I really should be studying for my exams...Fuck it.
Enjoy!
"You guys seem really intent on reassuring me your friends are normal." Steph said, feeling tense. Nashi laughed.
"They are, but if we're all together things can get heated." She said. Drake scoffed.
"Understatement of the year." He said. Although Steph was looking forward to meeting this people, she was a bit nervous. She assumed it was the other competitors from the Grand Magic Games, but so far no one had showed.
"There you guys are." The group turned to find Damien walking up. Although he looked troubled, he smiled at them. Steph would have to ask him later.
"Where were you?" Ultear asked. "You've been gone all day."
"I had some stuff to think about." No one asked another question, which seemed to ease Damien's worries. Steph wasn't sure why her brother was so secretive and odd, but she'd find out some day. "So what're we doing?"
"Waiting." Simon said. "We told the others that we had a new friend that we wanted them to meet. They're on their way."
"Oh, cool." Damien said. "But, if everyone's coming, doesn't that mean..."
"Damien!" Steph barely had time to turn and look before a black blur flew past her. She turned back and saw her brother hit the dirt from receiving the full brunt of the tackle. Steph could hear her brother grunting in irritation.
"Knew it." Steph heard him mutter. "Get off of me." The thing, it sounded like a woman, laughed.
"Aw, you're no fun Damien." She said. The girl sat up, allowing Steph a full view of the girls perfect figure and blonde hair. "Enjoy life a bit." The girl stood and offered Damien a hand, which he took. The girl used this as her opportunity to pull him close, and Damien gave her an unimpressed look.
"Are you done?" he asked. She giggled.
"Maybe."
"Bella." The girl, Bella, turned as Drake called her. "Where's everyone else?" Bella smiled and pointed upwards.
"Up there." She stated simply. Steph looked up along with everyone else, and she was surprised to see an airship with a horse figurehead floating above them. The airship started to descend, and Steph watched as it stopped and the bay doors opened. Once they were open, she could see a group of people coming out of it. Steph watched as every team that had competed in the Games came out of the airship, and she felt her stomach turn a bit.
"I've got a feeling this is going to get heated..." She murmured to herself as the others reached them.
"Bella, what have I told you about opening the doors on the airship without prior warning?" A tan man asked, looking unimpressed. "You damn near depressurized the whole ship."
"Sorry." Bella replied offhandedly. "Just wanted to come down and greet them."
"You mean Damien?" Nashi asked, smiling quizzically at Bella. The girl nodded and pressed herself close to Damien, who barely reacted.
"You know it."Bella replied. Damien didn't bother to say anything about her closeness, so Steph couldn't tell what the two had going on. Were they lovers? If so, Steph had to commend her brother tastes. She was beautiful. Damien rolled his eyes and shoved Bella away from him.
"Anyway, as much as we love hanging out with you guys, we did want you to meet someone pretty important." Steph gulped at this, as everyone present seemed to take notice of her presence.
"Ah, the new girl." A boy with black hair and red eyes said. Steph felt stupid that she'd forgotten all of their names watching the Games. She hadn't really cared enough to remember. She did recognize the guy a the one who'd fought Elise a few times though. "Was wondering about her."
"Yeah, who is it?" The blonde next to black hair, red eyes asked. "She kind of reminds me of Damien." Steph laughed awkwardly.
"Funny you see that... She said. "I'm, uh...I'm his little sister, Steph." At first, no one reacted to her words. But after a few seconds to process what she said, everyone slowly grew shocked.
"Sister?!" Steph jumped as a tan girl tore through the crowd, grabbing Damien by the collar of his shirt. "What the hell did you do, Dreyar?!"
"Good to see you too, Terra." Damien replied in a deadpan. "How's life been the past few days? Good? Good. Yeah, it's..."
"Shut up and explain yourself!" Terra said, cutting him off. "I thought she was dead!"
"So did we." Simon said, cutting in."Wanna field that one, Damien?" Damien groaned and looked up at the sky.
"Remember when we got attacked in the stadium?"
"...And that's about the sum of it." Damien finished. "Happy?"
The crowd, more or less, had been enthralled by the story. Once Damien finished, Terra rubbed her eyes.
"Of all things, Damien..." She said. "You risked fucking time up by rescuing her? I can't believe you."
"I didn't really mess anything up, though."
"You don't know that."
"I do actually, but I'm not delving into that just yet." This piqued everyone's interest, but Damien waved them off. "Anyway, that's the story." This caused everyone's attention to get turned back to Steph, who sat up a bit as they did so.
Somehow Steph did not see Bella coming first.
"It's so good to meet you, Steph!" She said, hugging the girl. Steph returned the hug awkwardly, and Bella backed up to smirk at her. "Bella. I'm your brothers girlfriend."
"Since when are we a thing?" Damien retorted instantly, making Bella frown in his direction.
"Could you not play along for even a second?" She asked. "I would've had her, too."
"Not a chance, Bella." This caused the girl to pout, but Steph soon forgot about it as she was barraged by names and faces she had to remember this time. She managed to keep track of them well enough, it was more of a 'oh yeah, your so and so.' than actually seeing them for the first time. Once everyone had gotten to be introduced, Steph felt tired.
"Hey, wait up." It was Drake who spoke up. "Michael, where's Blake? He's not with you." This caused Michael to stand up a bit straighter, and Nashi looked away.
"He's, uh..." Michael started, but Juno cut him off.
"By the way, Michael decided to tell us just recently Blake was the one who, you know, attacked you guys during the final day. We're so sorry, we had no idea..."
"Yeah." Rina agreed. "We wouldn't have let him had we known either." Steph noted that everyone but Nashi seemed a little surprised by this news, but she didn't know why.
"Really?" Simon asked. "It was him?" Michael nodded.
"Yeah. He's not allowed anywhere, my dad said, until he figures out what his punishment is going to be."
"I'm sure he'll be fine." Nashi said, placing a hand on Michael's shoulder. The two exchanged a glance, and even Steph could tell they were relaying their thoughts without words. The two knew something they weren't sharing. What. however, Steph had no idea. She turned back to find Drake watching the pair, his ears twitching. After a moment, his eyes widened.
"Nashi..." he started. Nashi looked over and shook her head,
"We'll talk later, Drake."
"But...!"
"Later, okay?" Drake looked a little apprehensive, but he nodded and looked down. Nashi patted his chest as she walked up to him. They looked at each other, before Drake shrugged.
"Whatever." He muttered. Nashi nodded appreciatively, before the pair looked back at everyone else as they discussed something else. Steph was obviously out of the loop on most of what they were talking about, but she had a feeling Nashi wasn't saying it out loud on purpose. Maybe she'd find out later.
"Hey, Simon." Steph looked over as someone called Simon's name. Once she looked over, she noticed the confrontation between Nami and Simon. Both seemed to be smirking.
"Yes, Nami?" Simon asked.
"One reason I came here was I wanted to have our rematch. What do you say? We're both in better shape now." The group was silent as Simon contemplated her words, before he shrugged.
"Sure, let's go."
Steph had spent the majority of the next few hours watching the competitors have friendly rematches, and truthfully it was pretty awesome. Nobody went all out, obviously, because there wasn't really anything on the line. Simon and Nami had exhausted each other, Kyoko had given into Ultear, Rina got to frustrated and got paralyzed by Drake, and so on.
"Jeez, we really need to find out better things to do with our day than fight." Rachel said.
"It was fun." Nami replied. "Don't say it wasn't."
"It's getting kind of late." Mami said, observing their darkening surroundings. "Maybe we should get going. Unless we're going to go get drunk back at the guild hall."
"I vouch for getting drunk." Reyna said, raising her hand.
"When don't you?" Winter asked, making the girl cackle. The group seemed to be discussing their options, but someone cleared his throat. Steph looked over to find Michael standing on the battlefield.
"We're not done with the fighting yet." He said, a smile on his face. "I seem to recall a certain someone telling me we'd settle something once and for all once the Games were over." Steph was unsure what he meant, but Nashi chuckled and stood up from her spot on the ground.
"I did say that, didn't I?" She asked, walking up to Michael. "Is that now?" Michael nodded.
"You're damn right." He said. "Round three. You or me." Nashi shrugged, stretching her arms.
"If you want to lose to me twice, be my guest."
"Funny, I was about to say the same thing. The two walked to opposite sides of the battlefield, and Steph found herself very excited to watch and wonder who would win. Both of them were pretty powerful.
"Steph." She turned around as Damien called her name to find everyone else who was there had backed up a bit. "I'd back up if I were you."
"Oh, uh, okay." Steph said, standing up and walking towards everyone else.
"Yeah, good idea." Juno said. "Odds are we're going to end up in the blast radius anyway." Steph turned and watched as Michael and Nashi squared off on the makeshift battlefield. After a few seconds, both became enveloped in their respective element.
"Ready?" Michael asked.
"When you are." Nashi replied. Both stared at each other for a few more seconds before, together, they both surged forward. Light and fire formed around each of their fists and once they connected, the shockwave of light and fire caused Steph to shield her eyes. The two started to slug each other without holding back, each strike causing a small explosion on whoever got hit. Michael received a fairly decent blow and was thrown back a bit, but he slid to a stop and roared at Nashi, which she dodged. The roar followed her as she ran away from it, but Nashi jumped into the air and brought her hands together.
"Fire Dragon's Brilliant Flame!" The fireball left her hands and soared towards Michael, which he dodged. The fireball caused another explosion, and the two met in the center of the battlefield again to trade blows, only for Michael to land a kick before they did so and making Nashi stumble backwards. Michael went on the heavy offensive, making Nashi block all of his attacks. She slid back and ignited her body, but Michael barely stopped to think about it and continued to barrage her with attacks.
"They're pretty evenly matched, all things considered." Steph heard Keita say
"They are." Drake agreed. "But let's just wait and see." As Michael went in for another blow, Nashi reared her fist back and delivered a vicious blow to His face. Michael stumbled back and Nashi went right after him, delivering blow after blow that made Steph wince in pain as Michael flew back and landed on his back. The flames intensified as Nashi got closer to him.
A chill went down Steph's spine, but she thought nothing of it.
Michael got up and tried to defend himself from her attacks, but he seemed to be having a bit of difficulty as Nashi reversed the flow of the fight and threw him around a bit. Nashi punched him in the stomach which made him slid away, but Michael's body began to glow.
"This is exactly what I hoped would happen." he said. "Just going after each other, seeing which one of us is..."
Nashi doubled over, gripping her head. Steph wasn't sure what she was doing, but soon she started to groan.
"Stop it..." She hissed. "I won't..." Steph raised an eyebrow at this. What was Nashi talking about?
"You okay?" Michael asked, also seeming unsure as to what he was supposed to do. Nashi shook her head and staggered around a bit.
"I...I..."She hissed, making Drake gulp. "The...I can hear the...v-voice..." Steph didn't know what she was talking about, but Drake stepped forward.
"Fight's over." He said. "Sorry Michael."
"But..."
"Listen, man. It's for the best." Michael looked confused, and Steph was as well. Why did Drake stop the fight? What was wrong with Nashi?
The longer Steph was home, the longer she felt a lot of stuff was being kept from her.
All of them had returned to the guild hall to, as Reyna put it, get wasted. Steph had to admit after the strange ending to Michael and Nashi's fight, it certainly eased the mood. Even Nashi seemed to have eased up a bit, but she still seemed a little tense. Steph really had no idea what had happened on the battlefield, but she hoped she'd learn about it at some point.
Steph looked over at the girl, who was talking to Michael and Drake. She laughed, and Steph had to admit she looked totally fine. However, something had happened. She wasn't that stupid.
Steph was brought out of her staring when the door to her fathers office opened. She looked over to find Sting, master of Sabertooth, walking out of it.
"Dad?" Michael asked. "What're you doing here?"
"Oh, this is where you guys ran off too." Sting replied, "I was just talking to Laxus about something."
"What?" Steph's father also appeared out of the office, looking a bit tired.
"It's probably good most of you are here." he said. "This concerns both teams." Steph had to assume that meant he was referring to her guilds team and Sabertooth's, which excluded her.
"Why?" Juno asked. "What's going on?" Sting and Laxus exchanged glances, before Sting sighed.
"A job request came in." he said.
"Okay, and?" Michael asked.
"One asking for both teams." Laxus said. "Not only that, but it's not one you're allowed to take lightly."
Steph, after spending all day with them, had a feeling sending those eleven might not get the job done as smoothly as the contact might have wanted.
I had so much trouble writing this, you guys have no idea. Nothing felt right, but I persevered. Plus I'm considering redoing the order of some stuff coming up...I get through it. I hope you enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try to get five!