AN: Ok, a bit later than intended, here's the first part of the finale of this arc! Sorry for the delay, this one was...DIFFICULT. As always before we begin, Reviewer Replies!

Lusamine: Well, Zeref is still Zeref in this story, that was not a reincarnation of him. As for the rest, maaaybeee... (^_^)

Curveball: Yep, Ajeel and Wall were in Minstrel to retrieve any divine artifacts they could find from Mildian. If the Fairy Tail team hadn't intervened, Dimaria would've fought them to a standstill and earned an invite to the Spriggan 12. Juvia was an S-Class wizard prior to joining Fairy Tail, her participation was more a verification of sorts, which she was unable to pass due to running headlong into Erza in the first round. Glad you like my lore-dumpy bits, they are rather crucial to explain why things are the way they are, but I also know that a lot of people don't particularly like lore dumps and just want action! Action! ACTION! Is it really a Fairy Tail arc if Lucy doesn't suffer at least a little bit of clothing damage, change outfits or become the subject of fanservice? The dragon isn't Apophis, he's somebody else. Yes, the song and dance number was a bit out of nowhere, but it's just so darn fitting and conveys so perfectly what a complete wacko Amzy is that I couldn't resist. Actually I'm throwing several canon ages out the window for the sake of the plot. Minerva is 11 and adorable, Kagura and Jenny are 15. Lucy's 18 as are Levy, Natsu and Dimaria. Juvia's 19 as is Gray. Mira, Erza, Cana, Gajeel and Jerry are all 20. Yeah, everyone who knows the team knows that it could really have only been one of those two due to their respective magics. Yep, their presence is actually one of the first signs of one of the really major differences to this timeline. As for the nature of this arc, I'm very glad you're enjoying, it was actually the worst received of the entire story when I was posting the original, so I'm very happy that this revised and expanded edition is going over better. (^_^) As for Lucy's Star Dresses, the Leo and Taurus forms are probably my favorite. Lucy looks good in anything, but those two in particular I like. Regarding the distribution of the remaining keys, that remains to be seen (^_^). I'm very glad you enjoyed the lemon basket, yeah, a Princess and the Prophet version may appear at some point. Well it won't be 'God of Magic', I can tell ya that right now. Entirely too presumptuous. Meredy's a full decade younger than Jerry, she's firmly in 'potential adopted daughter' territory at most. And no, closest thing to that happening would be Mirajane's Seilah form.

GodsReader15: Heck yeah it does!

And now, on we go!

…

==Meanwhile, At The Foot of The Great Tree==

…

As the song was winding down, Lucy was trying her best to stay strong. Okay, I've been caught by a psycho dark wizard who just restored herself to her youth and probably the peak of her power by slaughtering dozens of innocent people. No big deal. I'm okay.

She's got who knows how many gigantic shadow beasts that feel like they're made out of pure fear. No big deal. I'm okay.

She fed my keys to that giant monster. Lucy was very much not okay, but she still told herself, No big deal, we'll just tear that monster apart and get it back… even though it ripped chunks out of Taurus and none of our attacks worked on it. No big deal, I'm okay!

She's got me stripped naked and intends to use me as a virgin sacrifice to revive some kind of dark god that'll use my contract to attack the Celestial Spirit Realm and end the world and HOW THE FUCK DOES SHE KNOW THAT I'M A VIRGIN?! The realization that she had most likely been… examined when she was stripped naked was almost the straw that broke the camel's back, and she would have started hyperventilating on the spot if she hadn't been shocked out of her spiral of panic by of all things a spider. Specifically, it was the giant shadow spider with the freaky glowing blue eyes and legs as wide as the footprint of the Guild Hall that unknown to Lucy, Natsu had just finished incinerating about two minutes earlier.

Said spider burst out of the base of the tree and started chittering in a panic to the witch as she was ferried back over to the edge of the pool on one of the jellyfish's tentacles. Lucy couldn't see the witch's expression, but her tone left little to the imagination as she demanded, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE HALF A DOZEN APOSTLES OF THE SUN GOD COMING THROUGH THE CITY GATES?!"

Lucy jumped as a loud screech like tearing metal and agonized screams echoed around the plaza, and the witch spun, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST TRACK OF ONE OF THEM?!"

Another screech led to a full on shriek that sounded like it was bordering on absolute panic, "HE RESEALED YOU IN ONE SHOT?! WHAT ARE YOU ALL STILL DOING HERE?! GET TO THE GATES AND STOP THEM! IF THEY MANAGE TO WREST CONTROL OF THE TREE FROM US THEN ALL WE'VE ACCOMPLISHED IS FOR NOTHING!"

Lucy felt a surge of hope, help was coming! She had no idea what the witch meant by 'Apostles', but if there was anyone who scared this horrible witch who thought it was perfectly fine to kill innocent people en masse to be young and pretty again and was actively trying to bring about the end of the world, then Lucy was rather inclined to think they were probably the good guys, and good guys would not leave her tied up by some kind of perverted jellyfish hanging over a pool of blood and dead bodies and she really didn't want to know what else.

As the monsters turned to scamper away from their mistress, the dragon spoke, "Amzy, calm yourself. The Immortals cannot stand against Apostles, you know that. Keep them here and proceed with the sacrifice at sundown. I will deal with the Apostles at the gate."

The witch looked up at the dragon in bewilderment and then a lot of the tension went out of her, "Of course, thank you Supai. Be careful, you know how powerful Apostles are."

"And I'm eager to find out how tasty they are," the dragon Supai replied before picking itself up and unfurling massive bat like wings. With a gust of wind that wouldn't be out of place in a hurricane, he took off, vanishing into the darkness.

Lucy felt slightly crestfallen and then a very happy thought popped into her head and as she was half delirious from highly justified fearing for her life, she couldn't really help it. She started cackling as she realized exactly who was coming through the gates that a dragon had just gone to fight. A moment into her cackling the jellyfish started stinging her again and the witch shouted, "WHAT IS SO FUNNY?!"

Lucy hung limp as the stinging stopped for her to answer, her breath coming in ragged gasps and pants. Then she picked her head up and gave Amzy the most sadistic grin she'd ever worn, "You just sent your dragon to fight two of the most notorious dragon slayers on the continent."

Amzy stared at Lucy in shocked silence for what felt like a long time, with her jaw open and her face pale. Then she raised a hand like she was clutching something as her eye twitched, "You know, I only need you alive and a virgin for the sacrifice. Everything else is still on the table," a psychotic grin spread across her face, "So how about while we wait, I deal with the only face I've ever seen as pretty as mine? I can't decide, do you want burns, warts or pus-filled boils? Or maybe…"

Lucy's breath hitched as Amzy spent the next five minutes listing off the myriad horrible things she could do to horribly disfigure a person, and then Amzy let out the fakest laugh, "Oh wait, silly me, it doesn't matter what you want! So you just be a good little sacrifice and scream in agony while I work on crafting the most exquisitely horrible potion I can so that even if your little friends manage to somehow overpower Supai, you'll have a little something to remember me by… LIKE A MELTED SAGGY FACE AND THE SCARS FROM EVERY OUNCE OF FAT ON YOU BOILING OUT THROUGH YOUR SKIN!"

Lucy wanted to make a smartass comeback, she really did, but then the jellyfish started stinging and whipping her again. No matter how badly he wanted to snark her captor, all she could really do was scream as Amzy tied up her hair and busied herself furiously mixing the most horrific poison she could come up with.

…

==Meanwhile, At The City Gates==

…

"Well, that's not an ominous trap looking tunnel at all," Levy mused sarcastically as they paused at the very much ominous, trap looking tunnel the spiders had been guarding. Said ominous trap looking tunnel was pitch black, and the darkness inside seemed to be actively refusing to dissipate even in the presence of Dimaria's armor, which was glowing with what they now knew to be pure divinely empowered sunlight.

"The entire city's probably filled with magical darkness so the Immortals can't be re-sealed," Dimaria mused.

"Any idea how we dispel it?" Erza asked.

Dimaria thought for a moment and then shook her head, "That I don't know."

"Oh, you just need to kill the dragon that put it there."

"Ah, well, I guess that makes things easy then," Dimaria nodded, "Natsu and Gajeel can handle a dragon, you both use dragon magic, right?"

Then she realized everyone was looking up at the top of the mountain, and as she followed their gaze, she went pale as she saw why, "Mierda…"

Sitting atop the rim of the caldera the city sat in was a dragon that dwarfed the Immortals. With wings like a bat, the dragon had glowing bulbous violet eyes, was wreathed in inky black darkness that perversely glowed with malicious power in the lightless sky overhead and had scales the color of blood under an armor of segmented black carapace. Twin horns like an antelope's jutted forward from above its head and from its upper jaw jutted two massive saber tooth like fangs, more prominent by far than the rows of fangs lining its mouth. Its body was long and draped over the caldera like the coils of a giant python despite the dozens upon dozens of legs lining its length like the thousand feet of a centipede. A line of fur ran down its spine, revealing the true and massive scope of its coils, glowing faintly in the dark and matching the long floating moustache sprouting from its face.

"TRY ME TRAITOR BORNE!" the dragon Supai roared as he took in a breath so massive that even on the ground hundreds of feet below it created a massive gale, and then he let it out in a thunderous roar. An avalanche of inky black darkness rolled down the mountainside, and nobody was particularly keen to find out what it would do to them. Unfortunately, it was moving over a mile a minute, so it was on top of them before they could get away.

It's a curious, nasty thing Darkness Magic. Even when used for justice and righteous causes, it's still frequently the topic of discussion on which magics should be banned. For perspective, the debate about Charm magic, which is the equivalent of a magical date rape drug and has been almost exclusively as such since its creation, came up twelve times before it met a sufficient vote to be banned across Ishgar. Darkness magic has been brought up one hundred and three times, but ironically never been out and out banned. The effectiveness of such bans is of course rubbish, but it does make bringing charges against those who abuse such magic a lot easier.

Why has it never been properly banned you ask? Because there is always somebody on the right side of the law using it, ostensibly to do good, and it can be used for such. Over the last few decades, two of the most prominent such people are in fact Wizard Saints. Some guy named God Serena who's credited as the strongest wizard on the continent is one of them, I strongly suspect because most people don't know about Master Precht, and the other is Jose Porla. Yes, the same Jose Porla who is the Guild Master in charge of Phantom Lord and just tried barely a month ago to start a guild war. That should tell you a lot about the people who claim to be using it for justice.

What does it do? Aside from the obvious "*POOF!* Haha you can't see me!", if used offensively, it quite literally inflicts raw pain, suffering and destruction on the target. How much pain, suffering and destruction? Well that depends on the user and the target. If it's powered by the user's desire to do things they know are wrong, then the power is proportional to just how much of a psycho they are. If it's powered by the user's desire to make their target suffer for the wrongs they've done, then its power is usually proportional to the amount of things the target believes they've done wrong, modified by what the user believes they've done wrong.

So for example, if a user of darkness magic were to nail a complete stranger who they had no background on, the victim would simply suffer the physical effects of every wrong they could remember having ever done to a person. If the user believed their target was guilty of beating, raping and murdering someone, then the target would suffer a portion or even the entirety or beyond of that beating, rape and murder. Yes, it can just straight up kill somebody in a horrible fashion if the user's powerful and convinced enough, which is where a very large part of the argument against using it for justice comes in: It doesn't care if the user is right or wrong. If the user is truly convinced, then it'll inflict just as much damage on the innocent as the guilty, and no matter who it's used on, it's still all but guaranteed to be instant and horrific torture.

And yes, the psychos can do all that and worse with just the glee they take in doing it. Odd as it may sound though, I'm very glad that despite its inherently cruel nature that it's never been banned. If it were, Mira's magic would be as illegal as it gets.

It's part of what built Mira such a fearsome reputation in her wild and rebellious phase. She liked justice and beating the crap out of people. Whether it stacked or her prowess was just a product of her Satan Soul even she's not sure, but she was actually widely regarded as the most fearsome of Fairy Tail's S-Class because of just how incredibly vicious and dangerous she was prior to leaving her anger behind. Coupled with her raw power, she'd once made an entire Dark Guild surrender unconditionally with just the threat of her cutting loose her magic on them.

So with all that in mind, what do you suppose happens when a dragon who blames humans for the genocide of his brethren and is so consumed with hatred for them that he's willing to bring about the literal End of Days just to return the favor aims an avalanche of darkness magic at humans?

If Erza had been even a millisecond slower on the draw, they'd have all been torn to teeny tiny little shreds of bloody carnage in a matter of horrifically painful seconds. Instead, Supai had to get back airborne a second later as Erza's fighter jet sized swords rocketed up the mountainside to skewer him and then veered and flew into the air after him. Supai's glowing eyes and fur suddenly went dark as he flew to evade, inadvertently confirming how very worried he suddenly was. The justification for his rightful wariness of Erza's blades is a curious thing that I only figured out the reason for after I woke up, but it's relevant here so I'll explain it.

There are a couple of different 'Orders' at work in the world. There's the Divine Order, from the Age of the Gods waaay back when. There's the Human Order from the Age of Man, which my world of origin has been in for the entire AD era and which had started forming back with the dawn of human civilization, but which the world of Fairy Tail has only been in for the last four hundred years. Why such a difference and why does that matter you ask? Because after the Age of Gods came two different ages in the two different worlds.

In the Fairy Tail world, instead of the Age of Man came the Age of Dragons. The dragons, being dragons and rather uninclined to give up the world they could now claim dominion over, managed to keep the Draconic Order up until four hundred years ago. That said, humans are absurdly difficult to keep down, and so the Human Order cropped up and grew alongside the Draconic Order, albeit constantly overshadowed and in the backseat. When Queen Irene of Dragnof and the dragon Belserion created Dragon Slayers to bridge the gap between the Draconic and Human Orders to win the great war known as the Dragon King Festival (funny thing to call a dragon world war ending in an extinction level world spanning genocide), the Age of Dragons was brought to a surprisingly abrupt close. Thus the human order became the dominant one, and Earthland was able to finally enter the Age of Man.

That may all sound rather convoluted, but what it boils down to is the following: Draconic magic, and indeed dragons themselves, operate on a wavelength of such vastly different and more powerful magnitude that human magic generally can't even directly affect a dragon. It's like a tiny clawless kitten trying to take down a human. Annoying? Sure. Genuinely threatening under any but the very most contrived circumstances? Hah!

That's why dragons were able to run roughshod over humanity as they pleased until the birth of dragon slayers, aka, humans adopted into the Draconic Order and therefore able to affect things within it. Gods curiously enough aren't that far above dragons, but they do still hold a conceptual advantage due to the origin of the Divine and Draconic Orders. You see the first gods were also dragons, Apsu and Tiamat, but their offspring were one or the other. The gods beat the dragons in the ensuing clash, so divine beats dragon but not without a respectable challenge and strong possibility of an upset.

That's why Supai was hightailing it away from Erza's blades as fast as he could, because Erza's half dragon and was shooting swords at him with GOD magic in them. On any given day, just like any Dragon Slayer, Erza's got a foot in both Draconic and Human Orders, so any weapon enchanted by her is capable of harming or even killing a dragon. Tack Divine magic into that formula, and Supai was very much right to be running. For the first time since the Dragon King festival, he'd just run into someone extremely capable of killing him, and for someone like Erza, greater size just makes you a bigger TARGET.

On top of that, even if Erza hadn't had all that going on, despite their resistance to human magic, dragons are still vulnerable to dragon grade brute force. Telekinetically controlled swords the size of fighter jets fill that niche too. If Supai hadn't dodged, he'd have been at the very least wounded, and given how he'd had his wings flared like a glorified peacock trying to show off, probably grounded as well since Erza's swords would've shredded them if the way they knocked a massive bite out of the caldera rim and kept going without even slowing down was anything to go by.

Supai banked and swerved, dodging Erza's relentless flock of swords, not easily, but easier than he should've been able to. He of course was very dark, and Erza's swords, being as they were glowing with Sun magic, were needless to say very bright. It actually helped him evade as he could see them clearly while Erza couldn't see him.

That's not to say the team was without options mind you. "You two ready?" Erza asked sharply as another sword lit up Supai briefly, the serpentine dragon twisting around it. Supai narrowly dodged, jerking himself out of the way as Erza stopped her blade on a dime and spun it in tandem with another one in an attempt to scissor him in half. Several more swords shot towards him in an attempt to illuminate him again for another shot.

"Just finished!" Levy replied with a grin as she finished planting Sun Script: WINGS on Natsu and Gajeel. Natsu got off the ground a bit quicker because Gajeel was too busy looking over his shoulder in shock at Levy given that she had just slapped him on the ass in the heat of the moment.

"SUN FIRE DRAGON BOOSTER!" Natsu shouted with excitement as he lit his feet and took off like a rocket, his wings and flames making him easily identifiable in the darkened sky. The thing about Dragon Slayers, a little bit of optical camouflage isn't enough. Natsu may not be the sharpest sword in the armory, but you can't fool that nose!

Natsu shot through the air like a homing missile, used enough to flight from his partnership with Happy that it was second nature to him. Less than a minute after he took off, "SUN FIRE DRAGON'S IRON FIST!" The eruption of white hot flames lit up Supai's entire head and much of his neck and wings, the back blast alone equal in size to Natsu's normal Fire Dragon Roar. It was an attack capable of vaporizing a lake or flattening a town instantly, and one anybody should be very proud to have pulled off.

Unfortunately, a moment later, Supai reminded everyone why dragons are not to be taken lightly. With barely a scorch mark on his scales, the ancient dragon flicked his head to the side like a horse shaking off a fly and knocked Natsu careening through the air. Then Supai's whole body was visible for a second as his mane, eyes and whiskers reignited, just the darkness swirling in around his mouth to unleash another titanic avalanche of lethal darkness.

If he'd been fighting alone, that probably would've been the end of Natsu. Instead, three things happened at once with insane coordination courtesy of Levy's Archive.

Firstly, the darkness Supai was eating was blown away as Erza drew the blades of her Morning Star Armor and fired a super charged Photon Slicer at one of her own suddenly very wide mirror polished swords. In an instant Supai was lit up like he was in the center of a thousand halogen search lights as Erza's burning light bounced off every sword, creating a burning white net of blinding lasers. Supai flinched as his bulbous eyes were flooded from all directions with more light than he'd ever seen and his attack was cut off in an instant by his loss of concentration and darkness to fuel it. It didn't hurt him, but it didn't have to.

The second thing was Gajeel landed on Supai's head, slammed his hand down and roared, "SUN STEEL MAKE: DRAGON MUZZLE!" The result was Supai's deadliest weapon, his breath attack, being taken away by sun god empowered steel bindings wrapped around his head.

The third thing was Dimaria and Levy appearing in front of Natsu, "GIVE US A BOOST!"

Natsu without a second's hesitation inhaled and cut loose with "SUN FIRE DRAGON'S ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!"

"SUN GOD'S…" "SUN SCRIPT…" "SLAAASH!" Dimaria and Levy yelled in unison as Natsu's firestorm propelled them past Supai, scorching him in the process as massive twin blades of light extended from their swords. Their slash formed a great glowing white X across Supai's throat as they passed. The instant they were clear, the impact site of their combination attack exploded in a burst of light and heat that Erza could feel from the ground.

Dimaria and Levy were knocked reeling by the explosion, only for Gajeel to catch them both, toss them over his shoulder like sacks of wheat and race down Supai's spine. He'd turned his arm into a massive and wicked blazing white chainsaw, and he was using it to carve a massive trench down Supai's spine, blood fountaining out behind him as he struggled to keep his balance atop the slick carapace. This wasn't easy at all since, as you can imagine, Supai was roaring in his muzzle and writhing in pain from having his throat slit, but Gajeel still managed quite admirably.

Then Supai rather abruptly fell out from under them and they had to rely on Levy's Sun Script Wings again. Erza had found Supai's wings, and driven her swords through them, grounding the ancient dragon in an instant. Before Supai had even finished hitting the ground, Erza absolutely rained blades down on him. An instant after they made impact, as Erza flew up to join our friends, she set them to spinning. They spun so fast that they resembled nothing more than discs of light, shredding Supai's body away to as close to nothing as Erza could get it.

As Supai was driven from the sky, his wings in tatters and his body rent full of massive jagged wounds, his blood rained down on the jungle below. As Erza's blades spun and tore him to shreds, they flung bits of him all across the valley and rained blood on everything below. To say they painted the entire jungle red would not be an exaggeration.

As the team hung in the air, Gajeel and Natsu felt a shudder run down their spines in unison and swapped a glance. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Gajeel called.

"Yeah," Natsu replied as his hair stood on end all over his body in preparation for what was coming, "He's not done."

"What do you mean not done?!" Dimaria demanded, "We just chopped his head off and Erza turned him into chunky gazpacho! That was an easy top three entry on the list of coolest things I've ever done!"

"Your armor may be protecting you from it," Erza replied, her eyes wide with horror, "But they're right. I can feel it."

"What kind of magic is this?" Levy asked as her less over developed senses began to pick up on it… the air was thickening with the stench of blood and gore, far stronger than even what they'd done to Supai should have produced...especially so high in the air.

"There!" Natsu pointed, "Something's happening!"

"It's over there!" Gajeel countered, pointing at a far different spot of the valley.

"It's fast!" Levy deduced.

"No…" Erza corrected, her face going pale, "He's bigger."

Then as the flickers of purple lightning began to blaze in earnest, the screaming started. Not the screaming of people no, it was the scream of animals, frightened, hurting…dying… devoured.

In the space of a blink, the stench of blood became overpowering. The pressure of the magic in the air and primal sense of danger evoked by the sound of so many animals in pain set every hair on end.

Then the lightning surged up over the canopy, a magic seal forming so large that it seemed to fill the entire valley, lightless soulless black like the very depths of despair made manifest and edged with vicious purple lightning. Levy's eyes raced across the circle, and she went ghostly pale, her magic actually faltering and nearly dropping all of them but Erza out of the sky in response to the horror and shock of what she was seeing.

"Levy! What's he doing?! Tell me I'm wrong about what those symbols mean!" Erza called desperately as the jungle beneath Supai's magic circle seemed to writhe in torment.

"Everything alive that his blood touched is being assimilated!" Levy shouted, "He's building a new body from the flesh of the entire jungle!"

The air itself seemed to shake in response to the thunderous chuckle that echoed up from the malevolent presence rapidly building itself a new form, "RIGHT YOU ARE. I SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN TO INTRODUCE MYSELF IN MY EXCITEMENT TO SLAUGHTER YOU FILTHY TRAITOR BORNE. I AM THE ONE WHO WILL AVENGE THE FALLEN OF THE DRAGON KING FESTIVAL AND BRING AN END TO THE PESTILENCE KNOWN AS HUMANITY. I AM SUPAI…"

From the seal erupted a mountainous form, easily several hundred times the size it had been and now with countless heads. It was impossible in the moment to tell, but Supai had given himself a hundred heads, each far larger than his old one had been. Each one had the same baleful violet glare, and all of them had their gaze locked in unison on my now surrounded friends as he revealed his true nature as, "…THE IMMORTAL BLOOD DRAGON."

.

.

.

To be fair that would've stunned and horrified anybody into inaction. Erza swears up and down she was just surprised and for some reason will not to this day accept that she recovered from the shock with extremely admirable speed and took it like the absolute champ she is.

To wit, she just pulled out two more freakin' swords, switched armors and gave him the most savage grin she could muster. "So, you're a spirit forming a body through a unique brand of Takeover Magic that lets you assimilate the things you take over by contact with biomass already under your control. How unfortunate for you…" SHWOOM!

Erza disappeared in a bolt of light before reappearing on the other side of one of the heads, hanging in midair with her telekinesis as she turned and leveled her… well that spiked club thing can't really be called a sword I think… at the remaining ninety nine heads as they stared at the one she'd just lopped off tumbled to the now desolate valley below, and finished loudly, "…THAT MY RIVAL AND THE VULCANS THAT PLAGUE OUR HOME USE THE SAME MAGIC!"

I think Mira smacked her when she found out Erza inadvertently accused her of using blood magic, but she did have a point about the Vulcans. Since I don't think I've mentioned them yet since I didn't actually know about them at the time, Vulcans are a type of forest spirit which have the rather disturbing ability to use Take Over magic on humans. Yes, they're body jackers, and at the time were responsible for at least a tenth of all disappearances and missing persons in Fiore although that had never really registered with anybody and they were treated the same as any other monster, aka: as mere pests when they were in fact an extremely major problem.

The one upside of all that, is that Erza had something for it. That's how she is. Anything she encounters that she doesn't have a perfect counter for, she goes and gets a perfect counter for after she eeks out a win. That counter is what she had just requipped into: Her Purgatory Armor. She claims it's one of her strongest, but that's just because it's the one that let her beat Mira in their S-Class Trial the very first time she ever used it. It's a jack, or maybe Queen, of all traits. If armor stats were out of ten with ten being the ultimate perfection for that particular thing, the Purgatory Armor would be a 7 across the board. Erza has armors that hit ten for any given stat or situation, but they're all weaker in others.

There's only one thing that the Purgatory Armor does better than any other, and that's causing pain.

Seriously, that's what it's made for. Its primary enchantment aside from the standard physical enhancers is to amplify pain. Even foes without physical form will HURT if that armor or the weapon that comes with it even grazes them. Not a little hurt either. It's a horrible to the point of performance crippling agony, and even if it only earns a blink, that's all Erza needs to utterly demolish her opponents' guards and beat them into oblivion.

Mira says getting hit with it feels like every bone on that side of your breaking at once even if they're not (at least some of them probably will) and being covered in flames and full of acid and broken glass. She lost the instant Erza hit her with it because it left her crumpled on the ground screaming and crying in pain, which I'm very glad I was not present for because I would've almost certainly had a… rather violent reaction. Most things do, which is why Erza almost never uses it. For all that she is the Guild's disciplinarian and high queen of butt whooping, she actually hates causing unnecessary pain and prefers to end things quickly and cleanly. She has to be REALLY desperate (or pissed) to pull the Purgatory Armor out.

That said, it almost never lets her down, and now that she'd enchanted it with a layer of divinity, it wouldn't let her down even against dragons. Supai's ninety nine unified howls of agony and outrage as the pain registered proved that rather perfectly. "CAUTERIZE THE STUMPS AND INCINERATE ANYTHING WE CUT OFF HIM!" Erza shouted as she drew the sword of her Flame Empress armor, "WHETHER HE HAS ONE HEAD OR A THOUSAND, WE'LL HACK HIM DOWN PIECE BY PIECE AND MAKE SURE HE HAS NOTHING LEFT TO REGNERATE WITH!"

"YOU THINK IT'LL BE THAT EASY?! THEN COME ON!" Supai roared in indignation as twenty of his heads unleashed breath attacks at Erza that were much thinner and akin to death beams than the avalanche he had unleashed in his previous form. Unfortunately for him, despite the extra heads, he still only had so much attention to pay. He might've been able to manage the sensory input of a dozen heads, but a hundred? It might've been the only thing really giving my team a chance, and it was a slim chance for sure, but a chance it was.

…

==Meanwhile, In A Cave==

…

I jerked awake, glanced around and sat up, conjuring a small relatively dim light into my palm. I looked at Miguel, Kusi and then the unconscious form of Happy on the floor. I raised an eyebrow, "So, what did I miss?"