Natsu, the "fire frog" who'd been goofing off ever since earlier and had wasted his precious one-minute transformation time, finally came flying back in a thoroughly sorry state. He landed precariously on the ground near the seawall and joined his "Fairy Tail" companions in fighting the seemingly frenzied Phantom Lord guild members who'd chased after him, along with even more of the black ghost soldiers.
"Ha!"
"Nice work!"
"Way to go, Natsu!"
"Now that they've lost Jupiter, everything will be much easier!"
"Their castle's destroyed now, so they must've suffered terrible losses. There's no way we can lose this time!"
"That's right!"
"Hey! Don't celebrate just yet. Hurry up and take out those damned ghosts first!"
"But what do we do? They seem to keep coming back to life!"
"Hmph!"
"Keep attacking! Their energy can't be unlimited, and neither can their resurrections! So do your best to take them out as many times as you can, while making sure they don't drain our life force!"
"Got it!"
"That's our only option!"
"Let's go! We'll fight them to the end!"
"Wipe out the enemy!"
"Yeah!!"
"Fairy Tail will win!"
"We'll win!!"
"Take this!"
"Kill them!!"
"Counterattack!!"
Although Natsu had been chased back, things weren't all that bad for the Fairy Tail guild at the moment, so their morale remained high, as if they were about to win the final victory in no time.
"..."
(￢д￢.)
Annie, however, wasn't nearly as optimistic as they were.
She'd surrounded herself with a fairy shield, which kept the ghost soldiers from getting anywhere near her. Every now and then, she'd casually stroll across the battlefield and fire a string of small missiles, making the troublesome things vanish and re-form, then re-form and vanish again. Now she frowned as she watched the changes taking place at