Chapter 29: Mega-Bass
"Welcome back," Hibiki nodded as Pierce, Natsu, Grace, Wendy, Happy and Carla reemerged into the clearing where Hibiki, Erza, Artorias, Sarph and Jura were waiting.
"It has gotten worse. Erza needs healing magic, now," Artorias said, worry lines creasing his brow.
"Okay, on it," Wendy nodded, rushing over to Erza and splaying her fingers to cast a spell, as a magic circle appeared in her hands.
As Wendy healed, Artorias thankfully sunk back into the grass. "That was . . annoying," he commented, flexing his hands and rubbing his knuckles to alleviate the cramps that had developed.
Pierce, who had been carrying Grace, gently set her down. "Are you alright?" he tenderly asked.
Slowly, Grace nodded. "I'm fine," she breathed.
Jura and Sarph crouched nearby, carefully eyeing the young Dragon Slayer. "She's had a nasty scare, but she will be fine," the Wizard Saint appraised, and Sarph shook his head. "I hate to disagreee with you, sir, but Grace has history with Brain that I don't think you're aware of," He promptly led Jura a few metres away and gave her a quick run-down on Grace's circumstances.
By the time he was finished, the man was dumbfounded. "And your guild master thought it wise to send someone like that on this mission?" he demanded.
"Actually, no. She stowed away," Sarph clarified. "I'm not even surprised," was Jura's only response.
"Doesn't matter. She's here now, so she can help regardless," Both men looked over to see Erza standing up, as she Requipped back into her base armour.
"We can't sit around," Jura declared. "The Oracion Och are out there, searching for Nirvana. We must get there first,"
"Agreed. We'll split up and comb the woods again," Sarph nodded.
"No way. Grace is in no condition to fight," Pierce frowned, but Hibiki rested a hand on his shoulder. "Then she doesn't have to. She can stay here with me and Wendy,"
Pierce was evidently unconvinced, but another hand grasped his wrist. "The kid'll be fine. Besides, you still haven't shown me how much better you've gotten. And there's no better way to work that out than tracking down that snaky bastard and beating him up!" Natsu grinned.
The teenaged Dragon Slayer's enthusiasm was as infectious as always, but Pierce still waited for a nod from Grace before he was willing to go. "Alright," he grinned.
"Come on, Happy! Let's vamoose!" Natsu declared, rushing off and dragging Pierce with him, as Happy cried, "Aye, sir!" and flew after them.
The remaining four S-Class wizards looked at each other and immediately came to a conclusion. "Teams of two," Sarph and Erza said in unison. "You two are guildmates, so you know each other's strengths and will work better together," Erza suggested.
Sarph was inwardly disappointed that he wouldn't get to fight alongside Jura, but refused to show it and nodded. "Agreed. Come on, Arty,"
"It's Artorias," the red-clad Wizard sighed, but nodded and followed.
"That leaves you and I. I suggest we follow in Natsu's example," the Requip mage spoke, and Jura nodded, before Erza's smile betrayed that she meant it rather literally. "Wait,"
A gauntleted hand clamped around his wrist, and Erza dashed off at full speed, dragging Jura behind her. The Wizard Saint quietly decided that this just confirmed his mounting suspicion that all Magnolian wizards were a little bit crazy.
~P's E~
It was around now that Lyon and Sherry were regarding the Sonic Boom with curious dismissiveness. "I am unconvinced that this is an appropriate means of transportation," Lyon skeptically shook his head.
"Indeed. It's all cold and metallic and not emotional in the slightest. It's completely the opposite of," Sherry inhaled, before pressing her palms together and sighing, "Love~ The long and the short of it is, we're better off walking,"
"What's your problem with my car?" Boomer irritably demanded. "I'd like to see you keep up with Racer without the Sonic Boom," he huffed.
"I don't need to keep up with him when I can just slow him down," Lyon shrugged, teal Icemake magic circles appearing in his palms.
"Besides. What are the odds that we end up fighting Racer anyway?" Sherry shrugged.
As if on cue, a red-and-black blur shot through the clearing with the noise of an engine roaring, neatly swerving around the group. "What was that?" Boomer's eyes widened.
Another engine was heard, and Gray, who for some reason was driving a green magic bike, emerged from the bushes, and stopped in front of them. "Lyon, perfect!" he grinned, patting the seat. "Get on. We need to go after Racer, and I can't drive the bike and shoot at him at the same time!"
Lyon nodded. "Very well," he agreed, leaping onto the bike as though the entire argument with Boomer had never happened. "Let's go,"
Gray nodded and was about to drive off, when he paused, taking in the Sonic Boom. "What is that and where did it come from?"
But Boomer just scoffed in response. "That is my car, and I can tell you right now that no Ice wizard is going to be riding in it, and neither are you, miss 'we're better off walking'," he snapped at Sherry, climbing into the driver's seat. In a rare moment of anger (no one insulted his car) he decided to borrow one of the insults that he had heard a certain Dragon Slayer bandying in Gray's direction. "Hey, icy pricks! Whoever doesn't beat Racer pays for lunch, okay?"
"What?" Lyon blinked, but Gray shrugged at him. "I've dealt with the Phoenixes before. Betting on lunch is a custom of theirs,"
"I see," the older Ice wizard nodded, and shrugged. "Very well. Let's go!" And, with that, Gray's bike sped away into the undergrowth. Boomer rapidly followed, the Sonic Boom smashing the bushes and weaving between - and teleporting through - trees.
Sherry stared after the boys. "Oi! Come back!" she irritably demanded, to no avail. With no other alternative, she began to run after them.
~P's E~
Racer's first sign that he had picked up new opposition was when he heard an unusually lively, fast-paced chorus of bagpipes pursuing him. Confused, he glanced over his shoulder - and narrowly dodged a blast of ice magic. And the next thing he knew, a three-wheeled magicmobile with a coat of electricity crackling over it literally appeared out of nowhere and started tailgating him, and he identified it as the source of the bagpipes.
"Bagpipes? Really?" Gray demanded as he pulled up alongside Boomer. "It's a random-selection system," the pudgy Sound wizard shrugged.
"I'm a little more interested in the fact that his car can teleport," Lyon pointed out.
"Don't be. After all, you're too good for it, remember?" Boomer snipped, accelerating again. The three vehicles emerged from the forest and into an open plain, just as Lyon shouted, "Icemake: Eagle!" A trio of eagles, made of green-tinted ice, shot from his palms and barely missed Racer as he dodged.
"Come on, Lyon. This punk's got it coming!" Gray declared, taking his hands off the magic bike's controls for just long enough to pull his shirt off. Lyon followed suit with a raised eyebrow. "Stay calm, Gray. Don't let him make you angry," he admonished.
Boomer, meanwhile, was still blasting Scottish music at the Och wizard, when he checked on his allies in the rear-view mirror - and his eyes widened. "Why are you two in your underwear?" he demanded.
"Enough!" Racer snapped, making a sharp turn and skidding sideways along the ground, straight into the ice wizards' path. The bikes collided, throwing Gray and Lyon into the air.
Racer stood up as the two fell to the ground in a heap - just in time to see Boomer bearing down on him. "Nope," he growled, leaping out of the way. The Sonic Boom immediately smashed into the magic bikes, its single front wheel lifting the three-wheeler upwards as the still-spinning rear wheels forced it further forwards, until the wrecked bikes were wedged directly underneath the car's chassis. Boomer frantically pressed down on the accelerator and shoved his body weight against the car, but to no avail. The Sonic Boom was stuck.
"Heads up!" The Sound wizard looked up in surprise at Gray's shout, just in time to see Racer bearing down on him through the windscreen. He shoved the door open and ducked out, barely a second before Racer smashed through the glass, shattering it and planting his foot where Boomer's head had been in what would have been a crippling blow.
Racer immediately pulled himself out, and crouched on top of the car. He eyed the three wizards opposing him like a cornered animal. "Red Zone!" he muttered under his breath.
"Any ideas?" Gray asked. "No," Lyon admitted, looking around. Suddenly, he gasped, spotting something in the distance, and smiled to himself.
"Get off my car! I swear, if you've damaged the upholstery, I'll kick your ass twelve ways to Sunday!" Boomer irritably hollered.
"I'd like to see you try," Racer snorted.
"Sure," Boomer grinned, raising his left arm and pressing a few buttons on the controller. "Eat Mega-Bass!" he commanded, and Racer suddenly felt the speakers he was crouched on begin to vibrate. With remarkable foresight, he instantly leapt clear, as a concentrated missile of pure sound erupted from the central speaker, narrowly grazing him. Lyon and Gray's eyes widened as the sound, which was so intense that it was actually visible as a white cone in the air, lanced into the sky at the speed of sound.
"Nice try," Racer mocked, "but I'm too fast,"
"That may be the case," Lyon raised his eyebrows and smiled an almost vampiric smile, "but I think I have a plan," Pulling Gray and Boomer in close, he quickly and quietly explained the details.
Boomer nodded. "Alright, but I'm gonna need my boombox for that. It's still in the Sonic Boom, so you two will have to keep him distracted while I make a run for it,"
"We can manage that," Gray grinned, as he and Lyon adopted positions between Boomer and Racer, making sure the Speed wizard couldn't get at the Phoenix.
"Great!" With that, Boomer made a break for it, rushing towards the stranded Sonic Boom, while Gray and Lyon charged at Racer.
But the blond was too fast for them, skirting around them at incredible speed and making for Boomer, who had climbed back inside the driver's seat and was trying to extricate his boombox, which had gotten stuck. Racer slammed the door shut, before dealing a series of blows to bend it out of position and jam it. "So much for that,"
"Pathetic," Lyon frowned, glaring at Boomer. Racer raised an eyebrow. "Gray, is it just me, or are you equally tired of putting up with inferior wizards like those in Phoenix's Eye cramping our fights?"
"You're right," Gray nodded, glaring at the trapped Boomer. "Guys like that just get in the way. We'd be better off taking Racer down ourselves,"
"I'm so glad you agree. Icemake Pillar!" Lyon commanded, clapping his hands together, and a massive column of green-tinted ice shot up, catching the front of the Sonic Boom and flipping it until the chassis was perpendicular to the ground, and launching it hundreds of metres into the sky. Boomer shouted in protest, banging on the surviving windows in irritation.
"That's cold. I didn't think you legal wizards had it in you to do something like that," Racer commented with what sounded disturbingly like a small measure of respect. "But it just makes my job easier; after all, if three of you couldn't beat me, what chance do two of you have?"
"Oh, you might be surprised," Lyon commented, as he and Gray back-pedalled. "We have to keep our distance and wear him down with ranged attacks," the white-haired Maker mage told his adoptive brother. "Got it," Gray nodded.
"Great idea, just say your plan out loud with your opponent in earshot," Racer snorted, before accelerating and launching an attack. The Ice wizards retreated, continuing to bombard him with ranged attacks, albeit with varying degrees of success. More often than not, Racer broke through their offensive defence and forced them further back, and the brothers continually lost ground.
And so a game of cat and mouse began that lasted several minutes, Racer constantly forcing Gray and Lyon to retreat further and further, pushing them through the woods in a direction where he knew there was a conveniently located cliff.
Before long, the three had emerged from the trees in a small clearing, bordered on one side by forest and the other by a steep drop. In the distance, Gray could see the pillar that Boomer had been trapped at the top of.
"It's over. One more blow and you'll go over the cliff, and no one survives a fall like that," Racer snorted. "Ditching your teammate really was a mistake. Maybe with him you might have stood a chance. But no," he gloated.
"You're sure you've thought this through?" Gray asked Lyon, who, as he spoke, mouthed, 'keep him talking'. "Yes, I have," he smirked.
"Are you certain? Because this gambit of yours doesn't seem to have paid off all that well," Racer commented, a cavalier expression twinkling behind his sunglasses.
"Really? Well, I think you've rather misjudged the situation," Lyon commented. "I guessed the truth of your magic when our vehicles crashed. You aren't using real Speed magic, instead, your magic allows you to alter other people's perception of speed, therefore slowing them down and making you seem fast by comparison,"
"Oh? And how did you guess that?" Racer raised his eyebrows as his smile vanished. His opponents weren't supposed to know that.
"Our first clue was the bikes," Gray took over the explanation. "I noticed you seemed to move faster on foot than you did on two wheels. So why did you take a bike for yourself, instead of just fighting me on foot when I was on one? I figured something was fishy,"
"But the real clincher was the music. Before we left him, Boomer told us that something was wrong with his sound system; all the tracks sounded like they were being played in fast forward. And when I thought about it, I realised he was right, because it's physically impossible to play bagpipes that quickly," Lyon explained. "From there it was a simple conclusion that instead of speeding yourself up, you were simply slowing us down,"
"Yeah, I was. What difference does it make?" Racer challenged, impatiently drumming his fingers against his hip.
"Well, in my studies, I learnt that magic like that has a certain range, and you cannot affect people outside of that range," Lyon finished. "Therefore,"
"The only way to beat you would be to hit you with a heavy attack from outside your range," Gray finished with a victorious smile. "And while we've kept you talking, Boomer has had plenty of time to prepare just such an attack from the sniping position Lyon made for him,"
Metal hummed and fabric coating throbbed as Boomer carefully manipulated the Sonic Boom's systems. In spite of being somewhat upended, he could still manage it well enough to lock the central speaker onto Racer's position and prepare a second shot from his Mega-Bass. "Dodge this," he smirked, pressing the button to fire.
A second missile of pure sound rocketed through the air, sending a massive boom echoing through the sky as the attack broke the sound barrier, and Boomer grinned. "Thank you, Astro," he quietly thanked the eccentric old inventor, watching the Sonic Boom's ultimate weapon unerringly target Racer's position at the speed of sound. And, because Racer could only affect living beings, he was totally unable to dodge.
Gray and Lyon barely managed to create walls of ice to shield them from the sonic detonation before the attack impacted, sending a concussive shockwave of sound throughout the area, with Racer at ground zero. Leaves were stripped from the branches of trees, animals for miles around ran and hid in fear, and the grass in the clearing was given a perfectly even cut that would make most gardeners jealous.
Racer collapsed, his ears ringing. He clutched at his head in a vain attempt to soothe the agony racing through his skull as his sunglasses shattered from the tectonic noise.
Lyon and Gray dropped the remains of their shields, which had splintered and broken under the impact, and staggered over to Racer, crouched on the ground as he was.
"Looks like our gambit did pay off," the Fairy smirked, but his eyebrows furrowed as Racer didn't respond.
"I think that he might have gone temporarily deaf as a result of the attack," Lyon suggested.
"Yeah, probably," Gray agreed. A thought struck him. "How exactly do you know that you can't blah bagpipes quickly?" he asked in a teasing tone, and Lyon rolled his eyes . . . but looked away to hide a faint blush of embarrassment.
"You think this is it? You think I'm done? That I have no more left to give?" Racer demanded, aware of the other two wizards standing over them in spite of not hearing their words or his own. With a flourish, he tore off the upper half of his bodysuit, revealing a suicide bomber vest underneath that was flashing red. "If I die here, I'm taking you two bastards with me!" he declared, standing up and glaring with bloodshot eyes through the broken rims of his sunglasses at the legal wizards.
"No!" Lyon shouted.
Gray was never definite on what exactly happened next. He saw Lyon grab Racer's explosive harness and pull on it, pulling the wizard towards him, he saw Racer shove at Lyon and send him stumbling towards the edge of the cliff, he saw the two wizards fall out of sight. He never could tell whether Lyon had sacrificed himself to save him or if Racer had thrown himself off the cliff and taken Lyon with him, though he always preferred to think it was the former.
But even as the Maker wizard rushed to the edge, a massive explosion from below pushed him back from the edge. And when the smoke cleared and he could see over the side once again, there was nothing but a swarth of smouldering trees.
The world seemed to go dull as Gray distantly heard footsteps. He turned, mostly expecting Boomer, but the surprise barely even registered when, instead, it was Sherry. "Where's Lyon?" she immediately asked.
He could only dumbly point to the cliff.
"What?" Sherry immediately ran to the cliffside, and saw the destruction below.
"There was a bomb. Racer tried to blow himself up and take us with him, but Lyon took him over the edge to save me," Gray weakly explained.
"What?" Sherry said in an emotionally precarious tone.
It was right about then that a massive pillar of black and white light erupted from the forest below about ten kilometres away.
~P's E~
"What the hell is that?" Natsu gasped as he, Happy and Pierce paused atop a hill to look at the pillar of energy that was the first stage of Nirvana.
"I don't know, but it isn't good," Pierce gulped.
Suddenly, there was a faint buzz in each member of the Alignment's heads, like static, until Hibiki's voice came through. "Everyone! That pillar of light is Nirvana, or at least its first stage!" he explained.
Eve and Ren paused, listening as their fellow Trimen explained. "That pillar is radiating an aura of magic that can affect people's alignments between good and evil. Anyone whose heart is wavering between good and evil will be magically switched to the opposite side,"
"Maybe that explains what's happening to him," Erza frowned. She and Jura had just engaged in battle with Hoteye, who had ambushed them only moments before the magic of Nirvana lit the sky. "Money! Money, money, money, money, MONEY!" he screamed, sinking to his knees and clutching his head.
Suddenly he straightened up and finished, with an affable smile, "Is the root of all evil, which I want no part of! Hoo-ah!"
Jura's jaw dropped. "That's not what you were saying a minute ago!"
"So, if we're less than convinced in our beliefs in the righteousness of what we're doing, any one of us might suddenly turn to the dark side? That's a disturbing thought," Lucy commented. Tyria, having recovered her strength, had taken Mylene to the prison cells at Ichiya's mansion (and decided never to ask why his vacation house had prison cells) before rejoining the Celestial Wizard. "Yeah. Scary," she gulped.
"Indeed," Hibiki nodded, even though no one but the young girls could see him. "Be careful," he commanded, before cutting the connection.
The young Archive wizard looked down at the two young Dragon Slayers, and realised with a start that Grace was clutching her head and squeezing her eyes shut tight. He immediately guessed that Nirvana was affecting her. He immediately crouched down and rested a hand on her head. "It's alright, Grace. Think about your guild, think about your friends," he gently spoke.
Hibiki didn't realise it, but Grace was actually not suffering from the effects of Nirvana, but rather the lingering effect Brain's Magic had had on her mind. That said, his words still had a beneficial effect on her, and she nodded, trying to block out the pain. "Thanks," she breathed.
Meanwhile, Sarph and Artorias had paused, taking in the sight. "Impressive, isn't it?" Sarph offered.
When Artorias failed to respond, the S-Class Archive user cast him a concerned glance. "Arty? Are you feeling alright?"
"Well, that really depends," Artorias' voice, while as soft as usual, was layered with a venomous tone that was usually absent. "How can any of us be 'alright' when we live in such a foul world as this one?"
"Arty?" Sarph looked at his fellow S-Class Phoenix in concern - only to suddenly get clocked in the chin by a blindsided blow. He staggered backwards as Artorias rounded on him. "I've always hated it when you called me that," he spat, glaring at the older wizard with dark eyes. "I hate that you're so petty, that you can't respect me for my strength in spite of my age and resort to feeble name-calling in a vain attempt to maintain a sense of superiority over me," Sarph blinked. "That's not -"
However, Artorias interrupted. "But that doesn't matter anymore. None of it does, because now, I know what I have to do,"
"What are you talking about?" Sarph asked in fear.
"I will cleanse the world of the scourge of humankind, so that never again will anyone feel the pain that I have gone through!" Artorias declared, before his gaze swivelled to the massive pillar of Nirvana on the horizon. "And I think I know exactly how I'm going to do it,"
~P's E~
"Yo yo yo, this is the Kit-docster, sliding in to give you cool cats the down-low on Boomer's badass new finishing move!" Kit, who for some reason was wearing red sunglasses and gold chains like a rapper from the sixties - "No no no, home slice, this is eighties get up at the earliest!" - as I was saying, sixties, stood on the stage and gave the viewers a toothy grin.
"The Mega-Bass is an incredibly powerful Sound Magic attack, which works by firing a concentrated burst of pure sound at the target at such immense speeds that the sound itself breaks the sound barrier," Kit explained. "Of course, this isn't possible. Sound can't not be faster than itself, right? Nup, it can't. But when Boomer fires his Mega-Bass, it is. Therefore, during the nanoseconds between when Boomer fires the attack and it hits its target, the Mega-Bass becomes a quantum paradox unto itself. This 'ere's is why the attack is so strong, dawgs. It hits its target with the full power of impossibility itself,"
"That said, at present, Boomer can only fire it by using the Sonic Boom as a catalyst. But, when he gets stronger, he'll be able to do it through his boombox, and eventually he'll be able to fire off Mega-Basses with no technological aid at all. Now that's gonna be the shizzle. Oh, and can anyone guess where Feng got the name from? He'll be pleasantly surprised if you can. See ya later on the Kit-docster's down lows, dawgs,"
A/N
A/N
I bet none of you saw that coming. XD Plus, I thought it was about time Artorias got some character development.
'But Technow,', you cry. 'Nothing happened to Artorias to make him doubt his commitment to goodness. Why is he suddenly turning evil due to Nirvana?' Well, imaginary collective voice of my readers, think about that for a second. Nothing happened to affect him, therefore wavering between light and darkness is normal for Artorias, and Nirvana was all the push he needed to send him over the edge. This'll be elaborated on more next chapter, though, so enough said for now.
Also, the Mega-Bass, which is, at present, anyway, Boomer's ultimate attack. (Though he may get stronger ones in the future, I don't plan that far ahead.)
That's about it; peace!
