Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)
Chapter 34: Beauty, Blush, Cuteness, Kisses, and Coldness
Sting and Lucy stood in front of the request board at the Sabertooth guild, looking for a decent job to take for the day. Nothing even seemed to be mildly appealing on the flyers obscuring the others that were behind them, and Sting let out a groan of frustration. Most of the requests were mediocre tasks, such as saving a cat from a tree and watering flowers in gardens. On top of that, even jobs that required mages to be escorts for royal people in Fiore were only offering 1,000 jewels at the most. Some rich people were certainly cheap, were they not?
Three days had passed since Lucy had learned those four new fusion spells to give a nice boost of power to her Wind Magic, and the blonde mage had also been improving her aerial skills to be more useful on jobs. Lucy's training with Sting had improved her physical abilities to where she could reach high heights after running at high speeds, before jumping up into the air to strike foes who were capable of using various types of magic to take flight into the skies or have the ability of hopping on air itself.
Speaking of magic, Lucy had also looked inside of her emerald green spell book to see that the Plant Demon Magic had parted ways with her. Lucy had found this to be quite strange, looking a bit puzzled as to why it was not in her book of spells anymore, and she had to wonder why it would leave her arsenal like that. It had left after only being in Lucy's book for one day, and Lucy could probably assume that the Plant Demon Magic was like the aura equivalent of her Celestial Spirit who was known as Aquarius. Did it possibly see her as childish, or irritating to be around?
While Lucy was looking down at the book with a curious facial expression, a white card had appeared behind the second page of the section for Wind Magic. Lucy had not gotten one of these white cards in quite a long while, and she had to wonder why one of them would be showing up now. The cards always had special information for Lucy to use with her spells, and they also had certain rules that she had to abide by. There wouldn't be any real penalty for Lucy not abiding by the book's rules, but she wouldn't be rebellious enough to see what would happen if she did. Lucy always upheld the rules of the book, and rules for other things as well.
The white card had a message written on it, having been written in emerald green characters to represent that this was the language for Wind Magic, and the important info let Lucy know that the Plant Demon Magic had been borrowed by the book instead of being absorbed into it. That type of magic could be gained if the wielder of the book had eaten a plant of any kind, or if pollen had gotten inside the book. However, Lucy did not know that Thorn had simply borrowed that type of magic to use in her fight with Gray. Since that fight was over, along with Thorn crushing the forest green aura, Plant Demon Magic's minor role came to an end.
As Lucy had put the white card in the left pocket of her mint blue miniskirt, she had noticed that Sting looked a bit frustrated while he was checking out the request board. The white dragon slayer had been looking for a pretty decent job on the golden request board, but all of the jobs that were covering up the others only had very mediocre tasks with very little amounts of pay for the rewards. Sting knew that this would be quite a problem for him and Lucy, especially since he had wanted to do something fun with her today.
"Seriously, there has to be something good on this request board. We're the first ones to visit it today, so nobody else could have been able to touch a single flyer. Lucy, you and I are going to go on a pretty good job that can really help us both improve our skills even more. I know that getting your fusion spells for four types of magic is already making the book be halfway near its completion, but you need to have more spells in every element for when multiple enemies with various types of skills appear. Anyway, it's not like a job will magically show up." Sting told her in a somewhat annoyed manner, wanting to help Lucy unlock more secrets in the book.
As he turned to his right to receive a comforting hug from Lucy, Sting did not know that he had really tempted fate by saying that there were no good jobs on the request board. While the white dragon slayer shared a comforting hug with his brown-eyed girlfriend, sniffing her blonde hair to enjoy the scent of strawberries and vanilla, the shadows had actually begun to work their sneaky magic on the request board. Switching out objects with different ones by using the shadows was obviously Karen working from within the dark, and she had made all the cheap jobs be replaced with better ones in a matter of seconds.
When Sting had turned back to the request board, he looked surprised to see that there was a blue flyer directly in front of him. He found it to be a bit strange that he had not noticed this flyer before, especially since it was offering up 500,000 jewels as its reward for completing whatever the task would be. Sting began to cheer loudly and do a little victory dance from finding this job, something that made Lector dance along with him while he stood next to his best friend, and Lucy also looked pleased about this job. It may have come from shady means, but was there really any reason to look a gift horse in the mouth?
Sting unpinned the job from the request board, and he had hoped that it would be something worthwhile. Much to his and Lucy's shock, the client was from Humilau Town and they needed two female mages to help out Jenny Realight with filling the other pages of the top ten sexy sorceresses with women from different parts of Fiore. Sting could only blush while imagining Lucy and Yukino posing seductively in bikinis of different colors. However, this job needed to be done by both of the girls. Would Yukino agree to it?
Lucy asked the woman with light blue hair in a calm manner, smiling happily while she saw her walk by the trio, "Hello, Yukino. Listen, Sting and I really need you to help us out with a very important job. It's got to do with modeling for Sorcerer Magazine, and I would really be happy if you were one of the two mages to represent how beautiful the girls in our guild are. Will you please join in on this, Yukino? Even if you don't want to agree it, then just know that Sting and I will definitely owe you for dragging you into this."
Yukino responded joyfully while a calm smile began to appear on her face, joy in her hazel eyes, "I would be glad to join you on this job, Lucy-sama. You will not have to owe me a single thing for doing something that seems really fun and enjoyable, so you can be happy to have me on your team for helping you be a model for Sorcerer Magazine. I would also like to know more about how your book works, since the spells that we saw on the fourth day had been created from the colors pink and black. We hadn't seen those prior to that day, you know."
The happy attitudes and joyful smiles of the two girls had certainly gotten the attention of Rogue, Rufus, Wendy, and Orga. They had been eating breakfast and the thought of seeing Lucy and Yukino pose in sexy swimsuits definitely got Rufus interested. He wanted to remember this fine day, just as much as Orga did. Rogue decided to just go along, knowing how flustered Sting could get. He didn't want his friend to get humiliated in a famous magazine, and he was also intrigued by the emerald green spell book that Lucy held tightly in her right hand. Wendy had just wanted to support her friends, and it was a nice day to be at the beach.
As Lucy began to feel really happy about the fact that a great job like this came with such a high amount of money, Yukino's hazel eyes widened a bit from seeing Lucy's emerald green spell book change to the color of sapphire blue now. Some blue beams of light were also shining from within the spell book, making Yukino even more curious, and the Celestial Spirit Wizard had to wonder why Lucy's book would suddenly change color like that. She was not exactly down in a blue mood, or was it vaguely foreshadowing something that she or a certain other woman would do?
While Lucy and Sting quickly ran out of the guild in excitement, the blonde happily smiling about the fact that she would now get to be a model in Sorcerer Magazine like Mira once was, Yukino and the others had followed them. Frosch had also flown on to Yukino's head to catch her and help her fly with its wings when the green Exceed had seen its friend nearly trip and fall, but Rogue had slowly followed everyone else. His red eyes widened a bit from suddenly sensing a very shadowy presence, but he turned around to see nothing looking out of the ordinary. The shadow dragon slayer ignored that thought for now, and he simply decided to catch up with everyone else.
At the Fairy Tail guild...
Gray and Juvia had been assigned to working in the library with Master Makarov and Mira today, since there were no good jobs on the request board in the Fairy Tail guild right now, and the ice mage had been given the task of simply having the checklist to see which books were currently accounted for in the library. Makarov did not want to have another incident occur like when Thorn's book of malice had gone missing, and that book had also effaced from the list to not cause any kind of confusion for Gray. Mirajane had also been in the library with the duo, just in case they had any trouble.
Juvia had given herself the task of putting some books on the shelves in the section for romance, and the Rain Woman blushed a light shade of pink while being happy that she was getting to work alongside the man who she loved so much. She was happily giggling at a book that involved charms and potions for love, wondering if these would cause the cool ice mage to start showing some feelings for her, but something comical happened before she could even begin to read about any of the charms or potions in the book.
The blue-haired woman kept blushing while being in her own vivid imagination, daydreaming of Gray drinking a potion to fall in love with her, and the drops of sweat on her palms had actually grown into bubbles of water that fell on to the book while making miniature splashes. From hearing the splashing drips, Juvia immediately came back to reality to see that her sweaty hands had now ruined a book of romance. The pages were now getting very wet, the text and pictures becoming smudged because of the ink spreading to other pages, and Juvia could only throw the book out the window to let it dry while she comically cried at what she had done.
While this was going on, Gray simply sat down at a brown square table to think for a few moments. He knew that it was really lucky for him to have escaped from Thorn with his icy little trick from a few days ago, but something told him that the peace in the guild of Fairy Tail would not be lasting forever. He knew that Thorn was manipulating Natsu, using him like a puppet for her plot of taking over Lucy's body, but could anyone besides Juvia possibly find any part of Gray's story to even be plausible?
During these past three days, Thorn and Natsu had been going out on pretty long jobs. They would not show up for hours, and that made Gray suspicious about what they would be doing. He had really hoped that his fiery rival would not be helping Thorn find Lucy for the chance to take over her body, but Gray also could not wait for the moment when Thorn would reveal her true nature to Natsu. It would definitely serve him right for causing all this trouble in the first place, since he was the one who kicked Lucy off the team to replace her with Lisanna, and causing Lucy pain. Hoping to find out more about Thorn and the book, Gray knew who he had to ask.
"Excuse me, Master! If you don't mind, please tell us some more information about Thorn and her spell book. You should tell us what color it was and the kinds of spells she used, please. It may not seem like it pertains to anything going on right now, but this matter is pretty important to me." Gray asked Makarov, who walked by and began to have a stern facial expression when the ice mage mentioned Thorn.
He replied calmly, as he let out a sigh and hoped that Gray wasn't thinking of finding the book to obtain ultimate power, "Unfortunately, the history books don't give a specific color to Thorn's book. It varies, and the spells have also varied. However, they all say how she was able to use many types of magic. I don't know the regular spells, but the ones that were used by Lucy in the Grand Magic Games are known as the Eight Elements. They're more powerful than regular types of magic, and Thorn's book is also said to have fusion spells. They are much more advanced whilst being more destructive. Keep in mind that all the spells in that book are forbidden techniques, even including assists and enhancements."
Juvia wondered out of curiosity, "Master, but why would assisting spells and enhancements be forbidden? Wizards can still use shielding, upgrading, and immobilization spells like we normally do, can't we? There hasn't been any new rule instated by the Magic Council about all of this, has there? If Thorn's book was such a vicious item back then, it should've been placed in a remote area where no one could possibly find it."
"That's probably because the spells of today don't come with all those added effects, as Thorn's did. The books emphasize of her non-damaging spells always having a twist to them, most likely because of the descriptions of her spells. Even after being kicked from Fairy Tail, someone as malicious as Thorn didn't join a dark guild. Instead, she kept improving her skills to become number one of the Ten Wizard Saints when she was alive. Of course, in this time, the book must've somehow combined old and modern spells of magic to work with its new master. The spells don't seem as cataclysmic as they were said to be all those years ago, thank goodness." Makarov continued, still maintaining his stern facial expression whilst wondering if Thorn really did have her essence merged into the book before Mavis killed her.
With all of these facts that he was getting, Gray could now see that the book itself was not actually as malicious as Thorn. Judging by the fact that the book had shifted from serving Thorn to having Lucy as its wielder, the ice mage smiled a bit while thinking that the book could discern between evil and good. Since it also sounded like Lucy's spells were different than the ones that Thorn had used, Gray could also suspect that the nature of the spell book had altered between the past and the future. With the times changing, wouldn't the spells also have to grow and change?
Mirajane asked happily, trying to break the tension and sudden chill in the air, "Who's going to get the new issue of Sorcerer Magazine? I can't wait to see how Erza and Cana look while posing in swimsuits!"
At the beach near Humilau Town...
Lucy and Yukino had arrived at the beach with their friends to see Jason looking ecstatic to take pictures of Jenny Realight from Blue Pegasus, Kira Kurono from Sweet Melancholy, Erza and Cana from Fairy Tail, Sherry and Chelia from Lamia Scale, and Kagura from Mermaid Heel. Apparently, the flyer had been copied for other guilds to see it and select females to have their chance at being in a magazine. Lucy was a little surprised to see that Cana was here instead of Mirajane, but since each participating guild got a good amount of jewels from this she could only guess that Mira made Cana do this to replenish the guild's alcohol supply that she could drain rather quickly.
Rufus and Orga both blushed a deep shade of red and had slight nosebleeds at the sight of Yukino taking off her teal tank-top and her darker teal miniskirt. as it fell to the sandy ground to reveal her lacy light pink bra and lacy light pink panties. Her lingerie showed off some of her nice cleavage, along with her nice and curvy rear. Yukino always put some sunscreen on every part of her body, despite the fact that she never would tend to get a tan, and the sunlight really showed off her sexy figure. She softly smiled at Rufus and Orga, having a light pink blush on her cheeks from seeing them admire her beauty, and Yukino felt pretty famous right now.
Looking determined to show off how sexy she could be as well, since she did enjoy things like fame and publicity, Lucy immediately removed her cerulean blue T-shirt and her mint blue miniskirt to show off her dark blue bra and sapphire blue panties. While the curves of her cleavage and her rear were almost at Yukino's level, the fact that she went over to Sting and put a finger to his lips while exhaling her hot breath on to his cheek was enough to make her boyfriend blush a light shade of pink and gently rub her stomach to feel the romantic heat from the sunlight shining down on his sultry girlfriend.
"Show me some hot poses today! I mean, look your sexiest like you always do! You're just too beautiful for me not to get happy and turned on by you when you're in lingerie, Lucy! Just show off your beauty to make all of the other girls see that they are nowhere near your high level of being a really awesome girl with coolness!" Sting told her with a crimson red blush on his somewhat embarrassed face, before getting the green spell book off of the sand before the water from the tide could get it wet.
"Sting, it's ok. You can be detailed about how sexy I look. I'm your girlfriend, after all. I really like it when you give me your flirty and flustered compliments, so I'll dedicate all my poses to you. Just don't expect any kinds of charm spells to be used this time, unless the book reacts to perverted feelings as well. I really hope that you'll enjoy my nice modeling session today, Sting, and I'll even buy a nice new bottle of perfume." She responded with a flirtatious smile, before kissing his lips and letting her hands run through his spiky blond hair.
After giving Sting that kiss, and feeling him return it, Lucy turned back to face Yukino and she followed her friend to join the line of the girls from the other guilds who were here for the photo shoot. Unlike Cana and Erza, who both looked calm and ready, Lucy was actually a little bit nervous about being featured in a magazine like this. She had never posed for the top 10 sexiest girls in Fiore, and she didn't want to blink and look bad for all of Earthland to eventually see. She could only think of relaxing and sunbathing, since she was at the beach, and the heat actually made things better.
Yukino was starting to look a little more confident about doing this photo shoot for 500,000 jewels, the pink blush starting to fade away from her face while some positive feelings began to be shown in her hazel brown eyes. She did not exactly have any kind of pose planned for the camera, having never been a model for anything before, and the woman with light blue hair had to wonder how she could really look appealing for Sorcerer Magazine. Yukino was never into doing sexy poses, but cute ones could work just fine.
While Lucy knew that this would be a simple photo shoot to feature the ten girls who would appear in the next issue of Sorcerer Magazine, she also knew that it was really like a contest to feature the best girl from a guild on the front page. That girl, or the pair of girls who got to be chosen as the best, would be representing the beauty of the guild that they came from. It was kind of like the Grand Magic Games because it did involve a way of having the girls compete against each other, but at least things like fighting, hair-pulling, and blowing powder from a compact in each other's faces were prohibited.
Sting, Rufus, Orga, Rogue, Frosch, Lector, and Wendy stood on the sand away from where the photos were being taken, and the white dragon slayer was waiting for Lucy to show off her sexy skills. Of course, she had never received training in modeling for something like this. He knew that she would make herself look stunning in those photos, though. Cheering excitedly for her, as he held the spell book in his right hand, Sting was unaware that his right hand and the book were aimed at the sea that was probably cold like ice, causing the spell book to radiate a sapphire blue glow for a few seconds.
"Lucy is going to make this look good, no matter how she poses. It's so good to be dating one of the hottest and nicest girls in the entire country of Fiore, so I'll definitely be giving her a few rousing cheers to get my sweet girlfriend warmed up." He said aloud to himself with a confident facial expression, as his blue eyes were fixated on her and her sexy blue lingerie.
"For someone wearing a bra and panties in a cool color like blue, she's pretty hot. Lucy is just as hot as Yukino in a bikini, and I wish that I had brought my camera along to take some very nice pics to enjoy later." Orga added while chuckling a little, as his eyes shifted from Yukino to Lucy for a moment.
Sting looked slightly annoyed at Orga having a somewhat perverted smile directed at his girlfriend, and he knocked him down with a simple White Dragon's Roar. He was never exactly the typical boyfriend who would be overprotective of anyone giving his girlfriend a compliment, but Sting just did not find Orga's perverted comments to be all that fascinating to him. He gave Rufus a stern look, asking him if he wanted to get hit hard like what just happened to Orga, and Rufus simply whistled as he turned to side while he secretly memorized how beautiful Yukino and Lucy looked right now.
Wendy giggled a bit at the fact that the guys in the group for Sabertooth were certainly making things comical by arguing over Lucy and Yukino, but the young blue-haired sky dragon slayer looked curious when she saw Rogue standing next to her and looking like he was deep in thought about something. He did not really care much for this photo shoot that showed of the beauty of the girls, but he was more worried about the shadowy presence that he had sensed earlier in the day. He had never detected anything like that in the guild before, so why had it shown up there?
After Jason took some photos of Erza in her red bikini, Yukino's turn was up next. She smiled softly for the camera, and Jason began to take pictures of Yukino whilst instructing her to do a series of sultry poses. As the camera was flashing, Lucy looked slightly nervous to be next. She didn't know if she could match up to her friend in a contest like this, but she also wanted to impress Sting. He was watching her with coolness and confidence in his enchanting blue eyes, reassuring her that she could definitely succeed at something like this.
Not having any real experience in posing seductively, Lucy gulped a bit while she began to have a light pink blush on her cheeks. Yukino had been ordered to do some sultry poses, and she was great at giving a soft smile to the camera to let all of the magazine's viewers know that she was an attractive woman who was simply letting her kind side show through her beauty. Even the light pink blush on her face could show anyone how innocent and soft she could be by having such a sensitive side. Could Lucy do just as good for the Sabertooth guild, or possibly do better?
While Yukino had walked away to the grassy hill where the rest of her teammates in Sabertooth were waiting to congratulate her, Jason motioned for Lucy to step in front of the camera. Positivity came into her cocoa brown eyes, as she was ready to pose for her page in Sorcerer Magazine. She started things off by blowing a kiss at the camera and smiling, earning a flash from the camera. Afterwards, she laid on her stomach while relaxing on the sand with her breasts on her dark blue bra. She immediately put it back on for the next picture, where she laid on her back and blushed while smiling seductively. Fourthly, she sat on her knees while letting her dark blue bra show off a little more of her appealing cleavage. Fifthly, she sat down on the hot sand while appearing to spread her legs a little bit as she winked with her left eye. Finally, she lowered her sapphire blue panties to show off some of her sexy and curvy rear. Just like the sun's heat right now, Lucy was sizzling hot.
Jason exclaimed excitedly, as he looked at Lucy still being in her sultry pose, "Lucy Heartfilia, you are so cool! You rocked in your match against Yuka Suzuki in the Grand Magic Games, and you're so sexy! You and Yukino Aguria are both beautiful girls, and you make a sexy and supreme team! Sabertooth gets the front cover of Sorcerer Magazine, and two individual pages! Blue lingerie is so cool and calm, but pink lingerie just looks incredibly hot and girly with a beautiful attitude! That's so amazingly cool!"
As Lucy ran down the white sandy beach to get up to the grassy hills where Sting and the other guild members of Sabertooth were waiting, she did not notice that one of the nearby rocks had stretched its shadow in the direction of the other girls before its suddenly split into eight thin shadows. When this long shadow touched the shadows of the other girls, they suddenly found themselves immobilized. Kira began to shudder in fear from noticing how the rock's shadow had unusually stretched in a curved trajectory to reach all the girls, and she began to remember this bad sense of familiarity.
This shadowy technique was the same one that was used on the girls from Team Sweet Melancholy on the day of what was supposed to be the preliminary round of the Grand Magic Games, and Kira had remembered how Karen had emerged from the shadows to deliver a painful beating on her, Hiruda, Mable, and Haruka. She had then made shadowy replicas of the girls, giving them strange abilities that the girls themselves did not even possess, and Kira had fear in her green eyes while she had hoped that herself and the other girls on her team would never cross paths with Karen ever again.
When the shadows began to spread out around the girls, some of them could each feel a pair of shadowy hands rising from below the darkness to constrict tightly around their ankles before pulling them down into the blackness of the shadowy holes. Sherry, Chelia, Jenny, and Kagura all looked shocked to suddenly be sent down into the shadows, and they were actually being sent back to their respective guilds because someone did not see them as being really important in this mysterious matter. Erza looked surprised to see what was happening, noticing that the shadows had not grabbed her or Cana, and the scarlet-haired mage had to wonder what was going on.
She had recently counted the number of participants in the photo shoot, noticing that there were only nine of them present, and Erza narrowed her brown eyes while clearly taking notice of the fact that one person was absent from this job. If this was their idea of making some kind of big and dramatic entrance, then Erza was certainly not amused by it. She looked over at Lucy, who tried running towards her with a concerned look on her face to ask her what was going on, a shadowy wall had formed in front of Lucy while growing wider in length to keep her from getting involved in this.
Since all that Lucy could do right now was go up to the grassy hill where her friends in the Sabertooth guild had been standing, the shadowy wall receded for now while leaving a shadowy puddle behind to let Lucy know that this current situation had nothing to really do with her. All that the blonde mage could do right now was watch what would happen down on the beach, and the shadows around Cana and Erza had gone back to the rock while the sunlight helped the shadowy puddle leave its current location to form in front of the two Fairy Tail mages.
When two people slowly rose up from the puddle, Erza and Lucy both looked very shocked to respectively be seeing Thorn and Karen here. Thorn was wearing a purple bikini that showed her ample cleavage and voluptuous body while being in her teenage form, so Lucy did not know who she was. Karen wore a yellow bikini that showed off her large breasts while she used her hands to push them upward before letting them drop back into place while they bounced a bit. She also had a curvy rear as well, letting her sexiness look just as shocking as how evil she truly was. As Karen ran her fingers through her own silvery-blue hair, she blushed a light shade of pink and smiled happily when she noticed Lucy for a moment. It was perfect that the book had now turned blue, since that would be fitting to Thorn's plan.
"Why have you come here, Thorn? Didn't you go out of the guild earlier to take care of some business with Natsu? Also, what have you done with the other girls? Who is this woman accompanying you?" Erza asked Thorn while looking stern, wanting to know why the violet-haired girl had come here when she had gone out on a job with Natsu to supposedly handle a nasty monster that was causing terror in Clover Town and the forests around it.
Thorn replied calmly with a devilish look in her blood red eyes while she had an arrogant facial expression to go well with her evil smirk, "I have come here to eliminate you from my game of chess, Erza Scarlet. It is true that we haven't interacted much, but I see you as a threat because of your icy friend. He made the mistake of trying my patience, you know, and knowing that he fled from our little fight just left a bad taste in my mouth. I want to get some payback for that little incident, and that means I can't have trashy bystanders trying to screw up my plans. As for Natsu, he's just a really useless tool to me. Karen, my best friend of the shadows, is a much better ally."
Upon remembering how Gray once spoke of Thorn being suspicious for teaming up with Natsu so quickly, Erza glared at the violet-haired woman while she began to understand what Gray had been trying to tell her. It was very weird to see a woman who would want to team up with a guy who had such a horrible reputation because of how he acted like a total jerk to Lucy and Lisanna, and now it seemed like the dense fire dragon slayer was being manipulated by Thorn to keep him nonchalant and unaware of the things that she had been doing. Even though this would be a battle between two Fairy Tail mages, the evil smirk on Thorn's face let Erza know that this was one fight that she and Cana couldn't run away from.
The scarlet-haired mage didn't waste any time requipping into her Sea Empress Armor, having the Crystal Sword to go with this particular armor, and the sword was capable of nullifying attacks that came from Water Magic. It could also reflect those attacks back at the opponent, making it a very useful sword to have. The armor also had resistance to attacks from Water Magic, but could it stand up to Thorn's explosive aquatic spells that had once made the seas roar with rage? Her powers were very unorthodox, after all, and only the spells in the book knew what Thorn would do.
Narrowing her brown eyes and looking stern, Erza decided to start off this battle by using the Water Magic of her Crystal Sword to make a large jet of water be sent from the ocean towards Thorn at high speeds. The jet of water had grown bigger with distance, becoming really fast when it kept on getting closer to Thorn, but the violet-haired girl simply giggled a bit while proceeding to touch Erza's attack with her left hand. She absorbed the large jet of water into that hand, taking in all of its power to give some extra energy to an attack of her own, and Erza looked surprised by what Thorn had just done.
She maintained her smirk while a light blue aura surrounded her left hand, and Thorn unleashed a thin beam of light blue ice from her fingertips. Even though this made Erza quickly shield herself with her sword while spinning in an attempt to deflect the beam, she gasped in shock from seeing that her sword had been frozen solid in ice. Thorn fired four more thin beams of ice in succession, freezing Erza solid from her feet to her waist, and the scarlet-haired mage was suddenly in the middle of five light blue blasts that transpired! This spell was known as Explosive Aqua Iciness, and it was one of the fusion spells of Water Magic. It had the chain powers of Aqua Ball, and the Water Magic had actually gained that icy ability when Lucy fought Gray in the Grand Magic Games.
The light blue smoke quickly cleared up to reveal that Erza had survived the attack by requipping into her Adamantine Armor at the lost moment, doing it before the blasts had transpired, and this had been one of her most durable armors. Judging from Thorn's attack, she was far from the typical mage whose abilities would be predictable. Since attacking with water would not work, Erza simply made five swords float in a straight line between Thorn and herself as a way of keeping the violet-haired girl's attacks from getting through to deliver fatal blows.
However, this was a bad move for Erza to do. She obviously did not know of the abilities that Thorn possessed, and this new fusion spell was one that could be deadly with a combo. Thorn simply used the Aqua Ball spell first, firing a ball of water at each of Erza's swords, and the blue balls popped like water balloons when they hit the swords. Then, she simply giggled evilly before proceeding to use a fusion spell known as Poseidon's Icy Dragon. This spell caused Thorn to summon a large light blue dragon from her left hand, and it had dark blue eyes while possessing large fangs that exhaled icy white breath. It also had two icicles in its light blue claws as well.
Erza looked shocked to see that someone could actually have a spell like this, or even be able to create a move like this, and she could only watch as the dragon began to bite into her first sword. The metal had been surrounded by a blue aura, and the chain power of Aqua Ball had definitely been working well with other spells. When the first sword was destroyed, Thorn's dragon increased in size and power. The same thing happened with the next sword, and the others had also caused the dragon to keep growing. It was now five times its original size, and the icy dragon had slammed itself into Erza while also creating an enormous light blue blast in the process!
Cana and Karen had both stayed away from this fierce showdown, not wanting to be injured in any way, and the light blue smoke cleared up quickly to reveal that Erza's defensive armor had been broken into many pieces. She was badly bruised after taking the full power of that blast, and Erza had been panting heavily while revealing that she had requipped into her Flame Empress Armor while her Flame Sword had suffered some damage from that blast. Thorn was a very tough opponent, and her level of power could possibly put Kagura to shame.
The scarlet-haired mage now decided that if she could not beat Thorn on the ground, then flying up into the air was the best solution. She maintained her stern glare while requipping into her Heaven's Wheel Armor, and Erza flew into the skies. She was planning to end this fight here with her armor's ability of multiple sword requipping, and Erza quickly created one-hundred swords to float around her in midair. Erza made them all aim downward at Thorn, taking very precise aim, and these hundred strikes would probably end this fight.
When she sent them all down towards her violet-haired opponent, Erza noticed that Thorn simply laughed evilly while she seemed to be activating another fusion spell. This move was known as Freezing Breath, and it simply allowed Thorn to take in water from the ocean, before releasing it all in the form of a multitude of light blue ice needles. When those tiny needles struck Erza's large weapons, light blue explosions occurred! This combination of water and ice was very typical, but the spells that Thorn was using were completely unorthodox. Erza's weapons were certainly obliterated, and the debris came down around Thorn in the form of miniature frozen icicles.
With nothing seeming to really work at all, Erza did not know what to do. Trying to attack Thorn from a distance was proving to really be useless, distancing herself from Thorn with shields had also been a futile tactic, and even trying to attack her with many projectiles had also failed. Erza was really starting to get frustrated by how all of her attacks and defenses had been rendered useless, so she could only requip two one-handed swords into her hands while deciding to attack Thorn head-on and slice her into pieces.
As Erza charged straight down towards Thorn, the latter decided that she could not play around with the scarlet-haired girl like how she had done with Gray. Thorn was going to end this little fight, and her final fusion spell was the perfect way to do it. The spell was known as Water Demon's Glacial Whirlpool, and it caused six small whirlpools to form in the ocean below Erza. The water was spinning in a clockwise manner at rapid speeds, and some light blue whirlpools rose up from the ground to ascend into the sky. They began to slam themselves against Erza, creating icy light blue explosions in the process, and Titania now became frozen in ice that was as cold and dense as a glacier. She could not move at all, and the immense amount of damage that she had taken had nearly made Erza lose consciousness while she fell down towards the sea. However, Thorn's spell was not done yet. It made a larger whirlpool of blue water rise from the ocean, and this one struck the frozen mage from underneath while creating a massive blue blast of Water Magic!
It did not break the ice around Erza, however, and the blast was infused with the coldness of ice to give Erza even more of the chills. She was about to fall down into the sea, until Cana threw a Teleportation Card into the water to make the frozen Erza appear on the sandy beach instead of sinking down into the briny deep. Erza now looked like a lifelike ice sculpture, frozen in extremely cold ice, and Cana's hands felt extremely numb when she tried to touch Erza's frozen body for a response of some kind. She did not even hear a single gasp while standing next to her frozen friend, and the brown-haired girl looked very alarmed while worry entered her purple eyes. Was Erza's heart going to freeze, if nothing was done?
Cana could only shudder in fear while knowing that she had no cards of Fire Magic in her deck right now, and she looked very shaken up from seeing Thorn defeat Erza in such a cold manner. She was so merciless, using Erza's weapons against her like she was nothing more than a joke, and Cana took a few steps back when she could see Thorn giving her an extremely vicious glare. She had a look of malice in her blood red eyes, before having a smirk of sadistic pleasure on her lips, and Thorn proceeded to slowly walk towards the card mage.
Thorn told Cana in a pleased manner, giggling evilly about what she had done to Erza, "Well, you can now say that you've seen the abilities that I possess. Of course, that was only a mere little fraction of what I can do. You're very smart to cower with that look of fear on your face, fairy. At least you know that it isn't wise to interfere with what I have planned, unless you want to end up frozen like Erza. I'll leave you in peace, but just remember that I rarely show any sort of mercy. Next time we meet, you might not be so lucky."
As Cana nodded in agreement with Thorn while she looked terrified and shook in fear, letting her know that she clearly understood what she was saying, Karen moved through the shadows to appear behind the card mage when she had slowly taken a few steps back to show Thorn that she certainly was scared of her. Cana slowly turned around to see the woman with silvery-blue hair kindly smiling at her, and she gasped in shock from her presence. She put her hands near her chest in a defensive manner, thinking that Karen would probably proceed to use some explosive shadowy move. Instead, something surprising happened.
Karen told the frightened mage in a sweet tone, before wrapping her arms around Cana's waist and planting a warm kiss with softness on her left cheek, "You don't have to feel so terrified, you cute young maiden. We have no intentions to hurt you. If the fairies continue to cross Thorn's path and fall like lambs to the slaughter, you could always come into the shadows with us to enjoy the light of our darkness. Your face tells me about the fact that you did not want to get involved in this, so just pretend that you never saw what happened after the photo shoot. Otherwise, Thorn would destroy you. Well, now we must be going."
After giving Cana a warm hug to make her feel a little bit more relaxed, letting her personally know the feeling of having her face against Karen's large breasts, the woman with silvery-blue hair sunk down into Cana's shadow while Thorn also jumped into it to finally be rid of the beach for now. As Cana blushed a light shade of pink, she shook her head sideways while snapping herself out of the Shadow Charm spell that Karen had used on her. That spell would make the card mage end up finding herself in illusions of bliss with Karen, and it was only going to be used if Cana ever even though of interfering with Thorn's plans. That demonic woman may have been good at choosing pawns, knights, and bishops to play with and eliminate in her game of chess, but Karen was good at choosing rooks with malleable wills.
While Cana proceeded to try and figure out a way to get Erza back to the Fairy Tail guild, even if she had to drag her frozen friend back to Magnolia, Lucy was shaking in pure shock from what she had seen and felt. She did not want to believe it, not even caring if Karen had not come to the beach to see her, but the girl who was paired with that shadowy woman gave off the same feeling of darkness that had taken over Lucy in the tag-team battle with Sting against Natsu and Erza on the fourth day of the Grand Magic Games.
On top of that, Lucy's sapphire blue book had been glowing with blue beams of light shining from the four fusion spells that had been written. It was very creepy to Lucy how that girl in Fairy Tail had known the Aqua Ball spell, but it was even creepier to see that the spells that she had specifically used were now inside of the spell book. Lucy still did not know why Karen had needed her to be the wielder of the book, having a heart that shined with goodness like valuable gold with a soul as pure as silver, and she thought that no answers would ever come to her about any of this.
Sting had also been watching the situation as well, noticing that Karen had shown up at the beach with some girl, and he also had to wonder what Karen would want with Cana. Knowing how shady that woman was, she and her partner were planning something. However, Sting really wanted to know what it would be. Then, his blue eyes widened with realization when he remembered something important about the color of the book. It had been going in the order of the colors of the rainbow by starting with red, then orange, then yellow, then green, and now blue.
Since the color purple was going to be next, Sting had remembered how Lucy would lose consciousness while the spirit of that Darkness Magic would be the one to take over while it was in use. The spirit had never revealed its name to either Lucy or Sting, but the white dragon slayer had always referred to it as being like a dark version of Lucy. He had even nicknamed it Darcy, since this demon of Darkness Magic simply had a darker personality. She was the opposite of Lucy in terms of personality, and maybe this trickster spirit could help Lucy and Sting finally get to see what exactly they would be dealing with.
However, while Sting and Lucy respectively looked stern and shaky, Rogue narrowed his red eyes from seeing that the blue book reacted to those spells of Water Magic. The spells that Lucy had used in the Grand Magic Games, excluding the second and serious half of the tag-team battle, never gave off a sense of being so dark in nature. Her magical aura always had a very light and happy feel to it, but Thorn's magic was so dark and malicious. Feeling that this could be a serious matter, Rogue cleared his throat to break the silence.
"Listen, Sting and Lucy. I can tell that's no ordinary spell book that the two of you have been dealing with, so just let the rest of us know all of the information that you know. We're all going to help you with whatever's going on, since something tells me that was not one of Fairy Tail's normal little brawls. Lucy, if you care about your nakama in Fairy Tail, you may wait until tomorrow to tell us all what you know about that woman named Karen." Rogue told his friends in a calm tone while frowning a bit, before walking away with Yukino, Frosch, Rufus, and Orga.
Wendy added kindly while she walked over to Lucy's side and smiled, "Lucy-san, whatever is going on, we will all help you get to the bottom of it. Sting-san, even though you like to work with Lucy, this situation may end up involving us all. Please try to stay positive, and know that you aren't alone."
With those kind words of confidence, Sting ran back to the town of Castelia to catch up with Rogue while he knew that having everyone's help in this would certainly be playing a big part in finding out some of the things that needed to be known. Before that, however, Sting ran back down to the beach to get those 500,000 jewels from Jason. The blond man who worked for Sorcerer Magazine was too busy looking at all of the snapshots he had gotten from Erza's battle with Thorn, and Karen kissing Cana's cheek was sure to be a good shipping story in the media. That was certainly super cool for the tabloids, right?
Lucy had been cheered up a bit by Wendy's encouragement, and she walked back to Castelia Town with her blue-haired friend while Lector flew on to her head. The red Exceed had noticed the blue glow from Lucy's book, and he had seen Sting have a faint smirk of confidence on his face while knowing that his best friend had some kind of great plan that would finally let everyone know about the mysteries surrounding the strange spell book. Whatever it was going to be, Lector had a good feeling that it would work.
At Fairy Tail...
As Mirajane had finished serving a cup of hot chocolate to Juvia, she let out a sad sigh and looked around in the guild to see that her younger brother and younger sister were still missing. Days had gone by, nights passing by as well, but Mira had not heard anything from them. She really missed the joys of being around her siblings, still wondering what in the world had happened to them, and all that the white-haired woman could do was try and wait for answers. It wasn't like they were just going to walk through the door.
However, much to Mirajane's surprise, the entrance doors of Fairy Tail suddenly opened while a familiar female voice had said in a kind tone, "Mira-nee-chan, we have finally returned. It took a while to find the others, but we're back."
She turned around slowly to see Lisanna standing in the doorway with Suna, Evergreen, and Elfman. Her sister and her brother seemed to have bandages on their left arm and right arm, respectively, but they were both okay. Evergreen was also smiling happily while appearing to be fine as well, but Mira had no clue about who Suna was. She could only run out from behind the counter to hug her siblings, so very happy that they were not dead, and Lisanna knew that she had a lot to tell her sister. She also had something important to tell Natsu, really wanting him to know this information that Suna had told her when she saved her life, and it was about time to let that user of women know that he was actually being manipulated by one.
How was the 34th chapter? Did you like it? The StiCy is continuing to increase, and Lucy will finally get to find out some clues about Karen! She will also get to find out about everything that has been sensed as well, and Darcy will tell Sting about who Thorn is. What will she reveal to Sting, Lucy, and their friends in Sabertooth? On the fairy side, how will Natsu react when Lisanna tells him the big news? Will Thorn be going after someone else? What will Mavis reveal? Standby for the update!