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Lion's Pride	By : Rhov Category: +. to F > Fairy Tail Views: 10067 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima. I make no money writing this. I do it for my own pleasure. Any lyrics are my own or I received permission from the artist.

Chapter List
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"Not just beautiful, though—the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me." - Haruki Murakami

Chapter 46

Battle of the Stars
Lucy faced Haftorang cut off from the others. She knew she had to fight him with her best. Since she no longer had Loke's Key or command over him, she called upon her next strongest. She grabbed a Gold Key and stuck it in a water barrel.
"Open the Gate of the Water-bearer! Aquarius!"
"Fish's Phlegm!" Haftorang spit out a thick fluid.
The mermaid came out just in time to smash the attack away with her water. She sneered disdainfully. "That's truly disgusting. How many times have I had to wash your mouth out, Piscis Austrinus?"
"Perhaps you need to wash it once more, former-lover." His fat lips puckered, and the fishman began to inhale. All water in the area was sucked toward him, including the rain barrel. Aquarius was carried along with the water. She gasped in shocked and began swimming against the current.
"Dammit, I won't let you do this," she shouted. "Go ahead and drown!" She poured water from her jug, enough to deluge the whole street. Lucy moaned that, once again, she was going to end up washed away from one of Aquarius' insanely powerful attacks, and she took a breath in preparation. Instead, every drop that gushed out was swallowed up by the Southern Fish. Soon only a trickle came out of the massive jar.
Aquarius blinked in stupefaction. "Wha-...? My water!"
"Foolish mermaid," Haftorang smiled cunningly. "You can't drown a fish, and the Southern Fish swallows all the waters of the Water-bearer. You should know that by now. Or has it been so many years that you forgot just how weak you are to me?"
He inhaled more, and the water dragged Aquarius along screaming.
"Lucy," the mermaid yelled in desperation. "I beg of you, close my gate. Close it before..."
She and all the water was sucked whole into the Fish's mouth.
"Close the Gate to the Water-bearer," Lucy cried out in horror, swishing the key fast. The massive bulk in Haftorang's mouth vanished, and his face shrank down. "You were really going to swallow her," she grimaced. "That's sick!"
"Siphoning water is my specialty," Haftorang explained. "I once had an owner who would use Aquarius to make it flood and me to suck the land dry again. When used together, we're a dangerous duo. When battling one on one, there is no possible way for her to win against me."
Lucy felt her hopes plummet again. She looked down to her keyring and began calculating. Who else could she call upon? If only she had a Celestial Spirit that used fire. Desperately, she looked over to Natsu, but he was busy with Kefira. She quickly weighed her options, but for each Spirit the scenario of battle was never good. Scorpio's sand could be washed away with water. Cancer was a crab and strong against water attacks, but could he even get close enough to cut Haftorang with only his scissors? Her remaining fire sign Zodiacs were Aries, who was too injured now, and Sagittarius. She gripped his Gold Key stubbornly and raised it.
"Open the Gate of the Archer! Sagittarius!"
Poof! "Moshi-moshi!"
The fishman eyed the horse-man and nodded to himself. "A wise choice. You comprehend the weaknesses and strengths of your Celestial Spirits well."
Sagittarius pulled back his arrow. "Lucy-dono is our beloved master. I might have admired you at one time, Piscis Austrinus-dono, but I will fight for her with the pride of a horse, as it were."
"Good," Haftorang smiled placidly. "I want the woman of my king to have loyal control over her Spirits. My king deserves nothing less."
"Your king?" Sagittarius sneered. "The Spirit World needs only one king."
"Precisely, and the Lion is it." Haftorang took up a fighting stance. "Show me the strength of the Archer, old friend. Prove to me you're worthy of being a Celestial Spirit belonging to my king's woman."

Meanwhile, Kefira cast her spell at Natsu. "White Blaze of Orlov!" A molten blaze shot out. Natsu took a bite of it, but he immediately coughed.
Gray hit the ground with his hands. "Ice-Make: Geyser!" Kefira nimbly leaped out of the way. "You okay?" he asked Natsu as the dragon slayer's face turned red and he gasped for air.
"Yeah, just really hot," he admitted, fanning his mouth. "Gah! Tongue's all fiery and numb. Reminds me of the time Happy tricked me into eating habañero nachos."
Gajeel leaped at the former queen with his arm turned into a metal sword. "You better not get the shits from eating that, Salamander."
Suddenly, Kefira was holding a claymore in both hands, a sword big enough to stop Gajeel's attack. His red eyes widened as he stared down at her, and Kefira smirked right back at him. With a thrust, she pushed Gajeel aside.
"My!" the raven-haired woman scoffed. "To make me draw out a weapon! I haven't needed to hold something so crude since I was a child. Then again, all of your attacks are so undisciplined, a crude object may be what you need."
Without warning, Erza had a sword at Kefira's neck, yet at the very last moment the claymore raised to block. The former queen glinted over at the queen of the Fairies.
"Except for you, redheaded warrior. Your attacks are calculated. You have the mind of a general. If I gave you another twenty years, you might make a decent fighter."
"You know Requip as well?" Erza sneered.
"Why not? It's elementary. Don't tell me that's all you know!"
Erza scoffed in anger. Elementary? Requip wasn't exactly a commonly known magic!
Gajeel came at Kefira again from her right. The woman thrust out, pushing aside Erza's sword so that it hit Gajeel's metal arm. Then she took a step back and prepared. Both iron dragon slayer and Titania came at Kefira with their swords at the same time, yet she managed to block both with a single parry.
Then suddenly, Kefira cried out in pain. She looked over and saw blood dripping from her side. Gray had sneaked up from behind and used his ice sword, not killing her as he had intended—she shifted her weight ever so slightly at the last moment to avoid a fatal strike—but still the wound was bad.
"Damn you!" she hissed. "Leviathan!"
The snake shot out of her arm with an enraged hiss and sank its fangs into Gray's naked torso. He howled, his ice shattered, and fell back.
Happy flew forward and yanked on the snake's tail. "Bad snake! Let go!" It hissed and turned to attack Happy. The blue Exceed cried out, but suddenly Pantherlily's sword came down on top of the water dragon, crushing it until it evaporated. Wendy rushed forward to Gray. Purple stripes of poison flowing through his veins were already spreading out from the twin puncture wounds. Gray's skin began to turn a sickly shade of blue, and his lips were purple from the spreading venom.
"Pull him over here," the little girl ordered the cats. "I'll get to work on him right away."
Natsu saw Gray and looked confusedly worried. "When that thing bit me, it wasn't that bad. Took away my magic and numbed me, that's all."
Kefira explained, "Because you're a dragon slayer and Leviathan is a dragon, you have antibodies to it. A normal person would die within minutes."
Natsu watched in disbelief as Gray already began foaming at the mouth and convulsing. Wendy shouted for Happy and Charle to hold him still as she kept her glowing hands on Gray. The ice mage yanked against them in delirium while sputtering out thick mouthfuls of poisoned foam.
"Gray!" Lucy screamed as she heard him gagging to breathe and choking on the bubbles spewing from his lungs.
Sagittarius also looked worried for Gray, whom he had come to like during their visit to the Spirit World. While distracted, Haftorang made his attack. Sagittarius tried to shoot the spit that shot at them, but it splattered. Most hit the horseman and disintegrated him until he had to return to the Spirit World. The few drops that landed on Lucy burned holes through her cloths and seared deep pocks of melted flesh into her exposed skin. She cried and tried to wipe it off fast without spreading the acidic juice.
Kefira laughed at them. "Futility is a hard lesson to learn because many don't survive to take the knowledge to heart."
Natsu gritted his teeth. He might see Gray as his rival, yet hearing that he could die, seeing Lucy's tears, and listening to Kefira's heartless laugh filled the dragon slayer with unbounded rage. "Bitch! White Fire Dragon's Roar!" When he breathed out, the flame was laced with the white flame he had eaten earlier, producing a white-hot jet.
Levy gasped when she saw it. "That almost looks like Sting's White Dragon's Roar."
Gajeel shook his head. "No, it's different. Sting's is made of light. That's just fire so hot it has turned white."
Kefira raised her hands fast. "Aurora's Shield!" A bright sphere protected her from the blast.
Natsu collapsed after the flames died out and moaned only half aware of what he was saying. "Ugh! That really made my mouth burn. No more chili peppers, Happy. My tummy feels funny."
Gajeel scoffed at him. "Well, he's out. Let's hit this bitch while she's down. Iron Dragon's Roar!" Shards of metal blasted out of his mouth and hit the shield without causing damage.
"She's gone on the defensive," Loke shouted to them. "Nothing can get through Aurora's Shield, but she can't attack like that either. It also drains her magic quickly. She can hold the shield up for maybe a minute tops."
"Leo!" Kefira screamed, furious that he was telling them about her abilities. "How dare you betray me for this blonde bitch!"
He glared at her hard. "You betrayed me first...by killing Naomi."
"What? How...how did you find that out?" She glared over to the fishman. "Haftorang!"
"It wasn't him. Zeref told me everything."
Lucy gasped slightly. "You met with Zeref?"
Loke frowned in personal doubts and past worries. "I've been hiding from my sins for too long." He looked to Lucy sadly. "I didn't tell you about my past because I wanted to run away from it. I can't do that anymore. It's time for me to stop being a pussy and start being the Lion!" He pulled his ring off of his finger. "Catch!" He tossed it as hard as he could.
Lucy eyed Haftorang, figuring he would stop her. Instead, the fishman smiled. "Bring him back," he urged.
She wondered on whose side this Celestial Spirit stood, but she ignored that for now. She ran forward after the airborne ring.
"No!" Kefira shrieked. The second she lowered her shield to also run after it, Erza, Gajeel, Levy, and Pantherlily came at her one after another. Erza's sword blocked her path. Kefira grabbed it barehanded, and the blade melted and dripped as if turned to fluid. Numerous metal spikes shot out from Gajeel, caging the woman in. It took Kefira a little longer to melt her way through them, and they saw that whatever magic she was using to liquify everything was a huge strain on her.
"Levy!" Gajeel yelled. "A wall!"
"Got it!" she nodded. The solid script mage pulled out her pen and wrote in the air "WALL!" A massive brick wall cut off the entire street.
Just as Kefira began melting that too, Pantherlily attacked, forcing her to stop melting and defend herself with a shield. While she did that, Lucy leaped onto a pushcart, vaulted over the wall, and caught the thrown ring just before landing hard. She pulled out the Regulus Key but looked to Loke first.
He nodded sternly. "Do it."
Lucy placed the blue stone part of the ring into the Lapis Lazuli Key. As soon as the two pieces were united, the entire key glowed pale blue with immense power that tingled Lucy's hand. Determined now, she raised the key up into the air.

Shining Royal Star, King of the Heavens,

Watcher of the North, Pillar of Fire and Light,

Make thyself known to me, ancient Venant.

Shine thy blazing glory upon the starry night.

Return from the Beyond whence thou hast gone.

Rejoin the constellation who is thy scion.

Gate to the Guardian of the North, I open thee.

O Regulus: Heart of the Lion!
The power surge was immense. Haftorang fell with his face to the ground. An intense light blinded them all.
When it vanished, Leo was no longer sprawled out on the ground, but stood by Lucy's side. For a moment, his whole body glowed with pure light. As it slowly dimmed, Lucy gasped at his transformed appearance. The face was the same, but his orange hair was longer and wilder. The top part spiked out in an even more massive mane, draping around his face and shoulders just like a noble lion, while the rest of his hair flowed down to his waist and blew lightly with the surging power. He wore ancient military plated armor, gauntlet gloves, spaulders on the shoulders, with a golden lion emblazoned on the silver breastplate. A regal red cloak flowed down from his shoulders with thick white fur lining the collar.
"Whoa! Loke?" Lucy asked, stunned by his appearance. Then she blushed slightly. "You...look really hot!"
He glanced down at her and smirked flirtatiously. "Girls go crazy for a guy in uniform, right?" He inspected the silver gauntlets and leather gloves, held his hand up, and flexed his fingers. "It's been a long time..."

End of Chapter 46

Rhov's Corner:
Why did this chapter take a while? Soon—very soon, I hope—I will publish my first novel. I'm more than halfway done with the self-publishing process, including formatting the document to be publish-ready and obtaining an ISBN number. Cheezer-One, author of the FT fanfic "Skin and Scales," designed my book cover and is proofreading the manuscript. It's called "Last Days" and will be available in paperback or e-book on Amazon. I'll post more info about it on my profile the moment I approve the proof copy and it goes into production. I'm giddy and nervous! Here's a pic of the cover: fav.me/d59mv6d
Black Firelight told me "Loke should stop being a pussy and start being a lion"? I loved that line, so I asked for permission to quote that. You readers keep on inspiring me! Also, I had fun coming up with these incantations over the past two chapters. It beats "By the Power of Regulus: I...AM...LEOOOOO!" *reverb voice and thunder sound FX*
For Loke's "merged form," I imagine the Constellations aligned to the Royal Stars have three forms. One is their normal form, how we see them in the manga. The other is a merged form, when they are still autonomous but merged with the power of the Royal Stars. This is Haftorang's form throughout most of the story, and now we see Leo's merged form. Then there is the Royal Star form. A merged being can voluntarily surrender control and allow the Royal Star to take over in order to obtain even more power (Haftorang did that in his first fight with Loke in Chapter 10 and again when fighting Fairy Tail in Chapter 34) or a powerful Celestial Spirit mage can use her magic to bring the Royal Star into dominance to override the Constellation's autonomy (Kefira did that to Haftorang in Chapter 39 since he did not want to attack Loke and Lucy). In the Royal Star form, the being glows and looks nothing at all like the original Celestial Spirit. They are more angelic.
It just dawned on me, today this story is one year old. Happy birthday, Lion's Pride!
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Lion's Pride