Chatper 6: Dragon Cub of iron
The heavy clash of water and iron slowly faded into memory.
What replaced the echo of the grand guild hall was not the thunderous roar of magical combat, but the quiet, rhythmic howl of a freezing wind cutting relentlessly against ancient stone.
Long before Gajeel Lionheart ever learned the art of turning his living flesh into unbreakable steel…
Before his forearms could harden into lethal weapons at a moment's notice..
He was merely a child.
A small boy trapped within a wild, untamed world that possessed absolutely no mercy for the weak.
A young child with wild black hair and sharp, crimson-slit pupils tore frantically through a dense thicket of trees, a frantic, breathless laughter spilling from his lips as he darted expertly between the massive trunks.
"HHRRRAAAUUGHH!!"
A deafening, earth-shaking roar exploded through the canopy behind him, sending a flock of terrified birds scattering into the sky.
Gajeel glanced rapidly over his small shoulder, his predatory eyes instantly locking onto a massive, towering grizzly bear that was barreling through the undergrowth directly after him.
"Hahaha!" the boy shouted gleefully, his voice cracking with youth. "Keep chasing me, you fat stuffed animal! My dad and I are going to have your hide for lunch!"
As if explicitly insulted by the child's vocabulary, the apex predator let out another furious growl, its heavy paws churning the dirt as it charged even harder. It was colossal. Powerful. Lethal.
But it was also exceptionally fat and slow.
For the time being, Gajeel's agility allowed him to maintain a safe distance. His small legs burned with exhaustion as he burst violently past the tree line, collapsing into a wide, rocky clearing just outside the forest perimeter.
Panting heavily and drenched in sweat, the boy stumbled over a loose root and dropped onto the ground, landing hard on his backside.
He spun around on his hands. The grizzly bear breached the tree line, sliding to a halt a mere four feet away. It was close enough that Gajeel could smell its foul breath and count the jagged teeth lining its maw.
"I performed my part of the strategy…" Gajeel wheezed, a wild grin splitting his face despite his physical fatigue. "Now it is officially your turn…"
The bear lunged forward, claws raised to shred the boy to pieces. Gajeel inhaled deeply and screamed toward the heavens at the absolute top of his lungs.
"SAVE ME, METALICANA!!"
The sky split.
An enormous, all-consuming shadow instantly swallowed the entire clearing as something ancient, titanic, and catastrophic descended from the clouds above.
When Metalicana landed, it was not feet that struck the earth, but massive, razor-sharp talons.
BOOM.
The bedrock fractured instantly upon impact, stone blocks and loose dirt erupting outward in a violent, concussive shockwave that leveled the surrounding bushes.
The grizzly bear froze instantly mid-lunge, its front paws hovering in the air. Slowly, its entire body trembling violently, the apex predator turned around.
Behind it stood a monster far greater than anything the natural world could produce.
Metalicana's physical vessel was colossal and serpentine, constructed like a towering, reptilian war-beast. Thick, exceptionally powerful limbs anchored his massive weight to the fractured earth.
A long, whip-like tail coiled menacingly behind his frame, ending in heavy protrusions, while his curved talons dug deep into the stone like forged industrial blades.
His scales were not merely metallic in color. They were constructed of literal, living iron.
Layered heavily across his body like overlapping plates of dreadnought armor, some sections were smooth and polished like tempered steel, while others were rough, jagged, and pitted from the memory of countless ancient battles.
Along the entire length of his spine, jagged ridges rose like brutal, uneven blades. From his heavily armored skull curved thick, twisted horns resembling iron spikes hammered violently into place, while smaller barbed protrusions lined his lower jaw and neck, granting him the unmistakable silhouette of a living weapon.
"You called for my assistance, Gajeel?" Metalicana rumbled, his deep, metallic voice vibrating the air density so intensely that the boy's chest throbbed.
Despite his terrifying visual form, the expression on his angular face almost closely resembled a grin.
"Dad!" Gajeel waved his arms excitedly from his position on the ground. "I got our lunch metrics!"
"Fine performance, brat."
Metalicana raised one massive, multi-ton iron claw in a crude, robotic thumbs-up gesture before shifting his absolute gaze down toward the trembling bear.
The animal was paralyzed, its primal survival instincts screaming at it to flee, but its muscles refused to obey.
Metalicana's iron grin sharpened. "Now… What is the proper way to make use of you?"
The statistical answer arrived instantly. His massive tail lashed out. It moved with the hyper-velocity of a master sword strike—clean, effortless, and perfectly precise.
SHING.
A single, high-pitched metallic note cut through the air. Then, an absolute silence.
A fraction of a second later, the massive grizzly bear split cleanly in two halves, collapsing onto the dirt.
The forest grew entirely still once more.
And young Gajeel simply beamed with pride.
Nightfall settled quietly over the mountain clearing. The wilderness had gone still, save for the occasional rustle of leaves and the distant, rhythmic hum of nocturnal life.
CRACKLE.
Gajeel swallowed loudly as he tore aggressively into his dinner. Before the boy rested a solitary, exceptionally succulent cut of meat, its rich surface kissed with a deep, mahogany-brown sear that glistened beautifully under the orange firelight.
A single, clean white bone protruded from one end—smooth, polished, and dense—serving as a natural handle for the child to grip. He bit down without a shred of restraint.
"This food is absolutely delicious!" Gajeel mumbled around a massive mouthful of meat, ripping off another large chunk with his sharp teeth.
He swallowed hard, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I fail to comprehend why you refuse to partake in this meat," he added, gesturing toward the dragon with the bone. "But hey, more for me."
Not far from the campfire sat the resting form of Metalicana.
The dragon's long, narrow head tilted slightly, his heavy angular snout resembling raw iron ore carved into an unnatural shape. Massive fangs lined his formidable jaws like sharpened steel stakes, some slightly chipped with centuries of age, yet none dulled by it.
His vast, leathery wings were folded tightly at his sides. Unlike ordinary draconic wings, dark iron struts ran directly through the membranes, reinforcing them like the rigid structural framework of a military war machine.
His eyes were small, circular, and entirely black, the dark sclera swallowing any hint of a pupil.
Gajeel paused mid-chew, noticing the stare. "What?"
"Your face is full of rust," Metalicana stated flatly.
Gajeel scowled instantly. "So is yours, old man."
The comfortable, unbothered silence returned to the clearing.
Some time later, Gajeel exhaled a long, deeply satisfied breath and leaned backward, rubbing his distended stomach. "Ooooh… that hit the spot," he groaned, dropping straight onto his back.
"Gajeel," Metalicana rumbled, lowering his massive chest to sit closer to the earth. Despite his colossal, heavy form, the physical motion carried a strange, almost human casualness to it. "How much do you currently know regarding the nature of magic?"
"Hm…" Gajeel placed a small finger to his chin, entering a state of contemplation. "The fundamental nature of Mahō, huh?" He shifted his weight, folding his hands comfortably behind his head.
"Mahō —what ordinary civilized people call magic—isn't some fancy, unnatural miracle," the boy began his explanation. "It's life energy. That's all it is. It runs through every single thing in existence, not just humans."
He lifted his fingers into the air as if counting variables.
"The bugs crawling under the dirt. The trees with roots buried deep in the bedrock. The beasts tearing through the wild canopy. Even the literal land itself has it flowing through the stone. If a structure is breathing, it contains Mahō."
He lowered his hand back to the grass.
"It isn't unnatural. It isn't some holy blessing dropped down from the heavens. It's just life energy given a specific shape." He shrugged carelessly. "The exact same way blood runs through your internal veins, Mahō runs through the veins of the world." He blinked, realizing a secondary detail.
"Oh—and the rare people who can actually manipulate it are called wizards." A proud smirk tugged at his lips. "Or mages, if they're trying to sound exceptionally important."
Metalicana let out a low, vibrating rumble from his throat that might have indicated genuine amusement. "Your assessment is not factually incorrect," the dragon noted. "But your information is missing a historical parameter."
Gajeel sat up quickly, his brow furrowed. "What am I missing?"
"The force now commonly designated as magic has borne many different names across the eras of history," Metalicana began, his voice steady, deep, and ancient.
"In the oldest surviving records of this world, it was designated exclusively as Mahō—the primordial breath of life that flows through all living containers. As ancient empires rose and languages shifted, the vocabulary changed. Translated. Shortened. Reshaped to suit new tongues and new religious beliefs."
The dragon lowered his massive head slightly, his iron scales scraping softly against one another with a metallic rasp.
"The core difference is not found within the power itself. It is found entirely within how an individual chooses to understand it."
The campfire crackled quietly between them. And for once in his life, Gajeel did not possess a quick, arrogant reply.
"Hey… Metalicana."
"…"
Gajeel scratched the back of his neck, his facial features twisting into a look of visible, intense discomfort, as if the words he was attempting to form physically caused him pain to articulate.
"I just… wanted to state something to you." Gajeel refused to make direct eye contact, looking off into the dark forest instead. "…I am exceptionally glad that I met you."
Silence.
Gajeel huffed loudly. "I do not possess any memories of my biological parents. Not their facial structures. Not their vocal frequencies. Absolutely nothing. But honestly? I do not care a single fraction about them." He leaned back slightly, propping his weight up on his hands. His red eyes flickered upward toward the star-filled night sky. "I have always simply thought of you as my parent anyway…"
"GGRRRRRAAAAAAANNN—" A horrendous, screeching metallic grinding noise suddenly tore through the quiet clearing.
Gajeel shot completely upright, his jaw dropping.
"…Oi." He squinted through the smoke at the massive dragon. "Are you seriously asleep right now?!"
Metalicana did not shift an inch. Another heavy, grinding rumble escaped his iron maw.
Gajeel's right eye twitched violently. "Tch! I was being genuinely nice to you, you absolute rust-brained idiot!" He flopped back down onto the ground aggressively, folding his arms tight over his chest. "Tsk. I swear on my life, this is the absolute last time I am ever being nice to you."
A few seconds passed. The harsh grinding noise slowly evened out into very rhythmic, obvious snoring.
Meanwhile, hidden safely deep within the shadows of the darkness where the boy could not see, a small, subtle smile tugged at the corner of Metalicana's massive iron maw.
A smile young Gajeel never once witnessed.
The following morning, a fully active iron dragon tore brutally through the sky high above the clouds.
Metalicana's massive wings carved through the air currents with terrifying kinetic force, propelling his heavy frame forward at a velocity no ordinary wizard could ever hope to calculate.
The wind shrieked fiercely past his iron scales as raw sunlight flashed brilliantly across his armored body.
Wrapped tightly around the base of the dragon's tail like a piece of excess baggage was a half-asleep Gajeel. The boy's black hair whipped violently across his face, his eyes half-lidded in pure sensory misery.
"I can't even sleep because of this stupid air pressure!" he shouted, his voice nearly swallowed by the wind.
With a sudden, sharp gleam in his dark eyes, Metalicana angled his colossal form downward.
He dropped through the sky like a ballistic missile. The landscape twisted rapidly around them as he spiraled toward the earth in a highly controlled descent. Just before making impact with the ground, his massive wings flared wide to catch the air.
BOOM.
The sheer kinetic force of his landing cracked the mountain peak beneath his claws, a massive cloud of dust, smoke, and debris exploding outward.
Gajeel was unceremoniously unwrapped from the dragon's tail and tossed roughly onto the rocky surface.
He coughed violently, waving the smoke away. "Cough—! It is far too early in the morning for this methodology!" he complained loudly, standing up. "Where have you transported us, anyway?!"
Metalicana lowered his tail, gently nudging the boy upright. "Analyze your surroundings, iron boy."
Still deeply annoyed, Gajeel rubbed his eyes and scanned the environment. The dust cleared. They stood atop a narrow, isolated mountain peak. Jagged cliffs stretched down into a vast abyss on all sides, and in the far distance, other jagged mountains rose like broken teeth against the horizon line.
The wind up here was significantly colder.
"This will undoubtedly sound strange to your ears," Metalicana said suddenly, his tone shifting into something serious. "But tell me… do you feel any different within your internal container?"
Gajeel blinked. "Different in what specific metric?"
"Like a new information has been deeply engraved into your cognitive mind. A specific fragment of magical knowledge that was not present yesterday."
Gajeel frowned, checking his internal state. "…No. I feel the same as i did yesterday."
Metalicana nodded his massive head slowly. "I see. Therefore, you have not yet undergone an Awakening."
"An Awakening?" Gajeel raised a brow. "I never heard of it."
"It is the precise instant a person's internal magic manifests for the very first time," Metalicana explained calmly. "This transition is known across history as the Eternal Awakening." He lowered his massive head closer to the child.
"When it occurs, an individual does not merely acquire raw power. A precise fragment of magical understanding is permanently engraved directly into the conscious mind."
The dragon tapped a massive iron claw gently against his own temple.
"It is incomplete knowledge. No immediate mastery. No perfect control. It functions solely as a definitive starting point."
Gajeel scratched his bruised cheek. "So if I fail to trigger this Awakening phenomenon… Does that mean I am completely incapable of using magic?"
"If that hypothesis were an absolute truth," Metalicana replied calmly, "human society would be absurdly binary."
The dragon lifted his massive left claw.
"Innate Magic," the dragon began. "A unique, hyper-specific power engraved into the physical vessel at the moment of birth. The vast majority of living humans possess one, and only one, core elemental identity. The Eternal Awakening grants immediate access to this innate Mahō."
He then raised his massive right claw. "But the awakening itself does not grant the existence of Mahō . It merely unlocks the container."
He held both massive claws out symmetrically in front of Gajeel's face.
"On this hand, an Awakened individual." He gestured to the left. Then, gesturing to the right: "On this hand, a Non-Awakened individual. Tell me, boy—which one is inherently stronger?"
"Oh! I comprehend this calculation!" Gajeel shot his hand high into the air confidently. "The Awakened Individual!"
"Incorrect."
Metalicana instantly crossed his massive iron claws into a large, definitive X formation. "Neither archetype is inherently stronger than the other."
"Huh?! That is cheating!" Gajeel protested loudly.
Metalicana entirely ignored the outburst. "An Awakening grants distinct statistical advantages. An elemental Attribute. An instinctive, immediate understanding of one's magic. A significantly higher potential ceiling for growth. But it does not create magical energy out of absolute nothingness."
He gestured with his chin toward the vast mountain ranges below them.
"A Non-Awakened individual possesses a lower potential ceiling, yes. But their potential is far from a value of zero. That specific distinction is highly important for a warrior to comprehend."
Gajeel stared at the colossal beast. A thin trail of metaphorical smoke practically rose from his ears as his brain tried to process the data.
"…Now I am completely confused."
Metalicana let out a deep, rumbling chuckle that shook the gravel beneath them. "Fear not, brat."
He straightened his massive posture, his iron wings spreading wide against the cold sky. "With myself acting as your direct instructor… and with your body learning my specific brand of magic…" His voice deepened, carrying the full weight of a dragon's pride. "I possess absolutely no doubt that you will become one of the strongest wizards of your entire generation."
Gajeel's red eyes widened to their absolute limits. "For real?!" he gasped, his slitted pupils practically sparkling with adrenaline. "With strength of that caliber, there won't be a single wizard alive stronger than me!"
"For real, real," Metalicana nodded, his metallic jaws locking. "I will teach you my absolute magic."
The freezing wind howled fiercely around the mountain peak.
"iron Dragon Slayer Magic." The dragon lifted his head proudly toward the heavens. "My names js Metalicana. I am the Iron Dragon."
The massive mountain peak suddenly felt smaller somehow. And standing there, his small fists clenched with pure excitement, was Lionheart Gajeel.
This is his history. The definitive story of how he officially became—.
The Iron Dragon Slayer.