Chapter 426 was incredibly confusing, wasn't it? Honestly, Fairy Tail has been completely turned on its head. The Magic Council is now not morons and includes Fairy Tail's resident Shady Guy(Gajeel), the manga Fairy Tail does not include the guild Fairy Tail anymore, Jellal isn't partially responsible for everything, we don't even know who's evil or not anymore! And in only ten chapters. Someone stop Mashima.
Luckily for my new favorite theory, the girl who looked like Mary(from the spinoff Ice Trail) in Avatar's name is Mary. Here's to hoping she is, in fact, Mary. I wrote this in honor of that possibility. Here, I'm just having Mary use daggers, since we don't know her magic.
I know, I know, this isn't really a broship, but I owe you a chapter. And I'm too lazy to write a proper one. Sue me. I plead "Grey kills Frosch".
Meredy didn't know how she got separated from the others. Fairy Tail, Crime Sorciere, and Yukino and the Twin Dragons were somewhere, where, now that was the question. But now she was stuck fighting that annoying pink-haired girl. Who was surprisingly strong. Much stronger than Meredy could handle alone.
Unfortunately, she was alone. And the girl didn't show any sign of letting up, no matter how many times Meredy hit her with her blades. The Sensory Link wasn't working very well, either. They definitely had some sort of connection, but the girl didn't seem to have enough emotions for Meredy to latch on to. From what Meredy could tell, their connection was Grey-related.
Grey. Oh, he was dead. Or whatever was possessing him was dead. Maybe it was this girl. She did stick awfully close to him when Avatar showed up.
The scary thing about that was Juvia wasn't giving a faintest hint of love-rival sensing.
She just looked lost. Meredy was going to kill Grey. And then she was sure Ultear and Ur would kill him even more painfully, wherever they were. She hoped that wherever Juvia was in this maze of an underground base, it wasn't facing Grey in battle.
Meredy was thrust out of her thoughts as the pink-haired Avatar mage flung another fleet of daggers at her, lacerating her. Deciding that it was only hindering her, she threw off the remains of her cloak as she readied a Maguilty Ray. The girl artfully dodged most, and the ones that did hit her didn't seem to do much, as with all the others. Meredy was cut all over, and this girl barely had a scratch. It wasn't in Meredy's nature to give up. But this seemed hopeless. Usually, Meredy relied on her ability to create Sensory Links between her and her enemies, and connecting and disconnecting them so all of their attacks hurt them as well as her. That wouldn't work on this girl. The Maguilty Sense mage resolved that if she managed to pull through this, she was mastering the limited Transformation Magic Ultear taught her.
It didn't seem like she was pulling through this, though. The girl had somehow kicked off a wall and tackled Meredy, knocking her the ground and rendering her unable to push herself up. Landing a few feet away, the girl smiled cruelly, taking out her last dagger.
"Oh, you look scared. It's okay! I won't hurt you that bad!" Yeah, that was real convincing while she holding a- oh wait. The girl meant that her death wouldn't be too painful. That was even better. Meredy couldn't help it. After all she'd been through, she was going to die at the hands of someone who looked and acted like her clone, in this underground prison?
"What, crying? You must really be scared." The girl came closer, until she was right by Meredy, who had struggled to her hands and knees, still holding that dagger. "I guess you've never faced someone who could resist your general strategy before. Too bad that mother of yours isn't around to protect you." Her wounds leaking blood, Meredy began to drift in and out of consciousness, and those words struck a long-forgotten memory.
Mother…...Ultear…
(flashback)
Ultear wrapped the bandage around a thirteen-year-old Meredy's leg. "There, that better?"
Meredy sniffed. "Yeah. I can't believe I got hurt again. You and Jellal are so strong, and you always have to protect me when we fight dark guilds. I can't do anything myself!"
"Well, we are older than you." the Time Arc Mage pointed out.
"Well, yeah," Meredy shrugged. "But still…...I feel like I'm just along for the ride. Like I said, I can't do anything."
Ultear took a seat beside her, putting her arm around the teenager's shoulders. "I've got something you might like to know. Your magic can be the strongest of all, once you truly master it."
Meredy looked up at her foster mother with wide eyes. "Really? Even stronger than Arc of Time? Or Death Magic?"
The other woman laughed. "Well, maybe not death magic. You know how your magic connects people's emotions, and right now you have to have a very strong connection with someone to perform a link. As you get better, you'll need less of a connection."
The pink-haired girl nodded. "I know that," she said, "But how does it make my magic so strong?"
Ultear leaned back against the cave they were next to, wincing as one of the rocks dug into her back. "There's one emotion that everyone has, regardless of what they're doing. It's the central emotion that causes all others." She looked up at the sky. "Fear. Fear of you, fear of someone else, fear of their past or future or present, fear is always there, no matter what you're thinking. One day, Meredy, you'll be able to tap into that. And no one will be able to beat you, because not only will you be able to beat them, but your links enable you to understand them. And no one can stand up to that."
She smiled at Meredy. "So work hard, ok?"
"Yeah, definitely! As long as you're here, I'm always going to get stronger!"
She jumped up and tried to run into the cave where they had set up camp, probably to tackle Jellal. Unfortunately for her, Jellal had finally caught on to her, and had set a destruction spell right outside the entrance. Meredy flew back several feet, shrieking, as Jellal gave a self-satisfied smirk, a rare expression for him, and went back to conjuring miniature meteors.
Ultear smiled and said, quietly, "And you'll still get stronger, even when I'm not."
(end flashback)
Meredy also smiled to herself. "Now I understand, Ul. And I have gotten stronger."
Summoning all her strength, she managed to reach up and punch her enemy in the face. This gave her enough time to struggle to her feet and bound to the other side of the rocky plateau where they battled.
Once more, she tried a Sensory Link. Reaching deep into the other girl, she found it. A spark that Avatar mage couldn't hide. Fear. And the pink beam flew out of Meredy's wrist, hitting the other girl, who surprise was almost tangible.
"What?! How...it didn't work the first thousand times! How's it working now?!"
Meredy stared at her for a second, and then smiled a bit, almost tenderly. "What are you afraid of?" The girl started, as Meredy felt, through the link, memories. A girl and her sister, beaten by the same kind of jerks who used to try to grab Meredy when she walked around alone during her Grimoire Heart days(they died quickly.) The same girl(who Meredy deduced was the one she was fighting) and her sister on a boat, after being saved by a raven-haired boy(Grey?) and a powerful wizard. Saying goodbye to the boy(who was definitely Grey).
Will we ever meet again?
Her sister dying. Her joining a Zeref(Avatar) cult, in hopes that it could find a way to bring her back.
Yeah! As long as you keep your chin up, I'm sure it will happen!
The girl let out a long shriek and flew at Meredy. Had she realized that Meredy was seeing her memories? Her cute, holier-than-thou attitude had vanished, replaced by anger and that fear, the fear Meredy was now feeding off of. She fought like a true demon now.
"I'm not afraid of something! I don't have anything to be afraid of!"
"Are you sure?" The girl's eyes glinted red with anger as she tried to kick off the wall again, failing when Meredy established another link and tasered herself. "You know how this works. I can feel it. Your fear. Everyone has it." dashing behind a rock to avoid the next volley of sharp-tipped daggers, she sent her own blue ones shooting out as she continued, "You're scared of losing someone."
"Die already!"
"But I'm going to beat you. You've convinced yourself that if we bring Grey back to the light side, you'll lose him forever. He'll hate you for being what you are."
"Shut up!" was the high-pitch, screaming reply.
"I know. I know many who've felt the same. But you need to hear it! I saw your memories! Grey considers you a friend! And he's part of Fairy Tail."
"No! He's a part of Avatar now!"
Meredy ignored her in favor of throwing another Maguilty Sodom. "And Fairy Tail never leaves a friend behind. Ever. So I'm going to beat you, because you're terrified of losing Grey and you can't accept anything besides that." Her enemy's face was contorted in rage as she attempted to block Meredy out, but the Crime Sorciere wizard was unrelenting, "Your fear drags you down! You can't see anything past it! But my fear, my fear that if I do lose Grey to you, that all my other friends will be hurt because of it, makes me stronger! I have to beat you, because you're a threat to my friends!"
And with that, Meredy finally sent the other girl flying into a wall, rocks falling on her
"Fear is the ultimate source of all of our power," she finished, walking over. "You just have to be scared for the right thing."
"What's your name?"
There was a pause, as obviously unwanted tears began to pool in her eyes.
"...Mary. My name's Mary."
"Really. What are you scared of?"
The other girl looked down. "My sister died," she nearly whispered, barely audible. "And...and I thought that Zeref, the ultimate mage, could bring her back. If I did what he wanted. But she hasn't come back, even though I've been here for eleven, twelve years. And Grey came…...I guess…" and now she sounded more like a girl, and less like a demon, "I'm scared that I'm doing the wrong thing. And Grey leaving me, leaving Zeref…...it felt like, if Grey left, I'd be doing the wrong thing." Her voice hitched a little.
Her former enemy smiled. "Well, considering that Zeref did a lot more killing than reviving, whoever's doing the reviving would probably be pretty happy if we snapped Grey out of this mess."
"We?"
"Yeah!" Meredy bent down, and reached out a hand. "So, Mary, want to go be scared of the right thing together?"
Mary looked at her, the anger gone from her eyes. "Amelie would be scared of the right thing. I should too.
Then she'll still be with me, right?"
She took Meredy's hand.
Wow. That was long. Maybe I can count this as a Mary/Meredy broship! Regular updates should resume by Thursday, as there probably won't be a chapter tomorrow.
Requests are still closed. As you can see, I haven't done much for a while, so I still have like seven outstanding. I'm really, really, sorry if you've been waiting! I'll get to them all eventually, I promise!
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