Are we Even Needed?

Chapter 3

Third POV

As the group attacked the beast, an unknown figure watched them.

"You've all grown so much." The figure whispered, holding her chest feeling it tighten, "if only I had been stronger back then, I wouldn't have sent you away."

"Star Shot!!" Lucy chanted, causing a series of homing arrows to explode once they hit the beast.

The beast growled menacingly, before charging at Lucy who, at the moment, had inflicted the most pain to it. Only to be crushed in it's place.

"Gravity Change!" Yukino exclaimed, causing a small uproar.

"Yukino stand down! You're exhausting yourself!" Bickslow exclaimed using his babies to help Yukino stand up, since she was nearly collapsing.

"Yukino-san remove the spell!" Wendy exclaimed as she sent a wing attack from above, making the beast cry out in pain, but leaving no visible damage.

Yukino complied, seeing Jellal ready his attack.

"Jui Leixing!!!" Jellal exclaimed, being as close as he could to the beast, as he sent nine lightning swords towards it.

The beast cried out in pain, before ultimately passing out.

The group sighed in relief once the battle was over, yet tensed up again when an unknown cloaked figure appeared next to the beast.

"Who are you?!" Gajeel exclaimed as the entire group's hands glowed, ready to send out attacks.

"Get away from the it!" Jellal growled.

The figure turned and lightly grinned, as if they were watching children play.

"I'm not here to hurt him, I just to help him get rid of the parasite." The figure said making the group tilt their head.

"Parasite?" Wendy asked, her eyes sharp.

"Yes, this beast is similar to a Vulcan. It used take-over magic on someone, but unlike the Vulcan, this one releases a parasite so that no matter what, the host can't escape." The figure explained.

"How do we know we can trust you?" Juvia asked, not really wanting to fight whoever this was, since they had places to go.

"Do you know of the hagsal outbreak?" The figure asked, knowing that at least one of them must have heard of it.

Jellal and Yukino tensed a little, while the rest tried to think of any news or articles they could have read about that incident.

"It happened in Keres five years ago. Hagsal's we're created by Dr. Itu, to help patients with disabilities such as blindness and paraplegia, through partial take-over, but the greediness of one of his apprentices ruined it. Inma Roku, Dr. Itu's apprentice of three years, believed the Hagsal were better suited for entertainment such as illegal underground fights or for military purposes, hence she stole her mentor's blueprints and majority of the embryos that were created." Yukino explained.

"Dr. Itu tried to raise a case of his stolen research to Duke Ethel, but by then Inma had already presented the Hagsal as her own creation. Dr. Itu was thrown into an underground prison on charges of plagiarism and extortion, charges that Inma had made up. Once Dr. Itu was out of the picture, Inma took two years to fully eliminate the Hagsal's primary impulse of helping the sick plus one more year to modify the take over process. Once she was done she began selling them as play things, with plans to slowly present them to the crown as military assets. Everything was fine for the first 3-4 months, but by the sixth month mark, Hagsal's had become illegal." Jellal said.

"The first outbreak happened during the final match of an underground fight. According to the few survivors of the event, everything was the same except that instead of trying to kill each other, they attacked the cage surrounding them. At the time, Duke Ethel and Inma were discussing future plans with lords of other territories when a Hagsal broke into the room destroying everything in sight before escaping to a close by territory." Yukino said

"There were a total of three territories affected by the outbreak and one territory was completely overtaken by the Hagsal. They protected the territory like a pack of wolves, making it extremely difficult to penetrate." Jellal said

"That land had to be destroyed completely, only a few of the Hagsal were able to escape to the snowy mountains, while the rest were destroyed here." Yukino said

"In total the outbreak lasted four months, countless people lost their humanity and even more lost their family. It was horrifying since all the infected people had to be disposed of right away." Jellal said, clenching his fists as hard as he could.

"Correct, it's a pity that an antidote or medicine was never discovered, but I have been hunting down the remaining Hagsal and I discovered that if healing magic is used the host can recover." The figure said, turning to the Hagsal

"What needs to be done?" Lucy asked her eyes fierce, they needed to finish the job and then look for whoever sent them the letter.

"I'll have to force the beast and the host apart, and then the host will need to be healed." The figure said.

"What else? I doubt it'll end with just separating them." Bickslow asked, his eyes glowing, trying to see through the cloak.

"Separating them! Separating them!" His babies repeated.

The figure grinned, amused that someone had a strong gut instinct.

"Clever. Once the host is separated from the beast, the beast will need to be defeated once again, otherwise it will try to reattach itself to its host. The parasite, in turn, will then damage the host's body to prevent the host from separating permanently from the beast. If the host does manage to overcome the pain from the separation process, they will need healing as soon as possible since the parasite will turn into a toxin in the body, that will start to poison the host mere hours later. Only until it's too late to do anything will the host notice and just to make matters worse, this toxin can and will spread like a nasty disease." The figure answered.

The group listened to the information, processing it as fast as they could, while trying to figure out whether or not they should trust the figure.

"I'll do the healing." Wendy said stepping forward, her eyes holding new found determination.

'What they're saying is most likely true. There are two scents coming from that thing, an ominous scent being the strongest, with a faint but weirdly familiar scent mixed with it as well. Gajeel-kun has probably already picked it up, so we shouldn't stall much longer.'

"Wendy-chan?!" Juvia asked, stretching her arm out to hold Wendy back, alarmed by her friends action.

"What that person said is true, so you take care of squirt and we'll take care of the beast." Gajeel whispered loud enough for the group to hear,  lightly pushing Juvia forward.

Juvia looked at the group and saw them nod, allowing her to relax enough to begin walking behind Wendy.

"I'll begin to separate them, while you begin to heal the host. Also, heads up, the beast will be harder to defeat since it no longer has a host to 'protect'." The figure said.

The group nodded, shorty afterward a rune appeared between them and the figure.

"Tolle negativam et purga vas." The figure said, their eyes glowing a lime green.

Shorty after a bloodcurdling scream came from inside the beast, which had more or less regained consciousness.

A roar erupted from the beast soon after, noticing that it's host was no longer captured within its body.

Wendy and Juvia gasped when they saw a familiar face.

"It's Eve-san!" Juvia exclaimed holding Eve down, since he had started to twitch uncontrollably.

Wendy grit her teeth as she began to heal Eve.

'Eve-san is too hurt to be moved, so I'll have to do this as quickly and carefully as possible.' Wendy thought as the battle began.

"I'll give you a boost!" The figure said, a rune appearing under them and under the group, just as the beast began to attack.