The first thing that popped out at me when I walked into the guild with Sif was that Master wasn't in his usual spot on top of the bar. In fact, he wasn't anywhere to be seen as I turned my head left and right before walking up to the bar and started talking to Ingrid, the head barmaid of Fairy Tail and Master's assistant.
"Hey Ingrid, did Master go out for something or is he just in the office griping about the amount of paperwork he has to do?"
"Oh, hello Zeph. Actually, Master has the annual meeting with the other masters so he left a while ago to attend. Did you need him for something?"
"No, just wondering. I'll let you know if we need anything though." I gave a slight wave before walking over to the job board and perusing through the some of the easier ones when a person cleared their throat behind me.
I turned only to come face to face with Lucy who seemingly wanted to get to the job board.
"Just give me a minute and I'll get out of the way. I just started looking."
"No, no! I was just wondering what this whole meeting that Master is supposed to be at is about. I've never heard of anything like it."
"I see… well, the masters meeting is a get together of all the guild masters of the light guilds in Fiore. They all chat and discuss things like how many job offers they've received or what the latest news is on dark guilds. It's pretty much an informational gathering so they can all be informed of the events going on in the country." I finished my explanation, but she still looked a little lost.
"Ingrid would be better at explaining how it works than me, so if you're still confused you should ask her."
She gave me her thanks before immediately going over to Ingrid only to be startled from behind by Natsu and Happy.
"Everyone's being lively as usual, huh?" I asked the wolf beside me who only made a huff in agreement.
After deciding that none of the jobs on the lower board were good enough, we immediately made our way up the stairs to the second floor and began looking through all the jobs there as well.
"Hmmm… how about this one? We'd have to explore some super dangerous ruins and bring back any treasure we find. It's also guarded by a particularly savage magic beast, maybe we'll find another wolf like you. Would you like a boyfriend?" I joked but Sif wasn't amused and pointed her nose towards another poster.
"We aren't going to do that one. Cana probably won't agree to it either."
"What won't I agree to?"
Turning to face her, I gestured to the mission Sif wanted and allowed her to read it. After a few minutes she shook her head in the negative.
"No, the pay is too low for that kind of work. What about…"
Whatever Cana was about to say was immediately cut off by the sound of Loke screaming and running through the guild.
"Natsu, Gray! Erza is back!"
Pandemonium ensued as people rushed to make sure they weren't too out of order before the doors were pushed open and the floor shook as if something heavy had been placed upon it. Looking over the railing, we noticed the giant, bejeweled horn that was at least three times Erza's height that was next to her.
"Alright everyone, what's this I hear about some of you causing trouble?" Erza cast a stern gaze throughout the hall before proceeding to berate everyone.
First it was Natsu on his destructive tendencies, then it Gray on his stripping before moving on to Nab and his inability to pick a job to go on. She systematically tore through everyone she saw before another voice rang out.
"Oi, what gives you the right to go and start ripping into everyone you tin can?"
A vein popped out on Erza's forehead before she leveled a glare at the person who had spoken. White hair held back in a ponytail with bangs partially covering her eyes, a purple crop top with a large amount of cleavage and denim short shorts, she glared right back. Mirajane was never one to let Erza try and tell her what to do.
Since I had been the one to take out the beast king a few years back, Mira had never lost to it and Lisanna had never been thought dead. Without that loss to spur her change, Mira had never changed from her vulgar personality or skimpy outfits. Don't get me wrong, I was glad she never had to experience that tragedy, but it gets tiring having to deal with her rivalry with Erza along with the one between Gray and Natsu.
The two continued to lock horns and looked to not be even close to stopping so sighing, I made my way down to the first floor before stopping in front of the two. The both of them immediately turned their ire to me, but letting the wave of ill intent wash over me without a care, I reached out, grabbed the both of them by their heads and smashed them together.
"No fighting." Satisfied they wouldn't argue again, I made my way back to Cana and Sif before Erza called out to me.
"Wait Zeph. Since your here, I need to ask you, Cana, Natsu and Gray to do me a favor. I need you all to accompany me on a mission of utmost importance, lives are at stake."
Ah crap.
~x~x~
Later on, after getting all of my usual mission gear packed, I sat on a bench at the train station running a whetstone over my grosse messer… Grosse Messer (wow, I never actually named my main sword, how fucked is that?) while Sif sat at my feet and Cana sat beside me shuffling her card deck and attempting to get a fortune on where we would have the most success.
Deep in thought, I tried to recall all I could remember about this arc of the manga, which admittedly wasn't all that much. By the time I had actually became conscious of my fading memory from my past life and attempted to write everything down I could only remember the main points of each plot, and not even the order they happened in.
I knew that Erza had heard rumors of dark magic being used by the dark guild Eisenwald and that Natsu would fight Erigor with the power of plot armor, but beyond that the rest of the arc was a big blank. Maybe there was something to do with shadows and music? Anyway, I wasn't going to stress too much about it, that would only lead to mistakes, and mistakes lead to injury or death. I would just stay calm and roll with the punches.
Suddenly there was a crash and Natsu and Gray were on the floor in a pile, pulling each other's faces and arguing over who had gotten to the station first.
"I won!"
"You kidding ash-for-brains? I clearly got here first!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"Oh, would you two cut it out already? I understand you've got all this sexual tension between the two of you but if you could go have your couple's argument somewhere else, that would be great."
As the two of them sputtered and denied everything I couldn't help but laugh so hard that a tear leaked out of the corner of my eye. Cana could be ruthless when she wanted to be and it was great.
"Hey Happy, is that true?"
"Why do want to know? Could it be… you liiiiike him!"
Oh dear lord save me now. Happy and Lucy both appeared, the latter now trying to strangle the talking blue cat, and I could already feel the headache forming. Don't get me wrong, I like Happy and I already figured he would be there if Natsu was asked to come, they were a package deal after all, but Lucy was not only nowhere near ready for something like this, she only had one mission under her belt. It didn't matter how many powerful celestial spirits she could call on; she didn't have the experience to effectively work with a group of people she had never teamed up with before.
"Lucy, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, Ingrid asked me to tag along and make sure Natsu and Gray got along alright. She also said it would be a good learning experience to follow a group of hardened mages on a mission." She awkwardly rubbed the back of her head while answering and I sighed.
Only Ingrid would think that sending a newbie mage on a mission that was stated as "highly dangerous" and "potentially fighting a dark guild" as a good learning trip. Bless that woman's heart, she had the best intentions, but this was a little much.
"Ah don't be like that Zeph! Who cares if we got to babysit a little? We still got Erza and the three of us to take care of anything that goes wrong."
"I'm not saying I'm worried about the mission going wrong, I'm concerned about the fact we have a mage with little to no missions under her belt on what could potentially be ranked as an S-class request and if she gets hurt, that will reflect poorly on us."
"Um… could you guys maybe not talk about me like I'm not right here?"
Before the conversation could go anymore downhill, the loud rattling of wheels rang out as Erza made her way towards us with a wagon filled to the brim with luggage trailing behind her.
"Oh good, I'm glad that everyone was able to make it on time, although I don't believe that we've met before. I'm Erza Scarlet, nice to meet you."
"I'm Lucy, likewise. I'm only here because Ingrid thought it would be good to learn from a experienced group of mages like this one. I only joined the guild recently."
Erza nodded along as Lucy explained before smiling and sticking out her hand.
"Well in that case, it's nice to meet you Lucy and I hope we get along. Now, let us make haste!"
The next few minutes were pretty much a blur as Natsu made his declaration of fighting Erza and all of us before becoming a vomiting mess once the train got moving and was knocked out in Erza's lap.
"You know, now that I think about it, Natsu is really the only person that I've seen use magic in the guild. What type of magic do you guys use?"
"Wait, you're a huge fan of Fairy Tail but you never bothered to look up what type of magic we use? Was the only thing that mattered our popularity and titles?"
Lucy flushed in embarrassment and stuttered a bit before seemingly deciding to ignore me and turned back to the rest of the group.
"Well, both Zeph and Erza have really pretty magic. They make the air red with blood!"
"How is that pretty?!"
Erza gave a little laugh before turning to Lucy and pointing to Gray in the same motion.
"I'm not to sure about my magic being pretty, but personally I find that Gray's is particularly beautiful."
"Oh really? What type of magic do you use?"
Gray reached out and clenched his hand before opening it to reveal the Fairy Tail symbol made out of ice, sparkling as the sunlight came through the window and touched it.
"I can use ice-maker magic. In simplest terms that means that I can create things out of ice and use them for either offense or defense, the only limit is my imagination and my magic power."
"Oh! That must be why you and Natsu don't really get along then. He's fire and your ice!"
"Tch! Don't put our rivalry into such simple terms. I hate Natsu because his personality and actions clash with my own, nothing so simple as fire and ice has any effect on that."
"You've got to admit it though Gray, it's almost like some higher power decided you guys were destined to clash and had you learn opposing magics."
Choosing to ignore the almost uncanny accuracy of Cana's statement I turned to Erza and asked the question that had yet to be answered.
"So, what is it that you need our help with exactly Erza. The fact that you asked for our team as well as Natsu and Gray means that this must be pretty important, right?"
"You would be right Zeph. On my way back from my most recent job I stopped at a tavern and overheard some mages talking about a man named Erigor looking for a magic called Lullaby. It didn't occur to me at the time, but Erigor is the head of the dark guild Eisenwald and specializes in assassination requests. Whatever Lullaby is, it's most likely dark magic that shouldn't be allowed to fall into their hands. Which is why- Zeph? Why did you go pale? What's wrong?"
Throughout Erza's explanation I could feel the blood in my face drain as her words jogged my memory. Lullaby was a unforgiving magic that caused anyone who listened to it to die. I explained as much when I realized it and watched as the color drained from everyone's faces the same as it did for me.
"We must hurry than!" The train announced our destination, all of us rushing out of the vehicle and into the station before Erza looked around and came to a realization.
"Where's Natsu?"
After a few minutes of Erza shaking down some of the train station's employees, she rushed off and came back with a magic vehicle carriage, beckoning for all of us to get in, but I had something even better. Reaching into my requip space, I pulled out the same magic motorcycle that I had used all those years ago while stopping the slaving operation with Sif and Cana. Getting on, Cana climbed on behind me while Sif jumped into the sidecar.
"Thanks, but we got our own wheels."
Revving the engine, we took off alongside the tracks, following the direction that the train had taken off in earlier at full throttle, hopefully able to make it in time.
~x~x~
Got to admit, I'm not too happy about how this chapter turned out considering how long it took me to write, but if I'm being honest, I haven't really been in a writing mood lately. I also knew that if I didn't get this chapter out soon, I wouldn't start writing the next one so here it is. Other than that, I've actually put another story up for the sole fact that it will give me something else to write so I don't keep burning myself out on this one so I'd appreciate it if people would go over and check it out so I could get more feedback on it than I have so far. It's called Order, and the premise is the grandson of Kent Nelson joining the Young Justice team while bringing in other DC characters to make some original arcs. Unlike my favored form of writing, it is in third person pov to help me improve and isn't a reincarnation fic, just a regular OC... or as regular as you can get when the OC uses magic and is the grandson of Doctor Fate. Other than that, we'll be seeing some of the new magic Zeph has been creating next chapter, so until next time make sure to favorite, follow and review with constructive criticism.