With Erza on hand, there wasn't anyone that we came across who could stop us. She told both myself and Happy to rest a little and get our strength back while she handled the fighting. I stayed alert and ready to jump in, just on principle, obviously, Erza really didn't need my help.
We went down a few more floors along the large spiral, Erza obviously in a hurry but pacing herself for our sake.
Happy settled onto my shoulder and leaned in to whisper in my ear.
"Erza's really scared, isn't she?" He said to me, so softly I might have imagined it.
"Yeah..." She was putting on a brave face for our sake. Because she felt that she had to. And to be perfectly honest, she did. She always had and so people had gotten used to that being who Erza was. The expectations of others wasn't the hard part, it was the fear of letting her friends down that was weighing on her.
Natsu and his team are on the next floor down. I voiced this fact to Erza who paused and listened outside of the entryway into a room offshooting the main spiral chamber.
"And they are about to have company...!" She charged in with a roar, swords flashing. Erza wasn't doing much defending, dual wielding and going in full throttle with the attitude of an avalanche: If they can't stop you, why bother slowing down?
Seeing Erza fight up close like this was a different experience. Since she was doing it to protect us, and my trauma shield was still up, I was less affected. But swords were still a bloody way to fight and an awful way to die. My rattled noggin also meant I couldn't focus properly on my "Child Link" enchantment, so I no longer had the desensitizing effect of hundreds of years of combat experience.
Erza's strike, efficient and deadly, cleaved one man's neck open, between her shoulder and helm, sending an arterial spray containing across the floor.
My every sense screamed.
I saw death, smelt it, heard it going on around me.
Too much...toomuch!
Nausea rolled in my stomach for a moment and I stepped back to try and get a grip on myself before my shields failed and I was assaulted by the full force of the tower's miserable history.
I was scared. I'd been scared this whole time, but now I was really feeling it.
"Fae!" Happy's cry remade me jump like a frightened deer. I saw a guard coming at me.
The analysis happened in less than an instant, my magic taking my fear and running through the fight or flight response, spotting all options.
Side, down the ramp.
He was too close to dodge and he'd be right behind me even if I managed.
Behind.
Empty air and deep drop to the bottom floor. 27 feet. Certainly far enough to kill me if I fell wrong.
Forward.
Through the enemy.
No opening.
I'd have to make one.
My hands lifted and drew my sword, it flash out on a sweeping, bright arc without my conscious thought. The magic of my enchantment guided not only my hands, but the placement of my feet as I put all of my sudden movement into one attack. The replica of the Kokiri sword slash over the man's ribs, somehow managing to cleave through armor and bone in a spray of crimson. My feet took me to the side, under his reach and attack and out of the way of his fall.
Fall?
The move I'd performed suddenly registered.
In the heat of fighting, I'd ignored the phrases flickering in my mind. The Back Slice. Shield Parry. Helm Splitter. I'd needed all of them in one way or another. And now, a new one...one that could only be used with a weapon starting from the sheath.
The Mortal Draw.
The sword skill was one that was meant to defeat (kill) enemies with a single blow. And it had been my spell, the condensed knowledge of Link and all his incarnations skill, that was guiding me as I acted. It had been as easy and detached as if I were simply manipulating my body from a distance instead of being it in myself.
He will die.
And...I killed him.
I froze up as the implications hit me. The precise breakdown of what would be the cause of death. (30-60 min to die from cardiac arrest in case of a collapsed lung. Mere minutes if any organs were damaged) Happy had to push me out of the way as the man's swing, affected but not halted, came down where I had been standing. My movements hadn't been enough to get me clear with my shorter legs.
I landed heavily, eyes wide, gasping for breath and trying not to breathe because that meant tasting the blood as well as seeing it. The conflicting action made my head spin, and I quickly felt myself slip into shock.
I didn't hear much of anything as Erza slashed through the remaining enemies. I just kept on recalling how easily the magic from my hat had taken over and completed the move, manipulating my body and drawing more power out of it than I had thought it capable of using.
With the roaring going on in my head, the panic that I might have killed someone, that I had killed someone and all the other information still streaming from my magic into my brain, my mental shield finally shattered. Everything came crashing down on me.
Oh...I must have been using the shield to keep myself from breaking down from the strain, not just to keep the screaming out.
I sobbed brokenly, feeling as tears forced their way out of stinging eyes. I curled into a fetal position, trying to ride out this rollercoaster, regain some grip on myself.
Come on... Some small still composed part of me pleaded. This isn't over yet! The tower needs a human sacrifice to jump start it! The only person with enough magic to do that is Erza! They want to kill Erza! Stop crying, get up! It was in vain. The echoed sounds of pain and cruelty resonated throughout the building's history and my head. I heard crying children, wanting their parents, their siblings, some form of comfort or escape from this nightmare. I heard cursing adults. I heard despair.
But worst of all underneath that all, I heard silence.
The silence of the resigned. Those who had given up completely.
Please...I begged my magic, as if it could turn itself off. Please just stop...
How could the kind boy from Erza's memories be capable of spearheading a horrifying project like this? How could he stomach it-
Jellal is under the influence of Possession Magic. And to escape the pain, I dove head first into that history. It wasn't pleasant, but the less history I had to dig through, the less pain there was. And I could hopefully find answers. It wouldn't be as easy as actually getting a hand on Jellal himself, but it would be more than I had now...
-vVv-
Natsu tried again and against to elicit a response from the girl. She seemed to have frozen, eyes wide and unseeing and she was shaking like a leaf. The expression on her face broke his heart and made him furious at the same time.
Erza had explained the tower's history and how it involved her. But Fae hadn't seemed to hear them.
"Of course..." Lucy breathed, sounding like she was inches away from crying herself. "Fae reads the past...so she's feeling all of that. Everything all those poor people went through while they were here."
"She can do that, when she's so young?" Juvia didn't seem like she quite believed it.
"Yeah she can." Natsu picked Fae up carefully, making sure to keep his hands from heating to searing temperatures in his rage. "She saw my dad, Igneel." And she had shown him to everyone too. Had just listened to his words and made him appear just like he had always been. Flying free and proud. He had gotten to hear him say his name...
He held her close and consciously raised his body temperature. Fae was frightened and alone, but she needed to feel comforted and safe. This seemed like the best thing he could do for her. Hang onto her, keep her warm, not let her be alone.
C'mon Fae... It's alright, we're right here. The guard Fae had downed was dead. Erza had put him out of his misery from the nasty gut wound Fae had given him. When Fae had entered this state, her hat had slipped off of her head. Her sword and shield had glowed briefly before turning into a knife and a broken piece of wood. She couldn't have much magic left... Lucy knelt to brush her hands over Fae's face, concern and sympathy shining on her face.
"And she alone besides the master knew that I had been here." Erza's fists tightened as rage flashed over her face. "She never said anything before, but that must be what she goes through every day. Every pain and secret in our past, she's seen it all. And there's no one she can talk to about it because she doesn't want to hurt anyone."
Natsu just held her, head bowed, praying to whatever god might be listening that far would come out of the trap her own mind had become.
Yes, that was Fae. She tried so hard to make people happy. She hated lying for any reason, she hated seeing people hurt, no matter who they were. And now, the past was hurting her, tearing into her. An enemy he couldn't protect her from.
A new surge of angry fire flared to life in his belly.
Jellal...Erza said Jellal used to be like Fae, so what made him change so much?
"Erza. This...Jellal guy..." He caught the older girl's flinch just from him saying the guy's name. You bastard... Natsu had never met the man, but he was gonna burn him to a crisp for making Erza hurt like this. "You said he was your friend, your team leader. You were all supposed to leave together. But he stayed. He stayed and he convinced people to finish building this damn place even though he hated it! Why didn't he leave?" Why was Erza the only one who left? Why didn't he follow his friend into freedom?
"You could say that I was the only one who escaped, but it would be closer to the truth that I was chased out...I have no memory of how I left that island. I just woke up later, alone. Without my friends. Jellal changed after he came to rescue me, after he took my place with the disciplinarians." her hand drifted up to her face, to her left eye, which he knew was a magical construct. When Erza had come to the guild, she had only had one eye. Master's grumpy old healer friend had made her a new one.
"I don't know why he didn't leave...They did something to him, I don't know what. But the darkness that took Jellal forced me to leave behind everyone. All of my friends, all the other slaves...he burned the boats after I had gone. I can only assume, going by what Sho and the others have said, that he put the blame for that on me." She looked, and smelt, like she was about to cry. Natsu would hug her, but his arms were already full, with Fae who was neither asleep nor awake though she did appear to be calming down a little. Happy was huddled close to her as well, carefully working his paws through her hair.
"He blamed me, and all of them believed it..."
"Not all." One man's voice sounded from the doorway on the other side of the room. Natsu reflexively moved to put the vulnerable child in his arms behind him and away from the unknown. It was the big guy with the metal jaw. His dark eyes rested on Erza with an unmistakable look. This man was one of them, or he may as well be. He trusted Erza and he loved her.
"What-! No..." Erza stepped forward, looking shocked. She automatically reached out to the man's most defining feature, his jaw, and she inhaled shortly. "Simon?"
"You know this guy?" Gray asked, his hands already having moved to cast if needed.
"I didn't believe him, Erza." Simon was ignoring Gray and focusing entirely on the red haired woman in front of him. "I know you'd never leave us behind if you had the choice..."
Well duh! It's Erza! Natsu looked down at Fae when she shifted, her bright blue eyes cracking open and looking around blearily. Like she didn't know where she was.
"Hey there, small fry. You doing ok?" Her eyes flicked up to him and she struggled.
"Na...tsu?" She asked, tears still leaking out of her eyes. "It hurts...they've all hurt so much...That...shadow, it hurt them...it's hurting him."
"What are you talking about, Fae?" Lucy frowned, looking at the girl. Her speaking made her look over at her.
"You...have to get it out of him...Get it out of Jellal and he'll come back." They all gathered around Fae. Simon pressed his fingers to his temple and appeared to focus on Fae.
"What are you doing?"
"Her sensitivity to her surroundings is making speaking difficult, but telepathic communication is still functional." he listened for a moment longer before he exhaled slowly. "I see. That explains a lot..." He looked at them all grim, and purposeful.
"Fae has read that Jellal is being possessed, she doesn't know yet by whom. This tower was built by their design and at their behest. None of what has happened in the last eight years is Jellal's doing."
Natsu didn't much care whether or not Jellal was the one at fault. That guy upset Erza. His damn tower made Fae sick.
It's all gonna burn... He vowed, glaring at the walls around them and the memories that he couldn't feel, but despised all the same because they could hurt his little friend and he couldn't do anything to protect her. I'm not letting anything hurt my friends!
-vVv-
I woke up being carried by someone.
Simon. He is the most limited in skill and thus wanted the others to be able to fight to their fullest.
"It's good that you're awake." I couldn't feel the tower anymore...
"What-?"
"I'm using my telepathy to shield you." Simon clarified. "It was decided that since they cannot send you to safety alone, that you had to be brought along."
I wanted to get a grasp of what was going on.
"May I...?"
"Of course."
I laid my hand on Simon's chest and breathed, searching for the story...
Simon had come, revealed that he had known the truth, and was believed. Simon had been in contact with Wally, Sho and Millianna and had them hear all of this. Sho took it the worst, having a mini meltdown at the realization that for years he had been blaming his big sister for something his trusted leader had done.
They were preparing an escape route alongside the remaining slaves while the Fairy Tail mages, who were unquestionably the most capable in a straight fight, were going after Jellal. Not alone as Erza had initially wanted, but as a team. Erza and Natsu were there for raw power and fighting ability, but while Gray was no slouch himself, he had a different purpose.
Gray knew a spell that could seal a sample of magic, (not Iced Shell, I saw he had gotten some scolding for even mentioning it) and with that, we could hopefully prove that Jellal had been manipulated and forced and he wouldn't take the brunt of the punishment for the crime. That was the end goal here. And it all had to happen sometime before Jellal with his plant in the Magic Council, got enough support to use Etherion on the tower and kill everyone in it.
(Something about that thought was making my magic, exhausted though it was, squirm quietly, but vigorously.)
But this plan couldn't go off smoothly. Of course not. Jellal, or whoever was pulling the strings here, wasn't gonna make it easy.
There were three enemy mages, assassins from the dark guild; Death's Head Caucus. They formed a team called Trinity Raven. They were the opposing player's in 'Heaven's Game'. A sick death match that Jellal was putting on for amusement. Simon had just heard Lucy and Juvia defeat the first, Vidaldus. Sound Wizard, Guitar Mage. Has actually weaponized headbanging.
What. The-
The terrible trio, Gray, Natsu and Erza, had pancaked Fukuro, the second Raven. Or rather, Gray and Natsu had taken him out. Erza, hearing that the final member was still blocking their path, had gone ahead to take care of her, yelling back at the boys to 'not be late'.
"I'll go and face this swordswoman! Take care of the owl and make it fast!" A rare, but beautiful smile flashed across her face. "I won't wait for you if you end up taking too long."
"We'll see who's gonna be waiting for who, Erza!" Natsu responded with a big, fiery grin.
"Come on flamebrain, I think we just got ourselves a challenge!"
Despite Fukuro having a jet pack and utilizing Natsu's motion sickness, Gray had forced him to drop the dragon slayer before he could complete his Capture magic and eat Natsu. (Literally eat. Eww.) Happy had caught his partner and from there, things had only gone uphill. Between fire raining down from above and ice from beneath, Fukuro was soon caught and crushed between the two opposing elements.
Erza had faced Ikaruga, the leader of Trinity Raven and a fellow swordswoman. The amount of focus the poetry spouting woman had put into her ability to cut magic was impressive. The assassin had managed to break all of the magic armor Erza had pulled out to use against her. Only once Erza put aside all of her magical protections and trusted her own skill above all else did she come away with a decisive victory.
"Considering how you feel about her, I'm surprised that you didn't insist on going up there with her." This remark may have been a tiny bit insensitive. The 'Simza' ship was getting some serious, if one sided, support from Simon's feelings. Simon exhaled slowly, but not all of his tension went out of him. He was still extremely worried. Despite the fact that Erza could probably kick his ass seven ways to Sunday, he still worried and wanted to do everything he could to help her.
Now is really not the time. I told the stupid shipping part of my brain and stuffed it all into a corner to hear Simon's reply.
"I can't fight Jellal." No matter how much he might want to in the literal and rival sense. "All I can do for Erza right now is see to it that you're safe." Simon might have been limited in his magic, but he would do whatever he could to make Erza smile. She was his whole world and had been for years.
I will not ship it. I will not ship it.
Somewhere, he had gotten a cloak for me and wrapped it around me. I did insist on taking the ratty old hat along with me. To my surprise, the runes I had put into it to give me Link's abilities were still there. They were empty, sure, but I could easily put power back into them and reuse it. I could see it wouldn't be as effective as the first time due to the poor quality of the materials and my inexperience. But this appeared to be a good way of using my magic...
Kinda wondering how Impa, Ghirahim or Zelda enchantments would work out...
Simon got into the boat with me and Sho and we pushed off and out into the open sea. The magic fueled engine puttered along at a good clip until we were several hundred yards away from the tower.
I slumped into Simon's hold as we approached the small harbor. I could see Sho and the others there, shepherding the last of the boats out of the way and to freedom. I stiffened slightly even as we got into the last two and went out away from the tower.
"They won't hurt you."
"Tell that to my trauma." Their intentions aside, I had still gotten a gun held to my head by these people. It felt wrong to be getting into a boat and just leaving the tower behind while all of my friends were still inside.
The plan was to wait and watch. In case anyone fell from above, Happy was supposed to catch them and deliver them down to us.
But realistically, I didn't have the strength to do anything else. Even though I had recovered enough to be able to read what was going on, I couldn't do anything that could help and would just end up getting in the way.
It was a bitter if sobering thought to realize just how far I had to go before I'd finally become more than a burden in a fight.
There came a massive explosion of crimson and orange fire from the top most level of the tower.
"Holy...that wasn't Jellal's magic." Wally sounded awed.
"No." I said with a faint smile. "That was Natsu's." Yep, Fire Dragon's Roar. "And since that's what normally comes out of his mouth, I wouldn't be surprised that he survived you shooting him." The Block man jerked before shooting a dirty look at me. Simon glared at him for less than an instant before he backed down though.
"Damn..." I could sympathize to an extent. My guild was extremely powerful. And the team I usually hung out with was one of the best. When the chips were down, their teamwork was impeccable thanks to how long they had been friends, and in raw power they were second to no one in the guild.
Suddenly, what looked like a massive drill of water burst out from beneath, sending our little boat, the last to leave, much further out into the ocean.
Juvia is angry. I tried to peer into what had ticked the Water Wizard off but an ominous warning rang out in my head.
Etherion fires in ten minutes.
I started to shake slightly as I waited for the implications of...
Wait...
A super weapon as big as an Etherion Blast ought to ensure that everyone inside the tower would die. But there was no such evidence of that in my magic. It could either mean it was more likely that everyone would get out before it hit but...
I recalled what I had learned from my delving through the past...
The Tower of Heaven, the R-system, was originally designed to resurrect someone from the dead. This one in particular was dedicated to bringing back the Black Wizard Zeref.
Following the law of Energy to Effect, to bring back a spirit of that power, you would need not only a suitable host vessel, but enough power to literally overwhelm the barrier between life and death.
Erza was the intended host, but the extra power...
Say, an Etherion blast's worth?
My face went pale.
This wasn't the final stage of the game. It wasn't even half time. Everything that we had been fighting against led up to this point. The information I hadn't been able to comprehend from my reading of the tower's schematics suddenly fell into place. The whole structure itself wasn't made to bring one person back to life. It was made to convert raw power into lacrima, a stable energy source to be used later. The top floor contained all the runework and circles that were needed to complete the ritual.
In theory anyway. By the rules of reality that I knew, and I know what that sounds like, they hadn't accounted for the second Great Law. The Law of Time, not just the Law of Death.
Depending on how long ago Zeref had died, they would need to reach back to the point where he died in order to recall his spirit to the land of the living. And that was without going into the need to prepare a suitable body for the spirit, the the backlash from touching the land of the dead even for a few seconds, etc, etc...
Messing with time was forbidden magic, but not nearly as taboo as bringing someone back from the dead. This whole thing would probably just collapse and burn without something there to account for that. And I had sensed nothing...Still, that didn't necessarily mean they didn't have a solution.
Another tidal wave of fury washed out of the Tower's lower level. What is ticking Juvia off so much?
I wriggled out of Simon's grasp and leaned over the side of the boat, tracing as large a circle I could manage in the water. I felt Simon's hand slip to my shoulder, balancing me and holding me steady.
"What are you doing?" Sho asked me.
"Trying to see what's happening." I ignored whatever he said next in favor of dredging up the right words.
"Draumr kόpa." I waved my hand over the circle I had drawn, feeling all of their eyes on me as the water shimmered for a moment then shone like a mirror, showing me the large lowest level room of the Tower.
Juvia and Lucy were there. It was the same room where they had fought Vidaldus. But this time, the water was slowly rising and there was something in the water...
Grimfins too!? How many cobbled together artificial constructs do they have around here!?
Grimjaws, Grimwings and Grimfins were ugly, mostly blind creatures that were made by filling a lacrima with an imprint of hatred and dropping it into a kettle of some vile concoction. These lacrima ended up making the creature's souls and they could channel small burst of concentrated magic out of their oversized toothy maws. But, you had to feed them of course. And what they preferred feeding off of was human misery. (Emotions are a surprisingly potent energy source. Just look at Natsu.) They were highly illegal to create and own. Each type was land, air and sea based respectively.
Juvia was fending off large numbers of the Grimfins and intermittently tossing them up into the air for Lucy and Sagittarius to pick them off. They were doing alright, but Juvia seemed to be literally boiling with rage...
One of the handlers told her that as soon as they were done with them, they would send a hoard of Grimwings after Gray.
Yep, that'll do it.
"How the heck are you doing this?" Sho demanded. "You're just a kid!" I flashed him a grin with one or two teeth too many to be entirely friendly.
"I'm Fairy Tail. We pretty much live to do the impossible." Sho glared at me, but I ignored him.
"You cannot be serious. You fought a whole bunch of guards by yourself, you cannot possibly have that much magic power."
"If you use only yourself as a measuring stick, then yes, I'll seem a little too strong for my age. But I've grown up in a guild with full support of my magic on every side, a tutor, and without misery and bitterness poisoning me. Which is not your fault and Erza will not hold against you, by the way." I added this last as the dark skinned blond narrowed his eyes at me.
Probably not a good time to tell him that they can do much more if they had the time to practice. Jellal didn't want them getting any ideas, so he restricted the magic they were taught in order to keep them under his thumb. Misery and heartache made for an excellent, if painful way to expand one's magical core. Especially in children. That kind of strain made it so people broke through more easily.
"Our different circumstances, coupled with my magic being fundamentally different from yours, mean that yes, I can very well do this. Now hush." I looked back at my section of scrying water and concentrated...
Gray and Natsu.
They were making their way through the debris to the top floor. There was a lot of falling rubble around them. And they weren't fighting someone else, or one another so that meant the chaos must be coming from...
Erza.
The picture shifted to let us all see Erza duking it out with Jellal, a mask of grim determination on her face. Jellal wasn't managing to get off many attacks, he was mostly on the defensive. But he was still talking with a positive evil expression on his face. Cruelty seemed to be etched into his every feature and unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, the red tattoo down the side of his face looked like it was cracking open, revealing oozing blackness inside.
Waiting for Erza to tire herself out so he can really screw with her head, is he?
No matter. Once Natsu and Gray arrived on the scene, Erza would pull herself together, drawing on their presence for strength and they would shut this guy down. Capturing him and putting him into a well cast Zone of Truth would reveal that someone else had been behind all of this. They might not be able to let him go considering that they probably couldn't find anyone else to catch and pin the blame to. But it should at the very least get a lighter sentence and a stay of the death penalty.
All of us stayed where we were, watching the scrying in the water as Erza and Jellal fought. I wasn't skilled enough to get sound as well as sight, but I could see Jellal's mouth move and Erza's face fall for a split second. Simon's hand tightened minutely on my shoulder before he forced his grip to loosen.
About 2 seconds later, Natsu and Gray burst in. Jellal went from occasionally attacking and mostly talking to full defense. I could see that Natsu was roaring something at him as bombarded the blue haired man with fire.
The three of them were slowly gaining ground against Jellal. His movements were getting more and more abrupt and strained. The fact that he was holding out this long was a testament to his enormous skill. When those three worked in tandem, they were capable of a terrifying amount of destruction. Not to mention Gray and Natsu's magic usually morphed into something completely new and different whenever it collided, proof of their unified intent. Everything the three Fairy Tail wizards were throwing out right now was focused on Jellal.
Boy, I don't envy him...
Etherion fires in 2 minutes.
Then as I watched, Jellal managed to get a solid hit in on Gray and he went flying out the open side of the tower.
"Gray!" He doesn't have a shirt on. Happy can't catch him! I didn't think, I just jumped. My superman jump boost flashed into existence around my legs and suddenly I was soaring. One foot off of the side of the boat and up as far as I could manage, quite a respectable amount, and I reached-
The wind in my face as I ran over the rooftops of the city of Magnolia, sheer, exultant laughter tearing free from me as I flew over the people below, feeling untouchable.
An endless sky with nothing but a horizon in sight and clouds below.
The rush of speed and laughter that came as the coaster rounded a bend.
Voice of the air currents whispering ancient stories, telling me names and of far off places.
"Fly!"
-vVv-
Aw crap.
Gray thought dismally as the air rushed past him.
I walked right into that spell.
He wondered if hitting water would be as painful as hitting the ground.
Natsu's never gonna let me live this down
Provided he lived through this fall of course. Happy was diving after him, a look of intense concentration of his little kitty face.
He's not gonna make it. He can't catch me anyway. No shirt for him to grab.
Ur did always say that his habit was going to get him in trouble one day.
Something slipped around his chest, holding onto him tightly and his fall seemed to shift-
"Gotcha!" No way...
"Fae?!" Gray could just barely crane his head around to see short wavy blueish hair get whipped straight by the wind as Fae flew on four iridescent, rune covered orange wings reminiscent of a dragonfly's. The same basic color as the runes that she produced in her writing.
"When did you learn how to fly?!"
"About ten seconds ago. Hold on!" She increased her speed until Gray had to squint against the force of the wind.
"What's the big hurry?"
"Etherion fires in less than a minute! The tower will absorb all of the energy and convert it to lacrima, so everyone inside will live if they get into a sealed room. But if we're too close and outside, we'll get fried! There isn't enough time for me to fly out of range!" She was aiming for a hole he had blown in the side of the building while fighting the owl headed freak with Natsu.
They had barely passed the walls when Gray heard and felt a high intensity of incoming magic, almost blinding in its power. He turned in her grasp, putting his arms around Fae and getting his hands together.
"Ice Make: Great Dome!" He got a foot on the ground and twisted them around so he was on top of Fae, tucking her underneath him as the thick shield of ice expanded around them both.
He didn't fancy busting out of a giant lacrima without some breathing room. No sooner had he put up his protection than his vision seemed to white out as a roar filled his ears and he didn't remember anything for a bit...
He didn't hear anything. He felt something though. Someone gently slapping his face with a small hand.
Fae.
Gray's eyes flew open.
The girl was looking down at him with obvious worry shining on her face. Her lips moved but he couldn't hear her for some reason. He shook his head, reaching for his ears automatically. Her hands slipped down and covered them briefly and she said something. Then the white noise in the back of his mind vanished.
"-hear me now?" She asked, looking none the worse for wear.
"How long was I out?" Gray asked, rubbing his head.
"Only a few minutes." There was blue stuff everywhere that was too warm to be ice... Is this...?
"Holy crap, all of this is lacrima?" He stared at their surroundings. Floor, ceiling walls, it was all coated in a gleaming layer of the magical crystal. It looked as though it would have filled the whole room if not for him throwing up that shell around them.
"Yeah. It's what the main tower is built for. To translate a large burst of magic power into lacrima and hold onto it." Fae looked much better than when Erza's big friend had carried her out of the tower. She looked awake and the gleaming wings on her back definitely added to her overall energy. The glow of the blue crystal around him was exactly the same glow as was emitting from Fae's eyes.
It hit Gray then.
"Wait a sec, since when do you have healing magic?" He hadn't been able to hear and now he could so-
"I didn't heal you exactly, I just reminded your ears that they were supposed to be working. Don't worry about it. We've got bigger problems." She got up and looked back outside the gap they had come in through. Gray belated noticed that the shield he had hastily thrown up had only partially survived as he looked outside.
He hissed in a sharp breath between his teeth.
The sky was filled with the ugly, pink, skinless flesh of Grimwings. The flying monsters that some of the guards downstairs had been riding on.
They were circling over the two boats that contained Erza's remaining friends and beyond them the larger fleet of boats with other escaping prisoners.
Gotta help them. Erza and Natsu could take care of the guy upstairs. Those people were sitting ducks down there. Where they stood now, the two of them had the high ground.
"How long can you keep those wings out?" He asked the smaller girl. Since they were here, and the people below needed aerial support, he thought he would take a leaf out of Natsu's book and team up with a flying partner.
Fae grimaced.
"Keep them out? A while, probably, but I won't be good for anything else. Just don't do anything with lots of recoil. I don't want to drop you."
"You got it. Let's go." Fae grabbed him just under the arms and lifted off, soaring out into the open air.
Gray experienced a moment's vertigo at the sight of the deep sea far below him. But he focused instead on calling up his magic to rain hell down on the monsters that were trying to attack helpless people.
"Ice Make: Lance!"