Meeting

Phantom Guild Hall, Jose Porla PoV

'Soon. Everything is coming together, not only will I be able to bleed the Heartfilia family dry of their fortune but I will finally have been able to get rid of that infuriating guild! Makarov and his "children" will be finished!' Jose laughed loudly at the thought.

Fairy Tail and Phantom had never been on good terms, but now that Fairy Tail was considered equal to Phantom in strength it annoyed him to no end. He hated with a passion sharing the title of strongest in Fiore with a lesser guild.

Phantom had Hundreds of members and many guild halls throughout the kingdom while Fairy Tail only had one, and they still dared claim to be equals. It was infuriating!

As Jose was about to get angry again at his own thoughts, the door to his 'Throne' room opened.

"Aah! Gajeel my boy!" He greeted happily. "I Trust your mission was a success?" He asked with a slightly manic smile.

"Yes Sir" Gajeel answered, matching his smile.

"Excellent! That pathetic fool Makarov and his fairies won't even know what hit them!" Jose said with a laugh that Gajeel joined in on shortly after.

'Come too your doom little fairies!' Gajeel and Jose thought at the same time.

Jose was confident in Makarovs defeat with the trap he had set, once Makarov was out of the way there wouldn't be anyone in Fairy Tail strong enough to stop him from just walking in and destroying them all.

"It didn't go exactly as I had planned because one of Fairy Tails S-class wizards showed up before I could finish my bonus surprise. But I had already destroyed their guild hall before that" Gajeel said, pulling Jose out of his internal glee.

He frowned. "What surprise?" Jose asked with a nonplussed look. He needed to make sure his plans didn't get messed up.

"I wanted to send a slightly stronger message to really rile them up. I had found the perfect targets too but was interrupted just before I could finish them off" Gajeel replied.

"What one of their wizards managed to stand up to you to such a degree you couldn't finish off some weaklings?" Jose asked, his amusement returning.

If their guild hall was already destroyed and some of their wizards injured it would surely send Makarov into a rage.

"It was a new one, I haven't seen or heard of this one. He had to be a physical type mage though, he wasn't using any external magic that I could tell but was still definitely S-class strength." Gajeel replied still slightly annoyed he hadn't been able to land a hit.

"Hmm if its a new S-class, that only leaves Alexander. Though I thought he was a fire wizard? My reports might have been wrong but it doesn't matter. One more s-class mage wont make much difference against our might. Especially with Makarov out of the picture." Jose said with a laugh as he dismissed Gajeel.

Jose sat on his throne for a while pondering over this new obstacle that joined the playing field. He eventually just put it out of his mind as the game had already started and there wasn't anything anyone could do to stop it.

He laughed. It was dark and filled with enough Malicious intent to stop a lesser wizard cold. Everything was going his way!

Return General PoV

After the meeting with the Master, Alex decided to head back home. He had some plans to ruin and needed to figure out the best way to go about it while making it as annoying as possible for Jose.

Before he left the guild area completely he used {Mana Manipulation} to remove all the Steel Pillars Gajeel had 'gifted' to the guildhall.

He could have easily repaired the guildhall with magic as well, but there was too many people around and he didn't feel like giving away too many of his abilities right before a potential war, who knew if Phantom had spy's in the city.

As Alex was getting closer to his house. He smelled the scent of someone he hadn't expected to see for a while longer, if ever again.

He thought his nose might be playing tricks on him with everything that has happened as it didn't make any sense this person would be at his or even in the city, at least not yet.

His thoughts were confirmed when his house came into view and he saw Ultear sitting in front of the gate to his house along with a young Pink haired girl.

They were talking in hushed tones to each other while expertly ignoring all the lecherous looks the young males of the city were throwing their way.

Alex was a little stunned at first, it quickly turned to annoyance though 'Great, just what I wanted to deal with! What the hell is she doing here!? How did she even find this place... I should make some more 'Lethal' defenses around my house' as Alex's dark thoughts raged through his head, his pace didn't falter.

Ultear noticed his approach and quickly stood up, she had hoped that Ur would have been with him when they next met and didn't know how to approach the topic of them being here without Ur to fall back on.

The pink haired girl, noticing Ultears hesitation and look of uncertainty was confused, Ultear was unnaturally serious and maybe even a little scared all because of a person she couldn't even sense any magic from.

"Ultear, are you okay? What's wrong?" She asks in a very concerned voice.

Deciding it must be this mans fault and not waiting for Ultear, she turns to him. "What did you do to her!? If you hurt her I'll kill you!" She yelled furiously while channeling her magic.

It all happened so fast that Ultear wasn't able to answer the pink haired girls first questions before she was attacking the 'Civilian' in front of them.

"Meredy WAIT!" she cried out, but it was too late and moments later her magic hit the defenseless 'civilian'.

When the magic struck the person, a cloud of dust was raised, obscuring everyone's view of the aftermath.

"You know Ultear" a calm voice from the dust cloud spoke. "If this is the way your friends greet people, I'm not sure I want to meet any more of them".

"Alex, I'm sorry! This wasn't supposed to happen!" Ultear said quickly while glaring at Meredy.

The young girl was very confused as to why Ultear seemed scared of this person, her confusion turned to shock when the dust cleared and she could see him completely unharmed from her attack.

"Uh-huh" Alex drawled in a very unamused tone. "Whatever. What are you doing here?" He asked as he kept walking towards his house.

Meredy, seeing Alex approach them was about to attack again before she was smacked over the head by Ultear.

"What are you doing!? He is the one we came to see!" Ultear said to the still confused Meredy.

"Really? But you said the one we came to see was your mother and a really strong Wizard. I cant sense any magic in this person." Meredy said with tears in her eyes from the smack over the head.

"That probably has more to do with control over his power than anything else, but he is definitely the one we are looking for." Ultear responded, still a little annoyed Meredy attacked him for no reason.

Alex, having been fantastically ignored, rolled his eyes and let out a long drawn out sigh before simply ignoring them in return and entered his house.

The sound of his door being closed pulled the two bickering wizards out of their conversation before they looked around and noticed Alex was already gone.

"Damnit." Ultear cursed under her breath. This meeting hadn't gone at all like she had hoped.

She wanted to just go to Fairy Tails guild hall where she could sense her mother, but at the same time didn't want to deal with the flurry of questions her presence there would bring. Letting out a sigh she approached the house and knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" an indistinct voice asked from the other side. Ultear felt herself get slightly annoyed at this question as he should know perfectly well who it was.

"Alex, It's Ultear. Can we come in? I need to speak with you" she said, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

"Sorry, nobody by that name lives here. You have the wrong house" the voice replied back.

"What?!" Ultear said, unable to hide her surprise and confusion this time.

The door to the house opened slightly and a pair of eyes appeared in the crack at about the height of a 10-12 year old.

"I'm sorry scary lady. Have we met before?" came a slightly squeaky child's voice.

With everything that had happened to her these past couple days, the stress of it all and the shear absurdity of the current situation, Ultear finally snapped.

"STOP MESSING WITH ME YOU BASTARD!!" She shouted. Surprising Alex, Meredy and the onlookers that were enjoying the show.

Seeing her kneeling in front of his door crying, Alex realized he may have gone too far.

"Come inside then, you're making a scene" Alex said as he opened the door fully. "You too Pinky, but if you damage my house, you're going to regret it!" he said gesturing the two women inside.

Ultear quickly entered the house out of embarrassment, while Meredy hesitated. She wanted to kill this person for making Ultear cry, but was too confused about everything that had happened.

Finally curiosity won out and she entered the house, though she kept her guard up for anything.

They were led to a very well furnished living room with a steaming pot of tea already on the coffee table.

Once they were seated, Alex let the silence last only a short period before he asked again "Why are you here?"

Meredy looked to Ultear at this question as she was also curious about that.

She hadn't been told much since Ultear informed her she was quitting the guild and asked if she would come along or stay with Grimoire Heart. She didn't even hesitate to go with her as Ultear was like a mother to her.

"We left Grimoire Heart and I quit working for the council" Ultear said after a moments pause. She still didn't know how she should approach the subject and finally decided to just be blunt.

"Okay.. And?" Alex asked, seemingly unsure why this involved him.

"And... As you could probably guess, it isn't easy to leave a guild like Grimoire Heart while keeping your life. Hades will undoubtedly come hunting for us and the reason we quit.

He has access to 'Archive' magic so he will most likely find out your involvement as well. I came to warm you and my Mother about the possibility. While you will most likely be fine, your guildmates won't. Hades already plans to wipe out your whole guild eventually." Ultear said, getting it all out at once.

"Great. More problems. Though I would have to face that relic eventually, I didn't plan on it being this soon" Alex replies with a sigh.

"You think you could defeat Master Hades? He is practically immortal!" Meredy chimed in, slightly miffed by his unconcerned attitude towards the threat of Grimoire Heart.

They were part of the Balam Alliance, the three strongest dark guilds and was commonly referred too as the strongest dark guild.

"He is too full of himself, all it would take is someone destroying the 'Demon' Heart on his ship. Then he would just be another old man, albeit with more magical knowledge than average." Alex shrugged.

He didn't care about the dinosaur with too many delusions to count, the only thing special about him was his air ship.

Meredy and Ultear where shocked, If Alex already knew about Hades weakness then he clearly new much more about their guild then they thought should be possible.

Alex was just going to ask Ultear about Jellal and what was going to happen to the current operations she was in charge of for Grimoire Heart, when the door opened.

He wasn't concerned about a stranger barging in as the only other people that could freely enter his house were Wendy and Carla.

The whole place was enchanted to make it so nobody, friend or foe, could enter without permission from one of them.

Turning to the door they saw Wendy and Carla entering with Ur following closely behind. 'Guess she sensed Ultear here and asked to come along' Alex reasoned internally.

"Oh there you are Alex! We were looking for you at the guild. Uh-umm who are your friends?" Wendy asked, her excitement turning to a blush when she noticed the two ladies.

"Hey! Yeah, we are just discussing some things about possible enemies, nothing too important." Alex said nonchalantly with a smile to the little girl.

"Oh, okay. We will leave you too it then. Come on Carla, Lets go play in the pool" Wendy said, sensing the atmosphere. She thought it might be more serious than Alex was letting on and wanted to give them some space.

Alex just waved them off and didn't stop them. He wouldn't care if they stayed but it didn't concern them either.

Ur however, quickly seated herself beside Ultear and started barraging her with questions about what happened since she left them a few days ago.

Meredy was stunned into silence by the older copy of Ultear and Alex simply watched in amusement at the 'interrogation' while sipping his tea.

Once Ur was up to speed, she turned to the pink haired child. "And who might you be?" she asked with a motherly smile.

"Uhh my name is Meredy ma'am. I'm Ultears adopted daughter" She said with a slightly flustered face.

Ultears face went bright red at Meredy's introduction. She knew the child saw her as a mother figure but didn't expect her to outright say it.

Alex for his part almost did a spit-take with his tea. The looks on Ur and Ultears faces caused him to choke and start laughing.

"What are you saying!?" Ultear shouted while waving her hands around frantically.

"My, my, my. And here I was thinking I was too young to be a grandmother." Ur said with a small laugh at Ultears reaction.

"My name is Ur. It is a pleasure to meet you. While I still think I am too young to be called Grandma I don't mind being one" she said while offering her hand to the pink haired child.

"Oh.. Umm yes." Meredy replied while shaking her hand lightly.

Ultears face was still completely flushed red with anger, annoyance and embarrassment, but she was calming down quickly.

When Alex got his laughter under control he noticed all three women looking at him in annoyance. "What?" He asked with a laugh, completely unconcerned.

With Alex's question, the ladies asked him what was so funny.

He simply shrugged it of by telling them not to worry about it, then changed the subject by addressing Ultear. "What of Jellal?" he asked.

"I released my control over him" she said simply.

"Does he know he was being controlled and by whom?" Alex asked conversationally.

Ultear shook her head. "He knows he was being controlled but won't be able to tell by who unless someone tells him. He also quit the council after I released my control and disappeared, probably went back to the tower." Ultear replied.

Ur and Meredy weren't exactly sure what the 2 were talking about, but held their questions.

"Hmmm, It'll be interesting to see what he does with the 'Slaves' back at the tower, but if he also left the council I doubt he plans to continue with the R-system" Alex said absently.

"So you even know about that too huh?" Ultear questioned. She was getting increasingly more curious as to how he knew as much as he did, without the rest of the world knowing anything about him.

She knew he was a completely unknown until a short while ago as even the councils 'Archive Wizards' couldn't find out anything useful about him.

"Yes, but it too was destined to fail. Zeref isn't dead so it would have been a giant waste of life to activate it. Best case scenario it would have just not worked and released the stored up energy, worse case and probably most likely it would have exploded killing everyone involved." was his casual reply.

"What do you mean Zeref isn't dead? Didn't he live over 400 years ago?" Meredy asked, clearly confused.

For as long as she can remember, it had been her guilds goal to Resurrect him. They had killed countless people to collect the 'keys' required to achieve this goal and now she was learning he wasn't even dead.

"Zeref is Immortal to the pull of time, it is a curse he bares for playing with the forces of life and death" Alex replied casually, still in thought.

"If he is still alive, then do you know where he is?" Ur spoke up, curious about the whole situation. She, like most people, knew of the legendary Dark Wizard and had even fought one of his creations.

Alex was pulled out of his thoughts with her question and contemplated if he should tell them. Eventually just shrugging and not seeing any problem with it, he asked. "Have any of you heard of the Alvarez Empire?".

Getting a series of nods from the women, he continued. "The man whom started that Empire and is known throughout the entire Alakitasia continent and even most of Ishgar as Emperor Spriggan is actually Zeref himself. He leaves the running of the empire mostly to his advisors and is rarely around, always going wherever the wind takes him. But it is absolutely Zeref."

Ur and Ultear were stunned with this news, the Alvarez Empire had a massive military might and if it was headed by a man like Zeref, that didn't bode well for the world.

"How certain are you that it's him?" Ultear asked after some hesitation.

"100%" Was his casual reply. "I don't really care if you believe me or not. You're also more than welcome to go and see for yourself, if you know what he looks like it should be easy enough to tell if I'm lying or not." he continued.

None questioned him further as they fell into thought, pondering the implications, if any, would come from this revelation.

Alex gave them a little time to leave their thoughts before offering them a guest room at in his house to rest and figure out what their next moves were going to be.

They thanked him and Ur even accepted his offer of a room so she could stay closer to Ultear, they still had lots to discuss and Ur wanted to get to know her daughter better.

After Alex showed them to their rooms and told them not to break his stuff, he went out to the training yard. He had plans to make and a new ability to try.