Mizu recommends you listen to Challenge Fairy Tail of the Fairy Tail OST while reading this chapter~

The red-haired knight began to march into the guild hall, Azrael following in tow, dragging Dave by his collar still. Quite a number of odd and average looking individuals would be staring at the two of them as they dragged the thugs to a backroom. Kratos would close the door after all five of them were placed inside the room, before leading Azrael over to a counter.

Upon further inspection, this counter had a variety of drinks on the shelves behind it - it was a bar! The woman behind the counter had wavy, caramel brown hair, with her bangs parted to where her face could be seen. The left side of her bangs were much longer than the right, but both sides appeared to spike out at the end. Her hair appeared to be teased up and tied back with a ribbon, being wrapped in a short pony just beyond her shoulders in the back. She seemed a little like a tomboy and dressed casual, save for her faded yellow cargo vest.

Kratos would lean his arm on the counter and begin talking to this woman, "Hey Lena, how's the Master's schedule looking?" The woman would scoff at Kratos, before cracking a smile.

"You should've asked me before you went out looking for trouble," she retorted, before glancing behind her shoulder to a door next to the counter. "I don't think she's busy right now. Might be playing cards or reading fanfiction in there. Who knows? She sure is talking to herself a lot, though." Lena then finally turned her attention to Azrael, checking him out a bit before asking, "Who's the new guy?"

Kratos shrugged. "He says his name is Azrael. He's the guy I saw near the front of the building earlier. I followed him and found some hounds preying on him for some reason. I'm gonna introduce him to the Master and see if we can get the whole story from him and the guys I brought in." Lena would nod and hold two fingers up to her temple, before flicking her wrist. As she did this, the door would swing wide open. "Go on ahead." She said with a smile.

Kratos would lead Azrael to the room next to the bar, seeing a desk filled with papers and a young woman with incredibly long, white hair in a ponytail sitting in a chair behind it, reading some of these papers quite intently. She looked like she was no older than eighteen with how young she was.

Kratos would simply stand and watch her, waiting to see how long it took for her to notice someone was there. After a couple of minutes, Kratos would cough, grabbing the woman's attention immediately. Her pale face became flush with redness before she let out a loud screech and swatted away the papers on her desk.

"Hey there, Master Faerune! Enjoying your studies, there?" Kratos teased, causing the woman he addressed as Master to stand up, walk around the desk, and slap Kratos - which was quite amusing to Azrael considering she was just barely tall enough to be able to slap him.

"Don't just come in here without announcing yourself, idiot!" She exclaimed, composing herself with a deep sigh, and extending a hand to Azrael, "How do you do, Azrael? My name is Esme Faerune. I am the Guildmaster of Fairy Tail."

Azrael would pause, blinking in surprise. "How did you-" He began, only for Kratos to cut him off, "Oh right! I forgot to tell you. Lena over there handles most of Master's meetings by letting her know ahead of time with telepathy. Super handy for an assistant, right?" He laughed. Master Faerune's hand would still be extending, her bright white eyes seemingly staring into Azrael's very soul. He decided to shake her hand, bringing a smile to the woman's face.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Faerune." Azrael said, still taking in everything that literally just happened. Esme would let go of his hand and casually walk to the other side of the desk and sit down once more, "So… I hear that you got into a scuffle with some scoundrels from the Blood Hound gang. How'd that happen?" She asked.

Azrael would proceed to fill in both Kratos and Esme about how he woke up with no memories of how he'd gotten to Magnolia, nor any memories beyond a quite vivid dream, and stumbled his way to a tavern that the thugs said belonged to a person known as Cloak. He talked about his initial encounter with Dave and how he figured out how to use his powers all in that instance, before the eventual scuffle with him and his thugs where Kratos came to the rescue.

Kratos would slap his forehead, "Ahh, Cloak's Bar! We did tell them that they were free to indulge themselves around that area, but not to go causing trouble. Looks like we'll have to do something about that." He then turned to Azrael to explain. "So, we at Fairy Tail have a reputation for, uh… let's say using more power than necessary… in our feuds and scuffles. We struck a deal with the dark guild those guys were a part of, Blood Hound, that if they were to stay low, not cause trouble for Magnolia or its people - that we wouldn't take them down."

"He probably doesn't even know what a dark guild is, genius," Esme sighed. Azrael cocked his head, thinking for a moment. "Well," he began, "I can assume that a dark guild is a guild involved in dark dealings." Esme and Kratos both looked at each other and lightly clapped.

"Wow, your deductive reasoning is impressive. Yes, a dark guild is a magic guild that doesn't follow the laws and ordinances issued by the magic council. Most guilds consider dark guilds to be bad guys, but the truth is, only about half of dark guilds are like that. They do tend to step over the line, more often than not, which is why it's necessary to keep guilds like Blood Hound in check.

To be honest with you, and this is mainly with the smaller dark guilds, mind you; guilds labeled as dark guilds are typically filled with wizards that made mistakes and try to look past them to live their lives in whatever way they're able. The world can be cruel and, sometimes, people make mistakes. Not everyone deserves to be condemned to a life of misery as an outlaw for their mistakes, especially not if they try to atone for them." Esme finished, suddenly making a cup filled with tea appear from thin air and drinking from it.

Azrael frowned. "I understand that type of reasoning, but at the same time, these guys provoked me and when I stood up for myself, they used that as an excuse to come after me. It doesn't seem like they're the type of people you should make those kinds of exceptions for." He argued, which was followed by a brief period of silence. Kratos stared at the ground in thought, before looking up at Esme.

"He's right. And from what I've heard, this isn't the first time members of Blood Hound have done something like this, nor is this the first time we've gotten on to them about this. We can't let them keep getting away with this." Kratos explained. Another moment of silence would fill the room, until Esme slammed her fists on the desk, shattering it to pieces, "You're damn right we can't! That's it, I'm doing being the friendly guildmaster!"

"Wait, what does that mean? You're not about to torture those guys to get answers, are you..?" Azrael asked sheepishly. He didn't want to think about what a woman with that much raw physical strength could do to those poor men. Esme smirked, "Of course not…"

She would trudge through the remains of her desk and the piles of paper left in its wake towards the door, before turning and facing the two. "We're going to war."

- - - - - - - {next scene} - - - - - - -

Guild members would be gathered in front of the bar, some sitting and some standing. Azrael would be sitting at the bar next to Kratos with Lena leaning with them from behind the counter. Esme would be standing on the counter, facing all of the other guild members.

"Attention, all members of Fairy Tail!" She cried out, silencing everyone in an instant.

"As of this moment, there is an enemy knocking on our doors! This enemy has been harassing the good citizens of Magnolia, using underhanded methods to do whatever they please to whoever they want! This enemy is Blood Hound!"

Various guild members began to whisper amongst themselves, most conversations along the lines of what's going to be done about Blood Hound. Azrael leaned over to Kratos and Lena. "Is she always this inspiring and intimidating?" He asked.

"Only when she's angry," Lena replied, followed by her and Kratos chuckling.

"Fairy Tail!" Esme called out, once again silencing everyone, "Are we going to let them get away with tormenting our people?!"

"NO!" Members cried out, "OF COURSE NOT!"

"Well said!" Esme replied. "It's time for us to right a wrong that we set in motion! Blood Hound will NOT get away with what they've been doing! As of this moment, Fairy Tail shall be at war with Blood Hound, and NONE OF US will fall until the good people of Magnolia are safe!" With the last sentence, she glanced back at Azrael, and he knew exactly what she meant by it in that instance - fight with us to protect Magnolia.

Azrael felt a surge of strength and motivation as she said this, crying out with the members of Fairy Tail in unison, "YEAH!"

Author's Note:
I was tempted to end with Esme making an awful pun, but I torment everyone with these author's notes all the time, so I spared you this time.

It won't happen again :)

In case you guys were wondering where the fights were in this chapter, the story has to build a little first! Azrael has to meet the Master and then exposition has to happen - every good story has exposition chapters! Duh!

There will be a good amount of action in the next few chapters, I promise! We'll be introducing like… uh… five(?), maybe six(?) characters in the next chapter, as well, so expect a lengthy chapter (for this series) next time!

Once again, thanks for reading!