Fairy Tail rushed out the back door of the guild to see the cause of the commotion, and Dealana followed after rummaging behind the basement's bar and slipping on a pair of black, fingerless gloves that contained small semi-spheres on the back of the palm. She ran outside just in time to hear Natsu ask about the huge fortress making it's approach toward Fairy Tail on many sets of metal legs.

"What is that thing?" Natsu questioned as Fairy Tail watched Phantom Lord's guild hall-crab monstrosity stomp closer and closer to their guild hall.

"It's a guild hall with ginormous legs!" Happy exclaimed.

"Is it Phantom?" Loke asked. Phantom Lord's guild hall continued to come closer, it's metal limbs creaking and groaning.

"How do we fight that thing?" Wakaba voiced what they were all wondering. Dealana studied the giant monstrosity for a moment but came up blank.

"Tie the legs together and hope it trips?" She remarked, hoping to hide the growing fear inside her.

"I never anticipated this." Erza said. Dealana glanced over and did a double take; the scarlet haired mage was wearing a pink towel and she was shaking, "I can't believe they'd go to such extremes to attack us. Fairy Tail watched as a wall from one of the buildings lowered to reveal a large cannon hiding inside. The sound of metal scraping as it extended to its full length reached Dealana's ears and she couldn't help but wince at the uncomfortable noise.

They had almost no time to react as it began to collect a large amount of magical energy into a dangerous blast aimed straight for the guild.

"Run! Get out of here now!" Erza turned and shouted at all of them, before running towards the very thing she told everyone to get away from.

"Erza!" Mira exclaimed.

"Don't be stupid!" Macao called after her.

Erza then began to glow and her towel was exchanged for a set of armor, "She requipped!" Cana realized.

"What are you doing?" Loke shouted at her.

"Protecting the Guild Hall." She replied now wearing an extravagant blue, grey, and white set of armor with large shields attached to the arms.

"That's her Adamantine armor." Happy identified.

"Is she gonna try to block the cannon's shot?" Bisca asked.

"But there's no way her armor's gonna hold up against a blast that strong." Alzack added.

"You're just risking your life. This is ridiculous." Wakaba told the redhead.

"Stay back!" Erza yelled with no intention of backing down from this. Dealana watched with wide and fearful eyes.

"Erza!" Natsu shouted trying to get to her, however, Gray held him back.

"We're not gonna be able to stop her. We just gotta have faith in her." he yelled at the pyro. Dealana's body shook and she grabbed onto Elfman's shirt. He noticed and immediately held the girl close. Dealana was utterly terrified that Erza was going to die from this, but she had to have faith in Fairy Tail's strongest female wizard, right?

The cannon fired.

It's dark vortex blast launched straight for the guild hall as Erza brought the two halves of the shield together and they formed an enormous magic seal to block the cannon's fire. Everyone screamed and Erza grunted at the force of the blast. Elfman grabbed hold of Mira and hugged her and Dealana close as the blast continued to chip away at Erza's armor. Her shield and armor cracked just as the last of the blast hit, sending Erza into the air.

Acting on instinct, Dealana's hand shot out and a light blue magic seal flashed before Erza landed on a soft cloud rather than the hard ground.

"I don't believe this. She actually managed to stop it" Macao breathed as the smoke cleared. Dealana didn't waste anytime and shot forward from Elfman's arms and raced over to Erza, nearly tripping from using magic energy she didn't have to form that cloud.

"Erza!" Dealana expressed uncharacteristic concern for her normal personality and began to assess the damage. Her breathing was labored and both her magical and physical energy were nearly spent.

"You okay?" Natsu asked running over, "Say something!"

"Makarov has fallen." Jose's voice projected through the speakers, "And now Erza can no longer stand. Any chance of victory has slipped through your fingers. Surrender Lucy Heartfilia immediately. You have no choice."

"That's not gonna happen." Alzack shouted.

"Like any guild would hand over one of their own to a monster like you." Bisca agreed.

"You hear that? Lucy's staying put." Macao yelled as the rest of Fairy Tail began cheering in agreement. Dealana glared at the Phantom guild hall, they weren't going to get their hands on Lucy.

"I won't ask again." Jose warned.

"We would never betray her like that! You'd have to kill us first!" Erza's voice roared over the other cheers.

"You can stop asking now, 'cause we're not gonna give you any other answer! We're taking every one of you jerks down!" Natsu shouted.

"If death is what you want, I'll give you a second helping of Jupiter!" Jose's voice screamed back at them, "You've got 15 minutes to ponder the folly of your actions!"

"No way." Elfman remarked

"What'll we do?" Cana wondered

"They're gonna fire at us again?" Loke asked looking at the cannon.

Erza whimpered and struggled to try and push herself up on Dealana's cloud but she collapsed back into the fluff not a second later.

"No, Erza!" Dealana exclaimed brushing a few stray strands of scarlet hair out of her face.

"Oh, no. She's out!" Gray realized, "And she's the only reason the rest of us are still standing after that first shot." Suddenly, creatures squealed as they flew out from Phantom's crab-fortress and began flying toward the guild.

"You're in quite a quandary, aren't you, Fairy Tail? There are only two ways this situation can play out. Either my troops will tear you apart, or you'll be blown away by Jupiter." Jose told them.

"Are you kidding me?" Macao shouted looking at the approaching shadowy creatures, "If he fires at us, he'll kill his own men!"

"Surely he's bluffing. Who'd do something like that?" Wakaba guessed.

"No, he's gonna do it." Cana told them, "Those Phantom soldiers were created by Jose's Shade magic. They're not human, so it won't matter to him if they're destroyed." she explained, "We've got to do something to take out that Jupiter cannon."

"I'm gonna smash that thing to pieces. I only got 15 minutes to wreck it, right?" Natsu asked.

"Mm-hm." Cana nodded, and that was all Natsu needed before he sprinted toward the cannon.

"Come on, Happy!"

"Aye, sir!" Happy picked up Natsu and they were off flying straight for the Phantom Lord guild hall.

"Okay, Elfman, we're gonna storm the place too." Gray said leaving Dealana and Mira to tend to Erza.

"And we're gonna stay here to protect the guild hall. You with me?" Cana asked Fairy Tail, who stood at the ready behind her.

➵

Despite the efforts of Alzack and Bisca taking out a multitude of Shades, they only regenerated and kept coming after the guild members. Dealana stuck with Erza inside the remains of the Guild Hall with Mira, who disguised herself as Lucy. There were only nine minutes left until the Jupiter is able to fire again. Dealana was still recovering her magic power and using her cloud spell to save Erza, while a good thing, it was also a bad thing as she needed to conserve as much as she could for the battles ahead.

Dealana began to consume the air around her in order to speed up her magic energy recovery. According to Arashi, while storm dragon slayer magic gave the user the ability to eat multiple elements, each on was different in its own way. Meaning that Natsu can eat fire and regain magical energy, stamina, and all that good stuff, but Dealana has to eat air for stamina, lightning for magical energy and a few other things for other effects. It confused Dealana at first, but now she was beginning to understand and kind of wish she'd paid more attention to Arashi's teachings rather than come up with insults.

(A/N: I couldn't help it. At this point in writing, I'm rewatching the Phantom Lord arc, and I just watched Natsu spit on Totomaru...I'm dying! xD)

Thirty seconds. That was all that was left, and Dealana peered outside worriedly. Natsu hadn't destroyed the cannon yet, which was worrying mainly because Natsu is so much more destructive than that.

Three...two...one...

Dealana let out a sigh of relief and smirked as she watched the glorious sight of the Phantom cannon being blown to pieces. "Nice one, Natsu." Unfortunately, the guild hall began to take a different form, the buildings shifting around and the Shades retreating back around Phantom's fortress.

"No..." Dealana breathed out as she watched Phantom's most powerful weapon appeared. Phantom's Giant. "No!" she repeated a little louder, ignoring the slight sick feeling she got from just looking at it.

"Kneel before me you detestable brats, or you will fall victim to my wrath. Savor your last moments, because soon, I will end your pathetic little lives."

"What do we do now?" Dealana did a double take hearing Lucy's voice before she remembered Mira had taken her appearance.

"I'm going to fight, Mira."

"Dealana, no! You can't in your condition." Dealana was about to argue back before she noticed the forming magic circle outside.

"Mira...what's that?" the heterochromiac pointed out the window. Mira turned and gasped.

"That's the magic circle for an abyss break, one of the forbidden spells."

"It sounds weird in Lucy's voice." Dealana muttered under her breath.

➵

"Mira, how long do you think we have until the giant casts that spell?" Cana asked Mira through a hole in the guild hall's wall.

"I'd say about 10 minutes. If only we could figure out what's powering it."

"Don't worry." Cana assured her, "I'm sure the guys inside are looking for the power source right now."

"Someone's in there with Natsu?" Mira asked.

"Yeah, Gray and Elfman."

"Elfman?" Mira gasped, "But why?"

Cana was confused, "What's the big deal? He wanted to go."

"You know as well as I do that he can't fight. It's just too dangerous."

"He'll be fine." Cana told her, "He was one of our best fighters in the raid earlier."

"Fighting grunts is one thing, but if he went up against one of Phantom's best as he is now, I don't know if he could handle it." Mira admitted.

"Well, yeah, I understand why you're worried, after everything that happened back then. I would be too. Listen, we all suffered with you. But I think this is his way of trying to leave the past behind and move forward. Let him do it." Cana told her softly.

Not long after her chat with Cana, Mira disguised as Lucy move out to the battle field and Dealana grumbled about staying with Erza, though she was incredibly worried for both of them, the sky-blunette had gotten her mask back up and hid her sense of dread skillfully. It wasn't until she heard Jose's hideous laughter again that she looked outside.

"Nice transformation, but you can't fool me, young lady. I knew from the start that Lucy Heartfilia wasn't here." Mira's transformation faded and she regained her normal white hair. Suddenly, a green magic circle appeared underneath Mira causing her to fall through the earth and scream.

"Mira!" Dealana exclaimed. The white-haired beauty reappeared with a grunt of pain in between two of the giant's fingers.

"Did you really think your little parlor trick would fool me?" Jose asked, "As punishment I'll crush you to death as you watch your friends perish."

"Mira!" Cana shouted in worry, but Dealana didn't hear it.

"We got to get her down somehow." Macao said, but Dealana didn't hear it.

"But how?" Wakaba wailed, but Dealana didn't hear it.

And in that moment, the air began to shift, the temperature dropped, the sky began to darken, and the clouds began to rumble and crackle. The calm before the storm was over, and her fury was ready to be unleashed.

➵

*calmly sits on Fairy Tail's destroyed guild hall sipping tea*