After much discussion with my muses, some wrestling, and two games of twister we made some adjustments to the timeline. Ryos is now 15 instead of 13. Just roll with it. Fairy Tail is Hiro Mashima's. I have no rights. Alanza is mine though.
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Alanza happily spun her new hammer as she walked. It really was a beautiful weapon and the three wizards who worked on it should be very proud. She was naming it Booger, but she had yet to tell Gajeel that. He seemed to kinda like her right now, but she wasn't quite ready to risk it. He and Ryos were currently walking herself and Levy back to Fairy Hills for the day. She found it delightfully odd that Frosch really did make those cute little...popping noises when he walked.
"Non non non. Surely we are not seeing this!" Alanza stared at the two figures who had stepped from the alley. Stepped being a highly vague word becauae Sol had no feet. Then she glared at Gajeel.
"Dude! Where did our days go?"
"How the hell should I know!" She saw his eyes flash to Levy and he sniffed at the air. "Shrimp! Hightail it to the guild. Tell them time's up. And somebody needs to find Juvs."
"I can fight!"
"Good! You get ambushed on the way there you'll survive. Now scram!" Still she hesitated, looking at Alanza and Ryos.
"Will you guys be OK?" Ryos drew his sabre and bared his sharp teeth at their unwelcome visitors.
"Frosch, go with her."
"OK!" Alanza laughed. She was a bit hysterical, but the laugh came out sounding maniacally evil so it worked.
"Rouse the guild, Levs."
"Right!" She took off with Frosch over her head. Sol started to follow her, but Gajeel gave a roar and tackled him hard enough that the two vanished through a wall. When the other guy looked like he would follow Levy Alanza slid herself into his line of sight and shook her head, tapping Booger against her boot noisily. He gave an incredably bored sounding sigh.
"Fiiine." He twitched his head to toss his hair a bit out of his eyes, then he just... Stood there. She wasn't sure how to take that. She looked him up and down carefully. He was...well... Washed out emo in appearance. The long hair hanging over his face looked like it had once been a navy blue that was left out in the sun. Same with his clothes. They were just a shade to gray to be black. And he looked like he would really rather not be here.
She looked at Ryos and raised a brow. He shrugged without looking at her. Boy had impressive observational skills. When several loud crashes sounded from the direction Gajeel and Sol had gone she resigned herself to being the lead Fairy in this interaction. Mavis help them.
"So. You are?"
"Eddy." She waited for him to elaborate on that or something. Nothing.
"And you are here...why?" He blinked half asleep grey eyes.
"Oh. Uhh. Something about a water anchor and some useless brat?" Jose seriously couldn't be thinking this... Lackluster creature could fulfull Juvia's role could he? Though he could be a lot more powerful than he seemed. That happened? Right? Ryos growled at... Eddy. Did he have more name than?
"Miss Lucy isn't useless. She is a kind, sweet, intelligent lady!"
"Eh. None of my business. Just tell me where she is and I'll be off." Ryos lunged with his sword and Eddy yanked water from a tiny cask at his waist and froze it into an oblong sheild shape just in time to catch the strike.
Between Ryos' strikes, the ice would melt, reforming quickly in other places in newer, vague shapes to block the oncoming attack. Occasionally, Eddy would strike out, some of the ice liquifying for the attack, but the shadow dragon slayer would drop into his own shadow, avoiding the attack before coming back out swinging.
Alanza grinned as she noticed that the ice that had chunked and flaked off by Ryos' attacks didn't revert back to liquid, but stayed in a solid form, glinting in the light upon the ground. At this rate, she mused, unless Eddy did something new, he was going to run out of water and ice.
"That's it. I give. I quit." Ryos hesitated in the midst of his next strike.
"What?"
"I'm not risking my life for this job. To much trouble."
"Are you..." Alanza wanted to say serious, but she changed her mind at the last moment. "Not afraid of your master?"
"Master? Pft. Whatever." He flipped his hair again. "I ain't a Phantom Lord wizard. Jose came down to the market and hired me. Said he needed a water wizard on short notice. Never said I was gunna have to actually fight."
"And your normal job is?"
"I work with flowers." He was a... Flower boy? She held a hand over her face and tried not to laugh.
"Just... Go home, Eddy."
"Pft. Whatever." Alanza felt rather disapointed as she listened to the guy's shuffling footsteps fad
"What just happened?"
"I don't even know, kid. Should we be backing up Gajeel?"
"Nobody can beat Gajeel! He was Phantom Lord's ace! Don't worry about him." Alanza kept her laughter at Ryos's hero worship tamped down inside her.
"When this is done you have to get him to help you work on your magic kid."
"Yeah, yeah." She did snicker a bit at that.
"Let's go find Levy and Frosch."
They made good time getting back to the guild. It was chaos inside, everyone shouting and yelling. Alanza and Ryos were dragged up to the bar and grilled on what had happened after Levy left them. More shouting ensued. Erza went looking for Juvia and Laki while the rest of Team Natsu plus Levy headed to Fairy Hills to fetch Cana and the rest of the girls.
Thirty minutes after Alanza got her first latte Gajeel stomped into the guildhall dragging Sol behind him. He chained the unconscious earth wizard to the end of the bar. A few people started to object, but he glared them into silence pretty damn fast. Alanza steered clear of the Phantom. It disturbed her that he still didn't seem to have feet. Whether the guy was dangerous or not was beside the point. He was footless. It was creepy.
When Gray and Natsu came back without the girls she should have realized something was wrong. They said they had left them in the care of Cana and several other Fairy females though so she shrugged it off and kept sipping her coffee. Erza, Laki, and Juvia got back. Juvia and Laki ended up next to her at the bar chattering about furniture or something. She wasn't really paying attention because she was watching Natsu and Gray. Then she noticed that Cana had joined their conversation and there was still no blond at Team Natsu's table and no little blunette sitting with Ryos and Gajeel.
"Fuck!" A dozen pairs of eyes were instantly on her. "Who was the last person to see Lucy?" Eyes widened and fingers pointed. Gajeel almost teleported to Cana.
"Where's Shrimp?"
"I... She and Lucy went to her apartment to yeah some books to bring to the guild." Cana looked at the other girls. "Anybody see them come out?" There were shaking heads and curses. As one Gajeel and Juvia headed for the door, Natsu and Ryos right on their heels.
"I do not seem to fully grasp the ramifications of the situation." Alanza ground her teeth as she watched the three slayers and her chosen sister leave, then turned to Laki.
"Pretty sure Lucy and Levy were just snatched right from under our noses."
"Shit!" Cana all but crawled into her barrel.
"Then we should arrange to retrieve them posthaste!" Alanza pointed toward the door.
"Pretty sure we already did that." She dropped her head backwards onto the bar with a thunk, plucked her sarcasm hat off her head and perched it on the bridge of her nose.
"May I inquire as to what it is you are doing?"
"Hiding from my failure as a semi-clairvoyant being." She heard a think and could feel something cold next to her head.
"Normally I don't encourage drinking." There was a hard edge to Mira's voice. "But I think you can hide easier in this than behind that hat." She moved her hat off her face and gazed upside down at Mira. "Nobody blames you for this. You tried. We just weren't careful enough."
"I just...don't understand. We caught Sol. That only leaves...Aria." Who had that ability to wind teleport or something. Shit. She had forgotten that. She was a terrible chess player. "How did they know about Levy though? It was her room they were in when they vanished." Noone seemed to have the answer to that question.
Ryos popped into the guildhall to let them know that Lucy and Levy were indeed gone. Levy's apartment was a mess and it reeked of Aria. He then vanished again to join Gajeel in rescuing the two Fairy wizards.
The girls all bedded down at the guildhall that night. Knowing that the safety of their apartment building had been compromised had them all jumpy. Alanza wasn't the only one to meditate that night before she went to bed either. In fact the whole guildhall was lit up like a jar of glitter with all the magic in the air.
It was late the next day when the group finally returned. All six refused to talk about whatever had happened. Levy and Lucy seemed to be rather traumatized. Gajeel and Ryos hovered over them and seemed to be... quite put out with Natsu, who was pissed at everyone. Juvia cuddled up against Alanza's side and said nothing.
Whatever had happened had obviously left a mark on the whole group. When Erza and Gray tried to force Lucy to talk Gajeel shoved them out the door for a 'talk'. They came back pale and subdued, but they did give Lucy space. Alanza gave the two girls smiles and did her best to comfort Juvia, but felt that it would be best if she kept her mouth shut.
That night Lucy and Levy went home with Gajeel and Ryos. Levy she had seen coming, but apparently Ryos had grown rather attatched to Lucy. Natsu sulked and seethed, but Erza ended up taking him out to walk the perimeter of the whole damn town all night, so he wasn't able to make much trouble. Alanza found herself roped into a sleepover with Juvia, Cana, and Laki, not that she minded. Juvia was still clingy, but Alanza was starting to really enjoy the cuddles.
The hour just before dawn brought screams and cries of dismay on the wind. The guildhall had erupted into flames. By the time the girls arrived on the scene still in their pajamas the only thing Juvia could do was keep the fire from spreading. The guildhall had already been lost so there was no point in her trying to fight the fire. By the time Natsu and Erza came running up there was little left but ashes.
The burning down of the guildhall had…unforeseen, yet terrifying consequences. From the dark pit that Scary Lucy and Angry Levy had been, it was like the flames were a magical circle, summoning them like demons from hell, or whatever foul, evil place they had been residing in. It was…scary. Alanza was afraid; Juvia literally hid behind her, and Natsu? Natsu made the unfortunate and unwise mistake of attempting to push the blame onto Gajeel and his demolishing of Phantom's Headquarters. This had turned the two sweethearts turned hellion on the dragon slayer as if they were starving and he was the first meal they'd seen in ages; they damn near ate him alive. Gajeel, the big, bad, gruff slayer had since then followed Levy around like a blushing, shy, lovesick puppy after that. It was adorable.
There was a lot of legal mumbo jumbo after that. Master Makarov was questioned and requestioned till he started to literally fade. In the end it looked like the two girls would be locking Jose and Phantom behind bars for good through the courts. No more fighting would be needed. Alanza expected it would be a lot more complicated than Levy and Lucy made it sound, but if it got the job done she was all for it. Especially if Scary Lucy and Angry Levy could be appeased…and go back to the plain of Hell from whence they came.
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To be continued.