Fairy Tail: Dawn of Change by Melissa Nichols (books to read for self improvement txt) 📕

or so. I've got a game I'd like to try—I think it'll be right up your alley, once you get used to it." Everyone else in the guild got too competitive and ended up wrecking things—especially Natsu—and Lyon… well, even if he knew where he was, Gray didn't think a 'friendly game' was on the table anymore. “And since I haven’t played it in a while, this will be fun for me, too! Heck, I’m so out of practice that you might get the better of me.”

 

"Cool!" Roxanne bounced on her toes again, giggling at the accidental pun. "What kind of game is it?" Ice would make a really good medium for bowling, and she was actually pretty good at that, for a kid. She didn't even need to use the bumpers anymore!

 

Gray smiled at her enthusiasm. It was really hard not to keep ruffling her hair, but she'd probably start to resent it if he did it too often. "I call it Hit the Birdie. My mentor used to let her other apprentice Lyon and I play it together." Lyon's 'birdies' had literally flown around, making gameplay borderline impossible until Ur put her foot down. "She said it does a lot of good things for your body, but mostly it builds hand-eye coordination and reflexes."

 

"That sounds like fun!" Roxanne nodded, shunting aside her desire to squeal and pounce on the mention of Lyon and Ur. She couldn't let on that she knew who they were—even Erza didn't know who they were at this point in the timeline! "How do you play?"

 

Gray grinned and moved over to the stick that still lay on the ground. Using that as a marker, he used Ice Make to create two poles with a thin, shimmering sheet of ice between them that could act as a net. It was thin enough and smooth enough to see through, so they'd both know what the other was doing, but he'd left enough deliberate inclusions in the ice to give it a very lightly 'frosted' look, so they wouldn't forget where it was. Next came the rackets—they were harder, since they couldn't just be solid sheets of ice. They had to have elasticity, something ice was uniquely suited not to have. Once he'd made the frames, he grew a hexagonal web-work of thin ice strings, tuning the magic carefully to give the ice properties natural ice would never have. In some ways, it was similar to how Macao could make fire that 'clung' to other objects, despite fire normally being pretty much intangible. It also made the ice-lines a much, much deeper blue, as his magic saturated them.

 

Roxanne watched in utter fascination. This wasn't quick-and-dirty battle-magic, like in the show, no matter how beautiful Gray's Ice Make weapons and shields had always been. This was something much more mundane, and at the same time much more amazing. It didn't take a long time for him to finish the long-handled rackets—no more than a few seconds—but she got to actually watch the crystals grow and form, and it was a fascinating process. I want that. Roxanne realized as desire burned in her heart so hot that it made her throat ache. I want to be able to do that.

 

It wasn't until Gray produced the 'Birdie', though, that she realized exactly what game this was. The Birdie was a plum-sized half-hollow ball of ice with a netted ring of fins on the back side, and Gray produced it by placing the 'ball' in the palm of one hand and then laying the other hand atop it and pulling away in a short gesture, the net growing up beneath his hands like rock candy in reverse. The ball split in half and the fins sprouted up from the flat sides of each, creating two Birdies rather than one.

 

Rox smiled. At least they'd have a spare if the primary Birdie got launched far away.

 

"Aaand, there we are." Gray nodded to himself, tossing and catching one Birdie a few times to check that the balance wasn't off. The front half of the 'ball' was very faintly blue, a testament to the extra magic that went into it, since it had to have a hard-rubber texture or it would crack during play. "All you have to do is hit the Birdie up over the net to my side of the court, and then I'll hit it back to you. That's called a volley, and it lasts until one of use makes a mistake and the Birdie hits the ground. We'll keep doing volleys until I say we've had enough."

 

Roxanne found herself smiling confidently despite herself. Badminton! Hit the Birdie is badminton! she cheered to herself. She was so glad to find a game that she was familiar with and loved.

 

Her school had let the students play either dodgeball or badminton on rainy days, and she always chose badminton, so she was quite confident in her skills. She wasn't the best, but she still enjoyed badminton more than dodgeball. Her parents had also had her playing tennis almost every day since she was big enough to hold a racket, claiming that it did the same things for her that Gray claimed Hit the Birdie did. But Roxanne was sure that they did it just so that she would wear herself out and be more obedient during the etiquette and comportment lessons that came afterwards. But even though she was more familiar with tennis, she preferred badminton because there wasn't quite as much running involved, and because the hitter needed a delicate touch or else the Birdie would fly across the room.

 

Grinning, she took her racket and raced to the court. "Ready when you are, Gray!" she shouted once she was in position in her favorite spot.

 

Gray paused, smile faltering. He'd noticed the confidence in her eyes, which meant that she was very familiar with the game, and that had caught him off guard. He knew that Ur hadn't invented Hit the Birdie, but when he'd first come to Magnolia, no one else had known it. He'd thought it was unique to Istvan.

 

Note to self: do not underestimate student's potential experience. He'd thought of her as a sheltered rich kid, and she was, but even rich kids played games, and Hit the Birdie was the kind of no-violence, no-contact game that would probably appeal to snooty, over-protective parents.

Gray moved over to his own court, watching his apprentice with unerring, analytical eyes. He chose a spot that was centered on his side, the better to react to something unexpected, until such time as he knew Roxanne's proficiency with the game and could thus choose a spot that was particularly effective against her. As a bonus, going to the middle would prevent her from figuring out his own tendencies beforehand because it was something a novice would do, thinking that it was better to have an equal amount of space on all sides.

 

As he'd thought she would, Roxanne narrowed her eyes in concentration, trying to analyze his own placement and what that would mean for where the birdie would go. And, as he tossed the birdie on the racket a few times in preparation, she moved to the spot she thought most likely for the birdie to go.

 

Gray was glad he'd noticed her confidence. If he hadn't, he'd probably have gotten creamed in the first round while 'going easy on her', until he'd wizened up. Now, though, he could more accurately assess her while keeping his own defenses up. Losing to your apprentice on the first day is not cool, he told himself wryly, catching the birdie on the racket and holding it up in a visual cue to Roxanne that the game was about to begin. It's the kind of thing that gets you mocked by idiot Salamanders.

 

Roxanne nodded and braced herself, raising her racket until it was level with the rest of her arm and slightly behind. Gray nodded approvingly and tossed the birdie into the air. He watched it fly up, then turn and come back down ball-first. He waited until it was at the right height, then he lifted his racket and swung underhand with a light touch, expertly popping the birdie over the net.

Roxanne had to race forward to hit the birdie before it hit the ground. She had expected Gray to hit it where she had been, and then figured that he would hit it over her head when he realized she'd played this game before. She hadn't expected him to hit the birdie short of her position, so she had to adjust quickly. Thankfully, her racket met the birdie and easily flicked it into the air, buying her a bit of time to re-center herself for her own hit. She hit the birdie over the net, aiming for the ground just barely on his side, and watched as Gray darted forward and easily caught the birdie. Bouncing it on the racket once, he backed up to gain more ground, then he hit the birdie with far more strength than before. His goal was the far end of Roxanne's court.

 

When she saw how much strength he was putting into the volley, Roxanne retreated, turning her back to him to get more speed, rather than risk tripping by running backwards. She guessed where he intended the birdie to go, and dashed over there. Thankfully, she had been right, and the birdie came sailing smoothly towards her. She smiled and hit it back the moment it came into range, sending hers to the side of his court that was furthest from him and closer to the net, which meant that he'd have to react quickly as well.

 

He, of course, met the birdie and returned it to Roxanne, and she hit it back to him. They parried like that, with increasingly difficult-to-reach targets and near-catches, until the volley was broken when Roxanne was just a fraction of a second too late. To Gray's surprise and pleasure, Roxanne took the loss well, merely stomping her foot once in wordless disappointment before scooping the birdie up with the rim of her racket and looking to him for permission to resume play.

 

"Go ahead," Gray nodded. "You obviously know how to play, so you might as well serve."

Roxanne beamed, spirits restored, and tossed the birdie upwards.

 

They kept playing for several rounds, and Gray was genuinely impressed by Roxanne's intuition. She seemed to be reading him almost expertly, guessing where he'd send the birdie more often than not and saving herself precious fractions of a second to actually react. What he didn't know was that Roxanne was also factoring in his body language and what she knew of his personality to arrive at those guesses. It certainly wasn't easy, because Gray had twice the reach she did and much better reflexes, but at the same time, despite his admiration, he was still underestimating her a little. His knowledge of her reflexes and response time came from their earlier training, things she had been largely unfamiliar with, and thus lacked the proper instincts to perform without conscious thought.

 

Gray decided to end the game after several rounds, and when he checked the time he was shocked to find that they had been playing intensely for far longer than he'd thought—almost half an hour longer. To his surprise, when he looked at Roxanne, he saw that she was breathing hard but otherwise seemed unfazed by the exertion.

 

"Okay," he said, wiping a little sweat from his own brow, "walk a little bit to cool down, and then we'll do final stretches, okay?"

 

"Yes, Gray." Roxanne nodded, chin up, and her jaw clenched a little bit as she started walking steadily around the edges of the 'court'.

 

Gray frowned to himself a little as he carefully vaporized their equipment. He'd been sure that she'd be on the ground passed out from exhaustion by now, or—more likely—throwing up from overexertion despite how he'd toned the training regimen down from his original plans. Then again, one of the