DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in Fairy Tail, all rights to those characters belong to Hiro Mashima. The only parts of this story I own are my character, Rose Jay, and the plot. I do not make any profit from this fanfiction; it is solely intended for your reading pleasure.
My body is lithe and covered with a pitch black coat of silky-smooth fur, my eyes still their usual bright emerald green. The best part, without a single doubt, has to be the 4-foot tail and the razor sharp canines. That's right. I'm not imagining it, and you haven't heard me wrong. My entire physical body has been transformed into a majestic black panther. I watch in the mirror's reflection as Grant approaches me, fear coming off him in waves. He's doubting whether or not it's safe to confront me. When I rub my head against his leg, he tenses for a moment. After insistently nudging him, he gives me a few pats on the head. He explains after this that Gajeel stayed outside, should any guild members out on jobs happen to return while we're inside.
"Any final words before I finish you and then put your sister to the test?"
The deep - and quite aged - voice floats up to my heightened sense of hearing, most likely having come from downstairs. I'm absolutely certain it's the guild's current master. I can never remember his name off the top of my head, though. Not that it matters to me. To be frank, I could care less about him. What truly concerns me is when his successor will take over the position. Which could be very soon. His voice alone makes him sound like he's eighty years old, but taking one look at his snow white hair, his steadily wrinkling face, and his dulling gray eyes makes Master Makarov seem only a mere 25 years old. That's his general appearance. At least, since I last came face-to-face with the twisted old man. For all I know, he could have gone completely bald, lost a limb or something like that. Even the thought of him having one less limb for me to rip from his body makes me smile. The less I have to be around him, the better.
Keeping my ears pricked for any voices, I motion with my tail for Grant to follow me down the eerily lit staircase. Thankfully, we don't encounter any more opposition, and I say this for two reasons. Firstly; it means I have that much more energy and power to speed up this rescue mission, and secondly; I wouldn't have heard Diana's reply to Master Dragore's question. Yes, it took me this long to remember the name of the person responsible for the misery of all Celestial Spirits. His existence matters sooo much to me - insert sarcasm here.
"Actually, I do have some last words to say," Diana chirps up, her voice filled with sudden confidence. "But first, let's take five."
Grant and I are the only other people of whom fully understand what my little sister means by taking five, and with that knowledge set in our minds, we race down the steps and bolt across the room, skidding to a halt in front of her. Grant quickly puts up a shockingly powerful barrier around the three of us - hehe, get it? It will probably be much more time than I really need, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. After taking a moment to confirm that my love can hold his own, I turn to the vulnerable, kneeling, and quivering figure that is my invaluable little sister. Her wrists are locked in a pair of shackles that are bolted to the wall with the help of chains. At least they're long enough to let her sit down.
Rose, stop thinking like that, she's your own sister, for fuck's sake!
Screwing up my courage, I look into Diana's wide, deep blue eyes. Her gaze is fixed on mine. Standing here in front of her, I feel my heart twisting in pain at the sight of her in such a helpless state. Hearing Master Dragore's amused laughter tears me from my daze and I whirl around to face him. I have to make sure to keep my cool and stay behind Grant's protective electric barrier. Just looking at him makes the fur on the back of my neck rise up in riveting disgust.
"Well it seems that taking a hostage was a wise idea after all," the wizened guild master chuckles. "Tell me, Diana," he muses, shifting his focus to her. "How does one domesticate a wild animal such as this?"
…
That's it, you old fart.
No sooner than he turns to give me a malicious, shit-eating grin from the other side of the barrier, I pounce at his wrinkling face, raking my claws from one side of his head to the other in a single swipe. I can't help but congratulate myself when I watch the blood start to pour out from both of his eyes. Or rather, what's left of them. Before he can call upon his forces to attack, I turn to my two comrades, flattening my ears and covering one of them with a paw, silently praying they read the message correctly. To my relief, it couldn't have been any clearer. As Grant blocks the receptors in his and Diana's ears, I take in as much air as my lungs will allow. The air shudders with the sheer volume of my deafening roar, and the windows immediately burst into millions of shards. While the dark wizards' ears are still ringing, making them disoriented, I rapidly heat the shackles binding Diana's wrists. Once the metal reaches the point where it's flexible enough-.
"Ice-Make Absolute Zero!"
The clash of the two temperature extremes causes the shackles to break, and the first thing my sister does is kneel in front of me and hug me tightly. The second thing she does… Let's just say I fully deserved it, and we'll leave it at that.
"This-," she snarls, giving my left shoulder a firm wallop. "Is for taking so damned long."
She pulls her hair around to the front, turning her head to reveal a scar an inch behind her ear. Whoever did this obviously took their sweet time with it, too. The end of the letter R is linked to the letter Z. The lines where the skin had been broken were pretty thin, but because the blood had dried, it stood out so much more. She had been branded as a Rogue Zodiac, and judging by the swelling and depth, it's going to be permanent.
"We're goners, Rose."
The look of despair in her eyes is heart wrenching, and with it, my adrenaline fueled rage dissipates, which reverts me back to my human form. Kneeling here in front of my little sister, I see no trace of the assertive, commanding young woman whose eyes blazed with unknown depths of wisdom. The weight of our cause, and the twelve other lives for which I am responsible, has just now fallen so heavily upon the entirety of my being that I fail to notice Eric sneaking up behind me. In what felt like the blink of an eye, Eric slams me face down into the floor, and some of his guildmates restrain Grant and Diana. I try to flip over onto my back, but he's kneeling directly on my spine, and the soles of his shoes are pinning my wrists to the ground.
…
I was so focused on getting Diana out of here alive that I had carelessly forgotten the threat this whole guild poses to the existence of all Celestial Spirits. Hearing Grant and Diana struggling furiously against the wizards holding the, I have a sudden thought. Sure, it's not my best one, and there are more ways it could go wrong than I care to think about. But it will have to do. Putting up a mock struggle, I prepare myself for the one thing that goes against all of my instincts right now. Little did I know that in doing this, my plan would veer off on another tangent that would serve me all the better.
"You sure know how to put up a fight," Eric compliments, making me struggle even more. "No matter. I can give that a temporary fix!"
The young leader brings his fist down on my head with unexpected force, but I had sensed the shift in his weight and prepared myself accordingly. In response to the collision of his fist with the back of my head, I unintentionally let out all the air in my lungs in a scream of agony. The unfortunate part is that I couldn't force myself to take in another breath, no matter how hard I tried. The weight of his entire body was sitting directly overtop of my ribcage, and it was much too heavy for me to lift… Unless I wanted to break almost all of my ribs and die for real.
Oh yeah. I'm going there. But don't worry, I have Grant. If he was able to stop my heart with just one look and a few words, by the starry heavens he can start it again. My head is throbbing so badly. I can faintly hear Grant demanding me to wake up, his voice seeming to harmonize with Diana's-. Oh my. The words spewing from her mouth make me shudder in fear and also proud to have taught her well. Suddenly, just as a black curtain comes over my field of vision, the weight from my spine is lifted, and I frantically gulp in massive amounts of air. However, I feel Eric's knees move to pinning my shoulders, and one hand forcefully holds my head down.
"Eric, you fucking twisted prick!" Grant bellows, struggling against the burly dark wizard's steadfast grip. "You get that knife away from my woman!"
Just as he says this, I feel a sharp pain in the right side of my neck, behind my ear. I know what he's doing, and I know there's absolutely no way I can stop him. Let alone do I have the the strength for it. I can feel the sharpness of the blade, and despite my hatred of Eric, I find myself praising the care of his weaponry.
"You really take good care in sharpening your weapons," I compliment him, wincing as he begins the second letter.
"I may want your kind dead," he laughs, leaning in closer to my right ear once he finished the second letter. "But I want to watch your blood flow like rivers before me… Not have you be tortured to death by infected wounds because of a dull, blood-rusted knife."
He suddenly shifts his weight, and I get the momentary impression that he's finished, when a thought crosses my mind.
I'm the leader of my kind, I begin to think, but Eric finishes for me.
"... And every leader deserves to have some sort of special recognition."
The next thing I know, the searing agony of hot metal being forcefully pressed against my skin radiates just beside the markings Eric had given me, and my nerves scream against the sensation. When the hot metal is removed, I feel my anger beginning to take over, and in the blink of an eye, it's lost… Lost in a tense silence that seems to crackle with electricity, only broken by Grant saying something I'd only heard from him once before.
"THAT'S IT, MOTHERFUCKER!"
He storms over to me, picks Eric up without any effort and turns on his heel, throwing the soon-to-be guild master at the opposing wall. When Eric slumps onto the floor, his nose bleeding from the impact against brick, my boyfriend stands protectively in front of me, his vest and braided-back hair luffing in the unseen waves of pulsing electricity surrounding him.
"It's showtime, bitches!" Grant snarls, the power around his body somehow reacting to his words, instantly encasing him in a glowing orb of light. He's exerting massive amounts of rage which entices me into my beast form. Looking back to where my sister was, I find myself staring in awe at the majestic form of a Bald Eagle. She lets out a piercing shriek, diving into the throng of Celestial Blood's ranks. In her wake, a trail of icy wind follows, freezing every enemy wizard she passes. She circles the room several times and then returns to where I'm standing, now back to my human form, looking at me with urgency in her piercing eyes. I quickly scan the room for Grant, who's standing over the motionless form of Master Dragore, holding a strange object in his hand. As I approach, he rapidly stuffs it away in his pocket and whispers gravely to me.
"You know what this means, don't you…?" he asks, turning his sad blue gaze to mine.
I give him a small nod, taking his hand and pulling him along, my heart hammering anxiously. Every one of my instincts is telling me to get out of this god-forsaken guild.
"Yes, I know. But we can deal with that problem later. Right now, we need to get ourselves back to the guild… Alive."
With that, the three of us race upstairs, Diana flying ahead to take care of any enemy wizards that might be waiting as an ambush. Thankfully, our exit goes uninterrupted and we bolt out of the guild, Gajeel only giving us a questioning look before following us back to Fairy Tail.