Hello everybody. Christmas was a busy time of year to be sure but I'm still here and I'm still writing. And so here's my next instalment of the story. Oh this is going to take me a looooong time to write. But in the end, it will be worth it. XD

Dance of the Fairies, Flight of the Phoenix

Chapter 20:- Tyranny

"Whether you are free or a prisoner is entirely irrelevant," the Sidhe Elder scowled at Evergreen, pointing his bejewelled staff at her menacingly, the tip glowing an iridescent blue as he prepared his next spell. "If you truly think that you are a match for me then you are even haughtier than I thought. There has not been a human that could match the power of the mighty Sidhe since the days Camelot!"

"I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about," Evergreen wrinkled her nose as her fingers toyed with the lid of the jar of fairies clutched in her hand. "You might be strong but you can never know you're the strongest until you've taken on everyone in existence, and quite clearly you have never done that. Which means you've had a stick up your butt for far too long and I guess its high time someone took you down a peg."

"Very well. I have decided. Dying is too good for you. I will let you live as our slave for the rest of your limited human lifespan after all. You will truly know our power then, and you will be sorry you ever crossed us."

"You sure go on a lot," Evergreen muttered as she twisted the lid of the jar and popped it free. The six fairies inside it immediately zinged out in momentary joyousness before immediately zipping behind Evergreen and peering out over the top of her shoulders at the uglier, bluer and very much angrier fairy across from them.

"Don't worry," Evergreen murmured to them. "I promised that I would protect you and I will. Even from this whackjob."

"Know your place, human!" the Sidhe fired off an energy bolt about twice the size of his own body from his staff right at Evergreen's chest. Evergreen was prepared for this though and immediately spread her wings, scattering the startled fairies behind her as she shot straight up into the air. The energy bolt passed underneath her and impacted on the water, sending up a burst of it like an extremely small nuclear bomb.

"What!?" the Elder cried. "You have wings!?"

"I guess I'm not your average human, huh?" Evergreen smirked down at him before upending herself and dive-bombing the tiny being. The Sidhe Elder instantly dodged to the side so fast all he left was a bluish blur and fired another energy bolt at her side. She rolled onto her back in mid-air quickly, the bolt narrowly missing her stomach before she swung around and clapped her hands together.

"Yōsei Kijū… Leprechaun!" she cried and swung her arm to the side, generating hundreds of yellow energy needles before her that thundered outwards like a hail of bullets, streaking across the surface of the water to home in on the Sidhe Elder. He was momentarily startled, but quick to react and he immediately began to flit in a jagged zig-zag, swooping under one energy needle, dodging another, rounding another and so on, blazing straight through the attack and homing in towards Evergreen.

"Well at least he doesn't have swords in his feet," Evergreen muttered, remembering the last time someone had ploughed through this attack, though by blocking instead of simply dodging. She piled on the pressure, increasing the number of bullets until they were almost double but she only succeeded in actually losing sight of her tiny foe, unable to follow his pathway through the myriad of flashing lights.

But she found out where he was when something hot impacted with her back and flung her forwards with a scream. Turning back over her shoulder she saw the smirking Elder from where he had hit her with some kind of fire spell, the remains of which were dissipating in wisps of smoke. The Elder then shot up towards her like an arrow from a bow until he was right in front of her face and touched his staff to the centre of her forehead. Evergreen was instantly blown backwards as if she'd been fired from a cannon, a powerful shockwave driving into her body as she lost her flight and ploughed straight into the water.

"Perhaps you are something special," the Elder smirked down at the bubbling surface of the water. "But at the end of the day you are still just a human. And a human cannot beat…"

A large ball of yellow energy erupted up from the water and blasted up at him. He dodged only narrowly but was sent momentarily tumbling at the slipstream from the attack. Evergreen burst up from underneath the water, her hair and dress sodden but her her spirit burning, and slashed her hands through the air, trailing dust from her fingertips that solidified into fine energy blades and sliced through the air en masse towards the Elder. But he was quick to recover himself and like and like a pinball he zipped about in seemingly random directions to dodge the attack once again. The energy blades sliced into the tree trunks on the bank and cut off a few branches, one of which landed on a frozen Erkling down below.

Evergreen gritted her teeth - the guy was just too damn nimble and small for any of her attacks to connect. But the Elder was not exactly pleased himself, and looked over at Evergreen incredulously. "How in the blazes are you still able to fight? That shockwave should have broken half the bones in your body."

"Mages are made of stern stuff," Evergreen snorted. "You'll just have to do better than that."

"Very well," he leered. "If better I must do then better I will do." He raised his staff above his head, the blue tip glowing ominously for a second before a sudden blast of lightning thundered across the lake towards Evergreen. She gasped and corkscrewed rapidly to the side, the blast sizzling past her, only for her to find another lightning bolt coming surging towards her.

Again she twisted violently to the side to dodge the attack but the first lightning bolt had curved around and lanced in towards her from behind to strike her in the back. Evergreen screamed as the electrical attack coursed through her body and flung her forwards to crash into the shrubs on the bank.

"How's that for better?" the Elder cackled and sent a third lightning blast out towards Evergreen's slumped and slightly smoking form. But right at the last second Evergreen rolled to one side and dodged back into the air as the lightning exploded the soil where she'd just been, twirling her body through the air and swinging her arms out to release a huge cloud of yellow dust that billowed out across the water an almost pyrotechnic display of twinkly lights.

"Well, that was better," Evergreen winced, rubbing her back but also smirking. "But I'm a member of the Raijinshuu. I'm used to being hit with lightning during my training. And quite frankly, that was pitiful next to anything Laxus can do."

"Well that was only a tiny fraction of my power," the Elder growled as the dust settled around him, its reflections glinting off the surface of the lake.

"Oh, I'm sure. But in the mean time… Yōsei Bakudan… GREMLIN!" Evergreen flung her arms out to the side and instantly all the dust particles ignited in a tumult of powerful explosions, like each one was a hand grenade the size of a speck of dust. The Elder had not been expecting this at all and bellowed in pain as he was bombarded from all sides and sent flying backwards, considerably blackened.

"Dodge that," Evergreen watched him fall with satisfaction but was pulled up short when he managed to catch himself in mid-air moments before landing in the lake. Some of his injuries were already beginning to heal over slightly and he shook his head woozily.

Evergreen instantly pressed on with her attack, firing another volley of energy needles in the hope she could get him before he recuperated. But before she could a wall of water burst up from the lake to intercept them right as geyser erupted beneath her. Evergreen yelped as it blasted into the back and flung her up into the air, spinning head over heel. She blurred her wings rapidly the moment she could escape the water torrent to try and correct her flight only for a suddenly blast of wind to impact her from the side and send her spinning another way.

"Your tricks are paltry in comparison to the magic of the Sidhe," the Elder rose into the air, charred and holding his side but still very much in action, flinging several fireballs out of the end of his staff at her tumbling body. "We are the oldest of the fairy races. We have control over all the elements when we so choose. Next to us, you humans are pitiful!"

"Ugh, will you just shut up?" Evergreen growled as she drew her wings tightly around her and dropped straight down to avoid the fireballs, snapping her wings open and swooping to the side just above the surface of the lake to avoid another watery explosion from beneath her. She twisted around to summon another cloud of fairy dust but a gust of wind blew it right back at her instead of towards the target - if she wasn't immune to her own attacks she would have been in real trouble. But even as she tried to plan her next move a ball of fire appeared in front of her and she had to throw herself backwards as it exploded, just missing having her skin singed.

It seemed this guy actually was very powerful. Small wonder if he'd been the leader of such a powerful race for thousands of years.

Evergreen was, though she was loath to admit it, not one of the stronger members of her guild. She didn't even rank among the top ten. Probably not even the top fifteen… but still… she was still Fairy Tail. And she was the resident Fairy Mage… no way was she going to let herself lose to a fairy! Especially an egotistical prat like this one.

…Though even as she thought that her wrists and ankles were seized from behind her. She gasped and turned around to see that several thin branches of the trees on the bank had suddenly reached towards her and were grappling with her, trying to pull her limbs out wide into an upright spread eagle to immobilise her.

"Oh no, you don't! Not this time!" Evergreen growled as she yanked on the branches hard, pulling her wrists in close and then flinging her arms out before they could do it for her. A cloud of Fairy Dust poured from between her hands and exploded, shredding the wood of the tree. She swung around to face the Elder and saw him flash forwards at high speed, so on instinct she lashed out with her foot in a round, sweeping kick. The Elder almost collided with it head-on but he dodged upwards, right as Evergreen lashed out with more energy blade. And yet even despite the point-blank range of the attack he still managed to avoid it.

"You can never hit me!" he cackled as he twirled his staff and a volley of fireballs twice as big as he was materialised around him and fired at her, growing in size even as they did. Evergreen hurriedly clapped her hands together to form a shield of concentrated dust that took the brunt of the attacks, but they still pushed her down until she landed in the shallows. Almost immediately she felt something else latch onto her ankles. Water weed looped around each of them and began to wind their way up her legs. Evergreen yanked on them, trying to get back into the air, but they held her fast.

"Seems that I win," the Sidhe snickered.

"If you were my size, I would have kicked your ass a long time ago," Evergreen growled from behind her shield. "Only reason I haven't is that you're so good at avoiding my attacks."

"The difference in our sizes is irrelevant. I would be able to dodge you just as well. You are slow. I can see your attacks coming as if they they were snails crawling towards me."

"Is that so?" a slow smirk spread over Evergreen's face. "Well then… let's see if I can do something about that."

She crossed her arms across her face and abruptly the shield she was holding before her collapsed in on itself and exploded outwards with a flash of intense yellow light. Light that seared against the Elder's eyes and drew forth a harsh scream of pain as they were almost left smoking from the brightness, but Evergreen had been covering her eyes with her arms and so remained unaffected as she lowered them and smirked at the reeling Fairy.

"Gaaahhhh! Nooo! Trickery! The human has blinded me!"

Evergreen lifted into the air - the water weeds around her legs slackening as the one controlling them lost his focus and allowed herself to rip herself free as she shot forwards, pulling back a hand and slammed it to connect a fist with the Elder's entire body, generating a solid crack. As he shot backwards like a bullet from a gun, Evergreen twirled around and called out another, "Yōsei Kijū… Leprechaun!"

The command was now familiar to the Sidhe Elder so he lowered his hands, blinking through the time spectrum if vision he still had as he dodged aside randomly, but this time he couldn't see the attacks coming so one of them impacted with his chest. He was fling backwards straight into another energy needle, then another, then another, until he was pinging back and forwards rebounding off the explosions of the other's attack.

"Got to thank Bickslow for pointing out that bright lights are an enemy to those who rely on keeping their eyes open," Evergreen chuckled as she watched the Sidhe get flung around, before clearing her throat and yelling over the sound of constant small explosions. "Do you surrender?"

"To a human!? I would rather drown in my own blood!" The Elder spat. "Sidhe! To me! Come to my aid!"

But the few Sidhe that were still hovering over by the side of the lake next to the frozen Erklings made no move. Evergreen could not tell if they too were semi-blinded at first but it seemed they were just hovering and taking in the fight.

Evergreen decided to wonder about later and focused all her attention on the Elder. "Someone like you doesn't deserve the loyalty of other Fairies.

"DAMN YOU!" The Elder whirled around in the direction of her voice and slashed out with his staff to develop a fiery whip that lashed out towards Evergreen's neck. But it was a wild stab in the dark, almost literally, that missed Evergreen by several metres even without her having to put much effort into the dodge.

The Fairy Mage swooped round towards him on a curve, readying herself for the final move. Even as the Elder swung out another fiery whiplash in the wrong direction, Evergreen closed in and snatched him up in her hand, closing her fist around his tiny body and swinging him around, concentrating dust in her other palm to create a large energy sphere. Even as the Elder kicked and screamed for release she slammed him into the sphere and fired them both together at the bank next to all the frozen Erklings. His staff snapped in two and the impact caused a small crater in the earth in which he lay, smoking and burned and very much unconscious, but still alive.

Evergreen alighted on the ground next to him to stare down at his tiny form distastefully. "Well… that's not really how I wanted my first proper contact with fairies to go," she muttered to herself.

"Finish him!" cried a voice behind her. She turned back to see one of the female Sidhe fluttering her wings a few feet away and clenching her fists, her expression set in stone.

"Excuse me?" Evergreen blinked.

"Finish him off now, before he wakes up," the fairy repeated.

"Isn't he your leader?"

"Yes he is. He inherited the position after his father died thousands of years ago. His family have been our leaders for millennia, and he comes from a respected line. But even though the leadership has always been his by right, he has always felt the need to stamp his authority on us by any means necessary. He bullies us, abuses us, punishes us often for doing the slightest thing wrong. He has no right to be our leader, not anymore!"

"If he's been such a jerk for so long why have you put up with him all that time?"

"He is stronger than us for one thing," said another Sidhe, a male this time. "But its mainly because it is just his birthright. He was born into the noble line and the rest of us have always followed that line."

"We long hoped," the female continued. "That any son or daughter that he had would become a kinder, more generous leader to our people. But he has no son or daughter. None of us women want to go near him and he seems to have very little interest in getting himself an heir. I think he's always felt that when the time comes he can just have his pick of any Sidhe woman - probably even ones that already have partners."

"…Alright… that's despicable…" Evergreen nodded. "But why do you suddenly want me to kill him now? Because he's lying unconscious and you think you see a light at the end of the tunnel or something?"

"Yes! We don't want him anymore!"

"Then what will you do after he's dead?" Evergreen pointed out. "Won't you need a new leader? If he dies and his bloodline is broken, who will lead you after that?"

The female hesitated, biting her tiny lip as she struggled to find an answer, but a third fairy suddenly spoke up from behind her and cried, "You will, of course!"

"…What?" Evergreen's voice caught in her throat.

"You defeated the Sidhe Elder in combat. Logically that should mean that you would be the next one to take on the role of Elder if the Elder has no heir," the third fairy nodded his head enthusiastically.

"Elder?" Evergreen sniffed. "I hardly think that would be an appropriate title to give someone who's most likely younger than most of your people, especially if you all live for thousands of years like you said you did."

"Then we can re-name it Queen! You can be our Fairy Queen!"

Those words rooted Evergreen to the spot. She was, for several moments, unable to do anything but stand there and blink, her mouth open in shock as the sheer enormity of the words crashed down over the top of her.

Certainly she had long been desired to be known as the Fairy Queen… but not in a literal sense. She'd just wanted the nickname given to Erza Scarlet to be given to her instead. And yet, not only had she finally achieved her dream to meet with fairies… but they actually willing to make her their monarch? This… oh she'd dreamed about it in some of her wilder fantasies… but never had she thought that it might actually happen! Not once!

She felt slightly giddy - especially when some of the other Sidhe started cheering and pumping their little fists into the air, zinging around like electrons around a nucleus. Could this be some kind of destiny? Or fate? Or was this another dream just leading her on - playing a trick on her?

If she could become a real Fairy Queen then… well… as far as she was concerned Erza could keep the the Titania nickname. Oh, she couldn't wait until the next time she saw Erza and see the expression on her face when she told her of her new position.

…But… when would that be?

Evergreen's euphoria took a sudden plunge at that thought. Where was Erza anyway? And where were all the others? The Master, Laxus, her teammates Freed and Bickslow… Elfman… and all the rest? Her heart clenched suddenly - all the chaos with her kidnapping and the fighting had drawn her mind away from her own isolation and the potential plight of her friends. Now it all came flooding back to her. Were they even alive after Acnologia's attack? And if they were, had they landed themselves in danger like she quite clearly had?

She glanced down at her chest, able to make out the green Fairy Tail mark down there out of the corner of her eye.

As long as she held that mark… she knew where her first loyalties lay.

"I am sorry," she said, interrupting the Fairies celebration. "But… I… cannot accept your offer. I cannot be your Fairy Queen."

"You… you're turning us down?" the female asked. "But weren't you the one who was calling yourself the Fairy Queen before?"

"Yes, yes I was but I was not being serious about that."

"But you could be now. Don't you realise what an honour this is for us to select you? You're a human after all. No human has ever commanded a Sidhe. It wasn't just the Elder's power complex that made him call you pathetic - the Sidhe have been long-standing enemies of humans. In past times, when most humans still knew that we existed, we used to try and gain power over them quite often. The sheer fact that we're still talking to you instead of attacking should be considered an incredible honour indeed."

"…That does make me feel all the more honoured but I still cannot accept. I may not be a Fairy Queen but I am a mage of the Fairy Tail guild. They are the only family I have truly ever known and it would be nothing but pure selfishness for me to stay here and not try to find them. Oh, I freely admit I'm quite vain. After all, when you've got a body like mine why should I not be?" Evergreen tossed her hair back and slapped her own thigh. "But I'm not so vain as to abandon them for this."

The Sidhe looked at each other for several moments, conferring amongst themselves before one of the males looked back up and said, "But… if you do not lead us then who will?"

"Let's be honest, me becoming your Queen would be a bad idea anyway. I won't live nearly as long as any of you."

"We could grant you incredible longevity with our magic."

"And if I outlived all of my friends I think I would find it incredibly hard to live with myself knowing that I had abandoned them. I'm sorry… but my decision is final. You should try and find yourself a new leader amongst yourselves. Maybe have a competition to decide who's the best choice for a new Elder. Or hold some kind of election or something… I don't know. The point is that you haven't needed me for thousands of years so you don't need me now."

"Hmm… this has never happened before to us," the female tapped her lip.

"Oh, it must have. After all, the royal bloodline must have become royal somehow. Somewhere down the line this guy's ancestors must have stamped their authority down on all of your ancestors. Now becomes the opportunity for someone else to step up and make a new bloodline. Which is something I could never provide anyway - I can't have a child with a fairy so I wouldn't leave an heir behind now can I?"

"You speak sense," said another Sidhe. "In that case, we had best come up with a plan. But… what are we going to do with the Elder?"

"…Well… we can't kill him," pointed out the female. "It's against our laws to kill another Sidhe. Sometimes I think it was that law that was the only thing that stopped him from ever killing one of us when he got very annoyed."

"You'll just have the take him prisoner then," Evergreen said. "Decide what to do with him on your own time."

"It seems that is our only option. He has not violated enough laws to be banished from the kingdom and given mortality."

"…Harsh punishment…" Evergreen murmured dryly.

"Still… it will take some time for us to figure out who will be our new leader," the female said. "So… how about this… what is your name?"

"Evergreen."

"Well… Evergreen… the Sidhe must have a leader… so until we find one of our own to fill the role how about we name you as our substitute Queen? You don't have to stay here with us to do it. All we would require from you is to officially pass on the status to our chosen one when the time comes. And as long as you are our monarch, you can call on us at any time. Just shout for aid into the wind and if you need us, we will come."

Evergreen was entirely taken aback but once the shock wore off… again… she smiled and said, "It would be my honour to be your substitute Queen. Do I have to… say anything?"

"No, the transition has already been made," the female nodded. "All hail Evergreen, the Fairy Queen!"

The other Sidhe raised their staffs in salute. Evergreen made to pull her fan in front of her face before she remembered that she didn't actually have it. "You are too kind," she flicked her hair back over her shoulder. "I shall endeavour to be a fair Queen, and I do so appreciate your adoration. But now I must away. I need to find my friends."

"Perhaps we can help you with that," one of the Sidhe suggested. "Maybe if we looked around we might be able to…"

He stopped. Something had materialised in mid-air between Evergreen and the Sidhe, a spot of air glowing for a moment before expanding into some kind of… shining ball of bluish light. Evergreen stepped back slightly and the fairies drew in close around her as the light sphere wafted its way towards her, arcing lazily behind and around her several times, doing little loops around her body.

"Erm… okay… is this part of the ritual?" Evergreen asked.

"No… we're not sure what that is…" the female Sidhe said. "But… it feels like… Old Magic…"

"That doesn't really tell me much. Is it good or bad?"

But before any of the blue fairies could answer the sphere came to a hovering stop in front of Evergreen's face… before rapidly expanding outwards to swallow her up. Evergreen gasped and tried to dive out of the light but before she could she felt as if the ground had opened up beneath her and spat out a furious tornado with her at its epicentre. She span in circles, helplessly out of control and yelling at the tops of her lungs…

…before she vanished with a smoky poof.

The Sidhe hovered there for a moment, staring in bewilderment.

"That was Transportation Magic," said one of them.

"But none of us cast it," agreed another.

"But… if it was not us… then who?" the female asked. "And where did it send the Queen?"

But it was at that precise moment that the Erklings suddenly unfroze from where they could and instantly jumped, swinging their heads wildly from side to side and crying things like, "Where Fairy Queen!?" and "What happen!?" All except the one that had initially met Evergreen, who had had a branch land on him during the fight. All he said was, "Gnnngh…"

And from the foliage on the northern bank of the lake, not far from where Evergreen had been standing, a pair of deep blue eyes watched the spot where Evergreen had been. The eyes were set in the wrinkled face of an extremely decrepit looking old man, who was propping himself up with a staff and smacking his lips, his long white hair and equally white beard draping down over his red robes like wispy curtains.

It seemed he had been right to use his magic to cut that woman free before. He'd have done that anyway of course, but her magic… it had been unlike any that he'd ever seen before. And the mark on her front… yes… he had been right to pay attention to his senses. The people bearing that mark were going to be extremely influential in the events to come. Hence why he'd just transported her away.

"Hmmm… yes… I'll be sure to keep an eye on them…" he said in a cracked, slightly nasal voice before turning and walking off into the trees with a surprisingly strong gait for a man using a staff to walk on.

Gajeel was not currently at the Hog's Head.

This was because Gildarts had, probably rightly, pointed out that he would need to get used to the idea of his Exceed staying at the castle and therefore he should head back the Grimmauld Place with them until he did. Because there was a strong likelihood that he would storm into the castle to get Lily back even though the black cat was more than capable of looking after himself if he didn't.

"It's what I could see Natsu doing," Gildarts had said as a side-note to some of the others. "And though he might be loath to admit it, it seems to me that Gajeel is quite similar."

"Juvia thinks so too," Juvia had agreed, which had pretty much decided it since she knew Gajeel best of all the people there.

Wendy was still there though, and she was now accompanied by Lisanna and Levy. Lisanna had stayed for the sole reason of keeping Wendy company. Levy was there for the same reason but also because this was where Gajeel wasn't and she needed that right now.

Or at least she told herself she did. Lisanna and Wendy were more sceptical.

"You realise that you're going to have to face the problem sooner or later, right Levy?" Lisanna said. "Isn't it better to just bite the bullet and get it over with."

"It's not that simple," Levy sighed. "I know you're right Lisanna. It's just my stupid mind won't stop playing around with me."

"I wish we could help more… but I don't know any healing magic that can heal fear," Wendy twiddled her fingers slightly, as if somehow blaming herself for Levy's own problems. Levy noticed and patted Wendy's shoulder.

"It's not your fault. I'm hoping that just some time away from him will sort me out, that's all… but… I really don't understand why this is clinging to me so much."

"That'll be the effect of the Dementors," growled Aberforth from where he was standing at the door, drawing the attention of the three girls to him. "Those were the things that brought on this sudden phobia of your own friend right?"

"Yeah," Levy nodded. "They brought up images that I've been doing my best to forget."

"That's what they do. It's like… their breath gets into you or something. When they get so close to you as to give you a clear vision of your memories, the things they show you can haunt your dreams for weeks, sometimes months at a time. I knew a guy once, who spent a few months in Azkaban prison that left him remembering the time where his mother died at St Mungo's hospital. Poor guy refused to go see a Healer for any reason for two years because every time he thought about it the memory rushed back to his head."

"That's horrible…" Lisanna swallowed. "But… what can we do to help Levy through this."

"Not sure there's much you can do," Aberforth grunted. "She's got to find some way of putting it behind her herself."

Levy sagged slightly and wrinkled her nose… and then screamed and fell backwards off her chair when a burst of light erupted out of nowhere right next to her. Lisanna and Wendy sprang up too, and Aberforth immediately went for his wand, but quick at it had come the light vanished, leaving a brunette woman behind who yelped and fell backwards onto the floor, swearing slightly.

"The hell was that!?" Aberforth cried.

"Evergreen!?" Lisanna gasped a split second later.

Evergreen looked up and blinked when she saw Lisanna standing over her. "What… Lisanna? How did you…? What…? Where am I? I was standing next to a lake a moment ago."

Lisanna completely ignored the questions and beamed, helping Evergreen to her feet and hugging her. "Evergreen, I'm so glad you're here! If you are that must mean that one of the other Fairy Spheres has lowered!"

"Were you the only one there when you woke up?" Levy asked, but before Evergreen could answer she gasped and winced. Lisanna's hands had touched her back where the leader of the Sidhe had blasted her with lightning and she jerked violently as a result.

"Evergreen-san, you're hurt!" Wendy noted. "Here, let me heal it!"

"Th… thank you, Wendy," Evergreen grunted as she placed a hand on Lisanna's shoulder for support while the little Dragon Slayer hurried around behind her to start healing her back. "But… does anyone fancy telling me what's going on here? What happened to the whole thing with Acnologia? One minute we're holding hands and the next I find myself lying in the middle of a forest somewhere with nobody else there."

"Nobody else?" Levy tried not to look disappointed. "Guess that means it was just a solo Sphere this time."

"That doesn't answer my question in the slightest. Where is everybody?"

"It's a long story," Lisanna said. "You see, it's…"

"WE GOT TROUBLE!" yelled Happy as he whooshed through the window so fast that he ploughed straight into Evergreen and knocked her over again, accidentally dragging Lisanna down onto her backside with her. But the blue cat barely noticed and stood up on Evergreen's stomach, waving his arms with his eyes wide.

"Happy! What's going on!? Is Charla alright?" Wendy asked urgently.

"Yes, Charla's fine, but there's a chance some of the others might not be!" Happy yelled. "We were just spying on that Umbridge woman and she was talking to that Minister guy in the silly hat. He said that they'd found another Fairy Sphere!"

"Where? In a forest?" Levy asked.

"Erm… no… up in the mountains… not far from here he said. What made you think it would be a forest?"

"You are standing… on the reason…" Evergreen growled through slightly gritted teeth. Happy looked down at her, blinked twice, then sprang off her with a yell and jumped behind Lisanna. "EEK! DON'T TURN ME TO STONE!"

Evergreen sighed as she sat up. "I can't. You're not human. But I have henceforth decided that I'm going to find a way to develop my Stone Eyes so that they're not just limited to humans. There have been so many times over the last couple of days where that would have been useful."

"Wait… what is Evergreen doing here?" Happy asked. "And why is she a bit wet? Did you go fishing, Evergreen?"

"Happy, focus," Lisanna said quickly. "What were you saying about another Fairy Sphere."

"Oh right! They said that it had been found up in mountains called the Caregarms… no, it was the Carngames… no… no wait, I can remember this one…"

"The Cairngorms?" suggested Aberforth.

"Aaaw, I was going to say that!" Happy pouted. "But yes, those! And they're sending some Ministry people up into the mountains now so that they can go find it!"

"Well then we need to get there first!" Levy said immediately. "We can't let them get hold of this Sphere like they got hold of mine! There's no way I'm going to let the others go through what I did if I can help it!"

"Is anyone going to fill me in on this?" Evergreen asked, but Wendy overlapped a potential answer by asking Aberforth, "Where are the Cairngorms?"

"West of here, quite a way but we're certainly a heck of a lot closer to them here than the others at Grimmauld Place are," Aberforth replied.

"Well that's good because we need to get out there right now!"

"Oh, you're not going anywhere."

"…What?" Wendy blinked. "But Aberforth-san… our friends… you know we have to help them."

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm aware of what the stakes are. But… I seem to recall the last time you Fairy Tail mages rushed in without being guided by someone from my little old universe. You ended up wrecking half the Ministry and turning the populace against you. And now the government that is enforcing the fact you are dangerous is heading up into the mountains and you want to charge up there yourselves? That can only lead to another clash against people you want to end up on your side."

"Then… what do you suggest we do?" Lisanna asked.

"You lot are going to wait here until I get back, that's what you're going to do. While you wait, you're not going to tell the others that another Sphere has been found or they'll all want to go running off too. Meanwhile I am going to go and find Remus. I know he's in Hogsmeade today taking care of some important personal business and as soon as I find him I am bringing him back here."

"…Okay then…" Levy nodded.

"Yeah. Okay," Lisanna agreed. "Just… please hurry."

"Course I'm going to hurry. I'm not leaving you or my bar or my goats unattended for long. I'd be sending a Patronus to write the message for me or an owl if I had one to hand, which I don't. Stay put!" And he hurried out of the room, leaving the four girls and the male cat where they were until they heard his front door slam shut.

A beat of silence.

"So… is anyone going to tell me what's going on here?" Evergreen gasped. "Is this any way to treat a Fairy Queen? Oh, and when I say that this time, I mean literally."

"That woman is twisted…" Charla muttered as tried to fume as quietly as possible - despite the fact they were in an empty classroom they could still be overheard if they weren't careful. "I know that you said that she was but… to see if for myself made it over a thousand times worse."

"I didn't realise the amount of influence that she has over Fudge," Hermione ran a hand through her bushy hair worriedly. "I always assumed that he was the one calling most of the shots around the changes to the school, and in a way he still is, but if she's influencing his decisions that much then… I seriously worry about what she might be able to pull."

"Right now I'm a bit more worried about the fact that she knows about our extra Defence Against the Dark Arts stuff," Ron said as he kicked his legs. "Looks like the Hog's Head might not have been the best place to hold the meeting after all."

"Well excuse me for not knowing there was someone in there who would go running to Umbridge," Hermione muttered.

"It was quite a shady place anyway - its not exactly surprising."

"Then how about next time you make the plan, Ron? Where would you have suggested?"

Harry sighed and was about to interrupt before this could turn into another case of vicious bickering between the other two, but Luna beat him to the punch as she rubbed the top of Pantherlily's head. "I wouldn't have suggested anywhere else if I could go back and change it. After all, is not the Hog's Head the place where we found out the truth about Fairy Tail? We never would have done if we'd gone elsewhere."

"…That is true," Ron conceded. "Still, what do we do now? That Widdershins guy definitely knew you were there, Harry. She's going to be on to you."

"Actually I don't think she will be," Lily cleared his throat. "From what I gather this Umbridge is certainly out to get you, Harry. But she made no mention to the Minister that you were involved, which leads me to believe she didn't know. Perhaps this Widdershins man kept that particular aspect of the meeting to himself for whatever reason."

"Well I guess that's something," Harry nodded. "We should… I dunno… get the word out to the other members that she knows about us. There's no way we're going to let her stop us though. We just need to be more careful about it now, I guess."

"We always needed to be careful," Ginny pointed out. "This makes things more difficult sure… but I think its also more of a challenge, and there's not much better than a good challenge, right?"

"I prefer it when things are easy," Ron muttered.

"Well of course you do, you're as lazy as a sack of potatoes," Ginny rolled her eyes at her brother, who threw a wad of crumpled parchment at her.

"It's not going to be enough, you know," Charla stated bluntly.

"What's not?" Hermione frowned.

"Defying that woman's orders," the white Exceed shook her head adamantly. "You can sneak around her all you want, call her names behind her back, hate on her to anyone who won't tell her what you said… none of that's enough. Not even us spying on her is going to be enough. You need to be more proactive. If you've got someone trying to force her tyrannical will over you and almost everyone you know… you have to get rid of her."

"What, you mean overthrow her?" Ron asked.

"Exactly that, yes!" Charla nodded, raising her paw into the air. "She's going to be a constant thorn in your side for as long as she's here. So dig the thorn out!"

"We can't oppose her outright. We'd be expelled," Hermione gasped.

"Well I'm not talking about waltzing into her office and kicking her until she gives up," Charla rolled her eyes. "I'm talking about more subtly. Use anything that you can - blackmail, pranks, sabotage… anything that you can to get her off her high horse."

"You certainly do seem to feel particularly strongly about this, Charla," Pantherlily noted.

"That woman went on a ten minute rant about how much she was looking forward to watching the people in this school suffer while scratching my belly the entire time," Charla retched. "You count your lucky stars that you weren't in my place, Lily."

"Believe me, I do. But I think you've just hit the nail on the head there, Charla."

"…In what way?"

"She said things to you she probably never would have said to anyone that she thought could understand what she was saying," Luna instantly guessed what Lily was about to say. "It's not just the plans of the Ministry you can be listening for when you spy on her. You can learn more about her herself."

"That's right," Hermione clapped her hands. "A woman that awful's bound to have done some horrible things even before she came to Hogwarts, yet she holds such an esteemed position in the Ministry. I bet you anything that she got to that position through underhanded strategies and I bet that she's got a lot of skeletons in her closet. Maybe… if we can find some of those skeletons and maybe get some proof of them to the right people…"

"Then we might be able to unseat her not just from the school… but from the Ministry too," Harry grinned, catching on to the plan.

"Exactly," Lily nodded. "From what I can tell this Fudge you call a Minister is a complete moron… but he's essentially a good person at heart. I find it hard to believe there's nothing that would make him seriously reconsider his decision to keep this woman in office."

"I am loathe to go anywhere near her again," Charla grimaced. "But… if it will help get her the heck out of everyone's lives then I'll dig into the dirt enough to unearth an entire cemetery of skeletons."

"There's an unpleasant image," Ron gagged. "But you know… if we're planning to do this… I think I have an idea on who might be able to help. We still haven't told Fred and George about you guys, but if they're not willing to help us with something like this then I'll eat my chess set."

"That's a great idea, Ron!" Hermione cried.

"It is?" Ron blinked. "I… actually thought you'd be against the idea of Fred and George getting involved considering they'd probably be breaking dozens of rules if they did."

"I think you and I both agree, Ron, that rules go out the window when it comes to that gargoyle."

"Then its settled," Ginny got to her feet. "Come on. Let's see if Fred and George have any Extendable Ears left. Oh, and Charla, Lily, word of advice - if my brothers offer you something to eat… don't eat it."

"You're kidding?" Levy stared at Evergreen in disbelief as Wendy ran her hands slowly down Evergreen's arm to heal a couple of bruises, including the marks on her skin that had been left behind from the vine ropes that the Erklings had used on her. "An actual Queen of the Fairies."

"It beggars belief doesn't it?" Evergreen smirked. "But they said that until their new leader was elected I could call on them at any time. Not exactly sure how I should do it or how helpful they will be to use when I do… but its certainly an intriguing option. Especially if we're really trapped in another universe like this as you say. That part's still kinda sinking in."

"Well with you here, we're one step closer to being a whole group again," Lisanna said. "But… No offence, Ever - I'm thrilled you're okay - but I really wish you'd brought Elf-niichan with you. You were holding his hand in the circle, weren't you?"

Evergreen coughed for a couple of minutes and tried to hide the slight reddish tint that threatened to appear on her cheeks before she said, "Well… I had to hold hands with someone didn't I?"

"Yeah, I know," a small smile appeared on Lisanna's face. "But it was his hand you were holding and he was holding Mira-nee's so I was kinda hoping… when I saw you…" she trailed off and sighed.

Evergreen's expression softened and she placed her hand over Lisanna's. "Hey. Your brother may be a complete muscle-brain but he can look after himself when the chips are down. And your sister… well… I think her power speaks for itself. They'll be okay."

"So everyone keeps telling me," Lisanna smiled gratefully. "But it won't ever stop me from worrying."

"And it shouldn't do," Ever nodded. "But perhaps saying it will help you worry at least a little less."

"Thanks Ever."

The door swung open in the front, causing everyone in the room to look up as they heard the sound of incoming footsteps. Sure enough Aberforth appeared at the door and was quickly followed by a worn-looking Remus Lupin, who stopped when he spotted Evergreen and nodded his head to her. "Ah hello. You must be the new member of the guild I've heard about. Thank goodness you made a less dramatic entrance into our universe than… all of your friends have so far."

"Less conspicuous entrance, yes," Levy stated. "Less dramatic… eh, that's debatable."

"Ah… well, you may have to tell me about it another time. It seems time is of the essence now if there truly is another Sphere in the Cairngorms. And I do agree with Aberforth. A smaller part would be better this time - the mountains can be fairly open and you could potentially be spotted very easily up there."

"I'm small. I can go!" Happy waved cheerfully.

"I'll go too," Lisanna nodded. "I can turn into animals if I need to hide. I'll be less conspicuous."

"Um… am I small enough to count?" Levy raised a hand.

Lupin chuckled. "I can take you three but I think that should be it this time. I don't think we should have a party of more than five."

"Five?" Wendy asked. "But there's only four of you?"

"…Not quite," Lupin gave a rather dry smirk. And it was at that moment that another figure appeared in the doorway next to him. A man wearing a standard long black cloak, and with quite a distinctive hooked nose and head of greasy hair.

"It appears you managed to catch me on a day off, what with it being Sunday and all," said Snape. "And Lupin rather insisted I accompany you. Aren't I lucky?"