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Of Lightning and Long Locks	By : Rhov Category: +. to F > Fairy Tail Views: 2451 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail nor do I make money for this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Chapter 3
Reverse
They arrived at the town of the client and were greeted with the oddest sight they had seen in a long, long time. Everyone in town either had outrageously garish hairstyles, or they had covered their heads with paper bags, hoods, and masks. Each one looked mortified to realize a stranger was there and ran away from their group, leaving them with a clear path through the street.
Finally, one man wearing a deep hooded cowl walked forward. "Are you the Fairy Tail wizards?"
Freed stepped forward. "This is Laxus Dreyar, and we are the Raijinshuu. We're looking for Mister Bill Strawberry."
"Oh my, your hair!"
Freed felt the top of his head. "Ah, these?" He stroked along the thunderbolt shaped cowlicks. "They just form that way."
"No, I mean … hair so long. You must be proud of it."
"I just like it long. It suits me better."
The hooded man cringed deeply and shook his head. "I'm so sorry for you." He waved them to follow. Although they were confused by his words, they walked along, heading into a large bank that was completely empty.
"Do I have something in my hair?" Freed whispered to Evergreen.
"It's as impeccable as ever. It's the people here with odd hair."
"It's as you say," said a deep, elderly voice. Inside the bank was a group, four hooded tough men wearing suits all standing protectively around a seated man wearing a silk bag over his face. "It's the people here with odd hair. That is because of that cursed wizard child running around."
"A child?" Laxus rolled his eyes. "We don't babysit brats."
"He's a prodigy, the grandson of a Ten Wizard Saint. His mother is the richest woman in town and a well-respected client of mine at this bank."
"Are you Mister Strawberry?" asked Freed.
"I am, head of the bank and mayor of Avedaville. I represent the Gibson family as well as this entire town. Thank you for coming."
Evergreen glanced around suspiciously at all the head coverings. "The flier said to bring in a little terror. I'm guessing you don't mean a monster, then."
"He might as well be called a demon, because that child is not like any human I've ever heard of. Some wonder if his grandfather, Wolfheim, is actually human. When Kimbly Gibson gave birth to her son Teddy, he was very sick, brimming with magic. However, she did not want her son to work at a magic guild. His power was suppressed by various means, and he was forbidden from learning or even seeing magic. For the past seven years, the staff of her mansion were not allowed to use magic at all.
"The only time he got to see it at work was when his mother was preparing for a royal banquet at Mercurius. She brought in a famed barber to help her prepare. Although she locked herself away, Teddy somehow sneaked into the room and witnessed magic at work for the first time. Just one glance, and he picked up hairstyling magic instantly. It takes wizards years of training in magic beauty school to learn what he did peeking through a crack in a closet. That is how genius he is.
"The next day, the mansion staff all had new hairstyles. Many were cute, but for those he didn't like, he cursed them with hideous haircuts. When Kimbly returned from Mercurius and saw what her son had done, she tried to stop him by forcing him wear a magic-sealing bracelet. He threw a tantrum, and she went bald. Then he ran away.
"He's been running amok for a whole week. We called in the royal guards. They used magic to try and bring him in safely. He picked up their magic with one look. All of it! Dozens of types of magic. This small child defeated an entire squad of royal guards."
"I could do that with one finger," Laxus grumbled. "So, he's the grandson of a Ten Wizard Saint. So am I. He's super powerful and a parent wants him to be weak. I was born weak but my father wanted me to be insanely powerful. I get it, but he's a spoiled brat, so I'll whoop his ass and bring him back home to his mother. She'd better straighten him out or I will."
Freed stepped ahead to smooth over Laxus' rough approach. "We empathize with the boy and the family. We will retrieve him as quickly and safely as possible. We'll need a magic-sealing device if he's as powerful as you say."
"Such hair!" Mr. Strawberry said in a sad tone. "I am so sorry."
Freed was again startled by the comment to his hair.
"Yes, you will have something to safely restrain him. I'll warn you, though. You are all renown for your magical power, but do not use magic near him. He will pick up on your type of magic and use it against you."
"We can't use magic?" Bickslow exclaimed. "Then why request wizards?"
"Because someone has to be able to fight against what he learned from the royal guards. He knows how to create traps and pitfalls, how to freeze people, control plants, all the suppression techniques the guards had used."
Freed nodded thoughtfully. "The flier specifically said you needed someone who can manipulate runes. That's why Mira recommended this for our team. Now I get it."
Mr. Strawberry rubbed his silk-bag-covered face. "His grandfather has been sent for and promised to bring a magic barber. See, the hairstyles little Teddy Gibson creates, no one can un-create. And if he does not like you, they are hideous. Oh so hideous!"
He waved for his guards to lower their hoods. One tough man had humongous odango buns on the sides of his head, another had a bald strip running straight down the center of his coifed hair, a third looked like he had a curled mustache growing where his bangs should be, and a fourth looked like his hair had become a unicorn with a glittering lavender spike shooting outward. Then Mr. Strawberry pulled the bag off his face. He was a paunchy man with a bearded double chin and high blood pressure that made his face bright pink. Both his hair and his beard had been dyed to match the brightness of his cheeks, all but the top which had been fringed into spikes and dyed green, with his hair and beard also dyed with black spots until he looked exactly like a giant strawberry.
Laxus merely raised an eyebrow, Freed cringed a little, but Bickslow and Evergreen could not stop the burst of laughter.
"Guys, that's rude," Freed hissed, trying to hush them.
Mr. Strawberry sighed. "It's okay. I know. My own wife can't look upon me without laughing. She asked me not to see the children because it could traumatize them for life. I can't even look in a mirror without hating myself. Every single person in this town was cursed with terrible hair. When we try to change it…"
He pulled out scissors and attempted to cut off the green leaf-like spikes on the top of his head, but the scissors shattered.
"The magic barber had used a spell so Kimbly's hair would never change all through the three days she was at the king's banquet. Teddy must have assumed all hairstyles use such advanced methods. Our hair won't grow, it can't be cut, it can't be dyed, and even if you drench it in water, it will go straight back up into the style it was in originally."
Evergreen poked the thunderbolt cowlicks on Freed's hair. "Is that how you managed to get these to always stay this way?"
He shoved her hand away. "I've told you, I was born with them."
"It's also bad for business," Mr. Strawberry said as he pulled the silk bag over his face again. "No one is leaving home unless they absolutely have to. No one is coming into this bank. Children refuse to go to school, and couples are sleeping in separate rooms because they are too humiliated to sleep together. It's a disaster at every level."
"It seems like you're over-reacting," said Evergreen.
"You have no idea what this is like, to have hair this hideous," he shouted, but then he tried to calm himself. "Many people can't even sleep well because their hair is in the way. Some can't return home because their hair is so huge, they don't fit through the door anymore. We had to put three townsfolk up in a barn because their hair is too massive. It can be outright dangerous for others. One poor man has hair so long, it's damaging his spine and he's been placed on bed-rest by the town doctor, unable to walk due to the sheer weight of all that hair. It's not just hideous, but dangerous."
The unicorn-headed man nodded. "I gave my boyfriend a black eye when I accidentally bumped into him."
"We are a small town," Mr. Strawberry lamented. "There are no magic guilds anywhere nearby, no magic barbers, nothing of the sort. Wolfheim promised to bring a magic barber, but he can't be here for another week. The only hope is that little Teddy will calm down and fix everyone's hair before then. I give you this warning: mentally fortify yourself, because he will first attack with bad haircuts. It's the magic he knows best, and he aims to weaken you through humiliation. I am so, so sorry about your hair."
Freed straightened his shoulders. "We are the Raijinshuu of Fairy Tail. A bad hair day is not enough to deter us."
They were brave words, but they underestimated that child.
As they went into the woods where the child was hiding, they hit many traps. Freed was careful about what runes he used to get out of them. They all had to remember, they could not use strong magic or this child would mimic it and fight in the same way.
Laxus' hearing and sense of smell led them right to the boy, who had constructed an elaborate tree house, definitely using some sort of wood magic. That was when the attacks began.
All they had to do was get close enough to attach a magic-sealing collar around his neck. However, he had learned a few different types of magic. They were hit with sudden walls of earth, blasts of water, vines would suddenly wrap around them and bind them, they had hallucinations of people who were not really there, all the while the child laughed and taunted them to show him more magic.
And then, Evergreen was struck down.
"Let him learn this." She lowered her glasses, and her eyes glowed.
Freed jolted at feeling the buildup of magic. "Evergreen, no!"
"Stone Eyes!"
The boy was instantly turned into stone with a look of fascination etched onto his face.
"Easy," she said smuggly. "Now, let's bring him in. Where's that collar?"
They heard cracking, and suddenly the boy broke free with the stone around him turning to tiny crumbles.
"That's incredible, lady. I've never seen someone cast magic with their eyes. Do you have to be born with it? Can you learn it?"
Evergreen's mouth dropped. "How? That's impossible. No one can break free from Stone Eyes unless they have prosthetic eyes."
"I charmed myself," the boy declared, grinning mischievously. "Those guards tried to do something like that, but it was cast with a magic circle, not their eyes. I dodged that one easy-peasy, and he turned the guard behind me to stone. I just listened to what the guy did to undo it and remembered it. You should leave your glasses on. It hides your ugly face."
Evergreen flared up. "Why you little—"
"You're not a good lady, are you? You sound sorta nice, but you're really mean. I know just the hairstyle."
Her head glowed, and Evergreen gasped.
"Wanna see?"
A massive mirror of ice formed in front of her, and Evergreen saw what he had done. Her brown hair had been turned into a frizzy, curly mullet.
"Ahhhhhhh!" she screamed, backing away from the mirror. "No, not a mullet. Anything but that."
"It's just hair," Freed tried to reason.
"The hair makes the person, as my mommy says." Little Teddy blasted a spell at Freed, whose head glowed and came back with his hair fanned up in the back like a green peacock. The ice mirror turned on its own to show him.
"It suits me," Freed said stubbornly.
"It's hideous," Evergreen declared, cowering down.
Laxus glared. "Ever, what's wrong with you?"
"It's not just hair," Freed said, and they saw his hands were in fists to hold back from shaking. "There's a psychological element he's sneaking in. The person gets a hairstyle that is what they perceive to be absolutely the worst, on … nightmarish levels," he explained, and Freed trembled slightly. "That internalized aversion is magically increased. It's not just bad. It's … revolting. It's physically nauseating and mentally torturous. It's more of a psychological attack than a physical one." He slammed his eyes shut. "Someone please shatter that mirror before I vomit."
Laxus gladly punched it, but then he walked up to Freed and laid a worried hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"No," he admitted, gulping down sickness deep in his gut, "but I'll manage so long as I don't have to see myself. Be careful, all of you. His attacks are more dangerous than they appear."
"You're really smart, mister," the boy said to Freed. "I don't think I like you."
The boy's eyes suddenly glowed just like Evergreen's had, but Freed and Laxus knew that look all too well. They quickly looked away, and Bickslow jumped in front of them with his arms spread to make sure they did not look into his eyes.
"Wow, it doesn't work on you, huh?" the boy said in curiosity. "Is it the helmet? What's under that weird thing?"
Bickslow's head glowed, and instantly he looked uncomfortable.
"Ow … ow … ow, ow, ow!" He ripped the helmet off, and his hair suddenly puffed out in a massive afro, so huge he fell over from the weight. Freed and Laxus had to leap back at the sheer size of that globe of hair.
"Eww, did you tattoo your face? Yucky!" Teddy said, sticking his tongue out.
"Bickslow?" Freed shouted out.
He tried to sit up, but he could not budge. "Damn, it's like a meteor on my head." He struggled some more, straining his neck muscles until they strained out in sinewy tension, but the most he got was an inch off the ground before crashing right back down. "It's too heavy. I'm totally stuck."
"Don't strain your neck," Freed cautioned. "Evergreen, protect him."
"No, it's too horrible. Too horrible."
"Evergreen!" Freed snapped. "What is more important: your looks, or your friend?"
That snapped her out of her trauma, but she was slow to crawl over to Bickslow as he flailed around helplessly on the ground.
"I still don't like you," Teddy said, and Freed was hit again with a hair spell, ending up with all of his long hair spiked straight up like a massive cone.
Freed cringed as he felt the shifting weight of hair. "Please don't tell me he did what I think he did."
"That's enough," Laxus growled, hating to see his teammates played like this and mentally tortured. "The kid can't mimic what he doesn't even have."
Laxus flashed, and like a bolt of lightning, he was instantly up in the tree house with the boy.
"That wasn't just being fast," Teddy said in awe. "What magic is that? Tell me, tell me."
"The magic of a dragon, and since you don't have that sort of magic inside of you, you can't ever mimic it."
Bickslow tried to lift his head, but he could barely move. "He's not gonna attack with Dragon Slayer magic, is he? Laxus, he's just a kid."
"I know that," Laxus snapped, pulling out the magic-sealing collar. "Seriously, how reckless do you think I am?"
Freed muttered to himself, "You don't want us to answer that."
"Dragon Slayer?" Teddy's huge eyes sparkled in awe. "I wanna learn. How do I become a Dragon Slayer?"
"Go find a fucking dragon."
"Language!" Freed instinctively warned.
As Laxus reached out to the boy, Teddy vanished and reappeared down in the forest clearing.
"He knows teleportation magic," Freed realized. "Oh, that's going to make this harder."
Laxus flashed and appeared right next to him. Teddy vanished again, right up behind Freed, and hit him with another blast of hair magic.
"Nooooo!" Evergreen shrieked.
"Lookie, lookie!" Teddy taunted, and yet another ice mirror appeared. Then Laxus flashed by them, and Teddy instantly vanished to another part of the woods.
Freed saw that his hair had been turned into a mullet. "Hmm … I think it should be longer in the back, personally."
"How can you stand it?" Evergreen sobbed. "Your hair!"
"I'm actually not averted to mullets. I dated a man with one. I don't think it looks good on me, but I don't mind it on others." Freed watched Laxus and Teddy vanishing and reappearing, the boy sticking his tongue out at the Dragon Slayer, and Laxus sometimes shooting tiny lightning bolts, not enough to harm too badly but enough to stun a child, as his patience completely vanished. "The more he casts the spell, the less the hair is appalling, and the psychological effects minimize. It's really just a one-hit attack. After all, we only have one hairstyle that we deem to be the absolute worst."
Teddy was almost caught but suddenly turned into a tiny rabbit and hopped away. Then he ended the Take-Over magic and returned to his human self.
"Go bald, old man!"
Laxus suddenly lost all of his hair.
"Oh my God," Evergreen gasped.
"Wait, is he really bald? I wanna see," Bickslow said, straining to lift his head even a little.
Freed continued to observe. "When he's not focused, the hairstyle is not even the worse possible, and the psychological manipulation appears to not even be present."
"I actually think afros are super cool," said Bickslow. "I just can't move. Seriously, I wanna see Laxus bald. Help me raise up."
"The attack on you was to incapacitate you. He realized he was outnumbered. It might also be he gleaned that you don't have a high sense of fashion."
"Hey!" Bickslow shouted defensively.
"So his attack was to force you out of the fight. The kid actually has a good comprehension on battle tactics. If he was trained, in another ten years, he very well could be an S-Class wizard."
Teddy reappeared up in his tree house again and shouted down to him. "I'm gonna surpass my grandpapa. Mommy doesn't want me to learn magic, but look!" He raised his arms, and massive stone spikes shot up all around Laxus, caging him in. "I can learn it super fast. I'm gonna show Grandpapa that I know magic, and I'm gonna learn from him, and one day I'm gonna be better than him, the best ever. I'll be the greatest wizard of all time."
Laxus suddenly appeared right behind him. "Being strong is the easy part. You become great by helping others and making friends."
Freed beamed proudly to see that Laxus had learned that lesson.
Just as Laxus almost had the collar around Teddy's neck, the boy vanished again, arriving up in an oak tree. "I know how to slow you down, you big dumb-dumb."
Laxus' head glowed, and from being bald he suddenly grew hair. A lot of hair. It grew longer and longer, tumbling into his eyes, down to his feet, until the hair trailed out of the tree house and down to the forest floor.
"Oh my God, that's a lot of hair," Evergreen said in horror.
Freed looked fretful. "Laxus, be very careful how you move. That much hair in a forest is seriously a handicap."
Teddy laughed and pointed at him. "You look like a girl. Hahaha! A big, ugly girl."
Laxus began to bolt forward, but he got barely three meters before his hair snagged, and he was yanked backward, crashing into the trunk supporting the tree house. He yanked on the mass of hair, breaking off some of the tree house deck railing that had ensnared it. He gathered up the annoying mess and tried again, but by the time he reached the high branch where Teddy stood, the boy and transported back over to his tree house. He turned around, shook his butt at Laxus, and pulled down his eyelid with his tongue out.
"You little bastard!" Laxus was just bolting over, when all that long hair dropped and wrapped around the branch.
"No!" Freed screamed, seeing the problem too late.
Laxus was yanked out of his speedy travel so hard, his neck popped, and he was yanked backward. However, this tree was too high, and Laxus was stuck dangling from the branch with his own hair like a noose.
"He could snap his neck like that," Evergreen shouted.
Freed raced over. An earth wall rose into his way, and he vaulted over it with grace. A circle of runes glowed to trap him, and with swift writing he nullified it. Vines swirled out to ensnare him, and he pulled out his sword to slash them.
"Go Freed!" Bickslow cheered. "Wait, he's out of my view now. Roll my head around so I can see him."
Freed reached Laxus dangling from the neck by his hair. "Dark Écriture: Wings." He wrote the runes onto his arm, and dark wings spread out, allowing him to fly up to the high branch. With a shout of rage, his sword cut down the thick branch. Laxus landed on his feet, but his hair was completely tangled up.
"Goddammit, cut this shit," he yelled.
"No, remember what Strawberry showed us. My sword would break if I tried to cut your hair. Stay here. Give me the collar. I'll deal with him."
Laxus handed over the magic-sealing collar. "Be careful."
"Trust me," he said, and Laxus saw in the firmness of his gaze, Freed must already have a plan.
Freed turned to the child's tree house and walked into the opening. "Let's calm down and talk, Teddy."
"You're a stupid-head!" he yelled, and Freed's head glowed again. He suddenly had his entire scalp turned into a massive bird's nest. "Bird brain, bird brain, hahaha!"
Undeterred, Freed continued. "Do you want to learn some highly advanced magic?"
That caught Teddy's interest right away. "Oh yes! I wanna learn all about magic."
"This one is dangerous though. It's dark magic."
Evergreen's eyes grew huge. "Freed, no! Are you insane?"
"Dark magic?" Teddy whispered in awe, his eyes growing huge. "Wow. I definitely wanna learn that."
"You know how to write runes, right?"
"Uh-huh. I can write really awesome runes."
"Show me. Here's a spell." He wrote it onto his chest, and the runes glowed dark purple. "It specifically increases the strength of a person's skeletal system, including muscles and tendons. Write that rune onto Bickslow. If you can actually do that much, maybe I'll teach you dark magic."
"Easy-peasy!" He wrote the runes in the air, and it suddenly flew out toward Bickslow.
"Freed!" yelled Evergreen.
"He did it right," Freed said, seeing the runes before it struck, although he had been prepared to activate a circle of protection he had created beforehand around Evergreen and Bickslow just in case the boy wrote it wrong.
The rune hit Bickslow, and suddenly the massive afro was not heavy at all. He sat up and was amazing to be able to turn his head around with ease despite the ridiculous size of his hair.
"That's really good work. You're a quick learner."
"I'm super-duper smart," Teddy boasted.
"You sure are. So, do you know the runes for Darkness?"
Evergreen gasped, Bickslow choked up as he cringed, and Laxus stopped fussing with untangling his hair to look over in outrage.
"Freed, that's a forbidden spell," Evergreen protested.
"Don't you dare teach a child that one," Bickslow yelled.
Laxus said nothing. He trusted Freed, but he sure as hell hoped he knew what he was doing.
"Darkness? Nu-uh. I've never seen that one."
"I'll write it on the ground here." With the tip of his sword, Freed scratched out runes into the dirt. "Can you see it clearly? You have to be able to write it precisely like that."
"Uh-huh, I see it fine."
"How it works, you write in onto yourself and say Dark Écriture: Darkness."
"Writing runes onto yourself, huh? Never thought of that. Cool! Lemme try." He reached his hand to his chest but paused. "Heeeeey, wait a minute. Is this a trick, mister? How do I know it won't zap me?"
"The spell Darkness will transform you into the body and strength of a demon. Observe." Freed wrote runes onto his own chest. "Dark Écriture: Darkness."
With a glow of dark, sinister magic, he mutated from the refined gentleman into a hellbeast with horns, fangs, long ears, spikes on his joints, and scales over one eye.
"Whoooooa! That's so cool! All right, I'm gonna do this." Teddy wrote the runes on his chest. "Dark Écriture: Darkness." However nothing happened. "Huh? But I did it right."
"Ah, sorry, it's been such a long time, I completely forgot. The very first time you do this spell, before your body decides upon which sort of demon to turn into, you have to say it in the original language: piège."
"Oh, I guess that makes sense. Dark Écriture: Piège."
His chest glowed this time, but instead of transforming, Teddy went completely still.
"What? What happened? I … I can't move. I can't move! Did I do it wrong?"
Freed's demonic body splintered into tiny glowing runes and teleported up into the tree house. When his body reformed, he was back to normal. "No, you did it perfectly, as expected of a prodigy."
"But I didn't turn into anything."
"That's right. You see, there is a subtle difference in the shape of the fourth rune between Darkness and Piège. You copied what I wrote on the ground perfectly, but you did not notice that what I wrote on my chest was slightly different, since I partly hide what I wrote with my hand. One thing you learn through time, experience, and making mistakes, is that the faintest change to a rune can make a huge difference. One spell turns you into a demon of darkness, the other traps a person, freezing them in their spot."
Evergreen sighed in relief. "That's our Freed."
"That's bloody genius!" Bickslow cried out with a laugh.
Laxus smiled proudly. He could always count on Freed.
"No fair! That's cheating. Go bald!"
Freed suddenly lost all of his hair, but he was unfazed by it.
"Cheater! Liar! Jerk!"
With each insult, Freed's head changed. He had pigtails, then ramen curls, then odango buns on the sides of his head.
"Are you quite done?" he asked in annoyance.
Teddy growled in frustration, and his eyes began to glow.
"None of that, now." Freed slid a pair of glasses onto the boy's face.
"What? What is this? Why won't it work?"
"I always carry a spare set of Eye Magic sealing glasses. See, Eye Magic is highly unstable even for experienced users. That's why Evergreen wears glasses that seal her power, why Bickslow covers his eyes with the visor of his helmet, and why I keep my bangs over my right eye. Magic tends to burst out of wizards when we least expect it. It's simply annoying when a fire user catches your coat on fire because he got a little upset over some teasing, or when a water user floods the guild because she's sad. In our case, unconscious bursts of magic could result in deaths, so we keep it sealed. It's the lifelong damnation of Eye Magic. Those glasses will seal you from using Stone Eyes for now. You may keep them."
"No! Go away!"
Freed's head flashed, and he had a mohawk. He ignored it and pulled out the magic-sealing collar. His head flashed again, and his hair turned into a massive afro, just like Bickslow's, but it did not weigh down his head.
"Didn't you see me give myself that spell to strengthen my neck?"
"You big dummy! Doody head! Liar! Jerk!"
His hair went bald except for the sides that stuck out like rings around a planet. Then his hair looked like a massive opened book. Then it was a bōsōzoku pompadour. Then a bowl cut, a high top, a buzzcut, a punch perm, a beehive, chonmage, hime cut, cornrows, a quiff, a tonsure, a man bun, an undercut.
"He's running out of ideas," Evergreen realized.
"This won't hurt," Freed promised, wrapping the collar around.
"Nooooo!" Freed's hair changed from style to style, a strawberry, a mullet again, long, bald, spikes, but when he clicked the collar shut, he was stuck with a crew cut.
"At least it's normal," Bickslow said.
"Yes, but … that style! It's how he looked right after Laxus was excommunicated."
Freed sighed, ran his hand over his head, and felt just how short it was. He cringed, but realized he would have to put up with it.
"I'm not going back," Teddy screamed. "I don't wanna be locked away. Mommy treats me like I'm dumb. She doesn't want me to learn anything. She won't even let me go into the library. I know she doesn't want me to learn magic. I wanna learn! I'm smart, really."
"I know you are." Freed dropped to one knee to look the boy in his crying eyes. "You have a special ability to learn. It's natural to want to know absolutely everything. However, most wizards focus on one magic and master it before they learn a bunch of others. You can learn anything you want in time, but how about you pick just one for the moment, a safe one until you can control things."
Teddy shoved his lip out. "Take-Over magic. That's what Grandpapa knows, and he can teach me."
"I know some incredibly powerful Take-Over wizards. One in particular is a real she-devil. She even defeated me."
"With Take-Over magic?" he asked in awe. "But you're super smart and strong."
"Her strength in that moment came from feelings, wanting to protect someone very dear to her."
Freed looked aside sadly, remembering how he had outright tortured Elfman and was ready to murder him in cold blood when Mira reawakened her powers and showed just how insanely strong she was. Mira absolutely could have killed him in that fight, but love for all of her guildmates stopped her.
"That's the thing about being strong. You can be smart, play by the rules, learn super powerful spells, build up your muscles until you can lift people with ease, but in the end the people who are truly strong are ones who fight for a good reason, people with something they care about, people who empathize."
"Em-pah-thighs? That's a big word."
"Right," Freed realized. The child might be a genius at learning, but he was only seven. Advanced vocabulary came with reading, and if his mother refused to let him explore a library, his education must have been stunted. "It means, you can understand how others feel, you can warm your heart to them, and you can try to see why they have a certain attitude. For example, I can empathize with you. We both learn things quickly, we both love to study, and we both want to impress someone else. You want to impress your grandfather because you see him as being powerful, right?"
"Uh-huh. Grandpapa is the strongest Take-Over wizard ever and ever."
"The man I want to impress is right down there."
"The ugly golden-hair princess?"
Freed chuckled. "Yes, him. He's a Dragon Slayer, super powerful, infused with the magic of a dragon. There aren't many of them in the entire world. I fight hard when I want to impress him, but I realized one day, I fight hardest and strongest when I'm trying to protect my friends."
"I don't have friends," Teddy said with a pout. "Mommy won't let me out of the house. She's afraid I'll see magic."
"Well, it's a bit late to hide you from that. I will personally write a letter to Wolfheim and ask him to get you a teacher for Take-Over magic. That's a good one to learn. You should focus on it. Maybe one day you'll learn how to mix different types of magic together. For instance, I mix Letter Magic, Eye Magic, and Darkness Magic, three different types. I also learned to fight with a sword, and I learned many ancient languages to help advance my studies in Jutsu Shiki and Dark Écriture."
"You can mix them?" he asked in amazement.
"You were mixing hair magic and empathy magic without even realizing it. You're that smart, so I know you can do it if you study. Many wizards have different types of magic, but they focus on a specific type so they can be the best at that magic. Maybe one day you'll discover a whole new magic that only you possess. Then you'll truly be the best at whatever that magic is. Although you can learn any magic in the world, it's best to focus on whatever you're really good at, okay?"
"Okay," he grumbled.
"Good, now it's time to go home."
"No! I don't wanna. I wanna play in the woods more."
"It'll be dinnertime soon."
"I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna…"
"Nap time," Freed sighed in frustration. He wrote something across Teddy's chest, and the boy suddenly fell asleep. Freed grabbed him up into his arms.
"We'll have to carry him back. Looks like our hair won't be getting fixed anytime soon."
Laxus lumbered forward with his arms filled with all of the hair. "I should whoop that brat's ass while he's unconscious."
Dark wings carried Freed down out of the tree house. "You'll do no such thing. Come on, let's get back to town."
"Freed?" Evergreen tugged on his coat with her head down. "I can't go back into that town looking like this. It's beyond terrible. I just can't."
Bickslow plopped his helmet over her head. "Hold that for me. Don't lose it; it's special to me."
Freed smiled at his thoughtfulness. He had been victim to the psychological effects of the hair magic, so he knew how traumatized Evergreen was feeling, and he was glad Bickslow thought up of a solution so quickly. With her hair and face covered, Evergreen almost seemed back to her normal self.
Laxus walked along with them, carrying his hair in his arms as they left through the woods. He tripped on a piece that slipping out to the ground and almost fell, losing hold of the massive pile of hair. It all fell down and smothered him. Evergreen could not hold back a soft giggle.
"Goddamn stupid hair," Laxus growled.
"Maybe we should wake up the kid," Bickslow suggested. "See if he'll reverse all this."
Freed shook his head. "We'd have to take off the collar, and it was hard enough to catch him."
"Fuck this," Laxus snarled from inside the pile of golden hair. "Back off, guys. I'm chopping this hair."
The three knew, when Laxus had to warn them to back off, he was going to go all out. They went far down the path, with Bickslow's humongous afro getting him stuck between many trees and having to be poofed inward to fit through.
Electricity tingled the air as Laxus charged up massive bolts between his arms. He lifted his hands into the air as the magic grew.
"Lightning Dragon's Heavenward Halberd!"
They shielded their eyes against the blinding flash as a spear of lightning sliced through the hair. When things settled down, Laxus' hair was to his lower back, not short, but manageable.
"I can handle that," he said, leaving the rest of the hair behind. "Freed, ya got any of those things you use to pull your hair back?"
Freed handed Teddy over to Bickslow, reached into a pocket, fished out a rubber band, and tied Laxus' hair back.
"Much oblige. Now, let's get this bratty kid back home."
They arrived to find Mr. Strawberry and a wealthy woman fretting at their appearances. She wore a bonnet, but it was obvious she was bald, and Strawberry still had a silk bag over his face. Freed took off the rune to sleep, but Teddy seemed more cranky than before, furious they had brought him back. When both his mother and Mr. Strawberry begged him to undo the hair curses, he refused unless his mother promised to let him study magic. The woman outright refused.
"Ma'am," Laxus said gruffly, although he tried to keep his words polite. "Your boy has a talent. He needs to learn how to control it, not suppress it."
She stiffened up her chin. "I will ask you not to tell me how to raise my own son. You brought him back, so we'll pay you, but it will be me and his grandfather to decide what we should do about him."
"I don't wanna be locked away," Teddy screamed.
Freed really felt sorry for the boy. "He's already learned a lot, ma'am. I understand if you don't want him to join a magic guild—it's a dangerous job—but at the very least he could get tutoring."
She sneered at him. "Learn your place, you wizarding whore!"
"Hey," Evergreen shouted.
Bickslow's eyes began to glow. "No one talks to Freed like that."
They all felt electricity surging in the air.
Freed lifted his hand to stop them. "There are people who see magic guild wizards that way. It's her opinion. Let her be."
"But Freed—"
"We've done our job," he snapped, although his eyes glared at the mother. "That's all we were paid to do, right?" he said in brittle tones.
"That's right," she said primly. "You did your job, and you'll get paid."
"Then you wouldn't mind giving Wolfheim this letter." He reached into his coat and handed over a sealed envelop. "It's merely a letter of introduction and admiration, from one wizarding whore to another."
"My father is better than that," she insisted.
"Was he always?" Freed asked coldly.
Kimbly looked affronted by his words. "As if I would give him anything from a lowly minion like you."
"I highly recommend you do. You see, this letter is charmed. If you attempt to open it, it'll explode. If you don't deliver it, it'll explode in two weeks. If you try to send this letter far away, it will explode if it goes beyond five leagues from Avedaville."
"What?" she screamed.
"All standard wizarding charms of mail security, you understand," he said, as if this should be expected and not horrifying. "Only Wolfheim himself can open that letter. I promise, it does not contain demands that he train your son."
That seemed to lessen her rage only slightly. She snatched the letter away but thrust it over to Strawberry. "I'm not keeping some bomb in my house. Lock it in a vault or something. Come, Teddy." She dragged her son to a waiting carriage.
The boy looked back at them with dread and pleading eyes. However, Freed smirked, and in the air he wrote some runes. Although they did not create any type of magic, Teddy was able to read the message in them, and he grinned brightly.
"What did you tell him?" Evergreen whispered.
"That he will definitely get training. Mr. Strawberry, I really do highly recommend you give that letter to Wolfheim."
He was holding the sealed letter in terror. "Will … will it really explode?"
"No, I just told her that because I knew she would discard of it. It will, however, burst into a fireball if you try to open it. It won't kill, but it will maim." That made Strawberry tremble even more. "Now, if you don't mind, I think we all need to retire for the day. We have a long road tomorrow."
He turned, and the others followed his lead. Laxus stepped up in stride with Freed.
"What does that letter actually say?"
"No clue. Did I have time to write a letter? It's a special parchment; I'll write the letter tonight, and the words will appear on the paper. I need to figure out how to impress upon Wolfheim just how important it is that his grandson get magic training without making it an outright demand." Freed's eyes softened. "I know all too well how that boy feels. My parents were like that, thinking career wizards were nothing more than whores, forbidding me from learning anything at all about magic. I learned by sneaking behind their backs, searching for the most advanced and most taboo magic I could find in books alone. The results were … disastrous," he said with grimness in his face.
Evergreen came up and hugged around his shoulders. "You've told us. It's okay."
He glanced over. "No offense, but that helmet makes me think this is a female Bickslow hugging me, and that's disturbing." He chuckled and patted her arm. "I'm fine. Just this whole thing reminds me of my own childhood. I want that boy to be trained before he does far worse than curse people with bad hair."
"Make it a good letter to Wolfheim," Laxus told him. "I trust you to word it right."
Freed beamed in happiness that Laxus had such trust in him. "I will."
Evergreen and Bickslow slipped back behind the two, giving them a moment together. It was strange to see Laxus as the one with a long ponytail and Freed with short hair.
"Is it me, or did these two reverse?" Bickslow said quietly.
"It totally doesn't suit either of them," she said.
"By the way, how's the helmet?"
"It's sweaty and stinks of your scalp."
He laughed and lolled his tongue out. "You're welcome!"
A/N: Piège is French for trap, like Admiral Ackbar in Return of the Jedi says in French, "C'est un piège!"
Little Teddy Gibson is named after famed New York hairstylist and hair expert on "What Not to Wear," Ted Gibson. His mother Kimbly is a reference to another TV hairstylist, host of "LA Hair," and sorceress who fixes Beyoncé's incredible hair, Kim Kimble. The town, Avedaville, is named after famed cosmetology school Aveda Institute and the high-end Aveda hair products. I love slipping in weird references.
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Of Lightning and Long Locks