The stars are lit up with Love

Aries steps up

It had been an interesting request, Blue Pegasus asking for assistance in a Dark Guild extermination mission. It was figured the target guild was extremely powerful if they were reaching out for help, so of course Fairytail's most destructive team was sent in. The train ride over had been an enticing mixture of anticipation and questioning. The message hadn't given them too much info to work on, they'd apparently get a full briefing when they arrived at the guild, so there was a lot to speculate.

They eagerly got off the train, chattering about their upcoming mission.

"This might be a real fight, a chance to get fired up!"

"As long as you save some for me, I'm not going to be just standing around you know?"

"I dunno, with me on the case we probably don't need you. I'll definitely knock more out than you anyway"

"We'll see about that, want to make it a competition?"

"Of course! Just don't come crying to me when you lose"

She did her best to block out the predictable ensuing argument, though they didn't make it easy for her. Instead she turned to her other companions, Wendy and Erza, for a more sane conversation.

"So what's the plan?"

Erza returned her inquisitive look with a thoughtful turn of the head, before sighing.

"I'm not sure. To prevent sensitive information from being stolen if the request was interrupted it's very vague. The fact we're fighting a dark guild took some effort from Levy to find out. The bits that aren't vague are in code and took a while to decode, that was probably Hibiki's work and idea. All I know for certain is that we're invited to a meeting on the 26th to properly explain everything and I suppose discuss any information they've gathered."

That made sense, there was no point spilling everything on a request, especially if it got stolen. Honestly this was pretty good pre-planning on their part, definitely not Ichiya who came up with this then. They were probably scouting out this dark guild until the last possible second, hence the late date, which suggested they were going to be quite the formidable foe. This was going to be interesting. Still something was bugging her, a nagging in her brain that they were forgetting something...

"Um, Erza?"

"Yes Wendy?"

Her trepidation seemed to be shared, if her confused look was anything to go by.

"We definitely have to be there on the 26th right?"

"Right! I'm certain about that part, Levy gave me her word on it"

"Right...so why are we here now? It's the 25th"

Erza froze solid, forcing her and Wendy to pause lest they leave her there. Her shocked expression should have been funny, but her heart went out to her instead. That's what had been bothering her. They were-

"We're here early?"

"Yes?"

What followed was an uncomfortable pause as Erza stubborn;ly fought back against her own embarrassment, though it still stained her cheeks. She coughed abruptly as the arguing trio finally noticed they'd sped ahead, turning around to join them.

"What's the hold up?"

"Um well...It turns out I may have gotten too overzealous when packing. I'd confused the date so-"

"We're not here late are we?"

"Or worse, a week early or something"

"No, no of course not!" She wasn't sure Erza had the right to look so indignant considering the conversation topic. She waved them off, doing her best to seem stern. "Just a day early, but that means we aren't needed until tomorrow..."