The day finished with Gildarts finishing another group of dark mages who came to try their luck. At night in the hotel, Jax and Gildarts had a room on each side of Rekea's to protect her if necessary. Jax had applied his sound magic to the corridor and to the room of the older women to be notified if an enemy appeared.
During the first half of the night, there were two groups of dark mages who attacked, but they were only two groups of A-rank mages and had no S-rank mages with them. As such, Jax knocked them out and tied them together in the corridor. Anyway, by the time any mages discovered them, they would be found by Jax, who would beat them as well.
During the second half, three groups of dark mages attacked, and Jax took care of them once again. From what he could tell, S-rank mages hadn't taken the job yet, or they knew to be intelligent and not attack when Gildarts was in the next room. After all, at this point, Gildarts's name had resounded throughout the entire continent, and everyone knew of the man. Especially the strongest in the dark guilds.
The next morning when both Gildarts and Rekea came out of their room, they were surprised to find five different groups of dark mages, a total of 18 of them. "Did you do this, kid?" Asked Gildarts as he looked at the mages.
"If not me, then who? You? The hotel wouldn't be standing anymore." Jax replied with a laugh of which Gildarts also laughed.
"Well, I'll call the mages of the magic council. They'll bring them back. They'll collect everything of value on them and their bounties and give it to you when we finish the job." Gildarts smirked as he took out a communication lacrima to the magic council.
"What? Will they do that? I thought we had to bring them ourselves!" Jax exclaimed at the words of the older mage.
"Well, yeah, for you. S-rank mages have special privileges such as this." He said as he started the communication with the council. "I bet you can't wait to become an S-rank wizard." Gildarts finished by laughing while the transmission began.
"We got eighteen A-rank dark mages on the seventh floor of the Mango's hotel. Send some guys to collect them for me." Said Gildarts, upon which he received a nod and the link was cut. "Well, we'll have to wait for around a dozen minutes until the council's men arrive." He said, upon which he went back into his room.
Contrary to his predictions, the council members had collected all the dark mages after eight minutes of waiting. Once everything was done, they went back to their job. The fourth, fifth and sixth day all went great. They met a few groups of dark mages every day, of which Gildarts took care. As for Jax, he still acted as a lucky kid who could spend time with miss Robin.
However, everything changed on the seventh day. That was the last day of the escort mission and the day of Rekea's show in front of a crowd.
Before the show's start, Jax searched the whole place with his nature magic and could confirm that everything was fine. However, according to Gildarts, everything got harder on the last day of the mission, and he was right. That fireball f***ing hurt.
Let's come back a few hours earlier.
Everything was doing great. The show had been prepared, no enemies were in sight, and no traps were left in the stadium where the singing show would happen. As such, miss Robin got ready. She put on some makeup, put on a beautiful white dress, which made her hair and eyes stand out. She practised for a few hours before the show, with Jax keeping her company. On the other hand, Gildarts kept an eye on the stadium, searching for dark mages clues.
Finally, it was time to start the show. Jax stayed up right out of the view of the spectators of the show while Gildarts stayed on the right side of the stadium. They were both on their guards as they tried to find any dark mages infiltrating the stadium.
Then the show began. The first half an hour of the show went well. The first hour of the show went well. The second hour of the show went well, and the third hour as well. The danger finally appeared at the end of the last song. A collaboration of three dark guilds. Twenty-one A-rank dark mages. Three S-rank dark mages.
When Jax finally noticed the twenty-four dark mages act, he was surprised as he hadn't heard any of them talk about their mission. It was as if they had prepared everything beforehand. By the time the last song finished, the dark mages immediately attacked the stage.
Jax didn't wait a second. He used a speed boost on himself with his fairy magic to reach Rekea while activating the nature magic he had spread in front of the stage before the show began to grow some trees to block the attacks. He then used earth magic to raise a wall of earth and summoned a water wall in front of him.
However, with the attack of the twenty-four dark mages, he knew that he wouldn't last long. He immediately started to attack back while Gildarts made his way to the stage as fast as possible. He knew that twenty-four mages were too much for Jax. Especially three S-rank mages.
Thankfully with the three defences, he managed to stop the first wave of attack and immediately used lightning magic to attack the weaker mages in the group, killing two of them instantly. At this point, there was no holding back their punches, and everyone was going for the kill. If one weren't alert enough, then they would die the next second.
Jax didn't hold back as he used everything he could against the dark mages. His fire magic, lightning magic, sound magic and he even used the new spell he had developed with his light magic. The boy threw fireballs, lightning bolts, shockwaves and beams of lights directly to the opponents while putting back the defences. However, by the time he managed to put back the defences barely, a fireball managed to pass through the wall of trees trying to recover, the barrier of dirt that was already half demolished and the water wall that was nothing more than steam at this point.
The two waves of attacks spread within a timeframe of fewer than three seconds. With the lady he had to protect behind him, there was no way to dodge the attack. He reached in his shadow and equipped a magical sword to cut the fireball in half, increasing his defence with water magic and tanking the fireball. The first thing that went through his mind when the fireball hit him was 'That fireball f***ing hurt.'
Thankfully, a wizard's body has some sort of resistance against their element, and since he uses fire magic, he wasn't killed on the spot. Instead, his t-shirt turned into ashes as deep burns appeared on his already scarred skin. Behind him, Rekea had her eyes wide open as Jax directly took the hit of the fireball. She knew it was because of her that he had to take the hit. However, any thoughts of guilt disappeared from her mind as she saw the massive logo of Fairy Tail on his whole back. However, this wasn't what caught her attention as she saw the dozens of scars on his back.
Jax, not caring a bit about what she thought, managed to reinstall the three layers of defences as he started to attack back at the fifteen mages remaining. Gildarts was almost there. Sending another wave of attacks, he concentrated the beam of light in his hand and shot it into the group of mages right before Gildarts appeared.
With this new wave of attack, the enemies were reduced to seven, including the three S-class mages. Sending the lady backstage, Jax joined Gildarts in the trashing of the enemies left. With his sword in his hand, he coated his left fist with fire and lightning magic, effectively cutting on the right while burning and electrocuting on the left side. By this time, Jax was already strong amongst A-rank mages but not strong enough to fight S-class mages. As such, he retreated towards miss Robin while strengthening the defences, healing himself with his fairy magic and boosting Gildarts's speed and defence from the back. He didn't increase his strength since he could already most likely kill them in one hit as long as he touched them.
When he healed some of the burns and the cuts on his body, Jax started attacking from the back to support Gildarts as much as he could. He noticed how one of the dark mages used a sword. As such, Jax used all the remaining lightning power in his body and strengthened it in a few arcs between his hands before aiming directly at the mage who held a metal sword.
While the lightning also seemed interested in the three other mages, Jax managed to control it long enough to hit the right one, frying him directly while he wasn't paying attention. Gildarts didn't even have to finish him as he died instantly. At this point, Gildarts didn't have any problem with the two mages left, so he stopped supporting and only kept his fairy magic active. He had been lucky to be able to one-shot the S-rank mage. Had it not been from the sword in his hand, the metal on his body, the mage being distracted by Gildarts and having already spent magical power on the initial attack, Jax would have never managed to hit and kill him.
However, this was also one of Jax's advantage. He had ten different magic with ten different magical reserves. While every mage only had a single one for all of their magic, Jax was head, shoulder and torso above the others in terms of magic capacity. He could simply use his magic non-stop, and he would eventually surpass the opponent only due to higher capacity.
Finally, after another minute, Gildarts had crushed the two remaining S-rank mages with his crush magic. He turned towards Jax and saw him standing in front of the women they had to protect. He nodded his head as he saw that the boy didn't slack on his vigilance at the end of the fight, that he had tanked the hit, protecting their mission target and that he didn't flinch after receiving the magical attack, staying sharp and fighting back.
If he had to give him a rating, which he had to give to the master, he would give him a perfect rating on his fighting mentality. Pretty good on his strength as he had managed to kill a distracted S-rank mage and a perfect rating on his sense of belonging to the guild. For that last part, it wasn't hard to confirm as one simply had to look at his back.
------Author note------
PS: I just wanted to mention that I greatly appreciate the support you offered and the comments on the chapters. While I rarely answer.... alright, I never answer... reading them does feel great, so thanks again.
Where did the excess storage of magical power come from, you think? Yeah, I got the idea from Naruto, his Uzumaki bloodline and the nine tails in his body. He had like what ten times more chakra than others? About what I gave Jax and I don't regret it.