[A/N: What up ppl! Benie here again with another chapter for you... Been playing AC:IV which has inspired some parts of this chapter... Can't wait to fully upgrade the Jackdaw since my naval combat abilities are absolutely laughable... oh well.
I swear that FanFiction is cutting out some of my words! Finding canon holes i've created for myself and i see sentences of my own that don't make sense! Haiz...I'll just have to update them later when i have more time...
Read Enjoyably; Review Constructively!
benie]
"Laxus is the last man standing now. There is still some time left before the hall of thunder activates and Magnolia is destroyed. I hope that someone from the guild can stop him and make him realise his mistake in time for the Fantasia parade."
There is no more time to lose.
ELEVEN: Counter Assault
Vergil
"Master Thorn," Ghost held up his communication lacrima, talking to the bureau leader that was projected within. "I have come to report that that the evacuation at White Bridge has gone successful with as minimal casualties as possible."
"Music to my ears, boy," the gruff man replied, Ghost seeing him take out a cigar and cutting off the end to smoke it. The Ghost Assassin knew better than to comment, lest he receive another mundane task as punishment for talking back to a respected leader.
"Are there any more assignments, master?"
"None yet," the old man sighed with a gruff. "Best be on your toes. I don't want any more slackers taking care of wounded mages when they should be taking care of everyone else…"
"If there is anything of importance, I will respond immediately," said Ghost in assurance.
"I'll give you a shout, you can be sure of that," with that, the conversation ended.
Vergil was in the middle of the city of Magnolia, relatively near his home at Kardia Cathedral, somewhere in between the central and eastern districts. Beginning to walk back to his hideout, he saw a familiar looking woman who had pink hair with blonde streaks and wrinkles that signified her advancement in years. She was carrying a basket, currently hidden from his view due to a horned red cloak.
The Assassin walked up behind her as she looked about for the next grocery store to purchase ingredients and provisions.
"Porlyusica-san," Ghost greeted as he pulled up beside her, matching her pace.
"If it isn't the Ghost of the Brotherhood," she replied coldly. He did not mind her attitude, mainly because she was haughty and defiantly unreasonable to every living human being in Earthland.
"I trust that you have heard of what is happening recently?"
"It's up there," she pointed up before continuing, "What does Laxus think he is?"
"I was thinking the same thing as well," Ghost commented. "Where are you headed? If the thunder palace strikes soon we will no doubt get caught in it," he spoke a little hurriedly, somehow able to keep his voice calm and composed.
"Magnolia will not fall today," she replied.
"I do not understand."
"Fairy Tail will stop him and teach him the error of his ways. I have complete trust in them and I know his grandfather will not take very kindly to this but I am surprised that he hasn't showed himself yet as of late," she mused.
"Makarov Dreyar has not shown himself mainly due to the fact that Fried Justine's runes were confining him to the walls of the guild hall," Ghost paused, thinking of a way to phrase the next piece of news as best as he could, "and that he had only suffered a heart attack when the thunder palace was released."
"What?!" she turned to him, dropping her basket in shock, which the Assassin quickly picked up with deft hands and quick reflexes.
"He is in critical condition, last I left," he added.
"I need to head home now," she told the Assassin. Quickly, she motioned him to follow her and the two of them weaved through many alleys and roads (due to Ghost's sense of direction and orientation) and was at her tree house in the East Forest within minutes, both arriving there in a trot.
He waited outside as she placed all her groceries in their respective places before leaving her house in a brisk walk towards Fairy Tail. Seeing as he had nothing else to attend to, he followed her and it seemed to him that she did not mind the company at all, if not absent at certain times.
The two of them walked on Marcanoli Centre Boulevard in complete silence as passers-by were mulling about how the preparations for the Fantasia were rather unorthodox this year.
"Sounds like the work of Erza," Porlyusica thought to herself.
"How do you know?"
"She likes to work a lot; never taking her health and her body seriously," the old healer began to complain, "how is it that she can still be featured in gravure magazines? She is beyond me."
"Is she not the Queen of Fairies?"
"That does not qualify her to acts of random chivalry and foolhardiness! Laxus was like that and Makarov never disciplined him when Ivan was expelled from the guild, see what has happened now?"
"Why would someone like Laxus do something like this?"
"Something he heard most probably got to him," she replied, this time back to her usual cold and calculative tone. "This is why I hate humans," she spoke as the guild's turrets loomed into view.
They arrived at the gates of Fairy Tail and Ghost instinctively stole his way through the grounds, unseen by all surveillance lacrimas and found a way up to the second floor while Porlyusica walked through the main doors to be greeted by Levy.
"Where is Makarov?" the old healer demanded with a commanding voice.
"Porlyusica-san?!" Levy was surprised to see her.
"Hurry up… Where is he?" Porlyusica pressed as Ghost watched from above.
"H-He's in the medical office through here…"
"Hm."
"A-Ah!" Levy tried to stop her, failing to find the correct words to say.
That kind of instance is quite rare for a Solid Script mage, even for one such as fluent as her…
"There's a bit of a situation right now…." Levy continued.
"I am aware of that!" Porlyusica replied coldly, "That is why I came!"
"Huh?" Levy scratched the back of her head, confused.
"You can come out now," the old woman looked up at the second floor.
Ghost knew that she would call him out later and he did so, vaulting over the second floor banister and landing with a safety roll before standing up in front of the two of them before the grumpy old woman made her way through to the infirmary, the Assassin trailing behind her and Levy not far behind.
"You have come to heal him then?" Levy's voice picked up a hint of hope, before being dashed by the coldness of Porlyusica.
Levy
Isn't he the man that was talking to Mira last week? Isn't he the man that held her hand while they were talking to someone else in that lacrima ball of his? What is he doing here? Can this man be trusted?
Well, if Mira-san trusts him, so can I. I'm going to try and talk to him.
Plucking up her courage after the disastrous attempt with Porlyusica-san, she began to make her way to him while he sat down on one of the beds, watching the old healer run her diagnosis.
"Hello, how are you?" Levy began, extending her hand in front of the Assassin's chest.
He did not move, save for his constant breathing which for some strange reason, she could not hear at all.
So, she tried again.
"Hi," she spoke again, this time standing in front of the stranger. "My name is Levy McGarden and I'm a mage of Fairy Tail. Pleased to meet you, mister~?"
Silence again.
Hmph. They say that third time's a charm right? I'll try again.
"I'm Levy," she extended her hand, expecting a handshake this time. "You're very close friends with Mira-san, right? Pleased to meet you, mister~?"
The strange hooded man stayed silent, his covered face not revealing any hint of interest, if there was any, and continued to look in Makarov's general direction.
Levy decided that she had enough.
"You're not very nice, are you?" she began talking to him while the man stayed silent. "You may be friends with Mira-san or maybe even her mysterious boyfriend which no one can stalk but don't you have any manners?" the Solid Script mage placed her hands on her hips, a usual indication that she was not happy or dissatisfied, normally earning immediate results from her fellow teammates in Shadow Gear.
"Mysterious boyfriend?" she heard him reply in a calm and collected baritone voice that she knew would belong to a young man of about nineteen or twenty years of age. "Where did you get that?"
"Mira-san's been very mum about this kind of thing but when she daydreams, she's quite careless about who's watching her," Levy replied. "Do you know where she is now?"
"The last time I saw her, she was at White Bridge battling with Fried Justine with her demon Take-Over," the man replied.
"There's only Laxus left to deal with," said Levy, unsure of how he would take the news.
"There is still the thunder palace that is hovering over Magnolia as we speak," he spoke to her. "I would have assumed that you have run off to safety."
"And leave my friends and family behind?" she angrily questioned in outrage. "Shouldn't you be doing the same thing?"
"Why should I run when I have family to take care of? It would certainly be selfish of me to leave them behind if I were to escape," he calmly replied. "The guilt would eat me inside out."
What is this man? Even in the face of a very real and close danger and he still can talk like that as if there could be something worse than the thunder palace. What has he been through that even Gildartz hasn't even dabbled in?
"You seem different…" she told him, her voice laden with uncertainty about how he would respond to that.
"How so?"
"You're more calm than most of the men in Fairy Tail that I know, even Master," she slowly responded.
"Curious about what I have been through, are you?" he asked her, to which she nodded in answer. "I am afraid that I am unable to tell you all about my life."
"Why not?" outrage hinted at the tip of her tongue.
"I do not even tell Mira these things and you try to demand answers from me?" he raised his voice slightly, the actual volume not increasing but the subtle hint of venom in his voice that Levy knew so well when asking the S-class mages whether she could accompany them on their job requests.
He raised his left arm, grey and covered in lethal spikes to show that he had clearly been through a lot of hardship and pain, scaring her instantly and Levy recoiled at the somewhat devilish sight. To Levy, it seemed that he flexed his wrist multiple times, causing some hidden mechanism to activate as the spikes on his arm seemed to drip with some sort of liquid.
She did not like his arm one bit as he gave a small laugh and told her that he was joking, before resuming to gaze intently at Makarov's comatose form, kept warm with blankets.
Vergil
The stench of death has never been so strong upon an old man like this before…
Ghost looked down upon a red highlighted Makarov with his Eagle Sense and saw with both eyes that the old man's life was fading away into the void.
"Bring Laxus here," Porlyusica told Levy.
"Huh?"
"Bring that idiot boy who is playing the fool ignorance of his grandfather's critical condition here at once," the old woman calmly told Levy again, this time with a hurried tone in her voice.
"C-Critical condition…?" Ghost saw Levy quavering, "What do you…"
"Just do it…please," Vergil saw the old woman turn to face the Solid Script mage, astonished to see tears brimming in her eyes. "He doesn't have long left."
That would have no doubt come as a surprise to Levy McGarden, who was wide eyed at this shocking piece of news, unable to either trust the friend of her master or to take her word as truth. The Assassin saw her fixed at her spot, her mouth open and her body not willing to get moving and tell Laxus of this development in the "Battle of Fairy Tail".
As she left, Porlyusica also made a motion to leave, causing Ghost also to get up. He surveyed the infirmary once more and saw a second person in the bed next to Makarov's and saw that there was a green haired woman who had been afflicted by shock, the cause being lightning from a lightning lacrima no doubt.
Was this recent? Or had this event passed some time ago?
He bent down with the same ointment earlier that he applied on Juvia in his hand. Finding the most severe burns, he gently applied the ointment with careful fingers and slowly massaged it into the green haired woman's flesh.
"Why is it that no one is spared from the lure of war, even the young and the old?" the old woman wondered out loud, watching Ghost attend to the woman. "Such a curse, yet people willingly embrace it as if it depended on their lives…"
As he attended to the woman in the bed, he thought of an answer. It came to him when he finished, making logical sense as he walked out of the guild's doors with the old woman.
"Have you an answer, Assassin?"
"They continue to behave like this because this is the path that they have chosen. They have gone through the gate and it has closed behind them, not giving them a chance to turn back. With every opportunity on the road comes to prove themselves comes, they take it. It is not the factors that lead them down this path but their own decisions," he paused here before continuing, "There was a time where they were given the chance to turn back but which of these Fairies have actually taken that chance?"
"What about those who blindly follow in the wake of others then?" she countered. "What do you have to say about that?"
"It was their own decision to be led by other men greater than them and they now pay the consequences for their own decisions."
"I suppose I have to contend myself with your answer for now," she huffed, clearly not liking the reasoning behind his words.
"Why do you not find the answer for yourself?" he asked her. "Do you have time?"
"Now that you mention it…"
Ghost felt his pack vibrating and he knew that his work had only resumed. He stopped short, puzzling Porlyusica as he fished for his communication lacrima, seeing Master Thorn's face within as he picked up the call.
"Master," he greeted.
"Boy," the gruff old man returned the greeting. "You're needed and many of the Veterans who have returned to try them out have been unsuccessful so far. I'm afraid I have to rely on you again."
"What is it?" Ghost inquired.
"Siren-"
"I understand-"
"I'm not done yet!" Thorn yelled at him as Porlyusica watched the strange exchange. "Siren's brought friends and they're looking for something at the destroyed White Bridge. Get there now before the whole town is turned upside down!"
"I will get to it at once master," Ghost hung up the call before facing the old woman, who nodded and turned tail, understanding that he was needed elsewhere on an urgent matter.
Ghost ran with all this strength, finding quick shortcuts that his Eagle Sense highlighted for him to allow him to travel back south to White Bridge in the quickest time possible. Once there, he traversed the rubble in double quick time than his earlier climb to see the Siren, now freed, with two other men, one who dressed like a bandit and another like a warlord. The bandit wielded a flintlock pistol and a cutlass while the warlord had no visible weapons on him whatsoever.
The three of them were undoubtedly looking for something in the ground from the Assassin's point of view; they were looking for an entrance of some kind, overlooking several jewels that lay scattered about due to some unknown cause. Ghost just stood there before he was noticed by the woman he had defeated earlier, who immediately alerted the other two of his presence.
"It's him again! The same person who ruined my lovely voice!" she screamed out loud, her finger pointing at him.
"Siren!" the bandit looking person drawled, "We've been through like seven of these guys already, are you sure this is the dog that did that to your voice?"
"Cutthroat! Do not ever speak to Siren like that!" the warlord warned said person sternly.
"Put a stick up there where the sun don't shine, Mercenary you great prick," the Cutthroat insulted in return.
"Guys! This is not the time for that! Help me get revenge on this monk!"
The Assassin felt insulted, mainly because he was being identified as a monk. In retaliation, he drew his dagger and only primary hidden blade, beckoning them to come and attack with a rude gesture of the left hand.
"Guns magic: Piercing shot!" the Cutthroat yelled. The pistol glowed yellow before a deafening bang sounded out.
Ghost immediately dived for cover and continued moving, the bullet shooting through the marble slab and narrowly missing his head by three fingers wide. Rolling out and not missing a beat, he extended his left arm out, his hidden gun loaded, cocked and ready to fire.
Only to quickly react to about half a dozen swords that was charging at him with a backflip, dodging the swords entirely much to the chagrin of the Mercenary.
"Damn it! Almost had him! Siren!"
The Assassin took his chance at that sliver of an opening.
BANG!
The Cutthroat fell backwards, a hole in his head.
"Daniel!" the Siren screamed, horrified at the killing blow.
Ghost shot out his hidden rope dart towards Siren with deadly precision and speed, hoping to catch her by the neck before pulling out her throat before a battle axe blocked the dart's trajectory, forcing him to retract it back and try for another attack later.
"Not so easy, monk," the Mercenary growled, sending a giant sword the Assassin's way. It missed as the intended target sidestepped it, lodging it firmly in the ground.
A giant sword in the shape of a pointed meat cleaver?
Ghost wrapped his hand around the long and large handle and pulled it out with little effort, not knowing how a sword as big as him could perform such a feat. He sheathed his dagger and held the giant blade with two hands, adopting a defensive stance.
"Pieces of nine!" the Mercenary casted his spell. He charged forward with eight swords hovering about him, all pointing to Ghost's chest, the sword in his hands leading the charge.
Perspective Future.
At once, Ghost could see that the impending attack was not a stab like he predicted, but an upward swipe. He did not move a single inch, mainly because the sword was heavier than he had expected it to be but also because he did not want the Mercenary to think that he had foiled the spell so easily.
Then at the last moment, the Assassin charged, the sword in his hands grinding the cobblestone road and sparking as Ghost closed the gap between the both of them in the blink of an eye.
With a great effort, the Assassin heaved the sword over his head and brought it down to bear, quicker than his opponent's attack and catching him by surprise. The Assassin broke through at least five of the requipped swords including the one in the Mercenary's hands and cut off three toes on his right foot, putting the enemy at a disadvantage as he fell to the ground.
Discarding the sword immediately to pounce on the Mercenary, Ghost drew his hidden blade and pulled his arm back in preparation for the strike.
"Sonic blast!" the Siren yelled, casting her spell at the Assassin, knocking him sideways as the Mercenary got up, limping towards her with another sword in his hand, this time an ornate katana. Ghost recovered quickly mid tumble and drew his dagger and hidden blade once more.
"Unison Raid: Sword Song!" the enemies yelled.
Ghost quickly dived for the nearest piece of cover available to him as the ornate katana came shooting straight at him, homing slightly on his hood, as well as the sonar pulses resounding at ten times the usual frequency at first when he fought the Siren.
"Good luck outrunning that blade!" the Mercenary shouted. "Once that katana gets you, the sonic pulses will turn your brains into jello!"
Not a good thing to go through. Plus, I still want to keep my brain intact.
He dived behind the piece of cover, his body prone as the katana impaled the marble stone and missed his head by a few inches, surprising even the Assassin.
"Hah!" the swordsman shouted. "Finally got him! I don't think he'll be alive to stop us anymore, Priscilla!"
"For the last time, Jeremy, I am not going to be your wife! Stop it already!" the Siren huffed, clearly irritated that her partner thought so.
Ghost was still prone on the ground and utilised his Eagle Sense to make sure that the sword was not magically amplified with magic before looking at the two distracted Ravens before standing up to announce his presence in the flesh, and part machine of course.
"Never count your chickens before they hatch," the Assassin announced. "Likewise, never rejoice in victory until your opponent has been permanently dealt with."
"What?!" the man roared across the battleground.
"Now that I have you caught in surprise, I can do this," Ghost flexed is wrist and aimed at the ornate katana.
BANG!
The katana was split into two and the Mercenary promptly flew into a rage.
"RAAWRR! You'll pay for this!"
As he came closer, the Assassin used the broken debris as steps up and leapt over the man with a well-timed vault, making the Mercenary crash into the bridge. The Siren was quick enough to respond, aiming her voice at him as he touched the ground, resuming in a sprint.
Reloading the hidden gun again as he slid on the ground to duck under the sonic blast, he found cover and looked around for something else that could attack the Siren at long distances. He turned around with his back to the cover and saw the Cutthroat's corpse just a few metres away from him. He used Eagle Sense to check for the pistol ammunition and saw that it was loaded before spotting another identical pistol lying right beside it.
Perfect.
Ghost made a mad dash for the pistols and performed a backflip in the air to see the Mercenary charging at him once more out of blind rage. Without hesitating, the Assassin shot the man in the shoulder and opposite knee, making him fall flat in his face. Still in mid-air, he discarded the pistols, throwing them aside and aimed the hidden gun at the Siren, transfixed at her spot before he fired.
Landing on the ground with a roll, he bounded towards the downed Mercenary and pounced with hidden blade drawn.
[Memory Corridor]
The Cutthroat. The Siren. The Mercenary.
The three of them were lying down on the cool white ground, not knowing how they were still alive. Towering over the three of them, they saw the man in white looking down at them, his hood casting a shadow over his face.
"Am I dead?" asked the Mercenary. He tried to get up but found himself immobile over the control of his limbs except for his tongue. His breath was heavy, almost rasping for air and he did not know how he had survived such a fatal wound, as he hoped to believe.
"Yes, yes you are dead."
"It can't be," the Cutthroat rasped as well, surprising his comrades.
"You…you seem different from the other monks that we battled…" said the Siren. "Who are you really?"
"These questions are not mine to answer," the hooded man replied, "but rather I will be the one asking you the questions."
"What right…do you have?!" the Mercenary demanded.
"The right to leave you here and wondering when you will finally be at peace. You will lie here unable to move nor talk for a very long time if you refuse."
"Just shut up Jeremy," the Cutthroat moaned, gasping for air as he did so.
"Fine," the Mercenary huffed.
"The activities of Raven Tail's operation in Magnolia. Explain now," the monk breathed.
"How do you know it's us?"
The monk drew out a knife from his left forearm, shocking even the Mercenary. He even caused a greater sense of panic when he came close to the three of them.
"We don't know!" the Siren cried out. "All we were told…was to come here and find something…hidden…deep in the ground!"
"Something deep in the ground?"
"We don't know what we were supposed to look for…"
"Priscilla!"
"Shut your trap…and put a stick up where the sun don't shine Jeremy!" the Cutthroat yelled as best as he could, irritated. "We are…already…dead…people…anyway!"
"Who would know about this thing hidden in the ground?" the monk quickly averted attention back to the topic at hand.
"Only… Only Master Ivan… would know…" the Raven Tail mages faltered, their eyes rolling backwards in their sockets.
"May you find what you have sought for so long in death, since life could not give it. Mottenmeisubeshi."
Vergil
They did not know what they were dying for … What kind of a monster is this Ivan person? And what is he looking for beneath Magnolia?
The Assassin rose up from the corpse of the Mercenary, just having pierced the now dead man with his hidden blade. Looking over his shoulder to see the bodies of the other two he had killed before deciding to pay them their last rites by closing their eyes. Following that, he activated his Eagle Sense and began to look for clues, hopefully finding what his enemies could not.
The Eagle Sense marked a point of interest in his field of vision, instantly perking up his curiosity and cautiously making his way over to an inconspicuous hole in the ground, near the nearest pillar that joined the riverbank with the flowing water.
After assessing the many different things that he knew could go wrong going down a hole, Ghost jumped in without another thought. He slid down a long passageway and ended up in the underground tunnels, although it was a slightly different tunnel than he remembered the catacombs of Magnolia to be.
He slipped off a ledge and landed deftly on his two feet in a crouch, getting up to see a magnificent view of several broken columns that looked eastern in nature and a stone divan in the middle of the room. The cracked walls lined the rather large expanse of space and there were landings above with several chests he knew he could loot for some extra money.
The only highlight was the divan in the middle, which seemed to hide something of greater value than the chests to the Assassin.
He took a step forward, dislodging a loose stone inconsequentially before he heard a mechanism growl through the room. He tensed up, ready for a fight when a few more beams protruded out of the ceiling, before falling apart as beams.
A hidden location?
Ghost saw a route and immediately went up the nearest wall to get to the first landing, ending it with a precise leap about five metres across a gap and three metres down before the beams collapsed and retracted. Looking around, he saw a lever in the wall and proceeded to pull it.
Another growling sound ensued and the ceiling beams fell down again, this time hearing a faint ticking sound.
So it is timed…
Facing a stack of rubble, he began running up before leaping off, his hands extended to catch himself on a long column and wrapping his arms and legs around it, climbing not long after and ejecting off it to swing onto one of the beam ceilings and down onto another landing before the timer ran out.
The Assassin was now facing a stone door of sorts and saw a cleverly hidden switch beside the doorframe. He pushed it with his prosthetic hand, causing the door to topple over backwards and grant him passage through.
There, right in front of him, was a lonely beam that jutted out of a cliff side just a few steps away and Vergil knew what he had to do next.
He ran at it and performed a blind leap, his arms spread out like an eagle's before he started to fall down into the depths, eventually hitting a very deep lake in a dive.
Poking his head out a few moments later, he found that he was at the very bottom of the underground tunnels running underneath Magnolia before spotting something out of the ordinary.
What are scaffoldings doing here? Are those… handholds embedded in the cliff face?
The Assassin began swimming to the scaffolding in question before realising that it was a very well hidden path that led up to some place that was completely missed out by the cartographers from Gallowstown that had accompanied the Assassins down into the tunnel network system, or TNS, as the Assassins in Magnolia abbreviated it.
Reaching the cliff and pulling himself up over after a half hour bout of non-stop climbing, an interesting, otherworldly sight met his eye.
It was a sight that he had never seen before in his lifetime, but he knew that his ancestors had gone through many experiences like the one that was right in front of him. Glowing gold doors illuminated the wide area as he walked nearer, his eye transfixed on the etherealness of the huge golden doors that were elaborately decorated with fairies and strange symbols of an emblem that he had seen somewhere before…
…on Mira's left thigh. Wait. This thing belongs to Fairy Tail? What in the world could possibly be behind those doors?
He took out his codex and began to draw the magnificent view in front of him that he could not find any amount nor quality of words to express.
Looking left, then right, he saw a passageway that led up to a trapdoor; an exit should he wish to return to Magnolia through the sewers. He proceeded more carefully with every step that he drew closer to the door, expecting traps to spring out and snare him. To his surprise, there were none as the Assassin got closer to the huge and great golden doors, laying a hand on it before giving a slight push to open it.
He entered, and was significantly more astounded by what he saw next.
This is the greatest treasure… Wisdom in a quiet place like this… Such a wonderful library of books beyond human record.
Now throwing caution to the wind, he walked right into the middle of the large circular room, where a pedestal stood with a golden book filled with strange symbols that he had never seen before sat on it, waiting to be picked up and read.
The book of Thoth… The legendary book that is said to hold all the power of written word in the whole of Earthland.
Taking out his codex once more to document this strange finding sitting down here underneath Magnolia, he realised that he had no idea how to spell the name of the book's supposed owner. He reached his hand out to close the book when he felt a very powerful surge of information flow through his fingers and down to the rest of his body.
It was as if time froze.
Vergil saw many glyphs, spells and blueprints for many various inventions floating around his head as they danced around his frozen form.
No… This book is too dangerous to keep for myself… I have no choice but to leave it here.
He let go of the cover and his movement was restored to him. However, the strange glyphs, the numerous magic spells and invention blueprints were still dancing around his head before fading away into nothingness and somehow he had obtained the knowledge of the entire book by some unknown force.
A machine that flies…and shoots incendiary bombs?
Getting out of the great golden doors and heading towards the passageway exit, he got out and emerged into the sewers, before finding a relatively dry route and emerged through a manhole cover to find himself just outside Kardia Cathedral.
There was a huge crowd that was looking right into the cathedral, hearing grunts of a fight while a few others tended to a few Fairy Tail mages that had fainted on the ground due to the hall of thunder's living link magic.
~ After the final showdown between Laxus and Natsu ~
Vergil
Such power from a young mage as Natsu that even the most powerful of Fairy Tail could not beat down his determination and hope, not to mention dumb luck as well.
Vergil heard the fire dragon slayer roar out across the city in a pained victory, this one scratch on his victory post a deep and hard fought scar, bound to be a cruel reminder that even friends will turn on one another.
The Assassin knew this fact well, mainly because he had been done in by his own fellow Assassins before. After all, he never really told anyone about the truth behind his left prosthetic arm, the pain of losing it because of a failure that had led to one of the most severe consequences for those who had the blood of the Ghost in them.
That particular assignment that he had failed was just after the Assassins emerged the victors of the Battle of Great Fortitude over their enemies the Rune Knights and the Blue Dragon Regiment.
It was true that the White Legion won the battle by some means of sorcery and Vergil was sent out to the cities with a few other Assassins to spread the rumour and create more dissention within the Templar ranks as much as possible. The Ghost Assassin at that time was just shy of sixteen years of age when he was sent to Rose Garden, a city in the northernmost point of Fiore, near the Empty Sands desert, and a few days journey away from the small nation's borders of Veronika, guarded by the Daesar's Range of treacherous mountains.
It was there in the city that there was a particular Templar who doubled as a doctor that was researching on viewing the memories of others through a single drop of blood and it so happened that, young and brash as he was over the victory at Old Fort, Vergil had gotten himself caught and apprehended by him and was interrogated to reveal the secrets of the Assassins.
The doctor Templar did not use torturous methods like he expected at that time but what he did was remove the Assassin's ring finger before sending him in his way. Other Assassins soon found out about this failure of an Assassin disciple and it reached the ears of the old Mentor, grandfather to Lady Bianca.
It was a severe failure that was unacceptable, even to the most novices of the Assassins and Vergil was dearly punished, imprisoned in a cell without food or water before the Mentor found the codex and the punishment of crimes against the Creed written by Judas Teivel, the first Mentor of Fiore in Earthland.
Removal of the left arm, followed by the right leg in the next instance of failure should the criminal ever return in the pink of health.
That harrowing experience left a very deep scar that altered his behaviour from that of an outgoing person to one who was critical of his surroundings and was ready to attack, given if he was attacked first. It was then that he learned never to trust anyone, even the closest of brothers and that everything that he had discovered, even some knowledge of the Assassins from Templars, had been written because they were allowed to do so.
In short, nothing was true; everything was permitted,
And it still is.
Bzz. Bzz.
Ghost rummaged through his pack to see that Master Thorn had sent a message to the Assassins in Magnolia.
To all Assassins here in Magnolia,
The threats of dark mages have been dealt with thanks to the vigilance of all of you who fought to protect our home from them. As of now, these mages have been permanently dealt with.
You are free to do whatever at your own expense but try not to compromise the Brotherhood while you're at it.
Sincerely,
Master Thorn
He turned off the communication lacrima as the crowds began to disperse back to their daily routines before the Fantasia parade later in the night. Ghost looked around and saw that there were no more visible threats in Eagle Sense and the earlier combatants had already made themselves scarce by heading back to the guild.
Heading back to the cathedral walls and beginning to climb it, he thought of the inevitable sleep that would follow, not to mention the many blueprints for weapons that he could think of or remember at the moment, definitely going to build them up from scratch.
Mirajane
She was heading back to the guild after having woken up from the effects of the living link magic, with Cana and her brother, who was cradling Juvia. The group was passing Kardia Cathedral by when something white on the church walls caught her eye.
Astonished ocean blue eyes watched as the familiar figure with a light grey spiked prosthetic left arm climbed up the Cathedral with an ease and grace that she had never seen before. The astonishment in her eyes turned into admiration, before gradually becoming the usually kind and gentle ones that everyone saw on a daily basis, just not up close like one particular purple eye had done on a few occasions before.
