5 Days before, just outside Crocus

"Come on Ever, it's time to get going" Laxus was pinching the bridge of his nose. The Thunder Legion were out on a mission, they'd stopped for the night with the intention of getting an early start. Early being the goal but Evergreen was taking forever to get ready.

"Cool it Freed. I'm not showing up anywhere without looking my best. A fight included. Now, I'm all done so let's go."

Laxus and Bixslow were waiting in the opening to the clearing they'd stopped to camp in. Bixslow chuckled at Freed's dilemma Laxus rolled his eyes, there was always drama that ensued when they ended up camping - Ever always took an age to ensure not even a speck of mud was anywhere on her.

The group carried on once Freed and Evergreen had caught up, they were hunting a group of bandits who had been attacking traders - they weren't ordinary bandits, the reports they'd seen had the bandits using huge amounts of magic on the traders. More than was necessary which seemed odd to the group. Finding and taking down bandits wasn't a mission the Thunder Legion usually took on but they'd made an exception due to the lightning reports and the huge amounts of magic energy being used, something had smelt fishy to them.

"So what's the plan Laxus?" Freed looked to their leader for their plan of attack

"We go in, find em, kick their ass and haul em to jail"

"Well yes, we know that Laxus, but exactly how do you think we should find them?" Evergreen wasn't best known for her patience and wanted a clear plan of attack.

"Oh right, been a while since we've hunted bandits, usually the likes we deal with find us or they're kicking up enough of a storm to be easily found. We'll just go to the main road outta Crocus and wait I guess?"

"Excellent plan as always Laxus, if I may expand on it though. There's a patch I thought we'd go to it's well sheltered so I'd best the bandits would think hiding out there would be best to attack someone. It's early, the trade routes don't usually start for another few hours so I reckon if we go now we'll be there before the bandits are", Freed was always good with strategy and had looked at the details of the trade routes before they'd left for the mission.

Evergreen nodded curtly at this, happy with their plan of attack, Bixslow and Laxus were quick to agree with Freed's suggestion and so the group continued on to through the forest. When Freed indicated they were, Laxus instructed them all to hide along various parts of the path and to be on alert for anything and anyone unusual.

A couple of hours passed and they were in early afternoon, plenty of traders had gone past and none with any issues. Laxus was just about to signal for the team to break and send half to get food when the sky suddenly darkened over. He could hear another cart on it's way through to them, betting that would be the target he silently motioned at his team to be alert. He could feel the static in the air and waited in his tree for the mage to show himself.

At that moment the cart suddenly crackled with lightning, the front left tyre came off completely with the shocks and the cart started veering through the forest towards a clearing. "Shit! Let's go!!" Laxus yelled out to his team - he couldn't sense where the mage was but as he got closer to the cart he absorbed the lightning but quickly stopped and doubled over in pain. "Damn, that's some shit tasting lightning! Bix do you reckon you can get that guy outta the cart as it is, I don't know how much of that stuff I can eat". The driver of the cart was slumped against the bar at the front, blood dripping down his face completely unconscious.

"Sure boss!" Bixslow sent his dolls in who managed to lift the man far just up and started sliding him out of the cart towards them. Before he could make it all the way out though the lightning surged around the cart and the man again at a dangerous level. It seemed even to interfere with Bixslow's control and the dolls dropped to the floor dropping the man half out of the cart. "Laxus! I know they taste crap but anything you can do, we can't even get close and it's messing with my babies, I don't have control anymore!"

Laxus managed to straighten himself up and yelled over to Evergreen "Do you think you can take a run at the guy and fly him out of there if I get the lightning low enough for you?", she nodded and donned her fairy wings in readiness.

Breathing in deeply Laxus drew as much lightning to him as he could muster getting it away from the man, he saw Evergreen swoop out of the cart with the man and stopped absorbing the lightning abruptly as he dropped to the floor coughing violently.

"Laxus! Are you ok? I've never seen lightning do that to you before! Oh no, Bixslow we should have thought of something else. Laxus, please answer me?"

"Freed. Stop. Your. Fretting." Still coughing but somewhat less violently he dropped to the floor rolling on to his back taking huge gulps of air where he could. "It just tasted bad, I'll be fine. Did anyone see the mage around cos I damn well couldn't sense him anywhere? No? Right guess we should take this guy back to town then, is he ok Ever?" She nodded in confirmation that he was still alive. "Great. Just gimme a minute, why don't you have a look around Freed and Bix, see if you can trace anything"

They went and searched the area but couldn't find any trace of the mysterious source of the lightning coming back empty handed. Bixslow searched the ground and Freed took to the treetops and above with his wings, they returned to the group reporting no traces before they all headed back to town, Laxus coughing every so often on their trek.

None of them had spotted the red eyes hidden amongst the treetops, none had heard the evil chuckling that went along with it

"Master will be pleased, the plan went exactly as master wanted it to. He'll be most pleased with me"

I'm so sorry for the really long delay in update! I was away on a work trip and then had serious writers block working on this chapter. On the plus side the next chapter is drafted so I don't foresee any delay to that one being released!

Copperreign12 thank you as always for your review! Always nice to see you're still enjoying the story, hopefully this chapter doesn't disappoint :)