Favours can cost you

Alternative version here: fav.me/d7euv2v

The wind was completely still.
No birds were singing.
The silence was absolute.
Only the solitary breathing of a lonely person could be heard.
“Awww, this is not what a holiday should be like!” complained the only resident who could be found at the females exclusive dormitory owned by the mage guild ‘Fairy Tail’.
Resting on a couch, her head on one of the piece of furniture rest arms, and her legs dangling from the other; the sleepy eyes of Mirajane Strauss gazed around the corners of the main room. 
“There is nothing to do…I wish there was somebody else here…” the girl’s disappointment was evident. She was given a couple of free days at her waitress job and was hopping to spend them with the girls from the guild. What she didn’t expect was that all of them were issued a mission of special importance. She was eager to accompany them, considering her natural willingness to help. But they insisted that she should enjoy her well earned vacations. Mirajane was not totally convinced with that, until Erza personally requested her to take care of the dormitory in their absence.
“But still…” grumbled the girl “if only there was something for me to do…”
Everything was in order in the building, and being by herself as she was meant that there were almost zero options for her to pass time.
“I wish I had brought my guitar with me…” that way she could at least practice.
The silence was becoming something so physical that she could actually sense it all around her, clinging over her and squashing her to the couch.
“I can’t stand this! I need to do something!” she called out loud. As she did this, she wiggled her arms and legs in an attempt to wake her drowsy limbs. With such bad luck that one of the slippers she was wearing ,the right one, flew away.
“Uh? Were did my shoe go?” asked Mirajane.
Almost relieved of having found something to do, she started searching for the piece of footwear.
It didn’t take too long for her to find that it had fallen under a chest of drawers. The place was hard to reach so she had no choice but to get on her fours in order to get the slipper back.

Mirajane was so focussed on this task that she didn’t notice the main door opening. Soon, her younger sister, Lisanna, entered the place carrying a big package in her hands. The newcomer was about to announce her arrival to whoever was in the place when she noticed something out of place: the crouching silhouette of her older sister, who was apparently looking for something under a drawer. Mirajane was in a pretty precarious situation and hadn’t noticed her yet. When Lisanna saw her right foot quite bare, a mischievous smile formed on her face. She could give her sister a little surprise.

“There it is!” said Mirajane as she reached for the well hidden shoe. She was so happy for having found it that she started laughing. This was a bit odd, since it was not that of a big deal; still she couldn’t avoid giggling a bit. Then she realized a tingling sensation in the sole of her right foot.
“What is going on?” she mumbled to herself.
As soon as she was about to turn around to she the source of her displeasure she heard a familiar voice.
“Surprise!” which was followed by a pair of hand tickling her sides.
Mirajane's reaction was immediate; she was so surprised that she couldn’t help but to laugh aloud.
“Lisanna?! What are you doing?!” she managed to say when she got the strength to exit under the drawer just to discover that her little sister was the one tickling her.
“Hello sis!” said the girl “I saw that you were defenceless and I wanted to surprise you, are you mad?” 
Mirajane smiled reassuring her, there was no way she could get angry at her little sister.
“Of course not, it’s only that I wasn’t expecting you” and I don’t mind a bit of tickling, thought she, even if she didn’t say it.

The two girls got up and seated on the couch, only after Mirajane had put her slipper back. There, she explained to her sister her current and not very entertaining situation.
“I see” understood Lisanna “Then I suppose you wouldn’t mind doing me a favour?”
“You know I’m always happy to help” especially after this lack of activity, wanted Mirajane to add “what can I do for you?”
Lisanna took the package back and opened it. Inside was a device which Mirajane had already seen.
“Isn’t this a gadget to measure people’s magic powers?” asked she.
Lisanna sighed when asked this.
“It’s a bit bothersome, but Makarov has requested me to test if this thing works. The problem is that he insisted that two people are necessary to do that. One to activate and the other to be ‘measured’, but I don’t know what that last part means”
Mirajane listened to that explanation with a look of relief in her face. She was always happy to help others, and now was the perfect time to do so.
“Count me in! What do I have to do?” inquired Mirajane with decision.
“Let’s see…” said Lisanna as she took what looked like some instructions manual “here says that you need someone to sit in front of the machine… and another person to push this button…” since Mirajane was already facing the device she simply pushed the button “now…you need to concentrate your magic power”
Mirajane did as ordered “I’ve gathered around half my power, is that enough?” asked her.
“Yeah, let’s better start little by little” replied her sister.
Nothing seemed to happen.
“So tell, me, what is this machine supposed to do?” Mirajane was curious.
“Makarov said something that it tests the user’s endurance based on his or her magical power. He said it was used to train people in concentration under extreme circumstances, he wasn’t pretty clear on that, tough”
Mirajane frowned; she didn’t like the sound of ‘extreme circumstances’.

But her thoughts were soon interrupted, the machine came to life. A single little globe appeared from its insides, it was attached to a snake-looking arm and it approached her.
None of the girls said anything as the mechanical hand went for Mirajane left underarm and started stroking it. The girl started smiling immediately.
“I see” said Mirajane “I understand what this machine does, it wants to distract me as I concentrate my magic”
“Whoa, that’s pretty clever!” Lisanna was as surprised as her “Why don’t you push it up a little?”
“I’ll try” said the long haired beauty.
As she concentrated, a second hand, this one bigger than the previous one held her left wrist and pushed it over her head. Now the small hand had complete reach over the girl’s armpit.
“Hehe” giggled the girl “this is nothing”
“Yeah, sister, you can’t loose to a machine!” cheered Lisanna.

Mirajane added even more magical power. She gasped when she felt her legs raising; a pair of big globes held her ankles together and a group of four little hands were aimed at her immobile feet. The girl swallowed hard. She didn’t mind a bit of tickling, but four hands seemed a bit too much for her to handle, especially on her sensitive feet.
There was not much to do. Her slippers were soon removed and the hands attacked their precious prey. The attack was so sudden that Mirajane started laughing at the top of her lungs.
The situation didn’t seem that nice anymore for her sister that looked at her with concern
“Are you OK, sis?” Mirajane didn’t look as she was doing pretty well “I think you should stop gathering magical power…”
“You are right” said Mirajane; at least, it sounded as if she actually said that, it was hard to tell between the laughter “I’ll stop”.
But something was off.
They both knew that Mirajane had stopped mustering her power.
Then, why did the machine not stop tickling her?

“Mirajane, what is going on?” Lisanna was starting to get worried “Why doesn’t this stop?”
“I don’t know!” tried to say Mirajane, which, at this point was a laughing mess “Do something! Stop this! I can’t stand this much tickling!”
Lisanna reached for the instructions manual. Her face turned white when she got to the end of it.
“The part about turning this off is not translated! I don’t know what it says, it’s written in some weird runes!”
Mirajane said something, but Lisanna couldn’t hear it clearly, her sister was laughing so hard that is was almost impossible to understand her.
Desperate, she tried to help her older sister and punched the button which started the device. It didn’t do anything. So she attempted to hit it in hopes it would shut down.
But a big hand appeared and tried to grab her. As a pair of small ones quickly grazed her tummy. If it wasn’t for her reflexes she would have being tickled pretty badly.
Mirajane made a big effort to make herself being understood.
“Lisanna! Run, look for help!” she cracked, and started laughing again “Don’t…Don’t touch it. Or it will ti…tickle youOHUHUHUHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”
Lisanna swallowed hard.
“I’ll be back in not time, hang in there” and she left the room, dashing as fast as she could.

She was alone again, but this time the situation was scarier than she thought. The machine was relentless, and, to make things worse; a new pair of hands, armed with feathers, were torturing her poor toes.
She was not sure how long she would be able to endure this. As she hoped that Lisanna would come back soon. Something unlikely, considering how far was the dormitory to the nearest city…

Commission for , he wanted the lovely Mirajane Strauss from "Fairy Tail" being tickled by a modifed version of a machine which appears on the series (used to meassure the user's magical power) tickling her. I must say he has been one of the nicest person I've never had the pleasure to work with. He gave me plenty of details about what he wanted which helped a lot to do this.

Fun facts:
-My first commission which involves no shadding. I didn't think it would look this nice.
-From sometime I wanted to do a picture on this perspective.
-At this rate I'm going to take a look at "Fairy Tail", considering this is my second picture related to the series...
Mirajane Strauss, Lisanna Strauss, Erza Scarlet and Makarov (these last three mentioned in the story) are copyrighted by Hiro Mashima.