*bandit hideout—outskirts of Hargeon*
{NO ONE'S POV}
Twenty heads turned as a bandit lackey burst into the main room of their hideout, an underground bunker built just outside of the port city, Hargeon.

This strategic secret hideout gave the notorious bandit group access to the main roads. They had first dibs on all of the valuable goods that traders brought to the port from other continents. These goods would have to traverse the main roads to get inland.

The bandit lackey was panting and out of breath, putting everyone in the main room on guard. The bandit elites saw how beat up he was. His skin was covered in dozens of burns and bruises.

"We've got t-trouble! Four mages have broken in and they're wrecking the place!" He cried.

The bandit elites relaxed. They looked around the room at each other; twenty giant muscular mages, all looking quite fierce. They laughed at the absurdity of only four people challenging them.

"Ha! Let them come!"

"Yeah! There's no way they can beat us!"

There was a reason this particular bandit group was so notorious. No trade caravan nor mage had ever managed to defeat the elite members. They were the cream of the crop from Hargeon.

"But, sirs! These mages are from Fairy—"

The bandit lackey never got a chance to finish his sentence, since he was knocked out cold from behind.

"Who's there?!" One of the bandit elites called out.

"Knock knock." A dark-haired, red-eyed girl stood on the face of the downed lackey. She smirked, looking up so the light caught her face just right. "Thanks for leading us straight here, little buddy."

The smartest of the bandit elites gasped, putting two and two together. "No way. No way!"

The first girl jumped into action. She summoned a floating glowing book, which flipped open to a page with a complex magic circle transcribed on it. She put her hand on the magic circle.

"Library magic: Beauty and the Beast!"

The magic circle activated, and the girl was encased in a glowing yellow combat avatar of a bipedal chimeric beast. Her pupils elongating into beastly slits and she roared, raring to attack.

"That's Talica Redfox, daughter of the iron dragon slayer! She's a library mage, capable of memorizing any book she reads and creating perfect copies out of magic power that she can access at any time. She can use them for magic combat like this!"

Talica made good use of the combat avatar's twelve-inch, razor sharp claws. At one point, she even summoned another book as a weapon, ramming the binding into a bandit elite's nose.

"Why a cookbook?!"

"Because you're cooked!"

"Waaah!"

The poor guy flew out of a brand new human-shaped hole in the ceiling. He continued to fly until he became naught but a speck in the sky.

"Tali, we're supposed to be capturing the bandits, not sending 'em to Edolas!" Another girl admonished.

She followed Talica into the main room and attacked any bandit elite that crossed her path with one of her limbs encased in fire.

"That's Nashi Dragneel, daughter of the fire dragon slayer, aka Fairy Tail's Salamander! She's a sixth generation dragon slayer—a dragon slayer who was taught by another dragon slayer!"

"Eeek!" The identical twin bandit elites hugged each other and squealed, "Ma, help!"

And then they were conked on the head and went to sleep. Standing over their bodies was the third person to enter the room. The ambient temperature of the air dropped ten degrees surrounding him.

"And that's Silver Fullbuster, son of Fairy Tail's ice devil slayer!"

"How many different flavors of slayer are there?!" The rest of the bandit elites panicked together.

"He can bend water in any of it's different forms with his fluid-make magic—from gas to solid, from boiling hot steam to freezing cold ice!"

The fourth and final of the intruders to make an appearance was by far the least flashy. She wasn't glowing like Talica, or on fire like Nashi, or freezing the water in the surrounding air like Silver. In fact, it wasn't quite clear what her magic affinity was. She appeared to be extremely proficient at close combat, bashing heads together like nobody's business, but there was nothing magically buffing her moves.

"Ya know, this kid actually seems kinda normal."

"You bloody fool!" The smart bandit elite—who was narrating all of the Fairy Tail mages' names and abilities—slapped his colleague upside the head. "Don't you know who she is?!"

"Uh, no?"

"That's Rose Fernandes, daughter of Fairy Tail's strongest female mage! Her mother is an armor and weapon requipper, probably the most accomplished one in centuries. Plus, the magic power she exudes is significantly more condensed than any of the others. She's obviously going easy on us and hasn't requipped her weapon yet!"

"Eh? Well maybe she should start taking us seriously!" The other bandit elite yelled angrily.

Rose paused to ponder this for a second, then nodded seriously. "You asked for it."

Everyone tensed. Even the other three Fairy Tail mages calmed down for a second, to see where Rose was going with this. All eyes were on her.

Rose spread her arms and the air in front of her glowed with the mysterious grey light. The silhouette of a massive sword began to form. The blade was as long as Rose was tall, and roughly as wide as her too. Anyone who could wield that sword without stumbling was a master knight.

The bandit elites gulped, backing away. None wanted to face off against the massive sword. When the grey light faded, it revealed that the sword was... a blob?

A black gooey substance, the smooth and shiny texture of slime, had formed the shape of a sword.

The edges of the so-called blade were not sharp at all. It was utterly harmless. Such a sword couldn't hurt a fly, let alone a human.

The bandit elites stared at the blob, open-mouthed, waiting for it to do something amazing. The blob fell to the ground with a squelching spat. It wiggled and jiggled like jello, slowly coalescing into a semi-elliptical shape. Then it sat still.

Rose scratched the back of her head sheepishly and gestured to the cute little blob. "Tada."

"So lame!"

The bandit elite who made fun of the blob promptly received a broken nose, courtesy of Rose.

She may not be able to requip swords, but she wasn't weak. Rose had twin steel gauntlets that increased the damage of her punches and offered protection to her hands and arms.

The fight was back on in full force. It took mere minutes for the four Fairy Tail mages to knockout all twenty opponents. The criminal mages were cuffed with magic seal stone and prepped for transport. Upon completing the job, the Fairy Tail mages were to turn the criminals in to the Rune Knights.

The smart bandit elite was interested in the blob. No one had bothered to go near it during the fight, since it was deemed a waste of space. But now, his hands and feet were bound so he couldn't run away. He had nothing better to do, plus he was curious.

He had a gut feeling that the blob was more than it appeared. Nothing made sense otherwise.

Good genetics alone didn't explain Rose's insane level of magic power. She only used a tiny fraction of it, but the smart bandit elite was a great sensor. The aura she emanated was oppressive. Surely a... blob mage (slime mage?)... whatever Rose was, couldn't reach the density of magic power that she released.

He observed the black blob more carefully.

It wasn't actually solid black in color. Upon settling into its final shape, the slime had begun to vibrate imperceptibly. This caused small ripples of rainbow colors to spread across the surface, like the rings that form when a drop of rainwater hits a puddle.

The smart bandit elite wasn't aware that his eyes had glazed over. He was too busy watching the waves of color undulate. He muttered, "I stare into the blob and the blob stares back."

Rose, who was standing some distance away from the blob at this point, heard him. Her eyes widened.

She ducked out of the conversation that the Fairy Tail mages were having with the Rune Knights. They were discussing how to transport all of the bandits back to Hargeon safely and efficiently.

The discussion rapidly devolved into an argument, so nobody really cared what quiet Rose was up to.

Rose made her way over to the affected bandit elite. She broke his eye contact with the blob by forcibly turning his head to face hers. "Are you okay?"

His eyes cleared. He frowned, clearly confused. "Huh? I'm fine. Why?"

"Your brain almost turned to soup."

The smart bandit elite instinctively glanced at the blob, then quickly back at Rose in horror. "What?!"

She pulled away with a sigh. "Sorry. That was a hyperbole, obviously. But the blob does have some hypnotic properties, so be careful."

The smart bandit elite tried to remember the last few minutes and couldn't. What was he doing? He had no idea, which genuinely terrified him. He refused to even look at the blob a second time.