Chapter Text
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…1:13 PM, Porlyusica’s Hut, October 2nd…
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“YOU’RE PERFECTLY FINE NOW, SO GET OUT!” Porlyusica roared as she physically ejected me from her hut. I only barely managed to catch myself midair and had to immediately catch Dimaria and Mystogan as she threw them out too. Curiously, Master Makarov did not get thrown out before the door slammed shut.
I trust you three to keep quiet about your theory of Hades’s true identity, Master’s voice sounded in our heads, The guild cannot afford such a horrible blight on our public image. Master Precht was the one who shaped Fairy Tail’s image into a respectable guild after Master Mavis’s passing, if he were to be now the master of Grimoire Heart as you suggest, it would be a death knell for Fairy Tail’s reputation. I don’t give orders often, but if any of you breathe even a word of this to anyone, even the other guild members, I will be forced to take drastic action. Do I make myself clear?
“Aye Master,” the three of us agreed.
Very good, Master declared, Now, you kids get on back to the Guild Hall and enjoy. I’ve got some calls to make.
The telepathic connection cut off and the three of us swapped glances. “Is, he normally that serious?” Dimaria asked nervously, “That was kinda really scary.”
“Only when he thinks the Guild is in danger,” Mystogan clarified, “Which if Jerry’s right, it may very much still be.”
“Shoosh Brother, we can’t talk about it,” I muttered, “Oh and while I got ya, I need that map of all previous Anima openings. I know you’ve got one.”
Mystogan blinked at me, “Why would you need that?”
I downloaded my theory of what had happened to Lisanna into his head and he immediately went ghostly pale behind his mask, “Oh. That’s… not good. Yes of course, ah…” he rummaged in his pockets frantically before pulling out an extremely beaten up, tattered and rolled up piece of paper, “…here it is.”
A quick glance and I’d memorized it, “Formula for calculating the next appearance?”
Mystogan shared it and Archive began crunching numbers immediately. A moment later I went stiff as a board and ghostly pale, “Siiieg… why is the appearance after next directly over Magnolia just under two months from now?”
Mystogan looked at me in shock, “Wait what? That’s… that can’t be right!” He stuffed the map into my hands and pulled out a notebook before hurriedly flipping to the most recent page and reviewing his notes and calculations before scribbling out another page’s worth, “Oh fuck…”
“Yeah, that’s putting it lightly!” I agreed.
“Um, guys? What’s going on?” Dimaria asked nervously, “What’s an Anima?”
Mystogan and I both looked at her in surprise. I’m not 100% certain about him, but I had honestly completely forgotten she was there for a moment. Now, looking at her clearly nervous expression, I felt quite guilty for worrying her. I rolled the paper up and handed it back to Mystogan, stowing my own terror and worry to cheerfully inform her, “Nothing that can’t wait a day to tackle. Has anyone introduced you to everybody yet? No? Well, we can’t have that, come on! Let’s get back to the Guild Hall and show you around! Has anyone set you up with a place to stay yet?”
Dimaria jolted slightly, “Ah… no, I, I hadn’t even thought about it.”
I nodded, “Well that’s fine, we’ve got plenty of options for you, places around town, the girl’s dorm up on the hill if you want a room there. You’re family now, so rest assured we’re gonna take great care of you! C’mon bro, no chickenin’ out, we haven’t got an evil triplet to run our faces into the ground anymore! You can finally chill with everybody else!”
“I, um… I don’t…” Mystogan started backpedaling and stammering, only to yelp in protest as I picked him up with my telekinesis, “Nope, you’re comin’ to the party! You don’t have to stay but it would be rude to not at least drop in. You don’t want Dimaria to think you don’t like her do ya?”
Mystogan quit struggling, but promptly broke my telekinesis’s light hold to catch up on his own power, “Dimaria knows I think quite highly of her, but fine, I suppose you have a point.”
“Of course I do!” I grinned, “You know better than anybody I don’t say things without reason!” I snapped my fingers and threw open a portal back to the Guild Hall. We strode through the door and were greeted with… tense silence?
I noticed Dimaria start to fidget nervously and I couldn’t blame her. The only time I had ever seen the Guild Hall this quiet was when everybody was out cold. On top of that, I realized the Guild Hall was in the middle of what appeared to be extensive remodeling. I leaned over, “Brother, what the hell happened while I was out?”
“JERRY!” I was promptly bowled over by Mira crossing the Guild Hall at ridiculous speeds and tackling me in a hug.
I didn’t mind at all and immediately wrapped her in a hug with a massive grin, “Hey Beautiful!” I kissed her and got a very eager return kiss, “Gods I have missed you!”
She gave me another quick kiss on the cheek, “You too!”
I pulled us upright with my telekinesis, unwilling to stop hugging Mira, “Why is everybody looking so glum? We’re all here and alive aren’t we?”
“HOLY SHIT IS THAT JERRY?!” Natsu suddenly shouted from somewhere inside.
“BRO’S ALIVE!” Gajeel added.
“OF COURSE HE IS! HE’S A REAL MAN!” Elfman clarified.
“Y’ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!” Cana shouted gleefully.
“PAAAAAAAARTYYYYYY!!!” the entire guild cheered.
And party we did!
.
…
.
“Hey Jerry, you don’t mind Dimaria staying with me for a bit right?” Lucy asked as she sat down next to me that evening. Mira had insisted I not help with throwing the party as the Mattachu team were the guests of honor, and that had left me in a strange kind of limbo because she was the person in there I wanted to be around the most and she was very busy throwing the party and making sure it kept going. It was an excellent party, I’d enjoyed seeing her get up on stage and rock out (turns out she’s the best singer in the guild and very skilled with a guitar), but eventually she’d gotten tired and gone back stage to rest a little. I’d gently poked her with my telepathy and asked if she needed anything.
She’d laughed, assured me she was fine and told me she was getting ready to shower up and call it a night. She also told me to be ready, because she’d sorted her feelings for Laxus firmly into the ‘never gonna happen’ bin and was quite intent on showing me how much she’d missed me.
While she did that, I quietly excused myself from the party and stepped out back to the lake shore and thrown out one of my cards as a comfy spot to watch the sunset and wait. As an added bonus, we’d be able to make tracks without a bunch of attention if we slipped away from out back rather than trying to leave through the front. My plan for us to escape completely unnoticed was somewhat thwarted because Lucy followed me out a few minutes later.
I nodded, “Mmm…that’s fine.”
Lucy sighed in relief, “Okay good, that’ll definitely help with the rent.”
I turned and looked at her dryly, “Lucy, I’ve already told ya, you don’t have to worry about rent. I’m a bloody billionaire, paying me rent is like pouring a cup of water into the lake over there. Besides, if it bothers you that much,” I winked at her with a crooked grin, “you could still take me up on the payin’ me off in kisses idea.”
Lucy blushed as pink as Natsu’s hair, “Kisses?”
I blinked and remembered that I’d told Mira about that idea and Lucy had actually already bolted by the time I’d voiced it that day I bought the building, “Oh yeah, forgot you chickened out of my teasing before I could even suggest it that day. You remember when we were discussing what your rent would be, you tried to argue with me about it because you didn’t feel comfortable about such a cheap rate and I offered to make it super awkward if you wanted to argue about it? I was going to offer to let you pay me off in kisses at a thousand jewel off whatever debt you’d stacked up per kiss.” I snorted with a grin, “I’d never enforce a deal like that th…oh?”
Lucy had without the slightest warning straddled my lap, “So I owe you twenty kisses for last month and another twenty in case I can’t come up with twenty thousand jewel by this evening? Which I probably can’t?” she added with a very seductive grin as she pressed her admittedly very exceptional chest against mine and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. Under different circumstances I almost certainly would have. I shook my head with a frown, “No. No you don’t, and you don’t owe me forty thousand jewel either. Now get off me before Natsu looks out here and sees us like this.”
Lucy pouted and got off, “Is this about Galuna being Natsu’s idea of trying to ask me out? There’s nothing there! There’s nothing going on between me and him!”
I raised an eyebrow at her, “Lucy, have you actually talked to Natsu about it?”
Lucy blushed and then glared out at the lake, “Natsu explained himself when we found each other in the Tower. Happy says I’m the first girl he’s taken an interest in since Lisanna died. Normally I’d be super flattered, but with the way everything’s turning out…” It didn’t take a genius or a mind reader to figure out she was thinking about how much trouble she’d gotten in from the Galuna Stunt and my theory that Lisanna might actually still be alive, “That and the fact that he’s an immature blockhead. I mean yeah, he’s hot, and not in the ‘constantly setting things on fire’ sense. If he’d actually just asked me out instead of that stunt with Galuna and everything that happened, I’d probably have said sure just for the hell of trying it with him.”
“He’s an idiot,” she declared quietly as she pulled her knees up to her chin, “He’s got no sense of what’s actually dangerous for someone normal like me and a lot of his antics honestly annoy the hell out of me.” She took a deep breath and sighed, “For all that though, he is still actually one of the nicest people I know. I know he’d protect me like I was a princess and he was my dragon, and I think a lot of what’s not jiving between us is just the fact that we’re from completely different backgrounds. I’m a sheltered heiress who never had any friends aside from my spirits until I met you, him and Happy, and he’s been a rough and tumble Fairy Tail wizard since he was a little kid. I’m still getting used to everything about this being a guild wizard thing and he’s like a solid manifestation of everything about Fairy Tail that’s hard to get used to.”
Then she added quietly, “But he’s also a pretty good representation of everything I love about this place.”
“I guess, you just seem a little bit more approachable,” she continued, “Natsu’s a Fairy Tail wizard through and through, but you’re like a fairy tale p…”
“Don’t,” I interrupted, “Don’t call me a prince.” Lucy looked over at me in surprise and I shot her a wan smile, “You and Natsu aren’t the only ones with emotional baggage. I went a long way towards sorting mine out at the Tower, but that wound’s still deep even if it’s starting to heal. So you gravitate towards me more than Natsu because I seem like a good midway between the life you had and the life you’ve always wanted eh?”
Lucy blinked and then nodded before glancing out at the reflection of the sunset on the water, “Yeah. You’re…honestly, I think my parents would both be jumping up and down with excitement if I dated a guy like you. You’re honest, good looking, thoughtful, caring, responsible, smart and absurdly wealthy. Daddy’d like that last one,” she added with a wry little smile.
“And Natsu?” I asked quietly.
Lucy sighed, “Reckless. He’s reckless and wild, but I know he means well. Even with how much I still totally blame him for the Galuna Incident, I know, I know. We saved the world and would probably all be dead right now if things hadn’t played out the way they did, but he still lied to me and nearly got me kicked out of the guild.”
I nodded, “That’s fair, but you should probably talk to Mira first. I wasn’t dating her when I made that joke, and wouldn’t have if I were. I know she likes the idea of a threesome, but I think Erza and Cana have got dibs on that.”
Lucy grimaced, “Yeah, that’s fair.” Then after a moment of contemplative silence, she threw me for a bit of a loop, “So, Serena was actually Angel, huh? Do you think she’s going to come after us?”
I shook my head, “No, you heard Leo. She’s been banned from forging any new contracts, our keys would be useless even if she had them. Besides, there’s something seriously not matching up between the Serena we traveled with and the dark wizard who’s been offing Celestial Wizards for years,” I mused.
“I don’t believe she could’ve faked her persona around us, especially how she acted around me, and given that we’re apparently some of the first people to ever see those two and live to talk about it, I don’t think she’d feel the need to, especially given that her entire disguise consisted of dying her hair. Something is very much up with those two, and my gut’s tellin’ me that it’s somethin’ we’re not gonna like. We’re not gonna know until we find them, and we will find them Lucy,” I added, “Don’t doubt that for a second. On what I believe to be the very slim chance they were playin’ us for saps, I’m gonna take the opportunity to beat the hell out of both of them, fantastic romp in the sack or not.”
I frowned, “But if that was the real them we were travelling with, then I want to know what’s got them on the wrong side of the law. The them we got to know didn’t strike me as the kind of people who’d just get into something like that of their own volition.”
Lucy tilted her head at me thoughtfully, “You think someone’s forcing them to be dark wizards?”
Erza suddenly plopped down and leaned against my back, “That actually seems likely. Disturbing, but likely. Serena, and probably Elric as well, were slaves at the Tower. I didn’t realize it until my mind drifted to them while I was eating my cake a little while ago… The more I think about it, the more certain I am. Serena was in the cell next to mine. So how did they get away?”
I went ramrod stiff as the memory of my first night with Serena flashed vivid in my mind, “And it explains why Serena had the same reaction you did when she saw my face.” If they didn’t escape with Erza, then they had to have left later, after my deranged doppelganger had taken over. Desperate kids with a strong potential for magic would be easy to raise into dark wizards with a skilled teacher, and if said teacher were ‘rescuing’ them… Elric being old as he was wouldn’t have been so easy to turn… unless he went along with it to protect the kids.
“So, we’ve got two friends potentially backed into some kind of corner who need our help,” Erza declared quietly.
As I’m sure is abundantly obvious to anyone who’s made it this far into my memoirs, messing with kids is a rather significant berserk button of mine. Manipulating and possibly abusing them into a life of extreme crime? Robbing them of their chances to live peaceful happy lives under the guise of charity?
I cracked my knuckles as a very grim expression settled across my face. “Then somebody’s going to die.”
There was a sudden camera flash and a voice muttered, “Uh-oh! Not cool!”
I snapped a hand out and snatched the person holding the camera with my telekinesis before yanking him out into the open. I held him upside down and gave him the flattest, driest glare I could muster, “Care to explain why you’re sneaking around in the bushes taking pictures of me and my friends before I get irritated and fling you into the lake?”
The blonde cameraman looked like he couldn’t decide whether to hyperventilate or have a freaking orgasm, “So COOL! I’m Jason, a reporter for Sorcerer Weekly! I heard, that Erza Scarlet, Natsu Dragneel, Gajeel Redfox, and the secret twin brother of MYSTOGAN who is actually SIEGRAIN THE WIZARD SAINT had just come back from a super top secret quest and taken out an evil cult that was working for one of the most infamous dark guilds on the continent in passing! And now the secret twin brother is holding me upside down with magic interrogating me! SO COOOOOL!!!”
“You heard correctly even if you clearly haven’t heard the whole story,” I replied dryly, “But you should bloody well ask before you start taking pictures. It’s friggin’ rude to be sneakin’ around like that, not to mention a good way to get hurt. You’re lucky I didn’t chuck first and ask later or you’d be swimming back to shore right now.” I spun my finger and turned him back right side up before setting him down.
Then a thought struck me and I lifted him back into the air, turned him upside down again and pulled him over a little bit closer, “More importantly though,” My glare would’ve ignited an ice cube, “How much of our conversation just now did you hear?”
I felt more than saw Erza stiffen with worry behind me and Jason the reporter blinked at me in confusion which I could tell to be genuine, “Um, nothing? Was it something I wasn’t supposed to hear?”
I set him back upright and put him down because I could tell he was being honest and actually hadn’t heard anything. I love my telepathy. “Good. That was a private conversation you just interrupted. I’d have erased the memory from your head by blunt force trauma if I’d had to.”
“SO COOL!” Jason exclaimed, “YOU’RE SO INTENSE! THAT’S SUCH A FAIRY TAIL THING TO DO! SO COOL!”
I let off a pulse of Sense of Security, “Calm down.”
Instead of calming down he somehow got even more excited, but he did try to hold it in…for about ten seconds. “SOCOOLSOCOOLSOCOOLSOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!! Was that calming magic?! I’ve never seen calming magic! What does it do?! Is that your magic, calming people down?! That’s so cool!”
Thankfully Erza was there or I might’ve teleported either me or Jason somewhere considerably far away. It was getting seriously awkward. Praise is all well and good, but there’s such a thing as ‘too much to the point of overwhelming’.
“Are we to understand that you would like an interview?” Erza asked over my shoulder.
“YES!” Jason was suddenly totally still and attentive, his pencil and pad at the ready.
Erza moved up to sit next to me, “What would you like to know?”
“So, what was the quest?!” Jason asked excitedly, “All I’ve heard is that it was a decade quest! Nobody’s been able to tell me which one it was though!”
I swapped a glance with Erza, “Sorry, we’re keeping that under wraps for now. What I can tell you is to be absolutely sure you do not miss Dr. Miguel Whistler’s address to the Royal Archaeological Society.”
Jason’s eyes went wide, then his gaze riveted itself to his pad as he muttered, “Dr. Miguel Whistler, address, Royal Archaeological Society. DO. NOT. MISS.” He glanced up, “When’s that going to be?”
I shrugged, “Dunno, we only just got back into the country a few days ago. I doubt Doc’s had time to set it up yet, but it’ll be soon I’m sure.”
Jason nodded, “Right, I’ll keep my eyes peeled and my ears open! Alright, next question, this is the one everyone’s been asking about for weeks but nobody can tell me what happened.” He looked like he might legitimately wet himself with excitement as he pointed to the darkening sky, “The moon?”
“We had a run in with two of the Alvarez’s Spriggan Twelve,” Erza explained, “They caught us off guard in our first encounter and we were scattered across the desert. When they arrived unexpected at our team’s rendezvous point, Jerry engaged them and held them off until the rest of us could arrive. That’s when the first Etherion blast was fired. The second one was a few minutes later after I arrived to assist him.”
“So…who stopped it?” Jason asked as his glance bounced from Erza to me and back.
I smirked lightly as I raised my hand, “That’d be me.”
“SO COOL! I’d expect nothing less from the twin of a Wizard Saint though!” Jason declared excitedly as he scribbled that down, completely missing my grimace at the mention of the Wizard Saint thing, then he looked up, “So, did you win?”
I swapped a glance with Erza and Erza shook her head, “I would call it a draw.”
I nodded, “Agreed, we didn’t beat them. They agreed it wasn’t worth fighting over and left of their own accord. We would almost certainly have taken casualties if they hadn’t decided it was too much trouble.” For all that I had been able to drive them off with the threat of my Devouring Magic, if they’d started targeting the others in earnest, somebody on our side would’ve most likely been critically injured or died. The only reason we’d stood even a ghost of a chance was because Devouring Magic is such an incredible defense. Without that, we’d have been crushed like bugs.
“So, how strong are they?” Jason asked in a tone of reverential awe.
“Ajeel’s every bit as strong as Wall, and Wall can fire that Etherion cannon of his by himself if you give him about two minutes,” I replied, “If Alvarez has got ten more like those two, then it’s little wonder their empire is that big. Even one of them would probably be enough to wreck a small country.”
“Can you give a play by play?” Jason asked hopefully.
I snorted, “I could but I won’t. Those two have clearly worked hard to get that strong, I’ll not go tellin’ the secrets of their combat styles to all and sundry for their enemies to exploit.”
Jason looked like he wanted to press for more but he swallowed his curiosity and nodded, “Ok, so do you know anything about what that giant snake and the giant in the sky were a few weeks ago?”
I blinked and then smiled as I explained, “That was Apophis, the thankfully-no-longer-living embodiment of chaos and primordial darkness. The giant was the Celestial Spirit King, and all the lights were the Celestial Spirits who intervened to prevent the end of the world.” I explained seriously, “Then a guy who I sincerely hope was the strongest dragon slayer in the world showed up and blew Apophis’s head off. I’m not a hundred percent sure that guy was who I thought he was, but whoever he was, he saved the world.”
“GOD SERENA SAVED THE WORLD?!” Jason exclaimed in shock.
“Dunno, what’s he look like?” I asked. Jason immediately dove into his bag and pulled out a stack of pictures before shuffling through them to fish one out. I took one look at the goofy looking man posing for the camera and shook my head, “No, that’s definitely not him.”
I manifested a life size hologram of the Siegfried-lookalike (because it couldn’t possibly have been the real deal right? Maybe a descendant or something?) who’d taken down Apophis, “That’s him.”
“So cool…” Jason muttered reverentially as he snapped a picture, “Do you know who he is?”
I shook my head, “He didn’t give his name. He showed up, saved our team, stared down the end of the world and then when Apophis demanded to know who he was because he had just punched its face into a mountain hard enough to break the mountain, he just said,” I cleared my throat and used Transformation magic to alter my voice into a perfect mimicry of his, “I am a dragon slayer, and this is over.” I switched back to my voice, “Then he jumped all the way up there into the sky and blew its head off in one shot that made the Etherion look like a…um…”
“A water pistol,” Erza supplied helpfully.
“A WATER PISTOL?!” Jason squeaked in awe.
Erza nodded, “He was by far the most powerful wizard I’ve ever seen.”
“SO COOL!” Jason exclaimed as his pencil flew across his pad.
Erza and I waited for him to finish writing and then he looked up, “So, is there any way I could talk to the other members of the team?”
“Sure,” I replied nonchalantly as I gently tugged Lucy over and gestured to her, “This is Lucy Heartfilia, Celestial Wizard extraordinaire. The others are inside.”
“I’ll go get them,” Erza declared, narrowly beating Lucy to the punch. Lucy watched her go, looking a little put out. I couldn’t blame her, Jason’s overenthusiasm was rather difficult to get used to, and she had his full and immediate attention.
“Celestial Wizard?” he asked excitedly.
“Celestial Wizardry’s been in my mom’s side of the family for generations,” Lucy confirmed.
Jason scribbled that down before looking back up, “So, you must be pretty new, right? I haven’t heard about any insane escapades like what I usually hear about Natsu and the others.”
Lucy grimaced, “Yeah, I’ve only been a Fairy Tail wizard for…Jerry, how long has it been since we joined?”
“It’ll be three months the day after tomorrow,” I replied, “And yeah, you actually probably have heard about us before since we’ve been Natsu’s team since Hargeon.”
“HARGEON?! That giant fight was you guys?!” Jason exclaimed in shock.
Lucy gave me an annoyed glare and I chuckled, “No, that was all Natsu, but we’re the ones who tipped him off about the slavers, and while he was handling their only wizard, we were beating down the rest of them at the docks. After that we followed Natsu back here, joined the guild and a few days later the three of us formed a team.”
“We’ve only been on a handful of jobs together, but we work together pretty well,” Lucy added.
Jason thought for a moment and then, “Wait! So you guys were a team when Natsu took out that counterfeiting operation in Tulipville?! And when he took out the Red Raven’s Rogue’s guild?!”
“What are you talking about?” Lucy demanded, “Jerry’s the one who came up with the plan for the Red Ravens job and he’s the reason we were able to clean up those counterfeiters! I’ve been on a few jobs with Natsu and Happy since then and any time Jerry doesn’t come along it’s complete chaos!”
“SO COOL!” Jason exclaimed and then something clicked with him, “WAIT! YOU TWO WERE AT OSHIBANA WEREN’T YOU?!” He quickly checked through the roster on his fingers and then looked up at me, “Does that mean you’re the masked wizard who took out the entire Eisenwald Guild?!”
I grinned, “Guilty as charged, I can’t take all the credit though. Gray’s the one who iced ‘em after I blew ‘em up, and Lucy here’s the one who got me out from under that demon’s feet.”
“So, why were you wearing a mask?” Jason asked.
“He wasn’t,” Lucy clarified before gesturing to me with a thumb and a catty little grin, “Genius here had blown up a mountain just outside of town by mistake and got caught in his own avalanche. He was covered in bandages not a mask. It’s how he got this scar,” she added as she reached over and tickled the side of my face over my Magic Circuits with one finger, “He honestly had me worried, insisting on joining the team for that when he’d only gotten to where he could even walk a few days earlier. Then he goes and uses the exact magic Ms. Porlyusica told him not to like a complete dumbass trying to impress Erza by taking care of the whole thing by himself.”
“Erza smacked me for it when I woke up,” I grimaced as I rubbed the back of my head, “And I don’t know what Ms. Porlyusica put on me to light my nerves up like that, but I don’t want her doing it again!”
Jason was looking at me in awe, “Whoa, you’re dating Erza?!”
I blinked and then smirked lightly, “No, ah, not currently. I’m actually in a very happy relationship with Mira. Erza and I just…I guess you could say we’ve got a bit of history with each other. It’s a very long story and not one I’d feel comfortable sharing right now, especially in light of recent events.”
Jason was quiet for a second and then, “You mean that cult you guys took out yesterday?”
I went slightly stiff before forcing myself to relax, “Yeah. That was some… really, REALLY nasty business. Before you even ask, no. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Nasty’s an understatement,” Lucy grumbled as she rubbed the back of her neck, “I think that woman with the sword was as strong as Erza. She hit like a freaking train. She’d have killed me three or four times over if not for my battle suit. Don’t even get me started on that stupid owl guy that ate Natsu.”
“ATE NATSU?!”
“The Trinity Raven team from the Death’s Head Caucus Assassin’s Guild,” Erza explained as she walked up with Dimaria, Happy and Natsu, “The leader of the cult hired them to ensure his plans weren’t foiled.”
“Lucy exploded him,” Happy declared teasingly.
“Shut up Cat!” Lucy snapped with a blush.
“She also saved my life,” Dimaria pointed out, “That woman with the sword was about to kill me.”
“Are you alright?” Jason asked in genuine concern.
“Esa pinche bruja,” Dimaria muttered as she gently rubbed what I now noticed to be a very angry looking red stripe across her abs, “She cut me pretty deep, but my magic patched me up. Speaking of,” She glanced at me, “Are you feeling alright? You were in pretty rough shape. Porlyusica said I should check up on you after you’d been up and about for a bit.”
I nodded and gave her a thumbs up, “Good as new.”
Dimaria nodded, “Good. We were all really worried when Erza brought you back looking like that.”
“What the heck happened to you anyway?” Natsu asked curiously, “You looked like you got in a fight with a hundred Erza’s.”
“He took the attack he teleported all of you out of the way of,” Erza declared sharply, “Let’s not discuss it too much okay?”
“What are we discussing?” Mira asked as she walked up before noticing Jason, “Oh hi Jason!”
“Hey Mira! How’ve you been?” Jason replied excitedly. A brief twinge of jealousy attempted to happen, but my telepathy quickly shut it down. He was looking at her with the same fanboy adoration he was giving the rest of us, and Mira saw him as a friend, so getting jealous wouldn’t do anything except make me look like an ass. I later learned Jason was one of the photographers for a lot of Mira’s photoshoots, which thankfully did not carry any of the creepy or disturbing aspects that the modelling industry in my old world had.
Then Mira plonked herself across my lap with a grin, “Here to get the scoop on the stud that took one of the hottest women in Fiore off the market?” Then she kissed me and I found I really didn’t care about much of anything else. I’d tell you about the rest of the conversation, but when I say I didn’t care, I really did not care, sooo I honestly don’t remember the rest of it because I wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention.
It’s not like we stuck around for much more talking anyway, Mira declared she was tired and asked me to take her home. I was on my feet and running away with her in a bridal carry and a massive grin on my face faster than you could ask where we went. Curiously, Erza was effortlessly keeping up with me.
Mira looked at her curiously and raised an eyebrow with a teasing smile, “Erza, we’re on our way to have enough sex to make up for the month and a half away from each other. If you’re not intending to join us, you might not want to be following us right now.”
Erza just grinned at us smugly, raised an eyebrow that I swear was some kind of challenge and did not miss a step.
Mira raised both eyebrows, “Really?! I… I wasn’t expecting that from you Erza.”
“He’s been teasing me the entire trip,” Erza explained with a smile, “And he owes me a dozen hero kisses for the battle at Mildian, on top of me owing him a hundred for last night and... well something else that he’s been beating himself up over that I just really want to prove is water under the bridge. Besides, he’s my type too, and maybe it’s the dragon in me, but I kind of like the idea of having you both.”
Mira jerked in surprise, “Dragon?”
“I’m half-dragon,” Erza confirmed, “It was something Master Precht found out when he visited right before we left. Yeah, I’ve got a lot to tell you about later, but it can wait I think.”
We got to my apartment and once again, I found my door once again standing partially open. Isn’t that how this whole affair started? I mused as I reached out with my telepathy and confirmed that, once again, there was a tipsy Cana in my apartment.
What I did not glean from ID’ing her with telepathy, was that she was lounging as sexily as she could on the couch in a white bunny girl outfit that matched the black one Mira had… which she’d just transformed her clothes into and the red one that Erza had teased me with on the train that SHE just requipped into!
Cana sat up grinning lewdly, “Ooh… we're doing a foursome now? Fffuuuck yeah...Didn't think you'd be into this Erza, but I am absolutely here for it!”
Erza blushed and looked away shyly, “Well um, if it’s you three…”
All three of us blushed and then grinned excitedly. I closed the door behind me with my telekinesis and that was the last anybody heard from us for a week.
…
Six Hours Later
…
“Wow you three are intense,” Cana panted as she rolled off Mira to land on me instead since I had just laid down next to her with Erza passed out recovering on the other side of me. They’d ditched the bunny costumes a while earlier, though Erza still had her bunny ears on even as she cut loose with the tiniest cutest snores I’d ever heard out of anyone other than Mira.
The feel of Cana’s bare bottom coming to rest on my equally bare lap elicited the natural reaction despite how hard we’d all just finished. Cana immediately sat up and rubbed experimentally, “What the hell even are you?! How are you ready to go again already?!”
I tugged Mira over to me with my right arm and she happily snuggled into my side as I grinned, “Quite probably the happiest man in the world right now.”
Cana blinked at me and then smiled, “Geez you two are mushy, alright, lemme see if I can’t make you a little happier then, Mr. Happiest man in the world.” She turned around and in about three minutes of bouncing glorious heaven slammed her hips to mine a final time and let out a low heart pounding moan as she finished, sending me over the edge as well in the process.
She didn’t quite fall forward, but that one had clearly rattled most of the strength out of her if the way she flopped on my chest panting was any indication. I took this particular moment to try to focus on the ceiling and not on the unbelievably gorgeous women I had just made love to. They’re tired, they’re exhausted, do not think about it. Do not think about it. DO. NOT. THINK. ABOUT. THE BOOBS. Oh god boobs…such great boobs…Cana’s…Mira’s…Erza’s… all of them! At the same ti…NO! NONONO! Bad Jerry! BAD!
“Holy crap it’s going up again…” Cana mused in a slightly drunk tone before giggling, “Miraaa…how are you not pregnant yet dating this…machine? God…” She put her hands on my chest and pushed herself upright, giving me the most excited and pleased smile and for just an instant in the low light looked just like Mordred and…
“Oh god…” BOOM.
When I came to a minute later, Mira and Cana were both looking at me in surprise. I couldn’t catch my breath, my heart was hammering and honestly my dick hurt a little from that one. As soon as they were sure I was awake, Mira started circling her fingernail over my heart, “So…Mordred huh?”
I went a bit pale, Oh shit, did I say that out loud? “Um…yeah. That look Cana just gave me was the exact same one Mo-chan used to.”
“Must’ve been one hell of a look,” Cana mused, “That was definitely the hardest orgasm you’ve had today.”
“It was hot,” Mira clarified before looking at me, “Although I’m a little bit concerned over you going off like that groaning the name of a girl who’s not even here.”
I grimaced, “One thing ya gotta understand, Mordred’s a ghost.” That got a pair of raised eyebrows so I smiled and pushed myself a little more upright, “That’s right, I still haven’t told you what all was behind that memory block have I? I explained it all to Erza already but while I’m thinking about it…” So I spent the next hour or so explaining the Holy Grail War and what all had happened in it.
Cana and Mira were much better listeners than the team had been. They only interrupted once to ask if I had pictures (I did courtesy of Archive) and when I was done, they asked if there was any way I could summon Mordred again.
I blinked at the question, “I…don’t think so. I mean, there might be a way, but it would be extremely difficult. If I ever get back home and can observe the Grail’s systems, then I might be able to replicate and modify it, allowing it to generate permanent, independent manifestations rather than temporary contracted servants. The sky high amounts of ethernano here would make powering it a breeze, but I’d have to go home for that and I might not be able to come back if I do. Besides, that would make it basically a perfected R-System, which I’m pretty sure would not go over well, and might get me cursed.”
“Well, that’s completely out of the question then. Do you think she’d like us?” Mira asked curiously.
“Like you?” I laughed, “She’d be in this bed with us right now wearing all three of us out! I’m an insatiable horndog yeah, but I’ve got absolutely nothing on Mordred’s stamina. She could probably finish off three of me one after the other and still be ready for another round! If we hadn’t had other pressing issues like the War, I don’t think she would’ve let me out of the bed for the entire three weeks we were together.”
Cana sighed and ran a hand through her hair, incidentally giving us a great view, “Speaking of being together, since you two clearly are back together now, should…we talk about where Erza and I fit in? ‘Cause, this has been…fun, and I’d kinda like to do it more often. Should we…I dunno, set up some kind of rules or something or…?”
“Nope,” I replied immediately, “Rules are made to be broken and creating some sort of system is simply asking for it to break down.” I smiled, “It’s very simple. I love Erza,” I shot her a fond smile before kissing Mira, “I love you…” I pushed us both upright with my telekinesis so I could kiss Cana, “And I’m well on my way to loving you if that’s what you want. And you three are best friends right?”
Mira smiled at me a little crookedly, “So basically you think we should just proceed with a relationship the same way we did with sex?”
I nodded and Cana grinned, “So I can jump either of your bones whenever huh?”
“And we’ll return the favor sometimes,” Mira added as she drew Cana into a kiss that made her shiver in my lap. Given that I hadn’t pulled out yet…
Cana’s eyes went wide and she looked at me in surprise, “Again?”
I grinned crookedly, “It has been an hour…”
Cana stared for a second and then huffed lightly with a grin, “Hey Mira, you don’t mind if I get pregnant right? I have a feeling he’s gonna knock all three of us up before too long.”
Mira shrugged with a small smile, “Eh. Goes with the territory. I’m sure Mr. Billionaire here can handle it.” It registered briefly with me that she knew about our insane haul from Mattachu and then she completely derailed that train of thought by pressing against me with a grin, “How many kids did that pharaoh have again? Over a hundred? I don’t think I can stand having that many by myself.”
Cana grinned and started to gyrate her hips eeever so tantalizingly slowly, “A hundred? Good thing Erza got in on this sooner rather than later then. She’s a billionaire too now, right?”
A sudden irrational terror briefly overrode the building pleasure as it occurred to me that I might be in bed with two gold diggers looking for lockdown babies. I didn’t want to even consider the possibility. Erza wasn’t like that… Mira wasn’t like that… Cana wasn’t like that…They couldn’t be like that… I knew the instant the possibility occurred to me that it would absolutely destroy me. Losing Erica had been awful, it had come within an inch of killing me no matter whether I’d ever admit those instances of considering those knives so enticing an alternative to dealing with the guilt or not.
Losing Mira? And now Erza and Cana as well? Especially like that? I’d be nothing but a husk, a shambling corpse a thousand times worse than I was between Erica’s death and meeting His Majesty! If losing Enkidu had almost killed Gilgamesh, and he openly admitted it had, then I knew that if I lost Mira and Cana to something like that? Forget killing me, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to kill.
Suddenly acutely aware that it might as well be my very soul on the line (I knew Lancelot’s story entirely too well), there was only one thing to do.
“Mira, Cana, I’m sorry, I gotta look.” They both looked very surprised and then very offended as I jumped into their minds one after the other without a single further word of warning to determine their intentions.
To my overwhelming relief and delight, neither of them had the slightest intention of that sort. They were…actually doing this because they liked me. They legitimately thought that highly of me! They thought I was good husband material! Good dad potential! Mira thought I’d make adorable babies! They’d both thought that even before I was obscenely wealthy! The compliment inherent in all that was praise higher than anything I could’ve ever hoped for, and I immediately felt like an absolute heel for doubting them for even a second.
I’m not gonna lie, it brought tears to my eyes. I grabbed them both into a hug, “Oh my god I am so sorry! I should never have doubted you! So sorry so sorry so sorry…”
It took them a second and then Cana demanded, “Wait a minute, did you think we were doing this just for the money?”
I looked her right in the eye and downloaded a few statistics and a bit of mainstream ‘culture’ (I use that term in the loosest sense with the maximum degree of contempt) from home into her and Mira’s heads that explained exactly why I had been worried.
They both looked at me in shock and horror, and Mira found her voice first, “A forty percent divorce rate?”
“Your world. Is messed. UP.” Cana declared firmly. I nodded silently and hung my head, still very ashamed that I had doubted them. Then Cana lifted my chin, looked me in the eye and smiled at me more than a little seductively, “So it’s a good thing you’re not there anymore, right?”
Mira whispered in my ear, “You’re here, and you’re ours.” DINGDINGDING AND WE’RE OFF!
Our earlier lovemaking thoroughly paled in comparison to the intensity of what followed that absolute affirmation of trust and affection. There was absolutely nothing that either of them could’ve said or done to wrap my heart more firmly around their fingers. I vaguely wonder if they knew that at the time, but at the same time, I really don’t care because I know now that they’d never use our relationship to hurt me.
I am the luckiest man alive. This I knew right then to be an absolute FACT, and nobody is ever going to dissuade me of that fact. I was even sure that I had not somehow died and gone to Heaven because I now knew that Mordred would’ve been there waiting for me if I had. Which also brought to mind the definite need to find a way to get her back, somehow. Not just Mo-chan, I added to myself in the wee hours of the morning as I lay awake in bed with two angels on either side of my chest and a third draped across me, Everybody.