The bottom half of last chapter was cut off. Please go back and read that before reading this.


Phoenix, glad to hear it. I think you'll find out what Natsu has to do soon enough… as soon as magically possible, eh? Well, I sure think this is ASAMP. Yeah, don't forget the safety.


Natsu jerked away, dancing from surface to surface to avoid the furious Erza's blades. Erza, for her part, let her rage darken her features, and let her Heavens Wheel armour cover her.

Natsu took the opportunity that armour presented, planting a fist into her bared stomach with far less force than he would have had she been an enemy. An actually enemy.

Erza gasped, losing her breath for a moment before slashing wildly with her swords, barely missing his arm.

"I trusted you!"

"I'm sorry."

The Black Wing armour took form, and Erza utilized it well, striking hard and fast before swapping to Heavens Wheel once again.

Natsu scrambled backwards, and instinctively reached for his Dragon Slayer magic, before the spell Makarov placed on him cut him off once more.

Gritting his teeth, he admitted defeat and turned to run, all too aware of Erza's rage.

It was just as well that Gray and Lucy weren't there.


Gray, for his part, was underwater. Halfway across an ocean. With a possible lunatic.

Juvia tugged him along, her water magic swaying the powerful underwater currents into pushing them along, their destination ever closer.

She pointed out the base of the tower to Gray, and then let him propel himself now he had a destination in mind. He wasn't in tune with water like her, and the last time she had tried to let him propel himself he started off in completely the wrong direction.

So she dragged him.

She didn't have much longer to reflect on that, as now that she no longer had an ice Mage weighing her down they were both moving at far greater speeds, and the Tower of Heaven was finally in front of them.

While attempting to break into the tower from above ground level would be next to impossible, the underwater levels of the tower were far easier to infiltrate. After all, it wasn't expected that someone could hold their breath long enough to get through.


Lucy scuttled into the closest hallway, away from any flying giant maid rats that may inhabit the place.

They had set down on a platform close to the top of the tower, and Lucy had used the moments between flight and landing to drop away from the rat and onto semi-solid ground.

So now she was in an unfamiliar tower, likely far away from anyone she knew, and, well, not completely helpless, she did have her keys after all, but scared out of her mind.

Clutching Taurus's Key, she began moving down the narrow hallway, mindful of open doors and blind corners.


Jellal was laughing. The great Titantia was furious at her friend! She looked just about ready to serve his head on a platter! He supposed some things never change, and Scarlet was still a traitor to her friends.

Oh no wait, that was his fault. All of this was his fault, really.

That just made it funnier.

So he laughed.

Alright, he was tired of laughing now. Sitting up, he held up the scarf the pink haired pawn held so dearly.

It smelt burnt. He wrinkled his nose.

Then, another one of the object caught his attention. The arm band looked just like water. It moved like water too, and Jellal could almost swear his finger came away wet from touching it- it was fascinating.

Then he dropped the band, and scrambled away. No! He shouldn't care for such materialistic things!

Regaining his composure, he dusted off his cloak and checked on Seigrain.

Still nothing interesting. The magic council was so boring.

With that in mind, he decided it was time to draw attention to his creation. He created another thought projection, shaping to one to one of those nasty frogs the magic council used for message delivery, and had it deliver a 'message' to Seigrain.

Let the games begin.


Natsu ducked into another room, this one covered in things from the Wild West. He had lost Erza a while ago, but figured he might as well play it safe, so he kept moving.

He had no doubts Jellal, as he found his name was, would hold to his promise and destroy his precious things.

It rankled that there was nothing he could do to stop it, especially considering not even Jellal was strong enough to get rid of Makarovs spell. Perhaps if he had been, Natsu would have been able to regain his things and hide them away in his requip space.

But now he'd have to ruin more bonds.


Erza took in the damaged hallway they had fought in, and let despair wash over her. Despite how short of a time she had known him, she had begun to feel a connection to Natsu, almost like brother and sister, but now…

There had been something off about him, he had seemed distracted. Not to mention, the few objects he had decorated himself with were gone.

She traced a cut in the wall, from where he had pushed her blade away. It almost looked like a 'P'.

And that cut up there looked like an 'H'.

And there was another inbetween shaped like an 'E'. Well that was being generous, it was really more of a 'C' with a line through it, but…

Erza tilted her head. The messy scrawl stared back at her.

'HelP'


Gray dug his fingernails into his palm, and pounded his fist on the wall. Juvia looked concerned, but didn't try to talk to him.

"What… The hell… Is Deloria doing here!"


**Jazz hands**~ShadeShadow