Parade prep

It didn't take them too long to get back to the house. Alex gave Liam access to the wards placed on it and let him pick a room. He then asked Wendy to show Liam around the house before heading into the kitchen. He was feeling a little drained from the trip all the way back to Magnolia and decided he would do an early dinner and head to bed.

Wendy and Liam arrived back to the kitchen right as he was finished setting the table. They ate and chatted happily together before Alex excused himself and bid them a goodnight.

Waking up in his own bed for the first time in a month gave Alex no small amount of Joy, he almost wanted to forgo his daily training. Dragging himself out of bed, he reluctantly completed his daily training and headed to the kitchen. Breakfast was a simple affair of bacon and eggs, but the smells were enough to pull Liam and Wendy out of their rooms.

As Alex was cleaning up he told Wendy and Liam that he was going to be heading to the guild right away and asked if they wanted to come or wait a bit. They both agreed and Liam hurriedly went to get dressed, he hadn't been quick enough to change when he smelled the bacon and was still in his Pj's.

The group of four headed down the empty streets of Magnolia in good spirits, the air was crisp and carried the scent of fall. When they walked into the guild, Alex chuckled at the now familiar scene of hungover people trying to clean with as much efficiency as the dead.

The four of them greeted Mira, though this time Liam did so from behind Alex's back. Mira glared at him with a very scary smile before he gulped and greeted her proper. He was met with a million dollar smile and a hug from the beautiful woman though he only sighed again.

"You don't have to be so dramatic, I know lots of guys who would kill to have Mira fawning over them" Alex said in a teasing tone.

"Oh my! Is that so?" Mira asked with a smile.

"But of course! Who knows, I might just be one of them" Alex replied with a wink and smile of his own. Mira chuckled lightly, but Liam still looked unsure of the whole situation. Carla skillfully ignored them all and Wendy just smiled at the young boy.

"So Alex, what are you going to do for the parade?" Mira asked suddenly. "Parade?" Alex said dumbly.

"Yes. Every year Fairytail puts on a big parade for the harvest festival. It's so popular we get visitors from all over Fiore. It is called the Fantasia Parade" Mira explained.

"Oh! That parade. Yeah, I don't know. Never gave it any thought" Alex said as if just remembering.

"Oh a parade! That sounds so much fun! Doesn't that sound wonderful Carla?" Wendy exclaimed, clearly excited.

"It does indeed sound exciting. What does the guild usually do?" Carla replied before asking a question of her own.

"Well, each wizard group can create their own floats. Then we move throughout the whole city showing off our magic and putting on a show for the citizens." Mira explained.

"Do we get to be as flashy as we want to be?" Alex asked with a smirk.

"Of course. The flashier the better!" Mira responded with a smile.

"Hmmm, I'll have to give this some thought" Alex mused before turning to the boy trapped in Mira's embrace. "What about you? Do you wanna be in a parade?" he asked Liam.

"Never seen a parade before, so I kinda just wanna watch" he said with a thoughtful look on his face.

"Oh come on! You would look great out there! You could even be on my float!" Mira said, trying to change his mind. "Oh yeah, I forgot to ask. What kind of magic do you use Liam?" Mira asked as an afterthought.

"I use Ice magic," Liam said simply. "Hmm, maybe you would be better off on Gray's float then" Mira said a little dejectedly.

"What kind of magic do you use, miss?" Liam asked innocently.

Mira's face fell at the question and she frowned slightly before smiling again. " I use transformation magic" she said with her signature smile before transforming her head to look like Wendy to drive home the point.

Wendy jumped in shock at the display as Alex chuckled. Liam looked on with curiosity and surprise written all over his face.

"Are you strong with that kind of magic?" Liam asked curiously, he didn't feel any spike in her strength when she transformed and he knew there should be one if it was combat related. Alex had shown him his own transformation and the difference was night and day.

Mira's smile faltered a bit again before she told him the truth. She had a sad smile on her face as she told the group the story of how she lost most of her magic and the ability to use her most powerful forms.

The atmosphere around the group was gloomy after Mira finished the story about her younger sister's death and her S-class quest. Alex was about to ask her if she wanted to be able to use her magic again but then stopped himself.

It would be a major dick move if he offered and wasn't able to come through. Instead, he turned to the saddened Mira and asked for her hand. She gave him a puzzled look but still offered her hand.

Alex sent his own mana through her as he looked through her body with mana sight. He knew from the anime that the blockage of her mana was from her own guilt and he wasn't even sure how to fix something like that aside from telling her Lisanna wasn't actually dead.

He didn't have any proof of that though and it just seemed cruel to bring it up. Instead, he decided to try a medical approach first. If there was some kind of physical blockage within her mana system, he could remove it for her.

Mira felt his Magic right away and instantly knew what he was trying to do, she didn't pull her hand away even though she doubted he would be able to do anything. She had gone to Porlyusica when it had first happened but even the old healer couldn't do anything.

"Huh, did you know you have Demon particles in you?" Alex asked with a slightly dazed look. He knew she did from the anime, but his magic had never reacted around her so he could never confirm it until now.

"Uh, yeah. It was a by-product of my take-over magic. It is referred to as the 'demon factor' " Mira said sadly, she was still a little depressed from the earlier conversation.

"Well, they are currently inactive. My guess is it would take a very strong negative emotion to re-awaken them naturally or I can try to do it manually for you right now. I am kind of a Demon myself so I can freely manipulate these particles" Alex said as he released her hand and looked into her eyes.

Mira had a startled look on her face that slowly changed between hopeful and scared before she finally nodded giving him the go ahead to try. Alex tapped into his new Curse energy and sent a string of it into Mira's body. If the Demon particles needed a strong negative emotion to awaken, then there was nothing better than curse energy.

It was the literal manifestation of negative emotions. The change was so fast that it startled everyone, Mira included. As the demon particles within her body came into contact with the curse energy, they hungrily devoured it all and forced a full take-over transformation, directly into her 'Satan Soul: Sitri', bypassing the original form.

'Damn, that's quite the magical pressure she's got' Alex thought as he nodded in approval. The pressure didn't affect him much, but when he looked at Wendy, Carla, Liam and the rest of the guild it spoke a different story.

Most of the half standing drunks had fallen over and the two children n' kitty combo were flattened to the floor sweating bullets. Alex quickly used {Mana Manipulation} to get rid of the pressure on them so they could stand while Mira sorted herself out.

It took a couple seconds for the light to come back into Mira's eyes before she forcefully changed her transformation to her original 'Satan Soul' form. "Thank you Alex." She said calmly, her voice many times deeper than usual. Alex just nodded at her with a smile as she undid her transformation.

"That was so scary." Wendy commented in a shaky voice.

"Yeah, I thought I was gonna get squished like a bug there." Liam agreed in an equally shaky voice.

"I had no Idea you were so powerful Mira" Carla commented, being the first of the three to get to their feet.

"I'm sorry if I almost hurt you, it's been a while since I transformed and wasn't exactly ready for that" Mira apologized to the two children and gave them each a hug.

"Hmm, If I would have pretended to be distraught too, would I also have gotten a hug?" Alex mumbled under his breath, pretending to be in deep thought. Mira rolled her Eyes and chuckled as she gave Alex a deep hug.

"Thank you" she said softly into his ear. Alex could feel the tears that hit his shoulder and returned the hug in full. They stayed like that for a moment before Mira pulled herself back together and put her signature smile on her face.

"Now, back to the parade." she said, forcefully changing the subject back to the original.

"I think I'd like to think about it some more. It sounds really fun and I want to be involved, but I don't know what I want to do yet" Wendy was the first to speak up, Carla nodding along.

"I still just wanna watch, I'm not even a member yet and this parade thing sounds cool to see" Liam chimed in.

"We got 3 wizards with 'Take-over' magic, I'll probably just join that float and scare the hell out of people with my demon form. Might even throw some fireworks out to really get them pumped " Alex said with a shrug and slightly evil smile.

Mira chuckled a little evilly herself as that was also her own thoughts for the parade now that she had access to her magic again. They continued hashing out the details about the parade for a while longer before Mira went to get the stamp and officially invite Liam into Fairytail.

The guild was starting to fill up at this point, many of the wizards coming in, greeting everyone, then taking a quest and leaving again.

Gray, Natsu, Erza, Lucy, Cana, Happy, Macao, Wakaba, Levy, her team and basically anyone that knew Alex personally came over to greet Liam and have a few words with Alex. Natsu just wanted to fight again and Liam's jaw almost hit the floor when Alex casually planted Natsu into the table.

The guild just laughed. Gray told Liam to attack him with everything he had when he found out the type of magic he used. Liam hesitated and turned to Alex, unsure of what to do. He had only joined this guild a few hours ago and now he was supposed to fight.

Alex chuckled at the look before saying "Don't worry about it, this happens all the time and you can't possibly hurt that guy with your magic. He is pretty much immune to Ice magic." The unconcerned tone of Alex startled Liam for a minute before he shrugged and decided to go for it.

He didn't think anyone could actually be immune to magic and thought Alex had said that as a way to let Liam know he was just not strong enough. His thoughts on that came to a screeching halt as he watched Gray casually eat all the ice he just cast.

"Not bad kid, your magic is actually pretty good" Gray commented with a wide smile.

Their fight quickly turned into Liam doing everything in his power to hurt Gray while Gray casually avoided all his spells and even offered pointers on his magic. The day ended in typical Fairytail fashion, with a massive brawl of drunken idiots.