"So... Do we know anything about these so called bandits?" Touma Kamijou asked his not-so-normal guild mates.

They've only been on the road for a good hour, and one thing Touma had been a little bit irritated about was the silence. For them it was probably a comfortable silence, but for a new guy like him it was pretty awkward.

The group had also decided to walk instead of taking the train, much to Natsu's joy; since it would only take a couple of hours to get to their destination by foot once their outside of magnolia, not to mention it would give Touma a chance to get familiar with the layout of the land.

"Not much, only that they've been causing a lot of trouble with small town villages such as this one, its actually a good thing we can stop them now before things get out of hand, if things continue to escalate as they have people can get hurt or even killed." Erza explained.

"Plus they're also wizards, if they things continued like Erza said they could even become a dark guild." Happy added.

"Dark guild?" Touma asked.

"Dark guilds are guilds that are not officially recognised by the magic council, they abide the rules imposed by the Magic Council. Their belief is that the rules of the Council would only limit the full potential of guilds, as they place too many restrictions." Lucy informed jumping into the conversation.

"So Dark guilds are frowned upon I take it?"

"Very." Wendy replied.

This world still confused Touma to no end, so far everything was about magic. Was there no science? It was as if magic was the obvious answer to everything.

For the next two hours the group was somewhat silent. Touma for the most part was trying to familiarize the landscape as they walked. It all looked surreal; he was used to the big city and now everything was just... Land.

For now he'll just have to follow his guild mates around until he could get back home, guild members often teamed up on jobs right? Then he'll just ask to team up with them some more its not like he can go on missions alone. Who in their right mind would do that? It sounded so boring to him.

Suddenly the group came to a stop.

"Um? Why did we stop?" A confused Touma asked.

Without warning Gray charged right at Touma punching him at full force knocking him to the ground.

"What the hell Gray!?"

He didn't get an answer as Lucy charged after Touma next. Unlike last time though he was on guard and before Lucy could connect her kick he dodged under it and then pushed her away.

Lucy too?

like clockwork Natsu was next charging after him with the same ferocity as the others. Touma dodged the first punch Natsu through at him, but the second one landed. Touma was about to go on the offensive when he felt a tingling sensation on the back of his neck. Trusting his instinct he jumped out of the wayonly to see a sword strike the ground of where he once stood. Touma looked up to see the scarlet hair of Erza.

That was too close.

Next up in the painful game of musical chairs. Wendy and the... Magical Flying cats attacked him.

I really need to re-evaluate my life...

Wendy went for a punch to his gut, but Touma leaned in a little forward so her fist couldn't connect , Unfortunately however, he ended up head butting one of the cats .

"Such... Misfortune." He muttered. Touma looked worriedly at the blue cat.

Happy, If he remembered correctly, looked like a zombie. The cat regained some composure as he was about to hit Touma with a head-butt of his own but he suddenly stopped. Everyone stopped.

They were still in their fighting poses as they just stood still like a couple of manikins. What frightened Touma the most was that they all has the same blank expression on their faces. It was as if someone flipped the 'off switch' on his guild mates. Suddenly a large booming voice spoke out.

"Wow! You are Spry." The voice exclaimed. The accent was hard to place but it most certainly had a southern ring to it.

"I mean look at ya, bobbin and weavin all over the place. didn't you ever get the memo boy?" the voiced asked.

Touma Looked beyond his manikin like guild mates to see a small group of men. They were all of different shapes and sizes and some of them even had masks man that was speaking to Touma however, stood a towering seven feet tall. He was oddly dressed in what could only be described as farmers clothing, as he had on a simple pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Touma could only assume that these are the magical bandits they were after.

His messy blond hair matched his bright blue eyes, but what Touma had his eyes on was the large crossbow he had in his hands.

"What memo?" Touma hesitantly asked. He had a felling he was not going to like what he heard in return.

"This hear is our turf." The man said aiming his crossbow at Touma. "And we as sure as hell don't want any god damn guild wizards on our turf."

Hey what do you know he was right. He really didn't like it.

A magic circle came out of the tip of the crossbow as an arrow shot out heading straight for Touma at a rapped speed. Touma had somehow ducked in the nick of time, for the arrow to past right through his spikey hair.

Touma turned his head to see the arrow hit a large builder a good sixty feet back only to see the rock start to rapidly expand before it completely imploded leaving a small Crater in the ground.

Touma slowly turned back around to face the man as he loaded another arrow in the crossbow and aimed it yet again at the unfortunate teen.

"See what'd I tell ya, you are spry, and for some reason or another we cant control ya like all the other guild freaks. You are just something else boy." He stated

"Well then since we can not control him... Lucus!" A dark seething voice rang out. " Then he is just an obstacle in our way." A man with a dark black robe stepped out of the surprisingly quiet crowd of bandits. "And You know what we do to obstacles in our way..."

The now Identified Lucus let out a wild grin as yet another magic circle came out of the tip of his crossbow, only this time it was much, much bigger. Now being as Touma had no magical power at all thanks to the imagine breaker, he couldn't really sense or judge how much ability a person had.

He did however know it was a really bad sign when he could practically feel the heat radiating from the crossbow and without another warning it fired. It shot out in what could only be described as a hyper beam from some out dated manga, Tearing up everything in its path as it headed right towards Touma but most importantly, his guild mates.

Out of Adrenaline alone Touma ran straight past his frozen guild mates and toward the devastating beam as it collided with him.

The only thing that could be heard after the blast was a faint sound of shattering glass.

XXXXXXX

Okay... so hi? Not really sure of what to say after a year of not updating, and I kind of feel bad for it. so as a new years resolution I am going to try to update my stories more. Also another Sorry for the cliff hanger I just felt like it was a really good stopping point for this chapter. Like I said in the earlier chapters this isn't supposed to be a very long arc, but I felt like Touma needed to try out an actual quest before the Grand Magic Games. I mean a "new guy" from a different world joins the guild and the master just throws him in the games to make his guild the number one in fiore? The master won't let just anyone in the games so that is what this arc is for. I felt like Touma needed to prove his worth to the guild so that he could compete in the games. I actually hope to have this arc wrapped up in a chapter or two so the games wont be far behind and I have GREAT plans for that BUT I am getting way ahead of myself. As always I hope you enjoyed-Bobby Busha