Sanctity of Life
Chapter 4 – Bane Particles.
The sound of birds chirping surrounded the town of boat port, the singing of the birds wasn't particularly loud, but it was enough to wake up Rei. She slowly opened her eyes and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She got out of bed, did a quick few stretches and looked around, no sign of her irritable partner. 'Where is he?' She asked herself, having forgotten the events of last night.
She made her way to the shower after getting a towel from her bag, she lazily undressed, putting aside her clothes. She would have to wear them again since she had forgotten to bring a spare change of outfits. She got in the shower and let her body be massaged by the perfectly warm water, it was enough to completely wake her up. She abruptly remembered everything that transpired between her and her partner last night.
"That dick, who explodes like that?" Rei was beyond mad, she was completely livid, she had been as nice as she could to him, and he just told her to 'shut the fuck up'? 'Come to think of it, he is pretty weird.' She thought back to how he reacted to physical contact, how he was uncomfortable communicating with people, his trembling when she asked him about his past… 'Oh my god, did something happen to him? Is that why he snapped? That would explain so much, I need to find him.' Having come to her epiphany, she rushed out of the shower, got dressed, grabbed her bag, and ran out of the room. She ran outside to the hotel's entrance door and stopped to catch her breath.
"Why are you in such a rush?" The familiar voice and rough tone caught Rei's attention and she immediately turned to her right to see her partner leaning across the wall with his arms crossed and eyes clothes.
"Your eyes are closed; how did you know it was me?" She finally caught her breath and walked towards him, being mindful of their distance.
"My sense of smell is as strong as a dragons. Your scent was hard to ignore."
"Oh…" Rei was blushing, she felt her heart beating faster. She took a few breaths to calm down and regain her composure. "Listen, about last night-"
"I'm sorry."
"Huh?"
"I shouldn't have lost it like that, you told me your story, it was only fair for you to ask about mine."
"That's water under the bridge, besides that's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" He opened his eyes and looked at her, her hair was still wet causing it to shine in the sun. She looked so pretty; the man couldn't help staring at her in awe.
"I- I was going to a-ask…" Rei couldn't get the words out, he barley knew her, how could she ask him something so personal and fragile? "Never mind, it doesn't matter. We should begin the job."
"Mhm. Let's go." The man stood up and let Rei lead the way towards the dock station, he watched her from behind, still overwhelmed by her stunning glow. 'What's going with me? Am I attracted to her? I wasn't feeling like this yesterday… Was I?' The man thought back to yesterday and replayed everything that occurred after her met Rei until now. He stopped when he thought back to the train ride, him being okay with leaning on his shoulder and grabbing onto his arm suddenly made sense now. He liked her. 'For fuck sake, it's not even been a full day since I met her, how did this happen?'
The man kept trying to think of what to do, now that he was aware of his feelings towards Rei. He was so deep in thought that he didn't even hear Rei calling out to him. Getting frustrated that the man was ignoring her, she took her chances and held his hand. To her surprise, he didn't flinch or freak out, he just snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her in confusion. Rei's body acted without thinking and gave his hand a squeeze, she saw the man look down at their intertwined hands and reddened. 'He's blushing? Why isn't he mad?'
Rei let go of his hand and pointed in front of her. She was pointing towards a small private boat that the agency had hired for them. Without warning, Rei jumped on to the boat and called for the man to follow.
"C'mon, we gotta get moving, those dark guilds aren't going to take themselves out you know."
"Right, I'm coming." He followed her on to the boat and looked around, it was a regular wooden boat, luckily it didn't need to be rowed as it was installed with an SE plug. SE stands for 'Self-energy', an SE plug let's you power up machines such as vehicles with your own energy, this is great for the environment as it's an alternative to fuel, and more importantly, unlike fuel, it isn't finite, you just have to eat or rest to replenish your energy. SE plugs are shaped as bracelets that you can clip on to your arm, they have an electromagnetic field that absorbs magic energy and converts it to power.
The man connected the SE to his arm turned on the boats' engine. "I'll keep it powered, go as fast as you want."
"Are you sure? It can drain a lot of your energy."
"Don't worry, it'll be fine."
"Okay then, here we go!" Rei stomped on the accelerator and the boat took off as if it were being boosted by rocket jets. They reached the island in just 20 minutes.
"Okay so, there are 3 dark guilds occupying the island, I'll take this first one alone."
"Are you sure you want to take on an entire guild alone?"
"Trust me, I can handle it."
"I'm coming with you just in case."
"Fine, but you don't need to." They parked the boat and the man casted a camouflage spell over it, they didn't want to risk being found out before they even started the job. In front of them was a 7ft tall building labelled, 'Black Ocean', judging by its name, this guild specialised in water magic. Rei smiled, "This is going to be perfect for my magic."
"It could also be terrible for you."
"What? How?" Rei looked at her partner in bewilderment. "I'm a lightning mage, water conducts electricity, how is it bad for me?"
"It's bad because it conducts electricity, water could be touching you when you use your magic. Simply put, you'll be have to be careful unless you want your magic to backfire on you."
"I didn't think of that."
"Fairy Tail mages hardly ever do, I suppose Titania is an exception." Titania means 'Queen of the fairies.' It's a title given to Erza Scarlet, a crimson haired knight and the strongest female wizard in Fairy Tail. She was also Jellal's wife, how someone like Jellal was married made no sense to him.
"So you know Erza?"
"Not exactly, I watch the grand magic games every year, it's a great way for me to pick up on new magic. Erza seems to be the only one with a brain in your guild, although I've seen her do some stupid shit."
"You keep insulting my guild."
"It's not meant as an insult, I'm envious of your guild. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to act stupid."
"Then why don't you join us?"
"Is last night not enough of an answer?"
"So what then, we're going to part ways after this job?" Rei's question stunned the man, he never thought of that. 'I can't be in a guild; I'm scared that I might kill everyone. But do I want to be away from Rei? From my partner?' The man had finally acknowledged Rei as his partner, she would be the only one to receive that honour.
"Can we talk about this later?" He asked her calmly with tinge of panic in his voice which didn't go unnoticed by Rei. 'He doesn't want to be alone anymore.' She smiled; she had somehow gotten through to this stubborn man.
"Sure! Now watch me kick some ass." She ran up to the door of the dark guild in front of her and kicked it down. The man quickly followed her into the guild aware of his surrounding, he was going to be her cover. The guild had roughly 20-30 wizards not including our duo, the wizards were wearing navy blue robes and they all looked pissed.
"Who the fuck are you 2?!" one of them asked getting ready to attack with magic.
Rei folded her hands and aimed them at the floor, "Lightning make: VOLCANO!" She shouted, the ground around the dark wizards was covered by green lightning which grew into a shape of a volcano. The volcano erupted with more lightning striking every enemy wizard and knocking all of them out. "Well, wasn't that easy?" She turned around to look at the man and gave him a smirk. She expected a growl from him in response, but instead he gave her a warm smile.
"I shouldn't have doubted you, you're strong."
"Ha! I told you so" She happily flexed, being praised by him filled her with joy. 'Why does he look so cute when he smiles, he doesn't know how dangerous that smile is.'
"There's 2 more guilds left, we take 1 each?"
"Now you're talking like a Fairy Tail wizard, let's go!" Rei charged in 1 direction and the man ran in the other. 'Fairy Tail huh? If me and her become an official team, then perhaps joining won't be such a bad idea.' The man thought to himself. He was against the idea of joining any guild, let alone Fairy Tail, but slowly but surely, Rei was making him reconsider. Maybe he could tell Rei what his name is, she was influencing him so much so quickly, maybe she was the only person he could trust?
He stopped in front of the guild entrance; it was labelled 'Bane explosion'. 'What kind of name is that? Do they use explosion magic? Wait, bane… No it couldn't be.' He closed his eyes and concentrated on the energy signatures behind the door, he picked up on 45 signatures, meaning there were 45 wizards behind the door. He phased his body and made himself invisible, allowing him to walk through the walls and into the guild without being seen. He preferred this method over Rei's, it gave him the element of surprise and allowed him to kill everyone before they even knew what was happening.
He searched through the entire guild to ensure there weren't any civilians being held hostage, to his relief, there wasn't. He could kill them all at once. He rephased his body back together and made himself visible, none of the wizards were looking in his direction so they didn't notice him.
He clapped his hands together and his eyes glowed, "Enchantment: Power up." Suddenly the enemy wizards all started glowing and their magic power increased at an alarming rate.
"What's happening?! I feel so much stronger!"
"Yeah me too!"
The prince smiled and raised his left arm to his chest and snapped his fingers. "Rupture Magic." The enemy wizards all started glowing bright red before exploding. 'Rupture is a special type of magic that uses your opponents magic energy to explode from the inside, the more power the wizard has, the deadlier the explosion.' He proudly thought to himself. Thanks to his power up enchantment, all the wizards had been killed from Rupture. All except for 1 wizard, he was glowing orange and his body shinning brighter every second.
"You'll pay for this, BANE: EXPLODE!" The wizard's body exploded and covered the guild with black particles. The man quickly covered his mouth and ran out of the guild. 'Bane particles! I should have been more careful, now they're spreading all over the island, I need to stop them.' Bane particles are microscopic black particles that can be breathed and absorbed through skin, they attack ethernano (magic energy particles) inside your body, which will poison you and give you magic deficiency disease, in short, absorbing even a small spec of them will send you to your death bed. 'I can't let Rei be affected by them, only 1 thing I can do. I heard Makarov's grandson did the same stupid thing once. Well, I have regeneration on my side.' He moved his hands away from his mouth and began to inhale as hard as he could, all the bane particles were being sucked into the mage's mouth until he had inhaled them all. "I managed to suck in all of them, didn't think the pain would be so bad!" He fell to his knees and used both hands to clench his chest, blood dripped from his mouth and he was struggling to breathe. His vision was going black, as he fainted all he could hear was the footsteps of someone running. He recognised her scent and smiled as he lost conscious and fell to floor.
"PRINCE!"