"Hey, this isn't what we agreed on, is it?"
After Bacchus crushed his target, he realized something wasn't right. The swarm of Bees, instead of disappearing as Rhodes had predicted, had gone into a frenzy, buzzing louder, darting faster, and attacking anything that moved.
The good news was that their formation had fallen apart. Their movements were no longer organized, chaotic now, even colliding with one another mid-air.
"Brother!" Rocker shouted, fending off a Bee with his spinning fist. "Mr. Rhodes said if we can't hold them, we should fall back to the magic circle he made!"
"Here, here!" Gemini, disguised as Lucy, stood waving by the glowing Hex Gate. Whenever Bees dived at her, the two Gemini halves streaked forward trailing golden starlight, head-butting the attackers like twin meteors.
Bacchus and his two guildmates fought their way backward, covering each other as they retreated. The further they went, the fewer Bees there seemed to be, their endless tide finally thinning.
If this continued, they might actually last until reinforcements came.
Meanwhile, Rhodes had noticed something far more troubling.
During the Bees' instant movements, twice now, there had been no magical fluctuation.
The same held true for the apple tree and the Three-Headed Dog.
That meant only one thing: someone else was teleporting them.
It matched yesterday's pattern. Whoever it was had likely been shadowing the Hellhound all along, pulling it to safety at the last second.
And now, realizing the Bee Zodiac was also in danger, that same presence had intervened again.
But among the abandoned Celestial Spirits, who could possess such spatial mastery?
Four gleaming spider-legs unfurled from Rhodes' back, anchoring him to the ground. He spread four massive webs outward, shimmering with violet runes.
The webs expanded like tidal waves, sweeping across the battlefield.
Bees by the hundreds were ensnared, compressed, and cocooned until four massive, writhing Bee balls hung in the air like mountains of silk.
At the same time, pale mists of Void vision fanned out from Rhodes and the Crab, scanning every ripple of energy within range.
And then, Rhodes froze, eyes narrowing.
A strange mechanical construct hovered behind them, high in the air, half-hidden by light.
"Lucy," he called, pointing upward, "what is that?"
He knew he'd seen such a design before, something in an old tome on Celestial Spiritology, but the details escaped him.
Lucy squinted upward. With the webs clearing much of the haze, she could now make out a door-shaped frame, a fan of bronze plates, and delicate rotating arms. The entire thing gleamed like a giant clockwork instrument.
Her eyes widened. "That's a Quadrans!"
She turned to Rhodes, excitement and dread mingling. "It's an astronomical tool, used to measure the altitude or zenith distance of celestial bodies! I've read that similar ones were used for navigation, but look!"
There were two luminous eyes and a faintly smiling mouth etched into the frame.
"That means it's not just a machine, it's the Celestial Spirit of the Quadrans Lyrids, Quadrans himself!"
The name struck Rhodes like a bell.
The Quadrans Lyrids, one of the constellations abandoned long ago, erased from the modern 88.
Wendy blinked. "Quadrans Lyrids? I've never even heard of that constellation…"
Carla tilted her head. "Are Celestial Spirits really tools now?"
Lucy nodded quickly. "Yes! Some constellations are categorized as instrument-type spirits. Compass Pixis is the same kind."
Rhodes's gaze sharpened on the hovering construct.
A spirit born from a tool of measurement and positioning… spatial displacement was exactly what one like that could control.
He raised a finger and released a bolt of blue lightning.
A Bee ball, still twitching in its web, lurched into the line of fire, instantly absorbing the blast. The crackling current shredded the trapped Bees, one after another vanishing into light.
Rhodes frowned. "Predictable. Anything too direct just makes it react faster."
If he displayed too much power now, the Quadrans might retreat entirely.
He switched tactics immediately.
"Lucy," he said evenly, "you're the one who knows the most about that Spirit. I'm entrusting it to you."
"Eh?"
"Carla, back her up. Wendy, you're with me, we'll deal with the Hellhound and the Giant Bee!"
It was a lie, of course. He had no intention of letting Lucy face a dimensional entity alone.
But no one questioned his orders.
Carla swooped down and lifted Lucy by the shoulders, carrying her skyward. Lucy's altitude climbed rapidly, her hair whipping in the wind as she drew her long whip.
"Get me a little closer, Carla!"
Carla stared at the swarm of Bees suddenly materializing ahead and sighed, "It doesn't look like they intend to wait for us to approach politely."
"It's fine, Sagittarius!"
Lucy shouted downward.
Below, Sagittarius instantly drew his bow, nocking nine arrows at once. "Hey, hey!"
Twang! Twang! Twang!
Nine arrows streaked through the sky in a perfect arc, each one finding its mark. The exploding streaks of starlight cleared a flawless path for Lucy and Carla.
Lucy's amber eyes sharpened as she locked onto the distant Celestial Spirit. She began murmuring to herself, voice calm and analytical, "The quadrant's arc angle is thirty-seven degrees… vernier scale shift, two ticks downward… the Bees' spatial pattern just now..."
Carla had absolutely no idea what Lucy was talking about, but she could tell one thing for certain: Lucy's focus was frighteningly sharp. She flapped her wings harder, accelerating toward the target.
Lucy lashed her long whip forward, aiming for the main quadrant arc, the heart of the Quadrans's structure.
The strike missed, of course. The Celestial Spirit flickered, shifting itself out of the whip's path. Instead, Lucy's attack smashed into a cluster of Bees that had suddenly appeared midair, scattering them like sparks.
Lucy's gaze darted rapidly between the swarming Bees and the gleaming bronze frame of the Quadrans. Her mind was a whirlwind of calculation.
"Carla, move left! I want to test something!"
"Got it!" Carla banked hard, darting through the air and narrowly avoiding several stingers.
Lucy continued issuing directions, up, down, left, right, each time swinging her whip again and again.
The Quadrans Lyrids kept shifting space: sometimes repositioning itself, sometimes teleporting Bees to act as a living shield, sometimes dragging whole swarms into sudden ambushes.
But the Bees no longer fought as one mind. Their formations were sloppy, and with Sagittarius's relentless fire from below, Lucy and Carla always found a way through.
Then the Quadrans glowed faintly again.
Lucy's eyes locked on the motion of its rotating arc, the shimmer of its engraved scales. "Okay, this time… ten Bees will appear behind us!"
Carla swerved just as the air shimmered, and ten Bees popped into existence, exactly where Lucy had said they would.
"Left side, five of them!"
"Above, seven!"
"The main body's about to jump, three o'clock direction, two hundred meters!"
Each prediction hit dead-on.
Lucy was tracking and interpreting the quadrant's readings in real time, calling every move before it happened.
Carla's eyes widened. "Unbelievable… it's like you're using prophecy magic!"
Lucy grinned, her whip crackling with energy. "It's not that mysterious! As long as I can read the Quadrans's measurements, I can see where it'll move next. Every spatial shift has a pattern, it's just math!"
Carla couldn't help but smile. "Even so, reading your enemy's magic that fast isn't something just anyone could do."
Her gaze softened as she looked at Lucy.
This girl, who always seemed scatterbrained, who was constantly teased by her friends, wasn't ordinary at all.
Yes… this was Fairy Tail.
Every member was reckless, unpredictable, and absolutely brilliant when it counted.
Carla realized that Rhodes must have trusted Lucy's intelligence completely when he'd assigned her this task.
If that was the case, then Carla needed to trust her too, not just as Wendy's partner, but as a true Fairy Tail mage in her own right.
Well, she told herself with a faint blush, this is for Wendy's sake anyway.
Lucy raised her whip, golden light coiling along its length like a serpent. "Alright, Carla, this time we're ending it in one shot!"
Carla's wings flared, her eyes fierce. "Roger that!"
...
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