Chapter 4: The Dead Grand Prix
The speed wizard from the Oracíon Seís punted Yuki and Gray into a large tree, the two narrowly escaped a potentially fatal blow, landing on the ground as the blonde stayed up in a branch. "This guy's crazy fast, it's nuts!" Gray exclaimed
"As a matter of fact I'm the fastest man alive. You'll never beat me, cause you'll never catch me. They call me Racer!" he smirked, pulling up one of his red and white gloves.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yuki saw a strand of red hair glide down, causing him to look up to see Akira's group flying away from the ancient valley. "He found the girls!" Yuki cheered.
Racer turned to look, "But how?! Brain would never let them slip away like that! How did they get past him?!" he stared in astonishment.
"They probably just beat him senseless!" Gray retorted.
"Well, end of the line," Racer sighed, jumping towards them.
"Look out!" they both yelled to warn them, however only getting their attention half a second before Racer took them down.
When Natsu crashed he was able to recover fast enough to catch the still unconscious Wendy. Akira had crashed through several large branches, one of them catching onto her right wing, tearing the thin skin. The wound itself healed by the time she got back up but the pain was too intense for her to continue flying at the moment. So she simply scooped up Carla and Happy who had been knocked out, bolting with Natsu, the two ice types staying to continue to deal with, or at least stall Racer.
"I told you, it's the end of the line!" the blonde yelled, rushing at them.
"Ice Dragon Roar!" a pale blue magic circle appeared in front of Yuki's mouth, a controlled blizzard veered in front of Racer, not hitting him but keeping him from catching up as Gray had summoned a giant wall of ice.
"Yuki!" the redhead called out, "You gonna stay?"
"Go on without me. I'll stay with Gray. This guy isn't getting past us." he replied then charged forward.
She hesitated for a moment, "Fine but once Wen's safe I'm coming back for you!" she yelled, pressing on with Natsu, the fire mage yelling the same sentiment to his cool friend.
"I'm impressed you two," Racer praised, "No one's ever stopped me twice before, so to save face I'll give yours a thrashing!" laughed and with another flurry of quick blows the battle between the ice users and Racer began.
Sometime into the fight it was clear that Racer had the speed advantage over two ice mages. Every spell Gray attempted to use against him easily dodged and every physical attack Yuki tried to do was sidestepped and returned with a blow from the fast dark guild member.
"This is getting irritating. We can't hit him like this." Yuki says with an angered look.
Racer was getting cocky at this point and was definitely making it known. Suddenly revving engines could be heard and out of the forest behind him came a bunch of magic motorcycles that surrounded the duo. "What the hell? Magic motorcycles?" Gray asked.
After telling them how they'd never catch him with their speed they both captured a magicycle, Kuro not being fast enough to catch the fiend let alone while carrying his best friend. Once they did they raced off after him in the Dead Grand Prix.
Now that they were on the same level of speed that Racer was at but that still didn't help the ice mages. Each of their attacks failed to land once they were cast due to having to maintain a handle on the bikes as well.
Well into their grand prix they came upon a gorge where Lyon and Sherry were wandering. Racer flew right by the two but Gray and Yuki stopped in front of them. "Lyon, there you are. Get on. I'll explain everything on the way." Without further delay the three ice mages took off leaving Sherry behind.
After reaching a clearing the Lyon managed to get Racer to get off his bike thus ending the Grand Prix and soon after the three ice users did the same. "Hah, 3 on 1 and you all still don't have enough speed to catch me. I must admit you're pretty fast to have kept up with me for this long but it ends here." Racer states then uses his speed to attack all three of them.
After being knocked down, Lyon managed to catch a glimpse of birds flying over the battlefield and then it hit him. He called Yuki and Gray over telling them what he found out before encasing them both in a giant pillar of ice. Just before he did Sherry managed to make it onto the scene and attempted to help Lyon with her Doll magic which proved to be futile.
Lyon told them that he was going to handle this by himself which got some angry words from Gray and Yuki equally. Afterwards Racer knocked him flat to the ground only for Lyon to get back up and started running off.
Once he got to a hill Racer managed to corner him and take him down, calling his bluff, knowing how weak he was. He broke off one of Lyon's icicles and held the jagged edge to his throat before telling him what he learned about his magic. Racer was shocked to know that he figured out how his magic worked which made him look back at the two giant ice pillars.
One was glowing while the other was clearly eaten through. Gray and Yuki smirked, charging their magic which only stopped the speedy Racer dead with fear. "Ice make: Super Freeze Arrow!"
"Ice Dragon Roar!" both ice mages called out with Gray firing his arrow first and Yuki firing after. Both attacks combine and take down Racer, winning the fight.
After a sigh of relief from the three, Racer stood, opening up his jacket to reveal a lacrima bomb. Just as they thought they were screwed, Akira came out of nowhere diving off the cliff with him. The bomb and an explosion going off just seconds afterwards.
"AKIRA!" Yuki yelled, running towards the cliff but was immediately stopped by Gray and Lyon. "No! Let me go! AKIRA!" he screamed before dropping to his knees in defeat and beating at the ground.
Elsewhere, Jura and Hot-Eye were about to have a showdown, suddenly Nirvana's seal was broken and a pillar of black light shot into the air with dark energy flowing out of it, searching for those of a weakened heart to switch to its opposite nature.
Hot-Eye became "good" though explaining even though he did despicable acts he did it for the money to find his long lost brother and was never actually evil. He then explained what Nirvana does in its first stage as him and Jura became friends.
At the same time Yuki felt darkness seeping into him, anger by Akira's apparent death and internally blaming the others for not doing anything to stop her. As a result he turned on the Fairy and Lamia members, blowing them away with a single ice dragon roar.
Sherri saved them with a wood doll, and the three wondered what was wrong. Why would he suddenly turn on them? They even played with the idea that he might've been working for the Oracíon Seís the entire time. Yuki said nothing and felt nothing at this point. He wanted revenge, for the loss of one of the only people who actually gave a damn about his existence, on the ones who just let her perish. Launching himself off of a nearby tree he flew at them, his hands glowing. "Ice Dragon Claw!" he swiped at the trio with extended ice claws that gave him an extra bit of reach.
