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Beastly Possession	By : Rhov Category: +. to F > Fairy Tail Views: 26740 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail is the property of Hiro Mashima. I make no money, I just do this for my own pleasure.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Disclaimer: Hiro Mashima can draw 18-20 manga pages in 7 days. It took me 40 days to write these 10 pages. Of course, he's only drawing one manga, whereas I'm writing three multi-chapter Fairy Tail fanfics plus other fandom one-shots. I made 17 updates in September for a total of 126 written pages. Hiro Mashima did four chapters with a total of 80 manga pages. I win!

Chapter 12

The Effects of a Feral
Makarov had all of Fairy Tail working on the mystery of the beastly killer, yet for a whole week they had no clues. There were no murders in Magnolia, and despite having every single available mage scouring the city, no one saw anything that might have been the "black demon" they were looking for.
Their only solid evidence was Gajeel's nose.
"He's definitely still in the city," the iron dragon slayer said without any doubt. "I smell him. He's been all over this town, probably scouting out for his big attack."
Makarov stroked his mustache, not liking such an ominous prediction. "Big attack? How big?"
Gajeel looked aside as memories he would rather like to forget were forced up. "When this happened to me, I came damn close to losing it entirely. I destroyed an entire small village, killed everyone, and didn't even realize I had done it." He ground his teeth together in frustration that, even to this day, he was not fully aware of what happened during that time. "First, you hunt, either for food or for fun. When the hunt is no longer fun, the feral doesn't just move on to another place. It slaughters everything first. It truly unleashes itself during that moment. I'm told...it looks much more dragon-like than anything a normal dragon slayer can do."
Makarov's forehead wrinkled deeply. "He turns into a dragon?"
"Or something close to it," Gajeel muttered. "When it happened to me, I wasn't even that far gone, yet it still took all of Phantom Lord's Elemental Four to stop me enough for Rogue to do the ceremony and return my mind. The ceremony itself is simple. It was trying to find another dragon slayer that was a challenge. According to reports from the surviving victims, this beast we're hunting claims to be seeking a dragon. It's likely an instinct, wanting to be cured."
"Is there really no hope?" the master frowned.
"At this stage, no," Gajeel said with a hard voice. "Death is the only way to stop him. The best we can do is make it painless." He gulped down a cup of mercury, wiped the liquid metal from his lips, and rose from his chair. "I'll patrol the city again, starting with the outskirts and working my way in. See ya." Then he walked out.

It was that evening, shortly after the dinner crowd left, that a woman in torn clothes with makeup smeared from crying ran into the guild hall.
"H-help," she managed to say before collapsing to her knees.
Laki rushed over quickly while other mages looked on in concern. Laxus eyed the woman. Not a mage; he sensed no magic in her. Laki spoke calmly to her, trying to get the lady to talk.
"He attacked," Nicci Bonder stuttered. "He...he killed them all. Then he changed. He was so young! He said..." She suddenly remembered the important part and looked right up into Laki's glasses. "He said: The dragon needs a slayer."
Laxus bolted up at that and stomped forward. "Where is it?" he demanded with a sneer. This feral beast had pissed him off all week, giving dragon slayers a bad name. If rumors got out to the public, it would mean disaster to all dragon slayers.
"Building," the woman shivered. "Riverfront. They said it was a studio, but it wasn't."
Makarov acted fast. "Gildarts, go with Laxus. Levy, signal Gajeel to return. Laki, try to calm her down so she can show us where the feral is located. Warren..."
"The lady doesn't have to come," Laxus said brusquely. "She can stay here and rest. I don't need her to show me. Follow the scent of blood and the beast, right?" He glared over at Gildarts as the scruffy man wrapped his tattered cloak around him. "Let's end this!"
Gildarts nodded and marched forward. As the older mage walked by Nicci, she reached up and tapped his leg.
"Please don't kill him," she sniffled. "He saved my life. He's just a kid, and he's not in control. Even I could see that."
Gildarts lightly patted her head. "We'll try to capture him unharmed. Just stay here and rest." He gave her a tender smile, that gentle look that reminded people of a father or dear uncle. Then Gildarts turned, and his face hardened as he stepped outside into the evening glow. The others watched in awe as the two strongest S-Class mages of Fairy Tail left to hunt after the beast.
Gildarts had a bad feeling about this wild, out-of-control dragon slayer. Makarov had instructed all of them to capture the beast if possible, but otherwise kill it. Part of him could hardly help but worry if Natsu might become so unstable as well.
What if Makarov had to give a similar order about the pink-haired boy? What if the best they could do was "make it painless"?
Gildarts knew there was no way he could kill Natsu, and he doubted if anyone else in the guild had to ability to go that far. Then he glanced at the hardened blond beside him. Laxus might be able to do something that drastic, if he felt it was the best thing for the guild and Magnolia as a whole. However, Gildarts knew that killing his own nakama would torment the young man for life. No, if anyone had to bear the burden of putting down Natsu, it should be either himself or Makarov. They could not allow the younger generation to suffer guilt like that.
Laxus kept sniffing the air, following a potent scent. It made the hair on the back of his neck prickle and his heart race, almost like smelling a battlefield and feeling the excitement of war. It was an intoxicating and revolting smell, something desirous and disgusting.
"You really can't smell that?" he muttered to Gildarts.
"Sorry, but I lack a dragon slayer's nose," the older man said lightly.
"It reeks. I smell blood, too. Lots of blood. We're close."
As if on cue, they heard a guttural roar of pain. Both mages quickened their steps as they came up to an old warehouse in an abandoned industrial area of Magnolia. At this time of day, no workers were around. The street was empty, all the buildings deserted.
"It's inside," Laxus said.
He had just begun to enter the door when something crashed through the second story window and landed hard down on the street. A boy thrashed around, grabbing at his long black hair as he howled in pain.
"Don't change, don't change," Balaur yelled at himself.
Gildarts cautiously approached the naked youth. "Oi, are you the dragon slayer?"
Balaur suddenly crouched on all fours and glared over at them. Both mages backed up a step at the glowing red eyes that greeted them with bloodlust.
"Slayer?" came a hiss. "Fuck slayer. Want fight." Then the eyes faded to golden-brown and the boy panted. "H-help me," he rasped out from a dry throat. "Are...are you from Fairy Tail? That girl, did she make it safely?"
"She's fine," Gildarts assured him, keeping a cautious distance as he assessed the situation. "Are you the dragon slayer?"
"Y-yeah," he muttered. "Balaur Blackstone. I'm the Earth Dragon Slayer. I...I've been like this...too long," he sighed weakly. "I'm not sure...if...if I can even be helped. I feel the beast all the time. I need a dragon or a dragon slayer, someone to cure me, but...but it's so strong. It used to want a dragon too, but not anymore. It...it doesn't want to be cured. It keeps going against what I want." He grabbed at his long, wavy, black hair. "I've heard of this. I heard people like me...we can't be saved." His eyes teared up as he sniffled. "I don't want to be bad anymore," he cried. "Please...please, either cure me or kill me. Just don't let me murder anyone else. I can't take it anymore!"
Gildarts saw that the person in front of him was hardly a beast. He was young, and the clarity of his words showed that he had at least a little sanity left in him. Gildarts had been under the impression that a feral dragon slayer was hardly even human anymore. This boy looked perfectly normal for now. Something about his sharp eyes and those pointy canine teeth reminded him of Natsu.
Then Balaur's eyes focused behind Gildarts and widened in horror. "He should be old enough," he gasped. "You brought an immature dragon slayer? Idiots!" he shouted, and he quickly scampered backwards. "But he should be old enough."
Gildarts looked back and cursed under his breath. The smell had been affecting Laxus for some time, but standing just a few steps away from the feral dragon slayer was suddenly sending the Lightning Dragon Slayer over his limit. His teeth had lengthened, and his nails were curling as they grew longer. Laxus clenched his teeth as a wild fierceness began to overwhelm him.
"What type of element is he?" Balaur shouted.
"Lightning," Gildarts answered.
"Damn, that's not good. Earth is strong against lightning, and I don't want to hurt him." The boy cringed, but he tried to keep a hold on his sanity a little longer. "If he changes fully, we'll all be in a lot of trouble. Just kill me now, then you don't have to worry about him."
Gildarts cringed a little as he looked the boy over. He had his orders, but facing just a kid was a lot harder than facing some mindless beast. "Maybe we can save you," he decided.
"Are you crazy?" Balaur shouted. "He's losing control, and I'm about to also. Just kill me, please!"
"I don't kill kids," Gildarts snapped angrily.
The boy fell to his knees and grabbed his head in pain. His eyes were wide in fear and confusion. Wasn't it natural to kill a beast like him? "I can't...keep it controlled...much longer."
"Then I'll knock this guy out first. Laxus, this might hurt but..." As Gildarts turned back around to the Lightning Dragon Slayer, his face paled. "Shit," he muttered, although he said a lot more profanity in his mind as he realized why Makarov had told him to knock out Laxus at the first sign of trouble.
Laxus had already sprouted wings that ripped his shirt asunder, showing off his tattoos and muscles that seemed to have tripled in size. His eyes gleamed red with narrow slits for pupils, and his hands were more like falcon claws. Golden, sparking scales marked his face and arms, while all around him the air tingled with electricity.
"Laxus?" Gildarts called out softly, taking a cautious step forward.
Balaur was on his knees on the ground, hugging himself to hold back the beast trying to break out. "He isn't conscious anymore. That's purely the beast's mind now." He gasped in pain, his eyes went red for a moment, but he struggled to hold it off. "If I change, we'll fight to the death. The beast...it's very territorial. Please, I don't want to kill him. If you just kill me now..."
Gildarts did not take his eyes off of Laxus, but he shouted angrily back at the boy, "Do you really want to die?"
Balaur looked stunned for a moment, blinked in shock, then dropped his head sadly. "No, sir," he whispered, "but I don't want to live if all I do is kill people."
"Then stay alive long enough for us to heal you," the older mage yelled.
For the first time in many months, Balaur felt a bit of hope. "If that's possible..."
"We'll make it possible," he snapped. "We're Fairy Tail!"
The Lightning Dragon Slayer hissed at those last two words. It worried Gildarts. Now, this was what he had expected to find, a beastly semblance of what used to be human. If he had merely seen some creature like this...heaven help him, but he might have killed the boy instantly. Now he knew Balaur was just a poor, struggling, sick kid. He could not kill him, no more than he could kill Laxus, Natsu, Gajeel, or Wendy. Although the boy was the objective of this mission, Balaur seemed to have at least a little control for now. Gildarts knew he had to contain this new and deadlier threat before things got out of hand.
"Want," Laxus growled deeply. His voice no longer sounded like Laxus Dreyar, but like some demonic creature, gargling and snarling, hellishly deep in tone. "Want...power!"
"Power hungry?" Balaur questioned.
Gildarts smirked as he faced Laxus straight on. "You could say he has a bit of a personality complex. You want power, Laxus? I'll give you a taste of real power."
Laxus snarled at him. "Want fight."
"Yeah, of course you do," Gildarts goaded on. "You and Natsu are too alike, except I've known you since you were in diapers. Well, I never turn down a challenge to fight, so go ahead. I'll take you on." The mage motioned with his hand for Laxus to come at him. "Come and get it, Laxus."
"Sir!" Balaur cried out in shock. "As he is, he's stronger than a normal dragon slayer. He won't hold back."
"I've fought the Black Dragon, kid. Don't worry, this brat has never been able to beat me yet. He's all bark and no..."
Laxus suddenly sprang as fast as a bolt of lightning and snapped his jaws onto Gildarts' arm. Luckily, he clamped down on the left prosthetic and only dented the metal forearm.
"You actually bit me!" Gildarts cried out in shock. His good hand shot forward, slammed into Laxus' chest, and shoved him back. The beastly blond skidded to a stop on all fours and crouched there, growling with the pleasure of battle.
Balaur had sweat pouring down his face as he strained to keep from transforming. "He...has the mind...of a beast, nothing more," he rasped out between heavy, strained breaths. "Only...only after a long time..." He sank a little further. "...will a feral...remember some...dragon slayer magic."
"So he doesn't know magic right now, huh?" Gildarts mused. "That'll make this a lot easier."
"No, he might use it, but not consciously, and not with precision," Balaur warned. "Against..." He hissed in pain as lumps threatened to burst out of his back, throbbing grotesquely just under his dark brown skin. His voice kept shifting between the barely-cracked voice of a young teen and the growling purr of a beast. "Easy prey...no need for magic. Against hard prey, magic comes. Whatever it takes...stay free...escape. We do...whatever we must...to...stay free." He collapsed onto the road and moaned loudly.
"Just lie there quietly, kid," Gildarts warned him. "If I know where you are, I can make sure you don't get hurt."
Balaur looked up in surprise. "You'd go that far?"
Gildarts did not take his eyes off of Laxus. "Let's just say you remind me of a kid I like. If I can save you, I can definitely save him."
Laxus snarled with drool slipping down from his mouth. "No talk. Fight more!"
"Yeah, yeah," Gildarts sighed. "Come at me, Laxus."
The dragon slayer leaped at him again, eyes fiery, blond hair crackling with lightning. His arm drew back, preparing for a powerful punch with aimed, sharp claws ready to rip and slash. Gildarts watched carefully, taking in all body movements and calculating possible feints. He saw none. This was nothing more than a beast showing its brute strength. He almost smiled, thinking this would be too easy.
Gildarts grabbed Laxus' wrist just as he rammed forward, easily pushing the arm off target, and tipped his head slightly to the right to dodge the blow. Then, holding the dragon slayer in place, Gildarts' head came down to strike against the blond's forehead. The red eyes rolled slightly. A quick glance assured Gildarts that he had not hit so hard as to cause a concussion, yet Laxus was not falling unconscious either. Although he had hoped to knock Laxus out fast, he did not want to permanently disable him.
While hunched over in pain, Laxus managed to grab the metal arm in his teeth again, snarling and shaking his head like a wild dog to pull on it. Gildarts yanked the dragon slayer's hair to pull him away, but the jaw snapped down hard enough to dent into the metal.
"Little brat, stop biting me," he yelled.
Rage and pain overwhelmed the beastly face as his blond hair was brutally grabbed and ripped. Gildarts tried to pull Laxus back enough to get a hit at his neck, something to knock him out. When that did not work, Gildarts lowered his fake arm slightly down to give more, then rammed the arm up into Laxus' face, strengthening its force by using the heel of his free hand to boost the hit. He knew that in a normal fight, this would probably knock out three or four teeth, and there was a good chance that Laxus might bite his tongue. However, the lengthened and sharper teeth of a dragon-slayer-turned-beast were stronger than he expected. Laxus looked jarred, but he did not stop fighting.
The older mage heard a creak in the bitten metal but did not have time to think about it. Laxus used the force of Gildarts' blow against him. The fake arm cracked, he felt bolts pop, and suddenly the prosthetic ripped off with a shower of broken metal bits while the forearm up to the elbow remained stuck in the dragon slayer's snarling maw.
"Goddammit," Gildarts hissed.
Not giving Laxus time to gloat, Gildarts used his free hand to strike another hard palm blow into Laxus' chest, shoving the dragon slayer into the wall of the warehouse and cracking the bricks. The older mage groaned as he held the metal stump.
"Sir!" Balaur screamed in horror.
"Fake arm, kid," the older man assured him. "I lost that one a few years ago to Acnologia. Still, he yanked my shoulder out of socket doing that. Damn!" Gildarts pressed up on the stump until a bone in the shoulder popped grotesquely. He clenched his teeth in pain. It might be a metal prosthetic, but the shoulder joint connected to real bone, skin, ligaments, and muscles. Popping that shoulder joint hurt the remaining nerves.
Laxus recovered enough to tip his head back and howl in victory with the mechanical arm still in his mouth. Then he spit it out and grinned with his eyes gleaming scarlet in bloodlust. However, he hissed when he saw his opponent still stood firm.
"Strong," he snarled.
Gildarts rotated and cracked his shoulder a bit more. "You're not too bad yourself, Laxus."
However, holding back was something the Crash Magic mage hated to do, and the longer this fight lasted, the more Laxus became beast-like. During their brief confrontation, a tail had grown out of Laxus' lower spine area, and his posture was slouching over into the crouch of an animal.
"Doing this one-handed will be tough," Gildarts grumbled.
Balaur had wings on his back, but he was barely staving off the rest of the transformation. "Don't you have magic? I thought you were a mage."
"Shut it, kid," Gildarts warned. "If I use my magic on him, he could easily die. Still, with only one arm...shit," he hissed. Losing the arm did not hurt, but the immense pull on his shoulder was throbbing. "I'm getting too old for this."
Balaur moaned in agony. "Please hurry, sir. The beast desperately wants out to fight. Yes, fight! No," he yelled, grabbing his head. "Not yet. Don't change. Not yet!"
Gildarts growled under his breath. "Two of these monsters would be a big problem even for me," he realized. "Guess there's no helping it."
Laxus rubbed the red mark on his brow from the powerful headbutt earlier. His vision was still clouded, so he took his prey's lack of movement for a reprieve. However, his disorientation grew worse as he was hefted from the ground and flailed about with nothing to support his feet. The concrete under him had cracked and raised into the air, yanking Laxus off-balance. The insane dragon slayer roared in defiance as the ground fell out from under him. He spread his wings to try balancing himself.
Not giving Laxus a moment to regain his bearings, Gildarts sprinted across the space between himself and his younger guild mate. He brought his knee up into Laxus' diaphragm and added power to the kick with his magic by forcing the ground beneath the foot to shatter and reform in a quick jutting angle, slamming the knee even farther up. Laxus choked on a bit of vomit. He slashed a claw out, but Gildarts raised the metal stump to block the strike from hitting his face. One clawed swipe managed to slice across the older man's chest, but he ignored it with only a hiss of pain. Gildarts delivered another powered kick to the inner mid-section. He felt ribs crack under the power of his knee, and this time Laxus puked blood.
"Sorry, Laxus," Gildarts muttered, knowing the man within could not hear him, but still frowning that he had to fight this roughly. "It has to be done. You'll thank me later."
Gildarts brought his elbow up and across his body, hoping to strike at the back of Laxus' neck. A hissing roar was the only thing he heard as the air around him became charged.
"Want power!" the lightning user sneered. "Slayer power."
Without calling out any attack name, or even using his hands to direct the flow of the magic, the enraged dragon slayer released a messy version of Lightning Dragon's Heavenward Halberd. A glowing electrical spear shot right at Gildarts' head. Using the fullness of his Disassembly magic, Gildarts shattered the spear of lightning that nearly hit him point-blank. Still, the bolts scattered, and although the main blast did not hit, his body became surrounded by electricity. Gildarts tensed, and his body convulsed so hard he could not even scream from the tingling pain. Laxus smirked as he saw his aim, while sloppy, had affected his prey.
Once the attack was over, Gildarts staggered and threw his cloak to one side, freeing himself of any impediments and managing to back away before more bursts like that could hit him directly. He cursed under his breath, knowing he should have been more careful. Damn him, but he had slipped into the mindset of fighting a mere beast, not a powerful Lightning Dragon Slayer and S-Class mage. That bit of underestimating cost him. Now he struggled to clear his jolted mind, trying to focus on his surroundings, where Laxus was, where Balaur was, and making sure no civilians were around.
"Shit," Gildarts hissed. "That...hurt," he admitted with a smile of admiration. Then he fell to one knee and coughed harshly. The electric jolt just about stopped his heart, and he pounded on his own chest to get the muscle back into rhythm. "Dammit. Gonna give this old man a heart attack. I'm lucky I'm a tough old bastard, or Cana would be having a funeral for me right about now. Boy, she'd be pissed, too! Just like her mother." Gildarts actually threw his head back and laughed when he pictured Cana bitching him out just like her mother use to do. "Women are never quiet, are they, boy?"
"Cana?" Laxus growled, tilting his head to the side in question. "Want woman. Want fuck."
The laugh died instantly. Gildarts' eyes narrowed dangerously, and his teeth clenched in rage. In a fatalistically low voice, he asked, "You wanna do what with my daughter?"
Laxus chuckled to see his prey angry. "Want fuck. Hard! Make scream. Make cry."
Not even the speed of the Lightning Dragon Slayer could catch the fast fist that slammed forward and connected with the bridge of Laxus' nose, sending the blond a good fifty meters backwards. Gildarts eyes were wild with fatherly fury.
"You stay the hell away from Cana," he warned softly.
With blood pouring from a broken nose and snarling over his continued lack of victory, Laxus took a wide stance. His chest and cheeks expanded as he sucked in vast amounts of air to prepare his roar. Gildarts spit out a stream of blood and wiped his mouth with his forearm. His eyes glared at the dragon slayer for a moment before calming himself.
"You're just a beast. Primal instincts. Still...this has gone on long enough."
He dived deep within himself. The aura around him grew, the ground crumbled, floated, and bits of rock disintegrated at the sheer force of Gildarts' unleashed power. A column of golden electricity sizzled against the column of pure white magical force.

Many kilometers away in the Fairy Tail guild hall, Cana sensed something was wrong. She dropped her beer barrel and raced to the door, throwing it open with a shattering bang. The bloody dusk glow barely gave enough light by which to see. She felt that unique power, and she saw the two spikes of intense magic in the gloaming.
"Father," she whispered worriedly.
Makarov came up behind her and frowned at the overwhelming magical forces clashing together. "It seems we're going to have a problem with Laxus, as well."
"But Gildarts..."
"Don't worry," the old guild master smiled confidently. "Do you really think Gildarts is weaker than Laxus?"
She blushed a little as pride rose to the surface. "No, Master," she smiled. "There's no way he'd lose...because he knows I'd kill him if he died."
Makarov laughed at that, but he still watched the clashing towers of magic with worry. He had confidence in Gildarts, but the man hated to go easy on people. He was more worried for Laxus and any bystanders in the area.

The air around the two mages seemed to freeze, as if time itself stopped to watch the first and second ranked mages of Fairy Tail in their decisive last clash. Gildarts' dark eyes and Laxus' glowing red irises focused completely on one another.
Suddenly, with a ferocious snarl, Laxus released his roar upon his prey. A second later, Gildarts unlocked all of his power and sent it out in a radiating blast aimed solely at the blond dragon slayer. Light enveloped the two as hell itself descended upon Earthland.
All around Magnolia, windows shattered, sidewalks cracked, the ground rumbled hard enough to knock food off shelves, and anything electronic died instantly. In the industrial area, entire buildings crumbled before the intense clash, and people even a kilometer away felt their hair rise a little from the static. Anyone too close went a little numb in their limbs, although the effect faded soon. Shockingly, no one was hurt too badly.
At ground zero, there was a crater left behind, and the building the rapists had used as their headquarters was a pile of tiny cubes of rubble. Anything metallic sparked with arcing lines of electricity. The air stank of ozone and dust.
Gildarts coughed harshly. His hair stuck out like a mad scientist, but he had a smile on his face. In front of him were dozens of tiny copies of Laxus. Not the beast, he noted, but just Laxus. They all looked a bit dazed due to the forced transformation back into the mage's normal body.
"Well," wheezed Gildarts, "I'm glad that worked. It was a gamble that you'd either Disassemble into a bunch of little beasts, or the magic would force you back into your real body. With luck like this, I should hit a casino and win enough money to buy Cana a pretty gold necklace. I think..." He coughed more. "...she'd like that." He pounded on his chest again. "Damn heart. I bet kids like Natsu wouldn't have to worry about things like this. Yup, I'm getting old."
Belatedly, he looked back to where Balaur had collapsed. He did not see the boy, and he panicked for a moment. Then in the air he heard a roar. Looking up, he saw what looked like a small brown and black dragon flying across the evening sky.
"Damn," he frowned. "Can't believe I actually failed another mission. Cana's gonna be pissed." Then he looked back at the chibi-Laxus mob. "Reassemble!"
With a poof, the miniatures combined into one man. Laxus laid on the ground moaning and disoriented, his face bloodied, his shirt missing, with a nasty bruise forming where Gildarts' kick had broken some ribs. He could hardly move. His shoulders and lower back throbbed in pain, and he felt like his head was going to burst. Gildarts marched over to him and knelt by his side.
"You fought well, Laxus. You might be yourself now, but I can't chance it. Sorry." He delivered a hit to the dragon slayer's neck, and Laxus was knocked out cold. "Still, carrying your ass back to the guild with one arm is going to kill my back."

Half an hour later, the older mage managed to stumble in through the guild doors and heavily dropped Laxus to the floor. While Bickslow and Evergreen rushed over to help their team leader, Gildarts stretched and cracked his spine. Cana rushed over to him and was about to take his hand when she noticed the missing arm.
"What happened?" she shouted.
"The kid's more than just all bark," he said casually, brushing the matter aside and hurrying over to Makarov. "I apologize, Master. I had the feral dragon slayer, but the smell he was giving off apparently triggered Laxus. While I suppressed him, the feral escaped."
The small old man frowned. "I see. We'll have to hunt him again."
"Sir," Gildarts whispered with a disturbed grimace. "I spoke to him. He was still mostly sane when we arrived. His name is Balaur. He's just a kid," the Crash Magic mage stressed. "He's scared, he knows he's out of control, and he's desperate for help. Master, if possible, I strongly feel we shouldn't kill this boy."
Makarov's face hardened. "Gildarts, I know how you love kids, and I'm sure if I met him, I'd probably feel the same way. However, Gajeel has already warned that there is no way to cure a feral dragon slayer. Like with a rabid dog, the best you can do is put them down painlessly."
"But to kill a kid..."
"A kid who had murdered at least a dozen people in this city alone. I got a warning from Sabertooth. They discovered two entire towns wiped out by what they say is a feral dragon slayer. They also want to keep the matter quiet, but they figured they should warn us. Since a feral is obsessed with finding other dragon slayers, they worried that this beast would head to Magnolia." The tiny master gazed sternly. "Even if we could save this boy, do you think he could live a normal life knowing he has butchered hundreds of people?"
Gildarts looked away as he remembered Balaur beseeching to kill him before he could murder anyone else. The boy had been so guilt-ridden, he wanted death.
"Gildarts," Makarov said quietly. "If it must come down to that, I would rather send you than one of these brats. Can I count on you?"
The Crash Magic mage remembered thinking about that while heading off to the industrial district. If one of these teens had to kill a boy who was almost their age, it would devastate them. It had to be him or Makarov. He did not like it one bit, but he firmed his heart.
"Yes, Master. I understand."
"Thank you," Makarov said, although his eyes held a silent apology. "Now go get your arm repaired." He watched Gildarts' unsteady steps and realized, for such a man like him to be so unstable after a fight, Laxus must have not held back. "The only person left who can track down the beast is Gajeel. He's already past this adolescent phase and matured."
Just then, Laxus began to wake up. "Hey, old geezer," he grumbled. "Are you saying I'm immature?"
Makarov walked over to him as his grandson tried to sit up. "As a dragon slayer, you are. Laxus, you're forbidden from leaving the guild until Gajeel can do the rite-of-passage ceremony. Consider yourself grounded."
"Dammit, I ain't some kid going through puberty."
Makarov chuckled softly. "Maybe when you come of age as a dragon slayer too, then you'll give me some great-grandbabies."
Laxus tried to leap at him, but his body hurt too badly to stand. Evergreen and Bickslow held his shoulders so he would not completely fall over.
"Laxus," Gildarts bellowed from across the room. "I forbid you from touching Cana."
Laxus huffed petulantly. "Who'd want to touch that drunk?"
"During our fight, you said you wanted to fuck her."
"What?" he roared in shock.
"What?" Cana shrieked, blushing as she glanced over to Laxus in disgust.
"Oh-ho!" Makarov giggled naughtily. "The beast drives up the inner desires of the person. Good. I expect many great-grandbabies."
"Get bent, old man!" Laxus shouted.
"Cana," Gildarts said sternly. "What you do in private is your own business, but I don't want grandchildren too soon. I'm not old enough for that."
"Like hell," Cana yelled.
Makarov pouted. "But I want great-grandbabies."
Both Laxus and Cana yelled together. "I'm not having kids!"

End of Chapter 12

A/N: A tremendous thanks to thoughtsdemise on DeviantArt and Moonlessnight126 on YouTube, plus many others who gave me advice and encouragement after I was hopelessly stuck on this chapter for over a month. My Muse might be in trouble with awesome sources of inspiration like you guys.
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Beastly Possession