Four hundred years ago, a single god got a stick up their ass about dragons.
Today, dragons are extinct with the sole exception of Acnologia who slept in the blasted wastes of the country he’d reduced to ash to kill that god.
Fiore and the Alvarez Empire going to war would mean Warrod and Zeref going to war, and Draculos and Wolfheim being dragged into it by virtue of their countries being between Fiore and the Alvarez Empire.
One god fighting dragons ruined a fifth of the continent. Four gods fighting each other…well apocalypse is likely a tame descriptor.
As far as anyone knew, none of the gods wanted an apocalypse, so they stayed out of each other’s way. After we got over our shock at seeing the Demons blatantly (well covertly, considering it took Cana and I to get here, but still) trying to break this status quo, we remembered that fact and calmed down. No one but mad men wanted a Gods War, and the gods didn’t listen to mad men.
“Still,” Cana said “we should figure out why they’re doing this. Any doomsday cult is bad news.”
“Yeah, fair point. Do we want to take them alive?”
Cana looked at me incredulously “I meant see if we can figure out anything from their notes or something. We don’t stand a chance at taking them alive, not to mention there’s nothing within a month’s journey that could keep them restrained.”
“…that’s unexpectedly violent of you.”
She snorted “It’s practical, every Demon is a personal creation of Zeref’s – they’re all incredibly powerful.”
That part I knew, but the way we we’ve been treating the Catacombs, I thought the warnings about how powerful they are were meant for most people, not mages of our caliber.
“Well ok then, what’s the plan of attack?” straight up combat was Cana’s area of expertise. Not mine after all.
“I’ll take the big one since I’m stronger, you take the moss one since you like to think.”
I nodded. Solid reasoning, I haven’t really developed an instinct for combat so the opponent more likely to give me time to think is probably the better match up for me.
“We don’t want to gang up on one and finish it off quickly?”
Cana hesitated for a moment. “No. This way is riskier, but it’s worth it for the chance to get both at once.”
We crept back to the cavern. The moss one was still sitting at one of the work benches while the big one had sat down.
Cana looked at me questioningly. I took a deep breath, nodded, and signaled my own readiness.
We attacked as one, launching a massive lance of water and a high-powered flame card.
My own attack swallowed and removed the moss demon’s head, and I was about to relax until I noticed that the purple one had simply deleted Cana’s card as soon as it touched him.
Cana reacted instantly, jumping at the demon as she sent another wave of cards at him. I didn’t react until I saw the moss one’s head grow back.
‘Shit, it’s made of moss!’
I submerged it in an orb of water filled with shredding currents. The demon didn’t react, simply letting the water tear it to shreds. I kept the sphere going, trying to deny any chance of it regenerating.
“Look out!”
Cana’s cry had me dropping to the ground, letting the sphere dissipate to avoid a massive purple fist popping my head. The follow up kick was aborted by Cana tackling the demon out of the way. I fired a death ball to help, but the demon dissipated it with the same ease it did Cana’s cards.
In the instant it took me to register that fact I was buried under a wave of moss, which began growing into me.
I responded by turning myself into a whirlwind of water, shredding my way out of the moss to see the moss demon was fully regrown.
I conjured a tidal wave against the demon to give me moment to think.
‘Moss demon is made of moss and can regenerate. Worst case scenario, physical attacks don’t affect it, and every patch of moss needs to be destroyed to kill him.’ I let a rock thrown by the big one pass through me. ‘Which means I can’t do anything to it’
Moss was recovering swiftly, but it took me only a moment to take in Cana’s battered form to reach a conclusion.
“Cana, switch!” I shouted as I picked up a piece of debris with a strand of water and hurled it at the purple demon.
Cana took the opportunity to jump away and give me a questioning look.
“Burn it!” I got out before I had to hurl myself away from Purple’s fist. From then, I could focus on nothing but avoiding Purple’s attacks.
The way he had dispelled Cana’s cards and any water I conjured, he probably had some sort of dispelling or magic draining ability, and I did not want that anywhere near my water form, so I had to stay human.
Purple was undeniably a better fighter than me, stronger, faster, and with better instincts than me. The only things keeping me alive were the Rejection Field on my dress and a network of tendrils around my torso that I was using to hurl myself across the cavern like a demented bouncy ball.
‘I need time to think’ I thought frantically as Purple’s fist cratered the stone next to my head.
My desperation increased as I felt my second lattice running low.
‘Need a distraction’ I looked around for anything I could use. The search cost me in the form of a glancing blow to my side that I’m sure must have cracked a rib.
It also sent me spinning over the top of the cages lining the bottom of the cavern.
My eyes widened ‘The monsters!’.
The next time I jumped, I conjured a tidal wave filled with shredding currents at the cages. The monsters died in droves. At first, nothing changed. Then their bodies started boiling away.
A putrid stink filled the cavern as brownish fog billowed out from the corpses. I threw myself one more time before the multihued glow of the remnant Lacrima crystals filled the fog and fully hid me from Purple.
Now it was time to think. I didn’t have long – the fog dissipates quickly, and the enclosed cavern would only slow it down a little bit.
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What do I have that would work against him? If I had a natural source of water it would already be dead, but there isn’t any here.
The only thing that has affected it so far has been throwing rocks.
…
That’s the oldest trick in human history, one that we have refined into something truly impressive.
I grinned.
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The fog cleared and revealed me with a watery cannon barrel surrounding my arm and pointed directly at Purple.
It scarcely had a moment to react before the crack of sonic boom filled the cavern and a sharpened piece of rock tore through its arm.
It jumped at me, leaving an arc of blood behind it, but this time I could hold it back. I had used my spare time well, and I sent a volley of pseudo-bullets at it, completely halting its momentum and tearing holes through it.
I frowned; my aim wasn’t as good as it should be.
‘Ah, yes, rifling’
I didn’t exactly have enough time to mold rifling on the inside of the barrel, but I could spin it really fast with ease.
A high-pitched whine filled the cavern.
Purple attempted to get up, looking almost heroic as he did it.
A final boom filled the chamber, followed by the wet splattering of Purple’s brains hitting the floor.
‘Goddamn it feels good to play the villain.’
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“You ok?” Cana’s voice snapped me out of my contemplation of Purple’s remains.
“Yeah, I think” I said. My ribs were sore where I was hit, but I wasn’t having trouble breathing so it probably just felt a lot worse in the moment. I looked over at her. She seemed a bit battered, but she was walking normally. “You?”
“Purple guy bruised me a little, but fine.”
“Good, good” I thought for a second “Where did you go for that last bit of the battle?”
“Into one of the tunnels – it’s a lot easier to burn all of something when the remains don’t have anywhere to go.”
I blinked. Brutal, but then again, I literally just exploded Purple’s head so I’m not exactly one to talk.
“How did you do the gun thing?”
“Carved a piece of rock, made a barrel, and then hyper pressurized the water at the bottom of the barrel. Releasing the pressure causes the rock to fly out. Pretty simple, but I must say that I must be some kind of genius to come up with it in the middle of battle.” I said, doing my best to affect a superiority complex.
Cana gave me an exasperated glare, which meant I must have done a great job of it.
We collected all of the research notes and gave them a cursory look over. Most of the terminology went straight over my head (which really grated at my pride as a smart person), but we were able to figure out that it centered on the ‘Great Heart’ and that the Great Heart was the glowing heart crystal thing.
I looked from the notes to the heart to the lab equipment to my Pouches of Holding. Then made like a D&D character and swiped all of it.
The notes and lab equipment were easy – I had plenty of space in my Pouches for them. The heart was slightly more difficult what with being slightly larger than me, but only slightly. I offloaded all my supplies onto Cana since I only carried them in case we got separated which freed up enough space in one of my Pouches to hold the Heart. The increased power drain from that pouch was well worth it in my opinion.
A few more minutes of exploration netted us nothing of use, so we left. Granted I was a bit disappointed that we couldn’t take the cages, but even my fairly basic knowledge of enchantment let me figure out that the enchantments on the cages were the magical equivalent of dumping a pile of rocks over something to serve as a cage – effective, but inefficient and unsophisticated.
Traveling back to the surface was even less eventful than the journey down. We’d killed every monster on our way to the demons and the tunnels hadn’t repopulated yet. Possibly due to the absence of the Heart. I patted the Pouch holding the Heart at my side, making sure it hadn’t gone anywhere. Figuring out the source of Catacomb monsters would be a massive breakthrough, and I wanted to be involved in it. Not to mention the incredible discovery of an object capable of performing magics as complex as Life Make.
Our entrance into the Catacombs was marked by a steadily dripping patch of ceiling where the water I had frozen to keep the debris in place was steadily melting. Our entrance couldn’t be far from the main entrance, and another few minutes of exploration proved that deduction correct.
I stared up through the hole at the stalactite guild hall. My pseudo-gun trick had given me great idea to get out of the Southern Wolves complex with minimal conflict. Not minimal attention, but they were already aware of us so that point was moot.
I conjured an approximately human sized cannon barrel pointing straight up.
Cana got in. She seemed nervous, but that was half the fun.
“On three” I said.
Cana nodded.
“Three!” I fired Cana straight at the ceiling, the proceed to do the same to myself.
Flying through the air like that was an exhilarating, but unfortunately short-lived experience. I caught myself by digging a few tendrils into the cavern walls and found Cana had done the same by simply digging her fingers in.
She was also glaring at me, and I gave a cheeky grin in response.
“Someday, when you’re least expecting it, I’m going to use another one of these on you” she said, waving around a pink card.
My grin became a lot more forced at that. I supposed I did kind of deserve it. Then again, if Cana is the only one around when she uses it, it might not be such a bad thing.
I had to cut that thought of short as I saw the Southern Wolves moving to action on the walls.
Cana and I did our best spider impressions and scurried along the ceiling until we reached the middle of the city and let ourselves drop.
From there we began a game of cat and mouse with the Wolves – well Gajeel really, since his enhanced senses was the only thing the guild had capable of tracking us.
Fortunately for us, Gajeel’s sense of smell apparently wasn’t good enough to get around the fact that I was washing our sent away even as we ran.
We ended up at another abandoned house when we finally decided that it was safe to bunker down. The house had been gutted, but that just meant that there was plenty of space for Cana to set up the furniture she carried in her cards.
It occurred to me that I could hollow out a cavern in which to hide, but I also didn’t have any real knowledge of civil engineering and I didn’t want the thing collapsing on us while we slept. Not to mention the process would be rather loud and obvious.
Finished setting up, we proceeded to try our best to entertain ourselves for a few days while we waited for the Wolves to calm down, and for the healer to get his break.
If the break lasted a day longer than planned so that we could explore our new relationship status, then that was all to the good.
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Getting to the healer was an unexpectedly lengthy process. Not because the Wolves tightened their defenses or were extra vigilant or anything – they were, but they were sorely under equipped to handle living water – but because everyone had been sent home.
With no attacks there was no reason to keep the guild constantly at the ready and no reason for the healer not to go home.
The search was further complicated by the fact that the town became far livelier with the return of the Wolves’ patronage.
All this made for a frustrating day where I had been expecting a quick trip and treatment, though fortunately there weren’t that many healers in town. A bunch of discrete questioning by Cana did eventually get us the location of the building where the healer practiced. I was better than Cana at the subtler social arts like information gathering (better does not mean good mind you), but my blue hair, blue eyes, and blue dress made for a rather memorable combination.
The healer – Zack as we found out – was far more pleasant company when he wasn’t falling asleep on his feet. Shocker I know.
“Damn” he hissed as he examined the hole in my chest, “How the hell did you survive?”
“You did notice that – “I winced as his hand brushed against something “That I can turn into water and survive right?”
He couldn’t look away from his task, but his annoyance was still palpable.
“You know what I mean.”
I couldn’t shrug at the moment, but I tried my best to convey it anyway. “Hell if I know. Maybe the electric shock kept – OW! Watch it! – kept my brain working long enough for me to turn to water.”
“You’re missing your right ventricle and atrium.”
“I’d shrug if I could.”
Cana, meanwhile, was watching this process with a sort of horrified fascination. We were currently in Zack’s back room, where he’d taken us so we wouldn’t be disturbed while he treated me. It looked something like a high school chemistry lab, but with the benches lined with biopunk style equipment and glowing liquids. The benches all ringed an operating table, on which I currently lay with Zack’s hands fondling my chest – the inside of it.
One hand was magically manipulating a bunch of string that he was slowly manipulating into a framework for my flesh to grow over, as well as to manually pump my heart and perform various organ functions. His other hand fetched various potions and salves that he used to either encourage growth or for disinfection or even to coat the strings.
“Now, this is the final part before I can fully knock you out” Zack said. He passed a long spool of string through a strange burnt orange solution.
“What’s that?”
“A fairly simple compound for once. A simple solution of sugar and Muscacare saliva in water. It’ll encourage your body to regrow along the path of the string.”
“Fascinating.”
“Yes, I know. I do believe, however that you would much rather go to sleep than listen to a lecture on the solution’s properties.”
Tough call. Getting a break from keeping up an extremely precise partial shift while in pain from a guy digging through my abdominal cavity won out though.
“Go for it.”
He nodded, and a few agonizing minutes later he was done.
“Now what?”
“Now” he said as he dripped a few drops of a different concoction directly into my esophagus, “You sleep.”
I blacked out.