'These are kind of wiggy.' Brody mused to himself.
Currently, he was at the local magic store in Onibus. And sitting atop the bridge of his nose, was a pair of glasses. But they weren't any old regular pair of glasses.
They were a bright crimson red in colour, with wing-like motif design on either side. Gale Force Reading Glasses they were called.
An enchanted pair of glasses and magic item that when worn, allowed the wearer to read at massively enhanced rates. Brody himself could attest to it, he just read a pamphlet listing the kind of stock and their descriptions within the magic shop, and there were quite a few.
In literally two seconds flat.
Taking them off, Brody shook his head, even though he didn't need to. Despite the fact he'd just rapidly taken in a mass of information thanks to them, he wasn't at all disoriented or feeling any effects on his mind.
So weird.
"So?" the shop keep and owner of the magic shop asked, a short, elderly man with a long grey beard and bald head.
"I'll take them." Brody grinned, placing them down on the counter beside the other purchases he'd picked out so far.
And he'd picked out quite a few.
A book on the creation of lacrima, which was pretty cheap. A book on Requip magic, which…wasn't so cheap. A pair of Lacrima Model Magical Earphones which could apparently store up to ten thousand songs, which he had no idea how it worked and would no doubt be spending a lot of time reading the instructions and now the Gale Force Reading glasses.
Hopefully the glasses would help with that.
"Right, they're thirty thousand jewels each," the shop owner informed him happily, making Brody wince, "Between the thousand for the book on Lacrima, the hundred thousand for the book on Requip magic, the thirty six thousand for the magic earphones and now this, you're up to 167,000 Jewels."
…Yeah, this was why he'd put off coming here until now. Even with him hitting up the forest before his shifts every day for the past week and nabbing another six forest vulcan's for his collection, this was going to take near half of his cash.
Which actually physically hurt, literally. His body was aching with how hard he'd worked to earn the amount he had right now. From draining his magic multiple times a day to train it as best he could figure out how, working five days a week in the bar, and hunting forest vulcan's every day…he was absolutely exhausted.
Sure, it was a good exhausted that made him feel satisfied and even proud of the work he was putting in, but he was still exhausted.
Still, he had to take all the advantages he could get for now.
"You got anything else that'll interest me?" Brody asked.
"Not really, like I told you, I only had the one book for learning magic and you're buying it, we don't get a lot of mages around here," the old man shrugged, before pausing and tapping his chin, "Well, actually, I might have something."
"Oh?" Brody raised an eyebrow and leaned forward in interest, resting his arms over the sales desk.
"Yeah, just recently got some new stock in, some silver spirit keys, you're a combat mage right? People have been talking about you in town, that you've been clearing up them nasty forest vulcans," the old man chattered as he bent down, and stood up a moment later, a small rectangular box in hand, "Probably won't be much help to you in that regard, but could be useful in others. This is the silver key of Canis Minor, only twenty thousand jewels."
Huh.
Canis Minor, wasn't that the little drill nosed dog thing Lucy had? Plue? Yeah, there was a bunch of them weren't there?
"I'm not a Celestial Spirit mage, I can't even use it." Brody replied.
"Pshaw, no worries there kid," the old shop keep waved his reply off, taking off the lid of the box to reveal a gleaming, ornate silver key sat atop red velvet and picked it up, "It's not a complicated magic to use unlike most. Just needs your magic power. Funnel that into the key, give it a twist like you're unlocking a door a say the chant and presto, chango. As long as you have enough magic power, you can do the summoning, though you'll need to make a contract with the celestial spirit."
Huh, that was it?
Neat.
Hmm, should he though? The Canis Minor wasn't exactly much help in combat at all. So beyond it being a little companion, it wouldn't exactly bring him much.
…But then as it was, when he wasn't working or hunting vulcans, he didn't exactly have much going on for himself right now. That was exactly why he was buying the magical earphones, so the company wouldn't be too bad.
"Screw it, alright, gimme it as well." Brody decided with a shrug.
If the opportunity presented itself, he could see about getting some other celestial spirit keys, some of the ones Yukino used were pretty strong. Though, he wasn't really interested in getting the gold ones.
He'd rather leave that kettle of fish to Lucy.
"Alright then, your new total will be 187,000 jewels kid." the old shop keep grinned.
As he should, Brody was literally spending just shy of what his monthly wages were. If it weren't for the forest vulcans, he wouldn't even be able to afford this right now.
With a grimace, Brody reached for his back pocket.
After paying for his purchases and mentally crying tears of dismay at spending so much of his hard earned money, Brody made his way back to the inn where he both worked and lived currently.
He had a few hours before his shift started, so he made his way straight up to his room, locking the door behind him.
He sat his bag of purchases down with a sigh on the small single bed and sat down beside it. The room wasn't all that much to write home about. About twelve feet wide at most, and maybe twenty feet long. The only furniture in the room was the single bed, a single wardrobe with a mirror on it, a small chest at the foot of the bed, and a small desk and chair at the very side of the room.
"Right, may as well do this then." Brody mused, reaching into the bag and retrieving the box holding the celestial spirit key he just purchased.
Opening it, he pulled the key out and stood up, "Right, Open: Gate Of The Canis Minor!" Brody declared, pulling on his magic and funnelling it into the key as he twisted the silver key lightly.
He felt a small chunk of his magic, get outright absorbed by the key, and then the air rippled in front of him.
There was a small flash that erupted from the key in his hand, and a small blue bipedal…thing appeared standing on his bed, drill like nose tilted upwards as it stared at him with small, beady, curious eyes.
"Baloo?" it tilted its head to the side.
That, was not Plue.
But then he had seen that there were multiple versions of this spirit during that one arc. Plus, that chick from Rave Master with the absolutely massive honkers had one as well.
Lucy's predecessor indeed.
"Hey buddy, nice to meet you?" Brody greeted the small…dog spirit? A bit awkward, crouching down to pet it on the head.
It blinked slowly, before smiling at him, "Baloo." it replied.
Right, he was gonna go with he, "So, you got a name little man?" he asked, he knew Lucy had named hers.
"Baloo." the little spirit shook his head.
Well, if he went with how Lucy named hers…
"Well, how about Blue then?" Brody offered.
The little spirit blinked, before smiling and nodding his head, "Baloo!" he pumped a little fist.
"Awesome," the teen laughed, "So anyway Blue, since I summoned you and have your key, how about you make a contract with me?"
"Baloo baloo baloo!" Blue in return vigorously nodded his head in agreement.
Well, that was easy.
While he worked his shift, Brody was only half paying attention. His mind, was focused on the information he'd taken in about Requip magic from the book he bought.
It was interesting.
Apparently, just learning the magic itself created a sub-space linked to the user. And the user could freely store and take things from the sub-space. Though, it wasn't an infinite space and the size of it depended on the users own magic power.
So the more magic power he gained, the more his personal sub-space would expand. It wasn't quite as as simple a magic he thought either.
According to the book, it actually took a decent amount of time to open and close the sub-space, and even further still to store or retrieve items from it. It took a truly skilled user of it, to be able to just switch weapons on the fly.
Never mind clothing.
Which just went to show just how absurdly or rather monstrously skilled Erza Scarlet was when it came to using it.
'Well, that's fine.' Brody mused to himself as he finished polishing off a glass and set it down, before moving on to the next.
Even if it would take a lot of effort before it would be useful in combat, it didn't change the fact that just having a sub space to store his shit was extremely useful.
The bar was quiet tonight and he was working it alone tonight, Garrick was taking the chance to rest up and relax now that he had a good toady in Brody to work for him.
Only a few regulars were in enjoying some quiet relaxing pints.
He looked up from the glass he was polishing as the door to the bar opened and blinked in surprise.
A tall, broad shouldered, tan skinned, white haired man made his way into the establishment, dressed in a navy blue inform and a pair of geta on his feet.
Elfman Strauss.
Or, according to what he was known by in Sorcerer Weekly Beast Arm Elfman. There was an article on him last week.
…Brody had picked up a few issues.
And not just because they did weekly bikini shots and such with popular, attractive mages like Mirajane Strauss for instance, the sister of the man he was looking at right now.
Totally honest.
He was a growing boy in the prime of his teenage years, okay?
Elfman met Brody's eyes for a moment, before making his way over to sit on the stool in front of him.
Brody has to resist the urge to whistle. Even though he hadn't went through his insane bulk training fest yet, the man was absolutely massive, he had to be at least six-five.
As he sat, the massive white haired mans eyes drifted down to land on Brody's bare arms, and the way the muscles of his arms rippled and flexed as he cleaned his glass.
"…Impressively manly." Elfman nodded once, looking up to meet his eyes again with a grin.
Brody eyed his broad shoulders and the way his biceps bulged out the sleeves of his jacket in return, before smirking and nodding back, "You're not so bad yourself."
"Haha!" Elfman gave a bellowing laughter, before holding his massive hand out towards the younger teen, "Put it there."
Snorting in amusement, Brody did just that. He put the glass he was polishing down, and clasped Elfman's hand tightly and gave it a rough shake.
"A manly grip you have there." Elfman nodded, complimenting him as he squeezed back.
"Right back at you," Brody laughed, "So what brings Beast Arm: Elfman to Onibus and in here in particular?"
"I'm looking for information," Elfman replied as they separated a moment later, "I'm on a job you see, to deal with a bandit group lead by a dark mage, I'm told they've holed up at an old castle not far from here, was hoping to see if anybody knew what kind of numbers I'm looking at."
"First I'm hearing of it," Brody replied, brows furrowing, "I know the castle you're talking about, but I've not heard about anything about bandits or a dark mage."
He'd been spending a lot of time pouring over the maps at the local library amongst reading books, searching for the Sun Village.
And he found it.
It was located near the sea, at the very other side of the Mt. Hakobe mountain range and then some.
The official train tracks that went all over Fiore? Didn't even reach that far, and ended a stop after after the town Blue Pegasus resided in.
Which only reached half way there from where he was now.
It was an absolutely massive trek that would take days on foot to cover. And from what he learned, the plains along the way were filled with monsters and magical beasts of varying power and size.
Absolutely not a journey he could make right now as he was.
And all for a dragon that might not even be alive anymore and may be little more than a soul.
"Mmm, that's unfortunate," Elfman frowned, before shrugging his shoulders, "No matter, I can try somewhere else, and if even if I don't get information, I don't expect I'll have much trouble with that un-manly wimp anyway."
He probably wouldn't. Considering Brody hadn't even heard a whisper around the town about this apparent dark mage and his bandit groupies, and not from Garrick either who was privy to all sorts of gossip-
Then the guy was probably small time.
And even though Elfman couldn't use a full body take over right now, he wasn't exactly a weakling.
"You need a hand?" Brody offered. It would be a good learning experience after all, he hadn't fought any other magic user yet after all. The only thing he'd fought since he got here, had been forest vulcans.
There were quite a few large animals and such in the East Forest at the edge of Onibus Town, but none had attacked him or anything like that even when he just a few feet away, so he hadn't bothered with them.
"Nah, Axel Derry isn't manly enough for me to need help beating," Elfman waved him off, "He's just a small time fire magic user, he hardly compares to the manly fire user I'm used to."
"Sides', it's a Fairy Tail job, can't let others jump in even if they do have a manly attitude," Elfman added, "But enough about that, so you're a mage as well huh?"
"Pretty much," Brody nodded, filing that name away just in case, "Take Over actually, just like you. Though I'm pretty new to it."
"Oh!" Elfman's eyes lit up with interest, "Another manly take over user, eh? What kind?"
"Same as you again from what I've heard, Beast Soul," Brody revealed, "I've been hunting the vulcans inside the forest and taking them over."
The white haired man grinned widely, "Focusing on strengthening the one form, eh? Not a bad plan, though Vulcan's ain't that big a help in the grand scheme," Elfman replied, "Better watch out though, the more of the same creature you take over, the stronger your form with that creature becomes, which while good, comes with a massive downside, the magic needed to maintain it gets bigger the more powerful the form becomes."
Oh.
So that was why he felt the strength in that form had increased with each new forest vulcan and not just in his base form.
And why he felt the drain on his magic power increase as well.
"That explains a lot, thanks, I'll keep it in mind," Brody nodded, "Anything else I should know about it senpai? Like any creatures you recommend I go after?"
Elfman shrugged, "It's different for everybody," the man replied, "You'll have forms your more comfortable in and better suited to. Like personally, while I have a vulcan form, I don't like it. I don't mesh well with it. Best advice I can give you, is look some creatures up and go with your gut. Though, definitely don't go trying to take over something much stronger than you unless it's already dead, I can tell you from experience, that is totally not manly and won't end well for you."
Ah…right.
The Beast.
Two years ago, if he remembered his timeline right, the Take Over siblings had a mission to deal with it, and while Mirajane a legitimate powerful S-class mage was struggling with it, Elfman tried to use take over on it.
And absolutely failed and ended up getting the same treatment he gave Rog. Only, Elfman was luckily able to get brought back thanks to his older sister presumably beating The Beast down…after he'd already 'killed' his younger sister Lisanna.
And in the process had completely lost his ability to form a complete full body Take Over and could only use it on his right arm now.
Yeah, that was definitely not something he planned on doing.
Totally.
'…I mean, if Atlas Flame is just a soul now…' his thoughts trailed off. Would he be too much for Brody when, if he was just a soul, already dead?
It would honestly depend on if he was actually conscious or not. If Atlas Flame was just a floating soul with little consciousness or will left, Brody wasn't sure he wouldn't attempt it.
"That seems pretty specific." Brody pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
"Bad unmanly times of mine, very unmanly." Elfman said simply in return.
"Fair enough," Brody nodded, "I'll keep your words in mind." it wasn't like he planned on going anywhere right now anyway.
He wasn't anywhere near prepared enough to set out for the Sun Village and wouldn't be for a decent while.
"Good man," Elfman reached over to pat him on the shoulder, "If you need more advice later on, just a pay a visit to Fairy Tail over in Magnolia, I'll help you out like a man!"
"Or I could use a communication lacrima," Brody commented, even though he didn't have one yet, man he should have picked one up earlier at the magic shop, "But yeah, thanks, I'll hold you to that."
"As you should," Elfman laughed and stood up from the stool, "But, anyway, I've got a job to do, so I'll catch you later….."
Elfman blinked, "Oh, I just realised I didn't catch your name," he rubbed the back of his head and gave a sheepish laugh, "How unmanly of me."
Brody snorted in amusement, "It's Brody, Brody Ferguson." he introduced himself.
"Brody then." Elfman grinned broadly with a nod, bidding him goodbye with a wave.
Brody gave him a wave back and watched him go, "…Well, wasn't that interesting." he mused, a small smile splaying across his face as the huge man left.
Not the Strauss sibling he'd prefer to meet all said and told, but not one he didn't like at all. He was a simple, easy to like guy.
And his advice would certainly be useful.
Still, that certainly wasn't as bombastic as he expected his first meeting with a Fairy Tail mage to be.
His meeting with Elfman, lit a bit of a fire under Brody's ass. So much so, that when his shift ended and he locked up the bar for the night, instead of heading up to his room like he'd been doing every other night.
He headed out towards the East Forest.
It was dark out, but he'd been coming to the place more or less every day for over two weeks now since he woke up there, and his feet carried him along a familiar route, out into a clearing in the middle of the forest.
Boulders of varying sizes greeted him.
…His training equipment, as it were.
Walking and running around while carrying boulders, squatting while lifting boulders, bench pressing with boulders.
It was all very awkward to be honest, but he hadn't really come across anything else he could, and he probably couldn't afford any proper strength training equipment that would work for him.
'Gravity magic would be hella helpful.' he mused with a chuckle as he entered the forest clearing and took a seat on one of the smaller boulders.
He could be continuing his understanding of Requip magic and practicing it back in his room.
But, he was here for a different reason.
Elfman's presence had sparked a reminder in him. Of when Mirajane taught Natsu, Happy and Lucy how to use transformation magic.
From what he remembered her saying, there were three stages to it. The basic level, which was an appearance change alone, the intermediate level, which allowed the transformation to even effect and change the clothing and such of the user, and even alter the voice.
And then the advanced level, which was a full on transformation which allowed the user to not only change size, but also use the limbs and such of transformed bodies, like if he transformed into a wolf, he could run on wolf legs and claw at people with the claws.
A full on physical transformation more or less.
He didn't specifically have any real interest in the Transformation magic itself all that much, but learning how to use it to some degree for sure would help his understanding of magic, right?
And not only that-
It was the magic Carla and Panther Lily used to assume their battle forms. So, taking it along that level.
Couldn't his little buddy Blue learn and use it?
Assuming Celestial Spirits were capable of learning other magics. But, considering Loke used different magic originally before he re-assumed his spirit form, then it should be slightly probable at least.
Well, Loke used it through rings, but he could use them at least.
had to imagine his own face and body as that other person or being and concentrate on it.
…Then build his magic and shape it into the image of that person, and just go ham?
'But how do I build my magic into the shape of them?' he wondered. Was it like maybe, drawing it out and covering his outer body in it? Like a shell?
Maybe?
"Well, I've got no other idea how to do it." Brody shrugged and decided to just go for it and see what he could do.
It shouldn't really be that hard, Natsu managed it on his first try more or less, less than a minute after having it explained to him by Mirajane.
And Natsu was an idiot of epic proportions.
Closing his eyes, Brody focused, pulling on his magic power and drawing it up through his body, then out. A dark green aura flickered into existence around his body, billowing lightly like a hazy flame starting at his feet.
It was surprising to be honest, how instinctually easy it was to draw on and move his magic.
And even now, after being capable of it for two weeks, he still marvelled at it.
He shaped the magic around his body, brows furrowing in concentration and pictured in his head a spiky salmon haired dragon slayer, the face of Fairy Tail as a series more or less.
Brody's eyes snapped open instantly, his magic surging like a powerful wave, "Transform!" he declared grandly.
…And nothing happened.
An hour later, Brody stood in the middle of the clearing, shirtless, sweat trailing down his form, panting deeply.
His magic power was dwindling near empty, and so far, all he'd managed to do, was create a puff of smoke around his body when he tried to transform.
It was official, he was nowhere as talented as an idiot of Natsu Dragneel's proportions.
How depressing.
"Well…I'm close I think, should get it done within a few days…maybe." Brody grimaced as he tried to cheer himself up.
And utterly failed. Because it would only be the basic level. Perhaps, he just wasn't suited towards Transformation Magic? Well, you win some, you lose some.
'Not really a big deal anyway, I'm not really interested in it for myself.' he mused.
Reaching into his back pocket, he retrieved a familiar shiny silver key. He had just enough magic power left to summon Blue safely.
"Open: Gate Of The Canis Minor!" he declared, turning the key and funnelling his magic into it.
It slurped up the magic and the gate opened.
A moment later, in a flash of light, Blue appeared at his feet, and happily jumped over to nuzzle against his leg.
"Hey buddy," he greeted the canine spirit, bending down to pat him on the head, "I was wondering, can you learn how to use magic?"
"Baloo?" Blue considered his words, pulling back form his leg to look up into his eyes, before promptly shrugging.
He didn't know.
"Well, alright, that's fine," Brody nodded, "How about I try to teach you?"
"Baloo…?" Blue cocked his head to the side, before smiling happily and nodding up at him.
"Alright, so it goes like this…" Brody began explaining the concept behind transformation magic to the small blue dog spirit, making sure to keep his language basic and easily understandable, "So, you get that?"
"Baloo, baloo!" Blue nodded and took a few steps back from him and raised one little paw into the air, "Baloo!" he chirped.
And smoke puffed around his form, clearing away a moment later to reveal Blue.
He looked exactly the same.
Except for the fact that his light blue fur, was now white.
…Even the baby dog spirit was more talented than him. Far more talented than him.
And we return with chapter 3 yay!
Brody meets Elfman, becomes a Celestial Spirit Mage and summons his own little blue version of Plue, Blue. Yay Brody! We're up to chapter 8 I think on the Pa-atreon with this if you wanna read ahead.
Anyway, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.
