Fairy Tail: The Dark Swordsman

63 - Interlude: The Great Minds of Villlainy

[X784, Velothi Mountains]

— Zancrow —

"What the hell happened here?!"

Zancrow's voice echoed through the air. A look of shock on his face.

He stood upon the base of a broken guild building— which has been reduced to nothing more than jagged beams and cracked stone. A dark flag bearing the Raven Tail insignia could be seen buried beneath the rubble.

"Shit, Meredy! Meredy!" He cried out, rushing ahead and looking for any sign of the pink-haired girl.

His boots crunched against splintered wood and stone as he pushed forward, ignoring the groans of half-dead mages twitching in the rubble. Corpses littered the area. Their auras flickered weakly or had vanished entirely.

His mind reeled. 'Had they ambushed her? Did she get caught in some goddamn trap?'

But then there she was. Against a collapsed wall, half-hidden beneath debris and broken stone, he saw her.

"No fucking way..." Zancrow whispered, stunned.

Meredy's pink hair was stained with ash and blood, her clothing singed and half-torn. Her body was crumpled in an unnatural position, her skin mottled with angry red burns. Steam still rose faintly from her as if whatever hit her had only recently ended.

"Meredy!"

Zancrow was beside her in an instant. He knelt down and pushed debris away, pressing two fingers to her neck. For a moment, he felt nothing—then, faintly, the slow thump of a pulse. Weak. But still there.

He gave a small sigh of relief before he pulled out a communication lacrima and jammed his thumb against the activation rune.

"Lord Hades! It's Meredy!" he barked. "She's on death's door!"

"I figured." The voice came out from the other side. Hades sounded calm as always, but there was something odd in his voice that Zancrow couldn't recognize.

"What?! You knew about this?!" Zancrow said, surprised.

"Only recently. I received news that Ultear is injured, she was found unconscious in her office in Era." A loud sigh came out from Hades. "My guess is that Meredy instinctively connected her senses to Ultear in a panic. The damage-sharing aspect of her Maguilty Sense probably kept her alive. Split the pain between them."

"Shit..." Zancrow replied. It made sense, somehow. Ultear had always been close with Meredy—Maguilty Sense worked best when tied to emotional bonds.

"Is Ultear compromised?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"No. The council thinks she was ambushed. Which is nothing unusual since the Council has plenty of enemies. They won't connect this to us and she's professional enough to not say anything incriminating." Hades replied. "For now, do what you can to keep Meredy stable. The airship is en route to your location. In the meantime, investigate. Find the one responsible."

"Yes, sir."

The lacrima deactivated with a blip. Zancrow immediately dropped his bag beside him and tore it open, grabbing the emergency salves and potions that Hades had drilled into all of them.

Any mage worth their salt should be able to heal themselves in cases of injury. Healing magic was rare and considered a luxury, so learning the conventional way of healing was mandatory during their training.

Zancrow wasn't good at this kind of stuff. His magic wasn't gentle—it was all fire and rage, made to tear flesh and break bones. But his rough and calloused hands moved with careful precision as he treated Meredy's burns and stopped the worst of the bleeding.