One Look, That's All It Took

Chapter 2: The First Request

Once things died down a bit, Maia and Lucy sat near the bar where Mirajane was cleaning beer glasses and placing them back onto shelves.  “So, where are you from, Maia?” Lucy asked.

“Well, for all that I can remember, I lived in a small town; just outside of Hargeon.” Maia answered.

“Really?!  I’ve been to Hargeon before!  It’s so nice there.  It’s there where I first met Natsu!” Lucy said as she rambled on about the incident that she went through after she met the fire wizard.  While Lucy was rambling on to herself, Mira asked Maia, “So, is it true that you have no memory of your life prior to age ten?”

 “Yeah, unfortunately.  But I hope to somehow find out what happened.  That’s one of the reasons why I started traveling around the country.” Maia replied.

“I’m sure you’ll find something.  Don’t give up.” Mira said with a smile. 

Right after that, Natsu and Happy came running over towards Lucy - while Happy flew over.  “Lucy!  Guess what?  Natsu and I found the perfect job for all of us to take!” Happy said as he flew beside Natsu.  Natsu handed the job post to Lucy, and she read it out loud.  “’There is a group of bandits terrorizing a small, rural village a few miles outside of Hargeon.  Any type of wizard can handle this quest, preferably a small group of four to five.’  Well, that’s pretty much our whole group.  Oh wait, I have an idea!  Maia, do you want to come with us?”

Maia didn’t expect anyone to ask her to go on a quest with them, let alone going on one at all right after she becomes a member.  But that didn’t stop her from saying, “Sure, I would love to go!”

Lucy smiled and said, “Awesome!  Let’s go gather the others, and we’ll head out.”

A few minutes later, Maia was standing with Lucy, Natsu and Happy, Erza, and Gray.  Maia was still thinking about what Gray had said to her earlier.  She really wanted to know if she did see Gray before in the past, but she couldn’t remember anything back then.  It was starting to annoy her a little bit. 

Soon, they all (by all, meaning Erza) went over what was going to happen, and they all boarded a train.  Once the train started moving, Natsu got sick, and slouched in his seat badly, looking like he was about to throw up.  “Wow, he doesn’t look so good.” Maia pointed out.

“Don’t worry about it.  He always gets like that when we travel in vehicles.” Happy said as he ate fish.

Maia was a bit worried about that, but she put the thought aside and tried to focus on the quest.  Not only was this her chance to show the guild what she can do, but to show one of the strongest teams of Fairy Tail what she can do.  She didn’t think she can be as good as these four wizards, but she can at least try.  She was still really nervous about the quest as well.  Like she read Maia’s mind, Lucy asked, “Are you nervous at all?”

“… Well, yeah.  I am a bit nervous.” Maia replied, even though she was more than just a bit nervous.  Then, Erza said, “Don’t worry.  If the master let you join the guild, then you must have some potential.  And besides, if you ever get into any trouble on this mission, one of us will come to help you out.”

Maia couldn’t help but smile at what Erza said.  She never would have imagined that the strongest woman in Fairy Tail would say something like that to her.  But, Maia didn’t know that Erza had overheard what the master and Natsu were talking about back at the guild; about Maia having a great power, but not knowing it.  Erza just wanted to help Maia find this great power inside her, even though she herself didn’t know what it was. 

About four hours later, the train stopped at a small train station outside of Hargeon.  “This is our stop.  Come on.” Erza said as she got up and headed towards the door.  Natsu was up quickly and ready to get off once the train stopped moving.  Once they were all off the train, a small carriage came to escort the wizards to the village.  That trip took around an hour, which was an hour too long for Natsu’s liking.  “You really need to get over this motion sickness that you have.” Lucy pointed out.