Mira was overwhelmed. The blast of golden magic had been suffocating, even though it wasn't directed at her, she found herself struggling to move and breathe. She glanced toward her teammate in awe. She'd seen this spell at the Grand Magic Games, but she'd never seen the devastating conclusion. A glance towards the guild mates behind her showed the same look of awestruck terror that she was sure she was sporting. She shoved Natsu off of her, and made her way to standing, searching her surroundings to see if the enemy was back up and ready to fight.
"Everyone okay?" she threw over her shoulder at her guildmates, who were mostly all on their knees by the back wall, redirecting their attention to the earth-make mage they'd been holding down.
"We are okay, but she's waking up," Nab responded to her, standing and pulling Reedus with him so they could get ready to resume their fighting.
"Keep her down," Sitri-Mira commanded, while she took in the rest of the room.
Greasy, as Lucy had been calling him, was staggering to his feet, looking worse for wear but still seemed to be ready to fight.
Lucy was still on a knee, both hands bracing herself on the ground to keep from tipping over, and she was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating. She had one eye firmly closed as sweat dripped over it down her face, and the other was focused on the still form of green-haired teenager she'd just blasted into a crater in the middle of the guild hall. All her spirits had gone back to the celestial plane once she'd invoked the heavenly bodies, and she was realizing now that the action probably was the only reason she was still breathing. Her magic containers were utterly empty and the pain it was causing was making her vision blur.
Natsu was pushing himself up to his feet, looking toward Lucy with anxiety and fear on his features.
"Luce…" he called, his voice thick with emotion. He could hear her labored breathing, and just the fact that she still was breathing made relief flood through his veins. Quickly following that, though, was more than a little amount of anger and frustration. Gods, he was going to kill her himself, making him worry like that.
He stumbled his way over to her and put a hand on her shoulder gently, turning to face the remaining enemy. The snake chick, Piper, was alive but down for the count. He'd be surprised if she woke any time in the next two weeks, she was beat to hell. 'Guess that's what happens when you take the full force of eighty-eight fucking massively overcharged orbs of heavenly magic. Damn,' Natsu thought to himself. He'd seen the spell many times over the last few years, but mostly only in training. She'd only done it in battle twice that he'd seen, and both times it had been against a number of mages, so she'd spread out the destruction. What he was seeing now? Focused mayhem. And that poor girl had some recovery ahead of her.
"She's alive, Luce," she looked relieved at that, "and I've got it from here. Just rest. We will talk about how dumb this was later," Natsu said to her sternly, but he couldn't completely hide the relief coloring his tone.
"Y-yeah…" Lucy panted back, clutching at her ribs to ease the cramp in her chest. She hated this, she absolutely couldn't stand that he was stepping in front of her, once again, fighting a battle she couldn't help him with. Honestly though, she knew it would be this way. She sacrificed her chances of helping with the battle to get Happy and Romeo out of the guild to get reinforcements. And while that sucked, she just knew she was too weak to end this fight without backup, and that was a chance she wasn't willing to take.
Mira, having had about enough of the destruction of her home, was making her way back to Shoeless. She lifted the blonde mage from the ground by the collar of her brown leather jacket, and stared into her dull green eyes. "Talk. What the hell do you want from us?"
The mage in question just glared at her, before spitting towards her face. All the guild members around her seemed to pale, wondering if the woman had a death wish, watching as Mira punched her in the chest so hard she fell out of her grip and into the wall at the front of the hall, just beside the crumbling doorway. Mira took slow steps toward her, as Natsu confronted the grungy looking black-haired mage.
"What's got you smiling like an idiot?" Natsu asked, stepping away from Lucy's exhausted form and marching back toward his opponent, who had been smirking and looked almost… relieved?... since Lucy's spell took down the snake girl.
Greasy chuckled but otherwise didn't respond.
Natsu, seeing Mira walking slowly toward the other mage, realized that they were close to victory, so he threw himself at the large man, "Fire Dragon's Talon!" he shouted, throwing a flame-enhanced kick to the man's midsection.
The guy crossed his arms over himself to block the attack, but otherwise didn't move to dodge it. He was thrown back several feet, standing at the entrance to the hall, next to the earth mage who looked a bit… uh… under the weather.
The man just smirked at the two approaching Fairy Tail mages, and grabbed his companion by the wrist, dragging her mostly-limp form toward the doorway while he cackled. Mira and Natsu stood side-by-side, ready to send the finishing blows, before the man redirected his attention to Lucy. The blonde, who was in a corner no one could see unless Natsu and Mira turned to look, was struggling in the grip of a tall man no one had noticed, looking terrified as she realized she had missed something vitally important. Greasy's grin widened.
"Heya, thanks for the help, Heartfilia. Couldn't have done it without ya," he said with a wink in her general direction before he sprinted out the front of the guild.
Mira tried to chase after them while Natsu was frozen in confusion. Why did that asshole know her name? Why did they attack everyone just to leave before the fight was over? Why did they leave their comrade behind? How did they know when the both of them returned from their mission? How did they know that the guild was holding S-Class trials. Why...:? Oh hell, he didn't even know all the questions he needed answers for, and it was throwing him for a loop.
He tried to turn around, to look at his best friend, the one who always had answers to questions he didn't understand, but before he could he heard a deep, cold voice echoing in the hall, one he didn't recognize. 'Shit. There's another one?!'
"Scorch Magic Secret Art: Sacrificial Incineration!"
Natsu watched in horror as the teenage girl lying beaten behind turned to ash and crumpled, before a cloud of purple magic burst forth from where she had been and expanded rapidly throughout the hall.
He saw as Mira collapsed to the ground just outside the doors, before he too fell into the cold embrace of unconsciousness.
"Master, who is watching the guild while we are gone?"
Erza's question drew a raised eyebrow from Master Makarov as he turned to consider her question, "Why do you ask, my child?"
The requip mage bit her lip, bringing her hand to her face in thought while she stared at the campfire in front of her. Crossing her legs, she leaned forward a bit on the log she and master were using as a bench and took a deep breath, "I don't know. I just have a weird feeling that something is wrong, but I'm not sure what. It's making me anxious."
Jellal, who had been seated on the ground on the other side of Erza reading a book, shut it slowly and glanced up at Makarov. The two shared a look, before the master answered them, "As you know, we asked Mira to stay back until Natsu arrived, but Lucy and Natsu got delayed. I heard from them this morning, though, that they'd be back in the guild by this evening. So far as I know, all three of them are there, along with Lisanna, Max, Macao, and Romeo. The kids and all the others should be there too, we didn't have many out on missions."
Erza nodded, seemingly satisfied, "Ah, alright then. Between Team StarFire, MiraJane, and Max I am sure they are in capable hands," though in the back of her mind, she was still unsure. Something felt wrong.
Jellal spoke up this time, "Erza, is everything alright?"
Scrunching her eyebrows in thought, Erza sighed deeply, "I would like to head out. I think we should get to the guild soon, and we've rested here long enough."
Makarov gave her an appraising look. Erza's intuition was not something to be ignored, so after a few moments consideration, he decided she was right, "Alright, we will go. Jellal, can you get Laxus?"
"Already here, Gramps," came a deep voice from behind him, "What's going on?"
"We're heading out. Now."
A look of apprehension crossed the lightning slayer's features, he wanted to know what was going on that they had to pack up and leave in the middle of the night when they'd just set up camp three hours ago, but judging by the look on Gramps and Erza's faces, he didn't have time to worry about it.
"Hmn… Alright. Let's get packing," he stated, then gave instructions to Gray, Juvia, Wendy, and Bickslow - who were at a campfire just behind them - to walk around to all the tents and get everyone moving.
Before he could start packing up himself, the small group heard god-awful wailing coming from the sky. It almost sounded like-
"Happy?" Erza questioned, seeing a blue ball of fur carrying a lanky figure towards them in the distance over the grassland. Laxus, who had eyesight better than the others, recognized the lanky young man as Romeo, and he felt dread stirring in his stomach. Something was definitely wrong if Happy was dragging the poor kid all the way out here, when he knew they were on their way back to Magnolia early.
The exceed dropped Romeo unceremoniously on his feet while still a few feet in the air as he launched himself full speed into Erza's chest. He looked a little dazed by the iron wall he'd just headbutted, but it didn't stop him from bawling his eyes out, crying to her.
"Erza, you gotta help them," he hiccuped, "we gotta go back!"
The redhead patted his head roughly a few times in 'comfort', "Slow down, Happy. What's happened?"
His only reply was incomprehensible blubbering, but luckily Romeo stepped up to the group to explain. He was shaken, too, it was obvious, but he was handling it.
"We were attacked at the guild by three mages. One looked like an Earth-Make Mage, the other one I couldn't tell, and the last one was throwing snakes around? I don't know much else, but they need help, so we need to get back there and back them up," he spoke quickly, but clearly enough that the group in front of him could understand.
"Shit," Laxus muttered, "Gramps, I thought you said Natsu and Blondie should be back by now? We've gotta split up and send someone after them while the rest of us head to the gui-"
"Natsu and Lucy are back," Romeo cut in. Everyone stared at him in shock, trying to process this information. Natsu and Lucy were a fucking force to be reckoned with. On their worst days. On their good days they were damn near unbeatable, something that still bugged Laxus to no end since he'd found out the hard way. Natsu alone? Laxus had him beat ten out of ten times. Throw Lucy in? Laxus and the Thunder Legion together couldn't take them down the one time they'd sparred. The fact that only three mages were giving them enough trouble to call for reinforcements was not a good sign.
"Stop looking at me like that and go help them! Hurry up!"
Romeo's words sprang the four mages into action. Jellal and Erza took off to rouse the rest a little more forcefully and get them moving. Laxus and Master Makarov approached Romeo to try and get more information before forming teams - one to stay and pack up, the other to rush ahead to help.
"I don't know anything else, but Lucy made me promise to give this to one of you," he said, handing over the still faintly glowing note. Master took it, and the magic seal faded away as he opened it and read through the hastily scrawled note.
A serious look crossed his face as he handed the note to his grandson, who read through it just as quickly before scowling and channeling lightning to his hands to disintegrate the note.
"I'll go to the old broad's place, Gramps. I can teleport."
Makarov nodded in agreement. They couldn't risk telling anyone else about the pass phrase Lucy had set up for them, because Lucy suspects a spy in the guild. And Lucy's hunches weren't usually wrong.
"I'll take the Thunder Legion with me."
Makarov looked for a moment as if he wanted to protest taking more guildmates to the children and their healer, but was silenced by Laxus's challenging glare.
"Not a fucking chance, Gramps. You and I both know, if there's someone screwing us over, it's not my team."
Makarov only nodded at this. It was true, since Fantasia, the three of them had been incredibly loyal to the guild, almost to the point where their trying to prove themselves was unhealthy. He was sure they all still felt guilt over the whole thing, which really, they shouldn't, but that guilt is what made him absolutely sure they'd never do something like that again.
"You're right, and truly, it doesn't matter as of now. If there is someone, we can't let them know we suspect something. I'll handle things here, you go ahead and head out. I'm sending Erza, Jellal, Gajeel, Wendy, Gray, and Juvia ahead to provide backup, and leaving everyone else here to clean up and follow. Stay safe."
Laxus nodded and jogged over to his team, talking to them briefly before disappearing in a clap of thunder.
"Romeo, my boy. Stay with the last group, and lead them home," Makarov said to the still anxious boy in front of him.
Turning around, Makarov found his way to Erza, who was barking orders at an exhausted looking Cana.
"Happy!" Makarov called to the blue cat, who then floated over, still teary eyed.
"Do you have enough energy to fly my back to Magnolia?"
Happy sniffled, then nodded his head once, "Yeah… I-I can d-do that."
Master gave him a winning smile, "Alright then. Erza, you're taking Grey, Juvia, Jellal ahead of the main group to support our guild mates. Gajeel, Wendy, you're to speak with Romeo to get as many details of the enemy as you can, then ask your exceeds to fly you home! Cana, put the flask down! You and Gildarts are to help everyone else pack up here, then leading the rest back to Magnolia. Does everyone understand their duties?"
"Aye, sir!"
With that, Makarov took off with Happy, only stopping for a moment to have a hushed discussion with Gildarts about his suspicions, asking the man to keep an eye out for anyone behaving out of character.