The Ritual of Second Origin 2

"I have again to trouble you, Gran Doma." said Layla.

Gran Doma nodded and just reacted as if the rain was something he predicted a week before. He just revealed another spell.

"Magic Scripture, Rain Protection!"

Another barrier made of shiny letters appeared. The spell didn't stop the rain. It was still noisy, but at least inside the barrier it stopped.

"Thanks again."

"Amazing."

"It's really convenient."

"Let's just return to the topic." said Gran Doma.

"Of course, it's possible that those facts are unrelated to any schemes. Maybe Porlyusica lives in our times in Earthland because of that old dragon. Maybe this is all coincidence and those spiders aren't a creation of our enemy and so on. Dreyars might just be unlucky and the meaning of the curse of Ankhseram might be different. Celestial Spirits can just naturally forget things. The existence of a superior culprit here is just a guess. In a situation like that this is really careless guess."

"What are we going to do? You don't want to offend Ankhseram." asked Porlyusica.

"No, that's rather not possible. If this culprit is so superior, we can't just take him head-on. We don't even know where he is. To know its existence first we must force it to act unusually and that'll be the objective of the plan I want to introduce."

"I still don't understand. How the culprit behind the deaths of Dreyars' wifes is related to our problems? Why do you think there's any culprit behind the death of my mother? We should know about that bastard!" asked Laxus.

"Ankhseram's curse is what killed the first wife. It was Yuri's wife, Rita. Then it could be the fault of the accidental curse's working. But if the same happened already three times in a row it's more probable that all three deaths have the same cause. Because the thing that connects them all is being Dreyar's wife and giving birth to their children I incline to the theory of one culprit."

"So what now?" asked Makarov.

"We're still going to attack Brain's base, but at the same time we're going to send another group to observe the dark guild in the place they call 'the Tower of Heavens'. Let's say this to make it clear. We're not going to destroy it! Making them desperate would lead them to do something bad to slaves or at least turn the tower filled with slaves into a battlefield. It would even motivate them to cover pieces of information from being discovered. For now, we have two objectives: Infiltration and saving one of the slaves. It seems that they prison a granddaughter of Mrs. Hayako. Before doing anything more we need to have exact informations about the plans of the guild and how they did make a choice of villages. If there's something special about it we have to know. Kidnapping some members and interrogating them seems to be a good option. They should think everything is for the sake of reviving Zeref. The problem is that we already know that Zeref is alive and immortal on top of that. Therefore there's no way it's going to work well."

"Yet I don't understand one thing. What do you expect from us? You know about the tower more than us." asked Hayako.

"Take time and come up with a satisfying answer. It's only one problem to solve. What really is the Tower of Heavens? Why should it work if built? Is that really a way to revive a person? Is the one to be revived actually Zeref? Why do they think it's Zeref and not anyone else? Is there anyone cursed by Ankhseram? Do they have a way to summon a soul from the afterlife?"

"Those are seven problems, Layla!"

"However every single one is about the same thing. Examining the guild. We have to decide who'll go there with Mrs. Hayako. Normally I would go by myself, but the enemy is thinking that I'm going to attack Brain so without me doing that he'll know that he's exposed. Same for Gran Doma, Makarov, and Lucy."

"I'm going." said hooded one.

"Who's that one?"

"He's... my partner. Brain has his son and tries to get him out. Are you sure? You might be needed to calm down your little Severin."

The hooded guy next to Layla revealed his face. He was Kibbe.

"I'm sure you'll save him. You don't need me there. If you can take with you Gran Doma and Makarov, you sure have much more than enough to take down Brain. Instead, I can use my skills to sneak into the tower. It seems that's important for you."

Layla pondered for a few seconds and said:

"Maybe I can help that... Anyone here knows how to use transformation magic?"

"I think I can perform one, lady Layla." said one of the hooded guys next to Gran Doma.

"Who's that?"

"I'm one of the personal guards of Gran Doma." the hooded person introduced himself.

"What did I tell you about revealing yourself... He's Andre. Yes, he knows how to perform that kind of magic. Very competent." commented Gran Doma.

"Can you transform into that guy?" asked Layla pointing at Kibbe.

"Give me a second. I have to see more details of his. You know... this is how it works."

It took thirty seconds for him to transform into Kibbe.

"Excellent! I have a perfect job for you in this form."

"What do I have to do?"

"Andre, pretend to be him before his son."

"THIS!" attenders said simultaneously.

"What's the matter? asked Layla.

"Lying to people can be bad! Especially to kids. Why do you even need that?" said Makarov

"I'm preparing just in case that the lie will be useful to save that kid or maybe even us. We still care about his good future. I guess that's better than just letting Brain to have him where he wants him to be."

...

"Aaagh!"

"Endure it! You're close!"

Meanwhile, Severin was undergoing tortures. The whole ritual was meant for an hour but Brain prolonged everything because he wished to stimulate the growth of the Second Origin more.

"Boss, when we're going to start stabilizing the Second Origin?"

"Let's take a few minutes more to concentrate more magic."

"But the machine..."

"It will be fine. I fortified it to make sure that it won't explode like before. The problem is what the boy is will do. It is an uncertain factor. He didn't unleash anything. The concentration is still growing. Let's cool him down a bit. Otherwise, he may overheat. If you worry about our invention, prepare the magic drainer just in case."

"Okay. I'll go immediately. Excuse me."

"I believe we witness the birth of the new way of raising magic potential. Failures before and even that explosion back then were a high price for the success, but it was worth it as we were able to get to this point."

Brain always cared about ways of obtaining power just out of fantasy. His position as a researcher was established not due to his talent to wield magic. In fact, his talent is low. If you aren't a wizard in a very magic world you can still live a happy life, even happier than wizards cause magic isn't everything, but in confrontation with wizards, you're in a losing position. Without heavy training, most of wizards can just beat shit out of you and it's not anything new to use magic to bully people. It's not like ordinary people are helpless, but the cost of dealing with them is high and it's hard to make one realize who's good and who's bad. Inequality of power is just one of the aspects of that world contributing to biases growing in this matter.

After all, that's what created the modern system of magic guilds. Usually, magic guilds are organizations of wizards meant to perform dangerous tasks together. Some of those tasksincludes dealing with criminals and bringing justice to clients. Most of them are related to problems of justice and enterprises of one town. So at least pro forma guilds are often formed based on contracts signed with towns' governments. A guild with such contracts is what the Magic Council considers as a legal guild. Guilds form relations between themselves to avoid future problems that might come from the differences in power they hold and even support each other in certain tasks. If they start doing bad things they risk having a war with other guilds due to agreements signed with other guilds. If they don't want to sign any agreements they're suspicious and have problems while operating.

Even then the balance is not easy to keep. Always there's a dark guild hidden somewhere and no matter what the governments do they just can't do everything. Brain thinks that the balance is so fragile because not anyone can become a wizard and guilds can't cover entire country. If someone can find a way to make wizards out of ordinary people he can become the ruler of this country outperforming armies in the long run. The goal is still far away but the ritual is an essential step. With this he can turn himself into real powerhouse with a vast pool of magic even if he has no talent.

Brain showed a greedy grin to quickly change it into a gentle smile. The boy was suffering and some of his skin was lightly burned, but the harm was lowered with water magic used to cool him down and minor healing spells built into formation. He said loudly:

"Severin, can you hear me?"

"Yes. How much longer do I have to stand?"

"It will be the final effort. We already forced the flow of magic into a different pattern and stimulated the initial increase of the core of the Second Origin. Now we need to stabilize it. Get ready. It will be worse for a while."

"Good. This is going to end."

"Remember to not give up. On that, it depends what you can do later."

"Boss! I brought it here!"

"Place it near the boy and we're going to begin. Also... tell the staff to evacuate until I announce they can return. It would be a shame to lose again my assistants. Turn on the communication lacrima so they can watch from the outside."

"Yes."

...

"So you'll go with them, Porlyusica?"

"Yes, but you put me in an unexpected situation. I'm going with them only to help the slaves. I'm not going to help you infiltrate anything. This is dangerous!"

"It's still more than I could ask for. Thank you very much."

"Talk less about my life in the future!"

"I can't promise that much."

Layla suspected that Porlyusica may be way more important than everyone expected. She's the proof that the dragons were all trying to use their counterparts in Edolas to send messages even before x774. But that should be impossible as the souls of the dragons are residing now in dragon slayers who are in Eclipse Gate. So how?

"Anyway. As we are now, no one else here has qualifications to help with the Tower of Heavens."

"What about me and Gildarts?" said Laxus.

"With all respect for you, Laxus and Gildarts, but you're not effective in doing things discreetly. You can at most go with us to guarantee that we'll crush Brain's people and whatever we'll encounter. I can't tell you to do something. Perhaps you can even consider sneaking as too boring."

"Ehh... fine. So let's go. We've probably talked all things we had to talk about for the moment."

"We're waiting for one more person."

"Who?"

"Lucy, you wrote in letters about your new friend you wanted to take with you for combat experience for him, right?"

"Yes, mom, when but he heard more about Brain, he said I'm lying and then got a bump. I think we need to wait for a better time to convince him."

"Then why is he even spying on us right now?"

"Huh?"

A bush started to rustle.

"Come here! We don't bite. Well... mostly."

A boy of similar age as Lucy came out of the bush. That was Ren.

"How did you know I'm here?"

"You left a small-sized magic motorbike here in the middle of night. If not for that obvious mistake you'd hide from us for some time. He's Ren, I guess."

"Should we get him? He might be related to our enemies Layla's talking about." told Laxus.

"NO! I'm not..."

"This kid is obviously unrelated to our problems. It's only quite troublesome that he was hidden. It's a pain to say that, but he's still better at sneaking than most of us."

"And you've pretty much broken the school statute for the lowest classes. You can't wander alone in the night while you are in the dorms." uttered Gran Doma.

"We have the right to go out at weekends and I've got permission from my parents under the excuse of having a trip with friends." countered Ren.

"You can't do that!" threatened Gran Doma.

"Why not?"

"Because going with us is unresponsible and it's not a trip with friends..."

"Lucy is my friend. And if I'm unresponsible here how unresponsible are you?"

"But see. We're different. We're prepared..."

"Yes, and if I'll go with you I'll be prepared with you."

"*sigh*"

"By the way, Mr. Gran Doma, I just want to see, if things she said about Mr. Brain are true. In case things are going to get wrong I have my motorbike and can run away quickly."

"Ren..." muttered Lucy.

"These are adult things... Layla, as you lead the operation, you have to decide. Do you agree to take care of him?" Gran Doma said to Layla with excuse-like tone to Layla.

"I can do that much. It's not a problem." Layla wawed her hand and pretended to not understand Gran Doma.

"Layla! You had to not let him go. What about..."

She didn't let him end.

"But let me say something thing about conditions. Don't complain if you're not in danger and don't make any trouble until we get there. Do you understand?"

"Yes, madame!" said Ren without hesitation.

...

Being put under greater pressure Severing was crying, screaming and so on. It was worse than an urgent visit at the dentist.

'I already regret agreeing for this. It hurts like hell! Well, there's no turning back."

Brain seeing this was calm. As long as Severin will survive that part, it should be possible to see the effects of ritual in the most important aspect. The staff was outside preventing them from being killed by accidents. In short...

"Aaaaaaaaaaaa"

An oversized bolt of Severin just pierced the roof...

'God damn! It's going to be expensive to repair. It's hard to bring professional building workers here...'

However, he thought about it and remembered that builders actually often mess up their jobs or make the execution last for weeks while breaking other things and repairing unevenly to the point when a pencil placed on a floor 'repaired' by them would just roll down, fall down and sometimes even stick to the eye of unsuspecting unlucky guy. To repair something like this he has probably to mobilize his own staff. So how did he build this facility in the first place? The answer is: His subordinates did all of that. If he let them do everything as they want they'd spend all their budget on fancy buildings in the shape of crescent symbolizing that usually they are mad scientists working mostly in the middle of night in the accompaniment of flashy lightnings. Good taste but also a great waste of money. If the government heard of all of this... they would give them even more money and turn those guys into misunderstood artists! Unacceptable even if that'll lead to some unexpected discoveries.

"Hold on! Condensation of the Second Origin is going well. 5 more minutes!"

Severin on the other hand couldn't even care. He was only paying attention to the strange pulsation in his stomach growing between waves of pain. He had a feeling like he could just touch the source of it. Not literally of course because his limbs are tied to the altar but in a way similar to the way he feel he can touch his magic when he created that black bolt in his hand.

"Maybe I can just..."

And then he started to concentrate more and more magic on his core. He didn't know how but the feeling of being in touch with magic grow more substantial as continued to move more magic into it. That strange phenomenon didn't escape from Brain's eyes.

'It's like back then with Ultear, but it's more effective.'

While continuing to build up that something that was growing larger and more lucid but using a lot of magic power and the ritual took a toll on him. Severing was getting really exhausted. He told himself that he'll definitely stay awake but as most of those promises are like this he eventually fell asleep. Little puffs generated by his aura had yet to melt away but Brain could already hear the snoring. Brain used his communication lacrima and announced the result.

"Okay, guys! It's a success! You can return now. We've got a hole in the roof and I'm in good mood today so you can repair it any way you want."

"Hurray!" they exclaimed as if construction workers heard they just got lots of beer for free.

'Those idiots..."

The members of staff were returning to take a closer look at Severin and find out what kind of hole they have to fill up. Some fantasized about repairing it with some unique arrays they used to make automatic doors. That will be a good night. As for Brain he was thinking about ways to utilize his little Severin. The boy has great potential in dark magic. He was able to awaken his abilities without much help from Brain. Even now he's stronger than most mages here. If only learned to wield it a little better he would be as strong as Ultear, but Brain has different plans. After all if Severin is so strong just now, in the future he would be too strong to control him so he can't wait too long with that.

'I might have some interesting uses for him. For now, I need one day more to prepare my own ritual.'

Then he started to laugh like a second-rate villain.