Chapter 32 - Mutt

Fairy Tail: Paths of the Soul

A bushel of leaves rustled high in the trees; Lyra swung under a branch and leapt through the air. "Man... Now there's two of them." She mumbled to herself, landing crouched on another branch. "If any more of them show up, Thain's going to be super mad at me." She soon reached her destination, the clearing with the fountain where the fight had begun. She stopped to survey the area from a high branch, when she saw the heiress of the house, Lir Omnison dashing down a path towards the fountain.

Lyra drew another knife from her belt, carefully considering her options. She spun the knife between her fingers a few times, watching Lir stop to catch her breath on the fountain's edge. The more she thought about it, the less she liked it, but she couldn't risk her sounding an alarm. Hell, why the other mages hadn't done so already was still a mystery to her, but she had to make her escape, and soon. And that would mean eliminating witnesses.

Sighing to herself, Lyra caught her knife like a dart, and stood up to make the throw. "Sorry..."

She hesitated for just a moment, but just as she drew her arm back the branch she was standing on fell from under her. She barely had enough time to scream before hitting the ground, uttering barely a squeak as all the air exited her lungs. It took her a moment to compose herself, and be able to take a full breath again, but the first thing she noticed was an early blue glow in the shadows not too far away, resting on the head of an unsettlingly familiar silhouette.

Geno stepped into the light a moment later, his eye glowing with a blue fire and a new weapon resting across his shoulders. "Hey." He grinned, glaring at her with accusing eyes. "You weren't going to do what I think you were going to do, where ya?"

Lyra barely heard him, fixating on the massive sword over his shoulder. Though; sword was probably the wrong word to describe the thing. It looked more like a cleaver actually, but it had to be at least be six feet long and the bladed side zig-zagged back and forth kind of like a saw. What could only be described as a spine ran along the thing's dull side, and Geno held the it by a large bone acting as a hilt. The thing that really caught her attention though, was a huge blue eye siting between the blade and the grip, seemingly staring straight through her.

"Hello?" Geno leaned closer, looking kind of amused by Lyra's reaction. "What's the matter lass? Not up for fighting anymore?"

Brought back to her senses, Lyra instantly hopped to her feet. "Nope!" She turned and ran. Forget the job, forget the Rainbow Stone, and forget Thain. This guy looked like he was going to kill her. She passed through a bush to find Lir gawking at her in surprise. Lyra had completely forgotten about her, but as soon as she took her first step onto the bricked clearing a red flash zoomed out of the bush. Fiona came to a halt just in front of Lir, griping the chain Geno had been using in her hands.

Lyra tossed a par of knives at them, then turned ninety degrees to get back into cover. Fiona had no trouble blocking the attack, but Lyra didn’t care. She was just trying to buy herself some time.

"Stay with the kid!" She heard Geno shout, just as a shadow loomed over her. Lyra glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Geno's blue glowing eye right behind her, his massive cleaver poised for the kill.

She dropped out of the way just in time to avoid Geno's swing, feeling the rush of air against her back. The tops of a nearby hedge flew away, and even some of trees behind them where chopped clean in two. "Holy crap!" She rolled into the bushes, feeling her heart pounding in her chest. Not bothering to look back, Lyra sprung to her feet and ran. Something was wrong, he was not this tough before. She could barely form a plan now, let alone fight back. "Dammit, this sucks!" She cried, coming to a small clearing in the trees.

Thinking desperately, Lyra drew another knife. Her whole body began to glow, and over two dozen doppelgangers all appeared around her. If she couldn't beat them or out run them, she'll have to outsmart them.

She found Geno stepping around one of the trees when she finally looked back again, the same grin plastered on his face. "Oh? What's this about?" He chuckled, setting the end of his weapon in the dirt. "Tryin' to fight me head on, lass?"

"As if." She and her doppelgangers all spoke in unison, giving no hint as to which one was really her. "You can't win if you don't know where I am. And I'll stab you in the back the second you pass me."

Geno scratch his chin. "A gamble then, interesting strategy." Lyra couldn't believe it; she was just trying to intimidate him a little. Was he seriously going to fight her again? "Too bad though, I know which one's the real you, lass."

Lyra froze. "What?"

She was stunned, and in that moment Geno took a big step to build momentum. He spun on his heel, his weapon carving a wide circle in the ground, and after a full rotation Geno lobbed the cleaver straight at the crowd of Lyras.

The first line of her copies all fell at once as the weapon spiraled through the air. Lyra was blinded by the bright flashes of her clones disappearing, so she didn't see the cleaver coming her way until the flat of the blade swatted her away like a toy. She flew through a hedge and landed on one of the rough stone paths, instantly knocking the wind out of her, and Geno's weapon landed right next to her. "How..." She gasped, glairing back through the hole she'd made in the bush. "How did...?"

"How'd I know which one was the real you?" Geno bragged, pointing to his glowing blue eye. "These weapons o' mine, they're still alive. They see what I see. But instead of seeing colors and shapes like you and I do. They see magic, blood, and bone."

Lyra glanced down at his fallen weapon, and the thing's grotesque blue eye swivelled to stare right back at her. "Ahhh!" She screamed and jumped back, not sure what to think anymore.

"The kicker is..." Geno continued, seemingly enjoying her reaction. "When I call on these things, I get that power too. That broken one I used, Agrus... Well, that one's dead. So I don't see jack." He kicked through the hedge to join her on the path, scooping up his cleaver and resting it on his shoulder. "This one though? Well... Your doppelgangers don't got any blood or bones, do they? Just magic."

Lyra rolled over and dashed away, even though she was still short on breath. A red flash shot past her and she felt herself be sucked into the brush again. She landed with her back to a tree, a narrow chain around her arms and stomach binding her to it.

Fiona came to a stop beside her, holding the ends to keep Lyra in place. "Game over, honey."

Lyra gave a long sigh of defeat, knowing she couldn't get out of this now. "Oh yeah. One more thing." Geno chirped, holding his cleaver out like a baseball bat. "Each one of these weapons comes with its own gamic too. Mammon here, weighs maybe a hundred pounds." He admired his weapon a moment, before flashing a massive grin in Lyra's direction. "But to me, she's completely weightless."

He took a step, then broke into a full dash right at Lyra. "Geno wait!" Fiona protested, but didn't want to get in the way because she wasn't sure she'd be able to stop him. Lyra cried, kicking franticly to get free as Geno swung at her again. An ear-splitting crunch rang throughout the greenhouse, and a cascade of leaves rained down on them. Fiona waited a moment, but finally worked up the nerve to look again only to find Geno had completely missed. Mammon's blade had chopped half way through the tree a few inches above Lyra's head. She, however was slumped over, passed out from shock. "My god, I thought you were going to kill her." Fiona huffed, resting her hands on her sides in disapproval.

"Well yeah, that was the point." Geno shrugged, standing up straight again. "If she still had any copies out there, I didn't want'em running for help. And I wasn't about to punch her lights out, you'd already caught her."

Fiona opened her mouth to argue, but realised that he had a pretty good point. "There is something seriously wrong with you..." She mumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. "And right after you explain exactly how your magic works too. Who in their right mind would do that?"

Mammon, as Geno called it, melted into a mass of blood and flowed back into Geno's hand. "Aww, come on. We handled it. You didn't think she'd be able to best the both of us, did ya? Between my strength and your Velocity Magic, she was never going to win this fight." Fiona just gawked at him, too annoyed to really respond. Picking up on this, Geno decided to just move on. "Anyways, you were saying you had an idea? Something to get us out of this damn mess?"

"Oh yeah." Fiona perked up, already sounding less agitated. "Well, you see..."

A swarm of wooden dolls scuttled across the tile floor of the pool house, and a hissing bolt of lightning carved through their ranks. Axel upturned a patio table and kicked it towards the swarm, crashing and snapping their small wooden bodies with ease. But where some fell, still there seemed to be more of the tiny grotesque dolls. "Dammit!" He spat, running around the corner of the pool to get away.

Across the water, Amber dealt with the same problem. The red streaks of light that where her blade rings danced through the dolls, but she was having just as little success as Axel. Her blade rings returned to her hands and, seeing the encroaching swarm, she changed her strategy. "Armeria: King Shield!" Her weapons changed into a shield, which she rode like a surf board high into the air.

Fighting the dolls was just going to tire them out, she needed to eliminate the source. And Thain, still perched on the walkway above the pool, was that source. Unfortunately, he'd picked Amber out the second she rose above the manikins, and had drawn his hand back like he was holding an invisible bow. "Wood Make: Bamboo skewer!"

Dozens of wooden arrows flew across the room, and Amber immediately dipped back down to try and avoid them. It worked for the most part, she skimmed across the pool water just underneath the volley and back to the poolside. Until a single stray arrow nicked her forehead just above her eyebrow, and that was enough to send her off balance. The tip of her shield hit the pools edge and Amber crashed hard into the tile floor, clutching at the dribble of blood running down her cheek.

"Amber!" Zeke swooped down to check on her. "Are you ok?"

"Get up!" Shelly cried, riding on Zeke's back. Armeria's shield form jumped up to protect them all from a second volley of wooden arrows, buying Amber just enough time to get back to her feet.

She stumbled when Axel fired another bolt of lightning, slapping her hands over her ears as the sound reverberated off the walls. The pause was all it took; the swarm of dolls that had been blocking the door returned and clambered all over her. "Ah, get off!" She kicked one away, and yanked another off of her arm, but more and more piled on and she was quickly overwhelmed. She was forced to her knees under their collective weight, and even with Armeria slashing and crushing any doll it could, it made little difference. "Armeria-!" She cried, feeling some of them yank on her hair. "Bee Knives!"

Her blue shield broke apart in mid air, and a dazzling array of yellow lights shot through dolls. After a mere moment Amber stood back up, shredded doll parts falling into a heap on the floor and an array of almost a hundred small daggers whirling around her.

"Wow." Zeke cooed, retreating into the air again. "You're awesome!"

Not wasting time, Amber waved her hand. "Armeria, attack!" Her flying knives all froze in mid air, repositioned themselves to point at the dolls, and tore through the swarm. This had a much greater effect than before; the dolls couldn't even orient themselves, let alone advance or even recuperate.

"Damn, this is taking too long..." Thain mumbled, watching Amber's assault rip his creations to shreds. Another twig grew from his sleeve, taking the form of a spearhead. "Guess I'll have to get my hands dirty."

He leveled the spear head at Amber, hoping to make a surprise attack while she was distracted. "Lightning Dragon's Horn!" Thain suddenly turned around to see Axel flying straight at him, enveloped in a lightning bolt with him at the tip.

Thain turned quickly, trying to protect himself. "Wood-Make: Rose Bud!" His wooden spearhead shot forward, dragging a vine covered in thorns behind it. His plan was to swat Axel out of the air, leave him at the mercy of his dolls again, but his plants practically disintegrated as soon as they got to close to Axel's electrically protected body.

Axel took a single step onto the walkway's railing, then rocked straight at Thain. His head collided with the thief's chest, sending the man sliding on his back along the tiles, and Axel instantly grabbed at the bag containing the Rainbow Stone. "Guys I got it! Let's-." Suddenly, the top of the sack opened and another of Thain's dolls latched onto Axel's face.

He dropped the sack instantly, and his muffled swearing must've been audible all the way back at the greenhouse. Thain took a moment to recover, clutching at the center of his chest where Axel had hit him, then pressed the palms of his hands together. "Wood-Make: Ram!" A log with a goat carving launched from his hands, slamming into Axel's chest just as he pulled the doll off his face.

He hit the ground with a dull grunt, feeling the air knocked from his lungs. Thain was about to launch a follow-up attack when Amber sprinted up the stairs on the other end of the walkway. "Armeria: Crimzon Eyes!"

Thain turned to face her just as the shining red blade disks spun at him, and shot out his arm in response. "Wood-Make: Rosebud!" Another thorn covered vine shot from his wrist. Though damaged in the process, it swatted Armeria away and hit Amber in the stomach with a thud.

She slid back on the tile, taking a short gasp for breath, but grinned back at Thain as she clutched her stomach. "Bee Knives..."

Her two blade rings exploded in the air, each piece warping into a vast array of knives that surrounded the walkway. Thain realised his mistake instantly, and ducked down as the knives all pointed at him. "Wood-Make: Willow!"

Thain disappeared behind a cloud of sawdust and the bright flashes of Amber's knives, and Zeke flew closer to check on her. "Are you alright?" Amber nodded, still short of breath, and Zeke gave a big smile. "We're kicking his ass."

"What's that?" Shelly pointed back down the walkway just as the sawdust began to clear.

A twisted grey tree now stood before them, with Amber's knives jutting into it from just about everywhere. The tree began to uncurl itself, creating a small gap that revealed Thain hiding inside. "Splinter!" He cried, clutching the vine that still lay at Amber's feet.

"Move!" Axel cried, diving down the stairs on the far side of the room. A rose bloomed at the end of the vine, which began to swell at an unsettling rate. Amber and the others had just enough time to see this before the whole thing violently exploded, filling the air with shattered wood.

Amber covered her face to protect herself, but Zeke caught a piece right in the forehead and was knocked out instantly. "Ahhhhh!" Shelly cried as she fell, helpless to catch herself in her tiny rodent form.

Without even thinking, Amber dove over the railing to catch them. All three of them dropped into the pool, and Amber quickly grabbed Shelly and Zeke and held them to her chest. She was already at the pools edge by the time they surfaced again, and practically threw the others up onto the floor. She finally pulled herself up while coughing up water, having inhaled a fair amount and finding the taste of chlorine not agreeing with her.

Shelly shook herself dry in a rather animalistic fashion, and quickly began to inspect a large bump that had grown on Zeke's head. "That sucked..." She moaned.

"You guys ok?" Axel skidded to a halt next to them. The girls both nodded, but Axel became annoyed when he laid eyes on Zeke. "Damn this guy. This is-."

"Hamster girl!" Everyone spun back towards the entrance to find an exhausted looking Lir hiding in the entryway.

The silence was defining, not even the occasional flicker of Axel's electricity was enough to break their shock. Finally, he spoke up. "What the hell are-?"

"Wood-Make: Manikin!" A shadow loomed over them all, and another full sized manikin landed hard on Axel's back. He was barely able to stay on his feet, but the doll threw itself backwards and yanked Axel into the pool. Amber half turned to help him, calling her knives back to her when Thain ordered. "Freeze!" He held a vine covered hand in Lir's direction, and yanked a pair of Amber's knives out of his leg with his free hand. "OK, playtime's over." Amber coughed up the last of the water in her lungs as Thain tossed her knives into the pool and tucked the Rainbow Stone under his arm, then turned to Lir. "You, princess. Change her, like you did the other runt."

Lir and Amber exchanged a glance, and Lir franticly shook her head. "No, I-."

"Do it now!" He barked, beginning to seriously lose his temper. "Do what I say, or you'll never see your sister again!" The pool lit up with a bright flash as Axel fought the manikin underwater, but Lir just continued to hopelessly stare at Amber. "Did I stutter or-?!"

Gritting her teeth, Lir pointed a glowing finger at Amber. "I'm sorry!"

A white bolt of magic zipped through the air. Amber instinctively took a step back, but slid on the wet tiles and fell. At the last moment, she saw a tiny purple rodent leaped off her shoulder. "I've got this Amber!" Shelly cried mid flight.

The pool house lit up with a blinding white flash, forcing everyone to shield their eyes. Shelly was standing there when they looked back, still wearing her party dress and completely dry despite having been pulled from the pool not a minuet earlier. She herself seemed to be in a daze, and Thain angrily turned in Lir's direction. "You..."

"Solid Script: Smoke!" The word she called appeared before her, and a plume of thick black smoke enveloped the walkway. Thain could be heard coughing within, and Shelly ran up the stairs just as the smoke began to disperse. "Pict Magic: Train!" She reached back and pulled a paper drawing out of a belt around her thigh, and a small cartoonish steam engine jumped from the page.

It barely fit on the walkway, sending a shower sparks into the air as it ground past the railing, and gave Thain nowhere to escape to. He half turned and tucked into a ball with the Rainbow stone against his chest. The vines leapt from his arm, tarring through the train. It wasn't enough however; just as the engine began to disappear it crashed into him with a sickening crunch.

Thain skidded back to the center of the walkway, catching himself on the railing. He looked like he was about to throw up as another bright flash lit up the pool. This time, a glowing chain shot up from under the water and latched into the collar of Thain's jacket. Axel rocketed through the surface, taking a deep gasp of air, and threw a massive uppercut right into Thain's chin.

Both mages where airborne, Axel wearing a triumphant grin while Thain's eyes rolled back in his head. The two of them began to fall, and with a full chest of oxygen, Axel yelled. "Lighting Dragon’s Fi-!" Both he and Thain splashed down before Axel could finish; something he'd probably complain about later.

Shelly was more concerned about the sack that fell with them, containing the Rainbow Stone. It had flown from Thain's hand and was coming straight down on the walkway, and Shelly was to far away to get there in time. "Someone catch it!"

As if on cue, a black blob shot along the floor and up the back wall. It jumped through the air and took the shape of a woman, who caught the sack against her stomach. She rolled to a skidding stop just a few feet from Shelly, a large goofy grin plastered across her face. "Safe!" Kat yelled triumphantly.

Shelly fell back in amazement, or disbelief. Either one would have worked. "Kat... How-?"

"Fiona sent me. Said you guys ran into some trouble." She said with pride, tucking the Rainbow stone under her arm. "We know this place like the back of our hands. And with all the magic you're throwing around I could have found you from a mile away."

Shelly still looked amazed, trying to fathom how she'd arrived just in the nick of time, when Lir dashed up the stairs to join them. "Hambster girl!" She yelled, running out of breath only a few steps from the top. "He... Said he..." She stopped a moment, trying to catch her breath. "Sinann is in trouble!"

Shelly sighed in exasperation, but Kat shook her head. "No she's not."

Lir mirrored Shelly's confused expression. "But that thief guy said-."

"I just saw your sis, honey." Kat assured, kneeling down and placing a hand on Lir's head. "I saw her like, ten minuets ago. She's fine. Annoyed, but fine. Mr. Burglar lied you."

Lir slowly dropped to her knees, not at all sure how to process the relief she was feeling. At the same time, Axel crawled out of the pool, dragging the unconscious Thain behind him. "Water..." He mumbled. "Why is it always water?"

"Doing ok big boy?" Kat called in a teasing voice.

"I'm fine..." He called back, sounding no less annoyed. He quickly looked around, taking a headcount, but didn't see anyone besides the three girls crouched on the stairway. "Where's Zeke and Amber?"

Shelly perked up, glancing back to the last place she saw her. Zeke still lay there, rolling across the floor and clutching the large bump that had grown on his head, but Amber was nowhere in sight. Both she and Lir jumped to their feet and dashed down the stares. "Amber?" Shelly called, finding nothing but splintered wood and broken doll parts all around them. "Amber, where-?"

"Shelly...?" They heard a familiar voice call. The girls slowly turned around to find a small white dog hiding in the shadow of the entrance. They where slow to approach, but behind it's blueish white fir hid a pair of strikingly familiar orange eyes.

"Amber?" Shelly glanced at Lir, then back at the animal. "Is that-?"

"I..." She interrupted. "Think I know why you didn't want to come on this job now."

Next Chapter – The Grand Unveiling