With the unfortunate revelation that somehow, by some terrible twist of fate, Natsu was unable to exit the building under the current conditions, any hope that Mercury had for this "Battle of Fairy Tail" to come to a conclusion without any more unnecessary injuries shattered.
"Why can't you exit?" Mercury demanded of the dragon slayer, a desperate fire in his eyes. Makarov watched on in absolute shock; neither of them would have ever guessed that something would keep Natsu down, especially something as incomprehensible
"Damn it, I was gonna go hit Fried!" Natsu moaned instead of answering the question.
This kid was going to kill him, either from sheer disinterest in his own situation or that hotheaded streak no one had tried hard enough to break. Mercury's mind whirled as he tried to think of a solution, a workaround, to allow Natsu – or even himself – to pass through.
Nothing came up.
Neither of the exit clauses should have had any effect on the dragon slayer. He clearly wasn't made of stone or over eighty years old – hell, the boy barely looked or acted older than a teenager. The thought of him being unable to pass seemed mystifying. Clearly, there must have been an issue with the magic itself, some oversight that was making it function incorrectly. Fried's magic was wrong.
But that in itself was illogical. Rune magic couldn't be wrong. It was a rare absolute in the world of magic – it told the truth of the world, and it had no will of its own to interpret the words given to it, which was why rune magic users had to be so damn specific when using it.
So one of the clauses must have been true of the dragon slayer.
"When's your birth year?" Mercury pressed. Even though Natsu didn't seem particularly bothered by the obvious conundrum, he did provide an answer, albeit a completely unhelpful one.
"Dunno. Igneel never told me," he said with a shrug.
Sigh. "But you weren't always with Igneel, right? You should have some memories from before then. A newspaper or something?"
"Nah, it was always Igneel."
Damn it, Natsu, that didn't make sense! A dragon couldn't have a human child, so clearly there must have been a time before Igneel that would have told them what year Natsu was born in. Hell, even Mercury, who hadn't been born in a society that followed any sort of calendar, was aware of his own birth year (to some degree) and approximate age in Fiorean terms. The dragon that somehow had enough sense to teach a boy a human language should have been able to teach him about the calendar, right? Or, hell, Natsu had already known about the months when he arrived at the guild, so surely..
Ugh. It all made no sense.
"And how old are you?"
Another shrug.
"Mercury, perhaps you should just let this go," suggested Master, which only served to infuriate the water mage more. Natsu's age must have been the issue, but the boy couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old – he wasn't even a full, legal adult yet in Fiorean eyes, let alone eighty years old.
"Well, if I can't do anything, then it has to be this kid," he retorted to Master, jabbing his thumb in Natsu's direction. The fire dragon slayer looked absolutely unbothered, even going so far as to search his ears for earwax.
"But Mercury, I'm sure Natsu would be out there and fighting if he knew the issue," Happy said sadly.
"Yeah," his partner agreed, "I made you a promise to take out that green haired bastard!"
Mercury paused, thinking of whatever words he could say to figure out the issue. He grimaced. Some part of him knew that this shouldn't be happening, but another, larger part of him felt that this was oddly correct.
Something was keeping Natsu out, and for good reason.
"You're absolutely certain you don't know what year you were born in?" He tried one more time.
The shake of Natsu's head was enough for him to drop it.
"I wonder if Gajeel remembers," Natsu said absentmindedly before turning to the bar area and looking at the ceiling. "Gajeel, do you remember what year you were born in?" He then shouted so loudly that Mercury and Master both flinched.
It had startled Gajeel, too. He fell out the rafters, half eaten spoon in hand.
"Jeez, Salamander, no need to yell. I was listenin'."
If you were listening, why weren't you out there trying to stop Laxus? Mercury thought bitterly. He was ashamed to have the immediate thought that maybe the iron dragon slayer didn't care enough about Fairy Tail, and bit the comment back by sticking his tongue underneath his slightly pointed teeth. There was no need to cause an argument between himself and the dragon slayer; Natsu had that department covered.
"If you were listening, then what were we talking about?" Natsu taunted.
"Something about the stupid barrier, probably."
"Wrong," Natsu stuck his tongue out at Gajeel. "'Ya got so much metal in your head that your ears are clogged or something?"
Sensing that it was just going to devolve into another petty argument, Mercury broke in, saying, "Why would Gajeel knowing his birth year have anything to do with you? You're different ages."
Natsu tilted his head. "Both of our dragons disappeared on the same day, so we're probably pretty close in age, right? Besides, he feels kind of familiar for some reason."
That gave Mercury pause, but it wasn't enough to convince him that the incidents were related. Well, it wasn't like there was anything else to do; with all three of them trapped, plus Gajeel, there was no chance to make a difference, and listening to Natsu blather on might have been good for Mercury to not break down into hysterics.
"Then when were you born, Gajeel?"
"Dunno. Metalicanna never told me."
Mercury closed his eyes and took a deep breath, placing a finger to his forehead. These two dragon slayers were almost exact opposites, and yet somehow almost exactly the same.
"Just – can you just go check if you can leave? Maybe it's a dragon thing," Mercury said, exasperated.
"What's in it for me?"
Natsu cackled as Gajeel smirked.
Mercury was never great at hiding his anger. It might have been difficult for someone unfamiliar with him to be able to sense it, if only because he was so good at masking it with some other feeling – disinterest, or perhaps even straight up boredom – but those around him knew the signs of it coming on, knew when it was soon to arrive.
His anger was never quiet. He came from the sea, and as such, was the sea; a quiet, serene surface when you looked at it from afar, but when it was stirred, it rampaged.
And Natsu had been around the water mage for ages longer than Gajeel had – he'd been the target of it many, many times, and he knew what was coming, simply reveling in the fact that, for once, it had not been aimed at him.
On the other hand, this was only Mercury and Gajeel's second meeting, the first being the time when the iron dragon slayer was on the enemy's side and they'd fought right there in the guild hall, so Gajeel had no way of knowing when the water mage was truly pissed.
No, when Mercury smiled, Gajeel only got the vague feeling that something was wrong. This man in front of him had no reason to smile, not when minutes ago he had been breaking his hand on the barrier that now rejected Natsu.
Gajeel stopped laughing, taking half a step back.
"Gajeel, I swear that whatever stick you have up your ass, I'll remove it and beat you with it."
"Wait –"
Mercury grabbed the iron dragon slayer's shoulder with a grip that seemed impossible for a man as slender as him.
"And don't forget – I still haven't paid you back for breaking my arm. Or trying to bash my head in. Do you know how annoying it was to go around with a concussion, and then have to fight Aria before getting my ass kicked by your stupid ass guildmaster?"
"Wait, I thought you said you didn't fight Ar–"
"So you sit up in the rafters while all of this is going on," Mercury grabbed Gajeel's collar as he tried to take a step back, the dragon slayer clearly not expecting this kind of verbal onslaught from a man as passive as the water mage in front of him. Even when Gajeel tried to grasp onto Mercury's wrist and get it away from his throat – because something in his dragon slayer instincts was telling him to get away from this beast in front of him – he found that he couldn't shake the mage off.
Was Mercury actually surprisingly strong?
"Let me finish," Mercury snarled. "You sit up in the rafters eating Mira's forks while all of this is going on, and only come down to keep being childish with that," Mercury said before pointing at Natsu, who probably should have gotten offended by this statement, but was too busy laughing at Gajeel's expense. "And then you ask 'what's in it for you?'"
"Er, I –"
Even Makarov had a hard time under these pressing circumstances maintaining a straight face. To see the gruff, moody Gajeel be verbally accosted by the normally quiet but also equally moody Mercury was such an amusing sight that even he found himself hiding away a half smile, despite the – or perhaps because of – the grim situation.
"'What's in it for you' is that I won't sit here and drown you with so much water that your lungs get rusty. How's that? I'll even refrain from telling Mira that it was you who has been eating her silverware. You might think I'm bad, but you haven't seen anything if you think I'm the worst one here."
Mercury only released his grip once it was clear Gajeel wasn't going to run away. The dragon slayer looked like his soul had escaped from his body, arms nothing more than noodles and knees barely hiding their quaking.
It had been a long time since Mercury had gotten this mad. Maybe it was just the situation they were all in – no, it was definitely because of the situation. Mercury could still feel that his anger was ultimately directed at Laxus – and Gajeel probably didn't deserve to have all of that thrust on him. But acting so disinterested in a guild that had given him a place to go even after he was their enemy had set Mercury off; he had been in the same boat, and if he hadn't taken Fairy Tail's extended hand, well, he probably wouldn't be here anymore.
"Uh, yessir," Gajeel grumbled lowly.
Mercury snorted, feeling the metaphorical steam radiating off his body (actually, it might have been physical; he wasn't the best at controlling himself when he got upset), then looked towards the door frame, and Gajeel took the hint.
And just like Natsu, he, too, could not exit.
The water mage pinched the bridge of his nose with his good hand.
He couldn't see a way out of this, and the number of guild members appearing in the top corner kept dropping. They were already down to less than thirty, the number still dropping much too fast for Mercury's liking. From a start of nearly one hundred, that wasn't good at all. At this rate, they'd be down to ten in no time flat, and Mercury already held little hope in any of the remaining able-bodied fighter's chances to take on Laxus.
If only Erza hadn't participated in the Miss Fairy Tail contest, they'd have had a shot. Even Levy would have been fine – at least she had the hope of being able to counteract Fried's barriers, which would have allowed Mercury to get out and do something.
Reedus, their only hope for reaching Porlyusica, had already been taken out by Fried, and Elfman had failed in taking down Evergreen. Even Gray, likely the strongest one to be able to leave the guild, had been defeated by Bixlow.
This can't go on, Mercury thought desperately as Natsu began to pound on the barrier with his own inflamed fist, proclaiming that he wanted to join in on the fighting.
"Fried's actually kind of tough? Now I want to fight him even more!"
Mercury was caught between staring at the slowly shrinking number and at Natsu in astonishment. He still thought all of this was a game. Sure, it had been framed as one, and Fairy Tail wasn't known for being particularly smart, but there were lives on the line – that much couldn't be a simple game.
(People who played games with people's lives were simply trash. Mercury knew that for an undeniable fact. Laxus was…)
Even Happy was surprised at Natsu's glee; "This isn't the time to be saying stuff like that! Reedus was supposed to get medicine to turn the girls back to normal!" he exclaimed shrilly between Natsu's rambling, only to be ignored by the building-shaking dragon slayer.
And for once, the little blue cat had sense. Maybe this was all a dream, and the world really was ending; Mercury never thought he'd agree with Happy of all people.
"There's not much point though, since Laxus is obviously bluffing," Natsu explained pointedly.
Right after he finished speaking – really, the lightning dragon slayer had the best dramatic timing – a thought projection of Laxus appeared from near the front stage, spooking Mercury, who hadn't even realized it had popped into existence.
The lightning dragon slayer's cold, smug appearance filled Mercury with another wave of rage – so hot that he could have cried.
"You still think I'm bluffing, don't you, Natsu?"
Laxus looked down on the four gathered mages with an air of disinterest. No one within the guild hall could challenge him, his game already essentially won with the removal of Gray from the running, and so he was now here to mock them. Maybe he'd even tell them his true intentions – why he was running this whole farce in the first place, and what he wanted to get out of it, because even if Laxus was insane, he wasn't stupid enough to make an enemy of Makarov.
Mother, if Mercury hadn't seen Laxus again for the rest of his life, it still might have been too long. He was angry, but couldn't quite put it into words. Looking at the dragon slayer made it feel like there was a knot in his sternum, tight against his lungs and making it hard enough to suck quiet inhales in. Everything about Laxus was just… ugh. How could the boy from six years ago have changed into… this?
That purple leopard print button up shirt coupled with the fuzzy black overcoat that he didn't even wear correctly, hanging it over his broad shoulders instead – just, yeah, ugh. There weren't any other words Mercury could think of to phrase it. Laxus's outfit perfectly encapsulated the image of a man who didn't care what others thought of him, even if said persona was just a thinly veiled act of disinterest…
Because Laxus actually did care what people thought of him. A lot. And Mercury knew that was probably his reasoning for going through with all of this. Laxus hated being known by his relation to Makarov, hated being known just as "Makarov's grandson" despite the fact that that reputation had given him a lot in life, just as his grandfather had.
With a grimace, Mercury noted that not a single hair was out of place on the thought projection, still styled messily, just the way the dragon slayer liked it. No one had found him yet.
"What are you even doing here, Natsu?" The thought projection asked, actual, genuine surprise evident on its face.
"Shut up! I can't get out, stupid!"
If only the dragon slayers could fight verbally rather than physically; Natsu might have had the more childish insults of the two, but he sure did have a lot of them.
Laxus didn't seem to actually care about why Natsu couldn't get out, and he turned his gaze to Mercury before smirking – he must have known that the water mage wasn't able to leave, either, and how much it would be tearing him up inside.
Then, he turned to face Makarov without saying anything. Mercury didn't offer any words, either. He was at a complete loss for them.
Mother, Laxus was… he was doing something that he didn't understand the ramifications of, surely – he had to be unaware of just how much hate this would bring him. How much people already did despise him, having ignored their calls for aid mere weeks ago during the Phantom Lord incident, and now doing something as actively malicious as this.
The dragon slayer was unbelievably strong, but not in the way that Erza was. His strength was used solely for himself, without regard for others, while Erza's strength came from protecting those she cared about.
And Laxus's list of people he cared about could be counted on one finger – himself.
"Your allies… no, you normally call them 'brats,' don't you," Laxus looked down his nose at his grandfather, no love or even a shred of a bond shared between them. "Well, how does it feel, watching those brats of yours pound one another into the ground?"
"You scared you can't take on all of them?" Mercury finally snarled.
Laxus didn't look like he particularly cared about the water mage's insults anymore – he turned and faced Mercury briefly once more, shrugging and saying, "Isn't it you that's scared they can't all take on me?"
And the dragon slayer was right; Mercury was terrified of what Laxus could do to all of them. They could die.
(Once more, the reality of humans sunk deep into Mercury's heart. They were so fragile, took so little to well and truly disappear.)
"Alright, Laxus," the Master started, ignoring protests from Natsu and, surprisingly, Gajeel. "You've won. I surrender, so please stop this."
Laxus's smirk grew bigger.
"Well, that's no good… the great master of Fairy tail surrendering so easily? No, if you really want to resign, do it after you hand over the title of Fairy Tail's guildmaster to me."
The four mages and the cat stared back at him in shock.
"That's what you were after, Laxus?" Makarov asked.
Mercury shouldn't have been surprised. Laxus had mentioned before that one of his goals along the path of becoming the strongest had been "being acknowledged by his grandfather and becoming Fairy Tail's guildmaster," but this was no acknowledgement – this was coercion. Sure, the guildmaster had made comments before about handing over the title to his grandson in the past, but Makarov didn't think Laxus was ready for the title, especially after a stunt like this.
Once again, the water mage was stunned by Laxus's own immaturity and inability to think more than a freaking day into the future.
"There's just an hour and a half left until the women crumble into dust, old man! You'd better think this one over good!"
And with that, the thought projection disappeared into ethernano particles.
Mercury sneezed.
"Damn it! Trying to act like he's the strongest without even fighting me! Give me the Master's seat!" Natsu demanded to a still-aghast Gajeel, who snapped out of it to punch the pink-haired boy in the forehead.
"It ain't that simple, Salamander!"
"Oh yeah, prove it!"
The two started to brawl over the topic, and Mercury didn't have the energy to stop them any longer. He knew Master wouldn't give up the seat to Laxus; Fairy Tail was like his child, and he wouldn't leave it in hands as unstable and uncaring as Laxus's, but it didn't seem like there were really any other choices remaining. They had little time left. Over half of their original three hours had been wasted with no tangible achievements to show from it, and the remaining time slowly trickled away the longer they were trapped within the guild hall.
"To be honest, I wouldn't mind giving up my master's seat," Makarov said calmly. "But I cannot place it in Laxus's hands. He is far too lacking in conviction and heart to take this seat from me."
"But at this rate… They're all going to end as dust," Happy said, turning to look at the seven statues that remained on the stage behind them. They only had ninety minutes left, and when Mercury turned to look back at Fried's enchantment, it declared that only three people remained.
The water mage counted the mages remaining in the building.
Himself, Gajeel, and Natsu.
They were so, so fucked.
Master came to the same conclusion at nearly the same time. "Don't tell me it's only you three left," he shouted, while Happy cried at the fact that he wasn't included in the numbers despite being a member of Fairy Tail.
It was… odd that the barrier saw all three of them as able bodied fighters while still denying them leave of the building, but Mercury couldn't figure out why it did so. Why was Master not included in the count? Happy didn't really use magic, so it made sense he wasn't included. The three able bodied mages, however, could use magic, and weren't able to get out…?
The only conclusion he could come to was that the words appearing on the barrier were different than what had actually been actually written underneath; perhaps it had originally only locked out Master Makarov and the statues, which was why they weren't included, and the original words only mentioned that a "guildmaster" and "stone statues" so Gajeel, Natsu, and himself weren't included?
Ugh. Mercury ran fingers through his rough, tangled hair. The only one who would know would be Fried, and he was obviously unreachable. This was a supposedly unbreakable wall.
If only the water mage was smart enough to know more about rune magic; he was confident that he could decipher Fried's language – they'd worked on it together, and Mercury remembered the basis of it – but he didn't know how rune magic actually worked.
Would the guild's library have books about it? Could Mercury grab them and learn about rune magic in the eighty minutes that were left?
Before he knew it, the water mage had unconsciously bitten through the gauze on his right hand as well as the skin on the corner of his finger underneath – a habit he'd never been able to crack when anxious or deep in thought. He was sure he'd have torn it off completely if he wasn't stripped from his thoughts by the sound of one of the statues falling over.
It was Erza's, and Natsu and Gajeel stood over it, simply staring.
"What–," Mercury started to ask, only to be interrupted by another unfamiliar sound – something cracking.
Natsu and Gajeel cried out, with the former asking for glue and the latter telling Natsu to melt down his iron to fix the "crack."
"Did you guys fu–"
Again, he was cut off by Erza's statue shattering completely.
His heart entirely stopped for a moment as the dust of broken shards blocked his vision, and Natsu shrieked in an entirely not-Natsu-like way.
Mercury rushed over to see a mix of red and black.
Erza's statue had shattered, leaving the woman in its place.
She was pissed – which was understandable, given everything that was going on, but apparently it was just because she felt "hot."
"Was that you, Natsu? What the hell are you playing at?" She asked, voice deadly, then kicked the fire mage into the ceiling with a perfectly placed foot that had him landing directly on top of Gajeel.
"Erza!"
"But why…?" asked Makarov, though the water mage was much too elated to ask. Erza was back, unfrozen, and could actually do something, unlike the rest of them who were stuck in the guild hall.
"Perhaps it has something to do with my right eye?" Erza suggested.
Since half of the eye magic that had petrified her was taken through a fake eye, it seemed as though the effect had been halved, which luckily hadn't manifested in the statue crumbling entirely at the halfway mark – a stroke of luck that the Thunder God Tribe likely wouldn't have counted on. Fried could not have factored Erza's recovery into his plans.
They had a chance. Really, truly, there was a chance to get out of this.
"Do you know what's going on?" Mercury asked, and the knight nodded.
"I could hear everything. And now that I'm back in action, the combatants seem to have changed to reflect that."
And indeed, it had. Mercury watched as it shifted from three to four, before pausing briefly and raising once more to five when yet another unknown mage joined the fight.
There was only one more mage who it could be. Gildarts was gone, and the rest of Fairy Tail had already been present for the Fantasia Festival, leaving their last mysterious S-Class mage: Mystogan.
A sigh of relief ripped itself from Mercury's chest.
Now that Erza was back in action, it was realistic that they could take out Evergreen and Fried with no issues; Evergreen had to be the first target, to remove any further threat of the hostages being used against them in the event that Laxus changed his mind, and then Erza could either take out Fried to remove the barrier or go straight for Laxus.
But… Was Erza strong enough to take out Laxus? For once, Mercury didn't have an answer; the two S-Class hadn't gone head to head in years, and it had happened before he'd rejoined the guild, when the two were little more than teenagers brawling, anyway, so it wasn't exactly an accurate gauge of who was stronger.
(Still, who had won?)
Mystogan could slot in somewhere, too, if it really was him. He was strong enough that he'd become S-Class without relying on any magic at all, at least not that Mercury had been able to observe; the mysterious mage came in to update jobs fairly infrequently, and those staves of him didn't work on someone who wasn't human, so Mercury had seen the mage in passing before.
Mercury didn't have to tell Erza what to do. By the time he'd thought it through, elated with the fact that maybe they could get out of this, she was already gone to take out Evergreen.
Once Evergreen was out, the statues would revert to their previous unfrozen state, and then Laxus would have nothing more to hold over their heads. There would be no reason to fight.
But even Mercury knew it would not be that simple.
There was no way a man as quick to anger as Laxus would take such a feat laying down.
Still, all the water mage could do was hope at this point. He hadn't felt as useless as this in a long time, and the desperate thrumming of fear and worry in his head wouldn't cease until someone knocked the lightning dragon slayer out for a couple of hours to cool down
The sound of his creaking footsteps were the only sound that filled the hall, save for the slow breathing of Makarov. Even Natsu and Gajeel had gone oddly quiet as they waited with bated breaths, watching the barrier at the doorway – and that alone was enough to tell Mercury the gravity of the situation, because a day Natsu was silent was a day the world ended.
Mercury was glad that no one had turned to ask him to stop pacing, too distracted with worry – or confidence, in Natsu's case – over Erza. The sound would have irritated him. His footsteps were even and unending as they took him from the bar to the stage, and then from the stage to the doorway to check for updates.
Erza engaged Evergreen.
His pacing stopped.
The water mage couldn't remove his eyes from the doorway, as though that were going to spur on the fight.
In reality, it was incredibly obvious who would win. Evergreen was not a fighter. In terms of fighting ability, she was the weakest in the Thunder God Tribe by quite a large margin. Her tactics usually erred on the side of sneak attacks, hit and run tactics, or using that eye magic of hers to petrify anyone who got too close for her Fairy magic to fight off, so in a close combat fight, it was unthinkable that she could win.
Erza, on the other hand, was an unrivaled powerhouse who could go toe to toe with anyone in the guild.
The conclusion was obvious.
It barely took more than three minutes before the wording changed, proclaiming Erza the winner, and the statues behind them crumbled.
A second sigh of relief ripped its way through Mercury's chest as he managed to lock eyes with the girls who collapsed to the ground, but the frown on his face didn't get any lighter. The girls were safe now. They could no longer be used as hostages.
But there were still plenty of people who could be.
The injured guild members, for one. They'd all fought each other to unconsciousness outside. Each and every one of the ones who had lost were now sitting ducks, ripe for the pickings if the Thunder God Tribe chose to use them to force Master to give up his position once more.
And Mercury knew Laxus would do it, too.
Some mixture of rage and sadness appeared on the girls' faces as he hurriedly explained the situation. Most were the former – Lucy, Juvia, and Levy looked absolutely pissed, and Mercury couldn't say he didn't understand the feeling. His fist still ached from where he'd broken it trying to break through Fried's magic. On the other hand, it was the older members – Bisca and Mira – that looked somewhat somber, remembering a time where Laxus had just been a grumpy young teenager who decided he wanted to be the strongest.
And Mercury understood that feeling, too.
Despite the fact that Laxus no longer had a bargaining chip, Fried's barriers looked as strong as ever. Clearly, they hadn't given up yet. Mercury could almost feel another trick from the rune mage's metaphorical sleeve as the thrumming of Laxus's magic started to leak densely enough that he could feel it from here. Now that Levy was unfrozen, though, there was an actual chance for Fried's barrier to be broken by something other than brute force, and the water mage found himself turning to ask her to try.
Laxus wouldn't leave it at that, though. No way in hell. He came here to steal the title of guildmaster, and he wasn't planning on leaving until he got it.
The whole guild lit up with numerous screens, an advanced form of thought projection, all depicting the same skull and crossbones – reminiscent of a pirate's flag, and oddly fitting for all the Thunder God Tribe was trying to steal – that had Laxus's signature lightning bolt scar engraved on it over the matching eye. His voice leaked through them, and though his laugh felt evil, Mercury could tell he was mad.
No, Laxus wasn't just mad. He was furious, his voice low and rumbling so loudly that the guild's windows shook in their panes.
"Alright, old man. I've activated the Thunder Palace. The game continues," was all the dismembered dragon slayer's voice said before the screens disappeared as quickly as they'd come.
Mercury's heart felt like it stopped. Master Makarov's heart might have actually stopped. He fell to the ground, clutching painfully at his chest after a cry of surprise and rage at his grandson's actions.
Laxus had taken the whole town hostage.
Mira hurried up the stairs to fetch Master's medication, only to stop midway through to point at something outside, horror evident in her eyes. Laxus had not been bluffing. The Thunder Palace took the form of giant lacrima hovering just outside the perimeter of the town in a giant, deadly circle.
This had gotten so much worse than Mercury had imagined.
The rage he'd felt in his chest welled up once more. He barely managed to stop Bisca from shooting a lacrima down from inside the guild hall, explaining that she did not want to take the blowback from one of those. The organic link magic placed on them would cause any damage done to the stone to one who'd caused it, and that included any explosive magic caused by the stone's combustion; they'd receive both the damage they'd inflicted on it, as well as the damage the lacrima would have caused once activated – and no one wanted to get hit with that.
But Mercury hadn't the faintest clue how to stop it. Not by himself, at least, and any other possibility felt like asking fellow Fairy Tail members to sacrifice themselves to stop the Thunder Palace.
He knew rage was the enemy of rational thought, but couldn't stop it from taking control of shaking limbs and a clenched brow. If this went off, there was no way Laxus could be redeemed.
From the way he'd bitten his lip, a small drop of blood welled up in the corner of his mouth. It healed immediately, but the feeling of it remained, a grim reminder that this blood might be on his hands if the lacrima detonated; he clearly hadn't been able to convince Laxus to change his mind, but he should have tried harder to convince Laxus that strength wasn't everything. Maybe… Maybe something could have been done to prevent all of this.
"Levy, what are the odds you can get this barrier down?" Mercury asked the solid script mage. He was tired of waiting around, of waiting for other people to take care of the situation, and as Laxus's former friend – if the lightning mage had ever really considered him one – he knew he carried the responsibility on his shoulders to stop this whole farce.
"I think I can," she replied, confidence lighting her eyes.
Mercury trusted her. She was the smartest person he knew, and if anyone could do it, it was the little bookish mage whose eyes were filled with quiet determination.
He turned to the remaining girls. There was too much to do, too many things they needed to take care of before the remaining forty-five minutes slowly ticked by – people were out there, injured, and two members of the Thunder God Tribe were with them, prowling, looking for more targets.
If Fried went down, or Levy broke through his magic, Mercury could finally take action.
"I hate to ask this of you since you all were just unfrozen, but we need to make sure no one outside is seriously wounded." And take out Laxus, Bixlow, and Fried, he thought, but chose not to voice the words.
The ladies gathered in front of him weren't fragile by any means – Cana was a secret powerhouse, and Lucy could rely on those celestial spirits of hers – but they weren't strong enough to face Laxus and come out unscathed. No one here was. Bixlow and Fried, he was fairly confident could be taken down by some combination of the mages in front of him, but the lightning dragon slayer was an insurmountable challenge at that moment.
Mira could do it, maybe. But that would require her to regain that lost magic of hers first, and that wasn't going to happen even if Mercury wished it miraculously would.
With quiet, resolved nods, the girls sans Levy and Mira left to guild to come through the town for the injured. Cana and Juvia headed towards the forest to request help once more from Porlyusica; Master's condition hadn't returned to normal. Mercury warned them that Fried was likely still there, and to look for Reedus if they could. Lucy went to search the middle of town. Bisca left before Mercury could ask where she was going – she didn't need to tell him, anyway, because he knew she was going to look for Alzack.
Mira, too, left once she was certain that Makarov's condition wouldn't get any worse. She gave Mercury brief instructions for what to do if something did change, but even she knew that there wasn't much the water mage could do other than ease a bit of the pain with his water enchantments.
The grim thought that Master Makarov could be dying because of his grandson lingered in Mercury's head a little too long.
Mercury then told Levy everything he knew about Fried's barrier, just hoping to speed the process along a little bit. He knew a vague bit about Fried's cyphers, something about double encryption, and fortunately, Levy seemed to be decently familiar with rune magic, so she understood the meaning. It was only them, Master, and the two dragon slayers who remained in the guild hall, so the quiet scribble of pens and wrinkling of pages as Levy took notes was the only thing keeping Mercury sane, the silence threatening to overwhelm him. The bickering of the two "children" behind him seemed to cancel out the effect.
In the meantime, Lucy engaged Bixlow, and the number of remaining participants… jumped by half a number? It kept flickering between two digits. Natsu then began to ignore Gajeel in favor of staring intently at the board, watching over the girl who he definitely didn't love with an intense stare.
"Must be Loke," explained Levy, her nose down in a book. "He's a celestial spirit."
Mercury didn't bother to question it. The guild was just too weird – and that was saying something, because the water mage himself wasn't even human.
When the battle didn't finish instantaneously, Mercury feared getting his hopes up. Lucy was strong. He had to keep telling himself that. She spent time with Natsu on the daily, and kept up with Erza, who was a monster; she wouldn't be wiped out so quickly.
And when the anxiety thrumming in his stomach didn't relent, Mercury had to wonder when he'd become such an anxious person.
He wasn't used to caring so much about anyone. The last time he'd cared, that feeling of cherishment had been tossed back into his face and used as a weapon, cruel words spiked in his direction to upset him – by the very man who was currently making a nuisance of himself in Magnolia, no less. It wasn't a sensation that he seeked to repeat any time soon, and yet, it seemed that more and more guild members seemed to be worming their way into that shriveled heart of his. Mira, Lucy, Erza, all of the girls who had been frozen, even Natsu and Gray and Master– Mercury cared much more for each of them than he wanted to admit.
He could no longer feign ignorance of his own feelings.
Maybe it had been the Phantom Lord incident that had brought everyone that much closer together. Going through a death-defying experience was sure to string people together. Putting one's life on the line as Mercury had, showing that he was willing to put himself in harm's way by facing José in the way he had made the guild open their hearts to him, and in return, he'd unconsciously opened his back.
Curse these human-like emotions. Mercury knew he'd only get hurt with them again, but he held onto them anyway.
Levy continued to mumble words that went halfway over Mercury's head, those light-speed reading glasses dimly glowing as she sped through book after book on cyphers. Several more lay scattered at her feet, and she quickly asked Mercury grab a couple more from the library. With four stacked on his shoulder when he returned, the water mage was startled by the way Levy leapt upwards, scattering everything she'd been working on.
"I've got it!" She shouted, then rushed to the barrier at the door, took out a light pen and wrote a couple of fervent notes in elegant handwriting before the barrier shined briefly, brightly, then exploded in a storm of illusionary shards.
Mercury was somewhat ashamed to admit he dropped the books in shock. The clattering of the titles underfoot in turn startled Levy, who turned back to the water mage and made a shooing motion.
"Get out there, Merc! I'll watch over Master!"
She didn't need to tell him twice. Mercury didn't even bother to wait for Natsu or Gajeel – though Natsu headed out around the same time, likely in Lucy's direction. Gajeel lagged behind.
He left the books scattered on the ground to rush out the doorway with a small nod of acknowledgement, sprinting the first couple of blocks before he realized that he actually didn't know where Laxus was.
Though the dragon slayer's electrifying magic seemed to linger in the air like a dust cloud, it was so thick to the point of being overwhelming that Mercury couldn't quite pinpoint the source.
Mercury tried to rationalize it; the odds of him being in the western direction were low, because Fried was there (or, at least, he had been when Reedus had headed in that direction). Bixlow was also an unknown, though, knowing him, he was somewhere he could take full advantage of his magic. There were a couple of toy stores in the middle of town, right? Surely, if Mercury went in the opposite direction as Natsu, he wouldn't come across Bixlow, who was most definitely the fire dragon slayer's target – Lucy's battle had still raged when the barrier had been broken. Evergreen was missing, too, even though she'd been defeated.
Magnolia wasn't the largest town in Fiore, but it was still big enough to be a major tourist attraction. It was much too large to search the entirety of the town in less than half an hour.
That being said, Mercury could narrow it down.
Laxus would be in a place of relative importance. He was arrogant, expecting them to come find him but not wanting to appear as though he was hiding, so he'd definitely be in a place that was both open-air and a popular location, where people traveled.
There weren't that many spaces that fit the bill in Magnolia, but Mercury could still think of at least four or five; there were too many to search individually.
He blindly stumbled a couple more blocks before taking a breath to calm himself, focusing. Silently, he was glad that the tourists and citizens of the city weren't actively questioning him, though their inquisitive stares burned holes in his head. They'd definitely seen enough weirdness from Fairy Tail today, and they weren't even curious about the Thunder Palace surrounding the town; they likely don't know what it is, nor that their lives would be in danger should it be activated.
The water mage silently wished he had a sense of smell like Laxus. That man could track anyone down; it sure would come in handy right then.
Mercury hunched over, one hand on a wall for balance and focusing on the image of thunder and ozone in his mind; he couldn't smell and he couldn't taste, but he could feel in a way that was unique to him. Just as he was able to sense Juvia using magic, as the sensation of the Phantom Lord's guild hall hulking over the bay had creeped up his senses, he could feel the way magic permeated the air. With each inhale, the air that filled his lungs brought with it the sensation of the magic used.
Lightning should have been a lot harder for him to sense than water. At least with water, he'd lived in it; the only thing he knew about the feeling of lightning was when it coursed through his body courtesy of a dragon slayer trying to get a handle on their magic for the first time.
But Laxus' magic soaked through the air. It would have been harder to sense the water than it was to hone in on the thundering sensation of Laxus's magic power. The sensation was almost overwhelming.
Mercury inhaled deeply once more, mind reaching and straining. The lightning magic, wild and unrestrained, thundered in his ears, taking the sound of cymbals, crashing like thunder. It was deafening – the water mage found that he had to "look" for something else to prevent himself from being sucked underneath, lost within the cacophony of sound.
He could feel the water in the air, dragged towards his body as the magic swirled around his center.
Mercury was on the fringes of Laxus's magic maelstrom; all he needed was to find the perfect center, the source of the cymbals that cracked in his ears. Distantly, the sound of a gong, loud, but in a different way than Laxus – determined, maybe – combined with the graceful sound of bells; Natsu and Lucy had found each other. Metal drums coaxed from somewhere nearby – too far for Mercury to think it belonged to the Gajeel, but certainly matching the sensation he got from the dragon slayer.
Further, further, he had to strain with his mind, searching.
There! Mixed in with Erza's sharp crescendo of strings laid the loudest sound yet; it threatened to overtake Mercury for the moment as magic surged once more, white spots taking his vision as it crashed over him, but it was definitely Laxus himself, engaged in a fight with Erza.
He was on the right track.
(His chest burned.)
Mercury didn't have to repeat the action more than a couple of times. He quickly became attuned to Laxus's magic – a testament of how familiar he was with it, perhaps – and he only had to backtrack once or twice. The first few times left him dizzy, overwhelmed by an imagined cacophony, but only once did he actually have to pause as a shockwave of putrid magic that literally shook the air coursed through him.
It was Mira. He hadn't felt that in a long time.
(The sound of it in his mind was like nails on a chalkboard; it sent shivers down his spine, a visceral horror at the disgusting feeling of it nearly overtaking his body.)
He knew he was going in the right direction when the hairs in his ponytail started to stick out once more. The air was absolutely electric. Laxus was already engaged in combat, both Mystogan and Erza already there to rival him. Merc hadn't even sensed the former – so, he still wasn't using magic? And he was fighting Laxus?
Whether Mystogan was brave or stupid, Mercury wasn't sure.
The water mage didn't care if he was going to interrupt their battle. He might have felt bad if there was something less tangible on the line, but as it was, Laxus was his responsibility. Laxus was his friend, and he'd be damned if he let someone else shoulder the burden meant for himself.
He hurried.