This chapter's song is Magic by Mystery Skulls.
Unfortunately, it's at that moment in time when Erza's magic decides to release itself, and a shockwave makes everyone, wizard or not, stumble, before the magic of Erza boosts her comrades, though the ones already defeated are still down for the count.
Bickslow, hovering in front of me, calls out swords (142). With a greatsword in his hands, and several dozen floating with telekinesis, he flies at me, sword raised high and gleaming in the sunlight.
Hurriedly, I conjure a battleaxe, its ethereal visage making people wonder at my power and its origins. I put it in a defensive block, the two blades clashing and creating magical sparks. He smiles as we're locked together, and I curse myself as I remember the swords.
I'm impaled from every angle possible, most swords going through one area and out another, although some are deflected by my armor. Gritting my teeth, I push up, getting him to move backwards, and I layer my skin with magical armor, casting a cloak spell of fire as well.
He seems to hiss at this, and I grin, knowing that fire isn't fun for any vampires. (143)
This isn't going to be a good battle or a nice victory, either. I'd mention defeat, but I have no choice in the matter. If I don't win this battle, it's going to give the impression that I am not able to protect my Family and that I am not a serious person, or threat.
I have no choice; I must win this battle, no matter how much it might hurt me, or him. I… regret this course of action, but it is necessary.
Using telekinesis, I pull out the swords all at once, rather than one by one, gasping at the pain and closing my eyes at it. It's still a bother and a pain no matter how many times I do that.
Casting a healing spell, I seal the wounds and glare at my Mate, who looks either shocked or worried. I can't tell at this point and I don't care. (144)
The entire stadium has stopped looking at the actual competition and at our battle now. I'll show mercy later. This is a battle, not to the death, but defeat of the other. I cannot fail.
Using Binding Magic, I latch onto him, pulling him closer and spinning him in a circle, until he breaks it, flying at me instead with his greatsword raised in a strike position. (145)
The backlash stuns me for a moment, and I barely have time to raise my ax to block the blow. He pushes down on the weapon, trying to drive me away, demonstrating weakness.
I leave one hand on the handle, holding the block in place and push him away, not entirely wanting to punch him in the face. (146)
He moves back, and I disperse the battleaxe, pulling out, with magic, a Dragonbone greatsword, waiting for Bickslow to rush me again. I glare at him, unhappy with this turn of events and adverse to the outcome, but I must.
He charges me again, the two swords clashing and I let my wings go slack for a little while, dropping down, making Bickslow move forward to compensate and I use my legs to flip him over my head, sending him flying. He recovers before he hits anything, and I growl.
This time, I charge him, slashing and clashing our blades so rapidly that the world around us starts to blur, the people below captivated. I change weapons, sheathing the greatsword and pulling out two smaller swords, more agile and easier to lodge in someone's body at this speed than a burly sword. With two swipes at him instead of one, it's easier, and I do cut him several times. The cloak spell and armor spell have worn off, and it's made it easier on him to hit me, not suffering from the heat of the fire or the magical armor shielding me.
Bickslow finally stabs me in my stomach, plunging the blade in. He smiles, thinking he's won. Stony faced, keeping the pain at bay just barely, I slide up the blade, moving it through my entire midsection until I reach the hilt. He's horrified by this, and I take the opportunity to stab him twice with my swords, each. His hands now each have a nasty gash, his chest bleeding and his right arm hurt.
It'll take just a tad for the poison to take effect. In that time, I smile at him, closing my eyes like an innocent girl, and he's confused.
Until the poison takes effect, that is. His last expression is one of shock, before a smile. He expected this.
He turns backwards, his dolls still hovering, but without him in a state to control them or keep his balance.
With the conjured greatsword still in me, I dive, my wings folding to catch him faster. Just a few feet from the tallest ruin, I catch him, and my wings work hard to get both of us into the air again. With him in my arms, smiling faintly, but unconscious, I fly back to the box, aware that most people are still watching, and I pull the sword out of me with telekinesis, walking out of the box and then hurrying to the infirmary. It's a common enough poison, but he should have rest afterwards.
It's time to get back to the game.
By the time I get Bickslow to the infirmary and Porlyusica is checking him out, I've missed quite a bit. I didn't want to jostle him unnecessarily, to prevent blood loss, and as such I had to walk at a normal pace.
She looks at his injury, procuring the antidote while giving me a glance that tells me she wants to know exactly what the hell happened. I return her look with one stating I'll tell her later.
I walk out as soon as soon as she's treated his injuries, any unnatural pallor going out as easily as anything. The audience outside has since turned back to the game, though some more curious individuals turned to the inner walkways to watch as I carried Bickslow to the infirmary. It was silent, though, only the slight sound of breathing evident that they were there and alive. (147)
I walk up to the stands, as I can hardly stay in the box with all that broken glass. I should make it something else next time. Every eye near the Dark Brotherhood's section gravitates towards me, and I calmly move up the steps, the stands empty except for Decimus and Fukuro, who seem relieved that I'm okay. They both nod their heads at me, before returning their attention to the games. They have to support our team.
Behind them still, I walk, up to the top of the stands, and pull out enough spells to carve a proper throne together from the stone here. (148)
I take my seat, leaning back and observing the battle from here. Thank Sithis for vampire's improved sight.
So far, Eve has fallen thanks to Orion's expert marksmanship, although Eve also got Racer with an unexpected Blizzard, Morrigan, in Shadow form, has taken down both Gildarts and Dobengal, who somehow wandered into that situation. Lisanna took out Erigor, it seems, but then got tagged out by Orion and Vidaldus' combined effort. (149)
Flare's engaging Nexus' skeletons, cursing herself with her every effort. Really, I wished her to win. She has so much potential. Orion takes the last shot at her, but she lashes out at him with her hair, taking him down by transferring her curse to him too, from the skeleton's touch. Nexus hurries to heal them both, not prioritizing between them besides the fact that Flare's more injured (150). Cana's still battling, though her opponent's changed from Racer to Vidaldus, who finally lands a blow on her with his Succubus spell, turning her into his slave.
"Aw, man! It would've been fun to pit her against her old man!" Vidaldus laughs, before leading her away to find another person to fight.
Cana laughs along and praises Vidaldus like a blind fan girl. (151) "You know it, baby!"
"There's still some game left in everyone standing, folks! Mirajane, Laxus and Lucy are still kicking their opponents out of the game! Jellal and Meredy are wandering around as well. And you can't forget such heavy hitters as Kagura, Minerva, Sherria, Jenny and Wendy!" Jason announces, excited over the battles.
"On the other side, though, against the mages of Fairy Tail, Lamia Scale, Blue Pegasus, Mermaid Heel, Quatro Cerberus, Sabre Tooth and the independent guild Crime Sorciere are powerhouses like Morrigan, Nightshade, Cobra, Midnight, Rustyrose, with newcomers Lucifer and Nexus! It's looking like Noctus and Ortelloth are out, at least for the moment. Onwards with the games!"
Morrigan, still in Shadow form, rides the wind calmly, searching for her next opponent. Nightshade, pulling a tentacle out of the ground and reaching Morrigan's height, talks to her about finding someone to fight. Listening, the Shadowed Morrigan looks around, trying to find two players.
She points with a claw towards one end of the stadium, and pulls Nightshade close to her, the tentacle crumbling into nothingness. Morrigan flies the both of them over to their targets, and Nightshade steps onto a ruin, Morrigan dropping just low enough to not injure Nightshade if she missed. The two nearest them were Meredy and Jellal. They look up at the two of them, and Meredy activates a Sensory Link, looking at Nightshade and Morrigan determinedly.
Morrigan smiles, and her eyes pulsed red. Meredy, unused to Sithis' will, screams and falls to the ground. (152)
Jellal, concerned for his teammate, moves forward in an effort to protect her, only to be tackled by Nightshade, knocking him back a bit. He steadies himself as Nightshade gets up, grinning at her small victory.
"Meteor!" he calls out, his body glowing and he speeds towards Nightshade, his magic a bright yellow.
Nightshade, not quite quick enough, gets hit several times before she slams the ground with her fist, the ground affected by her spell erupting in tentacles and catching Jellal, after he slices through five while continually slowing down.
Using his magic, he vibrates and breaks through them, dissolving most of them in his light display.
Nightshade covers her eyes at the display, and glares at him. I can tell what she's thinking, that he's beneath her to even do something like that. How dare he hurt her and challenge her magic, when she is clearly superior.
She transforms into Shadow force, her outfit instead of a black, now with a silvery sheen adorning it and making it catch the light. It's a moonlight collecting outfit. She's….. no…..
She can't. Can she?l
Huh. Turns out she can. Nightshade, using her Shadow Form, raised the moon to form an eclipse. Although it is a recent new moon, she raises it full, and everyone stops what they're doing to look at her.
She's practically exploding with power now. Her moon magic is now completely at it's fullest, and Jellal backs off, trying to get himself ready for the inevitable attack. With a single raised arm, Nightshade sends a Moonbeam at him, with the Heavenly Body mage using Meteor to try and avoid it.
This is pointless, as it follows its target until it hits them.
He yowls in pain at the sensation of the white hot magic searing his flesh, burning through his clothes and touching skin.
Meredy is fighting against Morrigan, whose smile doesn't disappear, pouring her magic into creating a tornado around Meredy, lifting her off the ground and sending her swirling into various objects, including Jellal, at one point.
Nightshade, grinning, creates creatures of moonlight, forming avatars to combat Jellal. His punches and kicks do little damage, but as soon as one of them lays a finger on him, he yelps in pain, the essence of pure moonlight burning him.
"You are not as pure as the moon, and not as pure as I am." Nightshade says, her eyes glowing white, the irises disappearing. "Nothing is as pure as moonlight."
Her whole being starts to shine, and I look on, my eyebrows raised slightly. This is impressive.
Morrigan, seeing what Nightshade is doing, hops next to her, clasping her hand in hers. Together, they raise their hands upwards, speaking in unison, "Lunam corvas summa spiritus! Lunaris penna clarigatio."
The resulting blast left the after effect of the initial blast of moonlight as light feathers, hurting anything they touched. Luckily the area of effect is limited to about 50 feet, so no one outside the arena was affected.
Jellal and Meredy both are lying on the ground, twitching, probably blinded, at least temporarily, and are down. Every time a feather lands on them, they twitch some more from the magical and physical pain.
"I don't believe it! Jellal and Meredy are down by the power of Nightshade and Morrigan!" Jason announces, actually dumbfounded.
Both of my Sisters power down, back in their normal form now. The moon goes back down, the temporary eclipse over. (153) "Who to fight next?" Nightshade says, while Morrigan laughs. "That was easy." she states, looking at the unconscious bodies of their opponents.
"Who will that powerhouse duo take down next?" Jason announces. "And who will win the MVP award for the Grand Magic Games this year?"
As they stand together, two beams hit them, one golden, the other a yellow.
"Lucy and Laxus, the powerhouse couple, are challenging the delightful duo!" Jason comments, looking on. "Ah, this is so cool!"
Laxus' lightning cracks across the sky, a storm rumbling in while Lucy stands, already in a Star Dress, although I can't quite tell from here which one.
The two prepare to fight, while Morrigan and Nightshade stand up again.
"Come back for more?" Morrigan taunts, and Laxus sends a bolt of lightning her way, which she dodges with a gust of wind.
Nightshade uses her tentacle magic, a massive tentacle emerging from the ground behind Laxus and stabbing him from behind his torso, raising him up.
I suck in a breath, seeing myself in that position, only with Miraak there instead of Laxus. A few tears slip by me, as I'm reminded that I'm horrible, forever, alone in my destiny.
Forever.
I shake my memories off, the sorrow and regret receding. The focus on the battlefield is Lucy now, whose face turns to a terrible rage. This isn't going to end well. I pull up a thought projection, sending it to an official. "If Laxus does not resume fighting in thirty seconds, bring him to me and I will heal him at the cost of his outing of the game."
After I issue the order, the thought projection dissolves, and the officials there look at each other, scared, but nodding, one checking the time.
I doubt he'll get up, but I don't want anyone dead yet.
Arriving at the scene is Vidaldus and Cana, ready to fight Lucy as well, before she uses Regulus and hits both of them in the stomach, sending them flying and knocking both out in one move. Her rage is fueling her magic, interesting. As she sends a Regulus Arrow, courtesy of both Leo and Sagittarius, towards her opponents, Morrigan tries to divert it with wind, but cannot, because of the Regulus enchantment. It strikes her, and a legion of them rain down on the two of them, Morrigan and Nightshade. Nightshade conjures up tentacles to defend her, and silently, the medics remove Laxus, who still hasn't risen. He's bleeding out, as I suspected.
Hopefully I can save him.
Lucy's panting, her rage fueled rampage dwindling out, with Morrigan out and Nightshade's defensive capabilities tested. (154)
The Celestial Mage is so exhausted, taking down Cana, Vidaldus and Morrigan, she just drops to the ground, Nightshade a little stunned at this. (155)
"No… fight?" she says, confused, then shrugs. "Whatever."
Jenny fights with all her being against Nexus' skeletons, before being overwhelmed and watching them practically cover her. He moves them off her, healing her and keeping her down with a punch. Her previous injuries impeded her movements, and it wasn't the most fair of fights, but it's a gain for the Black Hand.
"There are only 7 people left on the Black Hand's team, and 9 on the opposing sides against them! It's still anyone's game!"
I finish healing Laxus' wound, and send him over to the Fairy Tail side of things, no note, no message, nothing. I like being kind.
Kurohebi makes his move as I return to my seat, striking out Bacchus with a mirrored Palm Magic, just like the Quatro Cerberus mage's magic. Surprised, because he thought that Kurohebi would use Sand Magic on him, Bacchus is taken out in a single hit, his body hitting a ruin and destabilizing it, collapsing on top of him. His head pokes through and he groans, unconscious.
Rustyrose, confident in himself, traps Sherria in a shell of darkness, not letting up, and she ran out of air eventually. He let her go, her unconscious body appearing out of the imagined magical space. Cobra takes on Wendy, wanting to get revenge for earlier when she handed him defeat.
I feel slightly bad for Wendy, but she can heal herself, so it's no biggie. The young mage's body hits a ruin, and it collapses over onto Midnight, which makes Cobra run over immediately, digging through the pile to find his friend. (156)
Arana and Millianna are up against Rustyrose and Lucifer, who easily defeat the others with Lucifer keeping their attacks at bay by burning them and Rustyrose hitting them with enough Imagination magic to give them bruises to last a year.
The two high five afterwards, as Cobra embraces Midnight close to his chest when he finds him, concerned that he hasn't responded. (157)
Nexus, however, finds Mirajane. "Hello, hello, Mirajane Strauss. What brings you here?"
"Your inevitable defeat." she replies, and goes into her Satan Soul Sitri form, not even skipping a beat at the skeletons' appearance. I think she expected something like this.
Nexus sniggers, and sets his skeletons on her while she transforms. His man skirt is replaced by a short one, with more freedom of movement, with knee guards and sandals on his legs, bandages covering his calves and about half of his feet. His upper arms have gold jewellery circling them, and a little choker collar with a skull on it in around his neck. His gauntlets are on his lower arms, and his silver piercing in his left ear gleams in the light. A piece of armor around his midsection is present, silvery gray, like the rest of his armor.
"Let's roll, Mirajane Strauss." He laughs, and powers up his magic, summoning an undead dragon, along with some more minor beasts.
His eyes beam with power, and his grim smile is haunting.
This should be interesting.
142- An after effect of a wizard's magic release. usually results in mages with no related magic use the deceased's style.
143- That's why I hate the pink haired brat so much, the Fire Dragon Slayer. Besides being annoying, he's a fire wizard. Ugh.
144- I should, of course, give him a token of the possibility of his surrender, but I'm too angry. He just stabbed me with ten swords. I'm not quite in the best of moods.
145- Why did I teach him combat skills? Why?
146- It's gorgeous, that's why.
147- As that happened, though, every other blink was red, and bodies littered the floor, the only two living beings in my vision Bickslow and I. Thankfully, they were faceless, unimportant to my schemes, and I could continue without stumbling. I've seen worse things.
148- Did you think a stadium was constructed with wood when there's fire magic? Hah. As if.
149- Orion loves shooting birds.
150- Triage is something he performs without a thought. Noble.
151- If Gildarts could actually do things other than drooling, he'd probably go kill Vidaldus, maybe actually, maybe not. But he's not, so it doesn't matter. Unless Vidaldus refuses to release her.
152- Sithis blesses us with Shadow Forms, and using Meredy's magic against her, Morrigan sent it to her, allowing her to feel it when she rightly shouldn't. It burns the first time, and several times after. As she is used to it, Nightshade didn't react besides a tiny blip of pain. It's different for everyone, some hear Sithis' voice, laughter, previous Brothers and Sisters, etc, as well, as the forms and transformations being different, as Sithis uses us in different ways, allowing for more variance and more power in that vein. The pain is a byproduct of letting a portion of Sithis' power inside you.
153- Was it just here, or did that actually occur? Nightshade, bringing out the moon in the middle of the day...
154- This is interesting. Laxus, I do not wish to have in my organization. Lucy, however, I could find a place for.
155- I'm not. They were no base prey, and I am now seriously considering asking her to join us.
156- Just his friend, he keeps insisting.
157- He's fine. Just asleep.