the room.
