179. Prison Break

Ben enters the castle and follows the direction that Bella shows. Some soldiers still try to stop him but they never succeed. Then a human-sized black Exceed that wears armor and holds a big sword stops them in their track.

"Another Captain of Royal Army, Panther Lily," says Ben unimpressed.

"As we've thought, you will come to save your guild members, Demon Lord. It seems you've defeated Hughes and Sugarboy, but it won't-" Lily can't finish his words because Ben suddenly teleports in front of him.

Ben kicks Lily with his left leg and sends Lily onto the wall. The impact destroys the wall until a big hole appears. Lily is injured, but he doesn't get knocked out like the 2 Royal Captains. Ben has used more power than when he slammed the 2 Royal Captains, so he is impressed at Lily's toughness.

"Ho, you are tougher than those 2. Maybe because you are an Exceed and can store Magic Power in your body," says Ben as he grabs Lily's head.

"Ugh, such power. Are you really Ben Silverstone? I don't remember you being this strong before," asks Lily while trying to release himself from Ben's hold, but to no avail.

"Well, I am Ben, that's what you need to know. Now, Sleep!" Ben uses a Sleep spell on Lily and makes him sleep instantly.

After putting Lily to sleep, Ben resumes his way to Wendy with Bella still on his head. Some soldiers still try to stop him which makes him annoyed. He defeats them all and eventually reaches the jail underground.

Ben looks around and finally finds Wendy & Natsu in a cell. Natsu is noisier than usual because he breaks the cell door without his magic. It makes Ben annoyed, so he blasts the door with a pure physical kick.

"You really need to work more on your muscle than your mouth, Natsu. Being noisy won't solve most problems. Anyway, here, eat it, and you will be able to use your magic again," says Ben while giving Natsu & Wendy the pills from Mystogan.

"What's this?" asks Wendy.

"A gift from Mystogan. Anyway, wasn't Lucy with you? Where is she?" asks Ben.

"I don't know. She wasn't here when I woke up," says Natsu after eating the pill.

Natsu tries to use his magic and he can use it normally now. It intrigues Ben a bit because Natsu's spell's power doesn't seem to get affected by the thin Ethernano in this place.

'Hmm, maybe because his spell's power is not as high as mine, so the difference isn't too clear. Well, that's not a bad thing because that means he can use his magic normally,' thinks Ben.

Ben wants to say something, but before he can do it, Natsu runs off first. He can only sigh and let Natsu does what he wants. It will just tire him out if he needs to keep telling Natsu what to do because the fire head will never listen.

"Let's find Lucy, then we'll search for Carla and Wendy. That fire head will make a ruckus so we can search without anyone troubling us," says Ben.

"Yes," says Wendy with a sad expression.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?" asks Ben.

"No, it's about Carla," says Wendy.

Wendy then tells Ben about what happened before. It seems that the Exceeds which are Carla, Bella, and Happy were sent to Earth Land to capture the Dragon Slayers.

"Did Carla say that?" asks Ben.

"No, it's the bad Erza-san," says Wendy.

Ben smiles and rubs her hair, "Then don't think too much about it. You two are best friends, right? So why don't you just believe in her now and then ask her about it later?"

"But the bad Erza-san and the soldiers-," says Wendy before Ben chimes in.

"Do you believe them or Carla?" asks Ben.

"Carla," says Wendy without hesitation.

"That's the answer," says Ben while smiling.

They look around the jail and finally find Lucy. She is tied with chains and locked with wood in her cell, very different from Wendy & Natsu. Ben thinks that it must be because Edo Lucy is more dangerous than Edo Natsu and the Kingdom mistook Lucy for Edo Lucy.

Lucy is happy to see Ben & Wendy come, but she's confused because Natsu isn't there. Wendy explains it while Ben is freeing Lucy from the chains & wood locks. He doesn't have the keys so he just breaks the wood and cuts the chains.

"Alright, let's get out of here before that idiot put himself in a mess that he can't solve," says Ben.

The others nod and they leave the underground jail. When they arrive outside, they find a big commotion there. Natsu is currently fighting with Edolas Erza and surprisingly he is on the losing end even though he can use his magic already.

"Ho, this Erza is quite strong. At least she is stronger than those 2 Captains and a little stronger than Lily," says Ben.

"What should we do?" asks Lucy.

"I'll help him, we don't have time for this," says Ben.

But before Ben can move, someone else has moved first and helped Natsu, it is Earth Land Erza. She is very easy to be recognized because of her armor. Then someone else comes to Ben's group by flying, it's Mira in her Satan form.

"How could you get free?" asks Ben.

"It's Gajeel, he used his Dragon Slayer Magic to free us. I was with Erza when the incident happened so we got trapped together. We were turned into the lacrima on the plaza," says Mira as she transforms to normal form.

"Dragon Slayer Magic can be used to cancel the effect? Damn, why didn't Mystogan tell me about this?" ponders Ben.

"Maybe he doesn't know," says Mira.

"No, he knows. He gave Gajeel the pills, after all. That means he knows that Gajeel can free the ones who got trapped in the lacrima," says Ben.

"Maybe not all Dragon Slayer Magic can be used to do it. Gajeel's Magic might be the only one that can be used to free the hostages. Your magic might just destroy the lacrima," says Lucy.

"Hmm, it's possible. Or maybe he doesn't want to make a big ruckus by freeing everyone. We just need to free a few then send the rest back through his Reverse Anima plan," ponders Ben.

"Reverse Anima?" asks Mira.

"Yeah, it's a way to return everything to normal, but I can't explain it now. We need to leave this place first. Also, I have something that I need to tell you, Mira," says Ben.

Everyone nods then they move to leave the Castle. Many soldiers come to stop them but Ben & Mira can take care of them easily. They almost reach Natsu & Erza's location when 2 small figures fly toward them.

"Carla!" says Bella happily as she flies toward Carla.

"I'm here too, you know," says Happy in protest but Bella ignores him.

"Carla, you've finally returned, and you finally can fly now. Bella said you couldn't fly before," says Ben in relief.

"Yeah, I have too much worry before so I couldn't fly, Happy too. I thought it was strange because Bella could fly easily, but now I know the reason. It's because she doesn't worry about anything, she totally believes that you will come to save us. Also, she is always carefree about everything, so her heart doesn't waver," says Carla.

"Eh, did you not believe me? Big brother is sad," says Ben teasingly while making some fake tears.

"N-No, I believe you. But I was doubting myself. Also, Wendy, I'm sorry for everything," says Carla.

"It's okay Carla, but you need to explain everything later," says Wendy.

Carla nods and then they proceed to leave the Castle. But then again, many Exceeds come to catch Bella, Carla, and Happy who have been judged as Fallen. Ben is just about to attack the Exceeds when suddenly a beam is shot from the Castle toward the Exceeds and they turned into a giant Exceed-shaped Lacrima.

______________________________________________________________

You can read up to 35+ chapters ahead of this fanfic novel & the other one on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.

Clicking that power stone/like also seem to be a good choice, hehe.

I've uploaded:

1. Chapter 214 of Fairy Tail: Sun Eater

2. Chapter 225 of Transcended as Lord Buggy

https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain

(the web didn't use _underscore_, it's to avoid censorship)