Chapter Five
Herries Gunn
"You sure this is how you wanna play things?" the shadowy Ajax asked, appearing from a groove of decaying trees that lined the path towards the dark guild called Herries Gunn, the ones who had ordered the destruction of the Fairy Tail guild.
"Yes, and seeing as you're a part of said guild I could just start with you, it would save me a headache later on." Salamander retorted with venom lacing his voice.
"Actually, my affiliation belongs elsewhere." Ajax told him, pulling down the collar of his t-shirt to reveal a guild mark that was definitely not that of Herries Gunn.
"This guild, Death's Head, shit, even the entire Balam Alliance, I'll destroy all of them if they cross me. It's only a matter of time before you're receiving my judgement Ajax." Natsu promised him, giving him a deathly glare that made the shadow mage disappear immediately, all traces of his magic going with him.
Nobody wanted to be around for what came next.
He'd approached the dark guild in no time at all, knowing that he had no real reason to be here any longer than he absolutely had to. A soft push had been more than enough to get the huge wooden doors to part ways for him, revealing his menacing figure to the inhabitants inside.
Master Gunn himself had been just inside, which made this that much easier for Natsu.
"Salamander?" Gunn raised a single black brow toward an awfully receding hairline, "You were so fast that we haven't even had word of Fairy Tail's destruction, well done." the guild master stated, clicking his fingers at one of his subordinates who immediately rushed off.
"Actually, master wizard's peak, I was defeated and the contract has been flipped. The Fairy Tail mages have become the holders of my attention for the time being, which means that what I'm really here for is to see the disbandment of Herries Gunn." Salamander told them, standing firm with his arms crossed and a deathly aura beginning to surround him.
"You cannot be serious!" Master Gunn gushed in shock.
"We can do this the easy way where you decide here and now to disband this poor excuse for a guild and everyone gets to walk away relatively healthy." Natsu offered them, looking around to see that the idea very much appealed to the weaker foot soldiers of the guild, which came as no surprise.
"And the hard way?" Gunn asked, casually reaching into his thick black coat to retrieve a magical firearm, not that it was going to do all that much against the likes of Natsu.
"The same as the easy way, except none of you are going to feel like sunshine and rainbows in the morning, if any of you survive that is." he grinned devilishly, knowing that this was going to fix the feeling of fulfilment that he'd been robbed of when fighting against Titania.
"Hey boss, this is the fifteen million jewel reward for the Salamander." the goon that had disappeared earlier announced as he hauled a hefty bag behind him, returning to see the aggressive stances everyone had made.
"Perfect, shall we dance now?" Natsu asked as the sounds of gunfire suddenly filled the air.
Bullets went flying, both magical and non-magic, but all were immediately evaporated as they came near the Salamander whose body had been engulfed in flames so bright that most had to shield their eyes.
"Gonna have to try not to burn that jewel bag, I'm not free handing that shit all the way back." he sighed from behind his wall of fiery death.
"Fire Dragon Final Flame!" he yelled before thrusting his hands towards the ground, causing and explosion that took over the entirety of the guild. It was something that could be seen, heard, and felt from dozens of miles around.
In Magnolia Town
A certain blonde mage of the Fairy Tail guild had been returning from an especially tiring job that she simply wanted to put behind her. Deciding to stop off back in Magnolia before going to the guild to report her success, she'd been window browsing when all of a sudden she felt something awful in the air.
She couldn't pinpoint what it even was, just that it was something huge, something that sent a shiver down her spine.
"Do you feel that, Happy?" she asked, looking down at her azure companion who looked back at her with a somewhat confused look.
"Hunger? If that was your question then yes. What did you feel?" the exceed asked inquisitively.
"Something… Dark. I can't say what it really even is, but something awful has happened, something-" she'd been cut off by the sight of the sky turning black, and a huge blaze on the horizon that looked almost like the sun itself was rising in the distance, all before it faded again and everything almost went back to normal.
"Wow." Happy said in awe as they watched the faraway explosion recede. They'd even experienced a shockwave rush over Magnolia, what could have caused something like that? The thought of it sent a shiver down her spine as she pondered.
"Come on, cat, let's get to the guildhall." Lucy ushered the flying blue exceed onwards as they pushed through the streets, oblivious to the uneasy stares she was getting from the people around her.
Just before she'd turned the last corner to the main street where the road to Fairy Tail was, she'd spotted Gray sitting down on the corner, staring absent-mindedly at the ground by his feet.
"Gray, what are you doing out here?" she asked, taking him by surprise as he was ripped from his thoughts.
"Lucy!? Thank the gods that you're back, you've missed one hell of a day." he said, shaking his head almost dismissively.
"Yeah? Well why don't we get a drink and you can tell me all about… About…" she stopped dead in her tracks as she turned the corner and saw exactly the extent of the day she'd missed.
Over in the distance where the once proud Fairy Tail guildhall had stood was now nothing more than a gently smouldering pile of blackened rubble and ash.
"Surveyors have agreed to come out today, probably on account of our reputation, but who knows how long it will be before we've actually got a guildhall again." the ice mage shrugged with a long sigh.
"Gray…" she breathed heavily, the hurt evident, "What happened to our home?" a single tiny tear began welling up in her left eye, threatening to stream down the side of her nose.
"The Salamander happened." Gray looked up, his black eyes holding a kind of emotion that Lucy had only ever seen him show a few times since she'd known him.
"The dark mage?" the Celestial wizard asked, gaining a solemn nod in response.
"That guy, what a monster. He marched in spewing some crap about not being able to find a loophole and kill any of us, telling us that a dark guild had put a contract out to destroy Fairy Tail, he even went so far as to tell us that there was a bonus for every member he murdered. No one was hurt, not really." he shrugged again before taking Lucy's hand and lifting himself off of the floor, dusting himself down once he was standing.
"He fought Erza, things were looking bad for a while until it all just sort of… I don't even know, it just seemed to end in an instant and Erza had beaten him into the ground. It doesn't make sense." he shook his head, still trying to figure out what it was that he'd seen.
"Erza is crazy strong, makes perfect sense to me." the celestial wizard chimed in.
"No, this guy was fighting her back at every moment without breaking a sweat, I mean damn, it even looked like he was just enjoying the fight for the most part and then all of a sudden, boom, fight over. Whatever the case, he's gone now. He said that if anyone could beat him them he would flip the contract on the dark guild that hired him. Most of us assume that explosion to the North was exactly that." Gray reasoned, casting a dark look toward the spot they'd seen the horrific cloud of destruction.
"No way! That can't have been caused by a single mage." Lucy sputtered in horror.
"If you'd have been here, Luce… You'd be thinking the same thing. Anyway, if you still want that drink a lot of us went down to the Broken Carriage once Cana said she'd be waiting in her 'back up' pub for the guildhall to be rebuilt." Gray let out a sad laugh.
"Yeah, let's go, I need to speak to the master about all of this." Lucy agreed as the two of them headed back down the street into the heart of Magnolia, flying cat in tow.
Elsewhere, the scenes of slowly winding down destruction had been watched intently from afar, clear images coming through a crystal ball that gracefully floated in front of those wishing to view the images.
"It would seem that we didn't need to do anything after all." Ultear murmured, looking longingly at the would be dark mage who had waltzed out of the explosion, carrying a large well woven sack over his shoulder, one that was straining against the fabric due to the amount of jewel that had been stuffed inside.
"No, we'll leave that particular string of business where it is for the time being, I can't imagine that anyone from Herries Gunn survived that, but what does strike me as interesting is the fact that he so openly threatened the Balam Alliance…" Siegran muttered, stroking his chin while deep in thought.
"We know so little about the guilds involved with the Balam Alliance. There were rumours some fifteen years ago that the Salamander was involved with one of those guilds, a small guild that was built exclusively with extraordinarily powerful members, but he doesn't look a day over twenty years old." Ultear said, her eyes never waning from the visage in front of them.
"He's certainly steeped in mystery." Siegran agreed to the notion, "Make preparations for him to be at the Tower of Heaven and make sure rumours reach Fairy Tail. Erza will be there of her own volition." he ordered before stepping away, soon just a distant feeling of magic as he went.
Ultear continued to watch the dark mage through her crystal, there was something about him that she couldn't shake, something that drew her in, an unmistakable allure of power.
If Siegrain's grand plan didn't work out, she knew that the only one who would be left standing would be Salamander, especially after that show of destructive power.
She had to hand it to him, it was definitely the quickest and somewhat cleaned way to deal with an entire guild. In one move he had utterly vaporized a rickety mansion of a guildhall and completely eviscerated all traces of the dark mages that held the Herries Gunn guild mark. Thirty six lives had been extinguished and that was a show of strength that he'd had after fighting the Fairy Queen.
"You really are a monster, Salamander." Ultear mused lustfully, biting a single finger as she continue to watch him, knowing that sooner or later he would sense that someone was peering.
That was a problem for another day, for now, she had some work to do ensuring that he would soon be making his way to the tower of Heaven.
A/N: Review?