The bird followed the witch and cat through the house, making note of all the strange stuff inside. She bristled her feathers; Aria didn't like it here. There was a lot of powerful magic. People that had that kind of power tended to wind up using it for evil, at least in her experience. Noticing that she was falling behind, Aria squawked as she flapped her wings and landed in front of the group, nearly accidentally flying into a few of them in the cramped quarters. When they got the the glowing room she froze. What is going on in here? The witches' comment didn't make much sense either. Aria flew onto a shelf and watched to see what would happen next.

The first to get there between the three former Jailers was, of coarse, Terra. She excitedly ran up to the tree that the supposed cat had gotten itself stuck in. Her wide happy eyes slowly faded as she realized that....there was nobody here.

"Huh," she sighed disappointingly, looking side to side for any sign of the others, "Where is everyone?"

Ander was next to walk up, he took a look around and one of his eyebrows raised with the same question in mind. "Hmm..." he simply said. He reached for a new pouch on his belt, opening it up and retrieving from it..... A BREADSTICK!! He then starting slowly eating it while he paced the surrounding area. "Doesn't look like there was a fight," he thought.

Lastly, Dremmick walked up with Ris. "Did we miss them on the way back or something?" he asked aloud to nobody in particular.

"No shit Sherlock," Sylvia rolled her eyes, following after Paige. She ignored Slyvia's comment and continued walking into the old lady's house. Looking around the poorly lighted room, Paige wasn't surprised to find the place filled with mysterious items, most of which were magic. Who was this old lady and her supposedly talking cat? From their 'conversation', it seemed like the cat had brought them all here for a reason. Why mention sky dragon magic too? It was a stretch but Paige wondered if they knew what happened and why she couldn't remember the first seven years of her life.

"I'm... really starting to not like this. I kind of want to just turn back... but, I also want to see what's next!" Kassy whispered to the other two.

"That's what I'm talking about," Paige grinned and winked at her.

The old lady then preceded to mess with some bottles and placed a peculiar hat on her head."Yes yes, I see the correlation now. That doesn't prove anything, you could have been spying on them for awhile now, and made this hat specifically for the occasion." the woman spoke to the cat as the cat came out from hiding behind the cauldron.Spying on us? Paige was fairly sure that she would of known if anyone was smiling on her with her dragon sense of smell. The cat strutted towards the old lady, coming to a stop by her feet and sitting next to her. "Well... now that everyone is here... any questions?"

"Any questions?" Paige almost laughed "Here's one, what the hell is going on?" Right as Paige asked the question, her nose picked up several familiar scents. Members of the guild were standing outside the old lady's door. "Wait a minute. What are they doing here?" She asked out loud.

"No cause we would've seen them." Cilia said as she walked up behind the rest of the group.

---

Ris jumped with surprise when her sister walked up, not expecting her to have followed.

[Kassy]
"Any questions?" Paige almost laughed "Here's one, what the hell is going on?" Right as Paige asked the question, her nose picked up several familiar scents. Members of the guild were standing outside the old lady's door. "Wait a minute. What are they doing here?" She asked out loud. "Hmm? Others? Oh dear... we must have caused quiet the commotion with a cat getting stuck in a tree." the old witch chuckled. "You are here, because we are in need of help. That quest about the cat being stuck in the tree... that was simply a ploy. We couldn't go putting up a true quest of this importance out to just anyone! So, we decided to put out a test... one you three seemed to just barely pass. 'A quest to save a cat stuck in a tree...' how meaningless! But, those who would be willing to do that... well... they would be perfect! Not to mention, one of you have had an encounter with a dragon before, so this should be an easy task for you three. Well, you three and the other's that seem to have come out as well. I never expected this town to be so quiet, that absolutely everyone in the guild would just show up to save a cat in a tree! Just how precious!" she laughed again, before throwing some random herb into the cauldron, making it poof into the air and turn into a finally settled white.

The witch pulled a glass bottle off a shelf, filled the goop inside the cauldron into the bottle, corked it as it started to bubble and almost escape, then forcibly putting it in Kassy's hands. "Use this if you absolutely have to... I'd rather you not scaring off the dragon, and sending it off, never to be found again." she old Kassy. "B-but, what do you mean? True quest? Dragon?" Kassy asked. The witch sighed, "We need you three, to enter the cave outside of town, just a few minutes into the woods. There is a dragon who lives there, and has something of importance to us. If you do not get this item, we are afraid others may find it first... others, who would use it's power for evil." she said. Kassy was about to ask what it was, but the witch stopped her. "It's a crystal. A shard of a crystal. One of three shards to be exact... we already have the other two here. When the three shards combine together, they grant the holder the ability to change one thing in the past. One, anything. If this power were to fall into the wrong hands... then who knows what it could be used for."

"No cause we would've seen them." Cilia said as she walked up behind the rest of the group.

"I agree. They can't have gone too far from here." Morgan adds as she stops beside Cilia. She cracks a smile at seeing Ris jump. "Maybe we should stay out for now and see if they come back?" She inquires to the others.

Sylvia lingered in the back of their little group. This witch was something else. Sylvia narrowed her eyes at the mention of a dragon. She knew the mention of such a beast usually excited Paige to the point that she wouldn't think twice about whatever the request entailed. Once Paige and the witch basically notified them of others from the guild's arrival, Sylvia felt herself relax slightly. However, the nonsense this lady was spouting sounded way too suspicious. For one, messing with time is extremely dangerous.

"How do we know that you won't use it for evil?" I asked. Any large amount of power can corrupt a person if you're not careful.

"Sounds good to me," Ander replied to Morgan as he slumped against the tree the cat was originally 'stuck' in.

Terra sighed, "That's no fun," she said as she too sat against the tree next to her brother. She then started spinning a few crystal shards she had around her hand.

Dremmick looked back at the two dragon slayers. "Well, what do you two think. Should we stay or go. If we go, y'all should be able to follow a scent trail, right?"

---

Drax watched the fight, taking in what he could and making mental notes here and there. He casually seemed to walk close to them, just out of arms reach of Inigo. Oddly enough however, he seemed to also be keeping pace, and seemed completely out of the fight. when ever a blow would come his way the old master would dodge and keep going. He even held the two to a rule to fight as if he wasn't even in the way. Though, the 'fireballs' intrigued him for a moment. He lept away from Inigo and pulled out his cane and struck it with his cane. He studied where the impact hit and noticed that it didn't leave and scorches and wasn't hot. He filed that away to dwell on later and zipped back up to the fight.

"Alright, this has been jolly good for a 'warm up' I suppose, but its time to start sweating. If you can't maneuver around his defense, try breaking through it instead. Leon if you don't mind, could you devote yourself to defense for a moment? And as for you Inigo, offense? This isn't a test of sword play as much a test of power. You won't have to worry about a counter attack, we will go back over other things later." Drax was still moving with the battle while talking, as he assumed they were listening while doing the same. He then took a few paces out of the fight to let them separate again. "Alright, then. To keep it interesting though, you have exactly five minutes to break his guard. If you fail, I'll let Leon decide what to do with you. If you win, you'll have my sword breaker. Begin when ready."

Shards? Aria wondered. With the power to change the past? Something with that much power would certainly be dangerous. She agreed with Sylvia though. How would they know to trust the witch? It would be safer to destroy it than to allow it to fall into the wrong hands. She considered transforming back to talk and find out exactly what was going on, but with the arrival with the rest of the guild she thought it would be awkward to reveal herself. It had been so many years since she was last in the area, and she doubted that anyone would recognize her.

Ris plopped down to the ground. "If they went anywhere they couldn't have gone far from here. If they're to head back this way to get to the guild, which I think is the quickest route then they'll pass by us. But I really don't care what we do." She said closing her eyes.

Ander thought that it would be obvious to everyone how to find them. After all, there were multiple dragonslayers with them. "Alright, that's it, I'm done waiting," he said as he stood up from the tree. "Can't one of you - I don't know- sniff them out or something? I thought dragon slayers had acute senses."

@Jollan
"I do but I can't smell a person on command unless I have their scent." Ris said rolling her golden eyes.

Paige couldn’t help but cringe at the mention of encountering a dragon. How could she think they knew about her past? Paige’s eyes darted to the ground in embarrassment. It was almost pathetic, even for her. Now the old lady wanted them to go steal something from a real dragon?! None of her guildmates were aware that even if Paige had encountered a dragon in the past, she remembered nothing of it. She couldn’t even comprehend how powerful one must be. All of the old lady’s believed advantages were false. It was only when the lady mentioned something about changing the past did Paige snap out of her haze.

"It's a crystal. A shard of a crystal. One of three shards to be exact... we already have the other two here. When the three shards combine together, they grant the holder the ability to change one thing in the past. One, anything. If this power were to fall into the wrong hands... then who knows what it could be used for."

Raising her eyebrow, Paige couldn’t help but feel envious. Being able to change an event in the past? Just the thought had her filling up with excitement. If she had that kind of power, she could finally discover the memory block of her childhood.

"How do we know that you won't use it for evil?" Siliva asked suspiciously. Paige paused before replying to the woman. She agreed with Siliva, there was no way they would just hand out some crystal with the power to change the past to the old lady and her cat. But what if… they took it for themselves? Shaking her head, Paige scolded herself for thinking so selfishly. She could never do something like that...Right?

“Siliva’s right. Do you really think we would hand something that powerful over to you? We don’t even know what you would do with it.”

[Kassy]
"How do we know that you won't use it for evil?" Silivia asked. "Siliva’s right. Do you really think we would hand something that powerful over to you? We don’t even know what you would do with it." Paige added on. The witch sighed, and looked down at the cat sitting by her legs. "See? I told you they would be of no use. All they do is question and waste time!" she barked at her companion. The cat seemed to have said something, as the old witch tried to speak several times, but closed her mouth after every attempt. Finally she closed her eyes, then nodded and swiftly turned back to the others.

"You can't know I won't use it for evil, just as much as I can't tell if you won't steal it for yourself and run off with it. You could even beat me down and take my two shards for yourselves if you wanted to. We're asking for your help to get the shards before it's too late.... There's an evil in this town, threatening that they will take the shards I have and use it to corrupt the town. If I cannot gather the three shards, I will not be able to use this magic I have brewed to magically protect it from anyone ever using it. My magic requires all three pieces... otherwise the magic would have a crack in it, and the evil seeking out the shards could use the last remaining shard to break through my spell."

"There's no way for me to convince you, only trust. Or I could have lied to you and said I wanted it for my collection, and that there really wasn't a dragon there, and I would pay you a hefty sum. I'm pretty sure that's what the lot of you want anyway, just the money, eh? Running off and doing this, and doing that... and all for what? To help people? Nahh! People always get hurt in your little excursions... your little quests... it's about the money! You can't get by without it. And why not just show off your powerful magic, have a little fun with it, and make a living off of it? Who cares if anyone gets hurt in the way!" the witch said, starting to go off on a tangent. She seemed like she would go on nearly forever, if not for an explosion heard in the hallway.

A kid came out from behind the curtains, followed by an explosion of colorful smoke in his wake. He waved his hand in front of his face to blow it out of the way, then looked up to see the three standing there with the witch and her cat... and the stray bird. "Uh... did I create a potion of the past?" he said, then trying to rub his eyes clear to see if the three would disappear. "Hey! It's you, from the guild! Paige and I fought you last night after things went crazy." Kassy said, remembering who he was. "Uh, yeah..." he said, shaking his head a little bit. "I guess you're all real then. Did you follow me home or something?" he asked, looking around the room. "No!..." Kassy said while putting her hands on her hips, "We followed a quest here, saying that a cat was stuck in a tree. It was to be my first quest! But...-" she explained, but the witch stepped up. "-you three were late! Like always. Do you 'Fairy Tail' people ever have a sense of time?" she said angrily. "Mom! Cool it, alright? What's going on anyway?" the boy said.

"Wait! She's your mom?" Kassy said, looking back and forth between the two. They didn't even really share any features. The lady was old, messy long hair, long pointed nose, small, overweight. The kid had white short kept hair, a rounded normal nose, stood a few inches taller, and was probably underweight. His eyes were also an unnatural white color. "I'm adopted." he clarified after Kassy went through all the options already in her head. "Oh. That would explain it." she shrugged. "Anyway! Back to business!" the old witch said, pushing her son out through the curtains. "Go outside and take your mess with you Josive!" she yelled at her son. "But-" he tried, just as the witch closed the curtains in his face and walked back to where she stood before. "If it makes you all feel better, you can even stand here as I seal it away. If you think anything is wrong, stop me. I'm sure you have a friend or two that can read my magic as I use it."

<Ris/Ander/Morgan/Terra/Dremmick>:
As all of you were busy trying to figure out how to continue the trail, a giant puff of colorful smoke blew out of the house's front door. A short while after the smoke cleared, a younger boy stepped out. Probably seventeen or so, maybe older... especially because of the white hair. Not only was his hair white, but his eyes were too. "Uh... more visitors?" he asked, "What did I miss? Seriously!" he yelled into the air.

Ander turned in the direction of the boy who had just colorfully stepped out of a small house. He raised an eyebrow at him, not sure what to make of the odd entrance. However, Terra was already full of questions. White hair? White eyes? The only people she has known that had a disposition like that were her and her brother. He couldn't be related, she had never seen him before. Is it because he has a similar magic type?

Ander looked over to Terra, who seemed to be staring a hole into the new arrival, and he could practically feel the questions bubbling up to the surface. He held up a hand to her and shook his head, "hold on," he told her softly. He wasn't sure how to take this guy. closest word to describe it would be "awkward".

Dremmick responded nonchalantly to young man. "Calm yourself, no need for shouting. We just had a few guild members take a fairly easy job. Strangely, enough, we though it was taking an awfully long time so we come to see what was taking them." He then paused considering another fact. He jerked a thumb over toward where Terra was next to her brother. "And she just wanted to see a cat."

@Teknonick

Based on what the boy just said, Morgan smiled triumphantly, knowing it had been right to just stay put. "MORE visitors, hm? I suppose that means the people we're looking for are inside that house. Man, I love it when a good strategy comes together!" She remarks.

@Jollan

"Five minutes, hm? This should be rather interesting! Prepare yourself!" Inigo exclaimed as he charged toward his uncle once again, the sword beginning to give off a blue aura. Not having seen this before, his uncle quickly got into a defensive stance with his own sword, mentally and physically preparing for the possibly heavy blow that was coming his way. "Lunar Shadow Blade!" As these words are spoken, the aura on the blade slightly alters, making the regular-size obsidian blade seem like a rather large longsword, enveloped a shadowy blue aura. The force applied during the connection is rather stunning for Leon, his arms shaking as he tries to hold back the blow. However, this new combination of magic proves to be too much for the illusionist, knocking him back a fair distance and sending his sword flying from his hands only to conveniently impale itself into the ground nearby. Leon simply picks himself back up and moves back towards his sword. "Nicely done, Inigo. That was...something else." He comments as he removes his sword from the ground and places it back in its sheath. Inigo simply dematerializes his sword, seeming as if that attack had taken the wind out of him.

Drax looked between the two. "I think we've just been hustled," he said casually as he pulled his sword breaker from his bag and tossed it toward Inigo, landing heavily in the ground with the handle up.The sword breaker was a heavy durable weapon with a blade on one side and hooks on the other. If a blade should get caught in the hook, a well placed jerk or swing could either disarm a person or even, as the name suggests, break the enemy sword. Unlike normal ones, this sword breaker was made to be used primarily instead of a dual wield purpose. the sword itself was longer and thicker than most to give it extra power. instead of a dagger length it was about the size a hand and a half sword.


"Honestly, I didn't expect you to lose so quickly," he chuckled at Leon, "I'd almost say that was planned." He then pulled a simple sword out of the magic bag. "Alright then. This is just one of my disposable ones. I'm going to take a simple swing at you and I want you to guard it and then break the blade. That sword break is one I forged. you will have better purchase than a simple parrying dagger and a lot more power when swinging it. Get a feel for it and we'll continue."

Apparently more went down while Sylvia was gone than she thought. Page and Kassy fought this kid? Whatever, not too important. Now that Sylvia thought about their situation, it might be best to just collect the shard. After all once the group is in possession of the shard, they can decide what to do with it. Also even if they left the old lady, she'd find someone else to do her dirty work.

Then there was the part where the old lady accused her of being greedy for money. What a hag. It wasn't her fault that her magic was needed to be controlled at all time. For both Sylvia's sake and everyone one else's. Also people need money to survive. How else can one survive? So why not use her powers to earn money when she spends all her time training? Sylvia was about to voice her opinion before the boy showed up.

Now that the lady finished her proposal, she mentioned their ability to judge her. While Sylvia could read mind waves, she was still struggling in sorting out what she was looking for. Also it was an invasion of privacy. Many people had a thing against that. In fact Sylvia has been scorned at because of her untrained ability.

"Whatever, let's do it," Sylvia sighed.

Ris listened to the boy and what he was saying. Keeping quiet.

((GAH DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!))

Paige almost trusted the old lady as she gave them her little speech about the mission. That is, until she insulted the very existence of her guild. Clenching her fists, it took all of her might not to throw the hag across the room.

If things couldn’t get any possibly weirder, a familiar boy popped up out of nowhere. Where I have seen him before? Kassy thankfully reminded everyone he had been the little boy who thought he could take on Paige. She smirked, glancing at him.

“Why hello. I hope you’re not too sore from our previous encounter. I do apologize for not going easier on you,” She grinned. It was just too hard not to brag.

"Whatever, let's do it," Sylvia sighed. While Paige still wasn’t sure what to do with the crystal and had never faced a dragon before, there was no way she wouldn’t miss out from trying. Besides, how could she back out of it? There wasn’t really any other choices. Quickly wiping off all the expressions of doubt and fear, Paige took a deep breath and returned to her outgoing self.

“Definitely! With the three of us, no one could take us down. Kassy, are you ready?” She smiled and looked to her. Battling a dragon seemed risky for a first mission, but Paige had faith in her. On the outside she might seem like a cute little girl, but there was a strong magic sleeping deep inside of her. Each day her magic was slowly waking up. Paige looked forward to the day it fully awakened.