Persephone's First Job:
"Anything I can get you ladies?" an old woman with a snack trolley asked as she rolled a snack trolley down the aisle of the train.
"Hm," Levy thought as she stared at all the drinks and snacks on the trolley. "See anything you want, Persephone?"
"An apple?" Persephone asked.
Levy paid for the apple and a cup of hot tea before returning to her book. As she sipped on her earl grey tea, she glanced over the top of her book at her daughter.
Persephone took a big bite out of her apple, whipping her mouth on her sleeve as she continued reading her book. She was a lot more fidgety than normal. Usually once Persephone got sucked into a good book she sat perfectly still, with only her eyes moving as they followed along the words, occasionally a finger lifting to turn the page. Now, however, she kept squirming in her seat.
She was excited. Very excited. But why wouldn't she be? Going on your first job is a big deal for any wizard. And it was a milestone Persephone had been itching to cross since she was three, when she tried to steal a job with Cato.
Those two had come a long way from being the late bloomers of the group. Levy found herself wondering how the other five children's first jobs were going. Of course, Koree was the first on her mind. Levy wasn't worried about her. She knew as long as Gajeel was there Koree would be safe. But she was still excited to hear how it had gone.
"Arriving at Acalypha Station soon," an announcer called over the intercom.
Persephone lifted her eyes from the page with a look of anticipation shining in them. LEvy chuckled as she stored her book away and patted her daughter on the shoulder. "Alright, let's get ready to head out."
The train soon pulled to a stop and Levy and Persephone exitted. As the two Redfox ladies walked through the streets of the town Persephone read over the poster for the hundredth time.
"So, a newly wed couple moved into a new house and found an old safe in their basement they want us to open?" she asked her mother as they made their way through the streets.
"Yup, doesn't sound too hard, does it?" Levy smiled. "I know puzzles and codes are right up your alley."
"Sure, but isn't opening random safes you know nothing about kinda...I don't know...not smart? I mean, there's no telling what's in there. A kill kit, a dead body, some poison-"
"Have you been reading murder mysteries again?"
"...maybe…"
Levy chuckled at her daughter. "They just want us to open it, we don't have to go investigating what's inside."
"But what's the point of cracking a code if you can't see what was hiding behind it?" Persephone asked.
"Well, that may be soon. But it's not likely there's anything dangerous in that safe. It's probably just a place the previous owners used to hide their valuables."
"Like, what kind of valuab…" Persephone's voice wavered as she and her mother happened upon a massive mansion.
"Well, here we are," Levy said.
"NO WAY! THIS IS JUST ONE HOUSE!?" Persephone exclaimed.
"It most certainly is," a thick, rich voice called.
Persephone and Levy looked to find a young man and woman dressed in expensive clothing walking towards them.
"Am I to believe that you're the wizards sent to open our safe?" the husband asked.
"Yes sir," Levy said. "My name is Levy Redfox, and this is my daughter, Persephone."
"Nice to meet you," the husband said as he held his hand out for LEvy to shake.
"Do you like our house, young lady?" the wife asked Persephone.
"Yeah, did the queen come with it?" Persephone replied.
"Persephone!" Levy scolded.
"So, no? Maybe a duke or duchess?" Persephone shrugged.
The husband chuckled. "You've got a snarky sense of humor, young lady, and I can appreciate that."
Levy sighed. "So long as she knows when it's appropriate to make jokes or snide comments."
"Maybe a count or countess?" Persephone continued.
"That's enough, Persephone," Levy sighed again.
"If you two would follow me," the husband said as he waved for Levy and Persephone to trail behind him. He and his wife led them through sparkling, marble hallways. Persephone could only stare at the gold threaded tapestries covering the walls, the plush emerald green carpets, the painted, porcelain vases, and the exquisite statue.
"Looks more like a museum than a house," she muttered to herself. "You'd almost be afraid to sneeze in here."
Levy overheard her daughter and thumped her on the back of her head.
"Ow! Hey!"
"Be polite," Levy reminded her.
"We bought this house and moved in a week ago," the husband explained as the group climbed down a staircase to the basement. "We were beginning to move some of our extra furniture to the basement when we found this."
He pointed to a large, circular safe door. Rather than having a normal lock on the front though, there were a series of flower, shaped plates stacked on top of one another on the front of the door.
"What the heck?" Persephone asked.
"Indeed," the wife agreed. "We were rather stumped by it when we first saw it too."
"I've never seen a door like this," Levy said. "Were you able to figure out anything about it from the history of the house?"
"No," the husband said. "There was no mention of it in the paperwork we signed…"
As the adults continued talking, Persephone approached the door. She looked over the flower like structures on the front of the door. Persephone ran her hand over the one on top. A film of dust came off, and a series of numbers appeared, one on each petal.
"Huh?" Persephone wondered. She brushed the dust off the rest of the flowers and found numbers on all of the petals. She rubbed her chin as her brow furrowed. He reached out and pushed on one of the petals. The flower the petal was attached to began to slowly spin.
Persephone nodded slowly. She was starting to make sense of this. She conjured up a screen and scanned the flowers on the door.
As Persephone worked, the adults kept talking.
"...we know the house was once owned by a wealthy wizard, but I'm not sure if that has any connection to the safe…" the wife explained.
Persephone kept tapping on her screen. Then she smiled. "Aha! Gotcha!"
Levy, unaware of what her daughter was doing behind her, tapped her chin. "A wealthy wizard, huh? Do you know who he was?"
"Well, he-"
Persephone turned the flowers a few notches, lining them up wow that the petals made very specific rows. A bright light shined.
Levy and the couple turned to find the safe glowing.
"Persephone, what did you do?" Levy asked.
"Opened it," Persephone answered. "All of the petals had numbers on them. You had to stack them up so that the numbers in one row of petals equal 100 when added up."
"How did you figure that out?" the husband asked.
"I used my archive," Persephone answered, conjuring a screen back up. "I scanned the puzzle to see if there were any patterns."
"I thought the archive was only used for research, not code breaking," the wife said.
"I mean, sure, if you want to be boring or lazy," Persephone shrugged.
"Persephone," Levy scolded again.
The flowered door moved to the side, revealing another door underneath it.
This one looked like it had puzzle pieces scattered about it.
"What is that supposed to be!?" the side exclaimed.
"A puzzle," Persephone answered plainly as she began scanning the door with her archive.
"Hm," she hummed, stroking her chin as she examined the flashing images and words on her screen.
"That's making me dizzy," the husband shook his head. "You can understand all that?"
"Yup…" Persephone answered slowly, tapping and zooming in on several icons on her screen as more text and words and equations appeared.
"How do you keep up?" the wife asked.
Persephone shrugged as she conjured up two more screens with keyboards on them. She began typing on each of them, one hand on each screen, typing in a different code on each screen as she watched the results of her equations and typing on a third screen.
"Okay...I think I've got it…" Persephone said as she closed out all the screens and walked to the door.
"Got what? I understood none of that," the wife asked Levy.
Levy shrugged.
Persephone began moving the puzzle pieces around on the door, clicking them together and putting them in place until the puzzle made a perfect circle in the middle of the door. The door began to glow and move away again…
...revealing a third door. The door had a regular number lock on it with twelve slots and a writing above the slots.
Persephone stood on her toes to wipe the dust off the writing. It read:
"The border divided by the middle."
"A riddle?" Levy asked.
"Ack! Once I think we're getting somewhere, we hit another-"
"It's pi," Persephone said in a monotone voice.
"What?" the wife asked.
"The past two puzzles were circles, and circumference divided by diameter is pi."
Persephone began flipping the numbers in place on the number slots.
3.1415926535
The door began glowing again and moved out of place.
There were no other doors hiding behind this one.
"Oh, finally!" the wife cheered. "We'll get to see what's been hiding back there!"
"Yes, finally!" the husband cheered.
Persephone smirked in pride.
Levy, however, began to feel nervous. Why put three complex puzzle safe doors in place? What exactly was hiding back there. She stepped closer to Persephone and set a hand on her daughter's shoulder.
"Mom? Are you okay?" Persephone asked as the final door finally fully opened.
A chilling, slithering noise came from inside the safe.
Levy's eyes narrowed as she took up a defensive pose, pushing Persephone behind her.
A white flash shot out of the safe.
"Persephone, look out!" Levy shouted as she pushed her daughter out of the way.
A thin, gray cloth-like object wrapped around Levy's waist and began pulling her into the safe.
"Mom!" Persephone screamed!
"Solid script, fire!" Levy shouted, igniting the rope. A hissing shriek erupted from inside the safe as the object let go of Levy. Two more cloth like objects shot out towards the couple.
"Solid script, knife!" Levy shouted, cutting the clothes in half.
The hissing squeal came from inside again. The two pits of cloth Levy cut off turned to ash as they fell to the floor.
Persephone stood to her feet, brushing herself out, and holding her hands out infront of her. "Archive cube!"
Six screens flew from Persephone's hands. Several clicking noises came from inside the safe as Persephone's brow furrowed.
She then gestured with her hands, as if beckoning something out of the safe.
A blue cube made of archive screens floated out, with something inside.
A pile of what looked like bloody bandages sat inside the cube, squirming and thrashing about. As the cube continued to float towards Perspehone she, her mother, and the couple noticed a few bones and patches of hair mixed in with the bandages.
"Gross!" Persephone gagged as lines of light floated through her screens, as if scanning the contents inside.
"What is that disgusting thing!?" the wife screeched.
"Hang on! I'm still scanning!" Persephone said as her screens continued glowing. Another screen appeared next to her with what looked like an article written on it.
"It's an ittan-momen," Persephone answered.
"A what?" the husband asked.
"A cursed set of cloth or bandages that wraps around people until they suffocate them," Persephone explained. "Yuck!"
"WHAT IS ONE DOING IN OUR HOUSE!?" the wife screeched.
"Well, you said before that this house used to belong to a wizard," Levy said, stroking her chin. "My guess is it was either a dark wizard that kept this in his basement as a way to take care of his enemies, or he angered a dark wizard who sent this ittan-momen after him, and he locked it in this safe to keep it from killing him."
"Either way it does not belong in our home!" the husband shuddered. "I don't suppose you ladies know how to do away with it, do you?"
"We'll have to take it to the magic council," Levy answered. "Ittan-momen have been banned for years, so they'd like to do research and see how and where it was made."
The ittan-momen began thrashing inside Persephone's cube.
"Can you hold it until you get to the Magic Council?" the wife asked.
"Oh, yeah! I've had to hold a lot stronger things in a cube before. This is nothing," Persephone assured the wife.
"You have?"
"Yeah."
"Like what? What could a little girl like you possibly be face that's more dastardly than this!?"
"Well, usually it's my twin sister I'm locking up in these cubes."
"You're...what?"
"Okay, time to go!" Levy said, smiling wide to hide her embarrassment as she placed a hand on Persephone's back and ushered her towards the door.
"But, wait, your payment!" the husband said as he chased after the Redfox ladies, a bag of jewel in his hand. He opened it up, reached into his pocket, and deposited more jewels into the bag. "Here's an extra tip for getting rid of that hideous monster."
"Thank you," Levy said, smiling, as she and PErsephone made their way out of the house. "Call us again if you need anymore help."
"We will!" the couple called after them as they made their way back to the train station.
"Alright, let me call your father and let him know we'll be late," Levy said as she pulled out her lacrima." "Hey, honey? It's Levy...Everything's going fine, but we're going to be late getting back. Things kind of took an unexpected turn...oh you too, huh? What happened…"
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"...after we handed it over to the Magic Council, they took it to their research lab for study. Jura was so impressed he asked Persephone if she ever thought of working for the council when she was older. She said 'not really, I like it at Fairy Tail.'" Levy told her husband as she sat on the edge of their bed that night.
"Well, of course he was impressed," Gajeel said from where he was brushing his teeth. He gargled his mouth out with a bit of water before spitting into the sink and cleaning his face off with a towel. "Not just any little girl can crack three puzzles and defeat a monster all in one day."
"Well, she's not so little any more," Levy sighed, smiling softly. "Neither of them are. I just...can't believe they've already completed their first jobs today."
"Yeah, where has the time gone?" Gajeel agreed as he climbed into bed and laid down. Levy laid down next to him as he draped the blankets over them.
"I don't know," Levy said. "It seems like only yesterday they were babies. Now they're going on jobs. A part of me wishes time could pause for a little while. But, at the same time, I'm excited to watch them continue to grow. I'm looking forward to seeing what they will become as full grown women, and what their lives are going to be like."
"Me too," Gajeel smiled, wrapping an arm around Levy. "I never really thought about having kids when I was younger, not until you came along, that is. But these past twelve years have easily been the best of my life. I've loved raising our rugrats with you."
Levy smiled as she snuggled closer to Gajeel. "Me too."
AN: Roman's will be next, see you there!