Fairy Tail: The Hunter
Chapter 1: Arrival
After fifty-two days of being on a boat filled a bunch loud mouth, drunken sailors Darius finally arrived to the port city of Hargeon in the country of Fiore. Darius swore if he ever had to eat pickles and biscuits as a meal ever again he was going to lose his mind. With that being said, he was going to go to a restaurant and eat a piping hot meal. Darius is about 6 feet tall the same height as his father Virgil and he weighed 160 pounds, but like his father it was all muscle. He has short brown hair and blue eyes like sapphires. Although Darius is twenty years old, he has the battle skills of a twenty year veteran. But the only thing he took more pride in than his battle skills were his skill as a hunter for he has yet found a creature he couldn't kill or track. He was dressed in a brown travelling cloak that came with a hood and a bow brooch. Underneath the cloak he was wearing a full suite of leather armor with chainmail underneath. He didn't have his bow or quiver on his person though, but he didn't need to, if he ever needed it all he has to do is activate his Requip magic and he would have both ready before anyone could blink. But his fighting style isn't solely focused on long range combat; he was skilled in the use of dual wielding daggers. Normally the Scouts of Tiliom wielded a short sword and a dagger in case they were forced into a close range fight, but Darius wasn't that good with the short sword, but excelled at the use of daggers so he decided to ditch the sword and replace it with a second dagger. Besides, it's easier to put a dagger into the weak spots of an enemy's armor than it is with a sword.
But of course, there are disadvantages when using daggers. First off daggers are short so it's not that hard to miss a thrust with them. Secondly, daggers are horrible for blocking, especially if you're facing an enemy with a great sword or a battle axe. But Darius figured out how to counter that disadvantage but only if it's a downward slash. But Darius rarely needed to block because he's pretty much mastered the skill of dodging most attacks at this point. And only a few people have survived his arrows long enough to close the distance, and they were already severely weakened by the arrows that did hit them.
After sometime he found a nice restaurant (which oddly enough was named "Restaurant") and decided it was as good as any other restaurant in the city. He went inside and found a booth next to an odd group of people. It was a group of five people, or rather four people and a blue cat. The first person was a young, beautiful blonde girl named Lucy who was wearing black boots, a short blue skirt, a white tank top with a large blue cross on it, and she had some of her hair on the right side of her head up with a blue bow. Next to her was a young man with black spiky hair and dark blue eyes named Gray. Now unlike the rest, he wasn't wearing a shirt or anything from the waist up except for a necklace with a sword with a stone in it and a metal bracelet on his right wrist. The only other things he was wearing was olive green pants and regular black boots. Across from Lucy was young man with spikey pink hair named Natsu and was wearing a red coat with white circles on the shoulders, a plaid scarf around his neck, white pants and sandals. By the looks of things Natsu had already gone through 12 dishes worth of food and wasn't slowing down at all. Darius could've sworn the kid was some sort of monster to go through so much food so quickly. But it was the person next to him that caught his attention the most.
Now what captivated Darius wasn't her looks, but it was her presence and how she presented herself. This woman's name was Ezra and like Lucy, she was beautiful. She had long red hair and brown eyes and wore a heavy steel breastplate and gauntlets. But instead of wearing heavy steel leggings and greaves, she wore a blue skirt and large black boots. Darius could tell she was the strongest in the group. But Darius could not help but be bothered by the cat.
The cat's name was Happy and he was just about the same size of any other cat but instead of it being brown, grey or black it was blue. Last time Darius checked cats weren't blue (except for the time Darius and Marcus dumped blue paint on their aunts cat) but Darius was certain that this cat wasn't painted. And to make things even crazier, the cat could talk. Yeah, Darius was completely positive cats weren't able to do that. Not to mention the cat was carrying a green bag over his shoulder. So, seeing as the people in front of him were…interesting to say the least, he decided to eavesdrop a little. Actually, Darius listened to everything they were saying and made sure to memorize everything that they said. They all talked about the job they had just finished. Well, everybody besides Natsu was talking about the job. Natsu was too busy stuffing his face to talk. Apparently there were a group of pirates that had been harassing the fisherman and these guys had decided to help them out by taking the job. But it was the name of the guild that shocked him. It was Fairy Tail.
"Fairy Tail, just like that woman said." Darius whispered to himself. Darius then thought back to how he learned about his family's plan to take down Fiore. It was fifty –three days ago and late in the afternoon when Darius came into his father's study to deliver a letter to him delivered by courier. He was wearing all black clothing and boots except for his pea coat which was a dark navy blue. Darius always preferred to wear the clothing that had the family colors on them. Normally his father spent the later parts of the afternoon looking through military reports and letters, but for once he was not in. Darius found it odd that he wasn't in but decided not to think on it and left the letter on his desk. But then Darius noticed that his father's journal was not only on his desk, but it was left unlocked. Darius knows he should never go through his father's things, but he couldn't help it. It wasn't that curiosity got the best of him, but he literally could not stop himself from opening the journal and skipping to the last entry. He felt something was making him do it, some sort of unexplainable force was controlling him but at the same time, he was still in control. He wasn't in pain, but he didn't feel right at all. When Darius got to the last entry, he couldn't believe what he read.
"The new shipments of slaves from our friends in the north have arrived to the building site five days earlier than expected which is a blessing. The sooner we have the slaves work the better. But according to the king, even with these shipments of slaves and the shipments that are soon to come, it will take us years to build the tower. I inquired the king, asking him why it would take so long to create the tower even though we have so many slaves. He told me it's because in order to achieve their goal, they had to alter the towers original size and overall design and purpose. It apparently is due to the fact that the tower was originally designed for human revivals, and what we are trying to do is not bring a person back from the grave, but bring the corpse of one of the demon lords into our world from another plane of existence then revive it. According to the king sacrificing all of the slaves will not allow us to do both. But there is a solution to this. We will continue with our plan of sacrificing the slaves but at the same time we will need a large amount of Dark Lacrima which will not be a simple task, even with all of the money and connections we have at our disposal. Dark Lacrima is banned due to the buffing effects it has on dark magic and the fact it can corrupt the minds and body of anybody who is in contact with it for too long. Not to mention its extremely rare and only powerful dark wizards are unaffected by its corruption.
Thankfully however, my daughter Joanne has been using the dark arts for years now and can handle the Dark Lacrima without an issue. Not only that, but my daughter has found a solution to the slaves that are dead and/or dying and a way to get us some Dark Lacrima. Through her dark rituals, she can create dark lacrima through ritual sacrifices. All she needs is a piece of lacrima and multiple sacrifices and she can create Dark Lacrima. So instead of burning the bodies of the slaves, she can take the left over energy in their bodies and corrupt any piece of Lacrima and the bodies are turned to ash in the process. But if she sacrifices a slave she can corrupt a piece of Lacrima much faster. But the problem is that it takes a lot of time and sacrifices to corrupt even a small piece of Lacrima, so even though we can create Dark Lacrima, we are still going to have smugglers sneak in most of what we need. But it will all be worth it when we use the demon lords power to take over Fiore for ourselves and kill all who stand in opposition. Tomorrow I will send Marcus and Nero and have them meet our friend for more slaves to see if we can get more slaves and Dark-" Before Darius could read anymore, he heard the door opening behind him. Darius quickly closed the journal and looked behind him to see who it was, but he already knew who it was.
"Ah, Darius, what brings you to my study?" Virgil said with a calm demeanor. Darius forgot why he was even there to begin with, but then he remembered and grabbed the letter he left on his father's desk.
"Ah, yes, I came here to deliver this to you." Darius quickly handed the letter to his father, but he couldn't hide the fact that he was shaking. Darius was in a state of horror from what he read.
"Darius what in the world is wrong with you?" Virgil asked with concern. "You look like you saw a ghost or worse."
"I'm not feeling well right now. I think I ate some bad fish so I'm going to lie down and skip dinner for tonight." Darius then rushed past his father and out of the study before Virgil could say anything. Darius couldn't straight at all. Darius could only run to his room at the end of the hall on the second floor. Darius went into his room and sat down at his desk. He had no idea if he sat there with his head in his hands for five minutes or five hours, he completely lost track of time and hadn't even turn his head to look outside to see if the sun was still up. He couldn't stop thinking about the slaves, the sacrifices, the tower, the fact that his father and the king were behind this. But it was the Demon Lord part that shook him the most. There are ancient legends speaking of Angels and Demons roaming the mortal world and it is believed that they were the ones that taught humans how to use magic.
The Angels were ruled by Archangels and the Demons were led by Demon Lords. But the Angels and Demons hated one another so they used humans as tools to wage war against each other. But eventually, humans became powerful enough to fight back and push both the Angels and Demons out of their world and into their own. Afterwards humans tried to bring them back into the world so they could either serve them or to become their students. The knowledge on how to bring them back into was eventually erased by the ones who banished the Demons and Angels. Nobody knows exactly who those wizards were, but it was believed they were the very first humans to learn how to use magic.
But it seems that the King of Tilliom found out how to bring them back into our world. But what didn't make sense was why did they want to bring back the corpse of a Demon Lord and go through the trouble of bringing it back to life? Wouldn't it be easier just to bring a live one in? And more importantly, why are they trying to bring a Demon Lord into this world to begin with? After what felt like days but was probably just a couple of hours, he decided to see if it was finally dark out. He turned around and got up to open the curtain at the opposite end of where the desk was. His room wasn't that big but it wasn't small either, but it did have a large bed, a walk-in closet, and an armor and weapons rack. But besides all that there was nothing special or fancy in the room. Darius is mostly practical, mostly. Darius got to the window and moved the curtains to see it was pitch black outside. The stars were out and the moon was half full tonight. But Darius noticed something was wrong. He had no idea what it was but he knew something was out of place. Then he realized what it was. It was quiet. The Lelanto Mansion was not in Tiliom's capital city of Sanctuary, but it was about five miles into the forest just outside of Sanctuary. He should be able to hear crickets chirping, owls hooting and coyotes howling. But there was nothing, it was quieter than a graveyard.
It was then Darius started to get the feeling he was being watched. So he quickly decided to shut the curtains and head to bed. He didn't change into pajamas, all he did was take off his boots and throw himself onto the bed. Darius was just lying on his bed trying to fall asleep but couldn't. In fact, he wasn't even remotely tired. After everything he learned today, he didn't think he was capable of sleeping. But then he felt the same sensation that overcame him in his father's office, the unexplained force that forced him into reading the journal. He tried to move and resist, but he couldn't. All he could do was what the force wanted him to, which was close his eyes, and drift to sleep. Darius woke up, but he was not in his bed. Heck, he wasn't even in his home or his world. He was in a large empty field in the middle of the night. The moon was full and unnaturally bright. Darius looked around to see if anyone was around, but there was nobody. It was just him, or at least he thought it was.
"Looks like somebody had an interesting day today." Darius turned around and summoned his bow and quiver. He grabbed an arrow and knocked right before he made a full turn. When he fully turned to see who it was, he was ready to take down whoever it might be. Darius was expecting a demon or something along that line, but he was surprised to see a beautiful woman in a white dress smiling at him. She looked to be in her mid-twenties and was only a couple inches shorter than Darius. She had long blonde hair with blue eyes and was wearing a long white dress. "Who are you?" Darius demanded. Unfazed, she replied "I have gone by many names over the years. But the name you know me by is Seraph."
Darius stopped to try to remember where he had heard that name before. Then he remembered, he remembered that Seraph was one of the archangels from the legends he heard growing up. It was believed she was one of the archangels that taught one of the first wizards light magic. Looks like the legends were real. Darius put away his bow and quiver and asked "Are you really an angel?" Seraph smiled, and then a pair of white wings appeared behind her. They were beautiful and twice the length of her arms. "Trust me" Seraph said "I am." Darius was in awe. He never imagined he would ever meet angel, especially an archangel. "Why am I here?" asked Darius. Seraphs' smile turned into a frown and said "The reason why I brought you here is because of what your father plans to do. I know I am asking for much, but I need you to stop your father and the king from going through with their plan."
Darius made a humorous laugh and asked "How do you expect me to do that? I am one of the best scouts and possibly best hunter in the entire country, but my father and older siblings are way beyond my magical abilities. There is no way I can beat them." As much as Darius wanted to stop his father, he knew he couldn't. While Darius was considered to be an A Class wizard, his siblings are S Class wizards and his father was beyond S Class. He was in a whole other league altogether. "Your right" Said Seraph "But there is a way you can become strong enough to defeat them all. But first, you must travel to Fiore and warn the king of this horrible danger. And while you're there, seek out a guild by the name of Fairy Tail and join them. After you do all that I will contact you again. But I suggest you join Fairy Tail before you attempt to speak with the king. Now that is all I can do for now so it's time for you to wake up." And just like that Darius was awake. He looked outside his window to see that it was almost time for the sun to be up. So he packed his things, wrote a letter to his family, and took off for Fiore.
After Darius was done thinking about the events that took place almost two months ago, he realized that Natsu and the others had just walked out the door. Darius quickly rushed out the restaurant to catch up to them. Thankfully it wasn't that hard to find them. Natsu and Gray started fighting each other and were making quite a ruckus. But Erza broke it up when she smashed both of their heads together. "Alright that's enough out of the both of you." Said Erza "Now come on; let's head back to Fairy Tail." Darius then caught up to them and asked "Mind if I join you guys?"
Authors Note: I wish to apologize for how long it took for me to finish this. I have been extremely busy this past month and it has really took its toll on me so I haven't been able to get any of this done as fast as I would like but thankfully I got it done all the same so I hope you enjoy it.