I found her. She's safe.
Her steps faltered and Lucy's shoulders slumped with relief, a huge weight having fallen from her at Loke's report.
Any sign of Wendy?
She's here too.
Lucy turned to Erza with a smile. She didn't even need to speak.
"Loke found them."
"Yes."
She could visibly see Titania's emotional armor relax. Gray's jaw loosened as well. The worried white cat's fur smoothed for the first time in several hours.
"Wendy is alright?"
"They both are."
They had parted ways from the other guild wizards to hunt down Brain. The three of them were the most put together and well rested, and knew how to fight in unison. They had the best chance of defeating Brain when they found him. Lyon had remained with the wreckage of the Christina to guard the wounded and protect Hibiki, who had his Archive open and was monitoring their position to send the Rune Knights their way once they gave the signal.
Lucy: we've got more problems. Loke's hard tone made his summoner tense.
"Wait. We're not done yet." Her words caught Erza in the midst of delivering a report to Hibiki and the rest of their allies that the hostages were safe.
Fae says that Brain has an alter ego, a double personality called Zero. And the Brain side is the nice one. Jellal gave Fae and Wendy a fully formed spell to destroy Nirvana, and then sent them to go find help before trying to destroy it. He's either fighting Zero now, or will be soon. He'll need some support.
Loke went quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, he sounded alarmed.
Jellal has already engaged Zero and Fae says it doesn't look good.
We need a location then, now!
Lucy spoke as Loke relayed information from Wendy.
"Zero is fighting our ally in the Stone Forest. Fae, Wendy and Loke will head for Nirvana at the head of Niro spring." Lucy grabbed another key off her belt. Pyxis can point me in the right direction now that I have an actual location for him to focus on!
"Erza and I will head for where Zero is then." Gray said, nodding shortly, glancing down at the cat who was looking focused as her Aera magic bloomed white feathered wings on her back.
"I can guide you to the Stone Forest, but if the enemy is already there, you will need to run to make sure you reach your ally in time."
Lucy reflexively checked her magic reserves, somewhat recovered from her fight with Angel. She would be able to keep Pyxis out for as long as she might need him, but she could only hope they didn't run into a fight. Of all her Golden Spirits, only Cancer hadn't fought yet that day.
Loke will be there and we'll make it work. She gritted her teeth, holding out the arrow headed silver key.
"Open, Gate of the Compass: Pyxis!"
-vVv-
My reunion with Loke was soured somewhat by the realization my magic delivered to me.
Jellal is losing to Zero. He doesn't expect to win.
And when you were fighting against an opponent off Zero's caliber and morality, that was the same as saying Jellal was expecting to die, nobly sacrificing himself to buy time for us to destroy Nirvana.
"Fae, look at me." Loke said, gripping my shoulders firmly. "Erza and Gray are going to help Jellal now. He'll be fine. But as long as Nirvana is still around, it's still a threat and something Zero can use. Focus on the mission."
Focus on the mission.
I closed my eyes briefly, rewriting my mind to have our intended goal as the primary focus and leaving out everything else.
Goal: Neutralize Nirvana as a weapon.
My magic said the next course of action, now that this was decided, was to keep moving in order to use the key Jellal had given me.
So we did. With Wendy guiding us, the three of us continued onward through the forest.
Dark guild wizards are scattered around the area and are waiting in ambush in several locations.
The update made me stop where I was, my hand was still linked with Wendy to keep us oriented. Loke paused and gave me a sharp look.
"Ambush ahead." I mouthed at him, thinking hard.
We hadn't been making a lot of noise, so I didn't think that they had realized we were approaching. The shadows of the forest were thick here, thicker than they should be.
Darkness Magic: Veil.
Any kind of invisibility or concealment magic had a poignant disadvantage. If you were trying to make yourself unseen, you were also compromising your ability to see.
I scanned using my magic and eventually held up one hand, giving a hand sign for 'eight'. There were eight enemy wizards manning this ambush site. I could see their positions laid out in my mind's eye.
I took stock of our odds in the blink of an eye.
Wendy was sitting at about half power, and would be a powerful ally in any kind of fight. Loke was basically combat ready. He'd fought Cobra, but without any good openings he hadn't launched any big attacks, so he hadn't used much energy. I was hovering around a little more than half power myself from collecting pure air for Wendy, plus drawing on my magic's passive abilities to use Wendy's experience to keep us oriented and on track.
We can take 'em. I thought, steel entering my spine. I knew Loke would be ready for a fight, but I still glanced at Wendy. The real question was if she would be ok with this. I could tell that combat hadn't been part of her wizarding career thus far. She had earned money as a healer and by collecting natural resources to sell to crafters. Fighting was not something she did. Not like Fairy Tail.
Loke and I would be fine, but we were a team right now, and I wanted to be sure that she would be alright with us going and picking a fight with these wizards.
Fear and uncertainty flashed in her eyes and she shrunk back. It was literally just a change in the stance of her shoulders, but I could see what she meant by it. She wasn't ready to fight. Not yet..
"It's ok." I smiled reassuringly at her. I let go of her hand and moved forward to stand behind Loke, but off to the side to have a clear view of what was going to become our battlefield. My heart was pounding, my hands were raised and I had spells on my lips.
This probably wouldn't be the last fight we had to get to Niro spring. There were at least two other groups. We could go around them, but it would be faster just to power straight through. It wasn't certain that we would fight them all, but if we took one out, it would cause enough of a disturbance that their allies would close in.
Loke caught my eye and blinked. I quickly lifted my hands to my eyes and saw Wendy hastily copy me.
"Regulus Flare!" Even behind my sealed lids, I saw the blazing light that burst from Loke's body, burning away the concealing darkness magic and startling the wizards that had been waiting behind it.
Keeping the positions of two wizards in my minds eye, I fired off two basic Stunning spells, monitoring as Loke rushed to close in on another pair of startled wizards.
One spell landed and knocked my target unconscious. The other clipped his shoulder and while it threw him back, didn't take him out.
Loke was doing his best to occupy as many of the wizards as he could, and he was doing so with four of them. The remaining three managed to clear their vision and charge right for us.
I grabbed Wendy's shoulder and shoved her aside.
"Aguamenti!" A powerful jet of water shot from my hand like a fire hose, catching all three of the men as I swept my hand in a wide arc. They staggered. "Glacius!" The water dripping from them froze all their clothing to their skin, causing two of them to groan and the last one to use words that children should not hear! Were I not pressed for time, I'd have taken the time to gag him. I may have had no innocence left because of my magic, but Wendy was still pure!
I sensed the angry one gather energy for a spell.
"Protego!" It was a strong, basic shield, and the Force Bolt of dark energy ricochet off of it. It hummed past the wizards and I had an idea. I changed the angle of my shield just so and..
"Is that the best you can do?" I taunted the already annoyed wizard. He snarled angrily and sent another stronger Force Bolt at me.
This time, the ricochet hit him into one of his friends. I took my chance gleefully.
"Epoximise!" The two wizards struggled to rise again, but they were seemingly glued together. Which they actually were thanks to my Sticking Charm. They made a comical enough sight that I had to giggle even as I turned my attention to the last remaining enemy, who was still trying to crack the ice on his shirt enough to move his arms. Feeling maybe a little reckless, I charged him, my fist coming to a ready position by my hip as I said the words to enhance my blow.
"Falcon... PUNCH!"
There may have been some fire trailing from my fist when it made an impact in the man's middle. And I may have needed to expend a little more magic than normal to keep the disproportionate impact of the iconic finishing move's recoil from breaking my arm.
But when the man made a very satisfying thud against a nearby tree, I flashed a grin.
I am not, and never will be as battle crazy as Natsu, Gajeel or Erza...but that felt really good.
It still didn't make up for being kidnapped again. But it did...help a little.
"Nice hit, Fae!" Loke said, grinning as he brushed some bark off his jacket sleeve. "Come on girls, we've got a big deadly weapon of mass destruction to unmake!"
I trotted on ahead, alert for the next ambush with a wide smile on my face. Loke was circling us protectively, senses honed on our surroundings. I was not so absorbed in my scanning that I missed when Wendy spoke in a very soft voice.
"I'm sorry..."
I blinked at her.
"What for?"
"I...I didn't do anything."
"Exactly. What are you apologizing for? I don't care that you didn't fight, Wendy. If you don't want to, I won't make you. And I'll do everything I can to make sure that it's your choice if you decide to."
The next ambush we came across was less of an ambush bust and more of a curbstomp.
"Sky Dragon Roar!" The cyclone of deadly air swept the half dozen men off their feet. Loke supplemented the whirlwind with his own Twister Magic and let me pick them off while they were suspended in midair. (Bisca would be proud of my finger-pistols. And my aim.)
But it was the smile and resolve in Wendy's stance that made me bounce along, even in the dire circumstances we were in.
"How much further, girls?" Loke asked, flexing his wrists and checking.
"Not very far. We're maybe another ten minutes away." Wendy said confidently.
"Alright. Fae, anything about how things are going for our friends?"
I closed my eyes, and scanned for any new updates on how the fight was faring-
There came an abrupt tug behind my eyes as a tracking spell abruptly disconnected.
Zero was tracking your location and letting you lead him to Nirvana.
...Damn it. I knew he was smarter than Brain, but-
I had read what kind of damage Nirvana could do when piloted properly and not just set loose at random. In the hands of a man like Zero, I literally saw Fiore and the neighboring countries tearing themselves to pieces as Zero used the magic of Reversal to turn all the Light Guilds into his personal army. Brain had intended the same thing, but he was intent on stopping at the borders of Fiore.
Zero meant to conquer the continent and beyond, turning the world into a massive dictatorship, with wizards under his banner being first class citizens and everyone else being serfs at best.
And I almost led him right to it.
Aw hell no!
But he knew I would have used the connection to fight him, so he had withdrawn quickly when he noticed my magic looking inside.
"I think you two are going to have to go on without me." I said, lips drawn into a hard line. "I'm...compromised."
Loke's brow furrowed.
"Fae...?"
"What do you mean?" They both looked so concerned and the fact that there were people who genuinely cared about me was shocking in a very good, but sad way to G2, who was still a ghost in the back of my head. I shook myself. She wanted to cry in relief, but I was not going to cry yet. The fight wasn't over!
"The full explanation will have to wait. It's enough to say that Zero can track me wherever I go. He'll be able to tell when we reach Nirvana, then he'll teleport right to us and then we'll all be dead."
"Fae, no." Loke already knew what I was thinking and was not happy with it. I grinned in spite of myself.
"Fae, yes." Loke's a Celestial Spirit, he can't hold human magic, so... I reached into my own history, specifically for the spell Jellal had used to transfer the key to my mind. I placed my hands at Wendy's temples. "This may tickle a bit."
I...well, the function of what I did was cut the spell Jellal had given to me from my head and paste it into Wendy's. As soon as I had done so, the power to use the destruction key was gone and I was only left with the knowledge my magic had copied from it. If I wasn't ripping off Jellal's spell, I wouldn't have been able to manage it without throwing her thoughts and previous knowledge into chaos, but as it was, I felt the key settle firmly into her mind.
And as I was touching her and thinking of Nirvana, and the land...
The tribe of the Nirvit's are the founders of Cait Shelter and the creators of Nirvana.
It brought a certain poetic justice that a member of Cait Shelter would be the one to end this threat.
"What was that?" Wendy asked, blinking and rubbing her forehead.
"That was Fae pulling a Natsu." Loke grumbled.
"I am not!" I objected. "If I were doing a Natsu, or Erza, then I would just try to smash everything in the area until I hit Nirvana and then destroy it. This is considerably more thought out. If anything, I'm pulling a Lucy."
"You're right, it's thinking ahead and planning like Lucy, but being a self sacrificing idiot like Gray!" I had greeted Gray upon his return from Galuna Island with righteous indignation for thinking that killing himself was a worthwhile price for killing Deliora. The entire guild knew about it within fifteen minutes of my reading it, and doing something noble, but stupid with the end result of self harm was now called 'Pulling a Gray.'
"I will gladly point out all the ways you are not correct about that after Nirvana is destroyed. Wendy, you now have the key and everything you need to find Nirvana and stop it from ever being used again. I can't keep going with you, otherwise I'll just draw Zero right to us. You and Loke will have to go on without me." I stepped back, humming a few bars of 'You Can Fly' to pop my wings out. I had to get as far away from this location as possible to throw Zero off if he tried to come after me once he checked the spell again.
"Fae." I paused, Loke having grabbed my ankle before I flew out of reach. His eyes were extremely grave behind his tinted glasses. "Be careful."
He's seen too many children die in his lifetime and he does not you to be one of them. Especially not after the effort you put into saving his life.
He didn't try to talk me out of it. He didn't try to make me stay. He just asked that I not die. I dropped down to his height and hugged Loke tightly.
I can do that.
"You're explaining to Erza why you ran off." He muttered.
"You have to deal with Lucy..."
Loke snorted. "Still better than Erza."
Yeah, can't deny that...
I pulled back and rocketed skyward, searching my mental map to find where Zero was and then fly in the opposite direction of Nirvana.
Natsu has joined the battle between Jellal and Zero.
Well that's good to know!
The orange glow and goats of flame let me keep track of exactly where they were. It was really easy to avoid.
And so, I just flew. After a few minutes, I sensed Zero track the lacrima again, it felt like something was tugging on the strings in my brain and it made a dull ache throb in the center of my forehead.
The forest beneath me surged with darkness and blackness.
Zero realized you're onto him and are taking steps to throw him off the trail.
Satisfaction budded in me and I happily turned a loop in midair.
All I had to do to screw up his plan, was fly in circles.
Loke and Wendy have reached Nirvana.
Yay! Good news for a change!
Wendy has set to destroying Nirvana.
This news came with a timer with about six minutes on it. That was how long it would take Wendy to use the key to destroy the ancient weapon.
Come on Natsu...Jellal...! Keep him busy for six more minutes, and we'll be home free. Comparatively speaking at least. Zero was still a monumental threat, but the damage he could do would be reduced from several countries to maybe the whole county. Just a few minutes more...just a little more, please...!
-vVv-
Jellal was exhausted.
He'd never felt this way before. Growing up as the Tyrant of the Tower of Heaven, there had never been a need for him to expend so much energy. The one chance he had to experience it was after the tower exploded and he burned through his magic, and most of his available soul, to keep it from killing everyone around him.
Fighting Brain at his worst after the day he had been having was not something he would recommend, or ever want to do again.
In the mere moments of clear thought he had enjoyed before falling into a coma, he had gained an intense respect for Natsu Dragneel's capabilities as a wizard. That respect was only growing as he fought alongside him. From his consideration for his feline partner, to the fluid, rapidly evolving style of fighting that kept Zero from pinning down his specific style, Natsu was a genius of combat.
When Zero threw him back, trying to gain some distance to use his long range magic, Natsu would throw fire from his feet and hands to turn himself into a human missile and close again, just as quickly. It was taking all the mental capacity Jellal had to keep track of where Natsu was.
With most of his magic having been consumed, Jellal had fallen back on basic Telepathic and Telekinetic manipulations. He was casting Thought Projections of Natsu around Brain, using telekinesis to make their attacks cause damage. And even that was pushing it.
"You insects...!" Zero seethed, bloodshot eyes rolling in his head. "Dark Gravity!"
Damn it. The spell was part of the Darkness school that Jellal had learned from him in his childhood. He channeled Heavenly Body magic to counter it. Stars, planets and all the inhabitants of space were subject primarily to their own laws of gravity after all, and Zero would need to exert much more magic in order to make his area spell affect him.
His ally had no such protection. Natsu slammed into the ground at an awkward angle. The projections continued unhindered.
"There you are!" Zero didn't take the bait, focusing on Natsu. "Dark Capriccio: Scream!"
The bolt flew towards the pinned Dragon Slayer, who with an enormous effort rolled to the side, catching the fringe of the attack on his back instead of head on. With that foiled and Jellal getting closer, Brain focused on his first spell.
"Dark Gravity, 2nd Shadow!" The weight of his body increased as Zero tried to pull Jellal back to the ground with enough force to break bones.
Got you.
"Heavenly Body: Constance!" The spell was a direct hit, moving unhindered by gravity. Jellal had taught himself Heavenly Body magic as a precaution against Brain removing him once his usefulness expired. As with any brand of celestial magic, it required a pure magic source, which Brain in his life of death, torture and cruelty no longer possessed. It was something that he guaranteed could not learn counters to ahead of time.
"Damn you, you snivelling brat!" Spit flew from Zero's mouth as he grappled with a living rope of light that wound around him. "I will peel the skin from your bones, tear the mind from your body and dance your skeleton like a puppet!"
The spell Constance was a relatively simple one that forced the victim to maintain the last spell they cast. Zero was now being forced to keep Dark Gravity at the second stage of power. Jellal let himself come to rest on the ground, keeping up his Heavenly Body only long enough to reach Natsu's side, who was still struggling against the first degree of the spell.
Zero has finite power, but no moral limit on how far to go. He doesn't care how much damage he does to his body, only that he is successful in destroying us. They were in a corner. It was only a matter of time before Zero cancelled the Constance spell. Brain would have figured it out within a few minutes and Zero had all the same mental capabilities and then some. And once he worked through it, then Jellal would truly be on the last dregs of his power and facing a still capable opponent.
I've seen what has the capability of defeating even a monster like Zero only once before. The former member of the Magic Council took a deep breath, cancelling the Thought Projections still harrying Zero and feeling a modicum of relief as the magic powering them returned to him. Breath...air, to fuel the fire.
He thought back, back to all his sins, all the wrongs he had committed. Everyone he had hurt...
I thought I could absolve myself of my guilty feelings by dying to save others...
A child's voice, ringing powerfully in his mind.
Death is not an apology!
But I still feel guilty for it.
The voice came again.
None of it was you.
Those feelings...were valid. But they were misplaced. And they didn't belong. Not when he could use them for a greater gain. If dying wasn't a suitable way to pay for his actions...
Then maybe actions will suffice.
Hopefully then he wouldn't die from doing this by overdrawing his magic. That would be ironic.
Golden fire bloomed in Jellal's palm. The Flame of Rebuke danced there, the negative feelings burning away and causing light and uplift as they were cleansed. The sudden lack of magic in his core made Jellal collapse, unable to even remain upright in the face of the amplified gravity that still surrounded them.
"Natsu..." He inched his hand towards the Fire Dragon Slayer. "Take...it..."
End this fight. I can't do any more.
I'm counting on you.
-vVv-
Zero knew what Jellal was doing.
He was offering fire to the pinned Dragon Slayer. The Fire Dragon Slayer known as Salamander. The Dragon Slayer who had entered Dragon Force and almost single handedly halted the plan to resurrect Zeref the Black Wizard.
Zero was no fool, even when his weaker half was in command. He had no desire to face the closest thing to an angry dragon that there was. But interfering in Jellal's hair-brained, self-sacrificing, entirely too EFFECTIVE plan was beyond him right then. His power was tangled in the minor curse his former student had subjected him to. Most of his power and concentration was wrapped up in unravelling it, but it wasn't going fast ENOUGH. (Most of it. There were about four other minor parts that were listing all the ways they could extract the blood from Jellal's body, exsanguination was such a lovely way of torturing someone. Another two were salivating over the thought of having access to a true Dragon Slayer's corpse. Would that finally be the proper substitute for dragon's blood that the ancient alchemical recipes called for?)
Brain. He growled at his internal prisoner. Summon your tool. Brain may have hated Zero for dominating his own body, but he knew the risks of facing a Slayer in the Dragon Force. He had been absorbed in tracking G2.0, but she had apparently gained enough autonomy to part ways from her companions and lead him astray.
The token for the teleportation spell was still resting in his inside pocket. Zero withdrew it for Brain's purposes and felt the inferior intellect inside his mind begin to dissect the runes that lay on it.
Within a few seconds, Brain had worked out how to reverse the spell's function. Instead of teleporting the user to a desired location, it would bring whatever was at a known location to the user. A pulse of magic and the girl was stumbling, amber wings formed from runic script standing on her back.
The dragon slayer gave a startled groan that might have been her human name, but Zero took the command phrase as Brain gave it to him.
"'Quietly you endure, silently you watch, patiently you wait for your master's voice.'" The alarm drained from her face and her shoulders relaxed.
"I am G2.0."
"Undo this spell." He ordered, jerking his chin down at the irritating bother that would soon be but a passing dream. G2.0 moved to obey, not reacting to devastation on the men's faces behind her.
-vVv-
Jellal had never wanted to see G2.0 again. In the short time he had known Fae, he found that he liked her a lot better.
But there was something wrong even now. Something different about the way Fae was moving. Too graceful. And the wings were still out. Any magic associated with Fae out to have been released when the command phrase was issued and she was reset-
G2.0 moved behind Zero, amber runes forming as she worked on the spell Jellal had placed to hinder his magic. Zero was gloating, gravity returned to normal as he released his spell, but Jellal's attention was fastened on the girl, as was Natsu's. Actually, the Dragon Slayer was grinning.
Etherion blue eyes came back into focus and a playful smirk formed. Fae winked at Jellal even as she lifted her hand towards Zero. She lifted herself a few feet off the ground to reach Zero's head and touched it.
"Petrificus Totalus." All of Zero's muscles seized and went rigid, even his jaw. But somehow his eyes still bulged with manic fury as he realized he had been played.
"I know that won't hold you for long." Fae said candidly, drifting around him, hands linked behind her back. "I know that no matter how much I want to, kicking your ass isn't something I'm capable of yet. But I do think you are overdue for a lesson and some comeuppance for what you've done to me." Her hand came to the side, and her face hardened. It wasn't the blankness of G2.0, this was a woman in a girl's body who was fed up with the man in front of her.
Fae turned into a warrior with just that shift in expression and stance. Magic started to dance around her, stirring her short hair and her eyes started to glow a little brighter.
"You've made two major mistakes. First: You assumed that just because you had a hand in my life, and my childhood, that you could come in and take it over just like that." A snap of her fingers, and the writing in the air spiraled together and drifted to the side. "I am a Wizard of Fairy Tail. My name is Celeste D Faerun. And nothing you have done or will do will change that. Second: a little backstory." What?
Jellal was mostly helpless on the ground, but he still had enough cognizance and energy to be bewildered. She's telling a story?
"Fairies are part of folklore the world over, and beyond. They deliver on their deals, everything you give to them, they will give back with interest. Most renowned of them all is the Fairy Queen, Titania. All fear her wrath, and seek her favor. But she is far from the only Lady of the Sidhe. Among other names that emerge, there is one spoken of with even more fear than the queen." Fae's other hand had joined her writing, letters and words drifting around her and an unnatural light burning in her eyes.
"In some stories, she's a handmaid to Titania. One of her trusted advisors. In others, she is a ruler in her own right, the Queen of Winter, Lady of Air and Darkness. She is the Fairie Midwife, who attends the entrance of new life. She possesses many titles, but only one really matters to you right now." Fae leaned in, all of her runes consolidating around her hand into a perfectly formed magic circle written in the light of her soul. Intricate and detailed, there were a thousand facets, hundreds of words that formed it. All things that Fae could do with this new power she had chosen to channel her magic into.
She placed her hand on Zero's forehead.
"She is the Thief of Dreams, and you will forever rue the day you heard her name. Unseelie Arts: Mab's Justice!"
Jellal saw nothing impressive happen, but the scream Zero let out sounded like a thousand hopes shattering into dust. She could have put him on the rack and he wouldn't have made a sound quite like this.
Fae quickly retreated from the still paralyzed man who was out of breath, but still trying to scream anyway. With his already bloodshot eyes and his face wracked with inexpressible pain, he looked like a thing straight from a nightmare.
"All yours, Natsu." She landed beside them. Jellal belatedly noticed that Natsu had inhaled the golden fire he had been holding and was now rising, a feral grin on his face.
"Thanks, Fae. 'Bout time you discovered your circle." Scales were forming on Natsu's face and his teeth were noticeably sharper. His magical aura was much more potent as well. Fae helped Jellal to his feet, dismissing her wings, and helped him to his feet.
"Agreed, and thanks! But Imma go hide with Jellal now."
Fae floated up a few inches to touch his head and whispered something under her breath. The unfamiliar spell cleared Jellal's mind and let them move away at a much faster pace. Zero still howled all the while, the sound falling off into broken gasps that abruptly turned into grunts of effort as Natsu began to give him battle. Not even whatever Fae had done to him would make Zero an easy opponent. But the tables had turned, and Jellal, from what he could tell, was betting that Natsu had the upper hand now.
"Fae- What exactly did you do with that spell?" She didn't look up at him.
"I'm a Story Mage. I used that spell to...edit some parts of Brain's personal story."
"Like what?" She glanced up at him then, hesitance on her face.
"The one thing he prizes above all else is his knowledge. So I removed it. Or a lot of it, at least. Mostly just the parts relating to me, and how to control me. But my control wasn't perfect, so I got some extra stuff too... Zero is originally a spirit of intellect, so my spell taking a bite out of his mind felt about the same as cutting out his still beating heart."
That...was remarkably ruthless for a child. Even one as smart as Fae.
"So you essentially gave Zero a temporary lobotomy, removing knowledge he has learned over years of time-."
"And making it so he can never relearn it the same way. The one thing he values about himself above everything else is his knowledge. Take that, and his dream of being all knowing is stolen." They stared at each other as a blast of heat from behind them, ruffling hair and delivering the smell of burning wood, cloth and hair.
"...So it's not temporary." Well, that certainly ups her threat level. She shook her head, eyes dropping.
"It's basically the same thing he wanted me to do to you. Wendy was there to put your body back together, they had me on hand to rewrite your mind into someone Brain could control, like the rest of the Oracion Seis. Same idea of altering someone's perceived history, but very different intent."
So while Brain had wanted Fae to...judiciously edit his mind's contents, she had taken the concept and turned it into a weapon to pay Brain/Zero back for his crimes against her three fold.
"That's...very brutal."
"There's a reason people get screwed over if they try to mess with fairies." She paused in her step, head tilting. "Oh. Nirvana's gone." She said it almost casually.
"If you're here, then-?" A large flood of released magical energy washed through the tree, bourn on a surprisingly strong wind. "...That isn't supposed to happen."
"Yeah, there were like two minutes left on the timer, then it just went all at once...I gave the spell to Wendy when I realized Zero could track me to it's location. I had her and Loke go on ahead while I threw him off the trail. I guess that's what the addition of her magic to both of ours did to the destruction spell. It added a Wind component-"
"And cutting things apart is something Wind Magic excels at. So when Wendy's magic mixed with ours, and our unified intent of destroying what the spell was aimed at-"
"Heavenly Body providing the power, my Story magic handing her knowledge of internal weaknesses and how best to exploit them-"
"-When she turned it on the main hub, it collapsed faster than she expected and she had some extra magic left. With the original objective achieved, then intent keeping everything focused was suddenly void. The magic had nothing else to do but escape and re-assimilate into the air." Jellal finished the brief diagnosis of the magic. "It occurs to me we may have just discovered a much safer, much easier way of achieving a Unison Raid. Preserve each wizard's contribution with an Archive function and pass it from individual to individual, letting them each contribute... They can measure exactly how much power is needed before handing it on. And so long as each contributor has the same goal in mind, it will work about the same way." Were he still on the magic council, he would have presented that as new research to help build his cover as their ally. Though it would only benefit a fairly small number of people. Wizards with enough skill in Archive who also had sufficient magical power to perform a Unison Raid naturally were in relatively small numbers.
"Huh...Cool." Fae shot him a bright smile, still supporting him. "We're awesome! We helped save the day and discovered a new law of magic!" He couldn't help but laugh at her enthusiasm. Her joy was contagious. He wished it lasted a little longer. Her eyes glazed over briefly and when her attention returned to him, she looked panicked again.
"Um...Kinda weird question but, do you trust me?"
"...Yes?" What is she talking about?
"Good. Just follow my lead, keep your voice low and steady, and please, please, please, don't ask to be arrested."