The Queen's Armor

Chapter 7

Flight Armor Part II

Note: Happy New Year's everyone. I wish you all a safe and successful new year. Hopefully, there will be more fun and emotional stories for the best fans ever.

The stone figure was walking towards her without speaking a single word. From her view, it was hard to make out who the warrior was, but Erza didn't care. She lowered herself to the ground and waited for the attack. As the warrior was within arm's reach, it stretched its arm back and swung down its sword right on top of Erza. In the blink of an eye, she dove out of the way. When she looked back, she saw the sword impact with the ground and send huge pieces of rocks flying into the air. Some flew towards her and she shot them out of the air.

As the dust filled the air, the figure made its move. To her surprise, it moved very quickly right at her, swinging its sword right at her stomach and landing a solid strike. The power of that strike sent her sliding across the ground and few feet away from it.

"What the hell are you?" There was no response. It lifted up its sword and walked back towards Erza. She pointed her staff at it and a bolt of lightning came shooting right at it. However, the most unexpected thing happened. Her lightning bolt phased right through its body as if it were some kind of spirit that took no true form.

As the object reformed, she was completely out of ideas. If that attack didn't hit, what would? She had the armory to figure some kind of weakness, but time wasn't on her side. This thing kept on pressing its weight against hers and wasn't able to withstand it. What could she do? She saw it reach closer towards her and thought on her toes. Her body glowed and she revealed her Giant's Armor. The giants who made this for her said that it can withstand anything within a human's ability. That last part worried her because this things definitely wasn't human. She tightened her grip on her staff and charged.

She swung her staff upwards and then back down on her opponent. It brought its sword up to block her attack and immediately swung at her causing her to flip away. Things still weren't making sense. Its attacks are solid, but the defense against my lightning attack wasn't. Why? She looked up and saw that her opponent was running right at her with a fully charged attack ready. She brought her staff up to her face and took the hit. The huge attack sent her flying across the way and into the wall.

After her body crashed into the ground, she looked up and saw someone standing in front of her. It was Keiji. In her head, she was wondering what was taking him so long. Her opponent remained motionless as Keiji stared it down.

"What's wrong?"

"I know what this is. This is a failed experiment by a certain demon that I can't remember the name of. But there's one thing that's certain and that only Demon Slayer Magic can work against this thing." Erza slowly rose onto her feet, grabbing her stomach.

"So what do we do?"

"We find a weak spot." In her head, she was going nuts. He obviously wasn't here to see her get her butt kicked. This thing was impervious to her attacks and she knew it. Hopefully he knew that or else things wouldn't turn out well for him. He lowered his body and dashed at the enemy. However, when he did, Erza completely lost sight of him. Did he just disappear? Is this his magic?

Out of nowhere, he appeared right next to the enemy and struck him right in the lower back. His fist went through his body and he immediately pulled out. The enemy swung its sword at his head and he fell back, kicking his legs right at its face. This time, the attack worked. He landed a clean blow to its face. As this was happening, Erza was examining everything. The fought Keji fought was incredible. She's never seen such honed skills before. After a few good blows, he reappeared next to Erza.

"It's not invulnerable so we can defeat it. We just have to work together. It can handle more than more thing at a time so we'll give it a surprise. I'll keep it busy and then you finish him off. Sound like a deal?" She nodded her head and the two of them executed the plan.

Keiji ran right at it and it swung at his head. He quickly slid on his knees and avoided the attack. The enemy slowly turned around and slammed its sword against the ground. He rolled out of the way, but his strike hit the ground dead-on, causing lava to shoot up into the air. He retreated to create some distance between them. When the lava finally subsided, he moved in again. He dodged every attack and managed to hit about 3-4 times. Unfortunately, these attacks didn't seem to have much of an effect, but that was all part of the plan. As Erza continued to watch, she saw him give the sign to her to attack. She ex-quiped into Armadura Fairy. She lowered her body and sprung towards the enemy. Meanwhile, Keji was still keeping it busy. He was getting battered around a little more, but he had to hold up. When he saw Erza within striking distance, he landed one more blow and jumped out of the way.

"Do it!"

"Aaahhhh!" She swung her two swords into an X shape and two energy blasts came right at it the enemy. This time, her attack and exploded on impact. They had to cover their eyes for the light from the explosion was pretty intense. When the dust from the explosion subsided, the saw no sign of the enemy. They looked around carefully, but saw nothing. Suddenly, in the corner of his eye, Keiji spotted a strange smoke cloud heading right for Erza.

"Erza, get down!" It was too late. The smoke made contact with her body and phased into her. Her body suddenly jerked upright and she screamed out in pain.

"Aaahhhhh!" Her eyes suddenly turned bright red and her body was slowly engulfed in black armor, just like the one they had just fought. Block after block, the demon took over her body until the takeover was finally complete. Her body was covered in huge, black armor that looked nearly impenetrable. She stood there hunched over, eyes still red as blood.

"Erza?" She suddenly dropped to her knees and grabbed her head.

"Aaahhhh!" What was going on? Was this a struggle for dominion over her?

"Erza, you have to fight it! Don't let it win!" She continued to scream out in pain. However, as she did, her voice began to change. It was almost as if another being was inside of her, trying to take control. Keiji tried to keep his distance, but he wanted to do something for her. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do for her. This looked to be her fight and her fight only.

She suddenly rose to her feet and ran into a nearby wall, breaking every single piece of rock in her path. She then fell onto her knees and pounded the ground as hard as she could. Her punch cracked the ground and lava shot out. Surprisingly, she wasn't harmed by this, but she was still in pain by what was happening to her. As he watched carefully, her eyes grew redder and redder until she was forced to close her eyes.

"Aaaahhhh!" It was getting hard to watch. He didn't want to see her suffer, but he didn't want to abandon her so he did his best to remain calm. After a few more seconds, white glow started to appear around her armor. This went on until her whole body was covered in it. He reached his hand towards her and the white glow shot out in all directions, sending him onto his back.

When he looked back, he saw that Erza was no longer struggling. Her body was upright and she was breathing heavy. He slowly rose to his feet and walked over to her. He kept his arm out as precaution. As he neared her, her breathing calmed and she looked up. Her eyes were still red, but she looked much calmer than she was.

"Erza, are you alright?" Suddenly, her body glowed which caused him to cover his eyes. When he opened them back up, he saw that she was back in her normal armor. "What the hell just happened?"

"That's 11."

"What are you talking about? Are you okay?"

"That's my 11th piece of armor."

"Whoa, wait. You're saying that you conquered that demon?" she nodded her head and smiled. H couldn't believe it. To do something so crazy and not look affected by it afterwards was incredible. "Well, I tip my hat to you Erza Scarlet. You are truly and woman of many wonders and feats. Now, our next challenge: Getting out of this hole."

"No problem." She ex-quiped into Heaven's Wheel and flew them both out. When they returned to normal ground, things weren't looking any better for them. They saw endless amounts of dead bodies everywhere.

"What the hell happened around here?" Keiji knelt down onto the ground and examined some of the bodies. Unfortunately, they were all dead, but the weird thing was that they were all killed by the same thing at the same time.

"It's the Humtah, and it's close." He rose onto his feet. "We need to get out of here. Run!" without wasting another second, the two of them made their way deeper into the forest. As they ran quickly and silently, they could hear the slight rustling of leaves behind them and knew that it was the Humtah. In this situation, there wasn't much that they could. It was nearly impossible to track that beast and it was incredibly strong so fighting it head-on was definitely at the bottom of the priority list so they continued to run. As they ran, Erza couldn't help but let her mind run which also caused her mouth to run as well.

"So Okura-sensei, what kind of magic do you use? I saw what you did, but I couldn't tell what it was. If anything, it's not lethal magic, is it?" It took hima few seconds, but he finally answered her.

"You have a good eye, Erza. You're right though. I use prediction magic. I use the life force of the things around me and use that to my advantage. I can see multiple paths that something will follow and go off of that."

"But that still doesn't clean things up. You looked as if you knew what that thing was going to do to you." He chuckled.

"I also use telepathy magic, but that's only when I truly need to. I believe that things are best left to fate, but sometimes, it's necessary to change things up." Suddenly, they were halted dead in their tracks. They took a closer look at the greenery they were about to enter and saw the Humtah. Its eyes were wide open, its body was low to the ground, and its growling was nothing that could possibly be described. "And I guess this situation calls for a change." He looked next to him and saw that Erza was ex-quiping. When she emerged, she had on the black armor, quickly named Purgatory Armor. "You ready?" She nodded her head as smoke came out of her nose and mouth. "Then let's get to it."

End of Chapter 7