From what Rhodes had gathered, Bisca's homeland had been a harsh place, and the people there were built tough. Her childhood was not an easy one. But looking across Fairy Tail as a whole, there were plenty of members whose pasts were darker still, and this was not the moment to dwell on it.
Alzack gave Bisca's shoulder a pat and picked up where she left off.
"The place I came from was gentler. Better land, kinder people. But the neighboring country had always wanted our territory, so there was never any real peace. Wars just kept coming.
"When I was very small, my father was killed at the border. He was a mage, and he died fighting. After that, my mother raised me on her own.
"We kept losing ground. The wars went badly and our territory shrank, so my mother and I spent years moving from place to place, staying ahead of the fighting.
"Eventually my mother got sick and we had no money for treatment. I tried to earn something using the Gun Magic my father had taught me. The first job I took, I made a mess of it. The second one went well. But by the time I came back with a doctor, he told me it was already too late. There was nothing he could do."
Bisca tightened her grip on his arm.
Alzack managed a small smile. "It's alright. She was smiling when she passed. She said the way I held a gun reminded her of my father. And seeing that I could earn enough to look after myself, she said she had no more worries.
"She told me to leave. To find somewhere without war. That's why I came to Fiore. It's a neutral country. People said it had been at peace for a very, very long time."
And yet the flames seemed to be reaching here too.
Alzack made a quiet resolution to himself. If war truly came, he would not let his daughter live through what he had.
He sat with that thought for a moment. Then Rhodes asked, "Was it the Alvarez Empire that attacked your country?"
Alzack shook his head. "No. Alvarez was already a major power back then, but it didn't share a border with us yet."
"Did you ever hear of Emperor Spriggan while you were there? Or a group called the Spriggan Twelve?"
Bisca frowned. "I've heard the name Spriggan, but not the Spriggan Twelve. What is that?"
"Emperor Spriggan's personal guard. The twelve most powerful mages in the Alvarez Empire, his strongest shields."
Rhodes explained it briefly, then caught himself. God Serena had likely only joined Alvarez in recent years. The roster might not have been complete back then, or the group may not have existed under that name yet.
"It's possible there weren't twelve of them at the time, or they went by something else entirely. The point is, they are Spriggan's most powerful subordinates. Does anything like that ring a bell?"
Alzack hesitated. "Do you mean the Twin Stars of the Empire?"
Bisca blinked. "The Twin Stars of the Empire? Who are they?"
Alzack looked genuinely surprised. "You've never heard of them? At the time, the Alvarez Empire had two mages who stood above all others. One was known as the Calamity of August. The other was known as the Scarlet Despair. Their names were famous across the region."
Bisca thought about it and shook her head apologetically. "That was about ten years ago. I was still young and had no understanding of magic at all. I wasn't paying attention to anything happening in the mage world back then." She paused. "I do remember hearing about a minister named Ajeel who was said to be exceptionally capable."
Rhodes felt he had finally hit on the right line of questioning. "Let's go through them one at a time. Start with the Twin Stars."
"Alright." Alzack gathered his thoughts. "I don't know a great deal. The Calamity of August, his name is August. From what I heard, he has followed Emperor Spriggan since very early on and has served him without fail ever since."
"What kind of magic does he use?"
"All Magic"
Rhodes stopped. "All Magic?"
"That's what the stories say. August is proficient in every form of magic, ancient and modern alike. Whatever kind of mage stands against him, they cannot win. By the time you become his enemy, the outcome is already settled. Any country that dares to resist the army he leads gets swept away like a natural disaster."
"That extreme?" Rhodes had a hard time accepting that any one person could genuinely command every form of magic.
Though it was entirely possible that August simply had an enormous magical reserve and was the kind of person who spent decades researching and absorbing every form of magic, much like the Second Master had.
"His legend has been circulating for decades," Alzack added. "There's even a saying that one man alone could destroy a country. I can't say how much of it is true."
In terms of raw power, Rhodes didn't think it was necessarily an exaggeration. For someone who had followed Zeref for that long, that level of strength wasn't surprising.
"What about the other one? The Scarlet Despair."
"A woman. Her name..." Alzack trailed off. "I've forgotten it."
"You've forgotten it?"
"She hadn't been with the Empire as long as August, and there are far fewer stories about her," Alzack said, a little helplessly. "It's been years. It's not strange to forget."
Rhodes let it go. "Alright. What is her magic?"
"Everything."
"Everything." Rhodes looked at him. "You're being difficult today. The Calamity uses all magic, and the Despair uses everything magic?"
"That's not what I mean." Alzack took a moment to find the right words. "The way people described her, she was like a queen born to rule. Sky and earth, fire and water, everything in front of her bends to her will. When she stands on a battlefield, her enemies find there is nothing they can do. Nothing except despair. She has scarlet hair, so that is what they called her."
Rhodes wasn't entirely sure how much weight to put on legends like these. Judging enemy intelligence from decades-old stories felt unreliable at best.
Bisca had been listening with growing interest and smiled. "A queen with scarlet hair? Does the western continent have its own Erza?"
Makarov sighed wistfully. "It would be quite something if she turned out to be Erza's older sister. Or younger sister."
"Going by age she would be closer to Erza's mother, but that can't be right."
Rhodes knew Erza was from Rosemary Village. From the name alone it was clearly a small Fiore-style settlement with no connection to the western continent whatsoever.
"It's vague, but we know more than we did. That's something." Rhodes wrote down the key points in his notebook, then looked to Bisca.
"The Ajeel I heard about probably wasn't a mage," she said. "People praised his abilities, and from what I gathered he managed both internal affairs and diplomacy with real competence. But I never once heard of any military exploits attached to his name." She paused. "He must be quite old by now regardless. Even if war does come, he probably won't be directly involved."
Rhodes nodded and added Ajeel's name to the notes. Then he looked back up. "Think carefully. Were there any other mages who stood out? Powerful or well-known ones, even if they weren't part of Alvarez by the time you left."