The next great never-ending adventure.
Chapter 3: Good, bad, and ugly.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or Harry Potter.
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It had been a week since Wendy joined their little travelling group, and both Harry and Jellal found her to be an untameable adorable addition to their convoy. She'd walk along between the two older mages, occasionally skip and generally keep them upbeat with her optimistic attitude.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and the trio were approaching a town that lay in the distance. The landscape had changed over the past few days of travelling, going from dense woodland, to open and rather dusty plains.
On the outskirts of the town, Jellal spotted a sign at the side of the road. The wood of the sign was rather worryingly peppered with bullet holes, and it had almost fallen off its posts. But the name was still legible. "Redfowl." Jellal read out dryly.
"Seems like a lovely place..." Harry added just as dryly.
As the three approached the town, Harry couldn't help but be reminded of some spaghetti western films he'd seen, or at least, he'd happened to glimpse on the Dursley's television.
Most of the town seemed to be arranged along a single street, with a train station at the other end from where Harry, Jellal and Wendy were entering.
The ground was dusty and dry, while the sky was a clear blue. With the sun baking down mercilessly, Harry felt somewhat stifled under the oppressive weather. Although the town was about as empty of people as the sky was of clouds. A fact which caused Harry's nerves to bristle.
It was all too quiet, and as a clump of tumbleweed rolled across the street, Harry came to a stop in the middle of the road, at the top of the street. This caused Jellal and Wendy to halt a few paces ahead, once they'd noticed Harry had stopped.
"What is it?" Jellal asked, seeing the wary look on Harry's face.
"Awfully quiet round here..." Harry supplied as a sort of non-answer.
Both younger travellers then cast their eyes around the street. Wendy shuffled nervously on her feet. And Jellal's face creased in the same suspicion Harry displayed. "Yeah." He added in agreement.
"Maybe we should get off the street." Harry suggested. To which the other two nodded, and followed after the older wizard as he went to the side of the road. Where he began walking along the bits of wooden sidewalk and porch that the bordering buildings had.
Wendy followed along tentatively, while Jellal made more of a habit of keeping an eye out for anything unusual. When they got about halfway down the street, a cavalcade of sounds became just audible, coming ever closer to the town.
Whoops and cheers were being shouted out by a number of individuals, and they did not sound all that friendly. The owners of these raucous jeers were not yet in sight, so Harry turned to the two children and, shepherding them into an alleyway nearby, told them. "Okay, stay here until I find out whats going on. Stay out of sight. We don't know who these people are, so just keep safe."
Wendy nodded rigorously in reply, and Jellal gave a single, curt nod. As Harry stepped out of the alley once again, Jellal moved himself and Wendy further back into the small side path, keeping an ear and eye out for the danger that may be approaching.
Standing at the side of the street, Harry squinted down the road in the direction from which the sounds came. Sun somewhat dazzling his vision, he kept one hand subtlety resting on his wand as three riders on horseback rounded the corner.
From this distance Harry could make out three figures on horseback. Two of them holding guns in both hands, which as soon as they entered the street proper, they began firing into the air. The cracks of gunshots pierced the relative quiet of the town itself, as these riders came into town, shouting and hollering into the air.
Harry could now see a fourth figure, one he had assumed to be a saddle bag of sorts, but which now appeared to actually be a person. A young man who was completely bound, trussed up like a pig and bouncing in an ungainly manner, up and down on the back of the middle riders horse.
The riders themselves were all relatively similar from what Harry could tell. All tanned, blue eyed, middle aged people. Two men and a woman. The man who rode on the left of the trio was quite rotund, with a big bushy beard consuming a large portion of his face. Whilst the other male, on the far right of the three, was scrawny and wiry to a near comical, or at least terribly ill degree. Then there was the woman, the central rider whose horse bore the tied up fellow. The woman was harsh looking, with long and wavy, copper coloured hair that billowed out behind her as she rode along, a pace or two ahead of the men, seeming to lead them.
The trio wore similar clothing, all quintessentially wild west in style, though each with a different colour scheme to it. It seemed to Harry's increasingly distasteful appraisal, that these three had coordinated their attire on purpose.
As they drew near to where Harry stood, their caterwauling slowed to a stop, and the bearded one called out. In a laughing, booming voice he jeered. "Well lookie here! One of you's is actually gutsy enough to come 'n face us! What'll we do with 'im?"
"Yeah! Yeah! What'll we do!" The skinny rider echoed, in a shrill grating voice, that sounded all to much like a house elf for a grown human to speak with.
"I say we let him know that we ain't goin' nowhere." The female rider oozed, her voice gravelly and threatening. She then jostled her horse, which reared up violently, letting out a vicious neigh. With the sudden bucking, the bound man on the back of her horse, tumbled off the end, to land with a heavy thud on the dusty ground.
"Here's you 'mage' back." She spat venomously. "Don't send another if you know what's good for ya." Then with the speed of a practiced duellist, she drew a pistol from her belt and levelled it at Harry. Pausing a second to smirk at him viciously, she pulled the trigger.
The crack of the gunshot was doubled, by the whip-crack sound of another sort. Harry had been drawing his wand when he realised it'd be too late. However something in him had reacted quicker, and as a result, the bullet flew through the empty space where Harry had just been.
All he had done was briefly wish he wasn't in the path of that bullet, when he it was unlike any apparition he'd performed before. There was no crushing, squeezing sensation. Nor was there the nauseating tunnel vision, or the sudden feeling of needing to vomit. If anything, the apparition Harry had just executed was flawless, comfortable even. The sudden change had been almost natural, so natural it felt instinctive. Maybe it was instinctive though? His body and magic reacting of its own accord, or having been triggered by the threat.
So the riders did double takes simultaneously, as Harry called out from the other side of the street, his tone holding an undercurrent of warning. "I don't know who you people are... I only just got into town. But so far you've got a tied up guy, and you've tried to shoot me." Harry trailed off, fixing the three riders with a cold stare.
"Mage." The bearded rider growled out, his beady eyes narrowing.
"Another from Blue Pegasus i'd bet." The spindly one added. "Come to save your friend have ya? Well too late!"
"Yeah. Your little dwarf is right there for you. Pick him up and get out of town if you know what's good for you." The woman intoned dangerously, gesturing to the unconscious man tied up on the floor.
Harry was going to reply, but the woman proceeded to ignore him, in favour of calling around, shouting out. Apparently addressing the townspeople. "And the rest of you pathetic dust rats! If you send another mage out at us, we're gonna be takin' double the protection fee this month! Who knows, we may even take some of your people too! As paymen-" the rider didn't get any further, as Harry had decided he'd heard about enough.
Not one to sit by and do nothing while people were being harassed, Harry drew his wand. Directing it at the hooves of the central riders horse, he cast. "Serpensortia."
At the incantation a white light flashed from Harry's wand, and a snake flew forth, jettisoned through the air to land around the hooves of the riders horses. Its scales were a pasty grey in colour, while at its head the reptilian cord of muscle fanned out into a hood. At around three or four metres at least, the snake was identifiable as a king cobra.
While the riders were still reeling from the sudden appearance of a snake at their feet, Harry hissed three words in parseltongue. "Bite the horse."
The cobra lashed out in a moment, snapping at the leg of the female riders horse. It would've been hard for these beleaguered beasts not to notice, but now the horses took sudden, terrified note of the venomous predator at their hooves. Consequentially, they began to panic.
While the three bandits cried and shouted obscenities at Harry and their horses, the equine animals thundered off at a spectacular pace, heading down the street and out of town. A few gunshots rang out, but none had been reliably aimed.
So Harry watched as the three hoodlums were carried out of town by their own horses. Now, what Harry needed was to find out what in Merlins name was going on here, because quite a few questions were piling up in the back of his mind.
Casting his passive gaze back at the cobra he'd summoned, the seventeen year old wizard hissed a few more words at the snake. "My thanks cobra. You may leave now. But do not harm the people of this town." Authority was important when speaking with snakes, but luckily the fact that he'd summoned this one into existence helped his status somewhat. Not to mention that he, a human, could speak the language, which in and of itself afforded Harry superiority over the reptile.
Silently, the cobra slithered off out of the town. Harry watched it go for a moment, before his eyes widened at a sound. A grumbling grunt reminded him of the bound man. Briskly walking over, Harry knelt down, and with a quick spell, untied the bloke.
The man he could now see properly, was stout, red-haired and if Harry was honest, sort of on the ugly side. Not that he'd hold it against the guy, or anyone, but the mans blunt, sloping nose, large forehead and generally unique appearance made it difficult to not make a snap judgement.
Though dusty, badly bruised and grubby, the man was wearing a wholly white ensemble of clothes, with the button down shirt he wore, open at the top by one too many of its buttons. If it wasn't for the stoutness, wardrobe, and sheer silent bombastic appearance of the guy, Harry would've said he held a passing to Ron.
Unavoidably, the similarity opened a wound so to speak. Harry had done a decent job of quashing the memories of his friends down, ever since he'd arrived in Earthland. It wouldn't do to dwell on painful subjects. That hadn't helped when he'd lost Sirius, and it wouldn't help now. But this short ginger, though he'd yet to regain consciousness, reminded him of his old friend... He was even thinking of them as his 'old friends' now... Harry's face pooled into a look of melancholic sadness for a time, before he snapped out of the revery and called over his shoulder.
"Jellal, Wendy. You can come out now." At the call, the two immediately poked their heads around the corner. Apparently they'd been keeping a close eye on things. But they left the cool shade of the alleyway, and came over to where Harry crouched by the unconscious man, in the middle of the empty street under the blazing heat of the sun.
"Wendy, I don't suppose you could spare a little healing magic? Wake this guy up?" Harry asked gently. The girl had told them about herself since she'd been travelling with them, and part of what she'd told, included the magics she could perform. Healing magic being one of them.
"Yes!" She nodded eagerly, kneeling down to begin working her literal magic.
After the healing light stopped shining on the man, he gave a very sudden start. Sitting bolt upright and barking out loud something that sounded like. "Men!"
After shaking off a daze, the man mumbled to himself. "My... my perfume...? Where... What?" A confused rambling which came to a halt when he laid eyes on the three surrounding him.
"Who are you!?" He asked, his tone confused and frightful. His voice had an oaky timbre to it, a resonance that was quite peculiar coming from such a short man. "Where am I!?" He continued becoming more alarmed. "What's going on!?" He wailed. "MEN!"
Sparing a passing thought to recognise the resemblance to Ron was merely skin deep, Harry held up his hands in a placating gesture and tried to reassure the distressed fellow. "Wait, calm down, you're okay. We're not gonna hurt you, in fact, Wendy here just healed you. So there's nothing to freak out about... Now, do you remember what happened?"
"Men! I was defeated!" The stout young man lamented theatrically. "My perfume was not enough to thwart them! I am a failure as a mage!" Despite his melodramatic manner, the poor guy did seem genuinely distressed.
Trying to put a stop to the rambling man, before he burst into tears or something, Harry quickly began. "No, mate, you didn't fail. It looked like it was three on one, and-"
But as quickly as he had woken, the man switched moods in a moment, becoming jovial and merry. "Oh you are right! Thank you my friend, you have reinvigorated my perfume with your encouraging words! Yes, indeed, mhm, quite, yes!" He trailed off muttering odd sounds and encouraging words to himself, while staring off into the middle distance.
"Okay, well... Good?" Harry tried, not quite sure how to react to this mans larger than life personality. He may bear a passing resemblance, but this fellow was nothing like Ron.
"I must try again! And if I should fail again? Why I shall try again until I succeed!" The ginger gentleman suddenly exclaimed to them. Before settling back down again and adding in a quieter tone. "But first i'll just sit here for a bit... Yes..."
Harry, Jellal and Wendy all exchanged looks of confusion, and in Wendy's case mild fear, before the man spoke again. "Perfume anyone?"
"No thanks, i'm good on the... Perfume front..." Harry said, thinking that maybe the man had incurred a head injury or something.
"Could you tell us what happened?" Jellal asked, trying to move the conversation forward.
"Of course! But first, allow me to introduce myself." The man proclaimed, leaping to his feet and giving a dramatic bow. "My name is, Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki, of the guild Blue Pegasus..." He said, striking a pose.
"Okay, nice to meet you Ichiya." Harry replied cordially. "I'm Harry Potter."
"Men." Was the (sort of but not exactly) reply.
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A/N: Here we go! Been chipping away at this chapter (and writers block in general) for a while now. It's not too long, but it'll be a two/three part wild west extravaganza! (Extravaganza is too string a word, but you get what I mean) Why am I using so many exclamation marks in this authors note? Because Ichiya! That's why! :)
Thanks for reading, and if you've got any constructive criticism, suggestions, or anything like that for me, drop a review!