Hi guys! Welcome back! I have to apologize to all you wonderful reviewers: I'm sorry I didn't respond to anyone this week. It was stupid busy with lots of wedding stress, and it's amazing that this chapter is out on time at all, short though it is. A big round of applause to my wonderfully supportive beta, Lady Lutka.
I can't imagine the wedding stress lessening anytime soon, so the chapters might be shorter than they have been. But the upside to that is they'll still be on time, and hey, more chapters! I promise I'll answer any reviews asap this week. :)
PS: You know how in major fight scenes in action movies the camera does one long shot that swings from character to character? That's how I picture the courtyard scene. Enjoy!
Natsu opened his eyes as he heard Malleolus' confident footsteps stride across the room once more, echoing obnoxiously in the large space. He didn't turn his head, feigning indifference. In reality, his heart jackhammered and he forced himself to breathe evenly. He maintained the pressure on his wrist strap. Over the last hour or so they'd been strapped down, he thought he'd gotten through about half of it. He didn't know what he'd do when he finally got through, but anything was better than passively accepting his fate.
Malleolus' face appeared over him. The madman was smiling, and he cradled Natsu's head in his hands. "Thank you for your sacrifice, Slayer," he crooned. "When I rule, the world shall know your name."
Natsu turned his head and snapped at his fingers, lips raised in a snarl more befitting a beast than a man. Malleolus jumped away, laughing. "I like your spirit! It will propel the Underlords to new heights!"
He walked around the room, thanking each Slayer, seeming unaffected by their curses and thrashing. Natsu pulled at his strap. If he could just get free…
He heard Malleolus ascend the steps. "I'm sure you got to see my machine when you came in, my friends," he proclaimed. "The lacrima filaments will siphon your powers and send them into the sphere. Once inside, we've created a delicate balance of mirrors and generators to increase the power tenfold before it channels into me. I shall be more than all of you put together! A true dragon."
Two mages appeared over him, one holding the rope of lacrima. This close, he could see that the filaments ended in little fishhooks. He tried to struggle, but the straps holding him down were firm. He snarled as the hooks pierced into his chest, blood welling up around them. Once they were secure, one mage retreated while the other stayed next to him. A grinding sound brought his eyes to the ceiling. It was retracting, splitting down the middle.
A red light washed over the room, so that it seemed to be bathed in blood. Directly over the tower hung the moon, huge and a deep, rusty red. As its light hit, Natsu felt something pull inside of him, like the tug of his hottest flames. It made him want to scream, to run through the woods, to hunt. His magic struggled to break free of the collar. He groaned, throwing his head back onto the table with a thud and arching his back as much as he was humanly able.
"Yes!" cried Malleolus from the depths of the machine. "Now!"
The mage pulled Natsu's collar off and at the same time, the machine was activated.
His power roared to life, screaming down his veins to burst out of his skin. It was a moment of pure, primal joy. And the next instant, every bit of it, every single spark was ripped away and he howled in agony. The memory thief's magic had been nothing to this. The hooks in his skin grabbed that first wash of power and latched onto it, pulling the rest of it out of him and sucking it away.
It felt like a thousand fire ants biting every inch of his skin, like white hot needles being plunged into him, like Gray's magic had turned him inside out. He was an ocean without water, a forest devoid of life. Natsu felt every scrap of magic leave him, ripped away from his very soul. All his muscles tensed as he strained to keep some of it, any of it. And as he was drained down to the very dregs, salvation arrived.
His wrist strap broke.
Driven mad with pain, Natsu didn't think. He just reached over his head and grabbed the tube, yanking it forward. He heard a thunk and a smashing sound from inside the machine. For a second nothing happened, then the terrible flow of power slowed and stopped. Several more popping noises sounded from above him. The machine let out a terrible grinding sound.
And then it exploded, and everything went white.
Lucy pounded toward the gate, dodging magical blasts from the gang members on the ramparts. Pulling out Sagittarius' key, she called him to her side and cloaked herself in his Stardress. She skidded to a halt and together they took aim, raining a hail of magical arrows upon the enemy forces. It brought relief to the beleaguered mages on the ground, and Erza used the reprieve to their advantage.
She requipped into her Piercing Armor, the massive joust pointed toward the heart of the fortress. She took a moment to correct her hold, then let out a war cry and sprinted toward the gates. Her cry rang out over the battlefield and everyone got the hell out of her way.
Erza thundered down the center of the chaos, impacting the door with an explosion of splintered wood. The large gates gave way before her and she rocketed into the courtyard, barely slowed. Between one step and the next she'd requipped into her Heaven's Wheel armor, and began laying waste to the seemingly endless numbers of black clad-ninjas pouring out of the fortress.
Without missing a beat, Fairy Tail crowded in behind her and the battle had truly begun.
Lucy jumped from Stardress to Stardress, her weeks of training paying off as she cut down Underlord members left and right. They had more of that ointment on their hands, but a draft of Porlyusica's potion left Lucy unaffected. After a few minutes she was able to sort out the chaos a bit. There seemed to be three types of enemies on the field.
First, the ninjas. They didn't seem to have any magical power, but their physical training and numbers could wear the rescuers down in time if they didn't knock them out fast enough. Next were what seemed to be lower level mages ー mercenary dark guilds, maybe? They didn't seem to be uniformed, and Lucy saw at least one magical weapon that appeared similar to the mini-Jupiter canon that she'd fought in Glissfield. Funny how long ago that seemed. It made her scars tingle, though. Lastly, there were figures in hooded red robes that appeared to be the elite mages of the Underlords. Thankfully there were comparatively fewer of them, but if anyone could slow up the rescue operation, Lucy had to bet it would be them.
She spun, blasting sand into her opponents' faces in a wide circle, buying her a moment to breathe. And that was how she noticed one of the figures light his hand on fire in an achingly familiar manner.
"Ice Make Hammer!" Gray swung at the leering face of his opponent, dodging the blast from his magical gun and swinging his weapon into the man's chin. It connected with a satisfying clunk, and he collapsed onto the ground. For a moment he was unmolested, and Gray panted as he looked around for his next fight.
He had barely a moment's notice. He felt heat on his face and jerked away, years of fighting Natsu ingraining the instinct into him. Speaking of the flamebrain… he whipped around to find one of those red-robed bastards facing him, features covered. His hands were on fire, and as Gray watched he moulded another ball of flame and sent it flying his way.
Gray dodged again, nonplussed. This was Natsu's fire, he'd know it anywhere. "Natsu! Fireface! Hey, snap out of it!" he threw up a wall of ice as more flames came his way. Why was Natsu with the enemy? And why wasn't he responding to any of Gray's taunts?
Lucy burst into the fight, dressed in a cow print bikini and literally glowing. She body slammed the eerily quiet Natsu and ripped of his hood to reveal a man with green hair and beady eyes. Definitely not Natsu. Gray's jaw dropped. What the hell?
"Gray! They can use his magic, remember? These bastards stole their magic to use against us!" Lucy yelled to him, before three mercenaries set on her and she was forced to turn her attention to her own fight.
The Ice-Make mage cracked his knuckles as he looked at the magic thief. So that's how it was, huh? Not that he would have gone easy on the Flamebrain anyway, but now the gloves were really off.
The red-robed man crouched in a defensive position, lighting his arms up. "You think you can defeat me? I have the magic of two mages running through my veins, now!"
A whip of fire, tightly controlled, snapped out at Gray, forcing him to parry and dodge. He snarled at the Underlord. "Two mages, huh? I guess that means I'll get to laugh doubly hard in Natsu's face about your defeat after we rescue him, then! Ice Make Floor!"
Gray slammed his hands down on the ground, creating an ice rink twenty feet across. He stalked over it, watching the false fire mage stumble and slip. "Clearly," he punched him in the face, "you don't know jack about using the power you stole." He roundhouse kicked the man in the side, leaning to avoid the pathetic stream of fire that passed him. "Ash-for-brains is an idiot, but he wouldn't even let this slow him down!" a series of jabs to various nerve points. "I guess I won'tー" kickー "be able toー" punchー "laugh at him about this after all, becauseー" Gray made his hammer once more, and took aimー "you ain't shit."
He swung, connected, and watched the asshole who stole his friend's power go flying up and over the wall. He allowed his vicious satisfaction to carry him and his new hammer into the next group of flunkies. He knocked one flying, only to have him launched right back at him, courtesy of Torin and a cast iron skillet.
Torin grinned at Gray's face as he sent the ninja back at him. The Chef Mage whirled, catching a magic sword in the spokes of a whisk. He twisted his wrist, sending his opponent's weapon flying, before exquipping both whisk and pan and grabbing the mercenaries' breastplate. A second of concentration and heat bloomed across the metal. Torin let go to meet his next adversary, but once he heard the armor hit the ground as the man took it off in a panic, he requipped his favorite heavy ladle and laid the man out, barely sparing a glance away from his new fight. He rampaged through the crowd, waving at Erza as he went by. She gave him a regal nod before throwing a ninja into the wall thirty feet away.
Erza didn't watch the Underlord hit the wall ー she knew where he was going and she had other things to do. Like rescue Natsu, give him a hug, and then properly punish him for sneaking away from his guard. And then she would celebrate with a large strawberry shortcake. She strode forward, knocking opponents out of her way, to find her path blocked by one of the elite mages, robes and hood firmly in place.
She lifted her sword, pointing it at the figure. "Move, or I shall move you!"
The figure lifted their hands, and Erza tensed, but they simply lowered their hood, revealing a tall woman with a wicked smile. "You may try to move me, but how will you fare against your own guild's magic?" she cackled.
Wind whipped around her, tugging at her robes. Erza's face turned stony, and she shifted her position, balancing on the balls of her feet. "So you have stolen Wendy's magic, and now seek to use it against her family? You are the lowest of low. Someone who must resort to thievery is no match for the spirit of our nakama," she growled, requipping into her Adamantine armor, "but out of respect for Wendy, I shall not hold back!"
The mage narrowed her eyes, but suddenly looked a little less sure of her victory.
The entire battlefield paused a moment at the resounding explosion Erza created when she landed the finishing blow on her opponent. Rai took the opportunity to knock out a few more bad guys, then pushed her magic through her feet, turning her shoes into foot-tall stilts, taking her own peek at Erza. The other mage was bruised and her badass armor (Rai would have to talk to her and see if she could recreate that within her magic) had a crack running up it. Damn. Rai let go of her power, dropping back to the ground in time to meet a wave of ninjas.
Sighing, she let her chains grow out of her skin, whipping them at the first group and sending them flying. She'd had enough of fighting elite mages for one week after her battle in the woods. She'd go ahead and clear some of the ground cover for everyone else. And ー she shot one chain through a gap in the struggling bodies, forming a solid sphere at the end of it and slamming it directly into a mercenary's stomach ー she'd keep schmucks like that one away from her friends.
Mira turned around when she heard a loud wheeze, and found a mercenary doubled over, retching, with a morningstar flail retracting away from him and through the crowd. She sent Rai a thankful wave before delicately stepping around the man and making her way through the crowd, heading toward the fortress. Fighting was well and good, but her first concern was the Slayers trapped inside. Or it was, until one of those damn hooded mages popped up in front of her. He lowered his hood. The man was tall, with white hair that matched her own. His blue eyes were cruel.
"'fraid I can't let you get any closer, ma'am," he drawled, "would have to fry yah." He chuckled, sparking a lightning bolt that played between his fingers. Mira gasped. This bastard had Laxus' magic! Her eyes narrowed, focus pinpointing on the electricity in his hands. She pulled on her inner demon, allowing the Satan Soul transformation to wash over her.
"Let's go," she snarled. Never mind what she said earlier. This asshole was going down.
She jumped toward him, claws swiping, but he dodged and shot a bolt of lightening at her, which she narrowly avoided. Mira turned, moving toward him again and throwing a punch. He blocked, lightning running up her arm and shocking her. Mira gritted her teeth and ignored it. Anyone that spent time with Laxus got a few static shocks now and then. She was used to it.
They grappled, trading blows back and forth and blocking, the mage repeatedly electrocuting her every time she landed a hit. Mira panted heavily. This was not quite the same as a static shock, and she was getting tired, the electricity draining her. She shook it off. Maybe it was time to use it to her advantage. His next punch she took on the shoulder, deliberately allowing the lightning to roll over her. Instead of pushing his magic away, she gripped it and melded it into her own. She didn't know if the Blood Moon overhead was allowing her to do this, but it was easy, and the electricity running through her made her laugh. She balled it up, added it to her own sphere of darkness, and rolled it between her hands.
She grinned sadistically at the thief. "Electric Evil Explosion!" she roared, hurling the sphere directly into his face. The resulting detonation mirrored Erza's and left the man gibbering in a smoking crater. Mira let go of her transformation and smiled sweetly as she carried on her way. She looked over at Levy, frowning a moment. Should she go help her? Then she saw who the bookworm was fighting and backed off. That was personal.
Levy dodged the iron pole aimed at her stomach, rolling away. Frantically, she scripted a wall in front of her, using the moment it gave her to gasp for air. She was covered in little cuts and bruises, but had mostly avoided the imposter's blows. As excited as he was to be using Gajeel's magic, he clearly had not mastered it. His inexperience gave Levy hope in this fight, to be added to her determination to not be beaten by this iron magic. What would Gajeel do if he learned his magic had been used to hurt Levy again? She couldn't do that to him. So she had to win!
The false iron mage burst through her wall, laughing, drunk on his new, powerful magic. He was too cocksure to be worried about the little mage in the orange dress. So when he saw Levy on the ground trembling, he took a moment to pause and revel in his supremacy. He never saw the enormous IRON take form above him and drop, crushing him to the ground. Levy stood up, a sneer worthy of Gajeel twisting her lips, and brushed the dirt off her knees. The irony of beating this faker with Gajeel's own element made her smile, and she walked away, leaving the giant word on the man without remorse.
Barely a moment later, Lona moved into the same space, trading punches and kicks with two mercenaries. One of them spotted the word, an admittedly odd thing to find on a battlefield, and faltered a moment. She took the opportunity to scramble his brain a bit, then kicked the other man in the jaw and used her gravity magic to help her throw both men up and over the wall.
Wiping her brow, she hid behind the iron a moment, ignoring the moaning mage under it. She closed her eyes and breathed in, tasting the moon on her tongue. The power was heady, and was augmenting her like she'd never dreamed. But it could be dangerous. She couldn't allow it to take over, and had stuck to fighting the ninjas and mercenaries lest it overtake her after she'd let it in earlier. She hoped Lucy was doing ok. Steadying herself, she darted back out from the shadow of the iron and lightened her gravity.
"Happy! Give me a ride!" she called to the small blue cat overhead.
Happy swooped down and hoisted up his glowing companion. Together they soared over the courtyard, Lona dropping mini-asteroids on people as they went. Happy dropped her off next to Rai, where the two of them started to unleash their special brand of hell on a group of mercenaries.
Happy swooped back up, flying high over the battleground once more. He'd been circling around the castle for the last half hour, looking for a way in with Carla. So far, nothing. Every door was guarded, every window sealed. And every moment, the Blood Moon crept closer to the tower. It was right on top of it!
Happy heard a creaking, grinding noise. He banked back around, mouth falling open when he saw the top of the tower sliding back. This was his in! He was diving towards the opening when a column of light blasted its way up out of the turret. Happy barely avoided it. He was forced to land on the roof of another part of the castle, desperately trying to blink sunspots out of his eyes. What was going on? And where was Natsu?
Lucy was so close. She'd forced her way in nearly a straight line across the courtyard and had finally made it to the door, guarded by two of the red cloaked mages. She'd beaten one and was engaged with the second when the light blasted its way toward the sky.
Her heart in her throat, she screamed, blasting the second mage point blank with a globe of light and running over their body, kicking open the door and sprinting down the hall. Were they too late?
Natsu shook his head, hard, and the ringing in his ears decreased a little. The blast had thrown them all into the walls. He shifted some lacrima off of him, and staggered upright, stepping forward into the moonlight.
The first thing he noticed was how much better he felt. His magic was back, rushing through his veins, filling him to the brim. He revelled in it for a moment, stretching his arms out, enjoying how the scales glinted in the light… wait.
He brought his hands up to his face. Their backs sported ruby red scales that trailed up his forearms. Taking stock of the rest of himself, he had scales around the sides of his face and trailing down his back onto his neck. His chest was mostly unaffected, save for the small rivulets of blood running down it from where the hooks had pierced him. His magic flared and his already impressive senses seemed to sharpen even further. Somehow, the backfiring of the machine had knocked him into Dragon Force. Stepping further into the room, Natsu saw his fellow Slayers were all shifting debris off themselves, also covered in scales. He could practically taste their magic, heady and almost feral. It stirred the beast in his blood.
They met in the center of the room, over the blackened blast site where the power-sucking lacrima had stood. Wendy lifted her hands, admiring the sapphire scales glimmering down her arms. Her hair, in contrast, had turned a shimmering violet. "Why did weー" she started, but a rumbling from the back of the room stopped her.
The largest pile of rubble was moving, falling away from a hunched form. Domme Malleolus straightened, staggering into a beam of bloody moonlight. He raised his head. His crazed eyes were the same, but that was it. He was covered completely in green scales, fingers ending in wicked claws. Thick horns curled above his head, and a tail whipped back and forth, dislodging more dust. As the Slayers watched, horrified, a large pair of powerful wings opened up behind him.
The increased power provided by the mirrors within the lacrima had given them all Dragon Force. But Malleolus, at the center of the blast, was now far more dangerous. He had gotten his wish. He was a dragon.
There was a moment of horrified silence, and then the newly minted dragon turned to them. He let out a rasping laugh. "Oh, I was right to want this power. I think I'll test it," he unfurled his wings, "by cutting you four down!"
He launched himself at them with incredible speed. The four threw themselves out of the way, spreading out to make it harder to choose a target. Malleolus banked using his wings, orienting on Gajeel. He threw himself at the Iron Dragon Slayer, who met him head on. Still getting used to his new body, the Green Dragon was thrown back by the Slayer, only to be met by a thundering lightning bolt from Laxus. Not to be outdone, Natsu and Wendy sent a fireball super-charged by a small but no less ravenous tornado.
When the dust cleared, there was nothing there. Natsu narrowed his eyes, and barely had time to react before a scaled fist disturbed the air by his ear, impossibly fast. He rolled away, his own fiery fists raised, just in time to block another fist. It seemed Malleolus had gotten used to his new limits faster than they had hoped. Natsu could barely keep up with the flurry of blows. Then an iron fist slammed into Malleolus' cheek, giving him a moment to recover. Wendy blasted him with a Dragon Force Wind Roar, pushing him further away.
Malleolus' thick tail whipped out, wrapping around a support beam. His claws gouged into the floor, pulling himself forward. Wendy's roar began to wane, and Malleolus crawled faster. Laxus stepped in, cloaked in lightning, just before the mad drake reached his sister Slayer. His lightning crackled down, hitting the dragon square in the back. He writhed for a moment, before the electricity seemed to focus itself around his eyes. And then a glowing green jet sent Laxus flying backwards into a wall, leaving a Laxus-shaped indent.
Gajeel broke the shocked silence. "Oh, shit."
The Slayers were forced onto the defensive, dodging blasts of sickly green light and more mundane, but no less deadly, punches and kicks. Malleolus seemed to be gaining more and more power, and Natsu realized that he was absorbing their attacks. Well, it made sense. He'd gotten these powers from them, and his magic was theirs, whatever his freaky eye lasers might look like.
A line Laxus had yelled in anger at the dragon niggled at Natsu as he dodged yet another blast with his own enhanced reflexes. "You can't take in all that power. It'll burn you up!" He narrowed his eyes at their enemy. His motions did seem a little jerkier after that last tornado he'd soaked up from Wendy. Maybe…?
"Guys!" he shouted. "Hit him all at once, with everything! We've gotta overload him!"
The others shouted affirmatives. (Well, Wendy did. Gajeel and Laxus flipped him off, but he knew it was just because they hadn't thought of it.) Everyone dodged and rolled back, leaving Malleolus in the center of the room. Before he could choose a Slayer to attack, each of them called up their Dragon Roar and let loose with every speck of power they had.
Malleolus was battered from every side, the Roars unceasing. He started to twitch, then fell to his knees. But to Natsu's horror, he kept absorbing their power, even as the Slayers' attacks began to weaken. Then the door to the circular room burst open, and a fifth stream of power joined theirs.
Malleolus screamed at the addition. This was not a power he had stolen, and the distraction was enough to break his focus on safely absorbing the massive amounts of energy flowing into him. The new magic flowed into his veins along with the dragon magic, finally overloading him.
The Fairy Tail wizards ceased their attacks, watching as Malleolus staggered to his feet. "You can't… this shouldn't… " the madman cried, grabbing onto his horns and pulling, as though in great pain. "How can this… Arrrrgh!" he screamed to the sky, throwing his head back and unleashing a burst of light from his eyes and mouth toward the moon.
The Slayers watched as Malleolus' stolen power fled from him. A bright green glow shone from the cracks in his scales over his chest. Its light forced Natsu to shield his eyes. Finally, with a last strangled scream, the power completely overtook Malleolus and he burst into emerald flames. They were quick to die down, leaving a pile of ash on the floor where he had been.
Natsu stared at the remains for a moment, before looking across the wide expanse of the room toward the doors at their savior. There she was, silky hair a tangled mess, clothes in tatters, porcelain skin starlit and positively glowing a rich gold, entire galaxies swirling in her gaze as she locked frantic eyes with him.
"Lucy?"
And there we are! UnderLords vanquished and Malleolus turned to ash by the very power he coveted! Which means it's time to let you all in on a little secret: A malleolus is the medical term for that protruding bone on the outside of your ankle. Malleolus, leader of the most feared gang in Fiore and Bosco, is named after a foot bone. But such a malevolent sounding one, I had to do it.
Next week, the scene you've all been waiting for! Finally, an M rating for something other than heavy dark shit.
Our weekly author shoutout goes to two writers this week! First is Riverofmemories, author of several excellent stories, including a couple dark ones that I really enjoyed. Next is RicardianScholar Clark-Weasley, whose 500+ chapter FT fanfic is excellent. Several longer stories are tied in throughout the oneshots, and a variety of pairings are covered (though mainly NaLu).
As always, thank you for reading and I look forward to answering your reviews (which I promise will happen this week!).
