A/N Wendy appears. Zeref and Natsu spar (for fanservice).
Having Lucy with him meant that they could resume their training exercises. While doing some early morning combat training, Natsu could feel that she had improved under Mira's regime. He was helping her to incorporate the whip in her fighting style.
She got the hang of it quick enough, and even managed to snag his leg once or twice. Which was impressive. Natsu was holding back, but he hadn't intentionally allowed her to do it.
When they were taking a bit of a break, Zeref found them. Looking at their tired and sweaty bodies, he raised an eyebrow.
"Already? Didn't you two just start your relationship yesterday?" Then he whispered, "Although, I'm not one to judge."
"We were training", Natsu said, in a completely deadpan voice, as Lucy coughed and sputtered in shock.
"Oh, that's interesting! What kind of magic do you have, Lucy?"
"Uh, we weren't training magic, because I have Celestial Spirit magic but no contracts."
Zeref looked at her with wide eyes. "Celes- That's great! I can finally pass down my techniques!"
Lucy frowned. "What do you mean?"
Zeref moved his hands about as he explained. "You see, in object oriented magic, you just use magic energy. Pure magic energy! That way, you could potentially do any type of magic! Unlike Natsu, who has Dragon Slayer magic. If he wanted to do several types of magic, he would have to train separately."
"And I wouldn't?"
"That's the thing! The art of magic circles can help you do anything! Watch this!" Saying that, Zeref gathered magic energy in his fingers and drew a circle. He divided it into eight parts, then drew several complicated symbols on them. From a certain angle, the final result looked like a fish.
The magic circle turned grayish. Then Zeref motioned for her to watch closely, and began channeling magic into it. It started glowing brighter and bluer, until it suddenly flashed and shot out a funnel of water.
Lucy stared at it with her mouth open.
"That's so cool!"
Natsu frowned. "Isn't it too slow for combat applications?"
Zeref smirked. "Would you be up to a spar to test that theory?"
Natsu grinned widely. Ever since he had met his brother, he had wanted to know how he matched up against him.
"I have no objections to that."
"Great! Lemme call Mavis first, she would love to watch me in a fight. It would really get her going, if you catch my drift."
Natsu did catch the drift, and he wouldn't admit it, but he hoped it would apply to Lucy too. Y'know, watching him fight.
Mavis appeared to puff into existence beside Zeref.
"Did anyone say there was going to be a fight?"
Within minutes, all the illusionary messengers had been sent, and both Erza and Gray arrived there to watch. Erza was sure that Natsu would win, and Gray was rooting for Zeref, but inwardly expected Natsu to win.
Mavis clapped her hands together. "Begin!"
Natsu took in a breath, preparing a roar. Zeref contemplated creating a shield, but that wasn't the purpose of the fight. It was to show that magic circles could be used fast enough to fight with them.
He drew seven star shaped objects in the air and drew small circles around them. As soon as he finished, a line materialized to connect them. Erza gasped, recognizing the spell as one of Jellal's.
"Grand Chariot!" Zeref said as Natsu roared.
"Blood Dragon: Roar!"
Zeref's spell easily interrupted Natsu's vortex of blood, causing it to splatter on him harmlessly, with no momentum. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Erza, and a muttered "Oh shit" from Gray.
And then the blood tried to burn him.
Destroying it with a burst of dark magic, Zeref's grin grew maniacal.
"Oh, right, that's dragon blood. Guess I can't hold back, can I?"
Holding a shield with one hand, Zeref started constructing one of his own spells. Making five layers, he stepped back and deactivated the shield.
This time, Natsu's hand lit on fire as he shot a spike of flame at Zeref. The spell collided against the magic circles- and was absorbed into it. The circles started turning, and they shot back an even more powerful jet of flame back. Natsu sidestepped it-
And then somehow found himself paralyzed.
Zeref grinned.
"What I did would be impossible with traditional means. You see, when you saw the circles, you thought it was a five-layer circle. In reality, it was one three-layer circle for paralysis, and another two-layer mirror spell. If you notice, these three circles are bigger because they have a larger area of effect."
Zeref turned it off, and Natsu could only sputter. Mavis thought it was anticlimactic. Lucy really wanted to learn it. As for Gray, he stared with his mouth open, until Erza elbowed him.
"Idiot!" she whispered. "This is a fanservice battle. It doesn't really matter."
Gray frowned. "Fanservice?"
Erza sighed. "Never mind."
"So, do you want training in the field of utter badassery, taught by none other than the greatest badass in history?"
Vlad, being the greatest badass in history, sneezed.
"Yes!"
Natsu showed some mock-hurt at the supposed betrayal. And then she kissed him.
She kissed him.
She kissed him!
Natsu did not know what was happening. Lucy was the one who was supposed to blush! Now he was red faced and sweaty, and she was grinning and giggling at him!
He would have articulated his thoughts if he hadn't been trying to avoid a heart attack.
The Fairy Tail guild was half full. They were all having fun, drinking, laughing, and scaring Jose whenever he woke up. All except one.
No one noticed a dragon slayer tied under a table. Laxus resisted the urge to growl as he vowed revenge.
Soren and Robin were the only two people downstairs when there was a knock on the door. The moment the knock came, however, every single vampire there raced down. They never had knocks on the door during daylight (the people wo came for job requests all came at night), except once, when Robin had wanted to try pizza. She had eaten both the pizza and the delivery boy.
Vlad opened the door gingerly to find a... small child? Yes, there was apparently a twelve-year old, blue-haired girl outside the door, along with a cat.
"Fourteen", said the girl.
"Huh?"
"Everybody thinks I'm younger, but I'm fourteen."
"Oh, uh, good for you, I suppose. What exactly are you here for?"
The girl ducked underneath his armpit and bounced inside. She looked around.
"It's so pretty!"
Vlad wondered whether the human bodies hanging on the wall weren't visible to the kid. He immediately got his answer as the girl hopped over to one of the bodies and poked it.
"Hi! What's your name?"
The woman didn't answer, from fear of death. The kid frowned.
"Rude", she said, as she stuck out a tongue at the woman and skipped to Lisbeth.
"Hey! You're pretty!", she giggled. "You have blue hair too! Like me! Do you like girls? I like girls! Boys are smelly." She wrinkled her nose as the author cried, his plans for RoWen going down the drain.
Beth didn't know what to say, so Helena bent down till she was face-to-face with the hyper kid.
"Kid, it would never work out between you guys. She's way older than you, and she has a girlfriend."
"Oh." The kid pouted a little and bounded over to Robin.
"You look weird!", she said to Robin, who had a bad case of bed hair. She poked her in the nose, and Robin growled, baring her teeth.
"Now, now, you shouldn't growl at people. Carla says it's unlady-unla- um, bad. It's bad." She patted her on the head and hopped towards Soren, and the two people who were lying on him.
"Hey! Why are you guys lying on him? Is this a game? I love games! Can I join? What kind of game is this?"
At this point, Rowena gently picked her up and deposited her on the bar table, where she immediately managed to knock over several glasses before Rowena removed them from her immediate vicinity.
Feeling an incoming headache, Vlad turned to the child.
"What are you here for?"
The girl put a finger to her chin, lost in thought. Vlad waited patiently for her answer.
"Do you guys have oranges?"
Vlad closed his eyes, breathing in and out. No Vlad. We do not kill small children. Bad Vlad.
"Did you come here for fucking oranges?"
"Carla says you shouldn't say that word", she said, waggling a finger at him. "And no, I came here because they said you were really strong and demonic, and I really like the demonic arche- arche-"
"Archetype?"
"Yes, that! Archetype, and I wanna be like that! But anyway, do you have oranges?"
Vlad felt like banging his head somewhere out of frustration.
"If you want to be demonic, you will have to give up oranges."
"Oh", said the girl, visibly deflating. "Never mind, then. I'll just- I'll just go."
Vlad turned to the others, mouthing, 'Does anyone have oranges?' Rowena nodded, opening a cupboard and tossing one to Vlad.
"Oi, kid! Come 'ere. Have an orange, and then go back home."
"My name isn't kid, it's Wendy Marvell- Oh my God this orange is amazing!" She was biting into the orange, skin intact. "An' I don't have a home."
Vlad sighed, taking the orange from her and peeling it. "Here, have it now."
Biting down on it, Wendy's eyes widened. "H-How- what- It doesn't taste bitter at all!"
Leaving the girl to demolish the poor fruit, Vlad huddled with his guildmates.
"Guys, team meeting. What do we do about the kid?"
Rowena frowned. "She doesn't have a home. We should keep her."
The fangirls said together, "Keep her."
"Eh, she's nice. Keep her", said Robin.
"She's too cute not to keep!", chirped Liz.
"She's a minor, Liz. Keep your perverted tendencies to yourself" Sam told her.
Helena smiled. "I say we keep her. We could adopt her as our kid." The last bit was addressed to Beth with a suggestive eye-wiggle.
"Oi, did you two finally get together?" asked Rueben.
"Yes", Soren said wearily. "They kept me up all night."
"Ooh, all night! That's some great stamina!", said Liz.
"We were just sleeping!" Beth said a bit defensively. "Pervert."
"So, you're gonna have a kid without the fun part?" Liz asked with a raised eyebrow.
Beth blushed a bit and didn't answer. Helena bluntly answered, "Yes."
Soren grew bright red as he looked at Beth. "Could you please stop thinking about the 'fun stuff' Liz mentioned? Or at least, do it when you aren't touching? It's just, I can't scrub this stuff from my eyeballs even if I tried."
Thankfully for Beth, Vlad picked this moment to call Wendy. "Hey, Wendy, do you want to stay here? With us?"
"Yes! Come on, Carla!"
Apparently, they had accidentally adopted a cat named Carla too.
Now, Vlad needed to get the girl a room and get some books on how to take care of kids. He couldn't trust YouTube tutorials with this.
A/N One of my favorite versions of Wendy is this one.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jOZuwm8o8qc/maxresdefault.jpg
A/N I realized that the link can't be copied, so here's the image.
It's awesome, and I like it. She's a hyper kid too.