Really sorry about the slow updating, guys. Between my drive to write slowing down and my final exams coming up, chances to write are few and far between. However, I will try and pick up the pace.
Enjoy!
Lucy watched another member of another branch fall to another, who walked off. Damien chuckled.
"He stood no chance, let's all be honest for a second here." He spoke to everyone, who muttered agreement. "Anyways, let's see how one of our more interesting chambers is going!" Damien played with the remote for a minute, and Lucy saw the image on the scree change just in time to see an explosion of light. "And it appears the battle is underway! Simon vs. Drake!" As the receptor re positioned itself to get a better image, Lucy could clearly see the poison slayer standing across from Simon. Another rush and explosion, both were engaged in lightning fast hand to hand combat.
"You know," Levy said crossing her legs, "Drake really doesn't get a lot of credit as a mage."
"Yeah." Lucy agreed. "Everyone else has a family name to back them up, and Drake really doesn't."
"Or a last name, for that matter." Gajeel said gruffly, causing both girls to laugh. "But the kids as hard as a Dragons hide, he'll be fine." Lucy knew that to be true, what Drake lacked in expectation he made up for with surprising skill. Even without his father guidance for all that time, he'd become quite impressive. Drake uppercut Simon in the gut, then followed up with a poisonous roundhouse kick which sent Simon flying. The Scarlet recovered quickly, requipped into his flight armor, and flew at Drake to fast for the lacrima to catch. What was even more impressive was watching all of Simon's lightning fast attacks miss, as Drake dodged with relative ease.
"And here we see Drake utilizing his sound magic!" Damien shouted. "Really gives him an edge in this type of combat." Lucy didn't need Damien to tell her that, the battle spoke for itself. Drake was always a step ahead of Simon, no matter what happened. After Simon's fist missed it's target, Drake gathered poison in his hands and blasted him in the stomach, but it was blocked by a requip into his adamantine shield.
"Simon's going to want to avoid that shit." Gray said from behind Lucy. "Drake's gets him good enough and he'll fall unconscious all on his own." Lucy had seen Drake's poison work firsthand, in both his own unique style and his fathers, and knew that one good hit was all it took.
"Still," she said as she stretched. "He's got his work cut out for him against Simon."
Drake knew Simon wasn't going to fall over and give up at the first sign of being poisoned, which was really his biggest problem. He'd yet to be hit, but knew Simon was going all out just yet. Drake wanted to be insulted, but knew if Simon did go all out the battle would've been decided a long time ago. After he had blasted Simon away, the redhead got up and laughed.
"I suppose I don't give you enough credit." He said, swinging his sword back and forth. "You're good, much better than I had anticipated."
"Thanks." Drake replied. "Means a lot coming from a Scarlet." Simon rolled his eyes.
"Can I tell you something Drake? As a friend? Man to man?"
"I guess." Simon smiled at Drake, which almost made him lower his guard.
"You have a real shot of winning this thing." Drake nodded, he knew that. It wasn't very hard to see he was one of the top mages from the guilds young generation. "However, you can't rely on your sound magic."
"Why not?"
"Because there is one, fatal exploit no one seems to think about." The sly look on Simon's face made Drake worried.
"Like what?"
"Clouding one's own head and thoughts with nonsense." As if one cue, Drake's head was hit with a barrage of nonsensical rambling and shouting, which gave him a killer headache. "This, in turn, deafens you to my true intention!"
A hard, heavenly uppercut to the chin.
Drake heard it through the bullshit to late. Simon's fist connected with his face and he sailed into the roof of the chamber, only intensifying his headache. On the way down, Simon tackled him with all his might, throwing him into the wall and destroying part of it. Drake coughed and he climbed out of the rubble, seeing Simon standing where he had been.
"Okay, nice one." Drake admitted. "Although I really didn't need a one way trip through the weird part of your head. Why the hell do you like strawberry cake so much?"
"Irrelevant." Simon replied quickly. "But see? You can't always rely on it entirely.
"You have grossly underestimated me if you think I wholly rely on it." Simon raised an eyebrow as Drake smirked. "I do use it to my advantage a lot, especially like right now."
"What the hell does that mean?" Simon asked. Drake pocketed his hands and smiled.
"We're in an enclosed space, with a high ceiling." He replied. Simon's eyes widened as he realized what Drake was about to do, but it was too late. Manipulating the sound waves around himself, the chamber turned into that of one made for torture, the erratic and deafening noise causing Simon to drop to his knees and shout in pain. After intensifying it a bit, Simon struggled to his feet. Drake watched as the redhead aimed for the roof, blasting it too pieces. Once the area was exposed to open area, the sound distorted and eventually faded into a dull sound, which even made Drake irritated, so he shut the spell down. "Nice job, distorting the sound like that."
"Wasn't that hard to figure out." Simon replied, cracking his neck. "How about we step this up a notch." By the tone he used, Drake knew it was no question. Simon was going to step it up, and he did so with his following movements. Requipping into his lightning emperor armor, arcs of lightning the size of the guild hall flew at Drake with absolutely no mercy.
Wait until he jumps up to dodge the lightning, then attack him with my swords.
Drake pondered how his opponents always failed to realize he could hear them. Doing as Simon expected, he jumped up to dodge the lightning and was greeted by Simon and his swords. Drake was already a step ahead, sadly. Coating his hands in his toxic element, Drake used a wall of it to block the slashes. As they both jumped away, Drake watched his poison eat away at the blades with a satisfied grin on his face.
"Shit," Simon hissed, dropping the swords. "I should've seen that coming." Drake saw the blades disappear back into Simon's inventory, grinning. Simon hadn't removed the poison, now within his inventory.
"Well," Drake said, poison rising to his hands once again. "Care to try again?"
"Oh, look at that!" Damien said with a grin. "Drake's using his poison to burn away Simon's weapons! Nice strategy right there."
"I didn't know he could do that." Levy said, sounding impressed. Lucy nodded.
"From what I know, he was a different style than his father." Lucy replied. "Having taught himself for so long he learned different ways to use his magic."
"Gives him an edge, too." Gray said.
"Alright, then." Damien said, rolling his eyes. "That's enough of that, let's check out the Ultear chamber!" After pressing a few more buttons, the next chamber appeared on the screen. "Oh, look at that! It appears Asuka has found Ultear's chamber!"
Asuka was still trying to figure out where Ultear learned the bullet dissolving magic, when the lacrima transmitter made a beeping sound. Ultear looked at it and cursed.
"Damn, now everyone's looking. Can't use it anymore..."
"Why not?" Asuka asked curiously.
"Like I said, it's a secret." Ultear replied with a sneaky smile on her face. "I'll show everyone when I'm ready, I'm still in the learning faze of it anyway. Now..." Ultear made a big show of dropping the temperature around them both. "How about we have more fun with this?" Asuka grinned.
"Well, the cold doesn't make that much of a difference to me." She said, aiming her rifle at Ultear. "Gun Magic: Blazing Shot!" The bullets that flew from the gun blazed with hot fire, burning through the cold air. Ultear raised a hand, and a geyser of water stopped the bullets immediately.
"I suppose I should've taken elemental bullets into account, huh?" Ultear asked. "Oh well, it doesn't matter."
"Gun Magic: Electric Barrage!" The bullets laced with electricity flew at Ultear, who grinned.
"Ice Make: Shield!" The bullets hit the ice and exploded, Ultear completely protected behind it. Once the explosion cleared, Ultear moved through the smoke with surprising speed. "Ice Make: Excalibur!" Asuka almost didn't have enough time to dodge the slash, using the handle of her rifle to deflect the blow. Placing the rifle on the holster attached to her back, she pulled out her two pistols and fired off a lot of rounds, all of which got their trajectories altered by Ultear's blast of water. Dodging the few that flew her way, Asuka fired off rounds designed around poison, all of which Ultear once again altered the course of. Asuka was going to have to find a way around that water, it was stopping everything.
"I'm surprised you're so good." Asuka said, opting to tease the younger girl. "I remember when you were flatter."
"Gah!" Ultear shouted, covering up her chest in embarrassment. "Why does everyone talk about my chest!?"
"...Maybe because it's glorious?" Asuka watched Ultear deteriorate after her words, which was what she hoped for. While the girl was so focused on covering herself up, Asuka fired off more rounds, which caused the younger to fall over to dodge them. As she did, Asuka charged up and placed one of her guns at Ultear's temple, effectively cutting her off from any escape. "Checkmate, Ul." She said. Ultear laughed weakly.
"Yep, totally." She agreed. "Except for one thing."
"That is?" Asuka watched in shock as Ultear swiftly reached up, grabbed the gun, aimed it at her temple, and made Asuka's finger pull the trigger. "No!...?"
"See?" Ultear asked, the watery remains of her blown out head returning to normal. "I can make by body made of water. Even if your previous shots were to hit, they wouldn't have hurt." Asuka was at an incredible disadvantage. How did anyone ever beat this girl, anyway?...Or had she been beaten? Asuka sighed and backed up as Ultear stood.
"I guess this is why you're S-Class, huh?"
Almost everyone had a heart attack when Ultear tried to blow her own head off, and only a select few remembered what she could do.
"Ha!" Juvia shouted triumphantly. "Juvia wasn't the worried one this time! Juvia wins!" Everyone had a hearty calming laugh as Juvia bragged about her lack of being worried before Damien managed to shove her off stage.
"Alright, well," He said, a grin on his face. "How about we go to the hottest chamber of them all?" Everyone cheered in agreement, Lucy included. Although she felt bad for whoever managed to run into her husband. "Alright, Natsu, let's see who you get to destroy!" Damien activated the lacrima in Natsu's chamber, but nothing happened at first.
"Whats wrong?" Gajeel asked.
"Don't know." Damien replied, slamming the remote against his hand and trying again. After a few more tries, a picture finally started to appear, much to the glee of everyone else. However, it became quickly apparent that the lacrima was not malfunctioning.
It had been blinded by an explosion that was only now just dying. Everyone leaned forward in anticipation was the view cleared, before a collective gasp was heard.
"Seriously?!" Levy asked.
"Awesome!" Gajeel laughed.
"Well, I still feel bad for her." Gray said.
"You've got to be kidding..." Lucy managed weakly. Damien laughed heartily.
"Look what we have here, everyone!" he shouted gleefully. "Nashi vs. Natsu!"
Once again, sorry for the slowness. I hope you enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try and get five!