The Knight and The Strawberry

chapter 12

Erza felt relieved as she saw the roof tops of Magnolia rising in the distance ahead of them. Makarov, Gray, Natsu, and Lucy all let out exhausted sighs as they too realized that they were finally home after their tiring ordeal. Eleven days ago Erza and her team had left on a mission to prevent the dark guild Eizenwald from enacting their sinister plan to use the deadly lullaby flute to kill the guild masters at their annual conference. It had ended with a confrontation with the demon created by the dark wizard Zeref and in their effort to defeat the evil, the conference hall in clover had been destroyed.

After that, they had spent the week on the road. Erza grimaced as she thought back on how they had become lost in clover canyon and their subsequent involvement with the cursed city that had turned into monstrous eels when they entered the town. She still was not satisfied with Master Makarov's explanation of how he had saving them, simply stating that he would tell her about it someday. She supposed that she would just have to forget about it as the old man was known for being rather stubborn.

"Oh man I am so ready for a nice hot bath." Lucy sighed next to her slumping her shoulders.

Erza smiled at the thought. "I know what you mean. A good soak would feel divine right now."

Lucy smiled back at her and stretched her arms over her head a bit. She was Fairy Tail's newest member, having only joined the guild a few days before Erza had dragged them off on this errand. She was a celestial spirit wizard, summoning spirits to aid her in combat. From what Erza had seen she wasn't overly powerful, but still quite skilled.

"So Erza you were really something back when we fought those goons at the train station." Lucy complimented.

Erza smiled and shifted her grip on her large cart of luggage. "Why thank you Lucy. You showed a good degree of skill in that fight as well."

"Haha yeah but I could never have taken out as many as you did. Your magic is incredible. Where'd you learn to fight like that?" The blonde asked innocently.

A strange silence fell over the men walking in front of them and Gray even glanced back over his shoulder with an unreadable expression. Erza also fell quiet for a moment though she showed no sign that anything was wrong. Lucy began to feel awkward as if there was some big secret she wasn't supposed to ask about. Before the poor girl could worry herself too much, Erza spoke up in a slightly softer tone than she had been previously.

"I learned how to use my requip magic on my own. However I owe nearly all of my skill with the sword and the amount of power I have at my disposal to the training I used to do with someone I haven't seen in a very long time."

When she was done the others seemed to all collectively release their held breath. Lucy could feel the tension dissipate from the situation and was glad that she hadn't somehow annoyed the powerful woman. "Well if that's the case they must have really been incredible seeing how strong you are."

Erza nodded and looked up to the rapidly approaching town. "Yes. He really was."

In front of them Gray scoffed and let out a small chuckle. "Ha that's an understatement. With how hard he used to push himself in training I wouldn't be surprised if he could bench press a mountain by now."

"No way man. He could totally lift a mountain with one hand!" Natsu jumped in. "And he could smash it with one punch from the other." He punctuated his claim by swinging his fists around in the air.

Lucy couldn't understand why those two always had to use the ability to destroy mountains as a measure of strength. Erza chuckled and rolled her eyes as the passed onto the cobblestone streets of Magnolia and turned to head for the guild.