The dreams still hadn’t stopped; the faces of Naked Mummy, Brain, and Edolas’s version of Georg as he had killed them. Serena’s hadn’t appeared. Jiemma’s hadn’t appeared. Bluenote and Kain didn’t show. The Black Knight of Edolas, Sugarboy, Byro, and Hughes didn’t show. He could guess why they didn’t show. Kain he had caused to die, but hadn’t killed; he’d never even met him alive. Sugarboy, Byro, and Hughes he had killed in that forced dragon rage; he couldn’t even remember their faces, and he’d never even seen Hughes. Bluenote he had killed from afar, and while he had met him he didn’t see him die. Serena was a monster who would have killed him, and had been strong enough to kill him. Serena’s was the only soul he had extinguished where he could really say it was wholly justified.
Still like on many nights he found himself waking up after guilt-ridden dreams. He gave Kochab a grin; the spirits were almost completely self-sustaining in Elentear, and he could open all of their gates at once including Orion’s. Kochab and Caelum played watch while he and Minerva slept, and Orion made sure they had daily provisions when they woke.
Well he said sleep. And maybe one night in four he found himself waking up due to the nightmares and having difficulty returning to sleep. Which was good. When he had been with the Thunderbolts it had been one in three.
He wasn’t the only one having trouble with nightmares. Minerva didn’t sleep too soundly either. This was the second night where she woke up while he was awake from his own, but the thrashing, and the mouthing of mumbled words…
“Bad dreams?” He asked her when he saw her moving about. He wasn’t really sure how to broach the subject. If she was having nightmares, he assumed it was because she’d seen him kill her father, and despite having spent three months in rather close proximity since then they hadn’t really spoken of the subject. Arthur wished he knew a good psychologist or therapist; they could both probably use one.
“Yeah,” She said, rubbing the back of her head abashed.
“About Grimoire Heart’s ship?”
She hesitated a few moments and then nodded.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t. You should never have had to go through that.” He should have protected and sheltered her from that.
“I was too weak,” she said.
Arthur winced. He really was not a trained psychologist or therapist to untangle the mass of damage to her psyche. “No,” he said. “If you were so weak you would have died.”
“You had to save me. Kain had to save me,” Arthur wasn’t sure how ‘controlling him with a voodoo doll into fighting a fight he couldn’t win’ was him saving her, but he wasn’t going to point that out to the child, “Urtear had to save me. Erik had to save me.”
“You saved yourself more than any of us saved you. It was fear of you that kept Urtear from acting and which won that battle. You performed above and beyond expectations. If I had done half as well in my role you’d,” he paused, not wanting to directly bring up Jiemma which he almost had, and after a moment of oral tripping finished, “have never been in danger in the first place.”
“If I’m strong then why couldn’t I resist those spirits and you could?”
“Because I was using vile, demonic power to channel black magic that destroys souls.”
“Teach it to me,” she said.
“No,” Arthur’s voice was firm. “One you don’t have the demonic essence inside of you to learn it,” he had checked as well as he could with his takeover magic, “two it’s not a good magic to use. Your soul is one it destroys, just piece by piece.”
She looked at him for a few moments. “I could feel them inside of me. They were tearing me apart. Ripping me to pieces because I was too weak to stop them. I could feel their anguish, their sorrow, their hatred, and rage…” She was beginning to cry, as she began to finally open up and talk about the events on the ship. Jiemma’s death by his hand wasn’t even mentioned. Jiemma’s beating of her, the way she had frozen because she knew she couldn’t raise her hand to her father or escalate his maltreatment, that was mentioned. But her focus was on the shades. The way they had invaded more than just her body. The way she was terrified they were still inside of her mind. How she had dreams of other people’s lives, and their final moments.
Arthur took it in. He wasn’t sure what to say or how to make it better. “There’s a ghost in Diabolos. A dragon slayer whose magic helped him linger on. If there really are shades of them still in you, he might be able to help you.” He hadn’t been able to help Kirin, but a dragon’s soul was tangled with its power. He might be able to help here. “I can’t promise he can. And we need to finish this task before we go back to the guild,” there was a good chance that returning would see Georg kick him out of the guild for working with Selene; physically as well as organizationally and he’d rather not make that a certainty by going ‘oh yeah I’m still on a job for Selene so I’ve got to go’. “But if he can’t we’ll find someone who can.”
Minerva froze a bit. “I’m not sure I want them gone,” she said, averting her gaze.
“Minerva, they’re big balls of hate, you don’t want them in you.”
“They’re my ancestors,” She said.
“You don’t owe them that. They’re nothing good from your ancestors.”
“They remember their magic. I’ve been patching together parts of their summoning magic. My dad knew some of it, but he hadn’t taught me it yet.”
Arthur opened his Archive. “I have parts. I uploaded it from the souls as I digested them.” He didn’t trust the Chaos Soul to let him only eat the ones he’d missed at the time out of Minerva. It might be possible, but when it came to tampering with a soul you didn’t want to do extremely chancy things.
Minerva’s eyes went a little wide. She wasn’t certain she wanted to try some sort of exorcism; there was power in the shades which lingered in her and she’d rather make it hers than excise it completely. But she knew she wanted to learn her bloodline’s secret magic.
Arthur summoned his Edolas ice box. It was time to thaw his dragon meat. He’d sent a fair bit back to Diabolos with Pax, Orin, and Cullen as a sign of good will and to repay the debt he had for the first dragon.
He had, however, kept a portion of the meat. It was time to eat it. He had instructed Minerva in the simplified enchantment which bound a dragon’s power to its eater. The meat wouldn’t be enough to do it. But it might help him in his actual mission. A dragon’s soul lingered in its body. And he was going to take over the fragment that lingered here.
After months of working to try and figure out something about how to apply his takeover magic to the dragon power inside of himself, he believed he was ready. He ate, and he let the dragon’s power flow through him. He could feel it. Tracing it inside of him in a way that he couldn’t the first time. He could feel and he began to guide it, controlling the flow of energy, compressing it into his arm. The black scales on his arm turned to red, the ebony growing brighter and lighter, shifting shade by shade to a cinnabar hue. His fingers were stretching, growing out as the nails lengthened. Scales spread up his fingers as he could feel them twist into draconic talons. The scales reached up his arm, moving up almost to his shoulder. And then he stopped it, not letting the power go further. He felt his lacrimal heart scream out.
He kept himself focused on his arm. Knowing that if he stopped it could be a disaster. He pictured himself with the chaos shield, holding back the onrushing of a dragon composed of fire. And each time it flowed in a new direction he blocked it, his sword cutting the tethers between his darkness magic and the new draconic power.
After a time the pain stopped. The pressure to expand stopped. He could feel the dragon power, localized to one arm. It was scaled, ending in claws, looking like the 2nd gen dragon force. He raised his hand and focused, fire forming from his arm, and spreading out in a ‘wing’ that surged across the field he was sitting in, leaving it ablaze.
Then he focused on his arm, beginning to force the energy to quiet, and leave the arm. In his mind’s eye he wrapped the flaming serpents that had formed the flow of energy in lassos, pulling them back on a leash. And then he forced it all back into the seed, pushing his draconic essence deep inside.
The draconic arm reverted to flesh. But the sleeve of scales remained, a deep burgundy now. He was not there yet. His territory magic then pushed down onto the flaming field and extinguished it. He was not where he needed to be, but there were herbs that should make it easier. Herbs, and the blood of dragon slayers.
It was three days after Arthur’s attempt to take over the dragon flesh, that Arthur woke up somewhere other than he had gone to sleep. He couldn’t feel his magic. It was like he was in Edolas, but where Edolas had been full of barren lands, he hadn’t seen a sandy desert there. Maybe he was somewhere in Edolas. But he was definitely not where he had gone to sleep, and Minerva was not there either.
He looked around for a few moments, before he gave a heavy sigh. He could make a guess at how he had gotten here, but not of what he was supposed to do while he was here. His X-balls could have helped, but he hadn’t been sleeping with one in his pajamas. He’d have to figure out a good way to do so.
Still he only knew of one being that could have done this, especially with the finesse to have taken just him: Selene.
Arthur figured he needed to find some sort of shade. The sun was already getting uncomfortably warm, and there was sand almost as far as he could see. Almost. He could see a rocky outcropping. He’d need to find water as well, but he couldn’t find it wandering the desert by day. He’d just waste it.
He moved to the shade of the rock, snuggling into a rather uncomfortable crevice. The shade would be a lifesaver but it was far from comfortable. An hour passed. A second. A third. He was thirsty. A fourth. And finally there was a feeling of ethernano in the air, and magical power.
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“I grow weary of your dragging your feet,” Selene said. “I gave you a task. Will you actually attempt to finish it?” Arthur looked up at the dragon god, sitting on the lip of a round portal in the air.
Arthur wanted to growl. “I am working on it. I am just being careful and making certain I can survive the attempt.”
She glared at him for a few moments. “So you dragon eaters are not actually strong enough to be of use. Maybe I should test to see if any of the others are competent.”
“I will do it,” Arthur said. “I’ve almost tracked down the beast. But there are still steps before I can.”
“Take them and stop wasting my time. If I find that you’re stringing me along,” A shining moon seemed to form from her hand and envelop him. He was back in Elentear where he had been camping. “I can make you regret it.”
“I’m not. I just wanted to master a technique first.”
Selene breathed deeply. Arthur could get an idea for why she was rushing him. She was obviously tired and weak. How much power was she pouring into Edolas? How much did it bother her to be weakened when Acnologia could theoretically come at any time? Arthur wondered if at the moment she even had the strength to defeat Georg.
“I’m close to finding Altaface. Once I do, I just need to make certain I can move something that big, and that you’ve got a place ready for me to put it.”
“I will do my part,” Selene said. “You don’t need to worry about that. Now go find Altaface, I am tired of this.” With that she disappeared.
Arthur fumed for a time. He hadn’t been lying, he was fairly certain he was close to finding Altaface. Still he’d have appreciated it if she had just told him she was getting tired of waiting and not teleported him to a magic dead desert and forced him to have a day that was exceedingly uncomfortable even by the standards of having spent the last 4 months hopping from tavern to tavern, or simply camping out.
Arthur had been right. He had found Altaface. All he had to do was confirm it. The creature lived underground which made it hard to reach, but he could extend his space downwards and get a feel for what was there. Enough to find a large cavern and teleport Altair there.
His Archive link went haywire, his head suddenly flaring up with agony. Arthur fell to the ground convulsing, his overclocked mind being blasted from the backlash of his overloading Archive. Minerva didn’t know what to do, and he was lucky he didn’t bite off his tongue or something as his neurons fired dangerously wild.
The spastic fit only lasted a few minutes. And then, without overclocking, he reopened his Archive and began to make modifications. The ethernano in the cave had been several times stronger than he had felt from Acnologia, a full order of magnitude - at least - over Selene’s. His Archive could handle the magnitude, if he made a few simple modifications. The magical construct itself was unharmed. It had just been that it was looped into his senses, and it simply hadn’t been programmed for what to do if it measured power on that level
He spent the time until Altair’s gate was ready to be opened again, modifying his Archive, and fixing that stupid, programming flaw. Altair only sight-checked that Altaface was there, slumbering peacefully, before he dismissed the summon.
It was time to return to the Moon Temple and Selene.
Arthur had two tasks to perform at the Moon Temple. The first was to verify he could move something as large as he needed and put it where he needed. The second was to try, with a potion made with the blood of dragon slayers, to reverse his dragonification.
Both tasks were potentially troublesome. The former he failed at. He could call an anima large enough to move the Moon Temple and the mountain it sat on; but he couldn’t aim it well enough to reach the cave Selene had prepared and the location she had judged as ideal. He would have to use Moon Dragon Slayer Magic instead, and Selene would have to help instruct him in it.
That failure had, thankfully, bought him time to brew his potion. It took 4 days. When it was done he drank it, waited, and then tried to use Takeover magic to enflame the wildfire dragon’s power where he had consumed it. He managed to change his arm into that of a dragon, and he felt more in control. The potion had functioned; it was easier to stabilize. And then he pushed it back, and he kept pushing, her felt his teeth change, the fangs disappearing, he felt his arm change and he could see there were no longer scales upon it.
He took over his other arm, with the darkness dragon’s power. And he reverted it. The shine dragon’s power. And he reverted it. He went through his limbs, and then he pushed as far as he dared with each. The wildfire dragon’s power was hardest to control. He didn’t dare go past one arm. The shine dragon’s was easiest; he managed a nearly full body takeover before he was forced to reverse it. He wasn’t certain the why; but he couldn’t help but note they were inversely proportional to the amount of power he felt surge with each one. The shine dragon lacrima was relatively weak. While the Wildfire Dragon had been strong enough to serve her time as Ignia’s royal consort and even now he felt its power wild and mighty. Eventually his own power might matter more, or he might be able to pull his max from each. But he was not at that point.
The potion’s effects faded, but his scales were gone. His teeth were normal. And his Archive had recorded the pathways of power. He felt certain now that he could master dragonfication. And the relief hit him like a tidal wave. Stress, tension, and dread terror all seemed to melt from him like dew in the noon sun and he practically collapsed then and there from sheer relief.
Selene was not pleased by him spending the night feasting, and flirting with her servants instead of practicing his magic. But Arthur had felt the need to celebrate, and even the fear of her ire was not strong enough to stop him here. It would not be long before it was time to go and face Altaface. He had managed to use Moon Dragon Slayer Magic for a more precise, large-scale transportation. He would need several days to rest and recuperate, allowing his magic to recharge, and hopefully he could weasel a full week from the Moon Dragon.
Four days later, Selene and Minerva came with him to Altaface’s nest. He was a little worried about bringing Minerva along. He didn’t know for certain he would be able to use magic here, and he at least had a plan for that as his Archive could hopefully correct for the rollover error that Altaface caused, at least now that it had been modified not to suffer such itself.
Altair was sent to scout, confirming that it wouldn’t overload his Archive with him overclocking. Arthur followed next. Altaface was stirring a bit, but still sleeping. Selene hadn’t roused and aggravated it yet in this time period.
“There’s so much ethernano,” Minerva said, gasping audibly. “I can feel it flowing all around me.”
Selene was smiling. “Oh this will make some major distortions. I’m almost ashamed that I didn’t think of it myself.” She was looking at Arthur, though. She was here to watch him. She had rushed him, pushed him to go faster, but she understood what he was worried about and how it was worth worrying about. Would the ethernano concentration trigger the dragon force and his dragonification?
Arthur was breathing in and out. There was so much power here. Electricity coated Altair’s form, and if it went out there would be darkness. Arthur could consume so much of it. It might change him. He didn’t need to. He didn’t dare try it without that need. Maybe if he was willing to expend more of the dragon slayer blood for another potion.
“Minerva, test your magic,” Arthur said.
She burst forward, fast enough it almost seemed like she had teleported, her leg striking against one of the walls of the cavern and causing a chunk to shoot off. The moment Arthur saw it he stopped overclocking, disengaging his mind from the Archive. Arthur doubted Minerva could use her magic so easily if Altaface was at full density and intensity given how much trouble Fairy Tail had.
Arthur opened several celestial spirit gates, the gate of the ram, the pegasus, the hunter, the lesser bear, the chisel, and finally the hydra. He’d only gotten the last key while traveling across Elentear, and he’d not yet given it a try in actual combat. He checked his Archive, it was awkward doing so; he was used to using it tied into his brain, able to pull up information with a thought. Even his Archive, linked to him in many ways, could barely observe the dip of energy from keeping them all open here, as he absorbed ambient ethernano too quickly for it to even dip noticeably.
He turned his dark dominion magic to the area, beginning to seed the darkness with his own darkness. He let his takeover magic flow through him, his body beginning to change. Seilah’s horns grew from his head, jutting to the sides. His body grew more effeminate, almost androgynous, as he allowed Seilah’s power flow through him. The curse Macro might be useful if something went wrong. And then he began the spell to move Altaface. He should have needed to speak. At least to do it quickly. Instead he moved his hands through the motions of the spell. He’d not have needed to if he wasn’t trying to teleport a massive giant of concentrated ethernano.
Altaface’s eyes opened, and suddenly light roared through the cavern. Minerva’s territory armor flickered out, even as Selene began to loose a cry of pleasure. Arthur felt pure ethernano wash over him. It was an overwhelming mass of pure power. His Archive couldn’t calculate it all, and was beginning to have some minor function loss from sheer overload of energy. Arthur could feel it as well, surging up into him and pushing his magic to its absolute limits. More and more and more. His body began to suffer an overflow error, so saturated in magical energy in and around him that it couldn’t instinctively feel the difference and it felt like there was none and began to shut down to conserve his life. But his Archive served to remind him that he had more than sufficient magic, to tell his body that it could go beyond this and beyond. The darkness rushed towards Altaface, and it began to grow. The more magical energy pouring into it the faster it grew. And the more it grew the better it could cope with the magical energy pouring into it. Arthur felt his limit reached. He had more magic than even his body could recognize and his magic began to fail him. He re-activated his Overclocking; his Archive hadn’t crashed even if it seemed to be having problems with an oversaturation of power around it. His Archive served to remind him on a physiological level that he did have magic. It was constantly communicating with his body on his magical quantity.
Altaface began to lash out, releasing a massive surge of ethernano and detonating it. The darkness Arthur had spread with his dark dominion magic moved, surging up, rising to wrap around the blast. It fed on the energy, converting what entered it into magical power to fuel itself and grow further. It wasn’t a perfect conversion, and it could only convert so much at a time. And Altaface, a living font of magical power enough to fuel entire words, was too much for it. The blast might be an inefficient attack, and one that the darkness was ideally suited for absorbing, but the sheer quantity of power was more than Arthur had felt even when Acnologia had chased him.
It tore through the darkness, but most of its power was spent in the dimension Arthur’s magic had created, leaving what should have been an explosion to tear through stone, merely a strong breeze.
Arthur didn’t have time to create a new shield, though. It was time for the others to act. Altaface was extending massive arms, each one like a giant redwood down towards them, hands coming to pound, slap, and crush. Kochab caught one with his arms, and Orion wrapped another two with his belts, pulling them off course. As Altaface’s mouth opened, and an explosive burst of ethernano fired out once more, it was Aries who blocked it, her pink fluff simply growing more and more as she continuously poured energy into it.
Selene had shifted to her dragon form; the surge in power that should have been felt with her true form still absent due to her prolonged role in powering Edolas. She had pushed herself in that role, and Arthur was curious as to how Edolas was doing after all these months. Of course, the fact that Arthur was being overloaded by Altaface despite all of his magical power, and Selene wasn’t even being fully refilled was a somewhat terrifying realization.
Selene had paused there, though. She didn’t act, because she didn’t need to. Altair was firing off lightning. Enif was charging and weaving between the hands. The hydra Arthur had summoned - a 9 headed animate snake plushy - was growing to massive size and firing off 9 beams of water. Even Minerva was finally overcoming the surge of ethernano and beginning to throw out magic at a scope and scale which was completely unprecedented for her, her territory explosions threatening to bring down the cavern itself.
Altaface provided them with limitless power with which to fight it.
And then that endless concentration of ethernano was suddenly gone. Altaface was still there, still pouring out ethernano in a massive torrent, but where before it had gone into an already oversaturated atmosphere, now it was being pulled away as if by a vacuum. Arthur had transported the massive creature and all of them to Edolas. He could suddenly feel the strain of his gates. Orion’s slammed shut first. And then Enif’s and Aries’s. Altaface had begun a horrible screaming, and Selene raised her head and let a silver globe of energy expand from her nose tip to cover her, Arthur, and Minerva, and in a moment they were at the Edolas capital castle.
Arthur felt that he had earned himself a rest. He’d transported a beast of pure, primal magic from one world to another. He’d started magic returning to Edolas. But he knew he still had other responsibilities. He’d not been in Guiltina for any lengthy period of time in half a year. It was time to actually return to Diabolos.
Selene was accepting of the idea. He had done his duty, and if he sat around here she’d either have to actually put effort into training him, or her distortion would let himself stagnate. The guild at least would provide a motivating impetus and even if he dragged his heels, he might be able to stir them to become stronger.
Arthur, for his own part, had something to show. The potion had worked to ease the influence of the dragon seed. It was far from perfect, and on its own wouldn’t reverse dragonification, but it did serve as an actual proof of concept. And if any of them could learn takeover it could serve as a protection from the influence of the dragon seed.