A/N: Chapter 36 of Fairy Tail: Earth and Phantom. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except my own. Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.
Special thanks to the reviewers, I truly appreciate it.
Chapter 36: Back to Magnolia Town
What the hell?! What the hell is she!? "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU!?" Faust roared as sweat appeared on his face and trickled down his neck. His soul has never felt such vulnerability before; it was like he stood naked before some overwhelming entity.
"Ready King? Let me put some Fear into your soul!" Lexi smirked as her eyes flashed. She stepped forward, step-by-step until she stood directly in front of the robotic dragon, the little ghouls danced around her like it was no big deal, their mouths still open in wordless screams. Even though Faust was inside of his dragon, he could still feel the imminent vibe of death and it scared him. As a King, he never considered the thought of confronting death since he always crushed his enemies; this was a first and he was scared shitless.
"Y-y-y-you...You don't scare me!" He lifted a foot to crush the Dragon Slayer. "I'm bigger so let's see what you can do about this!" Looking up at the foot she shook her head mockingly.
"Phantom Dragon's Secret Art, " Swinging her arms in a circular fashion, the ghouls started to dance at the tip of her fingers. "Phantasia Pandemonium!" The ghastly spirits suddenly jumped into a frenzy, as if they were provoked by some unknown force, and created a torrent of purple flames. The dragon quickly put its foot down and braced itself from the barrage of angry flames which hissed upon contact. Stumbling back like it flinched, the dragon stood there in fright and refused to budge.
"Come on, don't give up!" Natsu urged taking advantage of the situation, "We have to summon up tomorrow's shares!" He rushed forward with a flaming fist before Faust got back into control and swatted him away.
"Know your place you shitty brat! Wait...my leg..." Faust growled and twisted the control in his hand, trying to force the giant dragon to move. Unfortunately for him, Gajeel found an opening and pinned the foot down with his Iron Dragon's Club attack.
"I've locked him! He won't be able to escape to the air now!" The Iron Dragon slayer shouted as he kept a tight grip on the foot. "Go, Salamander!"
"You impudent...What?! Not my other leg!" Faust looked in bewilderment as Lexi willed the stones and dirt to snake up the leg and kept it rooted to the ground.
"You're the only one who can do it!" Lexi added in her own voice.
"Wendy! Send a Roar to me!" Natsu ordered as he twisted around midair.
"Right," The dragon slayer nodded with determination and stood unsteadily to her feet. "Sky Dragon's Roar!" She released a steady stream of air toward the Fire Dragon slayer. Using the rotation of the breath, Natsu unleashed his Fire Dragon's Sword Horn attack, creating a rotating vortex of red flames. He zoomed straight for Faust with pure rage.
"Fire Dragon's Blade Edge!"
Is this...a fantasy...? Faust thought as Natsu tore through the steel and dragged him out of his closure. Throwing Faust to the ground, he crouched there while the King groveled. He sat up and looked in fear at what lay before his eyes.
These are the things I wanted to possess...? "S...save me..." He whimpered as he witnessed the true forms of the dragons before him. Grandeeney with her feather-like appearance, Igneel with his head held proud, Metalicana licking his chops with hunger, Gorgon pawing the ground with a giant talon and finally Shiyu, whose beady red eyes bore holes straight into Faust's soul. All five dragons focused on Faust and bellowed their own roars, their voices resonating through his body and he knew that he could never control the Slayers. Unable to keep consciousness he fell over and started to foam at the mouth.
"We did it!" Natsu cheered, throwing his fist into the air.
"It's finally over." Lexi sighed as she sat down with Wendy right beside her. Gajeel just grinned like there was no tomorrow. Suddenly there were tremors and the dragon slayers looked around with bewilderment before Wendy pointed to the sky and gasped. A giant hole opened up and started to suck in all of the magic along with the Exceeds. A weird light surrounded the Earthland Fairy Tail members and they started floating toward the hole in the sky.
"Good bye Fairy Tail! The other Fairy Tail!" The dragon slayers looked around to see their fellow mates floating into the gate yelling and waving back to their other counterparts. The other Fairy Tail guild members shouted and waved with tears in their eyes while the citizens of Edolas watched as all of the magic was sucked away and disappeared forever.
Back to Earthland...
The skies parted and dumped the entire crew back to earth, Natsu first followed by everyone on his team. The steady rain didn't lighten the mood but that didn't put a damper on the crew as they cheered with happiness.
"What happened to Fairy Tail!?" Gray asked. Everyone looked out to see that their guild was back in place as well as the rest of the town.
"It's too early to celebrate." Erza warned, "First we have got to make sure everyone's alright."
"They're fine." Suddenly the Exceeds from Edolas zoomed around in front of their eyes. "
"This is no laughing matter. These guys are dangerous! We should return them to Edolas." Charla stated without hesitation as the cats sat in front of her. The group huddled together in hopes of finding a solution.
"Now, now." Happy tried to console her but she was definitely against having them on Earthland.
"Extalia's gone too. Let's leave them be." Wendy tried as well but Charla wouldn't listen even when they apologized for throwing rocks.
"I don't care about any of that!" She snapped. "You sent us to Earthland with a mission to kill off the Dragon slayers!"
"We still haven't explained ourselves clearly, have we?" Some of the cat councilor's stood up and padded forward to tell the story.
"This is a tale from 6 years ago. We've already told you Shagotte's ability to see the future, have we not?" Taking the silence as a 'yes' they continued. "One day Shagotte foresaw an image of Extalia crashing to the ground. In hindsight, it's clear that it fell naturally as a result of the depletion of magic in Edolas, but...at the time we thought it would come as a result of human actions. We realized that even if we went to war with the humans, we would never win. After convening a meeting, we established a plan to allow 100 children escape from Edolas. We kept this plan secret, even from the citizens of Extalia but the official story was that they were being sent to destroy beasts called Dragon slayers in a parallel universe. Of course it's not that we had any grievance with the Dragon slayers."
"I understand. It's just that you needed that 'setup'." Wendy nodded.
"And if we had spoken the truth, we were certain it would have caused a panic." Lucy said with a smile.
"Borrowing the humans' Anima, we succeeded in our plan however...just one thing occurred that we did not plan for," Shagotte took over the story and looked at Charla, "That was your power, Charla...you have the same power of 'Prediction' as we do."
"Eh?" She replied.
"But because it activated while you were unconscious, it jumbled your memories. Among the 100 escaped Exceed...you were the only one with this power. It's likely you foresaw bits and pieces of the future of Edolas and you probably mistook those impressions for your 'Mission'."
"It can't be..." Charla was speechless.
"Then the rest of us..." Happy asked to get some clarification.
"There was never any such mission. It was truly misfortune upon misfortune...you created your own 'imaginary mission'. The bluff I used to confront the misfortune facing both my people and the humans caused you great suffering. No...it caused great sorrow to all those families who had their eggs seized. That's why I've surrendered my sword to you, it is not all the Exceed who are evil. It is only me." At this the rest of the cats took to the air in protest, yelling that their queen wasn't at fault.
"All right...I'll let it go." Charla let out a sigh and the cats cheered with joy. After saying good bye, the Exceed flew off in search for a new home, leaving the Fairy Tail members to wave from the ground.
"We should head on back to the Guild, too." Natsu said with a smile.
"How're we going to explain all this?" Lucy asked as she looked at her hand in worry.
"No worries...nobody will have noticed anything this time, right?" Gray asked.
"But we can't keep quiet about what happened to Mistgun." Erza added.
"Everyone...your hands..." Wendy said since they caught onto Nadi's contagious hand movement. However Gajeel sudden tensed up and he looked around with worry.
"Where's Lily? I don't see Panther Lily anywhere!"
"If you're looking for me, I'm over here." A deep voice spoke. "It looks like Earthland didn't mix well with my constitution." When everyone turned around, they saw a tiny version of the big cat. Next to him was another cat sporting a gangster jacket and pierced ears.
"My cat!" Gajeel quickly swept him off his feet and gave him a big hug.
"Oh Riku's there too." Lexi stated happily as she held her arms out. Riku smirked as she flew over and settled into her arms.
"I'm on the same condition as Lily, Earthland didn't go well with me as well." She purred as Lexi scratched her ears.
"That aside...I caught a suspicious looking person..." Lily tugged on the rope in his hand. "Come out here."
"Wait...I..am not really...anyone suspicious...Kyah!" A voice replied as a girl stumbled onto the scene. She was a young petite girl with short, white hair with blue eyes. "I'm a member of Fairy Tail too..."