[ April X791 ]
"Hey, Aria?" A voice called out and a hand violently shook her body. "You awake?" the same voice asked, and she heard others.
"Don't shake her so hard!" A female voice said, and the sound of metal hitting something... maybe someone? A grunt of pain and a whine that Ariana knew the instant she heard it. The said voice began crying out in an obnoxious and loud voice, irritating Ariana hard enough to wake her up from her slumber to smack him upright the head to silence him.
"Aria!" voices cried out and she was tackled by hugs from her guild mates. "We didn't think you were going to wake up! You started to make us worry!" Lucy said and gave her a sweet smile, in which the female dragon slayer returned.
"Where are we?" Ariana said and looked around her.
Trees and plants covered the area, not giving her a proper view of her surroundings. She couldn't see past 20 meters at best. Ariana was absolutely clueless as to the fact of what was going on and where exactly she and her guild mates were. "I can smell," she said and sniffed around her. "The ocean." she finished and the three dragon slayers around her nodded.
"We smelt it too." they confirmed and Ariana looked at everyone's faces closely.
Out of nowhere in particular, the red head came out with two swords in her hands, her face as expressionless as ever, but her eyes filled with an unreadable emotion."I've confirmed the fact that we're on Tenrou Island." Erza saidwith Master Makarov close behind her. "And that's we've all been sleeping for seven years." she said, and the world went in slow motion. Seven years?
[ May 1st X791]
They'd all missed out on seven years of training, and now, they'd have three months to catch up to everyone else.
Three months to train for the Grand Magic Games. Three months to become stronger and make sure that Fairy Tails ends up as the number guild in Fiore once again. How were they supposed to do that?
Master Makarov had just announced that their guild would be participating in these Grand Magic Games, sending them all off to begin their months of gruelling training. They all have to get stronger to make up for the seven year gap they'd had with the rest of their competitors. Ariana still could not accept this fact.
She'd been gone for seven years.
Her friends, the guild, her teammates. They'd all needed her and she wasn't there to help them. Instead, she was asleep on that goddamned island, jot able to do a single thing. After waking up a month ago, Ariana was so shocked and unable to get over her seven year slumber, but now, she had a chance to move on. She's become stronger, the strongest, and do it all for her fellow friends and guild mates. She and her teammates would win the Grand Magic Games and be on top again.
She accepted Natsus request for her to join him, along with their team to train along the beach, and they headed out to begin their training.
Ariana would train each day until she dropped onto her knees from exhaustion, working herself to the bone. She would strive for nothing less than perfection and greatness because that's what her guild mates had given to her over the past years. The least she could do is return the favour.
By the end of the 90 days, that didn't happen. No, not at all.
She'd lost almost all of her training time due to them travelling to the celestial spirit world, in which none of them knew that time went faster in their universe. Within those 90 days that she could've spent on gruelling work and hard new spells, she'd spent a day in the celestial world and lost her 3 months. She'd gotten in at least a week of nothing but hard work.
In that time, she learned more about her missing dragon, Precillica, and more spells and techniques to use.
So much more could've been done, but there was nothing Ariana could do now. There was no use in complaining about it. She was happy about opening her second origin, but it hadn't hurt as much as she thought it would've. After seeing the pain Natsu had gone through, she expected more, but no. She guessed that she, along with Erza, had already opened her second origin. Now, she just had to make more use of it.
"That sucked. " Gray said bluntly as their small team of wizards began travelling back to the Fairy Tail guild via train. Natsu and Ariana had been lucky that Wendy tagged along to train with them. She's cast her magic on them to help them get over their motion sickness, but it proved to not be so much help to Gray and Erza because all Natsu had been doing as picking fights and bragging about how'd he'd destroy anyone else in a fight now that he'd opened his second origin. Well, technically, how Ultear opened his second origin, along with everyone else's.
If Ultear hadn't been there with Jellal and Melody to open their origins for them to make up for their loss of training time, they would've been doomed. Talk about luck.
"Tell me about it. I barely got any training in." Lucy said and slouched back in her seat. She let out a frustrated sigh and let her head fall back and closed her eyes to at least try to relax.
Ariana wanted to say something, but noticed the book that was in Wendy's hand. It was a book from her dragon, Grandina. The blue haired Mage was lucky that she was able to have such a gift from her dragon. Wendy learned a lot about her sky dragon, and Aria had learned about Precillica too. The pink haired version of Wendy's dragon had known Precillica. Although she was cranky, she had told Ariana all she needed to know about my dragon. Her spells, her secrets and her strengths. For that, Ariana couldn't have been more thankful.
"Don't dwell on the past. For now, all we need to think about are these Grand Magic Games. " Erza said and sat high in her seat. "We've gotten stronger, I can tell. Our second origins have given us strength."
Of course Erza would be the one to bring order to their band of misfits. She was Titania after all. What she said was done without question.
"Say," Ariana said quietly, loud enough for only Presley's ears. "Who do you think the teams will be for the Games?" the blonde Mage asked her exceed and then looked down at the cats large brown eyes, awaiting an answer.
"You of course! The master would be a fool if he doesn't put you on the team." Presley said and grinned.
Ariana thought to herself, smiling as she watched her teammates ramble on during the train ride. Boy, was she ever lucky to have a family like this. "Lets see... the five S-class wizards are... Me, Erza, Laxus, Gildarts and Mira. If we have a team like that, we'd surely kick ass." Ariana thought, but soon ruled out Gildarts. "He probably won't be competing in the games this year. So if not him, the other options are Natsu, Gajeel and Gray."
"I got to say, Fairy Tails going to win these games for sure. That is,"Ariana said and rolled her eyes at her team. "if they can learn to act mature for ten seconds!" the blonde beauty out loud, loud enough for her guild mates to hear, but they didn't. Not over the sound of Natsus and Grays bickering, Erza joining in the fight and Lucy with Wendy in the background.
Presley giggled and rolled her large, chocolate brown eyes at her friend.
"She called them immature? I can tell she's going to snap any second now. Talk about self control. I can practically feel her frustration. "
Aria tried her best to ignore their noise, but quickly grew irritated, and gripped at the armrest of her seat.
"Quit you're fighting!" she shouted and was soon throwing punches and kicks at the two males and female wizards. Presley only sighed and gave her best friend a disappointing look.
"She might more matured than Natsu and Gray, but that isn't saying much. At least she's got strength and smarts to make up for it. I mean, she's just as crazy as the rest of them." The exceed thought to herself and watched Ariana kick Natsu in the gut and receiving an attack to the side from the Fairy Queen.
"But," Presley thought and smiled fondly. "If their spirits like this at the games, no other guild stands a chance. "
♛♛♛
"We're back!" Natsu cried out loud and nearly broke down the double doors to the Fairy Tails guild hall.
"Keep it down Natsu." Ariana grumbled and sent a fist to his head, sending him onto his back against the guilds wooden floors. "Gramps is trying to say something." she to him and watched as he rubbed his head in pain.
"It seems that you've all made it back. I trust that you all got some good training in." he said proudly and stood on top the bars counter with his hands on his hips. He knew that his children would not let him down.
The guild master didn't seem to take notice of the teams gloomy aura after hearing the word "training," knowing that they hardly got to work on anything. Not only were they seven years behind, they fell back to seven years, three months behind in training. Everyone else must've soared past them now. But time didn't matter to them anymore because they were still strong, and no one would beat them as they are now!
"As you know, the Grand Magic Games are tomorrow, and the time has come for me to chose the teams that will be representing out guild," he said and grinned wide. "Fairy Tail!" he cheered. "And we will come out on top and get that 30 milli- I mean, we will become the strongest guild in Fiore once again and we'll do it for our family!" Gramps said, smiling slyly as he thought of all the prize money the guild could be getting if they won it all. Oh, what could he do with 30,000,000 J?
"And those who will be representing Fairy Tail are..." he said and began building the drama.
"Erza Scarlet,"
"Ariana McHale,"
"Natsu Dragneel,"
"Gray Fullbuster,"
"and Lucy Heartfilia. "
"Our substitutes will be Wendy Marvel and Elfman Strauss. " The guild master exclaimed, and were met with the shrill and terrified cries of Lucy and Wendy.
"Don't you think we'd have a better fighting chance if Laxus or Gajeel were on the team?" Lucy said and was holding onto herself tightly, afraid of the pain and challenges that were to come if she participated in the Games. But she was right. If Master had chosen Laxus or Gajeel, they'd surely have a better shot at first place.
"Well, yes, but they haven't come back from their training yet, but don't worry. I'm counting on this team to bring glory back to the Fairy Tail name once again. Do not disappoint me children!" Master Makarov said and gave the seven of his guild members a proud smile, in which they returned with a look of determination. There was no way that they were coming back into this guild hall without a first place title in the Grand Magic Games.
"You can count on us Gramps!" Natsu said and flashed him a toothy grin.
"I'm excited to kick some ass!" Ariana exclaimed and was met with the smiling face of Presley. "You ready to do some hardcore cheering Pres?" Aria said and winked at her partner.
"You bet your ass I am! You better go and mop the floor with those other guilds. Show them who's number one!" The caramel coloured exceed cheered and sprouted her wings to fly around the guild hall excitedly. "I'm ready to see you guys win!" she said happily and flew back down to land on her best friends shoulder.
"When are the games? Tomorrow?" Ariana asked, and quickly answered her own question.
"That mean we've got some time! C'mon Presley, we're not losing these games. I got people counting on me!" the blonde said and ran out the guild doors and took a deep breathe once she made it outside the guild hall.
"What do you mean? Time for what?" Presley said, slightly confused.
"Time for some training, shopping and relaxing. One day is more than enough time for that!" Ariana said cheerfully and grabbed her exceed by the paw and ran through the streets of Magnolia, proud to be apart of Fairy Tail, the guild that was going to dominate at the Grand Magic Games.
As the blonde mage sprinted through the streets, unknowingly to her, the closer she got, the stronger her scent grew, and a certain dragon slayer began sniffing the air.
The scent of the ocean breeze mixed with vanilla filled the air was inhaled by the dragon slaying male. Immediately, his blue eyes went wide with utter shock and the feeling pure euphoria filled his mind and body as he quickly remembered the glorious scent.
Even though the two of them were practically miles apart, he'd recognize her scent anywhere. After all these years, she'd finally returned, and after all these years, he'd waited.