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CHAPTER 50
FAIRY GLITTER
It had only been minutes since we left the ruins and Doranbolt behind us, when we ran into this tall, muscular man, surrounded by extreme downpour, making it hard to make out any details on his appearance.
"Someone's there." Natsu stated the obvious, but he halted and remained on guard. The rest of us stayed close behind him. Chances were this guy was another one of Grimoire Heart's elite members.
"What is this magic power!?" Wendy exclaimed in shock. The others, and I as well, noticed there was something special about this guy. His power level was through the roof. Even the normally cocky Natsu couldn't hide his expression of surprise, sensing this guy's extraordinary magic power. Would it be a good idea to stay and fight against this monster, I wondered. None of us were fully recovered from our previous fights… No, running wasn't an option. The only way forward was by defeating him in battle. At moments like these, when facing an enemy with such overwhelming power, I wish Erza was here to aid us.
"Who are you!? One of the Kin!?" Natsu asked loudly to have his voice be heard over the rainfall.
"Tell me, can you fly?" The man calmly replied after a brief moment. None of us knew how to respond to that; what did he mean by that? "No, I guess you still can't." He then lifted both his hands and with stretched arms aimed them at us. In an instance the rain in the area stopped. Complete silence followed, as we waited what would happen next. "Fall." He spoke next. And with that the rain began to fall again, breaking the silence. At that very moment, I felt a huge pressure on me, knocking me down to the ground. My body and the air around me felt like it was weighing a ton. Even the ground beneath me was crumbling under the extreme pressure this magic spell was putting on us. I could hardly move my head to see what happened to the others, but hearing from their screams I could only assume they were affected by it as well.
After what seemed ages, the pressure put on the area loosened. I still felt heavier than normal, but I could at least move my body again. With effort I raised my head a little to look in front of me. The others lied on the ground nearby; before us stood the mysterious man, still surrounded by heavy downpour.
"Personally, I don't care about Fairy Tail or Zeref." The man calmly spoke as he watched us. "But there is one thing here that I want. Where is the grave of Mavis Vermilion, Fairy Tail's first master?" He asked us.
"None of us knows, and even if we did, we wouldn't tell you anyway!" Lucy yelled at him.
"I wonder what he wants with the grave of the first master… Do you think it has to do with the second part of the trial?" Wendy spoke to no one in particular. She did raise a good point, though. What exactly was he after?
"That's it! Now I understand!" Happy suddenly yelled as though he'd come to some sort of realisation.
"I'm sure we end up dumber once we hear what you have to say, but by all means, go ahead." Carla said, being her usual mean self to Happy, even under these circumstances.
"You want to be an S-class wizard, too, don't you!? Too bad! We're not letting you join Fairy Tail!" Happy spoke with full confidence about the nonsense he was spouting. Even I had to shake my head in disbelief from hearing that. Right after Happy finished, he was struck by a powerful gravity spell, completely flattening him. It seemed our opponent wasn't exactly impressed with his theory either.
"All right, that's enough. No more comments from you." The man continued to talk. "Listen, I don't know about any 'trial' or 'S-class' nonsense, and I have no intentions on joining your pathetic guild."
"You're the only one pathetic around here! Our master's guild is holy ground for us! There's no way we'd ever tell someone like y—" Lucy shouted in anger at him again, but a gravity spell made sure she wasn't able to finish her sentence.
"Lucy!" Why, you…!" Natsu's fury rose at the sight of Lucy getting crushed by this guy's spell. "Tell, us what do you want!?"
"The sparkle of fairies… Fairy Glitter… Said to be just as powerful as Fairy Law. It's one of your guild's three grand spells, isn't it?" Our opponent finally revealed what he was really after. Even so, I had never heard of these spells before.
"What!? No idea what you're talking about!" Natsu didn't seem to get it either, though his useless response was answered with the same gravity spell that Happy and Lucy suffered from just earlier.
"Tell me where I can find it, or I'll squash you until you pop!" I could tell he was starting to get impatient with us. None of us knew the location of Mavis's grave; even if we wanted to tell him, we couldn't. There had to be something we could do against him, but I was out of ideas… he was just too strong for us to handle.
"I'm Natsu Dragneel… The son of Igneel… I can't be forced to the ground… so easily!" Natsu slowly stood up, despite being under the full effect of the gravity spell, as he spoke. It wasn't the first time I'd seen Natsu pull off the impossible, but I was still amazed by it. His willpower was beyond anything I'd ever seen before. He began to run toward the man, his feet cracking the earth beneath him due to the heavy pressure he was under, and then managed to somehow jump while gathering all his power in his blazing fists.
"Fire Dragon…" But before he could finish his attack, the man hit him with a powerful spell that was seemingly cast instantly, sending him flying back in our direction again. Natsu was smashed into the ground and had trouble getting up again after that hit. To think even Natsu couldn't even touch this guy, what chance did we have against him?
"Is that Makarov lying over there?" He said after observing our small group once more. Our guild master was on the ground at a safe distance behind us. "Perfect. I can just ask him, then."
"Oh no, you won't!" Don't you dare mess with Gramps!" Natsu got up on his feet in an instant when he heard this guy was planning on using him to find the grave of our first master. "You'll have hell to pay –" He got ready to launch himself at the enemy again, but at that moment we were all hit by gravity spells, pushing us against the ground without any hope of breaking free from it. What were we supposed to do against an enemy this strong?
"Help us… Anyone…!" Lucy shouted in despair as we lied helplessly on the ground, forced down by powerful gravity magic.
It looked like our time had run out. Our opponent was now slowly approaching us, not showing any sign of wanting to make haste. The effects of his spells were starting to weaken again, but even so, we had lost all hope of being able to fight back. All we could do is pray for a miracle to happen. And at that moment, our miracle made her appearance in the form of Cana.
"Is it you!?" She shouted from behind him as she stood on top of a large rock. He turned around to see who was speaking to him. I was thankful for Cana making her appearance with that excellent timing, but at the same time I wondered what she was planning on doing against a foe this strong. I didn't know exactly how strong she was, but if she wasn't classified as S-class wizard yet, she couldn't possibly be that much stronger than any of us here.
"Don't you dare hurt my friends anymore!" She leaped from the rock and threw a number of magic cards in the direction of the enemy, causing explosions on impact around him. "Fairy…" Her wrist glowed with a mysterious yellow light. But she was interrupted by a gravity spell, knocking her down to the ground.
"Is it possible she learned to use Fairy Glitter!?" Carla said in shock.
"Lucy… Sorry for ditching you… I betrayed you and our friendship. That was unforgivable." Cana spoke with sincerity as she got up again, weakened by the hit of the enemy's spell. "But trust me now. If I can hit him with this, it will defeat him!" She was confident that whatever she had acquired was going to win us this fight. It was likely she was talking about Fairy Glitter, then. But it wouldn't matter if her opponent wasn't going to give her the time to finish casting it; we'd somehow have to distract his attention from her to give her the chance.
Natsu and the others figured out the same thing and gathered their strength to stand up against this foe once more. However, before we were able to do anything, our enemy spread his arms and blasted all of us away with a powerful shockwave. "No one can move under the force my gravity." He followed up his attack with another powerful area-wide gravity spell, pressing us to the ground again. "Never did I imagine the spell I was searching for would so casually come to me." He walked up to Cana and made her levitate in the air, then cast a spell on her that put her in great pain. All we could do was watch as he continued to hurt her more. The gravity holding us down was too strong to get up from.
"Let me ask you a question girl. Are you capable of using Fairy Glitter?" This guy just kept on going with pointless talk. Still, this could actually work in our favour. As I had noticed from earlier, the effects of his gravity spells would start to fade away shortly after casting them. The longer he would keep his attention locked on Cana without killing her or stealing the spell, the more chance we would have at making a possible counter-attack to save her.
"Of course… I am…" Cana struggled to get those words out of her mouth, but even in this hopeless situation, she wasn't planning on giving up this fight.
"It's an ultra-difficult spell that gathers and compresses sunlight, moonlight, and starlight. A lowly wizard like you can't possibly use it." He continued to talk to her. Just a little more and the effects of his gravity spell would be weakened enough for us to move again. He then intensified the pressure on Cana, getting close to the point where she was getting completely crushed by the power of his spell. If there was a time to attack, it should be now.
Natsu bashed his head into the ground. For a moment I thought he'd gone crazy, but then I sensed a large amount of magic power channelling through his body. He was about to do something.
"Fire Dragon… Roar!" The entire area around him began to crumble and flames were bursting through the countless of cracks in the ground. The effect of his spell spread toward our enemy who had his back turned to the rest of us all this time, catching him off-guard, and resulted in a fiery explosion at his feet. At this moment, I Prequipped myself in an instant and channelled a powerful Lightning Shock to add to our surprise attack, doubling the size of the explosion at our enemy's location.
It seemed our attacks had no effect on him at all, as he effortlessly blew us away without even showing a sign of being hurt by our combined attack. But with his focus on Cana gone, she was free to move again. "Nice one, you guys!" She thanked us with a smirk on her face and readied herself for what she'd been wanting to do all this time. "I can use this spell!"
She raised one of her arms and pointed her fist at the skies. "Assemble, o river of light guided by fairies!" With those words her whole arm began to shine brightly. A pillar of golden light surrounded her and shot up to the sky.
"Impossible…!" The enemy stared in shock at the light as the spell was being cast.
Rays of light broke through the dark rain clouds, causing the rainfall to cease. The entire sky then tore open and revealed a beautiful starry sky in motion. An otherworldly sight I'd never seen before, scary and beautiful at the same time. The ground trembled and I felt immense magic power gathering around Cana's location while all of this was happening… would this be enough to take down this foe, I wondered?
"Shine! To destroy the fangs of wickedness!" The star-filled sky completely lit up, then turned all dark. A wide circle of light appeared high above Cana. "Fairy Glitter!"
She lowered her fist and aimed it at the enemy standing in front of her. The circle of light rapidly descended and surrounded her target, then shrunk in size, wrapping itself around his body. The man was immersed in a blinding light as Cana channelled the power of the spell onto him through the magic him. I had to shield my eyes to not get blinded by its brilliance.
"Begone!"
As the Fairy Glitter spell was about to reach its final stage, the man went down on one knee and cast a spell of his own. Powerful light rays shot up from the ground all around the area, making it impossible to see anything for a brief period of time. An explosion of light followed and we were all knocked backward by the force of the impact.
"You consider this enough skill to use Fairy Glitter? Don't make me laugh." The man emerged unscathed from the explosion. I couldn't believe it… Just how strong was he when Cana's spell had no effect on him. Even if what he said was true and Cana wasn't high level enough to fully utilise its full power, the immense amount of magic she'd gathered should've still done at least something.
"Are you aware that I can take the spell even after I kill you?" He said as he walked up to her. Rain started to fall from the sky again. She had completely lost the will to fight after seeing her spell had done nothing to him at all. Even we couldn't do anything but watch, as we were under the effects of heavy gravity again. This was looking absolutely hopeless.
"Now you'll fall to Hell." He aimed his hand at her and began to channel the energy to finish her off for good. Right then, a figure appeared out of nowhere, positioned between Cana and her opponent, and immediately blasted him with a spell that sent him flying backward.
No way. After all we'd gone through without even being able to touch him, this guy landed a full hit on him with such effect. As the dust of the impact of the hit settled, it was revealed our hero was none other than Gildarts.
