Beta-ed by xenosaiyan
Blake hadn't felt so invigorated since Earthland, the light of Regulus surging through her, lightening her muscles and filling her with courage. She spawned a Deathstalker's limbs in place of her arms and legs and scurried across the sands, Loke by her side as they made straight for Tyrian.
The Zodiac Spirit was different from the last time Blake had seen him, older, harsher, more focused. But the guildmark on his back confirmed that he was just as much her friend as he ever was. No matter how much power the laughing bastard had, they weren't going down without a fight.
That didn't mean the Gate of the Scorpion wasn't going to give it his best shot. The desert rose beneath him as he leapt into the fray, streams of sand snaking upward and streaking for the Fairy Tail wizards. Some were just simple spears to be ducked and avoided like any other weapons, but others glowed with the familiar shine of the Bomb Curse. The two attack variations were intertwined with each other, the bomb spires exploding at angles to blast the fairies into the piercing spines, or the spikes shooting out towards Lucy, forcing them to drop back and protect their friend, putting them just inside the range of the fire blasts. Mad the Eclipse Etherious may have been, he wasn't stupid. If he wasn't trying to take them alive, he could have just ignited the entire desert and watched them burn.
Fortunately, he had to restrain him from going that far if he wanted to please his goddess. And that, despite his towering strength, gave them opportunity.
Loke slammed his fists together, a brilliant golden light emanating between them. "Regulus Gatling Impact!"
A magic circle sprang to life before him and a dozen ethereal lion heads roared out from the sigil. The heavenly pride charged out into the night, tunnels of air trailing behind each of their shining manes. One after another, they slammed into the streams of sand, scattering the grains to the wind and stalemating the explosions with eruptions of their own glow. The entire barrage was obliterated, not a single spike coming near Lucy.
Obviously, Tyrian wasn't going to just sit still and let them defend her. While Loke was stationary warding off the desert assault, the Gate of the Scorpion wasted no time rushing in, both pincers and stingers lashing out to split him in two.
Fortunately, the clash of explosions and ash provided a perfect smokescreen for Blake to charge right into the monster's path, her claws aglow with her friend's power.
"Regulus Pincer Thrust!"
She stabbed forward with her scorpion claw arms, beams of golden energy streaking straight for Tyrian's head.
However, it appeared the Eclipse Etherious was a double-jointed gymnast in addition to a psycho. When the beams made for his chest, he bent over backwards, balancing on his damn tails as the beams barely glanced off his aura. He laughed like he was on a merry-go-round and sprayed a hail of bullets from his pincer blades, forcing Blake to duck to the side.
Soon, her foe gave chase, a storm of sand and fire on her tail.
"A thrilling display, my lady! You use Lord Leo's power well!" Tyrian called. "And yet still you hold yourself back! Scattered fragments are quite versatile, but they lack the power to see you through this battle."
Blake growled, but she couldn't exactly refute the point. Despite using Deathstalker legs on sand, she was barely avoiding the Gate's bombardment. Back when she'd been using her Full-Body Take-Over, she could have easily dodged the barrage and forced Tyrian to use his curse to its fullest. She didn't think she would be stronger than him in his current state, but you didn't need to be stronger than someone to beat them. Just fast enough to latch onto them before they could react and strong enough to break their neck. Though given her luck, she wouldn't be surprised if the bastard's neck rotated three-hundred and sixty degrees.
"Pardon me if I don't like becoming a mindless monster!" she shouted back, hoping that she might be able to distract him enough to take some heat off Loke and Lucy. "Some of us don't like to murder for thrills!"
Tyrian cocked an eyebrow. "Then why are you a huntress?"
Blake ducked another sand spire, only for it to explode and force her to use a shadow clone to keep from being blown away. Unfortunately, that left her stationery for the briefest instant, more than enough time for Tyrian to blur to her side, jets of sand gathering at the tips of his tails.
Only to receive a blast of Regulus straight to the jaw, actually staggering the demon.
"Don't listen to him, Blake!" Loke commanded, launching a follow-up swipe at their foe. "He's just a madman!"
Tyrian's stingers lashed out and wrapped themselves around Loke's armored arm, halting his blow in its tracks. With a swift flick, the Lion Spirit was sent tumbling across the sand. He managed to roll to his feet, but a golden light pulsed out from under his plate and ejected the fragments that their enemy had touched. They glowed orange and exploded half a second later.
"Just a madman? You wound me, my lord. I am a loyal madman," Tyrian insisted, casually forcing back Blake with a wave of sand. "If I was not, you would all be dead. Whatever small lusts I have moment to moment, the Queen's will comes first."
"Yeah, it comes first," Blake snarled. "So much that you tossed the White Fang aside to join her."
"Of course. I went to them to do what I love, but in the end, I could barely stomach the hypocrisy. Fighting a war and expecting both sides to still be standing when it ends? Pah! You huntresses of Ozpin and we Gates of the Queen are a purer sort. Our conflict will only end when the enemy has been butchered at our own hand," Tyrian chuckled. "And if you don't enjoy what you do, you're in the wrong line of work."
Blake scowled. "A huntress isn't a killer."
"Of course they are! Grimm, human, or faunus, they all taste huntsmen steel eventually," Tyrian exclaimed. "The world is built by killers, willing to annihilate their enemies to defend what they love. The huntsmen destroy the Grimm. Fairy Tail destroyed Tartaros, and any others who would not become their allies. Even this world, our precious Remnant!" The Gate of the Scorpion lifted his arms to the shattered moon. "Born of a false god who would not tolerate insurrection."
He glanced over his shoulder as Loke rushed back in. "Which is why your sloth puzzles me, Lord Leo. You hold no love for the gods, even the one you were made to serve. Why do you not heed the Queen's call now that the rest of the Fairies have returned? The serpent I understand, she is sworn to the king, but like the rest of the twelve, your oath is to her grace."
Blake swiped in with her claws, Tyrian ducking under attack and rolling away when Loke unleashed another burst of Regulus.
The Lion Spirit snarled. "My oath is not to create a world of ashes."
Tyrian shook his head, almost saddened. "Such pessimism. The Queen has no intention of repeating the error of her previous approach. She has plans to make mankind a suitable weapon. After all, she is well aware of the combat capabilities of her allies."
The scorpion flicked his tail towards the edge of the battlefield, where Lucy's skin took on an ethereal white glow as she chanted. "All of her allies."
Shit. Blake didn't know exactly what spell Lucy was working back there, but from how Loke had insisted she stay back from the fight and the spunky Celestial Wizard had agreed to it without complaint, she could surmise that it was their best shot at defeating Tyrian. The thin ethernano might have contributed to the extremely slow charge-up time, but even still, it would take an incredibly powerful bit of magic to require that much fuel.
And the Gate of the Scorpion was fully aware of that. He wanted to take them all alive, but he would stop going easy on them if he thought there was a chance they might actually emerge victorious.
It was only at that moment, and the memory of how casually he'd obliterated the Kuo Kuana wall, that Blake fully comprehended that the sandy hellscape they'd been subjected to had been their enemy 'going easy on them'.
A jet of sand burst from Tyrian's tail aimed straight for Lucy, an orange glow signifying that it was primed to explode. The Celestial Spirit Wizard hadn't had her aura unlocked, and though she was used to taking hard hits, any significant strike would still disrupt their winning spell. They couldn't let that happen.
Loke leapt at Tyrian, his constant glowing swipes keeping the Gate from unleashing another attack. Blake seized the opening and threw herself in front of the sand stream. She couldn't use a shadow clone to escape this blast, otherwise it'd just continue on its course and hit Lucy. She had to take it head-on.
She dipped down within the sea of darkness, the ooze of hatred and killing intent swallowing her up to her chin. She wondered if she should let it rise even further, let it drown her and gain the full strength at her fingertips. But whatever her theories, whatever her thoughts on possible equilibrium, she couldn't risk it now. If she couldn't control her Full-Body form, then she might attack Lucy herself.
She'd have to work with what she had.
Deathstalker armor, thick and strong, layered over her arms and lower waist. She pushed her aura to the forefront, boosting the natural toughness of the plates. And just when the sand was about to strike, she poured the strength her friend had gifted her out into its path. The Celestial power swirled around the essence of the Grimm, unable to truly mix, like oil and water, neither was being repelled by the other. It would have to be enough.
"Regulus Umbral Aegis!"
The light of the lion star threw itself out first, the spiral of sand ramming straight through the defense but slowed just enough so that when the blast impacted Blake's armored arms, it didn't punch straight through. She held her ground, the Deathstalkers plates and pincers standing strong against the grains' onslaught. And when the explosion rippled through the air, she was only blown back a few feet.
This was fine. She'd held strong, the attack was halted. Now she just needed to get back in there with Loke for just a bit longer—
"Hellstorm Spiral: Tower!"
Tyrian plunged his hands to the ground, his curse rushing throughout the dunes. Loke lunged for him, but the Gate of the Scorpion moved faster, swiping his hands through the air. As if he struck the keys of a grand piano, a crescendo of heat and death swept up from the desert floor, an explosive symphony reaching up to the heavens.
Blake and Loke went flying, ash and burn scars coating their bodies. The cat faunus tumbled across the sand, her muscles flaring with agony. She struggled to rise to her knees, only to crash back into the sand. If her aura wasn't completely broken, she'd be surprised if she had any more than a percent remaining. And since she didn't see a very angry ginger Celestial Spirit jumping back into the fray and a few scattered golden sparks were twinkling in the night air, she could only assume her guildmate had been injured enough to force him back to his own world. Which meant there was no one left between Tyrian and Lucy.
She glanced over to her blonde friend, relieved to find her untouched by the blast. Without aura, it would have turned her to dust, a fact Tyrian was likely well aware of. But that didn't mean he wouldn't beat her black and blue to make sure she didn't resist.
They needed time, as much as they could get, as much as it would take for Lucy's spell to go off. But she couldn't stand, Loke was gone, and the only way she could possibly get more power was… was…
One way, Lucy might be hurt. The other way, Lucy would definitely be hurt.
There was no choice. She and Tyrian had both left the White Fang to devote themselves to new causes. But he had joined Salem because she let him kill anyone he liked. She had chosen to become a huntress when she could no longer stomach Adam's bloodthirst. They were both traitors, drawn away from their original cause by their own ideals, gaining some new ones along the way. Perhaps he was even right that killing was a necessary step to defend those ideals at times.
He was wrong about her though. She did not enjoy killing. Even if her duty as a huntress required it, truly required it, she would never enjoy taking another's life. She would never enjoy stepping into shadows.
But if it meant saving her friends, she would do what she must. Whatever her ideals, she would risk anything to protect them. Even her soul.
She took a deep breath and sank into darkness.
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Tyrian did so enjoy his work.
Hazel had no love of combat, Lord End's powers were too dangerous for training, and to distract the Queen from her work would be an inexcusable sin, so he was seldom able to unleash the power of his Etherious Form on anyone. But between Chieftain Belladonna inviting a large scale display of his powers and Lord Leo and Lady Blake's up-close, more technically challenging duel, he was getting an excellent workout this night. It would have already classified as one of the best days he'd had in a while even if he wasn't going to top it off by reuniting his goddess with two of her old friends. Possibly even a third if Lady Lucy summoned Lord Leo once they'd made it back to the Grimmlands.
Oh, glorious day! After he had secured the candidates, he could even indulge himself in burning Kuo Kuana to the ground. Such fun!
But duty came before joy, and he still had one more fairy to deal with, debatably the most dangerous of them all.
"Oh Tetrabiblos, I am the ruler of the stars…"
Tyrian grinned as he bared down on Lady Lucy, the glow of her skin beginning to turn from white to gold. She may have been the weakest of the Strongest Team, but the Queen had impressed to them all that such a fact did not make her weak. Give her an opening, and she could be the most dangerous of them all. Even now, he only hesitated due to the knowledge that she had no aura. If he struck hastily, he could kill her, and failing his goddess so drastically would be a fate worse than death.
But as the ultimate magic of the stars grew closer to completion, he could ill afford caution. One solid strike would shatter the complex weaves of magic she needed to build, and he could deal with her otherwise at his leisure. Such was the power of a Gate of the Queen—
"Heads up, asshole!"
What?
Tyrian whirled around, his attention drawn by, of all things, a speeding military truck racing across the dune. On a direct collision course with him.
Ugh. How irritating.
The five-ton vehicle slammed into his side, its drivers, Sun Wukong and Ilia Amitola, leaping from its cockpit just as the compartment crumpled. Tyrian staggered a full foot, disgraceful but unavoidable given the loose footing of the sand, before the engine ground to a halt before his strength. However, he was hardly harmed, his aura was barely even scratched.
Which was more than he could say for those fools who'd thought to challenge him in the midst of his duty.
As soon as Wukong and Amitola landed on the dunes, the young faunus drew their weapons, unleashing a hail of dust rounds and electrified whips strikes upon their opponent. Tyrian merely rolled his eyes.
With one hand, the Gate of the Scorpion hefted the truck up by its chassis, the glow of his curse swallowing the metal. With the ease that another might swing a baseball bat, he hurled the vehicle at the two faunus. The pair scrambled to escape, but with the momentum Tyrian had put behind it, they didn't stand a chance. The military hauler plowed through the warriors before exploding right in their faces.
The monkey and the chameleon's auras died with a brief flicker, their smoking and burned bodies laid out across the melted black sand. Only the subtle twitches of their limbs and the soft moans escaping their lips confirmed they still breathed.
"You come to 'defend' the ones you call friends," Tyrian remarked. "The Queen would praise your devotion. But without magic, without power, it means nothing. The loyalty of the weak is worthless."
Which is why the goddess, in her infinite wisdom and generosity, would raise them up.
"No friendship is worthless! Open thy malevolent gate! Oh, eighty-eight stars of the heaven!"
Tyrian's eyes widened, his form instantly drawn back to his target. The faunus' attack had done him no real damage, but it had drawn his attention for the briefest of moments.
And as Lady Lucy's eyes opened and her gaze hardened on him, dozens of colorful spheres each shining with the true majesty and wonder of the heavens orbiting around her, he knew it had been a moment too long.
He charged. Even as he knew it would do no good, he charged. No matter the pain, no matter the suffering, he could not fail his Queen.
Lady Lucy's arms thrust forward. "Shine! Urano Metria!"
The stars around her surged forward, eighty-eight celestial bodies blazing with the power of the stars, the heart of the universe unleashing its wrath upon the Gate of the Scorpion. Glorious lights of every color imaginable shined throughout the night sky, for a brief moment painting a rainbow over the blackness.
The stars rammed into Tyrian, plowing him back through the desert. One after another, over and over again, without respite or pause, they struck him, like a celestial gatling gun. With each blow, agony shot through the former scorpion faunus, the likes he hadn't felt since his ascension. By the end of the second cycle, his aura had shattered like glass. His vision went dark, a waterfall of blood soaking his eyes.
And yet, even as his body itself bore the full brunt of the onslaught, even as his muscles screeched in pain and his organs collapsed under the force, he held on. The pain truly was equal to that he had suffered under the oversight of the old Ascension Chamber, his entire essence being torn apart molecule by molecule. But he had endured that, endured it for one reason alone, the same reason he'd endured everything for the last decade.
For the will of their goddess!
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Kill!
kIlL!
KiLl!
Kill them all!
Blake! Breathe! Let it flow through you! Turn it into your—
"Be quiet!"
…
Crush her! CULL her! DesTrOy!
"I said be quiet! I meant both of you!"
DEstRoY!
cULl!
KILL!
KILL the humans! Kill—
"I won't… I will. We will."
"Together."
YES! The duty to our lord! CULL!
DESTROY!
KILL!
"… kill. Kill."
KILL!
"Kill… the one who would kill my friends."
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Lucy always got a rush when she cast Urano Metria. Unfortunately, the same strength that came from lightning running through her also came with the immense exhaustion of having had lightning run through her.
The Celestial Spirit Wizard sank to her knees, heaving as the glow faded from her skin. The ultimate magic of the stars required a massive amount of power and precise spellcraft to handle such strength, so it always left her exhausted, but this time she felt like she was two steps away from magic deficiency disease. Blake hadn't been kidding when she said the ethernano was thin.
Still, as the Fairy Tail wizard glanced around the ashen battlefield, it was depressing to find that she was in the best condition of the combatants. Loke had been injured enough that he'd been forced to return to the Celestial Spirit World (she'd wait until he'd had some time to recover before summoning him back and interrogating him about what the hell was going on), and Blake was nowhere to be seen, probably hiding in some unseen shadow while nursing the wounds she'd taken from the battle. Those two people who'd driven the truck, faunus as well going by the blond one's monkey tail, had been laid out across the sand, alive, but heavily injured.
Of course, considering what she'd done to their opponent, 'heavily injured' was a term that required some perspective.
Tyrian, somehow, still stood, or at least his limp body did. At the bottom of a crater of ash, the scorpion did not move, his knees locked beneath him and his arms hanging limp at his sides. Swaths of his skin were coated in a sea of his own blood, pouring out of horrid gashes torn across his body. What little flesh remained outside the crimson matting was covered in dark, ugly bruises, his blank eyes hidden by bangs of his own hair. The mechanical pincers he'd worn on his forearms had been completely obliterated, his twin stingers in little better condition, the mechanical one having been blasted clean off while the more natural-looking appendage held on by a thin slip of muscle.
Lucy pushed down a bubbling of vomit that rose in her throat. The Eclipse Etherious may have been her enemy, but still. The only time she'd ever seen the aftermath of Urano Metria had been when Hibiki had first helped her cast a weakened version against Sorano. She knew the full power spell had killed Jackal of Tartaros, but… she'd tried to use this on Flare at Grand Magic Games.
She… she'd thought of herself as weak compared to her friends for so long that she'd forgotten just how much power she was capable of unleashing. And just how much care she needed to exercise to use that power responsibly. She'd had no choice against Tyrian, but against a different opponent… she had to be sure. She had to be sure that it was her only option. To protect her friends, she'd do what she had to, but… no one deserved to suffer something like that.
She forced herself to crawl over to the monkey faunus boy, lightly shaking him, causing his eyes to flicker open.
"Are you alright?" she gently inquired. "Can you stand?"
"Ugh… no. That's a definite no…" the boy groaned, hacking out a round of coughs. "You… you're Fairy Tail, right?"
Lucy nodded, lifting her hand to show her pink guildmark.
The blond boy smiled. "Heh. Blake said you guys were badass. Guess I should have known better than to doubt it after Wendy…ugh… sorry we got in the way."
"You didn't," Lucy assured him, taking her limp hand in her own. "If you two hadn't distracted him when you did, I wouldn't have had enough time to complete the spell."
"Really? Huh," the boy chuckled. "Dancing monkey to the rescue with his snarky chameleon sidekick."
Lucy couldn't help but laugh at the remark. The young faunus was lucky to be alive and yet he'd brought a smile to her face. Impressive. But also…
"Wendy," she whispered. "You know Wendy? Is she here?"
"She's with Ruby and her uncle," the monkey faunus explained. "Blake can tell you the rest after… scorpion!"
Lucy felt the surge in magic at the same time as his shout. She looped her arms around the blond boy and rolled out of the way just as a stream of sand smashed through their previous position. Hundreds of grains shredded her right arm, but she was able to shield her ally long enough to whirl around and get a new look at their enemy.
"No," she murmured. "That's impossible. How can you still be alive?"
"For the Queen," Tyrian moaned, an unearthly timbre overlaying his voice. "For the Queen. For the Queen. For the Queen. For the Queen!"
He shambled onward, his body broken and leaking a waterfall of blood, only a swirling tornado of sand lifting his dangling stinger into position. His locked knees refused to unhinge, forcing him to limp up out of his crater instead of his previous lightning-fast charges. His soaked hair parted, revealing a pair of glossed over, unblinking eyes. He may have survived, but he could hardly be called alive anymore.
Still, Loke and Blake were gone, the monkey and chameleon faunus were helpless, and Lucy couldn't even stand, her origin completely emptied of power. She sucked in new ethernano as fast as she could, but there just wasn't enough of it in the air. Brutalized and crippled as he was, Tyrian was still the strongest person on the battlefield.
The Celestial Spirit Wizard grit her teeth and forced herself to upright. Even if she couldn't get off her knees, she wasn't going to let this bastard hurt anyone else. She'd meant what she'd said. No matter how much stronger their enemy was, she and her friends were going to win.
And if the surge of magic she felt beneath the sand was any indication, that faith wasn't going to go unrewarded.
Right in front of Tyrian, the desert floor erupted. Sand flew everywhere as a black monstrosity rose from beneath the ground, shrieking like a demon out of hell. Its plate armor and massive pincers made it resemble the Grimm Lucy had seen when she'd first arrived, but the moment it touched open air, its dark form shifted, dissolving into a mercurial black mud figure before solidifying into a different being, even more terrifying than the last.
The plate armor was gone, replaced by rippling, muscled hide coated in layered smaller scales. From its back extended out a pair of leathery crimson wings, punctured with ragged holes, but still easily strong enough to fly. Where legs might have been was instead a thick serpentine tail, jagged bone spines jutting out from its sides every foot or so. The crowning jewel rested atop the beast's face however, an elaborate white mask in the visage of a dragon, hungry red eyes glaring out from its slits. And crackling yellow electricity building in its maw.
What followed was a blur, a black mirage that disappeared in-between eye blinks. The creature latched itself onto Tyrian, wrapping its truck around his bloody body and wrenching his jaw open with its claws. Even through his deranged madness, the Gate of the Scorpion's eyes widened, an orange glow coating the Grimm creature flesh even as spikes of sand flew in from all around them.
It wasn't fast enough. The draconic beast roared, and a surge of lightning erupted from its mouth, drilling down Tyrian's throat. The Eclipse Etherious howled in agony before going silent, at which point the storm of electricity crashed clean out his back and finished the job of melting off his remaining tail.
Then another explosion rang out and Lucy had to put her hands over her eyes and her body over the monkey faunus to shield them both from the blast.
When the smog faded and she could see again, Lucy glanced around and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted the chameleon faunus girl no more harmed than she had been a moment before. She must have been out of range of the blast.
"Blake," the monkey murmured, his blue eyes scanning the desert. "Where's Blake?"
Blake? Right, that creature that had killed Tyrian, it had felt sort of like a Celestial Spirit. She didn't know much about Grimm, but she was fairly certain they couldn't change shape from a scorpion to a dragon mid-fight. But Blake could, if she had absorbed both forms previously. But if she was capable of using a Full-Body Take-Over, why hadn't she done that from the beginning of the fight? A creature's essence when it was whole was magnitudes stronger than any individual piece.
A low, creeping snarl reminded Lucy that there were other risks to allowing another being such influence on one's mind. Risks that had shattered the Strauss family for years.
Lucy turned and she saw her friend emerge from the smoke, Blake's draconic form slinking across the sand, its fangs still barred.
"Heh, Sea Feilong," the monkey boy chuckled nervously. "Told you it'd be awesome. Right, Blake? Blake?... Blake?"
The Grimm-hybrid stalked ever closer, sparks dancing across its jaws. The monkey boy's eyes widened, his breaths becoming short and ragged.
Lucy placed a hand over his chest, calming his frantic lungs. Then, she steeled her face and forced herself to her feet. She wobbled, her muscles still heavy like stones, but she held herself tall, refusing to flinch even as Blake approached.
"I have faith in you, Blake," she declared, fully aware that Lisanna was nearly killed saying a similar thing to her brother. If one couldn't find equilibrium in a Full-Body Take-Over, then they would lose themselves to the instincts of the creature they were utilizing.
But if the choice was between running for her life and believing in her friend, then there was no choice at all. Because her life was in no danger from a Fairy Tail wizard.
The Grimm-hybrid took in a deep breath, lightning crackling amidst its maw. But when it breathed out, no tempest was unleashed. Instead, a rush of black smoke was released from its form, floating across the desert.
When it cleared, Blake had returned, cute little cat ears and all. The black-haired faunus panted but managed a small smile towards her friends. "Thank you."
Lucy mirrored her grin. "Always."
That was about as much as either of them could manage. The fairies swayed back and collapsed in a heap beside the monkey boy, their bodies completely spent. And yet, they couldn't help but break out into a round of laughter. They were beaten. They were battered. They were utterly exhausted.
But they had won.
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She had known something was wrong when Blake had forcibly shut off their connection. She could still sense her old friend's general location, but she wouldn't be able to speak to her through mental link if the cat faunus did not allow it.
When the return light of Neo-Hell's Core had flashed purple, her fears were confirmed.
She dismissed Cinder and the others from their training for the day and made her way down to her laboratory. The rows upon rows of test tubes and glass cylinders containing experimental mutant Grimm species or soulless demonic shells held no interest to her at the moment, her full attention drawn to the shapeless mass of darkness swirling within the Gate of the Scorpion's respawn tank.
A few moments later, Tyrian's jagged yellow eyes manifested over the shadows, focused and furious. "YYYYYAAAARrrgggghhhhh! That bitch! I'll rip out her thr—"
"You will do what," Salem interrupted, her voice as cold as ice and her gaze as impassable as stone.
In an instant, the fury left Tyrian's eyes, the scant features pressing themselves to the floor of the capsule in supplication. "Your grace, your grace, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, forgive me, please forgive me…"
"Tyrian," the Queen commanded once more, his silence coming immediately. "You fell… to Blake? How… unexpected."
"No—Not just Lady Blake," her friend stammered, hope blossoming in his eyes. "There was a Fairy Sphere on the island. She is free, the key to the second half of your design."
"Lucy?"
"Yes! The last and greatest of the Celestial Spirit Wizards walks Remnant!"
Salem could not contain the flash of joy that ghosted across her face. After so many millennia of searching, of scheming to tear the Relic of Knowledge from Mistral and have Jinn reveal the locations hidden from her, now, at last, had her patience been rewarded. When she'd learned Team RWBY had at last reached the point when she could send them back, she had prayed that her friends would find the prisons she could not on her own. And as End would say, fairies attract fairies, and her faith had not gone unanswered.
"Have—have I done well?" Tyrian inquired fearfully, but with a tinge of joy in his voice. "Have I… pleased you?"
Salem's smile died, her gaze hardening as lava became rock. True, Lucy's return filled her heart with pleasure, but that did not mean she could ignore the facts of the mission. Most importantly, that both she and Blake weren't there.
"You disappoint me," she declared.
Tears flooded down from Tyrian's eyes over nonexistent cheeks, a heartrending wail of sorrow piercing the air of the Grimmlands.
Salem shuffled over to the tanks' controls and sighed. It wasn't that she sought to cause him pain. But she'd learned the ins and outs of her friends over the years and how best to help each of them perform to the best of their abilities. Tyrian sought to please her above all, so telling him that she was happy that he'd completely bungled his task would only make him laxer in the future. Better to be honest about her disappointment and give him motivation to reevaluate his handling of the situation than potentially let his bloodlust get out of control.
Still, as she managed the mystical machine and began forging her Gate of the Scorpion's new body, she couldn't help but ponder what had gone wrong. From what she could tell, Tyrian had done everything right, been perfectly polite and even saved Blake's parents from the Albain brothers' scheming. Why had she chosen to fight him so readily?
The answer came to her quickly, as it always did because it was almost always correct. The one who must have set her friends against her, perhaps without even realizing it. The one who had poisoned all her endeavors for the last eon. The one she had once called husband and, before that, love.
"Ozpin," she growled, the Grimm outside the castle screeching into the sky at her rage. They'd all love to tear her to shreds, but the mutation she'd suffered bathing in the God of Darkness' mud gave her a degree of influence over the Umbral Spirits similar to that she held over her own people. If she left the castle, they'd swarm in to annihilate Neo-Hell's Core and the rest of her facilities. Summer and Arthur were working on setting up a backup laboratory and core in Atlas, but such a labor would take time. Until they were ready, she would simply have to trust the retrieval of her friends to her circle.
She had waited so long for this, to be reunited with Fairy Tail. She could wait a bit longer. No wizard could stand in her way.
I took a lot of inspiration from FMAB's Mustang vs. Lust for this fight. The Gates are engines of mass destruction, each one far too powerful for any of our heroes to take on alone. But our heroes are not alone. And that means their foes are not invincible.
An extra huge thank you to my patrons: Gregg Tracton, Annaya Chan, Keith Tracton, Nora Okonus, KefkaesqueXIII, Christian Howard, SanyaBane, Matthew Blevins, David Wayman, G-Unit91, and Primordial Paper.
Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!
Go Forth and Conquer!