Arthur found himself called before Gran Domo, and the - not yet officially instated - magic council. He was chewed out for several minutes due to his disappearance, before being released, and allowed to go see his Thunderbolts at last.
They were in the barracks they’d been given to share; a small adjoining structure having been hastily added for Sorano and Lilith. Sawyer, Jellal, and MacBeth were playing a game of cards. Richard was outside tending to a rock garden of sorts. Arthur didn’t see Sorano or Lilith as he walked into the barracks.
“The prodigal boss returns,” Sawyer said with a grin. “The council is not pleased with your behavior. You can only ride ‘Hero of Crocus’ so far, you know.”
“I was warned not to return directly lest I draw an apocalyptic dragon on us all,” Arthur said with a flippant shrug. “At least Draculos is on my side.”
“Yeah, but he’s got to go back to his duties as Wizard God,” MacBeth noted. “Redoubled with Serena gone. Alvarez is gonna be breathing down our throats; they were our twin shields and swords.”
Arthur sighed. “I’m gonna go get Minerva and Richard, can somebody tell Sorano and Lilith that I want to have a group meeting?”
“No can do, boss man, they’re on an information gathering mission,” Sawyer said. “Sorano convinced them to let her go look for Death’s Head Caucus without you.”
“Well, I’ll get Minerva, and Richard and we can talk,” Arthur said with a bit of a sigh. “If we’re going to do this we need to become a team that can cover each other’s backs and that means actually training together.” Arthur could hardly believe he was the one saying that. Still they did need to train and he had - unfortunately - wasted 3 days of the very limited time they had.
The ‘meeting’ was just getting everyone on the same page. After that he gave Richard the Dorma Anim v2. It would prevent Arthur from using his star dresses, and made teleportation orders of magnitude more difficult when he wore it. It had its benefits; it scared even Selene and assuming the wearer was halfway competent in combat made them a terror to face down multiple S-Class mages at once and win, but it had its downsides. Given Arthur arguably had the best defensive magic of any of them, with only MacBeth being in contention for that placement, and the armor fit Richard substantially better while covering his vulnerabilities and merely meant keeping him out of the Archive loop, the decision was obvious.
Sawyer had already been practicing with the Ten Commandments, learning its forms, and how to use a spear in a fight. Jellal still had to remember his magic, and until then Arthur gave him the magic shoes Jet had given him and the whip Lucy had. Even with his memory fragmented Jellal knew a fair deal of magic, but it was an eclectic mix, not ready to return him to being one of the top magical threats in all of Ishgar; he could fight and beat one of the Oracion Seis, but at his height he could have taken down all of them at once. The magical tools would help cover for him a bit. MacBeth was studying Darkness Magic. Minerva had, of course, been studying the last mental upload Arthur had given her. And from what Arthur gathered Sorano hadn’t been slacking, but applying herself to learning the Astra Weapon. Even resolved as he was that everyone should prepare for the real conflicts ahead, Arthur had been the one who had been slacking off the most. Well other than Lilith.
After the meeting Arthur worked on repairing his Archive so that he could re-establish a link with Sorano from the capital. She reported all was well. She was impressed he could reach her; they were in Bosco, following up a lead. They’d be meeting with a representative from Death’s Head Caucus tomorrow to employ their services. The plan was to capture them, replace them with Gemini, and get information on where Death’s Head Caucus was staying at the moment. Arthur’s return was perfect. They could cast their net and catch them, if the man had the information required.
Tomorrow’s training was canceled; they were going to get a trial by fire instead.
Teleporting an entire group into a neighboring country through a location he could only view with his Archive was neither quick nor easy. While the movement from one place to another was instant, he had to stretch his space out and it slowed the further it got from him. There were advantages to Aqua Aera it would seem, for long distances it was easier, at least if he’d never visited the target before. He could leave his space semi-permanently in an area; given time he expected he could saturate a continent. Arthur wondered if this was something that risked Acnologia taking notice. He was afraid it might very well be such a thing. But he had already begun, the risk had been taken, and he’d finish it; transporting to Bosco, not saturating Ishgar. The latter would just be asking for excess trouble.
He was not idle while he stretched out his space. He had access to the royal library. His Archive absorbed magical information and in its pages was magical information. The ability to literally absorb the information without having to scan every page had massively upscaled with his further construction of his Archive and his magical skill. He had to work at it a bit, leading to using Sawyer and Minerva as go-fors, but he was adding everything he could, especially the information that they had on the guild Death’s Head Caucus.
When the time came, though, Sorano had a request that gave Arthur pause. “Come alone.”
Something had to be up. But without knowing what it was, Arthur decided he’d trust Sorano. He came alone, teleporting where she directed. His territory armor was up, his mind overclocking, but he came alone.
Cobra was sitting out of Sorano’s field of vision, his snake coiled around his former guild mate.
“You really teleported into a trap that easily. What kind of naive fool are you?” Cobra asked.
“I told you he’s transparent, and trusts me,” Sorano said. Her hair was wet, and Arthur couldn’t be certain if she was wearing anything under the snake currently threatening her throat.
“Don’t try any teleportation tricks, you’ve already breathed in my poison, and if you want to live you’ll do as I say,” Cobra said.
Arthur couldn’t deny the possibility. Oh, his first thought was if Cobra could do that, how had he lost to Natsu, but that had been outdoors, in a fight at a location where he hadn’t had a chance to prepare. It might be possible that he had saturated the air with poison.
“Same goes for dear little Angel here,” Cobra said.
Sorano shot him an angry glare. “Cobra, don’t do this.”
“He’s the one who actually killed Brain, isn’t he?” Cobra asked, looking at Arthur.
“I did,” Arthur said.
“Why?”
“He was dangerous.”
“What made him dangerous and not our little Angel here? Why didn’t you kill Racer too? Why didn’t you just cut and run? He was dangerous isn’t an action.”
“Angel was beaten,” Arthur said.
“Lie,” Cobra stated. “Least that’s not what your heart is saying.”
Arthur breathed deeply. His Archive didn’t say there was poison magic in the air. He was beginning to be more confident that Cobra was bluffing. “I thought Angel could be redeemed. Brain had just tried to kill his own ally because she’d lost and was now useless to him. If I let him live he’d have finished the job, and maybe he’d have finished me too.”
“Racer tried to kill Angel too,” Cobra said coldly.
“Racer just saw her stab their ally. Hot blood vs cold blood. Besides, he held back. I don’t know if he could have made the shot. Brain had.”
“You’re still lying. It wasn’t that Angel wasn’t dangerous was it?”
“She was redeemable. I didn’t believe Brain was,” Arthur’s words were cold; running his cognition partially through his Archive helped him keep his emotions under control somewhat. Which was good. He knew the dragon inside of him was growling at this all.
“And what about me? Am I redeemable?” Cobra asked with a jeer.
“Yes,” Arthur said. “I have an offer for your pardon, signed by the magic council themselves. It’s reliant on your willingness to work for them and your-”
“Angel told me.” The snake suddenly squeezed around Sorano making her gasp out. “But I still don’t know about you. Your heart is too quiet. Too much like Brain’s.”
Arthur was confident that Cobra hadn’t poisoned the air. He was confident that he could use his territory magic to protect him - at least as long as he could hold his breath - even if he did. The danger was Sorano. She was coiled in the snake, and while Arthur could probably teleport her, if he started to surround her with his space Cobra might hear that thought and act against her.
Arthur didn’t want to lose her.
“How about a more personal question,” Cobra said, leaning forward and pulling up Sorano’s hair where it fell against her cheek. The snake squeezed around Sorano’s body, moving across her and flashing pale glimpses of flesh between its coils. “What do you think about our little Angel here?”
Arthur felt a bit of panic. He’d tried not to think about that one too much. He was attracted to her. He knew he was. But he wasn’t actually sure it was anything more than a physical attraction; he couldn’t imagine putting up with her long term. Even if he could there were far too many problems involved. Still… “I don’t want her harmed.”
“That’s… not really an answer,” Cobra said, his response coming off a little flat and weak.
“I… I want her to find her sister and be happy,” Arthur said.
“Saying you’d have done it for any of us?” Cobra asked.
“I can’t say. It was done in the heat of the moment. It was what felt right at the time. And I’m not clever enough to do more than that. What about you, really gonna hurt your friend instead of join her?”
“Guild mate. Not a friend,” Cobra said, then he looked at Sorano. “I was never more to her than a tool to help find her sister. Still… I could do with a pardon. And… maybe I was a bit more to her than that.” He looked at Sorano and gave a bit of a smile. “You know what being a flipped crook means, though. Once the Alliance learns about this every guild in it will be after our heads.”
“That’s why we’re going to take down Grimoire Heart before it becomes public. You do that, you establish your rep and buy yourself some breathing room. Besides, the council has no intention of broadcasting this. You’ll be black ops. High security and high secrecy.”
Cobra sighed. “I’m leading Death's Head Caucus now.”
“That complicates things. The council took some arm twisting for this in the first place, they’re not ready for a general amnesty.”
“I’m assuming even if they were it’d be on condition of our good behavior?” Cobra said.
Arthur nodded. “There are conditions. If you want the details I can give you the papers.”
“Angel filled me in,” Cobra said. “She said you fought for me, or at least stood up to the council.”
“I’d have hated you to be left out in the cold because of me.” It’d been a while, but Arthur was fairly sure that it was Cobra who’d started the Seis on the path of redemption in the manga. It’d have been a cruel irony for him to be damned by Arthur’s actions.
“Give me the papers. I’ll sign up. But we’re gonna need a plan for Death’s Head. They know I was investigating why Angel was poking around us and they’ll be antsy.”
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“Angel, want to take point in planning this?” Arthur asked, looking at her. The snake had released her at some point in the conversation and she was wearing underwear at least beneath it. Though probably not polite to keep looking in that direction. Though given her clothing tendencies it didn’t actually show much more than she often did in public.
“Me?” She asked.
“I’m not a tactician. I’m a blunt instrument,” Arthur said. “I’m only here for another month. One of you has to take over. Cobra doesn’t know what Lilith, me, and Minerva bring to the table. You know the situation best of anyone.”
“Leader… I could enjoy that position,” She said with a grin. “Oh, and we should probably untie Lilith at some point. She’s in the closet.”
Sorano proved her value as a leader. She was used to considering different tactical tools - Gemini had taught her that - and using wits over raw power. Arthur played tactical communications, even as Richard’s Heavenly Eye played spotter. Together they coordinated the fight. Which was not to say that was all that they did.
Gemini - taking on Cobra’s form - poisoned the assassins of Death’s Head Caucus. They took Gemini out hard and fast, but that gave away the position of their gun magic specialist to Richard’s clairvoyance magic and with Arthur in Archive link they were blown away by Territory Explosions.
The assassins reacted quickly, and they outnumbered the Thunderbolts. But Gemini had taken out two, not to mention weakened two more, and the loss of the sniper had already almost equaled the numbers on each side. The death metal rocker of the old Trinity Raven team had been Gemini’s primary target but he had escaped. He managed to break into the defensive formation, and strum a single riff on his guitar before Sawyer took him out at a speed too fast to react to. The rest couldn’t overcome MacBeth’s defense, when it was supported by Scorpio and Minerva filling in gaps, and Arthur and Richard providing a constant barrage of long range attacks. Well one’s poison spore magic managed to get through but Cobra ate it.
12 dark mages had been taken down, and not from some minor dark guild. They were among the strongest dark mages under Oracion Seis. One of the most powerful dark guilds in Ishgar.
The Thunderbolts weren’t exactly happy with the payment situation. They could have made more - a lot more - by looting Death’s Head Caucus’s guild hall themselves. They were given certain allowances, but their actual discretionary funds were low.
Still with Cobra, or Erik as he introduced himself now that they were shedding code names, back they were reunited. It was the moment of truth. Would they return to their old ways when together again?
Arthur hated that he couldn’t say yes without any doubt. The deadline to deal with Grimoire Heart was approaching. He’d learned from Erza when the S-Rank trial was held, and they didn’t have much time at all. He hoped that it could occupy their hands, and when it was done… well he hoped the council would really appreciate that.
They had been dismissive of dealing with Death’s Head Caucus as merely cleaning up a mess which the Oracion Seis had made. MacBeth had objected vocally; Oracion Seis had regulated the other dark guilds, it hadn’t created them. They had gagged him with magic and shouted him down.
If things didn’t change with a big win… Arthur could see this whole thing crumbling.
Even so they’d shown they could work together as a team. They’d taken down a guild. But it was nowhere near as large, or as powerful as Grimoire Heart and they’d had a lot of advantages on their side that they could not rely on against Grimoire Heart. Death’s Head Caucus might not have truly been something that could be placed at their feet, but they had been in charge of it, and it was that position which had allowed them to bring it down with such ease. Thankfully the Thunderbolts, with the exception of Arthur and Lilith, had a pretty good sense of dedication and self-motivation when it came to training.
The next week was packed. The first day was spent dealing with bureaucratic nonsense for much of it, and afterwards Arthur had attacked the library for clues on Grimoire Heart or dragon slayer magic.
He was woken up in the morning by Minerva. Except it wasn’t Minerva. Sorano had sent Gemini to fetch him. He was pulled into explaining facets of the Astra Weapon for over an hour and a half, starting before dawn. She opened up a bit too, telling him how much she hated getting her hands dirty by personally involving herself in combat; and how terrified she was every time she did.
Arthur had the feeling something had been left unsaid, as Minerva contacted him through the Archive link because he was late for when he was supposed to meet her for training after breakfast. He gave her an Archive dump for Territory magic and worked with her on how to form explosions. Today’s lesson seemed to be on shaping and fine tuning the exact nature of her space. Eventually he heard that MacBeth was looking for him. He ate a lunch of darkness magic, practicing with MacBeth. He could shut down MacBeth’s reflector with his territory; his control of space was more pure and basic than MacBeth’s, but it wouldn’t have served a purpose. Neither of them would have learned from that sort of dick measuring contest. They both held themselves back to darkness magic for the most part, though MacBeth used his reflector for defense.
Arthur was feeling more and more ready to use his dragon slayer magic in actual combat. He was beginning to shape it with his darkness dragon’s hand becoming a variety of weapons. His new understanding of melee weapons helped immensely, and his last spar against Suzaku had gotten his Archive some excellent data. After his sparring brunch, he got called in by Draculos.
Hyberion was leaving Fiore. He had other duties to attend to; a peace was being brokered between two nations on the continent and he was expected to help ensure things went smoothly and no insurgent elements, or agents of either side, pulled any fast ones.
Arthur took the opportunity to reveal he had two dragon hearts that he needed to make into lacrima, and to ask if Draculos knew who Serena had used. They were, according to Draculos, on the way. He gave Arthur a letter of introduction - sealed with his magic to prove its authenticity - and took the hearts on ahead; along with most of Arthur’s spending money.
“One last thing, keep Lilith safe,” He said after dismissing Arthur.
“Why did you put her on the team?” Arthur asked pausing in the doorway.
“I hope to see her redeemed,” he said.
Arthur honestly doubted it would happen. Jellal was near suicidal with guilt. Richard had wholesale devoted himself to redemption. Sorano showed repentance. Even Sawyer had been proud and happy after taking out a dark guild. Lilith had shown nothing more than a begrudging acceptance that she couldn’t change her fate.
“Yeah, but why her instead of anyone else in the dungeon?”
“I owe it to my grandson,” Draculos said. “We might have had a falling out, but I hate to see how low his daughter sank. If I can get my great granddauhgter back on the proper path… It’s selfish of me, but even if I can’t I have to try, don’t I?”
Still the meeting didn’t end Arthur’s day. There were teamwork drills and training. They went poorly. Arthur was nominally the leader. But he had no idea what he was doing there. It was disheartening how they went. When that was done they had supper together as a group, an attempt at team building, and Arthur asked them each what they’d do when they earned their pardons. No one was really sure. Sawyer was the one to change the topic.
After supper Arthur wanted to go work with his Archive and the royal magical library. He hoped he could pick up something about Grimoire Heart, dragon slayers, or both. Unfortunately Sawyer needed a practice partner for his spear use, and tips on how to do it. Arthur, apparently being a natural with the spear, was tapped to instruct. By the time they were done, Arthur was exhausted, falling to sleep almost immediately.
He was awakened, pre-dawn, once again by Sorano for some weapon training. For now she wasn’t trying to master the weapon and all 12 of its forms. She was choosing one - well two but she wasn’t practicing the Scorpion Gun with Arthur - and sticking to it, learning to use it to defend and attack before moving on to others. Specifically she was going with the Regulus Sword. It had the greatest magical output; it’d drain the weapon fastest, but its power was most substantial and against Grimoire Heart’s Seven Kin of Purgatory that power would be necessary.
He stayed at it until it was time to train Minerva. He gave her a few tips for shaping the space in her explosions which she’d have figured out eventually but which would have taken months to figure out by trial and error. Eventually MacBeth came to find him to help with Darkness Magic. He wanted to copy Brain’s Genesis Zero. Arthur showed him the Dimension Black. But that was a dimension of his creation, the other had tapped into something already there. It was a dimension within magical darkness. They worked through lunch - though MacBeth’s magic treated him to ‘lunch’ of a sort, but it didn’t completely recover the mental strain of it all. He’d been working at magic for hours now. He managed to sneak in a little ‘lunch break’ of an hour or so in which he just vegetated.
Then it was group training. Lilith was not really contributing. Her magic was primarily close range. While she didn’t need to actually bite. She needed to touch her target. Even then her Vampire Magic was specialized in mental manipulation. The illegal nature of the magic hamstrung her utility. If she had been eager to learn, or seeking a way to make herself useful, it might have been different. But she was recalcitrant to join in training, wasn’t applying herself outside of it, and seemed happy enough to just ride on the coattails of others to her inevitable pardon.
The session ended with a far less jovial dinner. Sawyer and MacBeth were complaining about Lilith to her face. No one really wanted to volunteer to protect her and eventually she stormed out. The mood was dark and Arthur realized that he had failed as a leader for not heading off that situation somehow.
But he didn’t have time to really figure it out. Sawyer needed more combat training and by the time they were done, Arthur was ready to black out again. The next day followed a similar route. It was still a constant mental strain to maintain his darkness dragon’s hand; he’d been doing it throughout the day. Only occasionally dropping it by mistake during sparring matches and training, and it was getting easier. His magic was learning it like a muscle memory. He’d destroyed a few training swords, though which was going to displease the council.
Minerva was getting smoother and easier with her explosions. Soon they’d be focusing on shields. Arthur wanted to teach her to create the spatial armor, but, it was a much more advanced technique and she simply wasn’t going to do more than manage a poor makeshift version until she knew static shields better. And Arthur was worried about her ability to protect herself in combat. Offense was good; but going against people willing to use lethal force and a good defense was needed. She’d helped cover MacBeth’s a little against Death’s Head Caucus, but her shields had been slow, unwieldy, and weak. Without Sorano and Scorpio covering her she’d have failed hard.
MacBeth was getting better. He was still nowhere close to actually being capable of darkness magic in a real combat scenario. It was slow, unwieldy, and weak. But he and Arthur were working on the dimensional tuning required. It was helping Arthur learn more about his own Darkness Dragon Slayer Magic.
His first solid food - and not just darkness magic - was again after the group training was done. Everyone was exhausted this time. Except Lilith. Which only continued to fuel the trouble with her. After dinner he chewed her out, trying to explain to her that she was putting her own life and all of theirs in danger and if they were going to survive this pardon they had to learn to work as a team and make sure they each contributed. He was fairly certain all he’d done was put her back up and left her annoyed and aggravated.
Then he drilled with Sawyer until he was completely exhausted once more. Sawyer was serious about mastering the spear, and movements at actually high speeds. Just like Sorano was serious about mastering her sword. She woke him again that morning, but he was tired. He had had small breaks throughout the day, a breather here and there, but he had been working hard. Too hard it seemed, he was going to burn out in under a week of this training.
Even before training began he was having trouble maintaining his hand of darkness. His territory armor felt unsteady as well. He reached for the training sword and his hand tore through the wood, the destructive force of his darkness dragon’s shadow eating through the hilt. Arthur apologized to Sorano, and asked her to tell Minerva he needed his sleep and that he’d come to see her when he woke. And then he returned to bed.
During the group training he talked about how he couldn’t
keep trying to do everything at once, especially since he still needed to track down Grimoire Heart somehow. They were still in the pre-training group meeting when he was summoned before the Magic Council.
They had decided on a more pressing target than Grimoire Heart. The target was Kobold’s Snout, what could be called a bandit guild. They’d stolen a train during the Crocus Disappearance Incident, and Fiore’s knights, and the Magic Council’s own enforcement unit had failed to find the location of their mobile fortress the Kobold’s Pit after it disappeared back into the ground.
The advantage of the situation was that Arthur did manage to convince Gran Domo to allow him access to the magical viewing system which the council used for aiming Etherion, or spying on all of Ishgar. It’d be done under watch, but with his Archive interfacing with it he should be able to get a massive amount of information; if it was complete enough even merely something being ‘undetectable’ should hopefully create a point of interest that his Archive could find. Hopefully at least.
“So, the Magic Council wants us to go after someone else before Grimoire Heart, a guild called Kobold’s Snout,” Arthur told the Thunderbolts when he returned to the area they’d been assigned for training.
“Excellent,” Sawyer said with a wide grin. “Anybody is better than going against those guys. I mean,” He gripped the training spear in his hand. It was the first time he’d actually used it in the group exercises. “We’re getting stronger, but those guys are monsters.”
“I’ll admit to being relieved. The armor you gave me is quite impressive, but even if we should be able to handle the Seven Kin of Purgatory, Master Hades is a legend in the underworld said to equal any one of the Four Gods if not surpass them,” Richard said.
Jellal, normally quiet and brooding, shook his head. “If that’s true this is worse news than I thought. Arthur is at a level above the Four Gods, and for now surprise is probably on our side. Once we start targeting guilds not previously under the Oracion Seis we’ll lose what surprise we’ve got.”
Sorano had turned pale. Arthur had confided the real reason he was after Grimoire Heart. “It’s worse than that. Take out Grimoire Heart and we establish a reputation. Take out Kobold’s Snout and all we’ve done is angered Tartaros.”
“It’s not all bad news,” Arthur said. “They’ve agreed to let me try and use their surveillance network to find their base. Hopefully it’ll help me figure out how to find Grimoire Heart’s airship too. But we’re going to have to use your skills as well. They want all of you in the field and showing what you can do. You’re getting the chance to leave the capital.”
“I take it you’re staying behind to use their surveillance?” Sorano asked.
“I’m flying to Era,” Arthur said. “I need to go to the main magic council headquarters, or what’s left of it, to try and salvage access to the old network. You’ll be provided with communication lacrima, and I will be doing my best to stay in contact with you via the Archive. Minerva will be coming wiarnd. They told me to pick, but I’m not deciding it unilaterally. Let’s talk it over and decide who should lead. It’ll probably be a dry run for who will lead when I leave in a few weeks.”
Arthur knew that Jellal had led Crime Sorcerie. But that was a Jellal who had regained his footing and remembered who he was. And the Council would definitely see that as a threatening move and worry Jellal was trying to return to ‘power’. MacBeth had maybe led the reborn oracion seis in the filler, him or the staff; Arthur couldn’t remember. That had also been anime filler and in the manga Sorano had slotted into a leadership role once they were working for Crime Sorcerie as their own group; she was obviously the intelligence officer type and had a more strategic mind than most of the others. Sawyer and Richard outright questioned the need for a leader. Erik at least understood that they’d need someone who coordinated and called the final shots. Lilith wanted to lead but no one wanted to follow her.
In the end MacBeth carried the day. Truthfully Arthur had hoped it would be Sorano. He trusted Jellal’s moral compass and intelligence, but until his death wish was actually resolved he couldn’t be trusted to lead. Sorano had been earnest thus far in her attempt to reform. He trusted her in a way he really didn’t the others. He wasn’t sure if Erik and MacBeth still wanted to kill him or not.
But if he was going to help them he had to be willing to put faith in them. All of them. So if MacBeth was going to lead MacBeth was going to lead. There was red tape and paperwork to deal with regarding this decision. And then there were preparations for the trip. And he was tired. He would leave in the morning, after quick goodbyes.