Ok, I am going a bit slower than I usually do, but I'm trying to build up this big exciting plan! Also, new character intro here with a kid named Cole Wingheart who joined up recently, his hairstyle is a lot like a young Alzack Connells. As for his Transfer magic, that ones all mine, as far as I know there's no other type of magic like it on Fanfiction or otherwise.
So, for your patience and amazingly kind reviews, please enjoy this over 2,000 word's chapter!
It had been a week since the Trimen's misadventures in the Draconem Heart castle. At the moment, Master Dracoya was sitting up in her office, working with the irritating amount of paper work that came with being the number one guild.
That was when one of their new recruits, a boy of thirteen who'd joined shortly after the games ended, came stumbling in.
His name was Cole Wingheart, he had a head of long hair that covered half his face that, thanks to his magic, changed through all the colors in imagination, though he claimed it was naturally black he didn't really know. His skin was tanned dark by the sun over his many miles of travel. His guild mark, on his shoulder, had that property as well, Master Dracoya knew that when it went on it had been green, but now it was a strikingly bright red.
He wore earthy styles, a poncho that was slit at the shoulder, allowing the sight of his shoulders and guild mark, with tasseling, a tank top beneath the poncho, cargo pants with several sharp, zig zagged designs and plain shoes. He wore headband that had two large feathers to the right side of his head and several braided strands of leather, the headband itself being a zig zagged pattern to match his pants. He had arm bands that reached from his wrist to just beneath his elbow on each arm, with the same zig zagged design as his headband and pants. Color didn't matter with Cole's clothing, for his magic caused the colors to change dozens of times a day, sometimes several times per hour. His magic dealt with sensing the people around him, the reason Cole had come to the guild was that, after seeing them on lacrima at the games, he'd decided to seek help.
He could take on the magic of others, temporarily.
He couldn't take a re-quip mages abilities, or any holder mages at all. But it happened with a touch, and sometimes he'd do it without meaning to, the power was that uncontrollable. When Natsu had challenged him to a fight the day he'd first joined Cole had simply dodged and sucked out all of Natsu's energy with the tap of a finger and the flash of an orange magic circle, the circle being orange due to Natsu's brand of magic being expressed through that color. He'd bit back shriek of pain, than caused Natsu to be temporarily unable to use his flames. Cole had than promptly roared all of the fire magic out into the sky and tried frantically to apologize while everyone around him laughed their heads off and Natsu pitched a fit trying to figure out what had happened to his magic.
If Natsu had continued the fight, which, thankfully for the younger Draconem, he didn't, Cole would have been destroyed, for his hand-to-hand fighting strength could never match the dragonslayers. For Cole, though, the process was none to easy, taking the magic was difficult, the more powerful the wizard, the more painful the transfer. After Cole ran out of the power he took from the other wizard, he didn't know what would happen. He could feel better than ever after the use of his magic, he could feel no better or worse, like the aftermath of his 'battle' with Natsu Dragneel. He could also collapse from sudden exhaustion. He'd long ago called his magic, which he'd never known another person to have, Transfer Magic. His most powerful gift, or how he viewed it, a curse, was the ability to sense the magics and, if he wished, the intention of the ones around him.
An example he'd given Master Dracoya when he'd arrived at the castle gate was that when he read her intention, he could feel the kindness of her wishes to help lost wizards, and the fierceness of her protective nature towards her guild and her children. He could also tell she was a dragonslayer, though as to what type, he'd guessed 'something to do with light' which had been close enough. She'd also been given an example of Cole's color changing, for when he'd been in the office, only with her, his clothes had turned red and gold, his eyes going scarlet.
At the moment, Cole was donning black clothing with white accents, his hair was jet black, and the feathers adorning his headband were blood red.
"M-Master..." He groaned as he leaned heavily on the wall, looking ready to pass out.
"Cole!" Master Dracoya darted out from behind her desk, knocking over her quill and scattering a few pages of her paperwork to the floor.
"Cole, what's wrong?" She asked as he gripped to boy's arms, trying to keep him from falling as he sank to knees on the floor, bringing Master Dracoya down to sit alongside him.
"I...I feel...something terrible...it's coming closer." He whispered.
"What is it? Can you sense it?" She asked, this was redundant question, for he clearly sensed something dark, she could tell that by taking one glance at the boys dark clothes and hair.
"The...the...the monster, the shadows." He shuddered as he attempted to focus on it's intentions.
"It wants...to...the mages of the games...oh god..."
Cole couldn't hold up any longer, and slumped forward into Master Dracoya's arms.
She crouched down and scooped him up before sprinting from her office, taking him straight to the infirmary and laying him in a bed.
After making sure the young mage was comfortable, she turned on her heel and strode swiftly from the room, off to find a certain blue haired dragonslayer.
On the upper level of the Dragon's Hangout.
"La-La! You beat me again!" Wendy moaned, tossing her cards onto the table after Layla had shown she had yet another winning hand.
"I'm a trickster mage, you can't just beat a trickster at cards! Cards are my thing!"
"I thought clowns were your thing." Onyx asked as he leaned on the back of the couch Wendy sat at.
"Well yeah, those too!" Layla cried, as if this should have been obvious.
Wendy looked up at Onyx, in many ways he'd filled the void inside of her that Gray had left behind, becoming a brother to her, along with the other slayers and many other mages of Draconem Heart.
"Wendy!" All of them snapped their heads to the stairs to see the worry creased features of Master Dracoya as she cleared the last stair and moved quickly over to them, her usual dragon scalelike red and gold dress billowing majestically behind her.
"Master? What's the matter?" Layla asked as she stood up and, with a snap of her multicolored nail tipped fingers, swept all of the cards she and Wendy had been playing with off of the table.
She removed her top hat and, with another snap, all of the cards disappeared inside.
Unfazed by this little magic trick courtesy of Layla, Master Dracoya explained.
"Cole, I'm sure you've all gotten to know him by now, just burst into my office, relayed some very disturbing information he'd gathered via his Transfer Magic, as he calls it, and collapsed. You can help him, right Wendy?"
Wendy fisted her hands beneath her chin and nodded confidently.
"I'm sure there's something I can do!" She exclaimed.
With that the four of them, Onyx and Layla coming along out of curiosity, and made their way through the warm and familiar halls, towards the infirmary. Once they arrived, Wendy scanned the unconscious boy on the bed with her magic. His clothes and hair were still black, the feathers and guild mark still looking bloodstained, such was the color of the red.
"His magic, it's...different, right?" Onyx questioned.
"Indeed." Master Dracoya said, she'd tucked her arms into the opposite sleeves and was looking on with concern, she'd known Cole for a matter of months, and already he'd wormed his way inside, beyond being a guild member, he was one of her children, now, and she was fearful for him, rightly so.
"His abilities are uncontrollable. If he touches you there's a chance he'll absorb part of your powers. Of course, it doesn't effect you as much unless he wants it too. He showed me how he's able to drain your physical energy instead, he could stagger me, if he wanted to. I'm very glad he chose to come to us, I can help him to get his magic under control, he's exactly the kind of wizard I formed this guild to be able to help." The Heavenly dragonslayer continued.
Wendy had been working her magic for several minutes now, and at last.
"He's waking up!" She reported.
Master Dracoya, Layla, and Onyx all crowded around the bed on both sides as Cole's hazy, currently onyx eyes opened.
"Cole, how do you feel?"
Cole took a moment to properly register that someone was talking to him, and another moment longer to decide just what he wanted to say as a response.
"It's...passing. I'm starting to try and tune it out."
They all looked on as, after a tense few seconds during which Cole's eyes had yet again closed, the black of his clothing began to recede, replaced with a dark shade of blue. The feather on his headband changed to white long with the braiding pieces of leather, the tassels of his poncho mimicking them. His guild mark was slowly fighting away the bloody crimson to become a tint of vivid white. Cole was evidently trying to focus on a different source of magic that was closer to him, and Wendy's healing magic had fit the bill. Coupled with the fact that the magic was still being used on him, Wendy doing her best to aid Cole in the effort of cleansing his system of the dark energy.
Finally, Cole sat up, leaning back on his left arm and putting his right hand to his head, and the four around the bed let out breaths they hadn't realize they'd been holding.
He realized everyone was staring at him and gave them a confused tilt of his head.
"What?" He asked, touching his headband to check that it was on straight.
"Your hair..." Wendy said as she stopped her magic, knowing Cole didn't need the extra assistance anymore.
"What's wrong? Didn't it turn blue or white?" He asked, glancing down to check that his poncho had turned blue and tank top white, which meant that his hair should have ended up as one of the two.
"No...it's still black." Layla said, rummaging around in her top hat and producing a mirror, handing it to her new guild mate.
Cole looked into the mirror and was met with a sight that was quite bizarre for him, he was used to his hair being the same color as his clothes, all the time. His hair, which covered the right half of his face and was parted away so it only covered down to his cheekbone, was still onyx black. His left eye, the one that was visible, had become blue, and, with a gulp, he pulled back his bangs to look at his right eye.
It was darker than ever.
"Um...I'm stuck three quarters of the way between Wendy's magic and that...things." Cole realized, his hair hanging back down to cover the abnormal of the two eyes yet again.
"Wendy?" Master Dracoya asked as Wendy shook her head slowly.
"I don't get it, I could feel all of the dark energy leaving him, it should be gone. Keep trying to focus on my magic, ok? I'll try and help you."
She was addressing Cole now, and the Transfer mage nodded.
Cole closed his eyes and Wendy activated her blue mist yet again.
Layla, Onyx, and their Master all watched helplessly as the two thirteen year olds struggled to bring Cole fully out of the darkness that had formerly consumed him.
Cole's eyes screwed up and he gritted his teeth, hands gripping two fistfuls of the sheets he sat atop of, pouring all his effort into finding and forcing out the wisps of nightmare's left inside him.
Layla was the first one to see the small strip of blue that certainly hadn't been in Cole's hair a few minutes earlier.
"Your doing it!" She whisper-screamed, hoping she was sounding encouraging.
They watching, amazed at the way this unique type of lost magic was working as, slowly but surely, a deep sapphire blue began overtaking the black of Cole's hair.
Finally, Cole let out a victorious shout as he dropped backwards to lay on the bed yet again, arms thrown out to his sides, with a head of hair that, while far darker than Wendy's, was blue all the same.
"Did it work?" He asked, fearing the answer.
"Your hair is blue, but...?" Onyx started the question of what everyone had been wondering.
Cole, regretfully and less than willingly, sat up and took up the hand held mirror Layla had pulled from her hat.
He brushed back the hair covering up his right eye, took a deep breath, and looked into the mirror.
A pair of watery blue eyes stared back.
"Phew..." He exhaled as he handed the mirror back to Layla.
"That was scary, I can't remember even one time that my hair didn't change to match my clothes." Cole rubbed his head as he recovered from the battle.
"Thanks for helping, Wendy, I couldn't have done it on my own."
Wendy sat down on the edge of the bed next to him and smiled.
"Happy to help." She replied.
Master Dracoya put a hand on Cole's shoulder.
"I hate to be asking you so soon, but what was it that caused this strange transfer?"
Cole sighed.
"Something big, it's coming. That dragon that you and your other dragonslayer friend fought, Wendy."
Wendy's eyes went wide with horror as she covered her mouth with both hands.
"Shadowlogia." Master Dracoya hissed hatefully.
Cole nodded, "It has an intention, I was able to read it, even from so far away."
"Cole, please tell us all you can remember, this is valuable information. Lives could be at risk." Master Dracoya urged, her hand not moving from the young man's shoulder.
Cole relaxed his shoulders in an attempt to calm himself from panicking all over again at the thought of the dragon's purpose.
"It has the ability to absorb pure magic, transform any magic it devours into nightmare magic. It puts the mage the monster takes the power from into a coma like state, a sort of living death, and..."
Cole shuddered, his blood running cold at the notation Shadowlogia's nightmare had place within his mind.
"It's after the seven best teams of the grand magic games. It...it doesn't know where we are, I managed to tell that much."
All of the Draconem's breathed a sigh of relief, their location was still concealed, even to an all powerful dragon.
"But it knows about the other guilds. It wishes to go from one to the next, but it only wants the teams, the people who competed. Wait..."
He rubbed his temple as if this would help him recall the fleeting imagines he'd managed to glean from the monsters brain.
"Except Blue Pegasus. It doesn't want to bother with anybody but three from that guild. The guys that just broke in here, their the dragon's only targets. It..."
Cole hesitated.
"It actually thinks Ichiyia is gross."
Wendy couldn't help but snort at this, even a dragon didn't want Ichiyia, the idea alone was greatly amusing.
"But after it absorbs all of the wizards it plans to, it'll have enough power...to do what it's brother failed at."
"What?" Wendy squeaked, fearing she already knew the answer.
Cole looked Master Dracoya in the eye when he next spoke.
"To destroy the entire continent."
Master Dracoya's face was impassive, while Layla and Onyx hung off of every word in terror of the dragon's great scheme, she only listened, and thought.
At last, she made her decision.
When Cole had solemnly finished telling of his what he'd learned while consumed by nightmare magic, she spoke, slowly and deliberately, one hand raised to be sure no one interrupted her.
"We will send two wizards apiece to each of the top seven guilds to tell them of this plight we now face, whatever we think of certain guilds at the moment, we will face this together."
"What will our guild members do when they get to the other guilds?"
Layla asked, eyes wide, already on her feet and prepared to act.
Master Dracoya let out a long, slow breath.
She allowed her gaze to move across each of all four of their faces.
"We bring them to the only place on earth that's made to survive a dragon attack. Right here, Draconem Heart castle."
...I got nothing to say on that one really, talk about dramatic ending, I'm patting myself on the back for that! Well, we got the arc a'rolling and things are getting crazy! So what do you guys think of Cole? Please let me know if you want to see more of him in your reviews! So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks and please read next time!