Being on the road with Natsu Dragneel and Lucy Heartfilia was, in a word, an experience.
The latter was still barely able to talk to me. Whatever speech Branston had given her, she seemed to have found herself balancing on some precipice between acting like I was some kind of fragile stained glass ornament which could shatter if someone looked at it funny, or flushing red as a tomato and not meeting my eyes, shaking her head a lot and cupping her cheeks.
It was...tiring, after a while. Particularly since Natsu, although a good guy at heart, didn't make the best conversationalist.
Probably because half the time he was running off chasing random things he'd seen off the path, generally resulting in a massive burst of flame that had Lucy and I running after him. Twice, I'd been forced to rapidly invert and amplify the gravity in an area in order to lift areas of burning woodland into the sky. Once, in a state of panic, Lucy had opened the Gate of Aquarius.
She'd been pissed.
We'd been soaked.
Natsu had just laughed.
Still, I admitted that it was handy travelling with a Fire Dragon Slayer, seeing as we never wanted for a campfire, and he'd somehow got drying clothes down to an art form.
Though Lucy did punch him out the first time he breathed fire all over us, apparently overcoming her mortification long enough to yell her fury until she was satisfied.
I wasn't sure if I should be amused, or terrified of that force ever turning on me.
It took two days of walking to reach Magnolia, which was pretty good as far as I was concerned. Lucy seemed a touch worse for wear, but as we moved through the bustling city, she seemed to reclaim her energy, probably since we were growing closer and closer to Fairy Tail.
Magnolia itself was quite the change from Hargeon. The buildings all went up at least three storeys, sometimes going as high as four or five. The unpredictable colours still existed, more for the roofing than for the buildings' walls, but there was more colour to be found since trees, grass and other plants could be found scattered seemingly everywhere between buildings. There was one main road, running right through the centre of the city, which had both the Kardia Cathedral and the Fairy Tail Guild Hall on it, placed at either end, and most of the other roads in the city split off from it or met it.
Three rivers entered Magnolia from the North, coming down from the mountains and across the plains before reaching the city. They were chanelled through the city in large canals, bridged several times, which divided the city into three sections - though, without exploring, I couldn't say if there was any division beyond just the physical. One way or another, they all combined at the Eastern-most point of the city, before running off into what I was fairly sure was an ocean-fed lake rather than the ocean itself.
Unfortunately, the maps I'd gotten my hands on weren't particularly useful - apparently, Magnolia was three train stops away from the nearest significant body of water, but the massive body of water stretching away behind the city rather put paid to that.
Maybe Fiore was just really, really big and that was why that lake wasn't considered large enough to put on the map...?
Oh, well - it didn't matter all that much. Not when only part of the city currenty held our attention.
There was a sense of anticipation around all of us as we got cloesr. Natsu and Happy had relaxed completely, and were seemingly placing bets with one another on what would have happened in their time away, or what they would see when they opened the door.
Lucy was about to start her first steps into the world of Guilds, and what I knew was a long and winding path for her.
And I was drawing ever closer to the place where I hoped to find my answer. Ever closer to Fairy Tail, and the people who had managed to soothe Heather's passing like no medicine ever could.
Fairy Tail didn't disappoint.
It was built somewhat like a Pagoda, with three tiers that grew progressively smaller on the way up. The entire building was painted a yellowy cream, with each sloping awning done in red tiles. The building was crowned with a golden bulb like might be seen on a plant, though massively oversized; hanging from the front of the building on the third floor were three banners, one in green, one in blue and one bearing the Fairy Tail emblem, emblazoned in white on an orange background.
The second floor had odd, kite-shaped windows framed in green, along with three more traditional peaked windows, while the windows on the bottom floor were pentagonal wooden panels, and the door itself was wooden, done in the shape of a leaf.
The bottom-most awning was held up with green pillars, which also supported the wooden sign above the door, with carved creatures spreading to either side of it and a shape like a heart atop it.
Emlazoned in dark blue on the wood, was 'Fairy Tail'.
The building was also rather incredibly large, compared to most of the others nearby. A complex unto itself, as it backed directly onto the edge of the city and, from there down to the lake, had more than enough space for themselves. It almost reminded me of one of the Clan Districts from Naruto.
Of course, whatever comparisons might have been made with the Uchiha or Hyuuga clans immediately went out the window when Natsu threw the door open, yelling "I'm back!" before immediately going up to a guy who looked like Lupin III's brother and kicking him in the head, prompting absolute bedlam.
The floor itself was rather like a lunch hall, being constructed from almost entirely wood with a parquet floor and a mezzanine held up by wooden pillars set around the room, which seemed to mark the cut-off point to give the main room a border. There were several long benches and miscellaneous tables around the room, as well as a few scattered chairs, which made the place look somewhere between Hogwarts' Great Hall and a restaurant.
I knew there was also the bar at the other end of the room from where we had entered, but...well, I couldn't really see it through the chaos Natsu had wrought.
The manga...had in no way been capable of expressing the true chaos of a Fairy Tail brawl. There were bodies everywhere, some unmoving and groaning, others flying through the air and screaming, some standing tall and proud.
Elfman, built like a brick outhouse in his navy blue martial arts getup, dark-skinned and white-haired, stood atop a table, shouting something unintelligible, until a thrown stool carried him into the seething mass below. Cana, barely dressed in a bikini top and cut-off trousers with her dark hair spilling down her back, drained an entire barrel of alcohol, then broke the empty barrel over someone's head. Gray, messy dark hair matching his eyes was...holding someone in a headlock, wearing naught but his underwear and a stylised metal cross on a necklace.
And those were only the ones I recognised. There were a large number of people here, and I came to a sudden realisation that the unnamed, barely-drawn figures in the Fairy Tail manga weren't just panel decoration here. They were real people, with magic of their own, families, histories and dreams.
This...wasn't just a story any more. This was reality.
My reality.
While I was busy having a minor philosophical epiphany, Lucy was looking around with her jaw wide open, trying to process everything that was going on in front of her and failing miserably. I noticed that Loke wasn't anywhere to be seen, so I supposed that the disguised Celestial Spirit had already made his attempt to chat up the blonde.
Tapping her on the shoulder managed to get her brain working again, and I dragged her by the elbow toward the bar area, where I could see two familiar figures. One pint-sized and male, the other young and obviously female, with a figure to rival Lucy's own...though, despite their contrasts, both figures had similar hair colours.
Makarov Dreyer, and Mirajane Strauss. Fairy Tail's Guild Master, one of the Ten Wizard Saints - and the user of the Satan Soul, one of Fairy Tail's aces in a time gone by but still no pushover, respectively.
But for now, they were a drunk little old man in an orange and blue jester's outfit, and another unearthly beautiful bartender in a red dress, watching the chaos with a fond smile.
'The disconnect between her expression and what she's watching is...rather jarring,' I noted as we approached.
"Oh? Who's this then? Natsu brought home some new faces, I see."
Makarov Dreyer was an incredibly short man. Even sitting on the bar, his head was only level with my chest. But I didn't let that distract from a very simple fact.
This was Fairy Tail's Guild Master. The answer I was looking for started and, in some ways, ended with him.
If he chose not to accept me into the Guild, then I didn't have a backup plan. That would be that, simple as.
I bowed my head to him, tugging slightly on Lucy's arm as I did so. She looked across to see me inclining my head, and followed suit automatically. I could feel Makarov raising an eyebrow. "Now there's something I've not seen in a long time – young people with manners. Now raise your heads; there's no real need to make an effort for an old man like me."
I straightened, Lucy following suit, although she sent me a questioning look. To answer her unspoken question, I addressed the man over the clamour of the room. "Am I right in saying you're Makarov Dreyer, the Guild Master here?"
Brown eyes widened beside me as Makarov nodded amiably. "That would be me, yes. And who might you be young one?"
I very carefully suppressed the urge to let my eyebrow twitch. This man was old – he deserved the right to call anyone he wanted 'young'. Even if it did chafe at my pride a bit. "My name is Declan Ross," I told him. "And this is a friend of mine, Lucy."
Taking that as her cue, Lucy bobbed her head again. "It's nice to meet you, sir."
The Guild Master smiled a bit at that, inclining his head to both of us. "Ah, and it's nice to have such a polite greeting for once. Now, how can I help you both?"
I glanced sideways at Lucy, tilting my head toward Makarov and taking a small step back, pushing her forwards as I did so. Her eyes widened, and she looked about ready to try and use me as a shield, but I put a hand on her shoulder before she could do more than begin to panic. "This is your goal, remember?" I asked her quietly, or as quietly as I could in the tumult. "You've come this far – you can take this next step too."
Lucy met my eyes, looking at me for several seconds, before she turned to the Guild Master and took a deep breath.
"Guild Master Makarov," she began formally, "it's been a wish of mine for quite some time to join your Guild. I was hoping you could tell me what I'd need to do for that to happen."
She inclined her head again, and I smiled to myself. Perfectly earnest – that seemed to describe Lucy quite a lot of the time. She tended to wear her heart on her sleeve and speak her mind – much like the majority of Fairy Tail's members, really.
It was...admirable.
Makarov stroked his moustache for a moment, as if he was making some weighty decision, and I almost smirked. It seemed the old man really was a troll when he wanted to be. "Well, miss," he began just as formally, "if you want to know, I suppose I can tell you." He stood up – not that it really did much for his height – and Lucy came to attention. "In order to become a member of Fairy Tail," he intoned, "you must-!"
With a flurry of moving hands, he produced a wooden box and what looked like a carved stamp in the shape of the Guild's emblem. "Have this placed somewhere on your body where it can be made easily visible."
Lucy stumbled as if she was about to fall over, and seemed just about ready to smack Makarov one just as she had done to Natsu – but she thought better of it, and instead moved over to where Mirajane was beckoning, box and stamp in hand, to help her apply it.
The old man's eyes moved over to me, and I stiffened instinctively. Being in front of him reminded me of being in front of my father; even if he wasn't exercising it, and even if I could see how so many people overlooked it, Makarov had an air of authority around him. "And you, Declan Ross?" He asked. "What can I do for you?"
In a blatant show of hypocrisy considering what I'd said to Lucy, I hesitated.
It was simple enough, just do the same thing I'd pushed Lucy to do and ask him if I could become part of the Guild.
But...I knew what I'd be getting myself into. The enemies I would face as part of Fairy Tail were far above the mooks I'd repelled on an almost weekly basis in Hargeon. Plus, there was my knowledge of what was to come. Did that give me a responsibility of some kind? If something went wrong that I could have prevented, was that my fault?
And in between all of that, I had to somehow find my answer. For the sake of my mind and my soul, I had to understand.
I had to.
So I pulled up as much of my courage as I could muster, and bowed my head once again. "Do you happen to have another one of those stamps, Guild Master?"
Lucy and I sat down on an unbroken bench at the side of the hall, each of us contemplating our new emblems. The blonde, as she had done in the manga, had it printed on the back of her left hand in pink. I'd had mine placed on the outside of my right arm in a navy blue, where it was visible if I was wearing a t-shirt or pulled up my sleeves.
This was the first step on my path. A marker that told me there was no backing down, and no re-do. I'd made my bed and set my course – now, it was time to lie in it.
The brawl was winding down now, and Natsu staggered out of it like a drunk, only to pause as his eyes lit upon Lucy and I. "Lucy! Declan!" He called out, moving over to us having apparently recovered in seconds. "You guys joined then?"
The blonde nodded with a massive smile, and I nodded, feeling my own relief at my success pull my lips upward as we each revealed the icon which cemented us as members of the guild.
"Awesome!" Natsu grinned, before turning to me and cracking his knuckles. "Now we can have that spar!"
...Oh yeah, I had told him that I'd spar with him once I joined the Guild, hadn't I?
...Dammit. And me thinking about how I had to accept the consequences of my actions too.
"Sure, Natsu." I replied, standing up and gesturing for him to lead the way. "Let's just go somewhere where we aren't gonna be interrupted."
The Dragon Slayer nodded, running off as I jogged in pursuit, Lucy apparently choosing to follow on behind us. Perhaps due to not knowing anyone else...or perhaps because she'd just caught sight of Gray searching for his underpants. I wasn't sure.
Natsu led Lucy and I down to the coastline, just by the edge of the sand, before spontaneously combusting. If I ever had evidence that I'd adjusted to this world – perhaps a bit too well, even – it was probably that I didn't even blink when it happened.
My sanity had probably rage quit his job and gone off to get drunk with my self-worth somewhere, and suspension of disbelief had taken over. Hah - my brain was being run by a SOD.
...Perhaps my loss of sanity was a greater issue than I'd realised.
'I'm about to get into a fight with Natsu Dragneel. Sanity dropped out of my dictionary long ago.'
I blew out a deep breath, shaking out my hands before crouching slightly, keeping my knees bent for an instantaneous burst of motion.
Throughout all the fights I'd been in since appearing in Earthland, I had built what might be generously termed a 'style' for myself. With the ability to alter my own gravity, I essentially had an instinctive understanding of how things could fall - myself in particular. With that ability to shift my own weight about, I'd never be at anything less than perfect balance unless I wanted to be - and as a result, most of my approach to combat revolved around throws and grapples, though I had picked up a reasonable right hook in the past few weeks.
Feeding magical power through my body, reducing my own weight in preparation for kick off, I felt my heartbeat pick up as adrenaline kicked in. "Alright then, Natsu – let's see what you've got!"
All too happy to take the invitation, the Dragon Slayer kicked off, hurtling towards me at speeds most Olympians would have paid their own weight in sponsorship deals to match. Flames streamed out behind him as he moved, his body a flaming comet, and as he approached I concentrated on my arms, which I dropped down to press against the ground with a low mutter. "Bespoke Arms."
Or, more specifically, I focussed on their gravitational field.
'Start at the skin, and form a paper-thin but maximum strength inverted field. Move outward two inches, then maximise omnidirectional pull. Finally, form a field of attraction in the ground below, and-!'
Dirt, rocks, plants and nearby sand all rose into the air as one, caught in a sudden gravity well which pulled them together and then dragged the mass to my arms, where my limbs' gravity compressed it into two inches of impromptu body armour encasing each limb below the elbow.
At the same time, I kept reducing my own connection to Earthland's gravity, keeping my weight stable at a point where I was actually lighter on my feet than I had been before I strapped several kilograms' worth of the environment to my arms.
This was the basis of the magic I'd been practising – augmenting my own physical abilities using gravity in various ways. Was it the most effective, most efficient way of using it? Not really. Did it leave the possibility of me being injured, or running into an opponent with superior close range abilities? Yes.
But it worked well with my current limitations – namely, strength and area of effect.
I could only affect gravity in so wide an area. Maybe I could get a decent-sized building off the ground, but that was about it. No lifting cities or other things like that for me. That tied into my other current handicap, namely that I could only amplify the power of gravity so much. I could flatten a lot of things, but it was still entirely possible that I would find something with enough sheer physical power or durability to weather my best.
It boiled down to the fact that, for all the things I'd learned to do with it, and for all the starting boost I'd gotten, my magic was only six months old. It was growing steadily, but my supply was still limited, and my experience in Amelia's hospital made me leery of getting so close to empty once again.
I'd also discovered that the gravity under my control interacted oddly with Mages. The second group which came to Hargeon I'd flattened immediately, but I'd been rather shocked to find that their leader's magic had spiked, and gravity restored itself to normal in an area around him, which actually shook me enough to make me drop the technique.
It led me to one conclusion. A Mage can overpower magic acting on them, if their own power is greater than or equal to that of their opponent. That meant that, for all intents and purposes, any attack involving direct manipulation of a target's gravity had to be powerful enough to make breaking out impossible, or quick enough to prevent it from being disabled.
Hence, Shinra Tensei, and me not even trying to hold Natsu down or disconnect his connection to Earthland – he was a Dragon Slayer after all, and I wasn't going to take the bet that I had more magical power than he did.
So instead, I my weight reduced enough to stay on the ground but still move quicker, while my mass remained constant, I went to meet him mid-way.
Meeting him fist-for-fist was painful, even through the various silicates and other materials protecting my flesh. I could feel the heat, and the impact actually sent me spinning around in the other direction thanks to my adjusted weight.
Well, I could work with that.
Spinning a full three hundred and sixty degrees on my heel, I turned the momentum imparted from his strike into a spinning backhand, one which Natsu managed to block with his right forearm, supported by his left. Stepping back, I brought my fists up in front of me, throwing three quick jabs - each of which the Dragon Slayer blocked on his forearms, not even seeming to flinch at the impacts. Then, he started retaliating, and most of my brain shut off as I tried to keep up with the flurry of punches he was dishing out.
Lightening myself even more, I pushed myself out of the way of his strikes with just the lightest taps of my feet, barely exerting myself beyond the effort necessary to predict where his punch would land, yet still only keeping just ahead of his blurring fists. When I wasn't fast enough any more, I leaned back until I was at ninety degrees to avoid a flaming haymaker passing through where my head used to be, then snapped out a kick to Natsu's midsection, anchoring my other foot to the ground.
It was like kicking a goddamn brick wall, but it staggered him back nonetheless. I stopped anchoring myself and used the remains of the kick's recoil to hop backwards a few steps, getting myself some distance.
So far, I'd established that he was more durable than me, and was likely both faster and stronger. My gravity manipulation evened the field somewhat by armouring my frame and quickening my movements, but at the same time I could only add so much bulk to my arms before moving became too awkward to make it worth it, and I could only lighten myself so much before I'd start floating off the ground if I kicked too hard, making me a sitting duck.
I had developed the ability to fly as one of the first things I worked towards mastering, but it still wasn't good for much more than going in straight lines - if I was going to try and carry out strafing runs, I needed considerably more manoeuvrability than I currently possessed.
Apparently recovered, the Dragon Slayer charged me once again, grinning like a maniac and wreathed all in flames. I kept up my dodging, thankful that my minimal movements allowed me to conserve energy, and decided I needed to try and take this up a notch. So, when Natsu came in with another rush, I knocked aside a jab from his right arm, dropping low and continuing my spin with a sweeping kick to take his legs out from under him, then rose to my feet as he was falling, levelling my stone-clad fist at him.
"Shinra Tensei."
This time, instead of directing the attack in a single direction, I allowed it to grow in a sphere of repulsive force. Natsu was crushed into the ground like a boulder had fallen on him, while I flew up and back a couple of feet, managing to pull myself into a backflip and land a couple of metres away.
No sooner had I done so than Natsu was up again, grinning even wider now and punching his fists together with a burst of flame. "I'm all fired up!" He yelled, and I flinched at the catchphrase.
He seemed to get even faster when he came for me this time, and I had to start blocking or redirecting hits rather than just getting out of the way. With every impact I could feel my bones rattling, and I started hopping into the air, removing the resistance which came with holding my ground and taking some of the edge off his attacks.
I was able to fend him off for half a minute, but I could feel my arms heating up with each new strike, the dangerous warmth of crackling flames reddening my face - and when I failed to move his fist aside in a parry, the blow to my torso lifted me straight off my feet and halfway back toward the Guild before I was back under control.
I had to up my own gravity, digging twin furrows in the dirt with my heels, before I came to rest, lightening myself again and glaring at the Dragon Slayer, feeling the bruise already spreading across my chest. So far, he'd shrugged off everything I hit him with, while I couldn't take his hits worth a damn. And he was still grinning.
Bugger this for a lark, I wasn't going to be a goddamn punching bag!
Narrowing my eyes, I let out a deep breath - then, I moved the material around my arms and hands forward, until it hung in the air in front of my hands. There, it formed into two floating orbs, held together by the points of gravity serving as their cores.
I wound up, then threw the sphere in my right hand, following it up with the one in my left a moment later. Despite my usually rather abysmal throwing skill, my magic corrected the course as the spheres left my hands, sending both of them - effectively stone basketballs - hurtling toward Natsu.
The Dragon Slayer got out of their way quickly enough, keeping his attention on me as I ran forward, following in the path of the projectiles and with my eyes locked on Natsu - but as I drew closer, I made a swiping motion with my left hand, latching once more onto the magical power still keeping the spheres together. "Bansho Ten'in!"
The projectiles stopped, shuddered, then reversed direction - with just as much speed as they had when I threw them, both spheres returned to me by the quickest path.
Namely, through the space currently occupied by Natsu Dragneel.
The Dragon Slayer squawked as both of the stone spheres crashed into his upper back, sending him stumbling forward - he'd been leaning forward in expectation of my charge, leaving his balance off-centre. By that point I was almost to him, and I could imagine his thought process, based on what I'd seen him do in the manga. True to form, he turned his fall into a handstand, placing his hands on the ground and raising his legs to ignite them in preparation for a breakdance-spinning-kick -
Just in time for me to grab his legs as they came up, when he was still just doing a handstand, turn in place, spinning Natsu as I did so, then manually drag my centre of gravity upward and forward as I heaved forward, giving me the extra heft I needed to swing the Dragon Slayer over my shoulder and into the ground.
I heard the breath leave his lungs and saw the dust the impact raised, and I made to skip backwards out of range of retaliation.
Too late, as it turned out.
Natsu's ankles clamped down around one of mine and he rolled over, sending me to the ground in turn - even though my impact was much lighter than his, with my weight reduced. Still, he was back on his feet just as quickly as I was, and I found myself in close quarters with Natsu Dragneel, and with no way to get away quickly - I'd pushed myself to my feet as quickly as possible, and with my weight reduced, I was still coming down to the ground.
'Well...shit.'
"Fire Dragon's..."
'...Double shit.'
"Iron Fist!"
Natsu's fist, burning brightly, crashed forward - right into my torso, where it expended what felt like all the force of a rocket lifting off.
By the time I realised I was even flying, my focus was too shot to maintain my weight reduction, and I ended up skipping over the ground several times before expending the rest of my momentum by digging a furrow for several metres, eventually coming to a stop.
I lay still for several seconds, breathing fast and heavily, feeling the burn in my chest - and on it, too. Then, the pain caught up with me, and I brought my left arm up to lay across where I'd been hit. "Fucking Hell, that hurt..."
Still clutching my chest with one hand, I used the other to push myself into a sitting position - there, I was met with Natsu's grinning face as he offered me a hand up. I took it, the Dragon Slayer pulling me up to my feet easily, still grinning as he clapped me on the shoulder. "Good fight, Declan!"
I rubbed my chest a couple of times, blowing out a breath that turned into a small coughing fit before I got myself back under control. "Thanks, Natsu - but I've got a long way to go."
'I didn't push him at all - I didn't even make him break a sweat. Sure, I might have left him with a couple of bruises, but that's all; even when I outmanoeuvred him, I couldn't get in a good enough hit to make it mean anything.'
I sighed, but Natsu, still grinning, drew my attention with another clap on the shoulder. "Well, I guess we'll have to do this again. The only way to get stronger is to keep on fighting until you overcome everything in your way - so, we'll fight together, and we'll fight each other, and we'll just keep growing stronger and stronger!"
I stared at the Dragon Slayer for a moment, the teen still grinning like a maniac, with a kind of wonderment. 'That's an incredible conviction he's got in his voice...I think I can see how he got strong enough to be one of Fairy Tail's best Mages even as a teenager.'
I blew out another breath, then nodded. "I'll hold you to that, Natsu."
The Dragon Slayer laughed, then reached behind him to rub his back. "Gotcha - but if you keep coming up with tricks like that one, you're gonna be really strong in no time!"
A smile pulled at the corners of my lips, and I inclined my head for a moment, before taking a moment to glance around, the pain in my chest beginning to recede. Seeing Lucy, still sitting on a log where she'd perched myself while Natsu and I were facing off, I called over to her. "Hey, Lucy! Do you want a go?"
The blonde looked at me, then at the grinning Natsu, and then at the multiple furrows and craters we'd formed with missed attacks or poor landings - in particular the rather long furrow which served as evidence of my landing. Then her gaze fell back to me, and she laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her head. "Maybe later? I still need to find an apartment somewhere, and I want to have lunch too, so…"
Nodding, and feeling a smirk distract me from my new bruises, I was joined by Natsu and then started heading back to the Guild Hall, offering the Celestial Spirit Mage a hand up as I passed. "Alright then. In that case, let's go eat…they've probably finished putting the place back together by now."
I'll admit, I flinched a bit when Romeo Conbolt punched Makarov in the face. It was a testament to his character that, despite the respect he'd most definitely earned, the old man wasn't above letting the child take out his anger on him.
Still, the memory of Fairy Law almost had me shivering – let alone his Titan Magic.
"Hey, Declan!"
I turned to find that Natsu was approaching, Happy sitting on his shoulder. Lucy was following along behind him, and waved when I nodded to her.
Now, this was interesting. In the manga, Lucy had needed to go chasing after Natsu to join him. Was this change brought about because of her asking Natsu to bring me along? Was it Natsu's idea? Was it, perhaps, something to do with how much less...overblown, they seemed in person, as compared to their reactions in the manga? I wasn't entirely sure, but one way or another, they were here.
Turning to face the Dragon Slayer, I quirked an eyebrow in question. I'd been reading a book I retrieved from Fairy Tail's library, which Mirajane had been kind enough to loan me, which dealt with various exercises for increasing magical power. Right now, raw horsepower was something I lacked, especially compared to Dragon Slayers like Natsu, Gajeel and, technically, Laxus; fixing that weakness could only be good for me.
"Lucy and I are headed to Mt Hakobe to find Macao." Natsu told me, his features and voice more serious than I'd yet seen him. "Do you wanna come with us?"
I glanced between Natsu and Lucy, seeming to think for a moment before closing my book. "Sure. Let's just ask Mirajane if the Guild has any coats around the place first, okay?"
"Coats?" Lucy asked, and I nodded.
"Yup. Mt Hakobe's got the whole 'permanent winter' thing going on. Natsu'd be fine, but we'd probably freeze to death before we found the guy."
Lucy frowned, then turned to Natsu. "And you didn't tell me this because…?"
The Dragon Slayer blinked a few times, then laughed sheepishly. "Sorry. Since I never get cold, I completely forgot!"
The blonde's eyebrow twitched dangerously. Interesting – that was the first time I'd seen that expression on someone else. Still, she calmed herself, before casting her eyes around in search of the Take Over Magic user in question. "I hope she's at least got something cute I can wear..."
She didn't.
As it happened, Lucy was currently bundled up in an ankle-length, inch-thick coat which was half some kind of wool and half some kind of leather, and all old. She didn't seem best pleased, but she was able to walk about without freezing, so that had to count for something.
I'd already bought a coat while I was in Hargeon. It was largely wish fulfilment, but I'd found what was effectively a leather duster, if one made from a somewhat unfamiliar animal, and I'd immediately shelled out the required Jewels. I'd probably read the Dresden Files once too often, but dammit, if I was gonna be a Mage I was gonna have a leather coat!
I'd slung that on over my cargo trousers, knives included, as well as a simple t-shirt of Earthland make and two jumpers, one of which was a hoodie.
I quite liked the way the coat looked with the added hood – kind of an Assassin's Creed theme. Unfortunately, I appeared to have pulled a Lucy, and sacrificed some of my own well-being in the name of aesthetics, as I was shivering while we tramped through the snow.
It was a good two hours into our journey when a magic signature thrummed into existence seemingly out of nowhere, animalistic and radiating what I thought might have been Avarice.
Lust was my second guess, but I preferred not to think about that. That path led to the dark side of M-rated fanfiction and doujinshi, and while Fairy Tail had not been above fanservice (mostly centred around Lucy, intentionally on her part or not), I liked to try and not think about it. I didn't pay it much attention when I was reading, after all.
Instead, I focussed on immediately scanning the surrounding area, doing so just in time to see a massive, white ape-like creature come bounding out of the snow, going straight for Lucy, who had been shocked into temporary immobility.
Natsu immediately moved to engage it, but his choice of wearing sandals instead of boots like Lucy and I made his footing uncertain, and the Vulcan was able to send him flying before he could land a blow. The creature immediately turned to go for Lucy again, and might well have made off with her, if not my appearance in its path.
I pushed one hand forward, palm-up, and with the other I formed a fist above it in a handsign I'd stolen straight from Gray's Ice Make Magic. "Gravity Hammer!"
With that declaration, I brought my fist crashing down onto my open hand, at the same time pulling on as much of my magical power as I felt I was comfortable with holding for a single spell and directing it all into the area directly around the Vulcan, focussing on increasing the gravity there exponentially.
The Vulcan crashed into the ground like a piano had dropped on him, going spread-eagled and landing flat on its face. Simultaneously, all the snow in a circle around him compacted itself down to the level of the mountain's surface, going from powder to near-ice, reinforced by all the snow in the air around the Vulcan crashing down in an instant.
I only held the force for a moment, releasing my hold on the gravity before the creature's natural magic could cause any backlash by fighting mine. I still wasn't confident in matching my magical reserves against my opponents' – not even when it was a creature instead of a person.
I looked over to Lucy, who had unfrozen, and gestured to the creature which had barely begun to rise. "Hey, Lucy – I think this'll be a good chance for you to show off your stuff, don't you?"
The blonde looked at me askance for a moment, before her expression firmed and she nodded. Reaching into her coat, she produced a golden key, raising it into the air before bringing it slashing down with a cry of "Open, Gate of the Golden Bull: Taurus!"
There was a flash of golden light which forced me to close my eyes, which had adjusted to the cloud-covered, dreary twilight of the mountain, and when I turned back I let out a low whistle.
Taurus in person was considerably more impressive than the manga. He was big, easily topping me by as much as two feet, and the labrys in his hands was almost as large as he was. His musculature was above and beyond anything Schwarzenegger had ever dreamed of boasting, and his magical signature compared to the Vulcan's was like putting Son Goku and a ten year old side-by-side.
'So, this is the power of one of the Zodiac Spirits...' He stood tall for a moment, like some kind of marble statue, before finally moving...and immediately reminding me why I hadn't been that impressed with him in the manga.
"Your boobs are as nice as ever, Lucy! No - moo-ore than ever!"
My eyebrow twitched, and I sank my face into the palm of one hand. 'What is it about Lucy that seems to attract all the perverts...? Apart from the obvious, anyway.'
When the blonde got her spirit back under control, it was in time for the somewhat bloodied, and likely aching, Vulcan to finish regaining its feet and start kicking up a racket, beating its chest and glaring bloody murder at the first available target. In this case, Taurus – who seemed to become more serious when faced with an opponent, his lecherous grin becoming more bestial.
He roared and charged, labrys ready to swing, while the Vulcan accelerated to meet him. The two massive combatants collided with enough force to blow away the snow in a small sphere around them, before the ape-like Vulcan started attempting to beat on Taurus, who responded by tanking it like a shonen protagonist post a two-year timeskip and then headbutting it in the middle of a flurry.
Something broke, and the creature yelled out its displeasure as it clutched its snout. Even as it did so, Taurus wound up, then lashed out with a bellow, catching the Vulcan in the side of the head with the flat of his labrys.
There was a sound like a gong ringing, and the creature's eyes rolled up in its head before it fell over backwards into the snow, out for the count.
Taurus huffed like the bull which he so clearly resembled, before accepting Lucy's thanks for his service with a thumbs up and a grin before dissipating into motes of golden light that blew away in the wind.
Once he was gone, I started clapping, which seemed to start the blonde. 'Did she forget I was here or something?' "Excellent work Lucy," I told her. "You make for one scary opponent."
A chuckle made its way free of Lucy's throat, and she beamed. "Thanks, Declan."
"Guys!" Natsu called, apparently back from wherever he'd gone flying before, Happy by his side. "I'm back!" He started looking around. "Hey, where'd the Vulcan go?" He ran through the snow towards us a ways, then abruptly fell flat on his face.
Jumping up and whirling around, his already befuddled expression became even more confused. "Wait, Macao?" He crouched down, and there was a moment's pause before he spoke again. "Hey, it looks like some bastard broke his nose!"
I flinched, and I noticed that Lucy did likewise. We caught one another's eye, and came to an unspoken agreement.
If anyone asked, the Vulcan did it.
Broken nose or not, Macao seemed glad to be back with the guild, and Romeo was definitely happy to have his father back. Watching the two of them walk out to spend some time together felt...gratifying. Sure, I wasn't necessary for this little mission...but at the same time, I had helped. I'd been a part of making someone else's life better.
Admittedly, I'd been doing the same thing in Hargeon...but for all that people thanked me, it was never really a personal thing. I defended the town, and therefore helped just about everyone...but I never really saw how that affected people directly.
I supposed this was something I needed to understand, if I was going to have my answer. If I was going to feel what Heather had felt...and find what it was about Fairy Tail in particular that could turn even the tears of the dying to laughter.
I was broken from my introspection by a tap on the shoulder, and I turned to find Lucy smiling at me. "I just realised," she told me, "that I didn't thank you for keeping that thing away from me up there."
I made to wave it off, but she just shook her head. "Nope, you're not getting out of this. You know, I realised after you and Natsu dealt with Bora that I forgot to pay for our meal?" I winced slightly as she continued, "So I went back to the restaurant, only to find that, apparently, you already paid for Natsu and Happy – as well as you and I."
She gave me a level stare, while I resisted the urge to rub the back of my head. "So, to make up for it, we're getting another meal – and I'm paying this time."
I raised an eyebrow, and she seemed to understand the question, if the dusting of red in her cheeks was any indication. "Don't give me that look. I just don't like being in people's debt, that's all."
Well, that made sense. Lucy was quite fiscal-minded in the manga – this was probably just an example of that. "Well, I can understand that," I mused. "Alright then. Do you have somewhere in mind?"
The blonde shook her head. "Not really. I was thinking we could ask Mirajane."
Sensible idea – as Fairy Tail's resident barmaid and publicity figure, she likely knew the lay of the land around here. "Alright then, let's go."
Really, you'd think I'd have learned my lesson in Hargeon. But, no – Lucy and I just went straight to a woman I later remembered as having a tendency to gossip and try to play matchmaker, asking for places where we could get a decent meal.
Within earshot of Natsu, who I imagine developed a terrifying smile right about then.
I only realised the mistake we'd made when we walked into the Guild the next morning to a banner wishing the 'intendeds' the best of luck in the future, and Makarov greeting us cheerfully…before informing us that a Guild Master could perform wedding ceremonies.
Poor Lucy immediately broke down, her mind seeming to just shut off as she jerkily drew up a barstool and promptly buried her head in her crossed arms.
Me? I didn't get mad any more - but there was a distinction between revenge and justice.
Or, so I told myself anyway.
One way or another, I waited for an opportune moment, then struck - tripping Natsu with a subtle increase of the gravity around his foot between one step and the next, then making him considerably heavier as he fell...
Right onto Cana's booze, which shattered under the impact.
A moment later, the Dragon Slayer found himself on the receiving end of a royal beat-down from the alcoholic user of Card Magic, and I felt that I'd made a good start.
As I watched the ensuing chaos with a certain sense of accomplishment, I found Gray walking up to me, giving me an appraising look before presenting his hand. "Hey, we didn't really get a chance to meet yesterday. The name's Gray – Gray Fullbuster."
I took the hand, shaking it without compunction. Gray was a lot like Natsu – if ever so slightly more level-headed most of the time. I felt like he would probably make for a better conversationalist at least, even if he did have a tendency to anger easily in certain situations.
"I'm Declan Ross." Pausing, I considered for a moment, then continued, deciding not to waste a good opportunity. "Gray...Gray…hm, I think Natsu mentioned you a few times during the walk from Hargeon."
"Oh?" The Ice Magic user asked, his tone carrying an underlying hint of danger that I was glad wasn't pointed in my direction.
"Uh huh." I nodded. "Yeah, he definitely did. I'm guessing your magic is something to do with ice?" He nodded slowly, and I nodded once more, as if the last piece of a puzzle had slotted into place. "That explains it then – when I wondered why he kept saying you were 'slower than an iceberg'."
Ah – the second person I'd seen who could pull off the twitching eyebrow. Turning to where Cana was just wrapping up stomping the Dragon Slayer into the floorboards, he cracked his knuckles, the action combined with his lack of a shirt reminding me of a street fighter- 'Wait, wasn't he wearing his shirt a moment ago? And where the hell did his trousers go? I thought the spontaneously vanishing clothes thing was just because of the lack of transition panels in the manga!'
While I was trying to figure out the Mage's apparently supernatural ability to undress, which seemed to surpass even Erza's Requip Magic, he said, "I'll get back to you in a bit, Declan – I gotta go freeze a wagging tongue."
While he advanced with a cry of 'Natsu, you bastard! What are you telling people about me you damn flame-brain?!', I made my way over to the bar, where Lucy was apparently muttering to herself about how she could never face the world again.
I once again resisted the urge to rub the back of my head. Okay, sure, the whole thing was kinda annoying...but did it really get to her that much? "Lucy?" I asked tentatively, and the blonde leapt almost a foot into the air from a sitting start, coming down facing me.
"A-ah...Declan?" She stuttered, still somewhat red in the face.
"Yeah..." I trailed off a bit awkwardly, stuffing my hands in my pockets. "You mentioned last night that you hadn't found an apartment yet, right?"
Though she groaned a bit at the reminder of the previous evening's meal (which I'd actually rather enjoyed – the food had basically been Italian, and the conversation had revolved around books, something in which we both had an interest), Lucy nodded.
"Me neither," I informed her. "So, I was thinking I'd head out today and try to find somewhere to live. If you need to find somewhere too, and if we're going to be working together in the future, then I think it'd make sense to do this together."
I shot careful glances through the surrounding area as we conversed, eyes open for any sign of Mirajane. I didn't want her getting any more ideas.
The blonde seemed to understand why I was looking, since she promptly starting whirling her head around, but after she settled down she seemed to think it through. "That makes sense.." She muttered, nodding after a moment. "Alright then." Suddenly starting to flush again, she murmured, "You…are talking about getting separate apartments, right?"
I couldn't help going a bit red in the face myself at that, but I nodded. "Yeah."
Lucy let out a sigh of relief, then stood up. "Alright then, let's go house hunting. I just hope there's something I can afford…"
Abruptly, my mind turned to Lucy's many minor breakdowns over money problems from the manga – largely due to Natsu's tendency to incur most of a mission's pay in collateral damage.
…Well, I was here now. Surely I'd be able to do something. How hard could it be to keep a building in one piece?
Finding a place to live wasn't as time consuming as I'd expected, considering the effort involved in doing so on Earth. In all likelihood though, the ease of the process was due to me already knowing more or less where the apartment Lucy had rented in the manga was located and leading us straight there via street signs.
While she was in negotiations with a woman who most decidedly did not dress her age, I was having a similar time with the man who owned the building next door. He was probably the same age as Lucy's landlady, but the major difference was that he reminded me of Alan Sugar.
He was all business in a suit that probably could have cut glass, and there was no nonsense about him. I ended up paying 75,000 Jewels a month for the place, more than I remembered Lucy having to pay, but at the same time I picked up some rather interesting information.
Strawberry Street was, apparently, the site of one massive shadow turf-war. 'Madame' Fiona, which I learned was the proper name for the landlady, had been butting heads with 'Sir' Potter, the man who owned my new apartment, for a good few decades now – and in the process, they had bought up most of the real estate in this street and the surroundings ones in a kind of real-life game of Monopoly. That being the case, they had turned it all into rented housing.
It seemed utterly ridiculous to me, but then I supposed it was just the kind of world I lived in now. One way or another, Lucy and I exited our respective buildings almost at the same time, each showing the other a key and a look of satisfaction. "I was expecting that to take a lot longer," Lucy noted. "Plus that lady was pretty nice…" She shuddered. "Even if she really needs to change her wardrobe."
Suppressing my own shivers, I nodded, then relayed the story of Strawberry Street to her as we returned to the Guild. Our possessions were being stored there for now - or, what we'd been carrying with us at least. As it turned out, Lucy really hadn't taken much with her when she left home - she had stored her clothes and miscellaneous personal items, both hygienic and sentimental, in the Celestial Spirit Realm through Horologium.
I only had my clothes and toiletries really, though I also carried a couple of gifts from Hargeon - one way or another, I'd fit it all in my backpack before leaving.
I'd need to go and buy some groceries, now that I had a place to stay. And towels. And sheets. And...well, everything an apartment needed.
Well, at least I didn't particularly have to worry about carrying things any more. Not when I could pick up entire trees with one finger.
We ended up wandering our way through Magnolia after picking up my rucksack and Lucy's satchel, eventually finding an Inn a fair distance from both Fairy Tail and Strawberry Street - the former because no one would ever insure a residence anywhere near our Guild, and the latter because Strawberry Street was a cornered market, and no one wanted to stick their nose in either of the owners' business.
The morning after we purchased our apartments, I met Lucy in the Inn's dining room and suggested that, since we had both just now purchased the apartments, we could go round the markets and get some necessities.
Like furniture, for example - so we didn't have to sleep in an Inn, despite owning apartments.
She agreed readily, but after I suggested we pool our finances - knowing as I did that Team Natsu weren't the most profitable of Fairy Tail's teams, and that Lucy herself had very little in the way of Jewels - we fell into a half-hour-long, excruciatingly polite argument. Lucy said it would be far too difficult to judge how much we owed one another; I didn't particularly care, seeing as so long as I had food to eat and a roof to sleep under I couldn't care less how many zeroes I had in my bank account.
Eventually, I won the argument through attrition - and, perhaps unfairly, by remarking that for someone who, at my last count, had barely enough Jewels to buy a night's rest at an Inn and a train ticket to Magnolia, she was very confident that she'd be able to furnish an entire apartment and feed herself.
Thankfully she got over the remains of her huffy mood quickly enough, and the rest of the day, I followed behind her as Lucy dragged me through what must have been most of the markets in Magnolia.
Before this point, I'd been living out of one of Hargeon's Inns for the past six months (which probably explained why it had undergone almost as much growth as the Grocer, evolving into a full-on hotel over the period of my stay. It was like I had a green thumb - only, for businesses), and as such I hadn't really looked much into how household tasks and such were accomplished in Earthland.
It turned out that most of the gadgets and technological advances I was used to from Earth had counterparts of some description in Earthland. A box for toasting bread, a jug specifically for heating water, these were familiar. There were, however, some innovations I wouldn't have expected – such as a metal disc which could be placed at the bottom of a sink which would form a self-contained vortex, which effectively bade farewell to all effort involved in washing up.
And thank God for that, too. I didn't particularly enjoy cooking – but I detested cleaning up afterwards even more.
There were also devices for cleaning and pressing clothes, which I realised I'd actually completely forgotten about.
The day had passed before I knew it, and we returned to our apartments with two massive sacks containing quite a few smaller sacks slung over my back, all reduced to the weight of an empty backpack, just to make sure they wouldn't go floating off into space if I lost my grip. I passed off one bag to Lucy, making sure that my magic remained attached to it, before moving into my own place and getting to work.
Food went into the kitchen cupboards, to-be-assembled furniture was arrayed where it would be put together later, and various other items ended up where they needed to go. An hour or so of bashed thumbs, quiet swearing, a lot of nails, screws and tools later, I had a functional apartment.
When I went next door, I found Lucy in the middle of a mess which might once have been various individual pieces of furniture, but which now consisted of…well, a mess.
Rolling up my sleeves once more, I went about finding the instructions and helping her figure out where it had gone wrong, silently thankful for my own history with taking furniture apart and putting it back together again during moves.
It was late by the time I went to sleep, but I did so on a bed owned by me, in an apartment which I could call my own, with my own clothes in the wardrobe and my own food in the kitchen
Even if I did forget to get undressed first.
I was awoken the next day by a shout from next door which jolted me awake and had me running for the door, having not bothered to get undressed the night before. I recalled Natsu and Happy's usual entry route, and adjusted my own gravity to let me run up the side of the building and fall in through the window, rolling to my feet in Lucy's living area in full expectation of a fight…
Instead, I found Natsu rubbing his cheek, Happy laughing himself silly, and Lucy standing in the middle of the room, breathing heavily and wearing just a towel.
All three of them turned at my sudden entrance, and I immediately locked eyes with Lucy. I think we both turned bright red at the same time, and I promptly turned on my heel, raising a hand and sticking the other in my pocket. "Well, I see I'm not needed here, so…"
I didn't get any further in my attempted retreat via the window, as what was in all likelihood Lucy's foot crashed into the back of my head, laying me out with a groan as I failed to reduce my own weight in time. "Should've…expected that…"
As the blonde stomped away into her bedroom, muttering to herself irritably, I clambered to my feet and rubbed the point where she'd impacted. Six months ago, a hit like that probably would have knocked me out. Hell, the hit Natsu had dealt me during our sparring match might well have killed me.
This wasn't six months ago.
All the training I'd done under the influence of increased gravity had done wonders for me, my muscles growing denser and more powerful until I actually felt sort of proud of my physique. At the same time, I'd learned that something about having magic apparently altered you on a physical level, as I was stronger, faster and more durable than even my increased workouts could have explained.
The end result being, I could be driven into a wooden floor by a flying kick, and all I had to show for it would be a bruise that would vanish in a day.
I loved magic.
"So, what're you doing here Natsu?" I asked, moving over to sit in one of the four chairs around the table where he had situated himself (and apparently helped himself to some of Lucy's food).
The Dragon Slayer shrugged, apparently uncaring of the fading red mark on his cheek from where Lucy had kicked him. "Mira told me you guys had got new apartments," he told me. "So, I figured I'd come say high. Lucy's was the first one on the street, so…"
Well, that was…logical. "Right then. So, you just came looking to say hi?"
Lucy emerged from her bedroom about then, now dressed, as Natsu hummed. "Well, I also wanted to ask about Lucy's Celestial Spirits," he told me. "I remember seeing that water lady on the way here, and you told me that it was a bull guy who beat the Vulcan, right?"
Lucy and I twitched as one, nodding in perfect sync. ""Absolutely. We weren't involved at all.""
Apparently not finding anything remotely creepy or suspicious about our double act, the Dragon Slayer continued. "So, I wanted to learn more about them. Like, how many do you have, Lucy? What are they like?"
The Celestial Spirit Mage sighed, then got up and left the room. She returned quickly, bearing three cups of tea and her keyring. I stood and relieved her of two cups, handing one to Natsu and taking my own back to the table, where Lucy sat to my left and Natsu's right, with Happy standing on the seat opposite her. Six keys were promptly placed on the table, three silver and three gold.
"These are the keys of the six Celestial Spirits I currently have contracts with," she informed us. "Horologium, the Clock Spirit. Crux, the Southern Cross Spirit. And Lyra, the Lyre Spirit." She tapped each of the silver keys in turn. "These guys' contracts pass along quite often since their keys are silver, so you can sometimes buy them in shops."
Her tapping moved to the golden keys. "Taurus, the Bull Spirit. Aquarius, the Water Spirit. And Cancer, the Crab Spirit. All three of them are Zodiac Spirits, meaning their abilities are pretty far beyond what silver key spirits can accomplish. As a result, finding them is rare, even with the fairly low number of Celestial Spirit Mages out there."
Natsu nodded thoughtfully, wiping his mouth subtly – Happy had been openly salivating ever since 'Crab' was mentioned.
"Lucy, what about that key you bought from me the other day?" I prompted, and she blinked a couple of times before snapping her fingers.
"Right! I can show you guys how Spirits and Mages make a contract." Producing the Key of the Canis Minor, she pointed it in front of her, clearing her throat. "I, who am the road through which a Spirit might enter the world of Man, do hereby summon thee, owner of this key, to enter into a contract. Pass through the gate, and appear before me! Open, Gate of the Canis Minor! Nikola!"
Golden light had begun emanating from the key as Lucy had started her recitation, and it had formed a glowing keyhole in the air around the time of 'pass through the gate'. With her final cry, it expanded rapidly, a wind kicking up in the apartment before the light coalesced into a small, pale figure with a nose like a carrot.
It was a lot of buildup for a Spirit which I knew had absolutely no combat potential, and was effectively a glorified, sentient plushy...but I wasn't going to say that out loud.
Besides, the little bugger was kinda cute.
Lucy certainly thought so, as she cuddled the little guy happily. Natsu and Happy glanced at one another, then turned back to her. ""Don't worry, there's always next time.""
"It didn't fail!" Lucy declared angrily, holding the Celestial Spirit closer. I made a point of staying quiet, instead choosing to crouch down beside Lucy and get a closer look at the little snowman look-alike, who looked back at me with a little smile.
...Scratch 'kinda' cute. Dammit, now I wanted one.
I took a few steps back as Lucy placed Nikola on the ground and stepped back as well, then I chose to return to my seat as she ran through days of the week. Nikola nodded or shook his head for those days on which he could or could not be summoned, and Lucy made notes in a little notebook. It really was rather mundane, but then I supposed not even magic could make business interesting.
"I know it might seem really normal for something magical," she spoke up, both Natsu and Happy nodding emphatically while I coughed into my hand. "But this contract is important, because it signifies the promise made between the Celestial Spirit and the Celestial Spirit Mage. The Spirits take promises really seriously..." She idly clenched one fist, hugging the little Spirit closer. "So as a Celestial Spirit Mage, I'll never go back on my word."
I nodded approvingly at that, Natsu grinning in agreement with the sentiment. Lucy herself turned back to the Canis Minor Spirit, humming in thought for a moment. "I think...I'm going to call you Plue." The blonde told the little figure, who seemed pleased with the name.
Natsu raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't its name Nikola, though?"
Lucy nodded. "Kinda. Every Spirit has a so-called 'True Name' that is usually used to call them, but it's not unheard of for a contractor to address them by a pet name."
While Natsu took that in, Plue carefully wiggled around, prompting Lucy to put him down again...where he immediately launched into a series of gestures and small 'plue' noises that I couldn't make heads or tails of.
Natsu, on the other hand, developed a thoughtful look as the Spirit moved, occasionally humming and nodding his head as if he was listening to some kind of well-reasoned argument.
Lucy and I just watched, neither of us entirely sure what to make of the image, until Plue seemingly finished conveying his message, and Natsu stood up with his hands on his hips. "I totally agree!" He declared, Plue jumping into the air, while I rubbed the bridge of my nose and Lucy facepalmed.
Turning to the two of us, Natsu pointed first at Lucy. "Lucy, you came after me when I went after Macao – plus, your Celestial Spirit beat up that Vulcan and saved Macao!" His finger tracked over to me. "Declan, you're good at not breaking stuff, and we can pull off some awesome combination attacks!"
'...Is that really his motivation behind asking me to team up with him...?'
"Plus," he continued, "you two are-"
Before he finished that sentence, Taurus' key was in Lucy's hand, and the Dragon Slayer could probably feel a certain amount of drag in the direction of the open window as I levelled a palm at him. "I'm sorry," I smiled, the expression probably not conveying happiness as it was designed to do, "you were saying?"
The suddenly sweating young man grinned awkwardly, the laugh he emitted not sounding particularly genuine. "You two are...neighbours, and you get along. Plus you're both smarter than me..."
I blinked rapidly, lowering my hand. So, Natsu acknowledged something like that? I always kinda figured he was too stubborn. 'Shows what I know. I might as well start thinking of what I know about these people being the broad strokes of their personalities – not their true characters.'
"Are you going somewhere with this, Natsu?" Lucy asked, and the Dragon Slayer nodded several times.
"Yeah, I am. I'm agreeing with Plue's idea – we should all make a team!"
Lucy blinked, though I already knew about this. "A team?" She queried, wondering more about its meaning in context than in general.
I decided to explain. "Well, you know how everyone is part of the Guild, right?" She nodded. "Well, within the Guild there are some Mages who prefer to take jobs alone, but quite a lot of them generally head out with the same group of people. It could just be they get along well, or they might have complimentary skill sets – but one way or another, they form a team, and it makes clearing jobs easier in the long run."
"Many hands..." The blonde muttered idly, and I nodded.
"Exactly."
Lucy smiled, then nodded. "It sounds like a great idea to me."
"Awesome!" Natsu exclaimed, throwing up a fist as Happy leapt into the air with a shout of 'Aye!', Plue doing the same thing, although his shout was also the only word he could say. Lucy laughed and joked that the contract was sealed, while I took another sip from my tea, my lips curving into a smile behind the porcelain.
"I actually have a job already." Natsu informed us, producing a sheet of paper which I decided to take off his hands first.
"You work fast, Natsu." Lucy laughed, and the young man grinned.
"I figured you guys would say yes," he admitted. "We've all been getting along pretty well these past few days, and plus you and Declan would get to spend more time tog-"
The rest of his speech was cut off by the sound of flesh-on-flesh, and I finished my perusal of the poster to see that the Dragon Slayer was laid out on the floor twitching, a bright-red Lucy standing above him with her fist outstretched.
I cleared my throat, catching their attention. "So to summarise the job," I began, "we travel to Shirotsume Town, then break into the home of the Duke of Everlue and recover a certain book for the client, whereupon we'll be paid 200,000 Jewels?"
Natsu nodded, while Lucy's mild rage/embarrassment transitioned into excitement at the figure. "200,000 Jewels for a book? That's brilliant!" Pausing, she suddenly frowned. "Wait...is there a catch of some kind?"
I looked at the poster again, specifically the warning next to the depiction of the Duke, then up again. Natsu made to open his mouth, a devious look already forming on his face...but I promptly flared the gravity around his head, smacking it into the floor again. "None at all." I told her with a perfectly straight face, though with Natsu's sudden motion it might not have been as effective as I'd have liked.
"Right..." Lucy muttered, eyeing me for a moment before shaking her head. "I'm gonna go pack for the trip. You guys should go do the same."
"Gotcha," I agreed, dragging Natsu up from the floor as I headed out the front door instead of the window, Happy flying along beside us. "See ya about noon, Lucy?"
"Right!" She called after us, and I closed the door once we were through, holding the Dragon Slayer at arm's length in front of me. We were about the same height, and I was reducing his weight at the moment, so I pulled it off.
"Natsu?" I asked, getting his attention. "Please don't tell me you were going to have Lucy pose as an applicant for this maid job?"
The Dragon Slayer paused, opened his mouth, then shut it.
"...Are you saying nothing because you can't deny it?"
Another pause. Then a nod.
I let out a sigh, putting him on his feet and rubbing my eyes. "Natsu...this poster labels him as a well-known pervert. Do you really want him within arm's reach of our friend? A member of our team?"
The Dragon Slayer stared at me for a moment with an odd look, before shaking his head and frowning as he stared at the paper. "...I didn't really think about that," he said. "It was such an obvious way in..."
I nodded, rolling up the paper. "It is," I told him. "In another situation, I might actually suggest trying it. But I don't like the idea of any woman having to be near a guy like this, and I definitely don't like the idea of Lucy being the woman in question."
Natsu let out a breath, then nodded. "Yeah, I get that." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Thanks for setting me straight, Declan." His grin started coming back now, as he started to head down the corridor. "I'll see you at noon!"
I followed in his wake after a moment, heading for my apartment to put together some travelling gear. 'So, it's time for us to go after Daybreak.' I narrowed my eyes. 'I've read about so many characters over the years who I'd have loved to get my hands on...and now, I've actually got the chance.'
I couldn't help the slasher grin that formed on my face. 'I think I'm going to enjoy this mission.'
"Hey, Mira!"
"What is it, Natsu?"
"I've just formed a team!"
"Oh, you have? With Declan and Lucy, by any chance?"
"Yup! We're even going on our first job soon."
"That one you took down from the board a little while ago?"
"That's right. You know...I was gonna make a joke, about having Lucy apply for the job that the target's got open and getting us inside..."
"Oh? You changed your mind?"
"Actually, Declan stopped me from making it. He dragged me out of the room, then scolded me. I mean, it's good that he cares and all – but he actually thought I was serious?"
"Well Natsu, it can be rather hard to tell with you, sometimes..."
"Tch. I'll just have to spend more time with them, then – we'll get along well enough after a while."
"Well, you're not wrong... So, Declan's being protective of Lucy then?"
"Hehehe...yup. He told me he wouldn't have liked putting any woman in that position, but Lucy in particular."
"Those two really aren't doing themselves any favours in trying to convince us they're not interested in one another."
"I guess not. It kinda reminds me of L..."
"..."
"...Sorry, Mira."
"No...no, it's okay, Natsu. She was close to you too."
"..."
"You take care on your mission, alright? Don't go racking up another massive bill, the Guild Master's heart can only take so much."
"Hehehehe...I make no promises."
Author's Note
Right then. That covers the Macao Arc, the intervening time and the beginning of the Daybreak Arc. I personally feel like a lot of the characters in Fairy Tail could be a bit overblown at times, so I'll probably end up portraying them as a bit more...normal, I guess. Just a quick heads-up. I'll try and keep in some of the original wackiness, but we'll just see how things happen.
Now, there was a Guest review left on the last chapter which raised a few questions, so I'm gonna answer them here.
[Gravity Magic is an interesting choice, and a powerful one at that. But is that the only type of Magic he'll learn or will he learn more?]
For at least a while, Gravity Magic will be the only skill Declan has - certainly, it'll always be his first choice. However, considering the various minor Magics that have been shown (e.g. basic Transformation Magic, standard Requip Magic (since Erza's Requip is basically the Tracing to normal Requip's Gradient Air)), having him pick up a few other skills would be fairly logical. Nothing particularly major - but I'm sure I'll get some interesting suggestions, or that inspiration will strike.
[It might also be an interesting idea to give him legendary weapons to use like Gae Bolg or Balmung which he can switch between.]
Generally speaking, Declan's going to be an unarmed combatant - the fact that Erza uses weapons and yet doesn't kill her opponents is a sign of skill, skill that Declan doesn't have. I'll consider some kind of weapon/artefact, or since I'm going to be going rather off the rails with the canon at times I might spread a few among other characters; we'll wait and see for now.
[I know a lot of people are going to ask about this so I'll be the first to do so, will Declan be paired with anyone? There are a lot of girls he can be paired with in Fairy Tail, or it could be a harem. I actually prefer girls like Levy, Laki, Kinana or Yukino, but I'm not too sure how things will turn out.]
Honestly, I've not got much of a focus on pairings. It's not what I do best, certainly. I'll probably have pairings between characters in the story (since I can't help but ship it sometimes), but with Declan, it'll either be a singular pairing or gen; depends on how he develops and how things go with the other characters as I write. Right now, it probably looks like Lucy is the most likely candidate - but Fairy Tail has a great many interesting characters, particularly later on, so once again we'll wait and see. I might do a poll for it, if this story gains enough followers to make it viable.
[Finally, how up to date is Declan with the Fairy Tail story? I mean, has he read the latest chapter from this week or has the series already finished from his present time when he appears in Earthland?]
I'd say that Declan knows basically what's meant to happen up until after the Battle of Fairy Tail Arc - so that's the Macao, Daybreak, Lullaby, Galuna Island, Phantom Lord, Loke, Tower of Heaven and Battle of Fairy Tail arcs. Up to chapter 130, basically.
I hope you enjoyed reading, and that it's interesting enough to keep you coming back for more. Leave a review if you can think of anything it might be good to add or remove, or if you just want to make your opinion known.
'Till next time!