Erza POV
I was getting worried. It had been two days since anyone had seen Master, the dragon slayers, or the exceeds. Given how some of us acted two days ago, I don't blame some of them for not showing up, but Master should at least be here, right?
I sat at the bar, contemplating the problem while eating some cake. Lucy, Lisanna, and Levy were all sitting quietly together at a table. Some of our members had conducted a mini search, to see if they could find the missing group. Most had returned, empty-handed. It was actually quiet at the guild for once. Normally, I would like it, but it was actually slightly depressing right now.
Just then Juvia skipped -skipped!- into the guild house. "Love Rival~! Levy-san~! Juvia could use some help~!" She sang.
That caught the guild's attention. Both girls shot up at once. "Did you find them?!" They shouted in unison.
"Well, eheheh, yes, but Juvia is not allowed to tell."
"What?" Lucy asked.
"Why not?" Levy looked hurt.
"Juvia is not sure how to say this, but.... Laxus-san said the dragon slayers are going through mating season."
Instant pandemonium. "Whaaaaaat?!" The guild hollered in unison.
"B-but, that means....!" Lucy's face was almost the same color as my hair.
"Be quiet!" I hollered. It was instantly silent. "Juvia," I ordered as I turned to her. "Explain please." Juvia nodded and dutifully repeated what she'd been told.
"So, it could end up affecting all of us?" Mira asked.
Juvia nodded. "The Sabertooth dragon slayers were also there, so they must be working on a plan."
"S-so, what do you need from Lu-chan and I?" Levy asked. Her face was still slightly pink.
"Juvia would like some help searching the library for books on mating season."
I narrowed my eyes. "Why? They have six dragon slayers and five were raised by dragons."
"Gajeel-kun was the only one who knew any details and Master believes Wendy will affect people differently, because Juvia can act normally around Gray-sama when she is around."
"That explains it." Gray muttered.
Juvia spotted him and shrieked. "Juuuuuuvia is soooo sorry, Gray-samaaaaaa! Juvia will stop ignoring yoooooooou!" She grabbed onto his leg and started wailing.
"So, Wendy might be different because she's a girl?" Mira frowned.
"We should check it out just to be safe. I will accompany you three. If there is a threat to our guild, I want to know." I stated firmly.
"I'd....actually like to come too." Lisanna blushed and raised her hand.
"Me too~!" Mira sang.
"I think I'll have to come with you." Gray said. He had managed to detach Juvia from his leg, but she now had a death-grip on his arm.
"Very well. The rest of you," I fixed them with a glare, "Behave!"
"A-aye, madam!" They shivered. The trip from the guild house to the library was uneventful. Juvia had stopped crying ( mostly ) and with her hanging onto his arm, Gray didn't lose his shirt. The rest of his clothes, well...
When we arrived at the library, we were greeted by two familiar fuzzy faces: Lector and Frosch, the latter of whom I swept into a hug.
"Well, hello there! Did Sting and Rogue send you to help?" Lucy asked, bending down slightly.
Lector nodded. "Happy and Charla are sleeping and Pantherlily's on guard duty, so we're all that's left."
"Is he guarding against outside attack or against the dragon slayers?" I asked, putting Frosch back on the ground.
"A little of both, I think." The exceed admitted as we stepped into the library.
"This place is huge!" Gray gaped at the endless rows of shelves and enormous amount of books.
"It's really not that surprising, when you think about it." Levy explained. "The Magnolia City Library is one of the main libraries of Fiore. A lot of Fiore history books and records of Council cases are stored here."
"How big is it?" Lisanna asked, looking a little awestruck.
"I think it's about the size of our guild house." I answered, squinting at an informational plaque near the door.
"Juvia was very right to get Love Rival and Levy-san. This could've taken hours!" Juvia added with wide eyes.
"Well, we won't get anything done standing here!" Mira cheerfully started skipping towards the stacks. Suddenly, she stopped mid-skip and turned around. "Um, where are we going?" She asked sheepishly.
Lucy laughed. "Well, the best place to look would be the Magical Creature part of the Biology section, in non-fiction."
"There could also be something about dragons in the history section." Levy added.
"Let's split up to save time." Lisanna said. She looked down at the exceeds. "You guys can fly messages back and forth."
"I should probably do that myself. Frosch gets lost easily." Lector said, glancing at his companion.
"They're both in the back, so we can walk there together. Be careful not to get lost." Levy warned. We walked deep into the library and ended up passing through a section filled with folders instead off books.
"Where are we?" Gray asked.
"This is the section where the Council stores their case files. Fairy Tail has a whole shelf to itself." Lucy giggled, pointing it out.
"Do we really commit that many crimes?" Mira murmured.
"It's mostly charges of property damage." Lucy reassured her.
"And we all know who's responsible." Lisanna said slyly. We all look at Gray.
"Flame Brain starts it." He said sulkily. We all laugh, even Juvia. We were almost out of the case files when a large maroon folder caught my eye. 'Oracion Seis Incident' it read. Without even thinking about it, I pulled it off the shelf and flipped it open. The first page had pictures of the Oracion Seis members and....
"Erza? You should stay with us. I wasn't kidding when I said you can get lost in here." Levy spoke from behind me.
"O-oh, apologies, I...."
She peered around me and gave a small smile. "Jellal, huh?" She asked, looking at the last picture. She suddenly crouched down in front of a blue folder one shelf down. 'Phantom Lord Guild Incident' it read. She traced the spine with a sad and wistful look on her face.
"Erza-san? Levy-san?" We looked up. Lector was hovering above us with a look of concern on his face.
"Apologies, Lector. We were looking at some old cases." I replied, placing the folder back on the shelf. Levy stood up and gave a bright smile.
"C'mon, they're counting on us." She trotted away, with Lector and I following. I glanced back at the folder once. Jellal.....
~Time Skip~
It's been a few hours and we haven't found much. Gray ended up joining our group because Juvia couldn't focus with him around. Lector disappeared for an hour and a half to find Frosch after the green exceed tried to take a message. The maroon exceed had since then resorted to carrying Frosch when flying between the groups.
Levy sighed in annoyance. "This so-called 'expert' spent 12 pages talking about how majestic dragons are, but ends with 'Unfortunately, dragons are very mysterious and no facts were available to me' . Honestly, why even mention them when you don't actually know anything?!" She slammed the book shut.
Lector flew over to us, carrying Frosch by the back of his pink suit. "Find anything?"
"Just a book listing the dragon attacks in the past 200 years." I answered.
"And a book by a 'magical creature expert' that doesn't actually know anything." Levy added, fuming.
"Here's a book! Oh wait, it's just a collection of legends about dragons." Gray flipped a few pages. "It looks interesting, but I don't think we'll get many facts out of it."
"It's our best shot." Levy sighed. We replaced the rest of the history books and followed the exceeds back towards the other group. Lisanna looked up from the pile of books she was studying.
"Find anything?" She asked.
"Not much." I replied. "Books that mentioned dragons had very fleeting descriptions or were so outlandish, they couldn't be trusted."
"Same here." She sighed. "I guess we shouldn't be surprised; dragons are mysterious creatures." Lucy and Mira appeared from around the corner, covered in dust.
"Achoo!" Lucy sneezed. "I knew they were mysterious, but I didn't think they'd be this mysterious!"
"I agree. Our dragon slayers can't be the only dragon slayers in history. You'd think one would have written a book or journal or something...!" Mira added.
"Well, if they were all like Natsu..." I trailed off.
"Where's Juvia?" Gray asked, coming up behind me with his clothes reattached.
"Juvia is up here!" Juvia waved at us from the top of a ladder, where she was inspecting the uppermost shelf. "Juvia has discovered more books she can't read. Should she bring them down?"
"Might as well make a complete search." Lucy called up. "Now that Levy-chan is here, the rune decoding should go faster."
"You can read runes?" I asked her.
She gave an embarrassed chuckle. "Levy-chan has been teaching me. I'm still not very fast though." Juvia handed the book pile to Lector and started climbing down, carefully balancing herself on the rickety ladder. Unfortunately, she was wearing her usual outfit: a dark blue dress.
"Uh, Juvia dear, you do realize we can see up your skirt?" Mira called up. I looked over at Gray, who was bug-eyed and had a thin line of red dripping from his nose.
"Juvia doesn't mind...if it's Gray-sama." She began wiggling her hips, causing her skirt to sway.
"Juvia, be careful!" Lisanna yelled. Juvia's skirt wasn't the only thing swaying: the poorly balanced ladder had begun to rock back and forth. Juvia gave a little shriek and clung to the ladder until it was still again.
"Juvia is... Juvia is coming down now." She gulped and shimmied down the ladder as quickly as she could. Lucy and Levy began to inspect the five or so books Lector had dropped in front of them.
"This book is about dragons, but I don't think we can trust it." Lucy squinted. "The first two chapters are about how dragons can shrink and change color."
"Ugh!" Levy shuddered and threw one tome away. "This one's just pictures of dissected animals. No dragons that I could tell...but still! Gag!" The other few proved to be just as unhelpful.
"Well, we tried." Lucy sighed dejectedly. As Lector went to put the pile away, I noticed a slim notebook neither girl had touched.
"What about this one?" I asked, picking it up. Levy held out a hand and I passed it over.
She flipped a few pages and gasped. "Erza, you're a genius!" She turned the book around so we could see. Both pages were covered with sketches and neatly labeled diagrams of dragons.
"Jackpot!" Gray cheered.
"Levy-chan, what language is this? I can't read it." Lucy stared at the page.
"It's the same runes as before, but it's handwritten, so it's hard to read." She flipped back to the first page. "It says that the author wanted to find and learn about, as well as learn from, wild dragons and that this journal is where he or she took their notes."
"We did it!" Mira and Lisanna cheered.
Levy frowned at it. "I'm not sure how long it'll take me to translate. The handwriting isn't always the neatest..."
"Can I see?" Levy handed the book to Lucy, who began flipping pages. "I thought I saw... Ah!" Her current page had diagrams of human mages performing magical attacks. "Are these dragon slayers?!" We all crowded around her.
"Looks like it. Flame Brain does that all the time." Gray pointed to a figure eating flames.
"Let's look at it more closely when we have a little more light." Levy said. We cleaned up in record time and hurried to the front desk.
"Oh, are you here to pick that up?" The woman asked.
"I'm sorry?" I asked.
"This journal was supposed to be donated to Fairy Tail about a week ago, but one of our trainees misplaced it. We're so glad you were able to find it." She explained, smiling sheepishly.
"Oh, uh, it's fine. We'll be going now." I said.
"Have a nice day." She said as we left.
The woman watched as the door swung shut behind them. She chuckled and her features shifted, becoming more drawn. Her eyes crystallized into blue-green serpentine orbs while the silver tips of fangs could be barely seen poking out from between her lips. She smiled wistfully. Even if you can't be here yourselves, your children will still be watched over. Masters. "Good luck, little ones." She murmured quietly, before her features returned to normal and she turned to help the next person approaching her desk.
Good luck.
I swear, these things just keep getting longer and longer....oh well. Why Erza's POV? I dunno, I felt like saving the other girls for later, when things really start getting strange. And no offense to Juvia fans, but I get the sense she's got tunnel vision when it comes to Gray and therefore would miss a lot of the action, making her unreliable as a narrator. I am sorry for the wait, I write drafts when I have
time/energy/inspiration and then I transfer it here. Naturally, updates will probably take longer if the chapters keep being longer.
But I'll try my best! Night~! <3