Incarcerated Innocence, a Fairy Tail fanfic by Tsunami Storm

Chapter 2: Innocence Incognito

-A few days later, somewhere outside of the town of Magnolia-

"Oh, I can't believe those idiots." Ultear complained with a heavy sigh as she flipped through a copy of the latest Sorcerer Weekly magazine that she had bought with a small bit of her personal savings- in disguise, of course. 'Zalty' had been coming in handy a lot lately. She'd only noticed it because the cover had mentioned something about her newest Guild member, Jellal Fernandes. Well, okay, he wasn't technically a member- as he didn't have the official Guild emblem stamped somewhere on him- but he was essentially an integral part of Crime Sorciére. Like a big brother to Meredy, and a good friend to Ultear, at the very least.

"What'd they do this time?" The aforementioned blue-haired mage asked in a dejected, morose tone. He wasn't happy about being so close to the town that housed the Guild to which he owed so much, and also that had endured so much tragedy recently. The memories were just too painful. The Fairy Tail of late was a mere shell of its former splendor, with most of its promising wizards gone from this world along with the whole of Tenrou Island. Including the red-haired angel that held his heart. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

"Oh, those Magic Council fools. I was just reading through this article about you- just checking that no one is onto us- and then I find out that they were gonna pardon you the day after your execution was scheduled- that is, if we hadn't faked your death and busted you out first." She huffed, causing the sole male pseudo-member of their tiny Guild to start with such surprise that he actually slipped backward off the large boulder on which he was sitting with his chin in his hands and elbows on his knees. "Are- are you serious?!" He gasped from his position on his back, utterly gobsmacked.

Meredy laughed at his comical reaction, then shook her head in exasperation. "I can't say I'm surprised. They knew you were innocent, there was nothing they could've convicted you of. They just arrested you so they could save face in front of the magic community. Keh. Morons." She huffed, sounding quite like her surrogate mother.

"Honestly, they weren't much better when Jellal and I were members." Ultear growled. "Same stupid mistakes, same stupid laws, and same stupid, old farts too stubborn to see the error of their ways."

Jellal chuckled a little bit at that, finally sitting up and resuming his seat on the boulder, but not putting his head in his hands again. Now they were just crossed across his chest. "Now Ultear, you're not being fair. Yajima wasn't too bad."

"Well, okay. He was the exception." She amended, thinking back on Master Makarov's oldest friend on the old Council. "I hear he's actually a chef now. Maybe we could look into some good 'Disguise' magic and check out 8isLand." She joked, knowing that scenario would never be feasible, but wanting to get a smile out of the melancholy mage. And- to her relief- it worked, even earning her a small chuckle as a bonus.

"Oh, there's a brilliant idea." Jellal commented sarcastically, continuing the joke. "Break out of maximum security prison by faking my own death, only to be arrested again a few days later for visiting an old friend. People would be talking about that big of a blunder for months." He rolled his eyes for Meredy's benefit, and smirked in a moment of triumph when his antics earned a giggle from the teenage mage.

"I wonder how Erza would react if she could see this article." Ultear muttered to herself, but Jellal heard it anyway. He would always perk up if someone so much as mentioned the Queen of the Fairies in passing. "Would she have been able to figure out our ruse, or would she have believed the lie, that her best childhood friend was dead?"

"Knowing her, she probably would've figured it out eventually." Jellal smiled sadly and fondly, his mind completely absorbed in the thought of his fire-haired angel. "She could always tell when I was lying back when we were kids. I was a horrible liar." He chuckled abashedly, his mind in the past, in (relatively) happier times.

"Yeah, I remember that about her too." Meredy chimed in, a grin on her face as well. "Brilliant, benevolent, beautiful and badass. In fact, I think her only flaw was that she had trouble holding back sometimes." The rose-haired mage snickered, and Jellal nodded in agreement. That was a pretty good assessment of the strongest female wizard in Fairy Tail.

Suddenly, the trio of spellcasters froze still as statues as they heard the snap of a twig close to their location, and Jellal seriously considered grabbing the two girls and escaping into the air and the cover of night with Meteor. In the end, they simply remained still as stones as a group of girls in their teens passed by their makeshift camp, completely oblivious to their presence.

"Did you hear? There's a new Guild taking Fiore by storm, some group of wizards calling themselves 'Mastodon' or something." One girl commented to her friends.

"You're such a scatterbrain, Risa. For the nth time, it's 'Sabertooth', as in the tiger." Another female sighed in exasperation.

"Well, whatever. My point is, they're way cooler than those pathetic losers in 'Wimpy Fail'." The first- Risa- jeered, causing her two companions to laugh nastily and Jellal to glare daggers in their general direction.

"Yeah. Can you believe those guys used to be the strongest Guild in Fiore only a year ago? Oh, how the mighty have fallen." The third girl finally piped up, and the three hidden mages immediately decided they didn't like her. The way she sneered as she and her friends slandered Fairy Tail. The nerve of some people these days!

"I hear they're getting so few Job Requests that they're gonna lose their Guild Hall! Talk about feeble!" The second girl laughed nastily again. "Once the crown jewel of Magnolia next to our beautiful Kardia Cathedral, now they're pretty much the laughingstock of the magic community!"

"Too bad they lost all their powerhouses on Tenrou Island and that one ninja guy left this world for another one entirely." A fourth girl suddenly interjected, surprising the eavesdroppers with her presence. They'd only detected three* sets of footfalls as the girls passed their camp. "What was his name again? 'Mystogan'? Something like that."

*[FYI, the fourth 'nice' girl is in a wheelchair.]

"I wonder who that guy was, what he looked like under his mask. If he was supposed to be the prince of that other world, he was probably handsome." The first, 'scatterbrained' girl sighed in a dreamy voice, making Jellal roll his eyes.

"I heard that he kept his face hidden 'cause he looks just like that one outlaw that was arrested a few years back. Wasn't his name 'Gerard' or something? 'Gerard Ferdinand'?" The third answered her friend, and- a few feet away- a certain eavesdropper's jaw practically dropped to the ground.

"Something like that. I don't really care about creepy criminals like that guy, no matter what they look like." The second answered, though everyone within earshot could tell that she was lying through her teeth. It was quite the other way around, actually. The only thing that she cared about was appearances.

"Well, getting back to 'Wimpy Fail', they sure have lost their appeal. Who'd wanna be a member of a Guild like that? With their rep, it's enough to discourage anyone from being a wizard even!" The first laughed cruelly again, and two of the other girls laughed with her. The Independent Guild could have sworn they'd heard the fourth, 'nicer' girl mutter, "You guys are being mean. They just went through a terrible tragedy with Tenrou."- but they also admitted that they could have imagined it. Then the four girls moved out of hearing range.

"Well!" Ultear huffed without warning when she was sure they were alone again. "That was a juicy piece of gossip we just overheard! It's too bad about Fairy Tail, but there's not really anything we can do about it."

"That's not true." Jellal disagreed suddenly, straightening up from his cramped position and stretching out the muscles in his legs to get rid of that annoying 'pins and needles' feeling. "There is something. Something that I can do. To that end, I've come to a decision." He resolved, sitting back on 'his' boulder and folding his hands while resting his elbows on his knees again.

"What's that?" Meredy asked, genuinely curious.

"Remember what those girls said about Mystogan? That not even anyone in the current Fairy Tail has ever seen his face? And that he apparently looks exactly like me?" Jellal began quietly, but Ultear figured out where he was going with this train of thought right away.

"You can't be serious!" She exclaimed. "Are you suicidal as well as a constant wet blanket? You'll be caught for sure!"

"Not if I do what he did and never show my face in the Guild. I can make everyone fall asleep, 'borrow' a Job from the Request Board, leave a note detailing the one I took, then wake everybody up as I leave." Jellal described, and the two female mages saw a spark of something in his eyes that they hadn't seen for what seemed like forever, and what they thought they'd never see again- at least from him: Hope. For the first time in years, Jellal was finally acting like himself again, like he had when he was a boy. Optimistic, carefree, and with an easy smile.

"You really think that'll work?" Meredy asked quietly, not exactly looking forward to possibly saying 'goodbye' to Jellal. She'd grown rather fond of the young man in the relatively short time they'd been traveling together.

"It's worth a shot." He shrugged, standing up and going through his pack for a writing utensil and a pad of paper that he could use.

"You looking for this?" Meredy asked brightly, holding out a sketchpad and ink pen to the former Wizard Saint, and he nodded in gratitude as he gently accepted the tools from her, flipping through the pages to find a blank sheet that he could use.

Suddenly, a memory came to the rose-haired teen, and she gasped, "Oh, wait a minute, Je-!" But her comment came too late as Jellal flipped to her most recent doodle. It was an amazingly accurate and well-drawn portrait of the Fairy Queen and her Heavenly Body 'prince', each entwined in the others' embrace and lips met in a passionate kiss. At the sight, Jellal's face turned so red that his distinctive tattoo over his right eye all but disappeared, and he quickly turned the sketch over to use the blank side of the page. "I'm just- gonna forget I saw that." Jellal chuckled nervously, his face still beet-red.

"Eh-heh. Ah, don't mind that. I was just- doodling. It doesn't mean anything." Meredy covered quickly as Ultear threw back her head and flat-out roared with laughter. The expression of utter mortification on Jellal's face was priceless!

"Now, let's see-" Jellal mused, all business now as he quickly struck his pen over the surface of the paper, drafting a composite of the picture in his mind's eye. "Mystogan's disguise looked something like this, right?" He asked after a minute as he turned his sketch around to show his companions.

"Wow. You're a pretty good artist, Jellal." Meredy praised, still rather embarrassed that he'd seen one of her more ridiculous fantasies. Jellal raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "No, really! This is really good! Maybe you should be a painter instead of a wizard, huh?" She joked, causing him to raise another eyebrow at her, this time coupled with a smirk. He knew she wasn't serious.

"I'll say it's good." Ultear agreed, studying the hastily-drawn but amazingly accurate sketch of her former puppet's doppelganger. "That's exactly what he looked like. Although, I think he had his mask pulled up over his nose, so that only his eyes were visible." She critiqued as Jellal turned the sketchpad back around and rested it on his knees.

"Hm. Okay." He muttered, erasing part of the sketch and updating it so it would be accurate. "I wonder where one would be able to find such a- 'distinctive' get-up like this." He mused to himself, absentmindedly biting the end of Meredy's pen he'd been using.

"Hey! 'Favorite pen' out of mouth over there!" Meredy huffed, and Jellal looked up in surprise. "Oh. Sorry. I wasn't even paying attention. Here." He apologized awkwardly, handing back the sketchbook and pen.

"Aw, you got marks all over it!" Meredy groused, but Ultear just waved a hand in the teen's general direction and cast the pen into its past, restoring it to perfect condition practically instantaneously. "That better?" The Time mage teased, and Meredy grinned sheepishly at her.

"In answer to your question, they might have some kind of similar costume in one of the shops in Magnolia. That 'Fantasia' parade that Fairy Tail always threw every year was popular with folks from all over Fiore. They probably still have costumes of every member of the Guild. Especially the famous ones like the S-Class Five and Thunder Legion." Ultear supplied knowledgeably, and Jellal looked at her.

"Wait, five? I know about Erza, Mirajane Strauss, Gildarts Clive and Laxus Dreyar, but who's the fifth?" He asked in confusion.

"Why, your twin, of course!" Ultear laughed. "And I'm not talking about Siegrain, either." She teased.

"He was one of their S-Class?! Oh boy. Keeping a low profile is gonna be harder than I thought." Jellal groaned in dread, and Meredy patted him on the back in awkward sympathy.

The goodbyes exchanged as the sun rose the next morning were more tearful than Jellal had expected. Ultear was stoic as always, merely offering a hand and taking his in a friendly gesture used between casual friends, walking off and away from the town with a cryptic "We'll meet again. Try not to get into too much trouble before then, alright?"

Meredy, however, was another matter entirely. She'd begged him to stay with Crime Sorciére- even going so far as to call him her 'big brother'- but he'd made up his mind to leave. With a sad smile of endless gratitude for the talented teenager, he embraced the weeping young woman in a gentle hug before bidding her farewell and backing away from what remained of their 'camp' from last night. With a wail of denial that she keeps losing her family members, Meredy tearfully ran off after her foster mother and best friend, leaving the Heavenly Body mage standing alone in the clearing.

"Forgive me, Meredy." Jellal whispered. "But we will see each other again. I know it."

"Who're you?" A middle-aged woman crammed into a teenager's outfit that was clearly too small for her asked rather rudely after Jellal quietly knocked on the door to the apartment building she owned, some time after the Kardia Cathedral bell tower tolled noon.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. I'm- I'm an acquaintance of Lucy Heartfilia. I heard that she was one of your tenants?" He asked politely, and the woman grimaced.

"Well, she was, until she and most of her little friends from that Guild of hers vanished off the face of Earthland. If she ever gets back, I'm not letting her into her apartment until she repays every- single- Jewel of the rent she owes me. And- counting from the day she disappeared- it's already over 1.5 million." The woman growled almost under her breath, but Jellal still heard it.

Jellal looked sadly at the ground at that statement, the ache in his heart returning with a vengeance at the mention of the Tenrou Team- as those poor mages of Fairy Tail had come to be known around town.

"I'm sure she'll return. Eventually. They all will." The Heavenly Body mage stated with conviction, completely convinced of that fact. When they would return, however- that was another matter entirely.

"Humph." The woman grunted. "I wish I had your confidence, young man. So, what can I do for you?"

Jellal bowed gracefully, glad for the change of topic. "I just wanted to ask if you had another apartment I could rent, other than Miss Heartfilia's. Based on her praise of her own accommodations, I thought that this would be a perfect place to start fresh in this town. I'm- well- let's just say I'm not exactly from around here."

The woman smiled smugly at the flattery, and it wasn't technically a lie. He'd overheard Lucy talking about her 'adorable' apartment once, though he couldn't remember where or when.

"Well, you're certainly well-mannered, young man. And, as it happens, I do have another apartment open at the moment. The rent is 70,000 Jewel a month, quite a steal compared to some of the other places in Magnolia, considering the quality of the rooms you'd be getting for a much steeper price." She boasted proudly, inviting the disguised fugitive into her establishment with not so much as a 'Come on in'. "If you'd like, I can give you your key and you can check out your rooms right away."

"Thank you, ma'am. That's very generous of you." Jellal bowed again, following the short and stout landlady up the stairs to the second-floor apartments.

"Yours is the one on the right. Unfortunately, your friend Lucy got the one with the riverfront view. You'll just have to make do with the side-street out your windows." The woman growled as she unlocked the door to the unoccupied room and opened it wide so that its new tenant could inspect it as he wished. "You've got all the basic amenities here, and a darling stove and furnace- if I do say so myself. I did the decorating, I'll have you know."

"I might have guessed. You have excellent taste, ma'am." He smiled, embellishing his words just a little to get on her good side. A little harmless flattery never hurt anyone.

"Well! Here's hoping you don't turn out to be a deadbeat like my other tenant, whenever she gets her butt back here. Honestly, I don't know why I bother cleaning in there every week when I should just evict her. But I felt so sorry for her when she first came to Magnolia. So young, and all alone in an unfamiliar world. Just like so many of those other youngsters in Fairy Tail. Poor dears." She actually sniffed, and the fox wrap that Jellal had thought was dead or at least fake sniffled a little bit too.

Jellal nodded sadly, then dropped his bag on the comfortable-looking bed and left the room, making sure to close the door carefully so as not to break anything. He nodded once again in thanks to the gruff but kind landlady, then stepped out of the doorway and into the streets of Magnolia, the town that would become his home over the next six years. Just as he was about to step out of sight, the portly landlady called, "Hey, you never gave me a name to put on your door!"

Jellal looked back, gave the woman a disarming smile, and answered, "It's 'Mystogan'."

-One month later, Magnolia, year X785-

Despite the absence of most of their powerhouses, life in the Fairy Tail Guild Hall went on pretty much the same as always. Though it was true that the Guild was not earning nearly as much as it had enjoyed just a year ago, it was still functioning rather well on its significantly smaller budget. Add that to the fact that they weren't charged nearly as much for repairs around Fiore with their most rambunctious teams MIA, and the Guild was doing fairly well for itself.

Financially, anyway.

However, ever since the 'Tenrou Tragedy', a metaphorical dark cloud had hung over the previously lively Guild for over a year, immediately dampening the spirits of any who walked through its oaken doors for a drink from the bar or outdoor café. Hardly anyone other than Guild members actually stayed in the Guild Hall anymore to enjoy their food and or drinks, preferring to take their meals elsewhere to avoid the depressing atmosphere.

It was in this position that Fairy Tail found itself one unremarkable morning in mid-July. Kinana- a kind employee of Fairy Tail with retrograde amnesia- was cleaning the dust from the café bar that had accumulated since last night, and preparing everything for the Guild's usual early customers and members that wanted coffee with their breakfast. Humming an uncharacteristically upbeat tune to herself as she worked, the young woman almost didn't notice as the first customer walked in, his footfalls nearly silent as he approached the elevated counter and bar stools that had yet to be set up properly.

"Oh! Good morning!" Kinana greeted the newcomer without even looking up. "I'm afraid you're a bit early, sir. The café isn't quite ready to open for business just yet. I can make you something real quick-?" She offered as the man walked right past her to the Job Request Board and tore off the most dangerous-looking flyer, one without an S-Class stamp on it. He figured that he should start small at first, just so he could make sure he was still up to the task. He'd once been ranked sixth among the Ten Wizard Saints, but he didn't know if he still possessed that kind of strength. It had been over a year, after all.

"Thank you, but I'll just take this." Jellal mumbled just loud enough for the barmaid to hear, and she smiled brightly. "Oh, good! That flyer's been up there forever! We've been wondering who would have the courage to take on that Request. I just need your name, so I can tell Fourth Master Macao who took it off the Board." Kinana smiled brightly, finally meeting the gaze of her early-bird 'customer'. What she saw made her gasp aloud and nearly drop the coffee mug she'd been cleaning.

"M- Mystogan?!" She breathed incredulously, and the mage put a finger to his mask where his mouth would be, nonverbally asking her to keep his secret- at least for now.

Kinana nodded, knowing full well the importance of keeping a secret for someone. Especially one so famous- yet shy- as their sole remaining S-Class wizard.

"You can tell Master who took the job, but try to keep my return quiet. I don't want the whole Guild to know. Not just yet." Jellal asked the young woman quietly and politely, and received a quick nod in answer. He smiled. He was fairly certain the barmaid who had once been a giant winged snake could be trusted. The time would eventually come when he could reveal himself. But for now, he would remain as incognito as possible.

Of course, 'incognito' went right out the window as soon as he returned to the Guild for another Job Request, barely a week later.

He arrived at the bustling Hall in the early afternoon- around 2:00 according to the tolling of Kardia Cathedral's bell tower, which rang every hour on the nose. Allowing himself the tiniest of breaks to look around the Guild that his absent friends called 'home', he wandered through the Hall with the smallest of sad smiles on his face. Not that anyone could see it under his mask. Surprisingly, no one was indoors today- or maybe it wasn't so surprising, considering the balmy weather Magnolia had enjoyed all week. This allowed the masked mage to explore the Guild Hall at his leisure- uninterrupted and unseen- just the way he preferred it.

Where is everyone? Jellal wondered to himself as he silently snooped around the expansive establishment with impressed intrigue. As he walked, exclamations and shouts of merriment came streaming in through the windows and doors that led to the Guild's backyard, and Jellal raised his eyebrows in interest. He didn't see the harm in checking out what was happening, as long as he stayed hidden.

This proved to be more of a challenge than he'd expected, however, as he came upon the sight of Fairy Tail's paradise-like relaxation area. They have a pool?! When did that happen? He asked himself incredulously as the other half of him simply watched most of the remaining Guild members enjoy themselves with a small smirk on his face. After all the tragedy they'd been through with Tenrou, they certainly deserved all the happiness and joy they could find, no matter what form it took.

On a whim, Jellal decided to take a closer look at the merrymaking Fairies, and he silently activated Meteor to jump behind some hedges faster than the human eye could detect. Crouching down so that the greenery hid his form completely from view, he watched the fractured Fairy Tail family fondly as they enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful summer weather, completely oblivious to his presence.

Jellal was still smiling as he watched everyone enjoying the summer day, either basking in the pool or laying on comfortable-looking lawn chairs and sipping iced tea and lemonade, probably from the café/bar that Kinana maintained. One thing concerned him, though. A child- merely a year old or less- was shuffling along dangerously close to the edge of the pool, unsupervised by any of the adults, by the looks of it. The child had ebony black hair, a fair complexion, lovely amethyst eyes and chubby appendages as she waddled along the tiled patio, far too close to the water's edge for Jellal's liking. Sheesh, you'd think that her parents would at least make her wear some flotation devices or something! On two of the deck chairs on the opposite end of the pool, he spotted a young couple nestled in the others' arms, locked in a passionate embrace and kissing each other fervently as if they'd been holding back and bottling their feelings for years.

A minute later, all of Jellal's fears for the little girl came true as the child slipped on a few wet tiles and fell into the deep end of the pool, just a mere ten feet in front of him. Forgetting absolutely everything around him but what was happening, Jellal jumped to his feet and dove into the pool just as a young woman's voice screamed, "ASUKA!"

"What was that?" A young man with spiky orange hair pulled back in a short ponytail asked as he heard a loud splash, but then got his answer when everyone gasped loudly two seconds later as Jellal surfaced, his mask and scarf floating away from him and riding the waves, and little Asuka held safely and securely in his strong arms. The little girl was coughing, but she seemed to be fairly unharmed by her little accident.

Everyone was staring at him with their jaws on the ground, and it finally dawned on the heroic mage what he'd just done. So much for his big secret. Reaching the edge and quickly climbing out of the pool, he handed the small child to the outstretched arms of two wizards who were clearly her parents, then just stood there looking down at his dripping outfit and biting his bottom lip awkwardly.

"Um- Hi?"

Oh, real eloquent, Jellal. As expected of a former member of the Magic Council. His sarcastic side sneered snarkily. Jellal quickly quashed that side of himself, as he really didn't want to offend anybody present at the moment. That would just complicate an already delicate situation. Eventually, he just decided to look at the humorous side of things. For once in his life.

"Well, the cat's out of the bag now. I guess there are worse ways to blow my secret. I'm just glad I could help." He chuckled as professionally as he could possibly manage, being sopping wet in an unfamiliar Guild and surrounded by- if dumbfounded at the moment- powerful wizards in their own right. Reaching for his inner magic and creating a golden aura around himself, he rocketed up into the cloudless blue sky and shot off like a bullet, so far past embarrassed that they'd have to invent a new word for how utterly mortified he felt.

He didn't hear the young mother gasp, "Wait, Mystogan!" or the orange-haired young man breathe incredulously, "That was him? He looks an awful lot like- but that's impossible. That guy's dead." or see the child's father shake his head and remark, "I don't care who he is, or what he looks like. He saved Asuka's life, and he's so fast that we barely registered what was happening before it was already over. Is this the power of S-Class? I could never compete with that, I'm not nearly ready. Can't believe I thought I was last year at the Trials."

Kinana- however- just smiled to herself and continued cleaning out a glass so one of her friends and Guild members could use it for a cold beverage. Things had been dark for a while ever since most of Fairy Tail's best and brightest disappeared with Tenrou Island, but now- with Mystogan's return- things were finally starting to look up.

End of Chapter 2

God Bless!

Tsunami Storm