Wall of Heaven

Evil's Incarnation
"How was this so easy?" A mysterious voice laughed, causing Luna a surprising degree of shock. "Oh I'm not sure...but I'm thankful it was." Another one echoed, this time being feminine in nature. "Otherwise, this young lady here would have been obliterated...isn't that right, Lloyd Ōkabe?" In only a single motion, the otherwise immense blast of magic dissipated into two halves, only revealing a lavender spear left cutting through it.

"You two are…" Luna was about to say, before she was suddenly wrapped in a white and red cloth, taken by the arms of a blue-haired female, and placed on the ground. "Heh. Priscilla White and Alejandro...No, Hans Zarkov? What a nice surprise." Lloyd smirked to see the two figures appearing from the remaining smoke left by the brief explosion, both of whom bore a serious expression on their face.

"You don't appear to be very amused to see me here. I wonder why?" Lloyd sarcastically asked, and in a rather blatant response, Hans immediately moved towards his position. While briefly left aback, Lloyd quickly gained his composure and narrowly avoided the thrust sent to his abdomen by shifting to the left, prior to encasing himself in a thin aura of Heavenly Body Magic. "Meteor." He subtly chanted, increasing his speed to a much higher level, zipping around the ground and heading towards Luna's weakened state.

"Oh no you don't!" Priscilla shouted, extending her cloth a wide distance in order to intercept Lloyd's initial assault. As he paused briefly and overcame the cloth by jumping upward, Hans performed the same motion and faced him in close combat. "Aren't you guys a bit too stubborn?" Lloyd lamented comically, effortlessly evading the piercing thrusts that Hans employed and parrying his strikes while surrounded in meteor. The dance between the opponents continued, and it continued surprisingly elegantly. The elongated spear employed by Hans was forming crescent slashes towards Lloyd's position, who was rather calmly sending them away with swift backhanded strikes.

"This isn't moving forward, is it?" Hans commented slyly, before suddenly changing his weapon of choice to numerous knives which floated around him, buzzing with their purple electricity. "So that's your tactic?" Lloyd smirked, leaping backwards with two backflips. "Take this!" The green-haired mage formed a circular motion with both of his hands, releasing a powerful blast of magic - of a blue color - that directly attempted to engulf Hans.

"Ugh!" Hans grunted, moving his swords in front of him to create a makeshift shield, nullifying the majority of the attack that passed through him, leaving minor scars. "Haah…" He panted quietly, before immediately beginning his assault again. This time, he used the knives in a linear formation to follow Lloyd's tracks, whom immediately caught onto the strategy employed by the former Dark Mage and quickly empowered his meteor to steer away from the knives.

Alas, the knives were very fast, and their small size made them particularly difficult to evade. "Let's try another type of tag, shall we?" Lloyd commented cheerfully, before diving in towards Priscilla's position. Priscilla, immediately putting up a barrier with her Storm Cloth, would be shocked to see that the area behind Lloyd would begin forming blue spheres of magical energy. "Shit!" Priscilla unconventionally swore, as the orbs behind Lloyd exploded with a tremendous force, creating a shockwave that both directly harmed Priscilla and Luna, and caused the knives' form to dissipate and make Hans' magic useless.

"Ugh…" Priscilla moaned, to which Luna agreed with her own grunt. Hans descended from the air and looked upon Lloyd with an intent stare, "You...you're playing around, aren't you?" Lloyd jovially burst into laughter. "Oh my, took you some time, didn't it?" His stare sharply increased, and in a matter of moments the trio were kneeling towards the ground.

"W-what!?" Luna shouted with a stutter, as even her words weren't forming correctly. "Hehehe, you guys are such idiots. The fact that you accepted my Heavenly Body Magic as blue without even a single thought...no wonder Nosferatu was able to evade you lot effortlessly." Lloyd laughed at their misery, clicking his fingers and increasing the volatility of the binding placed upon them.

"N-nosfera…" Priscilla tried to say, before her opponent's finger rested over her lips. "Shhhh. There's no need to talk now. But yes, Nosferatu is the man who defeated both you and Norma without a single thought. One of the most prized members of the guild, I must say." Lloyd's tone suddenly descended into a grim mockery, and as he exited the door of the dungeon, he told the three captive mages: "Might I add...that Artemis of yours? He's worse than dead."

Entrance to Hell
"So that Alejandro charged off...and was about to make a distraction...but hasn't come back…" Raziel sighed in response to the current situation, and Artemis was particularly irritated at the current course of events. "This probably means his plan failed. Which means we have to go with Plan B." As the blond mage said that, Carolyn stood up and gave him a stern look, causing his confidence to fail him and cower behind James for protection. "You're that scared?" James asked, the coward's only response was a meek nod.

"Now, in response to Artemis' concerns, I have been analysing the entire area with stealth reinforcements from the Rune Knights. What has been reported to me is the following: the guards at all the other entrances aside from the main entrance are heavily populated, and, there are numerous windows in which one can enter the building. There is only one conclusion we can make from this…" Carolyn paused for a moment, contemplating on how to say the next few portions of what she wished to say.

"This conclusion is?" Raziel asked with an eyebrow open; today he was surprisingly talkative. "The main door is a trap and is a way for us to be immediately defeated by the main force of our enemy." Carolyn quickly said, causing the other to finally think about their next moves. "So, what are you expecting us to do?"Gray asked nonchalantly, still finding this entire situation absolutely ridiculous.

"Charge in from the other sides and take out the main force of the guild in small groups." Carolyn's quick reply was both shocking and predictable. While there was a period of silence, it was quickly broken by the "WAHOO!" Norma had shouted, causing Artemis to simply sigh in response.

"Alrighty, then. Who's splitting up with whom? We're not exactly even numbers and we can't let the Magic Council get involved in a personal affair." He asked, to which Randall suddenly appeared before everyone. "I already have an idea about that, Artemis." Artemis' surprise was evident on his face, but then soon turned bitter. "You could have been here a few minutes before, couldn't you?" He sighed in response to his Master's tardiness, to which a rather unexpected event occurred.

A slender arm wrapped in thick black fabric with a powerful red lining and golden patterns going up the sleeve in a triangular pattern. "Yo, Rezzy boy!" A feminine voice said aloud. The other members saw the woman and cheered in delight, whereas Artemis' anger immediately exploded. "Emilia!" He shouted, attempting to punch the woman that stood behind him. "Now now, calm down." She said cheerfully, blocking the punch and subduing Artemis' attempts in but a second.

"You know you need me to beat these guys so that the rest of you can have some fun, don't you?" The woman named Emilia said, and while Artemis didn't see flaws in her logic...he just didn't like her at all. "Fine, whatever. Let's hurry up and decide on the squads and move out." Artemis walked away from her grip, and she simply laughed it off. "Hasn't changed, has he?" She asked Randall with an almost sisterly tone, before looking up at the building in front of them. "Shall we, then?"

"I believe it's imperative that the others split into teams of two, since there are three other sides. If you wouldn't mind, Gray Fullbuster, you would have to join on the internal effort in order for the teams to be evenly spread out." Carolyn stated, looking upon Emilia and flushing slightly in the presence of one of her own role models. "Heh, you're a good kid...Carolyn, was it?" After being addressed, Carolyn momentarily stuttered, "Y-yes?" Emilia simply chuckled, and then commanded, "Never mind me. Everyone else, you have formations to decide. Hurry up and get moving."

The rest simply nodded in approval and began to organize themselves in appropriate teams. Garrett and Almos were one team, Norma and Gray were another, and Raziel and Artemis were evidently going to pair themselves up. "Norma and Gray, enter from the left. Garrett and Almos, enter from the right. Raziel and Artemis, enter from the back. I shall handle taking care of the strongest forces in the front with possible assistance from Randall if necessary, alright? Now, go." Everyone had simply nodded and began to run quickly to their places where they would begin their ambush, but before that…

"Oi, Slithering Serpent! Come out here so I can kick your asses into next week!" Emilia shouted towards the main building of the Dark Guild. While everyone else's eyes were peeled onto her in astonishment, Randall simply began to laugh like an old man. "She hasn't changed one bit, that girl!"

Although the response was...mediocre in comparison. The only person that walked out of the building was a young man dressed in a long, black coat. "Yo." He greeted, before opening his golden eyes towards the world.

Fin