Chapter Thirty-Nine
Broken Wings
Everything hurt. Natsu's body felt like he'd been given a deep tissue massage with boulders. He felt almost as bad as when he absorbed the power from the Etherion blast.
"It seems that your magic is more resilient than even I imagined, I can't finish the extraction process cleanly while you remain in such great health." the Stargazer told him, looking down at him with a mixture of pity and fascination in his eyes.
"Let's call it a day then, shall we? Get me out of this thing and we can revisit the subject in thirty, forty years." Natsu nodded weakly, struggling to even laugh at his own jokes. He was pale and covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
"Sadly that won't be possible. You see, the machine has already extracted so much from you, if we were to stop now, it wouldn't work as intended, so I must take some rather drastic measures to ensure this succeeds." The Stargazer wobbled over to one of the bookcases, shuffling around while he searched for something.
After a few moments of confused deliberation, he pulled out an old grey scroll that revealed itself to be a regular parchment that had been covered in an inch of dust.
"Even for those without magic, there are ways of harnessing it. I believe the term was 'script mages', the kind who imbued words with power." He explained, coming back over as his old misty eyes scanned the scroll, his nose almost touching the parchment.
"Would you like to know what it does?" The Stargazer looked at him from above the rim of the scroll.
"No, I cannot stress enough how much I do not want to know what that does," Natsu answered honestly, his eyes focusing on a drop of sweat that rolled off his nose, splashing against the ground.
"It's called a soul killer, though I suspect that it's simply a death spell, always wanted to use this." The old man beamed with excitement.
"You're a terrible listener," Natsu grunted, pulling weakly at the binds around his wrists in an attempt to free himself.
"Only two of these were ever written, and I have both."
"You need a better hobby," Natsu told him, trying all that he could to stop E.N.D. who ever since the machine had started, had been battering the walls of his cage.
"Soon enough with your magic, I'll be among the stars, other hobbies are of little concern, now, quiet please, I need to focus otherwise this could go horribly wrong." The Stargazer shushed him.
"From where I'm sat, it going right is probably the worst outcome." The Dragon Slayer chided glumly.
'Let me out, I refuse to be destroyed while caged like an animal!' E.N.D. screamed, pushing against the mental barrier with enough force to make Natsu flinch.
"Dies Irae, Dies Mortis, Anima Redde!" The Stargazer's voice rose with power, every syllable growing stronger as the spell came to life.
A huge purple sphere burned from the centre of the scroll, swirling around with phantasm energy before it shot straight ahead and hit Natsu in the chest.
The Dragon Slayer roared in pain, every single one of his senses had been thrown into overdrive as he felt his body being destroyed.
His scream reverberated throughout the room with so much force that the stones began to crack, chip, and shatter.
Down in the streets below, things had begun getting bloody, but so far it hadn't been anything that Gray, Lucy, and Loke couldn't handle.
They all stopped and stared at the tower in horror when they came to the same stark realization that the monstrous echoing roar was the cry of a Dragon.
"Natsu!" Lucy belted towards the tower, barely escaping the clutches of another swarm of angry locals who were upping their efforts after the commotion.
She managed to spring past them and burst through the doors that led to a huge spiralling staircase. Taking them three at a time she sped up as fast as she could.
"No problem, just us versus the world." Gray put on a struggling smile as he and Loke pushed back against another group.
Things over in the Fairy Tail guild had been fairly mundane these past few days since Natsu, Lucy, and Gray had gone out on their mission. It was a pattern that most had recognized, whenever something interesting happened, the Fire Dragon was always in the midst of it.
Erza had been at the bar, to anyone else it would appear that she was staring longingly at the place of strawberry cheesecake in front of her, but Mira knew better.
The silver-haired woman stopped what she was doing and came over, planting her elbows on the bar and lowering her eyes to Erza's level.
"What's wrong?" she asked sympathetically, already knowing what the subject would be.
Erza briefly looked up, her eyes as glum as ever, "Ever since the Tower of Heaven, Natsu has been distant. It seems like he's been purposely avoiding me, and now he's been gone for days on another job." The red-haired Fairy Queen explained, pushing at the cheesecake with her fork.
"We…" Erza stopped, falling silent as her mind ran through a dozen other things relating to the Fire Dragon.
"I get it," Mira told her softly, "I watched him walk out of those doors the other day and it wasn't me by his side, I get it." The she-devil nodded, her face as neutral as she could make it.
"But thinking about all of the what-ifs is pointless when it comes to that man. He's been around for a very long time, but in all that time it doesn't sound like he ever made the effort to form an emotional bond after what happened with Lucy's ancestor." Mira reasoned.
"I don't… I don't understand what you mean." Erza said after a brief pause.
"He's probably avoiding you because, for the first time in his life, he doesn't know what to do. It's kind of cute when you think about it. Now, that's enough advice, I can't give you too much of an advantage or my own chances might slip away." Mira winked at her before turning heel to return to her duties.
A smile flittered across Erza's lips.
That smile had been torn asunder when a fire erupted from within her breastplate, splitting the armour entirely.
She managed to stop from yelling in pain, but barely. Not that it had mattered as they all watched her pull the torn and charred parts of her shirt away to reveal the brand Natsu had put on her collarbone.
Everyone froze, hearing what they all knew was Natsu roaring in pain, the sound coming directly from the brand that was spewing flames everywhere that it could. The roar turned into that wailing pitch that immediately made Gajeel of all people fall into a defensive stance.
"That..." He tried to swallow despite how dry his throat had become, "That is the roar of a dying Dragon," he explained quickly, looking around frantically.
"Master," Erza panted, requiping into her flame empress armour, suppressing the brand on her. "I can't do anything to pull him here." She said, her hand hovering over where the brand sat.
"He took Lucy and Gray on a job to Loduhn, a small town near Crocus. You'd best get there as quickly as possible. Mira, Gajeel, I need both of you to go, I don't like to think of what could possibly cause him of all people to do that." Makarov ordered them, looking deeply disturbed by what was happening.
"We'll get them back," Erza waved before taking the lead out of the guild at frightening speed.
"Hey, wait a second, I don't know where that is, don't go running too far ahead of me!" Gajeel shouted as he chased after.
"Mira," Makarov said, catching her attention before she too had left the guild, "If it comes to it, don't hold yourself back."
She simply nodded before leaving the guild to catch up to Erza, or at least Gajeel.
"She has taken leave of her senses," Gajeel drawled in a sarcastically sophisticated tone, nodding to the distant speck in the sky.
"I. Cannot. Fly." He said with a grunt.
"But I can," Mira smiled sweetly. Without another word, she transformed into her Satan Soul, grabbing the back of Gajeel's vest and taking to the skies, catching up to Erza in no time.
The three of them streaked across the sky, heading for Loduhn at a blistering pace.
The town in question was littered with unconscious bodies. Everything within half a mile of the tower was covered in ice and signs of a drastically one-sided battle.
Gray was the only one still standing, but the battle had taken its toll on him, he was almost out of magic, and Loke had been playing guerrilla warfare in the shadows, burning away the darkness that was Smiling Jack using the light of his Regulus magic.
The magic itself wasn't harming the Etherious, but the sheer intensity of his light was the only thing keeping the creature from zoning in on where they had started the fight at the base of the tower.
Loke stepped back into existence beside Gray, he too was looking exhausted.
"That thing is horrendous, how did you deal with it earlier?" He asked, resting his hands against his knees while he tried to recuperate his magic.
"Natsu," Gray answered, taking deep lungfuls of air to try and get his breathing back under control.
"Ah, that would do it." Loke nodded, "I can only keep this thing away for so long, when my magic depletes, or if Lucy's does, I won't be able to help fend him off, he'll come straight for you." Loke stated, readying himself for another round as he spotted the sickly yellow eyes peering at them from the entrance to an alleyway ahead.
"I know. If that happens I'll head inside the tower and block up the entrance. It won't hold them all off for long but they might not try straight away if that thing is still chasing me." Gray reasoned.
"Here we go, I'll make this one count," Loke gave a weak smile before stepping forward. He abruptly disappeared in a violent show of light, not in the way that his magic normally worked.
He was gone, Gray could feel no trace of the Celestial Spirit, but he could feel a huge amount of pressure welling from within the tower.
"Crap," Gray said, realizing that he was standing only a dozen feet away from the spindly limbed Smiling Jack, glistening razor poised and ready.
The creature showed that sickening smile with rows of yellow teeth before he lunged and struck out.
A/N: Hello there. Are you attached to these characters? If so, I am genuinely, partially, sorry in advance for the next chapter.