It's finally the day I have been preparing for, the day I join Fairy Tail. I already got the permission of the caretakers the day before and now all I had to do was ask the guildmaster. Over the past six years I have improved by leaps and bounds. I only discovered 7 new symbols but I made hundreds of spells and pushed myself beyond my limits. I also had to upgrade my meditation mat 4 times to keep up with my growth. If my magic before was a cup of water it was now a small pond.
I walked up to the doors of the guild and let myself in, I smiled when I saw what was going on inside. It was just as the show described, mugs and furniture were flying across the hall, occasionally a spell or person would fly by. It seemed like the whole guild was involved, though it was centered around two different fights. Ezra and Mira were going at it in the center of the hall, while Gray and Natsu were fighting in a corner. It was like pure chaos manifested as one moment they would gang up on one person only to start fighting among themselves half a second later.
After watching the chaos for a minute I saw Makorav sitting on the bar drinking beer. I could see the buzzed blush on his face. I walked around the sides of the guildhall carefully, but I still had to avoid a couple flying bottles, two chairs, and a naked Gray. By the time I made it to the bar I had felt like I had walked through a warzone. But at the same time my hands were shaking and I had a smile on my face. It seemed like I was a battle junky, so I would fit right in.
After I calmed down I asked "Are you the guildmaster?" Makorav looked down at me with an eyebrow raised. He put his mug down, "What can I do for you, my child?" I thought for a second, getting my thoughts in order. "I would like to join your guild." At my statement he smiled and laughed, "Oh really? Well, to join a mages guild you have to be able to use magic. Can you do that?" I nodded and he gestured for me to show him.
I stepped back and prepared a spell "[Mind Shape Fire Wind Lightning Amplify Condense Strengthen Energize High]." At each word I spoke, an effect manifested. First two circles appeared, then a tornado of fire erupted with lightning flashing throughout it, the tornado increased in size and condensed into my palm. It finally intensified and grew to be a few feet tall again, but it lashed against my control. By the time I finished my spell the whole guild was quietly staring at my spell.
Makarov looked with a mixture of apprehension and shock, "Al-right can you stop before you burn down the building?' I nodded "[Seal]" and the tornado seemed to fold in on itself, he looked more impressed with the fact I sealed a ten word spell with one word. "Well then, only two questions left… What color and where?" I smiled as the rest of the guild cheered. "Red with a black border on the outside of my forearm."
After I got my guild mark I was immediately besieged by a kid with literally flaming pink hair, as in his hair was on fire. When he was a couple feet away his fist also caught fire, "Fight Me!" I raised an eyebrow, not even a little surprised that this was happening. When he swung his fist I spoke, "[Gravity Reverse]" Natsu looked surprised when he shot past me and bounced off the wall and towards the ceiling. However by the time he reached the ceiling he had figured out how to maneuver in the air.
I was a bit disappointed that he didn't have motion sickness from that as it would have ended the fight sooner. But I thought of another way "Ha, thanks. Now I can attack you even better." Natsu started to laugh at me, and I smiled right as he was about to shoot himself towards me I cast my third spell, "[Stop]". My spell was canceled and Natsu catapulted himself into the floor, knocking himself unconscious. Everyone stared for a moment before they burst into laughter.
He must not have hit his head too hard as that woke him up, he spun around looking at everyone, "Nice one FlameBrain!" Gray said, now thankfully at least wearing his underwear. "What did you say, Ice Princess?!" And with that the incident was forgotten and everyone went back to the fight. A vein on Makorav's forehead was pulsing "SHUT UP YOU BRATS!" They froze and he cleared his throat.
"As you probably saw, we have a new member of our family. LET'S PARTY!" At that statement there was a cricket chirping for a minute and a bead of sweat rolled down his head. After a moment everyone walked away and went back to talking but the fighting had actually stopped. The master started to cry and mutter about cruel brats. I ignored that and went over to the board to pick my first job.
After looking over the board I took one of the lowest ranked jobs. When I took it to the master I asked how long it would take to go on to higher level jobs. "Well for F-A rank jobs you have to complete ten jobs of the previous level before you can start on the next level. As for S-rank, well we can talk about that after you are A-class." With that he approved the job and went back to drinking, and I walked out of the subdued hall.
The job I had taken was to help an old man get his groceries. I completed it in a few hours and walked back to the guild. When I got back Makorav saw that I had completed a job with no complaints or destruction and he started to ball his eyes out. I couldn't understand most of what he was babbling, but it sounded like he was thanking god for not having another walking disaster.
When he finally calmed down I gave him the next job flier I had grabbed while he was being a drama queen. This one was for cleaning out someone's attic, it would take a few more hours but it also paid more. I could also keep one thing I found within reason. I was a little disappointed that all I could find was a rather nice journal. It was brown and made of leather with cool patterns on the cover. I guess my imagination got the better of me, it's not like I'm going to find a mythical artifact in some random old man's attic. By the time I finished and walked back to the guild it was time for dinner, so I ate at the guild and then went back to the orphanage.
The next day I went back to the guild after I finished my training. I figured that if I did a couple jobs each day I would make some money and I would be able to go on to higher jobs even sooner. If I kept at this pace I would be able to go on to higher jobs in about a week. So over the next week I trained in the morning, half the time using my mat and the other half training my spells. Then in the afternoon I would eat lunch at the guild and grab a job. After I got back I would grab another job if I had enough time before dinner. Then after dinner at the guild I would use the mat again until I went to sleep.
As the week passed I got closer to my fellow guild members, Natsu challenged me about three times a day, it never lasted more than a minute but I had to admire his persistence. I also got to practice practical applications of my spells. Cana and I usually talked during our meals, she was a big drinker even at this age. When I asked her about it she explained "I have too much magic so to not damage my body I basically poison myself. My magic repairs the damage and in the process makes my body stronger". I also talked with Levi about my magic as our magics were very similar so we traded ideas for spells.
By the end of the week I got enough jobs to move up to the next level and grabbed a D-rank job, but when I gave the flier to the master he told me to wait for a moment. When he came back I saw he had Cana with him. "For your first job that has a chance of combat, I would like you to take Cana with you. Just in case, she will be there if anything goes wrong." I thought about it for a minute and nodded, it made sense to take someone more experienced for my first real job. I know that a person can't know how they'll react in combat till they are exposed to it.
The master sighed in relief when I didn't argue. Then he left the two of us to talk, "Are you ready to go now, or do you need to stop at home first?" I asked her. "I have everything I need with me. What's the job?" I looked at her for a moment in confusion and she laughed. "My cards can work kind of like Ezra's Requip, just not as fast. But it works as luggage." I nodded and we walked to the edge of town.
"I took a job hunting a pack of boars that have been digging up the fields at some of the farms on the edge of town." She nodded, "Do you have a plan?" "I have a spell that will help with that and it's not that hard to hunt a boar." She hummed but didn't say anything, I looked at her and raised an eyebrow, "Is something the matter?"
"No, it's just a good idea to make a backup plan." This time it was my turn to hum, "I'm not really good at planning, I'm better at improvising in the moment. If I start to go down that rabbit hole I'll get lost worrying about everything that could go wrong." She laughed at that and nodded. "I get that and you don't really need a backup plan for a mission this easy, but it's a good habit to get into for higher level missions." I thought about what she said and agreed, so for the rest of the walk we bounced ideas back and forth.
By the time we arrived at the farms we had a plan and a backup plan. We decided to meet with the clients first and see if they had anything to give us a place to start. They told us to look towards the south as that was where the most damage was done. It did not take long to track the boars from the field to their den, boars are not exactly stealthy creatures. When we found the boars we set traps like we discussed on the way over. In less than ten minutes we killed all four and took proof to the farmers, they signed off and we headed back to the guild. Once again Makorav cried when no damages were reported. After that we went our separate ways and life continued.
As time passed I continued to train in the morning and go on jobs in the afternoon. After about two weeks I moved up to C-rank jobs, it took a lot longer because some of these jobs were farther away. C-rank jobs were a change, they were either capturing non-magical bandits, killing low level magical creatures, or dealing with low level magic. Over the next month I continued to do C-rank jobs but I also started to work on my second artifact. I would be using that journal I got on my first day.
I wanted to make my own grimoire, somewhere to store spells and someday maybe simulate new ones. It was going to take a while to get it to the level I wanted to be at, but I had to start somewhere. I had to add an array that would allow not only more pages but at the same time it needed to stay the same size. I also had to add an enchantment to store spells and one to use them. The hardest part would no doubt be the spell simulation, I had a few ideas but I would need time to get it right.
It took me another month to complete the first version, this one could only store spells and treat each page as a focus. Once I would lock a spell to a specific page it only needed to be charged before it can be used. When I showed the master he was astonished that I was able to make a fully functional artifact at my age. It felt nice to receive praise for something that I made, and it was the first time I truly felt like the guild was my home. By this time I only had to do one more C-rank before I would be able to take a B-rank. So when I looked for a job I decided to take one that was on the higher range of C-rank. So I took a magical beast extermination job.
After I had the master sign off on the job I boarded a train out of town. It was the furthest one yet, and would take about a week to travel back and forth, depending on how long it took me to find it. I rode the train for three days before I got to the town of the request, spending most of my time either meditating or planning out my mission. After I arrived I went straight to the mayor's office. "Thank you for coming, we are in urgent need of a mage. Lately there has been a beast attacking every merchant that tries to come here. Trade has completely stopped and if it does not start again soon the town will start to decline."
I nodded and asked a few questions on where the beast had been seen. "There are three roads that facilitate trade, two to the north and south and one to the west that goes to a nearby port town. The two roads are the ones that have been attacked the most, the pattern is random as far as we can tell so the merchants are afraid to travel any of those roads." After another hour of information gathering around town I left to find the monster. It was about dinner time when I arrived within a mile of the last place the monster was seen.
I set up some basic defenses, made dinner, and went to sleep. The next day I took a look around the clearing for clues. Using a spell I followed the tracks I found that lead into the woods. Following the trail for about three miles I came to a large cave. After readying myself I cast my buffs, "[Reinforce Strengthen Amplify High, [Energize Fortune, [Accelerate Sense]" Once I was done I stepped into the cave ready to fight.
As I walked into the cave I noticed that it was even bigger than I thought. So I cast another spell, "[Light Sight Strengthen]" . The spell gave me night vision, and I was thankful that I did as it was only a couple yards in front of me. It was huge, about 15 feet from nose to tail and about six feet tall. It was pitch black and even if I had my advanced sight it still slipped in and out of my perception. I gasped as I realized that the monster was a Shadow Panther, a beast that was known for its assassination capabilities.
Once I recognized it I immediately cast three more buff spells, "[Amplify Wisdom, [Reinforce Strengthen Accelerate, [Accelerate Amplify Heal]" I had to be careful as this job had been mislabeled, it should have been an high B-rank or low A-rank. Hopefully my buffs would provide enough of an advantage. But I was in for a tough fight.
The beast and I circled each other until we were less than a yard away from each other. The beast made the first move, sinking into its own shadow and disappearing. I kept moving trying to keep as much of the cave in my line of sight as possible. I also started to slowly walk towards the entrance, hoping that the sun would cut down on the number of shadows. There was movement to my left and the panther shot out a shadow trying to rip out my throat.
I dodged and cast a spell from my grimoire, "YOWL" . I had hit the panther with a bolt of lightning contained in a ball of ice, hoping to take away the advantage it had in speed. It worked and the panther paced back and forth hissing and spitting. I didn't move, waiting for it to make the next move. After another few seconds of pacing the panther attacked again, slipping in and out of the shadows. We fought back and forth, I cast different spells from my grimoire like barriers to block the panther's claws and bolts of elemental magic to chip away at the beast's life. Meanwhile the panther used its whole body as a weapon, everything from the claws to the tail and even used its own body weight against me.
After an hour of back and forth, both of us were exhausted. The panther was missing an ear and an eye, it was also dragging its back legs as they were unable to carry its weight anymore. However, I wasn't without my wounds, the panther had gotten me a few times as well. It got my leg by charging at my front and then slipping into a shadow and springing out behind me out of my own shadow. The only other time it came from the ceiling, emerging from the shadow that a stalactite threw. This time it scored three scratches down the side of my face missing my eye by less than an inch.
Once the panther collapsed I walked over and finished it off. After I rested and healed myself I explored the rest of the cave. There were three other chambers, one was too small for the panther to get into, the other chamber had bones covering the floor. As I walked into the last chamber I saw where the panther slept, while looking around I found a pile of old teeth and broken claws. I took them all, magical creature parts are valuable because they can be used in the creation of magical artifacts..
I walked back out of the cave, storing the body in a card Cana gave me on the way. After I checked in with the mayor's office I boarded the train back to Magnolia. On the way back I thought about how much I had changed in the past few months. I had joined a guild, improved leaps and bounds with my magic, and now I could start on B-rank quests. There were years until 'canon' I wasn't going to wait around for it to start, but it would be a good indicator of when things would start to get really interesting.
When I got back to the guild I walked up to the master who paled when he saw my face. "What happened!?" As I told my story he paled even further and got a strange look on his face. It was a mixture of pride and worry, after I finished my story he sat there for a minute, "I am sorry that happened to you." He bowed his head and I started to panic, "NO, master it's fine, I'm actually surprised this is the first time this has happened to me."
He stopped at that and tilted his head, "Actually now that you mention it… Well you're fine and you got some valuable ingredients as well. EVERYONE, LET'S PARTY!" A cheer answered him and another party started. Only a couple people came up to me and asked what happened. Natsu thought my new scars were cool, Ezra worried in her own special way and I got a headache. Cana spent most of the evening teasing me about my new 'bad boy look'. Everyone wanted to know what happened so I spent the night retelling the story a hundred times.
By the time the party was over everyone knew what happened and some of the older members congratulated me for my first 'real Fairy Tail mission'. They said it wasn't a Fairy Tail mission if at least one thing didn't go wrong. Natsu was so excited that he attacked me every couple of minutes until I put him to sleep with a spell. I took the next few days off harvesting the rest of the materials from the panther, I used everything not wanting to waste a single part. The best part was I had enough leather to make a full set of armor. After three days the leather was ready and I decided to take my first B-rank job before I made the actual armor.
This one was pretty easy as it was an in town translation job, it was only B-rank because of the difficulty. Using my runes I translated the whole document on the side automatically while I worked on my armor. I checked the translation every couple hours, to make sure it was working correctly. After about six hours I returned the translation to the client. It was an old story about some sort of mythical city. Supposedly the city was made entirely of rune mages and one day it just disappeared. Everyone that went searching for it either didn't find anything or never came back. I kept a copy so I could do my own research and hopefully after I finished my armor I would be able to get a good idea where to look for the city.
A few more days passed and I did my own research on the city in the guild library, and as I continued to look into it I knew that I had to go and explore. It was possibly the most advanced magical city this world has ever seens. When I finally finished the armor and told the master what my plan was. He insisted that he go over my plan with me, and I would only be able to go if he was satisfied. So for the next few days while I planned with the master I trained with my new armor's abilities.
The main ability was linked to the trench coat that gave me the same sort of slipping stealth that the panther had. Mine was more consistent than the panther, as the effect would last as long as magic was supplied. I also made boots to erase the sound of my footsteps and a facemask to increase my sense of sight and smell. I felt like something was missing so I took the claws and made them into a necklace. When I finished I was astounded by the ability it had manifested, I could teleport through shadows now. It was much slower than the panther as the shadow slowly spread from the necklace to cover my body before I was able to teleport.
It took a while to get used to all of my new items but a week after I first asked the master he finally agreed to let me go. There were conditions but I was excited, so I made my preparations to leave the next day. I said goodbye to all my friends and made sure to pack enough supplies. When I was walking to the train station I had no idea it would take years for me to come back and see them again.
