Chapter 71 - A Bloody Brawl

Fairy Tail: Paths of the Soul

The last thing Amber saw before disappearing was the guildhall in ruin. Her friends lay scattered across the floor, Shelly knelt by her father's side, and Axel was turning back to look at her. Then there was only a blinding blue light, and she felt weightless for a moment. When she opened her eyes, she was standing on the roof of a building overlooking the harbor. The festival was in full swing, and she could see a barge launching off fireworks in the bay. She moved to cover her ears, when another bright light blinded her.

"Wait!" She cried, trying to struggle free of the masked man's icy grip on her shoulder. She landed on the ground in the middle of a forest, barely able to keep her balance when she disappeared again. "Stop it!" She landed again, but couldn't even make out any of her surroundings before being blinded once more. With each new location, the landing became a little harder, almost to the point now that the masked man's hand on her shoulder was the only think keeping her upright. "Let go of me!" She landed on a rock this time, and just as she could feel another light coming, swung her elbow back. "Dad, knock it off!"

She felt her elbow hit something just as she was about to land again, and the hand disappeared from her shoulder. She saw another light, but stayed in place. For a moment at least. She landed hard on all fours in a pit of mud. She gasped and spat the earthy taste out of her mouth, wiping some of the spatter off her cheek, when she saw another flash out of the corner of her eye.

The masked man was back, hovering just above the mud and rubbing the Jaw of his mask. "Amber?" He questioned. "Is everything aright?"

"What-?" She sputtered, wiping more mud away from her lip, "What are you doing here?!" She screamed, pushing herself up into a kneeling position. "Why did you come here?"

"I needed more magic." He said simply. "I sensed something, something powerful in that building. And I came to take it." Amber huffed, looking out in every direction to get some sort of clue as to her location. Unfortunately, the trees surrounding her offered no such insight. She felt a hand on the back of her neck, and turned to see the masked man had crouched down next to her, still hovering above the muck. "You cut your hair..." He mumbled softly. "It looks good."

Without warning, Amber's belt jumped away and transformed into a sword. The man disappeared as it slashed wildly at him, reappearing standing on the root of a nearby tree. The sword transformed again, and Armeria sunk up to her waist in the mud, bearing her teeth at the man. "Stay away."

The masked man chuckled. "Looks like she still doesn't like me." He glanced off in the distance for a moment as Amber continued to wipe the mud away, before focusing on her once again. "We should go home, Amber. It's not safe for you out here."

Amber slowly stood up, staring in the opposite direction of the man. "Dad... Did you kill him?" She clenched her hands into fists, her breath growing shallow when he didn't respond right away. "Did you kill the guild master?"

The man glanced off in the same direction, then shrugged. "I don't know. I was only there for their magic, and he got in my way." Amber took a sudden deep breath through her nose, a flood of horrible thoughts filling her mind. They all stopped however, when she winced away from the man as he teleported closer to her with his arm outstretched. "But it doesn't matter. If anyone comes after you, I'll kill them."

Amber took another deep breath, then with a grimace, took the man's hand. "Amber, no." Armeria grasped at her leg, frantically shaking her head.

"What else are we going to do...?" She mumbled, picking her familiar up and holding her to her chest. "We can't go back." Armeria looked up at her with concern in her eyes, but Amber didn't return her gaze. She took the masked man's hand, and the three of them disappeared in a flash once more.

Present 

That brief interaction played through Amber's mind as she sat crouched next to a building to catch her breath. She'd considered using her King Shield to fly away, making it impossible for the others to follow her, but she didn't have much faith in that plan. Vax had far more terrible things locked away in his workshop than those undead solders. If he decided to set any of them on the hunt... She didn't even want to think about what would happen to the others. She had to make them leave, and she had to do it now.

Deciding to continue on foot, Amber pushed herself up to her feet, knowing what she had to do. "Keep fighting..." She muttered to herself, forcing her legs to move. "Just keep fighting..."

She stepped into an open plaza between three buildings, and turned down the main street. The second she did however, the ground began to shake, and a large metal wall rose up out of the sand with a dull rumble. Amber gasped, how had they found her so fast? She turned to dash back into the ally she'd been hiding in, when a thick wire fence rose up to block her path.

Spinning round, the same thing happened to any other entrance she so much as glanced at. Metal sliders closed over windows, doors where barred with planks of iron, even a spider net of chains sprawled overhead. Even if she wanted to, flying away was out of the question now. She spied Rift standing atop one of the metal walls, his arms crossed with a disapproving look on his face. She couldn't tell exactly what he was looking at behind his shades, but had a pretty good guess that it was her. Zeke sat on his shoulder, looking far less stoic. He looked to be almost in tears, a sight which tugged on her heart.

"Amber?" She spun around again to the sound of Shelly's voice, just in time to see her walk out of one last alleyway, before it too was blocked by a large metal door. She'd rolled the waistband of her skirt a few times, revealing a pair of black training shorts that hugged her upper thighs, and she slowly lowered her book-bag into the sand. She'd prepared for a fight, a realization that caused a lump to form in Amber's throat. "Amber, I won't abandon you."

Amber's blood ran cold. She gripped her sword with both hands and shuffled backwards in the sand. "S-stay away." She tried to sound commanding, but the stutter in her voice made that a meaningless effort. "I told you, I want to be left alone!"

"You're lying..." Shelly responded blankly. "But I know your scared. You want us to leave because you're afraid of what that masked guy will do." Amber shook her head, finding it starkly annoying that Shelly understood her reasons, but still wouldn't leave. It didn't chance anything however, she still had to get them to leave before Vax came out looking for her again. If that happened, none of them would be able to stop him. As she thought about this, Shelly took up a fighting stance, spreading her feet apart and raising her blades. "But if you want me to stop following you, you'll have to make me."

Amber's heart caught in her throat. She didn't want that. The last thing she wanted was to hurt her; that was literally the thing she was trying to avoid. But with Rift boxing her in, she didn't see much choice. If she could make Shelly call for help, he'd be sure to jump in, and in that moment, she'd be able to slip away. "Don't make me hurt you." Amber gripped her sword with both hands, hating herself for even saying that. Shelly didn't back down from her threat, and with a shallow sigh, Amber charged forwards.

The inside of the casino wasn't as dark as Geno would have guessed. There where plenty of skylights, albeit with most of the glass broken, that allowed in just enough moonlight to see. Even still, the abundance of dead neon signs, reflective gold paint, and other bits and bobbles made navigating this decrepit building an easy task.

The next room he came into looked like some sort of grand hallway. A staircase before him descended into a large round room, acting as an intersection of five different corridors. The floor itself was covered in sand, but a few tatters of a deep red colored carpet poked out here and there, and overhead hung a giant, ornate chandelier that would have taken up most of the space in the guild hall back home. It was here, atop one of the chandelier's many brass arms, where Keel stood watching him with a toothy smirk.

Geno stepped into the main room, digging his heel into the sand in preparation for the battle that was about to commence. "Finally done runnin', are ya?" He spun Agrius over in his hand a few times, catching the broken broadsword backhanded like a knife. "There a reason we're standing here? Or where ya just up for a jog?"

"Settin' the mood." Keel chuckled. He threw out his arm, exposing his bear chest beneath his poncho. "I got orders. And of all you intruders, you seem like you'd be the most fun to kill." As he spoke, Keel dug his fingers into the scar across his chest, ripping the stitches as he pulled the skin apart. "To bad for you though, you can’t kill me boy. You can't kill what's already dead!"

The skin moved apart as if he was taking off a shirt, so far that Geno could see the man's rib-cage. Gore wasn't anything new to him, but he had to admit that was more than a little off-putting. "Fancy yourself unkillable, do ya?" He braced himself, growing annoyed with the man as he removed his fingers and let the skin slide back into place. "Let's put that to the test!"

Tightening his grip on his weapon, Geno took a quick run up and jumped off the top step, flying through the air at Keel's perch. Keel grinned wildly, leaping back just as Geno swung down at him with his broken broadsword.

The slash divided the chandelier in two, raining bits of brass and shattered glass into the floor below. Half of the ornament crashed to the ground immediately, followed quickly by the second half as it's anchor tore free from the ceiling.

Keel flew backwards out of the debris cloud, never loosing his grin. Geno flew out after him in an elbow tackle, which Keel blocked with his arms crossed over his chest. Geno followed up with a strong kick to his stomach, knocking the two combatants apart.

Landing on the far side of the room, Keel slid backwards in the sand, still grinning over his crossed arms. Geno landed with a roll, and set upon him in barely a second. He sprang into a leaping knee kick, which connected with Keel's face. Keeping up the assault, Geno threw a strong right hook into the side of Keel's head, followed by a sweeping kick from the left into his side. Keel seemed stunned, but his expression was hidden below the rim of his triangular cowboy hat. Looking to end it, Geno spun with the momentum of his kick and swung Agrus down on him.

The jagged end of the broken blade caught in his shoulder, and carried on to leave a long slice from there to the man's opposite hip, splattering black blood across the sand at their feet. Keel dropped to his knees motionless, his head bowed like a man in repent.

Geno stood up straight, cleaning the jagged end of his blade with a single flick of his wrist. "Huh..." The short duration of the fight came as a surprise to him: for all his bluster, Keel was surprisingly bad at defending himself. "Guess he was all talk..."

Shaking his head, he stepped around his kneeling opponent and made for the grand stairway again. Now that he'd finished up here, he could backtrack to find the others. He hoped everyone was OK, but Amber had a look in her eye that he hadn't seen from her before. A crazed, frantic look of an animal just trying to stay alive.

Just as he took his first step into the staircase, he heard the sand shift behind him, and instantly spun around. "Surprise!" Keel bellowed, standing upright and with his hands outstretched. The black blood that had seeped from his slash wound sprang to life, creeping up his arms and launching at Geno.

He barely had enough time to defend himself. He crossed his arms, in a fashion mirroring how Keel had attempted to block his blows, but realized all too late that Keel wasn't making a direct attack. The blood adhered to his wrists like a thick glob of glue, and Geno flew off the ground when Keel gave the bloody tether a sudden tug.

The speed at which he'd counterattacked was incredible. Geno's vision became an unintelligible blur, until he finally caught a glimpse of the ceiling when Keel slammed him hard onto his back. Coughing up a wad of blood, Geno could do nothing as Keel threw him yet again. He crashed through a wall and hit the ground, rolling through the sand until something in his path was resilient enough to stop him.

It took Geno a moment to get his bearings. His two sudden hard impacts, not to mention the nauseating speed he'd been flying through the air, had done a pretty good job of scrambling his brain. He spit out another wad of blood, and wiped his chin while pushing off one knee to his feet. "Don't... Want to do that again."

The room he was in looked like a games room. Billiard tables half buried in sand, old slot machines lining the walls, balconies to the upper levels... He let out a slow sigh when he realized he'd moved farther into the casino, the exact opposite of what he'd wanted to do. His eyes fell to the wall he'd been thrown through, where he spotted Keel standing in break he'd made. "Did you really think that was it!?" He screamed in a fit of laughter. "A man rips his own chest open right in front of ya, and you think one little slash is all it'll take to stop him!? Are you sure you're payin' attention?"

Geno grumbled in annoyance, he may have been a better fighter than he first thought, but Geno's first assumption was still right. Keel was all talk. "Then get down here and I'll keep slashing until you drop for good."

Keel's grin widened. "Aww, that's the spirit." He stepped off the ledge and dropped into the sand, throwing up a cloud of dust. He bolted forwards an instant later, crossing the room in only a few seconds. Geno opened up with a decapitating slash, while Keel dropped and slid past him on his knees. Geno spun to follow up, but had to forgo his attack to dodge a lash of Keel's bloody tendrils.

Geno landed and broke into a run, but only made it a few steps before a roulette table entangled in Keel's bloody webbing slammed into his back. He stumbled to his knees, to late to stop the decaying man's hand from closing around his neck. There wasn't much of a follow-up, Keel tossed him backwards like a cat toying with a mouse, but Geno landed on his feet and charged in with another slash.

He was effective for the post part. The jagged end of his blade dug into the shoulder of Keel's poncho, and he could feel it hit bone, but Keel didn't even seem to notice. He followed with a quick jab, but Keel brushed his fist aside and threw a punch of his own into Geno's gut. Coughing on another wad of blood, Geno quickly swiped at Keel's face with Agrus. A cut appeared on the grinning man's chest, just below his throat, but he stepped into a strong kick that landed in the center of Geno's chest. This caught Geno off guard; he wasn't use to having his opponents counterattack after he'd landed a hit. He'd have to play very defensive if he didn't want to be turned into another of the masked man's undead puppets.

Leaping backwards, Geno drew the chain from around his waist as the roulette table from before came flying back at him. He sliced through the table in a single swing, but Keel was right there waiting for him on the other side. He grabbed both sides of his head, and brought their foreheads together with a painful thud. The two men landed, but only Keel was on his feet. Taking Geno's hands in both of his, Keel began to spin, completing three revolutions before his tendrils extended, throwing Geno like a ragdoll once again.

Geno flew higher this time, crashing into one of the balcony's overlooking the game floor. He didn't hit anything this time either, coming to a natural rolling stop staring at the ceiling. "Holy..." He muttered, feeling his vision spin as blood dripped between his eyes. "This guy's kickin' my ass." He pushed himself upright, waiting for his vision to clear. When it finally did, what he found was a half-buried skull staring back at him from the sand. He abruptly stood up, thinking it another of Keel's ghoulish magics, but it remained still. Once his eyes readjusted, he began to notice more skulls littering the floor around him; whole skeletons even, a lot of them. A mound of bones sat closer to the balcony wall, almost hidden in the shadow of the moonlight. "What the hell?"

"Oh yeah... That was us." Keel mused, sitting on the balcony railing while lighting a cigarette. "Bosses orders: nobody to get in the way of his... Grand plan. Bug contraptions did a lot of the work, but he sent us out to clear the buildings afterwards." He took a long drag on his cigarette, and the smoke began to leek out through he slashes across his chest. "Not everyone was brave enough to run, after all."

"You killed them..." Geno mumbled, feeling a fire burning in the pit of his stomach. There had to be a hundred-people's worth of bones here. What was more, he began to notice more bones on the other balconies. It was no wonder the entire place smelt like death. "What threat where they to you?" He asked, tightly gripping Agrus in one hand and his chain in the other. "Basterd..."

"Oh, don't get mad. I just do what I'm told." He shrugged, finishing his smoke and flicking the butt over the railing. "Least... That's what I tell people. I do kind of enjoy the violence though. Probably wasn't a very good guy before I got turned into some kinda' zombie." He slowly began to approach. Geno thought about striking back, but the thought of what these people must have gone through made him freeze. Keel must've been standing right behind him by the time he spoke again. "Think about that girly, though. The one who was all torn up about you bein' here." A flashback of The scene at the fountain flew through Geno's mind, and how distraught AMber had been. "Now, I could care less about her. But as long as she doesn't get in the way, the boss man want's her left alone." He chuckled under his breath. "But, she does something dumb, and the boss man want's us to get rid of her? I'd peel the skin off her bones."

Geno gritted his teeth, feeling the anger boil over. In a flash, he turned and threw an uppercut square into Keel's chin, sending him soaring back over the railing and into the game room.

Keel crashed into a pair of slot machines, which toppled over with the force of the impact. Undeterred, Keel wiped a river of black blood from his mouth and nose as he sat up straight. "Got your attention, did I?" Geno lunged at him, the blind fury he felt on full display. Staring at the blood in his hand, Keel chuckled once more. "I'm starting to remember what fun feels like..." Mashing the blood together between his fingers, Keel drew a line from sternum to belly button, then a U shape through it to make a mark resembling a trident. The blood began to glow, and Geno's expression changed instantly as Keel thrust out his chest. "Naberus!"

A blade erupted from the dead man's stomach, heading straight at Geno. He rolled to the side in mid air, narrowly avoiding being impaled, but the blade still inflicted a long slice across his torso just above the hip. He landed with a pained grunt, crumpling in a heap and rolling to crash into another slot machine.

He gasped in agony, clutching at the stinging cut that ran just above his hip. "You can't..." He grunted through gritted teeth, watching the rest of Keel's weapon emerge from his stomach. It resembled a flat skull with a long set of jaws, a dull yellow eye where the eye socket would have been, and a horn acting as a hand guard. Keel gripped a few vertebrae that made up the hilt, and rested the blade over his shoulder. "How the hell...?"

"Nice, ain't it?" Keel mused, grinning his eternal grin down at him. "You're not the only one here who uses Blood Seal Magic."

"That's impossible..." Geno gasped. Just breathing hurt, which made rising to his feet even more of a chore. "You're dead, our magic is supposed to die with us..." He stared at Agrus, it's broken blade and misshapen cross guard, focusing on the milky green eye that sat at it's center. "Our weapons die when we die, you shouldn't-."

"Curious thing, huh?" Keel interrupted, flicking his finger off one of Naberus' many pointed teeth. "I'm no expert on this... So it could all be total BS, but I think this thing is why I'm more... Alive, than some of the other freaks the masked man's got runnin' around this place." He began to chuckle, amused by Geno's confused expression. "You might've noticed I talk more than the other undead the masked man keeps."

Keel continued to laugh, thinking on his own situation seemed to be incredibly amusing to him. Geno however, couldn't say the same. He couldn't compete with a fully formed weapon like the one Keel had just produced. Not with a broken one at least. What was worse, the two of them had traded pretty equal blows, yet he was the only one that they seemed to be taking a tole on. He'd need a new plan, probably something at range. He gathered up and handful of blood and began drawing a circle on his hip.

"Not a chance!" Keel dove at him, thrusting the tip of his weapon at Geno's hand. He stepped back, but the blade's jaw opened like a pair of scissors, and the two rows of teeth shot past both sides of Geno's neck.

Desperate, Geno dropped onto his back, just in the nick of time as the jaws shot closed. Keel stepped over him, and the jaw opened again, this time over Geno's waist. Geno flipped backwards onto his feet, when the blade of the closed jaws swiped at him again, leaving a small cut through the center of the circle he'd tried to draw.

Getting some distance between them, Geno grabbed at his hip and called. "Scox!" But there was no response. He looked down to see what the problem was, only to see the sigil he'd tried to draw was lost in the splatter of blood.

"Can't call your weapons if the sigil isn't clear..." Keel muttered, resting his blade over his shoulder. "C'mon, you had to know that. Right?"

"Do you ever shut up?" Geno growled.

Keel's grin grew even bigger, almost spreading from one side of his face to the other. "Nope!" He whirled the sword over his head, before bringing it down on Geno like an axe.

Geno sprang back, whipping his chain at Keel's face. He missed the mark, but it was enough to keep Keel from following up. Geno hopped back again, rolling over a billiard table to get a little more distance between them. When he looked up again, Keel held the tip of his weapon in the sand, the grin never leaving his face.

"What's the matter...?" He mumbled. "Starting to slow down? Feeling tired? Can't say I remember what that's like."

Geno shook his head, focusing through the pain. Keel's weapon, Nabrius, was much longer than Agrus, and the jaw on the back was certainly a problem. But now that he knew it's trick, Geno found himself a lot more at ease than when Keel had first summoned it. He coiled his chain around his wrist a few times, then hooked one of it's broken links into the end of Agrus' hilt. Forget needing another weapon, he'd slay the grinning man with what he had. Play it safe, and work the freak over until his body gave out on him. That was the plan.

"What's the matter? Not up for talking anymore?" Keel continued to prod. "That bit about, pealing her skin off her bones, really get-?"

"You know... Back in my tribe we had a rule..." Geno interrupted. "Fighting, hunting, competition, you could feel whatever you wanted... But whatever you where doing, you weren't aloud to hate your opponent."

"Weren't ya, now?" Keel chuckled, tilting his head to see where this was going.

"Nothing good ever comes from hating something." Geno shrugged. "It doesn't fuel a warrior's soul, it incinerates it. It's the difference between being a warrior and being a barbarian." With a shallow breath, Geno spun his weapon over in his hands and caught it so that the jagged end was pointing at Keel, issuing a silent challenge. "But... I think I'll break that rule; to get rid of you."

Next Chapter – A Father's Fight: Part 2