the entire flock peering through the treetops to try and stick close behind the fleeing trio of humans, breaking through whenever they found the opportunity and taking another lunge at them, only to be dodged as Gray and Juvia swerved the slide abruptly in another direction.
...
"Lisanna-san!" Juvia called over her shoulder when the catgirl caught up with them. "Can't you use your Take-Over on them to stop them attacking?"
"Not on all of them at once," Lisanna replied. "I could maybe do two, three, maybe four at a time but not the entire flock!"
"We don't appear to be shaking them!" Gray growled, but then he blanched when he saw several of the Clippers had managed to get ahead of them and were advancing through the trees on foot, their ungainly, hoppity-skipping gait looking utterly ludicrous but their vicious beaks more than enough to make them look threatening.
"Hold your breath!" Juvia cried suddenly and flung her arms out wide, her body turning to water and lost its form, spreading out in all directions. Gray and Lisanna both blanched as they were suddenly submerged in what had been Juvia's body, drenching them in an instant flat, but Juvia blasted herself and them with her up and over the heads of the startled Clippers, before she reconstituted her body and restarted the stream of water ahead. Gray promptly froze it again and they continued on like before, slipping their way through the woods like they were on toboggans down a slope.
The Jarvey coughed and spat out water, "Hey! Warn a guy before you do something like that, Hippohips!"
"Hippohips!" Juvia yelled indignantly though she was not sure what 'hippo' actually meant.
"Really not the time for an argument!" Gray called as the birds continued to clatter around them and overhead. They piled all speed onto the slide and, to their relief, it was not long before they were managing to pull away from the angry flock, who were finding it increasingly difficult to get in at them through the treetops.
That is, they were getting away, right up until they point where the tree-line abruptly ended and they suddenly found themselves shooting across open field.
"Shimata!" Gray exclaimed, looking up again as the birds renewed their attack, diving past the trees behind them and wheeling around the sides to start coming at them from all directions, closing in like a swarm of locusts on a farm.
"Gray-sama!" Juvia yelled, and Gray span around when he realised that he hadn't been looking where he was going and suddenly the slide, no longer following the path that Juvia's water had been taking, was taking them straight towards an old stone wall. Gray snarled as he slammed his hands together to create a sharp turn in the slide ahead, but it was too sharp. As the three of them whooshed around the curve they all lost their footing and were thrown clear, tumbling into undignified heaps in the grass. The Clippers cawed in triumph as they descended down on them like a great feathered cloud.
Juvia was first to her feet and she lifted her hands to cry, "WATER DOME!" Abruptly a like half-sphere of water splashed into existence to form a large dome swirling liquid around the three Mages like a physical wall between them and the birds. The Clippers veered away from the attack slightly, confused at this sudden blockade and Juvia quickly began to shoot plumes of water out in all directions from it, dousing feathers and sending them squawking away, shaking their heads.
"Nice, Juvia!" Gray complimented her, and Juvia beamed happily and almost squealed in delight at the praise but she was able to force herself to concentrate on keeping the birds at bay.
"Yeah, but if you keep attacking like that, they'll never leave us alone," Lisanna called. "We need to get them to lose their interest in us."
"Guess we'll have to wait it out a while," Gray prepared more of his magic to freeze the dome, but right before he could there was a yell from outside the dome. It seemed, once again, they'd forgotten the Jarvey and now he'd been caught in the beak of one of the Clippers, which was flapping its broad wings hard to take it up into the air and away - the Jarvey screaming abuse at it as it squirmed helplessly away.
"No!" Lisanna cried and suddenly switched form, taking the shape of a green-and-pink-feathered swan-like bird. "Gray, seal yourselves in!" she cried as she spread her wings.
"What!? But… Lisanna…"
"Don't worry about me! I'll be fine!" Lisanna insisted as she powered herself into the air, plunging straight through the Water Dome and out amongst the swarm of Clippers, shoving a couple of them aside with her wings as she climbed towards the one that had the Jarvey. Several of the birds were quick to notice there was a stranger in their midst and swung around to pursue her, but most of them descended further down towards the Dome - they'd seen it was possible to get through and were now more determined than ever.
"Damn it!" Gray growled before her raised his hands and froze the Dome around himself and Juvia, creating a thick, solid barrier that the Clippers fell upon, scratching and pecking with talon and beak like frenzied vultures at a carcass, trying to break through.
"Gray-sama, what about Lisanna-san?" Juvia asked with wide eyes, fighting the urge to cover her ears at the cawing and scratching sounds coming from all around them - they could see the shadows of the Clippers through the ice and they could tell they were now completely surrounded, the birds trying to find a way in at all angles.
"I'm sure she'll be fine," Gray gritted his teeth. "She knows animals better than any one of us. She'll… she'll be okay."
Juvia bit her lip and looked up, unconsciously moving closer to Gray and peering at the ice walls as if hoping to somehow see what was happening to Lisanna through them. But of course she only saw the shadows of the birds and their relentless pounding on the shield.
"Juvia hopes so," she murmured.
...
It took close to half an hour before the last of the Clippers lost interest in attacking the dome and finally left, leaving the area around the dome mercifully quiet at last. But Juvia and Gray still sat there inside for quite a while longer, possibly another half an hour though they weren't really keeping track of time. They were both listening intently, silently wondering whether the Clippers really had gone or whether they were close by, waiting for them to try and break cover.
Eventually though, Gray decided he'd had enough. "Come on, let's get out of here," he grumbled, placing his hand on the wall of the dome and re-moulding it slightly, to create a doorway while leaving the rest of it intact. Juvia momentarily reflected that it was like she and Gray had been sitting together in a giant igloo before quickly following him outside.
The skies were mercifully clear. There was no sign of any Clippers. And there was no sign of Lisanna.
But even as Gray stepped around the igloo-dome to have a look at the other side, he froze. There were one Clipper left in the area, perched in the branches of a large, single oak tree that stood alone in the open field. Gray stood rooted to the spot for several seconds, wondering if it'd start attacking again if he moved too quickly, and if it did, would the commotion bring the entire flock back down on their heads from somewhere close by?
But the Ice Mage was suddenly startled when the Clipper said, in Lisanna's voice, "It's alright. The rest of them are long gone. Probably gone off to look for roosts or something."
"Lisanna?" Gray blinked. "You… ah… I see…"
The Clipper giggled slightly before flapping down from the tree and landing on the grass, its body glowing briefly and suddenly Lisanna was standing there in front of them again. "Best way to avoid getting attacked by Clippers is to be a Clipper yourself, so I thought I'd try getting myself a new Take-Over. And it seemed to work."
"Oh, Lisanna-san. Juvia's so glad you're okay. She was so worried," Juvia hurried forwards and embraced the youngest Strauss sibling, who smiled and hugged her back.
"Yeah, but still that was the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my entire life," the Jarvey stated as it popped out of an old rabbit burrow that Lisanna had helped it hide down during the attack. "The hell were you thinking, charging out there trying to save me like that?"
"Hey, you might want to show a little gratitude!" Gray glared at the ferret-like creature, having to strongly resist the urge to kick it. "If it wasn't for Lisanna, you'd be bird chow by now. Bird crap in the morning."
"Well of course I would be, dumbass. You think my skull's as thick as yours? It's nice to be alive but that doesn't change the fact that was a stupid decision."
"Boy, I bet you don't have many friends," Gray muttered.
"Friends? If you must know, I do have a friend, but he's the most antisocial moron I've ever seen in my…"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, what exactly happened, Lisanna? Did you invade the body of one of the birds and absorb its power into your soul or something?"
"What? Oh gods no - I would never do something like that to an innocent animal!" Lisanna looked repulsed and shook her head firmly.
"Though I could if I wanted. Elf-niichan used that form of Take Over against the Beast back when…" she grimaced and stopped before she could go any further but both Juvia and Gray knew what she was talking about.
...
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