And finally with this chapter we wrap up the first arc! I will admit, this one was shaky for me to write; but fret not! As it will not happen again! (Hopefully).
It has been a long time since Mavis had felt the softness of a bed and the warmth of bed sheets; she almost forgot what it felt like. She was staring at a white ceiling and was confused as to how she ended up where she was; she sat up trying to remember what had happened; flashes of her battle came to mind and she could feel dark and light magic swirl in her. She decided to test it out; she sat in silence, waiting a few minutes, doing everything in her power to trigger it and much to her delight, she did not release any death magic; a very wide smile formed on her lips, as she started to become giddy and was about to jump out of bed and start dancing with joy before she noticed there was another presence in the room; sitting next to her in fact.
"Good morning" the woman greeted, she looked normal except for the two golden horns on the side of her head. "I'm glad to see you are awake". Mavis turned red with embarrassment, she had honestly thought she was alone in the room and was ready to do some celebrating; she even realized how close she was to killing another person due to her carelessness. She composed herself.
"You are Sayla, correct?" Mavis recognized the woman from Natsu's memories.
"That's right, but if I may ask, how do you know my name?" Mavis didn't respond immediately; she wasn't sure if telling the demon she found out by invading their Master's memories was a good idea.
"Natsu told me about you" she replied, but she could tell that Sayla was skeptical.
"Is that right..." Mavis was getting nervous, but was thankful when Sayla decided to change the subject. "Anyways, how are you feeling?"
"Great, in fact better than great, I feel fantastic" Mavis replied; Sayla giggled at her antics.
"Aren't you the adorable one" Mavis blushed at her comment. The demon stood up reaching out to her with her hand. "Come let's get you properly fed" Mavis did admit, her stomach was growling.
"By the way, where am I?"
"My house" Sayla replied. Mavis was actually quite surprised; she felt guilty for thinking it, but she actually expected a demon's home to be more... intimidating; this home was, normal, too normal in fact.
Upon entering the dining room, Mavis was met with Wendy and Mard Geer sitting at the table covered in bandages, they sat quietly drinking a bowl of soup. Wendy was the first to notice Mavis enter.
"Look who decided to finally wake up" she announced. "Sleep well?" Mavis took a seat opposite Wendy. The Fairy Tail mage looked nervous staring into the young demon's eyes; Mavis was aware that Wendy didn't like her and by the look of her eyes she could tell something must have happened to deepen that dislike.
"Wendy" Sayla said sternly "Be nice" upon hearing the older demon, Wendy's dark glint disappeared.
"It was refreshing?" Mavis tried to be friendly but with Wendy rolling her eyes, it didn't seem to work.
"You certainly had it better than us" Wendy said while pointing to both herself and Mard Geer; the male demon chose to ignore them and focus on his food. "Luckily as demon's we have high durability otherwise you would have gone off and killed a lot of people" Mavis looked horrified.
"What do you mean?" she asked, Wendy pointed to her bandages.
"While you were running around in your dreamscape, your real body became possessed and was causing havoc out in the forest, Mard and I had to subjugate you; and it wasn't easy, considering it was an ongoing fight that lasted twenty years" Mavis choked on the water she was drinking.
"What do you mean twenty years?"
"You were in your dreamscape for twenty years" Wendy clarified. Mavis still couldn't believe what she was hearing; this had to be some sort of joke.
"What about you two, how were you two able to last that long fighting?"
"We took shifts; Mard took the mornings and afternoons. I took nights; over time we got used to fighting you and it became our daily routine" Mavis was stunned and still couldn't believe that these two fought for twenty years; it was pretty amazing. Wendy noticed the gleam in Mavis' eyes and immediately wanted to clear up any misunderstanding.
"Don't get the wrong idea; we contained your rampage because you could have hurt our Guildmates and Master; had it been anybody else, we would have left you alone" though from Mavis' point of view it made it seem like Wendy was simply making excuses. She suddenly heard footsteps and much to her surprise Rita had come running into the room.
"Mavis! You're awake!" she cried out.
"Rita?" Mavis exclaimed. "You're alive?" Rita looking as if she never died in the first place, gave her a big hug.
"Yes, I am not too sure about the details but Master E.N.D was able to bring me back"
"Wait, what about your body, the one that is buried at the cemetery in Magnolia?" Rita chuckled nervously looking away awkwardly.
"We may have gone grave digging..." she mumbled but Mavis heard her.
"What! You mean this is your actual body?" Rita nodded. It was Sayla who decided to explain the situation.
"Natsu managed to extract Rita's soul from within you, however to properly bring her back we needed her body; any other body would have rejected her and creating an artificial body would take too much time; so we dug her up. Though not unexpected, her body was rotting, but it wasn't something we couldn't fix" Sayla approached the table placing a bowl of noodles in front of Mavis. It wasn't that Mavis was not glad her friend had come back to life; it was just the thought they had to desecrate a grave to do it, even if it did belong to Rita.
"So..." Mavis trying to find the right words "You are basically a zombie" Rita shrugged her shoulders.
"In a way, yes" she responded, "Though I feel normal, nothing out of the ordinary" that was good? Mavis wasn't sure; it just all seemed bizarre to her; the idea that someone is actually capable of bringing someone back to life; but she could probably guess that the process required specific conditions to be met.
"So what are you planning to do now?" Mavis asked Rita.
"I do not know yet. I've been gone for twenty years, and I don't think walking back into my family's life would be a good idea; it would be too shocking for them. But I would like to go see them before I decide" Sayla smiled placing a hand on Rita's shoulder.
"Then we should go visit them"
"Eh?" Rita was surprised. Sayla continued.
"Not as you, but as someone else, a simple disguise" she suggested; Rita considered the proposal.
"I suppose that could work..." Sayla nodded before turning to Mavis.
"By the way, once you have finished eating, Natsu would like to speak with you" Mavis could already imagine what their conversation was going to be about; she too was eager to speak with him; they had much to discuss.
Sayla's home was a lake house in the middle of a massive forest; it was quiet and had a beautiful view Mavis wouldn't mind spending the rest of her days here; though she couldn't tell where exactly it was located but was certain that they were still in Fiore. She found Natsu lying in a hammock.
"Finally awake are we" Natsu said as Mavis approached. "So how do you feel?"
"In control" her response made Natsu chuckle.
"Good, good" he hopped out his hammock. "And it looks like you win the first round Mavis, you didn't turn to the path of a demon" Mavis narrowed her eyes at this, her guard was back up.
"The 'me' who called herself Vermillion; you imbued her with some of your power didn't you?" though it was a question, Mavis was more stating the fact rather than asking. Natsu grinned, stepping back and raising his hands up.
"Guilty as charged" his eyes filled with amusement. "I will admit that everything I have done till now was to try and make it easier to convert you; but it would seem that your resolve to be human was stronger than I anticipated" he paused, "But then again, 'human' isn't really the correct word to describe you now is it"
"And what exactly am I?" she questioned, eyes narrowed; she was hesitant to use magic, still unclear as to what her new found abilities are. Natsu shrugged his shoulders walking towards the edge of the lake.
"Who knows, you must find out for yourself" Mavis sighed scratching her head at how anticlimactic the situation was.
"Regardless" Mavis keeping the conversation on track, "Everything you've done till now was an attempt to try and convert me. You offered to help me control my curse so that I would put my faith in you; you introduced me to your allies to show me your good intent; you showed me your memories so that I could show you sympathy; and finally, you granted power to Vermillion to try and push me into a corner; all of that, to try and have me accept the demonification. Did I miss anything?" Natsu clapped his hands.
"Bravo, you figured it all out, I'm impressed, but as you can see, it didn't work; your future self, lacked the ability to deliver it would seem" Natsu sounded crestfallen, but she knew he wasn't disappointed, in fact it was almost like he was pleased. "Now that you have your first victory, how about we start round two?" Mavis had other plans.
"Actually" she started which immediately got Natsu to stare at her. "I would like to change the rules of our game"
"Go on..." Mavis smiled inwardly, she seemed to have finally figured Natsu out.
"It is still a game of conquest, but a little more interesting; instead of playing with human lives, I propose we play a game of chess" knowing that she had Natsu's attention, Mavis continued. "Like chess, we will each have a set of pieces we will use to conquer the objective"
"And what is the objective?"
"It will be different every time, we will take turns deciding before the round begins. The first to win five rounds will win the game. What do you think? A game with more variety to spice it up" Natsu looked away in deep thought; though Mavis knew it was all for show, she knew what his answer was going to be.
"Consider me interested; but what made you want change the game?" Mavis smirked, a look that Natsu genuinely found very attractive.
"Your original game was to explore the extent of human nature; I on the other hand wish to explore the nature of demons. This game will bring humans and demons together; a game that can allow us to explore both possibilities, a game where we both get what we want" at this point Natsu was laughing with delight; everything was turning out better than he expected. His desire to acquire Mavis only increased, the girl was far too entertaining; he could not wait to win. The wing mark on their hands glowed and dimmed.
"And consider the rules of our game changed" Natsu announced.
Makarov Dreyer has never met his parents; but from the stories told by Fairy Tail's second Master, Purehito, they sounded like amazing people. His mother had died minutes after giving birth to him and his father passed away for some unknown reason a year later. Though nobody has ever implied it or accused him of it, Makarov has always felt responsible for their deaths.
It was past midnight and Makarov had just left the guild after a long drawn out job, he was hungry and tired but at this time no place was open. That was when a wonderful smell graced his nostrils; the scent of grilled eels; his stomach started rumbling while he followed the smell. It was a small kart located in the middle of the forest, just outside Magnolia, it looked to be run by two individuals.
"Hello" he greeted them, one was a young girl with pink hair and grey eyes, she had pointed ears like an owl and sprouted a pair of pink bird like wings; the other person, also a woman, looked relatively normal, except for the fact she was wearing a fox mask. There were many anthropomorphous beings living in Fiore, but Makarov had to admit, he's never met one with bird attributes before.
"Good evening, my name is Mystia Lorelei and I will be your chef for tonight; what would you like to have?" the young girl introduced. Makarov looked over the wooden tablets which listed the menu items.
"I'll have some grilled lampreys" Mystia nodded, but then frowned while turning to her helper.
"I'm going to go refill on some ingredients, I will be right back" the woman nodded. The Night Sparrow ran off.
"Sorry about this, we had a wave of customers earlier and forgot to restock" the woman explained; Makarov shook his head.
"It's quite alright, it is late after all, I'm pretty sure you didn't expect any more customers" the woman giggled before jumping a little, acting embarrassed.
"How rude of me, my name is Rita and I will be your server for tonight" she introduced. Makarov looked at the woman, smiling a little.
"My mother's name was also Rita" he didn't know why he said that.
"Oh my, what a coincidence; what is your mother like?"
"I never met her, she passed away shortly after my birth; my father shortly after" as he explained Rita paused, inwardly shocked that her husband had also passed away.
"I'm sorry to hear that" she whispered. Makarov noticed the mood dim.
"But my guild" he exclaimed quickly "Even if my parents aren't with me anymore, Fairy Tail has been a loving family to me" though Makarov couldn't see it, he could tell Rita was smiling behind the mask.
"It might not be much coming from me; but I'm sure your parents are proud of you" Makarov chuckled.
"Shocked, maybe; but proud? I don't think so" he said. "A lot of people say I am quite the flashy individual"
"Oh my; sounds to me like you inherited that from your father" Rita's comment made Makarov raise a brow.
"What makes you say that?" Rita shrugged.
"Let's just say, I have a hunch that would be the case" Mystia interrupted their moment by entering the scene with a box.
"Sorry for the wait!" Mystia turned to Rita "Could you help me start grilling these" the woman nodded. The sound of fire crackling sounded in the quite night; it was relaxing and Makarov couldn't help but feel at ease. He looked to the masked woman; he didn't know why, but he felt like he was able to open up to the woman, something he's never felt like he could do before.
"Tell me sir, what is being part of a guild like?" Rita asked; at this Makarov lightened up, eager to answer.
I would like to address how this story will work. As the title implies, it is a game between Natsu and Mavis; for each arc, one of the parties will have a hidden agenda, and throughout that arc, their actions will be questioned and tested. The "Pieces" will try and figure out what is going on, but I would like you, the readers to try and figure it out as well. Who do you think will win each round and why; make it a discussion between you readers, we're all friends after all, haha. You guys could put it in the forums or something, but I would really like to see if you guys can figure out the mystery in each arc.
At the end of each arc, both Natsu's and Mavis' motives will be explained, very much like in this arc.
Don't know if you guys will do it, but it certainly will be interesting to see your discussions. Tell me what you think in a review.