AN: Thanks Goku275 and MDM11. MDM11, I like reading your ideas, but I already have plans for those two Spriggan.
"Long time, no see Brandish," said Aquarius.
The Spriggan only gazed at the Celestial Spirit, her mouth opened a bit as she searched for the right words to say. Brandish felt a mixture of discomfort at her childhood playmate now being an enemy, fear at the thought of what said enemy would do to her, and joy at seeing her friend again.
Unfortunately for her, staying silent only made Aquarius angry.
"Hey! I just greeted you! Where's your response, you rotten brat!"
"P-please forgive me, Master," stuttered out the Spriggan, immediately submitting like she always had as a kid.
Lucy gawked as the Spriggan that had seemed powerful and cold only moments ago got bullied by her Celestial Spirit. Aquarius treated Brandish like a dog, forcing her to walk on four legs and bark, petting her head, and then slapping her.
"I am your master, and Lucy is my master!" declared the Celestial Spirit to Brandish as the Spriggan kneeled and bowed. "Do you understand what that means, Brandish!?"
"Yes, but…" answered the Spriggan, gathering up her nerve. "Even so… I still cannot forgive Layla for killing my mother!"
"What!?" thought Lucy, speechless. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined her mother killing somebody.
"Lucy isn't Layla, is she?" responded Aquarius without any of her usual rage. "For that matter, Layla didn't kill Grammi either."
Those words surprised Brandish and calmed Lucy. The two Celestial Spirit Mages looked at Aquarius for an explanation, both curious about what had transpired between their mothers.
"Then what actually happened?" asked Lucy.
"I was getting to that!" shouted the Celestial Spirit, suddenly angry again. Lucy and Brandish shook in fear. "Now, pay attention as I tell — well, more 'show'— you what happened!"
"Yes, Master!" replied the Celestial Spirit Mages in unison.
With that, Aquarius used her magic to bring Lucy and Brandish to Star Memory, the archive of all the Celestial Spirit's memories. There, the two women learned the truth about both of their mothers' deaths.
By the time Aquarius's story was finished and they returned to the hill just outside Magnolia Town, Brandish no longer felt the will to fight. Instead, she merely cried and let Lucy hug her. Once the Spriggan had no more tears left, they disentangled and started talking.
"Can't you and I be friends?" asked Lucy gently. Her question made Aquarius give an uncharacteristically soft smile. "Like our mothers were?"
"We're at war, remember?" answered Brandish, attempting to act stoic as she did so. "If you act this naïve, you're going to get yourself killed. I'll accept that I lost here and be your prisoner, but I have no interest in being your friend."
Lucy frowned. Before she could get too sad, though, Aquarius put a hand on her shoulder and spoke.
"She needs more time," the Celestial Spirit told the Fairy. Aquarius then turned to the Spriggan. "Let us meet again one day, Brandish."
"…"
"I! Can't! Hear! You!"
"Y-yes, ma'am."
Jacob swung an invisible weapon at Minerva. Using the position of his hand to estimate the weapon's location, Minerva teleported behind the Spriggan moments before he hit her. The Fairy then delivered a Territory Nihility-enhanced punch to Jacob's back before he could shift from attacking to defending.
The Spriggan got knocked back a few feet by the strike but was able to stay on his feet. He snapped around to face Minerva, then began to vanish.
"No you don't!" shouted the Fairy raising her hands toward Jacob. "Territory Explosion!"
Several blasts went off in the area that the Spriggan had disappeared in. Forced to concentrate on the explosions, Jacob had no choice but to drop his invisibility as he endured the attack.
"Territory Drain!" yelled Minerva, taking advantage of his focus on defense to trap the Spriggan once again. This time, the sphere was solid enough to prevent the Spriggan from attacking her with a weapon.
However, although the spell held him prisoner and drained his mana, Jacob did not express panic or fear. No, his face displayed the cold fury of a ruthless killer who was done playing games.
"You are way too naïve," berated the Spriggan. He took a moment to brush the dirt off of his suit, which had gotten torn and burnt during the fight. "Remember the two members of your guild that I captured? I'm going to kill them now."
"Try that and you'll regret it," answered the Fairy, her voice filled with the same mercilessness as Jacob's.
"You have pushed me beyond the point of no return," said the Spriggan, not taking Minerva's threat seriously. He raised his right hand, forming an orb with which he observed the two who he had captured with his Transport. He prepared to inflict an instantaneous death on the Fairies — not out of mercy, but to prevent Minerva from saving them.
"What!?"
Except, before Jacob could kill them, the two Fairies disappeared from his Transport and reappeared next to Minerva, a trace of her Territory Magic flickering around them.
"Did you think that I wasn't expecting you to try killing my friends?" asked Minerva, a smirk on her face. "Or maybe that my use of Territory Drain was a naïve attempt to capture you without causing any major injuries?"
The Spriggan began to grow nervous about the three pissed Fairies standing before him. He clapped his hands together, attempting to use Transport again, only to find his spell blocked by Mineva's Territory Drain.
"No," continued the Fairy in question, savoring Jacob's panicked behavior. "I was forcing you to access the dimension that you were keeping them in while you were inside of my Territory. That way, I could hijack your Spatial Magic with mine and rescue them. And now, you're going to regret what you've done."
"If you don't mind…" piped up Makarov, using his magic to grow huge. The guild master crackled his knuckles, causing the trapped Spriggan to gulp. "…I'd like to do the honors myself."
"Be my guest."
When Jacob regained consciousness, he was locked in a cell with Ajeel and Brandish, wearing magic sealing handcuffs and significantly more injured than earlier.
"Where… are we?" he asked, groaning.
"A jail cell in Fairy Tail," answered Brandish. She sounded a bit distracted, as if thinking about something more important. "They beat us."
Concerningly, Ajeel gave an even smaller reaction than her. The Spriggan was staring blankly at the cell's wall. He only turned away for a moment to glance at Jacob — to confirm that the assassin was awake — before going back to the wall.
"…At least they made the mistake of leaving us alive," noted Jacob, used to ignoring the… eccentric behavior of his fellow Spriggan. "Once our comrades make it here, we'll be freed."
"That may not happen," said Ajeel listlessly. His fellow Spriggan looked at him with surprise, both at his words and the abnormally pessimistic tone with which he spoke.
"Nonsense," replied Jacob, somewhat perturbed by Ajeel's behavior. Did Fairy Tail do something to him? "The people of Ishgar may be more powerful than we expected, but they are still no match for the full might of the Alvarez Empire. Not when we have powerhouses like the emperor and August and Ire—"
"August is dead," interjected Ajeel bluntly.
His words drew gasps from the other two Spriggan. Jacob stared at Ajeel in disbelief, while Brandish began to cry at the death of the man who she thought of as a grandfather.
"The Fairies told me about it, and I'm one hundred percent sure they weren't lying," continued Ajeel. "Not only that, but, before he… before he died, August revealed something crazy about himself. It turns out that August was actually…"
Suffice to say, Brandish and Jacob soon found themselves staring off into space alongside Ajeel.
"Here's to being useless," Cana said to herself, raising a mug of beer and drinking it. She was currently sitting at the guild hall's bar.
The Fairy had been a bit disheartened by how she wasn't of any use during the fight with the Spriggan, so she decided to make herself feel better with some alcohol.
"Good news!" exclaimed Happy, flying into the room with a broad smile on his face. "Natsu just woke up!"
The Exceed's words were met with a round of cheers from all the Fairies present.
"I think I'll have a drink to celebrate," murmured an elated Cana, grabbing and chugging down another mug of beer.
"Once you're finished with that drink, could you help me with something?"
Cana lowered her mug and turned to see Mavis. She stared at the former guild master for a moment, then smiled. "Of course!"
"I figured out a plan to defeat Zeref," answered the Fairy Tactician. "I can't give you any details yet, but the first step involves Fairy Glitter."
"Nice!" exclaimed Cana. Her earlier feeling of uselessness was long forgotten, though she still grabbed a new mug of beer. "What do you need me to do?"
"First, we need to go down to the basement levels," explained Mavis. "To my true body… the Eternal Magic, Fairy Heart."
"The enemy's main force has come into view now," observed Panther Lily.
"We never managed to meet up with Quattro Cerberus and Blue Pegasus, huh?" noted Elfman. With Hibiki's Archive, they should've been able to find one another without much difficulty.
"I hope they're okay," said Levy, concerned for the guilds. Looking at the approaching troops, she frowned. "The enemy is coming this way. What do we do?"
"We take them on," answered Gajeel, wearing a serious expression. "What else?"
"There are a lot of them!" commented Mirajane.
"It's alright," replied Elfman. "I'm sure Blue Pegasus and Quattro Cerberus are somewhere around here, too."
"They could be in hiding, planning to ambush the enemy," suggested Rogue.
"And if they aren't, we'll just have to take down some Alvarez soldiers in their names," added Sting, punching his fist into his other hand for emphasis.
"We're going to stop them here!" declared Gajeel. "We can't let them get any closer to the guild! Everyone, prepare for battle!"
Lisanna activated Animal Soul: Rabbit, while Mirajane and Elfman prepared to use their Take Overs at a moment's notice. Lily, Lector, and Frosch all used Battle Mode Shift, the former drawing his sword. Levy tossed her bag aside. Gajeel, Sting, and Rogue entered fighting stances.
However, as the Alvarez forces drew closer, the Fairies noticed something horrific. The soldiers were laughing as several of them carried wooden poles like flags. Except, instead of flags, the poles were crucifixes, each of which had a beaten up Pegasus or Cerberus tied to it.
"Jenny…"
"Bacchus…"
"Even Ichiya and the Trimens…"
"What monsters!" shouted Levy.
The Alvarez soldiers hadn't stopped at defeating their enemies. They hadn't even stopped at parading around those enemies. They still continued to laugh and jeer at the defeated mages, catcalling the few captured women.
"They took out… all of Cerberus and Pegasus?" gulped Gajeel, a drop of sweat rolling down his face. The Iron Dragon Slayer had expected that they would be facing powerful opponents, but he never thought they would be this strong!
A difficult battle loomed before the Fairies.
Omake
"I'm so glad you're okay," said Millianna, giving her husband's hand a gentle squeeze. Natsu returned it, giving her a smile.
"Of course he is!" proclaimed Blaze, pretending she'd never been nervous. "Nobody is stronger than Daddy!"
"Yeah, Daddy's the strongest!" echoed Iggy.
"You bet I am," stated the dragon playfully, flexing his free arm. Then, he turned serious. "I'd love to keep talking, but I have to tell the First Master something important about the Spriggan I defeated. He—"
"I already told everyone," interjected Happy with a flat voice. The Exceed looked at Natsu accusatorily. "You dropped that huge bomb on me then passed out, forcing me to tell everyone in your place."
"R-right," said Natsu sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "Thanks for that. Is there anything I can—"
"Fish," stated Happy bluntly. The Exceed was so irritated that he didn't even say 'aye, sir' when Natsu thanked him. "Lots of fish."
AN: Originally, the Omake was going to be Cana tumbling down a flight of stairs on the way to Fairy Heart. Then I realized that three mugs of beer wouldn't be enough to make Cana that drunk.
I can't really think of anything else to say, so that's all for now. Bye!