A/N: And here's the weekly update! I've been writing so I always have a few chapters in store but recently have been having a Writer's Block. It'll lift after a little, I promise. Our first look at Sabertooth, so this'll be fun~

Thanks for reading!

She was at the beach, the cerulean waves lapping at her feet as she stood on the soft white sand, her feet sinking into the ground with a pool of water surrounding them. She inhaled: the air was peaceful and tranquil, with the tiniest tinge of salt wafting around her.

The sound of the ocean was the only thing that she could hear, the waves crashing and breaking as they hit the shoreline. The Sun was high overhead, slightly to the West side, signaling that it was close to noon. A few clouds were in the blue sky that was the color of pale blue detergent, and slowly the wind made them edge closer and closer to where she was standing.

Everything was perfect.

At these moments, she wondered where her sister was. Was she looking up at the same sky like Ava was? Or had she had been gone, disappeared from their world already?

When they were younger, their parents would bring them to the seashore like this on little trips, and they would always stay in a nice white cottage that smelled like whitewash and was directly next to the ocean. Ava wondered if it was still there.

Just as she was reminiscing her past, a voice had called out to her, startling her out of her thoughts. "Heh, never expected to meet Fairy Tail's, or should I say now Blue Pegasus's, Golden Mage in a small sleepy town like this."

She turned to face the person who had spoken, and met electric blue eyes as she gave him a small smirk. "Fancy meeting you here. I've heard of you, Sting: one of the Twin Dragons of Sabertooth." The blonde haired mage smirked.

"Yep, that's me. Sorry to say that I'm not too surprised that you know me."

"You know, kiddo…" The blonde mage twitched as the girl leered at him, her amber eyes narrowed. "Arrogance is a very unsightly trait."

"But one needs confidence if he should succeed in life." Another voice resounded from Ava's left, and her mouth twitched as she wasn't sure if she should feel honored, surprised, or flat out annoyed as she turned to meet the obsidian eyes of Rogue, another Dragon Slayer in Sabertooth.

"True enough, dearest." She shrugged, basking in the fact that Rogue's eyebrow twitched for a moment before he smoothed his expression to hide any annoyance.

"I can't understand why…" And Ava's attention was caught as Sting nearly growled in frustration as he ran a hand through his messy blonde hair. "Why would you join Blue Pegasus of all guilds when you had so many better options?"

"Like Sabertooth?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Exactly. We're the best in Fiore: Fairy Tail's no more, and we all know it." Ava did not flinch at his words, although her eyes flashed with some kind of emotion that had swelled up in her chest. Sting continued, plowing through his rant. "So why, why do you pick one of the more weaker guilds that completely pale in comparison to Sabertooth even though our Master even invited you to join?"

"Such a kid." The boy twitched again, and even Rogue withheld a smile as he stopped Lector and Frosch from stepping in.

"It's simple: your guild's beliefs don't fit with my morals." Ava hummed, although a small stab of hurt hit her as she looked at Sting and saw salmon pink hair instead. They really were too similar. "Fairy Tail's beliefs were focused on the bonds of camaraderie, and the willing to do anything for those close to you. My personal beliefs are quite similar to those, although I might not go as extreme as the guild once did. Its morals can be perceived as a little naive depending on the person. Sabertooth however…"

Her eyes darkened. "It has no light. It is running on pure power alone, but that much won't take the guild very far."

"We've been doing fine for the past few years." Sting fired back, Lector nodding resolutely behind his master.

"But you will inevidently fall to a guild that has both emotions and power. Emotions make you strong, not weak." A sudden grin founds its way on her face as she bounced upwards, thinking that her team was probably waiting for her in the town, and must have been getting worried by this time.

"Well, that's what I think, at least. Everyone has their own set of morals. I really need to leave now, so adieu!" As she began walking back into town, she paused for a moment and turned around, her copper eyes glinting. "It's been a pleasure talking to you, kiddos. I'm sure we'll meet again."

"We'd better…" Sting muttered as the girl walked away, and he turned to face the sea, mumbling nearly inaudibly as he still felt his cheeks aflame from her various comments, "I don't get what's so good about her anyways…"

Despite popular belief that Blue Pegasus solely focused on looks with a little touch in magic, the guild was anything but that. They might not be as competitive as other guilds (say, Sabertooth), but they prided themselves in making it in the top four every year, and that was even without their strongest members entering the fray.

Several rumors began to fly that Jura and Lyon were entering this year to represent Lamia Scale, and that in turn prompted other guilds to bring their strongest into the games. Not to mention, an unknown factor would come into play this year: Fairy Tail's core members' return.

So, with the pressure upon them, the Trimens began training furiously. Hibiki had been the one to come up with the idea to train up in the mountains, although several other factors had obviously contributed to the decision.

That was why now Ava, Eve, Hibiki, Ren, and Ichiya were all squished into one train cabin: Ava sitting between Eve and Ren, and Hibiki sitting next to Ichiya in the team leader's sparkly glory. At the moment, Ava and Eve were asleep, the two youngest mages leaning against one another's shoulders as Ren sat uncomfortably next to them. He crossed his hands over his chest and sighed, resigning himself to his fate.

Ava suddenly mumbled something in her sleep and leaned her head against his shoulder, Hibiki raising an eyebrow at Ren to which the Air Mage blushed and hissed, "Don't. Say. A. Word."

His blonde teammate gave him a devious smile, pulling something out of his bag and with horrified surprise Ren realized it was a Camera Lacrima, and with a flash of light Hibiki gave him a triumphant smile before slipping the Lacrima back into his bag.

Ren wondered if his teammate could hear his silent death threats.

"Eve, wake up." Ava shook his shoulders gently, rubbing her own sleepy eyes herself as she nearly yawned, turning around to face her other teammates. "I think he needs more sleep."

"Of course, me-" Ichiya's proclamation was cut off by Hibiki stuffing his hand over the man's mouth, bringing his other finger to his lips in a hushing motion as the orange haired man pouted, sparkles emanating from him.

"In the meanwhile, Ichiya-sama, you should probably get your rest too." Hibiki gave him a bright smile that sent shivers down Ava's spine as she felt a bad premonition as if her teammate was about to do something evil as the Information-Mage turned to her, grinning brightly. "Ava-chan, would you like to see some of the pictures I've captured of Re-" He was cut off by the desperate figure of Ren literally jumping up and leaping across the train cabin to shut his mouth, hissing something in the blonde's ear that Ava couldn't catch as she tilted her head confusedly.

"D-don't worry about it Ava-chan, I'll show you them later." Hibiki shivered as he watched Ren's malicious aura intense for a second before residing warily.

"Okay…" Ava sweatdropped. She craned her head to look at Ren, but the Air Mage was perfectly normal as he shot her a bright smile and shook his head as if to say 'it's nothing'. Ava shrugged and just attributed it to her teammates being weird again: weirdness was a common occurrence in the magical world no matter where she went, she concluded.

Suddenly brightening, her amber eyes glowed as she nearly pressed herself against the window. "I think we're almost here!" And true enough, as soon as those words left her mouth, the train began to slow down as an announcement came over the loudspeakers that they were about to arrive at the last station.

O_O

Several minutes later, the Trimens were left at the station platform, their luggage in hand or on the ground as the train gave off a loud noise before taking off again, heading back towards civilization. They were left at the base of a giant mountain, Lania, and according to the locals Ava had interviewed the only way to get up there to secluded training grounds was by hiking up the treacherous paths. Her shoulders slumped at the thought of hiking as she stretched her legs that were slightly stiff from the long train ride.

"Well, Ren, I don't suppose you can just lift us and our luggage all the way up there, can you?" She mused, and the black-haired man gave a shake of his head, saying something about how it was too heavy and too high, plus the fact that they were there for training. She sighed before suddenly perking up, turning to her teammate. "Can you transport just the luggage and yourself and Ichiya-san up to the training grounds? I already booked a stay at the inn there for the next two months." The last month before the Grand Magic Games would just be relaxation back at the guild and the journey to Magnolia, Master Bob saying something about how it would be bad if they didn't make it back for the Preliminary Rounds and plus they needed to relax after their intense training.

Ren nodded. "I can do that, but will you guys be fine?"

"We'll be fine." Hibiki's mouth twitched upwards. "After all, that is quite logical. Out of all of us, Ren is most equipped to these kinds of things and we need someone to guard the luggage, plus the luggage would slow us down. Ichiya-sama has obviously already mastered these sort of things, and frankly, Ren can't go alone. Everyone, give your baggage to Ren. This will be good practice for him to sustain his magic for a long time as well. Ren, your thoughts?"

"I can manage. Just make sure not to get caught up by mountain bandits or anything like that." Ren slung their bags over his shoulder, carrying the luggages in his other hands as he concentrated his magic so air swirled around the general area of him, Ichiya, and the luggages. "See ya." And with that, the mage was gone.

"Okay, boys, let's go!" Ava cheered, Hibiki and Eve pumping up their fists and cheering in much less excitement than the girl as they began trudging their way towards the mountain. "Hooray…"

As they travelled along the rocky and dense forage, following the path that winded up the mountain, they did so in silence, each team member contemplating their own thoughts. Ava was thinking about Team Natsu, and how they were most likely training furiously at the moment (the assumption was definitely off, but she didn't know that). Eve was wondering how the forest could be so thick, and who made the paths (an honest question, but unanswerable for the locals had told them the paths had been there as long as they could remember). Hibiki was contemplating what the chances were of being attacked, when suddenly his eyes narrowed and he cursed Ren for jinxing it (although he might have been guilty a little himself).

"Ava, Eve." He whispered, and both were jolted out of their thoughts, but before Hibiki could give them any more warning the bandits that were hiding in the trees had jumped down, and the world had turned into a frenzy of jump, dodge, kick, punch.

Ava cursed as she narrowly dodged an attack from the cutlass of one of the thugs (really, what was with all these cliche scenarios?), running so she could face back-to-back with her teammates as she gave them a cursory glance to make sure neither had been majorly hurt before focusing on the battle. Eve would be fine, but Hibiki was more suited to battle of wits than actually hand-to-hand combat.

Her hands instinctively moved to her side where her bag of scrolls usually was when she cursed again, realizing that she had given it to Ren when he had taken off to the mountain.

...

...

This was not good.

She would have to resort to the harder, more dangerous way to use her magic: without equipment, and singularly using her body to create seals.

Ava turned to face the thugs, her hands inconspicuously moving from side to side as she began forming a complex array of seals in the air, the pattern glowing for a second before the bandit in front of her began having his magic to deplete. The man seemed to realize what was happening and he cursed, warning his comrades before he was completely trapped by a cage of vines.

Ava blinked. "This is a useful kind of magic. I should seal it in one of my scrolls later."

"What did you just do to our leader?" One of the more bold members of the thieves piped up, and Ava's eyes saddened when she realized that the person was no more than a boy, and he had to live in this kind of lifestyle.

"I stored his magic in air, unsealed it so it wouldn't be stored in the air, and attacked him with it, effectively 'reflecting' it if you want to think about it that way." What they didn't know was that she couldn't store magic in versatile objects like that for very long, but Ava excluded that little tidbit of information as she grinned as several of the men stepped back, looking a little intimidated. Hibiki, however, shared a glance with her as she smiled innocently at him. Never hurts to tell a tiny white lie here and there.

Within a few moments, their team wrapped up the battle, Eve creating an ice prison to keep all the thieves locked up as the group of bandits tried to break it with no avail. "Done," he said somewhat triumphantly as he ran a hand through his now messy blonde hair, frowning slightly at his disheveled look.

All three of them jumped when they suddenly heard a low, but distinctively feminine, voice say, "Whoa, what happened here?"

Immediately, they turned and tensed, ready to meet the next challenge, but to their surprise they met familiar chocolate brown eyes, along with several other familiar faces. "Cana, Elfman, Lisanna, and Mira?" Ava identified each of the people standing stunned across the clearing.

"Hi!" Mira waved, seemingly the first to recover from the sight of the Trimens (or at least the remainder of them) standing over a group of fallen bandits. It was probably because she had done the same many times before.

"Yo." Elfman nodded at her acknowledgingly, his hands crossed over his muscular chest.

"It's nice to see you again, Ava-san." Lisanna bowed. Ava had only been 13 when the girl had 'died', and despite that by that time she had been in the guild for nearly 3 years she seldom talked to the younger Strauss. Maybe she should start talking to Lisanna more: the girl seemed the most level-headed one of the group (Mira didn't really count considering what she was back then).

"What's up~" Cana took a sip of her drink, the least surprised of their chance meeting.

"Why are you all here?" Hibiki asked, voicing all of their thoughts.

"Well, after the whole debate on who would be the people competing in the Grand Magic Games the guild had, we decided that we'd all go and train in smaller groups at different places and come back to see who was stronger." Cana stretched her legs, holding a flask of whiskey in her right hand and taking a sip. "We decided to head to the mountains."

"Laxus's team went somewhere else too, and Natsu's team, minus Gajeel who wanted to go and do some secret training, headed to the beach." Lisanna piped up, the petite white-haired girl smiling at them kindly just as her sister did. "We've booked a stay here and we were walking up the mountain when we heard the commotion, but by the time we got here it seems like you all took care of it."

"Thank you for worrying about us." Hibiki and Eve were on her in an instant, telling Lisanna that did she know that she looked absolutely stunning today, especially with that hairstyle? And did she know that she looked more beautiful than ever before?

During all of this, Ava sighed as she wondered why she ever thought they had grown more mature after a long talk about how flirting ruined team dynamics, gazing up at the sky with eyes narrowed as if to ask 'why me?'.

It was going to be a long 2 months.

A/N: How was it? Not much action-well, plot-in this chapter, but I just want to get on with it because I have so much stuff planned for the GMG. Mwahahaha...

And sad to say I'm not doing the Key of the Starry Sky arc, mainly because there's no reason for Blue Pegasus to show up there and it would just looked forced. So...yeah. Shame, I somewhat liked that arc.

Anyways, I have a lot of nice ship/friendship moments ahead and complete humiliation for Lyon. But that's not new.

Thank you so much for all the reviews/favorites/follows/reads! I think last chapter had the best stats yet (looks at the Gray-Juvia-Lyon-Ava moment...I wonder why?). I feel really happy~ ^_^

So I was thinking I should do those question-of-the-chapter things for fun, so despite I put descriptions of characters I know everyone likes to imagine their own thing...

Q: What do you imagine Ava to look like?