AN: Thanks Goku275, Everdream1998, AliceCullen3, and MDM11. MDM11, I'll keep that in mind, though only for Ajeel and Irene who F-Blaze actually met.
"Heaven's Wheel: Circle Sword!" shouted Erza, firing a ring of blades at Ajeel.
"That won't work on me!" taunted the Spriggan, turning each sword into sand with a touch of his hand. However, the newly created clouds of sand limited his line of vision, something that Erza took advantage of.
"Moon Flash!" yelled the Fairy. Requipping into her Black Wing Armor, Erza slashed her sword twice to unleashed twin crescents of light. Ajeel simply dodged the attacks, though.
"Tell me, are there many in your guild who are stronger than you?" he said mockingly. "Because you're a real letdown right so far! Haha!"
The Spriggan accentuated his words with a kick in Erza's direction, from which a blast of sand shot toward her. The attack did not harm the Fairy through her armor, although his words did make her angry.
"Don't make light of Fairy Tail!" responded Erza. She swung her sword horizontally, only for Ajeel to avoid the slash by jumping above it. Furthermore, his magic stirred up a small storm of sand around the Fairy, trapping her body in place.
"Making anything of you is a waste of time!" berated Ajeel while he was still in the air. The Spriggan landed on the deck before his trapped opponent, a smug grin on his face. "Shrivel up and crumble into dust! All of the water that keeps you alive shall be depleted!"
Because of his arrogance, Ajeel could only watch dumbfounded as a gust of wind cut apart his spell.
"Wind God Armor!" shouted Erza as she Requipped again. With another swipe of the armor's blade, she unleashed a blast of wind that knocked her foe into the airship's bridge.
"That all you got?" retorted Ajeel, grinning. It was now clear to him why the emperor had mobilized all of the Spriggan 12 to battle Fairy Tail. The guild might be small, but its members were powerful. "But they still won't win against the Alvarez Empire. Not when we have monsters like August, Irene, and Emperor Spriggan!"
Soldiers swarmed through the streets of Magnolia Town, making their way to Fairy Tail's guild hall. But their march soon came to a halt as they encountered the guild's mages, and the soldiers' theoretically overwhelming numbers quickly proved to be underwhelming in reality.
The first to arrive were Gray and Juvia, who fought side-by-side to wipe out their opponents. As the endless waves of soldiers started to cause them trouble, backup finally arrived in the form of Mirajane, Elfman, and Lisanna. The Strauss siblings shifted the tide back into Fairy Tail's favor, a change that was cemented when Lucy also arrived.
Weapons forged out of ice demolished soldiers alongside surges of water. The powers of animals, beasts, and demons were harnessed to give the troops a thrashing. And Celestial Spirits were summoned by their Star Dress-clad master to pummel her enemies.
This carried on uninterrupted for a while, until eventually no more Alvarez soldiers remained conscious. All the was left was their leader, who had stayed behind his forces in order to observe the Fairies in action.
All that remained was Wall Eehto of the Spriggan 12… and the six mechanical soldiers he created by sacrificing their flesh-and-blood counterparts.
A soldier with scalding steam to counter a body that could turn into water. A soldier with blazing flames to melt weapons made of ice. A soldier with a speedy body to avoid the strikes of a power-oriented fighter. A soldier with durable armor to withstand the strikes of a speed-oriented fighter. A soldier with a sibling's face to exploit a softhearted fool. And a soldier with a close-range field to nullify space-related magic.
The Spriggan left without sparing a second glance. It didn't matter whether the Fairies lived or died (most likely the latter) so long as Wall accomplished his job and brought down the Jutsu Shiki barrier.
Sting looked at Bakel and grimaced. He could easily go all out and win the fight, but without any idea how long the war would last, doing so could take him out of the conflict before it ended. Worst case scenario, he would run out of strength in the middle of a battle and lose his life.
On the other hand, holding back too much was an equally bad option. If Sting was overly conservative about his Magic Power and died or got too injured to continue fighting, then that energy would still be going to waste.
"That means no White Drive or Dragon Slayer's Secret Arts," decided Sting, not even considering the Dragon Force or White Fire Dragon Mode against an opponent of Bakel's caliber.
"Bah ha ha!" laughed the Alvarez man, unaware of Sting's thoughts. The only thing on Bakel's mind was fighting the dragon slayer. He swung his fist down on the Fairy like a sledgehammer. "Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna fight me?"
Sting grabbed Bakel's hand, stopping it mid-swing. The dragon slayer then answered his opponent's question with his own fist. "White Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Sting struck Bakel in the forearm of the grabbed hand. He felt the man's bones snap from the force of his attack, eliciting a cry of pain.
"Not bad…" said Bakel, his arrogance quieted by the pain. However, his injury didn't stop the man from throwing a punch with his unbroken arm. "But I won't go down that easily!"
Sting released his grip on Bakel, jumping back to avoid his strike. As the Fairy did so he prepared his next attack, releasing it upon landing. "White Dragon's Roar!"
Bakel responded by twisting his body, turning the punch that had missed into a block that protected his head and torso from the spell. Once the attack subsided, he charged at Sting. Bakel knew that he had to close the gap between them in order to avoid losing, as only the dragon slayer had a means of attacking from a distance.
Sadly for the Alvarez man, he quickly found out that Sting also held the advantage in close combat.
"White Dragon's Claw!" shouted the Fairy, halting Bakel's movement with a Stigma just as the man had pulled back his unbroken (though still injured) arm for a punch. "White Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Seeing Bakel's intentions, Sting decided to end the fight with a punch of his own. He delivered an uppercut to Bakel's torso, putting enough force behind the strike to send the Alvarez soldier flying into the sky.
"I probably should've held back a bit more," mused Sting as Bakel's body pierced straight through one of the Alvarez airships.
"Gah!" exclaimed Ajeel as Erza cut him with her Sea Empress Sword. Normally, the Spriggan would turn any weapon that touched him to sand, rendering them useless against him. But, the blade of this sword was made of water, preventing him from using this tactic.
Worse (for Ajeel, that is), the fact that conventional weapons didn't affect him meant that he wasn't used to fighting armed enemies. These factors began to make the Spriggan feel cornered mentally, which added to his frustration.
"Damnit!" yelled Ajeel as he jumped back, putting distance between himself and Erza. "You're just cannon fodder! You're nothing!"
Though he could accept that Fairy Tail was strong enough to necessitate the Spriggan 12's intervention, Ajeel simply couldn't accept that such a small guild contained mages with the power to singlehandedly defeat one of them.
"How dare you…" started Ajeel, gathering sand for a big spell.
The Spriggan was interrupted, though, when Bakel's unconscious body burst out of the airship's floor and flew even higher into the sky. Both Ajeel and Erza paused for a moment to stare at the body in shock, before their expressions changed to ones of fury and pride respectively.
"How dare you!" screamed the Spriggan. Unlike Brandish (who didn't care when most of her squad, including their Spatial specialist, received too many injured on Caracole Island to keep fighting in the war) Ajeel was actually close to the members of his squad. He respected how Bakel was strong enough to fight mages despite not being one himself, and the two got along well due to their shared love of battle. "I'll bury your and your guild in a tomb of sand!"
As the Desert King made his hypocritical declaration, he cast one of his most powerful spells; Sand World. Ajeel's magic entered Magnolia Town through the hole that Wall had made in the Jutsu Shiki barrier, whipping up sand across the town until all of it was engulfed by a massive sandstorm.
"Daddy, sand's getting in my eyes," said Asuka.
"Close your eyes tight, and you'll be alright!" comforted Alzack, his voice raised to that his daughter could hear it over the sandstorm.
"I can't aim through this!" shouted Bisca, the sand blocking her and Sorano's views of the remaining airships.
"The sand Spriggan was fighting Erza," stated Sorano as she unsummoned her angel. "She better deal with him so we can finish off the fleet."
The sandstorm continued for minute or two when, suddenly, a flicker of light pierced through the veil of sand that cut them off from the rest of the world.
"That light!" exclaimed Bisca. "That must be Erza! The Jupiter Cannon hasn't recharged yet, so it's up to you, Sorano!"
"I've got this!" declared the former criminal. "Open Gate of the Chisel! Caelum!"
Instead of an angel, Sorano summoned a Celestial Spirit. Her keys had been confiscated after her arrest, but, after joining Fairy Tail apologizing to her former spirits, Caelum had surprised Sorano by restoring their contract.
"Aim for the light and shoot down that Spriggan! I believe in you!"
Caelum responded to her order immediately, silently appreciating that it was kinder than in the past. The Celestial Spirit transformed into a cannon and fired a beam of green energy at the light.
"Raml Fa'as!" yelled Ajeel as he gripped Erza's neck with one arm, sand forming into a twin-headed axe in his free hand. The Fairy had tried to avoid while blinded by the sandstorm, and even remained certain that she and her guild would win after he grabbed her by the neck with one hand and began siphoning the moisture from her body.
The defiance — along with Erza Requipping armor that produced a very bright light — had irritated Ajeel enough that he decided to end her immediately instead of drawing out her demise.
"Your head is mine!" shouted the Spriggan, swinging his axe toward the Fairy's neck.
Only, before he could decapitate her, a beam of green light struck Ajeel. The attack was not powerful enough to harm him, but the surprise of being struck despite his Sand World rendering the rest of the world functionally blind distracted him. Ajeel stopped his attack and turned in the direction of the blast, his grip on Erza loosening in the process.
That was all the Fairy needed.
"Nakagami Starlight!" yelled Erza, Requipping into her Nakagami Armor and halberd. She used the halberd to slash Ajeel before he could react, its magic-dispelling properties preventing the Spriggan from turning it to sand.
The force of Erza's attack created a shockwave that tore into the airship they were standing on. This proved to be the final straw for the ship, which had accumulated a great deal of damage since appearing outside Magnolia Town.
As the fall to the ground, Erza Requipped into regular clothes (the Nakagami Armor took too much Magic Power) and caught sight of an unconscious Ajeel. The last thing the Fairy remembered before passing out herself was being saved from crashing into the ground by Gajeel and raising her fist to him in victory.
One down, eleven to go. Then… Zeref.
Omake
As the mechanical soldier cancelled out Lucy's Star Dress and attacked her, she felt surprised and confused. However, these emotions were followed by a small bit of relief.
"It's a good thing I took the time to get dressed," thought Lucy.
When she received the telepathic message about Magnolia Town being infiltrated by a member of the Spriggan 12, Lucy had been bathing. Despite the urgency of the situation, the Fairy had chosen to clothe herself instead of simply activating a Star Dress. She had no regrets.
AN: Marin Hollow might have an annoying personality, but his magic is quite potent… as well as relevant in this chapter despite him not appearing. Without his magic preventing Erza from Requipping, her fight with Ajeel went a bit quicker than canon (hence the Jupiter Cannon not being ready in time). Also, Wall's anti-Lucy soldier's power was based on his magic. In canon, the war might have gone differently if Brandish hadn't treated him poorly. Then again, with his personality, he almost certainly earned that mistreatment.
Anyway, that's all for now. Bye!