The boat sailed against the blue waters. Happy peered down at it, wondering what kinds of fish swum within it. Evergreen, who was standing close, watched the other members from behind her glasses. "Those morons..." she uttered under her breath; low enough that Happy did not seem too noticed.
Bickslow, hearing one his famous nickname, came trotting over to the two. "Heard there were beasts under the waters that swallow ships whole." His flying wooden 'babies' repeated his last three words, "Swallow ships whole."
Happy dropped down to the ground, gulping in the progress. He was the one suppose to eat fish, not the other way around. "Is it true?"
"Why do ya think people don't leave Fi-"
"I have also heard there were mermaids that haunted cliffs near the shorelines. They allure the moron males to their doom," Evergreen bluntly stated while pushing up her glasses. A glint reflected off from her lovely glasses.
"Mermaids?"
"You know, half fish, half human."
Bickslow laughed, "There's also Mermen who hides in the coves, looking for their next prey. Gullible women!"
"Half fish? Can I eat them?" Happy questioned with a tilt of his tiny head.
"They're half human as well!" The girl screeched. "Don't you know anything about mermaids?! Half human, half fish!"
"I know! Mermaid Heel!" He started imaging a fish person. His head was wide eye, floppy, and scaly, as his bottom half was smooth, pair of legs, and an extra organ; the fish part was the head, while the human was the bottom part. "...But the tail part is the best part!"
The brunet slapped Happy on the head. "That's not how it is!"
"So their junk wide opened," Bickslow, sharing the same thought as Happy, stated with a tilt of his head. That would be painful for the Mermen to be swimming on the bottom. He could only imagine how many times it would hit, and he cringed.
"You pervert!" Evergreen slapped Bickslow across his face; which was still shielded by his knight helmet. "You both are idiots!" She huffed and left them behind.
"Man, what's her problem?" He shrugged and leaned against the railings.
"She's the one who brought it up!" The small furball agreed. The two nodded as if in an understanding with each other.
Across the ship, Evergreen peered inside of the boy's room. Laxus was laying in his bed, listening to his music, as Freed established a rune over him. A spell to counteract against the Dragonslayer's motion sickness. It was working as Laxus stayed his normal skin tone instead of a pale ghostly color. "Once you leave this room, the rune is broken." Freed vacantly stated as he took off inside of the ship, now that Laxus was safe and sound.
Because the runes drain Freed's stamina, the spell was limited to the room, so that the mage could rest throughout the night without concentrating on the rune. The woman leaned against the wall and stared at the painting above his head. "This is the first time I seen you on transportation."
"Yeah?" He sourly stared at her.
"Just for her."
Laxus lowered his headphones back over his ears and closed his eyes. He wasn't going to listen to Evergreen's rumbles about this and that. He would rather face the motion sickness than be confronted with Evergreen. The girl thought he was crushing on the Pinky, but there was no way. He huffed and relaxed his neck on the pillows. There was no way, he told himself again. It was just Ever and her gossip.
"We came along to help you find her. Everyone knows you have a crush on her, just admit it! Once we save her, you can finally get over with it and tell her." Evergreen was once again on a rant that Laxus heard no word of. "It's about time for you two to get together and settle it; everyone's tired of waiting. It was bad enough with Bisca and Alzack, and look at them! They got a child together now!" Laxus nodded his head to the beats of his rock music; completely ignoring Evergreen as she stood in the doorway. She was gesturing and moving her arms as she went on and on.
Bickslow was watching. He didn't know who he should feel bad for; they were both pitiful in his eyes.
Freed came back onto the deck with a napkin rolled full of food. He leaned over the railings and nibbled on the chucks of meat. That was the only thing on deck were caught fishes; in which Happy enjoyed. The others were starting to get tired of the endless amounts of fish. He picked up the rest and handed it over to Happy. He felt like he was going to barf.
Happy took the napkin and began to finish the rest. "Thumks!" he said through his filled mouth.
"We been spoilin' this brat," Bickslow stated suddenly. Freed side glanced at Bickslow for him to continue, but he didn't.
"I'm not spoiled!" Happy pouted.
"He is right," Freed shrugged. "We have paid for your every meal, including ours that you end up eating."
"I don't have money!" the cat lied through his teeth. His jewels were untouched in his backpack.
Bickslow turned around and stared at the fishing boat they were granted to stay the night on. Without looking at the blue cat, Bickslow uttered "Guess you're a stray cat."
"B-But I'm Natsha's! She's my partner!"
'In certain countries, that statement would get you sentence to lifetime in jail…' Freed thought. If he said something like that out loud, others would think he's a pervert, even more so than Bickslow, so he kept his mouth shut.
"Now you aren't." Bickslow stated as blunt as a swordsman's training sword.
"B-B-b-but!" Happy stumbled. He shook on the railing and dropped the chunks of fish. Tears started to run down his face. He's been holding in every since Natsha left; keeping hope that everyone would find her. Just like always.
Stray Cat.
It hit home.
It meant he didn't belong to anyone. Natsha wasn't here; she wasn't his partner.
"Bickslow! You idiot! I left for one minute!" Ever swiped back outside and stomped on the soul user's foot. His babies echoed his grunt and surrounded Ever in revengeful aura.
"What?!" His stuck out his tongue, "It's the truth!" He shrugged and calmed down his babies.
"Don't listen to that idiot." She stated to the cat; but he still cried. "Look what you've done!"
"Happy, Natsha will come back. Laxus will make sure of that," Freed tried to calm the shaken cat down.
"W-What if she doesn't?! I-I-I was r-right there! A-and now I'm just a stray cat!"
"Stray cat? But everyone in the guild is your family."
"She w-was my mother!"
"Lisanna?"
"Zombie mother who everyone thought was dead."
"See, she's still your mom."
"Backup."
"Which still counts."
…
"I wish Freed was here…" Levy moaned over the several maps and opened books. When it came to research, her and Freed were always paired together. The others in the guild were less than knowledgeable. The others tried to make up for the lack of Freed, but they were doing poorly. Lucy was contained by reading the books; pulling her away from any real work. Mirajane stared at the map and tipped on the table; which nudged on Levy's nerves. The rest of Shadow Gear were doing their best, but it all failed.
Jet raced across the room and took a pile high of books and laid them on the table. None of them were on the subject at hand, but Levy didn't have the heart to tell him. He was enjoying helping her, so much he was humming.
Droy was less than helpful. He tried to use Levy's reading glasses and somehow ended up reading the book backwards, or read the wrong books; thanks to Jet piling more and more books. He has a bad habit of spilling everything in his way; luckily they moved all of the ink bottles away from him now.
Unlike the other two, Pantherlily stood in the corner and stared. He was more of a warrior than a bookworm. He knew the basics of running a kingdom and none of that came into play of searching for Natsha.
"These countries have nothing to do with each other!" Levy cried out. "Minstrel is overpopulated woodland! Desierto is a never ending desert that is in aged long battles! And Midi…who knows anything about it?"
"Maybe it's something more specific than that?" Mira suggested. "Is there anything common like mountains? I believe Desierto and Minstrel have them?"
"Then…why would Freed include Midi with these two? It could have already been counted out having no mountains. And all of the other countries have mountains, other than Stella and Midi."
"Gray! Mira! Erza! Gajeel! Wendy! Levy! Juvia! Come in here!" Master's voice echoed throughout the building.
Mirajane looked up from the map and gave Levy a small pitiful smile. "Shall we go?" Levy nodded and she walked out with Mira. She winced as she left the Shadow Gear to their own inventions inside of the library.
All of them surrounded Master and the wooden table. Reedus was behind him, finished drawing on the air whiteboard. "You seven volute-"
"I didn't," Gajeel stated bluntly.
"Or could be some use for the tracing," Master finished as he narrowed his eyes at the Iron Dragonslayer. "Now that we have found their destination, you seven are being sent there. Two others are also joining this journey."
The door opened and two teenagers and two exceed walked inside.
Sting and Rogue.
They gazed over the guild with admiring grins, before landing on the small master.
"Just in time, Sting-san and Rogue-san. Sorry for the short notice."
"No problem."
"With this, we have four Dragonslayers in our mitts," he unrolled copies of the maps on the table, "Now that I have more time looking over these maps, there are several places, and I want each one accounted for. Desipho Mountains. Midi. Tambora Volcano. Guraran Desert. You nine will be paired off and sent to these points. Wendy and Erza will travel to Desipho Mountains. Levy and Gajeel to Tambora Volcano. Sting, Gray, and Juvia will be sent to Guraran Desert. Finally, Rouge and Mirajane will travel to Midi."
"Tambora Volcano?" Levy raised her eyebrow. It was only a small landmark on the large map; nothing to compare with Desipho Mountains. Even Midi was roughly larger than that.
"Minstrel is a large country, so we need to cover more land."
"A dragon slayer in each pair?"
"Are you sure about these teams?"
"Basically, yes." Master answered both of them. If this matter had something to do with dragons, it would only be right to have a Dragon Slayer in each pair. "We are in a rush, and the next train to Cedar Town is at eight.
I know, I lied about Lisanna and Elfman joining. I just didn't want to reveal Rouge and Sting; well, mostly I thought of it the last minute because Elfman and Lisanna doesn't seem to have much of an impact on this story (maybe even less than Lucy). But, yeah, finally they are on the right track. Which is strange that Levy didn't noticed the volcanoes (but there is only a few marked on those maps, Freed had to mark the others). But, now they are a day ahead of the Fairy Tail mages; a day that could make a difference.
EpicAsianOrangeTiger26: Gajeel and Levy seems like a must...I was really about to pair those two with others just to see the reactions. A...and you forgot about Lisanna and Elfman... (even though those two weren't going in the first place).
rinpup14: Levy and Gajeel was right, and thanks for the suggestions. Maybe Droy and Jet will travel behind them to watch for anything that Gajeel does.
Danizinhachan: Well, now that he's finally calmed down, he seen his mistake. One of the pairs are on the right lead. And, I can't wait until I get to the reunion of the two of them (Natsha and Laxus). It's true, those with English as their first language, makes the most mistakes since they are careless with the language.
darkhuntressxir: There was so many suggestions with Gray, Mira, Elfman, and Lisanna, so I just figured on keeping ELfman and Lisanna since they haven't done much in the first place in this story. But thanks for the suggestions, at least Levy and Gajeel are paired together (hey, maybe Droy and Jet will follow them). It will take a lot to get him to admit it, as seen in this chapter.