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CHAPTER 52
KNOCKING ON HELL'S DOORS
"Gray! Erza!"
We had only just left the camp when we bumped into two of our previously missing guildmates. They both looked like they'd gone through hell, yet Natsu asked whether they were up for getting some payback. To my surprise they both agreed to come; I guess they still had some fight left in them, then. I was glad they did, but I hoped they weren't going to overextend themselves by coming with us.
Just looking at the two, I wondered what kind of battles they'd fought. Especially Erza… I'd never seen her wounded like this before. Her foe must've been truly formidable.
It was only a short run to the eastern shoreline, and as soon as we got there, the large ship of Grimoire Heart became visible. On top of it was who I assumed to be their guild master, gazing down upon us as we approached. An old man with a long, silvery beard, and an eyepatch over his right eye. Despite his age, he looked strong, and there was definitely a powerful and mysterious aura surrounding him. He looked at us with eyes filled with lust for battle.
"So, you wish for the same treatment I gave your master?" He said, hoping to get a response out of us. "Come face your destruction, children of Makarov." With those words he walked away, leaving it up to us to find a way to get on the ship.
"Thinks he's so great." Gray said, not at all impressed with Hades's attitude towards us and Fairy Tail in general.
"If we can defeat that man in time, the rest of them will leave and the Council won't have to fire on us?" Wendy asked us.
"I suppose that's our plan. And if we can destroy their ship in the process, they'll have to swim back." I answered her.
"I got a favour to ask you guys." Natsu turned to the three Exceed who'd all come with us. "I need you to find and destroy whatever's powering this ship." He told them.
"Yeah, if it takes off it'll spell trouble, huh? At least for you?" Happy responded with a smile, referring to Natsu's motion sickness. Though he meant it as a joke, it was true we'd be in serious trouble if Natsu would be taken out of the fight due to something as silly as that.
"In that case, you can count on us." The Exceed agreed to Natsu's plan and went right ahead.
"Time to get this show on the road!" Gray said, not wanting to waste any more time standing around here, and formed a large staircase made of ice, leading up to the deck of the ship. "Let's go!"
"Yeah!" Natsu shouted and took the lead. We all followed, running up the icy stairs.
"As a wizard, he surpasses even our own master." Erza informed us as we made our way up. "Go all-out as soon as the battle starts!"
"Right!" Wendy responded boldly to Erza's words.
I shivered at the thought of a wizard even stronger than our guild master, but Erza's plan was solid. Against an enemy this strong, we couldn't afford to drag things out. We'd have to try to overwhelm him and finish him off as fast as possible. Even though he's stronger than all of us individually, we do have the number advantage over him. I cast Prequip and took the Lightning Edge in both my hands, preparing myself for this final battle against Grimoire Heart's guild master, Hades.
"I'll hit him with everything I got!" Gray said in response to Erza's plan.
"We have to live and fight for the moment!" Lucy added.
"I can finally thrash him!" Natsu roared with excitement. "I'm all fired up now!"
With his fists engulfed by flames, Natsu jumped into the air as soon as he reached the top. "Have a taste of Fairy Tail's power!" He then launched a pillar of fire shooting from his hand at Hades who was calmly standing there, waiting for us to come at him. A massive, fiery explosion at his location followed, but Hades wasn't even moving an inch.
"Fairy Tail's… power?" He merely responded, unimpressed with the result of Natsu's attack.
Erza with her Black Wing Armour and weapon and Gray wielding the enormous Cold Excalibur blade charged at him once the flames of Natsu's attack had dissipated, resulting in yet another explosion, this time a combination of light and ice crystals.
"Open, Gate of the Golden Bull!" Lucy summoned Tauros, one of her strongest Celestial Spirits. Without making any silly remarks for once, he jumped straight at the enemy, smashing him with the hugely oversized axe he wielded. "Fierce… Mooove!"
"By the grace of the winds, strike fiercely, move swiftly, and be free of all harm! Arms! Armour! Vernier!" Wendy combined all of her support magic and cast it onto the rest of us simultaneously. Amongst all of this chaos I found it hard to find a chance to get in a hit in myself without getting in the way of the others, and so I joined Wendy in casting support. This time I would do it without failing, I thought to myself, not allowing myself to mess up again.
"Tide of the arcane spirits that flow through the heavens…! Invoke!" I established connections with everyone in here and channelled magic through to them, further enhancing their magical damage output and refilling their pool of magic power. I had been practising on getting this spell right, and I finally got it to work; though now was not the time to celebrate.
Erza and Gray made another charge at Hades, this time their bodies boosted with all of the enchantments from Wendy and me. Hades was forced to dodge their attacks, being aware of the fact that their strength had been enhanced to a level that could even put him in danger if he were to get hit by their attacks. Erza appeared right behind him, but he had already seen her. He evaded her sword slash and retaliated with a magic chain spell that grabbed her at her throat and then slung her away, throwing her against Gray who hadn't seen it coming.
Natsu took advantage of the moment in which Hades was busy controlling the magic chain with Erza attached to it and jumped at him from above with another fire technique. "Fire Dragon… Wing Attack!" Hades couldn't get himself away from Natsu's attack in time and took the full hit. Still, he recovered quickly and hit Natsu in the back of his head with a new chain spell and swung him around the battlefield. Luckily for him, Erza was already back on her feet and sliced the chain that was holding Natsu.
"Natsu!" I shouted and threw a low-flying Blitzerang in his direction. "Got it!" Natsu gave a quick nod and hopped on top of the Blitzerang, effectively turning it into some kind of an electric, spinning surfboard.
"Sky Dragon… Roar!" Wendy, standing behind us, launched a powerful roar attack, further boosting the speed at which Natsu was flying. "Scorpio!" Lucy's Celestial Spirit blasted a sand tornado, merging with Wendy's roar for more power. "Catch this!" Gray threw a gigantic hammer made of ice, which Natsu caught, and prepared to smack Hades on the head with.
"A Unison Raid!? Hades said in surprise at seeing our combination attack; at the speed at which Natsu was flying at him, he'd be unable to get out of the way. A mighty and colourful explosion of lightning, fire, sand and ice occurred when Natsu and all of our magic made their impact and sent Hades flying to the back of the ship.
My Blitzerang with Natsu no longer on it, returned itself to me, restoring some of the magic energy I'd put into it. The amount of power we had thrown into our combined attack surely must have done something, I thought to myself, as I watched the smoke of the explosion slowly clear, waiting to see the result of our attack.
"People refer to their mistakes as 'experience'." Guild master Hades calmly stepped out of the cloud of dust and smoke still covering the location of impact, not showing a sign of being harmed by our attack whatsoever. "But, true mistakes do not leave mistakes behind. For you have no future left after making the mistake of opposing me."
"No way…!" Wendy said in shock. We all felt the same. If that attack didn't even manage to scratch him, then how were we supposed to beat him? Even Natsu and Erza couldn't believe their eyes at the sight of Hades taking all of our combined power this well.
"Now, then. Are we finished with the warm-up exercises?" Hades spoke and began to charge himself with magic energy. As he continued to gather power, the air in the room started vibrating. This amount of magic power he was building up was unreal, possibly even higher than the wizard we had left up to Gildarts to fight.
"Ready yourselves!" Erza warned us. I took a few steps back and took a defensive stance. Observing the enemy didn't give me much information. While Hades was now charged up with magic energy, he just stood there with his arms crossed. It was impossible to read what he'd do next. With how much magic he had surrounded himself with, I couldn't tell what or where to he was channelling it to. I'd just to have to prepare for the worst and focus everything on defence.
"Katsu!" Out of nowhere, he roared the name of an attack, so loud that it hurt my ears. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, but then a quick flash of light showed up around Wendy, and in an instant she completely disappeared, only leaving her clothes behind. It all happened so fast, I couldn't even register what just happened. Wendy… was gone? How? All of the air in the room returned to normal, but Hades kept a powerful magic aura around him.
"Wendy! No!" Natsu yelled in desperation. We all blankly stared at her empty clothes falling to the ground. I couldn't believe that she was killed just like that.
"Eradicated without a trace, huh? How trifling." Hades spoke, seemingly mildly amused by watching our reaction. "Shall I dispose of the rest of you now, one by one?"
"Please calm down, everyone." A voice I didn't recognise spoke up. Where was it coming from, I wondered, and looked around. "I'm up here." It then said, as though it had read my confused mind. I looked up and saw an antique grandfather clock with hands and feet holding itself attached to the ceiling of the room. "… is what she says."
"Horologium!" Lucy said, surprised to see her Celestial Spirit there when she hadn't even summoned using her key.
"What a relief…" Gray said with a smile, understanding what the clock just had done. I, however, didn't get it. What did this clock have to do with anything, and why was it talking to us?
"My automatic danger detection mode activated just in time." It explained. "Thank you, Mr. Horologium… is what she says."
"So, why did her clothes fall off?" Natsu asked the important question.
"As it was an emergency, I protected only her." The clock calmly replied as if that was all.
"Wait! Are you saying Wendy's inside and completely…" Gray yelled in shock and failed to hide a slight blush on his cheeks. I was now getting what happened… So Wendy was actually inside this clock thing guy, who was actually one of Lucy's Celestial Spirits, and managed to save her just before Hades's spell hit her.
"Eek! … is what she says. I'll provide new clothing for her." The clock spoke. "This is the only time I can offer my protection. Please be extra careful, everyone." It then disappeared and Wendy fell down from the ceiling, wearing a new set of clothes.
"Thanks, Horologium." Lucy thanked her Celestial Spirit for saving Wendy's life.
"So this is what Makarov's little ones are made of. Amusing, indeed." Hades showed a little surprise by seeing his technique had actually failed to hit its target.
"You know Gramps?" Natsu inquired when he heard Hades mention our guild master by his name.
"Oh, you aren't aware?" Hades responded. "Have records of me been expunged from the guild's library as well? I was once Fairy Tail's second master." He stroked his beard. "I went by the name 'Precht'."
"You lie!" Natsu shouted in anger. He didn't want to believe this man, who was our enemy and threatened the existence of our guild, to be part of our guild's history.
"It was I who appointed Makarov as the third master." He continued to talk, ignoring Natsu's reaction.
"Yeah, right! I've had enough of your nonsense!" Natsu couldn't take any more of his talk and charged at him, but Hades easily caught him inside a powerful spell before he could get to him. As he shot down Natsu, he began firing spells at the rest of us as well. A volley of small, yet painful energy bombs came our way; there were too many to simply dodge or block. I got struck by one, then two, and more kept on coming; I couldn't even find a chance to set up a defensive barrier. We fell to the ground, unable to shield ourselves from any of it. After a while it finally stopped, but having taken this many hits had drained me a good bit of my energy.
"Tell me. Do fairies have tails or not?" It's an eternal mystery… And thus an eternal adventure… I believe that's how the guild's name name came about, yes?" He calmly spoke to us while we lied on the ground, just barely recovering from his previous attack. "However… your adventure is about to end." He walked up to Natsu and planted his boot on top of his head, who was to weak to fight back in his current state.
"Mavis's will was entrusted to me, and my will was entrusted to Makarov. But that was the mistake. Makarov changed the guild." He explained to us.
"What nonsense are you spouting off?" Natsu asked him.
"He exposed magic to too much sunlight." Hades plainly answered.
"That's how our Fairy Tail does things!" Natsu defended our guild. "We don't live as dead, heartless people like you! We live with our lives on the line, dammit! If you don't got the courage to change, then just stand still right where you are!"
"You annoy me, imp." Hades said, not impressed by Natsu's words and burst of anger, and shot him with a magic spell again and again, and kept on going. "If you begrudge anyone, make it Makarov. It is because of him that you will now die painfully."
"Stop!" Erza shouted desperately. She couldn't take it any longer to see Natsu in this much pain. But she, too, was drained of a lot of her magic energy.
"I won't… let you get away… with hurting Gramps…." Natsu slowly got up again, even though his whole body was hurting from all the magic attacks it had taken.
"Enough. Begone." Hades pointed his finger at him and charged a much more powerful spell this time. The amount of magic he was gathering was reaching dangerous levels. Natsu had to get out of there or he could very well die.
In that instant, the whole room got lit up by a blinding yellow light, followed by the loud crash of thunder. Surrounded by sparks of electricity, Laxus stood there between Natsu and Hades; I could sense a mighty source of energy all around him. This really was the man I had least expected to see making his appearance at this time. Hadn't Makarov kicked him out of the guild after that whole Battle of Fairy Tail thing he set up shortly after I joined the guild? In that case, what was he doing here, I wondered.
"So this guy took out Gramps, huh?" He said as he observed Hades standing before him. Neither him nor his opponent looked intimidated by the other. I knew very little of Laxus's combat abilities, except that it had taken quite a lot from Fairy Tail to bring him down during his act of rebellion against the guild. He might very well be the reinforcements we needed to win this battle.
"What are you doing here, Laxus?" Erza questioned him. While I was thankful for his arrival, I wouldn't mind knowing what brought him here either.
"I came to pay my respects to the first guild master. I did used to be a member of Fairy Tail, after all." Was his answer. Well, wasn't that convenient; having him show up on the exact same day we had our S-class trial and an all-out invasion from Grimoire Heart all on the same day. Well, whatever. As long as he was on our side, I wasn't going to complain. "Since I'm here, I might as well dig a grave for our second guild master." He began to power up even more. Without ever having seen him in action yet, I could already tell his magic energy was far above mine.
"My, my. To think that boy had such pretentious kin…" Hades responded and also began to charge himself with magic. The ground was shaking lightly under the pressure of the two wizards increasing their power levels. Laxus taking on Hades was a great opportunity for me to catch some breath and replenish some of my own energy.
With a thundering blow of his fist, Laxus punched Hades away at full power and immediately chased after him as to not give him a chance to recover from the first strike. While he did manage to land some direct hits on him, Hades appeared to take his attacks fairly well, though Laxus just kept on launching attack after attack at him. A beam of lightning shot from his mouth forced Hades into evading, and ripped through the walls of the ship, as if it was made of paper. Slowly but surely, Hades was creating more distance between him and his opponent, allowing him to fight back more effectively again. Laxus successfully dodged the magic chain spell coming at him, but then landed right inside of one of Hades's other spells that he cast right after it.
"Is this an Amaterasu Formula…!?" Laxus looked in shock at the multiple spell circles surrounding him.
"Perish!"
A huge, dark ball of magic appeared at his location, so powerful that even we were blown away by the shockwaves of the impact.
"Those hit by this lose all strength in their limbs and become immobilised." Hades conveniently explained while watching the smoke clear. "Even blocking it consumes so much magic power that it's fatal…" Right then, a bolt of lightning shot from the cloud formed by the explosion and manoeuvred itself behind Hades; Laxus appeared from it and kicked him in the back before he could even react to it. That spell he just used… it reminded a lot of my Lightning Step technique.
"That was only strong enough for one leg." Laxus apparently wasn't affected that much by Hades's spell earlier. He charged at Hades again, with his fist fully charged with lightning magic. Hades mirrored his movement and their fists collided, resulting in a massive explosion of lightning and dark magic.
"Oh? What's the matter?" Hades emerged victorious from the clash between him and Laxus, with the latter appearing on his knees when vision over the battlefield finally returned.
"Laxus!" Natsu shouted. He was our strongest fighter and our only hope in this fight against the guild master. With him down, and Hades still in good condition, things weren't looking bright for us. That last spell by Hades must be taking its toll on him, then…
"Heh, the world really is a big place… Never knew there were monsters out there like this guy… I still got a long way to go." Laxus stated, openly admitting this enemy was way out of his league.
"Don't be stupid!" Natsu wouldn't accept Laxus's defeat like that.
"Very impressive, Laxus, or whatever you name is. But it ends now." Hades spoke and once again raised his power level. "It's time for you to be gone!" A beam of black energy shot from the palm of his hand, aimed straight at Laxus who was still down on his knees and unable to defend himself from it.
"Laxus!"
Right before the impact of the beam, Laxus stomped the ground with his fist and was surrounded by a bright light. In an instant, I felt a huge source of lightning magic filling my body, charging my magic energy to levels way above I'd ever experienced before. Laxus took the full hit from Hades's attack, blown away by the explosion and fell into a hole that led to the lower parts of the ship.
"This one's… my treat…" He spoke weakly as he fell down. "Natsu… Rookie…" It seemed I wasn't the only one who received Laxus's gift; Natsu's body was radiating with electricity, just like me. "It's… all of my magic power…"
"Why did you give it to me… you know I'm weaker than you…" Natsu questioned him.
"It ain't about being stronger or weaker. He wounded Fairy Tail's master. What's the point unless someone with the guild's emblem takes him down!? Any pain the guild receives it needs to pay back…! A hundred-fold."
"Y-Yeah." Natsu responded and finally seemed to get this new elemental magic under his control. His body was surrounded by a mix of fire and lightning.
"Rookie. I heard good things about you. As a lightning wizard, don't waste what I'm giving you!" Laxus directed his words to me. I didn't know how to feel about this. In my eyes he'd always been Fairy Tail's enemy, even after the Battle of Fairy Tail ended. To receive all this from him, and seeing him put his faith in me and my abilities… It was time to put the past behind me; he was no longer the enemy.
"I'll do my best. For you, and for Fairy Tail." I replied and began to reach into my new pool of magic power. My body felt like it was overflowing with energy, it was hard to control all of it at once, yet I was the strongest I'd ever been. Maybe we still had a chance against Hades with this new power.
"It's payback time… times a hundred."
