Fairy Tail - Twilight Empire

Chapter 94 - Gajeel vs Seilah

It didn't take much to piss Gajeel off. Normally, a wrong look in his direction was enough to get him to flip a table over, especially if that person had a punchable face like Salamander. But few people in the world really knew how not to get under his skin. Levy, of course.

And Lily, his Exceed companion.

However, Salamander was getting quickly replaced on his list of people whom he wished to exist least in the world.

Seilah held her hands out as she stood well over the battleground, continuing to toy with the two of them. Thus far, she only had control of Lily, forcing him into deeper reserves of strength than Lily may have previously thought existed. She had to get him to keep up with Gajeel somehow, after all.

"Go on," Seilah said, "this is beginning to get interesting."

Gajeel couldn't agree less. There were a few moments where it seemed Lily was going to pass out finally, and Gajeel had a clear shot at taking on Seilah, but she proved nimble enough to dart away from his attacks and then prop Lily back up.

They'd been fighting far longer than Lily had stamina for, and Gajeel was starting to feel the ache in his muscles, too. Chasing Seilah in small bursts wore on him, which came on top of fending off a very aggressive Lily. Gajeel's iron arms throbbed. Sweat beaded on his brow. He flicked his head to get it out of his face.

"Come on, stop holding back, Gajeel," Lily said.

Gajeel set his jaw. That was the other problem. He pulled every punch he threw at Lily. None landed with the power he wanted to throw at Seilah. What if he seriously injured Lily? Nobody was around to get help.

Damn bitch.

"No, I can work through this," Gajeel said. "We can get through this."

"I am impressed, little dragon," Seilah said, "that you have resisted my Macro. I thought, since I had you in my thrall before, that it would be a simpler task. You've changed."

"Not really," Gajeel said. "Just got a little more focused."

"Focused?"

"Yeah. You jerks dropped a guild on us. Makes it pretty easy to see that there's no more time for messing around."

Seilah grinned. "Oh, you have no idea."

It wasn't the only focus Gajeel had. There were others that he had to get to: Lucy and Lisanna specifically. August had planted bombs in them that they had to find a way of dispelling. At first, Gajeel worried that the only one who'd know what to do was Levy, but Freed could maybe use some sort of Justu Shiki to undo them. They had to be runes, right?

Gajeel's head spun. Too much thinking.

Lily raised his massive sword. Gajeel sighed and prepared his counterdefense. Seilah brushed away some dirt and sat on the cliff. They were well away from the others, who were all busily fighting in the ruins of the Tartaros's base.

Seilah seemed particularly interested in keeping their fight local, too, as another demon had come around not too long ago to pick up Gajeel and Lily, but Seilah turned her away. This was her little experiment, and she would see it all the way through.

Lily charged. Gajeel wove around him, kicked Lily in the back, and launched at Seilah. Seilah smiled and raised her hand. Gajeel crossed his arms and blasted through a pile of stone Seilah summoned. Seilah still waited on the other side as two more pillars came and crushed Gajeel. His vision went black for a moment as he started to fall, then he stabbed his arm into the cliff and yanked himself up.

Seilah batted away his admittedly haphazard kick, spinning away as she summoned two more boulders to her side. Her eyes flared, and the boulders launched Gajeel. Something whistled behind Gajeel.