Reading Key:

Speaking - "I shall defeat you with the power of friendship! And this gun I found!"

Thinking - 'I am the Mega Man version of a power ranger!'

Voice of the world - [Query: Are you a boy, or are you a girl?]

Transformed and/or shouting voice - "I'm a boy! And why did you just reference Pokemon!?"

Disclaimer: I do not own; Fairy tail, Mega Man or any other works of fiction mentioned in this fanfic. If I did I wouldn't be writing bad fanfics in the first place.

Scene Change: Fairy's Garden, Training Ground, X761

POV Rep

Why do they keep calling me that?

Seriously I know that I look like a girl because of the transformations but still, its really annoying to be called a 'mom' when I'm still a dude, no matter how I look. And it wouldn't have been that bad, if Laxus hadn't accidentally called me mom once. Seriously, why does this keep happening? Am I just that androgynous in Z form?

Ugh, just thinking about it gets me pissed off.

"Hey," Laxus interupped my thoughts. "You ok Teach?"

"Yeah, just thinking about what to work on next." I say while channeling a bit of lightning magic through my palm to make it seem like my little rant was just me focusing. "Lightning magic is a little hard to make a teaching plan for, especially since I'm not used to it yet."

Oh, yeah. Turns out that I have access to Zero's learning systems, and it combined with the 'variant weapons system' that X has since me being in X form for so long has essentially ingrained into my core functions. This led to me being able to use the etherion core I gained in order to learn lightning magic, when otherwise no matter how much I used the learning system I just wouldn't have the hardware to do it.

Honestly it just amazes me how compatible Zero and X's systems are, they work together to do some amazing things.

Though it is a little ironic since Zero was made by Wiley who focused on hardware but has superior programming, and X was made by Light who focused on Firmware but ended up having superior hardware.

Still though, the two of them working together ended up giving me access to one of the most overpowered trees of magic in all of Fiore so I can't complain. Though I doubt I'll ever gain the amount of power needed to do long ranged attacks like Laxus does in canon.

And not to mention I lost a major amount of energy reserves when I switched over to Zero, his energy consumption outdoes the energy I gain from absorbing sunlight and ethernano even with the new internal power source. So I have to master rationing my energy reserves, especially since I need it in place of eating and drinking, not to mention it powers my defenses too.

Maybe I should use the learning systems to upgrade my core? That might fix the power issues, but I don't know how to do that in the first place. Not to mention my reserves are bigger than Laxus' in the first place so that won't help, not to mention I haven't seen Macao and Wakaba in months so they can't help either.

Maybe if I fight some of the vulcan in the forest, one of them might have a bigger core?

'HUD scan as far as you can for any vulcan who has a larger ether reserve than me.'

As soon as I command that HUD sends a beam of info into my head, no dice. None of the vulcan have more ether in them than I do.

What about any mages? No wait, the only mages who stop by in the forest other than Laxus are Macao and Wakaba and like I said I haven't seen those two in months. Not to mention my reserves would probably still not get much bigger, especially since I've already copied from them.

So, how can I fix the issue? My training is slowly mitigating it but it's not fast enough, at the rate it's going I'll starve before I gain equilibrium.

"Teach," Shoot, got lost in thought again. "Are you ok?"

As I look at Laxus as he says that, all the experience I have built up teaching this kid tells me that he's worried. Laxus is the type who doesn't really express much unless he's seeing something he admires. And I ended up worrying him enough that he's showing it clear as day.

"Don't worry about it, Laxus." I say, trying to calm him down "It's nothing."

"You've been acting like this for a week, Teach."

"It's nothing to worry about Laxus, I'll take care of it."

"Is it food?" Asked Laxus, not realizing how close he is to the mark. "I noticed when you give me food, you never eat anything yourself."

"That's because I can't." I tried to explain. "My magic eats for me, I can't eat now that I've gone for years without eating anything."

And sadly that's true, my body, according to HUD's diagnostics, has adapted to the consumption of Ether and Sunlight in the place of anything with actual substance. I'm essentially a plant now, but instead of Sunlight and water with some nutrients from the soil, I just use sunlight and ether.

My body got rid of the majority of my digestive system to make room for organs that can store and process energy more easily. I literally can't eat, even if I wanted to, I would just damage my body in the process.

"You can't eat?" asked Laxus, trying to make sense of what I just said. "Then how are you alive?"

"Like I said, my magic eats for me. I use magic energy instead of food." I explained again, trying to make it understandable for him. As smart as he is, he is still a child.

"So why do you look so pale?" Asked Laxus coming back to the source of his worry. I look pale? I've never had to worry about looking sick because I never ate before though, it never really showed in my complexion in my last life. Did that change with my body?

"This form uses more power than my other one so I have to ration things out." I tried to explain once more. "I can't keep training you and 'eating' at the same time if I don't."

Laxus looked horrified at what I just said, I didn't explain right did I? It isn't something he should worry about.

"Mom," Again with that? Laxus as girly as I look, I am not your mother. "You need to eat, you can stop training me just get something to eat."

Why does his tone of voice sound so familiar, where have I heard that tone befo- oh gods. I'm acting the same way my mom was when she was raising me. That was the same tone of voice I had whenever I told her to take care of herself whenever she overworked.

Oh, god I've turned into my mother. I thought the saying was like father like son?

"'I'm alright Laxus, I already have something in the works." Before worrying about that I should probably assuage his worries. "I'll be fine after I finish it."

"And just what is it you're working on?" Urk

"My magic evolves whenever I fight someone with different abilities than me." I explain in a watered down way. "So if I fight different types of people I should be able to gain any qualities that they may have and increase my reserves."

"And how are you going to do that?" Um

"I'll see if there are any bandits to clear out or something, besides I can just beat on some more vulcan like usual."

"Didn't you beat the strongest group of vulcan a little while ago?" Why is he so sharp!? "You won't get anything out of that."

"I'll figure something out Laxus," I probably will. "You don't need to worry."

"If you don't have any plans," When did Makarov get here? I thought it was just us. "How about you take this?"

As I turned from Laxus, and looked in the direction I heard Makarov's voice, I saw the little old man holding a brown piece of paper. It looked a little old but still holding together, there was a large picture without any color on it depicting a man in a bandana and holding a sword, with a small description underneath it. "Bandit extermination; 50,000 Jewel. Warning: This bandit group has a number of mages in their ranks."

"This job has a time limit to when we can accept it before the job sender takes it down and sends it to the Rune knights." Makarov explained, before continuing. "All of the Mages in the guild who are qualified to take this job are currently out, and since you are capable enough I figured you might be able to take it off our hands."

A bandit group with mages? Actually that might work, especially since mages have a larger magic capacity than vulcan. I should be able to use my systems to copy their magic cores and styles in order to increase my own reserves faster than normal training. Convenient, almost a little too convenient.

"Is there a catch?" I ask, a little suspicious about the mission. Remembering how Natsu and Happy tricked Lucy into the Everlue mission. "There isn't anything like 'the bandits have a taste for blondes' or 'the bandits are into men' or something along those lines is there?"

"Of course not!" Makarov shouted, his tone showing his confusion. "Why would I give you a mission like that? You might be taking Laxus with you, besides why would you worry about the bandits being 'into men'?"

Makarov whispered that last part, I don't think I was supposed to hear that. He knows it pisses me off but still says it? Come on old man I am. Not. A. Girl!

"I won't be taking Laxus with me," I say, much to said child's surprise. "Not unless I know the threat level is one he can handle."

3. 2. 1. And

"What!?" There it is.

"I can handle myself! Why can't I come with you!?"

"I know you can," I said, trying to explain without triggering the age-old anime trope. "I just have no idea if this is a mission at your level, not to mention this'll be the first job I've taken since I started training so I don't know if I can protect you if it's too much."

"But-"

"No buts young man." I said, my voice being given in the tone that Zero usually has before I use my experience from X. "I don't want to risk you, you're my student and a teacher's job is to make sure their student grows properly."

"How are you not his mom?" Seriously Makarov, keep saying things like that and little old man or no I will hack at you with my Z-saber. "I'm glad you're taking this job seriously, and that is a good call not having Laxus come with you. This would be your first job in a while so you can't take any risks."

"Where is it, and how long will it take to get there?"

"Not too long, it's even close to Magnolia." Said Makarov, still looking happy at my decision to leave Laxus out of the job. "The reason why it was given to us and not any other guild in fact. The actual location is already listed on the job description."

"On it," I said, while grabbing the paper out of his outstretched hand. "Also Laxus, don't follow me or you're grounded from magic practice for a month."

"I won't! I promise!" He said while panicking. Dangit, I really am turning into my mother. I even threatened to ground him.

Scene Change: Road leading East out of Magnolia, Year x761(An hour later)

POV Rep.

You know, game quests that say 'Stealth is optional' usually tempts people to just go in guns blazing.

I was never really that type.

So instead of just walking straight into the bandit camp I chose to track them down and use HUD's analysis abilities to make note of their habits. I ended up finding out the why of their choice of muggings, all just from the reports of who was mugged and when. Thank you HUD, you truly are a man's best friend.

Honestly though it is a little pathetic, the reason why they do this. Apparently they are so weak in terms of capability that they resorted to this instead of training to be good enough to join a guild or something. Luckily I have a profile on the bandits. Some of the people were in a good enough state of mind to be able to make a statement in the job description.

It's surprising what just a bit of reading could put together- OW, Come on HUD I was getting to that. ok and having an extremely advanced A.I that has the stockpiled experience of multiple century old robots. Seriously though, HUD is goated.

Taking a walk down the road a bit, I follow the tracks left behind by the bandits. Broken tree branches, scarred wood, the like while also having HUD scan for any malicious intent so that I can hide when I need to and thankfully Zero has some stealth experience so I'll be able to hide effectively at the drop of a hat.

Pretty soon though, I was able to track down the bandit hideout without any incidents. Weird, you would think they would set up a trap or something to stop or at least slow down intruders. But nothing, the whole camp is entirely undefended with the sole exception of a pair of 'guards' at the entrance to the camp. If you can even call it a camp in the first place, it's literally just a bunch of tents in a circle with the biggest being at the back and furthest away from the rest.

Amatuers, though I guess I can't really say that since I don't have many defenses in my own home. All I've got is a few pitfalls covered in leaves disguised as an 'entryway' path to my cave. Anyone with a brain would be able to tell it's a trap.

Either way though this will probably be even easier than I thought. There aren't as many here as I predicted there would be, for now though. 'HUD scan for life forms within the camp, and make a grid of who has magic and how much.'

With that, the familiar beam of info comes about after a few moments alongside a small map I can see in the corner of my eye lined along the gauges on my UI. There aren't that many of them that can use magic but according to the system they have qualities that if I copy will take care of my energy deficiency. And what do ya know, they're lined up in a way for a constant stream of attacks. I should be able to copy them one after the other.

They're all in lines between the tents, I won't be able to get to them all with solely melee attacks. Not when they have ranged abilities themselves. The mages are all too spread out for me to beat, nothing a few Buster shots won't fix but still there is a problem, the energy deficiency that I'm trying to fix in the first place. It'll force me to use up all of my reserves in that blitz if I use the Z-saber to take 'em all down. It just uses too much energy compared. What about Lightning magic?

'HUD, analyze how much it would take to beat them all in one attack each for lightning magic.' With that mental command another beam of info runs through my head, based on the scans made on them for the copy systems, it shouldn't take too much to beat them and I'll be able to take a few of them down with magic. It would still take all of my reserves to beat them all though.

'What about the buster shots? Can I beat the normal bandits in one shot?' At that thought I waited a bit for an answer before.

Bingo, I've got a plan. I can spread out the attack in the form of a blitz utilizing the Buster configuration of the Z-saber in conjunction with a few lightning attacks on the mages. Luckily the buster shots are silent if I activate a suppressor module which is built into the Z-saber, when did Zero ever have to use that? Thoughts for later, I suppose. I have a job to do.

Summoning the Z-saber in my hand, with it already in Buster mode and charging up some lightning magic into my unoccupied palm. I started sneaking my way into position and waited for the closest 'mage' bandit to move into position.

Almost there.

Now.

As soon as he moves in front of me I grab his arm with my charged palm and send a large enough amount of lightning magic through it to knock him out. The shout alerted the rest of the camp, so time to move to the next target.

I move while still trying to keep as silent as I can while still keeping a fast pace, and manage to get behind my next target with another bandit, this one not having magic, not being that far away. He's in perfect range for a Buster shot.

Charging up my lightning magic again, I grab the 'mage' bandit while firing a buster shot at the other non-magic bandit. Once the shot makes contact I shock the 'mage' bandit I caught in my palm knocking this one out as well. This time the shout alerted the rest of the camp to them being attacked. I ended up having to abandon the stealth attacks and while I planned to do that in the first place its still a little annoying, so I decided to be a little cheeky.

Grabbing the two unconscious bandits by the leg, knowing these are two of the child assaulter bandits, I dash out the two bandits' bodies not touching the ground due to my speed. As soon as I do that I'm right behind one of the normal bandits and smack him with the unconscious normal bandit knocking him out, before I turn to another that has no magic and hit him with the unconscious 'mage' bandit.

The last 'mage' bandit is still on his way to this area, so I have time to charge the last spell. Quickly firing at all the bandits that are just charging at me, despite the fact they can clearly see I have a range advantage, they're still attacking like that instead of trying to take cover. Are they stupid?

As I shot at the last bandit without magic, the last 'mage' bandit showed up. Alongside the two other bandits. Just in the nick of time, I finished charging my spell. Wait a minute, why does the 'mage' look weird? Oh and one of the other bandits is grinning. Ok, I am not falling for that.

'HUD scan for ether levels.' with that HUD sent through the estimated ether levels of the three people in front of me. Though I have no idea why they flinched once I commanded HUD to do that, at least the fake 'mage' bandit and the undisguised one did according to the scan results.

Come on, why are bandits in this world so stupid? I mean, anyone with a brain could tell that the overconfident one is the biggest threat since the other two are obviously scared out of their minds. And that's appearances alone, did they think they could fool a mage with nothing but a disguise? Anyone with at least some etherion awareness could tell who's actually the mage here. And while I don't have that awareness, HUD does and he's part of me so hah.

I shot a couple of uncharged Buster shots at the two actual non-mage bandits both the undisguised one along witht he disguised bandit, before dashing at the 'mage' bandit before he realizes what is happening. It looked like he was about to monologue or something, cause his mouth was wide open when I shoved my fist charged with lightning magic into it and discharged the spell, knocking him and probably a few teeth out.

As the last bandit is knocked out, I gathered the rest of the bandits, all of them knocked unconscious. Before I raided their camp for something to tie them all up.

That took me quite a bit of time in all honesty, probably a bit too long cause by the time I finished the sun was already starting to set. Just glad that this job actually fulfilled my goal of improving my core, I managed to more than double my admittedly small ether intake and while not a large increase in comparison, my reserves got bigger too.

Scene Change: Magnolia, Fairy Tail Guildhall, Year x761 (ten minutes later)

POV Makarov

Assuming Rep is planning to defeat all of the bandits slowly, like his training, it'll be a few days before he finishes the mission.

That was the assumption I made when he accepted the mission, I honestly thought Rep was the type to be methodical in his approach when taking a job. And I wanted that in Fairy Tail, there aren't many planners in Fairy Tail I know that. And the few that were in this guild ended up either becoming incredible mages that left after achieving a level of status that forced them to leave, or they became the guild master. Just like the first master Mavis; the Fairy Tactician.

Rep trained Macao and Wakaba a few years ago, and they still go to him for training. Rep doesn't seem to realize just what he has done, having come to the conclusion for himself that he is the one being trained. Rep, trained both Macao and Wakaba when they had just entered the guild, and had made them on par with the best mages in the guild at the time, eventually making them into the best mages in the guild, bar Gildarts.

None of them truly realize why that is. At least that's what it looks like, but knowing how Rep is training Laxus, it probably wasn't a fluke. Rep has taught Fairy Tail mages how to focus their destructive power on a single opponent, through their constant battles in the form of training.

Our guild has a reputation for going overboard and causing millions of Jewels in collateral damage, despite our just as widespread reputation for our capability. This collateral damage is caused by the fact that us Fairy Tail mages don't understand, or rather have a hard time comprehending, how to hold back. We can't fight unless we go all out every time, the only ones who truly know how to do so tend to end up being the guild master; people who know how to strategize.

Rep has the ability to teach our members who cannot hold back in combat, how to focus all of that strength on a single target instead of letting it rampage like we usually do. And he has done so to three of our members already; Macao, Wakaba, and even if their interaction was minimal at best he still taught that same ability to: Bruno. And he is already teaching Laxus as well, a prospect to the guild who could potentially cause the most damage due to him inheriting our family's immense magical talents, even bringing out more potential within Laxus that I hadn't noticed.

Teach indeed, Laxus seems to have given Rep a fitting nickname. Well besides his other one, one that is just as fitting, and hilarious.

"I can tell you're calling me that, again Makarov." Oh, he's here.

Wait what?

"Why are you in the guild!?" I shouted at the source of my surprise, with him just standing there scowling like usual. But he looks completely different! His helmet is gone so his hair is down and his eyes are even a different color.

"That job should've taken at least a few days!"

"What do you mean 'taken a few days'?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, his scowl dissappearing, his confused look made his eye look even bigger. And he wonders why we call him Laxus' mom. If it weren't for his voice nobody would be able to tell he's a boy!

"I was able to complete it in a few hours, especially since there were no traps in place to stop intruders. I mean seriously just how dumb can you get." He said while shrugging as if it were no big deal.

He said something like that as if it were simple common sense. I don't think he realizes the difficulty in setting up a proper trap, especially when magic is involved. Magic has a tendency to destroy things it makes contact with, which is why enchanting magics are so rare but also so sought after. As a result traps are a rarity, especially since any mage can get past those with ease if they're not magical in nature. If there were any then the rank of the mission wouldn't have been a high B rank like it was.

"Well," Oh, it seems that Macao is back from his mission. "If there were traps in that camp I doubt that any of them would've slipped your notice."

That means that-

"Yeah, and even if it did it probably would've been easy to break out of." Wakaba is back too.

"Man, it took me a hot minute to recognize you there." Said Macao, putting his hand on top of Rep's head, causing him to scowl again. "I thought for a minute that some little girl wandered into the Guildhall."

Oh no, I can feel killing intent.

"Macao, did you just volunteer for some more tests?" Said Rep, making one of the most terrifying smiles I have ever seen. "That is just wonderful, I've gotten a hold of something that I need to break in."

At that statement he is terrifying one of the currently strongest members in Fairy Tail, with him looking for help from Wakaba, who is frantically shaking his head.

Oh, he's even scaring the rest of the guild too. He must be in a pretty bad mood.

"Mom, you're scaring the guild! Beat up Macao later please." thank you Laxus, I probably wouldn't have been able to calm him down. "Are you ok now? Did you fix your problem?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine, Laxus." Rep replied, a resigned look on his face. Guess he's just gonna accept the nickname now, that takes a bit of the fun out of it. "I thought I told you not to worry?"

"Of course I'll worry." Said Laxus stating the obvious. "You were starving yourself just to train me!"

The guild is taking notice because of Laxus shouting he almost never shouts after all. And it looks like they caught Laxus calling Rep mom. Maybe the fun in teasing Rep will still be there, especially since it looks like a certain white haired healer caught it too.

"Laxus, I'm fine now so it's ok." Rep had his hands up trying to calm Laxus down and failing, looks like Laxus sees right throught him too. Rep is gonna keep going like that even if something else happens and keep silent about it. Maybe Jane would be able to get him to take care of himself?

Looks like I have another child to take care of, even if he isn't really a part of the guild yet.

A/N

Once more, thank you for reading and please review if you find any flaws I need to work on.