Chapter 12
You may or may not have heard this last part already. I know you were gone at the time, but it got a lot of attention in the news.
Like I said, we all appeared in Lucy's house. Those crystals vanished right away and our normal magic came back. How that worked I've never quite managed to figure out. The master guessed it was because magic worked to differently in that world, and our powers shifted temporarily to work with it. Not that that really made any sense.
(Not that anything that happened in that world made sense.)
Lyon left for his guild right away, saying he needed to report what had happened. And Lucy sent Loke back to his own world via her normal magic.
Erza was saying something about how everything was back to normal now when Jellal butted in to point that he was a criminal who probably shouldn't have been anywhere near hear. I probably would have cared more about that if when I looked at him I hadn't seen that dammed bird in his arms. Apparently it hadn't occurred to him to leave it in the barn before we all went to return home. Any important discussion we could have had about how best to return him to the council without being arrested ourselves or getting him into worse trouble was set aside so I could demand Lucy return that thing to its own world, Lucy could tell me she couldn't any more, and Jellal and I could spend the next twenty minutes yelling at each other about how this was or wasn't all his fault.
While we were trying to figure out what to do with him he stayed at Lucy's place. My apartment's kind of small, Erza lives in a girls dormitory, and Natsu… well, he stayed at Lucy's place. Lucy didn't want Drum Stick in her house, so it stayed at the guild instead.
I can't remember why. It might have been that he'd remembered something important, or he'd just been bored, but a few days after getting he actually went outside and wandered around town a little. It was only a matter of hours before the Rune Knights descended upon us.
They gave their normal bit "We're the Rune Knights, the Council's special enforcement. Do not resist." Or whatever it is they say. Then they started listing all of Jellal's crimes and added that he'd broken out of prison. It seemed to bother him much less the second time around.
Rahal handcuffed him again and told him that his fate had already been determined. Since he'd escaped once already it was no longer possible to imprison him. He was going to be executed immediately upon returning to the capital.
Erza ran out of the crowd crying for them not to do it "It wasn't his fault!" She insisted "Really!"
Rahal said something like "Am I to believe you are behind him being out?"
Erza shook her head and explained the whole situation with Grimore Heart, the other world, and every weird little mishap there that she had been present for.
When she was done Rahal, who was looking at her like she had some major mental deficiency, said "I've never heard a less likely story."
"It's true!" Natsu shouted "It happened! You have to believe us!"
Erza turned and ran off while Lucy and Juvia joined Natsu in trying to defend Erza's bizarre story. The whole guild was raging when she returned.
She ran right up to Rahal and showed him Drum Stick and said "See? We brought this bird back with us."
Then there this really painful silence. You can find some pretty weird creatures in our world, but a purple bird born the size of a full grown hen aren't among them. Rahal motioned for someone to check to make sure it wasn't a trick, and Drum Stick check out just fine.
"Alright. I'll report this to the council and we'll see if it changes anything for Jellal." Rahal said, which we knew was the best victory we were going to get while dealing with this new council. "May we take the bird with us. It would be best that we study this 'other world' to prevent another incident."
"Don't take Drum Stick!" Erza cried, pulling the bird in close.
Rahal just gave her an odd look, but one of the nameless Rune Knights asked the obligatory "Who named it that?"
I swear I'm not joking. Erza and Jellal both pointed fingers at each other.
A lot of people looked like they were much more interested in hearing this than going over more council protocol, but council protocol was ultimately more important than finding out who had a worse sense of what to name a bird. In the end Jellal was taken away with the knowledge that he'd only probably be executed upon reaching his destination and Erza went off to mope about it with their 'baby'.
I don't really have to tell you this, but he wasn't actually hung-yet. It's only been a week, after all.
Thanks for listening, Levy.
OXXXXXO
Rune Caster: That's right, this story was for Levy. Anyone else who heard it was eavesdropping!
