A/N: WHOO! Storm's Helm Sunday!
I don't own Fairy Tail!
Please enjoy!
Chapter 27: Silver Bullet
April 14, X792 - Morning
"Are we even going the right way?" Drayden asked as he ran along a pathway next to Alisa, "We haven't seen a single beach much less one with mirrors."
"That boy back in town said this was the way we needed to go," she answered, "And we do not have much choice but to trust him. The people who live here know the island better than we do."
"I suppose that's true, but I still think we should've seen something by now."
"Just keep running. I am sure that this island cannot be overly large. It is the second smallest island within the country of Caelum, so we should be coming up to the beach soon."
Drayden didn't say anything further as they continued down the path they had been directed to. Neither of them bothered dodging any lightning bolts that happened to strike down at them, both of them being more than capable of dealing with the bolts due to their magic types. It made it easy for them to continue in a straight line towards their destination. The beach they had been directed towards was simply named Glass Beach due to all the glass that was created by the lightning striking the sand. They had both agreed that this was mostly likely the beach they were looking for. Though, for a long while, Drayden was sure that they had been given bad directions or the beach didn't exist until they finally ran up a small hill where sand began to take over the land. The two eventually came to a stop at the top of the hill, standing near a wooden sign.
"Looks like this is the right place," Drayden said, pointing to the sign that read 'Glass Beach'.
"I believe you are correct," Alisa said, looking out across the beach. In all shapes and sizes were glistening pieces of glass, a few of them even standing straight up from the sand in circular shapes with jagged edges.
"The clue said something about a mirror among mirrors," Drayden said as they began walking across the beach, "But this is all just random glass, not mirrors."
"It appears we will just have to start testing out all this glass then. From what the clue said, it sounded as if we would be able to go through one of them in order to reach a relic of water."
A flat look crossed Drayden's face at her proposal, "Yeah, because that's gonna be an easy feat. Look how many we have to go through."
"I propose we start looking through them instead of complaining about things," she said with a sharp stare aimed his way, "Unless you would like to be the one to explain to Cordelia why we did not even attempt to look for the required mirror."
"Tch, no," he grumbled, "Let's start with the larger ones at least. Those are the most mirror-like ones here."
Alisa nodded at him and the two began to travel from glass piece to glass piece. Though, things appeared normal to them. Nothing out of the ordinary about any of the pieces stood out and they couldn't step through any of them. Alisa made sure not to give up though as she kept the two of them moving across the beach. And thanks to her determination, the two eventually made it towards a large piece of glass that stood up straight like many of the other larger pieces, but what was unique about this glass piece was the fact that its edges were smoothed, creating an elongated oval shape.
"We might have found a winner here," Drayden said as the two walked up to it. They each exchanged a quick glance before Drayden lifted his hand towards the glass. Instead of feeling the cool press of glass against his palm, the two watched in amazement as his hand slid through it. Alisa peered around the glass to see if his hand came out on the other side of it, but there was nothing.
"Yes, I do believe we have a winner," she said, smiling back at Drayden.
"Too bad you two ain't gonna be going through it," a voice said from behind them. The two turned to see a man wearing an eye patch and a dark smirk.
Drayden picked up on the Black Skull symbol on the eye patch, remembering what Jay had told him about the first pirate that had attacked them from the Black Skulls. He looked over at Alisa with a worried glance, "I think this guy is Daniel Sierra from the Black Skulls."
"Oh! I'm beginning to get a reputation then," Daniel said, having the gun that held his black bullets aimed at them, "It's good to hear that I haven't been forgotten. But then the bad news is that this is where your mission ends and I take back the map."
"Like we're just gonna hand over the map to you," Drayden retorted.
"Tch, you remember my name, but not what I can do. Let me give you a quick refresher course then," he said as he shot off a bullet. It flew through Alisa's upper, left arm, causing her to grab it in pain quickly. In anger she moved to send out an attack at him, but nothing happened. She tried again and again, but she couldn't get a single spark to ignite from her fingers, "That bullet cancels your magic for a while. Be grateful that I only hit your arm and hand over the map."
"Shit, this is bad," Drayden said, stepping up in front of Alisa now that she didn't have her magic.
"I can still fight," she hissed from behind him, "Lead pipes still make for good weapons even if I cannot use my magic with them at the moment."
"But your arm."
"Simply a flesh wound."
"Hand over the map or I'll make it more than just a flesh wound," Daniel growled, becoming irritated with his demand still being ignored.
Drayden narrowed his eyes at the man, "Astral Body!" he shouted, his blue lightning taking over his body to increase his speed. He ran towards Daniel, aiming to slam him down where he stood. Daniel managed to slide to the left to dodge the lightning mage, but while he kept his focus on what he believed to be his more dangerous opponent, he let his guard down when it came to Alisa.
She had appeared beside him when he made his dodge, slamming one of her pipes into his side before slamming the second one into his stomach. He coughed hard from the hit to the gut, the pain keeping him distracted long enough for Alisa to slam both pipes against his back. He dropped to his knees from the attack, trying hard to get his breathing under control from the blows he was dealt.
"We are not useless just because you take away our magic from us," Alisa said lowly as she raised her pipes up to deal the final blow on the man.
As she began to bring down the pipes, Daniel was quicker and pulled out the gun that was located on his front side. In a split second, he lifted it and pulled the trigger. A silver bullet ran straight through both pipes, successfully splitting them in half, the broken pieces thumping down into the sand. Alisa stared at her broken pipes in shock as Daniel started laughing.
"My silver bullets can puncture even the thickest of metals," he said as he stood back to his feet, aiming the gun right at her head, "So if they can do that to metal, just think of what they'll do to your skull!"
Just as Daniel was about to pull the trigger, he was hit in the back by a shot of blue lightning. He shouted out in pain, giving Alisa time to move away from him. Daniel managed to stay standing, despite the damage that had been done. With his body still smoking after the attack, he turned to see Drayden glaring at him with his hand in the shape of a gun.
"You're not the only one that knows how to shoot a gun," Drayden said, "And I don't even have to reload mine. You think you can handle a second Lightning Bullet?"
"Don't get in my way, boy," Daniel growled as he put away the gun with the black bullets to pull out the one carrying his white bullets. He then aimed both guns he currently had in use at Drayden. The lightning mage prepared himself for the attack, not knowing what the newest gun Daniel had pulled out could do, "Let's see who's bullets are stronger!"
"You're on!"
Daniel shot off the gun carrying the white bullets first while Drayden let off a bullet of his blue lightning.
"Drayden, you idiot!" Zinnia shouted as she came flying down to stand in front of Drayden with a new Spartan Soldier shield at the ready. She made it just in time to block the bullet, hearing it clank and sink into her shield before she turned to face Drayden, "Do you even know what that kind of bullet can do?!"
"Well…no, but-"
"A white one will paralyze you, even with the slightest of grazes. He got John with it last time. You should be more careful."
"He was going to shoot Alisa in the head! What else was I supposed to do?!"
"Well, I guess it was a good thing I listened to my instincts and came here after fighting off the other guy."
"I knew Swabbie would fail in the end," Daniel said with a smirk, "That's why the captain sent me out here in order to have some backup for that drunk, and it looks like it was the right thing to do."
"You failed in your mission too, remember?" Zinnia said, staring flatly at the man.
"Eli and Aria were fighting too, correct?" Alisa asked after appearing beside the other two, "Where did they go?"
"Alisa got hurt and Eli took her back to the guild," Zinnia answered, deciding they didn't need to know about Eli's real reason for heading back to the guild, "But have you two figured out the clue yet?"
"Partly," Alisa said, "We found the right mirror, but then this man showed up before we could enter it."
"I see," Zinnia said, "Well then, I'll keep him busy while you two finish what you came here to do."
"We can't just leave you out here on your own!" Drayden said.
"It's just one guy, what could go wrong? Besides, you have your orders to figure out the clue. That's more important right now. I have enough defenses to be able to deal with this guy."
"But-"
"She is right, Drayden," Alisa said, "We have a job to finish and since she is here to deal with the pirate, we can continue that job."
"Fine, even though it doesn't sit right with me, we'll go take care of the clue," he said, "But we'll be as quick as we can in order to come back to help you."
"I appreciate the thought, but I'll have this guy finished off before you get back."
"You think it's going to be that easy?!" Daniel shouted.
"Why, yes I do," Zinnia smiled at him, "While you might have specialized bullets, they mean nothing against my shields."
"So you're the bitch that put up the shield when I made my first attack!"
"Yeah, that's me, but calling me names like that is only gonna end with you getting hit harder than I had originally planned to do," she said before looking over at Alisa and Drayden, "What are you waiting for? Get going!"
"They ain't going anywhere!"
Zinnia jumped in front of them as the two took off running towards the smooth mirror, blocking the bullets Daniel had fired off, "You keep wasting bullets like that, you're not gonna be left with anything to fight me with," she said with a giggle.
"And by the way," Alisa said after Drayden had stepped through the mirror and she was about to follow him, "Your manner of speaking is atrocious! You really need to hire a tutor and have that fixed!"
Daniel let out a shout of anger as he shot off a white bullet towards her. Alisa was quickly pulled backwards by Drayden while Zinnia made an attempt to block the bullet. This time though, the bullet's trajectory was simply changed by her shield, the bullet now heading towards the bottom of the mirror. It hit the stem of glass that held it up, breaking it in half and sending it crashing towards the ground; and because other pieces of glass littered the ground, it smashed into pieces when it made contact with the glass filled sand.
"No!" Daniel shouted, knowing he wouldn't be able to follow in after them now that the gateway was broken.
Zinnia stared worriedly at the broken pieces, wondering how the other two were going to make it out of wherever they had gone to now. Though, the smashed pieces also brought her relief since Daniel really wouldn't be able to get to them now. She looked back at him with a small grin, "Looks like you lose again. I wonder how your captain will feel with you returning empty handed twice now."
Daniel turned his glare on her, and without a second thought, he shot off a silver bullet at her. All the other bullets she had blocked had been white ones, so Zinnia was unaware of what a silver bullet could do. It easily sunk through her shield and into the skin of her abdomen. A painful stinging sensation rose up through her as the bullet ripped through her body until it came out from her back and into the sand behind her. Her eyes widened when she felt that pain and felt blood dripping from the wound and down her leg. She had to look down to prove to herself that she had just been shot, and when her eyes landed on the blood spreading across her clothing, she fell to her knees as the pain began to take over. She dropped her shield and grabbed for the wound, not knowing what else to do aside from trying to put pressure onto it. And then her constant words of 'what could go wrong' from earlier that day repeated in her mind, almost making her laugh at the turn of events.
Daniel walked up to her, pressing the barrel of the gun with the silver bullets against her head, "Looks like you got too cocky. Even if I can't bring the map back with me, at least I can tell my captain that I took out one of you shitty Storm's Helm mages."
And just as he was about to pull the trigger to end her life, he was once again interrupted as Swabbie came crashing down in between him and Zinnia. The armor mage quickly knocked the guns from his hands before punching him in the gut and sending him flying back several meters. Despite the wounds he had received earlier, he was fitted in his heavy armor again and stood standing tall in front of Zinnia.
"Swabbie?" Daniel said, coughing from the blow to his gut. Once he got his breathing back under control, he stood properly and glared at his fellow pirate, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Stopping you."
"Oh don't tell me you've got some heart of gold bullshit going on now."
"You never think things through," he said lowly.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You kill her and it'll start a war."
"You're just a drunk. What do you know?"
"She's close to her guild master. That makes it too dangerous to kill her right now."
"You better not be trying to save her or something."
Swabbie only frowned at Daniel, knowing he would have to prove himself somehow to the man. He then turned to look down at Zinnia, his frown deepening upon seeing the gunshot wound on her. He gave her a look that he hoped showed his apology towards her before he slammed a rock covered fist against her head, promptly knocking her out, "There," he grunted as he picked her up from the ground, "We take her in with us."
"To do what?"
"Questioning," he simply answered, hoping it would be enough to get Daniel off of his back. He ignored Daniel's shouts as he began walking back towards the direction their ship would be in. Now he could only hope that he could get to Mingo first before Madmartigan saw Zinnia or caught wind of what had happened on the island.
. : + : .
Eli had finally made it back to the guild and had just dropped Aria off at the infirmary when he noticed people running across the guild towards the back end of it where the dorms were. As a few of them passed him, they gave him worried and nervous glances before continuing on their way. The gut wrenching feeling from earlier returned tenfold and he began to follow where everyone else was running to. He eventually made it back towards the women's dorms where there was a large crowd forming. He noticed Isaak at the front of the crowd, seeing a serious look across his face as he stared down over the edge of the ship. It quickly dawned on him why he looked so serious when Cordelia and Seth came up over the edge of the ship, both of them looking worse for wear while Cordelia's eyes were red from crying.
In an instant, Eli was making his way through the crowd, not caring that he was practically pushing people out of his way, "Move!" he eventually boomed, causing the guild to go quiet and people to quickly move out of his way. A path was created for him, allowing Cordelia and the others to see him as well. He frowned when Cordelia seemed to look away from him quickly when she made eye contact with him. He walked right up to her and forced her to turn and face him, "What happened?"
"I…I just fell into the water. That's all," she said quietly, not being able to look up at him.
"You're lying," he said, looking up at Seth and Isaak, "What happened?"
The two men exchanged glances, trying to decide if they should really tell him or not.
"Someone better tell me what the hell happened right now!"
"Don't yell at them," Cordelia said, still in a quiet voice, "It…it was the Dark Water."
Eli stood in silence as he pieced together what might have happened. Somehow the Dark Water got free from the jar and it had attacked her and dragged her out to sea. And considering Seth matched her appearance, he guessed that he had been the one to save her. Eli's brow furrowed as anger started to fill him. He ran a hand through his hair as he started to pace in the small, open area of the crowd. He eventually let out a grunt of anger before he started talking, "I knew this would happen! I told you to get rid of that shit earlier and now look what happened!"
"I…I know," she said, shrinking away back towards Seth. While she was normally able to hold her own in an argument against Eli, after having just dealt with the Dark Water, she had no energy to put up a fight. That, and she knew he had a point. If she hadn't brought the Dark Water onto the guild, then all of this could have been avoided.
"Is that right? You know? Then why did you bring it onto the guild in the first place?!"
"Okay, that's enough," Isaak said, stepping in front of Eli, "You already said your piece when you found out about this and she's already paid the consequences for her actions. There's no need to go throwing it in her face over and over again. She didn't know that the jar was going to break."
"Don't try to be the hero now, Marzell," the fire mage said, heat beginning to radiate off of him.
"Well someone has to be when you become irrational like this."
"I'm irrational? I wasn't the one that brought the Dark Water onto the guild in the first place!"
"You need to stop blaming her for this entire thing. It's you that the Dark Water is after, isn't it? It's your fault that she's been caught up in this."
"You little card punk! You shouldn't talk about things that you don't understand!"
"But I'm right, aren't I?! Because of you, she's in this situation!"
"That doesn't change the fact that she brought it onto the guild! And what good did it do other than almost drowning her?!
"Stop! Stop!" Cordelia shouted, not being able to take their argument anymore. Both men stopped their arguing and looked down towards her, "Just stop it already," she said, giving them one last, sad stare before walking off towards the head ship, people moving out of her way as she did so.
"Well," Seth began when she was out of sight, "You both just made that much worse than it needed to be. She was already drug across the guild and through the ocean by the thing that scares her the most. Isn't that enough?"
Eli and Isaak stared at Seth for a moment before sighing heavily, knowing they had both just screwed up.
"You should go apologize to her," Seth said, looking at Eli, "And I mean a real apology, not some half assed, backwards comment that's meant to be an apology."
"I don't know why I need to apologize. She shouldn't have brought that stuff onto the guild."
"I don't care anymore on who should have done what. We can't go back and change what happened. We just deal with it and move on, and we need to move on with this instead of constantly hanging it over her head, got it?"
Everyone stared at the large man in slight fear, not used to seeing him angry about much, so Eli knew he meant business by the way he spoke to him now.
"Fine, I'll go talk to her," he said before walking off.
"You better apologize!"
Eli simply waved a hand back at Seth to show that he heard him as he continued forward towards the head ship. Once he was off of the women's dorm ship, it was fairly easy to get to his destination since most of the mages had made their way to the back of the guild. He quickly found himself on the top deck of the front ship, seeing Sam point down below deck with a frown, the boy already knowing why Eli was there. Eli gave him a nod before making his way below deck. He checked her office first, but the room was empty. The only other place she could be was her personal quarters. He walked a few feet down from the office and as he approached the door that led into her room, he could hear her crying through the door, causing him to internally groan, mostly because he was partly to blame for it now. Not being able to hear her crying for long, he knocked on her door.
"Go away."
"Cor, let me in."
"I'm fine, so go away."
"Obviously you're not fine," he said, staring flatly at the door, "And if you don't let me in then I'm going to burn down the door. Do you really want that?"
There was silence for a short moment before he heard her walk towards the door and yank it open. She tried to glare up at him, but it didn't have the affect it usually did since her eyes were still filled with the tears she had just been crying.
"What do you want? Come to tell me off some more?"
"No. I came to apologize."
She stared at him in surprise for a moment before her previous attempt of a glare crossed her face again, "Only because Seth told you to do it."
"Does it matter why I'm doing it? All that matters is I'm here now."
Cordelia could only roll her eyes in response before turning away from the door. Though, she hadn't slammed the door in his face, so Eli took this to mean that he was allowed to come into her room.
"Well? Get to it," she said, keeping her back facing him while she crossed her arms in front of her chest.
Eli sighed lightly at her reaction, "Even though I still feel like I had good reason, I'm sorry for going off on you like that. But how else was I supposed to react after you told me what happened and with how you looked?"
"This has to be the crappiest apology ever. There was no reason to basically say 'I told you so' in front of everyone like that," she huffed, "I'm supposed to be the guild master here. How do you think it makes me look when you say things like that?"
"I don't care about titles when it comes to Dark Water because it doesn't care about them either. Even if you were a queen," he began, but was quickly interrupted by Cordelia pointing towards the siren marking on her arm. Eli could only stare flatly at the back of her head for a moment before continuing, "Even if you are a queen, it doesn't care. It'll still try to take you down."
"Still, you could have at least waited to say something until we were behind closed doors. If I had been the one yelling at you, you would have hated it."
'You yell at me all the fucking time,' he thought, deciding it was better to keep that thought to himself for the moment, "Look, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you or upset you," he said as he began moving towards her, "But I couldn't control myself when I found out what happened. If you had been killed because of the Dark Water, then I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. Isaak was right about that. It would have been all my fault and I wouldn't be able to live with that kind of guilt," he explained as he came to a stop right behind her before forcing her to turn around to face him, "Don't you get it? I would feel anger and sorrow for anyone that would be killed by the Dark Water, but if it's you, I won't be able to handle it. That's why I react the way I do."
Cordelia watched him for a long moment, seeing that he was being genuine in his words through his eyes, "My promise," she said quietly, "I'm still keeping it."
"Cor," he started with a sigh.
"To stop the Dark Water from taking you, I'm still keeping that promise!"
He stood quiet for a moment, surprised by how strong and determined she sounded in her declaration. A warm smile appeared on his lips as he pulled her in for a hug, feeling her arms wrap around him tightly in return, "Okay," was all he said and was all that needed to be said.
A/N: And there we are! I hope you all enjoyed it!
I really enjoyed this chapter even with all its ups and downs! But Zinnia! What's gonna happen now?! Talk about these cliff hangers, haha!
I'll be bringing back the Question Corner next chapter though. I need to find my list of questions and it's a bit late, so in order to save some time, I'll get that started up again next chapter. But we will have the review responses as per usual once again!
So thanks to all of you that reviewed last chapter!
Momochan77 - Glad you enjoyed the last chapter! And the other characters will be making appearances soon. Just had to get through the stuff that's going on at the moment. But I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Benthino - Haha! Always gotta keep you readers on your toes with these updates! And Swabbie might have failed in that first fight, but he definitely came back for the win in this chapter! But I think Zinnia getting shot like that amounts to sinister, no? Well anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Origm2012 - CHA! I'm glad you liked that opening scene! I was really hoping that it would turn out well and it seemed that you all liked it, so I must have done something right, lol. But yas! I finally got to do the combo ability with Seth! I've been wanting to do that since you gave me his character! So I'm glad that it turned out well for you. And I'm glad to hear that Seth is still turning out so well for you in general too! And I'm glad you liked Swabbie's fight too. That Dark Water…we might be waiting a bit to find out the full story on it. I'll keep pulling you all along with it though until that point, haha! But I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Joshua1277 - Yep, for the moment, the biggest threat is the Dark Water, but just wait until we move further along in the story. Oh man! The things that are planned! Yeah, I think Swabbie would enjoy partying with the guild more than fighting them, but orders are orders. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
potentialauthor18 - Haha, yeah, you'll find those cliff hangers happen more often than not. And the Dark Water is dealt with…for the time being anyways. But yeah, Swabbie is kinda tank. Poor guy, just doing his job, lol. But I'm glad you liked the chapter and I hope you enjoyed this one!
DarkHyena - Yeah, Cordelia definitely got lucky that Seth was there to save her this time! Plus, Devin showing up to help out too! And thanks for your question! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Sakura-Fiction - Yeah, I seem to be toying with a lot of people's emotions. I wonder how you all will handle this chapter with Zinnia getting shot and all. But I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
reven228 - Haha! I read that in the narrator's voice too! But yeah, definitely a close call for Cordelia there. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
ThePrinceOfLight - Glad you enjoyed the last chapter! But yeah, Cordelia lucked out with having Seth and Devin there to help her out. And I'm glad you liked Swabbie's fight too. And people tend to live in weird places sometimes, lol, so I'm sure they have their reasons for living on an island filled with lighting. But anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
XLil MEkoX - YAS! I always have to leave you in suspense! And that's exactly what I did for this chapter too! Haha! And of course Eli will overreact, lol. It's in his nature to do so. And nope, they really can't seem to catch a break. Hopefully the next clue won't be as hectic, but we'll see. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Dreadburner94 - Well, look at you lucking out. I was just about to start my last read through of this chapter and then post it when your review appeared. What horrible procrastination! But yeah, poor Swabbie, lol. He put up a tough fight, but that three on one with a mage that can melt his rock made it rather hard. But at least Zinnia was there to make sure he stayed safe! And talk about paying back the favor in this chapter! Swabbie for the win! Anyways, lol, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
That should be it for this time around.
See you all next Sunday!
Yours Truly,
MyDearWatson