And I'm back! I apologize for the 2-month wait. The last month of school was stressful, and even now that it's summer vacation, I have tons to do. I've quit my teaching job to attend grad school, but I'm going overseas, which means I have a TON of logistics to work out, and things just keep coming up. I'm still writing, but not as much as I'd like, and my inspiration for this story is running dry. I always struggle to close out a story arc, which is exactly what the next chapter or two is going to have to be. Then I have a time skip, which is going to be a whole other problem. I hate writing time skips! I'll do my best to get back on schedule, but I can't make any promises, other than that I WILL finish this story.
Anyway, sorry for the long A/N. Hopefully, this chapter makes up for the wait. Enjoy, and don't forget to leave a review! Even a simple "I enjoyed it" or "thanks for sharing" will make my day!
Chapter 30 Dark Reality
They found the townspeople. Or, what they'd been turned into: twisted, half-human creatures with animal features and a glint in their eyes that was no longer completely human.
Harry let slip a very nasty curse word. Laxus did a double-take.
"And here I thought you were innocent."
Harry scoffed. "After hanging out with you for two weeks straight? Yeah, right."
Laxus snorted lightly. "Point taken." He then eyed the creatures before them. "You gonna try and talk to them?"
Keeping his eyes on the biggest one, Harry shrugged slightly. "Can't hurt." He took a deep breath and addressed it. "Can you understand me? We're from the village. We're here to help you."
His response was a disturbingly animalistic growl from a very human mouth.
Harry slowly backed away. "We're not going to hurt you. We're here to help," he repeated, keeping his voice calm and level.
The warning growl continued.
"I don't think they're open to negotiation," Harry said in a low voice.
"If you make one wrong move, those sharp-looking claws are going to tear you apart," Laxus replied matter-of-factly, keeping his own voice low and calm.
"Tear us apart, you mean, Unless you're planning to leave me and save yourself," Harry quipped, his voice still low.
"I might, if you do something stupid."
"The only stupid one here is you," Harry couldn't resist—Laxus had set himself up for that one.
"Oy, watch it, kid."
The lead...creature growled again, its hackles rising.
"I think it's telling you to watch it," Harry muttered. "We should probably leave, very, very slowly."
"Good plan."
Keeping their eyes on the mutated creatures, Harry and Laxus slowly backed away toward the door.
Six hungry pairs of eyes watched their every move. Harry wondered if they (or Laxus) could hear his heart pounding in his chest.
They were nearly at the door when something cracked under Harry's foot.
He froze. Trying to move only his eyes, he looked down—and choked back bile.
"Uh, Laxus?"
"What?"
"I don't think anything's meant to leave this room."
Harry's stomach churned, unable to look away from the viscera and debris that littered the ground.
The thing that had cracked under his foot was a bone. A small one, probably belonging to a rodent. It had been gnawed clean. Hundreds of other bones and bone pieces littered the stone floor. Some spots on the ground were suspiciously rust-colored, and other animal parts lay scattered across the stone. At least, Harry hoped they were animal parts—there was still one villager unaccounted for. (Unless they were the one behind it all.)
"Great. They think we're dinner," Laxus muttered. He took one more step backward, feeling behind him for the door.
The moment his hand touched the doorknob, the largest creature lunged.
"Get down!" Harry threw himself at Laxus, sending the both of them tumbling to the ground. A giant claw swiped the air where they'd been standing.
Harry stopped breathing.
Laxus shoving him off snapped him back into action. The first thing Harry did was blast the door open, to give them space to retreat. Then he rolled away from yet another swipe, over another pile of animal remains (causing his stomach to churn in the process). Then he jumped back to his feet, now behind the creature that had attached them.
"You're not so soft that we can't kill these things, are you?" Laxus demanded as they stood back-to-back, surrounded on three sides by the human-animal hybrids.
Harry hesitated at the almost-human faces around him, but there was no humanity left in their eyes. Intelligence, perhaps, but nothing else, save a predator's instinct to hunt and kill.
"No. If it's us or them, I'd rather it be them."
"Good to know."
A blinding flash of light took out one of them a second later. The hairs on Harry's arms stood up straight, and the resulting crack of thunder nearly deafened him at such close range.
The other creatures immediately went into fight mode. Soon, Harry was dodging claws, spiked tails, and snapping teeth as he fired off spell after spell, ducking and dodging around the creatures' attacks. He was quickly separated from Laxus, surrounded by three of the things.
They were tougher than they looked. Harry fired off a bombarda to buy himself some space to maneuver, but it barely winded them. The same amount of power would have staggered even Natsu. Even the tiny one that looked like a demonic house cat, with snake fangs and all-too-human eyes, barely flinched at Harry's attack. He had to draw out every bit of his power just to make them hesitate. To his horror, Harry found that the darker curses in his repertoire were the most effective.
In addition to growls, roars, and yelps of pain, Laxus's lightning attacks created irregular booms of thunder that echoed deafeningly around the cavern. It kept all the creatures on edge, made them more aggressive and thus more dangerous. Already, Harry had multiple cuts and scrapes on his arms and shoulders when he dodged just a little too slow, or didn't quite have enough room to move.
One of Laxus's lightning bolts singed the fur of the demonic cat. It hissed and changed its target to Laxus, leaving Harry facing a huge thing roughly the shape and size of a bear, with matching claws, but with a human face, and a humanoid thing with yellow eyes and canines more befitting a wolf than a man. Bull horns sprouted from its forehead, thick fur covered its chest and arms, and it had hooves at the end of its powerful legs. Its human fingers had sharp claws at the ends.
Harry didn't want to be in range of either of them.
With a sudden, triumphant shout, Laxus took out another one. Its form, which mostly resembled an upright, humanoid cow with claws and a snake tongue, smoked and sparked on the ground. The stench of burnt hair made Harry gag.
The bear-like creature swiped again with a growl. Harry staggered backward, wincing as the weight fell on his injured ankle. The tip of a claw caught his shoulder. With a savage growl of his own, Harry fired off a way-overpowered bombarda at the thing. It flew backward to hit the back wall, making the entire cavern shake. Dust and small pebbles rained down on them from the ceiling.
The creature dropped and didn't move again. But Harry doubted it was down for good.
In the meantime, though, he turned his attention to the wolf-cow thing.
As he did, it bared its teeth and made a rasping sound and a strange gesture.
Then its eyes glowed red.
Harry caught his breath, then shoved back the panic and attacked.
He barely got off his first spell when suddenly, a spell circle appeared in front of the thing, blocking Harry's spell.
Harry said that nasty curse word again. This one could use magic.
Taking a wary step back, Harry studied his opponent more closely. If it could use magic, he could very well be in big trouble.
Harry fired off another spell, testing it. It dodged normally this time, growling like his aunt Marge's dog Ripper—deep and vibrating, its teeth bared.
It lunged, teeth snapping.
Harry stumbled backward. He tried to sidestep, but his bad ankle gave out under him. Harry fell with a cry. Those sharp teeth bore down on him, saliva gathering along the points.
Harry threw a hand up with a shout, but too late—the teeth were closing on his hand.
A blast of lighting sent the wolf creature flying across the room.
Harry gasped in relief.
"Now we're even!" Laxus called from across the room.
"Thanks!" Harry's heart pounded harder and faster than ever. His hands were shaking as he pushed himself back to his feet, wincing.
There were only three left, Harry saw. The two unconscious ones against the back wall, and the demonic cat, which Laxus was fighting.
Harry took another deep breath, trying to regain his composure. He magicked a new split onto his ankle, then rewrapped it with another quick spell. Testing his weight, Harry let out a sigh of relief as the ankle held. It hurt like hell, but it would bear his weight a little longer.
Glancing around the cavern, Harry saw that Laxus was struggling against the demon cat thing. It was tiny and nimble, and Laxus simply wasn't. He couldn't target it properly, so he couldn't get off a proper attack.
Harry noticed the bear-like creature stirring at almost the same time it lunged for Laxus from behind.
Snarling, Harry flung a vicious severing curse at it.
Inches before its claw would have torn open Laxus's back, its arm fell useless to the ground, completely severed from its body.
With a savage snarl, Harry finished it off with two more borderline dark curses.
Laxus stared. "Should I be impressed or terrified?"
Harry smirked. "Definitely terrified."
The wolf creature had recovered now, too. It lunged for Harry at the same time the demon cat renewed its assault on Laxus.
It made another rasping noise and a gesture. Harry barely got up a shield of his own to deflect whatever the spell was. It deflected off his shield and impacted the cavern wall, where it melted a portion of the rock.
Harry's mouth went dry. He did not want to get hit with that.
And this time it had been faster.
Harry fired off another series of spells, trying to avoid any more dark curses—the unexpected, heady rush that came with the dark magic was a temptation he did not need.
The wolf creature paid it back in kind. Soon the portion of the cavern they were fighting in was covered in divots and holes from whatever spell the thing kept firing off. And right when Harry least expected it, it would lunge and attack with teeth or claws, forcing him to dodge out of the way.
The power required to even bruise the creature was taxing Harry to his limits. He was completely out of breath, gasping as much in pain as exhaustion—his sprained ankle throbbed with every rapid beat of his heart. His knees shook, threatening to give out. He could no longer rely on his agility to avoid the thing's attacks, and he had no time to set any rune traps or get any solid script magic off.
It looked like he had no choice.
Steeling himself, Harry gathered the power he had left. Letting out a deep breath, he quickly fired off three spells in quick succession—another severing curse, a bone breaker hex, and a last bombarda, pinpointed on its chest. The severing spell hit its mark, cleaving its arm from its shoulder. The bone breaker hit it in the chest, breaking its sternum. Then the bombarda spell hit its target, sending it flying backward, where it hit the wall with a sickening crunch, slid to the ground, and did not move again.
A suddenly aborted hiss told Laxus he'd finished off his opponent, too.
With all the creatures dead, Harry sank to the ground, breathing heavily.
Laxus hauled him to his feet after only a few seconds. "We made enough noise that anything within several miles should have come running. We should get out while we can."
"That was the plan."
Harry steadied himself, trying to ignore the way his head spun when he was finally upright. He'd definitely pushed himself too far.
But there was no time to worry about that now.
Laxus led the way out of the hideout. Harry's stomach churned as they passed back through the lab, with the caged creatures. They were smaller hybrids of the ones they'd just defeated, with no human influence. But there was nothing to be done for them—that kind of dark, twisted magic couldn't be undone.
Harry was surprised to find it was light outside still. It felt like they'd been in the caverns forever. But it was still only just past midday. But Harry was unable to go further than the wards surrounding the cave. He simply collapsed once the thick, ugly magic feel to the air was gone. He had just enough energy and magic to erect a rune barrier around them forbidding entry of any living creature besides themselves. Then he completely passed out.
Harry woke with a pounding headache and an unsettled feeling in his stomach, the kind one might get after a disturbing dream they could no longer remember. As he struggled to sit up, a thick fur coat slipped off his shoulders. His shoulder twinged in pain, too. Looking for the cause, Harry found his shoulder had been bandaged. So had the worst of his other injuries, though apparently at the expense of his shirt—the sleeves and bottom hem had been torn off.
Harry was also alone.
Taking a slow breath and forcing himself not to jump to conclusions, Harry probed the area with his magic, letting his aura drift outward. His rune barrier was still intact and fully functional. And as he sat there wondering, the tang of ozone entered his awareness. A moment later, Laxus reappeared, carrying a bundle of sticks.
"I thought you'd sleep longer." Laxus set the sticks down beside Harry, then sat down himself. "How's the ankle?"
Harry grimaced. It still ached and throbbed, only slightly less than before. "I'll survive."
"Your magic?"
Harry turned his probe inward and made a face. "About halfway recovered. Did you notice anything in your search for firewood?"
"No. Which is weird."
"The mage must be pretty far away then. Most of the incidents happened at night, so maybe they have a camp elsewhere, or maybe they spend the day in the village acting normal, and come back and commit heinous acts of murder and mutilation at night."
"You say that like it's just another Tuesday."
Harry shrugged. "I've had worse Tuesdays."
Laxus rolled his eyes, then shook his head. "You're terrifying, you know."
"So I've been told."
"I'm not talking about your magic—though that's...admittedly more impressive than I thought." Laxus grimaced at the admission.
"Did you just compliment me?"
"Not at all."
"...what do you mean, then?"
"Anyone else in the guild—with jiji as the exception—would have panicked, cried, or thrown up at what we saw. You just...took care of it."
"I doubt Erza would have," Harry corrected him mildly.
Laxus waved dismissively. "I mean everyone not S-class."
"Well, duh. They haven't seen anything like it before. There's a reason we have to pass a test to take S-class quests."
"Except this is your first S-class quest. But you barely hesitated."
"I've seen worse," Harry murmured. A mutilated baby dropped into a cauldron, to be reborn as a snake-faced man with red eyes. An actual human's severed hand. His own flesh cut open against his will. Countless tortured humans, who then got up and kissed the boots of the man doing the torturing.
Compared to that, a bunch of half-human creatures weren't that terrifying, even if they were a more immediate threat.
"You've seen worse."
Harry just nodded.
Noticing the sun beginning to set, Harry got to his feet. "We need to either head back to the village or go look for the mage. We can't stay here."
"You're hardly in any condition to—"
"I appreciate your concern—though it's starting to weird me out—but this is my mission. The sooner we put an end to this, the better."
Laxus stared at him, then shook his head. "Like I said. Terrifying." He got to his feet. "All right, then. You're in charge. Where to?"
Harry hesitated a moment, looking at the position of the sun and gauging how much time they had. "We move closer to the cave and stake it out. Wait for the mage to come home. Take them quietly if we can, by force if we can't. I'd rather not kill them, if possible, if only so they can face proper justice and the families of the villagers can have some closure."
"...Let's go, then."
Unasked and unprompted, Laxus helped Harry to his feet. The shock of Laxus being helpful helped him ignore the throbbing pain in his ankle. Harry waved a hand to dissipate his rune barrier, then allowed Laxus to help him limp back toward the cave.