(A/N) Hello Fairies. I forgot to put to two bars for you...sorry... But nothing much to say... There's a slight perspective shift when they return, at least to me...There is awkward, in dialect (it's how it came out) language that I like and want to keep. Just much smaller words.
Thanks for reading.
Errata : I've added more adjectives to the confrontation scene. Hopefully it cleared it up.
The train rolled in Magnolia at twilight.
They took their time, disembarking, pulling on packs and adjusting straps.
The train was docking here for the night, so there wasn't need to rush.
The (somewhat dizzy) trek to the main plaza was somehow more exhausting that the 7 hour ride. They crashed on the bench, to think about how to approach this.
"Go in, say hi, and leave."
"By that, you do mean go in say hi and throw a fairy tail party."
"Leave before the party starts?"
"If you have a diamond plated riot shield on you, Sparky then go ahead."
"Nah, how does an electrified cattle prod work?"
"You're horrible!" They laughed it off, getting strange looks from passerby. The strange foreigners were rather rowdy.
"Let's go.." He saw over his shoulders a mop of pink hair "No use in baking out here." They stood, and got their stuff and left.
The walk to Lucy's house had seemed both glorious and completely revolting.
They spent the night on her roof, feeling too lazy, and too nostalgic to clean a year of dust of everything to get some sleep.
Dawn woke them up. Or was it?
"What are you hooligans doing on my roof?"
She peered over the slanted side. And then proceeded to slide down and tackle her precious landlady.
"Oi! You're back already?" The landlady teased. "You've gotten a little taller."
"Nah, just a bit stronger."
"A bit? Don't make it seem like you were up to standard before." Laxus came down behind her, throwing on the ever-present coat on under the cloak.
"Well, come in. Business to sort." The landlady unlocked the door.
They spent hours in there, filing paperwork and cleaning 20 football fields off dust off the furniture that couldn't get covered, and straightening the house in general.
It was well two in the afternoon when they got cleaned up.
"So..."The house practically shone with cleanliness. They still didn't even change out of the dusty clothes from travelling, much less unpack.
Well, they weren't back yet.
"You ready, Blondie?"
She drudged towards the door, dragging her feet. The day she'd been dreading was happening right this second.
"Let's get this over with. Come what may and all that nobility."
Fairy Tail was of course being its chaotic self. The booze was flowing, and half of it into Cana's mouth. Reedus and Nab were playing poker. Team Natsu had gotten back and were telling the story about the recent quests they went on.
"But, as we were inviting them to the guild...they flashed away." Gray said, trying to pry an excited Juvia off of him.
"Maybe they had business to attend to." Mirajane said over a dainty shoulder, bringing drinks to the table behind them.
"Maybe they had something to hide." Erza muttered from the corner, getting a perplexed under-bandanna glance from her partner in crime.
The sound of wind chimes at the door stopped most of the activity.
Two figures had walked in, faded black cloaks about them. One was taller and decidedly male, than his smaller companion. They shouldered small packs, but still looked heavily travel-worn. They walked the floors like they knew them, like they lived here. Straight to the bar, like it was normal.
Natsu had enough of it.
"Hey.." He stood, arms crossed. Nobody dared walk in here looking like that, unless they wanted the title foe written across the forehead. "What are you doing here. Got any business?"
"Good grief, Natsu. Who put the stick in your ass?" The voice should be eerily familiar but it was moderately coated with an accent no one recognized.
The crowd was generally becoming interested now. Who were these strangers that they knew Salamander by name?
"Excuse me, sir but I don't take kindly to those who insult my family." Mirajane stood stern not too far away, holding a service tray under her arm.
"You too, Mira?"
"Stop it." The second one spoke. A young woman. "You're getting surly."
"You stay surly, Blondie."
"Spark plug."
"Glenda the good witch."
"Electromagnetic tampon."
"Princess of China"
"The big bad raichu."
"ENOUGH!" They looked up to Makarov, who wasn't having it today.
"Why are you here, travelers?"
"Oh well we came to see if you had any openings for a couple members...is all." After a tug from the shorter one, they spoke harshly in some foreign dialect before looking at Makarov.
"Well, we can't welcome you here if you are mages..."
The crowd moved back a bit to give them room to demonstrate
"Should we?" The girl spoke rubbing the golden bracers on her arms. He nodded, concentrating on not overdoing it..
"Thunder Shield." The air hummed with ozone and static before an orb of lightning surrounded the two of them before dispelling.
"Alpheratz: Bracers of Shishikyuu."
The braces themselves morphed into knuckles complete with gauntlets, with armor plating.
"Weapon magic?"
"Of a sort." She released the summoning, replacing the seeming the docile accessories.
"Hmm, well come with me, we'll sign you up. Natsu, Lisanna? Attend." They gave each other a brief look before following the Master.
They didn't even wait for it to become official before they started it up.
It's not a party until somebody has a broom up the ass.
The silent walk into the master's office felt like walking into purgatory.
The second the door closed...
"I'm not sure what you're up to, but you'd better not fuck up."
Makarov pointed an eager finger at them.
"Master, you know them?" Lisanna inquired, without answer
"She ain't up to spec yet and I know it. I'm not going to throw her to the wolves just yet." The male crossed his arms.
"The truth will come when it must, and it will be inopportune."
"I know."
Makarov shook his head and went into his drawer for the stamp to restore their marks. They quickly reinstated the markings.
"Is there something that we should know here?"
"If you would be so kind as to settle this before it hits the fan?" Makarov got up into his chair and started on the third stack of paperwork.
The two cloaked figures blinked, shrugged and ended up having another petty argument before removing their hoods.
Natsu literally knocked her off her feet, already running his mouth at a thousand words a second. All he had to see was Blonde hair.
Lisanna looked up at Laxus. "Why did you leave with her again?"
"Because I felt like it- Natsu!"
He stopped strangling Lucy long enough to listen.
"This doesn't leave this room. Right, Titania?" The title fell in chunks off his tongue, the syllables morphed exotically.
The door opened revealing the scarlet knight who simply nodded before stepping in.
"So are you going to talk about your travels? That's what I came for..."
This started another petty argument in another dialect which was probably about who would talk first. Not like it mattered, when Lucy ran her mouth regardless.
The party (or organized broom shoving) went on for days. Somewhere in the middle of it, Laxus found himself in some corner, with Blondie in one arm, and an entire beer keg in the other.
Life was good, for those Halcyon days.
But then, as the wine and festivity weened off into (relative) normalcy, the bad humors came with it. Things that never got said. People that changed, and somehow...
It was a warm day in early March that Lucy got her wish.
She was sitting at the bar, having a White Russian when Lisanna came to her.
"Um, Miss?" The glass came down hard, and the silver-haired maiden nearly leaped out of her skin. She burned her flesh with her gaze.
She steeled herself.
"May I speak to you?" She offered her a smile. Lucy scoffed, knocking back the rest of the cocktail before waving her into some arbitrary direction.
Laxus watched them leave, saying something in some foreign dialect, stopping Lucy in her tracks, before she shuffled forward.
They went into a small conference room on the second floor. Lisanna gnawed the inside of her lip. She could sense the sheer animosity toward her flowing off this girl. And newly acquired raw strength that she would not hesitate to use on her. The muscles rippled under the tight shirt she had on as proof.
She sat, Lucy stood at the door.
"How are you today...?"
"Skip it. Speak what you must."
Her brown eyes burned a strip down her body.
"Well. I heard about what happened to you and Natsu."
"We had a...falling out."
"It was much more that!" The girl screeched before immediately piping down, "and you know it. I'm sorry that...my return had instigated such..." She stroked the grain of the table, trying to sooth her insides.
The next she opened her mouth, Lucy was sitting besides her, legs crossed flipping through her sound pod.
"I never though that, for a moment that things would stay in stasis. And I never thought, at the same time, that Natsu would not wait for me. I honestly fooled myself into believing that he'd mourn my loss for some time longer." She had tears glossing her eyes but, she gripped the edge of the table and kept on.
"I heard what I did to you, what I had caused by my bittersweet return. I...I." She gritted her teeth, tears threatening mutiny.
` "I went as far as to swear away from Natsu... it killed me to, but I can't stand it!" Lisanna stood, knocking the chair back. Lucy was more worried about the frantic girl in front of her. "Un-until I had your forgiveness. Your consent to even speak to him, if you'd like!"
Lucy simply stared at her, in awe and shock, as Lisanna lowered herself to ground and bowed before her.
"I'm - I'm so sorry! I beg your forgiveness!" She didn't bother to hold back her sorrow.
Only a few expressive blinks came from Lucy before she kicked her into the blank wall behind them, with no effort.
She did catch her, and held petite girl so tight she could break a rib or two if she felt like it.
"But w-why?" She whispered only the wind knocked out of her.
Lucy could hear the pounding of footsteps and Elfman's manly proclamations
"Sometimes you need a kick in th' ass to get moving. I am not your arbiter. Sometimes the person who needs forgiveness is the only one who can grant it. Go and be happy."
The door flew revealing a worried Bixlow, a manly Elfman, and relatively nosy Laxus.
"Lisanna?" Bixlow hopped over, and snatched the girl out of Lucy's arms checking her over like a rag doll in his arms, a limp marionette, with her laughing and crying and carrying on. With a triumphant "She's good!" from the puppet knight, she got thrown over a shoulder, face buried in her hands.
"THANK YOU!" She cried, hands caressing the retreating figure of her admonishment, before returning to her sobbing.
"Miss, I don't know how you know Lisanna, but thank you for relieving her of her agony. It was not manly to see her suffer so..."
Lucy smiled. And nothing more.
It was the day after that they got big news.
The grand magic games were coming up.
After a good round of whooping and hollering, Makarov told them that all potential candidates had three months to train.
This however was easier said than done.
"Do we take the raijinshuu?" Lucy asked, lounging on Laxus' chest (and by way, a couch) in some forgotten corner of the main hall.
"Duh...They won't say nothing until I tell them to. Actually."
He got up, dropping Lucy like a hot coal, dodging the tankard flying at his head and waltzed right on over.
They were bickering about something he didn't care for when he got their attention.
"Hey..." They immediately looked him dead in the face, Freed still trying get a glance at his face under the fancier cloak he had on. "Can I speak with you? Privately?"
They gave each other cross looks before standing up and following Laxus to some real obscure spot outside that nobody knew existed. Really, it was tree-d off and it had hedges- oh yeah, the story. So, the moment they got there, shit hit the fan.
"So, what is it that you want...Lezarro?" Freed asked impatiently.
"To train with you guys like old times, is all."
A collective "What?" fell out of their mouths.
"You guys are hopeless..." The hood got pulled off, revealing his face.
Freed was (attempting to) squeezing the life out of the Slayer before he could blink, following by everybody else.
After the dreaded group hug, and much, much idle chatter of ill-significance, they got to the meat of the conversation.
"Do not tell anyone that I'm back, do not tell anyone that you know me. And do not call me Laxus."
"But why?" Bixlow said, his babies echoed.
"When Lucy is ready to come back as Lucy, I'll do the same. The reason should be clear as day."
"But why, for Lucy? You got a thing for her or something?"
"..." He just stood and left, yanking up the hood out of the cloak.
Half the world know what that meant. Not like he bothered to hide it.
She never had though that these four could ever be so fun to hang with.
From Freed and Bixlow's friendly trying-to-kill-each-other, and Laxus and Evergreen's overall unorthodox methods of speaking to each other, she found herself laughing from day 1 to day 90.
Well, when Laxus wasn't making her work like a slave.
She spent the last of her training time, the sun setting gloriously in front of her, legs swinging off the edge of a cliff, trying to find a way to prolong her Halcyon.
Until she felt a pair of ridiculously muscled thighs surround her own and a broad chest moving air behind her.
"Laxus have you ever heard of personal space?
"Not when you're so eager to share it..." She scoffed, standing away and ready to strut back to the camp.
"Leave me be, Sparky. I'm not in the mood."
He ignored her, walking up to her to place a friendly hand on a shoulder, before she blowed that off.
"Stop." The tone of her voice obviously did not match the words.
He turned her by the shoulders to face him. "What is it? What is it now?"
She suddenly became interested in the leaves blowing in the distance.
"Let me guess, you're trying to plot the avoidance of Natsu?"
"I am not avoiding! I am not rushing it, it'a difference!" She flailed her arms, before falling into a childish pout.
"You are avoiding it, him, Blondie! And it's starting to get annoying." He stepped closer, making her painfully aware of the height (and strength) gap between them.
"How am I annoying? You are like you went through it. Why can I deal with myself how I will?"
"Because-! You..." He cut himself off and turned away, beginning to walk off but he got caught a by a small fist wrapped around his wrist.
"I'm sick of your half-talking, Sparky!" She switched hands, holding his wrist in one hand and a fistful of his shirt in the other.
"What is your problem with me?"
"..." He just burned her with his glare, deep blue eyes lighting an inferno somewhere deep within her, somehow embedding his purpose into her before ripping away...
'When will I get back my Lovely Lucy?...Not this scared porcelain doll in a leather jacket...'
