Title: Twin Crush: The Legend of Caelum Alberona
Chapter 1: Rebirth of a Mountain
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"So this is how I die?"
It wasn't exactly poetic.
Crushed under rubble after saving a cat. A literal cat. He hadn't even liked cats that much. But there it was—furball in the middle of a collapsing building, yowling like it had paid rent to live there. He dove in, didn't think twice, and in that single act of poorly-calculated heroism, his life ended.
But then, there was light. Not the "walk toward the light" kind, but a vibrant warmth—like someone had flipped the world's saturation settings to high. His chest hurt, then didn't. He gasped. Screamed. Cried.
And someone else was crying too.
"There, there… two healthy twins," a soft voice cooed. "What a surprise!"
---
He didn't understand what was happening until he saw her: wide brown eyes, a tiny nose, and hair like his. The other baby—his twin sister. Cana.
Then came the name: Caelum. Named after the sky—how ironic, given that he'd later be known for tearing up the earth.
By the time he could walk, Caelum knew something was different. For one, he had memories. Fuzzy, dream-like ones. Cars, cell phones, tacos. Nothing made sense here, but magic did.
Magic really made sense.
One afternoon, when he was four and Cana was arguing with Macao over who drank the last bottle of juice, Caelum got mad. Not just sibling mad—rock-shattering mad. The ground beneath him cracked. The cup in his hand crumbled into dust. Makarov, who had been napping nearby, nearly had a heart attack.
"Not another one," he groaned. "We don't need another Gildarts!"
---
Caelum Alberona, twin brother of Fairy Tail's most enthusiastic underage drinker, was a phenomenon from the start.
Makarov took an interest in him early. So did everyone else. After all, how many five-year-olds casually snapped stone tiles when they were denied dessert?
Over the next few years, his powers bloomed like wildfire. Crush magic—the same as Gildarts—but raw and wild, unrefined. And then… something else.
It started with whispers in the ground.
He could feel the dirt. Hear it. Manipulate it.
By the time he was ten, Caelum was part-terrain terror, part-crushing powerhouse, and 100% narcissist.
---
"Alright, Caelum," Makarov said one day, arms crossed as Caelum levitated stones around his head like a crown. "What have I told you about showing off inside the guild hall?"
Caelum grinned. "That I shouldn't unless it's cool enough to impress someone?"
"No. I said—STOP IT."
With a huff, Caelum let the stones fall. Cana applauded. "You're so flashy, little bro."
"I'm two minutes older than you," he snapped.
"Still shorter."
He pouted. "I'm saving that height for when I hit my Gildarts arc."
---
Gildarts.
The day he returned from a job and saw Caelum, he dropped his drink.
"…what the hell?"
Cana rolled her eyes. "Yep. Surprise. You're a dad. Again."
To his credit, Gildarts handled the news better than expected. Once he recovered from the shock and a short existential crisis, he tried to bond with his son.
"I've got this great move where you punch the ground and—"
"I already do that."
"…what?"
Caelum demonstrated by cracking a stone bench outside the guild. Gildarts burst out laughing.
"Okay, I like this kid."
---
Their training together was brief, sporadic, but unforgettable.
Gildarts taught him control. Caelum learned how to direct his Crush magic into pinpoint blows and pair it with his earth magic to cause seismic chaos without killing his teammates. Probably.
But Gildarts, true to his wanderer's heart, rarely stayed.
So Caelum trained himself. He learned to mold earth into walls, pillars, drills, even shifting armor. He'd spend hours meditating, fists to the dirt, whispering to the stone like it was alive. And it listened.
By the time he turned fifteen, his magic began to evolve again.
Metal.
It started small—flickers of glinting ore in the earth he raised. Then, full formations: blades, wires, shields. Metal, manipulated like clay.
He kept this quiet, wanting to master it before he showed it off. After all, what was the point of being amazing if you couldn't make a grand entrance?
---
At sixteen, Caelum was officially an S-Class Mage. The trial had been brutal, but nothing compared to the look on Cana's face when he returned, tattered but smug.
"I told you I'd make it," he said, collapsing onto a barrel beside her.
She handed him a bottle. "Still shorter."
---
That same year, during a hunt for rogue mages near the Desert of Shifting Sand, Caelum stumbled upon a worn celestial gate key buried in a collapsed shrine.
Scorpio.
The spirit greeted him like an old friend, all confident bravado and stinger pride. Caelum admired the spirit's strength, but knew he wasn't a Celestial Spirit Mage.
He held onto it. For the right person. For the girl with a heart big enough to care for spirits, who'd later walk into Fairy Tail wide-eyed and full of dreams.
Lucy Heartfilia.
But that would come later.