Time After Time

A great idea

{NASHI'S POV}
"Luke! Reiki! Get back here right now!" I scream, chasing my little brother and Reiki around the guild hall. My scarf trails behind Luke, fluttering as he runs. Just wait till I get my hands on them!

Of course, they run straight to Nova, who's watching them for our parents until they get back from their S-class job. You see, Luke and my parents and Reiki's mom are in the same team, and Reiki's dad travels around a lot with his own guild. Luke sticks his tongue out at me tauntingly.

"Nova! Make him give me back my scarf!" I fume, standing in front of her. Nova carefully extracts my scarf from Luke's hands and gives it to me. I hug it and wrap it back around my neck.

"Hello!" A singsong voice calls from the opposite side of the guild hall, near the doors. Nova's twin, Lexi, comes in with her teammates, Gale and Mizu, and right after them comes Rose from her solo job, plus Storm and Kori from theirs.

"This is a surprise. All of you came back together?" Nova walks over, still holding the hands of my brother's sticky fingered duo.

"I know, right? We met on the train here." Rose holds up a victory sign. I got nauseous just thinking about trains. Ugh.

Storm must've seen me turning green, because he grins evilly and starts listing of various modes of transportation until I'm retching on the floor. We both stop when we spot Lexi staring at us with stars in her eyes. Sometime while I was on the ground, Storm stripped off his shirt.

"Storm, your shirt." Mizu hands it to him, neatly folded. I snicker as he blushes and puts it back on. Meanwhile Rose raids the bar, looking for a peice of celebratory strawberry cake, and Kori admires a cute little necklace strung with a bunch of fake gummy bears. Storm probably bought it for her.

I look around at all my friends, who I've grown up with. It's rare that all eight, ten if you include Luke and Reiki, of us are together these days. A sudden thought comes to me, making me clap.

"Hey guys, how about we do a job together? All of us!" I jump up and down excitedly.

"I'll do it. Oh, but only if you all want to." Mizu ducks shyly behind Storm.

"I'm game." He nods, turning his attention to Kori.

"If Storm wants to go, Kori has no objections." Kori lovingly hugs her brother's legs. Lexi squeals happily, a sign of agreement, and Rose and Gale decide to come as well.

"Nova?" I ask. We all look at her hopefully, but Nova shakes her head.

"Sorry. But I have to watch Luke and Reiki until your parents get back." We all groan, disappointed.

"We come too." Reiki suggests, tugging on Nova's hand. We look down at him.

"That's a great idea!" Lexi exclaims.

"That's a terrible idea!" Nova contradicts. "Taking two 5 year olds on a job? What's gotten into you?"

"If we choose an easy one, you can just stay in the back with them while we finish the job. Please? It wouldn't be the same without you." I plead.

"Yeah!" Everyone agrees.

"Fine." Nova relents. We all cheer. "But it's got to be really easy."

"Alright!" We all run up to the request board, our excitement building. The requests vary, but we concede that, because of Luke and Reiki, there shouldn't be any fighting involved.

Eventually, we pick one that says Help Find Our Runaway Child. A rich family's son ran away from home. Easy enough, or so we all thought.

The hardest part of the job itself turns out to be the train ride there. I sit in pained silence, trying not to barf the whole trip. Trains. Once we get to the town, we search around, and find the boy in a motel, "camping out" for the night, he claims.

We drag him back to his parents, where they have a tearful reunion, and get our reward.

"Can't we stay here a little while longer?" I beg, thinking about the return trip, as Nova divides the reward jewel up evenly.

"No. What if your parents return? They'll probably be mad I even brought Luke here."

"Speaking of Luke, where are Fairy Tail's two troublemakers-in-training?" Rose asks.

"Don't be silly, Rose, they're right... here?" Nova gestures to her side, but Luke and Reiki aren't there. All of us stop and look around, but there's no sign of them anywhere.

Nova pales. Then she screams.

We decide it's better to split up and search. With plans to meet back up in the same location in an hour if we don't find anything, we pair off. Lexi is in charge of group assignments, so naturally I'm stuck with Storm. Cue eye-roll.

As we run down our assigned street, we call out their names. "Luke!"

"Reiki!"

"Little bro, where are you?"

Storm elbows me. "Nashi, look." He points to a tiny alley. I would've missed it, but sure enough, Luke and Reiki are staring inside.

"You send the signal that we've found them." I crack my knuckles. "I'll grab the little terrors."

"Just don't go overboard." Storm sighs.

"What're you implying?" I get up in his face. Before he can react, I realize that his shirt is gone. I point at his bare chest.

"Huh?" He looks down only to start looking around frantically for the discarded shirt.

"Get dressed. And send the signal already." I approach them, and when the two notice me, they don't look the least bit apologetic.

"Hey sis." Luke says innocently.

"Don't you 'hey sis' me, mister." I crouch so I'm at their level, and place one hand on one of their shoulders. Then I squeeze. "Do you two know how much trouble you're in right now?"

"But, sis, trouble!" Luke cries.

"Yes, that's right. Big trouble." I prepare to drag them away, even if they kick and scream.

"No. Trouble here." Luke insists, looking down the alley nervously again.

"Big trouble." Reiki seconds. There is an unusual magic energy coming from the alley.

At the very end, it seems there's another alley running along the backs of the buildings, and a faint blue light emanates from it.

"Storm, Nashi! Please tell me you actually found them!" Nova runs toward us, followed closely by everyone else.

"Yup." Storm gestures to us.

"Darn it! I wanted to find them." Rose huffs, always a sore loser.

"Guys, wait." I call out as they start to leave, Nova once again holding the hands of our two youngest guild members. I tell everyone about the magic energy and the blue light. Everyone finally notices it and agrees that it's quite strange.

"What do we do?" Gale asks.

"Isn't it obvious?" I enter the alley, setting my fists on fire. "We check it out."