Despite a sleepless night full of nightmares about Brain, Edo Georg, and Naked Mummy, the first portion of the plan went off without a hitch. Altair managed to confirm the airship’s location visually. Caelum moved into a long-range fire-support position. Arthur donned Enif’s star dress, making certain to have the others securely wrapped in his territory, and then he flew to the ship.
He was small. A single individual approaching the massive ship, from behind, and going fast. Ideally they’d never even notice he was coming. But no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. The ship began to turn, weaving to the side to dodge his initial charge. He compensated, but the Enif dress was faster than maneuverable, taking a few moments to stop, and bring itself around at the speed it was going.
The airship’s main cannon was charging. Dark energy was building at the cannon, and Arthur did not want to test to see if it would remain dark enough for him to eat. He began to weave, giving up forward velocity to dip and swerve around the blast, letting it fly past him and strike the sea in the distance, sending water erupting upwards.
It didn’t manage to get a second shot, as he’d gotten close enough for his Archive to pick up on the inside of the ship. It wasn’t a clear, or full, image but it was enough for him to stretch his space inside of it, and teleport on board. He’d not matched its speed perfectly, causing himself to slam into one of the inner bulkheads.
He didn’t feel it as anything more than a dull pressure through his territory armor, and in instants he was following the plan. The gate of the little horse opened, and the miniature horse spirit Equulus appeared. Renegotiations had been successful, loosening the days he could be summoned.
Arthur had briefed the horse on what to do the evening before. It took off, running through the halls of the ship, as Arthur opened a third gate. He was going to be running through his magical energy quickly; 3 gates, 3 star dresses, his territory armor, using his Archive to its maximum potential by combining overclocking, maintaining a telepathic communication link, and high end observation and data gathering abilities and soon he’d be adding his darkness dragon’s hand and serial takeover, and potentially requipping magic armor. All that and he had to fight a mage who could take down armies, and had enough magical power to rival Gildarts, and thus his own. At least two of the celestial spirits didn’t require much power at all.
The nikora spirit of canis minor appeared. A little, spike nosed ‘dog’ that had no canine features in the least except its sense of smell. Like Equulus it knew what to do running off in the opposite direction of the little horse. Next was connecting to his territory. The distance was a matter of miles not hundreds of miles, he had prepared the area beforehand, and had real time link through his Archive connection with the Thunderbolts. It’d take only moments.
But he couldn’t drop his guard at the moment. His Archive detected a mage’s ethernano signature moving through that of the ship, almost identical with it. Grimoire Heart’s best and brightest were coming out of the walls.
Before they could reach him, Arthur had already used takeover magic. He merely assumed Jackal’s ‘human’ form, his ears becoming wolf-like, and a cat-like tail growing. Black patterns formed on his arms. His face didn’t shift; unlike with Seilah he saw no reason to go the extra mile beyond power to take on Jackal’s entire appearance or run Jackal’s mind parallel to his own.
He only needed one thing, and as his hand thrust outwards the explosion manifested striking the wall of the ship that the dark mage was merged into and passing through.
The wall, and a good chunk of the floor, and those of the deck below it, was torn apart by the massive explosion which he generated. His bounties rewarded him with loot if he could take it; but his deal with the Council already prevented that and Grimoire Heart was too dangerous to restrain himself from inflicting collateral damage to the mechanisms of their base.
He didn’t see the mage in the rubble, though he saw others. He hadn’t held back, but had gone for a full force and full power attack. Despite the demonic glee in the destruction he wrought he hoped he hadn’t killed him. If nothing else it’d look bad in the report.
If he had to guess, and he did, he’d have said it was the mage known as Azuma. Like all the Seven Kin of Purgatory he practiced a form of Lost Magic, known to be potentially dangerous to the caster as well as his enemies. His magic involved merging with trees and controlling and directing the magical energy of the earth itself. Arthur remembered he had fought Erza in the manga and had come closer to defeating her than the vast majority of her foes, leaving the impression that he was possibly the most dangerous of the Seven Kin.
The other possibility was that he was Master Hades, and Arthur did not believe for a second that he would have gone down that easily or been taken by surprise. Hopefully Azuma had been. And if Azuma died then Arthur’s goal here might be considered accomplished already. He had turned the magical energy of Tenrou Island against the Fairy Tail mages, reversing the benefits - and protection from injury - it had provided them to drain their energy from them. Without him Grimoire Heart’s attack had no chance of success.
Unfortunately taking one of their members out wasn’t stopping the Seven Stakes from reacting. Arthur didn’t have time to teleport in the others as a small group of dark mages Arthur didn’t recognize began to leap from the ruined decks of their airship where several mages lay buried in rubble. Arthur’s research hadn’t covered the lower echelons as well as it should have, it would seem; he’d focused on the Kin and Bluenote. He hadn’t remembered other members showing up in the manga.
“Think you can take out Grimoire Heart with a surprise attack? You’re one cocky bastard!” If Arthur hadn’t been overclocking he might have been dangerously stunned by the talking, anthropomorphic chicken that was preparing to attack him. But it sped his thoughts and his reactions, allowing Arthur’s territory explosions to wrap around the mages and detonate. It was smaller in scale than Jackal’s curse; he was actually afraid he’d kill these mages if he went near full force.
The ship was shaking and bouncing. Arthur knew why. He could feel the repeated drain to his magical energy as Caelum began firing from its long range firing position. His Archive magic had identified the ship’s engines, and the spirit was taking them out. Soon Grimoire Heart’s air ship would have to prove whether it could serve as a seaworthy vessel or not.
“Those weaklings didn’t really belong in Grimoire Heart,” a yellow haired man said. Arthur recognized him. He was Zancrow, a fire mage practicing god slayer magic. He wasn’t sure his memories of his personality from the manga were correct, but if they were he was a sadistic blood knight; narratively an evil mirror to Natsu. “I guess I’ll have to show you the real power of the guild.”
Arthur’s explosion magic washed over him to no effect, the mage scarfing it down. Arthur kicked himself; he thought of it as explosions but it was explosions of fire. “Thanks for the meal. Fire God’s Supper!” Zancrow flowed fluidly into his spell, black flames shooting forth. They carried the power from Arthur’s own explosion magic; too much to easily block with his territory armor, so he swapped places with Zancrow, letting the mage’s fires hit and surround him. He was a practitioner of slayer magic, they’d not hurt him, but the point was simply to get out of the way.
“Shut up old man, I can handle it!” Zancrow shouted, talking to someone Arthur couldn’t see. His Archive could pick up on the presence of a telepathic message, though. It was sent through the guild marks, Arthur couldn’t pick up what it was exactly. Still he had to act quickly; who knew how much time before the Seven Stakes were converging on his position. Hopefully Caelum’s external assault would peel off one or two, but he couldn’t take them all alone no matter what sort of surprise was on his side.
Zancrow’s distraction bought him the time he needed, though. In a flash he had brought in his allies. Sorano held the Astra Weapon in one hand, Scorpio’s key in the other. Racer held the Ten Commandments Spear, already prepared to launch himself at Zancrow. Erik was wearing Orion’s star dress summoned by Arthur in preparation; the hunter’s key may have broken but the contract still held and it only required the bond to summon the star dress not the key itself. MacBeth held the Rosa Espada in one hand. Jellal alone didn’t have something to bolster him above his normal level. Richard was wearing the Dorma Anim Mk 2, but it would take longer to teleport him in, so he had not been summoned yet.
“I win,” Arthur said, drawing Zancrow’s gaze. Their eyes met for only an instant but it was enough. Darkness flowed through Zancrow’s vision, his world going black as Sawyer using the Ten Commandment Spear’s speed form, and Jellal with his own heavenly body magic, rushed forward at speeds that even overclocked would try Arthur’s reflexes to react and defend against, and without it would be hard to even perceive.
“Fire God’s Bellow!” Zancrow shouted wildly, releasing black flames from his mouth. MacBeth’s hand waved dismissively as his reflector sent it flying upwards to clear the path for the others.
That was two of the Seven Kin down, and the battle hadn’t even really begun. As long as Caelum could peel off one or two, things might go swimmingly. If luck was extra swing-y maybe it had just really swung in his favor.
His Archive magic blared warning; two powerful magical presences were on the move and another was building in the bowels of the ship.
“Everyone know what to do?” Arthur asked. Even as he spoke he was uploading the map created by Equulus and Nikora as they ran through the ship. Including the Kin they had encountered.
“Yeah,” Sawyer stated, hitting Zancrow repeatedly with the butt of his spear to make sure that the dark mage was down and not faking it.
Arthur glanced at Jellal as he brought Richard onto the ship.
“Watch out!” Erik shouted suddenly, diving to the side.
Arthur had been about to give the same warning. The harder to discern of the two presences had gotten dangerously close and were taking action. In an instant he was moving, his body expanding as fur grew across it and he shifted from his Jackal-fied form into a shape more like the etherius’s true etherious form. Claws grew from his fingertips, his head distending into a wolf’s muzzle, and his body taking on a shape similar to a cat-tailed werewolf’s.
He’d barely completed his transformation before dark chains burst from a wall. It was Hades, the guild master of Grimoire Heart and 2nd master of Fairy Tail. A tall, thin, bearded old man. He had a certain look of Odin about him; the eyepatch, cape, and Wagnerian horned helmet creating the effect. He wore light armor on his chest, with heavy pauldrons and gauntlets, though he wore none on his legs.
Not that any of them there were taking note of his clothing. His sheer presence, and oppressive aura of magical power, were far more notable than his clothing. Arthur had felt worse in that moment where Selene had revealed herself in her dragon form. But it was in the same league as his own magical power, maybe even Serena’s. He realized immediately that he had gravely underestimated Hades’s actual power. The others did not have Arthur’s frame of reference. Save for Jellal, his magical power was beyond their ability to judge except as ‘vast’.
Not that any of them had much time for that. The chains had launched towards them all. Arthur had parried after forming a weapon of darkness from his stump arm. It was more intricate than usual, relying on his dark dominion magic as opposed to pure dragon slayer magic. He lacked the sensory feedback from his darkness dragon’s hand, but the weapon was a hole in space, portal to a shadow dimension formed into a long sword-like ‘blade’, though along its edge ran sharply bladed teeth which alternated between the true all-consuming void magic, pulling things in towards them and into a dimension of dissolution, and magical barrier particles. It was the pinnacle of his attempt to craft his own magic style, blending and incorporating everything he had learned.
Jellal had managed to block his own, deflecting them with a swift flurry of elemental magic. Chunks of rock were forming and disappearing as he used it in a series of shields. Arthur hadn’t known he’d had that sort of magic, but Jellal did always seem to have new tricks up his sleeve.
Richard was wearing heavy armor and while it did have magic to move it, it was slow to kick in, and prone to over shooting movement. Dodging wasn’t a real option for him. Still his armor absorbed magic the chains had barely pulled him down when they broke apart like cobwebs.
Sawyer had super speed magic, and slowing magic, but neither were activated in time. Sorano had summoned Scorpio, the scorpion man celestial spirit doing its best to block the chains with sand but he was a moment too slow, or a bit too weak as his summoned sand parted to reveal both Sorano and Scorpio being whipped and dragged around by the chains. The three of them were in a rather sorry state.
MacBeth had handled himself admirably. His reflector magic had returned the chains back to the sender. Hades pulled back the chains which had failed to catch Erik to block them but as he was distracted by that Arthur was able to cut the chains holding Sawyer, and Sorano.
The Thunderbolts were quickly back on the offensive, Jellal, a still bound Scorpio, and Richard attacking almost instantly after that brief moment of distraction. Hades blocked them all, his magic seeming to transform their attacks into nothing more than a field of darkness projected from one of his clawed gauntlets.
“I’d heard you were attacking dark guilds, but I didn’t expect you to have the utter stupidity to come here. How did you even find us? And the demon… takeover magic? Is this your new leader?” Hades was calm, and self-assured as he spoke. It didn’t stop him from fighting, one hand raised in imitation of a gun, firing magical projectiles one after another, the other working to control his chains. “Rumor is he collared and leashed you, and turn-”
As nonchalant as Hades was being, he was obviously being pressed. He probably hadn’t known about the former Oracion Seis being here when he had come alone, and it showed. He hit Sorano with a magic bullet taking her down, but before he could capitalize on it he had to avoid a poison dragon’s claw from Erik. He dodged back from it but his attempt to counter attack was thwarted by the need to block a spell from Richard. Still he didn’t miss a beat in his speech until Sawyer managed to ram his spear through Hades’s back.
He pulled it out. “Sorry, boss. I know you said you’d prefer him alive but-” A chain of darkness shot out, straight for Sawyer’s heart.
Arthur swapped positions with his ally, trusting that his territory armor enough to deflect the spear-headed chain and that his etherious form would survive it if not only for MacBeth’s reflector magic to send the chain back down at Hades himself.
It wasn’t there to stop the counter attack. Hades had begun to take them seriously it would seem. Dark, purple energy constructs formed around Arthur’s body as Hades moved his hand through a hand sign as he lay on his back. Arthur, though, wasn’t standing still. He was wearing his Enif star dress, one which was thoroughly filled with speed enhancing magic. He shot forward. Hades used his chain magic, manifesting them to block Arthur’s chainsaw-hand. For a moment they held, but only for a moment, the blade swung down, slashing into Hades’s body, cutting across his chest. His legs wrapped around Arthur’s arm to stop him from using the chainsaw, leaving Arthur to slam his clawed demon-hand into Hades’s face and body several times.
“Katsu!” Hades shouted and Arthur felt a spike of magical energy surge around him, shaking and shattering his territory armor. His Archive captured some of how the spell had worked; or well part of the spell. In truth Hades hadn’t cast a spell, merely released the energy held up in one he had cast earlier; a big, but single use, offensive blast.
Big enough in this case to blast Arthur’s star dress from him, reverting him to his normal armor. Hades rolled and leapt to his feet while Arthur was momentarily stunned, but the old man looked hurt and he wasn’t moving as quickly. Something had happened in the ship’s engine room, and the heart wasn’t functioning reliably. To make things worse the Thunderbolts were there to ensure he didn’t completely get his footing.
Hades was being pushed onto his backfoot and forced onto the defensive. The Ten Commandments Spear’s speed form and the Meteor spell gave Sawyer and Jellal a combination of speed and power that meant he couldn’t quite block them both. The belts of the Orion Star Dress shot out to attack him from Erik’s arms, pulling him into a poison dragon’s claw which would have been lethal to a lesser man. MacBeth hung back ready to disrupt and take down his attempts at counter attack, while Richard used the Dorma Anim Mk 2 to continuously drain power from the ship and fire it against him whenever Jellal and Sawyer were clear, forcing him to weather blast after blast.
Arthur could have decisively tipped and ended the battle, but Hades was not actually fighting them alone.
Magical gravity grasped Arthur and pulled him down, the deck of the ship breaking underneath him as he was tugged to a lower one. It was the mercenary wizard Bluenote. The most powerful member of Grimoire Heart save for Hades himself, the mage looked almost like a villain from a martial arts film set in Qing china. While the front of his head wasn’t actually shaved, he had the same stance, and general look as one; arrogant, predatory, and with the appearance of a cocky martial arts genius. His hair was still worn in a long ponytail that looked like it was ready to be weaponized.
Arthur could feel himself pulled into the bottom of the ship, pressing against its keel. Bluenote stood opposite of him, the wizard’s gaze gauging him. Arthur could stand against the magic, but it’d burn through his magical energy. If he went all out against Bluenote he’d not have the strength to fight Hades. But if he didn’t he’d not be there to fight him when the Thunderbolts needed him.
He requipped, donning black armor. It was not completely unlike that which Hades had initially worn. Its helmet lacked horns and had a more open face, but still bore a vaguely Grecian crest. Like Hades’s it consisted of a cuirass with pauldrons and a heavy, almost claw-like metal gauntlet. And like his there was chain mesh between pauldron and gauntlet. Unlike Hades’s which became simple pants below the waist, it possessed a little more of a loin guard, a metal ‘skirt’ of plates, and had greaves which rose partway up the thigh, but left most of the clad in chain mesh. It fit awkwardly on his takeover form, but the magic had helped to resize it and refit it somewhat.
Arthur had selected it due to a fascination with the potentials of gravity magic, and an erroneous belief that it would help him develop his Dark Dominion magic. It hadn’t but, here it made it easy to cut through Bluenote’s spell and rise to his feet. It was all the armor could do. It didn’t actually match either his, or Bluenote’s maximum output, but it was enough to mitigate Bluenote’s spell without costing him as much as it otherwise would have, the armor serving as a level for his magical power.
Bluenote’s hands rose palms coming together as a sphere of darkness formed in front of him. It began to pull the air into it, causing the wind to howl inside of the ship, everything not bolted down beginning to fly towards it. Only Arthur still stood. “Normally I wouldn’t start serious, but you gave the old monster trouble, so I’m going to take you on without holding back from the start,” He said.
“Thanks, I guess,” Arthur answered. His Archive was analyzing the sphere. At a glance it wasn’t all that different from his own All-Consuming Void. Both were black spheres which pulled everything into them. But the similarity ended around there. While the black hole didn’t really function like a real black hole, it was gravitational force, and not merely magic that pulled things in; a technical difference more than anything. Arthur’s, though, pulled things into another dimension, where this simply crushed them into a small point. Arthur’s spell was cast and forget, the magic maintaining it on its own as it weakened and ran out over time. Bluenote’s required constantly feeding it; but it grew more and more powerful with time.
Arthur’s chainsaw-hand detached, compacting itself and imploding, turning into a hole into a world of shadow and destruction. It was his All-Consuming Void and it was pulled into the Black Hole only for the two spells to begin to eat each other.
Arthur took the moment, his territory warping him behind Bluenote before he spun, lashing out with his stolen explosion curse.
Bluenote’s magic pulled the explosion down the moment it formed, but down was the flow and it blasted a hole in the bottom of the ship beneath him.
Bluenote remained, standing on air. “Is that really the best you’ve got?” He asked as his leg struck Arthur in the chest, his hand grasping his head, and pulling it down. His knee moved to ram into it, and Arthur felt his nose smush and break. Bluenote didn’t stop there, each blow followed by another, and the gravity of his magic seeming to build with each strike.
The dragon force called to Arthur. It was a siren song which told him all he needed was to let it out and it could make this go away in an instant. But Arthur didn’t dare use it. Especially after Selene’s warning about Acnologia. He couldn’t simply hope to defeat Hades and Bluenote. He needed to do it without using his full power, and save enough strength to flee without sacrificing the Thunderbolts if Acnologia arrived.
Arthur formed a sword of darkness from his hand, but Bluenote caught his stump and brought a hand down onto his elbow. It would have broken it if not for his territory armor. Arthur was trying to avoid using it though, taking blows to his chest and body, only blocking vitals.
But the building gravity magic was growing problematic. He felt it against his armor, felt his armor strain to resist it before it began to break. The magic of his requip shattered, the summoned armor fading even as he felt all the gravity hit him at last and drive him down, plunging him from the ship and towards the sea below.
Bluenote sagged, breathing heavily. Sweat coated his brow as both his hands focused on pushing Arthur with the absolute maximum of force down into the sea. It was creating a crater and then a whirlpool in the water, but at least Arthur’s body was disappearing beneath the waves.
Hades ripped his eyepatch free. His demon’s heart was beating once more, and he could feel its power. He would have to take things seriously. “I didn’t think it’d come to this, “The Book of Zeref, fourth chapter, twelfth verse, Hidden Magic Nemesis!” It was one of his many trump cards which he kept up his sleeve. He began to turn the rubble and damaged portions of his ship into black, demonic forms. They rose up like so many monsters to surround Jellal and the former Oracion Seis.
Stolen story; please report.
They began to attack. It was a devastating assault. Individually they were powerful creatures, each one a living incarnation of magic and malice, a curse given physical form, but the Thunderbolts were not weaklings.
Richard’s arms rose, the hands of his armor glowing as he swept with blasting energy. It tore through the demons like a scythe through grass, cutting them down.
“Heavenly Body Magic - Grand Chariot!” Jellal called out, the shape of the Big Dipper appearing in magical seals over his head before spheres of light crashed down and exploded around Hades. The ground shattered beneath him, dropping him a lower deck, but he was fine. Even the wounds he had previously suffered were healing. His magic was restoring him, and it was only a moment for him to create more demons.
“I can’t believe Brain’s pawns came together as such a force,” Hades said. The Thunderbolts were being pressed harder. Scorpio managed a shield of sand, and MacBeth launched back some of their attacks, but it was becoming harder and harder for them to avoid the demons’ attacks. “Still your keeper is as good as dead, and I have a proposition for you.”
“What, serve me or die?” MacBeth asked.
“Brief and to the point, I like that,” Hades said. “But accurate. You can see my power. I dance with magic, it and I are one. I will awaken Zeref, and usher in the Great Magic World. In this world you will be able to take your magic infinitely further. Your keeper is gone, and I will free you from the Council’s interference as well. All you need to do is serve me.”
“Great Magic World?” Erik asked, between poison roars, trying to cut back on the hoard of demons encroaching.
“A return to the world of primal magic. When darkness, chaos, and magic ruled. No longer would you have to deal with the magically impotent, instead you would be able delve deeper and further into your magic than ever before.”
“And this has to do with awakening Zeref and attacking Fairy Tail’s island, how?” MacBeth shot back.
Hades looked a little surprised at that question. “Your intelligence is better than I suspected. Even some on this ship didn’t know our destina-,” Suddenly the demonic horde he had called forth vanished into nothing, the clots of earth that he had turned into his army returning to what they had been before. His Demon’s Heart had been destroyed once more.
Scorpio’s sand hit him, knocking him into a wall behind him. “Big words, but it doesn't seem like you’ve killed our keeper yet,” MacBeth said with a sneer, hand rising up, darkness magic forming around it. “Dark Rondo!”
Hades did his best to counter it. He was weak without his heart; he’d spent too much enemy on that hidden magic. He managed to escape, but only barely in time to raise a shield against the blast of destructive force from Richard.
Jellal struck him from the side, an arm catching under the old mage’s throat, and slammed him into the ground, leaving him open as Erik’s hand plunged down, stabbing into his chest.
Hades coughed up blood, and then he felt the flow of magic from his Demon’s Heart once more. It was sustaining his body once more, and returning his magic to him. Chains shot out, catching Sawyer’s attempt to finish him with his spear, and he kicked, forcing Erik back.
He needed to end this quickly before his heart was destroyed again. Caprico and Meredy should be on the way. He’d given them both the call already. Hopefully Caprico had finished mobilizing the new project to lend Ultear a hand, and it didn’t seem to matter much if there was a pilot for the ship at the moment. The ranged bombardment had stopped; presumably it meant that at least Rustyrose among his Kin could do the job assigned to him.
The disruptions of magical energy had allowed him to be wounded, and while it could heal it afterwards, the healing wasn’t perfect. He hurt all over. But Hades had not risen to the position of second master of Fairy Tail by being weak, and he had managed to rise to the master of Ishgar’s premiere dark guild in his old age on the merit of his strength. He just needed a few moments, if he could focus on a spell he could end this immediately with Grimoire Law.
He considered the possibility of using Nemesis again. But that was a tiring magic, and the ship’s magical energy was in disarray by the repeated destruction of its heart. He was on the defensive, and he lacked a solid means of changing that. Scorpio and MacBeth covered the team from attacks from afar. Sorano was taking pot shots with the Astra Weapon, in the form of a tommy gun that fired bullets of explosive sand, whenever her allies backed away enough. It was more spray and pray than anything, but it provided a distraction. Erik, Sawyer, and Jellal all pressed him into close combat, and Sawyer’s slow magic repeatedly forced him to dispel it. If he didn’t, Richard, protected from it by his armor, would drain the ship’s energy quickly enough - from Hades’s perception - that he risked running momentarily out of power, and after tasting the heavy blast that came when he allowed that to happen, Hades did not want to repeat the performance.
His troops began to pour in. At first they were barely consequential. The Thunderbolts scattered them almost without relenting their assault on him. It was only Caprico’s arrival which changed things.
The mage was a goat man, or well in truth he was a mage who was possessing the body of the celestial spirit Capricorn the goat. He’d been among the Kin who was labeled as extremely dangerous. His magic allowed him to control and subjugate anything human. Knowledge of the details was limited, but he was definitely not to be taken lightly.
“Minerva needs help. Richard, can you handle it here?” Sorano said.
“Go, you’d only be a liability,” the armored mage said. It was Sawyer who was off first, calling a motorcycle and riding past Caprico. He might not have made it if not for MacBeth finally turning his reflector magic to the offensive, twisting the ship, and throwing Caprico to the side. Sawyer, warned by the active Archive link, was ready for it, as the mages of Grimoire Heart fell out of the airship as MacBeth’s magic twisted it in half, and even Caprico struggled to stay on the ship, Sawyer rode across the forming gap, landing on the tilting wall, and kept going.
Sorano was behind him, leaping the gap and landing.
“Ultear!” Hades screamed as the front portion of the ship, no longer attached to the back - and thus propulsion and magic that kept it aloft - began to fall from the sky, with him in it.
Jellal attacked then. It was a flowing mixture of spells. Grand Chariot forced Hades to dodge, but that was accounted for, Hades’s leap leading him into the flight bestowing and speed increasing Meteor which saw Jellal striking him from behind. Erik had gone to crowd control, his poison roar, washing over the reinforcements. MacBeth was continuing to use his reflector to twist the ship, snapping off where Caprico was standing. And Richard, whose armor protected him from Caprico’s magic, provided a continuous stream of fire against Caprico supported by Scorpio who - as a celestial spirit - wasn’t vulnerable to Human Subjugation Magic.
Even down two more members they were not going to let up for an instant longer than they needed to.
Erik’s great snake Cubellios was somewhat disoriented when Arthur’s territory magic warped them into the airspace around the ship. Another beam from Arthur’s Caelum came a moment later.
Erik could see a man riding on the back of a wyvern away from the ship, and hear the annoyance in his mind. He was going for the Caelum, but Erik’s job wasn’t to follow him. It was to find the demon’s heart which powered the ship and its guild master and shut it down.
Cubellios brought them down onto the ship. He didn’t like bringing the snake somewhere this dangerous, but it would need to be close if it was going to work for any emergency rescues; and with the battle ahead that was a necessary precaution.
He and Minerva jumped from the back of the snake onto the top deck of the violently rocking ship and Minerva transported them inside, teleporting them to where they’d at least not risk falling from it from a violent jerk.
Arthur’s low end spirits were still scouting the ship, adding to the mini-map that Erik could pull out from Arthur’s Archive at a thought. It showed Hades and Bluenote’s positions, indicated the battle, and even labeled Zancrow’s unconscious form. But it wasn’t complete yet. It didn’t show the heart.
Erik placed an ear to the wall, listening for a few moments. “This way,” He said, starting to rush ahead of the young woman with him.
Minerva hastened after him, the two running towards the source of the thrumming energy pumping through the ship. Occasionally Erik would stop, consulting the thrum again, letting it guide him as to what direction to go. He was relaying his information to Arthur’s little horse and dog, letting them narrow their own search down.
The little horse found it, and its guards. There was a large host of individuals outside of the room, and a single, massive man within the room; he had been included in the briefing as one of the Seven Kin.
“You handle Kain, I take the mob,” Erik said.
“Just let me get us in there,” Minerva answered. Her space was stretching out invisibly, consolidating in the room, and then she and Erik were there, standing mere feet from the heart.
“H-h-h-h-howdidyougethere?” Kain asked, stuttering before spewing the words out at speeds similar to Enif’s own.
Minerva’s answer was to raise her hand and form a half dozen territory spheres and explode them against the construct holding the Demon’s Heart.
“Stopthat!” Kain said, rushing towards Minerva and Erik. Troops were rushing in from the outside, forcing Erik to deal with them. Minerva was moving, swapping positions with one of the men in the back, letting them take Kain’s blow.
An explosion rocked the ship, and Kain lost his footing, sliding across the ship, before Minerva swapped positions with him, so that she could focus on the Demon’s Heart. Her explosions roared out through the room, and the ship tipped to one side.
Kain screamed, and then a blast of light knocked her flying to the ground. He was talking to himself, too fast for Minerva to comprehend anything more than he had messed up in allowing the Demon’s Heart to be destroyed. He was holding his cursed doll, his hair attached to it, finally truly using his magic as he turned it - and thus himself - into iron to charge towards Minerva.
Only for his doll to appear in Minerva’s hand as she slammed it - and thus him - downward before turning him around and barreling him into his support squad. He was still iron as he slammed and smashed his way through the battlefield, allowing Erik to pull back and to her side.
“Seems like we did pretty well,” He said, and then his face twisted. The damaged rubble of the heart was flowing back to it, as the magical construct rebuilt itself.
His head whipped towards the new arrival. A dark haired woman in her early 20s, wearing a tight white leotard, fishnet leggings, and thigh high boots. She was the dark mage Ultear, one of the mages Arthur specifically felt needed a special warning. Her magic, Ark of Time, could control and manipulate the flow of time, especially for inanimate objects. He wanted her alive.
“The new council possesses more competence than I’d have expected from the old one,” She said. “How’d you learn about the Demon’s Heart?”
“Arthur is a lot more competent than the Council,” Minerva answered, as she flung Kain towards Ultear. He was trying to fight the control, but Minerva wasn’t letting him near her to do so.
Ultear’s hand rose and a crystal ball whipped forward quickly, slamming Kain to the side, before suddenly it multiplied, Ultear calling potential futures of the orb into existence with her arc of time and launching them towards Minerva.
Minerva’s territory magic surrounded her, a dome of her space blocking the spheres. “Time vs space. It’s a shame you got involved in this child. You could have had a promising future in the Great Magic World, but now you have to die like everyone else who dares stand in the way of Zeref’s awakening.”
“Let that bastard sleep,” Erik said, a scowl forming on his face. He was moving forward trying to get in close to Ultear and take her out in hand to hand combat, but her orb appeared in her hand, and multiplied again. He could hear her thoughts, knew how she would direct it before she’d actually changed its movements, but there were still a mass of orbs and they were moving fast. He found himself on the defensive, blocking and dodging.
Minerva launched Kain towards Ultear, sending him in a flying kick against the mage. It drove her from the room.
“You worthless fool! You lost against a child and worse you’ve become nothing more than a tool for her use,” Ultear could be heard from the outer room.
“I-I-I-Iamsorry!” Kain cried out, before spinning in a hurricane kick, one leg outstretched as he spun and spun. It wasn’t well aimed - Minerva couldn’t see Kain or Ultear - but it kept them a little occupied.
Erik had knocked out, or possibly killed Minerva couldn’t tell, the horde of lesser mages with his poison dragon slayer magic. Now he was able to focus on supporting her, his poison dragon’s claw smashing through the Demon’s Heart.
“We’ve got to take out that woman,” he said. “If she keeps restoring the heart we’ll have no chance of taking out Hades.”
“I’m afraid you already have no chance,” A voice came. It wasn’t Ultear’s. Minerva’s heart stopped, her body freezing. She recognized the voice. “Isn’t that right, daughter. You know you could never beat me, and I have become so much more now.”
“Father,” Minerva said, trembling like a leaf in the wind.
Ultear’s magic was working, already it was restoring the Demon’s Heart once more, reversing the flow of time to return it to working order.
“Don’t freeze up,” Erik said, looking between Minerva, and Jiemma.
The muscular man looked different than before. He was naked save for a pair of shorts, which looked more like underwear than proper clothing. Even his feet were bare. But his chest showed signs of recent surgery, stitches running up and down the entire length of his torso. Four lacrima crystals visibly jutted from his body.
Darkness seemed to move around him, like a dancing shadow. But the oddest part was how his face would change, features shifting a little from time to time, almost as if it was trying to become someone else’s face, sometimes a man’s sometimes a woman’s.
“She’s a weakling. She does that. We can smell her blood though. The blood of the Yakumo flowing in her veins.” His voice was beginning to reverberate oddly, almost seeming to echo. No, it was more like several beings were speaking not quite in unison, all coming from his mouth. “Traitors’ blood. We thirst for the blood of traitors!”
He launched himself forward, a swirling cloud of shadows forming around his hand. It wasn’t any magic Minerva was used to seeing from him. Human faces, screaming and wailing in anguish seemed to form and disappear in the dark magic around his hand, and the robes of shadows which covered him.
Minerva’s territory rose. She pictured it as an absolute boundary separating her world from the world outside, just like Arthur had taught her to. A boundary through which nothing could enter. Her barrier held.
“We will drag you to Hell where you belong!” A voice came from her father’s lips, but it wasn’t her father’s voice. Another came from near his mouth as well, chanting in the language of the Yakumo clan. It wasn’t a spell she recognized, but she feared she knew what it was; one of the spells to summon one of the 18 Battle Gods of the Yakumo people. “Your blood will ease our suffering!”
Ultear looked at the man frothing from his mouth in fury as he tried to hammer his way through his own daughter’s forcefield. There was shock on her face, even a hint of disgust. She’d have said that it reminded her of her mother, and how little she had cared for her.
She wasn’t the only one standing still with nausea. Erik could hear the voice of Jiemma’s heart. Or more the voices. “What is that magic?” He asked. It was a clamoring pandemonium of different hearts. But they all shared a similar goal. They were the shades of the damned, and they hungered for the vitality of the living.
“A form of medium magic,” Ultear said. “Reconstructed by Master Hades’s research. It predates Zeref himself, forbidden by the great god Ankhseram. It calls forth the souls of the dead to possess the wielder.”
“They’re so angry,” Erik said, clutching his head in pain from the psychic cacophony.
“Jiemma Orlando holds the blood of the Yakumo Clan. Nearly extinct after a disaster more than a century ago. The souls of the dead from that event now move through him to take their vengeance on the living,” Her voice was numb. She had nothing against releasing murderous ghosts on the world. But she hadn’t expected to see the wielder fight and try to kill his own daughter. It was a terrible betrayal.
And then the battle god appeared. A ring adorned its back, six swords thrusting from it. Six arms reached back to draw the blades, and one after another they cut away at Minerva’s Territory. Kain, screaming in protest, flew, fist first, into the war god as Minerva swung the cursed doll wildly.
The battle god turned, six swords thrusting into his body pinning it to the ground. Minerva made him kick, and the god pulled back and stabbed again. Minerva winced. Kain was an enemy, even if she was using him as a weapon. Even so she did not want to get him killed here.
Jiemma brought his hand up and placed it on the barrier of her territory magic. As her will and focus faltered, his magic flowed, a blast of energy tearing her barrier apart and sending her flying back into the wall of the ship.
“Pathetic. To think you are of our blood. So weak. So sniveling. So incapable. Utterly worthless. We offered you strength, but you betrayed us for him.” Jiemma didn’t use magic. He used his hands, striking her in the ribs, the gut, the arms, blow after blow hammering her into the wall of the ship, denting and deforming the reinforced bulkheads of the heart chamber.
The feather-dress Minerva wore began to crackle, and spark with electricity, as she put her hands out. It was Altair’s spirit dress; Arthur had summoned it onto her as a final protective precaution before the assault. And now she used it, releasing the magic inside in a blast of lightning which coursed and ran through the ship. Erik and Ultear yelled as electricity moved through them. But it was focused primarily on Jiemma.
“I just did what you taught me. I followed strength. I obeyed the strongest. I listened to the strongest. Like. You. Always. Taught. Me!” She punctuated her words with blows, lightning shooting through Jiemma whenever she connected.
Jiemma had been thrown off badly by the first shock, but the shades possessing him were aiding his recovery, and, even as Minerva used the skills he had taught her to attack him with a battering series of blows augmented by the lightning magic Arthur had equipped her with, the swirling shadows wrapped around him to form a covering armor - much like the armor of territory magic Arthur had worn when fighting him - and blunt her blows.
The heel of his palm hit her solar plexus, and then he rammed a fist into her diaphragm. Minerva doubled over in pain. He began a series of body blows, not meant to take her out of the fight, but to hurt, striking her like he was trying to tenderize meat. Erik charged towards him. The cacophony of hatred flowing from the shades hadn’t stopped, but he wasn’t so disabled by the horrible screech in his mind to stand by and watch this.
He fought through the pain, but the six limbed war god rushed towards him. He released his poison dragon’s roar, but it pushed through it, pieces of the warrior ‘deity’ sloughing off as its blades raised to face him.
Suddenly the ship shook, and then started to tilt. Ultear could hear Hades’s voice in her mind, calling her to repair the ship. It was almost as if someone had just snapped the entire thing in two. Her hands reached out, her mind focusing her magic. But it was hard. Jiemma was rising over Minerva.
“Enough!” Ultear shouted. “You don’t want to kill her, she’s your daughter, that’s understandable we can take her prisoner. I’m sure she’ll…”
“She will die,” the shades growled as they swarmed around Jiemma’s face. “Blood of our blood. We will drink her life and drag her down into-”
Ultear’s orb struck Jiemma in the stomach, others beginning to appear to hammer into him from all sides. “You’ll thank me for this later,” Ultear began speaking, before she tried to catch Minerva as everyone began to fall. With the front half of the ship broken off and no one at the helm to turn off the ship’s flight magic, the back was being pushed up and the front of the wreck was not. Slowly but surely the ship was turning to be perpendicular to the ground.
She hit the doorway, hand grasping Minerva’s. Jiemma and Erik had landed on the wall. Jiemma’s eyes swerved towards Minerva, the shades howling with hunger.
“It’s not really your father,” Ultear said, trying to pull Minerva up. “It’s the spirits.” She sent her orb flying towards Jiemma hoping to hold him off long enough, but one of the living shadows around him knocked it to the side as he drop kicked his superior officer in the back. Ultear grunted with pain.
“No, this is him,” Minerva said. She knew she needed to act. That she needed to help. But even after she’d hit back earlier she was still scared. It wasn’t a rational fear. He was going to hurt and kill her no matter what she did, but it had been beaten into her body not to stand against him.
Jiemma’s hand reached down to take her wrist, pulling her up. The shades congregated around her, hands grasping and tearing at her star dress, hands grasping and tearing at her flesh. They reached for her mouth, trying to pry it open.
And all the while they were chanting. Multiple incantations filling the air. Ultear’s sphere rose up, smashing through the shades, but only partially and momentarily disrupting them.
Erik’s claw slashed Jiemma’s arm, and the limb buckled, his hand spasming to drop Minerva, but the shadows held her. She could feel them flowing into her. They were choking her, stuffing themselves down her throat till air couldn’t pass through. Everything was beginning to go dark.
Arthur had relaxed as he sank. He requipped a new armor: the sea king’s regalia. He’d not chosen it for this fight, but he’d selected it for this general situation. He didn’t have good water combat options.
The whirlpool closed in over him, more and more water surrounding him as he was forced by Bluenote’s gravity into the sea. If he was being hit by this on the ground, Arthur would have been killed unless he managed to stop it, his body crushed against dirt and stone. But this was at sea. He could sink. And he did. All the way down to the aphotic zone.
He was still maintaining 2 star dresses, a Celestial Spirit that was even now in battle against a mage who wielded an invincible magic to construct things from his imagination, 2 pet tier celestial spirits, takeover, a requipped armor, his archive working on several levels including instantaneous mental communication with the entire Thunderbolts plus the ringer he’d requested assistance from to mixed success, his territory magic expanding his space throughout the ship to be prepared to return anywhere in it the moment he was needed, and he couldn’t actually afford to shut any of it off yet. He’d gone in hot too. The blast against Azuma had been full power. In a word he was tired. He’d always hoped to be able to consume some of Hades’s darkness magic before he burned out, or failing that consume Bluenote’s soul as a power recharge, but he didn’t necessarily need darkness magic. He just had to hope that he could consume the black waters around him.
His mouth opened, and he felt the lightless waters a kilometer beneath the battle, flooding into him. His armor let him breathe underwater. And his dragon slayer lungs could suck it in, and consume it. The gravity magic pressing him down provided it with a concentration of ethernano. It was a feast fit for a king. And one which stirred the dragon inside of him. He could feel the dragon force, calling its siren song. He was a dragon eater; he could tap the dragon force at will because the power from the flesh of the dragon still lay dormant inside of him; or maybe its hate-filled shade, his research at Crocus had told him that dragon’s had a tendency to leave ghosts to haunt their remains. But this was more the 1st Gen method of access; he was consuming a particularly magically filled version of his element.
It didn’t make accessing the dragon force safe. If anything it would be more dangerous than last time. The dragon inside was stronger than in Edolas. And Arthur found himself stopping his meal to instead fight his own power, venting it in a roar that tore through the darkness. Bluenote must have felt it through his magic, as even a mile away the mage began to crush against Arthur harder, the sea’s pressure redoubling. Thankfully the Sea King’s Regalia was armor made for deep sea use. It might not provide light, but Arthur could survive the pressure of the deep even much deeper than this.
It hurt, though. The pain wracking his body. And then there was another pain. He felt like he’d been stabbed in the gut. The dragon thrashed in his soul, and his focus turned inwards. It didn’t feel that different from Takeover to be honest. Jackal’s will was in the magic. The urge to destroy was outwardly similar, but one was a sadistic desire, and the other was more animalistic; one destroyed to destroy and inflict misery, the other destroyed to assert its power and dominance. But both urged him to unleash. To fully release his power. Azuma had absorbed most of the blast and it had still cleared a path to the opposite side of the ship. If he blasted without someone trying to tank it with their own power he could destroy the entire ship.
He didn’t want that.
But takeover wasn’t just a form of transformation magic. It was a magic to dominate souls. It was a magic that included knowledge and skills to absorb souls and subjugate them to your will. Ones that made controlling Jackal’s destructive nature relatively simple.
He tried to apply them to the dragon seed inside of himself, turning his focus onto it. Calling it a dragon seed was a bit of a misnomer. It was the way Igneel had explained it to Natsu, but ultimately that was because of how Natsu, or perhaps Igneel, perceived it. Maybe it was a difference between first and fifth gen dragonification even.
Arthur just knew he did not find a seed. He found a dark serpent, spreading and coiling through his soul. It was a force from which he could feel malice and hatred. Perhaps it was the angry shade of the dragon he killed, the tattered remnant of its soul that his Black Sword had transferred to him, and which the dragon eater ritual had bound to his magical power. It was inside of him, and it was urging him forward.
He could feel spikes of pain throughout his body. Some magic was pushing pure agony directly into him. He could have fought it. By tapping the dragon force, only for a moment, he could have pushed back against it and broken the weak link of magic with the sheer power it was trying to contain. It was what the serpent wanted. To be freed to lash out and strike at those who tormented him. To rain destruction upon them.
Even if dragonification wasn’t a threat, he didn’t dare access that power. It would be like turning on the Bat Signal, only with Acnologia playing Bruce Wayne. And Arthur knew if dragonification took hold he would fight Acnologia and he would lose.
Pushing through the agony, he turned his magic against the black serpent inside of him. At first it felt like trying to wrestle your own shadow, flowing around his power, moving and avoiding it as insubstantial as a wraith. But he was slowly cornering it, building a cage in his soul from the demonic power flowing through him to lock it away. The stabbing agony stopped, his head clearing a bit, making the process easier, only for a tightness to form around his throat. He felt like he was choking, like someone was crushing his windpipe, and his lungs burned with need for air, even as he ate the darkened, waters filled with gravity magic. He felt the dragon grow with the energy, its power flowing through him, pushing against the demonic energy of his takeover magic. He used that feeling of growth to find it and to make its cages, building walls of demonic power and pushing it back forcing it into only the channels and conduits he allowed it.
He could conquer the dragon force. His magical genius made it possible. He would go beyond Irene and Acnologia. He would not lose to his own power. He recoiled from the thought. The sheer pleasure in superiority made him second guess himself, and the moment it did his channels and conduits faltered. He ceased eating and tried to calm himself. But despite the fact that his feasting had proved he could still breathe, the tightness around his throat had his heart pounding with panic that he was choking to death.
And then he realized the emergency call in his Archive had been blaring. One of his team was in danger of immediate death and he had been too focused on himself to notice.