Author's Note: Chapter Twelve! Now we take a look at our gang inside the Lake!

Also, I do not own Fairy Tail.

Chapter Twelve - Our First Days in Paradise: Part 2

As the group inside the Wattson Penthouse sat around their beautiful but dimly lit dining table, Nigel held a glass of red liquor and sighed. "Okay, any minute now Warren should be trying to get a hold of me from inside the ship."

Erza spoke up first. "Hold on, isn't there a barrier around the facility that permits magic from being used in and out of the borders?"

Natsu agreed. "Yea! And how far away is Warren, anyway?"

Nigel answered. "He's far enough away so that his magic won't be interfered by the jammers. It mainly stops physical magic, not telepathy. As for his actual distance, it shouldn't matter. Since I instructed him to limit his signal to me alone, it shouldn't be hard for him to reach me all the way here. Besides, thanks to Warren I now have my own telepathy spells, so I may be able to meet him half way, that is if I learned everything right."

Lucy asked another question to follow. "So what do we need Warren for, anyway?"

Nigel quickly responded. "We need him to help radio our findings to the other members. I also need him to be my ears and voice when communicating with Levy as she begins to copy down my notes."

He then pulled out a pair of red framed glasses. "These are Spatial Link Glasses. They come in pairs, and when someone uses this pair to read something, their twin pair can be used to view the exact same thing as these one's see."

Lucy took them and continued. "Yea, I've heard of these! They sound really helpful!"

Nigel agreed. "Yes, they are. These reports I've been writing are too large for Warren to take in, so I'll just wear these while Levy uses the other pair and we'll be able to relay our notes without being caught."

Natsu exclaimed after hearing the plan. "That's awesome! We really are secret ninja agents after all!"

Just then, Warren got a hold of Nigel through telepathy. "Nigel, this is Warren! Can you hear me?"

Nigel smiled after hearing the lone signal come through. "Yea Warren, this is Nigel. Glad to hear you! Let's not waste any time. Go ahead and tell Levy to get ready on her end."

He replied with satisfaction. "Okay, are you sure I can't just write it all down myself?."

Nigel shook his head to himself but also vocalized his answer. "Sorry, I'm barely able to hold this telepathy still as is. We'll need a secure connection if we want to get you all everything we have.

Warren agreed, and as he told Levy to get ready, she and Nigel put on their glasses.

What happened, however, was not what they expected.

"Hey, Warren…can you tell Nigel my glasses aren't working?" Levy sounded confused as her view didn't change through the lenses.

Warren frowned and went to respond, but was interrupted by Nigel on the other end. "Oh damn…I'm seeing Levy's notepad…"

"WHAT?!" Everyone shouted with equal disapproval, and Gray was the first to vocalize his thoughts. "You mixed up the glasses?! They were color coded!"

Nigel frowned and slid them off his head. "Yea…I wasn't the one who bought them. Blame it on the Council."

Lucy stood up and shook her head. "It doesn't matter now. The question is what are we gonna do about it?!"

Nigel thought for a second, but only stated the obvious. "Well. We have to switch the glasses somehow."

Cana sighed and nibbled on the tip of a wine bottle. "Hehe, some genius you are..."

Nigel would normally laugh at his self-ridicule, but now wasn't the time. That is until Warren interjected. "Hang on! We heard from Wendy that those combat arenas lead straight down into Oasis. Maybe we can send someone to an empty one and drop them down?"

Nigel thought for a moment and explained it to everyone else. He then felt slightly uncertain that it would work. "Yea, but what about my pair? We have to find a way to throw them all the way up to the surface."

Natsu interjected. "Well hold on! Just let me and Happy fly up and send them through the hole! We got this!"

Happy yelled with joy at the sound of the suggestion. "Aye! It'll be easy!"

Nigel smiled. "…Yea, I guess it's our only option. Just one thing, whoever goes out make sure you put on your disguises!"

After settling on the final plan, Natsu, Happy, and now Lucy began walking to a location just under the central western desert (the same location as the arena that played host to Gajeel and Lily's fight.) This path forced them to leave the main sub-lake facility, which caused Lucy to slowly lose her cool.

"Ugh, why did I have to open my mouth and volunteer? This place gives me the creeps!" She complained as she wore Erza's combat outfit from before, and followed after her two idiotic friends in front.

She was also right. Since this part of the facility was actually under rock and not glass, there was no natural light, and sketchy buildings were scattered all around in the blackened shadow beneath the cavernous metal and stone above.

Natsu laughed and waved a hand through the air. "Don't worry, Lucy! This will be a piece of cake!"

Happy agreed. "Aye! Maybe when we're done we'll get some cake too…preferably some with fish on it!"

Lucy began to gag. "Happy, that's disgusting! Besides, why aren't you disguised?"

"I'm a cat, Lucy." He responded with sass. "I don't need to play dress up like you silly humans!"

Just then, they finally made it to a warehouse with a large silo that ran straight into the ceiling. It appeared to be connected to the outside surface. However, there were many different gang members surrounding the outside in a suspicious manor, almost like guards.

Lucy pondered as the settled by the corner of another abandoned building. "Man, how are we supposed to get in there?"

Happy laughed. "Heehee! Like this!"

He then wrapped his tail around Lucy and flew into one of the warehouse vents. Natsu ignited his fists and followed them up into the air. When they got inside they were surprised to find no guards inside the room. Instead there was a large net that hung a few feet above the ground, and it seemed to be positioned under a giant hole in the ceiling that shined bright sunlight into the room.

The strange this was, the roof of the hole was designed to have several smaller holes; like some sort of giant drain, but with them there was also a large blast hole that opened up a large portion of the grate.

Lucy pondered again as she removed her helmet. "I wonder what did that?!" She said as she pointed at the oddly place blast hole.

"Dunno." Natsu replied with little care, but just then a small head popped out and into view from the bottom of that same large blast hole, and it looked inside the room.

"Hello? Natsu?!"

It was none other than Doranbolt, the expert in Direct-Line teleportation magic, who stood up above them in the empty desert fighting pit.

"Hey it's Mest!" Natsu recognized him and tried to carry on. "How's it going buddy?"

He yelled back in anger. "Doranbolt! Now do you guys have the glasses?"

"Hold on!" Natsu yelled out. "Why can't you just teleport down here!?"

Doranbolt sighed and lowered his hand through the giant blast hole. "Well I tried, but I can't pass through even with this big break inside the metal. Just toss the glasses up, would ya?"

Natsu didn't appreciate the attitude, but handed the red framed glasses to Happy. The tiny blue exceed flew up through the long vertical corridor to greet Doranbolt and deliver the glasses. However as he reached through the rim of the hole, his wings instantly vanished, and he began to fall.

Panicking, he threw his glasses up to Doranbolt, who quickly caught them and tossed his blue pair down the hole as well. Then Doranbolt heard a noise and instantly vanished back to the ship.

Lucy grabbed the blue glasses as they came down above her, and Happy fell peacefully onto the net right after.

"Holy cow! It turned off my magic!" He climbed off the net and held a hand to his heart just to try and calm his nerves.

Lucy responded as she tried calming him down. "Yea, Nigel said it will do that if you try crossing in and out of the facility borders."

Then they heard a noise and turned around, expecting to be greeted by several dozen guards dressed in black. However, what they found instead was a young girl with several armed men all dressed in different shades of brown.

"Give us your name!" The girl commanded her intruders, but also stood with fear. She was a rather serious girl with short black hair and had on a combat vest, tan undershirt, pants, and brown boots.

No answer from the Fairy Tail members left her rather unnerved, but she never actually attempted to fire her weapon. "I need...I need to know if you are friend or foe."

They looked confused, and Natsu spoke up first. "Huh? Look I don't know who you are, but it'd be best if you got out of our way!" He threatened her and the others as he got down ready to attack.

The girl looked scared, and now had almost no intentions of fighting. "Look, we mean you now harm..." Was it the honesty she found in their eyes, or did the goofy flying cat seem to make them appear less threatening.

All's she knew, was that these were not fighters for Oasis. "I'm sorry, we're with the freedom fighters."

Just then the doors swung open, and several Oasis swat officers came in with magic blast smoke and artillery weapons ready to take all of those inside the warehouse down. They each held magic "electro-staffs", or large metal staffs with tasers on the end of them.

Their leader commanded the others. "Found some new recruits, boys!" He said while laughing. He went to address his men once more, but was quickly hit by Natsu's flaming fists.

"I said BACK OFF! Fire Dragon ROAR!" He then directed his flaming vortex to attack the new Oasis swat team, who ran away in fear.

However, just in the nick of time, Lucy stepped in their way before they could escape. "Oh no you don't! Open gates of the Maiden and Lion: Virgo! Loke!"

*Ding-Dong!* She stepped back and swung their golden keys right through the air. Suddenly Virgo the Maiden and Loke the Lion appeared out of nowhere and began to attack.

Lucy grabbed her whip and helped them fight. "Let's go guys! Take down the one's dressed in black!"

"Whatever you say, Princess. Just be sure to give me my punishment later this evening if I happen to fail at doing my job." Virgo spoke with little emotion like always as she punched several guards right into the ground.

Loke laughed and nodded his head. "Ya know, Virgo? You're right! She really is a princess! A beautiful princess that called upon her loyal knight to save the day."

Lucy chose to ignore the comment as Loke continued bashing in the heads of the enemies as well.

"Regulus Gatling Impact!" He roared as he swung at the remainder of the guards with a great fist of light, and reared back the moment they all smashed into the steel wall.

Then, Lucy noticed Happy with the girl form before lying wounded on the ground. "Hey hold on!" He tried keeping her head up, but she had very little strength to do so.

"Happy!" Lucy shouted as she ran over to help. "Is she alright?!"

Soon after, Natsu, Loke and Virgo finished off the rest of the guards and ran over to Lucy and Happy as well, where they all weighed the girl's condition together.

"I'm...s-sorry." The girl could barely speak as Lucy now held her head slightly forward. "I...I think we lured them in here. It's my fault they attacked you..."

"No we saw them outside way before you arrived!" Lucy tried defending this girl she didn't even know, but just as she continued, her noble celestial spirit stepped down and put his hands underneath the fallen girl's head.

Then, Loke picked her up and comforted her the best that he could. "Don't you worry your pretty little head, Loke the Lion is here to help you now." He flirted through the awkward situation as he pushed the center of his glasses up onto his nose. "And who might you be?"

Lucy looked at him in anger as they all stood up. "Please, don't ruin this!"

Confused and embarrassed, the girl blushed and replied. "O-oh, m-my name is Eve Wattson. I am leading a resistance movement around this area of Oasis called the Lights of Freedom."

Lucy pondered, and snapped her fingers. "Hey, you must be a relative of Cecil Wattson! Where here in his honor…eh, sorry about his passing."

She gave Lucy and the others a soft smile. "It's okay…He died peacefully. He was actually my grandfather. I decided to become extra involved in fighting Oasis when he *cough*..."

Eve then slowly passed out form exhaustion, and left the Fairies without a further answer.

From there, the team took Eve back to Nigel and the others, where they began debriefing her as Nigel was finally able to work with Levy and his glasses.

Erza sat right next to her in the living room area, and began her light interrogation. "So you're saying there is a board of powerful wizards ruling this place? And your the granddaughter of a former member?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. My grandfather acted as the fifth board member to learn their secrets. He practiced a little lightning magic to help convince them of his power, but he was never truly a fighter." She wrapped herself tighter in a blanket that the team gave her and continued. "When he died, the other members tried to force me onto the council, and one of them went a step further and tried to force me to marry his son…they wanted me to fall into the fold I guess." She then looked down towards the ground with a dismal expression plastered to her face.

"They're all evil, twisted men who will stop at nothing to rule the world."

Lucy sat in fear right on her other side. "That's awful. What kind of mages are they?"

Eve looked at them an explained. "They all have expertise in Human Enslavement Magic, or Ruler's Magic; a sort of magic that allows the user to bend anyone to his or her will, and in some cases can drain magical energy or even take control of people's physical bodies."

Some Fairies seemed to recognize this form of Magic after facing the challenge on Tenrou Island long ago. The crooked Zordio, who captured of many souls including Lucy's family spirit Capricorn, used this magic as one of the ruling members of the Seven Kin of Purgatory.

Eve let that all sink in before carrying on. "The weakest is their informant, Milo. He only knows a few minimal Ruler's spells…Then there's Arthur Greenmonte, the nasty owner of the Emerald Towers Casino at the south end of the lake. He also works with experimental Lacrima, although I'm not entirely sure what kind of magic he knows best. Then there's the foreman of the facility, Ferris. He specializes in a specific type of Maker Magic that's known as Metal-Make.

Gray stopped her. "Hold on, this guy uses Maker Magic that's specialized to creating metal?"

She nodded. "Yes, and not just iron, as his name suggests. All different kinds…He's a butcher, and a really powerful force to deal with. His nickname is The Architect…and for some reason he's obsessed with different kinds of metal as well."

Happy let out a loud laugh. "Heehee, sounds like a real dummy if ya ask me."

"No kidding!" Natsu laughed. "He almost sounds like Gajeel and Gray all in one!" He and Happy high-fived after making that joke, only to get smacked by Lucy afterword.

Eve continued. "The last man is the crime leader of the Oasis Underworld. His name is Arno Calvin. He and his son, Reno, are experts in even more twisted variants of Ruler's Magic, and they've even been known to use dark spells that have once been forgotten in our known world."

Nigel slammed his fists as he was finished with his work, and appeared to be eavesdropping the entire time. "He's the bastard who's planning an attack on Ishgar. We need to take him and his son down."

Cana looked over to him with just as much anger. "It sounds like they're all a bunch of creeps to me. Maybe we can each team up and take them out one by one?" She suggested.

"No." Erza flatly responded. "These all sound like very powerful wizards. Add that to the fact that this facility is very large, and we're not even sure where any of their locations are."

Gray joined in right after. "Hang on. One of them is a casino owner, right? Let's just go there and see what we can find out about him."

"Yea!" Natsu made no hesitation to agree. "We saw that giant green tower flying in! Maybe that's where this crummy monster is hiding out"

Nigel agreed as well. "That's not a bad idea, but we'll have to plan ahead for the infiltration."

Eve looked up, completely blown away by their conviction and tenacity. In fact as she asked her question, small tears began forming under her eyes. "Are you all going to help us with our fight?"

Lucy looked at her and smiled brightly. "You betcha! That's the whole reason we came here in the first place!"

Then Natsu stood up and slammed his fists together. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to take these guys down! I'm all fired up!"

"Aye Sir!" Happy yelled while jumping. "We've waited around long enough! Time ta settle the score with these losers once and for all!"

Nigel laughed and thought to himself as he observed his now energetic comrades. "Wow, they truly do go out of their way when helping anyone outside their guild...no matter what. Maybe we can take this place down after all."

He then put his papers down and swiveled in his chair to gather the group for their next assignment.

The Fairies are slowly planning their victory. Sorry for lack of Wendy, Carla and Max. They'll eventually catch up, I promise. New Chapters tomorrow!