Disclaimer: I am not the owner of Fairy Tail

"Finally. I've been wanting to take you shopping for ages now." Brandish was smiling, leading Levy through Vistarion with Dimaria by her side. "As amazing as that dress was, you need something with color. It just won't stand out otherwise, not with hair like that."

Levy touched her head, frowning at her. She'd needed a break, but this wasn't quite what she was expecting. Being near Zeref when he didn't remember her had been unnerving, to put it lightly. He was like what Levy remembered him being, when they'd just arrived in Edolas and were reluctant to work together at all. He didn't want to talk about anything personal, and he just sat there in silence, when he wasn't asking her questions.

When he'd offered to take her to the library, she'd been hopeful. It seemed like she was making progress with him, gaining his trust already. Even if it did seem faster than before, Levy wasn't going to complain. She wanted the Zeref she'd started to see before back, the one who would smile at her when talking about magic and invite her to join him as he met with August for work. Yet, it seemed like that had been interrupted by a meeting of the people who were likely working towards stopping the future they'd seen from coming to pass.

From what she'd seen herself, the library wasn't a bad spot to hold a meeting like that. Zeref only seemed to go there to visit her before, and none of the others ever interrupted her lessons. However, now Zeref was likely suspicious of…something. "To be honest, I wasn't expecting to go out at all right now. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Brandish shrugged, and Dimaria grinned. "Don't worry too much, your majesty." The blond gave a wink, and Levy rolled her eyes. Luckily, she'd said that when they weren't near a crowd, but at least she was acting like it was a joke in case she was heard. "We need you dressed to seduce our emperor, and as amazing as that dress is, it doesn't exactly do much for you, does it?"

Heat rose to her cheeks and Levy glared at her. "No way! I'm not trying to…seduce him. That just sounds…"

"Like a word describing someone attempting to gain the romantic attentions of another." Brandish flipped her hair, placing a hand on her hip. "Whether you actually attempt to do anything physical with him or not, you are, in fact, working towards some level of seduction. And, as we've both said, that dress will just not do for that goal. You need something…less formal."

"Shorter."

"Brighter."

"Tighter."

"Softer"

"Sexier" Their alternating adjectives were…a bit disorienting to listen to. Yet, Dimaria was grinning with Brandish at the end, tossing an arm over Levy's shoulders. "And, even if you didn't, this whole trip isn't going to be a waste of time. I need to talk to you anyway, without a certain royal pain listening in."

"But we are going shopping." Brandish narrowed her eyes at the blond, who nodded.

"Of course. If we don't buy anything, that's when we'll really be suspicious." The time mage glanced over at Levy, who was already questioning her decision to let them help her pick out clothes. She could have managed alone, and right now, it sounded like she'd end up with outfits that were far from her usual level of comfort to wear. "Anyway, your timing couldn't have been more perfect, of when we came back." Dimaria glanced at her, nodding. "It's already been closed. But, there's another problem, which I didn't realize until I actually tried to stop the damn thing."

"Did…was it already unstable?" Had Neo Eclipse somehow interfere with it already?

Brandish shook her head. "No, it was stable." She frowned. "The issue is with the spacial aspect of the energy. Mari asked for help from one of my servants because of it, and the two of them spent all day working on the thing. It was a huge waste of time, especially since she made me travel all the way from Farrow Island to help."

"Aww, but you had fun anyway." Brandish only turned away, pouting while Dimaria grinned. Turning towards Levy, Dimaria's smile faded slightly. "Anyway, she isn't lying. That time rift reaches into places I can't even get ahold of. While it is closed on our end, I can't say the same thing for the other locations. With some help, I managed to seal off a few, but there were some we just couldn't get anywhere near. It was as if…there wasn't any magic around to use to actually close it off."

That seemed strange. "You need magic near the rift to actually close it?"

Dimaria nodded. "It's hard to explain. To have much of an effect on the time rift, you need to manipulate the region it rests in. Basically, you need to trap it there, so you start by eliminating the nearby ethernano so it becomes easier to predict. But, there were places that didn't have this ethernano to get rid of. And, somehow, the rifts were still…behaving erratically. I thought it might be because it was tied to the others, but even sealing off them…well, it didn't do a thing to the ones I couldn't touch."

"So…in places where there's no magic, there's still open portions of the rift?"

Dimaria nodded, glaring at the ground. "Pretty much. Pisses me off, really. It means that all of this effort might be for nothing." She tilted her head, sighing. "If one of those things manages to go wild, all of them will react in response to it. Basically, if one is unstable, they all are unstable."

"And how many were you unable to seal off?"

Dimaria scowled, crossing her arms over her chest. "Just one. Out of about six connected points, I found only one that didn't seem to make any sense like that."

Then that must have been the rift in Edolas. Levy frowned, wondering what could be done about it then. It wasn't like they could study it there, not when their magic wouldn't function even if they had an excuse to travel to that world. "Well, we're not going to find our answers now." Brandish held a door open, gesturing for them to go inside. "I say we instead focus on our current dilemma…Levy's lack of a feminine wardrobe."

The time wizard stared at her for a moment, before scratching the back of her head and nodding. "Yeah…let's do that." She didn't seem as eager as before. Levy watched her, biting her lip. Then, she took a deep breath and walked forward, patting her shoulder. Dimaria jerked away, glaring at her, but Levy smiled in response.

"It's okay. You've done a lot, more than anyone could manage." She glanced over at Brandish, nodding. "We'll come up with something. Soon, Ultear will be here too, so we'll have another time mage to meet with and brainstorm ideas on what to do."

"Right." Dimaria took another deep breath, before smirking over at her. "I guess if you're not disappointed, I shouldn't be either, right? So, let's get this shopping spree on. I've been dying to see what you'd look like in a little red dress."

With that, Levy found herself shoved into the store. There were rows of hangers, filled with various shirts, pants, skirts, dresses…and so much more. Yet, Brandish immediately moved towards the dresses, ignoring everything else. When Levy tried to join in looking, Brandish would shoot her a glare, making her drop her hands and wait instead. After a moment, she thrusted a pile of hangers into her arms. "Try these on. I want to see what they look like on you, so don't just waste our time by checking them yourself."

"Exactly. We're here to judge how well you'll pull in the man of your dreams." Dimaria grinned, while Levy blushed again. Separately, they weren't so bad, but together, the teasing almost seemed to never stop. Still, she didn't want to mess up the chance to actually relax for the first time in ages. So, she went inside, and began pulling on a variety of different dresses to show off to her friends. The locket never left her throat, and neither of them seemed bothered by that at all, but they had plenty of opinions on the different outfits themselves.

"Randi, were you trying to make her look like a puffball?" The dress itself…well, there had been a lot of excessive fabric to try and make it balloon outward. Plus, it had been coated with feathers; Levy had wanted to get rid of it immediately.

"So fuzzy…" Brandish stared at it, frowning. Then, she shook her head, turning towards Dimaria. "It was soft, when I touched it…I like soft things."

With a sigh, Dimaria waved Levy back to get on the next one. When she returned, they were staring at her with narrowed eyes. "Not bad…but I don't think matching your hair color is the way to go." Brandish nodded in agreement, and the outfits continued on. Some were actually liked, others immediately rejected, and some got Dimaria and Brandish into arguments over if it actually made her look appealing or not. Really, Levy didn't care as long as it was functional at this point. She'd tried on far more dresses than she ever would on a shopping trip at home. Really, she knew her size, and she knew what style she liked, so what more was there to do?

"So, we working with a budget, Randi?"

"That depends." She glanced at Dimaria. "How much are you willing to offer to assist your empress?"

Somehow, by the time Levy had finished and was back in her original outfit, they were in a debate over how to pay. "She's not my empress." Dimaria snorted, glancing at the girl.

"Oh? I thought you referred to her as such earlier."

"As a joke, Randi."

"And you've done so seriously as well, Mari." The blond gritted her teeth, and Brandish smiled. "Therefore, you care, and as such, I think we should both contribute."

"Fine. How much you want?"

"Ten thousand."

"Are you serious? Ten thousand jewel could buy her at least a quarter of what she tried on already."

"And combined with mine, she can purchase half of the outfits. I think that between the two of us, we had decided on at least that many being flattering on her."

"Uh, guys?" Levy wasn't certain if they heard her or not. "I don't really need a huge wardrobe like that…just two or three so I can change would be fine."

"Well, at that rate, we might as well say fifteen. After all, we're likely going to find more at the next store too." They were doing this again, somewhere else? How long would they be shopping for?

"I thought we'd use the same budget at each store, not for the entire day out."

"Randi…I'm not spending a year's salary with you again…"

"It wouldn't be that much." Brandish turned away, huffing. "Probably only half, really."

"Both of you, can we please stop for a moment?" Brandish and Dimaria turned towards her, frowning. Levy sighed, shaking her head. "Really, I don't need that many clothes. It's not like a need a full wardrobe to hall back to the castle. Just…a few outfits to change into would be fine."

"Aww. you're no fun." Brandish turned away, crossing her arms over her chest. "There's no way you can be interesting every day with so little variety."

"And I'm not letting you walk out of here with so little either." Dimaria grinned. "So, when you put it like that…Randi, I think we need to get a discount on our products." Levy frowned, while Brandish shrugged. She reached out towards the pile of clothes Levy had left behind in the changing room and for a moment, Levy thought they'd vanished. Yet, when she looked closer, she saw them. Every dress had shrunk down, and was now able to fit in the palm of her hand. "And now the real fun begins. You ready, Levy?" Wait, she didn't want to actually steal her clothes. Weren't they just talking about buying them?

Either way, she wasn't given the chance to debate the matter. "Hold on a second…Brandish and Dimaria…" The shopkeeper spotted them, and seemed to pale as he spoke their names. "Get out of my store! I won't have you ruining my wares like you did to my partner in Glasgow."

"Gladly." Dimaria walked to the door, and Brandish joined, waving at the man. However, that was when he realized that he was missing quite a bit of stock. He spun around, glaring at them, yet Dimaria only laughed, pushing Levy ahead of her. "Ready to see just what I'm able to do, your majesty?" Levy glanced at her, and then Dimaria snapped her teeth. For a moment, Levy felt a bit strange. Yet, as she glanced around her, she realized everyone else had stopped, completely. The man behind her was frozen in pursuit, people on the streets were paused in various tasks…even objects seemed to have stilled. "Welcome to my world, and in this place, I'm the one who makes the rules. Right now, I say we own every bit of clothing that man has to offer."

"Not all of them. He was trying to sell those horrid rainbow leggings. Did you see how childish they were? Yet they came in sizes for adults."

"Take what you want. When we get back, you know we'll never hear the end of it from Invel again."

Brandish shrugged, before slipping back inside. She returned before long, walking next to Dimaria in the frozen streets. "Are you coming?" She glanced back at Levy. After a moment, she shook her head, following after them. She might not agree with their methods, but strangely, this was feeling oddly like the sort of trouble Fairy Tail would get into. "This is why Randi's the best shopping partner. We don't ever have to worry about getting in trouble for anything."

"You guys…you're stealing from your own merchants."

"Nah, they'll get paid." Dimaria placed a hand on her hip, smirking back at Levy. "We transfer funds remotely, when we do things like this. It makes things more fun, to at least making them think we're thieves. Yet, then they one day mysteriously receive a deposit of ten thousand jewel from an unknown source…"

Brandish nodded in agreement. "And they think back to the girls who stole that value's worth of clothing…"

"I…I can't believe you two." Levy shook her head. "This is just a prank?"

Dimaria grinned. "And isn't it fun?" Levy…really had no words. Yet, she smiled at the others, before chuckling and continuing on. She needed this, in a way. Despite wanting Zeref back, having Dimaria and Brandish was better than nothing. They were strange and a bit quirky, sorta like Fairy Tail wizards. In a way, it reminded her of them, and helped her see that while she might be turning away from her old guild, it didn't mean she was moving away from the close bonds she'd come to value. Instead, she was making new connections, and forming a new family as she moved forward into a new life.

So, Levy does get her shopping trip with Dimaria and Brandish. I was interested in exploring Dimaria and Brandish's friendship a bit at some point, but I didn't quite know if I'd ever really make a full story out of it. So, this chapter is my way of sorta thinking of the sort of things they'd get up to together. I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to review and tell me what you think!