AN: Thanks Goku275 and MDM11. MDM11, Blaze will not be fighting Acnologia. Not directly, at least.
"You have to get serious and do everything you can to destroy me!" demanded Mavis, badly injured despite only being a thought projection.
"I-I can't," admitted Cana, panting heavily from her repeated use of Fairy Glitter. "You may just be an apparition, but I can't go all-out attacking a friend!"
"Cana, do you remember what I told you about my friend who looked a bit like you?" asked Mavis, growing more serious.
"Yeah," replied Cana, thinking back to when Mavis had given her Fairy Glitter. Cana had been pretty drunk, but she remembered most of the details about Zera. Especially the way Mavis had rejected the comparison after imagining an older Zera acting like Cana.
"Zera's been with me in my heart all this time," spoke Mavis. "And I don't mean in this empty illusion; I mean my real heart, inside my body."
Her words made Cana glance at Fairy Heart, a source of infinite Magic Power. At Mavis's body, cursed with immortality and encased in crystal.
"I want you to free me… to free Zera. I think you're the only one who can rescue us from that crystal coffin, Cana! Don't think of it as attacking me! You're casting this magic to save us!"
Cana paused for a moment, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she internalized Mavis's words. Then, she brought up her right arm, gripping it with her left to steady her aim.
"Gather! O river of light that guides the fairies!"
Mavis felt more than twice the Magic Power of the previous attempt emanating from the arm that was pointed at her.
"Shine! In order to perish the fangs of evil! Fairy Glitter!"
"Graaah!" roared Elfman, untransformed, as he pummeled Alvarez soldiers. Alongside him, Lisanna (still using Animal Soul: Rabbit) and the three Exceeds (all using Battle Mode Shift) fought against the endless tide of enemies.
Meanwhile, the other Fairies rescued the crucified members of Blue Pegasus and Quattro Cerberus.
"Bacchus, wake up!" shouted Gajeel, shaking the injured mage.
"Urgh," groaned Bacchus as he regained consciousness. "Ga…jeel? H-how… is everyone?"
"We're winning them back!" declared the dragon slayer. He looked at his guildmates, who had already untied most of the captured mages and were moving them to safety. "Don't worry!"
"We were so pathetic," said Bacchus, his eyes starting to tear up. "Just so pathetic, dammit."
"Leave the rest to us," Gajeel told him. "We'll take your frustrations out on the enemy!"
"Gajeel!" shouted Levy in warning. The dragon slayer turned and saw something that astonished him, as well as the others.
"The snow is… vanishing?"
The Fairies, having freed their allies and fearing an imminent attack by a Spriggan, retreated. They moved the injured Fiore mages away from the Alvarez soldiers, then laid them down to rest.
"Dammit… dammit!" cursed Bacchus, bringing a hand to his head. His guildmates were all safe, yet he only felt despair. "The three savage monsters on their side… they must be back!"
"Gee hee!" chuckled Gajeel, recognizing that the 'savage monsters' must be the three members of the Spriggan 12 leading the foot soldiers. "Well, we've got the Terrible Ten right here!"
Mirajane and Elfman activated their go-to Take Overs, while Lisanna switched to Animal Soul: Cat. Sting and Rogue looked at one another, nodded, and turned in the direction of the approaching Alvarez soldiers. Panther Lily, Lector, and Frosch shifted into fighting stances, though for the latter that meant crouching with their hands on the ground like a frog.
"Huh?" went Levy, a bit confused by Gajeel's words. She pointed at herself. "Me too?"
Unfortunately, the 'Terrible Ten' was still a small group fighting countless waves of soldiers. Even though none of the three Spriggan accompanying the force showed themselves, the sheer numbers started to overwhelm the Fairies.
Luckily, before the Alvarez soldiers become too much to handle, the defeated Fiore mages regained their will to fight and rejoined the battle. This was due to Ichiya, who rallied the members of his guild and Quattro Cerberus with a speech about the 'perfume of resolve' in the face of impossible odds.
Of course, the three Spriggan noticed when the battle's tide began to turn, and one of them decided that his intervention was necessary again.
"It's the god of death!"
"Everybody, run!"
"They're going to crucify us again!"
These cries and many others filled the area as Fiore mages fled from the approaching Bloodman. Everyone who saw his terrifying appearance lost the second wind that Ichiya had given them. All but one.
Thunk! Thunkthunkthunkthunk!
A dozen metal poles pierced the Spriggan's body, slamming him onto a boulder. Then, while Bloodman was pinned to the boulder by the poles, the one who fired them stabbed an Iron Dragon's Sword into his chest.
"How do you like being strung up?" asked Gajeel darkly. The dragon slayer was pissed. "You just made me remember the worst part of my past!"
But Bloodman, despite having a sword in his chest, just laughed at the Fairy's words. "He who dares touch death will soon regret it!"
The Spriggan's torso and lower body dissolved into black grains, allowing him to slip his upper body off of the poles and sword like it was made of sand. Bloodman shot at Gajeel grabbing the dragon slayer's neck with one hand.
"You have sealed your doom!" declared the Spriggan.
However, the Fairy didn't respond to Bloodman's words with fear. To the Spriggan's surprise, Gajeel instead grabbed his neck.
"That so? Because that really works for me!" retorted the dragon slayer. He used Iron Dragon's Scales to coat his head in iron, then bashed his forehead into Bloodman's. "I've been getting tired of finding a place to die!"
Nearby, Levy frowned at Gajeel's words.
It was around this time that the Fiore mages received their second wave of reinforcements — Crime Sorcière.
"The mobile temple, Olympia, had arrive!" announced Sawyer. Olympia was the guild's fastest means of transportation. It had been piloted by Sorano before she left to join her sister's guild, but now Sawyer was the driver.
"Shall we show them the power of Crime Sorcière?" asked Macbeth.
"It looks like I'll finally be able to show Fairy Tail how much I've grown," said Kageyama, one of Crime Sorcière's two new members.
"I don't think any of the Fairies we met are here today," stated Erigor, the other new recruit. Kageyama deflated a little.
"Even if they are not, you can still make up for the wrongs you committed against them," spoke Richard, cheering up his guildmate.
"Who cares?" interjected Erik as he struggled to contain his motion sickness. "Just get me out of this thing, okay?"
"Allow me," replied Kageyama enthusiastically. He used his magic to make his shadow sprout from the ground in the form of a hand. This hand grabbed Erik (who started to protest) and flung him into middle of the battlefield.
"Screeeeew yooooou!" yelled the dragon slayer as he flew through the air. Fortunately, his motion sickness faded away mid-flight, allowing him to concentrate on landing.
Using his Hearing magic, Erik identified a cluster of Alvarez soldiers near where his current trajectory would cause him to land. The dragon slayer shifted around to alter his flight path, preparing a spell as he did so.
"Poison Dragon's Twin Fang!" he shouted, producing an X-shaped wave of poison that struck the soldiers. By the time Erik landed, they had all succumbed to his poison and fallen unconscious. "Nonlethal attacks… Crime Sorcière and Kinana have really changed me, haven't they?"
While the dragon slayer was thinking about his guild and his girlfriend, the other members of Crime Sorcière (minus Sawyer, who continued to pilot Olympia) spread across the battlefield. Alvarez soldiers were thrashed by shadows and wind. Their weapons twisted into useless junk. Entire squads were blasted by Olympia's cannon and swallowed up by the earth.
The effect that those six mages had on the battle was so significant that another Spriggan felt it necessary to descend onto the battlefield.
"Holy Ray!" shouted Sting, wiping out a cluster of Alvarez soldiers with a barrage of white blasts. He looked around to find his next target, only to stop when he caught a whiff of a surprising scent. The dragon slayer rushed to the source of the smell and found that Rogue had beaten him to the man giving off the odor.
"Your little group has put on quite the show," spoke the man. He was in a meditative pose, as if unfazed by the fighting that never grew too close to him. "You've been greatly decreasing the number of our troops, so I must return the punishment, at least a little bit. Or I will never be able to face my father again."
Sting didn't pay much attention to his words, though. A more important matter was on the Fairy's mind. "Why the hell do you smell just like Natsu did back before his Dragonization?"
"Well, that's because I'm Zeref's child, Larcade Dragneel," answered the man.
"Larcade of the Spriggan 12," muttered Rogue, recalling the name from Blaze's 'future' memories. He then spoke up, addressing Larcade. "But a person's scent is different from that of their parents or siblings. How is yours exactly like Natsu's was?"
The Spriggan scowled. "Because Natsu was also Zeref's child, in a way, before he rejected Father's gift and became a filthy dragon."
"Natsu was Zeref's…" echoed Sting, trying to understand Larcade's bizarre declaration. However, Rogue beat him to the punch.
"E.N.D.!" exclaimed the Shadow Dragon Slayer. "You are an Etherious!"
"Correct, though I grow weary of this pointless conversation," replied the Spriggan. He brought his hands together and produced a ball of light between them. "I said I was returning the punishment, which means…"
Larcade spread his hands apart, releasing the light cupped between them onto the battlefield around him.
"…I am taking on all who stand against us."
As the light intensified, people on both sides collapsed to the ground, moaning in ecstasy. The victims from Fiore's side included Mirajane, Elfman, Erik, Sawyer, Erigor, Kageyama, the Trimens (but not Ichiya), Jenny, Bacchus (but not the rest of Quattro Cerberus), and…
"Ungh!" went Rogue, crumpling up.
"Rogue, what's going on?" asked Sting, concerned. He turned toward the Spriggan angrily. "What did you do?"
"My magic brings pleasure," responded Larcade, smiling. "Those who have sampled such pleasures cannot escape my magic. Do you have any inkling of what happens when humans are subjected to pleasure for too long?"
"Dragon Force!" shouted Sting, deciding to power up and give the Spriggan a beatdown rather than deal with his cryptic riddles.
"They perish," answered Larcade, producing white tentacles with his magic. The tentacles full of the Spriggan's pleasure-inducing magic, grabbed onto Sting. "You, too, should learn of pleasure and—"
Sluuurp! To Larcade's surprise, the White Dragon Slayer was not affected by his magic. Instead, Sting devoured it like spaghetti.
"White stuff won't work on me," said Sting. "Because I'm the White Dragon Slayer."
The Spriggan got blindsided again when Rogue, who had been incapacitated, rose to his feet with a surge of power.
"White Shadow Dragon Mode," uttered Rogue, no longer affected by Larcade's magic. Despite how addled his mind had been from the pleasure, the Shadow Dragon Slayer had remained aware enough to observe Sting's immunity to the magic. Rogue had eaten some of the White Dragon Slayer's magic to become stronger after the Eclipse Gate incident, and that decision was now paying off.
Larcade frowned for a moment, then smiled. "It seems you two are quite troublesome. However, Pleasure was only my first magic."
Omake
"Unf…" went Irene, shuddering as she suppressed a moan. She, Juliet Sun, and Heine Lunasea were watching the battle unfold from on a nearby mountain.
"Eeh!?" exclaimed Juliet, surprised by her creator's. "Are you okay Lady Irene? Did a nobody from this puny country just do something to you without us noticing?"
"You imbecile!" Heine shouted at Juliet, gesturing to the battlefield below. "Lady Irene is clearly being affected by Lord Larcade's magic!"
"Larcade," uttered Irene darkly, her voice filled with an odd mixture of pleasure and barely-repressed fury. "You better finish this quickly, or I'll get my hands on your Book of Zeref and use it to modify and humiliate you!"
"Ooh! Ooh!" cried Juliet as she came up with an idea. "If you do that, can you make him fall in love with me? I think we'd make a great match. I mean, we both wear white and were created by powerful mages."
"…You're an imbecile," repeated Heine flatly, facepalming.
AN: MDM11, I want you to know that having Erigor and Kagayama appear as part of Crime Sorcière was because of your comment on Chapter 61. Thank you for that suggestion.
That's all for now. Bye!
