Fairy Tail: Swallow the Fire

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“So, you guys accepted a quest to locate the wyvern nest?”

“And Phantom accepted one to find the mutual client's brother and sister-in-law.”

“Seems we’ll be stuck together.”

“Seems so.”

As Totomaru and Laxus led the way up the mountain talking to each other, I was stuck behind them protecting the sweet Juvia from the mean and evil Satan Soul wizard.

Mirajane looked at me with an aggravated expression, which seemed to scare the water girl to the point where she cradled herself under my arm and hugged my waist.

Or maybe she was just cold? I do run hot and the snowstorm around us was so bad that we could only see a few metres ahead of us before everything turned white.

Sighing, I turned my attention to the girl on my right, “Do you have a problem with me or something?”

“You beat me.”

“No, it was a draw.”

“No, you beat me!” she screamed, prompting Juvia to bury herself further into my arms.

“Easy, feisty. You’re scaring the kids.”

“Oh shut up! Why did you fake it?”

“I didn’t fake anything.”

“Liar!”

“If I’m lying, then prove me wrong.”

“Oh, I will! Come here you lit-”

“Mira!”

Before she could act, a loud shout from the Lightning Mage ahead of us caused her to stop instinctively.

“Do you have to try and fight everyone you meet even when outside of the guild?”

“She started it!”

“I don’t care. Be quiet or you’ll attract the wyverns. If it wasn’t for this blizzard you would have started an avalanche by now.”

“S-Sorry…”

“Hmph, between you and Natsu…” Laxus turned around with an exasperated expression, still, he didn’t look mad. I guess it's pretty common for him to have to get her to stop fighting someone, and she has that type of personality.

The five of us began to make our way towards the top of the mountain, where the wyvern nest was thought to be spotted. Inside was a large tunnel system of ice caves, and while the wyverns were likely there, the pair of lovers could take shelter in the same cave system.

Was it risky to be in the same place as half a dozen scaled abominations? Yes. But it would be riskier for them to try and rough it out during this snowstorm. The only reason we were traversing it well enough was because of the amount of heat Totomaru and I could create.

Ultimately, our groups decided to work together because we had similar goals and separate promised rewards. None of us were planning to fight the wyverns but agreed that if we had to it would be a team effort, and the scales would be divided evenly five ways.

Our goal was to find, protect, and escort the brother and sister-in-law of the Hakobe Lodge owners. Theirs was to find the white wyvern nest and plant a repellent in hopes it would drive them away.

The climb up the side of the mountain was relatively quiet, with the only noise being idle comments from Laxus or Totomaru about how far up they thought we were and snide remarks from Mirajane.

Juvia and I kept quiet largely. While she was unnerved by this being her first guild mission, I was trying to keep an eye out for any flying lizards. The fact that it was night and snowing wasn’t helping anyone, but one of the more utilitarian Dark Magic spells I learned was called Dark Eye which effectively gave me a level of night vision in low-light situations. If I practice it more, I should be able to see even without light.

When we did reach the cave, we were slightly taken aback by its size.

It was a large, crystalline blue ice tunnel carving its way inside of the mountain. It seemed to glow with an ethereal beauty unbecoming of the winter wasteland it was present in, but our opportunity to appreciate the sight was cut short with a hushed shout from Laxus.

“Get in the snow! Now!”

In an instant, the blonde man dived underneath the thick snow completely burying himself in the process. Confused, we followed his instructions and were thankful we did as two colossal figures emerged from the rampaging clouds.

The two blizzardverns were as big as a three-story house each and their jaws were wide enough for each of us to be consumed in a single bite. Their scales looked to be as hard as steel, and each movement of their tree-thick hind legs caused the ground to rumble.

It was by luck that we weren’t noticed, but their presence in the ice caves caused us to feel a level of dread.

“Greeaaat…there go our chances of doing this quietly,” Totomaru deadpanned as he climbed out of the snow, our bodies emitting steam as we dried ourselves off. Juvia simply absorbed the water into herself as if it was nothing, and Laxus’ body briefly turned into lightning causing the water to evaporate instantly.

That left Mirajane, who was still covered in snow and water and shivering beside us.

“T-This…is u-unfair…”

“Heh~” I didn’t even bother to hide my smug smile. She was the only one who came to a snowy mountain and didn’t have a way to counteract the chilling environment.

“W-Whats-s-s so…f-funny!?”

“Oh, nothing~ I just can’t help but notice how excited you are since you’re so j-j-jittery~”

““Both of you, stop it.””

An orange glow illuminated her as the snow began to melt off of her and her shivering stopped.

I looked at the two adults who had called out to us, Totomaru with his hand out towards Mira and the lightning mage looking down the cave.

“Need to move quickly,” Laxus called out. “There’s no telling if the family is inside these caves and if so they might not last long with the wyverns in there with them.”

“Agreed. Lyssa, take the front. Juvia, you’re in the middle with me.”

“Mira, you watch our flank.”

The five of us moved slowly into the caves. It was me followed by Laxus, then Juvia, then Totomaru, and lastly Mirajane.

The entire time we kept our heads on a swivel, and each time we felt the stomping of the heavy creatures inside the caves we tried our best to hide behind the ice spikes and pillars that jutted out around us.

We spent easily thirty minutes to an hour slowly making our way through the cave, and what we found inside one of these rooms caused us to have several questions.

Crates upon crates with what looked like hunting equipment designed to take down giant monsters. Cages that seemed fit for containing baby wyverns and heating banks meant to incubate wyvern eggs.

“Shit…we’re dealing with poachers?”

“Maybe not. Come take a look at this.”

They all came over to the table sitting next to a wall where I was standing. In my hands was a book that seemed to have belonged to whoever brought all this equipment here.

“What’d you find?”

“Something like a bank ledger. Whoever this belonged to seemed to have paid the lodge owners to ignore whatever was going on here.”

“That doesn’t surprise me all that much,” said the blonde, “Transporting monsters like these would be hard to do without going unnoticed.”

“But that’s not what’s interesting. Check the dates and travel logs.”

“North Bosco station, September X774. Oshibana Town, January X775. Hakobe, February X775. They…came here?”

I nodded to the white-haired girl after she finished reading them off.

“Four years ago to be exact. Plenty of time for them to mature…”

“Juvia wants to know…why did the lodge owners’ family come up here if they knew they were going to get in danger?”

“Because we were told they’d come back for them.”

We all turned back towards the entrance to the room to meet the source of the gruff voice. We were met with a man with braided brown hair, a bushy beard, and a heavy fur coat. Leaning on him was a woman with similar clothes, but her light green hair was matted to her face with blood.

“Quick, the both of you on the ground now. Tell me what happened and what wounds you may have. Juvia, come here and help me.” Seeing the girl injured, my training in Himura immediately forced me into action.

The guy placed her on her back in the middle of the room before collapsing against the wall, his exhaustion being evident by the dark circles under his eyes. “The blizzardverns found us on our way down the mountain. We ran, but she tripped when they landed near us and hit her head on a rock. Been out ever since.”

“How long?”

Four days.”

“Shit…”

I guided Juvia to remove the blood from the injured area so I could see it better before trying to heal her as well as I could. The pale blue flames circled around her head as the wound slowly stitched itself back together.

“Someone go get me some snow. She still has heavy inflammation.”

“Juvia will go get it.”

“Thank you.”

“Does she have an infection?”

I shook my head at Laxus before removing my hands away from her head.

“If she did before she definitely doesn’t now. Cleaning out bacterial infections is one of the first things we at Himura were told to learn with this healing magic since it's often times more important than just closing a wound.”

“Mm. That’s good,” he answered before turning to the man against the wall. “You two are Jaime and Kayla Neels, right?”

“Mhm. I take it you lot are wizards my brother and sister hired?”

“That’s right. So, can you tell us who “they” are?”

“Yeah. Are all of you aware of the Beast of Ishgar?”

“Wolfheim. Third strongest of the Ten Wizard Saints.”

“That’s the one. He used to be a member of a Beast Tamer guild until a couple of years ago, Beestenbloed. They used to station wild beasts and monsters in areas all across Fiore where they would grow strong before they either tamed them or used Take Over on them. This was supposed to be no exception, and they even paid us well.”

“I see. So that’s why they’re still here.” Laxus said after Jaime finished his explanation.

“Wait, I still don’t know what's going on…” I said in confusion. The way he said it made it seem like it was common knowledge, but I hadn’t heard of any of this before.

“Guess you’ve been living under a rock, huh?” Mira replied with a smirk.

“Under a book, actually. If it doesn’t interest her she doesn’t particularly care,” Totomaru said before looking at me. “Two years ago every Beestenbloed guild office was assaulted with most of their higher-ups being arrested, the entire operation was led by Wolfhiem himself so it caused quite a stir.”

“Why did that happen?”

“No one knows, but not everyone that was meant to be arrested was caught leading to the Magic Council to brand the entirety of Beestenbloed as a dark guild.”

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