Chapter 4 – Oby vs. Gildarts!

==Three Months Later==

"You're sure eyeing the request board mighty hard," Nab declared as Oby stared intensely at the board, then he smiled "I'm glad somebody else understands how hard it is to pick one." "Actually Nab," Oby replied, "I'm scoping the possible outcomes of every one of these jobs as well as determining who I should take with me for each mission to obtain the optimal results. I can pick one for you as well if you'd like." Nab blinked, "Um, ok?" Oby turned back to the board and his image flickered. Suddenly he was holding a job flyer out to Nab, "Your knowledge of horror novels will serve you well on this one. A well known horror author is seeking a consultant to assist in building a house of horrors as a tourist attraction. I think you will enjoy it."

Nab took the flyer in surprise, "Wow, this one's been here for weeks and I never would've guessed it was a good one for me…" Oby smiled without taking his eyes away from the board, "Guess it's a good thing I was here today eh?" His hand suddenly flickered out and took one of the fliers, "This one looks good." He turned and whistled, "Hey Master, I'm gonna take this book stealing gig in Shirotsume. Nab's taking the consultation job in Elmtown." Everyone looked at him in shock as the words "Nab's taking the job" left his mouth. Nab looked slightly nervous as his chances of getting out of it dwindled to nothing.

Makarov nodded, "Very well, are you going to take anyone with you?" Oby looked around and then shook his head, "No, it doesn't pay much and doesn't sound very hard. With my Arc of Time I'll be able to get in and out before anyone knows I was there. Should be a piece of cake." Master Makarov nodded, "Well be careful anyway." Oby grinned on his way out the door, "Will do boss man! Gildarts will ya quick ogling Ur's butt and ask her out already!" Ur, Ultear, Cana, Gray and Lyon who were all sitting in a line at the bar, immediately spewed what they were drinking and Gildarts leapt up in embarrassment and started spouting fervent and vigorous denials that he had been doing any such thing. Oby just laughed as he suddenly disappeared midstride.

==Twenty Minutes Later, Shirotsume==

Oby rapped on the door of the small house in his adult form. A man with graying hair and a small neat mustache opened the door, "Yes?" Oby held up the flier, "Mr. Melon, I'm a wizard from Fairy Tail. I came to see about your request?" Mr. Melon blinked in surprise, "Oh! Yes of course! Please come in!" Oby stepped in and Mr. Melon showed him to the table before sitting down across from him, "I really can't thank you enough, I know ten thousand jewel is such a small reward, but this means a lot to me, so I'm very thankful you accepted."

Oby smiled, "Actually Mr. Melon, I only stopped by before going up to Everlue's to tell you that I'll be doing this one at no charge to you." Mr. Melon blinked, "What? Why? I mean I'm very grateful but…" "Simply put Mr. Melon, Everlue is a scum bag who I'd enjoy putting behind bars even if I weren't getting paid. I also strongly suspect him of being in possession of something I want which I hope to relieve him of. Helping you out is just an added bonus," he smiled, "I'll get that book and be back in about oh, three minutes."

Mr. Melon and his wife stared, "Three minutes?" Oby rose, "Yes, one minute to walk out the door, one to walk back in, and one to hand you the book. Don't believe me just watch." He walked out the door and stopped time as he casually flew off towards Everlue Manor. He landed inside the gate and was immediately almost blown back over it. A massive mountainous gorilla of a woman with pink hair in a maid's uniform had erupted out of the ground in front of him. "Do you have an appointment?" she rumbled. Oby straightened up, "No. Although I am curious to know how you are able to circumvent my Time Stop." The massive woman crossed her arms, "If you do not have an appointment then please leave. I am able to circumvent your time magic because I am a Celestial Spirit."

Oby back flipped up onto the garden wall, "And which one are you?" The massive woman looked up at him, "I am Virgo the Maiden." Oby smiled as he sat down, "Well Virgo, may I ask who is your wizard?" "I am contracted to Duke Everlue," Virgo replied. "And what would I have to do in order to sever that contract?" Oby asked. "A Celestial Spirit's contract is severed when their wizard is incarcerated or killed, or if they willingly sever it themselves," Virgo replied, "Why do you ask?"

Oby smiled, "Well I once summoned Aries and Leo to help a comrade. I was extremely impressed with their power and I decided I wanted a Celestial Spirit partner of my own. When I found out Everlue has a Zodiac Key, I came up here to acquire it." "Interesting," Virgo replied, "but I am afraid I cannot let you take it. My orders are to defend the Master, and I will carry out my orders." Oby rose from his perch, "I have my own mission, and that is to retrieve a book in his possession. I will carry out my mission, you may try to stop me if you feel you must, but I ask that you not hold it against me later."

Virgo raised a hand, "I will protect my wizard!" A blast of pink light erupted away from her palm and demolished the garden wall. Oby took to the air, glowing brightly, "I'm sorry Virgo, but I won't let you stop me." He moved too fast to see and slammed a wind blast into Virgo hard enough to knock her through the wall behind her, which was pierced clean through by a perfectly round hole that appeared an instant before she flew through it, allowing her to flip midair and skid an unharmed landing. Oby shot through after her and met her massive fist with his own armored fist as she leapt to engage him.

Virgo was incredibly strong and actually managed to stop Oby midair. Oby landed and they began to grapple. "You will not harm the master!" Virgo declared angrily. "I'm sorry Virgo," Oby repeated, "But you won't stop me! Storm God Hammer!" The following blast of black wind water and lightning was so powerful that Virgo went flying backwards, her arms disintegrating into golden light. Oby watched her dissolve back to the Celestial Spirit World sadly, "I'll make this up to you Virgo." Virgo smiled faintly, and as she finally vanished, Oby could've sworn he heard her say thank you.

==Twelve Time Stopped Hours (An Instant For Everyone Else) Later==

As a stack of papers detailing Everlue's numerous criminal dealings appeared on a desk in the Magic Council Enforcement Unit's main office, Everlue appeared tied up in a cell, and Oby reappeared at the Melons' house and walked in, the book called Daybreak in hand. "Mr. Melon, your father's final work." Mr. Melon accepted the book in shock, "How did you…" Oby raised a finger, "Ah, before you go and burn it, I found something very interesting. Your father laid a spell on this book to hide its real contents. Here it should undo itself now that it's in your possession. Wait for it and three, two, one."

Light suddenly erupted from the book, streams of light and letters whirling around the room as Oby explained, "Your father spent all that time Everlue had him locked up writing a masterpiece for you Mr. Melon. He disguised it with magic so that Everlue wouldn't destroy it and hurt him or you. I encourage you to enjoy your father's final momento Mr. Kaby." Kaby stared at the cover of the book which now read, "Dear Kaby". A smile finally cracked across his face and he sat down, "Thank you, thank you so much. Are you sure there's nothing I can do to thank you?"

Oby smiled over his shoulder as he turned to go, "Everlue's in jail and I dropped enough evidence with the Magic Council's Custody Enforcement Unit to make sure he never leaves. I satisfied the customer, and," he extracted a golden key from his pocket, "I got what I came for. You've already given me reward in plenty just by bringing Everlue to my attention. Don't worry, this key is worth more than any amount of money you could've given me." He smiled and waved over his shoulder as he walked out, "Have a good day Mr. and Mrs. Melon, thanks for the work!" And just like that, he was gone.

==A Far Away Mountaintop Moments Later==

Oby stopped as he landed atop the mountaintop. He sat on a rock and covered his eyes, "Let me see…" He rose and extended the key he had taken from Everlue, "I call to thee in the Realm of the Celestial Spirits, I beckon thee to my side, pass through the gate, Virgo!" Golden light erupted from the earth and a small human shaped form erupted from the ground. A gorgeous young woman with short pink hair and blue eyes dressed in a tight black and gold militaristic jacket open quite revealingly at the chest, spotless white pants and gloves, and thigh high black boots with a pair of handcuffs and a whip at her belt landed and bowed slightly with a small smile, "You summoned Master? What can I do for you?"

Oby blinked in surprise at the form change and then smiled, "I wanted to apologize for attacking you earlier and see if you would consent to being my celestial spirit partner. You don't have to if you do not wish to. I will find you another wizard if you would like, but it would make me very happy if we could be partners." Virgo straightened and smiled brightly, "Actually I'm a masochist, so I don't mind playing rough, and yes, I would be happy to be your partner." Oby blinked at her forthrightness and then smiled, "Alright then, what days are you free, and is there anything you would like from me?"

Virgo blushed slightly and smiled, "You know not many Celestial Wizards ask what their spirits want from them. I'm free every day except Sunday which I like to have off, as for what I want…" She stepped closer, wrapped her arms around Oby's shoulders and whispered in his ear exactly what she wanted. Oby blushed so much that his stark white hair almost turned as pink as Virgo's. He stared at her as she stepped back to look at him with a smile, "Um, aren't you the maiden? Isn't that like contradictory to your title?"

Virgo shook her head with a smug playful grin, "Not at all, I told you I'm a masochist. I return to my maiden form if I ever leave it when I jump between worlds so that I can experience that exquisite burn over and over again. I'm actually very experienced. So are we agreed on the terms of the contract?" Oby smiled from ear to ear, "Yes most definitely!" Virgo grinned, "Good, then let's get started."

==Two Hours Later==

Oby was still walking slightly drunk with delight as he staggered back into the Guild Hall. He made his way to the bar and sat down next to Master Makarov still grinning from ear to ear, "Mission accomplished chief." Makarov looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "What happened to you? You look like you've run a marathon and won the grand prize." Oby started laughing, "I'm a Celestial Wizard now, and I think it may be my favorite kind of magic yet!" Makarov raised an eyebrow, "Really? And how did you come by Celestial Wizardry?"

Oby pulled himself upright still grinning, "Well you remember back in March when I teamed up with the other guilds to take down that cult? Well one of the wizards on our team was a Celestial Wizard and I wound up summoning her spirits to protect her when she ran out of power. I was very impressed, so I decided that I wanted to try and get my hands on a Celestial Spirit Key of my own. That's why I took that job today, I found out the guy I was stealing the book from had one of the Twelve Gold Zodiac Keys. I might've passed it over as I'm normally not a thief, but the guy was actually a major crime boss, so I was like three birds one stone. I did the job for free since the reward was so small anyway and I did it in like three minutes, which is good for the guild's rep, I took down that Everlue guy, and I got one of the twelve Zodiac Spirits for my Celestial Spirit partner." Makarov nodded with a smile, "Good job, sounds like you've had a very successful day. Which spirit did you get?"

"Virgo the Maiden," Oby replied dreamily. Makarov raised an eyebrow, "Oh? With that face you're making she must be quite the cutie." "She's a total bombshell!" Oby agreed with a huge grin, "Best. Job. Ever." "Well then why don't you bring her out for us to meet her?" Makarov asked, trying hard to keep a straight face. Oby grinned, "You got it boss!" He extracted Virgo's key from the inner left breast pocket of his coat and aimed it at the empty barstool next to him, "Open! Gate of the Maiden, Virgo!" Virgo popped through the golden seal that erupted around the end of the key with a smile, "You called Oby?" Oby nodded, "Master Makarov wanted to meet you." Virgo bowed her head politely, "It is a pleasure to meet you sir, I am Virgo." She looked around with a smile, "So this is Fairy Tail. Nice place. Oh, hello."

Nearly every guy in the guild had crowded around to meet her with a most remarkable speed. Oby sighed, "Virgo, meet the guys of the guild. Guys of the guild, this is Virgo, my new partner. She's a Celestial Spirit." Virgo waved with a smile, "Hi!" Then she visibly started to get uncomfortable with all the attention, "Um, Oby, can I go now?" Oby smiled, "Of course. Just wanted to introduce you to everybody right quick. You can go now if you'd like." Virgo smiled and started to glow, "See ya soon!" Oby closed his eyes and she disappeared in a flash of golden light that sent everyone who had been ogling her reeling backwards. Oby grinned as they tried to blink the stars from their eyes.

Then he was acutely aware of Ultear and Cana shooting him identical dirty looks from across the room. He raised an eyebrow in confusion and looked at Makarov. He turned around to face away from them, sat forward and asked quietly, "Eh boss, any idea why Ultear and Cana are givin me the stinkeye?" Makarov looked at them and back at him and started laughing. Oby's eyebrow went right back up and then Makarov grinned, "It looks like your fanclub isn't too happy with you having a new girlfriend."

Oby blinked in confusion. Then he realized what Makarov meant and shot a worried over his shoulder at Ultear and Cana who were still paying him a most unusual attention. Oby looked back forward and sat forward, placing his chin in one hand and drumming his fingers on the counter, "Now what am I gonna do about that…" he muttered. Then he realized the room had gotten very quiet. He looked behind him and found the face of a very angry Gildarts a few inches from his, "Uh oh."

The air made a little pampf noise as Oby disappeared. He reappeared sitting on the table Ur was at, "Please tell me he's not mad at me for what I said earlier." Ur grinned, "Nah, he's mad because I put him on ice for not checking with Cana to see if it was okay with her first. You might wanna run." Oby disappeared again as Gildarts' fist blasted through the space where his head had been. The ensuing chase lasted until Master Makarov yelled at Gildarts to knock it off, but of course by that time the guild hall was on the verge of collapsing. Gildarts stopped and Oby finally dropped back into sync with the rest of the time stream hanging upside down from the ceiling, "Well, looks like we made a mess of the place." He put his hands on the ceiling, "Arc of Time!"

Then, just as the Guild Hall and all the upturned furniture finished repairing itself, Gildarts grinned, "Gotcha." Even Oby couldn't have dodged a bolt of magic that fast from so close. There was a flash of light and Oby disappeared. Ur leapt up and slapped Gildarts, "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! HE WAS JUST A KID!" Gildarts actually staggered a little and rubbed his cheek, "What do you mean was? That was Disassembly Magic, it split him into lots of tiny little replicas of himself. It's embarrassing not deadly. Look!"

A little shower of tiny semiconscious Oby's suddenly started plopping down all over the guild hall. "He'll be back to normal in a little while," Gildarts explained, "But in the meantime everyone gets to play with an itty bitty Oby. I think it's suitable payback for calling me out like that earlier." Ur was about to make a biting comment and then all the tiny Oby's yelled in unison, "The only people allowed to play with the itty bitty Oby's are Ultear and Cana! Anyone else tries it they're getting slugged! Also, CHARGE!" Gildarts suddenly found himself being charged by the entire army of itty bitty Oby's waving people's spoons, forks, pencils, paperclips and everything else they could grab. There was even one little platoon of them that had made a couple of paper airplane launchers out of rubber bands, with an entire air force of paper airplanes piloted by little Oby's in thimble helmets.

Gildarts took a step back, "Oh crap!" He grabbed a hunk of his cape and started swinging it back and forth trying to deflect wave after wave of the itty bitty Oby's. The entire guild howled with laughter as the Oby's piloting the paper airplanes rained from the sky with parachutes made out of napkins and string, yelling things like "Mayday! Mayday! We're goin down! Ayeeeeee!" and then upon landing grabbed straws like bazookas and started shooting their thimble helmets at him. When they ran out of thimbles, they reassembled their fallen paper airplanes into a foot and a half long origami dragon and yelled, "Paper Dragon Steve away!" They somehow managed to make the dragon take off with four of him on its back and they circled Gidlarts before flying over his head and dropping a pinecone that they had pulled out of thin air on him yelling, "Feel the wrath of Paper Dragon Steve!"

After a few minutes of absolute chaos and hilarity Gildarts finally yelled, "Enough!" and instantly found himself tied to a table with all the itty bitty Oby's standing on him, one of them standing on his forehead was waving a tiny flag, "Victory!" "VICTORY!" The other itty bitty Oby's yelled in delight. Everyone else gawked as the army of itty bitty Oby's cheered. Then the Oby on Gildarts' forehead raised his hand, "I hereby declare that as the loser of this match, Gildarts must ask Cana if it's okay for him to ask Miss Ur out on a date! If it is he has to give Miss Ur a great date if she wants one! And if he doesn't we'll go throw him in a water barrel!"

The itty bitty Oby's all cheered and then Gildarts started to protest and all the itty bitty Oby's suddenly shot him an evil look and laugh. Gildarts suddenly found himself being picked up and carried by the entire army of itty bitty Oby's over to Cana. He looked at Cana and she looked back at him, both unsure of whether to be embarrassed, mortified or laughing their butts off. The itty bitty Oby's chanted, "Do it! Do it! Do it!" and Gildarts yelled, "Ok ok!" Then he smiled at Cana, "Sweety, would you be ok with me asking Miss Ur out to dinner?"

Cana smiled, "Weeell, I dunno. Maybe if Ultear's ok with it." Ultear smiled, "Weeell, I dunnooo…Gray, Lyon, what do you guys think?" Gray and Lyon swapped a glance and thought about it, "Well, I guess if Master Ur wants to." "It's really not our choice," Lyon added, "But we do want her to be happy." Ultear smiled, "Well alright then," she turned back to Cana, "I'm okay with it but if he makes my mom sad we'll freeze him into a block of ice." Cana grinned, "Hear that Daddy? No making Miss Ur sad!"

Gildarts smiled, "I'll do my best not to." All the itty bitty Oby's cheered and then they hauled him over to Ur and somehow managed to shove him upright. Gildarts gave Ur an embarrassed smile, "So um, Ur, can I buy ya dinner?" Ur smiled and pretended to think about it, "Mmm…I dunno, I might like to see you get thrown in a water barrel." A small platoon of itty bitty Oby's suddenly disappeared and reappeared with a water barrel dressed in little shark costumes, dancing and playing a song with little imaginary trumpets. Gildarts started to panic a little and everyone else burst out laughing. Then Ur leaned down with a smile, "I suppose I might let you buy me dinner, but I'm choosing the restaurant."

All the little shark Oby's went, "Awww…" and scurried away with the water barrel. The other Oby's yelled, "Yay!" And somehow managed to heave Gildarts up onto the bench next to Ur before scurrying off. "Hey!" Gildarts yelled, "You forgot to untie me!" Then he realized he was untied and sat back down slightly mollified as all the little Oby's ran away howling with laughter.

==Three Months Later==

Gildarts straightened his tie in the mirror, "I don't mind tellin' ya Oby, that was the most embarrassing way I've ever asked a woman out. She still teases me about it." Oby shrugged with a grin and Makarov patted Gildarts' arm, "It all worked out. How do you feel?" "Same way I did the first time, nervous, excited, terrified and pumped at the same time." Makarov nodded, "I think that's how we all feel when our time comes."

Twenty minutes later Gildarts looked liable to sweat through his suit as the doors to the cathedral opened and then Ur walked in with Ultear and Cana right behind her. Gildarts was immediately the most envied man in the building, but he didn't care, he couldn't tear his eyes from hers. The ceremony passed in a bit of a blur and then they were kissing and running out the door as fast as Gildarts' feet could carry them to the carriage.

Afterwards was by far the biggest party of the year. If Gildarts hadn't been so busy he would've been annoyed to have missed it. The whole guild drank and partied themselves into a stupor in honor of the newlyweds and it was the next morning Oby grinned from ear to ear as he woke up with Ultear and Cana, the now Clive sisters under his arms. Granted they were still clothed (mostly) and they were still in the middle of the Guild Hall, so even though he couldn't remember he was certain things hadn't gotten too crazy. He was still grinning when they woke up though. Not too long after was another first for him, his first hangover.