(THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF ZARA'S BACKSTORY FYI..You won't be seeing the battle until the E.N.D….Sorry, folks, if that is what you were looking forward to…)

It was a gorgeous summer's day. Hot yes, but the occasional breeze helped to cool the air. It was a week into the month of July and the adults were working in the shops and fields. The children chased each other and explored the world around them.

"Come on, you can do it." Called a small girl with orchid colored hair to below her. The boy, who was almost seven summers old, looked up to where his friend was perched.
"Zera...I...I can't!" he called up, his voice shaking, "I'm already too high up."
The girl, Zera, who was also seven summers old, rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.
"COME ON... You don't want to lose to a girl do you?"
"I lose to you all the time, why does it matter if you're a girl or guy?!"
"That's besides the point; get your butt up here!"
He gave a resigned sigh and slowly started climbing branch to branch after his friend, the leaves catching in his raven black hair. He made it halfway up before he risked a glance down. He saw the very distant ground and latched onto the closest branch as he held on for dear life.
"What're you doing?" Zera demanded. He stifled back a sob and started stuttering incomprehensible words. "You afraid of heights?" she taunted down to him. "Guess I'm the manliest one here." she gloated and started to make her way down to help him.
On her way down however, Zara's foot got caught in a branch and she twisted, falling off and somehow ending up upside-down, hanging only by her foot. The boy watched with bulging eyes.

"Are you okay?!" he called up worriedly. The blood began to rush to Zara's head.

"A little help over here?!" the girl managed, her voice breaking. The boy could see his friend near tears, but so great was his fear of heights that he couldn't move a muscle.

So there they were, 3 hours later, still in the exact same positions.
"If you would just get down you could go get help!" Zara yelled at the boy, her fear long gone, now was replaced with pure anger.
"I'm stuck too! How am I supposed to get down?" he demanded. The girl scuffed and folded her arms, trying her best to look sulky with a red face and her orchid color hair hanging down, foot still caught in the tree.
"Just climb down! It's simple! Just put one foot below the other," she instructed. They began bickering about the difficulty of getting down from their current positions and were so focused that they didn't even notice a small, red haired girl coming up the hill or that she had stopped below their tree.
"Umm... Do you guys need any help?" she asked. They both stopped arguing and glanced down at their new arrival.
"YES!" both cried in unison. The redhead blinked and pulled out a hair ribbon and tied her fiery red hair back from her face.

"Here, I'll talk you down," she addressed the boy first. "First let go with one arm off the tree, and use that hand to hold onto the branch you're sitting on." she instructed and he complied. "Good. Now do the same with your other hand. Stretch out your foot and put it on the branch below you, and then do that with your other foot. Turn around.. Not that fast! Good... Slowly. Put your weight on your feet and using your hands to twist around so your looking at the branch you were just on. Awesome!" she encouraged, "Now carefully sit down on the branch you're on and keep doing exactly those steps over and over until you're close enough to jump down." When he was finally on the ground five minutes later he sank to his knees and hugged the ground.
"Wonderful, ground! I'll never leave you again!" he promised as he began kissing said ground. The redhead giggled.

"You're weird..." The boy blushed in embarrassment. There was a loud cough.
"That's great and all, you two love birds, but I'm still stuck up here if you haven't noticed..." Zara spoke up weakly from her upside down position in the tree. The other two looked up and gasped, the had forgotten that she was there.
"I'm so sorry! Hold on!" the red haired girl replied. The girl gathered up the bottom of her dress and tied it to one side, making it shorter. She grabbed onto the lowest branch and pulled herself up. In no time at all, the redhead made it to the branch the other was trapped on.
"Alright" the red haired girl called down to the boy. "I'm gonna get her leg out, it's your job to catch her!"
"WAIT!" The boy cried.
"WHAT?" Zara yelped. The redhead grabbed a hold of the other's leg and managed to get it unstuck. And with that the girl began to fall.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"I've got you, I've got..." the girl crashed into the ground right in front of him with a loud thud. "Nope, I don't got you..."

The girl who was still in the tree scrambled down to assess the damage. Zara had managed to fall on her butt. She looked to the girl who had just climbed down.
"REALLY?!" Zara exclaimed, hands on her hips.
"EXCUSE ME? YOU SHOULD BE THANKING ME!" the other retorted.
"FOR WHAT?! MAKING ME FALL ON MY BUTT? IT REALLY HURTS!" Zara yelled.
"WELL I GOT YOU DOWN DIDN'T I?!"
"Uh, can I say something?" the little boy managed. Both girls turned to him, flames of anger dancing in their eyes.

"NO!" The boy's eyes widened and he quickly took a few steps back. The girls turned back to each other, but that small interruption caused the anger to disappear. The new girl's face broke into a grin. Zera took in the other's appearance . Earlier the other had observed the girl's hair to be a fiery red, but it must have been the way the light was shining, because as she looked closer it was more of a...pink...no, Salmon. Her eyes, a dark green.

"Sorry, I haven't introduced myself I'm Alisa Alvarez." A held out her hand to the other girl for her to shake. The other's bright blue eyes looked at the hand and after a few seconds, her small hand shook the other's.

"I'm Zara Valli" In that moment, both girls realized that they would be friends their entire lives. The small boy gave a small sigh of relief, glad that they were now friends and not trying to kill each other. Alisa then turned to him.

"What's your name?" She asked. His face turned into a grin, happy that the new girl was talking to him.

"My name is Malachi. Malachi Dragneel, nice to meet you."

(Authors note…

Hestia: this is actually the first chapter we wrote together...ah memories...anyway we still don't own Fairy Tail

Vesta: This was so long ago… actually not all that long, probably like a month or something. I haven't seen this in weeks! But this is where it all started… *takes a trip down memory lane*

Hestia: ok hope you like it.)