As the winds passed through the ruined civilization of Nirvana, Brain could almost feel the ancient air hit him, as if he was there, generations ago when this place was first made.
Lakuya, Nirvana, the Weapon of the Ancients, here he was at last, and he could feel the magic around him unfurling, as if it was slowly waking up from a deep slumber. Here he was, years of planning and this was it, he could feel it coming together. He was at the very brink of victory at last!
He spotted the large tower, unlike the rest of the ruins, the tower seemed more preserved. As he got closer, the magic in the air could be practically be felt touching skin like the wind. Eventually, he reached the top of the tower with a few well placed teleport spells and as he stood in the center of an elaborate room, the magic in the wind started to stir, the room soon regained colors long lost and magical symbols started to appear around Brain.
"This is it." As Brain raised his hand, he suddenly felt something. Soon, three line tattoos vanished from his face and body. "What!? Three of them lost!? Of all times, they had to lose now?!"
The leader of Oracion Seis suddenly started to cough. "There's no time then." He reached out his staff and pointed it towards the machine.
Instantly the tower thrummed with old magic.
As Brain felt the magic activate several magical symbols opened up. "There it is! Nirvana's Guardian System!"
It was at that moment the slumbering magic of Nirvana, and hundreds of glowing eyes, were reawakened.
"Nirvana," I heard Lucy gasp as she looked up above. "It's not what I expected it to be."
I had to admit, seeing real magical and fantastical settings up close and personal was a very specialized experience. Every other time almost took my breath away, maybe they would if I didn't know how dangerous they were. Sasly for me, I wouldn't get to enjoy this beautiful view either because someone else was on my mind.
"Are you alright, Wendy?" I turned to the girl who seemed to fidget at my mention.
"I-I'm sorry, you all told me to go but Brain—" I ended up kneeling and putting a hand on her shoulder.
"You did great, Wendy. It's not your fault. We can still stop this." I spoke earnestly. She seemed to relax after hearing my words and nodded once. I stood back up, trying to fight the logical part of my brain that was just confused as to how we would stop The Oracion Seis and Brain.
As soon as I said this, we heard the sound of people coming closer, to our relief it was both Erza and Gray's group. While we were all happy to see each other, we soon had to compare notes.
"So you're telling me that Goldmine is fighting Gramps somewhere?" Gray asked.
And then, some distance away, we saw a large, see through, golden hawk screeched high before several powerful towers erupted and clashed with the descending hawk. The clash caused us to all shield our eyes while the earth shook a bit.
As that little light show died down, I was the first to break the silence. "Well, good news is we know where they are. Bad news is, even without magic, I can tell Goldmine is pinned down trying to fight our master."
"I can barely feel their magic with Nirvana's so close." Jason commented before looking up on high.
"We should hurry with our next move," Lyon spoke out before pointing towards Ignis. "Let's get on this thing and go up there." I took obvious offense to calling Ignis an it.
"As much as we could do that, we need a battle plan," Raina began before I could even call Lyon a knock off version of Gray. "By the process of elimination, Jellal, Midnight, and Hot Eye may still be around to defend Brain. Two of those names alone imply Oracion Seis still has it's stronger members while we're lacking." I spotted Gray looking over to Erza, of course the name Jellal would get to her. There was still that complication among all this madness.
Then, the White Tiger Commander looked over towards our… newcomer. "We also have to acknowledge this… automaton."
Ah yes, this mossy robot that reminded of the shape of the Iron Giant, yet the color pallet and age of one of the robots from the Laputa, castle in the sky movie. It's really interesting to see things from my world bleed into this one, or was that one Justice League episode right? That all fiction are just people having a psychic memory of different worlds happening at the same time? Questions for later though, as it seemed to keep it's eyes on Wendy.
"We were already attacked by a dead machina. We don't need another machine thrown into the mix." Lyon spoke with the same temperature as his magic, but I could tell others were on similar wavelengths. The Machina King, AKA Earthland's version of General Grievous, killed Sherry and Eve with very little effort—and sadly this is the first time we've actually suffered casualties in these quests. I mean, we've almost died before, but now? Maybe our luck finally ran out?
I shook my head. Those thoughts are especially not welcome at this time. "Wendy, you told us earlier that this one was the guardian seal of Nirvana?"
The small girl nodded and tried to explain that it seemed to listen to her command, even Brain had to overpower her voice just to make the automaton do his bidding. However, she also said that he didn't seem to listen to her in re sealing Nirvana.
That instantly caught my attention before looking up to the mossy construct. "Wendy, sealing up Nirvana took a bunch of ancient mages to do so. I think this Guardian was the lock and key to that seal…" As I spoke that out something came to me. I could feel everyone looking at me when I was staring at the automaton that was waiting for Wendy. Then, as my thoughts started to form, I spoke, "Wait a second, the ancients gave this robot the ability to open the seal. That means the ancients might have foreseen Nirvana being re-awoken some day and the Guardian was left here for that purpose. Wendy, I think the Guardian is meant to lead the descendants on what to do, like an elaborate instruction manual."
At that moment all eyes were on the mossy metallic figure. "Wendy, I'm going on a limb if the ancients combined some magic tech in them, but as the Guardian to show us a schematic—map of Nirvana."
The blue haired girl seemed to take my words seriously as she looked up towards the robot. "U-Uh please show us a map of Nirvana!"
At that moment, the Automaton started to move. The gaps between it's plating started to glow from the core of its torso until it flowed through out it's body. The glowing green-blue eyes shined and then pointed behind us until a holograph isle of Nirvana was before us.
"Good job, Wendy." I told her as we all looked towards the hologram map. It showed something akin to what I expected from being under it. An entire floating kingdom, like sky Atlantis or that one Ghibli movie I watched as a kid. Speaking of tropes, I'd bet Brain would be somewhere in that elaborate looking tower in the center of the map—huh? I thought I saw a symbol of a cat for a second on the corner of the map.
However, before I could begin to speak out, there was a sudden shift of sounds coming from the Automaton. The tower in the green blue hologram started to glow red and soon, the map started to fill out with red dots around the outer edge of the kingdom ruins.
"W-What's it doing!?" Lahar cried out as he took out his two pistols.
Yet once more, it seemed like several things were happening at once because Happy, Charla, and Ignis all looked up. The two cats gasped as they did while Ignis was snarling angrily with intent to fight. My eyes went back to the hologram where the dots started to flicker much like a scanner, and all of those red dots were rushing towards one corner of the isle—
A corner that looked suspiciously like the area we were currently right under.
Much to my dismay, an army of ancient war robots coming at us from above with charged weapons made me wish that this world wasn't so creative in trying to kill me.
He was more than impressed. The Nirvana Defense System was more than he could hope. The ancient magic screens showed inside the isle, beneath the city ruins, was an intricate magic factory capable of creating an army of magical golems. And that was just one of the many defense systems Nirvana had to offer!
Brain laughed and laughed as he did not to long ago. "This… This is even better than I imagined! And it appears that Nirvana did indeed have more defense systems than I originally thought!"
The man smiled as he opened up a screen showing those battling his first wave. "But as fun as this was, I would very much like to have them in the upcoming assault on Era. It's time to activate Nirvana's true magic!"
He threw his staff and it instantly shot two lasers from it's eye sockets into a magical lock that appeared in front of him. His intent was to unlock Nirvana's most potent magic to turn his enemies into his allies, and use them against his enemies. However, before the lasers could hit the lock, it vanished, making Brain blast nothing but air.
The Leader of Oracion Seis looked on with bewilderment. Soon, screens popped up around him, saying, 'Access Denied.'
"Denied?" Brain repeated before noticing something on the screen: below the words, the symbol of a two tailed cat was staring at him. "No, I still need the girl!?"
He gritted his teeth and opened up his mouth. "Then I'll just order the bots…" Brain trailed off when he noticed the remaining Alliance members beating back the robots. "I don't have time for this." He looked at his hand and noticed a distinct lack of lines that used to be there. Brain raised a finger to his head. "All remaining Oracion Seis Members. Attack the remaining alliance members, but capture and subdue Wendy Marvel once more. I've made a miscalculation in my haste to get to Nirvana, I can't have complete control over it without her."
"Is that so, Father?" Midnight's voice reached the link. "I really wanted to take a nap by now."
"Err yes Yes!" Hot Eye's line came in though he sounded nervous, not that Brain paid much mind. "I too will get there and capture the girl once more."
The remaining Oracion Seis members should be able to take on the remaining alliance members. Especially since both Midnight and Jellal were still…
Brain realized he didn't hear from his newest member. "Jellal? Where are you?" he asked through the link.
"I'm right here." The leader of Oracion Seis heard that voice. It was indeed Jellal's but it wasn't from the link. The voice came from behind him.
The appearance of the former councilman surprised Brain, but he easily dismissed it. "You need to go back down there and ensure the capture of Wendy Marvel once more."
There was only silence in response to the order until Brain felt an abnormal spike of magic.
A second later, Brain felt an intense pain before he was smashed into the side of the wall by a magical force.
"J-Jellal!?" Brain coughed as he suddenly felt pressure on himself. Jellal was using his magic to attack him!? "What are you doing!?"
His only response was silence once more and another spike of magic as Jellal sent a blast of energy towards the pinned down leader of Oracion Seis.
Jellal released a breath of air, sensing Brain's magic power diminish greatly. The room felt quiet, almost too quiet until Jellal could only laugh, a laughter that sounded more painful than pleasant.
"I must have done some atrocious crime in my past life." The blue haired mage somberly began, looking at his palm in partial disgust. "In order to atone for my sins, I had to betray the only man who knew of my great sins, yet openly welcomed me as a friend? Is even my path to redemption still damned?"
"Damned is too weak a word to describe what you will be, Jellal Fernandez!"
The former Wizard Saint snapped his head back up. He was sure he took out Brain with that surprise attack without the leader's magical energy up. However, with the leader still sprawled on the ground, the Wizard Saint turned his attention towards the center of the room where Brain was standing not too long ago.
There, the skull staff which had the brain of the evil mage, Jumanda Hagu, was standing up right, animated by magic that Jellal wasn't aware off.
"This betrayal shall not go unpunished!" The staff declared with eyes glowing orange. "I revoke your control over the Machina King!"
Jellal's eyes widened as he gathered energy to try and stop the staff. However, as he made his move, he could hear the distant sound of steel moving closer to him at an alarming rate.
The former councilman jumped back before the area he was standing on was attacked by a figure he knew far too well.
"Machina King," The staff began with glowing orange eyes. "I, Kloda, the staff of Brain, order to you to kill Jellal with your full power!"
The blue haired mage could only curse under his breath as the very tool that he fought along side with was now being used against him with all six of it's specialized elemental blades. It seemed irony had no intention of lessening Jellal's circumstances.
"Brain?" Hot Eye tried to link once more, only to find nothing but his own thoughts.
"What happened?" Genji of Phantom Lord asked the mage who was once obsessed with money.
"Something happened with the link, which means something Happened to Brain." Hot eye then looked up to the floating Isle. "I think Jellal is up there in Nirvana."
At that moment, the sound of two fists coming together and igniting with flames was heard, this caused the group to look towards Natsu, who seemed deadly serious after setting down Ren safely beneath a tree.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go up there and kick Jellal's ass!"
"Father?" Midnight looked up to Nirvana after hearing the link disconnect. "Father!?" With a flick of his wrist, he summoned his flying carpet and sped up towards the floating isle.
The alliance members defeated the last of the first wave.
Jason of Phantom Lord pointed up to Nirvana. "We need to get up there before the next wave overwhelms us!"
"Everyone, get on Ignis!" Erza cried out before she turned into her Black Wing Armor. "Kain, come with me!"
With out waiting a second, Erza flew up with Kain close behind her. Wendy looked to Carla, who picked her up and flew off as well with the Guardian Automaton following after her. Everyone else climbed a top of the crimson wyvern before they all raced towards the floating isle.
Jellal didn't find the small room favorable against the Griever. He blasted a nearby wall and raced out of there with Meteor. However, the Griever was still hot under his trail, using his six limbs to run after him like a spider-death god.
Kloda watched as the battle traveled out of the control tower. "You're not escaping that easily, Jellal. I can send the entire..." The staff stopped mid sentence as several screens appeared, revealing proximity warnings. "Tch, the alliance is making their move."
The staff glowed, and soon more screens appeared in front of the staff. "Forgive me master, it seems my priority is to stop our enemies first."
However, as the staff started to unlock the heavier defenses, a different screen activated a little behind the animated staff, one that was flashing a cat symbol…
Erza slashed through several attack bots incoming their way before hearing something above them in their ascent to the isle. "Kain, above us!"
The red rider looked up, seeing a row of automatons looking down towards the upcoming group with glowing eyes.
Kain recalled the Guardian had laser eye beams and considering the one on their side was an upgraded version, it stood to reason that the mass produced versions had similar abilities as well. He was right as the row of enemies fired a river of beams heading right for the alliance.
Without wasting another second, Erza flew froward and transformed her armor into her Adamantine Armor while Kain turned the Omni Tool into a platform for Erza to stand on with her heavy armor. Luckily for them, the beams aimed for one area, Erza's shield. The unlucky part was that they were up in the air.
The shield of Erza could hold, but Kain instantly felt the weight of a skyscraper pressing down on him, which of course was far beyond his strength limit. They were surely being pushed back until something helped supported Kain's platform. Kain looked towards the right and saw the Guardian and Wendy with Carla trying to push back the attack.
"We gotta help them out! Ignis get up there!" Gray cried out as the wyvern tried to fly further up. However, Ignis suddenly stopped moving. The reason he did was because there were some automatons coming in from the side which forced those a top of Ignis to focus their attacks and defense from being swarmed.
"Hold me up a little longer!" Erza cried out before she inhaled deeply and seemed to focus. She twisted one of her hands in such a way that a finger would be touching the back of her shield and with that fingers she started to write a symbol that glowed a green color.
The symbols completed them selves and no sooner than they were finished, they started to glow a soft gold light. The energy beams reflected back, destroying the entire row of attackers.
There was a gasp of relief coming from those taking on the brunt of that attack. Yet it was short lived as the ground beneath the isle opened up with a bright green light. Before anyone could react, Wendy's Cait Shelter guild mark started glowing and a second later, the girl screamed as she was yanked out of Carla's hands and dragged into the light.
"Wendy!" Both Kain and Carla shouted out as they raced after her, the Guardian and Erza racing after shortly after. Despite their speed, Wendy was already taken in by the light and soon the walls started to close as soon as she was taken in. Kain grabbed on to Carla and sped in faster, which prompted both the Guardian and Erza to do the same, all four making it into the light before it closed off completely.
"Erza!" "Kain!" Gray and Lucy respectively screamed as Ignis was nowhere near where the five flew in to.
"We need to get to land! It's obvious Ignis can't move as fast with all of us ridding him like this!" Jason's voice shouted out.
"But what about our friends?!" Lucy looked back.
"Ms. Scarlet is among them, they should be fine! Focus on clearing a path, without our fliers, we're sitting ducks in the air!" Raina declared before throwing her blade into the head right into the head of an incoming automaton. As it cut through, a black glow stopped the blade mid air and made it fly back to her hand. The Fiore knight looked over to Alexandra of Phantom Lord and nodded once in thanks.
Up on the tower, Kloda was staring at a screen. "What? What was that just now? I didn't command the defense system to do that." The staff looked among the defense system, but he was briefly distracted by a blast not too far from the hole in the wall. "Still, with the Machina King facing against Jellal, I have no choice but to activate the full security system against those that remain in the alliance. I refuse to let them take Master Brain until he's recovered!"
With that bold declaration, Kloda's eyes glowed orange and soon more screens appeared, ancient writings described the following words: Titans Activated.
The party on Ignis finally landed onto Nirvana, the floating, ruined city. The air was different even with some traces of smoking automatons nearby the landing party.
"Where's Erza and Kain?!" Gray cried out as he looked around.
"Your friends can handle themselves, Gray." Lyon spoke with all the tone of his elemental magic. "Our problem is the near infinite supply of robots being sent right for us. Unless we take down that glowing green tower in the distance, we'll be swarmed and out of magic if we spend any more time looking for your allies."
"You fellow ice mage speaks the truth." Lahar concurred before Gray could even respond. "We're losing too many numbers at this rate. Stoping Brain is our top priority now that Nirvana has been reawakened. We head to the tower and defeat him there."
As soon as he said this, the isle started to rumble. Gray, Lucy, Ignis, Lyon, Lahar, Jason, Riana, and Alexandra noticed that some of the very buildings and giants statues started to glow with green lines and soon some of them started to transform. Several buildings seemed to merge together to form two giant-sized stone robots while the remaining statues turned into more animalistic automatons.
"Soooo," Jason gulped as he raised his shield while everyone else seemed to tense into battle positions. "I think those guys won't let us near the tower."
Gray cursed under his breath. "They're not going to stop us!" He shouted with valor before firing an ice spell.
Jellal backflipped to avoid the pressure of gravity destroying the building he was atop on only seconds ago.
"It's far more annoying having him as an opponent than an ally." The former councilman gritted his teeth. Out of the dust cloud of the broken, old building, the Machina King strode forward with all six blades.
"I'm wasting time here, I need to get back to Brain before he wakes up again!" Jellal activated Meteor, the spell that increased his speed to amazing velocity. However, he knew with even this increase, the Machina King could still track and even keep up with his movements. But that was not the point of this move.
Jellal dove fast straight for the onyx colored, steel titan as he readied his blades. "It seems I have Kain Reynolds to thank for this move."
The blue haired mage unleashed a burst of speed, moving faster towards the Machina King. The titan slowly pulled back his blade and with a large swipe of his hands that moved faster than the tip of a whip… the Machina King hit nothing but air?
Jellal had cancelled his speed and magic a few feet before reaching the range of the Machina King. His charge was a feint attack to bait out the Machina King's ability to tag him; the eight limbed titan attacked too soon. While Jellal stopped his speed, he didn't stop his momentum. Gathering energy into his fist, Jellal threw a punch as the Machina King tried to re-maneuver. The impact of the magical punch sent the Machina King flying across the air into the opposite side of the isle.
Jellal released his breath and wiped his forehead. "Now to get to—" The Wizard Saint's senses blared and he instinctively jumped out of the way. A few seconds later, an invisible force tore the ground Jellal was previously on. Jellal recognized this spark of magic and looked up—only to inwardly curse as he realized he had just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
"Jellal!" Midnight, the usually slothful and lazy member of Oracion Seis was staring down Jellal with the epitome of wrath. "What have you done to father?!"
As the fallen Wizard Saint prepared for another fight, he was wondering if by even acting like the lawyer for a moment, he had accidentally inherited his horrible luck.
Those that flew after Wendy didn't know what to expect when they flew into the light, all they knew was that they didn't want to lose the girl a second time.
However, behind the light there was only a deep darkness.
"Wendy!" Carla pushed herself out of Kain's arms as she flew towards the little girl kneeling a few feet away from the fliers. Soon, Erza and Kain followed after her.
The girl looked back, only to have her attention seemingly caught by something in front of her. As the rest came over to her, they saw, not to far from Wendy was a glowing white cat with two tails.
Wendy's symbol started to glow and the cat looked up towards the girl, who could only stare back at the ghostly feline.
"At last," The voice of the cat was that of wind passing through a large valley. "Our redemption is finally upon us."
"And with that opening line, I'm more confused than anything else." Kain began as he and the others walked up. "Can we please get some context as to what's going on?"
The ghost cat looked over to Kain, who seemed to quiet up as the ethereal being looked at him in silence for some seconds.
"I suppose introductions are in order." The cat stood up on all of it's fours and looked towards the group. "My name is Roubaul, one of the head makers of Nirvana."
Both Carla and Wendy gasped. "Roubaul? Master Roubaul?!"
"Master?" The cat tilted his head to the right. "You must have me confused with someone else then. I am a left over presence tasked with guiding our descendants in what must be done to destroy Nirvana."
"Destroy Nirvana?" Erza repeated in confusion.
"I suppose I must start from the beginning." The ghost cat started to glow and soon, like someone shinning a flash light through the darkness, a wall was revealed showing much of the old art style scattered across this land. It depicted flames, destroyed cities, people fleeing, dragons in the darkened skies, and some strange and odd beasts hunting after some people.
"Before The Gathering War, magic was untamed, chaotic, and dangerous." The cat began as he turned around, walking ahead. As he did, the 'wall' seemed to follow him and the art work seemed to animate. The dragons in the sky were destroying whatever was left of the houses, and the monstrous creatures were eating poor people. And even other people armed with spears were attacking others. The three people, one cat, and robotic automaton followed the cat while watching the wall.
The picture seemed to stop and soon came in a new mural, that depicting of people wearing clothes similar to that of Wendy only far more extravagant, revealing that they were leaders of some kind.
"My people and I got together with the best constructers, makers, and molders. Our idea was to create a kingdom that would protect us from not only the magical chaos of our world, but also soothe the savage hearts and turned them into kind and loving people."
The mural started to show many people, even some of different races like dwarves and minotaurs, or as they were known in Earthland, Minotauren, were helping to build the city. Eventually, the mural changed into a beautiful city isle in the sky.
"Oh," Kain whispered as he watched the mural. "I'm starting to see why they said Nirvana had brainwashing magic."
The cat turned around. "It wasn't meant for brainwashing. It was meant to bring the good out of bad people." The phantom cat then looked down, as if utterly ashamed. "I should have seen it sooner. We created an intricate and powerful magical nexus that changed people for the better by switching the emotional and mental magical properties in their body. I did not fathom the interconnected theory of balance between that of Luminosity and Tenebrosity until it was too late."
"Uhhh?" Wendy and even Erza seemed somewhat confused at the large words the cat spoke out.
Kain, who was in no way a magical expert, but was really good with words spoke out. "From what I did understand, he helped make the powerful magic that turns people good and evil, but even though what you created did it's job, you made a miscalculation that ended up in disaster."
The cat sighed as the mural changed, revealing a person who was half white and half black. "In simpler terms, our magic turned bad people good by 'flipping' their essence so that their light sides would be dominant instead of their darker, crueler sides and emotions. It worked for a time, but as I lamented earlier ago, I didn't understand how much light and darkness need to be balanced together. The magical nexus that we created, over time, started to change. All of the dark energy we 'flipped' over, some of it was stored into the nexus. With how often we used it, it stored and captured many dark essence over time."
The mural showed something shinning in the center of the isle. However, with Roubaul's words, the shinning light slowly dimmed and started to turn black. "The reason the machine did this was to balance out all the 'light' we kept using it on. It came to the point where Nirvana became so full of light, the machine itself couldn't keep up with that imbalance. It gained a form of sentience where it need to be balanced and it did so by breaking through our control and 'flipping' all light of the city into darkness.
The dimming in the mural swallowed the whole mural and a new mural, one that almost seemed painted with blood took it's place.
"That was the day Nirvana fell." The cat stated softly. "Every thing we worked, for, everything we accomplished, undone in one moment by hindsight." The ghost cat looked up. "And it only got worse. The magic of our city had become twisted and was unleashing an unstable amount of energy that we could not stop. It threatened to pull all of Ishgar into its reversal magic, turning those who were good into evil and perhaps even evil ones to turn far more ruthless and removed of whatever honor they had left. I and the remainder of those still sane sealed off the city… and in doing so damned everyone living there."
The light of the mural faded, returning to the darkness from a while ago.
"Before I left the seal and our last Exemplar." The cat looked towards the Guardian, revealing the second name of the ancient automaton. "I left this ghost of my magic as a failsafe incase Nirvana was awaken by someone other than our descendants." The two tailed cat looked over towards Wendy. "You who bare our mark, destroy Nirvana before it's activated."
"Before it's—is it not already activated?" Erza asked with equal amount of shock.
The cat shook his head. "There were several failsafes we added after sealing Nirvana. One of them sealed the controls over the Magical Nexus that could convert both light and dark energy. It would only work for someone who bears proof of our culture, which this young lady now has." Everyone looked towards Wendy and to the symbol on her shoulder. "She must be the one to destroy Nirvana and end this eternal nightmare."
"Wait," Carla spoke out and pointed towards the ghost cat. "Why couldn't you destroy Nirvana in the first place?"
"It was impossible to destroy it at it's peak. The magic it gathered could potentially take out a little less than half the continent. Right now? The centuries of the magic being inactive means that it's finally possible to destroy Nirvana without grave repercussions." The cat looked back towards Wendy. "However, you must move quickly! Nirvana's magic grows with each person passively converted between light and darkness. If this isle were to reach any populated area, it may regain it's unstable power before it's first sealing!"
Everyone looked towards each other. A brief second past before Erza, Kain, and Carla looked towards Wendy.
"We will help you." Wendy spoke out with courage. "What do we need to do?"
The ghost cat nodded. "You will need to follow that path." As he said this, a lighted road appeared that seemed to go on to a distant flicker of light. "It will lead you all to the heart of the isle, where the main magic of Nirvana rests. One of our descendants and the Last Exemplar must—"
There was horrible shaking in the isle, followed by the sound of glass shattering all around the darkness.
"What?!" The cat known as Rauboul shouted. He started to flicker in and out of existence. "No! What has enough magic to pierce through—"
He didn't get to finish. Something from above crashed through the darkness and seemed to undo the specific magic. With the old magic gone, the area around them was revealed to be an old, ruined pathway lit up by ancient green runes and the walls held pictures of the murals the group had seen previously before. The cat looked desperately at the group, his flicker becoming more frequent, his form fading rapidly.
"Music!" The cat cried out in utter desperation before he vanished, like someone snuffing out a candle light.
Yet, even with the cat gone, their troubles were not over.
Something had physically crashed through the ceiling and into their path. Whatever it was it seemed to be smoking, as if it was hit by a powerful attack. Soon, six colors glowed from behind the smoke and everyone in that group could see what had fallen.
It was the Machina King, now armed with six blades instead of two. As it rose from whatever grand attack that warded it away, it glanced to it's left, to see those from the Alliance.
Erza stepped forward fast, summoning her fire pants, bandages over her breast, and two katanas. "Wendy! Get to the center of the Isle! Kain and I will hold him off!"
Kain, on the opposite emotional spectrum, raised out a finger lamely. "Umm, can I go with Wendy?"
"Are you that cowardly!?" Carla yelled out.
The lawyer from another world looked down towards the talking cat. "Do you want to fight that thing!?"
"Kain!" Erza yelled as the Griever slowly turned it's whole body towards all of them.
"Dang it!" Kain yelled as he took out the Omni Tool and turned it into a shield. "I really..."
The boy's complaint was cut short as the Griever seemed to give off a sudden metal scream and wielded his blades into a terrifying battle position… that was pointed specifically towards the boy from another world.
"What the heck!? Why is it angry at me!?" Kain took a step back and put the shield up— "Wait a second. It's looking at the Omni Tool."
"...The Omni Tool given to me by Erza, who originally got it from Horus Anhur." Kain began monotonously.
"And Horus Anhur was the one who defeated and killed the Griever… who is standing in front of me right now and currently glaring at the weapon used by the man who killed him." One could hear the gears, not from the Machina King, whirling.
"That I'm now wielding..."
…
"Oh."
The Griever gave an inhuman sound of clashing steel as he jumped up with all six blades lit with energy. All of them with the intent to attack the one wielding the weapon that killed him.
The current owner of the Omni Tool responded appropriately.
"SONOFA—"
"Natsu!" Happy raised his paw as he pointed over towards the rising stone golems heading towards one direction of the isle. "Look over there!"
"What is that?" Natsu looked over with his hand raised above his eyes.
"Those are more than likely the defense system of Nirvana." Richard, or Hot Eye of Oracion Seis spoke out. "It seems Brain is sending them out against your friends, or at least, it might be him. I can't reach him in the link anymore."
Genji of Phantom Lord stepped forward. "That may be a good thing. That way, he won't detect us as well."
"Man, look at all those things, if their attacking our friends, we should go and help them!" The dragon slayer pointed out.
"I want to help my friends too," Genji admitted before folding his arms. "But you said so yourself that you believe in them to win their fights. We still need to focus on Jellal. The others might be overwhelmed if Jellal enters the fray before we can find him."
Happy looked up as he noticed Natsu gripping his fist at the mention of Jellal.
"I can hunt him down with my nose." The son of Igneel declared. "When I find his scent, I'm gonna...gonna… what the hell?"
Even though Richard and Genji knew Natsu for a short period of time, confusion was not a look they expected to see on the Fairy Tail mage's face.
"Natsu?" Happy also looked up with worry towards his friend.
"I can smell where Jellal is but… I'm smelling something really strong. It's close by and it smells like the ocean..." His mind or more specifically his instincts were focusing a lot on this strange scent. "And… and..." Why did it feel so weirdly familiar to him? "I think bleach?"
The last word made Natsu remember.
{"He smelled weird."}
{"What smell in particular was it that made you think it was weird?"}
{ "Well, he smelled like the ocean, but there was another smell. Maybe bleach? Might have been his clothes with how clean they looked, but it was kinda strong." }
"No." Disbelief was another look on his face that no one expected to see on the Dragon Slayer. "This can't be his smell!"
Natsu followed that scent without another second wasted. The other three could only run after him, confused as to why he reacted the way he did. All of them noticed that the travel brought them all towards a large, ruined building.
They quickly assumed it was a library. Why? Because the doors were wide open, revealing columns of old, forgotten texts inside. The doors, of a just revealed and resurrected isle from ancient times, was seen open recently. And with everyone accounted for in the battle, who was in there, and why?
Natsu felt compelled to enter into the library, a place he never even went to much back in Magnolia. As he entered through the stone building, his feet made sounds on the stone floor. Soon, the other recognized a different pair of foot steps heading towards them around one of the farther corners of the library.
"So, Fero, is there any way to pinpoint the book—" A familiar dark blue haired man who once stole Natsu's title walked casually into the sight of the four. He was carrying one of the old books of the area and reading it as he moved. When he looked up at the last part of his sentence, he saw four beings that definitely weren't his teammates.
"Hey wait a second, I know you! Well, I've heard of you more from my friends than anything else, but I know you! You're Bora!" Natsu pointed. If Erigor was there that very moment, he would have complained quite vehemently.
"You're one of those brats that ruined me in Hargeon! What the hell are you doing all the way here!?" Bora, in shock, pointed over towards them and dropped the book he was holding.
"I was about to ask you that same question!" To the surprise of many, it was Richard who asked that. "You were one of the men who sold us all those Rhodonite Drugs, why are you here?!"
Bora started to stammer with all the intensity of a pro rapper but took a step back. As he did, up on the second floor, someone leaned over one of the rails.
"Bora, stop shouting, we might be..." And there it was, the true source of Natsu's smell. Him, Natsu remembered clearly.
He recalled the smell of the ocean, and those eyes staring back down at him. Eyes of someone, who was an obvious threat.
{"… And you four? ... I do hope we don't meet again."}
Captain Fero, the Hanged Man, had his eyes widen when looking down at wthe four that had just entered into the library.
"You!" Natsu pointed. "I remember you!" (Meanwhile, Erigor writhed despite being completely unconscious.)
Fero's eyes instantly narrowed, he threw his hand out and soon the four sensed a spike of magic an instant before a fishing rod was summoned by the man still dressed as a boat captain. "Bora! Run and find it! Oshen, pray!"
The assassin acted fast and flicked his rod behind him. No sooner than he did, a stack of books flew off the rails and attempted to crash on the four intruders.
Natsu and the others got out of the way of the collapsing book case, but as Natsu looked up, his beady eyes met with a familiar pool of gray eyes. They were just as intense as the night he met both Lucy and Kain.
"So it seems," Fero slowly spoke before Natsu noticed a dozen reflective gleams around him. "Fate has the strangest sense of humor."
A split second later, Natsu saw only darkness.
{Author Notes}
Sorry for the slower uploads, I need to do some stuff and such. Though I have an honest question for you guys, would you like shorter chapters and more frequent uploads, or greater length chapters with slower uploads? I originally wanted to end this fortieth chapter as the end of the Nirvana Saga, but then there was too much I really wanted to do to cram into one long chapter.
Anyway, now the war is slowly reaching it's end in a four way battle. Gray and Lucy's group versus Kloda and the Nirvana Defense System; Erza, Wendy, Carla, and Kain (fighting) against The Griever; Jellal doing a surprise betrayal and ending up fighting against an anger filled Midnight; and surprise surprise, Natsu's group with Hot eye facing a surprise opponent: Bora and Fero from the second chapter/First Episode of the anime. What are they doing here!? How did they get there? And what are they looking for?
Anywho, I'll see you guys later. Thanks for reading.