Chaos wasn't happy with his current circumstances to say the least; yes he was happy he was able to walk around in the world again but there were far too many things that frustrated him. For one he knew literally three sentient beings in the entire world, two of which would probably try and kill or arrest him on sight. The other one he was working for, but he was an idiot who gave Chaos only the vaguest bit of information to work with at the moment and it didn't make his life easier. All he knew was that there were "events" about to unfold in two different places that might be of harm to the most powerful being in existence. As to when they would unfold was an entirely different question that Acnologia didn't explain to him at the time. Chaos wanted to go to Acnologia's roost to yell at him for the lack of information but he knew that Acnologia wouldn't go back there for quite some time when he was off "exploring" the world.
"I should have just asked him when I was still in that hellhole shouldn't I?" he sighed
"You probably should have" Deus told him
"Oh I don't need any crap from you!" Chaos exclaimed angrily before turning around suddenly to see a girl curiously watching him "Nothing to see here little one I'm just a crazy guy who's in the middle of a conversation with his sword right now so move along" he told her
She didn't respond but she still stood there watching Chaos which made him unsure for a few seconds about what to do. The girl was most likely a teenager probably about thirteen or fourteen, she had black hair that she kept short, she was wearing a blue jacket with a white shirt underneath and khakis. Her defining feature were her brown eyes which told the story of a girl who'd been through a lot, Chaos had the uneasy feeling that he should have known who this girl was but didn't. He shrugged before turning around and continuing on his current path which would lead him back to the familiar Magnolia Town. Finally he reached there but his mind was focused on other things, namely that girl who had followed him the entire way there. The weird part was that every time he turned around she would stop in her tracks and return his curious stare, but she never moved to get closer or away. Chaos finally decided to set things straight between them and walked up to her to figure out why she was following him.
"Who are you little one?" he asked to her silence "Well?" he egged on
"Y-You don't know who I am?" she asked
"Thanks to some extenuating circumstances I only know a grand three beings that are still alive today and you don't happen to be part of that 'illustrious' group" he answered
"But we met before! You said you'd train me in magic when you came back from your journey, but you never did so I had to track you down!" she exclaimed
"Look kid, I've been in prison the last hundred and fifty years believe it or not so unless my spectral form wandered out to tell you that I doubt it was me who promised you anything" Chaos said before he figured out what she meant "Did this person who looked like me happen to have really sharp teeth, like dragon sharp not just razor sharp?" he asked
"Yeah, what's your point?" she asked clearly confused at his question
"Then it happened to be an idiot Dragon King who took my form… why he promised you that he would teach you magic is beyond me unless he said that knowing he'd free me and that you'd find me instead of him, unlikely as that is you really can't put it past him" Chaos explained to her
"What does that mean?" she asked confused
"It means that I technically didn't promise you anything so I'm not obliged to teach you anything little one" Chaos said turning around to enter the city
"What about me? What am I supposed to do now?" she asked catching up to him
"Beats me, maybe you should go to back to your parents I'm sure they're wondering where you are by now… although if you've gotten this far then I can't say they're the best parents in the world" Chaos suggested
"They're dead" she said softly
"Join the club" he replied "Maybe Acnologia destroyed her town and then wanted someone to train her to spite her parents… it wouldn't be the first time he did that" he thought
"Your parents died too?"
"Indeed they did and I turned out just fine, I mean all you need to do is become an assassin or mercenary for hire like I did. Granted the Council isn't accepting assassins anymore let alone kids your age into their ranks" he suggested
"Hey that's a great idea, become a hired blade! Oh wait but I'd need someone to teach me first and it looks like you're the closest person who looks like they know what to do in a fight and probably the best teacher"
"Your damn right I'm the best teacher around… fuck you've used my own advice and pride against me. I like you little one maybe I will train you, but be warned I'm also doing other things at the moment so it might take some time" Chaos realized
"Just take me with you" she said
"Well if I did that then I might be putting you into some dangerous situations, or nothing would happen and then I would bore you to death"
"That's okay it just means you'll have to train me faster"
"You really know how to put me in a bind don't you?"
"You learn fast when you're on your own"
"Indeed you do, what's your name kid?" Chaos asked as he walked on
"It's Katherine" she answered
"Alright then, I'm just going to call you Kat from now on, it'll save me some confusion in the future" Chaos said remembering his old comrade in arms "Oh and just call me Chaos for the time being"
The two of them walked into the heart of the city which now looked extremely foreign to Chaos, something he expected after being locked up for so long. The city had always been a prosperous town, but it was never this big and the amount of magic he could feel was much greater than he ever remembered. None of the magic seemed that powerful so he ignored it and continued on to his original destination. Kat noticed that as they were getting closer to the coast Chaos was walking faster and faster until she had start a light jog just to keep up with her determined master. He stopped once they reached a building that had recently been foreclosed and was up for sale, she noticed that he had a frown on his face, muttered something to himself, and turned around to leave.
"Come on, no reason for us to stay in this city any longer" he said as he walked by Kat
"Why did you come here in the first place?" she asked
"I was hoping to see if I could answer a few questions I've been waiting to ask for the longest time, unfortunately it looks like nobody's here to answer them for me." He answered cryptically
Kat didn't know what he had meant by that statement but knew better than to pursue the matter and stayed silent. He told her they would head to Crocus since if he was going to do his job right then the capital would be the best place to start. Again she had no idea what he meant by that, but figured this time it might be worth asking him what they were going to be doing.
"Why are we going to Crocus?" she asked
"Because it's a place filled to the brim with information trading, and that's just what I need at the moment if I want to help out my employer" Chaos answered
"Who is your employer?"
"The same idiot who promised thathe'd teach you magic but in the end was only doing it so he would make me suffer a bit more"
"I still don't get that"
"Even I don't get what he wants me to do right now" Chaos sighed
The path to Crocus was a long one, but they managed to reach an inn before night fall and got rooms for the night, tomorrow he would find new contacts. Chaos made Kat stay in her room while he was out; she had wanted to come with him but having a teenager alongside you while you entered the underworld of any city wasn't good for first impressions. He was glad to know that the shifty part of Crocus was still alive and well, but he was disappointed to find that none of these brokers were of the same quality as his old contacts.
"Geez, these guys are worthless" Chaos thought after knocking out another broker and taking his money "Although they are making me richer that's for sure" he continued pocketing the cash after making sure nobody saw
He sighed before heading back to the inn to check on Kat as he figured she either would have left already to find him, or was about to destroy the place and make him pay for it neither of which sounded appealing to him. After all of his searching the only information he got was that the Kingdom of Fiore was building something ridiculously big and would need a lot of magic to try and power it. Of course the information was unverified and barring a very dangerous infiltration of Mercurius that he'd rather not try at the moment, he couldn't give it too much weight. He went back to the inn to Kat's room and knocked on the door twice but nobody came to answer it. He tapped his feet on the ground impatiently for a few seconds before knocking louder this time to no response until he finally got frustrated and kicked the door open.
"What the hell are you going?" Kat screamed from the bathroom
"Oh there you are, I was just wondering if you had left to find me or were about to wreck up the place because you were pissed off at me. I see you've done neither, so good work young one" Chaos answered
"Did you not hear me saying I'd open the door after I was fully dressed?"
"No not really"
"Get out!"
"Fine" Chaos said closing the door on his way out "Jeez what's her problem, you think I'd have caught her with drugs or without her clothes on the way she was freaking out" he thought
"Okay now you can come in" Kat called
"I closed the door stupid" he replied "Thank you" he said walking in when the door was opened for him
"So besides kicking in my door did you find out anything that would help you on the mission you haven't told me about?" she asked taking a seat
"Well I did learn a lot about the current state of affairs, namely that the info trading business sucks now oh and that Fiore might be doing shady things a big emphasis on the word might. Other than that I've been walking around mugging information brokers" he answered
"Like you took their money?"
"No I kindly asked it from them and they gave it to me, what the hell do you think mugging means?" he asked exasperatedly to Kat who simply rolled her eyes at him "Long story short nothing is happening in this place at the moment and we're going to Ishval to see if anything is going on there"
"Don't you want to see the Grand Magic Games though?" Kat asked hopefully
"I don't even know what that is, but the look on your face says you want to go badly"
"Well duh! It's only got the top guilds of Fiore all competing for the right to be called the strongest magical guild throughout the land not to mention some of the best mages competing in it" she explained enthusiastically
"When the hell did this come about because they sure as hell weren't doing this when I was last in Fiore, granted that was an extremely long time ago so I suppose change is to be expected?"
"Two years ago to be exact, anyway the guilds all compete against each other in a bunch of competitions and fights against each other and occasionally someone dies!"
"Aren't you a bit young to get excited over someone dying?"
"I've already killed before, some bandits tried mugging me but I wasn't going to have any of that"
"We're getting off topic, so someone occasionally dies but you talk about competitions how does that prove who's the best guild in the land?"
"Well the challenges aren't known until after each guild has selected their representative, so it adds a sense of strategy"
"You mean luck if the challenge happens to suit the member they chose then that guild automatically has an advantage. However if it's a transportation challenge for example and you choose a dragon slayer then you're fucked, not because your entire guild is weak only because dragon slayers are susceptible to moving transport for whatever reason."
"Well even if that's true the fights aren't… oh wait they are random too" Kat tried
"There's only one way of deciding who the strongest guild is; a good ole brawl to the death, last guild standing is officially the strongest" Chaos said boldly
"I don't think the Council or Fiore would let that happen" Kat replied
"Neither would I, but if you're going to toss out these stupid titles like strongest then come up with some sort of system that doesn't rely on chance or luck. But I guess it would be smart of me to learn about potential enemies, alright we'll go to the Games young one" Chaos decided
"Yeah!" Kat said happily "Now get out!" she continued promptly kicking Chaos out of her room so she could go to sleep
Chaos shook his head and let out a small smile at her elation and he couldn't help but think of seeing a bit of Mavis in Kat. He did note that Kat tended to act more like he did when he was her age, granted he was a bit quieter and less pushy or so he thought. He still couldn't shake the odd feeling that these Grand Magic Games had a sort of sinister element to it. He wondered if the rumors that Fiore was building something massive had something to do with it; he knew it would need a lot of magic and this seemed like the perfect opportunity, gathering the best mages in the land to all fight each other would contribute a good chunk of magic. Then again if it's being used to challenge Acnologia a few years worth of magic would be nowhere near the required amount and he didn't know what mechanism they would possibly use to get all the magic without anyone noticing. Either way he would figure it all out in a few days when the actual events would begin so he went off to sleep rather than think about if for too long. Chaos didn't have anything planned for the next few days as he'd need to wait for the Grand Magic Games to begin for him to actually be able to do anything, so he decided to use this time to start training his new ward.
"Why are we leaving the city I thought we were going to stick around for the Games?" Kat asked him sullenly
"Wipe that look off your face we're going to see the games when they start, but until then I'm going to be training you to be an effective fighter" Chaos explained
"Oh, but why do we have to leave the city?"
"Because it's not normal or legal for me to be fighting a girl your age in the middle of a crowded street that's why" he explained patiently
"Oh that makes sense" she realized
They finally reached a place that Chaos deemed suitable for her training to begin, he ordered her to stretch out before they began training which she did quietly.
"Alright I've done that now what?" she asked
"This" Chaos said before punching her in the face sending her flying a few feet away
"What the hell was that for?" Kat asked getting up angrily and rubbing her cheek where she was struck
"The first rule of a fight is that it'll start whether you want it to or not, remember that because it's going to be important in the future" Chaos said with a smile as she got up "Let's see what you got kid"
"Oh I'll show you what I can do" she muttered darkly and charged towards Chaos who kept smiling she aimed a punch at his midsection which he easily blocked and then followed it up with a spin kick to her gut that nearly knocked the wind out of her and sent her flying back to where she was
"The second rule of fighting, don't ever assume your opponent will show you any mercy at any point in the fight so you'll just have to beat the crap out of them until they can't move or give up" he explained as she got up again
"I'll show him" she thought angrily while quietly pulling out an item wrapped in cloth from her jacket
"Whatcha doing over there?" Chaos called out happily
"Oh nothing" she answered with a smile taking the cloth off to reveal a revolver that looked very familiar to Chaos
"Now where did you get something like that?" he asked interestedly slowly realizing that this girl might have been related to Shiori's lieutenant Caylee.
"It's been passed down throughout my family for a while, and now I'm going to use it to kick your ass" she answered as she spun the chamber which stopped causing a familiar looking sprite to appear
"Woo! You're going to like this one Katherine it's the fifth chamber, ghost bullets for everyone!" it said before disappearing again
"Now what could that possibly mean?" Chaos asked with a hint of sarcasm
"Ha! You'll find out" Kat said confidently not picking up the sarcasm in his voice firing off three shots at Chaos who shrugged before dodging them easily and rushing towards Kat who tried hitting him with the last few rounds "Damn it all stay still!" she yelled before she heard a clicking noise from her revolver indicating it was empty
"Sucks to be you right about now" Chaos said as he had closed the distance between them and aimed a punch at her gut, but this time she moved out of the way and countered with a kick to his chest. Unfortunately for Kat it didn't do much and Chaos grabbed her leg and threw a good fifteen feet away before she landed making her drop the revolver
"Ow, my everything!" she replied weakly
"The third and most important rule about fighting is that there's no such thing as a fair or honorable fight. When it comes to life and death survival is all that matters, you do what's best for you even if it means you cheat to win. Although I think you understood that when you tried pulling this thing out on me, but unfortunately you had a bit of bad luck when it landed on a chamber that I've seen before. Oh and remember there's no shame in realizing your opponent can't be beaten at the moment and running away and figuring out a way to beat them" he told her
"Wait you've seen this gun?" she asked startled
"Well only three of the chambers really so I still don't understand it fully, but I saw a girl by the name of Caylee use it quite affectively against the Executioners of Fiore a long time ago. Granted she knew was a bit older than you were and knew what to do when her enemies got closer to her, you do look a bit like her though" he answered picking her up
"Caylee?" Kat asked
"She's the person whose gun you're using right now and I'm guessing you two are related somehow but I can't be too sure.
"You weren't lying when you said you've been in prison for a long time huh?" Kat asked finally
"Quite so, but no time for that we still have a lot of work to do" he answered
The next few days were hell for Katherine who at some points wanted to run away from Chaos whose sanity seemed in question during the training. The worst part was that he hadn't even shown her any magic techniques yet, everything was all about hand to hand fighting, improving her agility, or weapons training and he was strict about making sure everything was perfect. After he would show her a new trick they would have a sparring session so that in his words the lesson would be driven home into her head, usually all she gained was a punch to the face from Chaos who didn't hold back against her. Strangely after he sparring sessions he would quickly nurse her back to health, take her out to whatever restaurant she wanted to go to, and then they'd chat about random stuff until it was time for bed. She started wondering if he was acting like a big brother who liked to hit his sister a bit harder than normal people liked to do so. However one thing she couldn't deny was that she was learning a lot from him at least in terms of fighting without magic, something that he stressed was important.
"No point in being able to use magic if you aren't in shape to stay in a fight for too long. Also sometimes using your magic will be a waste and you can just finish off enemies quickly without putting in too much effort" he would tell her
Finally the first day of the Grand Magic Games had arrived and he told her he'd give her time off as long as the festival lasted. He bought them tickets for the entire duration of the event with some pretty good seating too, with money she knew he had stolen but she didn't care. She was excited to finally see all the events up close instead of having to watch on a viewing lacrima, but every second she had to wait for the announcement of which guilds would be competing was like an eternity for her. Finally the event was going to start and there weren't many surprises initially the usual guilds had qualified for the main event.
"There's Lamia Scale! Hmm, but it looks like Jura isn't competing again I really wish he would then maybe they'd finally win the event instead of tying for first like last year" Kat said
"Who?" Chaos asked
"Right you don't know much about the current guilds do you? Well Lamia Scale has been a top competitor the last few years, but Jura Neekis who's one of the ten Wizard Saints doesn't compete with them, maybe he thinks it wouldn't be fair to the other guilds" Kat explained
"Neekis huh? Didn't realize the Earth god had kids" Chaos thought "Hmm, still none of these guilds look or sound impressive I mean Blue Pegasus, those guys don't look like they could handle a fight?"
"They may look more like models than mages but they've been strong competitors in the past" Kat explained
Chaos shook his head in disbelief at that statement but still decided to sit through the events just to see if there were any mages worth his interest. The other guilds didn't do much to pique his interest although there were a few mages he figured would at least give him a fight before he killed them.
"Sabertooth? I thought those guys were a bunch of weaklings?" Kat said
"What?" Chaos asked again
"They've never been in these final rounds before but apparently they had a change in leadership and some new mages so maybe they'll do better this time around" Kat explained
"Maybe" Chaos muttered before hearing the name of the last guild being called out "Fairy Tail?" he asked clearly interested
"Yeah they used to be good, but ever since their core group went missing they haven't done so well. Their remnants suck and that's being nice" she explained
"Poor Mavis, I doubt she'd like to see how bad her guild has become" Chaos thought "well at least she's dead too… damn I've made myself sad"
He settled in and watched the competition stages begin, to a lot of people's surprise it was the Sabertooth mage Rufus who to Chaos looked something out of a Robin Hood tale taking the victory easily. His memory make magic interested Chaos to a certain extent but it was nothing he couldn't handle; he was more focused on what was happening to the magic that was being released. The amount of magic he could feel was being drained away, but not due to simply floating off in the air like it normally would instead it was being sucked in by the stadium itself. He quickly realized that maybe the Kingdom was up to something and he got out of his seat to investigate where exactly the magic was going. He moved quietly through the crowd and was tracking which way the magic was going; he had to admit that it was impressive how very few people had noticed this and the only reason he figured out what was happening was because he was on the bored and on the lookout for something like this. Suddenly he heard a patrol coming by and was forced to hide in the shadows to avoid being detected.
"Oh great of all the people to show up why is he here?" Chaos thought as he saw a Council patrol led by Lahar walking by him "Well there goes my chance to figure out where the magic was going, but maybe this won't be my only chance to find out what they're up to I just wish Lahar would hurry up and leave already why the hell is he standing there looking around… crap maybe he knows I'm here"
"Captain is there something wrong" one of the squad members asked
"It's nothing I guess, but I thought I heard someone walk by here and I wanted to check it out" Lahar said continuing to scan the room "Let's keep going"
"Stupid Lahar, ruining everything for me" Chaos thought as he watched the enforcement squad leave "Guess I should go back to my seat then"
He went back to his seat being careful to avoid being seen by Lahar who probably would have arrested him on the spot. Apparently Kat didn't notice that he had left earlier as she was far too enthralled in the current fight going on. It was one of the Sabertooth mages against a weird dog/human hybrid from Lamia Scale and the match wasn't even close. The Sabertooth mage who apparently was named Orga was having fun with Toby the dog person and not really trying.
"Why is he making this match longer than it should be?" Chaos asked
"He's working the crowd and trying to show how powerful Sabertooth is, in his defense it is working I mean it's pretty clear he's going to win the match now I just want to see how" Kat explained right before Orga decided to end the match hitting Toby with a large amount of black lightning that made Chaos perk up
"Lightning God-Slayer Magic huh? This certainly does make things a bit more fun but how the hell is that dog person not dead?" Chaos said
"That's awesome it looks like those mages they got really did boost Sabertooth's ranking they're already dominating this competition and it's only the first day, I don't know how Toby isn't dead though" Kat said in an excited voice
"Well while you were enjoying matches that reward being lucky rather than good I was off doing some sleuthing and finding out some interesting stuff about this place" Chaos told her
"Oh yeah?" she asked clearly uninterested
"Listen up; this'll be a good lesson for you. Tell me what's going on with the magic that was released during the fight"
"What do you mean? It just gets sent up to the air as magic particles"
"That's what it's supposed to do, but try sensing what's happening to the magic in the air and only the magic in the air"
"Fine" she said taking a moment to do what Chaos asked her to do "It's reducing, but way too fast to say that it's doing that naturally it's being drained into the stad-" she said before Chaos covered her mouth
"Keep it down I don't think we're supposed to know what's happening to the magic, but it's good that you can at least do this much"
"What does it mean?"
"It means that the Kingdom is doing some weird things that require a lot of magic and this is how they're choosing to gather it. I'm impressed with them though, calling in a massive festival together with a silly title that everyone cares about for some reason and quietly draining their magic. The best part is that very few people are going to notice since they're so enthralled with the event like you were a few seconds ago!" he said admiringly
"So what are we supposed to do?" she asked ignoring the barb he threw at her
"Good question I'm not exactly sure how the two of us are going to deal with a nationwide conspiracy the question is whether we can get some physical proof, and whether or not the Magic Council is on this. I can't imagine they are, but with the new Chairman leading them you can never be too sure" he answered "But at least I know my employer wasn't just lying to me about events that were going to happen, still wish he'd have told me when they would happen"
"But what about now, what's our plan of action?" Kat asked
"Nothing, we just sit here and wait for Fiore to unveil their new weapon which might be now or sometime in the future. So relax and enjoy the Grand Magic Games until then"
Author's Note
This story is kind of a sequel to the Past (another of my stories) in that it does involve characters like Chaos and Mavis who both appeared in the Past. Also it explains how Chaos and Acnologia know each other and how Chaos found himself working under the Dragon King, and I guess there are some plot points that stem from the prequel.
You know, now that I think about it you don't really need to read every chapter in the Past to get what's going on in this story. Just read the epilogue and you'll be able to understand what Chaos is supposed to be doing...I'm serious now if you want to read the Past then you can.