Magnolia: July 19th, x778

Magnolia was well known for its busy mornings and frantic nights. With such an extensive collection of people in the bustling streets and working at the docks, it was a city that never seemed too quiet. When it was loud, it was expected, and when it was silent, there was something wrong.

"Fish stick breakfast! Ten jewels a pop!"

"Breaking News! Clover destroyed yesterday!"

"Come and check out the menu, folks! Discounts!"

"Unprecedented battle between Wizard Saints!"

"Apples for sale! Get your apples for sale!"

"Get your issue of Sorcerers Weekly to learn more about it!"

"Ice pops! Get your ice pops here!"

Thankfully, the city was as boisterous as ever, and the city dwellers were as welcoming as they always were. Their greetings and hospitality made it a little better for the two girls, one with tan skin and brown hair and the other with white skin and red hair, as they traversed the morning rush. The two teens were carrying groceries they had bought with the money Porlyushica provided and a list of things they needed to get for the resident doctor.

"Erza, are you sure you remembered everything?"

"I'm sure, Cana, this is everything," Erza replied swiftly, carrying three bags of rice and two bags of vegetables. She would have put them in her requip space, but that was filled with swords she hadn't sorted out, and she didn't want one of the bags to get stabbed.

"I have all the main ingredients, and you have the strawberries," Erza noted as her gaze tilted back. She saw Cana following her with a pack of sweet strawberries that she munched on occasionally.

"Are you sure you don't want one, Erza?"

"It would be dishonest."

"One of these days, I'll get you to break the rules," Cana muttered vengefully as she ate another strawberry before closing the box so Erza didn't give her a patented punch to the noggin. Her head tilted towards the forest at the edge of town as she asked, "You know why she wanted us to get these, Erza? Usually, she never asks for anything."

"I'm unsure, but it must be important."

"You think someone got hurt?" Cana asked curiously, watching as Erza blinked in confusion before her eyes widened in obvious concern, "That's impossible."

Cana leaned in, watching with a growing interest before Erza muttered something that nearly made her drop her strawberries, "I could have sworn Natsu and Grey were out of town."

"Not them, dummy!" Cana yelled in exasperation before sighing as she saw Erza blink in confusion once again. As if she couldn't imagine anyone else getting sent to Porlyushica. A reaction that Cana should have expected since Erza took the two troublemakers to the old lady's hut at least once a week, "You need to spend less time with them, Erza. You're catching their stupid."

"I am not!" Erza replied hotly, her face burning crimson. She was about to rebuttal before she ran face-first into someone's sturdy back. She nearly fell back before a gentle yet firm hand grabbed her arm and pulled her up. The man spoke with a voice she recognized but hadn't expected, "Sorry, Erza. I didn't see you there."

Erza stiffened in surprise, her eyes wide as she saw a man in a brown cloak, shaggy orange hair, and a half-shaved beard. His black eyes flicked to Cana as he smiled, "Hey, Cana. How's it going? You and Erza shopping?"

Erza heard Cana gulp behind her, a small mutter leaving her friend's lips as Erza crossed her arms and tried to keep the attention off Cana.

"When'd you get back Gildarts?"

Cana seemed to get shy whenever they ran into Gildarts. Erza suspected that Cana might be a little scared of the man.

"I thought you were still on a mission," Erza said, glancing at Cana and seeing her look down with a strange expression. Erza didn't know how to interpret that look, but before she could try, Gildarts laughed and turned his attention to her. "Oh, I got done with that one a few days ago. I just got back this morning and want to relax a bit."

Gildarts yawned as he stretched and looked around the city before wincing. A few bystanders spotted him before he pulled up his hood. "But hey, could you keep me back on the down low? I don't want them to go into lockdown just yet."

"But it's standard protocol."

"Oh, come on, Erza, just this once," Gildarts pleaded, putting his hands together as he tried to win over the iron-hearted maiden before turning towards her shy friend and asking with a quick smile, "Please, Cana. Can you convince Erza? I just wanna get breakfast."

"You mean beer." Erza challenged, to which Gildarts responded without a hint of shame or a second hesitation, "Beer is the best breakfast."

"How is it-"

"Shush, shush, let your friend decide my fate," Gildarts dramatically declared as he put a finger to Erza's mouth to silence her, only to yelp and pull it back a second later as she bit it. Gildarts shook his hand sulkily before he heard Cana murmur, "Let's let him go, Erza. He just got back."

Gildarts and Erza blinked in surprise as they turned to Cana, who shrunk away from Gildart's stunned gaze before she snatched Erza's hand and tried to run away. They barely made it a few meters before Gildarts cut them off with a grin, "Nuh uh, that isn't right. You can't just save my peaceful morning and run away. Here."

Gildarts snatched the groceries from Erza and Cana's hands before they could blink and tossed them into his requip space. He closed the space with a wave before he gave the girls a grateful smile: "I've seen Porlyushica send enough kids on errands to recognize her list. I'll take these over to her hut for you after I eat. Consider it a thank you."

Gildarts watched as Erza's expression bounced between refusal and disgruntlement, probably because she didn't want to seem like she was passing on her responsibilities to someone else. Meanwhile, Cana's face burned a bright red, and she nodded before snatching Erza's hand again.

"Thanks..."

Cana's murmur was the last thing said as Gildarts watched her pull Erza towards the guild hall. His eyebrow raised before he gave a shrug and turned to a nearby bar. He walked over and sat down, giving a slight chuckle as he picked up a newspaper to read while waiting for breakfast.

"Cana's such a sweet kid."

Gildarts hadn't been keeping up with the news lately.

When Elfman and Lisanna woke up and raced to see their sister, they didn't expect to see her half asleep with a newspaper on her lap. Her demonic arm was still present and seemed to have grown considerably with the extra pink scales that had crawled up her arm. Her right pupil was sharp, there was a crack on her face, and her right ear was also a little pointy. But the most alarming thing was that her eyes were red and puffy with heavy bags underneath them.

"Mira!"

It looked like she hadn't slept at all.

"Are you okay?" Lisanna asked worriedly as she jumped onto her sister's bed, startling her from whatever thoughts kept her awake. Mira's eyes widened as she looked at Lisanna and saw her tear up. "I was worried about you."

Lisanna was so scared when the old lady told them Mira was still sleeping. When they first got to Magnolia, Mira was still unconscious.

"Please don't do that again."

Lisanna was so glad Mira was safe.

"You scared me," Lisanna cried as she latched onto Mira's hospital gown. Mira froze in a scared silence as Elfman came over and did the same, her two siblings latching on to her in a hug she couldn't return because her arm was still demonic.

I can't touch them...

She didn't want to hurt them.

I can't move.

So Mira held her breath, her demonic arm still by her side, as she used her human arm to push her siblings off of her gently. Ignoring their hurt and confused expressions, she finally breathed and tried to change the topic: "What happened?"

Anything to get them to stay away.

"After I left you two," Mira murmured as she looked away guiltily from her siblings, catching the two share a worried glance before Elfman spoke up hesitantly, "Uh... we hid, and a monster-"

"Monster!? What monster! Are you okay!?" Mira interrupted worriedly, frantically scanning her siblings for injuries as they nodded quickly. Elfman tried to calm her down, "Yeah! We're okay! I mean, I passed out, but-"

"You passed out!?"

"But a scary guy saved me, and Lisa can tell you the rest!" Elfman yelled in a panicked response as he threw his little sister under the bus. Snatching the newspaper from Mira's lap to hide behind so he didn't have to see Lisanna's glare, "Elfman!"

"I'm not here right now!"

"You! Ugh," Lisanna huffed as she shook her head and left Elfman to hide behind the newspaper. Her gaze turned to Mira, who was watching with relief and exhaustion. There was a tiredness that never seemed to leave, no matter how much time passed. Even as Lisanna started explaining what had happened, "His name was Laxus, and he was super mean, but he saved us. Then he disappeared and..."

That same underlying sadness seemed to linger in Mira's eyes and weigh on her shoulders.

"Well, when he returned, he had you and Vera." Lisanna mumbled with a glance to their friend, who was still asleep in the bed next to Mira, before she spoke to try and keep Mira from looking any sadder, "You were both unconscious, so he took us to a nearby town. A bunch of knights showed up, and he told them that the bad people were tied up in the forest. Then, many reporters showed up, and he talked to them. They tried to talk to us, but we said no."

Lisanna didn't like those people. They were all so pushy and kept scaring Elfman. She was glad they kept bothering Laxus instead of her and Elfman.

"After that, he took us to Magnolia and dropped us off here. I didn't ask if he was coming back."

Lisanna still didn't like Laxus. She thought he was mean and rude. That feeling seemed to come across to Mira, who frowned before nodding and opening her mouth to say something before Elfman cut in with a question that nearly stopped her heart.

"Vera killed someone?"

She could have been frozen in ice; no one would have noticed the difference.

"What? No way, he wouldn't do something like that. Let me see Elfman," Lisanna replied before grabbing the newspaper Elfman had been reading and skimming it. She was unaware of the blue eyes stuck on her with fearful trepidation and how they shattered when Lisanna finished reading it.

"Oh," Lisanna mumbled in a melancholy whisper, curling the paper in her shaky hands as she glanced at Vera's bed with a gulp. "Well, I guess if he had lost control, he might have done it."

Lisanna still remembered that screech—the one that shook the forest and made her bones turn to jelly. She hadn't heard anything like it before and struggled to forget it. She didn't know it was Vera who made that sound. If it was, though, and he had killed someone during that time frame, well...

"That's a little scary to think about, honestly."

It made her a little uncomfortable, to be honest.

"Scary? He killed someone, Lisa," Elfman sighed as he grabbed the newspaper and tried to pick up where he left off, "That's a little more than scary, right Mira?" Elfman turned to his sister, his words dying as he saw her pale white face. She looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"Mira? Are you okay?"

That or she was about to throw up.

"What's wrong-"

Elfman's question fell as he turned to the door behind them; Lisanna and Mira were doing the same as the door opened, and a blond teenager with a scar over his eye stepped in. His lips curled in a grin as he looked at the two younger children in the room and pointed to the door behind him, "Hey, brats. Get out of here for a second, would you."

Under normal circumstances, Lisanna and Elfman would never have left, but less than a minute later, Mira told them to go and give her a few minutes alone with Laxus so they could talk.

"I have something I wanna talk to your sister about."

She wanted them out of the room as soon as possible.

After Lisanna and Elfman were convinced and corralled out of the room, a silence fell over it. The room was tensely quiet as Mira barely managed to collect herself and watched the blond teen with a wary gaze. She didn't recognize him, but if he was Laxus, who brought them to Magnolia after what happened, she guessed she owed him.

"Thank you for taking us to Magnolia."

That didn't mean she had to be super friendly, though. Not with someone Lisanna obviously disliked.

"Lisanna told me what you did," Mira said with a slight frown as she watched the blond teen roll his eyes in response as if exasperated and murmur under his breath, "Eh? That weakling."

"Lissana isn't weak," Mira hissed, glaring at Laxus as he scoffed and walked around the room, idly messing with things as if bored. "She is."

"She's not!"

"What can she do? All I saw her do was cower and hide behind her cowardly brother back in the forest," Laxus challenged as he reached the half of the room with the patient beds. Mira watched in absolute disbelief as she saw him drag a chair over and set it near Vera's side. He sat in it and leaned back before kicking his feet up and leaving his heels on Vera's lap.

"Face it, your sister's a weakling. So is your brother."

He left his feet there like Vera was a footstool. His head and shoulders relaxed as if he were about to nap. It took a second for Mira's brain to process what she was seeing.

"You should ditch them and join my tribe."

The second after, she was livid.

"Otherwise, they'll just drag you down-"

"Get off him!" Mira growled, her eyes probably like a demon's as she watched Laxus tilt his head with a condescending smirk, "Why? He's not going anywhere?"

"GET OFF HIM!" Mira roared as she jumped at him, her eyes wide as Laxus smirked and flickered away in a flash of yellow electricity. Mira crashed into the chair and fell to the ground as she tried to reign in her temper, nearly shattering the chair as she stood up and tossed it away. Her breath ragged as she turned back to Laxus, who was now leaning on the wall by Vera's bedside with an amused expression.

"Wow, so touchy." Laxus said sarcastically before raising his hands in mock surrender as she took a step to beat him to a pulp, "Fine, I won't touch the loser anymore. Wouldn't want to get you angry."

Mira ground her teeth as she watched the blond teen walk away from Vera before strolling to the door, leaning against the side of it, and speaking a few words that sent ice into Mira's veins, "I've seen what that could do to a person."

Mira's breath hitched, and the color drained her face as she looked at Laxus. Her eyes were shaky, and her voice trembled as she spoke.

"Wh- what do you mean by that?"

The seconds could have lasted for hours, but all she saw the blond teen do was tilt his head knowingly before casually shrugging, "I saw the aftermath of your little battle on the way to the loser. You're lucky I didn't mention it in the interview."

Mira felt her heart sink as Laxus spoke with a snarky grin.

"Otherwise, you'd probably be behind bars right now."

The words echoed around the silent room for what felt like an eternity. Mira's face was pale as a ghost. Looking down, she murmured shakily, "You knew?"

She shouldn't be this surprised; he should know. Everyone should know, but the thought of saying it aloud brought back Elfman and Lisanna's wary reactions—their cautious and uncomfortable glances after they read the paper. All of them pointed at Vera, who they thought was a murderer, and away from her—the coward who didn't want to admit it.

"Why'd you lie?"

She didn't want to admit that she wanted it to stay a deep, dark secret for as long as possible, that she didn't want her siblings to look at her that way.

"Why didn't you turn me in?" Mira asked with a broken laugh, unable to do anything but look at her demonic arm and wish she could rip it off her body. Her confusion, guilt, fear, shame, anger, and more all built into a ball of self-loathing as she turned to the blond teen, "Why'd you imply Vera did it?"

He looked incredibly uninterested in everything she was saying at the moment.

"I couldn't say I beat him to a pulp because I wanted to, could I?" Laxus shrugged as he picked at his ear and ignored Mira's shocked expression, "Besides, you actually seem decent. It would be a shame if you got jailed before joining my guild."

That was it, not a hint of remorse to it. It left Mira baffled, and a confused murmur escaped her lips.

"You..."

Mira didn't even know what to say.

"You did that to him on purpose!"

The first thing that came to her mind was to yell. To gnash her teeth in fury because that was all she could think of. He did it on purpose. Vera was in a coma behind her because he did it on purpose. She didn't even care about the second part of his reasons, that in some twisted way, he was making sure she had a chance to join Fairy Tail; all that mattered was what he did to Vera. It made her seethe in fury.

"How could you! Why did you do that!" Mira shouted as she marched up to Laxus, who looked unfazed by her display as she jabbed her finger into his chest, "You nearly killed him! You-"

"What? Monster?" Laxus interjected, swatting away her finger sharply as he tilted his head with an almost amused look, "You sure you want to use that word? After all..."

Laxus leaned forward, whispering words into Mira's ear that made her blood run cold and anger stop in its tracks. She couldn't even breathe.

"Last I checked, only one of us is a murderer."

It was like all her thoughts had come crashing down.

"But hey, who knows? Maybe you're a saint and want to clarify it with the rune knights. I'm not going to tell 'em shit, but I won't stop you." Laxus said, leaving Mira in a dazed state as he shrugged and turned to the door before twisting the door knob.

"Do whatever you want," Laxus added with a snark as he left the room with a bland parting, "If you join Fairy Tail, though, feel free to ditch your weak ass siblings and join my tribe. I came here in the first place to offer you an invitation. Not to get into an argument."

His words went in one ear and out the other. Mira wasn't even paying attention anymore. She didn't hear him when he clicked the door behind him. All she could do was look at her demonic arm and realize that she had to get rid of it—no matter what.

"You're one of the few stronger ones that have a right to join my guild."

She didn't want to be a murderer anymore.

Laxus yawned as he closed the door and walked past the old hag and two useless siblings. As he left the hut, he caught the little girl giving him the stink eye. He casually walked through the woods towards the guild to pick up a new mission.

What a waste of time...

Laxus frowned as he remembered the girl's face after he called her out on her kill. She was pale and frozen like she was in shock. Laxus thought the girl could be strong since she killed one of the assassins in the woods, but it must have been a fluke. She was obviously too scared of her magic to kill a fly, much less a mage.

I thought she'd be stronger than that.

Laxus hoped to get another member in the Thunder God Tribe, but she wouldn't have the stomach to ditch her two anchors. It was a shame, too. It was so rare that he found anyone in the guild useful enough to join. Almost everyone was too weak or too idiotic. This girl fell in the latter.

I guess it was a dead end.

Laxus hummed disappointedly at the thought. His walk lasted a few more minutes before something began to feel off. He was about halfway to Magnolia when he noticed that the trail he was on was quiet.

Weird...

Unnervingly quiet.

I should be able to hear the town-

Laxus blinked as he felt the air go still. His head tilted curiously as he listened for the animals of the woods or the buzz of the bugs and heard nothing. His path was purely silent, except for the feather-light footsteps of a tall man in the distance.

Well, well... who's this?

Laxus grinned as he squinted his eyes, watching as a tan man in sandals and a green coat hung over his shoulders became visible in the distant haze of mid-summer heat. Laxus barely opened his mouth to ask the wandering giant who he was before he saw the man vanish as if he'd been popped out of existence.

Where'd he-

"Are you Laxus?"

Laxus froze, his eyes wide, and his neck prickled as a giant shadow fell over him. He looked behind him at the tall stranger, who he now noticed was wearing a green fedora and a blindfold over his eyes. The sight made Laxus chuckle as he regained his grin, and electricity sparked across his body.

"I am."

Laxus idly noted that this was the first person he had to look up at to meet eyes with in a while.

"Who's asking?"

Laxus's green eyes quirked with interest as he saw light pour from beneath the man's blindfold, and not even a second passed before the man reared back an open palm and spoke with a deep voice—so casually that Laxus could have mistaken it for a greeting if it wasn't so deadly.

"My name's Aria."

The man swung, and a resounding blast of air echoed through the Magnolia forests.