"I love it here in Magnolia." Orihime narrated. "I've only been in Fairy Tail for a couple days and I've already settled in. I became a member and I have my own apartment. Of course Fairy Tail does have a place called Fairy Hills, but this apartment was cheaper and it's nicer. Even though I've only been in Fairy Tail for a short while, I've already made many friends."
"Orihime, you up there?" She looked out the window to see Rukia was waiting for her down at the street.
"Like Rukia. She and I get along great." Orihime narrated
"Hang on. I'll be right down." Orihime called out to Rukia. She got all of her stuff together and ran out to meet up with Rukia so they can walk to the guild together.
"So how's settling in your new apartment?" Rukia said.
"Oh it's great. It's small, but cozy." Orihime said.
"I don't understand why you wouldn't want to move into Fairy Hills with all the other girls, but that's your choice." Rukia said. "A few members like Lucy had their own apartment in town."
"Yeah, but I'm going to need to figure out how I'm going to make rent." Orihime said.
"That's simple. You'll have to take a job request." Rukia said. Orihime forgot about that part of being in a guild. You have to take jobs and she wasn't sure if she could do it.
"My First Job"
…..
The Guild
Orihime and Rukia arrived at the guild and it was better than when Orihime first came since people weren't fighting. Orihime looked over to the request board and Ichigo was already standing there.
"Ichigo." Orihime said and got his attention.
"Hey." Ichigo said.
"Looking for a job yourself?" Rukia said.
"Yeah. It's just a matter of what seems the most interesting." Ichigo said.
"Why don't we let Orihime decide and the three of us can go together." Rukia said. "Orihime needs to get some experience, but it might be best she goes with someone to help her out."
"If you say so." Ichigo said.
"Okay, just pick which ever you want." Rukia said. "Of course, if you want to be able to pay your rent, you might want to look at the wants that pays a lot."
"Okay." Orihime said as she looked over at the jobs. She wanted something simple, but pays some good amount of money and it looked like she found one. "How about this one. All we have to do is get rid of an infestation of insects."
"I think it might be more complicated than you think." Ichigo said. "I doubt anyone would pay seventy-thousand jewel just to exterminate a few insects. You also should know that we'll have to split that money three ways so you're only getting about twenty-thousand."
"Well, she's made her decision and we should help her with it." Rukia said.
"Fine." Ichigo said as he took the flyer to tell they've accepted it.
…..
Train Ride
With Ichigo and the girls taking the requests, they got on a train and were heading for a small village where the job takes place. Unlike dragon slayers, Ichigo didn't get motion sick so it was just a smooth ride.
"So Rukia, can I ask what kind of magic you use?" Orihime said.
"I'll show you." Rukia said. She took her right fist and placed it against her hand with frost coming out from it. When Rukia pulled away, there was a small swan statue in her hands made from ice. "I use Maker Magic."
"What's that?" Orihime said.
"That's when wizards can make objects or something." Ichigo explained. "There are actually many kinds that use different elements like ice, metal, or whatever."
"So Rukia, you use Ice-Maker Magic?" Orihime said.
"That's right." Rukia said.
"In fact, the person who taught this form of Magic to Rukia was our own Gray Fullbuster when Rukia first came to Fairy Tail." Ichigo said.
"You mean that older man that takes his clothes off for no reason?" Orihime said.
"That's him." Rukia said with an embarrassed look. "It is kind of embarrassing when he does that. Good thing I didn't pick up on that bad habit."
"I think Gray sees Rukia like his own daughter, even though he has one of his own. It's just like how I see Natsu like my own Dad." Ichigo said.
"Wow. Everyone in Fairy Tail seems really close with each other." Orihime said.
"Yeah, even though those two are constantly fighting. OF course, Natsu can easily take Gray since fire always beats ice." Ichigo said, but ended up getting punched in the face by Rukia. "What was that for?"
"Don't underestimate Gray. He's stronger than you might think." Rukia said.
"I didn't say he was." Ichigo said.
"Please stop fighting you two." Orihime begged and the three of them just tried to enjoy the ride. Soon their ride came to an end and they went the rest of the way on foot.
"According to this map, the village we're going to should have plenty of farm lands and should just be over this hill." Rukia said.
"I see it, but you guys might want to look at this." Ichigo said. The girls stood next to him and saw the village isn't what they thought it was. It looked like a village, but it looked wrecked and hardly had any crops at all.
"What happened here?" Orihime said.
"This might have to do with the infestation we're here to clear." Rukia said. The three of them went down and saw villagers were miserable, hungry, and some of them were sick. "Excuse me, we're from Fairy Tail. We're here because you asked for help."
"Oh thank goodness that you came." An elder of the village said.
"Can you tell us what happened here?" Orihime said.
"It all started just a few days ago when these monsters came into our village and started eating all of our crops." The elder said.
"Monsters? Are you talking about insects?" Ichigo said.
"They are insects, but they are monsters." The elder said.
"Can you give us a clearer picture of what these monsters look like?" Rukia asked, but that didn't happen when they heard someone scream.
"I think we're about to get our answer." Ichigo said as they went to check it out. He and the girls went to someone's home and saw something that horrified them. They saw a wasp creature eating someone's crops, but it was the size of a pickup truck. "Now, I see what the old man was talking about."
"Be careful, their stingers carry toxins in them that will greatly affect your body." The elder warned them.
"I've got this." Ichigo said as he raced towards the creature. "Night Spirit's Moon Fang!" He unleashed the fang shaped blast, but the wasp flew up and avoided it. It flew down to try and sting him, but Ichigo moved out of the way.
"Ice Make: Saucer!" Rukia made a blade of ice and shot it with it slicing the wasp in two.
"Ice shot." Ichigo tried to joke, but no one laughed.
"So these are the creatures that have been giving you trouble?" Orihime said.
"Yes. There are tons of them. They eat our crops and wreck our homes." The elder said. "We try to stop them, but they sting us and we either end up being killed or poisoned. If this keeps up, our village won't last much longer."
"Guys, we have to help them." Orihime said.
"That's why we took the job. There must be a hive or something close to the village." Rukia said.
"Yeah and if we want to stop these things, we'll have to destroy it." Ichigo said.
"There's more to it. These creatures are wasps and in order for us to destroy a colony, we must kill the queen." Rukia said. "If the queen dies, the hive dies."
"We better get to work." Ichigo said.
"What about these people?" Orihime said.
"We'll come back and try to help them after we take care of the hive." Ichigo said. As long as they came back to help, that's all that mattered to Orihime. So they headed out into the woods to find the hive.
….
The Woods
The three of them headed into the woods in search of the hive. It was easy since there was a trail of eaten plants for them to follow. They traveled deeper in until they started to hear a buzzing sound.
"You guys hear that?" Ichigo said.
"We have to be close." Rukia said.
"Over here." Orihime said. They took cover and found a giant hive with more of those wasp creatures.
"The queen must be inside." Rukia said. "Okay, we need a plan since there are so many of them. We have to find a way to distract those insects and lure the queen out."
"I think Ichigo already has something in mind." Orihime said. Rukia looked out and saw Ichigo was already stepping out to face the wasps.
"Is he nuts?! He's going to get killed! What's the matter with men that don't think things through?" Rukia said. Ichigo wasn't going to wait around for this.
"Time to come out, your majesty." Ichigo said. "Night Spirit's Piercing Heaven!" He unleashed his magic and it slashed right through the ground and cut the hive in two. Of course, that caused the wasps to become agitated. "Wow. It even goes down and under the ground."
"Ichigo!" Rukia said as she was frustrated with him. Ichigo saw something crawl out and it was the queen with it being even bigger than the rest.
"I'm so glad you could grace us with your presence." Ichigo said. Rukia and Orihime came out of hiding and decided to back Ichigo up with the wasps growing wild.
"Stay behind me, Rukia. Santen Kesshun!" Orihime made her shield to protect her and Rukia from the stingers and pushed the wasps back.
"Wow! Ichigo was telling the truth. Orihime's magic is truly amazing." Rukia said. "Can't let myself get distracted." She placed her hands together and decided to join in the fight. "Ice-Make: Lance!" She shot lances of ice and shot down the wasps. Ichigo was fighting the queen. The queen tried chomping down on him, but he rolled under her to avoid it. Ichigo jumped up and started whacking her stomach with his fists. The queen started flapping her wings to avoid him.
"Where are you going?" Ichigo said as he grabbed on and started climbing her. "Can't fly if she doesn't have wings. Night Spirit's Moon Fang!" He used the fang attack and it chopped off the wings and she began to fall and Ichigo fell off. "Night Spirit's Lunar Reap!" Ichigo shot out black crescent shape blasts and it was tearing up the queen.
"Ice-Make: Arrows!" Rukia formed a bow of ice and shot out arrows that shot down some of the wasps. Some of them became confused without the queen and just flew away.
"Pest control taken care of." Ichigo said. After the wasps were taken care of, Ichigo and the girls headed back to the village and tried to help them out. They were able to find some fruit for the villagers to eat and help with the crops. Orihime got to work on healing the sick and injured.
"Orihime, that magic of yours is amazing. What would take medicine and doctors weeks, you're healing these people in mere minutes." Ichigo said.
"Thank you." Orihime said.
"So what kind of magic is it?" Ichigo said. That brought a little discouraged to Orihime with her looking away.
"To be honest, I don't know." Orihime said.
"You don't know?" Ichigo said. A magic that even the caster doesn't know about leads to an interesting mystery. After doing what they can to help, the three of them collected their reward and headed back for the guild.
"So how did you like your first job, Orihime?" Rukia said.
"It was fine, but I didn't do much of anything." Orihime said.
"Don't sell yourself short." Ichigo said. "That shield helped out Rukia and you helped those villagers. Those people would have died if you didn't help them the way you did."
"Ichigo! Rukia!" The three of them looked ahead and saw their friends Renji and Chad.
"It's Renji and Chad!" Rukia said.
"We just got done with a job." Chad said.
"So did we." Ichigo said.
"I'm glad we ran into you guys. I heard that Uryu is heading back into town." Renji said.
"Uryu?! Oh man, not him!" Ichigo said.
…
Orihime: Wow, Ichigo, jobs can be difficult.
Ichigo: You just need to get use to it. The higher the pay, the bigger the job. Just be glad you're using your magic for something good.
Orihime: What do you mean?
Ichigo: Next time: Guild Darkness
Ichigo: You're about to meet guys that I consider a nuisance.