Chapter 16: Upgreades
When the flare energy disappeared to blue haired man walked a short man.
"Destroy, melt or otherwise get rid of this Dimension Key," the taller of the men gave him a small key. Without waiting for a response from his back sprouted wings and spreading them flew away. "It is wholy unpredictable."
"At least come in handy to place there next agent," the smaller man looked at the remains of the dimensional vortex in the sky. After a while the remnants of energy dispersed leaving no trace except maybe beside footsteps of the runes circle on the ground. The only proof that two people just crossed the barrier between worlds.
"Going somewhere?" when he was walking inside was grabbed and Arik threw him ahead. Before he got up from the ground Raven managed to close behind entrance behind him.
"No," the mage began to slowly reach with one hand into his pocket. Not much thinking ice slayer appeared next to him and grabbing him by the throat began to rise up. For a moment he looked into his eyes before he closed his hand which made the neck make silent snap sound and his body immediately went limp.
"Arik," from the darkness of the night emerged golden haired mage.
The one, which was called for a moment starired at her with eyes, which reflected only pure lust for killing and then threw body on the ground. Then stuck the same cold and ruthless gaze into Yagyu.
"Stop it," she said, but he didn't react slowly starting to approach her. Still she hesitated what to do when like a dead man lying near grabbed her by the neck and began to rise.
"I'm sorry darling but it's for your own good," managed to mutter before with great force kicked him in the groin. Reeling in pain he let go of her neck and knelt. Sitting before him careful looked in his eyes. Fortunately, they were normal but now express the pain he felt. Not saying warped her arms around him and hugged gently. Relaxing opened his other hand, from which the ground rolled blood drenched lacrimas, two large and the third almost half smaller.
Another half hour passed them on dealing with located before them dark guild building. After subduing people inside Hisuika, Teana, Samson and sisters Otto was occupied by the methodical searching throu building with hopes of finding interesting or useful things. Kanna and Arik at the time went to a nearby forest which, however contrary to expectations wasn't what the rest of the suspected because they came back with the red-haired mage, who seemed to suffer from some form of amnesia. The only thing she remembered was who she was: Erza Scarlet.
When a few hours later all matters concerning dark guild buildings were over, Otto sisters helped the red-haired mage come back to her friends. Also left her pleasure to clarify what happened to her but she just didn't seems to remember anything from the last day.
'That world,' thought Scarlet looking towards the sea. It wasn't true as she said she didn't remember anything. However the place where she woke up was at least disturbing. As if it was a reflection of this world in a mirror. Even she was called a different name and that magic. She couldn't use her own for some reason.
"What happened?" asked the blonde-haired mage.
"No nothing," she said and along with Lucy returned to rest. When a few days later when Natsu woke Fairy Tail mages bid farewell to Mill, Sho, Walliego and Simon and then returned to the guild.
"Mira?" Lucy sat down at the bar.
"Yes?" Strauss briefly looked at Heartfilia as if she didn't recognised her.
"You look somehow different," she said looking at the white-haired mage.
"No, I always looked that way," replied smiling and reached for the glass. The awkwardness of the situation in which she found herself saved master, who called Mirajane for a moment.
"Strange," said under her breath celestial spirits mage.
"What?" asked Natsu, who sat beside her.
"Mirajane. For a moment it seemed to me that she didn't recognized me and in addition it seems as if she somewhat 'put on weight'," she said looking in the direction of the standing a little away from them white-haired mage.
"You want to say that she also eat too much like you?" said the blue exceed.
"That's not what I mean," Lucy blushed. "You both wouldn't understand that," she said and walked away.
"What's gotten into her?" Dragneel sat amazed.
"Maybe Lucy also wanted to be round like Mira..." mused Happy. Actually mentioned mage seemed to be in exceed's opinion somehow more round here and there but hunger caused that he preferred to think about finding some fish more.
"Natsu?" cat looked worried for his friend, whose attention atracting something.
"It's you," said the pink-haired mage when behind a nearby pile of bars emerged three mages and one exceed. He was tall, muscular with red eyes, she was a blondy with glasses hiding her orange eyes. Third was walking most drawning attention mage because of two pairs of insectoid legs that grew out of her back.
"Today I didn't come to fight you," said Arik as greeting.
"Too bad," muttered under his breath fire mage. "Another lesson of ice slayer magic?" he asked looking alternately at Kanna and Teana.
"You're quite brilliant," laughed Yagyu.
"Why did she come?" he asked still looking suspiciously at one of the mages
"I think that your friend," began Raven, "the one who uses take over magic could have problems with its latest form in his arsenal. If so Teana is here to eliminate those problems. So is he around?"
"Maybe," replied Natsu now looking at ice slayer.
"What happened?" he asked feeling eyes on himself.
"Come on. I don't have all day," Kanna grabbed Dragnell before he could answer on Arik's question and began to pull away with her. Behind them followed a small cat, who drew attention Happiego so he left two mages of Azure Dragon by themselves at the bar. Several minutes later behind the counter came back Mirajane.
"Hello," he said toward white-haired mage. "How going return to the guild?"
"Not so bad. Still happens to me that I don't recognize someone right away or don't recall certain facts," said Strauss.
"You can always try to pull additional information from 'her'," he laughed looking around. "Alternatively we can use that magic to refill gaps in your memory."
"Maybe," she said. "You just come to ask how going recovering my memories?"
"Too. Teana says that your brother may have trouble with the use of a new form. And since it was his gift from us, we can't leave him with a form that'll be impossible to use. I counting that you got your 'embarrassing' problem under control?"
"At the moment I have a 'it' under control. And I should have for a longer time. Though maybe I want to see Kazuki again..." Mirajane suddenly interrupted blushing. "Maybe I better go look for Elfman."
She quickly disappeared from sight somewhere between nearby stacks of materials.
"The troublesome problem?" blonde-haired slayer looked in his direction.
"This is not the place to mention it," he said and looked to the side where behind stack of bars was Lucy.
"Oh there you're," he said and stood up to greet the white-haired mage. Strauss paused for a moment seeing sitting near Teana's.
"Khe, Khe still afraid of me?" she asked trying to sound as normal as she could.
"A little," said Elfman.
"So what? Can you use her old form without any side effects?" Raven looked out to the side waiting for an answer.
"For several days there was no trouble. However, then use this form started cause severe pain. Recently even before returning the normal form," caught a glimpse of how the Teana apendixes twitched slightly and a moment later he jumped before her attack.
"Teana," Arik started talk so blonde-haired mage stopped for a moment, "just don't use any magic. Don't want to ended up that you heavy poison or burn him with your attacks."
"As you command," she said and the green glow around the ends of her insectoid spikes began to dissipate. Despite this attack was barely parried by the white-haired mage.
"You have to try take her present form using the currently one owned," this time an ice mage spoke in the direction of take over mage. "Theoretically this should help you."
"Theoreticaly?" Strauss said jumping back before Tana's next attack.
"I could explain but it is quite complicated and in addition I can see how busy you are, even if Teana only uses her naturale 'weapons' and agility," he replied and immediately added with a slightly ironic tone. "If you need moment to change the form I can ask her to give you a short break."
"Man doesn't need a break," the white-haired mage protested and after another dodging focused on change. Around him swirled magical energy and instantly changed appearance at roughly similar to that, which had his sparring partner.
"Much better," she said when he began to equal her in speed of attacks and blocks slowly moving from the defensive to the offensive. However she still had a slight advantage.
'She become faster,' mentally noted Elfman when despite the change couldn't land a direct hit. He still was able to block them with one his appendixes or jump away but even she didn't used her magic as remembered form last meating Strauss felt a slight relief.
"Fast isn't she?" casually tossed the question golden-haired mage. "Her metamorphosis has changed this and that. Oh simply how fast she can deal blows."
"Ouch," Elfman jumped when with almost difficult to follow the speed she hit him in the stomach and without a moment's pause has done extensive swung with appendixes. With a slight crunch they stopped on his, which at the last moment managed to use as cover.
"Khe, Khe too fast blow? If you can take my form you also will be able to perform them so fast," said jumping away and briefly spread to sharp ended additional limbs, which started to vibrate at high speed. Seeing this white-haired mage instinctively took a defensive posture.
"That could hurt," said under the nose Arik seeing as Elfman survived Teana's charge, with minimal cut wounds, which was almost unnoticeable to normal eye seried of strikes with blades.
"You want to kill me?" Strauss said wiping the blood from his cheek.
"If you were my opponent at the moment you probably already has succubed to poison and I wouldn't have even used such sophisticated attacks to kill you," she said trying to sound convincing. Again she spread her insectioidal limbs, which again started to vibrate at high speed.
This time he jumped up and easily dodged her next attack. Turning quickly ignored the pain that he began to feel and rushed toward her. When she turned around after stopping he punched her with huge force into stomach until she doubled over in half. He heard behind him as Raven clapped. "You made it. We didn't know back then that her shape wasn't final yet."
Staying looked at his hand, which started to change slightly, becoming a bit more muscular. Also the back appendixes, which grew out of his back started to change. The pain that grew slowly began to fade. Wounds he had began to slowly closing up. 'Regeneration,' he thought while still remaining in a new form. Almost didn't notice as she approached him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"You still need to practice a bit to use this form," she said and started walk toward the red-eyed mage.
"Man never ceases to train," he said before he disappeared somewhere between the piles of material lying around.
"Well, we still have to wait until Kanna finish attempts to explain new spell to that fire slayer," said golden-haired mage and leaned against the bar.
At a time when Elfman was busy Kanna was dragging Natsu behind until she found a more spacy part of the construction site.
"So you have any special requests today about what you want to learn today?" she asked leaning against one of bars stacks. "Do you want to train again one of two attacks which lately I taught you?"
"I want something new," said fire mage. During this time, Happy slowly creeping toward cat, which sat on top of a pile of bars, on which was leaning her friend.
"Claw or Ice Dragon's Fang. Or maybe something a little different from the icy version of your attacks?" looked to the side looking directly at Happie, which immediately stopped. "Like Ice Dragon's Tail Sweep or Scales?"
"Claw sounds good," decided Dragneel on what she moved slowly toward him.
"So?" he asked when saw she stopped almost in front of him. Without any words surrounded one of her legs with ice and made a spin kick, which with almost no trouble managed to parry she a bit winced.
"After all I wasn't able to hurt you. Now ice doesn't hurt you, like a fire," she sighed. "As you can see, the attack is not very difficult. Though probably you till now used the fire instead of ice. Well, there are not as many applications as its fire counterpart. Now you try."
"Hmm," Natsu stood for a moment trying to concentrate. Slowly his foot started to surround flames, which only led to her comment to focuse on creating ice not fire. At the time when his friend tried to use ice blue exceed climbed up on a pile of bars and began to slowly approach the sitting somewhere in the middle of female cat.
"It's not that easy," he said again trying to produce ice.
"You must not think in terms of fire, heat, flames," Kanna improved glasses. "The more you focus on what is hot you can't produce ice. You have to think about cold things. At least for now."
"At least for now?" tried again but this time didn't create anything even flames.
"This will help you to use ice magic. After that you will not have to do even that," she looked to the side to see how to her friend was approaching other exceed. Feeling her gaze on himself for a moment stopped and timid smile. "Holly."
"Yes?" exceed with purple hair jumped up and started running over the wood in the direction of the golden-haired mage.
"And there's nothing now," she replied and looked again at standing slightly startled blue cat. "But maybe. You have any idea how this slayer here to learn better ice spells?"
Kitty for a moment, cocked her head to give the impression of hard thinking before she answered. "No, just what you said. Otherwise he won't move beyond basic spells."
"As you can see, even Holly thinks that you have no choice but to try to think of cold things to cast ice spell."
"Well," he said and began to earnestly think of something cold but only various comments Gray came to mind. "Ugh," shook his head.
"There is no other way?" he asked still trying to forget what he just recalled.
"You can just try until it succeeds. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of times the same spell until somehow for some reason you will make ice instead of fire. But it is quite longterm and monotonous way to master each spells," Kanna paused for a moment and put her hand to forehead.
"What are you doing?" he slightly raised an eyebrow but she said nothing. During this time, Happy sat looking bored around when he spotted approaching between piles of wood some shape. For a moment when the shape paused blue cat noticed golden hair.
"Natsu," he turned to his friend on what who looked in his direction. "Her boyfriend."
Almost immediately, the earth trembled near Dragneel when a giant shape landed on it. Without a moment's pause Arik moved his right hand and punched fire slayer in the side throwing him away for several meters.
"What th..." Natsu threw himself to the side to avoid another blow, which literally cut in half several boards behind Dragneel.
"Defend yourself. Just try to use ice attacks," yelled in his direction Yagyu.
"I don't like it," said Holly on which ice slayer looked in her direction.
"What is supposely wrong?"
"Your partner. Attacked too chaotic and doesn't seem to worry about whether he hurt too much the one what you have to learn. Maybe Natsu can't hurt him but he on the other hand just using his sheer physical strenght can severly hurt him or even...," said the cat and went back to observing the environment.
"Hmmm," she mused eyeing a skirmish of two slayers. In fact, Arik was dealing slightly dangerous blows but she just asked him telepathically to come and scare Natsu a little bit so maybe due to stress and life-threatening situations fire slayer will quickly learn today's lesson. In total, she did it for the third time. Every time pink-haired mag was too reluctant to learn the easiest way each spell so every time it ended cornering him. The first time she attacked him when he couldn't grasp the basic spells of each slayer magic. With wing attack Samson was just around so then he a bit scared off Dragneel. Today came out, it would be Arik's turn.
"Are not you exaggerating with pressing him," yelled at him but he didn't react continuing dealing blows one after the another that was still missing its target.
"So you want to fight?" Natsu after another jump away surrounded hands with flames. When Arik was approaching created a fireball in front of him.
"Huh?" instinctively dodged when fireball literally whole frozen and hit the ground falling apart into many ice shards. "How could you freeze it?"
He didn't answer him just performed a high kick, which threw back fire slayer for a few meters back. Yagyu rushed quickly toward them having a bad feeling about this. When Raven found himself in front of his opponent again throw a left punch but he stopped at an invisible barrier. At the same time, Natsu stood up and around his feet began to accumulate ice. "Ice Dragon's Claw."
Kick easily hit in the face golden-haired mage and made him fall on the ground. No waiting again surrounded with ice other foot when first surrounded with fire and using flames leaped high into the air. Another kick hit the arm, which the red-eyed mage used as a cover.
"Fire Dragon's Flame Elbow," around fire mage elbow appeared stream of fire, when he dealt a blow. Taller mag took a few steps and almost overtripped. Using this Natsu jumped into the air and flames surrounded his hands.
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist," at the last moment noticed how Arik made a simple kick up using ice surrounded feet. Power for the kick was enough to throw a Dragneel at high speed in the air.
"Happy," pink-haired mage shouted while still been in midair and a small exceed immediately spreading wings flew. Grabbing him rose higher before he began a high speed fly down using his magic to give held friend acceleration. Halfway to the ground let Natsu off, who surrounded himself with flames.
"It might be interesting," noted Holly. "Just I think we all soon will be slightly toasted."
"No," said Kanna and her eyes started to intense shine. "I'll managed to prevent the fire spreading to sideways... maybe."
"Fire Dragon's Sword Horn," Dragneel with great force hit Arik's standing on the ground, which only crossed over him arms. It took a moment when both engulfed fire explosion causing a small earth quake spreading around but within two smeters came across an invisible barrier and it started to spread in the only possible direction that was up. From among the flames Natsu leaped up Natsu telekinetic wall, which was containging fire started to expand upward.
"What the heck?" he became almost speechless when flames instantly froze starting from bottom. And then break up into thousands of tiny fragments, among which he saw Raven. He stood there breathing heavily still in the same pose.
"Surprised?" Kanna slowly walked over to him.
"He didn't even have any noticeable abrasions or burns," Dragneel tried to understand what he just saw.
"I too sometimes find it hard to believe," started golden-haired slayer, "but his seemingly bottomless power sometimes scares even me."
When they talked about it ice slayer slowly moved ahead and passing by Yagyu just said. "I need to find someone. Don't search for me..."
"But..." she stopped him but when she looked in his eyes immediately let him go. They were again cold, ruthless and filled with lust for killing like back on that night.
"No," she stopped Teana, which started to run after him. "Let him go. Holly," she said in the direction of a small cat. "We're going back."
"Yes," she laughed trying to change a little slightly serious atmosphere.
"You too Teana," then she looked towards Natsu. "And you remember to practice. Our master for now is pleased with your progress in mastering the magic that you received a thank gift. Fortunately that you currently rebuilding your guild building otherwise it would get slightly damaged during your lesson," she laughed and saying goodbye slowly headed toward the exit.
"Holly," Happy sat down on one of the bars and began to wonder about something.
Five or ten minutes later Arik stopped on the street and waited for the moment when down the street toward the guild walked masked mage.
"Hello," started standing in his way.
"Hello. You here?" replied the mist mage.
"Ano. Last time we talked about corelations of Anima uses and my visions. I would like if you're not busy to talk about it," stepped aside allowing Mystogan freely walk towards the guild.
"I'll just get another job and we can talk," replied mist mage.
"Well I'll be here waiting on your way back from the guild," said Raven and leaned against the wall of a nearby building. Mystogan moved on and about twenty minutes later he was walking down the street, this time in the other direction. When he passed Arik without word other man began to follow him and so they both left the city. Only then caught up with walking before him masked mage.
"Are these Anima appearing according to some scheme or accidentally?" started ice mage.
"Rather accidentally and it depends on several factors," he said.
"You said that once you came into our world throu one of them. Is there any way to get through it on the side?" Mystogan hearing this question stopped for a moment.
Next chapter: Why does MY heart feel so bad? Part 1
A/N: Long time but life can squize all will to do anything for fun sometimes. Hopefully would be able add something till month ends but not giving my word for that to actualy happen.
A/N v2: Pretty boring chap I suppose. Just casual training sessions to justify Natsu/Elfman power ups. Arik as usualy is beast mopping all freely if he wish too ^^ Ahh right and Happy realizng existence of opposite gender of his race. No worry he still woud be clingy toward Carla when she show up in story.