by "Are you really sure about this?" Selenia asked, sighing aloud.
"It was your idea," one of her guild mates said, staring at her.
Selenia looked away, trying to avoid the confrontation. True, it had been her idea... After all, she'd been desperately trying to find ways to get stronger, but was she really willing to ask one of Fairy Tail's guild members to fight her? It seemed she had no choice, though; they really did not seem to want to let her off the hook.
"Alright, if you say so... Just let me know if you don't want to keep going," Selenia said, nodding.
"You don't think you're going to win this, are you? This is finally my chance to prove that I'm going to be at the top of Fairy Tail's ranks! You won't get in my way, even if you are my guild mate. With the lack of passion you have for fighting, I'm surprised you even made it this far. I guess Fairy Tail really is a good guild, but I won't just be happy with being good. I'm going to be great, and there's nothing and no one that will stop me! You hear me?" he retorted, raising his voice and grinning at her.
"I'll do my best to make this worth your while," Selenia replied, smiling softly. "Please, make the first move."
"You're going to regret that! Don't forget who you're dealing with, Selenia!" her guild mate shouted. "Why don't you try this on for size? Crushing Rock Bullet!" he continued, a bullet shaped piece of earth shooting from the ground below the mage's feet and heading for Selenia.
Thankfully, she'd seen his magic a couple of times before, so she knew what to expect. On the other side, so did he, but Selenia would waste no time in summoning her first Celestial Spirit.
"Open, Gate of the Chisel, Caelum!" she said, a magic circle appearing before her. Out from it came Caelum, already in Sword Form as she'd asked him. Grabbing the bar she used to hold onto him with, she swung the sword diagonally downwards to the left with both of her hands, destroying the spell before it could reach her. The pieces of it shattered into pebbles, rolling to a stop at her feet.
"Nice work, Caelum," she whispered, happy that so far she could remain defensive. Her strategy for now was just to wear him out, and once he was all dried out of magic power she could tell him to stand down.
"You look confident. Do you really think that's all I've got? You underestimate me, Selenia!" her guild mate said, getting angry. "If you think you're going to get away with simply breaking my attacks, why don't you try this on for size? Pillar Ground!"
From the ground erupted pillars of rock which formed in a straight line, heading for her position. There was nothing she could to do stop a spell like this with Caelum, so she'd need to do this just right.
"Alright, Caelum, Flight Form!" Selenia said, letting him go for a moment as he changed. Once he had completed the transformation, Selenia hopped onto the top of his metal body and said, "Right!" without a moment to spare. Thankfully, Caelum's Flight Form was quick, and they were able to escape almost intact; Caelum's wing, however, was clipped by a pillar, and they were sent spinning through the sky for a few moments before Caelum could stop.
"Good, good, just what I thought you'd do! All you do is run, Selenia! You won't get anywhere like that. This should do it: Iron Rock Fist!" her guild mate said, smirking gleefully.
Due to her spin-out, she was unable to fully realize what was going on, and by the time she did it was too late. The Iron Rock Fist was heading at her like a train, and in seconds it was going to impact. Well, her guild mate had really wanted to win, so it only made sense that he would...
It all happened in a moment. Before she could stop him, Caelum flipped her backwards, using his own body to absorb the impact of the spell. Falling two feet to the ground, Selenia could only watch as the giant stone hand crashed into her friend head on, the spell sending Caelum back to the Celestial Spirit World. It was almost too much to bear... Caelum had given everything he had to protect her, and yet Selenia was still too weak to do anything. She couldn't fight her guild mate alone; she was powerless.
The memories came surging back. Their dead bodies sprawled around her... she'd been too weak to do anything. That's why they were dead. She hadn't been able to stop them. The images brought her to her knees, which made her opponent think she was going to give up. The tears began to spill from her eyes, and she couldn't help it. She'd wanted to do something... but she couldn't. Now, here she was trying to get stronger, but she couldn't even fight a fellow mage. How was she ever going to grow? How was she ever going to defeat a Demon, being as weak as she was?
"Remember, Selenia. You decide how far you will rise or fall. It's all up to you who you become. Just remember, no matter what... you must always protect those you care about, right?"
Xavier's voice rang in her head clear as day, waking her from the reverie of nightmares. She couldn't just let it end like this. She wouldn't, even if it meant fighting seriously.
And so she'd need to draw on the only Celestial Spirits who'd be able to help her against an opponent she would fight seriously: her Zodiac Spirits.
Standing to her feet, she drew Gemini's key from the magical chain which hung from one of her center right belt loops, which allowed her to quickly grab the key she needed and pull it from the chain without any hassle, allowing her to hold it out in front of her in her right hand.
"So, you're finally taking me seriously, huh? It's too little too late, you can't stop me now, no matter what you summon!" her guild mate said.
And then, she drew another. Taking a deep breath, she let her fears fade away, her strength and confidence returning.
"You hurt Caelum, and now, I'm not going to take this lightly anymore. Prepare yourself," she said, narrowing her eyes at her guild mate.
"Open, Gate of the Twins, Gemini; Open, Gate of the Water Bearer, Aquarius!" Selenia continued, putting all her force of will and magical energy into the summoning of her two strongest Celestial Spirits.
"Hmph, it's you again? I thought I made it clear I wasn't going to be helping you," Aquarius said, rolling her eyes at Selenia.
"Bidi bidi. Don't be so mean to Selenia, Aquarius," Gemi said. "Yeah," Mini added, "what did she ever do to you?"
"Be born," Aquarius said, letting out an annoyed groan.
"Listen can you transform into Aquarius?" Selenia asked, breaking up the argument.
"I guess, although I don't see why you'd want us to be her. We'd rather be you, but here goes!" the twins said in unison, following Selenia's orders and tagging Aquarius before she could stop them and transforming into a perfect copy of her.
"Well well, what do we have here? A double summon, huh?" my guild mate asked. "Still, you're going down, and this will be the attack to end it all!"
"Listen, Aquarius, I've tried my best to be nice to you, but it seems like that isn't going to work," I say, running out of time.
"Oh, so you finally realized that? How intelligent of you; here I was, I thought you had no sense at all," Aquarius taunted.
Selenia asked, "Which means that I bet Gemi and Mini can do a better job of being you than you can of being you do. Isn't that right, Gemi and Mini?"
"Bidi bidi, you bet!" Gemini-Aquarius said.
"Ugh, would you stop saying that stupid thing?" Aquarius said, getting angry. "And you, be quiet. I'll wipe this punk out now just so that I can wipe that stupid look off your face!"
"Time's up, Selenia. Here it comes!" my guild mate said. In the time I'd taken to set up my strategy, he'd written a complex magic circle in the ground with his earth magic.
A giant wave of muddy ground rose up in front of him, slowly building up to tower over us.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure you don't run out of oxygen underneath all the mud; just say you give up and I'll let you out once it's all done!" my guild mate shouted from behind the wall, laughing. "Earthen Tsunami!"
"Give me a break, that's what you call a tsunami?" Aquarius scoffed. "Gemini, let's do this."
"Bidi bidi! We can't mess up in front of Selenia!" Gemini-Aquarius replied.
Aquarius said nothing, instead swinging out her urn in front of her. Gemini-Aquarius did the same except in the opposite direction, swinging their urn so that it met with the side of Aquarius's , both urns facing upwards towards the wall of earth that was about to crush us all.
"Water Pillar!" they shouted together, a swirling mass of water shooting from their urns and combining to form a thick, spiraling column. It tore through the wave, the compactness of it able to pierce through the wave because it was so big and spread out. They moved their urns downwards together in synchronization, the water obliterating the earth, mud splattering outwards as my opponent's spell was destroyed.
When the water pillar was at last horizontal, I gave all the magic power I could into the two Celestial Spirits, increasing the force of the water which was able to break through the thick base of the earth spell, pushing past it and knocking into my guild mate, who was unable to believe what he was seeing. As the wave came crashing down all around us, having been split in half by Aquarius and Gemini's combined efforts, he was knocked to the ground, the water sweeping him away with it.
When all was said and done, the battle was decided. Selenia claimed victory, her opponent knocked out completely.
"Whew, I don't know what I would've done without you guys," Selenia laughed, smiling widely for once. "Thank you both so much... "
"Do you think I forgot about you? You're next!" Aquarius said, turning towards Selenia and raising her urn.
"Gemini, let's go!" Selenia shouted. Gemini-Aquarius nodded, transforming into Selenia in her outfit from yesterday. Both of them holding matching golden keys in their hands with blue wave inscriptions on them, they said, "Close, Gate of the Water Bearer, Aquarius!"
"You little!" Aquarius screamed, but her voice disappeared as she glowed in golden light before disappearing, her gate having been forced closed.
"That was too close," Selenia gasped, feeling the price of all the magic she'd been casting begin to take its toll.
"Bidi bidi, you got that right. Lucky we were here to help you, huh?" Gemini-Selenia asked.
"I really appreciate it, Gemi, Mini. Thank you so much, and please let Aquarius know I think she did an awesome job too," I say, smiling at them both. "Get some rest, you deserve it."
"See you, Selenia!" they said, doing a little dance in the air before disappearing back to the Celestial Spirit World.
"What would I do without those guys?" Selenia muttered, unable to stop from smiling to herself as she rested for a few moments to catch her breath, one knee on the ground. But if there was one thing that was clear, it was that Aquarius very well could be a powerful ally. First, however, she needed to do something about her attitude, but that wasn't going to be easy.
In any case, Selenia picked up her guild mate, who thankfully wasn't too heavy, and did her best in carrying him back to the guild hall, which thankfully wasn't too far away. It was all she could do to thank him for showing her that she could still be strong. From now on, she wasn't weak anymore. She was Selenia, a Celestial Spirit mage and a powerful wizard in her own right.
