When the voice of the challenger yelled for them to go, Alzack and Bisca began the maze grinning. They grew up together and went on requests together. They were a perfect pair to conquer this challenge together. Neither of them could even think about what their weakness could be.

"You know," Alzack said after a while of walking, "the weakness they pick for us is going to be something neither of us expects, so just be prepared, I guess."

"Don't worry, Alzack," Bisca told him. "I doubt we even have a weakness. It's going to take a lot to hurt our team."

Alzack smiled. She was right: whatever this challenger threw at them, he and Bisca would get through it.

"Oh, hey, so I never got a chance to show you: I got a new gun," Bisca said, requipping a gun into her hand. It was fairly small, but jet black in color and really beautiful.

Beautiful like its owner, Alzack thought, looking at Bisca, who was aiming the gun as if she were about to shoot, pointing out certain parts of it that offered different features. She spun it around her finger, and Alzack gulped at how hot she was.

"It's got this cool feature, a fire shot that's powerful enough to rival Natsu's Fire Dragon Fist. Of course, I'm not crazy enough to challenge him, but I'm thinking after this is all taken care of, I'd like to try it out against Macao."

"I can't wait!" Alzack said.

They walked on, taking turns, backtracking, taking different turns, and so on. They stopped once to rest. There was a dead end that had particularly thick grass that looked comfortable to sit down in for a bit. Bisca watched Alzack fiddle with one of his guns, loading it with his favorite type of magic bullet: sunlight bullets.

The real sun shone down on the form above the maze. It reflected off Alzack's black hair and lit up his dark, smooth skin like a fine fabric. Bisca could picture a beam of light shining from behind him, casting his dark and dreamy silhouette. Bisca often came off as the down-to-earth, edgy, girl with a slew of guns, but when she felt like it, she could get pretty romantic and girly.

She loved watching Alzack care for his guns. He focused on them so intently, and his eyes took on a sharp beauty that captivated her. "You want to keep moving?" she asked.

"Sure," Alzack agreed with a grin, tucking his gun away under his poncho. They started to walk away, and Alzack pondered whether or not this would be a good time to tell Bisca how he felt about her. She was clearly very beautiful and a strong mage, but apart form that, she was simply fun to be with. Alzack felt like they fit so well together. He was the slightly quiet one, while she brought an excited energy to the table whenever they hung out.

He had come to the decision to tell her. She could be a bit intimidating, but when Alzack set his mind to doing what he felt should be done, he did it. No matter what. "Um, Bisca," he called. She was a bit ahead of him and had just turned a corner.

"Whoa, Alzack, come check this out!" she yelled back.

He caught up with her and saw a large clearing in the maze that held a respectable obstacle course. As soon as they both stepped towards it, runes appeared behind them, forcing them to move forward through the course.

"So, Bisca-"

"No turning back, now!" she interrupted when Alzack tried to confess his love. "Looks like fun," she said, requipping a gun, which she shot at the obstacles, but the beam of destruction was deflected by runes. "Guess we'll have to go it bare-handed."

"Right," Alzack said, always up for anything as long as Bisca was involved. They flew through the course, jumping, grabbing, climbing, balancing, avoiding rune traps laid on the ground beneath them.

"Yee-haw!" Bisca exclaimed as she swung over runes that promised certain death.

She was fearless, and Alzack loved it. When they finally made it to the other side, both were breathless and smiling.

"Nice," Bisca said, putting her hat, which had fallen, back on her head. "I hope the rest of this is that easy. If physically overcoming obstacles is what the challenger thinks our weakness is, he couldn't have been spying for very long." Alzack stared at how her light green hair flew through the air when she tossed it aside and how her purple eyes sparked in the setting sun.

Suddenly, it struck him. Purple like runes, green hair like Freed. Alzack pushed his love confession and daydreams aside for a bit to focus on the matter at hand: the challenge. "Bisca, I've been thinking about the challenger. Do you think it could be Freed?"

"What? No way!" Bisca scoffed. "Freed is a loyal member of the guild, a member of our family."

"Sorry, I just feel like it's a bit suspicious with the runes… and Laxus! Come on: the challenge just happens to fall during the week Laxus is here, and he's requested even though he's not in the guild anymore. You see this, right Bisca?"

Bisca glared at him. "Yes, the Laxus detail is a suspicious coincidence, but I won't suspect Freed of something like this until I get more proof." The sky was growing dark, and the shine of Alzack's hair melted away. His skin didn't glow, and Bisca saw how ridiculous and accusatory he was being. "You can't just jump to conclusion like that, Alzack. Why would Freed to something like this?"

Alzack was so frustrated with Bisca. The maze has definitely found her weakness, he thought. She's far too forgiving. "He's done it before—and with Laxus! You were turned to stone by Evergreen, his teammate, and I fought our friends just to get out of his rune traps so I could save you! You remember all that, right? You were hurt taking out the first of Laxus's lacrima, and Freed admires Laxus too much for him not to be guilty by association for that."

Bisca couldn't even look at him. She loved Alzack, but he was in one of those moods he gets in when he believes something so thoroughly and just has to prove it. Normally, Bisca agreed with him on these things, but not this. "Alzack, that's not fair to Freed. He's not like he was during the battle of Fairy Tail. I trust him now."

Alzack was shocked by how much trust Bisca could give to people who didn't deserve it. "Bisca, really?"

"Shut up, Alzack! Don't you 'Bisca, really?' me," Bisca spit, requipping her new gun. "I'm solving the rest of this maze alone. If we meet up later, great, but right now, when you've got this accusatory mindset, I just don't want to deal with you." She ran, sprinting, and took the first turn she came to, hoping Alzack wouldn't try to follow her. While she needed time alone to think, she also just didn't want him so see how the tears began to well up in her eyes.

When Bisca ran from him, it took all of Alzack's willpower just to keep his feet planted in the ground and resist the urge to follow her. He knew Bisca well. After a long while of standing there at the end of the obstacle course, Alzack forced himself to turn and walk through the maze, to move away from Bisca. She'd never been so angry with him.

Bisca kept running. She ran and ran and ran until she knew she was lost enough that Alzack would never find her. Maybe I overreacted, she thought, but the other side of her argued, No, Alzack's the one who overreacted. His "evidence" is such a long shot. That the challenger uses runes and requested Laxus are simple coincidences.

Bisca wanted to stick up for freed, so she would stick up for Freed. That's how she rolled. Bisca was the one who never gave up on a fight and never turned down a challenge. Even if it killed her. She was just thinking about how she really didn't want it to have to be Alzack, her best friend, that she was arguing with when she noticed movement from the corner of her eye.

Whipping her gun towards the hedge she'd seen the movement near, Bisca reveled in the idea of having a chance to fire it. "Come out slowly," she ordered.

Six shades, just like those that Phantom Lord used against Fairy Tail, sprang out from around a corner and flew down on her. She took out four of them, but one of the other two flew through her, knocking her out.

Alzack heard four loud blasts followed by Bisca's scream. He flipped out his gun and sprinted back through the maze until he was back at the end of the obstacle course. I should've followed her before, she scolded himself as he hurriedly fumbled around the hedges, calling her name repeatedly.

"Bisca! Bisca, I'm coming!" Soon, two shades, the ones that had attacked Bisca, came towards him. He hit them with his sunlight shot and moved on quickly, running in the direction they'd come from. "Bisca, hold on!" he yelled again, though he'd never gotten an answer before.

He found Bisca barely awake. She was lying on the ground with her eyes closed, but she was breathing. Her face looked like she was in pain, and her breathing was rapid, but she was awake, and she was alive. "Bisca, it'll be okay," Alzack said, kneeling next to her.

"Alzack," she mumbled, and he lowered his head so that she wouldn't have to talk as loud for him to hear. "Alzack, I'm so sorry I ran off…. But you know, we have to trust Freed…. If we start turning on each other, on our guildmates, it'll only end badly."

Alzack smiled. Even when injured by darkness magic, Bisca kept any fight up until it was won. "Fine," Alzack said gently. "If you trust him this much, even after all he did, I guess I have no choice but to trust him too."

Bisca smiled and put a hand on Alzack's cheek, which reminded him that he had decided to tell her that he loved her. "Hey, help me up," Bisca directed, and he half carried her up onto her feet. "Thanks, Alzack." She hooked an arm around his neck and started to walk forward, positive that they were close to the finish, but Alzack stopped her.

"Bisca, I have to tell you something." Alzack took her hand to unwind her arm from his neck, but once he did, he didn't let go. "For a while, actually, I've been meaning to tell you, but I told myself I'd finally tell you today. Bisca Mulan—"

Bisca put a finger to his lips to shut him up and gave him a fleeting kiss on the cheek, his smooth, dark cheek that she'd always so admired. "Let's just finish the maze, okay, teammate?" she said, smiling.

He grinned. "Okay."

They walked the short distance of the maze that was left, Bisca's arm around Alzack's neck and his around her waist. When they came to the center, a circular clearing with a large clock that showed the time as nine thirty on the ground, they found that most of the thirteen mages were already there, all with times written above their heads. Everyone was glaring at Freed, whose eyes were wide, except for Laxus, who stood next to Freed under the same archway and just glared back at everyone else. Bisca felt terrible for Freed, knowing that everyone else must've had the same idea as Alzack. She just caught Laxus and Freed's eyes and gave them a sympathetic smile. Alzack, on the other hand, saw everyone's glares and knew his old accusation had been correct.