Fate Decides

Chapter 14

Though Jellals team left the day after the other one, they reached their destination with a couple of hours, it was why he had let them have another day at home before departing. Some of them had barely had time at home after nearly two months down here before and he knew Bickslow wasn't looking forward to going back to Devils Gate but it couldn't be helped.

The Seith mage had set the fire under the right asses and gotten this all in motion, something Jellal himself had been wanting to take on for a couple of years now. Nightmare was too big, growing too fast, it had to be knocked down before it could get too big to be stopped.

He glanced over at the man, arm around Levy, teasing Cobra and about to earn himself some sort of nasty repercussion from the poison slayer if he didn't watch himself.

Cobra didn't make friends easily, Jellal himself had managed little more than a rrespectful working relationship with the man, but Bickslow had somehow gotten himself into the wary mans good graces quickly.

Erza had told him she'd never met anyone who didn't like Bickslow, he hoped the mans sunny personality held up through this mission. A lot hinged on Bickslow and Cobra, the two mages could work with souls, especially Bickslow. Jellal had been shocked to learn he was a Seith Mage.

He shouldn't have been though, really, Makarov had managed to conceal Jellal and protect him when he had been wanted by the council, it shouldn't be a surprise he had taken in a Seith mage and kept him safe and off the council radar.

This was all risky for the Seith Mage too, they would be working a lot with the council, one wrong step and Bickslow would be outed to the council and Makarov would be hard pressed to protect him then.

It was a risk the man had assured Jellal he both understood and accepted, calmly telling him that ending this "industry" in Fiore mattered too much for him not to step up and make sure it was done.

Jellal had learned through the Rune Knights assigned to this operation that Madam Mantis would respect a married dancer too, so he had insisted that be part of the cover Bickslow would go back with. He and Erza had both been stunned when Bickslow had handed over the set of rings.

"I got em in Crocus just before Christmas, was planning to propose on New Years, but guess it will have to wait. I don't want Levy wearing crappy fake rings, Madam will know, woman's obsessed with jewelry. I'll just see about convincing Levy to keep em on after the mission is over." He'd grinned and Erza had burst into tears and launched over to hug the man, knocking him from his chair and crushing him until Jellal had to step in so Bickslow could breathe again.

From what he knew about Seith Mages, it was incredibly easy for them to turn dark and when they did they were as lethal as it got. The last one documented had been nearly 40 years ago and the mage had killed hundreds in a horrific bloodbath that had left a town devastated and more than 70 Rune Knights dead before the Seith was contained and later killed.

The council had then released a law making Seith Magic illegal to teach and Seith Mages were to report in to be "tested and cataloged" after that it seemed that there simply were no more Seith Mages.

Jellal remembered reading some of the orders while he had been in the council, death squads sent out to kill anyone that practiced Seith Magic, mages being hauled in and tested to make certain they were not Seith before they were released.

Bickslow had been one of them, he had pulled the records. Bickslow was registered as a Telepath/Telekinetic mage. Makarov kept him carefully out of the limelight too, not allowing him in the games and even keeping him from becoming S-class, though Makarov had told Jellal when they had talked about Bickslow that the Seith would be S-class, would have been long ago had becoming such not potentially opened him up for more scrutiny by the council that kept close track of S-class mages. Specially those that completed a lot of SS-class jobs like Bickslow did with the Raijinshuu.