A collaborative experiment: C rank mission "Break 'em up"

[Tatsuma]

Tatsuma, in all of his naivety, didn't even flinch a little when he walked into the magic council's headquarters and snatched a job off of their board. It was naive becauce he had originally decided to walk into the magic council and snatch a job off their board becuase he wanted to earn some random extra jewel, but more than that was the fact that he had expected to be able to do all that without getting caught and questioned.

"Hey! what do you think you're doing?!?" Some magic council guard or whatever they were called asked him.
"Oh, you know, just relaxing and thought I'd take a neighborly stroll into the magic council offices and help you guys out with cleaning up the board. I know how you guys love organized things." He retorted, more than half sarcastically.

"You can't just do that. You're not one of those guildless mages are you?" The guy asked him as he stood up, grabbing a near by weapon and walking toward him.
"Absolutely not, I have an amazing guild that fits perfectly with my attitude toward... Well pretty much everything." Tatsu responded, slowly moving his right hand behind his back. Unfortunately the slowly moving part was a bit too attention grabbing.

"Oooohhh no! Nope! I will be damned as hell if a Fairy Tale mage is going to come in like he owns the place and just snatch jobs assigned to the magic council." The guy said, walking closing to Tatsu as a couple of other magic council paladins joined in moving toward Tatsu's personal space.
"Alright two things guys. One, if you strike me down I will come back stronger than you could imagine; and two, I could just take a magic council member with me on the mission and you could call it collaboration and I could call it building Fairy Tail's relationship with the magic council." He suggested, joking first instinctively to try to lighten the mood. It was much too tense in here, these guys wouldn't last a second in the mountains.

"You know, that might just work. Only we'll call it babysitting." The guard joked, leaving Tatsu with only one thing left to say.
"Anyone want to build some relationship? It'll be a blast I promise!" He said, looking around nervously since he didn't want to have to take off running from magic council members.

398/1500

[Charlotte]

It was a quiet morning for Charlotte that day. She woke up like always with people pampering her with food and cloths. Jude was already up by then and had gone on to his usual rant on how she should be doing her job rather slacking off. She met Kai on the way out of her room and had a chat with him like always, ending it with her getting mad at him like always. She met her father on a quiet and boring breakfast. It was safe to say that there was still some tension between them after their constant fight on the new guild rules. Looking up from her plate, she noted that her father looked more tired than ever. He didn’t look like the energetic leader she knew anymore. Instead, he looked like someone weighed down by stress and duties. She wondered what changed in her father that the twinkle in his eyes had died down to almost nothing. He was still an efficient leader but she felt that a lot of things had been going past him lately.

A while after that, Charlotte decided it was time to go on her daily stroll through the city when she found something quite contrary to the quiet morning. Some guards were surrounding someone, looking quite angry at something. Deciding to check it out, she moved towards them, drawing little to no attention towards her. A silver haired boy came into her view as she stood off to the side listening to their conversation. A fairy tail mage? Someone from fairy tail was quite rare to be seen around the premises of the Magic council though him talking back to the guards didn’t surprise her one bit. If there was anything about a fairy tail mage that a council member should know, it is the fact that they don’t give a damn about what the council thinks about them and looking past their little destructive nature, Fairy Tail was a pretty good guild in her assessment.

"Anyone want to build some relationship? It'll be a blast I promise!"

“Let me try,” she replied as the guards narrowed their eyes at him. Obviously they didn’t take it lightly that a fairy tail mage sauntered into the council and talked without an ounce of respect and as much as she felt proud of the fact that there were still people in the council that cared for its name, she didn’t like them reacting quite rudely to someone they didn’t know either just because he was from a guild that destroyed things without a care.

As they spotted Charlotte, the guards moved to bow and show their respect till she gave them a quite signal to not do so. They must have caught it quicker than she thought for they didn’t move or bow or call out her name with a designation. She appeared like a normal Paladin with her red uniform in place, fitting her rather nicely. She beamed at the silver haired boy, forcing herself to appear as cheerful and childish. “Haiii! My name is Charlotte and I would love to go on a mission with you!” She beamed at him, lightly bouncing on her heels to add an effect as the guards stared at her and then at each other before walking away.

554/1000
(A C rank mission only needs 1000 words apparently o-o )

[Tatsuma]

At first, when Charlotte greeted him he was somewhat surprised by the fact that someone actually took him up on the offer. Honestly he had been planning to have to fight his way out by the time he had been surrounded so naturally of course he was going to take her up on her offer even though he had no idea what the mission even was. He had honestly just grabbed a paper off the board and started to head out.

"Nice to meet you Charlotte, I'm Tatsuma of Fairy Tail." He started as he moved close to her before leaning in to whisper "Thanks you might have kind of saved my butt just then." before holding up the paper he had pulled off the wall for them to read.
Bandits have blocked the road between oak and hosenka towns. Please defeat the bandits and clear the road. It wasn't exactly very wordy, but it was something he could probably pull off. Luckily it was a C-Rank mission and not something crazy like A rank or S rank. He would have had no choice but to go on it and that could leave him laid up for months... if not worse. But since life had thrown him a bone or two he was ready to throw one right back to whoever was having the trouble with bandits.

"So should we head out? Maybe grab a bite to eat on our way there-" He was cut off for a moment by the scent of her ambient bioelectricity. It smelled absolutely delicious! Still, this was neither the time nor the place for that and it would only make him hungrier.
"or we could just head straight to this... George guy since he's supposed to be around here somewhere. Probably good that I have you coming with me or I'd be lost. Soooooo lead the way." He said scratching the back of his head.


Word count: 724/1000

[Charlotte]

Charlotte giggled as he whispered his thanks for saving him and started walking alongside him. Indeed, if she hadn’t interfered, the boy would have been kicked out of the Council by the guards already. Shrugging, she peered over his shoulder and started reading the request along with him. Apparently, the road to Hosenka has gotten blocked again by some bandits and they had to find George to get more information. She guessed that the bandits wanted to rob anyone who went that way since it was the only way road leading to Hosenka from Oak.
When he stopped in the middle of his sentence, Charlotte looked up from the request to him, raising her eyebrows in confusion. For someone who seemed a lot laidback, he was acting strange but she didn’t comment about it. In fact, she ignored the whole thing and decided to look around for George.  “Alright. Let’s see…” she trailed off, letting her eyes wander around the council grounds to find someone unfamiliar. It was easy for Charlotte to spot someone who didn’t belong to the council since she had a mental list for every single magic council guards, seekers and paladins, even the high officials. Her memory helped her store the details of every single one of them.

So after a few minutes of looking around, her eyes finally zeroed in on a strange man carrying a big bag looking all around him as if expecting something to happen.  “There he is,” she said, pointing at him before walking off to the direction where she spotted the man.

816/1000

[Tatsuma]

"Well that took considerably less time that it would have taken me to ask  every single person here and get yelled at a trillion times." He said with a smile as he followed her direction, walking up to George. He was a red haired man with tired little amber eyes. The guy was considerably older, and he thought that might make things go a little less smoothly.

"Hello? You're George right? My name is Tatsuma, Tatsuma Shinju, and I'm here from Fairy Tail to handle this problem for you with getting yourself to Hosenka. If you wouldn't mind showing me there I along with Lady Charlotte here will get you right on your way." Tatsu offered with a smile.
"Why is Fairy Tail doing jobs for the Magic Council? No wait nevermind, I don't care! You're a credit to your guild of rabel rousers young man. And Charlotte is even helping you, you must be special."
George said.
"Actually no on both accounts. Almost any member of Fairy Tail would have done this if the Magic Council wasn't busy oppressing everyone and dividing guilds on philisophical issues such as freedom versus safety. In addition Charlotte is helping me because... well most likely because she is a member of the Magic Council who understands that anyone trying to help isn't an enemy." He said to George before turning to Charlotte. "Unless I'm wrong and you have some other reason Lady Charlotte." He said to her respectfully.


word count: 972

[Charlotte]

Charlotte just smiled at Tatsuma, keeping her hands together at her back. As Tatsuma and George talked, she quickly placed a finger in front of her lips, asking George silently to not tell him about who she is. She didn’t want him to know that Charlotte is Argon’s daughter yet. At the end of their conversation, Charlotte was busy forming her opinion of the silver haired boy. He was younger than her but the air around him told her he wasn’t someone to be taken lightly.

“Indeed,” she spoke up, letting her eyes wander from George to Tatsuma and back before she unconsciously started blurting things out. “The council has its hands full with that stupid rule that the old man refuses to withdraw no matter what. The fact that some council members are having fun going along with this stupidity is even worse. Some of them are seriously sadistic, I tell you with some sort of complex for ruling over the weak. The Council is at the moment, pretty messed up and that is why not many have time to go on missions and help people. The old man might not have any bad intentions but he is blind to the people around him waiting for an opportunity. The council is slowly losing sight of its initial goal but I won’t let it fall just like that,” she promised. Her voice confident and ringing with a sort of authority that for others except Kai, was unbelievable.

As she snapped out of it and realized the tone of voice she had took, she quickly dropped her real aura and pulled the façade back in. “T-That’s what Kai told me hehehehe” she grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. “Annnyyyywwayyyy…we should get going, right?”

1110

[Tatsuma]

Tatsuma didn't feel anything was wrong with anything she was saying. He didn't even notice when she put her finger to her lips to ask George not to say anything since he had been facing away from her, and he didn't notice George nod to her in silent acknowledgment because he had turned to look at Charlotte. They were smooth... and Tatsuma wasn't really worried about any kind of deceit. Everyone had their own agenda anyway, and secrets tended to happen no matter how pure of heart someone was. In fact Tatsu didn't even question it when Charlotte gave her speech.

It occurred to him that she might either be in a position of authority, or that, like him, she was just outspoken. The only time he felt that something was a bit off was when her demeanor changed back after the speech and the way she suggested that they leave and the way that she stuttered when she mentioned that someone named Kai told her everything she had just said. Still, nothing really added up as deception so he didn't think to ask anything about it, though he did make note in case she decided to say anything about it in the future.
"I agree. I'd love to get moving, all this standing around is killing me." He said to her with a smile.
"Yes, the sooner we get there the safer it will be." George agreed as he walked to his cart.
"I don't suppose one of you would mind push-" George started before he got cut off by Tatsu grabbing the yoke on the cart and pulling it along behind him.


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They walked on the road heading toward Hosenka and the first half of the trip was uneventful, it was seriously just monotonously pulling a cart, and that put Tatsuma on even higher alert. In the forest, when an animal took a path all the time and it made it through that path in the forest without hearing anything, that usually meant it was being stalked. As they walked Tatsu couldn't help but notice that it was eerily quiet and he hadn't really heard anything in a while as far as animal life.
"Everyone stay on guard. I think we're being watched." He said. He knew full well that he could have been wrong and that the animal life just wasn't around because this was a high foot traffic area, but he would rather have said something and had everyone on their toes for no reason than to let anyone get caught by surprise.

Word count: 1403/1000

[Charlotte]

First half of their trip went without anything happening around them. She knew that some thugs have been giving trouble to people around here. Complaints on this subject had been piling up on Kai’s desk for a couple of days and since he was busy, she clearly remembered that he passed it on to another paladin. ‘Who obviously didn’t do his job,’ she fumed in her mind, irritated by the lack of responsibility some of the council members seemed to carry around them these days. She blamed her father for the most part. He had been acting unlike himself for the past few weeks and everyone in the council has caught on to that. In fact, some of them say he is scared and Charlotte couldn’t help but agree. Though...what was he scared about? The attack? Impossible! The Argon she knew can never get scared of a simple attack. No...there is something else going on in the picture and she will figure it out.

Sighing, she broke out of her thoughts when she heard Tatsu’s voice. In a second, she had her guard up in alert. She stilled, listening to the sound of wind making its way through the trees and leaves, the running water, the birds’ various songs and the sound of footsteps. Footsteps!

“Tatsuma! Your left!” She announced, launching herself at him to push him down to the ground. The sound of metal piercing into wood was followed by an irritated grunt from her lips. “Stupid! Idiots!” she cursed under her breath as she got up to see a dagger stuck to the tree behind Tatsuma. “Those cowards are hiding in the forest!”

1385/1000

[Tatsuma]

Tatsu hit the ground soundlessly. It was possible that Charlotte had just saved his life. Still there were things to be done that put the group's life in his hands.
"If they're attacking from the forest, they'll find they are making a stupid mistake. That is my domain." He said coldly. His body moved, standing at once, and pulling Charlotte up with him. Anger had taken over, and primal rage pushed him into a state of deadly focus. Any hope of a perfect strategy went out the window, and he began to walk to the forest. Electricity crackled from his body, harmless as far as attacks and the like were concerned, but potentially intimidating. It wasn't strategic, he wasn't moving quickly,

Every step brought the crackling of the electricity to a darker shade. At first it was blue, a step made it a darker blue, another made it the darkest blue, then dark purple, every move dropped the color of the electricity to the next darkest shade until it was just shy of black at which point it all discharged harmlessly away from him. The dull thunk of a blade resounded as a dagger struck home, getting stuck in his arm. Wordlessly he pulled it out, ripping the flesh further and letting out a roar of pain that sounded as if it was made of just as much anger as it was pain.
"Now I know where you are." He said to himself coolly. More electricity crackled along his body as he activated his lightning flash technique and continued to walk forward, blood dripping from the partially cauterized wound on his arm.

As three more daggers erupted from the trees his shock shield went up, flashing violet as the daggers were electrified and electrical energy went flying back at them. That meant they were close. He moved quickly to the right, his motions blurred by the effects of his spell. Still his rage pushed him forward, and he took off, moving as his body blurred taking off in the direction one of the streams of electricity had gone. Still a trail of blood from his arm made it apparent as to how hurt he was, though that didn't seem to be a factor.

For Tatsu, even though he was traveling fast, he wasn't moving as fast as the lightning that raced back to its target. Luckily he didn't have to chase it very far. Even though he had lost sight of the electricity, he saw it turn hard to the right which meant that one of the targets had also moved to the right. It was only a moment before he came upon his first target. By this point Tatsuma's eyes were blank, devoid of emotion, free from pitty, mercy, or concern for anything but killing his target.

Lightning Flash:

Shock Shield:

MP: 170/200
HP: 220/250


word count: 1873/1000

[Charlotte]

Charlotte watched without a word as Tatsuma ventured into the forest, the faint blue light of electricity catching her eyes in the process. ‘Electricity huh?’ she thought as her eyes followed his back till he couldn’t be seen. There was no question that the thugs were hiding in the forest but what Charlotte didn’t know was how many of them were hiding in there. From reports and everything else she had gotten from the victims, it was clear that there were three of them. In other words, if she were to leave the merchant here and run after Tatsuma, she would be risking the chance of having George getting harmed by one of them. But there was a chance that they wouldn’t come out if she was standing there too.

None the less, she decided to wait it out and see what will happen. From the look on Tatsume’s face, she had confidence that he would be able to hold on and manage everything. What’s more important was protecting George and she would have to stay there to ensure his safety. An angry yet painful scream shook her out of her thoughts as she instantly turned to face the direction it came from. She was just about race inside the forest herself when she felt something flying towards them. She quickly took George’s hand in hers before pulling him behind her. The flying object was yet another dagger and she released a sigh of relief as she noticed that it missed George barely by an inch.

Her sharp eyes caught the movement behind the bushes and the shadow slowly moving away from them. “Oh no you won’t” she narrowed her eyes and zeroed them in on to her opponent before putting her hand out to her front. A light purple flash of lightning encased within a glass like sphere appeared and it was shot quickly towards were she saw the shadow moving next. A strangled cry told her she hit the mark as she walked closer to take a better look. Behind the bushes, one bald man laid squirming and groaning in pain. “That’s one down. The other two must be in the forest. I’m leaving that to you, Tatsume,” she spoke to no one in particular as she went back to George’s side.

1769/1000

[Tatsuma]

As he approached the man he had been tracking, another stepped from the bushes. It didn't matter to him if there were two or one though, not with the way he was right now. He zipped forward, dodging a thrown dagger which zipped by, hitting the area he had been before. To them he seemed to be a moving blur of speed and as he got close enough to the man that had stepped out he grabbed the man by the face and then threw him into his companion. As both men fell Tatsuma was on top of them, slamming his right palm into them which fried them both with electricity, but he didn't want to stop there, he wanted to kill them, both of them. They were here killing people and causing damage to economies and people who depending on the supplies that were being carried.

Fortunately, he snapped out of the bloodlust, grabbing both twitching unconscious bodies from the floor of the forest, blood still dripping down his arm from the cut, and dragged them out of the forest.

From the same general area he had entered, Tatsu exited dragging the two people behind him by their arms and dropped them close to the cart. He didn't worry about the wound on his arms and sat down. Now that it was over he wanted to tend to his wound. He didn't look at Charlotte but he couldn't just leave his arm bleeding the way it was so he ripped one of their shirts and wrapped it.


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The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, and one George and the Cart was delivered Tatsu escorted him back to the magic council headquarters with Charlotte and left them there. He waved goodbye to them and left, hoping to see them again, and with a slightly elevated and more open minded understanding of the magic council.

2188/1500


[EXIT]

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