The fires of battle have caused the sky to be filled with smoke and clouds, blocking the sun and giving the impression of night despite it still being before noon. However, the darkness did help the Alliance, allowing them an easier time to hide from the flow of reinforcements meant to overwhelm them.
If there was still one advantage they had, it was the fact that they still had the comlink devices. "Where will we go? The base is destroyed." As William Tovar said this, he panted for air desperately in the comlink while he hid up a tree and tried stop the bleeding of his leg from his fight from a while ago.
He wasn't the only one who was worse for wear, many of the others suffered some trauma that they couldn't shake off.
"Not to worry kid, we're in luck." Goldmine seemed to be the only one not bothered by the recent attack, and in all honesty, his voice was a relief to everyone at the dark hour. "Blue Pegasus, I recall Bob telling me he had a second home here, right?"
Ichiya responded, but for many, they were wondering why they could smell him over the comlink. "Cool as always, Master Goldmine~! Indeed, we were about to suggest Master bob's second home. It's not a proper base, but it should serve as an excellent staging point. Men~! Hibiki, send the information to everyone through the link!"
There was a heavy sigh coming from Tarsus. "Alright, everyone, make your way, and do not alert our enemies to find or follow you. Doranbolt, I'm going to need you to start teleporting everyone you can. The faster we get there, the better."
When everyone converged to the house of Master Bob, their morale was at an all-time low. They had all originally assumed that this would be an easy mission. Many of the guilds, even the Rune Knights thought they would be able to handle their opponents. However, the use of the Rhodonite drugs, along with the increasing stream of reinforcements, not to mention everyone was split up doing their own thing, this left retreat to be the only option otherwise they would be overwhelmed by numbers if they weren't Master Goldmine.
Everyone did end up in the house of Master Bob which was like a mansion decorated with more hearts and bright colors. The theme of the house did little to soothe anyone's emotions.
BAM!
William Tovar's voice reverberated through the entire lobby more than the impact of him punching Natsu in the face and causing the Dragon Slayer to fall down from the sucker punch.
"You bastard!" He cried out before reaching for his half shirt and pulling by it. "If it wasn't for you, Bella would still be alive right now!"
"Watch it!" To the surprise of many, Gray was the one who got between them and pushed William away. "Natsu may be a screwball, but you were the guys who claimed that your base would be safe while we went out! Whose fault was that!?"
Lahar was quick to shout back, "It wouldn't have been found in the first place if Fairy Tail didn't disobey direct orders and act like the impulsive idiots you all are! I should have denied you all from coming if I knew you would be this bad! I'll see your guild disbanded for that!"
"I didn't see you trying to stop us at all! All you did was just keep running that damn mouth of yours!" Gray returned a glare back at Lahar.
"Why are we all still here!?" Kain stepped towards the center of that fight before pointing towards the door. "We have to save Wendy! She was taken by the Oracion Seis!
Lahar snapped his head towards the brunette. "That is none of our concern—"
He was interrupted when Kain unleashed a voice that was like that of jaguar roar, even his friends and Ignis weren't expecting it's sudden ferocity. "She's a little girl! She should be our priority!"
Now that looked to be the tipping point and made those with cooler heads move in to stop before this could break into a fight. However, the one to act first was someone no one expected.
"Kain," The being from another world was distracted from his anger when he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked over to Natsu looking at him worryingly. "You alright?"
When Natsu of all people was trying to calm someone else down, it was a clue to the lawyer that even he was going too far. Kain saw many looking around him and he just sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I need a moment."
He then left, climbing up the stairs and rubbing his eyes as he did so, refusing to acknowledge anyone else.
Tarsus Steelsoul, the older Rune Knight, stepped up at that moment. "We are all tired, hurt, demoralized, and have suffered great losses. We will take a ten-minute break to cool off and we'll meet again here. Lahar, I need you to set up a barrier around the place, anything you can muster."
And with that, the Alliance returned to silence.
It was sobering to see a place once filled with so much green, now have a noticeable black area filled with dead trees and grass suffocated by ash. The sun that was once bright only hours ago was gone, making even night seem brighter in comparison.
Kain was at a balcony, seeing all this in front of him, but was far too engrossed with how his foot was tapping with all the rhythm of a jackhammer.
"Kain?"
The young man turned around, seeing Gray of all people coming up to him.
The brunette blinked before he saw Gray walk beside him and look out in the distance. "Damn, it almost feels like we're in a different area altogether."
Kain could hear the other conversation under the half-naked ice mage's simple statement. "I'm surprised everyone else isn't here."
"Erza said that everyone leaving after you would further drive a wedge between the Magic Council and Fairy Tail. One of us had to go and check on you while a majority stayed in the same area as the Council jerks. At least Erza and that Steelsoul fella seem to be keeping each other from just straight out attacking each other."
Kain deeply sighed, feeling a headache, and placed his hand on his forehead. "Gray, I screwed up."
"Funny, they say it was Natsu and I'm kinda inclined to agree with them."
The ice mage wasn't expecting Kain to suddenly turn to him with anger that was obviously pointed to himself. "But that's the thing, I knew he was about to do that the moment we watched the criminals kill off innocent animals. I could have stopped him! I could have explained the best I could, and he does listen to me more than others!" As the anger faded, Kain just gasped for air. Gray could have sworn he was looking at himself the hour after he let his teacher, Ur, sacrifice herself for both him and Lyon. "If I did that… If I did that… shit. I can't believe I got someone else killed and even that Wendy girl caught..."
Gray looked out towards the burnt and charred part of the forest that was clearly seen from where they were. "You said it before you chased after Natsu, didn't you? He cares, even for some stupid animals. Natsu was trying to protect those that couldn't do it for themselves, and you… were protecting Natsu's honor." The Ice mage looked towards the plain-looking adolescent. "It's not your fault with what happened to that Rune Knight Lady, or Wendy. If anything, It's Oracion Seis for doing this in the first place."
"I don't care about blame, Gray, even though my job as a lawyer. I just want to make sure that little girl is safe."
The ice mage couldn't help but feel curious about that. "We all care about Wendy, but why are you so passionate about it?"
The brunette looked back up before showing a smile on his face that just seemed more sad than happy. "She reminds me of my younger half-sisters."
The memory came in like an executioner's axe. Gray recalled in the world of memory back some time ago, Kain's history showed them he had at least two younger half-sisters.
Gray found himself interested in that: being a brother. From what little he remembered before Deliora destroyed his life, he was an only child. There was also the fact Kain was actually one of the youngest members in the guild, so him being seen as a big brother—wait. Nevermind, he was also the most level headed person in the guild, and pretty much 80 percent of its self-restraint.
"I'm the oldest in both families, and the second oldest is my younger brother who's only 14 years old." Kain gave a laugh that was as full as a hollow dead tree. "I'm the oldest, so I have to take care of all of them..."
"Seeing Wendy gone and taken," Gray began after he noticed that his friend no longer wanted to keep speaking from fear of his own thoughts. "is like seeing your younger siblings being taken." He never had siblings, the closest thing to a brother he had was Lyon and that was a can of worms he didn't want to open again, but he knew what it was like to lose his family. It's beyond painful.
Gray was actually startled when Kain slammed both of his hands on the rails, causing them to crack, not that the brunette noticed or cared to. "Damn it! I should have done more than just try to attack the Oracion Seis! I let my emotions get the better of me, and instead of trying to make most of a horrible situation, I just—god! I'm an idiot!" The brunette screamed before burying his face into his hands.
Gray didn't really know what to say to that. The last time he tried to come up with something, it was basically akin to suicide in the form of Iced Shell. Let's hope his heart had something much better to say, "I guess that means you belong with us after all."
Kain looked up from his self pity and towards the ice mage. That seemed to be working, so Gray continued to trust his emotions. "Erza with the Tower of Hell, Lucy with her being an Heiress, Ash-brain being… himself." Gray squinted his eyes to a glare when thinking of his elemental opposite. Then he pointed a thumb to himself. "And me with Lyon back in Galuna. Seeing as how all of us do pretty stupid things, maybe we should change our name from Team Valiant to Stupid."
A single scoff and laugh escaped from Kain's lips along with a smile. "Come to think of it, Happy or Ignis haven't done anything stupid."
At that, the two broke out into more boisterous laughter.
"W-We really are a sorry bunch, aren't we?" The wyvern rider managed to gasp after a much-needed laugh.
"It's one of the reasons why I love Fairy Tail: a place where losers can be less like losers." Gray sighed and looked towards the door. "Now come on, I doubt we can come up with a good plan to save Wendy without you."
Gray then said nothing more and walked down. Kain found himself smiling before deeply breathing in and steeling himself for what he knew was about to happen next. It wouldn't be pretty, and he could feel the chance of failure being larger than all other times before.
"We have lost many things in so little time," Tarsus began to brief everyone as he stood on the stairs for everyone to see him. "We lost our base, and two other members, one of them captured by the enemy for some unknown reason, unless, Ms. Carla, you can tell us why Oracion Seis would want Ms. Marvel?"
The female white cat, who had a bandage over her head huffed. "It doesn't matter, what does matter is when we will save Wendy!"
"No." Firmer than the oldest of trees, Tarsus' one word stopped Carla's emotions. "We are not repeating the same mistake."
"We?" Everyone looked over towards William Tovar, the Rune Knight, as he not so subtly glared towards Natsu. "It's that utter fool's fault for flying out of the gates all because he couldn't stomach animals dying."
"What did you say?!" Natsu stood up too fast, his fist starting to flame on, ready to get into a fight once more.
However, the sound of one of the stair rails breaking caught everyone's attention towards Tarsus where he removed his hand from the broken wood. "No screaming."
Tarsus stared for a few seconds, watching for anyone else to start something. Wisely, no one did. Once more, without raising his volume, Tarsus continued on. "Natsu Dragneel. Let this be a lesson: never underestimate your opponents. This isn't some duel between two people, this is a mission that dictates the lives of many inside and outside this war—a very different mission that you are used to."
Natsu grunted and sat back down into one of the seas, folding his arms and looking back on the ground.
"But to put all the blame on him would be wrong and unjust," The older Rune Knight spoke out, capturing everyone's attention once more. "In fact, we are all to blame just as much as Natsu Dragneel in this."
Voices of dissent were quick to rise from anyone else, but Tarsus raised his hand and glared, causing him to kill the noise just as fast. "We all treated this as just another mission to get rid of thugs or monsters. Instead of trying to convince others to stop and work together, we all raced out, treating this as a game of who could take the most glory. We didn't respect the opponents, people who the Magic Council deemed as too dangerous to keep nearby any public area and had to be isolated far out of Fiore's borders to keep the country safe, nor the six mages who broke them out and employed them. Look at our result for such an arrogant action: we were beaten, shamed, and forced to run like mice from cats."
His words were like salt poured into an open wound, but they were also necessary to hear.
"In order for us to make up for our mistakes, we need to throw away our pride and work together as a true group. As of this moment, there is no 'better guild', we are an alliance to stop an evil and possibly crazed man from getting hands-on weapons hidden away by the ancients who believed it was far too dangerous. Until we do that, we all deserve to be punished for our previous hubris." Tarsus removed his owl helmet, revealing a man with black, crew-cut hair and blood-colored eyes. "I asked Master Goldmine about this, and he told me that I could do this."
He lifted his palm as it glowed gray. As it glowed, every guild member sticker started to glow from under their clothes. Tarsus made a crushing motion, causing all stamps to disappear.
"What!?" "Hey!" "What's going on!?" People screamed out, only to stop when they saw Tarsus throw way his rune knight symbols, leaving only his blue armor. Soon, even the symbols of the Rune Knights faded away, causing the remaining Rune Knights to cry out as well.
"Channel all your anger towards Oracion Seis," Tarsus stated. "Right here—right now: I need each and every one of us to come together what we're here for, as a group, not a bunch of kids claiming to be the best."
Goldmine walked to the center of the lobby with an amused smile. "You certainly have a way with words. I admit planning was never my forte, but trust me when I say, kiddos, it's never too late to man up for mistakes." The master of Quarto Cerberus removed his own symbol. "I got too excited too quickly. So I'll suspend my guild master rights, and just be a plain old man in this alliance." He gave a small laugh, which was a reminder to everyone that they could get their stamps back after this debacle. "Before we all come together, we're going to need someone, a leader. One who can rein us all in and properly point us in a good direction. And it ain't going to be me."
The older man laughed when he saw some people look at him in astonishment. "Even in my hay day, I wasn't leader material, and now? Even though I'm a guild master, I'm more of a teacher than a leader. One of you young ones has to choose a leader unanimously among yourselves."
Jura stood up at that moment. "Mr. Steelsoul has demonstrated the ability to keep everyone together even though he has pointed out our flaws. I nominate him to be the leader."
"If Jura says it, I vote for it." Lyon stood up with Sherry not far from him.
There was another supporter, "I agree. I mean, he always had this leader vibe about him when he first introduced himself anyway, so it's not all that different now." Kain of Fairy Tail stood up. This prompted the rest of Fairy Tail was behind him and would support Tarsus being the leader.
It wasn't long after as Phantom Lord, Blue Pegasus, Goldmine, and the other Rune Knights agreed to the only nominee.
Seeing no one against, Tarsus inhaled before addressing everyone. "Thank you for this vote of confidence. Our first order of business is figuring out where Oracion Seis is."
From Blue Pegasus, Hibiki activated his archive magic, opened up a screen to be seen by everyone in the alliance in the center of the lobby. "This is just guesswork, but I traced where the reinforcements of the Oracions Seis was compared to where we all scattered. They all seem to have flooded in from the southeast section of the Worthwood Sea, and according to the maps, there's supposed to be a preserved sight where the ruins of the ancients used to live. That seems to be the only practical place where they could set up base."
"Now that you mention it," William Tovar pointed towards the map. "I noticed while fighting that some of the criminals I was fighting had mud on their shoes, recently dried mud."
"I noticed that as well," Jura added in and saw what William was pointing at. "According to the map that same area is surrounded by waterfalls."
That was practically confirmation that this was indeed at least the area where their opponents were setting base in.
"Now what do we do?" Doranbolt looked around. "Do we perform recon?"
"Are you all forgetting Wendy is still in there!?" Carla spoke out with a huff and a cut stomp of her paw. "We need to rescue her posthaste, and I refuse to wait any longer!"
"Ms. Charlie is correct," Tarsus began as he walked down some of the stairs. It was a slight surprise since he silenced the cat not too long ago. "The longer Ms. Marvel is with Oracion Seis only promotes their success. We're on a time table."
At that moment, an unlikely voice spoke up. "Hey," Everyone looked to Jason Dracoheart of Phantom Lord. "Why don't we launch a full assault on them?"
"Launch a full assault on them after they soundly routed us and when we don't know the exact area of their location?" Lahar was quick to ask.
However, it seemed like Jason actually took that into account as he answered just as fast, "Well, yeah! Think about it, they don't think they'll expect us to counter attack so soon. We might be able to catch them off guard."
As soon as Jason said this, Kara, came in and hugged her blue-haired companion much to the knight's dismay and horror, if his rather girlish scream was to go by. "Way to go fearless leader! A plan worthy of Valhalla!"
Putting aside the fact his world knew about Valhalla, Kain stepped forward. "We can do both at the same time. What if we split into two groups? One does the assault, filled with our best front line fighters, while a second, smaller, and more mobile group sneaks in during the chaos and attempts a rescue mission of Wendy in their base."
"One attack to hide another? How cloak-and-dagger." Tarsus held a hand to his chin, but there was an impressed smile on his lips, showing how much he liked the idea. He turned towards everyone else and saw no signs of anyone refuting the new plan. "There. This is far more like it. Now let's decide the groups."
There was a small campfire where a group of criminals was roasting a rabbit with a horn on its forehead over an open flame.
"What does fried Unibit taste like anyway?"
"I hear it's like Arctic Hen."
"You think everything tastes like Arctic Hen."
"It does."
"Huh?"
"What is it?"
"Did you hear something?"
"You're gunna have to be more specific than that."
"No no, it sounds like—"
Thunder.
Thunder came with a boom and blew off around a dozen men. This forced other camps to look and see past the smoke, two people were stepping out of the smoke.
"I like your style, Kara!" Natsu Dragneel swaggered forward and punched his fists together, setting them ablaze with a proud smile pointed towards their soon to be punching bags.
To his right, a pink-themed Valkyrie wielding a halberd that was laced with electricity dancing all over it gave a proud huff. "I've always wanted to fight alongside a dragon! It's been one of my bucket lists along with riding one! Say, do you know where I can find a dragon?"
Natsu thought about his 'uncle' in Atlas Flame, but before he could even figure out what to say the even before the two moved faster.
"We're under attack!" "Get them!" "There's only two of them!" Some of the other criminals began to charge their attacks towards the two. However, out of the smoke, the attack came down like hail and further disposed of the camp set up near the ruins below.
Erza, Alexandra, Lahar, Gray, Lucy, Lyon, Jura, Sherry, Ichiya, Ren, Eve, William, Genji all walked out and the rest of the clouds were blown away with the wing beat of Ignis, who roared at the criminals daring anyone to attack them.
"There you are!" Erigor flew in, his eyes bloodshot and drool falling off the corner of his mouth. "This time, I won't let you escape!"
"Escape? I was handing your ass all over the place even with your drugs!"
While Natsu said this, some other criminals started to group up behind Erigor.
"Everyone," Tarsus unleashed his blade and pointed it towards the group of criminals. "Send them the same curtsy they showed us!"
The explosions that followed after that declaration were akin to a night on America during the Fourth Of July, just far more deadly.
Minutes before the alliance made their comeback, Brain continued his search, looking at a large bubble, showing a girl in a humble village dancing along with many older people.
Jellal stepped towards him, glancing at an unconscious and tired girl at the center of a magic circle for a second before choosing to focus on something that wasn't eating at his heart. "Why focus on this song?"
Brain, while still staring at the memory, answered him. "I've been going over her memory of all things Cait Shelter. She wasn't born to them, and was found early in her life by them."
"Who was she before then?"
"I never bothered to check because of our time limit, nor am I interested in it. Nirvana is the main goal." He paused the memory of Wendy starting to sing. "Out of all the things she was taught, this song was the only direct reference to Nirvana I found. But when she asked about it, the guild master changed the subject each time and the girl didn't seem interested in pursuing it at all."
~Lakuya, Lakuya~
Where shall we play?
On the field of sky flowers not seen by the day?
~Lakuya, Lakuya~
Let us dance with the snake of the pond,
and listen to her story of young.
Follow her path to the mouth of winds,
And rest on the lap of the Guardian King.
~Lakuya, Lakuya~
Do not wake him up,
Sleep with him, Lakuya, down below not above.
The memory activated again, showing a dressed up girl dancing and singing her heart out, surrounded by genuine smiles and laughs along with a white cat. Jellal, while staring at the smiling girl, saw instead of a festival dressed blue-haired girl, a dirty, rag wearing girl with an eye patch and vibrant red hair. However, what haunted him the most was the two had the same happy smiles that made him feel so unbearably wrong.
"You said Nirvana was also known as Lakuya, right?" Jellal found himself looking away from the memory, like a demon repulsed by holy water. "Doesn't this mean it's a major clue?"
"That's just it though, it's far too vague. I'm surprised the clue is in the form of a child's lullaby, but the point still stands. I have no idea how to translate this song, and there's nothing in her memories that help in realizing what it means."
He took any chance to distract himself from the memories of his and the girl's mixing. "Sky flowers not seen by day? Since most flowers need sunlight with few exceptions, they could be referencing stars?"
Brain's eyes widened as he looked back at the ex wizard saint. "Stars?"
Then the alarms of the room went off.
Brain stood up from a desk and summoned another bubble, this time it showed up above the ruins, the Alliance was unleashing a full strike force against them. The criminals were like dust in the winds with very select few being able to hold off the advance of the alliance.
Brain put a hand to his head, sending a message to the link that all of the Oracion Seis were to engage and put down the Alliance.
Jellal and Midnight remained. However, Jellal looked towards Brain.
"I see, you must have noticed something off as well." That was not at all what he was thinking, but Brain continued on. "That's a majority of them, but there are a few among them that aren't in that attack, including Goldmine. What are they up to?"
There was another ground shaking from the battle above and a rock from the ceiling fell above Midnight, only for it to slide to the side and crash into the ground as if it hit a barrier.
This prompted the sleeping mage to finally wake up, only to have an annoyed look on his face. "Why is it so hard to get a good night's rest?"
"It's already almost lunch, Midnight."
"Whatever, all I know is whatever's up there is disturbing my sleep." The man stepped off his flying carpet. "And I really hate that."
Midnight left, obviously to handle the attackers up above.
Jellal stayed behind, more of him doing anything he can to not go up and face her. While coming up with something, he recalled the briefing which in turn meant that he noticed a distinct lack of someone among the attackers. "I seem to recall you saying you had fail-safes against Goldmine?"
"I'm not bringing the important one out yet. At least until Goldmine shows himself. Otherwise, I do need you to pick up something in the other room. I'll give you a key and you can use that to finally finish off the alliance."
The alliance had a plan, it was basically what Kain suggested; a cloak-and-dagger mission. One was to attack and gain all attention on them, while the rest, consisting of Doranbolt, Raina, Hibiki, Jason, Kain, Happy, Carla, and Goldmine snuck around the fight and teleported near the entrance of the ruins while their teammates bought as much time as possible.
"Huh, it's actually really pretty here," Kain mentioned before putting up his armor and looking towards Hibiki. "Has this place been mapped before?"
The handsome man from Blue Pegasus summoned a screen and started to type. It was surreal to see something computer like from Kain's world in Earthland. "Yes, but here's the thing: this small isle isn't even the tip of the ice burg. There's an underground city down below where the ancients used to live and were preserved. No doubt Brain laced the area with traps and guards."
"Do the maps show any promising place where Brain or Wendy could be?" Jason asked, unsheathing his blade and his scabbard turned into a shield.
"There is a temple-like ten levels below us."
"Ten levels huh?" Kain looked towards the entrance to the cave then turned back towards everyone. "If I were to say, Abandon all hope ye who enter here, would anyone recognize that reference?" Kain would stop using that reference when things stopped looking too perfect to use them.
"Donte's Inferno, yes, quite the literary taste you have," Hibiki closed his screen, not noticing Kain's actual surprise that there was a similar version of that famous story in this world. "Come on, we shouldn't waste any more time for the Dagger group." The Cloak Group went down into the unknown.
Back above, the fighting looked to be in favor of the Dagger Group. Even with the numbers and the Rhodonite drugs, Everyone was actually covering each other and all their blind spots.
Natsu and Kara shouted before punching back Butcher, the actual Orc some distance away. The green, large humanoid creature with fangs coming out of his mouth growled before standing back up, ready to fight again.
Erigor was frozen solid and thrown away by a giant earth hand with the combined effort of both Lyon, Gray, and Jura.
Alexandra and Erza, despite fighting against each other, weirdly worked like a clockwork in taking down many of the criminals, including that of Brown Beard's crew.
Prisca was punched into the air by Tarsus, who then landed back down like one of the trees he knocked down.
"Can't you clowns do something as simple as watch over us?" A new voice chimed in, causing everyone to pause their fight and look over towards where the ruins where.
Five of the Oracion Seis had arrived with Cobra smirking as he looked at everyone on the side of the Alliance.
"They're all here," Lucy swallowed her spit as she sensed the magic all of them were emitting that was far more noticeable than anyone they had faced so far.
"All except Brain," Genji commented near her.
"Well then, I'm glad you're all here." Cobra smiled as he removed his hands out of his pockets, his hands seemingly being covered in a strange substance. "This time for sure you're all going down!"
This was the second time dark mages were related to actual darkness, or so Kain liked to think. Perhaps he could ask Kageyama if there really was a scientific reason why evil mages liked the dark, but now was not the time for that. All he could hear, besides how fast his heart was beating, was the echoing footsteps on the rugged stone floor from the Cloak group. None of it was helping in the least calm his nerves.
The next words only made it worse. "Something isn't right."
Kain sighed before stopping with the rest of them. "You know, I was really, really hoping someone wouldn't point that out and tempt the universe."
"Raina is right though." Doranbolt pointed around the path. "We've been running for a while, but there's no sign of traps or guards, isn't that just a little suspicious?"
"I don't detect anything nearby with my magic, and it's usually very accurate," Hibiki added in as he showed a scanner screen with nothing around them. "But the leader of the White Tiger division has a point in this being too easy."
Everyone looked towards Goldmine as he took a step forward and looked out in the distance. The cave itself was a great sight on any other time it wasn't occupied with potentially a hundred dark mages. As once they entered, they could see—as far as the dim fire torches could let them—a city shaped entirely of stone and cave.
Houses were more like holes etched into the massive, hollow cave with unknown symbols of creatures that even among the many fantastic creatures Kain saw, he never saw any of the one depicted in the cave painting. What did catch his attention more than the spectacular and exotic sights were the many blue cat paintings though? It reminded him a lot about Cait Shelter.
But once more, Goldmine with sunglasses seemed to be usually tense.
"Draw your weapons." He whispered, but to all of them, he might as well have been shouting. Raina drew her sword, Doranbolt looked around, Hibiki summoned more screens, Jason unsheathed his blade and his sheath became a shield, Kain summoned a copy blade and had Horus' weapon turn into a shield, and Happy tried to be brave and shield Charlie, but the cat just flew to the center of everyone.
Yet, nothing came. This only grew worse as some could only feel their allies sweat.
A wind with an unearthly howl came through and snuffed the torches below. Row after row, the ruins of yesterday were swallowed up by the darkness, always that endless darkness.
The wind swallowed up the lights below until stopping right in front of Goldmine.
Something was there, Kain didn't need magic to know something was there, making his hair stand on end and his goosebumps threaten to burst out his skin.
There was a whisper—or the wind itself seemed to form words as a figure fully cloaked stepped out of the shadow.
"Ýĕćøêóṁǻǹȁȃțȟ?" "Ýĕćøêóṁǻǹȁȃțȟ?" "Ýĕćøêóṁǻǹȁȃțȟ?" "Ýĕćøêóṁǻǹȁȃțȟ?" "Ýĕćøêóṁǻǹȁȃțȟ?" "Ýĕćøêóṁǻǹȁȃțȟ?" "Ýĕćøêóṁǻǹȁȃțȟ?"
That didn't even sound like it belonged to something alive.
"Umbral Thyphoon. Be careful, they're a bunch of fanatics with magic I'm not even sure can be called dark."
Raina was about to strike the being down until Goldmine raised his hand out. "They also ain't alone."
Out of the darkness, more cloaked figures almost willed themselves into the corners of the light.
"Don't let those numbers fool you, there's like fifty of them hiding in the darkness." Goldmine's stance shifted lightly, but many could tell it was looking like a fighting stance.
"S-So, what are they waiting for?"
As soon as Jason asked this, along with the darkness, runes started to be traced. No one liked how a dome with eye-like symbols was drawn over them.
Raina acted first, moving in, only to be pushed back by an invisible wall. Doranbolt channeled magic, but a strike of green thunder smite him and forced him to his knees. Hibiki fired several blasts, but all of them dissipated on contact with the green lines.
Soon, the fires started to flicker and the runes began to close in, shrinking with all intents to crush them like crumpled paper.
"Damn!" Goldmine motioned everyone to the center. "Kids, hold on! We're heading down the old fashioned way!"
"What!?" Jason and Kain both shouted out but it wasn't fast enough as Goldmine lifted his hand and punched the ground.
Just a quick reminder, Goldmine is believed to be on the level of a Wizard Saint.
So when his fist made contact, it pushed through the earth, shattering it like glass, and causing the floor beneath cloak group to collapse and cause them all to fall down. Happy and Charlie quickly flew after them as they fell.
Kain activated his wings and caught Jason as Happy went for Hibiki and Carla went for Raina. Goldmine landed on a rock and Doranbolt teleported nearby him.
Hibiki quickly thanked the cat but as he looked up, his eyes widened. "Incoming!"
The cult mages were dropping in, glowing like fire flies without an inclination that they would be harmless.
"It's not just above!" Everyone looked to Jason pointing down. "Look below!"
If there was a good time for the phrase, stuck between a rock and a hard place, now was that time. The ground was oh so conveniently lined with really, really sharp looking stalagmites. Granted, it technically was the lesser evil compared to what was gunning for them above, but at the rate things were going, they were going to be hard pressed when gravity eventually won this battle.
"Everyone dive!" Raina screamed out before pointing to the ground where a vortex of shadow appeared above some stalagmites. "There!"
Carla took that moment to fly for that shadowy vortex, Cloak Group followed Raina and Charlie's lead and all sped into the rabbit hole with Goldmine pausing to knock away some charging in cultists before jumping into a closing portal before it all came crashing together.
The other side of the shadow vortex opened and everyone fell out and landed on the ground of a dark room lit with… green… light?
"Woah! That was a close one!" Jason stood up before turning to Kain. "Thanks for the-what are you staring at?" Jason asked the wyvern rider who only pointed behind him.
The young man from Phantom Lord swallowed his spit and slowly turned around, it didn't help that as he turned slowly, everyone else was priming themselves into battle position.
When Jason finally turned around fully, behind him was Brain, the leader of the Oracions Seis, smiling smugly with Wendy's body fallen behind him.
"Wendy!" Kain and Carla yelled out, it seemed like both had the shared the same mind along with words as they moved towards the girl, only for Goldmine to slide in between and signal them both not to move any further away from the group.
The air became tense as both Goldmine and Brain stared at each other. Brain moved first, smiling as he raised an open palm to the guild master.
"Mr. Hadis 'Goldmine' Styx. You're looking good for a man your age."
"Dr. Bryan Ockado. since when did you get those weird tattoos?" Goldmine returned the small talk.
"You two met?" Doranbolt seemed surprised at what their interaction was implying.
Brain couldn't help but laugh, yet Goldmine's emotions seemed different from before, it was no longer nonchalant and there was a tension everyone could sense from the older man.
The leader of Oracion Seis spoke out, "Fairy Tail has greatly shaped the mage guild community of Fiore the past century. Among Fairy Tail's second-generation under Master Precht, there was a group of unruly but amazingly talented mages that formed the name, Team Ace. A talented team of mages that even I grew up hearing amazing tales of their exploits, it was hard not to be a fan of their works."
"Team… Ace?" Kain had never heard of that team when he had entered into the guild at all, and he thought he was the one who handled some of their heavy paperwork.
Jason looked over at him. "What? How do you not know Team Ace? They're from Fairy Tail and even my parents talk about them!"
"There were many recordings of the team active during their younger days that made me a fan as well." Brain's voice pointed as if adding to Jason's comment. "And they were five of the most amazing mages I ever witnessed. Makarov, Bob, Rob, Goldmine, and their medic, Porlyusica. In fact, I do believe I owe half of my previous success for showing me some amazing magic over the course of their adventures."
"So you're a fan of us? Yeesh, kid, where'd you get the idea to start a dark guild and wage war on the council from?" Everyone from Cloak Group could tell that despite his easy tone, Goldmine had a strangely serious undertone to his voice.
Brain's smile died down at the question. "… From you and Team Ace, I learned how amazing magic can be. From the magic council… I realized how small we all truly were." His hand holding his staff shivered, and he stared at the ground as if there was something he could not look away from no matter how far or how much time passed.
Everyone say Brain clutch his heart much like someone having a heart attack. The leader flinched and used his skull staff to support himself back up and gasp for breath. Soon he started coughing violently, which surprised all of the cloak group. Not only that, but they also spotted blood spilling from his coughs and blood trailing from the corners of his mouth after he was done. "F-Forgive me. That was unbecoming."
"You're sick?" Hibiki narrowed his eyes as he readied himself. "Surrender, Brain, there's no way you can beat all of us by yourself, especially if you're in that bad of a condition in the first place."
The vitality in his laugh after that ultimatum was betraying the image his coughing fit showed mere seconds ago. "What makes you think I didn't have fail-safes on the off chance that the council sent the Number One Wizard Saint or any of the Gods of Ishgar against me?"
There was a blinding flash of light that exploded from above, causing cloak group except Goldmine to shield their eyes.
"W-What how—?!"
As the light ended, the rest of the cloak group witnessed the birth of an angel of death. Kain, Goldmine, and Happy, when seeing what was in front of them, could only ask a million questions without ever finding an answer.
In front of everyone's fear, disbelief, and a combination of both yet scaled beyond their comprehension, was Makarov Dreyar, a Wizard Saint defending Brain.
"Master is here!?" "Why is the third master of Fairy Tail here!?" "Why is he helping Brain!?"
Goldmine seemed to look towards Brain's staff where the skull had its eyes glowing orange which was the same color of the light over Makarov's eyes.
"Wait, I know that color!" Whatever else Goldmine was about to say was cut off as Makarov closed the distance between them with a punch that the Quarto Cerberus guild master had to counter.
The shockwave that came form the contact blew nearly everyone away. However, the second it ended, a large spike of magic filled the air, followed by Goldmine's rushed voice. "GET HER!"
Goldmine threw away his glasses, and his chocker as a golden bear started to appear behind him while Makarov's hands filled with light, fire, electricity, wind, and ice.
Kain, hearing the previous two words, made a beeline for the unconscious girl before—
Up above, the battle between the Dagger Group and Oracion Seis had only gone downhill. Just minutes ago, you could see a lush, green forest.
Now though? Scarred earth, spikes of earth, mud, leftover broken blades, destroyed trees, puddles of poison, scattered and broken arrows, bullets, leftover seals, dead bodies of criminals, thunderstorms, howling winds, blood, dirt, and anything in between.
As soon as five of the Oracion Seis appeared, the fight that was previously in favor of the Dagger Group now became a battle where each side fought for inch by bloody inch.
One upside for the Dagger group was that their numbers stayed relatively the same, while the numbers of the Oracion Seis were declining, though they would admit all of those soldiers were fodder, even the ones that were able to put up some fight.
However, while some like Prisca, the creepy puppet girl died, some were still fighting. Erigor was still kicking about somehow, driven by anger and the plague doctor lady seemed to be avoiding any attempts to either be killed or knocked out.
Midnight was also seen as untouched as no form of magic seemed to hit him. But it seemed like both Erza and Alexandra noticed something off with his magic and were about to counter-attack.
However, their bloody battle came to a stop with a burst of golden magic struck the field in front of them.
"Tch! Why the hell did you take so long?!" Racer cried out as he backed away from fighting the two ice students of Ur.
As the dust settled, all of Fairy Tail could only stare with levels of horror as the one who entered the fray was none other than…
"Jellal!" As the name escaped Erza's lips, so did a multitude of emotions, the presence of this one person was enough to make the leader of Team Valiant start to tremble as she pointed her sword towards him, shouting words she had no real control over. "What are you doing here?!"
"Jellal was here the whole time?!" William readied his bow towards the highly wanted criminal. "Shit! He's a higher ranked Wizard Saint than Jura!"
Yet with the appearance of this new wild card, everyone noticed that beside Jellal was an elaborate coffin laced with pipes on the top of the coffin, and the symbol of a cracked skull with four blades stabbed into it in the form of a cross.
Jellal stared back at Erza before motioning his hand to slam on to the coffin.
"Wait, Brain's launching that out?!" Angel cried out before backing off far from the elaborate coffin as steam started of blast off the pipes and the symbols on the center started to move.
Even Midnight stepped back behind the coffin as the swords started to spin and then with a click, the latch opened and fog escaped from the opening coffin.
"What the heck is in that coffin?" Gray managed to ask while the Alliance slowly regrouped together.
The door moved slightly—then exploded outward with all the force from being launched from a catapult.
After avoiding the thrown door, they all looked towards the coffin as they all heard the sounds of metal grinding, springs being suppressed, and the smell of very, very old oil covering the charred and destroyed battlefield, even over that of the poisons and other attacks.
It was large, and definitely not a living organism. It was almost ten feet tall, making even the giants of the group look positively small, its legs were like the color of Onyx, capable of shinning even among the smoke clouds and thunder and were curved like long scimitars. A humming sound was heard and vivid red eyes glowed from what looked to be a metal skull of a helm.
A guttural gasp escaped the machine, signaling that despite its powerful metallic look, it sounded like some monster was behind the onyx shell.
Two cybernetic arms pulled on the edge of the open coffin, and it towered over the entire battlefield.
With its skull-like head, glowing red eyes, and ripped up, bloody cloak swaying in the wind, it was like the reaper had just entered into the fight.
"No… no..." The Alliance turned to Tarsus, usually so cool-headed now staring at the metallic being in utter horror. "Brain stole that!?"
"Commander, what is that!?" Even Lahar seemed surprised as he aimed his two pistols at the large metallic creature.
The towering, sleek, metallic creature raised his arm into the coffin. With the speed of a launched rocket, a broad sword that was half the size of a person the sheath fell and this black sword glowed with orange heat like lava as it was caught by the spider-like hand of the beast.
"Deus Bellator Rex," Jellal's soft voice was heard by everyone as he stood beside the coffin still. "The Warrior King and supposed god of the ancient Machina Race, The Griever."
"Wait, he's real!?" Ren stepped back as he recognized the name. "I thought he was just a myth!"
"And in those myths, they say he died!" Lucy added in as she also slowly backed away from the towering legend.
"He is dead!" Racer then laughed before pointing to the machine. "But Brain told us he was able to steal this from the deep weapons Vault of the Magic Council! Even though the being known as the Griever is dead, his body could be used in mint perfect condition as an unstoppable war machine and lucky you guys, you get to test it!"
"Oh yeah?!" Natsu stomped his foot forward, fist flaming. "I can take it down in one—"
Erza stepped in front of him, hand preventing him from moving forward, Natsu was about to ask what was wrong, but then he noticed something: Erza's hand was shaking. The dragon slayer turned back to the machine and realized something: he could sense that thing at all. Not a single ounce of magic, but there was this oppressive pressure that he didn't feel right away.
There was a whistle coming from Cobra from where all the way where he was. "You guys should follow Titania over there, this thing really does deserve its name."
However, Kara from Phantom Lord charged right for the metallic corpse, jumping to the sky with electricity dancing around her and her halberd as she tried to bring it down on the onyx machinas.
Yet faster than they could even imagine, it's leg struck out and it's three claws for toes grabbed onto Kara's hand, stopping her momentum and seemingly being unbothered by the energy.
Then, after the boom of thunder was the crunching of bones like sticks.
"Kara!" The normally stoic monk, Genji raced for his companion, only for her body to be thrown at him with enough force to send them flying right through a boulder.
Eve, from Blue Pegasus, saw this and fired a blast of snow that reached a massive wave to flood the creature. However, the corpse of the Warrior King held back his blade and with one mighty slash, parted the sea of snow in half. In the end, Eve stood frozen with his hands out, until a red line trailed between his eyes.
Then blood exploded from that red line as his whole person split in two.
"EVE!?" His teammate, Ren, shouted with every air of his lungs and gathered a large amount of magic with his hands before roaring, sending a massive air tornado towards the one considered god amongst machines.
Yet as everyone shielded themselves from the gales, the machine king just stood there and stepped towards the tornado, his claws clamping down on the ground with each step he made.
"Ren, stand back!" Ichiya's voice reached the tallest member of the Blue Pegasus.
But the mage didn't stop, "He killed Eve, master! I won't stop until he's dead—" Ren felt off balance a second later. His mind snapped out of his anger as he realized Ichiya was tackling him, another moment passed before Ren realized there was blood and it wasn't his.
The Machina King threw his blade that pierced through the tornado. It was meant to fly right through Ren's heart, but because of Ichiya's move, it stabbed into the pudgy man's ribs.
"Teacher!" Ren cried as he ran to his mentor.
"Don't attack it one by one!" Lyon cried out as he summoned an Ice Tiger and then, seeing Gray from earlier, added cannons on the back of the Ice tiger as it rushed for the Machine King.
"Doll Magic!" Sherry added in as a dozen mud golems surrounded The Griever and all rushed for the black Machina giant.
Faster than a blink, another black sword, one that seemed to unleash fog of cold appeared in the other hand of The Griever, and after a storm of slashes, the mud golems fell like cut fruits. The Ice Tiger pounced, firing blasts at the onyx titan, only for the beast to jump off, knee the construct with enough impact to shatter it in one blow, and beeline it for Lyon all in one graceful movement.
The others fired multiple blasts: fire, ground, arrows, bullets, other ice, and blades. They all would have deterred even someone of the Oracion Seis.
They did nothing to slow down the creature moving, zig-zagging, jumping, flipping over attacks. Even the Magnetism Mage, Alexandra found it odd that none of her spells were working on the metallic beast.
Lyon stood his ground and summoned an Ice Dragon—that had its head lopped off the second it formed and the Machine King jumped for Lyon, only for the ground beneath the ice mage to give away and make him fall into a hole.
Jura motioned his hand beside him as Lyon came falling upward next to him. "Thanks."
"This truly is a fearsome opponent, just like the stories describe him as." Jura gasped in reaction to what happened next. They had all looked away for a second, but the hard to miss, metal, swordmaster titan had blasted a hole out of the ground and somehow disappeared from the sight of everyone around in the explosion of dust.
That was until a shriek made everyone turn.
"S-Sherry!?" Lyon cried out as their female teammate had a sword plunged through her back, her body freezing over… then with one swipe if its black arms, turning her body into crystal dust that was scattered into the wind.
The Griever looked over towards Ren and Ichiya. His empty hand stretched out, and soon the flame blade flew through the air back into his free arm.
"We can't win like this anymore! He's taking us out one by one!" William screamed out, firing an arrow that seemed to be glowing with light and as The Griever swatted the arrow, as soon as the black blade made contact with it, there was a large explosion that covered it.
Yet, out of the smoke, the Griever walked without a scratch.
"Damn!" Racer whistled and folded his arms. "Why don't we send this guy to do our fighting for us in the first place? It's way more effective than criminals."
"I wanted to be the one to impress father by beating them myself." Midnight scoffed. "But seeing this thing in action does catch my interest."
Cobra was smiling as well until his ears started to twitch. "Hey wait a second, I just heard some of their thoughts just now. Shit! They sent another group to sneak to Brain while we were all fighting here!"
Angel turned to Cobra with obvious surprise. "You scaly, poison eating idiot! Why didn't you hear that plan sooner?!"
"They were all focused on attacking us! If it was just one on one, that would be easy to read their hidden thoughts, but all of them were thinking about attacking us and I was focused on that!" He then pointed back at her. "Now that I think about it, why didn't any of you guys notice that the one we were warned about wasn't even here?!"
"You mean they're after father?" Cobra and his snake flinched when they felt the poisonous tone coming from Midnight who was now glaring at them.
"Brain already knew something was wrong," The Poison Dragon Slayer released a breath of relief as Jellal spoke out without turning away from the fight. "He said he prepared something."
At that moment, the ground started to shake uncontrollably.
"Please tell me that's you." Tarsus turned to Jura who only shook his head.
A crack appeared across the ground, splitting up the Dagger Group from the killing machine. The crack filled up with light before it exploded like a geyser. Instead of water, it was people that flew up, screaming all kinds of panic.
It was Cloak Group, minus Goldmine, flying in the air before landing towards Dagger Group.
Kain, who was holding an unconscious Wendy in his arms, turned and cried out to Doranbolt. "We're out, get us all out of here!"
The Rune Knight looked to everyone aghast coming over his face as he realized the sheer numbers in front of him, "I don't have enough magic for this many people!"
Lahar started walking up to them, "Doranbolt, what's going—"
His shouts were stopped short as the ground continued shaking, something shot up before backflipping and sliding on the ground towards The Alliance, revealing Goldmine without his hat choker, and sunglasses, showing glowing golden eyes and a golden phantom of a giant wolf standing right behind him.
Goldmine rose, turned back to everyone with his eyes still glowing gold. "We have Wendy, get ready to run!" The Guild Master cried out with urgency that no one heard of him before.
"Oh and miss out on this wonderful sight?" A voice echoed around the area that seemed to come from all directions.
A hand the same size of a giant grabbed on to the crack and pulled itself up.
The rest of Dagger Group could only pale in horror, Fairy Tail in particular, the bravest of the group, now had fear and disbelief grip their hearts as they saw what was in front of them.
"Gramps?!" Natsu couldn't help it. The same face of a man who gave him a home, who was like a second father after Igneel, who gave him a family and taught him the value of others, was standing against them as if he was their enemy, with Brain ridding on his shoulder.
Laughter boomed around the Alliance, as their fear only grew. "Surprised Fairy Tail? I bet you're wondering how I came across this ancient fossil?"
"Master!" "Gramps!" "Master Makarov!" "What did you do to him, you bastard!?" The rest of Team Valiant demanded.
Brain waved his skull staff which was glowing orange—much like how Makarov's eyes were glowing. "Oh, you would not believe what the Magic Council hides from the public." He pointed his hand up, signaling the rest of the criminals and Oracion Seis to follow behind him. Along with them, The Griever and his two high and low-temperature blades. "But this is the end for all of you. I would say something snappy, but hearing your bones crushed by the Wizard Saint Makarov would probably be just as well."
Oracion Seis with all of its resources started to move towards the weakened Alliance. The sight of the overwhelming forces snapped Kain out of his stupor as he turned towards everyone. "Guys, make a barrier! The best-combined one you all can muster!"
There was no time to question, no time to think, just do. Those who were left created a barrier comprised of Lahar's Bullet marked Justsu Shiki, Jura's Earthmoving magic, Gray and Lyon's Ice, Hibiki's Archive magic, and anything else that could be used.
An impressive dome was made, but then instantly attacked by Oracion Seis' full power and it was obvious to everyone involved it wouldn't last for long.
Jason turned to everyone. "We need to leave! Get everyone injured and let's go!"
When he said this, the dome around them shook violently.
"We can't move away fast enough! As soon as the dome fails, their speedster mage will just catch up with us and they'll be able to find us in our second base, which isn't as defended as the last one!" William pointed behind the walls of magic that cracked and shook again.
Kain then looked over towards a bloody corpse of one of the Criminals and his eyes widened. He quickly looted it and turned to Doranbolt. "Doranbolt, you need to get us out of here!"
The raven-haired rune knight was about to protest once more until something was tossed at him. As he caught it in his hand, he realized it was a Rhodonite drug, the same ones the criminals were using to boost their magic.
Another heavy shake and light started to appear in the cracks, and everyone knew it wasn't sunlight.
"Do it!" Kain shouted.
Doranbolt didn't hesitate and swallowed the drug. "Everyone get close!" He yelled as everyone crowded in, gathering those still injured and even…
With one final shake, the magical walls shattered and all of Oracion Seis found nothing inside the dome.
Racer speed in, but saw no signs of them making an escape.
Brain could feel the lingering magic in the air and licked his tongue. He suddenly felt a pain in his chest. This signaled to him that there was no more time for this. "Everyone! Get moving! I know where Nirvana is now!"
Angel looked up towards Brain, not as stupefied as the rest at seeing a puppeteered Makarov. "But what about the Alliance?"
"We have the firepower to repel them all back. Nirvana is still top priority! And as of right now, I think I finally realized what that song meant."
Brain gripped his staff before pointing forward, making Makarov move along in the direction he pointed. It didn't take long for the others to follow, even if some were still injured from the fight, it looked like Brain and the Oracion Seis cared little for them. Damned if they do damned if they don't.
While ahead, Brain did his best not to move. His heart was aching once more and in his mind, the leader of the Oracion Seis knew his time was running out fast.
{Author Notes}
To address the Elephant in the room, yes, I basically brought in Grievous from Star Wars in this world and made him like an undead Robot/Machinas. When I saw the species of Machina I thought about something interesting and saw an opportunity to add Grievous. I fell in love with his first introduction to the 2003 Clone Wars cartoons, he was like a truly unstoppable force.
Also, since no one pointed it out, Rhodonite drugs are actually in the Fairy Tail Cannon. Yes, this magic increasing drugs that nullify pain are found in Gajeel's Side story and I thought it would be cool to added them here since there's a lot of stuff I can get from the spinoffs.
Makarov finally makes his brainwashed appearance, and there wasn't much timing to fit how he was controlled but I'll explain that later. I also will further explain my take on Goldmine's magic a little later since I didn't know how to make it flow well during this part of the story without dropping interruptive exposition.
So by now, you guys are starting to get that this Oracion Seis may be the longest of my arcs to date. There's a lot to cover here beside the changes from cannon.
One of those things are the character deaths. I wanted to up the stakes of this arc in particular. So I decided to actually kill off some characters so that I can have less trouble managing all of them.
So far, I've killed off three: Eve, Sherry—Yes, I know what killing her means, and one of the OCs given to my by Warmachine375—you guys should read his works, he's a cool guy.
Anyway, happy holidays guys, I might not be able to post anything. I'll keep my eyes open for free time though.
Thanks for reading.
Deleted Scene: Teleporters.
Believe it or not, Claustrophobia is not the fear of Santa Claus. It is the fear of tight spaces, which really puts things in perspective with how the underground paths and buildings were created, you could barely lift and stretch out your hands to half their lengths just walking down one of the paths.
"Alright," Hibiki whispered as he led the group with a map. "If my detection pinging is working..."
Finally there was a breeze coming up ahead, when the Cloak group entered, they saw a room with a glowing platform.
"That's a teleporter?" Kain heard Doranbolt speak up.
"Yes," Hibiki explained. "I detected it earlier when we went in this cave. This one has the most magic, so I'm guessing it'll put us straight into the bottom floor."
"Guess?" Jason repeated.
"It's more of an educated one, but yes. It may lead to somewhere else completely."
"Well, only one way to find out." Goldmine led the group and jumped into the teleport platform first before vanishing in a flash of light.
The rest of the cloak group followed after him, figuring that the guild master would still know what he was doing.
Goldmine turned around as he saw the other follow him. "There you all are—hey, where's Maky's lawyer?"
The dagger group looked back among themselves, and noticed the distinct lack of wyvern rider among them.
Elsewhere, said lawyer was currently recalling that his armor also liked to amplify his horrible luck on random usages, so of course it would make his teleport destination different than everyone else's—wait. Didn't that happen in the Isle of the dead where his armor messed with a mass teleport, scattering many people across the isle? Huh.
The point for this reason was because he found himself in front of Brain's staff, which was glowing with deathly energy right in front of him.
"For somehow almost getting the jump on me," Brain began in a voice like beast born of nightmares. "I'll allow you some last words, worm."
Kain only found himself sighing and staring at something that was not at all important. "Why is it that I meet a surprising amount of mages with exposed midriffs?"
The attack was unleashed no sooner that last syllable left his mouth. Thankfully, Kain had the mind to move just as fast to avoid the point blank attack with his super speed...