Chapter 95: Battle for Fairy Tail VII - The Thunder Palace Falls
The streets of Magnolia were a war zone. Smoke rose from shattered lacrima fragments. The air crackled with residual electricity. And everywhere, Fairy Tail mages were picking themselves up off the ground, their bodies smoking, their clothes torn, their spirits unbroken.
Warren Rocko stood in the center of the market district, his hands pressed against his temples, his eyes closed in concentration. Sweat poured down his face. His legs were shaking. But he did not stop. He could not stop.
"Gray," he said, his voice echoing through the minds of every Fairy Tail mage still standing. "I have them. Everyone. They are ready."
Gray stood on a rooftop overlooking the square, his chest heaving, his shirt gone somewhere in the chaos. Around him, the bodies of Freed's enchanted dolls lay scattered and broken. He had fought through three of them to get here, and he was running out of time.
"How many?" he asked.
"Everyone who can still move. Maybe thirty. Maybe less."
"Tell them to wait for my signal."
Warren's telepathic voice spread across the city like a wave. Thirty mages. Thirty points of light in the darkness. They were scattered across Magnolia, hiding in alleys and doorways and shattered buildings, each one positioned beneath a Thunder Palace lacrima. Each one waiting.
Gray raised his hand. Ice formed around his fingers, blue and cold, and he aimed it at the orb floating above the square.
"Now," he said.
He fired.
Across the city, thirty mages attacked at once. Fire and ice and wind and earth, cards and swords and magic of every kind, all of them aimed at the floating orbs that Laxus had placed above their city. The lacrimas shattered, one by one, their fragments raining down like glass. And with each shatter, the lightning within them exploded outward, striking the mages who had dared to attack.
The screams echoed across Magnolia. Gray felt the electricity tear through his body, burning his skin, seizing his muscles, stopping his heart for a single terrible moment. He fell to his knees. His vision went white. He tasted blood.
But he did not die.
Around the city, the other mages were suffering the same fate. Some collapsed. Some screamed. Some lay still, their bodies smoking, their eyes closed. But they were alive. Every single one of them was alive.
The Thunder Palace was gone.
Inside the Kardia Cathedral, the air was thick with smoke and ozone. The walls were scorched. The floor was cracked. The stained glass windows had shattered hours ago, and the light that streamed through the empty frames was the pale grey of a dying sun.
Laxus stood at the center of the destruction, his coat torn, his face bleeding from a cut above his eye. He was breathing hard, but he was standing. He was always standing.
Natsu lay crumpled against the far wall, his body covered in burns and bruises, his chest barely rising. He had been fighting for what felt like hours, and he had nothing left. But he was still conscious. He was still watching.
Laxus turned toward the windows. He could see the sky through the broken frames, and where there had once been floating orbs of lightning, there was nothing. Just clouds. Just smoke. Just the empty sky.
"They destroyed it," he said. His voice was flat, almost calm. "They actually destroyed it."
Natsu coughed. Blood dripped from his lip. "Told you. Erza would take care of it."
Laxus's face twisted. The calm shattered, replaced by something raw and furious. His hands clenched at his sides. Lightning crackled around his fingers, yellow and bright, and the air in the cathedral grew heavy with the promise of death.
"You think this changes anything," he said. "You think destroying a few lacrimas will stop me. I am still here. I am still the strongest. And I will still burn this guild to the ground."
He raised his hand. Lightning gathered at his fingertips, brighter than before, hotter than before, a sphere of pure energy that hummed with the power to end lives. He aimed it at Natsu.
"You first."
He fired.
The lightning shot across the cathedral, fast and fierce, a bolt of yellow death aimed at Natsu's heart. Natsu did not have the strength to move. He did not have the strength to dodge. He watched the lightning come, and he waited for the end.
The lightning never reached him.
Gajeel Redfox appeared out of nowhere, his body slamming into Natsu's, knocking him out of the path of the bolt. They tumbled across the floor together, a tangle of limbs and iron and fire, and came to a stop against the base of a broken pillar.
Gajeel pushed himself up. His face was bloody. His arm was burned. His eyes were fixed on Laxus.
"You," Laxus said. "I should have known you would interfere."
Gajeel spat blood onto the stone. "I am not doing it for him. I am doing it because I am not done with you yet."
He turned to Natsu. "Can you stand?"
Natsu pushed himself up. His body screamed in protest, but he stood. "I can fight."
"Good. Because I am not carrying you."
They stood side by side, the two dragon slayers, facing the man who wanted to destroy everything they had built. Laxus looked at them, and something flickered across his face. Something that might have been respect or might have been contempt.
"Two of you," he said. "It does not matter. I will crush you both."
He attacked.
Lightning arced from his hands, a web of yellow energy that filled the cathedral. Natsu and Gajeel dodged, weaved, countered. Natsu's flames met Laxus's lightning in bursts of heat and light. Gajeel's iron scales deflected the bolts that came too close. They were fighting together, reluctantly, desperately, and for a moment, it seemed like they might have a chance.
Natsu's fist connected with Laxus's chest. The impact was solid, a clean hit that would have felled most men. Laxus did not move. He looked down at the point of impact, then back at Natsu, and smiled.
"You are going to have to hit harder than that."
His knee drove into Natsu's stomach. Natsu doubled over, gasping, and Laxus followed with an elbow to the back that sent him crashing to the stone. Gajeel was there before he could fall, his iron fist swinging toward Laxus's face.
Laxus caught the fist. His fingers wrapped around Gajeel's iron knuckles, and the lightning around his hand flared, sending shocks through Gajeel's arm. Gajeel gritted his teeth, refused to let go, and drove his other fist into Laxus's ribs.
Laxus grunted. He released Gajeel's hand and stepped back, his hand pressing against his side. Blood seeped between his fingers.
"Not bad," he said. "But not good enough."
He raised his hands. Lightning gathered around him, not in bolts but in a storm, a whirlwind of yellow energy that filled the cathedral and lifted him off the ground. His eyes were glowing. His hair was standing on end. He looked like a god, terrible and beautiful, and Natsu felt something cold settle in his chest.
Natsu looked at Gajeel. Gajeel looked at Natsu. They did not speak. They did not need to.
"Fire Dragon's Roar," Natsu said.
"Iron Dragon's Roar," Gajeel said.
They fired together. Orange flame and silver iron, two streams of destruction that merged into one, a column of pure power that shot toward Laxus and struck him in the center of his storm. The explosion was deafening, a blast of light and heat that shattered the remaining windows and cracked the walls of the cathedral.
When the smoke cleared, Laxus was still standing.
His coat was gone. His shirt was torn. His body was covered in burns and cuts. But he was standing, and he was smiling.
"That was your best," he said. "Your combined roar. Your ultimate attack. And it did nothing."
He raised his hand. The lightning around him changed, grew darker, more intense. His body began to transform. His arms bulged with muscle. Scales rippled across his skin, dark and rough, covering his hands and forearms. His eyes glowed with a power that had been hidden, that had been waiting, that was finally being unleashed.
"You are not the only dragon slayers in this guild," he said. "You never were."
Gajeel's jaw dropped. They had fought this man for hours, traded blows, spilled blood, and he had been holding back the entire time.
"Lightning Dragon Slayer," Laxus said. "That is what I am. That is what I have always been."
Lightning erupted from his body, a wave of yellow energy that knocked Natsu and Gajeel off their feet. They hit the ground hard, their bodies convulsing, their muscles locked. Laxus walked toward them, his footsteps heavy on the stone, his eyes fixed on the men who had dared to challenge him.
"Surprised," he said. "You should be. My father implanted a Dragon Lacrima in my body when I was a child. It nearly killed me. But I survived. I survived, and I became something greater than either of you will ever be."
He raised his hand. Lightning gathered at his fingertips, aimed at Natsu's heart.
"Any last words?"
Natsu looked up at him. His body was broken. His magic was spent. His friends were scattered across the city, fighting their own battles, dying their own deaths. He was alone, and he was about to lose.
But he was not afraid.
"I have been waiting for this," he said.
Laxus's eyes narrowed. "What?"
Natsu pushed himself up. His arms were shaking. His legs were shaking. His whole body was shaking. But he stood, and he faced the lightning dragon slayer, and he smiled.
"I have been waiting for you to reveal your true power. Because now I do not have to hold back anymore."
He closed his eyes. He reached deep inside himself, past the pain and the exhaustion and the fear, past the fire that had been burning since the day he woke up in this body. He reached for the thing that lived beneath his skin, the thing that had been waiting, the thing that was finally ready to be unleashed.
The magic exploded out of him.
It was not fire. It was not lightning. It was something older, something deeper, something that had been sleeping in his blood since the day he swallowed those crystals in the Tower of Heaven. It washed over the cathedral in a wave, hot and bright and terrible, and Laxus staggered back, his lightning flickering, his eyes wide.
"What is this," he said. "What are you doing?"
Natsu opened his eyes. They were gold. Slitted. Ancient. Scales rippled across his skin, dark and red, covering his arms and chest and face. His hair was wild, standing on end, glowing with the heat of the fire inside him. He was not a man anymore. He was something else. Something that had been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
"The Dragon Force," he said.
Gajeel stared at him from the ground, his face pale, his eyes wide. He had seen Natsu fight before. He had fought Natsu before. He had never seen anything like this.
Laxus raised his hands. Lightning gathered around him, brighter than before, hotter than before, a storm of yellow energy that filled the cathedral. He was afraid. He would never admit it, but he was afraid.
Natsu stepped toward him. His footsteps left cracks in the stone. His flames licked at the air around him, orange and gold and white, hot enough to melt steel.
"Gajeel," he said. His voice was different now, layered, the voice of the man and the voice of the dragon speaking together. "Watch. Learn. This is what a real dragon slayer looks like."
He raised his fist. The flames around him condensed, compressed, became a sphere of pure energy that hummed with the power to end worlds.
"With this," Natsu said, "you will witness the true power of a dragon slayer."
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Next Time: Battle for Fairy Tail VIII - Dragon Force