The aftermath

Chapter 38

The guildhall stood tall just the way it did before. Everyone was looking at it. It had never looked quite so good. In the end it was because we all poured our heart and soul into rebuilding it. Makarov shook Shen's hand.

"Thank you. For saving my children," Shen put his hand on Makarov's shoulder.

"You shouldn't be thanking me. Thank them. They battled with a creature of pure evil tonight and survived. You can be proud of what you have here."

"May good fortune shine on you for the rest of time Shen."

"It already does. Her name is Mavis Vermillion. I have to go. She said she'd give me a kiss on the lips when I get back. It was good to meet you one more time Fairy Tail," He began walking down the street and slowly faded away back into the spirit world. Even after her death many years ago Mavis still finds ways to help us.

After a couple of days we'd gotten a new shipment of alcohol so everything was back to normal. Well almost.

"I cannot believe Zefra cut my hand off. How dare he? I will never let him out again," Silver complained waving around her handless arm, which had hair wrapped around it.

"I know what you mean. That kid Mike, ruined like three pairs of my best wings and now my dragon breath cannon is malfunctioning. That freaking thing took a month to build," Zeke was sitting with his broken angel feather wing grumping on one side of the table.

"It might not sound that bad to you, but Mira won't leave me alone anymore. It's really annoying," Kai looked over at the bar at her. She was acting normal enough to me, but she kept sending him a small look.

"Furthermore. My prides hurt. I got beat up by someone who looks like Greyhound here. There's nothing more shameful than that," He smirked.

"Hey! That wasn't nice man, but here's something to think about. I held my ground for a longer time than all of you put together," I said and smirked at Kai. Kai pushed me off my chair.

"Thank you Kai."

"Yeah. He totally deserved that. Idiot," I got up again.

"Sorry. Hey. Speaking of Pandora 's Box. What happened to them?"

"They were transferred to the magic council. They even found Yami a couple of miles from here. It turns out they had all been put under a spell so their personality were changed to be evil except for Mike and they would also serve Zeth unconditionally. Mike had even been put under an additional curse allowing him to not see anything bad. Their curses have been lifted and were set free. I hope they are doing alright?" Silver explained.

"A lot of things have really happen in six months don't they. First the three of us and Sapphire took out an entire dark guild. Then Shen arranged the dragon slayers tournament. After that Nick returned with gear Chronicle and almost destroyed the town. And then of course there was Pandora's box. Has it always been this hectic?" I asked after going through everything.

"As long as I've been a member anyway. Why are you suddenly reminiscing? We all know," Kai said and grunted.

"Oh. No reason. I just felt like looking back on everything. Is there anything wrong with that?" Kai opened an eye and looked at me.

"Whatever. I'll see you around," He got up and left the guildhall.

"Where does he even go when he leaves? Do you think he's seeing someone?" I asked them looking after him.

"I do not believe that is the case. He usually just needs a lot of time for himself," just then Sapphire came in the door.

"Ahh. Nothing like a good morning at the guildhall," she said and sat down next to me.

"So how's everyone doing?" She looked around at us.

"Aside from the fact that my hand is missing I am doing just fine. Zeke however has been sitting with that wing for the entire morning," Zeke's ear twitched when she mentioned him.

"Hey. This was my pride and joy when I was younger. Think about it for a sec. I could never learn Aera so when I created these wings they were my alternative to flight. I was the happiest little exceed in the world when I put these on and flew for the first time."

"I can imagine you would love those wings. Can you fix them?"

"I sure hope so. My arsenal won't be the same without them," He continued his work.

"Sapphire. Can I talk to you outside for a moment?" I asked her.

"Um… sure," We got up and started walking outside. I glanced back at my team. Zeke smirked at me and Silver gave me the thumps up and winked at me. I gave them a 'yeah right' face and we got outside.

"So what did you wanna talk about?" She asked.

"Do you trust me?"

"What kind of stupid question is that? Of course I do."

"Then close your eyes and don't open them until I say you can okay.

"oooookkkaayyy," She did as I asked.

"And you promise you won't open them again?"

"I just told you so didn't…" I didn't let her finish that sentence, I just kissed her on the lips catching her completely off-guard. Soon after she blending into it and we stood there for what to me seemed like an eternity. When I let go she was about to open her eyes.

"You promised remember?" She immediately shut them again.

"I'm really sorry Sapphire," I said and started running away from the guildhall as fast as I could.

"Sorry for what… Jack? Jack!" I just continued running without looking back. I heard Sapphire behind me yelling for me, but ignored it. I got to the mountains. I saw Kai standing against a cliff. I stopped running.

"Where the hell do you think you're going greyhound?"

"Don't try to stop me Kai. I've made up my mind. You can't stop me!"

"Let me finish. Where the hell do you think you're going, without leaving that," He pointed to my inner west.

"How could you possibly…"

"I'm not letting you leave without giving her a reason why. And you've written it there," I took out an envelope. I gave it to him.

"Please leave this at her house."

"Will do Greyhound? If you'll promise me one thing. Don't EVER come back until you're ready to stay," I nodded at him and he started walking back towards the city.

"It was great having you on the team… Jack," He said and with that, he was gone. I started running again further. I could feel the tears starting to run down my face.

Sapphire POV.

I got back inside and sat down next to the others. Zeke and Silver were drinking a jug of bear each.

"Sooooo… Tell us. What did he say?" I was so confused. What did he do? Where did he go?

"He um… we uh… he just. He just started making out with me," Was all I could say. Zeke spit out his drink all over the floor and started laughing like crazy. He rolled off the table and onto the floor.

"Finally. Holy crap… freaking finally. First base. I can't believe he actually made a move. That's so out of his character," Silver of course had to be curious.

"Did you enjoy it? I am assuming you did," Zeke started laughing even harder when he saw that I blushed like crazy.

"Well… Of course I did. It just kind of took me by surprise is all. But then… he ran away. He just left me there, totally confused still trying to figure out if it was real or not," Zeke stopped laughing instantly and jumped onto the table.

"He left. Where did he go?"

"I don't know," Kai came through the doors to the guild again. He sat down next to us.

"Did I miss anything?"

"Jack made out with Sapphire and then he left. Do you know where he might have gone?"

"Not really. I did bump into him right around your house. He said he had something to take of or something," I got up and ran towards my house. Why would you just leave? Take care of what? I went into my house and on the counter was a letter with my name on it. I opened it up and started reading it while I sat down on the couch.

Dear Sapphire

This is the first letter I've ever written so it might not be that
good. I hope you're not too mad at me right now. I just
wanted to tell you why I left. I left because of Zeth. Shen told
me that as much as I hate to admit it he's part of me now
and I'm part of him. Because of that I left I never want
anything to happen to any of you. I'm going to train. I'm
going to become stronger. I hope you'll forgive me. Tell the
others I never wanted any of this to happen. Especially Zeke.
I just need to take some time to learn to deal with this evil
inside me. I WILL come back when I think I'm ready. I have
made lifelong friends at this guild. Especially you and the
rest of the team. But mostly you. Next time we meet I won't
let anything like what happened to all of you happen ever
again. I'll miss all of you.

You're desperate and attached friend:

Jack greyhound

The end