"This is great, catching up and all, but we really need to get going," Storm spoke up.

"I used too many direct lines in a row," Mest said. "So I'm running low on magic power. I only have enough to teleport us one more time. I think it would be best to use that teleport to reach Sorano's ship, so we'll need to travel a bit on land until I'm in range."

"That's why we got the magic mobile," Gale winked proudly.

"No way I'm getting on that thing," Natsu gagged.

"I can use troia before we leave," Wendy offered.

"You're an angel," I sighed happily.

"Makarov are you really leaving so soon, and after we were getting to know each other?" We all turned to see a man with tan skin and tall brown hair grinning proudly as his gaze rested on us. "I have a farewell gift for you. I'd like you to have it before you take a nap in the ground,"

"No. Ajeel!" Makarov exclaimed.

"How did he find us?" Mest was the most shocked out of us all.

"He's a sand wizard," Gale answered. "He can sense where things are on the sand like I can with the ground." We all readied ourselves for a fight that would surely arrive this time. 

I doubt he'll let us walk away like Brandish did.

"Very good," Ajeel praised. 

"Stop!" Makarov announced. "You mustn't fight him, he's far too powerful. We should run!"

"For real?" Natsu was surprised by Makarov's decision.

"Our master clearly gave the order to retreat," Erza confirmed.

"but Erza,"

"Let's go, now,"

"Everyone in the magic mobile," Reiki motioned everyone to the vehicle as Erza sent her swords flying at Ajeel.

"Come on! Get in!" Gray hollered.

"Can't we walk?" Natsu groaned.

"I'll drive," Erza announced as she climbed into the driver's seat. She was about to attach the S.E. plug when Reiki grabbed it out of her hand.

"Let Nashi power it," 

I climbed into the back seat and Reiki handed me the S.E. plug and I attached it to my wrist. 

"I have H-MAD, so I can run it longer and faster," As the wrist cuff snapped closed, the magic mobile roared to life and my stomach started to churn from motion sickness. Erza gave us a skeptical look, but slammed the vehicle into high gear and we began speeding away through the forest. 

"H-MAD?" Lucy questioned. 

"What's that?" Natsu asked with a sickly groan.

"Hyper Magic Absorption Disorder," Kali explained in her teacher voice. "H-MAD is an extremely rare biological mutation, which causes an excess amount of magic power to be taken into the body. In other words, the person's body doesn't know when to stop absorbing magic power, even when the tank is full. This overflow causes severe headaches, fevers, and even spontaneous combustion,"

"Spontaneous combustion?!" Lucy shouted.

"Luckily, H-MAD can be managed to prevent these side effects," Kali continued her lecture with a smile. "Constant training and daily magic usage makes H-MAD not only manageable but an incredible advantage in battle. This is why Nashi can power S.E. plugs longer and fight harder than most wizards. Her body is constantly replacing whatever magic power she loses at a rate exponentially faster than a normal wizard's.

"Thanks for the lesson," Gray announced. "Now can we focus on the bad guy trying to kill us?!"

"Nashi, we need to go faster," Reiki shouted.

"I'm trying," I groaned. 

"It's a giant sand monster!" Gale yelled. "He's right on top of us,"

The cabin jolted as Erza steered to avoid the sand monster's attack.

"We gotta stop that thing," Gray and Lucy crawled out of the windows of the cabin and climbed onto the roof.

"No don't! He's too powerful for us to fight," Makarov warned.

"Yeah well, I'm not sure about that Gramps," Gray's right arm and chest turned black with cold steam as he shifted to his Ice demon slayer mode.

"Star Dress! Saggitarius!" Lucy's clothes changed to her green archery outfit with her bow and star arrows.

"There's so much magic power coming from those two," Makarov marveled. "They told me they'd gotten stronger, but to grow so much in only a year is incredible,"

"What's happening?" I groaned.

"Gray froze that monster in its tracks!" Happy declared. "Oh! But now there's a bunch of little monsters flying towards us! Yay! Lucy shot 'em down! Wait, where did he go?"

"He's beneath us!" Gale answered. "He merged with the sand! Watch out for an attack,"

The ground started to rumble.

"Antlion Pit!" Ajeel yelled. His spell forced the ground to give way and we began to sink into the earth.

"Everyone, out of the car. Hurry" Reiki quickly unplugged me from the vehicle and pulled me out. When my eyes finally stopped spinning, I discovered I was already knee-deep and sinking.

"What is this? It's actually pulling us down," Storm exclaimed. 

"I can't move my legs anymore," Gale cried.

As I looked around, I saw everyone was sinking further into the sandy earth. 

"I can't count how many people I've killed with this," Ajeel stood over us, watching his prey fall further victim to his trap. "Entire cities have been swallowed up whole inside of it. My antlion trap is like a gateway to hell. Nobody has ever escaped from it. Before you go to your graves thinking you're something special, you should know this! You're just a bunch of losers like all of the other wizards we've killed over the years. We're on a different level altogether than you maggots from Ishgar! The gods have abandoned your whole freakin' continent! It'll be so much easier for Alvarez to take it over. Sucks to be you guys," He laughed evilly.

Suddenly, a blazing fire overcame the area and the sand evaporated. As I stood to my feet, I felt a tingling sensation on my shoulder as my disguised guild mark shifted back to the Fairy Tail crest.

"So the gods abandoned Ishgar? That's not a problem," Natsu declared. "Because Fairy Tail is still watching over it,"

Ajeel was in a state of shock that his attack was overcome by a fire wizard. Natsu lunged at Ajeel and threw his fiery fist into his face. Ajeel was thrown back several feet and we all prepared to fight.

"Nice shot! It's been a while since somebody got in a hit like that!" Ajeel cheered. "Bring it on!" He sent out an attack that sent sand flying towards us.

"Cool it down," Gray countered the attack by freezing his sand in its tracks. Just then the sand unfroze itself and pulled Natsu and Gray into a tornado of sand. Then the sand rose up and began to engulf us yet again.

"Not this again," I growled.

"You won't hurt my children!" Makarov declared. He threw his giant fist at Ajeel, forcing the sand to stop moving. Makarov then grew to his giant form and used his massive hands to scoop us all up in his arms. "As long as I draw breath, I'll protect my family at any cost,"

As I squirmed against Makarov's grasp and the bodies of everyone else pressing into mine, I felt something squeeze around my tush. I quickly realized it was a hand and my face turned bright red. I quickly found Storm's face squished behind Wendy and saw his bright red expression.

"Storm, where's your arm?" I squeaked. He didn't say anything, but I could see the sweat drops pouring down his face. 

"I can't move my arm," He muttered. 

"Then stop moving your hand!"

"Sorry," He blushed. "It was an accident,"

"Come on Gramps! Let us go so we can pummel this guy!" Natsu yelled.

Just then there was a rumbling that shook us all, it was emanating from the ground.

"That can't be good," Kali groaned, she was squished between Gray and Carla's human form.

"I'm sensing a huge sand storm," Gale explained. Her face was lightly dusted with a bit of blush as Reiki's face was just a few inches from hers. 

"Now Mest, teleport us out of here," Erza ordered.

"Where are we supposed to go?" He pointed out.

"It's getting closer!"

"Gramps!"

"I will keep you safe, if it's the last thing I do! I swear on my life," Makarov determined.

"Get out of here!"

"Gramps!"

"Run!"

We all shouted for Makarov to try to outrun the storm that would surely kill him, but the stubborn old man remained firm.

There was a crash as the wall of sand crashed around us like a tidal wave and I gritted my teeth in anticipation. There was a second boom that sounded like a lightning strike and we were all unharmed. Makarov gasped and loosened his grip on all of us. We squirmed in his grasp and crawled to the fresh air. When I looked up, I saw the magic bomber Christina flying above us.

Standing on the bow of the ship was none other than Laxus.

"Laxus?" Makarov gasped.

"He obliterated that sand storm with just one shot," Reiki pointed out.

"He's always been flashy like that," Gray added.

"Hey old man," Laxus smiled. "You got older,"

Makarov smiled contently at the sight of his grandson.

"We're behind enemy lines, so we gotta get out of here ASAP," Gajeel explained.

"Gajeel?" Happy questioned.

"I can smell Levy and Lily up there too," Natsu added. "Hold on just a second. How are you and Laxus not puking your guts out?"

"Gray my darling! I'm here too!"

"Hey I wanna say something manly!"

"The ship's been modified so dragon slayers can ride it and not get sick,"

Mest quickly teleported us onto the ship and I fell onto the deck with an oof.

Ajeel angrily tried to attack us one more time. "You're not running from me!"

"No one's running," Laxus said. "We're just flying home, okay? And I'm gonna get cranky if we're not back in time for dinner," He quickly struck down Ajeel's attack with his own massive explosion and the Christina took off to the East. 

"What did you think of our manly rescue?" Elfman grinned proudly. He was accompanied by Gajeel, Levy, Lily, Cana, Juvia, the thunder legion, and the Strauss girls. 

"Thank goodness you were here," Gale smiled.

"We overheard your plan to rescue the master and we wanted to help," Levy explained, ruffling Gale's hair happily.

"You got some nerve leaving without us," Gajeel growled at Erza.

"Well it was a covert operation," Erza said.

"Being on a ship is awesome when you don't need to hurl the whole time," Natsu was grinning like a kid on Christmas. He turned to Laxus with a devious look "Whaddaya say we fight to celebrate,"

"I'll pass,"

"Oh Storm my baby!" Juvia grabbed his face between her hands, inspecting him for injuries. "Tell Mama where it hurts and I'll fix it!"

"Mom I'm fine!" Storm pushed her away, but Juvia continued to insist. 

I couldn't help but laugh at everything. I knew that there were dark times ahead, but I wanted to enjoy this moment. Because if Fairy Tail had taught me anything its that family stands up for one another, and as long as we can smile we can find the strength to continue forward.

- - - - - -

Meanwhile:

"That was intense," Ajeel was almost awestruck from the attack Laxus launched at him. "They must be taking this seriously," He grinned. He saw a familiar figure out of the corner of his eye and greeted his comrade with a smile. "I guess you put up that barrier as some kind of favor to me?"

"Even an old man like me finds it painful to lose a comrade in battle," August explained. His long grey hair swaying in the wind and his calm expression remained stoic.

"So you think that little light show woulda killed me? Sorry August, you must be getting senile,"

"Never underestimate the enemy," A woman joined August at his side, her thigh-high heeled boots clicking on the barren stone. She rested her long gloved hand on her hip. Her navy dress was long with wide slits on both sides that exposed her legs and hips. Her dark purple hair was tied in a bun held together by silver hair sticks. 

She pushed her red glasses up her nose, framing her crimson eyes as she looked down them at Ajeel. "It might be the last thing you do,"

"Lady Lilith," Ajeel grinned sinisterly. "So you finally left the lab. Have you finally come to terms with your punishment?" Lilith sneered and furrowed her eyebrows. "I'm just saying," Ajeel continued. "it must have really sucked when you finally came home to Alvarez, only to find that your seat on the twelve had been filled by an outsider,"

Lilith snarled and stormed up to Ajeel, grabbing him by the sash and pulling his face inches from hers. 

"I will reclaim my seat on the twelve. As the empire's lead scientist, I've worked closely with the emperor to ensure our victory in this war. And when we are victorious, he'll welcome me back to the twelve with honor,"