Chapter 7 – Changeling
The rest of that day went on less eventfully, but not any less enjoyably. Erza and I spent that time finishing the job of shopping for furniture, though it surprised me when she insisted on going. After we had filled my living room to both of our likings (and withdrawn from my bank account multiple times), we stopped at a ramen stand for lunch.
"Wow. This is, without exaggeration, the best ramen I have ever tasted." I marveled in between mouthfuls.
"Indeed. Many members of Fairy Tail have stopped here on their way to and from jobs. The chef who makes this ramen takes a great deal of pride in his work." Erza clarified, and then returned to eating. I promptly did the same.
"So, what's your opinion of Fairy Tail so far?" Erza asked after a moment, looking up at me expectantly. I thought for about a minute, wanting to answer honestly.
"I've really enjoyed it. But, if I'm honest, the sheer quirkiness of your guild-mates will take some getting used to," I conceded. "So… would you have anything to say about me as a member of Fairy Tail?" Erza only took about 15 seconds to answer.
"Personally, I think you still have a lot to learn. I know you've acquired a lot of skills over the years, but it seems like you try too hard to be the hero. In spite of what you may have accomplished in the past, Fairy Tail isn't the kind of place where one person can do it all. You need to try and rely on others more often. It's admirable for you to stand up for us, but give someone else the chance to prove themselves every once in a while." Erza advised, giving me a harder look than usual.
'Wow… talk about a reality check.' I thought to myself. Ever since my parents had died, I had isolated myself, promising to find the strength to protect the people I cared about. Now, however, I had joined the strongest guild in the country; people who didn't need my protection, whether from inside threats or outside threats. The thought of it made me feel humiliatingly overbearing.
"Sorry… I've never been around people who haven't needed my help. I guess I've just stuck with jobs where people really need me…" I ventured, once again quite sheepishly. Erza chuckled a bit, even sounding a little sympathetic this time.
"I feel the same, Nikk. Like I'm obligated to do my best and focus on doing what others can't." She described. I gaped a bit.
"Are you kidding? That's pretty much what I do every day! Heck, it's all I've ever known in my career as a Celestial Guardian: helping those who need it most!" I exclaimed, a little surprised that my legendary pen-pal, Titania Erza, could relate to the habit of being a servant in her career as a wizard. All these years, I had always thought that was my thing. I had considered Erza more of the kind of person to spend all her time kicking ass and taking names against people in her league. Erza smiled a bit more, now obviously amused with my reaction.
"Nikk, I'm surprised you don't know this. Everyone in Fairy Tail does that. In fact, it's so commonplace most of us don't bother to take the initiative like you do. If what I've heard from my guild-mates' conversations are correct, they admire you for that reason more than anything else. You care more about your job as a wizard than anyone we've seen in a long time. Years, according to Wakaba…" Erza explained, shocking me even more with the amount of insight she was showing.
"You… you've talked to them about this?" I stammered, still reeling from shock. My redheaded friend stifled a laugh.
"No. But I spend a lot of my time around the guild-hall listening to them. That's how I keep up with everything that goes on." Erza corrected. I took another few seconds to recover from my surprise before chuckling nervously.
"Wow… I guess I do have a lot to learn. Well Erza, I'll keep doing my best, but from now on I promise to back off whenever it's reasonable to believe my guild-mates can handle something themselves." I assured her. At the same time, I prayed to Iesu for the wisdom to accomplish that while also carrying out my duty as a wizard, a Celestial Guardian, and a devoted friend to all my guild-mates. Erza sighed good-naturedly, calming down from her amusement.
"That's good to hear, Nikk. You can clearly learn from working with people and jobs that rival your level of strength."
Gray hadn't come back by that evening, so Erza promptly set out to bring them all back. By that time, my house had been fully refurnished, excluding the rooms I planned on adding. Resolving to get back to work the next morning, I went home after she left. After making and eating dinner (spaghetti), I started to spend the last few hours of my evening doing some more research, but that quickly got boring. I didn't have any of the pressing concerns that I usually looked to for a research topic. So instead, I spent the rest of that time making up ridiculous haikus. To give an idea of what I mean by "ridiculous", here is one of the ones I came up with:
Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator
The next day, I went to my guild to find out that Erza hadn't returned yet. Rather than fret over her well-being, I followed through with my resolve and trusted that my friend would be okay. Instead, I took a job of my own. I had bought my new house at full price, so I didn't really need the money for any immediate expenses. Still, I knew better than to spend an entire day doing nothing. I had enough of a proclivity towards laziness that one day of voluntary idleness completely destroyed my habitual work ethic. So, I picked the highest paying job from the first floor request board and left immediately, not even looking at my guild-mates. At times like this, when I didn't have anything or anyone to follow along with, I wound up doing my work a bit mechanically. Part of me wondered if that had led to me neglecting the missionary opportunities my work provided, but I had chosen my habits. Going back from them just wasn't that simple for someone like me.
Then again, this job in particular was admittedly boring. It had to be the most hackneyed reason for a job request in the history of wizarding. A clever group of magic-using thieves had found an innovative way to do their stealing while evading capture. My job was to figure out their shtick and bring them to justice. The brilliant strategy they devised: a special type of Earth magic that allowed them to melt into walls and come out through a different wall in the same building. I found it very annoying when I encountered the bandits, but my telekinetic radar allowed me to follow them effectively enough. As soon as I caught up with the criminals outside of a building (which took longer than anything else), capturing them was as easy as blowing apart the wall they hid in and conjuring chains to bind them. Jobs like that always bored me, but I couldn't complain about the easy money. I did make sure to pay for the damage I did to the wall, though...
Things didn't really get interesting until the next morning. I assumed that Erza would return with everyone by then. However, I awoke to discover I had slept in. Not wanting to miss out on anything, I hurriedly got out of bed, showered, dressed, made a cream-cheese bagel for breakfast and hustled out the door. Once I reached the door to the guild-hall, I heard the sounds of pandemonium, namely in the form of lots of people arguing. That was not a good sign.
Sure enough, when I opened the door, nothing I saw made any sense. Erza looked disturbingly excited; her composure, for whatever reason, was completely gone. Meanwhile, Natsu's Exceed friend Happy, who I hadn't gotten acquainted with yet, looked absolutely shattered, like his life had just been ruined. I didn't know anything about him yet, but I couldn't see a cat like Happy feeling distraught over anything… unless something had happened to his friend Natsu.
But no, Natsu was just fine. However, he wasn't yelling about the other weirdness I saw, which struck me as equally surreal. Someone as loud and aggressive as Natsu would be screaming their head off about this by now.
"What that Hell…?" I murmured, looking around at everyone else. Elfman lay passed out on the floor, and Cana was standing next to him, looking more confused than anything. But strangest of all: Master Makarov looked uncharacteristically panicked, waving his arms around, while Mirajane sat on the bar, her legs crossed and the old man's staff held over her shoulder.
"This is awesome! Everyone is someone else now!" Erza chirped with her strangely excited voice in a startlingly high register.
"Have you gone completely nuts?! This is horrible!" Loke screamed, his rage striking me as yet another strange thing about the guild's present state. At that point, I gave into my impulsiveness and Channeled power into my voice.
"What the hell is going on!?" I bellowed, my magically enhanced voice reaching the approximate volume of a megaphone. Everyone steadily quieted down and looked in my direction. They all looked at me with varying degrees of distress and annoyance, like something with a huge potential for danger had just put a sizeable crimp in their day. To my surprise, Happy of all people addressed me first.
"Nikk! Am I glad to see you! We are in a horrible predicament!" Happy cried in a low register and cordial inflection that I had been expecting from Erza.
'Wait a minute…' I thought. 'Happy is speaking like Erza, and Erza has completely lost her composure. Mirajane is holding Makarov's staff…' A hunch formed in my mind, one which made more sense the longer I thought about it. Elfman had passed out, and if I was right, it had come from him trying to drink as much as Cana… Everywhere I looked, I saw people acting like someone completely different. And if it even affected Erza, then it couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
'No way…' I thought in disbelief. It seemed like a long-shot, but I approached Happy and knelt down to speak with him directly.
"…Erza?" I murmured, focusing too much on the ongoing weirdness of my situation to control the bewilderment I spoke with. Happy gasped and put his paws to his mouth, but then he slowly nodded his head. Her head.
"Yes Nikk. It's me," Erza confirmed, with a familiar look of trust and respect in her unfamiliar feline eyes. Her voice had a slight tremor to it, but the cat-bodied swordswoman sounded overjoyed at my recognition. "I hate to put you under any undue pressure, but you may very well be our last hope." I actually heard a note of desperation in her voice that time, which really freaked me out.
"What the Hell happened here?" I gaped, getting to my feet and looking at my guild-mates. From there, everyone took turns answering my question, clarifying who they really were along the way. Upon returning from Galuna Island (with no reward but Lucy's new gate key), Natsu had picked out a job request offering 500,000 jewel to interpret the text written on the flier. However, upon reading the phonetic transcription the flier included, the pinkette unwittingly activated a body-swap spell known as Changeling. As a result, Natsu swapped bodies with Loke, Lucy swapped with Gray and, worst of all, Happy swapped with Erza. According to their only source on Changeling (i.e. Makarov), the spell became permanent after 30 minutes. In the mad scramble to undo the spell in the time they had left, Gray had almost taken off his shirt in Lucy's body several times, Erza had bemoaned her acquired status as a liability (much to Happy's indignation) and Levy had only succeeded in returning Gray and Lucy to their proper bodies. In the process, however, the blue-haired bookworm swapped everyone else in the guild but herself.
"Jeez…" I mused. "Erza and I recently got through talking about me not playing the hero all the time. I turn my back for one day and this happens? I'd call this seriously ironic if it wasn't so urgent." Loke… er, Natsu looked at me hopefully.
"Does that mean you can help us, Nikk?" he prodded. Erza looked up at me with her big cat eyes, her expression echoing his question. In fact, it felt like everyone had their eyes on me at the mention of a possible solution. I shifted a bit uncomfortably, not comfortable with being the center of attention unless I had a point to make. But I swallowed my shyness and raised my voice.
"Well… first of all, let me see the Changeling flier." I requested. Levy brought it up to me right away. I looked at the flier idly, debating what I should do with such a chaos-inducing magic item. Finally, I folded it up and stuck it in one of my jacket pockets.
"I'll be hanging onto this…" I muttered.
"Wait… don't you need it to lift the spell?" Levy asked a bit urgently. I shook my head.
"No. If you couldn't undo the spell with it, I sure couldn't. There's not that much more to know about this magic." I replied simply. Everyone looked mortified, and Natsu's immediate response explained why.
"Does that mean we're stuck like this forever?!" he yelled, sounding about as urgent as someone as easy-going as Natsu could sound. I rolled my eyes in annoyance.
"No. I'm not gonna let things end like this. The color red will vanish forever before I leave my family in the lurch," I replied. "However, if an unnatural spell like this can't be undone by normal means, it only has one solution."
"And what is that, Nikku?" Makarov asked, his deep, gravely inflection sounding ridiculous when spoken with Mirajane's voice.
"Easy. Only God can help you guys now." I answered. Surprisingly enough, my guild-mates reacted with incredulity.
"Wait seriously?" Natsu shot back.
"You honestly believe that stuff?" Wakaba almost chuckled, but I couldn't tell who was really speaking from inside his body.
"Yeah Nikk… Earth-Land has some pretty incredible things, but the idea of Zenosha has no scientific basis, either in the natural sciences or the magical sciences." Levy insisted, sounding a little dogmatic about the subject. Erza flew up beside my head with Happy's Aera wings.
"The concept of the Almighty is a bit controversial in our guild, Nikk. I remain ambivalent about the matter for that very reason." Erza whispered.
"Good to know." I replied, feeling bad about sparking any more argument among my peers. Still, I got down on my knees, closed my eyes and started praying, feeling one of my grayish-navy magic circles appearing beneath me.
O Lord God… There is a lesson here for all of us. For me, it is the importance of yielding. For Natsu, it would be to think before acting. For Gray, I suppose his lesson would be one in self-control. Happy and Erza could even learn something more about empathy. But I now know that Fairy Tail has no problem with learning, Lord. Considering the mistakes they've made throughout their history as a guild, I can't imagine how they would survive without learning from them. I promised to protect the ones I cared about with the power You gave me, but You showed me that Fairy Tail doesn't need my protection. Instead, I shall give them what they really need: Your grace. The same grace with which You have guided and preserved me throughout my life. So, I pray that You would pour out Your grace on us, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer, so that me and my guild-mates may continue to learn, both about our lives and about You: our Father and Creator. Amen.
When I finished, I opened my eyes. The magic circle had turned gold, which meant that my prayer had been answered. With that assurance, I smiled and spoke the Divine Technique I needed.
"Dizorubu…" I whispered, echoing the will of Zenosha for this chaotic magic to be gone. The second my voice died, the circle grew in diameter and brightness, suffusing the entire guild in warm, golden light. After shining for 15 seconds or so, the light faded. Everyone immediately reacted with varying degrees of relief and amazement.
"Hey, I'm me again!" Natsu cackled with glee. The next thing I perceived was Erza crushing me in a second-long hug.
"Thank you, Nikk. Our guild is indebted to you." Erza acknowledged, flashing another of her warm, brief smiles once she pulled away. I sighed.
"Don't look at me, Erza. Zenosha did all the work. What makes you think I could undo a spell like this so easily? Do I seem fatigued?" I asked, looking around at everyone else. The ones who had heard me seemed floored by what I had just implied, especially when they saw my lack of exhaustion. When none of them asked me about it, I shrugged and turned back to Erza.
"So… weren't you going to introduce me to your team?" I quipped, to which she nodded.
"Yes indeed. It's high time you got acquainted with your teammates-to-be." The redhead agreed.
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So anyways... I hope this chapter made Nikk seem less two-dimensional. As for the plot's distinction from Fairy Tail, Nikk will be influencing said differences more than anything for now. However, the elements from the crossover with Gravity Falls will be adding to that for this part of the story. Things won't start to get too interesting until part four. After that, I promise that the story will engage warp speed in terms of excitement. Until then, I'll continue to recount Fairy Tail's story through Nikk's eyes and do my best to fill the story with humor, drama, and enough originality to make up the difference. But I have a hunch the next few chapters will help, considering what I'll be introducing. Review if you have any suggestions or requests!
-J.R. Yeriel
