Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.
In an undisclosed location deep underground, way out of the reaches of most of humanity, there was a single room. Despite being only a single room, it was quite spacious, being big enough to house an incredibly powerful computer and all of the large screens attached to it. Sitting in a simple black chair before the screens that numbered at least 50 was only a single woman. She was the only person on the face of the Earth that knew of this room's location, for it was hers and hers alone.
Finally, after all the work I've done, the project is complete, she thought, relieved, as she looked up at the data flying across the screens. To anyone else, the strings of data streaming across the glass screens would seem like nonsense, but that too had a reason. She was working on a subject not completely unknown to humanity, but rather completely untouched by it, for humanity had never (fully) proven its existence before her.
With this project's completion, the limits of what is fundamentally possible will be pushed once again, she reflected proudly. I really cannot be grateful enough for the fact that I was able to find that source of 'magic' in Egypt. Without it, I never could have come this far so quickly. With it, I can finally escape this world.
Aren't you just running away again? As per the usual, her ever prominent inner voice had something to say about her situation.
It's called opening new doors rather than staring at an old and closed one and waiting for it to open. I only phrased it in a different way, she retorted. Dropping into a more mellow tone, she continued, Although I suppose this doesn't solve the real issue… But I doubt anything can solve it, even with this Egyptian 'magic'...
That's a pretty pathetic path of thought if you ask me, it responded, calm as ever.
I don't think I asked, she sharply returned.
Too bad, you get my opinion anyway and you always will because it's just like that, it said. Now, how about you hurry up and do something more useful than talking to yourself before I say anything else you obviously won't like.
Whatever, but until we're acclimated to our new home, wherever that may be, how about you keep most of your opinions to yourself? It's obviously impossible for you to keep everything you think of to yourself, but at least don't do this to 'us' every single day while we're still unfamiliar with the new lands. Better yet, how about you decide whether or not you want to be supportive of me or a detriment to my life? You've always been the latter of the two, but since we're going to a new place and opening new doors, there's always room for a change of heart.
Yeah, sure, whatever.Doesn't matter. I'll shut up for a while and 'ponder'. Or so you'd hope…
… Just do it.
You can't control me.
I realize that but just do it anyways. Making sure to move on before it got a chance to respond again, she continued, We're leaving now, so be quiet and let me do what I need to do.
Whatever.
Sighing, she rose from her chair and let her midnight black hair fall to its natural place, perfectly blending in with the black sweatshirt she was wearing, which in turn matched her black sweatpants. Most everything visible on her was black, save her skin of course, from her irises to the flats on her feet. The only thing she didn't color black other than her skin was her nails, which she gladly kept in their natural state for no other reason than that she liked it better that way.
Standing straight, she looked over the data on the screen one last time, which had settled into various mathematical representations and comments that were spread across the different screens. Technically, all of these things weren't completely necessary. She could've cut down the time spent on this project by half if she hadn't done what wasn't completely necessary, but she had a good reason to do the extra work. While all the extra calculations weren't necessary for traveling to another world, it would be impossible to control where the endpoint would be without these calculations. In other words, without the extra calculations, the chances of ending up in an inhospitable place were astronomically high. She could not risk failure on something she had worked so hard for, so she made sure to be absolutely certain that she would end up on a world that would make a good new home.
Plus, she added to herself, if I can get the basics of this instant transportation down with the calculations necessary in mind, I can use it for much easier transportation in the next world.
Hurry up! You're taking too long!
I told you to shut up, didn't I?!
Quickly committing everything on the screens to memory, she then willed the world around her to act at her whim. Thus, a blinding pure white light enveloped the entire room and when it cleared, the woman was no longer there. Only the lone black chair remained before the screens, which had all turned dark.
Standing in the middle of what appeared to be a forest, the black-haired woman took in her surroundings. She was relieved to breathe in the fresher air and see a bluer sky in comparison to the heavily polluted Earth, but she didn't have the slightest expectation that she'd become so short. At first, she just thought that everything in this new world was bigger, but then she realized that her body felt a little different. It was no longer the shape and moderate curve of the young adult she was, but rather the shape and nearly flat curve of her 12-year-old self. She was pretty sure that there was nothing in the calculations about her body being suddenly over a decade younger, but she could always just change back into her older appearance if she felt like it, so it didn't matter all that much. She could at least be grateful that her clothes changed sizes to meet her sudden new needs.
Rerouting her thoughts to more useful subjects, she took in her immediate surroundings. Beneath her was a layer of exceptionally green grass, perfect in color albeit wild and unkempt, only blemished here and there by the rocky ground under it. Around her up to her waist were innumerable species of shrubs, bushes, and ferns. At eye level, she was met with only a few similar species of broad-leafed trees. It seemed like just any other wild forest… until she looked upwards.
Looking up, she was met with a most bizarre sight. A single tree stood out so much from the rest of the land that she could not help but follow its gnarled, mildly curved trunk skywards. As her gaze rose higher, she eventually saw the branches of the tree, which resembled twisted roots rather than actual branches. Above that, she saw what she thought of as an island on top of the tree, which looked ridiculous yet very real
Allowing her eyes to follow even higher up, she was met with another sight she didn't expect. She could've sworn that when she looked up when she had first arrived, she had seen a spectacularly blue sky, but now, she was absolutely sure that she was looking at a wall of water. Above her. …
"At least I ended up somewhere interesting…" she sighed. "I wonder why I never thought of making a little underwater world, though. I could be all alone, enjoying the scenery around me while the fish swim by on the other side of the glass - or a massive 'magic' barrier in this case."
My interests aside, I should probably gather a little information on this world to go off of, she decided. It'd be boring if I knew everything from the get-go, so I'll have to limit myself to only the bare minimum…
Using only a little of her mysterious power, she scanned the world for some general knowledge that could be helpful:
{Language:
The entire world, known as Earthland, seems to speak a language very similar to Japanese. There are a few dialects spread across the different continents, but their differences with the main language are subtle.}
{Political Geography:
I am currently on land not claimed by any country, although it is loosely affiliated with a country known as the Kingdom of Fiore. The Kingdom of Fiore, or just Fiore, is located on the western end of the continent known as Ishgar. Fiore shares the continent with Isvan, the Principality of Veronica, Seven, Bosco, Iceberg, Joya, Bellum, the Kingdom of Stella, Minstrel, Midi, Desierto, Sin, Caelum, Enca, and the Pergrande Kingdom. Of those countries, Caelum and Enca are island nations while the Pergrande Kingdom is comparable in size to the rest of the countries combined. To the west of Ishgar is the continent of Alakitasia, whose biggest and most influential country goes by the name of the Alvarez Empire.}
{'Magic'?:
Magic is, in fact, a very prominent thing on Earthland. Additionally, it is very similar to the thing I've been calling "magic", if not the same in principle. Particles of magic are known as 'Ethernano' and are a part of every living organism on Earthland and are abundant throughout the atmosphere itself.
Mages/Wizards are people who can use their Magic Power to cast spells and employ magical objects, whereas the majority of people can only use magic items. Making up 10% of Earthland's population, mages are something like magical batteries, where they can use a certain amount Magic Power before having to 'recharge' their internal Ethernano storage. The remaining 90% of Earthland's population is either incapable or unwilling to use Magic, although mostly the former.
Mages are generally capable of using only one or two types of Magic. To make up for the lack of an ability to diversify in their skillset, many mages join together to form guilds. Some people join for that reason, some join for the money you get by doing jobs with the guild, but some just join for the social interactions and amusement they might get from being in a guild. The leader of a guild is known as the Guild Master and is often addressed as such.
Fiore is the most magically influenced country on the continent of Ishgar because its government is very welcoming to mages and the wonders of magic, but the other countries are not to be discredited.}
{Time:
Individual days, weeks, and months carry little importance on Earthland. People mostly pay attention to the cycle of the moon, the four seasons, and count of the years. Speaking of which, the current year was known as X791. On Earthland, the "X" is put before the year, much like A.D., B.C., B.C.E., or C.E. would go after the year on Earth.
… I guess I'll just be speaking Japanese for the rest of my time here, then… Azu decided, knowing that pretty much everyone on Earthland spoke some form similar to the Earthern language she knew. All things considered, I'll probably also settle down in Fiore since it's the most magically advanced country and since it's the closest country to my current location.
Sweeping her gaze around once again, she murmured, "A world of bountiful magic… Just what have I thrown myself into?"
Turning her attention once again to the land around her, she finally chose to take her first steps in the new world. (She hadn't actually taken a single step from where she had appeared on Earthland, only swiveling her head to soak in her surroundings.) Walking leisurely through the forest, she saw an enormous, scaly… thing… walking on its hind legs with its much smaller arms dangled in front of it. If not for the prominent, dark round section of the upper front part of its head, she could've sworn that it was related to a dinosaur like tyrannosaurus rex from Earth.
Continuing her stroll, she eventually came upon an unsettling sight. In a straight line that went on for at least 100 yards, the grass was ripped up from the ground, the trees were snapped in half, and most concerning of all, around 20 half-buried bodies were strewn across the barren stretch. Some of them showed signs of significant injury, although they were bandaged. Others were simply buried and showed no signs of injury whatsoever, baffling the woman-turned-girl in black. How could they be uninjured in the aftermath of a clearly devastating attack? Why did some of them have bandages across their bodies, but sustained no injuries from that same attack?
Looking skywards once more, she reasoned, Maybe that magical barrier that's keeping this place dry despite being underwater is the reason why these people are uninjured despite the destruction around them.
She walked up to one of the bodies - one with spiky pink hair - and touched his unburied and outstretched hand. He was warm, but he didn't have a pulse. It was like he wasn't quite dead, yet he wasn't quite alive either. Checking on a few other bodies to see if the rest would show the same signs as the pink-haired one, she only got the same results time and time again. She could only liken what she was sensing to people being frozen in time, for if that weren't the case, a live body shouldn't be warm without a pulse. The only other option was that all of them were murdered seconds before she had arrived, but that was nigh impossible for many reasons, one of which was that she heard no signs of a scuffle since she had arrived and she hadn't arrived all too far from where she currently was.
"Should I do something about this?..." she wondered aloud.
"I'm sure they would appreciate it greatly if you helped out," a new voice behind her said. "As would I."
Jumping slightly, for she hadn't detected the presence behind her until it had spoken, she carefully turned around to face the source of the voice. It would be her first conversation on the new world and she was rather unsure of what to expect, but she decided to expect the worst just in case. Once she had turned around, she was met with a short girl (although they were actually about the same height) with peachy skin and very long, wavy, pastel yellow-blonde hair that almost reached to her bare feet. Adorning the top of her head was an ahoge, which the girl in black had never seen on a real person. The blond girl wore a frilly white dress with patterns of blue and hot pink near the chest area. Atop her ears were seemed to be a pair of small white wings. All of those light colors brought out the deep green of her eyes, which seemed to be sad yet hopeful.
"Who are you?" The girl in black questioned.
"I am Mavis Vermillion, the first Guild Master of Fairy Tail," the girl in white, now known as Mavis, answered before continuing, "Who are you?"
"I am Azu Yami," the girl in black, now known as Azu, responded. "I suppose I should also mention that I just arrived in this world, although I do know a little about it."
"Another world?" Mavis asked curiously.
Nodding, Azu continued, "I came from a world known as 'Earth' rather than 'Earthland', and I ended up on this island when I came here. This place seems to be protected by a magical barrier, although then there's also these people here that look less than okay…" She paused slightly before starting again; "Are these people here part of your guild - Fairy Tail?"
"Ah… I knew your magic signature seemed different from anything I've ever felt before," Mavis commented, curious as to Azu's origins. "But that aside, yes, these were the core members of Fairy Tail before they were attacked. All I could do was turn their collective power into what you described as a magical barrier, freezing them in time and sparing them from harm. The ground was only protected from about 99.5 percent of that one attack, but the damage done to the island doesn't matter in comparison to the lives of my guildmates."
"Who attacked?" Azu asked, wondering who or what could've potentially done so much damage in one strike.
"The Black Dragon of the Apocalypse, Acnologia," Mavis replied, although taking on a foul tone. "If not for how strongly all of Fairy Tail felt towards their fellow guildmates as one big family, my spell never would've been able to save them."
"So, dragons exist here…" Azu surmised quietly. Raising her voice so that Mavis could hear clearly, she inquired, "What do feeling strongly as a family and your spell have to do with each other?"
"Oh! The spell I used turns the bonds of friendship and family of my guildmates into a defense whose strength is equal to the strength of their bonds!" Mavis exclaimed with joyous pride.
'Friendship saves the day', huh… If that's actually feasible here, I ought to expect ridiculous things more often from here on out, Azu mused, recognizing the cliché. "I see." Recalling something Mavis had mentioned, she then asked, "You said something like 'my magic signature seemed different from anything you've ever felt before', right? Is it that different?"
"I know I haven't seen everything that Earthland has to offer, but your signature feels much more varied, more expansive, and far more powerful," she responded. "In another sense, it was also very…"
An awkward silence ensued, although only until Azu broke it some seconds later, intrigued as to how Mavis was able to notice such details. "Yes?"
"In another sense, it was also very dark. Interestingly, it's a color almost exactly like that of your clothes, of your hair, and of your eyes," Mavis finished.
"Thanks?..." Azu returned with a dead expression. Lightening up, she continued, "That should be a good enough introduction for now, but we've still got your guildmates to take care of, no?"
"Thank you!" Mavis shouted in delight, beginning to radiate rays of pure and innocent joy with a great smile on her face and with stars in her eyes. Had the rays been visible, Azu was sure that she would have been blinded almost instantly.
This may as well be very interesting…
"… different …"
Even if she knew that Mavis didn't mean anything bad with that word, it only kept ringing in Azu's head. It took her away from the issue at hand, even for a little, and made her look back on the long years of work it took her to get to where she was.
\\ Flashback \\
It was a blissfully ignorant time - junior high school.
Naturally, a child cannot be expected to know how the world works. For that matter, an adult cannot necessarily be expected to know how the world works. For all they know, everything could be within reach. Everything could be possible. It could only be a matter of willpower to achieve a far fetched goal.
At the beginning of her junior high school years, Azu's mental companion was brought to life. She didn't will it to do so and she never did find a solid reason for its appearance and existence. Regardless of its reason for existence, it slowly began to give her wonderful images of grandeur, vast power, unrivaled intelligence, and all aspects of an 'ideal' life imaginable. She found herself gravitating towards the wonderful images, for she saw herself lacking in all ways possible, despite what others would say about her.
People always told her how smart she was, some even calling her a genius, but she knew better than to take those comments to heart. All she had to show for were excellent grades in school. Do grades in school truly represent how smart a person is? Not at all. Do people actually believe that grades have nothing to do with how smart a person truly is? Of course not. Not where she went to school, at least. All she had was a mind that soaked up knowledge like a sponge. It was all just memorization and comprehension for her, because that's all she needed. Intelligence had little to do with her academic success.
No, what truly mattered when she considered her lack of intelligence, and lack of greatness, was the number of mistakes she would constantly make. People say it's good to make mistakes sometimes because they serve as learning experiences, but she never seemed to be able to learn from her mistakes. Over and over, she'd keep making the same mistakes, time after time again. She humiliated herself in ways she would never be able to ignore nor forget anytime soon. They always served as reminders to how truly stupid she was when she couldn't learn to do things the right way for once. They always served as reminders to how truly worthless she was when she couldn't stop making the same exact mistakes.
Soon enough, she began to lose herself to the thoughts that her mental companion fed to her. It only served to turn her into the things she thought of herself as - stupid and worthless. She began to lose sight of everything that mattered to her. She began to lose interest in everything but the wonderful images of greatness. She began to lose motivation to do anything constructive.
And yet she did nothing to stop herself. A year later, her situation was becoming too dire for her to handle. Visions of greatness still very much prevalent in her mind, she could no longer stand idle. She had to do something. She knew that things were only getting worse and worse for her, never quite hitting rock bottom even though such a limit should have been hit long ago. She knew that, at that rate, she wouldn't be able to survive with herself much longer. As she analyzed her situation frantically, searching for solutions and grasping at the greatness she so longed for, she saw only one possible option left. And it just happened to be the option that was the closest to impossible. She even knew that it was a nearly impossible task, but she thought of it as the only thing she could do.
She would have to pursue the grandeur that had been endlessly fed to her for an entire year.
It's also a time when people often begin to change and where some simply can't hope to cope with themselves - junior high school.
She put every ounce of energy and every shred of intelligence she could muster into the project right from the beginning, planning her steps relentlessly. Miraculously, she kept up with her school work, but she only cared about her personal project. She was also fortunate in the sense that her parents were often on long business trips and didn't particularly care about what she was doing. They also happened to leave her with practically everything she would ever need for her endeavor. It all seemed too perfect, but one can't complain about a 'perfect' start when the task ahead is tough.
Eventually, she had planned out endless abilities and how to achieve them scientifically. Some were incredibly generic, like flight, while other things were more fantastical, like the ability to control energy of all kinds. As she let her imagination run wild, using everything possible to her advantage, more and more abilities began to fall under the fantastical category.
Whereas the results certainly look enticing, the process of attaining such abilities was less than attractive. She's relying on technology and science to achieve her goals, not magic of any sort, so she'd have to somehow connect or implant something inside of herself to gain each individual ability. Naturally, that sort of work was extremely dangerous, even more so because she was doing it herself, as a child. Everything banked on the first try working with absolute precision because if it didn't work out, she risked unknown consequences, even death. However, she didn't care all too much what it took to achieve her goals so long as they could be reached in the end.
In the end, the mishaps came again and again, resulting in various random effects to her body. With most of those effects, she would eventually just reverse them or somehow change them to make them useful with her new abilities, but there was one that she decided to keep as is. She could've reversed all of its effects easily, but she decided to keep one that turned her the color of her blood into midnight black. She took care of all the other effects of having black blood, but she thought that having black blood was cool in of itself.
…
Years later, she would finally complete the technological modifications to her body. Along the way, she had changed her brain dramatically, splitting it into a technological half and a natural half. It was the most single most dangerous operation she had performed on herself, but she didn't regret the risk at all. With a technological half of her brain, she not only provided a central figure to control all the other abilities flawlessly but also greatly increased her computational ability, raised her level and speed of comprehension, and gained the ability to limit her emotions.
At that point, it was fitting to call her insane, for she truly was. Her emotions were beyond hope to control by any normal methods, which was part of the reason why she was so willing to perform the operations on her brain. She ultimately decided on simply cutting off most of her negative emotions. It didn't make her a happy person by any means, but at least it would mean she wouldn't have to suffer as much.
Seemingly finished with what began as a nearly impossible task, she was still technically human, but she no longer really felt like that was true. Her body and mind were too different from what people would normally consider human, but she did not care. She had given herself a brand new way of life and she knew better than to waste it.
Even during the time she was developing her abilities, she had been traversing the globe. Initially, she had done it in search of new ideas for her list of abilities, borrowing ideas from stories of immortals, gods, demons, heroes, magic, and whatever else she could find. Now, she did it for the thrill of travel. She was free to sightsee, learn about culture in detail, learn the intricate history of the world, and enjoy the endless treasures the Earth had to offer.
Eventually, she reached her last region: Egypt. She had visited previously to learn about the small details on their deities, but she hadn't fully appreciated the country's splendor back then. This time, she made sure to do things like touring the tombs and ancient burial grounds that were rumored to be guarded by special magic spells/curses. However, when she had reached one burial ground in particular, she felt something strange, something she hadn't felt anywhere else on the planet. Normally, it would be easier to brush off such a feeling by thinking that there's always more to explore about the planet, but her situation was quite different. It wasn't as if there were too many things on Earth she hadn't sensed in some way or another, for she had been from the poles to the center of the Earth before reaching that one special area.
The special feeling urged her to come closer to it and, curious, she gave in to it. Wandering through the ancient burial site, she was eventually led to the grave of a rather interesting man: the head inspector that oversaw the construction of the pyramids of Giza. Initially, she saw nothing too special about the grave, but the feeling was emanating strongly from a particular spot near the center of the grave. Normally, she wouldn't desecrate a grave, especially not one as important as this, but she once again gave in to the special feeling.
It was not long before she found the object she was looking for. It was a jar, perfectly intact after thousands of years, tightly sealed and complete with hieroglyphs on its side. She could only assume the hieroglyphs were something like an ancient 'magic spell'. Initially, she laughed off the thought of the item possessing magic because she had never found evidence of such a thing existing on Earth and because magic was just a childish concept to her, but the jar in her hands insisted on defying her thoughts. It practically screamed that it was bursting with magical energy.
Compelled to open the jar, she found an iridescent liquid within it that was glowing, if only slightly. She stared at it momentarily before a new feeling compelled her to drink the liquid. It wasn't as if she hadn't questioned that particular feeling, but it forced itself through her doubts until she had downed its contents fully.
Upon drinking the glowing liquid, she felt as if her insides were exploding. It was the first time in a long time that she had felt such intense pain, for even most of her most painful experiments weren't that painful. She had an ability to heal herself but each time she used it, she only found herself in excruciating pain once again. When she tried more forcefully, she only increased the amount of pain that followed. Like most people, she didn't enjoy being in pain, so she eventually forced herself to black out and hope the pain would be gone once she woke up again.
She probably could have found a better place to black out than in front of the grave she had just robbed, though.
…
Hours later, she finally woke up once again. However, she no longer felt the same as she had before drinking the glowing liquid. The pain was gone (thankfully), but she felt a new dimension of power within her, one with so much more potential waiting to be tapped. Then and there, her challenge to attain even greater heights was revived. Giving her thanks to the deceased inspector for granting her such an opportunity, even if he hadn't meant to do that, she left to begin her second journey.
This time, things would be more complicated than just imagining ideas and making them possible thanks to the world's scientific knowledge and a little creativity. To her understanding, her new magical power was not bound by the known laws of science, or at least not all of the time. However, it clearly had its own laws of nature because it proved very difficult to get anything useful out of her new power. With this 'magic', she would have to come to an understanding of an entirely unknown type of energy. Only then could she figure out how to use her magical powers effectively to create new and improved abilities.
Somehow, she just knew that things were only going to get more dangerous from that point on.
…
Years more passed and she had finally mastered all the aspects of her magical abilities. Eventually, she had come to the realization that the abilities she created with her 'magic' were basically just insanely powerful versions of the abilities she had previously created with science alone. She found that for magical and technological abilities alike, the sky was the limit so long as one's imagination could still run wild and so long as one still had it in them to continue working at their goals. For her, all she needed was creativity and motivation (although the first was much more plentiful than the second).
The downside of her situation, however, was that governments around the world were after her for various reasons. Some wanted her dead for political reasons while others wanted her to work for them, with politics being only one of many reasons. She managed to stay out of a majority of that mess, but she did eventually have relations with the governments of a few select countries.
She marveled at the fact that she had somehow never let her immense power get to her head. She had long had the power to take over entire countries, continents, the entire world, or simply destroy all of them if she wanted to, but she had never done more than try to live her new life to its fullest extent.
Azu had given herself a new life and she wasn't about to just go and waste it.
\\ End Flashback \\
"-u? Azu?" Mavis asked, a worried look spread on her face.
Noting that she had spaced out for a considerable amount of time, Azu simply told Mavis, "Don't worry. I was just looking back to the past for a bit, but the condition of your guildmates takes priority right now." A small pause later, she continued, "Well, I haven't got much of a clue as to what to do, although I'd assume you know something?"
Mavis's only response was another bright smile, accompanied by her little wing ornaments flapping excitedly.