Step 1; Character Creation!
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever written... Enjoy!
Don't worry! You don't need to know anything about any kind of roleplaying game to enjoy this.
Please note, if you're a genuine D&D fan, they're actually not playing D&D they're playing Pathfinder since this is the game I play, I just thought the name was too fitting :)
Following the latest failed mission and the millions of Jewel that the guild had to give to the poor destroyed town after Natsu and Gray's latest fight, the Master announced that the punishment for Fairy Tail's Strongest Team was to clear out the guild's library. While Erza, Happy, Wendy, Charlie and Lucy had originally objected to being a part of the punishment, seeing that Gray and Natsu's fight hadn't resolved their disagreement they decided it was safest for everyone if they accompanied them and ensured that the ancient books didn't turn to piles of ash or splintered ice. It was here that Erza found an interesting book, one that had caught her eye as the front cover was embellished with a picture of a roaring dragon and magic users. While she knew that the dragon slayer would never have the attention span to read an entire book, his keen eye for all things 'dragon' had obviously influenced her as she decided that day she would take the book home and study in case there was anything she could interest her friend in.
The next day when they came to the library for their second day of punishment, she held the book tightly in her hands with a beaming smile on her face. It was the kind of smile that her friends knew to fear, since it usually meant that she had a new obsession.
"What's with the book, Erza?" Gray dared to ask.
"It's a game," she announced proudly as she placed it down on the table. "A game that we will all be playing."
They all leaned over the table, looking at the picture of the front cover and glancing back over to the proud requip wizard. "Dungeons and Dragons?" Lucy read out loud.
"Is it a game with dragons?" Natsu questioned.
Erza's hands were proudly on her hips. "It's a role playing game. You create characters and the game is played with your imagination. I will be the Dungeon Master and I will be telling the story," she nodded assertively.
Lucy and Gray gave each other dubious looks. Natsu was not quite so subtle. "That sounds dumb."
The glare in Erza's eyes was instant, the fury of her rage brewing ready to strike out against him. "I will show you it is not dumb. I've read this book entirely now and I feel confident that we can enjoy this. Now everyone sit down and we'll begin."
"Um, Erza, aren't we supposed to be tidying the library…?" Lucy asked hesitantly, fearing the master's wrath almost as much as Erza's.
"We're taking a break," Erza announced as she pushed back the chair and threw open the book. "The master didn't give us a time limit for our punishment, so we can continue after we've created the characters. Now, everyone, take your seats."
Satisfied that Erza was the far more daunting threat right now, they all took their seats around the table – or in Happy's case, on the table – and watched Erza's stern explanations of what the different races of the alternative universe represented. She read almost word for word the entire first ten pages, though the way that she spoke made it clear she seemed to think she was making it easier for the others to understand. Lucy, Wendy and Charlie leaned in, trying to follow the quick talking, but one by one they began to flag. Gray was leaning low in his seat as he created iced versions of the die Erza had described, experimenting in ways to make them both balanced and completely biased. Natsu, however, was snoring loudly.
Erza's hand slammed onto the table and Natsu woke with a start. He rubbed his face quickly, staring up at the angry redhead and absently wondering what he had done wrong. "Huh?"
"Natsu you've not been listening to a word I've been saying!" Erza hissed.
"Yes I have. Something about Giants and something?" Natsu exclaimed.
"Giants aren't a playable race, Natsu!" she exclaimed, gritting her teeth tightly together. "You haven't been listening at all!"
Gray smirked.
Natsu rolled his eyes. "Why do I need to know all about them? I'm going to play a dragon."
"Dragons aren't a playable race either," Erza hissed.
"Then why is there one on the front cover?" he yelled.
Erza blinked, obviously not quite knowing the answer and grumbling to herself as she pulled the book back open and began to pour herself back into the words, trying to find an answer to the persistent dragon slayer. She was certain she read something about dragons somewhere, but it was a particularly big book.
"Erza, maybe we should have more than one book…" Wendy suggested in a soft voice, realising that the room had submerged into silence with Erza now guarding the only remaining source of information.
"Hey, I'm sure that Levy has some kind of writing replication spell," Lucy thought out loud. "Maybe if you can just lend me the book, Erza…" she suggested, leaning over the table and trying to take it from her.
"We are going to create these characters now!" Erza snapped, determined as she put the book back into the middle of the table, keeping her hand firmly over it. She cleared her throat, calming herself as she looked back to Natsu. "Dragons are generally either none-playable-characters, 'NPC's, or enemy encounters, as they tend to be too powerful to be playable characters."
"That's why I want to be one!" Natsu cried out.
"Will you just pick something else so she can move on?" Gray rolled his eyes.
"I don't even know what I'm picking!"
"It's your character's race, flame brain. Human, elf… those weird half things… Something else, maybe…?" Gray said, finding that Erza's eyes were quickly falling against him with the same scorn.
"You weren't paying attention either?" Erza glared.
Gray could feel the cold fear. "I, uh, was trying to?"
"Oh for goodness sake! I'll do it!" Erza rolled her eyes, instantly losing all patience and taking the book back into her arms. "If you're going to be so difficult then I'll create your characters for you! Just don't blame me if you don't like any of them!"
Lucy and Wendy gave each other a look. They really had been trying to keep up with the information that Erza had been pouring into them, but they knew that they'd struggle to relay much more to her than Gray who had clearly failed his interrogation. "Erza, could we make a copy of the book so that we know the rules…?" Lucy asked awkwardly clearing her throat. Not that she would ever dare question Erza's version of the rules over the book's.
Erza blinked, suddenly remembering the two quiet girls that had been to the far side. "Oh, of course. Just make sure that I can have it back straight away. In the meantime," she turned her glare back to Gray and Natsu, "I believe you were still being punished. This library is still a mess."
Levy looked over the pages with interest, pouring herself into the book and almost forgetting that she was asked to replicate it. "Oh, sorry!" she laughed to herself as she realised the others had been staring at her for some time. "Yes, it shouldn't be a problem to make a few copies of this since there's no real magic in the pages. Would you mind if I made a copy for myself?"
Lucy was surprised. They hadn't even had a chance to read through it since prizing it from Erza's protective hands but Lucy couldn't have expected it to be so interesting to the script Mage. "Is it really that good?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
"It just seems fun!" Levy admitted, beginning to craft her writing powers and conjuring the first book, placing it in front of Charlie. "Maybe we could create another game if yours goes well."
"I, uh, don't think ours is going well so far…" Lucy admitted.
"I've never seen Natsu and Erza arguing so much before…" Wendy whispered, looking genuinely terrified. "Natsu and Gray seem half asleep for most of it, and Erza has so many rules I can't keep up…"
"Well, maybe it will be better after the characters have been created and we can actually start the game," Lucy shrugged.
"Wait, Erza is the DM?" Levy asked. When they looked at her blankly, she realised she needed to translate. "The 'Dungeon Master'… The one in charge of all of the rules and characters and… Ohh, uh, well... Good luck!" she grinned, passing the heavy volumes into their hands.
The girls distributed the books to the guys, though they had no doubt that they would be nothing more than oversized doorstops. It was clear that by the end of the day everyone was sick of all books, however, and when Wendy and Charlie accidentally crashed into the bookcase and a mishandled attempt to save her caused the entire unit to collapse into a pile of pages, they were worse than square one. Even though they had several hours left of the day, they all took one look at the new pile of workload and decided that it was best to cut their losses and prepare for a longer day tomorrow.
The next morning, they despaired to find that, unsurprisingly, the chaos was exactly how they had left it. Natsu and Wendy began work with their flying companions to repair the broken shelves while Gray and Lucy went back to sorting through the books that they could place into the still stable bookshelves. Erza had been absent since receiving the new copy of the game, but she was no where to be seen for most of that day too. Just as they began to talk of sending someone to recover the requip wizard, the redhead ran down the steps with pieces of paper flying around her.
"I've made the charac-" her words cut off mid word, seeing the huge piles of splintered wood and bookshelves that had not been fully repaired. "What happened?!"
"It was an accident," Lucy said quickly, knowing that Wendy would struggle to defend herself if Erza began her fierce ranting. "One of the bookshelves collapsed after you left last night. We've almost fixed it now, right guys?" she said, looking up to the flying dragon slayers.
Wendy nodded, and Natsu beamed and gave a thumbs up, their Exceeds both floating them closer to the requip wizard.
Erza rubbed her forehead. "There's no room to play…" she complained, seeing the table they had all sat beside the day before now piled high with ancient parchment. "OK, I guess that I should take the time to run through your characters individually…"
"Erza I made my own!"
Erza looked up, surprised not only to hear that one of her companions had been interested enough to pour over the character creation but mostly by who it was. Happy flew himself and Natsu down as he jumped off his dragon slayers back, walking up to Erza and holding up a very childish scribble.
"Happy? When did you do that?" Natsu questioned.
"When you were asleep! Look Erza! He's a cat folk and a paladin and he's huge and scary and really cool!" he said, pointing at the picture.
Gray took a look at the picture, the triangles on the stick figure's head now obviously ears and not just misplaced teeth. "That can't be a real thing…"
Erza smirked, leaning down and taking the picture and the few other sheets from Happy's paw. "If you read the book, Gray, you'd know it very much is a real thing," she smiled at the exceed proudly, nodding to him. "Thank you, Happy, this will do wonderfully. Though I'm not sure that I believe you rolled perfect twenties on all of your stats…"
"I did! Just ask Natsu!" Happy exclaimed.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, he did!" Natsu shrugged.
Erza glared at them both. "Well, let's redo it just to be on the safe side," she decided, folding her arms across her chest in case they decided to argue further. "Now, we need to clear some space, but in the meantime I'll talk to each of you about your individual character. I'll let you four repair the bookcase since you've already begun so… Lucy, you can be first," she said, eyes falling upon the first victim.
Lucy swallowed nervously, walking forwards.
The others resumed their work as one by one Erza pulled them away into the next room to talk about their character. Lucy was the first and by far the easiest to explain, as Lucy had already been half way through her character when Erza had taken the creation process for herself and the two had agreed upon an Elven Bard to offer the support to their team. If Lucy had wanted to question any part of her new character she didn't dare, feeling Erza's pride as a more terrifying entity than her anger.
Gray was not so blindly accepting. "Erza… Is this actually my sheet?" he questioned.
Erza nodded, letting Gray's eyes fall once again on the papers. "I've tried to give everyone characters that are different to their own to force them to get into the 'roleplaying' side of the game and think differently to how you normally would. I'm trusting you with the magic user of the party. I think you are capable of remembering that this is a different character, not you."
"Yeah, you're telling me…" Gray glanced back through the sheets, noting all of his stats and frowning at the low strength. From what little he could remember paying attention to Erza's explanations, the wizards of this world took a far more traditional approach of strong magical power and weak physical attacks, a somewhat racist stereotype that had been long ingrained into the many non-magical citizens of Fiore. "Why put me as the Wizard, then?" he questioned, realising that there would have been far easier options if she really had wanted to contrasted his character with his own personality.
"Because I trust you," Erza leaned back nodding, completely missing the look of sheer shock written across Gray's face. "You and Lucy are the only ones that I know without hesitation are creative enough to play this game – if you could stop being influenced by Natsu and actually pay attention," her eyes flew open into a poisonous warning glare.
Gray rolled his eyes, not wanting to admit that Natsu would ever affect his decisions unless he was going out of his way to annoy the fire dragon slayer. "Whatever," he murmured. "So I've got to pick spells out, right?" he asked, pulling upon the nearest book and beginning to lazily flick through the pages.
"Don't you dare pick ice magic…" Erza warned him.
"Oh no, I actually have a better idea…" he grinned mischievously, standing up before Erza could question him further. "I'll get dragon breath to come grab you. Please tell him that you got him something awful."
Erza glared, "None of my characters are awful. I just gave him something challenging," she said, a knowing smile as the smallest hint of her own mischievous nature showing in her eyes as showed Gray his friend's character sheet.
Gray took one look at the character and laughed, shaking his head. "Natsu is going to kill you, you realise?"
"He can try," Erza shrugged. "I'm sure I can handle myself. Please, bring him over."
Gray continued to shake his head in disbelief, walking back through to the main room, pleased to see that the bookshelf was now looking stable and Happy and Charlie were flying only to place the heavy books on the very top shelves while the others were all content to carry and use the ladders supplied. "Hey, hot head!" Gray called to Natsu, pointing backwards with his thumb. "You're gonna love this," he grinned from ear to ear.
Confused but now sceptical, the dragon slayer disappeared into the back room. Two seconds later, the yelling began.
"That can't be good…" Lucy said, holding onto the nearest books tightly. "I thought Erza wasn't making bad characters…?"
Gray simply couldn't wipe the smile from his face as he shrugged his shoulders. "It's not a bad character. Just a cleric."
"You mean… The healer?" Wendy asked, her voice so quiet it was barely audible without shaking.
"Well, that's just rude," Charlie frowned, folding her paws across her chest and looking at Wendy protectively.
"I'm not sure that Natsu would make a very good healer…" Wendy admitted, trying to ignore the look that Charlie was giving her. "Why would Erza give Natsu that role?"
Gray shrugged. "Erza said something about trying to give people different characters to their own personalities to force them to act differently or something," he shrugged again, going back to the original punishment of putting the books tidily away.
Wendy and Charlie gave each other a worried look, the only two that hadn't yet received their new responsibilities. "I'm not sure I want to play this game…" Wendy admitted as Erza and Natsu's shouting finally quietened down.
Eventually Natsu stormed out, slamming the nearest pile of books as he did so, resulting in yet another argument between the dragon slayer and ice maker who had been trying to tidy that particular stack for the last hour. As Lucy and Happy were left desperately trying to pull the pair from each other and avoid yet another punishment from the master, Wendy and Charlie entered the room determined to let Erza know that this was simply not the kind of game they were interested in playing.
"Ah, you're both here. Oh good," Erza grinned brightly as she passed them both their sheets and tactfully ignored the sounds of the two destroying half of the library just beyond the doors.
"Erm, Erza-san, I'm not…" Wendy began awkwardly, barely glancing at the paper now in her hands.
"Charlie, you are a Rogue. I've kept you as human but if you want to be a cat folk too then we can arrange that. You are the thief of the group."
"A thief?" Charlie blinked, looking at the scribbles from Erza and trying to understand any of it. It must have been one of the last characters written, she decided, as the handwriting was truly awful, though glancing over to Wendy's paper it didn't seem much better.
"Erza-San…" Wendy began again nervously.
"Wendy, your role is very important," Erza said, her eyes gleaming even more than when she had first announced the game. "You are a fierce warrior responsible for protecting the rest of your party with an array of weaponry and armour!"
Wendy cautiously halted her complaints and looked down at the sheet, seeing that it had been completely filled. Every weapon box had detailed descriptions of complex swords, her inventory had been loaded with shields and armour of all kinds and the realisation slowly began to dawn upon her. "Erza-San… This character is you…" she said slowly, even glancing over to Charlie's sheet and finding she was already four levels stronger than her feline companion.
Erza blushed deeply. "No you're not!" she defended herself, pointing to the sheet. "It clearly says here that your character is blond."
Wendy trembled. "…I-I'm not sure… Are you sure that… Well... Maybe me and Natsu-San can swap…?"
Erza glared, eyes filled with fury. "You don't like it?!" she whispered in a crushing yet terrifying disappointment.
Wendy squealed, realising now escape was hopeless. There was no way that she could turn down a character that Erza had so obviously crafted from her own strengths and attributes without deeply offending her, but it meant that now the sky dragon slayer had a responsibility on her shoulders far heavier than she could have dared imagine. "No! Not that's not what I meant! Only that Natsu didn't seem happy with his and this is such a wonderful character… Th-thank you, Erza-San…" she said, too terrified to say anything else as she held the paper in trembling hands.
Clearly far more satisfied with this new answer, Erza smiled proudly. "Thank you. Now we're finally ready to begin."
Erza - Dungeon Master
Lucy – Bard. Elf.
Gray – Wizard. (Banned from Ice.) Halfling
Natsu – Cleric. Half-elf.
Happy – Cat Folk Paladin
Wendy – Fighter Human warrior (basically Erza)
Charlie – Rogue Human
I never intended for this idea to be written down. This was a ridiculous plot that I came up with one day that I started talking to my friend about and we ended up giggling about it. Then in the Christmassy happiness I thought I'd make something a bit funnier than usual.
This is all going to go so horrifically wrong! When we first began to talk about it our initial reaction was 'Natsu will do terribly!' Then when I realised that Erza would be determined to be the DM... Well, she'll be even worse!
I don't know if I'm going to keep writing this, so let me know if you'd like to see more? I've just started a game of Pathfinder with my friends and if I do keep this going, I'll probably just steal the plot that we're playing in our own game and twist it into these guys.