Chapter 25: Plan B
"From the first punch when you broke my scales, poison seeped into yours. You've been weakening rapidly since then and didn't even realize it." Cobra laughed as he picked himself off the ground. "The cellular regeneration properties of the Impulsar spell are remarkable."
"I guess I do get to kill you." Cana shouted drawing her cards.
"If he couldn't succeed what makes you think you can by yourself?" Cobra laughed.
"She's not alone." Gajeel scoffed. "I'm not done with you."
"The power Midnight and Angel displayed is nothing compared to what I have. They had the sixth trial version, I have the eight. When you have the ability to hear people's thoughts they tend to give you anything to stay silent." Cobra declared.
"You should have just stayed dead." Gajeel shouted.
The iron dragon slayer then fell to his knees from dizziness. He looked down at his knuckles and saw they were covered in purple ooze.
"You were so intent on pounding away on me you failed to notice my poison scales affecting you." Cobra smirked.
"Gajeel, are you okay?" Cana questioned.
"Damn it I got sloppy, I'll be fine." Gajeel scoffed.
"I'll show you the hopelessness that Wendy felt when she faced me." Cobra licked his lips.
"Recovery card." Cana shouted throwing a card into the ground next to Gajeel.
A white magic circle appeared beneath Gajeel causing healing magic to wash over his body.
"I don't know if it can cure his poison but it should help." Cana stated.
"I need to get feeling back into my body, hold him off till then." Gajeel responded.
"I'm going to kill him." Cana shouted.
Cana then swiftly flung a card that skid across the ground and landed in front of Cobra. "The Prayer's Fountain."
The card exploded in a burst that summoned several beams of water from it, which struck Cobra in all directions leaving acid like burns on his body. The burns quickly healed thanks to the Impulsar.
"Ouch, that stung." Cobra mocked.
Cobra created a dark purple magic circle and generated a wave of poison, shaped like a large-fanged snake head, and sent it towards Gajeel. "Poison Dragon's Fang Thrust."
"Jolt of Fate!" Cana shouted.
Cana threw her Lightning, Reverse Tower and Lovers cards together at Cobra's attack. The three cards combined and unleashed a massive bolt of lightning that blocked Cobra's Poison Dragon's Fang Thrust.
"I'm impressed. In my fight against Wendy I did the same thing. I targeted her friends and she ended up getting poisoned." Cobra revealed.
"You sick bastard." Cana muttered bitterly.
"You're much stronger than Wendy." Cobra laughed.
Cana slammed three cards together in her hand creating a blue aura around her before waving her arm at Cobra. "Icicle!"
A blue magic circle appeared and fired a massive, jagged icicle at Cobra.
"Poison Dragon's Roar." Cobra gathered the poison in his body and released it from his mouth in the form of deadly spiralling stream of toxic energy at the ice.
The attacks collided sending ice shards flying into the air creating a misty smokescreen, Cobra had purposely weakened his roar to cause this effect. The diversion was enough for Cobra to disappear from Cana's view and get behind her.
"Poison Dragon's Scales!" Cobra swung his arm, creating dozens of scale-shaped blades of poison and fired them at Cana from behind.
Cana only had time to glance over her shoulder and watch the poison scales fly towards her. Using a burst of speed similar to Cobra's, Gajeel intercepted the attack using his Iron Dragon's Club to block the poison scales.
"You're not healed as yet." Cana exclaimed noticing Gajeel's heavy breathing.
"There's no way we can beat him if the both of us are poisoned." Gajeel coughed.
"Here's something special for the two of you. Poison Dragon's Hydra Fang!" Cobra laughed.
Cobra moved his arms forward in a cross, creating a large amount of poison in two massive waves, the generated poison then split into nine elongated, snake-shaped masses, which all move towards Cana and Gajeel.
Cana threw a card that depicted a beautiful woman in a skimpy bikini on the ground. The card released a bright glow and created a dozen of curvaceous bikini clad women from energy. The beautiful women then created a living wall by stacking themselves on each other's shoulders. Cobra's attack struck the living wall, slaughtering the card women before dissipating.
"That was messed up." Gajeel noted.
"It was the first thing that popped into my head." Cana admitted.
"I may keep you alive just to have you perform that trick for me." Cobra cackled.
Cana threw the screech card at him unleashing an ear piercing howl that focused on the poison dragon slayer. Cana then threw several, scattering them around the town square around Cobra. When the first one wore off, the next one activated and so on.
"I knew you were going to use a screech card to try and disorientate me. Too bad I've trained for that since my fight with Natsu." Cobra smirked. "You can't beat me because I know every move you're going to make."
As Cobra laughed and taunted the two Fairy Tail wizards a blue blur rushed by him leaving behind purple trails of air that gutted Cobra.
"Poison Sky Dragon's Crushing Fang." Wendy heaved.
The blue haired girl was shrouded in purple streams of air that danced around her body. The winds quickly died as Wendy stumbled until she collapsed to her knees beside Cana, a negative effect of using her newly gained poison element.
"Impossible, I didn't hear you." Cobra coughed up blood.
"I guess I picked up some kind of immunity from your sound magic thanks to your poison." Wendy remarked.
"Dragon Slayer's Secret Art: Karma Demon: Iron God Sword!"
Gajeel clapped his hands together above his head, creating a gigantic iron sword. The iron dragon slayer then swiped the sword down at Cobra. Cobra stood his ground and caught the sword barehanded and laughed.
Cana pointed her right arm at Cobra and a brown marking appeared on her arm. The brunette looked to Wendy and the blue haired girl nodded.
"Gather! O river of light that's guided by the fairies! Shine! In order to perish the fangs of evil! Fairy Glitter!" Cana shouted.
A golden ring of heavenly light descended from the sky and surrounded Cobra before converging on him. As Fairy Glitter struck he lost his grip and was sliced in half Gajeel's sword. The dark wizard's halves were eradicated completely by Fairy Glitter.
"I'm so glad you're alive." Cana bent down and hugged Wendy.
"I woke up and heard Lucy trying to get Laxus to find you. She was worried you went after Cobra." Wendy replied as she gingerly got up.
"How did you find us?" Cana asked.
"I don't know how but my power sky rocketed after I woke up and with my new sense of smell I was able to track you. I'm glad you carry around that leaky flash." Wendy smiled.
"I don't mean to interrupt this moment but I am kind of poisoned here." Gajeel then fell to his knees from the poison as Cana and Wendy ran to his side.
XXXXX
Princess Hisui E. Fiore sat on a bench under the shade of an archway with overhanging plants in the gardens of Mercurius Castle waiting as her guest was about to arrive. The green haired princess wore a long white dress that almost seemed like a ball gown.
"My lady." Lahar bowed as he joined her.
"Lahar, it is rude to keep a princess waiting." Hisui joked.
"My apologies Princess, I was tied up with paperwork." Lahar responded.
"I am only teasing Lahar, please have a seat." Hisui offered.
"Thank you my lady." Lahar accepted sitting on the opposite end of the bench.
"That scent." Hisui smiled picking up the fragrance. "That is the perfume I bought for you. You wore it to our last meeting as well; I'm starting to think you only use it when you meet me."
"No my lady, I wear it all the time." Lahar lied.
"I asked to meet you here because I wanted to thank you for allowing me use of the Rune Knight for our festival but the festival has come and gone and the knights are still here." Hisui said.
"This is all just bureaucratic mechanisms slowing us down my lady. Ever since the Rune Knights developed a union we've had problems like this whenever we try and move large numbers of them around." Lahar sighed.
"I understand the role of leadership comes with dealing with plenty of unpleasant situations." Hisui nodded. "If I can help you in any way, please let me know."
"Thank you; you're too kind my lady." Lahar smiled.
"Not really Lahar, I'm just trying to buy favour with a future council member." Hisui laughed.
"Council member… Very unlikely." Lahar mumbled.
"What's wrong?" Hisui asked.
"Before the firing of Etherion incident with Jellal Fernandez I was on my way to be fast tracked into the council as a member." Lahar confessed. "When the new council regime came into power, I was seen as a part of the old, failed system and any hopes I had of becoming a council member were gone."
"I did not know that Lahar. I am sorry. You have done wonderful work as a Rune Knight." Hisui complimented to cheer him up.
XXXXX
In his secret cave Natsu untied Jellal as Lisanna handed him a bowl of soup. The former wizard rubbed his wrist before accepting the bowl of soup.
"My magic is almost back. Does this mean you've given up on trying to extract information on Etherion from me?" Jellal noted.
"I'm being coerced into releasing you." Natsu scoffed.
"Thank you Lisanna." Jellal turned to the white haired girl.
"I take it you've given up on eliminating Behemoth in one swoop." Jellal sighed.
"No, I'm still going to do it. I'm going to attack their secret base and wipe them all out with my bare hands." Natsu smirked.
"That's crazy. Even you can't do that. You'll be killed before you even do away with half of them." Jellal exclaimed.
"I've tried talking him out of it but he's too stubborn." Lisanna gritted her teeth.
"Do you have any idea what you're getting into?" Jellal questioned.
"I do, I know exactly what to expect." Natsu replied.
"Do you know what the number 34 means?" Jellal asked.
"Ah, so you knew about it." Natsu laughed.
"It's not to be laughed at." Jellal shouted.
"What's 34?" Lisanna asked.
"There are 34 heads to Behemoth that represent the 34 dark guilds that make up Behemoth. The heads are the guild masters." Natsu answered.
"You said that all the heads will be at this emergency meeting. You can't fight 34 guild masters!" Lisanna screamed.
"I don't need to kill all. I just need to slay the Grimoire Heart guild master; he's the one who assembled Behemoth." Natsu cursed.
"I've tried but I've never been able to uncover the identity of the Grimoire Heart guild master." Jellal admitted.
"Even I haven't been able to. No matter how much you torture someone, they can't tell you what they don't know." Natsu admitted.
"How can you kill him if you don't even know who he is?" Lisanna demanded to know.
"If I kill all 34 I won't have to worry about that." Natsu smirked.
"That's suicide. Jellal talk some sense into him!" Lisanna yelled.
Jellal just looked at the bowl of soup and couldn't say anything.
"Jellal, say something." Lisanna pleaded.
"I'm sorry Lisanna, Natsu has been on a suicide mission from the day he started this." Jellal explained.
"I refuse to accept that." Lisanna shook her head.
"He has attacked with complete disregard for his own safety; it soon became obvious that he didn't care about his own life. There is only way a mission like that can end. Natsu never intended to survive this vendetta." Jellal replied.
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." Natsu quoted.
"If you wanted to die all along then why did you open up to me, why did you give me hope?" Lisanna demanded to know.
"Pride, I wanted someone to tell my story." Natsu confessed.
"You…" Lisanna cried before running out of the cave to let the tears flow.
"You're a terrible liar, I should know. I tried to be like that with Erza." Jellal laughed. "What's the real reason you're with her?"
"I wanted to feel alive again, that feeling of having a connection even if it's not going to last." Natsu gave a broken smile.
"Crocus is going to be crawling with agents of Behemoth; you might not even make it to the meeting." Jellal warned.
"I'm prepared for that. I'm not going to die peacefully. I'm going out in a blaze of glory." Natsu declared.
XXXXX
Minerva ducked and weaved through the narrow alley ways of Crocus keeping to the shadows. The sadistic beauty stopped when she found a trap door hidden on the tarred road. She opened the hatch and descended beneath Crocus. She wandered through the pitch black tunnels able to find her way thanks to her magic. The tunnels were a maze consisting of several twists and turns.
She finally arrived at the small chamber and kneeled down as she waited. She kept her head bowed as a cloaked wizard entered the chamber.
"Have all the arrangements been made?" The cloaked wizard asked.
"Yes sir, agents of Behemoth have been scattered across Crocus in preparation of all the heads arriving." Minerva answered.
"Good, I want you to increase security." The cloaked wizard stated.
"Sir, we already have the entire city covered. We even have agents in the Rune Knight squads." Minerva replied.
"It has come to my attention that some of the information Natsu extracted from the men we sent to kill him may have been about our impending emergency meeting." The cloaked wizard explained.
"If that's true then we shouldn't be holding the emergency meeting here. We should postpone and relocate." Minerva suggested,
"If we move now because we fear an attack from one man, then that will make me look weak." The cloaked wizard shouted.
"I understand sir. What if he does come?" Minerva asked.
"That's why you're increasing security. Kill him on sight and then bring his body down to the meeting chambers to be displayed." The cloaked wizard replied.
"I'd like your permission to attack Magnolia again." Minerva requested.
"Why?" The cloaked wizard responded.
"Oración Seis failed to destroy Magnolia and Fairy Tail using their beta Impulsar spells. My team and I can use our perfect ones to attack. They did suffer loses and we can attack now and wipe them out." Minerva smiled wickedly.
"Bear in mind Minerva, you only have the ninth trial formula of Impulsar. Only I have the truly perfect tenth version." The cloaked wizard reminded.
"I know, I understand that even though mine is close to perfect there is still a chance that it can turn on me. All this time I've called it perfect but it was not." Minerva nodded. "I'm willing to take that chance."
"All for revenge. I know you despise Erza Scarlet and you want to kill her but now is not the time. You have to remain here in Crocus and make sure the meeting goes off without a hitch." The cloaked wizard ordered.
"Yes sir." Minerva gritted her teeth.
"When our meeting is done, I will grant you permission to attack Fairy Tail. You will have the full force of Behemoth; all 34 dark guilds that make up Behemoth will assist you." The cloaked wizard laughed.
"Thank you sir." Minerva grinned as the cloaked wizard left.
XXXXX