Chapter 1: Meet professor Redfox

Name: Kuchiha Rikugo

Age: 22

Occupation: Headmaster's assistant at MSM(Merlin's school of Magic)

Today was my first day as Headmaster Kubo's assistant. A very exciting day, yet exhausting. I hadn't slept at all, missed my good morning-tea and forgot to bring lunch, meaning I have to eat in the canteen of the school, meaning it'll be gross.

My first assignment for the day was to meet the new substitute teacher for Magic Practice 101 and show him around. Well, I guess I'll have to say 'magic'. This may be a school for gifted children, but magic is a big word.

I was supposed to meet a certain mister Redfox at eleven o'clock at the entrance of the school. I was there at 10.55. I was still there at 11.30. But no mister Redfox, which started to annoy me.

I could understand that it might take a while to get here, since the school's placed in the middle of nowhere. The train station is in town, which is an half hour drive from here. Kubo-sensei told me this teacher is also from a far off land, where the art of magic is practiced by at least 75% of its population. What kind of magic he wouldn't say. I tried googling it, but even the magic of the internet couldn't help me. Nor did I get any results on the name 'Gajeel Redfox' in association with the keyword 'magic'. No identity either. Kubo-sensei said he'd talked to this person on the phone, but that doesn't really help me either.

Finally, at 11.45, I could see a shadow approaching between the trees. The school is placed in a forest, and going by Kubo-sensei's words it's too 'help the students gather their magic'. Yeah right.

As the shadow came closer, I could see that his man was most certainly anything but a teacher; long black hair, big arms and a wide chest, gloves with iron knuckles, big hiking boots, and most disturbing of all, he had piercings on his face, covering his nose and, oh lord, forming his eyebrows. When he got even closer, I noticed that his eyes had an unusual red colour, and his pupil had a form similar to a snake's.

It seemed as if he came rolling out of a bar fight, his face covered in scratches and his arms bruised, although he didn't seem bothered by it. I was, actually.

This being my first real job after finishing college, I tried to be as professional as possible for my lack of experience. With my brightest smile on my face I waited till the strange man stood in hearing range.

"Sir, can I help you?" I don't remember my voice being this high pitched.

The large man looked at me without moving his head, lifting one eyebrow. "Eh?"

A little confused and most definitely intimidated by the large muscular man, I cleared my throat nervously and tried again. "Are you looking for someone? Maybe I can help."

The man crossed his arms, looking at the large building behind me. "I'm looking for Merlin's school of Magic. I'm here for the job."

I blinked. "I-I'm sorry, come again?"

The man now turned his head to look right at me. "There was a job request for teaching magic at a magic school."

It can't be. There has to be a mistake. There's no way Kubo-sensei lets people like him teach children about…'magic'. Well, now that I think about it…he fits in well with all these 'gifted' children. Better have all the weirdos in one place.

"Might you be mister Redfox, sir?"

To my surprise, a smile appeared on the face of the man. What's even more surprising were the row of sharp teeth that appeared, yet his smile didn't look evil at all. Rather amused. "Gehe. Mister Redfox, huh? I like the sound of that."

A little more at ease, I held out my hand. "I take that as a yes. My name is Kuchiha, Kubo-sensei's assistant. I'll be your guide for today, classes start tomorrow."

Mister Redfox looked at me hand, and I'm afraid he'll leave it hanging. Eventually, he shook it, to my relief. I nodded.

"Well then, I'll take you to Kubo-sensei's office, so you can discuss terms and conditions, as we speak."

Name: Samdy Janz

Age: 15

Occupation: Student at MSM, class B3C

"Cut it out, Sam!"

I chuckled. "What? I didn't do anything."

Sasha turned around in her chair, not amused at all. "I know you're messing with my hair again."

"Am not" I said, with my best innocent face I could do. Next to me, Ibisan tried not to die while laughing as I turned more and more hair of Sasha's into elastic strings. The brown haired girl squinted her eyes, staring at Ibisan, who did another desperate effort not to choke in his own giggling. I grinned at Sasha, who kept staring at me. Suddenly, her mouth curled into a smile, and I knew something was not right.

"What? Is there something wrong?" she asked. She leaned forward over my table, pretending to investigate my face. "Hmm…everything seems alright here…." She looked all the way down, from my face to my chest, and then… "Oh boy. Seems like you're a little stuck."

There was no need for me to look down. I already knew what she'd done. She glued both my table and my chair to the ground, and by the looks of it, my shoes too.

"Hey, I got those yesterday!"

Sasha sniggered. "Are you kidding me? A guy like you, caring about his shoes?"

Ibisan was slamming his fist on his desk, not being able to hold his laughter any longer. More classmates started to notice what was going on, and more laughter and giggling filled the classroom. But not only because of me. I still wasn't done fixing Sasha's hair, but she didn't seem to mind any longer, knowing that she'd gotten me.

"What was the saying again?" she said, placing a finger on her chin. "Oh, that's right; Karma."

After that she said down in her chair, her elastic hair bouncing up and down. Still looked funny though, but I'd have to return it to normal again before leaving class, otherwise Kubo-sensei would have me weep the floors again.

"Oh man" Ibisan panted. "That was hilarious."

"You find everything hilarious" I said, trying to get my foot out of my shoe. I might needed to break the table in order to leave the classroom, if Sasha didn't undo her magic glue. And I thought my power was useless.

Ibisan rested his chin on his arms and sighed. "Well, I don't like sitting here waiting for the announcement that class is cancelled again. Why doesn't Kubo-sensei just cancel it for the whole semester?"

The girl sitting next to Sasha, Caroline, turned around. "I heard Kubo-sensei found a teacher. And that he's really strange."

"Pff, a new teacher?" I sniggered. "I wonder how long this one will last."

"Don't get your hopes up, Samdy" Caroline warned, with her serious face. "This one's from another continent. He actually knows magic. Real magic."

"You mean like…our kind of magic?" Ibisan asked. Caroline nodded.

"Yeah, right" I scowled. "Keep dreaming. There's no one who can teach us freaks about our abilities. We're doomed."

"Samdy, don't be so pessimistic!" Sasha suddenly snapped, turning around furiously. "Don't say that!"

"Say what? That we're freaks? Doomed? Outsiders?"

"Stop it!" she said again, this time with emotion in her voice. But I didn't care to listen to that.

"It's the truth, Sasha. Just face the facts; we're-"

"What facts?"

Some random, deep voice suddenly filled the classroom. Everyone went silent. All the little groups stopped their little conversations immediately and turned their heads to the figure that had appeared in front of the classroom. No one had seen or heard him come in. No one had felt a presence whatsoever, other than our classmates.

The man seemed like a punk to me. Some high school dropout, like most of us. But there was this strange aura around him. It felt really weird, but at the same time it felt like something I'd experienced before.

As he got closer to me, I felt that aura intensifying. His red eyes pierced into mine. His footsteps echoed and seemed even more scary now that everyone had gone silent. He put one hand on my desk, a gloved hand with iron knuckles. He leaned forward, his face close to mine.

Don't get me wrong, I was frightened, but I wasn't scared. I just felt really strange. That aura was really getting to me.

"Listen to me, boy." His voice sounded even heavier from up close, and I felt a shiver down my spine. "You mean to tell me that every person that can do magic, is a freak? You mean to call me an outsider?"

I blinked, a little surprised. Was this the new teacher?

"Answer me!" he shouted. I quickly shook my head.

"No, sir! No, sensei. I was just fooling around."

The man chuckled, without any amuse. "Fooling around. You remind me of someone. A certain someone. I hate him."

After saying that, he kept looking at me, and I wasn't sure what to do. My dirtbags of friends weren't helpful either. His red eyes made me dizzy, so I tried looking at those weird piercings on his eyebrows. Or…were those his eyebrows?

Finally, he stood up. He looked around the class, and everywhere his eyes passed, I saw my classmates shiver.

When he turned around to walk back to the chalk board, I noticed a huge tattoo on his arm. It looked like some kind of symbol, but I couldn't really see what it was meant to be.

"My name is Gajeel" the man said. The common teacher would write his name on the board, so the students wouldn't forget, but he didn't bother. "I'm the iron dragonslayer from Fairy Tail, and I'm your new teacher."