Chapter 136: Starfall

Previously, on "Crowns of Thorns" . . .

"Someone robbed me," Boomer groused. "Everything's gone. Even my garage!"

"Everything was gone?" Grace asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah. Including all my savings, all my music, and . . Regykraeon's book," Boomer admitted.

"Regykraeon?" the Tamer asked in concern, remembering the Air Demon that they had fought in Ghoulia.

"But I thought he died," Grace frowned.

"He did," Boomer confirmed. "But the book's still a powerful dark magic artefact, even with the demon dead. Knowing that it's out there somewhere worries me,"

"Well, if it ever resurfaces, we'll deal with it. So don't worry about it," Pierce assured him.

-[CoT]-

Ariel's first word was an eloquent "Huh?"

"TFEI B/0297, reporting for duty. Good to see you, B/006," Blue cheerfully explained.

"Oh. You're my backup? You too, then," Ariel turned, and realised that Pierce, Grace, Cal and Donna were staring at her with faces filled with varying mixes of accusation, betrayal and shock. "Um . . shit. Heeeey, guys,"

Blue followed her gaze and took in the situation. "Oh. You know each other? And . . you didn't . . right. Suou, let's give Phoenix's Eye some space," she declared, taking the other TFEI's hand and walking her out of the room.

-[CoT]-

"You're a TFEI?!" Pierce shouted.

Ariel cupped her head in her hands. "This is bad,"

"What the hell?!" Cal agreed.

"Okay, you have every right to be angry, but -"

"I'm not just angry! We trusted you, and . ." Pierce spluttered, at a loss for words.

"Enough," Donna lowly interrupted the argument. "This doesn't change anything,"

"How does it not change anything? She's been spying on us for who knows how long!" Cal yelled.

"And if I hadn't none of you would have ever been born!" Ariel suddenly shouted back.

Silence followed her statement.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Pierce asked.

"Think about it. The duty of blue TFEIs like me is to take care of time, and as a result, the cohesion of reality. I assume Blue already told you that. That's why I was assigned to Phoenix's Eye. Phoenix's Eye, until recently, were the custodians of the Sempiternal Phoenix, the single most powerful and reliable method of time travel in this reality. If anyone had started abusing that, even Phoenix's Eye themselves, it would be a massive problem for us and all of reality. So I watch the watchmen. I make sure that Phoenix's Eye survives to protect the Sempiternal Phoenix, and I also make sure that no one ever uses it. If I had failed even once, history would have collapsed and you'd probably have never existed,"

"That's not possible," Pierce shook his head. "You joined the guild after the Sempiternal Phoenix was destroyed,"

"The what?" Cal asked.

"A time machine Master used to be the guardian of," Grace whispered. As she spoke, Ariel rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers with a flicker of blue magic. And suddenly Pierce remembered. Ariel had been there when they left. She'd been there when he'd joined the guild thirteen years ago. And in all that time, she hadn't aged a day . . which suddenly made sense.

"Do you get it now?" Ariel asked, sounding half choked. "I've been part of Phoenix's Eye longer than everyone else put together. I was one of the founding members two hundred years ago. I understand if you hate me, or can't forgive me. I'm not sure I could in your position. But Phoenix's Eye means more to me than you can imagine. I've been protecting it for two hundred years and I won't stop now, even if you hate me for it,"

"Then why did you let Kairos End try to steal the Sempiternal Phoenix six years ago? Where were you then?" Pierce demanded.

"That had to happen," the blue TFEI evenly replied. "All of you being sent into the future and the Sempiternal Phoenix being destroyed, that was a fixed event in history. If I'd prevented it, it would have broken time. I'm not allowed to explain why that was different to all the other occasions, but it was,"

"You changed your hair," Grace suddenly observed.

". . . huh?"

"In X784, you had green hair. But after we got back from Alfheim it was blue. Why did you change it?"

Pierce fixed her with a dull look. "Grace, I literally cannot think of anything less important than the spy who changed our memories' hair colour," He paused. "You're just going to do it again, aren't you?" he frowned. "Make us all forget this ever happened?"

"I could," Ariel admitted, breathing to steady her nerves. "I should, really. It's what Cardinal would want me to do. But I won't,"

"Why?"

"Because I never lied about being your friend, or about feeling that way towards any member of Phoenix's Eye," the TFEI continued. "And I hope that still means something to all of you . . and even if it doesn't, I don't know that I could live with myself after doing that to the four of you,"

"Ariel, have you ever endangered the life of a member of Phoenix's Eye to preserve your cover?" Donna directly asked.

"Of course not!" she responded. "In fact, I specifically requested that Cardinal give me permission to blow my cover if a guildmate was about to die in front of me and only I could save them," Ariel explained. ". . Which he did!" she added, a touch unnecessarily.

"You have to admit, that's a point in her favour," the oldest Phoenix pointed out. "Donna, stop helping," Pierce sighed.

"Besides that . . I was a member of the guild sixty-three years ago, before the fire that destroyed Diamauros. I remember now, she was there then too, and she helped," Donna offered Ariel a small smile.

"If that's the case, how did you and our friends end up in here, almost dead?" Cal squinted suspiciously.

"Lightning recognised that I was a TFEI. He hit me with a spell specifically designed to incapacitate my kind early in the fight, then mopped up the others at his leisure," Ariel looked upset, but not guilty.

"Thank you," The others looked at Donna as she inclined her head towards Ariel. "You were there to protect my home when I wasn't. For those fifty years that I was dead, or away, you made sure I had a home to come back to. I don't like that you lied to us, but I understand. So thank you,"

Grace nodded, looking sympathetic, but Pierce and Cal looked less happy. "I just don't get why you had to keep this secret from us," Pierce pointed out.

"Because can you imagine how the world would react if it was public knowledge that there was an immortal super-spy just casually living in Magnolia?" Ariel replied. "The Magic Council would want to study me. Figure out why I can't die. Replicate me, make themselves immortal or build an army of soldiers that can fight through any injury, even fatal ones. Sure, it would be borderline impossible for them to replicate Cardinal's work, but they wouldn't know that. I'd never be able to get a moment's peace, and I'd definitely never be able to do my job. The only way I could be safe was if no one knew at all,"

"She has a point," Donna agreed.

"And that's why I need to ask all of you not to tell anyone else," Ariel requested.

Pierce shot her down. "Not happening. The whole guild is going to know as soon as this is over,"

"You know I can't allow that," the blue TFEI replied, her jaw tightening.

"How about this?" Donna interrupted before the situation could come to blows. "We get everyone in the guild to swear to secrecy. They're our friends, they'll understand,"

Ariel considered this, and nodded. "An acceptable compromise. I hope you're right,"

Blue leant back into the room, taking in the picture. "Well, Suou's gone, and no one in here is dead . . are we all all good?"

"Blue, did you know about Ariel?" Pierce asked.

"I knew there was a TFEI somewhere in Magnolia who'd been monitoring your guild for centuries. Beyond that, zip. I suspected the cake shop owner," she whispered conspiratorially with a cheeky wink.

Suddenly the building shook violently around them. "What's going on?!" Pierce yelled as the Phoenixes and TFEI stabilised themselves against walls and cell bars.

"It's FACE! According to my clock, the first stage of its activation is in ten minutes!" Blue shouted over the background noise.

"Isn't that a big problem?!" Cal asked, his eyes widening.

"No, Fairy Tail will handle it. It's a fixed event, don't worry about it. We need to find Clockwork, he has all the same knowledge of the future we do and he'll do everything he can to change it. We have to take him down and fast," Blue continued.

"Well, let's release the others first. Come on, two TFEI will make it fast and I've reviewed all the logs from the last time our colleagues did this," Ariel declared.

"Well so have I . . don't act like you're so much better than me just because you're a Nagato . ." Blue grumbled.

"What do you mean, Clockwork's the only thing that matters? There's a whole guild of demons up there, is that not something to be concerned about?" Pierce pressed the point.

"Don't worry, as long as Clockwork doesn't interfere with the natural order of events, Fairy Tail will take care of the Nine Demon Gates," Ariel assured him. "We just need to keep him out of their way. Clockwork's our problem,"

"Um, B/006? Ariel? You might wanna count again," Blue interjected, suddenly losing her confidence.

"Huh?"

"I've been spying on Tartaros for three months. They've deviated from the established pattern. There's Ten Demon Gates, they've added an air demon called Regykraeon,"

Ariel blinked. "What?"

Pierce immediately recognised the name. "Regykraeon? Oh no. Boomer's in trouble,"

"Forget Boomer!" Ariel suddenly shrieked. "A tenth demon? Now? No, no, no, this could wreck everything! We need to take that guy down yesterday!"

". . You don't mean that literally, do you?" Cal quickly checked.

"What?"

"After everything I've seen today, time travelling into the past and killing this Regykraeon yesterday is a lot easier to believe. I'm not ruling anything out anymore," the Mimic Mage reasoned.

"If only," Ariel shortly responded.

-[CoT]-

Regykraeon sneezed. "Someone's talking about me," he realised, idly chuckling to himself. "Hey, knock knock?" he addressed his prisoner.

Boomer, who was tied to a pole in Regykraeon's quarters, raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I'm not humouring your jokes,"

Regykraeon sighed melodramatically and darted across the room, facing the spot where he had been and 'replying', "Who's there?"

He shot back to his original position. "Golem,"

"Golem who?"

"Golem-me hear you scream!" At his instruction, a lumbering stone golem, crackling with Regykraeon's Curse power to animate its body, strode forward and slugged Boomer in the chest with a stone piledriver.

"Your puns are more painful than the pain," Boomer spat.

Regykraeon quirked a sparking eyebrow. "Hm. Tough crowd. I know what'll loosen your lips, though," He blurred away at hypersonic speed, before returning with a book loosely held in one hand.

Boomer's eyes widened as he recognised 'The Darkened Book - Regykraeon'. The book that the air demon had been trapped in before, at eight years old, Boomer had unwittingly released him.

"Y'now, this is a really evil book," Regykraeon mused. "It should be, given I spent a few hundred centuries using it as a pillow. It's just filled to the brim with demonic magic . . and you grew up in the same house as it. More than that, you kept it. For years. You must be really attached to this book,"

"What's your point?"

"Or maybe . . it's really attached to you?" the Etherious mused with a sinister grin, his eyelids drooping. "This book, after all, is a prison. You tried to seal me into it a few years back. Maybe it's time I returned the favour, eh little chicken?" Regykraeon yawned, looking oddly fatigued. "The, um . . I figured it out years ago, preparing for this moment of sweet revenge . . which page was it . ." he yawned again. "Gonna . . seal . . you . . y'now, we can do this later . . don't go anywhere," And with that he collapsed sideways, crashing to the ground sound asleep.

Boomer raised a confused eyebrow. "The heck?"

"Dad! Keep it down!" The boy turned, and was treated to the odd sight of a spectral black unicorn squeezing in through the window, tiptoeing around Regykraeon's prone form and immobile golem, and reaching the tied-up Phoenix. "Siria?"

His adoptive daughter was softly singing, a siren-like lullaby that was keeping Regykraeon unconscious. She took a second to shush him before resuming the song, focusing and bringing the sharp end of her horn fully physical, and slicing through the restraints.

Boomer nodded gratefully, silently shaking himself free, and cast around for the door to the room. Siria gestured to it, standing and leading him towards it - but Boomer stopped, looking back at 'The Darkened Book - Regykraeon', which had fallen to the ground with one of its namesake demon's hands resting on it.

Siria, still singing, turned and tossed her head in the direction of the door. "We need to go!" But Boomer shook his head and crept closer, slowly reaching towards the book. "We'll need it," he hissed, placing his hand on the binding and gently tugging.

Regykraeon's slack hand twitched as the book shifted out from underneath it. But Boomer's hand was steady, and he slid the book along the floor until Regykraeon wasn't touching it anymore. With slow, deliberate motions, he slid it closer and scooped it up, before inching backwards. All the while, Siria kept up her song.

The two Sound wizards inched backwards, passing through the threshold of the open door. "I think we're good. Let's go," Boomer whispered, and they snuck down the corridor as Siria let her siren song die away.

Regykraeon's eyes shot open, yellow orbs that instantly too in the situation and filled with rage.

There was a roaring noise, like a hurricane, and suddenly the tower exploded.

Dust and stones flew into the air, and Boomer and Siria both shot skywards and outwards towards the open fields of Cube that surrounded the castle of Tartaros. Spinning through the air, Boomer crashed to the ground in a heap, his left shoulder being wrenched from his socket as he crashed onto his back, arm bent at an unnatural angle. Meanwhile, Siria's incorporeal form hit the ground and kept going, sinking beneath the soil and into the flesh of Plutogrim.

Electricity struck the ground, forming an arcing blue cage around Boomer's prone form. "You thought you could beat me by putting me to sleep?" Regykraeon laughed, his voice turning harsh and ugly. "Now that's funny!" His spiky head formed, and he looked around, confused. "I don't see your friend. I guess the blast threw them in a different direction. Ah well, plenty of time to find them later,"

Dimly, Boomer realised that Regykraeon didn't know where Siria had gone, and he smiled. It was better that the demon focus solely on him.

Meanwhile, Siria, for her part, had recovered quickly, and acclimatised herself to being underground. It was a new experience, but one that was definitely useful, as it allowed her to lurk a few feet below the surface and listen in on her dad and her archenemy. She was blind, but for a creature made mostly of Sound magic, echolocation was plenty to tell her about her surroundings.

"Death's too good for you," Regykraeon scoffed. "Maybe I'll take a page from Deliora's book instead," he mused thoughtfully. "It'd be so hilarious to wear your body like a coat and use it to kill all your friends while you can only watch. Haha!"

As she heard this, Siria's eyes widened. No. Definitely not.

"Hate to steal the show without an audience, but you know what they say. Possession is nine-tenths of the law!" With that parting quip, Regykraeon collected himself into a pulsing, spiky ball of magic, before surging into Boomer's prone body, ready to take over his nervous system and flood his magic circuits with Curse power that would ravage and destroy anything it touched.

But as he flowed into the Phoenix, he found there was someone already there.

Siria roared as she broke down her own body, flowing like a wave through her father's nerves and striking Regykraeon's essence like a thousand needles. "Keep your filthy demon claws off my father!" she shrieked, oscillating, overwhelming sound echoing from her and Boomer's every pore.

"What in the - SILENCE!" The air demon was quick to react, deadening the air and oppressively stilling the vibrations of the unicorn's sound. "What in the ten hells are you?!"

The grasping silence fell across Siria, and she recoiled, a motion that cost her vital ground in her father's body, allowing Regykraeon to strengthen his foothold. She tried to answer his challenge, but no words penetrated the silence that he was enforcing.

But that didn't matter. She didn't care if she had to force Regykraeon out of her father inch by inch without a drop of magic, Siria refused to lose! Not here, not now, not with stakes this high!

Regykraeon formed a semi-corporeal upper body once again, reaching out with grasping claws, trying to physically wrestle Siria out of Boomer's body. Immediately, Siria saw what he was doing and retaliated in kind, her ectoplasmic form shaping back into an equine head and spiralling, pointed horn.

As she did, the Atmosphere Demon snapped his claws around her mouth, holding it shut and preventing her from talking. The air around him went dead and still, a shimmering veil of silence that wrapped around his body like a suit of armour. "You won't get a swan song," he lowly promised.

Regykraeon realised he'd misjudged Siria's intentions when the unicorn lunged and impaled him on her horn. The move was so unexpected, so physical, that he hesitated before responding.

This hesitation gave Siria a few precious seconds to realise; Regykraeon's shield of silence was only skin deep. She grinned. "You're going down, you tartar sauce bastard!" she shouted into his cells.

The demon paused. "What did you just call me?" Regykraeon sounded more confused than anything as he processed the culinary insult.

"I kind of missed the brief on why we're fighting," Siria admitted. "But you hurt dad, so you and your Tartar Sauce guild are going down!"

"That's not what we're called," Regykraeon grunted as he wrapped his arms around her neck, trying to push her away, but Siria dug her hooves into the ground on either side of Boomer's chest, holding herself in place. "Though," he chuckled, "I'll admit it's pretty funny. I'll make that my last laugh!" He redoubled his efforts, and Siria's horn began to slip.

Knowing that she was about to lose her opportunity, Siria channeled all of her magic into a single, focused point inside Regykraeon's body at the tip of her horn, mimicking the technique of the Sonic Boom, her technique, used for the first time under her own power. As she released the magic, she shrilly screamed, "MEGA-BASS!"

A sonic boom erupted as the sound barrier was broken inside Regykraeon's body. The demon screamed as his chest swelled like a balloon, rippling and oscillating from the waves of sound as he tried instinctively, desperately, to hold his own form together. For a second a hypersonic battle of attrition waged; would Siria's magic give out before or after Regykraeon's body failed him? The Etherious' mouth was ripped open and a sonic shriek erupted into the air, shredding his vocal chords.

A scant two seconds later, Regykraeon ruptured, blue plasma bursting out in every direction, splattering across the ground and evaporating into the air.

Siria finally let the echoing Mega-Bass die away, removing her hindquarters from her father's body and collapsing on top of him. "So, I was originally built to kill that guy, huh?" she mumbled to herself. "Good to know I can get the job done,"

A faint, maniacal laugh echoed through the ruins, and the yokai's arrowhead-shaped ears pricked up. "Huh?"

Her eyes widened, as, a few feet away, a tiny ball of blue energy was starting to coalesce. As it pulsed and grew, the laughter grew in volume and twin pinpricks of yellow emerged.

"Oh, crap," Siria nickered and nuzzled Boomer, trying desperately to wake him up. "Dad? Dad, the demon's coming back. What do we do? I don't think I can kill him. Can he be killed? Dad, I need an answer. Dad? Dad!" The unconscious Sound Wizard didn't respond.

Siria grimaced. "Gotta be something . . something I can do . ." Her eyes rolled in every direction, searching for a sign.

Within a second, her gaze fell on The Darkened Book - Regykraeon. "He said something about being sealed in that book," Siria mumbled. "He was gonna do that to dad . . there's gotta be some way to seal him!" she realised.

The unicorn looked at the book, then at her hooves. ". . Sometimes it sucks to be a yokai," she mumbled. Okay. Her dad knew that book. He'd know how to seal Regykraeon back into that book. But he was unconscious.

Siria looked back at the reforming demon, who was starting to sprout limbs, and shivered. She remembered the lessons on yokai magic Kit and Yurei had been giving her for the past couple of months. "Dad, I'm sorry about this, but you're not waking up and we're out of time," She gritted her teeth, spreading herself thin and bursting into a cloud of black magic, which swirled around and re-entered Boomer's magic circuits. "Yokai Unison," she whispered.

Fire blossomed in Boomer's body as he started awake, feeling a familiar presence empower him. His hair burst out into a long, golden mane and a shimmering horn materialised, attached to his forehead. His shoes fell away as his feet metamorphosed into wide, equine hooves. "What the . ." he mumbled as the initial surge of pain ebbed.

Briefly taking control, Siria jackknifed their combined body to their feet and scooped up the book. "Wake up, dad! Come on, we don't have much time!" she spoke with Boomer's voice.

"Siria?" he blearily realised. "What happened?"

"Tell you later. We need to seal Regykraeon in the book!" she commanded. "Do you know how?"

"Uh, sure, but unless he's incapacitated he'll just flee and . ." Boomer trailed off as he registered the demon who looked like he needed another couple of minutes. "What did you do to him?!"

"Mega-Bass through the chest. C'mon, we need to do this now!" Siria urged, and Boomer nodded, opening the book. It didn't matter much which page, it just had to be open.

"Regykraeon, The Fallen Star, demon of the atmosphere and Etherious of the Black Mage Zeref's creation!" the merged pair intoned, spreading the book's pages wide and holding it towards the helpless demon. "I hereby condemn thee to imprisonment within these pages, there to remain for all time!"

The yellow eyes went wide, and Regykraeon started but his Curse power hadn't returned yet, and he was unable to move more than a few inches.

"I make this demand under the fifth Law of the Etherious, the Black Mage's command to prevent unwanted destruction! By mine command, and by that of thine master, return thyself to this vessel, there to remain until called again!" A gale of wind emerged, sucking in the blue Curse power. Regykraeon struggled, working desperately and fruitlessly to escape.

"So it is said, so it is demanded, and so it is done!" With that, Boomer and Siria lunged towards the demon's core, now within striking distance, and slammed the covers of the book shut.

Everything was still.

"Did we do it?" Siria asked.

"I think we did," Boomer confirmed.

"Yes!" the yokai whooped, throwing their arms up in the air. "I beat my first big bad guy!"

Boomer sweat dropped. ". . There are so many things wrong with that sentence what do you mean first?! If I have anything to say about it you'll never have a fight like that again!"

Siria unsuccessfully tried to fix her father with a skeptical look. "Dad, if half the things I've heard about how this guild spends its time are true, we both know that's hopeless,"

Boomer sweatdropped, unable to argue.

A/N

A/N

Whoo! Ding dong, the demon's dead!

Y'now, probably. I wouldn't use the same villain three times . . would I? :P

That aside, I want to MAKE AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! There will be another Q/A session in Chapter 150, and I need questions! Ask the characters, ask me, hell, ask Penny Prince herself! Seek and ye shall find, answers!

Also, I am so sorry that I didn't update last week. Life's been messy with the pandemic going on. I wish COVID-19 would just disappear . . apparently it's obligatory to tell everyone to stay isolated. Maybe binge-read Phoenix's Eye if it's been a while and you've forgotten half the plot. Even I've been there.

Peace! And give me questions!

-[CoT]-

"So . ." Boomer looked over his merged body. "This is new,"

"It's cool, huh?!"

"Yeah . . we are never telling the others about this, okay? I look like a girl,"

"And what's wrong with that?" Siria sounded scandalised.

"How about the fact that my hair is long enough to braid and put ribbons in?"

The young yokai mulled this over. "Actually, can we get ribbons for my mane? That sounds pretty,"

Boomer sighed. "Way to miss the point . . let's unfuse and get back to the others,"

"Sure," Siria agreed. "ASTRO!" she suddenly shrieked through Boomer's mouth.

Almost instantly, a battered-looking drone dropped it of the sky and hovered before them. "Boomer?" Astro's telecommunicated voice echoed from a hidden speaker. "You look ridiculous,"

"Astro, you had better not be recording this," the Sound Wizard warned.

"Everything I see is a photograph, Boomer my boy. But this one is going on the job board for everyone to see," the inventor chuckled from his bunker.

". . Oh, screw you,"