The Next Dragon Slayer

Caught

"What took you guys so long? We got here ten minutes ago," Emma crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow.
"Hmm," Nova's mouth spreads into a sly grin. "How strange that you were both late and Nashi's blushing,"
"I-I can exp-plain," I stammer, nervous now that Storm has definitely noticed my face and so has everyone else.
"Geez, Nova, I snuck up on Nashi as we were walking here and it scared her so badly she needed a minute to calm down." Storm shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and rolls his eyes.
Nova lets out a disappointed sigh and turns toward the woods. "Well, we should get going, I guess."
"Yeah, we shouldn't waste any time," Emma points out.
We all gather up our stuff and take a few steps toward the forest. Leaving through a heavily wooded path should help us sneak away as well as keep us undetected in the daylight of morning.
We've barely crossed into the woods when a low growl rumbles throughout the area. My blood runs cold, and judging by how everyone else's face pales, they're afraid too. Slowly we turn around to find the source of the growl. We're look into the terror-inducing eyes of Reiki's mother, Erza Fernandes. Her flaming red hair is blowing gently in the wind, but the intimidating expression she wears makes it look like snakes swirling around her.
"Where do you think you're going?" Erza growls out.
We each look at each other, panicked. Then all our gazes fall on Reiki, and he can read the same unspoken message in each of them. Talk to your Mother.
"Mom, we were, uh, just," He fumbles on the words, probably the first time he's ever done that.
"I don't want excuses, you have all made a foolish decision in trying to run off. I'm taking you back to your parents, most of whom are already worried about your siblings. I'm disappointed that you all would want to cause more stress for your parents."
That's when it hits me. I never considered how this would impact my parents, any of our parents. Guild knocks into me like a punch to the gut.
"Come along, your parents are likely worried sick," Erza waves us along, falling into step beside her son. I can hear her scolding him from up in the front.
I sigh. Not only am I a horrible daughter for doing this to my parents, but I'm a horrible sister for failing to save my brother. My plan is totally unusable now that it'll be expected. No one is going to let us go willingly. I duck my head down and stare at my brown boots for the rest of the walk home.
Erza refuses to let us go home by ourselves and insists that she goes to each house with us to drop someone off.
First to face their parents is Emma. Her father opens the door, his eyes burning angrily. He yells for a little bit about "What the heck was she thinking?!" and "You're in a mound of trouble!" before Levy shoves Gajeel out of the way and begins yelling herself. We leave the three of them as they escort Emma inside.
We continue until we reach Nova's house. I hear her mutter under her breath, "Should've moved out," before she goes up to the door. She lifts a hand to open it, but the door is opened by her parents. Laxus, Lightning sparking all over him, is standing next to Mirajane, or should I say Satan Soul Mira. Mirajane is the sweetest lady in the world, until she's mad like she is right now.
"Nova Dreyar! Where the heck were you?!" Laxus roars at his daughter.
"We need to have a talk," Mirajane snarls in her Satan Soul voice.
"I'm technically an adult, it doesn't matter where I was and why I went there," Nova defends herself.
The protest goes back and forth about how 'Nova's an adult' and 'If she's an adult, she should be responsible'. Erza steers the three of us left away and we drop Storm off at his house. His parents react about like the others, except Storm is still a teenager like Emma and I, so we can't use Nova's strategy. As we walk to my house from Storm's I can still here his dad yelling about him being 'a little punk' and his mom scolding him relentlessly.
A pit forms in my stomach as I stare at my house. Uh oh. I knew this was coming, but I didn't realize what I'd actually say or do. I take three or four not-so-calming breaths before my parents answer my knock on the door. Erza and Reiki leave us be and I look up into the rage filled eyes of my parents.
"Second time in less than a week that you've acted out like this, young lady," My mom spits out, looking angry and no longer so broken and sad.
"Wanna tell us what's going on, Kid?" My dad leans back in his chair, arms crossed.
I look directly at them both as I retell everything. I give them all the details about the mission, our plan, everything.
Once I finish, it's my mom who speaks first.
"Your dad and I went on a few forbidden missions soon after I joined Fairy Tail. Remember Galuna Island?" She glances at him and he grins at her. "It was Erza who found out what we had done, too. The point here is, everyone goes against the rules sometimes. That doesn't make it okay, though."
"I know, and I'm sorry. I just wanted to help, to do something to get him back."
"We get it," Dad pulls me down into the chair next to him. "We want to go too, but Gramps isn't letting any of us go right now and the last thing I need is both of my kids being held hostage."
"We'll figure this out together, okay? Just promise me you won't try leaving us again." Mom's eyes soften as she speaks the words.
I nod at both of them and they both suddenly sandwich me in a hug. We sit like that for a minute, and that's when I realize how much I needed it.