As night fell, Wendy wasn’t sure what to make of her companions. Jellal was the man who had brought her to Cait Shelter 7 years ago when she had been a small child, lost and alone after her foster parent, the Sky Dragon Grandeeney, had gone missing. But he seemed so different now. He couldn’t remember anything, except the name Erza, and that he had done horrible things. The youth she had known as a small child had been hopeful and determined. This man was only living so that he could make amends for the harm he had done before he could die for his sins. Just seeing it hurt the maiden’s young heart.
Then there was Angel. The Celestial Spirit Mage had helped abduct Wendy, but now she seemed to be almost trying to act like it had never happened and they were friends. Wendy knew that she was trying to turn over a new leaf, but the way Angel was acting felt more like she was trying to pretend the past never happened. She had been helping Wendy with her hair, talking about fashion, and acting weirdly friendly. It’d been a little creepy, and the talk about makeup and using her looks to manipulate men had only made Wendy more uneasy.
And then there was Arthur. A part of her blamed him for Cait Shelter being gone. He’d gone to destroy Nirvana so that Roubaul could finally rest in peace, and a threat to the world would be gone, but he’d also made her entire guild vanish and taken away her friends when he did so. It was what they wanted, and Wendy knew it, but they were still gone because of him, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to thank him for freeing Roubaul of the weight of his ancient sin, or hate him for taking everyone away from her. It’d probably be easier if he was acting more like Angel. Instead he was closer to Jellal, aloof and standoffish with her, keeping her at arm’s length; he was simply transporting her to Fairy Tail because he’d decided it was best for her.
She felt so alone and isolated among them with Carla as the only really friendly face around her. They’d been walking from Cait Shelter vaguely in the direction of Gazania. She was sort of thankful to Angel for getting them to stop, and finding a good place to camp. Though it made her feel uncomfortable that being hidden was a major part of choosing the camp. It only got worse when Angel demanded they move camp because they fought a large beast, and she was paranoid of being observed and caught.
And there wasn’t really privacy. She managed to talk to Carla a bit about her feelings when going to the bathroom, but she didn’t have time to really talk things through before Angel came out calling for her to make sure she was ok. She couldn’t sleep, and spent most of the night whispering with Carla, worried about what might be coming with Fairy Tail. The wizards from it in the Guild Alliance didn’t seem so bad, they had seemed to be friends with each other at least, but she didn’t really know anything about them.
She wasn’t the only one who seemed to be having trouble sleeping. Arthur tossed and turned, and at one point threw the sword he carried with him, before beginning to hunt around in the starlight to try and find it. Angel got up at one point muttering to herself, and just looming over Wendy in a way that made her uncomfortable, only leaving when Arthur pulled her away to go somewhere to talk; at least he said it was to talk, Wendy had some suspicions it might have been for adult reasons. She was pretty sure she heard Jellal crying, and pleading with someone who wasn’t there during the night as well. It was a long, lonely, and scary night.
“I was just looking at her,” Angel protested. “I wasn’t plotting anything.”
“What?” Arthur said.
“This isn’t about me and Wendy?” Angel asked.
“I figured you were latching onto her as some sort of weird substitute until you meet Yukino again,” Arthur said with a shrug.
“It’s nothing like that,” Angel stated angrily. “If it’s not about my plotting over the Sky Priestess, what is it about?” She wanted to change the subject quickly.
“What can you tell me about Grimoire Heat?” Arthur said.
“What? Why?” Angel asked back, her eyes going wide.
“Because several bounties want me to rob and or destroy them,” He answered.
“Don’t mess with Grimoire Heart,” Angel said in a serious tone. “You know about the Balam Alliance, right?”
“Oración Seis, Tartaros, and Grimiore Heart control all the other dark guilds of Fiore.
“Yes. And it continues to exist because having the Council’s attention divided 3 ways is better for Grimoire Heart than attempting a total takeover. You know about the 10 Wizard Saints and 4 Gods of Ishgar, don’t you?”
“Ten strongest and four strongest wizards that the Magic Council chooses to officially recognize?” Arthur said with a little uncertainty in his voice.
“Close enough,” Angel stated. “So officially all six members of the Oración Seis were equal. Unofficially only Brain or Midnight would have had a chance going one on one with a Wizard Saint in a straight up fight. I mean I took out Jura temporarily, but that was only with surprise on my side,” She smiled a bit, a look of pride and self-satisfaction on her face. “But I was always one to destroy more powerful opponents with subtlety and wit. So you really should be more careful around me,” She winked, sticking her tongue out playfully. “Brain would have been in a bad state against one unless Zero came out. Zero, would have been safely counted among the 10 Wizard Saints. But Grimoire Heart,” She paused and breathed deeply.
“Grimoire Heart’s Seven Kin of Purgatory are at least as powerful individually as the Oración Seis. Honestly in a direct fight I can’t say I’d not beat any of them. You, as you are,” She looked at Arthur. “They typically hold more raw power, and fewer tricks than we in the Oración Seis do,” She caught the annoyed look directed at her, and the little bit of annoyance she felt at herself. “Did. There is no Oración Seis any longer.” She’d erased her guild mark as they walked today, well and truly rejecting her former place in the guild. But it was still easy to think of it as her home. “One on one maybe you could handle them, maybe even take all of them on, I don’t know the details too well, and my job in the Oración Seis was to figure out these things. But even if you could, there’s the matter of Master Hades. Zero would have been among the Wizard Saints, though he’d still lose to the Master of Fairy Tail. Master Hades would stand among the Four Gods. He’s on a different level entirely, and even Tartaros fears him.
“The Balam Alliance isn’t an alliance of equals. It’s a non-aggression treaty, and one in which Grimoire Heart lets it exist because it’s easier to let the Oración Seis or Tartaros be than forcibly recruit them, and we kept the Magic Council looking 3 ways. But at the end of the day, it exists because Grimoire Heart allows it to exist. If you’re planning to go up against Grimoire Heart, I’m not helping.”
When Angel had finished, Arthur looked at her. “I’m not asking you too. I’m just asking you for what you can tell me to help me find them.”
She glared at him. “I said I’m not helping.” She turned away from him, starting to fume off and then stopped looking back at him. “Helping you kill yourself picking a fight with Grimoire Heart wouldn’t help me face my sister again.”
“Tell me about Hades. What makes him so powerful?”
“No,” Angel said. “That’s final.” With that she walked back towards where Wendy was, pretending to be, sleeping.
When morning came things were somewhat better. Angel took over the process of getting some of the meat off of the beast killed last night, and cooking it, all while complaining about how absolutely useless Arthur was at wilderness survival. Still they ought to arrive in Guiltina today.
“Hey, Wendy, want to see a Celestial Spirit?” Arthur asked after they were done with their makeshift breakfast. “I ought to give them some reward for their good service, and show them they’re appreciated, and I figured I’d see who you’d like to meet.”
Wendy found her spirits buoyed a bit by this, walking towards the armored man. His armor had apparently repaired itself over the course of the day. “That sounds sort of fun.”
“Well there’s a few choices. You met Enif before,” Arthur stated, and Wendy realized she made a face, because he shook his head a little. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to ride him if you don’t want to. I don’t know him too well myself yet. There’s also Pero,” He reached for the strange blue, carrot nosed creature near his feet and patted it like one might a dog. “But he kept us company when we were walking yesterday so you already know him. Caelum doesn’t have much of a personality; I honestly think it’s a robot.”
“Robot?” Wendy asked.
“Uh Machina. I’m not sure how much it even thinks,” Arthur said. “There’s Horologium, or a Horologium. He doesn’t say much, usually just repeats what I say. Still he’s excellent in an emergency. Our contract says that he can appear to protect those close to me from danger, though he’s rather limited in how often he does it. Still he saved me a few times. There’s Altair the eagle, he’s a bit of a coward, but he’s good to have at your back, and there’s Kochab the bear, he likes to play catch. Then there’s Orion the hunter. He’s new so I don’t know him too well. He’s something of a giant, and I… promised I’d summon him for some good fights, and sort of forgot to do so he’s probably a bit angry with me. Though if you’d like to practice your dragon slayer magic against him I’m sure he’d be happy to have a sparring partner.” There was also Aries; but summoning her around Angel was going to be beyond painfully awkward.
Wendy flinched back a bit at the casual way he talked about the last. “But I don’t know any combat magic. I only know how to use support magic,” She said looking down at the ground. What kind of wizard guild would want that?
“Support magic is combat magic. I mean you can make people stronger, or faster, right?” Arthur asked.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Wendy nodded a bit. “Yeah. Or I can bolster their defense. But it’s not like what you or Natsu could do.”
“And you’re a dragon slayer, aren’t you?”
“... Y-yeah,” Wendy felt a little ashamed at that one. She’d seen his dragon slayer’s roar. And Natsu had been a dragon slayer too.
“You can fight. Just breathe deep, consume the sky, and breathe it back out, and I bet your roar could tear asunder evil,” He said. “I mean I could show you a bit. My dragon slayer magic isn’t too good, but I at least know how to do that. Though it’s really not as impressive as being able to bolster your friends, much less heal them.”
He seemed happy till the end, and then he started to take on a sad look on his face. The smile that was on it when he looked straight at her again was obviously forced. “Come on, you want to practice it a bit.” He pointed at a rock, “See if you can shatter it with your roar.”
“But I don’t know how,” Wendy protested. Carla was getting visibly tense, ready to intervene for Wendy’s sake.
“That’s why I’m asking if you’d like to learn. I mean I don’t look it but I’m a dragon slayer from a whole guild of dragon slayers. It might not be my specialty, but I do know a bit about dragon slaying magic.”
“Your guild is full of dragon slayers?” Wendy asked.
“It’s a requirement to actually be a member of the guild.”
“But I thought it was a Lost Magic.”
“Here in the south. In Guiltina dragons survived a lot longer and so has the magic. But it’s not really been perfected. I think Igneel, Grandeeney, and some other dragons perfected it here so it’d actually be safe for humans to use. It’s why I came here. I actually was sort of looking for you and Natsu, since I thought your blood might help.”
“My blood?”
“A book I read mentioned the possibility of dragon antibodies. If I’m right and you and Natsu have them, I might be able to make something from your blood to help others obtain them too.”
“Is that why you’re helping me?”
“I came to Fiore to meet you, but if all I wanted was your blood I could have just not destroyed Nirvana.” Wendy had to wonder why there was a look on his face that almost seemed guilty there. Was there some other reason he destroyed Nirvana?
“Is the offer to show me how to roar still there?” Wendy asked.
“Of course,” Arthur said.
Wendy felt better about her time with the group after that morning. Arthur had helped her to really start to use her dragon slayer magic, and sparring with Orion had been fun. Jellal had even been convinced to join in, though it hadn’t lasted long after that. He couldn’t really remember how to use his magic, but he’d been a prodigy before and it still showed.
And then Angel had summoned Scorpio, the iron-tailed spirit of the house of the Scorpion. “Arthur. You know that thing you wanted me to do last night? I’ll do it on the condition that you take out Scorpio without using magic. Show that you can fight as well as flex your ethernado, and well I’ll change my mind.”
Wendy blushed as she watched. It was obvious there was something going on between them. What had he tried to pressure Angel into? Why was he hesitating?
It took a bit, but Arthur raised his shield and looked at Angel. “Deal,” He said.
Was this a proposition? What had they talked about last night? Wendy’s mind raced to conclusions, her face deepening continuously.
The actual fight was underwhelming. Arthur actually put up a fight, but it was one of resilience and not actual fighting back. He was strong, able to break free of Scropio’s sand, but ultimately he wasn’t much of a hand to hand combatant. Eventually he yielded.
“Exactly what I thought,” Angel said. “You’re a summoner. You can’t handle real combat.”
“So are you,” He said bitterly, even as Wendy healed him.
“Yeah, but I understand that fact, you don’t. Just like Wendy understands that she’s better on the backline.” Angel’s words stung Wendy a little. Did she understand that? Was she stuck on the backline? She didn’t want to be. If she’d known how to fight Angel and the others couldn’t have abducted her.
“I’m not,” Wendy said. “I want to learn to fight too.”
Angel sighed. “Well I can’t teach you.”
Arthur, though, patted her on the head. “I’m sure someone at Fairy Tail can teach you. And I guess when I get back to Guiltina I’m gonna have to bow my head and ask people for combat tips. Kiria is gonna make me suffer for it.”
“Kiria?” Angel asked. “Do I need to be jealous about your girl back home?”
Arthur’s mind flashed to Hinami. But nothing had actually developed between him and the Shine Dragon Slayer. “Nah, she’s a little brat,” Given he’d been there for her 16th birthday she was a bit older than he had thought, actually closer to Angel’s age, or his apparent one, than Wendy’s. Of course he’d been a fair deal older in his previous life. She was a kid to him. “But she’s sort of my senior in the guild, and helped play the role of my keeper when I was joining. She looked out for me, and helped me kill the Darkness Dragon. Well… I stole the kill really. She was the one that’d cut it deep enough that I could do it, and she’d have done it on her own if I hadn’t interfered.”
Wendy’s heart clenched. He had killed a dragon. It was easy to forget that when he used dragon slayer magic it wasn’t magic he learned from a dragon. It was magic he’d obtained by killing one. But the only dragon she’d ever met had been Grandeeney; kind, gentle, sweet Grandeeney. Grandeeney who had been like a mother to her.
“But she loves to fight, so she’ll probably be happy for the chance to kick my ass around a bit,” He finished. Still the happy mood which had been born from their training and practicing together was gone from Wendy as they made their way towards Gazania.
Wendy was disquieted by the disguise that Angel had chosen. She’d specifically had Gemini base the changes to her facial features and hair on Wendy’s own, so she could play as Wendy’s big sister. It felt almost like she was being kidnapped again.
Of course Gazania was the first time she’d ever been in such a large city. Given Cait Shelter’s illusory nature it was the first time she’d been in a human settlement at all. She could hear Angel and Arthur arguing about how much money he would - or could - give her. He apparently didn’t have much for his time in Ishgar, and was warning her he would leave when it ran out. Still she managed to talk him out of a few hundred thousand jewels; though Wendy couldn’t hear what it was she whispered to him to get him to double the amount.
“Come on, Wendy, big sis will take you out shopping to find something cute to wear,” Angel, or Frigga as she was going by for the moment, said, extending a hand towards Wendy. She was once again wearing the electric eagle-themed Celestial Spirit Dress, an outfit which honestly probably suited her better than the one which Jellal had been given. It was the dress of Orion, and it was… awkward to look at. He had a cloak on over it for the reason as its pants for some reason didn’t cover his ass or inner thighs, leaving his underwear on display, and from the waist up it was just belts crisscrossing his body. Still the mass of belts over his face did hide it effectively enough making it an acceptable outfit. And it’d provide him with a means of combat that didn’t necessitate showing his magic. Wendy wasn’t exactly sure why Angel expected them to need to fight.
As they were about to split up, Arthur stopped and turned. “Oh, A- Frigga, you’d not happen to know if there’s a mages’ guild in Gazania would you? Or where it’d be for that matter.”
Wendy felt Angel suddenly squeeze her hand. “Sabertooth. You don’t think… Do you?” She asked, looking towards him.
“Shop first, I’d prefer not to try and maintain that magic all day just in case something does happen, and we can stay a day or two if you want.” Wendy saw Arthur tap his temple twice, and then Angel nodded.
Like Arthur told Angel through the telepathic function of Archive magic, Yukino didn’t join Sabertooth until it was the top guild in Fiore, and not for another 5 years at least. She could be from anywhere in the country, and joining Sabertooth didn’t necessarily mean she was here. But he had business with Sabertooth beyond his desire to see if the guild would allow him access to their library, and if he saw any cute, white haired girls about Wendy’s age he’d make sure to let her know.
He was alone for the first time in a while. Jellal had gone to play their porter and gimp-manservant; mostly because he needed clothes that Arthur didn’t have to magically maintain as well. But Arthur had his eyes on certain missions.
There was his goal, his mission, it had a bounty attached to it now, but it was his mission first and a bounty second. And he was going to visit any guild’s library that would let him in. Not that he expected many guilds to do so. That sort of library was valuable. But it was worth going to see. Especially with Sabertooth.
The second goal was of course Grimoire Heart. Angel might not approve of it, but it was already the start of November X784. Tenrou Island and the time skip happened before New Years. He couldn’t remember what day, but it meant he had at most 2 months, and probably closer to 1, until Zeref and Acnologia destroyed Grimoire Heart and his chance at a good bundle of CP. Besides he had bounties related to creating etherious and Hades was the number one expert on Zeref’s magic, and probably magic in general in Ishgar. Short of going to try and get Irene or Augustus to help, Grimoire Heart’s library was probably the best chance to find means to create Etherious or to fix dragonification. He couldn’t just let that time slip away.
And then there was the final one. Jiemma Orlando. Abusive father. Guild master of Sabertooth. Total jerk obsessed with power. A bounty was offering him CP for beating him, and more for either or both of killing him, and taking Minerva away from him.
Sabertooth wasn’t as impressive. But it hadn’t been a big name guild at the time. There’s a reason it didn’t come up for the guild alliance. It wouldn’t even make the list of top ten guilds in Fiore.
Still no one stopped him from walking inside. Though once he informed them he was a visiting wizard their tone changed. “The library? You want to use our library?” The man who had greeted him asked. “That’s… Well I guess I can ask the Guild Master once she’s free, but you’re gonna have to wait. What brings you to seek out our library?”
Arthur had a very vague memory of Sabertooth having a famous library. But that might not be the case yet. “I want to research dragons, I’ve exhausted the knowledge in my own guild’s library of the subject.”
“Dragons? Why would you think we at Sabertooth know anything about dragons?” The Sabertooth mage asked.
“You never know what a guild might have until you ask. May I request permission from your guildmaster?” Arthur asked.
“She’s busy,” the mage said. “I’ll let her know you asked. But don’t get your hopes up, beggar.”
Beggar? Arthur looked at himself. He was clad in shining armor. Shining. He’d don a celestial spirit dress to show the man just what sort of mage he was but he didn’t know if he could maintain 3 at once, and didn’t want to risk suddenly stripping Angel in the middle of shopping. That just seemed like a good way to get a knife in the knight.
Besides he had to save some power, he was going dark guild busting tonight.
Wendy found she actually sort of liked shopping with Angel. Even if Angel was disappointed they couldn’t get anything from a ‘worthwhile brand’, she’d got a few outfits that Angel had assured her were cute, and she was sort of excited to wear them. Even if Angel’s talk about the boys being all over her was a little worrisome.
They had a big meal, and a room in an inn, and it was actually looking rather nice. But then she heard Angel moving about in the night. Wendy slipped out of bed to follow her, Carla following Wendy. Angel was sneaking out of the inn, and Wendy was convinced it was for something bad. She decided she’d follow her.
And then she was meeting with Arthur and Jellal, both of whom were wearing a non-spirit dress mask and outfit now. Wendy hesitated a bit, but she looked at Carla and gave a nod. It was entirely possible that all three of them were up to no good. She hoped she was wrong. She hoped they had a legitimate reason for this. But they hadn’t told her anything. If it was on the level why didn’t they tell her?