AN: And so I return. I doubt I'll continue the daily chapters though, it burned me out quite quickly.
"So," rumbled an unearthly voice, "the fairies dare challenge us?" "Yes." replied another voice. "How many of our own have been defeated?" the rumbling voice went on. "So far we aren't sure. Freichen and Asalt are the only ones so far. I belive the Fairy Tail mages thought them to be dead." the smaller voice replied once more. A raspy chuckle resonated through the air. "Ignorant mortals." The owner of the rumbling voice sat back in his chair and thought a while. "What do you think about attacking their guild while unprepared. I believe that their strongest mages are gone at the moment." "I wouldn't advise it sir," she replied, "while most of the strongest are gone, our scouts say that their ace mage, Gildarts, is on his way to Magnolia."
"Alright everyone," a voice boomed from the bar, silencing the lively guild, "as you know, we are at war with the dark guild Tartarus. I need not stress the importance that you all begin training. We know not when they will attack or how many. We do know, however, they are strong. We will need you all to be prepared, if the need be, to be sent to fight." Cheers of agreement flooded the guild. "I'd also like you to congratulate our mages who've been successful in defeating those from Tartarus." continued Makarov. It had been a few days since the incident, Edwyn and Roxanne returned to Magnolia and rested for a while. Resting and celebrating their victory over the Tartarus demons. Natsu and the others were still in a city beyond Magnolia protecting a different council member. Team Shadow Gear had also left. With Laxus and the others in the infirmary, the strongest were either gone or incapable of fighting. The guild was lively and celebrating at the words of Makarov. "Settle down everyone," he said, clearing his voice, "we're going to get ready for training. Everyone get out to the back of the guild and we'll start shortly." The mages began to stand up and head outside when trumpets sounded and voices all around Magnolia cried, "Gildarts Shift!"
"What's going on?" Edwyn asked Roxanne as the city rumbled and shifted all around, "I don't know." she replied, just as confused. "A Gildarts Shift," said Mirajane who standing near them at the time, "is called whenever Fairy Tail's strongest mage, our ace, Gildarts returns home from an SS-Class mission." "SS-Class mission?" they asked, confused. "One question at a time," she continued, "anyways, Gildarts is a crash mage, a very dangerous type of magic, and he tends to not pay attention. He could walk through walls and not notice, that's why a Gildarts Shift is called. The whole city shifts and changes to accommodate him, and for the protection of the citizens and their homes." The two nodded in understanding as a man walked through the guild door. Looking at the hole he left, he scratched his head then reconstructed it. "Hey everyone." The silence that had washed over the guild was soon broken as greetings and cheers of joy burst throughout the air. The crash mage made his way through the crowd of mages and over to Makarov at the bar "So," he asked, looking at everyone about to walk out, "what is everyone doing?" "They're about to go outside and begin training, Gildarts, you do know about the war with Tartarus, right?." Makarov said seriously, staring at the mage. Gildarts closed his eyes for a moment, "Ahh, Tartarus. I ran into a few of their own unfortunate enough to attack me." He looked up at Makarov and continued, "I heard, on my way back, about some of our own defeating some Tartarus mages, I know Erza, Lucy, Gray, and Natsu, but who are the others that helped. I'd like to talk with them." Makarov nodded and yelled above the crowd, "Roxanne, Edwyn! Come here for a moment!"
The two turned from their conversation with Mirajane as they heard their names. "Better head up there." she said, smiling. As they navigated through the mass of mages, milling about, Roxanne asked, "What do you think he wants?" Edwyn shrugged, leading her through the crowd. They reached the front in relatively good time. "Ah, good," Makarov said, "this is Roxanne," he pointed at the raven-haired mage in front of him, "and this is Edwyn." he pointed to the taller mage beside Roxanne. "Obviously," Gildarts said, somewhat exasperated, "I can tell which is which by the names alone." he sat there then turned to Makarov again, "Do you think I'm stupid?" "No, no, not at all." Roxanne and Edwyn stood there, not saying a word. "So you two are new mages to Fairy Tail, am I right?" "Well," Roxanne spoke up, "we've been here about a month, so yes sir, we're pretty new." Gildarts laughed and patted her on the back, the sudden force causing her to cough a bit, "No need to be formal, call me Gildarts." She nodded, and rubbed her back a bit where he hit. "So you wanted to see us?" Edwyn asked, a hint of confusion showing upon his face. "Yea," he said, still eyeing the mages before him, "I wanted to meet the two who helped Natsu and the others fight the Tartarus demons." They sat silent as he thought for a moment, "You guys don't seem to strong," he said, whether he meant offense or not was not obvious, "but you have potential. Since everyone's gonna start training, what do you say I train you two personally?" The two agreed to it. Who could turn down being personally trained by Fairy Tail's strongest mage? "Great!" he said, then told them to meet him outside of Magnolia.
Roxanne and Edwyn left the guild and made their way towards the training spot. Edwyn was brimming with excitement and made no effort to contain it. "I never knew you had this much energy." Roxanne said, smiling at Edwyn who was bouncing like an excited child. "We're going to train with Fairy Tail's strongest mage, you can't tell me you're not excited." She giggled a bit and shook her head, "I'm just as excited as you, but I don't want to waste energy by jumping around." He stopped and frowned at her. "What?" He sniffed the air and looked around a bit then turned his head to her, "Nothing, I just think I smell a party pooper." He continued walking with a large grin. Roxanne laughed, "You're so immature sometimes." "You're too serious sometimes." She hit him lightly in the arm, "Me? Too serious? That's pretty funny coming from you." Edwyn shrugged the comment off and continued excitedly down the road.
Nearing the training spot Edwyn's excitement flooded out once more. He grabbed Roxanne's hand and began running as fast as he could. Soon they were in the clearing that Gildarts had detailed. It was empty as he had not shown up yet. Roxanne took the moments before his arrival to sit down against a tree and catch her breath. "Was the running necessary?" she asked between pants and looked up at him. He just nodded with a grin, showing no sign of fatigue from the earlier sprinting. He turned and walked over to her, "I thought you'd have more endurance than me, being a dragon slayer and all." She stuck her tongue out and said, "Shut up."
"Alright, you two ready?" Gildarts asked, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. The two nodded and Edwyn helped Roxanne up. "Now, to start off, I'm going to say that since none of us have the same magic I can't teach you any new techniques. I will be doing strength training , other training to increase your magic energy capacity, and training to increase the strength of your magic attacks. Any questions?" "No." the two replied. "Great," the crash mage said with a smile, "let's get to it."
They started with seemingly meaningless tedious exercises and tests. The mages patience began to wear thin and Edwyn's excitement slowly dissipated. They didn't dare comment on their boredom or the seeming pointlessness of the training so far. "Now," Gildarts said, stopping momentarily, "I would save this for tomorrow, but I want a real test of your abilities. Both of you, seeing as you work well together, attack me and try to take me down. Show no restraint." Edwyn and Roxanne exchanged glances and got ready to attack.
Roxanne decided to go first, with a grunt she dug her heel into the ground and launched herself forward. Her arm turned to shining gem scales and delivered a powerful punch. Her punch was stopped short by Gildarts' hand. While Gildarts was occupied with Roxanne, Edwyn, pulling heavily upon his magic, slammed his hand into his fist and yelled, "Shadow Make: Hammer!" A massive hammer appeared above the crash mage and was brought down, leaving shadowy wisps behind it as it dropped with massive speed, the crash mage didn't even look up and raised his hand, catching the hammer and causing it to shatter into millions of pieces. As the hammer was destroyed Edwyn shot forward a shadowy pole. The pole hit him dead-on in the chest as his hands were busy. He didn't flinch as the pole hit him and disappeared instead he let out a chuckle and said, "Good teamwork, but your attacks need work." The two, deterred by his chuckling hesitated in continuing attacking, "We're not done, we just began." Edwyn protested. "No, you're done for today. That showed me what I needed to see. I can also tell you two are tired, go home and rest, but don't forget to meet me here tomorrow."
"It's almost night, I didn't realize how long we've been training." Roxanne said, looking up at the sky while walking alongside Edwyn. He just grunted, frustrated that the training wasn't as he expected. "Oh lighten up," she said grabbing his hand, "you'll get your chance to prove yourself tomorrow. It's late now, though, so let's go grab some food." Edwyn sighed and didn't argue.
The two finished their dinner and left. The moon was high in the sky as they walked down the street. It's glow kept the empty streets dimly lit. "Goodnight Roxanne, see ya tomorrow." Edwyn said, about to turn around and head towards some unknown destination. "Nope, it's too late out and I know you don't have a place to stay. You're coming with me." She once again grabbed his hand and began leading him to her apartment. "Speaking of that, we really need to get you an apartment. I don't think it's too good of an idea for you to continue sleeping wherever you drop." "I don't need a place though, I've been doing fine sleeping wherever I want." Roxanne shook her head and sighed.
Upon reaching the apartment Roxanne took out her key and unlocked the door. They walked into the spacious apartment, the moonlight filtering in from behind the curtains giving the apartment a barely visible glow. Roxanne flipped the light switch. The sudden light caused Edwyn to recoil a bit. "This is a nice place," he said, looking around, "I think this is the first time I've actually seen it." "I tried to convince you to stay here when we got back after the Tartarus incident." she said, closing and locking the door. "Well," he said, still examining her apartment, "I... I have no excuse for that." She laughed then disappeared into her room for a moment while Edwyn looked around, coming out in a loose t-shirt and pajama bottoms, "This is much more comfortable." Edwyn stretched and followed her lead, pulling off his shirt to get ready for bed, "As pointless as those exercises seemed, they sure did make me damn sore." Roxanne nodded in agreement.
As Edwyn began to lay on the couch he heard Roxanne taunt from the doorway of her bedroom, "Oh, so now you're too chicken to sleep with me now that we're back in Magnolia?" she sighed, leaning on the frame of the door, "It's like we're back to square one." She turned around and walked to her bed, only to be joined by another person soon after. She felt an arm wrap around her and pull her in. "I knew that'd get you." There was no response, she didn't mind and soon fell into a peaceful sleep.