Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does.
Prologue: Humble Awakening
Brown eyes shifted over the battered landscape. Trees had been splintered from some blunt force impact, with some even uprooted completely. Fires danced, burning what did not turn get instantaneously incinerated. Craters and grooves littered the forest floor, serving to clear out what looked like a harsh battlefield in what had once been a beautiful part of the forest.
A frown adorned the face of the man who had inspected the devastation, displeased with the damage to the innocent woodland, but seemingly not surprised. Brushing a lock of blue hair out of his eyes, he turned his attention to the pink haired young lady that was accompanying him. "Are you sure this is the last place you could detect them staying it?" the man, who was very clearly the infamous Jellal Fernandes, inquired.
Sighing at the devastated environment, the mage known as Meredy replied "The very last place. I could sense... something from Cobra and the others before the link dissipated completely."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Jellal inhaled sharply, trying to maintain his calm disposition. "I thought I could trust them. I approached them believing they'd help us take down Zeref. And what happens? The first mission I leave for them to do without us looking over their shoulders and they do this. I'm sure they had Midnight use Reflector to distort the magic itself until they were released from it. We have to go find th-"
Before Jellal could finish speaking, Meredy had placed a delicate hand on his shoulder, drawing his attention to her. The young woman's expression showed uncertainty and a bit of concern. "Jellal... before the link broke, I could sense something from them. It was only for a split second, but I could sense... fear. Whatever happened here... I don't think it was Oracion Seis' fault."
Hearing this tidbit of information, Jellal looked back to the marred landscape. Approaching one of the downed trees, he narrowed his eyes. Crouching down, he reached out and grazed a finger over. "If that's true... then whatever happened here might have been them acting in their own defense... but who could attack a Dark Guild as strong as Oracion Seis? Why would they want to? And... why is there nobody here?"
Before Meredy could chip in on Jellal's line of questioning, there was a sound coming from behind them, a rustling of bushes just at the edge of the battlefield. The mage duo quickly turned to face the source of sound, with Jellal holding a hand out and snapping his fingers, producing a flame that hovered just above the palm of his hand in an attempt to illuminate the darkness of night.
"Whoever's there needs to come out now, I won't harm you" Jellal commanded to the unseen source of the sound. There was no answer other than further movement from the bushes. Eyeing the shrub, Jellal slowly moved forward, with Meredy staying in position, her arms held out, ready to produce some form of defense in case they were attacked. "This is your last cha-" Jellal began, pausing once he sensed it. A slight trace of magica, one that was familiar to him. Dismissing the ball of fire, he quickly grabbed at the vegetation and tore away at it, revealing a familiar, and unforgettable, face.
Hoteye. The man's distinctly angular face was bruised and bloody, with scratches crossing over one of his cheeks and blood trailing down the angles of his face from his hairline. The man's eyes fluttered as Jellal began pulling him out of the bush. "J-Jellal." Hoteye weakly muttered, reaching a hand out for him.
Taking his hand, Jellal's jaw clenched in anger at seeing the kindhearted mage in such a state. "You're okay now Hoteye, Meredy and I are here for you. We're going to fix you up." he assured the tall man.
Giving a weak smile, the battered member of Oracion Seis quickly lost it as his eyes shifted back and forth. "Wh-wh-where a-are- Kagh!" the man started speaking, only to cough up a generous amount of blood.
Patting his hand, Jellal replied "We don't know where the rest of your guild is... did... did they do this to you? I can't believe tha-"
"No!" Hoteye shouted, an act that seemed to pain him as he winced and grunted in pain immediately after.
"Don't move, you have a broken rib and it seems to be pressing into your lungs. We need to get you fixed up first." Jellal assessed, releasing Hoteye's hand so he could place his own over his chest. He didn't have healing magic like Wendy did, but he would be able to at least be able to perform some first aid actions.
Just as a light glow gathered around his finger tips, Hoteye pushed away Jellal's hand, shaking his head. "N-no. Not O-Oracion Seise. Wh-where is... th-the monsters?"
"Monsters?" Jellal repeated, his face contorting in confusion.
Before he could press Hoteye for any more information, Jellal heard Meredy screaming behind him. He turned around just in time to see the pink haired mage flying right at him, colliding with her partner and causing the two to tumble over Hoteye's beaten body. Prepared to switch into combat mode in an instant, Jellal wrapped his arms around Meredy and rolled along the ground with her, letting go when she was against the ground and immediately jumped to his feet in preparation.
The lack of light kept him from getting a good look at whoever assaulted Meredy, but he could tell it was a tall, imposing man whose physique implied he was a mountain of muscle. Unsure at how he had let such a large man sneak up on him, Jellal didn't dwell on it, knowing only that this man was his enemy. Shouting "Meteor!", he lunged for the opposing man, a golden aura cloaking his body, enhancing his speed and amplifying his physical abilities... yet he only ended up falling forward.
As the effects of Meteor fizzled out surprisingly fast, Jellal looked back to find that some sort of tendril had wrapped around his leg, keeping him anchor in place. It seemed to originate from some point so deep into the forest that he could not see it. He had no time to question it any further though, as he sensed the man towering over him moving. Rolling to the side despite the tendril's hindrance, the leader of Crime Sorciere was able to narrowly avoid the man's thick arm as it smashed into the spot he had previously been, the mere shockwaves of the collision forcing him further away, pulling him out of the tendril's hold.
Meredy, clutching her arm and grimacing through the pain of the sneak attack, was not out of it yet. Having forced herself back to her feet, she swung one of her arms forward, shouting "Maguilty Sodom!" No less than twenty magical blades formed in the air before her, each one pointed to the titanic man who struck her. The blades shot forward, honing in on the unknown enemy... only to meet a wall of pressurized water that suddenly erupted forth from the ground, disrupting them.
Shocked by the liquid defense, Meredy was taken by further surprise by a pair of strong, oddly textured arms that wrapped around her curvy frame from behind. There was a sound similar to a person gargling water before she heard "I gggggot the ggggggirl! You ggggggguys ggggggget the gggggguy!"
Seeing Meredy taken captive, Jellal's rage broke through his calm demeanor for a moment, his brow furrowed while his lips pulled back in a snarl. Whoever these people were, they had messed with the wrong mage, and he was going to teach them a lesson one by one. Focusing on the initial assailant first, he forced himself off the ground after coming to a stop from his tumbling and thrust his arms forward, one over the other, with the fingers of the bottom hand spread out while the top hand only had the index and middle fingers spread out, the telltale sign of Grand Chariot.
Feeling the magic gathering over his head, creating a destructive force that would match that of a meteor shower, Jellal found his focus broken as another entity intruded upon his battle. He hardly had time to register what was going on as something with fangs, fur, and claws rushed out of the forest with tremendous speed, leaping into the air with surprising grace, and collided with Jellal, disrupting his spell.
As the two fell to the ground, the creature was already continuing its assault on Jellal, scratching at his body and trying to bite him. When they hit the ground, the beast had maneuvered itself so that Jellal would take the brunt of the fall, taking more air out of his lungs than the initial collision with the creature had done. This gave it all the time it needed to pin him beneath its bestial body and start snapping at his head, something he was barely able to avoid, lest he lose his head.
Sensing that the massive man was approaching by the heavy footsteps that seemed to cause tremors, as well as the abundance of other tendrils now snaking their way out of the forest towards the pinned mage, Jellal found himself wondering if how he, a former member of the Ten Wizard Saints, had been so quickly taken down in minutes.
Just as the creature holding him down had angled its head so that Jellal wouldn't be able to escape its ferocious maw, lunging in to end his life, something rang out in the cool night air. The blue haired mage recognized it as a simple finger snap, but it seemed to hold some power over his enemies, as they had all gone still, from the creature ready to take a bite out of him to the mass of tendrils that had been worming their way over to them.
"I believe I said... that I wanted them alive." someone outside of Jellal's view stated, their voice holding an unnatural tone that made his blood run cold for a second. Whoever they were, their words seemed to be a command to the beast atop of Jellal, as it gave a low growl, but eventually got off of him.
Wasting no time, Jellal pushed off the ground, performing a back flip to land on his feet, ready to strike whoever came to attack him now. But before his feet could touch the ground, he felt cold fingers wrapping around his throat, clutching it so that he could breathe and speak, but not without some discomfort. Besides the oddly cool touch that made his skin crawl, Jellal was astounded by whoever had moved in so quickly that he had not even sensed their presence.
"Do try to calm down, lest I be forced to interrogate the woman instead." the owner of the hand at his throat, clearly the same man who had spoken before, commanded in a cold, yet oddly charming tone. Looking at his new enemy, Jellal found he could not determine any of the man's features either. Not just because of the lack of light, but because it seemed the shadows themselves were wrapped around his assailant, hiding all of his features. What Jellal could determine was that he was a tall, but not astoundingly so, and slender man who had crimson eyes that seemed to pierce through the veil of darkness enshrouding him.
What mattered more was the fact the man had just insinuated that he was going to torture Meredy for information, which was making Jellal angry again. Yet despite his rising fury, he at the same time felt himself... unable to lash out at the man. Not only because of the cold hand applying pressure to his windpipe, but by a strangely soothing effect the man's red eyes seemed to have on him. It was as if they were silencing everything out, wiping away the frustration and rage that had become of Jellal, making the world around him dark to all but those crimson orbs.
In a weak struggle to maintain control over himself and fight this man, even as his body seemed to go limp, Jellal growled out "What do you want from us?"
The man's response seemed to involve him pushing something into the tender flesh of Jellal's neck, drawing out a silent groan of pain from the mage as drops of blood started to form from the puncture wounds. "I only want what is mine, good boy. So I'll make this simple and quick." the mysterious assailant stated, pulling Jellal closer, bringing him so that Jellal could easily attack the man, if only he could find the strength or will to lift his arms. From there, the man whispered to Jellal, but despite the softness of his voice, it seemed to drive deep into his mind, as if a dagger piercing his skull.
"Where is my bride?"
AN: Short first chapter, but that's what a prologue is after all. Also lacking in detail, I know, but I sort of wrote this one with the vision of how most anime movies tend to start off, with a cryptic sort of beginning hinting at the events of the movie yet to be seen, then that title screen shot, which I did cause I sorta envisioned this with the same aspects an anime movie would have, something I imagine will become a bit more obvious as I release more chapters. So I hope people enjoy this story and let me know in a review... or give me criticism of the constructive nature so I can make it better. Bye!