Rogue grinnined despite himself at Happy's story for the rest of their hike, and he had to school himself to somber down when Natsu reported that one of the scents they all noticed was Jellal's. It wouldn't do to laugh at the romantic mishaps of someone he hoped could help him.

"Do you recognize any of the other scents?" Sting asked. Now that they were far enough out in the wilderness, there was no need for them to keep quiet, but from habit they still whispered.

"Yeah. I know them all. I don't like most of them, but I know them all, and Erza said that Jellal said we can trust them now." That was an awful lot of secondhand trust to ask be accepted by two people who spent months living in fear and paranoia such that no one else in their guild knew about Rogue. Sting and Rogue's alarm must have shown on their faces, because Natsu added, "They're all the same as Jellal, except that since they're not sealing anything, the Rune Knights would ring their necks instead of locking them up if they ran to report you."

"Lovely. What's this about sealing things?"

"Oh! Right. I knew I forgot to mention something. The thing all the Councilors are dying over? It's some anti-magic weapon. Head, or something. Face? I think it's called Face. There's three keys you gotta get in order to activate it, and they're all bound to Councilors with Living Link magic. Three people who served on the Council, anyway. Only the chairman was allowed to know which three it was, though. That's why Tartaros kept killing everyone instead of trying to get information out of them. We all got lucky that one of the Councilors happened to be the one who absolutely no one knew the location of. Tartaros found the homes of everyone else, and the safe homes of everyone who went into hiding. If they'd given anyone else the key, there'd be no more magic. Works for Rogue, but it would be nice if we could fix his problem without everyone else losing their magic too."

"Have they found the chairman yet?"

"No, but I'm sure they'll find him when they track down Tartaros's base," Natsu said, and both his words and the anger in his voice took Sting and Rogue by surprise. "What? Most of those old guys were already basically in hiding so people wouldn't badger them about some law or another they passed. Tartaros knew where all their houses were, and then all the super-secret locations they went to hide. Someone had to tell them that, and there's no reason that whichever survivors of that bombing who organized the safe houses would know about the original homes, but a former chairman would have known all that and been told where he could hide."

"He was the Council chairman since before Rogue and I were born," Sting said. "People only ever say good things about the time he served."

"People only ever say bad things about Rogue," Natsu countered. "People can think what they want, and I'm going to think the thing that makes sense."

Rogue was grateful that Sting didn't try and dispute that logic.

They made it several hundred yards further before a girl stepped out, and tension that Rogue hadn't realized he was holding melted away when he saw here. During the Eclipse, Ultear had been torn open by a dragon's claws and devoured while still bleeding out. She was undeniably dead, and Rogue knew that with more confidence than most anyone. She was still the only Crime Sorciere mage he'd ever seen, though, and some part of him had expected to face his would-be killer again. So when he instead saw a cute, rose haired girl, his anxiety vanished.

She was followed out by two red-heads, one of whom Rogue recognized as Fairy Tail's Erza Scarlet, and the other a scarred stranger that made Natsu tense up.

"Hey, Salamander," the man said.

"Cobra."

"He goes by Erik now," the girl cut in, her tone chipper despite the tension between the two boys. "And your friends must be… Oh!" The girl paused, her smile slipping for a moment when she saw Rogue. "You must be the one Erza mentioned. Sorry. She didn't give us your name, so I had no idea it would be you. We… Well, that can wait. Come on. Everyone else is this way."

She beckoned for them to follow, and Natsu had to nudge Rogue forward.

"I didn't tell Erza who it was," Natsu said as they walked. "It's hard to know who's listening in on the other side of a lacrima. Oh, guys, this is Meredy and the asshole. He's a slayer too, kinda.

"What do you mean, kinda?" Erik snapped. "I'm more of a slayer than you'll ever be."

Natsu leaned away from Erik and stage whispered to Sting and Rogue, "He never saw a dragon before last summer."

"Who taught him?" Sting asked.

"Heck if I know. I think he just had some lacrima shoved up inside of him."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!"

"Anyway," Meredy said as forcefully as she could, "You know what's going on, don't you? Why they want Jellal dead?"

"Salamander just finished explaining it," Erik said. "But it's simple enough anyway. Keep the fruitcake alive until the Council gets its shit together and takes Tartaros out, or we all lose our magic."

"Crime Sorciere isn't going after them?" Natsu asked.

"Jellal wants to, but we outvoted him seven to one," Meredy said. "Everyone will target them as word of their goal spreads. The most important thing right now is that Tartaros doesn't eliminate magic, and for that to happen, Jellal has to stay alive. Jellal going to fight Tartaros would be counterintuitive. Maybe once we figure out how they tracked us down, we can split up and ambush them while a few people stay behind to make sure that idiot doesn't get himself killed."

"Do any of you actually respect Jellal?" Rogue asked.

Erik's "No" clashed with Meredy's "Usually."

They exchanged amused looks before Meredy said, "He's a good person, and he's smart and caring and determined. Sometimes he lets his emotions drive him more than they should is all. He's really admirable. Really. He was a wizard saint until the tower incident happened and they stripped the honor away, and he and Ultear were the youngest people ever to serve on the Council. Our new members are still getting used to him, is all."

"When you say he lets his emotions drive him…" Rogue couldn't quite bring himself to ask what danger that might put him in.

Natsu cast a glance Rogue's way before taking over. "Rogue's antsy 'cause Ultear didn't listen when I said we shouldn't kill him."

"I was afraid of that," Meredy admitted. "Um… When she died… Did you—"

"We saw it," Sting said before she could potentially ask if Rogue had been at fault. "I guess that future Rogue was covering his bases, because none of the dragons attacked my Rogue, and when Ultear attacked him, the dragon Rogue was trying to take down was on her in seconds. It was over that fast, too."

It hadn't been fast, but Rogue didn't say as much. Instead, he leaned into Sting, who had put an arm protectively around Rogue's shoulder at the point that he claimed that shadow slayer. Rogue appreciated the none too subtle hint that giving him trouble would be grounds for Sting to retaliate

"I see." Meredy looked away, eyes dropping to the snow at her feet. "Ul could be drastic at times, but she wasn't all bad. She raised me, you know."

"She tried to kill Rogue, and he hadn't even done anything to anyone," Sting said. "So I'm sorry, but I really don't care if she was nice to other people. Rogue didn't deserve any of the shit he's been through, and as far as I'm concerned, she was the one who set the precedent for treating him like shit."

"Didn't he kill a bunch of people?" Erik asked, which made Rogue freeze mid-stride.

"Come on." Natsu grabbed Rogue's sleeve and pulled him forward. "His opinion doesn't matter. Cobra nearly killed Erza, then tried to kill me after, and he wasn't even possessed when he did it."

Meredy glanced back at Rogue at the mention of possession, but Sting still had an arm wrapped protectively around Rogue's shoulder, and she looked away.

I don't think they even need me to step in to get them to tear out one another's throats.

-o-

There were many ways in which Jellal was not what Rogue expected, starting with the bandages around his eyes. He was also strikingly handsome, which Rogue was ashamed to privately admit had surprised him. Despite his own situation, he'd expected a criminal, even one who committed all his misdeeds while brainwashed, to look more like the hideous trolls seen in children's stories.

More than anything, however, Jellal was surprisingly subdued for someone with as much magic as himself. Weakened from a fight or not, Rogue could sense from ways away that Jellal possessed phenomenal power.

"Has he always been blind?" Sting asked. "I don't remember us ever having a blind Councilor."

"He injured himself fighting Macbeth," Erza said. "He should be alright to remove the bandages soon, but until then he's easy picking for Tartaros."

In Jellal's position, Rogue would have protested that he wasn't completely defenseless. There were always spells with a wide enough range that you were more or less guaranteed to hit someone when casting them, even if you couldn't see you opponent. What Jellal did was blush with shame and turn away.

"Don't mind him," Meredy said, then, dropping into a stage whisper, added, "He's just embarrassed that Erza saw him before he was fully recovered."

Rogue made a mental note to get the details on Jellal and Erza's relationship later, although he suspected he already had a good idea of where the two stood with one another. That would be something for later. For the time being, he was more concerned with committing the Crime Sorciere members to memory. If Sting's half-baked plan worked out, which was Rogue's only bet for being able to continue to live in Ishgar without having to spend the rest of his life hidden in a basement, then these people would be his new guildmates.

Meredy he decided he didn't dislike. Even if her defense of Ultear made him uneasy, she openly agreed that Ultear had been in the wrong, and did seem upset that Ultear had lied about not attacking Rogue. Erik was someone that Rogue thought he might get along with eventually, maybe. He spoke rough, but he was kind to Frosch, so he couldn't be all bad.

There was Macbeth, who Rogue was trying his hardest not to judge entirely from first impressions, Sorano, who looked strikingly like Yukino, and two absent members named Richard and Sawyer, who were out patrolling the perimeter of the camp.

It didn't pass Rogue's notice that, despite being familiar with all of the guild's members, Jellal and Meredy were the only ones who Natsu reliably got the names right when speaking to. The newer Crime Sorciere recruits, as it turned out that they had been recruited since the Tartaros attacks began, had all used code names up until joining the guild. Jellal was the one to force them to resume using their real names, apparently, which suggested he wasn't always as subdued as he appeared just then. Whether his current demeanor was due the Erza, the attack, the temporary blindness, or some other combination thereof, only time would tell.

Jellal sat quietly, offering only mild protest as Meredy recounted the attack.

"The demon we saw was some sort of bird-woman, and a total sadist. She attacked Sorano just because it was the quickest route to Jellal, and then went all out assaulting him. We only had a few seconds to react before everything went dark. She robbed us all of our sight. Jellal's managed more or less alright without his eyesight for a little while now, so he wasn't as hindered, but it's hard to fight a seeing opponent blind even if you are adjusted to sightlessness."

"But you drove her off," Natsu said.

"That was Macbeth," Meredy gave the sullen man a smile and an approving nod, which was met with a scoff. "He's good with illusions. Even if she took our senses away, he could still confuse hers, and since Jellal injured his eyes in the first place to keep Macbeth's illusions from effecting him, he was immune. He managed to hit the demon hard enough that he spell was broken."

Meredy stopped there with a finality that said there was nothing more to the story, and Sorano added in, "And that's when Erik killed the bitch so she couldn't try again."

The conclusion made both Sting and Natsu freeze up, but while Rogue shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably, he took solace in how discomforted Meredy looked. Even Jellal scowled at the reminder of how the fight ended. The newer recruits had a harsher outlook on enemies, but the ones who worked alongside Ultear certainly seemed to disagree with the idea of killing anyone just for their being a threat.

"Have you encountered any demons?" Macbeth asked.

"Rogue and I have been a little preoccupied with the personal kind," Sting told them. Rogue knew that the whole point of coming was to ask for help, but he still hoped that Sting wouldn't elaborate any further.

"Fairy Tail's been moving slow since the Eclipse incident," Natsu said. "We lost a lot of people. Everyone went into mourning. I don't think anyone was even out of town when the attacks started, save for the ones who went off on a trip to get away from all the dreary atmosphere."

"Laxus's team went out in search of Tartaros members after Yajima was killed," Erza added. "I think he felt responsible. Fried wanted to take a job from Yajima, and they could have been there to protect him that day, but Laxus has run off on training session after training session ever since his fight with the dragons. He wouldn't stop talking about how there was no point in being strong enough to protect others if he wasn't there to protect them. He found one of the Councilors who refused to leave their home, but he didn't find them in time."

"So we know nothing about the guild."

"We know plenty," Erik corrected. "The bird-lady is Kyouka, and Jackal was the one who blew up all of Era. Don't look so shocked. The Oracion Seis and Tartaros were in the Balam Alliance together, We don't know all of the guild's secrets, or even half of their abilities, but we know who the major players are."

"The problem is that we don't know who will attack, or when they'll strike next," Meredy said. "We lucked out last time, but Tartaros never revealed their abilities to any of the other dark guilds if they didn't have to. We only know a few of their curses. Jellal is still injured from his previous fight, and Sorano was hurt, and Macbeth's magic has been on the fritz since he tried to confuse someone else's sense while lacking his own. Which is why we called for backup."

"Do you have a plan for us?" Sting asked. "Any strategy that we can fit into?"

Meredy shook her head. "Keep Jellal alive is the gist of our plan. Without knowing what all the enemy is capable of, we can't prepare any more than that. Although it would be helpful to hear what all you two are capable of."

"I wouldn't count on me," Rogue said.

Up until that point, Rogue hadn't said a word, and Jellal started upon hearing his voice.

"I didn't realize Natsu brought more than one person," he said. "Who's there."

"Rogue," Sting said.

"Oh. I thought you were Rogue."

"That's Sting," Natsu corrected. "Rogue's the gloomier-than-you one."

Jellal took the jab with a good natured grin. "Noted. I take it Rogue is the one who wanted help?"

"I'll fill you in," Meredy promised. "For now, let's make room in camp for our reinforcements. We need to change watch soon, too. Rogue, do you have any extra security concerns?"

She meant was there anything they needed to do to keep safe from him, and he appreciated that she phrased it so diplomatically. Rogue glanced around the camp, and saw nothing particularly useful to him. A campfire burned, but heat lacryma glowed dimly near the tent, offering little enough light to be easily hidden from search parties while keeping the winter chill at bay. That wouldn't do much to repell his shadow. Sting probably couldn't use his magic during the night for trivial matters either, since he could easily give away their position.

Still, Sting was the closest thing Rogue had to a security blanket. "I want to stick with Sting. That's all. If you want us to help with patrolling or lookout, then please treat us as one person when figuring out where to assign us."

Meredy nodded to the easily fulfilled request. They had enough people that they didn't need to stress over one fewer time slots for night watch. "None of you are on lookout tonight. You've been traveling for a while. But I'll make sure you two are kept together."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Erik can help you three set up a tent while I the rest of us trade out watch shifts. Have a good night."

"We will," Sting said.

Some of us will, the shadow added, and Rogue knew that he was in for a miserable night indeed.

-x-

STA: The original plan was for this to update yesterday, but then my laptop wouldn't load the doc manager page for ffn or the rich text editor for ao3, so I kinda gave up. Looks like the internet is working again, so here's the new chapter now. I'm working again, so you guys have to leave lots of awesome reviews that can brighten my day when I get the chance to read them over my lunch break tomorrow.

Divinion: Um... I hope this was enough less. Sorry these updates always come so slow.

Tsubasa: Dude, I'm the last one who would give you grief for being late where this fic is concerned.