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CHAPTER START---
"It happened right around here," Mr. Boyd, an elderly man with a bald head and a white beard, guides Laxus and Oberon through his farm, carefully using his cane to move along the dirt path.
"Did you see anything?" Laxus asks, looking around at all the animals, noticing how tired and haggard they appeared.
"All I heard was the cows making noise, then my son came out to find this mess," the man points to a pen with a broken fence, and a pool of blood in the middle of it.
"How often does this happen?" Laxus asks, walking over to the broken fence, seeing a small trail of blood that quickly fades.
"It started a few nights ago," Mr. Boyd says. "It took one of my goats to start with, we assumed it was a wolf or something, figured it must be injured or starving to come this close to a town, nothing we couldn't handle."
"But quickly killing and moving an entire cow means it's bigger than a wolf," Oberon says as he looks to the forest at the edge of the property.
"Which is why the other farmers asked me to call Maki, figured since we're friends he'd send someone over quickly, which he did," Mr. Boyd says.
"This is pretty interesting, it doesn't match up with anything confirmed to be in this area," Oberon says. "Wolves wouldn't come this close to people, Forest Vulcans are stupid and loud so you'd know if it was one of them, must be something else."
"Yes that's what I assumed as well," Mr. Boyd says as he and Oberon discuss ideas of what the culprit could be.
While they do that Laxus walks to the broken fence and spots some gashes in the ground, along with some strange purple dirt.
'Purple blood maybe,' Laxus thinks, looking back at Oberon and Mr. Boyd, seeing that they're totally distracted.
Taking his chance he quickly touches it with his fingers and brings a piece of the stained dirt to his nose, inhaling deeply to memorize the scent.
Closing his eyes and focusing, he takes a few more deep breaths, picking up a scent trail.
"I have a lead," Laxus says, surprising both of them. "We should go, if it attacks at night then it may be sleeping during the day, that'd make this a lot easier."
"Just do be careful," Mr. Boyd says. "If you discover that it's something dangerous just come back and I'll call Maki for some reinforcements, alright?"
"Alright, we'll be going now," Oberon says.
As Mr. Boyd wishes them good luck, Oberon follows Laxus into the forest, walking a step behind him as Laxus can actually sense Magic.
Looking around, Oberon didn't see anything special about the forest, he couldn't even see a clear trail to follow or track.
And yet, Laxus walked with confidence, as if he knew exactly where he was going.
"What trail are we following?" Oberon asks.
"It's hard to explain, but I can feel that this is the way," Laxus says.
"Ah, guess that makes sense, it must be nice to be able to sense Magic," Oberon says as they continue walking.
"Lightning Wizards are actually extra sensitive to Magic, makes hitting us or ambushing us pretty hard, but I'm not that good…yet."
"Huh, I didn't even know that, guess I'll move it a bit higher on my list of Magics to learn," Oberon says.
"What do you mean higher, it wasn't number 1?"
"Nope, Requip is number one, being able to store and withdraw items at will is just too convenient."
"Kind of weird how you can learn Requip but not Teleportation, aren't they like the same thing?"
"It's because Teleportation is sort of like an Invasive Magic, Magic that requires the Magic Energy of the user to connect to the Magic Energy of the world or other people," Oberon explains. "That's why Master Makarov's Telepathy doesn't work on me."
"I guess being some kind of freaky mutant has its perks, when Gramps yells his thoughts into my head it makes my brain hurt," Laxus says. "But that's only when he's mad."
"Did he used to do that a lot?"
"Yeah, before I learned to be more careful with my Magic," Laxus says as they continue walking.
Eventually, after almost an hour of walking, Laxus raises his hand, signaling Oberon to be silent.
Oberon immediately gets more focused, ready for a fight as he follows Laxus.
"I can hear it eating," Laxus says as they carefully walk through the forest. "Let's get some height," he gestures to the trees above."
Oberon makes them both lighter, allowing them to lean into the trees above, and they move from branch to branch for a few more minutes.
"How did you hear it from this far," Oberon asks quietly as they come to a stop in front of a small clearing, with a small cave at the end of it.
Oberon looks at the cave, focusing on it, but can't see or hear anything, yet Laxus is confident in his senses.
"What is it?"
"I dunno, but it's eating, hungrily," Laxus says. "And I hear snarling, bones cracking, it must be eating the bones too…"
"So definitely not a wolf, and how can you even hear anything?"
"Dunno, I just can," Laxus says. "We should wait up here to see what it is, then we'll know if we can handle it ourselves."
"What if there are more than one?"
"It's only one," Laxus says, confidently, only picking up one scent.
"Ok, so now what, we just wait?"
Laxus sits on the branch, hidden behind a screen of leaves, "Most of being a Wizard is traveling and waiting. You ride a train for a few days, go fight one person, then spend a few more days traveling back."
"Yeah I guess that makes sense," Oberon sits beside him.
After an hour of waiting, Laxus is still diligently watching the exit to the cave, still hearing the sounds of ravenous eating.
And on the branch beside him, Oberon is studying from a Magic Grimoire.
"You know, you should be focused on the mission, not on your books," Laxus says.
"You're plenty focused for both of us. Besides, I'm not using any Magic–just reading."
Laxus raises a hand, and Oberon is immediately on alert. "It stopped eating, get ready."
Oberon stores his book back into his Magic Card and turns to look at the cave through the leaves.
"That wasn't in the books about this region," Oberon says as an 8-foot-tall Lizardman steps out of the cave.
Its body had a few newly healed wounds across the chest and face, and was clearly malnourished, blood around its mouth from its recent meal.
"Lizardman," Laxus says. "It doesn't look healthy, but they're naturally strong, really strong, and the scales have a natural Defense Magic. We should go get backup."
Oberon sees the Lizardman walking about the clearing before it walks into the forest, in the direction of the small stream beyond the treeline.
"It must be thirsty, gives us a few minutes to make a plan," Oberon says.
"Plan? We need to go call grandpa, Lizardmen are stronger than Vulcans."
"Yeah, if it was healthy, which it isn't," Oberon says. "We can take it."
"It's too dangerous," Laxus argues, still keeping his voice down.
"We can do it, pushing our limits is the best way to grow, and besides, do you really wanna tell Master Makarov that you couldn't handle the first Job he gave you?"
Laxus sees the determination in his friend's eyes, and looks away. "Fine, but if it's too strong we need to run away."
"Obviously, I don't plan to die," Oberon says. "Now let's get ready to ambush it as soon as it gets back."
"No, I've got a better idea, how strong is your Gravity Magic?"
"Depends, what do you have in mind?"
A few minutes later the Lizardman walks into the clearing, water dripping from its mouth as it stomps through the field.
"Just go inside," Laxus mutters as he eyes it through the leaves.
The moment the Lizardman enters the small cave, Laxus snaps his fingers.
Using his Lightning Magic a crack of thunder echoes through the area, and Oberon immediately leaps onto the rock formation the cave is in, only the size of a train car.
"Now get crushed!" Oberon yells as he slams both his palms down onto the rock formation, increasing the gravity of it many times over.
The grass around the rocks is instantly flattened as the dirt is compressed.
The rocks themselves begin sinking into the dirt below, causing small cracks that spread through the clearing.
The desperate shrieks of the Lizardman echo out from within the cave, and Oberon increases the intensity of his Gravity magic.
"Argh!" Oberon screams out. "Just get crushed already!" he screams as the cave collapses onto the Lizardman.
As the entire thing collapses Oberon leaps away to the edge of the clearing and wipes the sweat from his brow.
"Ok, that took a bit more effort than I expected," he says as Laxus lands beside him. "But at least it worked."
"Yeah well, it's not over yet," Laxus says. "He's under there, and he's pissed."
As if on queue the Lizardman pushes the boulders off of his body and digs his way out of the pile, staring at both the young Wizards.
"Yeah, this'll be fun," Oberon says as he raises his right hand, pointing his index and middle finger at the Lizardman.
"Well, at least it's not boring," Lightning Magic crackles around Laxus's hand as he gathers it into a sphere.
The Lizardman sees this and his green body shimmers for a moment, using Magic to raise his defenses as he rushes in, releasing a blood-curdling scream at both Wizards.
"Blow his head off!" Laxus says as both he and Oberon fire, Light Magic and Lightning Magic slamming into the lizardman, who only stumbles as the Magic shatters against his body.
And he hastens his mad dash toward the young Wizards…
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]