Disclaimer: I only own my OCs.

Anu: Alright, so who is ready to have some fun?

Eden: I already know that I don't like it when you say that.

Del: *nods* And I know that I really don't like it when you say that.

Anu: *pouts* That's not fair.

Chapter 5: Guiding Light

April 8th, 786

Narissa's 1st P.O.V.

There were a lot of things that I could deal with. Really. I was a pretty easy-going girl who liked to have fun and meet new people. I would try almost anything that was legal, and hunting down dark guilds could be fun. But, one thing that wasn't fun was being caught by dark mages for whatever ritual that they were going to have. Seriously. Every so often, some creep would overhear one of the magics that I worked in, and spread the word around until the local dark guild, or dark cult, or dark something or another would track me down and keep me captive for a few days until the time of their ritual.

I mean sure, I usually broke out of these circumstances and I was pretty sure that this was going to be just the same in this case. But, I was still getting annoyed that I got captured in the first place. I mean, sure, celestial mages were in short supply these days but they were still better power sources than me! I was just a simple light mage...with a little extra juice compared to most, but those celestials were still better power sources. In the past two years alone, I had been captured for different rituals at least ten times! Given that the usual holding time was between four to five days before their rituals, and I lost a good bit of time that I could be doing other things.

Like one of my greatest goals, which was to one day find a damn guild to belong to. Part of my meeting new people routine was to try and find a guild that I could call home. But, with all of the ones that I had checked out so far, there was no way that I was going to be in a guild soon. Most of the big name ones, like Mermaid Heel and Lamia Scale, just didn't feel right to me. There was a business air around them that really didn't make me feel welcome in the guilds.

Plus, with Mermaid Heel being a female only guild, I wouldn't be able to have my fun with the male sex and that was not something that I was ready to give up on. Men were the gods' gifts to women and I was not going to live my life in a guild where I could not take full advantage of that gift.

So, my guild hunt had continued forward with guilds like Quatro Cerberus and Blue Pegasus. The mages at Quatro were a little too rowdy and constantly violent for my amusement. Seriously too much rowdiness. I appreciated my quiet times a little too much and their guild hall would not allow the noise that they were making to continue while I would want some quiet time. Then, came the mages of Blue Pegasus. While they did understand how to use the beauty of the male body to their advantage...for the most part, they were a little too into the pleasure side of life. While I liked a little pleasure now and then, I definitely needed something else to focus on and it probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to be a part of a guild that was known for their hosting capabilities.

Of course, the elephant in the room was the guild called Fairy Tail. When I was younger, I always imagined joining their guild and going on adventures with their mages, getting into trouble, having fun, and just telling the world to go and fuck itself because we at Fairy Tail didn't care. Master Makarov was my idol and I had so wanted to meet him. I had even gone all the way to Magnolia to check out the guild of my dreams.

It wasn't what I was picturing.

Since the disappearance of several core members of the guild several years ago, Fairy Tail had become...depressing. I had visited the guild a couple times during my trip to Magnolia and what I found...wasn't a fun guild who could take on the world. A guild shouldn't determine its outlook by what members were in their guild, what strong members they had. The attitude of the guild should be determined by the people that are in the guild, because they made the first impression on any new members that may or may not show up looking to join... as I had.

So, I had been on my way to the northern reaches of Fiore, to see if there were any obscure guilds up there that I would be interested in joining, when I got stuck in this lovely situation. This dark guild, House a Death, was a decent sized guild with thirty members in it. Not overly large but just large enough to cause me problems. Plus, it wasn't like their name was anything original. I mean, House of Death? Did it get any cheesier than that? I mean, it would have been cool if a light guild was called that. You know, shake things up a little. But for a dark guild? Must not be a lot of imaginative people in this guild.

My focus went to in front of me as the cell door in front of me opened and a rather annoying member of this dark guild walked up to me with a smirk. "So, have you started to panic yet cute thing."

"Hardly." I shot back at the mage. I then looked at the tray he was setting in front of me before shaking my head. "Though, I think I'll have to have a talk with customer service about the food here. Could you really not get me anything better than rat meat and rotten tomatoes?"

His eyebrow twitched at that before he crossed his arms across his chest. "You're lucky you are getting even that wench."

"Oh 'wench'." I mocked him. "Hope it didn't hurt your brain to think of a word that unique you rat-tailed puke-infested dick-sucking shadow-fu" I flinched as I suddenly felt a hand slam against my face before I was grabbed by the shoulders and thrown against the wall. I could see the anger in his eyes but, since most of these rituals that I was supposed to take part in caused for me to be untouched a certain time before, then I wasn't too worried. "What's wrong taint? Can't go all the way?"

A growl came from the idiot in front of me before he let go of me and backed off. "Enjoy your last day of life bimbo. Tomorrow night, you are going to be ripped apart to appease the dark spirits so that they might grant us,"

"'Eternal power that will challenge each and every light guild that dares to go against us.' I've heard it all. I'm still here. What does that tell you about your success chances?" I interrupted him with a smirk. I wasn't going to be dying tomorrow and so I might as well enjoy taunting this moron before then. Would be the last chance he would get to try and say anything back.

The dark guild mage, on his part, glared daggers at me before he slammed the door shut. Once he did, I moved over to the plate and inspected it. I had been kidding about this being rat-meat but, as I looked closer at it,I saw that was what this really was. Fuck. While I really didn't want to eat this...especially with them having cooked it, I knew that I was going to need my energy for tomorrow.

So, with a flinch, I bit into the meat in front of me. While I really didn't like to, I needed my energy for tomorrow night. Even though I was being restrained in magic-restricting cuffs, they didn't completely block my ability to absorb magic from the air to replenish my supply. By tomorrow night, I would have enough saved up to break out of my prison and escape this situation like I normally did when I was captured.

April 9th, 786

Erik's 1st P.O.V.

I took a slow breath as I looked around at the surrounding area. One year. We had been a guild for one year and, while to most our growth would seem slow, I was actually impressed about how many members we had been able to find. For a guild who, at first, had only been made up of mages who had be apart of dark guilds in their past, having three new members who didn't judge us on that was impressive. Eden had been the first and, as another dragon slayer, she was good support for the guild so we could take some more missions to save up on money that we would probably need once the dog got us some more new members.

On her note, we had gotten Del most recently and, having three dragon slayers in our guild was making it hard for us to keep ourselves out of the public eye. That was especially after the fiasco that Eden and Del had cleaned up in Hargeon. I had a feeling that we had Paralex to thank for making sure we stayed out of the public light.

The actual second member of the new trio, and my only teammate at this point, Melody, had been brought in by Anu and with how quiet her soul was when she walked in, though I could tell that she was excited, I knew that she had to be on my team. So, I hadn't hesitated in introducing myself to her and asking her to be on my team. However, I had only gone on a couple missions with her so far. I understood that she was still training around the valley of the guild to gain control of a takeover that she was born with; a siren take-over.

I had only seen the siren once, when the whole guild had been out on a camping trip last month clear out in Waas Forest. We had all spread out to gather necessary items from the area for camping; firewood, water, herbs, medicinal plants, and so on, when Richard had been attacked and knocked unconscious by an ogre who was fairly large for its species. Before the master could even give us orders to fight the thing, Melody had transformed.

The siren had torn the ogre to shreds before most of us could move and, if she had stopped there, then it wouldn't have been so bad. But, the siren had then continued to destroy the forest, seemingly searching for any other ogres that might attack. We all had to work together to knock out the siren so Melody was back in control.

We didn't stay in the woods after that night.

So, I knew that Melody was working even harder to gain a handle on her sirenic half and so I was out here, on what was supposed to be a solo mission at first, so that this would allow Melody the chance to train in the valley in peace without having to feel bad about holding me back. That was what her thoughts had been mainly about since the incident in Waas forest. It was honestly more depressing being at the guild with her while she worked her thoughts out than it was being out here.

"I'm back." Sawyer stated as he stopped at the edge of the woods we were near, and moved closer to the fire that I had set up for the lunch that Sawyer was supposed to be hunting while he was checking the perimeter. From the five rabbits that were hanging by his side, I could see that lunch was going to be filling.

"Did you find out anything about our mission while you were out there?" I asked him as he sat down at handed me a couple of the rabbits to help him clean them.

As the two of us started to work, he nodded. "Yeah." He sharpened his knife before he continued. "That dark guild we are supposed to be taking out seems to be setting up an area to prepare for a ritual. Couldn't tell what ritual they were planning from what they were doing, but from the way that they were acting they should be doing this ritual tonight."

"What makes you say that?" I questioned him back. There weren't a lot of signs that told a person when a ritual was taking place and, while tonight's full moon was a good time for a number of rituals, other factors about nights coming up might deter from using the power of a full moon.

Sawyer started to cut up his rabbit meat before he answered that. "I didn't think anything on it at first, but the people in town are pretty close to the stars and celestial things like that. I heard that tonight is supposed to be a red moon and that the townspeople say that tonight's the best night to ask their war god for strength. If they are going to do a ritual at any time, I think it's going to be tonight."

"That makes sense." Dark guilds, even nomadic ones like the one we had tracked down, were pretty predictable when thinking about what they were planning. They wanted power. That was how the Seis had operated and, according to Anu, that was how Death's Head Caucus had as well. They waited until times that would give them the most power. "It will probably be best to attack them tonight. We don't know what they are going to use as a sacrificial conduit and, if it is a person, we should probably be aware of that before we attack."

Sawyer seemed to agree with my statement and, after a few minutes, we both put our pieces of rabbit meat onto a skillet that we brought with us. Once that was cooking, I took out our comm lacrima for this mission and sent a pulse through it to contact the master. It didn't take long for it to connect and, once I could see the other side, I saw that the Master was doing paperwork, with Melody and Sorano helping. "How did the dog convince you two to help him with his paperwork?"

Plus, I was surprised that Melody was there. She must have not stayed out training as long as she thought she would. Hopefully, that meant that it had gone smoothly.

At the glare that Sorano sent through the lacrima, I could tell that she wasn't happy. "He made us a bet that if he was able to be disguised as a woman at Elgor's place without anyone recognizing him for the entire night last night, then we would help him do his work for all of today."

Ouch. Normally betting against Master Anu's transformation ability wasn't smart but, in that case, I might have done the same. While Master Anu was good, Elgor could usually tell when a person was really Anu in disguise. "Elgor didn't spot him?" Sawyer asked as he sat down next to me. Yeah, that was a surprise to me.

Anu's smirk, however, told me that something must have happened. "Elgor, luckily for me, had to leave for an emergency family meeting in Oak Town and left the running of the tavern last night to his assistant, Jason, who isn't so good at figuring out who I am."

While that smirk normally told me that Anu had planned for Elgor to be away, a family emergency was not something that even Anu could arrange at the last minute. So, Sorano was probably mad because fate had allowed Anu to win the bet and, from the small amount of paperwork that was on his desk, which was a miracle in itself, then for once in a lifetime, the Master's work was going to actually be completely caught up on.

"Fucking luck." Sorano muttered as she picked up another sheet of paper.

Our guild master, however, soon returned to business as he focused on Sawyer and me again. "So, how is the mission going?"

"We think that the dark guild is planning some sort of ritual tonight." Sawyer started. "We are going to wait until it gets dark tonight before taking them out, so we can help their sacrifice if it happens to be human."

Anu gave a thoughtful nod at that as Sawyer reported. "That would make sense, with the moon, and local beliefs of the area, then tonight would be a peak time to make a sacrifice to the gods." He then focused again. "Odds are leaning that the dark guild's sacrifice will probably be human. With these kinds of rituals, the more like you the sacrifice is, the more power that you will be able to garner from the god that you are sacrificing to."

At that point, to my surprise, Melody jumped in. "They might be performing Mad Beckoning of Blood Nightmare." We all stared at her in surprise before she elaborated...thankfully for my opinion of her. "When I was with Crypt Veil, we were at a black market auction and there was a group of dark mages who were going to do the spell. The timing and location sound like they described and it does require a human sacrifice that has not been sexually active within a few weeks of the ritual. It is also better if this sacrifice is a light mage since the ritual is giving the people performing it power in exchange for a worthy foe for the god of war that they are trying to appease. Light magic is a very powerful weapon. They also need an altar made of dragonwood and a dagger made from the horn of a minotaur." She then seemed to think. "If I remember correctly, the group from back then had been at that auction to purchase the altar. Dragonwood altars are extremely hard to come by."

"How do we stop this ritual once it gets going?" I asked. If this was the ritual that this dark guild was going to perform, then we needed to know when the best time to attack would be.

That caused my teammate to go into her thoughts again before she seemed to come up with the answer. "The best time to interrupt the spell is once the ritual leader begins to speak. His first bit of ritual speech is drawn out, since he is asking the god to accept the sacrifice, and that should be an opening for one of you to attack to cause a distraction while the other one frees their sacrifice."

"Sounds good." Sawyer agreed with Melody. I did too. Hopefully, this was the ritual that they were performing and we would be able to take them out quickly.

Before the line was hung up, the master looked at us seriously. "Make sure that you boys keep local damage to a minimum. We've been doing alright lately, but that little snafu in Waas pushed the books back a bit and it's going to take a few missions like the one you are on to get back to a comfortable spot."

I nodded at that, as did Sawyer, before I answered him. "You got it mutt. Just make sure that you aren't overworking my teammate too much."

"What about me?" Sorano yelled at us from the other side.

Sawyer let out a snicker. "You'll be just fine with whatever work Anu gives you. Just don't break a nail." He was teasing her at the end of that.

And she did not take the teasing well. "Why you little bastard when I get my hands on you I'll," I then cut her off by hanging up the lacrima.

While Sawyer tried to gather himself up, I took our now cooked food off of the fire and put it on travel dishes that we had. Once I handed Sawyer his plate, the two of us started to eat. We were going to need our energy for tonight.

"Hey man, I've been meaning to ask you something." Sawyer started as he took a bite of his rabbit.

After swallowing the piece I had in my mouth, I figured I would humor him. "What?"

He motioned to me before saying, "So far, you, Eden, and Sorano are the only ones that have teammates, though Sorano really shouldn't count since her teammate is Macbeth. What I want to know is; what is being on a team like with other people?"

How the hell was I supposed to know? "I don't know Sawyer." He looked at me confused so I realized that I was going to have to explain it to him "Yeah, Melody is a member of my team. But, I've only been on a couple of missions with her, and none of those were just us as a team. Plus, you were there for the Waas incident. She is really hesitant about going out on jobs because she is afraid that she'll lose control again. So, while I do have a team member, I still don't know what it's like to go out on missions as a team."

He then seemed to get what I was saying and, thankfully, the rest of the meal was had in silence. That was good because I wanted to think on how this mission was going to go. Even if we had the right ritual in our plans, we were going to have to be careful. While a part of me felt like these dark guild mages wouldn't be that difficult to deal with, I also knew to be more cautious than I used to. When Melody had first joined my team and said that she as working on controlling an aspect of her magic, I had thought that she just needed to work on a few spells. While I could tell she was powerful, I had no idea that she was hiding something that powerful inside her.

Now, I had to keep focused on the mission. Hopefully, everything would go alright tonight.

Narissa's 1st P.O.V.

This wasn't good.

Right now, the moon was almost at full peak and, from how these creepy dark guild mages were gathering around this altar, I had a feeling that they were about to perform the ritual soon. Normally at this time, I would be gathering the power that I saved up to break out of my restraints and attack these idiots who had captured me. But, I was panicking this time around. Why? Well, it was because, for some reason, I hadn't been able to gather as much magic power as I normally could by this time. From what I was gauging, I wouldn't have enough magic power to break out of my bonds! I really didn't want to die!

"Looks like you are panicking now you bimbo." The fucking bastard who had brought me my food this morning taunted me.

"When I get out of here I'm going to come after you first." I hissed at him before I spat in his face.

While the bastard raised his hand to hit me, the person who I was assuming was his leader caught his wrist. "Hold your hand Martin." The leader growled. "We need the sacrifice as whole as possible so we can gain the full power that we deserve."

Martin glared at me before he growled and yanked his arm away from his leader. "The bitch better be worth the power." He then stalked away.

When the leader turned his gaze at me, I froze. It was so empty that I had no idea what to think. "You are a fighter and shall make an excellent sacrifice to Tyret. I believe we shall gain much power from you." I then flinched as he ran his surprisingly smooth fingers against my cheeks.

Thankfully, for my sanity, he moved his hand away before turning to his gathered followers. "Fucking asshole." I whispered to myself as I tried to fight against my restraints.

As I did, however, I heard the creepy leader start to address his pions. "My dear brothers and sisters, tonight is the night which we have been preparing. For, this night, we ascend to heights of power that shall not be overcome!" I continued to struggle as a cheer rang out from the crowd. Shit! I had to get out of this.

"The dagger, Urban." Fucking Martin seemed too happy about giving the minotaur horn dagger to Urban.

The leader took the dagger before turning to me. Oh shit. "Oh Tyret, great god of war, I beseech you as a humble servant. Grant us the power to raise above all that try to obstruct our way of life. You, who hold such grace, power, and ferocity, we praise your ever-glorious name. Rain down your merciful blood into this sacrifice so we may drink of it to obtain a portion of your immortal power. In return," Oh fucking shit! He was holding the knife in a way that would not be good for my continued health. "we offer to you this warrior of light as a sacrifice to battle with your might on the eternal battlefields. Please, take this offering as augh!"

I flinched, as did everyone else, as a blur suddenly appeared in front Urban and slammed into him, throwing the cult leader back. As the image started to come into focus, Martin ran forward but the still blur punched that asshole in the face and threw him back. "I got them. Get her free!" The guy who I could now see said to someone before running at the group of dark mages.

While I was still surprised at the sudden help, though I couldn't actually comprehend a thought until I felt a set of hands pulling the rope that was binding me away from my flesh. "Don't move." The maroon-haired guy said as he seemed to focus on the rope. To my surprise, the rope started to dissolve away in poison. Sweet! Once the rope was free, I held out my hands, which were restrained in the magic restricting cuffs, and the guy looked at them before looking to his ally. "Hey, Sawyer! Did you find a key on the leader?"

Sawyer? So that was the blur's name. Said blur seemed to take a break and ran back to the unconscious leader of the dark guild before he said, "Here, catch!" This Sawyer person then threw the key before returning on attacking the guild.

The maroon mage caught the key and undid my cuffs, which was a huge relief, before I stood up and massaged my wrists. "You alright?" The mage who freed me asked.

Feeling a surge of magic energy come into me, I nodded before saying, "You bet. Now, I have a little bastard to pay back. You might want to step back a little."

He raised an eyebrow but got clear. That was good. Wouldn't want to accidentally hurt the people that just helped me. Focusing on my magic, I smirked as I started to grow larger and larger. Besides light magic, I was also decently skilled with using titan magic. Made revenge against these damn dark guilds who tried to sacrifice me that much sweeter.

"Hey, bastard!" I yelled at the one called Martin, since the creepy leader Urban was still out cold. He turned to me and yelped as the color seemed to drain from his face. "Marco!" He screamed at that and tried to run away. I, in turn, shook my head before saying, "No, no, no! You're supposed to say polo!" I then slammed the back of my hand against the pathetic dark mage, causing him to go flying and hit a tree before slumping to the ground unconscious.

After that, the fight seemed to go pretty quickly with the three of us working together. Once we were done, I helped the two of them tie up the mages and, as the one called Sawyer called the rune knights, the one that I didn't have a name for yet turned to me before saying, "You sure that you are alright?"

I nodded at that before saying, "Yeah I'm good. The name's Narissa Odir, light mage and titan mage." I then held my hand out to him.

He looked at my hand for a second before he took it and said, "The name's Erik. Second generation poison slayer, captain of team Poison Song. We are a part of the guild called Jackal Fang."

Jackal Fang? What kind of guild was that? I hadn't heard of it before. "Jackal Fang? What kind of guild are you guys?"

The one called Sawyer then came over to us so he answered. "It's a magic guild. Our master asked us, along with three others to start the guild, and so we did in 785. The name's Sawyer, by the way, vehicle and slowing mage, for now a leader of one of the teams at Jackal Fang, though it doesn't have a name yet."

Really? Well, this was a new guild for me to explore and, since they had just saved my bacon, I guess that I could go with them and see what it is about. "Well, I just so happen to be shopping for a guild. Do you guys mind if I go with you to your guild?"

Erik shook his head before saying, "Do what you want. We're going to camp for the rest of the night before we head to the guild. If we leave early enough tomorrow, we should get there by noon."

And so, that was how I came to travel with those two guys to their guild. When we arrived at their guild, I realized that they seemed to be the dream guild that I hoped to find at Fairy Tail, with how close they all were. It made me so happy to finally have a guild that I could call home. As of this day, April 10th, 786, I was a member of the Jackal Fang guild and I couldn't have been happier. I ended up joining team Poison Song because both Melody and Erik seemed like they could teach me a lot. Hopefully, we would be able to go out on missions together soon. There were definitely more dark guilds out there that I had to take out.

Anu: Hey, what are you doing?

Narissa: *smirks* I am simply doing what I should as a member of the guild.

Anu: *curious* What is that?

Narissa: *smacks Del and Eden* Making sure my fellow guild members behave.

AN: And here is the next chapter! Sorry this took so long to get out but the holidays have been crazy, and they still are. I'll be out of town for a bit so this is the only update you will see until next weekend at least. It may be longer. But, until then, I hope this tides you over. Erik now has another member of his team, a light and titan mage, and that should create a fun atmosphere later on. Not a lot to say about Narissa I think, but if you have any questions shoot me a PM and I'll get those questions answered.

Next chapter is going to have a very interesting mage appear and I hope that you guys will learn to like the mage as much as I do.

Speaking of next chapter, however, here are the titles for the next couple of chapters.

Chapter 6: A Demon's Pledge

Chapter 7: Monuments to Time

Chapter 8: ...(next time of course)

Well, that's all for now. I hope you have enjoyed. Leave a review, even to say hi, if you would like. Otherwise, I'll see you all next time. TTYL! *planning so much with so little time*