White Eclipse
Chapter 62

"This isn't how I imagined it... This is utter chaos. I thought he would just appear, and change the world into one of pure magic. I didn't know he would massacre everyone in it." He stood on the outskirts of northern Magnolia, watching. He bared his teeth as he kept his eyes on the hard to watch scene of demons attacking the mages, slowly gaining advantage due to their numbers. "I...I didn't see this coming. It's shameful that I was once a follower of this. No, I can help fix this one way or another. Get yourself together...
Erik!"

He ran full speed. Magnolia was just now in view. He panted heavily, yet he refused to stop. It was a long trek for him from Tartaros castle, but he was nearing the city with every stride. "This has to end here! Zeref will be stopped! And I won't let you die, Meredy...Erza...! I'm coming!"

"Natsu!" She yelled at the top of her lungs as the Fire Dragon Slayer fell to the ground. A loud thud was heard from when Natsu's body slammed against the ground right next to the also unconscious Takeru. "Natsu!" She yelled again and then covered her mouth as she looked back up at the killing mage himself, Zeref, making his way to her. As he stalked her, she began backing up in fear. "S-Stay away!" Lucy yelled as she continued backing away from him. She kept her space until she backed to the edge of the tall building. She first looked down, still able to see Natsu with his corroded skin and whitened eyes. Tears fell down her own as she lowered her head, signifying that she was accepting her incoming fate.
"There's no sympathy for vermin." Zeref says as he raises his right arm. A magic seal then appears in front of his palm as he takes aim at the celestial mage.
"L-Lu..."
Her eyes widen... She quickly looked back down to the ground to see Natsu's fingers twitching, signifying that he's alive. "Natsu!"
"Lu...Lucy...help me.."
She then kneeled down to the edge and yelled "I'm coming!" Her tears fell from her eyes and to the ground next to him. Zeref narrowed his eyes a little, and then fired off his beam of death magic aiming right for the blonde. An explosion due to impact happens...and out of the smoke, Loke appears, carrying Lucy as he leaped down to the ground. "Loke! Thank you!"
Loke nods. "No time for thanks. Take Natsu and find a healer. I'll distract Zeref."
Lucy's eyes widen. "But you can't! You'll-"
"I know I won't last long, but'll be long enough for you to escape. If anything, I'll be back in the spirit world after my defeat. You have no spirit world. Your life is more important, so go."
After some hesitation. She nods. "Right...but what about Takeru?"
"I got him."
Lucy turns to see Selene the Diamond Dragon Slayer walking over to Takeru, lifting him up, and now carrying him piggy back style.
"Selene!"
"It's funny." Selene says as Lucy lifts Natsu, carrying him the same way. "When you're with someone, around them for so long, you seem to know when they're in trouble. I knew something was wrong, and I'm glad I trusted my instinct."
Lucy did nothing but listen. Selen Le takes off first, and Lucy runs right after her as they make their way to find Wendy or Chelia.
"You're not going to escape." Zeref says as he once again raises his right palm. Before he could fire, a glowing fist swings past his face as he barely evades it. Loke now stood in front of Zeref, blocking his view of Lucy and Selene as he began to charge his magic power. "You won't be hurting them anymore." The lion spirit says as he rears a fist back.
"Regulas...IMPACT!"

.

Jack stood behind a wall of cards he placed. The cards floated in a vertical line, standing like a wall. Though the obstacle stood in their way, the demons rushed anyways. Each time they rammed into the wall, a card would explode. Behind Jack, Cana, and Jaxon stood as well. While Jaxon and Cana began regaining their composure and strength, Jack was once again tinkering with his broken flask. "Come on! It's been so long since this thing broke I forgot how she told me how to fix it. I just can't remember which way the top piece goes."
"Hey!" Cana yells. "I love alcohol more than the next drunk, but this is no time to be worrying about a flask!"
"Shut up!" Jack fired back in an angered tone. "You don't know the story behind this flask! Mind your business and cover me!"
As soon as he finished his sentence, a demon slipped through the card wall and swung at Jack. At the last second, The Drunken Earth, Jack Royal, saw the attack coming, and leans away from the demon. In result, the demon swipes the flask right out of his hand. The flask hits the ground and shatters again. "D-Dammit!" Jack yells as he scrambles to the flask. Jaxon makes quick work of the demon with a a hard punch to the sternum, a gust of fierce winds behind the punch creating a hole in the demon's chest.
"Jack, just forget the flask!"
"Shut. Up, Cana!" Jack yells again as he collects the pieces in a panicky manner, quickly putting them back together except for the one piece he can't remember. "You don't understand, this is all I have left of her. No one's taking this! No one..."

[FlashBack]
The White Eclipse "guild." The run down old shack that was harboring a few boys, an older man, and a youthful woman. Mary, the woman, sat at the ran down bar at the far end of the guild, which wasn't that "far." She pulled out a tall mug from the other side of the bar and poured some beer inside. She then lifted the mug and began downing the alcohol, stopping halfway. As she placed the mug down, she noticed a young Jack Royal beside her sitting with his arms crossed and an upset expression. "Hm? And what's up with you, Jack?"
"I hate em." Jack says in reply. "Hate em?" Mary turns to see what Jack was glaring at. She lets out a small laugh as Reve and Sidney were wrestling on the other side of the room, Sidney obviously winning. "You can't get upset because you were the first one out, kid."
"But I am! I hate losing, it's stupid."
Mary laughs again. "Tell ya what?" She looks around for Calium. Not seeing the older male in sight, she slides Jack her half full mug of beer. "This'll make you feel better, but don't tell."
Jack sniffs it, and then makes a putrid sound of vomiting. "Why does it smell so bad!?"
Mary laughs once more. "I like you Jack. It smells bad because everything else about it is great. Remember Jack, nothing is perfect. You have to deal with the flaws of something or someone, in order to enjoy the perks of it."
"Deal with the flaws, to enjoy the perks." Jack repeated what she said, and then shrugged as he downed the alcohol. "...More."
"I knew you would enjoy it." Mary said with a smile as she poured two more mugs. "I'll deal with the consequences of letting you drink later. Until then, bottoms up!"
They clang glasses, and the young boy shares his first drunk experience ever with Mary Crane.
Five mugs later..."Whoa, pretty heavy...drinker for a kid, Jack." Mary says as she drunkenly laughs.
"Wha-Whatever! I can take it!"
Jack says as he kept his head on the bar, hiccuping every now and then. "It's just, alcohol."
Mary was having a laughing fest. She then lifted Jack's head. "Hey, because you did so good today, I wanna give you something."
"H-Huh?" Jack looked at Mary in a puzzled manner as she reached in her pocket. She then picked up a flask and handed it to him. "Here. It's a special flask. I'm a bad role model for giving this to you, but you'll need it in your future, I can tell."
"H-Huh?" Jack looks it over. "What's so special about it?" As he asked, he accidentally dropped the flask on the floor, causing it to shatter. "Oh...no! Sorry."
"It's okay, that's what's special about it." Mary begins picking up the pieces. "Watch carefully you drunk!" She says with a smile. Every piece she picked up, began sticking to each other perfectly, as if it never shattered into pieces. "Whoa!" Jack looked on in amazement as she finished every piece but one.
"Okay, here's the only tricky part. For this last piece you have to-"
[End FlashBack.]
As the flashback comes to an end, Mary's words become muffled as Jack slowly snaps back to reality. "Deal with the flaws, to enjoy the perks..." He head butts the ground a few times. "I can remember that but I can't remember how to fix the damn flask!"
As Jack yells, another demon breaks free. It heads right for the Drunken Earth, but Jack quickly glares towards it, giving the demon an evil stare. "Out of my way!" Jack yells as he swings a devastating uppercut. The blow slams into the demons chin and in one slow motion, the demon launches backwards off it's feet. Once it hits the ground, the rest of the hoard stop, not from fear, but from something else.
"What's happening?" Cana asked. The demons all bared teeth as they began to bulk up in size, now standing a little less than twice the size they started in.
"They're...changing?" Jaxon says as he watched the metamorphosis right before his eyes. "This isn't good. Could it get any worse!?"
Questions were answered as the hoard of demons all leaned forward, opening their mouths as magic seals appeared before them. "Oh shit!"
"Rock wall!" With a hard stomp, Jack creates a giant wall from the earth below them, just managing to block the incoming beams. "We're being pinned!" Cana yelled. "We need to think of something soon!"
"There's nothing we can do but keep fighting! " Jaxon yelled back.
Jack quickly went back to his flask. "I'll save us, just give me a few minutes.."

The two dark vultures gave chase to Mirajane and Kairi, keeping them away from Amon. The two mages split up in the air, the vultures do the same, picking a mage to go after. As Mirajane soars through the air, she finally turns around, and stops on a dime. She then charges the vulture, looking to meet the beast halfway with a left hand reared back with a magic infused punch. As she swung down, the vulture opens it's wings, and quickly swoops around with surprising speed. Before the satan soul could react, the vulture grabs the back of Mirajane's head with a talon and quickly descend to the ground, pushing Mirajane head first into the earth as it lands. On the other side of the fight, Kairi also turns around, and begins to fire off a round of air bullets towards the incoming vulture. The giant bird flies around the bullets swiftly, easily dodging the incoming push of air as it makes it's way to Kairi. In a flash, the bird appeared above Kairi and began to dive bomb towards the angel takeover, spinning like a drill in the process. Kairi looks up, and takes the spinning vulture right in the chest, quickly descending to the ground until she crashes into the earth as well. As the smoke from the crash clears from both attacks, both mages were pinned down by their opposing beasts. "Hm." A small grin appears on Amon's face. "I knew this wouldn't take long. Finish them off!" Receiving their orders, the vultures ready themselves for the kill. Mirajane's vulture begins squeezing her head with it's talon, planning on adding pressure until her head literally popped. Mirajane let out a loud agonizing yell. As she yelled, a magic seal appeared under her. The bright light from the seal caused the vulture to back away as it hovered in mid air. Slowly, Mirajane rose once again, now in her Demon Halphas take over. She glared towards the vulture that once threatened her life. Over to the right, the spinning vulture continued it's spin, trying to pierce a giant beak sized hole through the angel takeover. Once again, after an agonizing scream, another bright light takes place, pushing the vulture away. After a few seconds, Kairi stood, no longer in her normal Angel soul takeover. Kairi's former attire was now replaced by a gold romper suit. Her hair was released from its usual side ponytail, and grows past her lower back, also becoming much wavier. Her bangs also grew and created a halo-like head band around the top of her hair. Rather than the boots that appear in her other forms, she now sported what appears to be white slippers. Her now large, feathered wings pointed upwards.
Nami, who was fighting the demons in the area, looked over to see the Demon Halphas. She then looked over to see Kairi in her other form. She smiles a little. "Angel takeover: Erelim. That general guy is done for."

.

Luke stood in the middle of a hoard of now bigger, bulkier demons. Steadily panting, the copy mage readied one of his many acquired magics as the now bigger demons took a few steps forward. Before he could attack however, a funnel of same and diamond magic slams into the circle of demons, wiping a good bit of them out. He looks to see where the blasts came from, and saw Selene Lucy and Scorpio heading his way with the two Dragon Slayers on their back. With more than half of the demons cleared out, Luke turns to the remaining few, and fires a copy of Laxus's Roar of the Lightning Dragon; decimating the remaining demons that were posing as threats.
"Luke!" Selene yelled as they continued running past the copy mage. "Have you seen Wendy or Chelia? We need a healer!"
Luke was caught off guard a bit, but then quickly answers. "I haven't seen any lately!"
"What about Levy!" Lucy asked.
Luke then points to the direction they were already heading. "Levy is with Gajeel! Just keep running that way.
"Thanks!" Was Lucy's last reply as they ran out of sight. As Luke watched them leave, a beam slams into the copy mage's shoulder, piercing right through it. Though nothing vital was hit, the copy mage held his wound as he turned to the demon who fired. It fired another, but Luke quickly swayed away from the blast and fired off a beam of fire magic towards it. Now a lot more battle savvy from it's "upgrade," the demon simply jumps out the way and lands next to the injured copy mage. Behind it, another wave quickly made it's way and surrounded Luke Cloud within seconds. Too busy trying to console the pain, Luke was floating in and out of consciousness. As his vision became blurry, he went down to a knee as the demons stalked towards him.
"...Shit..." The copy mage smiled as he fell over, just catching himself with his free hand. Before anyone could take another step...
"PARALYSIS CLAW: MEGA JELLYFISH!" From the back of the crowd of demons, Toby Horhorta began slicing and stabbing his way towards Luke, paralyzing and even dispersing some of the demons in the way.
"T-Toby?" Luke's blurry visioned couldn't make out the mage in the crowd just yet. As Toby grabbed their attention, a giant rock fist slithers in like a snake, knocking the demons away from Luke.
"YOU HIT ME TOO JURA OOOOON!" Toby yelled as he went tumbling across the ground. Jura stood on the opposite side as Chelia floated down on her black winds, quickly hovering her hands over Luke to help heal him. "Chelia.."
"Shh...hang on. You'll be okay, it's nothing vital hit."
"Thanks.."
"No need to thank us Luke-Dono." Jura says with a nod. "We're all in this together."
"JURA YOU STILL DIDNT APOLOGIZE! YOU COULD OF KILLED ME OOOOOOON!" Toby hops up seemingly fine. As he does, more demons were seen heading their way.
"No time!"
"ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY IS IM SORRY!"
"Toby-Dono! More demons coming behind you! We must protect Chelia-Dono until she finishes healing Luke-Dono!"
"RIGHT!"
The two Lamia Scale mages stood tall as the demons sprinted towards them, readying themselves for another fight.

Still running, Lucy and Selene make a beeline for the solid script mage who finally came into view after a long sprint down the main street of what used to be Magnolia. She was barely visible as her back was to Gajeel who towered over her.
"Levy!" Lucy yelled as she continued running towards the blue haired Fairy Tail Wizard.
"Huh?" Levy looked around Gajeel. "Is that Lucy!?"
"Yeah.." Gajeel replies. "And she's carrying...Salamander!?" Gajeel's eyes widen as he notices Natsu's condition, his skin a rotten green color. "He looks awful, is he even alive!?"
He keeps an eye on the four mages running towards them, while continuing his fight with the upgraded demons around him, crashing iron poles into any which one that was brave enough to attack; which ended up being all of them eventually. While the coast was clear, Lucy and Selene run to the four Shadow Gear members.
"Natsu! He looks in bad shape!" Jet says.
"What happened!?" Droy asked.
"No time for all that! Levy, can you help him?"
Levy looked at Natsu as Lucy placed him carefully on the ground. By this time, Takeru began waking up on his own, wincing in pain as he stood on his own. "Tak!" Selene exclaims in joy to see that he was okay.
"I'm fine...how's Salamander?"
"Levy can you!?" Lucy asked again.
"I...I know a spell, but I don't know if it can reverse this by itself Lucy!" Levy replies, lowering her head a bit.
"That's okay!" Lucy replies as she pulls out Gemini's key. "Gemini can help by copying you!"
"It's worth a shot!" Levy nodded.
Without delay, Gemini appears out of their gate posed as Levy McGarden. "Ready!? Solid Script: Heal!"
From the air, simultaneously, the two Levys create the word "heal" from thin air, and focus it towards Natsu. His body begins to glow. As the healing process starts, an enormous amount of demons come rushing from both ends of the street.
"More coming!" Jet yelled.
"Then we'll hold em off of course!" Gajeel exclaimed back.
"Lets do this then." Takeru says as he stood next to Selene who was also poised and ready.
"Until Natsu is healed and then some!" Lucy recites as she stood next to Scorpio.

.

Zalen slides back on a single knee, holding his stomach in pain. He kept his eyes on Siegrain who stood across from him, blocking the cannon as his body continued to glow.
"M...Move!" The building mage yelled in anger in desperation.
"I'll move, in about four minutes." Siegrain grinned, feeling as if he had Zalen right where he wanted him. "You won't make it in time kid, not against me."
Watching behind a random pillar, the two soul survivors of Silent Sanctum lurked upon the fight at hand.
"Think he'll make it?" Aloysis, the ace of Silent Sanctum asked.
"Even if he does, it won't do him any good." replies Jikan Calium, the master of the dark guild. As he spoke, he let his watch dangle from it's chain. "He and the rest of those mages are defeated either way. Zeref as well."
In one motion, Zalen made it to his feet and charged the head of the council with his fist covered in iron. He began to swing wildly at Siegrain as the blue haired heavenly body continuously swayed around and away from his punches in a taunting manner. Zalen swings another punch, and Siegrain dodges once again by spinning around him. As he did however, his cocky grin dropped as Zalen now made a break for the Etherion cannon.
"I told you it's no use!" He yelled as he took off at a high speed, his golden aura leaving a trail behind him. As Zalen ran, he brought forth a giant iron wall between him and the council head. "Tch!" Siegrain then quickly stops, and makes his way around the giant wall as fast as he could. By this time, Zalen placed a foot on the railing, and leaped towards the open hole that was the tunnel for the cannon. Before he could descend, a golden blur cuts him off and Siegrain grabs him, violently throwing him away from the cannon's "tunnel."
"Darnit!" Zalen slams his iron covered fist into the ground as his frustration begins to grow. "You don't know what you're doing!"
Siegrain behind to laugh a bit. "I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm ridding the world of the three biggest threats. It's three birds and one cannon. Fairy Tail and White Eclipse are just as dangerous as Zeref. That's why I have no remorse for who this cannon hits. So with three minutes left, you should begin saying your goodbyes!"

.

This time, instead of evading, Mirajane and Kairi both stayed grounded as the vultures swooped down towards their "prey." As her giant bird neared, Kairi crouched a bit, and in a flash, before the vulture could attack, she was gone. The dark vulture ascends once again and looks around for the missing angel. The second it turned it's head to the left, Kairi reappeared to his right, slamming a fist into it's jaw in a downward motion. The vulture crashes towards the ground, creating a large crater from the impact. As the smoke clears, the vulture lays there for a few seconds, and then disperses into nothing.
Mirajane then takes off towards her bird to meet it hallway. The vulture aimed it's sharp beak towards the incoming demon, but Mirajane quickly ducked under, and slams a hard uppercut into the vulture's gut. Before the vulture could go flying from the devastating punch, it disperses into nothing.
The angel and demon takeover then turn their attention back towards Amon who stood with another annoyed expression. Quickly, Kairi appeared in front of Amon and began to throw a combination of light magic infused punches and kicks. At first, Amon began blocking the blows he was receiving, but as he did his arms began to sting from the brute force and the magic behind the attacks. He then drops his physical guard and begins to evade Kairi's attacks, proving he was still a bit faster than the angel takeover mage. Once she noticed that her "partner" now needed help to finish off the demon general, Mirajane appears behind the backpedaling general and swings a hard right hook. With nowhere to go, Amon had no choice but to block the vicious attack, causing him to slide backwards. He was wide open as Kairi slammed a light infused left kick to his back, causing Amon to cough out a feeling of pain. Mirajane complements Kairi's attack with a hard knee of her own to the abdomen, causing Amon to hunch over in pain. "You annoying little!"
Kairi aims a stomp for Amon's exposed back, but the general manages to leap away from the two to gain space. Space that was quickly lost as they reappeared beside him once again, giving him no room to maneuver. "What!?" Before he could react, Mirajane and Kairi both slam a hard uppercut to his gut, once again folding him over. Kairi the feigns a punch that caused Amon to flinch. As he does, Mirajane swings an axe kick to the back of his head, sending him hurling and then crashing into the ground.
"That's it!" Amon springs up, this time in a full maker mage's stance. A giant magic circle appears under him as the entire area begins to shake, causing the other mages and demons to lose their balance. Still, Mirajane and Kairi hovered beside each other un phased to the shaking. "Dark make: Locusts!"
As Amon through his hands forward, another magic seal forms in front of him. From the seal, a hoard of small fly like creatures flew towards both mages. The locusts were so cluttered together, that to the naked eye, it would seem as if Amon fired a massive beam of dark magic instead of maker magic. The huge radius of buzzing locusts swarmed together towards the angel and demon takeover. Kairi and Mirajane exchange looks. They knew the attack was too large to dodge, so Kairi cups her hands together in front of her. Mirajane slides over right beside her, invading all personal space as she cups her hands over Kairi's. From there, a magic circle appears in front of them both, bigger than usual. "Evil..."
"Cosmic..."
Simultaneously, an orb of light and dark magic mix into on from their palms. As the locusts draw near, they both rear back, and then thrusts forward after a second's wait. "Explosion!"
At the halfway point, the union raid meets the dark locust...and pushes right through.
"No...No!"
Amon couldn't cancel his attack to move in time. The unison raid pushes right through his dark locusts and then slams into him; right in the chest. Amon let out an agonizing scream. The scream lasted until he dispersed into nothing.
"They...!" Jaxon says with shock and disbelief in his dual colored eyes. "They beat him! They won!"
"Look!" Cana yelled as she pointed to the vanishing magic seal in the sky. "It's disappearing!"
"We know how to win..." Jack says as he holds his broken flask. "We can survive..."
Mirajane and Kairi were seen on the ground, standing in their takeovers, huffing.
"Hey...remember when I said that a demon and an angel...shouldn't fly in the same sky together?" Kairi asked as she huffed out her exhaustion.
Mirajane panted a bit before she turned to Kairi with a tired smile. "Y-Yeah, I remember."
"Well...maybe I was wrong." Kairi replies with a smile of her own. Then, just as she finishes talking, the two takeover mages both revert to their normal forms and pass out,
Mirajane falling forward as Kairi falls to her back.
"Mira!" Cana yelled.
"They're fine." Jack replied with a proud smile towards his guild-mate. "They just need rest."

Back in the middle of the city, the guild masters look towards the north side of the city, noticing the disappearance of the magic seal that was previously pouring out demons. "Look!" Master Bob yelled as he pointed. "That magic seal is gone! And I don't see that one general anymore! You know what this means!?"
"There's a way to stop the demons!" Master Ooba yelled.
"Still..." Makarov turned to where the general Bune was located. "We need that one to go. Or he'll just dispel everything we do. We're useless until he's gone."
"It's time to have some faith in these brats." Calium says. "If they can take down one, they can take down the other three." He then grins. "Well, I know my kids can. That's why I'm not worried about them."
"Heh...even during such hostile times, you decide to place your children on a higher pedestal than the other mages." Makarov says in a mix of amusement and disgust.
"It's the path they've chosen. They wanted to be the best, so I told them I'd guide them in every aspect, no matter what's happening." Calium then turns his vision to Zeref and smirks. "I know what's at stake here, but nothing will ever be more important than my own children."
"Anyways, I guess we'll have to continue to wait it out." GoldMine says with folded arms.
"Wait it out.." Makarov says as Erza and Taya stand off against Bune.

"I'm sure we won't have to wait long."