It was then when Marigold realized something very critical to the situation, that she had just angered someone who held a certain power over her.

Perhaps power isn't the right word, as presence fit her position much better. However, it was that presence that gave her the power of Marigold. That constant and persistent presence that Marigold could never escape. That voice, beating in her head, crying out again and again as if it were this endless echo.

At least, for Marigold's sake, the echo got tired and bored every now and then.

You did that on purpose. She would proclaim. This is MY body! You can't do this!

"Doe." 

You're trying to steal my body, aren't you?!

"Hey, are you listening?" 

You can't have it! This is my body! This isn't fair! I have a life in my world! You can't take my body and use it for yourself!

"Doe!"

Finally, Marigold lifted her head, turning to Liddan to realize his arm was on her shoulder. Looking into his eyes, she could see his concern mixed with simple fear. He didn't understand what had just happened, and now Marigold was beginning to realize she wasn't sure how to explain it.

"Hey, you okay? You just kinda fizzled out for a second--" he realized that even though Marigold was staring right at him, she wasn't really looking at him. "Hey, are you in there--" 

Suddenly, she turned away, her arms grabbing onto the edge of the pool and pushing her up out of the water. 

She kicked her leg over the side, taking deep and unsteady breaths as she began walking from the pool, away from Liddan without a word.

He'd have to be a fool not to realize that Marigold was clearly hurt. Why? He couldn't tell, but he couldn't just sit there either. In just a few moments, Liddan too was awkwardly pushing himself out of the pool, struggling to keep up with Marigold as he found himself making what sounded like desperate cries for Marigold to wait for him.

"Doe--wait!" he grunted under his breath as his false arm chafed against the concrete, making a discomforting sound as the metal met stone. Nonetheless, he continued out of the water, stumbling with his first steps on the solid ground, chasing after the suddenly frantic girl he'd just been sleuthing with moments before.

"Hey!" he called a final time before reaching Marigold, grabbing onto her arm with a certain dexterity, like he'd done it before. "Doe, listen to me," he spun her around, his other arm snaking up to Marigold's shoulder to have a full foundation over her stance. He looked into her eye, this time making sure she saw him. "Hey, hey," he voice softened suddenly as he caught sight of her frantic expression, suddenly falling into a nurturing position, "what just happened there? You really freaked me out, okay?" 

Her breathing was still heavy, almost to the point where Marigold couldn't speak. She shut her eyes, hoping with a true sincerity that the voice would in time silence itself, however, it remained persistent and she soon found herself deafened by its presence, finding it almost impossible to focus on anything but her.

"Come on," Liddan said, nonetheless, "let's dry off." 

Without any answers, Liddan walked away with Marigold, looking back with wonder at what was in the water that had left her so stupefied. 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

The arena was frozen, that was a clear fact. It was done by Gideon, but it was Simie's fault. 

It was interesting, how clever she was, and there was subtle respect her opponents couldn't help but feel as they approached her. Perhaps it was her witty charm, or perhaps it was because she'd enchanted them in some malicious way. The latter of the two options seemed most likely.

It was around then that Simie chose to fully expose the lot of her abilities, which was the ability to requip. 

Upon the freezing of the top white square, Simie allowed herself to requip into a much darker outfit than her slim, white, dress.

Suddenly, she was dressed in black and dark purple, a long scythe extending from her slender arm as she turned to Frost. "Alright then, let's get this started." 

It was then when Gideon realized something. The charm had vanished. 

Frost rolled up his sleeves, then tugged down on his fingerless gloves to ensure their snuggness on his hand. He smiled as he took three confident steps forward. "Alrighty then," he chuckled, shaking his head as his white bangs hung daringly in her eyes. He lifted his arms up, raising them forward as a wicked grin broke out on her face. He spoke again, one last time, before looking right into Simie's off-colored eyes to repeat, "Alrighty."

With the flick of his wrists, the ice broke out onto his skin, speckling his arms right down to the fingers. 

He squatted down to the ground, his hands falling flatly against the path of ice that had carelessly gathered around his feet. His palms felt the smooth and cold frozen of the ice, until he suddenly he swung his arm up, taking the now misshapen ice with him. 

It melted and froze again in mid-air, now taking the form of a sharp projectile he targetted at Simie. 

One after the other, Frost began to chuck the sharp frozen shapes at Simie, watching her swing her scythe around to shatter the small objects before they could reach her. 

His hands traced the walls, gathering more ice as he went along. "You know, this would've been more fun if it was just me and ice boy, but you just had to butt in and be the third wheel." 

"Don't be so rude," Simie said, lowering her blade just enough to expose her half covered face. "I've got every right to be here as well." 

One hand still on the wall, Frost gave a half smile just before he swung his arm forward, sending a long sheet of ice flying towards Simie. She lifted up her scythe, but just as the two made contact, the ice melted into water, flying past the scythe and wrapping around Simie--once again as ice.

The ice tightened around her, as though it were some kind of belt that had been wrapped around her body and arms. Her arms fell to the sides, and she dropped the scythe, unable to hold it with her arms pushed down. 

"Thanks for playing, but it's time for the adults to talk now," with a smirk, he flicked his index finger up, the ice suddenly changing its form again and piercing into Simie's body. She flinched, the sharp and tense feeling just enough to get a reaction out of her. She could've managed, but then those spikes began to drill into her skin.

She let out a sharp cry, feeling helpless as the ice drilled into her body from all sides, drilling deeper until the ice used to wrap her began to sink into her body with the small frozen drills. Simie was free to move, but there was nothing to do to stop the ice that was already making its way into her body.

Her hands clutched to her opened sides, as if trying to reach in and grab the ice within her. Frost proceeded to laugh, his index finger spinning softly on his outstretched hand. "Sorry babe, nothin' you can do about that. I've got all the control of where that ice goes."

"Stop that!" Gideon barked, raising his hand in a defensive manner, "You're killing her." 

"And?" His eyebrow perked up, "sorry, don't remember that being against the rules." He lolled his head to the side, "Sorry, I know it isn't classy or creative, it's just I'm in a bit of a hurry to get her out of the way--"

Suddenly, a large ball of ice was headed right for Frost's face.

Upon contact, he let out a quiet yelp, then was immediately hit between the eyes, pushing him back into the wall, where he then slumped down to the ground. 

It didn't kill him, or properly knock him out. However, it successfully stopped the ice from doing any more damage.

It quickly melted, and Simie could feel the cool drops of water fall from the tiny holes that roped around her body.

It looked a bit strange, and she watched as blood began to trickle out of the small openings, not enough to kill her if she simply wrapped the small openings, but clearly enough to be an annoyance for the rest of the battle.

She turned her head to Gideon, picking herself up off the ground as she tore the bottom of her skirt to wrap around her arm. "Thank you," she said with a certain reluctance. 

"You okay?" He asked, a surprising amount of concern speckling his expression. 

Her once fierce expression suddenly weakened, and Simie found herself answer softly, nodding her head with a polite, "Yes."

"Good," he lifted his arm forward, an ice club forming in his hand as he began approaching Simie. "Cuz I'm gonna kill you--"

"No! Wait!" Simie quickly finished her wrapping before she began to run away from Gideon. It was like a childish game of a tag that Simie was attempting to talk her way out of, backing away at a quickened pace, dodging violent swings as she tried to explain her intentions of using Gideon to get her where she was. 

"You see," she began with a now slurred speech, "I'm usually very well kept, as you might notice, but at the moment I realized that it would be best if I had someone at my dispos--I mean to help me! I realize it was quite insensitive to use my familiarity magic on you, but I had to do something--I have a hard time making friends and I thought winning this match would make my guild like me more!" 

Gideon suddenly stopped, and with haste, his opinion of Simie dropped right to pity. "You are...you are just so sad." Simie pursed her lips, finding that she would rather have Gideon again try to kill her than give see her in such a pathetic light. Nonetheless, it successfully got Gideon's attention off her, as he directed his eyes back on Frost, who stood far across the area with a smug expression. "Alright, I'll lay off you for now, so long as you don't pull anything. But I think it's for our best interest that we focus our attention on Frosty the Snowturd over there."

"That was terrible wordplay--" Gideon shot a glare, well, more rather a face that seemed he could cry at any moment. Simie soon realizing that even insulting his jokes counted as an attack. "I mean, never mind."

"His guild has won everything it's been in, and it feels like it just came out of nowhere too." 

"True," Simie nodded her head, "it does seem like they just arrived out of the blue, and their winning streak is impressive, if not a bit annoying." 

"You...you realize I can hear you," Frost announced from across the arena, where he stood with his back pressed to the wall, casually responding out of boredom. 

"Shut up!" Gideon shot back instinctively, not completely sure why he was so annoyed with the guy. 

"Oh boy, someone's riled up!" He continued to tease, his hands in his pockets as he sauntered around the opposite side of the arena. "What? Your girlfriend not wanna give you any sugar last night?" 

"She's my fiance! And we're waiting for our sugar, thank you very much!" 

Frost pursed his lips, his eyes widening as he struggled to maintain anything remotely like a straight face. He suddenly began laughing hysterically. Bending over, he slapped his knee as he laughed continuously, "Did you just admit to being a virgin, live to everyone?"

 Gideon pursed his lips, his face glowing red as he stood frozen by his own words. Mumbling to Simie, he asked, "The...they can't hear us...right? With the ice and all....?" 

This was not the case. Though the three of them couldn't hear what was happening outside, because of the ice. Thanks to lacrimas being placed within the inside of the room, even with the ice, though frozen, they did a fine job delivering the audio the rest of the arena and the entire watching audience across Fiore.

"Yes! YES! We can definitely hear you!!" 

"Oh boy, that's gonna be an awkward talk when he gets out of there!" 

"ᴵᶠ ʰᵉ ᵍᵉᵗˢ ᵒᵘᵗ..."

"You..." Gideon was, to say the least, at a lost for words, and continued to grow red as he struggled to think of something clever or nasty to say, as he had been raised in a pretty chill home (literally). "That's it! No more chit-chat!" He wiped the sweat that was threatening to stream down his brow thanks to his growing fear that he had just exposed his innocence to the entire country. "Let's finish this!" 

He began charging towards him, and Frost smiled, pushing himself gently off the wall, pulling his gloved hands from his pockets as he stepped forward to match Gideon's approach on a minuscule scale. He bent forward slightly, and as Gideon approached, swept his hands 

Due to his anger and threatened masculinity, he came in with just a simple punch. Of course, as he approached, Frost made a subtle yet damaging approach. As Gideon's fist approached his face, he slid his hand up around Gideon's wrist, allowing it to slide gently against his fingers until he tightly clenches his fist, his hand tightly wrapping the exposed skin. 

Suddenly, Gideon felt it creep up into his arm, a sharp and cold pain inside him. 

Pulling away, he watched as white flakes speckled the palm of Frost's glove. He looked down at his own hand, realizing that his arm, from the tip of his fingers to his elbow, couldn't be moved. "What the--"

"Ice Infection," Frost announced as he moved away from Gideon, watching the ice creep up through his veins, slowly taking over more of his arm. Out of impulse, Gideon's foot quickly found Frost's shin, kicking violently enough to cause him to release him. As Gideon backed away, the ice kept creeping through his body. This didn't seem good.

"Gahhhhhh," he let out the low guttural noise, "It's not stopping--" he turned to Simie, "--why isn't it stopping?" 

"How should I know?" she said with a shrug, "it's his magic." 

The ice, though cold, found a way to burn Gideon, and he felt out of his element, despite being completely surrounded by it. Suddenly, it felt familiar, which didn't seem to make it any more comfortable. He struggled to breathe, which wasn't apart of the magic.

In another way, Gideon froze. 

Simie had to grab Gideon by the arm, shaking him as she pulled him away from Frost for his own safety. "Gideon, Gideon you gotta snap out of it--" 

"Off me, you evil woman!" he spat out frantically, "I can't wrap my head around this strange magic!" 

His manner of speaking was, so to speak, really awkward and forced.

In the crowd, Nashi nodded her head, "I've noticed that whenever Gideon panics, he tends to insert the titles of Electric Light Orchestra songs into his vocabulary. I think it brings him a kind of comfort."

"Believe me now!" Gideon went in his hysteria, "I'm gonna send you straight into Mr. Blue Sky!" 

Simie, rightfully so, smacked Gideon across the face, which was enough to knock him down to the ground. He was there for a second, so Simie sighed, changing her stance as she directed her attention to Frost, "Okay, so I guess I chose the wrong guy to make a truce with, so, I guess it's just you and me--"

"That's it!" Gideon flung his head up, small clumps of ice dropping from his face as he began moving around, he jabbed a finger at Frost, and began to shout in a somewhat more coherent way, "I'm gonna pummel your ugly face into the concrete!!" 

"I wouldn't call him ugly..." Simie muttered, a bit of a blush on her face, "I mean, he looks a lot like you after all." 

"Why do people keep saying that?!"

Simie made a tight expression, then shrugged her shoulders. She whipped her hand out, summoning a scythe as she said, "Gideon, I don't see much use to this truce if you can't fight, so..."

"Wait, so you're saying that if I didn't have blood, then I'd be fine?" 

"Well, you wouldn't have blood," Simie responded, "so I'd say no." 

"But yeah, you need blood for the infection to work," Frost, in turn, answered, "it's an infection, I don't understand why this is a question--"

"Okay then, I'm getting rid of my blood--" Gideon instantly shot his arm out, an intense expression on his face as he gave a sudden look to Simie, "Cover me!" 

Holding her scythe up, she watched for a brief moment as Gideon's arm began to distort, the physical form somehow evaporating to swap out for a more liquidated form. It was actually quite disgusting, which was perfect, as Frost was still on the move, and needed to be tended to. 

Bouncing off his charges, Simie maintained Frost as Gideon worked his literal magic. With much intensity in his eyes, Gideon let out a growl as finally, with a bit of a poof, his arm's skin, muscle, blood, and bone was replaced with nothing but water. 

This, to some extent, surprised everyone.

"Now, please, someone explain to me what just happened." 

"Well, it appears that Gideon Fullbuster is also a Rainwoman--I mean, Rainman, much like his mother Juvia Fullbuster, a fact that before now, we did not know." 

The members of the audience, especially Gideon's parents were extremely shocked by the news that not only did Gideon possess the ability to use waterbody, a power exclusive to Rainwomen, but had managed to teach himself the ability without the help of his mother. 

The rest of the guild, crowded in their box, all looked to Juvia and Gray for a moment in hopes that they'd have something to say. All Gray could manage to say was, "Well, he was always good at math..."

Back in the arena, Gideon with water arm, was ignorant to the chaos he'd just started. "You know, now that I think of it, did I ever mention this power to my parents?" 

There in his clear arm, he took notice the sharp white strand of ice floating inside his arm, which he quickly plucked out with his other arm. 

"Well, that worked out better than I--OH NO!" This oh no, in particular, was in response to the fact that Gideon's body was now beginning to lose form, quickly liquidizing until in a single poof, Gideon was nothing more than a puddle with the thickness of maybe pudding.

"Gideon!" Simie called out quickly, shocked by his sudden disappearance. Using her scythe, she dug her feet down and led one quick stride across Frost's chest, stunning him. Taking this opportunity, she ran to the puddle. Note that this was less out of concern for Gideon and more out of concern for the fact that she wasn't sure how to physically defeat a puddle of water. So as she arrived at the puddle, she looked down at the fairly sized mass of water forming on the icey floor and cautiously dipped the toe of her boot into the puddle. "Gideon...are you there...and can you feel this?" 

"Yes!" A blob suddenly pulled itself up, moving around the boot to form one awkward mass. "And I have an idea!" 

Gideon, now an awkward blob, moved around the floor, and as he did, absorbed the ice, "I'll break down the ice, pick off the other competitors as they come by, you handle Frost." 

As the ice began to melt into Gideon, slowly opening up the top square of the arena, Simie watched as Gideon grew in size, until he was around 15 feet of clumpy watery mass.

"This is going to be...interesting..."

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

The good couple, Laurie and Sylvie, of which it seems hadn't been heard from in what felt like a year, had been tasked with the duty of sitting the triplets since they arrived. The two had been roomed with the Dragneel couple, who had three toddlers accompanying them. The young couple currently in the early stages of pregnancy for their first child, had offered to help with the kids in hopes of becoming better equipped for their own child, but found themselves quite overwhelmed in just the first day of the games.

That night, after Natsu and Lucy had taken the triplets for a quick walk around the plaza, they each found themselves deeply exhausted.

"That was..." Laurie began, "nice....?"

"Yes, very nice," Sylvie pursed her lips, such sweet kids, really--"

"Energetic."

"In the best way."

"A very...warm?"

After realizing they'd run out of vague and fake compliments, they both flat out said, "I'd kill myself if I had to spend every day with those kids."

There was a slight relief to know that the other felt the same, but the couple was still left rather frantic as they realized that parenting was a rather difficult thing to do. So, they started to list the positives.

"Well," Laurie started off, "it's not like we're having three at once."

"That's right," Sylvie said firmly, "only the one--as far as we know--"

"Only the one," Laurie said firmly, a dead look in his eyes.

"Plus," Sylvie spoke hesitantly, "these are the Dragneels."

"Good point, these are the Dragneels."

"And--God bless them--they have the tendency to make very...energetic children."

"And adults."

"And we're not having a Dragneel. We're having a Fullbuster-Refox collaborative project."

"I like that name, I say we go with that if it's a boy." Sylvie laughed, calmed down a bit, though the two were still rather anxious about the future of their family.

So the next day, it was quite a shocker when they found that the Dragneels had taken their bundles of joy out with them, leaving Sylvie and Laurie free to spend their morning alone--sleeping.

Sylvie felt dreadful by the time she woke up, realizing it was ten and she was missing the games. Throwing the covers off of herself and Laurie, she started spouting out, "Hurry and get dressed! We have to go see the games!"

Laurie, being too exhausted to get up, lifted his arm limply (trying to find the sheets pulled off of him) and make a low guttural noise for a solid quarter of a minute. Sylvie, finding her husband too exhausted to really get out of bed, went downstairs by herself, knowing they'd keep the games on at the lobby, where they happened to serve brunch, Sylvie second favorite blended meal.

When she came downstairs, she found the lobby rather barren compared to how it had been the nights before. Everyone else was actually in the arena, so it seemed.

Looking up to the lacrima, she watched until, sure enough, she found her own brother fighting up on the screen. She clenched her fist, shaking her head as she quietly mumbled, "Dang triplets keeping us up all night--"

"Hey there," Sylvie stopped her quiet rant for a moment to turn her head to a man standing over her. He was rather tall, blonde, and had an odd look in his eyes.

"Oh, hi," Sylvie looked around to where she was standing by the counter, "do you need this seat?"

"No, no," he gave a nod, "just here to watch."

Sylvie had assumed he meant the games, but as the man sat himself down beside her, it was apparent of what he was actually watching.

Smiling politely, she pushed herself off the bar and moved towards the tiny round tables set up in the lobby. She sat down, crossing her legs and avoiding eye contact with the weird guy over at the bar.

Of course, that became increasingly more difficult as he followed her over to her seat, and then asked, "Is this seat taken?"

"Uh," Sylvie made a face, the man sat down.

"I'm Nirvek," he said, "weird name, right?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Sylvie shrugged, "I do know a girl named after a pear, so you have nothing to worry about."

"I used to be made fun of for my name," he looked away, not seeming to register what Sylvie had just said. "But now I'm proud of it, it's made me stronger."

Sylvie wasn't sure how to react to what he'd just said. Luckily, the server arrived and asked for their order, breaking the sudden conversation. They each ordered tea, and Sylvie ordered herself some pancakes. She didn't have it in her to ask the man to leave, but seeing he was alone there in the morning, he might just be a lonely man wanting someone to have breakfast with him. That or an escaped mental patient.

"What'd you say your name was?"

"I didn't," Sylvie said, then stopped talking.

There was a pause, Nirvek waited for her to say something. Had the server not come to pour, she might have had to break the silence by revealing some personal information.

They talked for a bit after their tea was served, though it was mostly Sylvie just reacting to the strange things Nirvek was bragging about. Everything he said, Sylvie felt she ought to take with a grain of salt, however, the longer he talked it felt more like a great big boulder of salt because Sylvie was pretty sure he was straight up lying about some things. Stupid things too.

"So she cheated on me with five different guys," at this point, Sylvie had resigned herself to just say "mhmm" with a nod in response to everything he said. She'd have left, but she'd already put in her order and didn't want to give up her pancakes just because some weird guy wouldn't leave her alone. "So clearly, she was way too hard for one man to please."

"Yes," Sylvie took a sip from her tea, "and that by no means reflects your ability to please a woman." She herself was a bit ashamed at giving into the discomforting discussion of sex, but she was there anyway. No going back.

"Hey, I can go for three hours straight."

"That's not something to brag about," said Sylvie, straight.

"You know," he leaned in a little, which couldn't be good for Sylvie, "I can't say I've been thinking straight, either."

"Oh," Sylvie's eyes widened, honestly, with relief, "well, I'm always one to promote sexual exploration in a safe, consensual environment--"

"No," he said promptly, "I meant I haven't been thinking clearly."

"Have you considered glasses?" Sylvie smiled lightly at the thought of a sentient and independent brain wearing a pair of glasses.

He laughed as he propped his arm up on the edge of the table. Finally, the server dropped Sylvie's breakfast off. She immediately picked up her fork and knife and began to break apart the pancakes. "So excuse me if I say something inappropriate, but I just gotta get this out."

Sylvie hesitantly put her fork in her mouth, preparing to swallow her pancakes. She nodded her head as if to say, "Go ahead."

"I'll **** you someday."

Sylvie choked, partially from shock, but mostly from laughter. She quickly grabbed her orange juice to wash it down.

"Maybe I'll do it today," he smirked as Sylvie struggled for oxygen, "I'll take you up to my room, throw you on the bed and--"

"No thank you," she finally managed to say.

"Oh, so we'll go to your place, why don't you go up to your room and freshen up and I'll come up to see you--"

"Please stop."

"Oh sure," he rolled his head back, whipping his arms up as he rambled, "tell me honestly, what would you do if a 6 foot, blond, blue-eyed man--with six-pack--would show up at your door."

"Close the door."

He scoffed, "So cruel."

Sylvie sighed, setting down her fork. "Sorry, but you aren't really my type."

"Well," he scoffed, again, "what is your type, girls?"

"No, my husband," she whipped her hand up, pointing to the ring with a certain intensity.

He looked at the ring quite intently, and then made a face, "Oh--I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were married."

While Sylvie was glad he was finally beginning to leave, she couldn't help but still feel incredibly peeved off. "Wait, stop it," the man, who was grabbing his coat, froze as he looked up at Sylvie, "I have spent the last several minutes telling you no, over and over again--in various different ways, but you wouldn't shut up about until you learned I was married?"

"Yeah--what, of course?" his face scrunched up, as though Sylvie were making no sense, "You think I'm gonna keep hitting on you knowing you've got a husband waiting to beat me up--"

Sylvie smacked her hand against the table, getting into his face as she hissed, "He's not the one you should be afraid of!"

It was quite unfortunate for Sylvie that her message was not getting across. Rather, Nirvek in his horrid stupidity took this as a sign that Sylvie was, somehow, interested in him. "Oh, wait," he said, and Sylvie could already tell that he was about to come up with the worst possible conclusion, "I get it, gotta be honest, I don't like to go for women in relationships, but I can't turn away a...powerful woman like yourself." He leaned up closer to Sylvie, his arm on the table as smiled, "You're exactly my type."

He pulled away and began to walk off, Sylvie too busy gagging to manage getting in the last word. She shook her head, shut her eyes, and said a prayer, "Dear Heaven above, let me never see that man again."

Sylvie sighed, turning her head slightly the lacrimas, disappointment flooding her face as she heard, "It looks like we've decided our winner!"

"I'll KILL THAT BASTARD!" 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

Gideon was large and in charge, for the most part. He had never been that big, but had made some big things before in his titan form. He didn't usually like to think about that, but in the realizing state of being a giant mass of water picking off people one at a time and trying to fling them off the giant cube. It was a bit difficult to stay together with the cube jerking around so much, it was also difficult to hear or even see. It was like Gideon was underwater, which was a place he'd found himself a lot as a titan.

All those months, it was like he was underwater, his fingers, wrinkling like prunes, probably his toes too. He'd look like a wet animal after the end of this, all soggy and washed up. 

In those days, when he was deep in the water, he would imagine Nashi, imagining her heat would somehow dry him, like she was the sun, and just her presence was enough to keep him safe and dry. 

Good ol' Nashi, there to keep him dry.

"I wasn't exactly aware of the fact that Gideon could enlarge himself to the size of a fifteen-foot-tall water god," Nashi continued to tell the other members of Fairy Tail, who were quite shocked at the continued number of things they were learning about Gideon and his magical ability. "He would do some independent practice outside of the old facility, so when he came back, it would be like he never left so we were never sure what he did but, you know, he could have been working on, well, this whole mess." 

She propped her hands on her hips, shaking her head, "Look at this boy, flopping around like a wet noodle." 

There was silence as the rest of the guild all sat and watched Gideon flop around, a bit alarmed as Nashi harshly said, "But that's my wet noodle and don't you forget it!" 

Below all the flopping about, Simie was working terribly hard to keep Frost from infecting her, and she was trying to get a cut on him. 

He shot small fragments of ice at her, all pointed, sharp, and poisonous. Using her scythe, she would deflect the ice. She had to avoid getting absorbed by Gideon's blobby legs more than once.

She looked up at Gideon, in his awkward form, then thought to herself, "Perhaps I should work harder to counter his form." 

With some distance between her and Frost, she took a step forward, planting her scythe into the ground. A magic circle lit below her, and her current garb withered away with a flash of light, replaced by something entirely new.

This one was much more sunny, as opposed to the grim moon form. Simie was a bit more sunny looking too, a more chipper look in her eyes. 

"Alright," she said, whipping her hand out with a certain confidence. "This feels a bit more appropriate." Her dress was much more lively, and much brighter compared to the darkly hued cape and hood from before. This was, of all things, yellow.

"ᵂᵉˡˡ, ᵗʰᵃᵗ ʷᵃˢ ᶜᵉʳᵗᵃᶦⁿˡʸ ᵃ ᶜᵒˢᵗᵘᵐᵉ ᶜʰᵃⁿᵍᵉ."

"This reminds me of the time I walked in on my goth nephew without his make up on, it was a rather awkward Christmas afterward." 

"When will they learn...when will they learn that purple and yellow never work together!" 

Now in yellow, and without the scythe to drag around, Simie was suddenly much faster. Now, she quickly flung throwing knives towards Frost. 

Frost was limber, light on his feet, and sparingly used thin layers of ice to save skin from a nearing knife. With a running start, Simie flung herself towards Frost, summoning a sword in motion to strike Frost with. "Heat slicer!" She bellowed out in the air, coming down with her blade to slice Frost's left arm.

The wound did very little bleeding, as it burnt shut within the moment it was cut, but it didn't do Frost any good having a nasty cut going down his left arm. 

"And a critical hit from Simie, who has just requiped a kind of scimitar!" 

"Well isn't she thematic!"

"This is my favorite jacket," he said offhand, "my girlfriend bought it for me." 

"That's a shame," Simie smirked, raising an eyebrow as she held her weapon back, "because she'll have to buy you back in a body bag--" She made a tart expression, then hung her head forward with a deep sigh, "Dang it, I was..I was just trying to--" 

"Got a little overconfident there, huh?" Frost smiled, his hand pressing against his wound to attempt to stop the bleeding. "You know what they say about overconfidence, it's the confident swimmers that drown." 

"You must be speaking from experience," Simie shrugged, "pretty face like yours, I bet you can't help but be a bit overconfident from time to time."

"You know what," he smiled, "maybe I am, but I promise you, kid, I'm much more grounded these days--" He swept back into action, ice shooting out from his hands and towards Simie. She moved like an acrobat in her new attire, dancing across the stadium as the two shot projectile at one another.

Soon enough, that slim sliver of ice slid past Simie's arm, slicing through her skin, exposing a thin trail of blood going down her arm. Sudden, it felt numb, and her arm went into a light blue shade. Growing stiffer by the second, she put the arm back, realizing she'd have to rely on her other arm if she wanted to make any progress to finishing the game.

"Oh no," Frost cooed, "looks like you're down an arm, hope you didn't need that." 

Simie was momentarily worried about the permanence of the infection, but as she looked Frost up and down, she suddenly felt a certain calm. "It really is just confidence and a good head on your shoulders." 

Frost smiled, "Yeah?" 

"You're not really that strong," Simie said flatly, "maybe you're a bit agile, but not hardly as strong someone like Gideon." 

"So?" He smiled, unphased by the sudden commentary. "Don't need to be." 

"It's just, that I'm now realizing, that I'm wasting so much energy on you, which I should be saving on Gideon. So let's get this over with." 

She ran forward, her limp arm swinging back behind her as she went, jumping just as Frost flung out his infectious ice. With her good arm, she cast heat slicer, melting the ice before it even made contact with her or otherwise, then, flashed the sword out of existence entirely. She landed just in front of Frost, and jabbed her elbow in his face.

With haste, he brought his head back, just barely missing it. He didn't, however, miss Simie's other arm, which despite being terribly numb, still left quite an impact when smacking the side of his head at full swing. It was unpleasant, at the least, but knocked Frost off enough to allow Simie to clock him up the jaw, then again in the nose, leaving him with a bloody mess on his face.

Frost, not quite out, quickly pulled out an ice dart, gripping it in his hand like a knife as he swept his arm forward to try and cut Simie. She dodged the attack, grabbing his arm tightly and pushing Frost down onto his knees to proceed to slap him in the face with her limp arm.

Jerking her head up, she looked up at the water blob that was Gideon and cried out, "Mind taking him out, already?" 

Almost instantly, he stepped on the two of them, which Simie expected, and they were swept up into the air by Gideon's water mass.

Simie, knowing Gideon would try and take her out with Frost, quickly swam her way out of Gideon, kicking off Frost's chest to get a head start. Once her head was out of the water, she took a deeply needed breath, then fished the rest of her body out until she fell onto the top of the cube. 

Despite her escape, Gideon went ahead and flung Frost out of the cube entirely, and sure enough:

"Frost has just been eliminated from the competition, leaving only Fairy Tail and Mermaid Heel in the final square!" 

Gideon, with only Simie left to keep him from winning, continued to try and stomp on Simie to absorb and shoot her out of the arena like he had with the rest.

Agile, though exhausted, Simie kept dodging his attacks. Once finally absorbed by the water, yet again, she requiped her scimitar, acting out heat slicer yet again, boiling Gideon from the inside. 

This worked wonders in solidifying Gideon, his human form appearing in the center as the rest of the water followed the order of gravity yet again, crashing onto the final square with the two of them in the mix.

Now both entirely wet, and nearly boiled alive courtesy of Simie, the two were forced to take a moment to catch their breaths. 

On his knees, he looked across at the panting Simie, who was struggling to keep her energy up, especially when she still had the limp arm. He almost smiled as he said, "So...alliance over, I guess?" 

"Yeah," she said flatly, also out of breath, "no duh." 

Each, with great struggle, rose up onto their feet, a great challenge in its own right. Preparing for the fight, they lifted their arms as Gideon said, "I hope you've saved your energy, because, with all this water, I've got the high--" 

"And that's time! The cube has been completed at 9 minutes and 37 seconds!" 

"What!?" Gideon shouted, exacerbated. 

"Oh, right," Simie sighed, nodding her head as she relaxed her body, "I completely forgot that there was a time cap on this game." 

"But seriously, did he say 9 minutes? I mean, is it just me, or did that feel like an entire year passed in just this match--"

"Seeing that the longest-lasting competitor in the final square was Simie of Mermaid Heel, first place goes to Mermaid Heel!" 

"Yes!" Simie shot her arms up, Gideon groaning off to the side in frustration for how things went down.

"Oh come on!" He went on to say, "I turned into a giant water monster and I still didn't win?" He sighed, rolling his upper body forward in defeat as he groaned. "Fine...you manipulative wench, good game." 

He turned back to Simie, offering a hand to shake, but out of spite, lifted her limp and hand and shook it. "Probably ought to get this checked out, hope it isn't permanent." 

"Yeah," using her working hand, she pulled her limp arm out of Gideon's grip, "I'm sure the infirmary will have me fixed up." 

"Say hi to Frost for me," Gideon smirked, "by the way, it was a real pleasure watching you just...beat the crap out of that guy. Man, I can't stand him." 

"Is it because you two look so much alike, yet he's somehow so much more attractive--" 

"I will literally cry in front of you if you don't shut up." 

"The results are in! Mermaid Heel, first place!

Fairy Tail, in a close second.

Howl Caedo in third, 

Redmoon Shield in fourth,

Blue Pegasus in fifth,

Lamia Scale in sixth,

Sabertooth in seventh.

and, surprisingly, Deadly Sins in eighth place gaining no points."

"Poor guy, just teleported right out of the arena."

"I mean, honestly, it was kinda funny." 

"Yeah, it was." 

"Oh, let's replay it!" 

On the lacrima screens, the moment Reo of Deadly Sins teleported out of the arena, falling onto the ground from twenty feet up played repeatedly to the audience's delight. 

Gideon and Simie, however, still in the center square, were less amused. 

"How do we get out of this stupid cube!?" 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

"Gosh," Liddan groaned under his breath, "that was such a stupid thing to do." 

Marigold pursed her lips, tightening her grip on the towel wrapped around her. Liddan sat beside her, wringing out his wet hoodie as he grumbled to himself. 

"I swear, it's like, what's the one thing you're not supposed to do? Go towards the light in the scary abandoned whirlpool. That's, like, rule number one."

Out of curiosity to what Liddan would say, she asked, "So what's rule number two?" 

Almost instantly, he responded, "Don't leave wet towels on the floor, that's how you get mold." 

Marigold's eyebrows scrunched up, as they usually did when she heard something really weird. Nonetheless, Liddan continued to speak aimlessly, seeming to care very little whether Marigold was even listening to him. "I swear, you're probably the biggest idiot I've ever met," he shook his head, turning to Marigold to check out her expression, "that's saying something too, I come from a whole family of idiots." 

Marigold couldn't help but laugh just a bit, and Liddan did too, shaking his head as he turned away, draping his hoodie over the rack with the rest of their discarded clothes. Liddan was lucky to at least be wearing a suit, but he had found out that Marigold was, in fact, not wearing a suit under her clothes like she'd suggested. 

That was, of course, why Marigold was wrapped up so tightly in the towel. It was rather strange, earlier when she wasn't covered up. When she'd taken off her clothes, she'd done it so naturally in front of Liddan that she could tell by his face the complete shock she'd put him in.

Having lived with Liddan, she had grown accustomed to being in just her underwear in his presence, so being in that state at the time didn't bother Marigold. Until, that is, she realized that Liddan had only met her a handful of times, and the fact that she'd just so easily stripped right in front of him was a rather suggestive thing.

"Sorry...about earlier," she said after the laughter died down. 

"The jumping in the pool or the stripping in front of me?" Liddan scooted towards the rack he'd hung their clothes on, rubbing his hands together to generate friction and then fire. 

"Both?" 

"Well," Liddan opened up his palms, presenting a small fire that he rested below the wet clothes, "it's fine, for both of them anyway." He chuckled, "I mean, you've seen me naked anyway." 

Marigold pursed her lips, deeply frustrated that her counterpart had encountered Liddan in the nude. "Yup, totally...totally saw it. The whole thing." 

"Yeah..." he squinted his eyes, worried by the elusive expression on her face, "I was more worried, that's all." 

"Worried?" Marigold readjusted herself where she sat, "I mean, you barely know me, why were you so worried?" 

"Yeah, it was weird," Liddan admitted himself, "I'm not the type to really...worry that much. But when you jumped in the water, I dunno, something in me just started to panic. I had this strange feeling that you were gonna disappear in there, who knows." 

Marigold's eyes widened, watching Liddan's back as he played with the fire in his hands, drying their clothes as efficiently as possible. She found it strange how spot on he really was. Had she been successful in her little dive, she would have disappeared. However, what had really brought her to such shock was the very fact that Liddan seemed so panicked by the thought of her even disappearing. She liked to think that just a small part of him was still thinking about her, even if he didn't realize it.

Of course, what Marigold didn't seem to realize that it wasn't a small part of Liddan that was still thinking of her, but Liddan as a whole that was thinking of her. What neither of them realized is that the very thought of Marigold was beginning to kill him. 

"Thank you," Marigold nodded, "for jumping in and all." Liddan turned his head, looking over his shoulder to look at her. "I mean, you didn't have to, but the gesture itself was very kind." 

"That was a little backhanded."

"I'm just being honest," Marigold insisted, "but I mean it."

They both smiled in a small way, then moved away. "I," Marigold began slowly, "I should be getting back to work." 

"And I should..." Liddan furrowed his brows, having forgotten why he was there in the first place. He made a face, then suddenly remembered with the snap of his fingers, "Crap! Melody!" 

"Oh," Marigold turned to see Liddan shot up, walking around her as he began to make his way to the door, "so you were here with," she pursed her lips, deciding it not best to continue. Still holding Liddan's attention, she smiled, pulling the towel in her hands a bit as she said, "come down to the Blue Shoe, I'll spot you a free cup of coffee as thank you." 

He smiled with a bit of uncertainty, then ran off into the water park, leaving behind the strange girl alone in the dark. 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

Felicity had never had the habit of making out with her friends, even if she found them attractive. Well, that wasn't entirely true, there was that one time with Fidi, but that was a different story. However, whenever you make out with someone in your friend group, you tend to not only avoid that person but all your other friends out of the sheer embarrassment. 

She felt upset that it was that kiss she couldn't stop thinking about, because of all the other bizarre or far-out things that happened that day. Like, say, getting kidnapped by a group of human traffickers. Very unpleasant, yet, less so than making out with Liddan (emotionally speaking). 

Strangely, she felt guilty, despite neither of them being committed to anyone. Well, there was Zailo, who she was in a way chained to, but not romantically. Officially that is. Not to say anything was going to happen. At all. No.

However, she also found herself avoiding Layla, who she'd found herself becoming very good friends within the short time she'd been in Fairy Tail. 

So as Felicity wondered the arena following the opening match, she felt a chill rush down her body as she heard Layla call out, "Hey, Felicity!" 

She froze, as a guilty person would, and slowly turned to see the short blonde making her way over, Elwin in the background looking through the archways into the arena. 

"Hiya!" She said over-eagerly. Felicity cleared her throat, shaking her head, "What're you doing here? Aren't you on some totally not secret mission for Laxus?" 

"Yeah," Layla nodded quickly, "we, at the moment, are just supervising the Deadly Sins, but, well, their guy was disqualified for teleporting out of the arena in the first twenty seconds of the game...so maybe they're a bit stupider than we expected." 

"Lookin' on the bright side," she winked, flashing a nod at her, "that's the Layla way." 

"Well, you know me," she rolled her eyes, "glass half full kind of gal." She smiled, then suddenly stopped. "I just hope we aren't spending the whole week on these idiots." 

"What else you gonna do with your free time?" Layla made a face, so Felicity felt inclined to repeat herself, "Make that what do you wish you were doing instead?" 

"It's that guild, Howl Caedo," Layla sighed.

"Oh," she made a starch expression, "who?" 

"They're the ones that got second at the beginning, they're up to something, I can feel it--" 

"So...you think they're an illegal guild?" 

"No--" she sighed, "no, I don't think it's something like that, it's just..." she put her hands on her hips, "Liz is in the guild." 

"Liz?" 

"Girl with the white bob, you see, her mom's in the guild, Lisanna, you met her?" 

"No clue who that is," Felicity shrugged. 

"Her mom's Elwin's aunt, making Liz his cousin, Xavier's too. The three of them were like siblings growing up, which is why Xavier can hardly stand Elwin." 

"To be fair, barely anyone can stand Elwin." 

"Fair, fair." Layla sighed, "a long time ago...she left on a job and didn't come back. Sent word back that she joined a new guild, Howl Caedo, but that was it. No other contact with anyone." 

"Well..." Felicity crossed her arms, "Maybe she met someone, or something happened on the trip and she felt she was needed there. I mean, it doesn't have to be the worst possible outcome, I.E., the one you're thinking of now."

"Ha," Layla nodded, "you've known me for so little time, yet you know me so well." 

"I have a way of getting into people's heads," Felicity smiled, shrugging her shoulders. "But I say stay focused on your given mission, and try to let Liz come to you or the others. I mean, if she really is in danger, and she really is as close with Xavier and Elwin as you say, I'm sure she'll try to come into contact with the lot of them at some point."

"Maybe," Layla sighed, rocking her head to the side, "but I still just feel so sick to my stomach." 

"That's just nerves," she knocked Layla in the arm lightly, "but, between you in me, I don't think it's the best idea to be prowling around too many of the other guilds, they might think we're cheating and we'll get disqualified." 

"Good point," Layla made a crossed expression, bringing her hand to her chin as she mulled over the idea, "maybe it is best to just leave it alone and let her come to us."

"Good plan," Felicity smiled, propping herself up against the wall, "so how's working close with Elwin, ready to strangle him yet?"

"Oh am I--"

The two continued to talk, Layla becoming increasingly excited as she spewed her complaints about Elwin's mannerisms. Across the way, Elwin, propped up against the archway, looked out into the arena as it set up for the next matches. Being so distracted by the activity, he didn't notice Gideon arrive beside him. "Hey," Gideon said, clearly exhausted.

"Hey," Elwin turned his head, smiling, "great job on the match, cool water trick, how'd you do it?" 

"Magic, Elwin," he said flatly, "I used magic." 

"Ah," Elwin nodded, "well, shame you only got second--"

"Is there a part of your brain that just doesn't know how to talk to people?" 

"I dunno, maybe?"Elwin shrugged.

"I'm gonna go find Nashi." He quickly walked away, leaving Elwin a bit dejected and alone. 

He looked over at Layla, who was still talking to Felicity. He started to call to her from across the room, "Hey Layla. Layla, Layla. Hey Layla. Layla, LAYLA!"

Slowly, she turned around, and her only response was a stare that could pierce through steel. He got the picture, and quickly shut up. 

"Ooo," a voice said suddenly, "getting snubbed by your girl?" 

Elwin turned his head to see a nice, tan, tall, and well-built gentlemen. He was also shirtless, for some reason.

"Hey," Elwin pointed at him, "you were just in the games, aren't you from Lamia Scale?" 

The man pointed to his guildmark, which was in plain view on his naked chest, "Yes, thank you for noticing." 

"Yeah, yeah, you were the guy with all the names and the no shirt--I mean, I remember you, yesterday, you weren't wearing a shirt then either, and I remember being really concerned, because it's actually quite cool here in the morning and I was wondering if maybe you'd lost your shirt, and you only had one, and you were too embarrassed to ask to borrow one or buy a new one."

"Uh," the man made a face, but nonetheless smiled, "nah, don't worry man, I'm good." 

"Oh! Good!" He smiled, sticking out his hand, "I'm Elwin!" 

"Ronan James Smith," he said, taking the hand.

"Oh, maybe I should introduce myself with my full name," Elwin enthused, sticking his hand out again as he made a serious face, "Salutations, I'm Elwin Manly Strauss." 

"Manly?" 

"I have an interesting father," Elwin smiled, "he thought that it would be good if during a fight I could say 'Manly is my middle name!', but I was never one for backtalk during a battle." 

"That's real funny," Ronan smiled, propping her arm up by Elwin's head, "you're real funny, aren't you?" 

"That's what they tell me," Elwin said with a chipper smile. "Except usually, it's 'weird' instead of 'funny'." 

"Well, when I say 'funny'," he smiled, "I really mean cute." 

Elwin made a starch expression, and took a slow and deep breath before hissing under his breath, "Oh...oh my." 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

Liddan returned from the dark after a short period of time, arriving back in the acceptable areas of the theme park where the parts of the aquarium were. He looked around, wondering to himself if they'd noticed his absence for too long.

Passing by a large glass window, from the corner of his eye he spotted it--or more so, her. 

He almost screamed as Mel darted right by the window, fins and all, flapping about in the water with a blissful expression. 

"What the!?" instantly, he darted forward, smacking his hand on the glass until she finally caught sight of him too. "MEL! What are you doing?!" 

She didn't say anything (because she was underwater) but she just smiled and waved as he continued to shout something too muffled for her to understand. 

"How did you get in there?! Can you get out?" It was then when Liddan spotted Malcon and Lugi swimming around in the aquarium as well, Malcon chasing around schools of fish as Lugi floated wildly around the pond. "Crap! Lugi! I'll save you!" 

In a panic to save his cat, Liddan resulted in causing fifty thousand jewels worth of damage by flooding the entire aquarium. He--and his cohorts, Mel and the two cats--were all seated in their swimsuits outside the office of the manager, who was shouting at his workers for not stopping them from destroying the tank--as after so many years with Fairy Tail in Crocus for the Grand Magic Games, the staff has begun to pick up on some ways to stop all hell from breaking loose. 

Liddan sat with his arms crossed, a tired expression on his face as Mel wiggled in her seat with a red expression. "I know I shouldn't have hopped into that tank, but it was just so fun." She squirmed, "If I'm honest, I don't even regret it!" 

"LUGI!" Lugi agreed, clearly smitten after her own swim.

"I just don't understand why they don't sell this fish at the concession stand," Malcon said, still gnawing on a fish he'd swiped as the glass came crashing down. 

"That's because that species of fish is endangered," the worker, who was watching them, answered while making a face, "er--maybe extinct."

"How long we gonna be here?" Liddan asked, leaning forward and looking up at the uniformed man. 

"They're calling for your guildmaster," he answered promptly, "that's the protocol for Fairy Tail--I mean, the guilds." He tried not to disclose that the majority of the damage made in the past nine years at the park had almost all been done by Fairy Tail. If it was during Games Week, there was a seventy percent chance they would be directly involved. Ninety-three percent for just being remotely involved. 

Liddan rolled his eyes, sighing as he thought about the scolding he'd surely get from Laxus, then Mira, then Erza, then, well, his mom would say a thing, she'd just shake her head, sigh, and just make him know she'd disappointed by being so silent. 

As his eyes strayed from the man and the rest of his group, he watched the crowd of people pass by. It was just a splash of light blue, but it caught his attention enough for him to latch his eye on her, and he jumped from his seat as he saw her. "You! STOP!" 

Instantly, he ran towards her, and he grabbed onto her arm, bringing her to a halt instantly. "Eih! Hands to yourself!" she jerked her head around, turning to Liddan in an instant, she recognized him and smirked. "Oh boy, are you here to give me a kissaki?" 

"Don't bring up my puns--" Liddan pursed his lips, "what are you doing here--the rest of your team is in the game--"

"They aren't my team anymore," it was at this point when Florence yanked her arm away from Liddan, rubbing it slightly (as it was sore thanks to his tight, metallic grip). "I left." 

"You left?" he was clearly doubtful, but it was soon after this when the employee finally caught up to him.

"Hey!" he grabbed Liddan's shoulder, who turned instantly towards him with an expression so sharp it could cut through glass. He then removed his hand. With a much meeker tone, he repeated himself, "Hey...you need to wait with the rest while the manager is working things--"

"What's going on?" All three of them turned to the man holding a pretzel and ice cream. Liddan was surprised to find it was Basil. 

"What the?" he looked Basil up and down, who was (to his surprise) not in uniform. "What's with the getup?" 

Basil looked down at what he was wearing, "It's a swimsuit?" As Liddan continued to look at him, a certain surge in his eyes, Basil covered himself in discomfort, especially as the man who worked at the park joined in from confusion, "Please stop." 

"Oh!" Florence's voiced lifted as she reached out for the pretzel, "I've always wanted to try one of these." 

"I know, I know," he passed it along to her, and she immediately began eating, "careful, don't hurt yourself." He looked up at Liddan as Florence began to eat the pretzel, not entirely sure on the proper way to eat it, but having a go at it anyway. "Again, I ask, what's going on here?" 

"Oh, uh," the worker felt obliged to answer, "well, this man and his companions--" he gestured over to the bench of other Fairy Tail members, "--caused quite a bit of damage in our aquarium. I don't know about the lady here, excuse me, miss." 

Florence waved her hand, her mouth too full to answer, excusing the man. 

"Well that makes perfect sense," Basil sighed, glancing over at Liddan with a sigh, "surprised Felicity isn't there with you." 

"What--why would Felicity be with me?" Liddan answered with a bit of a snap, his eyes wide for a moment. He cleared his throat, "She's at the games, I think." 

"Not in 'em, I hope," Basil said softly, Liddan shook his head. He sighed and continued, "So you wrecked the place, huh?" 

"Only the aquarium," Liddan shrugged, "and really only one tank. Lugi was stuck, so I was saving her." 

"Your cat thing?" Florence leaned to the side, looking past the worker to find Lugi beside Malcon and Melody. "Oh, isn't that just adorable. She's like your little baby." 

"Okay," Liddan pointed his finger right in Florence's face, "she needs to stop making commentary."

Basil sighed and turned to Florence, "Please?" 

"Reminder, you don't own me," she responded.

"No, but I am literally holding you until the rest of my team arrives to arrest you, and if you behave, that could get you out of jail time." 

Florence was silence in response, then slowly came to a smile, "Alright." 

Basil and Liddan each stepped to the side, Florence watching with crossed arms from the distance. "Look," Basil said, "I owe Felicity a favor, so I'll smoothe this over for you." 

"I'm not associated with Felicity like--"

"Uh-huh," he said, in a coarse, stale voice, "I don't care much about you, honestly. But heck, you've caused worse trouble than this, and I'll say you owe me one on a later date got it?"

Liddan didn't respond, but he gave a nod which was enough acknowledgment for Basil to take it as an agreement. 

"As I said," he continued, "I don't care much about you, but I like Felicity. She's kind of annoying, but she reminds me of my sister, so I'll say this once," it was then when Basil grabbed onto Liddan's shoulder, in a rough and intimidating way that was brought in by the fact that Basil was several inches taller than Liddan, "if you hurt her, I'll make sure you get hurt too." 

Liddan, who wasn't easily intimidated, tried not to be shaken. So casually, he grabbed onto Basil's hand, pushing it off his shoulder, "Like I said, I'm not associated with Felicity like that." 

He walked off, heading back towards Melody and the exceeds, who were now busy watching the game on a lacrima. In an exhausted and weary voice, he asked, "Who's fighting?" 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

"It's the short angry chick from Sabertooth versus the tall skinny chick from Lamia," Sue Ellen explained, leering into the projection of the lacrima. She propped herself up over the counter, narrating for the men too drunk to see that far. 

The first match of the day was going on, and the entire restaurant was fixated on the two. It was like hot and cool colliding. More so, wind and lightning.  

Quietly, Marigold entered the dining establishment, a bewildered expression on her face. She stalked through the room, drawing the attention of Sue Ellen who pulled her head down to see the rather petrified (and very wet) Marigold.

"Ah--hey, Doe?" She came around the counter, gently grabbing onto Marigold's arm, "Hey, you were gone a while, and you're soaked to the bone, did something happen?" 

Marigold, with hesitation, turned her head to Sue Ellen. The woman made a face, then pursed her lips, "You ran into him, didn't you?" 

"Uh," she turned away, trying to fabricate some kind of interaction that would justify her being so shaken up. "Yeah, I did run into him." 

"Well," Sue Ellen's voice dropped to a whisper, "did you tell him?" 

Marigold bit her lip, feeling aching in her chest for keeping up with the lie. However, she was admittedly much more distracted by the voice shouting persistently in her mind. 

"You want my body, don't you, that's what you're planning. You're going to try and suffocate me, controlling me until I die here in this horrible place." This continued on, ringing between Marigold's ear since she stepped out of the pool. She couldn't seem to reason with Edo-Marigold, but she couldn't blame the girl for being scared. It's not like Marigold hadn't had a stray thought about continuing on in the body, a cruel and villainous thought she put out immediately after thinking it. 

It also didn't help that Edo-Marigold could hear every one of those thoughts. 

"I'm fine," she said starchly, turning to Sue Ellen with a sure expression, "I just need to change, if that's alright?" 

Sue Ellen made a face, then released Marigold, "Okay, be quick, we'll need another round of beers if we want to keep this crowd here." 

Marigold gave a nod and rushed up the stairs to her room. Sitting down on the bed, she kicked off her shoes and began to wipe her feet with a towel. Her mind was restless, and that was without Edo-Marigold thrashing around in her fit. 

"Look," Marigold thought, "if you don't trust me so terribly, then why don't you take over a bit," she sighed, and suddenly found silence in her mind, for a moment. "There isn't any immediate threat around, other than Isaiah lurking around--but he doesn't know we're here. You'd just have to do what you already know how to do, work as a waitress and keep your head down. You can keep my stone nearby in case of an emergency, but I can't go on with you shouting in my head all the time. 

Again, there was silence. Until Edo-Marigold made a small sound, "Fine." 

Pulling up her wrist, she undid the small bandage wrapping around her arm that concealed the wound holding the stone. Pressing her thumb and index finger to the sides of the crisp and broken shard, she tugged, and everything went to black. For her, at least. 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

"And Macyn Knight has just successfully knocked Kordi Nanagear right off her feet--"

"I guess you can say she's blown her away." 

"ᴳᵉᵗ ᵃ ʲᵒᵇ."

"Wow," Lucy remarked looking up at the screen from the hotel lobby, "Sabertooth isn't doing so hot this year." 

"Well that sucks, I was putting money on them," Cana tisked, crossing her arms as she held her beer bottle tightly. 

"You bet money against your own team?" Wendy made a nervous expression, "Why would you do that?" 

"I'm just trying to cover the bases, I figure if I put a little on everything I'll get a lot out of something!" 

"That's not how gambling works," Lucy answered promptly, propping her arm up as she used her foot to rock her triplets in their stroller. The three women were set up in the lobby watching the games so Lucy could have some company while she watched the toddlers. 

"Do they have the current rankings out yet?" Lucy asked, turning to Wendy, the most insightful of the crew.

"Well, currently, Howl Caedo's first, seven points in the lead, but we're second." She made a devoted expression as she pumped her fist, "but the day could turn around, Gideon getting second really boosted our score!" 

"Yeah, and Jude getting second to last really drowned it," the two other women looked at Cana, who innocently took a drink from her beer. She looked at the two of them, then shrugged, "What, I'm just sayin'?" 

Around then, one of the triplets, Igneel, started to cry. Lucy let out a groan, then leaned forward while pulling the stroller closer to her seat with her foot. She pulled the little tyke from his place, where he then sat her lap as she tried to calm him down. "Please don't need a change--please don't need a change!" 

"Don't miss those days," Cana remarked, watching Lucy hesitantly check her son to see if he needed his diaper changed, "but admittedly, I was lucky with Gillian. She was easy to potty train after I started leaving the stock market pages by the toilet." 

"How is Gillian, anyway," Wendy asked, "getting to know her dad and all, he's here, isn't he?" 

"Oh," Cana laughed, "we're all...getting along." 

"Oh Cana," Lucy spoke in a low and knowing tone, "you didn't..." 

"I...might have...had some one on one time with him," Cana shrugged, trying to remain discrete to some extent. 

"Well there's nothing wrong with that," Wendy smiled, "it's good that you two get along--" after noticing the prolonged looks from both Cana and Lucy, Wendy quickly realized, "Oh wait--oh my gosh! You had sex with Bacchus--AGAIN!" 

"Yes, Wendy," Cana said in a straight tone, "now we've done it a total of two times! That's one more than you and Romeo--" 

"Hey!" Wendy grew red, despiting being an adult, she still got flustered saying "pantyhoses" in public. 

"Cana," Lucy sighed, "look, what in your right mind possessed you to sleep with Bacchus?" 

"Tequilla, I guess," Cana said hesitantly. 

Lucy made a face, "Well, do you intend to start a relationship with Bacchus? Or continue having sex randomly with Bacchus?" 

"Oh no, not a relationship," Cana smiled uncomfortably, "he and I are toxic together, we'd drink all the liquor here to Isenberg in the first night of our honeymoon." 

"Oh my gosh--Cana! Gillian has just met her father and you can't go literally screwing things up for her by complicated things with sex!" 

"It's casual, Lucy," Cana explained, "and Bacchus and I aren't the emotional-type, we're capable of leaving it no-strings-attached."

"Name one no-strings-attached relationship that didn't end with an emotional dumpster pile." 

Cana made a face, pondering the question honestly. After thinking about it for a while, she made a face, "Oh boy." 

"Cana," Wendy said, "you're a grown woman, so you can sleep with whomever you'd like, but some of those decisions could have serious consequences for you or your family." Weirdly, this coming from Wendy struck Cana. 

She propped her arm up, made a thoughtful expression, then said, "Huh." 

The conversation lulled, and the three women redirected their attention back to the lacrimas, cheering on the two competitors (it being Sabertooth vs. Lamia Scale, they didn't have a clear hope for a winner). 

"Lovely game today, ladies," the three look up to see a blond man make himself at home at the fourth seat in their area. They all turn to him, exchanging looks to see if any of the other women knew the guy. "You all enjoying the games? I'm here on business myself, it's a shame all you beautiful women keep distracting me." He laughed at his own joke, and all the surrounding women sighed in shame. The man, Nirvek, took one glance at the toddlers in Lucy's stroller, he pointed at the babies, "Is the...is the father around?"

"Yes," Lucy answered promptly.

Nirvek paused and thought it over. "Is he very big?" 

Cana laughed, and put a hand on the man's shoulder, "Oh honey, he's not the one you should be scared of." She tightened her grip, smiling widely at the now nervous Nirvek until they heard on the lacrima:

"And Kordi takes her down! That's ten points for Sabertooth!" 

"Oh BOY!" Cana laughed, her grip tightening on Nirvek as Lucy cheered and clapped. 

"Poor Lamia Scale," Wendy sighed, "I'm sure Sherria is disappointed." 

"Sabertooth needed the win after yesterday," Lucy sighed, again moving the stroller with her foot to rock her kids. "Poor lil' Misty, maybe I should run by and visit her, see how she's doing." 

"Um," Nirvek suddenly found the nerve to speak up, "can I go?"

"Shh shh," Cana pat his arm, "a little longer, just a little longer."

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

Florence had never been to a place such as a waterpark, so it was perhaps the best experience she'd had since being born, to put it plainly. She loved the weird and strange chlorine smell surrounding the entire facility, she loved how no matter where you put your towel, it still ended up getting wet, and she loved that Basil was having the worst time. 

"I bet you were wishing that was alcohol," she'd smirk at the bar, watching Basil scorch down a lemonade at the stool beside her. There was a swim-up bar in the pool, and the two had made themselves at home there per Florence's request. 

Basil, not being a drinker, had ordered himself a nice tall glass of lemonade, the woman at the edge of the bar laughed at him (as did Florence). 

Florence couldn't just order a drink, rather, she spent three minutes buttering up the man behind the counter to get herself a free drink, a long island ice tea.

Though Basil was glad he didn't have to pay for Florence, he couldn't help but ask her that one nauseating question. "Have you ever made it through a conversation with a man without flirting with him?"

Florence paused, putting her hand to her face as she contemplated the question, "Does banter before killing someone count as a conversation?"

Basil thought it over, then shrugged, "Sure."

"Then no."

Basil's mouth hung open for a moment, as though he had something to say, but as Florence continued to sip from her glass, he decided to leave it be. 

From their seats at the bar, they could see a lacrima projecting the game, it was, at that point, in the middle of its second fight, the teams being Fairy Tail versus Redmoon Shield. Neither Florence nor Basil seemed to recognize either of them competing individuals.

"Who's the big blonde guy?" Florence asked, regarding the member of Fairy Tail competing, who happened to be Xavier.

"I think he's the son of their guildmaster."

"Let me guess, he's ridiculously powerful," Florence sighed, "I'm rooting for the Redmoon guy, he seems like he could use the win. He's cuter anyway."

"True--" Basil made a face, "I mean--his team could use the win, they're the underdogs after all."

"Everyone loves an underdog," Florence smiled thinly, before taking another drink from her glass.

She turned back to the lacrima, halfheartedly watching the fight take place, her expression shifting with each punch, kick, or blast. Basil couldn't help but think she looked suddenly human at that moment. Just sitting there, watching the game on the screen."Are you have a good time?" Basil asked suddenly.

Florence smiled in this small kind of way, like a child did, not a woman. "Yes, loads of fun." 

"Then I guess it's the perfect time to bring up business." 

"Oh, poo," she said, in an equally childish way. 

"You know, all those men you killed," Basil began.

Florence, however, wanting to be a bit cheeky, interrupted, "Yes, I'm aware, there were a lot of dead men."

"Ha, yes," Basil was not amused, "and someone is going to go down there and realize that those men are dead, and those men were important to someone, or some organization."

Florence paused, holding her drink and swishing it with her hand for a bit, "I'm aware," she said again.

"Florence," Basil sighed, "if I'm correct, those men were apart of a human trafficking ring, responsible for a lot of what they might casually call merchandise. Now, what do you think the big guys will do when someone important in trade was suddenly slaughtered along with loads of his men."

"They'll have lost the person in charge of their merchandise," Florence sighed, setting her glass down, "and might choose rather than moving the trafficked individuals to the watch of another person, just get rid of most of them for the sake of convenience."

"Right," Basil nodded, knowing it wasn't the best thing to agree upon, "these things have to be handled delicately, and before you can go and kill a bunch of powerful men, you have to make sure you know that the people under his wrath are safe, or you could end up killing them too--"

"Do you really think I'm the person who cares about all this nonsense?" Florence pulled her hair back, tucking it behind her ear as she scooped her glass up once again and went back to drinking.

Basil wasn't surprised, but Florence was when he spoke up again, "I do actually," she glanced at him, continuing to drink, "because I think you were one of those girls, and I think you might be the one person who could actually do something about it."

Florence squinted her eyes, looking back at the drink as Basil continued to talk.

"When the rest of my team arrives, I plan to have them join me in trying to take down the trafficking ring that man was responsible for, or more so, a part of. But the thing is, I plan on having you on as a consultant."

This got Florence's attention. She turned her head fully towards Basil, listening earnestly with this kind of sly smile on her face, one you couldn't completely trust. "I can pull a few strings, and if you do well helping me and my team, you can get a reduced sentence, heck, you might just get a job. Wouldn't the first time the military hired a criminal, call it rehabilitation or maybe desperation, it's how the government works." He took a quick drink, then put his glass down, "What matters, for now, is how you behave until my team arrives. You have a few days until they get here, so if you behave, I can get you out of prison so long as you work for me, if not, then Florence, I can't help you."

That was his offer, and he laid out for Florence quite eloquently. She didn't respond for what felt like a long time for Basil (who had very carefully selected his words for this proposal). It was to his disappointment that her reaction seemed to be an eruption of laughter.

She just kept bellowing in this laughter, rolling her head back even as tears perched from her shut eyes. She had to put her hand on her chest as it ached from the laughter. Basil, in response, found himself just waiting it out. He propped his arm up, even had to glance at his watch waiting for Florence to stop.

"Are you done?" he even asked, to which she finally began to calm down.

She pulled her head forward, having to prop it up against the counter as she continued to snicker. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she echoed again and again between laughs, "it's just the funniest thing I've ever heard. You must really be in love with me or something."

"I can promise you," Basil sighed, taking a drink, suddenly wishing it was something stronger than tap water, "that is not the case."

"Can't imagine another reason a man would be so interested in spending so much time with me," she kept smiling, leaning closer to Basil, "well, maybe one other thing. But I know you don't want that."

"Yeah..."

"Those vows of your's," she smirked teasingly, dropping her head on her crossed arms over the counter, looking up to Basil with a smile. "You sure do take that seriously."

"I do," he said simply.

Florence continued to let her stare linger, watching Basil as he avoided eye contact, she stopped smiling when she said, "You really must see something worthwhile in me, is that right?"

He didn't answer, he just kept drinking.

She turned away, putting her head back into her arms, "You almost make we want to prove you wrong." She kept quiet for a moment, trying to focus back on the game. Suddenly, her eyes widen with pleasant shock. Basil turns to the lacrima and is surprised as well. 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

Ace Quinn had never been so terrified in his life. He was standing there, across from the most powerful guild's master's son, in the middle of this terrible, exhausting fight, and he'd somehow made it to the end still standing.

To be fair, Xavier was standing too, in fact, it had been declared a draw as the two of them stood with shaky knees and no time left on the clock.

"And it seems we have a draw! Meaning both teams receive 5 points!" 

"What a shocking end to an intense match!" 

This was most definitely true, and as Ace's partial victory was announced to the roaring crowds, he collapsed onto the arena ground. 

He heard a laugh, and looked up at Xavier, still standing, looking down as he wiped his brow. "Couldn't you have done that, like, ten seconds ago?" 

Ace sighed, pulling his face back into the dirt as he waved his hand, "Sorry." 

While Xavier left on his own, Ace had to wait to be collected by his fellow guild members, who slowly arrived to drag him out eagerly.

Cali and Keith arrived and awkwardly helped him stumble back through the halls to Redmoon's seating.

"Wow, I can't believe you held your ground against the son of Laxus Dreyar," Keith enthused with these bright eyes, "I mean--that's amazing, man! I was so sure you were gonna fail, just...fail so hard." 

"I know, I lost a bet because of you," Cali said, meaning it as a compliment.

Ace made a face reasonable for someone who just learned their own teammates had bet against them then sighed, "Don't...don't mention it." 

As they passed through the hall, Ace suddenly felt his legs give out a bit. He began to fall onto Keith, so they quickly ushered him towards the nearest seat in the hall. 

"Hey, sit here for a bit," Cali said, patting Ace on the shoulder, "we're gonna go get Alex, see if we can run you by a medic to see if you have some sort of concussion or something." 

"Ha, those are the worst," Keith said with a pleasant smile.

"You're the worst," Cali said quickly under her breath before getting up to leave. Keith made a face, a bit shocked, then followed behind. 

So there Ace was, sitting alone in a chair somewhere in the halls of a coliseum. Unfortunately, the chair happened to be right outside the bathroom, which led to so many people awkwardly congratulating him as they left the john. He'd never been so uncomfortable shaking so many hands.

"Hey, you were in that fight just now?" 

"Yeah, yeah I was." 

"Wow, we all thought you were a goner the moment you stepped in." 

"Ah...ah okay." 

"I thought it for most of the fight too, especially when you started crying." 

"Oh...oh, um." 

"Yeah, and then when he accidentally kicked you so hard you threw up, oh man, I definitely thought it was over then." 

"Uh-huh..."

"But here you are! Still standing!" 

The man lifted his arms, gesturing towards Ace, who was sitting. 

With forced enthusiasm, the man grabbed Ace's shoulder and shook it eagerly. "Good job man, I mean, five points is better than nothing!" 

"Yup..." 

Partial victory had never felt so...partial. 

Ace remained in his chair, slumped over as people passed by, taking less notice to him as his demeanor continued to sink. He looked across to the open archway that served as a window into the arena. He was surprised to see sitting there on the stone framing his teammate Ema Thompson.

Ema was a young girl of modest size, a bit younger than Ace (by only three years), but she seemed way more together in comparison. She was sitting there, thumbing through a book while eating an apple. 

Ace sat with wide eyes, watching the small girl eagerly chew and read simultaneously. She looked content and happier than she did usually in the guildhall. 

So Ace wasn't sure what possessed him to ruin this moment by calling out, "Hey, Ema!" 

Instantly, like some kind of animal, her head perked up at the sound of her name. She swished her head around, looking for the culprit responsible for interrupting her, and then met eyes with Ace. 

He sat in his chair, about ten feet from Ema (as that was about the width of the hall), his hands on his knees as he tried to fix his posture to face her. "Hey," he said again, this time quieter.

"Hi..." she seemed confused, and Ace almost thought she didn't recognize him, despite the fact that they were competing on the same team and had spent several months occasionally training together (only occasionally). Really, she just didn't know why he suddenly wanted to talk to her. 

"So," Ace brought his hands together, nodding his head, "you...you see the match?" 

"Uh," she looked at her apple and her book, "nah, I snuck out to get some food...and a book. Who fought?" 

Ace made a face, thinking that had it been Ema who was called to fight, the team would've been screwed. "Uh, we did." 

"Oh!" She then looked Ace up and down, realizing that he didn't normally look this terrible. "OH! Did you just finish fighting."

"Ha," Ace sighed, "yeah, I did, actually." 

"How'd it go?" 

"It was a draw."

"Ah, bummer." 

Ace made a face, "Actually, it was against Fairy Tail, the Dreyar guy." 

Ema seemed unimpressed. She just nodded, "Well, good effort, I guess." 

"Yeah, yeah..." Ace sighed, waving his hand slightly, "thanks."

"You'll get 'em next time," she took a bite from her apple, glancing back at her book with some disinterest in the conversation she was currently participating in, "you may not be, like, super powerful or anything, but you never give up in a fight, your will's so strong, you'd be the last man standing in a puddle of acid." 

Though she said it in such a passive manner, it was strangely the nicest thing anyone had said since the fight. 

"Than--thank you!" Ace said, suddenly a bit flustered. He looked at her up and down, watching her flip through her book yet again as she ate her apple, he strangely didn't want to stop talking. "So...you must be hot." 

Ema made a face, and Ace began to sweaty-panic.

"I mean--" he pointed to her leather jacket, "that must be--you must be hot wearing a leather jacket in this heat--I mean you look cool and all--but--" Ace pursed his lips, bringing his hand over his mouth to physically shut himself up. He sighed, and changed the subject, "So what are you reading?" 

Ema, choosing to ignore the strange spue of words coming from Ace's mouth, lifted the book in her hands up to Ace. "An Incomplete History of the Celestial Spirit World," she recited, dropping the book back into her lap as she explained, "it's about the celestial spirit world and stuff." 

"Oh, cool!" Ace nodded, "So, I guess, you're, like, really into that stuff?" 

Ema made a blank face. Mind you, she was a celestial spirit mage, and Ace knew this, and after he asked her this he realized how stupid it was. 

"Actually," her expression darkened, "I despise celestial spirits." 

Ace's eyes widened, a bit took aback by the sudden confession.

"I'm reading this book because I want to know more about the celestial spirit world...so one day...I can find a way to destroy it--with all those spirits with it..." 

"Oh my gosh!" Ace exasperated, "But your'e a celestial spirit mage--how could you--oh, you're totally messing with me right now." 

"Yeet!" She gave a big smile, winking as she shrugged her shoulders. They each laughed, and Ace realized it was the first time he saw Ema smile, and the first time he'd ever heard her say something as stupid as "Yeet". 

There was a sudden lull in the conversation, but the two didn't feel awkward, rather, enjoyed the pleasant silence for a moment to appreciate the moment. Ace suddenly thought there might be a chance she was becoming his friend. 

"Ace," Ema said suddenly.

"Yeah?" He perked up, a smile still on his face." 

"Your nose is bleeding, like, a lot." 

"I have got to pee SO BAD!" Ace was alarmed as he saw a woman pushing a stroller with three toddlers in it towards him.

It was Lucy, still accompanied by Cana and Wendy who followed in suit, taking control of the stroller as Lucy ran into the lady's room. 

"She shouldn't have had all those mimosas..." Wendy sighed, shaking her head as Cana chuckled. "Granted, you had twice as much as she did, Cana, and you haven't been to the restroom once." 

"Part of being such a heavy drinker is having a bladder of steel," Cana said with certain guidance to her voice. "Granted, if I sneeze even one time, the dam shall break open and there will certainly be a flood..."

Wendy laughed uncomfortably, then adjusted her gaze to see Ace sitting there by the bathroom. She noticed his rather horrid state and suddenly befell her usual caretaker persona. "Oh, are you alright? Do you need help?" 

"Oh," Ace glanced back at Ema, who was avoiding eye contract suddenly. "I'm fine, I'm just waiting for my guildmaster to get me a medic." 

"Well, I have healing magic, if you want I can help you right now--" 

"Cool it, Wendy!" Cana hissed, "He's the kid Xavier just fought, he's the enemy!" 

"Well the fight's over," Wendy practically whined, "why can't I help him now?" 

"Woo!" Lucy arrived from the bathroom, sighing in relief as she wiped her still somewhat wet hands on her skirt. "I feel, somehow, lighter..." she turned to her friends, who had now gathered around Ace, "Oh, hello," she smiled, "you were fighting with Xavier just a minute ago, right?" 

Ace made a nervous face, realizing he was now surrounded by Fairy Tail women. He looked to Ema for some kind of way out, but found she was hiding her face in her book. 

"You did really good," Lucy pat Ace on the shoulder, then leaned in, "and always remember, real men cry." 

"Ah ha!" Ace blushed, hoping Ema didn't catch that part. "Thank you--but I'm fine, I'll just wait for Alex to come back...so I won't need any assistance, thanks though--" 

"Oh, it's no problem," Wendy nodded, "I gave an oath to help anyone who asks for medical support, after all." 

"Yeah, you made that up yourself," Cana snickered.

"Plus, it's not very helpful when we're fighting," Lucy added, "I mean, like...you can't just stop fighting someone and give them medical support because they asked--"

"I took an oath!" Wendy hissed, clenching her little fists in rage. The three women left on that note, leaving Ace back in his seat, watching Ema hide her face in her book. 

"Are they gone...?" Ema whispered in a hissy voice.

"Uh, what?" 

"Is Miss Heartfilia gone?!" Ema repeated, this time her eyes poking out from above the book.

"Yeah--yeah--" Ace made a face, not sure who 'Miss Heartfilia' was exactly. "Is something wrong?" 

She pulled her book down, revealing her red and flustered face, again, an expression Ace had never seen on Ema before. She sighed in relief, but Ace couldn't help but be a bit curious. 

"Who's Miss Heartfilia?" Ema made a face. 

Ema squinted, balling up in her seat. "She's...kind of my hero..." 

Ace made a face, "The woman with too many kids?" 

This received a rather unpleasant face from Ema, who sighed, turning to Ace to say, "It's kind of a long story."

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

"Coming into the third match of the day, things are looking pretty interesting. We've had our first draw of the games, which none of us saw coming!" 

"ᴵ ʷᵃˢ ˢᵒ ʷᵒʳʳᶦᵉᵈ ʷʰᵉⁿ ʰᵉ ˢᵗᵃʳᵗᵉᵈ ᶜʳʸᶦⁿᵍ...ᴵ ᵐᵉᵃⁿ...ᴵ ᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰᵗ ʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵍᵒⁿⁿᵃ ᵈᶦᵉ ᶠᵒʳ ˢᵘʳᵉ." 

"Oh weren't we all!" 

"Now let's not burn any more daylight and get to the next match!" 

"For the third match of the day, we have...oh boy...I'm gonna butcher this...uh...Okay...Blue Pegasus's Ichiro Nik...Nich...Nichiya...Kot...Kotobuki?" 

"That is...too many names." 

"Look, guys, it's great you got middle names, but putting them on the forms was optional." 

"Versus Howl Caedo's Fidi!" 

"Fidi? Seriously? Just Fidi? Oh, so I have to embarrass myself trying to spill out John Jacob Jingle--what's his name and you get 'Fidi'? Just FIDI!" 

"Lola...please, we're...in the middle of the games--"

"Whatever! Just get the jerks in the arena!" 

The two men, Ichiro and Fidi (we'll just call him that for time's sake), arrive in the center of the arena. Fidi was a tall gentleman, with sharp and menacing eyes. He wasn't all too attractive if you were honest, but he gave off a cool persona, one that made it seem as though he had it all together.

The other, Ichiro, was perhaps even taller, with a face so ridiculously beautiful it hurt to look at it. One wouldn't be surprised to find perhaps a parade of tiny winged infants flying behind him, throwing rose petals over wherever he stepped, as that was now holy ground. 

He had bright orange hair, that parted in the middle and flew out with no remorse. He dressed in a white tailored suit, no shirt underneath, so the top of his chest peaked through. It was...a lot to take in.

"A pleasure," the red-headed man with shiny eyes sang to the crowd, "I'm sure, for you to share the arena with someone as dignified as myself. For I--Ichiro Nichiya Kotobuki of Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki, the Ace of the Blue Pegasus Guild, am more than just a worthy opponent but am perhaps the most beautiful opponent one could ever face in these Games!"

Fidi, who stood about five yards away from the shiny man couldn't help but stare in awe and some kind of disgust. He turned his head to the announcers, asking flatly, "Okay, so...legally speaking...I can kill this guy right?"

"Take me Ichiro-san!" One of the women of the Blue Pegasus team cried out, this was certainly not Ellia, who was struggling to disassociate herself with the rest of the women on her team who fawned over Ichiro.

"Show him your manly beauty!" Another girl cried, swooning.

"So, what I mean is," Fidi was continuing to try and converse with the announcers, "I can straight up kill this guy in front of everyone, and I won't get arrested or anything, right? Am I right?"

"I'm afraid that you're the one who should be worried," Ichiro made a pose, spreading his legs far too wide then they ought to be, "for if looks could kill, you'd be dead from just my smile."

Fidi physically cringed, dropping his face into his hands as he sighed. "I really hope I can kill this guy..." 

The fight began, leaving the audience confused more than anything. Ichiro was quite the character, and all the women in Fairy Tail sat there the entire fight contemplating, "Is he hot or not?" 

"I mean," Nashi made a face, "like, physically speaking, he's got the bod. He's tall and lean, and he has a face that knocks you out." 

"Yes!" Ichiro sang from within the arena, "smell the parfume! Beautiful, sensual, lovely--my natural musk amplified!!" 

"And then he says something like that and it's just--no!" Nashi continued, her face coiled with disgust and annoyance. 

"This is an uncomfortable conversation," Gideon announced quite loudly to the rest of the group, not liking the fact that Nashi was deeply mulling over the attractiveness of another man. 

"I think I'll make a list," Ezzie continued, ignoring Gideon as she pulled out a pad of paper, "marking all the attractive qualities of a man and seeing how he ranks in total." 

"Good idea," Nashi nodded, "be sure to include smell because..." they each took a wiff of the air, "that's sorta his thing." 

"GAH!" Fidi cried out, "THE STENCH! Can you kill the cologne! It smells like a middle school boy's locker room!" 

"The perfect parfume is strong, yet gentle, moist, yet saturated--"

"Most of those are not words that should be describing smells!" Fidi said, plugging his nose. 

It proved unfortunate that Fidi's magic type turned him into a beast, and as an animal, his sense of smell was stronger than ever, and Ichiro was simply so intolerable, that he couldn't fight.

Finding himself so sick, Fidi grew nauseous of the smell, falling in defeat, giving the win to Ichiro.

"And to...I think we can all agree, everyone's surprise, the winner is Ichiro Whashisname!"

"Ichiro Nichiya Kotobuki...it's really not that hard, Lola--"

"That's ten points to Blue Pegasus! Setting them ahead with twenty-three points!" 

"Wow," Gideon nodded, "that was a surprising turn, didn't expect him to--" 

"Oh my gosh--" Esmeralda shouted, her mouth hanging open in shock.

Nashi grabbed her arm, "What is it? What did you find?!" 

"I think it's true," she held up her list, "he's attractive."

The two women stared out into the arena, watching the man kiss up at the audience, opening up his blazer as he bit into a rose. The two of them visibly cringed, shaking their heads.

"No, not a chance." After all, he was still the son of Ichiya.

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

The final fight of the day was one everyone was certainly looking forward to. The day had been rather intense, but the Deadly Sins had a certain charm to them. Ever since one of their members had sent Mist to the infirmary, people had been throwing money on their name like no tomorrow. 

Reo's performance had been rather awkward in that morning's challenge, but they had high expectations for the battle.

"With our final battle, we have the surprise first tournament winners--Nestor of the Deadly Sins." 

"And this morning's victors, from Team Mermaid Heel, Myla Knoble." 

The crowd cheered for the respective teams, a rumble falling through the audience as the two competitors left their stands to enter the arena. 

"Good luck, Myla," the Mermaid girls cooed, Simie sitting by awkwardly. She maintained eye contact with Myla a moment longer, who gave a sharp nod.

"I'll finish what you started," Myla said. Simie, though hesitantly, nodded back to Myla. It was perhaps one of the few times she'd ever directly spoken to her, and it shook Simie to her core.

Mayla was a scary kind of woman. Consumed by a kind of darkness, her glare could set you off entirely. She was a lovely looking creature, and took good care of her appearance, but there was something uncanny about her. Even her team, though fully respectful and supportive, could always tell there was something off about her.

When she arrived in the arena, she came face to face with her competitor. Nestor, better known as the Deadly Sin of Envy. She knew little about him, nor was she all too interested in getting to know him outside this battle, but she didn't by any means feel threatened. 

"Now, despite this morning's loss, the bets are still high on the Deadly Sins. Thus far, they haven't lost a one on one match, and the last one nearly killed a Sabertooth. So people have high expectations for this fight from the Deadly Sins." 

"That aside, Myla Knoble is quite well known for her strength in Mermaid Heel, serving as the only S-Class mage on her team. So if both teams hold up, this could turn out to be a very interesting fight." 

Nestor, looking Myla up and down. For what felt to be a long time, there was nothing but silence. The two just staring each other down with an intensity the audience had yet to see that day.

If looks could kill, the entire arena could possibly be dead. 

"It seems that both of the competitors are attempting to, perhaps, visually digest the other to obtain some kind of leeway in their battle." 

This continued, until Nestor, again, Envy, lifted his arm up and threw it in the air. Not literally, it was still attached to his body, of course, but what came out of his mouth was just as bizarre as that scenario. 

"VICTORY FOR THE FORCES OF DEMOCRATIC FREEDOM!" 

This, admittedly, even set Myla a bit off guard. She thought this was his plan, but by the rather uncertain expression on Nestor's face, then his immediate reaction of pulling a notepad out to write down the response of Myla and the audience.

"That doesn't seem to be right either." He said with a sigh, "Oh well, I'll get it next time." 

He flipped his pad to a new page, beginning to circle Myla. "Now let's see, what are you." Examining Myla, he began to list her attributes. "A broad body, muscular yet feminine enough. A rustic aesthetic, smells like copper." 

Right away, Myla took the first opportunity Nestor was within reach to attack with a right hook. Her entire body thrust towards his, her fist driving towards his head only to fade right into it.

Suddenly, the image of Nestor faded, leaving Myla crouched down with no opponent.

"Right," she turned to his voice, finding him all the way across the arena, still jotting things down, "you must have mistaken my afterimage for me. How embarrassing for you."  

"Memory-make," Myla said in an unphased tone, brushing the dust off her jacket as she watched Nestor carefully.

"Ah, you're familiar," Nestor gave a faint smile, but by no means a kind one, "so you're not as stupid as you look."

Nestor squinted, annoyed that Myla didn't seem to care he was insulting her.

"I'd like to start out by saying that I find this all very petty, all this fighting for the best title--I mean we already know who that is, after all--myself, esquire. But Wrath insists I participate nonetheless, claiming it could be, of all things, educational."

Myla more or less ignored his commentary, sticking her arm out to the side in a broad sweeping motion. With a flash, her arm sudden grew a copper layer over her skin, and where her hand was a long sharp sword. The metal had a dark shine, and waves of light passed through it, telling Nestor one thing."

"So you're a Godslayer," Nestor smiled, "I must say, I'd love to add that to my collection." 

Myla sprinted forward, her metal arm dragging behind her as she ran towards him. Approaching him, she expectantly sliced through yet another afterimage but was quick to turn and find Nestor coming behind her with the same attack. 

She whipped her body around, rolling against the dirt to escape his attack. She looked up, and watched as Nestor's arm returned to its natural form. 

"Each step, even the beating of your heart, I have it all memorized," he snapped his fingers, and his entire body befell the same metallic texture Myla had moments before, "even your magic. I can repeat it all." 

Myla, brushing the dirt off her coat, gave a look that Nestor hadn't seen just yet. She smiled, and suddenly, Nestor was terrified.

With his skin copper, she dove towards him, her fist slowly changing color to that of a dark gray, with waves of light traveling through it. He fist drilled into Nestor's jaw, sending him flying back with one hit. 

He slid back in the ground about 15 feet, his body shaking in its state as he tried to regain his composure. 

Myla, however, didn't waste a moment. In the same breath, she charged forward, her entire body now inraptured by the layer of metal as she dragged Nestor out of the dirt and proceeded to wale on him. 

Standing him up in front of her, she stretched her arms out, setting her up in a "T" position, then driving her closed fists into each cheek of Nestor, squishing his face together.

His body now metallic, Nestor's eye panicked as he realized his face was now pressed into his form, leaving him unable to speak.

"A few notes," she grabbed him by the collar, his limp legs hanging as she overpowered him, "while you're finally quiet, for future reference in battle." 

She kicked him back, and Nestor rolled himself away, trying to pull his face back into place to return to his normal skin. 

"First," Myla began, "you talk too much." Her skin returned to its usual flesh as she bent down on one knee. "You're giving too much away. Your arrogance, your very plan of action, then, there's your unoriginality." As her hand pressed against the ground, iron spikes shot out of the ground, leading a path towards Nestor. Quickly, he leaped to his feet to avoid being impaled. "You only mimic your opponent." 

Standing, Myla held her hand up, once again turning it to the dark metal, "I am an Iron God Slayer, but I am capable of turning my body into various metals. What I used early was copper, a weak metal, but nonetheless, you were foolish enough to replicate it just to taunt me." 

Nestor struggled to remove the dent in his cheeks, shutting his mouth, cramming his fingers into his mouth to pull his lips apart. With his face as it was, he feared removing the metallic skin would result in the distortion being permanent.

"Copper, though a valuable metal in its own right, is much weaker than iron," she tightened her fist, "I thought an intellect, such as yourself, would know that." 

Finally, he freed his mouth, letting out a harsh breath as he did so, and he returned his body to its normal form. He was his breath was heavy and quick, but he still tried to maintain his confidence.

"Still," he wore a desperate kind of smile, glaring at Myla from across the arena as he rubbed his jaw, "you've now revealed your true power," he smirked, and bringing his fist up, a metallic layer of skin overtook him. "You can't use the same trap as before." 

"True," she pulled herself up as well, brushing off her legs. As her head lifted, a smile was revealed on her thin lips, "but I suppose you're forgetting something else." 

Rushing forwards, she full-on attacked Nestor head-on, he brought his arms up, successfully dodging the attacks. The two were at each other's arms, Myla holding down on his wrists as she tried to overpower him, and Nestor just trying to maintain his strength.

Then, it happened. She pushed her head forward, opened her mouth and took a bite right out of Nestor's shoulder.

"Wow! She just took a bite out of him!" 

"Literally!" 

"Yes, clearly I meant that literally...what is wrong with you!" 

"ᴸᵒˡᵃ, ᶦᵗ'ˢ ᵈᵃʸ ᵗʷᵒ, ᵃⁿᵈ ʸᵒᵘ'ʳᵉ ᵃˡʳᵉᵃᵈʸ ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ᵗᵒ ˢᵗʳᵃⁿᵍˡᵉ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᶜᵒ⁻ʰᵒˢᵗ, ᵗʰᶦˢ ᶦˢ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵃ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ˢᶦᵍⁿ." 

The first layer of iron was gone, as was a bit of his flesh, Nestor let out an awful noise in response, losing his grip to Myla who threw him to the ground. 

"Iron God Slayers feed off of iron," she said wiping her lip of the blood she'd accidentally taken from Nestor, "by turning yourself into iron, you've made yourself a seven-course meal. And provided me plenty of resources to do this--"

As she spoke, she threw her arm up, the arm growing to a greater length as it extended into a long iron blade. 

With this, the battle was her's. 

Within the next twenty seconds, the battle was over, and Nestor was left with a bite out of his shoulder, a slash across his chest, and an ego brought down to size. 

"And that's it! Myla Knoble has defeated Nestor earning ten points for Mermaid Heel and removing the Deadly Sins from the top three!" 

"What a fight! Myla is definitely someone you don't want to be the enemy of!"

"This match marks Day two as a remarkably successful day for Mermaid Heel, having gone from three points to twenty-three points in one day!"

"ᴰᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵐᵉˢˢ ʷᶦᵗʰ ᵗʰᵒˢᵉ ˡᵃᵈᶦᵉˢᵎ" 

As she stood over him, having hardly broken a sweat, she said one last thing to him.

"You treat this as an imitation game," she threw Nestor to the ground, "you're mistaken, this is a battle. It's not about being the smartest person in the room, it's about bleeding the least." She smirked, "but I'm afraid you would lose both, nonetheless."

The crowd watched as Myla left the arena, now knowing just what the woman was capable of.

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

"And that brings Day 2 of the games to an end! And wow! What a day, am I right?" 

"It sure has, it feels like we've been sitting up here for years, just waiting for something to happen." 

"That aside, let's take one last look at the board to see how our teams are doing."

"And again, I'd like to thank our wonderful guest, musical wonder Broska Nali for joining us today!" 

"ᴵ'ᵐ ˢᵒʳʳʸ, ᵇᵘᵗ ᴵ ʰᵒⁿᵉˢᵗˡʸ ᶜᵃⁿ'ᵗ ʳᵉᵐᵉᵐᵇᵉʳ ᵉᶦᵗʰᵉʳ ᵒᶠ ʸᵒᵘʳ ⁿᵃᵐᵉˢ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗʰᵉ ˡᶦᶠᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵉ." 

"Isn't she cute, everybody?" 

"Now, for the final rankings of the day." 

"Howl Caedo remains first with 26 points.

Fairy Tail holds a close second at 24 points.

Blue Pegasus and Mermaid Heel tie at 23 points for third place.

Deadly sins are in fifth with 18 points.

Then Redmoon Shield and Sabertooth tie for sixth with 15 points.

And in last place, poor Lamia Scale with 4 points." 

"Ouch, they got a ways to go." 

"Thank you for joining us today, and we'll return tomorrow with day 3 of the games! Have a goodnight!"

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

"I don't see why you'd want me on your team," Florence said out of the blue on the walk home, "I mean, I'm homicidal, you saw me in there. I didn't exactly go in with the intention of killing all those men but rub me the wrong way and you're done for." 

"I wouldn't call what they did rubbing you the wrong way," Basil said in defense, "it was something much crueler than that." 

"Even so," Florence continued, "you intend to carry me into the place where I was abused and used for years of my life and put a stop to it. If that happened, you'd be getting a lot more blood on your hands. And that just might break your vow." 

"I think I'll manage," Basil said, hands in his pockets as he walked down the way, "more so, I think I can manage you." 

"I can't believe a military man has such an oath, not killing anyway. It's so optimistic. How can someone join the military and get away with never killing someone? Never feel that satisfaction, the warmth, of another man's blood on your hands." 

There was silence, and Basil suddenly spoke, "I never said I'd never killed before." 

This, to some extent, took Florence by surprise. She smiled, one eyebrow raising as she moved towards Basil, walking a bit faster to stay ahead of him as she asked. "Who?" 

He looked her right in the eye and even smiled (just a bit). He pat her on the arm, "I'll tell you later, okay?" 

Florence smirked, rolling her eyes as Basil passed her. "What, if I'm good you'll tell me?" 

"Sure," Basil shrugged, "why not?" 

"What, are you ashamed of it or something?" 

"Of course," Basil said quickly and quite certainly, "I'll always be ashamed of it, all my life. But not so ashamed I'll try and hide it, or try to pretend it didn't happen." 

"So," Florence made a face, "you're just not telling me to annoy me." 

"Yup!" 

"You are just such a little bi--" her sentence was left incomplete when suddenly, in an alley nearby, there was a crash. 

Basil, being the lawful and proactive man he is, called on Florence saying, "Come on, let's check it out." 

Florence groaned, following Basil behind, "You know it's hell running in heels, right?" 

Basil didn't catch that and swept around the corner before Florence to find a group three of men brawling with another two. They were right in front of a warehouse, where everything had been locked up for the night, and the two men were in uniform, making it clear they worked for the warehouse. 

"Hey, you!" One of the uniformed men called out, "Give us a hand would you!? They're trying to steal our truck!" 

Basil quickly ran into the scene, grabbing one of the men by the back of his collar, yanking him back into the wall behind them. He fell to the ground, and the other two turned away from the warehouse workers to see him. 

Digging into his back pocket, Basil began to pull out his badge to show his authority over the three men. "Sirs, I'm gonna have to ask you to stop--"

"HYA!!" One of the two remaining men cried out in desperation, swinging a fist at Basil, who quickly dodged it, grabbed his arm, and spun him onto the ground. 

"Back to--gah--you three are hereby apprehended by the Rune Knights, Lily Squa--

"HIYAA!" The other man came after Basil, wrapping his arms around Basil's head while Basil continued to hold the other man's arm down. This time, Florence was the to step in, whacking this man from behind to allow Basil to finish his sentence.

The man collapsed, "There you go, Basil, finish your little speech." 

Basil did just this, lining the three men up against the brick wall by the warehouse as one of the workers explained what had happened. The other went to work putting the truck the three men were trying to steal away. 

"We were here late, trying to finish cleaning up for the day when my coworker heard a rattling noise. The two of us went to go see what it was, and we find these three idiots trying to steal an entire truck--just like that. It was clear none of them knew what they were doing, just real awkward to watch..."

"Pathetic!" the other worker laughed, backing up into the now open door of the warehouse, "Just sad to watch!" 

Basil sighed, scratching his head as he turned to the three men against the wall, "You were trying to steal an entire truck? No merchandise, just the truck?" 

None of the men answered, rather hanging their heads down and avoiding eye contact.

"Well, it's not like we do this on a regular basis!" One frantically spilled out, "I mean, sure I'll admit we've pick-pocketed here and there--"

"Merrin--shut up!" The one to his right hissed, elbowing him sharply to shut the boy up.

Florence, with a smile on her face, slowly pushed Basil out of the way by gentle pressing her hand to his chest. "Why don't you let me help," she smiled, "you've got me curious about your secret now, so I'll be a good girl." 

Basil was hesitant, but he gave her the nod of approval (not like she needed it). Florence bent down, slowly right beside the young man presumed to be Merrin. She cleared her throat, straightening her cover-up over her butt as she squatted down. "Merrin, sweety," she smiled, with a then set of eyes looking at the man. She put one hand on his shoulder, touching him in a light yet affectionate way. "If you're in trouble, you can tell us, no need to be scared." 

Though Merrin was receiving more than just daggers from the other two men, with a blush, he quickly caved in. "Uh...we were...made to steal the truck for someone else." 

"Tell me," he said, helping Florence up as he spoke, "who is it you work for?" 

Anxiety fell over the three men, and they shared glances before the one at the far left lifted his arm. He looked down, like a dog hanging his head in shame after making a mess in the house, and in a whisper, he answered, "Angel Eyes."

"Angel Eyes?" Basil repeated, unfamiliar with the name.

"That sounds familiar," Florence spoke up, stepping forward towards the wall of the alley, "but I can't say I've crossed paths with them." 

"She's a monster," one of them spoke up, "she has this power--in her eyes--one look in the eye

"All you have to do is look in her violet eyes, and she has you under her control." The man shook, showing this absolute kind of fear. "We had no choice but to comply, or we could lose our freedom forever. Rest of your life! You're just a slave!" 

"How ironic," Florence smirked, crossing her arms as she leaned up against the wall, "you're so scared of losing freedom that you'll do whatever she says, I feel as though there is a word for that kind of irony, what's the word? Is it maybe an idiom?" 

"We didn't want to steal the trust--" the young one, Merrin, spoke up again, "the worst we've done is steal jewelry from tourists, but she and some of her other men found us and made us steal the truck for her!" 

"She said if we didn't, she'd make us join her crew," the bigger one explained, "she has a whole bunch of men, all under her power--no free will or anything." 

"Ah, that's it," she smiled thinly, snapping her fingers, "a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Basil brought his hands to his hips, "Sounds like you didn't have much of a choice huh?" 

"Of course not!" one of them hissed in a shrill voice. "What were we supposed to do?!" 

"I dunno, go to the police?" Basil made a dull expression, "Just a suggestion." 

The three men all made annoyed expressions, and Florence rolled her eyes.

"We couldn't go to the police! We're pickpockets!" The middle guy announced.

"Really?" Basil turned back around, flipping out a notepad to ask, "Got any details you'd like to share on that?" 

The three men all shriveled up in an instant, and Basil sent word for the local authority to arrive and arrest them, leaving him and Florence by the alley mulling over who this Angel Eyes, Basil mostly. 

"If there really is someone threatening petty criminals into submission, we could really have a problem on our hands." 

"Whoever this Angel Eyes woman is, she doesn't sound too smart," Florence smirked, "sending three pickpockets to steal a truck? Please, you can't fit that in any pair of pants I know of." 

Basil didn't seem to find her joke funny (because it wasn't) or hear it at all. He continued to scribble things down in his notepad, "The boys said something about meeting her around this underground bar. Apparently, a lot of the old tunnels run by the castle are now used by the less than legal folks." 

"Like where all those men were setting up bets for the games. "Nothing good happens underground, I feel." 

"I don't know, you find diamonds underground." Basil said offhand, "I think we should head down there tomorrow, see if anyone else knows about this Angel Eyes. You said you'd heard of her before?" 

"I haven't run into her, I can say that much," Florence squinted, "I'd remember running into a threat that great. But I still can't remember where I've heard her name." 

"Keeping thinking about that," he pointed his pen at Florence, this annoyed her, "I'll see if I can find anything on her in the library at the palace." He shut his little notepad, turning to Florence, "I don't think it'd be smart trying to give you access to the military records in the palace library. So can I trust you'll stay at the hotel tonight?" After a moment, Florence smirked. "Not even a little, huh." 

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

"All around good fight," Xavier said to his audience, "I just felt so bad when the guy started crying..."

"That was pretty weird," Layla made a face, forking down her dinner as Elwin sat with a red face beside her.

"I thought it was sweet," Sylvie smiled, shutting her eyes, "I always found it rather attractive when a man would allow himself to be so emotional. Showed he was secure in his masculinity." 

"Yeah...yeah..." Laurie made an uncomfortable face, sipping from his drink. 

The married couple had joined some of the team members for dinner that evening in the busy dining hall. All were there, except Jude and Esmeralda. It was noisy, and everyone was bickering about how Fairy Tail would have been in first if Xavier hadn't "screwed the pooch". The team had made second, so it was rather haughty of them to complain.

"I can't believe you tied with some random guy from Redmoon Shield," Nashi made a sour expression, "I mean, I know they ain't bad or anything anymore--and I know they sorta did mind control me and Malcon that one time which was honestly really cool--but they're like the lowest-ranked guild in the bunch. And you lost to a guy who uses wind magic. Wind Magic, Xavier. Like, pushing air!" 

"I know, I know," Xavier sighed, "honestly, it felt less like a fault and more like a mere survival game. He wasn't aiming to win, just...not lose." 

"Good technique, actually," Gideon added, "I mean, if you're clearly outmatched by your opponent, then it'd be the smartest method to still get yourself some points."  

"Tomorrow, Ezzie will be up," Xavier said suddenly, noting the girl who was (at the moment) absent of the group. "I'm interested in seeing her fight, if we're lucky, she and I could be chosen for the tag battles." 

"You two do make a good team," Gideon smiled, but it left Layla with a bit of an uncomfortable expression.

A moment passed, and it was then Elwin, who was still a blushing mess, blurted out, "I got asked out by a guy today!" 

The entire table all turned to him, a bit shocked. They didn't know how to respond, just as Elwin was unsure of how to respond when it happened. 

"So..." Xavier was first to say, "uh...you gonna go out with him? Because...well, we would all totally support you if you wanted to come out--" 

"Dude," Elwin muttered.

"I mean, it would explain a lot," Nashi sighed, "all the overcompensation..."

"Okay, first off," Elwin lifted his hand, "out of any of us, I am probably the most comfortable and open with their sexuality," he glanced at Sylvie, "except Sylvie, that girl's on fire."

"Sure thing," Sylvie shrugged, tipping her glass up as Laurie hid his face in embarrassment. 

"Therefore, if you're really wondering, I have deeply considered the possibility, and I realize that I'm attracted to women for no earthly reason, I just like to think about them, and I don't have those same feelings towards men, so I wouldn't humor any exploration because I don't feel the need for it." 

The table was rather surprised by the rather astute way of Elwin's coming out (as straight). Layla, however, couldn't help but roll her eyes back with a loud sigh. 

"So," Nashi shrugged, "what happened?" 

"Well, I told him that," Elwin continued, "he said it was fine, but asked me if I'd like to go out with him as just friends. Which I said yes to, so...tonight, me and Ronan are going to hang out." 

"Ronan?" Layla asked, "Like, the Lamia Scale guy who lost his shirt?" 

"Apparently he doesn't wear a shirt by choice," Elwin explained, "but, just to be sure, I'm thinking of trying to buy him one tonight. I think he might have lost it, but he's too embarrassed to admit it." 

"That's kind of you, Elwin," Sylvie said sincerely. 

"Thank you, I know." 

"Incidentally," Sylvie added, making an annoyed face, "I actually got hit on today too." 

"Wait, seriously?" Laurie reacted less with anger and more amusement, as the idea of Sylvie ever cheating on him seemed impossible. 

"Yes, and it was horrible," her face dropped, "you see, I explained to him that I was disinterested, but rather than just, you know, accept that. He was suddenly making a case for why I should sleep with him." 

"Oh boy," Nashi rolled her eyes.

"Well, did you tell him you were married?" Gideon asked. 

"Yes, and then, of course, he shuts up," Sylvie made a sour face, and all the other women at the table collectively groan. 

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Xavier shrugged.

"The problem is that her saying 'no' wasn't enough to stop him," Layla curtly explained, "no, the threat of a big scary boyfriend that'd beat you up for touching his girl is what shuts him up."

"Essentially," Sylvie explained, "he wouldn't acknowledge that I wasn't interested until he knew I was someone else's property." 

"Oooo," all the men collectively sneered.

"Yeah," Laurie gave Sylvie a reassuring pat on the back, "that must feel sucky." 

"Wait," Gideon added, "why would he be afraid of your husband--I mean, you're terrifying enough on your own!" 

"I know!" Sylvie snarled, "I'm just so frustrated how it ended because I didn't even get the final word in." 

"Well," Laurie wrapped his arm around Sylvie, trying to comfort her, "as terrible as that is, I hope you never see that creep again." 

"Oh, look at that," Elwin glanced at the clock on the wall, then slid his jacket on, "I got a dude date to get to." 

"Don't call it that," Layla said promptly.

"Call me if you need me, Layla," he knocked his hand against her crossed arms, smiling, "I'll come runnin', okay?" 

She glanced at him, then turned away, "Alright, have fun." 

As Elwin left, Xavier turned to Layla, "You sure you won't need him, aren't you and him on some entirely not secret mission for my dad?" 

"Well, yeah," she rolled her eyes, "but it's fine, Elwin barely has any friends anyway, I was just gonna stake out the Deadly Sins again." 

"Want me to come with you?" Xavier offered, "Keep you company, at least for a while." He smiled, "It'd be like old times."

Layla made a face, her eyes a bit widened. In a moment, she smiled too. "Okay."

The group dispersed, Layla and Xavier going off to spy on the other team (the noble thing, really), Gideon left with Nashi to complain about this match that morning, leaving just Sylvie with her husband. 

"I swear," she touched her stomach making a sour expression, "I am always hungry now." 

"You just ate," he sighed, smiling in a slight amusement to her sudden appetite. "Well, okay, what do you want?" 

"Pancakes," her eyes were dead serious, Laurie groaned.

He reached into his back pocket, retrieving his wallet to pull out several bills. "Get me some bacon if they're still serving it." 

"Will do," she smiled, snatching the money and trotting off to the counter to speak to one of the serves and order some pancakes (with bacon). 

She propped herself up to the bar, waiting politely while the server rushed to complete orders. Sylvie didn't want to bother her, so she just waited, but was suddenly disturbed by an eerie voice.

"One day, I'll turn you into a fountain" he whispered.

"Oh my gosh!" Sylvie shot forward, whipping around to see the man behind her. The man who'd she'd spoken to that morning, Nirvek, or what have you. "Why are you still here?!" 

"So I've been thinking," Nirvek said, moving over to the seat, "you're proposition from earlier." 

"I gave no such thing," she said flatly. 

"I don't usually get involved with married women, but I can make an exception for you." 

"The density of your skull must fascinate scientists..." she sighed, "Nirvek, or whatever your name is."

"That's right." 

"Uh-huh," she squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a wrinkle form between her brows, "I will say this for the last time, I am by no means interested in sleeping with you as not only am I married to a wonderful man, but I am not attracted to you at all. So please, please stop talking to me." 

It only took him a moment to come up with another, "Oh come on, you're not even giving it a chance--"

Then, suddenly, he arrived.

"Excuse me," Liddan popped his head in, a scowl on his face as he looked the man up and down. "You really think you should be doing that?" 

Sylvie turned to Liddan, her eyes widening as she saw him arrive by her side, a tense look on his face as he glared at Nirvek, practically shooting daggers at the man. She was surprised to see him, as the two hadn't even seen each other since the start of the games, and she certainly didn't expect him to go out of his way to help her with some creep.

Nirvek made a face, "This the husband?" 

"No," Sylvie said flatly, "he's just..." she bit her lip, "a friend." 

"Oh," Nirvek made a more assured expression, nodding his head as he regained his stature, "a friend, huh?" He crossed his arms, "I bet you're just biding your time, aren't you." 

"What?" Sylvie's face curled up into one of disgust. "Ew--"

"Sylvie," Liddan also made a disgusted face, "who is this man and why is he talking to you?" 

"I don't really know anymore." 

"Cool off, white knight," Nirvek waved his hand, "find someone else to save and bone."

"Bone? White knight--what's with all the slang?" Sylvie groaned, "Just call it sex, you virgins!" 

This brought some concern to even Liddan, who turned his head to join Nirvek in concern to the blatant statement. Sylvie brought her hands together quickly, "I am sorry--but all I wanted to do was order some pancakes because I am very hungry and very pregnant so--"

"Wait! You're pregnant!" Nirvek jumped back, now he, finally, with a face of disgust. Sylvie turned to him, her face becoming flushed as she realized she hadn't used that excuse yet. "Whoa, sorry, I don't **** pregnant women." 

Sylvie pursed her lips, shutting her eyes as she screamed internally. 

"Look, sorry, but," he had the audacity to put his hand on her shoulder, "I think we can both agree this isn't gonna work. So...let's not complicate things." 

He stepped away, acting as if he were the better man in the situation, so no one could really blame Sylvie for what she did next.

Noticing a pitcher on the edge of the counter, she quickly pulled the water from the pitcher, flung it at Nirvek's head, then froze it while it wrapped around him. This left his head frozen, and Nirvek in a panic. He began to run around, holding his now heavy head up as he tried to escape the ice trap covering his face. 

Liddan, witnessing the entire interaction made a face, looking at Sylvie with uncertain eyes.

Sylvie sighed, giving him the same look, "Should I have given him a breathing hole?" 

They heard a shatter and turned to see Nirvek closer to the center of the room, having broken out of his ice helmet by crashing onto the floor.

"You know what," Liddan sighed, "he's fine." He turned back to Sylvie, watching her turn back to the counter in clear exhaustion. "You seem to have had...a day." 

"Oh, it wasn't so bad," Sylvie shrugged, "other than that guy and your mom passing her spawn off to me and Laurie serving as a grim reminder of how unprepared we are for the alien growing inside me, you know...it's been good." 

"Uh-huh," Liddan made a face. 

"Thank you," Sylvie said, "for stepping in, that is." 

"Oh, it's no problem," he shrugged, waving his hand slightly. 

"Actually," Sylvie made a face, "it kinda is." 

Liddan gave her a funny look, and she continued. "It just kinda hurts. That I needed to be with a man, or have something wrong with me, like being pregnant, for him to leave me alone. It hurts that 'no' wasn't enough. Or simply 'I don't want to', he just kept pushing." 

"Yeah," Liddan sighed, not sure what to say, "some guys are just like that, but, well, you've already got a good guy, so don't freak out about the others." 

Sylvie didn't quite like the answer, but she smiled nonetheless and shrugged off her annoyances. "So," she said suddenly, crossing her legs, "how have you been?" 

Liddan made a bit of a face, cluing Sylvie in. "A mess, huh?" she answered for him.

"More or less," he scratched his head, "just...a lot happening, but at the same time, I feel kinda bored..." 

"Huh," Sylvie crossed her arms, looking him up and down, "say, we haven't had a good talk in a while, have we?" 

"Heh," Liddan made a face, smiling out of obligation, "not since you showed up at my house screaming at me--when was that?" 

"A good while ago," Sylvie smiled, "would you like to go out and have brunch with me? Just the two of us? We could catch up, you could tell me about how bored you are, or how busy you are." 

Liddan made a face, seeming rather resistant. He scratched his head, looking about for some kind of excuse or reason to say no. There didn't seem to be one, logically speaking, so Liddan found himself with no choice but to say, "Sure, sounds good." 

"Alright," Sylvie smiled, "I'll meet you here at eight, we can eat here, or maybe go out--so long as they have pancakes--PANCAKES!" She suddenly began slapping her hands against the counter, finally getting the attention of the server, who promptly arrived before her so she could finally order. "Please, I need an order of pancakes with bacon, it's an emergency!" 

"Oh, uh," the server was rightfully confused, but quickly scribbled the order down, "we'll get them to your table right away." 

Sylvie smiled, then turned back to Liddan, who couldn't help but admire her "tenacity", if that was the right word for it. There were a lot of right words for Sylvie. "I'll see you tomorrow then." 

"Yeah," he nodded, "tomorrow."

He watched Sylvie walk away, the shape of her body, which he realized he hadn't noticed so much until that moment. He watched her swaying hips up until they arrived at Laurie, who greeted her with a worn smile. He rolled his eyes, which were with the intention of expressing his annoyance of marriage to (well) no one, but ended up giving him the scope of the room. This, unfortunately, resulted in Liddan briefly making eye contact with the person he'd spent most of his day avoiding.

She was, to both of their displeasure, only about three yards away, and neither of them wanted to talk about what it was they'd done the night before.

So, Liddan, after breaking eye contact with Felicity, dashed through the ground and into the hallway in hopes of escaping an awkward conversation. Arriving in the hallway, where doors to different rooms lined the walls, Liddan found himself at peace, feeling as though he'd escaped an awkward conversation for another day. That is, until he heard "Aw, crap." 

He turned to find Felicity, who, from her slouched position against the wall, was clearly hiding as well.

What followed was a prolonged, uncomfortable, "Heeeeeeeeey," which lasted at least seven seconds. Neither of them really knowing what to say other than that, they each just sighed and realized that running away from one another for the rest of the games or, possibly, their lives wasn't the best plan.

"Look, this doesn't have to be awkward," Felicity said suddenly, "we were swept away in the moment, I mean, we're both attracted to one another, we shouldn't be embarrassed by doing a bit of kissing. It's not like we slept together or something!" 

"Yeah, yeah!" Liddan agreed, "because if we did that, it would be, just, like...no going back." 

"Good thing we didn't do anything like that." 

Twenty-five minutes later, the two found themselves mostly naked on the floor of the nearest broom closet, heaving needlessly as a reaction to the horrid act they'd just committed. The two had just had sex, messy, dirty (and not sexy dirt, it was a broom closet for goodness sake), and more than anything, ill-thought-out sex.

"Okay," Felicity said, after finally catching her breath, "we just...can't do that again. And we'll be fine." 

"Sure," Liddan nodded his head, rubbing his faux arm as he tried to stick it back into its place, "just, don't do it again, and it's like it never happened." 

This would not be the last time.

Author's Note

Oh my. It's been a while. 

This chapter proved to be quite long, which by no means makes up for how long it took for it to come out (as...the chapter is a bit of a mess, apologies, I'm picking up the pieces of my terrible writing choices from years ago). 

However, from here, I have a very clear idea as to where I'm going, so hopefully, the writing will come much more naturally than it has. 

I'm sorry for the hiatus, have had some troubles, as many of you know. 

You all probably hate me for a couple of things. The hiatus, then probably Felicity and Liddan. Oh boy, that's a can of worms I'm excited to open, just you wait, it'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

Funny thing about this chapter, a bunch of the Nirvek lines were pulled nearly word for word from a conversation with a guy I know. This is his punishment, I regret nothing. 

I've actually already started the next chapter, not to say it'll come out super soon, but (you know) sooner than a year and a half.

Thanks for staying with me, I really appreciate you all sticking with me for so long. It's been a heck of a ride just writing this, and I'm glad for it to finally be ready to publish.

I'm a little scared to publish it actually, I've been having so many doubts about my writing and the downside of this episodic publishing style is I can't simply go back and revisit story beats. 

From here on I'll try and make chapters shorter and maybe a bit easier to digest, though I tried to section this off.

This chapter was 22990 words, so congratulations, you did a lot of reading. That's way too long, what's wrong with me.

Thank you, again, for reading. I hope you'll stick with me to the end.

-Katie the Terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible no good very bad