When Arthur walked back into Diabolos’s guild hall it caused an immediate stir within it. Kirin had been the acting guild master for most of the last three years. Georg refused to do much more than occasionally give advice, and Arthur refused to stay in the proper dimension much less the guild. So it fell on Kirin’s shoulders.
Even so Arthur was without question the guild’s strongest member, and that meant more than it ought to have. And him being back either meant he was going stir crazy in his research, again, or something big was stirring.
“Arthur!” Kiria called out and ran towards him. “Didn’t expect you to be back until the Guild Masters’ summit next month.” In many regards Kirin might be the de facto guild master, but Arthur was still the de jure one, and he didn’t completely neglect the role.
Arthur raised his prosthetic hand and waved away her question. “I figured I should show my face around here sometime.”
Kiria’s nose twitched, her eyes alighting on his hand. “That’s…”
The hand was a reflective silver in color, almost a mirror in its shine, but it wasn’t metal. It was covered in scales, too thick and heavy to be the natural mail of a fish. The fingers ended in claw tips, looking almost like he had undergone partial dragonification already, or was using the dragon force. There was no way of mistaking it as anything but a human sized dragon’s claw. Except that the base ended in scaled covered strips of material which seemed to have dug into the flesh of his arm beneath it.
“Made from a dragon, yeah,” Arthur finished for her. It hadn’t been the dragon he’d originally intended to make one from years ago; he’d used Pyrovoia’s arm for another more important task. “But I need to see Kirin, would you go tell him I’d like to talk to him and Georg?”
Kiria immediately understood that this was about Georg’s dragonification somehow. Arthur and Georg still did not get along well even after these two years. They were very rarely in the same room if they could avoid it, and even more rarely did they actually seek each other out. The only exception was the attempt to prevent Georg’s final plunge into becoming a dragon.
By all rights it should have happened months ago. Between Arthur’s medicines, and Georg not using his magic the change had been held off for more than 2 years. But it had still progressed slowly, and it had taken periodic uses of Arthur’s Takeover magic to keep Georg from crossing what Arthur had dubbed the Dragon Event Horizon.
Though that didn’t explain why he’d need Kirin as well. At least not if it was something routine.
“What do you need to talk to Kirin about?” the blonde asked with a lopsided grin. It no longer showed the hints of fangs she’d once had. He’d managed to pull her back from that path a year ago. But Georg and Nebaru had been too far gone already.
“Guild business,” he answered.
“Oh? Got something juicy?” Kiria asked.
“It’s about various things. Including making my retirement official,” Arthur said.
“What? You can’t retire! Why?” Kiria complained.
“Because a guild master can’t go on a hundred year quest in another continent. Now go get Kirin.”
“He’s out. What’s this about a hundred year quest?” Kiria said, pushing in a little closer.
Arthur sighed, and teleported past her. “You’ll find out when Kirin has had his chance to talk me out of things.”
It was an hour before Kirin returned. The four met in the mountains behind the guild, a good 20 minute walk from the guild hall. Georg had aged in the last three years. He’d been unable to use his magic for three years, and the lack of exercise and purpose showed. He had gone from a muscular man, full of vitality and strength, even if visibly in his later years, to a shrunken old husk, his skin loose and wrinkled, his eyes half-grayed.
And his arms and chest covered in draconic scales. The look he gave Arthur was one of almost unthinking rage. It had been 5 months since he’d hit the point where every day he risked dragonification. Arthur had to respect the man for his humanity. He knew what a dragon’s body felt like. It was disconcerting for even a short period. The change of senses was something the brain wasn’t meant to handle; he was still using his alchemy to negate his own motion sickness even though his Takeover and Archive magic helped him to offset the sensorium changes. While the excess of sensory information caused the motion sickness, that was mostly auditory with a touch of visual and olfaction; Arthur hadn’t managed to restore Georg’s sense of touch. He had had a method he could try; but it would require Georg to have crossed the Rubicon first.
Arthur knew that in part Georg blamed him for it. And he wasn’t wrong to. Without that final fight between them, and the battle with Silver Demon - two things which wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t here - Georg wouldn’t be this close to dragonification even 5 years from now.
He’d given Georg the choice though. He could have ripped out his dragon slayer magic completely even two years ago. He could have done so even if he had been in the middle of battle as long as 6 months ago. But Georg had refused. He’d stay a dragon slayer until he died, or became a meal for his ‘children’. Arthur found the idea of that risk disgusting, but he could understand the desire to cling to that power. He might justify his attachment to it with the need to have it when he returned to his original world along with others with similar power; but he knew he’d not willingly part from it even without that excuse.
Kirin had grown more than he had aged. He stood with a bit more certainty, even if Arthur knew he was exhausted more often than not.
“So what is this about retirement and hundred years quests?” Kirin asked.
“And why’d you bring the little girl?” Georg growled. Wendy was growing, but she was still in her younger teens. About half a year older than she’d normally be by the events of the Hundred Years Quest.
Arthur raised his hand and a staff appeared in it. It was made of a dragon’s radius and ulna, wood carefully inserted between to brace them after they had been coated in gold and silver, and over it all the dragon’s scales had been wrapped. The dragon’s claws had been removed from the palm, and the bones had been wired into place to hold a chunk of multi-colored lacrima at its head. Arthur had originally intended to make himself an arm from Pyronoios’s arm, but she was still the strongest dragon he had slain, and he had needed the best materials for the staff. His arm could use something second rate like the Abyss Dragon’s arm.
Kirin and Georg looked at the staff. Arthur had brought back plenty of swords before, but never a staff. The draconic construction also significantly demonstrated how it was not just an ordinary magical tool or some common holder magic.
“I think I can finally repay my debt to the guild,” Arthur said. “If this staff works as intended it should be able to reverse dragonification, at least short of the final step.” He was looking at Georg. Ideally it would work even on Irene and Acnologia should they accept it. “It should be able to decide whether to remove the dragon seed irrevocably or merely reverse it, and given time even harmonize it with the body so that the dragon seed dies on its own.” He hadn’t actually listed all the things the staff was meant to do. It wasn’t just his attempt to save Georg, but Irene as well, and possibly even his ultimate weapon against Acnologia.
“But?” Georg growled.
“I haven’t had a chance to test it,” Arthur said. “Dragonification stopped being a concern for me the moment I had mastered full body takeover.”
Kirin and Georg looked at each other. Kirin had only seen his full body takeover, with dragon soul that is, once. Georg had only heard about it. The guild had almost turned on him. He had turned into a dragon after all. It was one of the few times they’d seen the guild master exhausted in the last 3 years. He’d also casually dominated a battle against another dragon.
But controlling it in himself had been easy. The ability to apply it to others was harder. He’d given Kiria a gauntlet that could help; coupled with one of his potions it had allowed her to safely use the dragon force at least for short bursts. But it had proven a failure for actually reversing even the light effects of Kiria’s changes; he’d had to do that personally more almost 2 years later.
“It’s great you can hopefully help Georg and Nebaru, but what’s this about clearing a debt?” Kirin asked.
Arthur winced. He’d messed up. He’d implied that the guild was just a debt to him; an onerous responsibility he wanted to escape but his honor prevented that. And it really wasn’t true. “You’re family to me,” He said, “But someone has to deal with Acnologia, and I think that someone has to be me. I couldn’t leave for the south knowing I might die without repaying the guild for all it’s done for me.” Any chance of the canon fate of Acnologia had been thrown off by his involvement. Arthur wasn’t sure he’d want to live with himself if he let a world die for him. He didn’t have as many nightmares as he once had, but he still wasn’t alright with the blood already on his hands. Or even the blood he intended to add to them. But Zeref and Acnologia were both dangers to the entire world as long as they continued to exist, and better their blood be on his hands than the blood of their victims.
“We’re dragon slayers,” Kirin began.
“And I might call for you to help against Acnologia. But Ineed to go and figure things out first. There’s someone I need to talk to in Alvarez first. Several actually. They might be able to help. But I can’t go to the south without taking precautions.” Even when he had been dating Lisanna he never went back to the south after the Silver Demon incident. They usually met in Edolas at the Anima Device. Acnologia had gotten his scent and there was no telling how long the Dragon King would keep it. “I believe I can get away from Acnologia if I need to on my own, but I can’t watch after too many people while I do it, nor could I take that chance before I had repaid my debt. Besides I’m not leaving the guild unless the master wishes. I am just retiring as the guild master. I might be stuck in the south for years. I don’t know. I can’t do that as the guild master. Besides I’ve not really been running the guild day to day all this time; it’s time the real master got the credit he’s due.”
Kirin looked down and breathed deep. Arthur knew he still was haunted by the soul of the dragon he had eaten. Knew he wanted to leave the guild hall and his duties as stand-in master to hunt down and find the heart. Arthur knew how cruel this actually was to him. And he felt guilt over it. He liked Kirin. But someone had to run the guild and Arthur wasn’t suited for it, and had other things his time was better put to doing. Bruce Wayne would make a great mayor of Gotham, but he did more good beating up insane clowns, because all of the social reforms in the world wouldn’t stop the Joker from trying to destroy a city.
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“So the stick, it’ll fix it so I can use magic again?” Georg asked, pulling the conversation back on track.
“Hopefully.” Arthur flinched at the gazed shot at him in response to that one word. “I’ve not tested it and Georg is; well he’s far gone. It might be easier to turn someone who went all the way back than fix him at this point.”
“So saying I should just let loose and-”
“No!” Arthur shouted. “Who knows how long it’d take you to regain your sanity or how many people you’d hurt. But we’ll have to be careful not to accidentally cause that, and the amount of your magical energy tied up into the seed is an unknown factor. If things go ideally you’ll still be a dragon slayer. But if things go poorly it could rip it out entirely, and even if it doesn’t there’s the chance that your body is too weak to survive the process.”
“This doesn’t sound much different from the other method,” Georg complained.
“Do I actually need to explain how ‘will definitely strip you of your magic’ is different from ‘has a good chance of not doing that but it is still theoretically possible’?”
Georg breathed deep. “I get ya. Give it a go. And if I die I’m gonna haunt you for eternity.”
Arthur smirked. “Don’t tempt me.” His right hand was changing though, becoming white with large bands of scales, and thick fingers that almost seemed to have sawblades on the back. He’d failed to turn his Gale Dragon Slayer Magic to healing, but Takeover had given him another option.
“So anything we need to do before using it? I mean might as well get this over with.” All three knew this was the deadline. Arthur had pushed it as close as he dared. He’d have liked to have had more time to work on the staff to be honest. It was supposed to have a tutorial system, but while he’d gotten the basic framework in place he’d not had time to actually finish it. It was why he’d have to use the staff himself instead of just letting it upload its functions into the user’s mind. Though given how close Georg was to dragonification he’d not have dared give him that mental jolt anyway.
Arthur shook his head. “Just get comfortable, and let Kirin get ready in case things go wrong.” His Archive opened into real space, the super computer’s physical manifestations filling the mountain valley, lighting up the night. Arthur had spent these three years growing into his powers. Especially since things had ended with Lisanna.
There were a few minutes of getting things ready. When they were ready, Arthur turned the staff on Georg. He placed it on his face, on the scars from his final shining finger against the older mage, and then he let it work. On the outside it wasn’t much: touch and will. The lacrima on the staff glowed, and a little light show washed across Georg’s body as a ghostly blue fire flowed down his flesh without burning anything. But it was his internal spiritual space which was where the real magic was working. Arthur was burning back the dragon seed, burning away the dragon inside of Georg.
Georg’s power fought back against it, and Arthur could feel the staff try to shake in his hand, the entire shaft vibrating lightly with the energy coursing through it. But the flames didn’t relent, the spiritual wildfire spreading and burning through Georg, until Arthur called it to stop.
Georg had looked shriveled before but he was visibly smaller now, as if his muscles had deflated, and even his skeleton had sagged. It was like he had lost 3 or 4 inches of height in an instant, though that might be his posture more than anything. His teeth had leveled out, and the splotches of scales which had covered most of his limbs and no small amount of his torso were gone. And then Georg was falling to the ground. Arthur was already on it, beginning to use healing magic. Georg wasn’t dead yet, but the shock to his system was immense. Arthur had known so-called Magic Deficiency Disease was a risk, but he was ready. He could get Georg stable and the old man would live.
Kochab carried Georg into the guild hall. He was breathing, he’d even regained consciousness, but he was weak. Still he could feel again, his sense of touch having returned. The staff seemed to have worked; at least in that function.
When Arthur explained the staff and its functions to the guild it was cause for celebration.
When he explained that once he had finished installing its final piece of functionality he’d be leaving for the south for an indeterminate period, it was a more sobering moment.
The overall air still leaned towards celebration. Arthur might be retiring as guild master but the guild was still his home. Only Minerva and Taberius knew that if he was gone for years he might go beyond the reach of even his magic to return him to the guild forever. Only four people knew about where he really was from, his true nature, and where he would be going in somewhere under 6 more years. Angel had been a risk to tell, one he had thankfully gotten away with. The others he couldn’t not tell. Taberius had the chance to join him; the cat hadn’t decided whether he would or not yet. But the option was there, and he wasn’t going to make Taberius rush the decision in the last few days. Lisanna had been the same. It’d ended their relationship, but they had been getting too serious not to share it. It’d lasted a few months after, but in the end Lisanna wanted a family, and she wanted to stay with her brother and sister. And the latter would be impossible on his journey, and the former complicated. And that left Minerva, as the Cait Shelter ghost guy did not count given he had passed on. If Arthur felt pangs of guilt over not telling the guild, he couldn’t imagine what he’d feel about not telling Minerva. She was like a daughter to him, or a much younger kid sister. He’d never had a daughter to say where one ended and one began. But she deserved to be trusted with the information.
Maybe the guild as a whole did. Maybe just making it public information would make things easier. Maybe he’d just internalized too much of Spider-Man growing up. But the more people who knew the more likely it was to get back to his enemies, and the abilities it gave him were useful even if people had started to learn he could make strange leaps in power in battle.
Not that he had since that last fight with Georg. He’d spent the three years training the hard way and he had the callouses to show for it. And the surgery scars. He’d used several lacrima to make the staff, but he’d implanted more than one into his chest as well. With his Takeover Magic making assimilating them into his internal ethernano flow easy, and removing the greatest risk of implanting them, the reward for reaching 8 or more was tempting if he could manage it. There was a question of whether they were more valuable implanted in him, or used to make magical tools.
Dragons were rare, though. And barring killing the dragon gods… finding the lacrima alone might prove problematic. He might be able to make some artificially; the staff he had constructed could bestow a ripped out dragon seed onto a new individual, it might be able to make a dragon slayer lacrima with the proper materials. It was something he hadn’t had the opportunity - or really cause - to test.
Arthur didn’t have much time that evening to think about such things. It was a celebration and he was the guest of honor. The staff was an important and powerful tool to the guild, more useful to them than any land battleship, or dragon mech. This was something critical to them as a group. He’d given them their guild master back. He’d given them an escape. He’d given them the one thing they had needed above all others.
And he felt his impostor syndrome returning. He hadn’t just bought the powers. He’d had to put in the work. Had to make new magic. Had to master a new form of Takeover which hadn’t existed before, melding together dragon magic and transformation into a forbidden art. And he hadn’t even done it for the CP. He’d done it to help them. They were his friends and he had helped them as his friends.
But he had not done it as quickly as he could have. He could say that he had to use and experience using the magic, that you couldn’t just rush inventing a new form of Takeover just by practice, and that he’d had to do things like wander off for 8 months to hunt dragons across dimensions, but he wasn’t certain he actually bought it. Working on his Dark Dominion Magic had done nothing but been a distraction. He could say it was a necessary mental break; that he’d needed it for sanity. But he couldn’t get around that once the crunch time hit and he stopped hoarding points and spent his emergency reserve to buy Fairy Founder, things had just fallen into place so easily.
He liked to believe he’d been close before that. He really might have been. But he’d consistently been pushing towards too many alternative ends and goals. And in the last month those had just started falling into place; he really should have taken it sooner. But it had left him dangerously low. Even now he couldn’t afford another big purchase if he needed it… and points were getting harder and harder to come by. He’d not had any new bounties added in years, and the point values for those he hadn’t completed had been slashed again. Even killing Acnologia would no longer get him a big purchase on its own.
It was Misaki who pulled Arthur out of his own head. The girl had a disciplinarian attitude, sometimes pushing towards cold and cruel, but she had let her hair down for the event - literally as well as figuratively - and dancing with her was pleasant. And Arthur let himself relax a bit, simply enjoying the presence of his guild around him. Kiria regaled them with her latest job and its explosive finale. Minerva demonstrated how she had successfully taken to her second lacrima. Madmole pulled Arthur into drinking rather heavily with him. It was a night of relaxation and celebration among friends.
And in the morning there was still no disaster to deal with. Arthur could get the staff working and then relax for a week. He’d tried to take a week off several times in the last 3 years. His most successful ended when he told Lisanna about his nature as an outsider to the world; apparently bringing up potential relationship issues was too stressful to count as relaxation.
“So should I be packing too?” Minerva asked. She’d grown in the last 3 years. She was becoming a young woman. Arthur didn’t like it. It meant she attracted a bad sort of attention from irresponsible young boys. And you never knew when she was going to take a liking to one of the young idiots and possibly make a mistake she’d regret for the rest of her life.
“This trip isn’t to go track down the Yakumo. Not yet,” Arthur answered.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you won’t need help. If you fight someone, Acnologia might notice, but I haven’t gone running across his territory screaming ‘I’m a dragon’ so even if I was strong enough for him to care about, he's not on the alert for me.” When Arthur didn’t immediately respond, she continued. “So if you need someone to fight, or just need to travel quickly me and Tabby could help you out, and I can get away with Territory if you need to fight the big boy himself so you’d not need to worry about protecting me.”
She laid it all out, and Arthur couldn’t help but smirk. She knew how to get him to agree; she’d already preempted his first arguments against her coming along and presented something other than ‘I want to come’. It short circuited the chance to come up with second arguments.
He sighed and nodded. “It’s going to be dangerous,” He said.
Minerva’s hand moved to her hip, as she gave him a sharp look. “You made me a Dark Dragon Slayer Knight, if I can’t face danger then what is that title for?”
“Doesn’t mean I’ll just order it. You’ve got to be informed of what you’re volunteering for.”
“And what exactly am I volunteering for?”
Arthur breathed deep. He wasn’t actually completely certain. “I’ve got to figure that out, first. I want to take a break. My plan is to spend a month here just sort of finally unwinding; maybe go on an actual vacation. Then there will be talking with Selene. Going south again without warning her would create unnecessary friction.” He owed it to her to warn her that he might end up bringing Acnologia to Guiltina; besides it was probably useful to have backup ready and on call. “Then I intend to go find Irene Belserion, the first dragon slayer, and someone who has lived through dragonification for centuries. She’s no match for Acnologia himself, but I think I can convince her to help me for the chance to restore herself towards something closer to humanity.” If all else failed he could teach her the magic that Selene used to take human form. Irene wanted a return to full human sensation. Selene’s magic seemed to allow that. “I’ll have to play it by ear from there, but Irene is known for capriciousness and cruelty, the Wizard King August is considered the 2nd most dangerous wizard alive in any world that Selene is familiar with, and the emperor is…”
“The Black Wizard Zeref, whose curse of contradiction has driven to total psychopathy. You’ve told me this before.”
“Then you realize while they may prove essential allies to deal with Acnologia, they may also prove..”
“To be extremely dangerous. I’ve not trained this long and this hard to run from a bit of danger,” She said with a smile which made Arthur want to scold her. She was still a kid - she was only in her mid teens after all - and she was getting far too overconfident. It was dangerous for her.
On the other hand, the only mage in Diabolos who might match her was Georg, and that was if she held back to just her dragon slayer and territory magic. She was going to be one of the great mages of her generation.
“Just, be careful. You’re good. You’ve got what it takes to be one of the greats of your generation. If you move back to Ishgar you might eventually be the number one wizard god of the continent. But we’ll be going against the Spriggan 12 and the best in Ishgar would only be middling among them.”
“So I’m on the right level.”
“Eventually you could be. If you don’t get yourself killed first.”
She sighed and slumped against a wall pouting. “I’ll be careful. But does this mean I’m coming?”
“Well… I didn’t train you for nothing. And I feel more comfortable knowing I have you and Tabby at my back.”
“Good. And when Acnologia is wrapped up…”
“We investigate the Yakumo. I promise.” Growing up with a set of angry ghosts inside of her had had an influence on Minerva. Wraith had helped her control them. Arthur had as well.
For Arthur, though, the course was set. He would take a month to try and refresh and recharge, and then he would go to Alvarez to meet one of the most dangerous mages who had ever lived and court an alliance.