Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail

My book clasped shut; for a while now, pages being slowly dyed orange told me that it was time to wake my team up. I reached a hand out. Starting with Wendy, I lightly shook her shoulders, her hair rocking like a pendulum. How does she get her hair to be so soft? Just having it brush against my hands, and I want to run my hands along her sapphire rivers.

"Hmm?" Wendy stirred; she yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"It's time to get up, we've got work to do." I moved to Levy, lifting her from Lisanna's lap. "Levy, you all had enough rest."

"Err…wh…" She copied Wendy's moves, staring at me with vacant eyes. Now for Lisanna, I patted Lisanna's shoulders.

"Three more minutes…"

"We don't have time, I want to save some to talk about what exactly we're going to do." I sighed and moved to same trick I used to wake Meredy up when gentle is too lenient. I made a tiny piece of ice, slid it down their napes, sat down and watch everything unfold. They leaped from their seats, reaching—clawing for an icy cube. Snickering as the frantic dance progressively got wilder, I added another tally to my success.

"Why did you do that!?" Lisanna cried, now digging her hand down Levy's dress to fish out the torture device.

"Cold!" Wendy added, helping Lisanna pulled out her cube.

"A bit excessive isn't it?" Levy asked, doing the same thing for Lisanna, I'm honestly impressed that they coordinated to rid themselves of the problem so quickly.

"But it wouldn't be as fun would it?" I smiled and made another set of cubes. "Would you like another one?"

"""No!"""

"Well then, I suppose we'll move to some discussion." The three sat down and closed in. "The first thing I want to go over is whether or not you all have a change of darker clothes." I motioned to the bright, flowery colours on Levy's dress; Wendy's green one-piece with sandals weren't useful at all for the coming job. Lisanna was better with shorts and a pearl white jumper, it didn't get in the way should something happen, like a skirt hem getting caught. "Something like mine?" I was wearing skin tight trousers but made of flexible clothing along with a black jacket.

"Sorry, we didn't bring anything."

I should have told them beforehand. "Well, it's not necessary, just be a bit more careful. Anyway, Wendy will take the lead when we first infiltrate, I will follow closely behind her, and you two will pay attention to our rear."

"M—me? Why?" Wendy lashed her hair back and forth as she looked at her friends for support.

"You're a Dragon Slayer." I simply said.

"Then there's Nat—"

"Aren't you already good enough?"

"Huh?"

"You're gifted with great hearing, a wonderful sense of smell, you can easily tell when someone is coming and guide us away from harm. For the first half, we're to avoid combat as much as possible. So, it won't be a lie to say that you are the most valuable member on this team."

"I can't have such an important job like that! What if I fail?" Wendy buried her head in her hands.

"You look up to Natsu don't you?"

"How did you know?"

"It's easy to find someone like you." I smiled. "While it might be great to have his bravery, quick thinking, strength and tenacity, you can't learn any of that unless you actively try to. Running away won't help. Lots of things are holding you back." I held her trembling hand, "This is one of them."

"I'll try my best…"

"Don't worry, there's a reason why I'm sticking close to you, with my experience and your keen sense, we can't fail."

"Okay." Wendy returned a small smile; we're back to our meeting.

"For Levy, I want you to focus on attacking wizards hiding behind their frontline, if there are any. I and Lisanna will of course take down as many people as possible, however, I want to make sure that no one gets past us. Wendy, you'll first start by casting support magic on us, after that, you'll have to read the situation, if someone is hurt, prioritise healing above anything, attack when you see a good chance.

"Remember this is the formation we'll go into once we secured the lacrima storage room. I have no doubt that there'll be guards stationed in the room itself. To clear out the rift-raft, we'll change things slightly. Normally, me and Lisanna will be in the front as always. However, Wendy," I turned to her, "you'll be at the back, on the lookout for reinforcements, once you spot enemies, hold them off as long as possible. Lisanna will join you once you ask for it."

"But then you'll be alone." Lisanna pointed out.

"I'm more than capable of defending myself. Which leads to Levy. I'm sorry but, you'll potentially have the busiest role; which is to keep track of both front and back ends of our formation."

"Leave it to me!"

"That'll be all for now, remember, we only have until dawn to finish this, if the officials take action, it'll be harder for us to leave." They nodded. "Then, everyone can just relax until we arrive." I could teach them other skills, walking while making little noise, good habits to have when invading a base…sadly, I don't have the time. And cramming too much knowledge will introduce them to elements that they aren't used to. I opened my book again, about to take out my bookmark when Levy sat next to me, peering into the contents.

"That's the book that ties a person's mental state to magic output, right?"

"I'm surprised you know of this book, it's quite old."

"Of course, I do!" Levy held an air of excitement I've never seen before from her. "It's one most influential books on magical study. And, judging from the worn-out state it's in, you've been reading this a lot huh?"

"I have. Maybe, if I have read this book earlier, my life would have gone differently. I might have joined a normal guild. But that's enough about me, what other books have you read?"

"Well, I have an even balance of fiction and non-fiction, there's nothing like winding down after a long job by getting lost in another world. Then there's the thrill of learning something new or taking away a life lesson from an important person."

"Levy reads too much," Lisanna added, "it's hard to find books to gift her because I have no idea which ones she's read already."

"Then you could give me something that isn't a book, I'm fine with anything."

"You say that but, the look you have when you tear open wrapping to find a new book you haven't seen before is so cute!" In a flash, all the tension from our little meeting was gone, taken over with gossip, friendly banter and the occasional girls talk.

"Oh…" Wendy muttered, shifting her head from side to side, her nose twitched a bit.

"What's wrong?" Levy asked.

"No, nothing, I was just spacing out."

"Anyway, Levy," Lisanna said, "why have you gone on duo jobs with Gajeel more often? If you keep this up, even he will notice."

"I can't help it!" Cried Levy. "He's so fun to be around."

"Then when are you going to make a move?"

"S—soon."

What a lively bunch.

Jellal's calculations were spot on, his reward was a rich gold colour to Westpine, a place that, a first glance was a lovely place to live. Though much smaller than Magnolia, that's not saying much by comparing a town to a city. Like Magnolia however, one of the biggest buildings is a guild building, from leaving the train station, just by following a stone path to the right, a two-story building proudly bearing a horse silhouette with 'Dawning Horses', a guild I've never heard of, which doesn't surprise me, I haven't even heard of Westpine until this entire mess was thrown to my face. As I mentioned, the roads were stone, uneven ones that didn't see much work put into them.

There were three paths for us to take, ahead, left and right, each road being flanked with houses of varying quality, all of which, had a fair amount of people walking through it, not at the level of like Magnolia or the Capital, but spaced out enough to allow for anyone to run along without needing to slow down.

"Alright," Jellal declared, "we'll keep along with our three groups to explore the town, once it's almost time, just gather in front of that guild building. Have fun." He finished with a smile. As cautious as ever—though his acting could be better, coming up with being tourists, either showing his paranoia, or that his train ride was really boring, I can make a case for both.

"You heard him." I said, "we'll go to the left, I see some interesting shops down that street." Jellal nodded.

"Then we'll go down the middle, I want to see that cathedral up close." Meredy said.

"Now then," I looked to my team as I guided them towards a bar, "let's start there, you never know if some idiot will help you."

"This is getting exciting." Lisanna said.

"Is it? Well, I supposed I'm already used to it, so this is another day for me."

The inside of the bar wasn't anything new or revolutionary, dented wooden boards, sturdy chairs set up in a line facing a bartender. Near the walls, tables were set in groups of four. Some things never change no matter where you go, people still polish the floor with their drool, a strong scent of alcohol still filled the room.

I grouped the four of us together by wrapping my arms around them and whispered, "Has anyone of you tried to extract intel here before?" They all shook their heads. "Then there's two ways to do it. You can talk to the bartender, they generally have good connections and they might have heard some interesting things from drunks. Or, you can go straight to the source."

"What do you mean?" Lisanna asked.

"There's no denying that you're all cute girls, and guys tend to brag about stupid things while a girl is around, especially if they're good looking, so you can pick information that way, if they're drunk, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Though they can be a bit loose-lipped, the stuff they say can be all over the place. While you girls decide what to do, I'm starting first okay?" I tied my hair into a ponytail and walked to the nearest group of heavy drinkers—three of them—next to the wall.

"I'm going to go out for a bit." Wendy declared.

"Be careful."

As I got closer, their conversation became clearer:

"Shit man!" A balding man slammed his mug on the table. "Shit's so expensive lately yeah? I'm gonna be fucking broke if this shit keeps rising."

"Ya got it," another agreed, he was a bit younger, having thick black hair and rough face, "everything was fine a few months ago, now my wife is bitching about how we got no money, the fuck am I supposed to do about magic items being so damn expensive!?" This could be interesting.

"Umm…" I called out the group, putting on an innocent face, "sorry to interrupt." That got their attention. "I'm planning to move here soon, and I just heard what you said…I'm going to be in trouble if what you said in true."

"Huh? You picked a bad time missy." The second man said, keeping a firm eye to my chest. "Tell you what, buy us another round of drinks and we'll teach you how to live here."

"Really?"

"Of course! Sit down already." He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me in an empty seat next to him. "Give us another round!" He cried, his hand never leaving my side—in fact, he pressed harder. There are times—like this one—when I'm glad that I gotten used to dealing with stuff like this, or another man would be joining the floor with a massive bruise he has to explain to his wife the next day.

"Are you sure you should be drinking so much?"

"Don't worry about it!" A man with grey hair replied. "Where are you planning to stay?"

"Well, I've been talking with my friend, so far, I planning to move near the guild."

"The guild? So, you're a wizard?"

I dipped down my head, "Umm…yes."

"Haha! I see! That's why you're worried about the magic items." The drinks arrived; the man slid a mug to me. "Drink up! It'll be a long night."

I drank a bit of the bitter stuff, "So what happened to the magic items?"

"You see," the man took a massive swig, "a few months back, some people were buying lacrimas and magic items with lacrima by the buckets. It wasn't that big of a deal, the store had storage for it. We thought things would return to normal after those bastards ran out of money. But shit never stopped. Now the remaining stuff is so bloody expensive."

"Who are these people?"

The first man grinned and interrupted, "Now, now, you get one question, we get one. What's your name?"

"Skye."

"Beautiful name."

"T—thank you…can you tell me who these people are?"

"Dunno, they just parked shop on the back of the town, mother fuckers should just leave." He took a big drink. "Now then, are you free for the night?"

"I'm planning to see my friends after this, I came here to find her but, I don't see her here."

"We'll keep you company until then, how about that?"

"No thanks, I'll just find her house." I left some money and turned to leave. The grip on my waist strengthened.

"Come on, we're just trying to show you a good time." And this is why I hate dealing with drunk people.

"Please let go, my friend is waiting." I pried his fingers away. However, the two extra men blocked my retreat. In the interest of not causing too much trouble, I jumped on the table, used it as a platform to jump past the men. Once I did that, I broke into full-on sprint out the door, ignoring my teammate's stares. In hindsight, I shouldn't go for drunk men as my first target, seeing how I got what I wanted, I'm not complaining.

I was waiting outside Dawning Horses for everyone to come back; I was waiting for a while, the night was almost here; the sky was now a light purple that turned pink, then to orange the closer it got to the horizon. In the meantime, I had to: ensure the guild that I had no interest in joining them; helped an old lady pick up some groceries; tell everyone that I'm not an easy pickup target; ask around where exactly the back of the town is. And then finally, after watching a little skirmish across the street, my team came back and not long after, came Meredy's group, finally Jellal's.

"I assume, with the amount of time everyone's been gone, you all know where their base is?"

"We do," Erza replied, "Now we just need to wait until night." Jellal pulled out a piece of paper from his coat.

"This is?"

"A rough sketch at what the building looks like, we had extra time to investigate, I took some time to get this." We found an alleyway to hide in while Jellal unfolded the paper, showing a crude, but clear outline of the building, it had two stories, each tier being the size of a warehouse, a large one at that. The only reason why we couldn't see the thing was because it was hiding behind the houses. "From this, Meredy and I will go through the front, once we cause a big enough distraction, the enemy will know that I am the bigger threat and focus on me. Then Meredy slip past the guard and find the leader. At the same time, Ultear will lead her team to invade from the top.

"The top floor is most likely used for accommodation, so be careful and not to get caught. I suspect that they have a basement to store all the lacrima they have been transporting. Meredy, once you're done with the leader, come back to finish off the rest. If we round up everyone first, we'll come assist you." With a plan in mind, we headed for the base, and waited.

I've always found night the most comforting, perhaps it was because my homeland sees less sunlight than most. Nevertheless, I feel like I can do anything while wrapped in night. Nothing can beat a good night wind swimming past your hair, it's refreshing. And it was in this tranquil time where me and my team were scaling the walls of a building. Naturally, it's impossible to grip onto the mortar lines and climb a two-story building, especially when we're avoiding windows. So I made platforms jutting out for smooth scaling.

Still climbing with a backpack strapped to my back, Jellal and the others are just waiting for my signal: reflexing moonlight with my ice. Once they see it, chaos will ensue. I was the first one to get up on top, I then helped Wendy up and left the other two to climb by themselves.

"Wendy, where do you hear noise?" I was planning to have Wendy find us the quietest place below—not a perfect indicator of vacancy but, we don't have the interior floor plans.

"Please wait." The Dragon Slayer closed her eyes and pressed her head against the floor. She grimaced slightly before moving onto the next spot, repeating the same action until she smiled. "Right here."

"Perfect." I made a small ice crystal the size of my palm; after a bit a fiddling, I managed to make a small beam of light shine down where Jellal was hiding. In the next instant, a flash brighter than the sun blasted the streets, an explosion followed. Footsteps drummed in waves, the top was no exception. Finally, a rainbow of magic circles. "Wendy, is everything still clear?"

"Yes."

"Get ready." I sped up time in a radius big enough for someone like me to easily slip through. Cracks formed before turning to dust, leaving behind a generous hole. Without a second passing, I jumped down.

Just a bedroom—a small one at that, the bed itself took most of the space. From the lack of bedsheets, furniture, I gave my team the signal to drop down. "Wendy, please check." I ordered. She did as told, listening for any dangerous sounds.

"There's snoring in the room next to us," she pointed at a wall to our right, "and there's more out the door, just ahead of us."

"We'll take care of the one on the right first, the final one will tell us everything we need." I sped up time again, creating a door-sized opening on the wall. As Wendy reported, a man was just snoring away, somehow getting through all the noise. I restrained the man with magic sealing rope. "Just in case." A cage of thorns wrapped around the bed. "Let's move on." Wendy opened the door leading to a carpeted hallway. Thankfully, the hallway itself was well-lit so we didn't have to so any awkward groping. I opened the door where Wendy told me to go. The man sleeping was the very definition of a bad wizard, he's scrawny, so thin to the point where I would have no trouble breaking his bones. His only use is being a good backline, or else someone would have kicked him out already. Perfect target for sneak attacks. I restrained him like I did with his friend fastening rope around him. Next I froze his entire body but his head.

A pair of brown eyes fluttered opened, before he could process anything, I clasped my hand above his mouth; I hovered an ice dagger above his eye, brushing away stray strands of black hair.

"If you scream, I'll drive this right in your throat." Typically, for physically weak people, they're prone to being scared easily, that either stems from bullying during childhood, or being the yes-man too often. The man frantically nodded his head.

"I—I won't."

"Good." I glided the dagger down his cheek, rubbing it up and down, letting him feel the chilling feeling of having a sharp edge scrape across flesh. "You seem pretty smart, you probably know what we're here for, so I'll cut to the chase, where do you keep the lacrima?" It's been a while but, I think I can still pull some decent acting.

"I—I…don't know."

"Bullshit." I dug the edge deeper, stopping before I broke skin. "I'm really close to leaving you a scar for life you know, one slip of my hand is all it'll take. And that can come from all kinds of sources." I leaned forward, getting a good look at his twitching eyeballs, putting on my best crazed-woman look, contorting my lips to a sick, twisted smile; eyes wide and cruel as nature, lacking in any sort of compassion. "Say perhaps: you being stubborn. Another answer like that might juuuust be enough for piss me off. Why don't you tell me what would happen then?"

"I'm not telling a crazy bitch like you."

I caressed his right cheek slowly, "That wasn't so hard now was it? You do have what I want." He gasped, knowing of his mistake.

"F—fuck you!" I drew a strong cut along his left cheek. Before he could scream, I block it with ice.

"While I would looove to hear you sing, I don't have time." I got rid of the ice surrounding his body and straddled him. "Where would you like to have a makeover?" I licked the blood off my dagger, threw it away and made a new one. "How about here?" I move the tip to his hands. "Or here?" His chest. "I know!" I sang. I moved the tip above his eye. "I've been getting into an eyeball collection lately, yours would be the best addition so far. If you don't want that, you better tell me where the lacrima is." He started to wiggle around, trying to shake off the rope, but I pressed my free hand against his forehead, "I wouldn't move around like that," the dagger was just above his pupil, "who knows what will happen?" I whispered in his ear.

"You're a freak! Do your worse, you won't kill me anyway!"

"Now why would I kill you?"

"That's right, you can't get the infor—"

"Who said anything about that?" I grinned. "Killing you would mean I can't hear you scream. Ahhh…" I moaned, shuddering both as an act but at my own disgusting display, "singing from pain is just exquisite, orgasmic…" I finished with a sigh, "what would it sound like? I can hear it now!" I hugged my own body as part of the performance, rubbing my chest slightly with my fingers. "As a reward for showing me a good time, I'll give you something worse than death. For a man like you anyway. Aren't you happy? I did it juuust for you."

"W—what do you mean?"

"Did you know?" I drew circles around his wrist with my dagger. "If you cut the right part of the body, you can cut the magic flow of that part." He started squirming around again—much more chaotic movements, I chained his legs and head down. "That's it! That's the look!" I reached for his left eye. "Let's preserve that."

"You think that'll work? There's no way you can—" I jammed the blade into his wrist, covering his mouth in the same moment.

"Then why were you so worked up?" Rubbing his cheeks, I continued, "You believe what I'm saying, don't you?" My smile deepened. "Go on, try to cast a spell from your right hand!" Sweat formed from his forehead—then his face lost all colour. "Can't do it? Don't worry sweetie," I removed the blade, "I didn't do permanent damage, it'll heal in a few days. I can change all that just at the flick of a wrist however.

"I've made lots and lots of experiments in the past, so many bodies." I giggled slightly. "And I did it! There's a fellow walking around Fiore right now, who was once a wizard, now he's nothing more than a worthless sack of meat!" At the word worthless, he shook, tears started streaming. "Aha! Scared? Let me take a guess, magic is the only thing people value from you, not you as a person, they don't see you as a one, only the thing you can do—just a tool. Now think with me, what would happen, if even that was robbed from you?" I started to speak faster and faster—breathing harder, trying to emulate excitement or arousal. "You'll be cast out, yes? You'll be alone, yes? You'll become nothing, yes!? Will your family even take you back I wonder!? This worthless son of theirs. Perhaps, more than anything else—"

"Please don't…" He whimpered.

"You'll…"

"No!"

"Be…"

"Please stop!"

I whispered into his ear, "Use-less." I silenced him once more, I couldn't however, shut off his tears, they were flowing endlessly like a river. "Feel like talking now?" He nodded. "That's a good boy." I stroked his cheeks again, dropping the weapon and cupped his face. "It wasn't that hard, was it?" He shook his head. I finally broke him; I got rid of the ice.

"Basement." He said in a monotone voice.

"Hmm?"

"It's in the basement, they're all in there." Just like Jellal predicted.

"And how will we get there?"

"It's just down the stairs, go to the very bottom. Am I free? You won't take away my magic?"

"Of course not silly, you're a good boy," without him noticing, I summoned my orb, maintaining a good distance from his head, "and good boys needs to be rewarded." I accelerated my orb downwards, knocking the man out cold. "Sweet dreams." Quickly getting off the bed, I fixed my hair. "Well, that was revolting, let's go." I faced my team again—they were all cowering behind one form of furniture or another, with Levy hugging Wendy. "Come on, that was just all an act."

"R—really?" Lisanna asked.

"Yes, I hated every second of doing it." They relaxed somewhat.

"Then how come that seemed so real?"

"Practise and actually capturing someone like that, you have no idea how much information you can pull as a crazy woman."

"Can you really shut someone's magic off?" Levy asked.

"Of course not, that was just a bluff. There are some things that can shut off magic from the texts but, cutting the body isn't a permanent way."

"But…that man couldn't cast a spell."

"His mind state was so shaken that he didn't consider that the ropes I tied him up with were the ones that blocked his magic; at that point, I could say I stabbed a special point in the body that would kill him in two days and he'll still believe it. Come on, we're wasting time, we already used too much from interrogating this guy. Wendy, we're relying on you."

"I got it." The girl scrambled to her feet and led the way.

Thanks for reading! This is the first time, where I considered giving this story a m rating, just from this chapter alone. While I don't believe I've written anything of the sort, it was a pretty thin line that I could cross pretty dang easily.

Funny how I said I wanted a more lighthearted story in the last chapter, and I went the total opposite way, I do still want to do that but, that will have to wait. At this point, I feel like I'm leaning on Ultear's seven year experience dealing with dark guild plus the shady stuff she used to do as a crutch. You know, she seems like a woman of many talents, and my only excuse for it is, she's done lots of this stuff before. Kind of a convenient plot device if you ask me. I'll try to tone it down later on, unless you all have no problems with it.

I don't think I did a good job in expressing the man's fear, I don't know about you, being threatened by a psycho woman wasn't portrayed well enough. And I couldn't find a better way without it seeming so jarring. Regardless, I had so much fun writing that semi-torture scene, might say something about my personality, I don't know.

Now I got to say, I don't really have an idea on how the magic works inside a wizard's body. I don't know if it was ever explained, and again, I'm too much of a lazy bastard to find out. So I took inspiration from Naruto's Chakra lines and the human nerves system, hence the wrist stabbing.

I would have kept writing, if it wasn't for the fact this chapter is almost 5k words, anything above 5k is a proofreading nightmare in my opinion. So if you found some mistakes, sorry about that. Until then, I hope you enjoyed, have a nice day!