With that, Erza jumped back onto the magic four-wheeler and snapped the "SE Plug" onto her wrist.
As Lucy climbed on, she asked Erza, "Chase them? We don't even know where they are. How can we?"
Erza answered without hesitation. "A large group like that won't be subtle. Someone in town must have seen them. We just have to ask around, find out where they went, and follow."
"A car? No! Can't we run?!" Natsu groaned. "I'll die if I have to ride again!!"
He looked like he was about to collapse on the spot. He had already been in two vehicles today. He'd never lived through his "darkest moment" twice in one day—and he definitely wasn't ready for a third.
"Stop complaining!"
Kael kicked Natsu onto the vehicle and climbed on himself.
Screech!!
Erza floored it. The magic four-wheeler lurched forward and drifted hard.
"Ahhh!!"
Lucy wasn't steady. She tipped, fell—then landed with her butt square on Kael's face.
The second she realized where she was sitting, her ears went red.
Kael rubbed his face, blinking. "Your butt is huge."
"Ahhhh! That's harassment!!"
With Erza's magic driving it, the four-wheeler tore down the road and soon arrived in Kunugi Town.
The moment they rolled in, they caught snippets of conversation from nearby.
"Did you hear? Something happened at the train station."
"What happened?"
"I heard someone hijacked the train."
"Who would do that?"
"I know! It was a local Dark Guild, Eisenwald."
"Eisenwald?!"
Lucy and Erza's expressions changed at once. That was exactly who they were looking for.
"Let's go! To the station!"
Erza swung the magic four-wheeler around and drove straight for the train station.
When they arrived, the station was already surrounded by the army. People crowded the area, voices rising—complaints piling on top of complaints.
"A man with a big scythe suddenly rushed in with a group of people! They kicked us all off the train!"
"I left my business tools on that train! They're more important than my wife!"
"They hijacked a train?! Why?! Robbing a bank or a ship, I get. But a train? It can only run on tracks! There's no benefit!"
Lucy frowned, trying to make sense of it. If a train was hijacked, all they had to do was switch the tracks at the next stop and force it to halt.
And since the army already knew, they would definitely set up defenses at the next station.
Happy tilted his head. "Are they in a hurry to do something?"
Lucy let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "The army is involved. It's only a matter of time before they're caught, right? We don't have to go."
If the army handled it, she wouldn't have to fight a scary Dark Guild.
"No!" Erza's voice came sharp. "I have a very bad feeling. They're a Dark Guild, not idiots. To make such a big, public move, they must be planning something terrible. It's probably related to that sealed magic."
Even if the pieces didn't seem to fit, she could feel it. They did.
"But the train left almost an hour ago," Lucy said. "Whatever they're doing, we can't possibly catch up now."
"..."
It was true. A train was far faster than their magic four-wheeler. Even at full speed, the gap would only widen.
Are we giving up just like that? Erza's frustration rose, hot and bitter.
Just then, Kael stepped off the magic four-wheeler and walked toward the tracks.
"Kael, what are you doing?" Lucy asked.
Kael stopped in the middle of the rails and rolled his shoulders, stretching like he was about to start a warm-up. "Of course we're going to chase them!"
He'd thought the name "Eisenwald" sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it. The moment he heard they'd hijacked a train, it clicked—he finally remembered this part of the plot.
Lullaby, the mass-curse magic.
They hijacked the train to get through the great valley to the location of the regular guild master meeting.
Then, they planned to use Lullaby to curse and kill all the guild masters there.
When Kael remembered the plan—and who it targeted—rage flooded him.
He hadn't been in Fairy Tail for very long, but the old man had taken good care of him, treating him like a son.
Kael, who had no one in this world, had come to see Makarov as a father.
Now a group of trash was trying to kill him. It didn't matter if they could succeed. Just having the idea meant they deserved to die.
"Chase them?!" Lucy snapped back to the present. "How?! They left an hour ago, on a train!"
A train was the fastest land transport. They were probably a hundred kilometers away by now.
"By running, of course."
"Running?!"
All of them stared. If he had said "fly," maybe. But running? Outrunning a train?
"Full-Body Take Over: Fushiguro Toji!"
Kael didn't explain further. He activated his Take Over.
His gray coat vanished, replaced by a black t-shirt. His pants shifted to gray. A black sash appeared at his waist, and simple, flat shoes formed on his feet.
His muscles swelled subtly. His hair and face changed.
This was his "Tyrant" form.
His voice dropped into something rougher—older—carrying the deep edge of a middle-aged man. His eyes looked like he thought he was the baddest man on earth.
"Erza, you guys can take your time. I'll handle Eisenwald."
"Kael," Erza warned, "if you transform this early, how long can you last?"
Erza knew Kael's magic better than anyone. They had fought together. In this state, Kael was terrifyingly strong.
But Kael had one obvious weakness.
He didn't have much stamina.
His transformations devoured magic. He traded a massive amount of it for overwhelming power in a short burst.
If he overdid it, he could even fall unconscious. That one time—half a year ago—Kael had been out for three days.
"Don't worry. It's enough time!"
His magic power had only increased by one and a half stars in six months, but his total magic capacity was almost ten times larger. He still couldn't last long—but it was enough to deal with Eisenwald.
Boom—!
Kael stomped his foot. The wooden tie under the rail splintered.
The next moment, he was hundreds of meters away.