We recently had a guest reviewer ask for permission to use Fae as a character in a fanfic of this fanfic. If there are others with the same interest, I would ask the following:
Ask permission.
Link Write the Future and Fairy Drabbles in your story.
PM thegreatroshen with the link to the content you create so we can add it to our profile bio as related media.
AKA: The answer is yes, and please share once written.
Now on to the good stuff!
The letter I had received from the stalker after he discovered the decoy was arrogantly worded. He actually tried to claim the moral high ground.
I won't repeat the entire thing. But the stalker addressed me, accusing me of every failing under the sun, including being a bad friend and denying Wendy access to her own much anticipated wedding gifts. He graciously offered forgiveness and a place in the wedding party if I would correct this post haste and see to it that Wendy was brought to the wedding grounds in a timely manner. And he followed this up with a handful of other demeaning insults and self important boasting. Anything that someone might use to goad someone into a thoughtless, angry reaction.
The part that actually triggered me was his gratuitously thanking me for the insight into 'his true heritage'.
The bastard reads my essays. He reads them and is taking some of the material to justify his whole schtick.
But the letter...It did not ever mention Wendy by name. It was all about accusing me of denying her what she truly wanted, elevating his own sense of self importance, and trying to make me angry. And he didn't even acknowledge her humanity enough to write her name.
Oh guy, you pissed me off long before you sent this letter.
I had a plan on how to track this bastard down and make him wish he had never set his eye on my friend.
I was writing my plot out and sending a brief message to Ultear and Meredy for a meeting. Still in the safehouse. Simon was coordinating with our allied guilds, spreading the profile and collecting the forensic evidence they had gathered. Kagura was fussing over Wendy like a mother hen.
And the Sky Dragon Slayer was trying to not lose her mind. But she still wasn't saying much. And as long as she held to that...I shouldn't intervene. Not until she was ready
The chair across the table from me was pulled out. A pale faced Wendy sat down, looking like she was trying to distract herself.
"What are you doing?"
Her voice was worn and tired. She hadn't been sleeping well.
She feels guilty.
Another reason to make this a-hole suffer.
"Putting together a tracking spell from the letter."
I gestured to the sheet in question, with my pen as I wrote potential rune layouts on my rune syllabry to try and pinpoint a combination of words and intent that would work. It was torn and a bit bloody and with some ragged edges from where it had been brutally pinned to the broken doll under Sherry's control.
Sherry had reportedly been moving the doll around our safehouse. Three people had broken in, snatched the doll and tossed the place searching for boltholes or hiding places. They had retreated once Sherry animated the furniture, a la Beauty and the Beast. But they had damaged the doll enough that Sherry couldn't reestablish control over it before they abducted it. It had been dropped outside the Rune Knights HQ while I was doing my thing in their sterile scrying room. Sherry had submitted to a brief mind reading to supply sketches of the three men as she had seen them. All in all, the decoy had done its job. It had forced a break in the pattern. The fact that this break had also delivered a violent death threat...?
He had graciously invited me to his wedding as part of the bridal party.
The war-era Nirvit traditions of the Wedding Party dictated that someone die in order to greet the ancestors and report to their Ancient Generals how their battle was going.
He has other hostages. Ones he means to kill, whether he gets Wendy or not.
"I thought there was no magical signature to trace."
I tapped the side of my nose, a smile that would have made some people very ill at ease on my face.
"Magical, no. Signature, yes."
I turned the letter around so she could look at them if she wished, but continued to speak if she wanted to be distracted.
"The guy isn't cursed, or doing this because magic is pushing him. He's just that mentally unbalanced. The paintings didn't have anything on it that I can trace because of what he used to make them. The only notable thing about these things is that he used a rare magical paintbrush on them and that he's...disturbed. Trying to get a deeper read on the individual story of each painting just led me back to the history of what was used to make them."
I had learned more about Stellan art history in the last four days than most of their university professors knew. And only once I had dug through all of that, could I get a hint about the artist. I tapped the sheet of slightly tattered paper.
"But this letter? This is personal. I'd bet money he wrote that himself. This is the first open window I've had into this guy. He left pieces of himself on the page. And I mean to gather them up and use them to hunt him down."
"And you can read his story from what he left."
"Parts of it." I made to draw the letter back and resume my careful marking of them, but Wendy caught the bottom lip of the page, apparently reading it herself. "I can't go too deep on this one. Got to keep a...certain distance."
This guy's headspace wasn't one I wanted to stay in any longer than I had to. I normally had mental lines of defense against that happening, but I was emotionally invested and compromised. Morgana had nixed diving on this for my own wellbeing and continued sanity. Limited to looking through the figurative window rather than walking in and searching the house, so to speak.
Stories affect us, on the surface, or when we let them sink into our hearts. How much more effective is it, if I let this guy directly imprint something onto my soul?
-vVv-
The conclusion was as damning as only hindsight could be.
This subject wanted to revive the old Nirvit Tribe. He wanted undisputed victory in the war, and the prestige and power that provided. It was a stupidly long term scheme. Years in the making before it got anywhere. And he wanted Wendy to help him do it. Even deluded himself into thinking this was what she had asked for in their passing contact. Wherever that had been. I still couldn't back track magically so we were left running down leads au natural until I got something that could get us a break.
The Sky Sorceress stared down at what I had put before her. I had opted to give her my written report of what I had divined rather than to rehash everything verbally. Simon was pursuing it as well with deliberate, careful consideration and a steely eyed coldness that I had only seen a handful of times before. Kagura had already clenched her hands so tightly around her copy of the report that it had torn in several places.
The room felt like a too taut violin string. A fine, barely there screeching hum of tension on the verge of snapping.
Break the tension?
Doing that would get people's attention. For better or for worse. Better to let them marinate. Either Simon or Wendy would speak first. It was just a question of who-
An audible groan broke the silence.
Emitting from Kagura.
Every eye turned towards the Gravity Mage as she flushed deeply.
Was that her stomach or...?
Her chair under the effects of briefly heightened gravity, triggered by her anger.
But that didn't mean I couldn't take advantage of the coincidence by indulging a very childish piece of humor. Though I opted for the less crass route.
"Accio Second Breakfast."
An apple zipped into my hand from the safehouse kitchen. I tossed it at Kagura without another word.
"It was the chair."
She didn't even have to cheat to make the apple swerve into her hand with magic. She just caught it without even looking.
"I know. I just wanted to throw something."
She looked at the fruit...then gave an aggrieved sigh and took an aggressive bite, a loud crunch further driving away the oppressive silence. The tension loosened. The air was now breathable again.
"Fae, you're sure about this?"
I wholeheartedly appreciated that Simon would never hesitate to question information that I brought him. Especially when they pertained to important decisions. It was reassuring that not even I was held in such trust to have things like this be decided on my word alone.
"I am."
Cracking the protective pall of the Windhue had taken ages. The truly astonishing thing that had kept me from finding the truth at first glance. The only significant parts of our biggest clues history was what it was made with and the devotion of the maker. The maker himself was unremarkable, the style of painting was lost in his zeal. The most important parts had masked the details that let me crack the story and generate a crude outline of who we were looking for.
"We need to update Blue Pegasus and Lamia Scale about our findings."
"What we need is to find this lunatic."
Kagura swallowed her third bite, the apple already more than half gone. She was attacking it like it had done her wrong because she couldn't reach the one she wanted to take a bite out of. This man had harassed and stalked Wendy. He had threatened me. Our ferocious friend's every protective instinct was firing on all cylinders, but she was stuck spinning her wheels due to not having a concrete target and she did not like it.
"Now we have a profile to work with. That's more than we had yesterday. With accusations like this, we cannot point fingers at the wrong person."
Wendy had been silent this whole time. Worryingly silent.
She's not a flight risk, is she? I knew her very well. Well enough that guilt was her trigger for flight while anger would always get fight. And this profile would easily make her feel responsible as the object of his obsession.
She is angry, not reckless.
Ok, good. Less chance of her running off and trying to handle this alone.
Deciding to let the furious she-dragon work through her thoughts before breaching her contained temper, I spoke up again.
"I'll reach out to some friends. The man likely isn't from Fiore, so the official channels will take longer to get a result."
Admittedly, I was certain that Blue Pegasus didn't hold their position as the best information broking guild in the country and several surrounding ones by only staying with above the board sources and methods. But they almost certainly didn't have the same access Ultear and Meredy had. They were not beholden to any law but their own. And they had decided to be my informants. Hopefully I could reach Meredy...
Between the two of them, Meredy was actually the more dangerous interrogator. Meredy systematically broke down the persons mental defenses with words, the atmosphere in their holding cell and any number of things left open to interpretation. Her magic synergized with the techniques, using Sensory Link and method acting to make her subjects feel almost anything she wanted them to. Ultear supplemented it by making it appear time was passing faster than it actually was. If there was further information to be found, they were my best chance at finding it without making it obvious that something big was going down.
Wendy was still reading the report, her eyes tracing over the same line. Her mouth tightened into a thin line and she inhaled sharply.
"I think I know where he is, Or where he expects me to go."
Kagura abruptly stopped pretending that she wasn't listening in. She slapped down a map of Fiore on the table that she had apparently been looking at. Several areas had already been marked up.
Places she looked in person.
Kagura could cover a lot of ground when she felt like it.
"Where?"
It was not a question, it was a demand. Wendy gave Kagura a very dry look.
"I am not telling you until you promise to not go there alone. Out of all of us, the only person I would trust to not plan for homicide is Fae."
I pulled out of my...contemplations of how to best administer some Fairy Tail justice to this sorry sack of excrement with a guilty start.
"...You really shouldn't."
The admission drew the first smile out of Wendy that I had seen in days. It didn't last long before she gained a steely glint in her eyes.
"I don't want him dead. I just want him gone to where he can't hurt anyone else. Justice, not revenge."
Kagura threw me a look, waiting to see where I would fall...She clearly was all for a little fire and brimstone. But if Wendy wanted the humane way rather than the human way...
I shrugged, carefully gathering up my rage and letting it dissipate into a cool focus.
"I want him to pay. If we can do that without getting the guild prosecuted for homicide, that's just a happy side effect."
"'He needed killing' would be a justifiable defense." Kagura 'Skyfall' insisted with great conviction. And I had stated that I would only use that excuse sparingly since all my experience with the law indicated that it would let me get something to slide...once. if I picked the right representative to the law to argue my case. I was saving it for a rainy day.
"I'm not saying it wouldn't be. But it is Wendy's call in the end, so I am abiding by that."
With only a tiny bit of reluctance.
Seeing she was outvoted, Kagura heaved a sigh, straightening from where she had been looming over the table.
"Alright."
"Thank you."
And now she was almost crying again. Crap.
My temper aside, and my acknowledgement that it was sometimes unavoidable, I was not an advocate of killing if capture was a good option. But this creepy bastard was making my friend's life miserable and making her second guess every good thing she had done.
Of course, we would need to find the guy first.
Morgana pinged my alerts and I sat up straighter.
Simon has received a lead.
So I had to leave Kagura to comfort Wendy while I went and checked on that.
"...I'll be right back. Wendy, where?"
She sniffed through her tears and pointed at the map, up in old Cait Shelter territory.
"Unity Bridge."
The name opened up a channel into my mind. Recalling something I had read in the Nirvit's history...
A place where the river widened slightly into a sort of lake and a small island had been formed in the center. Bridges had connected the two banks to the island. The bride walked from one side and the groom from the other to meet on the island for the ceremony. It was accorded neutral ground from all factions of the Nirvit tribe. Being invited to have your marriage there by their priesthood was the highest honor and blessing a new couple could achieve.
This could be our chance to form a trap around him and snatch him before anyone else got hurt.
"I'll pass it on."
Wendy's mouth was a tight line, and I could see more unshed tears glinting in her gaze. She managed a tiny nod as memories welled up in her.
Cait Shelter had carried on living as best as they could given their condition. They had given in their all to allow Wendy all the life experience they could muster for her. The small details and the big celebrations. She had witnessed a marriage ceremony there when she was still new to living in Cait Shelter. Roubul's son and daughter in law. He had replayed the memory for her, letting her interact with the guests, eat, drink, laugh, dance...It had been how she opened up to their people... How she had accepted them as home, and how they had begun to heal from their bloody history.
Another precious, deeply personal part of her that this creep was corrupting.
This was something Kagura couldn't infer or read. I gave Wendy's hand a hard squeeze.
We'll make the memories of Cait Shelter sacred again, Wendy. I promise. He won't get away with this.
"Blue Pegasus came back with locations on the fruit used to make the wine."
Simon handed me a note and I allowed my magic to download it. I scribbled 'copy and paste' to add it to the reports. The master file was still with me, and all copies, made with the Gemini Spell, would change to mirror it depending on the updates I made.
"They were grown in Seven."
"The barrels are made from wood grown there as well."
That certainly gave us a narrowed search field. If he was active enough there to procure wine making materials, he probably had a semi-permanent dwelling there. But we still needed more about the guy himself before we went in, otherwise we'd probably run into more trouble actually taking him out. His actions towards the Wendy Decoy said he was a lot closer to violence than I had anticipated for a voyeur. And that violence was probably going to be focused on me. The letter indicated he blamed me for him no longer being able to find her.
(And boy was I glad for the proof that he couldn't bypass my version of the Fidelius Charm.)
"Lamia Scale has traced the coins to several ancient archaeological sites in Seven. Tribute caches."
The inhabitants of Seven had paid tribute to the warring Nirvits to try and stave off any aggressions from the deteriorating tribes. It worked with...mixed results. Nirvana had usually made any attempt at peaceful relations with its makers explode by the end there...
Some of the scattered tribes had fallen to infighting, like Roubul's unit. Others had gotten crushed when neighboring kingdoms and armies decided it would be better to put them down. Like mercy killing a rabid animal.
I spun my lacrima pen in my fingers, trying to fit these new information together...
"How did the coins come to be in his possession? Was he an archeologist? He needed to have access to them somehow for them to end up here."
"They haven't found that yet. Stella is still stonewalling Lahir about the details of the Windhue case."
Which normally I would have no problem with, but the man was trying to work with us for a change.
"I'll check on that."
Ultear had Magic Council contacts as well as her repurposed Grimoire Heart network. I was reasonably confident that she would have some rumor for me to worry down into usable information.
"Be careful."
Three people have been contacted in this case. And only you were contacted aggressively.
I gave Simon a smile, feeling oddly refreshed knowing that someone was going to try and kill me.
"Whatever happens was done in self defense."
I'm gonna have to try very hard to not go looking for a fight. I might just kill someone if they get in my face.
-vVv-
Unless it was this guy.
"Someone has the freaking balls to victimize one of us and you don't think to mention it!?"
Sting's voice was caught between a hiss and a snarl. I could hear the undertones of a growl that I could detect whenever a Dragon Slayer got intense. I was briefly touched that he was subconsciously referring to himself as 'one of us'. He was still being weird about the friendship thing.
I had already put up an anti-eavesdropper ward, so I spoke freely.
"And delivered a death threat to me, in not so many words."
Tiny sparks of like glinted under his nails as the White Dragon Slayer glared at me.
"When?"
"Last night." Better defuse him before he blinds someone. Or try to at least. "We were trying to make him break pattern, and get Wendy out of his line of fire. He's a bit of a drama king it seems."
"Drama is talk. A show. If he threatened to kill you-."
He insisted, falling in step beside me. His skin was hardened slightly on his face. I reached out and tapped the half forming scale on his cheek, interrupting his thought.
"Whatever you're doing to master Dragon Force, keep it up! You're getting really close!"
A brief flash of glitter under his skin, which I still thought was hilarious and kind of oddly endearing. He did that every now and then whenever he got embarrassed or awkward.
"Stop trying to get me off topic and tell me what I can do to stop this guy!"
Aw, he was worried about me.
"I wasn't trying to. Get you off topic, I mean. Just distracting myself a little bit."
But quite honestly, I wasn't sure what to tell Sting. He wanted to help, but like there was no taking the Fairy Tail out of me, there was no Sting involvement without Sabertooth being involved as well. They tended to be touchy about that and I did not have the patience or time to cater to their egos.
"I don't know what to tell you. But Fairy Tail protects its own, Sting. I will be fine." I paused before amending my statement. "Once I catch this guy and make sure he can't scare Wendy ever again, I'll be fine. Right now, I'm stuck waiting, and that doesn't feel great."
My temper wasn't hot. It was cold. I could feel it creeping into the edges of my mind and reasoning. Rendering some parts inflexible, and sharpening others to lethal points. I needed to be able to think with all my usual clarity. Morgana worked on temporarily thawing the cold spots to let me keep my level head.
Wendy was a Dragon Slayer for crying out loud. She'd earned her stripes in combat and as a doctor. The adopted child of one of the most renowned, powerful and dangerous magical creatures in several worlds! And this...thing that was obsessing over her was turning her into his prey with one hand, and painting her as a pet monster he wanted to leash with the other. While believing she wanted this of him and has somehow asked him to do it.
"Any idea where he is?"
So he and Rogue can arrange an 'encounter'.
Somehow, I feel that should read more like 'premeditated homicide'.
My inner dialogue did not confirm, or deny this second opinion.
"What we've got so far puts him in or around Seven. But he's definitely spent time in Stella. A lot of it. Whatever equipment he's using to do this, he probably started acquiring it there."
Stella was a major hub for commerce flowing from the west to the easy and vice versa. While Minstral specialized in entertainment, and Fiore in live wizardry, Stella had a hand in production and sales of most staple goods. They currently lead the pack in terms of magical tool production as well.
"Do you have anything to track him by?"
"He's either stupid, or stupidly lucky. Probably both. He's literally been giving evidence to us, but it's been all but impossible to track. He's very good at disappearing and at least has a way to let objects traverse long distances in very short amounts of time. Everything he has done furthers his cause while managing to erase his trail."
And given that he had no magic, or at least wasn't a wizard, I had no idea if he was managing to do this by accident or if he was exploiting it deliberately.
Sting was looking oddly thoughtful, the partially summoned Dragon Force receding from his face and aura. He wasn't saying anything, but it wasn't a sullen silence either. It was a calculating one. He was turning something over in his mind...
"I gotta check something. I'll find you later."
And I didn't doubt that he would. Over the years, Sting had proved he was very good at finding me. He would either guess where I was, or find my scent and follow it.
"You know something?"
His face briefly resembled a thundercloud.
"Maybe.. Gotta confirm first. And think."
Sting modeled himself after people he admired. Jemma and Natsu primarily. But he could give serious thought to some things. And when he did, it was always a good thing. I could follow what he wasn't saying. What he couldn't say.
Information sharing between guilds was normally encouraged. But Sabertooth had an us-against-the-world mindset that made that...difficult to arrange without tempers rubbing each other the wrong way. Apparently Jemma, their guildmaster, had been raised with exacting standards that meant he would shoot for nothing except an absolutely dominating victory. And here, while he was acknowledged as the #1 Guild in the country, a title established and solidified by Fairy Tail and held for years...We were still around. Lingering in the shadows. And his sense of competition wouldn't let him rest until he was certain we couldn't come back from wherever we had 'fallen to' or that no one else could rise to take his place.
If I ever met him, I'd be the very soul of courtesy. And point out that that kind of thinking was highly insecure and unhealthy and he should really seek professional help to improve his quality of life and significantly lower his blood pressure.
But this meant that Sabertooth had a close-mouth policy about discussing their active jobs with non-guild members. Wonderful for keeping things close to the chest, but a pain to work with them cooperatively.
Sting's working a job he might think is related. And he was trying to locate a loophole in his contract that could help us catch the psycho that was stalking Wendy.
"I'll be back here in about two hours. That is, if you can tolerate being near me without picking a fight."
I was mostly teasing him with the parting shot. Sting had gradually spent more time around me and my friends without throwing hands at the drop of a hat. But we were engaging in a form of espionage. That warranted some evasive language.
He snorted, giving me a smirk that didn't make me want to slap him for a change.
"I wouldn't try and fight with you so often if I couldn't handle it. Sounds like you're the one who can't keep up with me."
Of course he was twisting this around when I was trying to keep up the whole clandestine subtly of forbidden info exchange.
"Please, even at your best I can still run circles around you."
"Just watch your step, Fairy Princess, wouldn't want you to fall."
I gave him my best imitation of the Mirajane Death Smile. The one she wore when she was about to pull out one of her stronger Satan Soul forms.
"Fairies have wings, glitterbug. When I fall, I do it with style."
It made him laugh as we parted ways, completely unphased. I wasn't sure if that meant I had won that little skirmish though. It was nice to have a new avenue to interact with Sting that didn't involve trying to beat the tar out of each other.
Ultear couldn't make a face to face meeting, but she had given me an info drop.
I had sent her a message as soon as I had identified that the first painting was made with the Windhue. She had gotten back to me about continuing information.
To everyone else, I had caught a stray piece of blank paper that was blowing down the street.
Morgana however was hearing everything Ultear had spoken to the paper.
"The Windhue has been missing for three years. Stella kept it quiet this long to try and save face that they allowed it to be taken. The people who could have had access to it are-"
I sidestepped a street cleaner as he swept up debris from the nearby market. Morgana noted the names listed and filed them away for cross referencing purposes later.
The list was a series of artists, their students, the curators of the gallery where the Windhue was housed, staff of the last known owner...None of the names were throwing up any red flags, but that was in part the point. This guy was a nobody in many ways. A nonentity who had built his entire identity around the fulfillment of this specific fantasy.
With our current information, can we tell who is a wizard and who is not?
Further background information is needed.
Which meant we might have to wait until we got back the official list from the Stellan embassy. They wanted to clean it up and eliminate as many people as possible, especially people that might cause political fires if they were implicated in a crime.
Ultear had also thought along and produced a list of disappearances who might correspond either with victims, accomplices, or have the identity of the stalker among them. I had risked sending her a Patronus during the brightest part of the day to amend the information I needed once I had read the letter and determined that the lunatic we were chasing had people he was planning to kill as part of his master plan.
This however was a bit more successful than the first list. I scanned these names for those who were in immediate danger. About ten of them registered as being under threat. I overlapped that with a follow up query of who was being restrained, and the list dropped to six.
Nirvit weddings needed eight witnesses besides the bride and groom to be considered valid. And the war time tradition was that one of these would be sacrificed. But they were all in equal danger, so I felt it safe to assume that there would be no survivors if he had his way.
"Fae!"
I stepped to the side slightly to catch Frosch as he leapt at me, curling into my arms, purring in distress. He wanted to be comforted so he was trying to make himself feel better. The cold spots in my temper grew smaller and warmer at the sight and sound.
"Hey buddy, what are you doing here?"
My voice sounded...strange to me. A much gentler tone than I had used for several days now.
"Frosch! Don't run off like that!" Rogue had been more than 10 yards behind Froch when the green feline found me. Exceed could move incredibly fast when they wanted to, and Frosch was no exception.
"Hi Rogue."
Honestly I was a little surprised that Sting managed to beat Rogue here. I would have thought for sure that my protective Shadow Dragon Slayer friend would have been the first in line to show up once he heard what was going on.
"Where's Wendy?"
His first question. I approved.
"She's safe."
And this was said with a tiny bit of extra satisfaction. Whatever this guy was using to look over us all, it couldn't beat a Fidelius Charm.
"Where?"
I shook my head, slipping a finger under Frosch's hood to scratch his ears the way he liked.
"Can't say. You're going to have to trust me."
Reddish eyes hardened for a split second before they melted away.
"I do..."
And that came out much softer than I had ever heard Rogue be before. Not defeated, just...a conscious surrender. I felt there was something I was missing about the situation, but I didn't have the energy to run down what was on his mind right then.
"Do you have any leads?"
"Several. But we don't know how much he has waiting for us and he has hostages."
So, we had one more day to find all our relevant information and move everything into position to take him down. A team was already being assembled from our guild coalition to address the hostage situation.
Lyon and Sherria from Lamia Scale. Hibiki and Ren were bringing the Christina to assist in evacuating the hostages along with some of their own medics, and provide us a swift transport to the location. (All trained at Wendy's clinic for the technical skills even if healing magic was not an option.) Wendy, Kagura and I hadn't worked together on the same job in several years. But I didn't doubt that we were going to make it a more regular occurrence however we could after this.
It was a sharp, and slightly bittersweet realization that the three of us had become Fairy Tail's strongest team.
The Furies of Fairy Tail.
The name had only caught fire inside the guild. And this was not the time to debut a team name. We didn't want Wendy's experience to become a big point of publicity.
"You're taking her with you to face him."
Rogue didn't sound entirely happy about this. And I could understand why. His pride demanded that 'the pack' handle this issue. Rise up and defend it's own.
"She needs to be involved."
Wendy had built herself up into a capable fighter when she had been hesitant to get involved when I first met her. Making her stay behind while we went and fought the person hunting her would only harm the spirit she had grown into over the years.
Rogue's shadow writhed on the ground as Frosch's frantic purring settled into a more content tone as I scratched his head and ears. I kept an eye on the motion. Rogue was a lot more expressive with his shadow than he was with his face. He wasn't happy, but he looked to be more anxious than angry.
"I want to be there too."
"If you can clear it with your guildmaster, I won't stop you."
His breath hissed out, short, sharp and angry.
"I don't want them to see her vulnerable."
Another point of conflict between himself and the guild he had chosen. Rogue didn't feel he could trust them with things that were really important to him. Like his friendships with us, outsiders and perceived rivals. If Rogue went out of his way to help Wendy now, it would call attention to her having been made into prey like this. It would point out the blood in the water to people who already went out of their way to make our lives difficult.
"I've already talked to Sting. He says he's got some thinking to do."
Rogue and Sting were usually called to the same jobs, so that made Rogue come up slightly. His entire frame loosened briefly, fists opening as the idea hit him...
"Where did he go?"
I laid my fingers next to my temple and focused briefly... I rattled off an address and then was left in slight bemusement as Rogue plucked Frosch out of my arms and raced off.
Is it something in the air that's making Dragon Slayers extra weird today? Or is their job that high profile?
-vVv-
Sting was not a stupid person. He was a loyal one. He had chosen to give his loyalty to Sabertooth, to use them to become stronger and let them use him to gain strength as well.
But he also held loyalty to the first person who had simply believed he wasn't lying when he said he was the son of a dragon.
Fae frustrated him. Challenged him. Taunted him.
And he kept on going back for more. Because she was the kind of strong he wanted to be. And if he spent long enough near her, maybe he would figure out the why, the how...
Stupid fairy. All those brains, all those clever words and you still. Don't. Get it.
Granted, he hadn't realized it at first either. Wendy had actually been the one to sit down and straighten him out about his behavior after it was getting too disruptive for her to tolerate.
"You've made it really freakin' obvious to everyone else in the world that you like her. But if you want to check up on her, you can do that without breaking into her room every time!"
Dragons were hoarding creatures. What they valued, they wanted to keep safe, under their protection.
Fae could handle herself. He knew that better than most. He had experienced a myriad of her combative talents first hand. Fae lived with strong friends who could look after her and support her personally and professionally.
But the anxiety persisted whenever he was away for too long. So Sting contented himself with either checking on where she was while she slept and was the most vulnerable, or by testing her. Challenging her skills, verifying that her territory was well protected. Proving to himself that she could protect herself without him being around.
It gave him many mixed feelings every time she won, and proved just how little she needed him.
So he changed his approach. She could handle fights, but what about stress and loneliness? He heard Rogue grumble about things like that regarding his three Fairy Tail friends. They were under an enormous amount of pressure keeping their guild alive. And Fae would stand by her home and family until hell froze over.
I get that she lives for them. But I don't want to see her kill herself for them.
Just spending time with Fae without sparring was nice. He got to see her as she designed her next totem and try to guess what function it had. Getting it right felt like winning ten spars. He got to see her tell Frosch stories, or put on performances for her friends.
He got to shake his head and wonder how someone so smart could not get it when he said he did not want to be friends. But since that was all she seemed to want from him...speaking more directly felt like it would be burdening her.
She'll get it eventually...Wendy'll probably get tired eventually like she did with me.
Sting always knew where he stood with Fae, knew what she would do. How she would accomplish it was anyone's guess, but her alignment and goals were crystal clear. Part of him still felt ten years old watching a green haired girl dive out of a tree and kick a shale imp into fragments. No questions about who he was. She just...moved and did exactly what she wanted to do. Without hesitation. Back then, she had wanted to protect a bystander in a fight she had claimed.
Right now, what she wanted was for someone to stop frightening her friend. But she didn't have enough information to make him do that.
And Sting thought he might be able to locate the missing piece she needed.
Sabertooth had been contracted to guard one wealthy dealer of magical items.
"Some ruffian in Seven has been terrorizing men in my line of trade. Stealing the cream of the crop and leaving onto the dregs behind."
Yeah, that was his pitch. The high risk-high pay nature of the job had made Jemma accept it. Sting and Rogue had just finished a rotation guarding the man heading back towards Seven now that he had done his business. It was why they hadn't heard about this guy stalking Wendy until now.
Something snarled inside of him at the gall of some lowlife trying to turn the only living she-dragon into their prey. Sting let it make some noise, then pushed it aside. Pushed it into the section where he contained all of that energy and rage to tap into Dragon Force at will.
The man had been very loose lipped about some of the things that had been stolen. He dealt in raw lacrima, but one of his compatriots had lost an entire shipment of weapons headed for a Rune Knight garrison. One of their more distant fellows had gotten a large amount of steel prepared for magical crafting stolen right from the smithy. And there was a name connected with those thefts.
Lewin Trantos.
He had started out doing swift hit-and-run style tactics. Theater costumes and props covered by zeal and determination. More smoke and lights than actually dangerous stuff. But no one took him seriously at this stage. Then he graduated to more dangerous contraband. And once he and his band were appropriately armed, they went to even higher levels of brazen. He started taunting his targets, by informing them of if they had been chosen to be robbed or not. He would detail when and where he would arrive. Sometimes he would show, other times it was a feint to pull off a bigger heist. He had operated in Seven, and Bosco in the past, but Sabertooth's contacts suggested he had begun his career in Stella.
Which all aligned with what Fae was saying that she knew about him.
Sabertooth was hashing out negotiations right now to take on a job to hunt him down. They were trying to determine if it was worth the risk of taking on a job that could blow up in their face. Because no one could seem to track Trantos himself. Some of his men had been caught, but Trantos was a ghost. He wasn't sure how true it was, but some gossip said he had walked into a command post set up to catch him and walked out again after introducing himself to the Rune Knight Captain in charge. He'd have to fact check that and clear it with Fae before he believed it.
But if it was even only partially true, it did imply he had access to either Charm magic or very, very good Transformation magic. Something that let him evade pursuit.
It would be a high reward if Sabertooth managed to bag him with the notoriety he had been drawing to himself. But they had to honestly consider if they had the capability of tracking him in the first place. Better to pass the job by than take it on and fail.
Stupid, or smart and stupidly lucky.
He would think it was the latter. You didn't manage to evade scrutiny as acute as Celeste Faerun's without deliberately doing something to cover your tracks. And the fact that she was only now having some clue to his identity meant she was gaining ground. Steadily.
"Sting!" Rogue swooped in like a large bat, Frosch clinging to his shoulder. "What are you thinking?"
In anyone else, Sting would react defensively and demand that they back off. Rogue however was coming from a similar place as he was. If only for slightly different motivations.
"I'm thinking, I'm going to mentally review every fact I can about our job while we're off rotation. And I'm going to...bump into a rival of mine until she gets the message."
He might not be privy to the details but he had known from the beginning that Fae's perception was not normal. He was sure it wasn't mind reading, but he wouldn't deny it was something that let her see and hear things others didn't. And she heard them through proximity.
"If they manage to take him, that won't hold water with Master Jemma."
Rogue wasn't trying to warn him off. Just warn him. Sting sneered.
"The reminder will do him good. And you meant when they take him. We're talking about our Fairies here."
They especially would not allow this threat to stand. Sting was certain that Fairy Tail was still as fierce as ever. They were on the defensive right now, as they had been for years. But this was personal for them. It wasn't about scoring the bounty first, it was about protecting their own. One of those people he considered shared between him, Rogue and Fairy Tail. Whatever was going to happen once he got Fae this information... It was going to be quick, brutal and a very effective reminder that there was a reason that the reduced but still powerful guild had held the crown for so long. And the only reason Sabertooth held it unchallenged right now was because the Furies didn't feel the need to fight them for it.
He went to meet with Fae as they had arranged. The fact that they hadn't spoken about a meeting spot was irrelevant. He could have tracked her anywhere in the city. The girl was massaging her temples, her bright blue eyes framed by glasses that he knew she was using to apply pressure to her temples and behind her ears to relieve a headache. If she spent too long in her 'Zone' she could fall prey to them easily. Her wavy green hair was messier than usual, indication of her attention being elsewhere. But she still bickered and bantered with him as if she wasn't hurting and angry.
Because whatever 'thing' they had...she valued enough to not take out her frustration on him.
When Sting hooked his foot under her chair as they sat together at lunch and pressed his leg up against hers, he deliberately thought through every single detail that he could remember of the Lewin Trantos job.
1 leader, a dozen underlings. All very well armed and practiced in using magical weapons. Bold and cocky, has a way to evade pursuit. Teleportation or very swift movement. A trap will have to be fast and thorough for any chance of success.
Fae's gaze stared into eternity as her blue gaze gleamed brighter, subtle, but noticeable as close as they were right now. Then from one moment to the next, it was gone. A very familiar fire blazed to life in her eyes now. The same light that he had seen in her when they were kids all those years ago. Purpose, dedication, action. A singing, glorious energy barely contained by her frame.
He basked in it, feeling it wash over his senses and leave him feeling slightly punch-drunk. He controlled his magic as it tried to shift the microscopic scales on his face to catch the light. To catch her attention.
Peacocking, Wendy had called it. What a male did to try and catch a females attention.
Sting just quietly inhaled her presence, tasting the energy she was breathing out as her soul filled the air around her with glory. His eyes changed slightly to let him see a different spectrum. He saw the currents of ethernano fill the air around them. And around her, was the unique aura he had never seen anywhere else.
This color was only found in the proximity of Celeste D Faerun when she was at her most determined.
Myrddin, you don't even know how beautiful you are.
"Sting."
Hearing her voice startled him. He lost control of his vision and it went greyscale for a moment before he caught himself.
"Yeah?"
He made himself drawl the words, casual and cocky. Like their usual interactions. Fae leapt up, rattling the table in her haste. Then she had circled around the table and-
She was hugging him.
Sting was unashamed to say that his brain went somewhere else for a while.
Seeing her light was one thing. Feeling it that close? He had to fight not to gulp it down like a starving man. It would make him look like he was panting or hyperventilating and very much ruin the public image he tried to cultivate. And his image with her.
"You know, for saying you don't want to be friends, you're not very good at being my enemy." Her voice sounded right next to his ear. He gripped her back before she could pull away, relishing the contact-
She was already pulling back and Sting was struck again by the look on her face.
Not angry anymore, just confident and clear. Whatever plan she had been concocting, it had come to fruition. Fae grinned down at him, an almost childlike glee emanating from her.
"Thank you Sting."
Then she was gone, running up the street for a few steps before her wings snapped out, curling out like a raptor birds, cast in light amber. Whatever she had read from him and put her in a very good mood. He took that as a win. She was off and quickly out of sight.
Sting was left with what remained of their drinks, cheeks that were glittering so much he was practically sparking and a racing heart. He eventually let his face thud down onto the table and groaned out loud.
"Weissologia, why do I have to like a super-smart, completely dense idiot who also happens to be amazing?"
One of the shadows under the table laughed at him and he stomped on Rogue, hoping he landed the blow on his smug face.
"Shut up. It's not funny."
"It wasn't while both of you were oblivious. Now though? It's hilarious."
The Shadow Dragon Slayer settled in an unoccupied chair, inhaling slightly.
"That helped a lot. She's hopeful again."
And that made all the irritation leech out of Sting.
The childlike light within Fae came and went. And as time went on, it became rarer and rarer. As her burden grew heavier, her light grew dimmer. Sting felt the absence of positivity in her, Rogue felt an increase in the worries and fears she harbored.
"Good... It's worth it then."
-vVv-
We had a location.
Unity Bridge was towards the bottom of Cait Shelter's old territory. The island itself was fairly small, so we needed fighters that were agile and capable of fending for themselves on foot, in water or in the air.
We had a number of enemies.
Sting's information revealed that there would be at least 12 enemies besides the leader, all armed in military grade armor and bearing magic weapons meant to allow a trained non-wizard to face a wizard and not get flattened and stand a chance of penetrating their own defenses.
I had a name.
Lewin Trantos.
Names always gave me a lot more insight into a story. They were the access I had to their identity.
But what was giving me pause even now...was the fact that Sting's information showed that even prior to the gang's acquiring of weapons and armor to level the playing field, that the wizards had suffered tremendous injuries. We could project some magic in a crude defense to prevent damage, lessen sword cuts and hammer blows to bruises. But from the look of it...those men hadn't had the chance to use that. The survivors, one of whom Sting had conversed with, had said he wasn't sure why, but he had only been able to effectively fight for a fraction of his usual time in the ambush.
Throughout the fight, they had experienced a massive loss of magic power. I had seen that before though...only we had had means to bypass that, and had been forewarned about it happening.
When we went to Edolas, a world that had been starved of its Ethernano. Porlyusica had gotten an X-ball equivalent mixed up and delivered to us in under an hour as her show of support for this operation.
Having them was just a precaution. But there are still more unknown factors in our approach than I would like.
I had scryed Lewin Trantos with a mirror written with every kind of far seeing story reference I could think up. I had only been able to see him, not his surroundings.
He was an extreme looking man with long dark hair undercut and woven with various decorations of leather, feathers and bone. He also had olive skin, an unfortunate resting bitch face and light grey eyes. Without proper reference, I couldn't get a good idea of how tall he was, but he had the look of someone who wasn't too brawny. Formerly thin, but gained a lot of functional muscle very quickly.
His story read like the protagonist of an epic adventure. Lewin Trantos was a downtrodden remnant of the Nirvit Tribes. Seven remembered them with fear for their power, so he had been denied much of his history and culture. He had been shipped to Stella as an indentured servant when he first heard about the essays coming out of Fiore about the Nirvit's. He had pounced and used them to divine more of his heritage. (The details of how he did this were suspiciously murky.)
He had traveled to Fiore to give thanks to the scholar who had led him to his heritage. He was set upon by bandits en-route, but was rescued and healed by Wendy.
An element of a star-crossed lovers romance emerged here. Lewin claimed Wendy had pleaded for his help to bring back the old glory of the Nirvit's. In...explicit detail that made me want to shoot the man in some very specific places. (According to the IRL timeline, Wendy had been freaking thirteen when this happened.) And as the lovestruck protagonist, he vowed he would do so for her.
Here I didn't look at what his history presented as his origin story. But I did note the time. That window likely had a few true facts that I could use to catch him. Such as, this time being when he first saw Wendy and sparked his obsession. I had to check the other names for this cross point to find his old one...
The rest of the story from his ' fated meeting' rang as slightly more true to my ears. So I could conclude that this was really where 'Lewin Trantos' actually started to do anything that I could attach his name to. Before, he was just a personal fantasy, all talk, no action, not even echoes. I was certain he had once gone by another name, doubtless with a different appearance. But without his original name, I couldn't expose his true history. So I was reviewing our lists of information and missing persons as Hibiki flew the Blue Pegasus airship, the Christina, into position carrying our team.
If he's on any of these lists, then the end of his former identity's story will align with the birth of Lewin Trantos. Give or take a few weeks...
I had to challenge his delusion if I was to shake him from his cause. Throw him off his game. And I wanted to do that with his name. The unequivocal reminder that everything he was working towards was built on a lie he was telling himself...
Someone settled beside me. I glanced at Wendy who was looking a little more calm, but also resolute.
"What is it, Wendy?"
"I...want to ask a favor."
I had been floating the documents in front of me, but I stowed them and gave her my full attention. Once I did this, she gave me a small, wan smile.
"You're my best friend. And I can't even count the ways I've grown because of you."
From someone who hesitated to use her fullest abilities to the person who had gained renown as the Sky Sorceress as a fierce combatant, as well as a healer... Loss, grief, healing, triumph, peace...everything she had done, Yeah, Wendy had undergone a lot of changes.
Yet I sensed there was a 'but' was still coming. Something that was disquieting her...So I remained quiet and let her speak. She loosely clasped her hands, voice quiet but steady.
"You've always encouraged me to stand up for myself. To be active in fighting. To be a Dragon Slayer. Be the child of a dragon."
She met my eyes then, and for a moment, I saw a heartbreaking hesitancy and a bit of fear.
"I don't think I can do that today."
My first instinct was to accept this without question, though there was some surprise. I would never want Wendy to be in a position where she was forced into something against her will. But I felt she needed to talk through this some more. So I prompted her as gently as I could.
"Why is that?"
She made a helpless gesture at the papers.
"When he looks at me. He sees a...a monster he wants to own. He doesn't see me as a person, just as a Nirvit with enough power to slay dragons. A dragon in human skin. And I am that. I'm proud to be that! But that's not...all that I am."
A tiny whirlwind spun on her palm as her other hand glowed with healing magic.
"I'm also a doctor. A healer who has promised to do good whenever they can. To do no harm where possible. I've reconciled that I can never fully be one of these without denying the other. But for this...I will not be able to keep both parts of me in balance if I face him. If it's my job to stop him."
Her brown eyes turned pink, Dragon Force leaking through her usually iron grip on her temper.
"I can't fight him. I wouldn't be able to hold back to leave him alive for capture, for questioning."
Her voice turned into a lethal hiss of fury.
"...I hate that he gets to control me like that..."
Her hair was even turning pink now as she spat out her words, pitch rising with her temper.
"I hate that I can't do anything to make him feel like he's made me feel! That I can't get even with him without becoming exactly what he thinks I am in the first place! It's not fair!"
Her sharp cry penetrated the air. A bitter snarl of a wounded animal. Everyone else on the airship was either pointedly not looking or was watching like a hawk. Kagura and Kinana were hovering, waiting for a signal to descend.
Something seemed to break in her. Her tone trailing off.
"It's not fair..."
Wendy was actually crying now. Wendy was a sensitive soul coupled with an iron will. She grieved better than any of us. Cleansing herself of negative emotion that would otherwise hinder her ability to heal. But this wasn't grief, this was despair. The fear of a helpless child, hands bound.
I had seen her like this immediately after Tenrou, and her losing Carla, and when she accessed Dragon Force after breaking through a mental torture curse that trapped you in an illusion where you saw your worst fears as you thought that.
Trantos had painted Wendy with the same brush we would have painted Acnologia. And she couldn't handle the idea of being anything that even remotely resembled that black monster.
All the years she had spent working. Perfectly her craft in combat, healing and enchantment. And it took the comparison to the creature that still haunted our nightmares to break my friend.
She fears her own anger. What she would do if she let herself act on it.
I hugged her.
Never.
The seats were not ideal for this, but she all but collapsed into my side. I realized once again that over the years I had grown taller than Wendy and she was officially now the short friend among us.
You will never be like him. I won't let you be like Acnologia. We won't let you become like that.
"No it's not." I agreed combing my fingers through her hair, careful of her age braid. "Nothing we do will ever make it so this never happened."
The hurt would remain in her no matter how far she moved beyond it. The fear would leave its mark on her for life. Those Trantos had killed, I had confirmed a body count of at least 6 directly, who would never go home to their loved ones. And that would weigh on her soul for the rest of her life.
There's no undo button for this. For anything. All we can do now is speculate on what if...
The thought caught and sparked an idea in me.
"Like Loke and I told you, Wendy. Whatever you don't want to do, we'll be here to cover for you. You are not in this alone."
I glanced at the hovering mother hen and mama snake and they crossed quickly to where we were. Kagura settled on her other side, Kinana shifted into full snake form to enable herself to hug her while she was still leaning on me.
Morgana, how long do you think it would take us to design the spell? The idea I had would be one that required build up. It would affect physical objects, and I couldn't afford the time to say the spell more than once...
2 hours and 52 minutes.
Find a way to cut it down. I'm still finding this clown's Name. We are doing this and we are doing it so he doesn't even get a desire to try this again, with her or anyone.
Morgana gave a small 'nod' of acknowledgement, taking my idea and my right hand to tap my run syllabary and begin hashing out the goal for the spell we were going to be crafting.
I had a plan forming.
Wendy couldn't get payback for her own pain. Not without further harming her broken self-esteem by sinking to his level.
But I could.
I would. Every tear my friend shed would be taken out on this man tenfold. Not with physical pain though…That was too short.
Eye for Eye, Lewin Trantos, or whatever the hell your name is. You picked the wrong target to pull into your sick fantasy. You went after my friend. I promise, you will spend the rest of your miserable life regretting that you went after a member of Fairy Tail. And it will be a very, very long life if I have anything to say about it.