They were in Colosseum, one of the opening hallways where all the cheering was. Ara looked dully around wearing a purple uniform that originally was made for Wendy, It was a little tight in the bust area but she made it work.

"I shouldn't even be wearing this. It was made for Wendy. She should be here right now not me." Ara looked down sadly, patting down the dress's skirt. Ara wiped a tear from her cheek thinking back to the hospital room. "I hope they will be alright."

...

After the preliminaries, the team was made aware that Wendy, Carla, and Zip were found. They were in a passed-out state with no magic power detectable.

Ara and the others quickly rushed to their sides in the infirmary of the Colosseum. Ara cried running to Zip's side. The little frog was in a hospital bed, his helmet and boots sitting on the bedside table. "Zip, omg." She held him close. "What happened?"

Natsu and the others were standing by Wendy and Carla's bedside wondering the same thing.

"Where the heck were they?"

"Lisanna and I found them in the castle gardens." Happy said sadly.

"Wendy, what happened out there?" Natsu asked as Wendy opened her eyes.

She blinked tears in her eyes. "I don't know, it's all a blur." She then scrunched up in pain.

"Ara.." Zip opened his green eyes, grabbing at her hand. "I feel weak. I just wanted to see the castle, there is so much history there ... I thought. But all I saw was this black creature coming out at Wendy and Carla and I..."

"They gave magic depletion..." Miss Porlyuscia said coming in by their side.

"I'm sorry..." Wendy started crying. "I trained so hard to help the guild... but now I'm just useless." She turned into her sheets, looking at Ara on the other side. Ara locked eyes with her. "Ara, please go in my place, win for me."

Ara let a tear fall looking down at Zip. "I will, I will win for you, Carla, and Zip."

...

"We have to concentrate, we have to win and avenge the others."

"Now.." Ara listened as the commentator began to speak loudly and echo into the tunnel. The five of them walked to the edge of said hall preparing to go out. Ara wrung her hands together in anxiety, biting her lip, she had to do her best to fight for them. For Fairy Tail, Zip, Wendy, Carla. Everyone.

She looked forward with determination. Giving a smile to Lucy who gave one back.

"It's time to meet our competitors..."

"Ready?" Natsu asked them. "Let's go."

"First up in eight places, a old school bunch of wild wizards... the had luck in the preliminary round and now are ready to take the games by force, it's Fairy Tail!"

They walked out into the shining light. Natsu threw his fist in the air.

The first thing Ara noticed was the cheers turning to boos. That couldn't be good. She flushed a bit at the negative attention.

"That's not what I expected," Gray said.

Lucy frowned. "I want to go home now."

"..will the Tenrou teams return help Fairy Tail become its greatest guild? We'll see..."

Erza looked at the team. "Don't let them get to you. We worked hard to be here."

Ara nodded. "She's right."

They all looked to the crowd when they heard their guild shouting over everyone else. They all smiled. "We only need to listen to the voices of our Fairy Tail family." Ara wiped her eyes.

"Even master Mavis is here." Lucy smiled waving.

"If she's here we've got this in the bag." Natsu grinned.

"Next up in seventh place of the prelims are the rowdy hell hounds Quattro Cerberus!"

On that call another guild emerged, with strange-looking wizards too, at least that's what Ara thought.

"Let's get wild!!" They shouted.

"..And coming in sixth is a group filled to the brim with the fairer sex..." Ara raised a brow at that comment. "...The anthem of the great blue sea... Mermaid Heel!"

A group of ladies came out, giggling and smiling. Ara couldn't help the small smile she reflected. They truly were a beautiful group.

"..In fifth place the glimmer in the darkness ... it's Blue Pegasus!"

Ara grimaced as they made a ridiculous pose. Then again they wouldn't be Blue Pegasus if they didn't do something like that.

"..And in fourth place the goddess of love and strife...the sacred destroyer... Lamia Scale!"

Lamia Scale walked in. As more guilds joined everything started to come into perspective. This was really happening. She was competing in the Grand Magic Games. What if she wasn't strong enough? Would she let her whole guild down?

"You okay Ara, you look a little tense?" Lucy whispered touching her arm gently.

"Ya, I'm fine, nerves," Ara reassured. You need to get yourself together, this is what she repeated over again in her head.

"How did you only get in fourth place!" Ara heard their guild master shout.

The Sherria girl looked to her master apologetically. "Sorry about that old hag, I wasn't looking where I was going." Then she proceeded to make that concrete by tripping and falling again.

"I've never seen her before," Natsu commented, attention on Sherria.

Gray followed his eyes smirking. "She looks like a smaller version of that girl Sherry."

"Please try to stay on your feet." Ara heard Lyon chastise.

"No promises Lyon."

"This is Sherria, she's one of Sherry's cousins." Yuka's voice answered.

"Makes sense."

Toby made one of his dog sounds, "And she's crazy strong to boot."

"I need a lot more love if I want to compete with Sherry." Sherria giggled.

Ara could hear this caused Toby to outburst that he was praising her and for Yuka to make fun of Toby telling him to chase a ball.

Ara glanced to the side as Gray dropped his head with a sigh and a smile. "Bring love crazy must run in the family."

"Don't forget our agreement." Ara startled slightly turning towards the voice right next to her. Lyon was standing smirking at Gray. "If Lamia Scale wins we get Juvia."

Gray glared back. "We didn't even make an agreement on that, you made it up in your own icy head."

"And Lamia Scale ain't having her anyway!" The fellow guild members protested.

"Not that it matters because you're gonna lose." Gray and Lyon now stood closer with a stare down.

"Then if we win I'll take Miss Erza as my one and only." Of course, Ichiya and Blue Pegasus had to join in the antics.

Erza flinched back in horror at his comment and finger pose towards her. "I'll do no such thing you troll."

"Your perfume is like candy to my nostrils."

Then it continued with Ren joining in with saying he'd take Lucy and then Eve came over to Ara and told her he'd take her, obviously as some gag warning more glares from her members, and ... others. Hibiki had to finish the punchline by saying he'd like to be given to Mermaid Heel and Toby countered that by saying that was his idea. Ara held her forehead as a tensing headache came on. There was never a day without chaos for the life of a wizard. She was sure Zip would have enjoyed this all. She looked down praying still that they would be alright.

Ara brought her attention from them as the commentator began again. "And our third place contestant ... what a shocker.. swooping in from a midnight dreary ... this dark and gloomy bunch are making their debut in this year's games ... give it up for Raven Tail."

Automatically it was like a dark weight was out on the colosseum as the next group walked in. Raven Tail. Weren't they a dark guild? Ara knew this couldn't be good. Master Makarov thought the same thing as he shouted protests gifting his son being there. The commentator proceeded to reassure everyone that Raven Tail did have all their documentation so as such weren't considered a dark guild.

Though Fairy Tail knew this couldn't be the case.

"This is bad, their leader is Master Makarov's son."

The group came upon the Fairy Tail team, the leader with the gold mask talking in a scratchy voice. "I trust your friends are recovering?"

Ara felt her heart race and anger course in her cribs as they proceeded to mold what happened. They hurt Zip. They hurt Carla and Wendy. She had to hold herself back, from doing something she shouldn't. As everyone else seemed to do.

"Hold on we have two teams that still made it through the qualifying round...Our first-place runner-up is ... oh wow! What a surprise! This year's competition just got a whole lot more interesting folks... It's Fairy Tail Team B!"

Ara felt her eyes go wide with shock as she took in the other group consisting of Gajeel, Laxus, Mirajane, and Juvia. Then of course Mystogan who had to be Jellal. Ara wasn't sure what was going with that but from the way Erza was looking at him, she knew it must have been serious.

Everyone was mostly surprised Fairy Tail had two teams, something Ara was also confused about. This must have been the Master's plan all along. Following everyone's shock the commentators had to explain the new rule for the games this year was that a second team was allowed. The reason for why so many guilds were in the prelims.

"This is a big load of crap." Natsu made an outburst, catching everyone off guard. "Just because we are in the same guild doesn't mean I'll pull any punches." He pointed his finger. "As long as we're in this tournament you guys are our enemy and I'm not gonna lose to any of you."

Gajeel got into Natsu's face with a grin, "I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm looking forward to making you eat dirt salamander.

"And last but certainly not least it's the team who came in first place in the preliminaries ... that's right you know them you love them ... get on your feet and scream for the most powerful guild in all of Fiore ... the one and only ... Sabertooth."

An arrogant bunch of members came out. A blonde boy in the front staring directly at Natsu and another raven-haired boy looking at Gajeel.

"Can't wait to break them down," Natsu mumbled.

The blonde smirked at him, "Why so serious, it's just a game?"

Ara heard him but she didn't even think he believed that based on the intentions behind the words.

Gajeel seemed to notice the look of the raven-haired boy. "There a reason you keep gawking pretty boy?" He grumbled.

"Nothing important."

Ara watched as their eye contact broke. Without meaning to, Ara's eyes met his. His red eye widened a bit before he looked away quickly, a red tint to his visible cheek.

Weird. Ara shrugged it off, turning her attention back to the competition.

"We kept you waiting long enough.. It's about time we unveiled the official schedule for this year's tournament." Following this, a large stone comes up from the ground with markings on it. Everybody took a step back in shock. "The teams will be awarded points based on how they rank in the contest. Additionally, the team gets to decide who they would like to compete with. After this we have battles. These should come as a treat to all you loyal fans as you suggested who created these matchups. The battle rules are simple each team will square off as shown there on the table. The winning team will be awarded ten points while the losing team gets nothing. In the case of a draw, both teams get five points. Ready for this? Let's get started with the first contest in the grand magic games. We can hide. At this time we would like each team to select one member to compete. Once the selections are all made the game can start in its entirety."

Cerberus chose Yeager, Mermaid Heel chose Beth Vanderwood, Raven Tail picked Nalpudding (a weird name), Blue Pegasus had Eve go, and Sabertooth this Rutus Lore character.

"It seems stealth and guile are the way to go in this competition," Erza commented in the group.

"If Wendy was here she'd be perfect." Lucy dropped her head.

"Should I go? I'm the smallest of us here." Ara asked.

"...From Lamia Scale Lyon Vastia.."

"No, Ill go, I would love to show Lyon up." Gray stepped forward. "I've been itching anyway to see what this tournament is about."

"From Fairy Tail Team A Gray Fullbuster."

Just hearing this Juvia was squeezing from the Team B group that she had to go to be with her love. "From Fairy Tail Team B, Juvia Lockser. The competitors have been chosen and the long wait is over. Grab a drink and get ready because you won't want to miss a single moment of hidden."