Earth Land, Ishgar, Stella, Altair.
October 8, x791.
"Look who I brought back~!" Cana sing-songed as she entered the hotel room she shared with Alfonzo, Elicia, and Sun. "Are Fonzie and Lici back yet?"
"Nope." Sun replied cheerfully. "They're probably on a date."
"That's what I thought, as well." Ultear said as she followed Cana into the room. "*Sigh* I wouldn't mind a date, too."
"None of us would." Cana added as she flopped down next to Sun on the couch. "I'd love to go out for a night on the town with Fonzie. We could hit every bar in the city and try their best alcohol."
"Do you really need to go on a date with Alfonzo for that?" Ultear asked as she, too, took a seat on the couch. "I mean, you do stuff like that by yourself all the time.""
"Besides, you're not even allowed to drink until the quest is over, remember?" Sun asked while tilting her head cutely.
"Ugh! Don't remind me." Cana groaned as she slouched against the couch's back rest. She then turned her head in Ultear's direction as she continued. "And you're missing the point, Tear. I just like spending time alone with Fonzie. Going out for drinks, which I also enjoy, is just a bonus."
*Bang!*
"Cana is right." Elicia said energetically as she slammed the door open and dashed through the door, headed straight towards Cana. "Spending time with Fonzie is the goal!"
"Oof!" Cana exhaled painfully as Elicia leapt into her lap, the shorter woman's hip slamming straight into her abdomen.
"I'm glad we were on a quest when you decided to do that." Ultear said as she leaned away from her harem-sisters. "Because if Cana had spit out a mouthful of alcohol, this hotel might have been leveled in her rage."
"I only did it because I knew she wouldn't be drinking on a quest." Elicia said a she energetically bounced on Cana's lap.
"By the way, where is Alfonzo, Lici?" Sun asked curiously.
"Oh, he took the guy Gildarts beat up to see the client." Elicia said with a shrug. "*Sigh* It's too bad Cana's dad over did it. We might have been able to get the eyes' location out of him. But... What can ya do?"
"Yeah, I could feel his magic power draining away while he was flying up to the sky." Ultear said with a nod. "I guess the apple didn't fall from the tree. Neither the father nor the daughter knows how to hold back."
"Shut up, Tear!" Cana said while playfully shoving Ultear.
From there, the four women began to play around like the longtime friends they were. And by the time Alfonzo returned to the room, it looked like a group of girls had just had a pillow fight at a slumber party rather than being one of the three bases for a guild trying to complete a high-profile quest.
But in the meantime, Alfonzo was doing exactly what Elicia said. After plucking Uvogin's corpse out of the air, he used his [Metal Magic] to create a metal coffin for the deceased member of the Phantom Troupe, concealed the box with is [Electromagnetism Magic's] ability to manipulate visible light, and returned to the inn where he met with Kurapika.
"Hey, I'm back." Alfonzo said casually with a wide smile spread across his face. He then waved at the woman behind the inn's front desk as he continued. "I guess... What was her name? Amelia, I think? Anyway, I guess her shift is over. Anyway, do you know if Kurapika is in his room, Miss?"
As Alfonzo said, instead of the pretty young woman he saw earlier in the day, the woman behind the desk at this hour was a middle-aged blonde woman with her hair styled into a bun. However, the one thing they had in common was that as soon as they saw Alfonzo, they went on alert.
'Yeah, they really don't like wizards here.' Alfonzo thought to himself while shrugging internally. 'Well, not my problem. That might change a little if we can actually take down Caine in connection with this quest. Actually, now that I think about it, I know Zash Caine is the antagonist in Dragon Cry, but I never saw it. So, I wonder what else that mother fucker is actually up to. I mean, there had to be a reason why he betrayed Fiore, right?'
As it turned out, neither Alfonzo nor Elicia liked watching the movies associated with the anime they liked. The reason for that was simple. Most movies aren't canon. So, they did not like mixing up their canon knowledge with the extra stuff.
"He should be up in his room." The blonde woman said while wearing a professional smile.
"Thanks." Alfonzo replied, deciding he could think about movie plots showing up in this weird, AU world later. "Well then, I'll just head up. I just hope he's not the type to go to bed early. I'd hate to wake him up. I know I hate being woken up, anyway."
With that, Alfonzo waved at the woman behind the desk and made his way up the stairs to where Kurapika's room was located. All the while, the woman watched him warily.
It did not take long for Alfonzo to reach Kurapika's room. When he did, he wasted no time raising his hand and knocking on the door.
*Knock!* *Knock!*
"Coming." Kurapika's voice sounded through the door.
A moment later, the door opened. When it did, Kurapika looked at Alfonzo with a confused expression. Alfonzo said that he would come back after the quest was complete. So, seeing him only a few hours later left him wondering if something had gone wrong.
Yet, when Kurapika noticed the metal coffin floating leisurely behind Alfonzo, his confused expression deepened.
"What is that?" Kurapika asked as his eyes focused on the coffin.
"Oh, this?" Alfonzo asked in a teasing tone. "Just a little something to make sure that you never underestimate Fairy Tail again. Because... We don't fail quests. But before I open it, let's head inside the room. Opening this out here wouldn't really be a good look."
With both curiosity and skepticism showing in his expression, Kurapika, after a moment of hesitation, stepped away from the door, allowing Alfonzo to enter with the metal coffin. Then, once Alfonzo was inside, Kurapika closed the door and latched it to make sure that no one could come in without notice.
At the same time, Alfonzo placed the metal coffin on the floor in the center of the room. Then, with a tap of his right heel on the floor, he coated the floor, walls, and ceiling in thin sheets of Orichalcum etched with silencing sigils.
"What is---" Kurapika asked in a wary tone.
"It's just a silencing barrier." Alfonzo said, cutting off Kurapika's question. "There are too many people hiding in this building and watching the people staying here. There's no way to know if any of them are in league with the Troupe."
"Watching?" Kurapika asked, his brows furrowing in both disbelief and caution.
"Well, it wouldn't surprise me if you didn't notice." Alfonzo said with a shrug as he placed his left hand on the lid of the metal coffin. "But I'm not really here to convince you. Honestly, as long as you don't do anything stupid, they probably won't bother you. Besides, you seem to be cool with at least one of them."
Kurapika' frown deepened when Alfonzo so casually decided that explaining everything was not his concern. However, when he saw the lid of the coffin start to rise as Alfonzo lifted his left hand, his attention was drawn to what was inside.
When the lid was finally opened completely, Kurapika was surprised to see a corpse. However, when he remembered what Alfonzo said about underestimating Fairy Tail, his eyes widened in disbelief.
"Is that…?" Kurapika asked in dumbfounded amazement. "A member of the Phantom Troupe…?"
"You can decide that for yourself." Alfonzo replied as he used [Metal Magic] to carefully flip Uvogin's corpse over so that it was laying facedown. "Do you recognize that?"
The "that" Alfonzo was referring to was the twelve-legged spider tattoo on Uvogin's lower back. And when Kurapika saw it, his eyes glowed an intense shade of red.
"That is…" Kurapika muttered as he subconsciously leaned closer to the coffin. "A member of the Phantom Troupe… That tattoo… No one would ever think to fake it."
"Yeah, pretty much." Alfonzo replied casually with a shrug. "From what I heard, his name is Uvogin. One of my guildmates ran into him while he was entering the city."
In reality, Alfonzo had not even spoken to Gildarts, who defeated Uvogin not long ago. Rather, the only reason he knew the man's identity was because of his meta-knowledge.
Meanwhile, Kurapika could only stare at Uvogin with his mouth hanging open in disbelief. Thanks to his trauma, he believed the Phantom Troupe to be nearly unbeatable. So much, in fact, that he did not think that anyone would, or could, complete his quest. Instead, he planned to train in magic at some point and face the Spiders on his own when he thought he was strong enough.
"Well… Dude… Uh… There you have it." Alfonzo said, not really knowing where else to go with this conversation. "I only came here to show you that you shouldn't underestimate us. Fairy Tail will complete your quest. So, just sit here and wait for the good news, okay?"
In response, Kurapika could only nod his head while staring blankly at Uvogin's corpse, his eyes never leaving the deceased Spider until Alfonzo closed the coffin lid once again.
"There are still two days until the deal goes down." Alfonzo said as he once again levitated the coffin. "We'll try to take out as many of them as we can before it happens. We'll put Caine in his place, too. I'm pretty sure the Fiore Royal Family will be happy with that, too."
Then, without giving Kurapika a chance to respond, Alfonzo left the room, taking the coffin with him as he went. And Kurapika was left to reconsider everything he thought he knew about wizards and just how powerful they really could be.
Not long later, after burying the coffin containing Uvogin's body outside of the city, Alfonzo returned to the hotel where he was staying with Elicia and the others. And just as previously mentioned, when he arrived, the room was a mess, covered in feathers from an epic pillow fight while the ladies were all giggling and talking about how much fun they had just now.
Unfortunately, because the ladies all tired themselves out playing around, which Alfonzo found strange when considering just how powerful they all were, he ended up having to stay up all night to watch over the city with his [Magic Power Detection], just in case the Phantom Troupe decided to make any moves during the night.
On the bright side, thanks to the magic power he injected into Machi's needles earlier in the day, Alfonzo was able to find the Phantom Troupe's hideout, as well as their back up hideout after the Troupe left at midnight.
October 9, x791.
"Mmm… Good morning." Elicia said groggily as she stretched and sat up in the large bed in the hotel room. She then took a quick look around and continued when her eyes landed on Alfonzo. "Didn't you get any sleep last night, Fonzie?"
While Elicia, Cana, Ultear, and Sun were currently sharing the room's bed, Alfonzo was sitting at a desk with several documents laid out on top of it. And from what Elicia could tell, he was going over revenue reports for Sixth Sense Holdings.
"Nope, not a wink." Alfonzo replied as he placed a document on the table, picked up a pen, and quickly signed off on it. "Because a certain quartet tired themselves out so badly last night, I had to stay up and keep watch all night."
Hearing that, Elicia smiled apologetically. She then stretched once more before climbing out of the bed while trying not to wake up the other three. Then, she made her way over to the back of the chair Alfonzo was sitting in and hugged him around his neck.
"Sorry, Fonzie." Elicia said sweetly. "We got a little carried away last night. But if it makes you feel any better, we all had our [MPD] up the whole time. And if something had happened, we would have jumped into action immediately."
"Oh, I have no doubt about that." Alfonzo replied with a smile as he let his head lean back into Elicia's embrace. "Still, you four kinda threw off the lookout rotation."
Elicia only smiled apologetically once again as she slightly tightened her hug.
"Anyway, you should wake up the girls and get cleaned up." Alfonzo said as he nuzzled his head against Elicia's cheek. "We can have breakfast after that. Then, I've got something to report to the whole team."
"Got it." Elicia said with a nod before pecking Alfonzo on the cheek. She then let go of Alfonzo, took a running start, and jumped onto the bed, the shaking disturbing the other three women's sleep. "Hey! It's time to get up, girls!"
"Ugh!"
"Five more minutes, ya see?"
"Go away, Lici…"
In response, Ultear, Sun, and Cana gave their half-asleep responses in that order. Then, they all tried to roll over and go back to sleep.
"Nope!" Elicia said as she started shaking, tickling, and poking Ultear, Sun, and Cana, respectively, to wake them up. "We've got a job to do. Stop being lazy."
Like that, the morning began in what could be considered normal for members of Fairy Tail and the Marcus Family. Before long, the five were ready to head down to the hotel's dining room for breakfast.