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CHAPTER START---
---September 26th, X770, 11 AM…
Lying on the floor of his 'library', which is simply the second apartment he rented. Oberon is wearing only a pair of shorts as a large Grimoire hovers above him, pages quickly turning as his new Gale-Force Reading Glasses lets him read 120 times faster.
He was wearing only a pair of short pants, surrounded by books, bookshelves, and some stacks of books that couldn't fit on the already-filled shelves.
Around his neck was a simple chair with his Celestial Spirit Gate Keys attached.
Currently, he only possesses Ares: The Ram, Caelum: The Chisel, and what he discovered to be Dorado: The Swordfish.
"Is this stuff seriously supposed to help me control my Magic Energy?" Oberon mutters as he effortlessly begins floating above the floor, mirroring the poses and stretches he's currently reading about.
Focusing on his breathing, the movement of energy through his body.
Eventually, he stands on the floor yet again, still keeping the book hovering in front of him as he moves.
"So they use this in another continent to train martial arts," Oberon mutters as he very slowly moves through the form as he reads. "Centuries ago they believed their internal energy was called Chi, and that the fox god gifted it to their greatest warriors, but when they encountered Wizards it flipped all of their beliefs.
They learned that there appear to be no true Gods, and those who call themself 'God', are now accepted as beings of incomprehensible Magic Power…"
Oberon stops for a moment and glances at a bookshelf at the far end of the room, and with a thought one of the books floats over to him.
He opens it and flips to the specific page in this book, and re-reads about some recent history.
About the event that caused the people of a small nation to refer to the most powerful Wizard of Ishgar as 'God', about the legacy of God Serena.
"So the name stuck because it wasn't self-proclaimed, they began to worship him after he crushed a cult of Zeref, one that had access to one of his Demon Books. Before that, he was called 'Hybrid Theory', and believed to be insane and power-hungry.
That makes sense, you'd have to be both of those things to implant 8 Dragon Lacrimas into yourself. Huh, and he's not even twenty years older than me, incredible…" Oberon says as he sends the book back to the shelf.
"So there are no true gods, at least none that have been proven, only beings of immense Magic Power," he says as he continues the exercise.
"This makes sense, all the books I've read about the existence of Ethernano and Magic itself, points toward Earthland being a nexus where countless other worlds and dimensions connect, and all that colliding energy is what causes our Magical World to exist…I wonder if there is a way to go to those worlds," he floats his Journal over and writes a few thoughts before going back to the exercise.
After a few minutes of writing in his Journal, Oberon hears a loud knock from beyond this door.
"Someone knocked on my apartment door," He mutters. "Laxus, I'm in here."
After a few seconds, the person knocks on his Library door, telling him that it wasn't Laxus since he would have heard him.
"Kid, you in there?" Gildarts asks from beyond the door.
"Yeah, I'm here!" Oberon says as he quickly waves a hand, using Gravity Magic to open the door and make Gildarts float.
"Seriously, this again?" Gildarts asks as he gives Oberon an annoyed look.
"Well the last time you visited you tripped and I nearly lost a shelf of books–if not the entire building. So yeah, you don't get to touch anything."
"Tch, you're always so serious about your books," Gildarts says as Oberon floats him into the room, keeping the man in the air while he continues his notes. "If I didn't know you so well I would have thought you were boring, but I know you've got the heart of a Fairy Tail knucklehead in there."
"Is there a reason you're visiting me?"
"Well, someone's in a bad mood," Gildarts says as he takes out a copy of yesterday's Sorcerer Weekly Magazine. "Does that have anything to do with this?"
Oberon looks at the cover of the magazine scornfully, seeing the picture of him sitting on the train, focused entirely on the book floating in front of him as he absentmindedly draws Runes in the air with Light Magic.
Gildarts smiles as he sees this reaction, "Yeah, being famous sucks, but if you keep your head down, in a few years people won't even remember what you look like. Especially since you'll grow up, so it'll be even harder to recognize your face. But your hair may be an issue."
Gildarts looks at Oberon's hair, like the starry night sky was dyed onto his hair.
"Yeah, that's pretty easy to spot."
Oberon sighs, "I like that I get access to some more challenging and interesting Jobs since people request me by name, but I don't like the fact that I can't read a book in public for more than a few minutes without someone trying to talk to me."
"Is that why you're still in Magnolia?" Gildarts asks. "Laxus said you've been here three days, and I can't recall the last time you spent more than a day between Jobs."
"People are requesting me by name for everything–from a cat stuck in a tree to fighting dangerous monsters. It's been like this for months, I need a break."
"Do you actually go rescue cats from trees?" he asks playfully. "That is the kind of thing Wizards your age usually do, more mundane or normal Jobs, not fighting dangerous monsters like you do."
"Why would I do what normal kids can do? I'm trying to be a great Wizard, that's about as far from normal as you can get without being some weirdo."
"You know, maybe it wouldn't hurt to be a normal kid for a change."
"I tried that for eight years, then Acnologia showed me how helpless normal people are."
Gildarts frowns, "Well, uh, if you're taking a break, how about joining me for some fishing?"
"I don't like fish," Oberon says flatly.
"You don't have to eat them, it's about the experience."
"The experience of sitting in one place with a fishing rod in my hand, no thanks."
"Part of being a man is learning to appreciate fishing, it's an important stage in the journey."
"All the men died when Acnologia attacked, I don't want to be a man, I want to be a great Wizard," Oberon says. "If you just came to make sure I'm alright you can go now, I have to study."
Gildarts sighs, slumping his shoulders slightly, 'If I didn't know why, I'd think he was crazy to be this obsessed with becoming a great Wizard, but, you know, it's kind of adorable how dedicated he is.'
"Ok," GIldarts says. "I've made a decision."
"To go to the Guild Hall?"
"To have a little spar with you, just one round, I want to show me what you can do," Gildarts says. "It's been almost a month since we were both in Magnolia at once, so show me how much farther you've gone on the journey to become a great Wizard."
Oberon looks between Gildarts and his book a few times, then smiles.
"Yeah, I could use a break anyway, learning Cylgran is melting my brain."
"What?"
"It's a language, they have some old Magics I'm studying," Oberon says as he moves to get ready for their training session.
---30 Minutes Later…
A few miles away from Magnolia, along the shore of the massive lake behind the Fairy Tail Guildhall,
"Well, this looks about far enough," Gildarts says as Oberon is flying beside him.
"You know, we would have been here in less than a minute if you let me carry you."
"Just between us, I really don't like that," Gildarts says. "The first few times were fun, but I've spent my entire life charging toward people and creatures that wanted to crush me, so surrendering control isn't really something I'm good at."
"Well if you're ever in my library, I'm making you float."
"That's fair enough, I suppose," Gildarts says as they get to their regular clearing, noticing some new scorch marks around the area. "Looks like Laxus got some training in before they left."
"Oh, he went with Master Makarov?"
"Yeah," Gildarts says as he takes out a few crumpled documents from his cloak. "So now that we're far enough from everyone, mind taking a look at this?"
Oberon gives him an annoyed look, "I came here to get away from studying, and you're giving me homework?"
"We can train after," Gildarts says as he finds a tree stump and sits down. "But first, I need you to take a look at this, it's not the kind of thing I'd trust a Communication Lacrima with, and since Master Makarov isn't here, you're the second biggest brain in Magnolia."
Oberon sighs and hovers cross-legged in the air, floating the papers over to read them.
"These are, Aderic," he says while reading them. "But the dialect is old, older than any Grimoires I have. Where did you get these?"
"Someone was hired to take these to a very powerful Wizard who runs a Dark Guild, but they ran across me as I was coming back from my last Job. So now, I have them."
"And this Wizard is so dangerous you didn't want to open this around people, but why aren't we in the Master's office? The Runes there prevent people from spying."
Gildarts shrugs, "Honestly, figured they were probably trapped to explode when anyone read them."
Oberon looks from the paper in his hand back to Gildarts, "Thanks for the warning."
"You're a tough kid, you'd be fine.
"Just give me a minute," Oberon says as he focuses on translating.
After a few minutes, he takes out one of his Journals and writes some notes.
"Anything good?"
"I figured out what this is, but…very very not good," Oberon says.
"How bad?"
"These are instructions, to open a sealed tomb, it doesn't say where, but the tomb supposedly contains something called a Book Of Zeref—"
Oberon notices the shocked expression on Gildarts face.
"---Which I'm guessing is bad, since you actually seem worried for once."
Gildarts frowns, stands up, then starts pacing about.
"Ok, now I'm getting worried," Oberon says.
"Good, because this is serious," Gildarts says. "And I definitely made the right call not using a Communication Lacrima to ask Master Makarov about this."
"So what's a Book of Zeref?" Oberon asks. "I know Zeref is the most powerful Wizard in history, the unstoppable evil, the original Dark Mage, but, the books?"
Gildarts looks at Oberon, still completely serious, then retakes his seat.
"The Magic Council tries to keep this hush-hush, but Zeref's power still exists in this world, it didn't all die with him," Gildarts says. "They don't make this public because his power corrupts and breaks the minds and wills of anyone who tries to use them, or simply cannot be controlled, so they don't want the Dark Guilds to go after them."
"But this Guild found one."
Gildarts nods, "Zeref created a lot of Magic Items, weapons, tools, objects, even creatures. He created a variant of the Demon race called Etherious, and that's what the Books of Zeref are."
"So the books are Demons?"
"More like the Demons are the books," Gildarts says. "The books contain the Etherious, and they are linked to them, like a super advanced form of Body Link Magic."
"So if you control the book---"
"---You potentially control the Demon," Gildarts says. "But so far nobody has ever been able to control or tame one of those, the Demons usually just possess the person who opens the book, or manifest in physical form and kill everything until someone like me shows up to put it down."
"S-Class Emergency Requests?"
"Yeah, this would more than qualify for one of those," Gildarts says. "But the timing is also really bad, especially for our Guild."
"Are they going to target us?" Oberon asks. "That doesn't make sense, why would they want to piss off a Wizard Saint?"
"Because the Magic Council and Wizard Saints are about to piss off a lot of people," Gildarts says as he takes the pages and puts them away. "Ok, look–this isn't the type of thing I enjoy doing. Actually, I hate that I have to do this, but there are some things I need to tell you."
Oberon doesn't speak, just silently sits in the air, focusing intently on every word.
"As we speak, Master Makarov, the few Wizard Saints that care enough to show up, and the Chairman of The Magic Council, Crawford Seam, are in Era to ratify the ban of Assassination Jobs, a few other types of destructive Jobs, and Charm Magic."
"What kind of Jobs?"
"Assassination, kidnapping, corporate sabotage, that kind of thing," Gildarts says. "Basically a lot of the most profitable and shady shit is suddenly going to be illegal in a few months, which means a lot of Wizards and entire Guilds will walk away from the Magic Council to become Dark Guilds and Wizards."
"And you think they'll want revenge on the people who decided to change the laws?"
"They will," Gildarts says. "If there is one thing I actually can respect about some of those people, it's that they value their freedom and way of life enough to fight the world over it. So I'd imagine a lot of them won't be against attacking us to prove a point."
"So things are about to be dangerous, but, something tells me that's not the part you hate having to tell me."
Gildarts rubs the back of his head, "What is a Guild? Why do they exist?"
"Guilds are just places for people to work together to earn money or pursue a common goal, they exist for people to help each other."
"True, but Fairy Tail isn't exactly the same as other Guilds," Gildarts says. "Fairy Tail exists, because humans are weak, even Master Makarov and myself, we're all weak. We all need help, we all stumble and fall, and when that happens, having friends and family to support you can mean the world."
"Yeah, in Fairy Tail we look out for each other, always," Oberon says, smiling at the man.
"Good, then you understand that we'll all be depending on you for whatever comes next," Gildarts says, ruffling the boy's hair. "The fact is, after Master Makarov, I'm the strongest, but after me, there is a massive gap, then far lower down would be people like Macao. There are about a dozen people as strong as him in the Guild."
"Really?" Oberon asks. "I guess I don't really socialize much, but it makes sense since Fairy Tail has about seventy people."
"Yeah, but you're already far ahead of them, which is a bit depressing for some of them since you haven't even been here for a year," Gildarts says. "But that means, although you're only nine years old, we'll be counting on you to help us defend everyone."
Oberon's eyes widen slightly, surprised by the severity of that request.
"Yeah, it's a lot to put on a kid, but don't worry, Master Makarov and I will do everything in our power to prevent any problems from reaching anyone else, that, I can promise you," Gildarts says. "But this also means you'll have to be extra careful on Jobs, since you're pretty famous now."
"That's…a lot," Oberon mutters.
"I know, and it's not fair to you in any way that the future is turning out this way," Gildarts says. "I'm sorry."
Oberon sits there silently for a moment, thinking about it.
About the fact that once again, his home is about to be in danger from powerful Magical, evil forces.
"I won't be the only survivor this time," Oberon mutters, then Gildarts sees a fire lit behind his eyes. "I'll protect everyone."
Gildarts smiles and ruffles Oberon's hair, annoying the boy.
"That's exactly the answer I was expecting. After all, good kings protect their people, and you're King of the Fairies," he says before getting up and walking toward the middle of the clearing. "Now, let's get some training in. Show me what you've been learning these past few months…"
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]