ISHGAR - X552.
Teki Park was not the place one expected to find the God of Time. The entity sat, cross-legged, in the changing form of a man and woman, with blue, green, brown, golden shifting eyes, staring at an apple, which faded to dust, reformed, and to dust it returned.
They sat alone, unbothered by the wind and unhinged sunlight. The wizard strode up to them, holding their short staff in their left hand. It glowed with raw magical power. The air around the staff vibrated.
Chronos lifted its head from the apple in his hand. The wizard stopped, though not of Chronos's doing. His staff touched the ground, and his power caught Chronos's attention. The God eased back in the park bench.
"You can see me." It crushed the apple in his hand, and it appeared in their other hand. "Not many can do that. And you're not even a Time Wizard." Chronos shrugged. "Magic truly was different in this era."
"What does the God of Time want in Fiore?"
Chronos glanced at the wizard. Straight-faced, powerful magic, clearly belonging to a guild. The guild symbol on their exposed chest told all, even if it were obscured by battle scars.
"How simply you forget the conscription of Wizard Guilds. When was your last battle, boy? Two days ago? And you're no older than twenty, now. It's a shame you're so powerful. I've seen so many think they've achieved so much in life only to find out they can level mountains at nineteen and there is nowhere to go from there." Chronos laughed. "And then they fade in the same amount of time I can blink."
"That's what I want to know," the wizard said. "If we're so insignificant, why are you here?"
"To make sure that things play out a bit differently." Chronos rolled the apple off their hand and with a snap of their fingers an apple tree appeared in front of the two. "You'd think that would hurt me, but, it only hurts me to know that I can do this." He snapped his fingers again, and the bark of the tree turned to dust. "No matter what happens in time, I can make sure that things are different. I could go back and have someone kill little baby Zeref if I wanted to."
The wizard stiffened at the name, but Chronos just chuckled again.
"You're frightened of him? No. You're frightened of his immortality. Anyone with enough time, or willpower I suppose, could become as strong as Zeref. Hell, he'll even create creatures strong enough to do so."
"Chronos." The wizard surged more power into his staff, standing in the bright beam of the sun. Chronos rolled their neck. "You come to Fiore in time of peace. You come before me, and you expect me to not take this seriously?"
"Oh I expect you to take so many things seriously." Chronos pointed to the wizard. Their appearance changed. They wore gold-plated armor, their hair a long mane of white, their staff changed so that it had a floating ball of fire-or was this raw magical power?-atop it. "Your true name bores me. I'll call you Radiant. It's more fitting, and, who knows, maybe you'll keep it from now on. Within just a few years you'll hear your name told in legend and yet you'll still be alive. Even if you'll want to be dead."
"Why?"
"The age-old question." Chronos dropped the visage off of Radiant and fixated on the apple back in his hand. "Why did the dragons disappear? Why did Ishgar split into kingdoms? Why is the Pergrande Kingdom so peaceful despite its size? Why hasn't Zeref taken over the world yet? Where is Acnologia?" Chronos threw back his head at that one. "Oh, Acnologia."
Radiant gripped his staff tighter. "If you're going to mock me, at least serve me some purpose."
"Serve you? A mortal? Not even a mortal, a forgettable one? Oh, Radiant, oh Radiant. Those who are spoken of as legend in their are little more than myth in another. And you want me to bend a knee to you?"
Chronos jabbed a finger at Radiant, and they vanished beneath all their robes and magical do-dads, then crawled out as a baby. A frustrated baby, but a baby nonetheless.
"I'm only here to cause a little bit of a headache for everybody since One knows that human, dragon, demon, and all those other miserable creatures will give me on soon. That Eclipse project? Yikes. But I'll tolerate it. It gives me something to watch." Chronos looked to their pristine fingernails. "In three months Ishgar will be plunged into war. Even though this one will end, it will not know peace for almost three hundred years. This coming war will be the Yami War."
Baby Radiant tilted their head. Chronos clipped a nail and Radiant returned back to how he was before, only now with the staff pointed right at an unbothered Chronos.
"Yami War? So, it's true. About Uvo."
"Uvo, the Last Yami. Uvo, the Shadow Demon. Uvo Black-Eyes. Yes, yes, yes. All true."
Radiant shuddered. "And you're here to help him?"
"I'm here to not help you. I'm here simply to push a couple of pieces around on the board and let chaos reign. I'll, of course, have my eye out for the ripple effects of this." He glanced beyond Radiant, as if into the ether itself. "Precious little Fairy Tail?" He chuckled. "Imagine if our dearest guild members never escape Acnologia."
Radiant raised an eyebrow. "Fairy Tail?"
Chronos waved their beautiful hands. Each swipe turned the stone at their feet from dust to shiny rock. "None of your concern. You, Radiant, should be concerned with your own imminent demise."
For whatever reason, this did not shake Radiant. A tough one, this wizard. The power all welled up in that staff was no bluff, nor was it all that they could muster up. In reality, power like that could threaten Chronos. It was certainly enough to stop his immediate, and somewhat unwilling at times, apprentices.
"But, you're right. It's not fair to me to just arrive at the eve of the Yami War." Chronos held out their hand, and the air, the very magic between them, rippled and Radiant froze. Not locked in time, but locked in magic. Touched by a god. "Take of this what you will, Radiant. When next we see each other, we will know what kind of wizard you can truly be with."
Chronos stood, and time followed with it. The trees toppled behind them, then turned to a massive cathedral, then back to trees, and at last, saplings. Chronos and Radiant no longer stood in Teki Park. They stood among only some pilgrims, carrying wood and stone, building a small building. One of the builders sparked a fire, but not with their flint or steel.
"Remember that only light can combat shadow, but every light will blind you if you look too hard." They patted Radiant on the cheek.
Chronos stepped back from Radiant, returning the two to Teki Park, then froze in place.
Standing across from him, in just an ethereal form as the God of Time, was a woman. Black of hair, strong of form, exhuming confidence.
"You." Chronos grinned ear-to-ear. "I've been waiting for you."
"You called me here, Time God." She crossed her arms. "What do you want?"
"I merely made a suggestion, I made no call. But I'm happy you answered nonetheless. I thought I should occupy some of your, for lack of a better word, time. And talent, of course. Now that you've decided to play the route of a hero, I thought it would be interesting to challenge you...against myself."
The woman uncrossed her arms. Her face drained of color. Chronos let their grin settle a little. A god shouldn't display so much emotion, after all.
"History as you know it will change. I'll leave it in your hands to figure out how, and then, stop it. Or let it run a new course. Perhaps things will change." He shrugged. "Perhaps the R-System never gets created. Perhaps someone destroys Eclipse early. Perhaps it is all rushed, and these little influences force Zeref's hand early." They gestured at Radiant. "It all falls upon them. The lost wizard."
The woman looked to Radiant, reading the wizard's face. "Who...who is that?"
Chronos couldn't stop the smirk this time. "Exactly." He waved to the woman. "We'll meet again in three years' time, just for a small chat. Maybe by then, you'll know. Maybe by then, it'll all be too late." Chronos began to fade back, into the timestream.
The woman took a step forward, but Chronos waded off their magic easily. He felt a calling from his other apprentice, his star pupil. She needed his assistance with something in the distant future. A useless effort, that one.
They gave some of their power, enough for a God Soul transformation. The rest?
Well, the Yami War was about to begin. The Forgotten War, the war that ended Ishgar, that gave rise to Fiore.
The war that could break magic.
Thank you for reading my new story! Fair warning ahead of time: This is going to be a lot of OCs here. I just got the idea (literally today) while I was wondering, "Wait, between the fall of the dragons and the end of Blue Skull, what happened in Ishgar?" And, fan-fiction is a perfect place to fill in those gaps. But don't expect for me to be connecting everything back to the main series (i.e., don't anticipate me including a character named Platinum that's Gray's great-great-great-grandad, or for Irene Belserion to make a sudden appearance). This is a story that will deepen the lore and world of Fairy Tail (in an unofficial way, of course).
As with all fanfiction, take it at your own leisure. While I'm sure there will be a ton of people out there not interested in a story that doesn't include their favorite characters (unless you're a big fan of SOME, *wink wink*), I'm just not interested in writing fan-fiction about things beyond the events of the manga while they are in progress. I previously wrote one such fic, Fairy Tail - New Era, but stopped because Fairy Tail - 100 Year Quest started and I didn't want to have two concurrent stories going. I'm thankful for the great responses to that story, and I do implore you to give it a look. Heck, if you want, go ahead and finish that story, I'd love to see someone else pick up where I left off with those characters.
But, for now, if it suits your fancy, please stick around and read this new story. I hope you'll find it fascinating. I'm still in the (SUPER) early stages of planning it, but I already have some great twists and turns planned, and a ton of those seeds got planted in this little prologue.
Hopefully, I can have the official first chapter out this week, and it'll shed a little more light on where we're heading with this series. Thank you so much for your time. Have a wonderful day!