Disclaimers: I do not own Fairy Tail
A/N: So been getting some request to release another chapter of this story, so here we go.
September 9, 2019: Revised the chapter ending.
Chapter 4
Bamon and the Infinitude Road (Revise)
"S-So where do you want to go?", Wendy stutters out as the two teenagers sat down on a bench at one of the many parks located throughout the capital.
Romeo merely shrugs in response, "Hell if I don't know, you're the one that asked me to come see the city, I figure you had an idea."
Barely a second went by before Romeo starting to sense the overwhelming aura of self-disappointment emitting from the petite dragon-slayer as she turns away from him, a dark cloud forming above her as he heard her mutter over and over again the same words on how she was a failure as a dragon-slayer and a mage in general.
Romeo reaches out a hand to get her attention but was unable to as something hard fell from above him and struck him on the top of the head.
"Ouch!", he hisses as he rubs his the spot where it fell while looking for whatever it was that hit him. Instantly he spots a plump red apple on the ground next to his feet and picks it up.
"Crappy time for an apple to fall down from the tree", Romeo says to himself before a thought develops within the confines of his mind.
"Wait a minute", as he looks up at the branches above him and sure enough there were no apples in the trees.
"Apples don't even grow in Fiore", Romeo recalls, remembering back to a lesson at school where the teacher explains that all of the country's apples were imported from foreign lands due to them not be native to the country. You weren't even allowed to grow them with magic due to that affecting the economy.
So of course, there was only one logical explanation for this. Romeo scans the area around the bench, ignoring Wendy for the time being until he finally spots Adam sitting at a cafe across the way, biting into an apple, staring straight at Romeo. The two exchange looks for a moment before Adam points at his apple and then at Romeo, promptly the boy to look down at the fruit in his hand.
Almost instantly, words began to etch themselves into the surface of the apple, just large enough that Romeo could read them.
I don't know what's worse; that girl's self-esteem or your utter lack of tact. Do something to cheer her up.
Romeo looks up back at Adam and his hand tightens around the apple, leaving a deep indention in it. Suddenly he realizes that it was suddenly getting a lot smaller within his grasp and when he looked back down he saw that it was regressing. Before his eyes, the fully-grown apple reverses itself back into a single apple seed that laid nicely into the palm of his hand.
After chunking the seed at Adam for all the good it did, Romeo turns his head to check up on Wendy only to see that she was still going through her minor depression. Letting out a breath while shaking his head, Romeo places a hand on Wendy's shoulder, startling the poor girl and making her snap around to face him.
"Hey, how about we go see where the games are supposed to be taking place?", Romeo recommended as he points to the Domus Flau in the distance.
"Oh, I guess that would be a good place to start", Wendy agrees as she gets up and dusted herself off, "Let's go", as she walks off in the direction of the coliseum.
"Where the hell did her depression disappear to?", Romeo thought as he got up and follow after her, the two teens once again disappearing into the crowd.
While still chewing his apple and watching them leave, Adam ponders whether or not he should give the kids more time before giving Romeo his first real test. Glancing up into the sky to see the position of the sun, Adam holds up his hand and was about to rotate the world back a bit. No one would be the wiser and astrologists will chalk it up as an anomaly and nothing more.
"You know you shouldn't do that", a deep voice from behind him says and Adam rolls his eyes.
"So much for not getting caught", he mutters, "You might as well come and join me, Bamon", he motions to the seat in front of him and a dark skin man wearing a completely black tuxedo sat down in front of him, his dark green eyes glimmering like emeralds. His exotic foreign looks drew the attention of everyone within the area.
He takes off his own black top hat that mirrors Adam's, revealing his head covered in dreadlocks, and places it on the table before laying his cane across his lap.
"Are you mocking me?", Adam questions as he looks him up and down.
"Your choice of clothing is unusual yet remarkable for a man whose first choice of formal wear was a bundle of leaves", the man jest.
"Eve and I didn't exactly have a choice. Knowledge in making clothes wasn't really necessary back then in Eden", Adam replies as he places his apple on the table and waves a finger at it. Instantly, the soft red texture of the fruit turns silver and hard and starts to transform. Within moments, what was once a source of nourishment was now a miniature sliver knight, equipped with a longsword and shield and deck out in full-plated armor.
"I do find it strange that your favorite food is the one that got you banish in the first place", Bamon points out as picks up a rock by his foot and hold it in the palm of his left hand.
Putting his right hand up directly above it he slaps down on the rock, completely turning it into dust. But the dust suddenly takes on shining gold appearance and Bamon slowly lifted his hand back up. The dust began to take shape within his palm, forming armored feet at first, then legs, then a torso, and by the time the hands were four inches apart, another full-fledged knight was formed, this one armed with a longsword as well as a mace and glistening in full gold plated armor. The knight jumps off of Bamon's hand and charges the silver knight who stood his ground and readies himself.
"What can I say? They have a nice taste to them", Adam shrugs, as he watches the knights clash, the silver one bringing his shield up to block the golden one's mace while using his own sword to parries his opponent's.
"A fair point, my friend", Bamon admits as his golden knight takes a shield bash to the head, but was able to retain his balance and continuing fighting.
"Enough small talk, Bamon. Why are you here? This planet is slated for my training and minor balancing, not your destroying", Adam says while the silver knight uses his shield to block a downward strike from both the gold knight's mace and sword.
Bamon merely holds up his hands, "I had some downtime so I came to check up on this new trainee that is supposed to replace you", he says as he looks through the crowd at the retreating back of Romeo, "Seem pretty young if you ask me."
"A lot of humans are young compared to you and me", Adam points out as his silver knight takes the chance presented to him to thrust his longsword into the golden knight expose gut, but his opponent spins out of the way just in the nick of time and two of them get into a standoff, with both of them waiting for the other to make the first move.
Bamon's eyes then flash white for a moment before returning to normal, "Carrying a lot of, how do you say it, baggage, if you ask me."
"Don't remind me. Do you want to know what his alternate realities are up to? The ones I check in on to get a feel of him before I came here?", Adam asks before he started listing off, "One has a powerful dragon sealed inside and that one splits into two different realities at one point. Another is being trained by the same dragon to basically be an assassin. In one of my personal favorites, he has a dragon as a companion and is the last of the Wild Master; I have to remember to check up on that universe here soon. Two of them have older women chasing after him. Another one, he found the long lost Chaos Wheel of Magic and the last one that I know of he is in a complicated relationship with a pink-haired god-slayer, has social anxiety and mommy issues!"
Bamon lets out a long whistle, "Wow."
"I know, right?", Adam says, "But compared to all those, this one is just….blah. So boring and unimpressive."
"Sounds like you don't want to train him", Bamon points out as his gold knight resume the match with his silver foe.
"Trust me, I don't but I don't have a choice in the matter", Adam groans as he places his head on the table just as his knight delivers a slash across the torso of the gold knight only to have it parried away by the mace.
"Do we ever?", Bamon chuckles, "Still though, you never know what potential someone could have."
Adam merely lets out another groan while Bamon takes a look around at his surrounding, ignoring for the moment his gold knight being put on the defensive by the silver knight relentless barrage of blows.
"I must say, this is a most peculiar world that you are patrolling; much different than the others I have seen", Bamon admits.
"Please, this planet is just one giant shitstorm ready to happen, and this particular country is dead smack in the middle of all of it, so much so that it's not even funny. There are too many mortals in this country with way too much power in their hands", the first human in exist explains, "I figure I let Romeo have some peace before everything starts going downhill."
"That's very admirable of you but I pray that you're not hoping that this will help you fix your relationship with-"
"Can we not discussing personal business while on the job, please?", Adam all but hisses, "I don't need you telling me the same thing everyone else has been telling me."
"Very well, then", Bamon relents before snapping his head to the left, a movement mimic by Adam as both men look toward the Royal Castle and both of their knights cease their own movement in response to this.
"Huh, this one a little bit stronger than unusual.", Bamon says.
"Damn it", Adam grumbles as he begins to get up, "I was hoping for some peace and quiet while I watch the kid."
Bamon holds a hand up, stopping Adam in his tracks, "Then continue to shadow the boy while I handle this one."
"Really? You're seriously going to do this, just like that?", Adams questions.
"Consider it a professional courtesy as they say", Bamon states as he stands up, "Besides, it's has been boring lately on my patrols, I could use a little excitement."
With a snap of his fingers, his gold knight transforms into a leaf and is taken away by the breeze while Adam merely claps and his silver knight sinks into the table cloth, becoming one with it.
"That makes one hundred bouts with knights", Bamon points out, "Time for new combatants."
"Let's go with dragons next time", Adam suggested, "Been a while since we used those."
"Yes, though I do believe I won that particular set of fights", Bamon smiles and with a clap of his hands, he vanishes.
Adam lets out a huff as he sits back down and spies Romeo and Wendy turning left at a street corner.
"Jeez, Bamon has really changed a lot since I found him in that Roman slave caravan", he says to himself
Back with the teenagers, they found themselves at a crossroads and were debating what route to take.
"We should go left, that way we can cut through the western markets and get to the Domu Flau faster", Romeo suggested but Wendy shakes her head.
"Those markets will be just as crowded as the ones we already went through so we should head right. That way we can use the main road and save time."
Romeo was about to argue Wendy's logic when he notices Adam appear directly behind the girl in the distance, nodding his head in agreement and frustrated the boy to no end.
"Fine, let's go right", Romeo grumbles.
With that, they both turn around to head to their destination only for Romeo to run into someone.
Now Romeo may look like the type of guy who tunes the rest of the world and keeps to his own business, but that was exactly the opposite. To a degree, he was usually aware of his surroundings, especially ever since he met Adam.
So one could only imagine his dull surprise when he felt hands very slowly rummaging through his pockets and he could only imagine the surprise on the kid's face who those hands belong to when Romeo grab him by his right wrist and twisted it to the point of pain, causing a scream to erupt through the street.
"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!", the boy, no older than Romeo with long green hair and ocean blue eyes, shouts to the heavens as he was brought to his knees by the torment coursing through his body.
"Is there a reason why you were going through my pockets?", Romeo asks with a neutral tone, choosing for the moment to ignore the shock expression on Wendy's face.
"Oi, I did no such thing!", the boy cried out, "Let me go!"
"I'm one hundred percent sure you were", Romeo answers.
"Romeo, what are you doing?", he hears Wendy shout next to him, "You're hurting him! Let him go!"
Romeo throws the dragon-slayer a look, "You're joking, right? He was trying to rob me!"
"He just a kid like you, let him go!", she shouts and Romeo could feel the wind starting to pick up around them.
Not wanting to test his luck with the girl, he lets out an annoyed growl and releases the boy, who fell to the ground cradling his wrist.
"I think he broke it!", the boy cries and Romeo's finally notices the looks the people walking by were throwing at them. To everyone else, including Wendy, it looked like he just assaulted another kid who merely bumped into him.
"I'm so sorry for my friend!", Wendy says as she kneels down next to the boy, "He can be a real meanie sometimes", as she throws Romeo a glare, "Here, let me help you…?", as her hands glow and hover over the boy's wrist.
"Jimmy my name and you can use healing magic?", the boy says and Wendy gives him a nod without ever looking up, entirely focus on her healing.
"That's so cool", Jimmy says before looking at the disgruntle Romeo and giving him a cheeky smirk.
This causes Romeo's blood to boil but wasn't enough to stop him from noticing that time was slowing down again around him. Romeo takes a moment to look around and quickly notices that he wasn't in any danger.
"So why is time slowin-", he thought before noticing where exactly Jimmy other hand was…
In the pocket of Wendy's dress and it looked like he got ahold of something.
One moment Wendy was sitting there applying her magic to Jimmy and the next she was staring down at the street as city boy was sent flying back by the punch deliver squarely to his face by the middle child of Macao and Enno Conbolt.
As Wendy stares flabbergasted at the stop where Jimmy was previously occupying and could feel a strange new feeling swell up within her, burning her insides like a volcano. She spun around on Romeo with an unusual fiery look on her face that had Romeo backing up with his hand up in front of him.
"You...you", she hisses as her hair began to swirl around due to her magic rising, "I can't believe you struck him! What is wrong with you?! You already hurt his wrist for no reason and now you just punch him! I'm starting to see why no one likes you and I'm starting to wonder what I ever saw in you! You're just a big bully! That's all you are-", she shouts before noticing that Romeo's finger was pointing at something behind her at the ground.
She spares a glance in that direction and was floor by what she witnessed, so much that the wind dies down around her. Laying in the now unconscious Jimmy's open hand was a small frog design coin purse, her coin purse. The shock was so great that she doesn't even notice that Romeo had moved to it until he started speaking.
"I saw him going through your sundress' pocket while you were healing him", the boy explains as he picks it up and hands it out to her but before anything else could occur the sound of whistles blowing draws their attention down the road and they see a group of city's guards coming toward them, shoving people out of the way while doing so.
Without hesitation, Romeo grabs Wendy's hand and the two of them take off running down the street.
"Wait, where are we going?!", Wendy shouts.
"Anywhere that's not near them!", Romeo replies without looking back as they weave through the crowds.
"But all we have to do is explain ourselves! Surely they will listen!", Wendy says.
"Oh, they'll let us explain ourselves once we're behind bars at their station! This isn't Magnolia, Wendy! Crocus has strict rules about the use of magic outside of the Domus Flau, especially during the Grand Magic Games!", Romeo explains as he looks in all directions, "Where is this guy?!"
"Looking for me?", Adam's voice echoes inside of his head.
"Where the hell are you?!"
"Technically, a part of me is inside every human in existence so I'm-", Adam began.
"I didn't ask for all that!", Romeo screams.
"Fine then, look to your left", Adam says and Romeo does just that and sure enough there was the first man leaning on a market stand, just about to clap his hands.
CLAP!
And once again, Romeo found himself within a living picture as time froze all around him.
Adam takes off his top hat and runs a hand down his face in annoyance.
"You know, if I was getting paid to do this I would be asking for a raise right now because I know I wouldn't be making enough money to deal with this crap", he groans as he uses his cane to point at Wendy who was stuck in mid-sprint with her long ponytails flying behind her.
"What?", Romeo says as he frees his hand from Wendy's grasp.
"You suck with women, that's what", Adam says, "Seriously, you have got to have the worst luck with them out of all your known alternate counterparts."
Romeo eyes Adam for a moment, "You know you mention that earlier, about other me and such. What do you mean by that?"
Adam takes a good look at the boy in front of him before shaking his head, "I'm guessing the theory of the multiverse hasn't been discovered yet on this world."
"The multi-what?", Romeo asks.
"Well, there's my answer", Adam says as he lays a hand on Romeo's shoulder, "Come, boy, it's about time you got your orientation on my job and perhaps your future job. I'll show you what it means to be an Infinitude Balancer."
"Huh?", is all Romeo had time to say before his vision was engulfed in darkness.
A heartbeat later, he was temporarily blinded by a flood of glimmering white, blue, and red lights and it took him a moment to regain his senses. When his eyes finally adjust he was astounded by the sight that behold him.
In every direction as far as he could see that were beams of these colored lights, twisting and curving through the empty vastness, intertwining and interlocking with one another as though they were one immense spider-web, pulsating with energy, not much different than that of the sphere Romeo saw Adam use at the train station. At the ends of all of these light were sparkling silver discs. But Romeo notice that when a thread ended on one side of the disc, countless more appear on the opposite side of it all of them leading to even smaller discs.
All of this reminded the boy of the times he sat upon his roof and watch the stars by himself, taking in their numbers and contemplating just how small and insignificant he was in the grand scheme of life.
That feeling now was tenfold strong as it was one thing to see something like this from afar, but it was another to be smack in the middle of it.
"W-w-", Romeo struggles to get out, the sheer volume of what he was witnessing becoming almost too much for his mind to comprehend.
"This", Adam said from aside of him, "Is the Infinitude Road. This is where all the infinite dimensions and universes throughout the multiverse connect to one another. Trust me when I say there's a lot of them. I have been traveling this place for quite a while and I haven't been to even one percent of them."
Romeo looks down at his feet and realizes that he and Adam were standing on top of one of the blue lights beam, surging forward along its path without moving themselves.
"Each one of these white beams is connected to every universe where humans exist throughout the infinity of time and space, no matter their numbers, no matter their importance in the grand scheme of things. The threads that appear behind them each leads to a planet where those humans resided.", Adam explains, "Everyone falls under my overall jurisdiction. Every one of these alternate realities holds a vast multitude of my distant sons and daughters."
"What about the blue lights?", Romeo wonders, his mind trying to catch up with everything he was seeing, "They're a lot of them but nowhere nearly as much as the white."
Adam lets out a chuckle, "Well if you must know, those represent all those realities where you yourself exist. In layman's terms, where another Romeo Conbolt exists."
Romeo began to count in his head the number of blue threads but gave up once he reached seventy.
"All of these-"
"Has a different version of you within it. So whenever someone tells you that you're special or one-of-a-kind, they're lying to you", Adam says, "Not as infinite as some folks would believe, but there is still a lot of you running around the multiverse."
"Wow", Romeo says.
Adam looks at the boy next to him as he takes in all the wonder he was seeing, "Probably not the best of times to tell him that he isn't even the original one. He is just Romeo Conbolt number 12498416."
The path they were on takes them underneath a red light thread, "What about this one? What does it mean?", as he points it out.
Adam lets out another chuckle only this one was void of any emotion, "Those lead to the realities where you're dead."
Romeo's head snaps upward those Adam, "Excuse me?"
"You don't honestly believe that you are living a happy carefree life all over the place, do you?", Adam says before pointing ahead, "We're about to come to our destination."
Romeo looks to where Adam was pointing and see that they were about to collide with one of the silver discs.
"These things open up before you hit them, right?", Romeo asks in a wary voice, his nervousness increased with every passing moment as they got closer and closer to the disc, "There's a command you're supposed to say to make it do something?"
Adam only smiles down at the young boy, "Oh, you're going to be a bundle of fun", as Romeo started to scream just as they hit the disc and once again, bright lights fill his vision.
When he came to he found himself in what appeared to be one of the side roads in Magnolia not far from his house but deep within himself, he felt something was off.
"Dad!", he hears to his right and turns to sees a figure coming running by him and he was astonished to see that it was well ...himself, only he was six years old and the only reason he knew because along with the purple-hair, his younger self was wearing that dark green Nakajima shirt that was still lying somewhere in his closest.
He watches as the boy leapt and jumped onto the neck of a blue-haired man who Romeo swore was a younger version of his father and standing next to him was Natsu, Happy, and that new blondie chick, Lucy.
"What the hell is this?", Romeo asks Adam as he watches the younger version of himself crying into his father's arms.
"This is the day that Natsu brought your father back from that Vulcan job, don't you remember?", the first man answers.
"No, no, no, no", Romeo says as he shakes his head and waves his hands, "This is not what happened."
"You sure about that?" Adam questions as he tilts his head.
"There was no crying, no hugging and especially no yelling dad on my part! You already know this!", Romeo shouts as he looks around, "And where are my mom and sisters?!"
"Oh, did I not tell you?", Adam says, "They don't exist in this reality. Well, your sisters don't. Your mom divorced your dad and is living in Crocus last I checked. Runs a pretty successful dance studio."
Romeo stares wide-eyed at the man while finding himself unable to believe what he just heard, "What?"
"In this reality, you will become a fire mage, specializing in Rainbow Fire Magic and eventually joining Fairy Tail", Adam went on.
"Hold the fuck up", Romeo says but Adam pays no mind.
"There, despite the hardships and the setbacks, you will thrive to follow in the footsteps of your idol and hero, your greatest aspiration and the biggest reason you took up fire magic, Natsu Dragneel!", Adams finishes.
"YOU SHUT YOUR GODDAMN WHORE MOUTH! I'M NOBODY FANBOY, ESPECIALLY THAT FLAMING IDIOT! ", Romeo screams to the heavens, heaving heavily afterward.
"Oh", Adam merely smiles as he leans down closer to Romeo until he was right in his face, "But you are. In this reality and in so many more; in fact, you're worse than your sisters. I couldn't even begin to count the number of realities that exist where you worship the ground that Natsu walks on."
Romeo is frozen solid by the revelation drop on him.
"But that's a story for another day. What you need to know is that he is the original", Adams states as he points toward the crying Romeo still being engulfed in the younger Macao's arms, "Six years ago, he came into this world alone and your entire existence throughout all of the Infinitude began. You and all the other Romeo Conbolts are nothing more than mere fragment from his being, tweaked here and there in your own unique way. That boy is the first, he is the alpha of your origin...he is Romeo Conbolt-Zero."
A/N: In case you're wondering, the boy is Romeo from Episode 2/Chapter 2 of the Fairy Tail anime/manga.
My stories that Adam is talking about or alternate realities:
Fiery Hurricane of Love
Chaos Wheel of Magic
Romeo's Rising
Romeo's Falling
Ladies Man of Fairy Tail
Age is just a Number
The Wild Master
Right Claw of the Dragon King.