As the three entered the room, were they surprised by the sheer size of the storage room.

The storage room was almost as big as the main hall of the guild hall and most of that space was occupied with shelfs and other things.

The shelfs were to the most part full of magic items that were in all sorts of states.

Some were dismantled into their individual parts; others were perfectly assembled, and others were in various states between the two.

All of them had a note attached to them that had the name of the item and its usage on it.

They didn´t really look at all the items that were stored in the room but decided to briefly look through them and see if there was anything that catches their interest.

That was until they reached the other side of the room, because at the other side of the room were multiple weapons and armors.

And in the middle of them all was the Nakagami Armor, with its weapon and a podium, on which a golden key laid.

Aversia and Erza were immediately captured by the Nakagami Armor, while Zeldaris was more interested into the key.

The key was golden, and a black serpent was coiling around it.

It was strange that it was golden, since only the 12 zodiac keys were golden and the rest of them were silver and Zeldaris was sure that this wasn´t one of the zodiac keys, since he knew all 12 of them.

Did this mean that this was the rumored 13^th key that he and Aversia were searching for, the possibility was certainly there, but they he didn´t had the time to ponder about it.

The same was true for Aversia and Erza and they knew it too, which is why Erza stored the armor and the weapon inside the space of her magic, after she and Aversia had a little fun with it.

As to why they didn´t had time to waste?

Simple, they were already inside the underground facility for far to long and the chance that other groups would arrive was only increasing, especially with all the noise that Aversia and Zeldaris made while fighting the members of the dark guilds.

The reason why this was bad, was that some of them would try to get the things, which they get in the underground facility for themselves.

Although there was a ban on fights between guilds, that rule was not omnipotent and there were ways to get around it.

The three of them had no interest in fighting possible S-Class members of other guilds if it was possible to avoid it.

Which is why the three had to get out of there as soon as possible, but the entrance at the ruins was now a good chance to ambush them.

Luckily for them, Aversia felt a small air stream when she was looking at the Nakagami Armor.

Which meant that there was something behind the wall and possibly be a secret escape tunnel.

It would make sense that there would be some scattered around the facility, since the only real entrance and exit was the tunnel at the ruins.

Aversia said that it was her turn to punch things.

“But it was you that said that I should open the door of the storage room, since you were too lazy.”, said a an angry Zeldaris, sometimes he really couldn´t take her attitude.

Aversia just shrugged with her shoulders and made herself ready.

[Chaos Dragon´s Iron Fist]

Similarly, to Zeldaris Aversia used the same move and punched the wall with her fire covered fist.

The wall was destroyed without being able to resist for even a second and revealed a tunnel.

“Talk about overkill.”, said Zeldaris, while having a smug smile.

“WHAT? OVERKILL? You did literally the same thing and I didn´t use nearly as much power as you did. How the hell was that overkill?”, yelled Aversia, who became really angry that Zeldaris used her words against her.

“I was punching a reinforced steel door, that was made to withstand strong attacks. You punched a brick wall, there was nothing on the other side and air was flowing through it and yet you still used a spell to destroy it when a normal punch would have been more then enough to deal with it.”, answered Zeldaris.

Aversia could only click with her tongue because she knew that Zeldaris was right.

Erza was shaking her head as she saw the two quarrels with each other.

It reminded her a bit at her quarrels with Mirajane, although hers and Mirajanes were a lot more violent and severe.

But they didn´t had time for this and Erza reminded them of that and that they should hurry up.

The three walked through the tunnel and noticed that it was in a bad state, the ground was covered by water and it was clear that the last 100 years were not nice to it.

Which is why they moved carefully and looked out for unstable places.

It took them quite some time to reach the end, but they safely reached the outside none the less.

“Erza quickly, switch to an armor that can fly.”, said Zeldaris.

“Right. [Requip]”, said Erza and without any hesitation, she used her magic to change into her Black Wing Armor and flew into the air.

Aversia and Zeldaris were right behind her, both had released their wings and tails.

The three of them flew through the forest and tried not to fly higher than the trees, to avoid being seen.

The second reason was that Erzas armor was not made to fly for long distances, and she needed to land a few times, before jumping up again.

Like this they arrived at the town rather quickly and changed back before entering the town.

The next steps were clear, they had to leave the city and report back to the royal family, or who ever was in charge for this.

But on the way to the train station, they noticed a large group of people that was coming from the station.

Erza let go of her luggage and pulled a Aversia and Zeldaris into a nearby alley.

The two half dragons wanted ask Erza why she did that, but Erza put her finger before her lips, signaling the two to be quit.

Aversia and Zeldaris understood and didn´t say word and waited for the group to pass them.

When the group finally passed, they waited for a minute before coming out of the ally and continued toward the station.

Not long after were they on the train toward the capital Crocus.

“Know then, could you please tell me who these people were and why we had to hid from them, as far as I know this is quite unlike you Erza.”, said Zeldaris.

“These were members of Phantom Lord and there were two members of their S-class team Element 4 in that group. As for why we were hiding, master tolled all of us to avoid contact with that guild as much as possible. But let me be clear, he and the rest of the guild do not fear a confrontation with the guild, but the consequences that would come with it are a problem and the fact that the Council has already a bad impression of our guild would not help us at all. If they don´t cross a line, then we will not bother us with them.”, said Erza, with tone and look that made absolutely clear that she didn´t fear them and that this was no laughing matter.

Both felt a shiver running down their spines, they made a mental note to never make her angry at them.

As for that line she talked about, they had a vague idea what it was and that it was one that many would probably not take lightly.

But the atmosphere became lighter when Aversia mentioned the armor and Erza switched back to her dork modus, to which both half dragons sighed in relief.

The three talked about the armor and the key for most of their trip.

When they finally arrived at the capital, they went immediately toward the castle and were told to wait in a room.

But luckily for them they didn´t had to wait long and a soldier came and told them that the minister of defense was waiting for them.

The minister of defense was an old man called Darton.

He welcomed the group and asked them what they had found in the ruins.

Aversia, Zeldaris and Erza told him everything that happened, Zeldaris pulled out the flags that were in the camp, which he had taken with him when he attacked it.

Darton listened to the whole story and his expression became grave, half of the stuff was unbelievable but with the evidence that they brought with them, he had no other choice then to believe them.

The evidence that they brought with them, besides the flags of the dark guilds, was the documents of the projects that settlers had with the Council and the list of contents, which Aversia took with her.

But there was still a thing that made all four of them uneasy and that was the question of how long it took the dark guilds to get the information.

Did they get it a long time before the three had arrived and had they already given the information to their masters.

And to make things worse there was also the question if they had copied some of the documents, to try and deceive them by leaving the originals behind.

“Soldier, tell the local garrison to secure the ruins and the underground facility, don´t let any other guild inside it and secure as much as you can.”, said Darton to a soldier.

“Yes, sir.”, said the soldier as he run to fulfil the order.

“You, send notice to the Council and tell them what you heard here and ask them to send their Rune Knights to the ruins.”, said Darton to a second soldier.

Who also run after hearing the orders.

“I thank you for bringing me these information’s. We need to assume the worst-case scenario, but none the less you did a great service to the country. A guard will give you the reward, at the exit of the castle. Now if you would excuse me, I must report to the king and plan the next steps.”, said Darton and stepped out of the room.

A guard escorted them out of the room and the castle, where another guard was waiting for them and gave them the reward money.

To their surprise it was much more than it was supposed to be.

The guard told them that the bonus was a reward from the minister.

None of them were complaining and walked toward the city, where they rented some rooms in an inn and went to sleep, since it was already late.

They would return tomorrow to Magnolia.

In the next morning they took the train back to Magnolia, a line allowed travel to Magnolia was build in the last three years.

The journey took more than half a day, but they were simply happy to be home.

Naturally, their destination was the guild hall, where they were welcomed with opened arms by the other members of the guild, except for Natsu he was still angry.

They were bombarded by the others for the details of the mission, which the three happily told them.

The whole guild celebrated, they called it celebrating, but it was just an excuse to party, which they did almost every single day.

Zeldaris and Aversia sat together with the Straus siblings, Natsu, Happy and Erza.

Natsu and Elfman told the others what happened in the time that they were gone and as predicted the so-called dragon was just a fire mage with huge ego.

After getting up to date with everyone, pulled Zeldaris the key out that they found in the facility and handed it toward Aversia, who became excited.

She stood up and told the others to follow her outside, which they did.

Aversia stood before the cliff and showed the key to the others, Erza and Zeldaris already knew what she wanted to do.

Aversia told the two on the way to the capital that she would wait to make the contract until they were back at the guild and know she was unable to wait any longer.

She turned around and pointed with the key toward the cliff.

“I am the person who connects the road to the stellar spirit world. Thou… Shalt respond to the calling and pass through the gate. Open, gate of the snake charmer Ophiuchus!”

 

 

Hello there welcome to a new section in which I will try to explain a few things in the story and changes from the original cannon, so that I don´t have to explain them in the middle of the chapter.

I would like to begin this with a more detailed explanation of Requip magic and the Black Wing Armor.

Requip magic is an ability type space magic. Which lets the mage control a separate dimension where he can store inorganically objects. The capacity of that space is interlinked with the amount of magic power of the user. The user can organize and register objects through an interface that the user can summon at any time, although it is not necessary to summon the interface when summoning objects from the space. It is by far one of the most useful abilities, if handled correctly and is also extremely popular with traveling merchants.

Erza uses this magic to store her armors and weapons, but she has so many that she can´t put them all into the space and leaves the others back in her ‘room’ in Fairy Hills. Erza can swap between armors and weapons in less then a second. She has saved most of her armors and weapons as a set but can also mix them with other weapons and armors.

 

The Black Wing Armor, as its name implies, this armor is black in color, sporting some silver trimming. A distinctive feature of the armor is its pair of wings, which are reminiscent of those of a dragon or a bat. Around Erza’s neck is a neck guard decorated by several gems, and, while wearing this armor, her long scarlet hair is tied up in a high ponytail, with two bangs framing her face. Her large shoulder pads, each composed of two silver-edged plates one over the other, sport silver crosses on them too, and flank the high collar, whose shape is reminiscent of that of a dress. The silver-edged breastplate reveals a fair amount of Erza’s cleavage and belly, with plates flanking her hips and reaching down to her exceptionally large waist guard, composed of exceptionally long, silver-edged plates shaped like feathers and decorated by silver crosses. The waist guard leaves the front of Erza’s body exposed, with her groin being covered by a dark indument. The slim gauntlets come equipped with prominent protection for her hands, each sporting silver patterns. The plates guarding her legs are sliver-edged on her thighs and knees, but pitch-black dark on her metal greaves. It is only one of two armors that allow Erza to fly, the other one being Heaven´s Wheel Armor. The armor also increases the users’ offensive capabilities. Erza uses the armor either with a sword or two one-handed axes.

The only known spell of the armor is Moon Flash, were the users slashes the target in a cross pattern and rushes past it.