Chapter 32: Ch27: Base Camp

AN: Ok, as always, Reviewer Replies!

DarkDrawerJ: As always, very glad you enjoyed! Now get ready because the gentle climb on the roller coaster is about to turn into that HOLY SHIT! drop that everybody came for.

Raidentensho: Again, Jerry has seen none of those, so no. And no, actually the toxic element would only make Natsu's magic even MORE dangerous for his friends, and that's the last thing Natsu wants, so even if it DID work like that (it doesn't) Natsu would still never use it. Epic action you say? Wait til you get to the end of this chapter!

Prometo: (cackles) Who is she you ask? Which 'she' I ask? The one Jerry saw in his little trip to the doorstep of heaven? The one who healed him? Serena? So many mysterious identities! Ah yes Natsu, perhaps he will learn. One would certainly hope so, his dumbass moments can be a little more dangerous than most.

And now rather than drag it out any longer, I'm actually really excited for you all to read this one since it's the start of the second half of The Road to Mattachu! Hang on to your seats boys and girls, THIS IS WHERE SHIT GETS REAL.

...

Chapter 27 – Base Camp

…

…

Natsu spent the next day utterly cocooned in chains and bandages. He was…much less recalcitrant and whiny about it than I would've expected. It wasn't until that night that I found out why.

"Hey Jerry? You still awake?"

I almost didn't recognize Natsu's voice. He was actually being quiet and he sounded…sad? I sat up and gently pulsed my sleeping magic to make sure everyone else was asleep, "Yeah, what's up?"

Natsu was quiet for a moment and then, "Is everyone else asleep?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I just zonked 'em all. What's up?" He wouldn't have checked to see if everyone else was asleep if he just needed to pee.

"I really fucked up didn't I?" Natsu asked quietly.

"Which time?" I asked bluntly, noting the pained flinch before continuing, "Yeah Natsu, you fucked up pretty bad. The only reason you're in even a fraction this good a shape is because you were fire proof to begin with. That firestorm you kicked off would've killed anybody and everybody but you in a matter of mintues, toxic fumes or not. Levy, Erza, Gajeel, me, Lucy…" Natsu looked like he might be sick.

"And most of all," I continued, "You."

Natsu looked at me, "I what?"

"You think we want you dead?" I asked flatly, "You're my friend dumbass. You're Levy and Gajeel and Erza's brother. You're Happy's…whatever you and Happy are. Even if she's ROYALLY pissed at you, and you better not doubt for a second that she is, Lucy still considers you a very dear friend. That's why we're upset with you. We don't want you dying, especially not over something stupid like running off into a toxic minefield screaming your head off like an idiot because you thought you saw a piece of candy. How do you think I felt when I realized I had let you run headlong into a death trap?"

Natsu shot me a downtrodden look, "How?"

"Imagine if you could've warned Mira and Elfman about what was going to happen to Lisanna and didn't because you forgot to." Natsu flinched like I had punched him square in the face.

"Your current condition is almost entirely your fault," I declared quietly, "I'd say about ninety percent. Maybe one of us could've stopped you, but we all know you're fire proof so we thought you'd be alright. The biggest share of the blame is yours, but the next biggest chunk is mine for not remembering about phosphorus being poison. With Archive I'm supposed to never forget anything, and to an extent, I don't, but if I don't think about it, I can make little slip ups. This time, my little slip up nearly got you killed because I didn't think to stop you."

I pulled up an image of him when Erza and I found him, "This is what you looked like when Erza and I found you Natsu." Natsu's eyes widened and he looked at me in horror. I nodded grimly, "Make no mistake, we were all ready to beat you senseless when you set those hives off. None of us wanted this, and honestly, this is probably going to haunt me for a while."

I let that hang in the air for a second before continuing, "You were unconscious, but right before your mystery savior healed you, I was about to fire up my cards and portals to jet you back to Fiore at a rate that would make Happy's top speed look slower than a half frozen snail because you were seriously about to die if we couldn't get you to immediate medical attention, and maybe even if we did. I'm not kidding. Anyone but you would've been dead in minutes, and we're still not sure how the hell you survived. If any of us had been caught up in that, there's no doubt. We'd be dead, and on the off chance you survived, it would've been entirely your fault."

Natsu looked like he might be sick as I let that hang in the air for a moment. 3…2…1… "You want to know a little secret though?"

"What's that?" Natsu asked glumly.

"None of it matters."

Natsu took a second to process that and after a couple of blinks he looked up at me with confusion all over his face like blue on Happy, "What?"

"Lemme explain to ya a little concept that got me through something arguably worse than what happened with you and Lisanna," I grinned, "The multiverse theory, which I know beyond any shadow of a doubt to be true."

"Multiverse?"

"Multiverse," I nodded, "For every decision that's ever made, for every possibility, there is a different branch of reality where the other choice was made, where the other possibility happened. There's a world out there where all of us died back there. There are worlds where some of us lived and some didn't, every possible combination exists. There's a world where you never took the Galuna job. There's one where you made S-Class years ago, and one where you're an ice wizard and quite a few where you're not a wizard at all. Every possibility that can be possibly conceived of happened, is happening and playing out, right now. Somewhere in the multiverse, there's a world where you got the optimal outcome from the Galuna job, Gramps made you S-Class on the spot and Lucy fell madly in love with you as a result. Somewhere, there's a world where you never joined Fairy Tail and never will. There are worlds where you were never born. Where none of us were ever born."

"But, what's that got to do with anything?" Natsu asked after a few quiet minutes of contemplation.

"Everything… and nothing at all," I added with a grin, "Do you know what guilt is Natsu? It's wondering if you should've made a different choice, whether you should've acted differently and what would've happened if you had. The existence of the multiverse makes that a completely pointless waste of time because in another world, you did make the other choice. You did act differently. On the other hand, there are also worlds where you made the worst choices possible and would be utterly disgusted with the twisted reflection of yourself those worlds host. What it all boils down to Natsu, is that everything we do, every choice we make, it's all completely pointless because at the exact moment we made our choice, we also made the opposite choice."

"You know what that means right Natsu?"

"It kinda sounds like you're telling me to give up, but I don't think that's what you're saying," Natsu declared a moment later.

I nodded, "That's right. It's precisely because life and everything we do is pointless that it is beautiful. The only meaning we have is what we ascribe to ourselves, and in the end even that'll fade away. There's no point in worrying over the past or what might've been or even what might come in the future. Hold your head high and forge ahead. There's a saying back home, 'You only live once,' and it's true! So by golly make the most of it! If you don't like how your life's going, then change it! If you think everyone's looking at you like you're an idiot, then start using your head for something other than keeping your ears apart! If you think Lucy doesn't like you, then find out and decide if it's worth changing how you act to get with her. Or you can just bull on through life like you always have and see how it turns out! There are no wrong answers when it comes to living your life Natsu."

I clapped Natsu on the shoulder, "Did you fuck up Natsu? Yes. Did you commit some grave crime that you'll never recover from? No. Do any of us think less of you? Probably." I admitted before adding, "Not me, I already knew you're a moron." Natsu gave me a sour look and I smirked at him, "Ya know what though? You're our moron, and that's that. So in the future, maybe try not to get us all blown up eh?"

Natsu stared at me for a moment and then a small grin formed, "Hah, yeah. Thanks Jerry. I do feel a little better now."

I nodded, "Good, now go to sleep. We should reach that Base Camp Miguel told us about tomorrow, you'll need your rest." So saying I gently bopped him over the head with a rhino's dosage of Sleep magic and grinned as he flopped over backwards.

I patted my sleeping bag back into shape and slithered back into it before rolling over to face away from the others as confusion furrowed my brow, Who taught me all that? And why am I just now remembering it?

…

…

As we grew closer, the sky grew overcast. The further towards the mountains we flew, the darker the clouds got. I eventually had to manifest spotlights on top of keeping the Card Car afloat.

"Hey Miguel," I asked, "Is the weather always like this around here?"

"No, last time I was here it was sunny, most all day every day," Miguel replied, "It would rain for about an hour every afternoon, but the sun would always poke its head back out afterwards. There must be quite a storm coming, I hope we make it to Base Camp before it hits."

"Doesn't smell like rain," Gajeel declared after poking his head through a small 'window' in the side of the Card Car, "Juvia's my best friend, trust me, I know what rain smells like. That ain't rain comin'."

"Just overcast?" I asked hopefully, not liking what his tone was implying at all.

"No," Gajeel declared grimly, "Something's wrong with these clouds. I don't know what, but I've got a feelin' we're gonna find out before this is over."

"FINALLY!" Erza suddenly crowed. Then she turned neon pink when we all turned to look at her in surprise. A small triumphant smile split her features, "This has been way too easy thus far! S-Class quests are supposed to be challenging! FINALLY we're getting to the good part!"

We all swapped glances and then, "I kinda enjoyed the cruise myself actually," I declared.

Serena gently punched my shoulder with a grin, "You better have since we were shagging for two thirds of it." Elric made a funny little strangled squawking sound and I just had to grin.

…

…

'Base Camp' turned out to be a small town nestled in a valley between some of the abnormally steep mountains that characterized the region beside a lake that dropped off into a waterfall that fell into a deep valley that looked almost as deep as the mountains were high above the town. No matter which way you went in from here, you'd be scaling a cliff. If you couldn't fly, this would almost certainly be the end of the road unless you were equipped and ready to scale a hundred meters or more either straight up or straight down. There was little doubt that most would be neither after the journey here.

The town was built out of the gray stone from the surrounding cliffs and jungle timbers. It was actually surprisingly large, nice and modern considering its location.

"Base Camp was built by all the people who got this far and refused to leave, as well as their mostly disillusioned descendants," Miguel told us grimly, "It's a truly sad place, and Mattachu is not a good subject to bring up unless you just want to start a brawl. The ones who believe do so with all their hearts, and the ones who don't are willing to punch the teeth out of anyone who talks about it because they blame it for them being stuck out here and the deaths of nearly everyone who's ever set foot in this town." He sighed sadly, "So many people come through here and never return, or do so as corpses carried in by the ones who do. You see that cleared area over there?"

He nodded his head towards the falls, and for a second we didn't realize what we were seeing. Then we realized what the carved stones were. "Every one of those stones is someone who ventured into the jungle and never came back," Miguel confirmed quietly before nodding towards the west side of town, "That one over there is for those who left and never returned. To the best of my knowledge, I am the first to ever come back. The one on the south side is for those who died here."

He snorted, "What was left of my team didn't even get into the city proper before we turned and ran back here with everything we could carry, determined to tell everyone and bring them to see." He grimaced, "We wanted to give them some hope, but even when we showed them the little bit of gold we'd managed to carry back, they didn't believe us. Their hope is so broken that they couldn't believe even when we showed them proof."

He sighed, "That's when we decided to come back to Fiore and get more help." He smiled, "If you'd be so kind Jerry, let's head down. I wonder if any of them remember me?"

…

…

The entire street froze when they saw Miguel. There was a somewhat intense stare down for almost three minutes, and then the crowd surged forward. There was a lot of shouting. It seemed like quite a celebration was cooking, not too dissimilar to what Fairy Tail was like when something even vaguely party worthy happened. Miguel was the center of attention, but we were getting a lot of interest as well. I guess our entrance would tend to have that effect.

I was vaguely embarrassed when I was the only one immediately picked out as a wizard since the others were all much more experienced than me. It faded pretty quickly though once the others started introducing themselves and it became clear that Lucy, Levy and me were the only ones of our group who weren't big enough names that even those outside the wizarding community knew who we were immediately. Anyone who'd arrived in the last five years knew Natsu, Gajeel and Erza. Erza got recognition from people who weren't even from Fiore.

I felt kinda bad for Serena and Elric, the attention glossed right over them the instant they revealed they were tourists instead of wizards. Then Serena caught my eye and tapped the side of her head. I took the hint and established a link.

We're going to look around, Elric says there'll probably be a feast or a party or whatever since everyone's so excited. We'll see you then. She signed off with a cheerful grin, wink and offhanded salute. Then she disappeared into the crowd.

Then my attention was drawn to the fact that someone had convinced Natsu to do tricks and Erza was gesturing frantically for me to get over there and stop him before he burned somebody or something.

…

…

A party was indeed arranged and the townsfolk had lots of questions about what was happening in Fiore recently. I didn't know much about it being new and all, so a lot of the questions for me turned into asking about what kind of wizard I was. In the course of questioning about my capabilities as a wizard, one thing led to another and I wound up volunteering to do a little building. This led to me being shown to the edge of the considerable cleared area the town occupied where the jungle had been forced back. "We use mostly timber for our buildings," Allan the architect and head of most construction projects in town informed me, "They hold up pretty good, but I'm kinda curious to see how a wizard would handle it."

I looked up at the towering trees and reached under my hat to scratch my head, "Whatcha want built?"

"Ehm…well the town hall's kinda small," he admitted, "We threw it up as an afterthought once the town started growin' proper."

I nodded, "And where are you wanting the new one?"

"Um…Right behind the old one?" Allan supplied cautiously, "You're not planning to stay here long enough to build it all yourself though, right?"

I popped a card out of each sleeve, "Why wait? You want wood floors right?"

"Um…sure?"

"Cool." SWTHU-THU-THU-THUNK! POW! Four trees collapsed into boards after being chopped up by my telekinesis and landed neatly in my telekinetic grip.

"What's the stone around here like?" I asked as Allan and his crew gaped at the stack of sixteen and eight foot two by fours as I ferried it out away from the tree line and set it on a couple of stack sticks I'd carved from the leftovers. Before he could answer, I split four more trees and ran a quick count as I caught them, "That should be enough for a start."

I tossed my two cards under the stacks of lumber and inflated them before politely gesturing back towards town, "Lead the way."

"I need to learn magic…" Allan mumbled before heading off towards town.

A few minutes later I used another of my cards as a giant shovel to clear out a massive plot of ground down to bare raw earth. It was surprising how little dirt was actually there before I hit rock, but I shrugged it off. "Well guess I won't be needing concrete for this phase of construction after all," I mused, "Which is good because I friggin' hate dealing with concrete. Let's go look at that stone over there!" I set the lumber down and headed for the nearest rock face.

I grinned when I got over to it, "Granite! Nice." I chewed down a quick burst of light and set my hand on the rough stone face with a grin, "Polish." A second later I regretted my spell as a massive burst of stone dust erupted and I had to immediately catch every bit of it and crush it into a ball. It did make a very pretty marble sphere (that only narrowly missed crushing my foot as it dropped from my outstretched hand), but I still needed a bath as I staggered back to find out just exactly how much I'd overdone it this time.

I had to gape in shock, "HOLY CRAP I OVERDID IT!" I'd been intending to use Decomposition to blast smooth about a meter-wide window half an inch deep to get a good look at the stone I was going to be working with. Just enough to knock all the roughness down. Ah-ah. I did what seemed like half the cliff.

On the upside, the stone revealed was gorgeous. The glassy smooth midnight blue was flecked with specks and whorls of white that made it look like the night sky. It took my breath away once I got back far enough to get a good look at it.

"What the hell are you?" Allan breathed as he stared in awe.

"Fairy Tail wizard," I replied, "We eat impossible for breakfast and shit it out on improbability." After a moment I recovered my composure, "Ya know, it'd about be a shame to break it. It's too pretty. Ya got a quarry anywhere I can mine out of?"

I took another bite of light to recover the full percent of my power that had required.

"Uh, no we don't have a quarry," Allan stammered, "but isn't the stone just like right there below the surface?"

I thought about it for a moment, "Good point. One fresh meeting hall," I knelt and laid my hand to the ground as a grin spread across my face, "coming up."

"What do you…OH SHIT!"

I don't mind the ground shaking when I'm the one doing it!

…

…

I was thoroughly wiped out by that evening. Simply building a new meeting hall nearly as big as the Guild Hall would've been just plain too easy. No, I just had to go and show off like the absolute dumbass I am. On the upside, Master Precht had managed to teach me the basics of Earth-Make magic during his visit, so I had quite possibly the best tool imaginable for bending the stone around town to my will. For some reason everything I made came out a bit pyramid shaped, but I could still do walls and pillars easily enough.

Gajeel handled all the more intricate stuff since he'd actually already known Iron Make Magic. "I usually stick to simple stuff when I'm fightin'," he'd explained, "a good club or at most a sword is plenty for most fights, and I don't really like fighting at a distance. Punching people in the face is more satisfying, so even though I probably could make something like Shrimp's tank pretty, I don't usually like to. Of course," he'd added as he'd nonchalantly churned out half a dozen more complex parts already assembled in a little wave of green light, "Just because I don' particular like doin' somethin' doesn't mean I ain't good at it."

The dirt streets? Paved with polished granite pavers on top of the dirt that had previously covered them.

The roaring waterfall? Bridged and harnessed with a dozen water wheels across its width as its water rocketed through the gaps in the exceptionally wide new dam. Honestly the new dam was large enough to count as an entire new district to the town, and we'd erected several buildings along the top of it. The joys of being able to manipulate matter with one's mind!

I hadn't gone for ordinary waterwheels either, I'd stretched my imagination a little and made them so that they could be lifted out of the water easily for repairs and the water flow to them could be shut off by immense iron shutters on rollers (thank you Gajeel). With a little design help from Levy, the village now had a powerful and well-made mill, an incredibly stout bellows and mechanical hammer for ironwork in their new smithy, and nine more waterwheels for whatever they happened to devise that might need that kind of power.

The buildings? All stepped up from timber cottages to concrete and stone houses with timber framing and indoor plumbing. The water to that plumbing was courtesy of the rather sizable tower that Gajeel, Natsu and I had designed and put together as an add-on to the mill and running off the same waterwheel. I decided to run all the pipes overhead down the streets because I'd had quite enough of crawling around under houses when my family back home had decided to fix things themselves, and if the pipes were up in the open, then they were much easier to get to, and much easier to spot any problems with.

I'd also put together a compendium of designs used and possible future ones. By that point, we'd taken most of the day and I'd recharged from less than five percent almost a dozen times. This was the bit where Erza told me in that way she normally reserves for Natsu to stop and that I'd done enough. When I tried to protest, being too tired to really think better of it, I was promptly knocked out.

So now I woke up in what I recognized as one of the guest rooms in the town hall I had built earlier. I glanced around, idly musing over what I could still improve in the design, then my thoughts were derailed by a smile.

"You're awake," she declared with a smile before sitting forward and setting a tray of food from the very simple nightstand onto the bed next to me as I pushed myself upright. She was wearing a simple dark red and white dress, rather conservative but it still looked exceptionally good on her. She was perhaps not quite so heart shatteringly gorgeous as Mira, but if not then she was damn sure a very close second. She was definitely as beautiful as Erza, Cana or Lucy. She had wavy blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail that was a little more honey gold than Lucy's, and her eyes were a warmer shade of brown, more like molten amber than Lucy's chocolatey brown. They were the sort of eyes that could yank a man's heart and soul out to wrap around her little finger in passing without even realizing it.

I couldn't help but draw immediate comparisons to Lucy, because aside from those slight differences, the accent, slight tan, and about three cup sizes in Lucy's favor, they could've easily been sisters. There was something else familiar about her, the shape of her face and that hair reminded me of somebody, but I couldn't for the life of me remember who.

I brushed it off mentally and snorted lightly with a smile, "Yeah, I probably should've thought better than arguing with Erza. How long was I out?"

"A few hours," she answered with a smile, "Everyone else is downstairs at the party. I came up here because I wanted to talk to you."

I sat up a little more with a smile, "Ah, well in that case before we begin, may I ask the lovely young lady her name?"

She blinked and then looked around in confusion before pointing at herself. I raised an eyebrow as my grin went the friendliest crooked it could, "Yes you. You're clearly the most beautiful person in the room, and I'd very much like to know your name."

She immediately blushed pinker than Natsu's hair and started having trouble making eye contact, "Oh, um…I…you can call me Mary."

"That's a cute accent you've got," I declared as I leaned around to try to meet her gaze with a smile, "Where are you from Mary?"

"Oh, I'm… actually local," she admitted after a moment, "Um, what about you? Where are you from? I've, never even imagined magic like yours. It's, I'm honestly fascinated."

I nodded, "I'm flattered you think so highly of my abilities. I'm from the wizard guild Fairy Tail, situated in the town of Magnolia up in Fiore. It's a few thousand miles northwest of here. To tell ya the truth though…" I added, "I'm actually not from there. I was yanked into this world from a different one a few months ago, and I've been strolling along ever since. I've gathered that my different perspective is a lot of what makes my magic so versatile and formidable since I'm pretty sure at least three members of my team are significantly stronger than I am as far as raw power goes."

She looked up at me in surprise and then glanced down, "And modest too. I don't believe that they're stronger than you for a second. Look at how much you've done in just a day! This was a town barely scratched out of the jungle and now it looks like it's the home of an army of craftsmen and geniuses…" She actually did meet my gaze then and dammit why was my heart skipping and stuttering like a scratched up record… "Because you showed up for one day."

DAMN. There was so much earnest and heartfelt admiration in her voice and gaze that I immediately felt like a complete shit stain. Why did I feel like a shit stain? Because nobody in the world could match up to the image of perfection I could see reflecting in her eyes, and even the greatest heroes would be petty lowlifes by comparison. Naturally, that made me lower than scum since I was no hero, let alone a great one.

I levitated the tray back to the table and swung my legs out so that I could face her properly, "Mary…" She looked wholly taken aback by my sudden somber tone and I continued in a quiet but deadly serious tone, "You shouldn't look up at me like that."

She looked slightly hurt and confused, it had come rather out of nowhere I supposed, so I reached out and gently took her hand, "You shouldn't look up at me or anyone else like they're perfect, because nobody's perfect. So, if you look up at somebody and idolize them as being a perfect hero, then they're bound to let you down eventually because they can never measure up to some idealized perfection in your head."

I smiled at her earnestly, "If you must look up to someone, don't let it blind you. Respecting and caring for someone means acknowledging their flaws too. If you only see what you want to in somebody, then you'll leave yourself open for a lot of pain and heartbreak when that person isn't who you thought they were. I've seen it happen and it's absolutely awful. I don't want to see you hurt like that, and I especially don't want to be the reason for you to hurt like that. After all," I added with a grin as she looked at me in surprise, "there's not so much about me to admire!"

"I'm just a scruffy wizard in a nice hat," I declared, "I admit I'm quite clever, but much of my apparent cleverness stems from my different origin and perspective, beyond that I use magic to make sure I don't forget things. As far as I'm concerned, that's completely and utterly cheating. I assure you, Levy is far more intelligent than I am. I'm pretty strong as a wizard, but again, I'm actually probably the third weakest of my team at best."

I couldn't meet her gaze as I started to list off all the things that I still couldn't believe Mira overlooked to consider me an acceptable romantic partner, "I'm too lazy to bother with proper hygiene, I just cheat and use magic. I'm a complete and utter glutton, and an adrenaline junkie who actively enjoys pummeling people. I'm a clutz and overdo it with my magic all the time until I either drive myself to the edge or someone like Erza knocks me out. I'm totally oblivious to a lot of things and prone to overthinking what I'm not oblivious to. Most of all though," I looked her in the eye then, "I have someone back home waiting for me. It's a little complicated right now," I admitted, "But please don't go developing a crush on me. I can't stand the thought of breaking hearts."

Mary flinched and for a second I thought I had convinced her. Then she smiled, and I knew I had completely failed to sway her opinion of me. "You say all that," she told me softly, "But for all that you tell me you're not worth admiring…" she looked me dead in the eye, "…I know I'm right."

I opened my mouth to protest but before I could there was a second tongue in my mouth. It was a quick kiss, and Mary was to the door in the time it took my brain to reboot, but that didn't make it any less effective. She shot a grin over her shoulder at me, "See you around handsome."

The eyes are off but otherwise she's a dead ringer for… the thought cut itself off as my brain finished rebooting. Unfortunately, even as my eyes went wide and I started frantically trying to catch the trailing threads of that string of thought, an immense roar erupted like thunder as a massive impact shook the whole town.

…

…

I teleported outside and was confronted with a dragon sized…thing. It was vaguely humanoid but wreathed entirely in darkness. All except for the eyes, those glowed with a purple light that set off every danger signal my instincts knew. It was like the moment in a nightmare where you realize the thing that's there to kill you is going to succeed, that is how instinctively terrifying the giant's eyes were. Then, its eyes locked onto me. It opened its mouth and roared and somehow that existential terror somehow got WORSE.

I'm not sure if my heart shut down for a second, but I know my mind did. For a brief instant, I was absolutely convinced that I was about to die.

Then my keys started burning from where I kept them in the special pockets I'd made for them in my sleeve as though they were screaming for me to summon them. I raised my hand and the words erupted almost of their own accord, "OPEN! GATE OF THE MAIDEN!"

The drain on my magic was immediate. Summoning Virgo or Leo would normally take approximately half a percent of my power. For some reason, this time? Nearly a full fifth of my power, INSTANTLY.

The shock of the drain was enough that it broke my stride. I had been about to summon all three of my spirits. Then Virgo appeared next to me with an uncharacteristically grim and serious expression on her face. She didn't meet my gaze, her eyes locked on the immense purple pits that had locked on to her in return, "Master, I need to borrow a lot of your power. I can fight him, but I'm going to have to do something I haven't done in over four hundred years. We'll have to reforge our contract afterwards and I may not be able to fight for a while, but will you allow me to fight at my FULL power?"

I nodded, the unintelligible terror faded from my mind in the wake of Virgo's natural glow, "Go all out."

Virgo clasped her hands together as though in prayer and her eyes closed,

"Watcher in the Heavens, grant me this night.

Restore to me my full might,

entrusted to you long ago.

Tonight I, Celestial Maiden Virgo,

will once more do battle in the world of men…"

The giant swung, his building sized fist hurtling forward as Virgo finished her chant and light erupted around her like a miniature sun…

"Return me now, TO MY ORIGIN!"

...

...

No teaser this time. If that didn't get you hyped for next week nothing will.