Soaring through the air was a new experience – one, Mercury decided, he very much did not like.
At first, it was somewhat comparable to high speed swimming. The air rushing at his face was a lot lighter than water, but it still burned away at the skin with how fast Mercury was flung forward. Bits of dirt stuck to his face, kicked up from the fighting below. It felt like it was wearing holes into the skin of his cheeks.
And then there was the landing.
The… "landing."
Mercury had no way to stop the spear's momentum as it raced towards one of the highest peaks on Phantom Lord's guildhall; he was hardly even able to remain on top of the spear, let alone slow it down at all. That wasn't even mentioning how it just seemed to be getting faster the closer he got to the worn bricks, which was entirely possible based on how the spear's two ribbons seemed to glow ominously – there was definitely some magic going on there.
The tip of the spear took the brunt of the damage, fortunately, sending Mercury tumbling down below.
Even more fortuitously – or perhaps Erza just had good aim – there was a balcony just a couple of feet below the spear's point of impact.
It still knocked the wind out of Mercury, though.
He had to force himself to just lay there for a moment, unable to stop the world from spinning. He was sure he hadn't hit his head anywhere, so it must have just been from the transfer of momentum, or something…
Mother, he was never letting Erza do that ever again.
Slowly, Mercury pushed himself up from the ground. Everything seemed so distant from up on the tiny balcony; the gathered Fairy Tail mages were nothing more than little specks of dust, and even the Jupiter Cannon's barrel appeared as thin as Mercury's own arm. He could hardly hear anything from below. Still, he gave a small wave over the balcony's railing to signal that he'd made it, despite knowing that it was likely still too far away for Erza to make out.
The water mage briefly debated on whether or not he should bring the spear that was embedded almost half a foot into the wall with him. He wasn't particularly experienced with using one – a long life had many advantages, and he'd picked most common weapons at least once or twice, though never long enough to become masterful with them.
It might get in the way, but… Mercury wasn't sure of his chances if he happened to come face-to-face with someone other than Phantom's guildmaster unarmed. He'd definitely have to save any magic to have some semblance of a chance of being a distraction.
Getting it free took a carefully placed foot to the wall and a fair bit of momentum, but the lance easily shifted any remaining cracked bricks out of the way to slide out.
Mercury headed inside the building, forcing the doors open with a kick before forcefully nudging aside a few of the lumber fragments inside. He couldn't help but notice how shoddily made the hallway inside appeared to be. The interior of Phantom Lord's guild hall was nothing like Fairy Tail's, but he supposed that just went to show where Phantom's priorities were; their money was spent on things like a Jupiter cannon, rather than minor comforts like properly built floors.
As if on cue, Mercury's foot smashed through a floorboard. Phantom's guild hall was truly trash. Made him appreciate their now ruined one that much more.
The interior of the building, he noted even as each new door was little more than a blur, was dirty, old, and crumbling. No upkeep seemed to have been done in several weeks. Piles of trash were heaped in front of doors, abandoned by guild members who would rather be fighting than cleaning, and dust lingered in the air. Mercury's footsteps kicked even more up as he ran.
He sneezed.
Phantom Lord's guildhall was disappointing. It didn't feel lived in – at least, not in the same way that Fairy Tail's did. Where were the people lounging about? Where were the quiet activities of members who didn't go on jobs?
Well, Mercury supposed, if a guild favored strength as much as Phantom did, there likely was no downtime. It was just fighting, fighting, fighting until you caught flame, burned out, and then died. Hobbies weren't a thing, and the guildhall was just a place to drink and fight. Each member's personal life was entirely separate from the guild.
It was a place the water mage probably would have hated.
His feet thudded loudly while he turned yet another hallway. They all looked the same to him, but there must have been some organization to it, because some of the doors had nameplates that were descending. Doors closest to the balcony had started in the upper fifties, and as he paced past more and more, he was already down to the twenties.
Mercury hoped he knew what was going to happen when he got to door number one.
Why hadn't he run into any other Phantom Lord members yet? Surely there would have been some performing tasks on the building, or even just guarding the empty hallways. There wasn't even cannon-fodder milling about; the hall was empty.
Had Phantom's guildmaster left all of his men behind? Maybe he was expecting another attack on their base town, or had he planned to try to limit the damages of his mages in the intra-guild conflict?
If so, José was a much nicer man than he thought – but he sincerely doubted it.
Underfoot, things shook. It was coming from far enough away that Mercury was sure it wasn't anywhere near him, and he hoped to whatever would listen that it was Natsu's doing; Jupiter didn't have that much longer to go, so the water mage was trying not to worry about whether it would get to fire a second time.
Now that he was out of the blast radius, for some reason, he wanted it to go off even less than before.
He considered, briefly, going to help the boy, but reconsidered. Natsu could handle whoever was guarding the cannon's core by himself, and now that Mercury was closer, he could at least tell that the dragon slayer's opponent was not José himself.
No, the most foreboding presence was coming from much further inside.
The feeling of José's sickeningly greasy magic soaked the building like oil. It leaked from every open doorway, oozing malice and bloodlust; from the direction and distance, Mercury placed it as close to the very top of the building, which made sense. A haughty, arrogant man like José would put his office all the way at the peak of the building, looking down at everything around him as though less than bugs. The water mage could imagine him sitting in that very office right then, grinning down at the struggling members whilst thinking that they had no chance in hell at surviving. Oh, José would take pleasure in the struggle. It was the chase that predators thought was the most entertaining, watching as their prey slowly but surely lost the will to continue fighting…
Mercury's ears strained to pick up the casual footsteps of someone else over his own. Whoever it was felt heavy, the ground shaking slightly as the steps got closer, yet Mercury could only just barely hear the sound of any of them – were they being muffled with magic?
Yes, he decided, they were, as the heavyset man he'd both been expecting and not expecting turned the corner.
Aria was a large man. Mercury was not small by any means, being one of the tallest in the guild, but Aria still towered over him by at least a full head's height. He was almost as wide as he was tall, nearly making his body a perfect sphere to block off the entire hallway in front of him. The man's arms and legs were thin, though Mercury was sure that they were deceptively strong. His hands seemed more proportionate to his body, the palms easily as large as the water mage's face.
If Phantom Lord took pride in anything, it was certainly not their sense of style. Aria wore a large green overcoat that was left open in the chest, revealing the marigold sweater underneath. His scarf was a blue-ish purple, his necklace was red, and his pants were brown; the man covered nearly every color of the rainbow, though none of it matched.
The water mage stopped short as soon as Aria stepped fully into the hallway. Of course it was the man he least wanted to see that he ran into. This man was certainly the one who had drained Makarov's power, going by what Mercury knew of Phantom's Element Four – which, granted, wasn't a lot, but he'd been able to somewhat get a grasp on Sol and Juvia's abilities while saving Lucy, and he didn't think the "fire" element had much to do with magic power.
Though, "air" wasn't much closer.
Still, it seemed that whatever Aria had done to Master, he either couldn't replicate or didn't deign Mercury enough of a threat to repeat it. The Airspace mage took slow, measured steps towards him without any real urgency. Nothing in his gait led Mercury to believe that Aria was there as anything more than someone to take care of whatever nuisances José thought might pop up. The big bastard kept his blindfold on even as the water mage slid into an uneasy fighting stance.
Mercury didn't even bother asking Aria to step out of the way.
"And who might you be?" the Airspace mage asked, though he certainly didn't seem very interested in the answer, already taking up a stance of his own before the question had even finished coming out of his mouth.
The air rippled uncomfortably, something shimmering lightly. Mercury only had the sense of mind to dodge it because he was used to unseen attacks – one couldn't see water magic in the ocean, after all – and ducked low enough that his head was equal to the tip of the spear in his hands.
Wood cascaded over his face as the airspace magic burst a hole in the wall rather than his face.
"Not one for introductions, are we?" Mercury asked in return. Neither moved after the initial attack, simply waiting for the other to act.
"Giving my name to such an unknown figure… that would be, just, so sorrowful!"
The man broke into tears.
… He couldn't be serious, right?
Aria was, like, seven feet tall, probably three hundred pounds, and yet he was sobbing something fierce in front of Mercury; he could not be for real.
"My name's Mercury, if that makes you feel better, Aria. No need to cry," the water mage said. Underfoot, the rumbling got more severe, though he couldn't tell if it was the building shaking from being hit or from trying to stabilize the giant cannon running through it.
"I am not crying for your sake, unknown one. I am crying for the sorrow of it all. Your guildmates have sent you up here to take on Master José, but your sacrifice will be in vain. Master José will not be defeated by the likes of you, and Fairy Tail will fall under the might of Jupiter. It is inevitable, and that is just so… sorrowful."
The tears were renewed. He was serious. What a fucking joke.
It seemed like all of the Element Four were just weird like that; Sol spoke in between two different languages, and Juvia spoke in third person. Aria made it three out of four, so there was probably something weird about how their fourth member spoke, but Mercury never figured he'd get a shot to find out firsthand.
The water mage figured talking would do them no favors except waste more of his precious time.
He dropped the spear he'd nearly forgotten he had on the ground with a clatter; it certainly might have been helpful elsewhere, but in the cramped little hallway, the tip of the weapon could touch the ceiling or walls if Mercury held it up in any direction. It would be nothing more of a hindrance.
Fortunately, Aira's eyes were drawn to the sound – or, at least, he assumed his eyes followed the spear, because that thick blindfold was still in the way. It wasn't much of a distraction, but it was enough for Mercury to enchant his legs with a speed enchantment.
He reached Aria in about three steps. Mercury wasn't normally particularly fast – that role had been saved for someone else within his former party – though even he could admit that his enchantments were top notch; he even managed to almost take Aria by surprise. If the man wasn't so large, maybe his fist into the man's gut may have even done something.
But it didn't. Aria was fat.
With a grunt of effort, Mercury felt his knuckles dig solidly into Aria's stomach fat. They sank in nicely, but that was it – the taller man didn't even flinch, barely shifting his weight to the side where Mercury had made contact.
This might have been a little more complicated than Mercury had thought.
Still, it was only a single attempt. The water mage threw himself backwards to avoid Aria's counterattack, a first entangled with air that was invisible to the naked eye. It would hurt if that fist made contact. He'd definitely have to try his best to make sure it didn't.
His plan wasn't helped by the fact that Aria's thick body dissolved into the hallway a moment later. It was just as Juvia had done with water, entirely indistinguishable from the air.
The already dim hallway grew even dimmer.
The darkness itself wasn't an issue for Mercury, but he remained wary. Aria could come from any direction. In fact, that was probably how Master had been ambushed, because there was no way the man would be taken out by someone who honestly felt to be less strong than Laxus was.
If everything else failed, Mercury could always flood the man's body with water – though that would require him getting in close again, a feat made impossible by the fact that Aria was no nowhere to be seen. He doubted Aria would be stupid as to let him get in too close again, anyway; he'd presented himself to the man as a close range fighter by rushing him earlier, so Aria was likely to try to out-range him in exchange.
He quieted his breathing and strained to hear anything, any sign of Aria's presence. For a moment, Mercury wondered if Aria had left him; nothing but the sound of wood creaking and distant rumbling echoed throughout the hallway.
Whish!
A small tilt of the shoulders was all it took for Mercury to dodge the air bullet. It was clear that Aria was merely playing with him, and didn't see him as any sort of threat to Josè's plans, because he was hardly putting any effort into hiding his attacks.
Aria thought him to be small fry; Mercury would just have to prove him wrong.
The water mage wasn't great at hand-to-hand combat, but his partner for sparring had always been Laxus, so it wasn't as though he was horrible at it. Those lean muscles were also deceptively tough and strong; Mercury could rather easily handle large stacks of lumber or crates whenever Mira asked. To deal with Aria, it was just a matter of finding opportunities.
Aria could not be taken down with a simple punch to the gut. If he could, he wouldn't have been an S-class mage. The man was nearly indomitable, a walking hunk of bricks that could block any incoming attack – as long as it was aimed towards that fat, anyways.
But the Airspace mage was human. He had joints and ligaments and soft spots. Mercury just had to find them.
The skin on the back of his neck prickled when Aria attacked next, and he wasn't quite fast enough to dodge all the way — but he didn't have to. Luck seemed to finally play a factor in his battles, because the floor rumbled strongly enough that it knocked the man to the ground completely. Mercury barely managed to avoid knocking his head against the side of the wall.
Underfoot, the rumbling didn't end there. It wasn't long before an ear-shattering roar of flames overtook everything Mercury could hear, followed by a blast of magic so strong that he worried it might send him tumbling away with it. Fortunately, the water mage merely rolled on the floor — and even more fortunately, the magic blast disrupted the very specific amount of power required for Aria to remain as air, and the man landed on the ground with a huff.
Mercury didn't even bother mumbling out a question of what the hell was going on. Aria wouldn't answer him, and even if the Airspace mage did, the answer was more likely than not going to be a lie.
He did put together the answer fairly quickly, though.
Alarm bells rang out, forcing the two mages to separate. Aria looked around wildly; he'd somehow managed to end up being Mercury, in the direction that the water mage had just come from. His lips were upturned in surprise, a disappointed growl evident on his face.
He hadn't factored this much into his plans.
Without any further ceremony, the ground underneath Mercury's feet began to tilt.
Oh, fuck –
It slipped away from him as though completely rotating, and it wasn't long before Mercury's feet lost purchase entirely. Aria's situation wasn't much better. The heavy man fell hard – or he should have, if he hadn't dissipated into air with a low grumble, leaving the water mage to figure out what to do.
Hopefully, that rumbling from earlier had meant that Natsu had succeeded, and Jupiter was falling apart… but that also meant that the shoddily-made building was also going to take the brunt of the damage. Of course.
As long as Mercury didn't take a tumble into the sea below, he'd be fine. Or, that's what he told himself.
The floor's tilt quickly went from a mere ten degrees to something much closer to forty-five. With nothing to hold himself, Mercury gave into the flow of gravity, swinging himself low so that he could quickly grab the weapon he had dropped mere minutes ago. His knuckles scraped against the harsh wood floor. The fall was much faster than he expected; if he wasn't careful, his feet would be swept out from underneath him, and he'd roll right through the hallway and out through the balcony he had entered from.
Without thinking, he gripped the spear and swung it into the wall. The tip sunk in easily – a benefit of the crappy, soft wood that had been used while constructing the building – right above a doorway that he had passed just before Aria arrived. Mercury used the momentum to swing himself into the room – though the spear was torn from his hands as he changed direction, now stuck solidly in the wall.
When the building finally stopped rotating, the room he found himself had rotated almost ninety degrees. The floor was now the wall, and any of the contents had been carelessly slammed into what now formed the base of the room. There were glass bottles, rotting wooden tables, and heaps and heaps of books.
Honestly, it was the most lived in of the rooms that Mercury had passed so far.
He was careful not to land on any of the glass. The soles of his shoes were thick enough that it likely wouldn't matter, but he'd rather not take the chance to get shards stuck in his heels if he could help it.
Aria's voice soon began to reverberate around the shattered room.
"So, it seems that your guild is far more troublesome than I had initially given it credit for," the man said, though he didn't reappear. The room was as hazy as the hallway was.
"Fairy Tail is quite troublesome," Mercury said. His eyes flashed to every corner of the room, taking a step back so that his back was nearly up against the corner of the room. That way, Aria wouldn't be able to completely ambush him.
"Indeed. To have misjudged our nemesis… so sorrowful!"
"Can you give it a fucking break?" Mercury snapped loudly. The air thrummed with Aria's presence, and even Merc's special magic sense wasn't enough to pinpoint it.
"... As you wish."
The water mage felt Aria condense one more, but he couldn't see the man – an incredible feat, given how large he was. Each corner of the room that he was in remained empty of any people, filled with the remains of what looked to be a living space.
Above him, the light dimmed.
Aria was on top of him.
Mercury slammed himself forward. Of course the man wouldn't limit himself to frontal attacks, but one coming from above was just too unexpected.
(It had been over five years since Mercury had needed to fight seriously, and he'd definitely lost some of his battle sense. Relying on instinct wasn't going to save him every time.)
Even with speed-enchanted legs, it wasn't enough. He had almost gotten clear enough to avoid getting crushed, but Aria's arms were much longer than they should have been for such a round man, and they managed to snag Mercury by the collar of his shirt and yank backwards.
Mercury coughed painfully as Aria held him by the neck about a foot in the air.
"Such a pity," said Aria, "That you will have to suffer the same fate as you guildmaster before I go take care of whatever flies have managed to sneak in, starting with whoever has managed to destroy the Jupiter canon."
Natsu.
It couldn't end here – it wouldn't. Mercury refused, even as he held his hands up to his throat, now blocked by his own shirt. Beneath him, his legs flailed. He managed to get a kick on Aria's stomach, though the man didn't so much as flinch.
What was he, a fucking dog? Being held there by his collar made him feel like a child who had done something wrong – even Mercury was small in comparison to the giant that was Aria.
And he hated feeling small much more than he hated touching other people.
Mercury, sixth sense still active, felt the swirl of Aria's magic as he prepared whatever special attack he had used on Makarov. It sent shivers down his spine – the magic in the air was flying away when it came into contact with Aria's palm.
"Metsu!"
There were two ways this could go.
Mercury could die instantly, as was supposed to happen to Master; there was no one nearby to collect his scattered magic nearby – probably wasn't one in Magnolia as a whole – and it wasn't like Mercury had much of it in the first place. It would be a simple matter, then, for Aria to use whatever spell he was planning to use, and leave the water mage as a dead husk in his own guild hall.
But Mercury was so, so glad it was going to go the second way.
Aria sobbed lowly as his fist wrapped tightly against Mercury's hanging shoulder. Before even confirming it had worked, the man dropped him roughly to the floor.
But it didn't work.
Mercury laughed.
"So that's how it is…"
He no longer had any reason to fear Aria – not that he had in the first place. If anything, he'd been worried about his magic being drained and then being unable to follow through to getting to the waiting guildmaster, but this just confirmed that the Airspace mage's magic couldn't harm him. Invisible bullets would hurt, and getting slammed into the wall was tough, but his special move, the one that had taken out Makarov and left him in such a bad state, wouldn't work.
Why? It was simple.
Human mages often overlooked their own magic. It just came naturally to them. They felt the magic in their bodies and simply used it. That was inherent magic – magic that one was naturally predisposed to, which often popped up without consciously using it. Mira's magic was like that. It had unconsciously activated when she found her life in danger, despite barely being a teenager herself back then – there'd been no "learning" it; her body just used it.
That's what Mercury's own water magic was like. There was a reason it naturally produced salty water rather than pure water, and the reason was just that it had always been like that. It was automatic – to create non-brine was possible, though it was a conscious decision.
But magic was a lot more complex than 'just using it.' It involved many, many processes. First was gathering the magic in your body, then organizing it into whatever shape you wanted it to be, and finally releasing it – and even that was a gross oversimplification. "Natural" magic skipped a lot of those steps because it was like…. Moving your own body. It was a part of the body, and so the only thing necessary to focus on was the third step of releasing it.
That didn't mean that the first two steps didn't happen, though. They just happened like the magic felt like it did – unconsciously.
Magic was, in essence, like a program. When it was inside the body, it could be altered, but once it left, it was much harder, so if the "parameters" of the magic didn't fit, it wouldn't work.
Like Aria's magic, which dispersed stored magic power into the air – but what if the magic was designed to work with human stored magic? What would happen if that magic it was targeting didn't belong to a human?
Of course, nothing would happen.
"What?" Aria snarled as soon as it occurred to him that the man he'd just dropped was, in fact, not dead, and was laughing. "Why didn't it work?"
Human mages, who had likely never met other intelligent species – if there even were any that were like Mercury – rarely knew whether or not their magic would work. There was likely no reason for Aria to use his magic on, say, a magical beast, so he had no idea that it wouldn't work as intended.
Which was all the more useful for Mercury.
Instead of collapsing to the ground, the water mage placed his hands down towards his feet and managed to sneak himself into a vertical roundhouse kick to Aria's jaw – the man was so startled that he didn't even manage to get those thick hands up to defend himself.
Arrogance was so prevalent in mages like those in Phantom Lord that they didn't even know what to do when they faced an opponent outside of their own understanding.
Mercury watched as Aria's body language shifted from arrogance to anger; why seek to understand the unknown when you can simply beat it into submission and then ask for an answer?
Not that Merc would have ever been prompted to reveal his secrets.
Now that he knew there was no reason to fear the large Airspace mage, Mercury could go all out – while still conserving what he could. There was no risk of getting his magic drained now, so the worst that could happen would be taking a few of those invisible bullets or slashes to the face, and even that wasn't nearly as intimidating as the fact that, despite Jupiter's removal from the situation, Phantom Lord was still on the assault.
No, they definitely had something left up their sleeve.
Aria, now sensing danger from Mercury's newfound confidence, whipped off his blindfold without a second thought. His eyes swirled a dangerous magenta. Mercury could feel the magic swelling in the air, dragging everything towards Aria.
The water mage wouldn't wait for Aria to finish casting his spell; he threw enchant magic over his body, this time, reverting to good-old strength enchantments and wrapping his fist in a ball of water – except said ball was rotating as fast as he could force it to do so, strong enough that it could cut through stone and was, in fact, doing the same to his own hand. The skin instantly rubbed away to reveal muscle underneath, and his own blood seeped into the water.
Mercury hated this spell, but that wasn't enough of a reason to not use it against a dangerous opponent like Aria. During his active time six years ago, Laxus had forbidden him from using it – as though the man had any sort of say over what Mercury could and couldn't do, though he'd agreed at the time (it made Evergreen feel sick, she'd said). Fortunately, he only needed it active for a few moments at best.
"Zero – Airspace of Death!"
He was so glad he never had to bother chanting the spell names with his own innate magic. Saved him a lot of time – so much time that his fist managed to split into Aria's stomach before he could finish activating whatever spell Zero was.
Clothing easily gave way to skin, and skin to muscle, until Mercury's fist was a couple of inches deep in Aria's stomach.
A wound to the stomach was the worst way to go. Mercury knew from personal experience just how painful it was, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone. Despite that, his only two options had been going for Aria's stomach area or his chest, and at least hitting him in the stomach meant he had some chance of survival.
He still needed medical attention rather quickly.
"You –" The Airspace mage choked out from the ground. Mercury stood over top of him, wiping the blood off on his pants. It made him feel sick just to see the crimson color, and he absolutely hated the sensation of it on his skin. Then again, was there anyone in this world who liked it?
(Mercury's brothers probably did.)
"Get out of here," Mercury ordered.
Aria turned to look at the ceiling rather than the blue-haired man staring down at him. "To be defeated by one whom I'd labeled as weak… is just too sorrowful. Why do you hesitate?"
"To kill you?"
"Indeed."
"Why the fuck would I kill someone who is already going to die if he does nothing? Get your guts back together and we'll talk some other time. I'm in a rush."
There was no reply.
Mercury turned to the now-raised doorway. How was he going to get up there? He certainly didn't want to climb, though it looked like he wasn't going to have much of a choice; as time-consuming as it might have been, it did seem like the simplest way to get to where José was surely waiting.
"We've already succeeded in capturing Lucy Heartfilia," Aria said suddenly while Mercury approached the wall. It took about half a second to register that Aria was talking to him, and another half a second to register exactly what he had said.
Lucy had been captured.
Mercury wasted no more time – there was none left to waste, after all. If Aria was to be believed, then Phantom had already accomplished their primary goal of capturing the blonde and only had their secondary goal of annihilating Fairy Tail left, and now that Lucy wasn't in the way anymore… their goals didn't conflict. They could safely take out the remaining guild members.
Yes, they were out of time; Aria had taken up too much of it.
As Merc scaled the doorway, now about seven feet in the air, he didn't bother to consider Aria's own goals in sharing that information; the Airspace mage was defeated, dying, and hardly had any stake in what happened to Phantom Lord after this. The guild would likely abandon him now that he'd lost – assuming there was going to be any guild left after this. Aria must have been aware of the fact that Fairy Tail would not give up if any further harm came to Lucy, and would fight even until the last of their strength was exhausted – and only then would the Magic Council step in, condemning Phantom Lord for their actions.
Both guilds would be wiped out.
Mercury, however, was keen to make it so only Phantom Lord was destroyed after this. If he could do anything, he'd do it, even putting his own life on the line – though the non-human was certain of the fact that even in the face of José, he would not lose his life.
His guildmates, however, were a different story.
His fingers dug into the wood sharply, pulling at pieces of the boards that made the wall to make little handholds as he pulled himself up. The skin on his right hand had already healed completely from where his spell had torn it up, so it was a quick affair – even quicker after he managed to grab the handle of his – Erza's – spear and drag himself up.
After that, it was even easier to simply use the spear like a pickaxe, digging it into the wall to hoist himself past the forty-five degree incline.
It was unlikely that the entire building had simply been rotated. Though Mercury had no idea why it had done so, the building's tilt was similar to that of the room he had just been in, showing a new expanse of wall as the front, likely facing Magnolia. The rotation, however, had not included the whole building – if it had, José himself would have gone flying with the movement, and that would have been unbecoming of him. So, it was likely that only the lower sections of the building had been subject to the rotation.
Which Mercury found was true as soon as he managed to get to the room marked with a one. Instead of a room, it led to another hallway – and this one was the correct, vertical direction.
Cautiously, the water mage stepped in, all senses engaged. He couldn't hear the sound of footsteps or breathing, but the building felt like it was alive with magic.
That was absolutely not a good thing.
It was like the entire building was a conduit for a massive spell, and Mercury had no idea what type of spell it would be.
He pressed forward to the end of the hallway, where a staircase led upwards – only upwards. It was long enough that he couldn't see the end of it, and dim enough that if he looked too far upwards, the stairs themselves seemed to disappear.
Well, there was no other way to go other than forward.
Mercury took the steps two at a time. It was with a mix of anticipation and trepidation that he courageously pressed forward, because even without trying to sense it, he could feel the loathsome feeling of José's magic.
He was close.
At the end of the stairs was a second long hallway, though this one opened up to a much larger room only a few steps later. The room looked like a church – it had a long carpet leading from the entrance that Mercury came from to a small, raised platform, and small benches took up most of the space. The floor was made of smooth, fancy stone. It was arguably the most high quality room that Mercury had seen so far. Even the benches were of a much higher quality than those of the room he had so recently fought Aria in.
Beside the raised platform were two doors. There were two others – the one Mercury came from, located on the side of the room, and one at the other end up the carpet, directly facing the stage-like platform. Based on how nice the room was, Mercury predicted that at least one of them led to where José was located. It seemed like he spared no expense when it came to himself – no, even the lights in this new room seemed to be made of much more expensive looking glass and high quality light lacrima, rather than the old, burnt out torches that he had seen in the hallway previously.
Lingering in the room, Merc found when he inhaled deeply and focused, was the dull sensation of something pounding, burning – a gong. That was what Natsu had always manifested as in Mercury's ears, though it was now relatively faint. It had been a couple of minutes since the boy had come through here. He had come from the door facing the stage, and left through the door on the left of the stage, which, to Mercury, felt like bells and something else he couldn't place – like Lucy and someone else.
Which was, decidedly, a very good thing.
Because, coming strongly from the door on the right, was the chilling sensation of oil and monsters – and it was getting closer. Slowly. Threateningly.
Mercury was glad he had missed running into Natsu. It meant that the boy wouldn't have to run into a piece of shit like José. Natsu was tough, but he wasn't nearly strong enough to face Phantom Lord's guildmaster and come out unscathed – or come out of it at all. No, José was both strong enough and cruel enough to simply kill whoever he didn't like.
The water mage was once again glad it was him who had come to distract the man.
Now that Jupiter was no longer an issue – because surely Natsu wouldn't have left the cannon if he hadn't succeeded in dismantling it – that meant that Erza was either on her way, or would be shortly; the remaining threat to them was now limited to José himself, along with whatever mages where in the guild hall. Even Phantom's mages were now lacking in number, knocked down by at least two.
Too bad José was definitely strong enough to solo the whole guild.
Still… Fairy Tail would have no way of winning if they didn't at least have some hope or faith in themselves; Mercury was not an overly optimistic person – in fact, he was usually rather cynical – but today, he decided that he could stand to have a positive mindset going into this showdown.
Because that was the only thing he could do.
José stepped out of the shadowed hallway on the right, and as soon as he did, the whole room seemed to dim. Whether it was real or just the pressure of the man's magic hiding the illumination of the lacrima-lights, Mercury had no way of knowing; all he knew was that the man's magic felt oppressive in a way that he hadn't felt in a long, long time.
Mercury knew Phantom Lord's guildmaster was strong, but he hadn't been aware of just how strong. Makarov had certainly never seemed so powerful, though the water mage was certain it was because there was no reason to reveal his true strength – the guild was his family, and the Master wouldn't go around intimidating his children like they were nothing. José, however, had no such inhibitions. It was like Mercury was suddenly back home, facing the wrath of that being who could have decimated his entire existence with a wave of her hand.
It reminded him of Mother.
His nails dug into his palms as he fought to remain still through the terror that coursed his body. This was not her; this was just a filthy villain who couldn't be permitted to take what he wanted.
"Oh?" José asked before he'd even stepped through the doorway. "I had thought that the one to take out Aria would have been Titania, but it seems I was mistaken."
"Sorry to disappoint," Mercury ground out. It was so hard to even speak the words so – he didn't want to admit it – terrified as he was.
"You.. you'll do, I suppose. I wanted to prove my point with someone stronger, but I believe it was you who was hiding behind Titania whilst she blocked Jupiter, correct?"
Mercury didn't respond; the spear in his grip, which was so tight that his knuckles were white, seemed useless in the face of threat in front of him.
No, he told himself, you're strong; you chose this, and you're going to see it through.
In the face of true danger, Mercury usually chose to flee, but this time, he had no choice but to stand and fight.
"I believe," said José darkly as he gathered his magic around him, "I asked you a question." Mercury had to forcefully shut off his magic sense to avoid being overwhelmed, focusing it internally rather than externally.
If all it took for José to get mad was for the water mage to not answer his stupid question, then rebelling against the man may have been easier than Mercury thought. Unfortunately, being quick to anger meant that it also wouldn't take much to get José moving, even if he thought that fighting Mercury was hardly worth his own time.
José's putrid magic surged forward, a spear of dark purple swirls neary poking Mercury right through the stomach – but it was slow. Slow enough that the water mage could easily dodge. Slow enough that it was clear José wasn't even going to take him seriously.
Go all out.
He needed to go all out, or else it wouldn't mean anything.
It had been such a long time since Mercury had even considered doing so. Six years ago, he'd fought with Laxus, and that had been the last time he had even considered releasing so much magic at once, but it had ended up involving the entire guild hall. People were hurt. Even then, Mercury hadn't calmed. His rage was his magic, his fuel, and he was the ocean.
Get mad. Get angry! Mercury ordered himself – and it didn't take much. There was already so much to be angry about, so many things ordered by this man in front of him that had hurt his guildmates.
Levy, Jet, and Droy. The assault team. Master. Lucy. Everyone in the plaza below him, struggling now even as Mercury stared down the man responsible for all of this.
For them, it didn't matter if he went mad. This much was nothing. They were family - something Mercury hadn't had in a long time.