The Fairy Tail mages, those who weren't under Everlue's employ, looked the situation over. On one side, a portly aristocrat with a twisted sense of both morals and aesthetics. On the other, an S-Class wizard whose only non-victories had come at the hands of giant demons and rogue deities.
Natsu knew how this had to go.
Ultear held out her hand. "The book. Gi-"
"Fire Dragon BURNING FIST!"
Natsu leapt at Ultear, his hand trailing fire. A wall of polished stone broke up from the floor to intercept.
"Get that book outta here!" he barked. "Fire Dragon CLAW!"
As he landed a flaming kick, causing the tile wall to crack, Cana grabbed Lucy's wrist and bolted past Everlue. "Catch us if you can, Fatso!"
"Impudent little…" Everlue steamed as he turned towards the hole in the floor. "I'm going after those filthy peons! If that pyromaniac leaves this room, it had better not be on his feet!"
Ultear winced as her tile wall began to crack. Natsu wasn't S-class, but he trained enough with them to threaten one. She was having regrets about his choice to join the FWF. She couldn't take any chances.
There was a layer of concrete, intellectually called opus caementicium, beneath the polished stone, revealed by the section she'd uprooted. The Duke must've had it poured to make for a more solid structure, literally, to ensure his Diver Magic wouldn't collapse his roof or walls from the tunnels it left. From her limited knowledge of its make, Ultear knew that concrete at one point in the past had been liquid before the water within had escaped into the air. With plenty of atmospheric moisture to draw upon, returning it to its liquid state would be simple.
All of this, Ultear observed in the moment it took for Natsu to retract his foot and land on the ground.
"What the-?!" Natsu was suddenly sinking into a pool of cold slurry. Ultear solidified the concrete into a pair of heavy shoes, then zoomed them forward, taking Natsu's feet out from under him. He fell into the grey porridge, sloshing and flailing in as he struggled to right himself. In a moment, a wave of concrete folded over his body and hardened, leaving only his head free of the thick cocoon.
"You-!" Natsu gnashed his teeth as he pulled, this way and that, trying to make a dent in his bindings. "You couldn't at least gimme a good fight? This is so… Freaking…! Lame...!"
"My orders were to keep you from leaving on your feet," Ultear said. "I can imply that he wants me to break your legs. This is the best option for both of us."
Natsu grimaced at her. "Like… You… Could…!"
Ultear sighed, as she watched him struggle, his head twisting and turning as he strained against her magic. Solid sediment like that wouldn't break easily, and it certainly wouldn't budge with her Arc of Time magic keeping it frozen in time and Natsu unable to build momentum. Heating it wouldn't melt it, not at the temperatures she'd seen Natsu produce. Much as it pained her to admit it, she knew Natsu wasn't strong or smart enough to handle her.
That's where she was wrong.
Natsu wasn't struggling to break her cocoon directly. When she'd enveloped him in this prison, he'd thrown out his abs to give himself a beer gut. Now he was struggling to create a gap around his neck and chest so he could suck that gut inward. An empty vacuum wouldn't help him; he needed air to fill in the space. As he got his stomach flatter and flatter, it left a bigger and bigger air pocket between him and the concrete.
An air pocket which, thanks to his glowing hands, soon began to heat up...
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"You couldn't have picked a place that was less… Smelly?" Cana said, looking around the literal sewer that she and Lucy were hiding in.
"It's just a drainage system," Lucy replied.
"Yeah, but for what?"
"Let me concentrate, Cana."
Of the two of them, Cana never thought a classy girl like Lucy would be the one less adverse to getting down and dirty. Lucy sat against the metal sheet-lined walls, her tush planted on the brick and mortar walkway beneath the trickling outflow pipes. She didn't seem to care what got on her dress; she was too focused on Daybreak. A pair of Gale-Force Reading Glasses sat on her nose, keeping her golden locks aside like curtains as words whizzed into her brain.
"There has to be more to this book, some kind of secret," Lucy murmured as she thumbed through it, taking in four pages a second. "A genius like Kemu Zaleon wouldn't put his name on garbage like this. I wouldn't."
Cana caught herself before she could lean on the (probably) filthy wall. "You write stories?"
"I want to," Lucy admitted, "but I'm… Ha! Knew it! There is a secret here!"
The two hear the sound of metal buckling. They didn't have time to realize it was coming from beside Lucy.
"How interesting!"
Everlue burst through the way and grabbed Lucy's arms, twisting them behind her back and hungrily eying the book.
"While it pains me to lay hands on a cactus like you, I do hope you'll share that secret with me," Everlue said with a malicious grin.
"Lucy!" Cana whipped out a trio of cards from her deck. Everlue disappeared back in the hole, dragging Lucy with him.
"You don't deserve to know!" Lucy shouted as she disappeared.
"Synia, be a dear and take care of the refuse for me," came the Duke's voice.
From a new tunnel hole burst the scarred amazon, Synia, tackling Cana off the walkway. Thinking quickly, she tore her deck box off her belt and threw it up on the ledge; she really needed to invest in a waterproof case.
With a splash, Synia landed on top of Cana in the water, which was a shade of brown halfway between their two skin tones. Synia had her hands around Cana's throat but Cana grabbed her wrist and, with a powerful slap to her face, rolled them over and reversed the position. Synia quickly kicked her off.
"Oof!" Cana's bones ached from hitting the wall. On the other side of the sewer was her tarot deck. Between them stood Synia. "You're pretty strong, sister, but why don't you do us both a favor and get out of my way?"
Synia exhaled through the gouge in her face. Reaching up, she tore off her maid uniform, leaving herself only in her now-browned under dress. Cana's eyes widened as she saw the jagged, crisscrossing network of scars along her muscular body. Girl had been through some shit, it seemed.
"Because," Synia answered, "if I did, my master might dismiss me. Then where would I go?"
Cana cringed a little. Synia might've had a badass bod and a hefty pair of boobs, but few things were a bigger turn-off than codependency.
Suddenly, from the tunnel…
"Ha-HA! Ow, ow, aiy, ee, oop, wah!" Lucy came tumbling out of the tunnel but managed to brace a hand on the edge of the walkway. She still had Daybreak, held to her chest.
Cana nodded towards the hulked-out muscle girl before her. "Glad your back. Wanna tag in?"
Lucy's eyes widened as she beheld Synia's body. She'd never seen anything like it.
…which distracted her from the portly figure who popped up behind her and seized her arms again.
"'An enemy of literature'?" sneered the duke. "My massive library proves I'm culture's greatest advocate!"
"Not if you blackmail the people who create it!" Lucy barked back. The duke's grip loosened as a flying blue blur planted its feet in the back of his balding head. Lucy's practice with Natsu and Shade let her push her wrists free, turn, and put a boot to the Duke's portly midriff, sending him sprawling.
"Master, no!" Synia's anguish turned to fury. "That's going to cost you!"
Not before Cana jumped across the sewer and retrieved her deck box. Picking it up (and pocketing one card in particular), she reclipped the box to her belt and said, "What kind of blackmail are we talking, Lucy?"
Lucy whipped out a golden Spirit Key and pointed it at Everlue. "If he gives up, maybe I won't tell. The tables have turned, you self-obsessed creep!"
"Oh-ho," chuckled the duke as he twiddled his mustache, still lying on the ground. "A Celestial wizard? However, your knowledge of phrasing is lacking. 'The tables have turned' denotes a reversal of fortune to favor the weaker party. There's no way you, a blue cat, and that excrement-looking friend of yours could ever compare to our Diver Magic!"
To prove his point, a yellow magic circle appeared on Everlue's back and he sank into a deepening hole in the ground. Synia leapt from the water and smashed her shoulder into the wall, denting it before boring into a tunnel of her own.
Cana's eye twitched. "I'll take you up on that tag offer if it means I get to give him a good smack," she seethed.
"Deal," Lucy said, before Everlue and Synia broke through the ceiling and started ricocheting off the walls, their bodies tucked into balls and spinning so fast they blurred. As Cana and Lucy narrowly dodged strikes that left divots in the stone and metal, they hoped that Natsu was faring better.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Is this close enough, Natsu?" Ultear asked, gazing into his eyes as her long black hair formed a curtain around their faces.
Natsu was sweating, still struggling, still hoping Ultear wouldn't feel the heat until he was ready.
"Closer," he gasped. "Gildarts said that guys feel 'it' when girls they like do this."
She lowered her head, her flat stomach resting on the cocoon of concrete.
"And how do you know," she inquired, her gaze giving nothing away, "that I'm one of those girls?"
Natsu shifted, straining to keep the air pocket from escaping as the heat continued to build. "Gildarts and Shade told me. They said it's all about who seems best for having babies."
Ultear lurched back in shock. "Babies?!"
Now, Natsu thought, and cranked up the heat. The air pocket exploded into a haze of wavering mirage and flung Ultear off of himself, leaving a torso-sized hole in the cocoon. His arms able to move, Natsu bashed and ripped and tore the remaining concrete off himself. He was free!
...He was also dead, judging by that murderous grimace between those ruby lips. She rose from the floor, crawling back to her knees, looking like she was trying to bite a boulder in half.
"That," she seethed, "was low."
Steeling his courage, Natsu tackled her back to the floor. Wrestling Shade had given him lots of practice at making and breaking holds, so now seemed like a good time to see if it was worth it.
"Yeah, it was," he admitted as he locked her arms in a full nelson and hauled her up to her knees again. "But we're good enough friends to know we wouldn't hold it against each other."
Ultear jerked and struggled, trying to power out of his grip. "We also know this would feel much different for me to hold you like this."
"Yeah," he said again. "Sorry."
Her grimace turned into a wicked smile. "Don't be."
A book clocked him in the back of the head and fluttered to the floor. Another smacked him in the cheek. Another in the side of his pelvis, making Ultear gasp for some reason. She lurched forward and fell over. Natsu landed on top of her, straddling her butt. He received no more flying literature, but when he tried to shift, a book came whizzing towards his face, forcing him to duck.
Thus, he found himself trapped for the time being. This position seemed to cut off Ultear's power, because despite her wriggling and shifting of her legs, she made no progress towards escape.
He only hoped Cana, Lucy, and Happy were doing better.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Can't believe I agreed to this, Cana thought as she jumped away from Duke Everlue's ricocheting full-body tackle. She called three cards out of her deck and fanned them between her fingers.
"Card Magic! Heaven, Reverse Death, Mountain!" She waved the cards and a lime green spell circle appeared before her. "SUMMONED LIGHTNING!"
The bolts chased the Duke and were grounded by the ceiling.
"Lightning?" Everlue's voice echoed from the tunnels. "A poor choice for an underground battle!"
Cana glanced at the water. Happy floated within, his magic having run dry for the time being. Everlue popped out of the ground and slammed into her, sending her tumbling along the walkway.
"I was the one who commissioned that awful story, so any secrets it holds are rightfully my property," sneered the Duke. "I bet it's a map to where he buried his fortune, or a treatise on his writing techniques!"
Lucy backed up from a haymaker and shot a glance Cana's way. I can't believe Cana wanted this!
Synia growled and lurched forward, arms out for a bear hug. Lucy slid beneath Synia's arms and faced her hip, crouching and looping her arms around the amazon maid's thigh.
"Going up…!"
Using her powerful (but feminine) legs, Lucy hoisted Synia up over her shoulder.
"...and DOWN!"
Lucy whipped herself back, driving into Synia's upside-down butt. With a resonant crunch, Synia's shoulders and neck hit the walkway; cracks spiderwebbed through the bricks. Synia flopped limp, her muscular legs beside Lucy. Laying flat, the blonde congratulated herself on a perfect high-crotch suplex.
That is, until Synia's arm came up and tried to hammer Lucy's face in.
"Gah!" Lucy rolled away. Synia groaned and rolled backwards, pushing herself up to her feet. She charged forward and her shoulder slammed Lucy to the ground. The musclebound woman then picked Lucy up by the hair and held her out, drawing back to land a punch.
"Lucy!" Cana cried, holding more cards in her hands when suddenly they disappeared. "What the-?"
"So, this ugly thing is a Card Wizard, hmmm?" The Duke examined the cards in his hand before tearing them in half. "How quaint."
Cana whipped out some more cards and grimaced. "Pretty arrogant, coming from a guy who digs holes. Then again, you blackmailed a guy into writing a trashy adventure about yourself."
"'Arrogant'? That implies an overinflated ego." He flopped back and started doing a backstroke, swimming a trench through the bricks. "As for the book, I simply felt that the great Kemu Zaleon needed a little extra motivation to write that book. Apparently, having a great man like me as his muse wasn't enough."
The Duke dove down, before his hand popped up behind Cana. "So I gave him the added inspiration of either turning me down or keeping his family's citizenship."
Cana recoiled and flicked her cards out. "That's awful!"
"I'll say!" Lucy said. Her legs were around Synia's neck, the same standing triangle choke she'd practiced on Natsu. Synia seemed familiar with it, though, because her free hand was busy trying to keep Lucy's leg from touching her neck and closing the noose. Happy clutched at Synia's head, trying to push it into Lucy's leg.
"If they lost their citizenship, they wouldn't be able to join any guilds!" Happy's eyes zoomed about, looking for any signs of the Diver Mage. "Do you really have the power to do that?"
"I have the power to do ANYTHING!"
Everlue burst from the wall again. Cana dropped to her knees and dodged him, laying a card down as she did.
"Prayer Fountain!"
The Duke caught the water on his bounceback, his rotary power spraying the water around him. It didn't seem to hurt, but it did push him back, forcing him to burrow back into the ceiling.
"However, I didn't care for his attitude, so I decided he'd write better while sitting in a prison cell for three years."
"THREE YEARS?!" the Fairy Tail wizards cried.
"Just to boost your own stupid ego!" Lucy shouted, which seemed to provoke Synia into changing tactics and simply slamming Lucy to the ground, finally shaking her off.
Everlue chucked and popped out in front of Cana. "Perhaps it took him that long to appreciate me."
"You're wrong!" Cana was running at Synia, trying to distract her while Lucy got the wind back in her lungs. Synia simply backhanded her, sending her out over the water.
Cana waved two cards at the murky flow. "Wind Edge!"
The resulting blast of air pressure cratered the water and blew Cana over to the other walkway. It also flattened Synia and Everlue against the walls, hard.
"You got nothing worth appreciating, fatso," Cana scowled.
"My collection of rare beauties would disagree," the Duke countered.
The ache in Cana's jaw had been worth it. Lucy had caught her breath and was up and running, luring Synia away. That left Cana to figure out how to beat Everlue.
...within an inch of his life, if she got her way.
"She's right, you know!" Lucy shouted as she ran. "It took him that long to stomach the lies you made him write!"
Cana and Everlue both raised an eyebrow at that.
"What lies?" said Everlue.
"The lie about you being a champion of justice, for starters!" Lucy flattened against the wall as Synia barreled past, missing her.
At that, Everlue sank into the ground again. Cana smelled a rat and ran after Lucy.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Back in the library, Natsu thought he heard something from out in the main hall.
"Hey, uh, Ultear?" he asked. He'd been lying on top of her for a while now, and she hadn't said much. "Mind if we take a raincheck so I can go check out what's happening?"
Her streak of not saying much continued.
"Ulteeee-eear!" Natsu murmured, now realizing she hadn't moved much, either. Cautiously sliding an arm out from under her shoulder, Natsu took a peek at her face.
...Her sleeping face, that is.
Natsu was ready to call bullshit until he realized Ultear wouldn't pull a stunt like this on a job, never mind an S-Class one. More confusing to him was the content-looking smile she had while she slept.
Weighing his options, Natsu slid his arms from beneath Ultear's shoulders, got up, and left the library.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Lucy pushed off the wall and looked around. "But he knew he had to satisfy your ego, or else his family would suffer and you'd cut off his hands! You MONSTER!"
"Oh, hardly!" Everlue's hand popped from the ground like an ugly flower. "What's monstrous is that even with all of that, he wrote such complete dreck!"
The hand preceded the rest of him popping out. "Tell me, though: how exactly do you know all of this? My staff is far too loyal to blab about my private affairs. Isn't that right, Synia?"
Walking up to stand by the duke, the muscular maid nodded. Her breathing was heavy, which made the exposed teeth on the side of her face look all the more wight-like.
"It's all here," Lucy said, tapping the book she still held safe.
"What?" Everlue looked perplexed, and angry. "I've read that book cover to cover. Kemu Zaleon is not in it."
"If you read it normally, yeah." Lucy put the book behind her back. "But if you read it the way it was meant to be, you're not in it, Everlue! The only time you're mentioned is when he talks about all the misery and hardship you put him through!"
Everlue started shaking. His fists balled and his lips spread into an unsightly grimace.
Cana prodded the book Lucy was holding, watching the veins on Everlue's forehead bulge and sweat. Her cathartic smile spread wider and wider the more angry, tight-lipped noises escaped from Everlue.
"You know," Cana said, "I think your guy's my new favorite author."
Everlue's lips peeled back. His grimace practically had the word "HATE" tattooed onto his very teeth. "You mean, he used my glorious commission… to malign me?!"
Everlue's foot stomped down and sank an inch into the brick. "THE NERVE!"
"Oh, puh-lease!" Lucy whipped out a golden Spirit Key. "Now whose vocabulary is lacking? 'Malign' implies an intent to cause harm or evil, not expose it!"
"Then I'll just have to bury that book along with the rest of you!" Everlue reached into his pocket…
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Natsu stopped sniffing the air when he heard a deep rumble from a very thick neck. Spinning on his heel, Natsu saw the giant gorilla maid, Virgo, picking herself up and starting to glow.
Fire shot from his legs as he sprinted at her. "Oh no you don't!"
Author's vent:
Back from the dead after 3 years. Take heed of this note, if you've been wanting to read more.
A huge part of why I write fanfiction is to get feedback. I'm looking to keep my skills sharp and to test out ideas that I may one day want to put into published fiction. Reviews are a huge part of that, as they stand as an easily-accessible record of sentiment and feedback, much easier to find than a PM.
However, none of the previous reviews had anything to say about anything specific past Chapter 20, the final chapter in the pro wrestling "School of Hard Knocks" arc. In fact, if not for two reviews I received in particular (a comment on Archive Of Our Own and SSJ3 Kyuubi Gohan's acknowledgement that somebody read the wrestling match I spent almost a year writing), I might not have bothered continuing. There are other stories that garner more feedback and that I'm free to write without wrist irons attached. I'm not about to demand that you like anything I write but, in this instance, I am going to demand feedback.
For you see, dear readers, I have already completed Chapter 25. I made a point to do that, because now I'm going to hold it hostage until at least 10 of you leave a review about the fic so far. I've received the message that you don't like my original story arcs, and also don't seem to like any OCs who aren't named Shade, so I'm frankly left clueless as to what exactly you want from a fanfic like this. I had a plan, and it was a cool plan, but that plan had OCs who aren't named Shade and it also had original story stuff.
And since y'all really didn't like seeing Natsu's 100% authentic pathway from chump to champ, one that I have witnessed and even experienced in my time as an athlete, where one has to do a whole lot of dumb, infuriating losing before one becomes a winner? Well, I don't know what to do after this retelling of Daybreak is wrapped up.
Suffice to say, now is not the time to be bashful.