The stadium sprang to life at the sign of Mato on the great projection lacrima. They waved their arms at the roaring crowd. A few thin strips of cloud tore along the great blue Fiore sky, seeming so close to the raised stadium.

Mato stepped out into the middle of the arena, holding their arms down and signaling for the crowd to quiet. They stood on a long black stage with a few trinkets on it, like twirlers and a few chairs. Mato hopped onto a chair, precariously balancing on the chair.

"Welcome to the official first day of the Dragon Festival!" Mato exclaimed with the same noticeably higher-pitch. "We've got a fun one for you today! Hope you'll be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the festivities!"

The crowd roared and Mato waited a few seconds until speaking again, "Today is our dance competition, back after a few years' hiatus! Each competitor will have a maximum of two minutes to display awesome moves to wow us! Our judges for this will be some renowned wizards from across the decades!"

Magic lights shone down upon three individuals at the edge of the arena, facing the stadium, sitting in a table with a blank tablet. The most noticeable was Wolfheim, the second of the Ten Wizard Saints. Another was Darton, Hisui's chief advisor and likely the hardest to please. Last was, quite strikingly of all, Cancer, Lucy's Celestial Spirit, bound by contract to Hisui, as a Celestial Spirit Mage, to participate and judge the contest fairly and not skew any points toward Fairy Tail's participation.

"And now without further ado, I'd like to toss it back up to our commentators, featuring Magic Council advisor and former Fairy Tail member Doranbolt as our guest for today!"

"Thank you kindly, dear Mato," Chapati Lola, wearing a rather fashionable set of hair today, said. "Now, Mr. Yajima, obviously the dance battle is a widely popular and hotly competition part of any Grand Magic Games when involved. Seeing as how we've now been rebranded to the Dragon Festival, how do you suspect that will change things?"

A pause, then, "Well, seeing as how there are no Dragon Slayers in the actual competition I can't be entirely certain."
"Asking around a bit, I heard there may be some dragon-inspired clothing and dance moves throughout the competition," Doranbolt said. "Again, this year's competition is meant to honor the legacy of the dragons and Dragon Slayers that fought bravely for our country, and I suspect we'll definitely see some of that in the dances here today."

"Doranbolt, were you able to gleam any other information about the dances being performed this morning?"

Doranbolt chuckled. "Only what I just told you; everyone seemed a little unsettled still over the great game of Wizard Tag that went down yesterday."

"I heard it ended rather abruptly," Lola said.

"It ended with a crash, yes," Doranbolt said. Then, low, he said, "Lucy you're still it, by the way, don't want to let you forget."

From somewhere in the crowd, Natsu Dragneel squealed, not realizing that he'd tagged her last night when Lucy accidentally grasped his hand in comfort.

"Hmm, perhaps more on that later. For now let's kick off our competition, starting with the ever-lovely absolutely adorable Sherria Blendy of Lamia Scale!"

Sherria leapt out of her small canopy area and onto the arena, sprinting for the black stadium before tripping and actually tumbling up to the stage. She slid to a halt, then swung her legs around in a spray of black-white God Slayer magic and was on her feet.

"Nothing ever seems to let that girl down," Yajima said.

"Yes, but this will certainly be interesting to see how she incorporates her magic," Doranbolt said, leaning closer to the mic. He seemed clearly the most interested of all of them. "Since losing her magic to Dimaria to activate her Third Origin, Sherria's been hard at work restoring it, but it may not yet be at it's full capacity."

"Indeed, we shall have to wait and see!" Chapati exclaimed.

Mato waved Sherria on and she smiled to the crowd before settling down a bit. She then began her dance, moving with exceptional grace and relying mostly on her legs and a series of tumbles. Each move flowed naturally into the next, though, and it became abundantly clear that even without her magic, Sherria's body swayed and moved in the without abandon.

She contorted her back and slid across the stage, weaving her arms and legs through several motions that, upon first glance, seemed connected until one looked closer and saw that each intricate movement bled into the next; when her right arm move, then did her left leg. When she tumbled she did so masterfully: momentarily fooling the crowd into thinking she'd done it on accident before springing back up, high into the air, and doing several spins before landing on the flat of her foot then propping up on her tippy-toe and spinning once, twice, and finally coming down with her arms raised to the crowd.

The crowd roared in applause and cheer for Sherria, who let tears burst from her eyes and a smile crashed against her lips. She blew kisses toward Lamia Scale. Mato joined her on the stage and took her hand, the smiling pumpkin head clearly doing wonders for her.

Wolfheim hesitated as the first judge, then grinned at Sherria and held up an 8. Darton gave her a 6, and Cancer gave her an 8 as well.

Sherria skipped off the platform, clearly exhausted and riding only the high of her adrenaline and excitement.

"Well that was quite the first showing," Lola said. "Nothing like getting the games going on a great foot."

"Ah, a clever pun," Yajima chirped.

"Something like that," Doranbolt said. "Though I do find it interesting that Sherria did not use her magic at all. Certainly she displayed how her training as the Sky God-Slayer has shaped her inner movements. I suppose we'll have to see as the day progresses how much magic is truly integrated."

Chapati hummed in agreement. "Did you notice anything in particular about her dance?"

"Only that it seemed a bit more akin to that of a Dragon Slayer," Doranbolt muttered. "I've only seem someone float like that once, and it was Wendy Marvell. Well, I suppose that makes sense; was hardly a year ago that the two of them were Sky Sisters."

"Perhaps they worked on the dance after tag last night," Yajima said.

"I'm curious, though, how did Natsu manage to tag Lucy?" Lola asked.

"Not sure," Doranbolt said. "Oh, but, here comes our next dancer."

"And boy do they look it," Chapati said, with every drop possible of sarcasm in his voice. "It's Obra, of Orochi's Twilight, formerly of Raven Tail!"
The small brown ball with a tail and demonic teeth flittered out onto the stage with great haste. The stadium fell silent. No puppet? Obra's abilities were widely known following Raven Tail's arrest at the Grand Magic Games that brought Fairy Tail back to prominence, so it was rather curious to see him without a puppet.

Mato gestured for Obra to begin, and so he did: transforming into each of Fairy Tail's known Guild Masters and making a mockery of them on stage before leaping off and howling with glee about it.

The crowd remained silent; nobody laughed, nobody booed, nobody knew what to do. Doranbolt's shaky voice carried over.

"How petty," he growled.

The scores reflected his actions: 0, 0, 1. The one came from Darton for magical ability alone, and that was all.

"I knew that Orochi's Twilight was looking to disgrace Fairy Tail this year, but this doesn't seem acceptable," Yajima said. "Magic should not be used to defame, only for the betterment of us all."

"Then why do we have a swimsuit competition?" Doranbolt asked, his hand over the mic so that the crowd could only hear, "Don't have a swimsuit competition?"

The crowd roared and the announcers were unsure why. Lola quickly came to the aid of the announcers by saying, "No, the swimsuit competition is merely a subset of the naval battle, it's purely optional! Any woman who wishes to strut her stuff and show what she's made of will be allowed to participate."

"If they are participating in the games," Doranbolt said quickly, and the crowd hushed as the anticipation for another battle of butts and busts between Mira and Jenny Realight faded.

"Indeed," Yajima said, and visibly relaxed.

"My, Mr. Yajima, I haven't seen you quite so on edge in a while," Lola said.

"Well, last night's tag seemed a bit erratic, honestly," Yajima said. "Didn't get much sleep because of it. The castle may be Fairy Tail proof…ah, I'll just chat with Makarov on it later."

"Still, at least they didn't defile their name as Orochi's Twilight has tried," Doranbolt muttered. "Have some class! You're wizards of Fiore!"

He stood up and then sat back down to relax the tension in the announcer's booth. Lola chuckled rather awkwardly then said,
"Ah, good, our next dancer is out! It's Saber Tooth's very own Dobengal!"

The crowd went into a massive uproar. While Fairy Tail gained much of its lost favor, and procured even more after successfully defeating Acnologia, Saber Tooth still held top dog for most popular guild. After all, so many kids and teenagers had been raised knowing Saber Tooth as the best guild with some of the coolest wizards, not the least of which applied to Dobengal.

He appeared out of nowhere on the stage, startling even Mato. He gracefully bowed to the crowd and when Mato gave him the signal, he instantly began, spinning on his heels and throwing glowing darts into the ground.

Dobengal braced himself once, twice, then sprang into the air and twirled about, shooting rainbow beams that latched onto the darts locked in the ground. Each movement he made, with each bright ray of light, twisted and congealed in a certain way. Dobengal then stood atop the solid magic and did a little ditty with his feet; while it seemed initially that he was merely dancing, a closer inspection would reveal that he actauly tied all of the beams together with his feet.

Dobengal flipped backward off, bounced once, then pulled on the beams. They all quickly came together. Dobengal continued his same dance as the beams collided and exploded in a blast of light to make out the Saber Tooth guild emblem. The crowd roared and he stopped, bowing to them all once again.

"That was magnificent!" Lola exclaimed.

"Truly exemplary work, showing off his vast array of magical skills and perfectly weaving them into a dance," Yajima said.

"I'll admit, I didn't think that someone with Dobengal's skills would be suited to the art of dancing, but I will happily stand corrected in that field," Dorranbolt said. "Very well done indeed."
The judges thought so as well: Wolfheim gave Dobengal a 9, Darton gave him an 8, and Cancer also gave him and 8, putting Dobengal in the lead.

"My, that's one way to wash a bad taste out of the mouth, isn't it?" Doranbolt spoke.

"Indeed," Yajima said. "That's exactly what Hisui and the judges were thinking to see, I imagine. Shame he didn't get a higher score, but this is a competition after all. Most of these wizards deserve perfect scores based off of their proficiency alone."

"They're heroes, Mr. Yajima," Doranbolt said. "As we said earlier, Sherria stared down one of the Spriggan Twelve in direct combat. Lucy Heartfilia and Hoteye did the same, a few times as I recall."

"We truly have some exceptional wizards on display here in this first ever Dragon Festival," Lola said. "Our next dancer is certainly no slouch, either. Here she comes, the author that just stole the heart of Fiore, Fairy Tail's own Lucy Heartfilia!"

The crowd gave her just about as big a roar as they did for Dobengal, but Lucy had the backing of all of Fairy Tail as well. Natsu's big voice alone could probably carry over all of the crowd if he wanted. He and Happy noticeably jumped around, almost falling off their balcony. Cana Alberona, half-drunk already, also cheered Lucy on.

Lucy jogged onto the stage, holding three of her keys at the ready. Mato gave her the signal, and Lucy nodded.

"Open, Gate of the Twins!" she exclaimed, "Gemini!"

Another Lucy appeared next to her, wearing a more revealing dress. Lucy then pointed one of her keys at her and exclaimed,

"Star Dress: Aquarius!"

A bright flash of light in the middle of one of Lucy's moves illuminated the entire arena and when she stepped free she was in her aquatic Star Dress weaving her fingers through the air. The Gemini Lucy slid beneath Lucy in one fluid movement and Lucy whipped the water around her counterpart and caught her around the hip, spinning her back before her third key activated and Virgo appeared, springing the Gemini Lucy into the air.

Lucy in her Star Dress summoned a spring of water and held it there for Gemini Lucy to splash in and create sprays of beautiful water in the air. Lucy continued to do a dance similar to that which she did in Stella, though far less seductive and using her hips a lot more, before the water came to a halt and Gemini Lucy poofed away, leaving Lucy on the stage.

She slid, blasting water up. Lucy swung her hands out and the water splashed all around then evaporated in billions of tiny sparkles in the air. Lucy, on her side, twirled one last time to pose for the judges and the crowd ate all of it up.

"I think we can expect nothing less of a Celestial Spirit wizard," Yajima said. "That was quite the excellent use of her magic."

"Indeed, quite the carefully crafted dance," Doranbolt said. "It makes you wonder how much time she was able to put into that last night or this morning, whenever she got her assignment."

"Who's to say," Yajima said.

The judges for this one were a bit more conflicted. Wolfheim gave Lucy an 8, Darton gave her only a 6, and Cancer, probably abiding by his contract, gave her a 7, putting Lucy in third place and just a point behind Sherria.

"Now that's a rather interesting score, don't you think?" Lola asked.

"I suspect it's because she had others on stage with her that Darton gave her a lower score," Doranbolt said, then leaned away from the microphone so nobody could hear and said, "Also I don't think he cares much for Celestial Spirit wizards after the Eclipse incident."

Yajima agreed. "True, there were others on stage, but that is the nature of Celestial Spirit Magic, and she did use that nifty Star Dress she had."

"It does make you question the fairness of it, though," Lola said.

"For practical purposes such as this, Celestial Spirit magic is tough to beat," Doranbolt said. "But in combat it can be quite the gamble; you leave your body exposed. As we've seen time and again with wizards like Yukino and Sorano, if the body is quite physically capable of taking a hit it may not be too much of a crutch."

"Are you suggesting Lucy isn't physically capable?"

"I'm suggesting that Star Dress is an absolute gain for someone like Lucy," Doranbolt said.

"Well, it may be an absolute must for our next opponent to outdo all of his competitors!" Lola said. "Here we have Richard Buchanan of Sorciere!"
There were some light claps in the crowd, mostly coming from dedicated fans and the members of Fairy Tail. Richard blushed quite heavily as he approached the stage. His blocky body didn't seem like it would be able to really withstand the grace and speed that the others had danced with.

The crowd quieted and Richard looked lovingly to the crowd, "As it would be quiet difficult for me to move as it am, I would like to instead give you a dance of words, on behalf of my dear friends and guildmates:

Though our paths do stray and our pasts riddle with the darkness,

Let us never forget that we, indeed, bear a magic in our heart,,

One that shines so bright, so far, so wide and so deep,

That not even a great demon dragon could stomach it, could survive it.

For we share that one magic that can outlast even the greatest evil

Survive in the long night and short days, warm the cold hidden in us all

Those of crime, of fairies and of sabers have seen

As the Pegasus does fly and the mermaid does swim

And the Cerberus does howl and the scales of life tip one way

That if we hold true to LOVE, then, we can never fade to shadow."

Nobody spoke, or moved, or did anything. This man, this criminal, this man who was held in a cell for countless years, spoke to them of love. They were all capable of it. Richard bowed his head to the crowd and judges once again and departed, still swelling with love.

It was Wolfheim who stood up first, holding up a 10. He then spoke, "What this man says is true, for wizard and non-wizard alike! Love is our greatest ally, our strongest friend. We must hold true to it!"

The crowd leapt to its feet at the Wizard Saint's beckoning and the announcer booth remained silent, Doranbolt most noticeably of all. Darton gave him a 1 out of spite and Cancer gave him a 7. Nobody in Sorciere seemed to mind in the slightest; they were simply proud of their wizard and that they were able to compete at all.

"My, what…what a powerful statement," Lola said.

"This is what it means to be a wizard, a member of a guild," Doranbolt said, his voice a bit shaky. "Thank you for that."

While the crowd continued to clap for several more minutes than allotted for the other competitors, Sorciere bowed and waved to them all and, for the first time, were recognized not as criminals or ex-criminals, but as people.

"And after that, what say we keep things unpredictable with our next competitor, Quatro Cerberus's own Rocker!"

Rocker stopped once and pointed to the Sorciere balcony, then gave a knowing thumbs-up and approached the stage.

Mato gestured for him to begin. Rocker put one foot on the chair and held his arm out. From seemingly nowhere, though really it was just Bacchus on the Quatro Cerberus balcony, a twelve-string guitar appeared in the air. Rocker caught it by one of the necks and spun it around his body then strummed a hard power chord and stopped down on the chair.

"Oh yeah!" he roared, and ripped into a guitar solo.

He swung his arm up when he struck another chord and used his magic to spin his body once, ripping the pieces of wood up and casting them into the sky in a furious display, distracting everyone as he continued to spin and the music distorted just a bit, but when he landed, Rocker was able to bounce once and the use the vacuum of air beneath to leap up and shoot into the sky. Rocker's dance really began in free-fall. He continued to jam on the magic guitar while doing several tricks with his arms and legs, spinning some parts of his body around at such a high speed that also helped amplify the sound of the magic.

Rocker flipped once and landed on his feet, hitting that final chord and letting it drone out into the stadium. He sighed and timed his bow perfectly with the roaring and cheering of the crowd. Mato showed Rocker off the stage and cleared away whatever bits of the chair were left for him to make room for the next competitor.

"Quite the jam," Yajima said.

"I didn't think Rocker was that talented with an instrument," Doranbolt said.

"Truly quite the show!" Lola exclaimed, standing up. Rocker really struck a chord with that guy.

The judges were once again varied: Wolfheim gave Rocker a 7, Darton gave him a 5, and Cancer gave him a 6, placing he and Richard Buchanan in a tie for second to last, with Obra probably going to place last no matter what, unless the next to competitors just did not arrive and were disqualified by forfeit.

"Though you were right, Lola, that was quite the dramatic shift," Doranbolt said. "Going from poetry to a pretty hard-core one-man concert certainly was something."

"Both men played to their strengths," Lola said.

"And that is why they are currently tied," Yajima said. "It's really only fitting. Neither put on a great display magically, but did show off their innate passion for competition. Truly inspiring stuff here."

"And remember, this is only day one, and we're not even halfway done, because later today, we've got the battle rounds to go through!" Chapati exclaimed. "But let's focus on today and our next competitor, our humble Miss Beth Vanderwood of Mermaid Heel!"

Beth sauntered out from Mermaid Heel's area and waved to the content crowd. Nobody not in Mermaid Heel outward cheered for Beth, and she seemed fine with that. She had her hands in her overall pockets and approached the stage, nodding to Mato.

Mato nodded for Beth to begin and she smiled at the crowd. She sighed, slapped her sides, and started a clearly-mastered country-style dance, like something one would see from a farmgirl. She clapped her hands to the beat of her feet touching the ground, and it spread quickly, with the entire crowd clapping in tune with her.

Beth then dropped her hands and continued her dance without the use of her magic whatsoever, similar to Sherria, except this was just down-home dancing, and she smiled all the way through it, not even breaking a sweat. Her feet, legs, and hands moved with such practiced ease that it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that she could do this dance asleep.

When the timer sounded Beth stopped naturally, possibly with a bit of added flourish, and then just waved to the judges and crowd and carried on, all done with her task. Everyone cheered a bit louder for this young woman so easily dancing on the stage, just doing what she could and doing it as best she could.

"Interesting to see another wizard not use their magic, but to have an incredible effective, well-practiced dance," Lola said, trailing the end of the sentence almost as if asking a question.

"I'd say," Yajima said. "I certainly wouldn't have expected that. And if you count Obra, that's three of the seven wizards so far who have not used magic."

"Did you two notice one of the key differences of the last two, though?" Doranbolt asked. "They were having just a ball down there. Beth's smile didn't leave her face once."

"Good point, Doranbolt," Lola said. "It almost makes you wonder if the wizards were chosen or volunteered for the event."

"Given that Team Captains only have a few hours to prepare, I'm sure they had to volunteer and come up with their own gameplan," Doranbolt said.

"And in this case it paid off well, since Beth's a natural dancer," Yajima said.

The scores then came in: Wolfheim gave her a 7, Darton gave her a 6, and Cancer gave her an 8, the same score he gave Sherria.

"Ah, interesting, another tie," Lola said. "We now have a tie for third place between Beth and Lucy."

"At this point, I think it's fair to say only a perfect score will earn this next guild a win," Doranbolt said.

"Let's find out now as we welcome our final competitor, one of the Trimens, Blue Pegasus's own Ren Akatsuki!"

The vast majority of the cheers that came for Ren sounded from the women of the crowd but most obvious of all was his wife, Sherry Blendy. Ren looked her way, then had to turn his glance from her.

He approached the stage with ease and suave, nodding to Mato who looked away and hopped off the stage as if embarrassed. Ren shrugged and was given the okay by Mato.

Ren's dance seemed strikingly similar to Sherria's, only he was able to integrate his magic into his moves that seemed quite a bit stiffer than Sherria's. Ren's body just didn't have grace or fluidity that Sherria had, but the added component of magic did give him a bit more flair.

Using his Air Magic, Ren was able to create some small cyclones around him and allow him to keep his hair blowing back, always making sure he looked super cool. This clearly took away from his concentration, and the dance itself suffered for it.

At the end, Ren did not strike a pose for the judges, but for the beautiful red-haired woman sitting in Lamia Scale's booth, and she blushed so her cheeks were as red as her hair.

"And that was our final dancer for the day!" Chapati declared. "We now await the judges' scores and then we can declare the winner for the first event of the Grand Magic Games! And while we wait, gentlemen, what did you think of today's events?"

"Besides one noticeable misstep, I think today went incredibly well," Doranbolt said. "The atmosphere has definitely been a bit more relaxed today and I think that showed in the dances, and non-dances, that we saw."

"We have a lot to look forward to," Yajima added.

"Ah, and the scores are in, let's have a look!"

Wolfheim held up his card, revealing a six. Darton also revealed a six, and Cancer showed off a seven.

"Oh, and there we have it, and boy are things going to be interesting going into the battles later today!" Chapati Lola exclaimed. "So please, head out into town to grab anything you may need, then at one this afternoon make sure you head on back, because we have a doozy of an opener."

"Indeed, and Hisui wants to make sure all of the Dragon Slayer battles are highlighted as part of the Dragon Festival, so I'm pleased to announce that our first battle this afternoon shall be between Fairy Tail's Iron Dragon Slayer Gajeel and Blue Pegasus's own Ichiya!"

"This will be very interesting indeed," Doranbolt said with a wide grin on his face. He had the best seat in the house for the true display of power that was set to commence.


Standings:

1. Saber Tooth – 8

2. Lamia Scale – 7

3. Fairy Tail – 6

4. Mermaid Heel – 6

5. Quatro Cerberus – 5

6. Sorciere – 5

7. Blue Pegasus – 4

8. Orochi's Twilight - 0


Well that was certainly a way to kick off the GMG! I decided to do a bit of experimenting with not having POV, since if you're just watching the games, this is sort of what it would be like! Let me know what you thought of the events that went down, and be sure to stick around for the coming battles!

Also if you enjoyed this be sure to check out my other FT story, Fairy Tail - New Era!

Thank you for reading, have a great day!