Wendy V

Wendy was surprised to see that the Wood Elves weren't so much marching as they were simply darting through the trees on their own. And despite their being tens of thousands of them, they were remarkably silent. Even the stags that Wendy and Carla got pulled onto were darting with remarkable stealth. At the head of the army, with the Wild Riders, was Orion himself, whose piercing, aware eyes scanned the environment. The only party Wendy couldn't see were the tree spirits, who seemed to have disappeared when they entered the forest.

That was when Orion suddenly stopped, and held up his fist. The entire army came to an abrupt halt.

"What is it?" Wendy whispered to Asarith.

"They're straight ahead," Asarith said, pointing forward. Wendy looked through trees and couldn't see anything, but her keen nose and ears could. The smell was downright noxious, and the sound wasn't much better; it sounded like deranged farm animals. (is that really such an inaccurate way to describe the Beastmen?) Orion then flicked his wrist, and as Wendy looked around, she could see the archers ascending into the trees. The king then advanced further out, as the Wild Riders followed him.

For a little while everything was still, save for the noise through the trees, before Orion pulled out his horn again, and blew into it. And then, as some of Wendy's friends would put it, all hell break loose.

The Wild Riders, with Orion at the head, exploded out of the trees, where Wendy finally got a look at the Beastmen. Simply put, they looked like someone smashed farm animals and humans into one, with humanoid builds, but with bestial features. At first, they didn't have enough time to react, as the stags lowered their antlers, and the riders their lances, and smashed right through their flank. Whole figures were sent tumbling away, or crushed under their hooves. Some Wild Riders even leapt off their mounts, and put their lances through the Beastmen's gut or daggers in their throats.

Wendy kept holding onto Asarith, but when she glanced aside, she noticed that Carla had flown away from her Rider, and was in the air, away from the battlefield. Wendy was admittedly rather envious, but her thinking was halted when Asarith did, and all but pushed her off the stag.

"Go! Go!" he shouted.

"What…"

"Go and fight!" Asarith said, and before Wendy could say anything else, he bounded back into battle, slicing a beast's throat with his lance as he did. Wendy opened her mouth to call for him, but a gor leapt at her, and Wendy had to dive out of the way.

Knowing she had to keep moving, Wendy tried to get up and run. However, another gor moved in her direction, only to immediately fall as an arrow appeared in his eye. Wendy had to roll to keep him from landing on her. She tried to stand up, only to get knocked back down as a stag brushed against her. As she rose to her knees, there was a roar, as a forest dragon swooped over, breathing a strange green mist. When she finally got back to her feet, Wendy backed into a gor; the two briefly made eye contact before and elven woman carrying two swords leapt onto it, and started hacking away, as Wendy could only run. She had to avoid a minotaur running past her with an elf impaled on one of its horns. Suddenly, Wendy tripped on something and fell to her knees. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed to her horror that it was the body of the same elf who had sought her blessing before the battle had broken out.

"Is this… war?" she asked, barely blinking away the tears. Wendy couldn't dwell on those thoughts, though, as she saw a gor bisect an elf and then come at her. Fight or flight kicked in, and with all that was going around, flight won out, as the Dragon Slayer turned to flee. Unfortunately, she did not get far before she tripped, probably on another dead body, and landed face first on the ground. She looked up to see the gor coming up to her, its axe held up, and Wendy braced herself to fight. However, the gor suddenly bellowed in pain as a root appeared through its chest, lifting into the air. Wendy was splattered with blood, but didn't notice it as she saw what, or rather who the roots were attached to.

"Durthu? What are you doing here?" It was indeed the lord of the forest spirits, standing over her. Along with his sword, his leaves and branches were stained with blood, and Wendy tried not to ponder the red stains on his rooted feet.

"The Beastmen are a blight on the forest," Durthu answered as he lifted up the now dead monster, "As lord of the forest spirits, it is my obligation to slay them whenever the opportunity arises. But I think the better question is why aren't you fighting?"

"I… I don't know!"

"Well regardless, you best begin."

"I've never even killed a bug if I could avoid it!" Wendy cried. She could only think of one time she actual killed another being, and that was against the demon of Tartaros. Even that still occasionally offset her looking back.

"That is not a choice you have the luxury of making anymore," the spirit said.

"I can't do it!" Wendy said, "I can't kill anyone!"

"In this world," Durthu answered, "You either kill, or let yourself be killed. There is no proverbial middle ground." With that, he tossed the gor impaled on his roots away, and waded back into battle, leaving Wendy to chew on his words. Or at least she would've if not for a gor charging her again.

"Wendy!" The Dragon Slayer was suddenly tackled away, and she noticed that it was Carla. The cat-girl was notably bruised now, and even had some blood on her clothes and face. Wendy wondered if she had gotten caught in the fights as well.

"Carla, are you alright?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

"I'm… I'm fine," Wendy said after a pause.

"Well then we've got to fight!" Carla said. Wendy opened her mouth to respond, but then a gor charged at them with an axe.

"I don't like this anymore than you do!" Carla said, as she ducked under an axe, and kicked the creature away, "But we don't have anywhere to run to, and unless we start fighting seriously, we may not get out of this in one piece!" Not giving her a chance to answer, Carla flew away, and before Wendy could process what she said, her attention was drawn to something so terrifying, it almost made her throw up.

Advancing on the Dragon Slayer was one of the most horrible creatures she had ever seen. At first glance it looked like other Beastmen, aside from its massive size, but as it got closer, Wendy noticed its single eye that was focused entirely on the young mage. That alone wouldn't have been so bad, but it was the creature's expression that was truly horrid; it was an expression of pure madness and hunger, as it frothed at the mouth, and its single eyed pulsed in what could only be described as desperation and madness. Wendy remembered being told of "cygors", and wondered if this was one. Wendy's first instinct was to retreat, but she remembered what Durthu told her, and with that, she steeled herself, and held her ground against the cygor as it advanced on her growling, and holding up its massive rock.

When the cygor swung it down with said rock, Wendy leapt out of the way; she was fast enough to avoid the strike, and she was fortunate enough that the creature was actually rather laborious in its movements, as if each motion brought it pain. If not for the circumstances, Wendy may have felt sorry for it. However, she took a breath, as she tried to focus. Despite everything she thought, she knew that Carla and Durthu were right, so she did everything she could to steel herself, activating her Dragon Force.

"Sky Dragon's Roar!" Wendy cried, using her signature attack, striking it in the chest. Despite its power, the cygor was still more powerful, as it stumbled slightly, but remained standing, and Wendy knew that she would have to do more. The cygor roared, as it swung down its rock again, though again, Wendy easily dodged at it. She then leapt into the air, and brought down her Sky Dragon Wing Attack onto its shoulders.

The force of the attack caused the monster to buckle, and fall to one knee. It swung its fist up, but Wendy dodged. She then summoned a blade of wind, and sliced down across the cygor's chest. This drew blood, as the monster stumbled back. Wendy then seized her chance, as she took a deep breath, gathering her energy.

"Dragon Slayer's Secret Art, Shattering Light: Sky Drill!" The massive amount of wind, enhanced by her Dragon Force somehow lifted the monster off the ground. While it wasn't as high as Wendy lifted some of her other opponents, it still came up off the ground a good thirty feet, before it was slammed back into the ground. The cygor collapsed head first, its sheer weight breaking its neck. The monster then collapsed the ground, dead.

Wendy collapsed to the ground, exhausted. As she looked around, she saw that most of the Beastmen were in retreat, as they were picked off by the elves. It seemed that the battle had been won. Wendy soon saw Carla running up to her.

"Wendy!" she cried, as she hugged her friend, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Wendy answered, "What about you?"

"Tired, and a bit bruised, but alright all things considered," Carla answered, taking a step back.

"Wendy! Carla!" The girls turned to see Asarith riding towards them. A beast's head was tied to his saddle, which Wendy tried to avoid looking at.

"Asarith!" Wendy said happily, "You're alright!"

"More so than others, I'll say," the Rider said as he walked up, taking off his helmet, "How did…" He then noticed the cygor on the ground, as his eyes widened.

"Did you…," he asked, pointing. Wendy just nodded.

"By the spear of Kurnous," Asarith muttered in awe, "You might truly be the daughter of Hoeth."

"I promise, I'm not," Wendy said, somewhat embarrassed.

Note: Now I think its clear by this point that this story is going to be primarily about the FT characters influencing the WH world. But at doesn't meant the world isn't going to be influencing them. On that note, the story rating will soon be changed to M, for violence. And yes, I did draw inspiration for this scene from Game of Thrones. Bare in mind, the Fairy Tail mages haven't experienced true war like what the Warhammer world has. I know that the series always uses the word "war" (for what its worth, the Japanese characters for "war" and "battle" are very similar, so "battle" might be a more apt word than war), but they aren't real armies against armies most of the time, and more skirmishes than anything else.

I've been playing lots of Total War: Warhammer II as of late. I've beaten the High Elf campaign with Tyrion, the Dark Elf campaign as Malekith, and the Tomb King campaign as Settra. Ironically I kind of suck with one of my favorite factions, the Lizardmen. The only faction I haven't played as are the Skaven, because I really hate rats (hell, half of my custom battles I fight them). I'm also doing a Mortal Empires campaign as the Tomb Kings (the faction I'm actually best with), and I'm gearing up for a massive invasion of the Old World.

Please review. Next chapter we'll see Erza. I'm going to be making some edits to some of the previous chapters, to suit some planned revisions I have in the larger story.