A new teacher

Chloe had been in Fairy Tail for a week now and still didn't get any stronger. She hoped with all her heart that she would eventually become an S class mage, but had no where to start. Eventually she heard that one of the ten wizard saints was in fairy tail. She explored the guild hall and began to ask around for him, extremely hoping that he could help her.

Simon was returning from a long mission when he walked into Fairy Tail that day. He discarded his traveling cloak onto the nearest person and was about to jump up to his nest built into the ceiling when a minor mage came over to him and said "Hey there was some girl looking fro you just a minute ago. A little shorter then you with blue hair." Simon grinned and grabbed his cloak back then replied "Thanks for the heads up." Instead of jumping to the roof Simon instead ducked into the crowds and seemingly vanished. The next he was seen he was sitting at a table shuffling a deck of cards wearing his cloak with a hood over his head. Out of the corner of his eye he watched a small girl with blue hair run up to someone and ask about a wizard saint in the guild. Simon grinned that was his cue. He yelled at the girl "Oi! I know who you are looking for!" He twirled the deck of cards "With my cards I can find him for you." With a mischievous grin he pulled out a chair for the girl "So would you like to see my little card trick?"

"Uh... alright" Chloe said as she walked towards the hooded figure and sat down. She felt extremely weird doing this and the thoughts of what this person would do. She assumed it was card magic was was unsure of what would happen. Thoughts of her small fears caused her to drip some water as well.

Simon hid it but he was delighted that the girl played along. He shuffled the cards then layed out 5 cards on the table in front of him in a straight line. "Alright just some questions are needed to make this trick work. First who are you? Second can you use magic and if so what is it? Why do you want to find this Wizard Saint? What can you offer him in return for what you want? Lastly what do you expect him to be like?" Simon tapped a card with his right index finger as he asked each question. He loved his magic it allowed for all the coolest things, even a professionally trained master of acting and deception had a little bit of trouble concealing his eagerness. Showing off was something he very much did enjoy.

Chloe instantly became embarrassed when he started asking all of those questions and looked down as she spoke. "My name is Chloe and i'm the water dragon slayer." she said ashamed at how weak she was at doing magic. "Uh... I wanna meet the wizard saint so he can teach me things about magic, because i'm not very powerful at all." Chloe said as she became red with embarrassment and insecurity. Within all this she started dripping more water from her emotions. "I'm sorry, but i don't think i can offer him much at all." Chloe said as she continued, "And I picture him to be a very powerful and ruthless man." Chloe said as she finished, realizing how weak and stupid she sounded.

Simon was cracking up on the inside when he heard the answers to the last question. However on the outside his face only showed slight amusement as suppressing emotions was among his many talents. "Very good very good that is all the information I need." He picked up the first card and held it up, the two of clubs, suddenly the card expanded and started changing shape and color. Then quick as a blink it had become a blue metal statue of Chloe no bigger then a chess piece. Simon set it down on the table "So the girl Chloe seeks the mighty wizard saint..." He picked up the second card revealing it as the two of spades and like the first card it began to change until it was a small blue metal dragon like the Chloe statue was also about the size of a chess piece "She wields the water dragon slayer magic and..." setting the piece down he picked up another card, the ace of spades, and like the ones before it began to change shape but this one grew a bit more and soon it was a larger more detailed statue of a dragon roughly the size of a basket ball. He set down the larger statue and said "She wants to grow and become stronger in the art of magic."

He then picked up the forth card revealing it as the two of diamonds but unlike the others it simply melted and shrunk and then vanished into Simon's hand. "But alas she has nothing to give or offer!" He picked up the last card, the ace of spades it grew and shaped into a statue of a phoenix made entirely out of flame "What could they do to earn the aid of the powerful and ruthless phoenix?" Simon set down the phoenix then burst out laughing "Well in my opinion she need not even ask." He grabbed his cloak and threw it off revealing him for who he was "I'm Simon the Phoenix. Wizard Saint of Fiore. Consider this lesson 1 of magic. Nothing is really ever as it seems." He smiled a cheesy grin "Imagination is power with magic! So to get started let's see just how imaginative you are. I use fire magic, tell me how you think I could have possibly transformed those cards. The cards themselves are not magic." Simon sat back and kicked up his feet on the table, he loved pulling stunts like this it made things a lot more fun.

Chloe simply nodded and started to think. She already knew the boy's behavior was acted from the way he spoke. And also it seemed like nothing was special with the cards so it couldn't be one of his magics. Also she knew that the boy seemed too knowledgeable to be a just a bystander. Thus without magic, the shaky behavior and large knowledge, the boy had to be the saint. Also with the way he destroyed the cards, it had to be fire magic. But most fire magics are focused on destruction and pure offense. There are some forms of fire magic like fire make that can let him do that, but fire is still unpredictable. Also if the statues were made of fire then she would feel the heat from where she sat. They didn't feel hot enough to be made of fire. They were definitely solid. Now that common magic was out the window, she needed to go more unique. She needed a type of magic that uses fire to shape things. She thought a remembered a book about the mythical beast the phoenix. It was able to burn itself and shape itself with the ashes. That had to be it! How else could he burn a solid using intense heat and be left with a differently shaped solid. Chloe but on an extremely scared face as she was going to say her answer, fearing if she was wrong, "I believe its magic based on a phoenix in some way?" she said.

Simon raised and eye brow at her and said "Not to be rude but..... DUH. Did you miss the part where I said "Simon THE PHOENIX. Naturally my magic is phoenix based, I was baptized in the power of the great one himself. That gave me command of his special fire. But what I just did could be done with any old flame if you had enough control." He picked up the metal Chloe chess piece and tossed it up and down "Come on examine the statues a little. Fire magic, statues from seemingly nothing. One more guess come on use that brain." Simon's energy increased as the sentence went on trying to encourage Chloe to really think. It was a clever bit of magic Simon had perfected and was no simple feat to perform but the concept itself was simple.

"Well I couldn't take the word phoenix as proof as a phoenix is a common idea for fire. But let me elaborate what I was thinking. A phoenix can burn things and then reshape items using the ashes. Which explains why your items are made from fire, but are solid." Chloe said really embarrassed off what he though of her as she looked down and dripped water like crazy.

Simon listened to her idea it was something but burning things then reforming the ashes into something new was not among his abilities. But it would take all day for her to get it exactly right so Simon cut to the point. He picked up one of the other cards in the deck and held it up, it was the 3 of hearts, he then used his free hand to scratch the face of the card with a finger nail. As he did so Chloe would be able to see that paint was peeling off the card and under the paint was a smooth bluish metal. "These aren't real cards. They are made of metal." Then suddenly the card expanded until it was a metal block about the size of the dragon "Metal can expand when heated but can also be condensed when cooled. With some clever metal working I was able to fit 2 pounds of celestial steel into each of these cards and once I expand them to their max they can get about this big. Simon set down the metal block and looked back at Chloe "So are you starting to see how I did it? I use fire and I am also an accomplished metal smith. I can manipulate my flame so precisely that I can use it to warp metal without my flame even showing or moving a muscle." This here was the real point Simon was trying to make "Magic can do incredible things that defy understanding. With creative use and other non-magic skills you can do anything with magic. Most people assume fire magic is destructive and offensive only yet I can use it offensively, defensively and for utility purposes."

Simon grinned ear to ear "You don't even need to be all powerful to do great things. Just gotta use your head. Think outside the box and you can become more powerful then you would think." He tapped the deck of cards on the table and shuffled them a little "So any other questions about magic?"