Aversia and Zeldaris landed too far away from Natsu and Gajeel.

“Great, just what I needed, you two.” said Gajeel in an annoyed tone.

“It´s good to see you too, Gajeel.” Said Zeldaris with a smile, although his voice didn´t truly sound happy.

“What do you want?”

“To talk with you.”

“Even after everything that I did?”
“Even after everything that you did, because no matter what, you will always be our brother.” answered Aversia.

Gajeel turned around to loke at the lake and didn´t say anything, Zeldaris, Aversia and Natsu didn´t say anything too and simply waited.

“I wanted to become the strongest, no matter what. I thought that by becoming the strongest I would be able to finally find him.”

“Then what are you going to do now?”

“I… I don´t know now, but I will figure something out.”

Zeldaris and Aversia sighed after they heard his answer.

“Our door will always be open for you, stupid block head!” said Natsu.

“SHUT UP, FIRE BRAIN!” yelled Gajeel back and he and Natsu started to bicker, making Zeldaris and Aversia wondering from where they took the energy to bicker.

After the two finally quiet down, Zeldaris had an offer for Gajeel.

“Why don´t you join our guild?” this question stunned both Natsu and Gajeel.

“NO WAY, that block head attacked our guild and hurt Levi, Jet and Droy!”

“There is no way that they will allow me to join after everything I did!”

The two continued to berate Zeldaris with their opinions and as to why it was such a bad idea.

Zeldaris regrated his choice of words and he tried to calm them down and fully explain what he meant, but Aversia was faster.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” she yelled, making them stop.

“What he meant by that was that he would not immediately join and that he and I would talk about it with gramps and the others. It will take some time, but I am sure that we can make them agree.”

“Yeah, that was my idea, should have explained that first. My mistake.” Zeldaris said while frowning.

“Thanks, but I will pass.” said Gajeel.

This surprised all of them, but all three of them started to smile soon after a short while.

“Even so, think about it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now get lost, next time I will be stronger than all of you and I will defeat you, especially you, fire brain!” yelled Gajeel.

“Sure, I am fired up.” said Natsu.

Zeldaris than picked Natsu up and he and Aversia flew down from the giant robot.

 

“Is he going to be, ok?” asked Natsu on the way.

“He will, right now he needs time to think, but I believe that he will be ok.” answered Zeldaris.

“And even if he won´t, we are going to help him, if he wants or not.” added Aversia.

“Yeah!”

Back on the ground they saw how Lucy was crying while saying thank you over and over again, while Levi was trying to cheer her up.

Everyone else was standing around and watched with warm eyes.

Makarov stood before the guild; the building was in an extremely bad shape.

The holes that Gajeel created were still there and the damage done by the phantoms was also no laughing matter.

If Makarov had been slower by only a few seconds, or Zeldaris and Aversia didn´t destroy so many of them than the building would have been destroyed.

Makarov placed his hand on the building and thought back to his time with the guild.

But shortly after placing his hand on the wall of the building, the wall started to crumple into pieces and with it the rest of the building started to crumble down.

Everyone just stared with wide eyes and open mouths as the building collapsed into itself, shocked beyond believe.

The one that was the most chocked by this was Makarov and started to shake.

After the building had fully collapsed, everyone still only looked in shock at what was left of the building.

But soon everyone snapped out of it and the memories of their time in the guild came rushing into their mind and every single one of them started to cry.

For almost all of them, this guild had been their home and had spent most of their time in this building.

For people like Mirajane, Levi, Cana and so many more who had no place to call home, it welcomed them with open arms and become their home. (AN: I mean, we are talking about Fairy Tail, having a sad backstory is a requirement for the guild, including Vulcan and Juvia.)

And for Makarov it was even more, he was the son of one of the founding members of the guild and had spent most of his live in this guild, there was nothing more that he holds more precious than this guild and now it felt like a part of it had been lost.

Makarov whipped the tears of his face and said,” It is not the building that makes the guild, but the sum of it´s members. Although there were many important memories in this building for all of us, we will walk forward and rebuild it.”

All of the members, still crying, shouted in agreement.

However, after saying all of this, Makarov started to think about the reaction of the magic council and none of them were pretty.

The council could dissolve the guild, hand it the status of a dark guild and or throw Makarov and the members of the guild into prison.

Thinking about all of that, Makarov was close to crying again and to make matters even worse, a large group of people were approaching the area.

Zeldaris and Aversia could already see who it was, and they sighed in resignation, because the group was the armed forces of the magic council, the Rune Knights.

More than a thousand knights were surrounding the guild wreckage and the members of the guild.

“Shit, it´s the forces of the magic council. They reacted fast.” said Cana in surprise.

 “RUN AWAY!” yelled Natsu, as he and Happy tried to run away, only to be captured by an anti-gravity field, casted by one of the knights.

“NOBODY MOVE! WE ARE THE MAGIC COUNCIL ENFORCEMENT AND INVESTIGATION SQUAD RUNE KNIGHTS!!!” yelled the leader of the Rune Knights.

No one resisted, even if they weren´t exhausted by the battle against Phantom Lord, none of them were stupid enough to attack the armed forces of the magic council, including Natsu.

The Rune Knights begun to secure the members of the guild and prepared multiple tents for them and one to interrogate them in.

For the next week all of them had been interrogated and questioned daily and for multiple hours, the treatment from the Rune Knights was strict but fair.

After the sixth day, the information gathered by the Rune Knights had been send to the magic council and they decided that the fault lied with Phantom Lord and that Fairy Tail would not be punished for breaking the treaty.

Phantom Lord would be disbanded, and Jose would be stripped of his rank as one of the saints, not that would be a problem, since Jose had basically turned into a vegetable after being hit by Fairy Law and had aged by decades.

However, Fairy Tail would receive some other form of punishment and Makarov was required to come to the main headquarters of the council for a hearing.

But other than that, everything was fine, and the guild members started to rebuild the guild hall, and the one that had to work the hardest was off course Vulcan.

His workshop had somehow survived all of this, Zeldaris and Aversia would later find out that Vulcan had casted multiple shields and enchantments on the workshop to keep it safe from almost anything.

But that was a story for another time.

However, before they could focus entirely on the rebuilding of the guild hall, Makarov had to travel to Era, where the headquarters of the magic council was located.

Zeldaris and Aversia were allowed to accompany him.

The headquarters was located in the center of the city and on top of a large hill.

As for the building, it was a giant, imposing, white palace.

In front of the entrance waited one of the amphibian employees of the council, who lead them to a room that looked like a court room.

Inside the room waited all of the members of the council and as Makarov stood on top of a box, which was placed on the podium so that Makarov could see above the railing, they started to announce their official decision, which Makarov already knew.

This was just an act to make it official, which the council also used to berate Makarov for his actions and their pent-up frustration for the guild.

However, halfway through its Makarov fell asleep and the council only noticed that at the end of it all, Ultear and Sieg had noticed that from the start and had been smiling the whole time.

Most of the other members became even more frustrated and wanted to punch Makarov extremely hard.

Zeldaris and Aversia, who stood at the door the whole time, tried really hard to hold back their laughter.

In the end they threw him out before they would not be able to hold themselves back and do something that would end badly for them, like punching Makarov in the face.

Zeldaris and Aversia thought that they would immediately go back to Magnolia and continue the rebuilding of the guild hall, but Makarov told them that they would stay a bit more and chat with an old friend.

They waited at one of the corridors that were outside, until one of the members of the council came toward them.

That person was Yajima.

He was a short old man with thick light brown eyebrows and a small toothbrush mustache that reached halfway to his mouth.

He wore a brown, long-sleeved shirt with black vertical stripes, black pants, and black shoes.

On top of his head was a black three spiked hat.

“Well Maki, looks like you and your guild had been through a lot.”

“Indeed, old friend.” answered Makarov with a smile.

Zeldaris and Aversia could only stare in confusion at this scene.

“Oh? Right, I never told you. Let me introduce you two to Yajima, he is an old friend of mine and a former member of Fairy Tail. He and I used to be in the same team with a few others.” Makarov said with a grin.

“Those were the good old days. But are you not going to thank me, Maki? I helped you a lot with the whole situation.”

“Yeah, I really am thankful to you. How about you come by when we have rebuilt the guild, I will treat you to some ramen.”

“Then please put 12 pieces of roast pork in my fairy ramen.”

“What, 12 slices that is way too much.” said Makarov while crossing his arms.

Yajima than told him the rules about conflicts between guilds and the work he had put into the guilds defense, to which Makarov told Yajima that he could have as many slices of roast pork as he wants.

But Yajima said that twelve were enough.

“Maki, you need to be careful, the voices that want Fairy Tail to be disbanded are growing more and more. The actions of the guild are turning more members against it. Don´t you think that it is time for you to retire and let someone else lead the guild, maybe that will help with the council.”

“The problem is that there are not any good candidates, Erza is too young and too inexperienced for it. Laxus is hard no, his behavior in the recent years is hard evidence for it and I need to do something about it. Mystogan is not good as well, the position is not good for him. The only ones that I can see are Gildarts and Vulcan, but they are not ideal as well.” explained Makarov.

 

Shortly after finishing their talk with Yajima, they took the next train toward Magnolia, ready to work some more at the guild hall, only to be greeted by a nervous Natsu, Happy, Gray and Erza.

They told the three that Lucy had disappeared and that they found a note that said that she was going home.

Natsu, Happy, Gray and Erza wanted to go to her home and talk with her about it, Zeldaris and Aversia decided to accompany them and all of them traveled toward the Heartfilia estate.

 

 

 

Rune Knights.

They are the armed forces under the control of the magic council. They are the enforcers of the rules and the justice of the council as well as investigators of events and things. They are trained not only in physical combat but also in magic, making them a combination of knight and mage. Their training is harder than that of the normal military in every country in Ishgar and their magic is stronger than the average mage, but because they are trained in such large numbers, their individual power is lacking, meaning that people like Natsu and Gray would have no problems whatsoever with them. The knights are split into multiple squads and some of them perform particular duties, such as the fourth being specialized into capturing and detaining criminals. They can also pass judgment without the approval of the council, but they have to report that later to the council. The knights patrol through out the countries, but there also multiple garrisons spread through the countries. The Rune Knights have a lot of authority, and the magic council makes sure that there are no cases of corruption between the ranks of the knights. There are many cases where the Rune Knights and the military of a country work together and it is a strong symbol for the teamwork between the council and the countries.