Chapter 129: Invasion of Fiore
Magic Council Headquarters, Fiore Branch
South of Crocus, Fiore
Ishgar
X777
South of Crocus, the capital city of Fiore, is the Magic Council Headquarters for the Fiore Branch of the Council. The building itself sits in an extremely rocky area completely lacking any sort of vegetation. The area consists of a multitude of large boulders, a narrow gorge leading to the building itself, and a series of small hills that are visible not far from the place, making it a strategic nightmare to attack conventionally or without the use of magic.
The building's exterior, living up to its owners' high and mighty attitude, has a very outlandish appearance to it. Topping the lower structure is a series of smaller structures suspended in the air at various heights, which compose the rest of the headquarters. The building's interior seems to also be monumental like the external appearance. Given access to by a double door, topped by a high window with an arched summit, is a long, extremely high corridor with an arched ceiling. However, none of these or any other architectural details matter for unlike on a normal day, the building is full of activity as Rune Knights can be seen milling all over and rushing from one place to another, while sentient frog-like creatures urgently hop from one place to another.
Inside an unspecified room, a large circular table can be found devoid of any chairs. Around the table the members of the Magic Council can be found meeting with each other along with an armored Mordred to discuss the most recent development in the situation with Ishgar.
"Where are you?" questions Mordred as she looks around the room, seeing as none of the members of the council are truly there and are in fact using Thought Projection magic, a type of Magic which allows its user to create a psychic copy of his or her body, in order to attend the meeting. "You are members of the Fiore Magic Council and as such are leaders of Fiore's magical community. You should be here physically to deal with this, not as Thought Projections." she says.
"We believe that it is wiser for all of us to be scattered around the Kingdom in case one of us is attacked. This way we cannot all be killed at once, leaving the magical community leaderless." explains one of the council's members.
"Translation: we are cowards fearing for our lives and have decided to hide somewhere safe until the Alvarez Empire's invasion is dealt with by the more competent and productive members of society." responds Mordred with a sneer, drawing gasps of shock and cries of outrage from the members of the Council.
"Commander Mordred!" exclaims the Chairman, the leader of the Council. "Watch your words and your tone! It was us who elevated you to your position and we can just as easily remove you from it!" he claims.
"Eh, empty threats." scoffs Mordred with a smirk. "Anyway, the purpose of this attempted meeting was to plan a defensive strategy and a counterattack, but seeing your cowardice and your lack of any form of intelligence that does not contribute to anything but your sense of self preservation, I have decided that none of your input is needed nor wanted. As such, I leave you all to cower in peace in your 'safe' havens." says Mordred before she turns around and makes her way out of the meeting room while completely ignoring the outraged Council.
Once outside of the room, Mordred makes her way to another room situated just down the hallway from her previous location, the Rune Knight command center for emergency situations such as this.
"How is the situation?" asks Mordred as she walks into the Rune Knights command center where Arturia is coordinating with the lower members of the chain of command to mount a defensive strategy. Inside the room one can find various magical holograms with various information on them, such as situational reports for every Rune Knight headquarters throughout the Kingdom, troop positions, casualties, etc…
"They took the bait like we expected, but we did not expect them to be so vicious and honorless as to wipe out any towns they have stumbled upon in order to limit the information we receive." answers Artoria with a frown and disgust dripping from her voice.
"How vile. There are countless ways to make it to Magnolia without resorting to such tactics." comments Mordred with a disgusted frown. "Where are their last known locations?" she asks.
"A small merchant town on the outskirts of Fiore, near Hargeon Town and not too far south of Magnolia. A Rune Knight outpost on the far northern side of the Kingdom, and one more set of troops was found coming from the West." explains Artoria. " The merchant town was whipped out, the outpost was destroyed seconds after they transmitted the alert, and the reconnaissance team that found the troops in the West barely escaped an attack." informs Arturia. "They've completely surrounded Fiore with the only way of escape being to the East via the Kingdoms of Bosco and Sven."
"Are they using the sea or are they teleporting in?" asks Mordred.
"Both. They teleported ships filled with soldiers to our shores." answers Artoria. "Unfortunately for them however we anticipated all but their savagery so far."
"What of their magical powerhouses?" questions Mordred as she looks at the most recent casualty report.
"Inactive. According to our intelligence, none of the members of the Spriggan Knights have taken to the battlefield. However, the S-Squad encountered two squads within the army whose leaders almost reached the Spriggan Knights in terms of power" responds Arturia. "The first one they encountered was led by a machine named Wall Eehto. Despite his power the new armor and their training allowed the Squad to quickly dispose of him. Then they met the Neinhart Squad and were forced to use the armors' Final Solution." says Arturia, prompting Mordred to quickly look up from the report.
"What?" questions a rightfully alarmed Mordred considering that the Final Solution of the S-Squad's armor, a squad of six mages put together to take on mages above S-Rank, is designed to allow them to face any member of the Wizard Saints at the expense of their lives. "
"They managed to defeat their enemy, but at the expense of three of their members. The other three are currently recuperating." explains Arturia. "Had the leaders of those squads grown a bit more they easily would have become members of the Spriggan Knights."
"If that's the case then they did well. Remind me to reward them once we deal with the Empire." comments Mordred before she briefly flares her divine power in a specific pattern.
In response to her action, a cloaked figure garbed in the uniform of the League of Assassins appears kneeling in front of her.
"Lady Mordred, how may I be of service?" asks the assassin.
"Where are my father and mother? No one has seen them in days." says Mordred.
"They are currently in Westeros." answers the shadow.
"Inform them of the situation." orders Mordred.
Since they haven't found a way to communicate omniversally yet, and honestly have not been looking, the Malphas make use of members of the League of Assassins as messengers who can simply be called upon by flaring their power in a certain power. One of the features of their new uniforms allows them to sense the flare in power, allowing them to know when they are being summoned.
With a slight nod of his head, the assassin disappears from the room without leaving a trace, once again leaving Arturia and Mordred as the room's only occupants.
As the duo return to the incoming reports, an alarm blares to life as a surge of magical energy can be felt appearing above the Magic Council Headquarters. Rather than react to the blaring alarm however both Mordred and Artoria summon their respective swords, turn around and proceed to slash at the empty air. Rather than simply pass through the air unimpeded, the weapons momentarily clash with something invisible before easily slicing through it like a hot knife through butter. Following through in their assault, the duo proceed to move forward and slash once more through the air, sending a deluge of blood flying as a previously invisible body falls to the ground dead with its head decapitated and its body bisected at the waist.
"Jacob Lessio, also known as Assassin and a member of the Alvarez Empire's Spriggan Knights. Not surprising that they would send him to assassinate us." comments Artoria as she and Mordred proceed to flick the blood from their swords before turning to the monitor that displays the current situation of their headquarters.
"No, but this certainly is." replies Mordred as she points to the monitor showcasing a gigantic eye with a cross-shaped pattern manifesting over the headquarters. "It certainly is an interesting piece of surveillance magic." she says as the eye disappears just as quickly as it appeared while screams of pain and fear can be heard coming from the main lobby of the building.
Not bothering with checking the monitors for the reasons for the scream, Mordred dashes out of the room and easily makes her way to the first floor where she finds the cause for the screams, a demon who incites death simply with his presence due to the copious amount of poisonous particles that overwhelm and kill those who inhale them within mere moments. The demon is none other than Bloodman, a member of the Spriggan Knights of the Alvarez Empire.
Bloodman is a very tall, extremely muscular demon with an overall macabre appearance; his chest is covered in a black and red demonic breastplate that wraps itself around his lower abdomen. Attached to his breastplate are extremely large, irregularly-shaped metallic pauldrons that connect and fade out into his extremely long cloak, which he uses to keep hooded his head, upon which he wears what appears to be a red oni mask with his eye area painted yellow all around extending to his chin to conceal his face.
On his arms, Bloodman wears a fishnet, mesh-like material, which is partially concealed by his overly-large pauldrons and gloves; the gloves themselves are frayed, and bear a zigzag pattern below the fray, however, attached to the zigzag pattern are also irregularly-flowing designs that the resemble bone structure of the hand, as they travel down from the forearm of the glove and branch off at the knuckles and travel down to each fingertip. The aforementioned zigzag pattern also appears on the material that is exposed on the parts of his torso that Bloodman's breastplate does not cover, and around his waist he wears a belt. His lower body is concealed from view by a dark robe that reaches up to his feet. Just below the belt, it sports a pattern of circles that travels around his person. All in all one couldn't fault anyone for mistaking the demon to be the grim reaper.
Having taken in the scene of her Knights and the frog-like creatures screaming in pain as the die from inhaling the poisonous particles discharged by the demon, Mordred does not hesitate to leap at him with her sword poised to slash his head off while she coats her entire body in a layer of wind that repels the poisonous particles. Despite having the element of surprise, Mordred's sword does nothing but harmlessly pass through the demon's body that is now revealed to be made entirely of magical barrier particles, very poisonous anti-magic particles and the same particles that magical barriers are made of. With a body made of it Bloodman can deform, shape and move his body however he desires, it also makes him near completely immune to all forms of both physical and magical damage.
"Tch, magical barrier particles. How annoying." comments Mordred as she uses her momentum to create some distance between her and Bloodman.
"Hehehe," chuckles the demon. "What's this, an opponent who can withstand my presence? No matter you will die just as the others did. After all, to touch me is to touch death itself." he says menacingly.
"Please, I was raised by death herself. You are nothing but a poor and discounted imitation." scoffs Mordred with a roll of her eyes.
Rather than answer her with words, Bloodman snarls and moves onto the attack.
"Magical Barrier Particle Mass!" roars the demon as his magical barrier particle- made up arm launches itself at Mordred.
Exhaling slowly through her mouth, Mordred waits until the arm is mere millimeters away from her face before making her move. In a burst of raw speed she leaves behind an afterimage as she makes her way from her original position to her opponent and easily beheading him in the split second that his body becomes corporeal in order for his attack to connect.
"Next time you want to parade yourself as death incarnate, at least make sure that you yourself cannot fall to her clutches." says Mordred as the demon's head falls from his shoulders and he slowly comes to the realisation that it is in fact dead. In a last ditch effort to kill Mordred, the demon swipes its arm towards her neck only for her to incinerate his entire body when his nails reach millimeters away from slashing her jugular.
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AN: So I'm back and a little rusty, so this chapter is a bit shorter than usual. The next one or two chapters will end the Fairy Tail portion of the vacation and we'll see them revisit at least one world that Ambrosius has already been to before continuing to the next vacation world which will most like be Mortal Kombat (for like two to four chapters). I've also seen your suggestions and feedback, and just didn't answer since I didn't have time then. Once we reach close enough to the end of the entire story I'll most likely put up a poll for the sequel. Right now it's either a sequel with a son of Ambrosius (way more laidback than his dad), a new jumpchain entirely, a campione fic, or an x-men/marvel si/oc. As usual tell me what you guys think, and suggestions and criticism are welcomed.
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