35. Damned Giant Lizards!

.

.

.

"Here you go, guys, ma'am. This should give you some energy."

"Thank you, miss."

"It's no problem."

After giving them something to eat, I let Kayla and her husband rest against the wall. It'd be surprising if they weren't hungry after all this time trying to hide...

It's been a few hours since they met with us and we, by which I mean me, Juvia, and Mirajane haven't left the room. Totomaru and Laxus went ahead to try and plant the repellant in the wyvern nest while we were tasked with watching over these two so they could rest.

Mira kept on the lookout for those two in case we needed to make a quick escape, while Juvia tried her best to help me look after Kayla. The size and location of her head injury made me worry, especially since she might have a concussion as a result.

It's the problem with how I've crudely combined the Chiyu Flames and my Fire Body spell, I can heal myself faster and more thoroughly than someone else could but it lessons my understanding of the magic overall. Add in how I'm no longer able to generate a normal orange flame anymore and the entire equation I worked out before making the combination possible has become an unusable mess.

Forcing her to move down the mountain right now wouldn't be the best option and I'd rather not risk worsening her condition.

A bright side that came out of this is that Juvia has shown interest in learning a bit of healing magic, and she's fortunate enough that water is the third most compatible element for healing magic. The pattern is pretty predictable, going light, wind, water, fire, earth, minerals, lightning, then dark.

Darkness pretty much has no healing spells as far as I'm aware... It pretty much acts solely as a reflection of the sins of both the caster and the target, the metaphorical darkness present within us all regardless of the concept of good and evil.

It's pretty edgy when I say it out loud, but what do you expect from this sub-type of magic?

And the source of my first experience with Darkness Magic was waving me over to her by the entrance. Sighing, I acced to her request fully expecting her to yell at me or something. But instead, I was met with a quiet presence.

The both of us just stood there looking down the icy caverns in a strange, companionable silence. It was unexpectedly...nice.

So when she did speak, I wholly paid attention.

"There's a lake next to Magnolia town, the Fairy Tail guild hall sits right next to it on a cliff's edge. The river that passes through Oak Town leads right to it, so you can just follow it south. When this is all over, meet me on Starry Gaze Island in the middle of the lake."

"Why?"

"Because I want a rematch."

"You seem fixated on our fight, don't you?" I said cocking my head to the side in curiosity, "Why is that?"

"Sheesh, you do ask a lot of questions!"

"Ah, sorry. I guess it is a bit of a habit..."

"...It's because I feel like let down Master Makarov..."

When she said that, she raised her arm and used a partial transformation on it. Instead of the large and scaly claws present on the transformation I saw previously, her hand had turned a deep shade of purple and swelled grotesquely with dark blue orbs peeking out of the unholy flesh.

"He helped me and my younger siblings when we had nothing. Gave us a home, taught us Take Over...I owe him everything." She cancelled the Take Over, turning her arm back to normal before locking eyes with me. "He gave me a way to protect my siblings when we had no one else to rely on. But fighting you made me realise that I'm still not capable of protecting them from everything, that I can fully support them no matter what our enemies are, and that my journey as a mage has only just begun."

"I see...You feel like fighting me will help you grow stronger. A literal trial by fire. Heh."

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. It's just that that sounds like something my old teacher would joke about."

"Teacher? Let me guess, did you study under a fire demon or something?"

"Where in the world did you get that wild idea from?"

"There's this kid that showed up at Fairy Tail a year or so before I did that claims to have been raised by a fire dragon."

"I...wish that was something I could consider outlandish but considering where our magic comes from..."

"Yeah... that's the only reason I haven't considered him crazy. Yet."

I looked at the girl beside me, her arms resting behind her head as she looked down the icy caves. She wanted to grow stronger, and from the sounds of it had only been training for a few months before we first met. Meanwhile, I have been training for four years now, and rather brutally, too.

Frankly, I'd say she was already pretty powerful, at least compared to the average wizard. Is there room for growth? Yes. There will always be room for growth.

But what was important to me was the reason she wanted to grow stronger. Her siblings. She had similar goals as me. She wanted to protect someone, help someone. It was something I respect, especially if she does aim to put in the effort to attain the strength necessary for it.

And being friends with her could also be beneficial for me.

I don't know whether or not it would be possible to use Take Over on myself, but it would still be something worth learning. She would also be a connection for me within Fairy Tail, and maybe my way to talk to Grandpa Rob's friends.

And in the worst-case scenario, I would need her to be strong enough to use Take Over on me...

"Will we be stargazing afterwards?"

"What?"

I couldn't help but chuckle at the confusion on her face.

"It's called Starry Gaze Island. It would be a shame if it doesn't live up to its name."

"Wait, so you're agreeing to the fight?" she asked with a strangely hopeful tone in her voice.

"Yeah," I said with a smile, "I'll even do it free of charge."

"Ha! Like I was going to pay you in anything but bruises anyway!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll see if you hold to that lat-"

I was interrupted by light tremors making their way through the caves. My brain immediately considered the possibility of Laxus or Totomaru fighting one of the naturally armoured beasts, or maybe even both of them. But as the tremors got closer and louder my ideas shifted to a worse scenario.

"Juvia! Make sure these two are safe and run at the first chance you three can get!" I yelled into the hidden shelter before creating a wall of darkness to block them from any potential danger, the red and black wave of energy acting as a desperate barrier.

Turning around I was met with a charging white wyvern, the metal collar and chain now apparent from the fucked position we were in. It was easily the size of a large barn, and its entire body was covered in scales more resistant than steel. What made it worse was that these creatures were notoriously intelligent...

"Don't bother with the scales, just aim for the wings so it stays grounded! I'll keep the dragon wannabe distracted then we can find a soft spot!" I nodded to the girl already in her Satan Soul form.

She charged at the overgrown lizard, her hands covered in dark energy as she punched it in the face while shouting at it, trying to keep its attention on her. I didn't waste the opportunity and quickly used Fire Body to fly above the creature, albeit the space inside the cave and its large size made it difficult to stay out of the way of the creature's wild movements its fight with Mira caused.

"Fire Devil's Laughter!" Waving my hands towards the wyvern's wings I summoned a series of fire stakes that flew towards the only obvious weak spot we had at that moment. They all pierced the unarmoured flesh of the beast's wings and set them on fire.

The wyvern roared in pain before throwing its body upwards slamming itself into me and me into the ceiling of the cave. The impact of my head hitting the icy rock left me dazed for a second, but when I got my vision straight it was after the wyvern had tried to crush me underfoot while Mira was trying to prevent the giant lizard's mouth from closing on her and biting her in half.

Boosting myself out of the way of the wyvern's stomp with an explosion from my palm I quickly made my way back onto its back and slammed my palm down on the back of its neck.

"Bind Snake!"

A runic snake made of red and black darkness began to wrap around the wyvern's skin, stealing control of its muscles and preventing it from moving as much as I could.

"Hurry! I don't have full mastery over this spell yet!"

The Satan Soul wizard jumped back and shoved her hands as deeply down the wannabe dragon's mouth as she could, deep pink energy illuminating her arms.

I jumped off and behind Mira the moment I felt the magic power build up in the area, only to witness the entire wyvern explode from the inside out as the entire mountain began to shake with the force of the blast that filled the entire cave.

The amount of magic power made me deadpan at the "corpse" of the wyvern and the potential money we just lost.

"We were...going to sell the scales, you know?"

"Relaaaax! We can still salvage some of it."

Her chill demeanour changed to that of slight guilt as a piece of meat fell from the ceiling and slapped onto the floor of the cave.

"Yeah, sure, go ahead and try it. Won't get any help from me though."

"Ehehe..."

I turned away from the faux-demon rubbing the back of her head with a guilty smile, the still shaking of the cave triggering my flight instincts.

"Come on, no time to waste. We have to find the lovers and Juvia and get out of here."

"I saw them down this way."

The two of us took off on wing and flame down the caves as fast as we could. When we saw the three of them running, Mirajane grabbed Kayla in her arms while I grabbed Juvia and Jaime with a rope of flame, making sure it didn't burn them in the process.

We sped our way out of the cave as fast as possible, barely making it out of the cave before the entrance was sealed off by an avalanche. Seeing all the snow crashing down the mountainside as a result of the blanching demoness' spell I couldn't help but sigh.

But before I could comment on it the sight of the lightning-clad and flame cloak young adults making their way towards us through around the mountain stole my attention.

The lot of us met on the snow-strewn ground where the exit used to be. The first thing that caught my attention was the lack of a sword on Totomaru's person.

I quirked an eyebrow at the swordsman, "What happened to your katana?"

At that, he looked at the lightning mage next to him more anger than I've ever seen him express. "Someone thought it would be a good idea to use it as a lightning rod and destroyed it in the process!"

"Weapons are meant to be replaceable anyway. You can just buy another one. We should be more focused on getting down the mountain in one piece."

"Grr! Damned Fairies...!"

The seven of us made our way back to the Hakobe Lodge, both teams having been successful on the mission they were hired for.

.

.

.

A/N: Sorry for the delay! Here's an apology image of an adult Lyssa!

 - >