22 The Magic Council

Walking down the stairs into the main guild area Alex quickly caught the attention of everyone.

The entire guild that was wild with noise and activity was instantly silent, everyone staring at the man on the stairs.

"Alex! You're Okay!" A shout was heard as a little blue streak crashed into him in a tight hug.

"Yes, I am fine Wendy" Alex said with a smile.

"How did your meeting with the master go?" The clearly excited girl said as she looked up too him.

"It went fine, but I have some things to do before I can officially join the guild with you two" Alex said.

"What! You didn't get to join?" Carla asked clearly confused.

She was sure that it was already set in stone, they already discussed it.

Alex slowly patted Wendy's head to stop the tears threatening to fall as he turned to answer Carla.

"I have been accepted to the guild already, but I must go to Era first. I can already sense the Rune Knights on their way here and was told by the Master that the council wishes to see me" He said, dropping a bomb on them and the guild members eavesdropping.

"But you didn't do anything wrong!" Wendy called out, tears still threatening to fall.

She thought he was being arrested for defending her so she was rightly upset.

"It has nothing to do with this incident, it involves what happened when I first met you" Alex said cryptically.

Wendy and Carla knew what he was talking about but the eavesdroppers were confused.

After having his small conversation with Wendy and Carla, Alex looked around at the faces staring at him.

He was surprised nobody interrupted him but looking around he understood why.

'Heh, Natsu and Grey are not here. Makes sense why its so quiet and I haven't been challenged yet' he thought with an internal smirk.

Before any of the guild members could start asking questions, the door to the guild was pushed open roughly.

Walking in two at a time, the small contingent of Magic knights walked up to the gathering of Wizards.

"Alexander Black, you are Hereby ordered to be escorted to Era for questioning involving an incident that took place six months ago in the Worth Woods-Sea!" The knight in the fanciest cloths called out in a commanding tone.

"We are authorized to use force if necessary, so choose you actions carefully" the man continued righteously.

"There will be no need for that, I was planning to head there anyway when Master Makarov told me I was being summoned" Alex replied, completely derailing the knights high and mighty attitude.

"Uhh.. Oh, Okay.. Very well!" the knight fumbled his words before reorganizing himself.

"We will head out immediately" the knight said imperiously.

Shaking his head at the attitude of the knight Alex turned back to Wendy and Carla.

"I will be back as soon as possible, don't get into trouble while I'm gone and look after each other" He said with a kind smile to the two girls.

"Right, try not too take too long" Carla said quickly.

She was smart enough to know that this had to happen if Alex didn't want to be branded a criminal.

"Right" Wendy said agreeing, while wiping tears from her eyes.

'What a kind soul' Alex thought towards Wendy, before turning and following the knights.

The trip to Era didn't take too long but he did have to cast Troia on himself to hide his motion sickness.

'Just like I thought, it's all slayers that suffer like this, not just the Dragon slayers' Alex thought as he looked out the window of the carriage.

They had been on the road for a couple hours and he was very tempted to just fly there, when he suggested this to the knights the declined instantly and told him it would be seen as him "fleeing custody".

Alex had a dark expression on his face when the knight said this and was even tempted to punch him in his smug face.

'I don't know why all these knights think so highly of themselves, they are completely pathetic when it comes to actual combat power' he thought darkly.

Many times during the trip he had wanted to smack the upstart of a captain.

He didn't bother to ask his name as he knew these guys were fodder for the most part.

Most of the trip passed in blissful silence as he had nothing to say to these weaklings, when he seen the tower in the distance he started to get excited.

He wanted to get this shit-show over with. From what he knew of the Counsel he guessed this whole display was a farce to "Show him his place".

As if too prove his point they put him in a waiting room and left him there for almost 2 hours, the staff basically ignoring him like he was nothing.

Alex let them play their game as he didn't care a lick about the politics of this world.

'I wonder if they would be like this if they knew what my flames could truly do?' Alex thought with a smirk as he was waiting.

He was eventually led into what was basically a two tiered court room, on the bottom row most of the council members sat observing Alex as he entered, on the top row a lone figure sat in shadows as if to be mysterious.

'I always wondered what the point of leaving the head of the council shadowed was' Alex thought, not truly caring about the actual reason.

Below the two rows was an area where the "lawyers" would stand to present their case if this was an actual court room, and finally a small fenced area for the "defendant" to stand.

None of the council members said a word to him and were all watching curiously, he could see Siegrain and Ultear paying special attention too him, as if trying to learn all his secrets.

Nobody spoke to him, so he also didn't speak and simply watched them too.

Eventually when the silence had gone on for a few minutes one of the "frog" themed "lawyers" began to speak.

"Let us start the proceedings!

Alexander Black has been brought before this council to be questioned about an incident that caused massive destruction to the forest of the Worth Woods-Sea.

The reason for this hearing is not to press charges but to get to the bottom of the cause of this incident.

While we have found the result to be overwhelmingly favorable we still need to hear your side of the incident as the instigator.

Please note before you start that lying will be found out right away.

Do not stray away from the topic at hand". The "frog-like" humanoid spoke in a clear voice, leaving no doubts to their intentions.

Alex began his tale, recounting the incident from his point of view, basically repeating exactly what he told Master Makarov.

The council members had a few questions but nothing that Makarov himself didn't ask.

They were very surprised to know that he was also the one who put the fire out the next day.

He didn't tell them that he passed out, instead letting them believe the whole incident was planned.

This worked in his favor as all the council members were slightly scared of the amount of Ethernano he had to have to do all that.

Though it was achieved using mostly the natural ethernano in the atmosphere, they didn't need to know that.

When asked why he let the fire get so out of control before he put it out he answered simply with "I didn't even realize the forest was burning until Nirvana collapsed".

The council members didn't like this answer but there was nothing they could do about it.

When the Council was done with their Questions they asked if he was affiliated with any guilds, he answered truthfully that he currently wasn't but was planning to join Fairy Tail with his little sister.

They didn't like this as it would make Fairy Tail even stronger and more destructive than it already was, then they asked him if he wanted to work as an enforcer for the council instead but were quickly denied.

Alex had no intentions of ever affiliating with the Magic Council in any way.

When the Council was done with their questions they had Alex go back to the waiting room, they needed to discuss amongst themselves before he was cleared to leave.

Within the Councils private chambers they were in a heated debate about what too do, they were split down the middle about if him joining Fairy Tail was a good or bad thing.

They also wanted to find a way to control him or restrict his movements.

After an hour of discussion they decided to make him a 'Saint Wizard'. This would allow them to basically control his every action including having him join Fairy Tail.

If he agreed they could tell him that there cannot be 2 'Saint Wizards' in a single guild and since Makarov was also a 'Saint' he had to choose another guild.

They wouldn't tell him this until after he accepted because they thought he might not accept if they did.

They didn't even consider that he might decline the title of 'Saint', it was every young Wizards dream after all.

Calling Alex back to the main chamber they got the second part of the meeting underway.

"After much deliberation we have come to a decision" council member Yagima started.

"It has been unanimously decided that you will be given the title of 'Wizard Saint' for your help with the destruction of the weapon Nirvana" Yagima said.

All the council members had smiles on their faces yet to Alex a few of them looked either forced or sinister.

"I will humbly have to decline your offer, I did not act with the hopes of being rewarded and it doesn't feel right accepting one. I apologize in advance if it seems rude but my decision will not change" Alex spoke with conviction.

He didn't want to be a 'Saint Wizard', it was basically a useless title that acted as an elaborate form of slavery with the amount of control the council would have over him.

He wouldn't actively go against the Council but that did not mean he would help them either.

All the members of the council were temporarily stunned at his refusal as nobody thought he would decline.

"Holding the title of 'Saint' is an incredible honor and you are just going to decline it?" Org spoke in a harsh tone.

He was one of the ones who didn't want Alex to join Fairy Tail as they were already too much of a headache.

"It may be an honor for some people, but for me it would be a burden" Alex spoke calmly, not offended by Org's tone.

"How could it be a burden? 'Saints' have access to many benefits throughout all of Ishgar and are highly respected figures" A new member spoke up, this time an elderly woman.

"Council member Belno is correct, the perks of being a 'Saint' are numerous" Siegrain spoke up.

Alex eyed Siegrain curiously for a moment and resisted the urge to call him out, with his knowledge of the world it would be easy to do but he didn't know how he could explain his knowing, afterwards.

"I thank you all for the consideration and opportunity but I still must respectively decline" Alex spoke, still calm and respectful.

It would do him no good to insult them even if he didn't like most of them.

Realizing they were not going to get him to change his mind, many of the members had dark looks on their faces.

Before anyone else could speak up, the big shadowed figure spoke for the first time "I can see you are firm in your stance, very well we will drop this. Thank you for your co-operation with us, we look forward to what you will achieve in the future" The figure spoke, effectively ending the meeting.

One of the 'frog' people approached Alex and had him follow them out of the building.

After Alex had left the room Org spoke up not able to stop himself "To think he would decline the title! Is he mocking us?" he said, slightly annoyed.

"I don't think so, I just believe he knows of the restrictions following the title. He did say his sister was already in Fairy Tail" Yagima spoke up in Alex's defence.

"That is true, but we will have to keep a close eye on him. He seems to know a lot, maybe too much" Siegrain spoke up, he still remembered the way Alex stared at him as if he could see through him.

'Does he know about me?' Siegrain thought as a chill crawled up his spine.

"I agree, monitoring him is the least we can do" Belno said, agreeing with Siegrain.