120 The Bandits and the Weird Knight

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Mt. Hakobe.

June 4, x784.

"Hey, Natsu, I have a question." Lucy asked as she wrapped the bandages Elicia made around Macao's injuries.

Hearing Lucy's question, Natsu stopped his attempt to wrap an injury on Macao's leg. Unfortunately, Natsu had little experience in performing first aid, so Macao's leg currently looked like it had swollen to thrice its size.

"Yeah? What's up?" Natsu asked as he did little more than make things worse.

Also looking up shortly after she finished wrapping Macao's torso, Lucy glanced in Natsu's direction. However, before she could answer her question, she saw how tightly and over wrapped Macao's leg was.

*Bang!*

"What are you doing?" Lucy asked a she kicked Natsu away from Macao. "I thought you said you knew how to wrap injuries!"

"Ow! What's the big idea?" Natsu asked, holding the side of his head where he had been kicked. "I did wrap him up! Look, he won't be bleeding from it anymore."

"Yeah, because all the blood will stop where the bandage starts!" Lucy shouted. "And Lici, why did you let him do that?"

"Oh, it was revenge for all the times Macao made fun of me and Fonzie in the past." Elicia said casually with a smile.

Seeing that smile, Lucy's impression of Elicia as an innocent, energetic person was slipping.

'Man, she can be pretty dark at times.' Lucy thought to herself.

"But I guess you're right." Elicia said, controlling the bandages around Macao's leg to loosen and re-wrap his leg. "I wouldn't want him to lose the use of that leg."

"Wait, if you could do that, why did you make us wrap his injuries?" Lucy asked in disbelief.

"Oh, so you could get some experience." Elicia replied. "I'm sure you haven't had much opportunity to treat an injured person, so I thought it would be good for you."

'Well, its true that I haven't done it much, but still…' Lucy thought.

"Anyway, were any of those the questions you wanted to ask?" Natsu asked.

"Oh, right." Lucy said as if she just remembered that she wanted to ask a question. "how did you manage to survive falling from that cliff?"

"Oh, Happy saved me." Natsu replied with a smile.

"Aye!" Happy said cheerfully while raising one of his hands. "I caught him and flew him back here."

"Wait, how come you get so motion sick with other modes of transportation?" Lucy asked in confusion.

Upon Hearing Lucy's question, Natsu wore an aghast expression.

"Happy isn't a mode of transportation. Natsu said in an astonished tone. Then, he hugged Happy tightly. "He's my friend."

"Of course, silly me." Lucy said exasperatedly.

Then, Lucy felt a pat on her shoulder.

"Don't mind him, Lucy." Elicia said with a smile. "He's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. But if I had to guess, it's because Natsu trusts happy completely. So, he doesn't have to focus his extra-heightened senses on movement."

"Oh, it makes sense when you put it that way." Lucy said in a tone of realization.

"Wait… Did you just call me stupid, Lici?" Natsu asked suspiciously.

"Of course not, Natsu." Elicia said with a smile.

"Oh, okay." Natsu said, returning the smile. "Because that would have been really mean."

Meanwhile, Happy and Lucy had the same thought simultaneously.

'She was right, though.' Happy and Lucy thought while looking at Natsu with pity.

"Ugh…" Macao groaned drawing everyone's attention to him.

"Macao, you're alright." Natsu said with a smile.

"Damn it…" Macao said in a depressed tone. "I'm so pathetic. I can't believe that thing beat me. There were only twenty of them. How did I lose to the last one?"

'Wait, there were twenty of those pervy monkeys?' Lucy exclaimed internally. 'And he fought them all?'

"Come on, Macao." Elicia said, squatting next to Macao as she spoke. "You can't be so hard on yourself."

"That's easy for you to say." Macao said, sounding quite depressed. "You're so much younger than me and already an S-Class wizard."

"You fought twenty A-Class magical beasts and defeated nineteen of them." Elicia continued, not paying attention to Macao's retort. "Just imagine how excited little Romeo will be when he hears about that."

Hearing the name of his son, Macao's expression changed into one filled with pride. Then, he started showing some excitement.

"Right, this will be a great story for Romeo!" Macao shouted as he tried to sit up. However, before he could, he grimaced and laid back down. "Ow.! That really hurts."

Seeing the state Macao was in, Elicia held up her hands once again. Then, she started weaving the threads that appeared from her fingertips into a large, thick blanket. A moment later, the blanket wrapped itself around Macao.

"Well, it looks like you're in no condition to climb down the mountain yourself, Macao." Elicia said before she used her magic to raise the blanket. "So, I'll carry you down."

"Thanks, Elicia." Macao said with a small smile. "You've grown so much since me and the old man picked you up from the orphanage all those years ago."

"Well, it's been thirteen years already." Elicia said with a smile. "If I didn't grow up it would be weird."

"That's not what I…" Macao said with a wry smile. "You know what, never mind."

"Wait, thirteen years ago? That would mean she was only six, right?" Lucy said as she, Natsu, and Happy followed Elicia after she started walking toward the cave's exit. "What was she like as a little kid?"

Not only Lucy, but Natsu and Happy were also curious to know what Elicia was like back then.

"Well, when the old man and I first met her, she was so shy that she hid behind the orphanage's matron…. Then Alfonzo every time we made eye contact with her."

'That's only because I didn't wanna start shrieking like a little fan girl after seeing characters from my favorite anime.' Elicia thought while maintaining her smile.

Like that, the group made their way down the mountain. Along the way, Elicia made another blanket for Lucy since she could not summon Horologium again. Then, after walking for nearly two hours, they finally reached the foot of the mountain, and the Escalade.

However, when they arrived, they found a wizard leading a bunch of normal bandits trying to break through the barrier around the vehicle.

"Hey! What do you guys think you're doing?" Natsu shouted before rushing toward the bandits and their wizard leader.

"Oh, good, the owners are back." The wizard, a woman with long dark pink hair and light green eyes said with a vicious smile. "If you want to live, lower this barrier and give us this magic vehicle."

Instead of receiving a reply, however, Natsu stopped in place. Then, he brought his hands in front of his mouth and took a deep breath.

"Make sure not to kill the regular ones, Natsu." Elicia said calmly from behind.

"Got it!" Natsu shouted before chanting his spell. "[Fire Dragon's Roar]!"

A moment later, Natsu blew a stream of fire between his hands that flew toward the group of bandits.

"[Earth Magic: Wall of Clay]." The female wizard chanted.

In the next instant, A wall of clay rose from the ground in front of the female wizard. Unfortunately for the bandits, it was only wide enough to defend her and the few bandits standing directly behind her. The rest were blown away by the concussive force of the attack and received light burns.

Instead of checking the condition of her men, the female wizard placed her hands on the wall, that had been hardened due to the heat.

In fact, had Natsu not been afraid of killing the bandits, a clay wall like the one the wizard produced would not have withstood the heat of his flames. But, the female wizard had no way of knowing that.

"[Earth Magic: Bucks Shot]." The female wizard chanted once again.

Then, the wall started to crack until it shattered like a pane of glass. In the next moment, all the pieces were sent flying at Natsu and the others.

Effortlessly, Natsu weaved between the incoming projectiles. However, they were still headed toward the rest of the group.

"[Thread Magic: Shield Weave]." Elicia chanted.

Before the projectiles could arrive, Elicia's threads wove themselves into a net large enough to defend herself, Macao, and Lucy. Then, After all the projectiles hit the web, Elicia willed it to wrap all the clay projectiles into a bundle.

"What did you wrap them up for?" Lucy asked curiously.

"To do this." Elicia said as she swung her right hand at the female bandit leader. "[Thread Magic: Meteor Hammer]."

In the next instant, the bundled up pieces of clay flew toward the bandit leader, who was forced to jump away in order to dodge it. Then, just as she landed, she felt the temperature rising on both of her sides.

"Fire Dragon's Wing Attack]!" Natsu shouted as he swung both arms toward the bandit leader.

Following the movement of Natsu's arms, two streams of fire rushed toward the bandit leader. When the fire streams collided with her, she was flung backward and slammed into the barrier around the Escalade, losing her consciousness shortly afterward.

Once their leader was unconscious, the remaining bandits gave up their resistance. Then, Elicia tied them up with her threads before loading Macao into the Escalade's back seat.

"*Sigh* Now I wish Fonzie was here." Elicia said while glancing at the unconscious, unable to fight, or surrendered bandits scattered around. "If he was, he could make a wagon for us to bring these bandits to the nearest town."

"Yeah, but since he's not, what are we gonna do?" Lucy asked. "We can't just leave them here. They'll only target someone else."

"I know." Elicia said with a resigned expression. "We'll have to contact the Magic Council."

"We should just burn 'em to a crisp." Natsu said.

"But that would make us no better than them." Lucy argued.

"Anything is better than having to see the people from the Magic Council." Natsu said with some fear in his tone.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked. "Why do you sound so afraid?"

"Well, the Magic Council doesn't really like members of Fairy Tail very much." Elicia said with awry smile. "Our reputation for destroying stuff doesn't help either."

"Huh?" Lucy exclaimed in confusion. "but I haven't read anything about anyone from Fairy Tail destroying stuff in a while. Well… other than Hargeon's bell getting destroyed."

"Hey, that was an accident!" Natsu shouted. "I got mad 'cause he was pretending to be someone from our guild."

"Yeah, and we didn't think he'd be that weak, either." Happy added.

"Yeah, that too." Natsu said with a nod.

"that still doesn't change the fact that you destroyed the bell!" Lucy shouted.

Meanwhile, Elicia sat in the Escalade's driver's seat. Then, she opened the center console and took out a communication lacrima that she used to contact the closest branch of the Magic Council. After relaying the situation to the dispatch officer, Elicia put the communication lacrima back in the center console. Then, she sat back in her seat with a tired expression.

"Great… Not only do we have to wait for the Custody Enforcement Unit to come and arrest the wizard, but we have to wait for a division of the kingdom's knights to get the other bandits, too."

"Hey, Elicia, thanks for saving me." Macao said from the backseat.

"Oh, don't mention it." Elicia replied with a smile. "Besides, I didn't do anything. I only drove them here. In fact, it was Lucy who defeated the vulcan that possessed you."

"I've been meaning to ask, she's new, right?" Macao asked. "I don't remember ever seeing her around the guild before."

"Yeah, she only joined yesterday." Elicia replied with a nod.

"I guess I'll have to thank her properly, too." Macao said with a smile.

It only took about half an hour for the nearest division of the kingdom's knights to arrive. And when they did, everything went smoothly. However, their was a blonde-haired, blue eyed female knight with a voluptuous figure and a drop-dead gorgeous face with graceful features that made the entire situation uncomfortably awkward.

"Oh, it's a good thing these bandits were subdued when we got here." The blonde knight said with her cheeks flushed red. "If not, they might have been able to sneak attack us. Then, I would have had to sacrifice myself so that the rest of you could escape. Then, after fighting to the brink of exhaustion, they would have captured me and taken me to their base where the men of their bandit group would have had their ways with me. But my will would have never broken. I would have tried to fight back until they eventually grew bored with me and sold me to a brothel where I would be forced to service hundreds of men."

By the end of her rant, the blonde knight was panting heavily with red cheeks and a slightly anticipatory smile on her face.

While the rest of the knights, though they seemed to be a bit uncomfortable, were used to these random outbursts from the blonde knight, Elicia, Macao, Natsu, Happy, and Lucy looked on with disgusted faces, which seemed to excite the knight even more.

Even the bandits, who were being loaded into a prisoner transport cart were looking at her with uncomfortable expressions while trying to explain that they did not do things like that and only wanted money.

This caused the other knights to pat them on the shoulders sympathetically. Still, they were loaded into the carts with great efficiency.

After all the bandits were loaded into the cart, the captain of the division of knights thanked the Fairy Tail wizards before departing.

"For some reason, that girl's words made me feel… dirty." Natsu said, not really understanding why he felt so uncomfortable.

"Yeah… I wanna go home and take a nice long bath." Lucy said, agreeing with Natsu. Though she understood why she felt so uncomfortable.

"Well, let's just hope that the Custody Enforcement Unit doesn't bring anyone that weird with them." Elicia said with a wry smile.

'Wow, I really didn't expect to see her here.' Elicia thought to herself. 'I wonder how many other characters have been packed into this world.'

After another forty-five minutes, Lahar led the Custody Enforcement Unit to detain the bandit leader. Luckily, the hand off went smoothly this time, as well. However, Lahar looked at two of the five as if they were criminals on the same level as the bandit leader. However, he did not say anything before leaving with the criminal.

After that, everyone loaded up in the Escalade and headed back to Magnolia.