Mercury's head felt so foggy as he slowly began to wake up that his first thought was that he'd been hit in the head somehow. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been concussed so strongly that he couldn't think. But from the way his body throbbed, he could tell it was something a lot deeper than that, and he fought to recall the events that put him in a situation like this to begin with.
The last thing he remembered… was drinking tea.
Honestly, it wasn't hard to put things together from there. They'd been betrayed by that fat old Council bastard.
Could he say he was truly surprised? No, of course not. Mercury hated the Magic Council because its members were biased, corrupt, and often turned a blind eye to suffering so long as it benefited them, so this was definitely in character for the former Chairman. Shortsighted, yes, but definitely in character.
That being said, while he wasn't surprised, this wasn't in the water mage's plans, so he desperately struggled to open his far-too-heavy eyelids, trying to get a glimpse of where he was. He could hear movement around him, but the only magic nearby was that of the air. So, either he was surrounded by non-living beings, or there were creatures that didn't rely on magic at all nearby.
It didn't take much sleuthing to figure out which it was. They'd gone into this knowing vaguely how demons worked, after all, and though their exact nature was still foreign, the one thing they did know was that they didn't use "magic."
They used curses.
But, though Mercury wanted to get up and start slinging fists around, he was too dizzy to do much of anything. Even with his eyes closed, he felt so nauseous he could vomit if he wasn't careful. Whatever Crawford had spiked their teas with was strong enough to last even now. There was little doubt in Mercury's mind that Mira and Erza were in similar situations elsewhere, which filled him with a sense of dread larger than he could put into words.
When he did manage to open his eyes, however, any thoughts he had of the other two disappeared entirely, replaced with a unique kind of fear that only he could know.
In front of him, as expected, was something that didn't look human. It had soft, fleshy skin, and dark pits for eyes. Its neck looked like the stalk of some sort of plant. Atop its pale head was a red cap, giving it the impression of a mushroom. There was no doubt in Mercury's mind that whatever he was looking at, it was not and had never been a human. And though its shape was in no way reminiscent of a human's, it still had two little grubby hands, one of which was holding a thick needle right above Mercury's left wrist.
Attached to the end of said needle was a little clear vial. A vial full of something red.
There was no mistaking it – it was a vial full of Mercury's blood.
He flinched so hard that the mushroom creature's head bobbed up towards his face, at which point the water mage realized that he'd been tied to a chair. The restraints around his wrists held his arms down steadily in place. They were made out of some sort of metal, and with the remnants of an unknown sedative running around in his blood, there was no way Mercury could draw out the strength to break them.
He did the next best thing. Mercury's foot flailed out, making solid contact with the creature. It was sent flying back. The vial in its hand shattered on the floor, where it wiggled around, trying and failing to get up.
"What the hell?" Mercury suddenly felt light headed and unable to breathe. His heart, that thing he'd fought so long to hear, hammered in his head so loudly that he almost wanted it to just turn off entirely.
What the hell?
What the hell?
Why was he back in that goddamn basement?
Had it all been a dream? The rescue, the return, the recovery? Finding everyone again, meeting Anemone, kicking Leviathan's ass – was it all some delusion meant to lull him into a sense of security while those bastards continued to harvest his body like he was a plentiful garden with anything left to give?
Desperation gave him more strength to strain against his restraints, but they didn't budge even a millimeter. All it did was make the cold metal dig painfully into his wrists, which was enough to snap him out of it, at least partially. Yeah, the situation was the same – he couldn't deny it with the terrifying sense of anemia that pulsated through his body stronger than any poison could – but his body was undoubtedly different from what it was back then. It was whole. It was fine.
He was fine.
Someone else had just gotten that same rotten idea as Alchemist, that's all.
Mercury's attention shot to the doorway as he heard someone enter – another mushroom like creature. Instead of a red cap, it had a green one. As though a robot, it entered the room, making no comment on the state of its fallen brethren to approach the chair the water mage found himself attached to. It procured another needle and vial from somewhere behind its back and prepared to insert it into the water mage's wrist, but he didn't let it get that far. He kicked it too, sending back so hard that it passed through the doorway it had just entered from as it made a noise like it was deflating.
Whatever it was, it didn't seem like it was truly alive.
But the reprieve of kicking it wasn't long lasting at all, and soon, both began to make a sort of wailing noise that made Mercury's head feel like it was splitting in two. It sounded like a siren – and seemed to function like one too, because moments later, a similar creature sprinted into the room, followed by a hoard of other mushroom creatures.
Like the other creatures, the largest of those trying to slam their way into the small room didn't seem to be in any way human. Its body was mostly similar to the smaller mushrooms, but its head was far bigger, and it had long antenna-like structures jutting from the top – antenna that seemed to sprinkle small shimmering dust that made the small mushrooms jolt when they made contact. It was vaguely human in shape, wearing a labcoat that hid most of its body from view.
Mercury felt a sinking feeling appear in his gut. Of all these mushrooms, this one had to be the leader.
It leveled an accusatory stare at the captured water mage. "What the heck do you think you're doing?"
"What am I doing? What are you doing? Who the hell are you? Where am I?"
"Woah, slow down with the questions, Sherlock." Mercury didn't question how whatever this creature was knew who Sherlock was. "Why would I answer you after you just kicked my precious Baby Shrooms, huh? Pretty rude."
It moved around the room, gently comforting the screeching shrooms that couldn't help themselves stand. Mercury watched it without blinking. He couldn't be sure what it would do, and as far as he knew, it was this thing that had ordered Crawford Seam to put a sedative in their drinks – something that was definitely supported by the fact that he finally remembered where he'd seen the ex-Chairman before. It had only been a brief flash and Mercury was high high on something at the time, but he could vaguely recall the man's shape looking at him through a doorway.
In other words, Crawford Seam had been aware of and likely funded Alchemist's experiments. If he considered it from that perspective, it made sense that Mercury would end up in another lab.
(Though, it also made him that much more weary of it all. How many times would that experience come back to bite him? Hopefully not that many more. He wasn't sure how many more occasions like this his heart and mind could take before they gave up on moving on entirely.)
When the tallest creature finished fighting his "Baby Shrooms" they joined the crowd behind him, making pitiful little noises that sounded almost like mewling. It stood and gave Mercury a somewhat arrogant look. "See? Aren't they cute? And you just kicked them like they were nothing."
The water mage stared back, perturbed and not wanting to answer.
"Hnm, be like that," it grunted. "I wouldn't expect something that lives like a human to understand the greatness of nature anyway."
The creature approached Mercury, staying just out of range so that it couldn't be kicked like the two others. It appraised him while putting a hand on its chin and tilting its head as though looking at something it was curious about.
The look made Mercury's skin crawl.
"Not talking now, eh? That's fine. It's easier for me if you're quiet. Not that you being loud is particularly terrible, but it's sort of a headache, you know? Baby Shrooms don't have ears, but I sure do." It made a noise that sounded like a groan, but was probably supposed to be a laugh.
It turned away from Mercury to stare at its group of gathered mushrooms behind it. The antenna on top of its head vibrated and twitched, sending more freckles of dust down to touch each of the smaller creatures, and again, they jolted and squealed upon making contact. Moments after, they shuffled themselves, reorganized, and started going about their tasks again. A blue cap found a dustpan, then swept up the shattered bits of glass on the floor. A purple one collected more vials and syringes from a table off to the side while a yellow one found its attention drawn to several instruments on the wall that Mercury could recognize as those used to purify substances.
In this case, it was probably being used for his blood.
Once more, the red one shuffled towards him with a glass vial and syringe wrapped up in its grubby hands, but the largest one held out a hand for it to stop this time. "I'll handle it, okay? Why don't you go see if Lamy needs any help? She's got a lot more to do than I do."
It talked to the small creature as though it were a child. Mercury's face wrinkled in disgust. When the red cap shuffled off in the direction of the exit, it turned back to him, vial and syringe in hand. "You are one lucky motherfucker," it said.
"In what situation is this lucky, you freak?" Mercury hissed back, feeling his heartbeat rise. All he could do was look at that syringe.
"Well, you're not dead. That's usually a bonus, I think," it explained. "An average human has about five liters of blood in their body. Losing half a liter usually leads to the normal side effects – dizziness, loss of balance, the usual. It usually takes losing two liters to fully kill a human, since you guys only have about five liters to begin with. But do you know how much we've been able to take from you?"
Mercury bit his lip. "Screw you."
"That's not a number, but I'll give you the answer anyway because I'm nice like that – four gallons. Fifteen liters. Over seven times what it takes to kill a human. That's why you're lucky, because you're alive."
Just having the number in his head made him feel sick. He knew how much his body could take. Alchemist had proven to him that much – four gallons was a lot, but far less than what they'd helped themselves to over the course of his four years trapped down there. So long as it had magic within it, his body would continue to keep producing all the things needed to stay alive, making him almost immortal.
But that meant that there was nowhere for it to stop.
Nowhere for it to end.
So long as there was magic in his world, his body would keep moving, and they'd be able to keep taking from him.
"I don't suppose that makes you feel any better," the creature said. It opened the flaps of its lab coat to reveal an entire collection of syringes and vials, some filled and some empty. They varied in size. The smallest was a vial the size of Mercury's pinky, and the largest was an empty syringe the size of his entire forearm. "But, no matter. Whether or not you're willing to assist with our plans means nothing in the grand scheme of things. We've already achieved our first goal. You're going to ride with us until Face activates."
"... Face?" Mercury repeated.
The creature took a medium sized syringe from its jacket. The water mage couldn't tell what was in it, but grey liquid floated around inside. "Yep, Face. I can't say I'm surprised you know of it considering who brought you in."
He frowned. "Seam."
"Mm, yeah, that guy. The human who thought he'd get anything from working with a bunch of demons. You'll be happy to know he's already been taken care of."
So, Crawford Seam got what was coming to him? In another situation, Mercury might have smiled, but he couldn't find it within himself to even try right now. The demon had indirectly just confirmed two things for him – one, that Seam had indeed betrayed them, and two, that this was indeed a place filled with demons.
In other words, the most likely place that he currently was… was wherever Tartarus's main base was.
"... And Face hasn't been activated yet?"
The demon shook its head. "We've got the keys, but we're on a countdown. Can't activate it remotely, it seems. Oh well. It doesn't really matter to me. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing until the end comes, at which point you'll probably croak and I'll be free to return to more interesting experiments."
Mercury pressed his lips together tightly. Face had already been started, and it was counting down. How long was the countdown? How long did it have left?
Did Fairy Tail know this already?
… He had to get out of here. He really had to get out of here.
The water mage pulled tightly against his restraints, wincing when the scales caught underneath started twisting in the wrong way. It was no use. Nothing moved.
"I wouldn't bother trying to escape. There's not really any point, you know? Well, I guess it would make too much sense for me to say that, but you won't believe me either way," said the demon. It held up its syringe to where Mercury presumed its eyes would be if it had any, squeezing on the plunger so that a drop or two came out the end of a long, thin needle. "Then again, I'm just a low ranking demon who was told by Madam Kyouka to keep pulling from you for as long as I could, so it doesn't really matter to me whether you believe me or not."
It swapped the grip on the syringe, brandishing it like a knife rather than a medical instrument. "But, ah, I can have this, can't I? My precious Baby Shrooms were hurt by you. Four gallons is enough to hold us over for a while."
Then, it jabbed the syringe into Mercury's leg, and pushed down on the plunger. It had been aimed at the meaty part of his leg, but he'd barely managed to shove the chair backwards a couple of inches at the last moment – enough to get the needle stuck just above his knee cap instead.
"Shit – what was that?" he demanded, but he already knew. The moment that whatever was in that tube was injected, Mercury's leg began to buzz with a new sensation, like someone had shoved acid through his veins.
"Just a little poison. Figured it would teach you to kick the shrooms. They're pretty delicate, you know?"
His right leg – the one he'd kicked those damn mushrooms with – stung like fire. Whatever poison this thing had prepped, it was fast acting. "You're – you're actually insane, I think."
"Oh? And why's that?"
"You're insane… if you think this is e-enough to stop me…" Mercury winced and strained against the restraints one more time. He ignored the pain. Whatever was going on in his leg felt so much worse, making anything else in his body feel much tamer.
"Well, we'll see if you can still say that when –"
He felt a bolt twist.
He felt the metal groan.
It wasn't enough. His strength wasn't enough. Mercury was surprisingly strong, but not that strong – not enough to tear two inches worth of metal apart. But that was with raw, brute strength. He still had something else inside of him that could make up for that.
Magic.
Until Face went off, Mercury still had magic.
He let it flood his body like a damn had broken, concentrating it in his arms. The metal shifted again. He could feel it pulling apart ever-so-slowly, could feel the slack begin to grow. It wouldn't be long before –
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" the demon asked. Its voice trembled. "Uh, this is – no, stop, you're not supposed to be doing that."
Mercury nearly snorted. As if being told not to do something was going to make him do it any less. He continued to curl his arms in, straining and straining and straining until finally, the right one popped off.
One arm freed.
One to go.
The creature in front of him clearly knew what that meant. It looked around frantically, searching for anything that could tame the water mage back into becoming limp and lifeless, but its only options were more of those syringes in its jacket.
Mercury was sure that it would have started jabbing them in at random if not for the fact it looked like a massive coward.
"This is – this is above my pay grade," it moaned. All of the "Baby Shrooms" had stopped moving and stared at it with hollowed, fake eyes as though trying to decide what to do. The demon shook its head wildly, letting the spores it used to control the mushrooms fly every which way. "Someone, anyone – go get someone stronger than me. Please – eep!"
It screamed when the second restraint came free, releasing Mercury completely. He stood as the mushroom minions all huddled out of the room in one big clump, most bumping into each other in their hurry. Only the yellow one managed to make it through the doorway by the time that the water mage stood to his full height, taking one staggering step towards the leading demon, who'd fallen to the ground in fear.
"No, please – I'm just doing this on orders, I swear!"
"Yeah, and that's why you were willing to stab me instead of continuing them," Mercury grunted. He leaned down, grabbing the demon by the collar of its lab coat, and pulled it up to eye level. "Now you're going to tell me everything you know about Tartarus."
"Why would I – Madam Kyouka will kill me! I'll be dead either way!"
Mercury dragged the creature upwards. His leg burned. He wondered for how long it would stay that way, but bit the inside of his cheek to control any sign of pain from showing on his face, then took a limping step towards the pile of mushrooms that were still trying to force themselves out of the room.
He raised his left foot.
"Wait, don't –"
– and he slammed it down through the blue one's head. It squealed like the others before had before being abruptly cut off as Mercury's shoe squished the entirety of its cap into the ground. The other shrooms paid it no mind.
"My Baby Shrooms!"
"Answer my questions or I'm going to destroy each and everyone one of these things right here and now," Mercury growled. "How long until Face activates?"
"I don't –"
He raised his foot again.
"- there was an hour on the timer when they first activated it, okay!"
"And how long ago was that?"
"I don't know, thirty minutes? I don't keep track of time very well! I don't have eyes, I can't even tell what time of day it is!" Its legs scrambled on the ground, desperate for any sort of purchase as the antenna on its head bounced wildly.
Mercury raised him up slightly higher, getting their faces close together. He could feel the creature's spores hitting uselessly against his face. "Where are my companions?"
"Madam Kyouka has the redhead! She was looking for information on some human, I swear I don't know any more than that!"
'Some human' must have been Jellal. Erza had already claimed that she had no idea where the man was, so they'd probably found the answer some other way, though Mercury dreaded what it meant for her.
"And Mira?" he asked.
"That's the w-white haired one, right? Lamy and Lady Seilah have her in the lab somewhere. I don't know what they're doing there, but they're already altering another human in there, so it'll be a while before anything happens…"
Mercury did not want to know what "altering" meant in this context. It was a lab. The possibilities were endless – physical, mental, magical. No, he had to get to Mira before anything like that happened. Her and Erza.
"But – but, you're not the only one from that guild here!" the demon squealed. "Please don't kill my Baby Shrooms!"
He put his foot against the ground. "What?"
"There's humans here who aren't the two you mentioned. Knowing that is enough for you to let my babies go, right? We captured a couple more!"
"Who?"
"I, uh, don't really know their names –"
"Describe them to me."
Fairy Tail was too goddamn nosy to keep their faces out of this, it seemed. Any one of them could have managed to sneak in.
"Um, I only got a glimpse, but there were two… One was pink. I didn't really get to see the other one, but Lady Seilah brought her back…"
Mercury put a hand to his face, trying to hide his expression. Of course it was Natsu. Even if there were ten other people in the guild who'd had pink hair, Mercury would have pegged it as him immediately anyway.
Was the boy's presence a good thing or a bad thing? He had no clue, but he'd run with it anyway. Any help he could get was going to be good help, especially considering they had approximately thirty minutes before Face detonated.
"S-See, I was useful, right? So you'll let me go…"
"No way in hell," he grumbled back.
"What, but I –"
"You're a demon. I wouldn't let you go even if you were a fly."
"I, I, help, someone, help!" the demon wailed. In unison, the mushrooms all began to cry out as well, forming a wall of sound that damn near startled Mercury into dropping the creature. But, he held on – even when some miraculous form of help did appear.
As though drawn in by all the shouting, a tall shadow stepped into the room, an irritated look etched upon its face. Its appearance startled Mercury – as focused as he was on the mushroom demons, he hadn't quite been listening for any sounds outside the room he was in, but he definitely would have been able to hear its magic if it was anything familiar.
But considering how the room was still dead silent to his magical hearing, this creature had to be a demon, too.
Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised that demons could look so visually similar to humans. After all, Mercury himself wasn't human either, but this one was almost visually indistinguishable from any of the people he saw on any average day. It had green hair like Fried and darker skin like Warren, and it was easily as tall or taller than Laxus.
"Master Tempester!" the demon in Mercury's hands shouted. "Please save me! This thing is going to kill all of my Baby Shrooms."
But the new demon simply stared at the other one as though it were smaller than a bug. "Who are you?"
"W-What? Master Tempester, surely you remember me –"
"I don't."
The smaller demon in Mercury's hands wriggled, trying in vain to get away, but Mercury's attention was stuck only on this new demon. His head throbbed. His hands shook.
This demon – it was familiar.
Where had he seen it before?
No, that wasn't quite right. This wasn't the same feeling he'd gotten when he'd seen the ex-Chairman of the Magic Council. It wasn't a vision that he recalled. It was a sound – a sound he'd only heard once.
The same one he heard when he stood next to Laxus, Evergreen, Bixlow, and Fried.
It wasn't nearly as strong, but Mercury was certain it was the same thing, the same hollow, empty sound that gave him goosebumps as though he were looking at something paranormal. He gritted his teeth. "Who the hell are you?"
Only then did the new demon look at him.
It stared at him with that same dead look it gave its comrade, the mushroom writhing in Mercury's hand, now forgotten. There was nothing behind those eyes. It looked almost as hollow as the cavities on the smaller shrooms that still wailed as though they were being murdered, except at least this new demon had eyes.
"Do I know you?" it asked.
"Master Tempester, that's an enemy. I know you don't remember it since you were just reborn, but please, you need to –"
Mercury felt a surge of something, and then the creature's head exploded. Wet, slimy goo plastered his leg as well as that of the demon in front of him, and In unison, all of the smaller shrooms fell silent, their host now dead.
"That's better," said the new demon. "That sound was hurting my head."
The water mage could feel it, then, a sort of rage bubbling in his chest. It felt like the one he felt when he looked at the unconscious form of his best friend laying in a room he'd never intentionally enter, the same one he felt as he pressed that same man's shoulders into a bed he'd never willingly lay in. Except the more Mercury let it seethe and simmer as he'd been doing since seeing that horrific sight, the more he was certain it wasn't anger at all.
It was helplessness.
And as he looked down his nose at this demon, that very same helplessness fizzled out into the air in the form of water droplets. Mercury was no longer helpless. The very thing he needed in order to help was right in front of him, so close he could touch it, and he'd acquire it by any means necessary.
After all…
That's what they'd do for him.
Magic exploded into the room, making it immediately humid and muggy. Beads of water coalesced on the ground. Though Mercury was already fairly certain that the remainder of the mushroom demons were already dead, he still wrapped tendrils of water around the corpses to confirm. Not a single one made a noise, nor did the body of the demon who'd stabbed him in the leg with an already-fading poison.
They were dead. This new demon – Tempester – had killed them as though they weren't on the same side.
Mercury directed his water tentacles at Tempester, still staring at him with determined, furious eyes. Though the tendrils were more than strong enough to collapse the caps of the mushrooms, the hardness of this new demon wasn't something they could face by themselves. They wrapped uselessly around its arms and legs. He couldn't get the thin, pliable water to do any damage.
"It seems you're not a demon as I originally thought," it commented. His body was soaked, his hair dripping with water, but there didn't appear to be a single hair out of place despite the fact that it was quite messy to begin with.
"Don't you dare try to call me one of you," Mercury growled.
Tempester put its hands up. "It's of no importance to me their way. A demon who acts up is no better than a wild beast. But let's see if you can put up a better fight than that – entertain me."
Something in the water mage snapped. He lunged forward to give Tempester a smack in the face, but his fist was caught rather easily.
It was clear – this would be no easy opponent. But that was to be expected. Anyone able to inflict that much damage on someone like Laxus was nowhere near the rabble Mercury was used to fighting.
The two exchanged a flurry of blows, each testing the other out. The small space littered with demons on the floor made for a rough sort of battlefield. Tempester actually punched through the wall, though it didn't seem to notice it. Mercury also missed as the demon ducked under one of his attempted punches, forcing his fist into the plaster and rock; Tempester took that opportunity to punch him in the gut, sending Mercury flying back into the chair he'd been stuck in not too long ago. His back slammed into it, spending them both sprawling, but he was up in less than a second.
His ribs ached. His leg ached. When would it end?
Given the sudden space that split the distance between them, Mercury followed up with a high powered water breath attack that was sure to do some damage. It was strong enough to pierce rock – but lo and behold, when the spray kicked up by the water dissipated, Tempester was no worse for wear than he'd been before.
To one, the demon might have looked impervious. None of Mercury's attacks seemed to do anything. There were no scuff marks on its skin from being kicked or punched, nor were there any gashes from Mercury's long nails, but he could tell that wasn't the issue. Despite the general lack of attention on Tempester's part, there still were small streaks of blood on the ground, and a red spot on the shoulder of its vest.
In other words, it was bleeding. The bleeding just stopped before it could ebb away at any of Tempester's strength.
"You're… a regenerator?" Mercury asked.
The demon nodded. "My body is supplied with cursed power from our King. It allows me to regenerate my body at will. But you… also have the ability to regenerate, do you not?"
Despite his misgivings about giving away such information, Mercury nodded too, already forming a plan in his head.
"I see," said Tempester. "Then this will be a stalemate until one of us can overpower the other."
"I suppose so."
"It shall not be that way for long." It looked around at the room they were in as a mysterious wind started blasting through it knocking nearly everything from its original position.
Mercury threw his hands up over his face so that none of the debris or shrapnel could hit him, but when he looked back, a different creature was staring back at him. Instead of a man, he really was looking at a beast. It had somehow grown even taller, now making the water mage look like a shrimp, and its shoulders were at least twice as big. It couldn't even get through the doorway with how large it had become, but that wasn't an issue. It simply walked forward and destroyed the door frame without even pausing.
Was this the last minute power up that characters got when it looked like they were going to lose?
"For all that talk of beasts earlier," Mercury said, feeling his throat go sort of dry, "you sure look a lot like one." Damn it, he was intimidated by this thing – with the brown fur that had sprouted from seemingly every pore on its body, it looked more like a grizzly bear than human.
"This is simply my Etherius form."
Mercury had no idea what that meant, nor did he particularly care. He readied himself. There was no way that something as massive as that wasn't going to resort to attacking right away.
Tempester frowned. "There's not enough room in here to have fun," it said, looking around at the four cracked walls that entrapped them. "Let's fix that."
Underfoot, the ground rumbled. If not for the fact he'd have been able to sense it, Mercury's initial reaction was to call it earth magic, but save for the sounds of the righters and the shifting floor, the room was silent. This definitely wasn't magic. It was Tempester's curse.
Whatever the hell that was.
Rather than attack Mercury directly, the walls simply fell over to make the room nearly three times bigger. Tempester eyed the new corners, looking pleased. "That's more like it."
"More like wh –"
Tempests filled the room with harsh bursts of air before the water mage could finish his sentence, but their appearance was more than enough to realize what Tempester meant. Each miniature tornado was big enough to destroy the entire guild hall. While inside, Tempester couldn't make more than three or four of them at a time lest it risk getting hit by them as well, so it had knocked down the walls to give itself some extra room.
Mercury's body became lithe as he dodged around each one, careful not to let the spinning torpedo gauge holes in his scales. He ducked, jumped, and threw himself left and right to get out of the way. When he got a moment, he attempted to counter from a distance. He shot more blasts of water, slashed more with whips, tried to drown Tempester from afar, but nothing seemed to have much of an effect. Blood would spill, then immediately stop.
One of the air blasts hit him directly in the face, and that's when Mercury had decided he'd had enough.
The fact of the matter was that his attacks weren't as strong as the first person to take Tempester down, Laxus. They never had been. They probably never would be, except in certain circumstances, and that was fine – that's why he and the Lightning Dragon Slayer were there was no one better to fight someone with endless regeneration than someone else who had the same ability. It would come down to stamina more than anything. Who could take out the other before falling themselves? Who could adapt faster?
Mercury was certain that it was himself. Dead certain, and willing to bet on it; his regeneration ability was just better. He'd have been dead tens of times over without it, but Tempester had apparently just been revived. Their abilities weren't the same.
He started to become picky with his water whips and blades, focusing on one specific thing that Tempester had mentioned. The water mage continued to dodge around blades of air and tornados, making sure to avoid being hit by any of Tempester's "calamities." Rumbling earthquakes threatened to consume him from below while the room shifted like tectonic plates, attempting to spear him. Mercury just kept pushing forward, aiming at that same spot – right above Tempester's heart. The attacks were by no means strong. They were the same as before, crackling whips made of water and crystalline blades of ice meant to slash rather than pierce, barely enough for the demon to even register that it was being hit, let alone trigger its regeneration.
Because that's what it had said, wasn't it? That it could regenerate its body at will. It had to be aware it was being hit to heal, and Mercury's practical pinpricks were nowhere near enough to take the demon out so strongly.
But Tempester was clearly starting to get frustrated. Its face darkened. Its attacks got more varied, more furious, from fire springing up from nowhere on demon corpses to lightning spearing the room.
Mercury just continued to dodge.
He was fortunate in a sense that the sheer amount of saltwater littering the room was enough to semi-counter both types of attacks. The fires were doused near immediately as more water filled the air, and the lightning was dispersed on contact, spreading to everyone in the room – both Tempester and Mercury. The latter, at least, was far more used to the sensation of being shocked; his entire fight against Leviathan was based on the fact that his electricity resistance was at least good enough to withstand getting shot point blank, so there was no point in operating under any other methodology.
This was all he needed.
With the electricity numbing Tempester's ability to feel pain and Mercury's constant chipping away at the demon's thick skin, he got what he wanted rather quickly. When blood sprung up this time, Tempester didn't consciously react to it. Its body was already soaked, so additional liquid just felt like water, and its senses had been dulled enough that it couldn't feel the sting of salt seeping into the wound.
Seeing a small welt of red appear, Mercury aimed at the spot one more time, going for a cut intersecting the first. Again, Tempester didn't notice. It was becoming far too upset with the current tide of the right.
"This is boring," it said. Growled, really.
"I know, right?"
That was all the prep time Mercury needed, so it was time to end this. In a split second, everything paused. The water dripping down the walls halted in its path, and small droplets kicked up by the demon and the mage stopped in mid-air as though frozen. The room began to glow a faint blue known only to the water mage – the color of his magic.
And then every single water droplet in the room shot towards the small incision on Tempester's chest as though they were heat seeking missiles. The droplets each left an arc in their wake the color of shimmering sapphires. It was beautiful, but the far more appealing part was how they slammed into Tempester's chest. The first few did very little. The handful after that had more of an effect, making small indents in already torn skin. With each additional handful of water that made content, the incision grew, and there were a lot of "small handfuls" of water in the room – enough to fill several bathtubs with water, and then some. Soon, blood freely dripped down Tempester's chest, landing in a heavy pile on the floor.
"T-This much isn't enough… to kill… me," the demon heaved, falling to its knees.
Behind it, the wall was soaked with blood. The water droplets were enough to pierce all the way through. Mercury had thought that running through the demon's heart would be enough to kill it, but it seemed he was wrong.
But that was fine. Such an impersonal ending wasn't enough for what this creature had done to Laxus and the others, anyway.
He slowly walked up to Tempester, who groaned while struggling to stand. The hole in its chest slowly started to seal itself closed as though it were made out of clay, but he paid it no mind, instead looking the demon straight in the face.
"I hate you," he said. "I hate you and all of your kind, but thank you for being the one for showing yourself in front of me first."
It was because of that that he could go all out. Because Tempester was the first one that he'd seen – because Mercury's trash-ass luck had for once turned around, he had been able to fight without running himself dry to get the ending he wanted.
This was the first and last time he'd ever thank a demon.
"You…?"
Mercury reached out and touched Tempester's head. The hair on it was soaked, but he paid it no mind, instead focusing on what was inside. There was one thing that the water mage had realized when he was fighting the demon, and that was that there was absolutely no magic in its body – none of the ambient magic from the air, nor any personal magic. On the inside, Tempester was just empty, and that left an unusual possibility.
Because there was no magical interference, Mercury's magic could run wild in the demon's body, and that's exactly what he was going to do. There was water on the inside of Tempester's body, as there was inside all living things – and where there was water, a water mage could work best.
He'd blow Tempester up from the inside out.
"What do you think you're –" the demon tried to protest, but it was too late for that – far too late. By the time it began to sense that something was amiss on the inside, enough of Mercury's magic had already entered its body, taking hold of the water molecules on the inside.
He forced them first to halt in place, bringing Tempester's regeneration to a screeching halt. Then, he filled them with as much energy as he could. They vibrated, then pulsated, and then finally burst from his body, sending a cascade of blood over the water mage's body and clothes.
But that was fine.
This was what he wanted, and with one last anguished scream, Tempester was eliminated.