The second day has started, and we've got a good amount of votes already! Most of them are for Fairy Tail A vs. Sabertooth, though. That's understandable, but the only votes I have for the other matches come from private messages. Don't forget to vote for those as well!

Thanks to Fin-Fish Jun-Tenshi for the idea for this competition! I had originally intended on having it be a constantly shifting maze, in order to give Lucy time to shine by focusing on her quick thinking and ability to summon multiple spirits at once, but their idea works better than that and doesn't seem like a repeat of the qualifying round. Also, thanks to Firebird-X for pointing out a typo in the match listings.

By noon the next morning, the crowds and competitors have once again assembled into the stadium to prepare for the second day of the Grand Magic Games. The crowds are jam-packed, to the point where it's standing room only in some places. Between the confirmation of many popular guilds, citizens of Alvarez making the trip to Ishgar to see their champions in person, and members of the guilds themselves, the stadium was nearing capacity and the week had barely started.

Before the festivities can properly begin, Mato takes the microphone for an announcement. "Attention, everyone! There's a last minute change to the line-ups! Richard Buchanan has stepped out of the competition, and there will be a substitution for the Crime Sorciere team in his place."

In the Crime Sorciere section, Hoteye walks over to sit beside Racer and Midnight, while the other three members look at Jellal in confusion. "What? Why?" Meredy is baffled by this decision – neither one of the other two members are moving to join them.

Jellal gives Meredy a small smile as a cloaked figure joins them. "He only joined to show his brother that he was still alive, and he figures that if Wally hasn't seen him now, the news will get to him soon enough. One of the guild's other members will be taking his place."

The cloaked person pulls their hood back as Mato continues. "As the fifth member of Crime Sorciere's team, welcome…"

Meredy glances at the cloaked person, and tears come to her eyes as she sees the face beneath it. "N-No way…"

The person's long black hair comes flowing out from underneath the hood, and they smile at Meredy. "…ULTEEEEEAR MILKOVICH!"

"ULTEAR!" Meredy immediately leaps at Ultear, giving her a tight hug. Ultear awkwardly returns the hug, not being used to that sort of affection but missing Meredy as much as Meredy missed her. "But how?"

Tears line the edge of Ultear's eyes, proud to see how much Meredy's grown. "Once I found out about the Time Lapse, it didn't take much for me to manipulate it. Acnologia thought he gained power over time and space by eating it, but that's like trying to fist-fight a river instead of digging a trench to alter its course. He wasn't able to use it to its full potential – all it took was Anna Heartfilia's notes and a bit of time, but I was able to restore my youth."

Jellal smiles, as he's pleased to see Meredy looking happier than she's appeared in a long time. "Ultear met me last night, and explained everything. She wanted to compete, so how could I say no?" His gaze turns to Ultear with the slightest hint of annoyance on his face. "That is, as long as you don't prevent me from going all-out like you did last time."

Ultear smiles back at Jellal, and her appearance shows no signs of shock or embarrassment. "I have no idea what you mean by that."

Gray is confused when he hears that name announced, but rolls with it. "Figures you wouldn't go down that easily, Ultear."

Lyon's eyes widen as he watches Ultear and Meredy, and his mind drifts into fantasy mode. "It can't be… A love rival?!"

In another part of the stadium, Dimaria is furious, her teeth gritted as she glares at Ultear. If looks could kill, Ultear would be dead several times over – Dimaria only knows Ultear as the person who could interfere with her time stopping, but that's enough of a reason for her to despise the other time mage.

As Meredy maintains her vice-like grip on Ultear, refusing to let go, Mato announces the day's matches. "Be sure to keep that change in mind when voting on today's matches! These fights will be two versus two, so you'll have to choose eight mages this time! And here are the matches that you'll be voting on!" Mato steps to the side, gesturing to the screens, which display the teams that will be pitted against each other.

Mermaid Heel vs. Crime Sorciere

Alvarez vs. Fairy Tail One

Lamia Scale vs. Blue Pegasus

Sabertooth vs. Fairy Tail A

The crowd lets out a cheer at the match-ups, with Sabertooth and Fairy Tail's match generating the most excitement. Anyone who had been present that year recalled Natsu and Gajeel's fight with Sting and Rogue, so this year's fight has a lot to live up to. Some want to see a rematch, while others want to see something new – either way, people vote for that one almost immediately.

"Now I'd like to call a representative from each team up here for today's competition!" Once again, a platform rises out of the sand as the mages gather on it.

"Today's my turn!" Lucy walks onto the stage, over the protests of Natsu wanting another chance.

Brandish sighs, hopping into the arena. "I guess I can go…" Dimaria had tried to get in there first, but surprisingly, Brandish reacted quickly for once.

Cobra leaps into the arena as well. "After that sorry display yesterday, it's time to show all of you what a real Dragon Slayer can do!"

Toby runs in, looking around frantically. "I think I left my sunglasses in here! Did anyone see them?" The rest of Lamia Scale groans, but they don't try to stop him – he deserves to compete at least once.

Hibiki walks onto the field with a fairly dramatic air about him. "This is the night for Blue Pegasus to soar through the air to victory!"

Setting down her wine, Cana stumbles onto the field. "Hey, Lucy! No hard feelings no matter who wins, 'kay?" Lucy nods, smiling brightly at her fellow Fairy Tail mage.

"Ya'll better look out – Mermaid Heel's in it to win it!" After some discussion with her teammates, Beth decides to represent her guild today.

"Um… I guess I can go…" Yukino nervously steps onto the field, as the rest of her team stands as still as statues. With Lucy participating, they all decided independently that it would be fitting for Yukino to compete against her fellow Celestial Spirit mage. However, they wanted her to make the choice on her own. As a result, they all stood there awkwardly before Yukino chose to step in.

Hibiki is pleasantly surprised to see so many women competing today. "My apologies in advance to the ladies… as well as the rest of you. Don't hold it against me if I am victorious, all right?"

Lucy giggles, but says nothing. Cana, Brandish, and Beth just ignore him. Toby chimes in, feeling like someone should respond. "I won't be mad at you! Probably…" Hibiki completely ignores him, as he's too busy trying to see if he got a reaction out of any of the women.

"All right, we have our participants for today's event! And that event is…" Smoke fills the arena, and when it fades, a massive mansion has formed in the middle of the arena. "…Target Practice!"

Massive screens float into the arena, displaying images from within the mansion as well as video of each of the mages competing in this round. Chapati speaks into the microphone, joined as always by Yajima as well as today's guest commentator, Levy McGarden. "This is quite a popular event from previous years! It seems they've changed things up, though – usually, it's held in the open air!"

Inside the mansion, Mato explains the rules to the eight mages who are gathered in there. "This is a game to see who can score the most points! There are one hundred and one targets scattered throughout this mansion. The game ends when all of them have been hit, or when half an hour has passed – whatever comes first. Leaving the building counts as surrendering, even if you've been thrown out of it! Hitting the targets with anything will get you a point, so no need to worry if your magic requires close quarters." To demonstrate, Mato picks up a conveniently placed pumpkin and tosses it at a target that drifts by. The pumpkin splatters against the target, and with a ding, the scoreboard changes, as Mato's picture rises to the top with a single point. "Now we're down to a hundred targets left, so best of luck and happy hunting!"

With that, Mato runs out the door, and the mages quickly scatter, trying to find the remaining targets. The house is fairly large, with a lot of hallways and side rooms, so there's going to be a lot of ground to cover. Thinking quickly, Lucy pulls out her Celestial Spirit keys. "Since Loke's still a member of Fairy Tail, I don't think I can use him, so…" Holding two keys into the air, she summons a pair of spirits who seem like they'll be useful for this kind of competition. "…Sagittarius and Virgo, come forth!"

"Hello hello!" The horse-masked archer gives Lucy a salute, clutching his bow with one hand, while Virgo kneels down.

"Greetings, princess. Is it time for my punishment?" The maid glances up at Lucy, clearing hoping that it is that time.

Lucy shakes her head frantically. "N-No, not at all! I want you two to spread out and hit as many targets as you can find – they're big, and likely floating. They could be behind or underneath anything in here, so be thorough!" Nodding, the two spirits run off to accomplish this task. Not wanting to make her spirits do all of the work, Lucy uses her Star Dress magic, switching to Sagittarius's outfit.

Now armed with a bow and arrow as well as improved accuracy, Lucy sets off to find targets of her own. Seeing this, Yukino pulls her keys out. "That's a great idea. I don't know if I could do that much at once, but…" Finding a specific key, she summons her spirit. "Pisces, come forth!"

The mother and son spirits appear before Yukino, summoned in their human form. "How can we help?"

"I need you to find any targets you can and hit them for me. They're somewhere in this house." Yukino gestures around her.

The son nods. "Sure thing, mom."

"…I'm not your mother." Like always, the son ignores Yukino as the two spirits set out, sticking close together.

Hibiki's archive magic gathers information about the house, and quickly, the most efficient pathway is laid out for him on the floating screens generated by his magic. "According to this, there should be a target right…" Hibiki reaches out to pull back a painting, but Cobra leaps over him and stabs through the painting, hitting the target. "Hey!"

Cobra grins. "First come, first served!" With that, he dashes off, with his enhanced senses making it easy to tell where the targets and the other competitors are.

"Get back here!" Hibiki tries chasing after the poison Dragon Slayer, but he can't keep up.

"Hey, has anyone seen my- Oh…" Toby looks around, seeing that everyone's already went off in their own directions. "Better get looking…"

Once she's gotten some distance from the others, Cana pulls out a deck of cards, picking out a card that has a picture of a flock of crows on it. The crows burst from the card and fly around the house, looking for targets on Cana's behalf. They vanish when they touch anything, making them much less effective than Celestial Spirits, but there are plenty more cards where that came from.

Having given up on chasing Cobra, Hibiki makes his way toward the kitchen. There are several targets around here, and while they're well hidden, finding them should be no problem. "Archive Drone!" Several holographic drones appear, scanning the room. While they aren't physical, and therefore can't hit the targets, they're effective at finding them through walls, doors, and other obstacles.

Once their locations are mapped out, Hibiki prepares to go around the room and hit them all, only to pause when he sees a bloated carrot growing out of the kitchen counter. "What in the -"

"Carrot Mortar!" Hibiki narrowly ducks in time as the carrot explodes, sending out smaller carrots as shrapnel in all directions. The carrots bounce off of pans, break through glass, and generally get everywhere – they might not be powerful attacks, but the goal is to simply hit the targets, not to hit the hardest.

Beth stands in another entranceway, a satisfied smile on her face. "That'll do it!" Confident that she cleared out a lot of the room, she runs off. Grumbling, Hibiki opens up a cupboard that was too tough for the carrots to break through, hits the target inside, and leaves the kitchen behind.

In one of the hallways, Cobra lunges at another target, a massive grin on his face. "Man, this game's a piece of cake! I don't know why Jellal said this might be…" Suddenly, he hears something zooming through the air behind him. Almost like an arrow…

That is, in fact, the object that zooms over Cobra's head, hitting the target before Cobra can reach his goal. Whipping around, Cobra sees a man wearing a horse head over his actual head, which is clearly visible. "Hello, hello! Sorry, I should have properly introduced myself!" Not having much time to wait around, the horse-man runs off to find more targets.

"…What the hell?" Cobra stares at the spot where the horse-man had been standing, confused. Shaking it off, he decides to keep looking for more targets.

As the game goes on, Lucy is starting to get more and more suspicious, carefully looking around every corner. Sure, the objective of the game was to hunt for targets, but there's nothing saying that you couldn't knock out your rivals as well, and as the number of targets decrease, people might get more desperate.

Not seeing anyone, Lucy steps around the corner and begins to examine the room. Targets could be anywhere – under cushions, inside of books, on the ceiling – so she'll have to be thorough in her investigation. She's so absorbed in looking for the targets that she doesn't hear someone creeping up behind her until it is too late…

"Lucy!" Cana starts off with her usual greeting, wrapping her arms around Lucy's body from behind and energetically squeezing her chest. "I was wondering when I'd find ya!"

"Cana, stooo-ooop~!" Lucy whines as Cana refuses to let go of the Celestial Spirit mage. The feeling of Lucy squirming against her only pushes Cana to continue her assault on the blonde.

"Is this the standard greeting in Fiore?" Both women turn to see Brandish staring at them, an eyebrow raised in confusion. "I'm not entirely used to the local customs."

Cana grins, seeing her chance to have some more fun. "Sure! Why don't you greet Lucy, just for practice?"

"It's not a greeting!" Lucy yells, chopping at Cana's head lightly. "It's just Cana being Cana." She calms down a bit, smiling at Brandish. "Had any luck so far?"

Brandish shakes her head. "Not much. I tried growing the targets until they filled the whole hall, but that didn't get me any points, and they'll only shrink so much. Good thing there were some books nearby."

"That's too bad." Still, Lucy's relieved that Brandish is the one who wound up in here, out of the Alvarez members. She might be able to deal with Jacob, even if it would be embarrassing to exploit his known weakness, but the others would take this contest seriously. "Still, I'm glad we can do something like this – where it doesn't matter who wins or loses, and we can just have fun."

Brandish's morose expression remains on her face. "Fun…" She looks Lucy in the eyes, a bit relieved to hear that there's no ill will for what happened between them. "What else do you do for fun here?"

Cana laughs, slapping Brandish on the back as Lucy tries frantically to signal to her fellow Fairy Tail member that this might not be the best course of action. "We can show you the sights later! For now, you'd better worry about finding those targets!"

Brandish looks around, but doesn't see any targets in the area. "I'd better get going – Ajeel will be whiny if I don't do well." With that, she wanders off, looking around in random directions to see if she can spot a target or two.

The symbol on Virgo's key glows, as her voice comes through it. "Princess, I've found something underground – I think it's a basement."

"Really?" Lucy picks up the key, holding it closer to make sure Virgo can hear. "Check it out – it might be important!"

"And then can I get punished?" While Virgo's expression can't be seen, her voice certainly sounds hopeful.

Lucy's face falls as Cana elbows her, chuckling. "Can we not talk about this now?"

Hibiki's archive magic has thoroughly mapped out the house by this point, and while targets are disappearing rapidly, the translucent map floating in front of him indicates something interesting. "Hm… It seems there's a path behind this bookcase. Now, let's see…" Pulling on a few of the books, he quickly finds one that causes the shelf to click and slide to the side. "A secret passageway – interesting…"

Working his way down the stairs behind the bookcase, he finds a rather elaborately decorated door. "Whatever's behind here must be important!" Hibiki throws open the door, and is greeted with ten targets floating in the middle of the room. "Yes! Now I just need to…"

"Virgo Kick!" Lucy's pink haired maid spirit launches herself forward with a flying kick, passing through eight of the targets. Hibiki dives at the last two, but he's disappointed at how close he was to pulling ahead before it was taken away from him.

Elsewhere, Brandish is starting to get frustrated. Making the targets shrink or grow doesn't do anything to get her team points, and while she could throw any of the objects on hand at the targets in order to score, that's not exactly something that she's skilled with. "Ugh… This is annoying!" Brandish stomps her feet – while she can't leave the building, there's something else she can do…

Outside the house, most of the spectators are watching the events play out on the various screens floating in mid-air. The score sheet updates in real time as mages hit the targets. All of a sudden, the entire building begins to shake.

"W-What's going on?" Levy keeps a close eye on the house, worried for the safety of her friends.

Yajima points at one of the screens. "It seems like the member of Alvarez's team is upset. We've already seen what one of them is capable of, so…"

Immediately after he finishes that word, the house warps and shrinks to the size of a dollhouse along with bringing everyone in it down to a proportionate size. "W-What?!" Chapati stares at the house, eyes bulging and his mouth hanging open. "How can someone do that so effortlessly?!"

The screen shows Brandish looking around, disappointed. "Darn… I didn't think the targets would shrink along with the house…" With a wave of her hand, the house and everyone in it returns to normal. Resigning herself to the fact that she'll have to do this the hard way, she picks up a pillow and throws it at a target, earning a point in the process.

With all of that shaking, Toby stumbles and falls to the ground. As a result, his sunglasses fall off his head, and he sees them lying in front of him. "There they are!" Reaching over, Toby puts his sunglasses back in the same spot that they fell from to begin with. "How'd my sunglasses wind up in here?"

The targets are becoming harder and harder to find, and before long, there's only a single one left. Hearing it move, Cobra quickly makes his way to its location and claws at it, causing a buzzer to ring out.

Levy beams as she looks at the scoreboard. "That's a hundred and one targets, so that's the end of the game!" Lucy hit the most targets with a total of thirty, thanks to her spirits and her Star Dress. Due to being able to hear the targets moving and having the skills to reach them, Cobra came in second with twenty six, while Beth came in third with thirteen.

Cana barely lost to Beth, hitting twelve targets over the course of the contest. Yukino couldn't cover as much ground as Lucy, resulting in her getting eight. Hibiki may have had the optimal route planned out, but his lack of speed and physical talents resulted in him only reaching six before anyone else did, while Brandish, whose powers were ill-suited for this kind of competition, only got five.

The only person to do worse than Mato's single point is Toby, who was so busy looking for his sunglasses that he failed to hit any of the targets. The scoreboard updates to reflect the results.

Fairy Tail A: 21

Mermaid Heel: 20

Fairy Tail 1: 20

Crime Sorciere: 18

Sabertooth: 13

Alvarez: 9

Blue Pegasus: 4

Lamia Scale: 3

As the scores total up, the Fairy Tail and Mermaid Heel members let out a loud cheer, but not everybody is thrilled with this outcome. In particular, Ajeel is gritting his teeth, furious at what's happened. First, Jacob gets beaten in a race by some blue-haired nobody, and now Dimaria and Brandish outright lost? "What is this, a bad dream? We're Alvarez! If August and Eileen were still alive, we'd be in the lead by a long shot!"

Jacob glances at his comrade, annoyed by how poorly he's handling all of this. "If August and Eileen were participating, then you wouldn't be. We're having bad luck so far, but there's plenty of time to make up for that."

Neinhart points at the screen that is displaying this round's match-ups. "Besides, we might even get the chance to avenge the deaths of Bloodman and Wahl in the process!"

Dimaria shrugs, unconcerned with Neinhart's point. "Bloodman was a creep and Wahl was a weirdo – the two of them dying wasn't exactly a big loss."

Snarling, Ajeel clutches the wall in front of him. "Whatever! We can't afford to lose, no matter who we're up against!"

The members of Lamia Scale, meanwhile, are staring at the scoreboard in shock. "T-Three points…" Jura, Lyon, Chelia, and Yuka are all wide-eyed, as are the rest of the guild's members.

Ooba Babasama, the guild's master, is practically a miniature tornado as she spins over to her team. "You have to defeat Blue Pegasus this round! Jura, step in for someone else if you don't get voted in!"

Jura tries to remain calm. "…Master, it doesn't work like that…"

Chelia tries to pump herself up, getting ready in case she's called on to fight. "Don't worry, Master! We've got the power of love on our side, so we can't lose!"

In the Blue Pegasus section, Hibiki looks nervous as he makes his way back to his team. "Sorry, Ichiya-san – I couldn't win this one."

Ichiya brushes it off, clearly not worried. "No problem – we've got plenty of time, and you did your best. That's all that matters."

"Ichiya-san!" Reinvigorated, the Trimens and Ichiya strike a pose, while Jenny looks at her team, still a bit baffled by their behaviour even after all of the time that she's spent with them.

"All right, Lucy!" Natsu yells over the crowd as Lucy and Cana make their way back to their teams. "That's ten more points for us!"

Gray smirks, looking at the scoreboard. "It's definitely a nice change of pace from last time." He can still remember the feeling of humiliation when Raven Tail and Sabertooth made him look like a fool, and made Fairy Tail seem like a laughingstock – it's not something he'd want to go through again.

Wendy looks at the match-ups a bit nervously. "But we saw how quickly things can change yesterday – today isn't over yet, and we're against Sabertooth…"

Erza smiles at her younger guild member, confident as always. "At least it's just a friendly competition this time – there shouldn't be any hard feelings no matter who wins or loses." However, even if it is a friendly competition, the concept of 'holding back' never even crosses Erza's mind – the mages of Sabertooth would want to display their strength, and the same thing should go for any member of Fairy Tail.

"I'm all fired up!" Flames rise from Natsu's fist, as he's barely able to contain his excitement. As the mages all make it back to their seats and the building vanishes, Mato walks out into the arena.

"What an exciting day, folks, and we're nowhere near done! Next we have a match worth keeping an eye on – Mermaid Heel's surprised us in these first two days, while Crime Sorciere has done extremely well despite being brand new to the games! But who among them will be pitted against each other in a two-on-two battle?" To answer that question, Mato points towards the screens, as the votes begin to total up…

We'll end the chapter here – hopefully the new addition to Crime Sorciere's team will open up new possibilities, both for this match-up and the future of the tournament!

I felt like removing Ultear from the series was an unusual decision, all things considered – her being in Crime Sorciere wouldn't have prevented Oracion Seis from joining, her absence wasn't used to develop Meredy and Jellal, and she wasn't so powerful that she could easily defeat future enemies. Plus, I figure her coming back would help to develop a bunch of characters who are participating this time around.

Next time, we'll have Mermaid Heel vs. Crime Sorciere at the very least. We might get Alvarez vs. Fairy Tail Team One as well, but that depends on the match-ups involved.