The guitarist never got the chance to strike a chord.
A streak of red light slammed into him from behind.
"Disarm."
Rowan had already circled around after firing the railgun. The spell ripped the magic guitar from the man's hands and sent it skidding across the floor.
"So you were behind me!" the guitarist snarled. "Then die!"
His fury flared instantly. Thick strands of hair surged from his scalp, stretching and twisting like a living waterfall as they lunged toward Rowan.
He'd caught the attacker's position. Invisibility didn't matter anymore.
Rowan raised his wand calmly.
"Rapid Shedding."
The curse landed.
For a heartbeat, the charging mass of hair froze in midair. Then it collapsed, lifeless, slumping to the floor in dull heaps.
At the same time, the guitarist's proud mane vanished.
What remained was a gleaming, perfectly bald head.
"My… my hair…" He stared in disbelief, hands trembling as they touched smooth skin. "What kind of monster spell is this…?"
For a man who treated his hair like sacred treasure, the blow was devastating.
He didn't get time to scream properly.
High-voltage electricity wrapped around his body, and he dropped unconscious to the floor.
Rowan dispelled his invisibility and followed up without ceremony.
"Stunning Hex. Petrification."
Once the man was fully immobilized, Rowan sealed him into a containment case and tucked it into his spatial storage. Magic that used sound to hijack other people as weapons was rare. He intended to study it later.
"Rowan!" Lucy finally exhaled in relief when she saw him. "Thank goodness you're here."
After the Phantom Lord incident, Fairy Tail trusted him completely. Lucy especially.
"Reparo."
With a flick of his wand, Lucy's torn clothes stitched themselves back together.
"Tell me what's going on," Rowan said. "Where's Erza?"
Lucy winced and began explaining, still rubbing the red marks left by the water whip.
They had come to the resort using hotel vouchers Loki had given them and run into Juvia there. Everything had been peaceful until the ambush. The attackers' magic was strange and overwhelming, and before they could react, Erza and Happy were taken.
After breaking free, they followed the kidnappers to the island and fought their way into the tower.
Erza had already escaped once, and that was when the truth came out.
She had been a slave here as a child, forced to help build the tower alongside other captives, including Jellal. They had once rebelled together and overthrown their masters. But at the moment of freedom, Jellal changed.
He exiled Erza, threatened the others' lives, and convinced them she had betrayed them. The tower was rebuilt in the name of a twisted "paradise."
The mages who attacked them last night were Erza's former companions.
When they learned the truth, one of them, a boy named Sho, sealed Erza inside a magical card and went alone to confront Jellal, hoping to protect her.
The group split after that.
Sho took Erza upward. Gray and another former slave, Simon, chased after him. Lucy and Juvia searched for Natsu, who had rushed in ahead to rescue Happy.
Rowan exhaled slowly. "That explains the mess."
He considered teleporting Lucy and Juvia out immediately, but something about the situation bothered him. Two elite enemies were still unaccounted for, and Jellal himself hadn't acted yet.
Splitting up now felt wrong.
"Let's regroup first," Rowan decided. "We find Natsu, then move together."
Juvia was still an S-class mage. Lucy's spirits could help if things went south. Strength in numbers mattered now that Rowan had drawn Jellal's attention.
He redirected the tracking charm.
"Tracking spell, target: Natsu."
The tower was massive, its corridors layered and twisting. Without magic, finding anyone would have been a nightmare.
High above, seated on a throne at the tower's peak, Jellal flicked a piece off a chessboard.
"So he lost," he mused. "And Fairy Tail's support has arrived. This is getting interesting."
The outcome of the lower battles didn't concern him. Even half his power placed him among the kingdom's strongest mages. One more S-class cat wouldn't change the ending.
This was just a game. A way to pass the time before Etherion finished its countdown.
"Still too slow," Rowan muttered.
With fifteen minutes remaining, he grabbed Lucy with one arm and Juvia with the other and blasted straight out of the tower. Once he pinpointed Natsu's floor, he fired an explosive spell and punched a hole straight back in.
They landed hard.
"What the hell is that?" Lucy blurted.
Before them stood something bizarre.
A muscular human body topped with an owl's head. And on that owl's head sat a shock of pink hair.
Uncomfortably familiar pink hair.
Rowan checked his spell.
The tracking charm pointed directly at it.
"…You've got to be kidding me."