Arthur let Erik’s point of view fill his mind, and immediately he swapped with the six-armed angry humanoid monster that was stabbing him. Arthur didn’t know what it was, the blue, leering face and many limbs each ending in swords that were thrusting at Erik told him it was not something on their side. Hopefully its presence would fool Bluenote for at least a little bit into thinking he was still attacking Arthur.
“Erik!” He shouted as he found himself falling on his head and then shoulders, rolling from the nearly vertical ship through a hole in the wall.
“Minerva needs you!” Erik screamed.
Arthur looked up from the hole. He was still choking. The draconic energy inside of him was still raging, the itch of the dragon force mere inches under the surface fueled by his panicking fear. And now Minerva was in danger. He didn’t trust himself to touch his dragon slayer magic, but he leapt from upwards, letting demon legs propel him.
Sorano rushed up the quickly shifting ship. With the prow of the ship gone, the front was a great hole which was slowly going vertical beneath her. Sawyer had made it past into higher chambers - falling out was little threat to him now - but she hadn’t made it yet.
Her Astra Weapon shifted from the Scorpio Gun to the Virgo Whip, lashing out and catching a doorway before pulling her up. She climbed onto the wall, looking higher and cursing. She wasn’t going to get to Minerva in time.
And then pain flared through her body. It repeated a moment later, and, turning, she saw a pink haired young girl, 14 or 15 at most. Teal swords of energy formed around from her body as she outstretched her arms, and they shot towards Sorano.
“The Master has commanded your extermination,” She said. “Maguility blade!”
Sorano felt sword after sword stab into her, her Virgo Whip transforming into something with a longer range. Scorpio and Gemini were fighting Caprico. She couldn’t call them. She needed to stay in the fight long enough for them to do their job.
But Minerva remained in danger. She could give the emergency call to Arthur, Erik or Minerva already should have, but that would just draw him to her and not to Minerva. She used the normal line, the one with more direct messages. But she didn’t get a response. The idiot wasn’t paying attention to the communication link. What sort of communication officer did he think he was?
If Minerva hadn’t been in danger she might have used the emergency call herself. She didn’t have the chance to shift her focus to see what was happening to Minerva and Erik, or with Gemini and Scorpio. She was on the defensive, the girl’s ranged attacks forcing her to run, hide, and escape.
“Surrender,” the pink haired girl. “Your keeper is dead, or will be soon.”
Sorano raised the Astra Weapon and fired in a heavy spray, 2 bullets of sand striking the pink haired girl and exploding. “He’ll survive.”
“What is he to you,” the girl asked, diving for cover behind some of the loose objects which had fallen in what had probably been a sleeping barracks. “Do you fear him that much?”
“Is that why you fight for Hades? No. Arthur won’t hurt me.”
“Do you love him?” the girl asked.
“He wishes,” Sorano answered. “He’s a useful tool,” She said with a smug smile. Though the weight of the weapon in her hand made her feel her words were hollow.
“Unfortunate. He’s number 1.”
“Number 1?” The sand bullets were clearing the pink haired girl’s impromptu cover. Sorano knew this was Meredy; specifically listed as don’t kill in the briefing on two different counts, the first being that she was a child deemed redeemable, and the second that her magic could kill her killer. But she was still willing to knock the woman out before she could cause more trouble.
“Target priority. His death is most important.”
Sorano scowled. “You haven’t met him if you think you have a chance against him. Every time he goes up against a wall he metamorphoses into something more.”
“Sounds like you respect him a lot. I can work with that. Sense Link!” Light shot from Meredy’s hand striking Sorano’s body. Another bolt shot out into the whirlpool which even now the prow of the ship was starting to be pulled into.
Sorano felt a painful, crushing pressure around her body. Something pushing against her chest. And then one of her swords shot into Sorano’s stomach. Pain surged through her, and she fell to the wall that had become more of a floor than what she’d been trying to stand on.
“My magic links your senses together,” Meredy said, walking towards Sorano. “Your pain becomes his pain. His pain becomes your pain. And you will feel everything that the other feels. And when you die, he will die with you.”
“Didn’t I tell you. He’s a monster of magic. This won’t stop him, even if you kill me. But-” Sorano lifted her Astra Weapon letting it become its most powerful form the Regulus Sword. “Sirius Burst!”
The energy blasted out, a shockwave of light which crashed against Meredy and sent her flying back. “I’d prefer to live,” Sorano said, rising to her feet with a feeling of victory.
Beams of Meredy’s magic shot out, each one striking her with a surge of pain. It wasn’t really damaging her body. It was a magic to cause debilitating pain. It brought her to her knees and Meredy did not relent, approaching Sorano and wrapping her hands around her throat beginning to squeeze. “Your preferences don’t matter.”
Meredy glared at Sorano, the intent to kill written across her face. She would not let these interlopers stand in Ultear’s way. She wouldn’t let anything stop Ultear’s dreams from coming true.
“Neither do yours!” Sawyer’s voice sounded in a shout from high above. It’d taken him longer than he’d like to get the spear aimed so that it’d not hit Sorano as well. He wasn’t well accustomed to the cannon form - he’d had to take a few shots to figure out how to aim already - but he’d not been about to leave his guild mate in this level of trouble; even if it meant he might be too late for Minerva.
The energy blast of the spear shot down and struck Meredy, and then he was running down to Sorano, racing across the vertical surface to lift her up and end his slow magic. “How are you feeling, angel?”
“Sorano. We gave up those codenames,” She whispered hoarsely. “I think I need to rest a bit. Go, help Minerva.”
“Arthur’s there.” Sawyer’s answer was simple, but it reassured Sorano. Arthur was a monster. If he couldn’t save Minerva, she definitely couldn’t.
Hades could feel his magical energy supply disconnected, the heart was intact but the circuit was broken, limiting the amount he could draw from it. It still held back the weakness of age, and provided him with a trickle of power, but his internal supply was still lowered from the earlier battle, and it would not sustain him endlessly at full power as it had before; he had been flowing with the sea of power and now he had to make do with a bucket. But if Ultear wasn’t fixing the ship, then he had to get back to the other half. That meant taking down Jellal. He knew his record as Siegrain. Once in a generation magical prodigy. Quite possibly the greatest magical genius Ishgar had ever known since Fairy Tail’s first master, or maybe even further back than that. The Council had overlooked his more overtly evil tendencies, because he could revolutionize magic across the world. Possessed by Zeref he had seemed to be Zeref reborn. And if Hades could return that essence which had taken hold of Jellal to Zeref, Zeref would be reborn.
But it meant he was the only mage on the ship that worried Hades now that Bluenote had disposed of their leash holder. “You can feel it, can’t you? The true darkness of magic? We both dance with magic don’t we? And in that dance you know the truth. The true nature of magic lies in darkness!” Hades fought as he spoke, even flowing straight from the words into an explosive Amaterasu spell. It was only a formula in the low 20s, he was pressed a bit too hard to reach 100, but he was still surprised when Jellal managed to block it with a magic shield.
“Whatever the nature of magic, there’s a scarlet light that guides my way. Pleiades!” Jellal answered, his hand rising and six balls of light rising with it before streaking one after another towards Hades.
“A scarlet light?” Hades asked with a touch of uncertainty, and then he realized it. “You mean the fairy queen, don’t you? You think a woman’s love can change your true nature and the truth of your heart? Like me, you dance with magic. That can’t be done without the darkness dominating your heart. You’ve felt it. You know it is true. You could never have been a worthy vessel for Zeref if your heart wasn’t as dark as his!”
They clashed as they spoke. Magic flying from both sides. But theirs was not the only battle. Caprico was scrambling. He couldn’t control Scorpio or Richard, and their attacks pressed him hard. He was forced to summon his collected heroes of the past, but he could only summon so many in a row. Finally the fabled king of an ancient civilization brought down Scorpio with his pictograph-covered mace, only to be sent flying from the wildly tilting ship by a flying tackle from Richard.
Richard used his armor to turn in mid-air swerving back to direct himself at Caprico. The suit was fully capable of aerial combat. The goatman’s own jet pack was the only thing keeping him from falling to the sea as the ship’s front portion fell to the waves tilting and rocking all the while. Even broken there was some magic keeping it from falling at a normal rate, but it wasn’t enough to keep it aloft and Jellal and Hades were shaking the ship.
And then Richard fell. “And here I was afraid I’d not get a good workout. Got to say I’m glad you idiots picked this fight,” Bluenote said. There was strain in his voice. The Dorma Anim Mk 2 was not completely immune to magic. Even in Edolas Arthur had eventually realized that if he had gone full power he could have destroyed it. In Earthland where the ethernano saturation meant that it had more difficulty draining spells it was vulnerable. But not being completely immune wasn’t the same as being easily affected.
Bluenote wasn’t used to putting so much effort into bringing down on man. He knew he’d need his black hole to take this further. His hands moved through the spell, the sphere of darkness forming in front of him. On Edolas the armor could have simply drained its magic - would have been draining Bluenote’s - but here the option was a different one.
Richard’s hands rose, and the armor’s mouth cannon extended. He fired three maximum output blasts towards Bluenote. The black hole twisted their trajectories, pulling them in before exploding in a deafening wake of noise.
Jellal’s focus and determination had faltered at Hades’s words. He feared there was truth in them. Even if Arthur said he was possessed he felt Siegrain’s sins as his own. Even if he had been possessed it was through his own darkness. It was his sin. He had killed Simon. … Simon. Memories flooded his mind, and he was lost, Hades’s chain grabbing him and dragging him across the chamber’s walls, before dropping him at Caprico’s feet.
As Jellal begged the dead for forgiveness, Caprico’s hand moved over him, his human subjugation magic beginning its work. But his concentration broke as thunder roared and lightning flashed through the ship. It momentarily stunned Caprico, making him hesitate in his magic as he flinched back ready to turn it to defense instead of offense.
Caprico and Hades did not recognize the man who had appeared. Bluenote and Richard didn’t even notice him. He was a tall, broad shouldered, blonde haired man in a heavy robe and wearing a pair of headphones. Erik, Scorpio, and Jellal, however, did. He had been in Arthur’s briefing.
He was Laxus Dreyar, Fairy Tail’s wayward son and its second strongest mage. Arthur had asked him for assistance. He’d agreed to watch the fight, and if Grimoire Heart really was targeting his grandfather’s guild he’d come and help at his discretion.
Hades was momentarily stunned by his arrival, and the headbutt that followed up showed that Laxus had decided it was time to help take down Grimoire Heart. Laxus’s magical power didn’t match the likes of Guildarts, Hades, Serena, or Arthur’s yet, but like Jellal he sat on the line of crossing into the territory of a magical monster in which they all resided.
“I couldn’t just keep watching as these thugs defended gramp’s guild and I did nothing,” Laxus said, before loosing a beam of lightning - akin to a slicing blade of plasma - towards Hades.
The dark mage didn’t dare try and block, dodging aside, and shooting out his chains. Laxus moved like lightning himself, head dodging the chain before his hand struck the ground electricity shooting out of it towards the dark mage.
“You’re that brat,” Hades said. He recognized the grandson of the man who he had made master. Not that he had time to talk about it. Laxus was fast, using lightning magic to increase his speed, traveling in magical arcs of electricity.
He was pushing Hades onto the defensive, even as Hades’s lighter magic failed to faze him. If Laxus had given him an inch more breathing room, Hades would have tried to sway him to his side; have talked about the similarity of their goals to return the world to one of the strong, and rid Fairy Tail of the weakness it had accumulated.
Laxus didn’t give him the time needed to waste his breath. Bluenote was tangled up with the black knight. Caprico was dealing with the Celestial Spirit and the poison mage. The men had already succumbed to his poison dragon’s breath. He couldn’t wait for Meredy or Rustyrose to join the fight.
He pushed himself through the forms of the amaterasu spell, the highest formula he could make in the quick paced battle. The explosive magical script formed and detonated, but he couldn’t be certain he had hit the mage as Laxus’s fist struck him an instant later.
He crashed against the wall. But the follow up didn’t come. Laxus sank to a knee, before rising again. He’d taken the brunt of the explosion. Hades knew he had to not let up himself. He raised a hand and focused magical energy into it, only to notice strange markings formed across his body. Markings that were filled with a dark power.
An instant later he exploded from the inside out, sagging to the ground. Laxus’s foot struck his chin sending him flying back, before a heavy beam of lightning hit him and ran across his body for several moments.
Zoldeo, or known to the world as Caprico since he had stolen Capricorn’s body years ago, turned his attention and magic back to Jellal, focusing on him. Bluenote and Hades both were being pressed hard. He could hardly believe it. He’d never expected either of them to need his help. Much less with the ship providing them with its power.
Scorpio and Cobra would be on him soon, and while handling Cobra would be child’s play, he’d need someone to hold off the celestial spirit during it. It was a shame he’d failed to capture Angel. If she’d fallen this battle would already be over. But with Jellal’s psyche in disarray it was easy to make him rise to his feet.
Or it should have been. The mage was fighting him, forcing him to put more and more effort into subjugating and submerging his consciousness. Zoldeo’s vision began to dye itself in a red hue, thoughts of some woman flitting through his mind.
“Damn simp,” the goat man hissed out. He gave up making Jellal his subordinate in this moment, instead summoning a famed rebel general to fight Scorpio. It was sufficient to hold back the sand-scorpion spirit, and let Zoldeo turn his attention to Cobra. It was barely in time, the poison dragon slayer was already almost in his face. He turned his magic towards him, suppressing his magical power as the mage breathed out his poison dragon’s roar.
And it hit Zoldeo full blast. His body felt like it was burning, poison flowing into the immortal form of the celestial spirit he was possessing. It made him scream, howling out in utter agony. “H-how?” He started, his fur beginning to blacken and fall from his body. Then it dawned on him. The Oracion Seis Celestial Spirit mage who had escaped had the key to the gate of the twins.
“Gemini,” Zoldeo said.
“Piri-piri,” Gemini, still wearing the face of Cobra of the Oracion Seis, said in a taunting and cruel tone.
Zoldeo laughed. He might no longer be able to sustain Capricorn’s body, but if he could take Gemini’s body he could have any form he wanted. It had been a mistake to break the taboo years ago and take Capricorn’s form. It had given him this immortal body, but it had trapped him as the goat. Instead of living by transferring from human host to human host he had become unable to leave the Celestial Spirit except by possessing another one.
“Huma Raise!” He called out the name of the spell, launching his spirit from Capricorn’s form. Immediately the damaged spirit’s gate closed. But so too did Gemini’s. As Erik, Gemini possessed his hearing magic. And it was simple to inform Sorano of Zoldeo’s intent so that the gate could close.
Zoldeo’s spirit manifested for a moment on the tilting deck of the ship. He had escaped? He was himself again? He had never truly been stuck as Capricorn? He was ready to rejoice, when his entire being began to crumble away, his spirit itself having decayed from the taboo magic. And then he was gone. The only thing that remained was Capricorn’s golden key.
Arthur landed behind Jiemma. His archive was trying to identify the magic swirling around him. But that wasn’t his focus. The dark shades were reaching into Minerva’s throat, causing her to gag around them, her face changing color as she choked.
His chainsaw-hand plunged into Jiemma’s body from behind, stabbing through his stomach and one of the lacrima inside of it. The all-consuming void the blade was made from began to pull him into it, the shades howling and screaming death at Arthur as they were pulled into the blades. He could feel the void fill and the blade vanish. He’d need to summon a new one. But as Jiemma sagged to the ground his first priority was Minerva.
She was still choking. The shadows wrapped around her face independent of Jiemma, forcing their ways into her nose and mouth, finger tips forming to grasp her ears. It was like a scene from a horror movie. But she was turning blue.
Arthur dropped to the ground. He knew the Heimlich maneuver in theory, but he’d never really performed it on anyone other than the one time he’d had to do it to himself. He wasn’t sure it’d work against living darkness which was trying to force its way down your throat anyway.
His Archive was telling him that the magic was called Evil Dead Resurrection, an invocation to the angry shades of the dead. It was apparently a form of Lost Magic which was referenced as specifically heretical. There was more, but he didn’t stop to process the information torrent fully. They were dark souls, or fragments thereof. That was all that mattered.
The true form of Jackal’s magic was a curse transferred by contact. Every touch cursed the one who touched you, or you touched, to become a bomb. He detonated that curse on Hades and Bluenote. He’d wanted to save it for an opportune moment, but he’d lose it if he changed forms. Hopefully none of his allies were too close to them at the moment.
Then he performed a new takeover. His arms and legs stretched and thinned. The fur vanished from his body, leaving only his flesh, though it was awash with dark markings, most of it an utterly dark black, unnatural for any human. His stump stretched, a black blade forming from it. His fingers extended into talon like claws. Wings burst from his back, as his eyes turned a baleful red.
On his chest there was a marking, a red symbol of eight arrows each pointing outwards from the center. None of the arrows were straight, but they curved in their paths. They didn’t divide the circle evenly, and the symmetry of them was off. It was the 8 arrows of chaos.
The demonic figure leaned down, lifting Minerva up, and placing his fanged mouth to her lips. Arthur wasn’t sure his plan would work, but it was the best option he had.
He breathed in. Not a normal human breath, but a dragon slayer’s breath. The dark spirits were dark spirits, and he was the dragon who ate the darkness. The black blade was a soul eating demon in the shape of a sword, and his takeover magic had made him into it. Hopefully between the two of them he could eat dark spirits.
He sucked them in, and he felt them fighting against him. They were hatred. They were anger. They were rage. He could taste their memories, but they weren’t complete memories. They were the grudges and memories of pain and hatred which had filled them as they died by violence. No more were pulling into his mouth, and he feared all he was doing now was robbing Minerva of air.
He rose, looking at Minerva and willing her to breathe. She seemed to be. Placing his hand near her nose he could feel her breathing now. The bulge in her throat was gone. And the voices in his mind screeched at him to let them in her. To let them fill her and make her nothing more than a vessel for their hatred. To kill her so that her blood might give them pleasure in the darkness they dwelled in.
The shadows still stretched from Jiemma, reaching for his unconscious daughter. Ultear’s crystal ball passed through them, scattering them but only for a brief instant. Arthur leaned low, his mouth sweeping as he feasted on the cursed lemures who were reaching out for his apprentice.
He reached for one of the lacrima in Jiemma’s chest, ripping it from the mage’s body and chomping down onto it, shattering the crystal into shards, and swallowing it down. It cut at his throat, and the spirits howled within him. He could digest them. He knew it. He’d be fine if the sheer quantity of power wasn’t pushing him towards the dragon force.
The cage he had tried to build was breaking, and the dark dragon was forcing its way through him. It was hitting against his transformation magic, forcing him from the shape of a demon towards that of a dragon. He’d eaten too much too fast, and now he would pay the price of his own power.
His head turned towards the floor turned wall and blasted a hole straight through the ship, and then he took off, flying away. If he was going to become a dragon he’d not only draw Acnologia to his team, he might destroy them before the destroyer got there.
A silver key formed in his hand, and he summoned Enif. “North!” Was the only command he howled out, before he turned his full focus onto stopping the dragon from getting out and the cursed dead from goading him into acts of wanton and total destruction.
Richard was horrified as Bluenote exploded in front of him. Not because of the seemingly random explosion in and of itself; he’d been briefed on that as a possibility. But as his armor blocked the Archive link he had no warning it would happen. He’d been engaged in a full powered blast from his cannons when it happened.
The Magic Council had authorized killing any active and present threats among Grimoire Heart. Arthur had counseled free use of lethal force if any of them found themselves in combat with Bluenote. Legally Richard had done nothing that was frowned upon, and in fact he had done what he was told and encouraged to do.
He had not wanted to kill a man. He had promised Wally he was going to try and be a better person and that meant not killing people any more.
He understood that it hadn’t been his intent. He understood that it had been in a life or death situation. He could tell himself all the justifications under the sun and they made things somewhat better. But they did not remove the blood from his hands.
He saw an unfamiliar man standing over Hades’s body, one who after a few moments he recognized as Laxus Dreyar. He saw Jellal curled into a ball with his eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t see Gemini as Erik, nor did he see Scorpio. He had to worry if something had happened to Sorano. MacBeth was finishing up the few straggling survivors of the opposing side.
Water had begun to fill the ship, washing up to his feet. But the ship was lifting out of the water. Rising up into the air once more. It was being restored at last. Did that mean Minerva and the real Erik had failed to destroy the heart.
“MacBeth. What’s happening with the others?” He called out.
“Sorano and Sawyer are fighting Asuma,” He said, “It’s going poorly. Erik and Minerva encountered major trouble. Arthur is turning into a dragon so he’s left us on our own. And the Archive link is down.”
“We need to go help them,” Richard said.
“No shit,” MacBeth shot back.
“Unfortunately I don’t think you will be doing that,” Hades said, rising to his feet. He could feel the flow of power again. He’d have liked to let it restore himself further, but it was slowed by Azuma’s heavy use of the ship’s energy in his own battle. Hades couldn’t let them rejoin with their allies. Azuma would fall if they did that. And if Azuma fell the chance that they’d both destroy his heart and defeat Ultear rose exponentially.
“What does it take to keep this monster down?” Laxus asked, even as he charged forward to rejoin the battle against Hades.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Hades considered his options. If he lost contact with the Demon’s Heart again he was done for. He really shouldn’t be standing much less fighting. But if he could end this quickly enough then he had a chance.
He felt the flow of magic from the Demon’s Heart stop again. This was going to hurt.
Erik’s hand plunged into the metal construct that held the Demon’s Heart, his poison dragon’s claw forcing through it and pushing into the heart letting its venom flow through the heart.
“It’s pointless,” Ultear said. “I can just repair it.”
“Then I’ll just smash it again,” Erik replied.
“Then I guess I’ll have to deal with you first.”
Erik didn’t answer, he lunged forward. She was planning to hit him, her crystal ball shooting towards him, and a dozen more forming. He practically seemed to dance through the storm of spheres, moving to avoid the blows. Ultear kept between him and Minerva, trusting that as long as Minerva was behind her that Erik wouldn’t use his dragon’s roar. And her spheres could keep him from managing to close into range for his claws.
Suddenly she found herself being struck by her own crystal balls, with Erik between her and Minerva instead of vice versa. Minerva had risen to her feet, her hands raised.
“You lose,” Minerva said. “Don’t make it harder on yourself.”
Ultear glared at her. Until the ground suddenly heaved underneath her. It felt like the ship was crashing again, but suddenly it tilted in the opposite direction. And then to one side. “I saved you. If it wasn’t for me your father would have destroyed you,” She said as the three mages fought to maintain their balance.
“And thank you for that. But if you’re going to defect then defect. Help us take this ship in and we’ll be able to tell them that you helped us.” Minerva said, even as she found herself half buried under her father when the ship rolled completely over. He was still breathing for now, but she wasn’t sure if she was hoping he’d be fine… or terrified that he would be.
He’d kill her if he was. She had tried to fight him. She’d turned against him. His own flesh and blood. But he’d been trying to kill her anyway. It was all messed up.
“Or, you could join us. Once the Great Magic World is complete my magic will be whole. I will be able to turn back time and make a world where I can have happiness. I can stop your father from taking up this taboo magic too. You and him could be together again.”
Minerva looked up at Ultear even as the ship began to perform a loop da loop. “My father was always like this,” She said. “If I could go back. If I could undo the things that happened…”
“We could do that. We could make a world where we could be happy.” Ultear was beginning to worry about Meredy. The girl was a skilled mage. She should be able to take care of herself. But she had been left in charge of piloting the ship, and Ultear knew she knew how to pilot better than this.
“What’s happiness? I mean what is happiness really? I don’t think I can even recognize it. What would make you happy?”
“Vengeance on my mother,” Ultear said, before suddenly the ship accelerated hard, launching them all back into the stern wall.
Erik stood uncomfortably listening in. Minerva was not in a good state right now. She had just had her father try and fill her with spirits of hatred and he could hear their howls still echoing in her heart. And now she was talking to a crazy lady who… was lying about her own motivations.
“And you need to turn back time to do that?” She looked at her father’s body with a definite wave of guilt. She hadn’t killed him. She hadn’t really stood up to him in the end. She’d let Arthur save her. But now her father’s blood was on his hands. But it was the second time her father had proven willing to kill her for his quest for power.
“She’s dead.”
“So’s my father, but I’m not clamoring to turn back time to get vengeance on him.” No sooner had the words left her mouth then the airship came to an abrupt halt throwing them all forward.
Ultear looked at Minerva and then at Jiemma. There was maybe a hope her father was alive. No one had checked. He had a gaping wound straight through his stomach, and another in his chest but that wasn’t immediately fatal. The backlash from the magic was dangerous but…
“I might be able to save your father if I repair the lacrima which your leader broke.”
“And what do we do if that monster wakes up again?” Erik shouted in interjection.
“I…” Minerva looked at his body. “Save him.”
“If I do, will you let me fix the Demon’s Heart?” Ultear asked, her hands already moving. She was going to fix Jiemma’s lacrima regardless. If he woke up he would buy her time to fix the Demon’s Heart.
“Not a chance, lady,” Erik snapped.
“I was asking her, not you,” Ultear snapped at him.
“Not a chance, lady,” Minerva answered.
“How about check on the pilot?” Ultear tensed. Right now Meredy’s safety mattered more to her than Hades’s power.
“Which one of you was she?” Erik asked. “I might be able to tell you what’s happened to her if you can tell me some defining features. Though be more honest than about your motivations.”
Ultear looked at him with a hate filled glare. “And you’d tell me why?”
“Because you saved one of us.” Minerva’s downcast, guilt ridden head rose a bit at that inclusion in the team. “I mean she’s really more-” Erik bit back his words. He’d been going to dismissively call her Arthur’s pet. She wasn’t one of the Oracion Seis. She wasn’t really part of the Thunderbolts any more than Arthur was. He wasn’t a criminal. He wasn’t fighting for redemption. He was their handler. “Our little princess. I don’t think any of us would want to see something bad happen to her.” He wasn’t sure how much of a lie it was. He couldn’t bear to hurt her by taking away the feeling of pride she felt at being accepted as a teammate by him. And she had fought alongside them. She had fought her father, and Erik knew that Ultear was only not fixing the heart already because she was there. She’d earned a place on the team if she wanted to lower herself to their level.
As the ship jerked to one side and then barrel rolled twice more, Ultear decided she’d better ask. “Meredy. She’s the only other woman among the Seven Kin.”
“Sawyer knocked her out. Azuma was fighting near her,” Erik said. “We’ll take you there. But we leave the demon’s heart broken.” They needed to head that way anyway. And actually shutting down Ultear might prove time consuming. His friends needed him faster than that.
“Deal,” Ultear said. It was good enough for her at this moment.
When Azuma of the Seven Kin of Purgatory had awakened he was buried in rubble, and laying against a wall that had become the floor. The ship was almost perpendicular, and his head was ringing. It had been one attack made with incomparable strength.
The tall, dark skinned, muscular man knew he wasn’t really at his best on the airship. His magic was a form of wood magic which manipulated the magical energy inside of the earth. The Demon’s Heart provided a vast quantity of magic, and while he could access it, it already possessed another master. As long as Hades was on the ship he could only skim a fraction of it. Still to have taken him out with such contemptuous ease had lit a fire in Azuma’s heart.
It had been a surprise attack. Azuma had thought his approach was undetected and his guard was down. He raised it hastily at the end, but it was already too late to dodge. He wanted to fight the intruder for real.
He just wasn’t sure how to manage that. He didn’t know what had happened. Something must have for the ship to be tilted this way. It couldn’t have been completely destroyed, but it had to be broken in two.
The energy was still recognizing Hades as its own and only master, but it was a weaker hold than usual. He was off the ship, but he was still alive. Azuma knew he should find him. But he didn’t know where to start.
So he began to hunt about the place. It was in ruins. Lower ranking mages were scattered about, most of them unconscious. They were foot soldiers, chaff whose purpose was to overwhelm with numbers, or do jobs that the elite mages could not be bothered to do. Well not all of them. There were the occasional second string team that had been taken out. They didn’t look like they’d really been in fights, though, so much as simply become collateral to the battle on the ship.
Zancrow would be furious. If he was alive, Azuma added to himself as he winced from his own broken ribs. That blast could have killed most of his guild mates, and he had no doubt that some of those he found here were collateral from that despite that he had taken the majority of the attack. Or well, the Demon Heart’s magical energy had.
Azuma found some of the elite mages of the guild cowering in one room. They filled him in somewhat. Hades had ordered everyone back after Azuma had been taken out. Then he had sent out an emergency message of all hands on deck. But the ship had broken in half before they could reach him and they had decided that if Hades couldn’t handle the enemy they didn’t want to die.
Azuma considered killing them himself. Neither of them would have made a decent battle, but they weren’t truly worth the time it would require from him. They had given him some information, though. A team had attacked the ship. And they had apparently done a good job of it.
It made Azuma wonder if that first invader was only one among many, or if even in this force he had been something special.
He was still wondering when he came upon a blonde haired man, his hair sticking up like a rooster’s comb. His long and pointy nose, his sunglasses, and his somewhat ridiculous racing suit told Azuma who he was. Racer of the Oracion Seis. “So the Balam Alliance no longer holds?” He asked.
Racer was just finishing tying up Meredy. Nearby was another woman, laying crumpled on the ground. Her near white hair, and presence beside Racer made him identify her as Angel.
“Yeah, I guess it doesn’t,” Racer said.
Azuma eyed the spear in his hand. He had thought Racer preferred knives. “I had thought you disbanded after Brain died.”
“We found a new boss,” Racer said. “This one hasn’t tried to kill any of us yet. At least since we joined up.”
“Who was it that first boarded our ship?”
“The boss man,” Sawyer said. They were eyeing each other warily, and the Oracion Seis member held his spear in a defensive posture.
“And where is your boss right now?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Cause if you don’t I’ll beat it out of you.”
“You’ll try,” Racer said, hefting his spear.
The wood of the ship rose up, vines forming to wrap around Racer’s feet, but he was off like a flash. Between his spear’s speed form and his slow magic, Azuma took three blows before he had even realized Racer had moved. He might have been brought down completely if the ship hadn’t suddenly righted itself, tossing about everyone on board. For Azuma it was only pain as he hit the floor, but it had broken Racer’s attack sequence, and his slow magic did not last long.
“Seems the master underestimated you, when he said your whole guild was worthless as anything but a diversion for the Council,” Azuma said as he hopped up from the ground. The wood was wrapping around Racer before the ex-Seis could move. “Still not good enough,” His magic forced the energy from the ship into the wood which had grown, causing it to reach a peak too great for the material to hold.
Or that was the intent. The spear in Racer’s hand had changed, its blade becoming a shining light. “You definitely did,” Racer said as he suddenly burst forward at impossible speeds once more. Azuma felt the spear pierce his flesh and he tightened his muscles. It was a split second act, one which managed to do its job. Racer found the spear stuck in Azuma’s flesh, and the ground rose up in wooden tendrils to wrap around his legs.
“I was hoping for better,” Azuma said as the vines twined higher, the energy in them building. He was directing the demon heart’s power up and into them, more and more and more.
There was a wave of pink, washing over Racer, and forcing Azuma to jump back. The white haired woman had risen to her feet, and beside her was a tanned, pink haired sheep-girl.
“Thank you, Aries,” Angel said. Arthur had lectured her about being nicer to the poor ewe, before letting her make a temporary contract with her again. There was an explosion in the wool, and it collapsed soon after to reveal Racer badly wounded but alive.
Azuma looked at Angel. “Bring out your boss. I have no desire to fight weak women.”
Angel raised a golden sword in front of her and looked at him. “Why does everyone think that about me?”
Azuma gave a half laugh. “Because you’re trembling. Bring me your boss.” He froze. The flow of magical energy from the demon’s heart had stopped.
“Yeah, no. He’s a bit busy right now,” She said. The last message over the Archive link was some scrambled thing about hungering for the blood of the living and getting away before he turned into a dragon and brought Acnologia down on their heads. She wasn’t actually certain what was happening there, but she didn’t think it was a good time to give the emergency call.
“He’s fighting Hades? Where?”
“No, he’s preparing to fight Acnologia,” She said in a facetious tone. She wasn’t certain it wasn’t true, but she wasn’t certain he hadn’t had a total breakdown with that last message.
“I thought Acnologia was a myth.”
Angel shrugged. “I can’t really say, but he’s off preparing for the battle. Flew away and left us here.”
“If I was about to kill you would he…” Suddenly the ship began to toss and turn wildly.
Azuma and Angel both fell side to side, crashing into walls, and hitting floors and ceilings; Azuma more than Angel whose celestial spirit bundled her, Racer, and Meredy in thick, pink, wool cocoons. Azuma wasn’t sure when he dropped the spear, but he knew with the demon’s heart dead the magical energy in the ship wasn’t enough to sustain him through a serious battle.
Not that Angel was likely to be a serious battle. She was weak, relying on surprise, and subterfuge. That also meant she wasn’t likely to give him a chance to fight her head on.
As the ship turned over again, he launched himself, gauging where she would land and kicking to strike her while she and her spirit were distracted by the fall. A beam of energy cut through the cocoon of pink wool and struck him mid flight. Under the cover of the wool she’d summoned a second spirit.
He lunged for the spear, grabbing it and rolling. His gut wound, and the damage from the blast put him at a disadvantage, but he could still control the ship. One hand planted on the wooden wall and it started to morph and grow, woody vines shooting towards Angel’s body, but finding themselves entangled in a wave of Aries’s wool.
The other spirit, a robotic sphere that shot beams of energy, hovered menacingly before him, shooting out a lancing bolt of power. He cut it with the spear, and felt the great speed it seemed to give him.
In a moment he was charging Angel. He wouldn’t kill her. She was too weak for that honor. But the butt of the spear would do the job. Only a burst of light erupted from her golden sword as she swung it. He stopped more than a foot out of her reach, but the light hit him and slammed him against the back of the room. A second struck him a moment after, and then a wave of pink flowed over him and he found himself drifting back into sleep.
Rustyrose had begun returning to the airship the moment he had finished off the pesky celestial spirit. But it was not quick. The airship had been performing evasive maneuvers throughout the entire fight, and the caelum had pulled him further and further from the battle. He hadn’t known celestial spirits could move so quickly.
It had forced him to re-imagine his wyvern, to come up with a version that was even faster than the spirit. He had, of course, succeeded. Such a feat was never in doubt. But it had taken time. And Hades had sent out a telepathic distress beacon even during the fight.
He had rushed back to the ship, but he stopped as he returned. Hades had sent out a magic flare, shooting it over the ship. The Grimoire Heart guild sign formed from the black energy and then it shattered, the dark violet field of energy shooting in every direction.
Rustyrose didn’t believe it. The guild master was calling it quits, when he was still not back. He could turn the tide of it. Even if Bluenote had died. Even if the other six of the seven had failed. His magic was invincible. It was the closest to the One Magic.
He knew the plan. A final contingency. Go to a safe house. Wait and rescue the other members of the Seven Kin. But he couldn’t believe it had come to it. The Seven Kin of Purgatory were undefeatable.
But he knew it was the guild master’s order. You didn’t disobey Master Hades. But to abandon the ship. To abandon the fight. It sat ill with Rustyrose. They were his comrades. Grimoire Heart was where he belonged. It was the only place he had ever really fit in.
And now he was being asked to abandon it. He couldn’t even imagine what it would take to make Master Hades give the order to scatter. He realized it must have been a trick. The attackers had good intelligence; they’d found the airship after all. They had discovered the retreat signal. That was all it was. Well he’d show them how futile their attempt to get him out of the way was.
He flew to the window the flare had come out from, and his mount ripped into the materials. He jumped through the dust and smoke to see three men standing over Hades’s prone form.
Rustyrose half froze. Hades was beaten and battered, and he wasn’t healing. Bloodstained his white beard, his nose broken and bleeding. One eye was swollen shut. And there were signs of damage across his body.
Rustyrose swept his arm, his magic flowing through his right hand, covering it with the claw of a monster. “I am the king of the underworld. This arm cuts through everything with a deep black blade. Disappear to the edge of darkness!" The full incantation wasn’t strictly necessary, the transformation happened well before he completed it, but it suited his grandiose few of himself.
The claw shot forward, really four singular claw tips each on an extending cable with the four cables bundled together. It was his jet black sword, a weapon he had imagined as capable of cutting through all things. Two of the mages jumped back. The third wore black armor and his movements were slower, but even as Rustyroses’s ‘jet black blade’ hit him it didn’t penetrate the armor, but merely forced him to reposition to avoid being knocked over by the force.
Rustyrose was less shocked that it had failed to penetrate, than that the claw head had vanished as the armor ate away at the magical energy which produced it.
“Fly you insubordinate fool!” Hades shouted.
The blonde mage of the trio that had been giving the guild master the savage beatdown was almost on him, flowing through a bolt of electricity. Rustyrose’s left hand rose and he used his magic. The jet black sword was the very embodiment of Rustyrose’s belief in his offensive strength. The golden shield which formed was the embodiment of his concept of an invincible shield.
The blow knocked Rustyrose back, the blond haired man’s fist rocking his body through it. The shield then twisted on his arm, pulling his forearm 180 degrees around. His shield and blade both vanished in the shock from the pain as his arm broke messily.
“Get out of here!” Hades yelled again. He was struggling to his feet.
“Guardian beast, Belcusas the Thunderclap!” He called forth, manifesting his image of the rampaging monster. A two horned, dark maroon skinned ogrish oni with mechanical legs, it appeared before the trio of mages, raising its arms up ready to smash them. Only for the lightning mage to block its blow with one arm, electricity gathering around his fist and then a single blow laying the guardian beast low.
Rustyrose found himself trembling. He was scared. For the first time in his life he was truly scared. “Fear has now been written into my imagination,” He announced, fixing his glasses on his face with his non-broken arm. And he’d see what form it took when his magic embodied it. “Forward! Britia’s Spirits! Eat their souls!”
Dark masses, purple nearing black, formed and launched themselves flowing towards the mages. They were like streams of energy, but there were lighter splotches making the shape of faces.
One of the mage’s, dark haired unarmored one, dismissively cut the air with his hand and the spirits were send reflected back towards Rustyrose. He felt them wash over him, ripping and tearing at him, grasping him and pulling him down. It was his own fear hammering into him.
“Think he’s done for?” the armored man asked.
“Only one way to make sure,” the blond lightning mage stated.
Rustyrose saw the man’s boot over his face, about to smash down onto it and he shouted, calling the very embodiment of his pride into being. “Come forth, tower of Dingir!”
A great tower, with designs that evoked ancient Babylon and the Biblical tower of Babel, appeared within the ship’s hold. It began to pull Rustyrose’s enemies to it, where it would crush them with its power and then explode. It’d do horrible damage to the ship, possibly destroy it. But it would give him the chance he needed. Pegasus wings formed on his heels like the winged boots of Hermes and he dashed forward, grabbing Hades with his uninjured arm before turning and flying back out of the ship.
At the last moment he glanced back. The armored mage was untouched, turning a weapon towards the tower. It didn’t matter much though. The lightning mage had pulled himself from it, pieces of its stonework stuck to his arms and legs as he fell to the ground. And the tower itself was breaking apart.
“You should have obeyed orders,” Hades said angrily a moment before Rustyrose’s wings twisted. MacBeth had realized that Rustyrose’s manifestations weren’t truly alive and thus were vulnerable to his Reflector magic. The wings forced Rustyrose’s legs painfully wide before snapping off of him. And then an electrified fist sent him and Hades plummeting into the sea, Laxus following after. A final surge of lightning magic from Fairy Tail’s wayward son was enough to shock them both into unconsciousness.
“Arthur should have been back by now,” Erik said as he lay in the bunk of the Magic Council battleship.
“You keep saying that,” Sorano complained. She’d managed to replace Arthur’s nikora at the helm of the airship and fly it to rendezvous with the council’s battleships which were waiting to take Grimoire Heart into custody. But no one had seen Arthur since he’d fled the ship with that unsettling message over the Archive link. A link which had broken when Arthur got too far from the physical manifestation and it shut down.
Minerva had explained the reason behind the random howling declaration of murderous intent. But no one could say why he wasn’t back yet. They’d expected him to at least make some attempt to contact them during the night. The fact that he wasn’t back yet was unsettling.
Lahar, the captain of the 4th custody and enforcement unit, walked towards the bunks which had been given over to the Thunderbolts. With Arthur gone he was currently acting as their handler for the council. At least until he could get further orders from Gran Doma. His boots clicked against the wood as he approached, his stride not particularly heavy but still loud enough to be heard over the waves outside.
“I have been speaking to Gran Doma. He had a question for you. Why did you bring the airship back?” The dark haired man spoke in a curt, but formal tone, an air of military discipline about him.
“Because that was the whole plan,” MacBeth said. “So your unit could take the credit.”
“But you could have taken the airship and left. With its resources, even with the demon heart destroyed, you could have fled the council with ease and returned to your former life, or gone to Alvarez and escaped extradition.” Lahar wondered at that moment if it just hadn’t occurred to them.
“I promised my brother I would turn over a new leaf,” Richard said. “I intend to be able to meet him again as a free man who is not hunted for the crimes of his past.”
“I can’t face my sister as a criminal,” Sorano added.
“Besides I doubt the little princess would have allowed us to do that,” Erik noted. “And she was having far too rough of a day to abduct her.”
“I’m tired of running from things my entire life,” Sawyer said. “I’d rather run to somewhere for a change.”
“Do I even need to say something?” MacBeth asked. “Sawyer hit the nail on the head. A life hemmed in by hiding from the law isn’t much of a free life. I’d rather have you guys off my back so I could live as I please.”
Lahar looked at Jellal, and Minerva. “And you two?”
“Leave the kid out of it,” Erik said. “Do you even know what she went through on that ship?”
“You told me in detail,” Lahar said. “But I still want to know her reason.”
“She’s not even a fugitive, why would she take the ship and run?” Erik protested.
“You claim she’s your reason for not,” Lahar commented on Erik’s glib answer. “I need to hear hers in that case.”
Erik growled softly. But Minerva didn’t seem to mind answering. “Because it’s where my teacher would expect me to be. It was the plan. What else would I have done?”
Lahar shrugged and glared at Jellal. “And you?”
“I hoped it would make my sins a little lighter,” Jellal said.
“I’ll give Gran Doma your answers. Still hearing them I am fairly certain that he will be willing to give his stamp of approval to the Thunderbolts Program, and this experiment will be allowed to play out to completion.” There was mumbling about the ingratitude; of how they did all this and their only reward is ‘yes we will eventually free you if you keep doing things like this’.
“He also said to have me tell Sorano that reports indicate her younger sister has been found, and if she verifies it the council could arrange a chance for them to meet.”
The grumbling stopped, as tears started to form in Sorano’s eyes.
“The Magic Council has been asking a lot of questions about how you left the guild,” Makarov, guild master of Fairy Tail said to Laxus. He had been taking the S-Class mage candidates to Tenrou Island for the trial to determine which mage would be promoted to S-Class and fully entrusted to take even the most dangerous missions, when he had seen the boats.
Arthur had delivered a written warning to the guild about how there was something big that was happening and to not go to Tenrou Island today without hearing more from him. Makarov hadn’t been certain of what to make of that, even with the additional information Laxus had provided.
“Them looking to arrest me too?” Laxus asked. He was calm, reclining on the deck of the ship. A book by his hand.
“No. I think they want to offer you a job,” Makarov said. “But from what I hear you already turned them down.”
“I said I’d consider it. But I have a team, and I have a guild. I don’t need another,” Laxus said.
Makarov nodded. Even if he was no longer allowed to wear the guildmark, his grandson’s heart belonged to Fairy Tail. “But they might need you there.”
“I don’t care about what the council needs.”
“I didn’t mean the council.”
“I don’t care about what the Thunderbolts need. I’d have stayed out of it all if I hadn’t recognized Precht. I couldn’t let him continue to drag Fairy Tail’s honor through the muck. He was a master of Fairy Tail. He shouldn’t have been slumming it as the head of Grimoire Heart.”
“I didn’t mean the Thunderbolts either,” Makarov said. “Fairy Tail and the council have a rocky relationship at the best of times. We could use somebody friendly in command of their new weapon.”
“So what are you asking me to do, gramps?” Laxus asked.
“Whatever is necessary to protect the guild.”
“Does this mean I’m reinstated?”
“No. You’ve not earned that yet. Besides, there’s no way they’d let a Fairy Tail member command that group.”
Laxus scowled. “I’ll think about it. It’s all moot if their commander comes back anyway.”
“He’s leaving in less than 2 weeks,” Makarov said. “Besides, from what I hear his last message was that he thought Acnologia was going to come for him.”
“So he freaked out a bit at the end. Eating a mass of murder ghosts isn’t the worst reason for that.”
“If he just freaked out it looks very poor on him for leading this group. But I wonder if he might have been telling the truth.”