The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Riot When the Lights Go Out, Part 2
-The Fall of the Dragon of Lightning-
Noon.
A time of warmth and relaxation; of a world thrumming gold; of café-goers spilling out onto the streets and picnic rugs decorating the meadows; of naps and iced drinks in the sun; of shadows shrinking from the triumph of the light.
It wasn't usually a frightening time of day, but then again, Lucy didn't usually go around challenging incredibly powerful mages to duels at high noon.
That, she reflected, had been a highly successful way of living her life, and she should have kept it up.
Now, she paced between the scattered trees, wondering when she had fallen to Natsu's level and how she was ever going to live this down. Assuming, of course, that there was enough left of her to feel things like embarrassment after the man who had once defeated the fifth most powerful Wizard Saint – and whom she had spent most of the previous day antagonizing! – was through with her.
As the challenged party, Laxus had the right to set the terms of the duel. He had picked this sparse yet shady woodland just outside Selinon for their battlefield – ostensibly so that no stray magic would endanger the city, although she suspected he had also been keen to avoid an audience of nosy Blue Pegasus mages, who had started gathering optimistically outside the guildhall before the sun had even risen.
Lucy hadn't queried his choice. The fewer people around to witness her imminent humiliating defeat, the better.
The only people who knew which innocuous clearing was to serve as their battlefield were Freed, who was refereeing the match, and Evergreen and Bickslow, who had shouted at Laxus until he agreed that they could watch. Although all three of them were unequivocally siding with Laxus in this conflict, enough sympathetic looks had been sent in her direction when Laxus wasn't looking to assure her that she wasn't the only one hoping that this clash might yield an explanation for his odd behaviour.
As for her own cheerleading squad… well, Zeref was out there somewhere, preparing to watch the match in secret from a suitable vantage point. It was probably for the best that he wasn't here with her. She'd got enough grief from him last night.
A faint knocking caught her attention – not least because there weren't any doors in the woodland. A bemused glance around revealed Freed stood bashfully beside a tree. She supposed that in the old-fashioned honour matches, whose memory she had invoked by challenging Laxus so publicly, the duellists would have had private tents in which to make their preparations. In the absence of any such formalities, Freed was making do with what he had.
"It's alright," Lucy reassured him. "I'm not meditating, or anything. I thought I'd take this time to plan my funeral."
He tried to smile at this, but it came out awkwardly. "Lucy, withdraw your challenge."
"I can't do that."
"Yes, you can," he insisted. "Say that it was a practical joke, or that you'd had too much to drink or something… no one will think any less of you, I promise."
"I don't care what people think of me. If this is what it'll take to convince Laxus that I'm serious, then I'm going to do it."
"Laxus doesn't want to fight you."
Lucy couldn't help laughing. The dizzying nerves were worse than any kind of alcohol. "Sure he doesn't. I bet he's terrified of how ten months of working for the Weekly Sorcerer has made me as strong as a Wizard Saint."
The rune mage shook his head, stirring the lightning-bolt strands of his hair into an agitated dance. "Lucy, it was Laxus who asked me to try and talk you out of this."
"…Seriously?"
"He…" Freed's fingers played nervously with the hilt of his sword. "He asked Master Bob last night if there were any rules preventing challenges of single combat in the guild. When there weren't, he asked if Master Bob would make one."
"But if he doesn't want to fight me that badly, why doesn't he just decline the challenge?"
"He can't. You challenged him in front of the entire guild, Lucy. He has a reputation to uphold – a reputation that has been good for Blue Pegasus, after they were kind enough to take us in. You don't have that to lose. Please, withdraw your challenge."
"No," she said. "I've got to see this through."
Freed sighed, the soft whoosh of the executioner's blade. "So be it. I did what I could."
After wishing her luck, he set off towards the designated battlefield, and she dragged herself along behind him.
She ought to have been more nervous than she was. Sure, her heart was hammering, and her nerves seemed to be inhibiting her body's ability to absorb oxygen from the air, leaving her lightheaded in spite of her quickened breathing, but there was something else jostling for her attention: a growing curiosity.
As if this situation wasn't odd enough already, Laxus, who must have known that no amount of training could have bridged the gulf in power between them in ten months, genuinely seemed to not want to fight her. It made even less sense than his refusal to return to the guild.
So she entered the battle clearing with a frown upon her face. It wasn't quite the fearless triumph she had been hoping to project, but then again, the only people who could claim to have gone fearlessly into battle against Laxus were people who didn't know who he was. And Natsu, but he was crazy, so he didn't count.
Not that she was in any position to judge. She vowed then and there that if she survived this, she would never complain about Natsu's propensity for starting fights again.
They were fighting to the best of three bouts. Old instincts steered her gaze around the clearing, picking out any and all relevant aspects of her environment. Visibility was good. The earth was firm underfoot, and although the odd twist of root disturbed the ground, there was nothing to hinder an experienced combatant. The only real obstacles the woodland offered were the trees, but the clearing in which they were to fight was vast, with the implication being that they would remain within the circle. Freed, Evergreen and Bickslow stood together at the edge of the clearing.
Woodland stretched in all directions, apart from a single hill. Its rocky top offered a perfect viewing platform for the fight. It was currently empty, though Lucy suspected it wouldn't remain so.
At last, she turned her attention towards her opponent. Laxus was already there. His wine-coloured tank top drew attention to the muscles which had proven so appealing to the patrons bored of Blue Pegasus's pretty-boys, but which to Lucy said only yeah, I could crush your skull in one hand, what of it? He was taller than she remembered, or perhaps she had thought herself bigger and bolder than she was.
Worst, though, were his eyes. They weren't hostile – merely impassive. As with the previous night, there was no anger there; neither the derision she would have expected before the Battle of Fairy Tail, nor the excitement he might have been struggling to hide if Natsu were his challenger today. Just… resignation.
"Withdraw your challenge," he stated, as she approached.
"Tell me the real reason why you don't want to return to Fairy Tail," Lucy returned evenly.
Laxus whipped around and stalked to the far side of the clearing. "You brought this on yourself," he growled. The sense of his magic hit her like a roll of thunder through storm-stretched air. Static spun through her hair, pulling her clothes tight against her skin with a warning crackle. "Don't blame me for anything that might happen to you."
"Same to you," Lucy retorted, taking up her own position opposite him.
She pulled the keyring from her belt and activated Star Dress. She could have done without that reminder of his insane magical power, but the blessing of the heavens banished the static from her skin, replacing it with the familiar cloak of celestial magic. Her Cancer form, she decided, would be a good opening move. She had grown fond of its twin swords.
"Are you ready?" Freed called to the combatants.
Lucy wasn't. She nodded anyway.
"Let's get this over with," Laxus grunted.
"Then… begin!"
And as her last chance to back out slipped away, and this madness became her reality, Lucy did the only thing she could in such a situation – which was to say, the most Natsu thing she could think of.
She charged directly at Laxus.
No tactics. No summoning. No evasive manoeuvres.
A straightforward attack with all her heart, from one mage to another. That was how Natsu communicated. She had always preferred using words, herself, but if you couldn't beat them…
She sensed more than saw Laxus's gaze flick to Freed – is she really doing this? – who gave him a helpless look in return, bound by honour not to intervene. Evergreen had her hands over her eyes. The childish smiles painted onto Bickslow's dolls jarred with the horrified fixation they were projecting.
Then Laxus seemed to sigh, resigning himself to the madness Lucy had wholeheartedly embraced, and the next thing she knew, a huge Lightning Dragon's Roar was rushing towards her.
It was an unimaginative opening move, designed only to end this farce of a battle as quickly as possible.
Lucy kept running straight at it.
Enough lightning magic to knock her out twice over surged towards her – and inexplicably turned aside.
Like a beam deflected by an invisible angled mirror, it scorched a devastating path through the undergrowth instead of striking her. Lucy burst through the remnants of the attack completely unharmed and smashed the hilt of her right blade into his solar plexus.
His expression barely had time to register surprise before he went down. Her momentum pushed them backwards, and she let herself fall with him, one knee pressed into his chest and her left blade flashing lethal starlight at his throat.
The clamour of magical combat vanished as quickly as it had started.
One long moment passed, and then another; two combatants frozen in that fateful embrace.
And then, at last, Freed raised his trembling hand into the air. "The first round goes to Lucy Heartfilia."
The Previous Night
"What were you thinking?" Zeref screeched.
"Zeref-"
"I thought we had agreed that we were both above this kind of barbaric foolishness!"
"Zeref-"
"Because heaven forbid I might have found a Fairy Tail member with a shred of common sense! But no, of course not, you were all too busy brawling with each other to notice when they were dishing out the logic-"
"Hey, here's a thought," Lucy interrupted. "How about we take it as read that I screwed up, and skip to the part where you help me not get my ass kicked tomorrow?"
Zeref gave her a baleful look. "I don't see why I should have to fix your mistakes. You're the one who decided this quest didn't have enough impossibly strong opponents in it; you figure out a way to beat Laxus. Well, a way to lose to him less badly."
"Seriously, Zeref, I am this close to quitting the quest, changing my name, dyeing my hair, and finding some insignificant little village to settle down in for the rest of my life. After trading my celestial keys for a plough and some seed potatoes. So don't act like this doesn't affect you! If you want any chance of seeing Fairy Tail back together again, stop being snarky and help me think of some strategies."
He sat back down with a sigh, letting the book he had been reading before Lucy had stormed into his hotel room drop heavily into his lap. "Fine," he conceded. "Although, that might be easier said than done. I wouldn't fancy my chances against Laxus in a fair fight; I'm not sure any number of clever strategies will be enough to bridge the gap between him and you."
"Wait, you don't think you could beat Laxus?" Lucy demanded, startled.
"I have never claimed to be much good at fighting, Lucy," came the mild response. "I don't believe that's what I'm famous for."
"But- but you're you! The most powerful mage in the world!"
Zeref raised his eyebrows at her. "Then it may surprise you to learn that outside of certain violence-prone guilds I could name, most powerful is not synonymous with best at fighting. And don't forget, my offensive power is crippled when I'm trying not to kill my opponent."
"But…"
"Well, I suppose it wouldn't strictly be true to say I would lose to him," he amended. "Immortality aside, if I had to fight him, I would do something clever and win before he knew what was going on."
"And these clever methods would involve…?" Lucy prompted hopefully.
"Certainly no magic I can teach you in the next twelve hours," he sighed.
"Rats."
"Quite."
Lucy collapsed into the other chair. "So much for that, then. Here I am, with magic that's apparently breaking the universe and a temporary alliance with the Black Mage himself, and I'm still certain to be trounced in tomorrow's duel."
"Not necessarily," Zeref mused. At her sharp glance, that wonderful, familiar smile twitched once again at his lips. "How do you feel about cheating?"
It had almost been too easy.
In the end, Laxus had acted exactly as Zeref had predicted he would. There was very little Lucy wouldn't give for the second bout to go as smoothly as the first.
But there was no chance of that.
In the instant before Freed had called an end to the battle, she had seen it: a spark igniting within her opponent's eyes; a righteous, burning anger. It wasn't merely the first real emotion she had sensed from him since their reunion – it was a threat ferocious enough to obliterate the dispassionate façade he had cultivated in his isolation.
She had no way of knowing precisely what he had sensed when his attack had been deflected, but it had been enough. Enough to know that it wasn't her doing. Enough to know that she wasn't playing fair.
Enough to know that he would be the one going home in ignominious defeat if he didn't start taking this battle seriously.
There was a reason why she'd convinced him to fight to best of three, after all.
Freed was feeling torn.
His left hand was clamped between the jaws of the lion that was his loyalty to Laxus – a lion upon whose majesty and unwavering courage he had always prided himself, even after it had dragged him off to a guild which didn't suit him at all.
Then Lucy had arrived. She'd questioned the things he had come to take for granted; drew attention to the discrepancies he had decided weren't important. What had begun as ripples across the watering hole of his daily life had surfaced as a huge crocodile of doubt, biting down on his other wrist and doing its best to drag him under.
He wanted Laxus to win. But he also wanted to go back to Fairy Tail, which meant he wanted Lucy to win. But he didn't want Laxus to be forced back to Fairy Tail if he didn't want to go, so he wanted Laxus to win. But he wanted to know why Laxus didn't want to go… and why he'd picked Blue Pegasus, and why he'd been drifting apart from them ever since they'd come here – and he knew he might get those answers if Lucy won.
So those two great beasts continued to wrench him back and forth, and all the while the sun blazed mercilessly down, a scourge for this purgatory of indecision.
(The Archives of Blue Pegasus had turned out to contain a lot less rare magic and a lot more romance novels than Freed had been hoping for. But he had already declared his intent to read all their books before leaving the guild, and he wasn't the kind of scoundrel who went back on his word… and in retrospect, he had probably learnt more in those ten months than he would have done from ten years in a library of ancient runic texts. Yet while the poetry may have given him the words with which to express his turbulent feelings, it wasn't helping him find a solution to his predicament.)
The first round of combat should have made his way forward clear. Once the shock of seeing Laxus bested so easily had given way to reasonable doubt, it seemed obvious that Lucy was fighting dishonestly. She was breaking the rules of single combat. That was unequivocally wrong.
Yet it seemed those crocodile teeth had sunk right into the soft spot he'd had for the Celestial Spirit mage ever since Tenrou Island, and they weren't letting go. If cheating was the only way to win… and if winning was the only way to get answers…
"Aren't you going to stop them?"
Freed glanced up to see Bickslow gesturing towards Lucy and Laxus, who were staring each other down with a new intensity in preparation for the second round. He shook his head. "I'll intervene if Laxus asks me to. Otherwise…"
Bickslow gave a terse nod and turned his attention back to the combatants. Evergreen, however, continued to eye Freed through the corner of her glasses. "You're not going to disqualify her for blatant cheating? That must have been one hell of a book she bribed you with."
"Three, actually, and you have no idea how rare they were," Freed corrected her, slipping into a dreamy tone.
"Traitor."
"It's not like that," he objected, taking offence at the word. "She didn't ask me to turn a blind eye to her actions during the fight, or anything like that. But we can't prove that she's cheating, can we? If we can't demonstrate exactly what she's doing, what's to stop her from claiming that she learnt new lightning-repelling magic during the last ten months?"
"But we're the referees! We have to do something!"
"How about this, then?" Freed offered, even as he raised his hand to declare the beginning of the second bout. "We'll work out what she's doing. Once we know how she's cheating, we can put a stop to it."
"And how do we do that?" Evergreen demanded.
The rune mage gave a grim smile. "Whatever trick she's using to deflect attacks of that magnitude, it won't be some perfect ability to repel lightning. It'll have rules, just like any other kind of magic. That's our way in. We formulate hypotheses and test them against the evidence to determine the laws and limitations of her magic."
"What if she's using a lightning-rod?" Bickslow suggested. "She could have something that attracts lightning magic. I bet she hid an artefact in the forest before the battle." With that, he sent his dolls off into the woodland to search.
Privately, Freed doubted that any artefact would be strong enough to divert the path of Laxus's magic, but at least it gave them a starting point. The second round began with far more caution than the first, on both sides. Lucy, who was now holding a bow, loosed a single arrow towards Laxus, who hit it out of the sky with his fist. Laxus retaliated with a flurry of blue-tinged ball lightning, which she made no attempt to dodge.
Most of the crackling orbs hit the ground around her; the two which should have made direct contact were instead deflected at opposite angles. Freed could have sworn Lucy was smiling as she summoned Taurus.
"Can't be a lightning-rod," Evergreen reasoned. "Those two balls went off in different directions."
"Maybe there are multiple lightning-rods," Bickslow argued.
"Then why did they only attract the balls that were going to hit her?"
Freed clenched his fist. Never had he been so tense watching Laxus fight. His friend would win, that wasn't in doubt, yet still his heart skipped as the lightning mage blocked a sweep of the Bull Spirit's axe with an arm protected only by loops of sparking energy. There was a dryness in his mouth as he tried to calm his breathing and think.
This time, though, the bolt Laxus summoned flew true. Lucy's Spirit shattered into innumerable pieces as he was forced back to his own world.
It wasn't a cheer which rose to Freed's lips at that, but another idea. "It didn't protect Taurus," he murmured. "What if it doesn't attract lightning, but repels it? And Lucy has it on her body? Then only magic which comes within a certain radius of her will be deflected…"
In which case the next test was obvious, but this wasn't his fight. He couldn't interfere. Even shouting a suggestion to Laxus would have been cheating, and although he could just about tolerate Lucy's… unorthodox strategy, he drew the line at joining in himself.
And with Taurus out of the way, and Lucy still holding her bow, Freed had no doubt that the Dragon Slayer was going to close the distance and engage Lucy in a physical battle that would render her protection against lightning useless-
But he didn't. Instead, Laxus released two more deadly bolts of lightning directly towards her, one a heartbeat behind the other. Freed's eyes widened – and then an almost manic grin stretched across his face. Laxus must have had the same idea as him: rather than going in with his customary brute force, he was testing the limits of Lucy's game-breaking new ability, just as his team was trying to reason it out from the sidelines.
Both bolts were deflected at the same instant, scorching parallel lines into the woods. The battlefield was beginning to resemble a many-pointed star.
"The Mayor is not going to be happy about the state of these woodlands by the time Laxus is through with them," Evergreen sighed.
However, Freed was still smiling. "It's not distance, it's time," he breathed. "The bolts aren't being deflected when they reach a set distance from her body. Those two were deflected at the same time. This is deliberate."
"So, it's some sort of artefact she's activating to repel nearby lightning?" Bickslow inquired. "You could stop the fight and insist that the use of hidden magical tools is forbidden. That's not an unreasonable request."
"But why can't we see her using it?" Evergreen complained.
It wasn't just sight, Freed realized. None of them could sense anything – no tell-tale pulse of magic, neither Lucy's star-bright power nor the artificial aura of a lacrima-powered device – that would signal the activation of her hidden device. Without that, if she simply claimed not to have one, they would be unable to prove otherwise.
"Because she isn't," Bickslow said suddenly.
"What?"
"Watch closely."
With his dolls now situated at regular intervals around the clearing's perimeter, Bickslow had the best vision of them all. Frowning, Freed focussed on Lucy again, trying to see what had caught his teammate's attention. Laxus was still keeping his distance, exchanging showers of lightning for volleys of arrows, though to no avail when none of his attacks could touch her.
Taking advantage of her invulnerability so openly it seemed like gloating, Lucy abandoned the exchange of fire and briefly touched her keys. It was Scorpio who appeared, and he wasted no time in sending a vortex of sand towards Laxus. Freed tensed – then relaxed again as Laxus staggered aside – and despite Bickslow's advice, he almost missed it.
The lightning mage gave no sign that he was calling his magic. No gesture, no word, not so much as a glance in Lucy's direction. In that invisibility, the gulf in experience between him and his opponent was clearer than ever. The skies behind Lucy opened, and a single streak of lightning blazed towards her – and was deflected.
Which wouldn't have been surprising, given how this battle was going, except they saw Lucy start at the thunder a split-second later, and Freed knew that there was no way she had known that attack was coming.
No, Lucy hadn't noticed it at all. Which meant she hadn't been the one who had deflected it.
"There's someone else," he realized. "Someone's protecting her."
Bickslow made a frustrated noise. "But why can't my babies see them?"
"Invisibility?" Evergreen guessed.
"It wouldn't fool a Dragon Slayer's senses," Freed countered. "There's one way to tell for sure, though."
The runes he needed sprung at once to his mind. Drawing his duellist's blade, he sketched the letters with condensed magic as his ink and the air as his canvas. Once satisfied that they would do what he needed, he touched the tip of the blade to the ground. Runes spread from that point like an unfurling ribbon, the same symbols repeated over and over, until the battlefield was ringed in soft, pulsing violet: words that would record all magic used within the circle.
But as Freed scrolled through the information generated by his runes, he found himself frowning. His spell was registering the irregular bursts of Laxus's power – familiar, and with the odd comfort of ever-distant thunder. It picked up Lucy's spells, too. Her magic varied from the brightest gold to the purest white, the crimson of a fire-forge to the blue of the hottest flame; all the colours which bedecked the steadfast constellations.
And that was all there was. No hidden third party. Nothing that couldn't be explained.
Then, as Laxus threw another bolt at Lucy and it was turned aside, the runes scrolling through the air suddenly glitched.
As though it had always been there, there was darkness.
It was pure, it was intense, and it engulfed Freed's information feed like a tsunami of condensed midnight, unsullied by the light of even a single star. It swept away sight and sound, quenched the erratic sparks and celestial colours, soaked into his magical senses like ink into linen…
Yet already it was fading. The diagnostic runes were flickering and reverting back to their original states, as if it had never existed. If not for his faith in the rules of his own magic, he would have thought he'd imagined it.
What kind of magic only appeared once it was already gone?
The same magic that could deflect multiple lightning bolts in the same moment.
Impossible instantaneous travel. The accomplice no one could see; the magic that came and went in an instant.
Freed had never heard of magic capable of stopping time, and he knew far more about Lost and almost-Lost magic than most, but ever since the affair with the Eclipse Gate, he was less eager to write such things off as impossible simply because he had never encountered them before.
A flick of his blade added a quick amendment to the runes, and the next time that magic appeared and disappeared at once, his runes immediately traced it back to its source: the rocky hill which overlooked the battlefield.
"Stay here!" he shouted to Bickslow and Evergreen, and then he was running. From up there, a mage could see all the surprise attacks Lucy wouldn't, and the distance from the clearing didn't matter if they really did have power over time. If he could take them out, Laxus would be able to fight Lucy on even terms.
As he wove through the trees, prioritizing speed over stealth, he was already framing runic constructions to bind and suppress, rehearsing the letters with the tip of his still-drawn sword. He would only get one shot at this. Surprise was the only way to overcome a mage with such an ability.
His detection spell had been correct. There was someone at the top of the little plateau, watching the battlefield intently – too intently to have noticed Freed coming up behind him. Throwing caution to the wind, the rune mage charged, flicking his blade as he did so.
A line of runes uncoiled like a whip from the tip of the blade. They encircled the figure before detaching from the blade and snapping into place on the ground – a circular prison with him at its centre. It described two rules in an inviolable tongue: one to prevent anyone other than the caster from passing through, and another to prohibit the use of all magic within.
The runes caught and held. The laws became absolute. Time magic or no time magic, the stranger wasn't going anywhere.
Freed entered the circle, his sword pointing towards the unmoving figure's back. "The game is up," he proclaimed. "Do not try to resist!"
Slowly, and with his hands raised in a non-threatening gesture, the stranger turned to regard the rune mage. He was small, Freed realized. Young. Too young, for the amused, almost confident smile upon his lips. If not for the circumstances of their meeting, he would not have thought him dangerous at all. His black eyes were as deep as his magic, and as full of life.
"Oh, my," remarked he. "I appear to have been captured."
The Previous Night
"I am totally on board with cheating if it will save me from looking like a fool," Lucy said bluntly.
"More of a fool, you mean," Zeref corrected, that infuriating yet wonderful smile twitching once again at his lips. "Well, you won't lose if I'm helping you."
"Sure, but I think Laxus might object to the battle suddenly becoming two-on-one."
"I had more of a subtle approach in mind."
"Like what? Support magic?"
Some of her doubt must have made it into her voice, because he raised his eyebrows at her: "I am not entirely unfamiliar with support magic, Lucy."
"Right. That Sky Dragon Slayer magic you're still pretending you don't have."
He gave her a severe look, but didn't rise to it. "More importantly, there are still twelve hours until the battle. If I know what I'm looking for, I can find and learn any magic in that time."
"I doubt support magic will be enough to close the gap between myself and Laxus, though," Lucy said, and he nodded slowly. "Even with it, I won't stand a chance in a prolonged fight. The only thing I can think of is to hit him hard and fast with more power than he's expecting… do you think Urano Metria will take him out?"
"That depends. How many times can you use it consecutively?"
Lucy froze. She was trying to be honest for the sake of their brainstorming session, but revealing the limitations of her magic to her future enemy wasn't a better decision now than it had been at the start of their journey.
Not that it mattered, when he seemed able to guess exactly what she wasn't saying from her reactions alone. "Just the once, then?" he asked, smirking.
She glared at him.
"I see." His grin faded as he tapped his finger against the arm of his chair, far too slow a tempo for the racing of his thoughts. "No, there's no way once will be enough to knock him out from an uninjured state."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," she groaned. "It's a lost cause, then."
"Maybe. There's this fascinating piece of magic I've always wanted to try which can theoretically connect two people's magical cores, rather like a forced unison raid. If we could get that to work, you'd be able to draw upon my power to fuel your magic. I bet I could use Urano Metria enough times to make Laxus stay down." With a tilt of his head, he scrutinized her for a moment, and then asked, unexpectedly, "Do you trust me?"
"Even less so when you're talking about using me as a guinea pig for experimental magic than normal," she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Besides, I think Freed and the others might find it a little suspicious that I can suddenly perform unlimited finishing moves in a row."
Frowning, Zeref leaned back in his chair. "You're going to have that problem whatever we do, though. Even if you could come up with a clever way to win that is entirely fair, people will suspect it isn't. Lucy Heartfilia can't beat Laxus Dreyar in a fair fight – it's so self-evident that even those who see it falsified with their own eyes won't accept it. They'll suspect you're cheating in a way they just haven't discovered yet."
"So, I'm not allowed to win, just because people don't believe I can?" she demanded. "That's unfair – not to mention ridiculous!"
"It depends what you want from this fight. A victory is still a victory. If you were fighting a dark mage, you could cheat, forge new magic on the battlefield, get lucky, or simply outmatch them in skill… how you won wouldn't make a difference. The same could apply here. If all you want to do is hold Laxus to your somewhat one-sided decision that he'll return to the guild when you win, then it doesn't matter that they know you're cheating, as long as they can't prove it. But…"
Tentatively at first, and then with growing strength, Lucy said, "That's not what I want. I never intended to force anyone to return to the guild if they didn't want to."
"Then why did you challenge Laxus to a fight?"
"Because I'm a moron," she said flatly.
"No. You're not. What you did was utterly moronic, but you are not a moron, which tells me that you had a reason, even if you weren't fully conscious of it at the time. What was it?"
"I…"
She tailed off. It wasn't an accusation, but a genuine question, trying to understand her – or perhaps to prompt her to understand herself. It was impossible to respond to such sincerity except in kind. She felt as though nothing she said would be considered childish, but treated with the utmost respect.
"I just wanted to show him that I was serious," she confessed, raising her head. "I thought maybe then he'd stop brushing me off and tell me the truth… but it backfired. You're right; everyone already knows I can't beat him. He's never going to take this battle seriously."
"Make him," Zeref said.
"How?"
There was a pause as he considered this, and she considered him. His eyes were shining brighter than any of the lamps in the cheap hotel room – the brightest black she had ever seen. If challenging Laxus was the sort of thing that would trigger a fiesta of excitement amongst her usual teammates, then this was what Zeref loved – the planning, the creativity, the puzzle she had given him to solve.
And his passion was contagious. In that moment, she wasn't nervous about the humiliating defeat waiting for her in the morning. She was excited to find out how they were going to turn it round.
At last, Zeref suggested, "Cheat, and be caught cheating."
"What do you mean?"
"Convince Laxus to fight multiple rounds – say, best of three. I'll help you win the first round in the most dramatic, overtly dishonest way we can think of. That way, he'll know he has to take you seriously, or he'll suffer a humiliating defeat. In the second round, let him and his friends work out what we're doing, and then once they've put a stop to it, throw the match. That'll put you on an even footing for the final round – with the bonus that they'll know you're not cheating, and that your honest efforts to reach him are your own."
"That…" Lucy began, then paused. "That might work."
"It's better than a guaranteed defeat, perhaps. And we have time now to devise some methods of catching his attention."
Lucy grinned. "Oh, I have a few ideas…"
"Who are you?" Freed demanded.
"I'd have thought that was obvious," the stranger shrugged. "I'm Lucy's secret accomplice. Or Spymaster General, if you prefer."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Funny, that."
Unimpressed by his captive's nonchalance, Freed swept the tip of his blade around. It was a gesture meant to intimidate, but the stranger's gaze never left his own – not even to see the blade stop millimetres from his throat. "I won't let you interfere in this fight any longer!" Freed declared.
"Well, it's about time!"
"…Eh?"
"I was beginning to think I would have to hammer signs into the ground before you thought to look for me in literally the only place that would give me an adequate view of the battlefield." Then he paused, and added, "Although, I suppose I should give you points for figuring out what I was doing, as well as where I was doing it from. Lucy said you would, but I wasn't sure I believed her."
"You wanted to be caught?" Freed demanded.
"Of course I wanted to be caught! Have you any idea how difficult it is to repeatedly suspend time in quick succession? This is how you manage to magically exhaust someone like me – you let the teammate with no appreciation of the complexity of spatiotemporal magic be in charge of the plan! Not to mention this…"
He waved his right hand in a sharp, irritable gesture, drawing attention to the fact that it was covered in furious crimson burns, as if it had been repeatedly lashed by a whip of lava. Glaring at Freed, as if he were the one responsible, he grumbled, "She's the one who went and challenged Laxus to single combat. Why am I the one who has to put all the effort in – and suffer for it too?"
Freed stared.
"Oh, this?" he continued, waving his hand again. "In order to redirect magic like Laxus's, I have to physically make contact with it. Unfortunately, I can't hold a time stop for very long before Lucy's keys start to react, and once you account for the time it takes me to get to the battlefield and back, it doesn't leave me with very long to manipulate the magic – and Dragon Slayer magic is notoriously tricky to hijack. I have to cut corners somewhere. Still, better me than Lucy, I suppose. Your runes are currently stopping my body from regenerating, but it'll be fine as soon as I'm free."
The flabbergasted rune mage recovered his voice at last. "Why are you doing this?"
To his surprise – not that there had been anything about this encounter that wasn't surprising – the stranger simply smiled. "Look," he instructed, nodding towards the edge of the plateau, and the battlefield below it.
Freed did not move.
His captive sighed. "Come on," he said, walking calmly up to the drop as if he hadn't noticed the blade nicking his throat. He stopped just inside the rune barrier, which lit up with a warning glow as he approached, and stared down into the clearing. After a moment, Freed followed his lead.
Below, the combatants were still circling each other warily, but as Lucy's accomplice raised his hand in a casual signal, Freed saw her gaze flick from Laxus up to their vantage point. It was the first time she had done anything to give away her accomplice's location during the entire fight – because, he realized, she wanted it to be noticed.
It was an invitation, and Laxus took it. He flung towards her a token bolt of energy which he was clearly expecting to be deflected; a distraction while he turned to see what had caught her attention.
Lucy's hand moved to her keys, and then fell back to her side. This time, the bolt did not turn aside. She took the hit proudly, not making a sound even when the impact flung her straight off her feet.
"She could have dodged that," Freed observed, frowning; torn between keeping his sword pointed at his prisoner and wanting to dash back to the forest floor to check that Lucy was alright. Fortunately, he could see Bickslow stepping in to declare the end of the second round.
"Easily," the other affirmed.
"Then why…?"
"I do believe that was her way of apologizing for winning the first round so dishonestly. Now that they're tied, she'll fight fairly, as long as he continues to take her seriously."
"If he does, she'll lose." Echoes of his earlier dilemma flashed through Freed's mind. Everything had reverted back to black and white when his goal had been to enforce the honourable rules of single combat – and now that he had achieved it, he could no longer pretend that this was an isolated act, driven by ideals and free of consequences.
"You know, that kind of attitude is exactly why we had to implement such a ridiculous plan in the first place."
"Laxus would have won ten times already if you hadn't been protecting Lucy," Freed pointed out, but the stranger merely smiled again. It was such a small gesture, yet so overwhelming in its amusement, its condescension.
"Lucy's barely started yet. The interference between my temporal magic and her keys prevents her from using them freely. It was a choice between using her own power and using mine, and now that she's no longer relying on me, you'll be able to see what she can really do. This battle will be one worth watching." Then he looked directly at Freed and added, "You have my word that I won't interfere again."
"That's right, you won't," emphasized Freed sternly. "You're coming back with me to explain your actions to Laxus and the others."
It shouldn't have been possible for eyes so black to shine so brightly. "Oh, I don't think I am."
"I'm afraid you don't get a say in the matter."
"Let me give you a piece of advice," the stranger smiled. "Next time you trap someone inside a Jutsu Shiki barrier, don't let them get close enough to touch the runes unless you're absolutely certain they don't know how to modify them."
"What-?"
"See you," he said, and vanished.
Now that Freed was attuned to it, he felt the aftermath of that beautiful, alien magic as it faded, having twisted the axes of space and time once again. It shouldn't have been possible for anyone to use magic within the circle – yet when Freed glanced down, there were peculiar indentations around one of his runes, tracks in the dirt which diverted the flow of liquid light. The other must have drawn them with his heel while Freed had been watching Laxus and Lucy – the exact right modification in the exact right place to silently render the entire circle useless. And he hadn't noticed a thing…
You have my word that I won't interfere again.
Freed took a deep breath and let it out again, his eyes tightly closed. Then he sheathed his sword and headed back to the clearing as the third and final round began.
Cancer.
The Gate of the Giant Crab. Once, it had also been called the Gate of Men: the portal through which souls would descend to enter newborn babies, and one day, the portal through which those same souls would return to the heavens. One blade rested in each of Lucy's hands, two halves of the dreadful scissors symbolizing the great crab's claws, poised to sever an unlucky mortal's thread of life. Personally, Lucy preferred the use her Spirit had found for his scissors, but right now, she needed all the offensive capability she could get.
While Scorpio's blast of sand propelled Cancer towards Laxus as a distraction, Lucy dived in to flank him. Myth and magic honed the edges of her blades. One hummed towards his neck, and the other twisted across his stomach – and neither came close to hitting, as he turned between them faster than the lightning which danced to the tempo of his heartbeats, and drove both fists into her with an impact that flung her straight into Scorpio's sand vortex.
Lucy had known fighting Laxus for real was going to be difficult.
What she hadn't been anticipating was the precise way in which it would be difficult.
It wasn't a dangerous fight, as such. Laxus might hurt her – and she'd probably deserve it, after the stunt she and Zeref had pulled earlier – but he would never do anything to endanger her life.
But fighting him was intense, in a way she had never experienced before.
Scorpio.
Discarding all concerns about gravity or motion, Lucy made the transformation mid-flight. At once she became aware of the sand whipping around her, of the sky below and earth above, of a blue-gold harmony comprehended one moment and gone the next. The blessing of Mother Earth ran through her veins, just as it had the scorpion whose sacrifice had saved all the beasts of the land.
Without conscious command, the sand began to flow, silken against her skin. It caught her flight, re-orientated her, hid her from view – and then launched her straight back towards Laxus.
That should have worked.
It should, at least, have hit.
But he knew. Maybe it was his draconic senses, maybe it was his instinct as a mage, or maybe it was a string of predictions based on the scientific analysis of the hundreds more opponents he had fought than her in his lifetime, but he always seemed able to anticipate her attacks.
A half-step brought him into position before she had even fully emerged from the sandstorm, and his knee drove into her gut. Her carapace of sand and starlight absorbed the worst of the damage, but it did little against the subsequent explosion of electricity, which tossed her back across the clearing.
Taurus.
A constellation named in homage of the god who had won the heart of the princess by transforming himself into a white bull so that he could ferry her across the ocean on his back. Her Taurus wasn't quite as gallant in his pursuit of her, but she knew the lengths he would go to for her sake.
As before, her transformation was near-instantaneous. Her Fleuve d'étoiles flicked out and wrapped around the end of a branch, and her headlong flight became a swinging arc. Angular momentum was on her side: contracting the whip as she turned through the vertical circle boosted her speed, and by the time she let go, moments before a lightning strike disintegrated the tree providing her axis, she was hurtling back towards Laxus from above, all the might of the celestial bull channelled into her fists.
She might as well have been punching a mountain.
A single raised arm blocked her strike. When he pushed back, she was flung away from him like a butterfly caught in a hurricane. She landed clumsily, skidded, stumbled.
It had been eight seconds since her feet had last touched the ground.
It felt like long enough for her to have forgotten how to walk.
In those eight seconds alone, she had gone through three different Star Dress forms, had three strikes turned effortlessly away, been hit twice herself, and suddenly changed direction so many times that the laws of motion were considering pressing charges.
There was no other word for it than intense.
When Laxus fought for real, he didn't let up for a moment. There was no lull in the fighting, no backing away, no banter, no pause to charge up an ultimate strike.
No – all of his attention was on her, all the time. If she slowed down, the superficial wounds she was taking would become critical; if she stopped, she would lose. It was as simple as that.
She needed time to come up with a plan; time to pin down precisely what it was that was bothering her about Laxus's fighting style; time to process the events of their battle so far in relation to the questions she had come here to answer: why Blue Pegasus? Why not Fairy Tail? Why had he been so reluctant to fight her?
But she wasn't permitted so much as a moment of reprieve.
Even now, she had barely had chance to reaffirm her faith in up and down before she was forced to throw herself into an ungainly roll to dodge an incoming dragon's roar. She timed it badly; pain washed through her shoulder.
Her Taurus form had the highest endurance of all her transformations, and she winced at the thought of switching to another after the beating she had already taken. Instead, she brandished a key, still warm from the heat of interference between Zeref's temporal magic and her own power.
Aries.
The sacred ram, whose fleece was made of gold. Her Spirit's wool was divinely soft, embodying the comforts of home rather than a luxurious treasure over which men had waged war, and it was all the more precious for it. As the clearing blossomed with vibrant pink fluffiness – undoubtedly the most peculiar form of concealment ever to grace a battlefield – Laxus's next attack went wide.
Maybe this was their break. Aries had taken the wounded Cancer's place, and Lucy still had herself and Scorpio in play. Well-timed wool explosions from Aries propelled them both around the clearing. Laxus was moving little – in fact, he had hardly moved from his starting spot during the entire fight – so their newfound speed offered them a huge advantage. Lucy managed to land a glancing blow, and Scorpio's stinger sank into Laxus's thigh before the Spirit was blasted away, and if they could keep this up-
Too late, Lucy understood the tension in the air around Laxus; the odd, invisible crackling that intensified every time her feet touched a cloud of wool. Static. Her body was glowing with it, a sickly radiation, an inescapable target for the enormous thunderbolt descending from the sky-
Virgo.
Scorpio and Aries were flung back to their own world by the impact, but Lucy's last-minute transformation had saved her. She plunged towards the earth – and then into it, as the harvest goddess's protection manipulated the soil around her. The static charges fled harmlessly into the earth as Lucy tunnelled deeper.
So, she had survived another lifetime of high-octane toil crammed into thirty seconds, but what did she have to show for it?
All her gates were closed. Half her Spirits were too injured to return even if she had the magic and the concentration to summon them. When she'd shifted from her Taurus to her Virgo form, the exhaustion the Bull Spirit's strength had been keeping at bay hit all at once. If Laxus followed her underground-
But he wouldn't.
The certainty burst so unexpectedly into her mind that she couldn't have stopped any faster if she'd smacked into the wall of an underground safe. Why was she so sure about that? Since when had she decided she was the expert in Laxus's attack patterns? She interrogated that intuition, measuring it up against the memories of strike, evade, repeat that had characterized her side of the battle… and down in the dark, where serendipity had given her a moment to think – a weapon more valuable than any spell for a combatant like her – she suddenly understood what was odd about the way Laxus was fighting.
He wasn't engaging her in physical combat.
Close-quarters combat was Laxus's greatest strength. His physical might was phenomenal even without magic; with the raw energy of his lightning enhancing it, every single strike was devastating. That should only have gone double at the start of the second round, when Zeref's interference had rendered all his ranged attacks impotent. The smart response – the obvious response – would have been for him to charge in and fight her hand-to-hand.
Yet he had continued to fling spells at her from a distance. Spells designed to test the limits of her miraculous new ability to deflect lightning magic, yes, but there had been no need for him to play along with her rule-breaking when he could have used his fists and probably won despite it.
And even now that their battle had finally become fair, he continued to push her away every time she got close, striking with lightning bolts and dragon's roars rather than bone-shattering fists.
Why?
She had no answer to that.
But she could try to use it to her advantage.
She summoned Gemini into the tunnels with her, who copied Lucy's form, right down to her Virgo Star Dress, and began tunnelling to the other side of the battlefield. Lucy transitioned back to her Scorpio form. She could sense Laxus through the living earth, right above her current position.
Gemini-Lucy broke through the ground first – a distraction. A heartbeat later, Lucy did the same, cutting upwards with all the power she had left. Her fist connected with Laxus's chin… just as he brought his own clasped hands, wrapped in lightning, down upon her.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
Why hadn't he fallen for Gemini's bait?
That one useless thought drifted lazily through her mind as she crashed back to the ground. She had been supposed to take him out while he had been distracted shooting his ranged lightning bolts at Gemini… and yet she was the one lying stunned on the ground.
Laxus's growl reached her ears from a whole world away. "Yield," he ordered. "It's over."
She pushed the distraction away. She needed to think.
Okay, so Laxus was far too tough to go down from one solid punch. There was nothing weird about that.
Except there was. In the very first round, he had been floored by a single blow, hadn't he?
Somewhere, a million miles away, Freed was beginning the count to ten that would grant Laxus his victory, and Lucy pushed that away too.
What had been different about that first blow? Only the location – she had targeted his diaphragm, rather than his chin. But Laxus was a Dragon Slayer, and the lungs of a Dragon Slayer were probably their toughest feature, enhanced by magic beyond human comprehension. If anything, that first strike should have had less of an impact than the second… unless his dragon's lungs had been compromised.
And just like that, everything fell into place.
Blue Pegasus. The disengagement from his team. The woes of a certain ex-Take Over mage who had had to choose between staying with the woman he loved and pursuing his culinary dreams. And, earlier still, Laxus and his team being carried back to the guildhall on stretchers after a calamitous fight with the first of the Tartaros demons…
And as Freed's terse count of "Nine" disturbed the tension of the battlefield, Lucy said, "I know why you don't want to come back to Fairy Tail."
Silence. Zeref might as well have stopped time again, because Freed, who was too busy staring at Lucy to notice the pointed look Laxus shot him, had ceased his knockout count.
Lucy pushed herself into a sitting position, the best she could manage in her current state. What her body lacked in strength, however, her words made up for in conviction. "I think it began ten months ago, on the day that you overheard an argument between Evergreen and Elfman."
"What?" Evergreen choked. "You're making me out to be the villain again? How can this possibly be my-"
Her protest cut off as Freed and Bickslow simultaneously elbowed her. They all needed to hear this.
"Just like Freed and Bickslow," Lucy continued, "you missed the start of their argument. You didn't realize Elfman had just rejected a serious romantic gesture for which Evergreen had spent days mustering up the courage. You thought she was angry because he had given up magic to become a chef. And when you heard your own teammates yelling at him that he wasn't good enough… you realized that you couldn't tell them the very thing for which you had spent days mustering up your courage."
"Tell us what?" Freed wondered.
Laxus said nothing.
Lucy didn't answer the question, either. "That was when you decided to take your team to Blue Pegasus. Previously, you'd only been considering the two strongest guilds in Fiore, Lamia Scale and Sabertooth, but Blue Pegasus was still respectable enough that your choice wouldn't be questioned. Most importantly, though, Blue Pegasus had one advantage over the other guilds: it's as much a host club as a mage guild.
"You see, if a member of any other guild wanted to turn their back on magic, like Elfman did, people would start to ask the same questions he had to face from me. But if a member of Blue Pegasus wanted to do the same, they could simply throw themselves into the host side of things rather than taking jobs, and no one would even notice. You didn't come here to continue your career as an S-Class Mage, did you, Laxus? You came here to stop being one."
Evergreen murmured, "Laxus, is this true?"
"So when you skipped out on all those jobs with us, it wasn't just because you wanted to oust Hibiki as the most-requested host?" Bickslow asked, half-teasingly, but it fell flat in the silence.
Still, Laxus did not speak.
Lucy sighed. "You can't return to Fairy Tail, because then you won't have the excuse of host work any more. If you don't take mage jobs, and the dangerous high-level ones expected of you at that, people will notice and start asking questions – the questions you don't want to answer. Your old friends won't be able to just accept one of Fairy Tail's strongest mages inexplicably retiring from mage work… just as the argument you overheard led you to the mistaken belief that your teammates wouldn't accept it either. To maintain this ten-month deception, you have to stay in Blue Pegasus.
"And that's also why you didn't want to fight me, isn't it? It had nothing to do with winning or losing. You were afraid that if your friends got to see you fight for real, like they haven't since Tartaros fell, they would figure it out. I don't think they did," she added, glancing at the three of them, who each looked thoroughly confused. "They were probably too busy trying to work out what I was doing. But I figured it out, and I think they have a right to know the truth. If you won't tell them, I will."
"Laxus, what's going on?" Freed pleaded.
Again, the great Dragon Slayer did not answer. His head was bowed, his eyes closed tight… but it seemed as though he gave the tiniest of nods towards Lucy.
"The cure Porlyusica used to eliminate the Magic Barrier Particles from your bodies after Tartaros didn't work on him," she explained quietly. "The particles have permanently bonded with his lungs."
"Laxus!" Freed exclaimed, one word that spoke more of horror and hurt than all the tragic plays in the Blue Pegasus Archives combined.
"I don't know exactly what they're doing to you," Lucy continued, addressing Laxus once again, "but based on how you were fighting, I'd guess that physical exertion agitates them, which is why you were hardly moving, not even to dodge. You can't channel magic properly into your body, so you can't enhance your physical blows. Your magic is still incredibly powerful, but it hurts you to use it, doesn't it? Those Magic Barrier Particles are resisting everything you do."
"All of that," Laxus confirmed, equally softly. "I can't fight like I used to."
"Laxus, you dummy!" Evergreen shrieked, hitting a startled Laxus in the chest. "Why didn't you tell us? If you need help, we can help you! We're your team! That's why we're here!"
"Did you really think we would abandon you because you weren't as strong as you once were?" Freed demanded. "If so, then I've truly failed you. You should be able to feel like you can talk to us about anything… and know that we'll support you no matter what you choose to do in life…"
"Honestly, you should know better than to judge all of us by what Ever said to Elfman!" Bickslow grinned. "Have you ever heard them argue over something that wasn't stupidly trivial?"
"Hey!" Evergreen protested. "For what it's worth, after the account has been so distorted-" This time it was Lucy on the receiving end of her glare, although Lucy was pretty certain Elfman was the one to blame, not her. "-I never had a problem with Elfman wanting to become a chef. Or with Laxus being a host, or… or anything he wants to do. If you want to quit being a mage, or just take things easy for a bit – that doesn't matter! You can't keep things this serious from us, dummy!"
"I know that," Laxus murmured. His eyes were still shut, though Lucy thought it might not have been an expression of resignation, but an unwillingness, even now, to let them see the pain he had been keeping to himself for far too long. "I do know that, I just… I didn't know what to do. I had already spent too long pretending everything was fine."
Bickslow said, shortly, "That's a stupid reason to make yourself suffer. You have to take better care of yourself, and if anyone from Fairy Tail has a problem with that, they can take it up with me."
"Us," Evergreen corrected.
"Does this mean we're going back to Fairy Tail, then?" Freed asked, and there was no denying the hope in his voice.
"I… don't know."
"Let's face it, everyone's going to find out about you sooner or later, if the guild's getting back together," Bickslow pointed out. "They'll want to know why you've turned your back on them. And I think you got off lightly with Lucy – imagine what would have happened if it had been Natsu you rejected! Forget clever deductions; he'd have beaten the truth right out of you!"
This prospect was enough to make even Laxus wince. "Maybe…"
"Actually, you don't get a say in the matter." Evergreen put her foot down. "The battle isn't over yet. If Lucy wins, you have to come back to the guild."
"Eh?" Lucy squeaked.
"She nearly had you just then," Freed joined in.
"No, really, I was completely outclassed-"
Bickslow added helpfully, "Not to mention, she knows your weakness now!"
Lucy's voice reached a window-shattering pitch. "It isn't going to help! I can't win for real!"
Laxus gazed silently down at her. She still couldn't read his expression, but by now, she thought she could have a pretty good guess at what he was thinking.
"It's your choice," he said eventually.
Lucy sighed. "Oh, what the hell. Let's finish this."
She staggered to her feet as the Raijinshuu rapidly vacated the battlefield. She had recovered a little of her strength during the conversation – which she considered fair game. She had won that recovery time through sheer deductive reasoning, and that was as much a part of her arsenal as secret Dragon Slayer magic was of his.
The moment Freed counted them back in, she activated her Scorpio form and dropped into the earth once more. Even that took a huge toll on her almost-depleted magical reserves. She could only pray that she would have enough power left for the rudimentary plan she was assembling.
There were two factors in her favour. First, as Bickslow had said, she now knew that a well-aimed blow would trigger a crippling reaction from Laxus's Magic Barrier Particles and probably give her the win. Second, she'd worked out how Laxus had been able to tell her and Gemini apart. They had the same appearance, same magical presence, same smell – but only Lucy had the genuine set of celestial keys. They were unique artefacts which could not be duplicated, and with his draconic eyesight, he must have spotted that Gemini didn't have the real ones.
Which meant she would be doing this without her keys, and the universe would just have to deal with it.
Moments later, a Gemini finally indistinguishable from the real Lucy burst through the ground, mimicked Lucy's Sagittarius form, and launched a flurry of energy arrows towards Laxus.
As he retaliated at maximum power, Lucy made her move. Borrowing Scorpio's magic, she launched herself out into the open behind him, and then, in mid-air, she called out to the invisible stars and let their power manifest itself within her body.
The last of her magic thundered through her – energy given to the heavens in return for the power to work miracles. She fell towards Laxus as a Black Knight wielding a huge two-handed sword. Ophiuchus was Yukino's Spirit, not hers, but Lucy thought her fellow mage would forgive her this one badass moment.
Laxus realized the trick a moment too late. He twisted too slowly, and her strike made direct contact with his unguarded side. Ribs crunched. Magic-consuming particulates shrieked their displeasure, coursing through his body like hornets trapped in a shell of flesh. Not even the Dragon of Lightning could withstand such an attack from within.
He fell – and so did she.
At the very last moment, he'd managed to turn the raging bolt meant for Gemini towards the real threat. She didn't have the energy to avoid it. It hit directly, and she was out before she hit the ground.
There was, however, one thought which lingered to turn out the lights after all the others had fled.
Putting aside the first two rounds, and her exploitation of an injury from which Laxus was already suffering… well, she couldn't wait to see the look on Natsu's face when she told him she had fought Laxus Dreyar to a draw.