Fairy Tail - Twilight Empire

Chapter 107 - Twinkling Stars

The doors to the barracks blew open, the twin pieces of thick metal flying into the room and obliterating two of the wizards staged to ward off their invaders.

"Well. Seems the party's already getting started in here."

Gajeel's voice snaked through the open foyer where dozens of wizards, all in Imperial robes, held aloft staffs, wands, staves, or weapons, all aimed at him.

Iron skin draped over him as spell after spell hit him. Blasts, flames, waves of paralysis. All tried to slow him down.

Gajeel stepped through all of it. His wicked smile did not leave his face.

One year. One whole year of working his tail off. A year of remembering how he had to fight his friends, how he got his ass kicked routinely by this new world. A year of pushing himself beyond measure.

All for...well, not this moment. But all to get to this point.

Where he could watch the lights in the eyes of Imperial monsters go out as he strode toward them, helpless and afraid.

A few of them dropped their magical item and ran. He even let some get by him.

They were swiftly taken care of by Lily and Lisanna right outside.

Gajeel almost laughed. Oh. If they thought he was the monster...

The ceiling collapsed ahead of him, bringing with it fire and death. Gajeel sprinted forward, annihilating two of the wizards who had wards up to protect the back door, leading, no doubt to the rest of the barracks, to reinforcements. To whoever in the Crystal Division was running the show.

Gajeel's ally melted the door with a simple touch. Gajeel flew through it, right into the loving arms of three wizards who created a crystalline wall. He shattered it and slid to a halt on the other side. This room, a wide, deepening atrium, was well lit by lines of lacrima along the wall.

All sorts poured into the room—soldiers roused from sleep, soldiers on patrol. All were armed magically, and more than a few had rather potent, thick magical scents. Gajeel turned to the wizard, who made a run for it at the back of the room.

"You got him?" Gajeel asked the shadows roiling behind him.

"All mine, if you don't mind," Mirajane's voice replied.

Gajeel widened his arms out. "Then I'll handle the runts! Come on, then!"

Mirajane blurred by Gajeel, her form imperceptible to anyone else in the room, as the rest of the wizards began their assault.

Quite simply, Gajeel countered.

Iron darts and hammers flew everywhere, lips of dark orange fire smacked his enemies around. A dozen were down before he even had to cast his second set of spells, and the roof was blown open as Gajeel settled back on the ground, having eliminated all the weaklings. His muscles pulsed against the surge of combined magic from a quadrant of them.

Gajeel sprinted at them, punching one so hard he flew out of the roof, then spun around and blocked two strikes at once before a gaping maw of darkness claimed another, a veil of fire following. Gajeel swept under his opponent's legs and, with an uppercut, finished them off.

One of the support beams of the barracks collapsed. Ahead, Gajeel spotted the bright light of STAR, and his stomach twisted. He set his jaw and rushed for it.

Mirajane appeared in front of it, batting away an Earth-make attack. Ah. So, it was that Ruhan idiot that she'd told them about. He tried to lay into Mirajane with a powerful golem, an extension of his own body, but Mirajane managed to blow it aside. A darkness draped over her, and her base Satan Soul appeared, scorching another of Ruhan's attacks and giving Mirajane even more speed and power.