9 Fairy Tail Rising 4

Kagura Mikazuchi, the ace of Mermaid Heel, and one of the strongest mages currently in Fiore. "Cobalt," she said tonelessly, eyeing you idly, "Why are the Rune Knight's getting in my way?" she also completely ignored Drax, such a Kagura thing to do.

You'd met her a few times while with the Rune Knight's when you had to take in dark mages she took down. A very serious and to the point older girl, no nonsense in her personality. She should have turned twenty one or so just recently you think.

"Eh, I left the Rune Knights behind," you shrugged. You heard the tigers all roar, and felt them begin to move from their magic, but you also felt Drax move at the same time, and a moment later, heard the sound of blades slicing through the air, and a pair of yowls following them as another two magic spots disappeared from your senses, "I joined up with Fairy Tail just yesterday, and this is my fourth A-rank already!" you bragged to the older, beautiful girl.

"You did say you would do so eventually when we first met, no matter how I told you it was useless to tie yourself to such a feeble has-been of a guild," she shrugged, "You would have been better served taking my offer to allow you to join Mermaid Heel, your power would be a great asset where we are based."

Funny that wasn't it? That she was basically the main authority in her guild and not her master. And she had actually offered you the chance to join Mermaid Heel, waving off the female only rule.

It was tempting, really it was. You were a teenager, and the guild was full of beautiful women. But if it weren't for Fairy Tail all those years ago, you probably wouldn't have ever found yourself and at this point would be wasting away as another fool desperate for money.

That was a fate worse than death in your opinion. So, you turned her down, simply because you felt like you owed Fairy Tail.

"Probably," you merely shrugged, "And being around someone as gorgeous as you every day was almost enough to make me take that offer. But I owe Fairy Tail a lot, and if making them great again is how I can repay my debt to them, then that's what I'll do."

"..Very well," Kagura sighed, closing her eyes. Her grip on her sheathed sword tightened and she turned around to walk away, and your eyes lingered on her full hips as she did, and the way her tights clung to her full, luscious thighs. then she paused and looked over her shoulder at you, staring at you with one burning yellow eye, "I'll let you have it this once. But you are a rival guild member from now on, and if you try to take a prey from me again, we'll come to blows."

"I'll look forward to it then," you winked at her with a grin, "But don't think you'll be able to beat me without unsheathing that sword of yours babe."

Her nose drew up, and she jerked her sword back a bit, only the tiniest of motions. And a large energy blade sprung from the sheathed sword towards you.

Coating your hand in spiralling black sea water, you thrust it out and caught the attack in your palm, crushing it out of existence.

"I told you not to call me that," she huffed, "I have no time to partake in flirtations or relationships."

"Yeah yeah," you waved her off with a chuckle, "Let's have fun next time together okay sweet thing?"

"You're as contemptible as ever," Kagura huffed, "Goodbye!" she forcefully said through gritted teeth and proceeded to march off. It didn't do good things to her hips, but her skirt was short enough you got a good peak at the way her tights framed her full, round ass cheeks.

"You know you love it!" you called after her, and had to hastily block another instant energy blade jerked back at you. She disappeared through the forest canopy and left a few seconds later and you turned to help Drax out.

Only to find him looking at you weirdly, while the corpses of the WereTiger's littered the forest floor.

"..I must admit I was wrong about you, you are no idiot," he commented, and before you could get a word in edgewise, he continued, "You are a madman."

"The maddest lad of them all," you just continued to grin. You jerked your head to the corpses, "Great job buddy, now we just need to take these to the bounty station and we can get paid!"

"I told you to not be so familiar with me!" Drax protested once again.

A futile effort.

Once you stored the WereTiger's in your Requip space, it was off back to Magnolia on the Drax express. You really had to love the fact that unlike Exceed's, his magic power was much vaster and thus could fly for longer periods of time.

Not to mention, if it came down to it he could just copy your magic and drink water to restore his stamina like you. Being a water variant of a slayer was absolutely broken sometimes, you could regain your magic power and stamina so easily.

Granted, it didn't do anything for mental fatigue, but still broken as hell really.

Less than ten minutes later, with Drax following your directions, you touched down in front of the bounty station and made your way inside. The bounty cashier tried to cheat you out of the bounty for the lizardman quest when you showed Drax to them, but your background as a Rune Knight and with your family studying up anything to do with money, let you threaten your way to your reward pretty easily.

The threat to let Drax eat him if he didn't cough up the dough might have been a bit much, but you got a good chuckle out of his terrified face, even if Drax was a tad uncomfortable at the thought of eating humans, apparently preferred fruit.

...Weird.

Either way, you were seven hundred thousand jewels richer, though sixty percent of that would be going to the guild.

"..I don't believe you've thought this through Cobalt," Drax fretted a bit, hiding his face in his hoodie, and having tucked his tail into his pants as you walked through the paths of Magnolia, "For instance, where am I going to stay?"

"With me?" you asked with a shrug, "Or we could just get you your own place. It's not really a big deal is it?"

"...Fine," he backed down on that front, "But what about your guild itself? I bear them no ill will for their part in the death of my bretheren, but do remember I attacked them on orders from my creator, do you think they will welcome me with open arms?"

"Lighten up!" you clapped him on the back, "They'll be fine with it, they're pretty chill."

"Do you not understand the concept of personal boundaries?" Drax sighed, stepping out of your arm range. What a serious guy! "..But very well, I'll follow your instructions for now." he conceded, just as you stepped into the pathway towards the run down version of Fairy Tail.

Man, you really wanna check out the big one. It was in the ownership of the city really, but they wouldn't sell it for some reason. And all Fairy Tail's many belongings were still being stored there. You bet there were a ton of rare texts on magic buried in there somewhere!

Moments later, you stepped into the guild, your hooded lizard friend a few steps behind you. The first thing you saw, was a familiar green haired woman, holding a child alongside a pair of men, one in a poncho the other with his hair styled into a fine point at the crown.

Most of the people in the guild turned towards you, including the newcomers, the three adults of whom all perked up at seeing you, and raised their hands in greeting.

"Hi," the scantily clad, beautiful older green haired woman greeted you, "Cobalt right?"

You actually remembered her. You have her on one of your recordings of the Fantasia Parade, the last one in fact before the Tenrou Team went missing. Bisca was her name.

"I thought they were lying when they said we got a new member." Pointy head shook his head.

"That's my name," you replied with a smile, returning their waves, "Bisca right? I remember you from a few years ago since I still have the recording of the last Fantasia Parade."

"That's right," she nodded, and her eyes gained a far off quality, "The Fantasia Parade huh? Been a long time since I thought about that."

"You looked good in it honey!" the poncho wearing man said with a laugh, before turning to you and smiling, holding his hand out for a handshake, "I'm Alzack, Bisca's husband, and this guy here is Warren, it's great to meet you." he introduced himself as you took his hand, and even pointed out the name of the other man.

..It took a concentrated effort not to burst out laughing at his ridiculous hair style.

"Nice to meet you guys too." you replied.

Before the conversation could continue though, Macao sitting at the bar piped up, "So how'd the missions go Cobalt? Have any trouble?" the older man asked, then nodded behind you, "And who's your friend?"

You let go of Alzack's hand and made your way over to the master of the guild, and swiped your hand through the air, withdrawing a stack of notes from your Requip space, "Complete easy street, though I did get one good fight out of the first mission, here you go, 410,000 Jewels," you replied, handing the money over to him, "As for my friend, he's Drax, I just named a little while ago, he's the lizardman from the mission."

"Another 60% huh? You really are too generous." Macao nodded, before what you said registered in his ears and his eyes went wide.

"Lizardman!?" he shouted, shooting up, even as his voice echoed with the voice of everyone else in the guild hall.

"Yeah, he was pretty tough, so I figured he'd be a good asset to the guild, plus he was really fun to fight and there isn't any laws forbidding those classified as monsters from joining a guild," you shrugged. Monster and Beast Tamer mages were a thing after all, "Hey Drax, you can take the hood down now." you said, turning to him, and completely ignoring the tense atmosphere.

"...Moronic does not even begin to describe you," the lizardman sighed, but did as told and pulled his hood down, exposing his scaled face to everyone, "Hello, nice to meet you. I hope you...accept my apologies for once attacking you all at the behest of my mad creator Daphne."

There was silence in the guild hall for a few moments, before it was broken by the sound of Kinana giggling, "It's almost like something Natsu would have done."

"..At least he's polite." Macao groaned.

That did it, and everyone around you erupted into laughter.

"..I've joined a whole guild of madmen and woman haven't I?" Drax lamented.

Before you left the guild to train, Bisca caught your eyes lingering on her cleavage and gave you a little wink. "I did look good in that outfit huh?" she said to you with a little laugh as you passed her by.

She totally knew what you got up to with that recording.

In the end, there honestly wasn't much else you could do today. There were a few missions, but the only really appealing ones were the B-ranks, and you needed to leave some for the others to make money from anyway.

Macao asked, that outside of A-ranks, you limited yourself to one mission a day. And that was fair enough. The missions you'd already completed and the time it took to do so would already be on record. It wouldn't change much in the grand scheme of things, but it would bring your name to attention since there was always people scoping out the mission completion rates and how well mages did on jobs.

So, you decided to just go get some training done. There was a spell you'd been working on recently, the ability to change the temperature of your sea water, and you wanted to get a head on that.

Although, you made sure to empty your magic container out quickly while you done so. Gotta get them gains when it came to your overall magic power as well. And with your ability to regain your magic energy with just drinking water, you could do it again and again in the one session.

Drax begged off of training, simply watching as you worked. Which was fine, he didn't quite understand fully what you were aiming for right now, but he would.

At the very least, you figured out a minor base for your new spell, and you were quite happy about that.