About 10 minutes after Laxus gave his threat of destroying the city of Magnolia with his Thunder Palace, Fairy Tail gave their response.
As one, all wizards who were fighting fit attacked the lacrima that surrounded the city. All took the hit from the Body Link magic that Laxus had used to protect the lacrima. All survived. Laxus's trump card had amounted to nothing. And with that he went from unhinged to raving.
Attempting to cast Fairy Law was an impressive show of power, but he didn't have the mindset to pull it off. Not a single person was harmed by it. Laxus might have been able to convince himself to attack us, but his magic would keep him honest if nothing else.
Natsu, Gajeel and Laxus finished beating on each other before the day got too long. By mid afternoon, everything was settled, the injured had been collected and were being given treatment. Levy and I, as the least injured out of...literally everyone, spent most of that time running around as assistants to Porlyusica as she patched up the wounded. I memorized what I could about what she did, and tried my best to watch her as she worked.
I wouldn't get much better chance to observe reportedly the best healer in Fiore at work in person. When I had picked up a biography of a famous doctor once, one of his biggest credentials was that he had worked with Porlyusica before she had withdrawn into self imposed solitude.
Makarov was by far the worst off out of all of us. His stress from the day's events had strained his heart, lungs, liver and just about everything else. He had pulled through only by sheer stubbornness. Predictably, his old friend ripped him a couple new ones about his lifestyle, which would have been dangerously unhealthy in a man 50 years his junior.
Gajeel, Laxus and Natsu came away as a neatly matched set of body sized bruises and fractured bones. It should have been third degree burns, pressure lacerations, shattered bones and tetanus with the way they had been fighting. But Dragon Slayers were hax in their ability to take a beating and bounce back like a rubber ball. I found a moment to relax and laugh at how similar the Iron and Fire Slayers were no matter how much they denied it. Natsu's jaw had been wired shut and put into a cast. Being Natsu, this obviously didn't stop him from trying to talk. The funny part came up when Gajeel answered, seemingly having understood his wordless grumbles and growls perfectly.
Since I was Porlyusica's assistant, I had been gruffly assigned to go check everyone over after she had retired to set up a long term medicine regime for Makarov. I'd been told to go in order of severity, and I knew that would make Laxus the first patient I had to check in on.
I really didn't want to.
In the span of the minutes I spent attending Laxus, my respect for Porlyusica tripled. She was overcoming her personal ill feelings towards people in order to come and help us as often as she did. And when things got personal was when a healer could start to make mistakes. Laxus was responsible for immense physical and emotional damage to one of her only friends in the world, and she still had given him top notch treatment.
I thought he was asleep the whole time, but as I got up to leave him, he spoke.
"Kid." I paused, debating for an instant if I should go, or hear what he had to say.
He took the pause as a go ahead.
"Do you hate me?" The blunt question wasn't one I expected to hear from him. Nor was it one that was hard to answer.
"No." I said simply. And knowing he would want to know more, I spoke a little bit more, explaining my reasoning as it unfolded. "What you did was stupid, literally S-class stupid. I'm mad that you hurt people I love. I'm furious that you used me to keep your plan hidden, by asking me to not look for it." I forced my fist to relax as I spoke. "But I don't hate you..." I whispered, feeling very tired and, dare I say, old.
He was silent for a moment...
"Can you look at me and say that?" I turned and faced him. His face was already mostly alright. The worst of his damage came from entering Dragon Force without proper preparation. The strain that had put on his ethernano circulation system hadn't been pretty or easy to treat. Apparently being a Second Generation Dragon Slayer didn't grant him the same kind of recovery a natural Slayer would have. After Natsu went into Dragon Force, he had been in a coma for a few days sleeping it off, but had been fine when he woke up. Laxus would be hurting for a couple months yet.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Natsu and Gajeel had literal dragons tutoring them and have some of their instincts from being raised and supported by draconic magic.
That's great, Fae. Now stop distracting yourself and answer the painful question.
"I can forgive you, Laxus. Someday." Emotion choked my throat as I spoke. "You are part of my family, and what you did won't change that. I couldn't change it even if I wanted to. This guild is everything I've ever known and loved. But a guild is nothing without the people that are a part of it. I'm sad that you don't understand that, and will now have to leave because of it." I knew the rules. Guild Law.
Makarov had agonized and wept over the need to banish his own son from Fairy Tail. But he had done it. Why, I didn't know. I had no idea what Ivan had done to warrant it. I didn't look that far because it still pained the old man so much even after so many years. I just knew that he had done so because it was safer for the guild as a whole for Ivan to be cut loose than to keep him.
Laxus had proved that the bonds of loyalty shared by the guild wouldn't bind him enough to keep the law, Guild or otherwise. And that meant he had to be turned out. Makarov couldn't be partial now. Even though doing this would break his heart.
But I still had more to say to Laxus while I had his attention.
"While I can forgive you, eventually..." The stinging pain of betrayal jabbed my heart once again along with a low, slow burning anger. "I can't trust you...You've made it plain that I can't. You didn't lay a finger on me, but you hurt people I care about and your plan would have destroyed my home in your attempts to improve it. And what you did makes it so I can't trust the friends you persuaded to help you either."
Bickslow and Evergreen I hadn't been that close to. But the realization that my relationship with Freed would never be the same as it was before hurt me deeply.
Laxus knew Freed, out of all the Thunder Legion, could never deny him anything. He'd used him to achieve his goals like a pawn, had treated all of my friends like they were trash to be disposed of, who weren't worth fighting for and protecting...
I didn't know what I expected to see from Laxus when I looked at him again. But it plainly wasn't what I saw. Because when I looked up one more time before leaving, I saw regret written all over his face.
In the end, today's events aren't making anyone happy, even though we won.
I left without saying anything else.
And he didn't speak another word to me.
I checked on Gajeel and Natsu with no real incident. Natsu was still asleep, and all Gajeel wanted was some nails to snack on. (I can tell you safely that catering to this guy is a nightmare.) But the last 'intensive care' patient was Freed. And he was awake.
He saw me coming and turned away. I could practically feel the shame rolling off of him as he lay.
"Avoiding me won't help." I told him quietly, taking a seat by his bed. "I think you owe me...at least that much."
I could almost see all the horrible guilt streaming through Freed, getting bigger and bigger until it was almost swamping him.
"What I owe you...I'm not in a position to ever repay. Nor am I worthy of doing so now." Freed's voice was barely audible, whether through emotion or his condition.
He knows.
He knew that there wouldn't be a simple bounce back from this. He knew why I was so angry. He knew how I was feeling. Had known all along...
My vision blurred, but I stubbornly kept the tears from falling.
"Why...?"
Why did you do this? Why did you hurt me like this? Why?
Being able to put words to what I was feeling was helping in the sense that I wasn't completely in the dark about what I was feeling. But on some emotional level, I still didn't understand why Freed had done this against me. If I mattered as much to him as I had seemed, and if he understood me that well, why had he done this when he knew it would only hurt me?
I was keeping back tears, but Freed was not. He didn't seem to be able to form the words but he only offered his hand.
He wants you to read for yourself.
That felt...cheap. I shook my head, anger edging my voice and leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
"I'm not doing that, Freed. I'm not letting you get out of explaining yourself." Words uttered aloud had a way of seeming more real and concrete than unspoken feelings and thoughts. I knew that it was cruel and maybe even petty of me to force Freed to do this...But I knew that I would understand him perfectly if I took his hand and used my Retrocognition ability to read his past reasoning. Understanding was the first step to forgiveness.
And I wasn't ready to do that yet.
I may have been able to forgive Laxus for what he had done, even if it had come painfully. But I didn't have the same closeness with him that I did with Freed. The betrayal wasn't a lost arm, like Laxus, it was a gut wound, slow, painful, ultimately fatal. I would need to address it at some point to allow it to heal completely.
But that kind of healing was something that could only come from Freed. I was still a kid. And some things just didn't need complicated solutions. He did this to our relationship, it was on him to fix it.
I'd trusted him more than anyone else. He hadn't been worthy of that trust. He knew it and I knew it. After everything I'd given him, the emotional investment, time and love, and seen wasted, I wasn't ready...
"Please..."
-don't sever all ties with me. Don't stop loving me because of this.
My magic told me exactly what Freed was unable to say. He must have been feeling very strongly about this because the words had a certain weight to them that other times couldn't match.
Even under the strain our relationship had put on my heart, hearing Freed sound so broken hurt. He wasn't supposed to sound like that. His story was one of passion, pride, and dignity, oft broken by a well hidden sense of humor and a penchant for being the butt of jokes. He was a teacher, a protector and a believer of order and structure down to his core to such an extent that his magic, the very expression of his life, was something that had to be organized in order to function.
A small, abused part of my soul still responded. Still wanted to reach out and take the pain away, make him smile, or laugh. Make what was wrong better.
I took it as a good sign that I would be able to let him back into my life again at some point.
But I still didn't take his hand.
"When you can look me in the eye and tell me, I will listen." I said finally, rising and grabbing the leftover supplies I'd not used in my rounds to the injured. But I hesitated before leaving, gazing down at the half glove he had given me. I had gotten so used to wearing it that I barely gave it a second thought before donning it in the morning. He had given it to me because I was his apprentice and I wore it with pride. He'd made it himself, his runes painstakingly stitched into the leather on the back of my hand, and surrounding the band that held it onto my arm.
I unbuckled it, turning back and placing it by his bedside before leaving.
"Until you can face me, tell me straight out why...I'm not your apprentice. I can't learn from someone I don't trust." I looked at him, barely keeping my composure together. "I still want to learn..." But I won't learn from you. Not right now. Please leave me alone until we are both prepared to finish this conversation. "So when you are ready, I will be too."
I was aware of agonized eyes watching me as I left.
-vVv-
Makarov entered the room after Fae had departed Freed's bedside. The Rune Wizard was turned on his side, silent and motionless. The guild master sighed.
More than one heart had come away broken from the encounter. Freed had been holding out the slim wavering hope that Fae would forgive him. She was a child, she bounced back. She had accepted Gajeel and Juvia without so much as blinking...
"You cannot assume Faerun, mature as she may be, will see this as a rational adult. Her actions with you aside, she is still a child. A child who has been hurt by one she counted on to protect her." Makarov said this as gently as he could. He officially needed to reprimand Freed. He had assigned him the child as an apprentice in the hope's that both would grow and bond with one another. And they had.
Fae was going to be withholding forgiveness from Freed for the time being.
"I know, Master..." Freed managed to choke out in a tight voice.
"Your actions have destroyed the relationship that you had " Makarov looked after the guild ward with a soft expression. "However, Fae will not cut you out of her life completely. Let the wounds heal, Freed. You have not lost her friendship forever."
-vVv-
I didn't want to stay in the guild hall. I didn't want to be around anyone at all actually. I had a few hours before I had to be put together and ready for the Harvest Festival, so I went to some place I thought I was guaranteed some alone time.
That is, I went someplace I could cry without anyone asking me if I was alright because I definitely wasn't in the mood to deal with that kind of question.
But not much of the pressure release I had been expecting was coming.
I didn't feel anything anymore, I was just numb. The fear, anger and frustration seemed to have bled out of me without any further effort. But I knew it hadn't. It had just hidden somewhere deep inside, much like I was hiding now.
I was shutting out everything that wasn't about what had happened in the past 5 hours. So I didn't notice when I was no longer alone on the roof, my chosen place of retreat.
Something was put over my shoulders as a shield against the winds and the autumn chill as the sun started to descend below the horizon, and someone sat down beside me.
Mystogan. My hand brushed over the ragged edges of his cloak as I pulled it around me, accepting the comfort and company he was offering with gratitude.
"I'd hate for you to get sick." His soft comment made me feel again. A gentle concern that resonated as true within me.
"That'd suck." I agreed, finally lifting my head out of my knees to look at the ocean in the distance.
We were silent for a bit longer before he spoke again.
"Erza saw underneath my mask during our scuffle with Laxus." This made a flicker of something that wasn't bitter stir in me.
I pouted at him.
"No fair! You said I'd get to see you first!"
"I said 'maybe'." He hedged. "I wear a mask for a reason, Fae."
This...triggered something in my memory. Another time my magic had just been spewing out random information without my being able to control it.
Banished prince of Edolas. Real name: Jellal. Conceals his real face due to an inordinate and awkward similarity to Ten Wizard Saint Siegrain. Read: He's physically his identical twin in just about every way. No innate magic, but very skilled at using magical tools, seems to have a particular inclination towards staves.
The calm words echoed through my mind. Not a reading of the past but a recalled memory of my own making.
Siegrain was Jellal in disguise. Jellal is also his name.
Siegrain was a thought projection maintained by Jellal for the purpose of infiltrating the Magic Council.
Mystogan isn't his twin. And he definitely isn't a thought projection.
I looked up, aware that my eyes had just finished a brief period of glowing bright blue in response to my reading the past.
He seemed to comprehend what I'd just done. It would take a while for me to take what people said at face value again. He lifted his hand and tugged down his mask, giving me a rueful smile.
The shock was jarring.
Jellal had after all kidnapped me, and even though I'd never seen him face to face, I knew what he looked like from the other's memories of the event. For someone who had known Jellal well, to see his face on Mystogan-
"Erza freaked out, didn't she?" He grimaced, clearly not pleased with his slip.
"You can put it that way...It wasn't the way I had hoped for my guildmates to see."
"So you were planning on showing us someday? All of us?" He nodded, leaning back slightly.
"Master knows my true face, and my reasons for hiding it. I had wanted to keep it quiet for as long as I could. But I think after today..." he looked down at me. "You, out of all my friends, deserve to know."
You've been hurt by secrets too much. I will tell you now before it can hurt you.
The words brought out a new feeling in me. It was gratitude and blessed, sweet relief intertwined in such a way that the tight chokehold anger had had on my throat couldn't stay.
Mystogan had come a long way in accepting the hugs I'd intermittently thrown his way. And I was very grateful for that, and for his reflexes. If I had tried this towards the beginning of our relationship, I almost certainly would have thrown us both off the roof with how I threw myself at him. The tears were at last freed from their tight dam behind my eyes and they weren't going to stop anytime soon.
He just held me and let me cry all of my dark feelings out so I could only feel relief for the few bright points of the day.
It was over. We were recovering.
In spite of what had happened; no one had been seriously hurt.
It was still the night of the Fantasia Parade, which is what everyone else had been working on while I hid on the roof. Not only that, but I still had gotten a slot secured so I could perform in the parade as well and was eager to see how my new spells would hold up.
And, most importantly of all: I still had friends I could trust.
-vVv-
Mystogan took Fae back downstairs once she had calmed down. She threw herself into the further preparations for the parade with such enthusiasm that lingering strains of negative feelings dissolved into good humor and anticipatory cheer for the evening ahead. He watched for a few more moments until he was certain she would be alright. He wanted to leave before anyone saw him. He was on call again. The Anima had been becoming a steadily more regular event, and it had been getting closer and closer to wizards and people.
The sheer concentration of ethernano that most people had within them let them make the transition easily, maybe with some disorientation but little else. But regular wizards, brought through the Harvester, had the ethernano surrounding them crystalized into lacrima as a defensive precaution. He'd almost been too slow to keep a pair of wizards on their job from being ensnared by venturing too close to an open Anima before he had closed it.
Most of the regular Anima, the regular harvesting points, were closed by now. And they wouldn't have enough power to try opening another one.
Unless they are extremely desperate.
A soft voice in the back of his mind reminded him.
You've been choking out their access to magic power steadily for the last ten years. They will be running short and know it. They will be growing more and more desperate.
Makarov, this Makarov, knew what he was doing and why he was doing it alone. If anyone else were caught near the Anima, they would be pulled through and best case scenario, be pulled through to Edolas with no way of using their magic. The records Mystogan had uncovered about the early use of the Anima indicated that the wizards who hadn't been caught and drained of their power went a little mad from not being able to use their power.
It was something he held in respect, being able to use power that was simply...there. Part of you like your hands or feet were part of you. It would be a great loss to someone who used it naturally. Especially his Fairy Tail friends, who lived and breathed their magic, forging it into a concrete part of their identity. He knew that if he asked, even though he only had a firm relationship with Fae out of all of them, they would do whatever they could to protect Earthland from Edolas's theft of their power.
But he wouldn't be able to stand the guilt if one of his friends were caught in the Anima and something happened to them on the other side.
He wondered if telling Fae, as he had promised to do, would be a good move. She would want to help, and that meant her impossible brain would be looking for loopholes, new innovations and new ways of getting herself into trouble. So far, everything she had done had been properly curbed and contained through her own efforts. But as her power grew, so did the risk of a potentially explosive blowback.
A hand rested on his shoulder and he looked back quickly to see Erza was behind him, face firm, but nothing like what she had looked like when she caught sight of his face.
"I don't understand, Mystogan." She started, words halting as she struggled to express what she was feeling. "I want to, but none of it seems to make sense." She paused, as if for him to say something...but she eventually shook her head.
"But in the end, it doesn't matter. The Master knows you and your reasons. I know who you are not. And you are not an enemy." Her gaze slid past him to where Fae had flown up to a large section of the float to touch up on Reedus's decorative artwork. "And I am very grateful for whatever you said to Fae that brought her back to us."
That...makes a lot of sense.
From what he had been informed about the Tower of Heaven, Erza knew all too well what it was like to experience betrayal and how formative it could be at a young age.
"It was the least I could do." The fearsome, terrifying wizard known as Titania smiled at him, a warm and understanding expression that transformed her features.
"Perhaps, but it means the world to her."
-vVv-
The Harvest Festival was a glorious event. The floats were decorated and outfitted with everything that they needed to make the night a hit.
My job was to open the parade.
My autumn fairy outfit was gone, replaced by a simple, single piece white dress. My hair was brushed out as long as it could be, barely brushing my shoulders and I had no shoes on.
Every part of a performance speaks to the audience. So you have to be aware of exactly what you're saying, and what you're helping them conclude.
Mira's reminder came into my mind as she quickly moved the brush she held over my face. She was hurriedly doing a final makeup check before she boarded her Beauty and the Beast themed float with Elfman.
"Alright, you're makeup is good. You got everything you need?" I gave her a thumb's up, a lot more steady and certain than I felt.
"Got it!" She smiled and me and gave me a quick hug.
"Alright. Your prop should be in place, and everything is primed and ready to go. And in case those pesky nerves show up; just remember: We've got your back." I hugged her back tightly, exhaling away my lingering doubts and hesitations.
"Right, I'm ready! Let's give them a show they'll never forget!"
-vVv-
Laxus had been banished from the guild he had been born in for only a few hours, but everything in his whole world seemed to have changed. Had changed. It was a new start. A new life.
It was a painful rebirth.
Part of him felt like a sentimental fool for lingering just to watch a parade. But there were a lot of tender memories for him that revolved around this event...He remembered always watching it as a little boy, complaining that his frail health wouldn't allow him to participate in the actual parade and all he could do was watch.
The first time he had been able to join the other wizards in the colorful display, he had been thrilled with pride. He had been an insufferable little brat, actually, given a minor role to placate him and shut him up. But he hadn't cared. He had been with his guild, his family...
This year would be Fae's first time showing in it.
Other parts of Magnolia's various craftsman guilds and local business always came before and the guild which had given the town so much pride was reserved for last.
Most of the parade had passed.
A spot of darkness drifted across the street. The lights, noise and cheer of the parade faded to a soft black background.
There were some soft sounds, and then a lone figure stepped forward.
Fae walked along, bare feet barely seeming to touch the ground. She was looking around, playing the part of a wide eyed child, seeming all the more innocent by the white dress she wore. She drifted over the cobbled street, turning to take in everything that was around her. Light curious music drifted through the air.
Without a word said, her eager curious steps faltered, face downturned with a touch of melancholy sadness, echoed by the music she was accompanied by. Then, she paused, looking down at something on the ground.
She bent to pick it up, a simple, ordinary stick. But she got excited, face open and vibrating with energy as she examined her new toy from end to end...Then she clasped it in both hands and closed her eyes.
It came slowly at first. Simple shapes and sparkles of different colors surrounded her, flitting and flickering. She played a bit with the new conjurations around her, chasing and being chased by others. The whole time, she was slowly retreating until her back hit something that impeded her progress. A huge dark barrier etched with a magic circle.
Complete silence fell.
It looked ominous and threatening, and she stepped back abruptly, alarmed by what she had found. The light cantrips that had so absorbed her attention faded around her as she looked at the barrier.
Laxus watched, entranced and feeling what Fae was portraying. Something he doubted anyone outside the guild would understand.
As the music began to swell, she reached out...and touched the circle before her.
It flared to life with a rainbow of color and a glow filled everyone's view...
And when it cleared, magical constructs spun through the air, moons, stars, sparkles and glittering streamers. And Fairy Tail, there was Fairy Tail, arrayed in full costume, though there was very little rhyme or reason overall. One by one, the floats started down the street, everyone had a smile, everyone was enjoying it.
And Laxus stood and observer to it all.
He hadn't stood anywhere near the beginning of the parade. The last thing he wanted was another confrontation with his former guild mates. He had simply watched the opening from the vision lacrima set up around the parade route.
And he understood it...
The wonder of magic is that it is magic. Not because it's especially powerful, but because just by existing, it makes the world a more beautiful place.
He watched all of his former associates, shining in the light and attention of the people who cheered them on. And smiled. It was something of regret, but also of acceptance.
It was pretty to look at, and good to see them having fun. But it wasn't anything he was still a part of. It was just a nice spectacle.
Even the old man.
He turned to leave. he had only gone a few steps before someone spoke to him.
"Where do you think you're looking?"
"Fae?"
"Turn around!"
There came a sudden murmur of confusion from the crowd. He turned back...and felt his mouth fall open.
Without fail, every single person he saw who was a member of Fairy Tail, held their hand aloft in the sign he had told Gramps to give when he marched in the parade more than ten years ago.
Even Natsu, who had barely been able to squeak into the parade because of his injuries, held his cast bound arm up, displaying the same sign with a shark like grin peeking out of the sides of his bandages.
"Even if I can't see you, no matter how far away you may be, I will always be watching over you."
High over the parade, there soared a tiny fairy, clad in white and flying on orange glowing wings. Making the exact same sign that they all were.
It was with tears in his eyes that Laxus Dreyer left Fairy Magnolia, burdened with his mistakes, but buoyed by the forgiveness and love of the family he was leaving.
-vVv-
Fae wanted to pester Mystogan about the information he had promised to tell her. About his story and why he looked exactly like Jellal, why his name was also Jellal for that matter. But she stayed patient and kept a keen eye on the clock to know when she could ditch for the day. Her boss and co-worker watched her with amusement.
Master had told them about Mystogan's identity. And the She-devil wasn't all that surprised that Fae was to be included in this circle of awareness.
"What are you so excited for today?" Mira asked, investigating a series of applicants for bartending. Since her magic was back with a vengeance, she was planning on hiring some additional help to free herself up for missions.
"I got a field trip with Mystogan." She explained, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she loaded some customer's lunch order onto her tray. "He said to meet him up by Fairy Hills."
"Oh, I take it Master approved him to take you on a job then?" Fae tripped and only a swift Cushioning Charm saved the tray she had been carrying from decorating the scrubbed floor. She whipped around, staring at Mira with wide eyes.
"What did you say?" The white haired barmaid gave a typical, ditzy smile as if she didn't have a thought in her head.
"Oh, whoops! I must have been hallucinating."
"Mira! Did Master actually approve that or not!?" All she gave in answer was blithe humming.
Mira loved the little girl. But winding her up was sometimes just too much fun.
-vVv-
The afternoon dragged like nobody's business. It was moderately busy with people, but it still felt like an eternity for me. I was so restless, it took me almost twenty minutes to sink into meditation sufficiently to begin to etch runes on my Gandalf staff while I waited.
The iconic wizard's magical talents were many and varied, but I wanted to see if I could also gain access to his more mundane skills, such as swordplay, horse taming and an unusually keen sense of smell. It would only be a low level bonus, but it would still help.
I was going slowly and carefully, but I managed to put in a single line of text on the staff that would, hopefully, give me control of fire. It was a basic magical element, and my having Natsu on hand for comparison and training made it a solid starting point. I blew the sawdust out of the completed rune, smiling. It had held up in my previous tests, but having it be centered on a staff would hopefully be the extra edge that the rune needed to stabilize and be reusable.
Mystogan has arrived.
"Fae! Someone's here to see you!"
I bounded to my feet, sliding the staff into a sheathe on my back that I had rigged up. Since it seemed as though most of my best working spells would revolve around carrying some kind of prop or self made magical item, I figured getting used to hauling the stuff around would be good training. Especially if this was going to be any kind of fun working field trip.
He gave me an odd look seeing what I carried. I just grinned, conscious that I was mimicking him. But staves were a very common way of channeling magic because they were so effective. And I wanted to take this new tool of mine out for a run to see how it held up.
"Are you ready?"
"Depends on what we're gonna be doing." I replied, hands clasped behind me as I waited for more information.
"Search and retrieval in Windchime Forest. We're gathering ingredients for the Potion Makers Guild." It took a lot less magical talent to brew potions than it did to use magic like we did. The people who had magic, but weren't strong enough in their speciality to make it as wizards usually joined some other guild in the city to utilize their talents.
Aw, nothing to burn.So much for getting to practice using my staff...Unless there happened to be some kind of goblin hiding under one of the rocks.
"I trust you won't be taking a leaf out of Natsu's book and indiscriminately set things on fire?"
"No..."
"Then why do you look so disappointed?" I frowned at his teasing. It was just teasing, and not actual scolding...At least I thought it was.
"With as often as I'm out and about these days, it's getting harder to progress without the chance to do some field research as to how I'm progressing." And since I didn't want to give experimental runes to anyone else to possibly get them blown up, I had hit something of a plateau in my campaign to be the best wizard I could be.
Mystogan considered this...
"Well...A little outside the forest are the remains of an ancient Stone Golem that has been taken over by a tribe of Shale Imps. I suppose we could take a little time to swing by there and see if there are any...uncommon potion ingredients nearby."
My disappointment vanished into glee.
The sane one or not, Mystogan was still part of Fairy Tail. I'm not sure if looking for fights is a profession, but if it is, Fairy Tail is the world class expert.
"I guess if we have to." I said nonchalantly, reaching out to take his hand in preparation for the Mist Spell to travel to our destination.
Mystogan got it off within a few seconds of my taking his hand.
Him not having innate magic lets him manipulate magical tools at a far greater level of skill than is normal for Earthland. And his staves are based off of Edolas designs for maximum efficiency.
It took me a moment or two as we were soaring on the wind to the forest that always had a soft whistling chime ringing through it, to work through what this information actually meant.
Mystogan had no magic. He relied on magical tools and tricks to use his spells. He had an unreal knack for combining their spells to amplify their overall power, and he was smart about how he did it. He had made S-class shortly before I arrived at the guild and that rank wasn't something Master was in the habit of just handing out.
Magic, as I understood it, was the agreement of internal and external ethernano. Mystogan, not having any internal ethernano, didn't have the same struggle of a regular person to produce a magical effect. He didn't have to make his internal stores play nice with the energy that surrounded him, so he had next to no delay in firing off spell after spell. His only recharge time came from the magic coming back into the air he drained to fuel his staves. It gave the illusion of near-infinite stamina.
It took about fifteen minutes of direct, wind fueled flight for us to reach our destination, and then we had to materialize in order to recharge the staff. Mystogan could go for a lot longer if he was alone, but my presence made it so that we needed to break off more frequently.
He talked to me about my Gandalf Staff, what I had done and what I still planned on doing.
He gave me a look when I told him about the extent of the powers I was planning on packing into the thing.
"Is it big enough and strong enough to stand up to that many runes?" I had thought of that but...
I shrugged.
"Don't know. But I won't know until I try it. I don't have a lot of extra stuff to go off of since my magic doesn't work quite like anyone else's. And since I'm trying to recreate Gandalf's powers from my book, and in my head, he should have all those powers...I can't think of why it shouldn't work."
My companion heard me out, shaking his head.
"Well, I'm far from an expert in runes, let alone your magic. Just please be careful, Fae. We all want to see you grow, but we really don't want you hurting yourself." I smiled at him as we walked along together.
"I will, Mystogan."
"Anything else you're going to be testing today?"
"Kinetic energy relays."
His staff had recharged enough now to take us the rest of the way to our destination, but I wanted to talk to him about what he had promised to tell me...
But I couldn't think of any way of bringing it up short of outright asking him.
So...
"Mystogan, what's Edolas?"
He looked down at me a little flatly.
"Did you read that name off of me?" I nodded sheepishly.
"Years ago. It was when everything was all so new, and a lot of the information I took in didn't really stick. I read your name too, your other name, and something about a thing called Anima..."
He looked at the sky, seeming to check the time by the angle of the sun... Then he led me off our path to a glade where we could sit.
And he started to talk.
He told me about another world where magic power was so scarce that it needed to be strictly rationed. Where being a unlicensed wizard made you get labelled as dark. Where using any magic without the express permission of the King would make you a criminal.
Where cats, Exceed, like Happy were the only ones to have their own store of magic and were revered almost like gods. ("Any worries you had about me telling? Forget them. The little troll would be insufferable if he knew that.")
He told me about where he had been born...And that he had been born a prince. Prince Jellal of Edolas. (I zoned out a bit here, as I needed to beat part of my brain into a bloody pulp for suggesting that we choose Mystogan as the object of our first real crush.)
He told me about Anima, and how Edolas had been using it to steal magic power from Earthland for years. How Edolas had rapidly expanded from a single kingdom to a world wide empire because of the potent ethernano that King Faust, his father, was greedily drawing out of our world.
"I was happy that Edolas was prospering...but the way we were doing it felt wrong. We had access to nearly limitless Magic Power through the Anima, but it was all stolen. And Faust was becoming unstable, becoming more and more greedy. He was forbidding the use of magic from anyone who wasn't a vassal of the kingdom. Guilds like Fairy Tail, who only wanted to use their power to help people, were discredited because they didn't discriminate about who they helped."
Hearing that even in a parallel dimension, our guild was still the good guy, most of the time, made me smile. As did what I heard whispered in my mind:
The similarity is what drew him to the Earthland Fairy Tail in the first place.
"Because we were expanding, the need for magic power became even greater. Then, there was a breakthrough in technology. A new way of harvesting magic." His voice became soft, guilty even. "We could get a much stronger, longer lasting supply of energy with this technique. It was in war time, it was a saving grace in the moment...but it was wrong. "
I listened to what he didn't want to say, and then said it myself, horror filling me.
"If the Anima pulled in people, wizards, instead of just floating ethernano..."
"Then the lives of the wizards were transformed into lacrima, containing the power without allowing it to dissipate and making harvesting even easier." Mystogan's eyes were haunted and sad as he spoke. "This new Anima was used four times before I decided it was enough...I left my home, travelling through the Anima, to come here, and close it so no more lives would be lost to fuel my father's war campaigns." He held up one staff I had never seen him without, the one he always, always had with him.
"Before I left, I stole the component that they used to direct the Anima. Without it, they can't target wizards specifically, and have to rely on the ethernano that came through their standard access portals."
I sat, deep in thought about everything that I had been told.
But...not about very serious things.
So not only is he a prince in disguise, but a runaway, and a Big Damn, self sacrificing Hero. And he's cute.
No wonder he covers his face all the time and has such a mysterious rep. The awkwardness of having an all but literal clone aside, if people saw him, and knew about everything he's got, he would have the biggest fanbase in Fiore! The fangirls, the paparazzi, the horror!
A slightly more serious thought came then...
Fairy Tail was a big guild. Not the biggest number wise in Fiore, but we were up there in terms of overall magical power with our guild monsters.
"Mystogan: How do they aim the Anima? With that staff, yeah, but..."
He smiled a little bitterly. (I could tell under his mask, don't question me!)
"They aim for concentrations of magical power."
"Does that mean they would try to capture our guild?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.