"Am I lost...?" Mikoto muttered. "Or does this tree just look like the one we already past."
"Actually, this is the Twin Pine Forest." said Lucy. "Every tree is supposed to look the same...right down to the lower forked branch under the right side."
It had already been about half a day since the group had heard about the dark plague that was spreading itself over the continent and next the entire planet. So far the group had managed to make it extremely close to the small peninsula that was supposed to be where they would find the Hydra Head Guild headquarters...then find their way over to the coast where they would somehow be able to find the Gate of Entry.
"Really, it's like Mikoto said." said Happy. "Every tree looks exactly the same!!"
"I heard a story about this forest." said Nicole. "It was said that an old paranoid mage used to live here. He was a perfectionist who absolutely hated even the slightest flaw. So he cast a spell...and this is what happened. Rumor is, that the spell to make everything look the same down to the last twig took a toll on the man...and he died. They say his ghost still haunts this place in the form a hulking skull masked monster."
"You mean like that skull masked monster that we saw back in Edolas?" Natsu asked.
"That?" Nicole said. "That was likely a hollow."2
"Hollow?" said Mikoto.
"You see the souls I use for my Dragon Slayer powers are spirits...creatures who were ghosts to begin with and have no real guiding intelligence except for those that control them." said Nicole. "Like ants. However, human souls are different. If they have enough despair or they don't move on and stay in the world of the living long enough...they become vicious soul eating monsters called Hollows. They actually don't taste that bad.."
"Wait!" said Lucy. "You've eaten those things?!"
"I'm a Ghost Dragon Slayer...of course I have...fortunately for Hollows, when they are destroyed, the human spirit inside immediately departs for the afterlife...so it's not like eating an actual human soul. Not even my mother would have done such a horrid thing as to eat a soul with guiding intelligence."1
"Anyways." said Mikoto. "Coming away from all the ghost talk, I think we've just about made it."
"Eh?" said Natsu. "What makes you say that?"
Mikoto pointed near the top of the tree line where a mountain could be seen. In the center of the mountain's top, a large swirling black vortex could be seen. Well, nothing said dark guild like a giant evil mountain.
"What are those things writhing all over it?" asked Elli as she sat atop Mikoto's head for a better view. "It looks like...hmmm multi-headed worms."
"Hydras.." said Mikoto. "Of course...and now that I think about it...why don't we ever have any fluttering fairies around our guild?"
"Nobody knows if they're real or not." said Happy shrugging.
"You come to a world filled with magic, dragons, and demons." said Mikoto. "And yet, they're still wondering if fairies ever existed....of course."1
"Anyways, it looks like we're only about 5 miles from the base of the mountain." said Nicole. "I'll send some shadow spirits to scout ahead for us..in the meantime we could split up and look for possible ways to go around to the coast without being seen."
"We'll be trying to go North East." said Lucy. "So I guess that's the sensible direction to look. Teehee...which means I'll finally get a chance to use this little guy!"
"Wait...are you talking about..?" Mikoto began as her cheeks began to redden.
"That's right!" said Lucy winking. "Open! Gate of The Compass!! Pyxis!!"
There was the sound of a door bell ringing, a flash of golden light, and suddenly a large cute red bird with a compass on it's head appeared.
"OH MY GOSH!!" Mikoto cried out as she dove in and hugged Pyxis. "He's by far the cutest celestial spirit I've ever seen next to Plue!!"1
"Cool!" said Natsu. "So we're going to cook him and make some roast chicken right!?"
"Aye! Roast chicken!" said Happy
"Don't be ridiculous!" said Lucy. "We're going to use Pyxis to tell us which way is East!"
"But that's pointless." said Nicole. "We know that Hydra Head's base over there is directly North of our location, and we know that when facing North, East is always on the left...so using a compass in this situation rather magical or not is completely pointless."
Pyxis and Lucy both stared at Nicole for moment before suddenly huddling next to a tree looking dejected. "And once again...we are outshone by the mere fact we already know where we are going..."
"Wah wah..." said Pyxis solemnly as he dissapeared in a puff of gold light.1
"Come on..let's move." said Nicole as the group followed her through the trees. Suddenly Mikoto let out an "OW!!"
"MY NOSE!!" Mikoto exclaimed. "What did I just bump in to-...WHHHAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!?????"
Standing in front of Mikoto, also holding her nose was Shizuri Mugino who also pointed at Mikoto and said "WHAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!??"
"What the heck are you doing here!?" Mikoto demanded as Shiage and Saiai emerged from the undergrowth.
"I would ask you the same thing!!!" Said Shizuri. "This can't be a coincidence!! You've been following me haven't you!!? Wanna rematch!?"
"As if!!" Mikoto shouted as the rest of ITEM and Mikoto's friends watched with slightly stunned disbelief. "In case you haven't noticed, I only have so much time right now!!"
"HEEEEEEYYYY!!!!!!!" Natsu suddnly shouted with a look of revelation on his face.
"WHHAAAATTT!!!?" Mikoto and Shizuri both shouted at the same time.
"I think I remember you from somewhere." said Natsu scratching his chin and pointing at Shizuri. "You're that Crayon Melter girl right?"
"It's Meltdowner!!"
"Now that name just sounds depressing." said Natsu. "You need a new name...like Laser Pointer.."
"Or Dynamic Hothead!" said Happy.
"Or super bloodthirsty Photon Blazer!!" said Natsu.
"Or..STEVE!!" Happy shouted dramatically.5
"That's it! I will now call you Steve!" said Natsu pointing at the stunned Meltdowner cheerfully. "How ya doing Steve?"
"...." Shizuri just kept staring...her mouth slightly open in surprise.
"What kind of super dork is he?" Muttered Saiai.
Shizuri sighed. "Fine, it looks like all this shouting isn't getting us anywhere...you tell us why you're here...and we'll tell you why we're here."
Mikoto paused for a moment. Shizuri had no idea about the prophecy...as far as she or the rest of the world knew, Mikoto was pretty much just one of the few people who had mastered both magic and esper power and was therefore a significant weapon against Dravis's forces.
Nicole stepped in front of Mikoto and faced Shizuri. "All you need to know is what we're doing here is something that will greatly help mankind against Dravis."
Shizuri narrowed her eyes as she looked into Nicole's eyes. The two seemed to stare each other down for a while.
Shizuri then sighed again. "Hmph...you've got guts girl. Fine, I'll go with it. It's not like what we're doing here is that big a deal."
"Finally.." muttered Shiage. "I'm tired of all the stinking secrecy."
"If you must know, we're here to spy on Hydra Head." said Shizuri. "Your little friend Jellal asked us to keep an eye on their headquarters."
"For absolutely no pay." muttered Saiai. "Why did you even listen to that guy?"
"What can I say?" said Shizuri with a shrug. "That man has a way with words."
"Anyways...we're in this particular spot because we heard Hydra Head's allowed some old dark guild members from a guild called Tartarus."
"Yeah.." said Mikoto as she remembered Jackal. "We kinda figured that one out. But what's that got to do with this particular spot?"
"Have you heard of Minerva Orlando?" said Shizuri. "Rumor is she's supposed to be doing something here for Hydra Head."
"Hmm...sounds familiar.." said Natsu.
"Wait! She used to be part of Sabertooth!" said Lucy. "Then she joined Tartarus and was turned into a demon! We never found out what happened to her.."
"Well she's not a demon anymore.." said Saiai. "After the Rainbow Gateway opened up, she found her way into Academy City...she had her humanity restored...then taken away all over again...after she met that super weirdo Gensei Kihara.."
"Gensei!?" growled Mikoto. "That creep huh? So what exactly did he do to her?"
"Well isn't it obvious?!" said a voice from somewhere above. "He perfected me!!"
Everyone looked up to see a woman standing on top of a tree branch, smiling evily down at them.
What used to be a beautiful feminine figure was now half covered in wires and metal and blinking lights. While one leg was normal the other was a crooked metal clawed leg with what appeared to be some high powered leverage. The woman's right arm was a large metal cannon, with tubes running from it into the woman's neck. The woman's face was partialy obscured on the right side by burned looking metal and one large red round light that seemed to act as an eye. Other then that, the rest of the woman looked normal, clothed in a purple gown.
Minerva Orlando smiled down at her stunned audience. "Well, well, well...Fairy Tail...looks like you can find a large treat after hunting long enough. How unfortunate Scarlet isn't with you...I would've loved to rend her skull in two.
"That's Minerva!?" said Mikoto.
"Well.." said Lucy. "She wasn't a cyborg when we knew her."
"Cyborg!? Is that all you can deduce from this new god of a form?" said Minerva clenching her fist. "I am not just some mergeance of human and machine...I have become the ultimate weapon...the combination of science and magic at the tips of my fingers...OBSERVE!!"
Minerva raised a hand clenched her fist. Immediately, large spheres of distortional spatial energy appeared around the group and exploded with massive force...scattering everybody ever which way.
As Mikoto tumbled to the ground and then got back to her feet, Shizuri did the same, a malicious smile on her face. "Yes...I heard of your so called space bending magic...But can you bend THIS?!!"
Immediately, multiple Meltdowner beams fired themselves at Minerva who merely grinned and swiped her hand to the side. Immediately, each beam blasted into a spatial sphere where they were sucked up like vacuums and dissapated."
"Like it?" asked Minerva. "My magic wouldn't have allowed me to do this back in my prime at Sabertooth. You see, this machine augments magic power to it's maximum potential...I can even manipulate space to do this.."
Minerva snapped her fingers, and Natsu, who had been dashing up from behind her, his guantlett sword activated and flaming, was suddenly covered in a tremendous pile of boulders. "I took that from a large crumbling boulder three miles from here...of course I never got there myself...but I pretty much know where everything is..."
"ROAR OF THE THUNDER DRAGON!!!"
"Like you for instance!" shouted Minerva as she swiped her hand and Mikoto's attack curved flying straight at Shizuri who had to conjure a Meltdowner shield to block it.
Mikoto jumped forward, her wings shot out magnetically charged lightning to increase her speed. She punched at Minerva with a lightnining engulfed fist. However, Minerva dodged the punch and used her spatial energy engulfed hand to grab Mikoto by the face and throw her into Natsu and Lucy with a large explosion.1
Laughing, Minerva pointed a finger at the threesome, and a ginormous explosion of spatial energy caused them to fly in every direction again. Natsu caught himself on the ground and caught Lucy in his arms.
Meanwhile Mikoto closed her wings and shielded herself like a lightning cocoon as she crashed through the trees.
Mikoto spread out her wings again as Minerva dashed at her, her arm cannon pointed at Mikoto. A massive blast of spatial energy rammed into Mikoto and smashed her through several more trees.
"My my..." said Minerva.."Quite pathetic for what's supposed be considered Fairy Tail's strongest Dragon Slayer. Oh well...time to die.."
"CRACK!!" the sound of several bullets rebounding off of Minerva's part metal skin echoed throughout the area as Shiage opened fire on her.
Minerva looked at Shiage with an expression of disgust."Weaklings like you don't belong on this battlefield."
Minerva took a step forward towards Shiage who stepped back looking fearful all of a sudden. "H-hold on a sec!"
"Get out of my sight you filthy slug.." said Minerva as she raised her barrel arm and began charging power.
Suddenly Saiai came up from behind Minerva and thrust her hand straight into Minerva's side. The Offense Armor took devestating affect, causin Minerva to smash and tumble into the ground with an earth shattering boom.
At nearly the same time, Shizuri came out from behind a tree and fired several powerful Meltdowner beams straight at Minerva's back.
Nicole jumped down from a low branch above and puffed up her cheeks. "ROAR OF THE GHOST DRAGON!!"
Before the beams hit, Minerva screamed in rage and a powerful sphere of spatial energy blasted outwards, dissipating the beams and roar attack and pushing Saiai back as she shielded Shiage.
"Your efforts are useless against me.." said Minerva. "I have finally become the perfect being- WHAAM!!"
Minerva was cut off mid sentence as a flaming fist rammed straight into the left side of her face. Natsu kicked Minerva in the gut with his flaming foot then puffed up his cheeks. "ROAR OF THE FIRE DRAGON!!"
A massive flaming geyser blasted Minerva into the ground.
Several meters away, Lucy raised a gold key in her hand. "Open! Gate of the Lion!! Loke!!"
In a burst of golden light, Loke appeared in his usual suit and glasses. "You rang?"
"WHOAH!!" Said Loke said looking at the cyborg Minerva. "Now that's...erm...different. REGULUS IMPACT!!"1
Loke thrust his fist forward at Minerva and a huge explosion of golden light rammed against Minerva who thrust her cannon forward and blasted the golden light apart with a spatial blast.
"Enough of this!!!" Minerva shouted. She thrust her hand upwards and a massive spatial sphere exploded outwards. In one massive blow Nicole, Natsu, Lucy, Loke, Saiai, Shiage, and Shizuri were blasted back.
As a huge dust cloud swirled around the area, Mikoto shifted some trees from on top of herself with her sparking wings and stood alone to face Minerva.
"Why hello!" said Minerva with a savage pleasure. "You know..now that I think about it...we haven't introduced each other.."
"I know who you are.." growled Mikoto. "You're an enemy of Fairy Tail. That's all I need to know."
"Look around you." said Minerva. "Your allies are all too overwhelmed to help..you're fighting this battle alone."
"Yeah...not exactly new." said Mikoto. "Typical trick."
'You don't seem to understand.." said Minerva raising an energy engulfed fist. "I am going to kill you.."1
Mikoto merely shrugged. "Yeah, heard that before too."
Minerva just stared at Mikoto as her expression became that of utmost fury. "You have a big head for a little girl. I'll just teach you what it's like to be utterly destroyed..!!"
"I believe Diablo once said that.." said Mikoto scratching her chin. "Or was it Black Whisper? You know, I fight so many people I can't really remember."
"YOU LITTLE BRAT!!!" Minerva screamed as she aimed her arm cannon and fired a powerful blast. "DON'T YOU BELITTLE ME!!!"2
There was another explosion, and without even closing her wings over herself, Mikoto swiped her arm in much the same manner Minerva had before, and knocked aside the attack easily. "Now I think Diablo might have said something similar to 'don't patronize me!' But it's been a while, so I might be wrong."
"Wh-what!?" said Minerva in shock. "A moment ago you were struggling against my superior power! How in the the world!?"
"Oh please." said Mikoto with a bored expression. "Like I haven't fought spatial magic before. Don't you know what Black Whisper's Dragon Slayer element is? As far as I'm concerned, after feeling a bit of your power, I can definitely tell, even with those enhancements on your body, you're nowhere near his level. And I've taken plenty of hits from him."
"YOU'RE WRONG!!" screamed Minerva. "I'm the perfect being!! I am more powerful then you...then even Diablo or Zeref!! AND I'LL SHOW YOU THAT POWER!!!"
Minerva laughed histerically as she blasted spatial energy beam after spatial energy beam at Mikoto, causing multiple explosions to throughout the area as she relentlessly attacked the same spot.
Suddenly a portal swirled into existance behind Minerva and a powerful lightning bolt soared out, blasting her into the ground.
Several more portals formed all around Minerva as she got up and more electrical blasts soared out of the portals, this time each lightning bolt was augmented with distorting spatial energy. There was a huge shockwave where the energy hit Minerva, and she fell to her knees.1
There was a large wind, and the dust was cleared aside to reveal Mikoto with her Spatial Thunder Dragon Tendrils twisting and churning from her back as she slowly walked forward towards Minerva.
"Let tell you a little something about spatial magic." said Mikoto. "It's all rather simple. You can't miss cause you're just manipulating the space you're hitting or firing at..and there's many things you can do with it. In a way it's like molding magic."
"You would dare lecture me on the nature of Spatial magic!?" said Minerva. "To me!? One who has used it for years!?"
"You've always looked at space from a magic perspective...just a means of attacking and dissapearing from your enemy." said Mikoto. "I'm going to show you the scientific perspective. For example. science says space and time are actually both in sync with each other...so theoretically...I could do something like this.."
Mikoto pointed a finger at Minerva, and a crackling lightning bolt soared out of her finger and instead of blasting into her, it soared around Minerva's arm like a twister as spatial energy augmented it..and in a flash of electrical light, Minerva's metalic cannon arm had turned into a human skin and flesh arm.
Minerva backed up in shock. "Wh-what!? Impossible!!"
"Turns out Dragon Slayer magic though can only do so much where this is concerned." said Mikoto. "Looks like those changes they made to you were fairly recent."
"My..god like power....I'll END YOU!!" Minerva dashed at Mikoto, both her fists now surrounded in spatial energy.
"Of course there's always the simpler approach." said Mikoto before puffing up her cheeks. "ROAR OF THE SPATIAL THUNDER DRAGON!!!!!"
A tremendous beam of lightning and distorting purplish spatial energy razed through the forest. When the dust cleared, Minerva was leaning against a charred and burning boulder, her cybernetic leg in pieces, and the rest of her noncybernetic body scarred and bleeding.
"Little brat.." Minerva murmured as she attempted to breathe with difficulty. "Fairy Tail....Fairy Tail...I will destroy Fairy Tail....and that Erza Scarlet...I will destroy them all.."
Minerva raised a shaky hand and pointed it at Mikoto, as if she was trying to summon one last attack, but suddenly a bunch of ghastly chains made out of swirling moaning blackish purplish energy erupted from the ground and wrapped around her body as Nicole approached her from behind, her Ghost Dragon talons active.
"I wouldn't try anything else." said Nicole. "Those chains specifically drain all your magic power to ensure you don't escape."
"Been a long time since I saw you use that move." said Mikoto with a grin. "Didn't you use that on me?"
"Yes." said Nicole with a nostalgic smile. "But as I recall, it didn't affect your esper powers, and you managed to break free and Railgun me twice."
"All I remember is you two hitting each other alot!" Natsu shouted as he pushed some rubble off himself and Lucy. Nearby, Elli was attempting to drag a dizzy Happy out from under a log.
"BAAAAAMMM!!!" There was flash of greenish photon energy blasting away rubble to the left and ITEM crawled out of the rubble. And Meltdowner looked even more angry then she ever had.
"Showed up by the stinking Railgun again.." growled Shizuri. "Wonderful...just wonderful...this is worse then when Frenda left all her stinking dolls around..if it wasn't for that, I might have proved who was the stronger esper that day."
"But wasn't Misaka weakened from lack of sleep and her constant attempts to destroy the labs?" said Shiage. "So both of you were kind of handicapped."
"Don't start with that Hamazura!!" snapped Shizuri. "We have bigger fish to fry here!!"
Shizuri walked over to Minerva glowered down at her. "Alright robo lady...tell us who you were meeting here.."
Minerva did the unexpected thing...she began to chuckle.
"That doesn't sound super good." said Saiai uneasily.
"Feel free to see who I was meeting for yourselves." said Minerva as her laugh grew a little more delirious.
Minerva pointed to her left...in the direction that Mikoto and the group had planned on travelling before. "There..you'll find the answer...and know that I tell you this because it's already too late."
"What the heck is she talking about?" said Natsu.
"I have a hunch." Mikoto muttered as she began walking in the direction that Minerva indicated. "Say..Loke..could you bring her along?"
"Sure, not a problem." said Loke as he slung Minerva's arm over his shoulder and followed the gang.
A few minutes of walking later, Mikoto stopped dead in her tracks before the edge of a clearing that had obviously not been there before in a forest enchanted by a perfectionist. "No way..."
In the middle of the clearing was a giant tree with intertwining roots going all the way up it's massive thick trunk. The wood skin of the tree seemed to pulsate a little and glow red as it did...like a living beating heart. And growing out of the trunk of the tree, near the top, was a man's torso arms, and head. He was tan skinned with a goatee, fit body, and an afro like hair style that made him seem sort of treeish.
"That's Azuma!" said Lucy pointing at the man. "From Grimoire Heart!!"
Azuma nodded from his fused position on the massive tree. "Indeed it is I...Fairy Tail. It has been a long time since I have met you..I believe Erza Scarlet managed to change how I felt about your guild...and as a result I embraced death quietly. Your feelings of comraderie for each other..I feel it even now."
"If you had a change of heart." said Shizuri. "Then why the hell are you helping these people...you should know what they plan to do to this world...what Dravis plans to do."
"At first , Master Hades and Hydra Head fought against Dravis and Aleister Crowley." said Azuma. "It was a three way war...3 sides all working for their own agendas. Then Black Whisper and Dravis came to an understanding after the Rainbow Gateway opened, that their desires for a darker, more perfect world was the same...though, in my opinion, their view of perfect was twisted. By the time I realized their combined goal..it was too late...I had already began fusing my spirit with the underground of this world, slowly becoming part of all of Earthland. Their plan to use the 7th member of Hydra Head..the Wrath Demon known as Plague in project World Darkness was suppose to be a last resort in case your two worlds somehow managed to work together against the forces of darkness. Dravis saw the increasing number of high level espers joining Fairy Tail as a sign that this was happening. Railgun, Accelerator, Mental Out, Attack Crash...more then half the level 5s are now allied with the world's supposed strongest guild...a dangerous alliance.
"So..You decided to start this project World Darkness." said Mikoto as she remembered information from her dream about Laxus. "And you used this Plague guy's power and fused it to yourself which was already fused to the rest of the world so that you could spread it all over...locking this world in an endless sleep."
"You have to stop it.." said Nicole. "Azuma...if Erza truly changed you in that battle 7 years ago as you said, then you should know this is wrong."
"I can't stop it.." said Azuma. "However there is one hope...Laxus's group..the group that travelled seperately of yours, they were recently swallowed by the spreading darkness...all are now within the dark sleep...except one boy. Somehow the darkness did not affect him..he wields a power I have never heard of before."
Mikoto's eyes widened. Her breathing quickened. "Touma...he's okay.."
"Makes sense." said Nicole. "Imagine Breaker has proved to make him immune to enchantments before...remember Angel Fall?"
"He told you about Angel Fall too?" said Mikoto remembering the spell Touma had been caught up in that had switched the physical appearance of everyone on Earth. (Second arc of A Certain Magical Index).1
"I think he told everyone about Angel Fall." said Lucy. "He was asking Master if similar enchantments had ever been seen in Fiore."
"If your friend can somehow find Plague who lurks on the other side of this continent." said Azuma. "He could use his power to lift this enchantment.."
Mikoto felt stunned. For a moment she hadn't registered the fact that Azuma had just given a way to lift the plague. All that she was thinking about at the moment was that Touma was alright. She could feel her hand inching towards her phone so that she could call Touma and demand to know where he was.
"Mikoto...Mikoto!!" Mikoto snapped back to reality as Lucy nudged her shoulder. "We need to call Touma and let him know about all this.."
"Er..right." Mikoto muttered. She walked off and began dialing on her phone.
As the rest of the group followed Mikoto, Shizuri remained standing in front of Azuma, eyeing him with interest.
"You believe yourself Railgun's equal in strength." said Azuma. "Or so I've heard."
"Yes."
"Why continue that dillusion when you know now that she also has the strength of dragons within her when you yourself do not?" asked Azuma.
"Don't assume that Railgun's the only esper in the world who has more then one of the same parent." said Shizuri with a devious knowing smile. "After all.." Shizuri's eyes seemed to turn into slight slits for a moment as a scaly texture began to emerge around her eyes. "I just found out last week I had more then one father."