Chapter 59: Welcome to the Club!

A/N: Hey everyone! Gonna be quick here, shout out to brucie86 and sashaXmafuyuFOREVER for the review, and to Syra Evermist for the follow. Now, I hope you guys can do math, because if you check the schedule we are down to five fights, FIVE. Then after that some nice tidying up chapters and then we're done. DONE. Do not fret, there will be more to come, maybe, but for now, ENJOY! Oh but first just as background, the battle between Jura and Nena last chapter was about half an hour long, shorter than you thought huh? Well trust me it is important to know, so now ENJOY!

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I land on the roof next to Nena and look her in the eye, we lock eyes with each other and nod our goodbye and good luck and our stay safe to each other, not a single word needed. We walk to the lacrima and I see that my duo is in the room that is the second smallest room of all the rooms and know that it is bad news as there is no room to destroy stuff, one of my specialties. I see that Nena is on the opposite side of the arena and she watches as I run off, about to engage in a battle with a man who had earned his respect and a legend who was washed up now. 'Don't worry babe, I got this. Don't worry about me, I can take care of them. Trust me. Good luck.'

I reach the hole to my room and jump down, reaching the room soon after and see that the duo are arguing about something, "…Shit old man, are you serious! You can't just do as you please! We got put together to work together! NOT so you could try and relive your glory days! You can't just up and leave to go and find someone!" Gajeel yelled at the older one, who's auburn hair had begun to gray and makes him look much older than the last time I saw him.

"Fuck yes I can! She hurt my little baby and permanently making her a non fighting mage, A NON FIGHTING MAGE! She almost completely destroyed her confidence in her magic, and now she isn't even showing up to the guild but instead she's at bars drinking away her sadness! She's completely gone off the rails and its because of what Lucy did to her! And I helped train Lucy! I helped destroy my daughter's confidence!" Gildarts, I do believe, said.

"Oh would you get over that. Honestly, its not your fault that she went and joined her husband's, HER HUSBAND'S, group because she loved him and agreed with him. It's all our faults for driving Natsu away all those years ago, not any one person's fault." Gajeel said but seemed to not be heard.

"Yeah, so you say. I don't care about what happened with Natsu, Lucy was a grown woman and could make her own decisions. Which she did and it hurt my family, and I could have done something, I helped her! Now don't try and stop me, the guy we are supposed to fight isn't even here." He said and made to leave.

"Wow, there. I'm right here! Thanks for noticing by the way." I said and they both looked at me, and Gajeel gulped audibly knowing he was in a for a heck of a fight that he probably could never win. I looked at them both and saw the polar opposites in their belief of my strength, Gildarts thinking I was a fly in his way and Gajeel who knew how strong I actually was.

"Great. Now move, I'm leaving." Gildarts said and I charged him so fast he barely even saw me and I ended up next to him, leaning near his ear.

"Now, now. Why don't you stay and play for a bit. My name is Esoj Anoren, what's yours?" I said and punched him in the gut and then kicked him in the jaw, his head came flying up and as soon as it was in reach I punched him in the jaw. He went flying and I could feel some of his bones crack as my fist made contact, "Wow, I just punched him with my fist and his jaw almost broke. He really is feeling like he's fifty three, in the decline of his career. I wonder if he gets up again.'

I look and find Gildarts shaking his head, shocked by the fact that he just got owned in a matter of seconds. He got up gingerly and looked at me and charged, but I saw him coming from the moment he tried that and beat him to the punch. Literally as I got up close and personal again and punched him in the side, then the kidney, then the jaw, then the gut, and finished my attack with a blow to the head and he sputtered for a second. Then he fell to his knees and was bloodied, breathing heavily from my assault. He looked at me sideways and said meekly as he began to fade into unconsciousness, "Gildarts Clive."

I nodded and saw as he fell face first to the ground, and stopped moving. I walked over to him and kicked his side to see if he was out, he was but didn't look like he was breathing either. I used my foot and rolled him over, then check if he was breathing and he was, thankfully as last time Natsu almost flipped his shit that I killed my opponent. 'I hope he will be ok, I have seen what getting owned like this does to a man's confidence.'

"Oi. Don't forget there's two of us here." Gajeel said and sounded like he was close. He was. He had come up right next to me and used my surprise to land the first blow of our battle, punching me in the gut. I took the hit and grimaced as he was definitely using his steel dragon mode already. I jumped back a bit and took a ball of steel that Nena created for me and yelled, "Nudillo de Acero!" and steel knuckles formed from the ball. I landed and charged back at Gajeel and we started trading blows, each matching blow for blow. I would land one in his gut and he would land one on my cheek, and so on and so forth. It went on for a few moment more before our fist hit the other's fist and we were deadlocked. "Gajeel Redfox!" Gajeel said and I smirked as I knew what he wanted.

"Esoj Anoren!" I yelled back and we separated, having exchanged names and locked fists. We both stared each other down, and then both threw our hand up and yelled simultaneously, "Steel Dragon's Club!" "Ballas de Acero! Escudo de Acero!" My shield of steel appeared as did bullets of steel that flew at Gajeel as his club hit my shield. To my surprise, he didn't dodge the bullets but instead ate them and I remembered that he can eat metal. 'Fuck. Ballas is out of the question then. As is anything that he can grab and then eat. Hmmm, I could go to another type of element or just try and be careful. Hmmm, wait I can use ironwood! Just like Warrod used! Yes!'

"Bastón de Madera!" I yelled and a staff of ironwood appeared, 'Ironwood is the strongest wood known to man and this is what I'll use against him.' I looked at him and he looked at me, then we charged again. "Steel Dragon's Sword!" he yelled and his hand became a sword with spinning metal teeth like a saw. We reached each other and started attacking each other with our weapons, blocking each other at every move, not able to land a clean blow. The he came down with his sword right in the middle of my staff and came down hard, cutting the staff in half. I jumped back a bit and looked at my ruined staff, seeing that cut was clean and the staff still actually had some use for me. I grabbed each end of the two parts of my staff and now had two mini staffs, so I charged again and we started trading blows again. But now I had more weapons than him and was able to use that fact to land some hits on him, using one to occupy his sword and then hit him in the side with the other. I kept doing that for a few minutes until Gajeel leaned back and yelled, "Steel Dragon's Roar!" A burst of steel came at me and I had to dodge, rolling away from him and looking at him as he stood upright.

"Nice. Nice try." I say and he smirks at me and bows mockingly and does his weird gihee thing, although my laugh is not normal either. I then remember something I wanted to ask him and say, "Hey Gajeel, I have a deal for you. If you win, Nena and I will leave Fiore and go home to La Empieza forever, and we leave Ronin. BUT if I win, then you and your family join Ronin and leave Fairy Tail, becoming full fledged Ronin on the spot. Deal?"

(POV Change to Gajeel)

I look at Esoj in disbelief, 'Did he really just make that bet with me? Why? But hmmm, if I win I do what I'm supposed to do and secure my place among the greats of Fiore. The man who defeated the man who killed Zeref, yeah I like that title. And even if I lose, I get to join a group of elite mages who, if they win and become a legal guild, will replace Fairy Tail as the strongest guild Fiore. It's a win-win really. Well then, I guess the why doesn't matter, just the fact that he proposed it does.' I recover and smirk at him, saying, "Deal. But I hope your not too used to Fiore just yet, because when I win you'll be going home."

"Ha! You're a jokester Gajeel. Thinking you can win, how cute. But we both know who the winner will be: me." He said coolly and charged again, and we started trading blows again, but this time I wised up. I purposefully stopped his staff with my sword, and then pushed his hand and staff away and put my hand next to his gut and yelled, "Steel Dragon's Club!" His signature club came forth and extended, hitting him in the gut so hard I swore he saw stars. He stumbled away from me and I kept on the attack. I swung my sword at him a bit wildly and he used that wildness to his advantage, ducking underneath it and coming up with his staff right into my chin. My jaw shut closed as I had had my mouth open to yell and my head shot upwards towards the sky. Then with his staff he swept up my legs and I was parallel to the ground for a second, then he elbowed me in the gut with more strength than usual.

I crashed into the ground and created a small crater from the impact and groaned out in pain. I got up quickly though, as I knew if I wasted any time he would pounce on me and I quickly went on the attack this time. I swing under control this time and barely miss his chest as he was surprised by my quick recovery and jumped back a bit. He looked at me and yelled "Lanzallamas!" and fire spouted from his mouth and came right at me like Natsu's roar. 'Shit!' I rolled back a bit and yelled, "Iron Dragon's Roar!" and my signature roar came out and met his fire. The result was a massive magical explosion and we both we're thrown back a bit. Since the room is so small, however, we both hit the wall and hit it hard.

I groan as my back is now sore but I stand up regardless, as does he and we both walk back to the middle of the room. We then charge again, and meet in the middle and begin trading blows with each other, as our weapons are now gone. We each connect with a blow to the jaw and then to the gut. Then we both start blocking each other's blows and keep going for what feels like hours, but in reality it's only a few minutes. 'Huh, how long have we been doing this for? Hmmm, well after the whole Gildarts thing… Huh, maybe thirty minutes total right now. Fuck!' I feel his fist hit me in the face, as I distracted myself and he pounced on that moment and nailed me.

I fly back a bit and land a bit farther away than where he was, and sense someone else is near. 'Reinforcements? Probably, but for who: me or him?'

Then I see the one man who gave me the creeps when I stayed with them before: Mern. 'Well I'm fucked, two on one is gonna be impossible for me. But hey, at least I get to join Ronin.' Then he did something odd, as Karr came in as well, he looked to Esoj and yelled, "Thorn Sword!" and attacked Esoj. But Esoj knew something was up and yelled, "Espada de Acero!"

"I fucking knew it you bastard. You two were working for the council the whole time, right?" Esoj said and the two of them nodded. I looked at them and cursed myself, for not knowing this beforehand and warning them. 'But there is something I can do for him now.' I ran up to where the three of them were and got behind Karr, getting into my Steel Shadow dragon mode, and yelled, "Steel Shadow Dragon's Roar!" My new roar hit Karr in the back of the head and sent him flying into the wall, where he crashed through it and went out of the arena. Blinked and thought that I knew he was pretty weak compared to me, but not that weak.

Mern turned around and looked at me but then was punched by Esoj into the wall. "Oi, Esoj. You win. I surrender myself and ask to join the Ronin."

(POV Change Back to Esoj)

"Serious?" I asked him, surprised by what he said and he nods at me. "Well, then I accept your request. Repeat after me please."

Gajeel nodded and we both said the motto, "THOUGH WE MAY HAVE NO TRUE HOME WE ARE NEVER ALONE! THOUGH NO ONE MAY WANT US WILL DO WHAT IS NEEDED! THOUGH NO ONE MAY APPRECIATE WHAT WE DO WE WILL ALWAYS DO THE RIGHT THING! WE ARE THE FORSAKEN, THE FORGOTTEN, THE LOST, WE ARE THE RONIN! DEATH TO OUR ENEMIES AND TO THE EVER LASTING GLORY THAT AWAITS US IN THE FUTURE. LIVE! FIGHT! LIVE AND FIGHT FOREVER!"

We looked at each other and he said, "The Redfoxes are at your service, now how can I help?"

"Go and see where Lucy is, I get the feeling something happened and she had to help…um…" I start to say but wonder if I should tell him about Juvia or not.

"Go and help Juvia, yeah I know who she is, never could fool me I have known her for a long time but nice try. I'll be back" He said and I sighed and motioned for him to leave, and he did.

I turned to Mern and saw as he got up and looked at me. I gripped my sword and charged at him, and begun my fight to the death with our mole.

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A/N: Wow. What a good surprise for once! If you're wondering what ironwood is look it up, it's a real thing apparently. Well that's all for today, the count is down to four and Remember! READ AND REVIEW, OR FAVORITE OR FOLLOW EVEN IF YOU SO PLEASE! ADIOS!