Effervescence

Chapter 2: Acceptance

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GUYS SPOILERS OH MY GOD SERIOUS SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T READ/WATCHED THE TARTARUS ARC!

Love, Maia~

~~~Ooh squigglies yes~~~

The guild quickly split into two groups. The first consisted of my grandfather, brother, the people who knew me from before my quest (Cana, Gray, the Raijinshu, Makao, Wacoba, Gildarts, etc...), and very sensible people who knew I had no choice in the matter, or that there was no point in blaming me for the awful things Acnologia did to them (Erza Scarlet, the Strauss siblings, team Shadow Gear, Lucy Heartfilia, Wendy Marvell, etc...). The second was group 'lets-blame-Sasha-for-everything-and-kill-her-for-revenge-and-fun!'. This group was led by Natsu Dragneel, the fire dragon slayer, and Gajeel Redfox, the iron dragon slayer. They were both pissed.

Natsu, I could understand. I found out from Hibiki that Natsu's adoptive father Igneel was killed by Acnologia.

What's up with Gajeel, though, I didn't know. I guessed he probably just wanted to have a fight.

My friends surrounded the stage, standing in front of it, and fought off the two dragon slayers and a few of the irrational guild members. Grandpa was yelling, and Laxus was electrocuting people. Bickslow had his helmet off, and was commanding his 'babies' to get them.

"STOOOOOOOOP!" I yelled, and stomped my foot. The shock wave it sent out floored everybody...probably in the whole town. Oops.

The whole guild looked at me in silence.

"I will fight my own battles, thanks. I challenge anyone who wants to kick me out of my guild, or kill me, to a fight." I said, as I walked out of the guild and stood waiting for everyone to go out into the courtyard.

Freed was the second to come out, after the flame runt, and I instructed him to put up a barrier for the fight.

Everyone was now outside, so I began the fight.

"Come at me." I said as I lowered my eyelids into a glare. At this, about a third of my opponents fled to the opposite side of the barrier. I smirked, showing my fangs.

"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" Natsu yelled as he ran at me with incredible speed. I dodged to the left, and grabbed his right forearm. His eyes widened at the speed I had just shown, and he screamed as I flipped him over my head into the ground, creating a large crater.

There were gasps from the crowd, and from the rim of the crater I could see astonished faces looking in. I was then jumped on by about a dozen guild members. The weight made me crouch. One of the faces in front of me had a hell of a ton of piercings. Gajeel. I smiled my creepiest smile, and his smirk vanished.

"Chaos Dragon's Claw!" I yelled, spinning around to kick the smug looks off the other members' faces.

"Iron Dragon's Iron Fist!" Gajeel yelled behind me.

"Roundhouse Kick!" I wheeled around, and sent the confused slayer into the rune barrier, which broke to pieces with the force I drove into it. I dusted off my clothes and hands.

"I'M RICH! WE'RE RICH!" Gramps was dancing around, collecting bets from the opposing guild members. I could also see that those members were going to be broke by the time they payed up to the others who bet on me. Good.

I felt a cold and on my shoulder, and turned to look at Gray. A genuine smile crossed over my face. I had missed my little companion. "Hey Gray! We look the same age now!" I laughed. "But of course, like always, I'm still mentally older by a few decades!" He said, giving me a smile in return.

"Stay away from my sister." "Love rival!" were heard by us at the same time as we were both grabbed by the shoulders and dragged across the length of the courtyard in opposite directions.

"Huh?! Laxus! You know I can handle myself!"

"Yeah, but he can't." laxus gave me a stern gaze, which felt oddly familiar.

"Oh yeah, Laxus?" I looked up at him.

"I heard about father... I'm sorry I wasn't there to witness his downfall in the GMGs." I said, a lilt of happiness in my voice. My father was a mighty prick, and incredibly abusive. One of the reasons I left on the quest was to get away from him.

"Oh? How do you know so much about this time if you were locked up in a Timeless Space?" He eyed me with a weary look.

"U-um, well. Acnologia did bring back some tidbits of information for me. And, well... I kinda stopped by on my way here at Blue Pegasus for Hibiki to fill me in on current events." Laxus growled, undoubtedly thinking about how to crush my friend's head in when he got the chance. I punched his arm, and we had a glare-down. I won.

We finally returned to the guild hall, and I caught up with my friends, and made some new ones too. Levy, Lucy, and I bonded over books and studying magic. Gajeel and I quarreled a few times, before finally becoming best friends. The Strauss siblings and I got along quite well, especially Mira and I (we bonded over our OTPs, me giving her stories and background information about my old friends.). The Raijinshu and I already knew each other quite well, so we were naturally close. Cana, Gildarts, and I drank a lot. We were the best of friends.

Unfortunately, Natsu wouldn't stop pestering me (AKA trying to murder me) so I had to knock him out a few times. In the end, Freed erected a rune barrier around him to constrain him to a lovely little corner of the guild hall.

I was perched on the bannister of the second floor talking to Mavis and yawning, when my grandfather called me into his office.

"You seem tired. I thought you'd probably need a place to sleep, so I found a perfect apartment down the road for you. Here are the keys." He handed me a slip of paper and a pair of blue keys to the apartment.

"Thanks, pops!" I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek and heading out of the guild to my new apartment.