All rights are not mine. All Alanza's bad decisions are mine though.
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"Aren't they so perfect together?" Alanza glanced over her shoulder at Mira, cringing at the heart-eyed look she was sporting. Her cringe turned into a fullblown grimace when she followed the barmid's line of sight to Team Natsu's table. Natsu was snoring away and drooling on the table while Lucy gave him a smile that to Alanza had 'indulgent mother' written all over it.
"Oh come on. He's, like, an overgrown toddler. Lucy deserves a real man." It was out before she thought about the consequences. Mira's eyes glinted as she leaned closer.
"So is this your magic talking?" Well... In for a penny in for a pound.
"Only a little. Pradeshverse means crack ships. Lots of them." Hopefully Mira could follow that and anyone overhearing it wouldn't.
"And who exactly should Lucy's 'real man' be? In your opinion?" Alanza just grinned at Mira's narrow eyed stare.
"A cetrain tall, blond, and grouchy tsundere." Mira's eyes widened.
"LaLu... I never considered it before." She took a moment to consider it now, then pointed at Natsu and Lucy. "But they have so much chemestry! They are so cute together!"
"They are friends! And cuteness does not a relationship make." Mira huffed at her.
"Then who would you match with poor Natsu once you take his Lucy away?"
"Gray."
"...but...Gray is a boy."
"Yeah. I noticed. He was totally naked a few minutes ago after all."
"But...babies!"
"It's called a surrogate, Mira. And Slayer magic allows for both father's genes to mix." Mira did that heart eyed thing.
"That means Laxus and Freed can have babies!" Alanza snorted.
"I seriously doubt that Freed is Laxus's mate. They couldn't have been friends like they are if that were the case."
"Then who do you ship Freed with?"
"Someone you don't know. Yet." Her personal favorite person to ship Freed with was Kaleb Pradesh. They were just so... Elegantly sexy together.
"Aww. You won't tell me who?"
"Nope. I'm not drawing people to your attention before you even meet them."
"What about Bickslow?" Mira's intensity was a bit... scary.
"He and Juvia seem to have a thing going on. Which by the way I did not see coming."
"Oh? I think they are adorable! Who did you expect them to end up with?"
"Well...I hadn't really." She had expected Juvia to stalk Gray forever, and Bix? Well she shipped him with a certain soul spying dragon slayer. But before Cobra got here she had been hoping Fairy Tail's Boscan would prove her opinion regarding sex being a waste of time to be incorrect. However now that Juvia was her sister and had set her sights on the seith mage that wouldn't be happening. She wouldn't do that to Juvs.
"Now those two," She nodded towards the corner where Gajeel and Levy sat talking quietly. "I totally saw them coming." Mira sighed dreamily.
"Gajevy. They are adorable. He's so big and brawney and she's so small and elegant. Their babies would be so cute! And the hair! What about them?" Mira pointed at the same corner again. It took Alanxa a moment to figure out what she was talking about. Jet, Droy, Ryos, and Meredy were all in that same corner.
"You mean... Ryos and Meredy?" As a ship those two had never occured to her. Ryos was a Tiger, and she had shipped him with his own guildmates. Same with Meredy. Now though.. They had the potential to make the cutest little emo couple, even if Meredy was in bright colors at the moment.
"I'm not sure if they would have ever met if the Chess Club hadn't intervened."
"They have now. We have given them the chance to get their happily ever after! We have to make sure-"
"Ryos is a dragon slayer. He will have a mate out there. Don't bother pushing him one way or the other. He will know when he finds his mate."
"But... They are so cute..."
"They are just kids. Let them grow up a bit." Mira pouted. Actually pouted. Alanza watched the younger wizards thoughtfully. Mira was right. They were super cute together.
"Hey Fox!" Alanza jerked in shock as Gajeel was suddenly right there grinning down at her.
"Uhh... Am I in trouble?"
"Gihi. Nah. Ya will be though."
"Why?"
"Cuz yer a sitting duck. Ya got no magic to protect yerself with and if Jose finds out ya meddled he'll be gunnin fer yer head." Mira gasped.
"He's right!"
"I admit," Levy came up beside Gajeel. "I panicked a bit when he pointed that out. However! We have a plan." She pulled a bit on Alanza's sleeve. "Come on." She headed toward a side door. Alanza found it odd that she hadn't noticed the door before now. She groaned as she got off her barstool.
"Where are we going?"
"To make ya less useless." She opened her mouth to snark back at him, but overheard something highly distracting. Happy's high pitched voice talking about Lucy's "fat butt". Aside from the fact that the comment was totally rude and wrong Alanza had some rather painful memories of her own that included that phrase. So. She reacted.
She grabbed the nearest weapon type object, yanked the mop out of it's dirty water, used a mostly empty table as a tramponine, and jumped altoward the flying cat swinging the wet mop as she went. When the sopping wet mop connected hard with the cat the dirty grey strands of rope wrapped around him, preventing him from escaping. She then proceded to smack the wet mop wrapped cat against the ground to punctuate her words.
"There. Is. Nothing. Wrong. With. Her. Butt." She pulled the handle of the mop close to shake him in front of her face.. "And. If. I. Hear. You. Calling. Another. Girl. Fat. Again. I. Will. Shave. You. Bald. And. Flush. You. Down. The. Toilet." Happy's eyes were spinning. "Do I make myself clear? Cat?"
"Ah- aye sir..." She dropped the mop, cat and all, and walked back toward the door. She pretended she didn't hear the whole guild chattering about her freak out. She heard a growl and felt heat on the back of her neck. For a moment she thought she would die by dragon slayer fire. Then she heard Mira's demonic voice.
"Touch her and I will make what she did to Happy look like a game of patty cake!" Gajeel's distinctive laugh followed right behind her as she exited the guildhall.
"Shit Fox. Got yourself the temper to go with that hair, don't ya?" Levy grinned at them both as she walked backwards down the road.
"About time somebody put Happy in his place like that."
"You don't think... I went a bit overboard?"
"Nope. It was beautiful." Alanza relaxed at Levy's reassurance.
"Here." Gajeel handed her a long, thin metal pole he got from... somewhere.
"Where did this come from?"
"Me." She smirked.
"You're giving me your magic boogers?" Levy barked out a laugh at the face the iron slayer made, but quickly clapped her hands over her mouth.
"There is something wrong with you." Alanza shrugged, not feeling the need to argue that fact. Then she looked down at the pole in her hands.
"What am I doing with this?"
"Attack me."
"No." No way in hell was she going to spar with Gajeel Redfox with nothing but a stick.
"I just wanna see how ya handle it. Ya swung that mop pretty well. C'mon." He beckoned with his fingers. That grin still had her hesitating though. She pointed the metal mop handle at Gajeel's face.
"If you make me regret this I will find a way to Nair you."
"Huh?"
"What is nair?" Alanza grinned in a way she was sure looked evil.
"Something Gajeel never wants to happen to him."
"Whatever. Just attack me already."
Years of sweeping and mopping for minimum wage ment she was actually pretty comfortable with the thing in her hands. It was metal, sure, but it was a good bit lighter than she had expected solid iron to be. Dragon slayer iron. Magic made everything wierd. She went after Gajeel with all the skill she had. Which wasn't much, but she had watched a lot of action movies and anime during her short seventeen year long life. After a minute of failing to to hit anything but Gajeel's metal forearms her hands were going numb from the vibrations so she stopped.
"Not bad."
"I never touched you and I can't feel my hands."
"Vibrations running through the metal." Levy ran her hands over the pole thoughtfully as she spoke and even took her hands to study her gloved palms. "We will need something to cushion the grip. The gloves probably help, but we need..." She trailed off and wrinkled her forehead in thought.
"Metal on metal makes it worse too, Shrimp. Won't be as bad if she ain't hitting metal."
"Still..." Levy's head popped up and she snapped her fingers. "Laki! We can have her woodmake a staff."
"Wood ain't as strong as metal." Levy made a displeased sound.
"So I'm not the most magically knowledgable person ever, but what about both?" They blinked at her. "I mean, like, an iron-coated wooden staff, or a staff Laki made arround a metal core or something like that?" Gajeel just grunted and continued playing with some clinking metal... thing in his hands.
"Why didn't I think of that?" Alanza wasn't sure if that was a real question or not so she just shrugged.
"Well Laki ain't here now, so we'll keep working with this." He gestured for her to give the pole back to him. Once she handed it over he added several sections of chain to one end.
"...It's a magic booger mop."
"Shut yer face. I'm tryin ta help ya."
"Sorry." He handed it back. She hefted it and checked the weight. the chain mop was really heavy. "Do I have to attack you again?" He gave her a look that said she might be stupid. "Fine. Geez." She swung it again. The chains wrapped around his arm and he just... Yanked it right out of her hands.
"And now yer dead. That won't work. Takes to much time ta learn ta handle something like that." He broke the chains off and tossed them aside. He then added a huge ass hammer head to it.
"Uhh..." Magic metal or no that was going to be heavy as shit. Something that was proved when he handed the thing back to her and she was unable to keep it from slamming to the ground. He snickered at her, took it back and tried again.
He made it into a simple spear this time. They discovered pretty fast that was not going to work. Swinging a spear with her lack of skill was just a stupid, inefficient thing to do and she couldn't get the hang of stabbing people. She tried. She couldn't so much as touch Levy. The fact that her skills were so poor Gajeel let her Try to stab Levy said it all.
After that they tried running a blade along the last foot or so of the staff. That was better, but they still had two problems. She lacked the force to make it really effective and she wasn't accurate enough. Gajeel solved both problems with weight. He added a small hammer to the back side of the blade. This gave her blows more force and she didn't need to be as accurate. She could just hammer on something till some part of it broke. The blade became more of a back up at that point. Apparently beating on shit with a super long hammer was her thing. Gajeel also added a knob type thing to the other end for balance and to prevent the long staff from simply slipping through her fingers when she swung it.
When Gajeel announced that he could "smell the Woodchuck" they went back inside the guild. After finding that Juvia had gone back to Fairy Hills Alanza settled back at the bar. Gajeel and Laki started expiramenting with what would be her new hammer. It took about forty seconds for Erza to get involved. Alanza found herself being womanhandled and measured. Height, arms, legs, shoulder width, even her hands. After that the three of them took over one of the guild tables to work.
"Alanza! Before anything else happens we need to finish your paperwork." Alanza bit back a groan at Mira's overly cheerful words. She hated paperwork. "I have most of it. We just need a few more things. How old are you?"
"Seventeen?" At least she had been seventeen before the anima. That had been late fall though, and it was summer now, and her birthday was in the spring. Thinking about that made her head hurt. Whatever. She would just shove all that aside and keep her birthday. "Yeah. I'm seventeen."
"Why did you sound confused?"
"Hopefully you will never have to understand." Because the Tenrou timeskip was confusing as shit.
"Ok then. Birthday?"
"March thirty-first."
"Magic type? I put limited instinctual clairvoyance. That way it sounds weak and useless to anyone but you."
"Sounds good to me."
"Country, region, and city of origin?" They both stared at each other for a full minute before laughing.
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To be continued.