It wasn't the craziest idea he'd had so far, but it was close. Very, very close.
Now, typically, one has a voice in the back of their head that tells them not to do things. He has a voice in the back of his head that tells him to do the things people really shouldn't do.
Most would argue that jumping off a very tall mountain to hang off a flying giant blue rat's leg is a Very Bad Idea™. The voice in Erik's head wouldn't argue that. It would encourage it.
So, that's where he found himself now, laughing his stupid head off while panicking on the inside as he clutched at the beast's fur with one hand.
He hauled himself up, scuttling up the rat's leg – pulling out handfuls of fur as he went – and attempted to shut his stupid mouth so he wouldn't alert whoever was riding it.
A flash of pink caught his eye, and he raced around to the other side of the leg before they could spot him.
While he was panicking, he had missed the very obvious bucket of poison that the rat was carrying and that he was now hanging over. It wouldn't affect him of course, but if he squinted, he could see the village of demonic humans that Lucy had been contracted by, and dumping it would ruin their crops.
Lowering himself a little, he dipped in a finger, bringing it up to his mouth to taste it. Almost immediately, he spat it out, disgusted at the flavour. He hissed to himself, "Why, would anybody make a poison taste like cotton candy?!"
Above him, a female voice called out, "I heard you! Come out, or I'll dump the poison on the village, with you in it!"
He rolled his eyes but dutifully climbed his way up the leg. Once he flipped up onto its back, he asks, "Well? Now what? Are you just going to stand there?" It always amused him, that no matter what happened, all of his internal panicking would never show through his voice. He did have to pay attention to his facial expressions and body language, though.
His words never failed to provoke some type of reaction out of his opponents, so he snickered when she charged at him blindly, but he did wonder why she wasn't using her magic. Maybe she had to touch him?
With that thought in mind, he stepped out of the way of a sloppy punch and latched onto her wrist, snapping it behind her back so she couldn't touch him with it.
Now, he knew he was a bit of an idiot at times, but he didn't usually recognize it until it was over, thus why only one thought went through his mind when the woman suddenly smiled; 'Ah, I've fucked up.'
Thankfully, even though the woman had taken control of him, it wouldn't last long; his bond with Lucy was already weakening its hold on him. But for now, he had to sit tight and silently work on escaping.
*Sit, wait and don't speak. Do not attempt to free yourself.*
Well, it wouldn't matter if he couldn't try and escape, their bond would free him in due time. And anyway, even if he didn't know what it was, her kind of magic worked longer on things that didn't have a conscious; there was no will for her to contest. And it would be even shorter on him; there was a reason it took more magic to summon one of them than a Zodiac.
The village was approaching fast, and he couldn't even see the other three anymore – not that he could turn his head to look. He started panicking; he didn't know if he'd be free before they reached it. Lucy responded to his mental flailing, pushing more magic through the bond in an attempt to break it faster.
*Stand and make your way down to the bucket of poison. Wait for further instructions.*
Once he was clinging to the rat's leg, and more importantly, out of his puppeteer's line of sight, he slowly forced his body to bend down, utilizing the already weakened hold her magic had on him. He pushed his hand down, scooping up some of the jelly-like poison.
As soon as he had swallowed the awful tasting poison, he forced himself not to throw up and tossed another handful into his mouth. He could already feel the effects; his magic reserves gained a boost, further weakening the hold she had on him, and his limbs would obey him now.
One after another he shovelled handfuls of the jelly into his mouth, pushing down the instinctive gagging; he could not afford for it to come up again, not with how strong it would be after it'd combined with his stomach acid. The little bit he'd spat out before had already eaten holes in the bucket, and that was just with his saliva.
With his hand over his mouth to stop himself from spitting out what remained on his tongue, he smiled; he'd eaten through the whole thing in the time it'd taken for them to reach the village, but now, he desperately needed somewhere to put all his extra magic.
The jelly had tasted foul, but that didn't stop it from being strong enough to melt through steel with ease, let alone flesh and bone. And as such, it'd given a much more substantial boost than he'd thought it would.
He doubted he could pour it into something, so he'd have to find something to attack. But what? Mesec wasn't with him so he couldn't scream it at a couple of his barriers with a roar, and Lura was with Mesec so he also couldn't roar it underground. And he couldn't attack someone living; he didn't want to kill anybody thank-you-very-much.
Oh well, he'll have to explode then, killing everything in the vicinity. No, he couldn't do that. What else...? It hit him a few moments later; he could attack the sky!
If Lucy saw the roar, she'd know it was him, and their opponents would be momentarily distracted, it was a win/win for everybody.
(Unfortunately, he forgot about the citizens of Galuna Island, and further outwards, the residents of Hargeon.)
Those Fairy Tail mages had left a couple of days ago to 'explore' they said, 'they'd be back soon' they said, 'don't worry' they said. Of course, she was going to worry; their lives were on the line! They'd run out of their stores eventually, and they couldn't just go to the mainland, they had demon limbs!
But, she had to go about her day, lest she had to give up her rations. If you don't work, you don't get fed, that was their way of living. But she certainly didn't include a truly massive revolving black and red beam shoot up from the ground, nor the earth-shaking roar that had them covering their ears in her day.
Her neighbours thought it was an evil god expressing it's anger, but she thought it sounded more like a demon, or maybe even a dragon – if they existed. Regardless, there was now a statue being built in the middle the town centre, depicting a strange mix of a demon, a dragon and a faceless human – which must be the god part of the equation.
She'd never believed in demons, gods or dragons. Well, not before her leg turned into some giant chicken-thing, and she grew horns, but she still didn't believe the god and dragon bit.
The whole thing looked strange, but there was an undeniable aura of something surrounding it, so even she only whispered when she came near it.
She didn't understand why there wasn't more of a commotion. There was a giant black and red beam coming from way out in the ocean! She was sure she looked like a madman, madwoman, fanatic, whatever, she looked crazy, but why weren't they at least looking into it? Were these types of things common around here?
Finally spotting a group of Rune Knights loading onto a boat, she skidded to a halt next to one, "Are you," She took a deep breath in, "Are you going to investigate that?"
The one she was closest to gave her a strange look, "And why do you want to know? Are you involved with it? Are you planning on delaying us so your accomplices can escape? Are you here to kill us, so we don't follow you and your friends? Are you going to kill us then as many citizens as you can so information doesn't get out? Are you just going to kill everybody for shits and giggles? Are you–" Another Rune Knights' stave abruptly sweeps over to hit her over the head, ending her tirade of accusatory questions. The knight in question bows to her. "Please excuse my subordinates rudeness, it was unnecessary, and it won't happen again." He glares at the knight, then gives her an apologetic smile. "Unfortunately, she brings up some good points, and we now have to take you into custody."
Two other knights come up beside her and escort her to the Magic 4-Wheeler behind them.
As they drove away, she wailed, "I didn't do anything!"
Of course, he'd forgotten that he was still on the leg of the giant rat, and as such had rendered a rather large hole in its side. Well, large compared to him that was, he was sure it only felt like a bullet wound to it, or maybe even a stab from a sword. He shrugged, who knew, he sure didn't.
But anyway, he'd forced it to drop down to the ground, letting the bucket – with him attached – escape its grasp as it screeched in pain.
His collision with the ground hurt. A lot. But that didn't matter because he was free! And he had saved the village! All by himself!
Although, now he was stuck in the forest, completely lost, and he didn't have a lick of a sense of direction. He didn't even know what general direction the village was in, so he was forced to follow the faint tugging in his core that lead to Lucy.
Or at least, that's what his plan was before he'd been very rudely interrupted by the same pink-haired woman who took control of him. Unfortunately, the area had thousands of things she could make dolls without her touching them, so he was forced to fling himself behind a tree when a rock puppet lunged at him.
He'd said it before; he was a bit of an idiot at times; so he'd forgotten that she could take control of things, and was hurled away by the very same tree he was hiding behind.
He frowned; he hadn't had nearly this much trouble against her before, but that was of course, up in the air, on a small platform, and there was nothing around them that she could use against him.
He had noticed before – when he still contained the energy from the jelly – that his tattoos were glowing, and while he knew, vaguely, that they linked to his systems, but it had never really hit him until just then. Not until a rock puppet had punched him in the face that is.
The voice in his head was screaming at him now – forgoing the insistent nudging it usually used. Most of it was unintelligible, but he could make out a word or two.
FLY! You stupid– F– USE– WINGS! Ah. It could tell when he was listening. But he supposed it was right. If using his magic – or perhaps a sudden influx of energy – lit up the tattoos. And while Lucy was in Dvasia they sprouted limbs then if he could channel enough magic into the specific point where his wings formed, he could manifest them without having to go slightly insane.
And he knew trying new techniques in the middle of a battle was what got you killed, but he supposed he wasn't really worried about it. And if it didn't work, well, he'd cross that bridge when it came to it. It's not like he could die, anyways.
Channelling his magic to his back wasn't all that hard, and while he couldn't see the tattoos in that area he knew they were glowing – the ones on the top of his arms were fading from a bright glimmer to the lifeless purple and gold they were usually, further down by his hands.
He could feel the magic gathering in different spots on his back, just sitting there, straining to do something.
So he let it. He stopped trying to force it, just let it gather and form whatever it wanted. It was disappointing when the magic disappeared back into his systems, and he was about to stop running away and attempt to fight the woman, but abruptly, his world sharpened.
It was like the whole world narrowed down to a point, slowing everything down – discarding everything that wasn't necessary – and it felt similar to when his hindbrain took over, but this time, he was in control.
His wings snapped out, and he could feel the sensations around them like they were real; the air as he cut through it, the slight pain when the rock puppet's fist clipped the edge, how every little bubble of golden poison tickled as it popped.
He slid around an incoming punch, gradually slinking forward to the puppeteer. She was getting increasingly frantic, and each of her puppets movements reflected it; what was once smooth attacks – if slightly robotic – were now jarring and hesitant. She was losing control.
As he passed a puppet, she would let go of her hold on it, turning it back into a regular tree or collection of boulders, and strengthening the ones she had left. But she was running out, progressively losing her defences, one by one. And what could strength do when no attacks would hit?
She started to retreat, heading backwards to put more puppets between them, but she backed into something, a sizeable, sheer, cliff wall. Her eyes shot up to meet his, panic evident before determination replaced it.
He could respect that – going down fighting, even against a stronger opponent. Perhaps that's why he had grudgingly grown fond of Fairy Tail. He shook his head; now was not the time.
His world was still in slow motion, but even he could see that she wasn't particularly fast anyways. With a heavy downbeat of his wings, he launched himself forward, moving fast enough that it was only a matter of moments before he was in front of her.
He paused, hovering before her like some sort of demented angel, he was sure he looked like it too; purple slit-pupil eyes, gold and purple wings, lengthened canines and nails, pointed ears. But, now that he thought about it, he probably looked like a demon instead.
She charged forward, being purposely sloppy in her attacks. But Erik knew now; he wasn't touching anything, no matter how tempting of a weak-spot it was. Instead, he whirled around and batted her into a tree that had a hole punched through it – probably from a rock puppet.
He waited to see if she would get up from her slumped position against the tree, but she didn't stir, so he let his wings dissipate and dropped onto the ground. He sighed, if he had taken any longer, it could've gotten dangerous for his reserves.
He wanted to leave, but something was telling him to stay – it was probably the voice – to find something important, something he couldn't go without retrieving.
A flash of silver caught his eye, and he moved closer to the unconscious body of the puppeteer, searching for the hint of silver. He finally spotted it in a hidden pocket on her dress; a key, and one of theirs at that. Snatching the key away from the woman, he brought it up to his eye so he could identify it. He smiled; it was the Sky Draconis's key.
Lucy was to the left of him, and luckily, he had fought in the right direction, so he was closer than before, but he still had quite a bit to go. He resigned himself to walking – he wouldn't be able to use the wing trick until his magic regenerated – and he let the pulling in his core guide him to Lucy.
