บท 94: Getting Back into Shape
Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Magnolia.
September, x781.
A little more than six months have passed since Gildarts accepted the 100-Years Quest. Since then, there has been no word from him. However, considering that he was the strongest member of the guild, no one was particularly worried about him.
During that time, however, a few things of note happened. First, A country from another continent, the Alvarez Empire, gathered an army and crossed the sea to attack the Kingdom of Fiore. More specifically, Fairy Tail in the Kingdom of Fiore. However, thanks to a new weapon that had been developed in secret by the Magic Council called Etherion, the invasion was stopped before much progress could be made.
More locally, Macao's wife, Enno, divorced him. She had grown tired of being left at home alone to take care of their son, Romeo, while he spent most of the time he was not on a quest at the guild hall drinking with his friends. Naturally, Macao did his best to change her mind. Unfortunately, his efforts did not bear fruit.
Lastly, Alfonzo was cleared by Porlyusica to start taking quests again. Meaning, Alfonzo's injury from the Leviathan had been healed completely. And that led to the current scene at the guild hall.
Currently, Alfonzo was standing opposite both Gray and Natsu on the training ground behind the guild hall.
"Why do I have to team up with the streaker?" Natsu grumbled.
"You think I wanna team up with you ether, flame brain?"
"What did you say?" Natsu shouted as he turned to Gray.
"You didn't hear me?" Gray shot back. "I guess all that fire in your head burned your ear drums."
"You wanna fight, Snowball?" Natsu shouted.
"Any time!" Gray shouted in return.
"*Sigh* I just wanted to spar with them to knock the rust off." Alfonzo muttered as he watched the wizards of fire and ice argue. "But this was probably a bad idea in hindsight."
While Alfonzo was complaining about his bad idea and Gray and Natsu argued, the rest of the guild, who thought a match between them would be entertaining, watched on in bewilderment. Eventually, Alfonzo grew tired of waiting and began to speak once again.
"Alright, look." Alfonzo said, pulling Gray and Natsu's attention to himself. "If you guys team up and can beat me, I'll cook whatever you want for a week… Free of charge."
At that moment, silence fell between Gray and Natsu while each of them gained a level of clarity that no one in Fairy Tail had ever seen in their eyes. Then, the two younger wizards made eye contact for a moment before nodding to each other.
"Look at that." Elicia said with a smug smile on her face. "I told you Fonzie's cooking can bring world peace."
Meanwhile, the other wizards of Fairy Tail's younger generation all rolled their eyes at Elicia's boast. Then, Ultear and Mirajane looked at the left ring fingers of Elicia, Cana, Erza, and Sun with envy.
By now, Alfonzo had proposed to Erza as well. Plus, he made a ring for Sun, who he was engaged to him after the incident with the Leviathan.
Meanwhile, Ur and Ren, who were standing with Gozaburo and Masa, watched the younger wizards with nostalgic smiles.
"Ah… It's good to be young." Ren said.
"Isn't it?" Ur replied.
Around that time, Gray and Natsu took some distance from each other. Then, they both took their fighting stances. Alfonzo followed shortly after, creating a pair of Eskrima sticks in his hands.
"Are the participants ready?" Makarov asked after seeing Alfonzo, Gray, and Natsu take their stances. "Then, let the match begin."
As soon as Makarov gave the signal, Natsu shot forward while Gray made the proper hand gesture for his [Ice-Make Magic]. Meanwhile, Alfonzo prepared himself to engage Natsu in close quarters combat.
"[Ice-Make Magic: Floor]." Gray said as he slammed his palms on the ground, freezing the entire fighting area in a matter of seconds.
At the same time, Natsu started emitting high temperatures from the soles of his feet, melting the ice just enough that he would not lose his footing. Alfonzo also countered the frozen ground easily enough, creating a thin layer of metal on the soles of his boots with ice spikes extending from them.
A moment later, with is hands covered in flames, Natsu arrived in front of Alfonzo.
"[Fire Dragon's Iron Fist]." Natsu chanted as he threw a flurry of punches at Alfonzo.
In response, Alfonzo changed the metal sticks into flame resistant metal. Then, he used them to parry Natsu's punches, before dropping down and attempting to sweep Natsu's legs out from under him. Reacting quickly, Natsu jumped high into the air to avoid the leg sweep.
Meanwhile, still from a distance, Gray had made his hand gesture again.
"[Ice Make: Lance]." Gray chanted, causing a dozen ice spikes to form and extend toward Alfonzo from the magic circle in front of his hands.
In response, Alfonzo jammed the ends of the sticks together, causing them to fuse. Then, he made the new, short staff elongate into a long staff before he began spinning it in front of him to destroy the incoming lances.
Meanwhile, Natsu, who had reached the peak of his leap, engulfed his right leg in flames as he lifted it above his head.
"[Fire Dragon's Talon]!" Natsu shouted while falling toward Alfonzo.
Alfonzo, instead of receiving the kick head on, side stepped the incoming axe kick, causing Natsu's foot to slam into the frozen ground, melting quite a bit of the surrounding ice. Then, before he could recover, Alfonzo spun on his left foot and delivered a devastating roundhouse kick to Natsu's chest.
"Gah!" Natsu groaned as he flew back towards Gray with saliva leaking from his mouth.
A moment later, Natsu slammed into the frozen ground and rolled the rest of the way toward Gray. Instead of stopping him, however, Gray sprinted forward, jumping over Natsu as he passed. He knew that giving Alfonzo time to act was a bad idea. So, he intended to keep the pressure on with close combat.
"[Ice-Make: Cold Slicer]." Gray chanted as he ran forward while making the hand gestures for his magic.
A moment later, Gray separated his hands, flinging them outward. Then, a barrage of crescent shaped ice blades were sent flying toward Alfonzo. In response, Alfonzo released his left arm from the bow staff. Then he pointed his palm at the incoming projectiles.
"[Electromagnetism Magic: Chidori Senbon]." Alfonzo chanted with a battle thirsty smile on his face.
As he chanted, Alfonzo's left hand was covered in crackling blue lightning that sounded like the chirping of a thousand birds. Then, like Gray had done, he swept his arm to the side, causing thin needles of electricity to fly toward the crescent ice blades.
*Psssh!* *Psssh!* *Psssh!*
As the projectiles collided in mid-air, the sound of the ice superheating and turning directly to steam could be heard throughout the training ground. Meanwhile, Gray continued his dash, ignoring the hot steam as he approached Alfonzo.
A moment later, Gray was standing in front of Alfonzo with his hands in the signature [Ice-Make] gesture.
"[Ice-Make: Seven Slice Dance]." Gray chanted as a curved blade grew from each of his forearms.
In the next instant, Gray moved his arms while gracefully spinning in place, slashing the blades on is arms at Alfonzo a total of seven times. Unfortunately for Gray, Alfonzo, a practitioner of Eskrima, knew exactly how to deal with a dual wielding foe.
Returning the bow staff to the form of two Eskrima sticks, Alfonzo parried the seven slashes. Then, before Gray could recover, he thrust the tips of the sticks into Gray's chest while electrically charging them with his [Electromagnetism Magic].
"[Electromagnetism Magic: Shock Impact]." Alfonzo chanted as the ends of the Eskrima sticks landed on Gray's chest.
"Argh!" Gray screamed in pain as electricity coursed through his body.
A moment later, Gray fell to the ground, twitching. At the same time, Natsu was finally able to stop himself. Then, he jumped to his feet and placed his hands in front of his mouth in the shape of a tube before taking a deep breath.
"[Fire Dragon's Roar]!" Natsu chanted before breathing into the space between is fingers.
A moment later, a jet of fire was shot from Natsu's hands toward Alfonzo and Gray, who was still twitching on the ground.
Since Gray was in no shape to avoid the attack, Alfonzo casually kicked him toward Ur. Then, he dispersed the Eskrima sticks. A moment later, a trap door on Alfonzo's upper arm opened. Then, a large volume of dull, golden sand ground from Orichalcum flowed out.
"Is that gold? No… orichalcum?" Makarov asked. "Where on Earth Land can you find that much orichalcum?"
"Fonzie made it, Gramps." Elicia replied.
"How? When?" Makarov asked in confusion.
"Well, when he wasn't able to train or go on quests, he would use up all his magic power making orichalcum." Elicia explained. "Because it's such a powerful metal, he couldn't make much in one sitting, though. So, instead of melting it down with the other pieces, he ground it all into sand and stored it in his arm."
Back on the battlefield, Alfonzo willed the sand to flow in front of him.
"[Metal Magic: Metal Sand Wall]." Alfonzo chanted, causing the Sand to compact itself into a wall.
At that moment, Natsu's breath attack collided with the orichalcum sand wall, melting some of it into a molten mass. However, the attack was stopped, nonetheless.
"Oh, Thanks, Natsu." Alfonzo exclaimed happily. "I'll be able to use that for something later."
"I wasn't trying to help you out!" Natsu shouted as he dashed forward.
While he ran, Natsu spread his arms to his sides. A moment later, a flaming orb appeared in each of his outstretched hands.
"Flames in my right hand! Flames in my left!" Natsu shouted as he ran forward. Then, he brought his hands, that were now holding one large orb of fire, together. "Put 'em both together, and what do you get?"
"Sorry, Bruh, I don't have time to find out." Alfonzo said. "[Metal Magic: Metal Sand Coffin]."
"[Fire Dragon's Brilliant---]. Gah!" Natsu said, starting to chant the name of his spell before he was interrupted.
Before Natsu could finish his spell, a cocoon of orichalcum sand surrounded him, leaving only his head visible. On top of that, the sand that was melted together by the flames in Natsu's hands were used to create cuffs that restrained Natsu's hands and feet inside the cocoon.
"Ahh~~~! Damn it! Let me go!" Natsu shouted, completely unbothered by the heat from the molten metal.
"Well, I think that's a wrap." Alfonzo said as he glanced over at Gray who was still convulsing due to the electric shock.
"No, I haven't lost yet!" Natsu shouted with flames leaking from his mouth with every word.
"Give it up, Natsu." Happy said, flying over and landing on Natsu's head. "You can't even move. And this is only a spar. You lost."
"But my food." Natsu muttered in a defeated tone.
"Poor Natsu." Happy said while patting Natsu on the head with his front paw.
A moment later, the orichalcum sand flew away from Natsu. Then, it returned to the trap door on Alfonzo's arm. Meanwhile, Alfonzo was approaching Gray. When he arrived next to the downed ice wizard, he placed his right hand on Gray's chest. Then, all the electricity was sucked out of the twitching wizard's body.
"Take it easy, Gray." Alfonzo said while patting Gray on the shoulder. "You'll be numb for a few minutes. But other than that, you should be fine."
Unable to respond, Gray simply closed his eyes and lay on the ground without moving. Meanwhile, Natsu rushed toward Alfonzo once he was free.
"Come on, Alfonzo!" Natsu shouted as he drew near. "Let's go it again! Gimme another chance to get that week of free food."
"Sorry man, that ship has set sail already." Alfonzo replied with a smile. "But you and Gray really helped me out. Though I'm not completely back to where I was before the injury, yet. I feel like I'll be there soon."
"But… The free food…' Natsu whined.
"So, as a thank you for your help, I'll cook something for you, and Gray before I take a quest." Alfonzo said. "How does that sound?"
With that, Natsu's depressed expression disappeared. Then, his eyes lit up.
"Alfonzo, you're the best!" Natsu cheered happily.
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