Chapter 32 - Time's Up

Locki knew this plan was a long con. Ultear was a spy from the beginning, and he had originally brought her in under the impression that he could get more information from her. However, her unknown capabilities and ties to the Zeref Cults were only some of the things that held Locki from overtly acting against her.

If he turned her away originally or later on, there was a chance she'd just sneak around and gather information that way. She could join another Magic Guild in Evermont and actively go against him, or she could just forgo subtly entirely and attack them. The worst case, really.

Scarlet Hand was in a precarious position. They had power, but it was a costly one where Locki wasn't sure who would counter him the second he tried to act. At least if Ultear was nearby, he could filter most of the information she knew as well as monitor her movements.

There were obviously things he had to give away. Kagura's potential and current growth were things that could not and should not be hidden, so those were fine to leak in the end. Things like his goals to meet with Rebecca originally shouldn't have taken as long as they did, nor did Locki need to go through so many twists and turns. Ultear's machinations –as unknown as they were– were something that Locki had put up with to create the best possible situation for himself.

Now… Now, Locki didn't need her anymore.

He had backup in the form of two S-rank mages from Fairy Tail, and a… little girl? He was sure that Cana was someone similar to Kagura, but still, he didn't really expect Gildarts Clive, the Crash Mage, to actually team up with such a child. Locki pursed his lips, deciding he really wasn't one to argue such a thing.

"Hold on a second," Locki said, looking around the ship. He squinted at all the dark corners of the boat, locking onto one particularly dark spot that looked unnatural in the day. It was only the long hours spent having to find a particularly playful Max that let him find his target to quickly; even then, he couldn't even see their figure. "Cana, is that your name? Can you come out so we can plan, please."

"Heup, just get on with it, urgh…" the blonde S-rank mage kneeled on the deck of the ship as a Rune Knight awkwardly stood to the side with a bucket.

Locki tried not to breathe too deeply as he turned to Gildarts. The man had tenderly given Kagura to some Rune Knights as they brought the unconscious girl below deck. The young guildmaster didn't know what to think after Validator started to absorb [Gae Bolg] and disappear back into Kagura's shadow.

He knew –from Elite Four Agatha's booklet about Ghost Pokemon– that Honedge's needed either a lot of metal to form a secondary sword to evolve into a Doublade, or alternatively, they could bond with another Honedge to evolve. Locki knew that the cursed spear paired well with the supposedly possessed sword, but he couldn't help but worry when the evolution took longer than it should have. There was no precedent of a Honedge evolving with a magic weapon, so Locki felt a little unsure to tread untouched ground.

"She'll be alright. She doesn't seem to be injured or anything." Gildarts said, patting Locki on the shoulder.

Locki rubbed his shoulder, shaking his head. "I'm not that worried about her. She'll be fine."

"Sure, sure."

Locki didn't really need to look at Gildarts' smug face at the moment as a Rune Knight came up to the two of them and saluted. Behind him were three others who similarly saluted. The blonde found the action rather gratifying as he looked over the serious knights who seemed to trust him with their very lives. However, he repeatedly schooled his features to not let his emotions show.

"Guildmaster Locki, sir! I brought three other knights like you asked. They're the fastest and strongest of all of us, so they should be able to keep up with the below average mage."

Locki nodded, smiling to himself. "Good job. We'll need to move fast once things get going, so if you fall behind we won't be there to support you. Remember, no matter what she looks like, Ultear is a dangerous Dark mage who is in support of the Zeref Cults."

"Don't worry, sir!" One of the knights saluted, almost in a shout. "We have been trained to resist charm magic as well as honeypot tactics that Dark Guilds employ."

"Right, you guys are good." Locki smiled politely. What training they had been through was obviously not as prepared for his own [Enchanting Speak]. He didn't really have a baseline, but he didn't really trust their training as much as they did.

"Heup, hurry!" The blonde mage from Fairy Tail crawled over to Locki, groveling on the ground with his arms around his stomach. Locki backed away slightly, pinching his nose.

"Sorry about him," Gildarts said. "His magic seems to mess with his senses, so motion sickness is rather incapacitating, really."

"Huh…" Locki nodded numbly, filing that information away at the back of his mind in the "just-in-case" section of his thoughts. "Good to know. Now, everyone try to keep your voices down as I connect to my teammates on the island."

Locki pulled out his sub-orb from his [Limitless Communications Unit], shaking it to activate it. A list of dots formed on the surface of the orb, and he could see several clusters of dots a ways away from his dot, one dot right next to him, and another one that looked like it was close. Before he tapped on the dot that represented Gyutaro, he turned to Gildarts, holding his hand out silently.

The redheaded S-rank narrowed his eyes wordlessly, but he still got the idea and brought out the sub-orb Locki had used to teleport over and handed it over. Locki happily took it and put it inside his [Subspace Ring] with a flick of his wrist.

"That was quick Requip Magic…" Gildarts mused from the side.

Locki ignored the man, choosing not to refute his logic. After all, items like his ring were fairly rare, and the more people who assumed he had a talent in Space Magics like Requip and teleportation, the better he could fool others.

Still, the blonde guildmaster didn't immediately connect to Gyutaro's orb. When he used his[Subspace Ring] again, Locki felt an odd tremble from his [Dimension Formation: Shambhala] teigu. He got the impression of surprise and slight excitement as if a child found another toy. The teigu trembled in his hands, seemingly trying to move towards the ring. Locki held the teigu away from his ring finger, getting the impression of a child pouting.

"Something wrong?" Gildarts asked, eyeing Locki as he frowned at his purple pendant.

Locki shook his head, deciding to figure out what exactly his teigu could do later. He didn't have the luxury of time to test things out at the moment. He clipped the [Dimension Formation: Shambhala] to his waist while he manipulated his white sub-orb.

"... are they? I mean, we've been waiting for him for an hour already." Ultear's voice echoed out from the other end. Locki grinned as he got a good look at the current situation.

Gyutaro had taken Locki's orders seriously, and the demon had casually chosen to sit close to the walkway of the boat they took to the island. Daki and Ultear stood a little ways off the docks where the black-haired spy seemed to rant to the cloaked Daki. Daki had also been informed by Gyutaro about Locki's plans as well since the women they had rescued milled about further away from the female demon and Ultear.

"Locki had said he needed to talk," Daki said, shifting inside her cloak. "You know he's going to talk for a while. Its how he is."

"Okay, sure, that makes sense. But can't he just hurry it up? All this waiting is boring."

Locki felt his lips twitch in annoyance even if he knew Daki played up her part to keep Ultear distracted. Of course, he knew his loyal demon guildmate wouldn't berate him too harshly if she really meant it. Right? … Locki mentally chose to not go further in that line of thought.

With one final look around him, Locki spared the confused Gildarts a shrug. He was lucky that the Rune Knights next to them didn't read too much into Daki and Ultear's conversation as he worried how long his magic would affect them if they actively suspected what he had said previously. Instead, he chose that the faster they moved, the better.

"Max! Hypnosis!" Locki yelled from his side, startling both Ultear and daki. Ultear somehow immediately tried to react, pulling out a white orb from somewhere. However, she barely got through the movement before her shadow darkened and she stumbled, grabbing her head and dropping the orb to the ground where it sank deep into the ground.

Daki also moved quickly and various strips of cloth shot out from her cloak. Ultear proved that even Max's hypnosis wasn't perfect as she stumbled around at a speed fast enough to create brief copies of her figure, dodging the strips of cloth as she tried to shake off Max's abilities. At the same time, Locki saw that the line of sight shifted as Gyutaro put down the sub-orb and rushed Ultear with his sword drawn.

"Go support the people in cloaks." Locki ordered as he grabbed the teigu on his hip.

[Dimension Formation: Shambhala] worked through connecting two separate points in space. There were factors that needed to be accomplished to warp space, but Locki could speed up the process by simply giving more stamina to the teigu.

The connection of the sub-orbs counted towards "having-been-there" that was one of the requirements, and all Locki needed to do was grab onto and widen that connection. His teigu did all the technical work as a purple portal opened up right next to him. He could tell that the original use of the teigu was short, instantaneous teleportations, but –because he was a mage– he had plenty of stamina to spare to simply hold open the connection as long as he wished.

Well, a few seconds weren't that hard…

"Alright, hurry throu–"

Locki felt his eardrums pop as a roar of thunder blasted through his head. A flash of yellow shot past him and the group as the seasick S-rank mage had seemed to go through the portal in the blink of an eye. Much to the stunned blonde's ire, Gildarts shook his head and walked through the portal with the Rune Knights who followed closely behind. Locki hid his annoyance as he turned his wrists and appeared right above Gyutaro's sub-orb.

His vision swam for a second, but Locki got rid of the vertigo with a quick breath. Around him, he saw that the Rune Knights did not take the feeling of teleportation very well as most of them were on their knees, trying to regain their breath.

Locki didn't pay them more attention as he took in the fight.

His suspicions about Ultear were rather close to the truth. The spy moved around the battlefield like a ghost, appearing like she was teleporting around. Locki frowned at the display as she seemed to dodge Daki's cloth strips before she even sent them her way. A larger orb at her feet moved her through the air at a blistering pace.

Gyutaro wasn't fast enough to catch the mage, and he could only chase her around as he sent out arcs of red blood in a frenzy to hopefully catch Ultear. However, everytime it looked like one might hit her a white orb would appear and block the attack while also being sliced in twain.

Laxus, the blonde S-rank, was like a completely different person than on the boat. Locki had seen a bit of the mage when he went to Evermont and "looked around," but to see the mage in action was something else. He moved with literal lightning. The mage shot around the battlefield, shooting out bolts of lightning to keep Ultear from escaping her encirclement. Still, every bolt of lightning seemed to be intercepted by one of those white orbs that seemed to multiply around Ultear the longer the skirmish seemed to wage.

Locki was almost impressed with how fast paced the battle was. He stood off to the side awkwardly as he shielded his eyes from the lightshow and echoes of orbs being destroyed. And despite Ultear's impressive show, Locki saw the signs of exhaustion.

After all, she fought off the twins and an S-rank mage at the same time. He did see how she tried to shoot her orbs to take off the twin's cloaks, but they easily dodged her easy to read assaults. A couple of orbs still hit Gyutaro and Daki, audibly shattering bones. However, she knew those injuries were barely an inconvenience as the twins just healed faster than any injury happened.

Locki could see she wanted to go for stronger attacks, but her attention was either grabbed by the constant hypnosis attempts from Max or Laxus as he appeared in a flash of lightning. Her breathing grew ragged as she was hampered left and right, and Locki could see she didn't even have the will to fight as she saw Gildarts just stand off to the side of the conflict.

Ultear's face scrunched up in anger as she brought her hands together, and Locki saw a few green magic circles appear around her. Her face was red from exertion, but a scream ripped from her throat as hundreds of orbs appeared around her and shot outwards at blistering speeds.

Locki hit the ground, narrowly avoiding an orb that threatened to tear his head off. He heard Daki and Gyutaro's scream, and looked up in a panic to see several bloody holes close as they crouched low to the ground to cover their bodies with their ruined cloaks. Laxus and Gildarts appeared startled as they looked between the injured twins and Ultear who stood on shaky legs from where she launched her last assault.

Locki rushed through the pockmarked ground, noting that orbs Ultear used seem to disappear into motes of light as he passed them. Deep furrows were formed into the ground, and several places where the orbs hit seemed to cave in.

They were barely an inconvenience as Locki reached Daki and took out a spare cloak from his [Subspace Ring]. When she put it over her ruined one, Locki gave her another one for her brother. He took a few seconds to check over the twins before he settled the unknown panic that ran through his system to look over at Ultear.

The dark-purple-haired woman coughed as she fell to her knees in exhaustion. She shot Locki an aggrieved look as he drew close, spitting right at his feet.

"Is this how you treat your guildmates, guildmaster?" She spat angrily. Locki stared at her, using his Curse to figure out if she had anything that could still threaten them. When the answer came up as no, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Its just business. We were working for our own goals from the beginning, after all." Locki said.

Ultear's mouth flopped open and closed, and her eyes grew a little wider as she understood what he meant. "But you– how?" She chuckled mirthlessly to herself with an ugly smile. "From the very beginning, huh? I bet I looked rather pathetic thinking I fooled you."

"Just a bit."

"So, are you two gonna kiss and makeup or something?" Laxus butted in, glaring at Ultear.

"Laxus, its fine. Let them settle this themselves." Gildarts said from the side, looking between Locki and Ultear pitifully. "A betrayal from someone close to you is never an… enjoyable thing."

"She tried to kill us." Laxus countered.

Locki never broke his gaze from Ultear as he nodded. "He's got a point."

"And you brought the equivalent of a Wizard Saint to fight someone who you thought only had repair magic." Ultear shot back, taking deep breaths. Locki flinched as another orb appeared in her hands, feeling shocked as he had been using his Curse to constantly check Ultear's state.

His Curse confirmed she didn't have enough energy for any more magic, nor did she have any stamina to run away. Similarly, the orb in her hand was not a weapon like the previous one.

Gilarts was the first one to curse and rush the girl. "Stop her! That's a teleportation Lacrima!"

Ultear grinned as she held the Lacrima in her hand. A purple glow shone around her body like another skin. "It sucks to use an S-rank Lacrima, but they're the only ones that can work this far into the Calm Sea. Seeya around, guildmaster. Thanks for being so gullible."

Locki moved faster than he thought, but there was no stopping the Lacrima as soon as she used it. However, his irritation seemed to bounce off his teigu, and suddenly, the blonde guildmaster felt like he could see the connection Ultear tried to use to escape.

A long, purple tunnel seemed to twist into the air, disappearing into the horizon. Ultear's body was enshrouded in purple light as she disappeared right before the Crash Mage reached her. Locki ignored the curses of Laxus as he held out [Dimension Formation: Shambhala] and felt its clear intrigue. It was almost too easy to just twist the purple tube's end to appear right next to him. His teigu seemed almost engrossed in the feeling of manipulating space as Locki ignored it in favor of the results.

As if on cue, a purple light shone and Ultear popped out. The woman looked around, sitting down after she took in her surroundings. Her pale skin turned a few shades red, and she pointedly refused to meet everyone's eyes.

Locki grinned at her. "Well, hello again. How was your trip?"

From his shadow, Max's familiar laughter rang out again. For once, Locki felt things were in his favor. Now all he had to do was figure out how to split up the group while he got Rebecca and Stein away from the Rune Knights. No big deal, really.