Fairy Tail Academy. It is largest and most prestigious magic school in the entire country of Fiore. It houses the most talented and powerful of mages as it stands proudly on top of the Magnolia valley, overlooking the Astral Sea.
The high gates of the Academy opens and a long black limousine enters into the academy's front yard, which is still a really long stretch of land.
Not that any of the students cared about that.
In Earth Land there are people who have the ability to use magic. They are called mages.
Magic was usually controlled by using chants. More proficient mages would be able to produce magic circles which did not require chants. Although, really powerful magic would usually require a chant and a magic circle at the same time.
Only about twenty percent of the people of Fiore have the ability to use magic, thus, there were rules and limitations as to its usage.
But in Fairy Tail none of those limitations applied. The moment students entered its gates, magic circles appeared from everywhere, and students either sprouted wings or used enchantments to enhance their speed. Some chanted spells and called fort beasts that they then used as mounts whilst other others even enchanted objects to float so they could ride on them.
With all the magic happening everywhere, the black limo would have been totally uninteresting in comparison. But as it stopped in front of the academy's central building, students stopped to talk among themselves, some in praise and some in envy.
It wasn't the vehicle anyone cared about, but the person inside. A crowd forms as the students wait for her to appear.
The limo door opens and out comes the prettiest new girl in school. Long bright blonde locks that shines like the sun. Deep chocolate brown eyes, that can drown one in their depths.
She is the heiress of Heartfilia Enterprises, Inc, one of the largest multinational conglomerates in Earth Land, currently owned and ran by her father Jude Heartfilia.
Her mother Layla Hearfilia is rumored to be a princess of some distant country. A lot of information about her is completely hush-hush. It might have or might not have anything to do with the users of the most ancient source of magic, the Celestial Mages.
The girl is also well-versed in magic. Smart, talented, and a quick study.
Her name is Lucy Heartfilia. And she is a first year senior high student of Fairy Tail.
.
=====BIOGRAPHY TIME =====
Name: Lucy Heartfilia
Grade: First Year Senior High
School: Fairy Tail Academy
Age: 16
Notable traits: Rich and beautiful (and with large boobs)
Likes: Reading and studying magic
Dislikes: Rude people and those who exploit others
Magic talent: 80/100
Magic affinity: 35/100
=====BIOGRAPHY END =====
.
"Hey Lucy," Someone calls out her name with great familiarity. He runs down the school steps and starts pulling at her arm.
"Hey slow down a bit Natsu." Lucy says with exasperation.
But the pink-haired boy merely grins down at her without releasing her arm. "You need to come with me. I want to show you something."
The crowd dispersed, some still sighing with the memory of Lucy's beauty and others shaking their heads in disbelief at the bond she has formed with the most troublesome boy in school.
Not that it was hard to believe that Natsu would make friends with Lucy. Natsu made friends with everyone. Despite his rash and volatile nature, he was cheerful, friendly, and extremely loyal.
He would get into friendly fights with school mates and real fights with kids from other schools. And whatever it was, he always left a lot of destruction at his wake.
Yet, he was always someone you could count on in times of trouble. He would risk anything to help out his friends, and he considered every single person at the academy his friend.
Problem was, Natsu wasn't very talented in magic. And thus, a lot of his good intentions end up in complete disasters.
So it was quite surprising that these two opposites stuck to each other like glue. They were more than just friends, they were like best buddies. It was amazing that of the many people vying for Lucy's attention, most of which were very talented mages, she chose to keep company with one who basically sucked at almost every class.
Yet Natsu wasn't exactly someone that could be classified as weak. Otherwise, he wouldn't be counted upon during hard times. But a lot of outsiders make this mistake.
One of those was Erik Cobra. He is currently at Fairy Tail as a representative of Oracion Seis, another magic school who is competing at the Annual Magic Games. The games is to be held at Fairy Tail this year and schools had scheduled five representatives each to observe the academy in preparation for the event.
Natsu was in the school garden, showing Lucy a flying cat. "Look, Happy can now use magic." He says with excitement. "He managed to learn a flight spell."
Lucy observes the cat who had sprouted wings. He didn't actually look like any ordinary cat. In fact, Happy was blue and walked on his hind legs. He could also talk, which was something cats definitely couldn't do. Not that cats being able to use magic was impossible. There were all sorts of different magical creatures, and for all she knew, one of them could look like a cat.
Still, as someone who has studied almost all of the books about magical creatures, Lucy was still amazed at how she has never encountered a specie like Happy. "So Happy really is a magical creature. Maybe if I teach him some basic magic..."
"Can you teach me how to turn wood into fish?" Happy asks excitedly as he flies towards Lucy.
Lucy actually considers it. "I could... but then it would merely be a sight perception type of magic and it would still taste and feel like wood despite looking like a fish."
"Eh..." Happy wasn't so happy about that. "I want to eat delicious fish whenever I want."
"You will need to change not just one's perception of sight, but also of smell, touch, and taste." Lucy states. "Such will require a large amount of magic. And even if one is able to produce such magic, it would be very hard to control and sustain such a thing."
Natsu looked totally disinterested at what Lucy was saying. He didn't understand a single bit of it anyway, and he didn't even want to try to understand it either. Just thinking about it made him feel bored.
"There are lots of fish in the school pond." He suggests instead. The idea sounded a lot more fun to him than some lame magic spell. "I can dry the water clean and we can have fried fish for lunch."
Lucy thumps her fist into Natsu's head. "Stop joking around."
"I wasn't though..." Natsu complains as he tries to soothe the pain in his head with his hand.
"I see Fairy Tail's princess is in the gardens. What a fitting place for beauty to collide." Erik smoothly enters the garden and gives Lucy a smile.
Seeing the uniform he is wearing, Lucy immediately deduced that he was from one of the visiting schools. As the first year representative, she also remembers that the school scheduled for this week's visitation was Oracion Seis. "Thank you." She says formally. "And I hope you enjoy your stay at Fairy Tail. But I think you should not separate from the Campus Ambassador, she might be worried about you right now."
"Oh, there is no worry." Erik waived away Lucy's concern. "It will be a shame to ignore the sight of a flower among all flowers. My name is Erik by the way." With that he takes Lucy's hand in his with the intention of kissing it.
But a certain boy's hand stops him from pressing the lady's hand into his lips. Natsu holds Erik's wrist, making him unable to move. "Release Lucy right now."
"So your name is Lucy, what a lovely name." Erik seems to be unperturbed. Then he took his sight off Lucy, to face Natsu. This time, his charm was all gone, and he looks at him with so much malice that even Lucy was surprised and started to pull her hand back. But Erik holds on to it. "I think it is my arm you need to let go off boy."
"If you do not let go of Lucy right now, you will have no arm." Natsu doesn't seem to be affected by the malice exuding from Erik. In fact, he didn't seem to notice that it existed.
"Oh an idiot." Erik says with a sarcastic laugh. It wasn't a random deduction. Either the boy was very powerful that his malice had no effect whatsoever, or he had so low magic power that he could not even sense it.
And it couldn't be the former. As one of the participants of the Annual Magic Games, Erik had been given a list of all the powerful mages in the different participating schools. He would not have forgotten if this boy was on the list. His pink hair stood out like a sore thumb that it would be impossible not to notice him.
"How about we do a formal match." Erik challenged. "If I win, you keep out of my way. And if you win, I promise not to show my face to your lady friend here."
Lucy was finally able to pull her hand off. "Hey, if you want to bet about me, you should fight me, not him."
"I accept." Natsu agrees to the terms, ignoring Lucy completely.
"Adras fae ista Cubellios" Erik chants and a large purple magic circle appears under Erik's feet. A large serpent came out from the circle, carrying Erik on it's head. The serpent was a cobra which completely suited Erik's last name.
Lucy moved backwards to give them space. To be able to create such a large magic circle meant Erik was a very proficient mage. And the fact that he had to actually chant to summon the serpent, meant the summon must be a really powerful creature. To have the ability to contract with such a very powerful summon must mean that Erik had high amounts of magical talent.
.
=====BIOGRAPHY TIME =====
Name: Erik Cobra
Grade: Third Year Senior High
School: Oracion Seis
Age: 18
Notable traits: Extremely arrogant and likes the ladies
Likes: Pretty girls and showing off
Dislikes: Weak people
Magic talent: 80/100
Magic affinity: 55/100
=====BIOGRAPHY END =====
.
The cobra opened it's mouth and a large purple magic circle appears in front of it. Out of the magic circle comes purple miasma-like vapors that went and shot towards Natsu.
Judging from the magic circle Lucy could read that it was made out of venom. But Natsu stood his ground, raising his arms up to shield himself. "No Natsu, it's poison!"
But Lucy's warning came too late. The venom had hit Natsu's arms which made them completely purple.
Erik laughs. "And here I thought, Fairy Tail was a school of skilled mages. You cannot even read a simple magic circle. What are you, in first grade? Even middle schoolers in Oracion Seis could have read that."
Natsu groans in pain as the poison starts to spread throughout his body. Erik turns to Lucy, fully expecting her to run to his aid. But she stood her ground, holding the blue cat with wings and stopping it from flying over to the pink haired boy.
"You are not helping him." Erik felt satisfied. "You are a lot smarter than most beautiful ladies. Talented people like us should not concern ourselves with weaklings like him. I haven't even used a tenth of my power. Judging by his inability to sense malice and read magic circles, he must have a magic talent lower than thirty. How is he not expelled yet?"
"He has fifteen." Lucy says in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Fifteen?" Erik didn't understand right away, then when it dawned to him what she meant, he could not stop from laughing. "Even sprouts have more magic talent than that."
But Lucy simply gave Erik a smug smile. "Not everything is measured in magical talent. Or have you forgotten that magic skills is measured in two forms?"
Erik scoffs. "The other form is useless without the other. You will need high levels of control to make releasing high levels of magic power even remotely useful, unless..."
Erik's words trails off as Natsu's groans had turned into a scream. But it was not a scream of pain either. He watched as fire burned from all over Natsu's body. And as Natsu screams the fire burns brighter.
The fire from Natsu's body suddenly converges into his arms which has already been purged of the poison. He swings his arms towards Erik and the flames rushed towards him like fireballs.
Erik manages to chant a quick spell to create a barrier of protection to where the flames was going to hit. But in his rush to cast the spell, he was unable to notice that Natsu had already disappeared in front of him. Just as he felt relief at managing to ward off the flames, Natsu appears from behind him. It was too late when Erik turned as he sensed Natsu. Natsu had already sucked in a large amount of breath which he then uses to blow fire from his mouth. The flames went straight at Erik who was unable to defend himself.
As Erik fell off the serpent surrounded by flames, Natsu hit the cobra with his right arm which was now encased in flames as well. The summon disappeared.
Natsu walks towards Erik breathing heavily. "Do you admit defeat?"
"But you didn't even chant or use any magic circles." Erik tries to raise his head to look at Natsu.
"Magic circles and chants are merely used to control magic." It was Lucy who explains. "Natsu doesn't need any of that to control his flames. His magic affinity to fire is a hundred."
.
=====BIOGRAPHY TIME =====
Name: Natsu Dragneel
Grade: First Year Senior High
School: Fairy Tail Academy
Age: 16
Notable traits: Cheerful and fun-loving but careless and idiotic at times
Likes: Challenges and being with his friends
Dislikes: People who hurt his friends and those who are too forward with Lucy
Magic talent: 15/100
Magic affinity: 100/100 (Fire Element only)
=====BIOGRAPHY END =====
.
"A hundred huh..." Erik's head falls back into the ground. "I guess it is my defeat. But next time, I will not be underestimating you, so be prepared."
Natsu grins at Lucy before he sits into the ground in exhaustion. "I won."
"That you did." She answers as she looks around them. A lot of the bushes were on fire.
"Ini farin aquari." The water sprinklers started shooting large amount of water to clear out the flames. But a lot of the flowers had already burned down. The headmaster was not going to be happy about this. But she was actually more scared about what Erza would do.
"We are doomed." She mutters to herself.
.
.
.
=====NEW TERMS=====
Magic talent - the ability to control magic. This allows the user to understand how magic works. Higher talent means one is better than others in understanding the form magic should take for practical use. Mages with high magic talent has the ability to use magic in the most efficient way possible, using the least amount of magic power
Magic Affinity - the ability to release magic power. The higher the affinity, the more magic power one can release. This trait isn't so popular because the more magic power one releases, the harder it is to control it. Thus, high magic affinity is useless without high magical talent. The only exception is if one has a magic affinity of a hundred.
Sprout - a person who just discovered his magical powers. Usually people discover magical abilities at the age of three. Although there are some late bloomers.
.
Author's Notes
When Erik said a sprout had more magical talent than Natsu, he was actually exaggerating. Although some mages are geniuses and have high magic talent from the start, a lot of sprouts actually start with a magic talent of 5 or so. So Natsu is actually a bit better than sprouts.