"And that's the last one." Kain said as the last of the foot soldiers fell, leaving Team Valiant victorious. Though their track record has shown that foot soldiers or henchmen did very little to slow them down.
While curious, Lucy looked around the great darkness surrounding them, except the giant, lacrima chains holding together the tower and asked, "Where are we?"
"Whatever this place is, it doesn't matter, we gotta find Erza." Gray spoke up before noticing something Kain was doing to the assumed commander of this group. "Kain, what are you doing?"
"Pick-pocketing him," The red wyvern rider began before fishing some kind of rainbow sphere from his pockets. "This looks promising."
The armored young man walked up to the only door like area of the platform and showed the glowing orb in front of what looked to be a scanning area. The door indeed scanned the orb, and opened itself for Kain.
The lawyer turned to everyone else. "Come on, who knows where Erza could be here."
Those inside the lowest level watched Team Valiant enter into the Tower of Hell.
"Hmm, I'll lead them all to the floor where Erza is," The man on the throne said calmly.
"Sir?" One of them asked with confusion.
"Not to worry, Vidaldus, all our opponents pieces are coming together. It's important to at least give our opponents the time to prepare themselves accordingly." As he said this, there was a board right in front of him.
10 pieces stood in the opposite side of four pieces. However, there was a piece in the middle of the board, a black question mark that seemed like it did not belong to either side.
"I have been meaning to ask, but what is that middle piece for?" The one named Vidaldus asked curiously.
For the first time, the one who sat on the throne gave a frown for the briefest of seconds before it turning to an opportunistic smile. "That, Vidaldus, is a wild card of our own."
Team Valiant and Juvia ran down the hallway, beating up any soldiers trying to stop them.
Natsu was in the lead, sniffing the air as he did. "Erza's scent is nearby!"
Gray added in, "I think we can sense her presence, she's fighting now but it feels like she's just swatting away goons like us!"
"Did she escape?"
Kain looked towards Lucy after she asked that, "While Erza does seem powerful enough to do that, why would her captors allow her to escape if they knew her as well as we did?"
Team Valiant saw a large door in at the end of their hallway, this prompted Natsu to set his fist ablaze and punch the doors down that were trying to bar their path.
As soon as they did though, they saw a large pile of unconscious bodies and a familiar red haired woman standing on top of them.
"ERZA!" Natsu, Happy, and Lucy screamed in joy as the S-Class mage came into view.
"G-Guys?!" Erza Scarlet seemed shocked to see everyone from Team Valiant run up to her, "What are you all doing here!?"
"Looking for you of course!" Natsu was the first to say.
"Go home!" Erza suddenly barked, looking towards Kain mostly as she said this because, she figured he would listen to her as he was usually the most sensible, and that he could tell everyone to follow him out the easiest. "This place is far too dangerous!"
"Wait, what about you?" Kain asked in return.
"You have to go!" Erza didn't bother as she repeated again.
"Why?" The celestial mage among them asked.
"What!? The guys attack us, and you're saying to let it slide!?"
"You must!" The S-Class mage shouted with an almost desperate look on her face after Natsu's cry. "All of you head back to the guild, now! This is my problem and doesn't involve any of you."
Gray was the first to react to that. "How could you say that!? Those guys attack us, take you, and bring you to this creepy place!? I'd say we're more than involved now seeing as we've beaten like a hundred guys to get to you."
Lucy seemed to try a different approach. "Erza, what is going on here? These weird ruins, those soldiers that looked like they were from a dark guild, and your old friends? … But I can understand if you don't want to tell us. From that little exchange when we first met them, you seemed very troubled even though they were your friends. But we're your friends too! And we'd do anything to help you!"
"Yeah!" Natsu quickly concurred before Erza turned away from them and took a few steps away from them.
"Leave, all of you!"
Natsu was quick to grunt. "Okay, what's up? This isn't like you at all: you'd be like the first to say we should all go and kick the butt whatever problem you have in the first place!" To everyone's surprise, Natsu seemed distracted and started saying something else. "So we're staying here and we're going to help you! Gramps always told us that not even the strongest can handle things alone!"
It surprised everyone that Natsu of all people said something so profound. However, many agreed with him.
This seemed to finally get Erza's attention as she turned around—with tears in her eyes, which surprised everyone including Ignis who actually dropped his wyvern jaw in surprise.
"I'm sorry, but you can't help me now, the odds are stacked against me." She said in a softer voice. It seemed like she was about to say something next; however, when she eyed Kain, she quickly silenced herself, as if saying what she was about to say would be too much.
However, Kain stepped forward. There was something about her like this that felt far too familiar.
Perhaps if he actually read the Fairy Tail story, he would have known, but since he didn't, he was focusing on the time they were heading towards Galuna Island. While Erza was trying to cheer him up, there was a similar wistful and regretful look in her eye.
"Erza, I just remembered on our way to Galuna island, you once said you were envious of me because of my ability to never let the circumstances stop me from trying to help even though I had no power… you had a similar look then as you do now. Does that mean this was what you were thinking about?"
The S-class mage sighed before looking towards Kain. "It really is hard to hide things from someone as observant as you, Kain. Yes, back during our talk, I was thinking back to this place."
"Well, the more we're going to help you then! There are things that are just too tough to handle alone, and this obviously seems like one of them." Kain said with rising courage. "Erza, I'm going to pull a Natsu, and not listen to your order to go back to Fairy Tail, not without you coming home with us."
"Hey!" The pink haired dragon slayer then grunted as he realized starting an argument with a lawyer would not work in his favor.
Erza gave a small smile at the little interaction and gave a small smile. "I am truly blessed to have wonderful friends no matter where I am. … I'll tell you everything, where we are, why I'm here, and who it is I'm trying to fight."
And so, Erza began the tale of this place being called the Tower of Hell, or what was technically known as The R System.
A long time ago, she was a slave caught by some Zeref Cult and made to help build the tower. However, among captured with her was a young man named Jellal Fernandez, who never lost hope and always tried to protect others and get people out no matter what.
One time, when an escape plan failed, she was punished and tortured, but Jellal, without magic at the time, fought to save her and was able to do so until their captors actually used magic themselves. Then they just essentially traded places for torture.
However, this time Erza had had enough and inspired everyone around her to final rebel against their captors.
Among the slaves was Rob, an old man who was actually a part of Fairy Tail and a friend of Makarov. He gave up his life to save Erza and opened up her magic.
As Erza tried to save Jellal, something happened to him. He seemed possessed by something and became a dark and cruel man. Erza tried to reason with him, but Jellal was desperate to fix the tower once more, hearing the voice of Zeref himself.
She explained a side note that this ancient ruins always gave off a dark vibe and felt like some of the pictures of the old gods around here always felt like they were watching them, perhaps they were real after all and got to Jellal—not that it matters now.
Then Jellal did something, he made Erza leave on the condition that everyone else was going to stay. If she returned, he would kill everyone starting with Sho, the youngest of the friends.
Erza couldn't believe it. After a blast of magic, Erza found herself in a storming forest and wandered around until by chance she happened to be found by Master Makarov, and happened to remember the name from Rob.
This was why she was so desperate to stay in this hell hole. This was something she needed to finish.
"Again, Zeref," Gray spoke out after letting Erza shed a few tears. "To think Deliora and Lullaby—who are now Symphony—were both made by that same mage. And Jellal wants to revive him?"
"Why would your friend want to revive history's darkest wizard?" Juvia asked with obvious confusion.
Kain put his hand on his chin. "Didn't you guys feel it?" Then everyone turned to him, "This place… long before Erza and probably those cultists came here, this seemed to be some ancient tower. There's also—I don't really know since I don't have magic—but there's something about this place that just feels wrong to me. I almost swore I heard voices talking to me as we descended further down here. Maybe Jellal was possessed by a dark spirit wandering around this place."
"I have thought about that a few times, but no matter how much research I did, nothing really seemed to shed any more light as to what had happened to my friend. To me, he's practically dead now." Erza did look over towards Kain. "Yet, when I was in the process of being put in a cage, Sho let slip about how Zeref would make everyone that ever wronged them will be sent to hell for all their sins and afterward, they would rule the world."
"Isn't that super sketchy? Though then again, I guess having your chance to finally escape this hell-hole ripped away from you would make you believe anything in anger and disappointment." Kain muttered out loud.
"Huh?" Lucy looked to Kain with a confused look on her face, "What do you mean by that?"
"Seeing as how it was implied these guys never saw Erza since that event, and how Jellal in his insane state said how they were going to complete making this Tower, I can only assume after sending Erza away, he trapped everyone in this place and made everyone believe Erza did it."
At Kain's hypothesis, the red haired mage nodded. "That's what I thought too. Though it doesn't really matter now; none of it is their fault to being with."
However, Gray narrowed his eyes. There was one moment before she told the story where she was about to say something else, but when she looked to Kain, she stopped talking. Kain was their lawyer, out of everyone they knew, the displaced young man is the one guy in the guild trained to pay special attention to details and what people say. So it seemed like Erza was trying her best not to let something slip in front of their observant friend, but what was it?
His thoughts would have to be put on hold when footsteps came closer towards them, along with a disbelieving voice. "Sister, that's not true…"
Team Valiant turned over to see Sho, one of the people who had captured Erza originally, and the youngest of them seemed completely flabbergasted at the thought that all the time he had spent listening to Jellal was a lie. "What kind of spiel is that!? Why are you telling your new friends some kind of martyr crap like that!? What about what really happened huh? When you destroyed the only elevator out here and nearly caused the chains holding up this damn tower to crack and break! Jellal was the only one left to help organize us all together and save us from dying here!"
"Sho…" Erza began with a frown.
"Erza was not lying," A new voice said. Next to Sho, darkness started to appear around next to him, revealing three more people, one was a man who looked straight from a video game, a cat girl cosplayer, and a tall man wearing a turban that seemed like some kind of robot, middle-east themed guy with an eye patch. (This was Kain's first impression of all Erza's old friends that just appeared with Sho being the only remotely normal looking person among them.)
Out of all those three amazing people, it seemed like the tallest of them didn't seem surprised by the revelation.
"From the start, I've always believed in Erza, but I only played along because everyone else was under a slight influence spell of Jellal." He explained, much to the shock of the people that kidnapped Erza.
However, Erza herself looked to Simon in surprise, but Simon turned to her with a kind smile and said that he always believed in her, which was really heartwarming and reliving for the S-Class mage.
However, even though Erza's old friends seemed to be rekindling with her after learning that they were lied to all this time, Kain suddenly facepalmed hard. The slap noise echoed around the large room and made everyone look to him.
"Kain?" Erza asked in shock.
"I AM AN IDIOT!" Kain cried out as he put both hands on his face.
Natsu and the others nearby him looked to the young man with worry. "What's the matter?!"
Kain breathed deeply before looking towards everyone. "We broke cameras before we entered here."
"Uhh yeah? So?" Gray asked before he heard Lucy gasp behind him. The look of horror on her face signaled she instantly got what Kain was going for.
Kain elaborated what he was going with. "We only destroyed the cameras before the exit, I didn't even think about the ones watching us this very moment!"
Realization hit everyone. During all these emotional moments, they had forgotten the security system inside the tower was never touched during everyone's way towards this room.
"Now don't destroy these," A new voice echoed around everyone at this moment. "These things aren't exactly cheap you know."
Everyone looked in mixed shock and horror when the voice called out and seemed to surround all of them.
Kain, stepped forward and remembered something in Erza's story that tickled the back of his mind. "I can assume you must be the infamous Jellal Fernandes? By any chance are you related to a certain Siegrain Fernandes in the Magic Council and Wizard Saint?"
The voice around them scoffed. "He is my twin brother," It seemed like only Kain noticed something off when he said twin. "So yes, I am related."
To Kain, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. However, a small smirk appeared on his lips. "His twin brother? Does that mean you also have the same ugly smirk he thinks constitutes as something cool?"
There was honest laughter in response to such a passive insult coming from Jellal's end. "Oh a sharp tongue on this one! Too bad sharp tongues do little to hide the fact you're the only one in that room that is a sheep in wolf's clothing."
Natsu and Happy turned to their lawyer in dumbfounded shock. "Kain's a sheep!?"
Lucy put a hand on her head before answering. "Natsu, he's trying to insult Kain by calling him a faker since he's the only one among us who is incapable of magic."
At that, Natsu both understood and then got angry as he looked up to the ceiling. "Hey you bastard! Kain maybe the weakest out of all of us!"
The brown haired boy deadpanned towards his friend. Natsu didn't notice and continued by beating his chest hard. "But don't you dare call him a faker! He's proven time and time again he deserves to be in Fairy Tail, magic or not!"
That actually surprised the displaced boy. But he shook his head and turned back to the ceiling to focus on this bad feeling he was getting. By all means, Erza's friends originally worked for Jellal, but now that they've been told the truth—heck even Jellal was listening in and did nothing to stop Erza from telling her side of the story—he still seemed calm and confident.
"Regardless," Jellal began speaking again. "The pieces have all been set and the game can now begin!"
"Game?" Kain repeated in confusion.
"It's a rather simple game really. It'll be a free-for-all; your ten against my four pieces and me. If you can defeat us before The Magic Council can fire an Etherion Blast on all of us, you win."
Everyone but Kain seemed to gasp in horror at the name that was just mentioned; even some of Jellal's men seemed to momentarily question it before accepting their roles.
"What the heck is an Etherion?" Kain looked around before he was told what exactly it was by some rather distressed people. It was basically a magical laser nuke to the wyvern rider and it was about to be used on them.
Instead of actually panicking, everyone not from Fairy Tail were surprised to see Kain just sigh and put his hand on his head instead of seemingly panic at the thought of being practically erased from time and space. "So it's essentially another magical nuke? God damn these needlessly dramatic and rising stakes."
"How the heck are you not bothered by that!?" Sho of all people pointed towards the displaced boy with surprise.
"Sho was it? It's not that I'm not panicking… it's just… considering my circumstances, I always assume everything gets worse before some these adventures end. And I just so happen to be proven right in the wrong ways. Besides, he said that Era is planning to just nuke this place right? All we have to do is get on Ignis and fly out of here before that can happen." The young man said as he pointed a thumb at the giant red wyvern just standing behind them.
It was then Jellal's voice spoke back up. "Now what made you think I was going to let all of you get away that easily?"
Kain's eyes widened as he heard that. Before he could even warn the others, the floor suddenly gave a way. No really, one minute it was solid, and the next minute, everyone besides Happy and Ignis were falling right through as if it was just a magic circle they were all standing on and the room was just an illusion around them.
"Ignis!" Kain yelled as the Wyvern and the cat tried to make a dive for any of the falling people.
Down below, watching everyone fall through the tower, Jellal chuckled darkly. "Oh no, I decided to get my own animal sidekick when I saw yours," He then pressed a button on his throne. "Or rather, a dozen."
As everyone was falling, no one noticed doors on the walls around them slide open and over a dozen powerful and hungry roars echoed to everyone's ears.
Twelve fast figures shot out and—
"Happy, look out!" Natsu cried out in horror as he felt around a dozen creatures beeline right for the small flying cat.
Yet, Happy only had time to look to his right before Ignis' tail grabbed him and made both of them fly back up to avoid being chomped on by a group of creatures with a lion's body, large bat wings, and tails and backs of a scorpion.
"Manticores!?" Lucy yelled out but her horror only sky rocketed when she saw the dozen manticores roar and start to chase and ward both Happy and Ignis away from the falling group.
"Wait, was that why Jellal brought those beasts in?!" Milliana cried out.
Simon's eyes widened and looked over to the cat girl. "You saw these creatures!?"
The cat girl seemed somewhat nervous as all eyes went to her even while they were all falling. "Jellal said he wanted to try seeing if he could use manticores to help renovate new rooms into the tower!"
"Well it's obvious he brought them in to stop Ignis and Happy from saving us!" Gray shouted back.
"Natsu!" Happy yelled before Ignis was forced to fly upward from being swarmed all over.
The pink haired mage growled as he saw Happy and Ignis being chased by the Manticores. "Happy, stay with Ignis! We'll be fine!"
"Wait a sec, how will we be fine!? Only Erza can fly out of all us!" Wally screamed in a panic.
Before anyone could begin, Kain's voice caught everyone's attention. "Guys, has anyone actually bothered to look down!?"
Everyone followed his line of sight as a large black magic circle was placed right below them. Out of said magic circle, sharp, thorny spikes shot out with the intention to stab the falling mages.
Erza quickly acted and switched to her Thunder Empress armor. "Everyone, destroy it!"
With her command, every one prepared and launched their best long range spell in order to power through the spikes.
The combined attack worked—too well. The combined explosion that came after the attacks connecting reached the others who were falling into it quickly. The shock wave of the explosion pushed and split up the group. Jellal saw this and smiled.
He pressed more buttons on the side of his throne that opened up portions of the walls and swallowed each of the ten mages.
No sooner that was done, he looked up to Vidaldus. "The pieces have been set. You may go and begin the game, Trinity Raven."
"You'll let me?"
"By all means, it's still our turn after all." Jellal then watched Vidaldus exert a lot of magical power to transform from a calm and serious man into a heavy metal rocker/Kiss wannabe. Two more people followed after, a woman wearing a kimono and a large man with an owl for a head.
"Now then, pick your opponents."
As he said this, three powerful mages from Death Head Cacus bowed in response to their employer and quickly went off.
Yet even though those three left, Jellal looked wordlessly at the black question mark planted in the center of his board.
"I pity whoever gets sent his—their way. Though at least we came to an agreement he would not harm Erza before all this. I'm still curious if they will keep their word."
He shook his head and smiled. "Bah, it matters little, she told me he would. It's a shame she declined my offer to stay here, though in hindsight, not many would willingly stay in a future ground zero area."
Kain screamed as he slid down the slide leading him to who knows where? He instantly activated his morpher as he saw a light at the end of the slide.
"WAAAH!?" There have been less heroic screams than what escaped Kain's lungs, you'd simply be hard pressed to find them though as he landed on his newly plated tushie.
"Ow!" The red rider cried out as he stood up, only to hear two more doors opening in the ceiling around him, but hearing only one screaming in terror.
Two people came out of the ceiling, both landing on their feet to Kain's annoyance. But to his relief, one of the two people who landed with him was Erza. The other was the cube guy Erza briefly addressed as Wally.
"Kain, Wally, are you both unharmed?" The S-Class mage asked before looking towards the three holes on the ceiling closing. "It seems we've been separated from the others."
"I don't even remember this room in the tower." Wally began as he dusted his suit of before looking towards Kain, obviously not recognizing him in armor. "Who the heck are you? The striper looking dude?"
The young man instantly frowned at the comment, not that anyone could see his face while his armor was up. "I'm Kain. One of Erza's friends at Fairy Tail." The red rider exclaimed before noticing the room around them. "I overheard your name a few times, Wally, right?"
"Tch! Listen buddy, wearing some fancy armor doesn't mean you can call me buddy!"
"Wally, he's alright." Erza began.
Wally looked to Erza and he seemed to relax. "Was your story really true? Did Jellal really do all those things?"
Erza closed her eyes somberly and nodded once.
The cubed mage sighed before fixing his hat. He sighed before putting a hand on Erza's shoulder. "I lost one big brother once. I don't want to lose a big sister either."
Those words touched Erza as she hugged Wally as well. "Thank you."
"Dawww," Kain let one out, causing Wally to suddenly push Erza away with a flushed look on his sharp face.
"Quiet kid! That's the dandy thing to do! It ain't cute!"
The other two shared a small laugh before realizing something.
"Where are we exactly, Wally?"
The previous kidnapper shrugged his shoulders at Erza's question. "Beats me, I never worked in this area of the tower. The others and I worked in the upper floors."
It was then that a pair of torches lit up without any sign of being touch. The three looked at the two torches before more pairs of torches lit up, revealing a path in the dark room.
Erza seemed to tense and started walking ahead. "We need to find the others. Come on, let's go."
As the unlikely trio continued to move along, they eventually stopped at two elaborate white and golden doors. When Erza opened the two doors, they found themselves…
"You guys had a church here?" Kain asked in confusion as he noticed the pews, stained glass, and the altar in the very end.
"Like I said, I never saw this part of the tower…" Wally trailed off when the three of them instantly noticed there was someone kneeling in front of the altar of what looked to be of Ankhersam.
And then, from nowhere, it sounded like a choir of violins echoed in harmony and the doors slammed behind the trio and sealed themselves shut. "~The stars are blind my love, you will learn to crawl, under oceans above.~" A powerful male voice began to sing, coming from the one kneeling in front of the altar, "~That force will fuel it's hate, when it drains your soul, it'll flood the gates.~" The man stood up and slowly turned, prompting the three to get into their battle stances.
He was a blonde man with piercing purple eyes and a large figure with brown skin. He wore something like a priest's uniform and took a step forward, with the music around them seemingly starting to come up with more tempo. "~Fear is a device, so quiet and precise. It's not what I allow, not in my world now.~"
As the tempo of the music escalated, it abruptly stopped and was silenced, giving a bad feeling of in-completion and fear among the three, even Erza was starting to feel chills down her spine.
"You," The man pointed over to the S-class mage, making her tense. "You are Erza Scarlet, we were asked by Jellal not to touch you. The other two; however? We believe that will suffice."
"You work for Jellal?!" Erza screamed before preparing her sword.
His next word choice made Kain raise his brow in confusion and interest, as he realized he repeated that weird word more than once.
"We were hired for a job." That was all the man said before Erza decided to forsake any more of whatever nonsense Jellal had in for them and attack the stranger right then and there.
However, as she quickly closed the distance, her leg seemingly cut a string that she or Kain didn't notice with his heightened senses. As soon as it gut cut, a dozen old runic symbols quickly appeared in the air in front of her and suddenly froze her where she was.
"Erza!" Both Wally and Kain yelled before trying to get to the red head. However, to their surprise, the man that had stunned and paralyzed Erza jumped over her and landed in between the two men.
"W-Who are you!?"
"…We Are…"
Some days ago, there was a dark guild known for its brutal but successful assassinations, but second to how insane and inhuman the members of said guild were.
It was known as Bloody Corpse. In one of the most remote areas of north western Fiore, in a dark, dreary, and decaying forest known as Spiao Forest, this was where the guild was hidden.
And this was wear a cloaked figure had stumbled on to their hideout.
"Ahh, here it is." The cloaked figure said as they entered through the doors of the guild. To their surprise, the main lobby of the guild looked like a simple bar with tables, a wine shelf and everything, even a piano at the side that played old west styled music by magic.
However, oddly enough, there was no one there except the pudgy, bald bar tender who had his back turned and was wiping a glass.
"May I help you, stranger?" The bar tender asked as he didn't turn around and still wiped the glass he was holding.
"Yes, I'm here to hire some assassins of Bloody Corpse." The figure began. "Where are they?"
"They are around." The Bartender said as the music continued on. "What kind of job is it?"
"Are you one of them?" The cloaked figure countered the question with another question.
The bartender still didn't turn to face the cloaked stranger but put one glass down and started working on the other, "Yes, we are."
"We?" The cloaked figure repeated in confusion.
No sooner than they said this, something in the ceiling cracked. Then something had actually fallen and crashed through the ceiling and landed on the piano, instantly stopping it's melody with a horrible sound.
On top of the fallen piano was a man, who had a guild tattoo on his forehead that looked like a bloody corpse. As he looked to the cloaked figure, his eyes widened. "I-Is it gone?" He gasped with fear and tiredness.
"Hamiel Nustafar."
The cloaked figure seemed to watch as the bartender seemed to say the name of the man and instantly, make the mage look at him in utter horror that he instantly started to cry.
"NO! NO! OH GODS NO!"
The bar tender finally turned—the cloaked figure did not expect the eyes of the man to turn pitch black and smile far beyond that of a mouth was capable.
"Welcome home."
It wasn't one voice, but it sounded like a hundred voices of men, women, children, and elders all saying those two words in one tone, one voice, one being. It chilled the cloaked figure to the very make up of her blood cells and DNA.
However, it made Hamiel lose it. "NONONONO!" He frantically cried as he put his hands together to summon a magic circle and blasted where the Bartender was currently standing.
Or at least, that was what he hoped would happen.
Instead, the bartender swung his own hand towards the man and it suddenly extended and shot like a bullet, clamping his hand around the neck of the injured mage.
Before the cloaked figure could react, the bartender pulled the crying mage towards him and into his belly—then seemingly absorb the full body through his skin.
The sight of such a thing left the cloaked figure speechless. When they turned back to the bartender, the eyes of the person—if it was human at this point—slowly moved towards the cloaked figure.
"Now, what job was that again?"
"W-Who are you?"
"We," Again he said 'we' as if he was not even a singular being. "We are Bloody Corpse." Then, the bartender's face started to melt and a new face started to form: the man that was just swallowed into the skin of the Bartender, Hamiel Nustafar.
"We are all members of Bloody Corpse." It said again in Hamiel's voice, but now calmer and with an eerie lack of free will and personality.
"N-No," The figure began before removing their hood, revealing Ultear one of the magic council. "Who are you really?"
"… We are…"
To the surprise of all three mages, the figure spoke with what seemed like the combination of a hundred voices rolled into one.
"We are The Wicker Man."
{Author Notes}
Okay, not really proud of this chapter honestly. I was conflicted in how to do it all together since in the anime and manga, it jumps a fair bit between Erza and her friends and Natsu and the others. It was hard for me to try and string the scenes together, so I pretty much dropped Erza's side and focused a little more on the rest of Team Valiant instead.
But thankfully, the hard part was over, the battles for this arc should be easier to right because they're fights. I'm more comfortable writing fights for some odd reason. Heck, somehow in my Pokémon Fics, I was able to write a story with sixty chapters worth of fights that didn't become repetitive weirdly enough. (If anyone was interested in how I made interesting fights there: I just completely forsook all forms of turn based combat in both game and Anime and made it flow more like a real fight mixed with tactics and such… kinda like the ones from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure… huh….)
Anywho, shamless plug aside, I'm sorry for the slower updates. I wanted more time to figure out how I was going to do this arc and the future 'Fight For Fairy Tail' now that Laxus is the Guild master in this timeline/story. (I mean, I already have plans on both mentioned arcs, but the finer details are escaping me and that's where I feel make or break my style of writing.)
However, I am very excited for a rather light-hearted Original Arc coming later than people expect. I think a majority of you will be surprised on what that Arc actually is.
Any who thanks for reading.
Non Cannon Omake: Oops.
Era debated countless times after countless times whether or not to fire Etherion.
Because of how close Team Valiant was getting towards Jellal, Siegran Fernandez had to rely on more desperate measures. He broke off the current debate and let everyone on a small coffee break to cool off from the shouting.
However, the clone of Jellal, along with Ultear, spiked the rest of the drinks of all the members to be more prone to drastic measures.
With every other member now under the influence, they restarted their debates.
"Siegran was right all along! We should fire Etherion!" Both Siegran and Ultear had to fight hard to not smile when everyone else agreed with one of the members.
"No!" Yajima exclaimed. The two who spiked everyone's drinks must have underestimated Yajima's reluctance to— "Etherion is too weak to take on this task!"
"He's right!"
It was then that Siegran and Ultear noticed something was off.
"We need to eliminate every single trace of them! Etherion is good, but not that good! Even their names of them ever existing in books should be gone!" One member barked so passionately, drool was coming out of their mouth.
Siegran and Ultear shared a look.
(How much of the drug did we put!?)
(I don't know?!)
Their silent conversation went.
"I got it!" Councilman Org wildly pointed out. "We'll use Face instead! I wanna see magic DDDIIIIIEEEEE!"
"WWWHHHHOOOOOO!" The last two sane—and we use that word loosely—panicked at how well their plan was going.
"Let's vote, muther*****!" One council member actually started to strip in excitement while cursing.
Unfortunately, despite Siegran and Ultear's best efforts, even admitting that they drugged everyone, the council under the influence launched a Face bomb instead of Etherion.
In the safety of his own office room, Siegran/Jellal was banging his head on the wall repeatedly for screwing up practically 20 years of his life with one mistake he himself made.
(Moral of the story: don't do drugs kids.)
(Oh and since Face is known to kill magic, only Kain survives since he came from a world without it and had no trace of being born with it.)
(Kain: NNOOOOO! MY FRIENDS! THEY ALL OWED ME MONEY!)
(So yeah. Don't do drugs or else your friends who owe you money will die. The More You Know!ᵀᴹ)