Saiyan Tail

by Mataras

Desperate to escape a legacy he never wanted, the Saiyan boy named Gorun uses the dragon balls to wish himself to a place where he can never be found by his old life. He soon joins Fairy Tail, and their world is set to change- but for better or for worse? Cover art was made by my wife and myself. Disclaimers on the Fairy Tail and Dragon Ball franchises.

31. Beyond the Limits of Endurance

A/N: Well... I know I said I would update at the beginning of March, but something happened this week that changed my mind. As I'm sure many of you in the Dragon Ball community know, TeamFourStar has announced that they will no longer continue to work on the Dragon Ball Z Abridged series. As said parody is primarily what got me into the franchise in the first place, I felt the need to take a moment and pay homage to the crew that introduced me to such a fun story, which turned out to be surprisingly rich in culture and lore. I wouldn't be the writer I am now without it, and even though I'm not entirely sure how that plays out for me in the end, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

RIP, Dragon Ball Z Abridged. You will be sorely missed, but I thank you for all the memories and laughs.

If you've somehow never seen this series, go check it out ASAP. You won't regret it, I assure you.

I also hope that you'll enjoy this early release chapter, which was immensely satisfying to write, for many reasons that I'm sure will become clear soon, but I can tell you that some of the character development that you've all been hoping for since Gorun was introduced is about to come to a head. Read, review, and most importantly, enjoy!

P.S. The new cover art is Wendy and Rachel's fusion, drawn by yours' truly.

---

War of the Underworld Arc: Chapter 4

Beyond the Limits of Endurance

Poison Jelly Valley…

"So Silver was telling the truth," Ezel muttered as he studied his new opponent. "These humans have some strange merging power." Then a wicked grin split his face as he laughed, "Too bad for you, we took precautions against this! Even combined, your power isn't enough to stop a demon enhanced by a bunch of dragons! Get ready to die, little girl!" So saying, he gathered his tentacles up underneath him and launched himself at the young wizard, his arms coming back for one overpowering blow that would cut her in two.

Instead of looking frightened, or even remotely concerned, the girl stared at the demon blankly without even moving right up until he came within striking distance of her pale hands. Fast as a Super Saiyan god, the fusion snatched Ezel by the arm, swung him around herself three times, and then let him go flying back into the caves behind them, several loud crashes and curses floating back in his wake.

"I might be a little girl, but you're just an overgrown octopus," she said, that same calm look on her face as she brushed a hint of dust off of her shoulders. "The dragon slayer, Wendy Marvell, and the Saiyan Reycel make… Vellrey." Tartaros may have been able to handle Metamoran fusions now, but Potara warriors were on another level entirely. Rachel didn't have to lower her power level to match Wendy's, so Vellrey had been born of their maximum respective strengths.

Ezel was back in a flash, looking none the worse for his tumble- in fact, he was absolutely ecstatic. "Well now, here I was thinkin' that this wouldn't be any fun!" he cackled. "But it looks like I'm gonna be entertained, after all!"

Vellrey cocked her head at him before asking, "What's gonna be so fun about me stopping you?"

"You can try, little girl!" the demon shouted before he drew his top right fist back. "But you're up against a demon from the book of Zeref enhanced by over thirty dragons! And your pathetic guild couldn't even slay a single one!"

"That's because our dragon slayers weren't ready to take on actual dragons when the Eclipse opened," Vellrey replied before she stopped the fist in its tracks with an open palm, the ground beneath her cracking from the force of the blow. Somewhere in the background, Carla cried out in fright, but the fusion ignored it for the time being. "And even now, were Acnologia to return, they wouldn't stand a chance against him. Fortunately…" A golden magic circle tinged with crystal blue appeared over Vellrey's head before she was obscured by another flash of light, though not nearly as blinding as the previous one. "There are alternatives to fighting alone."

Golden gale force winds blasted Ezel away from the fused wizard, though this time he managed to brace himself against the ceiling instead of going for another mile-long tumble. As he looked down below, he saw a transformed Vellrey looking up at him with emerald eyes, her face still a mask of calm as the wind stirred up her yellow hair and the matching feathers on her ankles, wrists, and back.

"A dragon slayer might not cut it, but I think a super slayer should do the trick," she said just loud enough to be heard over the howling winds. Over her shoulder, she called, "Carla? You alright?"

"I'm here, child!" the exceed answered as she peeked out behind a rock that had been torn from the ceiling.

"See if you can figure out how to shut down Face while I take this somewhere else," Vellrey told her as her aura died down.

"Where will you go?! We're in a cave!" Carla shouted. "You could bring the whole place down on top of us if you fight him down here!"

"I know, which is I'll be taking this outside," the Super Slayer replied. "There's not enough room to move properly in here, anyway."

"What do you-?"

Carla was cut off when Ezel tried to launch a surprise attack, moving even faster than before as he blasted off of the ceiling to try and tackle Vellrey, who was not about to take that lying down. She kicked him square in the jaw, sending him shooting upwards at the speed of a Capsule Corp rocket, straight through the ceiling, and all the way out into open air.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," the girl said as she gave a shocked Carla a thumbs-up. "I won't go far, promise." Then she was gone with instant transmission.

---

Begin Song: Spin and Burst (by Yasuharu Takanashi)

---

She popped back into existence in front of Ezel, who was grinning fiercely. "You made a big mistake girlie," he said as he gestured at the open desert around them. "Back down there, I couldn't attack indiscriminately, in case I accidentally broke the Face. But out here, I can use my curses however I want! Your puny magic won't save you now!"

"I'm getting tired of all you demons just talking about how much better you are than the rest of us," the girl said as she took a fighting stance. "How about you quit blustering and show me what you've got?"

"Onimaru!" Ezel shouted, sweeping his arms in a wide arc.

Vellrey sped out of the way as the stones behind her were sliced into sharp little pieces, and moving even faster than before, she abruptly changed directions and smashed into Ezel with a Sky Dragon's Talon. This version of Super Slayer didn't seem to have the raw, destructive power that Narun's transformation did, but her speed far outclassed his.

The demon took the blow, smiled again, then hit her with a head-butt, followed by crushing her body between the rocks and his fists. He pinned her in place before she could get up, then levelled his lower right arm at her throat, laughter in his mouth. "Is that all you got, little girl?" he taunted her. "I was expecting more after all the flashing lights!"

"You asked for it," Vellrey warned him as she drew in a deep breath. "Sky Dragon's Hurricane BREATH!" Ezel was plucked up by the golden winds that spewed from the girl's mouth and carried high into the sky, higher than any bird dared to fly.

Picking herself up off the ground, Vellrey winced at the torn fabric of her sleeves and lower shirt before looking back up at the sky, Rachel's scouter quickly locating the still-flying monster. Retracting the lens with a mental command, she blasted off after her enemy, sky magic enhanced with etherion already stirring around her hands.

---

Down below, Carla winced at every shockwave and monstrously powerful spell that was cast miles above her head. The fighting was so intense, that even high up in the sky, the vibrations resulting from the traded blows reached down to the chamber where Face had been unsealed.

Be safe, Child, she thought worriedly as she tried to focus her clairvoyance. Dozens of possible futures presented themselves to her, each one ending worse than the last. Just as she was about to give up hope of being able to disable the bomb, two paths came to the forefront of her mind.

She opened her eyes, releasing a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding as she weighed her options. I could trigger the bomb prematurely, but there's no way that I would be able to fly out in time to escape the blast, not to mention that Wendy and Rachel might get caught up in the explosion, she thought as sweat lined her fur. But if I allow the other path to be walked…

She looked up through the hole in the cavern ceiling and thought, I understand now, Rachel. But can I allow your secret to be revealed yet? If you destroy Face instead of me, there will be no more hiding who you really are.

---

"Sky Dragon Double Sunday!" Vellrey shouted as she alighted on the ground, sending forth two vicious cyclones from her hands to strike at Ezel before he could land, but he swiftly cut through the winds powerful enough to tear the outer shell off of a warship.

"I was right- this is fun!" he bellowed with laughter.

Vellrey grimaced as she felt her bruises flare with pain. Several of her knuckles were bleeding, and at least one finger was broken, plus who-knew-how-many cracked ribs. Really wish I could self-heal… She blinked once as another thought occurred to her. Oh, wait.

Her only comfort thus far was that Ezel didn't look much better than she did, despite his fierce posturing. But if she was right about her hunch…

"I think it's time that someone puts you down like the dog you are," Vellrey said as she focused on the construction of a new magic circle, taking out pieces of two formulas and then merging the remaining parts in her mind's eye to form something new.

"The only vermin around here is you, little brat!" Ezel bellowed as he rushed her again, his power level climbing even higher as his body began to change, armor forming on his upper body in the style of a samurai while all four of his arms transformed into black blades. "Let's see how you stand up to my Etherious form!" One of his blades barely grazed the ground, and it left a gouge in the earth over a mile deep.

It's now or never, the girl out of the way so fast that she left an afterimage for the demon to strike, Vellrey lashed out with a kick that sent him flying several kilometers away, and buying her a few precious seconds. Gathering the last elements that she needed, the fused wizard willed the new magic circle into existence over her head as she cried, "Takeover: Rosé Style Dragon god Soul!"

---

Tartaros Base…

Natsu and Gorun glared at Franmalth, who had managed to use his newfound power to survive Gorun's fists. Gray had gotten separated from them during the explosion that was meant to take out Keyes, and since they hadn't seen the skeletal demon since their friend disappeared, they figured that he must be off somewhere, fighting the enemy.

"This blows," Lucino grumbled. "We can't hit him with any new spells, or else he just absorbs them."

"Eventually, I'll have them all anyway," Franmalth wheezed with laughter. "Once I kill you and gobble up your souls, I'll have every one of your spells at my disposal!"

As he continued to laugh, Natsu noticed that Gorun wasn't even paying attention to the demon. His gaze was directed at one of the windows lining the hall, a vacant look on his face that quickly changed to one of surprise. "What're you doing?!" the dragon slayer demanded of his friend.

Gorun ignored him and tapped the communication button on his scouter. "Azura, are you there?" he asked hurriedly while Franmalth continued to monologue about the superiority of curses to magic.

"Yeah, kinda busy," Natsu could hear the other saiyan answer.

"Did you feel that?" he replied. "It wasn't you, was it?"

"…It wasn't me," Azura said. "But even with all the bane particles screwing with our senses, there was no mistaking that power."

"I thought so," Gorun said gravely. "Hopefully it doesn't take that kind of power to defeat nine of these guys, or else we'll be exhausted long before we finish even half of them." With that, he ended the transmission.

"What's going on?" Lucino asked him.

"Azura and I picked up on a power level even stronger than us, strong enough to be felt through the bane particles in this place," Gorun answered grimly. "It was mixed with dragon slayer magic, but there's no mistaking the presence of another Super Saiyan god. …Which means that Rachel has a lot of explaining to do."

---

Back at Poison Jelly Valley…

"What is this trick is this?!" Ezel demanded as he eyed the transformed girl apprehensively. "I can't sense your power, and there's something else different about you than before!"

"Divine energies are undetectable to mortal and demon kind," Vellrey answered him, her bearing as calm as ever, despite the vicious magenta winds swirling around her. Her hair and feathers had turned from a shining gold color to a beautiful rose shade, while her eyes had changed to the gray of an oncoming storm cloud. The feathers appearing on her back had grown in size and number so that they now resembled mighty angel's wings. "I am a Super Dragon god Slayer, the first of my kind." As she spoke, the rosy winds drew in towards her, kissing her wounds and leaving unblemished skin behind. "With divine magic coursing through my veins and merging with the power of the sky, I can heal myself, despite the draconic origins of the magic." Vellrey stood tall, her battle damage completely gone.

"That won't help you if I cut your head off!" Ezel shouted, the power of the Dragon Cry rushing through him with ever greater ferocity. "Jusumaru!" A swipe of his blades saw to the formation of two deep valleys being carved into the flesh of the earth.

A sonic boom assaulted Ezel's ears right after Vellrey's fist met his face, crunching the bones in his jaw before a tornado dashed him into the ground miles away from where Face lay hidden. The wind hadn't even been the result of a spell- Vellrey had just hit him that fast.

The girl grimaced slightly as she felt her energy reserves being rapidly depleted by the new transformation. I have a couple of minutes at best if I'm going to have enough energy left to destroy Face, she thought. I need to end this, fast.

Ezel was back in a flash, his armor cracked, but his blades as sharp as ever. "You little brat!" he snarled as he aimed to stab her in the navel.

"Wind O wind, rouse the skies and rend the land below," Vellrey said in response to the deadly threat. "Dragon god Boreas!" Pink and purple winds lashed at her foe, but he cut straight through them, and with a merciless cackle, he stabbed at her face, intending to cut her head in half.

Vellrey reached up and slapped her hands together to pin the sword in place as soon as the sword came within inches of her nose, exerting enough force to stop Ezel dead in his tracks. He blinked once in surprise as her gray eyes met his crimson ones without any visible sign of stress, physical or mental. "Super Dragon god Slayer, huh?" he asked dumbly.

"Yes."

"Any chance I could talk you out of this?"

"No," Vellrey answered before she yanked his sword to the side and high-kicked him up into the stratosphere. "Super Slayer Secret Art," she added as she held her hands above her head, enchanted winds gathering into a tight ball around her body. "Shattering Light SKY DOME!" The sphere spat out a narrow tornado that stirred up the sky across the continent, so terrible was its power. Everywhere in Ishgar, clouds raced towards the rosy tornado to be drawn into its path, the particles within it sparking great bolts of lightning from the sheer amount of friction generated within its depths.

The attack cut Ezel to pieces in a handful of seconds as his Dragon Cry shard was shattered, just as he had done to so many of his victims. It was an ironic way to die, he thought before his life ended, his body quickly turning into mere atoms that were scattered about in the wind.

With the demon dead, Vellrey lowered her arms and stopped the attack, releasing her divine form simultaneously. Glancing around at the heavy gathering of clouds that remained, she sent them back to where they belonged with a final burst of wind that swept across the land. They'll be talking about that freak weather for years to come, she thought with a tired grin as she sensed for Carla's energy. She had moved around so much in her fight with Ezel, and the landscape had changed to the point where she didn't know where she was anymore.

It took her a minute or so, but when she had the white exceed's location, she used instant transmission to reappear in front of her, startling poor Carla.

"Goodness gracious, child!" she said sternly once the initial shock had worn off. "I nearly had a heart attack!"

"Sorry," Vellrey apologized before she pulled off the potara earring on her right ear. There was a small flash of light, and when it disappeared, Wendy and Rachel were separate beings once again.

"That took a little more out of us than I was expecting," Rachel said tiredly while Wendy swayed with exhaustion.

"What happened?" Wendy mumbled as she gazed blearily at their ally. "I… saw some things from your memories… I thought those kinds of earrings worked for an hour before we could separate?"

"Normally, yeah, or until the fusion themselves run out of energy and they break apart," Rachel said as she slumped to the cavern floor, noticing that they still had fifteen minutes before the Face detonated. She put the right earring back in her earlobe as she added, "But these are special, even for potara… A family member of mine used a wish on certain set of dragon balls to give me earrings that keep the fusion going indefinitely, or until we remove one of them ourselves."

"Rachel, some of the things I saw…" Wendy said hesitantly. "In your head… Is it true?"

The black-haired child slumped and nodded wordlessly. "Yeah," she said hoarsely.

"Then why not say something?"

"I had planned to, once Tartaros had been dealt with," the girl said as she made herself get up and shamble toward the controls of the anti-magic bomb. "I wouldn't have been able to hide it for much longer, anyway."

"Why hide it at all?" Carla asked, surprising the two girls.

"Wait, how did you-?"

---

Begin Song: Beerus' Hakai Theme (by Norihito Sumitomo)

---

"I saw two possible futures," the exceed interrupted the saiyan girl. "In one, I destroyed Face by triggering a premature detonation, but am unable to escape the blast. In the other, you destroyed it. From what I saw both in that vision and your fight with Ezel, in addition to what Gorun has told us about the people where he comes from, I was able to connect some of the dots."

Rachel sighed heavily as she continued to amble toward the massive bomb. "I can't let either of you die," she told them. "The finales of your tales have yet to be told- so I will do what must be done. Besides, if that other future was going to happen, you would have done it while we were out of this cave."

"Gorun and the others are already suspicious of you," Carla warned her. "If you go through with this, your anonymity will never be recovered. They will question you until you reveal exactly who you are, and even then, they may never trust you."

"As long as they survive, I don't care if they don't trust me," Rachel sniffled, and the other girls realized that she was crying. "I couldn't tell them… as much as I wanted to, I couldn't. They needed to be focused on Tartaros, not on me. If I distracted them too much before the correct moment, the timeline could have been irreparably harmed."

"According to who?" Carla demanded. "To make you suffer like that, child, honestly! Who would swear you to silence under such circumstances?!"

"According to my mother," Rachel answered softly as a deep purple magic circle spawned under her feet, silencing her companions. She wiped at her eyes and said in a slightly louder voice, "I'll only be able to hold this for a second. Once I've destroyed this thing, I'll likely be out cold, so I'm leaving my well-being to you two. Once I've recovered enough to travel, we'll head back toward Tartaros- Fairy Tail still needs our help."

"What do we tell Gorun if we get back before you recover?" Wendy asked her.

"I'll explain everything myself when I'm awake," Rachel answered as her hair began to float upwards again. "I don't want him to hear it from anybody but me. Now, takeover: Destructive Saiyan Soul!"

Dark purple light infused her body, changing her hair and eyes to match the rich color. Her body matured rapidly as the transformation took effect, changing her from a twelve-year-old into a young adult in a matter of seconds. Behind her, a white halo shone around a symbol that Carla and Wendy had never seen before- a circle atop a trio of diamonds. The two of them retreated a few paces back, purely on an unknown instinct. Consciously, they both knew that Rachel wouldn't hurt them, but their bodies screamed at them to get as far away from the girl as was physically possible- and then keep going, because no matter how far you ran, nowhere was safe.

Neither of them had witnessed one in action, but from Gorun's descriptions of their might and the terror that it inspired, the Fairy Tail wizards knew that they were looking at a goddess of destruction.

The girl stood in front of Face, planted a hand on its pure white surface, and murmured, "Hakai."

Just like that, the bomb was erased from existence. The massive white pillar disappeared at the touch of a dark purple glow that consumed even the essence of the ethernano that the weapon had been processing. The countdown vanished, no longer receiving a signal from a viable source. Only a giant crater in the ground marked that it had ever existed at all.

Rachel swayed and then fell over backwards as her body resumed its normal state, her power completely spent. Wendy stumbled forward just in time to catch the girl alongside Carla, who had to struggle to keep them both from hitting the ground with her wings. Once Rachel was out of danger of hitting her head on a loose piece of rubble, she murmured, "I can hardly believe that my suspicions about her were correct."

"You do have the advantage of foresight," Wendy reminded her tiredly. "I never would have suspected anything."

"You're also a little too trusting of strangers," Carla scolded her. "Remember the incident with Doranbolt?" She was referring to Wendy's agreement to accompany the odd wizard- known at the time as Mest Gryder- on his supposed attempt to complete the S-class trials on Tenrou Island. As it had turned out, he was on an assignment for the Magic Council, in which they were trying to dig up dirt on Fairy Tail in order to force them to disband.

"He did try to help us in the end," Wendy protested weakly. "And he was definitely a big help during the Dragon King Festival. Now Rachel has saved us from the Face bomb. Doesn't mean that I was right to trust them?"

"Perhaps," the stubborn exceed conceded with a huff. "I still don't look forward to seeing how Gorun reacts to this. Knowing him and his habit of reacting poorly to anything that has to do with time travel, I don't see him handling her true identity very well."

"Come on, you're being a little hard on the guy," Wendy told her as she began to cast her healing magic on Rachel, the small amount that she could without incapacitating herself. "I'm sure he'll be surprised, but I don't exactly see him and the others rejecting Rachel outright."

---

Back at Tartaros Base…

Gorun was all kinds of confused at the moment. First I sense Rachel as a Super Saiyan god, that energy disappears, and then up pops a Destroyer, but only for a second?! What in the actual hell?!

"Hey Gorun, quit spacing out on us!" Natsu shouted as he ducked a white chain that had been launched from Franmalth's hands. "This guy's getting real annoying!"

"Says one of the guys that wrecked our base!" the demon shout back. "Seriously, do you have any idea how much all of this is gonna cost to get it fixed?!"

"There won't be anything to fix once I'm done with you!" Gorun snarled, having cleared his head of distractions. Natsu was right- he needed to be present for this fight.

Franmalth had undergone a strange transformation while the saiyan had been distracted. His body was basically the same shape, but his head was now that of a man's with only one eye and a great mane of white hair that ended in a long, drooping beard. He also looked as though he were wearing Natsu's lightning-enhanced flames like a full body cloak. Gorun wasn't entirely sure of what he was looking at, so he asked Lucino about it.

"This creep ate the soul of Master Hades, the second guild master of Fairy Tail, and the dead master of Grimoire Heart," she answered. "He was one of the most dangerous wizards to ever walk Earthland. Then Natsu tried to set him on fire, and he absorbed it."

"Didn't you guys beat Hades?"

"Yep." Lucino had a smug grin on her face as she added, "And Natsu here is the one that kicked him to the curb."

"But did you do it alone?" Franmalth taunted him.

"Does it look like I'm alone?" Natsu shot back.

"Ignore me, and it'll your last mistake," Gorun warned the demon, an idea beginning to spawn in his head. "You wanna absorb our magic? I'll give you a meal that you can choke on! Kaioken!" He engaged the spell ten times over, feeling his heartbeat accelerating as he utilized the inferior magic to enhance his body.

"What're you doing?!" Happy exclaimed. "You should be goin' Super Saiyan 2 or something, right?!"

"Forget it!" the saiyan youth told the exceed. "If he absorbed that power, he'd kill everyone in our guild in seconds! Even as it is, the Kaioken would enable him to obliterate us all in just a few minutes!" He waited with baited breath to see if Franmalth would fall for his ruse.

"That sounds like fun to me!" the striped demon cackled as he turned toward Gorun, reaching out with his elongating fingers, Natsu's flames being replaced with the aura of a Super Saiyan. "Gimme!"

Gorun made a genuine effort to dodge, knowing that it would be a futile endeavor- but he had to make it look believable. The fingers wrapped around his body before he could even get up in the air, and slammed him back down into the ground. The boy shouted in agony as lightning assaulted his body, and he felt his magic being forcibly removed, all while Franmalth was laughing gleefully. "This power is amazing!" he crowed, a red aura flaring to life around his golden one. "I could take down entire countries with this! I'm glad your magic doesn't run out for another fifteen minutes, because I'm gonna have a feast before your powers are taken away by Face!"

"Let him go!" Natsu bellowed, intending to strike down Franmalth before any permanent damage could be done to his friend, but he stopped he saw Gorun shaking his head 'no'.

From under the grip of Franmalth, the boy suddenly stopped screaming. "Gotcha," he grinned as he shut off his spell.

"Huh?" Franmalth frowned. "What're you- you talking about?! Uh…" He released Gorun, stumbling back and clutching at his chest. "Wha…? What'd you do to me?!"

"I didn't do anything, really," Gorun said as he was released from the demon's grip. "You just ate more than you can handle."

"My heart!" Franmalth groaned in pain as he fell to his knees, the golden-red aura beginning to blaze out of control. "What is this?!"

"There's a reason my people don't use the Kaioken on top of Super Saiyan," Gorun said as he forced himself to his feet. "The physical backlash from one technique? That we can handle, given the proper amount of training. But both of them together? That's just asking for trouble. Your heart and muscles are basically tearing themselves to shreds from trying to keep up with the combined effects- and I don't think that even a demon can survive that."

"Curse you!" Franmalth screamed as his body was torn into scraps, leaving nothing in his wake but a soft blue glow. Even as the fairies watched, that light began to release thousands upon thousands of little blue orbs into the sky.

"What're those?" Lucino asked.

"Spirits of the dead," Gorun answered as he watched them go. To the lost entities, he added, "Rest in peace, all of you."

No sooner than he had spoken than did they all sense a foreboding presence behind them, though not a particularly strong one. "Don't tell me we didn't beat that guy!" Natsu growled as he turned around, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw an apparition dressed in a cloak of midnight that contrasted with his snow-white beard.

Based on Franmalth's bizarre appearance, and Lucino's explanation of it, Gorun deduced that he must be looking at the soul of Hades. "You want some?" he asked as he aimed an etherion bolt at the dead man. He wasn't entirely sure that he could harm the spirit, but that wouldn't stop him from trying if the man meant them ill.

He needn't have worried, though. Hades regarded them all with tired eyes before he said, "It's not over. Not yet. You must tell Makarov to unleash the Light, before it is too late." His piece done, he vanished into the air like so many others.

"Unleash the light?" Happy repeated as he looked at his guild mates. "What's that mean?"

"No clue," Lucino shrugged.

"Me neither," Natsu added.

"You got me," Gorun echoed. "My best guess would be that he wants Master to cast Fairy Law, but I dunno that his heart could take that kind of strain anymore." He knew that Makarov had some kind of heart problem, and casting powerful spells like that were now beyond his ability to use without risk.

"My bet is that Gramps will know better than we do," Natsu said thoughtfully.

"Well, I think for you, that's just the case in general," Gorun smirked.

"Hey!"

"I'll fly back to the guild hall and let him know what's goin' on," Happy volunteered. "I'll come find you again once I've delivered the message."

"Sounds good," Gorun told the exceed. "Be safe out there."

---

Tartaros Base Exterior…

"Where's that demon witch?" Azura seethed as she and Erza scanned the rubble for any signs of Kyoka. "She shouldn't have been able to get far."

The demoness had vanished on the two warriors in the midst of their battle, something apparently snatching her attention away from the fight enough to beat a hasty retreat.

"You did hit her with a fairly large spirit sword," Erza told her as she requipped into her standard armor set. "Perhaps she's gone to nurse her wounds, cowardly though it is."

"Demons are cowards in general if they're faced with someone stronger than they are," Azura muttered. "Good to know that applies no matter which reality you're in. I still wanna know where she went so I can finish the job."

"This is their home base," Erza pointed out as they made their way to the top of a pile of rubble. "There are probably paths unknown to us that she could have used to escape."

"And with the trace bane particles permeating the place, I can't get a solid lock on someone's power level unless I'm right in front of them." Azura tapped her scouter and added, "Even this thing hasn't been able to differentiate her from all the grunts that are running around the place."

"Maybe she's lowering her power level to make it harder for us to find her," her guild mate inferred.

"If she is, she's smarter than I gave her credit for- most people on Earthland don't possess that ability."

"Be that as it may, we should regroup with the others," Erza replied. "Can you get in touch with someone that has a scouter?"

"Yeah, gimme a second," the blue-haired saiyan murmured as she accessed the communication function. "Hello? Who reads me?"

"I'm here," Gorun answered.

"We just got done with a group of Tartaros soldiers, and Sorano is pretty mad that we took her away from Yukino, but I've got a minute," Kinana said, sounding tired. "What's up?"

"Minerva is history, but the demoness that interrogated Erza escaped us," Azura reported. "We tried to locate her with my scouter, but we think she's suppressing her power level to hide from us."

"That's problematic," Gorun replied, sounding as though he were scowling. "Well, we took care of Stripes, so we're one down- three if you count the one that Laxus destroyed, and Jackal."

"Uh, is this thing working?" a familiar, girlish voice sounded in the ears of those listening. "Hello? Does anyone hear me?"

"Wendy?" Kinana asked, her voice reflecting the surprise of her guild mates. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, Rachel is unconscious," the dragon slayer answered shakily. "I heard your voices coming out of this scouter thing, so I put it on."

"Are you all okay?" Gorun asked worriedly. "Did you manage to destroy Face?"

"We're all alive, but we're totally wiped," Wendy said. "And yeah, we managed to destroy the bomb, and we defeated the demon guarding it."

"Hey, that's great!" Kinana said happily. "That means we've taken down almost half of the Demon Gates."

"Wendy, I need to know something," Gorun said quickly, though the relief in his voice was evident. "Azura and I sensed the presence of a Super Saiyan god, but their power was mixed with your magic. Did Rachel teach you the Metamoran fusion dance?"

"No, she had a set of potara earrings," the little girl answered, stunning those that were listening. "We fused using those to beat Ezel. He was being powered up by dragon magic, so Rachel figured that if she gave my magic a boost with her own energy, we could beat him. I'm just glad that it worked."

"Us too," Gorun murmured, though it was clear from his voice that he was deep in thought. He even murmured, "How did she get a set of those…? Plus, using god energies at such a young age?"

"Worry about it later, Kaidon," Azura told him. "We can question the kid once we've put Tartaros in the dirt."

"Right, sorry," Gorun apologized. "Kinana, are you anywhere near Mirajane and Lisanna?"

"I think so?" the girl replied. "The scouter is picking up on both demon takeover magic and animal takeover, but it's coming from one source."

"What the-?!" Gorun gasped, startled. "Okay, is there anyone who doesn't know fusion at this point?!"

"I told you that you should have been more careful with sharing that technique," Azura snickered. "Well done, Kaidon."

"Bite me!" he snapped. "I didn't teach them that!" He said something that was too muffled for the others to make out before he added, "Lucino didn't teach them, either."

"Does it matter right now?" Kinana asked. "Gorun, what do we do, short of running around aimlessly?"

"For now, go assist Mira and Lisanna," he answered. "Azura, you and Erza should try to find the control room- see if you can't cause some havoc on this floating cube thing."

"Understood," his cousin nodded, even though they couldn't see her. "But if I run into any demons on the way, they're toast."

If Gorun was surprised to hear her comply with his request so easily, he did not comment on the matter. Instead, he said, "Thanks. Happy went to deliver a message to Master Makarov, so Lucino, Natsu, and I are going to see if we can't find some of these other Demon Gates."

"Hey, hold on," Kinana said before she began to have a muffled conversation. It didn't last long, but when it was over, the girl sounded exasperated. "Sorano took off to go find you, and Cana's following her so she doesn't get killed as soon as she runs into a group of soldiers."

Gorun cursed, but he recomposed himself long enough to say, "We'll keep an eye out for them. Everyone has their assignments- get to it, but be careful. We don't know if this place has any more surprises for us."

---

Tartaros Base: Hell's Core…

Seilah hurled book after book at Mina, all to no effect. The fused wizard either beat them away with her bare hands or dodged with seemingly little effort, all while getting closer to the demoness much faster than she was comfortable with.

With a scream of rage, she abandoned the assault with her books and began to trade blows with the woman, feeling the power of the Dragon Cry flooding her veins so that she began to force Mina back with brute force. Under normal circumstances, Seilah was not a brawler. But she knew how to use her horns and claws to great effect when circumstances conspired against her, and she showed it now, proving to be more than a match for the fused wizard, who began to understand that the dragon's power that had been implanted in her enemy was nothing to be trifled with.

Putting in an extra effort, Mina kicked her opponent in the stomach, followed by a jab to the face that sent the demoness reeling. Wasting no time, Mina willed a new spell into existence and shouted, "Takeover: Corrupted Animal Soul!" Her body morphed, becoming lithe like a cat with black-and-white fur, in addition to the claws and horns of the Sitri demon.

Before either one of them could make another move toward each other, two of the vats close to them foamed with bubbles before something began to stir within the depths of the evil waters. "What's this?" Mina asked curiously.

"The pride of Tartaros," Seilah answered as she steadied herself. "With this lab, we are immortal, capable of regenerating our bodies even after death. Even if you could somehow defeat me, human, I would be reborn in one of those vats to strike you down anew."

While she was speaking, one of the bubbling vats shouted, "Hey, Lummy! Hurry up and regenerate me!"

"Me too!" shouted the one next to it, this one sounding more nasally than its neighbor.

"Lummy is toast," Mina informed them as she casually leaned against the nearest vat, the first one that had spoken. "Who are you guys?"

"We're the Demon Gates Ezel and Franmalth!" the bubbling vat answered. "Who're you?! Ah, it doesn't matter! I've got a score to settle with those girls and that stupid little cat! Let me out!"

"All I needed to hear," Mina said with a cold smile that gave even Seilah pause.

"What are you-?"

Before she could finish her question, all of the vats in the room began to explode by the dozens, washing the lab in the dark waters, even as the two reviving demons cried out in agony. Mina took advantage of this to shoulder-check Seilah, but the demoness leaped out of the way, water trailing from her kimono. "What did you do?!" she seethed. "This place is supposed to be indestructible!"

"Indestructible to humans, maybe," Mina admitted as she grinned up at her enemy. "But for a demon that can cut through just about anything? That's another story."

"How did you-? Ezel," Seilah spat out the last word like it was a curse. "You took him over and gained his cutting curse."

"That's right," Mina answered. "Didn't get the other one in time, but I suppose you can't have it all. Now, what will you and your friends do without your little lab?"

"We'll rebuild it, of course," Seilah snarled. "But only after I've finished killing you! Now obey my command!"

"Fat chance," Mina smirked, her claws twitching eagerly in anticipation of the blood that they would soon spill.

"Release my limiter!" her enemy screeched as a black aura infused her body.

"Wait, you can use your macro curse on yourself?" Mina asked, eyes wide. "Uh-oh." Even as she watched, Seilah's body twisted, black tattoos appearing all over her body while her legs became deformed like birds, and her teeth became sharp while her yellow eyes glowed with pure malice.

Letting out an inhuman, banshee-like scream, Seilah rushed Mina once again, intent on rending her body into bloody scraps and putting an end to the demon scourge that was Mirajane Strauss. They began to exchange a series of furious blows that shook the room and turned the glass shards around them into dust, the dragon-enhanced demon against the animal-demon hybrid.

Mina now had access to curses from two of the Demon Gates, but that did not mean that she had perfect control of them, nor were they necessarily easy to use. If she tried to use a cutting curse on Seilah, she might well end up slicing her own foot off by accident. It was one thing to indiscriminately destroy a bunch of vats, but in a close-quarters fight, anything could wrong. So she stuck to the spells that had been burned into Lisanna and Mirajane's memory, her vicious demon nature combining with her animalistic instincts to form a savage harmony that saw Seilah being dealt many harsh blows.

However, the demoness wasn't entirely losing, either. Mina was on the receiving end of some bad strikes herself, and it seemed as though they were both beginning to tire at the same rate. Looks like this is gonna be a stamina contest, then, the fused wizard thought with a grimace as she struck Seilah in the shoulder, satisfied to hear a bone crack as the blow went home, the result of a careless, badly timed swipe of Seilah's claws. Then again, maybe her overconfidence will be my biggest asset in this fight.

---

Tartaros Base: Interior…

"What the hell happened?!" Gorun demanded as he knelt over Cana, who was covered in blood and muttering feverishly as he gathered her up in his arms, staining his uniform with the red liquid. His comrades were all gathered around the girl, her clothes in tatters, replaced with blood and black bruises. For once Gorun found himself able to ignore his guild mate's indecent appearance, though it was only in light of her perilous situation. None of the others seemed confident about her chances for survival, if their expressions were anything to go by. All around them were signs of a recent battle, complete with the corpses of a few Tartaros soldiers, most of them looking like they had been electrocuted to death.

Gorun's group had been on their way to rendezvous with the two wizards when they heard screams coming from down the hall. By the time they had arrived, it appeared as though they were too late.

Sorano, who was a few paces back, covered in wounds of her own, and trembling violently, answered, "I-I didn't see a group of soldiers sneaking up on me… Sh-She took them all o-out, but she got beaten in the process… I… I didn't…"

She's in shock, the Saiyan thought as he examined his guild mates' grievous injuries.

"This is why I wanted people to stay in groups," Gorun growled out loud, cutting off any further explanations from Sorano. Reaching for his belt, he swore violently, startling the others before he said, "I don't have my senzu beans! And with Wendy gone, we don't have a healer!" He bent over Cana's broken form, cradling the dying woman with his teeth grit and his hands shaking. "What do we do?!" he shouted desperately, fear taking his heart as it never had before.

"It doesn't look like we can move her," Lucino said grimly, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. "She won't survive a trip down to the guild."

"And Gorun's instant transmission isn't working right," Natsu growled as he slammed his fist into the wall, cracking the stone. Whirling on Sorano, he shouted, "This is your fault! Gorun knew what he was doing, dammit! But you had to go and mess it all up! Now Cana's dying!"

"I'm sorry!" Sorano cried, tears streaming down her face. "I just wanted to protect Yukino! And now I…" She collapsed to her knees, clutching at Natsu's feet as sobs wracked her body. "This wasn't… supposed to happen… Now I'll never find forgiveness…"

"This isn't about forgiveness," Gorun said heavily as he felt Cana's life energy continue to drain away. "This was all about survival. Now Cana won't…" He thought back on his interactions with the young woman, and found himself wishing that they could have had the chance to become better friends, knowing that it was largely his fault that it would never happen now. I was too much in a hurry to see Tartaros pay that I didn't bother to make a real plan… he thought as he berated himself savagely.

As his arms began to grow slick with her blood, his grip slipped a little, and he wound up having to grab her up by a different part of her back, where he could feel that part of her spine was badly mangled. One vertebrae seemed as though it was entirely misplaced- even if she could survive this, she might never be able to walk again, unless he could somehow fit her spine back together.

Wait…

His breath caught as he came upon a plan. It was a stupid, desperate plan, one that would almost certainly kill his guildmate even faster. On the other hand, if he did nothing at all, she would definitely die. I have to take the chance, he thought as he looked back up at his friends. She'd do the same if our positions were reversed- if there's any chance to save her, I have to do it.

"Guys, I need you all to listen me very carefully," he said, his voice unsteady. "We have a chance to save her life here- but it almost certainly won't work."

"Tell us what we need to do," Lucino said as she and Natsu's gazes snapped toward him, desperate hope in their eyes. "Almost no chance is better than nothing."

"Natsu, how pinpoint is your fire?" the Saiyan asked.

"As accurate as it needs to be," he growled as he lit up a fingertip. "What's the plan?"

"Sorano," Gorun said, motioning for Natsu to remain on standby, his voice now carrying clearly to the weeping woman. "Sorano!" She flinched, but she slowly looked up to meet his eyes. Once he was certain that he had her attention, he said, "Stand guard over us. I don't care if one of the Demon Gates shows up, do not let us get interrupted. If you want forgiveness, then make it up to Cana right now by getting on your feet and guarding the rest of us."

She sniffed and dashed at her eyes before getting to her feet unsteadily. "Okay," she said shakily as she began to conjure multiple white monsters that floated around her, many of them armed with sharp teeth. Apparently she was capable of pulling herself together well enough to try and make up for her mistake, which was all he needed from her right now.

Turning to Lucino, he said, "Negate Cana's gravitational pull completely. I don't want her going up, down, or sideways."

"That'll be tricky, but you got it," the fused wizard said as she bent her brow downward in concentration. "Resonate… Gate of the Balance…"

Mentally triggering his scouter as Cana was suffused with a golden glow, Gorun said, "Azura, are you there?" When all he heard was silence, he shouted, "Dammit, Genora! Answer me!"

"Talk to me like that again, and I'll tear your liver out."

Gorun breathed a huge sigh of relief as he said, "Good to know. I know I asked you to meet up with us, but there's been a change in plans. I need you to go to my house and get my stash of senzu beans, stat. Cana's been hurt, and I don't know if she'll make it. I'm going to do what I can to save her, but she's gonna need one sooner rather than later, and you're the fastest flier other than me. Yell at me later, but I need your help to save her life- can you do that?"

He was surprised when, without any kind of backtalk or sass, his cousin answered, "I'll have them there in a few minutes. You're closer to the exterior now, so I'll be able to find you easier. Just don't move until I get back, got it?"

"Don't worry, she's in no shape to move," he said with a bit of relief. "Thanks, Genora."

"See you soon, Kaidon," she answered. "Try not to get killed."

"Working on it," he laughed slightly, in spite of himself. As the connection was cut, he said to Lucino, "Okay, is she gonna stay where I leave her?"

"She'll only move if one of us touches her," the fusion confirmed.

"Good," he said as he slowly stood up and turned the woman over so that her destroyed back faced the ceiling. "Now, I'm gonna more or less perform a surgery on her spine. Part of it's been shattered and moved completely out of place, so I'm gonna have to replace the missing piece with something sturdier." As he spoke, he tore off one of his sleeves and used it to wipe away the blood on Cana's upper spine, just below her shoulder blades. Fortunately, they were no cuts there, so the blood didn't immediately return.

"Like what?" Natsu asked, standing beside his friend as he grimaced at the damage done to Cana's back.

"Like this," Gorun said as he reached inside his gi and pulled out a necklace with a crystal-clear lachryma at the end of it. Leaving Cana floating in midair at waist height, he yanked the string off the crystal and held it out for Natsu to take.

"What's that?" Lucino asked as Gorun focused on making an emerald-colored energy blade appear on his fingertip, perhaps a centimeter long, and no wider than his finger.

"Quiet, I need to focus on what I'm doing," Gorun said, sweat beading on his brow. "I'm not as good at this as Azura is, so I need as few distractions as possible." Moving swiftly, he cut into Cana's bruised and bloodstained skin, opening a slit that went into the muscle, exposing some of her broken bone to the air. Sure enough, he could see fragments of the missing bone embedded into the muscle surrounding the damaged spine.

Cana whimpered piteously, but he doubted that she was actually awake at this point. At least she's still with us, he thought grimly. Just hang on a little longer…

Grimacing at the horrible sight of her ruined flesh, he held out his hand to Natsu, the green energy on his finger dissipating as he moved. "Give me that lachryma, and get ready with that fire- I'm going to need you to cauterize the wound once this is in place."

"Cat-what?" he asked blankly as he handed over the magic crystal.

"He means burn the wound closed, hotshot," Lucino told him.

Gorun nodded as he moved faster than he had thought possible in his base form, his fingers working to extract the splinters of bone and toss them aside before he put the small crystal in place of the missing vertebrae. "Now, Natsu!" he said, a breath escaping that he hadn't been aware that he was holding.

Stepping aside so that Natsu could work freely, Gorun watched as the fire wizard pinched the open skin together and snorted a short, intense flame that welded the flesh together. The young woman stiffened and then sagged again, though she made not a sound. "It's done," Natsu said as he stepped back. "Now what?"

"Now we wait to see if she survives this," Gorun answered as he moved her to face back toward the ceiling. Shedding his now-sleeveless gi, he used it to cover Cana's body. "Even under the best of circumstances, this procedure would be dicey. Let's just pray that she's tough enough to emerge stronger for it."

"What was that lachryma you put in her?" Lucino asked as he held the brunette woman in his arms, nodding to let her know that she could release the gravitational suspension.

"When Crime Sorcière hired us to investigate the Grand Magic Games, and our Second Origins were unlocked, I asked Urtear for an extra favor," Gorun answered as Cana's body began to convulse, alarming the others. Waving them back, he said, "This is part of the process, and we can't interfere." Looking up at their horrified expressions, he explained, "I asked them for a blank lachryma- a receptacle for my powers, like the one that granted Laxus his dragon slayer abilities. Normally they take time to grow, but Urtear was able to use her Arc of Time in order to age the one that I created so that it could handle containing the blueprints for my powers at the point when I stepped into the Crocus Coliseum."

"Wait, are you saying…" Natsu looked down at Cana, who was now gasping and coughing up blood as Gorun held her down so that she wouldn't roll over and hit her head on a rock or something sharp.

"Cana's body is being reconstructed into that of a Saiyan-human hybrid," Gorun nodded. "If she survives, she'll be able to endure the wounds already inflicted on her. Not only that, but she'll emerge the stronger for it, and be able to use my powers as her own."

Everyone stared at him in open-mouthed shock, even Sorano, though she quickly turned back around to keep an eye on the passageway that she was guarding. Eventually, Lucino asked, "Why would you make something like that?"

"Because at the time, I was under the impression that I wouldn't be around forever," Gorun replied, exerting a little more force on Cana as her spasms became more powerful. "I wanted to make sure that after I was gone, there would be someone that would be able to take my place in keeping Fairy Tail safe from those that would do it harm. I had always planned on passing it on to a worthy successor, someone with a good heart and a strong sense of justice- someone of a higher moral fiber than I could ever be."

"…And you gave it to Cana?" Lucino asked.

"Lucino!"

"What?" she asked as Natsu rounded on her, annoyed. "She's a great wizard and all that, but she and Gorun are always arguing!"

"Gray and me are always gettin' into it, but I'd do anything to save him if he were the one dying!" the pinkette insisted.

"If it was between her gaining my powers and her dying, I'd rather she live long enough to surpass our expectations of her," Gorun grunted, realizing that it was actually becoming somewhat difficult for him to hold her in place, even with his enhanced strength. Is she…?

"I think it's working," he said as he felt the life force in her begin to grow back. His scouter alerted him, having detected a rapidly rising power level. A golden light began to radiate from Cana's body as her tremors intensified, then finally ceased. "It's working!"

"She's gonna be okay?" Sorano asked hopefully, turning around and taking a few steps toward them, trying to see the girl from behind Lucino's shoulders.

"I think so!" Gorun answered, relief bubbling up in his chest in the form of laughter. "She's… She's still in rough shape, but I think she'll make it, especially once Azura shows up with those senzu beans! Haha!"

"All right!" Lucino cheered, giving Natsu a high-five.

"Nice job, Gorun!" the salmon-haired boy laughed.

"Well done, all of you," he said, noticing that Cana's spasms had completely stopped, and that her breathing was once again deep and even. She was still battered from head to toe, but she would live, he was certain now. Thank Zeno, he thought.

He was surprised when her eyelids began to creep open, moving so slowly that he thought that he was imagining it at first. Then she began to raise her right arm, her hand trembling as she exerted herself.

"Hey, take it easy," Gorun told her. "You gave us quite the scare- what would I have told your father if you hadn't made it?"

She shook her head slightly, and her hand went up just a little higher as she wheezed, "Be… you…"

"What's that?" he asked, leaning closer as to hear her better.

That's when a yellow energy bolt flew from her hand and slammed into an armored man, sending him stumbling back into the hallway that he had come from- the one that Sorano was supposed to be guarding.

With cry of alarm, the woman turned around and ordered her creatures to tear the intruder apart. They did so, but it was clear from the multiple shouts of alarm coming from that direction that he was not alone.

Gorun looked down at Cana, who had fallen unconscious again, then he stood up, energy blazing across his body, incinerating the blood covering his bared torso. "Dammit, Sorano, I gave you one job!" he growled as he stomped over to stand next to her.

"I'm sorry!" she apologized hurriedly, shamefaced.

He could tell that she was sincere, otherwise he would have given her a thorough lecture right then and there. Instead, he only said, "From now on, do what I tell you, when I tell you, and five seconds ago if you can make it. Am I clear?"

"Y-Yeah," she said as his aura began to turn scarlet. "I'm sorry."

"Save the apologies for Cana when she wakes up," he told her as his hair and eyes turned crimson, and his magic energy seemed to vanish from the presence of those that could feel it. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to let Tartaros know that coming this way is a very bad idea." Understanding what was about to occur, Sorano quickly moved behind him to stand by Natsu and Lucino.

"All right, you reprobates," Gorun muttered, his mood completely unchanged by the god form, as opposed to whenever he became a super saiyan. "I'd appreciate it if you gave my friends and I a quick breather!" Holding out one hand in front of him, he shouted, "Big Bang Attack!"

---

Azura arrived just as the smoke and dust began to settle, raising an eyebrow as she saw Gorun slumped on the floor, breathing heavily while the others were gathered around Cana, who looked like she'd been beaten within a millimeter of her life. "I know she was already hurt, but what happened to you, Kaidon?"

"Super Saiyan god form," he said tiredly. "I was already worn out… But that took up the last of my strength."

"Well, as pathetic as I find that, you did manage to leave me a nice big hole to find," she said as she tossed him a small pouch. "Although I think you took out an island chain somewhere across the ocean."

"…Whoops," he grunted as he opened the pouch and picked out two senzu beans. Grimacing at how empty the little bag was, he tossed one to Lucino and said, "Get her to swallow that."

"On it."

While Sorano asked what the bean was and Lucino began to explain it, Gorun crunched on his own morsel, standing up as soon as he was back to full power. "That's better," he said as he tied the pouch to his tail, which was coiled around his waist. Turning to his cousin, he asked, "How's it looking out there?"

"It could be better, but it's not the worst," she shrugged. "I ran into Kinana and Romeo on the way here, they're doing alright. Most of the others are making slow progress through the castle, since they can only have safety in large numbers. Also, it's nearly nightfall, so be careful about looking up at the moon- it's full tonight."

Gorun's eyes sparked, and he looked at her with something like surprise. "That's it," he muttered. "That's what we need to turn the tide definitively in our favor."

Azura took a step back and said, "Are you crazy?! You can barely control your temper as a Super Saiyan 2 or 3, but you want to go to the next level?! We have the god powers, why bother with the primal form?"

"The god ki is too exhausting to use for any length of time right now," Gorun said as he shook his head doggedly. "Super Saiyan 4, though? It's even more powerful, and it burns through much less energy, which means that I'll be able to use it for longer."

"You'd have to transform into a Golden Oozaru first, then retain your conscious self," Azura snapped. "What happens if you get out of control and attack the others in the guild instead of Tartaros? What if you can't complete the transformation all the way?"

Before he could answer, they both heard the sound of someone coughing violently, and they turned to see Cana sitting up and clutching at Gorun's gi as she struggled to get in enough oxygen for her lungs to use. "Ugh…" she grunted as she looked down at herself. "Someone get the license plate of the magic-mobile that ran me over?" Azura looked annoyed that she had been ignored, but she knew that she could pick up the conversation again when she needed to.

"Good to see you back among the living," Gorun said as he turned toward her, a relieved smile on his face. "You feeling okay now?"

"I feel like I should be in a hospital, but at the same time, I'm not hurt," she said with a frown as she pulled the gi away from her body. "Why am I wearing this?"

"Your old top got ruined, so I figured that was better than nothing," he answered, trying to ignore the heat creeping into his face. "How's your back feeling?"

"Uh… fine, why?" she asked as she released the fabric.

"Cos Gorun put a lachryma in there that replaced part of your spine so you wouldn't die," Natsu answered her.

"He-?" She turned to look at him with great confusion and asked, "You what?!"

"You were dying, so I put a lachryma in your body that changed your biology to match a Saiyan-human hybrid like me," he explained quickly. "It was the only way I had to make you strong enough to survive your wounds until Azura got here with a senzu bean."

"Wait, you…" Cana looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching them a few times before she asked, "So I'm like you now?"

"Sort of," he nodded. "The lachryma in your body can give you access to all of the abilities that I had up to the Grand Magic Games, sans the Oozaru forms, seeing as you don't have a tail like me. I'm sorry that I didn't get your permission, but you would have died otherwise."

"No, I'm not ungrateful," Cana said as she looked back up at him. "It's just… This is a lot to take in." She paused then asked, "Does, uh…? Am I still gonna be able to use my card magic?"

"Far as I know, yeah," Gorun nodded. "The power is yours now. Do whatever you want with it."

She appeared surprised by this, but before she could say more on the matter, Sorano stepped up and said, "I'm sorry that I got you hurt. Even in the Oracion Seis, I never did something to get a comrade hurt. I never thought that I would be-"

"Aw, forget it," Cana grinned as she jabbed Sorano in the arm, though she must have done it a little harder than she meant to, because the white-haired woman stepped back and rubbed a dark bruise that was already forming. That didn't stop the card mage from saying, "We all make mistakes at some point or another. As long as you don't repeat it, and you're on our side, I'm good."

Sorano looked over at Gorun, who shrugged and said, "She is pretty close with Lucy."

"That makes way too much sense," the former criminal muttered, but Gorun thought that she seemed relieved that Cana wouldn't be holding a grudge against her for the injuries she had indirectly caused.

"Hello?" A familiar voice echoed in their heads, startling the six of them. "Who reads me?"

"Warren?" Gorun asked out loud. "That you?"

"Yeah, I'm in touch with most of the guild," the man answered. "Everyone else, just listen!" When a couple of seconds had passed, the man announced, "Mirajane and Lisanna are safe- Elfman and some of us found them in a kind of lab, but the whole place was trashed beyond belief. They're both exhausted, but other than that, they're okay."

"Awesome," Gorun said with a smile, even as the others celebrated among themselves. "We've got some good news, too. Face is toast, thanks to Wendy, Carla, and a guest Time Patroller, Rachel."

"That's awesome!" Warren cheered, as did many of the other wizards, Gorun was sure. However, Warren's exuberance quickly turned to confusion as he asked, "Wait, isn't the Time Patrol the people that Gorun and Azura used to work for?"

"Yeah," Azura said. "Wendy contacted us to say that it'll be some time before she and the others can return, as they're understandably exhausted by their endeavors."

"Understood," Warren replied. He paused, and from what the others could tell, had a brief exchange with Happy and Master Makarov.

Before Gorun could request to be put in touch with their guild master, there was a sound akin to static mixed with a screaming animal, causing everyone to wince in pain as the noise filled their heads. What the hell, Warren?! Gorun thought, just as the sound cut out.

"Hello, am I addressing the Fairy Tail guild?"

The wizards all paused and looked at one another, not recognizing the voice that they were now receiving- it certainly wasn't Warren. This speaker's tones were soft and sibilant, their very presence stinking of rot and destruction. Whoever it was, not only were they capable of hijacking Warren's telepathy, they were also keeping the man himself locked out of the communication.

"Who is this?" Gorun demanded to the air.

"I am Mard Geer, Lord of the Underworld," the voice replied, causing Gorun and Azura to look at one another in surprise. Each one knew that the other was remembering their encounter with the phoenix- of how it had spoken of a master of the underworld, and something even worse, the demon E.N.D.

Unaware of this silent exchange, Mard Geer went on to say, "Knowing my name will not help you, though. I've had just about enough of you pesky wizards." There was a slight pause, then the demon uttered one last word before he cut the connection: "Alegria."

The cube around them immediately began to shake violently, forcing Gorun and Azura to float in place in order to help the others maintain their balance, but even that did not last, as gravity itself began to lose direction, forcing all of them apart, despite their best efforts. Even as they shouted to each other, Gorun and Azura noticed that the walls themselves were somehow converting into a red, fleshy substance, which was now reaching out to ensnare them in its clutches. The two saiyans didn't know exactly what would happen if the stuff touched them, but they also knew that they would rather not find out.

Both of them covered their bodies in a sheen of energy that kept the flesh from touching them, even as they witnessed with no small amount of horror, their friends being consumed by the incredible power of the Underworld King. The instant that their face were covered by the red stuff, the Fairy Tail wizards were frozen in place, all of them filled with fear and desperation.

"No, no, NO!" Gorun roared helplessly, unable to assist his friends as they were ensnared only meters away from him.

"Kaidon, keep your cool!" Azura shouted at him. "We can't afford to get caught up in this stuff, or else we lose any chances at freeing them!" Her words helped him to rein in his saiyan temper, though just barely.

Mere moments later- or was it an eternity that passed?- the shaking stopped, and the flesh ceased its movements. Gorun and Azura both examined the stuff with their scouters before determining that it was dormant, and therefore safe to touch, though they avoided contact with it as much as possible.

Triggering his scouter, Gorun asked, "Kinana? Do you read me?"

Silence.

His heart pounding like a war drum, Gorun tried again, desperately asking, "Kinana? Can you hear me? Kinana? Kinana?!" Whirling around in random directions, he saw Sorano, Natsu, and Cana embedded in the ground and walls. "Are… Are they…?"

"Kaidon!" Azura snapped, grabbing him by his shoulder and turning him to face her. "Kinana must have got caught up in that stuff. I'm sorry, I really am. But there's nothing we can do for them right now."

"Are you suggesting that I give up on my friends, on the woman that I love?!" he demanded angrily, though she knew that panic was the real source of his hostility.

"Not at all," she told him. "We'll find a way to free them, I promise. Far as I can tell, they aren't dead, just in some kind of state of suspension. But we need to focus on what we can do right now. Look, I'm still picking up on a lot of active energy of energy signatures, most of them demonic in origin. However…" She tapped her scouter, as if inviting him to check it, before she added, "One of ours' is still up and kicking."

"One of-?" He trigged the scouter's search function and quickly locked onto the magic energy signature, which wasn't all that far from them. "Is that-?"

"Your friends must have the devil's luck," Azura said as they took off in the direction of the surviving wizard.

"You know what this means, right?" Gorun asked her as he flew alongside her.

"What?"

"I'm gonna go for the guy that did this," he said, his eyes hard as he looked upwards. "This Mard Geer guy- I'm going to rip him a new one, and force him to undo this curse."

"And what if he can't?" Azura demanded of him. "What if he genuinely is incapable of reversing all of this?"

"Then I'll avenge our guild," the Saiyan-Kai hybrid said through gritted teeth. A strange look passed over his face as he shifted his gaze back to his cousin and he added, "I'm going for Super Saiyan 4. If I can't control the Golden Ape, though…" His gaze hardened, and somehow she knew what he was going to say next.

"I need you to stop me if I go too far." His face was blank as he uttered the heavy words. "Can I count on you to do that?"

Azura scowled at him deeply as she growled, "You're out of your mind, taking a risk like that without any guarantees of success."

"I just had to make the same call with Cana," he insisted stubbornly. "If I don't act, we're gonna have no chance- just look at what's going on here! One demon did this, never mind that there's another five or six of 'em running around! I need to rise above his power, or all of us might just end up being Tartaros' new decorations!"

"Super Saiyan Blue would be safer," she tried to argue, but he was already shaking his head in the negative.

"Even if I could use that, it'd be way too exhausting," he pointed out. He flicked the satchel that had the senzu beans at her from his tail, nearly causing her to drop the pouch at the speeds they were traveling. He followed by tossing his scouter to her, seeing as he wouldn't be able to hang on to it in his Oozaru state. Once she had caught them, he put on an extra burst of speed and smashed through the ceiling, calling back, "I'm counting on you!"

Damn him, she thought as she felt him leave. Putting on a new burst of speed as she raced to reach their only remaining ally before any of the demons could find her, she added to herself, If you make me kill you, Kaidon, I doubt that Kinana would ever forgive either of us. So you'd better pull through.

---

Tartaros Base: Exterior…

Gorun shot up into the air, ignoring the bare rock that crumbled at his touch, glaring down at the single, solitary figure that stood in front of the castle that served as Tartaros' headquarters. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a man with dark hair tied back in a ponytail that reached down to the small of his back, but Gorun knew that this thing was no man at all. The demon held a thick tome in his right hand, and he looked up at Gorun with black eyes that held no small amount of condescension and arrogance in equal measures.

"Mard Geer, I presume?" he called down as he noticed the moon rising over the horizon. Unfurling his tail from around his waist, he prepared to conjure a magic circle that he'd only ever studied, never actually been forced to use.

"You must be one of the miserable humans that's been scurrying around my home," the demon called up in reply. "I've just put a bounty on your two friends, so they'll be joining the rest of your comrades in death momentarily. As for you, I'll offer thanks for saving my subordinates the extra time to track you down by making your death swift." Shifting slightly, he aimed his index and pointer fingers at Gorun before he intoned, "Curse of Thorns."

Green vines covered in spikes of all sizes shot out of the stony floor, aiming to grab Gorun and tear him apart. Beating them all away with a Double Sunday, the young man quickly turned to face the rising moon and held out his right arm, shouting, "Moon Drip!" A purple magic circle flashed to life in front of him, amplifying the moon's early rays and enriching their power, bathing Gorun in its energy.

Mard Geer paused in his attack, intrigued by the strange human's even stranger behavior.

After a couple of seconds like this, a brown magic circle appeared beneath Gorun's feet, and his eyes flared a deep red. "Takeover, Beast Soul!" he roared. "OOZARU!"

---

Gorun: Um... Where's Mataras?

Azura: I think he's crying in a corner.

Gorun: Wow, he's taking the end of DBZA pretty hard, huh?

Saiki: I think that he's just one of a great many that feel the same sadness.

Azura: What's that old saying? "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." Where are the smiles, Red Swordsman?!

Mataras: F*$# off!

Gorun: Yikes! Uh... Think you should leave him to mourn.

Azura: ...Agreed.

Saiki: Really, you two. Without that parody series, you two likely wouldn't exist at all. You should be in proper mourning, too.

Gorun: Maybe, but someone has to do announcements, and our resident writer doesn't seem to be up to it for now.

Saiki: What a pain. Fine, what's up on the list?

Azura: While the image on this story is currently set to Vellrey, you can see a drawing of Rachel's Super Saiyan Destroyer form on Mataras' Instagram the_red_swordsman

Gorun: The next chapter will be uploaded in the beginning of March, barring any more major surprises from the Dragon Ball or Fairy Tail franchises. The preview for said chapter can be found down below, along with a profile for Vellrey.

Azura: Been a while since he did one of those.

Saiki: Next time on Saiyan Tail- True Saiyan

Gorun: Mataras hopes that you enjoyed my character progression in this chapter, because there's more of that to come! Apparently Azura also gets a chance to shine as the battle against Tartaros continues to escalate.

Azura: why do you say that as though I'm not already center stage?

Gorun: This story is about my journey, that's why.

Azura: It started that way, that doesn't mean it-

Saiki: Good grief. They're going to be at this all night.

---

Next time on Saiyan Tail...

"Where?"

Genora's eyes narrowed as she scanned the tunnel behind them, but seeing nothing yet. Looking down at the stinky liquid, she finally answered, "They're gonna come up from the river."

"Can you handle it while I keep an eye out for enemies ahead of us?" Lucino asked as she held Lucy's whip at the ready.

"Like you have to ask," Genora smirked, a golden magic circle shining under her body as she activated her Super Saiyan transformation. She was getting excited- the power level that was coming for her was much stronger than Minerva, or even Kyoka. At long last, a worthy fight, all to myself!

Just as she had suspected, there was a massive burst of power that heralded the arrival of a huge demon, with bladed arms and rippling muscles underneath purple skin. He resembled a giant lizard, with some elements of a shark thrown in, but that hardly mattered to Genora. He was tough, and he would be going down by her hand.

If the demon was surprised that his sneak attack had been foiled, he did not show it, merely blocking the first punch that Genora dealt him with his left arm, and grunting with exertion as he forced her back with a fist of his own. Grinning with a savage delight, Genora grabbed the appendage that had struck her, and used it to whirl him around several times before throwing him up into the ceiling, where there was a thunderous crash.

As debris rained down from above, Lucino glanced back, asking, "Did that finish him?!"

"Hardly," Genora snorted. "We're both just getting started."

---

Saiyan Tail Profile
Subject: Vellrey

Fusion Technique: Potara

Counterparts: Wendy Marvell and Rachel/Reycel

Conception/Author's Commentary:
Vellrey was, admittedly, not planned out from the very beginning, unlike Narun and Lucino, as well as another upcoming fusion (chapter 35, I think?). However, once I toyed with the idea of giving Wendy a fusion, Rachel was the natural choice. Both are child prodigies, even if their power levels and experiences are vastly different from one another, and I wanted to see how the two would work together.
I knew that if I was going to do a new fusion at this point in the story, it would be best if it was a Potara warrior, as the Metamoran dance has begun to lose its- shall we say- sense of wonder for Fairy Tail. We had Narun, who made a pretty spectacular showing both time he appeared, then came along Lucino, a less powerful fusion who compensated by becoming more of her own identity than simply the sum of her sources, sort of like Gotenks was in DBZ. There is also Fang, who- let's be real here- we all more or less envisioned from the moment that Sting and Rogue fired off a Holy Shadow Dragon Flash Fang at Natsu during the GMG. Now we have Mina, a sensible combination of the Strauss sisters, but being the fifth fusion, it begins to feel like a recycled gimmick. Vellrey needed to have some 'oomph' in her appearance, and I'd like to think that I accomplished that not only with the alternative method of fusion, but with the characters used to create her.
In terms of her personality, we don't really get to see much, given that she only has a few pages of 'screen time', and the fact that Rachel is still largely an enigma. However, I'd say that it's safe to assume that she is a level-headed person, much more so than the typically overconfident personalities that you get when dealing with fusions, be they Metamoran or Potara in origin. She's also quite intelligent, having been able to work out a self-restoration spell on the fly when Sky Dragon magic isn't supposed to normally be able to accomplish such a thing. She also seems to be more kindly than usual, as she repeatedly asked Carla if she was uninjured, even going so far as to move the battle away so that the exceed wouldn't get hurt.

Known Techniques:

-Sky Dragon Slayer Magic/Wendy's moves
-Etherion Magic/ Rachel's moves

-Sky Dragon's Hurricane Breath: An advanced version of the Sky Dragon's Roar, the winds generated from the attack can reach into the upper levels of the atmosphere if fired skyward. The force behind the technique was powerful enough to knock back the Demon Gate Ezel when he was enhanced with the magical powers of several dozen dragons. This likely means that this breath attack could kill a normal dragon with little difficulty.
-Dragon god Boreas: A cyclone-type attack that utilizes both god ki and Sky Dragon Slayer magic. Since the attack was destroyed by Ezel's curse before it could make contact, the extent of its destructive capabilities remain a mystery.
-Self Healing: A restoration technique available to Vellrey only after she combines divine and sky dragon energies inside of her body. Despite it being one the first spells that she attempted to cast after beginning to use god ki, it was enough to repair Vellrey's bruises, cuts, and broken bones in mere seconds.
-Shattering Light Sky Dome: A Secret Art inspired by Trunks' Heat Dome technique, Vellrey breaks her opponent's guard, grabs them by a limb, and throws them skyward. This is followed by a narrow funnel of vicious winds concentrated enough to tear a demon enhanced with a fragment of the Dragon Cry to atoms in seconds. The winds generated are also shown to be strong enough to change the weather across an entire continent, as evidenced by the cloud formations being drawn into the vicinity. As it was debuted in tandem with Vellrey's Super Slayer Rosé transformation, it is doubtful that the technique would be so potent in lower forms, though perhaps it would be less draining, as it used up nearly all of Vellrey's available strength in her goddess form.

Known Transformations/Enhancements:

-Super Slayer (Golden Dragon Soul): A variation of Narun's transformation that enhances the user's speed more than their power, though the latter still receives a significant boost. Still granting the golden hair and green eyes of a Super Saiyan, Vellrey's ascension gives her yellow feathers on her ankles, wrists, and back (though not so large that they would be described as wings), much like Wendy's Dragon Force. Power level multiplier is x75 that of the user's base form.
-Super Slayer Rosé (Rosé Style Dragon god Soul): Although dubbed by Vellrey as a Super Dragon god Slayer, likely because the colloquial name would be confusing to anyone unfamiliar with etherion/ki magic, the correct title is an homage to both Wendy's hair color when she uses her Dragon Force, and the transformation used by Goku Black/Zamasu. As the transformation utilizes god ki, the user's powers become undetectable to those unable to detect the presence of the divine. Also like the divine Saiyan form, the eyes are gray, while the hair is turned pink, along with the feathers adorning the body, the ones on the back being numerous enough to now take on the appearance of wings, though they are not needed for flight. Speed in this form is enhanced so much that a single strike from Vellrey was enough to generate gale force winds that coalesced into a tornado vicious enough to stun Ezel in his enhanced Etherious form. Power level multiplier is x4000 that of the user's basic abilities.

Equipment/Items Used:

-Purple Potara Earrings
-Time Ring
-Purple Time Patrol Scouter

Accomplishments:

-Killed Ezel in the battle to decide the fate of the Face Bomb

Stats:

-Power: 9/7
-Speed: 12/7
-Technique: 7/7
-Intelligence: 5/7
-Cooperativeness: 7/7

Fun Facts:

-The Potara earrings that Rachel wears are likely the only ones in creation that were not actually crafted by the Kai race, yet are far superior in quality, thanks to a wish on the Super Dragon Balls by Rachel's mother

-Because Rachel lacks a guild mark, only Wendy's Fairy Tail emblem remains on the fusions' right arm

-In the grand scheme of things, Vellrey is not much stronger than Rachel on her own. However, as she is able to use both of their magics, her skill set is vastly superior to that of her Saiyan source