Author's note: Okay, first off, I'm so sorry about the lack of updates lately. I've been horrendously busy since September (university and working at the zoo for three months) and haven't had a lot of time to work on this. Luckily, it's nearly Christmas break, and my work placement at the zoo has finished, so I should get more time to work on this soon.
To be honest, I'm not sure if I like how this turned out? I hope it turned out okay, but *shrugs nervously*
"Stay back," Natsu warned, throwing his hand out and casting a glance over his shoulder at his friends. Lucy stared back, her heart thudding in her chest, the dark crushing presence around her almost suffocating. Without thinking, her hand went to her keys – miraculously, Phantom's members had been too idiotic to remove her keys from her.
"Let me help you," she said, trying to take a step forward. She'd already sat around watching Natsu fight Gajeel, watching him fight because of her – she couldn't let him do that again. The thought of doing that left a bad taste in her mouth.
"No!" Lucy jumped, and whirled around. Erza had gotten to her feet, looking shaky and a bit unsteady, but the resolve on her face was iron-clad. She was staring at José with a dark expression, and she slowly made her way forward, hand gripping her sword tightly. She gave them a significant look, her eyes stern. "Do not attack him!"
Gray's face twisted into a scowl, and he started walking towards them. From the looks of things, he was intent on arguing with Natsu and Erza about that. Natsu turned to look at him, his own face irritated, and he made a small hand motion. Lucy saw, in the next few seconds, a magic circle appear below him, then a strange, orangey light filled the space quickly appeared on the floor below her, Gray, and Mira. It faded as quickly as it had appeared. Gray continued to walk forward, then abruptly stopped, as though he'd walked into an invisible wall. He stared, incredulous for a long moment, before exploding with a, "What the hell, ash brains?!"
"I'm not very good at rune magic," Natsu said, not looking at them. "Freed is far better than I am. But that'll keep you safe for now. Nothing can get in, and you can't leave." Ignoring Gray's outraged sputtering, Natsu turned to Erza, expression blank. "Ready?"
Erza nodded, mouth set in a thin line. Her stance shifted slightly, then charged forwards, sword raised to her eye level.
Lucy watched, her heart in her throat, as Erza ducked and weaved through the dark blasts of magic that were volleyed towards her from José, cutting away tendrils of magic that got too close to her. With a defiant battle cry, she yelled, "Requip!" and the familiar light surrounded her for a brief second. When it vanished, she was running in a different armour, dark, lethal-looking, with wings attached to the back. Another yell, and she leapt up into the air, sword glittering in the light as she swung it down.
José dodged to the side, and Erza let out a sound that was almost a growl, and slashed at him again. With speed and agility that had been hidden by José's apparent age, he ducked again, and caught hold of Erza's arm as she went to swing again. Before either of them could move, though, there was a flash of orange and gold behind José, and Lucy caught a glimpse of wild pink hair.
"Sparks!" Natsu yelled, and Lucy saw the top of his arm move, then José was suddenly blasted forwards. The quickly fading remnants of an explosion lingered where he'd been standing, and Erza had been blasted away in the opposite direction. She gently floated down, though, landing on top of a pile of rubble. She raised her sword again, her expression like steel.
José quickly regained his bearings and turned to look at the two of them, his face blank beyond the joyless smile. "Fascinating," he said musingly, glancing between the two of them. Lucy felt her gut clench at the tone, and not for the first time, she wished that Natsu hadn't shoved her inside the barriers of the runes he'd placed. She felt helpless and useless, just sitting there and watching two of her friends fight him head on. José looked at Erza. "You took a shot from Jupiter at full-force, did you not? Yet you're still standing." Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Natsu, whose arms were still burning. "And you brought down three of my elites, as well as Jupiter, yet you have enough magic left to face me."
"So long as my friends are in my heart, there is nothing I won't do to help them," Natsu growled out, fists clenching.
"For the ones that I love," Erza said slowly, raising the sword a bit higher, "I will withstand any amount of pain."
José smiled, slightly wider. Lucy cringed at the sheer amount of teeth the man seemed to possess, like some sort of predator. "Powerful, courageous, and deadly," he said, something akin to admiration in his tone. Something in his face shifted, although Lucy couldn't quite put her finger on what. "Destroying you both will bring me unbelievable pleasure."
Lucy cringed again, goosebumps running down her arms at the tone of voice. There was something about it that made her want to climb into the nearest, deepest hole and never resurface.
Natsu growled, long canines flashing, and the fire around his fists seemed to suddenly burn brighter, whipping away at invisible winds. Without warning, he brought one fist up, then slammed it down into the ground. Lucy immediately recognised it as an attack he'd used against Gajeel, and watched as seconds later, a great plume of flame burst up out of the ground, where José was standing. José quickly stepped to the side, out of the flame, and the flame reached higher – until it reached the ceiling. There was an explosion, the room shaking from the force of it, and the flame forced bits of the ceiling in every direction.
Lucy could only stare as, where there had been ceiling before, there was now the clear blue sky. José looked up at it as well, before turning back to Natsu.
"Well, what an unruly dragon you are," he said mildly. He waved a hand in a sweeping arch, and great explosions followed the pattern he'd made. Lucy, Gray, and Happy yelped as the explosions passed near them. The barrier Natsu had created held strong, but Lucy still felt a wave of intense heat pass over her. She was surprised that her clothes hadn't been burned off by the sheer intensity of it. The flames started disappearing rapidly, being pulled in a single direction.
The fire eventually dwindled down enough for Lucy to see Natsu, still standing where he'd started. He was inhaling the flames with the same amount of gusto that Lucy had seen when she'd first met him in Hargeon, both at the restaurant – she still mourned the loss of money from that particular meal – and from his fight with Bora.
"Thanks for the meal," he said plainly, running his hand across his mouth. "Yeh flames taste awful."
Faster than Lucy could keep up with, he then launched himself forward, boosted by the flames he'd just devoured. A faint orange streak tailed behind him, like he was a comet passing through the stars and heading for a collision. At the same time, as though they'd coordinated it, Erza leapt up into the air with another defiant yell, and brought her sword down in a heavy, slicing swing as she reached her target. To Lucy's surprise, though, José managed to duck and block each of their attacks, dodging the sword swipes and blocking the shattering fist blows with his forearms.
"To tell you the truth, this is the longest an opponent as ever lasted against me in battle," José said mildly, as though they were discussing the weather over tea in a dinner party. "We'd be more evenly matched if you weren't both low on magic power." Lucy stared, then nearly jolted as she realised, now that José had mentioned it, both Erza and Natsu did look tired. It wasn't noticeable, unless it was being actively searched for, but Erza had slight shadows under her eyes, was shaking slightly. And Natsu, while still moving insanely fast, was moving more sluggishly than he had in his fight against Gajeel – something he was covering up by transporting himself around via his flames.
José gave a light hum. "You know what really irks me about Fairy Tail?" he asked, voice still light as a feather and mild as spring. "The fact that there are so many powerful wizards like yourselves," he continued, and suddenly his voice got darker, and a strange glint entered his eyes, "who are aligned with Makarov." He raised a hand, and a small circle of purple magic appeared at his fingertips. He flicked them forward, and the magic immediately went speeding towards Erza.
Erza let out a pained yell as she went flying backwards, and she crashed into the wall with such force that it cracked around her.
"Erza!" Natsu yelled, the fire around his arms flaring up. He took a few steps towards her, moving quickly, but was blasted off his feet as well, sent flying into the wall closest to where Lucy, Gray, and Mira were. When he looked up, his eyes were full of hatred, and Lucy nearly flinched.
"Since neither of you can be tempted to join Phantom, there is only one way to change that," José said flatly, and more purple magic circles appeared, this time on each one of his fingers. They continued to grow in size, until there was a single circle of magic. Then, like a laser, it shot towards where Erza had landed.
"Look out!" Gray shouted, rushing at the barrier and pressing his fists against it, as though his sheer force of will could shatter them. Before the laser could hit, though, Erza suddenly leaped into the air, leaving a trail of dust behind her. At the same time, a streak of orange and red blasted across the room, and Natsu appeared in the fire, fist reared back and snarl in place.
José turned to him, and sent a torrent of deadly-looking magic at him. "Kill you!" José shouted, and Lucy blinked, momentarily confused for a moment by the broken sentence, until she realised that it was a continuation of the last thing he'd said. The magic blasted at Natsu, its intent obvious, and Natsu vanished in a plume of fire before it could hit, reappearing on José's other side.
Another blast was shot at Erza, and she quickly jumped to the side to avoid it, almost gliding in a serpentine motion. Natsu swung his fist forward, teeth bared in a growl, and José turned at the last second, grabbing hold of Natsu's forearm and halting the attack. Not even a second went by, then José hurled Natsu with a strength that seemed unnatural with his age, sending him flying once again, this time towards Erza. Natsu twisted himself in the air, avoiding the blasts of purple that were being sent his way, and he landed in a half-crouched position, fingers dragging through the stone.
"Do you know why I didn't kill Makarov before?" he asked, conversationally again. Erza looked up, breath coming out hard from exhaustion, and scowled. Lucy glanced down at her keys, cursing the fact that once again, she was useless. If only the stupid barrier wasn't there. He started walking forwards, his pace sedate, and his eyes seemed to glint red. "It was to put the old coot into deep despair." He smiled, although there was no kindness in it at all. Lucy could see what Mira had meant by there being a cloud of malice hanging over him. It seemed to seep out of every pore, and saturate the room. "Imagine how he'll feel when he comes back to find his guild hall in ruins." The smile turned sharper. "And his children dead and gone." Both Natsu and Gray let out growls, the latter pushing against the barrier once again. "He'd be lost, completely consumed by sorrow."
Erza straightened up, holding her sword so that it was pointing directly at José and all but snarling.
"When he's been reduced to that miserable state, I'll be free to swoop in and kill him," José continued. "But first, I'll make him suffer. I'll torture him until he has no choice but to wither and die."
"Not if I kill you, first!" Natsu roared, suddenly launching from his crouched position at José. As he came to a stop where José was standing, Lucy realised that the psychotic guild master had vanished, like Natsu and his own vanishing act. She also noted that Natsu's eyes, while usually very dark in colour, looked almost like voids of anger, black and menacing. There was also a black marking on his arm that she hadn't remembered seeing before. Lucy filed it away for later, worrying her lip anxiously.
There was a breeze, a blur, and Lucy was then aware of Erza rushing at José, as well. Her sword was raised high in the air, and she jumped up off the ground with a battle-cry, bringing it down in a savage slash. She slashed at José, the motion a certain killing blow that had both Gray and Lucy both wincing. As with Natsu, though, Phantom's guild master suddenly disappeared and reappeared in an instant behind her, already resuming his monologue. "As long as I can remember, Phantom Lord as always been at the top." He closed his eyes and smiled smugly, still facing away from Erza. "We had the most powerful wizards with the most powerful magic. We also had more capital and more members than any other guild." He paused and eyed them all with a dark look, and Lucy's stomach twisted uncomfortably.
"However, as of late Fairy Tail has begun to catch up, and our positon as leader is in jeopardy." His face turned sour. "The names Erza, Laxus, and Mystogan became widely known, and the tales of Salamander spread across the land like wildfire."
"Apologies," Natsu said flatly, arms still alight. Given that small detail, Lucy got the impression that it wasn't very sincere. José ignored him.
"Now Phantom Lord and Fairy Tail are considered equals. The top two guilds representing Fiore. The thought disgusts me." If possible, his face twisted into an even uglier expression. "I refuse to be acquainted with such a feeble guild!"
Not even a second had passed, when there was a whooshing, and then the sounds of the roars of two loud warriors filling the partially destroyed room. Erza leapt off the ground, shooting towards José with a furious look on her face, baring her sword at a deadly angle.
"Silence!" she yelled furiously, dangerously.
Just as she leapt, Natsu moved from his position, slightly behind José, and sped towards him in a rage of bright flames. From what Lucy could see in the brief moment, he seemed to be propelled by the flames themselves, as though they had become like liquid – she also saw that the black marking on his arm seemed to spread just the slightest bit, before receding back to its original place. She blinked, confused. Once he was close, he leapt at José, just as Erza was doing, all the time whist letting out a wordless roar.
José seemed to eye up both unintended coordinated attacks and disappeared, only to reappear atop a pile of rubble, looking down on them. Lucy could feel Gray shaking in anger at the look on José's face, which could only be described as somewhere between smug, indifferent, and enraged, if such a thing. Then, if such a thing existed, then José had encompassed it perfectly.
"So, we're fighting for our lives, because you've decided to have a fit of jealousy?!" Erza demanded, gripping the swords so tightly, Lucy could see the whites of her knuckles even from a distance away. She seemed like she was barely holding herself back from doing something stupid, like leaping straight at José.
"Jealousy?" José asked mildly, smiling like she'd just asked about the weather and not about the attempted homicide of their comrades. "That's absurd. We simply wanted to prove to the kingdom that we are the dominant guild."
Erza opened her mouth to respond, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by Natsu's cool retort. Lucy was surprised by what he came out with.
"Really?" he asked, cocking a head to the side, raising an eyebrow. The black markings remained around his arm. "Yeh could have had a contest or something. Like a tournament between our guilds," He paused and a faraway look appeared in his eyes for a brief moment, before a sharp look from Erza appeared to shake him out of his fantasy tournament. "Instead, yeh caused this to happen, and you dragged your own guild into it. Not only have you put our people at risk," he growled there, "but you threw your own people in harm's way, as well." His voice lowered dangerously, and jerked his head sharply towards where Gajeel was still out cold, slumped against the wall but protected by Natsu's rudimentary rune barrier. "Like my brother says: people like you are the bane of humanity." He said the last sentence with a dark scoff worthy of the demon he was.
Upon hearing this, Erza let out another battle cry, and leapt forward, her face furious at the revelation. She all but flew towards José, her sword moving so fast that Lucy couldn't even track it with her eyes. José seemed to be able to sense it, though, because he dodged every single one of the attacks, weaving between the attacks, and disappearing and reappearing a ways away from Erza. After a moment, Natsu seemed to appear from the ground, flames billowing around him, and he sent giant jets of flames so hot that Lucy could feel the heat even through their barrier.
Again, José disappeared, reappearing a short distance away, completely unharmed, if looking slightly ruffled. In retaliation, he whipped out a purple magic circle, and from that magic circle came a stream of purple magic shot outwards, immediately extending out into three tendrils of cackling dark magic. They shot towards Erza, and Lucy heard Mira let out a choking noise, as though she seemed to recognise the spell. The purple tendrils wrapped around Erza, tightening themselves, and suddenly forks of red lightening were shocking from the tendrils, and Erza had started screaming, suspended in mid-air by the tendrils. Lucy stared, both morbidly transfixed and deeply terrified for her friend.
"Erza!" she heard Natsu yell from the side, and she felt a bit of hope rise, despite herself. If there was anyone who could get Erza out, it was Natsu, He could do it. There was an inhuman sounding growl. "I'll kill y – "
His sentence was cut off abruptly, and Lucy spun her head around, despite her volition, and her stomach dropped. Just like she'd seen with Erza, there were more purple tendrils, José holding a hand towards it as the red lightning branched off of it. Natsu seemed to be just barely holding back screams, although judging by the pained expression, he wouldn't be able to last for much longer. José seemed to know that, as well
"While I've never been particularly fond of your guild," he said casually, holding up a hand to both Erza and Natsu, Erza's screams echoing across the broken room like some sort of twisted symphony. Lucy wanted to cover her ears and hide her face away. "My distaste for you was not what triggered this war."
"Could've fooled me," Natsu gasped out. Lucy silently cursed his motor mouth, and looked away just in time as José raised an eyebrow, then seemed to turn up the intensity of the shocks coursing through the purple tendrils holding Natsu. Natsu finally let out a pained noise, and Lucy bit her lip,
"We were hired by the patriarch of the Heartfilia family to find his missing daughter." At this, he glanced towards where Lucy was sitting behind the barrier with Lucy, Gray, Mira, and Happy, an emotion she couldn't place in his face. It made her unaccountably nervous. "The child of one of the kingdom's wealthiest men is now in Fairy Tail."
Lucy shifted slightly, looking down. To be talked about, like she was nothing but a possession. It made her feel dirty, like she was nothing. It was one of the many reasons why she left that life behind. One of the reasons that she loved being in Fairy Tail so much – the freedom it afforded her, to do as she liked, to be friends with whomever she liked; it felt like nothing she had ever experienced before that fateful day in Hargeon. Mira seemed to sense her troubles, because she sent a dark glare to José.
"So Makarov's trying to buy his way to the top, isn't he?" José demanded, turning his gaze away from Lucy and back to Erza, turning up the intensity of the shocks coursing through the tendrils holding her.
"THAT IS A LOAD OF FUCKING FILTH!" Natsu suddenly roared, his face contorted with pure rage as he struggled against the purple magic, apparently paying no mind to the lightening as he thrashed against their hold. Lucy unconsciously dug her nails into her arm as Natsu seemed to set on fire, the black mark on his arm spreading that little bit more. "GRAMPS WOULD NEVER GO TO YOUR LEVEL!"
José graced him with a brief, if indifferent look. "You are an angry guard dragon, aren't you? So quick to defend your master." His look darkened. "If only you had been in Phantom. Instead, I got only cocky arrogance, not angry loyalty." He paused, glancing over to where Gajeel was. Lucy saw, out of the corner of her eye, that Gajeel was slowly starting to come around. He still seemed pretty out of it, though, which came as no surprise after the thorough beating he'd received. "Still, not much to be done now." He held out a hand, and Lucy could almost predict what was going to happen. Almost as soon as she'd closed her eyes, frame trembling and nerves frayed, Natsu had finally started screaming.
"Now then." José seemed to resume his earlier monologue, turning back to Erza, leaving Natsu half slumped, half glaring. "Now that your guild has unfettered access to the Heartfilia family fortune, it's only a matter of time before that happens." José paused, face twisting. "That is, if we don't completely wipe you out first!" The purple magic circle got bigger, and the pain on Erza's side seemed to increase, as her screams got louder.
Then, she smiled and laughed. José's own smile slipped right off his smug face. "It's laughable how concerned you are about something as silly as your guild's ranking. Do you think we care about any of that?"
"Me and Laxus do, a bit!" Natsu protested, sounding pained. Erza ignored him.
"You've wiped out your own guild just to try and beat us in the rankings." Erza's face darkened at that. "But, even more than this, I'm even more amused about incredibly uninformed you are about Lucy!"
José's face twisted again. "What?!"
"She came to us as a runaway. She doesn't have access to her family's fortune!" José seemed to falter for a moment, hand retreating back slightly from the magic circle. "She rents a place for seventy thousand jewel a month. She works hard to make a living. She fights alongside us, she laughs with us, and she cries with us! She's no different than any other member of our guild!" Erza's face became almost hellishly scary. "And she's why we're at war!"
Lucy looked down at the reminder.
"Don't worry, Luigi." Lucy's head jerked up at the butchering of her name, prepared to shout at whoever it was, regardless of the situation they were currently in. Natsu wasn't looking at her, was still glaring at José with all of his might, but then said, "I said I'd burn any Phantom creep to ash if they touched yeh, didn't I?" He then looked her way and gave her a grin, brilliant in the grim situation and unlike the savage smirks and growls he'd been letting out for the last however long it had been. "And Igneel told me to keep my promises."
Well, there was both a promise and a threat if Lucy had ever heard one.
"She may be the daughter of the Heartfilia family," Erza continued to José, glaring down at him, "but just as flowers don't get to choose where they bloom, children don't get to choose their parents!" Erza struggled more against the magic that held her, and for a moment it looked as though she might break out of it. "You don't know anything about Lucy, or the tears that she has shed!"
"Well, I'll find out soon enough." It was as though someone had taken a spell and taken all of the air out of the room, leaving only dead silence behind. "I'm not going to hand her over to her father without reaping a benefit of some sort!"
"Like hell you are!" Gray snapped, finally snapping out of whatever silence he'd been holding, pounding his fists against the barrier, stubbornly trying to force his way through. The barrier held back, just as stubbornly in return. Mira grabbed hold of his arm, giving him a sharp pinch with her sharp nails and a piercing look that contained both a scolding and her fear.
"Quiet, Gray!" she hissed, voice and frame trembling. Lucy shuddered at seeing her reduced to that state.
"I'll make her my prisoner until my father meets my demands!" José continued, having apparently paid no attention to anything that was happening over in what Lucy had dubbed in her mind 'the barrier corner'. "I'm going to bleed the Heartfilia family of their fortune and their precious money making businesses!"
Erza screamed again. "YOU…!" She struggled valiantly against the purple tendrils again, face contorted in effort as she fought to free herself. Across from her, she could see Natsu raging as he fought to remove the entangling purple things, almost spitting fireballs in his fury. José smiled, almost looking more demonic than Natsu did.
"I wouldn't keep struggling, if I were you," he said conversationally as he summoned two more magic circles, dark grey in colour and more purple spectres trailing the tendrils behind them appearing behind José himself. Lucy felt her stomach churn. José sounded as though they were merely discussing the weather over mild drinks, not like he was brutally torturing fellow humans after wiping out his own guild. She turned her own face away for a moment, if only for a brief second to collect herself. She had to be strong for her friends. They were fighting for her. "It's only going to make this more painful!"
He had one magic circle each facing Erza and Natsu, and each circle got bigger again, and the purple spectres with their purple tendrils burst through. Instead of wrapping around the victims like last time though, they came to a standstill in midair, and suddenly, Erza started letting out a guttural, tortured scream. If Lucy squinted, she could almost see something like her essence being sucked out by those spectres – it made her want to be sick. Her stomach heaved again, and she was violently reminded of the numerous rising bruises on her torso.
"Erza!" Natsu yelled, sounding strained. Lucy looked over, expecting the worst. Sure enough, his teeth were gritted and she could see the veins running along his arms, his nails digging so hard into his palms that droplets of blood had appeared on his fingertips alongside the rest of his numerous scratches. At least the black marking had stopped spreading, Lucy noted with some weird relief. Relief that she couldn't quite explain. Natsu turned his head, with what looked like effort, and gave a gargantuan growl and glare to José. "Fight me yourself, you creepy bastard! This is nothing!"
"Certainly resilient, aren't you? Perhaps you require something a little bit… stronger, perhaps?" José said mildly, tone even as ever. The magic circle increased in size, and Natsu suddenly let out a vicious scream as he tilted his head back in apparent agony. José eyed both victims, eyes filled with malicious glee. "You're not feeling very well, are you dears?" He smiled, like one of the clowns of the travelling carnival that Lucy had once seen when she was a young child. "Well, you're both going to have to buck up, because it's almost time! I want you to make an appearance before your peers!"
The screams had stopped, but José had been right. Neither of them looked well. Lucy wasn't sure what the spectres had done to them, but regardless of how they felt, Natsu growled at him, and Erza spat down at his feet. José continued on, ignoring the rebelliousness.
"Once they see their beloved knight and dragon in such pitiful states, they're sure to surrender to us!" He cackled, the sound high and manic.
"What us?" Natsu snorted, cocking an eyebrow, still summoning energy to continuously struggle against the tendrils that held him. "Most of your guild was wiped out!" His glare darkened. "Like you said, I defeated three of your Element Four and Gajeel Redfox."
"But as long as I'm around, Phantom Lord still stands!" José retorted, appearing to send more shocks of pain through the tendrils. Natsu gasped in pain again, and glared darkly in response. "And so long as Phantom is around, we will destroy Fairy Tail."
"You're a despicable man!" Erza shouted, the hatred in her voice palpable as it obscured any pain she might have felt. She was trembling, her eyes shadowed and strained, her hair askewed. Lucy thought that in that moment, she'd never seen Erza Scarlet look more like the valiant knight of legend that she'd heard so much about.
"He doesn't even deserve to be called a man!" Gray snarled, banging his fist on the barrier again. Lucy could see him shaking, but it seemed to be a combination of both rage and from helplessness. She could relate to the feeling, except she had crushing fear added to the mix, as well. Slightly to the side, Gajeel seemed more alert and was just watching the fight, olive eyes blank. His entire face was unreadable, and despite everything, Lucy couldn't help but feel a niggle of pity for him. After all, his guild master had essentially sent his guild into a war, only to have them be wiped out, and he didn't even care.
"Now, now," José chided mildly, the magic circles rotating gently, as though they weren't some sort of horrific torture spell, "insulting me isn't going to improve your situation." He cackled, the sound deeper than the last laugh he'd given, and it sounded like a true villain laugh. Lucy stared, then flinched as Erza screamed louder, as Natsu yelled in agony.
Just as it felt like the screaming would go on forever, like it would be forever etched in the deepest recesses of Lucy's memories, the tormented screams suddenly stopped. She opened her eyes, not knowing when she had closed them – she felt a trail of wetness on her cheek, and realised that she'd been crying, crying for her friends, who had suffered for her and their guild. Her heart lurched painfully – and gasped softly.
The room they were in, if it could even be called that anymore due to the giant hole in the ceiling and removed walls, had been filled with a warming golden glow. Gray looked as though all of his anger had suddenly been pulled out of his system, replaced with look of shock and bewilderment. Mira was staring at the light in awe and happiness, like she knew what it meant. Gajeel, for the most part, looked transfixed. Happy just stared, paws over his mouth.
The light seemed to wrap itself around Erza and Natsu, gently freeing them from the clutches of the evil purple magic and pushing away the tendrils, forcing them to dissipate into thin air. Erza's armour, which had ended up in broken shards due to the explosive nature of the fight with José, slowly reformed itself back into full armour, restored as though it had never been damaged. The tears and burns on Natsu's shirt – inwardly, Lucy wondered how he got away with calling it a shirt, given that it showed off all of his chest, then cursed herself for thinking about that – were suddenly fixed, as though they had never been there. The scarf that she had always seen Natsu wearing had somehow mysteriously escaped harm, though.
The two were gently lowered to the ground, and the two slumped forward, looking dazed but awed, happy in a way. Like they recognised what the light meant, in the same way that Mira had. José looked at the flooding golden light, frowning, then looked up towards the shattered windows, towards the source of the light. Lucy followed his gaze, and gasped, hands going to her mouth.
Master Makarov was there, floating in the midst of the light like an avenging angel come to save his family. The light around him looked like a mighty halo, bathing him in an almost godly golden glow. The master remained in a seated position as he floated above them all, arms crossed as he regarded his opponent and his guild. After a few seconds, he slowly floated to the ground, and José began to smile, a smile more savage than anything she had seen in his fight against Erza and Natsu. Erza turned to look at the master over her shoulder, the shock seeming to sink in.
The master landed softly upon a pile of rubble, looking for all the world like the greatest hero in any legend or story. His face remained shrouded in shadow.
"You have shed the blood of our children," he said, voice dark and grave and unlike anything Lucy had ever heard him say before. He sounded both sad and… so furious that he was tranquil with it. She swallowed thickly, heart pounding as she realised that there was a high chance that these two Wizard Saints were probably about to fight. "And that is unforgivable," His eyes cast over them, still shadowed. "And they have been made to suffer because of the incompetence of their parents."
"Heh," Natsu grinned up at him, coughing slightly from whatever spell José had inflicted upon him and Erza. "Glad to see you're okay, Gramps."
The master looked to him and Erza, and his expression softened. "Rest easy, now," he said, his voice soft, almost fatherly. Natsu smiled, and Erza's expression was one of profound relief. "I'll take it from here." He turned his face back towards José, and it darkened again. "This war between us has gone on long enough." The shadows around his face lifted, revealing his eyes. "Let's end this, here and now!"
Erza smiled, wiping away a tear from her eye. "Master…"
Natsu had crept over to her, and Lucy watched as he grabbed hold of her arm. She could just about hear him say to her, "Come on, if they're about to duke it out, then we gotta get out of the blast zone."
He then dragged her along behind him to the barrier corner, a small magic circle appearing in front them for a brief moment. The two of them then passed through the barrier as though it was nothing, rippling around them like a silken curtain. The moment they were through, another magic circle appeared behind him, disappearing as soon as it appeared, and he slumped down into a heap, inadvertently dragging Erza down with him. She glared at him in response before moving over to the barrier's edge, watching the oncoming storm intently.
In response to the master's statement, José seemed to enter a different sort of battle stance. He lifted a hand towards his face, where his eyes had closed, and when they opened again, his eyes had completely darkened in colour, including the whites, leaving only a yellow pinprick at the centre. Suddenly, the amount of magic power she could feel emanating from Phantom's master had tripled, quadrupled from what she had felt before, so much so that it felt like it was suffocating her. By comparison, the sheer amount of magic she could feel from the master – equal at least to José – felt comforting, like a shield to Fairy Tail.
"If we fight, it could create a catastrophe," José said warningly, although judging by the look on his face, he didn't much care about the potential catastrophe.
The master's frown deepened, the lines and veins in his forehead protruding with his quiet rage. At the tips of his fingertips, bright bubbles of white light burst into light, hanging onto his fingers like brilliant but deadly decorations. He raised a hand, holding it near his face as José had done, and held it slightly behind him in a battle stance. The magic aura around him seemed to be making the air shimmer, as though there was a slight breeze in the room accompanying him.
"In order to save my guild," he said dangerously, the light still bright at his fingertips, a stark reminder of what they were about to witness, "I will gladly take that risk!"
Lucy swallowed nervously, leaning back against the wall as far as she could go as the magic presence in the room seemed to swell that much more, a sense of impending doom filling each of them sitting there, helpless witnesses to the battle about to take place. Erza, where she had looked so relieved before upon seeing the master return, safe and recovered, looked nervous as she stared through the barrier, almost resting her forehead against it. Mirajane was worrying her lip, fingers resting against her cheek as she gazed at the two opponents in worry. And Natsu –
Natsu was staring at the master, eyes slightly hidden by his hair, as though he would disappear again if any of them looked away. He looked oddly vulnerable like that, staring up at the master like a child would a parent, and for a brief second Lucy wondered what Natsu had been like when he was younger. Natsu turned his head slightly and caught her eye, gave her a tired but cheerful smile. Even though no words passed between them, Lucy couldn't help but smile back, even as the knot of anxiety in her chest continued to twist.
Natsu turned back to staring at the master, and Lucy reluctantly followed his gaze. The anxiety panged again. Staring up at the oncoming fight again and feeling the growing magic energy, she couldn't help but hope that Natsu's barrier would survive the next round.
Author's note: so, yeah, hopefully this was okay - please let me know what you think?