When I suddenly felt a reboot of power surging through me, all of our Fairy Tail insignias glowed as our power and strength almost doubled in capacity. The Sirius Tree, had it somehow been healed? No time to think about that now, I'm just grateful that I had my magic back, though it was funny to see Bickslow's mouth glowing from the insignia on his tongue. One by one everyone started to wake up and we clustered close, going to everybody to see that they were okay. "Master! How do you feel? Can I get you anything?" I offered, already lifting his head to give him some water.
"My children…I am glad that you are alright." He murmured, groaning quietly from the ache of his injuries but otherwise okay.
"Where's Lily? Where's my cat?!" Gajeel was up on his feet in a heartbeat and searching for Lily, not even taking notice of his own injuries, crippling as they must have been. Levy tried to calm him down, explaining that Lily had gone with the others to the ship harboured in the east to defeat our invaders, but that only spurred Gajeel onwards. "Then we gotta go there too! Lily might need my help and besides, there's a thunderstorm out there and he hates those!" Turning tail and starting off at a run, Gajeel began to race away from the rest of us in order to get to Lily, however Master Makarov thumped a giant fist down onto his head, stopping him in his track.
"Slow down! We're all going. We will stand together as a guild. When each of us stand shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, no one will ever have the power to stop us. Now, let's go my children! We have some butts to kick!" Everyone cheered, fired up by Master's little speech and I eagerly jumped to my feet. Hold on big sis, I'm coming for you! We all went together towards the eastern bay of the island, the more grievously injured of us moving slower than those who had mere scrapes and bruises. I walked with Cana, watching her with worry in case she stumbled or something.
"Geez, I'm not going to keel over and die you know Zee." Cana drawled, rubbing the back of her head with a loud sigh. "What I wouldn't give for a drink right about now."
"I know but I can't help but worry. From the sounds of it that gravity guy gave you all a real hammering. Literally. Still, I can't believe you used Fairy Glitter. That's one of the three most powerful Fairy spells ever, perhaps even more so than Fairy Law." Cana just looked more upset and disappointed in herself, confiding in me that she had botched it all up and had forsaken Lucy and all her friends just to continue the S-Class trials on her own. "Maybe, but you came back right? You realised what was more important, and so long as you took the steps to reach that epiphany, then all that matters is that you came to that conclusion." Giving a grin, I patted Cana gently on the back. "We've all done things like that before and will probably keep on doing it again and again. It's human nature to mess up, but that's how we learn."
"I guess. Still, I'm not proud of myself."
"Then make amends by being better now then you were back then. None of us will ever think less of you, Cana. I'm just glad we're talking again. I missed you." Finally Cana cracked a small smile, looking at me affectionately before slinging her arm around my neck and almost crushing my face into the side of her huge breasts.
"You're too cute Zee. Boy I hate it when we fight, but at least we got it out of our systems for the next year or so." I sure hope so, I'd hate to fight with Cana again anytime soon. We both snapped back to attention when we reached the Grimoire Heart ship, seeing it completely in tatters, probably Natsu's work. I could see everybody just ahead of us with Happy, Carla and Lily racing towards Team Natsu with the entire Grimoire Heart guild behind them, raising their weapons and preparing their magic attacks, however Master Makarov stomped his foot down with a rather impressive boom, causing all to halt in their tracks.
"Stop right there!" He bellowed, all of us standing behind him with battle hardened expressions and eyes filled to the brim with dangerous gleaming. "Leave this island now!" The guild of Grimoire Heart took one look at us fairies and their master, Master Hades as the called him, defeated and completely wiped out on the ground, and decided that they preferred to live. They fled within a heartbeat, causing us to cheer and celebrate our victory.
"Big sis! Erza!"
"Zera!" I ran to her and tackled her with a hug despite the fact that she was wearing her armour and it physically hurt to show such enthusiasm, but I was just so glad to see her. She smelled of sweat and dust, but she was warm and I held her with all the strength I had as we buried ourselves in one another's arms. "I'm so glad to see you're alright. Were you hurt? Point out whoever it was who scratched up my perfect little sister and I shall send them to hell!" She declared rather fiercely so I laughed, smiling broadly as I pulled back and held onto her hands.
"Don't worry, Freed and Bickslow already took care of that, and in any case, what matters now is that we're all together again and that Fairy Tail totally kicked butt! Hey, Master Makarov, since everybody here helped defeat such crazy strong opponents, does that mean they all make S-Class?" I asked hopefully and Natsu immediately jumped at the suggestion, he and Gray agreeing for once, however I fell silent when I realised that the master was focused on the person whom I had not expected to see here. Laxus. My heart gave a thump, staring at Laxus as he took his grandfather's scolding for coming to Fairy Tail's sacred island even when he hadn't been reinstated yet.
I placed my hope that the master's loose tongue was an indication that he fully intended to reinstate Laxus eventually, so after the Thunder Tribe had all tackled Laxus with teary eyed hugs and jubilations, I gave a squeal. "I can't believe it!" Having only just pushed his three closest friends off him, I ran forwards and flung out my arms, barrelling straight into Laxus who grunted heavily at the impact and the two of us went sprawling on the floor. "You're back! I knew the lightning earlier was you, but I couldn't quite be sure. I knew you wouldn't turn your back on us, I'm so happy to see you again Laxus!"
"You're so annoying! Get off me already!" Laughing at his irritation, I pulled myself up off of his chest then held out my hand, smiling a little more calmly to Laxus as our eyes met. He looked different from before, not so imposing and a little more relaxed within himself. Maybe some time alone had been exactly what he needed to re-evaluate his life and sort through things. I'm glad, he looks a lot better now, not so mean.
"We missed you, Laxus. Welcome back." Still holding out my hand, I didn't pull away until Laxus had taken it, allowing me to pull him back onto his feet. A gentle breeze breathed around us, soothing the aches and pains of our injuries and fluttering through my hair so that the single braid I wore rose, the shorter tresses flaring a little like tiny scarlet flames. For a moment our hands remained linked, Laxus studying me carefully before his eyes softened and his entire body went more lax, dropping his hand to his side as he then arched an eyebrow towards the jacket I was wearing.
"What's with Freed's coat? You get chilly or something?"
"Oh this? My own clothes disintegrated somewhat during the fight and I couldn't change, so Freed lent me this to wear. It's a little long in the arms, but it's better than nothing." Erza's ears pricked up and she immediately grasped hold of me.
"You mean you're naked underneath that coat?!"
"Um…pretty much, but now that we have some time, I can get changed into something else…" But Erza was already in her own little world, sobbing at the thought that strangers had seen my precious and virtuous body in such a compromising position. "Big sis it's okay! It was only Freed who saw and I still had some clothing on, it's only my top which came apart…" But this did not help the case anymore, because now Erza had turned on Freed like some kind of demon, growling as she grasped hold of him and hoisted him up into the air.
"You peeked at my precious baby sister?!"
"Erza!" Desperately attempting to calm the situation, it struck me then how much I appreciated moments like this. Looking around, we really were a strange bunch. Gajeel and Natsu were facing off until the latter fell asleep, leaving Lucy to deal with his snoring mass, Evergreen was teasing Elfman by trying to encourage Laxus to beat him up, and Levy was trying to talk down Gajeel from trying to punch things up as a means to let off some steam. We're all such weirdoes, I love us all!