44 Chapter 44: Ophiuchus
The second that Aversia had finished, the sound of a doorbell rang out and the sky became dark.
The body of a giant snake appeared from beneath the cliff, its body was black and seemed to be partly mechanic in nature, mostly its lower body part, including the lower jaw.
Its upper body was covered by giant plate like dark scales and each one of them had prominent holes on their side.
Its head and upper jaw were similarly colored, its eyes were light pupil-less eyes, a pair of massive fangs sprouting from the jaw, thin nostrils located on the front part of its nose and a series of dark motifs adorning its forehead, above the eyes.
The lower part of its body is visibly technological and inorganic: its upper scales, instead of meat, appear to house a vast number of metal panels lined up one near the other, something which makes them resemble closed blinds; its lower jaw, while seemingly topped by an organic tongue is entirely composed of metal, with the plates composing it, replicating the form of a real jaw, having their edges covered in lines of bolts.
Such artificial-looking lower jaw is connected to the upper one by six piston-like objects, three sitting at each side of the creature's mouth, while a semicircular metal section covering the lower part of its neck, almost extending up to the top, sports two round openings on each side, with a single metallic bar, outlining the diameter of each hole.
The lower part of Ophiuchus' metal jaw sports a massive blade with jagged edges curving toward the creature's body, secured to the front by a protrusion, and the attached for most of its length after a hollow space.
Aversia and Zeldaris had expected a lot, but none of them came even close to the real appearance of the spirit.
As for the others they were shocked speechless, their mouths were hanging wide open and none of them were able to close them, even Natsu, which surprised the two half dragons.
The giant spirit looked at Aversia, it knew that it was Aversia that summoned her.
Aversia used Requip and took out a notebook and a pen and said,
"Well then, lets get right to the contract. Are Mondays, ok?".
'There is no day where I am not willing to be summoned so it is unnecessary to go through this process and complete the contract.', said a feint feminine voice that appeared in Aversia´s mind.
"You… You can speak.", said Aversia who didn´t expect that Ophiuchus could communicate with her through her mind.
"But that doesn't matter right now. You said that there Is no day were you don´t want to be summoned. Ok, then the contract is completed, and I hope that the two of us will get along.", said Aversia and smiled toward the spirit.
'You and the one beside you really are the first two that weren´t scared when I appeared.', said Ophiuchus to both Aversia and Zeldaris.
"Scared? Why would be scared. Now that you have made the contract with Aversia, you are our friend, so why do we need to be afraid? Also, Aversia aren´t the only ones that aren´t afraid of you.", said Zeldaris, who at the end of the sentence turned around and looked at the others.
Who in turn snapped out of their shocked state and none of them were afraid by it but were curious about it.
Ophiuchus couldn´t believe that these humans were not afraid of her, every time that she was summoned, which was not often, the summoner and everyone else would become frightened by her.
"Wait so does that mean that the contract is just asking which days its okay to summon it?", asked Elfman.
"Yep", answered Aversia.
"SERIOUSLY!", yelled both Elfman and Natsu.
"I know that it sounds silly, but it is particularly important, and it is also important to not break that contract. Also, you should now this since Anna told us about making contracts with Celestial Spirits Natsu. I underestimated how bad your memory is.", said Zeldaris while face palming.
"Well, that's Natsu for you.", said Happy, while shrugging with his shoulders.
"Hey!"
"Hey, Ophiuchus. Can you do something about the sky. We can´t have it turn dark every time we summon you, the people are going to panic.", said Zeldaris to Ophiuchus.
'I think I have a way.'
Ophiuchus whole body started to glow and started to shrink down and change its shape.
The sky turned back to normal as quick as it changed before, and everyone could swear that they heard a pop sound.
When the light faded away, a slender, well-endowed young woman with blue eyes with slit pupils and dark blond hair that reached down to her waist.
She wore a simple black shirt with black pants and dark shoes, but the most surprising thing about her, was the fact that her arms, including her shoulders, were mechanical.
"Let me introduce myself again. My name is Ophiuchus, and I am the spirit of the black key.", said Ophiuchus and bowed.
Everyone was surprised, none of them expected that this huge cyborg snake could take a human figure, even Aversia and Zeldaris were surprised, but it was a welcome surprise since they planned to keep the gate open for a long time.
After all, they had searched for the 13th key for a long time.
But first, they decided to go back inside and continue their conversation in the guild.
"You two can join as well Gray, Loke.", said Zeldaris as he walked back inside.
Gray and Loke were on the other side of the building and had been watching the whole time, mostly out of curios of what they were doing.
Back inside the guild they found that the others were still celebrating and that their table was still free.
When they others noticed that the group came back with a new person, they thought that she was a new member of the guild, or someone that wanted to join the guild.
Ophiuchus was quite overwhelmed by the attention and hid behind Aversia and Zeldaris, who in turn tried to explain them the situation.
Everyone was surprised when they were told that the girl was a celestial spirit and that Aversia just made a contract with her.
To be fair, Celestial Spirit Magic was rather rare, since the number of users of that magic was influenced by the number of keys and there was no member that used that magic, until now.
Anyway, Aversia and Zeldaris asked Ophiuchus why her key was with the settlers and what they did with her.
Ophiuchus looked down at the floor for a moment and everyone knew that this was a complicated and sensitive topic for her.
"Thank you. I promise that I will tell you one day, but I am not ready yet. To much happened and I am haven´t been able to process everything yet, so please forgive me and let´s talk about something else."
She just wanted to spend time with people and talk with them and that was exactly what they did.
They talked for multiple hours about everything that came to their mind and Ophiuchus listened to everything with interest and answered as much as she could.
Turned out that Ophiuchus was rather lonely, even in the Celestial Spirit World, which made Aversia and Zeldaris look at Loke, who in turn started to sweat and looked away, before telling them that he has a date and must leave.
Zeldaris and Aversia made a mental note to have a little talk with their old friend.
"Uhm, is it okay for me to stay this long. I… I mean since my gate uses a lot of magical power and… and I don´t want you to exhaust yourself for me.", said Ophiuchus who finally noticed how long the gate was open.
"Don´t worry about it. I have a lot of magical power and your gate doesn´t consumes as much as you think, although you can say that just shows that Zeldaris and I really need to work at our control, since we became kind rusty. But it´s fine, even if I am about to reach my limit, I have a way to get more. Right Zeldaris?", said Aversia.
Without saying a single word, Zeldaris conjured a fireball and threw it toward Aversia, who in turn caught it with her mouth and began to eat it.
"" Wait, you two can eat each other's magic? Doesn´t that mean that the two of you can basically refill your magical power whenever you want?", exclaimed both Erza and Mirajane at the same time.
The reason why they were surprised about this was because it meant that the two would never run out of magic power.
This was one of the biggest reasons why they were not allowed to use their magic in the hellish training from Challot and Emrissen.
Gray, Elfman and Lisanna looked at Natsu, who was not surprised at all and looked like it was nothing new and only common knowledge.
"You knew that they were able to do this didn´t you!", said Gray.
"Of course, I knew mister grumpy pants, it is a slayers ability to consume their element.", said Natsu with a smug smile.
Gray wanted to say something back but Aversia and Zeldaris were faster.
"" We aren´t dragon slayers, you stupid idiot!"", said both at the same time.
"If you aren´t dragon slayers, what are you then?", said Natsu, while tilting his head.
Everyone in the guild, except the master and Mirajane, assumed that the two were dragon slayers.
Erza, Elfman and Lisanna also believed that the two can use Take Over Magic, since they saw them transform before.
"" We are half dragons. How many times do we have to explain to you before you learn it? Your memory is really the worst sometimes."", exclaimed both.
The entire guild became quite after hearing this.
None of them had any idea what a half dragon was and waited for them to explain.
Both stood up and walked to the middle of the hall and started to transform into to their true form.
"The two of us are half dragon, which means that we are half dragon and half human. You could also call us half dragons the inspiration or the prototypes of dragon slayers."
Celestial Spirit Magic:
Celestial Spirit Magic is a holder type magic. To use this magic the mage needs to have Celestial Spirit Keys and needs to form a contract with the spirit of the key. The contract itself is rather simple, where the mage askes the spirit on which days it is okay to summon them. Although it is simple, it is of outmost importance that the contract is not broken since it is a sign of trust and the start of the bond between the mage and the spirit. To summon a spirit, the user must infuse the key with their magical power and say the name of the gate and the true name of the spirit, the mage can call the spirit with a different name, best examples are Nicola/Prum and Leo/Loke. The strength of the spirit is heavily influenced by the magical power of the user. The open gate consumes magic power continuously, which is why it is a bad idea to let a gate stay open for a long time. To close a gate, both the user and the spirit must agree. It is possible to summon multiple spirits at once, but the consumption of magical power will be much higher than normal, and it is considered a forbidden technique to summon three or more spirits at the same time. It is possible to close the gate forcefully, but it consumes a great deal of magical power and it is also possible for the spirit to open the gate on their own.
There are two different kinds of keys, the silver keys and the golden zodiac keys. There are countless types of silver keys and there are hundreds if not thousands of the same type. But there are only 12 different zodiac keys and only one for each of them. The key to Ophiuchus gate is called the black key and is not considered as a zodiac key, but its own kind. Every spirit has their own purpose, and every spirit is inspired by a star or star constellation, except for the Spirit King.
