"So, that's Levy and her team. And Gray? What's he like?" Lucy asked, leaning forward and resting her boobs on the table. Instantly, her back breathed a sweet sigh of relief.
Caspenar's eyes widened and he tugged on his partner's cloak. "Look! Look! Look!"
"I see 'em, Caspenar," said Azariah, shooing away the imp. "Behave yourself."
Lucy glared at Caspenar. "See what?"
"One question at a time," Azariah said. "Gray's okay, same as Natsu. The two are more alike than they'd ever cop to, probably why they get into fights so much. Fire 'n' ice, and that's about where the differences end."
"Great, so there's two of them," Lucy sighed, recalling the destruction of Hargeon Port.
"Unless Erza is here!" Caspenar added, outlining invisible spheres in front of his chest. "Redhead Big-Booby Girl!"
"Word to the wise," Azariah said, pointing at Lucy, "never call Erza that."
"Don't need to tell me twice." Lucy shuddered. From what Azariah had told her, Erza Scarlet sounded… terrifyingly strong. "What about Elfman?"
"Very manlet!" Caspenar exclaimed, thumping his tiny chest so hard he nearly smacked himself out of the air.
Azariah jerked his head at the imp. "What he said. Don't question his self-image."
Lucy glanced over to where Elfman was laying out Natsu with a haymaker, the big man's cannonball of a fist sending Natsu crashing through a table-turned-barricade.
Lucy gulped. "Noted, but why's he like that?"
"Couldn't say. Don't know him that well." Azariah took another bite of his chocolate cake. "Don't worry, things'll be all right once they calm down."
"Easy for you to say!" Lucy whined. "I'm not a musclebound slab!"
"Neither am I."
Lucy blinked, looking up and down his body, his veins bulging from his arms for how tight his skin was over his wiry muscles. "What?"
Lifting his arm, Azariah threw a few jabs in the air. His fist was a blur when it moved, lightning-quick. Lowering his arm, he said, "See? Not musclebound at all."
Lucy rolled her eyes and said, "Boy, I sure stand corrected."
A loud belch briefly overtook the din of the rumble. Lucy traced it to its source: Cana, still at the bar, setting down her keg with a satiated look on her face.
"Say, what's Cana's story?"
"Cana?" Azariah followed Lucy's gaze. "Card mage. Tells fortunes. Does jobs. I know she took the S-Class exam a few times but never passed."
"Is that why she drinks so much?"
Azariah shrugged. "Beats me. I always thought she just liked it."
Lucy's lip wrinkled. "I don't know. I've been to some wild parties before, and no one ever drinks that much all the time 'because they just like it.'"
Azariah's fork stabbed his chocolate cake again. "Well, if you wanna know, ask her yourself. I don't know her that well."
"You don't know anyone that well, do you?"
"Don't talk much to people around here. They leave me alone and I get by."
"I figured, but…" Lucy leaned back in her chair; Caspenar made a disappointed noise. "Is that really enough? In this crazy guild?"
The corner of Azariah's mouth lifted, as if he knew something she didn't. "Especially in this crazy guild."
"You overactive brats can't behave for ten minutes?!"
Lucy was afraid to turn around, particularly because a shadow had fallen over her table. Azariah pointed above her.
"And that," he said, "is the boss."
Slowly, fearfully, Lucy swiveled her head around to see a mustachioed giant towering over everyone. He was practically to the ceiling, with all fighting around his feet having ground to a halt.
"Hello, Master!" Mirajane chirped, a plate in her hand with another piece of chocolate cake in it.
Lucy's mind went blank with fear. "Wha- Who?"
The sound of a chair scraping on the floor escaped her notice. Only when Azariah's hand rested on her shoulder did she snap out of her fear-stupor.
"No matter what anyone says, no matter what anyone does, I want you to always keep one thing in mind." Azariah withdrew his appendage.
"Wha- What- Whazzat?" Lucy stuttered.
The strange mage flipped the hood of his cascade-blue cloak over his head. "Never, and I mean never, put nuts on a chocolate cake. C'mon, Caspenar."
Lucy remained wide-eyed and flabbergasted, only now the cause was confusion. As she struggled to make sense of what was happening around her, as the massive titan began to shrink, she noticed Mirajane had sidled on up to her now-diminished table. The pinup model had the same smile she'd had when Lucy walked in.
"So, what do you think of our guild?" she asked.
"It's, uh…" Lucy felt a bead of sweat drip down her forehead. "Well, first impressions aren't everything."
Mirajane's eyes looked to where Azariah had left. "They certainly aren't."
Following Mirajane's gaze, Lucy knew that look. Oh, the white-haired girl still smiled, but her eyes told a different story. Lucy had seen that look before, from both sides of a male-female pairing. Plus, there was the fact that Azariah hadn't motioned or asked for the slice of chocolate cake that Mirajane was now holding.
"Who's that for?" Lucy asked, pointing at the tray.
"Well, it was for Az, on me, but I guess he had to be somewhere."
He certainly did, Lucy thought, the complex machinery that was her highly-educated mind starting to turn. True, this guild was a nuthouse. True, Lucy had just gotten here. True, Azariah had his own eccentricities, chief among them the fact he put up with that little imp. At least, that's what she thought.
Now she knew better. Unless Azariah just didn't swing that way, the fact he blew off a jaw-dropping pinup model like Mirajane Strauss, who Lucy's highly-educated female mind could see had a thing for him, was hands-down the strangest thing she'd seen since arriving.
Lucy stood from her seat. "Save that cake, Mira. I'll get him back."
Mirajane waved her off. "No no, it's all right."
"No, it's not all right," Lucy said. "No one who's that into chocolate cake turns down a free slice. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this."
"Oh. That makes sense," said Mirajane. "But, before you leave…"
She gestured to the rest of the wrecked guild hall, where the master had quite literally stomped out all the fighting. Natsu lay sprawled on the floor, his twitching limbs splayed out like a squashed bug. Lucy wasn't sure if she should laugh or be concerned. Natsu had wrecked a ship full of goons and outrun a squad of Rune Knights in the span of one evening. How hard had the guild master flattened him?
"He'll be okay," Mirajane assured her. "Let's get your guild registration filled out, 'kay?"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Look, Natsu!" Lucy said, showing him the back of her hand. "I got my guild mark!"
Natsu didn't even turn from the job board. "That's cool, Louie."
"It's Lucy!" In light of the teeth-grinding slight against her, Lucy came to a decision. "Fine. If you're not interested, I'll just head out."
"Muh-huh," Natsu mumbled. Lucy left him at the job board. Had Natsu been a little more diplomatic, he might've kept Lucy around long enough to hear little Romeo come running to Makarov asking about his father. She would've heard about how Macao, a veteran guild member, had been gone for a week on a job that should've taken three days at most. Thus, she would've been around to go with Natsu up to Mt. Hakobe, where she would've been on hand to keep the ape-like snow vulcan that Natsu encountered.
Alas, any lesson learned from their brief exchange went over the heads of both wizards.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
At the edge of the Eastern Forest, not too far from where the healing hermit Porlyusica dwelled, there lay a field dotted with trees and small stumps. They poked out from the overgrown grass, a miniature forest in its own right, though none were from trees older than two decades.
At the border between the field and the forest stood Azariah, striking a worn-down section of a hard, venerable tree with his fists, over and over again. His straight jabs shook the tree, causing a leaf or two to fall with every blow. Unlike the stumps in the field behind him, every one of which used to be a tree, this hard old oak could take his punishment. It was as unyielding as he was, which made it perfect for his purposes. Every strike built callous on his knuckles, and tested his ability to gauge the depth of his punches. If he drew back too far, he'd miss. If he leaned in too close, the shock would reverberate up his arm and rattle his bones. The worn-down patch where the bark had been stripped was his marker on this tree, a badge of honor it wore as a worthy equal.
"Ninety-eight… Ninety-nine… Three hundred." Azariah let his arms fall to his side. He was far from spent, but too much training would leave him weak without a day's rest, and he couldn't rest, not ever.
He looked up into the canopy and called, "See anything up there?"
Caspenar's voice answered. "Not up here, Great One, but Blonde Big-Booby Girl walks on road!"
Sighing at Mira's latest attempt to make him a friend, Azariah motioned for Caspenar to follow as he moved deeper into the woods. Hopefully, Lucy wasn't looking for him. Similar to rest, he couldn't afford close friends, either.
Moving through the growth and paying careful heed to not to step on any fallen branches, he soon arrived at another tree. This one with a deep cut in its side. At neck-height, it looked as though someone had gouged out the surface wood with an axe, leaving a shallow wedge, then given up and fetched a saw to cut halfway through the trunk.
Azariah took the bag off his back and set it on the ground. He'd be wearing it if ambushed, so he wore it to practice his unarmed strikes. Almost anyone dumb enough to jump him, anyone weak enough to need to jump him, would be mashed into hamburger meat by his fists. However...
Run, child. Get out of here.
His master's last words echoed in his thoughts. His calm voice had betrayed no fear; he'd fully believed to walk away from that ambush and rejoin his ward soon after. His confidence had been warranted, for he'd dispatched three of their ambushers before any could lay a hand on him. The first hadn't even taken a step.
His confidence had been warranted, until the fourth shrugged off his remaining spells, then gutted him like a fish.
From his master's death, Azariah had learned his first true lesson of the word: always, always, be ready to escalate.
"See anyone, Caspenar?" he called hushedly.
"No ones, or twos, or even halves, Great One!"
His routine didn't move this quickly, but with potential relationships threatening him, it seemed prudent to mix the order this time. Reaching into the bag, the first thing he grabbed was exactly what he'd been looking for: a crimson hilt with a golden double crossguard, styled like a twin sets of serpent's fangs. One pair was angled towards the pommel while the other curved down, towards the scabbard.
Hefting it from the bag and sliding it on his belt, Azariah squared up to the tree. He moved his hands defensively, turning aside imaginary blows with his bracers while throwing a jab or an elbow in the air.
Then, he threw a long palm-strike which turned his body sideways, perpendicular to his imaginary opponent. His left hand was already on the scabbard, lifting it as he curled away. His right hand seized the handle, and thunk!
With practiced motion, the curved katana blade landed squarely in the slot, the tree barely shaking from the impact: a perfect cut for him and a sliced throat for any ass-jackal who attacked him.
Levering the blade free and inspecting the cut, Azariah noticed a small wood shaving along the underside of the slot.
So, it wasn't a perfect cut. Still, he wasn't too worried about precision so much as practiced motion. This wasn't the weapon he'd choose against someone wearing heavy armor, someone like… her, for instance.
Resetting his stance, Azariah proceeded with his routine eight more times. He would've gone for ten, except…
"Son of a bitch, watch out!" he hollered, the tree groaning as it slid off the cut in its trunk and toppled sideways, snapping every limb it touched from the trees around it before crashing to the forest floor.
With a cringe that could put new lines on his face, Azariah's eyes went from the fallen tree, to the diagonal stump he'd just created, to the tree again.
"Well, shit," he muttered.
"Not shit, Great One! Impressive!"
Caspendar fluttered down to join him as he walked alongside the fallen tree, looking for signs of anything trapped underneath. He didn't find any, but…
"Where's the fool that dropped a tree all over my mandrake root?"
Azariah sighed. Just his luck, that of all the ways for the thing to fall, it had to be towards the house of the one woman in the whole forest that neither he nor anyone else could deal with.
"You," hissed the old pink-haired crone, stomping along the side of the tree towards Azariah and Caspenar, carrying a broom the way a parent would carry a freshly-cut switch.
Inwardly, Azariah cringed. It was funny: he could stand up to demons and aberrations and all a manner of other monsters, but this lone woman inspired more… not "fear", but a desire to run, to get away. It may have been because, unlike all those things, he wasn't allowed to punch her.
Said desire doubled when the head of that broom laid into his head.
"Stupid, oafish, inconsiderate!" The woman, Porlyusica, assigned a new adjective with every new blow. "You humans can't leave well enough alone even out here!"
Azariah simply took it, recalling the guild master's wrath. Rather, he took it until his patience ran out, about seven strikes in. At that point, the broom was in his hand and broken over his knee.
Porlyusica's pink eyes narrowed. "That was my best and only broom you just broke."
Azariah narrowed his eyes right back. "I'm real, real sorry about your broom."
"Sorry won't get the tree out of my garden!" Porlyusica snapped, pointing to her ruined soil. "I'll be lucky if I don't have to replant all the mandrake. Can't you take your deforestation antics somewhere else?"
"Yeah." Azariah's scornful expression didn't change as he threw the broken broom pieces at the woman. "I could."
The two stayed like that for a solid minute, unblinking as they broadcast their dislike for each other. The silence was broken by the flying third party.
"Want me to stings her?"
Azariah sighed but didn't look away. "No, Caspenar, I don't. I want you to go up and keep watch again while I get all shit out of her yard. Might as well finish training like this."
Caspenar saluted. "I does, Great One!"
The olive-green imp flew off and Azariah got to work, starting with the bare-handed chop removal of the limbs and branches. These he threw into a pile, figuring Porlyusica could use them for kindling or mulch or something. The trunk of the tree would come next; no sense in risking further exposure by keeping extra weight on it.
Little did he or his lookout know, he'd already been exposed. A certain big-booby blonde wizard was quietly making her way out of the woods, a hand around her keys so they wouldn't jingle.
'Harmless', my perfect ass! Lucy was hyperventilating a little, her brown eyes wide as she power-skulked away. Either Fairy Tail's lost touch with us non-crazies of the world, or you got some serious explaining to do, Mirajane!