This chapter's song is Eosin Waste by Flutter Rex.
Nexus stands tall on a ruin, his skeletons at his control with but a thought. Lyon takes one look at him and sends an Ice Make: Bird in his direction, the Ice mage reasonably sure that he can take someone like that, in plain sight.
A Skeleton Archer knocks back an arrow, sending it flying towards the bird and shattering it before it got anywhere near Nexus.
Lyon is taken aback, looking at the skeletons before him. "There's- there's a necromancer here?!"
Nexus smiles, turning to his opponent, sending the skeletons after him and continuing to smile at the Ice Make Wizard. "Not what you expected?"
"Exactly what I expected, actually." Lyon replies, creating a Tiger and watching it bat at the skeletons calmly, growling. Another Archer lets an arrow fly, hitting the tiger in the heart, as the others strike at it as they can.
This Archer, however, seems smarter than the others, another arrow flying directly at Lyon instead of his creatures.
Lyon's spell is interrupted, him trying to make a bird to attack Nexus yet again. The arrow sticks through his hand, and from it comes a black ooze, his limb turning black slowly as the poison spreads. Cursing, the Ice Make Mage rips it out of his hand, and glares at the necromancer. Determined to do something about it, he tries to make another spell, only to cry out in agony.
"The fun part of Necromancy is that it's Death magic, meaning that anything that one of my Skeletons touch, other than me, of course, is poisoned. Including any weapons they might have." A dark chuckle escapes his lips, and he jumps down from his perch, approaching his opponent.
"I won't kill you, though. Be glad of this fact."
Lyon's tiger is finally overwhelmed, and eagerly the remaining skeletons close in, only halting when Nexus holds up a hand. The ice wizard is sweating profusely, the curse spreading to his torso now. Finally, Nexus' enemy is down, and he heals him with a touch.
"He has done me no wrong. What's up with you, Morrigan?" Nexus says, aware of his Sister's presence, close.
"I'm trying to find someone worthy to fight, but I can't seem to." she remarks distastefully.
"What about a Dragon Slayer?"
"Not nearly challenging enough."
"Hmm…. How about Gildarts?" Nexus suggests, standing upright from his crouch, where he healed Lyon.
"That's a wonderful idea, Nexus. Thank you, Brother." Morrigan says, smiling and flying away on a gust of wind.
Nexus smiles and returns to his post, happy to help. "Now to see if anyone here can really put up a fight."
Morrigan searches the ruins for Gildarts, looking for a challenge. On her way she spies Erigor fighting Dobengal, Vidaldus battling Lisanna, Eve obscuring Orion's vision and aim using White Out.
Cana throws cards at Racer, who avoids them easily, weaving through them and getting closer to Cana with every step. Her defenses aren't going to hold up very well under a barrage of assaults from him.
Continuing on her search, Morrigan looks into the future, not seeing anything yet.
Frustrated, she sighs, and then straightens, getting an idea. Spiralling downwards, she hits Cana dead on, saying to Racer to search for Gildarts while she hurt Cana.
Racer speeds off to search, and Morrigan looks at her prey, picking her up by her hair and dragging her towards a structure, half buried in rubble and ruin.
Still holding Cana by her hair, like she did with Erza, Morrigan slams the girl into the pillars, watching bruises form and smiling, knowing that someone hurting his darling girl is going to attract Gildarts' attention.
Racer zooms back in, and Morrigan throws Cana at his feet, as he says, "He's coming."
"Excellent. I want a challenge." Morrigan states, moving forward to look for the magical behemoth of a mage.
Gildarts' magic makes his entrance for him, the ground literally shaking around the Crash magic user. His burly frame and glare appear before almost anything else, and Morrigan grins at the brown haired man. "Did you miss your little daughter?"
Gildarts' eyes flicker to Cana, who is up, bruised, but still fighting, though Racer's shredding her cards before they can do anything, to him or otherwise.
Cana cries out in pain as Racer lands a strike on her, pushing her back with his enhanced speed. Hmm.
If he hits her any harder, she might actually start losing skin and muscle. Accelerating from a distance of 10 to 15 feet, rapidly, would increase the force behind the strike, allowing for cloth, armor, leather, hair, skin, magical shields, to be shredded, broken, shattered, you name it, depending on the strength of the protection in question and the distance he travels.
It's a fun equation to work with, considering that he could kill a person just by running at them fast enough. It's a favorite way of his to execute people.
He could do the same thing to Cana here, there's more than enough room, especially if it is on a flat surface like this. (136)
Gildarts looks at Morrigan again, rage etched into his features, and as she smirks he sends a wave of Disassembly Magic at her. Flying up in a gust of wind, she avoids it, and it passes by, not harming any. Tilting her head to her right, Morrigan smiles cockily. "Is that all you got, old man?"
Gildarts, still angry, probably more so than is wise, takes a flying leap at Morrigan, who knocks him back with a windburst. He tears through it, rather unsuccessfully, using Crushing Evil, Spreading the Truth: Empyrean. He still hits Morrigan with his fist, imbued with Crash magic, but it doesn't send her flying back nearly as far.
Morrigan recovers, wind supporting her easily as Gildarts hits the ground, creating a crater with his magic leaking out of his power. (137)
"What's the matter, Gildarts? You can't control yourself?" Morrigan mocks, looking at the man. Again, he leaps up, but Morrigan goes to meet his blow, pulling back her own fist and surrounding it with wind magic, accelerating herself at the same time to get more force behind it.
Determined looks echo on each of their faces, and when the two's fists meet, Morrigan smiles at the shockwave created, flicking her other hand at Gildarts and sending him flying into the ground.
Everything starts rumbling, and Gildarts gets up again, his magic forming a white aura around him.
Morrigan actually looks worried here. I'm thinking this is going to be painful.
Gildarts starts gathering up his Crash magic in a huge sphere, and Morrigan prepares Emera Baram, the hand motions automatic. She releases it, just as Gildarts lets his own spell go, the two of them contacting and creating a shockwave, sending Morrigan backwards and everything in the lacrima vision disappears for a while in a vision of white.
A rumbling can be felt, and I realize that the enclosure beneath the arena where they're battling has fallen apart, the contestants subject to natural sunlight again.
Noctus immediately conjures up an umbrella, shading herself and Lucifer, who smiles fondly at her and boops her nose. (138)(139)
Morrigan stands up shakily on the opposite side of the arena, presumably where she landed, if the hole shaped like her is anything to go by.
She glances around, seeing a slightly battered Gildarts walk towards her. Twisting her head down and to the side slightly, she peers into the future, and shakes her head after a few moments. She can't see the end of the battle yet.
He continues walking towards her, and finally, Morrigan makes a decision.
She goes Shadow, and the transformation is so dark, it looks like a raven's wing met the night. Slowly, it moves up from her feet to her head.
Her feet, the first thing revealed, are encased in high heels that seem to meld into her flesh, stopping after her knees, feathers sticking up and making her look like a raven just with that. Continuing upwards, however, her alabaster white skin is revealed for a short while, before black again covers it, the top of her thighs erupting in feathers again, black as night, continuing up her torso and stopping under her collarbone, her chest completely covered. Her arms almost seem to elongate, her hands gaining talons, feathers still adorning her body in random places, the joints most notable. Her head, though, is the most striking, a crown of raven feathers circling her eyes and keeping her hair back from her face, as well as feathers covering her eyebrows and nose. The final adjustment is confirmed when she opens her eyes, the previously white sclera now completely black, shining in the sunlight, with red all around them, radiating out of her eyes.
This is going to be interesting.
Gildarts' Crash magic is powerful enough to make the ceiling of the arena fall down, but that does not help him here. With access to the winds, Morrigan can do almost anything in Shadow Form with the wind moving her as she wills it, but a thought guiding her way.
Unfortunately, like most of the Family, in Shadow Form she is difficult to control, and I can see how this might be a problem. (140)
Morrigan starts to spiral around, going faster and faster, generating enough wind speed and air pressure to cut through literally anything.
Gildarts, seeing her coming at him, sets up a Shield, thinking that the wind won't do any damage to it. Sending a tiny (141) piece of wind at it, Morrigan's power shatters it, leaving Gildarts shocked and the rest of the combatants looking on, even those in the opposite guilds. Morrigan slows down just slightly, enough so that her grin is evident to all. With a small gust of wind, she rises above the spell in an instant and it hits Gildarts, the full brunt of the spell dampened just a bit. Taking up spells in both hands, she summons both a classic scythe and her longsword, rushing at where Gildarts is, wind giving her extra speed.
Gildarts, surprised by the attack, barely dodges any of the swipes, but nonetheless, dodges them until Morrigan's expression changed and she sends an Air Strike at Cana, who screams in pain, reminding everyone that this is a battle, and shouldn't pause for one fight.
Distracted by his daughter's cry, he gets hit by a single strike and immediately grasps his chest, where it landed, in pain. This allows Morrigan to land more, sending him to his knees in pain, gasping for air.
Bickslow, beside me, stands and goes to the window.
"What are you doing?" I ask him, standing as well.
"She's going to kill him." he responds, turning to look at me. "Stop her."
"I trust Morrigan; she won't kill him."
"She will!" Bickslow insists, swirling back to the window and punching it, cracking the glass.
"She won't." I state, but Bickslow ignores me, pulling his arm back for another hit.
I lay my hand on his arm, trying to get him to calm down. "She will not."
He brushes me off with a shake and breaks the glass, his dolls appearing and carrying him out above the middle of the battlefield, where Morrigan is fighting Gildarts, who is making a stand right now.
I groan, rolling my eyes, but my wings come out. I am glad that I didn't restrain them, as odd as they appear.. Flying out of the box, I swiftly catch up to Bickslow, trying to talk to him still.
He readies a Baryon Formation, and I sigh, knowing that this won't be good.
Instead of letting it hit Morrigan, I get in between the spell and it's target, taking the brunt of the attack. People are starting to notice this.
"What's happening?" I hear Jason mutter, probably accidentally, into his microphone.
"I can't let you interfere with this." I say, once the spell has worn off fully, my body smoking slightly.
"She's going to kill him!" he says, using a different magic, Gravity, to try and make me stop.
I negate the effects with a touch to Libra's key, and fly up to level air with him.
"I trust her." I speak, looking at him evenly.
"I don't."
I sigh again, and push my hands together at the wrists, palms flat and exposed to the world, fingers curled in. I turn my hands diagonally, and summon up thoughts of lightning, calling out a strike from the skies, which darken almost immediately and Bickslow's hit with a lightning bolt, then another, and another.
He's not down, yet, though, and hits me with a lightning atronach. Hmm. I didn't teach him that.
I grimace, and punch through it's form, dispelling it as it shocks me. Oh yeah, he's probably trained with Laxus.
This isn't going to be easy or fun.
Yay.
136- They're not supposed to be killing the others, but I have no qualms against it. Depending on how high on the scale they were in importance, it would differ on how angry I'd need to appear, or not. Of course, if they kill Hoteye, Jellal, or Meredy, I'd throw them a party.
137- Crash is immensely powerful, and takes a long time to even adjust to using. Using spells with it, though, is difficult when you're under emotional stress, unless you can control your emotions with a flick of a switch.
138- Shouldn't they be focusing on the game?
139- I actually can't be angry at them for this, they're too cute.
140- The people might see her as the more powerful threat; if she successfully takes down Gildarts, that is. I do have faith in her, but this might prove dangerous.
141- Comparatively.