Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it. I've got the whole week off school, so hopefully I can make some progress here. I've only got one or two completed chapters prewritten after this one, so hopefully I'll catch up so there won't be a lull in posting.

Just FYI, my last update was two chapters, since I accidentally posted the wrong one. So if you haven't read S-Class Trials Take 2, Part 1 and 2, go back and read those before continuing with First S-Class Mission Begins and this one. (Yes, I'm aware that Fanfiction's chapter numbers don't match mine).

Anyway, enough from me. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to read and review!

Chapter 26 Things Go Wrong (and Harry isn't surprised)

The next morning dawned windy and overcast. The air was a bit chilly and thick with humidity. Harry kept an eye on the sky as he broke camp.

"I doubt we'll make it the full ten miles today," he said frankly.

"Then I guess you'll just have to move faster," Laxus retorted, looking quite windswept. His hair, even cropped short, stuck up as badly as Harry's usually did. His clothes were slightly disheveled, too, and he huddled into his big coat as the wind blew through.

"I guess so," Harry said with a shrug. Based on the look of the sky, it would be raining by noon. How hard, however, was still up for debate. Hopefully it would be a light rain and a few water repelling charms would be all that was needed.

They ate a cold breakfast and set out about an hour after dawn. They did keep up a brisk pace, one that left Harry lagging behind as Laxus's larger strides carried him faster. He grumbled to himself about "stupid blonde giants," and was rewarded with a sharp static shock to the side.

"Oy! What was that for?" Harry protested.

"I heard you," Laxus retorted, scowling. "If you're going to insult me, at least do it quieter. Now keep up, pipsqueak, or I'll leave you behind."

Still grumbling to himself, Harry picked up the pace until he was half-jogging to keep up. It reminded him of trailing after Hagrid on his first trip to Diagon Alley, except Laxus wasn't quite as tall and not nearly as friendly.

As Harry had predicted, it started raining just after they stopped for lunch. It wasn't a heavy rain (not yet anyway), but it was steady enough to leave them soaked after less than an hour. The temperature was dropping, too. Wet and miserable, Harry tried to persuade Laxus to stop and see if it let up. But Laxus insisted on continuing forward. Unable to argue unless he wanted to be left behind, Harry grudgingly followed Laxus's lead.

A few hours later, the road narrowed to little more than a path and they were starting to climb into the mountains—or at least the foothills. But the slick rock was dangerous, and Laxus and Harry both slid several times in the mud.

Then Harry slipped on a loose rock, wrenching his ankle and sending him to the ground with a cry.

At the same moment, the skies opened up and the steady rain became a torrential downpour.

"I told you we should have stopped!" Harry shouted over the pouring rain.

"You weren't moving fast enough! We could have made it to a better campsite if you walked faster!" Laxus shouted back. "And now you've gone and hurt yourself."

Growling, Harry bit back a long string of curses and instead waved his hand over his throbbing ankle. "Ferula," he muttered, imagining a splint as well as stabilizing bandages. He didn't trust himself to heal it properly on the fly. His magic obliged and Harry got to his feet, testing his weight. The splint did its job. "Do you see anywhere we can shelter?" Harry demanded, ignoring Laxus's shocked look at the quick first aid. "This doesn't look like it's ending anytime soon!"

"If you can keep up! I saw some overhanging rocks that way." Laxus gestured, though Harry could barely see him.

"I'll keep up, you'll see," Harry growled as Laxus turned off the path and started toward whatever rocks he'd seen. His ankle protested, but the splint held. Harry was still forced to limp.

Some ten minutes later, the overhanging rocks turned out to be much less overhanging than they'd appeared.

"Got any more bright ideas?" Harry growled.

Laxus shrugged. "Your turn."

Harry glared back, but slung his pack around and pulled out his tarp. Ignoring Laxus pointing out that it was too small, Harry waved his hand over it a few times. Laxus watched in awe as it quadrupled in size. Then, using magic because he didn't trust himself on the uneven terrain, Harry maneuvered the enlarged tarp to form a tent with the back wall being the rocky ledge. He then used a dozen sticking charms at full power to keep it in place against the wind, and staked it down for good measure. The sides flapped in the wind, but it stayed put.

Harry immediately ducked inside, proving that there was more than enough room for himself and Laxus and their bags underneath it. The rain pounded against the material, it but did not penetrate.

"What are you waiting for, baka?" Harry called. "Or would you rather stay in the rain?"

Scowling, Laxus ducked into the tent. Harry then spelled the front closed and stuck it in place to keep the rain from getting in through the opening.

"Is that all you've got?" Laxus said mockingly.

"Shut up," Harry snapped. He was starting to shiver, and being cold and wet, with a throbbing ankle, made him irritable. He waved his hand over his clothes, drying them with a tergeo to siphon all the liquid off. Then he arranged a ring of stones and cast Hermione's favorite bluebell flames in the middle. Almost immediately their shelter grew warmer.

Laxus sputtered in shock and astonishment. Harry ignored him and turned his focus on his injured ankle. He removed his boot and prodded it a few times, wincing. Yep, definitely sprained. Unfortunately, Harry didn't know how to heal it. It wasn't a break, so episky wouldn't work. Ferula was better for cuts than sprains, plus it didn't last forever. Maybe a paralyzing spell just on his ankle? No; he didn't want to experiment in case it went wrong and he ended up paralyzing himself.

With a frustrated sigh, Harry transfigured a few rocks into stiff branches, then pulled the bandanna off his head and tied it around his ankle to complete the splint. His wet, shoulder-length hair fell limply into his face, and Harry blew it back in annoyance.

"What, you don't have any magic healing spells, too?"

Harry glared at Laxus through his hair. "If you don't shut up, you'll be the one needing healing."

"Oh, a threat? There's a black mark on my report."

Harry scoffed. "As if you're actually keeping track." He pulled his boot back on, loosening the laces so it would fit over the splint, then tightened them again. Getting to his feet, Harry tested his weight on the new splint. It would do, he supposed. It still hurt, but he healed pretty quickly, and from the sound of the pouring rain outside, they wouldn't be going anywhere the rest of the day, so he could rest it.

With a resigned sigh, Harry sat back down, resting his ankle on a small, smooth boulder nearby to keep it elevated.

"…where did you learn all this stuff?" Laxus asked after a long silence.

"It was either learn or suffer," Harry grumbled. Like the Dursleys would care if he had to sit out in the rain all night, or go to school on a sprained ankle after a round of Harry Hunting.

"The cooking, too?" Laxus's tone was a mix of skeptical and mocking.

Harry paused, then shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah." At least when he'd cooked for the Dursleys, he could sneak portions.

"And all your handy little spells?"

Harry shrugged again. "Necessity is the mother of invention." He'd heard that from Hermione dozens of times.

"Do I get to benefit from those spells, too?" Laxus asked mockingly.

Harry gestured to the blue fire crackling in the ring. Laxus dramatically rung out the corner of his shirt. Harry rolled his eyes and cast a series of tergeos on Laxus. The moisture in the air combined with the warmth from the fire made their tent quite humid and, admittedly, comfortable. Comfortable enough that, after a long enough silence, Harry drifted to sleep.

Harry woke to his growling stomach and the tent in almost complete darkness. His little fire, without his constant attention, had burned down to flickering blue embers among the pebbles. Laxus was snoring lightly on the other side. Rain still pounded on the tarp roof, though the wind had eased off some. Harry had no idea what time it was, but his stomach said it was dinner time.

Harry recast the blue bottle flames and pulled out his cooking gear. Unfortunately, there were no fresh greens. So Harry did his best with seasoned jerky and a hearty broth. While it cooked, Harry amused himself by changing the color of his flames from blue to green to orange, then experimented with splitting the colors. Blue and green, orange and red, to red and yellow, black and yellow, blue and yellow, green and white…An ache of nostalgia settled over Harry as he turned the flames back to blue, then he stared into them in quiet contemplation until Laxus's snoring was replaced with sniffing.

"Is that dinner?"

"If you can call jerky in broth dinner," Harry replied. "I didn't have much to work with."

Laxus snorted. "The fact that you could cook anything at all without fuel and in the rain is a damn miracle."

Harry's eyes widened at the indirect compliment, but he didn't say anything. He dished up their portions and they ate in silence. When there was none left, Harry cast a quick scourgify at the dishes to clean them, then repacked his cooking utensils and pulled out his blankets. He tossed his extra one to Laxus without a word, set up runes to keep the fire going all night, then curled up on his side and went back to sleep.

The rain didn't stop until late morning the next day. When the echoing patter on the tarp roof finally ceased, Harry used magic to clean up the campsite. Laxus, somewhat to Harry's surprise, scattered the stones that had been their firepit and repacked the borrowed blanket in Harry's pack. Harry adjusted his splint, lamenting that he didn't have anything else to pull his hair back with. Testing his weight and seeing that his ankle bore it, he led the way back to the path. He picked his way carefully, because it was still muddy and slick. To his surprise, so did Laxus. He kept behind Harry and let him set the pace. He didn't even complain.

Two hours later, they stood on the edge of a deep, rushing river, the wood-plank-and-rope bridge that was supposed to be there nowhere in sight.

"It must have washed out from the rain," Harry said.

Laxus growled in frustration. "Now what?"

Harry sighed and sat down, unable to stop a soft groan as he took the weight off his ankle. He pulled out the map he'd acquired in Oshibana and spread it out, glad that the ground had dried even though a thin cloud covering remained. He found their location without too much trouble. Laxus crouched down and looked over his shoulder as Harry studied their options.

After a long while, he sighed. "There's nothing for it; we'll have to backtrack to the main road again and take a different path. The river widens and slows here, near Shirotsume town. We can cross there and make our way back this way along the logging trails." Harry traced the route with his finger.

"Can you make it that far?" Laxus asked, his lip curling as he nodded toward Harry's ankle.

Harry waved him off, though he noted the lack of venom in Laxus's voice. "I'll be fine. If it gets worse, we can always stop in Shirotsume town and have someone look at it before we leave again." Harry's lips quirked upward into a half smile. "Unless your magic lightning teleportation I've heard so much about can take a passenger along."

Laxus scoffed. "Keep dreaming. If I could take passengers along, my team and I wouldn't need to hike at all."

Harry shrugged. "It was worth a shot." Vaguely Harry wondered if he could repeat his apparation feats, but both times he'd managed it, he'd been in real, immediate danger. Plus it had exhausted all his magic. He doubted he could manage it without an immediate threat, let alone without a clear picture of his destination. So he resigned himself to more walking.

The rest of the day they backtracked, past where they'd sheltered from the rain and back to where the smaller road had branched off the main one. They made it a few more miles down the main road before the sun began to set, so they made camp.

Harry grimaced in pain as he sat down and began rifling through his pack. His ankle was very swollen by now, and even his splint did little to help. He cast a cooling charm on his bandanna, hoping it would ease the pain the way an ice pack would. He started to get up when he realized Laxus was already collecting firewood.

Harry blinked in surprise. He wasn't sure if Laxus was just keeping his end of their deal or if it was out of consideration for Harry's injury. But either way, Harry appreciated it. He began to wonder if Laxus's gruff exterior was just a disguise.

He didn't say anything, though. Instead, he simply set up his tent with magic, even making it big enough for Laxus to share if he wanted. If not, Harry would just have extra space to spread out.

Once there was enough firewood, Harry started a fire and got his cooking gear out. He was very grateful for magic, because he could just summon what he needed, instead of having to get up. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Laxus's impressed look. He smirked to himself as he prepared their meal.

The next day was rough. Being on the road for four days now, Laxus and Harry were both tired and irritable. Their fresh rations were nearly gone, too. It also rained again, just a light drizzle that barely affected their footing but made travel miserable. Even after Harry cast water repelling and warming charms on both of them, their moods didn't improve. And, of course, Harry's ankle throbbed with every step. He didn't complain, but he was noticeably slower as the day wore on.

By noon, they finally reached their intended river crossing. It was dangerous, because despite the added depth, the rain increased the current. Struggling through waist-deep water with a sprained ankle was not Harry's idea of fun, and by the time he made it across, his ankle gave out and he couldn't bear to put any weight on it for a good while, even after tightening the splint. Laxus grumbled about the further delay, though at least he didn't blame it on Harry.

After resting for nearly an hour, Harry forced himself to continue. He might have noticed Laxus's alternating concerned and impressed looks if he weren't so focused on putting one foot in front of the other, limping badly.

The rain let up by nightfall. Thanks to Harry's magic, they could still have a fire despite the wet wood. But Harry didn't have the energy left to cook. Laxus tried, stubbornly wanting a hot meal anyway, and nearly ruined Harry's cooking pot. Harry scrubbed it out with magic and then wouldn't let Laxus anywhere near it. So they ate cold rations and then they both turned in, sore and miserable.

The next day dawned bright but cold, the sky scrubbed clear of clouds but the temperature dropping significantly. Layered up with warming charms and a blanket transfigured into a cloak, they set off again. Luckily, by now they were only six miles from Osier town. Though Harry's sore ankle protested at every step, he walked faster knowing their destination was within reach. Laxus kept up, still letting Harry set the pace.

Just before noon, Osier town was finally in view. They hiked down one more hill, carefully picking their way between loose stones and muddy patches. Then they walked past the first buildings they'd seen in five days.

Laxus insisted that Harry get his ankle checked properly. "How am I supposed to test you if you're not at your best?" he sneered in explanation.

Harry hid a smile. "Thanks for your concern, senpai," he teased. Laxus scowled and zapped him with electricity, but Harry just grinned wider.

It was a small town, but they had a local clinic. The man working there was amazed Harry had made it over the mountains with his ankle in such bad shape, but he praised his splint because it had prevented further damage. He recommended a week of bedrest for it to heal. Harry cheerfully ignored the advice as soon as they'd left. He wrapped it up again, tighter this time now that he could buy proper bandages, then washed his bandanna and happily tied his hair back once more. He wanted to get right to work, but he realized that after five days on the road, two of them soaking wet, neither of them were any kind of pleasant company.

So Harry took the lead in finding a place to shower and change, and then stay as long as they needed to in order to complete the job. They found a small inn on the outskirts of town, but there was only one room available. After sharing a tent for several days, Laxus merely sighed in resignation as Harry took the room.

They took turns showering and donned their spare clothes. Harry cleaned the worst of the dirt off their old clothes, but left them to be laundered anyway. Harry then wrapped his ankle up tight, repacked his bag, then hurried Laxus along so they could get to work.