A/N
In case people don't read my other currently active story: thegreatroshen and I apologize for the sporadic updates. Life has been hitting our family pretty hard recently, with thegreatroshen's wife going through a tough pregnancy and our grandmother passing on. Updates will regrettably have to reflect that, with Songs in the Light being taken off it's regular biweekly update schedule and joining this one in being updated on a sporadic basis. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy the interlude of Fae's Timeskip Montage!
Kattla
"I am not planning on it." Simon's voice from the main room of our downsized guildhall caught my attention. I was doing some accounting work in the office, checking our income for the past year and using Morgana to project future expenses to make a budget for the year.
"Simon, we've been invited for the first time this year!"
"Macao, I already said no. I see no need to participate in the Grand Magic Games."
"Why not? This year's our big chance to show we've still got what it takes to hit in the big leagues." Max protested. My pen went still on the page as I devoted my attention to listening. "Even if we don't sweep the whole thing, we'll still get more advertising out there to the kinds of people we normally work for. It's better than just fading into the background!"
"I take it you all agree with him." There came a small murmur of agreement around the room. "I'm not a dictator. I won't lead you anywhere you don't want to go. But I see the Grand Magic games as a dead end for us." This brought another wave of discontent.
"Alright! Alright, everyone, settle down. Let the man talk." Alzack spoke, easily grabbing everyone's attention. His confidence had settled into a deeper maturity after becoming a father and it showed.
"I have several reasons that I will not enter Fairy Tail into the games." Simon began. "Firstly, and bluntly, we can't afford it. Every guild in the competition has a training period in which they are held back from working so they can focus on preparing and training. If we participate, then our members who would be involved would be unable to bring in income. With how few of us there are now, that isn't something I can see us affording."
"And, for that same reason, the jobs that the other guilds aren't fulfilling need somewhere else to go." Mest's voice sounded, he had generally become something like Simon's right hand man. It was up in the air whether he was Mest Doranbolt or Mest Gryder. I just knew that the Rune Knights hadn't been able to make him leave our ranks and he belonged among us. He had buried his trigger deeply, so deeply I would have needed a full dive search on Makarov to unlock it from the other side.
"Next for my reasons: What do we have to prove to anyone?" That was Simon. He didn't build or mince words. "That we're the #1 Guild? By whose standards? The country's? The Rune Knights? The public eye?"
No. No, we've never needed any of that. Fairy Tail had been the place where the lost got found. Where the lonely, the outcast and the forgotten found a home. Where we found family. The fact that so many of our core members had been so formidable had been what got us the raw manpower we had once boasted. From over 100 members, we had maybe 20 hanging on to the guild now. And some of their departures I couldn't even resent. They had lives to live, families to support and Fairy Tail was, bluntly, not nearly as profitable as it had once been. Not everyone could adapt.
"I don't care about what others might say. I don't care if they say we've lost our edge, or our fighting spirit. We will do what we have to to survive until the Tenrou Group wakes up."
"We can't wait for them to come and save us!" Nab spoke now. "That isn't what they would do, they'd get out there and punch all the bastards in the face who ever talked crap about Fairy Tail!"
"Which brings me to my final reason." Simon said, not losing control of the room in spite of the surge of resentful agreement that I sensed from many people. The shame and indignation. Fairies that didn't fight. "Who would go to the games? Who would fight?"
"Us! All of us! Just like we always have!" Max was trying to build momentum but Simon wasn't having it.
"You would lose." The three words cut through all the chatter like a chainsaw through a tree. "Tenrou took all our best fighters. Those of us who are left are simply not enough."
"You're saying Kagura isn't a fighter?"
"She is. A fighter." Singular. Heavily emphasized. "If you ask Kagura, she will pick up her weapons and go to fight on your behalf. So will Fae. So will Wendy. But if they choose to fight, it should not be for the sake of our pride." Magic power ripped through the air, heavy and purposeful. Simon's capacity for magic had been expanded by years of suffering and silent practice. And he could use that to command a room like nobody's business.
No one seemed to even breathe.
"I will not ask Wendy, Fae or Kagura to try and replace the Tenrou group. Wendy has pushed herself day and night to secure a medical licence at 13 and then finance the opening and maintenance of a clinic. Both to help our guild from any injuries done in the field and to bring in an extra source of monetary support via the patrons. Fae works just as hard to bring us new clientele with her contacts and likewise keeps us out of debt through her writing. Not to mention the effort she has put into her magic from the first day to turn into something all of you would be proud of." He had to stop for a breath here.
He is barely holding back a scream.
"Kagura...has more magic than she knows what to do with. And she has come back with self inflicted injuries time and time again trying to master it so that it will not only not hurt others, but enable her to protect all of you. With everything that they have given and still are giving, for Fairy Tail, for you...You want to go to them and ask them to fight for your pride?"
It was a stone cold fact that some wizards were more powerful than others and expanding your reserves was exhausting. Wendy, Kagura and I typically worked together on that. Well, Wendy and I did. Kagura had magic coming out of her ears and needed help dialing it back and burning it off fast enough that she didn't hurt anyone by accident. And all of the people who had the experience to help her with that sort of problem were on Tenrou.
"If you want to participate in the Grand Magic Games to compete for the title of #1 Guild In Fiore, then that is your prerogative. But think carefully about what you are implying to those three if you do that."
Yeah...you are saying that everything we've done...still isn't enough.
I got up and closed the door so I wouldn't hear anymore. I was operating on the hunch that Morgana would likewise not report back on any continuing conversation. But before I did, Simon reached it and entered. He was supposed to be helping me with this after all.
"You heard?" This felt oddly nostalgic to all the times I'd overheard something Makarov had been discussing that I likely shouldn't have heard. I nodded, feeling...flat. Not wrung out, not tired, just incapable of feeling or holding anything. My emotions were on my face like words on a piece of paper without any soul behind them.
"It's been a long time in coming. I thought they'd speak up about it last year."
"They're not blind. They know how hard you've been working. You barely spend more than a few months out of the year in Fiore." Between my travels to Iceberg to visit their royal family and teach magic, and other travels...
Once, I'd chased a runaway teenager to Bosco. It took me a month to track the kid down. Another time, I had spent months reworking the estate of a cousin of Victor's in Stella, Catherine, to have proper defensive wards against intrusion. That had spiraled into solving a vermin swarm problem. So many centipedes. Charm magic sucked when it went Curse. Any magic did. But Charm more so than others.
Inside Fiore, I had broken more than four dozen curses of varying strengths in the last three years alone, not counting Kinana's. On people, objects, locations, anything that people were willing to pay for. And whenever I wasn't doing that, I was trying to make a spell book that would do what I needed it to. Hold all the stories I needed to successfully use totems that I couldn't incorporate lacrima into without compromising the image...
It was exhausting. I was operating on the motto that I could sleep once everyone came back. Because I knew they were, I had to believe that they were. We all did.
Romeo had successfully used a Fire Spell. And everyone knew that while he might wield Rainbow Fire, same as his father, it wasn't him he was idolizing and trying to emulate. Not when he had taken to wearing a scarf year round with vests and loose pants. Not when he said where he wanted his guild mark and it what color.
Dark red on his right shoulder. Same as Natsu.
Wendy likewise placed her mark on her shoulder to tribute Natsu's bravery.
But her mark is blue.
Yes. Just like Erza's.
Ah...
Lamia Scale and Blue Pegasus was still helping us search for Tenrou. Lyon refused to give up on his brother, and Gray was his brother, blood be damned. And the Trimens...I don't know what exactly motivated them to help out, but the support was welcome. Actually, with their help, we'd narrowed down the field of search immensely.
But no matter how much we progressed. How much we grew...We weren't flourishing. It was like we couldn't flourish.
"Fae." Simon used this tone when he wanted to distract me. I gave the big but gentle man my attention. I only noticed that I hadn't needed to look up as far as I had needed to even just last year. I was finally growing a bit.
"Yeah, Simon?"
"I've got news."
"Spit it out you tease." Simon was hard to read thanks to his Darkness Magic protecting some sections of his story. But it was nice to be surprised every now and then.
"My request to the council has gone through." My mind abruptly stopped and whirled into a new gear. A new train of thought took off at a thousand miles a minutes.
"For Eric?"
"Yes. They're scheduling the date for his appeal to be brought before them. It's gonna be years before it gets here, but-"
"But it's on the calender?"
"Sometime in the summer, in three years." I couldn't help it. I dropped everything I had been holding and hugged Simon, even jumping to get his neck instead of his chest.
"Yes! Yes! I can have it all ready by then! All the evidence! So much of it it would take a blind and deaf man to ignore it!" Eric had been a victim of the Tower of Heaven, like Simon and Erza's other childhood friends. That alone could get him some leniency. He had not had a chance to be anything else, he'd been a prisoner, a slave to criminals. He hadn't been in the Oracion Seis by choice. This, the fact that he had helped me when I got kidnapped, would be enough to get him a deal. Add that to the fact that he had been a model prisoner, and it was more and more likely that Eric could walk out of jail a free man.
I've got to tell Kinana. And go visit Eric! This definitely was something that was best said in person.
"You've got a few years to build a case. I know you want him out, but don't overwork yourself."
"I'll try not to." I hugged Simon a little tighter, choked up with gratitude that no words I could conjure could express.
Simon had protected me in the Tower of Heaven. And ever since then, he had been nothing but a loyal, reliable friend. And even with the unexpected change, he had been an amazing guild master, riding out the loss of most of our membership and keeping everyone focused and united.
"Thank you Simon..."
-vVv-
t was something I hadn't thought about the first year or so since the Tenrou team's departure. But I got a letter from Jude Heartfilia asking if I minded checking up on Lucy's apartment and making sure it hadn't been broken into or anything. He had an odd feeling about the landlady...
Turns out she was in the process of stealing some of Lucy's belongings. I had ripped her a new one for that and, after cleaning the place up, had placed an additional ward on it to prevent thieves from entering. This started off a chain reaction of absently going around and finding where everyone had lived before and making sure their belongings were stowed and safe. Erza's collection of armor and weapons was especially valuable. Kagura took over the upkeep of the various weapons and I did regular cleaning.
It was Natsu's treehouse that hurt the worst to look at.
He had kept a number of old job request forms, including the one that listed the first job he had done with Lucy. But what he also kept was my first flyer advertising Story Night. And, though he was as interested in reading as Happy was being a housecat, he had a copy of the Fellowship by his bed. He was maybe a quarter of the way through, marked with a clean fishbone. (Happy kept them around as toothpicks and Natsu just incorporated them into his life however he needed to.)
After I made sure there weren't roots or any leaks in Natsu's house, I went to the Thunder Legion's shared home. It was long since paid off thanks to the S-class jobs Laxus had taken them on, and I had expected needing to fight Freed's ward to enter. And was surprised and oddly touched that he had added me to them. According to Morgana, he had added me several years previously. While he had still been my official mentor.
I could almost see him in my mind's eye. Ignoring Bickslow taunting him about his soft spot for me as he added me to the wards on and around their home. And then I saw Laxus, eyes closed and dead to the world, headphones on. I even walked over one place where the dominant memory Morgana had for me was Evergreen asking Freed how I was doing. It seemed she had a small nugget of fondness for me because of my choice of name and how it related to her magic. And how none of them had ever questioned him keeping me as part of the wards even after we had parted ways.
"I'm getting ready to publish the last of the trilogy." I told Freed's room as I checked over his lingering runes and refreshed them carefully. He had always viciously defended his place as my first beta reader even though my writing stories had nothing to do with what he was teaching me. He had been a lot more zealous about it than Mystogan, though both had gone out of their way to give me their opinions and critiques.
"I don't know if you want me to reserve some of the books for you. I've set aside copies of Two Towers for Levy and Lucy, and have some of Return of the King reserved for them." I chuckled, murmuring the appropriate spell at the broom and cleaning supplies to give the house a quick sweep over.
"I had to fight Jude over giving one to Lucy. He's been getting presents for her every birthday and Christmas for as long as he's been gone."
He has mailed you her latest gift. Jude would normally come by himself to drop them off, but he was busy working on something for me, actually.
In the absence of our previous sponsors, Jude Heartfilia had actually been putting his business connections to work for us in more ways than one. In addition to sending us jobs from his peers, he was also securing sponsorship and funds to kickstart this latest round of publishing The final piece of the epic tale of The Lord of the Rings. We could have made it work, even without their support, but it kept our belts a bit looser than they would have been otherwise.
He wants to hold a formal book signing event. I had never done one before since I had been underage, and still was technically, and wanted to keep my pseudonym intact. We had worked out a way to let me keep that, and build hype for the book. It would be held in Minstrel, because he had expanded out of Fiore's borders, and it had similarly blown up outside of it as it had within. My friends in Iceberg were just as enchanted by it. Victor happily tattled that his sister had a huge fictional crush on Aragorn. Cassie on the other hand, had asked for visuals for the Fellowship as a whole, hiding her true desire to see Aragorn by asking for a group shot.
Fairy Tail had managed to stay out of debt for the past four years, and keep ahead of expenses, plus the hits we took paying off old damages. But it was a close thing. This book signing would hopefully start off a surge in sales of the hard copies as well as hook people into investigating other stories of mine. The first parts of Skyward Sword had been transcribed and put on paper, but they weren't nearly as popular as Lord of the Rings.
Freed had a present he meant to give you.
Morgana's words made me pause. Even the broom and dust clothes wiping down the windows paused leaving me in complete silence.
What was it for? I turned towards the place that Morgana highlighted with a faint yellow glow in my vision. The locked cabinet besides his work table.
He had no particular event in mind. He just wanted to give you something like he did before.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror on the way to the cabinet. Part of me wanted to walk away and leave it. Let Freed give it to me himself when he came back. Because he was coming back, everyone was. But the other part of me just wanted to touch something to get some new memories. Something new.
It's been four years... We had narrowed down where Tenrou would reappear, but our surveillance still came up empty. Not even the people most sensitive to magic could find a trace of Fairy Sphere. Lyon from Lamia Scale had been very interested in the concept of that spell since a spell powerful enough to tank a hit from a dragon would require enormous amounts of magic power. And yet, it's perfect defensive capabilities made it so that power was turned completely inward and not a trace of it showed beyond it's borders.
I opened Freed's closet, runes humming under my hands to keep out pests and the clothes inside fresh.
His stupidly fancy clothes. Old habits die hard I suppose.
I shifted aside some extra pairs of shoes at the bottom of the closet and revealed an object wrapped in brown paper. Laying on top of it was the focus glove Freed had given me while I was still his student.
I picked it up, laying a hand on the box and searching for memories of the person who had handled it.
"You aren't gonna get her back." Bickslow remarked. "The kid might have forgiven you, but it won't be the same."
"I know." Freed examined his purchase with a careful, critical eye. "But despite how we last parted, what we had with one another was good."
"No kidding. You were never as happy around anyone else as you were around her." This comment came from Evergreen. I glanced around, I wasn't in Freed's room, this was in their living room with the three remaining members of the Thunder Legion assembled around the room. Bickslow was actually in the kitchen, using his animated dolls to assist him in cooking. Evergreen was draped over a couch watching Freed at the table between the two sofas.
"You're not worried she might think you're trying to bribe her?"
"No." Freed said with a stiff shake of his head. "I am confident she will see this for what it is."
"Share your feelings like a big boy, Freed." Ever prompted in a surprisingly soft tone. Her guard relaxed around her friends in a way it never was even around the guild.
"In spite of our formal relationship having been dissolved and our current relationship being strained at best, I still view myself as her teacher." He placed what he held in a box, closed it and started to write on it, his runes flashing black and purple.
"I know I cannot claim to have had a hand in her entire development. She's learned from Mystogan, and now from Jellal… But I can't help but be proud of the fact that in just two years she's progressed from instinct and ignorance... to where she is now." His smile tugged at my heart strings. I moved in the dream until I stood in front of him, looking down at his memory.
"Just being able to watch her grow for these past years is the greatest gift I have ever received."
I opened my eyes, stinging with uncomfortable, bittersweet emotion, and looked down at the surface of the paper wrapped parcel in my hands. Written on its surface were the words:
'One child, one book, one pen, will change the world.'
I sat down on the unused bed and slid a finger along the wrapping to tear it open. The light wooden box it revealed seemed solid at first glance, but I looked it over until I discovered the hidden hinge. It resisted opening to my touch until I looked closer and tried to delve it's secrets. Then I saw that Freed had locked it shut with magic. A complex layer of enchantments that was nostalgically wasn't the first time he had given me puzzle boxes containing some small trinket. Sometimes, he had even given them to me because he enjoyed the challenge of making them as much as I liked taking them apart.
Here's something I haven't seen in awhile.
I was happy to put my work aside and figure it out.
"'It costs nothing, but demands our very best, weighs nothing, but lasts a lifetime. No one man can own it, but two or more can share it.'" What Freed had wanted to rekindle when he gave this to me.
Friendship.
"Friendship." I said, tracing the word across the lid of the box.
Nothing happened.
I know that was right.
It was the correct concept.
Freed liked making things have different or deeper meanings depending on perspective. So what other layer or aspect of this could there be?
I tried writing in his script, and even mimicking Levy's.
Then something tickled my mind.
Freed had been one of the first people to beta read my draft of the Fellowship. Including the iconic Moria riddle.
Speak friend, and enter.
The door had been made in a time when the two disagreeing races, the dwarrow and the elves, had been allies...
A call back to happier times, and old friendships.
"Mellon."
The runes released and I opened the box.
Inside lay two items.
The first was a pen inside a holding case. It had a firm grip made of silver etched with a familiar script. Mine to be exact. But what I noticed most was the rest of the pen was made of lacrima. I picked it up and felt it respond eager to my touch. I focused my magic into my hand, felt it slide into the utensil I held...and when I moved it left a line in the air. Not just a simple projection like a Light Pen, but my actual magic. Like Freed could cast with Dark Ecriture.
It can be used to write runes on any surface as efficiently as possible. This has the potential to reduce the average cost of your spells by up to 34%. I gave a soft laugh, remembering all the times I had complained about not being able to do just that. I had taken it as an excuse to write on my arms. A lot. Freed had needed to enchant my soap or scrubbers to get the lingering traces off of me. It drove him up the wall.
The second confused me for a second. It looked like a binder. For holding papers.
It's not a binder. It's an empty book cover.
Freed's handiwork was practically micro etched into the leather. I read his desire to reinforce, strengthen and protect whatever was held in this book.
He and Jellal had the same idea. Make a spell book.
It was actually Freed's recommendation. Jellal felt out of his depth taking you on so soon after losing Mystogan. This coupled with our history made him extremely sensitive to any mistakes he might make. He spoke with Freed often to get advice on how to engage you and best teach you.
That...made a lot of sense. Even if I had kept him from turning himself in, he would feel both guilt for the Tower of Heaven crap, and a sense of debt. And so he would have sought out further information about it to be as prepared as humanly possible.
The care and affection in the simple book cover, waiting for pages to be inserted inside it, made my eyes itch and burn all over again. I hugged in close and spoke once more to my mental projection of Freed.
"Thank you, Freed-sensei."
-vVv-
I was walking back to my house with Freed's gifts replaced in their box when I crossed a trail that tripped a mental alarm.
Sting is in the area.
I am in no mood to deal with him right now.
So I went out of my way to avoid him, taking a roundabout way back to my apartment. Leaping along with a superman jump enchantment and taking the scenic route let me stay downwind of Sting. The blond dragon slayer was waiting outside my apartment building door with an irritated air about him. There was a small reddish Exceed in a cute vest standing by his feet.
Lector, Sting's friend.
Taking a look at what Morgana meant by that, I mentally corrected her assessment.
You mean his groupie, #1 Fan, devoted admirer, requisite feline partner, etc. It must be something about Dragon Slayers. I wouldn't have thought that they were the most social of animals, but five of seven was definitely a pattern!
Those adjectives apply as well.
That was as much of a concession as I was going to get from Morgana so I took my victory and climbed down from the roof into the stairwell and entered my apartment from there. The place was spacious and comfortable. Wendy had been made the apartment manager by Simon since her clinic would keep her local and able to take care of the place. She, Kagura and I had moved into a bigger place making it so each of us had our own room, and shared the bathroom, kitchen and living space between us.
I placed the box on my desk, which was actually the old table from the guild hall, reworked and refurbished into a more functional living space. I ran a hand over the worn wood with a fond smile, noting the tiny scars and imperfections I had asked be left under the varnish.
I had some things to prepare before I started packing for my trip to Minstrel.
You may want to take care of Sting.
Why? He knows better than to try and break in.
I cycled through wards to keep myself sharp and not let people get too used to how I protected my home. So while he might not lose access to his magic for a few minutes when he broke my threshold, he might speak in rhyme, have his dominant hand switched, or colors altered. (I am unashamed to admit I used Sting to test prank spells nowadays.) Runes could be read and taken apart by lots of people with even just a smidgen of power. It all depended on how you used it. If you cracked the code of the script used, it didn't matter how many protections it was used in. You had the key to take it all down.
He may know that there will be consequences, but he will do it anyway if he doesn't get to fight you.
True...Natsu never did know how to take no for an answer when it comes to a fight.
"Fae?" Wendy called from the door. "Sting is outside again."
"I know. I saw him." There came a blaze of light and my window slammed open, frame splintering and glass cracking. An irate dragon slayer crouched in the window.
How did he get up here so fast?
Jumping and rocket propulsion.
"You saw me and you didn't do anything!?"
"I've had a long day. Deal with it."
"I said no words!" Sting lunged into the room.
Alright, oldy but a goodie. Righteous Indignation. The trump card of non-serious situations of female vs male. A lacrima on my bracer lit up with the minor circumstantial booster.
"Fine, how about a foot?" I booted Sting back out the window, jumping after him and cheating physics with magic to axe kick him into the ground. I activated my wings and hovered in the air above the street. "And stop breaking into my room!" I called down as Lector tried to pull Sting out of the shattered cobbles. Sting jumped back to his feet, literal sparks flying from his eyes and fingertips as he glowered up at me.
"Stop running away!"
"If you did something other than shout at me and try to pick a fight, I wouldn't! And I have never run away from you." That I could say with utmost confidence. Over the past year, Sting had dropped by at least twice a month to try and goad me into a full battle. I never let it go beyond skirmishes. Sabertooth's legal team would find a way to pin the damages on Fairy Tail and we couldn't afford to go into debt. Especially not for something as stupid as this. But every time Sting had come after me, at home or elsewhere, I had rebuffed him and sent him away. He never escalated because I never let things go further than that. That or when he was angry enough for that, Rogue was usually there to hold him back. They were becoming tentative friends after a few years of working together.
To my surprise, the Light Dragon Slayer suddenly ascended to my level, literally balancing on points of hot light emitting from his feet in a rather familiar way. He can fly now, huh? But where have I seen that before...? Begrudgingly, I was impressed. He shifted slightly and his face went a little green at the effort, his motion sickness coming into play.
"Come down to the ground and say that again, fairy." He spat. "You always whip out those stupid wings of yours and stay out of my reach."
"If I wanted to actually fight you, Sting, I would. And as long as you don't agree to formal spar, I don't want to." Unless I got an ironclad agreement that damages would be shared between our guilds, I didn't want to deal with that. So, no spontaneous matches. And I really didn't want to indulge him in the pitched battle that he was seeming to be gunning for. If he was going to keep acting like Natsu, he wouldn't ever stop once I gave in even once.
And because I had too much pride to throw the fight, even if it meant he would leave me alone.
"Bull!" A light coated fist came at me, he lost his balance and fell. I was certain he wouldn't hurt himself...Fatally, but-
"Sting, your hands!" He reacted with enviable speed, pulsing out energy thrusters from his palms that guttered, clearly unpracticed.
Why didn't he try that in the first place? He had to have noticed that he wasn't steady on just his feet. Adding hands in the just logical step since emitting power from other places isn't as easy or natural. But at least he wasn't in any danger of falling on his head any more. That was a step up.
"Sting! What are you doing!?" Lector's panicked shout came from below. "If she's too chicken to fight then she's not worth the bother!"
Oh, Lector is also Sting's personal trash talker. Nice.
The title has been added to his file.
"No she's not!" Sting snapped, pushing himself back up on his pseudo Ironman repulsor blasts. (That's why it looked familiar!) "She's tough and can fight better than any of the others in her crummy guild. That's why I'm not giving up until I get that fight!"
Was that a compliment? That felt like a compliment. In a weird, angry, not admitting kind of way. And insulting to Fairy Tail. Yeah, not taking that as a compliment.
"From where I stand, what you need you need a lot more patience." I drifted back a few feet, Sting was trying to get himself steady again, and I didn't feel like letting him get that chance. Also, he was turning green and was stubborn enough to try and stay in the air even when his stomach disagreed.
"You've worked out a nice trick, glitterbug. Use your hands to steady yourself, let your feet handle the majority of the thrust and let your hands be what keeps you centered and upright. Practice and you'll get to the point where you won't even get motion sickness while flying. Maybe. Wendy hardly does anymore, but she's kinda meant to fly." While I was talking, I was also plotting. I was still channeling Righteous Indignation, and I didn't quite want to just let this end simply.
I think that will do.
Runes crawled up my legs as I exhaled, focusing on what I wanted.
"Hey Lector?"
"What?" He called up, not quite standoffish enough to ignore my outright addressing him.
"Go long!" I called, giving Sting a massive boot to the middle. He soared in a lovely arc before his own power kicked in and started to destabilize the flight path my words had sent him on. This sent him tumbling through the air and down the street. Because he was still emitting thrust from his hands and feet, he hit the walls and ground a few times. Lector went chasing after him. But it was a lot steadier than when he had just been using his feet.
He jury-rigged a way to fly. I thought, impressed in spite of myself. Must have been hard to get that much kinetic energy out of his magic. And he's a lot more steady about it than Natsu would be. He'd have burned up the whole street trying to hover like that. That's why he has Happy to be his wings most of the time. Natsu had been well aware that fire was dangerous to most people in ways that he was immune to. I let my Righteous Indignation enhancement fade when I felt certain that Sting wouldn't come back for a quick retry. He normally let a few weeks pass between visits.
Wendy was in my room when I slipped back through the window, starting to mutter spells to repair the cracked frame and broken glass that Sting had caused.
"You know he's never gonna stop. Especially if you keep giving him good advice on how to improve."
"He'd have worked it out eventually."
"Uh, I doubt that. Fae, I've talked to Rogue about it. Sting never involves airborne in his combat style unless it's a jump or dodge. I think he just made that for you since you fly all the time to avoid him. It's not a common power."
"It really should be. It's dang useful. You know how many people miss seeing you just because they don't think to look up."
I only noted a vague expression of exasperation on my friends face as I passed her to enter the kitchen.
"Do you know when Kagura will be back? I'm starving and if she's not here within an hour, I'm not waiting for her."