"This is the end, Alduin!" Ysmir roared as he swung his sword down on the enormous, black-winged wyrm.

The sword, crafted of the impossibly hard bones of the dov – the dragons – sliced through Alduin's hard scales with impossible ease, sprouting a fresh wound on the body of the firstborn of the dovah – dragon. Alduin howled in pain, his voice reverberating throughout the far-reaching corners of Sovngarde.

"Niid! Zu'u Alduin faal sahrot!" Alduin roared as he lashed out with his jaws, attempting to bite the Dovahkiin and rip him apart with his fangs.

Ysmir raised his large, broad shield and winced as he braced himself against the physical might of the dreadful dragon. Though Alduin was unable to clamp his jaw around the shield, he struck it like a warhammer stronger than that of any giant's, and Ysmir staggered backwards a step. Had it not been for the ethereal set of dragon armor enveloping his own, more mundane set of dragonbone armor, he would surely have been sent flying backwards, despite blocking. This ethereal armor, a product of his Dragon Aspect Shout, granted him the ability to take on the power and aspect of a dragon, granting him the impossible strength and durability of one of the dov, as well as greatly strengthening his own Thu'um – the Dragon Shouts.

Ysmir concentrated his essence, the very fiber of his being, into his breath. And with that breath, he spoke to the world, bidding it to change unto his will. He Shouted.

"Fo Krah Diin!"

A torrent of ice and cold was made manifest, and it followed in the wake of Ysmir's Shout. That concentrated blizzard raged forth and collided with Alduin, who, in his rage, retaliated with his own Shout. Raging fire screamed forth from Alduin's open jaw, and it melted away at Ysmir's ice and cold. Narrowly, Ysmir managed to roll to the side in order to avoid the river of flames.

"Take this, foul worm!" Gormlaith Golden-Hilt, one of the three spirits of heroes who resided in Shor's Hall that volunteered to support Ysmir vanquish their ancient foe, screamed. She swung her sword at Alduin's eye, causing him to scream once more in pain as he was blinded by the ancient Nord heroine.

The other two heroes, Felldir the Old and Hakon One-Eye, pressed their own attack, causing Alduin to turn his attention to them. However, it was evident that this long battle had taken their toll on them. They looked weary, even though they were spirits, and were sporting fresh injuries all over their bodies. This would be the final assault, Ysmir decided.

"Heroes!" Ysmir called out. "Hold fast!"

Dropping his sword and shield, Ysmir concentrated his magicka into one of the most destructive spells he knew of. So powerful was this spell that while preparing to cast it, the magicka visibly transformed into sparks of lightning that danced all along his arms. It took him nearly five seconds to finish preparing the spell – a completely unreasonable amount of time in normal combat, but one that was possible thanks to the presence of his powerful and trustworthy allies. Thanks to them distracting Alduin, Ysmir successfully finished preparing his spell and unleashed it.

True to its name, a storm of lightning raged forth from Ysmir's hands and struck Alduin in a large, but concentrated beam of crackling light. Elemental energy in its purest, most destructive form coursed through the World Eater's body, and though he possessed great resistance to magic, a trait shared by many of his kind, not even he could withstand this powerful assault.

A wordless shout sprang from Alduin's maw, but this time Ysmir heard something very clearly in his voice; something that had always been present, but very well hidden until now: fear.

Alduin was going to die, and he knew it.

Sweat dripped down Ysmir's brow as the strain of maintaining the spell started to affect him. He could feel his magicka draining fast, and it would soon be impossible for him to continue casting the spell. Before then, he needed to kill Alduin.

Die, damn you! Ysmir screamed in his thoughts. Die!

However, Alduin proved too resilient, and when the last drop of Ysmir's magicka ran out, Alduin remained alive – but not unscathed. Alduin was visibly trembling from the numerous injuries he had suffered, both new and old. This was his chance, Ysmir thought. Now was the time to strike down Alduin!

Grabbing his sword and shield, Ysmir sprinted forward, raising his sword to bring down the deathblow on Alduin's neck.

"Zu'u unslaad!" Alduin roared. "Zu'u nis oblaan!"

With that, a wave of pure force erupted from Alduin's jaw, and Ysmir felt as though he was slammed by a full-power swing of a giant's club, and though he was clad in the armor of the Dragon Aspect, he was still sent flying backward.

"Dovahkiin! I shall not die! Not here, not by you!" Alduin screamed, deigning to use the Nordic tongue such that Ysmir might understand. "Begone! I banish you, as my ancient enemies had once done to I! Wah Gut Tiid!"

"Dragonborn!" Felldir shouted. "Look out!"

Too late, a Shout of prismatic colors erupted from Alduin's jaws and slammed into Ysmir. He felt himself be hurtled back with force far greater than that of Alduin's previous Shout. And then Ysmir, the Last Dragonborn, disappeared from Sovngarde.

-SCENE BREAK-

An earsplitting sound resounded through the air, causing Wendy to look up with a start. All around her, the members of Fairy Tail, wounded from their clash with the dark guild, Grimoire Heart, but freshly healed due to her magic, looked up as well with a look of confusion.

"What is that?" Gray said as he whirled around, trying to find the source of the noise that seemed to be coming from every direction.

"It's so damn loud!" Elfman shouted as he pressed his hands against his ears in order to mitigate the severity of the noise.

Wendy, on the other hand, felt her eyes go wide as she understood what this sound was coming from. There was only one other person there besides Wendy that understood what this sound heralded: her fellow Dragonslayer, Gajeel Redfox. And of all those there, only he remained silent, his jaw clenched as tightly as his fists as he faced towards the direction of the noise.

It meant only one thing and one thing only.

"The cry of a dragon..." Wendy said incredulously, as if unable to believe it herself despite knowing it to be true.

"Eh?" Levy said with an expression of shock.

"A dragon!?" Lisanna said, also with a surprised look.

From down an open path in the forest, a group of her guildmates came running towards them. They consisted of Gildarts, Lucy, Cana, Happy, and the Fire Dragonslayer, Natsu Dragneel.

"Hey! Is everyone okay?" Natsu shouted as they ran over to them.

"He must be from back then," Gildarts muttered with a grim, knowing look on his face.

"Look! Up in the sky!" Panther Lily, Gajeel's Exceed partner, cried out as he pointed towards a black shadow that had appeared high above them.

All of the members of Fairy Tail looked up, and their expressions all turned to one of horror and dread.

"A... A real live dragon?" Wendy trembled in fear, as her friends and comrades around her let out similar statements of disbelief.

Though Wendy had known a dragon before, having been raised for much of her relatively short life by one, this one was different. She could sense it. Grandine had been kind and motherly. This one felt as if he was a black sun, dawning only to bring swift and terrible death on all who its light touched.

Then, Master Makarov uttered the phrase that brought even Wendy to her knees in fear.

"Acnologia," he nearly whispered, though his voice still permeated the air around all of them, such that they all heard him as clearly as if he were right next to them. "The Black Dragon of the Apocalypse."

Wendy knew only a little of the dragon termed Acnologia. In the books she had once borrowed from Levy, it had said that Acnologia was the dragon that ended previous era, destroying everything utterly. Though it failed to go more in depth than that, it had described enough so that Wendy knew of the terrible power that dragon possessed. The only problem?

That book had been about myths and legends.

It appeared, then, that Acnologia was not so mythical after all.

"Hey you!" Natsu shouted at the dragon audaciously. "You know where Igneel is, don't you!? And Metalicana and Grandine too!"

Instead of answering, the dragon began descending with terrible swiftness, landing on a hill overlooking Fairy Tail's encampment with such force that the very ground beneath him was shattered. To describe it in its fullness... Wendy could not find the proper words for it. It was large. Definitely large. Larger by far than that of Grandine. And it was nearly completely black, save for its eyes which glowed a burning, hellish red. More, it practically radiated with its awesome power, as if issuing a single, silent command: die.

The black dragon roared, causing waves of kinetic pressure to lash outwards. Such was the power of its roar that the stone and trees nearest to it broke and fell to the ground.

The dragon looked down at them, and it was then that those of Fairy Tail understood.

They were going to die.

Fear was plain in all of them, such that they all froze even as the dragon flew up into the air and dived down at them.

"RUN FOR IT!" Gildarts shouted, managing to regain his composure faster than everyone else.

Too late, however. The dragon slammed into the ground, causing the earth to collapse in on itself and form a crater.

"RUN TO THE SHIPS!" Gildarts roared out the evacuation order, even as the other guild members were screaming hysterically at the level of damage the dragon was causing.

"Wendy!" Charle, Wendy's Exceed partner, cried from beside her as they began running towards the ships. "You can talk to dragons, can't you? Can't you do something about this?"

"No, I can't!" Wendy replied hysterically. "Dragons all have high levels of intelligence, so he should be able to understand us, but he doesn't want to!"

Yes, though that dragon could very probably understand everything they were saying, it paid them, the mages of Fairy Tail, the same amount of attention and regard that one might give to a fly they were trying to swat out of the air. That, Wendy thought vaguely in the back of her mind, was actually a very good comparison of the current circumstance. To that dragon, they were but flies that it was trying to swat and kill.

Glancing over her shoulder, Wendy saw something that made her freeze. Makarov, master of Fairy Tail, had stopped and was facing the dragon. All around her, the other members of Fairy Tail had noticed as well and reacted the same way.

"What are you doing, Master?" Erza cried out. "We need to keep running!"

"All of you," Makarov said. "Keep running. And don't look back."

"No way!" Natsu shouted back angrily. "If you're staying, we're staying too!"

"Listen to me, you shitty brats!" Makarov roared angrily. "This is your Master's orders! Now obey them and run!"

Tears began welling up in Wendy's eyes as she understood what the master was saying; what he was trying to do. It was true that Master Makarov was the only person who could possibly slow down the dragon long enough for the rest of them to escape, but in doing so, he would surely die. Even if he wasn't wounded from the fight with Grimoire Heart, that dragon was simply too strong for even Makarov. But the master, being the person that he was, was more than willing to make that self-sacrifice.

But surely he understood what this meant to the rest of them? He was, to all of them, their father, in spirit though not in blood. And what children could simply stand to run away and leave their father behind to die for them? Impossible. It was completely impossible.

As Wendy blinked the tears out of her eyes, she noticed something strange. Despite the fact that it should have had more than enough time to do so, the dragon had not been attacking. In fact, now that she was looking at it, it had frozen completely, and was instead looking upward at the sky.

"Everyone!" Wendy called out. "Look, the dragon. It stopped."

"Eh?" Charle said as she looked at the dragon as well. "You're right, Wendy. But... why?"

"It looks like it's... expecting something," Wendy said. "From the sky?"

Looking upward, Wendy noticed something equally strange happening up in the heavens. While the rest of the sky was still blue and clear, save for a few clouds, there was a single, large circle that appeared as if it had been inscribed into the sky. It was pitch black like the void, and a faint sound could be heard coming out of it.

Then, something fell out of that circle of infinite blackness. No, rather, it was as if it had been ejected out, and the circle quickly disappeared after doing so. Wendy squinted to get a better look at it. It looked like... a person?

There was a crashing noise as whatever the circle had spat out landed on the earth, kicking up a cloud of dust that made it impossible to see. Thankfully, it quickly dispersed, and Wendy got her first look at what had come out of that gate in the sky.

She had been right. It was a person. Judging by his build and size, Wendy guessed that he was probably a man, though it was hard to tell from the armor he wore. That armor looked as though it was made of old and weathered bones, and his sword and shield were made of similar materials. More interestingly, however, clad over that bone armor was what appeared to be armor made of ethereal light. Who this man was, Wendy did not know. What she did know was that she could feel the same sensation she got from Acnologia or Grandine.

Dragon.

"Alduin!" the stranger roared.

The words that came next out of the man's mouth was in a language that Wendy had never heard before, and she was unable to make sense of it. It seemed, however, that the dragon did understand, because, to Wendy and the rest of Fairy Tail's shock, the dragon spoke back.

"Dovahkiin!" the dragon said in such a way that if it were a person, Wendy just knew that it would have had a look of complete and utter hatred on its face. The kind of hatred reserved only for one's sworn enemy, their life's nemesis. That, and there was something else she could sense in the dragon's voice as well: fear. And in the same, unknowable language as the stranger, the dragon continued speaking for a short time.

Whatever was said between the two must have truly angered the man, because he roared with such pure hate and vitriol that Wendy unconsciously flinched back a step.

With a savage cry, the man dashed forward, slashing horizontally at the dragon's head. To Fairy Tail's collective surprise, the dragon retreated back a few steps in order to avoid the swing. It then lunged its head forward, jaws snapping, and the man raised his shield and braced against the attack. And brace he did, for though the dragon's attack collided into his shield and managed to forcibly push him back several feet, the man stood fast and countered with a stab at the dragon's head, which was now within easy striking range. He managed to score a deep wound, but one that was ultimately more painful than it was serious, and it only caused the dragon to screech angrily as it reeled its head back in pain.

In that narrow window of opportunity, the man shouted three, strange words: "Yoor Tool Shul!"

Fire erupted from the man's mouth, similar to that of Natsu's own breath attack, though more concentrated and narrow in scope. It hit the dragon, and it snarled as it let loose a fire breath of its own. Slowly, the dragon's fire breath pushed back the stranger's, until the midway point, at which point the two breaths were stalemated. After nearly half a minute of that contest of breaths, both fire breaths dispersed.

"Who is that guy?" Erza said in shock. "A Dragonslayer like Natsu?"

"No," Gajeel was the one to answer. "I don't know who or what he is, but he's no Dragonslayer."

"But since he fighting that dragon, he can't be a bad person, right?" Wendy asked the group.

"Hell yeah!" Natsu said eagerly. "Let's go help that guy! This is our chance to kick that dragon's butt!"

"Agreed," Erza said more calmly. "Fairy Tail! Charge!"

A wordless, collective shout of agreement and fighting spirit sprang up from the members of Fairy Tail, as those healthy enough to fight began rushing forward, while only a few remained behind to help those too wounded to fight escape. Wendy was amongst the former, and she cried out in an uncharacteristic battle cry as she charged forward.

Both dragon and man noticed Fairy Tail's charge. The dragon reared his head back, as his chest expanded. The man saw this action, and cried out in his mysterious language towards the mages of Fairty Tail. No one there but the dragon understood what he was saying, but his voice carried an obvious tone of fear and warning. From that, it was clear what he was trying to say.

"Look out!"

Whether it be from the man's warning or just the obvious action of the dragon, the mages all understood what to do, and they scattered quickly. However, Wendy had only just recently finished healing as many of her wounded comrades as possible before the dragon had attacked, and she was still tired from that fact. Thus, when Wendy tried to dodge to the side, she stumbled and fell to the ground.

"Wendy!" Natsu shouted in panic.

A beam of pure, destructive light shot out of the dragon's mouth, aimed straight at Wendy. The Sky Dragonslayer's eyes went wide open as she watched her own impending doom rapidly approach her. She screamed wordlessly.

"Wuld!" Wendy heard the stranger shout. And suddenly, he was in front of her, shield raised, his body positioned to protect hers completely.

The breath attack struck the shield and, surprisingly, did not shatter it. The man cried out from the strain of the effort as he struggled to stand against the godlike power of the dragon's breath attack.

When the breath attack finally stopped, it seemed to have taken all of the stranger's strength in order to do so. The ethereal armor faded and disappeared, and the man collapsed forward into the ground, unmoving.

"Dovahkiin," the dragon rumbled, as if it were sneering at the stranger. "Mey."

With that, the dragon flew high up into the sky, leaving them in a strange peace, like the kind that came after a storm.

"Are you all right?" Wendy said urgently as she put her hands on the man's back and began healing him. "Please, please don't die!"

"It's not over!" Gajeel suddenly shouted. "A breath attack is incoming!"

Wendy's head snapped upward. Her eyes widened in fear as she saw the dragon preparing to unleash a powerful breath attack.

"Everyone who can use defensive spells, put all your power into it right now!" Erza ordered immediately.

Following up on that order, Lisanna also cried out, "Everyone! Focus all your magical energy on Fried!"

"Let's join hands!" Mirajane also said.

Everyone immediately gathered around the fallen stranger, and they formed a circle of joined hands. In doing so, they were able to connect more easily with one another and send their magical power towards Fried, who began casting his defensive spell. A part of Wendy knew that this would ultimately be useless, as there was no way that whatever makeshift defensive spell they formed could hold against the dragon's breath, but another, stronger part of herself wanted to believe. To believe in her friends and comrades, and to believe that they would survive to see another day.

"We can't let it end here!" Natsu shouted with determination.

"We'll never give up!" Lucy cried out.

"Everyone!" Gray said. "Join your power together as one! Let's show that dragon the bonds of our guild!"

A teary eyed Makarov smiled. "We'll all go home together..."

A bright light shone down on them, and Wendy saw no more.