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Chapter 18

At the Magic Council Meeting Site, Era…

The Magic Council was in an uproar after the intense events that happened recently in Clover Town at the guild master's meetings. The atmosphere was tense when the Magic Council members looked at each other across the large circular table. Sitting in the center of the table were reports upon reports of what happened and in the center was Lullaby, or at least what was left of it that being a few leftover chunks of wood kept in a magic sealing container.

A tall, gray-haired elderly man spoke first, "These dark guilds are intolerable! Not only did they release a demon of Zeref, but they were a threat to the guild masters, and almost killed all of the citizens of Oshibana Town!" He had a considerably long beard along with a bushy mustache that covered his mouth. He has pointy ears somewhat akin to an elf, and has a habit of keeping only one of his dark-colored eyes open at a time. He also wears multiple layers of robes, consisting of a long beige coat with a black trim under which he wears a long black tunic. Over everything he had a long white cloak with a dark blue wavy trim and a high collar. On top of his balding head is a small bat. This was Org, one of the many magic council members who is vehemently for disbanding Fairy Tail.

Another large man spoke next and asked, "How did they get such a powerful magic item anyways?" He is a tall man with a large bushy beard. He features a snub nose moderately sized droopy eyes, high eyebrows and relatively small ears. He sports a tall black hat with a gooden upside down "V" on the front of it. For attire, He wears a black undershirt and a robe that he keeps tied tightly shut. Atop this robe, he wears a beige coat that has a diamond pattern over a black trim on the outer edges, which is finally covered by a white cloak tied shut by a diamond-shaped buckle. The large man also wears dark pants and light-colored slippers. This was Crawford, one of the most loyal magic council members, or so it would seem. Crawford thought to himself, 'What ever took out Lullaby must have been an incredibly powerful person. I'm not even sure if the 5th rank wizard saint Jura Neekis could kill Lullaby. I must inform them at once!'

Another man said, "You know, someone will have to take responsibility for this. These actions are quite outrageous! While defeating Lullaby, Fairy Tail destroyed the meeting hall, and part of Clover Town, luckily not killing any citizens."

Siegrain said snarkily as he held up a sheet of paper, "You know, these reports are quite interesting. If you read these, maybe you wouldn't be so worried about dark guilds or Fairy Tail, because whatever did what is written in this report is far more fearsome." Siegrain was a tall man, however having a rather average stature when it comes to muscle. He wears a long white coat with a black trim with arrow-like motifs around his collar. The coat is closed by a series of silver buckles running across it. Under his coat he wears a purple shirt which he has his wizard saint badge pinned to. He wears white pants with matching white shoes as well as a black belt with a silver buckle. He had spiky blue hair and a red tattoo over his right eye.

Ultear stood beside him and smirked, "Indeed. This unknown person possesses quite a threat if not dealt with." She rolled her crystal ball along her arm as she spoke, grabbing it in her hand when it got to the end of the sleeve of her loose dress.

Org yelled as he reached for the papers in Jellal's hands, "Give me that!" Org held the paper as his eyes raced across and down the page as he soaked in every detail of the information. His brows furrowed as he got closer to the center of the page, but as he reached the bottom his gasped. He looked up from the report and said in a stern voice, "This must be dealt with immediately!" he looked over to the guards outside the door, "Get Commander Doranbolt in here this instant!"

Later…

Ultear and Siegrain stood in the magic council Library. Ultear sighed while keeping a smile on her face, "I'm disappointed in the Lullaby case."

"We couldn't have predicted what happened. Even with all the help we gave to Eisenwald, that should have been easily able to finish their mission. We could never have known about this."

Ultear kept her smile, "I'm sorry Siegrain, I did not account for the possibility of a third party intervening in our plans."

Siegrain smirked, "It certainly was a detriment. If we had taken out the guild masters it would have made our job 100 times easier. But this does give me plenty of new ideas. The potential of whoever this third party is limitless, and he could either be an asset, or an enemy."

Ultear said, "He seems to be too powerful for us to shackle if we wanted his help. He is most definitely an enemy. We must be careful from now on and not make any spontaneous moves. It also seems like the other members of the Magic council are getting suspicious of us."

"He does however seem neutral. He seemed to have protected the guild masters along with Fairy Tail out of the kindness of his heart, but he also destroyed an entire platoon of rune knights. We should keep an eye out for him." Replied Siegrain

Ultear smiled as she walked up to him and put a finger on his lips, "You should keep a watch on your actions, afterall, if we are too aggressive we may be noticed. Securing Titania may be a difficult task, and given that this mysterious third Party attacked the Rune Knights, he may attack us if his aggressiveness towards the Rine Knights was out of hatred for the council."

Siegrain smirked, "You could always use your more unconventional methods to bring him over to our side."

Ultear gasped as a blush crossed her face, "You aren't suggested that I-"

Siegrain laughed, "With how you act around me and the rest of the council, I'm surprised you aren't more fond of that idea." Ultear glared at him. Siegrain asked, "What do you think of Ur? She is your mother, and multiple times has been asked to fill the vacant 8th spot on the 10 Wizard Saints list. She could be trouble."

Ultear gained an angry expression, "That old hag?! She isn't a concern. She is almost completely retired as a wizard, and I suspect that she doesn't care much about it. She is just a pitiful woman who was dumped by my father."

"You could always try and re-establish relationships with her. I'm sure that she could be a benefit for us, especially if she doesn't fight us." Replied Seigrain.

Ultear looked at him before her glare changed into an arrogant smirk once again, "We shouldn't worry about that. What is an important question is, what about the Storm Champion?"

"Oh?"

"I witnessed her battles, and she is extraordinarily strong. I also witnessed a power that could easily put her as an S-class mage. She could be troublesome." Continued Ultear.

Siegrain replied, "I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on her."

At Fairy Tail…

Erza, Gray, Lucy, Wendy, and Ur with Carla flying next to them walked towards the Fairy Tail Guild hall, unknowing of what had become of it. The atmosphere in Magnolia was tense as the 5 mages walked towards the guild hall. As they walked down the street they saw that everyone went silent when they passed by. People emerged from their homes and watched as the group of mages passed by. Wendy could hear their mumumurs about whatever had happened.

They soon came to the sight which had been causing this create commotion. There stood the Fairy Tail guild hall, in ruins. Holes had been punctured in it on all sides leaving wooden planks and steel beams lying on the ground. The most notable part of the destruction were the giant iron pillars protruding from every side of the guild hall giving it quite a scary appearance.

Gray asked, "Who did this to our guild hall?!"

Erza looked up at it and asked herself more than to anyone else, "What happened here…?"

She heard from a snarky voice behind her, "Those Phantom freeks attacked us while we weren't looking." Mira stood behind them with her hands on her hips as she looked up at the guild hall, "They caught us off guard, but luckily there was no one at the guild at the time, so no one got hurt."

Carla asked, "Where is everyone? We obviously can't stay in the guild hall when it is in this bad of condition." Mira waved for them to follow her as the group of mages quickly descended into the basement of the guild hall. They were greeted by the noise of the guild, a few people saying hello to them, while most of them were arguing about whether they should go and attack Phantom Lord.

Makarov held a beer mug in his hand with a blush on his face as he greeted them in a lazy voice, "Yo, Welcome back. What took you so long?" Truth be told, the group of mages was stopped on their way back to the guild and was questioned by the magic council, afterall, the Magic Council was even more suspicious of them now than they had been previously, especially with the report of the massacre of an entire platoon of rune knights.

Wendy said sheepishly, "Master, maybe you shouldn't be drinking this early in the morning. We should be working on figuring out what happened."

Gray said to Makarov, "Wendy's right, we shouldn't just be relaxing down here. Phantom Lord attacked our guild hall, and we're just sitting ducks down here."

Makarov laughed as he ignored them. He didn't want to admit it, but he was drinking so that he didn't have to worry about the guild hall. He really wanted to attack Phantom Lord, but knew that if he did, Fairy Tail would actually get disbanded by the Magic Council. Mira smacked Makarov on the back of the head and asked, "Do you understand the gravity of this situation?"

Makarob sighed and asked the mages in a more serious tone, "Do you think that I don't want to go to Phantom lord and attack them right this instant? If we were to attack them we could risk disbandment, and we are already extremely close as it is, and the magic Council would finally be able to have a reason to disband us." Makarov smiled, "Also, no one got injured anyways as the guild was empty and it was already past closing time. There is no need to worry!"

Wendy inquired, "Empty guild?"

Lisanna chimed in, "We got lucky. They attacked after closing during the night so the only thing that got damaged was the guild."

Gray said, "But they still attacked us. Shouldn't we retaliate?"

Makarov sighed as he looked at the anxious and angry faces of the wizards. As he looked around the guild hall and then back the the people in front of him, he could sense the rising anger that they had. Makarov said, "We will not be retaliating. For the time being we will take requests from here and maintain normal guild functionality."

Gray slammed his hand down on the table, "That makes no sense! They attacked us first. Are you seriously saying we should just let them bully us like this?!"

Ur said, "Don't be irrational Gray. If we attack them it would be bad as Makarov already said. Of course if someone got injured we would, but the situation hasn't reached that point. All we can do is wait and see if this continues." This silenced Gray as he let out a deep sigh.

Makarov asked, "Anyways, what happened on your mission. I managed to get back to the guild before you guys."

Erza replied, "We were stopped by the Magic Council before we could return to the guild. Apparently an entire squad of rune knights was massacred while we were on our way to clover town, and they were wondering if we had anything to do with it."

"An entire squad?! How is something like that possible? Although most mages are stronger than Rune Knights, taking out an entire squad would be difficult for the majority of the mages in the guild." Said Lisanna.

Carla replied, "The only things that were left over at the station were the ripped apart bodies of countless Rune Knights. The station apparently was covered in an inextinguishable fire that required countless water mages to put out."

Mira replied in a snarky tone, "You gotta be kidding me. There is no way that you could create an inextinguishable fire. To do that your power would need to exceed that of even the strongest wizard saints."

"It's the truth. Normally when magic has been used there is an abundance of ethernano left over in the air from residual power that was not used in the spell. This power is often equivalent to the amount of magic power the spell caster had. Apparently, the residual ethernano in the air was so great that it short circuited the magic power sensor." Said Erza.

This made Makarov's eyes go wide. The only person he could think of that had enough strength to do this was God Serena, but he was supposed to be at negotiations in Alverez at the moment. That meant the only other option was whatever that thing that he saw kill Lullaby was. Makarov put a hand on his chin and thought deeply before looking up at the Wizards, "I'll get a full report on this from Doranbolt." With that, the mages left the guild for the day, afterall, they had to be careful about what they did in case there was an attack from Phantom Lord.

The next day…

The streets were empty for one soul reason, and that was because everyone was specifically focused on the second Phantom Lord incident that week. The sounds could be heard from blocks away as people packed into the now noisy park, standing around Magnolia's massive Rainbow Sakura tree, however that was not the topic for discussion at this time.

Erza, Wendy, Lucy, Gray, and Mira pushed their way through the crowd anxiously as they approached the truly horrifying sight in front of them. People parted ways forming a clear path directly to the tree, not wanting to anger the already furious Fairy Tail wizards. They soon stood below the tree, looking up at Levy, Jet, and Droy, pinned to the tree by iron binds, their bodies being covered in cuts and bruises, clothes ripped, and large bloody gashes running all over them.

Lucy and Wendy looked up at them and muttered in a shaky voice, "Levy…" Mira glared at them and gritted her teeth as she used every part of her being to stop herself from running over to Phantom Lord and beating the crap out of them. Erza looked up at them and trembled as she thought back to how many times she had seen this exact same sight, in that place.

They heard Makarov's heavy footsteps on the rough dirt path as they saw him approaching their position. His eyes were shadowed as magic started to spiral around him, "Wrecking our shoddy bar I can deal with… But no parent can remain silent after seeing their children's blood… THIS MEANS WAR!" He shattered his staff to splinters as he crushed it with his hand.

The next day…

Lucy sat in Magnolia Hospital with a sullen expression on her face. She looked around the hospital room at her three guildmates who lay in the white hospital beds with magical heart monitors next to their beds beeping away. She looked around sadly, knowing that these people couldn't be at the guild in their time of need.

Lucy heard Wendy's voice from her side, "You shouldn't worry so much about them." Wendy was trying to cheer Lucy up, but she couldn't really do anything about it. She had tried to heal Jet, Droy, and Levy's wounds' but they seemed to be infused with magic, which when she tried to heal them, backfired and hurt her.

Lucy sighed, "I just don't know what to do. If their guild has someone who can take out 3 of our strongest mages (Remember, Levy was selected for the S-Class trials) without leaving any traces of evidence, what are we going to do."

Wendy smiled, "I'm sure we'll be fine, afterall, We have Erza and Mira."

"I guess you're right." Lucy made a fake smile as she looked out across her 3 badly injured guild mates. She clenched her fist, "But we cannot forgive them."

Oak Town, Secondary Phantom Lord guild hall…

From inside the massively imposing building of Phantom Lord hardy laughs could be heard all around. People sat as they clinked drinks together as they downed glass after glass, talking about Gajeel's most recent excursion to Fairy Tail. They laughed hilariously as they retold the now grossly distorted story that Gajeel had told all of them. Some people thought of him as someone to be scared of, others thought of him as someone to befriend as an ally, but everyone knew he was a force to be reckoned with, and they were lucky he was in Phantom Lord.

As some members began to clean up after finishing their conversations and packing up to leave, Gajeel sat in the rafters of the guild, looking down as the bustling environment. Gajeel sniffed the air before grinning evilly and said to Aria who was next to him, "They're here." At that moment, the door of the guild hall was blown to pieces by a blast of dark energy, leaving a smoking hole in the front of the guild hall, revealing an Army of Fairy Tail mages. The battle had begun.


Hey guys! I finally managed to get chapter 18 out, which took me a while. I had tons of ideas for this chapter and it is annoying having to contain them for the next chapter, which can hopefully get me close to the end of the Phantom Lord arc. I'm sorry this chapter was basically a page turner, which I know can be boring, but I don't just want to write that "everything happened as normal" because it didn't. I've been preparing for the Gajeel vs Natsu fight for a while, and I should finally get to write this amazing battle. I'll also try and write a few other good battles in here too, so this will probably be the most exiting arc so far, but you guys let me know. Now onto the questions.

Questions:

1. How do I power scale Gajeel? It is never very clear how Gildarts faired against Acnologia, and Natsu is only slightly stronger than Acnologia. Because of this, I am wondering how to scale Gajeel against Natsu. Should Gajeel even be able to harm Natsu, or should Natsu just absolutely destroy Gajeel in the fight?

2. Should crystal dragon slayer magic function in a similar way to Iron dragon slayer magic, or no? If you think it shouldn't, can you give me some other ideas?

3. Should it be Laxus and Erza vs Gajeel or Mira and Erza vs Gajeel?

4. Because Erza is going to fight Gajeel and get defeated, should Wendy be the one that fights Jose?

6. What should Ur's role be in this? I already have a plan for Macao, given that he is S-Class, but what should Ur do?

Alright, that is all for the questions! See you guys next time!