Kidnapping Erza

By CrimsonStarbird


Chapter Seven: Esoteric History

By now, the mages of Fairy Tail had grown accustomed to seeing Jellal around the guildhall.

He had to be there because the guild rules that Makarov was holding him to said so, but that did not mean he was under any obligation to interact with the other members of the guild. As such, when he wasn't out working, he could generally be found sat as far away from everyone else as possible; reading, thinking, scheming, and always keeping one eye on Erza, in case an opportunity presented itself.

Any polite attempts to engage him in conversation were quickly shot down. In fact, merely straying too close was enough to earn the well-intentioned stranger an openly hostile glare until they moved away again. He ignored them, they ignored him, and everyday life in the guildhall carried on as normal.

Or so Jellal hoped, but in Fairy Tail the exception to the rule was never too far away.

Natsu slammed his hands down on the table with enough force to make the great tome Jellal was perusing jump a foot into the air. "Siegrain! Fight me!"

Slowly looking up, Jellal stared at Natsu as if the boy had proposed something as ludicrous as flying to the moon. "What?"

"Fight me!" Natsu repeated, as exuberant as ever. "Let's have a battle to determine which of us is the strongest!"

"There's no need to fight to determine something like that. It's obviously me."

"Well, I think it's me, so the only way we can settle this is to fight!"

Jellal shrugged. "Alternatively, we could poll the residents of Appenzell."

"Hey!" Natsu stamped his foot on the ground in protest. "That's hardly fair! It's not my fault that the wyvern just happened to be resistant to fire…"

"No, but then again, you did choose to master a branch of magic that has such an obvious weakness," Jellal returned.

"Well, if my magic is so weak, you shouldn't have a problem beating me, should you? Or are you just too afraid to try?"

Natsu's eyes shone with excitement; a passionate challenge. Jellal just looked bored. "Yeah, that's right," the Wizard Saint drawled. "I'm terrified of the Dragon Slayer and his fire magic. There's no way I can win, so I might as well not try."

With that, he turned his attention back to the book in front of him and began to leaf through the pages, leaving Natsu to splutter in disbelief.

"But- oh, come on! What sort of mage backs down from a challenge?"

"One who has better things to do. Look, can't you see I'm busy here? There's no shortage of stupid people in the guild; go and annoy one of them."

Natsu frowned, ignoring the insults, as everyone had quickly learned to do around the moody councillor. "Then let's fight when you're not busy."

"Alright," the other conceded. "But I've got a lot of work to do for the Council at the moment, so let's say… we'll fight in twenty-three days' time. That way we'll both have time to prepare and find a suitable venue."

Natsu's eyes lit up. With a broad grin, he accepted, "Sure! I'm gonna hold you to that! Don't think I'll forget, just because it's so far in the future!"

"No, I'm counting on you remembering, don't you worry."

"Great!"

Natsu clapped his hands together happily. Jellal's attention had returned once again to his book, signalling the end of the conversation, but with that promise in hand, Natsu was more than happy to leave. There was a spring in his step as he met up with Lucy over by the Request Board.

"I told you it was a stupid idea," Lucy reprimanded him, before he even had chance to open his mouth.

"No, you're wrong! He totally agreed to it!"

"He did?" Lucy glanced over her shoulder to where the councillor was sat, reading his book in the same leisurely manner as before. "It doesn't look to me like he's getting ready to fight."

"Nah, he's busy right now. But we're going to fight in the future! We've set a date and everything!"

"Really? When?"

"In twenty-three days!"

"…Natsu, you do realize that in twenty-three days' time, Siegrain's period as a member of this guild will be up, right? He won't even be here. Of course he's not going to fight you."

The Dragon Slayer froze mid-step. "What? He tricked me!"

"That's not really a difficult task, is it, Natsu?" Lucy gave a sigh.

Natsu was no longer listening. "Siegrain!" he yelled, over the hubbub of the rest of the hall. "Fight me now!"

With that as the only warning, he charged towards the seated councillor. Flames burst to life around his entire body; as he drew close, he leapt high into the air, drawing back his fist to strike.

Jellal watched the overeager mage plummet towards him with bleak resignation. "Seriously?" he muttered. "Do I have to?"

But Natsu never quite made it. Moments before impact, someone whacked him with a bar stool. Driven off course, he struck a pillar head-first and tumbled down to lie in a groaning heap at its foot. The fire of his magic flickered and died.

The girl who had hit him was stood on the table next to Jellal's open book; she dropped the stool back onto the floor and placed her hands on her hips. Much to Jellal's surprise, it wasn't Lucy, interfering before Natsu could get himself hurt. Nor was it Mira, perhaps attempting to enforce what passed for order in this guild. It wasn't even Erza, trying to knock some sense into the boy.

No – drawing herself up to her full height, an act made effective only by virtue of the table supplementing her somewhat unimpressive stature, it was Levy who glowered down at Natsu's woeful form. "Natsu!" she scolded. "What have I told you about open flames near books?"

"I… ugh…" Too dazed to even form proper words, Natsu's pitiable mewling earned him no respite from Levy's righteous ferocity.

"Just because you can hardly write doesn't mean you should go around disrespecting the words of other authors! Books are something to be treasured and respected, not endangered by your careless use of magic! And don't even get me started on all the rare books we keep beneath the guildhall! I swear, if you start a fire that spreads to the guild's Archives, I will personally make sure that you experience ten times the pain those ancient authors would feel if they knew what you'd done to their cherished books! I've told you before, and I'll tell you again: if you're going to throw fire around like that, do it outside!"

"Sorry, Levy," Natsu mumbled, suitably chastised.

"So you should be!"

"Come on, Natsu," Lucy spoke up. "Let's go and do some work until you've calmed down." To Levy, she added, "I'll keep an eye on him." Natsu groaned again, but managed to make it to his feet, and Lucy half-dragged him back over to the Request Board, calling out to her other teammate as she did so. "Happy, come on! We're going to go earn some rent money!"

Levy nodded approvingly as the three of them chose a job and left the guildhall. The crisis had been averted; there were no books on fire; that was good enough for her.

One person, however, was not even remotely pleased with her actions. "What do you think you're doing, interfering in my business?" Jellal growled.

Levy glanced at him and her good mood evaporated in an instant. "Oh, it's you," she retorted. "Well, if I'd known it was your book, I wouldn't have bothered."

With a dignified harrumph, Levy hopped down from the table and began to stride off.

She managed all of about three steps before her curiosity won out over her spite.

It wasn't just that Jellal's book was clearly several hundred years old, but the open page was written in a runic language she thought she recognized, and embellished with intriguing diagrams of magic circles. To her credit, she tried to make her about-turn look as natural as possible, as though she had just remembered something she was supposed to be doing in the opposite direction, before sidling up to the table where Jellal was sat.

"So," she began, as casually as she could. "What are you reading?"

"Nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing to me," she said airily.

The fact that she was completely ignoring his attempt to brush her off was not lost on Jellal. Once again, he found himself longing for the privacy of the Tower of Heaven, where anyone who valued their life knew better than to disturb him. In fact, even being in the Council Headquarters was preferable to this. There, those he was forced to work with for the sake of his plan respected his need for solitude when sorting out important matters of government. Besides, even though he couldn't threaten anyone there with magic like he could his servants in the Tower, the ire of a councillor was at least as effective a deterrent against those who sought to further their career in the political world.

But no. He was here, in this stupid guild, where no one had any respect for him, neither as a member of the Magic Council nor an infamous dark mage so tantalizingly close to destroying the world. He would have to make do.

"It's none of your business," he told Levy bluntly, and as if to demonstrate his point, he pulled the open book a little closer towards him.

Levy pouted. "Well, that's rude."

"I don't care. Go away."

Unfortunately for him, this girl had been doing the exact opposite of everything he told her since the day she had caught him breaking into Erza's room, and she wasn't about to stop now. Completely ignoring his order, she pressed her cheek to the table, lifting up the front pages of his book in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the title page.

Quick as a flash, Jellal slammed it back down. "Quit it!"

Levy gave a disappointed growl. "I bet you just don't want me looking because it's a book on how to get lucky as a pervert," she sulked.

"Yeah, because that's exactly the kind of book the Chairman of the Magic Council would ask me to take a look at, isn't it?" Jellal shot back.

Far from putting her off, his rejoinder only piqued the girl's curiosity. "You're doing Council work?"

"I am still a member of the Magic Council, you know. Guild rules say I have to come into the guildhall, but if the Chairman needs me for something, it has to take priority over doing jobs as a guild mage, whatever Makarov might say. While you lot clearly have nothing better to do than challenge each other to fights in idiotic displays of machismo, I actually have a kingdom to run. So I, and the rest of the magical world, would greatly appreciate it if you could kindly shove off and let me get on with my work."

"…Oh." He was convinced Levy was going to object, but she just gave a quick shrug. "Okay. Seems fair."

"…Huh?"

"See you round, Siegrain," she said cheerfully. Then, with a quick wave of farewell, she turned on her heel and walked away.

Jellal watched her retreat through narrowed eyes. All his instincts were telling him that she had given in far too easily; passive surrender didn't match the tenacity she had displayed while stalking him and Erza, or the vengeful spite with which she had insisted on punishing him back when they first met.

Still, it seemed as though she really had gone off to bother someone else. Maybe she'd finally acquired some common sense from somewhere. Whatever her motivation, he wasn't about the complain – if everyone in the guild could follow her lead, it might make the remaining three weeks or so he still had to endure here somewhat more bearable.

Not that he was planning on being here for the full quota of his punishment, of course, but kidnapping opportunities had been in short supply recently. Erza had been helping to show Juvia the ropes around the guild, meaning she was never too far away from her and Gray. Besides, it didn't help that she had been acting strangely around him ever since their conversation in the tearoom.

Lucy had warned him that Erza would probably be upset with him following that incident, but that didn't seem to be the case at all. He supposed that if not even he had been able to be angry after their conversation, she certainly wouldn't have been able to. Instead, she seemed unable to decide whether to come over and start a conversation with him or not. She often did, but then quickly left again without saying anything substantive. Even more oddly, he had frequently caught her looking at him as he watched her out of the corner of his eye, and yet whenever he looked directly at her, she immediately hurried off to do something else.

Jellal gave a hopeful glance around, but right now she was still stood at the bar, as she had been for at least an hour, chatting with Mira and showing no signs of leaving – seriously, how did people even find so much to talk about in their ordinary lives? Since he couldn't do anything to her in full view of Makarov and half his guild, he had no choice but to carry on reading through the book the Chairman had sent him.

This sort of Council work was the kind he didn't mind at all. The best place to learn about forbidden magic wasn't in some secret evil lair off the coast of the mainland, but at the heart of the institution in charge of assessing, controlling, and banning it. Not only did he have free access to all the books on dark magic that the Council had confiscated, but he was the one who got to decide which ones would be sealed away in the Archives. It was a position of great power, and he had worked hard to get the Council to trust him with it; he fully intended to abuse it as much as possible.

He was halfway through copying a diagram of a rather fascinating magic circle into his notebook when he became aware of a familiar prickling sensation, slowly increasing in intensity. He was being watched. He was certain of it; his instincts were never wrong on matters like this.

At first, he didn't particularly care. He was in the middle of the guildhall, doing perfectly innocent Council work – no one was about to launch an assassination attempt on him here. It was probably just Makarov being suspicious, and Jellal knew he was doing absolutely nothing wrong. If he ignored him, he'd go away.

But when the feeling still hadn't faded several minutes later, Jellal's patience ran out and he spun around – to find himself face to face with a periscope.

Whatever he had been expecting, it certainly wasn't that. He blinked at the periscope. It seemed to blink back. Things in this guild just got weirder every day.

Heaving a sigh, he wrapped his hand around the neck of the periscope and gave it a quick tug. There came a yelp from under the table as the girl who had been clinging to its other end was sent sprawling across the floor. Levy glanced up at him and did her best sheepish smile.

"And there I thought I was supposed to be the creepy one," Jellal remarked, laying the impromptu spying device down on the table beside him.

Never one to stay down for long when this man was involved, Levy bounced straight back to her feet and brushed herself down. "It's not my fault!" she objected. "You've got a book that I've never even heard of – have you any idea how rare that is?"

"No. And I don't really care. Go away."

"Why won't you let me look at it?" she protested.

"Because I'm busy working. You'd only get in the way."

"No, I wouldn't! Look, I could just get a chair and put it here…" She seized hold of the stool she had used to whack Natsu with and dragged it over to him optimistically. "See, I could just read over your shoulder, like this. I'd be really quiet. You wouldn't even notice I was here. Honestly." At his unimpressed look, she tried, "I could even go back to reading it from under the table, if you wanted…"

"No, I don't want you to go back under the table!" he exclaimed, half-exasperated and half-bewildered. "What is wrong with you?"

"I just can't pass up the chance to read such a rare book! Seriously, you're so mean. Would it really be that bad just to let me take a quick peek?"

"You wouldn't understand it anyway."

That was the wrong thing to say. Far from being put off, Levy took it as a challenge. The spark that ignited in her eyes was just like the look in Natsu's when the boy had foolishly challenged Jellal to a fight – a look which really should have set alarm bells ringing in his mind.

"Try me," she grinned, and because that was apparently an invitation for her to do whatever she liked, she stepped unashamedly up next to him and ran her finger along the top line of the page. The ancient runic letters the book was written in bore no resemblance whatsoever to the modern alphabet, and feigning knowledge of it would be no easy task.

Much to Jellal's dismay, however, it was almost effortlessly that Levy began to spontaneously translate it. "It is often argued that that which is directed by nature can never be anything disorderly: for nature is everywhere the cause of order. Magic, by its virtue as the truest representation of the natural world, conforms – nay, enforces – the order of nature. I do not refute this. Rather, I refute the use of that axiom to claim that in magic, as in nature, the pattern of life is thus impervious to disruption. The highest form of order is not pattern, but… what is that? Equivalence?"

"Symmetry is a better translation," Jellal corrected.

"Really? Are you sure?" She blinked at him; he just gave her a look, as if to say I told you so. Refusing to be intimidated, she pointed out, "I've never seen those characters read as 'symmetry' in a book from this era before."

"They can be read as 'equivalence', under other circumstances. But 'equivalence' here is taken to mean 'invariance' between observers, and he's using the phenomena of invariance as a means of defining the underlying principle. Invariants in the mathematical construction of magical signs correspond to symmetries in the signs themselves, thus: The highest form of order is not pattern, but symmetry. That's quite clearly what he's getting at here."

Levy frowned, skipping ahead down the page. "Oh, I see. He goes on to give examples of beginning and end, creation and destruction, life and death… okay, fine, I'll accept that that was intended to be read as 'symmetry'- oh!" She snapped her fingers. "Of course! How stupid of me! I had the date all wrong!"

"You did?"

She tapped the very top of the book, in between the spine and the aged pages, where traces of yellowish glue could be seen. "I saw this and assumed it was the tell-tale butterscotch colour of rabbit hide glue, which was course was phased out at the end of the fifth century, so I had automatically dated the text to around X480, but it isn't, is it? Now that I can see it closely, this is ordinary wheat paste glue, only it's been stored for a long period of time under ultraviolet light, which causes the white adhesive to take on this yellow tinge. With that in mind, I'd put the binding and intaglio plate style closer to X530, maybe X540 for publication, which was of course after the invariant-symmetry relation was formalized in March X517, so yes, you're right, those characters would absolutely have been read as 'symmetry' by the intended audience."

"…Yes…" Jellal said, trying to act like he'd also worked that out from the glue and not by looking at the publication date on the first page. "An amateurish mistake."

Levy folded her arms in annoyance. "Okay, fine, so I made one mistake; how, exactly, does that invalidate the fact that I could blatantly understand this text just as well as you if I put my mind to it?"

"I think it's quite clear that you wouldn't be able to keep up," he told her coolly.

"Oh, really? It's not like you're interpreting this from memory, is it?" she retorted. "I was under the table, Siegrain. I know you've got a runic dictionary open on your lap."

Her observation was rewarded with an unhappy scowl, causing her to smile. "Besides," she added, "Trying to read something this old without using any reference materials isn't just stupid – it's insulting; both to the language itself, and to the mages who shaped it in a society very different to ours."

"…That's true."

Levy seemed to misinterpret that single concession as an invitation to sit down on the table next to his open book, chatting away happily as she swung her legs back and forth. "Though, when it comes to interpreting Armantian runes, the reference book you really want is Gregori's Armantian Almanac. The one you're using, Radick's Introduction to Armantian Runes, would probably be my second choice, but it's nothing on Gregori. No other dictionary even comes close to unpicking the nuances of the language as a means of expressing magical theory."

He looked at her, and she looked at him, and then her eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Allegedly," she added hastily. "I haven't read it myself, of course, seeing as the Council has banned it and all…" With a not at all suspicious smile, she moved the conversation swiftly on before he could comment. "Why are you reading a book in ancient Armantian, anyway? You said the Chairman of the Magic Council sent it to you, right?"

"Indeed. A group of adventurers were exploring a ruined castle when they came across a secret room, which contained, amongst other interesting things, several skeletons and this book. As per the law, they reported it to the Council, who sent it to me to take a look at. I'm supposed to advise the Chairman on whether it contains illegal or otherwise dangerous magic, and thus what should be done with it… but it's a little difficult when guild mages keep interrupting me."

Levy ignored the hint. "And there I thought you were supposed to be doing guild work."

"Sure, but when the Chairman of the Magic Council asks you to do something, it's generally a good idea to do it, especially if you want to keep your seat on the Council."

"Getting to read such old, rare books on forbidden magic as part of the job…" Levy said wistfully. "I'd give anything to be able to do that. How on earth did you manage to land yourself a job like that?"

"By being very good at it, and by knowing far more about magic than most people do, legal or otherwise."

"Well, now I'm intrigued." She leaned back, placing her hands on the table and gazing up at the ceiling. "How does a perfectly respectable member of the Magic Council come to have such a reliable knowledge of dark magic? And not just a technical knowledge, but an appreciation of the classical magical languages and the texts themselves, on top of that?"

"I could ask you the same question," Jellal returned. "A legal guild mage who studies ancient magic and freely admits to having read books that the Council has banned?"

Levy gave a faint smile. "I'm not entirely sure why that comes as a surprise to you. I chose Fairy Tail as my guild for a reason, you know. Just because I'm not always destroying things like some people I could mention, or openly disrespecting the Council and its laws like others – it doesn't mean I don't belong here. Language is beautiful and magic is beautiful. I'm not going to stop pursuing either just because I've strayed into a grey area, forbidden by some stuffy old men who perceive every purely academic pursuit of ancient knowledge as another attempt to bring back Zeref's reign of terror and overthrow their rule. But it's a completely different matter for a member of the Magic Council, surely?"

Jellal tapped his finger on the desk while he thought of a safe response. He didn't want her getting too close to the truth, after all. He had assumed no one in the guild would take an interest in what he was doing, let alone actually understand it – only a handful of the scholars he had interacted with back at the Council would have been able to spontaneously translate ancient Armantian runes as competently as Levy had done, and it was likely that her knowledge of book history even exceeded his.

If she got the wrong idea, and became suspicious… but then again, he hadn't lied when he suggested that the Chairman knew about his proficiency with less-than-legal magic. What the Chairman didn't know was that he was not an ex-dark mage, but very much an active one. Deceptions based on truth were far more believable than complete fabrications.

So he just shrugged again, as if the question hadn't bothered him at all. "It's hardly a secret that I was a dark mage before I started working for the Council. The knowledge came in handy when I first began to hunt dark guilds on the Council's behalf. And, of course, not even the Council is naïve enough to put itself at a disadvantage by refusing to acknowledge the forbidden magic that gives our enemies so much power. We have to understand these things at least as well as our opponents do. That's why the Chairman is perfectly happy to leave matters like this to me – and why if I refused to do Council work while I was here, they'd be in trouble. They don't have anyone who is capable of monitoring the Council Archives in my absence."

At this, the girl sat bolt upright, clapping her hands together with a new enthusiasm. "Wait, you're the councillor in charge of the Archives?"

"That's what I just said," Jellal answered, a little dubious about where this conversation was going. "What of it?"

"That means you can take me there!" she crowed. "I've always wanted to visit the Council Archives! It's full of ancient books and rare magic and I'd give anything just for an hour in that place-"

"Keep dreaming," he advised her. "I'm not taking you there."

"What? Why not?"

"Because I can't just invite people into the Archives whenever I feel like it. Access is very tightly controlled, and it's more than my job's worth to allow a guild mage in without good reason."

Well, they were tightly controlled in theory. It defeated the purpose a little when the very man to whom the Council had given the task of protecting the Archives was, in fact, a dark mage on the verge of destroying their whole world – but they weren't to know that, were they?

Besides, if one overlooked the fact that it gave him unrestricted access to all kinds of forbidden magic, much of which had already been put to good use maximizing the efficiency of the Tower of Heaven, Jellal was without a doubt the best choice for the job. Other dark guilds were his rivals and enemies; he protected the Archives – which he saw as his hard-earned spoils of war – with a vigilance and possessiveness that a loyal supporter of the Council would have struggled to match.

Then there was the fact that, as Levy had already realized, he knew far more about dark magic than most – again by virtue of his alter ego being a notorious dark mage, who traded knowledge with other villains and studied the fragments of Zeref's writings his cult had access to with an unmatched devotion. The Council relied upon his expertise in these matters.

Although he had no problem in principle with violating Council regulations to bring a guild mage into the Archives just because he felt like it, he really needed to avoid getting into any more trouble with the Chairman and his colleagues before he had the chance to carry out the Etherion plan.

"Aww, but I'd be really sneaky, and no one would have to know…" Levy protested.

"Plus, there's something you're forgetting."

"And what's that?"

"I don't like you. Why on earth would I go out of my way to do a favour for someone as annoying as you?"

Levy stared at him in silence for a moment – and then, to his amazement, she burst out laughing. "I suppose that's fair," she conceded. "It's my fault for asking you in the first place. For a moment there, I actually forgot how much of a jerk you are."

It was more of a rueful reflection than the aggressive insult he had come to expect from this unassuming girl, and Jellal wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. "Well, don't you forget it from now on," he grumbled, but without much enthusiasm.

"Still, if you're reading a book on forbidden magic, I probably shouldn't be looking at it over your shoulder. I wouldn't put it past you to arrest me just as an excuse to get me off your back."

"I can't. Reading a book which is still under consideration isn't a crime any more than annoying a councillor is, unfortunately for me, or I'd have done it right at the start of this conversation."

"Figures," she grinned. "Plus, it would be fairly hypocritical of you to object to other people expressing an interest in forbidden magic."

"I'm on the Magic Council. Hypocrisy is part of the job description."

Levy burst out laughing again. "And there I never thought I'd hear something like that from you. If it were completely up to you, then, would you eliminate the Council's Index of Forbidden Books?"

"I never said that. My view is that I should get to read whatever I like, and everyone else should have to play by the rules."

"…Why does that not surprise me?" Levy sighed, trying not to roll her eyes.

"Regulating what kinds of magic can and can't be freely learnt is, on the whole, a fairly good idea. Allowing for death magic to be studied is madness, and the governing body shouldn't be promoting magic that involves living sacrifices, or anything that might threaten the moral fabric of our society. That's just common sense.

"Take the Lullaby incident that your guild was involved in just a few weeks ago. In the hands of terrorists, that sort of magic could be catastrophic, as it very nearly was on that occasion. I think we can all sleep a little easier at night knowing that that particular artefact is safely locked up in the Council Archives. Yes, by sealing it away and permitting it to be studied only by a select few, we might be hampering the greater understanding of magic, but the risk of letting it become common knowledge far outweighs the rewards. Regulation should be minimal, but not non-existent."

As far as Jellal was concerned, his ideology as a dark mage was one thing, but he didn't want to make it too easy for other dark cults to emulate his own achievements. He had worked exceptionally hard to get to where he was today. Allowing others to follow in his footsteps would devalue all his hard work, and the last thing he wanted was to help other dark mages become a threat to his world-destruction plans.

"I understand that. I'm not advocating anarchy here. But it isn't just dangerous magic that the Council likes to regulate, is it? If they could limit themselves to dealing with instruction manuals for dark magic, then I'd support them wholeheartedly, but banning entire theoretical treatises as being morally dangerous because they discuss applications of their method to potential resurrection magic as well as to 'safe' topics like alchemy or earth magic? And that's not to mention the histories of magic censored or suppressed just because they challenge the right of the Council to govern magic. The thought that our own ruling body would enforce such a barbaric system in this day and age is outrageous."

"Oh?"

If it had come from any other member of the Magic Council, that single word would have been a warning, but they both already understood that their views on this matter weren't too dissimilar. It wasn't a dare – it was an invitation.

"They won't allow the publication of anything that openly challenges the Progressive view." Levy was not at all afraid to make her opinions known, no matter who she was discussing them with; the ease with which she could slip into technical language showed not just her own knowledge, but the respect she was subconsciously affording her conversational partner.

The 'Progressive' school of thought dominated both professional and lay images of the history of magic. More was known about magic now than in any given time before; mages, magical technology, and society as a whole continued to progress through time – thus, by extension, things were better now than they ever had been. Today's mages were smarter and stronger than those a hundred years ago, just as human beings lived longer, had developed better medicines and technology, and understood far more about the natural world. It was, at first glance, a perfectly logical view, given that mages built on discoveries made by their ancestors and advanced the knowledge passed down to them by their teachers. It was also simplistic, naïve, and had not gone unchallenged.

Levy continued, "Since the Council was founded, the study of magic has been governed in its entirety by their rules, thus they take anything that isn't Progressive to be an attack on their way of doing things. They won't even allow opposing viewpoints to be heard!"

"True. Our publishing laws are old and outdated, so they still allow for the prohibition of any histories that don't contribute to the image of linear progress in magic. Which is ridiculous, really; no self-respecting scholar can hold to the Progressive argument in its original form. Everyone knows that the study of magic has regressed since the Time of Zeref."

Levy blinked at him bemusedly. "…By which you really mean, everyone knows that linear notions of progress or regress are fundamentally flawed and a socially-influenced gestalt switch model is the only adequate explanation, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that's not what I said," came the light response.

They stared at each other.

"Don't tell me you subscribe to the Regressive school!" Levy's shout of disbelief carried across the whole guildhall, though it attracted little attention – it apparently wasn't unusual for her to get worked up about things no one else understood.

"And I take it from that shout that you belong to our rivals, the Revolutionary school," came the calm response.

"But I thought you were smart!" she burst out. "How on earth can you subscribe to the view that our knowledge of magic has gone backwards in four hundred years? It's crazy!"

"That is an ignorant and misleading caricature of the Regressive position," Jellal countered, completely at ease. "No one is disputing that mages today have a better grasp of how magic and nature work than anyone did back then. The central Regressive tenet is rather that specialization is, for the state of our discipline, a bad thing."

"But it is precisely specialization that has brought about all our advances in the knowledge of magic!"

"Again, I'm not disputing that. In terms of individual knowledge, the development of magical technology, and all that, then as a general rule, progress has been made. We understand more now than we ever did. But the cost of that knowledge was far too high."

"How so?"

"The study of magic became fragmented. Fire magic, for example, is considered utterly distinct from ice magic. Even though they are incredibly similar at heart, they each have their own languages, their own disciplinary rules and styles, and their own fields of study which refuse to communicate their findings or try and extend them to other areas. To learn the way of fire or ice is, in the minds of all modern mages, to forever exclude the other. Where mages in the past would have been capable of using almost every known type of magic, by drawing on their similarities rather than emphasizing their differences, mages today pick one type only and push it as far as they can, remaining forever ignorant of the others. When these fields of study became thus defined, when mages set down these boundaries in the name of progress, they began to place limits on magic itself.

"The same can be said for the discipline of magic as a whole. It redefined itself in a way that crippled it permanently. Magic now belongs to mages only, to the ten percent of the population who can physically manifest magic power, rather than to everyone. For someone who can't use magic to attempt to understand the theoretical side of the discipline invites scorn, whereas in the past so much of our understanding of magic was furthered by those who couldn't use it in practice but understood the theory better than any working mage. The study of magical creatures, even the creation of powerful artefacts – these academic fields were established by mages and non-mages together, before the former's sense of elitism and emphasis on the practical over the theoretical led them to drive the latter out. Likewise, only those who wield fire magic are allowed to make discoveries in that field, and insights from other kinds of elemental magic are discredited simply because they've come from outside.

"Yes, modern scholars of magic know far more about their own disciplines now than their forefathers ever did, but in doing so, they were forced to relinquish their claims to understanding everything else. Philosophy, ethics, nature, science, life itself – the study of magic could once explain all of these, but by defining itself as it has, by modernization, by specialization, it has cut itself off from them all. Magic was once a great epistemological force. Now it's mostly used to hit people with. It has become merely a tool for the working mage; something that is used thoughtlessly by many, but studied, truly studied, only by a handful of people, and never in the hope that it can further our understanding of the universe and of human nature. That is why we argue that magic has been in decline for the past four hundred years."

Levy was silent for a long period of time. Then, bluntly, she said, "That's so ludicrous I don't even know where to begin refuting it."

"Or maybe that's just because I'm right."

"Like hell. Magic can't explain ethics! That's mental!"

"Wrong. Magic as it's studied today can't explain ethics. Magic, as it was understood back then, could."

"Well, any explanation it could possibly have come up with would be considered unacceptably ridiculous in any advanced society."

"But like all theories, it would have been revised and updated as our understanding increased, rather than the whole method and its explanatory power being abandoned when the Council took over and forced a redefinition of the concept of magic."

Levy shook her head vehemently. "I don't think it could have produced any kind of satisfactory explanation. If it could, it would never have been thrown out so easily. But even if we agree to disagree on that matter, there are plenty of other holes in your stance."

"Oh? Do elaborate."

They glared at each other. The book Jellal was supposed to be reading lay open on the table between them, completely forgotten. There was a fierce light in her eyes, and a dark glint in his; in fact, the haughty councillor looked as fired up about this intellectual match as Natsu had been about the physical battle he had so desired.

"For one thing," Levy began, "Your viewpoint hinges on the assumption that there was a Golden Age of magic during Zeref's time."

"Which there was."

"No, there wasn't! The very concept of a 'Golden Age of Magic' was constructed a hundred years after it had ended, by anarchists who deliberately picked Zeref as their icon in their challenge to the Council's authority!"

"Epochs can only be labelled with hindsight; how else would you suggest doing it? And besides, what motivated the early anarchists is virtually irrelevant when their conclusions are so soundly supported by the evidence. The weight of it is simply overwhelming; the evidence has been corroborated a hundred times over and the position still stands today! Take a simple survey of the literature of the last ten years of that period, for example. More academic journals were established in that decade alone than in the entire century afterwards-"

"An often ill-quoted statistic which conveniently ignores the changing standards of publication enforced on the magical community at the end of the decade," Levy objected, folding her arms.

"Don't try that. There is no consensus about the impact of regulation at the start of the Council's rule. If there's one thing historians agree on, it's that far too little survived of that era to draw any coherent picture from it at this time. The Council's destructive attitude towards everything, including their own legislation, saw to that. But it doesn't change the fact that people at the time believed they were living through a Golden Age of learning, even if the phrase wasn't coined until much later. I could give any number of examples from the most famous works of that period-"

"Self-promotion is hardly unique to that period! I could choose a book from the Fairy Tail Archives at random, published at any time between this so-called Golden Age and now, and not one of them will open with a declaration of how poor the state of the study of magic is in their own time. Attacking their own discipline is hardly going to sell books, is it?"

"If that's true, and I would happily dispute it, I would also point out that most volumes of that ilk are also Regressive, and hence aren't easy to spot because of the Council's tendency to censor anything that isn't ostensibly a Progressive history."

"But that's precisely my point. Societal standards, along with new printing technologies, influence publication, and show that the evidence you're so happy to quote is over-simplified and thus inconclusive without further study."

"So you're saying that history is underdetermined, and we should agree to disagree."

"No. You're still wrong," Levy assured him. "And just for the record, if I felt as though it wasn't clear which of our schools was right, I certainly wouldn't default to the one who idolizes history's greatest villain. That's not cool."

"I'm not prepared to compromise on historical fact just because the truth makes some people uncomfortable."

She gave a small smile; she couldn't disapprove of the sentiment. "And yet, ironically, you are prepared to compromise on historical fact by completely overlooking the concept of incommensurability."

"That's because it doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. And, incidentally, the tendency to invent long words for hollow concepts like that is one of the reasons why so many people find it hard to take your school of thought seriously."

"That, and the fact that almost all our core texts are on the Council's Index of Forbidden Books," Levy added, with a grin of comradeship.

"True. The Council are paranoid like that."

She laughed. "Given how keen you usually are to remind all of us in the guild that you're a member of the Magic Council, it's strange to hear you repeatedly referring to them as if you're not one of them."

Had he been doing? Well, it wasn't as if Jellal considered himself a true member of the Magic Council in his own mind, being a traitor and all, but… that was careless of him, wasn't it?

Levy was expecting some sort of response, so in a measured tone, he told her, "I haven't been on the Council for long. The Index comes up for review every five years or so; it has yet to happen during my tenure."

"That makes sense. Still, to think that there's someone on the Council who freely learns about dark magic, and holds such an unusual view… you're quite a remarkable man, Siegrain."

You don't know the half of it, he thought, but he managed to refrain from saying it out loud.

Fortunately, Levy hadn't finished talking yet. "You know, I love the history of magic, and language, and the complexity of ancient magical texts – and there's no one else around the guild that I can discuss them with. Most people run for the hills as soon as I even mention an old book. It's not just that you have an opinion on all that, but it's actually an informed opinion you can defend – even if it is completely wrong. It was fun talking to you. I wasn't expecting that… from a creepy pervert."

"I refuse to be labelled as creepy by someone who lurks under tables," came his predictably icy retort.

"Now, that sounds more like the Siegrain I know. Though, having said that…" Levy glanced up at the ceiling without finishing her sentence, giving the rafters a secretive smile.

"What?" he snapped, made uneasy by her attitude.

"There's a lot more to you than I thought, isn't there? When you're so caught up in talking about something that interests you, and you forget that you're supposed to be constantly rude and standoffish… you're actually not that bad."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

His annoyed response only made her grin. "You're still a pervert, but other than that, you're alright. Maybe I can better understand how Erza might be able to see something in you that no one else can."

If she had been expecting him to react positively to her declaration, she was disappointed. Having this girl talk to him so patronizingly set him on the defensive at once. How dare she analyse him as if she knew him? He had been in a good mood without even realizing it; having that pointed out to him by this infuriating girl immediately ruined everything.

"You're annoying me now," he snapped. "Go away."

Taken aback by his sudden hostility, she protested, "But- I'm only saying I'd help you-"

"Go and be helpful to someone else. I'm busy, and you're being irritating."

With a rueful smile, Levy got to her feet. "Yeah. I guess I did overdo it a bit, didn't I?" she mused, though it was more to herself than the councillor, who had already stopped listening to her. "Sorry. I'll leave you to it."

Jellal watched her walk away out of the corner of his eye. Good. Now he'd be able to focus. If he could get this report sent off to the Council today, then he could get back to devising a plot to kidnap Erza first thing tomorrow. No more distractions – and then he'd finally be able to get out of this accursed guild.

It occurred to him then that not once during that conversation had he thought about how much he resented being in the guild.

"Levy!" he called, without really meaning to.

Even as he wondered what on earth he was doing, she paused and turned back to him. "What is it?"

"I don't suppose you have a copy of Gregori's Almanac that you could lend me for the afternoon, do you? This would be much easier if I had it to hand."

"Might have," came her shifty response. A sly spark entered her eyes. "I'll lend it to you, if you promise to take me into the Council Archives next time you go."

Jellal smirked; he wouldn't be outdone in a game like this. "Alternatively, you could lend it to me, and then maybe I won't arrest you for owning it."

"…Touché. I'll go grab it now." With a reluctant grin, she raised her hand in farewell and set off towards the exit.

Only once he was certain she was gone did Jellal allow himself to sigh. His gaze drifted around the room, automatically seeking out Erza, wondering if she'd used Levy as a distraction to slip out of the guildhall while he wasn't watching. As it happened, she was still stood with Mira, although they had clearly wrapped up their conversation because they were both staring directly at him.

He narrowed his eyes, a little of his usual irritable mood returning. "What're you looking at?"

"I was only wondering if this was the first time I'd seen you relax since you came to the guild, that's all," Erza answered.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? "You must be imagining things," he scowled.

"Perhaps I am," she smiled.

Jellal hoped that would be the end of it, but they took it instead as an invitation to approach. "Is it just me," Mira breezed, "Or was that you and Levy bonding over a discussion about forbidden magic?"

"It was nothing of the sort. I was trying to work, and she was annoying me. That's all."

In the style he was quickly coming to realize was typical of a Fairy Tail mage, she paid his protests no heed. "This is one of the great things about mage guilds, though, isn't it? We have a lot more freedom than the Council's mages do. You couldn't have a debate like that around the Council Headquarters without causing all sorts of trouble."

"Well, I could, it's my job," he muttered.

"But I imagine you wouldn't find anyone there so willing to tell you that you're wrong, and proceed to try and prove it with reference to blatantly banned texts."

"…No. No, I've never met anyone stupid enough to try that before."

"You know," Mira mused, "If you stopped being so rude to everyone you met, you might find that there are other people in the guild you have things in common with too. If nothing else, don't you think it would make your remaining days in the guild a little more enjoyable?"

Jellal levelled one of his best glares at her. "Nice try. Don't think that this is going to end with any outcome other than the Council disbanding your guild."

"Well, it was worth a shot," she grinned. "Oh, and speaking of the Council, I hope you've managed to get all your work done already…"

"Why would you say that?"

"Trouble's back."

At that moment the doors to the guildhall burst open and an exuberant Natsu strode in. "We're back!" he crowed, to no one in particular, raising his right hand high above his head in triumph.

At the opposite end of the enthusiasm scale, Lucy and Happy traipsed in behind him. "We're back…" they echoed gloomily.

"That didn't take long," Erza remarked.

Natsu made the victory sign. "Piece of cake."

"It was a disaster," Lucy moaned. "A complete and utter disaster."

"What happened?" Mira inquired, sitting down at the table to hear the story and casually ignoring the angry look Jellal threw the conversers for interrupting his working space.

"We were supposed to be helping this elderly gentleman clear out his attic, but to cut a long story short, Natsu was startled by a bat which had taken up residence there, and he accidentally set fire to a pile of old furniture while he was trying to drive it out. It was all going to be thrown out anyway, but the client argued that there may have been valuable antiques hidden in the pile Natsu destroyed, and refused to pay us."

Mira offered her a sympathetic smile. "Sounds like par for the course when working with Natsu."

"Tell me about it…"

"But it wasn't a total waste of time though!" Natsu interjected. As he strolled towards the group, it became clear that there was something metallic in his right hand, which he tossed to himself contentedly as he walked. "Sure, we might not have received any money for the work we did, but the client did let us keep this cool artefact we found in the attic instead!"

"Yeah, I'm hoping we'll be able to pawn it off," Lucy explained to the other girls. "Otherwise I'll never be able to pay this month's rent."

"We're not selling it!" Natsu objected. "Not until I've- hey!"

They would never find out what Natsu intended to do with the artefact, because at that moment Jellal reached over and plucked it out of his hands. Ignoring the boy's indignant shouts, he held it up towards the light, examining it with an expert eye.

It was a large medallion on a thick chain; far too heavy and cumbersome to be worn as a necklace. The medallion itself was in the form of an octagon, as large as the palm of his hand and a good inch thick. A vertical line bisected it; closer inspection revealed tiny hinges, which would allow the two halves to open out like doors.

Its most striking feature, however, was its creepy design. The plane surface of the octagon was carved to resemble a writhing mass of tentacles, so immaculately detailed that they seemed to move at the edge of his vision. Set within the appendages was a single eye, its pupil an inky black gemstone; unblinking darkness. There was nothing on the reverse side to give away any clues as to its purpose, and though Jellal attempted to prise open its doors, he wasn't surprised when they did not budge.

"What is this?" he wondered out loud.

"Costume jewellery?" Lucy guessed.

"Could be a prop from a horror show," Mira suggested. "It certainly invokes the right atmosphere."

"Could be an artefact of dark magic," Erza tried.

"Oh, come on, what would be the odds of that?" Mira asked, with a deliberately ironic grin.

The light-hearted comment only deepened Erza's frown. To Jellal, she asked, "I can't sense any magic from it – can you?"

"No, nothing. Either it's a completely harmless prop, or an incredibly well-made magical artefact. And I have my suspicions as to which one of those it is."

Lucy butted in, optimistically, "Does this mean it might be worth quite a bit…?"

Without replying, Jellal wrapped the medallion's chain around his left hand and held it up in front of him. Then he raised his other hand and shot a dazzling beam of light towards it from his palm.

Natsu let out an alarmed cry. "Hey! You'll break it!"

But when they looked again, blinking away the streak of light left against their vision, the artefact still swung, completely unharmed, from Jellal's hand. "No damage at all," he observed, somewhat unhappily, before seizing it tightly. "I'm confiscating this."

"WHAT?" Natsu screeched.

"My food money…" groaned Happy.

"My rent money…" Lucy echoed.

Natsu protested, "You can't do that!"

"Of course I can. I'm taking it back to the Council to examine it properly."

"But that's stealing!"

"No, it's responsible legal procedure. Under Article Ten of the Dark Magic Act, if I have good reason to believe that an item might be related to dangerous magic in some way, I'm required, by law, to send it to the Council for a proper examination. If it proves to be harmless, you'll get it back."

"But you're not a councillor any more!"

"I certainly am still a councillor, thank you very much. And even if I wasn't, temporarily being part of Fairy Tail has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not I have to follow the law. It's not like the two are mutually exclusive."

"Actually, about that…" Mira began brightly, earning herself a fierce glare.

"In short, it's suspicious, so I'm confiscating it under Article Ten. Understood?"

Rather than giving up, however, Natsu just folded his arms. "I think you're bluffing."

"…I beg your pardon?"

"I don't think this Article Ten exists. I think you're making it up."

"Oh, do you now? Want to go to the nearest Council outpost and check?"

They glared at each other. Lucy, Mira, Erza and Happy exchanged exasperated glances.

"Article Ten exists," came the authoritative tones of their Master, settling the debate at once.

Makarov walked towards them down the long table, which was not altogether an unusual setup for the diminutive man. The fact that he had to stand on furniture to make himself seen, however, belied the very real danger that this man posed – the silence that descended immediately upon the group as his mages quietened to listen was a far better indication of the respect he commanded. Jellal wondered if Makarov always wore his cloak with the emblem of the Wizard Saints on it, or if the old man had merely adopted the habit since Jellal had joined the guild as a display of power. They held the same rank, after all; if attaining the title at a mere nineteen years of age was an incredible achievement, so too was retaining it by the age of eighty-eight.

In response to Natsu's look of dismay, Makarov continued, "And I'm afraid it is exactly as he says, Natsu. If a suspicious artefact is found, the law requires it to be submitted to the appropriate authorities for examination."

"Thank you," Jellal grunted. "Finally, someone with some common sense-"

Only, it was Jellal's turn to have the amulet snatched out of his hands. "However," Makarov added, a crafty glint in his eye as he examined it, "Article Ten also states that in the case of such a device being found by a guild mage, the first port of call need not be the Council itself, but the Guild Master. Only if said Master agrees it might be dangerous does it need to be sent to the Council. Isn't that right, Councillor Siegrain?"

"…That's right," he conceded unhappily.

Natsu rounded on him. "So you weren't going to mention that I only needed to ask Gramps's opinion on it, huh?"

"It's hardly my fault if you don't know the law, is it?" Jellal retorted. "Besides, it'll still end up going to the Council. It's obviously a dangerous artefact."

"On the contrary," Makarov corrected him. "This is a perfectly ordinary piece of costume jewellery."

"…You're joking, right?"

"Not at all," chirped the Guild Master.

"It's blatantly going to turn out to have dark magic in it! It reflected my magic perfectly!"

"It's unusually well-made costume jewellery, granted."

"Look, I'm trying to help you out here!" Jellal protested. "When that turns out to be a cursed artefact-"

"I think it'll make for a wonderful quirky centrepiece," the old man overrode him, tossing it happily to himself as he walked back towards the bar.

"You're making a mistake!" Jellal called after him.

"We shall see."

And then the old man was gone, leaving the astonished Wizard Saint surrounded by a bunch of smug guild mages.

Well, if they were willing to put themselves in danger just to spite him, what did he care? See if he was ever going to help them out again.

"This is going to end badly, you mark my words," Jellal vowed.


A/N: Well, I think this one chapter has caused me more problems than the rest of the story put together. The first draft of Levy and Jellal's conversation was actually very easy to write - it just made literally no sense to anyone who hadn't studied the history of science. So I decided to rewrite the whole thing from scratch to make it more accessible. Then I rewrote it a third time. And it still wasn't working. Without that esoteric argument, I couldn't capture the dynamic of their relationship at all. The point isn't that they discover they have something in common - it's that they discover they both know a lot about a relatively niche subject, and that they both have completely opposing viewpoints regarding it. They don't like talking to each other so much as they like arguing with each other - a sophisticated argument that very few people would be able to participate in. From that comes a relationship based on mutual respect. Levy becomes the first person in the guild (other than Erza) that Jellal has any kind of respect for, and that, more than anything, will be the catalyst that starts to break down the walls between him and the rest of the guild. That just wasn't coming across in either of the other drafts. So I ended up reinstating the original version at the last minute, cutting out as much of the technical stuff as I could, and hopefully even if it wasn't as readable as I would have liked, it faithfully represents their evolving relationship between the previous chapter and the ones to come. Gah. It would be nice if all the interactions could be as easy to write as those between Jellal and Natsu. They've been by far the most fun.

Anyway, next week I'll be back in more familiar writing territory as everything kicks off. (Also with 10x more Erza; I haven't forgotten her, I swear). ~CS