I understand that today was the final day of the games and that there's something symbolic about wearing matching attires into the final fight, but Fairy Tail probably should look into getting a better tailor to make the crap that we were wearing right now.
My usual hooded cloak that I usually wore to cover myself was replaced by the guild issued one, one that had the guild insignia sewn boldly onto it on the back that marked my allegiance to the mage guild I belonged to. My only problem with the attire was in the somewhat subpar tailorwork, seeing that the seams were actually frayed and didn't look like the cloak would stay intact if I ever exchanged a single move with any mage that I would be up against today.
"Need help?" Mirajane piped up when she noticed that I was staring at the frayed seams of the cloak with a frown on my face.
"Can you fix this?"
"I fixed all of my siblings' clothes when we were younger. Give me that, I will patch it up in minutes."
I removed the cloak and handed it over to Mirajane, sitting down and watching her work her needle and thread in ways I could never hope to master the way she did. I never did have the chance to learn how to patch up my own clothes since I was almost constantly on the run or being involved in deathmatches that would ruin my cloaks to the point that repairing it was a lost cause.
"Nervous?" Mirajane struck up a conversation while threading her needle in and out of the cloak to fix it.
"Nah."
"Should have expected that response from someone who defeated a Wizard Saint."
"The Magic Council ought to seriously revise their standards if Jura is the strongest Wizard Saint excluding the Gods of Ishgar," I scoffed. "I don't mean to boast, but I've seen and fought mages far more terrifying than him in Alvarez. If it wasn't for the Etherion acting as a deterrence I'm pretty sure they would have razed Fiore to the ground by now."
"And that weapon is now destroyed," Mirajane helpfully added with a thoughtful hum. "Are we doomed?"
"Depends on Emperor Spriggan's mood for the day. If he ordered an invasion right now it might just be the end for us."
"That bad?" Mirajane took a pause from her needlework to look up at me when she realised that I wasn't joking.
"How'd I know? The fact that a war didn't break out after Etherion's destruction meant that Fiore had another unknown form of deterrence, which is a good thing for us. That's just my guess though," I offered my opinion on this issue and ended this gloomy discussion here. "And talking about something that might be more relevant to us, what's the guild planning to do once we clinched the first place?"
"Party first, think later," Mirajane declared like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "The prize money would probably be used for building a better and larger guild building. Our current one would certainly need an overhaul now that we are back. That tavern is too small."
"We definitely need a bigger place," I agreed. Asuka would need a bigger place to run around to play and do things children her age do. That tavern was so old that it might as well be in line for a demolition. That place was so full of splinters so the adults always had to make sure that they smoothened all the rough edges before they would let Asuka play in there.
"What's your plan after the games?"
"Plan? Good question," I remarked after thinking real hard for a few seconds about what I should do with my life after this is all over. I don't really have a goal beyond making more money but at this point I have enough to live very comfortably for a few years even if I stopped working right now. S Class jobs pay very rewarding sums if you complete the job well, and especially so if you complete them alone and thus have no need to split the reward with others beyond paying the mandatory taxes and fees. The closest thing to a goal I have would be…
"Maybe I will go on a long trip. My village lost a relic a long time ago and I had been searching for it ever since I left that place."
"Is it very important?"
"Very important," I nodded my head, still a little lost at how I should go about looking for my God's personal weapon when all of our best efforts had turned up with nothing for so many years. I never expected that it would be this difficult to look for one damn spear.
"Done!" Mirajane happily showed me her handiwork with a chirp, the cloak now looking much more better than it was after she had altered the seams. At least this time, it wouldn't look like it would fall apart after exchanging a single blow with any other mage.
"Thanks. I'll try not to get it damaged."
"I heard that you issued a challenge to Sabertooth last night. Something about a bet to change their names?"
"If they lose they change their guild name to Hello Kitties and use that name for the entirety of the next month. If I lose, which is never, I'll grovel at their feet in front of the audiences."
"Hello Kitties? Why that name? Is there a story behind that?"
"It just sounded insulting, that's all."
"AND NOW, IN THE NUMBER ONE POSITION, THE GUILD PEOPLE CALLED THE BEST FROM SEVEN YEARS AGO! WILL THIS BE THE DAY THEY COMPLETE THEIR RETURN?!"
The crowd roared and cheers resonated upon Fairy Tail's entrance, cheering for their individual favourites for the grand finale of this year's Grand Magic Games. Makarov grinned at the sight, his spirits ignited. Natsu's favourite catchphrase would be the best description of his current mood.
He's all fired up now.
"It sure is lively," Mavis chuckled, basking in the festive mood of her guild.
"How high would you rate our chances of victory?" Makarov inquired, remembering very well that their First Master held the epithet of Fairy Tactician. To which, Mavis simply smiled.
"If you really want to know, I've already conveyed my plan to them. As for my prediction…"
"LET THE GRAND MAGIC GAMES… BEGIN!"
The crowd roared, the participating mages moved and magics flared. Yet, Team Fairy Tail remains still, standing with their eyes closed, much to everyone's surprise.
No, it would be more accurate to say that only four mages of Fairy Tail had remained at their positions. Their resident Light mage had taken off into the skies the moment the start of the grand finale was announced.
"... it's that Argus would definitely not stick to the plan."
Mavis ended her sentence with a defeated sigh just as the youngest member in the team rained down five enormous blasts of light from where he was in the skies. She didn't need to use her intellect to figure out that these five blasts of light were where the Sabertooth mages were at.
"COME ON OUT YOU DAMN KITTY CATS! I'M YOUR DENTIST FOR TODAY'S DENTAL APPOINTMENT!"
"I just… knew it," Mavis gripped the sides of her head in frustration, fighting the urge to just scream out loud, not liking it when her plans don't go according to plans. She had thought that Natsu was the most hot-headed mage in the guild but she had severely underestimated just how vindictive Argus could get when he really wanted to hold a grudge.
Sabertooth began their counterattack as Rufus fired off the spell he used to clinch victory on the first day of the games. Argus simply raised a hand and to everyone's disbelief, forced the spell to change trajectory and sent it back hurtling to the Sabertooth mages. It's like he had robbed the control of the spell from Rufus.
"He could do that?" Levy asked in disbelief after witnessing that sight. To which, Mavis simply nodded.
"Argus' magic is… special. He holds an inherent advantage against anyone who uses Light-based magic or spells against him. Most of Rufus' preferred spells possess a light aspect to it, and considering that Sabertooth has someone who uses White magic too, it would make Argus their worst nightmare."
"Cool!"
"Give 'em hell, Argus! Show them who's boss!"
Argus had apparently decided to forgo all sense of subtlety he usually did. His display was uncharacteristically showy, drawing everyone's attention to him as he gathered and released a tremendous amount of magic that could be felt even from where they were in the audience stands. Even the guild masters were starting to break a sweat, because even if they had seen how this reclusive mage had beaten Jura before this was the first time they had seen Argus truly releasing his power without restraint.
"Hey hey hey, isn't this kind of overkill?"
"That boy…" Mavis massaged her temples with her knuckles, eyes closed, truly at a loss on what to do or say. The only thing that she could take comfort in was that their other mages were moving out in accordance to her Plan B, so things were still salvageable.
Nobody had any idea what Argus was planning to do, but they certainly didn't expect the five Sabertooth mages to suddenly be gravitated towards him as though an invisible hand had pulled them in his direction the moment bright beams of light shone on their location. A huge sphere of light enveloped the six mages and remained there in the sky, and nobody had any clue what on earth would happen in there as even the lacrima cameras were unable to peer into it.
"That amount of magic is clearly on the level of a Wizard Saint," Makarov muttered as his eyes gazed at the huge sphere of light floating above Crocus, but quickly averted away when the glare became too bright for his eyes to stare directly at it.
"Will Argus be fine?"
"Well, he defeated Jura…"
"Go Argus! Give them the beating of a lifetime!"
"I just hope that he wouldn't overdo it," Mavis spoke in a soft voice. "The nature of his magic… It's not a forgiving one, especially to the caster."
"Isn't he just a Light mage?"
"He is a Light mage," Mavis nodded, before remembering that it's not her place to reveal so much information without Argus' permission. "Let's just say that his Light magic is a little special and keep it at that."
"I thought I had seen some pretty impressive things from Loke, but Argus makes him look like a lightbulb in comparison."
"Hey, don't insult my spirit like that!"
"But you gotta admit that Loke can't do that!"
There was always a bloodthirsty side to me all along. I just shackled it and kept it hidden deep inside me very well. My violent and darker side is an aspect of me that was vital in ensuring that I stayed alive for as long as I did back in Alvarez. I couldn't survive that hellhole if I didn't have a violent side to me that enjoyed the thrill of combat and spilling the blood of my enemies, something that is quite the opposite to how I usually present myself.
That duality in me was perhaps why my God picked me as its vessal. The existence of Reunion is a concept of duality in itself.
It was in the way my blood sang in exhilaration, my heart thrummed in joy as I danced around my victims that I had dragged into the interior of this gigantic orb of light. Nobody would be able to peer into here without my permission and nobody would be able to escape until I allow them to. Here is the perfect place for me to simply beat these kitty cats within an inch of their lives, just enough to not let them wind up dead.
The only worthy opponents in this fight were Orga and Minerva. Rogue and Sting were good, but still not good enough if they were able to lose to Natsu in a two versus one. The type of magic they use was also a bad matchup against mine when I am able to have full control over light and darkness as the chosen vessal of the God of Light. Rufus' spells were also mostly light-based, which also made him a dismissable factor for a similar reason.
Orga was one of the greatest threats to me for the same reason why I am a lethal threat to their Dragon Slayers. The nature of our magics were simply a bad matchup for each other. Minerva was a threat due to her magic being capable of manipulating space but I had faced worse before.
"Someone pin him down!"
I could honestly see why they were referred to as the strongest team of the strongest guild. Their individual skills and mastery of their individual magics aside, they had great synergy and teamwork as a team. They knew what their respective roles in the team are from the get-go when facing an enemy far more superior than them. I acknowledge that.
My greatest asset and their greatest obstacle is my sheer speed. There's nothing faster than light in this entire world. Sting certainly did try to match me but quickly understood that he wasn't my match when I nearly broke his arm and toyed with him by running circles around him instead. Rogue and Minerva tried to trap me with a combination of their magics but I wasn't a Spriggan candidate for nothing. I had power in spades and overpowering their spells with mine wasn't an issue.
Everyone has their pride. Sabertooth have theirs and so do Fairy Tail. Sabertooth stepped all over our pride for what they did to Lucy and I will give them the same treatment in kind. What do Sabertooth value the most? It's their reputation, their honour, and so I will take that from their hands by defeating them with an overwhelming, humiliating and undisputable victory.
I will deal with these kitty cats, the rest of my team can handle the other teams outside. I didn't give a damn about Mavis' plan from the very beginning and I made sure everyone knew that long before we stepped into the stadium, even if Mavis was obviously secretly hoping that I would adhere to her plan. My plan, was to deal with the kitty cats and also to draw everyone's attention to me while my team picked off the weaklings outside. This wasn't up for discussion, I was simply informing them that this will be what I will do and they are free to do whatever they want to do as long as we win.
I had experienced much in this world and one opinion I had that never changed ever since coming here was that magic is truly a wondrous thing. When one reaches a certain level or mastery in their magic as a mage they will soon come to a realisation that spells are just one way for magic to manifest themselves in a stable manner to reproduce a planned outcome of the caster. Theoretically speaking, one does not need to display their magic through spells.
What is primordial magic? It's a topic of hot debate among mages no matter how powerful or average they are. Through my own experience and research, I believe the very primordial form which they first manifested weren't through the use of invented spells, because such a means either wasn't invented or had not yet become a mainstream approach in manipulating magic. Magic just manifests as their casters will it to be, becoming an extension of them, an aspect of them that's ingrained into their very being and a representation of who they truly are.
Magic is a miracle, bestowed upon this world by the deities that created it.
I have a very healthy fear of August and Irene, but my short interactions with them were very enriching when we discussed and exchanged our respective understanding of magic. These are people who no longer use magic in a predictable textbook manner with created spells, they just will it, use it, and manipulate magic as easy as breathing in whatever form and manner they wanted it to on a whim. To me, that is a display of the highest levels of mastery of magic and is something I strive to emulate.
My exchange with those two walking calamities led me to believe that once a mage had climbed to a certain height in the magical world, spells would instead become shackles to prevent you from reaching a greater height. To climb even higher you must first break those shackles, you must not allow your spells to determine how you would use magic but rather, be able to control your magic freely with little reliance or wholly not relying on spells at all.
Just how many in this world could claim to have done that before? I doubt even the Four Gods of Ishgar had truly freed themselves from this shackle, assuming that they even came to the same understanding I did. They could have a totally different interpretation of the pinnacle of magic than I did, which is entirely fine, but I think at the end of all the roads a mage could possibly take they would all eventually end and stop at the same destination.
Primordial magic, the very true and original nature of magic.
This battle was not simply one to enact payback of my petty grudge, but also a testbed to test my hypothesis and belief of what magic really is. The fact that I could easily manipulate Sting's laser beams without the use of spells further solidified my suspicions. All I did was to manipulate my magic, but they did not take on the form of well-established spells of anyone's creation. If I want light, it will appear. If I want light to manifest in a form that I wish for it to manifest, it will happen. I do not need spells to do that.
Spatial attacks from Minerva were easily shrugged off as I manipulated light to protect me in a defensive orb. I could possibly win a battle of this level without needing to even recite any spell incantations or not even using spells at all.
If my opponents were any of the Spriggan Twelve this would probably not work out, an indication that I still have a long way to go.
I easily evaded Orga's black lightning and kicked him hard enough to crash him into the walls of this orb that I trapped the kitty cats in to force them to battle me with no way out. I'm honestly starting to get a little bored with this whole song and dance, only dragging this out for as long as I did because I was pondering what would be the most effective way of ending this battle in a showy manner that would strip Sabertooth of their pride to enact vengeance. I initially wanted to beat them into a bloody pulp, beat them till the faces were unrecognisable messes that they would no longer want to lift their heads in public, but I forgo that decision soon enough. Asuka is watching and I do not want to scare her. I do not want my actions to give Fairy Tail a bad rep even if I know that Master Makarov will handle whatever mess I created and I just have to bribe him with a barrel of booze or two for his hard work.
Sabertooth pride themselves as the strongest, so I decided to grind that pride into dust by defeating them with unquestionable might in one powerful attack.
Sabertooth, strongest guild in Fiore? How laughable. Argus of Fairy Tail had easily defeated them with just a single spell and he's not even the strongest mage in the guild– That is the kind of perception I want the public to have of Sabertooth once this stupid game ended. There's also an aspect of Light Magic that I really had been wanting to experiment for a very long while. I did not have the mastery to experiment this with Light Magic until very recently.
There are two aspects to Light Magic that very few in the world truly understood. One of which is light, the other is darkness, because one side could only exist if the other is also present. Darkness Magic is an extension of Light Magic, inherently similar but swapping the qualities of Light Magic into the extreme end of the other side of the spectrum. My village had delved very deeply into Light Magic but had largely ignored its other aspect due to their religious belief. The God within me never stopped ranting to me about their stupidity whenever this topic was brought up.
The God of Light had wanted me to try this out for a while now. He had imparted to me what I needed to know about both Light and Dark but it was only recently that I managed to master the aspect of Light to a level where he deemed passable for me to proceed to the next step. I'm still taking lessons from him in the other aspect of it.
Now is the time to try putting his lessons into practice. Unfortunately, I am not at a level where I can control darkness as freely as I could control light, so I will have to rely on spells to manifest my magic into the product I want it to come into existence as.
"Sink into the void of nothingness, swallow the light of the world and gaze upon my stature," I started reciting and the look of panic in the eyes of the Sabertooth mages was a feast to my eyes. "Take away what was bestowed by my benevolence, return everything back to what it once was."
A small dark orb was conjured on the palm of my right hand. It's small, but the power packed into it clearly indicated the exact opposite and the Sabertooth mages recognised the threat. They immediately fired their strongest attacks in hopes to take me down before I could take them out.
They will not be fast enough. They will never be fast enough to catch up to me. I will be their nightmare, their inner demons, the existence that will always serve to be that insurmountable obstacle that they will never overcome until the day they die.
"Pervorsitas"
The incredible amount of magic that burst forth from that white orb had all the guild masters standing up in alarm, the evil they could feel from the darkness that seeped out almost prompted them to immediately activate their magic and suppress it with their greatest spells.
It was when five bodies dropped down from the broken orb that snapped everyone out of their reverie.
"Sabertooth… lost?"
The result of that battle was obvious. The entirety of Sabertooth had been wiped out by the power of one single mage that's hovering high up above them with inky darkness covering him like a living shroud. That darkness eventually dissipated and light returned once more, the figure in the sky extending his left hand outwards as a bow manifested and he took his aim like an archer.
An arrow of light was formed, nocked, and fired. One point to Fairy Tail.
Another arrow of light was formed, nocked, and fired. Another point to Fairy Tail.
"FAIRY TAIL ARGUS IS PICKING OFF HIS FOES WITH DEADLY PRECISION AND EFFICIENCY! HE'S ON AN UNSTOPPABLE RAMPAGE! CAN ANYONE STOP HIM?!"
The Light Mage had quickly become everyone's common enemy as spells of all kinds were fired at him. The Light Mage vanished in a flicker, so fast that he left an afterimage behind. Another arrow was fired and another point was rewarded to Fairy Tail.
"W-Wow… Was he that strong all along?"
"Never seen him using a bow and arrow before," Meredy shrugged in answer to Lucy's question. The Light Mage had proved himself capable of dishing out and creating ridiculous spells ever since he knew him but that didn't seem like spells to her, more like pure manipulation of Light Magic. Acts of manipulating magic the way he did was an indicator of a certain level of mastery that the mage in question had attained.
"He never used Darkness Magic before either. What changed?" Jellal on the other hand, looked a little concerned. At this stage of the games there's little doubt in their minds that this will end in Fairy Tail's victory. The only opposing mage that could possibly stop Argus was Jura but Laxus was keeping him occupied right now, leaving Argus free to snipe down the other teams with frightening efficiency.
"Duality of light…" Mavis mumbled to herself, recalling the conversation she had with the Light mage in the infirmary. He had alluded to the relationship between light and darkness in their conversation so if his words were to be believed, both light and dark are magics that share the same roots. At the end of it all they are both one and the same.
Is that his interpretation of Primordial Magic? Going back to the roots of all magic, back to the very form which they first manifest as?
Somehow or another, she found herself thinking that Zeref would be very interested in meeting Argus if they ever met.