Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail
We headed down the stairs slowly, assuming the formation that I suggested before. Wendy's nose twitched every now and then, turning her head to a sound I can't hear. The stairs itself was narrow, only allowing one person to pass at a time. The ground floor was much louder both for the eyes and the ears, just in the distance, I could see the on-going battle at the front door, cries from both sides rung throughout the halls. Unlike the top floor, there was no garnish, just functionality. Concrete floors, plain wood doors, this place possibility would win an award for the blandest place in town, after tonight, that honour would exchange hands.
"It's safe to go down." Wendy commented, pointing down a set of metal stairs.
"Good work," I replied, "I still want everyone to be careful." With Wendy leading, it was honestly strange, I wasn't used to seeing someone's back during these types of missions, I was always by myself. There were occasional times when all three of us are together however, aside from invading dangerous places, it's too inefficient, so it's been a while since I was in a group like this, it's just as nice as I remembered it to be, I didn't have to be so high strung, there're people watching my back.
At the bottom of the stairs, was a long corridor that stretched far out to the back. Countless doors branched out from the corridor. From entering, I could feel a slight heaviness in the air, that's further proof for the lacrima's being stored here. The biggest source of magic however, was a group of men—ten in total—staring daggers at us, weapons ready. They were positioned in two rows—three rows if you consider the person ahead of all the other; four on the back, five in the middle.
"Looks like someone here is competent." I said, getting my orb out.
"Ultear Milkovich." the man in the middle said; for some reason, he was only looking at me. He was average in height; his spikey black hair and muscular body led me to believe that me was just a meathead, however, sharp green eyes said otherwise. In the next moment, I was in a purple, transparent room. Everything else beyond the walls was just a black void. "Don't worry, we're just in a different space, one that I created. We'll return soon."
"So you just want to talk? How strange, I am invading your base, a normal procedure is to attack right?"
"Are you just trying to lie to yourself?" He started prying right away of course, not that I was thinking he would produce a tea set and a table for us to exchange our daily gripes.
"What ever could you mean?"
"Have you given up on your original goals?" I don't recall many people knowing about my plans, I turned to force the answer out of him, trying to intimidate him with magic pressure. "Relax, it's just a guess. But seeing how you got so defensive, I am right about time travel." I really am getting rusty. "Most of us learned our magic because we're influenced by something; an event, a person, a place. You and I are no exception. I simply asked the question: why would someone learn time magic? Everything else stems from there."
"I assume you're the that rounded up some members and rushed to the basement once you were attacked?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think a man like you would join a group collecting lacrimas just so you can create public distress, you're after something much different."
"Why would you say that?"
"People that wants to cause chaos aren't as civilised as you, they would much rather punch than talk, they tend to hold power yet fail to temper it. Perhaps this whole blowing up guilds things is just an excuse to gather manpower, you'll do it of course, at the same time you'll prove to your men that you're worthy to be a leader, once that happens, only small few will leave you, the rest will follow you anywhere." The man just smiled and gave me a clap, not a condescending kind, just one that held appreciation. While I'm correct, I'm not sure how much of it was right. If I'm spot on, then maybe this person is the leader.
"As I mentioned, our choices in magic is rarely determined by ourselves. In my case, mine came from wanting isolation. I was an illegitimate child in a family of influential people. I was shunned, treated like trash. Hiding in here gave me solace" his arms fanned out, "I didn't have to hear or see what my father did to rise in power."
"You're telling me all this is just a revenge act?"
"At first, my plans were that petty. Then it occurred to me one day that I shouldn't just get rid of my father, but every other corrupt bastard in this kingdom." He kept a strong eye on me, his fists trembling, tightening as they turn white. "It won't be enough however, the damage they did is all done. To stop this, I need to cut the problem at the roots." This person…all this mess was just to lure me out.
"Aren't you a real piece of work? If you wanted to see me that, just send a bouquet at my doorstep and invite me out for dinner, was there a need to go this far?"
"You noticed? Well that just makes things easier. With you helping me, I can erase the mistakes of the past and set this kingdom in the right direction."
"Do you really think your plan would work that smoothly?"
"Why do you think I was gathering lacrima? With all of it charged, we have more than enough power to time travel. Its not a bad offer, we both get what we want."
Seeing my mother smile while I was in her arms, is something I saw so many times in dreams. And it doesn't end there. My life is reset. I could have a life that isn't stained in sin; I could walk in broad daylight without fear of being put behind bars; I could join a normal guild. Chat with friends about stupid topics, getting into fights, all of it. I could possibly join Fairy Tail, be a part of their bombastic family. Friends with Natsu, Erza…
More importantly would be that Meredy wouldn't have to be dragged in the mud by me, she could finally get the life a sweet girl like her deserves. Even if I can't go back now, not even with his help. However, the resources he has might be enough for me to devise a real method to go back.
"It is an attractive offer however," I shot out a wave of thorns, "I've already moved on, I'm perfectly content with the life I have now."
My ice suddenly disappeared, "Then I'll have to break your spirit and force you to help me!" Soon after, I was alone, he just vanished, not in the sense that he hid himself, I can't feel anyone aside from myself. In a split second, I felt something behind me, I jumped back and sent my orb after the thing behind me. Though my orb just swam through air, I managed to catch a glimpse of a boot fading away. He's somehow jumping in and out of this world.
"You should have figured it out by now," a right kick got me in the waist, "you can't win against me."
"You're really bothersome." I got back to my feet, then instantly encasing myself in a thorn cage. "That doesn't mean I can't hurt you." I release the ice, stepped over a puddle of blood and prepared my orb again.
"Reactionary fights doesn't seem to be your style." His voice echoed.
"It's not," I reached behind me, grabbed on a foot and swung him over my shoulder, "I just have to adapt." Before the man decked the ground, he faded away again. "A spell this convenient must have a high maintenance cost, we'll see if you can take me down first before that happens." I traded blows with him, ducking underneath kicks, warding off punches, occasionally getting slammed to the ground. For whatever reason, he doesn't have any other magic, which might be because his magic takes too much time to master to learn other skills.
Nothing I've done did any major damage to him, his vigour hasn't dropped a bit since our fight started, I gave him a few more cuts, but nothing debilitating. While I didn't do much damage, I certainly learned a few things. He can send my ice attacks to who knows where but, he couldn't vanish more than three objects at a time, which should translate to conjuring three objects at a time. His magic is difficult to maintain, his attacks were getting desperate, growing more aggressive and beast-like. Lastly and most crucial is that his world functions the same as my original one, the gravity is the same, atmosphere and so on.
I went to block another kick from my right, only to feel something enter my left arm. I instantly surrounded myself with an ice cage to check the damage. A small knife was half embedded into my bicep, blood wasn't dripping from my finger tips but flowing out. I gritted my teeth and yanked the blade out, tossing it in the air, reducing it to dust before he could recycle it. To stop the blood flow, I just did the same thing Gray did against me when I found him, freezing the wound to deal with later, the stinging pain didn't stop, it screamed at me to end the fight soon.
He followed up with an axe kick; I jumped back. He went for another punch; I walled him off. A thrust from behind; I kicked away his knife. A few more bouts had me struggling to catch my breath, I wasn't able to plan ahead and chain attacks. The worst thing is that I don't have as much stamina as him. So I did an experiment. At his next punch, I gripped it with my hand and froze our two limbs together before he could run away. Purple traded away for a deep crimson, I wasn't in a barren room, but one filled with weapons and rations.
"Found you." I sang, adding a smile. I thought he was jumping between the original world and the purple one, this was a wrong but welcome truth. I can't undo my ice however, I'm sure once I do, he'll just transport me back.
"This doesn't help you at all." I blocked another punch.
"But it does." I focused my magic on everything around me, within a second, all of his tools became useless, devolving into a pile of dust. "The fact I manage to do the same with your knife from before told me lots." Seeing that he can't just run without taking me with him. I multiplied my orbs, accelerated them to a crash course against his joints. We were back in the purple room; this time, I filled the room with thorns on the ground accompanied by spikes on the ceiling. While doing this with one hand isn't the best, he has no way of knowing. "Now what?" I anchored my legs so he couldn't grapple me. "You were jumping around back and forth all the time, I couldn't really do this." I started to extend the ice on his arm to his shoulders, creeping it slowly to his neck. In a final attempt, a chop came down at our connection point. Once I tangled his other arm, we were back, not in his red room, rather the world we came from.
Lisanna and the rest were doing fine seeing how they were outnumbered, they took out two people in my absence. While it was great that I didn't have to deal with his annoying magic, I had been transported behind enemy lines.
"Fire at the woman!" Their boss yelled. Everyone that were focused on Lisanna and Wendy, turned their aim to me. My team were still in a daze unlike his men. In fact, their change in targets was almost second-nature to them. "Your team is next." I was about break our bonds to focus on freezing his entire group—the ceiling above them collapsed.
"Where's the boss!" Someone cried from above. I didn't need to look up to know that is, only one voice could give me such a sudden headache. How did Natsu know we're here? Did Erza tell him? Was he stalking one of us? Regardless of the pain he brought me, the ones that were trying to fire at me were now buried in a pile of rubble, struggling to get out. Using Natsu's distraction, I went towards freezing the man I was stuck to, leaving his torso and head exposed. Likewise, my team also took advantage of the intruders, taking out the remaining henchmen.
"Natsu, while I would like to have a few words with you, Lisanna, can you grab some of the rope in my bag?"
"Are you sure? You're practically frozen." Lisanna returned.
"If I don't anchor myself, he'll just run away again, that's why I'm tethering him to the ground, he doesn't have enough power to teleport the entire floor. I've learned quite a few things, it seems that his magic considers anything tied to him to be one unit," I explained, "so hurry up, while I can handle the cold, I'm not like Gray, I haven't gone under the same amount of resistant training like he did."
"I got it."
"Wendy, do you have enough remaining magic to heal me?"
"Huh?" Wendy looked up from tending to Levy's wounds. "Of course! Leave it to me."
"Then once you're done, come take care of my left arm. Levy, make sure no more reinforcements is coming. Natsu," I sighed, "go make yourself useful and help Levy out."
"Why me?" He pouted. He did it anyway.
I shifted attention back to the half-frozen man, "You were one of the more annoying people I had to fight in a while."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" The man asked.
"Not really."
"If we helped each other, we could have changed the world."
"You wouldn't have needed my help if you went down a different path." Lisanna came back with the bundle of rope I requested. "Just tie it around his torso." Once his abilities were sealed, I slowly revealed more of his body be restricted until, we captured him. Around that time, Wendy just started to work on my stab wound, her magic was gentle, a soothing warmth began from my left arm to the rest of my body, like a campfire. "Thank you." I got up immediately to help with capturing the criminals. "Natsu," I called out, "care to tell me why you're here?"
"I followed you guys." He shrugged.
"That should be impossible, Wendy would have—" I glared at the girl that allowed this all to happen.
"S—sorry," Wendy cried, "I thought it would be fine to have Natsu help us."
"He did." That brought a grin to his face. "How-ev-er, look up." I pointed to a massive gaping hole that linked the ground floor and the basement in a way architects didn't plan for. "What would have happened if he landed on a pile lacrima? We didn't know if they were charged or not, having all that power released like that would have killed us all." I could have reversed the damage of course, that's only assuming I can react in time. Had I still been trapped in that room, there wouldn't be a chance in the first place.
"I didn't mean to…" This lecture was only hurting Wendy's confidence, the opposite of what I wanted to do in this trip. So I sighed, repaired the damage Natsu had done and gave Wendy a small smile.
"It's too late to grumble about it now, don't worry about it. Just be more careful next time." She nodded back with vigour. "But still, when did you notice Natsu?"
"Back on the train after I woke up. I was too tired before to pick up on his scent. And when we were in the bar, I decided to ask Natsu why he was following us."
"And his response was…"
"He found out that Erza was leaving again, so he thought that she was having fun without her team. So he followed us to vent out on her."
"Is there anything meaningful that goes on inside your head?" I turned to Natsu, who was cleaning his ears while leaning against a wall.
"Hey!" In response to his glare, I returned a smile.
"But you were a great help, thank you."
A pause later, his lips curled upwards, "Glad to help!"
Thanks for reading!
Not really a great climax to this arc. I really wanted to do better, the fight scene was pretty balls, but I can't seem to make it work. For the amount of build up I put into this arc, it feels unsatisfying, from my perspective anyway, and that fight has already gone under a re-write, my previous one was so bland, I was two paragraphs in before I deleted the entire thing. Sorry about not doing a good enough job. But here's the thing, I'm so used to writing stories that were short and don't have build-ups like this one, I don't know how to deliver a good climax. I'll work on it.
Perhaps I should just write fics in a franchise that doesn't have a lot of action, it feels like such a cop out though...
I'm pretty sure all of you saw that Natsu was going to come crashing in, regardless, after the next chapter, I can start to write more lighthearted stuff.
Until then, I hope you all enjoyed, have a nice day!