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]
CHAPTER START---
---May X771, Fairy Tail Guildhall…
Sitting on the second floor railing, Oberon controls his glass of juice to float beside him while double checking his new Grimoire. The large book hovers in front of him, allowing him to feel the old paper under his fingertips while slowly muttering the inscribed words.
Beside him, a hovering black-and-white screen created by his new Super Archive Magic, displays one of his many mastered Light Magic formulas. He taps the screen and then swipes his finger upward, flowing through hundreds of his and Master Makarov's formulas before stopping on the most basic of them all.
"This should be good enough," he mutters before reading the most important part of this Grimoire.
Unlike many of his other Grimoire, all of which also cost a small fortune, this one is less of a Magic textbook, and more akin to a journal. One written by a monk who not only wielded Light Magic, but was once able to perform a Unison Raid with a user of Wind Magic.
Oberon waves his hand and another screen appears, displaying Macao and Wakaba's full account of their Unison Raid, everything from how they discovered it to how the experience felt to their senses.
"This would be a lot easier if I could sense Magic," Oberon mutters while rereading their account of the event.
He creates another screen to compose a formula for the Unison Raid phenomenon, acting as the first Mage who not only has enough information to understand it, but the genius to study and replicate it within himself.
But his research is interrupted by a chorus of loud cheers from the ground floor, causing him to glance past his work to the Wizards chatting below.
Laxus and Macao are at one end of the bar, sorting through documents and passing them out to specific people. Most of whom are happy after reading them, some people are confused, while others are clearly upset at the entire idea of mandatory teams.
At the other end of the bar, Wakaba and Reedus are taking careful notes and managing the Fairy Tail inventory through a new ledger.
"One at a time, c'mon now!" Wakaba yells at the crowd vying for his attention.
At the other end of the bar, Macao raises his voice, echoing through the main hall. "Quit your complaining for now, alright! All of this will make sense in a few minutes when Master Makarov starts talking. For now just understand that these changes are temporary. Grit your teeth and deal with it for a while, this is for the safety of everyone in Fairy Tail!"
The guildhall falls silent for a few seconds, then returns to Fairy Tail's rowdy nature.
Oberon giggles at the sight below, and Laxus looks up at him.
He sticks out his tongue at Laxus. "Have fun being Guildmaster, lightning boy," he mutters, and Laxus glares at him in response before going back to work.
After another minute of creating and studying a new formula for his Spell, he glances at the door to Master Makarov's office, then back over his shoulder to the rest of the second floor. There he sees the few empty booths, some crates and other storage boxes filling the usually open space.
The full S-Class Job Board, with curtains at the sides of it and special engraving, slightly fancier than the barebones Job Board on the first floor. And in the middle of it all is Gildarts, standing at a large table and studying the map on it.
"Mind if I try out a new spell?" Oberon asks the man, and Gildarts continues placing pieces on the map.
"No explosives," he says without looking away from his work.
Oberon rolls his eyes and returns to his work, muttering under his breath. "It was one time, let it go already…"
He grabs his juice out of the air and takes a sip, eyes scanning the formula one last time before he floats the empty glass to Enno behind the bar, receiving a polite wave from the busy woman.
Holding the Grimoire in one hand, he opens his right hand, curling his fingers as if holding a golf ball between them. "Flow one into the other, then allow them to balance. That means one has to be dominant and then give up that dominance. Powerful Wizards normally have an ego, so no wonder a Unison Raid is rare.
You also have to keep it perfectly stable, matching each other perfectly, otherwise it becomes unstable. Not impossible with someone you emotionally resonate with, since emotional state is a part of Magic. But…that's not something one should rely on because of how unstable it is."
While reading the notes over and over again, Oberon forms a standard Light Sphere between his fingers, no larger than a grape. It glows with a soft golden light, holding no physical form. Nothing more than Magic Energy with the radiance property infused, the first Spell he ever learned from his father.
Closing the book and setting it down on his lap, he hovers his left hand above the Light Sphere, flowing his Gravity Magic into his hand.
As he feels the Magic Energy gather within his hand, he extends it outward, slowly, as if one hundredth of a drop from his ocean of Magic Energy and instilling it with the properties of his Gravity Magic.
Then, as it falls into the Light Sphere, the properties clash and ripple outward. The soft golden glow remains as the core becomes void black. Then, with much focus, he flows another drop of Magic Energy into the Spell, matching the amount of Light Magic within.
To his surprise, this causes the light to shift from golden to bright white, receding and melding into the black sphere, forming the visage of shining stars on its surface. Like the night sky hovering between his fingers.
Oberon feels a bead of sweat flowing down his forehead, a rare instance of his Magic Energy being drained fast enough to fatigue him, but before he could wipe it away to continue working, a hand grabs his shoulder.
"Oberon!" Gildarts snaps him out of the trance, breaking his concentration and causing the Spell to fade away.
"Huh? What?" Oberon asks, then notices the entire guildhall is silent. He looks away from Gildarts's bored expression to the ground floor, seeing everyone staring up at him with concern.
Behind the bar, Enno is holding a shelf of bottles, preventing them from falling, and Macao is helping with his Smoke Magic to do the same. A few people are doing the same with their drinks and refreshments around the room, and Oberon just gives them an apologetic smile.
"Sorry everyone. I got kind of excited…"
Gildarts sighs and waves his hand, signalling to them that it's fine. "You were shaking the entire building. Don't release that much Magic Energy in here, it's dangerous. There is a level of Ethernano that weaker enough Wizards would get poisoned by too, keep that in mind when around allies."
"Right, sorry. But I think I got the first step for Cosmic, or an idea for it."
"That's great, but lets talk over here first," Gildarts signals for Oberon to follow him to the table.
Oberon floats off the railing and follows Gildarts, taking out one of his Storage Cards and placing his Grimoire within before they arrive at the table. He settles into his usual cross-legged sitting position, hovering in the air so he could see everything on the map.
The map of Fiore occupied the entire table, showing train routes, roads, and the locations of all the most powerful Wizard Guilds. Including Fairy Tail, Phantom Lord, and The Great Reef. All of which were led by Wizard Saints, and markers with special tokens on them.
Phantom Lord has many branches, but its main base, were Wizard Saint Jose Porla resides is in north-east Fiore. The Great Reef is to the west of Fiore, situated on the coast, directly opposite Fairy Tail.
Oberon scans the map, immediately understanding what the tokens mean. "Gold is us. Black is Phantom Lord and The Great Reef, so Guilds with Wizard Saints. Red is enemy, the WIzard Guilds most likely to turn against us. Green is ally since Blue Pegasus is Green. Yellow is…unsure, right?"
"Right," Gildarts says before pointing at some blue tokens. "And?"
Oberon looks closer, noticing the blue tokens are sparse, and all placed near ports or border towns, with many railroads overlapping in them. "Mercenary Guilds?"
"Major Trading Guilds," Gildarts says. "They have massive caches of things Dark Guilds can't buy. So if you were the Guildmaster of a soon to be Dark Guild, what would you do?"
"I'd pretend to be one of the good guys, buy what I can, then switch sides when I'm strong enough."
"Or get close to a major supply cache then hit it hard. Our alliance is responsible for protecting the caches to the east. Magnolia will also be acting as a depot until things are stable. All we really have to do is sort out enough of the small fry for a big fish to pop up and gather everyone into a Dark Guild Alliance—"
"Then we crush them and show everyone the Light Guilds aren't going to let up."
"Exactly. That should be enough to stabilize things around here. The other Dark Guilds will keep their heads down and we can go back to our regular Jobs. But we'll have a lot more capture type Jobs in the future."
"That sounds simple enough, which means it's probably not what you really want to talk about, right?"
Gildarts sighs. "You know, most of the time you're socially oblivious. But sometimes its annoying when your genius shines through."
"Thanks?"
"What do you know about being the Ace of Fairy Tail?"
Oberon gives him a confused look. "The Ace is the strongest Wizard that goes on Jobs, right?"
"Yes, for most Wizard Guilds that's really all there is to it. It's the strongest person, who gets the best Job offers and most fame, and that'll be you in a few years."
"But you said 'most Wizard Guilds', so Fairy Tail is the exception, right?"
Gildarts nods toward the railing and walks over to it, with Oberon floating beside him. "What do you see?" He gestures to the floor below.
Oberon notices Gildarts stays behind the railing, within the privacy Runes, and does the same. "Everyone is getting organized, why?"
"Well, what I see is a whole lot of people trying to make the world a better place, create a place they can call home, or both. Before I joined, Fairy Tail actually had almost two hundred people. It was a place that focused on researching and learning Magics. The pursuit of power and fame.
But, when I was a kid, Master Makarov took over. He set out on a mission to change it into a place that shines with hope and goodness for the world. A place that kids can call home and people can find a family of their own. The Fairy Tail we know today.
But most of the people before him were more aligned with what would now be called a Dark Guild or Dark Wizard, something like that. So there was a mass exodus, all but a few people like Master Bob, Uncle Rob, and a few others.
I was one of the first to join after that, and the only one to stay through the ups and downs. And it took years to rebuild the guild. No, to build a better one. And now, we've just about got that dream realized. We finally have the place we want, even if the world is in chaos all around us."
Oberon frowns, looking down at the people in the main hall. Cheerful, happy, chaotic, together. "Sometimes I feel it, and I get sad. Because, I feel bad. Like I'm trying to replace my family, so I just go practice Magic. That way I don't have to think about it."
"Nothing can ever replace them. Fairy Tail's place is to be more members of your family, not to replace the people precious to you. That's the light Master Makarov wants this place to be, the light the Ace must protect."
Oberon blinks away the tears and turns to face Gildarts, even as the man is staring down at the people below. The wide smile on his face never once falters. "There are people who will want to snuff out this light. There've been people in the past, and Master Makarov, Master Bob, and myself, have always dealt with them."
"Do you mean…"
"Yeah, permanently. We do that only when we absolutely have to. Capture and arrest is always the priority, but sometimes the world isn't always so simple, as you know."
"I try not to think about it."
"It's impossible not to. The person we were before that, they're gone now. But for Fairy Tail, this is the moral sacrifice that comes with being the Ace. There is more to it than this, far more that we have to protect. But for now, it's just the light of all these people. Of all the kids, not like you or even Laxus.
The regular kids. The ones that are fragile and weak. The ones that get to enjoy the childhood that was stolen from you, or to find a second chance at it here. These are the lights we dirty our hands to protect."
"I…" Oberon's words fail him as memories of sleepless nights shrouded by nightmares of blood and sand resurface. "I don't think I can ever do that."
"Good," Gildarts smiles as Oberon looks up at him, expecting disappointment, but getting a joyful reaction to his refusal. "Taking a life should never be a simple or easy decision. Eventually you will find the line that you cannot allow anyone to cross. But with the way the world is changing, we will have enemies all around us, so it may be sooner than anyone would like…"
CHAPTER END---
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]