You know that surreal lightheaded feeling, the feeling where you know that you're definitely present in space and time, but you feel like you're in a dream and everything seems unreal? It's rare to get one of those, and when you do get one, you feel kind of good in a way, but a bit unsettled nonetheless.

This applied to me, except a lot more often, with all the hallucinations of everyone I know dying in the most terrible ways, haunting me endlessly, slowly, to the point of insanity. This was exactly the feeling that hit me like a brick wall as I flew on Fearow into the cannon Jupiter's barrel. The perpetual spiraling rhombus pattern engraved into the walls of the massive barrel caused my head to have its own case of spiraling, hitting me with major deja vu. It wasn't necessarily pleasing to the eyes or mind this time around; in fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect. I felt like I was being transported into a dream world, a place where nothing has to or does make sense.

After what seemed like forever inside the barrel of the cannon, we reached the core of the machine, a huge room with a giant lacrima that posed as the centerpiece of it all. Returning Fearow and landing on the ground in one fluid motion, my eyes instantly became fixated on this giant ball, as if it were trying to lull me into a hypnotic trance. Energy pulsated from withing the heart of the great crystal sphere, building up slowly as a loud voice announced, "Thirteen minutes until Jupiter fires."

"Damn… I have to destroy thing thing now!" I immediately began charging up Flame Ball, then Mega Evolving to reach Giga Flame Ball. But just as I was about to hurl it, the flames spread out and dissipated completely.

"What the hell…? Are my Fire Arts acting up in a time like this? Wait… why would they be acting up at all?" I thought out loud. "... that's strange…" I tried charging up another Flame Ball, but was once again proven futile. Within the next whole minute, I had used almost my entire array of fire attacks, all proving to be useless.

"Argh…! Come on! Work… already…!" I used the attack I hadn't used yet, Flame Breath. Hot fire erupted from my mouth as usual, firing in a straight line towards the lacrima at speed.

"Yes! It worked! The lacrima will break!" I shouted in victory.

Then things took a turn for the worse. All the fire I blew out of my mouth seemed to have a mind of its own; as soon as it looked like the flames would at least fracture the lacrima, it boomeranged around, taking its own path around, then growing in size and darting back in my direction. I held up my arms to block the incoming attack from burning my shirt and stood there, absolutely confudled while the resounding voice announced eleven minutes remaining.

All of a sudden, a blast of fire wooshed through me, taking me by surprise at the very least. But what was even more surprising besides the fact that a mage in traditional attire, wielding a katana with his hair tied up appeared out of nowhere was that my clothes didn't catch fire.

"Look dude, if you're gonna keep trying to set me aflame, don't use spells that can burn my clothes. That being the very least."

"... that wasn't necessarily the response I was expecting," he said quietly.

"Hmph. Whatever. I'm gotta destroy that lacrima, so you can just get outta the way, okay?"

"Sorry. I'm afraid I can't let you do that. You seem like a worthy opponent to take on, but I have the advantage over you."

"What...?" I muttered.

"I'm Totomaru of the Element Four. As you may or may not have guessed, I can control the element of fire. Any attacks or anything to do with fire is under my control. And I cannot stand idly by to let you destroy this lacrima. I will not allow it."

"Yeah well, you may or may not have guessed," I mocked, "That I don't use just fire attacks. You should do your research before you fight someone."

"A Multi Caster...? I would've thought them all to be arrested or executed by now..." murmured Totomaru as the loud voice announced ten minutes left before the cannon fired.

"I don't care what you call me, but I'm here to destroy this thing, not to have a nice little chat with you." At this, I pointed at him and lowered the hat on my head. "And if you try to stop me, then I'll destroy you instead.

He smirked slightly and then lowered his head and gripped the katana at his side with a menacing look. "So I assume you'll use some other weak spell because you used all those attacks before, and thus, you're out of Magic Energy, I presume. That puts me at an advantage, because I have my fire magic and my katana that I'll use to cut you to pieces! Yaaahh!" He unleased a furious warlike cry as he leaped into the air with his sword above his head and brought it down upon me. But as the katana swung down towards my head, he was shocked by my quick reflexes as I stopped it with my thumb and index finger. If my left arm was made of normal bone and skin, then the katana would've surely sliced my entire thumb off. Luckily, considering the blessing/curse that was my solid metal arm, I was able to pull off this otherwise impossible feat. And also including the feat that followed, when I snapped the katana in half with only two fingers. This surprised even me, because katanas are made traditionally from folding steel over itself hundreds upon hundreds of times, making them quite hard swords. And that's not including the hardness of the steel itself. When crushing the sword, it felt pretty solid, but wasn't extremely difficult to snap in half. This came as a surprise, indicating that I was much stronger than I thought myself to be, considering I hadn't even used my full strength in breaking the sword.

"Though your sword is broken, you might assume you can beat me with your fists. Go ahead and try. I dare you."

Totomaru jumped back and sheathed his broken sword. "I'd rather not, after seeing what you seem to be made of. You're just like Gajeel, in that you're made of steel. I felt the shock of the sword hitting your hand, and it felt like I was hitting another sword."

"Well done, Holmes. You cracked the case. Do you give up now?"

"No… not yet! In case you've forgotten, I have Fire Magic that I use as well." As he said this, a Magic Circle appeared and he used a Fire Spell.

"Blue Fire!" Hence the name, a stream of blue flame shot out from the Magic Circle and flew through me. I could tell that it wasn't normal fire, aside from the color. I was expecting it to be much hotter than normal fire, as blue fire is supposed to be, but this fire was icy cold and chilled me right down to the bone. The voice then announced eight minutes left. I had to destroy this lacrima, no matter what. Ignoring the fight for the time being, I jumped towards the lacrima and prepared to use a non-fire attack.

"Titanium…"

"I won't let you! Green Fire!" Like a whip, the stream of fire grabbed my ankle just as I was about to destroy the lacrima with a powerful punch. Using it as so, Totomaru slammed me down to the ground, and further still, used it like a lasso and swung it above his head, making me crash into the walls and back onto the floor, but he was careful enough to stop me from crashing into the lacrima.

How thoughtful.

Once I was able to get up, I quickly detatched the green flame from my ankle, but found it to be stuck to my hands like some goo. Totomaru saw this as an oportunity to swing me around again, to bring more harm to me. Other than the fact that smashing me into the walls only scratched me a bit and cause me to bleed, I was starting to get dizzy and for a moment felt sorry for Natsu, knowing that he wouldn't be able to handle the spinning if he was in my position. As he slammed me down to the ground, I heard the distant voice announce seven minutes left.

"Rrgh… get off!" Flaming up my hands, I blasted the sticky green flame away, but Totomaru used this to slam my hands down to the ground. Instantly, I made my flames dissipate and rose up quickly, but he had another attack set for me.

"Orange Fire!" He blasted me with a wave of orange colored flames next. It didn't hurt, but I noticed a horrid smell and soon realized that it was the flames that smelled. This threw off my focus and my hand rushed up to cover my nose, but then he used another attack.

"Red Fire!" With an identical blast of flame, but this time red and far less foul smelling, I stood there, unaffected, unless you count my shirt briefly catching fire, where I had to Destroy it because I didn't want to have to keep going out and buying new shirts due to them ruined.

"Are you done with your persistent stream of fire attacks that, if you haven't taken a hint yet, don't have any affect on me?"

"So I noticed. And while I understand that, I was getting ready for an attack that will blow even you away... Rainbow Fire!" With a fire of many colors in his hands, he hurled it towards me, creating a large explosion around me. The only thing that was close to hurt was a large piece of debris that struck me on the forehead. Otherwise, I kind of just stood there and waited for it to be over.

"Six minutes until Jupiter fires." Dammit! I mentally cursed. All this time he was trying to keep me from destroying the lacrima! Gotta-

The dust and debris around me settled, and I walked towards Totomaru, holding him up by the throat. Naturally he struggled to break loose, but I hoped I could get some info out of him easier than I had with Gajeel.

"Your answer will determine your fate. If you choose not to answer me, I'll snap your neck faster than the words can come out. I want to know, in the past, has this guild had anything to do with my father? In case you didn't know, my father was the Great Charizard."

"Damn, Gajeel...! Running your mouth again!"

"Tell me! What affiliation has Phantom had with him?! He may or may not have been killed because of you guys! If it was your guys' fault, I'll kill you all, slowly and painfully before I destroy the one who killed him."

"You live by the 'an eye for an eye' rule, don't you? Augh! Okay! Atchg! I can tell you what I know!"

"Make it quick, because I'd rather not have our guild be destroyed."

"Okay, so, our guild had no direct affiliation with your father, but we at least knew the legends of him. He was a part of a guild of dragon dwelling folk, and when Jose heard the news of your father being hunted down, it was him who told the hunters where he was hiding! I only heard of it! I wasn't a part of it! Please! Ever heard of, 'don't kill the messenger?' I swear this is all I know! I don't know why Jose would get involved in something like that! It's only what I've been told!" After a few moments of letting it sink in, I lifted him over my head and threw him like a projectile towards the giant lacrima which was starting to activate. And while he shattered it, I thought of that to be it. One and done. But as I turned my back, I felt the sword before I heard it. It may have been a broken sword, but it was still usable, as I had made the mistake of not destroying it all he way, thus he slashed me in he side with what he had left of the katana. He slashed me precisely on the middle scar on my chest, but only scratched the surface, not penetrating the katana too deep into my stomach area.

Damn! That actually hurts... I winced slightly in pain. That'll take a while to heal. But why didn't it go any further than the skin is my question? Lightning quick, Totomaru appeared behind me, but I blocked an incoming wave of slashes with my arm, then flipped him over onto the ground. He seemed to be running out of stamina, so I helped him along by doing exactly what he had done previously to me; swung me around into the walls, into other crystal balls around the room, then slammed him around on the floor like he was a filthy rag. When I had finished, Totomaru was lying facedown in a etched out crater in the shape of his body, motionless unless you count the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

"That's him taken care of... but I still have Jose to beat up, and before him, I still have to stop Gajeel." I contemplated. "Since I won't be getting any answers out of him anytime, I'll hopefully beat some out of Jose."

As I started walking away, I remembered what Totomaru had said. "You're right, I live by the 'eye for an eye' rule, but I'm sure you'd be in the same mindset if you were in my shoes. It goes much deeper than wanting crushing all you Phantoms. I'll spare you, only because you're not my prey." As I turned, I felt his hand grab my ankle.

"That's... a shitty reason... tell me really... why..." he huffed. "I know... I know that's not why you spared me! Tell me... the real reason why...!"

This really did make me think. What inside me was stopping me from killing this person all of a sudden? Was it something I learned? Anything you learn, you realize you learn, right? Well, not necessarily. You can learn emotions, you can learn things blankly, you can avert your focus to something else while you do it. What was it I learned? Just then, the whole building shook, interrupting my thoughts, and the ground became unstable again.

"It's begun...!" said Totomaru.

"What...? What's going on?"

"The signal has gotten to them above that Jupiter is malfunctioning. They've resorted to that."

"What is 'that'?!"

"You'll all finally meet your demise from the giant! In case you didn't know, this guild turns into a Magic giant that casts Black Abyss, which will obliterate you all of you don't surrender."

At that moment, Jose's voice resounded, spouting out some stupid bullshit about us surrendering, bowing down to Phantom otherwise they'd kill us all, I couldn't care less at the moment. I was ready to go find out where Jose was hiding and beat him up.

"What're you gonna do? Just lay there like a rag doll and be useless?"

"I cannot fight anymore. You've won against me, showing your skills to be greater than that of my own. I never would've thought-"

"Yeah, yeah, that's great. Whatever. I have your guild to crush, so I don't care." If he was going to hold me back again, I would simply ignore him and move on. But he didn't.

As I ran through the building, I knew I was in an unfamiliar place, but I didn't let that stop me from trying to locate Jose. As I ran down the halls, I noticed two familiar guys running my way, who turned out to be none other than Gray and Elfman.

"Guys! What are you doing here?"

"We thought you might've destroyed the cannon, but we wanted to make sure," said Elfman. "I'm sure that you, being the man that you are, were able to destroy the cannon singlehandedly. It takes a real man to do that! I'm impressed!"

"Oh, uh, thanks-" I started.

"But are you manly enough to date my older sister?! That's the real question! You were manly enough to take her out on a date, but that's not manly enough by itself! Only a real man can express their love!"

"Uh... um... way to put me on the spot like that, way to bring up the totally random subject of me and Mirajane."

"I consider you a man in everything but dating my older sister! I'll protect her will all my heart!"

"Look, I would too, but the longer we stand here, the less time we'll have to track down Jose and stop his plans. I don't want to talk about this right now. Now's not the time. We should be splitting up and trying to find out just what the hell is going on."

"I agree with him. We should split and find different ways, otherwise everyone will die," said Gray.

"Straight to the point! That's a man!" shouted Elfman.

"I doubt that has anything to do with being a man," I muttered, but we all soon split up and went our separate ways.