Fairy Tail Origins Episode 1: The Eternal Journey

Hecate shook her head at Aldous, removing his arm. "That's enough flirting out of you. I'm taken." She said with a grin, and then proceeded to walk off before anyone could question this. She trailed after Leone, and hoped the others wouldn't take the joke seriously.

She was certain she saw the stunned and confused look on Aldous' face before she left. Heh heh. She didn't know why she was following Leone anyway. But they clearly had some dark secrets in their closet. Usually Hecate didn't go out of her way to talk to her fellow homosapiens.

Once she was sure she had caught up to Leone, Hefate paused. "Something on your mind?"

Hecate blinked in surprise. "You can't... Stop thinking about me? E-er, well, that's... Interesting." Hecate laughed awkwardly. She stepped over to the hatch. "Hm. A secret training ground. Quite brilliant. Does it have emergency shelters or something similar in case we need to evacuate citizens one day?"

Y'know... The travel brochure advertised a beautiful city filled with roses as far as the eye could see; hence the name.

...What the hell happened here?

Gareth scanned the city of Rosebud Hills from a hill providing an adequate vantage point. While it wasn't so far gone as to be called an eyesore, the city has clearly seen better days. The gorgeous while buildings pictured in the brochure he was using as a guide for directions were damaged at best, crumbled at worst, with a lot of the white often obscured by both the darker colors that come with the construction equipment everywhere, and the debris covering the streets. As he came closer to the town, he noted banners drawn around the town signifying the presence of the Aselian empire: labeled shelters, emergency medical treatment sites, even a shop of some sort converted into a makeshift soup kitchen for the citizens.

If nothing else, the empire's got a good response team on hand. But the question stands, what the hell happened here? It sure as hell doesn't look like a natural disaster occurred; the roses out here would've all been dust. Was it an attack? By who?

Gareth waded through the city. All things considered, the damages didn't seem to crush the spirits of the citizenry; everyone appeared supportive of one another and even the elderly seem to be doing simple services like passing out blankets to the youngsters. At the very least, the city was still salvageable; not at all burned down to the point where anything that gets erected in place would be nothing more than a shadow of its former self. Given Gareth's lack of knowledge on city rebuilding, he figured... a year before everything looks good as new?

I feel like I should help somehow, but the knights look took occupied to bother, and I'd rather try something more organized than what the civilians would suggest. Maybe the guild will point me in the right direction. After I apply, of course.

Checking the brochure's local map of the city to make sure he's going the right direction, Gareth spotted the lighthouse, and later an adjacent building adorned with a banner holding what was presumably the guild's symbol.

So this is Silver Chimera... What kind of people makes it up, I wonder?

Gareth put away the brochure and walked the path leading to the building, noting an awful lot of dirty footprints and trampled grass underfoot. Upon reaching the front door, he knocked on the door and walked inside upon noting the door being unlocked.

"Hello?"

"There's no reason to avoid talking about it as if it didn't happen, Orion. We both know it did, and we don't regret it. But what we an do is figure out how we feel about things slowly, while we learn more about each other, alright?" Eden said.

She stayed where she was at and kept holding him for several minutes in which there was silence. Then she turned to him again with the question that was beginning to bother her. "So... What do we do now?"

"Orion, the walls of this building are fairly thin, and our voices are very loud. When we were shouting earlier I'm sure it could be heard in the main hall. I'm sure the others already know," she said.

"We should probably brace ourselves for plenty of jokes and weird looks before we go downstairs," Eden said.

Orion chuckled, and leaned down to kiss her. "Yes, well, let them joke as much as they'd like. I'm not bothered in the slightest. But we should probably clean up first. If you'd like, I can bring our breakfast back up here, and we can spend some more time together. I know you must still have a few things you want to ask me, and you never did tell me where you found my swords, Eden."

-------

"The city was attacked by a Dark Guild yesterday," Zalia answered, sighing. "Thankfully, there were no casualties, and the damage to the city could have been much worse. It will take some time to recover, but we'll manage. Would you like a drink?"

Hecate was reluctant to to swap her fan with a training axe, but it suited her fighting style just fine. She chuckled at Leone's words. "Don't worry, I was joking with them as well. I wonder how far it can go before we decide to pull out of the plan." Her eyes twinkled with mischief.

"Good thing you said rough. I like rough battles. Good thing this place is soundproof. Screams and stuff make people run away really fast." she said, taking a few swings of her axe.

Leone raises her free fingers to her temple.  "Reflection of Beauty, Ghost Body..."

"Memory Combination!  Illusory Dominance!"  Golden chains combine and encircle Leone.  Leone suddenly steps out from inside... Leone...  And then two near-identical people are standing side by side, rapiers trained on Hecate.  "En garde, then!"