Butterfly Part One
"What the hell happened?" Gajeel jumped up and rushed forward.
Laxus was already alert; he could smell something strange in the air.
Jet was stood in the middle of the guildhall gasping for breath with an unconscious Levy in his arms. "There's a creature, a monster…" There was blood running down his face from a gash on his temple and his eyes were wild.
"Levy!" Gajeel pulled at her. "What's wrong with her?"
"She was knocked out and I…" Jet took in a breath so he could talk. "I think she's OK, but…"
"Take your time," Makarov said.
Levy's eyes flickered and she moaned softly.
"There isn't any time," Jet said. "Master, there's a monster in Magnolia. I've never seen anything like it and it's smashing the whole town. We need to go out and stop it!"
"Oh, my head!" said Levy.
"Are you all right?" Gajeel growled.
"I feel sick," Levy said, struggling her way out of Jet's arms and finding a chair. "But the creature… Gajeel, it's enormous! And it wasn't affected by my solid script. You need to hurry!"
"All right," said Makarov. "Jet, can you show us the way?"
Jet nodded.
"But what about Levy?" asked Gajeel.
"I'll stay with her," said Lisanna. "Don't worry."
"Laxus and his team will stay here too," Makarov decreed.
Laxus started forward in protest.
"We don't know anything about this creature," Makarov said to him quietly. "It would be foolish for all of us to rush to one location. You stay here and look after the guild. We have Warren. We'll keep you updated."
xxx
Laxus kept an internal count of time passing. Seventeen minutes since the best of the guild had departed for the centre of the city, or wherever it was they had gone. Laxus was angry even though he knew it was irrational. What the old man had said made good enough sense, but he couldn't shake the feeling. He wanted to be in the thick of the action, not stuck at home minding the shop. What's wrong with me? he wondered. He stood outside the guildhall, looking out into the night in the direction everyone had hared off in, still smelling that strange smell from before.
And suddenly something behind and above him exploded. He whirled round and there was another explosion, and another. A burning missile flashed by him, missing him by inches.
"We're under attack!" he bawled as he flung himself back into the guildhall. It was obvious by then. The explosions came faster, and from all sides. "Freed. Shield!"
His team were already in motion. Bickslow and Evergeen went up and out to aim missiles at their attackers. Freed disappeared back into the centre of the building to begin constructing a shield from rune magic. That would take time though, and meanwhile the guildhall was getting the battering of its life.
Laxus decided to go on the offensive. He burst out of the front doors again, charging up lightning energy at the same time. The attackers might be able to damage the guildhall, but they could hardly expect to be able to hurt a dragon slayer so easily, whoever they were.
They smelled strange, but ordinary at the same time. He could count their number from the scents if he tried, round about twelve of them. He sought out one to aim for and was suddenly hit with a massive attack of magic that boomed and deafened him, laying him out senseless for a moment before he struggled up and was immediately hit again. He wondered if his ears were bleeding. The smells had moved. In the time it took Laxus to locate them the magic attack came again, this time slicing making him have to jump back and even so, it still hit him.
"We'll pound your guildhall to the ground." A voice came out of the night. "It doesn't matter whether you are inside or out; we'll pound you too. And then we'll take what's kept beneath."
Laxus lurched back through the doors and let them slam behind him as the next wave came; a barrage. He rolled ungracefully into the room in time to see Ever stagger down the stairs with her wings in tatters. The attacks did not stop. The whole building shook with them.
"Ever! Are you all right?" Laxus called.
Bickslow was there too, lying face-down on the floor.
"I'm fine!" said Ever, and she laughed. "Or at least, I'm better than you."
Laxus' chest was slashed and bleeding but he honestly couldn't feel it. He shook Bickslow's shoulder. "Hey!" he said.
Bickslow mumbled and he rolled over, revealing a wide grin. "Man," he said. "Who are those guys? They've certainly got some beef!"
And the sounds around them suddenly stopped, just like that.
"That's Freed," said Ever. "Shield's up."
"What's going on?"
All three of them looked round to see Lisanna coming into the hall from the direction of the infirmary.
Ever went to meet her and took her hands. "Someone's attacking the guildhall. We don't know who. Do we?" She turned to Laxus.
"No." Laxus thought about what he did know. "There are about twelve of them. Just before Levy and Jet came in I smelled something strange. These twelve, they smell the same."
"That's interesting," said Ever.
"But they've stopped," Lisanna said.
"They haven't," Bickslow said. "Old Freed's put up a shield so they can't land an attack on us for the time being, that's all. Stalemate."
"No it's not!" Laxus said. He got up and went to the guildhall doors, threw them open and walked out into the night.
xxx
The best place to generate a shield over the Fairy Tail guildhall was actually in the basement. There was enough room there too for a magic circle. But there was no way to rush it. Freed wrote the runes carefully and then flung power into them and felt the shield stretch out around him. It was an intoxicating feeling, he had to concentrate to control that part of it as much as any other, and he was stuck there, holding it, feeling every attack that hit it. He had no idea what was going on in the rest of the building, or what the others were doing. He just had to trust them.
xxx
Laxus came back into the guildhall out of breath, dragging a struggling person with him.
"There," he said, throwing his prisoner on the floor. "This is what we're up against."
It was Bicklow who had made him do it; Bickslow being altogether too comfortable with defeat. Well, all right, there was more to it than that. There was the shield for one thing, enabling him to get outside and see them, without them being able to get to him. The shield would let Fairy Tail wizards in and out of it, but no-one else. And there was the smell too. Those attackers smelled so ordinary. Once he figured it out it had taken almost no time at all.
"He has a magical weapon," Laxus said. He was out of breath. "I broke it, but you can see how they work. They all have them." Once he knew where the attacker was it had been easy enough to catch him. Too easy really.
"You mean, he's not even a wizard?" Bickslow asked.
"I'm a wizard," the man said, laughing. "Maybe not as powerful as you guild wizards, but that doesn't matter."
"Where did you get this weapon?" Ever asked the man, with such a demonic glare the man gave a little moan.
"My master got them," he said. "I don't know from where. You don't ask Forrester things like that."
"You have a master, but you're not in a guild. That makes no sense to me," said Bickslow. He took his visor off, revealing the strange tattoo on his face and his whirlpool eyes. "Perhaps if I look into your soul I can work it out."
"There's no need for that." The man backed away. "We're a thieves' guild. Forrester is our leader. Him and Grant are the only ones who know anything; the rest of us just do what we're told. There's supposed to be something valuable in this here guildhall, that's all they said. I don't even know what it is."
"What about the creature attacking the city?" Laxus asked fiercely.
"I don't…" The man broke off and went still.
Everything had been quiet since the shield went up, but now there was a new sound; a rumbling beneath them and a vibration with it, like a gentle earthquake.
"What's that?" asked Lisanna.
"Laxus," Ever said. "This weapon, I think I've figured out how it works. If I'm right we can…"
The floor suddenly shook violently and the rumble became a roar.
"That'll be the earth wizard." The captured thief had staggered and fallen as the guildhall shook, but he didn't seem rattled. He sounded impressed.
Laxus grabbed him by the throat, if only to make him look frightened again. "What are you talking about?" he shouted.
"The earth wizard," the man went on. "He only joined our guild for this job, so I don't know him. He said he could get the treasure out from your guildhall all by himself but none of them believed him. Maybe he was telling the truth."
xxx
Freed felt the foundations of the guildhall shake. He felt the ground under him begin to crumble and he fought to hold on to his magic circle and the shield, but it was no good. Then he found himself pushed up, thrown around in a pile of rubble and scrambling frantically just to stay alive and not to be crushed. What was happening? The shield was gone and his magic mostly gone with it. But he had enough to fly; just. He muttered the magic to craft wings and took off, trying to make sense of the jumble around him and find a way out.
"Oh no you don't, little butterfly!"
Freed was grabbed by an impossibly strong hand and pulled down against the thrust of his magical wings to be held in arms like iron bars.
"You're the shield-maker," the man said to him, softly, into his ear. "That's powerful magic. They'll come for you. I just need to wait."
Freed couldn't see him. He struggled uselessly. "Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"
"Is there really a great treasure down here?" the man asked.
"A treasure? I…"
The man laughed, making a rumbling in his chest Freed could feel since he was held so close. He tried again to wrench himself away.
"Keep still little butterfly," the man said. "I don't want to have to hurt you. I don't want your treasure either, that's what they want, those thieves. All I want is to fight the greatest wizard in all of Fiore; Natsu Dragneel."
"Natsu?" Freed couldn't hold on to his surprise. "But Natsu isn't… He isn't here."
"No. He's in the city fighting Grant's beast." The man laughed again. "But he'll be here soon. I can wait."
"Natsu isn't in Magnolia," Freed said. "He went… on a job, months ago. No-one's seen him…"
"You're lying!"
Freed had not expected such an explosion. The other man had been so soft voiced up till then, almost gentle. He found himself flung away, able to catch a glimpse of his assailant, a surprisingly young man with dark hair and a face filled with furious anger, before being hit by a force seemingly from nowhere and knowing no more.
xxx
The shield went down and the barrage began again, but at least the earthquake had stopped.
"What's going on?" asked Bickslow. "Where'd the shield go?"
Laxus didn't want to think about what that meant. "What did you say Ever?" he asked sharply.
"I think I know how to mess up those weapons, if I tune my attack to the right frequency… I just need to get up high."
"All right. You go up. Bicks, go out the back and I'll cover the front." It was best to get moving, take action. He could think about Freed later.
He peered cautiously out of the door, looking for a target, and he heard Evergreen call her fairy machine gun out over the roof of the guild, saw the sparks of it spiralling down, beautiful in the night. He stepped out, ready to parry a blast of magic but none came, and none continued to come.
Laxus could smell some of the attackers; they were near. He moved towards the smell.
"It's not going to work," he heard someone say. "They've blown the Maadricks somehow, blast them."
"I thought they were all meant to be in the city fighting the beast," another voice joined in.
"Well they're not, are they? We'd better get out of here."
You won't, Laxus resolved, grimly.
"What happened to Hal?" one of the voices asked the other.
"He went in to take out the shield, but he never came back. Forget him. Let's go!"
And Laxus' resolution revolved like lightning, one hundred and eighty degrees. The attackers had given up, all except the one who had taken out Freed and was still in the guildhall.
xxx
"I'm sorry," the earth wizard said. "Are you all right? You're bleeding."
Freed sat up and his head whirled.
"Of course you would lie to me. Why would you tell secrets to some stranger attacking your guild?"
"I wasn't lying."
"Freed!" Laxus shouted from somewhere above.
Freed found himself immediately dragged up and once more held, looking up to Laxus who was stood in what had once been the doorway to the basement. He felt a fool to need rescuing at all, but at the same time, the sight of Laxus stood there so strong and fierce made his heart pound.
xxx
"Who are you and where is Natsu Dragneel?" the strange wizard demanded.
Laxus laughed. "That's none of your damn business. But you may be interested to know that all of your friends have run away, except the one we have as a prisoner. They failed. They didn't steal anything. Perhaps you would like to run away too?"
"I do not have any friends, or at least, none of my own. I seem to have collected one of yours though."
He let go of Freed with one arm so he could build up a spell of the earth, making the ground shake, crumble and crack. Laxus tumbled forwards, stumbling and sliding as the stairs collapsed under him. And Freed was still helplessly held by the one strong arm round his neck.
"I will fight my way through every member of your so-called guild until I get to Natsu Dragneel!" the earth wizard declared.
What does he want with Natsu? Laxus wondered. It didn't matter to him much though. This wizard might be young, but he had destroyed the guildhall, more or less, and he had hurt Freed. There was no way he was going to get away with any of that.
The ground was still again. It seemed this wizard was not able to use his magic continually. Laxus had his eyes on Freed. He couldn't tell if his captain was badly hurt, but he could see Freed was working on something. The other man was over-confident and probably not very smart. No match for Freed. Freed made lightning; a bolt of it between him and the younger wizard, blasting them apart and making Laxus laugh out loud. Lightning! And there stood Freed with his sword drawn and not a hair out of place.
The earth wizard started toward Freed angrily, but Laxus was not having that. He threw a bolt of energy that knocked the other man back and into a heap on the ground.
"Freed, get out of here!" Laxus shouted.
"You don't need to fight him." Freed found his way to Laxus' side over the debris.
"The hell I don't!"
Anyway, the earth had gone back to shaking. Laxus began to feel sick, the old motion sickness kicking in. He groaned, and battled to resume focus. The strange wizard was gone! When had that happened? But he was back almost immediately, shooting out of the ground right at Laxus' feet, his attack knocking Laxus strangely slowly through the air as colours flashed around him; white, red, dark red, black. He growled and scrambled up shaking his head.
"Freed, get out of the way, damn you!" Fighting indoors was stupid, dangerous. The building around them was collapsing. There was no room for a proper attack, but what choice did he have? "Lightning dragon; ROAR!"
It was messy. The lightning attack did almost as much damage as the earthquakes had, but the earth wizard was not done, not yet. He kept on going, throwing rocks and earth and chunks of wall, all of his attacks falling short or simply lacking the energy to do any damage. "I will defeat you," he said. "I will defeat all of you fairies and then I will fight Natsu Dragneel and I will defeat him too."
"I don't know why you keep going on about Natsu," Laxus said. "He's not here and I am. And I have already defeated you."
"Natsu Dragneel is the only wizard in this guild worth fighting. You are nobody."
"Say that again!" Laxus was incensed. He prepared another attack as the earth wizard hauled himself wearily to his feet.
"Laxus, don't," Freed said. "He's had enough."
Laxus was tired. He felt sick and his wounds were beginning to hurt. He pushed Freed out of the way and aimed his attack at the same time, but he had reckoned without Freed's agility. Freed danced back in front of him to take half of the blast and fling the other half away with his sword.
"What are you doing? Oh God, Freed!" Laxus threw himself down beside his friend. The earth wizard was gone, burrowed away into the ground.
"I'm all right," Freed said, as his eyes slid closed.