Chapter 9: Scapegoat

"It isn't fair! We have to go rescue Jellal!"

"No, we do not." Erza had a firm grip on the back of Natsu's neck.

"But it's not his fault! And we saved all the guild masters! They shouldn't be throwing him in jail!"

"We left a gaping crater where a building used to be," Erza seemed to be getting progressively more annoyed.

"Yeah, but we were stopping a giant demon thing!"

"That's not the point."

The argument didn't show any signs of slowing down unless Erza tired of arguing and simply eviscerated Natsu. Lucy honestly wasn't sure if that was something she would actually do.

Lucy still couldn't believe that she'd actually been involved in a battle with a dark guild. Erza had asked Natsu to assist her and Jellal since Simon was sick. Why Natsu had gotten it into his head that Lucy needed to come, too, she would probably never know. Erza had thoroughly approved of the idea, though, and you didn't say no to Erza. She had hoped that Jellal would be the voice of reason, but there was no help there. It had been absolutely terrifying… and a little bit amazing. Lucy had never felt as alive as when the adrenaline had been singing through her veins. Together they'd managed to save the guild masters! (Though, next time she was involved in a major battle, Lucy hoped that she'd be able to get through it with a little less screaming.)

Then representatives from the Magic Council had shown up and arrested Jellal.

Lucy rolled the glass of fruit juice she had been drinking back and forth between her hands.

"Aren't you worried about Jellal?" Lucy asked Simon. They were sitting next to each other at the bar. Simon seemed to be keeping an eye on Erza. His face was still a little drawn and pale, but he looked much better than he had when Lucy and the others left.

"Well, I'm not happy about it, but he'll be alright," Simon assured her. "The Council just wants to make an example of someone. They'll probably just give him a slap on the wrist and send him home. If they try to do anything more than that, we'll appeal it."

Lucy was impressed how calm he was being about this.

"But I thought Erza was your team leader. If someone had to be made an example of, shouldn't it be her? I mean, not that I want Erza to get in trouble, but it doesn't make sense."

"In practice, Erza is in charge, but on paper, we have Jellal listed as the team leader." Mirajane set a fresh cup of tulsi tea in front of Simon, and he offered her a smile. "Thank you."

"Why would you do that?" Lucy asked, perplexed.

Simon took a sip of his tea.

"Out of the three of us, Jellal has the best social skills and is best at playing the Council's political games. Erza is a little too inclined to deal with all situations by stabbing something, and I have the patience for the politics but not the skill. After the third time that Jellal managed to talk us out of getting thrown in jail, we named him our diplomat." Simon took another sip of tea. "Erza can do the proper kowtowing when she chooses to. She just generally doesn't choose to." His mouth pulled up into a small smile.

Erza chose that moment to finally punch Natsu in the solar plexus, laying him out flat and unconscious on the floor.

"Somebody sit on him to make sure that he doesn't go anywhere when he wakes up," she ordered.

"Want me to just freeze him?" offered Ultear. The Ice Djinn Trio had only gotten back to the guild a few hours ago. Erza considered this for a moment and then nodded firmly. A few seconds later Natsu was frozen up to his neck in a giant block of ice shaped like rosebud.

Erza wandered over to the bar, sat down on Simon's opposite side, and leaned against his shoulder. He patted her back.

"I think Erza needs some chocolate cake, Mira."

"Coming right up!"

"Why couldn't they have arrested all of us?" Erza grumbled.

"Because you scare them," Simon stated without even a moment's hesitation.

"I want Jellal back."

"We'll get him back in a few days. Eat your cake."

"So what do you think so far?" Lucy jumped slightly as Levy sat down next to her. They hadn't had too much time to talk, yet, but Lucy had already decided that she liked Levy a lot.

"What do I think of what?"

"Guild life, silly," Levy winked. "Have we managed to scare you off, yet?"

"No! It's even better than I imagined. Though… does the Council come and arrest people from Fairy Tail very often?"

"Oh, no," Levy waved a hand. "Usually they just send the master a bunch of angry paperwork. Though, if they are going to arrest anybody, it tends to be Jellal. I'm not really sure why. They also send me recruitment brochures every once in a while."

"Really?" Before Lucy could ask more, Natsu woke up and began shouting again. This time Ultear took a shot at talking some sense into him.

"Shut up, Natsu, before I permanently freeze you to the side of a train." That got his attention. His mouth snapped shut. "Jellal will be fine as long as we don't interfere. Remember when he got that arson charge against you dropped? This is like that."

"Oh! So Jellal is playing the Council for suckers again!" Natsu brightened up. "Why didn't you just say so? He's good at that!"

Ultear rolled her eyes and released him from the block of ice.

"Not really, but close enough."

As soon as Natsu was free, Gray hit him in the face with a blast of ice magic.

"What the hell was that for, frostbite?!"

"For being such a freaking moron, flame-brain!"

Gray ducked Natsu's responding ball of fire which hit Elfman instead. It was sort of like watching dominoes fall. In less than a minute, the guild's solemn air had been replaced by a bar brawl. Lucy glanced up at the clock. Well, it was almost three o'clock. The brawl was pretty much right on time.

Simon casually deflected a flying stool that would have sent Erza pitching face-first into her slice of cake.

Lucy smiled as the tension slowly leaked out of the air. Next to her, Levy sent a solid script WATER flying into the confusion. Fairy Tail really was her kind of crazy.

A/N: Am I going to skip over all arcs like this? No, more detail will come later. It's all based on what the author is actually interested in writing about.

Thank you for your review on the last chapter, guest!