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"Shut up," Ezra said calmly as a white light illuminating around her, "Garou Knights.. You will regret this. We are going to eliminate you."

••••••

March 19th, X524 (2:20 PM)
River Cloud Forest, near Magnolia

      The red-haired knight's magic aura was too strong and too cold that two women in front of her could feel chills in their bones. The light faded away slowly, and Erza was now wearing her beautiful Heaven's Wheel Armor. Both her top and long skirt were styled with feather-shaped silver metal plates, and two pairs of large metal wings were attached to her armor. She summoned her sliver sword which had blue embellishment along the blade. While flying, Erza slashed her blade towards two women. Kamita dodged to the side while Ikaruga jumped high with extreme speed and attacked Erza, much to the latter's surprise.

'She's strong,' Erza thought while defending the swift slashes from her opponent. But she failed to dodge the last slash, leaving a small cut on her left arm. Ikaruga landed on the ground quickly since she couldn't fly. Taking this as a chance to counterattack, the scarlet-haired knight summoned ten swords. "Sword dance!" Her swords began spinning rapidly in a circle. Erza sent them towards Ikaruga, as a result, these flying swords attacked the pink-haired woman in different directions. However, Ikaruga was able to stop Erza's attack easily by breaking the swords into pieces.

"Nice one." Kamita smirked, "My turn now," she released different colored papers, forming multiple shurikens, which flew towards Erza swiftly. The red-haired knight flew backward as she drew her sword a pentagram shape then released it towards the shurikens. Powerful star slash met the shurikens, the paper-made small weapons were shattered into pieces, resulting in the paper mage's attack being ruined completely.

"Leave her to me," the assassin swordswoman demanded angrily while staring fiercely at her teammate.

      Kamita glared at Ikagura for a moment before smiling, "Okay then. Good luck," she waved her hand, "Paper body." Her body transformed into large quantities of floating purple papers as she fled from the battle, leaving the two swordmages behind.

       Erza landed on the ground quickly. Realizing that offense was way more effective than defense in facing the assassin woman, Erza changed another armor, Clean Heart Clothing. A white cloth was wrapped around her upper chest and her red pant garment was styled with white string at her waist and the gold flame-like pattern at the bottom. Her red hair was tied up in a high tail at the back and she didn't wear shoes in this outfit. She summoned two double-edged katana swords as she ran towards her opponent.

•••••

      Meanwhile, most of the guards were defeated by four assassins before Lyon, Gray and Juvia stepped into the fight, facing their enemoes respectively.

      Gray and Lyon were facing Kama and Neppa of Garou Knights. The ice mages looked at each other before extending their hands backward. They created a large ice barrier behind them that blocked the path, dividing into two groups in battling the enemes; with two ice mages in front of the barrier and with the red-haired knight, the water maiden, the princess, and the guards on the other side.

      As soon as he saw the masked man swing his scythe, Gray Fullbaster dodged the scythe by bending backward before balancing his feet. Kama swung his weapon again. Gray avoided the attack before grasping the scythe handle with both hands. The scythe-wielder hit hard his knee with the scythe handle, causing him to step backward.

      The assassin pulled the second scythe out from the sheath and attacked him with two scythe simultaneously. Gray dodged immediately and quickly created a large ice shield in front of him, which stopped the scythes. 'I need a strategy,' he thought. Kama hit the ice shield with his two weapons repeatedly.

      Gray retreated five steps and removed his shirt, a sign of his seriousness for battle, and waited for his next range attacks. As soon as the ice shield was shattered, he extended his hands, with his fists over his palms, and created long ice lances.

     Multiple lances flew towards the masked man who dodged them swiftly. However, one lance was managed to hit his right shoulder, dealing great damage. 'This kid's range attacks are powerful,' he growled in frustration.

•••••

       Nearby, Lyon Vastia was fighting against Neppa, the acid user of Garou Knight. "Ice-make: Dragonfly." Several ice dragonflies created by Lyon flew quickly and attacked Neppa. The assassin extended his fist and created a large acid-made wall in front of him. After the ice dragonflies had hit the acid wall, they were swallowed by it, much to Lyon's frustration. Both the dragonflies and the wall disappeared which this move was controlled by Neppa. The large man punched the ground and sent a stream of acid directing towards his opponent. Lyon jumped to the right side and was shocked to see the corroded ground beside him.

"Ice-make: Snow Tiger!" A giant ice tiger emerged from the ice magic circle and rushed at the large man.

"How boring," Neppa smirked before punching the ground again. This time, four large acid pillars appeared around the ice tiger at the same time, trapping it inside. The pillars engulfed it before vanishing quickly from the sight.

•••••

       At the same time, Juvia Lockser was handling the remaining two enemies by herself.

"Beautiful.. lovely girl," Cosmos, the plant magic user of Garou Knights smiled at the blue-haired beauty, "But I'm going to defeat you." She summoned a thick spiky vine from the ground which launched towards Juvia to restrain the latter.

      Juvia used 'water slicer' again, thus water blades rushed towards the vine and cut it, turning it into vine fragments.

"Water Ray," Juvia whispered as she extended her hand forwards, a water beam went straight to the pink-haired woman.

        A huge flytrap from the ground appeared in front of Cosmos and covered her from the water attack by swallowing the water ray before vanishing into the ground.

        Suddenly, Juvia was levitated in the air. She tried to move but she failed, she could hardly move body. As a well-trained disciple of Redfox clan, Juvia wasn't lack of knowledge. She immediately realized that she might be under a spatial spell casted by her enemy.

"I got a cute fish, hahaha," a burst of loud laughter from the square-faced assassin was creepy. "Cosmos, attack her," he demanded. "I know," the female assassin replied simply, "Flytrap shot!" Six flytraps appeared from the ground and shot the white seeds at the helpless water mage. These exploded upon contact as Juvia cried in pain.

"JUVIA!" Lucy shouted, she saw her bluenette friend who was in trouble and the pink-haired enemy who was now casting another spell as multiple large white spores slowly rose around her.

      Lucy looked at the assassin man who was now sitting on the ground and raising his hands high. She realized that he was the one who was controlling Juvia. She grabbed one of her golden keys, "Open the gate of the golden bull, Taurus!". A humanoid bull holding a giant labrys appeared from the magic circle. The celestial spirit jumped into the air, swung the axe and lowered it to strike the ground, creating a straight line that split the ground as the crest line directed to the assassin man.

       Uosuke stood up quickly and lost focus on levitating the water mage, thus the girl was free from the control. Juvia dodged quickly as the spores passed her and hit the ground, resulting that the ground was exploded and leaving holes on the ground. Lucy smiled at her, "You can't fight them alone, Juvia. I can fight, too." She waved her key, closing the spirit gate, "Thank you, Taurus. You can go home now."

"Juvia thanks Lucy," the blue-haired mage smiled back before paying her attention back to her enemies who were standing in a distance. "Lucy please be careful," Juvia whispered to Lucy, both of them were ready to counterattack.

"We don't know which moves they'll use so attacking them first is better," Lucy replied quickly. "Roger," Juvia said, waving her hand to the right side, as huge water waves moved closer to the plant magic user in a swift motion. An enormous flower appeared behind the plant user and engulfed her before disappearing into the ground, thus missing the water mage's attack.

      While Juvia was attacking Cosmos, Lucy also launched an attack. The blonde grabbed another golden key which had the crest of a lion. She extended her hand forward, focused her magic as she recited "Open, gate of the lion! Leo!" A vertical magic circle appeared in front of her and a giant orange lion jumped out of the circle. The lion released a white sphere from his mouth, aiming it at the assassin man. Uosuke dodged to the side, "Light! I hate the light," he shouted.

      Leo the lion roared a large beam of light again. The man extended both hands forwards, "Terrain Effect: Plus night white zone," he cast a spell, a bright white light started illuminating around him as the light expanded forwards, dispelling the lion's light beam in progress, and hit him. The lion was thrown backward while his master ran and knelt beside him, "Are you okay, Leo?" He nodded his head, "I'm fine, Lucy. Don't worry."

       Suddenly, a huge white dome appeared and surrounded Lucy and Leo, trapping them inside it. Inside the dome was like being isolated from the surrouning. There was no sound, no external pressure, it was like they were trapped in a huge mirrors cage. Lucy saw multiple replicated images of herself and a young man with orange hair and sunglasses in the retangular mirrors.

      Lucy stared at the illusions, herself in the mirror was her current look at first, then changed into her previous self with brown hair, and changed to her current look again. The blonde in the mirror image was smiling geniunely at her. The young man who appeared in the mirror seemed familiar, he was around twenty, and his orange hair reminded her of her loyal spirit. At that moment, she assumed that the young man might be Leo's human form.

       The lion also stared at the mirror image for a while, and the blurred pictures of a burning place appeared in his memory. He closed his eyes and shook his head vigorously. "Force gate closure!" Lucy whispered, and a moment later, she saw the lion disappear from her sight. "Thank you, Leo," she whispered kindly before placing the golden key in the key chain holder.

      She looked at the illusions and saw that the young man was also disappeared. "I need to get out of here," she told herself before touching the mirror. It was like papers but it had repulsed when she touched it. She couldn't find a way to break the spell.

       At the moment, two purple flowers emerged from the ground and ejected yellowish spores. Without a doubt, these were poisonous.

^_^