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CHAPTER 35
SECOND CAT ON TEAM

It must have been afternoon already by the time I finally woke up from my sleep. I didn't think I'd ever slept for this long. Yesterday had been so eventful: being sent to another world, all the running I did, fighting, more running pushing back a huge floating island, more fighting, even more running, and then finally being sent back to this world again. What a day. So many strange things I'd seen, like, two Gajeels and two Erzas together. How was that even possible? Wait, didn't Lisanna mention there being another Fairy Tail in that other world… would that mean there were mirror versions of all of us? I wondered if one of them had met the other me. What would he be like?

I did my morning exercises whilst lost in thought about all the things I had seen and done in Edolas. My body had recovered pretty well from everything. Most of my magic was already replenished, and luckily I had been able to avoid serious injuries during the fighting.

After my training, I hurried to the guild hall. I'd almost forgotten I'd meet up with Gajeel and Wendy today. Besides, I already missed out on breakfast by waking up so late; I hoped I'd still be in time for lunch.

The guild hall was as lively as ever. Lisanna was attracting lots of attention, people still weren't over the fact she had returned and wouldn't leave her alone. I saw Gajeel and Wendy sitting at a table together. Gajeel's face was a mixture of boredom and impatience, I felt kind of bad for arriving this late.

"Yo, guys. Sorry for being so late." I grinned and held up my hand to greet the two.

"Hmph." Gajeel obviously was in a bad mood.

"Hi, Roth!" Wendy smiled friendly. There couldn't possibly have been a greater contrast between these two Dragon Slayers. "It's fine! We only just came here."

"Yeah, right. I've been sittin' here, waitin' for at least two hours." Gajeel grumbled.

"It's not my fault you guys have limitless energy…" I defended myself. "Anyway, what's the cat doing here?" I asked, only just now noticing the black cat sitting on our table.

"Hey! I have a name, you know!" He yelled at me, but I paid no attention to it.

With the mention of the black cat, a smirk appeared on Gajeel's face. "That's right! He's my cat!" He announced proudly.

"Wait, don't tell me you'd been looking for a cat of your own all this time?" I suddenly remembered him avoiding us for days. Was that only because he was busy looking for a cat to call his own? I didn't understand this man.

"Of course. If Salamander and the brat have a cat, it's only logical I should have one, too. Cats are the symbol of a real Dragon Slayer!" Gajeel explained to me. I didn't quite follow his logic, but whatever made him happy.

"Oh, that means we have one more member on the team!" I suddenly realised. "Welcome to the team, Lily." I cheerfully said, and shook the cat's tiny arm.

"What team? Gajeel, you never told me about this!" Lily said, a little astonished by all of this.

"You're my cat, you're part of the team." Gajeel said as if it was super obvious.

"Right. We're the Thunder Dragons! We're the most awesome team in Fairy Tail!" I stated with a big grin. Wendy showed a slightly embarrassed smile as I did.

"'Most awesome team', with you in it? Yeah, right!" Natsu said with a mischievous grin, as he appeared behind us, and pointed at Gajeel.

"Now you're asking for it, Salamander!" Gajeel lunged at Natsu before he could react and the two vanished in a cloud of dust, rolling over the floor. Gray, who stood nearby joined in, too. He probably hadn't gotten enough action during his time in Edolas, I guessed.

"You call that a brawl!? I'll show you how a real man fights!" Elfman roared with enthusiasm, amused at the uproar in the guild hall, and then dove into the dust cloud.

"Roth, don't you think you should have a cat companion like Gajeel and I do?" Wendy asked me out of nowhere, completely ignoring the chaos Gajeel and the others were causing.

"No way. Cats are for Dragon Slayers, right?" I said, disagreeing with Wendy's idea and taking up Gajeel's logic when it came to cats. "Last time I checked, I'm not a Dragon Slayer. Besides, if we get even more cats joining the team, we might as well rename our team to Thunder Cats…"

"Thunder Cats, that sounds cool, don't you think, Carla?" Wendy asked for her companion's opinion.

"Really, I thought we were done with naming the team. You lot are so indecisive." Carla sighed.

"By the way, what was the other world's me like, Wendy? Since I heard you visited that world's Fairy Tail and all, you must have seen me there, right?" I asked, eagerly for an answer, but all I got was her shaking her head. "Then, what about you, Lily? You lived in that world all your life, you must have known the other me?" I turned to Lily, but he as well simply shook his head in response. Man, that's depressing. How come the others got their other world versions, but I didn't. It wasn't fair…

"You two! Join me to fight for the glory of the Thunder Dragons!" Gajeel pulled Wendy and me by our arms with him into the cluster of chaos. Since when did Gajeel care so – Gah, never mind! How did I get involved in this mess? Or better yet, how do I get out of here!? There were bodies around me everywhere; I didn't recognise anybody while being in the middle of all of this. I tried to punch, kick and bite my way out of there, but all I did was adding even more fuel to the fire.

Eventually, the fighting died down as we ran out of energy, leaving the guild hall in ruins. Why did things always end up like this whenever Natsu opened his mouth to either Gray or Gajeel… it's such a pain, I thought to myself, as I lied face up on the floor amongst the other exhausted Fairy Tail members. The others seemed to enjoy these free-for-alls, well, most of them did at least. It was just one of those things I didn't think I could ever get used to.

After a while, everybody slowly got up again; we tried to repair some of the damage done to the guild hall, and Wendy healed those who suffered injuries from the fighting, even though she, herself, wasn't doing that great either after getting thrown into the brawl.

"At least we didn't lose to Salamander." Gajeel seemed somewhat satisfied with the result of the fight he started.

"Seriously, could you keep me out of it next time?" I complained to him while rubbing a rather painful bruise on the back on my head.

"Geehee, you're too soft." He smirked, and slammed me on the back with his palm. Was it just me, or had Gajeel changed since our visit to Edolas? I felt a sense of camaraderie coming from him that I hadn't felt before. Even so, I still wasn't happy that he pulled me in that brawl earlier, but I would forgive him for it just this one time.

"Anyway, I'd like to do something together as team tomorrow. You'll have time then?" I asked him.

"You can count on me." Gajeel answered. "But you'd better not show up late!" He quickly added.

"All right. Tell Wendy to come, too. I'll be heading back home for the rest of the day. Seeya!" I said to him before leaving the guild hall alone. There was no way we were still going to get anything done after causing that much chaos, I might as well spend the day reading or something. I had plans for tomorrow, so I'd better not further exhaust myself.