Fairy Tail: Dawn of Change by Melissa Nichols (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📖

teach her about their magic. He'd seen the determination and relief burning in her eyes last night when he had agreed to be her mentor, and he knew that they had another thing in common: She needed magic. She needed to prove to herself that she could become a true mage of Fairy Tail, the same way he'd needed magic, when the heart had been torn out of his world, and all he'd had left was the need to never be helpless again, to save people from the fate he had endured. He could only hope that he was worthy of her obvious admiration.

 

Gray let out a deep, shaky breath, nervously setting his mind back to the task at hand. "Roxanne."

 

Immediately, her eyes popped open and she sat up. Before he could say anything else, she was off the table and dashing over to stand in front of him. "I'm ready to go!" she proclaimed eagerly, practically bouncing on her toes with excitement. "What do we do first?"

 

He chuckled at her enthusiasm and turned towards the door. "Come on, I'll tell you at the park. Thanks for your help, Mira."

 

"Any time, Gray." The white-haired mage nodded and went back to the prep-work.

 

Roxanne followed him, waving goodbye to Mira. "Thanks, Mira! See you soon!"

 

"Take care!" Mira replied as she waved back.

 

Gray took Roxanne to the same park where she had been training with Makarov, and smiled at the puzzled look she gave him.

 

"Okaaaaay," Gray began, taking up Makarov's spot under the shade of the tree. "A lot will change from your training with Gramps, but there will still be a few elements that will stay the same. Now that you've found your magic, you don't need to meditate three times a day, although it's a good idea to keep doing it at least once." Originally he'd kind of planned to drop it, but after what he'd seen this morning, he'd changed his mind.

 

"I decided to keep this part of your training because meditation is supposed to help with inner peace or whatever. Now, I don't meditate, it doesn't do anything for me and I feel stupid, but if it works for you then keep doing it." A pause, to make sure she was taking it all in. The way her eyes were glued to his face made it pretty clear that yes, she had been listening. "Everything you do is with the goal of making yourself stronger. Not just for the sake of being strong, but to protect yourself, your friends, and the people around you. Magic is awesome, but it can be dangerous too, if you use it wrong—" Oh, could it ever. "—which is why you are never to practice magic on your own until you have a better grasp on your magic. Why?"

 

“Because magic is dangerous when not used properly!” Roxanne chirped confidently, responding without missing a beat.

 

“That’s right! So, no practicing magic on your own for now. Got it?”

 

"Yes, Master Gray!"

 

Gray twitched. "Don't call me that," he requested as gently as he could. He didn't want to sound harsh, but it was one thing to call Gramps 'master'. He was a guild master, and old, and had experience as a teacher. Calling Gray that was, well, kind of weird and creepy feeling. "Gray is fine."

 

"Can I call you teacher?" Roxanne's blue-green eyes shone eagerly.

 

"Just Gray," Gray said firmly. "Anyway, like I said, your first priority is getting stronger, so we'll leap right into the easy physical training. Stretches, warm-ups, and then self-defense training. Then, we'll do the harder physical training, like running and other stuff. After that, we'll work on magic training. When we're done, we'll go swimming."

 

"Okay!" Roxanne chirped, almost bouncing on her toes again. She took a couple of deep breaths before she could slip into fangirl mode, and set the miracle that was her life to the back of her mind so she could focus on her training. "Yes, sir!" she said, much more firmly.

 

Gray noticed her reigning herself in, and was again impressed by that self-control. He'd been kind of an idiot as a kid, driving himself past what even Ur thought was reasonable out of sheer desperation. Given he was the one training her, it was probably a good thing Roxanne had more restraint, because he still had no idea how to properly teach a youngster.

 

"Alright," he said. "Let's get started."

 

For the next few hours, Gray led Rox through her usual warm-ups and self-defense routine, continuing her balance and falling practice, but also adding in some basic punching, kicking and blocking techniques. Gramps had said she should take another month or so to really be ready for combat training, or at the very least another week, but Gray knew that as long as she had someone there to make sure she didn't hurt herself, she'd be okay.

 

He kept it very simple, correcting her when she messed up and praising her when she did well. When she looked up at him eagerly for an explanation of why putting her feet in that way worked better than standing like this, he did his best to explain—even though he was pretty sure he flubbed it a little—but still had to resort to way more 'because it just works' than he liked.

 

It was nine o'clock when Gray told her to stop, take a breather, and stretch out again in preparation for the more intense training. He walked her through her stretches, helping her push just that little bit more than she could do on her own, and then slowly easing up until she was warm and limber. He hadn't changed the basic exercises much. She still did push-ups, sit-ups, squats and pull-ups. She still played catch-the-coin and hopscotch for her conditioning training—he'd never thought a girl's game like hopscotch could be used for training like this before, go Gramps!—and ran the stairs. But he did add some things to her physical training, which had made eliminating her meditation time necessary.

 

First, he created an obstacle course using his Ice Make magic. When he'd shown Gramps his original design, the guild master had given the crude drawing an incredulous look and laughed, asking Gray how he expected a nine-year-old to be able to climb an ice wall and cross monkey bars made of ice without falling and breaking an ankle. Gray had reconsidered after that, and toned it down to things that didn't involve vertical surfaces or heights.

 

First was a series of ankle-high rings that Roxanne had to navigate without tripping, putting her feet down in the holes rather than on the slippery surfaces of the rings themselves, the faster the better.

 

Then came a net that was modeled after chain-link fencing, to give it both strength and flexibility, suspended only a foot above the ground with dull-tipped barbs that would—hopefully—catch clothing without scratching skin too badly. She had to crawl under it and, at the same time, avoid the obstacles he placed in her way. Third—and his personal favorite—was a ball pit he'd made by turning the water in the park's fountain into thick-sided ice bubbles. She had to flounder-slash-swim her way through it to the far side, her footing both treacherous and concealed by the balls, and then climb out despite her hands being wet and slippery.

Finally, he'd made a bunch of dummies from ice and had her run through them. They spun at the slightest touch, ice-rod arms and legs giving a stinging—but not dangerous—smack if she didn't manage to dodge in time.

 

The course ended with her running up the flight of stairs to where he waited, stopwatch in hand.

"Not bad," he grinned at her once she made it to him. She was obviously tired, her neat braid somewhat bedraggled and soaked through with sweat despite the ice everywhere combating Fiore's summer heat. "Get your breath back, and then try it again."

 

Roxanne bit back a whimper, and went back to the starting line without a sound. There, she crouched over, bracing her hands on her knees, and took deep, even breaths to help her get ready.

 

She'd never been so physically challenged in her life, and not really knowing what to do for some of it meant she'd had to figure it out as she went, which was also mentally taxing. Halfway through the second run of the course, she kept going only because her stubbornness wouldn't allow her to show her exhaustion so early into the day. But mostly she didn't want Gray to think that he had been saddled with a weak student. So she clenched her jaw, stuck out her chin, and forced herself up those steps for the second time, to look her mentor in the eye without any sign of exhaustion worse than breathing hard.

 

When she finally dragged her way up to him the second time, he grinned and ruffled her hair, ignoring the water droplets that were flicked this way and that by the motion. "Good job," he said. "You did a lot better that time." She'd cut almost thirty seconds off her time, which he considered a big improvement.

 

Roxanne grinned back at him, panting, cheeks flushed with praise as well as tiredness. "I just knew what I was doing that time," she admitted.

 

"Which means you learned from the first time," Gray shrugged. "Good job." He didn't give false praise, and maybe he wasn't doing things exactly the way Ur or Master Makarov would have, but Roxanne was a girl, and from what Lucy had said, she'd been pretty sheltered before she'd been flung out into the world. A lot of kids like that never got past being pampered and useless, so Gray hoped to encourage Roxanne into being a more productive, self-sufficient individual by praising her when she put in effort.

 

Gray melted his obstacle course, declaring that twice was enough for the first day, and Roxanne was glad to see it go. But when Gray produced a huge pile of snowballs, she almost took it back.

"Um, we're not having a snowball fight, are we?" she asked nervously. Los Angeles winters weren't made for snowball fights, so the only times she'd seen snow were when her parents took the family on a rare skiing trip, and even then she'd mostly just made snowmen. If it came down to a snowball fight, Gray would slaughter her.

 

Gray snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm almost twice your age, and you're already pretty worn out." He wasn't stupid. Besides, if he started something interactive like that, chances were he'd start stripping, and with a little girl as a student that just wasn't right. "Your target is this," he said. Moving a short distance away, he smacked one fist into the opposite palm, calling to the scintillating core of his soul, where his magic dwelled. A target rose from the ground, moisture wicked from the air to form a solid disk of ice. On a last, humorous whim, he formed a particular, funny image at its center.

 

Roxanne burst into giggles, clapping both hands over her mouth until she had herself under control again.

 

Gray grinned. "All you have to do is throw snowballs and try to hit the bullseye," he said, tapping the target's center, where Natsu's face stood out, the same terrified look he got whenever Erza glared at him stamped indelibly on icy features.

 

"Okay!" Roxanne chirped, hands dropping from her mouth as she mastered herself.

 

"Oh, one more thing," Gray added, walking back over to her. "You have to stand behind here." He laid a stick that had fallen from the tree earlier on the ground about ten feet from the target.

"Every time you hit the bullseye three times in a row, I'll move the stick back five feet. If you hit the bullseye three times again, I'll move the stick back another five feet. We'll do that for a while, and then we'll stop for the day. But tomorrow, the stick goes right back to where it is now and the process starts over. Eventually, the line will start out further and further away from the