by Welcome any and all to the community fanfiction project. This is a project that originally started in another forum, but was moved here following a series of events that is better not to bring up in this context.
Anyhoo, the idea is very simple: my plan is to develop a fanfiction with the help of the whole community. By this I mean, my goal is to build a story the casual fan would be interested in reading, by listening to the ideas and feedback of the casual fans, which would be each and every one of you. From the powers of the various characters to the basic ideas for development and plot advancement, you have a saying in everything.
Furthermore, once I get to actually writing the thing, I would post it here before publishing it, so that you people can act as beta readers, pointing out grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes, fixing clunky lines etc. After all, I am not a native English speaker, so while I have no problems roleplaying in English, I will probably need help for a project as ambitious as this one.
In return, once the thing is done and I publish it on fanfiction.net or AO3, I will make sure to adequately advertise this community. Basically, this is an occasion to create a beautiful story, AND to give a lot of visibility to this forum while at it.
So, in order to make things easier, I had decided to split this project into phases: Phase 1 to discuss backstory and main plot points, Phase 2 to discuss characters in details, Phase 3 to plan out the flow of the plot and so on so forth. As of the work that has taken place on the other forum, Phase 1 is already complete, meaning that, in this topic, we will resume discussion on characters (Phase 2) from where it had been interrupted over there. To make it easier for you guys to understand what's going on, I am including, in this post, a complete recap of all things Phase 1, and in the next one I will include all things Phase 2 that have already been discussed. It is A LOT of catching up to do, but please bear with me.Also this is all original stuff don't steal.
This is all for the Phase 1 Recap. All the Phase 2 things that have already been discussed will be included in the next post.
Anyhoo, the idea is very simple: my plan is to develop a fanfiction with the help of the whole community. By this I mean, my goal is to build a story the casual fan would be interested in reading, by listening to the ideas and feedback of the casual fans, which would be each and every one of you. From the powers of the various characters to the basic ideas for development and plot advancement, you have a saying in everything.
Furthermore, once I get to actually writing the thing, I would post it here before publishing it, so that you people can act as beta readers, pointing out grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes, fixing clunky lines etc. After all, I am not a native English speaker, so while I have no problems roleplaying in English, I will probably need help for a project as ambitious as this one.
In return, once the thing is done and I publish it on fanfiction.net or AO3, I will make sure to adequately advertise this community. Basically, this is an occasion to create a beautiful story, AND to give a lot of visibility to this forum while at it.
So, in order to make things easier, I had decided to split this project into phases: Phase 1 to discuss backstory and main plot points, Phase 2 to discuss characters in details, Phase 3 to plan out the flow of the plot and so on so forth. As of the work that has taken place on the other forum, Phase 1 is already complete, meaning that, in this topic, we will resume discussion on characters (Phase 2) from where it had been interrupted over there. To make it easier for you guys to understand what's going on, I am including, in this post, a complete recap of all things Phase 1, and in the next one I will include all things Phase 2 that have already been discussed. It is A LOT of catching up to do, but please bear with me.
- General premise:
- The year is X998. A long time has passed since the events of the canon series: with the current protagonists not around anymore and the dragons extinct for good, Dragon Slayer Magic has disappeared from this world. In fact, the concentration of Ethernano in the air has dropped significantly in the past 200 years, meaning that magic users are even more scarce than they used to be... Which of course makes their services for the community all the more precious: as a result, magic guilds have diminished in numbers, but the few left are much richer and more powerful than they used to be.
The most significant change, however, is that Fiore is now a republic. Two are the institutions that govern the country: the Parliament and the Magic Council, responsible for the general legislation and for the matters concerning magic, respectively. They actually work in similar ways: those who have the right to vote (all citizens for the former, registered members of Magic Guilds for the latter) elect the members of these institutions, who in turn elect the one who will govern them for the next five years, the Chancellor for the former, the Council Chairman for the latter. Both institutions have 100 members, of which 90 elected as explained, and 10 permanent members (the Parliament has the Ten Great Nobles, heads of the most influencial families that were pivotal in engineering the fall of Fiore's monarchy, and the Magic Council has the Ten Wizard Saints). Outside of the fact that they are members of their respective institutions for life, these permanent members are not privileged, I.E. their vote is worth as much as anyone else's, no more, no less.
Of course, leading such institutions means having a great deal of power in one's hands, so a law exists that prevents the same person from holding the same position twice in a row (you cannot be the Chancellor twice in a row, or the Council Chairman twice in a row). The transition from monarchy to republic was not immune to conflict, however, as we will see in the next section.
- Backstory:
- The fall of Fiore's monarchy was engineered, by the heads of the families that would go on to become the Ten Great Nobles, 100 years before the beginning of the story. A period of turmoil followed: initially the Ten Great Nobles wanted to create an oligarchy, but after the common citizens threatened an armed revolution, they had to settle with a more democratic system, which eventually evolved into the one detailed above.
50 years before the beginning of our story, a group that called themselves the "Mercurius Party" (after the name of what used to be the royal palace of Fiore) attempted a coup d'etat. Their goal was to wipe out the Ten Great Nobles and restore the monarchy: they even claimed to have, among their ranks, a legitimate heir of the old ruling family. This attempted coup soon escalated in a full-blown civil war, with dragged for many decades: the Mercurius Party had lots of support in the most underdeveloped areas of the country and, while the regular army and the Magic Council were both on the Republic's side, there were many guilds that decided to defect from the Council and side with the Mercurius Party. Also, the Bureau of Magical Development, an institution created to research ways to stop the decline of Ethernano in the world, proclaimed that it would remain neutral and just keep on diong its job, but a member of that institution went on his own business, secretly striking a deal with the Mercurius Party. The member in question was this man:- Otis Bertrand:
- A brilliant scientist with interests in both the fields of magic and of traditional science, he researched various ways to enhance the human body and allow it to go beyond its limits.
Unscrupulous, he would do anything for the sake of his research, often showing little to no emotion in doing so. One of the project he worked on (although this is a secret that won't be revealed until later on in the story) was a machine that would allow him to create artificial lacrimas. By this I mean, all the forms of magic that had disappeared from this world (yes, including Dragon Slayer Magic) could be artificially reproduced: however, the resulting lacrimas appeared to be harmful for the human body, so he was researching ways for humans to be safely enhanced with such lacrimas. This research involved experimentations on countless human guinea pigs, who went through unimaginable sufferings (and, in most cases, died). Not that he cared.
In truth, he wasn't completely amoral, and had a (kinda sorta) understandable reason for doing all this, as we will see later on.
The most revolutionary research conducted by Otis Bertrand's team ultimately led them to cracking the secret of the so-called "One Magic", the point from which all magic had originated. They were even planning to develop a new kind of weapon that could make use of it, and that was what the Mercurius Party was banking on, to finally turn the tides of the Civil War. The reason why Otis Bertrand was so desperate to complete these researches, to the point that he sold out to the Mercurius Party to complete them, and didn't hesitate to sacrifice countless guinea pigs, was that he was hoping that, by obtaining a god-like power, he could save his daughter from certain death, as she was infected with a terrible disease.
However, as Otis' staff prepared for a crucial experiment in the creation of the ultimate weapon, the Magic Council fired Etherion upon the building they were using as research lab, wiping them out along with the results of their researches (yes, including all the innocent people that were being held captive to act as guinea pigs. Neither side ever showed mercy or respect for human lives, in that war). This event took place 11 years before the beginning of our story, on July 7th, X987.
With Otis Bertrand (apparently) dead and his researches (supposedly) wiped out of history forever, the Mercurius Party surrendered soon afterwards. X988 saw the first elections since the end of the civil war, elections that marked the ascent of this man:- Koen Shepherd:
- A decorated hero of the Civil War. Charismatic, intelligent, experienced in both military strategy and political matters, and a powerful mage to boot. Thanks to his dual nature as a skilled politician and as a gifted mage, he managed to find a loophole in the rules that prevent a man from holding the same position twice in a row: at the end of his five years as Chancellor, in X993, he became Council Chairman, a lackey of his being elected Chancellor thanks to his manipulations. Now, in X998, Shepherd is back to being Chancellor, the same lackey (whom he had taught in the ways of magic) having become the Council Chairman.
Needless to say, the man has become a de facto dictator, hogging most of the power in what is still a democracy in name only. At the same time, his admittedly brilliant policies have brought Fiore a new era of peace and prosperity, the likes of which hadn't been seen in the country since before the Civil War.
The winds of conflict are therefore starting to blow once again, with those who would like Shepherd to keep his power forever and those who wouldn't mind having his head (starting from the Ten Great Nobles) silently rallying their respective forces...
- Quick overview of the main characters:
- Claire Anderson:
- After the building in which Bertrand was conducting his researches was obliterated by Etherion, Captain Edmund Anderson of the Republican Army was tasked with assembling a squad and investigating what was left of it, to ensure the target had been wiped out. semi-buried under the debris, he found a girl, miraculously still alive but with evident signs of post-traumatic shock and partial amnesia. From her appearance, she couldn't possibly be any older than 9. Having lost his lover recently, during a battle of the Civil War, Anderson decided to adopt the girl, so that she would be the daughter his lover couldn't give him anymore. He named her Claire, like his deceased lover.
And thus the years passed, Captain Anderson became General Anderson, and that little girl became the unfriendly, quick-tempered, busty (this is Fairy Tail after all) protagonist of our story. Her personality is a result of her upbringing: she grew up in a military environment, with no female parental figure, so she is not very feminine. Still, Anderson proved a good father, all things considered, and Claire grew to genuinely love him: she had actually joined the military academy to follow in his footsteps, but one day her powers went haywire and she very nearly destroyed the entire campus, which resulted in her immediate expulsion. Afterwards, she was sent to join Fairy Tail, in order to learn how to keep that frightening power of hers in check.
What power, you ask? Easy: she is the Fire Dragon Slayer. Now you might think that this means she is an artificial Slayer created by Bertrand, but the truth about her is even more unsettling than that, as we will see later on.
- Timo Bertrand:
- A young boy who joined the guild only recently (I am actually planning to start the story with him meeting Claire, who would then invite him to join the guild, in a gender flipped re-imagining of the Natsu-Lucy dynamic). As the surname suggests, he is the son of Otis Bertrand.
His father had brought his sister, who was afflicted by a terrible illness, to the Bureau of Magical Development facility he directed, along with their mother. The three of them were planning to devise a way of saving the poor girl from certain death, and Timo was left in the care of his grandparents... Except the facility in question is the one the Council fired Etherion upon, so for years he thought he was an orphan.
Growing up, the kid learned Weakness, the same magic his father used to use, and tried to tamper with that same fine line between science and magic, that had fascinated his father so much. His rudimental experiments didn't turn out so well, however, and he very nearly killed himself when, upon activating a SE Plug-powered automaton he had built, he drained most of his own magic power by accident.
While recovering, he received a package. Inside, a mysterious lacrima and a letter that told him to "stay strong". The letter closed with a line about a secret he shared with his father, something only his father could know. He therefore doubled his efforts to get better and, using the mysterious lacrima, he engineered a system he dubbed, with dubious creativity, "reverse SE plug". Basically, the same automaton from before is now powered by the mysterious lacrima, and shares its power with Timo, sustaining his vital functions and allowing him to use rudimentary magic.
Now believing that his father is alive, and thus that the rest of his family might be as well, Timo has decided to look for them: he has therefore joined Fairy Tail in the hope of finding help for this quest of his.
- Raspberyl "Beryl" Valentine:
- A short, energetic girl around Claire's age. She is mainly pink. She dresses in pink. She has pink hair decorations. She thinks in pink (she is a love freak, often blabbering about the power of love and shipping other characters together). She considers Claire to be her greatest rival, and has sworn to one day make her open up her heart to the power of love, shedding that abrasive persona of hers in the process. Her over the top antics make her the primary source of comedy in this story, acting as the Boke to Claire's Tsukkomi.
Despite all this, you should not underestimate her, as her magic is ridiculously powerful: she uses Song Magic, better described as "Rustyrose with a musical theme". Basically, she can conjure anything out of thin air, as long as she can describe it with a song: takes a while to set up (she has to come up with a song, music and everything, after all), but packs a serious punch. She has an Exceed companion named Amanda, who actually makes her even scarier in battle by nullifying her main weaknesses: by flying her out of harm's way, Amanda gives Beryl the time to prepare her songs, to then rain death on her enemies from above.
- Genevieve "Genny" Fernandes:
- During the Civil War, Genny was a promising, if somewhat stubborn, Requip user and member of Fairy Tail. The master at the time was an old man who, despite having some "dirty old man" tendencies, genuinely cared for her and had taken her under his wing. From observing him, she had grasped the basics of the Three Great Spells of Fairy Tail, although he had explicitly forbidden her from ever attempting to cast her.
One day the city of Magnolia, which was loyal to the Republic, was targeted for an all out attack by the Mercurius Party. The master died in that attack, and Genny fought valiantly to keep the shocked members of Fairy Tail together, and to protect the citizens of Magnolia. She fought so strenuously, she completely depleted her magical reserves, to the point that now she is unable to cast even the easiest cantrip. But in spite of this, she was granted the position of new Master and the title of Wizard Saint, as a reward for her heroism, even though she was only 18 at the time.
Except what you just read is a lie: she did not lose her magic during the attack on Magnolia, that was just a cover up story made by the Council. And her double role was given to her as a form of compensation, in return for her silence on what had really happened.
She keeps up a laid back and carefree facade, but the fact that she has a double role she feels she doesn't deserve, as well as the fact that she got there via political intrigue, makes her insecure. She values the safety and the prosperity of the people of Magnolia over everything else: she was born and raised in that city, and she loves it from the bottom of her heart... Which is why she trained hard to master combat with enchanted weapons: now she has refined her skills to the point that, by wielding a magic sword/gun combo and using the simple spells attached to them, she can equal and even best in battle mages with much greater magic powers, including fellow Wizard Saints. She has done this because she wants to protect her city and her comrades, something she is afraid she would be unable to do in her condition.
She is a VERY hard drinker, and is said to "really get around" (if you know what I mean), but you will often hear her complain about being unable to find a stable relationship. After all, she is now 29, so she wouldn't mind starting a family... But she just cannot find the right man. Incidentally, if you call her "madam" or "mrs", she will friggin' murder you.
She likes to act as a parental figure (if not a mother, at least an older sister) to Claire, but the latter is in that complicated age, so the two butt heads often.
- Spark:
- Only known by the nickname "Spark", this guy is a mysterious individual who appears at many points throughout the story, eventually becoming pivotal to the plot (not sure if I should actually have him end up joining FT or not). He is the Lightning Dragon Slayer, more precisely he is an artificial Dragon Slayer, one of the few successful exemplars created as part of Doctor Bertrand's research. He wears a hooded cloak and wanders the country, tracking down whomever might have had some connection with Doctor Bertrand: apparently, he has a personal vendetta with the Bureau of Magical Development (or at least, with the rogue group within it that experimented on him), which has something to do with the death of a person named Isolde.
He looks a few years older than Claire, and for some reason he appears to be attracted to her, often appearing out of nowhere to protect her in a pinch.
- The main plot point, AKA the truth about Genny, Claire, and Otis:
- Let's start from the very beginning: Genny used to have a younger sister. One day, this younger sister fell ill and, in a move that I am totally not ripping off from the anime, Genny sought the help of the Bureau of Magical Development. However, the head of the facility where she brought her little sister was no other than Otis Bertrand, who at the time had just embarked in his project to uncover the secrets of the One Magic: realizing the girl had potential to be a guinea pig, he told Genny that she had died, then secretly started experimenting on her.
I should probably explain why he saw potential in her: the girl's illness caused her latent magic power to attack her own organs, producing relevant quantities of Ethernano as a side effect. It was the same illness Otis' daughter had, and he had devised a theory as to how to cure it. See, at the time Otis was experimenting to see that if it was possible, with the right enhancements, to make it possible for a person to tap into the One Magic: turned out it was, but the human body was not supposed to be able to handle what, at the end of the day, was the power of creation, the power of a god. Upon tapping into that magic, the subjects were drained of the Ethernano cointained in their bodies so fast, that they actually started aging at a ridiculous rate, resulting in what was technically death of old age, within mere days since being exposed to the One Magic.
Otis didn't know how to avoid this phenomenon, but he had this idea: if the illness his daughter and that girl had caused their bodies to produce Ethernano, maybe the two phenomena (accelerated Ethernano consumption due to the One Magic, Ethernano production caused by the illness) could balance each other out, allowing the subject to survive. He was about to test this theory on his own daughter, but then this other girl came: he figured he would test the theory on her first.
The theory proved to be correct, but still not enough: the consumption caused by the One Magic was still too brutal, and the poor girl still ended up aging too fast and dying. Feeling that he was on the right path, Otis thought it would be a waste to just let the girl die, so he cloned her: the close was dubbed "OM-01", and when that one died too, "OM-02" was made.
In the night of july the 4th, X987, "OM-77" saw the light. As usual, the moment she was exposed to the One Magic she started aging at an accelerated rate, so by the morning of july the 7th she already looked about 9. And that was when Otis had the idea: his other research, the one that involved recreating the power of all sorts of Lost Magic, saw many of the test subjects die because they couldn't handle the sheer amount of magic power contained in those artificial lacrimas. In particular, people implanted with artificial Dragon Slayer lacrimas sometimes EXPLODED because of the sudden surge in magical power. And so Otis thougth: maybe by implanting an artificial Dragon Slayer lacrima in OM-77, the levels of Ethernano in her body would skyrocket (because of the combined effect of the illness and the lacrima), to the point that she would finally be able to counterbalance the draining effect of the One Magic, stabilizing her growth and thus guaranteeing a reasonably long lifespan. It worked, and the first product of the project to be a true success was redubbed OMDS-01... But Otis had failed to realize that there was a spy in his staff: the Magic Council now knew everything about his project.
They therefore decided to put an end to his insane researches once and for all, in the most drastic way possible: by firing Etherion. Being aware that the root of the string of clones was Genny's younger sister they decided that the best course of action was to avoid informing her. After all, she was already under a lot of pressure: a few days earlier, Magnolia had been the target of a large scale attack by the Mercurius Party, which had claimed the life of the master of Fairy Tail. Genny was now struggling to keep the master-less guild together, so the members of the Magic Council figured they would just leave her alone: what were they supposed to say "oh hey, we are about to fire Etherion on the madman who tortured and cloned your sister, obliterating the last clone in the process"? But not telling her about the planned Etherion strike was a mistake. Because she found out about Otis' research on her own.
See, Otis had realized OM-76 was a lost cause, she was just going to die like her predecessors: he had therefore decided to move onto working on OM-77. Since OM-76 was lost anyway, he figured that she might as well make herself useful one time, before unnaturally aging to death. He therefore lent her to his backers, the Mercurius Party, so that they would use her as a living weapon in the attack on Magnolia. A blast of this weapon killed Fairy Tail's master: in the resulting chaos, Genny managed to catch a glimpse of the weapon... And imagine what went through her mind, when she recognized the sister she thought she had lost forever.
Therefore, upon succesfully defending Magnolia, Genny used "enhanced interrogation techniques" on an enemy high-rank official she had taken prisoner (read: she tortured him halfway to death), and he spilled the beans. The truth about what had happened to her sister shocked her, of course, but she was relieved to at least learn that the latest clone was a full success, meaning that there was still something she could consider "her sister" in this world: with fury boosting her already great magic power, Genny swore to take her back at all costs.
And thus, as Otis and his staff were preparing to perform the final experiment on OMDS-01, which would give her full control over the One Magic and turn her into the ultimate weapon, Genny stormed the building, massacred Otis' staff, and confronted the scientist, demanding to be given back "her sister". It was july the 7th, X987, the sun was just starting to set: unaware of Genny's presence on the scene, the Council fired Etherion.
When the instruments in the underground lab registered an unprecedented concentration of Ethernano directly above the building, Genny was the first to realize what was going on. Desperate to protect the last trace of her sister left in this world, she grabbed OMDS-01, held her tight, and did something very stupid: she tried to cast Fairy Sphere to parry Etherion's blast. And that was a feat that had never been meant to be pulled by a single individual.
When she regained consciousness, she was on her knees, around her only destruction, OMDS-01 still passed out in her arms. The Fairy Sphere she had managed to cast was tiny, barely 2 m in diameter, barely sufficient to save herself and the clone of her sister (and Otis, but he was the first to come back to his senses and fled the scene before Genny regained consciousness, so she wasn't aware that he was still alive). And even that had drained every single molecule of Ethernano in her body, leaving her unable to cast even the most basic cantrip (and barely able to breathe and move, in fact).
Those were the conditions the squad of the Republican Army, sent by the Council to verify that the target had been obliterated, found her in. The captain of the squad, Edmund Anderson, was shocked to see her: the political implications of the situation were immediately clear to both of them. Had it become public knowledge that the Council hadn't hesitated to fire Etherion, despite the fact that a mage loyal to them was on the scene, their credibility would have been destroyed, something that couldn't be permitted in that crucial moment, with the Civil War so close to an end. It was immediately apparent that a cover-up would have been necessary, and that the existance of OMDS-01 had to be kept a secret, too. Demonstrating incredible loyalty to the Council (a loyalty they repaid naming her master of Fairy Tail and Wizard Saint), Genny accepted the cover-up and entrusted OMDS-01 to Edmund, on one condition: should the terrible power hidden within her ever resurface, Edmund had to send the girl to Fairy Tail, where they would be able to provide the help she needed, to learn how to keep such power under control.
Edmund accepted this condition and adopted the girl, naming her Claire. And the rest, as they say, is history.
- Secondary plot point, AKA the connection between Spark and Claire:
- Spark was one of the few people to survive experimentations concerning artificial Dragon Slayer lacrimas, thus becoming the Lightning Dragon Slayer. As the Mercurius Party was planning for such individuals to be used as living weapons, he was moved, along with a few others, to a Mercurius Party training facility, when he was to be prepared to become a super soldier. So yeah, he didn't die when the Council fired Etherion simply because he wasn't in that building anymore by then.
In the same facility, the Mercurius Party were conducting another kind of research: experimenting to see if the illness that had struck Genny's sister (at this point, I think we will need a name for this illness) could be used to fuel some other kinds of magical weapons, or to turn the sybjects into some kind of "magical cyborg", so to speak, without all the One Magic stuff Otis seemed to be so obsessed with. They had therefore made this deal with Otis: whenever he realized that a clone of the OM series was defective and doomed to die, he would pass her over to this Mercurius Facility, where she would be further cloned and subjected to other kinds of experiments, that had nothing to do with Otis' own research (in case you are wondering yes, this does mean that at least one clone will appear as enemy throughout the story, with Claire forced to fight herself. More on this in Phase 2).
Thus, the IS- series of clones saw the light. While at the structure, Spark befriended IS-0183, and to show her his affection, gave her a name: Isolde (he jokingly said that her ID number kinda looked like that name anywhere, as if it was written in 1337/leet). Unfortunately, she died soon after. Spark was only 12 at the time, so between being experimented on and seeing his friend die, imagine just how much he suffered.
So yeah, after the Civil War ended, he set out to track down and "punish" (his words) whomever was involved in those researches. And eventually he came across Claire, whom he initially mistook for Isolde. Pretty easy to see where this is going, isn't it?
This is all for the Phase 1 Recap. All the Phase 2 things that have already been discussed will be included in the next post.
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