Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 18: Invading The Yamabuki Church! Earth Magic of Human Strength Against The Lightning Goddess! Lucy vs. Kanata, Part 1!
Lucy and her friends finally made it to the town of Yamabuki, having walked at least ten hours to where it was now nighttime, and everyone stopped for a moment to just pant from feeling tired. They stopped in front of the yellow lattice gate where they would probably have to be asked for identification from the border guards, but peeking over the yellow gate for a moment made Lucy get startled while her eyes widened in a shocked manner. She quickly stepped back, which made Sting go see what was wrong, and looking over the gate allowed him to see that the border guards were dead with yellow lightning lightly going around their bodies. They must've been drained of all their magic, and Sting wondered if the cultists punished them for Kirie's earlier acts of disobedience.
Kirie looked over the gate to see the border guards, who were her friends, and seeing them be dead made tears well up in her eyes. Sting simply sighed a bit at how nothing could be done, and he stepped over the gate to officially be in Yamabuki Town. Lucy wasted no time with following him, and she watched Risa go over the gate with Rogue and Kirie being right behind her. Lucy smiled nicely at how everyone could now walk to the church, and she turned around to just look at this particular street in Yamabuki. The street was paved with bricks that were in different shades of yellow while the bricks seemed to form lightning bolts that were in patterns alternating between different shades of yellow, and the street was pretty bright. Lucy's team noticed that the houses had pitched roofs in different shades of yellow. The shops had pitched roofs, too.
As Lucy walked towards a nearby building that appeared to just be a bakery in Yamabuki Town, she got to see the shop owner with long blonde hair proceed to shut her window. That shop owner also ran to the sign on the door, making it tell customers that the bakery was closed, and Lucy could see how that woman looked absolutely terrified to see people here. Kirie proceeded to glance at the woman, which made the shopkeeper tremble in fear while she quickly showed some respect by politely bowing her head, and seeing that woman take steps backwards in her own shop while turning off the bakery's lights to be in darkness made Lucy view that as a possible warning of how they would lose their lives in a matter of seconds like a light switch that only took a few seconds to be turned off.
Still, Lucy felt like she and her friends had to ignore that warning because of the fact that they needed to rescue Yukino. Lucy quickly ran down the street with her friends, and they quickly reached a point where the street became a branching path. Lucy was about to go in that direction to see what was there, but the sudden sight of two cultists in white robes made Lucy hastily step back. Risa quickly pulled Lucy towards a bush that was close to the side of a shop while the other Sabertooth mages were quick to hide there with Kirie, and Risa felt her heart palpitate quite fast with the feeling of anxiety as she proceeded to lay down behind the bush. She gently raised her head to look up from behind the bush, and Risa's eyes widened in shock from what she was seeing.
"That's...!" Risa said aloud in a soft whisper, looking surprised from seeing a certain Celestial Spirit Wizard dragging a young boy with dark blue hair across the ground as he begged her to not kill him.
Lucy and the others got to hear Yukino say with malice and resentment in her voice, slowly turning around for them to see her pupil-less yellow eyes, "Your struggling shall be over soon, since the great Kanata-sama will end your meager little life soon."
Risa whispered to her friends with a miffed facial expression while starting to get up from the hiding spot, her eyes displaying determination, "I'm going to save that child, so back me up with your spells!"
Sting replied to Risa in a stern tone as he quickly stood up, gently grabbing her right wrist with his right hand to restrain her, "No, Risa! I agree with you, but attracting their attention right now may only lead to more of the cult members coming to check out the noise! We don't want to be overwhelmed before we find that priestess! Risa, I promise you that we'll save that kid and we'll save Yukino!"
His words were enough to make Risa get back down behind the dark green bush, and Sting watched Risa's fists be clenched tightly. He could see that she didn't want any people to get killed, especially a young child, and Sting would gladly let her beat up some of Kanata's followers later. He watched Yukino and her brown-haired female companion drag a boy and a girl to the other side of the street, seeing them go towards a light yellow building that appeared to be a church, and hearing the children's loud cries for mercy accompanying their screaming made Sting wait until Yukino and her partner with lemon yellow eyes were far away from the hiding spot.
That made Sting give the silent hand motion of rising up, which made all of the protagonists start to stand back up, and he had a stern facial expression as he put a finger to his lips as a way of telling them all to be quiet as they walked through Yamabuki Town. Sting walked back on to the street while Lucy followed him, and everyone else simply walked behind her. Sting glanced at the branching path to only see some cultists patrolling the other end of the street, one of them going to the street's eastern side in a slow manner with one hand stretched out like they were ready to unleash a lightning attack, and the other person who wore a white robe was a green-haired female who ran down that street in a frantic manner with her arms flailing as if she was crazy during her pursuits in the child hunts.
Sting and his friends ignored those cultists while they quickly walked down the street, going past more houses and shops where the people who weren't force to join Kanata's cult looked very fearful, and Kirie glanced up at the grey sky that simply made Yamabuki Town's atmosphere be much darker than before. She hoped that rain wouldn't heavily be pouring down, and keeping her mind focused on the clouds kept Kirie from having to see the church that Yukino went into. The memories of that horrible church made Kirie start to shake in fear, and she soon gasped in a startled manner from looking down to see a cult member with short white hair slowly turn around as he stood in front of the path that Kirie took to leave Yamabuki Town earlier.
The cult member exclaimed with no emotion in his possessed eyes while he sternly frowned with the feeling of resentment on his face, "Stop right there, intruders! Identify yourselves, or get killed by my lightning!"
"You should've identified yourself first, since this is my first time facing one of you unfashionable and overly religious freaks! You're going down right now, you evil zealot!" Risa responded to him with a fierce facial expression, before firing a pink orb from her hand.
Sting looked at Lucy and told her with a stern look on her face, "Lucy, I'll go into the church with you and Kirie! Risa and Rogue can handle that cult member!"
That prompted Rogue to kindly tell Risa, as he lightly stepped in front of her to just see her attack create an average-sized pink blast, "Risa. There's a really disturbing twist with these cultists, and I'd hate for you to have to see how even just one of these cultists can be very disturbing."
Risa heard her three friends run towards the church while she stayed beside Rogue, wondering what twist the shadow dragon slayer was referring to, and she soon found herself having to join Rogue in dodging a yellow beam of lightning that came down from the air! Risa widened her eyes in disbelief from seeing that possessed wizard aggressively try to forcibly aim his hand down at her, which made her wonder if he was tough enough to break out of the spell's effect of immobilizing opponents as they levitated in midair, and she wondered why he didn't even seem to hesitate for a single second when counterattacking against a spell that he presumably hadn't seen before.
Upon seeing Rogue attack that immobilized mage with his Shadow Dragon's Roar, Risa ran to the church with her friends. She got to see that the large Yamabuki Cathedral was a light yellow square-shaped building with a gold pitched roof on top of it, and the church's entrance area had pastel yellow brick walls while it had gold concrete bordering the bricks to make the front of this place supposedly have arched windows. Risa stepped back for a moment to see that there were five large towers situated on top of the roof, and only the bottom halves of those towers had the design of the entrance area. The middle parts of those towers appeared to have white balconies shaped like hexagons, the balcony of the central tower being larger than the others while it still shared their trait of having a doorway in front of the balcony, and the top halves of the towers had the concrete designed to look like five-pointed stars that were within white circles. Those symbols were surrounded by golden bricks, as well as some bricks being in the regular shade of yellow, and the bricks still formed lightning bolts. The tops of the towers appeared to just have some pyramid-shaped roofs yellow spikes pointing upward while they were surrounded by gold rings, and Risa wondered if she could see inside the church without getting caught.
Risa quickly went around to the left side of the church, really surprising Sting and Lucy, and Risa took notice of the golden arched windows that were on the sides of the large church. As Risa found the platinum blonde borders around the windows to be the only good thing about this horrible place, she and the other wizards who stood in front of the church could hear something like people singing. Risa went back to her friends for a moment to see Kirie looking quite fearful, almost like that hymn was very ominous, and that prompted Risa to scout ahead for her friends. She hastily went past the windows that had people being against them, which was weird, and getting to the tenth window that was away from the end allowed Risa to see something truly frightening. She could see in between two people who were up against the window, and a woman sat on a throne while two mages in white robes stood in front of her. Risa wondered if that blonde-haired woman with the Hime-cut hairstyle was Kanata, but her attention soon shifted to the two mages who hastily attacked each other with their Lightning Magic. Risa's eyes widened in horror from seeing them both cough up blood while that lightning seemed very powerful, and those mages were quick with killing each other. The yellow blasts may have quickly occurred for Risa to not see all of the damage that was done, but they soon faded away for her to see those mages laying on the ground while they were severely bleeding from their fatal wounds. To make matters worse, the priestess loudly and evilly laughed with pleasure at what seemed like a joyous ceremony happening.
Meanwhile, inside the church...
Kanata lightly clapped her hands as she laughed at how two of her dispensable followers were now dead, feeling glad that two of the cult members who had proven to be weak were now no longer going to be part of the congregation, and the evil priestess sat down on her throne while simply smiling down at the puddles of blood that were slowly expanding outward before they lightly dripped down from the highest step of the altar. Kanata would gladly make one of her followers clean up the red blood later, since that blood belonged to people who were nothing more disposable pieces of garbage, but that ceremony had to be followed by another important matter.
She watched Yukino and another follower walk up to the top step of the altar while they dragged the children up to the altar in a rough manner, and Kanata merely narrowed her eyes in a disgusted manner from seeing the children slowly stand up. These kids were another pair of children who had tried to escape from Yamabuki Town, thinking that they could only do that because of how Kanata brainwashed their parents into being hostile people who were no longer their happy selves, and the young girl with black hair really hated how her mother would nothing as she stood against a nearby wall to where her daughter could lock eyes with her.
The young girl with short black hair and violet eyes shook with nervousness from seeing Kanata quickly get up from her chair, the girl's legs trembling as she slowly looked behind her to see the brown-haired mage who would prevent her from escaping, and the young girl turned around to see the priestess walk towards her blue-haired friend who wore a torn and dirty blue shirt with blue jeans to match. The boy who had spiky blue hair and grey eyes looked quite worried from seeing Kanata in front of him, shaking and breathing heavily as he seemed terrified of her lemon yellow eyes that looked as evil as how her lips formed a malicious grin.
Kanata built up some magical power in her right hand while grinning maliciously at the yellow aura that surrounded it, and she placed that hand against the trembling boy's forehead. She began to frown in anger at how he was trembling, since his shaking body wouldn't allow her hand to stay on his forehead, and she simply created a yellow ring of Lightning Magic in her right hand. Several sparks of electricity emerged from it, and the averaged-sized ring lightly floated above Kanata's hand. She chose to let out a sadistic giggle while pulling her hand back, before attempting to slam it against the young child's face for him to possibly get killed in a blast of lightning. The young boy quickly shut his eyes in fear, but the sudden sound of a blast occurring as it shook the church building got the attention of him to where he watched the pink blast smash through a window. The blast had enough force to shake the building while the sudden interruption got Kanata's attention, and the look of annoyance on her face shifted to a shocked facial expression from seeing more pink blasts destroy the glass windows on the left side of her church. As the smoke from the first blast quickly faded away, Kanata saw Risa stand away from the window with an enraged look on her face. She ignored the sight of the three mages coming in through the front door, and Kanata simply looked shocked at what Risa had just done.
Risa asked the priestess with a fierce look on her face, seeing the spell of Lightning Magic still be aimed at the young child, "You psychotic bitch... What were you just about to do?!"
Kanata responded in a shocked manner, her eyes showing distaste for how Risa made a pink orb detonate to create a blast that smashed through another window, "You've certainly got some nerve to defile my church with your foul magic, you piece of trash! I was only going to kill these filthy and traitorous children, but an intruder like you must truly be wishing for your death!"
Lucy asked aloud while having a frown on her face, glaring at Kanata as her orange eyes were narrowed, "Since this is your church, I'm guessing that you're the priestess named Kanata? If you're in shock, then did it never occur to you that we'd come and take you down as payback for kidnapping Yukino Aguria and hurting our other friend?"
That prompted Kanata to look at Lucy and reply with a somewhat calmer facial expression, as her lips formed a somewhat vicious smile, "Oh, so the mages from Sabertooth have finally arrived. Your little invasion of my church wasn't bad, for a group of sinners who think that they can take down a powerful and beauty goddess of holy lightning."
Kanata proceeded to smirk at Lucy in a disapproving manner, believing that she couldn't have the power to take down a great priestess, but her eyes shifting to the sight of Kirie being next to Lucy caused the priestess to suddenly frown while her eyes displayed sheer displeasure from seeing that girl back in the church. She even brought the bag back with her, which made Kanata glare at her with immense anger, and the girl who had stolen Kanata's precious item merely trembled in a hesitant manner from seeing the priestess have that look on her face.
She had seen that angry expression before, her mind recalling the days when Kanata was furious enough to attack her with powerful spells of Lightning Magic for breaking free of her possession in three instances, and Kirie slowly stepped back as her body was shaking. She wondered if the priestess was going to kill her right now, since the terrified young boy hastily ran past the protagonists with his scared friend to quickly get out of the church, and Kirie simply closed her eyes. The memories of that lightning made her tremble even more, and Lucy looked curious about why the blonde-haired girl seemed so fearful.
Lucy could only associate Kirie's fear with Kanata's vicious lightning nd her horrible actions, so she wouldn't hold back in this battle. Lucy decided to start off the fight by using the Aura Blast spell, which required her to stretch her right arm forward while her left hand tightly gripped her wrist, and the orange aura of Earth Magic engulfed her hand. The aura swirled around in a clockwise manner, before launching itself off of Lucy's hand to hit Kanata. The attack created a small orange explosion around Kanata, only to reveal that she had very small bruises, and that stunned Sting as much as it stunned Lucy. They watched the lightning spell in Kanata's hand finish with sending its electricity back into her palm while electricity seemed to be around her body, and Kanata seemed to have strengthened her body to where she could endure powerful attacks.
"What a pleasing look of shock on your face, mage. You seriously think that you can take down a goddess, but no one can defeat me. I'm Kanata Luster, the best wielder of Lightning Magic who must use my position as a priestess to free magic from a sinning piece of filth like you." Kanata told Lucy with an arrogant look on her face, as she put her hands together in a praying stance.
Sting asked with a surprised facial expression, having heard that surname before, "Kanata... Luster?!"
Kirie explained while trembling, still fearing that Lightning Magic, "Y-yes... She's... my mother."
Risa told Kirie as she maintained her fierce facial expression, "Even if she's your mom, don't worry! We'll take her down, and she won't carry out her vicious plans!"
The fact that Kanata even had a plan as cruel as that one caused Lucy to tightly clench her fists, and she didn't mind if she would be attacking Kirie's mother. This priestess was definitely psychotic with her ceremonies and her child hunts, as well as saying that she was a goddess with her Lightning Magic, and Lucy wasn't going to let this woman take away her magic. She had fierceness in her eyes as she activated the Aura Blast attack again, and Lucy used the spell again for it to go back into her hand. The moment where it went back into her hand was the moment where Lucy ran towards Kanata, determined to hit her in the face, and Lucy would be glad to hit her with a powerful punch.
That plan was interrupted by Kanata using her Lightning Magic to quickly manipulate Yukino's brown-haired companion into quickly getting in front of the priestess, but Lucy felt like she needed to also make the people who were puppets return to their senses. Lucy was about to strike the brainwashed girl with her strong fist, only to suddenly see Sting fire his White Dragon's Roar at the manipulated female, and his attack sent her crashing into the wall behind Kanata. Sting groaned in frustration from seeing that girl quickly get up, however, and he saw how her eyes displayed no emotion from getting hit by an attack that caused a bit of blood to be below her lips.
Lucy tried to strike Kanata in the face, only to see her suddenly get out of the way at high speeds, and Lucy's fierce punch ended up striking the ground when she tripped. As Lucy's created an orange explosion that made chunks of earth be propelled up from the ground, Kanata smirked at how her enemy was distracted. Lucy quickly stood up, but Kanata was quicker with her actions. Kanata began to move around at extremely high speeds, almost as if absorbing lightning allowed her to move at much faster speeds, and the priestess quickly moved in front of Lucy to fire a yellow beam of lightning from her mouth. That attack was shifted elsewhere, due to Risa stretching out her left hand to use the Stellar Psi spell as a way of hastily moving Kanata away from Lucy at the last second, and Kanata's beam of lightning struck one of the benches to create a large yellow blast of lightning. Upon seeing the fearsome power of Kanata, Kirie continued to tremble as she recalled her mother's twisted motive for using her own magic to make other people no longer have theirs.
-Kirie's Flashback, five years earlier-
Kirie stood under some of the pink trees in the forest while she watched Kanata be on her knees with her hands covering her eyes that had tears falling from them, and Kirie's eyes were widened in pure shock from seeing that Kanata was crying over the dead bodies of five wizards who were brutally killed on their way back from the town that was to the east of Yamabuki. Kirie thought about going into that town to take down the wizard or team of mages who had done something so cruel, but her thoughts were soon interrupted by her mother's horrified cries.
Kanata's eyes were widened in horror from seeing the bleeding mages, two of them being young children, and the blonde-haired woman felt more tears stream down her face from seeing this tragedy. The main priestess of Yamabuki Town's church that doubled as a guild had given these wizards the order to go kill some dark mages who resided in the nearby town that shared the pink forest with the people of Yamabuki, and Kanata was merely sent out of the church with Kirie to go see what was making those wizards take such a long time with getting back to the church.
The fact that these mages were dead would mean that Kanata needed to report this bad piece of news to the main priestess, even if that angered her to where she'd use a powerful spell of Lightning Magic to punish Kanata for the failures of the other mages, but Kanata's eyes looked up from the dead mages to just glance at her left hand. She still had a certain item of Holder Magic on her finger while she obtained that particular item yesterday from killing a green-haired outlaw who tried to hide herself with her daughter in the town's power plant during the child hunts, and Kanata was glad to complete that job where she stopped a pair of criminals who had been committing several crimes in this area of Fiore. Even though Kanata received a high amount of money for killing the mother, she still felt like the beautiful item that had been in the pocket of the woman's jeans should now be in her possession. Of course, brutally killing the adult dark mage only meant that the thieving child also needed to die.
Kanata was quite glad that her Lightning Magic was strengthened because of this item, and she would keep absorbing lightning to where any bad consequences wouldn't matter. Kanata tightly clenched her fists as she firmly believed that a horrible tragedy would've never happened if she had been the priestess in charge, and the fact that the cult only viewed her as the assistant to the main priestess was something that needed to change. On top of that, Kanata viewed this bloody tragedy as something that signaled for the church's members to get stronger. They all willingly followed the main priestess in her views of killing only when it was necessary on jobs, but Kanata didn't want another tragedy to happen. Therefore, she viewed the main priestess as a mere tool that had to be taken out like trash. In fact, those views about a church having kindness and mercy were policies that needed to be eliminated and replaced with the love for malice and worshipping the priestess immensely to make people never think of disrespecting the church again. As Kanata's fists were clenched, she turned around to direct her vengeful frown at Kirie.
"Kirie, my child. You now see the results of what happens when cruel human beings are able to wield magic. Those horrible people must be stopped, since they think it's okay to attack members of the church. From now on, anyone who disagrees with my way of thinking is nothing more than a cruel and inept piece of garbage that must lose their magic." Kanata told her daughter in a stern tone, as she narrowed her eyes.
That prompted Kirie to reply with an astounded look on her face, as her eyes showed disbelief, "Mother, that's not right! People won't always agree with you on certain things, and you can't force them to see things from your point of view for them to keep the magic that they enjoy-"
"Silence! Kirie, you have no right to defy me! If you really want to disagree with me, then I'll have no issue with killing you before I kill the head priestess!" Kanata yelled to Kirie with a fierce and intimidating look on her face, as a yellow aura began to surround her body.
Kirie replied while trembling as she started to look fearful about her mother's magic, "Mother... You wouldn't really hurt me.."
Kanata proved that Kirie was wrong by shooting out a yellow beam of lightning from her mouth, and it quickly struck a tree that was near Kirie! The young girl who wore a white blouse with a long white skirt to match quickly ran away from the attack to avoid the yellow blast that was larger than before, and the sight of the tree being the only damaged thing did not make Kanata feel happy. The assistant to the main priestess chose to shoot out a powerful spell of Lightning Magic from her hand, and she aimed the attack up into the sky.
It struck one of the grey clouds that was passing above the forest, and Kanata smirked viciously as she saw her electricity surround that cloud. Kanata's spell came down in the form of seven large lightning beams, and they all struck the forest to create massive yellow blasts of Lightning Magic! Kirie watched in horror from seeing those blasts wreck the forest, not liking how this beautiful area of pink plants was being destroyed by the explosions that created ominous yellow flames that had electricity flowing around them, but Kirie looked at her mother to see her smirk become more malicious.
Kirie glanced up at the cloud to see it violently explode, which really made her be quite surprised, and the thunder cloud exploded to send down one final beam of Lightning Magic at high speeds. It struck Kirie directly while a massive yellow blast of electric energy occurred, and Kirie screamed in agonizing pain! All that she could feel was the pain of the electricity that was flowing all around her, even feeling immense pain from the smallest sparks of lightning that made contact with her body, and Kirie tried closing her eyes to reduce the pain. She briefly opened her eyes to see Kanata walking towards her with a sadistic facial expression, and Kirie felt her mother's hand be on her forehead. A yellow aura started to surround both of their bodies, but Kirie screamed in more pain while the aura that was around her began to go into the body of Kanata. A few seconds later, some lightning appeared to be around Kanata's body as a way of displaying how she drained the Lightning Magic from Kirie's body until there was no magical power remaining. Kirie fell forward while Kanata watched the blast faded away, and Kanata didn't care that her daughter had bloody wounds and bruises on her body. She simply watched her pastel yellow eyes become lemon yellow, which made Kanata grin evilly at how this particular spell truly became strengthened.
"Kirie, are you still planning on defying me? Do you not see that my views are absolute, since my Lightning Magic could probably kill anyone in the church?" Kanata asked her daughter as she continued to grin evilly, her lemon yellow eyes being filled with a mix of curiosity and malice.
Kirie responded in an obedient manner, as she stood up to show Kanata that there was no emotion in her eyes, "Mother... I... I won't defy you. Your way of thinking is the best way for everyone, and I will join the other mages in not defying you."
"That's great, Kirie! In fact, you and the other church members shouldn't defy me because of how I shall be your beautiful and lovely goddess who must provide you all with guidance. Thinking for yourself will be a very stupid decision, so just watch me possess the church members after I kill that higher-ranking priestess. My cult shall work hard only for me, and we shall create a perfect world where no one shall be able to rise up against the Lightning Magic that creates sights of destruction that are as beautiful as me." Kanata explained to her with a smile of immense pleasure on her face, glad that her daughter was finally viewing life with an unchanging perspective that seemed to be beautiful like sunlight showing its fantastic brightness.
Since she had to get back to the church and report what had happened to the group of mages, Kanata started to walk out of the forest with Kirie being right behind her. The woman who would surely become the next head priestess in charge of the church would be happy to make that nice church of caring and mercy change into being a cult that valued things such as malice and expressing any feelings of resentment through causing people pain instead of just praying for their hateful emotions to go away. Kanata would be glad to also provide her cult members with Lightning Magic, and they would help her eliminate anyone who opposed her.
As Kanata thought about a possibility of recruiting any weak mages who would be foolish enough to step into Yamabuki Town, she also started to think aloud about how the cult would unfortunately have some mages who still wouldn't be measuring up to Kanata's standards. Any of the cult members who showed themselves to not be strong enough or be idiotic enough to mess up on any tasks that were assigned to them would simply have to die. Kanata thought out loud to herself about killing those mages in ceremonies that would take place at the altar, since that would keep her possessed followers from even having stupid ideas about rebelling or thinking that they could stupidly mess up on any task, and she wanted to create a church with a truly high amount of authority. That also applied to how Kanata proceeded to smirk evilly at how she would need to manipulate the townspeople into following her, wanting them to also become people who would worship her like she was a great deity, and she didn't even mind how there could be kids who disagreed with her. After all, Kanata's cult could just kill any children who tried to escape. They would merely be victims of the child hunts, but Kanata didn't care.
She began to giggle in a sadistic manner at how people would be following a way of thinking that was ideal for them, or they would just get killed. Since Kanata would be creating a way of thinking for her possessed followers while they couldn't think for themselves, she also began to have a lustful look in her eyes about how she could make herself have a tremendous amount of power of Yamabuki to where she could even have sex with the mages who looked almost as beautiful as her. As Kanata started to walk back up the mountain trail with Kirie following her, Kirie's eyes became pastel yellow again as she used her willpower to not let Kanata's possession completely take over her mind. Kirie noticed that her mother's spell made her be possessed to where she could still hear everything that Kanata had said, but the one weakness of this spell was that it seemingly wouldn't last long if it was used immediately after unleashing high-level spells that consumed a significant amount of magical power. Kirie stayed silent about this information as she still trembled in fear from hearing Kanata's words about she would use her Lightning Magic to create a strong cult. That was quite scary, which seemed as terrifying as how using Lightning Magic with a certain item on her ring finger seemed to be increasing Kanata's maliciousness.
Back in the current moment...
Kirie seemed quite terrified from seeing her mother maliciously fire another yellow beam of Lightning Magic from her mouth, gasping in shock from how it struck Lucy directly to send her sliding a few feet back towards Kirie, and Lucy ended up getting caught in a large yellow blast of electricity! She screamed in pain while enduring the attack, and the smoke quickly cleared up to reveal that Lucy was somewhat bruised while having wounds that were bleeding. That was only Kanata's weakest attack, which she had named Thunderous Beam, and it also made some electricity flow around Lucy's body.
Lucy didn't seem worried about that, though, and she proceeded to activate the Aura Blast spell again. Lucy used it again to make the aura go back into her hand, and she aggressively punched the yellow tiled floor. Sting watched Lucy surprisingly use that move on the ground, as she wasn't close enough to Kanata for the chance to punch her in the face, and an orange blast occurred! The moment that the blast transpired to make pieces of earth rise up from the ground was the perfect opportunity for Lucy to throw some chunks of earth at Kanata, and infusing magical power into them allowed Lucy to see each chunk of earth explode as it hit the ground! Kanata smirked evilly as she quickly dodged each chunk of earth, only to gasp in shock from how Lucy threw a chunk of earth at the area right in front of her, but the priestess couldn't stop herself quickly enough to evade that explosion.
That gave Lucy the opportunity to use her second spell, which was known as Explosive Earth Tomb, and Lucy stretched both of her arms forward. As she shot out two large brown rocks from her hands, Lucy got to see Kanata emerge from the orange blast with only minor bruises. The priestess hastily ran towards Lucy while preparing to use another attack, and this spell was called Divine Lightning Shock. It caused a yellow aura to engulf Kanata's body while she began to spin around rapidly, and she shot out lightning from her mouth while spinning for it to form a twister of electricity! That prompted Lucy to loudly clap her hands, breaking the large rocks apart to where they would become smaller rocks, and she watched several orange blasts occur from how her fast-moving opponent made contact with them. Lucy widened her eyes in shock from how Kanata wasn't slowing down, and she ended up being struck by her enemy's attack! The yellow twister exploded to create a yellow blast of lightning that was quite large, and Lucy screamed in immense pain from how the lightning seemed to be slicing against her body! She could feel the electricity making slash marks on her body, almost like Kanata's twister was a spinning blade that was sharp enough to slice into enemies, and Lucy also felt herself being electrocuted!
She fell to the ground while the smoke faded away, before Kanata aggressively kicked her in the face, and Lucy was sent flying to where she harshly hit the wall that was near the broken windows! That made Sting narrow his eyes as Lucy slid down the wall, and he unleashed a powerful move known as White Dragon's Holy Breath. Lucy winced in pain as she watched Sting unleash a large amount of white light from his mouth, and seeing the large blast of white light that it quickly created actually gave Lucy an idea. She infused magic into her right hand to where it became engulfed in an orange aura, and Lucy aggressively slammed that hand against the ground! Kanata may have evaded the blast with her high speed, but feeling the ground start to rumble made her smirk in a cocky manner. She chose to jump into the air, but that fast speed from her Lightning Magic wouldn't save her forever.
"Third spell of Earth Magic, I call upon thee! Sandy Crush!" Lucy exclaimed with a fierce facial expression, before firing a vortex of brown sand from her mouth.
Kanata asked with a shocked facial expression, "What?! You're still wanting to fight against a powerful goddess, you disgusting mage?"
Lucy responded while still looking fierce, watching her vortex go down into the hole, "I don't care if you see yourself as a goddess, Kanata! I'm going to save Yukino, and I'm about to slam you down to the ground!"
Lucy started to look confident from how her vortex went down in the large hole that was created by Sting's spell, and the fact that parts of the ground were now cracked only made things better for Lucy. She watched her attack go all the way down to the bottom of the hole, before it quickly sprang up as a large geyser of sand that appeared to have a high amount of pressure, and Kanata couldn't change direction in midair. She ended up being struck by the pressurized sand that pushed her upward while Kanata felt pain from that attack striking her body, but she was soon caught in two large blasts that occurred in midair! Kanata let out a pained scream from those attacks that appeared to be powered up by the sand, and the geyser of sand fell back down to the ground. The sand filled the hole while it quickly hardened into brown earth, and Kanata harshly hitting the dense ground was something that Lucy viewed as payback for how Kanata kicked her earlier.
Lucy did look a bit curious about those explosions, though, and Sandy Crush had never created any explosions before. That seemed weird to Lucy, but her eyes widened in amazement from remembering how her first spell created several chunks of earth after she punched the ground. Lucy had only thrown some of them while the other pieces of earth fell into the hole, and the sand must've carried them upward. The sand's Earth Magic must've made contact with those pieces of earth, resulting in them exploding like the others upon hitting Kanata.
That didn't stop the vicious priestess from quickly getting up, though, and touching her face to feel a bit of blood from a scrape on her cheek caused Kanata to angrily glare at Lucy. She wouldn't tolerate anyone making a bruise be on her beautiful face, and Kanata was angry enough to where a yellow aura engulfed her body. She quickly created a yellow orb of Lightning Magic in her left hand, and the orb had seven sparks of lightning crackling around it. This move was simply called Electric Lightning Spark, and Kanata threw it at Lucy! That only made Lucy decide to jump up into the air to dodge the attack, but the yellow explosion of electricity seemed to not be a typical blast this time. Lucy screamed in tremendous pain from how she felt like her body was being shocked by deadly lightning, and Kanata watched seven powerful bolts of lightning rise up from the explosion to electrocute Lucy. She grinned with a look of malice in her eyes, smiling sadistically from how Lucy was experiencing one of her most powerful attacks that had surprisingly been enhanced.
"It's quite pleasing to me that a stubborn mage such as you didn't bother thinking about my electricity that hit you earlier. My first spell can produce electricity that serves to enhance my other attacks, but they're just leaving behind more electricity that will make my stronger spells even more powerful to where one of them will hopefully kill you!" Kanata exclaimed to Lucy while maintaining her sadistic smile, giggling as she heard Lucy scream louder from the pain.
Sting shouted with a fierce facial expression while running towards Kanata and charging up white light in his left hand, "That won't happen if I kill you first, you damn priestess!"
Kanata glanced at him to reply with an evil smirk on her face, as she proceeded to snap her fingers while her yellow eyes lightly glowed, "I highly doubt that you'll get the chance, since someone will keep you busy."
"Don't get anywhere near Kanata-sama!" Yukino exclaimed fiercely while getting in front of the priestess, her pupil-less eyes showing no emotion.
Sting tried to lightly push Yukino aside, only to feel her harshly kick him in the abdomen with electricity surrounding her left foot, and the white dragon slayer was sent rolling across the ground to be near Kirie's feet. She let out soft breaths of anxiety from seeing Yukino run towards Sting at fast speeds, almost as fast as lightning striking, and seeing Yukino pick up Sting to start choking him only made Kirie strike Yukino with the Thunderous Beam spell that she fired from her mouth at point-blank range like a cannon shot. The yellow blast was smaller than the one created by Kanata, but Kirie felt like she needed to distract her mother's new cult member. Kirie even went towards Yukino as the blast faded away, and she punched her in the face. That only made Yukino react quickly, though, and she aggressively grabbed Kirie to slam her against the wall while strangling her throat with one hand.
Kanata merely frowned in a miffed manner from seeing her daughter try gasping for air while Sting got up to push Yukino down to the ground, and the priestess activated her fourth spell of Lightning Magic. This move was known as Luminous Lightning, and this particular spell made Kanata have a small amount of lightning in her right hand. She charged up her Lightning Magic to make the amount of electricity in her hand be larger, though, and Kanata aimed it up at the church's skylight. She struck a certain part of the glass with her beam of lightning, and the large beam of electricity came down with much more power and speed to harshly electrocute Lucy! Upon hearing Lucy scream in immense pain while her skin became brown and charred to where hot burns and more harsh bruises were on her body, Kanata laughed in a menacing manner at how her first enemy would soon be dead. She watched the attack also send Lucy down to the ground, and she couldn't possibly get up again. Kanata turned away to her cult members while making them laugh along with her, and she didn't care for how Lucy activated the Muddy Terra spell as she struggled to stand up. Lucy fired a brown ball of mud from her left hand as her body shook from the pain, and she watched it create a mud puddle. Another ball of mud rose up from the puddle to be in Lucy's hand, and she threw it back into the puddle for the mud to expand as it began to bubble. Lucy could hardly move while weakly walking towards Kanata, not wanting to lose, and she hated how Kanata arrogantly laughed as if she truly won this fight.
As Kanata laughed, however, she was interrupted by the sight of Risa now standing on the window pane as she fired a ball of psychic energy from her left hand. The outer rims of the ball were light pink while the rest of the sphere was in a normal shade of pink with bubblegum pink beams swirling around it, and the spell even had pink thin beams of light shining from it. This was an attack that Risa had been told to only use when she needed to protect the life of an important person, and Risa aimed her attack at Kanata. It quickly struck the priestess to create a light pink blast that was quite large, before it harshly made her levitate upward to hastily float around in a circle for a few seconds. Kanata ended up crashing down into the ground, but she quickly got up to try striking Risa with the Electric Lightning Spark spell. She created a yellow orb of electricity in her right hand with seven sparks of lightning floating around it, but Kanata couldn't throw it at Risa without her using the Stellar Psi spell to deflect it at her throne for it to be engulfed in an electric blast. As Risa got off of the window pane and ran towards her friends, Kanata looked astounded from seeing that particular type of magic be paired with a certain person who wore a pair of sunglasses like the ones on Risa's head. Upon remembering the stories about that person, Kanata was ready to get more serious as her eyes were intensely filled with distaste.
How was Chapter 18? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy will keep fighting hard against Kanata, despite the fact that she is heavily wounded right now, and she is determined to not lose. Sting isn't planning to lose against this evil priestess, either. Risa shall fight hard, too, but it seems like something from her past is really upsetting to Kanata. Speaking of Risa's past, that spell from the end of the chapter is actually from her past. That's all I'll say about it for now. Anyway, this is the third chapter of the Gold Lightning Arc! The next chapter is where it concludes! I'll update soon. :)
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