Chapter Text
It all started from a drunken joke made by a drunk Cana in the middle of a party with other guilds present. Which, in insight, might have been a pretty bad start.
Because the ball at the castle had been a nice way to celebrate their victory in the Games and against the dragons but it was not a party, at least not to Fairy Tail’s standards. So the now-famous guild decided to organise a proper party in their newly restored guildhall, with of course the other guilds invited – well more like only the ones who were in the games because there was a limit to how much destruction the Master wanted to see. Not that it would help with so many hotheads in one place, Makarov only saving grace being that only a few people from the other guilds came.
And everything was going great, truly, until an utterly drunk Cana, courtesy of Bacchus, showed what she got as a reward for a mission she’d done way before the S-class trial – do not ask where she had stored that big lacrima until now, no one wanted to know – and said that it could show things. And added that they should watch them.
At this point, no one took her seriously – most as wasted as her, if not more – but the way she waggled her eyebrows made half the persons present cheer in approval and after that, it was too late to stop it.
The more sensible persons who were sober enough to care could only watch as the lacrima was put on the stage so that everyone could see it and was quickly activated as every mage present started to sit down, wondering what would happen.
“Wonder what it’ll show,” slurred Cana with already another barrel in her hands.
“You mean you don’t know?” asked Lucy, a bit tipsy herself.
“Meh. Never had a reason to use it.” And she added nothing more as the lacrima lit up in a faint blue light with some sort of screen in the same colour appearing above. It flickered once, twice, and something was finally shown.
“Dragon Egg,” read Levy. “Is that a title or something?”
Cana shrugged. “Dunno. As I said, I never used it.”
“Is it safe to use in the first place?” asked a concerned Lisanna who got no response from the drunkard.
All the sober mages – well, mostly sober – turned to look at the brunette. “What!?”
On the screen, the letters disappeared to be replaced by an image. An image that started to move.
“Wait,” stopped Natsu, recognising the scene. “Is it showing our memories?”
Everyone was strangely a bit less drunk at that. Only a bit, let’s not hope for a miracle shall we?
Inside a dense forest, a young Natsu was training by hitting a tree where pictures of Gray and Erza were stuck with ropes. Badly drawn pictures at that.
“Whoa, you suck at drawing,” mocked the ice mage.
“What did you say?!”
“Now, now, Gray. We can’t blame him for not drawing well,” started Erza. “However...” A sword was suddenly in her hand, scarring the two. “Why did you draw me with horns?”
“I’m sorry!”
“Saying sorry won’t help you. Now come, and face my judgment!”
“As if I would!” he cried, hiding behind a few mages.
“Hey! Don’t use us as a shield for problems you caused!” screamed Gray, quickly leaving the fire mage on his own.
“Be a man and face your punishment!”
“What was that?!”
“This guild sure is loud,” said blandly Kagura as a brawl erupted in the middle of the room and received a few nervous laughs as an answer.
“Believe us when we say it’s only a few people that make all that noise,” told her Max. “During those seven years, the guild was completely quiet.”
“Too quiet,” added sadly Jet, eyes downcast.
“Someday I will beat Gray and Erza senseless!” He took a step back and then swung his fist with all his strength toward the tree. The impact echoed around the forest and a few birds flew away in panic. A few seconds later, Natsu was clutching his throbbing hand in pain. “Th-that doesn’t hurt...!”
A huge egg suddenly fell from the sky on top of the fire mage's head, causing the apparition of a big bump.
“Wh-what the...?” asked Natsu as he looked at the strange egg. It was quite big and completely white if not for the blue marking on it. After a blink, a blinding smile stretched his face.
“Oh! That’s Happy’s egg!” cheered Natsu, sitting beside Lucy covered in bumps and cuts.
“Did you already finish fighting?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he answered distractedly. “But why is the title ‘Dragon Egg’ if it’s Happy’s?”
“You don’t remember?” Gray joined them at the table to sit in front of Lucy and beside Wendy. “You thought it was a dragon egg.”
“Really?”
“Wait, so are we going to see my birth or something?” inquired Happy, standing on the table.
“It seems so,” answered Carla beside him.
Wendy looked at the screen with nostalgia. “His egg really looks like yours, though yours’ marking were pink.”
“Wait, does it mean Lector and Frosh were born from eggs?” asked suddenly Sting as he came toward them, Rogue not far behind.
“Yes, didn’t you know?”
“No! We both met them when they were young,” he explained.
“I don’t think Frosh or Lector even knew it,” said Rogue, the two Exceeds shaking their heads – it’s not like anyone remembers their birth anyway and the two had been all alone before meeting the Twin Dragons.
“I wondered for a while but what are those cats in the first place? And how can a cat be born from an egg?” Yeah, Lyon wasn’t the only one who wanted an answer to that question.
“We are Exceed,” simply said Lily.
“Exceed...” Lector tested the word.
“Well, if you’re interested, I could tell you a bit more about our species seeing as I was already an adult when I met Gajeel and I grew up with our kind.”
“Fro want to know!”
“Really?” asked Lector. “Thank you!”
Natsu entered the guild with the egg in his hands, smiling like he caught a prize. “An egg! I found an egg!” he cheered.
“What’s that? It’s huge!” said someone.
“Where on earth did you get that?” asked the Master, sitting on the bar as usual but in clothes most had never seen him in.
“I found it in the East Forest!”
“More like it found you, seeing the way it fell on you,” joked Lisanna.
“More like Happy found me,” grinned Natsu.
“True,” she laughed.
“The East Forest?”
“Wow. That’s pretty thoughtful, especially for you, Natsu,” said Gray with no clothes in sight. At the table behind him, Macao and Wakaba watched them, as did Reedus a bit farther behind. “You’re gonna let us all eat some?”
“Gray-sama was so cute back then!”
“Of course, you would focus on that!” Gray threw his hands in exasperation but made sure to be well out of sight from Juvia. He didn’t want to be glomped because of his younger-self appearance.
“Gray! Your clothes!” informed him Cana.
“Ah!”
“You really didn’t change on that front,” told him the drunk mage who had moved to the bar.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Look at yourself and guess.”
“Ah! My clothes!”
Everyone was hesitating between laughing or sighing at him. Still more or less drunk, they laughed.
“Heck no!” protested Natsu, clutching the egg tightly against him. “This is a dragon egg! I’m gonna hatch it!”
“A dragon?” asked Cana, doubtful.
The egg had been now set down on a cushion on the ground.
“Check out this weird pattern! It looks just like a dragon claw!”
“No, it doesn’t,” immediately rejected Gajeel.
“What are talking about? Of course, it does!”
“No, it doesn’t,” repeated the older Dragon Slayer.
“Yes, it does.”
“It does a bit,” agreed Sting.
“Huh? I don’t see it,” said Rogue.
“Wendy! Tell this jerk it looks like a dragon claw!” screamed Natsu.
“No way! Tell this dumbass it doesn’t!” shouted Gajeel.
“Huh? M-me? But...”
“Stop it, you’re scaring her!” scolded Carla.
“That’s right, tone it down you two,” interjected Lucy, forcing Natsu to sit back down beside her.
“You too Gajeel,” said Levy, trying to push him toward her table. It was quite comical how it didn’t work and the Dragon Slayer only sat when Natsu stopped paying attention to their spat.
“I dunno...” Gray was as unsure about it as Cana.
“So, Gramps! Hatch this dragon for me!”
“Nonsense, you fool!” screamed the old wizard.
In front of the screen, all noise had ceased at his yell to listen to him, eager to hear what he had to say.
“There exists no magic in this world for defiling life!” started Makarov under the stare of the three kids. “Life is born from love. No manner of magic can transcend that.”
There were nods all around. Life was something you couldn’t rush, no matter how you wanted it. Living beings took their time to be born, live, and then die. The time was always different depending on the species and the person, but it wasn’t something that could be changed. It’s not something that should be changed.
“Those are wise words,” agreed Jura.
For a while, Natsu looked at him in silence, hands behind his head, but then he opened his mouth to talk back, “I don’t understand a word you just said.”
Of course. A few chuckled at that.
The Master sighed. “I guess you’re too young to understand...”
“In other words, if you want to hatch it,” interrupted Erza, “you have to work your very hardest to hatch him on your own.” Natsu turned around to face her. “All you do is destroy things, so this is a good opportunity to learn about bringing something into the world instead.”
Just like Natsu and Gray, she hadn’t changed much, the girl wearing already an armure, though she also had a sword strapped to her belt, and her long hair was tied into a braid.
“Men, the perfume of a flower slowly opening its petals is truly beautiful,” said Ichiya, looking at a younger Erza and making the older one shiver. She hadn’t heard him but she suddenly had the urge to either hide or punch something.
“Erza!” shouted Natsu.
“I-I didn’t hear you come in,” stuttered Gray.
A white-haired girl with blue eyes suddenly smirked. “You’re back, Erza?!”
“Who is that?” asked Wendy.
“Ah, you wouldn’t recognise her but that’s Mira-nee,” answered Lisanna.
There was a blank as everyone who didn’t meet her back then looked between the sweetly smiling Mirajane with them and the smirking kid dressed in skimpy goth clothes.
“No fucking way!” screamed Gajeel.
“That’s impossible!”
“As if we could believe that!”
“It’s the truth, though,” assured Erza but even then, it was a hard pill to swallow.
Erza turned to glare at her. Mirajane was standing at a table where two children, a boy and a girl that were probably her siblings, sat. But no one was focused on them, preferring instead to look at the demon-child in all her glory who looked nothing like her present self.
“Let’s pick up where we left off!! Come on!” incited Mirajane.
“Another fight?” asked Lisanna in disapproval.
“Now that you mention it, we never finished our fight, did we?”
Behind Erza, Natsu and Gray looked done with life as they watched the girls starting a fight when one of them always stopped theirs. It was always ‘do what I said but don’t do what I do’ kind of thing with the red-headed mage.
“Mira!” A red aura started to glow around her as she smirked. Mirajane grinned as well and a purple aura appeared around her.
“Don’t tell me they’re going to fight?” asked Hibiki, still in shock from Mirajane's transformation.
“Yeah, no way,” quickly denied Ren.
“I still can’t believe Mirajane changed that much,” said Jenny, drops of sweat falling from her temple.
“I didn’t change that much though?”
“Just a bit, Mira-nee.”
“‘Just a bit’ she said,” snorted Cana in her drink.
“You’re going down, Erza!” screamed the demon-girl, prepared to hit.
“I’m going to make you cry, Mirajane!” shouted the other girl, and their fists met.
“Stubborn wench!” roared Mirajane as she kicked away Erza into other mages who scrambled to avoid her.
“Navel-showing floozy!” yelled the redhead as she punched away Mirajane, people trying once again to avoid the fight.
Their forehead met and they gripped each other hands, red and purple auras clashing together.
“Scum girl!” insulted Mirajane.
“Bony girl!” retorted Erza.
“Fatty!”
“Four eyes!”
“It’s like watching Gray and Natsu fight,” said Lucy, the only one to find her words in front of such a spectacle. “But scarier.”
The rest of the mages had long since blanked out, their minds unable to reconcile the sweet Mirajane with the she-devil who picked fights with Erza of all people.
“The sky sure is beautiful today, huh?”
“Ahaha! Looks like we lost them,” laughed drunkenly Cana, very amused with the situation.
“Should we leave them like this?”
“If they want to live in delusion, it’s not your job to stop them, Levy,” answered Wakaba.
“And it’s more fun this way,” continued Macao with a grin. “But still, watching those two fight again... Never thought I would see the day.”
“It’s like we’re young again, watching the new generation grow and fearing what they would do in the future,” added the smoker.
“Hey, imagine if those two were still fighting today?” joked the fire mage.
“The destruction would be worse than after Gray and Natsu’s fights,” laughed his friend.
“Don’t even make me think about it,” snapped Makarov, sitting beside them on the bar.
“Don’t worry, Master, Erza and I aren’t interested in fighting each other anymore,” reassured Mirajane, the only one seemingly on his side.
“Talk about petty...!” said Cana.
“Erza always tells us not to fight, so this is weirding me out,” muttered Gray.
“Hypocrite,” murmured the ice mage.
“Did you say something?” asked Erza.
“No!” trembled Gray.
“Darn!” swore Natsu as he craked his knuckles. “Someday I’m gonna kick both Erza and Mira’s butts together!”
“Oh? Those are fighting words,” challenged Erza.
“Do you want to try?” smiled Mirajane, creeping out a few persons with the calm way she talked about it.
Before Natsu could even try to agree, Makarov yelled. “If you three want to fight, it’ll be outside of the guild, where you can’t destroy anything and where I can’t see anything in case you do destroy something! Also, wait until the party’s finished!”
The Dragon Slayer grumbled a bit but begrudgingly accepted.
“Good.”
“Sheesh! Keep acting though all the time and girls will never like you!” warned Lisanna.
“Shut up, Lisanna!”
“Hey, Natsu! Can I raise that egg too?” she asked him and present-Natsu had a horrible realisation.
“Wait. Please tell me it’s not going to show everything until Happy’s birth!” he screamed.
“Who knows?” mused Lucy. “I mean, from the title, Happy’s egg seems to be the focus of what is being shown so...”
“No way!” despaired Natsu.
“What’s wrong with him?” wondered Sting and about everyone else.
“He’s embarrassed,” teased Lisanna.
“I’m not!”
“You’re blushing, though. It’s cute.”
“Don’t call me that! And I’m not blushing!”
“Something embarrassing for Natsu, huh? I want to see it,” said immediately Gray.
“Me too,” smirked Gajeel.
“Noooo! Stop the lacrima!” panicked the fire mage.
“Now, now, Natsu. Just because it’s embarrassing doesn’t mean it would kill you,” assured Makarov.
“But Gramps...”
“Furthermore... Who wants to see it?!” jovially asked Fairy Tail’s Master, ignoring the despairing cries of the mage.
“Me!” absolutely everyone yelled.
“You traitor,” shouted Natsu when he saw Happy also raising a paw in the air.
“Aye, sir!”
“Don’t ‘Aye, sir!’ me! Traitor! Turncoat! Fish food!”
“What the heck is fish food?” questioned blankly Lucy on the side.
“Beat me,” shrugged Gray, watching the two partners fight. Apparently, being called ‘fish food’ was a dire offence in Happy’s books.
“Oh! You’re gonna help me?!” asked Natsu, excited.
“Yeah!” she smiled. “Raising an egg sounds neat!”
The four youngest presents in the guild stood around the egg on the ground.
“I dunno if ‘raising’ is the right word...” mused Gray.
“I wonder how we get it to hatch...” wondered Natsu.
“We just need to warm it,” simply answered Lisanna.
“Warm?!” the fire dragon slayer grinned as he activated his magic. “That’s my speciality!” And he breathed fire directly on the egg.
“Are you crazy?! Do you want to kill me?!” screeched Happy.
“You didn’t so it’s fine.”
“No it’s not!” yelled the Exceed.
“Now, now, you don’t need to worry, he was stopped in time,” assured Lisanna to calm him down.
“Lisanna! You’re the only one nice to me!”
The youngest Strauss found herself chuckling when a blue ball of fur invaded her lap. “Is that so?”
“Yes!” purred the cat as the mage started to stroke him.
Lisanna let out a long screech at the sight, scared that he would kill the being inside the egg. Gray was of the same mind since he kicked Natsu away and took the egg in his hands. “Are you an idiot?!” he shouted in his direction.
Back on the cushion, even the egg seemed to sweat at the catastrophe he narrowly avoided.
“Thank you for saving me Gray,” said the cat on Lisanna’s lap.
“It’s nothing,” he shrugged. “Someone should stop Natsu when he’s being too stupid to live anyway.”
“Oh? Are you trying to pick a fight, Ice Prick?” glared the dragon slayer.
“It’s not like you’re going to win anyway, Fire Stove,” challenged Gray.
“How many times has it been now?” sighed Lucy, done with the situation while Wendy and Carla laughed nervously.
The only female Exceed in the room looked at Erza approaching the two fighting mages with a dark aura. “I wonder why she still bothers when we all know they’re going to be at each other throat soon anyway.”
“We’ll... She’s Erza,” simply said Lucy as the aforementioned woman quickly put a stop to the fight, and didn’t that answer everything?
“Urgh! Don’t do that! It’ll burn if we warm him that much!” Lisanna scolded the dejected boy.
“I-it will?”
“Leave this to me and my magic!” With a smile, she held out her left hand and a pink magic circle appeared. She spread out her arms as a soft light encased her body and surrounding, little blobs of light and stars dancing around the girl. “Take Over: Animal Soul!” She winked and a moment later had adopted the form of a blue bird with a light green head and a few pink feathers at the tip of her wings.
“Whoa! You’re a big bird!” cheered Natsu with a smile.
“Good thinking!” praised Gray.
“How about warming it like this?” Lisanna suggested to Natsu and Gray as she used her wings to cover the egg.
“So you were the one who took care of my egg?” asked Happy.
“Not quite since you didn’t want it. Instead, Natsu and I took care of it together,” she explained with a smile as she remembered those times. “We even built a home, it was like a family!”
She didn’t say that very quietly and was therefore heard by everyone in the guild, including a heavily blushing Natsu.
“Don’t say anything anymore!”
“Why? Are you embarrassed?” mocked Lisanna.
“I’m not!”
“Is that why he didn’t want us to watch this?” wondered Gray. “In that case...”
There was a glint in the eyes and a smirk on the mages’ faces, including a gleeful Makarov. “Let’s watch everything from now on!” they said together. No way were they missing this even should the world end outside.
“Noooo! Stop it!” cried Natsu.
A bit further away, Macao and Wakaba were watching the scene with a smile at a table.
“Hey, look, that’s us,” grinned Wakaba, nudging his friend with his elbow. “Bring back memories, right?”
All the mages turned toward the two drunkards at the bar and back at the men on the screen.
“No way!”
“They look completely different.”
“Old age sure is ugly.”
“Some people just don’t age well, that’s life.”
“Hey! We’re right here!” shouted Wakaba.
“Don’t worry, Dad, you’re not the only one who ended up like that.”
“Not you too, Romeo!”
On another one in the foreground, Elfman was sitting with a drink in front of him, and Cana standing beside the table.
“Tsk.” He turned around from the scene.
“What’s the matter, Elfman?” asked Cana.
“That’s Elfman?!” screamed about everyone present.
“How unmanly,” muttered said mage with a cloud of depression over his head.
“Believe me, it was a shock for me too,” said Lucy, remembering the time she found a picture of her friends when they were young.
Actually, come to think of it, Mirajane was with her at that time and told her the story of Natsu and Happy’s meeting... Which was exactly what was being shown... Well, seeing it happen was always better than being told about it.
“Huh? No way!” slurred a drunk Bacchus as he went from the manly Elfman to the meek one in a suit. With a bow tie.
“They’re like day and night,” observed Eve, Ren and Hibiki nodding beside him. It was a jarring transformation, just like his sister.
“Is Lisanna the only sibling who didn’t change?” wondered Carla.
“Apparently,” answered Wendy, thanking Mirajane with Lucy when she put drinks on their table.
“Lisanna can do a full-body Take Over, but I can’t. Even though we’re in the same team...” The boy looked dejectedly at the table, obviously depressed over the issue.
“Oh, right! You guys use the same magic, huh?”
“If only I could use it, I could turn into a bird and look for my parakeet,” he explained without looking at Cana.
“Parakeet?” she inquired.
A picture of a smiling Elfman with a red and orange parakeet atop his hand was shown.
“How cute,” smiled Evergreen.
“Nobody asked you!” yelled Elfman under the laughs of the mages.
“I took such great care of it, but then it vanished...”
“Oh...”
The image disappeared and the boy sighed. “I wish I had an egg like that too...”
Pretty much everyone was rolling on the ground laughing by now. The difference between the two Mirajane may have been scary and a bit mind-breaking, but the contrast between the two Elfman was by far funnier.
“To think such a ‘manly man’ was like that at some point,” snickered Sting.
“I can’t breath!” laughed Bacchus, hitting the bar with his fist.
“Then stop laughing!” roared Elfman. “And stop watching!”
“I agree!” shouted Natsu. “Let’s destroy this thing!”
Both mages cracked their fist, ready to unleash whatever magic necessary to do it, but were jumped on by everyone before they could so much as take another step.
“I think not,” said Gray, pining Natsu on the ground.
“Yeah, there’s no way I’m missing this,” agreed Gajeel, helping the ice mage by sitting on his fellow Dragon Slayer’s legs.
“Hey! Not fair! Let me go!”
“Be a man and destroy the lacrima!” yelled Elfman.
“Certainly not,” rejected Evergreen immediately and turned toward Freed. “Can you make an enchantment around the lacrima?”
The mage looked at the carnage around him, at the tables and chairs being thrown in an effort to stop the two embarrassed mages, and then at the screen where an interesting story was being told. “Of course,” he didn’t even hesitate to say and proceed to do exactly that. The screams of despair as the purple runes disappeared around the lacrima, signaling the activation of his enchantment, were music to his ears. “All those with the intent to destroy it will now be unable to reach the lacrima.”
“Nooo!” cried Natsu.
“Unmanly!”
“Good,” nodded Gray as the mages pinning the two on the ground started to go back to their seat, watching the memory continue its course.
Except it had stopped, the screen completely blanks save for a five-minute countdown.
“A countdown?” asked Lucy. “Do you know what it means, Cana?”
The drunk woman turned incredulously toward her, looking more wasted than the last time the blond saw her. “Huh? How should I?”
“Did she already forget where this lacrima came from and who’s idea it was to use it?” wondered blankly Gray as he watched her drink another barrel with a pile of empty ones beside her.
Carla, just as done with the situation, nodded beside him. “Looks like it.”
“Well, she said nothing about the number of things we would be shown, so it’s probably to tell us when the next memory is going to start,” theorised Levy.
“Makes sense,” agreed Lily.
Mirajane, from behind the bar, smiled as she raised a hand. “In the meantime, who wants a refill?”
There were a few shouts from the mages and more than one tankard raised in her direction to answer her. Immediately, she and Kinana set to work in a flurry of motion only a longtime bartender could achieve, making sure everyone was served and the two ‘professional drunk’ – aka Bacchus and Cana – had a few barrels in reserve at their side. A few snacks were also handed out here and there for the still hungry ones, even after the literal feast that had been prepared for diner and that was only finished a bit earlier.
The two women got to everyone not a minute too soon when the screen lit up again and another memory started to play.
“Maybe this time we’ll see Natsu and Lisanna playing house together,” smirked Gray.
“Let’s hope,” grinned Gajeel.
Beside Lucy, the Fire Dragon Slayer didn’t even hear their words, too busy crossing his fingers in the hope it wouldn’t be focused on him this time. Or at least, not on an embarrassing part of him. “Please, please, please...”
‘Blue Cat of Happiness’
“What kind of title is that?” asked Gray.
“Well, if it’s about a blue cat...” Lucy trailed off as she looked with everyone else at Happy, sitting on their table again, munching on a fish.
“Why are you looking at me? I’ll tell you now but I won’t give you my fish!”
Carla sighed at him. “No one wants it, idiot.”
“Shhh, it’s starting,” interrupted Natsu, eager to see the memory on his partner.
Under a clear blue sky, the first Fairy Tail guildhall stood proudly in the middle of a few buildings on the shores of Lake Sciliora.
“Just seeing this building brings back memories,” said Lucy.
“Was it how the first version looked like?” asked Wendy, looking intensely at the screen with the ones who never saw it.
They were right to be surprised, the first building looked nothing like the current one with its stone walls and castle-like appearance. Instead, it resembled a pagoda with white walls and roofs made of red tiles supported by green pillars. On top of the highest roof sat a sort of pointed, golden dome holding a white flag, the orange flag bearing Fairy Tail’s symbol being hung just under this roof. And just above the large entrance was the guild’s name topped by a stylised heart shape, and flanked by a pair of carved fairies.
“Yup,” answered Lisanna. “The new one is pretty good, but I can admit I sort of miss the old version.”
There were a few nods all around and Gajeel flinched, knowing exactly why it wasn’t the same anymore. He barely looked at Levy when she reached to put a hand on his arm and only gave a short huff in acknowledgment.
“Are you okay?”
“Stop worrying about me, Shrimp.”
Even from outside, the yell of a young Natsu could be heard. “All right! Who stole it?!”
Inside, Gray and Cana looked at him at his shout.
“Yes!” cheered Natsu, pumping his fists in the air. “It’s after it!”
“Tch,” grumbled many mages, disappointed.
“The egg vanished?” asked the boy in his underwear.
“The egg? Don’t tell me it’s Happy’s egg,” Lucy glanced at Natsu, the mage now smiling in relief after he realised there would be no more embarrassing time for him.
“It was Elfman,” he still answered her.
“Elfman?” She turned toward said mage with everyone who heard the Dragon Slayer. “Why?”
At this, Natsu grinned. Even if it wasn’t an embarrassing scene for him, the same couldn’t be said for the Take Over mage. “You’ll see.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Cana, waving a hand in front of her before looking at Gray in irritation. “Hey! Clothes!”
The boy screamed in surprise, looking down to see she was right.
A bit further away, Natsu angrily jumped beside a blonde teenager. “Laxus! Was it you?!”
Said teen barely glanced at him. “I don’t care about it.”
“It’s Laxus!” cheered Freed, Evergreen and Bickslow not far behind.
“It was during his emo phase, you see...” started to drunkenly explain Makarov to the guests.
“Stop it, old man!” immediately interrupted Laxus. There was no way he would let his grandfather go on and on, embarrassing him by recounting stories of his childhood to those present. Especially since half the time, he showed baby pictures. Of him.
Natsu turned toward Erza, the girl looking at the request board before being interrupted.
“All right, Erza! Out with it!”
“Hold on. Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a bit?” she asked, exasperate.
On her side, Lisanna was asking her sister about the whereabouts of the egg. “Have you seen the egg, Mira-nee?”
“Nope.” The goth girl turned toward the Dragon Slayer. “You sure you didn’t eat yourself, Natsu?”
“I wouldn’t have eaten Happy’s egg!” yelled in affront Natsu.
Gray sighed in his drink, “We already know that, dumbass. This is a memory of the past and Happy is there with us anyway, so everything is going to be fine.”
“Who’s the dumbass, asshole?!” The Dragon Slayer stood up at once, slamming his hands on the table. In his anger, he didn’t even care about the flames starting to ignite on his shoulders, preferring to glare at Gray in front of him.
The ice mage copied him, standing up and slamming his forehead against the fire mage above the table. Around him, the temperature started to drop and Wendy moved a bit away from him with her Exceed because of it.
“Because you're deaf in addition to being stupid, Flame Brain?!”
Unaware of Erza slowing coming toward them, Natsu edged on. “I’ll show who’s deaf, Ice Princess!”
Lucy and Carla both sighed when the two mages were violently stopped by Erza, Wendy laughing nervously at their sides.
“I’ve had enough with you! Can’t you let us watch the memory in peace?” She glared at the two twitching masses on the ground, big bumps already forming on their heads because of her.
“We... We’re sorry...”
Their table not being at risk of transforming into another battleground, the girls relaxed in their sits. At least, with Erza coming to sit with them, Natsu and Gray should be less likely to start a fight.
The guests were, however, not used to the rough treatment used by the red-headed woman to stop the constant fights and could only tremble in front of her wrath.
“This woman is way too scary...” muttered Sting.
“I think you are totally right, Sting-kun,” readily agreed Lector.
“Hey!” snapped Erza.
Natsu was stunned for a second by her words before he adopted a big scowl on his face. “Why, you...!”
He immediately jumped on her, not caring one bit about Gray being accidentally pushed by Mirajane in the process.
“You’re gonna get it now!” he screamed.
“You wanna fights?!” she retorted.
At the bar, Makarov looked at the scene with Wakaba and Macao, all three of them with a drink in their hands.
“Some things never change,” remarked Romeo as he looked at his father at the bar with his best friend and the Master. The scene was exactly like on the screen, with only the scenery being slightly different – except two of them had drastically changed in all those years, having way more wrinkles and much less hair.
“I won’t hold back!” shouted the fire mage.
“Hey, Natsu!” screamed Gray, pissed off at being thrown to the ground because of said mage. “You little...!”
“Stop that, all of you!” Erza was seen running toward the fight, firmly intending to stop them.
“Erza will always be the one to stop the fights here,” chuckled Lucy.
“True,” smiled Wendy.
Carla turned towards the blond. “She wouldn’t be Erza otherwise.”
Beside them, said woman coughed in her fist while blushing. “Stop it you three.”
The girls shared a smile but obediently went back to the screen.
“They’re at it again,” said Macao, turning back toward Makarov.
“Talk about a terrible generation,” complained Wakaba at his side, his voice nearly drowned in the shouts coming from behind them. “I don’t wanna imagine how the guild’s gonna end up in a few years.”
“Rude,” muttered Natsu.
“Well, you ARE still always fighting with someone, often Gray, and destroying things on missions so...” teased Lucy with a big smile. “I say his worries aren’t unwarranted.”
Natsu gaped at her under the snickers of everyone at their table and the ones around who heard Lucy. The traitor, even though he was the one to bring her to Fairy Tail, to think she would betray him like this...
He pouted. “I’m not talking to you anymore.”
“She right, though,” sternly started Erza. “You could stand to destroy fewer buildings during your missions. Do you even realise the kind of image it reflects on our guild? And stop fighting with Gray every time you see him, it’s tiring and irritating, not to mention the property damage it cause. Also...”
The fire mage looked at her going on and on, berating him for every single thing, and he suddenly regretted all the good things he said about Lucy. Every one.
“Look what you unleashed.”
“I thought you wouldn’t talk to me anymore?”
Attacked on all sides, and under the annoying gaze of a grinning Gray, he looked at the projection and tried to ignore everyone else. Everything was way too unfair in his opinion.
“They repel each other because they acknowledge each other,” started the Master who turned to look at the children fighting with a smile. “They see themselves very clearly in each other. There’s nothing to worry about at all.”
A bit farther away from the bar, Laxus listened to his grandfather leaning against a wooden pillar. “What nonsense,” he scoffed.
“Teenagers,” sighed Makarov in a what-can-you-do manner that made it very hard for his grandson to ignore him and his insufferable remarks on his younger years.
The snickering mages, however, were harder to ignore. And if a stray bolt of lightning nearly hit them, well, the alcohol was simply getting to him.
Erza being Erza, everyone had soon stopped fighting and was looking at a teary-eyed Natsu. “My egg... Where did it go?”
“Ugh...” groaned Gray.
“Quit crying, Natsu. You’re so cute,” said Mirajane which angered him again.
“I’m not crying!”
“That’s enough, Mira!” snapped Erza. “And stop crying, Natsu!”
“I’m not crying!” repeated the boy, tears at the corner of his eyes.
Happy laughed behind his paws. “He’s crying.”
“I’m not!”
“Liar!”
“You’re the liar, liar!”
“Lies!” accused the Exceed, on paw extended to point at his best friend. “Nothing but lies!”
“You...”
“Now, now. Let’s calm down and continue watching, alright?” Wendy tried to placate them.
The red-headed mage glowered at the other girl. “Just give the egg back now!”
Mirajane mirrored her and bumped her forehead against hers. “I told you, I don’t have it! In fact, I bet you ate it!”
“What did you say?!”
“It’s still surreal to see them fight like that,” said Jenny.
“I am with you on that,” agreed Hibiki.
While the two oldest girls started yet another fight, Lisanna started crying when no one could tell her what happened. “The egg...”
“You’re always overeating, Erza!” screamed Mirajane.
“You’re in no position to talk!” retorted the knight.
Suddenly, beside Lisanna, Cana hit her palm with her fist in realisation. “Come to think of it, Elfman said he wished he had an egg like that...”
“Wha...?!” screamed the girl.
“So that was you? Why would you do that?” asked Evergreen, having joined the guild after Happy’s birth.
“Shut up,” grumbled the man, realising where it was going and what would be shown.
Watching him, Mirajane and Lisanna couldn’t help but share a look and giggle. His intention had been so cute back then that it was almost certain everyone would be laughing soon.
Her exclamation made the girls stop their fight and the children reconvened in a circle to talk about it.
“He ate it?!” screamed Natsu in outraged fury.
“No!” denied Lisanna. “I can’t believe it!” For how could the sweet brother she knew to be the one to eat the egg they painstakingly tried to hatch.
Footsteps were heard behind them before the culprit appeared by himself with the egg in his hands. “Natsu. Lisanna. I’m sorry,” he started.
“So it was you, Elfman?!” Natsu turned around to face him, fist raised.
“To think Elfman kidnapped me,” said Happy, looking at the said mage in disappointment. “I never had thought you would step so low.” He sighed and shook his head, angering the man.
“Hey! Don’t speak before knowing the full story, you stupid cat!”
“That’s right,” grinned Natsu from ear to ear. “Don’t speak before realising how cute and pure he was back then.”
Remembering the same thing as him, Gray started to snicker. “True.”
“Hear, hear!” cheered Cana from the bar.
“Oh?” Evergreen lifted an eyebrow. “My, this looks interesting.”
“It’s not! Stop watching that dumb thing!”
“I think not,” retorted the woman, her eyes going back to the screen like everyone else. If there was a chance to embarrass one of their own, they would take it no questions asked.
“The egg!” exclaimed Lisanna, happy and surprised it looked fine.
Her brother smiled with one eye closed. “I didn’t steal it,” he explained. “It gets cold at night, and you toss and turn in your sleep, so you always let go of the egg.”
“Then...!” realised Natsu.
“You mean...?!” concurred Lisanna.
“Yeah.” He crouched to be closer to their height. “I’m not very good at magic, so I warmed it in secret.”
“How cute,” cooed Evergreen.
“Right? Right?!” Excitedly nodded Lisanna, her sister smiling brightly at her side.
Bacchus had been lost to his own laugh, having fallen from the stool he was previously sitting on and repeatedly hitting the floor in his euphoria. “Oh man, that’s priceless!”
Cana readily agreed with him on that, pausing in her drink to snicker at her guildmate and his shameful – for him – past.
The rest of the mages weren’t better and some had even choked on their drink while laughing at the poor Strauss.
“Stop it!” he pleaded, heads in his head in despair.
“Now, now, it’s not so bad,” recomforted Mirajane, patting his back. “You were just a cute kid back then. Remember the time when...”
“You’re making it worse, nee-san, please.”
“Oh, that was why?!”
“Thank you!” smiled his little sister.
The older kid returned it as he passed back the egg to Natsu. “You’re a real man, Elfman!” the fire mage exclaimed.
“Wait,” stopped Lucy. “So it’s Natsu who started his whole ‘I’m a man!’ and ‘Be a man!’ thing?”
Evergreen glared at the Dragon Slayer. “So it would seem.”
Erza and Mirajane smiled as they watched the scene but it soon changed when the latter turned toward the knight. “You seriously suspected me, didn’t you?!” she scowled.
“So? You suspected me, as well!”
They were good to go for yet another fight but were this time stopped by the egg that started to shake violently, cracks rapidly appearing on it. Every mage in the vicinity stopped what they were doing to watch it happen, impatient to see what would come out of such a strange, never-seen-before egg. Even Laxus looked curiously at it.
“Look, Carla, it’s hatching!” cheered Wendy.
Everyone was now attentively watching the screen, the laughs abating for the most part, as the egg shook more and more.
“It’s my birth!”
“That it is!” smiled Natsu.
“It’s hatchling!” said Lisanna in a manner not unlike Wendy.
All the mages at the guild started to surround the egg, wanting to be the closest possible to see it happen.
A few small holes formed and as the egg finally broke apart, a small blue light rose above the people present under their surprised and eager stares. They didn’t have to wait for too long before the light disappeared to let them see a blue cat with small wings on his back.
“A cat?!” asked incredulously Macao and Wakaba, not believing what they were seeing.
“Everyone was surprised too when Carla’s egg hatched,” giggled Wendy, remembering the surprise she felt along with the Master and everyone else at Cait Shelter.
“I can imagine,” smiled Erza.
Beside her, Lucy smiled at the screen. “Happy was pretty cute back then.”
“I still am!” he proudly declared.
“Is that so?” she asked, not believing him one bit after spending so much time with him.
“It is so!”
Natsu and Lisanna, after working so hard for this, brightly smiled to see it had all paid off with Elfman’s help.
“It has wings! Is it a bird?” Gray asked as Happy started to fly above the still incredulous mages.
“I think it’s a cat,” answered Cana. “A blue cat!”
Tired by the exercise, the cat slowly lowered himself on Natsu’s head, his wings soon disappearing. “Aye!” he exclaimed as he sat up.
Everyone had hearts in their eyes at the sight. “So cute!” smiled Lisanna, the people behind her imitating the girl in front of such cuteness from the newborn cat. If only they knew the kind of rascal he would grow up to be, maybe they would have had a different opinion.
While everyone tried holding Happy, Elfman turned around as he heard the chirping of a bird. “Oh? My parakeet...” he said as the blue bird landed on his shoulder.
“Wasn’t his parakeet red?” asked Beth.
Risley, sitting in front of her, shrugged. “Beat me. Maybe it changed colour at some point? After seeing a cat coming from an egg, nothing can surprise me anymore.”
“So cute!” cooed Millianna. “I want a cat like that too!”
“And how are we supposed to find it?” asked Araña, unheard by the excited woman.
“My parakeet came back!” cheered Elfman, jumping up and down in joy with the bird in his hands. “Hurray!”
Watching the scene from a bit farther away, Mirajane turned toward Erza with a smile for the first time since the memories started. “I’m pretty sure his parakeet was red, actually.”
“Look, Natsu!” Lisanna took hold of his arm to bring his attention to her. “Everyone was so worked up just a few minutes ago...”
They looked as everyone smiled, Erza and Mirajane talking without their fists, Elfman showing his parakeet to Cana and Gray... Even Laxus had decided to mingle with everyone, a slight smile on his face.
“...but now they look so happy!”
She looked back at Natsu who now had the cat in his arms, the others Fairy Tail’s mage still surrounding them.
“It’s like a blue bird that brings happiness!”
“Happiness, huh? In that case...” The image on the screen zoomed to only show the blue cat held by the Dragon Slayer. “...his name will be Happy!”
The name seemed to be liked by the one concerned since he opened his and spread his paws. “Aye!”
“So that’s where Happy’s name is coming from,” mused Yukino with a smile. “It’s a beautiful story.”
“Right?” agreed Lucy. “I thought the same when Mirajane told it to me.”
Natsu turned to look at her. “She did? When?”
“Mmm... Not long after I joined, that’s for sure. I think it was even before Phantom Lord.”
Mirajane nodded, slowly wiping a glass with a towel. “Yes, wasn’t it when you helped me in the archives?”
“You’re right! I found Reedus’ painting on accident and then you told me about Happy’s birth.” A pretty big accident too, since she fell down a ladder and brought an entire shelf worth of books with her. Just thinking about it hurt.
From afar, Reedus watched them with a smile, paint and brush in hands.
“Happy the dragon!” cheered Natsu.
“Aye!”
“It’s not a dragon...” deadpanned Gray.
The painter chuckled at them. “Guess I’ll just paint it as a dragon.”
The last image before the screen went black once again was the work of Reedus, a painting of everyone as children with Laxus on the side leaning against a pillar and, in the middle, Natsu on the back of a small, blue dragon.
“Well, look like it’s the end of this memory. The next will start in ten minutes this time,” announced Levy, looking at the countdown on the screen.
“I wonder what it’ll show next,” pondered Lucy.
“As long as it's not on me,” grumbled Elfman, gesturing toward the lacrima on the stage.
Evergreen hid a laugh behind her fan. “Someone is still salty about having their cute side being shown to everyone.”
“Shut up! I didn’t talk to you!”
“Ah?! Excuse me?!”
“Well, I suppose a fight would pass the time,” sighed Lucy, used to it by now and not at all surprised to see it escalating from Evergreen vs Elfman to everyone vs everyone. Nor was she surprised to find Natsu and Gray gone from their table and instead in the middle of the brawl. “Let’s hope the next memory will stop them in ten minutes.”
The mages from Lamia Scale that had come and were seated at the table just beside theirs, could only nod numbly at the celestial mage while looking at the absolute chaos happening not even five meters from them. In their humble opinion, Fairy Tail was completely crazy and no one should be used to it!