Hi! New chapter! Enjoy!
Laxus gritted his teeth as they ran, he really didn't want to keep the kids out here much longer, plus Wendy's condition was seriously deteriorating.
I've gotta get her to the castle, fast. I can teleport, but then I'd leave these kids out here...argh, I've got no other choice, if we don't hurry, Wendy might not make it!
Laxus suddenly stopped their mad dash and the others skidded to a halt a few feet after him.
"What's wrong?" Jack demanded.
"I've got to teleport. I'll take Wendy, give her to the nearest person I can find, and come back for you. Got it? I'll take the shrimps too."
Laxus crouched and seized the girls, holding them in one arm while his other arm cradled Wendy. He absolutely dwarfed his smaller guild mates, and the visiting cowgirl .
"You three keep running for the castle, I'll come back and get you as soon as I can." Laxus ordered.
Jack nodded, putting up the strong front she'd constructed over the course of the day.
Rain still pouring down, Laxus vanished in a flash of lightning into the stormy skies.
At the Draconem Heart castle.
Natsu gripped the edge of the castle ramparts, grinding his teeth as he watched the dragons warring with each other.
Their once storybook beautiful grassy hill had been torn up in great trenches and riddled with holes that attacks are ripped into the earth. The waters of Heart Lake were frothing in the heavy downpour. Everyone out on the turrets was drenched, yet they refused to go inside and watch through the windows. They remained glued to the spot at the mammoth creatures crashed back and forth.
Shadowlogia slashed upwards with her claws, ripping three great wounds across the golden dragon.
"Master Dracoya! We've got to help her!" Natsu snapped and made to fling himself from the rampart.
"No!"
"Idiot!"
Sting seized him by the arm, Gajeel grabbing his other arm.
Holding him back, they ignored Natsu screaming in protest. They dragged him bit by bit a safe distance from the edge of the castle wall.
"Natsu-san, listen! Please, stop! We'll only get in her way!"
Sting begged, clutching the fire dragonslayer tightly by the arm, trying to quell his thrashing as he struggled to break free from his guild mates grip.
"I have to help her! She's gonna get killed!"
Natsu cried out.
"Shut up!"
Orchid had entered the scene and slapped Natsu hard across the face.
This brash action of the garden dragonslayer had shocked Natsu into stillness.
"Please! Master Dracoya is the most powerful dragonslayer anyone knows! She's stronger then any of us by miles! S-She...she'll be okay..."
Orchid's voice cracked harshly.
Cobra came up behind her and put an awkward hand on her shoulder. He knew all to well Orchid's situation, he'd been in the same one, yet they'd taken to dealing with them very differently. While Cobra had hidden himself inside a facade of power and anger, Orchid had slipped into a timid, closed off shell. Cobra had been able to sneak inside that shell the day the two of them had met atop the eastern tower where all the dragonslayers often met.
Orchid let out a choked sob and flung herself against Cobra's chest as Natsu cursed and pulled his arms free, fisting his hands yet not moving to leap the castle wall again.
Cobra let out a startled gasp as Orchid's approach but gently but his arms around her all the same, one around her back and the other hand against the back of her hand.
"She'll be ok." He said firmly.
They all looked out to the battlefield again, and were met with a welcome sight.
Dracoya's dragon had lifted Shadowlogia into the air and slammed it hard into the ground.
The massive black dragon lay still.
One by one, the people across the turrets broke into cheer, Natsu's face slowly split into a disbelieving smile as the golden dragon turned and flew back towards the turrets where everyone waited.
The dragon shrank and changed, and soon Master Dracoya, her regal red gown torn across the stomach, exposing her golden guild mark, landed. One sleeve had been ripped off and there was a huge tear in the skirt of the dress.
The instant her feet touched the castle stones she stumbled forward.
"Master!" Onyx threw himself forward onto his knees in order to catch her before she hit the ground.
"That...wasn't...easy..." Master Dracoya panted, her pale green hair had come free of it's messy bun and was waving into a shape that was reminiscent of a burning flame.
"You did it, Master. You saved us." Onyx whispered.
Master Dracoya smiled faintly.
"Well...that's what I'd set out to do...after all." She murmured.
A bolt of lightning touched down on the edge of the ramparts all of the sudden.
"Cheila!" Laxus barked.
Everyone gasped when they saw the bloodied form cradled in his arms.
"Wendy!" Cheila wailed as she sprinted forward.
"Can you help her?" Laxus asked as KiKi and Kayden ran forward, taking Kylie and Asuka from Laxus's shoulders and carrying the exhausted little girls back into the crowd of wizards.
Cheila nodded stiffly.
"I can try." She said finally as she laid Wendy down on the hard stone ground.
Laxus turned back towards the forest.
"Wait! Where are you going?" Misty demanded, running up to him.
"I've got to go back for Romeo, Cole, and Jack." He said simply before vanishing in a crack of lightning.
As Cheila's magic began to glow and melt into Wendy's beaten up frame, there was heard a rustling out on the hillside.
"...no." Onyx was standing at the edge of the turret, watching as the horrible dragon rose again.
"Oh, come on!" Gray yelled, gripping the top of the turret in fury before turning.
"Lyon! Help me!"
"Alright!" Lyon ran up and the two went into Maker Stance together.
"We'll keep it away from the castle! You guys had better come up with something!" Gray ordered as he and Lyon formed an ice platform, shooting off towards the nightmarish creature.
"Ice..."
"Make..."
"SNOW SERPENT!"
With Gray's hardened weapons ice and Lyon's living ability ice, the serpentine creation was able to deal several punishing blows.
It latched it's fangs into the wings of the dragon, managing to puncture the membrane.
Shadowlogia screeching in protest, throwing back it's head and snapping its wings furiously, the ice snake shattered into millions of glittering frozen pieces.
"Crap!"
Lyon went skating across the ice platforms he and Gray were using to circle the raging dragon.
"What now?" Gray called across to him.
"I don't GRAY LOOK OUT!"
Lyon shot across the ice slide and tackled Gray, narrowly avoiding Shadowlogia's massive claws.
Screaming, the two ice mages fell into a mad tumble, hurtling towards the forest floor.
They were caught by Shadowlogia's large talons.
"Ice make..."
Gray and Lyon began, but it was too late for them, they were sent flying into the air, and falling straight back down into the gaping maw of the salivating dragon.
"GRAY-SAMA!" Juvia wailed as Shadowlogia swallowed the two ice mages whole.
"Gray!"
"Lyon!"
Cries from members of Fairy Tail and Lamia Scale were heartbreaking, and it was all that could be done to restrain the enraged and mourning wizards for going after the dragons blood.
Natsu gritted his teeth, remembering the earnest look on Gray's face when the two had dangled from the spikes on Shadowlogia's back no more then an hour beforehand.
"DRAGONSLAYERS! WITH ME!"
Natsu wasn't to be restrained this time, it wasn't like anyone was trying to stop any of them either. Sting and Gajeel were right behind Natsu.
Fire and iron and light rained down an intense blast against the dragon.
Misty and Onyx leapt the castle ramparts and rolled across the grass, Onyx lifting great pillars of solid stone and hurling hunks of diamond. Misty gathering the rain pouring down all around them and funneling it into a powerful blast at the dragon.
It roared and fell to one knee.
Cobra yelled spell's, showered it with shaped scales of exploding poison, Orchid waved her arms, crying out spell calls, vines tore from the earth beneath it's clawed feet and bound it's ankles to the forest floor.
A great serpent of shadows hissed as it shot forward, Rogue performing a deadly dance to manipulate it from the ground below.
Sting backed up to his partner, and raised it arms to the heavens.
The clouds were swirled until a single patch of bright blue sky let the sun filter through, and the powerful angel creation of the light dragonslayer flew down, wielding it's godly sword.
As the dragonslayers struggled with the nightmare dragon, the other wizards remained frozen in awe on the castle wall.
"Their incredible." Erza whispered, unaware that Jellal was standing directly next to her.
"Indeed." The blue haired heavenly body wizard agreed.
A bolt of lightning struck down on the castle wall and Laxus was there, he dropped his armful of young teenagers and launching into the fight at once.
"Laxus's is here!" Orchid announced as the lightning bolt that commanded attention shot above her and slammed into the dead center of the dragons chest. Incredible spells were flung, claws and roars of nightmare energy were narrowly dodged, and the dragonslayers were giving their all. The furious battle creeped onward, gaining on ten minutes locked in fierce combat.
Natsu let out a shout as his sandaled foot slipped on the rain soaked green grass, and he stumbled onto his back.
Shadowlogia took a deep breath, it's shadowy roar forming in it's mouth.
Natsu crossed his arms over his face and crushed his eyes closed.
The blast was released and struck with such enormous power that the very ground was vaporized several feet deep.
"Natsu!" Gajeel yelled as he flung himself to the side as Shadowlogia snapped her head to the side sent a blast his way.
Gajeel dodged just in time to see clearly past the place where he'd last seen the salmon haired slayer.
He say Natsu staring at the place where he'd been sitting mere moments ago, one arm raised up since his wrist was in a tight grip.
The hand gripping him, the one that had pulled him out of the way, was none other then Wendy Marvell.
Laxus landed next to her in an instant.
"What are you doing!?" He yelled.
Wendy smiled weakly, obviously still feeling the side effects of her life ending wound, and the spell that had restarted her heart.
"I'm ok. Cheila exhausted herself to bring me to as close to 100% as she could."
"Which means your NOT at 100%, so go back to the castle." Laxus ordered as Natsu scrambled to his feet.
"Thanks, Wendy." He said, face firm as he turned and shot back up at the dragon.
Wendy shook her head.
"No! I won't! I'm a dragonslayer too, Laxus!" She cried.
"Dragonslayer or not, your thirteen! I refuse to let you stay here, go back!"
Laxus demanded, pointing.
"No!" Wendy cried out again as she turned and charged the dragon, totally ignoring Laxus.
"Wendy!" Laxus barked, groaning before turning and glaring back up at the dragon.
He shot off of the ground again, and swore that if the dragon hurt or, god forbid, killed again, he would tear it apart with his bare hands.
Yay! Wendy's somewhat ok! Now she's gonna go fight a giant dragon and possibly get eaten. Gray and Lyon have also been eaten. Believe it or not this story is actually nearing it's conclusion. It certainly won't be as long as the first Draconem Heart, no way. So, please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks.