Hey monsters! Oneesama here with chapter 9! So I forgot to mention something that someone pointed out to me... Lucy is even more emotional about sacrificing Aquarious because Lucy is under the impression that she will never see her again. She does not know that the key will be reborn one day so she thinks the actually killed her.
So this chapter will mainly be focused on Sting and Lucy's lessons. There won't be many of these chapters but I thought it would be a good idea to give you an idea of what Lucy is teaching him.
Also I named the town Sabertooth is in Aconitum. It's the name of a beautiful but poisonous flower. Since the location of Sabertooth is unknown and Fiores cities names are flower based, I am going to try to keep this tradition going.
The next chapter will have more fluff and RoLu action so I hope you guys are ready. I'm also taking a vote on Lucy and Rogues first "date" vote by commenting your choice!
Choice 1: a small village festival
Choice 2: a frozen glowing flower field in the moonlight
Choice 3: a hot spring
Choice 4: a pool party at the guild
Don't forget to vote!!! Now onto the story...
XxX
It was a bright day in Aconitum. The Sabertooth guild hall was filled with members anxiously awaiting the new job postings for the week. Most were surprised by a flyer posted in place of the jobs. Some were angry at the loss of opportunity to make money for the day, while others were excited to have a random day in the middle of the week to relax. No matter their personal feelings, each member took the time to read Stings announcement.
--
By order of your awesome Master the Almighty Sting Eucliffe, ALL members of Sabertooth are to attend a party in honor of our year long guest!
Attendance is not a request. You will arrive at 7 pm sharp Friday September 7th. There will be an important announcement regarding how The guild will operate from here on out along with information on upcoming projects. Be prepared to listen and have fun! The party will run until the booze runs dry!
-Master Sting Eucliffe
--
Not wanting to deal with the harsh glares or invasive questions, Lucy requested Rogue teleport them via shadows to Sting's office in hopes of avoiding the crowd. She had rather enjoyed his
ability and figured it would be fun to try it.
He obliged happily, putting his arms around her and pulling her close while
allowing his shadows to wrap around them like a cocoon.
Instantly they were inside of a bruised
Sting's office and Lucy quickly detached herself from Rogue's hold with a blush on her face.
"Ah... Lucy! ... You're here early... Im prepared just like you said! Please don't hit me!"
Sting's face was covered in bruises but other than that he looked fine. Scared but fine.
"Idiot." Rogue muttered under his breath. He took a sharp inhale of breath, already annoyed with the blonds presence. How Lucy could deal with him, locked in an office for long periods of time, he would never know.
"Sting stop being stupid. Lucy, I will be heading to the market did you make your list yet?"
Lucy grinned like a moron as she handed Rogue a slip of paper.
"Yes I did! Here you go. And here's some jewel for-" As she reached in her bag to give him money to cover her expenses, Rogue stopped her by grabbing her wrist and looking deep into her eyes.
"Put that away. I asked for your list not your money."
Was it wrong of Rogue to enjoy the sight of an embarrased Lucy wiggling under his touch? Yes. Did he care? Not really.
"Erm..."
Thinking her blush couldn't get any redder, he released her wrist and gave her a warm look. His lips didn't move but he might as well have been smiling. The look sent chills down Lucy's spine and a certain aroma started to hit Rogue's senses. He knew he needed to hurry up and leave.
"I will be back at five to escort you home. Sting do not try anything or you will answer to me is that understood?"
A deathly gray aura surrounded him as images of his perverted brother trying to woo Lucy filled his brain. His eyes started glowing red and he prepared to attack with a warning strike when he heard a soft whimper from behind him.
Realizing he was scaring Lucy, he calmed down and gave Sting a hard glare.
"Understood?"
"Y-yea." Sting sighed in relief. Rogue turned back to Lucy and placed a chaste kiss on her hand before saying his goodbyes.
"Farewell Lucy." And with those two words Rogue allowed his shadows to surround him slowly and he melted into the darkness before vanishing completely.
"Show off." Sting muttered. He couldnt help but be amused. Seeing the young woman in front of him interact with his brother was like watching one of Yukino's novellas. He decided right then and there that Lucy was too good for Fairy Tail. He had a year to come up with a plan to
convince her to stay with Sabertooth.
He made a mental note to make up with Yukino so she could help him scheme.
With Yukinos help they could do it. Sting could just imagine the good influence Lucy would be on the members of his guild. Rogue would become more open with his feelings. Yukino could
get the sister she always wanted and Minerva could get the friend she desperately needed. His decision was final as 3rd Guild Master of Sabertooth...
By the end of the GMG, Lucy
would be a full fledged member of Sabertooth.
XxX
"So Sting, we need to start today off with you explaining to me what you already know about running a guild. It will be easier for me to go from there."
Lucy was sitting on a crushed blue and silver velvet cushioned bench with a notepad and pencil in her hands.
"Well I know how to decline worthless jobs."
Great way to start a conversation, she thought sarcastically.
"There's no such thing."
Sting snorted at her 'ignorance'. Obviously low paying jobs and non-magic requests are worthless insignificant jobs.
"Finding a lost cat is a worthless mission."
He was surprised at how annoyed the blonde looked while writing something down.
"Does this guild not have any children?"
Sting was stunned. That was a completely random question that had nothing to do with what we were discussing.
"Well there are a few but they aren't official members because they can't take missions."
"And why can't those 'worthless' missions be practice jobs for them? The reward can be used towards their magical training. You could have your S class mages each take on an apprentice.
Anything they need financially will be taken care of with the rewards from the children's missions."
Oh? That actually wasn't a bad idea. It got Sting thinking about children, and an image of a silver spiky haired boy and blond girl with a bob cut crossed his mind, causing a blush to creep up his face. He shook the thought from his mind and focused. He thought how nice it would be for the kids to do missions of their own.
When he was a child, he was living in a cave learning magic. Surely learning magic this way in a safe controlled environment would be better for
them? Would this help make his most brutal guildmates more caring towards their fellow Sabers? The entire idea of having thrown out hundreds of learning opportunities hit him like a
ton of bricks.
"That's... not a bad idea."
Lucy seemed to soften at this statement. So Sting figured that the day wouldn't be all bad if he could try to not be so sarcastic.
"What else can you do?"
"I know how to pay fines to the Magic Council."
The color drained from her face and he just laughed. She must have thought the fines were for something massive.
"What kind of fines?"
Sting chuckled and sat back in his chair.
"Mostly late fees for paperwork and the occasional destruction fees from city jobs."
Lucy's smile returned and she jotted something down in her notebook.
"Ok that's normal. Why is your paperwork always late?"
"Because it takes me forever to do it. I don't understand half of it and it's all over the place."
Looking around the messy room Lucy could understand why Sting felt overwhelmed. Papers were strewn about and everything was mixed up. At least it would be easy to fix.
"Well then it sounds like we need to work on four things... Seperating jobs by class and difficulty, organization of paperwork so it makes sense, you'll also need to learn about budgeting and lastly, you'll need to learn about S class missions and what to do when you receive one. There's one other important thing I'll need to teach you about shadow guilds.
But it's top secret so we'll discuss it later on once I feel like you're responsible enough for the information."
"Ok so where do we start?"
Lucy put her notebook down and got up from her chair. She began picking the papers up and sorting them into different piles.
"I suppose we can start with orginazation. If your paperwork is organized by type and urgency it is much easier to handle."
Lucy spent the next thirty minutes teaching Sting how to separate important papers from less urgent ones. She taught him how it was important to answer anything from the Magic Council
the day he received it. She then taught him the difference in types of paperwork and how to tell requests from nonsense.
"So for today we're gonna work on one more thing. Don't give me that look... it'll be easy. We're gonna learn how to tell fake mission requests from real ones. Tomorrow I'll teach you how to
choose what to post based on urgency and payment but for today I've gathered a good amount of jobs. I'll have Yukino post them for me later."
The next hour was spent teaching Sting the tell tale signs of a fraudulent job posting. She shared a few stories about the dangers of fake job postings and warned him to always be on
the lookout.
When Lucy heard Sting mention it being nearly dinner time she smiled and decided to end things for the day.
"Good job today Sting. Tomorrow I will be arriving at one. I want you to go through the jobs and choose 75 to post on the mission board. You need to choose 10 S class, and 10 A class, the rest can be anything lower. We'll post them before we begin our lesson."
Sting was visibly upset about Lucy's homework but he decided against saying anything. At least he would be able to sleep in.
"Ok Blondie. Man this stuff is boring! I never realized being Guild Master was so much work."
Lucy giggled at his childish response. She knew he was only 23, of course the responsibility was getting to him. She was glad master trusted her with this job because she knew she would be
able to help for once. All she could do was encourage the light mage and hopefully the rest of their tutoring sessions would go just as smoothly as this one.
"Well its going to take some time for you to get used to doing everything the right way. Once you have a system in place, things become much easier."
"How do you know all this?"
Her features darkened a bit as sad memories filled her mind.
"My father believed that I needed to be able to offer more as a wife than the ability to bear children so he taught me how to do secretarial work for multi billion jewel businesses."
"That's insane!"
Sting was truly disgusted to hear Lucy was groomed her whole life to be married off like some pet. He may not have been the nicest guy or the most faithful ... but even he knew every woman deserved the chance to fall in love and get married.
"Yea, but it's pretty useful... As you can see for yourself."
Sting wouldn't deny her skills. In the few hours she had been there, she had tossed out a quarter of his paperwork and organized everything else. Sting was about to say something else when he noticed the familiar nutty coffee scent of his brother enter the guild and decided
instead to end their time together.
"Well I guess today wasn't too bad. I'll go through these tonight and have them ready tomorrow. Rogue just got here you should go meet him."
"But how...?"
Sting chuckled at Lucy's confusion. Didn't her guild have four dragon slayers in it? She should know his senses are super strong.
"Dragon senses baby! Oh wait before you go..."
Sting opened a deep drawer in his desk and pulled out a rather large burlap bag filled to the brim with jewel. Lucy gasped at the sight and her eyes grew wide when he motioned for her to take the bag.
"Your first months payment! Rogue mentioned your room needed stuff so tomorrow after we post jobs, we will work until three and then you can leave early and get settled in. I figured we can do lessons Monday through Friday until dinner. If that's ok?"
Lucy was still in shock at the money. Sure master had told her she would be getting paid, but to be given a bag of money was a surreal feeling. It took her a minute to gather her thoughts before she finally answered.
"Thank you! And that's perfect. But if we're cutting out weekends we need to start coming in earlier. How about this? Tomorrow since its Thursday, we will plan the party and on Friday we will get the guild ready. Starting Monday, we will meet at nine am until five pm each day except weekends. Sound good?"
Sting thought about it and although he hated the idea of waking up early every day, he remembered angry Lucy. He didn't want a repeat of that experience so he quickly agreed.
"Works for me! Well, you should get out of here ... I can smell Rogue's annoyance. Hahaha!"
She wondered how he could smell something like that but then remembered that slayers could smell fear as well. It wasn't that strange once she thought about it.
"Alright Sting, I'll see you tomorrow."
Lucy took the big bag with her mind filled with thoughts and a smile on her face. She waved goodbye before she headed down the stairs where Rogue was (not so) patiently waiting. His annoyed gaze softened when she met him at the bottom of the stairs and wordlessly they
walked out of the guild together.
XxX
Hey monsters would you be interested in reading about what's going on in Fairy Tail while
Lucy is gone? Lmk in the comments along with your vote for RoLu dates!
