บท 261: It Just Clicked
Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Magnolia.
November, x784.
"So, where are you and Carla living?" Marin asked curiously while sitting next to the two newest members of Fairy Tail.
"For now, we're living in Fairy Hills." Wendy replied.
"But Fairy Hills is so expensive." Marin replied.
"Yeah, I know." Wendy said with a nod. "But there really wasn't any time to look after we got back from the quest."
"There actually was a pretty good place with low rent, but…" Cana chimed in with an intoxicated smile. "Someone destroyed nearly half of the building."
"Hey!" Lucy shouted in protest. "It wasn't my fault they tried to kidnap me right outside of my apartment. Besides, Gray and Ultear managed to freeze the entire block!"
"But we didn't cause any property damage." Gray replied nonchalantly.
"You froze a whole block and you didn't cause any property damage?" Lucy asked in disbelief. "How is that possible?"
"It's true." Ultear said with a smile. "Luckily, our last spell that froze everything ended the fight. Otherwise, there would have been a lot of property damage."
"What makes it even worse, not even Natsu destroyed anything when he fought Gajeel." Cana added with a giggle. "It's even funnier when you think that since then, Lucy has done more damage than Natsu."
"I haven't destroyed anything since then!" Lucy shouted.
"Neither has Natsu." Happy said happily. Then, in a disappointed tone, he continued. "Lucy, you just break everything you put your hands on."
"Shut up, you stupid cat!" Lucy shouted once again.
About an hour has passed since Alfonzo, Makarov, Ur, Mirajane, and Marin returned to the guild hall's first floor. And since then, the guild has been rowdy as ever while Alfonzo immediately disappeared into the kitchen to start cooking for Wendy's welcome party.
"You know, if you're looking for a place with lower rent, you could always move into my apartment." Marin suggested. "Since I'll be moving out soon."
"Really?" Wendy asked curiously. "But if the rent is low, why are you moving out."
Although she didn't say anything, Carla looked at Marin suspiciously.
"Because I'll be moving in with Alfonzo, Elicia, and the other girls." Marin said with a happy smile.
"Oh, so you finally did it, huh?" Ultear asked with a grin. "Sure took you long enough."
"Don't tease me, Ultear." Marin replied with a slight blush. "I wasn't sure if that's what I wanted."
"Wait, you're gonna live with Alfonzo?" Wendy asked in a panicked tone. "But he's a b-b-boy!"
"Oh, she's so precious!" Marin squealed as she lunged towards Wendy and wrapped her in a hug.
"I agree with Wendy." Carla said with her eyes narrowed. "That sounds quite in appropriate. To think the wizards of Fairy Tail are so shameless."
"It's not as bad as you're thinking." Elicia said with a smile. "The house belongs to Alfonzo and I. And all the girls that live there, me included, are either engaged to Fonzie or his girlfriend."
"He has more than one girlfriend?" Wendy asked, her face turning completely red..
Hearing that, Carla narrowed her eyes even further.
"Wendy, you should stay away from him." Carla said sternly. "He's nothing but a playboy."
"Although I can see where you're coming from with that statement, that's just rude." Alfonzo said as he opened the door to the kitchen. "I'm not even the one to blame for the whole harem situation. If you wanna blame someone, you should blame her."
As he spoke, Alfonzo pointed at Elicia, who smiled smugly while puffing out her chest with pride.
"That's right, I'm the one who convinced him to accept everyone's feelings." Elicia said.
"He didn't accept mine." Laki said to herself.
"To be fair, you did ask him to leave his other girls." Lisanna said in response to Laki's muttering.
Before the conversation could continue, however, several platters filled with Wendy and Carla's favorite foods, spaghetti and meat balls and Chicken Cordon Bleu, respectively, floated through the kitchen door behind Alfonzo. There were also quite a few side dishes he prepared to accompany the main entrées.
Once the foods left the kitchen, which was equipped with sigils to isolate the smells, entered the main hall, a collective gasp could be heard from all the wizards present.
"Alright, why don't the ladies of the hour come on up and get the first plates?" Alfonzo said as he manipulated the metal platters over to an empty area before materializing a long, metal table to act as a buffet.
"Wow! It smells so good." Wendy said as her eyes never left the platter with the spaghetti, pasta sauce, and meat balls. "I'm getting hungry again even though I already ate dinner."
"Hmph!" Carla snorted. "I've smelled better."
Unfortunately, her twitching nose and waving tail gave away Carla's true feelings on the matter.
"Go ahead." Elicia said gently. "Fonzie's cooking is really good. You're in for a real treat."
Eventually, under the urging of the others, too, Wendy and Carla finally got up from their seats at or on the table. Then, under the gazes of everyone in the guild, they slowly made their way over to the table Alfonzo had set up.
"Spaghetti and meat balls for you, Wendy. Alfonzo said with a smile, handing a plate to Wendy as he spoke. "I didn't know what kind of sides you wanted, so, I put a little bit of everything on your plate."
"Thank you, Alfonzo." Wendy said with a smile as she accepted the plate.
"And I did the same with you just with the Cordon Bleu, Carla." Alfonz o said, handing the plate in his other hand to Carla.
"Hmph!" Carla snorted once again. Still, she accepted the plate.
"Don't be rude, Carla." Wendy said in a reprimanding tone. "Alfonzo made the effort to cook for us. The least you could do is say thank you."
Instead of responding, Carla simply turned her head away and started to return to her seat.
"Carla~…" Wendy drawled after seeing her best friend's reaction. Then, she turned back to Alfonzo with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry, Alfonzo. Carla she…"
"Don't worry about it." Alfonzo said, waving his hand dismissively. "I get where she's coming from. To her, I probably look like an a--- *Cough* bad guy who tricks pretty girls. She's just worried that I would do the same to you."
Noticing that Alfonzo called her pretty indirectly, Wendy could not help but blush. At that moment, however, the doors to the guild hall slid open.
"I finally found him!" Natsu shouted.
"Get your hands off of me, Salamander!" Gajeel said while struggling to free himself from Natsu's grasp.
"We're not too late for the party, right?" Natsu asked, completely ignoring Gajeel's struggles.
"Kya~~~!" Wendy screamed in surprise.
Due to the sudden shouting, Wendy was shocked quite badly and jumped involuntarily. As a result, she unintentionally threw her plate into the air. Luckily, to make things a little easier on the kitchen staff, Alfonzo had created all the dinnerware with his [Metal Magic]. And although the initial reason was to make it so no one had to wash dishes after the party, that consideration came in quite handy for the present situation.
"There you go." Alfonzo said, manipulating the plate and floating it back to Wendy's hands. "Be careful. We don't take too kindly to wasted food around here."
"O-Okay." Wendy said in a daze. "Thank you."
"Don't worry about it." Alfonzo said with a smile. A moment later, however, he glared sharply at Natsu and Gajeel. "Can't you two do anything quietly? You almost caused someone to waste the food I cooked."
While he spoke, Alfonzo materialized a pair of metal balls. Then he launched them at Natsu and Gajeel's foreheads.
While Natsu was too preoccupied with the smell of the food to notice the incoming projectile, Gajeel's eyes lit up as he opened his mouth in preparation to eat the metal ball.
*Bang!* *Bang!*
And just as expected, Natsu was hit in the middle of his forehead by the flying metal ball. As a result, he flew back and sailed right through the still opened sliding doors. Gajeel, on the other hand, was sent flying further into the guild hall after Alfonzo stopped the metal ball before Gajeel could chomp down on it, changed its flight path, and made it hit him in the back of the head with a lot of force.
Seeing that, most of the wizards present could not help but laugh at Natsu and Gajeel's misfortune.
"They're lucky that's all they got." Macao said with aloud laugh.
"Yeah, just imagine what Alfonzo would have done if that plate had actually been wasted." Wakaba said, laughing just as hard.
Then, everyone who had been drinking with Macao and Wakaba actually stopped to think about what would have happened if Wendy's plate had been wasted. Immediately after thinking about it, they all stopped laughing as their faces paled and cold sweat started dripping down their backs.
"Damn it, Alfonzo, you trying to pick a fight?" Gajeel asked as he picked himself up off the floor.
"What was that for?" Natsu asked while rubbing his forehead as he walked back into the guild hall. "If you wanted a fight, all you had to do was ask."
Then, without giving Alfonzo a chance to respond, both Natsu and Gajeel shot forward towards Alfonzo with their fists reeled back ready to punch.
"*Sigh* You morons never learn, do you?" Alfonzo said as he pulled Wendy behind him. "Fine, I'll teach you the same lesson, once again."
Just as Natsu and Gajeel were in range, Alfonzo deflected both of their punches upward with his forearms. Then, in the same motion, he grabbed each of them by the side of their heads before smashing their heads together. After that, he tossed both of them away in opposite directions with little effort.
"Damn it, Alfonzo." Macao groaned as he kicked Natsu's body away. "Don't throw him over here. "
*Bang!*
While Natsu was thrown towards an occupied table, Gajeel was thrown into an unoccupied area of the bar. As a result of the impact, however, his fate was definitely worse than Natsu's.
"You bastard!" Ur shouted angrily. "You made me spill my wine. And this was the really expensive stuff I had to sneak out of the old man's office."
"You did what?" Makarov asked with a frown.
Ignoring Makarov's question, Ur walked over to Gajeel, who was just getting up, and grabbed him by his shirt before slapping him so hard that his shirt ripped and he flew across the guild hall towards another table.
And just like that, Wendy and Carla's welcome party devolved into a brawl, in classic Fairy Tail fashion, before the party could even really get started.
The next morning, before heading to the guild to train, Alfonzo, with Elicia sitting between his legs and leaning against his chest, was taking a bath.
"*Sigh* This is so much better than the bath in the hotel." Alfonzo said in a relaxed tone.
"Yeah, there's no place quite like home, his there?" Elicia asked with a smile before turning her upper body and planting a kiss on Alfonzo's cheek.
"Yeah." Alfonzo replied. "The traveling is nice and seeing new places is great, too. But there's just something about relaxing in our house."
In response, Elicia smiled as she turned back around and sank into Alfonzo's chest.
"You seem different, Fonzie." Elicia said with her eyes closed as she rested the back of her head in the crook of Alfonzo's neck. "Did something good happen while you were in Karakura?"
"*Sigh* I knew you would notice." Alfonzo replied with a smile as he wrapped his arms around Elicia's waist. "I can never hide anything from you."
"So, what happened?" Elicia asked with a knowing smile on her face.
"You know, I originally accepted this whole harem thing because it was what you wanted, right?" Alfonzo asked.
"Yeah, I know." Elicia said with a slight nod. "I could tell how much the other girls liked you and I knew you would be able to make them happy. I mean, you're just that great."
"Yeah, but I couldn't see that about myself." Alfonzo said, looking up towards the bathroom ceiling. "Hell, I don't even know how I manage to keep you happy. But for some reason, more and more girls started telling me how much they like me. And I just kept going with the flow and accepting them."
"Except for Laki." Elicia pointed out.
"Except for Laki." Alfonzo parroted in agreement. "Her personality is just a little to… Anyway, eventually, I started to like seeing the smiles I could bring to their faces. And when Marin confessed to me, I felt like something clicked. Like I was doing something right."
"It's just like I said, your heart is big enough for all of them." Elicia said in a tone that shouted: "I told you so." "You just had to learn how to love them the way you love me."
"Yeah, yeah, you were right, like always." Alfonzo replied, squeezing Elicia a little tighter. "And now, just the thought of anything or anyone hurting them, myself included is unacceptable to me."
"Good." Elicia replied. "And I know you can keep all of us safe and happy."
"All I can say is I'll do my best." Alfonzo replied.
"But that's not the only thing that's different about you." Elicia said, her tone turning more serious. "There's something bothering you, too."
"*Sigh* Yeah." Alfonzo said. "I told you that I ran into King Bradley at the end of the quest, right?"
"Yeah." Elicia replied with a nod. "Wrath is the knight commander of Fiore's military.."
"Well, I told Gramps about it, too." Alfonzo said before taking a deep breath. "And he said that Bradley was there on the quest when my mom and your dad got hurt to the point they had to retire."
With that, Elicia's stiffened. And knowing her as well as he did, Alfonzo could tell that she was thinking along the same lines as he did when he first heard this information.
"So, you think he was responsible for their injuries?" Elicia asked in a solemn tone.
"I do." Alfonzo replied in an equally solemn tone. "But we don't have any proof. But if I had to guess, they probably wanted to get rid of Momma and your dad was just collateral damage."
"*Sigh* I can see that." Elicia replied. "Auntie Bianca's [Dispel Magic] would be a problem for any kind of plans. Especially if they want to create a Philosopher's Stone like they did in the anime."
"Yeah." Alfonzo agreed with a nod.
"So, what do you want to do?" Elicia asked.
"We need to investigate." Alfonzo replied after thinking for a moment. "For now, though, I need to keep working on my research. The Tenrou Island incident is coming soon. On top of that, I need to create the Zanpakuto for our family."
Hearing the word, Zanpakuto, Elicia's eyes lit up, momentarily forgetting the topic of the homunculus.
"That means we're all gonna get one?" Elicia said, turning around once again. "Are they all gonna be katana? Will they have their own Zanpakuto spirits? Will they have Shikai and Bankai releases?"
"*Chuckle* Calm down." Alfonzo said, pulling Elicia into a hug again. "I'll tell you all about it. But I can only answer one question at a time."
"Hey! Are you guys done yet?" Cana shouted from outside the bathroom. "If you don't hurry, we're gonna be late!"
Hearing that, Alfonzo and Elicia made eye contact briefly before they both laughed.
"We'll have time to talk about it later." Alfonzo said, holding Elicia as he stood up. "For now, let's get going. No one wants to see a fussy Cana first thing in the morning."
"Yeah." Elicia said in agreement before pecking Alfonzo on the lips. "Let's go."
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