Chapter 110: Arriving at Fairy Tail
Fiore
X776
After Mordred had finished interviewing every freed slave from the Tower of Heaven, along with binding any surviving slavers, It was decided that our group would split up there. One group would follow Rob to Fairy Tail, while another group would return to the Magic Council with Mordred in the hopes of using the council's resources to unite with their families or living a peaceful life. Naturally we went along with Rob and the kids who decided to join Fairy Tail. Most of those kids are Erza's friends and a few are, from what my sparse memory tells me, the children who would one day become one of the most powerful Dark Guilds, Oración Seis.
Which is why we currently find ourselves making camp in the woods at night before we continue our journey tomorrow morning. While the children sit and talk amongst themselves, Azula and I set up camp while Morgan and Scáthach go about making food. Once I finish setting mundane traps around the camp, more for wild monster animals than anything, I sit down next to Rob by the fire Scáthach and Morgan are using to cook whatever meat they hunted.
"You four must have known each other for years to have such impeccable teamwork." he comments once I sit down. "I have even seen you communicate with only your eyes. Truly impressive, you four will make for a formidable team." he says.
"We have known each other for two thousand years." I say with a smile while not bothering to hide our age. We may be on vacation, but that does not mean that we want to completely hide our origins. Besides, seeing people's reactions, whether it be denial or acceptance, will be hilarious to me.
Rather than answer, Rob bellows out a laugh that draws the attention of the children.
"If I didn't know any better I would believe you. That's simply how good your teamwork is." he says once he regains control of his laughter.
"Believe what you will." I tell him with a shrug as Azula sits next to me.
"Tell me Rob, what is Fairy Tail like?��� asks Azula, causing the camp to quiet down and for many of the children to sit closer in order to hear his response. Sitting the closest however, are two children that I recognise easily along with Cassandra and Jason who has retracted his dragon wings.
The first child is a boy around Jason's age and height with blue hair and a red tattoo above and below his right eye. Like all of the children, he wears a dirty white shirt that is big enough to cover the beige pants he wears underneath. The boy is Jellal Fernandes and in the original story he would be brainwashed into turning against his friends and completing the Tower of Heaven.
The second child is a young girl around the same age as Jellal. She possesses scarlet red hair which Jellal used to give her the last name Scarlet, and wears the same dirty clothes as the other children. In the original canon, she would lead a rebellion around a month after today which would result in Rob's death, the loss of her right eye, and the escape of many. Unfortunately, she would be the only one from her friends to escape. She would eventually join the protagonist guild, Fairy Tail, and become one of its most powerful mages.
Shaking the wayward thoughts from my head, I turn to look at Rob and wonder what his answer will be.
"Fairy Tail…" says Rob with a wistful smile on his face. "Fairy Tail is a family." he simply says, drawing blank looks from most of the children. "I can describe it in a million different ways, using a million different words, but…nothing will ever describe it better than that one word…family." he explains. "My friend Makarov said it best, 'If it's to protect our family, be it the Kingdom or the entire world... We would make anyone our enemy. That's what it means to be Fairy Tail'." says Rob with a proud smile.
While the children do not seem to fully understand, Azula, Morgan, Scáthach and I all know exactly what he means. However, it is not something that we can simply explain to the children to make them understand. No, this is something they must experience themselves to understand and not amount of words can properly convey it.
As I decide to change the subject, I hear footsteps quickly approaching while at the same time attempting to surround us. Judging by the sound, I wager that it is a group of fairly experienced bandits numbering at around a dozen.
"12 bandits with maybe a few mages among them." I tell Azula while at the same time confusing the children.
"Did you not trap the perimeter?" she asks as she glances into the woods where some of the bandits approach.
"For animals." I answer. "Any competent human being with even a sliver of intelligence can bypass those mundane traps." I say just as three of the bandits fall into one the traps and their pained screams resonate throughout the night, startling the children.
"Jack!" calls out one of the bandits.
"Dammit man, shut up! You want them to hear us comin?" answers another voice with a whisper, prompting Azula to crack an amused smile.
"Don't bother." says a much deeper voice. "They already know we're here." he says as the entire group gives up all pretenses and walks straight into our camp.
The group are all male and wear the same clothes, black pants tucked into black boots, long black shirts and gloves, and even black masks that cover their entire heads and only leave their eyes to be seen. I honestly have to give them some credit. Not only are their clothes good for sneaking at night in the woods, but it also makes them indistinguishable from one another and impossible to identify if you were to meet them on the streets in normal clothes. Well, impossible for anyone else.
"Here's how this is gonna go folks." says the leader as an orange magic circle appears in his hands and flame comes from it. "You're gonna give us everything you have, and you won't get burned to a crisp." he threatens as all of the children but Cassandra and Jason slowly move towards us.
"*I rank him at a high D rank. Safe for the children to handle if it were one against two, but his companions are unknown.*" says Azula.
"*He is the only mage.*" says Morgan nonchalantly. "*Everyone else is a normal trained human at best.*"
Before we can decide whether or not to let the children handle it, Jason opens his mouth and an icy blue magic circle forms in front of it before a blue beam fires from his mouth and completely encases the mage, and hundreds of feet behind the mage, in ice upon contact. Not far behind Jason, a magic circle erupts from beneath Cassandra's feet and envelops the entire camp. The magic spell quickly takes effect and everyone in the camp save for Morgan, Azula, Scáthach and I are completely frozen in place as Cassandra proceeds to run around and knock out every member of the bandit group.
"*Did one of us take a drawback that would make us overdo it when we used magic?*" I ask as I look at the damage Jason's breath attack did to the surrounding areas, it reminds of when Scáthach froze the sea, or when a member of Fairy Tail would cause property damage during battle.
"*No, but at least with Jason we can blame it on a lack of training.*" answers Azula as she shoots Scáthach an accusing glance. "*What I want to know is why Cass's spell is still in effect.*" she adds.
"Cassandra." I call out to her, causing her to look at me with a face that those who do not know her intimately would never know meant that she is panicking, simply because of how devoid of emotion it is. Something that we have been trying to train her out of. "How long is the spell going to last?" I ask her. She does not answer me with words, only with her body language. Another habit that is ingrained into her due to her father's training.
"Use your words honey." says Azula soothingly as she approaches Cassandra with a small smile on her face.
"I-I-I don't know." she answers quietly as Azula picks her up.
"It's ok. There won't be any punishment. We'll fix this." reassures Azula.
Moments like this, when Cassandra makes a mistake during combat, are rare, but when they do happen she reverts back to the state Azula found her in. She retreats within herself, stops making any sound and instead communicates with her body language, no doubt because she is afraid that we will punish her like David used to. Despite training and combat possibly resurfacing her fears, she refuses to miss any training and insists on actually fighting when necessary. At this rate the best thing to do is to support her until she realises that none of us are David Cain.
As Azula coaxs Cassandra out of her shell, I go about seeing how to reverse the spell. It is a simple spell that stops time within a certain area and depending on how much magic power is used will determine how long the spell lasts. Simple and crude. With my current skill level on time magic, the best way to reverse it is through brute force, and that is exactly what I do.
A magic circle erupts from beneath my feet and overlaps with Cassandra's before canceling it out. As the spell's effect stops, the bandits that surround the camp fall unconsciously on the ground with a thud while everyone else that was frozen returns to normal.
"Woah!" exclaims Jellal as he and the others look at the unconscious bandits. "We didn't even see you move!" he says with gleaming eyes.
It seems that being stopped in time made them unaware of their surroundings, something to take note of.
"I am pretty fast." I admit with a smile in an attempt to draw their attention away from Cassandra.
"So what magic do you use?" he asks as he seems to become more comfortable around me.
"That's a secret." I answer as I proceed to melt the ice covering everything except for the bandit leader before evaporating it. "You overdid it." I tell a sheepish Jason as I take a seat in front of the children.
"Sorry." he answers with an apologetic grin as he and his new friends sit near me.
"Don't worry, we will train you so that it does not happen again." I reply.
"Can you teach us too?" asks Jellal with an excited look on his face.
"I can teach you some things, but Morgan is better at magic than me." I answer.
"Is that a yes?" he presses on.
"It is." I tell him
Before he can ask me any more questions, Scáthach arrives with plates of food that she hands out to everyone. From there the camp falls into silence as everyone busies themselves with their food. Occasionally one of the children would be brave enough to turn and thank Scáthach and Morgan for the food before quickly returning to it. Once finished with their first plates Scáthach offers them more and many of them accept. Eventually though they all finish eating and tiredly make their way to the cushions Azula prepared for them where they all fall asleep, leaving us to watch over them while we converse.
Eventually though, Rob also goes to sleep and Morgan, Azula, and Scáthach remain awake.
"Did you notice the snake the boy has?" asks Morgan as she points towards a small purple serpent sleeping in the grasps of Erik, a young boy around the same age as Jason with a dark tan skin, maroon hair, and purple slit pupil eyes. In canon he becomes a second generation dragon slayer, a member of Oración Seis, and a powerful S class mage. Unfortunately I have no recollection of his serpertent.
"What about it?" asks Azula as she adjusts a sleeping Cassandra's position on her.
"That is a child cursed to take the form of the snake." explains Morgan. "I can revert her back, however how do you explain to a child that his friend, and the only thing to get him through his hard time as a slave, is another child that may or may not be content with being his friend once reverted back to normal?" she questions.
"This is beyond even my expertise as a parent." I admit with a frown.
"We can deal with this once we reach Fairy Tail." says Scáthach and we all agree with her.
As we fall into silence, Morgan goes about experimenting with her magic along with Scáthach while Azula sets Cassandra down to sleep before she too begins to experiment, and I take out the Mysterious Book on the origin of magic and begin to read. According to it, 'Magic is the physical embodiment of the spirit. When the physical spirit of an organism connects with the spiritual flow of nature, the spirit forms Magic as a product of the connection. Though Magic goes beyond reason, it is still born of reason and it takes an enormous amount of concentration and mental ability to use it. One's magical powers are also tied to one's life force. Only ten percent of the world's population is able to use Magic, which is noted to keep a balance between ordinary people and those with Magic.'
The book also goes further into details about magic power and the particles of magic called Ethernano. Essentially to utilize Magic, a Mage must use the Magic Power in their body, which is composed of Ethernano, the source of Magic Power for all Mages. Every Mage has a container of Ethernano inside their body that determines the limits of their Magic Power. Once a mage runs out their body will begin to draw the Ethernano from the atmosphere until the body's magic power levels return to normal.
As I read further into the book, I relay any piece of information I deem important or interesting enough to the others and they would slowly adjust their experiments based on their findings. In this way, we lose track of time until we begin to hear the chirping of birds, alerting us to the arrival of the morning. Ending our research for now, we once again split responsibilities as Scáthach and Morgan go about making breakfast while Azula and I create a bath for them.
It does not take us long to find a space suitable in the wood where we create a hole big enough for all the children and fill it with warm water.
The first to wake up is Erza before she is quickly followed by the others. Once they are all awake I lead them to the hole where Azula showers them while I clean their clothes. Once they are dressed we make our way back to the camp where we eat while making light conversation. I am even able to get Erik and Sorano, a young girl with pale skin, brown eyes and silver hair, to participate. She also would have joined Oración Seis had we not interfered.
As we finish cleaning up the camp, Rob looks up at the noonday sky.
"At this rate we won't make it to Fairy Tail for a long time." he laments with a sigh.
"I beg to differ." I answer as I inscribe a runic array on the ground that summons the massive chariot pulled by Bulls.
"Woah!" exclaims the children.
"Magic." I answer with a smirk as Morgan levitates them all onto the chariot.
"I have never seen magic like this." comments Rob as he gets into the chariot. "It looks to be some type of Letter Magic." he observes.
"It is the origin of all Letter Magic." I partially lie to him. "Ancient Lost Magic: Rune Magic." I answer as I take the reins of the chariot.
"A Lost Magic!" exclaims Rob, drawing questioning looks from the children. "I've heard of them, but I've never actually witnessed one before. They are said to be extremely powerful." he explains to them.
"Indeed they are." I answer while ignoring the eye rolls coming from Morgan and Azula because of my showing off.
Without warning I urge the bulls into action as they launch into the sky with thunderous steps that occasionally generate lightning. Following the direction Rob pointed out to us earlier on where Fairy Tail is located, I steer the bulls and encourage them to fly even faster.
This runic spell is a personal favorite of mine. It is based on Tanngrisnir and/eða Tanngnjóstr the goats that pull the chariot of the Norse god of thunder, Thor. The very same chariot which is the original form of the Noble Phantasm; Gordius Wheel: Wheel of Heaven's Authority. Like Iskandar's noble phantasm, the chariot can be used for both travel and combat purposes.
As we make our way above the clouds, I can hear the children talk animatedly amongst themselves while pointing out interesting sights, and minutes after our departure I can see the approaching town of Magnolia, home of Fairy Tail.
As we approach the town, I slow the chariot down before slowly descending it right in front of the guild hall with a thunderous boom that shakes and creates cracks on the ground.
The Fairy Tail Guild Hall is a large, two-story high building that is painted white, green, and red with the Fairy Tail symbol displayed above the door.
"Here it is." I say we get off the chariot before it slowly dissolves into light.
"Can magic do anything?" asks Sorano as we make our way towards the entrance of the building despite receiving glances from many of the citi's citizens.
"Of course." answers Morgan. "If you have the knowledge, and the power, then you can do anything with magic." she says as she creates a flower in her hand, before turning it to a snake, then a rope, before making it disappear.
"*That was not magic from DC.*" observes Scáthach as we open the door to the guild hall and walk in.
"*I know.*" proudly answers Morgan. "*I am already coming to terms with this world's different magic system.*" she says with a smirk. "*It's only a matter of time before I completely master it.*"
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AN: This chapter was a bit difficult to write since I'm not really experienced with slice of life or fluff. As usual tell me what you guys think.
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