Harry sat with his arms crossed at one of the nail-bitten wooden tables filling Fairy Tail's guild hall. You could see all the places it had been snapped, burned, stabbed, shot, punctured, and patched back together. Harry didn't mind. The guild felt lived-in, full of stories he hadn't heard yet.
Unfortunately, he couldn't reminisce on the good times, since as he sai… he didn't know them yet. Macao and Wakaba were drinking at another table. They'd invited Harry to join them, saying the best cure for a hangover was more alcohol. Harry declined. It was pretty obvious the men weren't going to stop at one or two drinks, and he felt obligated to be sober for his first day of work.
That was the problem. Work. Harry was in charge now and he didn't know what in Merlin's name he was supposed to be doing. He didn't even understand how this world worked.
In addition to the drunkards at the other table, Reedus was painting in the corner. Jet and Droy were likely passed out somewhere after all the drinking the night before. Bisca and Alzack hadn't come to the guild hall and Laki, saying she had something important to do, had ditched Harry almost thirty minutes ago.
"So… What does a guild master do?" Harry finally said.
"I'm glad you asked!"
Laki booted the guild's door open. Since it had been kicked the same way by Twilight Ogre the day before, and the nail job wasn't the best, its hinges instantly gave out. Laki blinked, looking at the felled door, and eventually marched over it, ignoring the problem. She was in a distinctive outfit.
It started with black heeled shoes and white socks that ran almost up to her knees. Her dark skirt was a tight fit on her thighs and hips. Above that was a white blouse with the top three buttons undone, a choice that was made for necessity more than style. Without the window at the top, Laki's plus-sized breasts wouldn't have been able to squeeze under shirt. A mini black blazer stopped atop her hips and hung open at the front. Laki's trademark glasses sat on the bridge of her nose.
Macao and Wakaba cheered. When Harry looked over, they were both holding up signs that said 10 like judges at a sporting event.
Harry flicked his wand and levitated the signs out of their grasp, promptly banishing them through (one of) the broken windows around the guild building.
"Hey, we made those ourselves!" Macao said.
"Do something better with your time," Harry said.
As if giving an example, Harry repaired the damaged windows and fixed the door from his seat with a few quick spells. Laki smiled at him. She was carrying what seemed to be a sign of some kind. When she set it on its stand, it proved to be a portable blackboard.
"Welcome! To Ms. Laki's lesson!"
She tilted her glasses, catching the light and making the left lens gleam. Harry, Macao, and Wakaba all raised their hands.
"So many questions!" Laki pointed to Harry. "You first."
"Shouldn't it be Ms. Olietta?" he asked.
"Doesn't sound as cute," Laki said. She frowned and clenched her top lip as she turned to Macao. "You."
"What's with that face?" Macao asked.
"Is that your question?"
"I was going to ask if you could let just one more button loose—"
A green light appeared on the table he was sitting at, Laki's hands glowing an identical color. An extra leg grew out of the top and nailed Macao in the jaw. He fell off his seat, his beer spraying him in the face. Harry only felt bad for the wasted alcohol.
"Next?" Laki asked sweetly, smiling with her eyes closed.
"Yeah… Why does Harry need to know what a Guild Master does?" Wakaba asked.
"Didn't I tell you?" Macao hauled himself up. He touched his arms, grimacing when he found out how sticky they were. "I made him the master."
Wakaba's drink clattered out of his hand. It turned over and spilled amber liquid across the table. He didn't even look at it. "You did what?"
"Someone has to do it," Macao said. "I never liked being the master. I only took it on because I was the oldest, and we'd all be screwed if you tried."
Wakaba was still staring at him with big eyes. Reedus was clearly listening too, although the painter was half hiding behind his canvas. Harry shifted a little awkwardly. It seemed only Laki had heard about Macao's decision from the night prior.
"Listen. It makes sense, right? Harry's got what I don't," Macao said. "I'll still be here. I'm never leaving Fairy Tail until they have to bury me. I'm just not cut out for being that guy. I tried as long as I could. We were only going down. It's better to give someone else a shot."
"...I need a drink," Wakaba said.
He got up, taking Macao's cup to the bar along with his own. When he went by Harry, he nudged Harry's shoulder with his elbow.
"Good luck."
"Thanks," Harry said, but Wakaba was already past him, muttering about crazy old men. He seemed to be including himself in that designation.
Harry's eyes were drawn back to Laki when she tapped a piece of chalk on her blackboard.
"Attention, class!" Laki said. "Today's lesson is a crash-course on guilds. Try not to miss anything!"
She drew a bunch of triangles on the blackboard. There were three main groups, and Laki put a circle around each of them. At the top, she wrote Magic Council and underlined it.
"There are three kinds of guilds!" Laki said. "Legal Guilds like us are the most common. There are five hundred active ones at this very moment. They listen to the laws the Magic Council sets, so they're free to operate and make money in the open."
Laki moved her chalk, pointing at the middle circle. This one had less triangles inside it than either of the other two. "Next are Independent Guilds. They're technically illegal, but the Magic Council doesn't see them as a threat. That means they aren't hurting people. Sometimes, Independent Guilds still get wiped out, or fight with Legal Guilds and turn into the last kind— a Dark Guild."
The last circle was partially-full. If Harry was understanding the system right, that meant there were more of these than Independent Guilds, but less than the Legal ones.
"Dark Guilds are the worst kind," Laki declared. She furrowed her eyebrows and frowned, trying to look angry. Harry refrained from pointing out that it mostly made her cuter. "They do all kinds of awful things. They'll take jobs to steal, hurt people, or even kill for money. They're an embarrassment to mages. Fighting them is a responsibility of Legal Guilds like ours, to keep ordinary people from being taken advantage of."
"So they're the bad guys," Harry summarized. "How do guilds decide when to fight a Dark Guild?"
"The Magic Council does that," Laki said. "They send out all sorts of jobs. Which brings me to my next point!"
Laki stuck a moderately faded sheet of brown paper over her diagram. It had a picture of a big boar with a mean look in its eye. Under the photo were details about a location, timeframe, and possible danger. At the bottom of the page was the number "10,000" followed by a curved shape like a fancy seven. Harry guessed that it represented Jewels, Earth Land's currency.
"This is an example of a job," Laki said. "It's an official request from a nearby village, not the magic council. I planned to take it on soon."
"Is ten thousand a lot of money?" Harry asked.
"It's about a twentieth of my rent," Laki said. "It'll be easy for a mage of my caliber, though! I can handle it in a single day."
"We used to get missions that paid five hundred thousand in one go," Wakaba grumbled.
"And you would never be sent on those, would you?" Laki said. "We stopped getting them because none of us can handle them, and the clients know that."
Harry looked across the room at the Request Board. He'd seen it before without understanding what it was for. All the jobs Fairy Tail received were posted for members to peruse. There was a disturbing amount of empty space.
Harry summoned the handful of jobs he saw posted. Only four papers flitted through the air into his hand. He read them over in a few seconds. There was one subjugation mission for an unruly ape, not too different from the job Laki showed him but with a slightly higher reward. Two of the jobs were for extra help in restaurants; one was requesting a fire mage to help in the kitchen while the other had breast-size specifications, wanting a sexy waitress to increase business. Harry incinerated the second one.
"Hey!" Wakaba said. "I was hoping Laki would take that one!" He hugged himself, smiling. "I was going to visit the restaurant while she was working. The outfit would've looked so good on her."
Laki knocked him out with another upside down table leg the same way she treated Macao earlier.
The last job had the smallest reward, just five hundred Jewels total, and was asking for a mage to attend their son's birthday party.
"These seem… How should I say…"
"Cheap?" Macao said.
"Pathetic?" Wakaba said.
"Bare-bones," Laki said. "They're something. They keep Fairy Tail alive."
The men both grumbled. Harry stacked the jobs on the table and gave his impromptu teacher his attention. "Based on the size of the board over there, you used to get better jobs in the past."
"Well… That's true," Laki said. "The jobs that a guild receives has to do with their size and reputation. Clients need to know that the mages they're hiring can solve their problem. Otherwise, there's no point."
Harry glanced again at the frankly uninspiring jobs he'd read through. "If less popular guilds don't get good jobs, how are they supposed to raise their popularity? I don't think grilling a chicken in record time or rocking a waitress outfit would cut it."
The other members were silent. When Harry looked around, he got the feeling that they were all thinking the same thing, but were hesitant to say it.
Laki was the first to take the plunge. "The Grand Magic Games."
"The what?"
"Grand Magic Games," Macao said. "It's a huge festival where Fiore's best mages duke it out in front of the whole kingdom. Everyone that's not in the stadium watches the broadcast. There's no faster way to make your guild look strong than showing off in the games."
Harry refrained from grinning. Jackpot.
"Then we'll just have to qualify—"
"We're already qualified," Laki said.
Her voice was morose. Macao and Wakaba looked into their beers while, across the room, Reedus hid behind his canvas.
"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Harry said. It felt like he was out of the loop.
"Depends on your definition of good," Macao said. "We get to compete. The whole country watches— and they see Sabertooth put us on our asses."
"The truth is, we're nothing special now," Laki said. "If we had to qualify, there's no way we could pull it off. The other guilds only let us compete because Fairy Tail used to be the strongest and even non-mages remember that. The crowd doesn't know our story. They just see Fairy Tail in last place and think the other guilds are that much stronger."
"Cowards! If our friends were still here, they wouldn't stand a chance!" Wakaba said.
"You have me now, though," Harry said. "Even if it's just one match, I should be able to—"
"You can't," Macao said. "Guild Masters aren't allowed to compete. It's the only rule."
Harry went quiet, tapping the table with his fingers. He made a note of what he'd learned… and moved the conversation on.
"Other than official jobs, what kind of work can guilds do?"
"Fighting between legal guilds is strictly prohibited." Laki made an X with her arms to illustrate her point. "Phantom Lord, the former second biggest guild, was disbanded for starting a war with us years ago. Other than Jobs and training, Guild Mages are only responsible for their area."
"It's up to us to keep Dark Guilds out of the way." Macao snorted. "Try telling that to Twilight Ogre, though. They let Dark Guilds set up right next to Magnolia Town and didn't do a thing. Who cares if the work doesn't pay well? It's the principle of the matter!"
He shook his fist in the air, looking for a minute like the old man he tended to describe himself as.
"There are Dark Guilds nearby?" Harry asked.
"A few," Laki admitted in a quiet, embarrassed voice. "Some of them were too big for us to deal with. And like Macao said, Twilight Ogre only did jobs that brought in the most money. They never cared about helping people. If all they would get out of a job was a thank you, they'd never take it!"
"These Dark Guilds wouldn't happen to still be around, would they?"
Laki shrugged helplessly. "Some of them are. There's nothing we can do. I think Lamia Scale was called in to handle the biggest Dark Guild in the area. I know that Zaxsa is still active. They've taken over a village to the northwest of Magnolia."
Harry stood up. He carried the jobs he'd read through back to the Request Board and replaced them, all except for the job for a kid's birthday party. That one he folded and placed in his pocket.
On his way back, he told Laki, "Describe that village."
"The one that Zaxsa took over? It only has a few houses. It's on one of the hills inland from the city. People used to go to see the wildflowers, but the dark mages started robbing anyone who tries—"
"Small village, flowers, and a hill with a view. That should do it."
Harry wrapped his hand around Laki's waist. She squeaked at the sudden physical contact, but Harry simply grinned.
"We'll be right back!"
He closed his eyes and pictured the details Laki told him. The rough picture was enough. Space collapsed around them.
He and Laki were treated to the feeling of their bodies being compressed through a pipe much too small for their size. The sensation lasted a fraction of a second before their feet hit the ground again. A pop! heralded their arrival. Laki gasped from the feeling of her first Apparition.
"What on earth— We're here!" Laki said.
She turned her head, marveling at finding herself in the exact place she'd been describing. Harry smiled at her.
"One of my more useful tricks," he said.
Harry's head was swiveling to take in their surroundings. You didn't need to have been to a place to Apparate there, you just needed a good description. For a general trip, even an estimate was enough.
Harry peeled his eyes for movement without spotting anything. No mages attacked them and no locals crept out of the six lonely houses to investigate. Something made the hairs on his arms stand at attention.
Laki was adjusting to the fact that they had teleported and recognized where they were. She held her hands out cloaked in green light, ready to call on her Wood-Make Magic.
"You didn't even give me time to change my shoes! I can't fight in these!"
"You said that Twilight Ogre could beat this lot," Harry said. "If that's true, don't worry. I'll handle the fighting."
He was still scanning the area. It was obvious where the Dark Guild had been living. The biggest building in the village was a farmhouse built in a gothic style, with a steep roof and three stories to its broad shape. Many of the windows had been boarded up and there was a pile of debris outside. Someone had knocked down the interior walls inside to hollow the house out. Harry approached it, still with a strange feeling tingling the back of his neck. Laki came after him, hastily swapping her heeled shoes for wooden sandals created with her magic.
When Laki caught up to him, Harry was on the house's porch. His wand was in his hand and his ears were peeled. So far, he hadn't heard a sound. He stepped through the door.
Like Harry thought, Zaxsa had knocked the walls down to make the house into one cavernous room. If he had to guess, they wanted to make it seem like a real guild hall, instead of a house they evicted the occupants from. In total, Zaxsa had twenty-five members. Harry knew because he did a headcount, totalling them all in his head.
Every last one was unconscious.
Some were beaten into the ground, one's head had been put through a window, a handful were encased in purple ice, and the rest were out cold without visible marks, just a collection of froth around their lips.
"More?"
A man was sitting on the stairs to a second floor that didn't exist anymore. Harry didn't think he was a member of Zaxsa. The unconscious men all shared the same black, button-up uniform and boots. By contrast, this person was wearing blue and brown, complete with a cape and mask. The mask was red with four horns, two at the top and two coming out of the cheeks. Wild green hair defied gravity. He was grinning at Harry and Laki, the latter of whom was getting very close to using her magic. Harry agreed that this man was creepy. He was off, somehow.
"Are you the one who did this?" Harry asked, holding up a hand to tell Laki to stay still.
"So what if I am?"
"I'd tell you that you did a good job. Then I'd ask who you were."
The masked man ran a hand down one side of his body, as if stroking long hair that he didn't have. "I suppose you'd consider me a passing good samaritan."
"You're quite a powerful w— mage."
"Thank you."
"You wouldn't happen to have a guild, would you?"
"No, no, I never had time for those."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"That's strange. I don't believe you. I'm pretty good at catching when someone's lying to me… I think it comes with years of fighting crime."
"Ah, one of the Magic Council's loyal dogs! The question is… Current, or former?"
"I'm not in that line of work anymore."
"So you say."
"Why so suspicious? It's like the council is after you."
"Is it?"
"It is."
The masked man leaned forward. The shadows over his eyes lessened, showing Harry sharp brown pupils. "You have no reason to care who I am. These men were a problem that I've solved. The villagers won't ask questions about who defeated them. They'll simply celebrate. After all, they've got their homes back. That's what really matters, isn't it?"
Harry's eyes flitted around the gutted interior. "I'm not sure I'd be happy to get this house back."
An orb appeared next to the masked man. Harry's wand was instantly up. Instead of flying at him or Laki, it whizzed around the interior of the house. Walls that had been scrapped and thrown in the yard were rebuilt. Dust and craters in the floor disappeared. In a span of seconds the house was back to its original form, Harry and the strange man facing each other down a narrow hallway instead of the middle of one big space. The man had stood up by the time his orb returned to him.
"You were saying?" he asked.
"Nice trick," Harry said.
"I'd prefer if you didn't call it a trick. That makes it seem impermanent. Please, call it what it is. Magic."
"Nice magic."
"Thank you."
"Will you tell me what guild you're in now?"
The man smirked. "I'm not that easy to butter up.
"I'll tell you my guild if you tell me yours. The name's Harry. I'm from Fairy Tail."
For some reason, this got a reaction. The man's smirk disappeared. "Prove it. Show me your guild mark."
"Ah… About that…"
"Show me your guild mark." The masked man was no longer joking. "Now."
"It's not really in a place for polite company—"
"Ice-Make: Garden of Glaives."
Purple light gathered around the man's palms, which he extended in Harry's direction. Purple ice like what encased Zaxsa members shot forward in erratic lines. It curved and split into multiple paths, each with the appearance of a thorned vine. Right before reaching Harry, the vines formed into six-foot spears with curved blades. They attacked from all sides, so Harry created a shield in the shape of a sphere, like a hamster ball encompassing his body.
He was still shot backwards through a wall. The shield remained in effect as the wall was blown open. Laki covered her head from the debris. She gritted her teeth and planted her hands on the floor. "Wood-Make: Natural Barrier!"
Thick trunks of wood grew out of the ground. As soon as they grew taller than a person, they were surrounded by orbs like the one that repaired the house. Laki's conjured wood sank back into the ground like she never cast a spell. The masked man walked straight through the place the barrier had been.
Harry summoned Laki to him by focusing on her shirt. He caught her when her body flew at him, setting her down a second later.
"Stay out of this," Harry said. "He's strong."
Far more than Banabooster or any member of Twilight Ogre. This was a real opponent. Harry felt a sense of excitement stir in his gut that wasn't quite appropriate. When was the last time he had an even match against a powerful opponent? Was it dueling Corban Yaxley, the member of the Inner Circle to be caught? It might have been longer than that.
Was it bad if he smiled?
The masked man walked through the hole in the house that had been created when his magic blasted Harry away. Behind him, the hole (and the rest of the house) was instantly fixed.
"I don't care if the council is chasing me. In fact, I accept that much, after the things I've done," he said. "But using Fairy Tail's name is too far. They gave more than anyone fighting for good. I won't let you use that for your benefit!"
Laki's guild mark was on her side just below her armpit. Harry saw it when they were in bed. To show it, she'd have to go topless. In the time it took her to consider such an extreme course of action, the man attacked.
"Ice-Make: Rosen Krone!"
Like the last attack, it came in the form of thorned vines. Instead of growing into spears, they formed gorgeous flowers of solid ice that tried to whip him.
Until Harry hit them with a Melting Charm that promptly reduced them to water.
The masked man was briefly rooted at the unexpected result. Harry used that to fire a stunning spell. The red bolt was intercepted by a flowing orb, reversing its path. Harry conjured a duelist's shield, something akin to a translucent glove, and backhanded his returned spell off course.
"Ice-Make: Root Rupture!" the man shouted.
This time, purple spikes shot from his hands into the ground. They erupted seconds later where Harry's body had been before he Apparated to his opponent. His goal was to get close. If his spells could be reflected, the only choice was to cast them from closer than the opponent could react.
The man's brown eyes glowed red. "Flash Forward."
The orbs he surrounded himself with multiplied. They shot at Harry like an avalanche. He Apparated again, this time reappearing on the opponent's left side.
He was almost knocked out cold when the orbs he just dodged flew at his head again. Not only were there near a hundred of them, they could track him. Harry started a frantic series of Apparitions, hounded at every step by the menacing orbs.
"Ice-Make: Flower Field!"
Towering lavender flowers formed, the gaps between them spanned by icy netting. If Harry's teleportation had been speed-based, the strategy would've trapped him. Instead, Harry Apparated cleanly onto the other side, leaving the ice in the way of the spheres that were chasing him.
A millisecond before the collision happened, Harry Apparated again, directly behind the masked man. The homing attack that was chasing Harry reversed directions. The masked man, who'd already been thinking about his next spell, failed to account for his attack turning on him. He screamed in pain as the orbs struck him, driving him into the ground.
Harry vaulted onto his body where he fell. "Incarcerous!"
Tight robes were conjured, binding his opponent. Harry used his own body to help hold the man down, bracing his arm across the man's chest—
Except it was no longer a man underneath him.
The mask, the green hair, all of it was gone. In its place was long dark hair and the face of a beautiful, pale woman. Harry looked down at his arm, which was currently braced across not a man's pecs, but a woman's spongy breasts.
"You've proven your point," she growled through clenched, grinning teeth. "Now get off."
Harry compromised and took his arm off her breasts, but didn't stand up. He didn't trust ropes alone to hold this woman. If she got free, he doubted he'd catch her off guard again so easily.
He was still thinking about how to clear up their misunderstanding when another woman screamed, "Ultear!"
Harry looked in time to see a glowing, translucent sword flying at his head. Harry conjured a shield only for the sword to go straight through it. He barely bent his neck in time to dodge.
He was forced off of the woman — Ultear, apparently — and hoped the ropes would hold. A pink-haired woman surrounded by more glowing swords was glaring at him. She was next to a man with blue hair and a face tattoo, who had two more members of Zaxsa slung over his shoulder. They must have been allies of Ultear, finishing the job the three came here for. The man shrugged off the dark mages.
"Wait—" Harry said.
The man was in his face.
Something strange happened to the man's legs, turning to a glowing gold as if they were on fire, and he crossed the gap in an instant, his fist burying in Harry's stomach. Harry was launched away. He rolled where he landed, coughing.
He'd managed to dull the blow by enchanting his clothes the instant before the punch hit and it still almost broke his ribs. There was no way to explain the situation. There wasn't time.
The man came again, catching up with Harry. This time, he tried a high kick. Harry conjured a ring of Tungsten around his ankle, weighing it down, and managed to lean out of the way. This freak was still fast with over a hundred pounds chained around his ankle!
"Depulso," Harry said.
The man was fired away from Harry, giving him a few seconds to breathe. The girl with the swords had gone straight to Ultear's side to free her. Ultear was already sitting up, the ropes Harry conjured lying as a cut pile on the ground.
"They're Fairy Tail impersonators!" Ultear declared. "Working for the council, most likely."
"We're not imposters!" Laki screamed. She backed up when Harry told her to, but refused to leave entirely. "I'm Laki Olietta! He's Harry Potter! We're mages of Fairy Tail, and we have the marks to prove it!"
"Then show us!" Ultear said.
"We can't!"
"Why?"
"Because mine is under my bra, and his—"
Laki's voice got quieter, finishing her sentence in a way that only she could hear. Ultear glared at her. "If she won't answer, take him down, Jellal!"
The man with blue hair held a hand in the air. Golden lights appeared in the sky. Harry didn't like the way they looked like they were falling, nor that their trajectory was bound in his direction.
Laki saw it too and sucked in a deep breath.
"He can't show you his guild mark… BECAUSE I PUT IT ON HIS BALLS!"
Harry wasn't sure the explanation was worth the looks of disgust Ultear and her pink-haired friend fixed him with.