Day 4: Role
"Rampaging mechanical dragon" was not what Lahar had been expecting to see first thing in the morning. Or… generally at any point in time.
The words in black ink on the report sitting on his desk stared balefully back at him. Further down the paper, the words "Fairy Tail" caught his eye, and understanding and resignation swept through the Rune Knight Captain in equal measure.
Just how was it that Fairy Tail continuously found themselves in these type of situations?
With the archival process nearly complete, it was truly stunning just how many of the surviving incident reports involved Fairy Tail's members or even the guild as a whole – going all the way back to its inception one hundred years prior. Which was fairly impressive, as the Magic Council as a whole had only been around for about half that time, itself.
At any rate, most of the recorded incidents were directly Fairy Tail's fault, not just the result of coincidence. Really, something needed to be done about the guild's reckless behavior, or more innocent people would get hurt. Furthermore, it was difficult to advocate for all of the guilds and Era as a whole when one particular guild insisted on causing as much trouble as possible.
Although… giving this new report a quick glance, Lahar didn't believe this time to be one of those. The guild had stumbled across something nasty, and had done their best to resolve it before it reached their home city. They had failed in that endeavor, but had ultimately resolved the issue well in advance of the Rune Knights arriving on the scene.
To Lahar, this meant that he would have to immediately begin working to improve the mobility of the Rune Knights under his command. After the fiasco at the Worth Woodsea with the Oracion Seis… it was sorely needed. It would be a problem if the guilds suddenly got it into their minds that they could keep the peace better than the Rune Knights, and ignore whatever rules they pleased so long as their intentions were good with little to no repercussions.
Lahar was finding it more difficult every day to justify to himself as to just why he'd given them the pass he had.
Maybe it was finally time to enact his plan to plant a spy within Fairy Tail's ranks… If Lahar could bring them down a peg or two, it would certainly make everyone's lives a lot more quiet.
To that end, he gathered up as many reports about Fairy Tail as he could. He needed to know his opponent like he knew himself. And more importantly, so did the spy he intended to use.
In his research, he came across two more reports about Lucy Heartfilia. One involved the arrest of a duke for tax evasion – where she and her teammate had completely leveled the man's dwelling. The other involved her role in stopping a heist committed by a dark guild under the Oracion Seis, prior to the dark guild's defeat. It seemed nowadays that he heard a lot about this girl, Lahar couldn't help but note. There was even photographic evidence of her utilizing key spirits known to belong to Angel, one of the members of Oracion Seis currently held in Era's prison, against the mechanical dragon.
Lahar had a sinking feeling that she would prove to be one of Fairy Tail's greatest troublemakers.
It was at that point that Lahar received word that Magnolia had vanished for a couple of days, and then mysteriously reappeared – along with an entire civilization of talking, flying cats.
He couldn't help but wonder just what role Lucy Heartfilia had played in this, because there was no doubt in his mind that Fairy Tail was at the heart of the whole thing.