Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail
It was about two in the morning, the talks with Jellal finally finished, it was decided that Meredy and I get the master bedroom—much to my disagreement. The reasoning behind it was is would make a good contingency plan in case I get nightmares again, essentially, they're treating me like a child, the humiliation I had earlier was still burning in my mind. While Meredy was happy that we get to sleep together again after a long time, I wasn't as keen on it. Don't get me wrong, I missed the days where I would run my hand across her hair as she cooed in her sleep, her sleeping face won't fail to calm me down. However, I couldn't sleep. I don't think you can blame me, considering what happened when I let my guard down, and that's the contradiction: I can't sleep unless I let my mind relax. A shame too, the ambient noise was made of nothing but wind passing by.
Beside me, Meredy was sleeping soundly. I reached out to brush her hair. Oddly enough, feeling her hair sink in between my fingers felt soothing—familiar but different all the same. As the warmth of her forehead spread to my indexes, an egregious thought sprung up: I want this peace to last…
Afraid to sleep, honestly, what has my life gone to?
Today was the first time—in my memory—that I was woken by somebody. My eyes opened to Meredy shaking my body frantically. What surprised me the most was that the sun failed at what Meredy succeed, I was showered in sunlight. If it wasn't for Meredy blocking of it from hitting my face, I'm sure waking up would involve a bright sting to the eyes.
"I'm awake, I'm awake…you can stop now."
"Couldn't sleep?"
"A lot was going on."
"You can take it easy if you want, Jellal and I would be enough. Why don't you go on that tour with Natsu?" While the thought of relaxing sounded great, the nightmare I had rushed back to me like opening a wound.
"Absolutely not."
"One of these days, I'll get through to you, or Jellal would." I giggled and slid off our bed.
"If you can't, there's no way he can. He can try to force me, we all know how that turned out."
"What if we combine our strengths?"
"Depends on if I get to see anything interesting." I popped open my bag and pulled out a pair of black trousers that were easy to move around in and a purple shirt that had those inspirational quotes on them, not that I like these kinds of things, but I think Skye should. Plus, they make for great casual wear.
"What might that be?"
"Jellal in an apron cooking food that is edible."
"You know that's impossible."
"Precisely." I opened the door to the bathroom and began my daily clean-up. While I hoped to have ended to conversation with that, Meredy followed me with a determination that I only see during missions. "Didn't you already finish?"
"I did but, I'm not falling for something this elementary." I sighed as I brought a wet towel to my face. "How about something more feasible?" The cool towel cleared my morning fog clogging up my brain, if only I have some mint to chew on.
"How feasible do you think do you think it is for me skip out on work?" Meredy paused for a moment. Using that to my advantage, I brushed my teeth in peace.
"Not very likely." She finally answered, just in time too.
"There you go, we have to trade something improbable with something else equally improbable." Finishing my rituals, I went back to our room, though I wished I could have taken a shower as well, time doesn't allow it. "You should get out of those clothes too, unless you want to go out in pyjamas."
"Fine." Meredy finally agreed to drop the topic and get on with our day. In about fifteen minutes, the three of us were disguised, more importantly, walking along the road to Fairy Tail.
We ended up arriving ten minutes earlier than our predesignated time, and it was around this time where I get to see Fairy Tail when it's starting to climb to the peak of activity. What a contrast it was! The number crammed in this hall easily surpassed seventy. To be honest, it was hard to make out anyone recognisable. Without anyone to guide us, we decided to head to the bar. Hopefully, the Guild Master is the type of person to drink during the day. Having need to weave through tables, navigate between groups of people, dodge flying furniture and tools, the only redeeming quality I could give this guild is the liveliness of the place, even that was built on top of tons of annoyance, after digging past piles of grief and overlooking mountains of chaos. I've just about had it.
"Hey, you look cute," a group of burly men surrounded us, targeting theirs eyes on Meredy—possibly because I was walking close to Jellal, "you joining the guild? We can give you the run-down of everything here." Considering the fact I endured endless noise, I'd say I'm fairly patient. However, seeing people hit on Meredy, was worse than all of those seconds of torture combined. I formed a cage of thorns around us and gave the men a smile dripping in venom.
"We're really busy right now so, can you move out of the way? I can't guarantee your safety if you don't back off. Perhaps a good scar would deter you from hitting on any other women again?" Like a cockroach, they all scurried away, as if they were caught in a bright light. We continued to walk to the bar without resistance, for good measure, I kept my smile. At last, we've reached our destination. This is what people must have felt like when they sailed the oceans for months, enduring gruelling challenge after challenge, finally to be rewarded with land. The land before us, Master Makarov. He noticed the three of us and hopped off his seat.
"Levy, Mira! Come to my office." Issuing a command without hesitation, we've caught another glance at why this man is the leader of this guild. He gestured for us to follow him. Mirajane said something to her sister and yanked a book away from Levy.
"Hello, the two of you were here yesterday weren't you?" Mirajane asked. "Lisanna told me that two of Natsu's acquaintance came by."
"Mira, you know these three too."
"That's strange, I don't have any memories of…" She then scanned us with a more discerning eye, her smile grew stiff. "Did something happen?"
"Not here." Makarov quickly ushered us inside his office and locked the doors shut—that was our signal. We were eager butterflies, shedding our disguises to reveal what's beneath the magic.
"You guys!" Levy exclaimed.
"Now I'm sure the two of you have a vague idea on what's happening."
"Something big is happening."
Nodding, Makarov pulled out the notes I gave him, "according to the information they gave us," he gave us a thankful eye, "some punks are planning to attack us."
"Which is why you called us here," Levy paused before continuing, "you want us to gather information."
"Exactly."
"When do we start?"
"This time, Crime Socrcière is helping us, or these three in the room."
"We would like to offer more help but," Jellal started, "other members are busy with their own things."
"No, you three are plenty, this is our problem to tackle, we wouldn't expect any help when it comes to these things."
"Then I'll briefly explain to situation. A dark guild is gathering Lacrima through any means, buying, stealing or trading. Most likely, they're using the Lacrimas to use them as explosives or to fuel a weapon. Which is why we need to investigate more to find out." Jellal dug out a map from his pockets. Is was the standard map of Fiore but with red, black and blue circles riddling the paper. "The red circles are Lacrima mines, the blue ones are where the highest concentration of Lacrimas exist in the land. Finally, the black circles are where we already have our members investigating." Though there were way more black circles than the other two combined, the ones where we haven't sent people is potentially the most dangerous. "Since we'll be staying here for a while, we can give you any information that we have as soon as we get them."
"That's quite a lot of places to check out," Levy commented, "should we get more help?"
"For now, we'll just see to the highest likely spots, Poppy Mines, Arbor Mountain, Garance Town, Edelweiss Mines and Manuka City. Even among the spots I circled, these five are the most prominent. If we don't have a single lead after these five, we'll have to cast a bigger net."
"Where should we go?" Mirajane asked.
"It doesn't matter as long as you're willing to go there. If you've been to any of these places, the better."
"Then me and Levy will go to Manuka City, I've done a photo shoot there once."
"I'll take Poppy Mines. Ultear, do you mind if you go to the mountain?" He really should know at this point that I don't really mind where I go. However, the mountains should have more options for me to use my magic.
"Not at all."
"Meredy, you'll go—"
"Garance Town." She's up to something again, I can tell with the strong look in her eyes.
"In that case, whoever finishes first will go to Edelweiss. Once you're done preparing, please set out at once, we don't know how much time we have left."
"Got it."
"It's a bit late for it now but, thank you for cooperating with us."
"Again with this?" Makarov groaned. "It seems your guild members tends to do everything by yourself. Look, the both of us are just doing our own work. We're protecting our family, you're eliminating threats to Fiore. I don't think fulfilling our respective goals deserves any thanks."
"We'll come again once with have something," Jellal puts back on his disguise and waited for us to do the same. He's getting really impatient, is he that worried? At this point, he's so easy to read. Rather than teasing him for it, I saw that it was best to do what he wanted. So I said goodbye to my natural hair colour and stepped out once more.
"Jellal," I called out, my eyes were fixed on a red-haired knight, sitting on a bench spooning a cake, "are you sure you don't want to tell her?"
"What will come of it?"
"She can help us, you know how capable she—."
"We can't." Jellal snapped.
"And why is that?" I knew it, he's letting personal feeling get in the way. "Wouldn't having more people help? We're missing one person anyway. We can attack sooner; the less people will be harmed."
"I know that, but we—I can't." His stubbornness reminded me of a rule we made when we first form this guild, I guess that's why this rule was made.
"These people are already disrupting society, hording this much Lacrima is dwindling the supply, people who want to use them for good can't, or at the very least, needs to pay more to get them. It's not just about Magnolia or Fairy Tail, this affects the entire kingdom. Some people's livelihood depends on Lacrimas, some are making their dreams come true with them. Are you compromising that? If you are, I'm taking control of this plan." Before he could respond, I pushed further, "Should the one leader of an operation be clouded by personal emotions, the other two has the right to seize control, or are you telling me you've forgotten that? Mark."
And I finally got him to talk, "why is it always them?"
"Huh?"
"It's always Fairy Tail. They're always getting caught up in these kinds of messes. They shouldn't be dealing with all this, they're just a normal guild. We're different, we formed this guild for the sole purpose of fighting crime. We should be shouldering their troubles. Why can't they live a normal life? Free from all this."
"And so you want to let them live a 'normal' life." What an idiot. "Look around you."
"Does you see any normal people?" Meredy finished, pulling the words from my head. Light returned in Jellal's eyes. Positivity was bursting from each person in the room, the happiness was overwhelming. "When they're standing at the top of Fiore, normal doesn't apply to them anymore."
Without skipping a beat, I declared, "we're going ahead first, you brood on those words for a while." At my words, Meredy put back on the act, clinging to my left arm as we navigated the crowd again—somehow it became denser than when we first arrived.
"It might take a bit longer then I thought," Jellal said, "I'll catch-up soon." Giving a relieved smile, he walked towards Erza's direction, and vanished in the crowd. Even with this push, I doubt anything major will happen. However, we now have one extra ally. The ball is in your court Jellal, though you'll end up disappointing Meredy and I, try to come up with a better lie this time.
The instant we moved to the next step, a wall appeared—we have no idea where to buy supplies. Normally when we move, it's usually to a place where an incident is about to happen, therefore, we don't have a need to run around for supplies to go on a journey, giving us ample time to get acquainted with the new lifestyle. We have no such luxury now, time was ticking against us, the sooner we get going, the better. If, by some chance we were short on time in the new home, we would have one of our guild members positioned around our new home to guide us. Again, we never expected to move to Magnolia, Fairy Tail was there to guard from most—if not all threats. The only reason why we're here is to ease Jellal's worry, also the scale of this operation warrants additional security.
As the two of us went and burned all our options, it hit me, "Rachael, we're splitting up, since we're going to different places anyway, the things we're buying will be different anyway. Plus, if either of us finds anything we need, we can buy it and exchange it."
"Got it, I'll go to the market."
"Then I'll buy other supplies." In this moment, asking locals for direction is the most valuable asset.
"Huh? You two sure are early." Just in front of us, Natsu came strolling in the scene with his trusty cat—Happy—floating behind him.
"I think it's because Natsu is just late, it's ten you know?" Happy quipped. "You even slept through breakfast."
"Shut up, it's early for me. And I'll just eat breakfast with my lunch."
"Rachael," I looked to my sister, to find the same expression, "we're in luck."
"What do you mean?" Seeing Natsu's dubious face made feel slightly bad that we're about to throw a massive wrench into his schedule. But compared to the deeds I did to have things go my way, this amounts to nothing.
"So we have a really important trip to go to," I said, making my voice as sweet as possible; I tugged on his scarf till we were almost touching noses, "but the thing is, we don't know where to buy our supplies, do you think," I ran a finger across his cheek, "you can guide us?" For someone that is known to be pretty dense, it seems like he's still a man through and through. A low-level attack like that gave Natsu's cheeks a healthy pink paint-over; he wouldn't look at me straight in the eye, wandering randomly. I'll admit, his reactions were much more tame that most people I've done this trick with, what a shame…his overreactions were always a treat.
"I was planning to guide you guys anyway."
"Yes, but you said after lunch, we're in a hurry right now."
"I'm really hungry though, you heard Happy, I just woke up."
"You can't?" Meredy joined in, using her younger charms to effect, right now, it was like staring into the face of a starving puppy. Before she grew up, we could rope in any person we wanted. Thankfully that's out of the table, going after sickos who's interested in children always left a bad taste in my mouth, even if it got us closer to what we were doing.
"Fine, but you're treating me and Happy to lunch alright?"
"You got it!" The sadness in Meredy's face vanished and I pulled away from Natsu immediately.
"Now let's get going, we'll head to the market first." I ordered.
"Natsu," Happy sighed, regarding Natsu with drawn-out eyes, "you're a stupid idiot."
"S—shut up!"
The market was just as you would expect from a city like Magnolia, stores and stalls stretching far, each one of them raring to attract customers, from poster girls to live demonstrations, simple signs to town criers. The place was made of two types of customers, the ones who make a big fuss, specifically, hagglers, bribers, children; the other, were people who would simply hand over money in an equal transaction. And of course, we've brought the biggest noise makers in the city.
"Why am I carrying your stuff!" Natsu screamed. Like a butler—albeit a loud one—Natsu followed Meredy and I, acting as a haven where we could free our hands.
I was weighing two types of scarfs in my hands, one black, woolly one, versus one with black and purple stripes, "if you're a man, you wouldn't complain about it, we didn't buy that much stuff." The black one is more dull… "this is great, I never thought we would have someone accompany us when we're shopping again, Jellal makes some stupid excuse every time."
"You two bought two bags worth of crap each!"
I picked the black scarf, tossed in a wool hat, some gloves, paid money before handing Natsu another bag. "Make that three for me."
"Can't you put those with the other bags?"
"You must be joking, you want me to put clothing next to dried food when I don't know what conditions they were cured in?" Seeing how he still doesn't get it, I continued, "some of those foods are greasy right? I don't want that anywhere near my clothes. Come on," I pulled Natsu by the ear, "Rachael just bought something."
"I hate you two."
Meredy gave Natsu another paper bag, "I'm done here, the rest is back home."
"Me too."
"Then we're done?" Natsu asked hopefully. There is it, those helpless, cute, glassy eyes, his frowning lips. Unfortunately for him, Meredy prepared my defences against the cute tactic. Making crushing his dreams, much easier.
"What are you talking about?" I couldn't help but smile, "we still have to buy medical supplies." While Natsu's soul left him, I looked at Happy; I noticed his paws were plenty free, just a fish bone occupying the space.
"I—I'm too weak to carry stuff!" Happy pleaded.
"Easy, I wouldn't want my bandages to smell of fish." It's so fun with easy targets around. Seeing Meredy's playful smile she thought the same—and we haven't even used Meredy's magic yet!
We dragged the duo around for another hour or so. Apparently, Natsu had a traumatic incident involving shopping plus girls in the past, which would explain his exaggerations. Now we were in a restaurant, resting as well as fulfilling my end of the bargain. Though it would appear that Natsu and Happy were too tired to notice tables or smell the food passing by to most, they were stone statues leaning against the table. That is until a huge plate of food got delivered right in-front of their faces. I assumed Natsu can probably eat more than five people's worth of food, so to whet his appetite, I ordered a huge plate of noodles that was meant for three. For Happy, I got him a plate of raw fish. Natsu and Happy were like dehydrated people when they find water, ogling the food—drooling for it.
"Go ahead, we did promise to treat you two, we can get more if you want, just focus on resting, you two did a good job." I concluded, throwing in a cute beam. It's a simple trick really, once you wear down their minds to the point of breaking, you then offer them some sort of salvation, all the sudden, they think you're generous and they forget all abuse you made them go through. Of course, this is only effective against simpletons. Which is why the two were looking at me like someone to be revered.
""Thank you so much!""
Under the slurping, Natsu asked, "where are you guys going anyway?"
"Just some errands Jellal gave us."
"Do you want us to help?"
"We'll be fine, it's nothing that serious. Besides, don't you have a team? Why don't you go on a job with them?"
"Yeah well," Natsu swallowed a huge mouthful of food, chugged a glass of water, "for some reason, Happy told me that Erza suddenly had something to do." I turned to the cat for explanation.
"While Natsu was sleeping, I visited the guild. And the weird thing was, Erza suddenly said she was busy, even though she was totally free yesterday! Natsu, you didn't do anything to her right?"
"I didn't! Why do you always blame me for everything!?"
"Because Natsu is Natsu."
"What's that supposed to mean!?"
"Can you get to the point?" I drummed my fingers on the table.
"A—aye sir! When I asked Erza what she meant, she just said the Master called her for something." Then it's safe to say that she knows what's going on…well, that'll just make explaining smoother for Jellal.
"Excuse me," I called out to a waiter, "can you bring me two lunch set A's?"
"Two set A's is it? Please wait for a while, the food will arrive soon."
"If the whole afternoon was supposed to be reserved for us, what are you planning to do now?"
"I don't know really, I didn't really think of anything else."
"Natsu, I hope you're aware that we didn't move here to have fun, you shouldn't plan your days around three people that should be in low priority."
"Who cares about that kind of stuff? Speaking of which, when will you be free?"
"I don't know, I'm never certain about these things."
"Doesn't your guild have days off or anything?"
I smiled wryly, "technically, we do. It's mainly our fault that no one really takes a day off, at least long breaks."
"What do you mean?"
"We allow our members to take a break whenever they want, as long as they get the job done on time. However, when most people want to take long breaks, us three wouldn't stop."
"What's wrong with that?"
"If you see someone work harder than you, won't you want to work harder as well?"
"I don't get it." I sighed, this is going to be tough.
"Look at it this way," Meredy spoke up, "if you know Gray is training, you'll want to train as well right? So as to not fall behind."
"Ohhh! So it's like that, why you say that in the first place?" His innocent tone told me he wasn't messing with us, I glanced at Happy just to make sure.
"Natsu has fighting on his mind most of the time."
"Who cares about that? You said you didn't move in here for fun right? Then why did you come here?" His blatant attempt to change the subject aside, his question was tricky to answer.
"Jellal insisted that we come here, he still hasn't told us why though."
"That's it? Tell me when he tells you alright? I might be able to help." Natsu declared with a smile.
"I'll try." I smiled back. Natsu Dragneel, an absolute idiot compared to most people around him. Yet, he makes a great conversation partner, he always listens to what you're saying unless something important is on his mind. He's great fun to be around, the way he dances on my palm is cute as well. What I find the most interesting is, he never pushes to an answer, he doesn't pry. It creates a casual vibe around him. And it's this vibe that will get him the answers he wants. Whether he's aware of this or not, is a different matter entirely. He would definitely make a great friend.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed.
It's another slow chapter, but I think it provides some nice information about these characters, it should speed up after maybe another chapter, I don't know, I'm trying to time these chapter releases with a date I consider important so it's kinda messing with things.
Anyway, I finally decided to get me some covers on these stories! I won't put a cover for Hisui's story yet, I'm still wondering if I should put one. As embarrassing as it is to admit, the two covers(three if you count Hisui's one) took so long for me to make, it would take even longer if I were confident in my drawing skills to show to the world. It is one of my goals to someday fill my profile icon with something I draw myself. Until then, it's the default. Nevertheless, it's something I'm proud of given my limit skillset.
A few things about the covers that I must 'cover'. The silhouette of Juvia was me using a fanart and just turning it all black. The person that rendered the image is Namyle. And He/She has done some fantastic work on Fairy Tail Characters which I highly recommend you check out. Just go to deviantart and add this to the URL, or search the artist.
namyle/art/Juvia-Lockser-Render-5-614439725
Add if it doesn't work.
That is for image of Juvia I used, in case you guys like, you know, want to see the original. I feel slightly bad for not putting this plug-in in a story that's irrelevant to the art. My apologies!
Aside from that, the other characters were pulled from the anime I think, not too sure on that one. Also the fonts I used were found online(1001 Fonts), aside from that, everything else, I made myself. The font from the cover in this story is called Lumos by Sarah McFalls. And Juvia's story was using Seaweed Script by Font Diner.
So why am I being so strict when it comes to something as simple as a fic cover? Because I think it's important to give credit, putting a part of your work out on the internet—at least for me—takes quite a good deal of courage. Also, most likely these people put so much work into these, therefore, it's only right that I tell you guys who made these awesome stuff!
Alright, I'll shut up now, have a nice day!