Chapter 25

Demon Fang Gathers! The Cube Finally Takes OFF!

"Ah...Hud said he would be back by now, everything is ready, but I can't start unless everyone is here~" Lamy whined as she placed her head against the control panel, her long hair was covering the few visible buttons as the hell's core in the center of the guild hall slowly bubbled.

She wasn't the only one waiting. Every single member of Demon Fang had gathered in their newly constructed guild house. A month had passed after all, and now was the time of action, at least that is what most of them assumed...

"To be fair, Hud simply said that he would be back around a months time, we simply assumed that it would be exactly one month." Fukuro pointed out as he sat in one of the many chairs scattered about causing Juliet to let out a deep sigh.

"It'd be pretty lame if we did all that training just to wait around for a few days. Doesn't Hud realize how awful it is to be late?" The brown haired demon sighed as Jerome bit his lip.

"Maybe he just completely forgot..." The former Avatar member was partly hoping for that outcome as Seilah finally spoke.

"Hud may be foolish, but if I know, one thing is that he wouldn't miss this event for the world. He'll be here..." Perhaps it was because she was one of the founding members of their so-called dark guild, but the trust she displayed for her guild master was absolute.

"Yeah, even if Hud doesn't care about most things fighting is the thing he loves more than anything else int he world! If these faeries really are all that he should be here any minute!" Frlea waved the vines he called arms, and as if his words were an omen the doors to the guild house flew open.

"Hey, guys!" A voice echoed through the building as Hud casually walked in, the moment he did Frlea cheered as he quickly ran up to his friend jumping on his shoulders.

"Hud! You moron! What took you so long?!" Frlea cried as he pressed his face against Hud's shoulders.

"Hey Frlea, you seem to be doing well...you even got a flower in your head now!" Hud laughed as Frlea grumbled.

"I-it's not like I missed you or anything like that..." Frlea stated as Hud looked around making sure every single member of demon fang was indeed there.

"Everyone's here, that's good. I was worried that some of you would chicken out." Hud laughed as his gaze slowly shifted to Briar and Jerome.

"Eh?! Why are you looking at us!" Briar snapped as she brushed her hair to the side. The wound had completely healed besides a small scar as Ikaruga cleared her voice returning to the more pressing matter.

"I assume you didn't return empty handed...you made the trip to get more allies after all." The pink-haired swordswomen pointed out as Hud quickly nodded as he stepped away from the door as two creatures walked in.

"Hmm, this seems about right for Hud..." Velt stated as he walked inside, next to him was a pouting blue-skinned girl.

"Blegh, the colors are so drab, and no one here is wearing anything cute I can steal." Reiny groaned as her eyes met with Frlea, the small plant creature slowly turning his head in disgust.

"Velt I get, but did you really need to bring the fish witch along too?" Frlea was blunt as Reiny eye twitched as she stuck her finger between Frlea's eyes.

"Listen here you little shit. You better be glad I'm tagging along. I might actually be able to shine some fashion in your poor ugly life."

As the water and plant monster bickered, Hud couldn't help but laugh as he turned to face Seilah. "Thanks a lot for looking after everyone while I was gone. Though you do a better job at that than me even when I'm here!" Hud smiled as Seilah sighed.

"There is no need to thank me. I am merely doing what a guild member of demon fang should do. Besides, it is in my best interest to make sure everyone is in their best condition considering what we are going to do next."

As Seilah finished her statement Reiny gaze shifted to the demon as the sea angel rubbed her chin. Without so much as a warning, the water monster walked up to the former demon gate examining her as if she was looking at some kind of strange statue.

"Well...I can see why Hud could take an interest in you, but you still aren't as beautiful as me!" Reiny wagged her finger as Seilah gazed down at the shorter creature.

"...Monster, are you sure someone like her is worth bringing along?" Seilah barely even acknowledged Reiny as the blue-skinned monster eye twitched, but before she could reply Hud cut her off.

"Yeah, she might not look like much, but Sea Angels have a lot of weird techniques that can catch people off guard. Plus she really wanted to come!" Hud pointed out as Reiny eyes narrowed.

"Saying it like that makes me sound like a tag-along!" Reiny whined.

"Regardless, if that is everyone..." Heine started speaking as Hud quickly shook his head.

"Wait, there is still one more g-" Hud was cut off as the door to the guild hall opened once again. Everyone slowly turned to face a rather short teen with gray skin.

The short monster crossed his arms quickly scanning his surroundings before letting out a scoff. "When you said you made a guild, I thought you might have some worthy fighters with you, but it seems like all you managed to find was the discards of some garbage." He smirked before turning his attention to both Lamy and Seilah.

"What's this? Some of Zeref's dolls? I thought all of his toys were supposed to be destroyed when he died..." The strange looking teen raised his brow as everyone in Demon Fang glared at him. His first words to the guild and they were insults.

Frlea, on the other hand, started to shake in terror. "A-ah, H-Hud what is he doing here?"

Hud simply just laughed scratching the back of his head. "Since you guys were saying how dangerous these fairy guys were I decided to get some help from Bas. He might not look it, but he is just as strong as me, maybe even a little stronger!" Hud laughed causing Bas to grumble.

"Say what you want, like I said once we are done with these faeries, you're my next target," Bas stated sitting down in one of the free seats turning his head away from the rest of the group.

"Talk about being as inviting as a cactus," Juliet stated as Hud grinned.

"That's everyone I brought!" Hud said as Lamy finally cleared her voice, telling everyone in the room it was her turn to speak.

"Okay, if that is everyone I guess it's finally time to activate CUBE!" Lamy stated as she stood up pressing a small button on the side of the panel located in the center of the room. The moment she did the keyboard flipped over revealing a rather large button with her face on it.

"With the single press of the button the cube rise! All the preparations are done...so the only thing left to do..." Without even asking anyone Lamy pressed the button as the room filled with silence.

A few seconds passed as the entire building started to shake. Gravity nearly affected everyone in the room, as if they had been in an elevator that had suddenly started to go up. The sound of the earth being torn asunder entered the ears of all of the Demon Fang members. Some of them even lost their balance, despite that Bas continued to sit in his seat, his eyes closed as if everything happening around him was like a parting breeze.

Hud quickly ran to the window to be greeted with the sight of clouds passing them by. It didn't take a genius to realize that they were going up. Then, just as suddenly as it had started the upward momentum stopped causing everyone's feet to leave the ground ever so slightly.

"Phew...that is always kind of tricky." Lamy took a deep breath as she lifted herself from off of the floor. "Why don't we all go outside to see my handy work!" Lamy puffed up her chest as the rest of Demon Fang baring Bas walked out of the guild house.

What they were greeted with was nothing but a blue sky and a large land mass filled with grass among other things.

"To think, demons were capable of doing something like this. This is rather impressive, even for a hero of justice like myself." Fukuro pointed out as Hud quickly ran to the edge of what seemed to be a platform before looking at the edge.

What he saw was another side of a cube, this time with water. "Huh, why isn't the water falling off?" Hud pointed out as Lamy snorted, feeling far too much pride in explaining the situation.

"That's because the cube has its own gravitational pull. You can actually walk off the edge and onto another side without actually falling off of it. In theory, we could even build more buildings on the different sides!"

"I think one guild house is enough," Ikaruga stated as Lamy smiled.

"I guess, you're right! Regardless you are all free to praise me!" Lamy let out a boastful laugh causing Seilah to groan.

"Lamy...it seems this version of cube is far smaller than the one we used to have." Seilah pointed out as Lamy pouted fidgeting ever so slightly.

"T-that's because we technically don't have all of the cube pieces...though, now that we have a functioning cube it should be much easier to find the rest." Lamy laughed again.

"Alright, that's all fine and good, but are we going to fly this thing like a ship over to Fiore? It seemed like that would take a while and we are bound to be noticed if we did something like that." Heine stated as Lamy placed her hands on her hips.

"Don't worry, I already thought about that. I'll show you how we are going to travel, just come back inside, and I'll show you." Lamy winked as the rest of the guild followed her instructions.

Lamy then walked to the center where the hell core was before typing something on the panel beneath it. The moment she did a large map of Earthland was instantly displayed with a few blinking points as if they were beacons.

"The cube, using ethernano can warp to different areas containing curse power. Of course, this takes a huge amount of curse energy, and to build up enough power to even warp once takes nearly two weeks." Lamy lifted her finger before pressing her hand to her cheeks. "Of course, being the scientist that I am, I already made perpetration when I started constructing the cube. I saved up enough ethernano for at least two warps."

"Gosh Lamy, you sure are smart." Hud pointed out as Lamy snorted letting out her signature annoying laugh.

"Don't say stuff like that. You're making me all hot and heavy!"

"That still doesn't explain how we are going to get to Fiore..." Juliet was all too eager to pop Juliet's bubble as the bunny-eared demon quickly glared at the brown-haired girl.

"I was getting to that!" Lamy cleared her throat before pointing to Seilah. "Since half of Seilah's power is in Fiore we can just mark that as our next destination and instantly go there!"

Frlea crossed his arms looking at Lamy. "Geez, it seems even though you are a sewage bag you thought everything through."

"D-don't insult me after I did all this work!" Lamy snapped as Hud scratched the back of his ear getting the gist of the situation.

"I don't completely get it, but what you are saying is that this thing can take us straight to those fairy guys?" Hud asked as Lamy slumped her shoulders, realizing explaining anymore would probably confuse her guild master along with everyone else in the room.

"Yep, with a few presses, we can head straight to our target," Lamy stated bluntly before saying something else. "Oh, one more thing, as I said before, we only have enough power to warp twice. From there and back, so if we screw this up, we will have to wait an entire month for us to even try again."

"Don't worry, that won't happen." Hud laughed as Lamy sighed sitting in front of the hell core looking around.

"Does anyone have anything they want to do before we start?" Lamy asked looking around to the other members of Demon Fang. When none of them replied Lamy took a deep breath before clicking on the icon on the map. Then with a press of a button, she activated the cube's warp abilities.

The whole thing was instantaneous as if someone blinked. The moment Lamy the sun that was once shinning had vanished as Reiny's eyes widened before she ran to a nearby window looking outside.

"Eh? Why is it night all of a sudden?" The sea monster asked as Ikaruga gaze shifted to one of the windows as well.

"Hmm, Midi is quite far from Fiore, chances are, it is simply a shift in time zones that caused the sudden change in scenery."

"Time what?" Frlea tilted his head as Ikaruga sighed. It honestly made far too much sense that monsters would have no idea what time zones were and what they did.

Hud also walked towards one of the windows looking down at the scenery below. "It looks like we are above some kind of city."

"It's most likely Magnolia, at least if the fairy that took Seilah's power is currently at the guild." Heine pointed out as Hud grinned looking down at the large number of lights that shined up at them.

"Gosh, I'm getting all excited now! Let's hurry up and fight!" Hud nearly cheered as he could hear Seilah clearing her voice.

"Don't do something so rash, do you even have a plan? Besides that, I already told you in our current state we can't destroy the faeries. Today's plan is simply to capture the fairy that took half of my curse power and leave." Seilah pointed out as Bas scoffed finally opening his eyes and standing up.

"I should have expected that one of Zeref's toys would be gutless. Well, it doesn't really matter what you want. I am here to hunt dragon slayers, and now that I am here I don't actually need to listen to anything else the rest of you trash have to say." Bas chuckled as he walked towards the front door as Hud's eye twitched.

"O-oy, Bas what are you doing?" Hud frowned as Bas cracked his neck.

"As I said, I'm hunting dragon slayers. I have no interest in helping a broken doll get her worthless abilities back." With those words, Bas jumped off the side of the cube and down to the town bellow causing Hud to pout.

"That jerk, he could at least wait for the rest of us..." Hud grumbled as Velt let out an irritated sigh.

"You probably should have expected that when you asked him to come with us..." Velt pointed out before the wolf monster turned his attention to Seilah. "Not trying to be rude, but we may want to get a plan ready as quickly as possible. Leaving Bas alone, even if he is on our side will cause trouble, and knowing him, he will probably try to do something he can't take back."

Seilah let out an irritated sigh. "I don't care what happens to that Bas monster, but he is going to put the entire plan in jeopardy." Seilah held her breath. "Very well, the plan is simple. If you find a fairy, capture them, and bring them back to me. We honestly only need one for the rest to come running, so the moment you have one come straight back to the cube."

Velt looked at the demon giving the order before speaking. "That seems simple enough, however...what do these faeries look like?"

The moment Velt said that Seilah's eyes widened, it was such a simple thing to overlook. However, Hud, Velt, Bas, and Frlea had no knowledge of what any of the members of Fairy Tail looked like. Even Reiny would only have passing knowledge from the magazines she had read.

"Hmm...most of them have a guild mark on their body. So you should be able to identify them from that." Seilah pointed out as she noticed Reiny slowly pulling out what appeared to be a magazine before showing it to her fellow monsters.

"Their guild mark looks like this...they always show the guild marks of all the guilds featured in Sorcerer Magazine." Reiny pointed out showing them the guild mark as Hud nodded.

"Alright, got it memorized...now all we have to d-"

"W-wait, I almost forgot something really important!" Frlea stated as he jumped off of his friend's shoulders. "I'm not going to let a whole month of extra work go unappreciated." With those words, Frlea puffed his cheeks as he made a sound similar to that of someone trying to lift a heavy object.

At that moment six green celery sticks popped out of the plant monster's head as he took a deep breath.

"Frlea...what are these?" Jerome asked walking up to the small plant creature.

"They are something I invented during that month the rest of you were doing stupid stuff. It's a special edible plant that completely heals any wounds if you eat the whole thing."

"You...actually managed to make something like that?" Ikaruga eyes widened as Frlea scoffed.

"Don't underestimate us monsters. Just because the ability to heal was lost to you humans and demons doesn't me we monsters are as careless." Frlea pointed out before continuing. "Though I should tell you that making those take a huge amount of time, just creating six of them takes a month, and I wouldn't be able to make anymore while we're here. So if you need someone to heal you just find me personally before wasting one of my celery sticks!"

The moment Frlea finished Jerome, Ikaruga, Seilah, Juliet, Briar, and Lamy took one.

"Huh? You aren't going to take one Hud?" Frlea asked as Hud quickly shook his head.

"We monsters heal faster anyway. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to my opponent if I could just eat something and completely recover my stamina. It wouldn't feel right if I won doing something like that." Hud laughed as Frlea groaned.

"I should have figured you would say something like that...then again, it doesn't matter since I'm going to be coming with you!" Frlea quickly jumped back onto his friend's shoulders.

"I guess we should decide teams next...if there are going to be any," Velt asked as Seilah shrugged.

"I'll leave that to your discretion," Seilah stated. "However, there should be someone here to defend the cube just in case we get some unwanted guests."

"Don't worry about that, while I removed most of the cube's offensive abilities I gave it some stealth abilities as well. It should be invisible to the naked eye." Lamy pointed out. "Not only that, but it will automatically lower itself to the ground to save on energy along with allowing members to jump back on."

"Alright, if everything is done let's go and capture a fairy or something!" Hud cheered as he ran out of the guild house jumping off of the cube as Frlea hung on for dear life.

"H-hey Hud!" Reiny called out, but by the time she did he, and the plant monster had vanished into the city below causing her to mumble something under her breath.

"Hey, Velt, do you want to make a team with me?" Reiny quickly asked the only remaining monster as the wolf creature simply shook his head.

"No, I am going after Bas to make sure he doesn't do something stupid." With those words, Velt walked out of the building before he too jumped from off of the large structure.

Reiny ground her teeth before turning her attention to Lamy. "You, ugly, unfashionable, gremlin demon. You're going to be my partner!" Reiny words sounded more like a demand than a request as Lamy quickly held up her hands.

"W-wait, shouldn't I stay here since I'm the only one that c-" Before Lamy could finish Reiny grabbed the bunny demon by her ears before throwing her out of the building as well as off the side of the cube. Reiny shortly jumped off the side as well causing Juliet to sigh.

"Geez, monsters sure are impatient. They at least could have waited to see if everyone else was okay with the groups they picked."

"I suppose it is to be expected by now. In the end, it shouldn't matter if everything goes well." Seilah smiled as her eyes slowly wandered to the window, the moonlight shining into the building. "I suppose it is finally time to hunt some faeries."

Author note

Sorry if this chapter was boring. But I feel like it was needed to establish where everyone stands. It also pretty much the start of this arc proper, which is probably going to be the longest arc so far. Which kind of makes me a bit nervous honestly.

EXTRA

Interviews.

Monster Hud.

1. What is the best part about Demon Fang?

"Ah, the best part is that everyone is pretty strong!"

2. Any Future Dreams?

"To become as strong as possible! Maybe even get to Physical Perfection...though if I become the strongest life would be pretty dull huh?"

3. Who are you closest too?

"I want to say everyone, but if I had to pick a few, it would be Frlea, Seilah and Lamy!"

4. Hardest Job?

"Hmm, the time where we were almost was eaten by a Country Destroyer, though I got to fight a really amazing guy because of it!"

5. Person you find the most attractive?

"Gosh, that sounds like a question my mom would ask...but if I had to pick someone it would probably be Seilah. I think she is really pretty when she is in her etherious form...at least that is what I think she called it.

Plant Frlea

1. What is the best part about Demon Fang?

"Me, of course!"

2. Any Future Dreams?

"To become so beautiful that no one can call me ugly again...especially my mom!"

3. Who are you closest too?

"Hud, duh, but if I had to pick a few others it would probably be Owl-head and Ikaruga...and maybe Lamy, but don't tell her that!"

4. Hardest Job?

"Any time I'm not with Hud is hard really."

5. Person you find the most attractive?

"Hmm? I don't get it...is this a non-plant thing?

Seilah

1. What is the best part about Demon Fang?

"Most of the members are rather agreeable. That and the large amount of non-humans in the guild."

2. Any Future Dreams?

"To create a demon world, though I am willing to extend that to monsters as well if necessary."

3. Who are you closest too?

"Despite how disgusting she can be, I am fond of Lamy. This of course extends to Monster as well.

4. Hardest Job?

"I wasn't fond of entering that so called Country Destroyer..."

5. Person you find the most attractive?

"If we are talking about Females it would be Heine, if Males...it would most likely be Monster, however he is quite dense. To the point where even if said that to his face he would probably simply laugh..."