"Hey, you guys, settle down already, it's starting!"

Levy hollers into the crowd, but it all fell on deaf ears as the cacophony got louder instead.

Lisanna, with Happy in her arms, chuckles dryly at the sight. "Well, I guess sitting around for too long really takes a toll on us."

Levy purses her lips, "I just want to get the old man over with so we can find out the secret of the book."

"Now, now," Lisanna soothes her, "you know what they say, a rushed story's never fulfilling. How about we make some tea for everyone? There's nothing much here but there's a magically equipped kitchen, at least."

"Tea, huh... ah man, I miss Enno's hot chocolate."

"You should whine that to Macao-san when we see him again."

"Y'know, I just thought of it-- but shouldn't we be taking notes?" Levy asks, reaching for the tin of tea leaves on the upper shelf.

Lisanna counted the teacups in the cabinet. "Notes? For what?"

"For--" Levy grunts with force as she plucks the lid of the tin right off with a loud squeak, "--the future, of course. We're supposed to prevent things, so what if we miss out on something important or we forget it once we get out?"

Lisanna hums, "well, you have a point. Hey, don't you think it's strange that we've got enough teacups for fifteen people? Is this place a restaurant or something?"

Levy crouches down to get a better look. There were fifteen cups on the table, but there were still about a dozen left in the cabinet.

Speaking of which, the kitchen was huge. The dining area was just big enough for all of them to sit comfortably around the table, but if they sat comfortably in any reasonable spot, they could fit a few more.

"The coffee mugs too," Lisanna had found her way to the other cabinets. "Looking at the fully stocked kitchen, you think they intended for us to cook our own meals?"

"Probably," Levy rests her arm on the counter, her eyes looking to the side in the way she always does when she goes through theories in her mind. "But... it's weird. Magic or not, this place is too suspicious to be true."

"Well, I don't see a reason to doubt Yuri Dreyar, " Lisanna shrugs, arms lifting slightly.

"I'm not doubting him, just that-- well, he's dead ," Levy says. "So how is the timing so perfect?"

"Perfect? What do you mean by that?"

Levy looks at Lisanna with a gaze more serious than the norm. "How did he know when exactly, and who exactly to send here?"

And that made Lisanna freeze.

"Magic that remains after death is strong, but it's got to have accurate coordinates to work," Levy says. "This means he has an accomplice. Someone who's alive sent us here."

"Hey, Levy, Lisanna," Bickslow enters the kitchen with his little parade of totems, "the show started. You should get back soon... uhm, am I interrupting something?"

At his arrival, the two girls eased a little.

Lisanna turns around with a laugh. "Just a theory," she says. Turning slightly to Levy, she offers, "you should talk that over with Freed and Erza later on."

Levy, still deep in thought, hums in response.

Lisanna chuckles at that. Turning to Bickslow again, she raises the tea kettle.

"Help me with the tea, please?"

"Oh, Wind-Reading glasses!" Levy comes back in to brighten up immediately at the screen. She's holding a tin of sugar in her hands, still lost in thought. "That's nice, I want to windread the book, too!"

"Welcome back, Levy! Thanks for the tea." Erza greets her.

"Oh Levy, my saving grace," Mirajane dramatises, "please may I have some sugar?"

"There are lemons over here-- Gray, don't eat the lemons! They're for the tea!"

"Huh? But they're nice and cold."

"You wimp, Tea should be boiling hot!"

"Natsu, if you drink tea that's on fire, it'll turn into gasoline in your stomach," Laxus says.

"Wait what, really?!"

"I didn't know Laxus could make jokes."

"Jokes?"

A few people make some sort of dying noise.

"I'm more impressed that she's still holding the book so well," Freed says, "that takes some kind of determination."

"Happy, where are you?!"

"Probably looking for her."

"Yes, say it Lucy!" Levy cheers.

"There's water there, so she could probably summon Aquarius if she gets out, right?" Mirajane suggests. "Or if she could reach her keys, she could summon Taurus. Does she need to swipe the motions or can she summon with just contact?"

Loke honestly didn't want to imagine how furious Aquarius would be if she were to be summoned in sewage, so he refrained from thinking.

He wondered if contactless summons were possible on a strong enough spirit user, though. Even Anna couldn't do that.

"Right, but if someone says himself that he's highly educated, his credibility goes down twenty percent for lack of humility alone," Erza huffs.

"Remember that for job interviews everyone," Cana says, "not that anyone in the guild has ever been legitimately educated, though."

"Laki is," Lisanna reminds her. "And Gray, right?"

"Barely," is Gray's response, "don't remember anything, though."

"Huh? I wonder if Lucy's the same," Levy says, settling by the chair of the couch and swaying her feet in thought, "I just noticed-- but she's got the same fancy-phrasing habit as Laki sometimes."

"Really?"

"We could ask when we meet her."

"Well, I guess he has a point," Lisanna looks away when she admits under her breath.

"Geez, could this guy calm down?"

"Ah, for god's sake!" Cana groans, "when we see this guy again, minister of not I'm gonna punch him in the face! Who's with me?"

"Me!" Levy's the only one that calls out her rally, but a couple other hands, including Freed's slightly angry one, goes up.

"Eh-?!"

"Wait, he had the author write the book for him?" Gray asks, "is that how it works?"

"Of course not!" Freed and Levy yell at the same time, and Gray raises both hands in an almost apology.

"Kemu Zaleon is known for being a non-commission writer!" Levy rants dramatically, "he valued passion and heart above all else!"

Freed sighs, "whatever the secret of the writing is, it belongs to whoever figures it out or whoever they addressed it to. That's common sense."

"Oh, like that runes mission we did last time where we got a treasure trove of gold?" Bickslow reminisces, "that was cool!"

"Oh?"

"OH."

"Happyy!!"

"Aye, it's me!"

"Ah."

"Agh!" everyone shoots away from the cat in the hall.

Lisanna lets go of the cat and ducks away to join the dramatics, and Happy gives the most offended expression he can muster. Natsu bursts right out into laughter.

"Hey c'mon I haven't done it yet!"

"It's still disgusting, though."

In retaliation, Happy starts chasing Elfman around the room.

"I suddenly feel like giving Happy a full scrub in the bath..." Erza grimaces, expression scrunching up in a way that made it seem like she could smell the pungent odor from past the screen.

"I wonder if it's nice and cold, though."

"Don't associate nice and cold with that, please," Gray clasps his hands over his ears as if that would help his mental image of the scene.

"Kaby..."

"That's the name of the requestor, right?"

"I just knew he had something to do with the secret...."

Someone chokes on their drink when they snort.

"She's still trying to get the book," Mirajane laughs, "well, she's stubborn if anything else. I like that about her."

"For books I would cause mass destruction!" Levy declares cheerfully.

"Oh, Levy, we know you will," Cana says.

"Lucy's sure easy to underestimate..."

"I'm sure Lucy can handle this nonsense since she has her hands back on her keys now," Gray says, "one punch from Taurus and the guy's out."

"No, no, you can't actually beat the guy up," Mirajane says, "he's not a bandit or anything, he's a minister. We have to defeat him without injuring him."

"Yeah, we could get sued."

"And won't Taurus like, knock his head clean off?" Laxus asks. Everyone gives him fearful looks, so he gives them a resigned raised eyebrow in return.

"Tone down the gore for the children, Laxus," Gildarts teases him.

"Uhm. Right."

"Well, that makes sense," Cana says, "maybe he makes a habit of destroying his own floors and ceilings because he has the money to fix it every other day?"

"Imagine if a maid just," Mirajane says, "fell in a hole one day and she just keeps going down."

"Time to hire a new maid, I guess."

"Oh, now that sounds like a horror story in the making," Bickslow says. Switching to a haunting tone, he leans closer to Evergreen and hisses, " hey hey hey hey hey have you heard the story of the missing maids ?"

"Hey! Hey!" the dolls echoed, "Missing! Maaaaaaids!"

Evergreen, shrivelling as an intense shiver runs down her spine, smacks him away with her paper fan, "Bicks, OUT!" she yells, starting to swat at the dolls too, "you guys too, back off!"

"Oh, she's flustered!"

"No I'm not!"

"That's right, Happy, you stink."

"Enough about that already!"

"Right, right. Sorry, Happy."

"One hell of a mole attack there," Loke says, remembering his old spars with Virgo. She and Scorpio always made a great and frustrating combination...

(Come to think of it, it's pretty smart, or even lucky of him to have acquired Virgo of all keys. If he summoned her they would make a great spirit-owner combination attack.)

(That is, if he considered Virgo a partner in battle-- but that's not something that would ever happen with owners.)

"And Lucy's got reflexes," Gray says, "guess she's a Cana-type mage."

"What the hell is a Cana-typed mage , Gray?" Cana asks with a smirk on her face, leaning almost a little too close as Gray sputters to figure out an explanation.

"Weak physically, but can dodge well... I guess," Bickslow says, "like Ever, you know."

"I prefer the term 'Evergreen-type mage', please."

"Is it alright to actually, y'know, destroy that much of the ceiling?"

"Hell if I know, do I look like I calculate how to destroy buildings before they fall?"

"Well, if I were to write a story where the main character is a corrupt, unattractive rich man..." Levy hums, crossing her arms, "I can name a few cliches."

"Just burn it already."

"Eh?"

Levy looks up immediately. "No way! Lucy's already decoded the whole thing?" she says, "that's impressive!"

"Well, I'm sure if you had it on hand, you could do it pretty easily too," Cana says. "Probably a bookworm thing."

"Still!"

"He's such a hypocrite," Mirajane sighs, imitating a squeaky tone, "I'm not conceited! It's an honour for anyone to write a book about me!" she makes a retching motion, "oh get over yourself please."

"What the hell?!" echoes through the hall.

"You have got to be kidding," Levy says, "I am going to lose my mind."

"I don't care for books, but that's a next level of just fucking extreme," Gray grimaces, "do you know the hell I had to go through to get citizenship in Fiore?"

"Same here," Freed mumbled, "all the immigration and paperwork was torture ."

"Well thank goodness the orphanage did mine then," Cana whispers, finding a bottle of sake already. "Would be in trouble without it."

"Master helped me with ours," Mirajane offers weakly.

"Mine too," Natsu says. "Didn't even know it happened. Happy's was pretty annoying, though."

"Especially because he's a cat," Lisanna mourns, "I get nightmares about it."

"Porlyusica-san did mine, I think," Erza recalls, "when she got my eye registered."

"Your what?"

"Porlyusica-san helped you? I thought she hated humans."

"Well, it was kind of a one-time thing."

"Wait, what do you mean, get your eye registered?"

"I mean, I'm legally classified as half blind," Erza says, pointing vaguely at her magic eye as if it was supposed to be common knowledge, "so I have a disability pass in case anything goes wrong. I don't use it, though."

It evidently isn't common knowledge to more than half of the occupants in the room.

"You're what ?!"

"Excuse me, a great man does not use blackmail!" Elfman snaps at the screen.

"That's right, you bring shame to the word 'man'!" Bickslow eggs him on, his dolls echoing in just the right tune.

"Oh man, Bickslow's been infected by the energy," Evergreen sighs.

"Well, Bickslow has always fit in with the chaos of the guild a little better than the rest of the Thunder God Tribe," Freed observes, keeping a side eye on them as Bickslow's doll went about trying to balance cups on their heads, helping Lisanna and Happy transport them back toward the kitchen.

"Isn't that fine," Laxus sighs, "he can make his own friends."