Lucy's plan had worked to perfection, Alistair was in the bank waiting within the ever enlarging queue and their target had just entered the building. A loud bang echoed throughout the lobby of the bank as the target fired a shotgun shell into the air, peppering the ceiling with pellet holes. Everyone in the bank ducked down and began to scream in fright.
The Joker made his way over to the counter, laughing manically like a drunkard as he leaned over the counter to look one of the cashiers straight in the eye. "What's the matter? You look scared." He asked calmly, tilting his head slightly. "Is it the scars? You wanna know how I got 'em?" The green haired man asked whilst pointing to the somewhat obvious scars on his cheeks.
"Not particularly," Before Joker could react he was swatted across the face with a right hook from Alistair. The clown landed awkwardly on the deck, but recovered quickly to fire at the red head. The blast merely impacted into a shield of green light causing the lead pellets to fall harmlessly to the ground. It gave the Joker a chance to get to his feet and pull a knife that he attempted to impale Alistair with as he made a slashing lunge towards the Fairy Tail mage.
Alistair moved back in a defensive stance to avoid the incoming slashes. He caught the Joker's arm on an upward slash with the clown's arm now high in the air before landing a palm strike into the rogue mage's jaw followed up by an elbow strike to the neck and knee to the groin.
The knee strike caused the Joker to double over in pain, laughing as a result, before the back of his knees were kicked in leaving him open to be put into a reverse arm bar.
At the same moment, Lucy had taken out the Joker's goons with a combination of the use of her Fleuve d'étoiles along with Virgo. As a result she was now helping to get as many civilians out of the building as possible whilst Alistair had the upper hand.
Just as Alistair was about to dislocate the Joker's shoulder he was affected by a cascade of thoughts. His eyes widened, his head was in agony as what turned out to be memories flooded into his vision, he grabbed his own head by both hands, releasing Joker from the reverse arm bar, who used that as his queue to free himself from under Alistair.
The Fairy Tail mage dropped to the floor, huffing and panting hard as image after image flooded in, causing him to become visibly distressed by whatever it was he was seeing.
"You know, you should really have looked up my magic with a bit more… detail." The Joker began to circle Alistair, taunting him as he spoke. "You see, my magic – fear magic, by the way – causes people to, implode in on themselves, figuratively speaking of course. Which you already knew, judging by Blondie over there, not feeling a thing." He said pointing over to Lucy who was now on her guard, fleuve d'etoiles armed and ready. "But, clearly, you didn't take into account the fact that, coming into physical contact with me, is a very, very, bad, idea."
Sending Virgo back to the Spirit World, Lucy swapped to her Taurus Star Dress. The blonde mage cracked her whip into the floor, sending a shockwave towards Joker who haphazardly leapt out of the way. Lucy followed up with another, much larger Earth Wave that not only struck the Joker, but shattered the windows looking out onto the street behind.
Just as The Joker was standing up, Lucy, who had come in close let an undercut straight into the villain's solar plexus whilst shouting; "Lucy… PUNCH!"
The impact sent the green haired mage careering into a wall, leaving quite the crater from the force. The Joker fell face first to the floor, gasping profoundly trying to take in as much air as possible having been fully winded by the Celestial Spirit mage.
Simultaneously Joker and Alistair stood up slowly, Joker laughing and cringing in pain at the same time unnerving Lucy who stole her resolve ready to strike another blow to her opponent if needs be. As it happened, she needn't have worried as Alistair launched into the Joker in a blind rage, landing strike after strike after strike into the criminal. He dropped a two handed fist into the clown mage's back, creating a slight crater in the floor, after which he hauled the Joker up before upper-cutting him in the jaw causing him to hit the ceiling. Gravity took its hold as it pulled the Joker back to the ground.
Alistair morphed his arm into the heavily armoured Radiant Wave Surger, firing its slash harken type arm forward to grab the Joker midair, sending him through the window that Lucy had previously shattered, slamming into a concrete wall on the opposite side of the street. The redheaded mage fired two more slash harkens at the battered criminal, pinning him to the wall further. He retracted the surger back, morphing it back to his normal arm. Jumping into the air, retracting the other two slash harkens, Alistair flew feet first towards the dazed Joker, landing a heavy two footed impact into his chest. The slash harkens came adrift from the wall dispersing in the process as Alistair pushed off of the Joker, back-flipping into the middle of the road opposite.
His right arm morphed into a Hadron Cannon, poised to fire at the insane clown opposite him. Just as he was about to fire Lucy stepped in front of Alistair's outstretched arm, her own arms outstretched with a look of fierce determination on her face.
It was at that moment Lucy got a clear view of Alistair's face, specifically his eyes. They were puffy and bloodshot, caused by tears that had been streaming down her guildmate's face the whole time he'd been ripping into their capture target. The look in his eyes had switched from one of murderous intent and hatred to one of utter fear and deep sorrow, further emphasised by how his body was beginning to shake uncontrollably.
"Alistair, stop! If you fire that spell, you could kill him!"
Fresh tears began to fall from Alistair's eyes, his bottom lip was quivering uncontrollably, and he even had to hold his right arm still for it was shaking so much. He was now scowling at Lucy but his eyes couldn't hide that he was still deeply upset by something. Magic poured into the arm cannon in an effort to force Lucy out of Alistair's way. Lucy however, remained steadfast and unflinching as she refused to move out of her teammate's line of fire.
In the end Alistair couldn't bare it anymore, letting out a distressed yell, scrunching his eyes shut and head turning away slightly, for a split second Lucy honestly believed that Alistair was going to fire his hadron cannon at her. Fortunately it was not the case as Alistair swung his arm down toward the ground to his right letting loose all the pent up power and emotions into the earth next to the Fairy Tail pair.
The charged particle beam tore the ground up, almost like a land shark until it impacted the canal at the end of the street, exploding in a fountain of water and spray.
Alistair's arm morphed back to normal. He could no longer take it anymore; he pulled Lucy into a tight embrace, crying hysterically into her shoulder. For a moment Lucy was completely taken aback by the sudden outpouring of emotions that she simply stood there for a brief second not knowing what to do. As the situation dawned on her, the blonde girl wrapped her arms tightly around Alistair, pulling him closer to her. The pair stood in the middle of the totally trashed street, not saying anything as he cried out as much of the pain he must've been hiding away and she remained quiet, silently encouraging him to let it all out.
By the time the Rune Knights had arrived to take the man only known as The Joker away, Alistair had since ceased his emotional torrent, deciding it would be best for him to sit out the explanation to the authorities of what had happened, seeing as how most of the damage was his fault. He was sat on the kerbside, opposite the concrete wall where he'd slammed the Joker into earlier. His fingers were interlocked in front of his face obscuring the lower half.
Despite having half of his face covered, Lucy could still see the mixture of guilt and torment in Alistair's eyes. The cross between wrecking an entire city street and whatever the hell Joker's fear magic had made him see was weighing heavy on her guildmate's heart. She'd only made physical contact with the Joker once and she was beginning to feel bummed out over what had happened between herself and her father not long after her mother's passing, she couldn't begin to imagine what sort of torment Alistair had relived from his past.
"Hey, if you want to talk about it, I'm here Alistair."
"I'm sorry, Lucy, really I am."
That was the last time either one spoke to the other for the rest of the day as they made the short trip back to Magnolia. News had already spread to the guild about what had happened to the bank and street, no thanks in part due to Warren's communication lachryma, as Makarov was already weeping at the damages cost he was expecting to have to pay out. Erza was fuming however, and let her rage known as the pair walked through the door, causing Lucy to recoil in horror as the mage known as Titania bore down on them both with a wicked red aura surrounding her.
Alistair didn't so much as blink, he was far too downtrodden to even consider becoming fearful of Erza's impending punishment that she had in store. Just as Erza was about to hit full flow in her tirade, Alistair merely turned away, placed a hand on Lucy's shoulder, muttering before he left the guildhall.
"I'll see you later Luce…"
Erza was about ready to throttle Alistair for ignoring her and being so rude as to turn around and walk away from her. Lucy intervened however, holding the scarlet haired mage back as she tried to explain their nakama's behaviour.
"Erza, stop! You don't know what fully happened!"
The rest of the members in the hall simply watched as Alistair walked out of view of them, startled by how miserable the usually stoic mage had seemed.
It would be the last any of them saw him for a week…