Ok, this is probably the last chapter before we begin the whole, 'oh sweet Mavis a dragon it's freaking gigantic and nightmarish and stuff we're all gonna die' part. Also, a new OC will be appearing, she was suggested to me by another author named Warrant-for-Arrest. She was supposed to be working on a one-shot that involved Draconem Heart, but I'm not sure if she's finished it yet, if she does, it's to be called 'Thorn Road' if you'd like to read it! Now, please enjoy!
Sting and Rogue arrived at the very back tower, farthest from the Dragon's hangout. Without a single word, they entered, walking up the spiral stairs and climbing the ladder into the cozy sitting room.
They couldn't have imagined a more unexpected sight.
Gajeel's cold steely eyes gazed lazily over to them before he blew out a breath between his pointed teeth.
"Oh, great, now we're a complete set."
"Don't act like you were expecting us to bail out!" Sting snapped as he entered the room and collapsed into the armchair next to Laxus's.
"But I did." Gajeel said, sprawled in his own armchair, he raised a gloved hand and waved it nonchalantly at the white dragonslayer.
Laxus was sitting, legs up on the coffee table and crossed, arms crossed, listening to his sound pod. He still opened one eye to see who'd settled next to him before closing it again.
"Well, who wants to make up a club name? This could be our meeting room, we all run here when we want to hide. Orchid even grew a freaking garden on the roof."
Onyx was lying on the carpeted floor, legs kicked up against the wall, he was looking up at all of the other's upside-down. The room was circular, large enough for ten to sit, the rest were on the heavily carpeted ground. The carpet was a rich red with gold vine prints across it, the velvet, over stuffed furniture mirrored this, with dark wood feet and armrest and soft, red and gold surfaces.
Their was a large coffee table in the center of the room, same dark wood and carved feet.
There were two sets of armchairs with small end tables in between them to either side of the room, two long couches were separating them, all surrounding the center table.
"Oh, great, dragonslayer's assemble." Misty was lying on the floor, just a little bit past Onyx's head.
"Y-Y-You know, it's kinda nice we're all together."
Orchid pointed out softly, she was seated beside Cobra in the middle of the couch, Cobra to the left end, leaning on the armrest, looking bored.
Rogue raised an eyebrow at Cobra, silently asking his question.
Cobra rolled his eyes and returned to staring at the doused fireplace.
"Do you think I wanna be stuck in a room with Titania or any of those other Fairy's?"
"I take offense to that even though I'm not a fairy anymore!"
Natsu exclaimed, pointing straight up, he, too, was lying flat on his back on the floor to the opposite side of the table from Misty and Onyx.
Rogue settled onto the other couch, Wendy was sitting to the other side of the couch, knees pulled up to her chest, she had changed to her black pleated skirt and red long sleeved jacket with the black accents.
"Wait, why are you three here?"
Sting asked, pointing to Onyx, Misty, and Orchid.
"Orchid followed Cobra, Misty followed Orchid, and I followed Misty."
Onyx said bluntly.
"Ok then..." Sting said, shrugging.
They all sat there in comfortable silence for a few minutes before their enhanced hearing picked up voices on the stairs below.
Moving quickly, not wanting to be discovered in their secret sanctuary that hid them from the visiting wizards, Wendy rolled off of the couch, crawled across the floor, causing her high blue socks to wrinkle, and slid the bolt that locked the tower hatch home.
Not even a second later the door rattled, someone had climbed the ladder and was pushing up on the hatch.
"I thought you said you saw Gajeel go up her, Levy-nee!" Romeo exclaimed, Gajeel frowned when he realized he'd been spotted in his escape.
"I swear I did, but maybe I was wrong about the last hallway." Levy murmured.
Wendy's eyes were wide, was she hearing right? Because if she was hearing right, the voice of the one pushing on the hatch was very familiar.
She glanced back at the others, who all gave her a silent 'ok' nod.
Waiting until she'd heard him descend back to the floor from the ladder, Wendy unlocked and opened the hatch, slipping out onto the ladder and shutting it behind her before any of the others could be seen.
"Wendy!" Romeo cried as Wendy began her descent.
Wendy pretended to look surprised.
"Romeo! What are you doing here?"
She asked as she slid down the ladder's side rungs and dropped down onto the floor.
"I...well...I really wanted to...help fight the dragon! Thats it, dragon..."
Romeo stuttered, Levy, standing behind him, waved to gain Wendy's attention and mouthed.
'He misses you' to her.
Wendy smiled at the boy in front of her.
"So it's not because you missed me?" She asked, pretending to sound disappointed.
"No! Of course I missed you! Really, I did, Fairy Tail just isn't the same without you guys!" Romeo exclaimed quickly.
Wendy suddenly wrapped her arms around Romeo and hugged him.
"I missed you too."
Romeo was as red as Natsu's flames as he hugged her back.
"So, what's up there?"
Wendy really didn't want their refuge to be revealed, even though it wasn't official that they all always gathered there, it was becoming a trend.
"Oh nothing, just a little nook I hang out in sometimes, I really was just trying to get a bit of space, honestly, I don't come up here all to often."
She said as she walked down the stairs, taking a few running steps to jump on Levy in a hug.
"I missed you, Levy!" She sang, spinning the bluenette in a circle before skipping off down the stairs.
"C'mon, Romeo, you too! I want to show you around!"
Levy's matchmaker instincts kicked in.
"Oh, I'm going to head back to the Dragon's hangout place and look for Gajeel there, you guys go ahead, have fun!" She said as they reached the bottom of the spiral stairs, Levy moving off toward the hangout, orange dress swaying in time with her hips.
Wendy was actually quite happy about this.
"C'mon, I'll introduce you too some of my friends here!" She exclaimed, dragging Romeo off by the hand, heading for the courtyard.
"Chameleon!"
"Will you please stop that?"
"But you are!"
"I am not in any way related to a lizard!"
"Sure...Chameleon!"
"Why are you even here if all your doing is insulting me?"
A girl with bright orange hair cropped messily about her head, so short it just barely covered the nape of her neck and the bangs hung haphazardly in her round deep brown eyes. She was wearing a black and yellow jacket with the top right half of the jacket up to the zipper being black, the other half being yellow, and vice versa across the bottom half. She wore worn old dark colored jeans with holes beginning to form on the skidded out knees.
She was dancing around the bench Cole was sitting on, the two of them were out in the courtyard and Wendy had just tugged Romeo through the large double doors outside.
The girl was currently practicing cartwheels and dive rolls, stopping only to tease Cole about his color changing.
"Jack, stop it! He can't help changing color!" Wendy instantly leapt to Cole's defense, and the boy looked rather relieved the youngest dragonslayer had arrived.
"Sure Marvell, like your puny wind blasts will do anything!"
"Yeah?"
"Sure! You'd be down and out if you got stung by a bumblebee! Weakling Cloud Girl!"
"It's Sky Maiden!"
"Tomboy, I don't know where you picked up that nick name, but I think that the Scarlet Rose is a bit more professional."
"Tomboy!? Sure, like you can talk, your hairs so short and messy, everyone thought you were a boy when you showed up!"
"Not true! And at least my hair won't get in the way of a fight!"
"My hair doesn't hinder me! It's beautiful!"
"I'm sure it's gorgeous to a couple of squirrels looking for a home to fix up!"
Romeo was shocked to see this new side of Wendy as she took a few steps away from Romeo, Cole gestured frantically.
"Dude, I don't know who the heck you are but get out of there right now!"
He exclaimed, Romeo didn't bother to ask why his clothes and hair had transmuted from greens and poisonous scarlets to a several shades of purple. Cole knew exactly why, when he realized this kid was a flare mage.
Purple flare, huh? That's really rare...wonder if he's gonna be a new member?
Cole thought to himself.
Romeo heeded Cole's warning an backpedaled away from Wendy just in time.
"SKY DRAGON ROAR!"
Wendy charged and blasted at the girl.
"I'll show you Jack! I'll teach you a lesson this time!" She screeched as the roar struck with deafening impact.
"Sorry, sweetheart, but armored roses are a bit tougher than a breeze!"
Jack had waved her hand and summoned a shield of dark green dangerous looking vines with both gorgeous scarlet roses and dangerous looking red tipped thorns on them.
Wendy ground her teeth in fury as she erupted at Jack in rage.
"Sky dragon wing attack!" She shrieked, cracking her arms down and around, bending the tornado force whips of air around Jack's vines and into the caster herself.
Jack flew backwards but performed a backflip mid air, throwing out one arm and pulling her weight earthward again.
Her plain black boots dug into the soft earth of the turf field and she launched herself at Wendy again.
She raised up one hand and two vines broke through the ground and reached for the sky.
"Arc of the Armored Rose! Thorn dance!"
The crimson tipped thorns launched toward Wendy, but with a wave of her arms, Wendy knocked the thorns away with gusts of wind.
"Sky dragon roar!" She blasted another column of wind at her rival, who leapt and dodged out of the way.
"Ha! So predicable, Cloud Girl!"
"It's Sky Maiden!" Wendy barked.
"Same difference, 'sides, your cleavage ain't really cutting it to be considered a 'maiden'! Maybe next lifetime!"
That was it.
"SECRET ART! SKY DRILL!"
Wendy hurtled across the earth, charging Jacqueline with her most dangerous spell.
"All out, eh? ARC OF THE ARMORED ROSE! VINE DRILL!"
A drill of swirling, gnashing vines, thorns, and roses formed in front of Jack and the two were nearly at each other when another spell call echoed.
"TRANSFER MAGIC! FUNNEL!"
Jack and Wendy both let out simultaneous gasps of surprise as they felt their magic energy being pulled out of them, causing their drill attacks to dissipate before they could strike.
Cole had both arms out, each had a magic circle spinning around his fingertips, his teeth were gritting and eyes were pinned shut as he felt two incredibly powerful magics claw their ways into his heart, causing her clothes and hair to become a mishmash of white, blue, red, and green.
With a bark of pain, Cole finished his spell and dropped to his knees, slamming his palms to the grassy ground.
Letting out another half held back scream, he blasted out all of the foreign power.
Gail's of wind blew violently all around him, his hair whipping crazily about his head, the power coming into him, being increased, and expelled causing all of the other kids nearby to cross their arms over their faces as giant thorny vines erupted from the grown, flailing all around them before draining back down into the ground.
Cole leaned heavily on his arms, sitting back on his knees and taking a few shaky breaths before shouting.
"STOP IT! Just, stop it! You guys fight all the time! Why!? She was teasing me, is that a good reason to get into a fight that could tear up half the turf! Just, cut it out! Or I will drain your powers again, and that's not fun for any of us! Got it?" He demanded.
The girls scowled, crossed their arms, and snapped their heads away from each other.
"Fine!" They exclaimed in unison.
Romeo made to help Cole up but he flinched away from him.
"Don't." He snapped.
Romeo put up his hands, surprised at the cold behavior, and backed off.
Cole sighed and pushed himself up.
"No offense, but if you were to directly touch me, I can almost guarantee you'd wind up passed out on the floor."
Romeo blinked in confusion and Cole didn't bother trying to explain.
"I'm heading to the dorms." Cole walked off, and both his guild mates looked on, noticing his trembling hands.
"I guess we went a bit far, the chameleon got pretty pissed." Jack muttered nonchalantly, tucking her arms behind her head.
"I can NOT believe you!"
Wendy yelled.
"The more powerful the mage the more painful the absorption! Cole just had to drain both of our powers, do you have any idea how horrible that must have been? For no reason but a silly grudge! I can't deal with you anymore! C'mon Romeo!"
Wendy whirled, seized the befuddled Romeo by the hand, and dragged him off of the turf and into the castle.
Jack stared after them, arms still tucked behind her head, with an expression both of blind innocence and of hurt.
"What did I do?"
Well, that's it! Also, IMPORTANT, I want all of you to go to my profile and vote on my poll, it's for a very pivotal question I've been struggling with and the results of the poll may not even effect my decision, but it will help me figure out what to do, the question? Will Romeo quit Fairy Tail to join Draconem Heart or not? I've been hinting toward this since the early chapters of the first story! SO GO VOTE! Now then, what do you think of Jack? I hope you liked her! Please favorite, please follow, please review, please go vote on my pole! Thanks!