"What are you doing here?" Yang looked up at the vitriol in Ruby's voice. People were already beginning to crowd around her, so she rushed to get a spot to figure out what was going on.
Ruby was standing in front of a man that looked like a punk, long, black, spiky hair cascading down his back, at least fifteen stud piercings between his nose, eyebrows and ears. He even seemed to have metal going through his arms, and also seemed to have bandages wrapped around his midsection and neck. Ruby was pointing a glowing spear at him, which he responded to with a forced calm, "Don't think I like this anymore than you do, Chloris, I just joined because I needed somewhere to work and didn't want to leave Magnolia."
"What you need is to be in prison. How did you even escape jail time? The Council declared Phantom a Dark Guild and told you all to disband!"
"And I disbanded," the man said.
"And came here?" Ruby said, obviously miffed by that.
"Obviously. What would I even have jail time for? You took me out of the fight in the first battle."
"Destroying our Guildhall? Crucifying Levy, Jet and Droy?" Ruby snapped, and Yang heard an intake of breath from Weiss, while her own eyes trailed over to the bandage covered Levy. That was how she got banged up?
"Oh, I see, when Fairy Tail causes property damage it's alright, but when we do it-"
"We don't break the D.I.T!" Ruby snapped, pulling back the spear as if to thrust it, when-
"Now, now, Ruby," Makarov said, "I personally gave my approval of Gajeel joining us."
Ruby growled, before letting the spear fade and turning, "BSL! Out front, ten minutes, we got a job that needs doing."
"Lucy and I are coming along, Ruby," Erza called, pulling a blonde up by the shoulder.
"I- fine, just know we're giving the reward to the girls to let them get on their feet."
"Acceptable," Erza nodded, "I'll hitch my luggage to the back of the carriage."
—
Lucy Heartfilia was feeling rather confused. Why was she on a job if she wasn't going to get any pay from it? Well, other than "Erza said", which was a perfectly valid reason on its own.
She watched the white haired girl pouring some sort of powder into her rapier, finally asking, "What is that?"
"Dust?" The girl said, then her brows met, "Shouldn't you know that?"
"Dust? Like, the stuff that builds up if you don't clean something long enough?" Lucy asked in turn.
"No, I- you don't know what Dust is?"
"Yang mentioned something about it, but didn't go into detail," Ruby shrugged from where she was snuggled up against Erza, resting her head on the shoulder pad of Erza's armor like it was comfortable, "said something about powering her motorcycle?"
"Well, yes, that is one use of Dust," Weiss conceded, "but it's used for much more than that! It generates a different elemental effect based on the color! I… You really haven't heard of it before?"
"Don't mind her," Blake said, reading a book, "she's the heiress to the biggest supplier of Dust in the world."
"I'd say it sounds like a crutch," Erza said, "but Mystogan uses nothing but Lacrima powered staves and he's an S-Rank."
"I knew I was forgetting someone when I was listing them," Ruby muttered.
"You're an heiress?" Lucy asked, and Weiss nodded, "isn't it the worst?"
"I- what?"
"I'm the daughter of the Heartfilia Konzern," Lucy explained, "I left them behind to join Fairy Tail."
"You… Left it behind?" Weiss said in surprise.
"Yep, and I don't regret it at all. Fairy Tail is my family now, it's as simple as that."
—
Ruby stared out over the camp from the edge, sighing, "Zeref cultists. It's always Zeref cultists."
"Zeref?" Blake asked quietly.
"The most evil wizard to ever live," Ruby said quietly, "go get the others."
Blake slinked away, leaving Ruby to watch the crowd chanting prayers to Zeref. About twenty minutes later they all arrived, and Ruby looked over them, "Ready?"
They nodded, and Ruby put her hands together, stretching them out with a longbow forming between them, and pulled back the string to manifest a glowing arrow, "White God's Baldr Bow."
The arrow flew over the gathered cultists heads, before unnaturally curving down and going straight again to pierce through the preacher's chest. Her and Erza were already moving by that point, Ruby manifesting a sword of black tinged white light as Erza requipped a sword. Behind her, she heard Yang slam her fists together, glancing back to see a glowing aura had surrounded her with flames. Blake had sunk into the shadows, and Weiss had created a large snowflake glyph burning with red energy while scrawling the word "lightning" on her rapier.
Flicking her wrist, a giant fireball came from the seal, crashing into three cultists and making them collapse. Weiss then began to seemingly skate over to them, thrusting her rapier into one's shoulder and shocking him.
Yang launched forwards like a bullet, smashing into a group of five cultists, grabbing one by the robe and whipping him into his four friends. Bolts of darkness magic hit her, and it just seemed to make her stronger, throwing the man into the shooter.
Lucy swung a key down, saying "Open, gate of the Golden Bull, Taurus!"
A minotaur appeared then, naked except for a pair of briefs and carrying a giant ax, "Is it time for me to protect your perfect body, Luuuuuucy?"
What the-?
Blake rose from the shadows in the center of five cultists, slashing out and incapacitating each one. She then sank back into the shadows to dodge a beam of dark magic from the cult leader, who was standing despite the arrow in his chest.
Well, that wouldn't do at all.
Ruby crouched before leaping over the heads of the cultists and bringing her glowing foot down on the leader's head, smashing him into the ground while Erza cut through the cultists, not even bothering with any of her fancier armors or weapons.
—
Night had fallen at their camp a while ago, and most people were asleep. The exceptions were Blake and Ruby. Blake sat in the darkness, while Ruby tended the fire.
They had to stay the night at the cultists' camp while they waited for the nearby contingent of the royal army to come and pick them up. Ruby had called them with a strange orb earlier, and they had said they would be there by first light.
Finally, Blake broke the silence, "So you're really Yang's sister?"
"Looks like it," Ruby said casually, roasting a marshmallow over the flame, "You're close?"
"She's my partner… Not romantically, I mean, Beacon pairs as many students as possible up, and Yang and I were."
"Hmm," Ruby nodded.
"So how did you get here? I mean, you have to be from Remnant, so how did you…?"
"Honestly? I dunno. My earliest memories are living with my "father"," Ruby spat the word like a curse, "and siblings in Breidablik."
"You have siblings? Other than Yang?"
"Had. And we weren't really siblings, we barely got to interact if it wasn't training time. I mostly kept to myself, but if I had to guess, I'd say I was closest with Ten. They were a scrawny boy with a wolf's tail, gray hair, and silver eyes. That was the one thing we all had in common, we had sliver eyes."
"You think that's a trait he was looking for, when he was taking you?" Blake asked.
"That's my best guess, yeah."
"You seem… Casual, about this."
"It's something that happened in my past," Ruby shrugged, "I can't change it, and until I figure out where the bastard is I can't get revenge for it. So I just gotta live with it. I know people who are trapped and damaged by their past, Erza was one of them for a long time. But me? I just always accepted it as something that happened and moved on with life. I have a family with Grandpa, that dumbass Laxus, and the rest of Fairy Tail. That's good enough for me."
"Didn't you kick Laxus in the neck when we first got to the guild?"
"What cousins, adopted we may be, don't fight from time to time? I like to think it deflates both of ours egos, because we never know who's going to win."
"What about her, what her deal?" Blake asked, pointing towards Lucy.
"Wouldn't know, she's new to the guild and we've mostly been doing other stuff meaning we barely cross paths. She's part of Erza's team, that's all I know, other than what she told you in the carriage."
"Do you know anything about her magic? She summoned that cowman…"
"A bit. Celestial Spirit Wizards. They're fairly rare, because you need the keys she has to summon them and form a contract. Most of them are stuck with Silver Keys, I'm impressed she has more than one gold."
"So it's a mutual relationship," Blake said in relief.
"Yeah," Ruby said, eating her s'more, "get some sleep, Blake, I'll take the watch."
---
I want them to do one more job before the BfFT starts, but dunno what.
