A/N: So...I was going to wait...but I couldn't! On and...I'm sorry...I know that I shouldn't have, but I did. I couldn't help myself. Plus, it is a really good test for her. Thanks for all the reviews, and I hope to be reading more! Yay!
I do not, and never will, own Fairy Tail!
Chapter Eleven: What!?
"Lucy, wake up! It's time to go!" Natsu jumped excitedly on the bed where Lucy was sleeping.
With a groan Lucy mumbled "Five more minutes," before rolling over and throwing a pillow over her head. She did not want to get up this early in the morning. After the restless sleep that she had just had, Lucy wanted to forget the world existed for the next few hours.
But Natsu was not having it "Lucy, that's what you said ten minutes ago! And then twenty minutes before that!" He whined as his partner. This was strange for him; it was usually Lucy who forced him to get up.
Finally, it was not Natsu, but Erza who got the uncooperative mage up and moving. She did so by pulling the blankets off of her and dumping the girl on the cold ground. It was something that the ex-quipping mage had seen Lucy use on several occasions to get either Gray or Natsu up and moving in the morning. Apparently it was just as useful on her too.
Once up they made their way down to the arena. Natsu had Lucy's hand as he dragged her the entire way. Well most of the way.
About three feet out of the hotel/bar Lucy accidentally smacked right into someone with long blue hair.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she had apologized the moment that she could stand again. She really hadn't meant to run into him. She was taken aback by his appearance slightly, but being the mage she was, she attempted to stifle the gasp and act as if everything was normal. After all, she did see Freed's enchanted eye once, and it really wasn't that different from it. Only both of his eyes were black with green irises in the middle. Plus, he also seemed to be inhuman with his looks in a way. Lucy wouldn't have been able to describe it if she was given a year to try and write it down. There was just something different about him.
"No need to apologize, it was just as much my fault as it was yours," he replied smoothly. Lucy then felt it as he scanned her over for some reason before leaving. She couldn't get the feeling t go away that she should stop him or something. When she had fallen, she had felt her magic do something, but she wasn't sure what. Also, the man seemed familiar somehow, though she was positive that she had never seen him before in her life.
She wanted to go back and speak with him. At least ask him what his name was. Lucy felt that it was important.
She was shoved from her thoughts right when Natsu began to drag her again, and by the time they were in the Fairy Tail box of the arena, all thoughts of the blue haired man had left her mind. She was too excited to see what was going to happen next!
She didn't even know that Loke had opened his own gate right after she had left and was looking around the place they were sleeping. He had felt something that was disturbingly familiar, but he couldn't find anything that suggested it was what he thought it was. But as the leader of the zodiacs, and as Lucy's trusted spirit, he had to make sure that there was nothing around that would endanger his princess.
Back at the stadium, the crowd was buzzing in pure excitement. This next event seemed to call out all of the big hitters of the guilds, and as with any crowd, they wanted to watch an all out brawl ensue between them all. They were even separated by what team they were cheering for so that in the fans minds, they were doing more than just watching this competition; they were a support base for their favorite mages.
As soon as they announced that this was going to be a Chariot Race, Erza stepped forward so that Natsu could not. None of them wanted a repeat of last year to happen.
"And for this Chariot race, we have chariots pulled by horses that care controlled via the SE plugs that are provided. You are to avoid obstacles as well as attacks from other players while you are simultaneously attacking the others. Have fun!" Chapati yelled to both the competitors and the audience.
Almost immediately after being transported into the arena, Erza mounded the carriage with a smirk and plugged herself into the SE plug with a confident look plastered on her face. There was even a gleam of evil in her eyes as she tried her best not to cackle at the challenge before her. The others looked warily at what they were supposed to be driving, but none made any motion to decline the responsibility.
Orga, Jura, and Mira all mounted without that much complaining. Mira looked so sweet as the chariot she picked was suddenly decorated in pink ribbons. Orga and Jura looked intimidating. The others simply looked nervous. Hibiki felt as if he had some chance in getting into the top five. With his Archive, he knew that dodging the obstacles would be no problem. It was the people that he had to deal with that would decide if he won or not.
As soon as they were signaled to start, Erza began her crazy driving and ex-quipped into her Heaven's Wheel armor. With swords flying everywhere, she easily moved into the first position. Once there, she took out half of the shield from the Adamantine Armor set that as well as the staff from her Lightning Empress Armor.
Not a moment too soon. Jura had sent a rock fist towards her, and Orga had fired his black lightning cannon at her as well. Her shield effectively stopped the rock from doing damage, and instead it seemed to spur her chariot on, while she had gathered the back lightning with the staff and had sent it back, along with her own blue lightning towards the God Slayer.
But she did not aim it at him; Erza had aimed at the Chariot's horses that pulled it forward. The act seemed to short circuit them for a moment and they staled. But that was enough for the Chariot to catch up and become a tangled mess that he would have to sort out in order to continue in the game.
The Adamantine shield just barely held up as it was struck with a dark blast from Mirajane who was now fully transformed into her Satan Soul. Switching the Lightning for the Flame Empress Armor, Erza shot flames at the competitors behind her.
So focused on what was behind her, Erza almost smashed into an obstacle, but she swerved right at the last moment and continued to race. It was a testament to her S-class status that she was still in the lead, but Mira was not so easy to beat, and neither was Jura for that matter.
The three were neck to neck for the entire last half of the race. The only thing that differentiated Erza from the other two was that she did not slow down at turns, she did not drive carefully, and she was driving almost too recklessly. That really sad part was that Lucy knew this was the way that Erza normally drove. A scary thought, but it was true.
She crossed first, with Jura coming in second and Mira third. Orga had made it in fourth, a fact that he was not pleased about while Hibiki had been lucky enough to come in fifth. And just like that, Fairy Tail A had made sure that their lead was absolute.
Later on during the games, as they announced each fight, the Fairy Tail mages were getting more and more nervous. They all noted that neither team was being called out, and because this was supposedly random, they began to suspect that they would have to face each other in battle. It was something that neither team wanted to really do, but it was something that they had to do if the decision came through.
Their suspicions were proven correct as the second to last fight was announced to be between Blue Pegasus and Lamia Scale. This left both Fairy teams for the final fight of the day, and that was more concerning than any of them wanted to freely admit.
Master finally spoke for his guild only "I know that this will be a difficult fight, but I trust that both teams will give it their all. No matter what, fight as if they are from a different guild because for just this once you are not allies; you are competitors from different teams, fighting for the same goal!" His speech made all of the mages assembled nod in respected his words and all of the people on the teams silently swore that they would fight to the best of their capabilities.
"Oh, and I will be the house for all bets taken on this game! My cards tell me that it will surprise us all!" Cana said as she looked up from her cards. "And the best part is that it won't be me who goes up there!" To prove her point she held up the lightning card and the death card. Apparently each symbolized the mage that was going to be fighting.
Everyone knew that the lightning was Laxus, but no one could even hazard a guess about which of one of the following people was the death card. But even not knowing that, half the guild had bet on Laxus knowing that he was the strongest of the guild that was there.
"I want to fight Laxus!" Natsu announced as he jumped up and down.
"Natsu, if it was you who he was going to fight the card would have been the Hanged Man." Cana said drolly. This caused quite a lot of snickers from the guild. Some people out right laughed at what Cana had told the fire breather. Everyone also noticed the sly smile that Cana wore. It was clear that she knew things that the others did not. And she wasn't going to tell anyone what it was.
Finally, the time came to discover who was going to have the misfortune of taking on the Laxus Dreyer; the one who defeated Jura of the Ten Wizard Saints single handedly last year in these games.
"Alright, listen up everyone! Today there is a special treat for all of you. The two Fairy Tail teams are going to be going head to head!" Chapati announced to the audience. Every single one of them cheered at that. They wanted to see a good fight. Internally, the crowd wanted to see Natsu and Gajeel fight the most, but they would be happy with anything.
"From Fairy Tail B, we have Laxus Dreyer!" he announced the one that they knew about first. The crowd was silent as they waited for the next name to e called. It was almost an agonizing wait as the announcers knew to make the wait long in order to keep the crowd at the edge of their seats. "And from Fairy Tail A, we have," he paused once again "Lucy Heartfilia!"
The crowd was absolutely silent as they chewed over what they had just heard. The mage in question however, yelled at the top of her lungs "What!"
Her eyes were wide as she looked from Chapati to Laxus and back again. She did not want to fight the lightning dragon slayer at all. This had to be the worst thing that had happened in the games. She just knew that she was going to get crushed in the first five minutes.
Even so, she made her way to the arena and was standing across from Laxus. He was just standing there with his eyes closed and hands in his pockets. It didn't even look like he cared at all. Lucy even wondered if he had somewhere better to be at the moment.
"This should be an interesting matchup. Laxus is clearly the stronger of the two, but I wouldn't count Lucy out all the way. It seems as if her magic has improved greatly. That might make it so that she can last in this fight." Yajima said as he watched intently.
There were murmurs in the crowed about what was said. They all were seated at the edge of their seats.
Once again Mato went over the rules of the fight, and the gongs sounded.
Lucy noted the Laxus didn't move right away, and she took that to her advantage as she took out not one, but three keys.
"Open, gate of the shield, gate of the lion, Scutum, Loke!" She yelled out. Once they were out she said in a clear voice "Gate of the Snake Charmer, lend me thy power, Ophiuchus!" And then there were gasps as she was enveloped in a golden light for a moment.
When the light faded, she was still standing before them, but it looked completely different from the Lucy they had seen a moment before. The physical changes were mostly to her face. Her eyes were now the same as what the Snake Charmer's had been, and her tongue that came out was forked and thinner than it was before. A set of fangs poked out from her upper lip slightly. She also had shadows that seemed to emanate from her body and surround her. In her hand was the shield spirit that she had called out, and to her right stood Loke.
"Don't forget about Stella Accessurum, it will help you deal with his lightning." Loke said as he gave his key holder a look of pride.
"Right," Lucy said, but her voice was much deeper and richer than it had been before. It was a combination of her voice and the voice of Ophiuchus. She concentrated and an eerie golden glow surrounded her from inside the shadows. It was as if she was giving off both light and shadows at the same time. This would enhance her strength and durability slightly.
"What in the world has she done?" Chapati asked as he watched with wide and amazed eyes.
Yajima thought for a moment before saying "It would appear as though she is using the powers of the snake spirit inside of her own body. But I don't really know. I have never seen something like this before."
The members of Fairy Tail in the stands stood there stunned at the transformation that Lucy had gone into. That was, everyone but the five that she had been training with. They simply smirked at her decision to show everyone what she could do. They were proud of Lucy for at least trying to fight against a power that dwarfed her own.
And then there was Yukino who was with the rest of Sabertooth. She had never seen any of the new magic that Lucy seemed to have mastered since the last time that they had met. It caused her to wonder if it was something that one had to discover on her own, or if it was a thing that only the person with the thirteen golden keys could do. Either one wouldn't be surprising to the former Celestial Spirit mage. But as the others of her guild tried to ask her about it, she was almost sad to inform them that she didn't have a clue to what was going on.
Summoning the strength, they both jumped at Laxus. He had shed his coat and was waiting for them to make the first move. Lighting his own fists with lightning, he made it to Loke before the lion could get a hit on him and sent him flying back into the wall. It wasn't enough to send the spirit back to his world, but the hit was hard.
Lucy managed to get behind him and kicked out with more strength that the dragon slayer thought that she had. It moved him a couple of feet and forced him to grunt, but other than that it didn't seem to do much damage. He went to punch her and met the shield's protective barrier. It sill sent Lucy back about ten feet.
"Ssstellam!" She called out in her snake like voice and sent a beam of light directly towards Laxus. He easily dodged it before coming in close and kicking her in the side to send her and her shield flying once again.
Then he unleashed a 'lightning dragon's roar' right at her and she could do nothing but hold Scutum up and hope that he could endure it as Loke tried once again to make a move on Laxus, this time using 'Regulus Impact' to try and do some damage.
"Sorry, Lady Lucy, but that is as much as I can handle," The shield said after the roar was complete as he disappeared.
"Thank you, Ssscutum," Lucy said as she faced the other blond, not sure if she would have time to do anything.
"Lightning Dragon's Heavenward Halberd!" He yelled and before Lucy could react the lightning was speeding towards her in the shape of the weapon he had just named.
A/N" And I shall be evil and leave you all with that! I now that I was evil to even think up this match up, but I really couldn't help it. I had a ton of fun with it, and I hope that you all enjoyed reading it! Please let me know with a review or even offer some constructive criticism. I am open to it. And soon, oh so soon, there will be an even bigger plot twist! I'm very excited if you cant already tell. Thank you for reading!