The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Brittle Bones, Part 6
-Ye Who Enter Here-
It was impossible for Mira to pinpoint when the voices had begun, because at first, they hadn't been voices.
If she'd heard them, felt them, even suspected them, back when she had stood in the ruins of Tartaros and taken the power of the defeated demons into herself, she'd have gone straight to Master Makarov, to her still-existing guild.
But they hadn't been voices. They hadn't even been thoughts, alien transmissions in the back of her mind which she could have recognized and rejected. If anything, they were inclinations: small, quiet, almost natural; easily ignored and easily overlooked.
It was weeks before she first started to wonder why she had thought it a good idea to be quite so violent towards the men who had attacked the Gehennan Princess last night, or why she'd found intimidating her allies as well as her enemies to be so fun at the time.
It was weeks more before she noticed that it seemed to be a trend relating to her new Take Over forms.
Perhaps being the ruler of the underworld in all but name was starting to rub off on her. No one else saw anything strange in her actions. Ace and the others were always expecting her to do worse, no matter how much she insisted that she just wanted to run her bar in peace.
Still, Mira had thought it prudent to start reducing her dependence on her magic.
Resisting the temptation to use Take Over was easy. Power had ceased to be attractive to her upon Lisanna's supposed death, and even after her sister had returned from Edolas, it had never regained the allure of her teenage years. Displays of strength had once been necessary to protect those who sought shelter in her bar, but it was around this time that the Gehennan Princess was beginning to consolidate its own kind of power. Reputation, and the goodwill of the citizens, was as effective a deterrent to their enemies as the She-Devil herself.
Besides, the inclinations towards violence were always quieter when Lisanna was around. With her sister as a good influence, a guiding light, Mira knew there was no need to worry about where her role as the owner of the Gehennan Princess was taking her.
No, it was the accidents that scared her.
The unintentional changes. No will, no command, no intent – just a loud noise or a sudden movement, sometimes indicating an assault on the pub she protected but not always, and she'd be in one Take Over form or another before she'd realized what was going on. It could be as innocent as someone at the other side of the room knocking over a glass, and she'd be there to catch it before it hit the floor, because a demon's speed had taken her there in a heartbeat.
Her magic wasn't hurting anyone. In fact, it was being helpful.
But she hadn't asked for it, and that was the frightening thing.
It was on the day she took over the city that she realized she didn't yet know the meaning of fear.
The surviving Familias lured her to the junkyard and tried to kill her. No surprises there. She had tried to flee – which would have come as a surprise to Ace, but not to Lisanna, who understood the difference between wanting to provide a safe haven in the civil-war-torn city and wanting to seize it for oneself.
That was the day she'd first heard the voice: Kill them.
She hadn't, of course. Her immediate reaction had been to dismiss her Take Over magic entirely.
But her magic had refused to go away.
So had the voice: It'll be easy. They're so weak. Come on, it'll be fun!
She'd been trying so hard not to fight back that the enemies had easily overwhelmed her, and it had hurt, and she was so scared… and the next thing she remembered with any concrete certainty, Lisanna and all the patrons of the Princess had come to save her. The emotion flooding her heart in that moment was so different to that on which demons thrived that she could only have been human again.
The underworld had its own kind of justice, and by the time Alstonia was ready to declare the Gehennan Princess victorious, no one cared how many enemies had been torn apart by inhuman claws or burnt alive by blasphemous energy before ordinary lead bullets had swarmed the battlefield.
But after that day, Mira heard the voice often.
She never spoke back to it, not even in denial. She wouldn't give it the satisfaction.
She knew what it meant, though. She had no choice but to refrain entirely from conscious magic use, for all the good it would do; no choice but to delegate her involvement in the underworld's battles, because she couldn't trust herself in combat; no choice but to slow down and start second-guessing every decision she made, waiting for the horrific moment when the voice would no longer be just a voice, but a will, an action…
She had wanted to lead the hunt for the murder-suicide killer every bit as much as Lisanna did. She just couldn't risk it.
She should have come clean the moment Lucy was kidnapped. She should have made it clear that springing the enemy's trap was too dangerous, and not in the way they were thinking. She should have let Lisanna and Levy go alone, if that was what it took – and if the culprit grew suspicious that Mira had not responded to his blackmail, well, she should have trusted her friends to handle it.
Instead, she had decided to walk into the junkyard herself.
Against any other opponent, she might have got away with it.
Then Abel's curse doll had seized control of her body. All of a sudden, his black magic was enabling everything she had been trying to suppress since that night in this very same junkyard. In her helplessness, her worst fears were realized. Her panic became its strength.
And it was stronger than she was.
She knew she couldn't withstand it.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, knowing that no one could hear her any more than they had been able to hear the voice which had whispered to her for months. "Lisanna… please, surpass me."
"Mira-?"
Lucy hadn't quite managed to get the whole word out when her friend attacked.
Mira flicked her fingers and an enormous orb of energy surged towards her. From the sidelines, Lisanna cried out – only for the orb to break in half, revealing an armoured knight hoisting her greatsword back onto her shoulder.
Lucy's Star Dress transformation had been as fast as Mira's, and entirely under her own volition.
Demonic energy lashed harmlessly against Ophiuchus's scales. In its wake, Mira bounded forward, and Lucy raised her sword to clash against Mira's bare arm. No, not bare – previously there had been nothing but skin between Mira's bird-like claw and shoulder; now, her entire right arm, and only the arm, was burgundy-scaled and monstrous.
The beginnings of a smile touched Mira's lips. The chitinous tentacles at her back became smoother, sleeker, losing their outline and the pitch-black definitiveness of their colour. One lashed at Lucy and shattered her armour like it was glass.
Stunned, the blow sent Lucy spinning away. Her hand flew to her keys in a silent prayer for help. Taurus caught her before she hit the ground, and sprung away, still holding her in his arms, as Mira lazily sent another orb of dark energy towards her.
"Lucy!" Lisanna shrieked.
"This didn't happen against Kain!" Lucy shouted back. "Levy, what did you do to Mr Cursey?"
"I didn't do anything, I swear!" Levy protested. "Abel's out cold; I don't know how he can be doing this to Mira-"
With an effortless gesture, Mira swept the rain-thickened air into a twister and directed it towards the Rune Knight. Levy scrambled down from her scrapheap as the metal went flying. Inspired, Lucy swiftly summoned Cancer, who slashed through the chains holding together a different stack of burnt-out car husks, sending them tumbling towards Mira.
Lucy used the distraction to scurry behind another pile of junk with Lisanna, demanding of her, "Are you sure that's Mira out there?"
Unnaturally pale in the drizzle-filled gloom, Lisanna nodded. "I don't know what's making her turn on us…"
"Me neither, but cutting through Ophiuchus's armour, creating a twister – I swear she didn't have powers like that last time we met. When did she find the time to track down new demon souls for her Take Over in between running a bar and being a mafia boss?"
"It was before we came here. After Tartaros, she absorbed the souls of the Demon Gates. Nine of them."
"Nine?" Lucy echoed, once she'd managed to plug the voice box that had escaped her unhinged jaw back into place. "Seilah, Kyôka, Jackal, Torafuzar, Ezel, Tempester, Franmalth, Keyes, and… Silver? I thought he wasn't actually a demon." Even as she said it, though, she thought about the black stain corrupting Gray's body and heart, and she couldn't help but wonder if he had inherited something demonic from his father, after all.
"No, the ninth was the soul of the demons' home, their nexus… Alegria, or whatever it called itself."
"So you're telling me that Mira's Take Overs have taken over her, and now we're basically fighting nine of the Tartaros demons at once?"
"No!" Lisanna said suddenly, sharply, passionately. "This is Mira, my sister. Don't lose sight of that; don't you dare!"
"Mira?" a thoughtful voice interjected.
The girls froze. Crouching between them, as if she had been invited to share in their secrets all along, Mira was beaming as she glanced expectantly from one to the other. "No, we're not her. You can call us Alegria, the Circle of the Nine."
"What do you want?" Lucy demanded.
She seemed to consider this. "To live, we suppose. Mira made it look like so much fun. Now it's our turn to experience everything she got to feel. Now it's our turn to be feared."
"And what about Mira's life?"
"Who cares about that?"
"Give my sister back!" Lisanna exploded into sound and motion, on her feet with catlike grace and the fury of the tigress.
She was so fast that dodging her white-furred fist should have been impossible.
Mira – no, Alegria – made it look inevitable.
Swaying backwards, her entire body was a blur, though her feet almost dragged along the ground… and the tracks she left in the mud glowed a sickly golden colour in the overcast night.
Lucy recognized that horrible light. Twice seeing it had been enough – twice in real life, at least, and a hundred times in her nightmares.
"Get back!" she roared to Lisanna, too late.
Everything Alegria had touched detonated at once. The demon's very footprints were landmines, and Lucy and Lisanna were right in the middle of it.
Fire blazed. Heat burned away the moisture clinging to Lucy's skin. The world vanished, and in its place was a flaming tomb, the circles of hell made manifest.
Purgatorial red faded to dull grey as the explosion burnt itself out, and the screams of her fellow damned became once more the weak protests of shifting debris. Cool drizzle settled back upon her skin.
She remembered this, Jackal and his curse. She remembered how useless she had been against him the first time, unable to protect the citizens – to do anything but suffer – until Natsu had arrived. She remembered how afraid she had been the second time, that deep, undeniable terror of fighting truly alone, and how she would have achieved nothing without Aquarius's sacrifice. She had never been able to stand up to him without help.
A high chuckle resounded through the night. No one hearing it could have mistaken the speaker for Mira. "Abandon all hope," Alegria purred. "I will enjoy killing you, friends of Mira's."
But Lucy would not abandon hope. Her opponent wasn't a true demon, let alone nine of them. Tartaros was gone. The demons were dead and buried. All that remained was an echo of their power, imprinted upon the magic Mira had consumed.
These weren't the same monsters who had terrified the frightened girl stranded alone in their territory – though they might not have recognized her even if they were.
She shifted into Leo's form. With his key damaged, she couldn't risk summoning her loyal friend, but she could feel his magic building within her as she got back to her feet. All the stars were sacred, but Regulus the King-Star had always been the most attuned to holy magic.
"You made a big mistake reminding me of my fight against Jackal," Lucy told Alegria, and she felt the demon's mirth slip like a mask falling from place. "Yes, those memories are some of the worst of my life. But you also reminded me of exactly how I beat him… and you're about to remember just how terrified he was of me at the end."
"Die," Alegria hissed.
"Not today," came Lucy's grim response. As Alegria hurtled towards her, she spread her arms wide and let the power of Urano Metria flow through her: "I am the ruler of the stars…"
Never had she invoked this magic on her own before. Every time, she had had help – Hibiki, Gemini, Yukino, the energy released from the fission of Aquarius's key. Zeref had insisted that it wasn't truly Celestial Spirit magic, and perhaps he was right, but it was still the strongest spell she knew. Even Alegria was staring up at the holy light with a lack of comprehension.
Day and night gave way to glory, and the firmament reigned supreme.
When the light disappeared, it took the heat with it. Slowly, the persistent drizzle faded back in. To her surprise, Lucy found that she was still on her feet. She was stronger than she had ever been. She was still standing tall.
But so was Alegria.
Urano Metria had pounded a crater into the ground and not laid a finger upon Alegria's body. The only change came in the form of glowing tattoos, circlets of bound starlight around each wrist where there had once been impenetrable burgundy plates, and before that, slashing bird-like claws. These Alegria examined curiously, perhaps surprised by their power.
Lucy didn't need the hint. Alegria had absorbed her most powerful spell.
That was when she truly realized what they were facing. Alegria was the manifestation of the souls Mira had consumed through her Take Over ability, a latent hatred for humans and a love of violence that had survived the deaths of the demons of Tartaros. Mira had taken all their powers. And therefore, Alegria had them too.
The impenetrable defence was Torafuzar's. The power to cut Ophiuchus's armour, Ezel's. The explosions, Jackal's. The impossible speed and strength, only growing stronger as the battle progressed, were Kyôka's.
And the ability to absorb magic had belonged to Franmalth, that bizarre demon Lucy had not known to fear until it had almost been too late.
Still reeling, Lucy didn't see Alegria's attack until it had already launched her half-unconscious into the air – straight into the path of a giant wrecking ball.
The last thing she remembered before falling into darkness was the groan of dead machinery with more life in it than her.
Lisanna stared in horror as Lucy's limp body was catapulted across the scrapheap by the wrecking ball.
Lucy had been the only one of them with an offensive spell of that much power – and not only had it failed, but Lucy had been forcibly separated from them, maybe worse. It was a constant struggle against her own rising dread as Lisanna turned towards Alegria.
"I'll find a way to beat you," Lisanna vowed.
"Aww, cute." The demoness spoke with a condescension others might have used to address a puppy, delighting in the fact that it couldn't understand why they were withholding its food, locking its cage, throwing away the key. "We were so worried about you, you know. We thought you'd notice us for sure."
"Mira has always been Mira," Lisanna retorted, doing her best to sound confident. It was far harder than her sister had always made it look. "She's always been the kind of person who could take over a city without even realizing she was doing it. That's what her life is about. You are nothing more than an afterthought."
"And yet we live, and she does not."
"Not for much longer. I'll beat you and bring my sister back." Fully transforming into an oversized bird, three wingbeats lifted her over the leisurely black lightning Alegria flicked towards her – then Lisanna shifted forms again. The bird now diving towards the demon was not one which usually took part in aerial attacks: a giant penguin, with mass and gravity as its weapons.
The change might well have kept Lisanna in the fight. Not because it surprised Alegria, but because Lisanna's sudden downwards acceleration caused the giant wrecking ball's next swing to skim over her head. What had happened to Lucy wasn't a coincidence – somehow, the very battlefield had turned against them.
Momentum kept Lisanna's attack going despite the shock of her narrow escape. Alegria leapt out of the way with a curse as the penguin hit the ground with more force than any penguin had ever employed before.
"Lisanna!" Levy called, over the sound of the earth shaking. "I'll deal with the wrecking ball-!"
"Fine!" Lisanna shouted back. It wasn't fine at all, but what difference did it make? Alone or with backup, she didn't stand a chance.
Mira had been way out of her league for her entire life. She was the incredible S-Class Mage. Lisanna was just… the younger sister.
Attack or defend? She activated Animal Soul again. Instinct selected her cat form, and she duly followed through, slashing with a speed that would have broken the defence of any other opponent. Alegria, however, had too many options. The sea-demon's crystalline defence would have worked, but she chose to go on the offensive. Lisanna's two lashing claws were met by razor-sharp tentacles. One struck Lisanna across the chest – and a scream burst from her throat.
She had never known pain like it. Everything she had experienced up to this point had been a joke; explosions and torture and death if not for the timely arrival of Anima had not prepared her for this. It burnt away all rational thought. Another kick flung her back through the air and she barely noticed the movement of the earth and sky – until Alegria's inhuman gaze met hers, and winked.
The demoness dissolved into a stream of black particulates, spiralling towards her like a snake of pure darkness. Alegria reformed just enough of a fist to strike Lisanna again before she had even hit the ground.
Amidst the agony, a flash of mad inspiration came to her. Maybe she could win this, after all.
When Alegria reverted back to a stream of particulates to dodge Lisanna's wild swipe, she seized her chance. Her arms became the wings of a harpy. On Tenrou Island, she had needed Levy and Cana's help to pull this off, but she remembered how the magic of the storm had felt flowing through her, and she channelled it now into her wings. Electricity sparked between her talons. A single wingbeat summoned the storm's wind, and it bellowed as it scattered the demon's fragments far and wide-
Or not, because even though no one could have guessed that the Animal Soul mage had a trick like that up her sleeve, the demon somehow knew. Already back in Mira's form, her foot touched the ground and caused a cataclysm: the earth opened, lava surged, a screaming updraft silenced Lisanna's feeble storm.
It was almost fondly that the demon purred, "Fool. We already know all your tricks. All your sister's memories are ours. You are nothing compared to her… let alone to us."
And she was right. The speed of Lisanna's cat form, the ferocity of her tiger, the endurance of her ox, the versatility of her bird – the demoness did not even need to draw upon her full array of powers to crush her, to beat her, to force her down until she could not get up again. Alegria could overpower her in physical combat alone.
After all, Lisanna had never been like Mira, or Natsu, or even Lucy.
The last thing she wondered as she slumped to the ground was whether her defeat even counted as failure, when it had always been inevitable from the start.
If Levy had been asked twenty-four hours ago to predict how the climax of their journey to find Mira would play out, she would probably have said something along the lines of a discussion over tea and cakes in whichever bar or café Mira had been working in these past ten months.
If she had been asked an hour ago, her answer would have involved less cake and more city-wide shootouts between two rival Familias.
Not until about thirty seconds ago, in fact, had it even crossed her mind that she would be spending it clinging with damp fingers to the side of a crane some ungodly height above the ground.
And, admittedly, she had spent every one of those thirty seconds hoping that she might wake up to find that it was all a nightmare, and the tea and cakes were back on the table. In fact, as the huge metal structure swayed in a breeze that had been non-existent down on the ground, even the gangster shootout was starting to look appealing.
Gritting her teeth – surely she hadn't climbed high enough for it to be this much colder than the ground – Levy heaved herself up another foot or so.
The drizzle was the worst. It clung to the tower, turning a simple climb into a disaster waiting to happen. Every step had to be chosen with care. Levy was tougher than she looked, and proud of it, but that was a long way down. She longed for Lucy's Urano Metria to command the sky again, to turn night to blinding day and evaporate the fog of despair in its warmth, but Lucy was gone… and unless Levy could scale this slippery crane and stop the operator from using the machinery against them, she and Lisanna would soon be going the same way.
Unsurprisingly, the hatch at the very top was locked. Looping one sodden arm around the metal scaffold, she released the other, and, with the tip of one finger, traced the word 'ACID' over the lock. The letters bubbled green and ate through the metal. Once it had stopped fizzing, she reached through the hole, drew back what remained of the bolt, and pushed the hatch open.
As eager to plant her feet back on something relatively stable as she was to finally punish the villain who had forced her to endure that climb, Levy boldly pulled herself into the cabin. "Stop right there!" she announced. "You're under arrest for violating Article 3 of the Heavy Machinery Safety Act of '71! Put your hands in the air and step away from… the controls…"
Her declaration tailed off, because there was no one to listen to it.
Red and green lights throbbed at her from the control panel. The control levers were clearly disturbed from their resting positions. There was, however, no sign of the person responsible.
Odd. It wasn't as though they could have gone anywhere.
Levy moved forwards and flipped the crane's power switch to the off position.
It flipped right back.
Frowning, she flipped it off again, only for it to turn itself straight back on. "Stay off," she muttered crossly, pulling it and holding it – until an electric shock forced her to release her grip. "Ah!"
The intercom crackled. "Stop interfering," instructed a metallic voice. "It will only end badly for you."
"Who are you?" Levy demanded. "Where are you?"
"Once, I was known as Davos. Now they call me D-6, member of the cult called Avatar. Well, I guess it's technically D-7 now. As for where I am… why, I am all around you. Can you not see me?"
She resisted the urge to glance around, knowing from his taunt that there was still nothing to see. "I watched Mira destroy you!"
"She destroyed that body, yes. Shame, really… it took months for Arlock to create a robotic form for me. Still, once Zeref has returned, he will grant my wish and return my soul to a living body."
The lights flashed at Levy again, and she understood. "You're in the machinery?"
"Bingo! It was a ritual that went wrong, you see. I believed I had found a spell that would transfer my soul to someone else's body and take it over, thus allowing me to live eternally."
"You wanted to extend your own life at the cost of someone else's? That's abhorrent!"
"It was that or die," crackled the voice unapologetically. "Genetic heart condition. None of the men in my family live past thirty. What did I have to lose?"
"I'm sorry about that," Levy said, "but it does not excuse what you tried to do. Did you even consider what would happen to the victim whose soul you displaced?"
"No, but clearly karma did," he snorted. "The ritual backfired. I was the one who lost my body, worthless though it was. They don't even have a word for me now. I'm a spirit of metal, drawn to machines and able to turn them to my will. Arlock built me a robotic body to pilot, but it wasn't the same. I want to be alive again, to feel things. Zeref will grant my wish."
"He won't. Not after what you've done."
"What would a respectable Rune Knight know about the Black Mage?" he crackled, and if a monotone could sound smug, then that was what he did.
Levy sighed. "I've met him, and to be perfectly honest with you, if you just presented your unique situation to him and asked for help, I think you'd have a good chance of getting it."
"From the most evil villain to have ever lived? Don't make me laugh."
"I mean it. I suspect that he wouldn't even want anything in return. The challenge of studying your current predicament would be its own reward."
"You don't know what you're talking about. I will return the souls of his wayward demons to him, and he will finally give me what I want!"
"I see now why Lucy stopped trying to reason with you people," Levy sighed. "Well, perhaps you can figure it out from your prison cell."
"Not likely." The intercom hummed for a moment. "Still, thanks for listening to my story."
"Uh, you're welcome…?" Levy responded, momentarily thrown.
"After all, it gave me time to set up this."
The weary groan of metal reached her ears. A second crane was toppling towards her, its safety protocols having surrendered to D-6's electrical whispers. There was nowhere to run. She was too high up, too trapped, too busy trying to understand her enemy to fight.
With a screech like the metal apocalypse sounding its own trumpet, the cranes smashed together.
Lucy was roused by the sound of a gunshot.
It cut through her unconsciousness in a way that the clash of battle couldn't. The prolonged give and take of a magical fight had something familiar, something almost proud, about it, and this was different: a muted crack, there and then gone, and the world was irrevocably changed.
The gun had not sounded for her that day, but it could have done, and that was what forced her to her feet.
She felt as though the wrecking ball had knocked the sense of balance straight out of her. One hand reached for the hollowed-out shell of a car for support even as the other scrambled for the magical whip at her belt to arm herself. A silhouette spun round, alerted by the sound of her struggle. A handgun pointed straight at her.
Lucy froze. Her head spun through fight and flight like a broken wheel of fortune, which didn't stop even after she recognized the gunman as Lisanna's friend, Ace. The barrel of his gun did not tremble. At his feet there lay a body: the scattered shreds of a turban, the smear of face-paint on the ground, the pool of liquid darkness growing so quickly that soon it would wash those traces of identity away.
Before she could decide, someone else screamed, "ABEL!"
The gunman rotated to aim at the shouter instead. Numbly, Lucy followed his gaze. Even in the gloom, she recognized the shaggy hair and unkempt posture of Avatar's sword-less swordsman, Jerome.
"How could you-?" Jerome was shrieking. "Abel was unarmed- beaten- unconscious-"
"So were the civilians he murdered." Ace's voice was perfectly flat, perfectly even, as if there wasn't a corpse leaking blood all over his shiny shoes. "This is how justice is done in Alstonia. He should have thought about the consequences before he threatened my city."
"You can't shoot an unconscious man-"
"If you would rather be conscious, that's fine by me," came the cool response. "As his accomplice, your punishment will be no different."
Jerome did not share Lucy's moment of indecision – without his sword, fighting wasn't an option for him. He turned, he fled; he managed half a step before a bullet whipped into the ground an inch from his heel.
It took a lot of skill to miss by so little. Jerome must have appreciated that too, because his hope vanished with a whimper and his attempt to flee came to an ungainly halt.
Ace levelled the gun again, and Lucy shouted, "That's enough! Stop it!"
He did not so much as glance in her direction. "Stay out of this. I don't want to hurt Lisanna's friend."
"I won't stay out of it," she retorted. "Put the gun down. You can't murder someone who isn't a threat. He has to at least stand trial!"
"You're new to Alstonia, aren't you?" he chuckled. "No one here will defend an outsider who aided in the murder of so many of our own. This is our justice, and I will see it done."
"Mira would never allow it!"
"That's why Mirajane needs people like me. We don't shy away from what has to be done. The civilians trust us to keep them safe. Those are the rules here, and the words of an outsider – even a friend of Mirajane's – have no sway."
Jerome's gaze flicked from the gun's barrel to Lucy. There was nothing but fear in his eyes.
No one should have to die like that. Not someone who was beaten, and knew it. Jerome had already made it clear where his loyalties lay – with Arlock, whose fictitious version of Zeref had given him some twisted parody of a purpose – but enough people had died for Arlock's plans already.
Lucy tried a different approach. "We can't shoot him. He's got information. He's part of Avatar's inner circle – he's the only chance we have of finding out their next move."
"I couldn't care less what this Avatar is," Ace dismissed. "And your attempt to buy time for him is pitiful."
The gun came alive with swift judgement, but Lucy's hand was already on her keys.
Horologium materialized around Jerome. The Clock Spirit's glass could withstand anything once, magical gunfire or otherwise. At the same time, a lash of her whip, its electric-blue tail the brightest thing around, sliced the barrel of Ace's gun in two. Cursing, his other hand dived into his pocket, but Lucy was faster; her second blow struck him directly across the chest. He smashed into the side of a rusted van and remained there.
Horologium promptly chimed and vanished. After already invoking Urano Metria once, she couldn't hold him here any longer. Jerome was left sprawled upon the ground, staring up at her in obvious disbelief.
"Like I said, I want information," she blustered, flicking her whip and making the ethereal blue shadows jump nervously. "I'm only going to ask you one more time. What do Avatar want from Alstonia?"
Jerome did not speak.
"Okay, fine, have it your way." This time, Lucy didn't have to fake the edge in her voice. "I'm not going to kill you myself, but Mira has a hundred other bodyguards who would be more than happy to finish what Ace started. And don't think you'll go to your death defending your stupid cult, either. The She-Devil has ways to make people talk… and by the time she's through with you, Horologium's timely appearance will be your new worst memory."
She raised her whip again, and, without the sword that had been his life and his courage, the swordsman's nerve broke. "Let me go," he whispered. "I'll tell you, if you let me go."
"I'm listening."
Glancing around, as if he expected Arlock to burst from the shadows at any moment, Jerome muttered, "Arlock wants the city."
"Why? What's so special about Alstonia?"
"It's the only city he doesn't have."
A flash of the Fleuve d'étoiles cut a cherry-red gash in the side of a nearby car – not as precise as Ace's warning shot, but more than enough to make Jerome jump. Lucy hissed, "Answer me plainly."
"We control the underworld all across Fiore!" he answered, garbling the words in his haste. "The dark guilds! The drugs trade! The black market! Tartaros fell from the throne of the underworld with no clear successor, so we took that chance!"
"I already know that from Crime Sorcière!" Lucy snapped.
"But it's not just the underworld. It's the people, too. Away from the secret activities of the inner circle, Avatar's ideas have so much support in the wider community – freedom for our magic, our knowledge, our history! We're not a cult, we're a movement! A revolution!"
"What does this have to do with Mira's city?"
"We have a presence in every city – we have people everywhere – except Alstonia! It's too insular. It has never had guilds or dark mages, or known the persecution of the Rune Knights. It only has the Familias, and they are too protective of their territory to let outsiders in. We had to overthrow them. Then the underworld of every city in Fiore will belong to Avatar."
"Why?" she snapped.
"To make it perfect for Lord Zeref! To give him everything! We have built him his throne, united all the dark guilds under one banner, and swayed the general population to his side – and only when everything has fallen perfectly into place for him will he appear!"
"That's ridiculous," Lucy stated. "Tartaros would have done that for him, and he wasn't remotely interested. Do you honestly think he would have done a complete one-eighty if they had owned all the underworld, rather than nine-tenths of it? No, that's stupid – and I think you know it too."
"Lord Zeref will appear for us," Jerome insisted. "Arlock has promised it. Lord Zeref will right this ruined world."
Lucy shook her head. The more she learned about Avatar's plan, the less sense it seemed to make, but she could tell Jerome believed it completely. She remembered what he'd told her earlier, when she'd been his prisoner: that Arlock's inner circle deliberately sold a misleading image of Zeref to their followers to give them something to believe in. Perhaps, when it came to owning the entire underworld, Arlock was deceiving the inner circle in the same way they themselves deceived the lay members.
If so, she would be better off asking him something else. "Tell me about Arlock's next attack."
"He will carry out the ritual that will call Zeref to us!"
"He already tried and failed that in Bishop's Lace!"
"He said this time will be different."
Another electric whip-crack. "Tell me something useful. Details. Location. Time."
"I don't know!"
"Fine. The She-Devil will get the truth from you."
"It is the truth!" Jerome swore, and she couldn't bring herself to dismiss those terrified eyes as the eyes of a liar. "Arlock hasn't told us anything! He just said that the plan has changed, but I don't know anything else-"
He was interrupted by the sound of static. Like a radio trying to tune itself, the crackling persisted, cycling through every possible frequency until it settled into a voice Lucy recognized. It was muffled and tinny, and it appeared to be emanating from the bottom of a heap of scrap metal, but it sounded a lot like Levy.
"Lucy! Can you hear me?"
Lucy glanced from the talking scrapheap to Jerome, who looked as spooked by the inexplicable voice as she did. "Don't you go anywhere," she warned. She doubted he'd obey, but helping her friends was more important, so she turned towards the pile. Speaking to scrap metal made her feel foolish, but she couldn't see what else could have spoken. "Levy? Where are you? What's going on?"
"Lucy, great. I'll explain later. Right now, I've got a plan to help defeat Alegria, but I'm going to need your help…"
Levy's crane, and the crane controlled by D-6, crashed to the ground together. The collision dislodged a huge pile of scrap, leading to an avalanche of forgotten appliances and dismembered metal limbs and a screech that seemed to pulse across the battlefield.
At last, the steel-grey thunderstorm eased up. The wreckage found a new, uneasy equilibrium. In the silence, the intercom's last working speaker burst into stilted robotic laughter. "Ha ha ha! That's what you get for messing with Avatar-"
Wreckage twisted outwards, drowning the disembodied voice with the metal orchestra's encore. There, within a metal-free void in the heart of the pile, stood Levy.
To be more precise, she was floating, with several inches of nothingness between her feet and the ground. Neither the kamikaze crane nor the unquiet avalanche had touched her. Ten silver letters spelling out the words 'MAGNET RISE' orbited in a perfect ring around her body.
She had never heard a robot gulp before.
"Honestly, I've spent the past ten months hanging out with an overenthusiastic lump of iron," Levy informed him briskly. "Of course I've picked up a trick or two."
The letters faded, and she dropped lightly to the ground. The magnetic forcefield generated by her magic had prevented either of the colliding cranes from touching her, while plunging down into a heap of metal had let her manipulate the opposing fields to slow herself down before impact.
"For the record," she continued matter-of-factly, "in the future, if you're going to spill your life story to an opponent in order to stall for time, you'd probably be better off making it up as you go along. Explaining your physical situation to me has given me the perfect method of stopping you."
The speakers buzzed in irritation. "I can't be stopped! The scrapyard gives me infinite machines to possess! I can beat you down eventually – just like this!"
As the voice fell silent, an engine roared into life. In a shower of twisted steel, a gutted car burst out of the heap and headed straight for her.
Levy threw herself to the side and rolled. When she returned gracefully to her feet, she was clutching a handheld radio. Half the dials were missing, and the aerial hung crooked, yet she brandished it towards the charging car like a sword. On the back of it, she sketched the word 'MAGNET'.
Just as a word could have infinite meanings depending on a speaker's intent, so too could the same word made manifest by Solid Script achieve any number of effects depending on her will. D-6 had told her he was a spirit tied to the element of metal, with all the strengths and weaknesses that entailed. So, she had created a magnet strong enough to wrench him from the car he was possessing and pull him into something harmless. The impossibly small, impossibly strong localized field would hold him inside the radio for the time being.
"You're under arrest!" Levy declared triumphantly. "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court! Anything you do say may be given as evidence!"
The radio switched itself on.
"Rats," it bleeped.
"Quite," Levy agreed. "You're going to prison, my electronic friend."
Without moving parts, the radio couldn't shrug, but that was the impression Levy picked up. "I'm already in prison. I have been ever since my ritual backfired. And I'd take antagonism over pity any day."
Levy didn't quite know what to say to that.
"Well," D-6 continued, more optimistically this time, "you can't maintain that magnetic spell forever, and once you run out of magic, I'll be free again."
"Not going to happen. As soon as we're done here, I'm going to craft runes that will keep your soul safely bound for the rest of your life."
There was a disgruntled rattle of static. "Well, when you do, will you at least pick something that has speakers? The boredom will drive me mad if I can't communicate with anyone."
"I suppose so."
"Much appreciated."
"Just out of curiosity," Levy asked, because she couldn't not ask, "can you actually see, at the moment?"
"Not since my robot body got destroyed," he answered sadly. "I can sense people through their magic if they're close, though. Well, that's as long as there's no huge magical event going on, like that crazy celestial convergence thing your friend did earlier. Thanks to that, I had to completely reboot my magical circuits. It made me glad I didn't have eyes. I'd probably have been blinded."
Levy considered this for longer than she probably ought to have done, and then, surprising even herself, she blurted out, "D-6 – no, Davos – let's make a deal."
"Oh? Go on," the radio hummed.
"I think I know how to stop Alegria, but for that, I need your help."
The radio gave a grunt. "I am still a member of Avatar, thank you very much. I'm not going to abandon them just because I got caught. They're my only chance of finding Zeref, and obtaining freedom from this half-existence."
"That's just it," Levy countered. "In return for your help, I will create you a new body."
"You're an engineer?"
"I don't mean a robot one. I mean a living one, made out of magic."
An odd, stuck-record sound came from the radio as it slowly spat out sparks one by one. "You? What do you know about Zeref's living magic?"
"More than you'd think. I spent a whole afternoon discussing ancient magic with him on a shopping trip earlier this week. Not to mention, I am one of the few people who has fought an Etherious demon – several, really – and lived to tell the tale… with a book or two as a souvenir. Mira wasn't the only one who raided the demons' hideout in the aftermath of that battle."
She took a deep breath and let it out again. It didn't calm her madly racing heart. "I don't know how to make a demonic body. But I have thought about it more than I'd like to admit. It's all about books and ancient languages and the power of words… and that's exactly what I'm good at. We can do this with or without Zeref."
More sparks. "Yeah, right. You're a Rune Knight. You expect me to believe that you'll go and study illegal magic for me, just like that?"
"I had planned to hand in my notice anyway," Levy shrugged. "I've never agreed with the Magic Council's decision to ban any magic that's dark or dangerous, even conceptually so, like studies of life or death. Just because something could be used for evil doesn't mean people should be denied the chance to use it for good. Researching living magic might be illegal, but it wouldn't be wrong, and that's what matters to me."
"Now you're starting to sound like Avatar." One last spark drifted to the ground like an autumn leaf, and D-6 said, "No. You're my enemy. You'd never help."
"Do you think you'll have more luck with Avatar? To be honest, having seen what Arlock can do, I suspect he'd be able to make you a demon body in no time at all. Sooner, even, since he clearly has no qualms about sacrificing innocents to strengthen his rituals. So, why hasn't he done it yet?"
"Because… it wouldn't be right if Zeref didn't do it?" the radio tried. "Because… I don't know, he's been busy?"
"Or is it because you'd no longer have any need to obey him?" she challenged.
"…I still don't believe that you'll help me," he grumbled.
"Fortunately, having never claimed to be a goddess, I don't require your belief to validate me," Levy told him briskly. "I like the idea of having a legitimate excuse to research Zeref's magic. Do you want to take a chance with me, or would you rather have your radio-prison shoved inside a prison-prison and forgotten about for the rest of time?"
"Alright, alright, I'll help! Never really liked those Avatar guys anyway. Always treated me like something less than human, just because I'm stuck in a machine. You'll have to let me out of this stupid radio to help you, though."
Levy shot him down unflinchingly. "Unfortunately, you can help me perfectly well as you are. I need you to contact Lucy. Use your magic to transmit my voice to something with speakers near her. An ideal job for a possessed radio, no?"
"It was worth a shot," he sighed. "Alright, I'll do it."
"Like I said, I'll explain later," Levy's voice was promising Lucy, from somewhere at the bottom of a pile of scrap. "Right now, I think I know how Lisanna can beat Alegria, but she'll need your help."
"Okay…?" Lucy wondered.
"Not only is Alegria too strong, but she also knows all Lisanna's Take Overs. We need to do something that will both level the playing field and give Lisanna back the element of surprise."
"Can't argue with that, though I'm not sure how you're expecting me to achieve that…"
"We need another Urano Metria."
The faint hope that her friend's voice had sparked in Lucy faded to a grey more befitting the damp, gloomy battlefield. "I can't, Levy. It's hard enough for me to use that spell once on my own. Twice in a single battle is out of the question."
"Are you sure? If you tried-"
"It's not possible. We'll have to think of something else."
"Sure, we can do it," said another Lucy.
"Huh?" the first Lucy blinked.
There was a fizzle of confusion from beneath the pile of scrap. Levy remarked, "Huh, you changed your mind pretty quick there, Lucy."
"No, that wasn't me!" Lucy protested. "I didn't say- who are you- wait, Gemini?" The other Lucy, who was still dressed in the embarrassing red, green and yellow superhero costume she had hoped never to see again, gave her a wave. "I wondered where you had got to!"
"By the time we got out of the department store you'd summoned us into, you and your kidnappers had disappeared!" Gemini-Lucy retorted. "We didn't fancy going back to the Spirit Realm and admitting to Leo that we'd lost you, so we thought we'd try and find you… Now here we are, ready to help!"
Levy's voice crackled out again. "How can you use Urano Metria if Lucy can't?"
"We're not like the other Spirits, remember? We always have the same amount of magic as the being we copy. That's why we can only copy beings who have equal or less power than our summoner, our own base power. Since we copied Lucy before all this fighting started in order to demonstrate her new outfit-" Lucy squeaked, and only the realization that Levy's disembodied voice probably couldn't see Gemini was sufficient to restart her heart "-we still have the magic she had back then, before she cast Urano Metria. And if she has enough magic to do it by herself these days, then so do we."
"Brilliant," Levy remarked, and they could almost see her grinning. "Here's what we need to do…"
What will it take to make you fight?
So Ace had demanded of Lisanna, as she had dithered over whether to join Mira and turn the enemy ambush into the Gehennan Princess's conquest.
She recalled those words now, as she lay face-down upon the earth that the suspended drizzle had managed to turn to mud despite never seeming to touch it.
What will it take to make you fight?
Lisanna wasn't a fighter. She never had been. She had no particular aversion to fighting, but for a professional mage, let alone one in a guild like Fairy Tail, not loving a good brawl was akin to donning a tie-dye skirt, throwing out flower garlands, and being too high to notice that the unusually attentive audience to which she was preaching pacifism was actually a tree.
She and Elfman had both learned magic for their sister's sake, but she had delighted in the feathers and colours of her Take Overs where her brother had picked his beasts for their power. Although she didn't dislike going on dangerous missions with them, it hadn't taken an immense tragedy to persuade her to stay at home and work in the bar, unlike her older sister. She had wondered, in the days after their return from Tenrou Island, if she had only volunteered to be Juvia's partner because she hadn't wanted to be left behind.
It was one moment in particular, however, that the echo of Ace's words brought to mind.
She thought about that fateful day when Elfman had lost control of his Take Over. She had tried to reach him with words. She had spread her arms wide, full of faith that she was in no danger. She hadn't even been using a Take Over form to protect herself. She hadn't fought, and she had very nearly died for it.
Kindness alone did not make a sanctuary. That was what Ace had been trying to tell her. There was no point creating a home if they couldn't defend it. Choosing not to get involved in the Familia's war made them complicit in every act of violence as it dragged on. For all but a handful of asylum-seekers, the Gehennan Princess's quiet rebellion had worsened the situation in Alstonia. Only once they had given in and seized control had things really changed for the better.
Mira had an excuse. She had been fighting a battle for her own humanity the entire time.
But Lisanna? She just hadn't wanted to fight. In fact, she had spent ten months convincing herself that she didn't have to. It was Ace who had led the mob of patrons and friends to rescue Mira and overthrow the last of the Familias. Everyone had been ready to fight for their city that day… everyone except Lisanna.
It wasn't enough to merely have somewhere to belong. The willingness to fight for it mattered just as much.
That was the balance Fairy Tail embodied.
That was the balance that Lisanna, on her own, had been unable to maintain.
And yet there was grim satisfaction in her eyes as she pushed herself to her feet. Alegria did not know the reason for it; the demon's eyes narrowed as she studied Lisanna for any indication that she was about to attack. Lisanna only smiled at her.
Alegria didn't know why, because Mira didn't know why.
Because, as she stood, Lisanna knew that the decision to fight for her home and her family wasn't one she had made in the last few moments. She had made it over two weeks ago. She had made it on her own, in defiance of her sister's instructions.
For the very first time, Lisanna had developed a Take Over form specialized for fighting and gone out alone to defend her city… and she had done it right under her sister's nose.
Alegria thought she knew all Lisanna's tricks. It had not occurred to her that Lisanna might have had secrets even from her sister.
Lisanna's rush forward was a gamble. Shouting something defiant and meaningless, she lunged at Alegria, knowing with a twitch of her cat's nose that the ground between them had been infused with Jackal's explosive curse.
Alegria laughed as she detonated the landmines all at once. Not being a violence-drunk demon, Lisanna kept her own laugh internal as she transitioned to a full tortoise form, retreating inside her shell. It hurt, oh yes, hot enough to burn the very air and lash cracks into ground that had been mud only seconds before – but she endured the pain.
She knew from experience that the fires of hell were the only thing that could burn away the veil of drizzle.
The explosions died away, and Lisanna's eyes cracked open in time to see Lucy make her move.
From atop the scrapheap, Lucy's cape flared as she leapt into the void. She was fearless, she was brilliant, and she was the best sidekick Lisanna could have asked for as she called upon the vengeance of the heavens for the second time that day.
Alegria's laugh returned as she drew upon the powers of Franmalth's soul, ready to absorb the second Urano Metria just as she had the first. "You already tried that, fool."
Lucy hadn't, though – not like this. Alegria could absorb the magic, but not the light that blazed eternally; the light so bright that even the mage who had called it closed her eyes and cowered from it. Every star in the sky was as close as the sun, and as glorious.
And when it ended, it left in its wake a darkness far deeper than before.
The moon was hidden. The stars, extinguished. The sodium streetlights glowed no longer, their feeble lives cut short by projectiles from Levy or binary commands transmitted by D-6. The darkness was pure, the darkness was true – and to Lisanna alone, the darkness was irrelevant.
The mild-mannered tortoise was gone, and the black-suited knight was rising. Now that the drizzle had been burned away, her echolocation lit up the world as clearly as the sun ever had.
And as Alegria blinked uselessly at nothing, Lisanna struck.
The first bone-crushing punch landed home, and Alegria panicked. She switched aspects again, using Ezel's armour-breaking tentacles to match Lisanna blow for blow… or so she had hoped, but she was swinging blindly. Lisanna could see everything.
Slipping effortlessly between the clumsy strikes, Lisanna hit again, and again, and again. Explosions burst around her fists, but the heat could not penetrate her gauntlets. Alegria tried to absorb the magic she was using in vain, not realizing it was sheer physical power.
Desperate and blind, the demoness hardened her skin and pulled into a full defensive posture, falling back on her knowledge that Lisanna's usual speed-type forms were almost useless against power-types. Her knowledge was outdated. Lisanna's Bat Take Over was not speed-type. Its swiftness came from strength and control. With every hit, the rebounding echoes highlighted the imperfections in the demon's armour, and targeted blows opened them fully.
Direct.
Precise.
Devastating.
Maybe it was the sudden impairment of the night. Maybe it was shock at the claws unsheathed by the Animal Soul mage Alegria had thought too tame to strike back. Maybe it was the momentum of the fight: once Lisanna had revealed her hand, she became only more confident; once Alegria's arrogance had started to crumble, every attempt she made to reinforce her defence only weakened it further.
From the moment the lights had gone out, though, there was only one way this battle was going to end.
And by the time the superheated air had once again succumbed to the ghostly rain, and Lisanna raised her masked face towards a sky that only she could see, Alegria lay defeated at her feet.