AN: Happy Halloween everybody! This week it's our very first Halloween Special! But before that, as always, Reviewer Replies! :D
Raidentensho:No guarantee yet on Jerry actually using Star Dress type magic since he'll be actively learning the Celestial Spirits' magic himself, which is far more beneficial to all involved. Once Lucy learns about it, she will most likely be trying it too. I haven't played Ronin Warriors or Monster Hunter, so I'd have absolutely no frame of reference for those, but no, Jerry's got his look, it's one he'll be sticking with aside from the eventual addition of a hat. As for his luck, well that's addressed rather specifically in this little special.
Prometo:Not to worry my non-English speaking friend! I understood your comment perfectly and I am delighted that you are enjoying my work! Also, congratulations! You're the first person to comment on the fact that yes, Jerry does indeed use the same brand of light magic as Larcade! Very glad you're enjoying Mira and Cana, and you're actually in luck, Cana's quite prominent in this chapter!
AnimeMyWorld:Read on and find out! When will Jerry and Mira be exclusive? Sorry, that's a seeecreeet!
Reptil:(bows) Thank you! Thank you! I like to think myself (and Jerry by extension) rather clever, so glad you agree! As for more details on Mystogan's eventual fate, like I told AnimeMyWorld on Jerry and Mira becoming exclusive: Sorry, that's a seeecreeet! XD It's funny you should bring that up, especially on the same chapter that Prometo noticed Jerry using the same magic as Larcade (sex, hunger & sleep control). I'm not saying that his magic granting him absolute immunity to any but the very highest caliber of sleep spells that could zonk an entire country is why he was immune to Mystogan's magic, but I'm also not saying it's not why he was immune to that sleeping spell. Further clarification you say? No way! It's a seeecreeet!
(cackles) AND NOW...
(scary pipe organ music) (thunder) (chains clanking and other Halloween sound effects)
MAD LITTLE SLICE OF HEAVEN
HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 1
CHAPTER 12.5 – TERROR
==August 5th, 11:18 PM==
Cana obliterated the now empty bottle with a flash of Crash magic that reduced it to powder over the trash can she kept next to her bed. Jerry's download of his knowledge of what constituted his form of Crash magic had made it remarkably easy to use, but it had presented another entirely different dilemma… "Why the hell is my booze not working?" Cana snarled in the dim lamplight of her room at Fairy Hills.
It was a good room. She'd gotten Laki to help her cover the wall with an enormous wine rack not long after the Wood Make mage had joined, and she'd collected liquid relief in over 300 different vintages from across Fiore and even a couple of imports as well. Her bed was soft and warm and the whole room smelled faintly of wine. The lights weren't bright and the walls were thick, perfect for a hangover. She hadn't had a sure enough hangover in years due to her perfect cure of "just stay drunk", but she still had the thick heavy curtains from when she'd had them regularly.
She slumped back and glared up at the ceiling, "That bastard. I oughta kick his ass for making me feel like this…" Not enough that he'd flirted with her, oh no, he'd just had to go and find out her secret and teach her his own version of Gildarts's Crash Magic. Even worse, it was easy. Easy, easy, EASY. It was as easy and reflexive as her card magic now, her card magic that she'd practiced and honed for years, and that said a lot about how much she actually was meant to have it.
The Decomposition variant that Natsu said was prone to completely wiping the bastard's reserves out was actually just a more thorough and less explosive version of Crash, it actually required a little bit less power than Crash itself since it only scoured things down to sand rather than actively blowing them apart. A surefire sign that it's not meant for him, Cana glowered as she uncorked her next bottle and sipped it, It's so easy for me that I'm surprised I'm not destroying everything I touch. If this is how Gildarts feels then it's no wonder he walks through walls by mistake.
She took a drink and let her mind wander, nearly obliterating the neck of her bottle when her mind wandered back to the bastard that had her feeling more confused and upset than anyone other than Gildarts. Then as the alcohol finally started to hit her, Why am I so pissed off at him? Nobody's asked me about it, so he's kept quiet…he gave me the best help he could and it's not like he's asked anything of me in return…It's not his fault I've got issues… She cocked her head to the side as the thought hit her, Wow, I'm really being a bitch to him right now…
The thought was a little bit alien to her, but even as she thought it she realized it was more likely than not very true. Then uncertainty reared its head, So what do I do now?
She sat forward and tried to think, and then the answer was right in front of her. She blinked and then a smile spread across her face, Duh Cana… She picked up her cards and began to shuffle them, Hey guys…Sorry I didn't think to ask you sooner…I've been kinda out of it these last few days. Ready to help me make a decision? The cards didn't answer directly, but she knew they were. She smiled and laid out the cards in a triangle of six pointing toward herself: the immediate result of the action proposed, two for the most likely repercussions a month out and three for the most likely repercussions six months out.
"Ok, so if I don't apologize and keep on like I've been…" she turned the first card, the immediate results, over and grimaced, Death reversed, no change. I'll keep feeling like shit and that SUCKS. Let's see what happens in the long haul…
She turned over the first possibility for a month out and froze, The Tower, catastrophe. What the hell?! She gently reached out and tentatively laid a hand to the card hissing as the visions raced through her mind… Levy Jet and Droy beaten and pinned to a tree, Gramps ill and too weak to move, a mechanical giant, the guild hall in ruins while a battle raged around it, Erza fighting for her life in a strange crystal room… Cana snatched her hand back as though bitten and the horrible visions stopped abruptly. Her chest heaved and her heart hammered, WHAT THE HELL?!
She took a moment to calm herself down, Ok, ok, no need to panic…just…just gotta keep an eye on Levy that's all…It, it started with Levy right? So if I just keep Levy safe then that won't happen… Yeah, yeah, that's right, let's see what the other card i-HRK! Cana choked as she flipped the other card, THE LOVERS REVERSED?! The guild's gonna be nearly falling apart on top of all that?!
She immediately reached for her bottle and began to chug. When she had sloppily drained half the bottle, she wiped her mouth and then before her terror could get the better of her she flipped the last three cards all at once with magic. She nearly fainted in shock as her duplicates of Death and The Tower leered up at her next to the inverted moon. She didn't even need to touch them to know what they meant. Death, lots of it.
She stared in horror for a moment and then snatched the cards back up and began desperately shuffling as fast as she could, "No! NO! THERE'S NO WAY! I MUST'VE DONE IT WRONG!"
She threw the cards back out into formation and even though they were a little bit sloppier this time, they were still in place. Cana flipped them all at once with magic and froze as she felt her heart stop in horror, the exact same awful pattern right where it had been a moment before. Cana sat back, her eyes wide and then she snatched up her cards and ran out the door, "LEVYYYYYYYYYYY!"
She caught Levy coming out of the shared bathroom at the end of the hallway and grabbed her hand, "LEVY! SIT DOWN! I NEED TO READ YOUR FORTUNE! RIGHT NOW!"
"OK OK! What's gotten into you?!" Levy exclaimed as she sat down right outside the bathroom door. Cana shuffled her deck like poker cards, shuffled them twice more and set them down, charged them with the question that had produced the awful pattern but with regards to Levy's next six months.
She set the cards down, "Ok, draw six cards and set them down in three rows, one in a row, two in a row and three in a row with the three over here by me. Face down."
"Are you sure you're okay Cana?" Levy asked warily as she began to do so, "I've done this with you a million times, I know how it works. There, all done." Cana swiped her hand impatiently and all six cards flipped to reveal that same awful pattern grinning doom up at them. Levy's eyes went wide as she saw it and the meanings of those cards raced into her mind, "Cana, tell me I'm wrong about what those mean."
"What do they mean?" Erza asked over Cana's shoulder, "Aside from that you're blocking the bathroom door?"
Cana whirled and caught Erza, quickly forcing the red head to sit, "ERZA! FORTUNE TELLING! RIGHT NOW!" She quickly snatched up the cards and shuffled the deck, once, twice, three times, "LEVY! SHUFFLE!" Levy shuffled and handed them back to Cana.
Cana slammed the deck down between her and Erza and belted out the instructions rapid fire. Erza was well enough attuned to her friends that she knew something very bad had been on those cards, so she wasted no time in laying them out as Levy had. Cana went to flip them and Erza stopped her, "Why don't you let me flip them over?"
Cana froze and was almost shaking with nerves before she nodded, "Yeah, yeah. You're right, it'll be more accurate that way." Erza nodded and quickly flipped them over, when she was done, that same awful pattern was there again. Erza got a good look at it as Cana and Levy both went pale and then a memory flashed through her mind and made her go ghostly pale as well, "Cana, correct me if I'm wrong…isn't this top row…"
"The exact same pattern Lisanna drew," Cana finished in a horrified whisper.
Silence reigned for a moment and then, "Where's Jerry?" Cana demanded tersely as she began shuffling the cards again, roughly slapping out a fresh set of six and turning them over rapid fire. All three sets of eyes went wide as they saw a radically different reading before them, "…I need to talk to him RIGHT NOW."
"Nobody's seen him in three days!" Levy answered nervously, "What does he have to do with it?!"
"I had a fight with Jerry a few days ago and this fortune was to see whether or not I should apologize to him!" Cana explained, "This pattern," she gestured to the extremely good reading in front of them, "Is what happens if I do and do it at the very next opportunity! That other one was what happens if I don't!"
"We need to keep this quiet," Erza declared after a moment, "Let's spread out and find him, but if word that you've drawn that pattern again gets out then the entire guild will be hovering around us like mother hens for the next six months. Did you do one for the guild as a whole?"
"Didn't think about it, was too busy freaking out," Cana replied tersely as she immediately began shuffling, "Ok this is if I don't apologize…" Six cards out and six cards flipped…
"What the hell?" Erza breathed quietly as the awful pattern leered up at them once again, "Can one little apology really make that much of a difference?!"
"What the hell's wrong with Jerry that not apologizing to him leads to that for the whole guild?!" Levy exclaimed.
"Let's find out," Cana answered as she began shuffling again, "Here's what'll happen to him if that happens to us." She tossed out six cards and flipped them and all three were dumbstruck as the pattern representing imminent death and turmoil sat there staring at them once again. Cana stared in shock and then reached out and gently touched the three cards in the top row.
She was immediately assaulted with a vision of Jerry and a little blue haired girl who Cana didn't recognize standing in front of a shit load of graves bawling their eyes out with much of the guild around them. She lifted her hand away and exhaled, "He'll survive, but it looked like whatever happened absolutely destroyed him, so I don't think it's his fault."
"Then we need to find out whose it is," Erza declared sharply, "Is there any way you can narrow the prediction down?"
Cana thought for a moment and then shuffled the deck before tossing out six fresh cards, "This is what will happen if I wait a week." She flipped them and three hearts skipped a beat as that awful pattern loomed up at them once more. Cana went pale, "I've got less than a week to apologize?!"
"So whatever happens to avert that series of events is going to happen or not within the week?" Levy asked with a frown, "That's a really narrow window of opportunity. Maybe it's some kind of job?"
Cana shuffled and tossed, "If he takes a job in the next week…" She flipped and flinched, "Bad future." She shook her head, "Ok, we need to narrow this the fuck down. Jerry's future for the next week if I apologize as soon as possible." She shuffled and tossed out three cards for a very tight, accurate prediction.
"Strength and the Moon inverted…followed by The Tower reversed…" Cana muttered, "So he's going to get confused but try to do something nice and that's going to change everything?"
"Can you find out what it is?" Erza asked.
Cana laid her hand to Strength and the reversed Moon and froze as the vision washed over her, "OH." She lifted her fingers and moved them to the reversed Tower, "OH."
She pulled out one more card and looked at it, her breath immediately beginning to hitch as tears started to well in her eyes. She quickly scrubbed them away as she started grinning, "I know what the decision is."
"What is it?!" Erza demanded.
Cana turned around The Emperor to show them with a watery smile, "He's going to find Gildarts."
...
...
...
AN: And no, this is not a trick, it is a treat. See ya next week everybody! :D
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...
...
...
(cackles) THAT was the trick!
...
...
...
Come on, you didn't really think I'd forget the preview did you? XD
NEXT TIME! ON MAD LITTLE SLICE OF HEAVEN!
My card car slammed to a halt in the drizzling rain and I backed up. I blinked with a shell shocked stare through the misty gloom. The two who couldn't possibly be real, couldn't be really there, stared back at me in surprise.
I raised a finger and took a breath, before asking tentatively as my heart pounded in my chest, "Gabe? Julie?"
