The two men stood less than half a foot apart. Overconfidence from one man, and rage from the other - those were the primal aurae one could gather by standing in their vicinity.
Father started the attack with a solid punch to Jellal's cheek, which he took without bothering to dodge. Jellal returned the attack with a powerful punch to Father's gut with his middle finger's knuckle stretched out, which deepened the impact of the punch.
The two men instantly jumped back and Father initiated the attack yet again. He stretched his right arm out and grabbed Jellal's neck tightly. He lifted him off his feet and Jellal began to kick his legs in desperation.
A second later, Jellal mirrored him and stretched his arm as well. Father expected a Dark Grab and clouded himself with a magic barrier, but to his surprise, Jellal used Thought Projection and replaced himself with Siegrain, rendering the capture useless and stabbed Father's spine with a nearby sharp rock.
To his surprise, the man vanished and a fist slammed itself onto Jellal's cheek, sending him scurrying across the spiky floor, cutting his skin without remorse.
"You are not the only one who can use Thought Projection, boy", he snickered and took a fighting stance.
Jellal got up and took the posture of Grand Chariot. Father was not bothered by it and patiently waited for his chant to finish. All seven meteors charged through the roof and slammed themselves onto Father who kept his ground like a diamond statue.
Perhaps his skin was cut by one of the meteors as his forehead was bleeding. But that was all. There was no other sign of damage on him. Father closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.
Jellal's dispersed magic began to glow and aligned itself around Father's body and his skin began to absorb the magic. Before Jellal could put two and two together, the miniscule wound on his forehead had already healed.
"Thank you for healing me, little one. I appreciate it", he grinned before charging at Jellal yet again. Since Jellal was back to square one, Father was able to move at his best speed, and within the blink of an eye, Jellal was within his arm's reach.
Once again, Jellal blocked the punch, but his back was against the wall due to the sheer force of the punch.
"If you are going to absorb it, I am just going to have to cross your limit!", Jellal snapped and took the stance of Grand Chariot once again, this time focusing more on the strength.
The other man was amused at that point and could not bother to move an inch. The meteor rocks once again impacted against his tough skin and broke it, bit it did not seem to do any significant damage.
Not having given up, Jellal continued the attack with Sema and silently signalled Erza to run away. The woman could not move at the point. Her legs were already numb, and trying her hard to heed her husband's advice, she grabbed on to the wall and treaded away as fast she could, but she was not fast enough.
Sema's heavy impact released a massive smoke bomb due to the prevalent dust, and fearing the worst, Erza cupped her mouth, at least trying to avoid revealing her location and making things harder for her husband.
The smoke started to clear out, but it did not seem like Jellal was done with his assault. Erza observed him use different combinations of his spells and enforce his magic onto Father, but was wondering why.
The other man held his ground and did not bat an eyelid at the sheer force her husband was showing.
"Satisfied?", he grumbled when Jellal exhausted himself and spat out blood onto the floor. Father frowned for a split second before his eyes widened and he burst out laughing.
"R... Really? How...How desperate ARE you? You literally poisoned yourself to ensure that I absorb your magic?", he wheezed, but suddenly, he lunged forward and slammed his knee against Jellal's throat, and Erza winced on hearing the sickening sound of bone cracking. She rushed forward, and on coming out of the smoke, she saw Jellal on the opposite side of the room, clearly rattled as he held on to his throat with a look she had NEVER seen on his face - fear.
Jellal's hands were shivering as he looked up at Father who raised his eyebrows. The older man/dragon sighed and materialised two swords and began to twirl them.
"What is it with you and giving me hope again and again before disappointing me? It is seriously turning out to be annoying, you piece of shit", he sneered and eventually sighed.
"You know what? I give up. For my past sons and daughters, I would fight them to death, and during our battle, they would grow so powerful, that sometimes I would never believe my own eyes. The strongest child I bore last was my daughter a couple of hundred years back and here I was thinking you can overcome her. Looks like you were all talk, Jellal. I don't have any use for you. I would rather wait for another thousand years for the perfect heir compared to keeping a failure like you alive", he sneered and charged at Jellal, fuelling his speed with magic.
Father rushed forward and lopped off Jellal's arms in an instant before driving both of the swords into his abdomen and dragging them straight out of the sides of his neck.
Jellal's blood started to spray all over and at the last moment, he replaced himself with Siegrain and appeared at the opposite corner of the room. Jellal's hands were shaking as he stared at his own hands and they instantly went to his throat.
"Luckyyyyyy", he drawled and charged yet again at Jellal, who was just hellbent on defending himself.
The other man materialised weapons out of thin air, hacking at his body, removing his organs, crushing his eyes, severing limbs, splitting his spine and a variety of other forms of torture.
Erza...had to hear her husband's bloodcurdling screams and she curled down into a ball burying her head inside her arms in a vain attempt to cut off his screams.
The sound may have dulled a bit, but she knew that he was going through all parts of torture while Father was just having a gala time.
Erza feared that Jellal might run out of his magic eventually, and one of those vicious attacks may remain permanent. Giving in to her inquisitive mind, she looked up and saw the man instantly appear in front of Jellal and sever his head.
Erza screamed in horror as the head of the man she loved was separated from its beautiful trunk and rolled in front of her feet. For a split second, he did not appear from anywhere else, and tears automatically started to flow down her cheeks.
The very next moment, a breeze of cold air dashed forward and Jellal stood behind her, visibly rattled. Erza rushed forward and hugged him tightly.
"Enough, Jellal. Please stop. I...I can't see you get hurt again and again. Just stop", she pleaded with her husband, but to her horror, it fell on deaf ears.
Letting him go, she stepped towards the older man and stood in front of him defiantly.
"What do you want from us?", she asked him and the man grinned sadistically.
"An heir", he answered. It was obvious regarding what he meant - "sleep with me". That single phrase answered Erza's question regarding whether a part of him truly wished for Jellal's strength and happiness.
The tiniest bit of her praying for it to be a powerful lesson to Jellal, shattered into pieces. He was vile, cruel, and a pathetic excuse of a father who wanted to use his son as a vassal - nothing more than that.
"Bear me a child, and I promise to let him live", he grinned, and Erza stared at her feet. She then heard the man click his tongue in annoyance.
"Jellal, you dummy. Your wife is willing to sell her body just to save your sorry ass, and you still have the gall to get back up? Your magic is like a pile of water compared to mine which is as large and wide as the seven seas. You are still a thousand years off before you can even bother to entertain me", he snarled and stomped forward.
Erza was ready to spread her arms and protect her husband with whatever means required, but to her surprise, the man stumbled for a split second and blood began to trickle down his nose. Jellal gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and walked towards the older man who grabbed onto the nearby wall as he began to cough out blood.
"My magic is a pile of water, yes. But I made into a pile of poison, which was still not enough to defeat you. When I dump a pile of poison into the ocean, the entire ocean is not affected. The poison's effect is less than trivial, isn't it? But what if a few fish ingest the poison? What if a bigger fish eats the poisoned fish? What if the poisoned fish start dying and what if even bigger fish eat the already poisoned fish and breath in the poisoned air from the corpses?", Jellal asked as he flicked the older man's forehead.
"I knew my poison was not enough to defeat you. Give me ten thousand years, and the result will not change. You will be stronger than me. But if we fight, I will be the one to win. I fed you poison and the fish called your sadism just lapped it all up repeatedly. The thing standing in front of me is just a cesspool of poison that resembles my face", he snapped and ran his hand through his hair, flipping his back length royal aquamarine hair before tying it up into a half up braided ponytail.
Paired with his godly body that seemed like a sculptor's masterpiece, Jellal looked like a regal prince from the middle age and Erza instantly looked away to hide her awful blush which occurred at the wrong time.
"You...You bastard! You...You got lucky, didn't you?"
"And who gave me that luck?", he snapped as he stared at the man's eyes. Jellal stretched his right arm to the side and a black sphere appeared in it. Father's eyes widened as he realised what Jellal was about to do. The void-like sphere was instantly tossed between them and grew to a good radius.
Erza was caught in its range and instantly dropped to her knees. The temperature dropped to negatives. Erza instantly hugged herself and Requipped into a thick parka.
"Erza, this will deplete your magic to a dangerous level. Leave now", Jellal advised, but Erza vehemently shook her head with tears in her eyes.
"Siegrain...he, he told me how you felt, Jellal. How everyone has been treating you...and how morbidly stupid I have been, not realising the pain you have been going through. I know who you are, but still. I want to see. With my own eyes, I want to see my husband destroy that vile creature", she whispered as she stared at the other man with vicious eyes.
Their magic was supposed to deplete. The void sphere sucked in magic and also destroyed the balance in the temperature, and was just strong enough to avoid becoming a black hole. Once again, Erza was amazed at her husband's precision and his second-to-none control.
To her surprise however, his hair began to turn white as did the other man's. Instantly she looked down, and to her surprise, her hair was still the same shade of Scarlet.
Their hair seemed to glow as the two men stared at each other, waiting for the right moment to claw each other out. Similar to his hair, Jellal's marks began to glow a similar shade of white and his mark began to exponentially increase simply from around his left eye, down his neck, left shoulder and ending like a slithering serpent around his left fingers barring the thumb. Another line of the mark took a familiar route from his shoulder and ended with two rather familiar patterns - one on his heart, and one right above his navel. Those marks seemed extremely similar to the ones marked on her body.
For a split second, she felt like she were on fire. On removing her coat, she noticed that the mark on her body had lit up as well.
In less than a few seconds, Erza's entire body was glistening with sweat, and Father looked up to see her husband again.
"No magic...no tricks. Just fight", he sighed and Jellal nodded his head. The next second, they headbutted each other and screamed at each other's faces.
This fight had long lost reason. One man was fighting to show his superiority over the other, and the other just wanted him out of his life. It was no longer the fight of two mages - it was just a death battle between two men defending their ego.
For the first few minutes, the two men were simply trading punches and kicks, and Erza observed that her opponent was not as skilled in close combat. He was strong, but didn't hold a candle to her husband.
"BASTARD!", he roared and materialised an ice weapon from whatever remained of his magic and started to hack at Jellal.
Jellal rushed forward and sidestepped to the right before stretching his right arm and grabbing the back of Father's head. With a powerful grip, he spun around and slammed the older man's face against the wall, instantly breaking the man's nose.
Not satisfied with the result, Jellal grabbed his shoulders and slammed his knee against the man's spine causing him to scream in pain. However, the man did not give up and elbowed Jellal instantly on his stomach, sending him scurrying across the floor.
Jellal did a small somersault to loosen the impact and got back up as he rushed towards the man, and stood in between a few statues.
It appeared that Father had instantly lost all of his calmness and rushed back at Jellal, who loosened his right hand before stepping forward and slamming his palm against the man's cheek, giving him the ultimate bitch slap.
Grabbing him by his hair, Jellal continued to slam his head against whatever remained of the statues like ping pong balls, waiting until the impact of the smash forced the man's head to come back towards Jellal and he repeated this quite a few times.
When Jellal was done, Father was already a bloody mess and lied on the floor like a ragdoll. Pride welled inside Erza's heart and a smile naturally graced her beautiful face on seeing her husband destroying the man who wanted to separate their family. It was no longer an unreserved fight between two men. It was just one beast showing another who the real boss was.
It was at that moment did she notice that Jellal's fingertips almost started to glow a dull shade of red, signifying the beginning of frostbite.
"JELLAL! FAST! YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME!", she screamed on noticing a similar shade on the toes of his bleeding feet.
Father got up and gritted his teeth and began to chant some magic through his bleeding nose and mouth. With a guttural roar, Jellal ran forward and grabbed the man's biceps, surprising him.
Jellal buried his tough fingers inside the man's muscles, exposing his powerful grip strength and the fingers eventually stabbed the thick skin like knives. Holding on, Jellal threw his head back and screamed before pulling his hands down, and dislocated both of the man's shoulders causing him to howl in pain.
Not satisfied, he then moved behind Father and grabbed onto his waist, locking his wrists and slammed Father's head onto the ground with a suplex.
The man groaned in pain as he vainly attempted to nurse his bleeding head, but his arms would not comply.
"This...This is not over, Jellal. I will make you join me. We can be unstoppable together! To realise that you have been hiding such potential...you will join me!", he seethed and Jellal bent down to look at his face.
"I know what kind of dragon you are. You are similar to a Phoenix, and you regenerate from your corpse don't you? I won't kill you", he whispered as he shook his head. Jellal looked at the sky and grinned when the position of the stars highlighted that it was less than a minute to midnight.
"I will have to personally meet the Sun God to thank him for this gift", Jellal smiled and grabbed onto Father's body. Jellal turned towards Erza and the Requip mage SWORE she saw a faint smile on his face.
"I'll be back", he smiled and teleported elsewhere.
Father opened his eyes and all he saw pitch black. Jellal was beside him, but he was standing and almost admiring a few stars on his side.
"This is my first time here, you know? The Centre of the Universe. I expected it to be some sort of Black Hole, but...it is actually quite peaceful", he said admiring a few stars.
"I will come back for you, Jellal. I don't care if it takes me a century or a millennium. If you haven't realised..."
"I have. When I die, my life will repeat from scratch, and I have to go through the same pain again and again until the moment I regain my memories. Next time, I will be stronger than this. I won today because you were an idiot, and you will be wiser next time. I cannot afford that, and I know that I do not have the luxury of death. I know that the moment I die, our blood would reset the world back to the time I was born. Each time I change something, there would be grave consequences. In a way, I am your eternal prisoner and am condemned to fight you and protect my family until the end of time. Even if my body were to die, my mind would not, and I would live again...and again...and again, waiting for my mistakes to happen, waiting for harm to fall on my loved ones, and endlessly waiting for peace, which I will never get. I can win the battle, but I can never win the war can I?", he asked Father who clicked his tongue.
"Just wait, you little brat! I will destroy everything you call family and make your life SO miserable you will lick my foot begging me to end your misery. I will-"
"I don't care about how many times you try to kill me. And what did you say? You'll destroy my family? I don't care if I gave to face you every month or every week or every day. If that is what it takes to protect those I need, that is what I will do, but you will not leave unscathed like this time, dad. And before you ask, yes, this is unscathed in my dictionary. You hurt a single strand of hair on my family, and I will show you the true meaning of hell. Until then, I will work to become stronger than you, and one day, I will beat you at your own game and make you face your past - the same way I have been doing, and I don't care if I have to lose any more", Jellal ranted and the older man shut his mouth, avoiding any cheeky comments and Jellal smiled sadly as he picturised their happier moments.
"Well, I'll still have Erza with me...if she still wants to be around me", he whispered and stared back at the man with bleeding eyes.
"Every second is taking chunks of my energy. So I'll just say this - stay away from my children, stay away from my wife, and think a thousand times before looking for me again - this life or the next time we meet. My body may have to train again, but I will never forget how you made my wife feel so helpless and disgusted today. I will never forget it, and don't you dare pass it off as something simple. If you choose to repent, do so. If you choose to fight me again, be my guest, but I can assure you...there will be consequences and I am someone who pays his interests", he snapped.
"THIS IS NOT OVER YOU PIECE OF SH-"
Jellal came back to the building and dropped to his knees.
"Well, that was something new", he chuckled as he was dropped to the ground before a vibrant shade of scarlet filled his eyes.
To Be Continued...