Chapter 6: Battle at the Station
Erza felt exhausted. She regretted not letting Gray drive the magic car for awhile so she could have gotten to rest. Now, as she stood in front of the entire Eisenwald guild, she doubted she could handle them all. Thankfully, she had backup. They were gathered in the main station.
"Well, look at this! A couple of flies have entered the spider's web!" A voice taunted from above. There sat a man who was hovering in the air, wielding a giant scythe. He could only be Erigor the Reaper.
Natsu had gotten over his motion sickness and stood to face the guild. He grinned. "Well looks like we've got a party going on here!" He pounded his fist into his palm.
"Um, Natsu they're the bad guys remember?" Lucy reminded him nervously.
"Just like I said, a party," He said. Scanning the Dark guild, his eyes widened as he recognized the shadow mage from the train. "You!"
Kageyama just smiled, "Ready for round two? Where's your blonde friend?"
Erza knew he meant Naruto. The clone from earlier said that he was on the train, but she couldn't catch a glimpse of him. Was it possible they…? No. She refused to believe that he'd been caught or worse. She kept her attention on Erigor.
"Erigor, we've come to take you into custody." Erza declared with her best authoritative voice. "Call of this scheme you intend to do and we will show mercy."
Erigor just smiled wider before he disappeared and reappeared on top of the station's speakers. He was fast. 'Wind magic...' Erza thought.
"Not until those who wronged us get what they deserve." He told her. "With Lullaby in our possession, we'll be unstoppable."
Natsu was getting impatient,"Just spit it out already! What do you plan to do with Lullaby?!" He demanded.
Erigor chuckled and opened his mouth to respond, when a voice answered for him. "He plans to broadcast it. Most likely mixing the station speakers and judging from that breeze, this guy has wind abilities so the song plays further..."
They all turned to the source of the voice and Erza spotted a familiar looking blond with blue eyes, whisker marks on both cheeks, a metal-plated headband on his forehead wearing orange and black. He stood on top of the train behind Eisenwald. Erza noticed that his usual cheery demeanor was gone. He had his arms crossed and his eyes as cold and hard as ice as he glared at the Eisenwald mages in front of him. She felt a huge amount of relief.
"That's why you chose to travel by train, because of the speakers, isn't it?" Naruto said. Erigor looked slightly annoyed, but managed to keep smirking.
"I knew I smelled a rat sniffing around." Erigor said. He met Naruto's glare with his own. "You're the one who's been causing us trouble lately." Among the mages, Erza spotted a familiar face. The one she met when Eisenwald tried to destroy a small town and its population. The earth mage smirked. "We meet again, Titania."
Erza felt anger boiling inside her, this time she would finish off every last one of them. Just then Erigor spoke again. "I don't have time for this." He turned to his guild members. "Take care of these weaklings. Show them true terror." He ordered before he vanished.
Erza turned to Natsu and Gray. "Follow him. If you work together, not even Erigor the reaper can stand against you."
The two boys started to object when she gave them a death glare. A few seconds later, they rushed off. Erza turned to face the rest of the guild. Naruto appeared beside her, which startled Lucy. The male blonde gave a nod and withdrew a kunai as Erza summoned a sword. "Lucy, we would welcome some assistance." Erza said. Lucy gave a confident nod.
In spite of the situation, Naruto couldn't help a light chuckle. "Hey, Erza-chan, How many can you handle?" he questioned.
Erza, serious as she was, knew it was speaking in jest to provoke their enemies, so she thought mock-seriously for a second before smirking.
"It might be trouble if one more shows up." She said, and Naruto nodded his head slowly. "Then that'll be the one I take care of." he added and Erza grinned widely.
"Wait…you're fighting?" She quipped in mock amazement and Naruto grinned back at her.
Sick of being ignored and feeling the two were mocking them, Eisenwald charged.
Naruto veered right, dividing the guild's forces. Twenty mages converged on him. He crossed his fingers and summoned two clones, each of them holding kunai. The three Narutos stood back to back.
Erza took on the rest. She swung her sword and five mages fell before her. Erza felt herself slowly getting tired but she forced herself to stay focus on the task at hand. She requiped and her sword turned into a lance. She batted aside a group of attacking mages. Left and right, mages fell before her. She heard shouts and grunts off to her right.
Naruto was unstoppable. She had never seen someone fight like he did. He may have been outnumbered, but he had the mages outclassed. His two clones made up for it in teamwork. Naruto took out mage after mage systematically. When a mage broke through his defense, one clone would block the attack and the other would counter almost immediately. Naruto would knock out mages with swift and decisive strikes, blocked attacks with casual flicks of his kunai. It was mesmerizing to watch, but Erza had to keep her attention on her own fight.
She requiped again and summoned two short blades. She slashed wildly and four mages fell again. One mage almost got past her guard. She slammed the hilt of her short sword against his head and the mage staggered back and fell. Just then she heard the clang of metal behind her and a grunt as a punch landed. She looked back to see Naruto knock another mage unconscious.
"Be careful, Erza-chan." Was the only thing he said before dashing off to confront another set of mages. She felt grateful toward Naruto, but also ashamed. She realized what had happened, if Naruto hadn't stepped in, an enemy might have landed a lucky blow from behind. How did she miss that? Her exhaustion was throwing her off. She didn't have time to think about that now though as ten mages charged.
She could hear Lucy shouting orders to a celestial spirit she summoned. Erza turned to see a tall man with crab like features attack the Eisenwald mages with nothing but two pairs of scissors. The mages were no match for the spirit as they were defeated with all of their hair completely cut off. Lucy pumped her fist in triumph.
"Thanks, Cancer!" Lucy exclaimed as her spirit disappeared.
Now there were only a handful of them left. Erza decided it was time to finish this. She knew it was a risky move, she was already low on magic energy, she didn't even know if she could pull off a full body requip, but Erza had to try though. "Requip!"
A bright light enveloped her body as she changed into her fairy armor. The mages backed away from her as they beheld her new suit of armor. A mage blasted her with a magic energy beam, but she deflected it with her sword. She summoned ten swords before shouting: "Dance my swords!"
The swords circled each other and launched themselves against the mages of Eisenwald. Déjà vu, Erza thought. She transformed back into her normal armor and panted. She was almost completely drained of magic energy. Erza noticed that a rather plump mage had phased into the ground and slipped away.
"Lucy, go after him!" She called out and pointed to the fleeing mage. Lucy wasn't crazy enough to defy Erza, so she dashed off in pursuit with Happy following behind her.
Erza watched her as she ran up the stairs and disappear into a hallway. She felt tired to the bone. She didn't even realize that she was starting to fall forward. Fortunately, Naruto caught her. He wrapped one arm around her waist and one on her shoulder to steady her. She leaned on him for support.
"I think you overdid it this time, Erza-chan." Naruto said. He slung her right arm over his shoulder and his other arm around her waist. She saw that those two alluring blue eyes were fixated on her.
"Don't worry, I've got you." He smiled at her. Erza couldn't explain it, maybe it was because of her lightheadedness, but she began to relax and let herself be supported by Naruto. Erza had only met him a few days ago and she barely knew anything about him, but she had never felt like this with anyone else before. Even in the guild, she had to appear in charge and strong in front of everyone else. With Naruto, Erza felt calm and even a little bit hopeful. Naruto had that strong confidence in himself that made you think anything was possible. He had that cheerful, boyish demeanor that made you want to like him even more.
Reaching into the equipment pouch on his hip, he pulled out a small, lumpy bag and reached into it, pulling out a round, black pill that could have been mistaken for a small marble, "Here...Hyōrōgan...Energy supplement based on a type of special military rations pills. You look ready to drop."
Nodding, Erza took the pill and popped it into her mouth and started chewing it as Naruto started up the stairs, carefully adjusting himself to help keep the both of them balanced. They started down the corridor, heading to the balcony. Erza knew Naruto must be heading to address the crowd of people that had gathered outside the train station. It was the logical thing to do since they were in range of the speakers and would fall victim to Lullaby. Naruto didn't look it, but he was pretty smart when he wanted to be.
"Naruto, I can stand." Erza told him, that pill actually had helped, surprisingly enough. Naruto didn't look completely convinced, but he did as she requested, they were at the balcony now. A collective number of people had gathered in front of the train station and a military barricade stood in front of them to prevent the crowd from entering the building. Two employees spotted them as they arrived.
"Hey, you can't be up here, the station is closed!" One of them said. He held a megaphone in his hand. He had been trying to reassure the crowd that they were experiencing technical malfunctions with the train. Even so, the crowd grew restless.
Without warning, Erza took the megaphone from his hand and approached the edge of the balcony. The employee protested, but Erza ignored him. Naruto gave him an apologetic smile as he scratched his head, a little embarrassed. Erza began to speak into the megaphone.
"All of you are in grave danger, leave this station at once!" Erza commanded. The people only looked at her with confusion.
"Why?" one of them called out.
Erza clenched her fists. "Because if you value your lives, you will return to your homes and stay there."
She spoke with such authority that some of them actually turned and left, followed by a few. Gradually, the people did as they were told and within minutes even the soldiers guarding the entrance cleared out.
Erza handed the man back his megaphone and told the two employees to go home as well.
She and Naruto were about to head back inside when they were blasted backward by a gust of wind. Erza heard Erigor laughing. She turned to the sound only to find a gigantic wind barrier has encircled the entire station. Erza could hear Erigor's voice from the outside. "Well, now that you fairies are trapped inside my indestructible wind barrier, I might as well be on my way. Thank you for making this so much easier for me, ha, ha, ha!"
Before Erza could stop him, Naruto ran towards the barrier and tackled it. He was blasted backward and landed on his back painfully with a grunt. She could see that his shoulder had been cut multiple times. He pressed his hand over his wounds and Erza helped him on his feet.
"Damn that is one powerful wind jutsu!" Naruto said with grudging respect.
Erza scowled in confusion. "What is a jutsu?"
Naruto opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by an explosion inside the building. Erza and Naruto nodded to each other, knowing that Natsu had probably been the cause of it. Together, they dashed back inside to find their friends.