The world had just been torn apart.
The allied mages, separated by Mortis's terrain-warping decay magic, landed in their new, impromptu arenas. For Erza Scarlet and Sherry Blendy, that arena was a graveyard. They had been separated onto a high, desolate plateau, the forest filling it. The air was dead, and the silence was absolute.
"Erza! Are you alright?" Sherry called out, scrambling to her feet, her frilly pink dress a stark, garish contrast to the gray, dead wood.
"I'm fine," Erza said, her voice tight. She was already on her feet, her hand on the hilt of her sword, her eyes scanning the fog-draped trees. "This is a trap. Stay close."
"He split us up. Blake's assignments... they were perfect. Which means our enemy knows who he's up against."
"Oh, he knows, my pretty," a voice slithered from the mist. It was high-pitched, laced with a slimy, theatrical arrogance. "He knows. And he sent me the finest prizes of all."
Erza and Sherry snapped back-to-back, their eyes darting into the shadows.
"Who's there?! Show yourself, you coward!" Sherry yelled.
"Coward?" the voice tittered. "No, my dear. I am an artist. A connoisseur. And you... you two..."
A figure stepped from behind a petrified trunk. He was tall, unsettlingly graceful, and dressed in the flamboyant, dark robes of the Oracion Seis. His hair was a vibrant, oily purple, and his fingers were long and delicate, tapping rhythmically on his arm. This was Guignol, 'The Puppeteer.'
His eyes, a pale, predatory lilac, raked over the two women, not as warriors, but as... objects.
"Oh, yes," he hissed, a lecherous smile spreading across his face. "You are both... exquisite. The Fire Queen, Titania, with her powerful, dominant frame. And the little love-bird, so full of wasted passion. I want to make you puppets so I can play with you... forever."
Sherry visibly shivered in disgust. "You're... disgusting."
Erza's eyes turned to steel. "Your games end here. Sherry, get ready."
Sherry, enraged, attacked first. "I'll smash your twisted heart! Rock Doll: Rock Chevalier!"
The ground erupted as a massive knight of stone and earth, wielding a huge lance, charged Guignol.
"Tsk, tsk," Guignol sighed, not moving. He simply lifted a single, delicate finger. "So crude."
SHING!
In an instant, the Rock Chevalier... fell apart. It didn't crumble; it was sliced into a dozen clean, perfect pieces, as if by an invisible master swordsman.
Sherry gasped. "My doll... He cut it?"
"He's a long-range threat," Erza analyzed instantly, her mind racing. "He's in the trees. Sherry, stay back!"
"REQUIP: HEAVEN'S WHEEL ARMOR!"
Erza burst into her silver, winged armor. "This battle is over before it begins! Blumenblatt!"
A storm of two hundred swords erupted from her magic circle, a silver cyclone that shredded the mist and turned the petrified trees in front of her to splinters. It was an overwhelming display of S-Class power, designed to annihilate the entire forest.
"Flowers? For me?" Guignol's voice echoed, now from a different direction. "You shouldn't have."
A shimmering, nearly invisible web of energy materialized between the trees. Erza's swords slammed into it and stopped, caught like flies.
"What?!"
"My Aura-Threads are stronger than any steel, my Queen," Guignol laughed. The web contracted, and the two hundred swords were snapped, crushed, and dropped to the ground as scrap metal.
"Now, now," Guignol's voice purred. "It's my turn to attack."
Erza felt it first. A sharp, stinging zing across her cheek. A single, thin, red line of blood appeared.
"REQUIP: FLIGHT ARMOR!" Erza yelled, pushing Sherry back as she requipped to her speed-armor.
"What is it?!" Sherry cried.
"Don't move," Erza commanded. "We're surrounded."
Guignol laughed again. "Oh, she's smart! Yes, my pretty. You're in my web. An invisible maze of razor-wire. I've been weaving it ever since you landed. One wrong step..."
SHING! SHING! SHING!
A dozen invisible threads snapped tight. Sherry screamed as her dress was shredded, shallow cuts appearing on her arms and legs. "He's... he's undressing me!"
"Yes!" Guignol cried, his voice giddy. "These tacky clothes... they're hiding the art beneath! Let's get rid of them, shall we? Let me prepare my dolls for the collection!"
"You bastard!" Erza roared, her fury overcoming her caution. She charged, her speed-armor a blur.
She was stopped instantly, as if she'd hit a solid wall. She looked down. A dozen deep, smoking gashes had been torn across her armor. She had run straight into a wall of Overheat threads, glowing white-hot and near-invisible. She was thrown back, her armor smoking.
"Titania!" Sherry cried.
"He's... he's too strong," Erza grunted, forcing herself to her feet. They were struggling to get near him. He was a ghost, a spider, and they were the flies. He was in the trees, hidden by the mist, and the entire ground level was a death trap.
"I won't let you!" Sherry, in a burst of desperate love-fueled rage, slammed her hands on the ground. "If I can't find you, he will! Rock Doll: GOLEM!"
The entire plateau shook as a 30-foot-tall monster of petrified wood and stone rose from the earth. "SMASH... EVERYTHING!" Sherry commanded.
The golem roared and began to swipe at the trees, trying to flush Guignol out.
"Oh, dear me," Guignol's voice tsked. "Such a brute. You'll break the other dolls with that... unless... I take it."
Guignol appeared, perched on a high, dead branch, his fingers splayed. "A doll that size... I've always wanted one. Parasite String!"
Dozens of threads, now visible and glowing with purple energy, shot from his fingers and latched onto the golem's joints.
The golem froze, mid-swing.
"No..." Sherry whispered. "My magic..."
"Is my magic now, little girl," Guignol sneered. The golem's head slowly, jerkily, turned, its rock-eyes landing on Erza and Sherry. "And my new doll finds you... rude."
The golem charged them.
"This is a nightmare!" Sherry yelped, dodging a fist the size of a carriage.
"Sherry, you have to dispel it!" Erza yelled, requipping to her Giant's Armor and catching the golem's other fist, her feet skidding back, digging trenches in the stone.
"I can't!" Sherry cried. "He has control!"
"Then I'm sorry!" Erza roared. She pushed the golem back, then requipped in a flash. "REQUIP: PURGATORY ARMOR!"
"Black-Winged Blade!"
With a single, devastating blow, she sliced the golem in half. It crumbled to dust. Sherry fell to her knees, weeping. "My love... my doll..."
"He's playing with us," Erza seethed, the black armor dissipating. "He's using our own power, our own love, against us. He's a sadist."
"What do we do, Erza?" Sherry asked, her confidence broken. "We can't see his threads. We can't get close."
Erza looked at the ground. She looked at the mist. She looked at the dust from the fallen golem.
"We can't... see... his threads," she repeated. A slow, dangerous smile spread across her face. "Then we'll make them visible."
Erza had a plan.
"Sherry. Get up. Crying is not an option. We will not be his toys."
"But how?!"
"I need dust," Erza said, her eyes gleaming. "A lot of it. Forget the dolls. Don't create. Destroy. Can you pulverize the ground? All of it?"
Sherry, seeing the look in Erza's eyes, felt her own resolve return. She stood, her own gaze hardening. "For love... and for vengeance. Rock Crush: Pulverize!"
She slammed her hands on the dead earth. Her magic, amplified by her rage, spread. The entire plateau, for a mile in every direction, began to crack, crumble, and dissolve into a fine, choking powder.
"My, my, what are you... doing?" Guignol's voice was laced with confusion. "Making a mess?"
"Now!" Erza yelled. "REQUIP: WIND GOD ARMOR!"
In a flash, she was clad in her light, tribal armor, her massive fan-like sword in her hand. "This is your trap, puppeteer. Now see it!"
She swung the blade in a massive arc. "Wind God's Cyclone!"
A gale-force wind erupted from her sword, whipping the fine dust Sherry had created into a colossal, swirling dust storm.
The effect was instantaneous, and beautiful.
The entire petrified forest was suddenly, brilliantly, illuminated. The sunlight, weak as it was, caught the millions of dust particles... and the dust particles caught on the tens of thousands of invisible threads.
The air was a three-dimensional, glowing, golden spider's web. It was a maze of pure, cutting death.
And there, at the very center, perched on the highest branch, was Guignol, his face no longer amused, but twisted in a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
"You... you RUINED IT!" he shrieked, his voice losing its slimy charm. "MY BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN STAGE! MY INVISIBLE ART! YOU FILTHY, FILTHY DOLLS!"
"Nowhere to hide, 'artist'," Erza said, her sword pointed at him.
"IF YOU WANT TO PLAY DIRTY, THEN SO BE IT!" Guignol screamed. "OVERHEAT: GOD'S WEB!"
The thousands of threads now glowed white-hot, vaporizing the dust storm instantly. They came sweeping down, a net of pure, melting heat, slicing the remaining petrified trees into pieces.
"RUN!" Erza yelled.
They dodged and weaved, the heat scorching the ground. "I can't get close! He's too fast!"
"Then I'll make an opening!" Erza declared. "REQUIP: ADAMANTINE ARMOR!"
She requipped into her heaviest, most defensive armor and stood her ground, her two massive shields raised. "Sherry, get ready!"
The white-hot web of threads slammed into her. SCREEEEEEEEECH!
The sound of superheated metal filled the air. The Adamantine Armor held, but it began to glow cherry-red, the threads melting into the shields, sinking into the plates, trapping her. "ARGH!" Erza roared, the heat searing her.
"Yes! YES! Struggle!" Guignol laughed maniacally from his perch. "A perfect statue of Titania, trapped and cooked in her own shell! It's my masterpiece! Now... for the other one."
He thought Erza was finished. He thought she was pinned. He turned his full attention to Sherry.
"Your friend will make a wonderful statue. But you... you will be my prize dancer."
He was monologuing, savoring his victory. He sent his primary, invisible Parasite String—his soul-control thread—streaking toward Sherry.
"Sherry, watch out!" Erza screamed, struggling against the melting threads.
Sherry, her eyes wide with terror, tried to dodge, but she was too slow. The thread was about to hit her...
"I... AM NOT... A TOY!"
Erza, trapped inside her own, melting armor, roared. She was pinned. The armor was pinned. But she was not her armor.
"I... AM... A MAGE OF FAIRY TAIL!"
With a final, desperate surge of magic, she did the one thing Guignol never expected.
"REQUIP: CLEAR HEART CLOTHING!"
In an explosive burst of light and steam, she requipped out of the Adamantine Armor, shedding the 1,000-lb, white-hot, thread-covered cage like a snake shedding its skin.
The massive armor, now empty, collapsed in a molten heap, still tangled in Guignol's threads.
"WHAT?!" Guignol's head snapped around, his concentration breaking. His Parasite String wavered, missing Sherry by an inch.
In that split-second of confusion, Erza was already moving.
"REQUIP: FLIGHT ARMOR!"
She was in the air, a silver blur, her twin blades out, rocketing toward his perch at supersonic speed.
"You... IMPOSSIBLE!" Guignol panicked, trying to form new threads. He sent his String Clone—a perfect, solid-looking copy of himself—to intercept her. "You won't reach me! You're just a girl I took fancy to!"
"I am Erza Scarlet!" she roared, her speed not slowing for an instant. "REQUIP: PURGATORY ARMOR!"
The black, spiked, demonic armor materialized around her in mid-flight. She met the String Clone head-on. "I know a FAKE when I see one!"
Her massive, black-winged blade cleaved straight through the clone, which dissolved into useless, severed threads.
She was now face-to-face with the real Guignol.
He was terrified. His hands were fumbling, his "art" was too slow. He had no close-quarters defense. He was just a man.
"It's over," Erza said, her voice a cold, final judgment. "REQUIP: HEAVEN'S WHEEL!"
She hovered before him, a silver angel of vengeance, dozens of swords fanning out behind her.
"You wanted to see me. You wanted to 'play' with me," she said, her voice dangerously quiet. "You wanted to add me to your 'collection.' Then look closely."
She pointed her sword.
"Circle Sword!"
The swords didn't fly. They converged. A high-speed, 360-degree vortex of pure steel, all aimed at one, single point.
Guignol shrieked, a high-pitched, terrified sound, as the storm of blades hit him from every conceivable angle. His dark robes were shredded, his body blasted from the petrified tree by a force he couldn't comprehend.
He crashed to the ground, unconscious, his body broken, his threads of control dissolving into nothing.
The Parasite String on Sherry's ankle, which had just re-attached, vanished. She collapsed, panting.
Erza landed on the ground, her armor dissipating into light, leaving her in her simple, cloth-bound Clear Heart form. She was breathing heavily, her body covered in sweat and minor burns from the Overheat threads.
"Erza... you... you did it!" Sherry ran over, her eyes shining. "That was... for love!"
Erza just shook her head, a tired, small smile on her face. "It was for victory."
She walked over to the unconscious form of Guignol.
"One down," Erza said, her gaze turning north, toward the mountains. "Five to go. Come on, Sherry. Let's go find the others."