Chapter 9
Cana nursed her drink for a bit longer. Nearly draining the glass of its contents before setting it aside. She quickly instructed Nab to stop staring at the nearly empty job request board, and told him to pull the bulletin board to the middle of the room. "Mira, can we pull the current job requests from the board and set them aside somewhere?" Cana turned to ask the demon take-over mage.
"Sure, just hand them over to me." She smiled encouragingly. "What are you going to do with it though?"
Cana pulled her deck of cards from her furry blue shoulder bag. "You'll see," she pauses for a moment while she creates two more additional cards: one representing Yukino and the other representing Hibiki. "Oh, Mira?" Mira looks up at her after arranging the job requests in her binder. "Do we still have that large accordion folded map of Earthland?"
As if reading her mind Mira pulled out something from underneath the binder she had just been organizing. "You mean this one?" Mira smirked at her.
"Thank you for always being one step ahead, Mira." Cana took it from the demon take-over mage and began to unfold it. As she was straightening it on the bulletin board, and about to put push pins through the corners, Yukino came up to her curiosity shining in her eyes.
"What are you about to do?" The shy celestial mage asks.
"I'm going to use a divination spell to scry for the best team composition for the first jaunt of this quest you and Lucy are about to go on." She indicates her deck of cards. "In this deck I have a card I have made for each guild member. I have also added one to represent yourself and Hibiki." Cana points at the map. "I am going to use the deck of cards and this map to decide who should go." Yukino looks like she's about to say something else but Cana interrupts her. "Just watch."
Cana grasps her deck in her right hand. Her eyes concentrate for a moment on the map. She zeroes in on Iceberg and concentrates her mental focus on that location before shutting her eyes. She then fans out the cards and winds her arm back as if she is about to pitch a ball. Nine cards thrust forward from the deck in her hand and imbed themselves into the map directly on Iceberg. "It looks like for this trip we will be needing: Natsu, Erza, Freed, Evergreen, Mirajane, Elfman, Hibiki, and of course the two Celestial Mages."
The group outwardly deliberated for a bit on the reasoning behind this particular setup, and Cana merely shrugged. A few of the mages were a tad upset about not going. Levy was mostly disgruntled because she figured she would be needed for all of the jaunts of the journey due to the necessary research they would more than likely be pouring over. "It's not like I have control over who goes. I'm guessing with you it's because Hibiki is going this time around. He probably won't be available for all the separate drags of the journey, and more than likely to be pulled away by his own guild, Blue Pegasus, in the near future. In regards to certain members of Team Natsu going for example, Natsu going and not Gray makes sense to me also. I mean you are going to a country of ice. If something has ice based magic there it wouldn't really make sense for Gray to go. His magic wouldn't be the strongest against those elements."
"Wait so you're saying that Flamebrain's flames are stronger than my ice?" This of course started another routine brawl between Natsu and Gray. Cana merely hooted in laughter at the unintentional disorder she caused. Well then again with Cana you never really knew. She might have planned to create this kind of craziness all along.
Mirajane came over to Cana with a stack of papers. "These are all job opportunities that are either on their way or in Iceberg itself."
Cana nodded and thanked Mirajane. She then recruited Nab once again to help her out by turning the bulletin board around. He made some cluck of annoyance but otherwise didn't argue. Once the blank side of the bulletin board was facing her she asked Yukino to help put the papers all up on the board. There were actually quite a few, which of course made sense since no one would really want to traverse the harsh, bitter cold, winter weather of Iceberg.
Cana puts her initial deck back in her furry shoulder bag then pulls out another. Levy arches an eyebrow as she watches the trade out. "What are those cards?"
"This deck? This deck is my decision making deck." Cana smirks and fans out the cards face up so that Levy can see them. Each card shows a picture of some random scantily clad male and every last one of them is chanting "choose me." Both Levy's and Yukino's faces become flushed the deep scarlet of Erza's hair. Cana once again does the same throw as before and three cards thrust out in different directions toward the bulletin board. Each of the three cards piercing the upper right corner of a job request.
The group didn't study the job requests long. Two of the jobs were both for getting rid of monsters. The third of the jobs was an information gathering job. The amount of jewel they would earn from all the jobs combined equaled out to being over 2.5 million jewel.
Things are moving quite rapidly at this point. "Yukino, I think you should get a hold of Sabertooth and let them know what is going on."
Yukino nods. "You're right. Everything has been moving so fast I just didn't consider it. Umm, actually...Cana?" Cana turns toward her. "I have a feeling that Sting or Rogue...well likely even both of them will insist on going. Would that possibly have any impact on the party that's going?"
Cana smirks. "Dragon slayers never quite fit into the equation properly. I just usually let them do want they want regardless of what my cards say."
Lucy half frowns. "What about Natsu?"
"Do you seriously think that pink haired dope would let you go on a major adventure without him? His name is likely to be pulled for all of the trips just because of his own determination to stand by you, his best friend." Lucy stood there with her mouth open for a few moments. She couldn't quite articulate a proper reaction so she turned around away from Cana and headed over to where Mira seemed to be pulling out catalogs from behind the bar.
"Hey, did you not put exceed cards in that deck, Cana?" Happy asked folding his furry blue arms over each other in a cute but obviously annoyed manner. His little eyebrows furrowed and scrunched up together.
Cana nearly burst out in laughter at how menacing Happy was trying to be. "I do have Exceeds in my deck but I don't use them for divination pulls like that." She then digs out the deck and pulls out her cards of Wendy, Gajeel, and Natsu and shows them to Happy. "See? In all these cards their companion exceed is already with them. I know where your dragon slayers go you will go hence why I made the cards this way."
Happy burst into tears and thrust himself into Cana's chest. "Furball, if you make me lose my buzz we are gonna have problems." This made him cry out even more and push himself away from Cana to be coddled in Lucy's ample bosom once again instead.
oOo
Mira now has three piles of catalogs that each were stacked so high they reached her chest. "Mira, what are these anyway?" Lucy asked while petting a sleeping Happy that still clung to her after his crying spell.
"These are winter supply catalogs," she pointed at the first two piles. "Winter outerwear and clothing catalogs," she indicated the third pile. "Tourist locations, best places to stay, and eat at while trekking through Northern Earthland. I honestly wish this last one was a bigger pile."
Lucy shivered as she thought of the trip to Mt. Hakobe and how cold that was. This trip would be even colder. She grabbed the first catalog from the middle pile and began pouring over it. Mira smiled and selected one from the third pile. While Levy wasn't going she still remained supportive of her bestie and grabbed the first catalog from the first pile.
After about a half an hour of perusing Mira already had a long list of possibly places to stay. Lucy had discovered one of the best outerwear shops for that inclement weather was situated in the Country of Seven. It would be on their way to Iceberg but she worried if they waited until arriving the store might not be able to supply them with the proper attire. Lucy noted that a number to reach them by lacrima communications was on the back of the catalog, and they did have a speedy shipping service. So she planned out her own purchases sat it aside and planned on getting everyone to look through the catalog to plan their own purchases also. She would call the store when everyone had their selections in mind.
Levy made some awesome discoveries in the catalogs she had been pouring over. The brand Pinnacle Peaks was a company that specialized in camping in inclement weather. They specifically carried tents and sleeping bags where the lining was infused with small powerful lacrimas that emitted their own additional heat. She pointed out what she found to the other woman huddled at the bar. "Yes, please put this catalog aside also. I am not freezing my butt off in Iceberg!" Lucy exclaimed which jostled the blue exceed awake.
"I don't think that's a thing, Lucy. Plus, if it is the weather would have to work hard to freeze off your large butt!" Happy squealed and launched himself away as Lucy mutter something about ungrateful cats and never cuddling him again.
Cana smirked and thought to herself. Like she will ever follow through with that threat.