Chapter 4: Gajeel, Levy and Panther Lily
"Why did the council send us here, again?" Levy asked as she and Gajeel trekked up the jagged paths of Infernum Mountain.
"Hell if I know…" Gajeel replied with indifference. "All they said is there's been a bunch of earthquakes and surges of dark magic around here."
"B-but why did they make us go up by ourselves?" she drew closer to him.
He glanced over at her and smirked. "What's wrong, half-pint? You scared?"
She blushed. "No…of course not! It's just…you know…if there is something up here, won't we need backup or something?"
"Nah, we can take 'em, no matter who they are!"
She sighed. "I'm glad you're so confident."
Gajeel looked behind him. "Hurry up, cat, or you're gonna get left behind!"
Lily was trailing several yards behind them. His gait was slow and cautious. "Do they not sense this crazy power? Why are they so eager to go toward it?" He closed his eyes and smiled. "Right…let's not forget who I'm talking about. Gajeel would jump headfirst into a den of Zeref's demons with hardly a thought. And Levy would follow Gajeel to the ends of the earth." He picked up his pace.
"The higher up we walk, the creepier it gets," said Levy. She looked up at the sky. "The sky's getting darker, but it's noon, and there aren't any clouds…just like all of the literature I've read about this place claims."
Gajeel glanced at her with a mild hint of curiosity in his eyes. "Yeah? What else did'ja read?"
"I've read at least a dozen books about this place, but there weren't too many consistencies. The only three things all the books agreed on was the eerie dark sky, the flux of dark magic and something about a great disaster that happened here a long time ago."
"Then what good's all that readin' for?"
Levy stomped her foot. "Reading is plenty useful! Take the disaster for example…apparently Infernum Mountain used to be a fertile mountainous region with dozens of one-of-a-kind plants and fantastical animals at its base. But a great cataclysm occurred that desolated the land and killed all inhabitants around the mountain. None of the source material said what the cataclysm was, only that it had to do with the dark wizard, Zeref."
"Zeref, huh?" Gajeel said with contempt in his voice. "Well, I hope we get to see the bastard. We owe him more than a beatdown for the whole Tartaros thing."
"He actually wants us to run into that creep?" Levy thought. "He can be so stupid sometimes…" she looked up at him and smiled. "Stupid, but brave.
Lilly's ears were twitching. "Do you two not notice that?"
"Notice what?" asked Gajeel.
"There seems to be an increase in pressure as we make our climb."
"That happens when you climb a mountain, Lilly," Levy said.
"Not like this, it doesn't. Take a moment to sense your surroundings. Something's very wrong here."
They stopped walking.
"You know?" Lavy said. "He's right…something feels off."
Gajeel sniffed the air. "Now that you mention it…I do smell something. Something wrong…something evil. It reminds me of those demons from Tartaros."
A voice echoed around them. It was a woman's voice. "Demons? Oh, no, dear—"
The three of them looked up on a ledge about twenty feet above them. A fair-skinned woman in a robe was standing right at the edge. Her white hair blew in the dry wind. She smiled mischievously.
"Not demons. Do not be deceived, for you are in the presence of a queen among the angels," said the woman.
"Angel—er, Sorano?" Levy said. "What are you doing here?"
"It doesn't matter," Gajeel said with a wide grin. "This chick is wanted by the council, it's our responsibility to take her in…then we can ask her where all her friends are."
"B-but Gajeel…they're in Crime Sorcière. They've been taking out the dark guilds. Erza said they've changed, that they're good guys."
"I don't give a crap. It's our job to bring them in."
Sorano giggled. "I won't be going anywhere with the likes of you, brute. You'll have to kill me."
"Nah," Gajeel said. "I just gotta knock you out."
"What a boorish lout you are, threatening to hit a lady…and not just any lady, the lady of the host of Heaven," Sorano said. She looked at Levy. "How can you be in the presence of such gutter-born filth?"
"Take that back!" Levy said.
Sorano put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, my. Did I strike a nerve? What are you going to do about it?"
"Something doesn't feel right here," said Lilly.
"Yeah, yeah…you said that already cat."
Sorano looked at Panther Lilly and frowned. "So you're an Exceed? From what I've been told, you were seen as angels in Edolas, correct?"
"Yes, but it was a guise to protect us from the cruelty of humans."
"How could the people of Edolas be so deceived? Angels have much more grace and beauty. Please, allow me to show you." Sorano closed her eyes, and her hands began to glow.
"She's about to attack!" Lilly said.
Levy began to write in the air with her finger. "Solid Script—Gust!" The word GUST, made out of a powerful gale-force wind flew out of a flash of light at the edge of her finger.
Sorano didn't budge. She was hit full-force and fell over.
"Why didn't she dodge it?" Levy asked.
Sorano got up, her robe had a few rips on them, and the hood was completely torn. She jumped off of the ledge and landed gracefully ten feet away from the trio. "Is that the best you've got? How disappointing…looks like I'm gonna have to take you out." She closed her eyes again, and her hands began to glow. Several golden coins materialized in her hands.
"She uses Angel magic…" Levy said.
"What the hell's that?" Gajeel asked.
"She casts some of her life away to summon angelic beings. It's similar to Celestial magic.
"Very good, bookworm," Sorano said. "You're about to witness an angel of extreme power." She threw the coins in the air, six of them fell around her. The coins emitted a ray of light that connected to each other, forming a magic circle in the shape of a six-pointed star. Six more coins hovered above her, and a magic circle formed in the same exact shape. "At the cost of one-hundred-twenty—"
"A hundred-twenty? Gray said that she only went up to a hundred, and the being she summoned almost devoured her!" Levy cried.
"Come to me, angel of Heaven's light…Uriel!"
"We need to stop her!"
Gajeel lunged toward her. "Iron Dragon Club!" he yelled. His hand turned into a bludgeoning club and he hit her with it.
Sorano crashed into a wall of stone.
Gajeel walked toward her. She struggled to get up.
"You're under arrest, crone."
Sorano laughed. "It's going to take more than that to defeat me. Like I said, you're going to have to kill me." She threw more coins in the air. "At the cost of thirty…come to me, Baraqiel!" The coins vanished, and a dark-purple light seemed to penetrate her body. She screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Her body was shaking in pain.
Gajeel stared at her with shock and confusion. "What the hell's going on with you?"
Sorano looked up and began to weep. "Please, just kill me."
Levy and Lilly joined Gajeel.
"Why do you want us to kill you?" Levy asked.
"That's how to get rid of the curse…" she said.
"What curse would that be?" Lilly asked.
Sorano stumbled to her feet, and took her outer robe off, showing her stomach. There was a purple pattern on her abdomen. It was shaped like a fish with a flowing tail. "This curse…"
Levy looked closely at the mark. "Hmm…it looks like Body-Link magic. But, it's not like any body link I've ever seen."
"It's the result of a demon," Sorano said. Her head hanged low. "Some angel I am…to be sealed by a devil. I'm not the only one. The other six have been marked as well, buy six other demons."
"Are they Zeref's?" Gajeel asked.
"Sort of. They have similar energy, but not exactly the same. Now's not the time to ask questions…kill me. I have been tainted. I can't even use my magic anymore."
"Has the body link bound your magic?" Levy asked.
"Yes, but I'm the only one this has happened to," she said.
"I wonder why," Lilly said, pondering.
"It's because Angel magic is light magic, and the girl's body has been tainted," another voice echoed. It was a man's voice, strong and harsh.
A man in a white robe approached them.
"Who the hell are you?" Gajeel asked.
The man had a white mask that covered the top half of his face. "Hmm, hell has nothing to do with me, dragon slayer. I hail from a far higher realm."
Sorano fell to her knees again. "Are you an angel?"
The mysterious man shook his head. "No, I am not an angel…nor am I a child of man."
"Are you some kind of spirit?" Levy asked with fascination.
"Not exactly…let's just say that I have a special connection to your previous guild, Levy McGarden, Gajeel Redfox and Exceed Panther Lilly."
"Did you know Master Mavis?"
"All will be explained in time…for now we must go."
"Go where?" Gajeel said. "We gotta take this crazy broad in, we don't have time for you…now scram, Fancy Pants!"
"Hmph," the strange man grunted. "You will come with me, willingly or not. Trust me, this is in your best interest," he looked at Sorano. "Especially you, if you want to be freed from your curse."
"You can undo this?" Sorano asked.
"I can't," he said. "But there is a way. You and your guild can be free from your body links, and you can restore your Angel magic."
"I'll be able to call on my lovely angels again?"
"Yes…and they'll be uncorrupted as well."
"What do you mean, uncorrupted?"
"When you were in the dark guild…when you used Angel magic, the angels you summoned were incomplete and twisted. This is because you were swayed by evil. What's wrong with you now is much worse. Now, an evil so complete has marked you that no angel will come to your aid, incomplete or otherwise."
"So…I'm more evil than I was before?" Sorano said with despair.
"That's not what I said. You've been marked by evil. That mark is what keeps you from calling them, not how evil you are."
"What are we to do to get rid of it?"
"I'll explain later. For now, we must get out of this corrupted place." The man in the white robe snapped his finger, and the five of them vanished in a flash of light.