Chapter 49: Thousand Arms Armor and Fantasia

The next day, Mest was gone and no one except Makarov, Aversia and Zeldaris remembered him.

Well, not really because Vulcan had noticed the magic that Mest had cast on everyone, including himself, and used an enchantment to word it off.

But he was only able to use it on himself because he noticed it rather late and had not enough time to use it on everyone else.

Zeldaris and Aversia, who had already expected that Vulcan would notice the spell and word it off, explained the situation to him.

But Vulcan didn´t know Mest in the first place, since he had only recently joined the guild and was most of the time working at the forge, but he also didn´t like the situation as much as Aversia and Zeldaris.

As for the outburst that Zeldaris and Aversia had, only Makarov, Ophiuchus and Vulcan were not affected by the sheer amount of magical power that the two half dragons released.

As for Erza and Mirajane, they were only slightly affected by it, but not by much.

Natsu, Elfman, Lisanna, Gray and Canna had been affected in various degrease, but mostly on the smaller side.

Happy and the others on the other hand had been affected much more severe.

Thankfully for them, there was something that acquired the full extent of Zeldaris´s and Aversia´s attention and that was the request that Erza made earlier.

Vulcan had already made some plans and enlisted the help of someone who specializes in producing prosthetic limbs.

Vulcan needed his help to make the added arms be able to move like normal arms.

However, this was not the only problem that the three faced.

For example, the two other big problems were the material out of which the arms should be made of and the energy source to enable to move in the first place.

The first problem was by far the most problematic, since they had to be light and flexible enough to move quickly, although this is also connected with the other problem.

But it also needed to be hard and strong enough to support the weight of the entire arm and protect the fragile parts inside.

Vulcan decided to compromise and decided to make the arms balanced, although it meant that the armor would be heavy.

As for the energy problem, he decided to use an SE-Plug (Self-Energy plug) for it, an SE-Plug was a device that converted magical power into energy that and each artificial arm was connected to an SE-Plug.

However, this meant that the armor would constantly absorb a small amount of magical power from the user, meaning that the user would become weaker and weaker the longer the armor was used.

Vulcan had tested a vied variety of SE-Plug types to get the best balance in absorption rate and conversion rate.

This alone took more than two months to do and a lot of resources and money.

As for the rest of the armor and its overall design, that took almost half a month to do, because Vulcan insisted to give the armor a design of an oriental Buddhist, with inspirations and designs from the Nakagami Armor from the waist down.

He wanted to call the armor the Asura Armor, a being or God of the eastern continent from which Vulcan had taken inspiration from, as for how he knew about it, he didn´t tell.

Even the swords, each arm was holding one sword, were designed in that way.

But Erza had a different idea for the name and called it the Thousand Arms Armor.

Zeldaris and Aversia really wanted to retort about Erza´s naming sense but were too exhausted to say anything.

It took a lot of tries and trial and errors to make this armor.

Almost every day they had to work through the day and most of the night, only stopping to eat something and to sleep for a few hours, since they had to finish the armor before the Harvest Festival and to give Erza enough time to get used to it to use it for the Fantasia Parade.

Meaning that the two half dragons were both physically and mentally exhausted beyond believe, as for Vulcan, he was nearly not as exhausted as his children.

He also loved the name that Erza came up with for the armor.

The two exhausted half dragons decided to just go home and take a long rest at home and flew toward the mansion.

The next few days Erza could be seen trying to get used to the new armor and getting used to the four artificial arms.

And was able to make quick progress at this.

To be fair, Zeldaris and Aversia helped Erza by telling her about their own experiences with getting used to new limbs.

And soon enough it was time for the Harvest Festival and the Fantasia Parade.

The festival was held on October 15th and was one of the main events in the city.

The towns people decorated the city festively and many shops were holding special events.

People from the surrounding towns and villages came to the town just for that day.

Magnolia was of course not the only town that celebrated the Harvest Festival, and it was quite normal that the mage guilds would do something as well.

Fairy Tail was no exception and was normally doing two events.

First was a contest between the members, every year it was a different contest ranging from beauty contests, which were also the most popular, to contests of skills and sometimes a fighting tournament.

The price money for these contests was always around 500.000 Jewels.

And the final event was the Fantasia Parade, it was always the final event of the day and the most anticipated event.

For some it was the sole reason that they came to the festival in Magnolia.

The mages of the guild would build floats with different themes and entertain the people with their magic.

Every parade was different from the last.

The preparations for the parade were going along nicely.

Vulcan, Zeldaris and Aversia were helping the other members wherever they could.

The three of them would also participate in the event and had already finished their floats.

Members that wouldn´t participate on floats had other jobs at the parade.

For example, Natsu would create fire works with his flames and a few other things.

While most members were preparing for the parade, the rest were taking part in the contest, the theme of the contest would be announced a few days before the festival and any member was allowed to enlist and would be excused from the preparations of the parade.

The contest was hosted by two members, who were most of the time away on long term jobs.

Max and Warren had become over the last two years the ones that were responsible for hosting the contest and for the merchandise.

This year's contest was a talent show where the members would show their magic to the publicum and try to impress them.

The publicum would decide who the winner was, by voting.

Quite a few members were taking part in it, including Gray, Erza, Cana, Lisanna and even Natsu.

As for the master of the guild Makarov, he was watching the contest.

The contest ended with a draw between Gray and Cana, but both got 500.000 Jewels each, so they were not mad and even made one last show at the end.

And as the day ended and the night begun was it time for Fantasia to begin.

The parade would go through most of the city.

The air was filled with all kinds of magical lights and animals.

Some members used their magic to paint objects and animals into the air, like Mckey who was using her Magic Bird called Pii-chan, who can transform into a ball of flame to, while also playing in a band with Mikuni and Wan.

Vulcan was using his enchantments to create elusions of different kinds of animals and monsters, but also made an elusion of Challot and Emrissen in their original form and made them fly in the air.

Lisanna and Mirajane were dressed as princesses, were standing before a castle and were flanked by Elfman and Gray, who looked like knights who were protecting the princesses.

Zeldaris and Aversia were dressed like fire dancers and were performing a fire dance.

And while they were dancing, appeared flames around their body who became bigger and longer and started to rotate around them.

The two were using the spell Hunting Dragon, Aversia could also use that spell since the two had developed that spell together and were creating the fire dragons slowly and made them mimic their dance.

Erza was dancing with her Thousand Arms Armor, although she would sometimes change to other armors, but she mainly used her new armor.

Even Makarov was taking part and was dancing in a funny costume.

On top of the cathedral stood six people, those were Challot, Emrissen, Irene, Belserion and the two cloaked figures.

They were watching the parade and how Zeldaris, Aversia, Vulcan, Natsu and Erza were having fun.

They had been coming to watch the festival in Magnolia for a few years now and it was truly one of the few things that they were excited for in the year.

Especially this year, since Zeldaris, Aversia and Vulcan were taking part in it as well.

Challot and Emrissen were happy about the two elusions of themselves that Vulcan made.

Irene on the other hand had mixed feelings, she was happy that her daughter was doing fine and was having fun, but she couldn´t help but feel that she was showing a bit too much skin for her taste.

Although she really wasn´t that much better than her daughter, and everyone was thinking that.

As for the two cloaked figures they were looking at a side street, where Laxus and his team were standing.

They were also watching the parade and a small smile could be seen on Laxus´s face, although both figures were sure that Laxus was not aware it.

But they had no time to keep looking at him and his group, because two other people had arrived at their location.

One was a woman that was covered from head to toe in armor and her face was hidden behind a helmet.

The other one was someone that everyone in the group knew, someone whom they hadn´t seen for a long time.

"it´s been a long-time, Tia. The last time that we meet was more than 100 years ago.", said Irene, greeting her former student.

"It really has been a long-time teacher, everyone.", said Tia and greeted everyone, while smiling.

Tia had changed a lot in the last 400 years, her demeaner has become more reserved and her eyes were hiding a mix of emotions, sadness being the one of them.

"Did you see her?", asked Challot.

"I did and she is no longer alone. Anna is watching over her and that strange cat."

"That's good to hear. Sting and Rogue are also doing fine, although we all are concerned about Gajeel. His attitude has truly become quite troublesome.", said Emrissen, while sighing.

Tia giggled before saying, "Well, I am sure that most of it can be blamed at Metalicana. After all, living with him for even a short time can make someone irritated."

The armored woman was looking at Tia, since she rarely saw Tia relaxed like that or laughing.

The same could be said about her.

"True, but even than he has become quite arrogant, and it is only a matter of time until he and Phantom Lord are going to start a war with Fairy Tail.", said one of the figures.

"That reminds me: Why are you two wearing these hoods in the first place? I mean you two didn´t ware them 100 years ago, so why know?"

"It´s complicated. Let´s just say it is too soon to reveal ourselves."

"But 100 years ago, it wasn´t? Also, from whom do you hide your identity in the first place? I mean, it just looks ridiculous.", said Tia while raising an eyebrow.

To that both figures had no answer and just froze in place, to which Tia just started to laugh with tears at the corners of her eyes.

"Nothing really changes around here, how I have missed this.", said Tia, while whipping the tears away.

"To be fair, it was your decision to leave us, but it really is good to see you again Tia. I missed you.", said Irene.

"I know and I still stand by my choice teacher. I wanted to visit a few times, but how things ended 100 years ago, I was afraid and unsure if you would even greet me."

"Tia, we are sorry for how things ended 100 years ago. But I want you to know that no matter what happens, you will always be my favorite student and you will always be part of our family.", said Irene, the others nodded in affirmation.

"Teacher… Everyone…. Thank you.", said Tia as tears started to run down her face, finally being able to let out her pent-up emotions.

Irene pulled Tia into a hug and started to console her.

As for the armored woman, a single tear could be seen falling from beneath the helmet.

"Hey, know, there is no need to just stay at the corner. Come on join us.", said one of the hooded figures.

The two of them had appeared out of nowhere beside the armored woman and started to pull her toward the others.