AN: Hey guys! This chapter's just kind of a warm up to the epicness that is Fairy Tail vs. Hydra Claw. That said, I hope you'll find it enjoyable. As always, favorites, follows, and reviews are greatly appreciated. Enjoy!

Notice: I don't own Fairy Tail, because I'm not Hiro Mashima.

Erza didn't think. Her Blackwing Armor simply appeared on her form in a heartbeat, and she was charging across the water towards the flying warship, towards that horrible man standing on a platform threatening to kill all she held dear, towards that man who had deceived her just to get her strongest allies out of the way. She put all her power and energy into a single, wild slash across Ezra's abdomen.

It passed through his waist like it was made of butter. Shocked that Ezra hadn't blocked her attack, Erza stood back a little before she realized his form was flickering slightly. A projection. That coward. She could see sadness in Ezra's eyes as he spoke again, but she knew that everything about him was fake. It was all a lie.

"Erza, I don't know how I can properly apologize for what I've done. I had no choice but to lie to you."

Erza's face became even more contorted by rage and pain. She kept slashing wildly at the projection. She just wanted to make him go away. "You made me feel safe with you, I spent the night with you, you left without saying goodbye, and then you return two weeks later just to lie to me and ambush my comrades? What is wrong with you?"

Even through it was a projection, Ezra still flinched at Erza's words. "I'm so sorry, Erza. You don't know how hard this has been for me." His projection flickered again and dissipated.

Gray watched in horror as Erza attacked Ezra in a rage. His fellow guild mates were still staring at her. Gray could tell they had begun to doubt her loyalty. That was ridiculous. That bastard Ezra had abused her trust and tricked her into endangering her guild mates, and all his fellow guild members could do was gawk.

"Come on! We've got to help her out!" Now they were all gawking at him. Gray cleared his throat.

"Look, I know it looks bad. But Erza would never betray anyone in Fairy Tail. You all know that! Erza is the most loyal one of all of us! And now she's out there fighting for our guild, and you're all just standing here? For shame!"

He clasped his fists, closed his eyes, and a bridge made out of ice appeared between him and the ship. "I'm going to help her destroy that thing. Now, you could all stand here watching, or you could come and show these jerks just what the Fairy Tail guild is capable of! Let's do this for Gildarts and Gramps!"

A second of silence. Two. Three.

Natsu was the first to speak up, and in doing so he opened a floodgate through which all the other guild members rushed. "No way I'm letting you show me up, ice boy! I'm all fired up!"

"Aye!"

"I'm right behind you, Natsu-ni!"

"My beloved Gray, of course I would follow you to the ends of the Earth!"

"No way I'm letting Pinky have all the fun!"

"I'll give those guys a taste of my Lucy Kick!"

"I'll do my very best!"

"Absolutely not! You're staying here, child."

"Those jerks can't interrupt my drinking session and get away with it!"

"Fairy Tail's strongest team backed up by the rest of the guild is unbeatable!"

"Inspiring one-liners are manly!"

"Big brother, I'll always have your back!"

"This is just like all those inspiring series of one-liners I've read about…"

"Ooo, Levy… you're so smart!"

"The only thing bigger than my sword is my conviction!"

"I swear I'll turn the whole guild to stone!"

"It is strictly against the rules to attack another guild. Those who break the rules must be punished!"

"Let's go, babies!" "Let's go!"

"Ready, Macao?"

"I told you to call me Master!"

"Let's shoot 'em up, Bisca!"

"Right on, Alzack!"

"Pictures of this battle will sell like hotcakes at the shop!"

"This is way better than picking a job!"

"Oui!"

With one unified cry, the Fairy Tail guild mages all charged across Gray's ice-make floor with Gray leading the charge, arriving on the ship's deck just as Ezra's projection disappeared. "For FAIRY TAIL!"

Far above, at the top of each of the seven towers, where the guild members couldn't see, a green magic circle began to glow.

Gildarts and Makarov braced themselves for battle. While this boy Masud didn't radiate any magic power at all, his confidence in what should be a slaughter fest in Fairy Tail's favor made them wary of the boy. He obviously knew something they didn't.

"Shall we get started?" Masud cackled. He held up his left arm, revealing a small, black tattoo of an arrow on the back of his wrist, pointed directly toward his hand. Holding his hand out in front of him, with the palm facing down, he extended his pointer and index fingers, and made a pushing motion with his right hand. The arrow shot across his arm towards his wrist, and disappeared when it hit his wrist. "Shields up," he whispered.

Gildarts braced himself for an explosion of magic power. Surely he must've just activated some kind of seal, right? But no, nothing happened. Masud grinned and charged them.

He was fast. He jumped into the air and aimed a kick at Gildarts' head. Gildarts intercepted the attack with his left arm and socked the kid right in the stomach. Masud was sent crashing into the side of the coliseum. Makarov roared and quickly followed up the attack with a barrage of magical bullets. Gildarts blasted him with a powerful crash spell. The guildmaster then grew into his giant form again and began pummeling where Masud had fallen mercilessly. I know he seemed confident, but there's no way he could come back from that. Guess he was just all talk.

Makarov started when his next punch was intercepted. Masud began standing up, and pushed back Makarov's giant fist.

Gildarts was flabbergasted. The boy didn't even look scratched. How the hell was he doing that?

Masud brushed some dust off his shoulder. "Oof, that is going to hurt later. You two aren't bad, you know. You just need some more diversity to your attacks. Something more than just brute strength."

Gildarts still couldn't close his mouth. "How…"

Masud grinned. "See, I've got this little ditty called Delayed Pain. When I activate it, I'm impervious to pain for four hours. Sure, at the end I'll feel all the pain I put off, but… During the time I've got, I'd say you two clowns are pretty much powerless to beat me. You can't keep me down!"

Masud launched himself at them again. Makarov smashed him into the dirt, and Gildarts blasted him with several high-level crash spells. The floor around him was completely obliterated.

To his dismay, Masud climbed out of the hole, chuckling. "Man, you guys need to get a clue. You can't beat me. Your defeat is only a matter of time."

Gildarts felt his heart sink. This was going to take a while.

Where am I? Sic opened his eyes. For some curious reason he seemed to be asleep at the peak of a mountain. Why wasn't he at home in his cottage? Where was Lucy?

Oh, right. Lucy.

That was why he was here.

Looking down, he noticed with alarm that below where he sat, there was… nothing. Nothing at all. Below the peak of the "mountain" was an endless sea of blackness. The world that once lived below him had vanished.

Is this just… a dream? If I wake up, will I be back at the cottage with Lucy?

"Sic."

Am I hearing things?

"Sic, please answer me."

A voice? Maybe it's real. Is it the voice of the white prison?

"Sic, please. I need to talk to you. Let me know where you are."

No, it's not. That voice came from my own head. This one is from somewhere out in the void.

"I-I'm here." He stuttered.

A man appeared before Sic in the blackness. He wore a whitish blue shirt under a dark blue cloak, and simple dark pants tucked inside laced boots. His blue hair fell all over his face, and under and above his right eye was a very familiar tattoo. He looked like… like… Oh god. Sic gasped.

"Jellal?"

"Hello, Sic."

The guild members had decided to split up to cover more ground in search of the guild's true power source. Gray had gone with Cana, Erza and Juvia. The tunnels beneath the ship twisted and turned in the most confusing patterns, even pointing up and down in 3-D space. It was almost as if they were… intestines. The few enemies they'd encountered thus far had not presented much of a threat- they were all grunts. Gray knew, however, that soon they were bound to find someone who could give them more of a challenge.

He wondered how Erza was doing. He could tell that she was still in a state of shock from Ezra's betrayal, and Gray couldn't blame her. He wanted to ask her how she was doing, but he hadn't dared to. Come on, Gray, man up. She needs your support right now.

Gray opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment, someone triggered a trip wire and in the floor of the corridor opened a pair of holes, which had been placed so that Gray and Juvia fell down one, and Erza and Cana fell into the other. Gray and Juvia dropped like stones and bounced all over the inside of the rounded tunnel before landing with a sickening thud.

Woozy, Gray lifted his head to see Alzack and Bisca standing over him with their backs turned. They appeared to be in the middle of a gunfight. A blast of magic energy bullets erupted on the ground before them, and Alzack and Bisca were sent flying back into the wall behind Gray and Juvia. Gray glanced over his shoulder to confirm that they were unconscious. He struggled to his feet and helped Juvia up. She was swooning. That fall must have really taken it out of her.

As the smoke cleared, their enemies' faces came into view.

"Just as the sun rises in the morning, two fresh enemies have arrived to take the place of their fallen comrades."

Standing across from Juvia and Gray were two figures, one Gray recognized and one he didn't. The one he recognized was Kamarr, Ezra's strange teammate from Head Five. The one he didn't was a woman in her late twenties. Her long black hair spilled out of her cowboy hat. She wore high cowboy boots with spurs, tight skirt and a top that exposed her midriff. On either side of her belt were two old-fashioned Wild West gun flasks. In each of her hands was a magic pistol.

"Yeee-haw! Those two gun mages weren't too shabby, but they were no match for ole' Ginger here! Golly! Nobody can stand up to our dynamic desert duo, right, sugar? She rubbed up against Kamarr's side." Kamarr looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable.

Great. A gun mage who was stronger than Alzack and Bisca put together, plus an S-class wizard from the strongest team in Hydra Claw. This wasn't going to be easy.

Erza and Cana ran through the bowels of Laernus's belly, completely focused on finding the ship's power source before it was able to carry out whatever horrible plan they were devising. Erza secretly hoped it was Ezra so she could have all the more reason to end his miserable life.

They were so preoccupied with their search that they didn't notice the pair of eyes staring their way from inside the wall up ahead.

Grant opened his eyes. His meditation session had been a good one, but there was no more time for that any more. The ones he'd been searching out for so long were finally falling right into his lap.

"Something wrong, Grant?" His companion inquired.

Grant glanced upward at his companion. "No, Flik. Quite the contrary, actually. After the longest time, I'm finally about to fight two others of my own kind."

His companion laughed, and a few locusts escaped his mouth. "Of course you'll leave one for me, right? My friends could use a little feeding."

Grant smiled and rose to his full height. "As you wish."

Stuff's going down! Yaaay! As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you have a nice day.