I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 2: Step 3 - Magic.
"Agan... Pa... Pagan!" A red shadow said as she blinked her eyes trying to make the bright light disappear.
"Mmm... two minutes more mom..."
"Pagan, Pagan?"
Pagan moaned and sat up eyeing at Maginus' face that was way too close.
"Guy." She said yawning and shoved him back. "Personal space."
Stretching her arms behind her head she was happy to note that the previous moving difficulties were mostly gone. It still sucked that she was in the body of a kid though.
"You can come out when you're ready. There's clothes for you over there." He said and pointed to a pile of cloth on one of the shelves, then pointed to some boots by the door. "Shoes. Oh and just walk down the hallway - it leads to the guildhall." Maginus exited and she could hear a chattering from the door before he closed it after him.
Looking down at the big White t-shirt she'd been stuffed in, Pagan frowned. 'It better not have been Maginus who put this on me...' She thought ominously.
Picking up the clothes an enthusiastic grin broke out on her face, she was going to learn magic! Not water magic but still! Magic! Her inner 10 year old squealed. 'Not really inner anymore..." Pagan thought as she glanced down at her child body.
Taking off the white t-shirt she put on the jacket she had worn earlier, a red pair of pants and a white t-shirt, she went over to the mirror in the corner. Looking at herself Pagan sighed of relief as she fingered the familiar orange locks, but her eyes had changed colour- where they had been brown before, they were now a pale almost ghost like blue.
"Ugh" She grunted unhappily. Pressing her hand on the mirror she began studying her face. Looking for familiar forms in it, the girl smiled content as she saw the familiar curve of her jaw
and eyes round-ish shape reflected in the mirror.
Putting on the shoes and opening the door she was greeted with a hallway filled with paintings of different individuals varying in ages and sexes. Walking down the line of canvases she noticed a picture of an young looking Marinus smiling outwards, proudly showing of the guild mark on his right shoulder.
Maginus Ferald - X757 - 11. Was written underneath the picture in beautiful writing.
'Must be a picture of when he joined...' the girl mused. 'He was pretty young...'
Taking her eyes off the painting Pagan continued down the wall of images. Grasping the handle of the last door where it seemed like all the chatting was coming from, she pulled the handle down and pushed the door forwards.
The door led to a big room with tables, chairs and people dispersed around, the walls were made of wooden planks with pictures, posters and the occasional item hanging. To her right stood a bar where Maginus was sitting on a stool chatting with a blonde girl in a blue dress, the blonde had her hair in a braid down her back. She stood behind the counter and snickered at a joke Maginus made as his hands made exaggerated motions.
Quietly slipping in the stool besides him she laughed quietly as he continued with his story.
"Then this giant frog - I mean giant purple frog jumped out of nowhere and jumped me! Then she began screeching about how I was walking on its land and Alex just laughed! Then it turned and jumped him too! Chased us all the way out of the forest, for two whole hours!" He laughed. "I'm telling you Bloom, it was the most terrifying thing ever!" he continued as the girl giggled.
The blond girl suddenly turned her blue eyes on Pagan when she noticed her and smiled. "Hello! What can I get a cutie like you?"
"Pagan!" Maginus exclaimed as he turned to her and pleaded. "Please tell me you didn't hear that!"
"Of course not" Pagan looked at him. "But I must say that I'm impressed by your bravery in the presence of frogs"
The Celestial Spirit mage hung his head and muttered something about being cool and students not respecting him.
"Oh!" The blonde - Bloom said delighted and clasped her hands in front of her. "So you're Pagan! Maginus has been bragging about how he got an apprentice. It's great to meet you! I'm Bloom Weg." She put a hand in front of her and Pagan took it in her own. "Pagan LeMagson, likewise." She replied.
Bloom squealed as she drew her hand back, turning away from Pagan she put her face in her hands and began muttering about adorable children.
Pagan looked sideways at Maginus who smiled sheepishly and explained that Bloom was very enthusiastic when it came to children and desired some herself.
"You're also our youngest member besides Bloom herself and Neo who's seventeen - Static Light haven't had kids join in a while." He explained.
"Oh" She replied. 'Thank God then they'll least understand me if I don't want play with others my age...'
"So!" Bloom suddenly said getting in the girls face and scaring her slightly. "Have the Master already accepted that you can join?"
"Yeah" Maginus confirmed.
In two seconds the blonde had her arms wrapped around Pagan, she let out a cry of cheerfulness before releasing the girl again.
"Where do you want to have your guild mark? And what colour? Mine is light green" Bloom said as she bared her neck on the right side, where a green lightning bolt was.
"Do I seriously have to get my contract tattooed on me?"
"That's the rules." Maginus said. "But the location can always be changed."
She thought about it for a bit before nodding at her decision. "Here, in the colour of my eyes." She said and pointed to her left forearm.
"Alright I'll go get it!" She said after studying Pagans eyes for for a bit.
As she left, Maginus turned to the girl pulling out a piece of paper "I've made a list of things you'll need to know." He paused and looked at her, she nodded telling him to continue. " One: guild rules and purpose. Two: Earth Land and Fiore. Three: magic. Four: things Pagan asks about." He said and pushed a bowl of fruit in front of her. "Eat."
"Really? four?" She said unimpressed stabbing a fork in a cube that looked like apple.
"Errrr yeah..."
"So" She said swallowing. "Two? What's Earth Land and Fiore?"
"Earth Land is our planet and Fiore is the kingdom we're in and right now we're in Mask Town." He summarized "there's loads of other countries like Isvan, Bosco and Seven. I'll show you a map later to give you a better idea of Earth Land."
"Got it!" Bloom said as she unexpectedly appeared besides them and waved around a stamp with the mark of Static Light. Pagan put another piece of fruit in her mouth and held out her arm and pulled the sleeve of her jacket back. Bloom pressed the stamp down and removed it after a few seconds.
"Tadaa! You are now an official part of Static Light!" Bloom beamed.
Holding up her arm she had to admit that it was pretty cool. Not that she'd ever admit it, but she always wanted a cool tattoo. And this mark was pretty cool with its lightning bolt surrounded by two half circles with small light beams. 'Static Light indeed'
She was interrupted as a pair of arms wrapped around her and lifted her up and she was thrown over Maginus's shoulder. "Come on!" He said brightly. "Let's go do step 3! Magic!"
Maginus then proceeded to sped out of the front doors and into the street.
"Hey! Put me down!"
"Magic." He said as he finally put her down in a clearing in the middle of a giant park in Mask Town. "Is... Errr Magic. You have Magic power that's made of Ethernano - that's what the Lacrima tested you for." He stumbled
"Ummm..." he said nervously before straightening up and held up his hand. "There are two types of magic - Caster Magic and Holder magic. Then there's ancient Spells and Lost Magic." His hand began glowing a light blue colour as a small typhoon formed around it. "Air Magic is Caster Magic because it doesn't use a medium and comes directly from my Magic core. The Masters Crystal Make is Caster magic too and Blooms Nature call magic is as well."
"Now." Maginus said as he dispersed the typhoon and stuffed his hand in a pouch on his hip. He withdrew a silver key and held it up. "Celestial Spirit Magic is of the Holder type as the key is the medium in this case. Card magic and Gun Magic is Holder type magic as well."
He held the key higher and said. "Open! Gate of the snarling wolf! Lupus!"
The key glowed and Pagan jumped in shock as a large (scary) black wolf with reddish brown fur on its chest appeared besides Maginus. It had a large scar down the right side of its head and had holes in its right ear; the wolf also had large decorated leather armbands lined with gold on its front legs.
Pagan gave a twitch of shock as it looked at Maginus and opened its mouth and said in a deep voice. "Maginus. Why have you summoned me? I do not see a battle."
"Ah." The human replied. "Sorry Lupus."
"I wanted to show how Celestial Spirit Magic works to my apprentice here." Maginus said as he put his hands on Pagans shoulders and drew the wolf's attention to the girl - much to her displeasure.
Lupus studied her and said. "So you finally found a pup to teach magic. I am Lupus the wolf."
"Hello." Pagan replied apprehensive.
"You can pet me." The wolf said gruffly earning a flabbergasted look from Pagan and a chuckle from Maginus. "Actually I would prefer if you began now, nothing shows what kind of person you are than petting."
Deciding to just get it over she reached her hand out and scratched his cheek. Hearing the growl of pleasure from the large wolf the girl got more confident and began rubbing his right ear with her left hand.
The wolf took a step back. "I like her. Needs more confidence, but I like her." He muttered something about being experienced at petting as he began lying down.
Maginus followed suit and sat down besides the wolf, Pagan quickly sat down after them.
"Here." Maginus said as he held out a key to her. "This is Monoceros the unicorn. Summoning him will be your goal in Celestial Spirit Magic. I had just bought his key before I crashed into you, so I feel it's destined that you two becomes partners like Lupus is my partner." He hugged the wolf's head and it gave a growl of displeasure.
"Go on try. Say: open, gate of the racing unicorn. Monoceros." He urged.
She nodded and stood up, Pagan held the key out in front of her. "Open! Gate of the racing unicorn. Monoceros!"
The key glowed slightly and when nothing happened she gave a dejected sigh of frustration. It had looked so easy when Maginus had done it. Sitting down cross legged again she stared grumpily at the key in her hand.
"Hey." Maginus said and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll get there eventually, silver keys use a fair amount of magic and you've never used it before. I couldn't summon Lupus for a long time either, but you have an instructor too, so don't look depressed." He grinned at her.
"Hmpf." Lupus grunted and looked at her. "Maginus was interrupting everything I did for a human year... it was worst four days of my life."
Pagan giggled and stood excited up again, she looked down at Maginus with a grin. "What about Air Magic?"
"Come down again." He said and patted the ground.
"You need to concentrate and try and feel your magical core." He said as she awkwardly sat down again. "Try and get a hold of the feeling you had yesterday when you made the Lacrima glow. It should help even though magic items like the Lacrima and Gate keys also draw your magic to it."
"Right."
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
Breathing in and out, in and out. She began concentrating on new feelings, something that wasn't there before. Something new. Breathing in and out, Pagan began probing deep into herself, focusing around her body and giving a soundless gasp of surprise as she brushed over something warm and foreign. As she began reaching over to the strange sensation she assumed was her magic core, she was jolted awake by Maginus who was lightly shaking her.
"Hey." He said. "That's enough for today. It's already evening and I'm starving."
"What?" She asked, it had only been a few minutes... did it really take that long?
"Where's Lupus?"
"Hmm? Oh he went back to the spirit world. He had some important business to attend to." Then he asked. "How did it go?"
"I think I felt something. It was really weird."
"Really!?" He asked "You're like a genius or something? It normally takes days to even feel anything because magic is part of us - like trying to write with your left hand when you're right handed- that's why it's also so hard to use at first."
"Huh. Guess I'm just awesome then." She joked. That actually explained quite a lot, like why it was so easy to find. Pagan had heard that when something alien comes in your system, you can feel it -that's why it was so easy for her, if she had lived with it her whole life then it would have been like trying to feel her own arm in some way. 'Mavahaha!' She snickered to herself. 'Cheat hacks!'
"Celestial Spirits" Maginus suddenly said. "Makes a contract with the summoner about when the can be summoned. Lupus allows me to summon him every day, but not between nine in the evening and nine in the morning - unless of course it's an emergency. The spirit will tell you which times he or she can be summoned on, this time can be expanded depending on your relations to them. When I first made my contract with Lupus he only allowed me to summon him Mondays and Tuesdays within the same time periods. He didn't like me as much back then..."
"He didn't?" Pagan asked as they took a left turn down a street.
"No." He replied shortly. "He said I was whiny." He admitted after some time.
"Huh. So you mentioned a spirit world?" She asked. "What is it?"
"The Celestial Spirit world is where the celestial spirits live, it's ruled by The Celestial Spirit King and time runs faster there and one day is around three months here. There are different stages of keys, gold keys are the rarest since there's only twelve, then there are silver keys and after silver are bronze keys. It's said that gold keys are stronger than silver and silver stronger than bronze, this is only partially true though."
He paused his speech as they arrived at the guild, swiftly opening the doors they went over to where Bloom was serving and older blonde a piece of chocolate cake. Sitting down to the left besides the older blonde who was wearing a leather jacket and a dark green skirt, Maginus raised his hand and ordered two of something called Chicken Fortune mix.
"Coming right up!" Bloom said brightly and went out a door on the left.
"You must be Pagan." The blond besides her said before shovelling a mouthful of cake in her mouth and munched a bit on it before swallowing. "My sister couldn't stop talking about how cute you were, but I can definitely see it now. I'm Sakura Weg by the way."
She stuck out her hand and Pagan gladly took it. "LeMagson, Pagan LeMagson." She replied grinning at her own joke, then realised that no one would probably get her jokes anymore.
"So you are the poor kid who ended up with this guy, as a teacher. I totally feel for you, kid." Sakura said as she took another spoonful in her mouth.
"S-shut up Sakura. I'm an awesome teacher." Maginus said offended.
She snorted and went back to her cake. "You're teaching her Celestial Spirit Magic? Your doggy sucks."
"Hey." Pagan interrupted beginning to become irritated. "Lupus was awesome. And I'm really excited for being able to summon Monoceros, Celestial Spirit Magic is awesome."
Pagan took out Monoceros' key from her pocket and stared at it. She was really excited to meet Monoceros and learn all she could, why would Sakura say something like that when they were supposed to be a family. She looked up as Sakura suddenly put a hand on her shoulder. "Heh." She grinned and looked at Maginus. "Looks like you got a good student"
"Don't worry kiddo, Magi and I are good friends. But that mutt of his is annoying as hell." Sakura whispered to her and winked. "Plus he has a really nice ass."
"What!?" Maginus squeaked from her other side.
"Food's here!" Blooms happy voice washed over them and placed two plates in front of Pagan and her teacher. "Two Chicken Fortune mix."
Looking at the plate with a mountain of some blue, gold and black substance that resembled some rice mix - but a mutant rice mix, a multi coloured mutant rice mix. 'What the actual fuck?' Looking to the side where Maginus was wolfing down the mutation, she picked up the chopsticks and looked at the food before remembering. 'I don't know how to use chopsticks...'
"Do you have a fork? Or spoon?"
"Huh?" Maginus grunted.
Raising the chopsticks she waved them in front of his face. "I don't know how they work."
"Bloom, can we get a fork?"
"Hmm? Oh right!" She said and skipped out the door again. Returning after a few seconds she stuffed it in Pagans food and apologised. "Sorry, forgot you wouldn't know how to use chopsticks."
"No problem." She said and focused her attention on the mysterious rice mix. Pulling out the fork and taking a breath to raise her courage she stuffed it in her mouth. The girl's eyes widened as she tasted the food - it was really good. It was new, it made sense - new world equals new flavours and food! Ohhh this was going to be sweet!
"So. The differences in celestial spirits strength." Maginus suddenly began. "Is dependent on the mage. If two mages both had a wolf key like Lupus, the mage who can give the spirit more magic will have the stronger spirit. A Celestial Spirit mage gives magic to keep the spirit in our world, when they only hold them in Earth Land the spirit will be what I call level 1. But when the mage also gives the spirit magic they raise their defence and attack power, depending on how much magic the spirit gets the stronger he or she will become. The higher ranking keys use more magic to be in Earth Land but is stronger at level 1. There's also your relationship with the spirit to take into account, you your spirit hates you there's a chance you'll never get them over lv 2. When you and the spirit aren't in harmony then they can't receive your magic to strengthen themselves."
"So that means that if I used a silver key, you would still win in a fight with a bronze one?" Pagan asked.
"Yes" he confirmed. "It's partly why I learned Air Magic, Lupus said I should learn something else so he wouldn't be stuck and I quote 'as a weak little pup who can't take care of himself.'"
"Oh." He suddenly said and put his chopsticks down. "You're staying at my place until you're old enough."
"What!?" She was staying with him!? Why would she have to... oh right child body...
"Well you can't expect me to just leave you, can you? Besides I've got plenty of room."
"Right."