The First Alliance Quest Begins

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Magnolia

November, x784.

After the episode with Jude Heartfilia, Elicia and Lucy returned to the mansion. Though they did not talk about the details, they let everyone know that Lucy's stalker problem had been dealt with.

After that, noticing that Lucy's mood seemed to be off, without asking for details, the girls in the mansion did their best to cheer her up. Eventually, all of them, except for Ultear, who needed to be well rested for her upcoming quest, spent the night in the same room as Lucy.

Ultear on the other hand, after a light night session with Alfonzo, slept in Alfonzo's embrace.

The next morning, Ultear woke up early, with Alfonzo waking up alongside her. Then, while she got dressed and ready to leave for her quest, Alfonzo went to the kitchen and started making breakfast for her. While he was at it, he decided to be nice and make breakfast for those who would be going with her as well.

"Maybe I should have made one less meal." Alfonzo thought aloud as he packed the food. "It's not like Natsu will be able to keep it down after the car starts moving. But then again, it would be hard for anyone to keep it down the way Ur drives."

"Stop talking about my mom behind her back." Ultear said, wrapping her arms around Alfonzo from behind. "Besides, there are two things wrong with what you said.

"Oh, two things?" Alfonzo asked, curious about where he was wrong.

"First, Mom's driving isn't that bad any more. It's been years since you rode with her, and things have changed." Ur said with a smile before she kissed Alfonzo on the cheek and released her hug.

A moment later, Ultear reached past Alfonzo and picked up the food before turning around and heading towards the mansion's front door.

"And what was the other thing you mentioned?" Alfonzo asked with a wry smile on his face.

"Oh, I thought you would have guessed." Ultear said, coming to a stop. Then, she looked back over her shoulder and winked. "What makes you think Natsu will be conscious while we're on the road."

With that, Ultear turned her head ack to the front, causing her long hair to wave. Then, she walked away, her hips swaying with every step.

"*Sigh* I hate to see her leave, but I love to watch her walk away." Alfonzo said with a smile as his eyes were drawn to Ultear's butt.

A moment later, Ultear picked up the luggage she left by the front door before opening it and walked outside. Then, after closing the door, she walked towards the gate. After a few more moments, Ultear had opened the gate, stepped through it, and closed it once again to wait for Ur's arrival.

Not even two minutes later, Ur, driving Makarov's white Escalade, drove up.

"*Sigh* I thought we'd be here before you got out." Ur said with a pout. "If it weren't for this idiot with motion sickness, we would have had a reason to come in and have some of Alfonzo's cooking for breakfast."

Sure enough, looking through the windows in the back, Ultear saw Natsu, laid out on a tarp in the Escalade's trunk space. And although she could not tell through the tinted windows, she had a sneaking suspicion that he was unconscious.

"Well, there's no need to worry about that, Mom." Ultear said as she opened the rear passenger side door before putting her luggage on the floor, right in front of Happy.

"What do you mean?" Ur asked curiously.

Even Gray and Happy, who were sitting in the back seat, looked at Ultear with curiosity. Then, both their gazes zeroed in on the smaller bag that was still in her hands.

"Hey, Ultear, what's in that bag?" Happy asked as he sniffed the air. "It smells... *Sniff* really... *Sniff* yummy."

Smiling in reply, Ultear closed the door, flared her magic power, and stomped her right foot before opening the front door. Then, as she climbed in, she answered Happy's question.

"Well, Alfonzo decided to make breakfast for all of us." Ultear replied as she pulled her door shut. "I don't know what he cooked, though. When I finished getting ready, he had just finished packing it. And I didn't have time to ask about what was inside."

Immediately, Ur, Gray, and Happy's eyes lit up.

"Well, don't keep us waiting, open the package, Tear." Ur urged.

"Yeah, stop teasing us, Ultear." Gray said, trying to sound as calm as possible.

"Okay, take it easy." Ultear said with a smile.

Then, Ultear unzipped the bag that the food was packed in. As it turns out, it was Alfonzo's latest patent, a warming bag meant to keep food at the optimum temperature when eating immediately is not possible. And inside the warming bag were five sandwiches.

"Let's see, we got bacon and egg, sausage and egg, steak and egg, ham and egg, and a salmon and egg." Ultear said, taking each sandwich out and reading the label Alfonzo put on them. "So, who wants which one... By the way, the ham and egg is mine."

After that, Ur and Gray chose the sandwich they wanted while Happy got the salmon one by default. Then, Ur pulled away from the mansion as she held her sandwich in one hand.

For the next while, Ur, Gray, Ultear, and Happy rode along the streets of Magnolia in relative silence. Around the time they left the town gates, they had all finished their breakfasts.

"There's still one left." Ur muttered as she stole a glance at the bag in Ultear's lap.

"That one's for Natsu." Ultear said.

"But he's not awake right now." Ur said, stealing another glance with longing in her eyes.

"And whose fault is that?" Gray asked quietly while looking out the window.

"What was that, Gray?" Ur asked, glaring at her disciple through the rear view mirror.

"What do you mean, Master?" Gray asked, wearing a confused expression. "I didn't say anything."

Nodding in approval, Ur turned her attention back to the road.

"Anyway, if we eat it, he'll never know." Ur said, as she tried to convince Ultear to split the sandwich between the two of them.

"Actually, Natsu is awake." happy said, looking over the back seat into the trunk.

In response, Ur made a one handed casting gesture.

"[Ice-Make: Hammer]." Ur chanted casually.

A moment later, an ice hammer appeared over Natsu's head before it swung down, knocking Natsu unconscious once again.

Then, Ur, as if nothing happened, went back to trying to convince Ultear to split the sandwich.

"You know he'll smell the residual scent when he wakes up again, right?" Ultear pointed out.

"And he'll start whining about us stealing his food, too." Gray added.

"Yeah, Natsu can be really childish like that." Happy said with a nod.

Immediately, everyone deadpanned and stared at Happy.

"What?" Happy asked, feeling self-conscious.

"You act the same way any time anyone eats a fish that you've perceived as yours." Gray said. "Even when you had nothing to do with obtaining it."

Tilting his head in confusion, Happy replied in a tone filled with just as much confusion.

"Do I really?" happy asked with his eyes open wide.

With that, everyone decided the rest of that conversation was pointless and looked away.

"Anyway, I'm with Gray on this." Ultear said. "I don't wanna hear Natsu's whining."

"Tch! Fine." Ur replied disgruntledly.

Around the same time, Alfonzo, Elicia, and the other girls left the house to start their training at the guild hall. However, when they walked through the gate, they noticed an ice sculpture with its head poking around the corner of the wall and looking in their direction.

"Well, I saw this coming." Alfonzo said while shaking his head. "But did she have to leave her there?'

"If it wasn't for the barrier, Ultear would have left her on the front lawn, instead." Elicia said, smiling wryly.

"That is actually quite impressive." Erza said, walking over to the statue. "She managed to freeze her so quickly that she did not realize she was frozen until it was too late."

"Yeah, other than the look in her eyes, everything else about her face says that she didn't even know she had been found out."

"Um... Are you guys going to just talk about her? Or do you plan to unfreeze her?" Lucy asked, confused at how calmly they talked about the ice statue. "I mean, even though her body is made of water, I can't imagine being frozen like that would be too comfortable."

"Nah, just leave her there." Alfonzo said. "Ultear did this to keep her from getting in trouble, after all."

"Yeah, she might have had to go through 'that' if she followed Ur and the rest on their quest." Elicia added.

"I still don't even know what 'that' is." Lucy muttered.

"Unfortunately, she's gonna be even more annoying now that she knows about Ultear helping her out." Ignoring Lucy's mutters, Alfonzo said with resignation.

"Well, what can you do?" Mirajane said with a smile. "You intentionally had this conversation in front of her so that she wouldn't follow and get herself in trouble, wasting Ultear's efforts in the process."

"*Sigh* I know." Alfonzo replied dramatically. "The things I do for guild mates. Everything from kicking their asses until they get some sense in their heads to villain monologuing for their benefit."

"Anyway~, let's go." Elicia said, rolling her eyes at Alfonzo's melodrama.

Back with Ur's group, the discussion about Natsu's portion of the food came to an end. Though, Ur would bring it up every time she had to knock out Natsu again. Other than that, the rest of the trip went smoothly. With the group stopping in a small village to rest for the night. The next day, the group reached the meeting point, a secluded mansion just outside the Worth Woodsea, around noon.

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Worth Woodsea.

"*Whistle* Master bob sure knows how to build a mansion." Ur said as she stepped out of the Escalade's driver's seat.

"Yeah, it's almost as nice as Alfonzo and Elicia's." Ultear said.

"Well, I guess I can't argue with that." Ur replied.

Meanwhile, Gray, after getting out of the back seat, closed the door and went to the trunk to open it for Natsu. And as soon as the hatch was opened, Natsu tumbled out onto the ground.

"Oh Yeah!" Natsu shouted. "I've never been so happy to feel the ground before!"

A few moments later, the five Fairy Tail wizards made their way to the mansion's front door.

"Remember, Mom, you can't beat up the guys from Blue Pegasus." Ultear said, reminding her mother.

"I know, I know." Ur replied. "As long as none of them touch me, there won't be a problem. But if they touch me, I promise nothing."

"*Sigh* I guess today is gonna be a long day for them." Ultear said with a wry smile while shaking her head.

"Oh, please… Stop acting like you're any better., Ultear." Gray said while rolling his eyes. "Because of you, that Ren guy had to spend three weeks in a hospital the last time we had to work with the Trimens."

"He was getting a little more handsy than I was comfortable with." Ultear replied, a slight, embarrassed blush making its way to her face.

Gray could not really argue with that reasoning. Though, he did think Ultear's reaction was a bit overboard when he only tried to kiss the back of her hand after a handshake. Luckily, he had learned enough to know that keeping his mouth shut about it was the smart decision.

"Why does it smell so sweet here?" Natsu asked, scrunching his nose as he spoke.

"*Sigh* It's because he is here." Ur said, shuddering in disgust.

At that moment, the front doors of the mansion swung open. A moment later, a red carpet rolled out from the open doors, stopping in front of the group of five.

"Wow, that's quite the welcome." happy said in an impressed tone.

"Greetings, wizards from Fairy Tail." An orange-haired man with a large, shiny nose and a rather square face wearing a white suit with no shirt and a rose in his mouth said, appearing in the doorway. "On behalf of Blue Pegasus, allow me, Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki, to welcome you!"

"*Sigh* I think we're gonna fail this quest." Ur said, rubbing her temples as she did so. "I already have a headache, and he just appeared. I don't know how I'm expected to finish an entire quest with him."