Introduction: The Tigress Returns

Introduction
In the small town of Maria, the citizens could all be seen walking around, enjoying their day as many could be seen doing their normal routines. Near the entrance of the city came a young purple haired girl with her hair down and no make-up on stopped as she looked at the piece of paper in her hand before looking back at the buildings.

"That package must be in the mayor's office, that's what the master told me..." She said to herself before stuffing the paper away and walking into the city.

As the young woman strolled through town, trying as best she could not to be noticed, a young man was running down the same sidewalk as she was. As he rounded the corner, not looking where he was going, he and the young woman collided. He stood up, rubbing his head, and extended his free hand to the woman, "Uh, sorry about that, lady," he said, half smiling.

The woman grabbed the guy's hand and was helped upward as she dusted herself off, "It's quite alright, thank you for the..." She was shocked to recognize the face of her old former guild-mate, Sting.

"Huh? Is there something wrong?" Sting asked, trying to get a better look at the woman as she pulled her hood lower, covering her face. As he drew closer so he could see her face, he detected a familiar smell and he realized just who he'd bumped in to. "M-Minerva?!" He asked in disbelief. This woman looked nothing like the boa-wearing, extravagantly dressed woman that used to be one of Sabertooth's strongest mages.

Minvera sighed as she put down her hood, looking over to Sting, "Hello there Sting, it's been some time hasn't it?" She said soflty looking at him.

Sting was speechless, except for the occasional "uh" or "um". He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Right when it seemed he'd gathered his thoughts however, a pink haired girl in a red cloak rounded the corner. "Aha! There you are!" she said to Sting, who tried to run passed Minerva and escape the girl, but before he couldn't get very far as he found himself on the ground with his head sandwiched between the sidewalk and the girl's foot.

"Sting! Are you okay?" Minerva said looking down at Sting as she helped him off the ground, "Do you know each other?".

"Yes, unfortunately," said Sting, as he got up, using the side of a building to support himself. "Minerva, this is our newest member, Patty Oscuro."

"Minerva?" Patty asked in confusion. She looked around, and finally locked on to the woman Sting had ran in to. "Her?!"

"I see my reputation still holds even after I left" She replied chuckling which made both of them look at her with shock.

"Y-you just laughed, without someone suffering. Who are you and what have you done with the real Minerva?!" said Sting as he pointed a confused finger at his former guild-mate.

"I hope you're not here to start trouble either, we have enough of that," warned Patty.

"Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are to find that the guild was relocated here, but believe me, I'm not here to cause any sort of trouble, just here to pick up a package for my guild" She said as looking at them with an honest look, which made Sting look even more shocked, not only was this Minerva normal, but she actually seemed more friendly.

"Well, we should really be on our way. Nice meeting you and all, see ya," said Patty hastily as she pushed Sting toward the guild hall.

"W-wait Patty," said Sting, a bit confused. He formed a small huddle with Patty, with their backs turned to Minerva. Minerva couldn't hear most of it, but she caught a "Are you crazy?!" followed by a "Oh, come on." and finalized with "I'm Master, get over it." The two broke their huddle and quickly tip-toed back to Minerva. "After some consulting with my advisor," began Sting, "We've decided that if you want to come to our guild hall for a time, you may." Patty made a tiny snorting sound from hearing Sting talk like he was so important, which earned her an annoyed glare.

"Haha, I wouldn't want to impose, and I'm sure the guild doesn't want to see me at this moment" Minerva said as she looked at Patty who glared at her.

"Well, actually, there won't be that many people there to see you anyway," said Sting a bit solemnly as he rubbed the back of his head, putting on a fake smile.

Minerva could tell that Sting was lying, even if she hadn't seen him in years, she was still sharp as ever, and knew that something had happened since her departure from the guild, but decided against saying anything to make sure that nothing would cause any bad blood between them. "I see, well still, I don't want to impose".

Patty resumed her haste to get her Master away from this woman, "Yep, wouldn't wanna do that. I'm sure you have some important activities to do as well so we'll be going, bye." Then she proceeded to push Sting around the corner and toward the guild again. "what's the matter with you?!" she asked in a rage.

"I was just trying to help an old friend out!" said Sting angrily.

"Yeah, friend," Patty replied sarcastically.

Sting grew more solemn, "Patty, I'm just trying to run the guild as best I can. There are... certain members that just aren't ever gonna be around anymore, but Minerva was right there." Patty realized who he was talking about, his former partner, Lector, who'd been killed on a job recently. They walked the rest of the way to the guild in silence.

As they entered the guild, a man with a mask was reading looked up to see both the Guild-Master and Patty walking on, "Welcome back, I see from your expressions that something or someone has rubbed you the wrong way, the last memory I can recall that happening is...." He was about to say, but was stopped by Patty who threw a book on his head.

"Can it Rufupedia," she said rather shortly. She looked around at the empty guild hall. No one was there except herself, Rufus, and Sting. It was a bit sad really. Sting walked over to the round marble bar at the back wall of the building and sat down without a word. "We ran into an old... um, acquaintance while we were out," Patty explained.

"Hey, don't get mad at me, all I did was ask" He said getting up and rubbing his nose from the impact of the book as he looked over to Sting, who was at the bar grabbing a drink. "Which old acquaintance would that be? I have many on memory, which one did you encounter?" He asked while taking a sip from his drink to wait for Sting's answer.

"It was the Lady," was all that Sting gave as a reply.

"I see.... Tis such a twist of faith, did she attempt to make you bow down to her like before?" He replied scoffing as he took another sip of his drink.