Hello, dear readers! Time for another chapter of the story! This one is a happy chapter, which I suppose is saying something since I have a lot of "terrible" things in store. Now, I should inform you all that you should watch out for the ending! That's the not so happy part. Anyway, enough of my rambling. Enjoy the latest chapter!
Chapter 11: Return to Normalcy
"What do you mean, you're sending us out on a job?!"
My yells had everyone cringing, hunching down wherever they were standing in an attempt to hide. Everyone knew to take cover when my mood dropped to dangerously enraged levels. Natsu and Saphira were standing beside me, both of them looking at me impassively because they knew better than to get in my way when I went on the warpath. Even Payne, who was walking over to Saphira to talk to her, seemed to just back away a few steps as he assessed the situation. Makarov was the only one who seemed amused by this turn of events since he was the person who set me off.
"I had a request handed in last night that I felt the two of you would be perfect to send," he said with a smile as I glared down at him.
"Do you not remember what happened the last time you sent us out on a job?" I asked, my voice low in fury as everyone in the guild slowly tried to sneak out, the only ones who stood their ground being the S-Class Wizards and my family. I whipped around to see the slowly fleeing guild and I growled, "Just where do you think you're going?"
They all jumped a little before dejectedly filtering back into the guild hall, returning back to their respective places as I turned back to Makarov with my hands on my hips. He seemed to find the situation even funnier and began to laugh quietly, my glares doing nothing to stop him. I knew he was going to do this whether I liked it or not, but I still had my right to protest this. I was perfectly capable of picking out my own job to do and was just about to when he called Natsu and me over.
"You two are perfect for it because I need a bit of an intimidating team to go do it," Makarov told me once he finally stopped laughing. "Since you have no qualms over stooping to such levels, I want you both to take on this job."
I was about to come up with some snappy comeback when Natsu clapped a hand over my mouth, pulling me close to him where he could keep his hold on me. "What's the job, Gramps?" he asked as I struggled.
"Go to a town called Freesia and talk with the mayor there," Makarov told him before looking over at Saphira. "Sorry, but you'll have to stay here. I don't think you'd be all that intimidating for the job. You're not as scary as your mom quite yet."
"It's ok!" Saphira said brightly. "Can you give Payne and me a few jobs around Magnolia until my parents get back?"
"I've got the perfect one for you," the Guild Master said before leading Saphira and a dragon suited Nari away, taking Payne along with them.
"Ouch!" Natsu yelled when I took the opportunity to bite down on his hand once they had left. He let me go and I laughed a little as he checked his hand, but I had made sure not to bite hard enough to draw blood. "Really? You're going to resort to biting?"
"Serves you right!" I yelled, pushing him a little to set him off balance before he could get his revenge. Before he could catch me, I used my Magic to jump up high enough to dig my newly formed claws into a wooden beam and then scrambled up to sit on it, kicking my legs gleefully as I looked down at a miffed Natsu.
"Get down here!" he yelled and I could hear quite a few people chuckling at our antics.
"Alas, I would if I weren't so tired!" I exclaimed dramatically, placing a hand on my forehead and leaning back a little on the beam.
"I swear, if you don't get down here right now, I'll climb up there after you and you won't like it when I catch you!" he shouted, giving me a roguish grin.
"Oh, please," I laughed, waving my hand dismissively as I leaned forward, giving him an impish smile that matched his. "I'd like to see you try. By the time you figure out a way to get up here, I'll be diving out the window and running for town."
"Then I say we have a little bet before heading to Freesia Town," Natsu said while taking a few steps closer.
"Go on, I'm listening."
"If I catch you within one hour, then you have to obey me for 24 hours. If you win and I don't manage to catch you after one hour, I have to obey you for those 24 hours. Sound fair?"
"Hmm…" I leaned back using my arms to hold me steady as I lightly kicked my feet back and forth, then gave him a wicked grin. "I like this idea. It's a deal. Now, come and get me!"
I scrambled to my feet just as he grinned back, yelling, "You asked for it! Fire Dragon's Claw!"
Fire erupted from his feet and launched him into the air, eyes locking onto mine just before he landed on the wooden beam with me. With a laugh, I took off running and using my Magic to disappear one second and reappear the next somewhere else. I dived through the open window and landed out in the courtyard faster than Natsu could catch me, diving into the shadows in the corner and reappearing outside in an alley. If he could cheat and use Magic, then so could I.
After about half an hour in and no sight of Natsu, I was feeling quite suspicious. I stood within the branches of a huge tree, shadows covering me well as I watched out for the Fire Dragon Slayer. He was usually very good at sensing where I was hiding, so something kept me on edge the entire time. It wasn't until I heard a faint rustling above me that forced me to jump out of the tree branches. It was lucky timing for me because when I whipped around in midair, I saw Natsu jump down to the branch where I had just been standing. I could only wonder how long he had been up there and that made me laugh.
"Sneaky," I said. "Not sneaky enough!"
I twisted around before landing on my feet, then ran for the next alley that was shrouded in shadows. The poor people of Magnolia must have heard about our bet since they tried to give us our space as we ran about. Now closer to fifteen minutes until the end of our hour, Natsu was trying even harder to catch me. I could barely stop for a couple seconds to catch my breath briefly before I sensed him almost jumping on top of me. Being so close with him was both a gift and a curse during this bet since we could both sense each other from a distance.
We were at the five minute mark when I was hiding out in a dark abandoned building, shaking as I caught my breath and trying to laugh as quietly as I could. I gathered up the shadows around the whole room so he wouldn't be able to see me, the benefits of me being one of the few Dragon Slayers that could see in the dark meant that I knew who couldn't and Natsu wasn't one of them. What I wasn't expecting was I could sense Natsu's presence approaching at a rapid speed and by the time I had forced my tired body to move, there was a huge crash as he tore through the ceiling and tackled me to the ground. He had me flipped onto my back and my body pinned to the ground faster than I could struggle, keeping my arms above my head so I couldn't resist further.
"Five minutes to spare and I finally caught you!" he said, panting heavily like I was and his face only a few inches from mine.
"How in the hell did you pull that one off?" I asked.
"Oh, Ty helped me!" he said, looking quite pleased with himself. "She's been helping me this entire time. I'm pretty sure you would have won within an hour but I had my plan up my sleeve before the whole thing started!"
"You cheater!" I yelled just before he nipped at the tattoo on my skin.
"It's not cheating when there weren't any rules! I knew that the only way to catch you would be for her to carry me at Max Speed, so here I am!"
"You're the worst…" I said under my breath with a laugh. "I can't believe that she is the only reason you've found me."
"And now I win. You have to listen to me for a whole day," he said. Deciding to mess with him when he tried to lean in and kiss me, I turned my head to the side and refused to look at him. He grabbed me by the chin and forced me to look at him, his devious smile as plain as day on his face. "Now, don't be a sore loser, Timara. It's not very nice."
He softly planted a kiss on my lips, pulling away only for a few seconds to look into my eyes and see that I was unhappy with how short it was before kissing me deeply. His tongue slid against mine and I shivered when I felt his hand sliding down my side to rest on my hip. He lifted my waist up a bit to meet his and I felt his fingers digging into my hipbone. He pulled away from the kiss long enough to start lightly biting along my jaw until he reached my neck.
"It's been a while since we've done something like this," he said as he kissed me there, making me squirm restlessly.
"It has but I think you're forgetting about a couple things," I gasped, trying to free my wrists and stop him long enough to talk to him.
"I don't think I have," he told me before trailing his tongue along my throat.
My breath hissed past my lips and I arched my back, hearing Natsu's breathing begin to get ragged as his lips trailed lower. "Oh, yes you have!" I told him, freeing one wrist and placing a finger under his chin to tilt his head up so he was looking at me. "We're in an abandoned building first of all. Second, we need to go on a job now!"
"The job can wait a bit longer since it won't take us very long to get to Freesia Town," he said to me, his eyes blazing fiercely. "As for the other thing you mentioned, it's not all that dirty in here if that's what you're worried about and no one is going to know what we're up to."
He let go of my other wrist and deftly pulled my tank top off before I could protest, kissing me passionately as the fight left me. Like he had said, it had been a long time since we had done something like this and I missed the connection we had while it occurred. I also wanted to do this with him at least one more time before I died. Unfortunately, I was forced to let him call the shots as our clothes were slowly ripped off. I gave in to the fire burning in my veins as we moved together and I felt all my worries fade away.
"Where the hell did you throw my tank top?" I asked Natsu curiously. After a quick nap when we were finished, it was decided that we were finally ready to head out on our job.
"Umm… I'm not exactly sure," Natsu said guiltily, scratching the back of his head before tracking down his own clothes.
I sighed and searched further into the deep shadows of the room, finally catching sight of it and putting it on. Now that I was fully clothed, I realized I had another question. "Wait, you said that Ty helped you out during the bet. So where is she?"
"I told her to bring Happy here an hour after the bet ended," he said, looking a bit on the sheepish side again and a bit of a blush was forming on his cheeks.
"Oh, you sneaky jerk," I said with a laugh. "You had this whole thing planned out."
"Only a few minutes before I caught you!" he told me defensively, finally putting on all of his clothes and tying his scarf around his collar.
Fortunately for Natsu, Ty and Happy appeared and seemed ready to fly us away to Freesia Town. He said that it would be an hour long flight since it wasn't all that far away. Our partners grabbed us and flew us out of the hole in the ceiling before heading east towards our destination. I was back to seething about losing the bet and Ty was trying to silently laugh as we flew along. I refused to speak to her for the entire flight and that only made her more amused.
By the time we made it to Freesia Town, Natsu was grinning evilly and I knew he had come up with some horrid plan that I wouldn't like. We headed towards the mayor's house and went inside, where the man was waiting for us. He led us into his office and it was scarily clean in there, so I almost didn't want to walk in. Once we were sitting down in his two chairs that were facing his desk, the mayor sat down in his desk chair and hunched over the desk to look at us.
"I called you here today because our town is faced with a problem," the mayor said. "There's a Dark Guild here that we just can't seem to make leave. They go around eating us out of house and home, then occasionally they break into stores and houses just to cause some damage. We're tired of them destroying the town and we need them to leave."
"Judging by the fact that you called us here, you want for us to take the nonviolent route," I finally spoke up.
"If it comes to the point where just intimidation doesn't work since they're rather unintelligent, then you have my permission to use as much force as you see fit," the mayor sighed. "Just… try to keep the destruction to a minimum. They've already destroyed enough in this town, so we really don't need more of it."
"Don't worry, we've got this covered," Natsu told him with a grin. "I've got the perfect plan."
With that, he stood up and dragged me to my feet, nearly knocking Ty from my lap. He kept his grip on my upper arm and told our partners to disappear for now, letting Ty know that he would give her a signal to follow after us. Ty figured out what was going on rather quickly and I think that's why she left so fast. Natsu told me to shift into my shadow form and look like a demon, which was when I figured out the plan as well.
A large building that looked like what used to be the courthouse only it was now painted in bright colors that made it stand out horrendously was where this Dark Guild had set up shop. To make it look convincing that a man with a demon was approaching, I used my Magic to force the clouds to turn dark and thunder rumbled up above as I turned into my shadow form. I formed wings on my back and tiny horns on my head, my eyes glowing with a golden light as we got closer. Natsu let me go and we got closer to their base, a few sentries caught sight of us and sounded the alarm.
"Well, at least they have enough sense to do that," I said under my breath.
Natsu turned his head in my direction and gave me a smile. "Hey, you're supposed to be a demon and demons in this case don't talk," he said quietly so that none of the Dark Guild wizards could hear us as they filtered outside. When it looked like I was going to growl something to him, he told me, "Remember our bet? You have to obey me for 24 hours, so stop looking like you're about to fight it."
Feeling beyond enraged at this and probably making the demon act look even more convincing as I tucked my wings against my spine, we moved past the dark wizards who stood next to the door and I growled at them as we passed. They all flinched away from me and I gave them an evil grin. Thankfully he didn't want me to be a submissive demon or I would be extremely angry. The dark wizards inside were like a huge mob, milling about to catch sight of the demon before them. As we moved further into the crowd, I saw a large man sitting in a huge chair as if it was a throne to him. I let out another growl and all the dark wizards moved away in fear.
"Stop," Natsu said, giving me a stern look that wasn't something I was used to seeing. In fact, it was definitely foreign to me so I knew it was all part of the act. I stopped my growling and remained silent, both of us in a bit of a stare off before moving over to the remaining chair that was facing the Dark Guild's boss. Natsu sat down in the chair and I stood to his right just behind him, my gaze not once leaving the man sitting before me as I bared my fangs at him.
"Who are you and what purpose do you have in being here in our base?" the man said in a deep voice. Their boss had crazy colored hair just like the building and he seemed a bit afraid of me.
"Who I am doesn't matter," Natsu said as he leaned back in his chair. "My purpose is simple. The mayor of Freesia contacted me to deal with you. He wants you gone and never to return. How I do that depends on you."
"What do you mean?" the man asked suspiciously.
Natsu waved his hand in my direction as I growled softly. "See my friend here? She's just been itching to let her true demonic nature out on someone and since I'm her master, she won't do it to me. It's just so hard to keep her in line, so I let her have her fun on Dark Guilds. Now, if you leave peacefully right now and promise to never return, I will also promise that my friend here does not attack you all."
"And if we don't like your terms and want to stay here?" he asked, glaring at Natsu as all the dark wizards laughed evilly.
"Then I have no choice but to let my friend chase you off in the bloodiest way possible," Natsu said angrily. "You see, she is the Great Demon Queen, which means she can summon a whole horde of demons to attack you. So if you're really thinking you can take us both down, you are gravely mistaken. So what's your decision, the easy way or the hard way?"
"What are you?" the man growled, soon after I growled at him again he shut up.
"Oh, I'm a Fire Devil Slayer," Natsu lied, staying serious the entire time as I took a step closer to his side. "Now, make your decision within five seconds or I'll let my friend here make it for you and we all know which one she will choose."
What I wasn't expecting was that the big man could move fast as he stood up quickly, grabbed Natsu by the arm, and pulled a long dagger out to put it against his throat. "Stay there, demon!" the man howled at me, fear and anger blazing in his eyes. "Move an inch and your master gets it!"
"Do you really think a demon cares about me?" Natsu asked as he looked up at the boss. "I'm the only thing standing in the way of your certain death. If you kill me, you unleash a powerful demon upon yourselves and then the world. Is that what you really want?"
The man looked down at Natsu and I took the opportunity I now had. Sliding down into the shadows, I moved through the darkness until I was directly behind the Dark Guild's boss. I jumped out of the shadows and slid my talons out to press them against his spine. "Put the knife away right now or I sever your spine," I growled.
When he put the dagger away quickly, I slashed his back so that there were four jagged cuts in his back that weren't very deep but he still got the message. "Decision's made," Natsu said. "Go get them and chase them out."
With a roar, the shadows leapt from me and thickened until a huge horde of demons were formed from my Magic, my body burning with the strain of using so much of it. I heard screams as I sent them to attack while jumping into the fray myself. I slashed my talons at people, slicing into skin as blood began to slick the floor. I made sure not to kill anyone, just hurt them enough so that they ran in fear. Natsu gave a loud whistle and a few seconds later there was a huge roar outside as everyone began running outside. I saw outside the window as an enormous tiger that towered over the wizards waited for them, its eyes blazing red and a huge royal blue Fairy Tail mark between its shoulder blades. That's my Ty, scaring all the dark wizards with her ten foot tall form. I ran outside while slashing at more people with the help of my shadowy demons as Ty roared again, slashing her huge claws at them and making them run for the hills. She gave chase until they reached the edge of town and then watched as they kept running. As I let my talons, wings, and horns disappear and stayed in my shadow form, I crossed my arms and watched while I heard Natsu walk over to me to stand beside me.
"I'm pretty sure that they won't be coming back any time soon," I told him without looking at him at all. "Our act was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself."
"And you listened to me pretty well, so that was shocking to me," he said and I could hear the smile in his voice, trying to grab me by the arm and pull me close when his hand just passed through me. "Umm… do you mind…?"
"Oh! Yeah, sure!" I said, feeling a bit embarrassed and shifting out of my shadow form easily.
Just like he had tried earlier, he grabbed me lightly by the arm, pulled me closer, and kissed me softly. We stayed like that for a few seconds when I heard a coughing noise behind me. Jumping apart, I whipped around to see the huge tiger walking back towards us, her head tilted to the side and her teeth bared in a smile. She stalked forward a few more steps with Happy now sitting on her back, then sat down in front of us with her eyes shining in her amusement.
"Control yourselves, will you?" she said before shifting back to her regular form, dumping Happy to the ground. "We're all on a job here and we're not done with it yet until we meet back up with the mayor. Do that when we get home and we don't happen to be within ten feet of you."
I shook my head but actually listened to her as she flew over to me to stand on my shoulder. I pulled away from Natsu and we all started walking towards the mayor's house. It was late afternoon now and we waited outside his door for a while before a servant appeared. They said that the mayor was in a meeting and that we could wait outside of his office for it to be done in a few minutes. We walked upstairs and were in luck to see his meeting had just ended. He said goodbye to the man who he had been meeting with and beckoned us inside.
"So, did you finish the job so early?" the mayor asked as we all sat down in our respective chairs.
"It was easier than expected," I said with a smile as I sat Ty down on my lap. "They didn't stand a chance against us right from the start."
"That's good to hear," the mayor said with a smile. "I was honestly beginning to give up hope the moment they started using the courthouse as their base. That was our place of operations and it threw everything into chaos when they took it from us. Thank you so much, Natsu and Timara."
"Hey, what about us?" I heard Happy protest.
"Ahh, yes, I almost forgot. Thank you as well, Happy and Tyger. I'll send you your reward through your guild. You'll get it in a few days."
We nodded and then left the room entirely. Natsu turned to me with an ecstatic smile and said, "Time to go home, Timara!"
XxXxX
After deciding the leave the castle not long after all the wizards left for their own guilds, I just wandered about aimlessly at first. I tried searching for my era's Rogue by looking for his scent, but just like last time I couldn't find him that way. It was like he knew how to disappear off the face of the earth and that infuriated me beyond belief. I had already killed about ten people who passed me by, not bothering with any tact or secrecy and just leaving the corpses where they laid. After a while, I had a thought that sent chills down my spine. The last time I was tracking down my era's Lucy, I soon discovered after she jumped through the Eclipse Gate that Rogue had been stalking her just like me. If he was stalking her again, all I needed to do was track her down and I would find him.
Allowing for my insane side to take the lead, my eyes turned red as I giggled maniacally. I sniffed the air like a wolf on the hunt and used my Magic to search the area within a one hundred mile radius. I caught a trace of her Magic and her scent in a forest not far from Crocus that led away towards the east where I could faintly sense her presence. Like a wolf, I loped off in an easterly direction, conserving my strength so that I could run all night and day without rest. I didn't feel any pain when I stepped on sharp rocks or twigs as I ran along, my bare feet starting to bleed and leave bloody footprints behind me. I loped through the woods all night long until I was in a familiar part of the woods, slowing down and pushing the insanity back into the deepest part of my mind.
I walked along slowly as I saw a huge patch of burned forest and caught sight of the nests that had been deeply singed. I also saw the patches of moved dirt where someone must have buried the bodies of the dead Exceeds that I had killed. All that blood and screaming… I felt a smile forming on my face as I remembered it all like it had happened yesterday. If those stupid creatures hadn't stood in my way, I wouldn't have had to kill them. They were just as bad as the humans. At least the Exceeds in my era weren't nearly as trusting as these. They knew to stay hidden in colonies underground or in mountains because I would kill them all in one fell swoop. I moved further in to the center of what used to be the Exceed colony and fell back onto the singed grass. I sniffed the air as I rolled around like a wolf, then stopped moving as I closed my eyes. Even though I didn't need sleep anymore with this body, I allowed myself to shut my brain off and lose consciousness entirely.
When I opened my eyes again, I could see an orange glow filtering in between the leaves. This was another reason why I didn't allow myself the privilege of sleep often. Since I never slept habitually, only allowing myself to after a particularly bloody kill that was spread out over months, I would sleep for a very long time. I was lucky to have only slept for twelve hours this time. I stood up, adjusting the white bikini that I typically wore and the white see-through sarong dress that stayed up with a thin strap around my neck, and loped away from the burned colony.
I used the darkening surroundings to form my sunglasses again to cover my eyes and hide their now white color. As the sun was close to setting, my feet were bleeding heavily again and I ran out of the forest entirely, catching sight of a familiar mansion that overlooked a lake. I froze as I assessed the situation, waiting for memories of this place to force an emotional reaction but none came. I remembered then that my dearest daughter was here now at the mansion and throwing all thoughts of chasing down my era's Lucy to find my Rogue, I treaded lightly towards the mansion with my eyes locked onto it. I made my way over to the front of it and stopped before the door. I made up my mind right then and there, so I rapped on the door with my knuckles. I could hear tiny running feet making their way to the door, but then they stopped abruptly as another set of footsteps could be heard. The new footsteps were hesitant as they approached, and then the door was opened to reveal an old friend that I hadn't seen in a very long time.
"Hello, Zeref," I said with a smile, showing off my sharp teeth.
His body language showed that he was extremely wary, his black eyes guarded as he evaluated the situation. "I would ask who you are, but I can already tell. I've heard about you and the others like you. You're the future version of my dear friend, Timara."
"You'd be correct," I told him, not once losing my smile as he spoke. "Aren't you going to let me inside the mansion? I do technically own the place."
"Unfortunately, the true owner of this mansion would kill me if I let you in," Zeref said as his eyes narrowed, as close to a glare as he was going to get with me. "I've heard about your evil deeds, so you are no longer Timara to me. You are like a demon I've created and I won't let you anywhere near Timara's daughter."
"I'd forgotten how pretentious you are," I told him as my smile shifted to something darker. He never had a chance to defend himself as my fist slammed into his jaw hard enough that I heard his teeth click together. He crashed to the floor, his eyes turning red in his rage as I stepped through the door and slammed it shut behind me. "But you don't realize how right you are with your last statement. In a way, you did create me and make me this way."
I heard the sounds of footsteps running their way towards us and saw a girl who was only seven make her way into the room. She had long pink hair that had a few darker streaks through it closer to the ends and tawny gold eyes. I saw on her right shoulder the golden mark of Fairy Tail. In her arms was a dark lilac purple kitten in an electric blue dragon suit. The kitten looked up at me and her eyes widened, tiny tremors shaking her body as her eyes went from storm gray to black in her fear.
"Zeref, what's going on?" she asked quietly before seeing the full situation. She looked a bit afraid herself when she caught sight of me and my now expressionless face.
"It's her…" I heard the kitten whisper as her eyes then shifted again to a mercury color that looked as if it was moving. I could hear the hidden rage in her voice as she shook even more in Saphira's arms. The girl held her tighter as Nari whispered, "It's the presence I could faintly sense after hatching. She's the one that killed my parents and the other Exceeds."
"Hello, my dearest Saphira!" I called to her as warmly as I possibly could even though I didn't feel it myself. Both of the cat and my little girl seemed to shiver even more at my words. "I'm so glad that I could finally see you again."