[Last updated: 04/23/18]
A day after Natsu, Lucy, and I made our return to Magnolia and reunited father and son, I was about ready to make off for the first of the handful of jobs in this new world I found myself inhabiting. But in order to do that, I needed information: specifically, the layout of the land around me, and as much of it as possible. I looked around the guild and I eventually found in an immense two … perhaps three story floor-to-ceiling library detailed maps of the city of Magnolia and of the surrounding lands of the country I was in, which they indeed called Fiore. The collection even included splendid elevation maps. Bonus!
I brought all of them close together and after looking around to make sure no one was nearby, I positioned my hand near the right edge of one of the maps of Magnolia. 'Ready Mira? I'm going to scan these images into system memory.' Yep! Go ahead. A soft blue light began to emanate from my hand and I slowly passed it from right to left and then top to bottom to make sure I had gotten everything. I then moved on to the maps of Fiore and scanned them as well.
I must have been paying too much attention to the process because the second I finished up scanning everything I needed into suit memory, master Makarov came in the door behind me from just outside sensor range. I wonder how long he was there watching us. "Ah, if it isn't one of our new members! Eh, forgive me son, what did you say your name was again?" Initially caught off guard, I quickly lowered my hand and turned to meet the elder. "I'm Jai sir. Jai Mathers." He nodded. "Jai … Jai … hrmm." Curiosity got the better of me and I couldn't help but ask what was wrong. "Eh, nothing. The name just sounds … I don't know, foreign." He waved a hand around in the air the way one clears the air of dust or spider webs and looked at me with new purpose in his eyes.
"Anyway, that wasn't why I came here in search of you. I didn't know if you had left yet on your jobs, but …" He leaned over to one side and quickly studied what I had laid out in front of me, "… it seems you needed guidance as where to go, isn't that right?" Just who is this man; he seems to know much more than he's letting on … but then again, aren't we doing the same? "Yes sir. As I am new to these lands, I required access to detailed and elevation maps of the surrounding lands outside of Magnolia, as well as the city itself." At that, Makarov raised his hands to the impossibly tall shelves of books around us and exclaimed calmly, "Well, if its information you seek, the guild's library is the best place to seek it! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask myself or Mirajane; she catalogs and maintains the library and I'm old enough to remember the history!" The old man laughed slightly at his own joke before growing serious again. "Ahem. Do you have everything you need now?" I nodded. "Good. Since this is your first job, I have taken the liberty of helping you out by providing you with transportation to and from Lynna village, prepaid of course since you don't have any money, waiting outside." He extended his hand, which I shook. "Good luck. Save those kids and the town. Do the Fairy Tail guild proud." I saluted sharply. "Yes sir." It seems old habits are hard to break.
I walked outside to find a little horse drawn wagon waiting for me. The man sitting in the driver's seat looked over to me from under a hat (Which reminded me greatly of an oversized beret) and asked in a rough, heavily accented, gravelly voice, "You the one I'm supposed to take to Lynna village?" I nodded. "The trip's been prepaid, so here." The man flipped me a metal disk about a quarter the size of my palm that had a stylishly embossed image of a carriage and horse with a large 1 stamped out of the middle. I held the coin with two fingers and looked at it closely on both sides, the image never changed no matter how I twisted it. Before I could ask, the man spoke up again. "Since I can tell just by looking that youse the new kid on the block, Imma going to feel all charitable-like and give youse some advice, free of charge. That there's a token used by my company for those who prepay trips in advance, like you have. Since it wouldn't be a safe business practice to just take people at their word that they paid for our service ahead of time, the compromise was that on the first leg of their trip, the driver was to give one of these to anyone wanting a ride back to where they came from, providing they prepaid of course. They were to then just give the coin to the driver of whatever they climbed into next and tell them the destination." He paused for a moment to think. "It all sounds complicated when I say it like that, but it really isn't. In other words ... don't lose it kid, or you're taking the long trek back to where youse started!" I nodded and deposited the coin into storage with a soft blue glow and climbed into the cabin.
I looked outside to the receding landscape and reminisced about what happened earlier that day. Natsu, Lucy, and Happy took the job I had eyed the other day – the one that called for the destruction of a book. Lucy was all excited about her first job; she was running to and fro collecting things she needed. Natsu asked if I wanted to join in on the mission, to which I politely declined citing a few jobs of my own I had to do; after all, I still have my debts to repay. But, I promised that I'd join them from then on. That put a grin on his face; he clapped a hand on my shoulder and bade me good luck before they ran off.
I spent the intervening hours in a light snooze as I waited for my arrival at Lynna village. Once there, I waved to the driver as he rode off and looked at the village I was deposited in. There was indeed a wooden arch that displayed a cheery welcome to the village … but it looked like it hadn't had any maintenance done on it for a little while; plus, no one was there to welcome me in person. Strange. While I wasn't exactly expecting a parade at my arrival or anything, I was thinking there would be at least someone here to show me the way; apparently not. I slowly took a look around. Where were the inhabitants? Indeed, a great many of the various stores and businesses within sight were boarded up and it looked like no one's been around for quite a while – a veritable ghost town. I switched visual input to thermal and I found one of the larger boarded up buildings was lit up like a bonfire in reds, oranges, and yellows. Jackpot. I made my way to the building and gently knocked on the door.
"Hello? I'm from the Fairy Tail guild; there was a notice that you guys needed help with a band of thieves troubling your village?" For several moments, there was no sound, but then a shuffling and a cacophony of metallic clicks of several physical locking mechanisms disengaging could be heard. I remembered to present my shoulder pauldron first. The door opened a crack, and a frail old voice sounded from the gloom inside, "Are … are you sure?" A pause; presumably whoever answered the door was looking around me. "There's no one else with you? You're the only one that came?!" Another pause, then an eventual sigh. "Come on in young man. You'll catch your death of cold outside." I followed the old man inside and as he made his way around me to secure the door, I swapped thermal imaging for night vision. Someone nearby lit a candle, at which my visor immediately dimmed the display to compensate and I saw what must have been the remnants of the village's population – the adults and the elderly – packed inside this building cowering miserably in the darkness. They were garbed in filthy robes and coveralls; if I were made to guess, none of them had probably seen the light of day for some time. Forced in seclusion in their misery.
I was suddenly overcome with a desire to hug each of them and comfort them, but I stifled it because it wouldn't get anything done. D'aww … so you DO care … An old man then came up to me, gesticulating wildly while saying, "It's ok. He's from the Fairy Tail guild and he's here to help bring the life back into this village!" 'The life of the village?' What does he mean by that? Something about me must have indicated confusion because a woman who looked in her thirties came up to me from my left, "Don't mind him. That's just the way my grandfather talks, but he's right. By the 'life of the village', he of course means the children. Without them, we still could rebuild our town and set things back up, but …" She trailed off and sighed sadly, "Without the cheer they bring into our lives, what would be the point. We need to reclaim the lives that we were forced to put on hold thanks to those thieves."
I looked around before I spoke, "So it's safe to assume you need me to retrieve the children. What of the bandits?" The woman nodded. "Right. Bring them back here. We'll contact the Magic Council and have someone here to retrieve them so they can face due processing and punishment; as badly as we want those men gone, they need to pay for what they've done to our children and to our town. Also, if you could, try to bring back as much of what they took as you can. You do all that, and we'll reward you extremely handsomely." I began to protest gently, but I was cut off by a wagging finger close to my faceplate, to which I backed my head in response. She warned me, "Oh no. Don't you argue with me on this. You're doing dangerous work that should've been taken on by a team of six highly skilled mages. I insist you be paid in accordance. Think of it as hazard pay; because it is."
I thought for a second before relenting and asking what they knew of where the thieves were. It was then the old man from before – the woman's grandfather – spoke up again. He lamented, "They den like beasts in an old fortress built into the hills. Ironically it was originally built to be a protection against exactly what befell our fair village and now look at what they've done to it!" That piqued my curiosity. "Why, what else have they done to the fortress?" The elder looked sadly at me, "They've apparently broken through some of the walls and have begun mining into the mountain the fortress resides in in hopes of hitting an ore vein, or so I assume. It wouldn't be that important anywhere else, but long ago our ancestors carved their history into the walls of those hallowed halls. I don't think we'd be able to recover it at this point." I thought for a moment, "Carved into the walls, you say? Hmm … I make no promises, but I'll see what I can do." I could then see hope build in the old man's features, "You – you really mean it, sonny?" I looked at him and nodded, "Yeah. If there's anything I can do, I'll lend a hand."
The man's granddaughter showed me to a map on a nearby table with a detailed map of the compound and the surrounding lands. I scanned the map, Mira set a waypoint, and I saluted sharply. "I will have what's rightfully yours, the children, and the thieves brought back here as soon as I can."
About half an hour later, by utilizing my jetpack at full thrust, I made my way through the blindingly white frozen winter wonderland that the old fortress called home. I stopped and took cover when I came just within sight of the objective. I used the zoom feature in my helmet to see just what I was getting myself into.
Located just under two miles from me were a broken series of stone steps cut into the snowy mountainside. They led to a large stone entrance that had a massive stone arch looming low and wide above it; the arch wasn't one piece, rather many large pieces of rock made to fit one another in the shape of an arch. On each side of the entrance were large iron braziers that could hold massive fires within, however they had been extinguished for centuries judging from the disrepair. Just inside, I could see a small campfire with chairs and bedrolls. Cozy. Outside standing watch were three guards.
By the manner they held themselves, and going by what they wore ... these men, and presumably the whole lot of them, were thugs. I smiled; hired muscle. They never learn, do they? This was going to be easy. Off to one side of my visor, Mira's face appeared and looked in at me. So, what's the plan? Are you going to knock two of them out then deal with the one left kind of like what you did back on the ship?" I shook my head, "Nah … I don't think so. I want to try … something else this time." Then an idea came to me. "I think I'm going to take a page out of the Sanghelli handbook for intimidating your enemy – which, to be fair, is a pretty large book." She grinned at me, "Ahh. So a shock-and-awe tactic then?" I nodded. "Shock and awe." (Which may as well be the secondary, much more succinct title for said handbook)
I activated active camo and made my way up to the archway that overlooked the three guards. An errant rock tumbled down from where I was perched. I overheard one of them ask another, "What was that?" Another one looked around and drew his weapons, "I don't know …" There was a quite a notable pause before the third dumbly asked, "What was what?" The first one looked over to the third and sighed, "Oh, just the sound of you being the biggest idiot I know." The slow-witted guard said, "Oh … ok." Another long pause for him to realize he'd been insulted, then, "Dick."
I whispered, "Ready Mira?" She chuckled a bit before she responded. Yeah, I think it's about time we put these two out of their misery. I took a slow breath and jumped off so I landed in the middle of the group causing the three men to be thrown away from me by the force of the impact. A cloud of dirt formed around me. I got up from the vague kneeling stance I landed in and brought out an energy sword handle in each hand; I had to kind of force it as well as take a large chunk out of my magic bar to do it. I also had to shake off the large headache and slight disorientation that formed because of that; I probably should wait until I've trained a little more – or at all – before I try anything creative like that again.
I took a step forward and with a white flash ignited them with a flick of my wrists while emitting a sound file of an Elite roaring loudly through a loudspeaker program in my helmets' list of tools at high volume. Judging from their reaction, it was a rather effective strategy. One of the men, (Who had the unfortunate luck of being the closest to me) scrambled back on his arms, eventually getting up on his legs before running away ranting and screaming that I was some kind of a demon. I snorted in amusement; I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. Before the man could get out of sight, I tagged him as an enemy.
Of the two that was left, one of them was charging into the cloud vaguely at me with a large cutlass. With a flick of the arm, I sidestepped the sword and severed it close to the handle. The man was stunned for a moment, looking at what used to be his sword, which now resembled an expensive paperweight. A moment was all I needed; I used the energy sword to run him through the belly, lifting as I did so, and saw it emerge from his back and retracted it out of him as he crumpled to the ground alive, but unconscious. (A fact that I quickly confirmed with my bioscanner, with a relieved sigh) I looked for the last guard and found him on the ground clutching his chest and leaning against the stonework in an awkward angle trying hard to get his breath back; if I had to guess, he hit so hard he collapsed one of his lungs. He looked around quite shocked: his one companion had fled, and as far as he knew, the one who charged me was now dead.
By now, he must have picked up on the translucent shifting outline that was me – that is seeing that he was looking more or less at me. He was barely able to wheeze, "Wh – who, or WHAT are you?" I turned and slowly walked towards the man with my swords crackling with energy out at my sides. I made sure to dip them every now and then to leave molten trails in the rock as I passed. I brought them close to his neck in a scissor formation. I summoned the most threatening voice I had; it wasn't hard. "Nevermind me. Now … where are the children you kidnapped? Mind you, I'm only going to ask you once. If you don't tell me, then I'll just have to find another one of your friends and ask them too. And then another, and so on until I find what I want. Either that, or I wipe out your little gang in the process and I'll have to find them on my own. Again, either way … your choice. What's it going to be?" The poor man was sweating so hard I could hear the hiss of evaporating sweat caused by the swords. He couldn't take it any longer and practically screamed, "Th – third floor, way back! Large door, y – you can't miss it! The boss is in there, he knows where they are! J – just please don't kill me!" The last bit came out more crying than screaming. After that exclamation, a large, steaming, yellow puddle formed around the man. I lifted a leg and shook it a bit. 'Aww man …' And here I thought these guys were supposed to be these super macho hard assess … huh. Disappointing.
I deactivated the swords and the active camo and kneeled next to him with my head cocked to one side. In a calm voice I said to the man, "Thank you. I'm not going to hurt you or your friends – besides knocking them out, of course." I paused, thinking. "You know, this was actually much easier than I thought, otherwise I wouldn't have been so … well, dramatic with you." The man eyed me with curiosity and a hint of suspicion up at me. "Dramatic? Like for show? Wait, so the man you ran through, he's alive?" I nodded. "Indeed. Let me put it this way: if I wanted you lot dead, I would've simply picked all three of you off from a mile away and we wouldn't be having this conversation. But … that's not what I do any more – not if it's avoidable; I made a promise to a friend. Besides … I was commissioned to bring you all in. Alive." Was it a bluff? Yes, I currently didn't have access to a sniper rifle; but he didn't know that.
He looked pensive for a second. "So, what are you going to do now?" I looked coldly at him. "Bring you and your friends in, rescue the children you kidnapped, and reclaim everything you lot have stolen from those people – in short, I'm going to completely dismantle what you and the others have built. And you? What should I do with you?" The man gulped audibly. In one smooth motion, I knocked him out with the handle of the sword and then swapped it for a handful of zip ties. A few minutes later, I had the three thieves securely zip-tied around a thick pole I drove into the ground near enough to the fire. I did want them alive when I came back for them after all; I didn't want to come back just to find a few frozen corpses.
There was only one other doorway in the small room, and it led further in. Lit candles, torches, and other small sources of light became a common sight along the blue/black stone walls every now and then, affording more-or-less consistent low-level lighting. I tried using my thermal filter only to get confusing images. I asked Mira about it. There must be a mineral or rock composition in here that is interfering with it. So no thermal. Great.
I eventually came upon a set of decoratively inlaid metal doors that hadn't seen a good cleaning in a long time. I pushed them open to find a stone staircase leading down that held blue candles on either side at regular intervals. I spawned my DMR and a silencer; it's time to get to work.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw a long hallway that sloped gently downwards with rooms to either side and I set to work clearing each room. A few of the rooms were used for storage; I cleared them quickly. One large room looked like it was used as a rec room; a few card tables, a couple of couches … the usual. No electronics though, although I guess that's to be expected. One of the rooms I came up on was set up like a kitchen with a mid-sized group of thieves eating at medium length tables inside. None had spotted me yet, so I took my time as I spawned two frags, pulled the pins, and rolled them into the room under the tables before I took cover behind the wall, shutting the door as I went. I could hear a muffled *whump* through the thick wooden door, as well as a small flash of light. I opened it and found several people unconscious: five men and eight women. I tied them up as well.
That done, I looked around, checking for enemies and shut the door again. I looked at my magic bar, it was at about half full. I remembered what the girl had said about replenishing it as I spied a pot of cooked food as my stomach growled. It looked like some kind of stew. I took off my helmet and grabbed a spoon and sampled it; not bad, but it was pretty bland for my taste. However, it would suffice. I took a ladle and had several bowls of it. Now, with my magic bar and my stomach full, as well as the headache gone, I was back up to 100%.
With no more rooms to clear here, I followed the hallway and found a collapsed section before me with a breach in the wall to the side with a passageway dug into it at a steep incline. I followed it up and around and found myself in a similar hallway about one level up or so. I followed the stonework hall until I came to an intersection. One of the choices led to a staircase going up and the other led to a short hallway that looked like it opened up to a large room. I chose the first option. I rounded the top of the staircase to see … yet another hallway. I sighed; I was beginning to get bored of this place already. It just all looks the same after awhile. I soon found myself in a large room easily two stories high with a large stone throne perched atop a couple of steps right in the middle of the room. The perimeter consisted entirely of a series of large stone pillars through which bright light shone. The throne was empty, although I picked up two enemy signatures nearby. According to my radar, they were outside on what I saw to be a large terrace of some kind. I listened carefully and was able to pick up what they were saying.
I heard a commanding voice say, "We're breached?! What do you mean we're breached?! What do I pay you for then?" The voice sighed roughly, "How many men? Ten? Twenty?" I then heard a snively little voice, I assumed it was the man who ran from me. He said, "O-one, sir." I could just about feel the change as the other man's demeanor iced over, "One. One man got past THREE of my best guards?!" I had to force myself to remain calm so as to not snigger at that. His three best guards? Tch. Yeah right. The man continued, "How could you let this happen?! We're at a critical point here; one man like that can endanger this entire operation!" I heard him take a few slow, pondering steps to one side before he asked in a too-calm voice, "Tell me … have you ever wanted to see the countryside?" There was a short pause before the other man spoke up in a hopeful, yet confused voice, "Y-yes sir. I've always dreamed of seeing the country, wandering the world …" The dangerous tone came back full force as the man said, "So, you want to see the country, do you?" I peeked my head around a pillar to see what was going on; whatever he had planned, it couldn't be good for the other man. Too many alarms were going off in my head for this to go any other way; I wasn't disappointed. A formless mass of black smoke came from the raised sleeve of a man in a scarlet cloak and wrapped itself around the man's throat before it lifted him slightly into the air and pulled him close as he said coldly, "Fine then. Go see the country. That is if you survive the fall, the cold, and the wolves. Have fun. Consider this your expulsion." He raised him up high and threw him off the terrace and down the steep mountainside. The man looked down and lowered his arm as the screams of the other man dwindled away.
I placed my DMR over my shoulder and walked out of the shadows, I wasn't worried. "Now … see, that wasn't very nice … he was just trying to warn you." The man's hood turned towards me briefly before he placed his hands behind him and continued facing the scenery. "Good help can be so hard to find these days, you know. He was supposed to guard our main entrance; he failed in his duty. I have no patience for failure." I found that interesting. "Really? Because I've personally taken out most of this fortress. Would you show the same kindness to those people as you showed your guard here?" The man threw his head back and laughed at the question, "Why of course! Those who can't do their job have no place in my crew; I can always find more to replace lost numbers." I stepped forward, "Well … I'm afraid I can't let that happen." He turned to face me fully at that, his face was hidden in the darkness of his cloak, "Oh really? And you're going to stop me are you?" I shrugged, "Well, yeah. That's what they're paying me for after all. So … are we going to do this, or what? I've got other jobs I need to do before I can return to my guild."
He reached up and began fumbling with the cloaks clasp, "Impatient to find your end, are you? Very well, come get it." The cloak dropped and I saw a well-built man in a black leather vest and pants. He wore some kind of leather wrap on his forearms which spiked chains were wrapped around. What I could see of his arms were covered in strange tattoos. He had sharp facial features and black spiky hair. Mira snickered, What kind of look is this guy going for, 'Anime protagonist?' Feh.
Winds picked up as he lifted a foot or so off into the air. Dark clouds began to form and rotate around his arms and shins. I looked at his face and asked, "So … what's your name, Mr. Confident?" He smirked at me, "I'd tell you, but you won't live long enough to have to remember it." He reached back and began to swiftly move the clouds around his arms, "Enough of this talk! I've grown tired of you. Begone!" He placed his hands palms out at me and a blast of dark clouds came at me with the intent to swipe me off the terrace … and harmlessly blew past me. I mocked a yawn. He was quite surprised at that. "What the … how are you still standing? My storm magic should have blown you right off of this mountainside! Just how heavy are you?! I SAID BEGONE!" Again the clouds twisted their way around his arms before another blast started to come at me. I was just attacked with magic; I should probably retaliate. I requipped my speed boost enhancement and spun my arms in a tight cone before me counter to the rotation of his clouds. By the time his attack made it to me, it had devolved into a harmless gust of wind. He was not pleased at that. "Geh, tough one, aren't you? You're pissing me off!" His hair began to stiffen and point out at (Even more) odd angles. He raised a finger at me, "STORM'S WRATH!" A powerful arc of lightning crossed the gap in a fraction of a second. Eep.
I opened my eyes after a second … I'm still here? It's ok, Jai! I redirected the lightning into the shield capacitors. For all intents and purposes, you now have a short-lasting overshield. I took a peek at my shield bar, it read "500% overcharge." I was pleasantly surprised. 'Well, shit. Mira, I could kiss you.' I could hear the smile in her voice, Well, you can repay me by kicking his ass! I clenched a fist. 'One asskicking, coming up!'
My turn. I ran up to him, and he tried to use his lightning attack at me again; he missed. I broke two of his fingers in response. "Nuh uh. You're not doing that again, although I should thank you for the overshield." He looked up at me, face contorted in pain and asked, "Over-what now?" I grabbed him by the shoulders, "Overshield!" and headbutted him twice hard enough to deplete the overshield. Now dazed, I grabbed him by the arm and slammed him into the ground. He tried climbing out of the large crater his body formed; first his arm, then his face appeared. I requipped my sidearm and aimed it between his eyes. Once more, he asked, "Over ..?" I narrowed my eyes at him, "Over this, asshole." And pulled the trigger. Twice. I picked up storm-magic-what's-his-face and dragged his ass down the stairs by the back of his shirt. Now at the intersection I found earlier, I left him at it – for the time being – and shot him a few more times. "And stay down." The only sound I heard from him was breathing and a small groan.
I walked down the hall and came out into the large room. Sunlight came in from large naturally occurring holes in the stone roof. On one end of the room was a tunnel workers could go in and mine, which were currently unoccupied as I probably incapacitated all of the miners. Jai! Over there in the corner, what is that? In one corner where she was directing me, partially obscured by rubble and dirt, I saw something suspicious on the floor. I carefully removed the debris and found a large flat shard of a mural. Close by, I found more. Altogether, I found about fifteen fragments of differing sizes and shapes. I loosely put together what I could find; it seemed I had all of the pieces. They were in pretty rough shape, but I stored what I could find. These must be what the old man was talking about. Perhaps we will be able to reconstruct them at a later date. Near the tunnel was a series of long connected metal wagons that held rubble, which I emptied. I looked around for something to haul them; I didn't exactly relish the idea of dragging metal carts laden with children, thieves, and who knows what else all the way back to town. That being said, I would still do what was needed to be done to complete this job. Failure was not an option; not now, not ever.
On the other side of the room, I spied some kind of red, rusty tractor on treads. Bingo. I climbed in and stared at the odd dashboard for a minute. I shook my head and tried what was obviously a mechanical ignition sequence only to hear it click. I frowned, got out, and searched for the release for the hood so I could try and fix it. I grew up around mining equipment and was being taught how to use them, how hard could it be?
After a minute or so of searching, I located the hood; it opened outward and upward from the right side. I stood there for a moment or two just looking at what was before me. "What … the hell." It looked like a perfectly solid, spherical, crystalline ball of fire centered around tanks and pipes of water; in short, it seemed to run on steam power. The … ball of crystalline flame was hot to the touch. This must be a lacrima, a flame lacrima, if I were to guess. Crude, but obviously effective. I found the problem easily enough; a loose wire coming from the ignition sequence to another part of the engine. I reconnected the lead to the terminal and the console lit up. We're in business. Now … on to other matters.
The next twenty minutes were spent collecting all the knocked out thugs and placing them into the first few wagons. The last one I collected was the leader. I collected and set him inside and began to walk away when he woke up. Good thing I shot him a few extra times earlier as he was still wearing off from the effects. He drunkenly tried to stand. I tried pushing him over, but he wasn't going to have any of it. I simply reached toward and roughly yanked his feet out from under him before shooting him again a few more times.
Now with the enemies taken care of, I had to find the children. They had to be somewhere close by because I had been everywhere else in this damned place. They would probably keep them close by ... I briefly thought about interrogating the boss, but that ship had sailed.
I found a suspicious door in short order. I tried opening the door only to find that it wouldn't budge; the door was barricaded from the other side. I switched to thermal to make sure no one was on the other side before I took out the energy sword that I still had at my side and severed the locking mechanism and the hinges from the door. The door fell out onto the floor and I found the floor just inside was littered with smoldering wooden debris and bits of cloth – beds. The children had made a barricade with their beds. I couldn't help but feel a small amount of pride at that; I thought that was actually pretty smart for kids.
I stepped through the door and I was immediately set upon from above; whoever it was, sat on the back of my shoulders and attempted an attack on my head only to be thwarted by my shields, which glowed light blue each time he struck them. I knew they were there – I wasn't surprised by the attack.
"Let us go! I want to go home!" Every word was met with a strike from a fist. I gingerly picked the squirming child up and brought him out in front of me and he just stared daggers at me. I sighed and asked, "You done trying to hit me kid?" In response, he merely stuck his tongue out at me. I gently set him down in front of me, kneeled to his level, and presented my shoulder pauldron to him so he could see what was emblazoned on it. He looked at me with a suspicious gaze and arched an eyebrow. "What does UNSC mean?" I sighed. Wrong pauldron.
He eyed me suspiciously again for a minute before shaking his head and turning it to one side. "Guys, come on out. It's ok, he's from Fairy Tail." A second later, small children of various ages appeared from hiding behind other furniture and such hiding places. I looked at the kid, "You can trust me you know. Your village sent me to rescue you." He was still suspicious of me, but he consented and had the others follow me. I led them to the tram [I guess that's what they're called] and had him tell the others to pile in.
I kneeled next to him. "Now, the last thing I need to do is find where these men took the things they stole from you and your village. Do you know where that would be?" He nodded. "I heard some of them groaning about how much stuff they had to carry back to the storeroom." He led me down a few hallways and eventually we came across a room filled to the brink of books, furniture, treasures and other valuables. I eyed him and asked him how he knew where to find this. He told me he found a way to get into the hallway outside their room via the air ducts and had been exploring – looking for a way for him and the others to escape when he found this room. Although doing so got him caught by the guards.
Awestruck at the sheer amount of material gathered here, I consulted Mira on this matter. "Mira? How are we going to do this?" The kid looked at me with a confused expression; I merely held out a finger for silence. We could always use that useful technique you use to store things. Of course. I'm still not used to this whole magic thing. I placed a palm on the pile of treasure and concentrated. I imagined storing all this away in a large chest; like the heroes in the adventuring stories I had read about as a kid might store their gold in. A very bright white light enveloped us for a moment before diminishing to reveal a barren room. Needless to say, the kid was impressed. After getting the children and the thieves ready for the elements, I drove the whole thing back into town. As we rounded the bend I found a horn function and pressed it a few times for someone to get curious enough to come out and check. It didn't take very long as there was nothing else to be heard outside besides the wind.
About ten minutes later, it was a happy time of children reuniting with their families. I was embraced by fathers and mothers alike who were moved to tears over what I had done for them. I was eventually approached by a slim man of average height with long, tied up black hair with two bangs framing his face and an unruly tuft covered his forehead, though his lavender eyes were still visible behind his circular-lensed glasses. This was Lahar of the Custody Enforcement Unit from the Magic Council.
He wore a long blue jacket with pink edges and strapped cuffs over a high-collared shirt bearing the Council's signature ankh-like symbol. His attire also featured white pants held up by simple belt, white gloves, a white cape held closed by a gem-decorated buckle, and distinctive shoes, seemingly bearing a serpentine pattern.
Behind him, I noticed the men that had followed Lahar came towards me and gathered in a crescent formation before me; they were in a garb similar to what Lahar was wearing. What were probably normally stoic guardsmen were somewhat begrudgingly smiling slightly at the happy townspeople.
He briefly looked me over and adjusted his glasses with a finger in a smooth, practiced motion. "Hello. Are you one of the ones who did all this?" One of his subordinates checked a clipboard and piped up stating, "Um, sir? According to the elder and his granddaughter, this man did this all by himself. He was the only one who came." This got the full and undivided attention of all of Lahar's men, not to mention Lahar himself. "Truly? Did you do all of this on your own?" I nodded to him. "Yes sir." He spent the next uncomfortable moments slowly looking me over from head to toe. "And …" He brought up a white clipboard of his own, "… what guild do you belong to?" I turned slightly and presented my pauldron, the correct one, to Lahar and his men. "Fairy Tail, sir." This earned me a subtle double take. Apparently I was full of surprises for this man and his subordinates. "Fairy Tail? Huh. Um … ok. We were told to expect criminals, where are they?" I gestured to the first few carts, which were still full of slumbering thieves.
It was then I noticed one of the carts had a noticeable void where a body should've been that wasn't there before. It was then that someone rushed up to Lahar from behind and knocked the two guards behind him away, sent Lahar to the ground with a kick to the side, and raised both arms to attack wielding what appeared to be a large piece of driftwood as an improvised club. "LAHAR! I've finally got you!" I quickly closed the distance between myself and Lahar. The boss! The boss had awoken.
I intercepted his improvised club on the way down with one hand and gripped it so hard it shattered to pieces in the space between us, leaving the man very surprised and with two handfuls of splinters. A second later, I grabbed one of his hands holding the handle of what used to be a club with my other hand and in a fluid motion, swung him bodily and introduced his face to the dirt, stunning him. I spawned my DMR and readied it. "I told you to STAY PUT!", and shot him twice in the face.
Lahar looked over at me with a shocked expression as I picked up the now unconscious leader like a sack of potatoes and walked over to the tram cart and returned him. After getting to his feet, brushing himself off, and righting his glasses, he came near and gasped. "This man is Hanzo the Storm, leader of the Broken Hills bandit gang … we've been looking for them for a long time." The man I now knew as Hanzo groaned in the cart but didn't stir. "Thanks to your help, we'll be putting him and his entire gang behind bars for a very long time." They piled the sleeping men into specialized transport vehicles and departed with a wave. It wasn't until then that I was called towards the village elder and his granddaughter – who were hugging the kid who I met when I came for the children earlier.
He smiled ever so slightly. "Oh, you again." What I assumed to be his mother made a fist and bopped him gently on the top of his head. "Now Jael, that's no way to talk to the man who rescued you." I looked at her, "Mam, you should be very proud of him. The best I could tell, he looked after the other younger children, and when I came in to rescue them, he – thinking I was an enemy – positioned himself at the ceiling before the door and (Futily) attacked me. He even set up a barricade before the door to protect the others." Jael gasped, "How did you know?" I looked over to the boy and gestured at his hands, "Your palms are raw and full of splinters. The ceiling supports – the ones you were hanging from – were metal; the beds and other furniture in the room was made of wood. Anyway, you might want to get your hands treated as soon as you can. Getting splinters and tetanus in one day doesn't sound like my idea of fun."
The woman beamed and hugged her son closer. "Anyway, that takes care of the children and the thieves; was there anything left to take back?" She held a hopeful expression in her face, but I could tell she wasn't expecting much. I nodded. "Yes mam. If you would please tell everyone to make some room, I shall fulfill the final request of this village." My request complied with, I raised my hands and concentrated on bringing the piles of treasure, furniture, and such back into existence. The entire crowd gasped and marveled at all of the riches of their combined livelihoods gathered into one place. "Why, that looks like it's EVERYTHING that was stolen from us! Wh – how did you do this?" I shrugged. "It's kind of what I do now." The old man grunted and after sharing a look with his granddaughter, they called out to one of their subordinates and they produced a large chest full to the top of the currency I had seen Lucy handle back at the restaurant in Hargeon. But they weren't done as three more chests of similar size and contents were provided. "Your handsome payment, as agreed upon. We were content to part with 2,200,000 "
She smiled at me. "What could we ever do repay you for what you've done?" I stepped forward and kneeled in front of her son and put a hand on Jael's head and ruffled his hair playfully. Now that I had time to take a good look at the boy, he reminded me an awful lot of my brother when he was younger. I looked up at her and replied sadly, "Look after them … protect them; make sure they grow up to be the fantastic adults I know they'll grow into." The way I stated my reply no doubt confused them but I politely took my leave of them, stored my earnings, and found transport. I would go back to Magnolia, but not before I completed the handful of jobs I had grabbed from the request board.
[So I decided to make a fluff chapter to showcase Jai and Mira working together. I think it came out pretty well.]
