Chapter 11

Nearly 2 weeks had passed since the tournament and life in the guild was the same as any other guild. After his match with Lucy Lord Death declared that Oliver had more than earned his prize but would have to wait a while for Lord Death to locate it, Lucy had been okay in terms of injuries but had been completely exhausted after having used so much of her new magic in one go. Seeing her in such a state Gray ordered her to relax and take it easy for the next couple of weeks, an order she followed to keep Gray from yelling at her. He had spent the last 2 weeks making sure that Lucy not only rested but was as comfy as possible, he had done everything from getting her drinks to doing her paper work, hell at one point he had even given her a shoulder rub causing her to blush like mad as she enjoyed it. Then there was Natsu and Jennifer, who had gone on several dates over the last two weeks and ad officially declared themselves a couple though neither had marked the other as their mate yet. It was mid-day and Gray and Lucy were sat in the guild bar with a drink, Lucy with a strawberry milkshake and Gray with a Coca-Cola with plenty of ice, discussing the missions that several of the other guild members were on. "Wait, so none of the Thunder Legion are actually on an official mission?" asked Gray with a surprised look, "well Laxus is, Wendy asked him to help on hers but the others aren't no," replied Lucy "turns out that after Laxus was banished from Fairy Tail he spent his time setting up a network of spies and sources he could use to get information, he's sent Ever, Bixlow and Freed to three separate locations to gather info." Taking a sip of his drink Gray nodded, in truth he found it quite cool that Laxus had his own information network, like something out of a spy movie. Snapping out of his daydream he found that Fairy Eaters newest couple had come over and handed a job request to Lucy. "Hey Master Luce" said Natsu happily, "we'd like to go on this job please." Lucy took the flyer and looked it over, it was an S-Class quest that had come in a few days ago to intercept and eliminate a group of wizards of unknown size and magical ability, that had been using strange monsters to attack villages and towns. Leaning over to sneak a peek Gray saw the reward money and exclaimed "6 million jewel!" which made Lucy giggle slightly before answering "yep, but this quest definitely deserves the high payout," she turned back to Natsu and Jennifer, "so who's going? Just you two or were you gonna ask others?" "Honestly" Jennifer replied with her hand on the back of her head, "we...kinda haven't gotten that far yet, we got a bit too excited ." Lucy smiled "well normally I wouldn't mind you two doing an S-Class together, but this one is different. One of the towns they attacked had a group of five mages in it on their way back from a mission, three barely survived and are in the hospital in critical condition, the remaining two were hurt badly but were able to get away to report this information. Now none of these mages were S-Class but they were all known for being powerful, which is why the magic council has decreed that not only must there be an S-Class taking this mission but at least two other very powerful mages, so here's the deal, I'll let you go IF you go with at least two other people, if not three." Jennifer had a sudden brain wave and asked Natsu to stay there while she darted over to a table where Erza, Soul and Maka were chatting, after a few seconds they all nodded with smiles on their faces and followed Jennifer back to Lucy, "there, now there's 2 S-Class and 3 powerful mages going, that should cover it right?" Lucy thought it over for a minute before getting the approval stamp from behind the bar, she stamped the flyer and returned it to Jennifer, "ok your approved, just be careful all of you" they all nodded and went off to get themselves ready.

A few hours later the group was sat on a train heading for the town of Vidvale (A/N that is completely made up). It had taken a good few minutes to convince Natsu to actually get onto the train, once it started moving his face turned green, his cheeks puffed out slightly and he tried his hardest not to let his motion sickness get the better of him...again. "Wow" said Maka with a slightly worried tone, "are you okay Natsu? You really don't look well" "I'm afraid you'll get little in terms of an answer aside from a few groans" replied Erza, "all of the Dragon Slayers we've ever known suffer from motion sickness, though Natsu's has always been far worse than the others. On previous missions Lucy was able to sooth him to sleep...or I was forced to help him a bit more...forcefully." "Huh I see" said Maka with a nod before turning to Jennifer, "how about you Jen? Do you get motion sickness?" Jennifer nodded looking slightly ill but only slightly, "yeah I do but only a little," she turned to Natsu and put her arm around his neck pulling him down so that his head was resting between her shoulder and chest, "here love, this should help." Whether knowingly or not Natsu put his arm around Jennifer's stomach and snuggled in, drifting off to sleep and making both himself and Jennifer feel better at the same time. Maka and Erza couldn't help but go "awe!" at the cuteness that Natsu was displaying, Soul however wasn't entirely sure what he was ment to say so just busied himself with a motorbike magazine.

Time skip 5 hours

Once the train had pulled into the station and the group had disembarked the Dragon Slayers instantly began to feel better, in fact Natsu had never in his life felt so good after a train ride, even with Lucy and Wendy's help, he knew straight away it was because he was snuggled up to Jennifer so he kissed her on the cheek and whispered "thank you" in her ear making her blush slightly. Snapping back to reality Jennifer led the group into town to find their contact, a man by the name of Cambel, it didn't take long for them to find him as he was practically running toward them. "You're the wizards from Fairy Eater correct?" he asked, "Yes sir we are..." answered Jennifer before he interrupted her "Good because your targets have upped their pace, they'll reach town within the next few days," the group was shocked, the intel they had received told them that they would have at least 5 days to intercept their targets once they reached Vidvale. Over the next hour they acquired some provisions and got as much information about what they were up against as they could from Cambel, before meeting at the western exit to Vidvale. Setting off in a westerly direction they made their way through a fairly dense forest that stood next to the town, having spoken to Cambel about the surrounding landscape Jennifer and Erza had devised a plan to deal with their targets, instead of hunting them down, they would wait in a clearing about half way into the forest for their targets to appear before striking, the only downside what that the clearing was nearly a full days walk away, meaning their pace had to be fairly quick.

It took nearly 16 hours of fairly fast walking to reach the clearing in the centre of the forest, a clearing that anyone following the path would have to pass through. As soon as they arrived both Natsu and Soul collapsed face first around the tree line closest to the town. "We're here! Thank God for that! Seriously Jen can we...*huff*...take a break now?" Natsu asked while trying to catch his breath, "yes pryo boy we can, there's nothing to do now but wait for out prey" Jennifer replied with an almost predatorily look on her face, which slightly worried Maka who had seen it on her face. The group set up a small camp within the tree line with a very small camp fire so that the smoke from it wouldn't give away their position to the enemy, Jennifer had climbed into a one of the taller trees so that she could use her Dragon senses to keep a lookout, Soul had set up some sleeping bags for everyone, Maka and Erza had built the fire and collected some kindling in case it went out and Natsu had started cooking a simple meal, which surprised Erza immensely. "Wow Natsu, when did you learn to cook?" she asked, "about a week ago" he answered "I was told that a good date was to cook something for your partner, so I tried and it was...well..." "It was a total disaster!" Jennifer called over before returning to her lookout, "yeah that, so Jennifer helped me and showed me some simple tricks and I sort of experimented from there." A short while later Natsu served everyone seared pork chops with boiled potatoes and peas, leaving Erza, Maka and Soul stunned by how good it looked, even more so once they had tasted it and realised Natsu had used herbs and spices to flavour the food, even Happy who knew Natsu could cook was pleasantly surprised. Using his inhuman jumping skills to get to the branch where Jennifer was Natsu gave her a plate of food, getting a kiss back, before returning to the camp fire to eat his own meal. A few hours later the sun had started to set so everyone, including Jennifer, got into their sleeping bags to rest up for the difficult day ahead. Before settling down Erza looked over to where Natsu and Jennifer were sharing a sleeping bag and asked "Jennifer, shouldn't one of us remain as lookout?" Shaking her head gently Jennifer replied "no need, even if we're asleep Dragon Slayers can pick up the scents and sounds of potential enemies approaching a good distance away." Erza returned to her sleeping bag and everyone drifted off into a much needed sleep.

-Time skip 5 hours-

The sun had yet to rise but everyone was awake and hidden within the trees as Natsu had picked up the scents of their targets, meaning they were mere minutes away. There was a great deal of tension in the air as everyone stood silently with very stern looks on their faces, waiting for the inevitable conflict to begin. That's when they saw them, a group of people emerging from the trees on the other side of the clearing, more and more walked out until there was 20 wizards walking through the open space. Jennifer jumped out of her hiding space and stood in the clearing facing the unknown people, "HOLD!" she shouted making them stop in their tracks, "I am an emissary of the town of Vidvale and of the Fairy Eater guild, I must ask that you identify yourselves immediately!" The unknown group remained silent for a moment before bursting out into laughter, "you wanna know who we are darling?" asked one of them sarcastically "we are the faithful that carry out the will of our Lord and bring destruction upon all unworthy souls." Though she was slightly surprised by the response it answered all of her questions, "so, you're the ones who destroyed those towns and villages, well we can't be letting you continue I'm afraid" Taking that as their cue to appear the rest of the Fairy Eaters emerged from their hiding places and stood with Jennifer ready to fight. The smile on the dark wizards faces grew even further, "Look! More pathetic souls! LET'S GET 'EM!" they all rushed towards the Fairy Eaters who spread out and readied themselves. Within seconds the night sky was lit up with magic circles and the sound of blades colliding as the Fairy eaters defended themselves against the onslaught of enemies. Being S-Class Erza and Jennifer were able to dispatch their opponents with a single move,

Reequip: Heaven's Wheel

Storm Dragon's Gale Shot

Natsu had a little more trouble with his fight as while his enemies weren't all that fast, three of them were water users and were able to block his attacks until he had had enough, used his attacks to force them together and unleashed his roar to finish them off. Maka had equipped soul in his weapon form and was easily able to defeat her opponents, without killing them, though not quite as quickly as Erza and Jennifer. With all 20 dark wizards knocked out the Fairy Eaters placed them all in magic cancelling cuffs and collected them all together, however not one of them had lowered their guard as the enemies they had defeated were nowhere near strong enough to do the amount of damage they were ment to have, when suddenly four strange figure appeared within the tree line. Whatever they were they didn't appear to be human but that didn't bother the Fairy Eaters in the slightest ass they had been expecting monsters from the very beginning. Then a voice was heard that shook Natsu and Erza to their very core, "GET THEM! AND BRING ME THEIR SOULS!" the familiar voice commanded making the creatures walk out into the moon light, making Maka become even sterner when she saw them. Their torso and head appeared to be basically human in design, but their legs were muscle bound, their arms were about three the length they should be with claw like fingers at the end and their mouths could open far wider than any human revealing sharp, almost shark like teeth. "He...He's controlling them!? How is that possible?!" asked Maka with surprise, worry and anger in her voice, "am I to take it you recognise these...creatures?" asked Erza, "dam right we do" replied soul from within the scythe, Maka was staring angrily "those" she started "are what Lord Death told you about. They are what happens to humans that consume innocent human souls and become corrupted to the point they become almost demonic. They are one of the reasons Death Academy even exists, so the rest of you stand back...they're ours." As she stepped forward the first of the creatures charged forward to attack Maka, It lunged with its claws which Maka blocked with the hilt of Soul before slicing the creature in half with the blade. The creatures body hit the floor, turned black and burst into black dust leaving a blood red floating sphere, it's soul, a Keyshin egg. The second creature charged and attempted to bite Maka, who jumped back and counter with Soul but the creature, having learned from it's fallen brother, quickly dodged and began to slash wildly with it's claws. The speed of the strikes left Maka barely able to dodge and block until she was able to find an opening and struck, she went to stab with the blade but the creature grabbed it and stopped it, which is what she wanted.

Scythe Magic: Soul Extension

Soul's blade glowed light blue and rapidly extended to roughly twice its normal size, stabbing it in the heart, turning it black and making it burst. The final two creatures rushed in together, clearly thinking a joint attack would work better, Maka on the other hand hadn't moved an inch, instead she had poured a lot of her remaining magic energy into soul's blade for one final strike.

Scythe magic: Soul Crescent

Thanks to the magic energy she put into the attack it was larger and faster than normal, Slicing both creatures in half with ease, leaving only the Keyshin eggs remaining. Make retreated back to the Fairy Eaters to recover when they saw a single shadowy figure remaining in the tree line, slowly walking out into the moon light. "So, what do we have here, two traitors, a slayer bitch, a school girl and boy who can turn into a stick, how pathetic! I doubt it will take long to kill you, then I can take your pathetic souls to my master" the shadow said as it walked. Then, as the moon light hit the figures face, Natsu and Erza felt their stomachs drop and their hearts stop for a moment, it was someone they hadn't expected, someone they once called friend or even brother. Natsu fought of the paralyzing shock for long enough to utter "A...A...Alzack?!"