Fairy Tail: Aftermath

The End War had come when no one had thought it would and had left just as quickly. In the space of three short months the world of Earthland had been laid to waste by forces beyond the scope of any person's wildest nightmare or delusions. With a heavenly fanfare the armies of the gods descended from the skies and did battle with the armies of the underworld. Caught in the middle were the mortals, both magician and non-magician alike, who by the end of the three month period had their number reduced by a third for the magicians and a half of the non-magicians fell against the impossible odds.

After the gods had ascended back to their realms above man beast, and the demon, devils and monsters had receded back into their lairs to lick their wounds, those who had survived the devastation found themselves in an equally hopeless scenario compared to the war; their former homes and lands were by and large scorched beyond recovery, and thus they were unable to generate enough food to feed the mouths that remained. As such, many turned to more violent means to gather their bread, meat and water, and pillaging and plundering exploded between the survivors who only a short time before had fought side by side for survival, now killed one another over the smallest amounts of clean water and food.

Yet even in the midst of the darkest times, hope still remained. Rumors reached many ears that in the former territory of Fiore a powerful wizard who could command the four elements had risen up and had been crowned king by several others who then declared the formation of a new nation under the Mage-King. Many flocked to the territory of old Fiore to swear their loyalty to the new king in order to gain protection and whatever measure of security they could.

Although many believed that the peace and prosperity brought about by the Mage-King would either fail with his death or shortly afterwards, the kingdom survived the death of the First Mage-King, and then for the next two beyond him. As the kingdom continued to prosper and expand, the former disbelievers arrived at the terrifying realization that they had been wrong. Now those who had not moved in during the first King's reign in order to conquer and divide it between themselves found that the kingdom was now stable enough to withstand their intentions, and they would be taught during the course of the First and Second Attempted Conquests of the Kingdom, N.R.Y. X146-X148 and N.R.Y. X153-X156 respectively. Both times they were repulsed by the now firmly established Legal Magician Guilds and the Royal Army and suffered extensive, irreparable casualties. Afterwards the Kingdom continued to work to restore the land within its borders and to expand when the need arose.

Chapter 1: The Everyday

June 17th, X162 N.R.Y.(New Royal Year): 8:36 a.m.

New Fiore Kingdom, Old Magnolia District

Asher Becket turned over with a sharp grunt as one of his scattered tools jabbed him in the small of the back. The dirty blond haired thirty-six year old awoke with a scowl on his face as he reached for the offending implement, his dark green eyes filled with a mixture of frustration and sleep deprivation. "Which one of you pieces of scrap did that?" he asked the tools as he bent himself sharply backwards in order to grab ahold of the offender. "Which one of you blasted-"

"Morning Ash." The sudden words caused Becket to sit bolt upright, straight into the underside of the magic engine he had fallen asleep beneath. The impact was painful, and drew a long stream of unintelligible curses and oaths from Becket, who bounced back from the impact and smacked back into the ground to boot.

"Blast it Arwyn," Becket growled as he carefully shifted himself out from underneath the partially reassembled magic engine and looked up to the white haired young man who stood in the doorway of his workshop/living quarters, "don't sneak up on people like that." The younger man grinned as he removed something from the inside of his blue and white uniform coat.

"Sorry," he said as he lightly flicked a silver wrapped meal block over to Asher, "but Aria asked me to get you." The woman's name snapped Asher's mind into perfect clarity, and he had already moved next to Arwyn and the meal bar had already vanished into his mouth with not even a crumb left to stick to his five-o'clock shadow. With a snap of his wrist the empty wrapper sailed into the recycle bin and then he was at the door, his head half turned to deliver a quip as he took off towards the two story slate colored building a short distance away.

"C'mon Arwyn, you don't want to keep our Guild Leader waiting do you?" The younger man smiled faintly as he followed after Asher with his own quick, smooth gait.

"Yessir."

—

On the second floor of the grey and blue guild building Aria S.A. Weissbach sat down heavily in her well worn, high backed leather chair as she stared down at the stack of papers on her desk, her dark red eyes filled with a mixture of frustration and resignation.

"We've been operating at capacity for the last four months but we're still having issues in the area..." Aria sighed as she ran her fingers through her long silver, grey hair that ran down to just past her shoulder blades. "The most pressing problems are with the bandits around the northern caravan routes, but besides that we still have Asher working on getting the train's systems up and running again... On top of that we need to get some new members into the unit in order to expand our focus and also to meet regimental standards..." Aria paused and closed her eyes for a moment, as she began to massage her forehead. Then she snapped, and with a roar of, "DAMMIT ALL!" she leapt onto her desk and blew all of the papers into the air with a savage kick. "SCREW CENTRAL AND THEIR REGULATIONS! DO THEY HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO RUN THIS GUILD?! CAN ANY SINGLE DESK JOCKEY IN THE FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO COVER THE EXPENSES THAT IT TAKES TO OPERATE OUT HERE IN THE GODFORSAKEN WASTELAND?!"

"Calm down, Leader, we're going to get compliants from the neighbors again if you keep exploding like that every time the papers stack up; however formidable and asinine they may be." The calm, gentle words instantly evaporated Aria's anger as their speaker, Arwyn Karengard, entered the office room slowly, followed closely by a visibly nervous Asher Becket. With a faint smile at the corners of his mouth Arwyn went down on one knee and began to pick up and reorganize the papers.

"Arwyn said that you wanted to see me, Guild Master?" Aria nodded and motioned for Asher to take the paper covered chair that was positioned in front of her desk. Asher took the seat, after he had gathered up and then shifted the papers to Arwyn's hands.

"If this is about the magic train engine, Master, I'm sorry but I'm going to need at least-" Aria held up a gloved hand to stop her Support Chief could continue.

"This isn't about the engine, Becket. Although I'm glad you're making any kind of progress, after what those ingrates over in Central managed to bungle with it." Becket grinned at the compliment as Aria continued, "but this is more so about the budget you submitted to me last week." Aria reached down and removed a moderately thick folder from one of the drawers of her desk. "You've given me what I believe to be your unbiased, and unpadded I might add, estimate on what it should take to keep this place running for the last half of this year," she opened the file as she spoke, and came to stop on one entry in particular that had earlier caught her interest, "but I'm afraid that we will not be able to increase your rate." Asher sighed in time with Aria and Arwyn, as all three of them knew what the next words out of Aria's mouth would be. "If anything, Central Command would be most overjoyed if you, myself and even Arwyn would take pay cuts at this time, in order to 'streamline' our expenses and to 'save the Kingdom' even one copper more."

"Sounds like someone would rather tell Command to take their coppers and shove them where the sun doesn't shine, I take it." The blithe words were laced with sarcasm as Arwyn pulled the last of the papers together and then returned them to Aria's desk, which drew a rueful look from the silver haired woman woman.

"Thank you, Arwyn, and you're right, I would like to tell off those bean counters from Central. But," Aria agreed as she turned her eyes over to the haggard, grease stained, and yet still presentable Asher, "I'm truly sorry Ash, but unless this guild of ours either finds an unlooted supply cache from the war or takes in some massive bounties soon, I will not be able to raise your salary by even half a copper." Asher sighed as he looked down at his greasy, soot stained black coveralls.

"I'm grateful for the sentiment Master," the man said as he pulled himself slowly to his feet. As he stood he reached into one of the many pockets to his coveralls and gently removed a well worn silver watch with the image of eagle on the face cover. "Seeing as how one meal block isn't anywhere near enough for a working man's breakfast, I'll be headed over to Nina's for a slightly belated breakfast." Asher turned after a smart, but quick, salute before he vanished from the office with as much noise as puff of smoke.

"So how are things really looking, Aria?" Arwyn's question was soft yet firm, and Aria groaned as she sprawled back into her chair. "Come on Aria, I have a right to know how we're doing don't I? Or is my title just for show?" The silver haired woman fixed her dark red eyes on Arwyn's uniformed figure.

At 6 feet and four inches, Arwyn cut an impressive, yet not overly imposing figure. His stark white hair that fell just past his shoulders framed and equally fair skinned face and a pair of dark blue eyes. His clothing consisted of his white and blue uniform jacket with the guild's emblem over his left breast, a white full helm with three pairs of wings that symmetrically descended down the sides of the helm. To match Arwyn also wore a pair of white and blue uniform pants, along with a pair of black dress gloves. On his feet were a pair of black cavalry style boots into which his pants were tucked. The perfect image of the kind of soldier that Central Command wanted. But inside of that image was a young man whose skills were far removed from that image, which was why he had been assigned to the old Magnolia Outpost, where para-military corrective action and defense force Guild-Unit 762, better known as the Twilight Brigade, was stationed.

In comparison Aria's own attire consisted of a dark blue tracksuit with two stage zip off sleeves, the first at the elbows and the second at the shoulders. Her feet were bare, but under her desk lay her knee high boots with her socks hung over the edges. She had removed her white dress gloves earlier in order to keep them neat, and she had laid them on top of one of the heavy ledgers that she had put off since the week before, unready to look at the painful figures she knew they were filled with.

"Is there anything you need me to get you, Aria? Something to wake you up, perhaps?" The weary Guild Leader sighed as she massaged her temples as she thought about the offer.

"Some coffee would be wonderful," she eventually said, as Arwyn moved towards the door. "With a little sugar, if it's in stock." The young man smiled fairly at the nearly inaudible addition.

"Roger that, Leader."

—

Honest Ogre's Market, Old Magnolia Proper. 11:12 a.m.

"The former Twilight Ogre Guild, a small time outfit that had made somewhat of a name for themselves as troublemakers and thugs for hire, had been demolished twice, once during the War by a random potshot from a heavy artillery battery,and the second time during the Twilight Brigade's initial clean up of the area. Afterwards the few members of the small time guild that had not been either imprisoned or ejected from the region started a small hardware emporium and blacksmith shop. In the years that followed a small hub had developed around the two shops which now accounted for a majority of the daily grocery and necessity shopping in the area. Between the fair prices and the relative proximity to the sheriff's station the area had become a center of commerce New Magnolia... okay, but where do I go if I'm trying to find my way out of this place?" The question was both rhetorical and serious, as Sana Swift looked down at the crudely drawn map she had carried with her for the past three months.

"Seriously, if I had known that the train system was down I would have waited for that munitions caravan from Crocus to be ready. But no, I decided to make my way here on foot... alright Sana, next time we'll wait before acting and save ourselves the pain of walking for three months without a proper pair of shoes, okay?" She said to herself, as she looked down at her bandage wrapped feet ruefully. "Just because I have the ability to use Take-Over Magic doesn't mean that I have to use it." Sana sighed as she put the map into the back pocket of her thread bare, heavily traveled in pants as she made her way over to a nearby booth that advertised, 'Fresh Kebabs'. The twenty-six year old woman allowed the urge to retort pass unmolested.

"What can I do for you, young lady?" The middle aged stall tender asked presently as Sana came close. "Care for some of my wares?"

"I'm honestly tempted, but I can't spare the money right now," Sana replied, as she felt her resolve waver in the face of the meat as it cooked. The older man smiled kindly as he assembled a kebab and then passed it to the younger woman.

"Have one on the house then for now, and come back with some friends sometime in return." The man's generosity was completely unexpected and Sana almost refused out of pride, but the smell of the meat broke her and she meekly accepted the skewer.

"Arigato," Sana said quietly.

"Eastern decent?" The older man asked, which startled Sana enough to almost drop the food.

"No, I'm a half. My mother was from Fiore, but my father was from the East," Sana explained, as she bit into the lightly seasoned meats. "Father cane to the West in order to find a stable place to live, and he then fell in love with my mother who was born in a small town a few days travel north of Crocus." The older man turned back to his meats as Sana spoke, and after he had turned several of the skewers over he turned back to Sana with a puzzled look on his face.

"So what brings you to a town like Magnolia? It isn't exactly exciting here unless you want to the occasional bandit raid or monster drive, and we don't boast the best security wise either. Those days were generations ago, and I can honestly say that most kids around here have been raised on the tales of Fairy Tail, Blue Pegasus and Sabertooth." Sana smiled faintly as the names of the former great guilds of Fiore came from the old man's mouth. "There's only one registered Guild in this region, and that one's a horse of a different color in a manner of speak-"

"Wait a moment," Sana interjected before the stall keeper could finish his sentence, "would that guild happen to be the Twilight Brigade?" The older man felt moderately miffed due to the girl's sudden interjection, but he took it in stride easily enough to reply cordially.

"Yes young lady, the very same. Also known as para-military corrective action and defense force Guild-Unit 762." Dana's eyes sparkled with energy as she slammed her hands down into the the wooden counter top of the stall with a boom that resounded through the area.

"Do you think that you could give me directions to the Guild Station please? I've been lost looking for it since sunup." The older man felt a wave of surprise wash over him as he almost visibly sweat dropped. He then sighed and snapped his fingers to summon a small, dark green magic screen.

"Yes, just give me a moment, young lady," he said as he swiftly tapped several keys on the screen in rapid succession before a single sheet of heavy paper materialized in front of Sana with a sharp bamph. "Here you go, this should help you find what you'r-"

"Thankyouverymuchandgoodbyehaveaniceday!" Sana has already vanished with a large billow of dust as the only mark that she had been in the area at all. The old man sighed once again as he began to tend to his skewers once again, when he realized that Sana had left him with exact change for the food without him having noticed.

'I guess she can't be that bad of a girl if she pays for something like that. But I wonder,' the man thought to himself as he removed half of the skewers and began to replace them with fresh ones, 'why would a girl like that be looking for a Guild-Unit all the way out here?'

—

A/N: Hello folks, after going underground due to the joys of factory labor, and getting a secondary job as a lifeguard, I, Azrael DarkWings, have returned to life! Man, it had been a while since I even had enough time to boot up my computer to come to this site, but I digress. This is the first chapter of my newest work, titularly named after the main force of this story: the Twilight Brigade.

Now I'm going to be handling things this time a little differently then before, and a few ground rules will be needed and some minor spoilers given in order for the character submissions.

First and foremost, please do not send in any magicians who use one of the four basic elements as their main magic: no fire, water, earth or wind magics. Those four elements are exclusively to be used by the four Elemental Earls, who stand just beneath the Mage-King in the hierarchy of the world I'm working with.

Secondly, please do not send in any OCs who use the same magic or magics that are used by characters in the original Fairy Tail works, except for things similar to Telepathy or Archive; as those magics to an extent could be noted as general magics that seem acceptable for mass use. So no Fire Dragon Slayers, no Ice Make Mages and no Take-Over Satan Soul people.

Thirdly, please fill out the character sheet that I will be putting on my profile page shortly as much as possible. That will make it easier to understand what I'm working with, and it will cut down, hopefully, on the amount of PM tag that will inevitably occur due to the nature of such things. Please also note that I would be most grateful if everyone sends in their character/s via PM, as I don't want to have another 'fun' scenario where I have to play tag with a guest reader who sends in a decent character.

Fourth, I hold my right to turn down a character if I think that it is not up to par, too Over Powered or simply too far out in left field for me to get a handle on. This is in no way meaning that I enjoy saying no to people or even because I want to be rude, but is simply due to me wanting to cut down on an area of potential problems and work that I just do not want to deal with.

Fifth and finally, the main guild in this story was addressed in universe as a Guild-Unit. Add to that the smattering of military jargon and I think you folks can get a fairly reasonable assumption put together as to the nature of the guild. The guild is connected to the New Fiore Kingdom Royal Army, albeit not entirely not officially, and there are several reasons for that, but you'll get to read about that later. As such, I'd like to have a little diversity in the characters in a little different way: some characters who come from either a stable home or military career, and some characters who come in as typical mage guild recruits or have lived out in the waste regions of Fiore, which while shrinking are still present and dangerous. Part of the story this time will deal with conflicts within the guild itself around these and other present elements.

To close I'll add a few more quick explanations to how the guild is put together to help divert certain characters towards certain areas. Aria's position as Guild Leader is the term used for the military side of her organization, and as Asher calls her Master she functions the same as Makarov in the sense that she in the superior officer on staff and as such is the highest authority on site.

Asher is more so in a capacity of a civilian contractor who runs the joint motor pool and maintenance division, and as such he isn't fully under Aria's command. On a quick side note Asher also balances the budget for the unit in order to help out Aria, and he is clean and forward in his methods. He receives a salary instead of doing jobs for pay, and he is the closest thing to pacifist in his confrontation methods that I have so far.

Now for Arwyn, whose position is as Aria's special adviser and also an S-Class equivalent. He acts on the day to day operations and also acts as one of the frontline fighters for the guild as needed, although he has a few restrictions that can only be lifted by someone higher in authority.

I'll explain Sana when the time comes, so I'll leave her alone for now.

Now I understand that's a lot of info, some of which is fairly revealing, but I wanted to give everyone a clearer picture in order to help narrow down who and what I'm looking for this time around. The next chapter should be up by either the end of this month or the early part of December. So until then, the is Azrael DarkWings signing off folks. See you on the front lines.