A/N: Next chapter! So many questions! Who is Thorn? Was Darius ever a real person? What's up with Ella and what is her plot? And why is Axel so scared of his brother? This chapter will contain a lot fighting and magic use. Spells are written in italics and all caps. Thoughts are just italics. Fallenleafz… Thanks again for review!

A….A

Chapter 10: Golems

Annie's POV

Natsu, Lucy and Happy immediately come to stand next to Axel and me, magic at the ready.

"Who the hell are you?!" Natsu snarls.

Ella smirks. "I'm your quarry, fire dragon. Eleanor Mystique Charles. Call me Ella."

"Quarry?" Natsu mutters, confused by the unusual word.

"She's the girl we were hired to find." Lucy whispers to him. He nods.

I take a step forward, holding my hands up reassuringly. "Guys, let's all take a chill pill. No need to get aggressive."

"Are you kidding me?!" Lucy mumbles into my ear. "These two just REEK of evil. Talking will get us nowhere!"

"I know." I reply. "I don't trust them either. We can't attack without gaging their strength. That would be stupid and set us up for failure."

The celestial mage gives me a doubtful look.

"Just trust me on this?" I mutter.

She eyes me for a second, then nods. "Okay."

I turn to Ella and this Thorn guy. "Um, we're a bit confused on the situation. Could you possibly clear this up for us? What do you want us for?"

Ella smirks again. "We don't have to explain anything to you, hatchling. The predator never explains to the prey."

Behind me, Natsu makes a sort of enraged growl, his feet scuffing on the snow as he moves forward. Lucy stops him with an out-stretched arm, shaking her head.

I flick my attention back to our confronters. "Um, if we're the prey, why are you hunting us?"

Ella makes a confused noise. I suppress a grin. My quick talking may help us get information.

"Well, everything hunts for a reason. Hunger, entertainment, money… What's your reason? Or do you not have one."

The girl shrugs nonchalantly. "It's really none of your business, shortstack."

I feel right eye beginning to twitch in annoyance. I can only take so many insults to my height.

"Let's desist on the height comments, why don't we?"

"Why?" Thorn mocks, "You don't like being called short."

"No." I say shortly. "No, I do NOT."

"That's enough." Ella snaps. "Fairies! My master would like a word with you! You will come with us!"

"And what if we don't?!" Natsu shouts, lunging forward. "We out number you, y'know! We could defear you easily!"

The other rolls her eyes. "That's what YOU think." She snaps her fingers, and the ground around us begins to rumble and shake as dozens of… figures… burst from the snow, all around us, hemming us in. They are about seven feet tall each.

The five of us immediately turn so we're back to back in a defensive stance.

"These… are my golems!" Ella says with confidence and authority. "There are 40 of them, 8 golems for every one of you, including the cat."

"I'm an Exceed." Happy points out. He is ignored.

"My golems are made of rock. They cannot feel pain and are semi-sentient."

"Semi- what?" Natsu mumbles.

"Semi-sentient. It means she doesn't have to control them, they fight on their own." Lucy explains.

"So if you still want to fight," Ella continues, "Be my guest!"

"FIRE DRAGON'S ROOOAAAR!" Natsu, well, roars.

The golems start forward, totally unaffected by the flames. Lucy and I both groan. Axel sighs. I glance at him. He seems to have recovered pretty well, but I can't help but wonder what his brother has done to him to make him so nervous.

General POV:

Two spells are cast at once, one from Lucy, and one from Annie.

"OPEN THE GATE OF THE GOLDEN BULL! TAURUS!"

"SOUND DRAGON'S SHRIEK!"

The resulting ding-dong from Lucy's spell is nearly drowned out by the ear-shattering, shrill noise from Annie's.

Nearby, Natsu is using Happy to fly above the golems and attack from above.

Axel dodges another attack, feeling kind of useless. He digs out a charm in the shape of a hammer. "CHARM MAGIC: HAMMER SMASH!" A huge hammer materializes above a group of golems and flattens them. The Nephilim nods in satisfaction. "ANGELUS: WINGS!" Grey –feathered angel wings sprout from his shoulder blades and he takes to the air, joining Natsu in his aerial assault.

Lucy has changed in to her Taurus Form and is using Earth Wave to destroy the stone beasts. Annie is protecting her friend's back with several rounds of Sound Dragon's Shriek and Sound Dragon's Roar. The shorter girl pauses, panting. "Lucy, we can't keep this up much longer. Well, I can't. We've gotta beat a hasty retreat."

Lucy nods. "OPEN THE GATE OF THE LION! LEO!" Loke joins Taurus in battle. "Hang in there, Annie." She encourages. "We'll be fine."

"Pssht. Easy for you to say. You're a lot more powerful than me!"

"You're a dragon slayer!"

"Yeah. A crappy one." Annie mumbles.

Up in the air, the boys are mostly out of the range of fire, but are by no means safe. They find out (the hard way) that the golems are able to fire parts of their bodies at them, and are able to regenerate them missing parts.

"You okay, man?" Natsu calls as Axel dodges a large boulder.

"Yep."

"Good. FIRE DRAGON'S IRON FIST!"

"CHARM MAGIC: HAMMER!"

Annie and Lucy don't see the golem until too late. It slams down between them, knocking them apart and farther among the beasts.

Natsu flips out when he sees Lucy go under. "Happy! Get me down there NOW!"

"But Natsu…"

"Now!"

The blue exceed sighs and lowers his friend to the ground. The Fire Dragon Slayer charges in, knocking golems left and right.

Axel sweat drops slightly. He momentarily entertains the idea of rushing to Annie's aid, but brushes it aside. He's not sure if she would like that or not. An explosion of sound below him reassures him that his friend is still alive and kicking. Axel turns to fire off another spell, when he's interrupted by a scream of pain. He looks down. The golems around Annie have been knocked back, but she's not safe. Ella is approaching her, body fizzling with magical energy.

Annie glances up and meets Axel's eyes. She gives a tiny shake of the head, warning him to stay away, keep up what you're doing. The Nephilim swears softly, but obeys.

Annie's POV:

Ella clears the golems away from me and casts a spell. A lance of rock explodes out of the ground at my feet. I stumble out of the way, but not fast enough. The tip of it sinks in to my side. It hurts. A lot. I can't repress a yell of pain as I jerk out of the way.

"You're a troublesome one." Ella drawls. "I may have to kill you here if you don't give in."

"That wouldn't do much good. Everyone else would keep fighting."

"Oh, I doubt that." She replies. "They look up to you. You're their leader."
"Pssht. No I'm not. I'm just the cute little Dragon Slayer wannabe."

"Keep telling yourself that. I'm pretty sure your Angel friend would be pretty pissed if you died."

"Keep him out of this. Besides, how would you know? It's not like you KNOW him!"

"You'd be surprised at what my magic can do, hatchling."

"SOUND DRAGON'S SHRIEK!" I yell, getting fed up with this pointless conversation.

Ella dodges my spell with ease. She makes a hand motion. A second spike of rock bursts through the ground, slicing deeply in to my thigh. I stumble forward, but manage to keep my balance. My opponent rush forward and launches a direct hand-to-hand attack at me. My speed is greatly diminished by my wounds, but I'm able to dodge the first few blows and scurry out of the way.

Ella smirks. "You're fast. And evasive. But you can't run forever." A rock spike sprouts up near me. I roll out of the way, and nearly am impaled on another. My mind's racing, looking for a way out of my predicament.

"Looking for an escape, are you?" She mocks. "Too bad there aren't any." She's attacking me so casually. Almost as if I'm not even worth her time.

'Don't freak, Annie.' I admonish myself. 'Take this one step at a time. Catch her off guard.' I nod to myself, psyching myself up. As soon as Ella makes a movement for another rock spike, I roll to my feet and do the unexpected: charge right at her. 'This is probably a REALLY bad idea.'

On the bright side, my attack DOES catch her off guard. I use that to my advantage and land a few blows. Unfortunately, she recovers pretty quickly. I skitter out of the way, not taking any chances. I'm kind of doubting my earlier decision to tell Axel to keep in the air. Some help in the form of a hunky guy would be greatly appreciated. 'GAH! What am I thinking?! Axel's not THAT hot.'

I dodge another blow. 'Okay, that's a lie. He's really cute. BUT I DON'T LIKE HIM!'

I almost take a rock spike to the face. It scrapes my forehead, causing it to bleed badly. 'Shit. Now my visions impaired.' I think as the blood drips past my glasses.

I decide for a last-ditch spell. "SOUND DRAGON'S BELLOW!" I've never actually done this spell before, just learned it. 'Annie used Bellow. It's super effective!' I shake my head. I might be going crazy from blood loss.

Ella makes a hand motion. A group of stone daggers flies towards me. I fall flat, wincing as one of them passes close enough to ruffle my hair. A stone spike erupts from the ground, passing right through my right hand!

"AAAGH!" The spike's pretty small, but it fucking hurts. I yank my hand away, cradling it to my chest. I never really gave thought to the amount of nerve endings in my hand 'til this moment, cuz right now, it feels like every single one of those approximately 62500 nerves feel like they're on fire, shooting waves of pain up my arm and through my whole body, connecting with the pain in my side, thigh and forehead. Another spike shoots up, burying itself into my hip, then retracts. I sit up and scoot away from my attacker. A wave of rock knocks my onto my stomach and a spike rips into my left bicep. Ella moves forward and stands over me. I can't speak, can't move. It's like I'm frozen. Frozen and more scared then I've ever been in my entire life.

"Not so tough now." She mocks, forming a sword out of stone. "Have fun in He-"

She's knocked backward by a winged force. Suddenly, Axel's standing between us, glowing with a blue light. And he is PISSED.

A….A

A/N: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAA! CLIFFHANGER! I HAVE NO SHAME!

I'm kidding. I'm actually kind of sorry about this, but this was the best place to end the chapter. I hope you guys like the action. Yes, Natsu and Lucy are fine, they'll appear again in the next chapter.

What did you think of the chapter? Liked it? Hated it? Feedback is welcome! Reviews keep me going! Actually, the speed I update directly correlates to the number of reviews I get. I'm not trying to by an attention grabber at all, they just really motivate me. And it's really hard to motivate me…

Fallenleafz… I hope you liked the action!

HUGS TO ALL!

And no, I don't own Fairy Tail….