A/N: Here's the new chapter! Yay!
Thank you all so much for your response to the prologue! It means so much to me that I even got that level of response!
Don't worry, though, if you haven't sent in your OCs yet, there are still slots available and these chapters are on a "when I'm done with them" type basis, so you still have time!
Thank you all for the reviews on the prologue, by the way! Those meant a lot too!
Credits for the OCs will be at the end of the chapter!
Enjoy!
March 22nd, X785
Wyvern's Keep
Above Terracotta Village, Fiore
It's been a year since the founding of Wyvern's Keep, and it's grown by leaps and bounds. Between placing highly in the annual Guild Rankings in their first year and the constant good results on missions, many people were clamoring to join the guild atop their flying fortress, which is why Beatrix "Bea" Landau felt so lucky to have gotten in.
A girl of 19 years, Bea stood at an average height of 5'6", with pink and blue hair in a side cut, and slanted green eyes. She was thin and lithe, with wide hips, an average-sized bust, and several different piercings. Running down her left arm was a long and completely filled tattoo sleeve with her new guild's mark, in red, standing out on her shoulder, worked into the sleeve design.
Today, like most days, she wore a dark gray, sleeveless shirt with a variety of different graphic designs on it under a tattered, black leather, silver studded jacket. To pair with it, she wears a pair of torn up, blue jean shorts with tattered, black stockings that reach halfway up her thighs, black combat boots and a black choker around her neck.
Now, in the month since she'd joined, she'd stayed to herself mostly, listening to her music with her earphones and her Wisps, skating around the place, or just hanging out in her room alone. But, see, today's different. Today, she's decided to go meet her guildmates, which is why she's now found herself on the top deck of the ship, earphones around her head, music blaring and Wisps bopping along, in the bar area, where most of the guild's mages tended to hang out. She musta looked like a fish outta water because soon enough, she could hear a voice calling to her, louder than the music.
"Oi, rookie! Over here!" The male voice beckoned, causing her to swing her head too and fro to try and find the source, not even phased by seeing a large saber tooth tiger sleeping nearby, before locating it by the fact that a young male, looking to be around her age, was waving his hands frantically at her. She smiled lightly, walking towards the table, using her hands to dismiss her Wisps and turn off the music, letting her earphones drop to her neck. She reached the table, pulling an unused seat out and plopping herself into it.
"Nice to see a rookie take the first step so quickly! Usually, they take forever to even step out onto the top deck!" The other teen joked with an easy smile, leaning back in his seat with his hands behind his hand. Bea noted that he looked vaguely familiar to her, younger than her with his wild black hair, round, wide blue eyes, and easy grin. Even the outfit, being a sleeveless black hoodie with no shirt underneath, long dark blue pants, and tan loafers, seemed familiar. Only the white bandage wrapping, going from his left wrist up to his elbow, seemed unfamiliar.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Bea asked him, banishing the thoughts from her mind and letting her curiosity show, instead. The teen grinned as a wind, seemingly from nowhere, began to pick up.
"Most of them were scared they'd fall off or that the guild would fly too high or some shit like that." The teen smirked as plates began to float over to them, carried by the wind, one filled with meat and the other filled with a bit of everything, before setting down in front of them, the meat in front of the other teen and the everything plate in front of Bea.
"Sorry, I wasn't sure what you wanted so I just grabbed everything." The teen apologized with a grin, rubbing at the back of his head, while Bea could only gape at the precision needed to pull off such a stunt. She opened her mouth to reply only to jump when a hand grabbed the teen's head and pushed it into his meat-covered plate.
"You have to stop using your magic for such mundane tasks, Bison. We've talked about this." The owner of the hand, a man slightly older than the both of them, black hair with an undercut, the longer top part of the hair slicked back into a small bun, wearing a sleeveless black hoodie with a blue tank top underneath it, gray jeans that are ripped at the knees and are tucked into black, military lace-up boots with a pair of bright blue headphones on his neck and a hoop of silver keys on his belt, said sternly before releasing the now-named teen. The newcomer plopped his own plate down at the table, pulling up a seat. "Besides, look at the mess you made."
Bea looked to where the newcomer motioned and barked out a laugh in surprise as while it had looked like precise use of magic that had gotten her her meal, in reality, the bar area looked a mess, foods strewn about everywhere with a frazzled-looking bartender in the middle.
"Okay, I admit, my cyclones aren't the greatest at subtlety," Bison began, while licking the meat sauce off of his face, using his fingers to do so before smirking cheekily at the newcomer. "But c'mon, Keenan, you gotta admit it was kinda funny."
"It was not funny. Nearly had my own drink spill onto my shirt." Keenan grumbled in exasperation before turning to Bea, giving her a once-over, nodding to himself every now and then, before letting out a huff. "So you're the newbie, huh? Don't let this idiot fool you, most of us here have manners. I'm Keenan, that's Bison, that's his cat, Saber."
"He doesn't bite!"
Bea turned to see where Keenan had waved his hand to, only to blanch on seeing the saber tooth tiger within inches of her leg, sniffing. She forced herself still, ignoring the feeling of shock that washed over her when she noticed the guild's mark on its paw. Eventually, the tiger let out a rumbling purr before curling up at her feet.
"Aw, he likes you!" Bison cooed, leaning forward on his palms with a grin, his plate suspiciously clean given how long ago he had taken the plate. Bea let out a relieved grin before freezing as the reason why Bison had seemed familiar on first meeting - a picture of the guild master's family, sitting on her desk - suddenly became clear in her mind.
"You're the guild master's brother!" She blurted out in excitement before shrinking in on herself in embarrassment. Bison froze, an unreadable expression passing briefly over his face, before letting out a simple laugh and he turned to Keenan with a shit-eating grin.
"See, only a few minutes this time, Kee!"
"Doesn't change the fact you and the master are literal polar opposites, Bise."
"You're just mad cause it took you a whole day to-"
"Moving on!" Keenan interrupted Bison's rebuttal, a light blush gracing his features before he re-focused on the newbie with a neutral look. Bea immediately squirmed under his gaze, as if he were judging her or something. "So, your name?"
"Ah, right, I'm Bea Landau! Nice to meet ya!" Bea said happily, looking between the two of them, Bison grinning at her, Keenan with a neutral expression, though she could've sworn she saw a ghost of a smile on his lips. She clapped her hands together as an idea came to her. "Right, well, since I have you two fine gentlemen here, how about you explain things to me?"
"Hah? What do you mean?"
"Y'know, like how the guild operates and such?"
"Did….did Kai not explain that when you joined?" Bison asked in surprise, blinking wide-eyed at her. Bea thought back to the moment when she joined, the guild master having just pressed the stamp onto her shoulder, the excitement felt. She recalled the guild master's lips moving, though no memory of the words surfaced. A light blush took over her features as she shook her head.
"Ah, no, I must've….missed it in my excitement to join," she admitted, causing Bison to chuckle in surprise while Keenan simply continued to eat his sandwich. Eventually stopping, Bison's hand glowed green for a second before a glass of water floated into his hand. He took a sip, ignoring the glare he was receiving from his friend.
"Alright, so, here's the basic gist of it." Bison began, leaning forward. "So, normally, in most guilds, each mage is a part of a different class, beginning from the lowest of D-Class and going all the way up to S-Class. Now, for the mages between D and A, the way to be promoted is just getting stronger and showing up to work, as far as I'm aware….?"
"That's more or less how it worked, yeah." Keenan confirmed with a nod.
"But S-Class, that's a different beast. It's meant for higher priority jobs. Every guild has a test to earn that promotion and it's a very hard test. We only held our first S-Class Exam around six-ish months ago…?" Bison trailed off, looking to Keenan, who nodded in confirmation. "So there are currently 5 S-Class mages in the guild, myself included."
"Wait, you're an S-Class mage?" Bea asked rhetorically before erupting in hearty giggles. Bison rolled his eyes, not even bothering to look at Keenan, who definitely did not have a smile on his face. Eventually, the giggles died down and Bea had the decency to look a little bit embarrassed. "Sorry for that, but it's just….well, y'know…..S-Class sounds like such a serious title and you, well, you're…."
"An idiot kid?" Keenan quipped with a grin, side-eyeing Bison, who groaned in response.
"C'mon, dude, it's been six months. I get it, I'm a bit on the young side."
"Young side? You were 16 and beat your sister, the guild master, in a straight up fight!"
"So?"
"So, every other S-Class mage ended up tying with her!"
"Wait, is the guild master that strong? She didn't seem that threatening when I first met her," Bea interrupted, staring at them in wide-eyed surprise. Surprise at the fact that the guild master made it that simple to achieve S-Class and surprise at the fact that none of the other 4 S-Class mages could beat her despite the fact that a literal teenager managed to do so.
"Kai's super strong! There's a reason she's the guild master!" Bison said confidently, leaning back in his seat with a wide grin, placing his hands behind his head. "Besides, she doesn't need to be threatening to be threatening, y'know?"
"Despite Deino's attempts otherwise, you mean?" Keenan said with a smirk. Bison reached out with one hand and pointed at Keenan knowingly before replacing it behind his head. At Bea's confused expression, Keenan could only shake his head. "Deino's one of the other S-Class mages. She and the master have a….contentious relationship, to say the least."
"Huh?"
"He means that I can't stand that Sunny over here beat the princess in a straight fight and I ended up getting a tie!" A new, silkier, more female voice interjected from behind Keenan. Bea jumped at the interruption before looking up at the new woman….and looking up and up. The newcomer was tall, looking to be around seven feet, built like a champion, with scars across her lower left lip and her left cheek.
"Bea, meet Deino Seras. Another S-Class mage and pain in my ass, specifically." Bison said with a grin, standing and stretching, groaning as he heard some pops and cracks. "She challenges me to a fight every day and every day, I kick her ass."
"You do NOT. You barely even fight some days." Deino pouted, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away with a huff. Bison rolled his eyes and passed the other S-Class mage, patting her on the shoulder as he went.
"Don't worry, Deino. One of these days, you'll beat me." Bison teased as he walked towards the training area. Deino growled, literally, before throwing her cloak on the back of what had been Bison's chair and stalking off after him. Bea threw a worried look at Keenan, who seemed almost nonchalant about the whole thing.
"Bison's not usually like that, right? Like, the whole cocky thing?" She asked, unsure about the drastic change in attitude. Keenan let out a light chuckle, before grabbing a drink of his own and taking a sip and setting it back down on the table.
"Bison's one of the nicest kids here, in my opinion. Took one look at me and literally called dibs on the day we met, despite knowing literally nothing about me." Keenan began with a fond smile on his face, absent-mindedly scratching at his left forearm, where Bea noticed a tattoo of the letters F and T, with the T having a breaking-apart type effect on it. "For the better part of the last year, every mission he took, he insisted on bringing me with him. He really kept me on my feet and kept me going. But Deino, she's a little harder to deal with."
A low rumble shook the deck, though, to Bea's shock, no one really paid any mind to it. She watched as the bartender continued cleaning up the mess Bison had made earlier, a lot of the people lounging around the tables didn't look up from their conversations, and hell, there was a guy literally sleeping who didn't wake up.
"To put it lightly, she's not one to accept loss easily, to the point that Bison's just given up on trying to talk her out of challenging him. The attitude thing is just so he can have fun with it as well, probably." Keenan finished, before another jolt to the ship caused him to grimace and look a bit pensive. "Hopefully."
"Anyways, to pick up where Bison left off, normally, guilds have the class system, but we don't. The only difference between our mages is whether they're S-Class or not." Keenan said, running a hand through his hair. "From what I understand, Bison and his whole family come from a place where that shit doesn't matter so they figured they could do that here until the Magic Council forced them to at least have the S-Class distinction. As a result, most of the S-Class mages here on the guild are encouraged to just take along whoever they want on missions. To my knowledge, the only one to actually follow that encouragement is Bison, though it could always change."
Bea opened her mouth to reply when a large spike of mana suddenly caused her worry to jump back up again. Apparently not being a normal thing around here, even Keenan suddenly looked startled. They both turned and looked towards the anomaly only for both to gape at the sight.
It was the two S-Class mages, predictably, though the training area, which had been spotless previously, was now peppered with small craters, as if someone brought a hole puncher to a piece of paper and went ham on it. To one side stood Deino, covered head to toe in rough, reptilian scales, a tail swishing around, her arms transformed into big claw-like appendages and glowing green, covered in small cuts and bruises. To the other stood Bison, generally untouched in his appearance, save for a small light glowing underneath the wrappings on his left forearm, holding a gigantic ball of dark red and black wind swirling on top of his outstretched palm.
He lit up with a smile and waved with his free hand when he noticed Keenan and Bea watching.
"Oh, no." Keenan groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"What?" Bea asked, dreading the answer.
"He's showing off. Trying to impress you, if I had to take a guess." Keenan muttered, causing Bea to gasp in surprise, turning back to watch what Bison did next.
The younger brother of the master looked back at his opponent before flexing the fingers that held up his attack. The giant wind-ball howled before shrinking considerably until it became a mere orb in his palm, though the fact that the large mana spike didn't disappear clued Bea in on the fact that it wasn't that the power was reduced, just compressed.
"Impressive, Bison! Such precise control over your magic is what truly makes you a worthy opponent!" Deino roared, her tail swishing back and forth in excitement, an eager and almost blood-thirsty grin taking over her expression. Bison said nothing in return, a wide grin plastered on his own face, before running and jumping at his guildmate, thrusting the orb forward.
"EVERYBODY BRACE!" Keenan yelled, clamping down on the table with one hand, the other pressing against his keys, his feet digging into the ground. Bea did the same, just in time for the giant outwards explosion of wind that rushed out over the deck. She felt her feet sliding and her grip on the table faltering before Keenan's hand, the one that was holding onto his key ring, reached out and grabbed her wrist, keeping her from being blown away.
Eventually, the wind died down until everything was back to normal. Bea ran a hand through her hair, trying to get it back down while looking out over the deck. Everything in the bar area was in disarray, the tables in all sorts of positions, the chairs askew in several places. No one looked to be harmed, just surprised and disheveled. No one was screaming about someone falling off or anything like that, which, to Bea, sounded like a win.
She looked over at the training area, blinking twice in surprise at the sight of the huge crater in the middle of it, with Deino having shifted from a reptilian scales humanoid form into a full-blown Tyrannosaurus Rex form in the middle of it with Bison….sitting on top of her head, a sheepish, wide grin on his face.
"Well, that certainly could've gone worse." Bea said with forced cheer.
Of course, that's when the alarms started going off.
A/N: And that's the end!
OC Names and Creators
Beatrix "Bea" Landau - Dreadburner94
Bison Zalmark and Saber - Captain Vexas
Keenan Hayes - MyDearWatson
Deino Seras - Benthino
I hope you liked the chapter! I had a lot of fun, between writing out the rookie angle and establishing my two boys' relationship and also the terror that is Deino!
First off, a big shout out to everyone who's either sent in an OC (you know who you are), a review, or just followed and favorited the story! Y'all are great!
Another big shout out to everyone in the discord who supported me, especially when I was moaning and groaning about the chapter!
Again, as I said above, OC slots are still open but closing fast! Check out my profile to see what slots are available as well as a refresher on the rules!
And with that reminder out of the way, I believe that's all I have for you today!
Thanks for reading!