Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I can feel the sunlight shining through me
There’s a beautiful world under my feet.”

—Natasha Bedingfield, “More of Me”

March 22, X780

Wendy ran through the forest, excitement in her step and a job flyer in her hand. By all means, their house was not close to the Fairy Tail guild hall, but the distance meant little to a mage, and less to a dragon slayer. The eight-year-old ran with the grace of the wind and the enthusiasm of a girl with a mission, each step of the forest path beaten and familiar.

“Are you sure he’s even awake?” Charle asked tiredly, flying alongside her.

“Before Gajeel left, he said he was up but pretending he wasn’t, which means he’s waking up for the spring!”

Charle only sighed. “It’s rude to rush people, you know,” she chastised.

Wendy pondered this, but ultimately was not swayed from her goal. “It doesn’t hurt to ask, though.”

The girl and the cat made it to the cabin in the woods, their home. All of her siblings lived here, even if they weren’t really related to her. Wendy didn’t care about the specifics. The only thing that mattered was that they lived together and loved each other, and that’s what family did. The home was usually always occupied, with many people coming to and from, whether it was her siblings or Laxus or Lisanna or Levy or Mystogan. Right now, though, there was only one scent she smelled, and it was only one person she expected, because Wendy knew where everyone else was.

Natsu and Happy went to the next town over on a job to blow up rocks; Gajeel and Levy went with Rogue and Sting went on a treasure hunt for a client (they invited her, but Wendy had another plan); Laxus’ team went on a dangerous job; and, Mystogan was on a job of his own.

It was perfect. Wendy had the perfect job for herself, and the perfect opportunity to entice Acno to go with her, because he was the only option. It was the end of March, too, so he wouldn’t want to sleep as much.

“Acno!” she called, turning the corner to the kitchen. “You’re awake!”

Wendy was worried that he would still be “in denial,” as Gajeel said, but Acno was already up and making coffee. (Coffee, at least the way Acno drank it, was super bitter so it had to wake him up even more, right?)

“Hi Wendy,” Acno greeted, his sentence ending in a yawn. “It’s been quiet, so I assume the boys are gone?”

“Yep!” Wendy thrust the job flyer into his hand. “So can you go on a job with me?”

Acno blinked slowly, taking a long sip of his coffee (how he liked it, she didn’t know) as he looked at the flyer. “What’s this?” he finally asked, despite looking at the flyer long enough to read it.

Ohhh, he was still sleepy. The bitter coffee hadn’t worked yet. “It’s a job picking a special type of flower in a forest! A nice lady wants to collect them to breed more of them for medicine, like what you do. I even did reading on it—Levy found a book for me before she left—and it said that the flower is really small, but it smells like butter, so I’m sure we can find it.”

“…butter?” he repeated.

“Yeah, and it’s in the forest near the cave!”

That got Acno’s attention, just like she hoped. He loved that cave, their second home, and he also didn’t like other people near it. Of course, he didn’t like strangers near this home either; Acno just didn’t like new people that much, but he liked people that were family or their friends. Wendy understood. New people were scary because she didn’t know what they were feeling or if they were being nice or disappointed in her; she knew her siblings and her friends well enough to know if they were upset or happy, and that they would never leave her no matter what she did.

He wrinkled his nose slightly. “In the old Nirvit forest? I’m pretty sure that place is haunted.” He looked down at the flyer again, mumbling, “So they call it the Woodworth Sea now? Huh.”

“Acno!” Wendy chastised. “Master Roubaul is a nice ghost!”

“Is an entire forest haunted if there’s only one ghost?” Charle asked, with that little annoyed scent that just smelled like Charle.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but it’s not just him. There’s something else about that forest. That’s why we hunted on the other side of the mountain, remember?”

“Ohhh, right.” She remembered now that Acno never let them go to that side of the forest; she had just assumed it was because of monsters. “But is it okay if Charle and I go if you go with us? Please?”

For a moment, Wendy worried that Charle was right, and that she overwhelmed Acno too soon after he woke up, and now she upset him, because the oldest dragon slayer had that tired look still like he didn’t want to do anything yet. “I’m sorry,” she started. “I know it’s—”

“It’s fine,” Acno interrupted, ruffling her hair and making it fluffy like his. “I can go with you.”

All her worries over the matter promptly vanished, replaced with elation. “Really? Thank you, Ac-nii!” Wendy cried, launching herself up to the taller dragon slayer to hug him. He caught her with one arm, his coffee still in the other hand, and returned the hug. Acno gave great hugs because his arms were big and strong, even if his skin was often cold because he was a dragon.

“Of course, kiddo. Let me get ready—” That meant finish his coffee and put on his cloak. “—and then we can use the teleport ring. We’ll grab something to eat over there.”

“Okay. I’ll go grab my bag!”

A part of Wendy hoped to fly there, because she loved flying with Acno, and she loved the taste of the air the higher up they went—closer to the sky—but she wouldn’t complain at any chance to go on a job with her oldest brother. Technically, they had gone on many before, but she cherished each one, and since he became an S-Class mage, he had gone on several jobs by himself, sleeping for the winter in-between each one. Wendy worried that he would be busier with those, and she knew the stuff she could do was boring to him, but she enjoyed spending time with him regardless.

She enjoyed spending time with everyone and going on jobs with them too. Gajeel and Natsu would each take her along on their exciting missions (that usually ended in something getting broken), and she and Sting and Rogue could do a lot of cool things together, though they couldn’t do much without one of the older ones tagging along. She and Mystogan went on finding quests together often, and Levy would let her watch as she did research stuff. Laxus even took her on some his jobs, too, though not as often. She loved them all, but she also loved going on jobs with Acno, because he would teach her about air spells and plants while also letting her try new things.

She grabbed a backpack from her room—the one Mystogan made her, which still fit, though it was too small for a lot of stuff—and went to the circle-room, which was really just another room built on top of the second floor just for Acno’s big magic circle.

Since the cave was too far to go to without flying, they made a way to teleport between that home and this home, though the cabin in Magnolia was the best home since they were there more often, and all of their rooms were there. It was still nice to have the option, though, especially in the summer when it got super-hot in Magnolia.

Acno was really good with magic; even though he used air and ether magic, he could learn other stuff, too. He had an old book of spells that he used to make a circle here and a circle in the cave, allowing them to teleport back and forth. Wendy didn’t know much about how it worked, except that it needed a lot of raw magic to activate (which wasn’t a problem for Acno) and that she had helped by enchanting both circles with the same air. (She also knew not to tell anybody about the circle, because Acno said that most of the spells in the book were outlawed because they were too hard for the Magic Council to perform.)

“Are you sure that bag will be big enough for the flowers the client wants?” Charle asked.

“Um, I think so. The flowers are really tiny, and I don’t need to bring anything else…”

“Well, it never hurts to be careful.”

Charle was right, but she wasn’t sure if she had a bigger backpack. Maybe she could ask Mystogan how he made this one, so she could make a bigger one? She could buy one, but it was fun to make it by hand, too.

Before Wendy could decide on what to do about the bag, Acno entered the room. “It’s fine, I have a spare bag,” he said. Sure enough, his old satchel was slung over his shoulder, underneath his gray cloak. “Ready to go?”

“Yep!”

It was actually happening! She was excited, happy to explore the areas outside of Magnolia, and do so with her family. Wendy bounced on her toes and hopped onto the circle.

It was a pretty circle, full of intricate symbols and runes of a language she didn’t know. It was much bigger and more complicated than any she could make for her magic. When Acno bent down and touched the middle of the magic circle, it lit up a brilliant white, and then they were gone.

The smell of the cave came next, and Wendy hopped off, puffing a small cloud of air just to see it turn white in the cold.

“It’s freezing in here,” Charle muttered, flying close to her. “Did you bring a better jacket?”

“I’ll be warmer outside, Charle,” Acno said, but he did that cool spell that made the air around them not lose heat. (Wendy was practicing that one, but she still couldn’t make it start warm like he could.)

“I suppose,” Charle conceded. With that, they headed for the entrance.

Wendy loved the cabin in Magnolia, but she also loved the mouth of the cave, and the way it opened up to the sky and the forest below. It was the prettiest view that she knew of, and the air tasted like ice cream. She took a big gulp of it when she made it there, glad to taste it again. It made her feel really refreshed, too.

“Ready?” Acno asked.

Wendy nodded vigorously, and he helped her onto his shoulders. She loved this part, too. Even if it wasn’t flying, it was close. Wendy grabbed on, and Acno jumped.

When he did big jumps, it was fast, not floaty like when Wendy tried, but it was a lot of fun. She was pretty sure he could move faster than gravity, but it didn’t hurt when they hit the ground. It didn’t even leave a dent! (She was getting better at doing that too, but she had to go slower.) They did scare away the birds and the squirrels, though.

“The book said the flowers grew on trees and rocks,” Wendy explained, jumping off of Acno’s shoulders and practicing her floaty-jump. She stumbled a little on landing, though.

“Don’t forget to release the air by your feet when you reach the ground,” Acno reminded her. Right! She always forgot that part when she did it. “What was the flower called again? It sounds like a purslane or a phlox.”

“Umm…” Wendy pulled out the job flyer to look at it again, because it had a long name, but Charle was super smart so she remembered first without looking.

“It’s called the portulaca solemite, or the Forest Queen’s Sun. It’s used for pain relief and muscle relaxants.”

Acno nodded. “A purslane then—though this is a weird climate for them. Maybe misnamed, but it’s close enough.”

Wendy was pretty sure she heard Acno mentioned a phlox before—those were flowers—but not the other one. “What’s a purslane?”

“Think…a moss, but with flowers. It’s a runner, found in warm and tropical climates. This forest is on the colder side for that, but then again, there’s enough weird magic here to bypass this.”

“You’ve mentioned this ‘weird magic’ several times,” Charle pointed out. “What are you talking about? This place seems normal to me, and you did use to live here. Shouldn’t you know?”

“I lived in the mountains, and the magic doesn’t carry that far up. It’s ground level. And just because I’m old and an ether mage doesn’t mean I know every type of magic there is. I just know that it’s artificial, but there’s nothing here to make it. It’s weird, so I avoided it.”

“How can magic be artificial?” Wendy asked. Wasn’t magic always a change of something, and made by things?

“Maybe that was a poor choice of words,” Acno amended. “It’s not naturally occurring, because it doesn’t match the flow of the surrounding flora and fauna. It was made to be contrary to the ether flow by something else—probably many years ago, and it’s just residual now.”

Charle flew closer, raising a brow. “Is residual magic that scary to you?”

“Not necessarily, but it’s annoying, depending on what it is. Have either of you heard of people randomly getting teleported?”

Charle shook her head, but Wendy actually knew this one! “Oh! Didn’t that just happen to a mayor somewhere? Mystogan told me about that job.” Apparently the mayor was super grumpy about it too, and he gave Mystogan a hard time finding the source because he complained instead of explaining what happened.

“Yeah, like that. It’s likely residual warp magic from a spatial mage who didn’t close their shit properly. Doesn’t happen often, but residual magic can linger and take effect at random. It also tends to be spatial, which is always annoying.”

Wendy nodded. It was common knowledge to those close to him that Acno wasn’t a fan of spatial magic; he couldn’t eat it because it changed the ether into something else just different enough that it wasn’t normal ether anymore. It still confused Wendy slightly, but she understood the gist of it.

However, all this talk of the forest’s strange residual magic left Wendy worried. She didn’t want something to happen because she brought them here. Of course, she still believed that Acno would be able to stop anything that did happen, but she didn’t want to be the cause of any trouble. “Nothing bad is going to happen because we’re here… right?”

Acno ruffled her hair, which was always his way of saying ‘don’t worry’ or ‘I love you,’ so it made her happy. “Don’t worry, it’s faint here. If it starts to act up, I’ll know in advance, and we can leave. Now, about those flowers.”

—o0o—

The job was as fun and as peaceful as Wendy had hoped. It had been difficult to find the first group, but once they found a few, it was easier to sniff more out. They even found a bunch on them in one spot! So much, it was filling up her bag quickly, even without picking all of them.

However, Wendy stopped when Acno did. He had that look that he was sensing something concerning, or something that could be concerning. She realized she hadn’t been paying as much attention as she should have, so she focused everything on looking around when Acno was doing the same. It was hard to separate normal things from dangerous things, but Wendy liked to think she was doing better. She only just started to hear the too-slow crunching of leaves when Acno got impatient.

“Come out. I know you’re there,” he called.

So it was a person. Which was worrisome, because after what Acno had said, Wendy didn’t think there would be anyone here. It was a little scary, now, to know that there was. Wendy moved closer to Acno just in case, but though he was on alert, he didn’t seem super tense like he would be if he thought it was really dangerous, so that calmed her down a little.

There was no response, but she heard the crunching again.

“We’re not a threat to you, if you show you mean no harm,” Acno tried again.

The crunching got closer. Whoever it was must have been shy, because they came slowly and they were trying to be quiet. It wasn’t until he got closer to their clearing that she saw him.

It was a teenage boy, with skin that was tanner than Gajeel’s but not as much as Acno’s, with dark red hair. His clothes were dirty and torn, like he had been out here for a while, and there was a really pretty purple snake wrapped around his shoulders. Wendy did not notice it until he came closer, but the smell of blood was coming from him. Old, stinky blood that always meant bad things. Was he hurt? Was that why Acno was trying to coax him out of hiding instead of ignoring him like he did to most people?

The boy, however, was glaring at them, his lips twisting into a smile that wasn’t real. His gums were bleeding, too. He must have been in a lot of pain. “You? A threat to me?” he laughed. “No, no, I think it’s the other way around.”

Acno snorted quietly, all without breaking eye contact with the boy. He was doing that thing where he stared really intensely while he was thinking—or observing carefully. “Kid, you’re barely a threat to anyone in the state you’re in, much less to me. Lucky for you, I’m not looking for a fight.”

Oh, Wendy recognized what Acno was doing now—he was worried. Not about what the mysterious boy could do, but rather, something about him. Wendy tried to pay closer attention, but she was still bad at sniffing out the details. She could tell the boy had magic, however, though unlike Acno, that was all she could tell. Something about it was familiar, though, but unlike most mages she knew from the guild.

The strange boy bristled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, guild mage, but I’m not someone to be taken lightly. In fact, you’re going to wish you never saw me at all, because now I have to get rid of you.”

He was saying mean things and talking like a bad guy, but he was still really hurt. Wendy wasn’t sure what to do. She wanted to help him, but she also instinctively knew not to get close.

“Save it, kid. I meant what I said when I said we wouldn’t attack without reason.” Acno put a hand on her shoulder, probably guessing that she wanted to help, so he told her to wait.

Acno kept going, revealing something that surprised even her, but explained why he was asking questions before offering aid to the hurting, strange boy in the strange forest.

“However, I do need to know something: who put a dragon slayer lacrima in you?”

Chapter Text

“Perhaps that’s what all human relationships boiled down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?”

—Toni Morrison, (Milkman), Song of Solomon (331)

Erik was going to become stronger, no matter what it took.

Up until this point, his life had been a living hell, and it haunted him that there had been nothing he could do about it. First, his parents hadn’t even wanted him, throwing him to the cultist raiders to save themselves. Then, he lived out his childhood as a slave, forced to build some weird magic contraption that probably didn’t work, and beaten for his efforts if they weren’t up to par. When revolution finally beset that nightmare, Jellal just took the reins and continued where those bastards left off. Apparently, he believed that the tower would actually do something important.

Sure, their boats were blown sky-high by some coward, so they were stuck there unless someone learned how to swim for miles and miles, but why build the tower? Life wouldn’t give him a break, because Erik was still powerless against the whims of circumstance.

Over three years passed of fake freedom on that damn island. It was a lot of shuffling parts, distilling water, and fishing. He hated it. He especially hated that Jellal kid, because he was sleazy and self-important, and when Erik began to hear things beyond the realm of human capability, everything he heard from that bastard was disturbing. Voices, screams, lies. He was demented. Maybe the cultists had broken him, the poor bastard, but Erik couldn’t care less because they were all messed up because of that place. The last thing he wanted to do was continue to build it.

Finally, the day came when they were discovered—a band of mages and scientists who encountered the island by chance. At first, Erik couldn’t care less about them; he just wanted out. He was useless on the island, and he would probably be useless off of it, with no life experience and the reading comprehension of a five-year-old—and okay, so maybe he hung back with the others, watching in anticipation. But Erik hated every second of it.

Then, for once in his miserable life, there was a glimmer of hope. One of the guys who came to the island, a mage by the name of Brain, saw potential in him. What, Erik didn’t know, but when Brain offered the express off the island, he took it. It was probably because, somehow, Erik had developed magic. A few of the others had too, so Brain offered to take them in—to train them and give them a life worth living even when they had no ground to stand on.

It wouldn’t be a normal life. That much was a given, because they were far too gone and too broken to do anything like that. Outcasts and slaves, they had the choice to either build that damn tower, or live the life of a dark mage, aware that the high-and-mighty Magic Council had forsaken them long ago.

And man, did the knowledge that the Magic Council purposefully ignored the tower hurt. It wasn’t surprising, but damn.

However, Erik quickly learned that hope was for losers, and he was still just a fool. The other four kids Brain recruited from the island also had magic, and theirs was shaping up to be far more useful and far more powerful than good hearing. Once again, Erik had fallen behind. He would be on no use to Brain, and his choices would dwindle to build the fucking tower, or to live life as a sad, useless vagabond.

He jumped at the first solution he received: Brain’s sketchy artifacts.

“There are plenty of ways to acquire raw power,” the mage leader had told him, “but the weak cannot survive them. Still, you may try this, if you dare.”

Brain used him like a guinea pig, but he didn’t care. It was a step above being a slave, because at least it benefitted him too. Power was all that he could achieve at this point, and power he would get.

The procedure hurt like hell, but Erik already knew what hell felt like.

He heard, before it started, the unspoken doubt Brain had that he would survive at all, but screw him, because Erik did it. He may be weak, but he wasn’t so weak that he was ready to roll over and let the world beat him for good.

Granted, it had been close. Cubellios did something to him afterward, though that part was fuzzy, but he was grateful for her all the same. She might have just been a snake, but it was strangely comforting to know at least someone was in his corner.

The power he gained was weird and still painful, and Erik needed to figure out, and he needed to do it quickly, lest he fall behind yet again. He was granted this time to train, to learn how to wield it, but it was aggravating how hit-and-miss the process was. All he knew was that it was poison, it was misty and numbing, it was corrosive to everything, and it had a funny and ridiculous name like “dragon slayer magic”—something this random guild mage seemed to know.

It was curious, but it didn’t mean much; Erik was an uneducated nobody, so of course he didn’t know every magic there ever was. Still, Brain didn’t say anything about it, so he had to find out on his own. Erik had no intentions of selling out Brain to some law-abiding sucker, but he needed the answers.

(He also wanted to know how this man and his little girl and cat spotted him when Erik had purposefully kept out of normal-people hearing range as soon as he heard them in the supposed-to-be-abandoned forest.)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erik responded, keeping it aloof. Maybe too aloof, because the denial sounded dumb actually leaving his mouth.

The mage continued to stare at him dryly, the little girl still hiding behind him. “I think you do,” he remarked calmly, and irritatingly smug. “But I highly doubt you stumbled upon it by accident. I think it’s in your best interest if you tell me.”

Erik was pretty sure the man was trying to threaten him, but his words lacked that distinct ring that threats normally bore. In fact, he sounded perfectly calm and candid, despite his steady and piercing gaze.

He blamed the exhaustion—the hunger and the pain—from the training he had been doing out here, because Erik couldn’t get a good read on this guy. In fact, the more he observed him, the more uncomfortable and uncertain he became. The little girl and the fact that they were apparently picking flowers made it obvious they were pansy guild mages, and they didn’t correct him either. However, the man that spoke to him did not match Erik’s expectations of what a pansy guild mage would look like. He was almost as tall as Brain was, with a muscular body that spoke of action and not merely weightlifting. His stance was casual, but Erik didn’t need experience or magic hearing to guess that he was dangerous—like a cat who could pounce at any given moment. It put Erik on edge. Coupled with his long wild hair, imageless tattoos on his arms and on his face, and his eyes that were sharp and unnatural, he was beginning to activate all of Erik’s ‘danger’ alarms.

Not to mention that Erik couldn’t hear those echoing thoughts people had, and his heartrate was slow enough for him to be dead, despite the normal breathing and the fact that he had a heartrate at all.

His fight-or-flight instincts whispered ‘run,’ but Erik knew that he never could go back and face Brain or the others if he didn’t finish this. He needed to make it through this victoriously, so he could return and shed his old, weak self, and become a true member of the dark guild they were building.

“What, you want one? Is your guild life too boring for you?” Erik pressed, stalling. If he was going to win this fight, in the condition he was currently in, he would have to be devious. Damn those wolves, taking a shot at his leg, and damn his body for not accepting the poison magic without complaint and severe burns; if he wasn’t slowed down by his training, he wouldn’t be as worried now.

The man looked even more unimpressed, if that was even possible. Good. If he was annoyed, maybe the mage would be driven to making an error.

Instead, he became even more direct. “It’s going to hurt you. In fact, it looks like it already has. I can help you, but only if you let me.”

Subconsciously, he tugged his sleeves farther down, even though there was no way this stranger knew how true his statement was. Still, it didn’t matter. None of that would matter, because this was all to make him stronger. What did this stranger know? About him or his magic? He probably didn’t care—only that it was going to make Erik stronger than he was.

“Help me?” Erik laughed. “Help me make me weaker than you? That’s rich. You want to know who put this lacrima in me? I did! I did it to myself.” He relished the beat of surprise in each of their chests. Good—they should be afraid. “Help me? You should be ready to help yourselves.”

Erik had taken the time to ready a strike of poison. It burned his already seared flesh, but pain was nothing but an obstacle. His bent arm began to lash out, attack at the ready—

Only for a hand to grab his wrist.

There had been a lot of terrifying things Erik had encountered in his life, but that moment ranked in the top twenty, at least. Erik hadn’t even seen the mage move—hadn’t heard him move, or even begin to—but the man stopped his attack in its tracks, and his grip was as strong as it had looked. Maybe even stronger, because his wrist shifted threatening beneath his hand, like it could snap at any moment, and the man lacked the strain of full effort.

He couldn’t move. Even if Erik could muster the willpower, every aching nerve in his body was starting to collapse at once. He hadn’t even realized that this whole encounter had been fueled by his adrenaline until it had left him, alone and powerless once more.

Erik desperately hoped that he wasn’t shaking, but that was a weak hope.

The man’s burning gaze didn’t falter in the slightest. He was close enough to kill him, and Erik somehow knew that he could. What he did instead was far worse.

“Then why were you so scared?”

No. No, that wasn’t possible. Sure, Erik was a little scared now, what with this mage at his throat, but the past tense was just absurd. Erik wasn’t scared. He couldn’t be. He…

…was fucking terrified.

Terrified of getting curb-stomped by this new magic. Of failing to be powerful enough for Brain to keep around. Of going back to the tower.

Of being worthless.

Some part of Erik knew, but he hadn’t wanted to.

But there was no way he was going to show that. He didn’t know where he messed up, where he let his weakness show, but Erik wasn’t going to let that happen again. He had to nip this at the bud, to fix this—

Something cool washed over his arm. The pain he had been ignoring faded away to nothingness, and he realized how awful it had been now that it was gone.

He tore his gaze away from the man’s only to see the little girl also at his side, her hands outstretched with magic.

She was…healing him?

“It’s okay,” the girl said. “I can help you.”

What was happening? His (admittedly faint) grip on the situation was fleeting. There were playing at something, he just knew it. Trying to get under his skin. Trying to play mind games, to make him lower his guard—

Cubellios, who had been tense around his shoulders, began to unwind slightly. She didn’t strike at either of the strangers in his vicinity, though she was still wary. But her instincts regarding danger were always greater than his, and he had an excellent sense of danger.

These two mages were so confusing, they were even confusing his snake.

What was worst, however, is that there were no echoing thoughts, no sounds of disbelief. He thought there was something wrong with his magic, before those things were always there, but now Erik came to a more baffling conclusion: they were being honest. Whatever crap they were spewing…they believed.

What the hell?

“Why?” The question slipped out, small and quiet, before Erik could think to stop it. He realized his mistake and froze, trying to be as innocuous as possible (fat chance, Erik) and hoped it went unnoticed. (He knew what trouble he and his quick tongue had gotten into in the past.)

Instead, the man released him with a sad huff. Erik still couldn’t move, though.

“You’re just a kid,” he said. “With no idea what you’re doing, and no idea what’s to come. And who would I be if I was in a position to help you, and I didn’t?”

Just a kid? He was fifteen, now. He was old enough to think for himself, to go places, to finally be a person, and—was that pity? Was this man just pitying him?! Erik’s skin crawled as if it hadn’t just been miraculously healed. How dare he? Erik didn’t need any pity, and he sure as hell didn’t want it. Only weak things were pitied, and he was strong. He was strong.

Erik dug into his magic, viciously looking for something incriminating. Something to use against him. Most of his magic—his natural kind—was faint and subconscious, but if he tried, he could even hear thoughts.

The man’s head was quiet and morose, and startingly clear:

‘He’s like me.’

The air was knocked from his lungs. He dared to look back at the man, and his eyes were softer now, and more distant.

It wasn’t pity.

“What are you doing with…with a snake?”

The woman, a kindly but fearfully compliant soul, questioned him in a hushed tone, despite the fact that it was already late and most of the guards didn’t care what they did when they were back in their cells. If it weren’t for the fact that she was nice and tried to help him from time to time, Erik might have ignored her. But the child just shrugged.

“It was lost. Someone almost stepped on it earlier, and I felt bad.”

The snake, tiny and purple, was friendly and quiet. It wrapped itself around his wrist, and it tickled and felt nice. Erik didn’t want the snake to die.

“Oh, dear, you felt sorry for a snake?” the woman sighed. “You and that big heart of yours.”

Erik frowned. The snake wormed itself up his arm and onto his shoulder, hiding in his hair. She must have felt safe there. “Is there something wrong with that?” he asked. He didn’t want the guards finding out about it and getting mad. The snake trusted him, and he would feel bad if she got hurt anyway, just because of him. “She won’t get in the way—I… I just want her to be safe.”

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing…” The woman looked at the snake with a mix of worry and discomfort. He didn’t know why most people didn’t like snakes. They didn’t do anything bad. “Dear, you sympathize with that little snake, don’t you?”

The boy furrowed his brow. “What’s…um, what’s ‘sympathize’ mean?”

“It means…that you understand it. That you know how it feels, because you’ve felt like it before.”

“Oh. Okay.” He supposed she was right, then. The little snake was lost and powerless to help herself, and he was powerless too.

Erik touched the snake’s head with a smile.

He gaped, opening and closing his jaw fruitlessly, struggling to comprehend what possessed this man to think that he understood a single thing about Erik’s miserable life.

“You think you know me?” he whispered lowly, hating the way his voice cracked. “You think you know I feel? I’ll tell you what I feel, guild mage!”

Erik knew, at least in hindsight, that this was just him cracking underneath the pressure, that he shouldn’t have stayed, that he should have fought even if he died trying, but when he cracked, he spilled.

“I was a fucking slave for my entire childhood because your precious council and your legal guilds couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. We had to kill those bastards ourselves, and we were still stuck there. I can’t do anything with my life but relive that hell or be strong enough to leave it and do something about it! And you judge me for taking any shred of power I can? Just because it’s dangerous? Everything is dangerous. Not all of us have the luxury to live safe lives, where the whole fucking world isn’t out to get you because your life sucks and you’re always doomed to be with the ‘wrong people.’ And you think you know how I feel?!”

He panted, regretting the words that spilled out but knowing they were true because they hurt. His lungs burned as harshly as his legs and now his eyes, and he wanted nothing more than to crush something just to feel in control again. He wanted to relish the guild mages squirm under their own pathetic excuses, because then the truth wouldn’t just hurt him.

The man didn’t cower. He didn’t falter; he just drew his brow together and watched Erik with an impossibly deep gaze.

Emotions had sound, and in this moment, Erik swore that he could smell them too. Anger was loud, sadness was quiet, nervousness jittered, so on so forth. Beneath the surface of the man was an entire ocean, simmering and churning deep beneath the surface, and it was incomprehensible to Erik’s addled mind.

“No, I do,” the man said quietly, still with baffling honesty. “You’re angry at the world for failing you, so you want to watch it burn. You don’t want to feel the pain, so you let yourself turn into a monster instead.”

Erik clenched his jaw. His gums protested when his teeth dug in sharper than they were supposed to.

“You think it’s for the better, that there’s nothing else that’s worth a damn to you. So you think the power to slay dragons is a viable option. Well, kid, it can turn you into a monster. Dragon slayer magic feeds, and if it can’t feed off of passion, it’ll feed off of blood, and no amount of blood is enough, so it’ll take yours instead, until you’re just an echo of what you once were and you realize too late that you were still human after all.”

He spoke with a quiet and certain conviction that scared Erik, because then he might be right.

“Sounds like a bunch of philosophical b-bullshit to me.”

The man barked a soft laugh. “Yeah, I suppose it does. I speak from experience though. I was a slave, too, once, and then the being I thought I could trust ended up getting taken over by supremacy magic, and I blamed him for it. Signed myself up for a war and dragon slayer magic to get back at him, but I was a mentally unstable bastard, and I lost myself to that magic for damn long time. Forgive me for trying to stop you from going down that same road, because believe me, it’s terrible.”

A quiet “oh” was all Erik could manage. He hadn’t expected the strange man to have any basis of argument, but since he was still somehow one hundred percent honest, he had more of an argument than Erik had.

Which left him without any ground to stand on.

The man uncrossed his arms with a sigh. “Here, let me look at that leg of yours. I can smell the infection.”

The what?

He didn’t stop the man from coming close, maybe because Erik knew he couldn’t stop him if he tried, and maybe because he wanted him to. He kneeled to the ground and motioned for Erik to do the same, to which he numbly complied.

Somehow, he had healing magic too. He performed a number of spells silently, and the weird smell that Erik had begun to get used to went away, along with the wound. The girl lifted her hand as well, and the pain subsided.

He still didn’t know why they were helping him. They had nothing to gain from it.

“I’m Acnologia, by the way,” the man stated. “Do you have a name?”

Yeah, he did, and it was a name he wasn’t supposed to have for much longer. The whole point of this excursion was to master his magic and grow stronger, so he could return to Brain and the others without weakness. Then, he could shed his old identity and gain something to match the person he wanted to become.

But now… But now he wondered. Did he want that? He thought he did, because he didn’t want his past to hurt him ever again. He still didn’t, but what if that future hurt him, too?

It was ironic and rather stupid that these two strangers were some of the first people to treat him with honesty and kindness. He had never seen or heard the two together before, and he hated that he liked it.

If he…explored his options, Brain didn’t have to know.

“Erik,” he responded finally. “And this is Cubellios.”

The little girl smiled. “I’m Wendy, and this is Charle.”

“Hello.”

The cat fucking talked.

Before he could wrap his head around that one, the girl, Wendy, continued. “Cubellios is really pretty.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Cubellios, the diva, accepted the praise with a graceful raise of her head. When he shot a glance at her, she just returned a faint thrum of contentment.

“So, um.” Erik struggled with his words, but he felt the need to ask. The desire. Maybe the hope. “You’re a dragon slayer too?”

Acnologia nodded. “I am, but not quite the same as you. My slayer magic was enchanted onto me, derived from a dragon, while yours is from a lacrima, derived from the remnants of a dragon’s power.”

Erik had just assumed it was a fancy name, because people were weird like that. “You…got it from a dragon? Aren’t dragons, like…not real?”

“Not a specific dragon. There was someone who acted as a middleman for those things, back then, but yes. And dragons are very much real. Rare, now, but real.”

“I got my magic from a dragon, too,” Wendy added. “But Grandeeny gave it to me by herself.”

What the hell?

He was scared to ask, but now he really wanted to know. Erik might have had the presence of mind to hold the question in regardless, but these people were weird yet not as threatening as they could be, and he was tired. “What…even is a dragon slayer anyway?”

Acnologia was unbothered by the dumb question, behaving almost as if he expected it. “In short, it’s the power to slay dragons. Dragons are resistance to most magic, but not their own. However, in practice—especially for you kids—it’s elemental magic that you bond with.”

Elemental magic that you bond with? “Isn’t that just like…regular magic?” Disregarding the slaying dragons part.

“No. A regular mage could produce fire, and use fire, but only in the capacity of spells that allow them to interact with ethernano. A dragon slayer, on the other hand, is full of their element, and they can produce it as well as intake it. That cycle makes a dragon slayer more self-sufficient in comparison to a regular mage, but if that cycle becomes weakened or overwhelmed, it impacts the slayer more negatively than most. That, and dragon slayer magic alters your body.”

The last part caught him off guard. “It what?”

Brain should have mentioned that before he offered. Of course, Brain was a psychopath, if Erik was being honest, so he wasn’t surprised.

Acnologia had the gall to shrug. “Enhanced ears, nose, eyes. Sharp teeth, heightened physical prowess.”

That…sounded pretty cool, actually.

“Extreme motion sickness.”

…damn.

He wasn’t sure what to make with that information, but at least he had it. It all sounded complicated, though, with talks of cycles and too much and too little.

“Poison, right?”

Erik snapped his head up. “What?”

“Your magic,” Acnologia clarified. “It’s poison dragon slayer magic?”

How did he know that when Erik couldn’t even get a shot in edgewise? “Yeah. Pretty sure, at least.” The only reason he knew that was because Cubellios was a snake, and she could produce some of that stuff too.

Acnologia hummed thoughtfully. “Your body isn’t naturally suited for it. That’s why it tore up your arms on use, even though your body accepted the lacrima. You should probably acclimate yourself more slowly, lest your body attempt more radical means of accepting it.”

He was a little scared to know what ‘more radical means’ meant, when the strange mage had spoken of going crazy from bloodlust minutes earlier.

Still, there wasn’t much Erik could do about any of that. “Yeah, well, none of that really matters, though.”

“And why not?” Acnologia’s question was simple but naïve, so Erik couldn’t help the level of derision that entered his voice.

“I can’t exactly ‘slow down.’ Not if I still want a place to go to. It’s not like I can join a legal guild, like you people.”

“And why not?” Acnologia rebutted yet again. “You’re here, aren’t you? Is anything stopping you from leaving the place that hurt you?”

The casual conviction with which he said that last part led Erik to believe that this mage would stop anything that was stopping him. Which was a ridiculous notion, but ridiculously touching.

“I don’t have an identity, I don’t have an education, and I don’t know where to go.” Erik ticked a few of the many reasons off of his fingers. “Oh, and I’ve definitely done things the council won’t like. So no, I can’t leave, unless I want to camp out in the woods for the rest of my life.”

Acnologia laughed. Laughed. “Oh, kid, that’s rich, but that’s bullshit. I don’t have any of those things either, and I promise you, whatever you’ve done, I’ve done worse. Those numbskulls on the council can go shit themselves, for all I care. What they think shouldn’t define you. The only thing that matters, is what you want to do with your future.”

Erik froze. He had assumed, both from his own logic and the comments of others, that this was the way things had to be. Truthfully, it was almost easier to think he had no options than to figure out what he wanted. Because, Erik had always known what he didn’t want, but he had no clue what he did.

He had never gone past “powerful” before, and now, he wasn’t sure why he wanted that. To not get hurt? He wasn’t sure if that would work, anymore.

“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t know.” Acnologia, for all his terrible prowess, was kind and patient with him. Erik couldn’t help but to respect the man for that. He had always assumed kindness was weakness, but he still had the distinct feeling that Acnologia could break him like a twig without breaking a sweat.

“Why do you care so much anyway?” Erik finally asked. “You’re not responsible for me.”

Acnologia frowned. That deep, churning ocean was back, along with everything else that Erik couldn’t comprehend. In the end, he just shook his head. “I told you before—I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I did if I can help it. And you strike me as someone who doesn’t really want to lose themselves to rage.”

Erik wasn’t sure if he should take that as a slight or a compliment, but it was true, he was mostly sure. He didn’t want to lose his mind like Jellal did, because at least he’s always had his thoughts to himself. It wasn’t much, but it was the one thing that was ever his.

Suddenly, the thought of going back to Brain and losing his name was terrifying. He latched onto Acnologia for no other reason than that he, and his kid Wendy, had been the first ones to reach out to him without wanting something from him.

“What can I do, then?”

“You can leave this lousy forest, for one. Get a job somewhere and a place to stay,” he suggested lightly, before reaching out a muscular hand to him. “You could also come with us.”

Erik stared at the hand. The last person to reach out had been Brain. “You could be of use to me.” He had been so excited to be picked out that he hadn’t cared about the specifics—he didn’t have this to compare it to.

With this random, chance encounter in the woods, Erik’s options went from two to three—and maybe even more.

“And where would that be to?”

Acnologia smiled, small and lopsided, but without malice. “To Fairy Tail. A pansy legal mage guild full of people who don’t give a damn where you come from or what you do.”

Erik still wasn’t sure what that entailed, or even if this was too good to be true. However, he wanted to try.

He remembered when he found Cubellios, he had wanted nothing more than for her to be happy, even if she was a snake. When he got older, he had come to expect that people didn’t treat each other like that. It’s just the way things were.

But maybe dragons were different. Maybe he was the snake in this scenario, reviled or ignored by everyone but a few.

He could live with that.

Erik took Acnologia’s hand.

Chapter Text

“Take a breath, take my hand
It doesn't really matter where we land
I’ll be there to help you stand
I’ll be there to help you stand
I’ll hold you—”

—Fireflight ft. Stephen Christian, “Safety”

This was not how Acnologia expected his day to go when he agreed to go on Wendy’s quest with her, but in a strange way, he was relieved at the results. It was disconcerting to think about the possibility of another lacrima infused teenager, just the age of Gajeel, out there alone—or worse—with an anger and a magic that was eating away at him. It was a similar unease he felt whenever he imagined what might have happened if he never found Laxus. If he survived at all, the outcome still could have been disastrous, and from what he gathered from Erik, Acnologia could only surmise that it could have been worse.

When the fight left Erik, it drained him completely. It was not surprising. From the moment Acnologia sensed the dragon slayer magic, and subsequently the boy, it was clear as day that he was in poor condition. The poison-induced burns on his arms had been the worst, alongside various injuries to the abdomen and legs. His movements were heavy with exhaustion, and he was gaunt and thrumming with nervousness. His willpower was commendable, but Acnologia knew from the beginning that it was nothing but denial and adrenaline; Erik’s heartbeat and his scent betrayed his confident words.

Another low-set rumbling from Erik’s stomach had Acnologia looking for easy prey nearby. The teen was thin, and likely both unaware of how much a dragon slayer needed to eat, and unable to obtain that amount. Coupled with the fact that poison magic didn’t seem to be naturally compatible with the boy, his body was in overtime trying to right itself.

It was impressive that he was surviving at all. That in itself might be indicative of both the kid’s stubbornness, and the odd fact that he had somehow resonated with the snake. Acnologia had never seen a snake quite so magically adept, but there were many creatures in this world, and it was impossible to know them all. The violet serpent had the scent of poison magic as well, a particular brand of gaseous corrosive toxin, that seemed to be influencing the formation of Erik’s dragon slayer magic. Acnologia doubted Erik, or maybe even the snake, was aware of their connection, but it was possible that that connection was the reason Erik was able to accept the lacrima in the first place.

Still, it wasn’t perfect. If Erik continued to push himself, especially in the mental state he was in, it was likely that his body would either give in entirely or rush the dragonization process in order to accept the magic. Neither was an option Acnologia was comfortable entertaining.

There. A rabbit was grazing nearby. “Let’s eat something before heading back,” he suggested, though it really wasn’t a suggestion.

“That’s okay,” Erik tried anyway. “I’m—”

The rumbling of his stomach immediately dismissed whatever bullshit Erik attempted. The kid was smart enough to not protest any further.

Acnologia listened to the rustle of movement, and then flicked his wrist. An ether arrow rolled off two of his fingers, hardly larger than a pen, and the beam of magic went flying. The strangled sound of a rabbit dying followed subsequently.

Erik stared at him incredulously, while Wendy only made a small sound of distress. (She hated the noise rabbits made when they died.) “How did you… It’s not even in eyesight!”

“As someone who’s already proven competent at enhanced hearing, I would have thought you understood that sight isn’t everything,” Acnologia said lightly. He wasn’t one to judge. It was a hard transition, going from a human’s sense to a dragon’s—he merely had too much time experiencing the latter, so it was occasionally hard for him to understand a human’s unbalanced relationship with the five. As a slayer, Erik would learn, just as the others were. Though it did seem like he already had a good grasp on hearing—better than some of the others, actually, despite only just developing the extra senses. It was interesting.

“Well, yeah, but…” He stopped to think about it. “That is pretty cool, actually.”

“Got a camp nearby, or should we make one?” he asked. Though, Erik better have one, otherwise Acnologia was only going to be more worried about his welfare.

“Yeah, it’s over there. It’s not much though.”

It was closer than the cave, and Acnologia really only wanted a fire pit, though it was easy for him to make one. The key here was settling in a space Erik was comfortable with, because even though he was significantly more relaxed than he was at the start of this encounter, the lingering nerves were still evident in his mannerisms. And the cave had a lot of strange scents for someone not used to dragons.

Acnologia picked up the rabbit and they headed to the spot that Erik led them to. For all intents and purposes, it wasn’t shabby. He had a shelter and a fire, though he had likely been helped unwittingly by the lack of rain in the area. He circled the firepit once, and satisfied with its integrity, he breathed a small stream of ether into the fire and ignited the cinders.

Erik watched with wide eyes. “Did magic just come out of your mouth?”

“It’s called a dragon roar,” Wendy said matter-of-factly. “All dragons and dragon slayers can do it.”

The snake puffed a small cloud of poison magic in response.

“Oh, and snakes. Sorry Cubellios,” Wendy amended.

He laughed lightly. “That wasn’t my roar, but she’s right.” Acnologia was mostly sure that none of the kids have witnessed his roar, because his was good for things like annihilating cities and entire landscapes. Suffice to say, he didn’t do a roar often. “Dragon slayers, like dragons, can channel magic through the throat and the mouth. However, it’s not something I would recommend for you to try until we’re sure your body has fully acclimated to poison slayer magic.”

Erik rubbed his arm. “Yeah, no kidding.”

“Good. Don’t worry, that day will come before too long, provided you don’t rush things.” Worst case scenario, between his influence over the flow of ether, and Wendy’s enchantments, they could ensure that Erik sees the transition go smoothly—and that he, well, survives.

Before long, the rabbit was cooked. It was mostly for Erik, but he, Wendy, and Charle took some as well so as to not single him out, though he was fully aware that they would all need more food when they returned to the guild. After some hesitance, Erik ate with subdued enthusiasm, pausing only to feed Cubellios chunks as well.

Having taken the time to sit and observe once more, Acnologia considered the next course of action. Yes, Erik was a stranger, but he was also a child, and a dragon slayer at that. He had little reason to distrust him, especially knowing that secrets between slayers would be nigh impossible to keep. While Erik had begun as a wild card, so had many of the others. So long as he didn’t harbor the will to (seriously) hurt any of the others, he would be fine. Besides, with the way his magic was still developing, he would lose any fight he tried to get into—and that wasn’t even considering the mere presence of Acnologia himself. However, he did not believe that Erik would be a problem; he had possessed only bitterness, not hatred—not yet. It was the disposition of a wounded animal, not a madman, and the former was infinitely easier to reason with. Acnologia knew how hard the latter was from personal experience.

However, Acnologia did not trust anyone the boy had been associated with previously. The one who gave him the lacrima, because as much as Erik wanted to believe it had been his choice—and maybe it had been—he had been taken advantage of. Acnologia knew how hard it was to get a hold of those lacrimas, mostly because Acnologia had spent a good deal of time making those involved in that trade regret being alive, and Erik was not capable of getting one without a middleman. Frankly, it was too expensive.

If this was just a sick investment of someone, then they may not take too kindly to it disappearing from their grasp.

“Do you think the person who gave you the lacrima would still be watching?” he asked. Acnologia was going to check regardless, but he would give Erik a warning. He was also curious how he would respond.

Erik shrugged. “Maybe? He said that he would contact me when I was ready to come back. Pretty sure he was moving to a new location, but I have no idea where.”

He was no longer denying the involvement of another. That was progress. Shame that Erik didn’t know where he went, else Acnologia would be sorely tempted to remove another proponent of this lacrima black market. “I can look.”

Some wards and leeches were easier to spot—and subsequently remove—than others. Jutsu Shiki, which employed bane particles, was nigh impossible to remove without going through the correct channels, while solid script was merely reshaped ether. So long as it was written in an etherion script, it posed little threat to him. Fortunately, the one who hovered over Erik was no demon and no Zeref: the leech was a simple magic tag, useful for tracking and not watching, and Acnologia ate it without trouble.

Erik snapped a hand to the back of his neck reflexively. “What the hell was that?”

“There was a leech that allowed someone to track you and gauge the nature of your magic container. It’s gone now, though.”

“Of course, he did,” Erik mumbled. “Can’t say I’m surprised though. How did you find it anyway?”

He spoke with the tone of someone who might have had looked for tags previously—seemingly aloof but terribly interested. Acnologia could have laughed at the pureness of it all. “Magic has smell,” he explained. “The more refined the senses, the better one is at differentiating magics from each other. And then there’s letter magic, that when revealed with a magic activation, just tells you what it does.” It was very convenient—until smart alecks wrote things in new languages just to be special. How Zeref figured out how to safe keep his shit with a language perpendicular to the flow of magic and still work was beyond him. Not that Acnologia came across it often.

“So, what, you just erase it or something? Just like that?”

“Normally, it would take using a letter magic to rewrite the spell into being defunct or into oblivion. However, while I can read most languages—” wandering the world with only a vague purpose that required a lot of research gave him plenty of time to learn “—that doesn’t mean I’m an expert at altering scripts without an instrument.” Since letter magic tends to exist on a layer above the core ether flow and going backwards was terribly annoying unless one was adept at modification magic, like demons had a natural talent for. “So, I ate it instead.”

“You what—?!”

“Lesson two about dragon slayers: just as we can expel magic through the mouth, we intake it as well. In short, dragon slayers eat their magic type. Or really, their elemental type. Fire dragon slayers eat fire, sky dragon slayers eat air, and one day, you’ll be not only able to eat poison, but you’ll be strengthened by it.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” For his credit, Erik took it in stride. Either he was naturally adaptive, or he didn’t have the same misconceptions about magic that most humans had in this era.

Either of which once again begged the question of his background. Acnologia was not one to pry, but he did have concerns, and occasionally those concerns were great enough to contemplate action, unwanted meddling be damned. Inserting dragon lacrimas into children, and the possible existence of a slave camp, were both things that Acnologia would get involved over.

The way Erik spoke of it implied that the second might be obsolete in the present, but Acnologia wanted to be sure. “Erik.”

He looked up, brows drawing together in inquisition. “Yes?”

“You mentioned…being enslaved as a child,” he began, trying to relax himself as to not stress Erik further. He hated bringing it up at all, but it wasn’t something he was willing to ignore, as a person and as a dragon. “Is everyone involved in that dead or free now?”

Erik shifted his gaze to the side, his hand coming upward to hold onto Cubellios. The snake was his lifeline in more than one way. “I guess so. All the cultists that were on the island are dead. Lot of us slaves, too, if I’m being honest. When some traveling scientists found us, some of us left, but some people stayed with that idiot to keep working.”

“Keep working?” he echoed, incredulous. “The hell?”

“I know right? This kid named Jellal convinced his friends to keep building the tower the cultists wanted. They’re there on their own will, though, being stupid. Jellal probably went crazy long ago, reason he thinks that damn thing is important. If they want to waste their life on it, then so be it.”

Wendy gasped, and Acnologia and her shared a knowing look. The name “Jellal” was rare, but very familiar to them. Mystogan spoke of his world brother as purportedly being malicious or merely mad, and the possibility that this was the same Jellal was suspicious and plausible.

“What?” Erik narrowed his eyes at them. He was very perceptive, which was an admirable trait, though he leaned on paranoia it seemed. “Do you know something?”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “I’ve heard of a Jellal before, but I can’t say for certain it’s the same the one. What are they building, anyway?” Secret cultist projects sounded problematic, and if some kids were still building it, then Acnologia wanted to know if he should be concerned.

“They called it the ‘Tower of Heaven,’” Erik answered, his tone mocking. “The cultists wanted to bring some ‘Zeref’ back to life, and now that Jellal weirdo says he hears the ‘great Zeref speak to him,’ telling him to build the tower. Maybe the island is cursed to make people go nuts or something.”

Erik might not have thought much of it, but Acnologia knew a thing or two that Erik didn’t. Like that Zeref was very much alive, and that his creations were, nine times out of ten, very much a problem. “Fucking hell!”

He worried that the ‘cultists’ could be related to Zeref, and now they most likely were. Those weirdos were off their rocker, misreading half of what Zeref left behind, and generally turning it into an even bigger issue. He remembered the time they tried to sacrifice an entire city some hundred years ago because they thought they could open a hole in time. It had been one of the few times Acnologia got involved, just in case they were successful. But even if he had killed them, more always cropped up.

There was also the issue that there was no way Zeref was telling some kid to revive him. He was one, still alive, and two, trying to die. Either this kid really did go crazy, or there was someone else pulling the strings. Either way, the success of this tower, should it really be one of Zeref’s designs, posed a threat in the wrong hands. Or even just ignorant hands.

This was something he wanted to take a careful look into. (And maybe find Zeref for, just so he could have the satisfaction of punting him into the ocean.)

“What’s wrong?” Erik questioned, on edge once more. “Do…do you know something about it?”

“About the tower? No. About Zeref? Plenty,” Acnologia answered. “He’s an irritating bastard, but a smart one. Unfortunately, those idiots who look up to him are all crazy, and coupled with access to his theories, that makes them dangerous.”

“You…think that tower can actually revive Zeref?” he deadpanned.

Acnologia regarded Erik for a moment. If he were to spend any amount of time with the other slayers, he would find out eventually. “Zeref? No, he’s not even dead. I do think it can cause some damage, though.”

“Wait wait wait—Zeref is alive? No, those bastards spoke of him like some ancient god. I think you might be mistaken—”

“No, that bastard is still living. He’s annoying like that.”

“Acno,” Wendy chastised gently. It was a commendable effort, but Acnologia already knew to keep his ire with Zeref to a minimum around Natsu.

“He’s cursed to immortality or something, so trust me, he’s not running around telling people to revive him. They come to that conclusion on their own. But that’s information best kept secret, lest it excite the many, many cults of Zeref. Or ignite mass panic.”

Erik nodded mutely.

“Good.” Acnologia stood. “Now, I can look into that later. You don’t have to involve yourself in it unless you really want to, okay?”

Erik nodded again, with more relief this time.

Acnologia was more than happy to take that burden off Erik’s mind. Unfortunately, he would have enough things to worry about, trying to acclimate to that lacrima, without Zeref-related bullshit wrecking everything. Acnologia was much more suited to go toe-to-toe with the Black Mage, and he had no qualms doing so. He knew both the faulty logic of a depressed quasi-immortal and the old magics well, both of which were great assets in navigating business concerning him.

The fact that Mystogan and Erza already seemed to be affected by this Tower mess was already cause for getting involved. First, though, Acnologia would see Erik have a good home that wouldn’t drive him to insanity or use him as a weapon. Just because dragon slayer magic was created with weaponization in mind didn’t mean that these kids had to suffer through the mental toll of that now. Honestly, he was still pissed that Zeref and Igneel and the other dragons would try to weaponize kids against him when Acnologia definitely could have destroyed them anyway, had he still been mad.

Hopefully, Erik could find his own way just like he hoped the other kids could. Acnologia certainly didn’t mind looking over him as well. It was only fitting.

He looked to the sky. The sun was beginning to set, and it would be down by the time they returned to Magnolia. He could use a good stretch of his wings anyway, so it was a good opportunity.

Oh, that was something else Erik should probably know. “Oh, and another thing that’s listed under a need-to-know basis,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m a dragon.”

“…what the fuck?”

“For reasons I’ll explain later, I’m both dragon slayer and dragon, but that second part will be a nightmare if the general populace—or worse, the Council—find out about. Thought I’d give you a warning.”

“Oh!” Wendy squealed happily. “Are we flying home?”

“Sure thing, kiddo. It’s a nice day out anyway.”

“So, when you say dragon,” Erik began, but it was too late. “Do you mean like—holy shit!”

Acnologia bent his neck, chuckling at the wide-eyed boy and snake over his shoulder. “Grab anything you want to bring along and get on,” he rumbled. “Magnolia awaits.”

Chapter Text

“She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.”

—Kate Chopin, The Awakening (84)

Secretly, there had been a part of Erik that always wanted to fly—though that might have been a fantasy that everyone on that gods-forsaken island had considered at least once.

He never imagined that if he finally got to do it, it would be on the back of dragon.

When Acnologia first made the absurd but still honest claim that he was a dragon, Erik didn’t know what to expect. It could have been metaphorical, or some shit like that. He also didn’t think that dragons were so fucking huge. The dude hadn’t even been that tall when he was a human, just averagely tall.

It was kind of terrifying, but also awesome. It was easy to tell that the giant blue and black dragon was Acnologia, their voices identical. Erik didn’t know what kind of magic allowed him to do a transformation like that, but it must have been impressive.

As he watched the trees and the mountains of Fiore, dotted with tiny cities, fly by beneath him, he couldn’t help but feel equally exhilarated and nervous. The world didn’t matter this high up, and it was freeing, but it was also proof of how far they were going—that he was leaving. He dreamed of leaving, of going far, far away from that hell, but it was always just that: a dream. Erik didn’t think it was feasible, because when he left with Brain, it had still lingered behind him.

Now, watching how easily they flew away, he couldn’t help but to wonder if Brain would come for him, despite not tracking him anymore. Hell, if the others would come after him too, probably having already ditched their names for the dark power they earned. He knew this made him a coward, running away from what he said he wanted, but…Erik just wanted to live his life. He just wanted to know what it would be like not having to fight for everything. Besides, he knew that Cubellios wasn’t always comfortable there either, and he wanted what was best for her, too.

At least sitting on a giant dragon made the thought of Brain coming to get him quieter. Brain was powerful, but Acnologia was too—and much bigger.

—o0o—

Magnolia was larger than Acnologia, Wendy, and Charle made it out to be, but then again, Erik had barely seen what the cities of Fiore looked like. When he came to the mainland with Brain and the others, he had seen Akane Beach briefly, but it had been too overwhelming to focus on it at the time. They spent their time in lone, far-off buildings since that point.

After glimpsing Magnolia from above, they landed in the forest next to it, a promised walk ahead. Erik had gotten better seeing in the dark after his stint training in the woods, but it seemed that the others had no trouble either. Maybe that was the ‘enhanced senses’ Acnologia talked about at work. There was definitely something up, whether because he was a dragon or a dragon slayer, because when Acnologia would occasionally glance back at him and Wendy, his eyes would glow orange in the moonlight.

They came to a cabin in the woods long before they reached the town, but that was apparently their stop. It wasn’t as ornate and complicated as any of Brain’s hideouts, but it didn’t look cookie-cutter either, with a mix of wood, stone, and metal, two stories, and a room of sorts at the top. It was wasn’t overly spacious, but it was cozy—somewhat like Erik always imagined homes to look like. Nothing inside matched, but that just made it all the more different than every facility he’s been in so far.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Acnologia said when they entered. “Washroom is over there, and there’s an extra bed available in the second room to the left upstairs. I don’t know who used it last, but if the scent bothers you let me know.” His gaze shifted briefly to Erik’s small bag of supplies. “Oh, and if want me to wash your clothes, I can do that.”

Erik glanced at Wendy, who managed to make it to the couch before giving into her drowsiness, as much as Charle was trying to get her to go upstairs. It was really late. “Don’t you want to sleep?” he asked. He felt bad for not being self-sufficient here, but he also knew he was filthy in someone’s house, hence all the talk of cleaning.

“Me? No,” Acnologia responded with a laugh. “I just woke up from a solid month of sleep. I’ll likely be awake for the next few days.”

Did he just say a whole month of sleeping? That didn’t sound normal.

He must have noticed Erik’s surprise, because Acnologia laughed again. “Yeah, I know, it’s strange. Dragons like our sleep. Does your snake friend stay awake all winter?”

Oh. Now that he mentioned it, Cubellios did get drowsy when it got cold. “No, she would go in and out of sleep,” he confirmed. Good to know that was normal for reptiles. He had always been worried she wasn’t getting enough food.

While Acnologia got something from the kitchen, Erik peeked at the bathroom. It was small, but it was nice. He might prefer it to that echoing place Brain had, and anything was better than the ocean or the creepy facilities left behind by the cult.

He only had one spare shirt, so he took that one and left his old one and his jacket to be washed. He didn’t want to be without clothes at all and be stuck in the bathroom.

It did feel good to be clean again. Cubellios enjoyed it too, soaking her belly in the hot water. Whatever lacrima they used to heat the stuff was intense, because it was fast. Or maybe the ones he had been exposed to previously just sucked.

Regardless, it proved to be a relaxing experience, because even with his wounds healed, he had lingering soreness. The time alone was also nice, with the steady sound of the water making for easy thought. This was really it, wasn’t it? The new location made the finality set in. But what was this? Was this a pitstop to who-knows-where, or…was this his new home now? What was he supposed to do? The uncertainty was a little maddening, but Erik was too tired to act on his rising panic.

There was also the lingering discovery that they might have actually been building something functional. It had been easier to think that everything had just been some form of torture and evidence of having a suckish life, but the reality made him feel small. More pawn-ish. It was over now, but it left a bad taste in his mouth like dry sand.

It made him feel simultaneously more eager to be rid of that past forever and have the need to see it closed for good, just for the assurance that it wouldn’t come back. He just didn’t know if he had the strength to do anything about it, so now he was tempted to hide behind this guy who only just now found out about it as Acnologia promised to look into the situation.

Unless it wasn’t his first time. He recognized the name of Jellal, and even though he claimed it was by name only, he knew that Acnologia was suspicious that it was the same one. Well, there had been some empty-eyed adults that took the chance to leave the island when it had become an option; it was possible some news had traveled, though he was pretty sure Jellal had tried to threaten them to silence. The only other person that might have made it off the island was whoever Jellal blamed for the destruction of the boats, but given how crazy Jellal had been and sounded when he made those claims, he wouldn’t be surprised if Jellal had killed that chick and set fire to everything himself. (Other people believed him, but they couldn’t hear the contradicting voices in his head like Erik could.)

He was curious as to what Acnologia knew, but Erik would also be content never talking about it again. Though the alternative was to figure out what he could or needed to do to move forward, and that was also a blank and ominous road, because he had no idea.

Maybe he should stop. Thinking about the future was always hard for him, as much as he tried to, and now Cubellios was poking at his cheek, so he might have been unresponsive for too long. Hopefully it was just because he was tired. That spare bed sounded nice, though Erik had no idea what Acnologia meant about the scent. Honestly, it was amazing he wasn’t nose blind after the Tower.

Erik exited the bathroom. He was a little self-conscious about needing to return to his not-that-clean clothes, but there was little he could do about that one. A part of him hoped that he could make it to this extra room without any more interaction, simply because his brain was failing him for exhaustion, and he didn’t have the capacity to think about it and what it meant, even if there were still things he may or may not want to know.

However, Acnologia was at the table, within eyesight of Erik and his destination. He had books out, like he was studying something, so he looked occupied. For a moment, he looked like another conversation was going to happen anyway, because Acnologia raised his hand in acknowledgement of Erik’s presence, but all he said was “good night.”

He crept up the steps, aware that Wendy was asleep. Erik could hear the steady breathing as he approached. He also saw that there were several rooms beside the two he knew existed. Peaking inside some, they were certainly lived in. So, there were more people here? Actually, that made some things Wendy told him on their way back make sense, like the excessive use of “we.”

He hoped they didn’t mind how useless he was, barely a dragon slayer and barely a functioning human.

His clothes were folded on the bed, already clean and dry. How Acnologia did that so fast, he had no idea, but he switched to the cleaner clothes and felt better already. The bed was really soft, though he wasn’t sure if that was an exaggeration due to his previous two weeks of cold-hard ground. Either way, between the bed, finally being clean, and the way Cubellios wrapped herself next to his neck, he was asleep almost instantly.

—o0o—

Maybe he wasn’t nose-blind, because Erik definitely smelled the food when he woke up. Cubellios likely could too, because she was hitting his cheek with her tongue in an attempt to make him get up faster. “Okay, I’m awake,” he conceded. And truthfully, he was. He felt great, like the forest was just a dream.

Acnologia’s cabin was certainly real, though. Good to know, because it was suck if he imagined all of yesterday.

He could hear the other three downstairs.  The sun was streaming into the room with late-morning intensity, and Erik wondered how the hell he slept this late. It was worrying at first, but there wasn’t actually anything he was told he had to do today, and nothing implied either. Huh.

Cubellios was already energetic. He sat up to see her slithering through the closet, raising her body to check out the mismatched contents. This seemed to be a guest room, so the scarceness of the room made sense, but there were some spare jackets and clothes kept there, ranging from an adult to a young girl, judging by the sizes and styles. Just who stayed here, anyway?

With no one but Cubellios to watch, Erik tentatively sniffed the bed, curious as to what Acnologia had been talking about earlier. All he smelled was toast, though, and that might be coming from downstairs.

His stomach was letting him know that food would be a wonderful idea. Erik had slept more than he intended anyway, so he left the room, Cubellios at his heels.

“Sleep well?” Acnologia asked before he even rounded the corner. It was somewhat startling before Erik remembered that he likely had as good as hearing as he did. It was weird, because Erik had always managed to evade people’s attention before, and even if there wasn’t a reason to sneak around, it was nice to not draw attention to himself.

“Yeah,” he answered truthfully once he made it into the open. “Thanks for the place to sleep for the night.”

Wendy turned around in her chair to face him, and suddenly he was being assaulted with big brown eyes. “You’re not staying with us?” she asked, her voice sounding like she was on the verge of tears or major disappointment.

Erik backpedaled. He hadn’t wanted to make any assumptions, and last night, he had been too tired to think about his current trajectory. In fact, that was still an intimidating topic. It was both easier and likely more accurate to look to Acnologia in this situation. He was the one in charge here.

From behind the counter, Acnologia just nodded. “I told you that you were welcome to stay with us,” he said. “Nothing is forcing you to stay, of course, but I would feel better if you at least stayed until you acclimated to your magic.” Though I prefer you stay indefinitely.

Huh. Erik should have known he meant it the first time, but it was stranger the second time. There was definitely some ulterior motive, though—there always was. Sometimes, they were so hard to keep up with that Erik couldn’t ascertain them all at once, like whenever he had tried to listen to Brain’s thoughts—all whispered half-thoughts that never compiled all at once—but Acnologia was straightforward yet vague. Either Erik’s magic wasn’t strong enough to hear all of it, or the thought was unfinished.

“You just met me though,” Erik countered, both shocked by the fact and fishing for more information.

Cubellios was checking at the food on the table, already stretched up the chair, so Erik did tentatively sit down to continue the conversation. If this ended terribly, he might as well get food out of the deal, because there was bacon and eggs, and he was still hungry.

“Acno let me stay with him after the first time I met him,” Wendy stated, sounding confused. “Is that weird?”

“For most people, yes,” Charle stressed. “It’s why you don’t randomly trust strangers.”

“Yes,” Acnologia agreed. “It’s very unconventional, but it was either that or leave a five-year-old with a ghost that was also trying to convince me to take her. It’s a long story. Point is, if it doesn’t matter to you, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m too old for traditional human social rituals.”

That wasn’t informative in the way Erik had hoped. Now he just knew that Acnologia thought it was weird that humans took a long time to do things despite their short lives. He was a little scared to ask how old he was.

He also fully intended to tell Erik that story, and maybe something else. Huh. That was something, at least. Erik could be patient.

It was also looking entirely possible that these people were okay with letting him stay here without doing anything. It felt weird. Not bad, but weird. Maybe it was the luxury of normal people, or maybe it was the unconventionality of a dragon.

Erik snapped out of his thoughts when Acnologia said something about getting new clothes. His awareness of how little he could support himself (legally) was crawling back. “Oh, I think I have enough Jewel for something for now,” he said, aware of what little money he had on him. All of it was obtained through petty thievery, because their escapades weren’t exactly funded by legal means. That Sawyer kid was really good at it, though. “I’ll…figure out the rest later.” If he was going to stick around this town with Acnologia’s bunch, he should probably try and do things legitimately. He just had to figure out how.

Acnologia stared at him with surprise. Wendy and Charle did, too, for that matter, in a much more confused manner. Erik immediately started wracking his head for anything he did wrong, but Acnologia just laughed.

“So you do have hearing magic,” he said. “I was starting to wonder, but I wasn’t sure.”

Oh. Oh. Acnologia hadn’t said any of that aloud, did he? Erik should have been more worried of losing his trump card so early, but really, what was he supposed to do against a dragon if things went south anyway?

“Uh, yeah,” he admitted sheepishly. Erik hadn’t found much use for it yet, because it was hard to control, and it wasn’t as impressive as other people’s magic, so it wasn’t something he advertised. Brain had been pretty sure that it could be useful, but Brain also had fully supported sticking a lacrima in him to make him better, so it had been a hard thing to gauge. “I learned it by accident, so I don’t really know the specifics.”

Acnologia nodded thoughtfully. “You heard my thoughts, right? About needing clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you see anything, or do you just hear it?”

Did he see anything? No. “No, I just hear it. I can hear regular stuff too though.”

“Like how dragons can hear?” Wendy asked.

“Not quite,” Acnologia replied on his behalf. “Erik’s magic sounds telepathic in nature, but it’s definitely just sound-based. Most telepathic magic is manifested, so it makes sense that it comes naturally to you.”

“How come anyway?” Erik couldn’t help but to ask. Acnologia not only responded more than Brain did, but he was pretty easy to understand. “That people can learn magic randomly. Or only learn certain magic.”

He was still miffed that a crazy bastard like Jellal could summon astronomical magic power, and he was stuck with something lame like good hearing that sometimes was more annoying than it was useful. Hell, the others that Brain found, even if they hadn’t learned magic on the island, all figured out cool magic. If Erik had had the choice, he definitely would have tried for something more useful in a fight. That Richard guy tried to teach him how to melt the ground, once, but nothing happened. The lacrima seemed like a better route.

Acnologia shrugged. “Magic is weird. But it’s true that some people are more oriented for some types of magic than others based on how they align with the natural flow of magic.”

This was just the universe short-changing him again, wasn’t it? That was disheartening. “So it just depends on if you’re born with more magic?”

“No. Not quite. Yes, some people have weaker connections than others, but it all depends on which layer of magic you’re aligned with. The old scholars liked to divide it into four main categories, but the truth is, there’s a shit-ton of layers that all cross over one another. You can certainly branch out and do whatever you want, within your feasible reach of course, but you tend to be most adept with whatever you’re aligned to,” he explained. “Granted, circumstances can change alignments, so not even that is set in stone. I wasn’t born an arcane creature, but after getting enchanted with dragon magic, I became one. That was kind of random, though. Didn’t happen to everyone. Or actually, anyone else for that matter.”

“Huh. Okay.” Erik still didn’t know what most of that meant, especially in regard to himself, but at least he didn’t feel bad for not being able to learn those other types of magic. It still sucked that he wasn’t aligned on a ‘layer’ that was cooler. Though he always knew the universe hated him.

“Anyway,” Acnologia continued. “I’ll buy you new clothes. And a bed, for that matter, unless you really like that one.”

“Isn’t that a lot though?” Erik blurted. Maybe he was just used to the rationing of resources they had on that stupid island. And then other stuff had to be earned.

“I’m an S-Class mage, and people pay a lot of money for those quests to be completed. It’s fine.”

Acnologia seemed to have little to no intent on buying random things like new houses or artifacts, so he fully intended to use his earnings on ‘their needs and well-being,’ whatever he meant by that.

“Oh, and maybe I should mention—there are more dragon slayers. Living here. Two closer to your age, too.”

Right, there was that. “Yeah, I saw that there were more rooms.” It wasn’t like Erik wasn’t used to living with a crap-ton of people though. It couldn’t be that bad, and it seemed like everyone came and went judging by the fact that no one was concerned that they weren’t here.

“Just thought I would warn you properly,” Acnologia commented lightly. “Especially since one of them is coming right now.”

What? What did he mean by— Oh, he heard it now. Someone was headed this way, though Erik had no way of ascertaining who they were without prior knowledge by sound alone. Why did it smell like something was burning though?

The door burst open. “We’re back!” a boy with spiky-pink hair yelled, a blue floating cat that looked like Charle but dumber beside him. “Hey Acno, hey Wendy, hey—who the heck are you?”

For a moment, Erik and the pink-haired boy just stared at each other, minds blank.

“I’m Erik,” he responded finally, unsure of what else to say. Nice to meet you? He didn’t know about that yet. Most people lied when they said that anyway.

“Uh, I’m Natsu—”

“And I’m Happy!”

“—what are you doing here?”

“Natsu! Be nice!” Wendy and Charle chastised nearly identically, though Charle said “don’t be rude” instead.

“What? I’m just asking?”

Erik could hear a very long and very deep sounding sigh coming from Acnologia, though his face remained impassive. It was fairly impressive, actually.

It didn’t matter to him, though, because the empty-headed boy was being straight-forward. It was just a hard question to answer. Acnologia and Wendy made it clear he was welcome, so he supposed it was up to him now. It was weird, but it was comfortable here, at least. Besides, after what he pulled disappearing from the forest and getting that ward removed, he probably was far from welcomed back to where he had been, which hadn’t been the best. That narrowed down his options, but Erik found he was fine with it.

“I think I live here now.”

While Natsu was still trying to process the statement, his head just repeated the line slowly, Acnologia intervened. “He’s a dragon slayer.”

It was all he had to say, apparently.

“Oh, why didn’t you say so! Were you raised by a dragon too?”

“No.” How many dragons were they, and why did they raise kids? He had questions.

“So you’re like Laxus?”

“I don’t know who that is, dumbass,” he replied reflexively, but he connected the dots, nonetheless.

“He is,” Acnologia confirmed.

So, they did know someone else with a dragon slayer lacrima. Erik wasn’t sure if it should be comforting or unnerving, because now there was the possibility to have to live up to something. Of course, that was likely already impossible, because apparently his stupid body was having trouble acclimating to the magic.

Natsu tossed his bag to the side and got closer to Erik in a complete and sudden broach of personal space boundaries. “What’s your magic?” he asked while sniffing him. “You smell weird. Is it plants? Ink? Octopus? I bet you’re a grass dragon slayer, aren’t you?”

“No, but you’re an idiot,” Erik snapped, taking a step back from the overexcited pink-haired menace. Grass magic? If that was even real, it must be the lamer than hearing magic.

“Aw, I thought I was getting better at sniffing magic,” Natsu pouted.

“Nice try, but no,” Acnologia said dryly. “And what have I said about sniffing people too closely?”

“It’s obvious and it makes people uncomfortable,” he mumbled apologetically. Apparently, he had forgotten that, though even Erik thought that should have been obvious. This kid must pull stuff like this often based on the deep, deep sighs Acnologia kept giving himself.

Erik could just tell him what it was, but it also could be fun to watch him guess. Or, judging by the contemplative look he was given and the fact that he was beginning to try to match “sour” and “magic,” it could be awful.

“It’s poison,” Erik said finally, deciding that ending the conversation sooner had more merit. “So sniffing it is probably a bad idea.” He wasn’t emitting any now, and technically, he never tried it on humans yet, but Erik didn’t actually want to hurt anyone…right now.

“Ohhh, that makes sense now,” Natsu cried, cheerful despite the looming threat. The danger didn’t register. “I’m a fire dragon slayer!” That explained why he smelled like a burnt stick. “Wait, Acno—aren’t I, like, immune to poison or something?”

Immune to poison? Was that a dragon slayer thing? He didn’t feel immune to poison based on the memory of burns, but then again, Acnologia did say something in regard to him being able to eat it one day.

“No,” Acnologia corrected. “You’re not affected by all poisons. Some are poisonous to all species though. You might have a high resistance to dragon poison, but you’re not immune.” He paused, suddenly appraising Natsu with health concerns in mind. “Please tell me you haven’t eaten anything outside the normal.”

“Nah, Happy or Lisanna yell at me if I try,” Natsu replied honestly. His initial impression of the maybe-younger kid was proving to be accurate: he was an idiot, but he was an honest idiot. Erik could deal with that.

Now that Natsu knew what his magic was, he wasn’t the least bit curious about Erik or his secrets, now focused on the food. Erik was curious about him, however.

“Does being a dragon slayer make you resistant to poison too?” he ended up asking, to no one in particular. He was struggling to keep up with all the weird effects this magic had, and if there was one thing Erik wanted to know about, it was himself.

“Not necessarily,” Acnologia responded. “Our metabolisms can speed up or slow down depending on the scenario, so that may help. It’s harder to control when you’re still human, though.”

“I’mjustdifferentbecauseI’mademon,” Natsu mumbled really quickly into his eggs.

Startled by whatever the hell he thought he heard Natsu say, Erik tried to check him again, but he was just thinking or mumbling about eggs and nothing else. Maybe Erik misheard. However, when he glanced to Acnologia, he was stealing an either worried or pitying glance in Natsu’s direction.

“Another need-to-know basis,” Acnologia explained vaguely, though the concern was evident. “Humans tend to react badly to these types of things.”

Wait was that legitimate? Not only did he have to check another creature off his ‘mythical’ list, but he had to reevaluate it. Natsu wasn’t a gremlin like creature, and he looked, well, perfectly human, aside from traits that Acnologia and Wendy had, like sharp eyes and teeth.

It was something no one else was worried about. In fact, Acnologia was more worried about Natsu than anyone else, so there didn’t seem to be any threat in the matter. Still, it was weird. Though, maybe not any weirder than Acnologia being a monolithic dragon. He wondered if anyone in this house was normal, or even human.

“Speaking of which…” Acnologia regarded Erik for a moment with a he’ll have to know eventually floating on his thoughts. He caught Erik watching and met his eye. You don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to.

By the time that Erik registered that Acnologia effectively spoke to him just by thinking loudly, Acnologia had turned to Natsu. “Natsu—have you ever heard of the R-System?” he asked cautiously.

The R-System? Wait… That was another name for the Tower of Heaven, wasn’t it? It wasn’t thrown around as much—not enough flourish, Erik supposed—but it was familiar. But what would some uninvolved teen know? Unless…was it a demon thing? He was tempted to take Acnologia up on his offer and bow out right now, but Erik was also rooted to the spot, hungry for an answer.

“R-System?” Natsu sounded confused, however. “What’s that?”

“It’s…one of Zeref’s designs. Outlawed by the Mildian Sages and documented thusly for being ‘a threat to life’—” Natsu winced. “—but I can’t find what it did. Any guesses?”

Natsu pushed a piece of egg around the plate. “I don’t know much, but if it was kept by that Mildian school, then… I have a guess.” It’s my fault. “But if he didn’t build it then, he wouldn’t have used it! He has…had standards.”

Natsu was spiraling, thoughts of my fault and what did my brother do mixing with he wouldn’t hurt anybody on purpose and heaps of doubt. It hurt to try to comprehend, and Erik tried to shut it out, feeling equals parts sorry for the kid and wary of him. Was this implying that Zeref, the apparently immortal black mage, was his brother? It seemed to be a sore subject, but what the fuck? What kind of complicated mess did Erik get himself involved in?

“Natsu, it’s not your fault,” Acnologia placated. Erik was beginning to think he had magic hearing too. “And I’m not saying Zeref built it. There’s a possibility someone else is trying, so I just wanted to know what to expect.”

“R-right.” Natsu tried to compose himself. “It’s probably one of his plans to bring m— someone to life. He didn’t use it though, so either it didn’t work, or he didn’t want to.”

“I see.” That’s what I was afraid of. “I just wanted to make sure. Sorry for bringing it up.”

Acnologia ruffled Natsu’s hair, and it was at least partially successful at alleviating Natsu’s mood. “So how was your job?”

“Oh!” It was the distraction Natsu needed. “It was cool! Me ‘n’ Happy went and we got to go blow up all these rocks that fell on the path a bunch of times.”

“Aye!” Happy agreed. “But Natsu did most of the exploding.”

“I’m sure he did,” Acnologia agreed. “Anyway, I’m taking Erik to get some stuff in town. Need anything?”

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Natsu replied, trying to think. He couldn’t get past we have food though and he didn’t resolutely come to a conclusion beyond that.

“Alright. We’ll be back later. Wendy, do you need help turning in that job to the client?”

“I got it!” she confirmed.

Erik saw the change in subject for what it was, so he waited to leave with Acnologia before he said anything. Cubellios was on his shoulders in her favorite position, and Acnologia didn’t say anything about her not being able to come, so she stayed. He waited until they were out of his earshot before he spoke up.

“What the hell was up with that?”

All that time to think, and it was still blurted out with every ounce of confusion he had on the matter.

“Well…” Acnologia started slowly, but Erik saw where he was going and stopped him.

“I know you’re trying to ease me into things, but I can take it. Don’t make me keep guessing.” While it sounded defiant in his head, it came out more as a beg. He just wanted to be able to catch up. He was sick of being behind on everything.

Acnologia dipped his head with a sigh and complied. It came easier than Erik expected, but it did not start remotely how Erik thought it might. “Over four hundred years ago, the dragon clans went to war. Pro-human-cohabitation versus pro-humans-as-chicken-nuggets, essentially. First side elicited volunteers for a new type of magic a queen and a dragon came up with.”

“Dragon slayer magic?” Erik guessed. He didn’t know why the history lesson was happening, but he would take it.

“Exactly. I was one of the volunteers, though why anyone in their right mind gave me dragon killing magic, I have no idea. The first home I had managed to find after being released as a slave had been wiped out by the dragons that used to be protecting it, through the use of a type of supremacy magic, but I didn’t know that until centuries later.”

Acnologia took a deep breath, bracing himself. Their walking pace slowed.

“The thing about dragon slayer magic, is that when it’s used to actually kill dragons, that dragon’s magic gets eaten by the slayer. I was very good at killing dragons. The power and the anger made it addicting. Some parts are a blur, now. I remember getting into arguments with some of the dragons. I remember the Dragon King Festival going south. Then… it was mostly rage.

“I went berserk. The magic turned me into a dragon, and I used that power to slaughter any dragon I saw. It didn’t matter if they were my allies or not. Dragon, human, or otherwise. Dragons are nearly extinct because of me.”

Acnologia didn’t look at Erik as he said any of it. He didn’t want to, and Erik couldn’t say that he blamed him. The heaviness of that ocean was back in full force, and now Erik could place the sensation: guilt. It wasn’t raging and it wasn’t consuming, but it settled at the bottom of his words and it was in every slow breath he took. It was…remorseful. Erik didn’t know how Acnologia kept his voice as even as it did, because the ocean threatened to spill at each sentence.

“Not all of them. Some survived, despite my best effort. Some of the proponents of the peace-keeping side of the war. I know now, because they were the ones who raised the other five dragons slayers in my care.”

“Wait, so you did this for…four hundred years?” he couldn’t help but to interrupt. He wasn’t sure what the implications of that was, but it felt immense.

“No. I had probably only been at it for a few decades at this point. The dragons decided to raise a new set of slayers from a young age. How much of it was happenstance, and how much of it was premeditated, I don’t know. They had worked together with Zeref to form some sort of plan, and they sent the kids into future using some gate Zeref made. And yes, Natsu is Zeref’s little brother, though he had very little interaction with him since he was cursed. If you want to know specifics, you’re going to have to ask Natsu, but it’s a sore subject for him.”

“No kidding,” Erik mumbled. He had always blamed his parents for abandoning him, but at least they weren’t historically renowned black mages that punted him into the future. At least, he didn’t think they were. Probably just normal assholes.

“Most of this I didn’t know until I ran into Zeref a few months ago.” Acnologia grunted in displeasure at the memory. “The plan had been to give them enough time and power to grow up and defeat me.”

“I’m guessing that plan is ruined,” he commented, mouth dry. Now Erik understood why Acnologia had been intent on feeding him small bits of information at a time, because this was a lot.

Erik had thought he saw the worst of the world on that island. Now his problems seemed small and uncomplicated, and a part of him understood why some people had stayed there. There had also been a time he thought that anyone who ruined the lives of others were simply awful people, but then the day came when Erik had been close to doing the same thing, becoming a thief and a murderer just to survive.

The fact that Acnologia saw some of himself in Erik made him nauseous. How close had he been to…?

“Two hundred years ago, I snapped out of it, by some miraculous intervention. Found out the impetus of my insanity wasn’t even true.” He drew a deep, stuttering breath in the form of a bitter laugh. The ocean churned. “So no, their plan didn’t go exactly as expected, though I understand why no one thought I could ever see reason again.

“Everyone in that house has their own haunted pasts, and the details of such are theirs to share. I am the only one with blood on my hands, however, and if that bothers you, you’re free to leave. I understand I’m not the most comfortable person to be around. The best I can offer is knowledge about dragon slayer magic…and its volatile side effects…and how to not go down the same path I did.”

Acnologia found the strength to look at him by the end of that, but now Erik was too uncomfortable to make eye contact. When Acnologia had told him that he had done worse than whatever Erik did, he didn’t believe him. Now he understood his confidence on the matter. Of course, Erik hadn’t had the chance to do the worst he could, and Erik was fairly imaginative of what that could have been. The assurance that Erik wouldn’t turn to bloodlust would be enough.

He also thought that his life had been great at sucking, but now even that fell short of the reality of this world.

“Hey, don’t try to compare yourself to any of this,” Acnologia chastised, somehow reading his mind. “I know it’s easy.”

“Too late,” he muttered. “I kinda already have to reevaluate my outlook on life after all that.”

He hummed softly in acknowledgement. “These things aren’t quantitative. Everyone has their ghosts—their burdens and their mistakes. Pain is pain. No need to short-sell yourself, and no need to scoff at others. The key is to not let it overtake you.”

“Will…? Can I ever…?” Erik choked on his own words. They often failed him, but now they were abandoning him altogether. “Get that bad?”

“No,” Acnologia answered confidently. “Not if you still worry about it. Carry what you need to to remember, whether to cherish or to ground you. You can’t change your past, but it doesn’t have to hurt you, and it doesn’t have to hurt others. As long as you look to future and aim to be the best you can, you’re already on a better path.”

They walked to the town of Magnolia in relative silence. It gave Erik time to absorb everything and to mull it over, but for now, there wasn’t really much for Erik to consider.

However, he was left with feeling grateful that Acnologia had found him. And, despite all options to opt out, Erik found that he really did want to stay.

Chapter Text

“And I don’t know why I survived
I too, deserve to die
Providence has turned His eye
And grace has chosen me to stay
To live another day…”

—Attalus, “Message in a Bottle”

March 23, X780

Erza sat alone at a table in the guildhall, enjoying a slice of cake as her reward to herself for a job well done.

It had become her tradition to do so. Even after four years, the ability to take time to herself and choose her own merit was a feeling to be relished. The discovery of cake was possible near the top of the list of things she relished. Fairy Tail, however, had to be the first spot in that list. Erza was still grateful—indebted, even—to the safety and freedom Fairy Tail provided. It was full of rowdy people, perhaps, but they were all full of heart, and it encouraged her to see their vibrancy.

Life was precious, Erza decided, and she enjoyed being in the midst of it.

That said, if someone else threw another scrap near the vicinity of her cake, she was going to start practicing throwing swords by using their tables as targets.

If that someone was Mirajane, she might be tempted to use her smug face as a target instead. Might.

“Hi Erza!”

Fortunately, Mirajane seemed to be no longer in the guildhall, so Erza could be free of her antics for at least a while longer. Meanwhile, it was Levy who came up to her, having just returned from a job herself with some of the dragonlings.

Levy may be a year younger than her, but she was already shaping up to be a smart and resourceful mage, and she was by far one of the most reasonable people in the guild. Erza enjoyed talking to her, even if they didn’t go on jobs of the same type often—they at least had their mutual appreciation for romance novels, even if the ones Levy read were far more complicated than what Erza liked to read.

“Hello Levy,” Erza greeted in return. “How was your job?”

“Oh, it was great!” she responded, eyes alight with the joy of her work. “There was a long paper trail of research—old newspapers mostly—and they needed to be cross analyzed due to inconsistencies. We were able to successfully determine the location of the old mine shaft for the town before long, though.”

Erza smiled at the excited solid-script mage. “That sounds wonderful.”

“Before long?” Sting whined behind her, draped over a table in a miserable fashion. “It took forever…”

Beside him, Rogue shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. I liked it.”

Gajeel ruffled Sting’s hair, only eliciting another groan from him. “Gihi, that was just because most of it was reading.”

“And I thought we would be actually tracking the place, like, outside and stuff.”

“You know what a specific mineshaft smells like, squirt?”

Sting planted his face into the table.

The dragonlings—as the guild began to refer to the resident dragon slayer mages as—were a unique bunch, likely the cause for at least half of the destruction Fairy Tail as a guild was capable of. Some more than others. The young ones were tamer, though Sting was quickly getting restless and eager for more active missions, despite his age. He was a lot like Natsu had been, in that regard, but Natsu had also begun to prove himself capable of fighting missions earlier on, so it was likely Sting could do the same. Any of them, really. Erza still didn’t understand what made their magic dragon slayer magic other than their odd appetites and uncanny senses, but they were all good at what they did, if not impatient and occasionally unimaginative.

Still, Erza couldn’t help but to be fascinated by them. They were all quite different, going from sweet Wendy to sharp-tongued Gajeel to fight-happy Natsu to enthusiastic Sting to quiet Rogue, held together by the aloof yet calm Acnologia. Yet, they were a family just the same, always seen in the vicinity of the others before long, no matter what fight took place and no matter the parting in the meantime. There was something unspoken between them, an understanding that surpassed reason. If Wendy was quiet, though in a manner contrary to how she usually was, Rogue need only ask a simple “what’s wrong?” and she would spill immediately; Gajeel knew when Sting was upset or merely energetic; the second Natsu slowed down, a beat of hesitation even in the midst of his frequent fights, Acnologia would jump in and give him a way out without explicit words. It was baffling, and so fascinating to watch.

She couldn’t help but to envy them. A family in the wake of adversity, bound by common ground and not blood. It was beautiful.

She missed it.

It was a terrible thing to miss, and Erza felt guilty for it, but there was a tight-knit comradery she didn’t realize she had until she witnessed it again from afar.

Don’t get her wrong—Fairy Tail was the family she always dreamed of, and she was forever grateful for it. It was big and free and full of magic and possibility, but sometimes it was too big. Easy to get lost in. She could grow stronger and don her armor and rule all manner of beasts, and if she slipped, she knew she would be caught, even if she never wanted to place that burden on anyone. But… if she was just having a bad day, or if nightmares began to creep upon her again, who could she confide in?

Maybe she was just overthinking things and taking what she had for granted. No, Erza loved Fairy Tail, with all her heart, and she would find a way to express that to the fullest one day.

“How ‘bout you come up here to my face and say that, huh shorty?”

Erza was broken out of her thoughts by a strange but increasingly usual occurrence: Gajeel and Levy bantering. How it started, she didn’t know, but unlike any skirmish between, say, Natsu and Gray, theirs was done with words alone, like it was a game of sorts.

“Oh wait, you can’t,” Gajeel continued. “How ‘bout you grab some books and meet me up here?”

“And defile my books just to see your mug? I’ll pass.”

“They gotta’ be good for something after your sixteenth read.”

“You’re just mad because you can’t get through a book half as fast as I can.”

“Hey, you and yer’ big words is what started this!”

“Are,” Levy corrected gently. “‘You and your big words’ are.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Brainy.”

It was strangely endearing to watch. The two might have continued—and Erza had her cake, ready for it—but Gajeel tilted his head towards the door. “Huh, Acno and Wendy are back. But…” His nostrils flared, evidence of their uncanny senses working again. “There’s someone else?”

“Charle?” Rogue suggested.

“Yeah, she’s there, but there’s also—”

Acnologia entered the guild hall. Of the dragonlings, he was around the least—although, if the kids her age and younger were the ‘dragonlings,’ then he was merely the dragon, being their parent, or maybe their older brother, or maybe just a guardian. (No one, not even those of the household, quite knew.) Acnologia may be short with other people, but Erza found him kind and reasonable, quieting fights and tending to wounds and subsequently lecturing her more reckless guildmates when they were at fault in those matters. (And, if she was the one being lectured, then Erza did her upmost to take his words into consideration.) There was simply something about him, unsettling though he appeared, that made one feel safe.

So maybe it should have come to no surprise that there was, indeed, a new person among them. He was a teen, maybe about her age, with messy dark red hair and wide dark eyes. He was likely small, more spindly than toned, but he was burying himself in a white jacket, half-hiding behind Acnologia, so it was hard to tell. He seemed to be the quiet type—nervous, even—which was a contrast to the usual crowd Fairy Tail attracted. The only thing immediately noticeable about him with the bright purple scarf he wore—oh, wait, that was a snake.

There was also something familiar about him, like she had seen someone like him in a dream once, but it was too hazy a connection for Erza to grasp onto. Maybe it was just her imagination, and maybe the way his roaming gaze landed on her for half a second more was just a coincidence.

“Hey Acno,” Gajeel greeted, sounding just as curious as they all no doubt were. His eyes shifted to the new kid. “And who’re you?”

That didn’t mean he had to be so blunt and rude about it. “Manners!” Erza chided, knocking Gajeel over the head with her gauntlet for his intrusion.

She inclined her head towards the newcomer in his stead. “What he means to say is, welcome to Fairy Tail. Is there anything we can help you with?”

“Uh…” The poor boy was now confused by the conflicting addresses. Curse her for stepping forward too soon! “I’m Erik,” he finished. “I’m just…here with Acnologia…”

“We’re just here to mark down another job,” Acnologia added. “No need to hover.”

Erza took a step back obediently. She hadn’t realized she had been too close in her attempt to be friendly.

“Oh, right—Ms. Chico!” Wendy called, Jewel in hand for the guild contribution. She parted from the group, Charle in tow.

“No…no need to call me ‘miss’…” Chico mumbled, shuffling about the papers needed to record the completed job. Poor girl. Ever since Enno quit, Chico had been trying to fill in, but while she made good coffee and decent food, the ghoul mage’s organizational skills left her struggling.

When Erza turned back to the main group, catching the end of some look of unspoken communication that passed between Acnologia and Gajeel. If there was something going on, the dragonlings were likely to all know it first. It was likely the group had their share of secrets, and Erza tried her best not to be too curious. Everyone was entitled to their privacy—it was a right she herself cherished dearly.

“Well, Erik, I hope you enjoy your time here,” she ended politely with a slight bow.

“Right, um…?”

Oh! She never gave her name. “I’m Erza. Erza Scarlet.”

The weird sense of familiarity without basis returned when his eyes widened slightly at her name. Did he know her? It wasn’t clear. It’s not like Erza knew many people, especially outside of Fairy Tail, but she had done her share of jobs in the area. Did she run into him out there? Had she ignored something accidentally? Had she accidentally damaged his place of dwelling? There were many possibilities.

However, the tense moment of searching ended when Gajeel intervened once more. She was grateful for it, now. “And I’m Gajeel, Acno’s second-in-command—”

“No, you’re not,” Acnologia interjected tiredly.

“—and this is Sting and Rogue, and— Hey! Come on, bro, don’t I get credit for being, I don’t know, second-oldest or something?” He mumbled something after that, that might have been “in the house” but she wasn’t sure.

“One, that’s not how that works, and two, Levy has far more sense than you do. Maybe she could be my ‘second-in-command.’”

Levy giggled, and Gajeel scowled.

Erza found herself compressing the odd, senseless pang of loneliness she felt. At least it left as quickly as it came.

Rogue blinked up at Erik. “Do snakes eat frogs?”

Erik startled at the sudden question, likely taken aback by his first experience with Rogue’s tendency to say out-of-the-blue things. “Uh, yes?”

The snake nodded in tandem, tongue slithering out.

The shadow dragon slayer took a step back. “Toads?”

“That’s the same thing,” Sting argued.

“No, they’re not.”

“Yeah, toads, too,” Erik confirmed, eyeing the eight-year-old with confusion.

Meanwhile, Acnologia let out a sigh and buried his face into his hand. “How many?”

“What?!” Gajeel sniffed the air. “Rogue— there weren’t even any ponds! We were in the town for most of the time, when did you even get those?”

Shoulders slumped in defeat, Rogue removed his hands from his pockets. Three frogs were in one hand, and two in the other. “Five,” the boy answered sullenly.

“And how many do you have at home?” Acno pressed, still not removing the hand over his face.

“…fifteen…”

“And how many can you have?”

Rogue looked to the ground in utter dejection. “Fifteen.”

Erza watched the exchange with mirth and interest, though she was left wondering what Rogue could have done to earn himself a frog-limit. It must have severe for the otherwise easy-going dragonlings to impose the rule upon the poor lad.

As Acnologia was instructing Rogue to release the frogs back into the wild, Erza found herself moving her gaze to observe the new boy once more. He was still situated next to Acnologia, but he seemed caught between watching the conversation of the dragonlings and taking in the rest of the guild, his gaze switching back and forth somewhat rapidly. She understood the feeling. Fairy Tail was leagues different than what she had been used to, but she imagined that it was different to even normal situations as well. She was sure he would become comfortable in no time, though; Erik even seemed to already be accepted by the dragonlings.

She would leave them to it, then. Erza finished off the last bite of cake and prepared to leave the guild hall. There was a piece of armor the traveling merchant was selling that she was planning to add to her collection. Perhaps she should find a job suitable to try it out.

However, she had only just crossed through the doors when Acnologia stopped her.

“Erza, can I speak with you for a moment?” he asked, practically appearing beside her without much prior indication.

She tried not to startle. “Oh, o-of course,” Erza agreed quickly, although she was worried it was about how she might have scared the new kid.

However, that never came up, so she must not have. Instead, Acnologia was the one who apologized. “I’m sorry to ask this of you—I really am—but if you would, I would like to ask you a few questions about…your past.”

“My…my past?” Erza couldn’t help but to feel winded by the subject. She swore to herself that she would try not to look back, lest she only feel the regret. Master Makarov made her promise to look to the future, and she wanted to do her upmost to fulfill that promise. She didn’t even think anyone knew except Master and Porlyusica. Besides, she couldn’t do anything without…without dooming everyone.

“It doesn’t have to be now. Just in the next few days,” Acnologia assured. “I found out some things on accident. I didn’t mean to pry into your business. However, I’ve recently learned some more things, and I’m…” He grappled for a word. “…concerned. Any information you can share would be helpful.”

Erza knew that Jellal was still out there, along with anyone else who survived. She knew Jellal burned the boats and severed their connection to the outside world. She knew he had spoken crazy things like building the tower himself, and that…that he had threatened her, and all the people she thought he called friend too.

She knew, deep in her heart, that it was still a problem—a festering wound left for her old friends to handle. Erza never wanted to abandon them, but what else could she do when she had been removed forcefully from the equation? Master told her that the secret to moving forward was never to look back, to never linger on past regrets, and to simply do her best to be better. She had to take care of herself first, else how would she ever help others?

She was torn between desperately wanting to help in any way she can and between fulfilling that promise to do better. Though perhaps she had just been a fool to think she could successfully abandon her sins. If there was something she could do, she wanted to do it, her future be damned. Erza just desperately hoped it wouldn’t damn the future of her old comrades.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t still scared of reopening that wound for herself. It had been sealed away with her new eye, but if she could take the pain the first time, maybe she could the second time. And if the second time was what it took to destroy her, so be it.

“Okay,” she answered, though her voice came out as small as she felt.

“It’ll be in private,” he assured her. “And it doesn’t have to be now. Take the time you need to, and let me know if you’re ready.”

Erza nodded. She appreciated the time to compose herself, but this was just going to eat at her until the time came. “Where do you want to go?”

He thought for a moment. “The house will be far away from prying ears, unless you would rather do it upstairs. Your choice.”

Both were incredibly tempting, as Erza had been to neither. The upstairs of the guild hall were reserved for S-Class mages—something she aspired to be but had yet to achieve—and the house of the dragon slayers was somewhere far off the beaten path and typically not open to those uninvited. (Whether it was protected by magic, or simply that hard to find, was hard to tell; she knew that Cana once attempted to find it and ended up lost in the woods for hours.)

“Your house is fine,” she decided. Her curiosity was greater, and she didn’t want to risk Master discovering that she was slipping backwards once more.

“I’ll make sure the kids steer clear for the time being. If you go to the edge of town by the post office and head left into the woods, go northeast from there and you’ll find it.”

At those instructions, Acnologia left, giving her the time to prepare. Too antsy to merely stand there, Erza elected to go purchase the armor as she initially planned, though the matter wasn’t as enjoyable with her mind trailing to the Tower.

The fact that the revolt had been successful and that the cultists were dead had been the sole reason that Erza could have any level of peace on the matter. Yes, Jellal had been lost. Whatever the cultists did to him—because of her, her brain always reminded—might as well have killed him. Even if he hated her, as he should, there shouldn’t be any trouble from him…right? She had convinced herself that his threats were spoken out of rage and rage alone, so he wouldn’t follow through on anything lest she show her face to him. But what if his rage had spread?

Acnologia’s apparent worry spread to her tenfold. Her imagination was too great, even though she hadn’t considered the situation actively dangerous anymore. Yet, every time her mind wandered to what could be wrong, it landed on Jellal. He was reduced to a shell of the brilliant mind he once was and he was mad, but Erza hoped that all that rage was pointed to her and her alone. But what if it spread? What if he did hurt the others, or if he was planning to hurt the world? Was he capable? If any shred of his intelligence was left, of course he was. His heart never would have allowed it, but his heart may be gone.

The time she was given was to compose herself, but she was quickly falling apart, so Erza hurried in the direction Acnologia gave her.

—o0o—

The cabin wasn’t as hard to find as she feared, but it was likely that if magic had been protecting it, it had been lifted for her sake. It was bigger than she imagined, but she should have expected that considering how many mages lived there. She herself was starting to feel cramped in her quarters, and she already splurged and began paying for two rooms on account of her armor.

She knocked on the door only once before she heard a “come in” from the other side. Erza entered, immediately awed by how cozy it looked. There were a couple of couches to the left, filled with blankets and pillows, and there was a medium sized table to the right in front of a kitchen. That’s where Acnologia was, seated in front of an array of books that looked ancient. A quick glance confirmed that she couldn’t even read them, the script unfamiliar.

He set the tome aside and regarded her. “Have a seat. There’s water and crackers on the counter over there if you think you have the appetite for anything.”

The offer was kind, but she really didn’t have an appetite, her stomach in knots, so she just sat down. Acnologia looked understanding.

“I apologize again for asking this of you,” he continued. “But there are things I would like to know before making assumptions, and it looks like you were the closest to the situation. Erza…you were once enslaved by a group of Zeref-worshipping cultists who were trying to build the R-System, which they called the Tower of Heaven, correct?”

She was taken aback by how spot on the information was. “Y-yeah,” she agreed. “Did Master tell you?” He agreed to keep it a secret, but Acnologia was an S-Class adult, and a medic, so she would understand if he was in on it too, now. However, the more people knew, the more she feared retribution on behalf of those left behind.

“No,” Acnologia admitted, much to her surprise. “In fact, he doesn’t know I’ve been looking into this matter yet. I stumbled upon this mess by accident, and I would have let it lie had it not been ongoing. I’ve just been piecing together things, and I thought you should know and be able to give your side.”

It was then that Erza suspected she knew where Erik seemed familiar from. His haunted purple eyes were sparked with curiosity this time around, but she might have seen them empty and from afar before. The slaves of the Tower were largely kept separate, though it was not a large island. If you didn’t share a cell together, it was likely you would never even know their name, but paths could still cross, even just in passing.

She might never have made the connection on her own, but here, the timing was too coincidental. Erza voiced her suspicion aloud. “Erik was one too…wasn’t he?”

Acnologia nodded. “He was.”

She was both eager and disheartened at the news. His presence here in Fairy Tail meant they were able to leave the island despite the ships that Jellal set aflame, but that could mean that something happened to Jellal. It could mean that Erik would likely hate her for abandoning him, or it could mean that whatever she imagined might have happened after Jellal’s threat to her to never return could have been completely false.

“I don’t know how or when you were able to get out of there,” Acnologia continued. “But I found out that at least in the past four years, someone by the name of Jellal started building the tower in the stead of the cultists.”

So that was a promise he made good on, then. He hoped that his claim to treat the others better was true too, at the very least. “Anything else?” she prompted half-heartedly, wanting her wound to be done tearing open as soon as possible.

“He apparently convinced some of the remaining people to keep going with the project, since they were stuck on the island. A passing ship of alleged scientists found them recently, and some left with them. Some stayed, though. I’m guessing you were able to leave before that?”

Erza fixed her gaze downward, aware that the likelihood of her side of the story being believed was low. More than that, her words were deadly should they be acted on—though it seemed Acnologia lived to his reputation of an S-Class mage, because he found this himself. “You can’t tell the Council any of this!” she blurted, desperate to share her side but also desperate to keep her old friends safe.

Acnologia only snorted. “The day I tell the Council anything more than ‘fuck you’ is the day this era ends. Trust me, they won’t be involved in this if I can help it. What you say stays in this room, and it stays with me.”

That relaxed her, though it didn’t stall her nerves entirely. Erza took a deep breath, glad she was at least in armor to make her feel a fraction more protected than the memory made her feel.

“Before it all started, I used to be…close with Jellal. We were in the same group. He was always kind and considerate. So much so that when I got in t-trouble, for something that I did do, he convinced them that he did it and he took my place.

“We ended up launching the rebellion soon after that. We won, too. I… I w-went to where they were t-torturing him to get him out, but…”

That moment still assailed her. It had been a while since she had to relive it in her nightmares, but even just recalling it now, she could picture the mad look in his eyes vividly, and her throat remembered the way he had tried to choke her.

“He started saying stuff about how there was no such thing as freedom, and the only real freedom was in Zeref’s world, and that he would build the tower with the others himself. It all came out of nowhere. Whatever they d-did to him b-broke him. Or maybe Zeref’s ghost really did possess him, because he was too weak to fight back.

“Jellal—o-or whatever was possessing him—told me to leave and he set the boats on fire. He also… He also s-said that if I ever came b-back, or if the Council c-came, he would kill everyone on the island.”

If her fingernails were scraping gashes into the wood, or if her tears came slashing down on top of it all, Acnologia made no comment.

He listened quietly, offering no commentary or platitudes, only a soft exhale at the end. “I see,” he said finally. “Did he say that he heard Zeref’s voice?”

Did he? That part was fuzzy for her, but Erza had always been more fixated on Jellal’s mannerisms. “I think so,” she replied. “At least, he talked about Zeref a bunch. The cultists that had us previously worshipped him. They said the Tower was to revive him.”

At the time, Erza had thought Zeref was some dark, bygone god. She didn’t think they could successfully revive a god, but the possibility always lingered. When she came to the mainland, Erza discovered that he was no god, but rather an evil mage that lived many centuries ago, whose creations still plagued the world. She also learned more about magic, and if magic could raise the dead, people would have done so by now. Magic could create a new eye for her, but it couldn’t restore her old one. She doubted the Tower would revive a person dead for hundreds of years, but maybe his ghost really was capable of it.

“Was there anything visually different about him?”

She wasn’t sure where Acnologia was going with the questions, but Erza did her best to answer them. “N-no, I don’t think so.” She only remembered how mad he looked. “It was really dark in the room, though, so it’s hard to say.”

Acnologia looked thoughtful. “Did he have any markings?”

“Well, he has a red mark on his cheek, but he always had that. He said he was born with it.” Wally was always jealous of it because it was the ‘coolest birthmark ever.’ Jellal didn’t know what it was, though, but none of them there had lived long in the real world before capture.

“The cultists that had you…” Acnologia switched subjects with a frown. “Were they competent with magic?”

Erza thought about it for a moment. “Not really,” she decided, thinking about what all she knew of magic now. “They were really good at the, um, zappy kind—with their staffs. But not like Fairy Tail magic.”

“Damnit,” he muttered aloud. “Do you know if they ever had contact with anyone else?”

“I don’t think so,” Erza replied. “It was always just them.”

Her mind was racing to try and put together whatever pieces Acnologia saw, because it seemed like he was suspecting something in particular. What worried him enough to look into this? If Erik was able to leave, then that meant Jellal was letting people go, and that it wasn’t a problem…right? Unless…Unless this all meant Jellal was off the island and coming for her. Her heart seized at the thought. Erza knew it was her fault that all those awful things happened to him, but she didn’t know how she earned that much hate. If he came to kill her… She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to fight Jellal, but she didn’t want to die.

“Breathe,” Acnologia commanded. She wasn’t sure if that was the first time that he said it or not. “Slow down, you’re safe right now. Focus on breathing.”

He had given her his hand to squeeze instead of digging her nails into her palms, but she might have only dug them into his skin. He was completed unbothered by her grip, so she at least hadn’t hurt him by accident.

“Do you think he’s doing something?” she asked finally, her voice quiet once she found it again. “Are you going to stop him?”

Erza numbed herself to the answer, because she feared sorrow would come no matter what it was.

“I’m going to tear down that Tower,” Acnologia responded slowly. Carefully. Like he knew how fragile she was. “Before it kills everyone on that island and the surrounding coast. I don’t know if Jellal is responsible for it or not. Regardless of who is at fault, if anyone, the R-System is dangerous.”

“Do you think it can really bring Zeref back to life?” The more she learned about him, the less and the more horrifying that reality seemed. He may not be some tentacled monster, but black magic was arguably worse.

Jellal really was smart enough to complete it, too.

“No,” Acnologia answered, much to her surprise. “But it can still demand an energy cost. If my information points to what I think it does, it could easily sap the life force out of everything in a multi-mile radius, if it’s completed and activated.”

She never thought about that.

Had she doomed them either way? With the possibility of action and with her inaction?

“Luckily it’s not close to completion yet,” he continued. “Still, I’m not taking chances. As soon as an opportunity arises, I’m ending this.”

Erza was relieved at the thought of this being finished, but— “And you’ll make sure they’re safe?”

Borderline threatening an S-Class mage was a terrible way to put faith in them, but she wanted a verbal promise. Erza wanted, desperately, to not be the cause of the destruction of everyone she held dear, even from that dark time.

“I’ll do my best.”

It was enough. It would have to be.

Chapter Text

“Don’t worry ‘bout a thing
We’ll reach out to you
Even if it’s a harder way
It’s plain to see the reason why
Oh, that’s all because of the mighty heart.”

—Makayla Phillips, “Might⁺U”

March 29, X780

Acnologia knew that there would be nothing easy about dealing with the R-System, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t wish it for it to be simpler.

If there were only things to break, and maybe people to kill, the problem would already be solved. However, the caution-flag was raised early on with the knowledge that a child and one of the former slaves was now the one in charge of the operation. He had to be sure he had all the facts and the clues first. Acnologia had already enacted hate and judgement on those not in control of their actions once before, so he had to be sure. It was a mistake he swore never to repeat again.

It was for that reason that he involved some of the kids at all, despite being the last thing he wanted to do. Bringing up Zeref to Natsu was always murky waters, sometimes hopeful and sometimes catastrophic, but if there was a chance that this tower was something not easily or traditionally broken, he had to know. Unfortunately, it looked like it could very well be a magic converter, meant to theoretically revive someone, so dumping ether on top of it in a fly-by could be problematic if the system was nearly finished or set-up, as effective as using lightning to strike down a lightning rod. Though if they didn’t receive magic power by a rare, concentrated beam, then it would be obtained through life—and lots of it.

Natsu spoke of Zeref as having a standard, and while Acnologia was skeptical to believe that of him today, it was true that if his research proved accurate, this was a mechanism designed before Natsu’s resurrection, and likely before Zeref was cursed. In which case, Natsu was the best judge of character—the only one, admittedly—and it was true that there was no record of this being built before now, only record of it being banned.

The Mildian Magic Academy was the best, and one of the only, magic institutions of Earthland centuries ago. Their sages were akin to the Council of today, except at least they were actively involved in research. Even Acnologia had known of them back then, and that was simply when he was under Doctor Kathryn and traveling to outskirt towns. It was their sudden destruction, along with memories of the Dragon War and the subsequent terrors Zeref ended up bringing against the world, that turned the world against magic for quite some time.

The Mildian Sages weren’t perfect, and they seemed largely superstitious and catering towards the gods, but they did record things very well. To ban Zeref’s invention without specifics meant that it was functioning and dangerous. Whether it could actually revive anything was another matter entirely, but Acnologia guessed the cost was high.

In hindsight, he might have come to these conclusions without troubling Natsu over it, but what was done was done. He could now confirm its purpose, and with that, gain better insight on how the tower was supposed to function. Knowing that Zeref ultimately succeeded in his goal of playing God, utilizing the similarities of life and activated ether, Acnologia could surmise that one of the original concepts was similar, but perhaps not quite as theoretically preposterous. Coupled with the fact that magic of the fourth modern century had a propensity towards a process known as ‘the alchemical factor,’ which involved the act of exchanging one source of power for another—something popular for third-party magic control—it suggested that the R-System, a massive construct, really was just a lightning rod for magical transformation.

Though, there weren’t many details regarding that method of magic, so he was only guessing. And assuming that Zeref, at any age or time, could ever have a normal thought process. Granted, he was currently in the guild’s library, which consisted mostly of contemporary histories that meant next to nothing to him now. His solace was the fact that apparently, the first and second masters of Fairy Tail were far more adventurous and learned, their collections and whatever notes they left behind more thorough and esoteric.

Concerning, even, in the hands of ill-advised. Acnologia had taken to squirreling away such tomes to the side, for both their present usefulness to him and with the intent that he would suggest to Makarov to lock them behind some “S-Class restriction” or something of the like, lest a kid come in here and try to cast purge or other high-level mystic arts that were very easy to catastrophically mess up. Also, if the Council found some of these in their possession, some hands might get thrown.

There was one book, one owned by whichever mage of Fairy Tail past had the neat, slanted handwriting, that looked promising, expressive theories of magical infusion from a non-enchanting view—which meant it was limited, though at least informative—and it appeared that the prospect of life transferal would be addressed…until those pages were neatly ripped out of the book. That was probably for the best, knowing that Fairy Tail’s recklessness was an historic and longstanding feature, but damn, it was annoying.

Ugh, if the kids ever had to do this much research before determining if they could or should blow something up, nothing would ever be broken. They wouldn’t survive it. He barely was, and Acnologia was used to spending idle time catching up on history and magic principles. Mostly because there wasn’t much for a non-rampaging dragon to do, not because he had to. That’s why he mostly gardened.

After this was over, he was going to plant something new, just to unwind. Reading all of this stuffy human research was going to drive him mad. He would rather sift through the demon race’s tendency to interject anecdotes into everything than trying to decipher a bunch of pretentious jargon.

He had barely touched the worst of it, too. Erza hadn’t noticed any distinguishing features regarding Jellal that would point to any obvious manipulation of his person, aside from the major personality change, so there wasn’t much to work with. Although, a major personality change was the only symptom noted of the original Acnologia after he fell to supremacy magic, though he hadn’t noticed at the time. Not until it was far, far too late.

The correlation was suspicious enough, even without much information as to how the magic actually worked. The human variant was banned by the Council and—nearly—every government in the area, for good reason. Even the beast-supremacy magic, legal though it was for some reason, was rare. That said, there were no ‘how-to’ books lying around, even for undoing the magic, so Acnologia had little to work with.

If it was anything like the slaver magic of old Minstrel, there was probably a lacrima somewhere, in someone’s possession, that was being used to control the process. However, there weren’t any obvious indications of a correlating object on Jellal that would confirm the set-up. Which might be for the best, because it was nigh impossible to remove those things without breaking the lacrima, and even then, lacrimas could be body-linked to their owners, so it got messy. There was a reason that not even Metallicana, a dragon, could remove Gajeel’s studs.

It was also entirely possible that Acnologia was wasting his time and Jellal had simply gone crazy and schizophrenic. Based on comments Erik made, and the insight he gave, Jellal certainly didn’t have an empty or mono-vocal brain.

If it was fowl play, however, he had no real clues as to who would be involved. There was the man that Erik had been taken in by, but his relationship with the matter was dubious, even if he was a problematic factor. He also was, at the moment, impossible to find, with no clues or leads without needing to do major digging and investigation. It was something he would keep an ear out for, but there wasn’t time now. Whoever or whatever the cause of this, Acnologia would either encounter it on the island, or he wouldn’t. The kids and the people there, along with the tower itself, had his priority.

A door opened and Acnologia closed the book he was no longer looking at with a sigh, placing it to the side. “Evening, Levy,” he greeted without looking. He needed to figure out a way to deter her from looking at his research. It was neither kid friendly nor public information.

“Morning, actually,” the girl responded cheerily.

Huh. He hoped it was at least the next morning.

“I thought that someone was in the library. So, you’ve been down here all night, huh?” Levy continued, bouncing down the steps. “Must be looking for something if you’re searching through new texts, and not those books you have that you haven’t taught me how to read yet.”

“Yet?” he echoed, raising an inquisitive brow at her. She only smiled. Damn, she was going to break him, soon enough. Idly, he wondered how much her magic would increase if she learned the milda variant of ether-script; she would probably be able to re-write the universe one day if they left her unintended.

“What are you researching anyway?” Levy asked, eyes sparkling. “I can help.”

“Sorry, but not this time,” Acnologia replied, predicably crushing the light in her eyes. “It involves matters I promised to keep private. Thanks for the offer though.”

“Oh, alright,” she sighed. “I understand.”

He knew she would. She was a good, responsible kid like that. Really, he was hoping she would keep rubbing off on Gajeel, even if that meant he was slowly becoming enthralled by weird detective fiction.

“There is one thing, actually,” he said when she had almost left. “If you see Mystogan, tell him to come see me.”

Levy laughed lightly. “That’s a slim chance, but I’ll keep my eye out for him. Bye, Acno!”

Acnologia pulled the book back out with a frown. Two hundred years, and he has never uncovered a way to reverse supremacy magic. He had hoped to learn how before he had to face it again, but things were never that easy.

—o0o—

“You…wanted to see me?”

“Yes, come in.”

Honestly, Acnologia was surprised that Levy was able to find him, or that Mystogan was around at all. He had been prepared to wait, or even forego this plan altogether, if Mystogan was off who-knows-where. However, for once something was convenient.

Mystogan pulled down his mask when he entered the house, as it had become his habit to do. There were few places, Acnologia imagined, that he had the privacy to do so. Everyone living here could tell him by scent and sound alone, so sight meant little, and he and Wendy knew his true name anyway.

There was Erik to consider now, though. Luckily, he had been dragged off by Wendy to get food, so he wasn’t here, but he would have to warn both boys of the odd semblance before it became an issue.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Acnologia assured quickly, catching scent of Mystogan’s growing concern and curiosity. “Nothing immediate, that is, and nothing to do with you,” he amended after a beat of thought. There were lives at stake, but that was not a burden for Mystogan to bear.

“Okay…” Mystogan didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t as tense now.

He needed to jump to the point before Mystogan started fearing the worst. “I just need a copy of your magic signature. At least, a good read on it. It won’t affect you any, so don’t worry.”

“But I don’t have any magic,” he countered, still confused.

“You don’t have a magic container,” Acnologia corrected. “Everything has a magic resonance, however. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to use magic at all. Or exist without being torn apart by the universe itself.”

He made a note to himself to give Mystogan a proper crash course in magic, because whatever he learned in Edolas was garbage. He knew that Edolas had a similar flow to Earthland thanks to Porlyusica’s knowledge on the matter, and he mistakenly assumed that information was commonplace. Honestly, Acnologia should have known better, because mages here in this land and era didn’t know what they were doing either: they only did.

Mystogan, to his credit, was a natural at using magic, even if he didn’t know the hows or whys. Still, Acnologia didn’t want him to get hurt because he didn’t know his limits or his capabilities.

That was an issue for later, however, because now he had ulterior motives for noting Mystogan’s resonance, as curious as he was on the matter. Erza confirmed that Jellal had an arcane marking as well, one likely matching Mystogan’s. He hadn’t been sure that that was something that would be shared between counterparts, though Mystogan had baffled him in having one at all, despite not being from this world.

If Acnologia was right, Mystogan’s was in relation to Jellal’s, and not the other way around. This would be one boon Acnologia could take advantage of, because he could learn Jellal’s full magical capabilities beforehand. And, more importantly, Acnologia would be able to tell if he was being altered or not once he confronted the kid.

Though he really hoped it didn’t come to anything drastic. He would still just be a child.

“Oh, okay,” Mystogan responded, thoughtful over the matter. Perhaps when this was over, Acnologia would give him that lesson. He’s taught the pseudo air mage a few tips and tricks, but nothing intensive. Yet.

“All you need to do is activate your magic—one of your items, that is. It can be small.”

Mystogan nodded, pressing a ring on his thumb and turning invisible. Unlike his old ring that was nearly dry, it was the one Acnologia gave him, meant to channel magic like his staves and not merely hold. It was more effective at rendering him invisible, but that didn’t matter to Acnologia.

He activated dragon sight, a method that was less of a spell and more of a redirection of magic, something that dragons excelled at. Coupled with Acnologia’s own disposition as an arcane being, being aligned with the core layers of magic and parallel to the flow of ether, Acnologia could see magic itself.

Mystogan was indeed resting in the ether layer, a domain not frequented by humans—or many beings at all, for that matter—though the magic passed straight through him instead of into him. It confirmed his theory on the matter, but the important thing to note was the specific direction and position of the magic. While Mystogan was adept with air affiliated spells, it seemed that that magic attracted to him was of the pure, concentrated variety, tough to master but great for intense knock-em-dead spells.

Acnologia didn’t like the idea of a mentally unstable fourteen—almost fifteen—year-old having access to this magic. It was the type that would overtake a mage in a heartbeat at the slightest sign of weakness.

He would know, because he thrived in this magic as well.

“Okay. I got it,” he announced, letting the extra magic fade from his eyesight. He was confident he would be able to spot any magic irregularities now that he knew what magic he was easily capable of. Luckily, it was nowhere close to the magic used in telepathic endeavors or overshadowing, so it should be obvious if that was the case.

Mystogan deactivated the ring. “Alright. Was there anything else?”

“No, that’s it,” he said, fighting the urge to frown.

Mystogan was very goal-oriented, which was good, but he operated like he was only there to be useful to people. It was overly submissive behavior, if you asked him, and Acnologia knew enough of Mystogan’s mannerisms and his propensity towards overthinking emotional reactions to give him the urge to punt whoever raised the child. He just hoped Mystogan could be comfortable without doing anything.

He was already gone now, though, which was expected behavior.

Acnologia resumed scouring the map. Thanks to what (little) Erik and Erza remembered, he had a decent idea at where the island was. Getting there would be no problem. Getting there unnoticed was slightly more of a problem. Sure, flying in was less expected than a boat, but the island had to be comparably small to natural landmasses, and there was no way for a dragon to land subtly. He couldn’t afford to give anyone the chance to start killing people, should Erza’s fear ring true, so he had to be more careful and methodical. Which was new to him, because Acnologia hasn’t had to employ ambush tactics in a long time. There were moments before he became a (completely) bloodthirsty dragon slayer, but most of his combat experience utilized the principle that he was faster than anyone who tried to run. 

Just as he was determining that he was just going to have to drop himself in the ocean and swim, he heard familiar footsteps approaching, and it was then that remembered the other thing he needed to tell Mystogan. Quickly.

Acnologia darted outside just in time to see Erik panic, poison gathering at his fingers and a very confused Wendy and Sting thrust behind him, and Mystogan flicker invisible in an attempt to run.

Shit, he knew that this was a disaster waiting to happen as soon as Mystogan had come to mind; he should have done better to remember earlier.

“Stop! He’s not a threat!” he managed, at the same time Wendy cried “Mystogan!”

To his credit, Erik didn’t attack—something he absolutely could have managed even while Mystogan was invisible—but he looked at Acnologia with wild bewilderment. He could smell his fear from here.

“It’s not him,” he explained quickly.

“But he sounds just like—”

“Mystogan’s the Jellal of another world. He’s not the one you know.” Mystogan’s secret was valued little in the face of Erik’s anxiety, and it was pointless to keep secrets from Erik anyway, mounting to be an impossible task. It was best to get this out in the open quickly. “He has nothing to do with him.”

Mystogan returned to visibility, and though his face was covered once more, Acnologia could tell he was shaken on the matter too, though not vocally so. This was the exact type of situation he constantly feared, after all, while managing to circumvent all his precautions.

“What the hell?!” Erik yelled, only barely assuaged by the hasty explanation.

Acnologia positioned himself in between Erik and Mystogan, and Wendy and Sting removed themselves from behind Erik. Wendy looked as if she couldn’t decide which one to comfort, so she too hovered in between, while Sting continued to look confused. Which was fair, because unless Erik had told the other three kids (which he doubted), Sting had no clue where Erik had even come from.

“Sorry…” Mystogan whispered, barely audible, though Acnologia knew Erik would hear it.

“You don’t need to apologize. I should have dealt with this sooner,” he told him over his shoulder, before turning to Erik again. “Remember when I said I knew of a Jellal? It was because of Mystogan. He’s nothing but a twin of sorts, though, and has nothing to do with the tower.”

The magic flickered away from Erik’s fingers, and though he was still tense, Acnologia could tell he was processing the information. “He sounded the same, but…” Erik’s eyes flickered to Mystogan. “You don’t know me…right?”

“No,” Mystogan confirmed quickly. “I just got back from a job.”

This helped to ease Erik, as his auditory magic would help to confirm that Mystogan was truthful—and still freaked out. The lack of cause for fear didn’t immediately eradicate the panic, but that was to be expected. These things weren’t always logical, but Acnologia took comfort in the fact that Erik wasn’t so far gone that he failed to see reason.

The tension easing, Acnologia released a sigh of relief. They would be fine.

—o0o—

March 30, X780

If this was a matter only pertaining to him or to his kids, Acnologia would already be gone. However, Erza was involved as well, and apparently, Makarov had already given his word that he wouldn’t interfere—something Acnologia was about to undo, because who in their right mind would let this matter rest? It was a disaster and bloodshed waiting to happen.

That being said, he knocked twice on the door to Makarov’s office.

“Come in,” Makarov called.

When Acnologia entered, Makarov looked up from behind some awful stack of papers with surprise. “Oh, Acnologia. Is there anything I can do for you? Did you find what you were looking for in the library?”

It figured he would know that he had been down there. So few people in the guild utilized it, it would seem: Levy nearly had it monopolized at this point. “I found enough,” he replied, still neither disappointed nor thrilled with the contents of the collection. “I would suggest making an ‘advanced’ section of the library though. Some of those studies are about spells that could backlash in a nasty way if an idiot tried them.”

Makarov sighed. “Magic can always be dangerous. Any mage here knows this.”

“Well yes, I should hope so, but when I said ‘nasty backlash,’ I meant ‘can kill them.’ Mystics arts and other ethereal-influence spells don’t easily stop when they’re started.” If there was no more magic from the caster, they would take it from anywhere else—including life itself.

At this, Makarov finally lifted his eyes away from the paperwork for more than three seconds, obviously perturbed by this. “Mystics arts?” he echoed. “There shouldn’t be forbidden techniques in the guild library.”

“I didn’t say they were forbidden.” If they were, he had no idea, though he wouldn’t put it past the cowardly Council. “They’re just advanced. I already put them away, but you can deal with them to your discretion.”

They were the guild’s books, after all, so Acnologia was content with leaving Makarov to deal with them. He would be a little disappointed if he decided to do away with them for good, because he was sure they would be useful to the right mage, but he would understand. Risking the Council’s ire (more than they already did) was not in the best interest of the guild.

“Thank you for telling me,” Makarov said, nodding. “Was that all?”

“No.” Despite having all morning to think of a gentle way to approach the subject, that wasn’t Acnologia’s specialty. “I’m going to find and destroy the R-System.”

“The R-System…” he muttered, before shooting out of his chair. “How did you find out about that?” Makarov demanded.

“It was an accident,” Acnologia deadpanned. “But I know as much as I can now, including why Erza was afraid of people knowing, which is the only reason I don’t blame you.” Which was a close thing. Acnologia understood putting Erza, a member of the guild, above strangers, but it was clear this was eating at her as well.

“Then you know why it’s best not to get involved,” Makarov countered stubbornly. “Erza’s story indicate that there’s nothing left but play construction without her. It’s a delicate matter, but not immediately dire. Besides, it is our job to care for the guild first.”

“No, if they build that tower, there will be bloodshed,” he hissed. “And before you say anything, it’s one of Zeref’s designs: of course it’s fucking functional.”

Makarov narrowed his eyes. “Then it will be the Council’s problem.”

“You think they could handle that ‘delicately,’” he snorted. “What will happen is that guild members will be wrecked by this, starting with Erza. I am looking out for the guild.”

Erza’s name was already thrown into this, but Erik would be just as affected. Not to mention that if the R-System caused casualties and Natsu found out, he would find a way to blame himself.

“If you cause a scene, then it will also be Fairy Tail’s problem. A bigger problem. I can’t allow it.”

Was this how it was going to be? Acnologia narrowed his eyes in warning. “Master, with all due respect, I wasn’t asking your permission.”

They both stared at the other, not backing down. For Makarov’s credit, he withstood Acnologia quite well, though Acnologia wasn’t quite mad yet. Yet. He understood the concern, but politics mounted to nothing in the face of catastrophe.

However, Acnologia wasn’t here to antagonize Makarov. He closed his eyes with a sigh and tried again. “It’s likely that there’s foul play here. Not everyone may be in their right mind, and regardless, there are children’s lives at stake. I’ve seen more violence than most men could stomach, and I won’t let any kid in Fairy Tail see the same thing. I won’t let the R-System be completed, and there’s no way of knowing how much time is left.”

Makarov eased some as well. “I agree it’s terrible, but if you know what Erza does, then it isn’t much. There are still too many variables. I know Erza had wanted to trust that boy, but some people really do go mad.”

“It’s not just her,” he countered, aware that it was vague. Erik wasn’t even part of the guild (yet, because he wasn’t sure how long Erik could resist Wendy) and Acnologia wouldn’t betray the privacy of his kids. “I encountered information about this elsewhere, and what’s more, is that this isn’t my first time dealing with Zeref’s bullshit cult, or even mind control. I’ve seen—” murdered “—beings that changed personality because they were lost to dark arts. There may not be evidence for or against right now, but I’m not taking the chance with a child. Besides, it doesn’t matter if they all are doing it willingly or not: if the tower gets built, disaster will come to Fiore.”

“You seem to be putting a lot of stock in this building project being successful,” Makarov noted tiredly.

“Erza was confident, so I won’t discount it. Even if they weren’t, it could still be a problem. Do you remember Juniperville? In the X600‘s?”

“That town that disappeared? What does that have to do with anything?” Makarov questioned.

“A cult of Zeref tried to build one of his creations. It was a resounding failure, and the backlash caused a localized black hole that took out the entire area. It doesn’t matter if the R-System is successful; it only matters that it’s being built.”

He remembered feeling the shockwave the black hole put out, too. He was nowhere near the incident, and it wasn’t until Acnologia looked into the news that he knew at all, having been curious as to what happened. The incident was brushed off years later, the surviving neighbors assured that the cult died with it, but thousands of people still died. Death was something that happened, yes, but Acnologia wasn’t fond of seeing it happen for no good reason to innocents, especially when, now, those counted among the bereaved would potentially be his kids.

Makarov exhaled slowly. “You have a point,” he relented. “Still, you’ll have to be careful with this. You don’t plan on doing this alone, do you?”

“Yes, I do. I’m aware that this involves secrecy.” Besides, the only people he would work with were his kids, and they weren’t coming near this mess within a hundred miles if he could help it.

“Hm.” Makarov didn’t seem pleased with the answer, however. “I’m aware that you are…very skilled, you’ll have to protect and attack at the same time.” He placed his fingers together in thought. “You could take Mest with you.”

“Mest?” Acnologia echoed, somewhat incredulous. Sure, he was a good mage, but he also wasn’t involved in this, as far as he knew. “What, because he can teleport? I can fly.” And swim. Which he would have to do.

The Master shook his head. “Mest has powerful memory magic. It’s not something he advertises, at my advisement. He could at least temporarily dissuade the people there from hurting each other while you do what you have to do. And to ensure no one else catches wind of this.”

“Oh. I see.” Acnologia had never gotten past the scent of that stars-awful spatial magic to even begin to guess that he was a telepathic type as well. He would have to keep a better eye on him, now.

He did see Makarov’s point. A memory mage would be beneficial, both for keeping any promised in-killing from happening, and to determine whether any mind control was at play once and for all. However, he still wasn’t thrilled at the idea of working with someone else, much less someone new.

“Are you sure you want him in on this?” he asked instead.

“Mest has done many personal assignments for me,” Makarov replied. “He’s very dependable, and contrary to his magic type, he’s not the type to pry.” He ended with a sigh. “And if he does stumble upon something, he’ll erase his own memory. The habit is quite annoying, actually.”

He would have to take Makarov’s word for it. It was true, from what little interaction he had with Mest, he was earnest, but his was always magic to be wary of. However, Acnologia did admit that having him and his magic on this excursion would be useful. Acnologia could only incapacitate things and eliminate most magic; he couldn’t uncover their secrets or even sift for mind magic—not when it tended to exist on a different layer of magic altogether. Sure, his secret was in jeopardy here, but that wasn’t the important part of this.

“Fine,” he conceded. “When is Mest available?”

“I can contact him and have you meet him at—”

Acnologia held up his hand, interrupting Makarov. He hadn’t sensed it before in the heat of conversation, but now that he caught it, he wasn’t going to let them get away with it. Not with locations being thrown around. “Come out. I know you’re there,” he called, much to Makarov’s confusion.

Slowly, footsteps approached the door, but it was thrown open with confidence.

Erik and Erza, awkward though they were after being called out for eavesdropping, were set in grim determination.

Erza squared her shoulders.

“We’re coming with you.”

Chapter Text

“I feel cheated, puzzled, but also amused, and wonder off and on if I have dreamed her.”

—Toni Morrison, “Strangers”

Earlier…

Erik picked slowly at the remaining half of his muffin. It was huge, and he had no idea how Natsu managed to inhale two of those bastards. Even Wendy, who was half his size, finished hers already. Acno had said that he should try to eat a little more each meal, bit by bit, to expand his apparently tiny stomach, so he didn’t slide Cubellios the rest like he was tempted to. (Not that he would, because he knew from experience that bread gave her indigestion.)

“Do ‘ya ‘wuh’a ‘um ‘it uh’ o’ a og’?” Natsu mumbled around a horrendously large bite of his third muffin.

“Not even I can understand you,” Erik deadpanned. Natsu wasn’t bad company, necessarily, but he was an idiot. A well-meaning idiot, but an idiot all the same.

As Natsu struggled to swallow, Happy raised his paw. “He said ‘do you want to come on a job with us?’” he recited.

Happy wasn’t telepathic, but he and Natsu shared the same brain cell. Which was impressive, because apparently, he and Cubellios were the only two actually impressed on each other. (Though he had no idea how that happened, after just finding her one day. Acnologia, for all his knowledge of magic, had no idea either.)

“Oh, yes! Do you?” Wendy picked up. “Natsu, Lisanna, Happy, Charle and I were going to go on a job to the beach to help this resort clear away a bunch of crabs. It’ll be really fun!”

“There’ll be lots of fish too!” Happy added, practically drooling. “Lots and lots of fish.”

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” Charle chided dryly. Not that Happy cared. He was still thinking about fish—very vividly.

Whatever precious little of his appetite remained left at the mention. If he ever had to eat another fish again, he was going to end himself. “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” he droned. “I’m not even part of your guild anyway.”

“That’s okay,” Wendy assured. “Me, Rogue, and Gajeel did stuff with them before we joined.”

“Good to know, but still, I’d rather stay. Train a bit more, and stuff.”

“We can help ya’ train and go later, if you want,” Natsu suggested.

“No!” The answer came out too quickly, so Erik tried to amend himself. “I mean, no, really. Go do your thing. I just want some time to myself.”

“Oh okay.” Wendy smiled at him, and he felt a little better. “Take care!”

For as clingy as they were, Wendy and Natsu took his admission well, waving him off and leaving to go prepare. Finally, he was left alone, and Erik took the moment to breathe.

He knew what they were doing. The other young dragon slayers were trying to make him comfortable and not-lonely, and he appreciated their sincerity, but it could be smothering. Especially Natsu and Wendy, who apparently thrived off of human interaction and had some intrinsic belief that no one should be alone. (Not that he was ever alone with Cubellios, but she didn’t talk like their cats, so he think he understood their mentality.)

However, he needed to do something on his own, lest they coddle him completely. Erik just needed to prove—to them and to himself—that he would be fine. He knew they didn’t think anything less of him, equating his confusion to their being dropped in a random, future time with only half their memories, but that didn’t change the fact that Erik wanted to hurry up and acclimate. He didn’t even have as much excuse for the others, no matter how anyone tried to convince him otherwise.

Aside from needing a moment without hearing Happy think about fish, or Natsu’s hyperactive squirrel-mind, he was serious about needing to train. It was yet another thing he was supposed to do slowly, and Erik knew exactly why, but it was irritating. In the past week, he had gotten better at just letting his poison rest on his fingers without pouring more juice into it, but it was still far from combat ready.

He couldn’t join the guild until he was in fighting shape. Or do anything, really, except be a burden to everyone.

Maybe Natsu and Wendy were onto something when they kept dragging him places and talking his ears off. As soon as he was left alone, his thoughts got depressing.

Cubellios tapped his cheek with her tongue, and he looked up to see that he had wandered across the town. He didn’t need to hear them to remember that this was the direction to the guild hall, which was also the opposite direction of the house. Well, he still had the other half of his muffin to attempt to finish, so maybe he should just go there to do it.

The Fairy Tail guild hall was also training for him, but in a different way. It was busy and loud and occasionally reminded him of every reason why he hated crowds, but it was also the cheeriest of chaotic environments he had access to. It made a decent place to learn how to make his magic ears behave, since unlike most people’s magic, it was always active unless he made an effort for it not to be. Of course, now that the lacrima was rapidly changing his body too, he had an extra factor to the sensitive hearing.

The first time he walked in the place, curious about what a legal guild was even like, as well as being admittedly unwilling to be by himself in a foreign place, it nearly incapacitated him. Every cheer and yell reverberated in his skull and cut into his chest, and it was only assuaged by Acno casting that dampening spell on him. However, Erik didn’t want to have to rely on that just to get by in public environments. He used to be able to stand the noise on the island; unfortunately, he had gotten out of practice, along with his hearing getting stronger. He just needed to acclimate himself again—and while Fairy Tail was unnervingly loud, they weren’t sad or angry or other emotions that chipped away at his psyche, so they were bearable.

He also hoped to be able to join the guild, one day, when he was able. He knew the others thought highly of the place, and Erik didn’t know what else to do with his life. He barely knew how to be a mage, but at least he had a head start in that. Erik didn’t think he would be able to handle normalcy, unfamiliar with it and unable to imagine being held down by anything else. At least mage guilds seemed to offer a degree of independence, based on how the others described their experience. It was very tempting.

Erik didn’t feel ready yet, though, no matter the instant offers he received. His hearing magic was finicky, and his poison dragon slayer magic was still ‘settling,’ as Acnologia put it. He also knew he lacked the basic knowledge of the world that other people had.

To top it off, he was still on edge. Over what, it was hard to say. It wasn’t that he wasn’t comfortable with Acnologia and the others, because oddly enough, he was. He wasn’t a stranger to rooming with a handful of rowdy teenagers, and while they were far more social than the older kids that Brain recruited, he wasn’t wary around them. They didn’t coddle him or belittle him for being a wreck of a human being, and that was more than he could ask for.

He sat down at an empty table in the corner, with his back to the wall, and directed his attention outward. Or, he tried not to. It was easy to bounce from the loudest noise to the loudest noise—something that shifted often—but less so to focus on a single, quieter thing. Acnologia suggested to pick one thing and focus on it entirely, and then switch every so often, to practice focusing and un-focusing. It was easier when it was someone talking to him, but he still needed the practice.

Erik picked the coffee machine brewing, unwilling to start with something more…dramatic. It was fairly close, and Chico was making a large pot—mostly for herself, he was aware from previous watching excursions—and the sound was soothing in comparison.

SSssss

SSssss

Ssrrrrssss

SSssss

“…cup of…”

Sssss

Where did I…?

“Sure.”

Sssrrrsssss

Wait, I forgot to—

Ssss

“HAHAHA!”

BAS“TARD!”

SSSSssssss

Ssssrrrssss

Ssssrrrssss

Ssssssss

gggssrrrsss

ssss

“What’cha doing?”

ggssssrrsss

ssssss

“Erik?”

“AGH!” Erik startled out of his focus to Gajeel suddenly right next to him, waving a hand in front of his face. He nearly fell backwards in his chair in concordance with the irrational spiking panic in his chest.

“Shit, sorry,” Gajeel said with barely contained laughter, though he made a valiant effort not to laugh at the expense of Erik’s poor backside. “I didn’t even think it was possible to sneak up on you.”

Erik accepted his outstretched hand to help him back up; the slightly younger but taller teen didn’t even budge under Erik’s weight. He wasn’t sure if that was a testament to how thin Acnologia was worried he was, or how strong the iron dragon slayer was.

“No, I wasn’t paying attention,” Erik corrected sourly. At least this was why it was better to practice this in the guild hall, he thought sourly. The chances of his sensitive ears getting himself killed were lower here. “I was trying to work on my hearing.”

“Ah, that makes sense. I remember Metallicana making me do stuff like that when I kept waking up ‘cuz of his snoring.”

Erik raised an incredulous eyebrow at him. “But you sleep like a rock. And snore like a chainsaw.” Every. Night.

Gajeel grinned. “Exactly. I got so used to listenin’ to him that it put me to sleep. And he was loud, even without the dragon hearing.”

That sounded like a nightmare, but he would admit that lower sounds were more bearable than the high-pitched ones. And at least really loud things drowned out the myriad of tiny things that hammered into his skull without clear origin. Those were the worst.

(There was also a screeching noise that kept coming from somewhere. Maybe chairs. Maybe irritation incarnate.)

“Cubellios is eating your muffin.”

“Wha—? Hey! Cubellios, you know that upsets your stomach.” He gently pried away the definitely forgotten pastry away from the curious snake. She looked at him with the snake-eyes of betrayal and slithered back underneath the table. Erik could only huff out a tired sigh.

“Gihi, I think she can rival Natsu in terms of wantin’ to eat stuff she shouldn’t,” Gajeel laughed.

“Something Natsu can’t eat?” Erik questioned. “That kid just inhales things.”

“Food, yes. He was pretty bent on trying to eat a bunch of magic though, even after Acno tried to tell ‘im that it was a bad idea. You should have seen it! He was positive he could eat lightning, and he kept tryna’ trick Laxus into giving it to him.”

Erik still didn’t know who Laxus was, only the fact that he was the other lacrima-born dragon slayer, and that no one in the guild besides the dragon slayers (and some close friends) knew about that. There was a strangely large number of secrets that came with being a dragon slayer, but Erik was good at keeping secrets, so it didn’t bother him.

“I’m guessing it didn’t go as well as he expected?” he remarked, already gleaning as much from Gajeel’s amusement. Even after just a week, he could see Natsu doing something boneheaded like that.

“Oh yeah, it was a spectacular failure! He finally managed to try it in a spar. Pretty much electrocuted himself, and he had the static of a balloon against a carpet all day. Acno was pissed. He just dumped an entire bottle of lotion on ‘im and made him stay outside until it dried.”

Okay, that actually sounded hilarious. Erik also made the mental note not to do reckless things in front of Acnologia. He already was getting the gist not to, but this was just confirmation. Sting’s comment that healers grew up to the cranky people made sense. He guessed that was why there was an underlying fear among the boys (mostly Sting) that Wendy was going to ‘lose her niceness’ one day, but honestly, Erik couldn’t imagine that one.

He still couldn’t imagine eating any magic though. Or element. Or whatever. Erik had seen the others do it quite a few times now, and it hadn’t stopped being bizarre. The weirdest was probably when he accidentally walked down to see Rogue sitting in the corner eating shadows underneath the kitchen table—and that was including the time that Erik saw Sting chewing on a sock. (He had no idea how Sting’s magic worked. He was scared to ask.)

For that matter, what did Gajeel do? Metal wasn’t magic, or…breathable. However they did it. “What, do you just…eat iron?” he blurted.

“Yeah.” As if prepared for a demonstration, Gajeel grabbed a couple of bolts from his pocket and tossed them back like grapes. He chewed them and everything. Instinctively, Erik reached out to listen, but all he heard was Gajeel trying to remember what type of bolt he took, because he liked the flavor. Wait, no, Erik could ask questions. Questions were okay.

“Uh, is that a magic thing, or do you just have really hard teeth?”

“Both, I think?” Gajeel had to think for a moment. “I think the magic just turned me hard like iron and stuff. I don’t use magic to eat. I don’t actually think that’s a requirement… Hey, you’ll be able to eat poison, right? That’s gotta be the most awesome. You’d never be poisoned.”

Did people even try to poison people anymore? Seemed lame in comparison to all the magic out there. Not that it mattered, since Erik wasn’t at that level yet. “I can’t do that, though,” Erik reminded him. “Acno said not to try that until I could function like a normal dragon slayer.”

Those weren’t his exact words, but the spirit was the same. Erik would probably just, well, get poisoned, if he tried that in his state. He was only just managed not to burn himself now, but that was still only for his hands and arms.

(“HEY! WATCH WHERE YOU—!”)

(Erik did his best to ignore what might have been a fight that broke out in the hall.)

Gajeel just shrugged, unbothered and unconcerned. “That’s normal though,” he declared. “You only got yer’ slayer magic, what, a little over a month ago? It took me forever to be able to eat iron. At least a year, probably.”

Wow, he really never would have survived Brain’s regime, would he? Erik is yet again grateful he got the chance at a miraculous dodge. “Does it always take that long?” he asked, somewhat nervous of the answer.

“Nah, I don’t think so. I was just slow. It’s not all super fast, though. It takes a bit for the body to change, and all that jazz. So Acno says. Metallicana had no idea what he was doing either, so it’s not like I was following a timeline. But hey, you already got magic to use while you get used to the poison stuff. That’s pretty sweet.”

Erik frowned at Gajeel’s attempt to make him feel better. It sounded sincere, too, but it was largely optimistic. “Yeah, I can hear good. Something you guys can already do. Lucky me.”

“Nah man, I’m serious!” Gajeel protested. “Your hearing is scary good. And the thoughts thing? Not even Acno can do that. You’d make, like, the perfect detective.”

“…what?” Erik was too busy trying to figure out why Gajeel genuinely thought his hearing magic was not only cool, but a substitute to dragon slayer magic, to completely register his words.

“Not only can nobody lie to you, but you can figure out things they don’t even say! Plus, having a snake totally makes you look like a sketchy character, so you could get close to people without them suspecting anything. Not that you even need to get close. You can hear people from as far away as Acno can, which is way farther than we can, and way farther than regular humans. You’d be surprised how much ‘spy work’ is in mage work.”

“Huh.” He had no idea what Gajeel was trying to imply by the ‘sketchy character’ comment, and what Cubellios had to do with it, but he was starting to see what he meant about the hearing. He never thought about using it offensively before.

“Whelp, I’ll leave you to guarding your muffin—” Gajeel started, causing Erik to dart his eyes to the offending object.

“Hey, stop that,” he warned, shoving Cubellios back by the nose, who hissed sullenly and slid back underneath the table by his leg.

“—I’mma head back home. Levy’ll be there too. She’s gonna’ try to teach me how to make something more interesting than stew. So we’ll see how that turns out.”

Gajeel waved goodbye, and Erik was left with newfound thoughts. He was always feeling behind on everything, always needing to catch up just to be close to normal, that it was strange to think there was something he already excelled in. Well, regardless of how Gajeel saw it, his magic could still be troublesome when it was beyond his conscious control, but admittedly, it had been helpful in the past. Mostly for avoiding trouble, that is. He was no good in a direct altercation, and he was constantly being lied to or manipulated: it made him a little paranoid. Not to mention that it felt like there was always the need to look over his shoulder. At first, it was the cultists, always making sure they didn’t see something they could take advantage of; then, Jellal, and his messed-up mind, always doing the unexpected; now, he was almost sure Brain would come for him, to collect a debt that Erik didn’t ever want to give. Sure, it was unlikely, and there were so many people around—powerful people, even—that it was nigh impossible for someone to get the jump on him, but it still haunted his mind.

His hearing had always been a crutch to keep him alive; he had never considered that it was useful beyond that.

Cubellios slipped back onto his shoulders, still eying the muffin but resigned to her fate. He knew she ate an entire chicken thigh for breakfast, but he made the mental note to find something else for her later.

Erik took a chunk off of the muffin and ate it just so Cubellios wouldn’t feel bad if he threw it away. Gratefully, the experience wasn’t as bad as his stomach feared the first time, and he managed to finish it.

He listened some to the ongoing fight Macao and Wakaba were having over which alcohol tasted better, simply because it was the loudest and most obvious thing in the room, but when his muffin was gone, Erik switched his thoughts to the rest of the day. The house was going to be either pleasant or chaotic, if Levy was giving Gajeel cooking lessons, so it was a gamble. Natsu and Wendy left, and he didn’t know where Sting and Rogue were. Maybe with Gajeel, because even though he only talked to her twice, Levy was responsible like that. Acnologia was…still researching, probably.

Erik knew he was looking into the Tower, because he promised Erik he would. He would drop it whenever he thought Erik needed something, however, making sure he was situated and comfortable. It was kind, though Erik had to convince him that he was fine with the new arrangements, and only then did Acnologia continue…whatever it was that he was doing.

On one hand, Erik was beyond glad at the prospect of the Tower being wiped off the face of the earth, and he knew that Acnologia wasn’t doing anything haphazardly, though he had no idea what he was doing. On the other hand, Erik still felt guilty that he accidentally dropped a problem that was his on somebody he just met. It wasn’t that Acnologia wasn’t capable—no, Erik was positive that the dragon could make easy work of the thing that plagued Erik’s entire life. The problem stemmed from the fact that it only made Erik aware that he wasn’t even close to being able to handle it by himself. Or at all. He always knew, deep down, that he was doomed to a life of scraps and servitude, but this intervention only proved it. He was grateful, but his ineptitude stung.

Especially knowing that escape was possible. Erza did it. He had blamed the circumstance as too strong for so long, that to learn that the girl that vexed Jellal did in fact escape, and that she had the strength to be a mage… He wasn’t sure if it spoke to her strength or his weakness. Acnologia tried to assure him that there was nothing to be ashamed of, and he was right, in a way, but it didn’t stop the heaviness in his gut whenever he thought about how Erik might have turned into something hideous because he didn’t know how to walk away by himself.

It wasn’t until he heard her voice, on the first day in the guild hall, that he was able to connect the dots. Acnologia had implied knowing someone else affected by the Tower, and hearing her voice confirmed it; she had been the one to start the revolution, he believed. It was only a single line, a single scream, before the pandemonium broke out that faithful day. He never knew who it was. If anyone knew, they never said. To him, the moment was like a dream, ethereal and hard to fathom, as much as it actually did happen. He barely remembered what happened during it, only afterwards. He had nearly been convinced that that scream hadn’t happened at all in the aftermath, but he could remember sounds well. Too well.

He had been shocked to inaction when he first met her, too overwhelmed to trust his memory, and then she was gone. Erik might be able to convince himself he was crazy once again, impressing something on a complete stranger, but Erik saw Erza again, over there trying to bargain with Chico for strawberries that were apparently not ready yet, and the feeling that it was her was still there.

Although, if she had made it out, it was likely she didn’t want the reminder. However, just when Erik set his mind to leave to the forest to train, she was there. In front of him.

“You,” she declared, somewhat ominously, though her mind was inward churning and not threatening.

“Y-yes?” Erik responded, not sure how else to do so. She was just as intense and earnest as she was when he first saw her, though not as confident, her stature merely for show. He couldn’t help but to notice the callouses on her palms and scars underneath her fingernails, as well as the scars around her right eye, his theory fresh on his mind.

Erza didn’t say anything else at first. Not even her thoughts were clear—there was just the clenching and unclenching of her jaw and a churning inside her mind. However, she exhaled and braced herself, her brown eyes firm. “You were there, weren’t you? At…at the Tower?”

His breath stalled. He was right, wasn’t he? She knew him. He didn’t know how, but— Oh, her eyes were locked on his wrists, just like he had noticed her hands. He fought the urge to tug down the sleeves, but he knew that she was likely all too familiar with the scars left behind by the manacles.

“Yeah,” he breathed, though Erik was sure that she already knew. “And you… You were the one who started the revolt, weren’t you?”

She clenched her jaw, thoughts of ‘my fault’ tumbling through her head indiscriminately. She reminded him of Natsu, in a way. “Yes. It was me.”

It was relieving to know he was right—that he wasn’t crazy—though Erik wasn’t sure what to do now with the information. However, Erza was bracing herself, expecting his wrath, but that wasn’t there. Her thoughts deemed that she was adamant that every consequence was her fault. She was giving herself too much credit.

“Thanks,” he said instead, surprising her. “It at least got rid of the cult. Things were better without those bastards.” It wasn’t freedom, and it was a shitstorm of a day, but Erik would choose Jellal over the cultists. And to her credit, she probably didn’t mean for Jellal to do what he did; in fact, he knew she didn’t—that she had no idea it was a possibility—from her racing thoughts right now.

Erza’s knuckles scraped against the table. “I failed though. None of you were able to leave. I— He— I abandoned you there.”

He could hear Jellal’s voice in her head, threatening her on loop, with some memories of distressed cries of those she knew. It was impossible to ascertain, other than the fact that she was drowning in them and trying not to show it. He didn’t want to know what she had witnessed, because it was terrible enough in glimpses.

Completely out of his element, Erik stood and placed a tentative hand on her fist. He had seen Acnologia distract Natsu out of a spiral like this, so it was worth a try. Stopping her would be for both of their sakes, because Erik wasn’t sure he could take it from proximity.

Gratefully, the contact worked, because Erza startled upward. “Hey,” he interrupted. “There was nothing you could have done, okay?” It came out harsher than he intended, but it was true. “You were just a kid, too. It’s not like you could have stopped Jellal from going crazy on you and everyone.”

She stared with wide eyes, and he realized that Erza hadn’t actually told him anything, but he gathered a few details from her thoughts. Like how Jellal was the one who punted her off the island. And that there were threats involved. He tried not to focus on it, but now that laugh was going to be stuck in his head too, and that really just sucked.

Erza clenched her jaw again, her muscles tensing defiantly. “It was my fault he went crazy in the first place. He was thrown in the punishment chamber because he came to get me.”

There she went again, and Erik knew they both could do without thinking about that hellish little hole. “Yeah, the punishment chamber fucking sucked. It’s not like those fat bastards needed a good excuse to play with someone in there. And he didn’t have to go all bat-shit crazy either; he could have just left with crippling anxiety like the rest of us.” And man, did those bastards teach him a lesson or two about sassing people in positions of power. A hard lesson, because the one thing Erik had was a quick tongue and the ability to think of comebacks very quickly. Well, he did, at least.

Erza deliberated on the matter for a few seconds more, before she exhaled heavily. “You’re…right,” she admitted. “It’s just hard. Always thinking about what I could have done differently. Better.”

He remembered what Acnologia had said, about how ‘pain was pain.’ Here Erik was, thinking he didn’t do enough, not being able to make it off the island by himself, and the one person who did make it off had the same circle of doubts he did. It really was ironic.

“There’s not much use worrying about it now,” he decided, though it was an admission to himself as well.

“Yes,” Erza agreed sadly. “I suppose there isn’t.”

The matter would be resolved soon anyway, one way or another. He had the feeling that Acnologia meant it when it implied that it would be dealt with quickly. It was fantastical to think of a dragon swooping in and making his lifetime problem disappear, though bittersweet; Erik had always dreamed of burning it down himself, but he always knew that that was the real fantasy. It was no use crying over its destruction, however. He was just glad to know that it would be gone soon.

Speaking of which, he glimpsed Acnologia cutting across the back of the guild hall, disappearing just as fast. For a dragon, he moved quietly, his footsteps light; it was easier for Erik to sense him by his strange, periodic and loud heartbeat, or his deep breaths. Which didn’t happen often. It must be nice to be able to avoid detection so naturally.

“Did you see that?” Erza whispered urgently, though her voice was too loud to be a real whisper.

“What?” The fight was winding down, and a couple of new people entered the hall, a few more having left, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, as far as he could tell. Cubellios was now resting on his shoulders, so she wasn’t up to any trouble.

As he was combing the guild hall, Erza simply yanked him to the side by the wrist, dragging him effortlessly. “Hey—!” he yelped. “What are you—?!”

“Shhhh,” she hissed. “It’s Acnologia. He’s talking to Master.”

“Yeah, so?” he started to ask, unbothered by the implication. She put them on a wall close by, and suddenly, her clothing changed to a…cat costume?!

Erza pressed her ear against the wall. “So, they’re probably talking about the Tower,” she whispered back.

Oh, he could see where she was going with this now. She was certain that that was the only reason that the two would meet, and she wanted to know what the plan was, on basis that it was ‘our problem,’ or something of that nature. He didn’t blame her, but this… “They’re talking about books right now. And we’re way too close,” Erik whispered back.

She whipped her head to him, eyes wide in surprise. The cat costume somehow made the expression more dramatic. “You can hear them? Even without hearing armor?”

Is that what that was? Magic was weird. “Yes, and he can hear us from here, too. Come on.” This time, it was Erik dragging Erza away, someplace farther back. He still wasn’t sure what Acnologia’s range was, only that it was similar to his. At least.

Erik didn’t know why he was looking for a place to listen in on them either, other than that having been Erza’s intention. Sure, they probably were discussing the Tower. Erik knew what Acnologia was going to do, and Erza apparently did as well. It’s not like they needed to do anything about it now.

Although, he wouldn’t deny that he was curious. Curious to see how it would happen, how it would end. It wasn’t like not knowing would hurt him, but he couldn’t help but to want to witness it. Maybe it was that little part of him that dreamed of being able to conquer his problems himself.

“Are they still talking about books?” Erza asked intently. She was still trying to hear herself, that dumb looking costume’s ear pressed against the wall. “I hear something about the guild. And…and me.”

Erik focused on Acnologia’s voice, which he knew the best, and managed to find the conversation from there. They weren’t being that quiet anymore, so it wasn’t as difficult as he feared. “They’re arguing,” he revealed. “About intervening.”

“Oh,” she mumbled. Erza correctly guessed that the crux of the issue was her own warning on the matter. Erik understood, but he couldn’t help but to feel slighted about all the roadblocks people wanted to put up before stepping out of their comfort zone and dealing with the problem. At least the concerns weren’t completely artificial, but still.

It was true, though, that most people weren’t affected by the Tower, nor might they ever be, depending on how big the backlash was. It wasn’t their problem.

It was…his. And Erza’s. And everyone who did have stake in the Tower or its effects.

So that’s what Erza meant.

Yes, he was hopeless to do anything by himself, and so was Erza. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t contribute.

Erik still wasn’t sure he wanted to touch that place ever again, but neither did Erza, but she wanted closure, and he couldn’t help but to be tempted by that prospect as well.

“What?” she cried, quickly lowering her voice again. “Mest? Did I hear that correctly? They’re taking Mest?”

“Mest?” he repeated dumbly, until he latched back on to the conversation. Huh, so there was someone named Mest in the guild that was also a telepath, or something. Didn’t sound like it was the same as his, but for some reason, knowing that it was a skillset that was useful in these situations was comforting, in a strange way. Somehow, Gajeel had been right. “Yes, they are—”

“Come out. I know you’re there.”

Shit. They were well within Acnologia’s range. He should have known, but he was hoping that he wouldn’t be paying as much attention.

Erik shook Erza’s shoulder lightly. “We’ve been found out.”

“Huh?” she exclaimed. “But—”

“Acno is scary good at this,” he asserted. It was a good thing too, because Acnologia was able to call out all of his bullshit back in that forest, but it was discouraging in this setting. “We should go.” There was no point in denying it.

They made their way slowly. Erik didn’t think Acnologia would be mad, because he had offered Erik some information on the search previously, but it was still an easy thing to worry about it. Damn anxiety. (If he was mad, the repercussions wouldn’t be what Erik feared, surely, but Erik was very creative.)

Erza shoved her nervous energy down much quicker than he could. She made up her mind before they arrived, and Erik couldn’t help but to admire her resolve. She was capable of starting a revolution, alright. Her confidence was contagious.

Still, he winced when she threw the door open, some of her nervousness still blending with her resolve. Erza cut to the chase, putting what was in her thoughts aloud.

“We’re coming with you.”

Acnologia, contrary to his imagination, was just tired. The tiny guild master behind him was bemused, if not starting on the path of being indignant and protective.

Acnologia studied them each, eyes piercing as they always were. One day, Erik was going to figure out how to ask him what he saw when he did that.

“And if I said no?” he responded carefully. Acnologia didn’t like the idea, but there was nothing in his thoughts that gave himself away other than that. He was waiting for something.

Erza met his gaze. “You have no right to.”

Before Erik could panic at her crass words, Acnologia smiled. Small, still tired, but sincere. “Okay.”

“And— what?” Erza blinked at him. “You mean it?”

At this, the guildmaster cleared his throat. Aside from his gruff face, he didn’t look very intimidating, being half Erik’s size. “No. It’s too dangerous, and you are too young.” He looked at Erik for a moment, scrutinizing, before going back to focus on Erza. “I won’t have any more of the guild—”

“Makarov,” Acnologia interrupted. Tensely, testingly. “It’s not guild business. It’s theirs. Erza’s right.”

Erik braced himself for another fight, but the guildmaster’s temper drained before it started. “Fine,” he relented. “Just…keep them safe.” He switched his gaze to Erza, then even to Erik. “Don’t push yourselves.”

“Yes sir,” Erza squeaked.

Erik could only nod. This was actually happening, wasn’t it? He was too nervous to tell if he regretted getting involved or not, but it was also strangely relieving—the prospect of this being finished and being able to witness it. Maybe even help.

He already abandoned the other kids Brain took, though he doubted they were as bothered by it, as they were already taking to their magic and their new goals well. Erik didn’t want to run away completely. He already did so much of that, and he wasn’t sure if he could take much more, safe route or no.

Acnologia set a hand on Erik’s shoulder, calming him. He did the same to Erza. The very thought of the Tower still set Erik’s nerves on fire, but the Tower didn’t seem as intimidating when it wasn’t just him and Cubellios.

“We’ll head out as soon as Mest is ready to meet,” Acnologia sighed, worried but steadfast. His presence was comforting.

Maybe Erik could do this, after all.

Chapter Text

“O my son,
These are no trifles! Think: all men make mistakes,
But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong,
And repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

Give in to the dead man, then: do not fight with a corpse––
What glory is it to kill a man who is dead?
Think, I beg you:
It is for your own good that I speak as I do.
You should be able to yield for your own good.”

—Sophocles, (Tiresias), Antigone, (5.803-811)

Mest was available to meet the morning of April 2, which was sooner than Acnologia had expected. However, soon was good, and it was better for the nerves. Especially for Erik and Erza. He understood that the closure would be good them—there were many things that he lacked closure on, and they never went away entirely, even after centuries—but it was no easy task for them to face.

He had faith that they would handle it, though. As much as Acnologia would have preferred to keep them away from a source of trauma, just their resolve to intervene once more, on a matter they owed nothing to, proved the strengths of their hearts. They were good kids.

Acnologia regretted leaving them alone in Hargeon, but hovering over them wouldn’t profit much anyway. While they waited for Mest, Makarov suggested they take jobs in the area, in case the Council decided to be difficult about their involvement. Acnologia could care less what those cowards thought, but he understood that they wielded power over the guild, and this would be their jurisdiction—if they were competent enough to handle it. The alibi would at least give them the chance to claim happenstance involvement, and not a premediated ‘broach of authority,’ or whatever they might accuse.

There was a simple pest control job available, and Acnologia pawned it off to the two teens. If anyone asked, Acnologia was preparing, and if anyone irritating asked, he was off meditating somewhere, like a good mysterious mage. Erik and Erza could handle themselves; he would meet them and Mest at 10:00 AM, as arranged.

In truth, Acnologia slipped away to fly over the harbor. He slipped away before that, actually, skipping out on the train ride. The early morning sky was dark enough for take-off, and once he was high enough, visibility hardly mattered, though Acnologia had gotten better at obscuring his underside. Teaching Mystogan how to better maintain his invisibility spell had given Acnologia practice.

He knew the approximate location of the island where the Tower was, but this was the chance to pinpoint it. Flying over the ocean was still a droll experience, but at least it was calming. Usually. Not when he was looking for a murder-tower that probably smelled awful.

It took nearly an hour and a half of circling the deep bay to find it. It made sense that no one has accidentally stumbled upon it, because the currents were too meddled for it to be in fishing grounds, and the island itself was cloaked with a standard magic signature muffler. He could tell, even from high in the sky, that the island was narrow, so much so that it could be written off as an illusion from the distance, but the open sea around it allowed it to spot potential visitors from afar. He had to admit that the cultists chose a perfect location for an illegal island-sized project, though no one in this era bothered to cloak themselves from above anymore. They didn’t think there was any need—though that was all the more convenient for him. Besides, the smell of metal and dirt carried even when the magic was repressed.

It was so impossible to reach by normal means, especially if the occupants were bent on isolation, that Acnologia now firmly believed that whatever party came to the island, with that “Brain” guy in tow, was no accident. Otherwise, they would have had to been very lucky to end up in those currents and not capsize, but the endeavor had struck him as competent and planned from what Erik recounted. There could be multiple people involved in this, and not all of them on the island.

Destroying the tower and eradicating all immediate plans on how to build it was the goal today, though he was aware that it was unlikely to find the source, and now there was the growing possibility that there were colluders elsewhere. He would have to deal with that one step at a time, though the kids down there were the primary concern, regardless.

Acnologia glared down at the speck-like tower. The spire was tall, but it was unfinished, thankfully. It might still function (terribly) in its present state, but it wasn’t likely that anyone would attempt to use it in that state. Such a small, hideous metal spire, and it was the cause of so much pain.

He circled it from above twice, marking the sky above with his magic scent, so he could find it later without the wandering. Hopefully Mest could teleport them straight there from shore if he had the exact location, but he wasn’t sure of his range. Dropping from the sky was less of an option with tag-a-longs, unfortunately.

The sun was still low in the sky, and Acnologia moved away before he started casting shadows. There was still ample time before the meeting with Mest, so he directed his course elsewhere, following a curiosity. It was likely the location he would claim being at anyway, should anyone ask.

Tenrou Island was easy to find now that he knew what to look for, especially since the magic in his guild mark resonated strongly with the tree. Acnologia could stumble upon the island mindlessly, beckoned forth by the strange magic of the guild’s ‘sacred ground.’ One of these days, he was going to figure out exactly what that magic was, but it wasn’t his concern now. Plus, he had the feeling that if he dug too deeply, he would only end up in Zeref’s mess again, based on how Zeref seemed to like to visit the first master’s grave on Tenrou all the time.

Speaking of which…

It was a whim, Acnologia was aware, but he would indulge himself, because there were merits to the confrontation. Now, dropping out of the sky in a blaze of ether—that was purely indulgence.

The ground, a harmless section of field, cracked beneath his heel as Acnologia landed, and it cracked again as Acnologia swung Zeref’s face into the dirt.

If the Black Mage saw the attack coming, he didn’t have either the time or the energy to do anything about it. It was hilariously easy, though Acnologia knew that his battered face and neck wouldn’t last. It never did. He knew why, now, and it was almost convenient that Zeref couldn’t die, because as much as he was tempted to, he wouldn’t kill Natsu’s only living relative.

“But you—!” Zeref choked. Magic formed at his palms, but he couldn’t break Acnologia’s grip. “You stopped—”

Acnologia tossed the now battered mage to the ground, letting him gasp for air that he didn’t need. He was satisfied that the mage wouldn’t be able to run from him.

“Why?” he managed out of a wounded vocal cord, the question accompanied by coughs. Acnologia couldn’t tell if the question was curious or angry, coming out both flat and strangely full. Regardless of intent, the direction of the question was obvious enough.

“Did you know that the R-System is being built only a few miles from here?”

Zeref pulled himself off of the ground slowly. He still swayed on his feet, unstable, but Acnologia watched him closely for movement. “Is it?” the Black Mage finally managed. “I see.”

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t fault Zeref for not noticing this once, because Acnologia hadn’t noticed either. Still, Zeref seems unbothered by the revelation—not that Acnologia could gauge his emotions well. It irked him.

“Why are you upset with me over this? I am not responsible,” Zeref continued, brows drawn together slightly. The confusion was as much emotion that he could ascertain from him.

Too bad it only pissed him off, and simply because it was Zeref, Acnologia didn’t stop himself from punching the just-now-standing man in the gut, sending him back to his knees.

“I know you didn’t build it, but it’s your fucking creation! Do you just leave your blueprints around for every stars-damned idiot to pick up?!”

This had always been a problem. For hundreds of years, it had been a problem. However, Acnologia wasn’t one to lash out over indirect matters, anymore, because the last time he lashed out, he lost himself and turned into a monster. He was careful not to repeat that mistake, and he bottled the anger and the hurt up inside so it wouldn’t hurt anyone innocent ever again.

But temptation cracked his hold, bolstered by Zeref’s immortality, and Zeref had indirectly hurt too many people he cared about. He didn’t care for others easily, especially after the first and the second times, and now to see these kids struggle because some damn cultists kept wanting to make Zeref their god…

Acnologia knew that life wasn’t fair, but that didn’t mean that he had to like to it.

Zeref assessed him with cold, blank, black eyes. For a moment, he thought he saw them flicker—to violet, or maybe gray—but the gaze turned steady once more. “If every era wants to repeat my mistakes, then that is up to them.”

He didn’t know what he expected. For Zeref to care? Of course not. If he cared, he would have done something about this long ago. Still, Acnologia had to restrain himself from going for the third hit, because then he might actually launch him into the ocean.

“So it doesn’t matter to you, that people will kill in your name, kill because of your name, or use children to build your impossible death machines? You don’t feel responsible in the slightest?”

“I know I’m the most hated, vile thing that has ever walked this earth, if that’s what you mean,” Zeref deadpanned, an edge entering his voice. “I do terrible things. It’s what I am. I don’t know what you expect of me.”

For a second, Acnologia was only angry again. However, there was something unsure in the otherwise confident mage. It was hard to tell if he was merely being obstinate, or if he really didn’t know. He…couldn’t fault Zeref for that. There was a lot of things he could and would fault Zeref for, but giving up on himself couldn’t be one of them.

That didn’t mean that Acnologia was going to let him off the hook for it, though.

“Fucking burn your shitty plans, for one thing. I’m serious, do you just lay every space-melting and life-sucking invention around for power-hungry idiots to find?”

Zeref frowned. “It was just my research. It disappeared a long time ago, anyway.”

He was going to throttle him.

“Yeah, because a bunch of obsessed fanboys took them and have been trying to make you proud by slaughtering hundreds and thousands at a time.”

“…right. That is what happened, isn’t it?”

And Acnologia thought that he had had a problem detaching himself from reality. This was just sad.

“Just because you’ve done terrible things, and just because you’re cursed,” Acnologia told him, keeping his voice even, “it doesn’t mean you have to keep being an awful person. That’s your choice. Stay away from people, fine, but when you ignore problems that stem from you, that’s on your conscious. You can’t blame your mistakes on your misfortune.”

If anyone knew that concept, it was Acnologia. He had committed countless, irreparable atrocities, and there was nothing that could change that. All he could do was bury his victims and lay them to rest. When, over the years, people began to dig up and uncover their bones, milking them for the terrestrial magic that dragons are comprised of, he did his best to incinerate them completely. At first, it was simply the best way he could respect the ones he unfairly slaughtered, then it was a race to stop the lacrimas from giving the wrong people power, and, then, it was the reality that not everyone given a lacrima had a choice in the matter. Laxus and Erik had no control over the transformations of the bodies, even their minds, because Acnologia had given the world free access to the corpses of dragons.

It didn’t matter that Acnologia had a terrible life. It didn’t matter that he was born a slave, that he had no childhood, that he had no name, that the first person who was kind to him died in his arms, that his first friend was reduced to a mindless beast, that his first home was destroyed, that he was left alone and wounded, that his dragon slayer magic preyed on his anger and his hurt and turned him into the perfect killing machine—none of that justified what he did. They weren’t to blame for his hurt, and even if they were, their deaths would have done nothing to assuage it. His actions were his own fault, and now, there were people like Laxus and Erik who indirectly suffered from his mistakes. He wasn’t so dense as to blame himself entirely, lest he disappoint his kids and the promise he made to them, but Acnologia would take responsibility where it was his to take.

It was a hard lesson to learn, and it was one that Acnologia may have never realized if he was never given the opportunity to. Zeref’s choices were his own, but Acnologia had no qualms about being the one to reach out and slap him in the face with reality: his choices were his, not destiny’s.

Zeref said nothing. Acnologia didn’t expect him to.

He sighed. He had gotten caught up in his own emotion, and he had forgotten the pragmatic reason for the confrontation.

“I did come here for something else,” Acnologia admitted slowly. His pride hurt at the thought of needing to ask Zeref of all people, but his pride wasn’t worth the failure. Zeref was a talented mage, more so than he, so it was worth a shot. The information could be useful sooner or later. “Do you know how to undo supremacy magic?”

Zeref blinked, taking a while to respond, like he was moving underwater. His throat had mostly healed by now, but it was as if he couldn’t make it function.

“Supremacy…magic,” he replied, “is mental. It rewrites, or it adds, or it takes away. It is a script. I am…not sure, how it is undone, except perhaps by the same means.”

It wasn’t much, but it did give him a direction. It was a cross between script magic and enchantment. He always figured that it would be something of the sort, which always made it difficult for him to navigate, unable to truly comprehend enchantments and the workings above or below the ether, but it was something to look for.

“Okay.” Acnologia looked to the sun. He had spent enough time here. “Thanks,” he added, belatedly. It was enough for now.

Acnologia allowed the surplus of dragon magic to envelope him, changing him back, not caring much if Zeref was caught in the crossfire of his transformation. With a powerful beat of his wings, he took off to the sky, back towards the harbor.

He had a tower to tear down.

Zeref could not move from his spot. He only barely registered the carnage around him—the cracked earth, the dead trees—but he wasn’t sure when it happened, or how long he had been there since Acnologia left.

Acnologia was a mystery to him. He was a monster, the slayer of thousands, and the one capable of bringing the world to an end. Acnologia had been one of the few things Zeref had ever been sure about, and that was that he was dangerous. A threat.

Acnologia lectured him on morality, and he took care of Natsu and those other children, and Fairy Tail. Poisoned Natsu’s mind, corrupted him, took advantage of him, perhaps, and he surely taught him magic and made him strong—strong enough to kill Zeref, even. It was beneficial and terrifying.

Zeref knew how the world worked. It was unfair. It was cruel. It was all one could do to survive, to deal with their own matters. Even then, meddling powers could intervene and punish the earnest and bless the selfish.

He didn’t know how Acnologia changed. It was impossible. Acnologia had been nothing but a beast, a crazed man with no goals other than the destruction of others. Zeref only wanted his own death. How did Acnologia become the one to be accepted by others, when Zeref was rejected by the world itself?

The world had standards. Simply procedures—cause and effect. Fate rippled accordingly, and canyons could not be uncarved. Laws were absolute. Good was good, evil was evil, and neither of them existed. There was only life and death, and death and rebirth. Fates that could be undone, and fates that were carved in stone.

Yet there was magic, and magic rewrote reality itself. It was reality. But magic was emotion, wasn’t it? And emotion defied reality. Emotion was nothing but a result of the world’s course. It was ubiquitous. It was nothing.

It was…beyond his reach.

Why was it beyond his reach, again?

Zeref was a being of magic, and thus a being of emotion, but he had no feeling anymore, and his magic was dead. Or death. Was it life? He created and he destroyed. He was destroyed because he created.

Acnologia destroyed and destroyed and destroyed and his magic grew and grew. His destruction stopped, and his magic remained immense, and his heart was eased. Acnologia was content and he regretted, but he had no Curse of Contradiction. It made no sense.

They were both blights on this world. They were both supposed to be blights on this terrible, awful, beautiful world. Acnologia killed, Zeref created; Acnologia created destruction, Zeref destroyed creation. Yet, Acnologia left the cycle. How? They were both supposed to be bad people. Evil. Despicable in the eyes of the world, despicable to themselves. It was how things were.

How did Acnologia change, and why did Acnologia ever think that Zeref could too?

Tears slid down his face and into his lap. His heart stuttered, but Zeref could not make it feel every constriction and pain his chest did.

“Mavis,” he whispered, tears unceasing. She was the one being who understood him, who was like him, but she was so much better than he was. Another thing he could never understand. “How could I ever be a good person?”

Chapter Text

“And Lord, I know
It’s a heavy load
But we’ll carry our brothers
Oh, we’ll carry them home.”

—The Oh Hello’s, “Lay Me Down”

April 2, X780

It was a good thing that the job in Hargeon was easy, because Erza could barely focus on it. She felt guilty that Erik, who wasn’t even a proper Fairy Tail mage yet, had to take the brunt of it due to her wandering thoughts. Though she supposed that it was his snake that was the main force behind the operation. Mrs. Cromwell had been convinced her infestation of mice was magic in nature, thanks to the cunning of the creatures, but if they were, no one would ever know, because Cubellios ate them.

Mrs. Cromwell was pleased all the same. Erza collected the small reward from the delighted woman and stuffed it in her pocket, lacking the usual feeling of pride when completing a job, no matter how small.

“Do you know where the coffee shop is?” Erik asked when they left the house.

Erza nodded. “Master said it should be by the marina. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Mest was going to meet them at a place called Bridge’s Coffee at 10:00 AM, on the corner of Elm and Broad. Erza had never been there before, but she had been confident she could find it with plenty of time to spare. She was partially correct. They got turned around a few times, and in the end, it was Erik who spotted it, even though he had previously admitted to her on the ride here that the only experience he had navigating towns was in Magnolia.

It was no matter, though. They arrived with a comfortable margin of thirty minutes until time, seating themselves silently at an outdoor table.

Erik was a quiet boy. It was something she noticed when he first started coming around to the guild, and spending time with him now only heightened that perception, though Erza would admit that the circumstance today put neither of them in a talking mood. That was okay, though, because Erza found that she enjoyed his company regardless, especially because he didn’t seem bothered by her. It was selfish, yes, but she was glad that he didn’t hate her, despite having every reason to. At least if he did, he didn’t show it.

The amicable silence both deterred her from asking her burning questions and made those questions burn in her mind all the more. They were just sitting there, waiting, because it went unspoken that neither of them had an appetite. She didn’t want to pry, because Erza knew how painful it was reliving those moments of weakness, but she also desperately wanted to know how he left. How…things were.

Erza had set her mind on doing this. She was going back. She had to. It was her doing, and her shortcoming, so she had to be the one to set it right. Or at least, she had to help. To do her best.

But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t terrified. The Tower still haunted her dreams and her waking moments, and stepping foot there was the last thing she wanted to do. Though even more terrifying was the concept of facing Jellal and those crazed eyes again, even if she wanted him to be okay with just as much fervor.

There were so many unknowns. Jellal was the most volatile, but what about the others? Were they okay? Safe? Healthy? Did they hate her? Were they scared? Were they just as mad as Jellal was? Was she too late? It had been four years, and she herself was a testament to how much could happen in that time. She had no way of knowing what to expect except…through Erik.

“It’s okay,” Erik spoke suddenly, somehow reading her thoughts. “You can ask.”

“How did you leave?” she blurted, the invitation all she needed. She didn’t deserve Erik being so patient with her, but she accepted it anyway. “Did anyone else make it out too? Are they okay?”

Erik spoke succinctly but vaguely, paraphrasing the events from the beginning, all the while picking at his sleeves, or petting his snake companion. They were stuck on the island, the boats burned, and they repurposed the facilities for shelter and survival. Repurposing the facilities turned to Jellal having the bright idea to keep building the Tower, because there was nothing better to do, and it must have been important. There was a disconnect between the words and the tone. She knew that Jellal had gone mad, and Erik seemed to know it too, the way he spoke about him the other day and now, though the retelling of the events made him seem benign.

He then spoke of the boats, and the scientists, and very briefly about his encounter with Acnologia and Wendy. Erza knew he was glossing over events, specifically the traumatic ones, because it was a trick that Erza had employed herself. She didn’t mind, though. In any other case, her curiosity might peak, but she knew enough about the Tower, and its people, to fill in the blanks. The group he found himself in afterward was more of a mystery, an unpleasant one, but the implications were mitigated by the fact that he was here, now, telling her. It seemed that Acnologia had been his saving grace, just as Fairy Tail was hers. Which was to say, that Fairy Tail was both of theirs, the only difference being that she stumbled towards seeking it out, and he was brought in randomly. Luckily. How fitting of their guild, she couldn’t help but to think.

There were three things that she gleaned from his story. The first, was that Jellal hadn’t changed from that moment in that room—not in his heart. However, he wasn’t as extreme. He still interacted with people with a degree of tenderness, even though Erik found it fake and forced. Jellal had never been dishonest in his actions before, when she knew him, so Erza attributed it to his change. The second was that though most of the survivors scattered recently, it was clear that Millianna, Shou, Simon, and Wally were all still with Jellal. They also had magic. She felt a clear mix of pride and dread at that fact.

The third was…about Erik. It was clear that he was extremely observant. It wasn’t just his ability to hear things far away: it was the way he noticed the unspoken things. He did it to her, pulling her thoughts out of her head practically, and it was evident that he noticed minute things about those of the Tower, too: the way Jellal was double-sided, the way her old friends clung to him, the way some of the other prisoners had been completely passive or bitter regarding the events, or the way that even knowing that the saviors were likely ill-meaning, they put their trust in them anyway. Yet, Erik spoke of everyone in a detached manner, hardly remembering their names. Even the ones he had left with didn’t seem to be on the forefront of his mind. Not that Erza could judge him for abandoning them in the situation he escaped from, because then she would be a hypocrite, but it rubbed her the wrong way all the same.

He had been among all of those other people, but he wasn’t their friend.

He was lonely.

It was baffling to her. Even when enslaved, she found friends—those in her cell block. It helped that they were of similar age for the most part, and in Simon’s case, even from similar areas. However, there were those with them that didn’t interact. Not even with Grandpa Rob, and he was—had been—the easiest man to talk to. She remembered asking Grandpa Rob why, one day, the quiet brunette lady never talked to her even when Erza tried, and he only responded with “she’s just sad.”

Friends were the solution to seeing sadness erased, so why wouldn’t she befriend them? The Tower was an awful place but finding the bright side had been the one way they could beat their captors, and it was something that Erza had always tried to hold onto fiercely.

Then, Erza had been in a new place, her old friends dead or lost forever, and Erza didn’t want to talk to anyone. She had been too…sad, missing the people she could never get back. It hadn’t been until people like Gray interacted with her despite her best efforts to avoid it that brought her to the present, leading her to be able to reach out to others, awkward though her efforts were.

She wouldn’t let Erik walk the same lonely road. Even if the dragonlings were already going great lengths to include him, she wouldn’t neglect him either.

She would be his friend.

In her resolution, Erza reached across the table and grabbed him, pulling him in a hug. He made a startled sound, but he did not pull away from her in the end, so Erza determined her attempt successful. She released him with a smile.

It was then that there was the sound of someone clearing their throat behind her, and both of them jumped, just to see Acnologia awkwardly standing there.

“Shit, stop doing that!” Erik pleaded.

“Sorry,” Acnologia mumbled. “Habit. I’m easier to pick out by smell, if that helps.”

Erza blinked at the scene. She had always assumed that Acnologia was just quiet, but apparently he could even sneak up on people who were really observant, like Erik. This talk of smell though was odd, but it was something the dragonlings seemed to do. Did living with them make Erik a dragonling too? She wasn’t sure.

“Has Mest arrived yet?” Acnologia asked instead, changing the subject.

“No,” she replied, looking to the clocktower visible over the rooftops. “There’s still five minutes, though.”

“I’m here, I’m here!” came another voice, popping out of nowhere. Erik jumped in his skin, and Erza startled by the suddenness of it too. Even the unflappable Acnologia looked surprised, taking a step between them and the newcomer.

It was just Mest, however, teleporting beside them and looking like he had hurried to their meeting spot. He wasn’t wearing that pinstriped shirt she was accustomed to associating with him, but rather simple black and gray clothes. The mage was older than she was, but young compared to most of the adults in the guild, likely a little older than Laxus. Sometimes he would hang around, chatting with someone over a beer, but he wasn’t one to loiter around, always being busy. Now, she had the idea that it wasn’t just his love for going on jobs, but perhaps a more purposeful existence.

“Sorry, I took a wrong turn and went to Akane, then I forgot where I was going and started to head back to Magnolia, but then I remembered and came here,” he panted, his words jumbling together. “Hope I’m not late.”

“You’re not,” Acnologia assured. He looked to the surrounding area, subtly shifting his gaze, and it was then that Erza realized there were in a rather public place. However, Acnologia didn’t seem too bothered by the end of his search, so it must have been fine. It was true that there weren’t many people around, and the sound of water and the carts were the loudest. “How much do you know?”

“Nothing!” Mest chirped, completed unbothered. “Master just said to meet you here and that it was another— I mean, a secret mission. It’s pretty exciting, actually. I don’t think we’ve met,” he rambled, looking to Acnologia and to Erik. “You neither, for that matter. Haha, you wiped my ass in that S-Class trial, for sure though, Acno. I wanted to talk to ya’ after, but you were already gone, and then there was the thing I had to do, but here we are! What do you want me to do?”

Erza grimaced when she realized that it was likely that he would need to be caught up on the story. She had recounted more times in the past week than she had in four years, though it was easier to discuss with someone like Erik, who already knew of the unspeakable horrors. “Um, it’s a long story,” she started awkwardly.

However, Mest held up his hand with a shake of the head. “Hey, if it’s personal, I don’t need to know. And if I do know, then I can un-know if you want. I don’t mind.” Mest grinned brightly. “I just need to know who we’re after and who we’re not after and what you want me to do.”

Her breath came out in a sigh of relief. The number of people knowing all of her shortcomings had grown, but she could contain it better this way. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Acnologia nodded once. “There’s an island with a super weapon on it, that needs to be taken down. There’s a core somewhere on it that needs to be disabled first. Provided that it is built, it would be able to pick up magic, so all magic use should be kept to a minimum, so we don’t get prematurely discovered. However, there are kids there that are likely just accessories at this point that are innocent in the matter. There might be some that have been mentally tampered with, as well as those doing the tampering. We have to play it case by case, but end game, the tower goes down. The Council doesn’t and shouldn’t know,” he explained quickly and succinctly, before holding out his hand. A small light blue aura of magic emanated from his palm. “This is the location. I tagged it about a thousand lengths above the island.”

“Wait, how far?”

Acnologia closed his eyes. “About eighteen hundred meters,” he amended after a beat of thought. She had never heard of the unit of measurement he used the first time, but there were many things she had yet to learn.

Mest poked the magic with his index finger, his fuzzy gray magic interacting with it. “That’s pretty far,” he noted. “How’d you get there?”

“Doesn’t matter. That was as close as I could get without alerting anyone.”

Mest shrugged, accepting Acnologia’s dodge. Erza suddenly realized that, beyond his sturdy composure and healing magic, she had no idea what Acnologia could do—only that he cleared the S-Class trial with ease, so much so that it was obvious he awed Master. She believed in his strength for that matter alone, but too late she realized that she didn’t know how he could go about any of this. S-Class mages were one thing, but this was a massive operation that the cultists had started. She wanted to believe in the power of Fairy Tail, but the task was monumental.

Erza was determined to see the task through, no matter how difficult, but the logical voice inside of her whispered once again how impossible that was.

“Eh, it’s too far for me to teleport to from here, if that’s what you mean. Besides, if there are others in this place that we’re getting out, a boat would be ideal. Sure, I can grab one or two people with me, but not a lot.”

“They should have ships there,” Erik spoke up. “At least one big one and some small ones. And they can see boats coming from the island, easily.”

Acnologia grunted. “The currents in the area make small ships vulnerable, and large ships would be spotted easily. We need to be inconspicuous.”

“Okay, so we take a little boat halfway, I teleport us in, then we take their big boat on the way back. Easy-peasy,” Mest planned with a decisive clap. “Sound good?”

Erza nodded numbly. The plan made the operation all the more real, though she knew this entering in. Erik gave his agreement silently too, though it was to Acnologia that all three of them looked for confirmation. It went unspoken that he was in charge, as the resident S-Class mage, and the one who spear-headed this in the first place.

The grimace on the S-Class mage’s face was uncharacteristically vivid. “Fine,” he ground out after a long pause, looking absolutely miserable at the prospect.

Was it the plan that discomforted him? It seemed solid enough, though it relied on taking the boats from the others at the end. A memory of a blaze flashed across Erza’s mind, reminding her of how risky it was. However, when Erik suddenly laughed, wheezing out a quick snort, it was something else.

“Oh my gosh,” he realized. “It’s the motion sickness, isn’t it?”

Acnologia’s grimace deepened. “…yes.”

“But… I rode the train here. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad,” Erik continued. Motion sickness? It sounded like a previous conversation, though she wasn’t sure what it meant. She knew Natsu got motion sickness, and even though she hadn’t been on jobs with him, she believed Gajeel was starting to as well. Was it a dragon slayer thing? She still wasn’t sure what it meant, but she had long since known that magic was not something to be understood, only felt.

“It’s…proportional to how draconic the senses are,” he explained vaguely.

Erik understood, however. “Oh. Oh.” He shot Acnologia a wicked half-smile. “It was nice knowing you, then.”

—o0o—

She had seen Natsu get woozy and mopey on the train, before, but it was nothing compared to Acnologia. They were on the small boat Mest acquired for seconds before he promptly made himself a permanent fixture draped across the side of the ship, periodically threatening to vomit over the side, all while nearly completely unresponsive.

It contrasted the otherwise stalwart image of the calm and composed S-Class medic. It was clear that it was a cruel affliction that he bore.

She wondered why Mest and Erik kept laughing.

“We’re almost close enough,” Mest declared, looking between the watery horizon and the incapacitated mage. “He better not puke on me.”

“I think he already emptied everything he had,” Erik commented dryly. “I’m really not looking forward to that.”

Erza looked to Erik questioningly, still confused from the first conversation before they set sail. “Is this something you think will happen to you?”

“Apparently, yeah,” Erik confirmed. “When my magic gets stronger, at least.”

“Then why do you find it so funny?”

Erik let loose another laugh. “Because this is one of the last opportunities that I have to laugh at it.”

It was an odd way to think about it, but before Erza could think too hard, Mest declared, “Ready. Hold onto each other. I can only promise getting to the island though. If there are hostiles, we’ll have to start fighting immediately. We also might be in the air. Or underwater. We’ll see.”

Erik shrugged and placed a hand on Acnologia’s back, and Erza took his other hand. Mest placed a hand on her shoulder, and suddenly they moved. It was not unlike the feeling of how her armor and her swords switched in and out of existence. She blinked, and they were on sand.

They were alone on the shore, but the sight stilled her. The Tower loomed above her, taller and just as menacing as all of her nightmares. It was there. It was real. It didn’t matter that her boots separated her from the ground, or that the stench of sweat and blood was gone; she could still feel her calloused feet and taste the stench on her tongue. She was just a little girl again, and the Tower was too big.

She pressed closer to Erik, though she hadn’t noticed that she did so until Cubellios slithered onto her shoulder, still wrapped around Erik’s. She was warm. It felt nice.

Her other shoulder was then occupied by a hand. Acnologia was standing again, the proof of his motion sickness quickly fading.

“Keep low. Keep silent. We find and disable the control room, then we can engage the people here.”

“Any ideas of where it might be?” Mest asked, craning his neck to stare up the spire. It wasn’t complete yet, but it was twice the height it was before…before the revolt.

“Central and towards the top,” Acnologia decided. “The nature of this requires immense magical power—ether, even. It wouldn’t be designed this way if it didn’t require the more refined ether of the sky.”

“Jellal and his group were always working in the old command room. Could be there,” Erik added.

Mest nodded. “Cool, I’ll look top down then.” And with that, he fizzled out of existence.

Acnologia frowned at the space he left behind and sighed. “Okay then. You two stay close to me.”

Normally, Erza would find it in herself to protest. She was a capable mage, and more importantly, this was her problem. However, her heart was still in her throat, and Acnologia wasn’t rooted to the ground like she was.

He was already moving, and Erza and Erik had to scramble after him. He moved so quickly, despite how quiet he was. She had to admit, even when stealth was preferred, it was convenient to move in this particular group. Acnologia and Erik could both hear better than she ever could, allowing them to sense anyone coming in advance.

The outside was uneventful. The brick exterior spiraled downward into sloping terraces, a new and admittedly nicer addition since she last saw it as mountains of dirt and stone. There was nobody else outside but them, and even if there had been, it would have been easier to hide in the shrubs and behind the terrace walls. Even Erza had to admit that it was more pleasant than it was before, with flowers and gardens along the paths, but the muddy stone still chilled her.

Erik ushered them to a low exterior wall at the top of a terrace, where a window stood just above where she could see, even from her toes. It connected to the main building, not the warden buildings at the entrance, though she doubted they were used for that anymore. She was glad to avoid them, though.

“That window should lead to an empty storage room. We built it to store food before it was decided that the front buildings would be better. For flooding reasons,” Erik explained. “Point is, nobody should be there.”

Acnologia, already standing taller than she was, nodded and thrust an arm straight through the glass. Despite wearing no glove or gauntlet, the glass didn’t scrape his skin, and he just pushed it aside. “Careful,” he warned despite his own nonchalance, as he helped them through the jagged passage.

The room was empty, just as Erik had said. It was cold, too. The entire building was cold, but that might have been the lingering March winds. Right, it was April now. It was… Oh. Erza clenched her teeth and continued forward, swallowing the lump in her throat.

The Tower was large, and the occupants were few. They made their way through the vast hallways and overly grand staircases, occasionally taking sharp turns or even turning around whenever Acnologia sensed something or whenever Erik had an idea of where to go. She could only follow. Her senses weren’t as refined, and her memory of this place wasn’t as recent as Erik’s. She could only anticipate herself for the inevitable confrontations.

“Hey is the control room big, round, and creepy? I might have found it.”

“GAAAH!”

All three of them experienced having their hearts jump straight out of their chests when Mest suddenly appeared beside them in the dark stairwell.

“Stars, I fucking hate spatial magic,” Acnologia muttered angrily, turning to mage in question. “Where is it?”

Mest chuckled nervously underneath Acnologia’s intense stare. Erza couldn’t see it, but she had seen people on the receiving end of it enough times to imagine. He was beginning to challenge Porlyusica in “most feared healer” for a reason.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. It’s a habit,” Mest placated. “But it’s up top. Almost at the top. There’s some scaffolding and stuff above it like it’s supposed to keep going. Biggest room I found was really round, which is weird ‘cause this building is entirely rectangular. Anyway, I didn’t know what could be the ‘core,’ though, except for maybe the chair. It seemed kinda suspicious. Seriously, who puts a single oversized chair in a massive room?”

“Damn dark mages and their dumb need to be extra sinister, that’s who,” Acnologia grumbled.

“Says the guy who used to live in a cave,” Erik commented lightly.

“Hey, the cave was pragmatic. I didn’t find every bone and black crystal in a fifty-mile radius to decorate.” Acnologia sighed, turning back to Mest. “Was there anybody in there?”

Mest nodded. “It was empty when I was first checking it out, but I had to book it when they entered. Got a decent look at them through the warp space, though. Two teenagers and a man was impressively long, smooth, hair. Teenagers were a boy with blue hair and some red mark on his face and a girl with dark purple pigtails.”

“The boy has to be Jellal,” Erza decided, not liking the mix of dread and…relief?…at the prospect. At least knowing where he was meant that she could avoid him for a while longer. Or face him sooner. She wasn’t sure, though if he was where they needed to be, she supposed it was time to rip the bandage off and do it. However… She didn’t recognize the descriptions of the other two. Erik had been under the impression that only her friends had stayed behind with Jellal, but it didn’t sound remotely close to any of them. Though it was possible that Jellal’s circle grew without her.

She looked to Erik, but he was drawing his eyebrows up in confusion as well. “I have no idea who the other two are,” he admitted.

Acnologia frowned, and Erza found herself troubled as well. Erik had been remarkably observant, even if he had been lonely, so it was unsettling to think that there were two new figures in play. What were they doing with Jellal? Or…what was Jellal doing with them?

“It would be nice to know exactly how many people are here,” Acnologia began, “but unfortunately the architecture makes it difficult for me to pinpoint, and as for sensing magic…” He frowned. “Including the three you saw, Mest, there’s probably seven or eight people to account for. The three in the room are likely the biggest threat, though the chance of coercion, conscious or unconscious, exists with everyone present.”

“So is this a ‘talk-things-out’ ordeal or ‘knock-them-out’ ordeal?” Mest questioned.

“Likely the latter. Mest, I don’t know how precisely your magic works, but if it’s possible for you to root through their minds to check for any tampering, it would help.”

Mest scratched his neck. “I don’t have a ton of experience in that area, but yeah, I can check. It’s harder to look around without people noticing, though, so it might be better to incapacitate them first. Unless I take out the memory of me checking, but if I get attacked mid-process, it’s kinda’ hard to continue.”

Erza listened to the scene, trying to put together the pieces she was missing. She didn’t know Mest could do anything mind-related—she thought it was just people like Warren who had that magic—but if she was gathering what they were implying… It hit her like a ton of bricks. The questions Acnologia had asked her, bringing Mest along, the snippets she had heard from Acnologia’s and Makarov’s argument…

“You think he is possessed, don’t you?” she asked, though it was more of a declaration.

Acnologia assessed her with stormy blue eyes, though his steady gaze was unsure this time. He hadn’t wanted her to know. Or perhaps…he hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up. Erza wasn’t sure if this made everything better or not, but if Jellal was in trouble, she would save him. She had promised.

“He’s not possessed by Zeref,” Acnologia replied finally, with certainty that made her doubt her assessment. “I doubt he’s possessed at all, but that’s not the only way to get to someone’s mind. I’ve dealt with supremacy magic before, and there are many types of both black and white magic that can make alterations to the mind and body. I’m not saying this for certain, but…it is possible.”

Erza breathed. Supremacy magic. She had never heard of it before, but the sound and the implication chilled her. Had those cultist bastards done something else to him? She knew he was broken, that the Jellal she saw that day was nothing like the Jellal she had known before, but she had been left to assume that his broken body led to his broken mind. Erza had seen it happen, before, to lesser extents. She knew Erik had too. Sometimes, their fellow prisoners would just break down. They would become listless, or sometimes, they would lash out in rage—at slave and taskmaster alike. Those were the ones that didn’t make it. Whose bodies had to be pushed to the side.

Jellal’s gaze had retained its brilliance, but with madness superimposed. She had been so freaked out by his newfound violence that Erza hadn’t been able to comprehend the reason. There never needed to be much reason—people broke. They snapped. It was the culmination of years and years of hell, and it happened. She always thought Jellal was too strong, too good, to snap like the hopeless, but maybe it had been that goodness that made his fall all the harder.

Or maybe he never fell at all. Maybe he was pulled down. Erza had always held on to the vague hope that maybe Jellal could return to how he was, but it had been a foolish girl’s dream. But now… But now maybe there was hope after all.

“Let’s go get him, then,” she said, steeling herself. She was already in armor, and it did well to guard her beating heart. It helped Erza to muster her determination.

“Wait,” Acnologia interrupted. “You said yourself there could be repercussions on the others if he is agitated. If there is a remote magic tag on them, I can remove it. We should gather them, first. Incapacitate them, if we have to.”

Erza deflated. Acnologia was right, of course. She was ashamed that she might have put her other friends in danger with her reckless urges. But that was why Acnologia was S-Class and she wasn’t. “Right.”

“It was probably them, or at least some of them, down in the training room, right?” Erik stated, though he turned to Acnologia for confirmation. Erza didn’t know what room they were referring to, but there had been places they moved to avoid.

Acnologia nodded. “Probably,” he agreed. “It would be the best place to start. We can start by talking, but I imagine a fight could easily escalate, in which case we’ll have to knock them out, one way or another.”

He paused in thought. “Mest, can you watch the three in the room? Let us know if they start doing anything.”

“Aye-aye,” Mest replied with a salute, fizzling out of existence yet again.

“Now.” Acnologia turned to her and Erik, watching them carefully. “Are you ready?”

It was time to confront them—her friends. Her old friends, though Erza held onto the maybe foolish belief that they would still believe her. Still care. It was the scariest part of this operation, more than having to step foot in the Tower again, but it was also the part she needed to do the most.

She nodded.

“Let’s go.”

They moved quicker, this time. Erza herself could remember the hallways they passed through at the beginning, able to follow the turns better than the first time.

It would have been nice if she was able to do this part alone. She didn’t want the unfamiliar presence of Acnologia to scare them, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted Erik to know how badly she could falter. However, doubted she could dissuade them, and even if she could, they were also the ones keeping her calm.

They made it to the room where Erik said they were, hovering quietly outside. “Only person is there now,” Erik said. “The cat girl.”

“Millianna,” Erza connected immediately. She was glad that it was her, and not one of the boys. Wally or Simon would be more cross with her, surely, more aware of how she abandoned them, and Shou… Oh, little Shou was probably devastated. Millianna could easily be angry with her as well, and maybe Simon would have been the best choice to talk with, but she also hurt Simon the most. He… Oh God, he was alive, right? No, what was she thinking, of course he was alive. She knew he was injured, but Erik had described him to her, so he had to be alive. Just…just not the same.

She was losing her nerve, so before it left entirely, Erza made the move to fling open the door.

It was a large room, with high ceilings and scattered equipment. She didn’t recognize it from anything the Tower had been before. Millianna, near the middle, whipped around to the doors and yelped.

Millianna was twice the size she had been when Erza last saw her, but the twelve-year-old was still tiny. Her hair had grown, though, and there were even little cat-like ears above her pigtails. She still looked so much like the girl Erza remembered, except for the unreadable emotion in her wide brown eyes.

“Er—Erza?” she squeaked, and Erza realized that she was terrified.

Of her.

Erza raised her hands placatingly. “Please, Millianna,” she pleaded, eye growing wet, “I never wanted to leave. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Millianna took a few steps back, shaking her head. “No. No, you— Jellal s-said— You…” She stumbled over her words, eyes flitting rapidly between Erza and the two behind her.

“They’re guildmates. They’re just here to help,” Erza pressed, growing desperate. Millianna was scared, but she hadn’t run away from her. That was a good sign, right? Maybe Erza really could talk to her.

The younger girl’s gaze lingered on Erik, her brows drawn up. “I remember you,” she said. “Jellal got rid of you.”

Erik tensed beside her, and Erza’s throat tightened. Oh no. No, not sweet little Millianna, please. “Millianna, sweetie, Jellal… Jellal’s not in a good place. We had a…a fight. He’s not thinking like he used to.”

Erza wanted to try to explain it to her, to try to stop Millianna from breaking too, but it was the wrong thing to say. Millianna’s dark gaze hardened. “Jellal just got stronger. We all got stronger. And you— y-you ran away.”

Magic gathered in her hands, and Erza knew she lost her. “Intruders!”

Before Erza could prepare herself, before she could finish the sharp pang of grief that ripped through her chest, a flash appeared before her, and suddenly, Acnologia was in front of her, cloak blocking half of her view as she summoned a sword to her hand unconsciously.

A woman with long pale pink hair floated in front of Acnologia, a sword embedded into his outstretched hand. The woman smirked. “The tree branches did fall into gentle blossoms, unbidden,” she sang, cocking her head. “I thought I swung harder than that.”

“Ms. Ikuruga,” Millianna cried. “Those are the intruders.”

“Millianna?! Is everything okay?”

Erza found herself frozen, her feet unable to move and her arm unable to lift her sword, as the new voices rushed into the room. Simon, always the gentle one, always the caring one, was a tall mass in front of Millianna, his steel jaw—her fault—making his face unreadable. Tiny Shou was behind him as well, and a boy with squarish features that had to be Wally beside them. They were all there. They were all safe, but maybe not well, but there.

“Sis?” Shou whispered, and it broke her heart.

“Is that the traitor?” Wally asked, voice cold.

Simon said nothing. She wished he said something, so she could know that he hated her too, but he only stared with dark eyes.

The woman—Ikaruga, Millianna called her—returned her sword to a starting stance, flicking a small amount of blood from the blade. “My, my, second week on the job, and there’s already excitement. And here I thought this would be a boring commission. Fukuro?”

A new shape swung down. An…owl with a jet-pack? Erza didn’t like his beady eyes. “Hoo-hoo!”

“Let’s deal with the intruders, shall we?”

Her friends—her old friends gathered magic to them, and so did her guildmates. Erza found it hard to move. This was a fight, she knew. She also felt the danger from the two strange adults, and she knew she had to give it her all. She had to live up to her pride as a Fairy Tail mage. But she couldn’t lay a hand on the others. She…didn’t have the strength to.

No. No, she couldn’t fight them, but she could fight for them. Even if she needed to beat the sense into them, she would fight for them until her last breath.

Erza raised her sword, and she raised her sword array behind her, her Heaven Wheel’s Armor wrapping around her.

It was time to end this.

Chapter Text

“Blue veins till they hit the knife, then they bleed red.”

—House of Heroes, “Colors Run”

A single moment was all it took to break the tension. Not even Erik was sure who moved first, but it might have been Acnologia and Ikaruga simultaneously. The air stirred, metal clashed, and he could hear magic itself collide with one another.

He moved. Erik might not have been the best, or the most powerful, but he had devoted much of his time, in both the past few months and the past few years, to getting stronger. Even if his hearing didn’t amount to much, and even if his poison could still hurt him, he could still fight.

Jellal’s minions (Erza’s friends, he tried to correct himself) all attempted to join the fray as well, tubes and bullets and even a playing card flying in their direction. However, a burst of magic energy swept their initial wave of projectiles into the ground. Ether control, Acnologia called it. A fancy way of saying that he could manipulate ether itself.

Acnologia was soon busy with the crazy swordswoman, though, and the oldest of the kids disappeared.

Erik knew that Erza was ready to fight, that she would, but that she had no desire to hurt any of the four. Erik himself wasn’t keen on beating up kids, but they also needed a good kick in the face after choosing to listen to Jellal’s bullshit. Knowing that they played along even when they knew Jellal was being conniving hurt, but he wasn’t surprised.

So when Erza pointed her swords at the owl-man that took to the air on a jetpack of all things, Erik turned his attention to the young ones. The cat-girl tried again with the tubes, but they were slow and easy to dodge. He grabbed one, not liking how he lost some of his hearing the moment he touched it, but it was worth it to yank her off balance. The magic-cancelling effect of her magic was the most problematic, because Erik wasn’t sure if even Acnologia could eat that stuff, and he knew that the dragon would avoid conflict with the kids lest he accidentally hurt them more than intended.

He released the tube, watching Millianna’s wide eyes as she tumbled on top of the pipsqueak, Shou, when the room went black. Perfectly pitch black, like someone flipped the switch on the sun itself, and it threw Erik from his bearings for a split second, unnerved by the intensity of the darkness. Right, that guy—Simon—had shadow magic, didn’t he? Rogue’s magic had reminded him of it, though Rogue could turn into shadows as well, not just use them.

It didn’t matter. It was dark, not silent. Erik closed his eyes to better his focus and latched onto the sounds—both familiar and unfamiliar. He could place Acnologia immediately, his drum-like heartbeat more constant in the rise of battle, and Erza’s fierce breaths and clinking armor stood out like a beacon. He knew where his allies were, so he knew where everyone else was by default.

Erik heard Erza’s swords falter and miss, hitting the floor and ceiling, while the owl-guy crashed into the side wall. The swordswoman cursed sharply in her head, and the other kids stumbled but hung back, trusting Simon to handle the fight. The magic hindered everyone, despite being used to the advantage by the supposedly larger side. Everybody except for Erik and Acnologia, perhaps, and the guy who cast it.

Ha. It was their mistake. Unfortunately, it looked like Fukuro was adjusting fairly well to the darkness, based on how he righted his jetpack, but the playing field was still more even than expected. The owl-man dove for Erza, but Erik yanked her out of the way, kicking the incoming form in the chest as he passed and altering his course. The guy was massive, unfortunately, so Erik wasn’t surprised when he corrected himself again quickly.

“Erza, on your right!” he hissed, and she rolled to her side, swords in her place. A blast of magic fizzled against the steel, but some of the attack must have hit him, or at least his jetpack, based on the clanging.

“Stand back,” Erza warned. She had an idea. Oh, that was smart—she didn’t have to worry about lack of vision of if she was protecting all her sides, and she trusted (correctly) that Erik and Acnologia both wouldn’t be caught in her crossfire.

Erik jumped back and Erza’s swords circled around her. “Dance, my blades!” she chanted, and Fukuro was forced into the defensive as blades whipped through the air.

He heard something shift behind him, and Erik rounded a kick in its direction, his boot connecting with someone’s stomach. They stumbled backwards with a grunt, but didn’t fall, and Erik realized how massive they were. He dug into his magic and listened, quickly identifying the assailant as Simon. He should have figured.

Did he hear me? Simon wondered, and Erik noticed how most of the other teen’s thoughts were laced with worry. They weren’t all coherent, but Erza and Jellal were commonplace.

Simon moved for Erik again, from the right, causing Erik to roll to the side. Simon was fast for how tall and wide he already was, but Erik was fast too, and he had some warning beforehand. He managed to avoid all of Simon’s attacks, and land some of his own, even if they were just jabs. He couldn’t do much to him physically, and Erik was still unsure how far his poison mist would spread if he used it, and he didn’t want Erza in the crossfire. He also didn’t want to actually kill any of Jellal’s guys, even if just for Erza’s sake. However, it was Simon’s darkness, and it did not hinder him in the slightest; when Erik landed a roundhouse kick to Simon’s side, Simon grabbed his leg before Erik had opportunity to move and yanked his weight out from underneath him.

His breath stuttered out of him as he slammed into floor, Simon leveraging his weight above him. Cubellios, who had been trying to hide in his coat, hissed angrily, and Erik could smell the poison spraying from her mouth.

Erik was used to it—becoming immune to it, even—and Cubellios had only recently learned to do that, so the magic was still weak. It was enough to make Simon loosen his hold on him, so it worked. He punched Simon in the throat, making the taller boy stutter and buying himself time. Erik pulled away and jumped back to his feet, running a hand quickly down Cubellios’ spine to make sure she was unhurt.

It’s definitely him, Simon was thinking, perturbed by Erik’s presence for some reason. What is Brain doing with Erza? I need to get him to tell me. “What are you doing here?” Simon asked aloud, voice more neutral than it was in his head.

How much did these guys know about Brain? Erik had never been able to pick up much from the man himself, since he was very task-oriented when he was around at all, and Erik had been tired enough to ignore the warning signs like power and enough early on. Simon also seemed worried for Erza, not about her, so that lent credence to the idea that not everyone was thrilled with Jellal even if they acted like it. Erik regretted not paying more attention to the others when he was there, but it had been easier to sit on the beach by himself and wonder what it would be like for the waves to wash up and take him.

Ah, but enough about that. It was over now.

“I’m with Erza,” he said carefully, hearing Simon do his best to quietly pad to Erik’s back. He didn’t move yet, lest he give himself away, but his nerves screamed at him to be careful. Simon didn’t think well of him, and he wasn’t holding back as much as he was waiting for the opportunity to strike.

There was a loud clang and a yelp, both from different directions. There was something else, too, but Erik had to focus on Simon moving behind him, shifting his weight into a better position. Simon was still deliberating his words, so Erik didn’t move quite yet. Unfortunately, his vagueness for the sake of Fairy Tail was turning around to bite him in the ass when Simon grew more suspicious, and—

Incoming, a voice projected somewhere, though not to him. A voice that shouldn’t be involved in this fight yet.

Erik located Acnologia, hearing his annoyance at the distance the woman kept putting between herself and him, as well as the fact that apparently the kids were taking pot-shots at him. “Acno!” he called warningly. “They’re coming!”

Shit, was Acno’s clear and perturbed reply. However, before Erik or Acnologia could properly consider the implications of Jellal, and by extension the strangers with him, joining the now full-fledged battle, the attack came.

Someone screamed. Something screamed, would be more accurate to say, because it shook every nerve in his body and slapped them around for good measure, whiting out his vision—which was impressive because everything was pitch black.

A fist slammed into his back, and Simon pressed him to the ground, bending his arm behind him. Erik was pretty sure he might have screamed, feeling his shoulder tear away from where it should have been. Damn, why did he have to be such a massive brute?! If Simon said something, whether aloud or to himself, Erik would never know; his ears were still ringing, echoing that awful screeching sound. He wasn’t sure where Cubellios was, because he couldn’t feel her anymore, and it freaked him out.

It didn’t matter if it would burn him or hurt Simon more than it should have. He needed to move. Erik summoned forth the poison to his hands and to his back, the ease of practice beginning to take effect.

Simon’s grip on him tightened, desperate despite the acidic poison he was radiating, but then something threw Simon off of him entirely.

—o0o—

Erza hated not being able to see, and she knew that she couldn’t hear or even smell as well as Erik and Acnologia could, but she would be damned if she let any of that stop her.

Erik helped her get her bearings at the start of the fight, and in the end, she was glad that she started with her Heaven’s Wheel armor. It helped her control a multitude of swords with less devoted focus than she would have needed otherwise, and the array of swords acted as both weapon and shield.

She didn’t move far from her spot for fear that she may hit an ally with her attacks. She trusted that they were fine and wouldn’t stray into her swords’ paths on their own, but Erza understood the dangers of multiple obstacles in battle.

Fukuro, as this stranger went by, was clearly a skilled combatant. He made no reckless move against her blades, only testing them—and by extension her—as he flew around them. When he did strike, it was quick and in passing, prodding at her defenses slowly. Many of her swords already broke to his laser strikes, as she felt them vanish from this realm.

Two more swords cracked from underneath her grip on them. Erza summoned another in its place, flicking her wrist. “Trinity Sword!” The replacement, as well as the two flanking the previous ones, slashed towards each other at immense speed, slicing the hair.

“Hoo-hoo!”

She heard Fukuro hoot in pain, but still he moved, and a laser came for her not a second later, piercing through her protective blade dance. “Requip!”

Erza had recently acquired a defensive set, forged in the ore-rich kingdom of Joya. It was unusual to her fighting style, but Erza had come to realize its importance.

The laser, concentrated though it was, glanced off her Adamantine Armor. It made for clunky movement, but she re-equipped her Heaven’s Wheel armor immediately after the blow, summoning back her swords.

Then the sound happened, like a scream from hell itself. It pierced her to the core and distracted her from the second incoming laser attack. Erza tumbled backward with a cry, her swords sent forward to barrage Fukuro in an attempt to gain her bearings.

The world was still dark, and now her hearing had worsened. Fukuro, based on his continued attacks, seem unaffected by both, so Erza was left to rely on the feeling of her swords through space to both locate him and defend against him.

Until the blackness seeped away. It was sucked up like a vortex to a single point, and Erza was startled enough to whip her gaze to the source, blinking away the spots from the suddenly returned light.

Acnologia inhaled the darkness magic. The swordswoman, Ikaruga, was sprawled out on the floor, completely still, and Millianna, Wally, and Shou were piled on top of each other, though still conscious and squirming. It took a few seconds to remove the darkness spell, but it was baffling to see Acnologia remove the chamber-wide effect in such a way. To cancel such a large spell… Not to mention that the swordswoman had been too fast for even Erza to follow, yet she lay defeated while Erza could barely scratch her opponent.

The S-Class mage turned his head toward her, eyes sharp and practically glowing with the magic he consumed. “Take Erik and go find Mest!”

She faltered for a moment, gaze lingering on the three near him. It hurt her deeply that they would choose to attack her rather than listen, but… A part of her always expected that outcome. She could put her faith in Acnologia to take care of them, and to cover for her.

Erza turned, spotting Erik quickly. Fukuro made a move for her exposed back, but there was a streak of blue and she knew that Acnologia had it covered.

It was Simon that assaulted him, and Erza ignored the constricting feeling in her chest as the sight of her friend, once so kind and gentle, wrenching Erik into the floor. It was easy to shove aside in light of the anger she felt bubble up within her. Her armor changed again, this time with a single cutlass in hand and black wings to propel her. She rammed into Simon with her shoulder pad, holding her breath as she passed through Erik’s magic.

They tumbled on the ground a couple of times, but at a flash of purple in the corner of her vision, Erza twisted so she could throw Simon off entirely and she stopped her momentum. For a moment, she contemplated the merits of continuing the battle. She did not want to fight Simon, but she would. In this moment, she had enough drive to. Perhaps she could even demand answers from him, to beg and scream, and at least attempt to reason. Surely if anyone could be reasoned with, it was Simon.

But she had a task before her. If the Tower was as dangerous as it seemed, it was her duty as a guild mage to see it end, and it her duty as a Fairy Tail mage to protect her nakama—whether they bore the fairy emblem yet or not.

Erza scooped Cubellios off of the floor, careful in case the snake bore injury, lifted Erik onto her shoulder, and she took off.

Erik scrambled to hold onto her, and realizing that she was flying fast, she slowed around the corner and set him down.

“Thanks,” he breathed, one hand rising to rub his ear, “but what the hell?”

“Acnologia is worried about Mest,” she relayed quickly, a little surprised that Erik hadn’t heard it himself. However, she had an idea as to why when Erik winced and pulled at his ears again. “Sound attack?” she asked, pointing at her own ears. They were ringing, but the sting was lessening now that her armor was fortifying her body’s functions.

“Yeah,” he replied after a moment, and she frowned in sympathy. “Yeah, it’s ringing like there’s a whole belltower in there, but I can manage.”

Cubellios squirmed in her arms, having wrapped herself around her bicep to steady herself. Erza was glad that the snake seemed unharmed, or at the very least alright. Erza petted her head and helped her bridge the gap between herself and Erik, watching as the boy visibly sagged in relief at seeing her intact.

She turned her attention to the way they just came, wondering if she was dreading or hoping for Simon to appear in chase. Nothing happened in that moment, but they couldn’t afford to wait either way. She wanted to go upstairs less, but she would do what had to be done.

“Let’s hurry.”

—o0o—

Erik’s shoulder still hurt like hell, but it was manageable. The loss of hearing was more unnerving, but he could hear the unspoken better than the literal, so he could still navigate and communicate now that it wasn’t pitch black anymore. He really hoped that Erza had thrown Simon far, because he didn’t think he could handle a loss of sense again in this state, and fuck him for being so obstinate and huge. If he was so concerned about Erza, he could have rubbed two brain cells together and realize that Erik was obviously not connected to Brain anymore, otherwise he never would have been on that island.

But anyway.

They found the stairs again and ran up them, seeking to find the control room based on Mest’s vague description alone. Well, Erik ran—Erza flew, because she apparently had flying armor, which was really cool, but also hard to keep up with.

“Damn this thing is tall,” Erik muttered angrily, unable to avoid voicing the thought as they had to change stairwells for the third time.

Erza looked behind her, eyebrows drawn in worried confusion. Wouldn’t he know? Didn’t he help continue building— “—uild it?”

He got the gist. “Yeah, we all kept building it, but even though I hated this thing, I wouldn’t have built stairs in five different fucking places!” It was aggravating. He had no idea who did it, though, so it was possible he was being overly judgemental. “I just managed to stick to landscaping, though, so what would I know?”

Her worry turned to surprise. Landscaping? The terraces were lovely. “—ant … the bushes?” Or were they shrubs?

It took him a moment to figure out that she meant the plants running along the edge. “…I was trying really hard to attract more birds.” Putting them in a pattern and trimming them was just because he was bored. Really. Sadly, the rise in birds was low, and they were still stuck eating fish more times than not.

Man, did he hate fish.

Erza tried to stifle a laugh, but she quickly failed, and Erik managed to hear most all of it. He rolled his eyes pointedly, unbothered by the amusement the other redhead found in his failed attempt at expanding their diet. At least it had been somewhat enjoyable as a way to pass the time, and Erik had the satisfaction of knowing that it was all pointless for the function of the Tower anyway.

They were halfway up what Erik really hoped was the last stairwell when he heard it: There you are. He missed the signs of arrival, but the echo of his presence of reached him all the same when Erik searched for it past the ringing.

“From above!” Erik warned, and Erza gripped her sword and dashed upwards.

“Moon Flash!” She swiped her blade and an arc of magic burst from its path, and he heard the resounding cry of their would-be assailant. The stairs above them crumbled from the impact, but it sent the man flying as well.

Erik noticed his ridiculously long hair as he kicked off from the railing to ram the man into the opposite flight. That must be the second guy Mest saw that was with Jellal. Damn, if he was here, and Jellal had sent them, then that must be that Mest was fighting Jellal and the chick—or he already lost, by now.

Unfortunately, it meant that it was either this guy or the chick that was responsible for the sound attack, and based on the guitar at his side, it was willing to bet it was this one. He was still winded by Erza’s attack, and Erik’s quick glance over revealed that he was already in bad shape (as well as had a terrible sense of fashion), with his right arm pierced and bloody and a gash in his side.

Erik reinforced his fist with poison and went in to destroy the guitar first, but the guy’s black hair moved of its own accord and crashed into Erik, tangling him above the drop. “Nah-uh, ya’ little creep,” the man sneered. He broke into a crazed laugh, pain and insanity lacing his voice. “Now go to hell!”

“You first, scoundrel!”

Erza swooped down with an arc of her sword, her boot colliding with the creep’s face. Erik really wished she didn’t have to cut the magic hair while he was in a position to fall to the bottom of the flight, however.

“GAH!” Erik managed to latch onto the bottom of the rail with his good arm and swing himself onto the flight below them, skidding into the wall. Damn, flying was really convenient, wasn’t it?

He could hear Erza’s sword continuously cutting through hair above him. Whatever that clown-face was doing, his magic hair wasn’t being stopped that easily. Erik was in a good position to hit his blindside, however. Hopefully Acnologia would go easy on him for being reckless with his magic, but no one expected the fight to be this intense anyway, and Erik had been practicing. He wasn’t sure if the adrenaline of the fight was suppressing his pain response, but it was whatever.

“Erza, below you!” he warned, before summoning his magic. Erik had seen some of the other slayers do this, so he figured it was a standard spell, but an effective one. Shouldn’t be too hard. “Poison dragon claw!”

A tail of reddish mist coalesced around his fist, and he swung upwards. It cracked the metal steps and seeped through the openings, erupting on the other side. He heard Erza’s battle cry as she entered a new counterattack in the wake of his, and then suddenly a force was slamming him back into the wall from his backside.

Have to stop him this time, came the muddled thought. Shit, it was Simon again. Why did a huge teen like him have to be so damn quiet?! Erik once again cursed the clown-faced guitar man for the attempt at busting his sensitive eardrums, but at least he could hear Simon once he focused.

He swung his elbow backwards into the crook of Simon’s outstretched arm, eliciting a cry from the other teen and allowing Erik to slip from his grip. Cubellios wrapped around his shoulders tightly, hissing angrily. Erik ducked Simon’s attempt at a recovery strike and bolstered Cubellios’ warning mist with a magic-boosted jab of his own.

Even privy to his thoughts, Erik had no idea what was going through Simon’s mind. He was relentless. He was tired. He was desperate. He was angry. At what, Erik couldn’t determine, and he was beginning to think that Simon couldn’t articulate it.

He was stuck.

The fight drained from him. Shit. That had been Erik, barely two weeks ago. He had been scared of Brain and his intentions, but he didn’t think he had a choice but to get stronger and join Brain and his crusade anyway. He had taken his frustration out on the first person he had the luck to find, but that had been Acnologia, and the dragon-man quickly sucked all of the fight out of him. It was so obvious now that Erik could just…run away. Leave. Granted, he might not have managed it on his own, not with Brain apparently tracking him, but being given the option explicitly helped him realize how little he wanted what Brain offered.

He understood Simon. Unfortunately, Erik was the one who frustration was being taken out on, and he narrowly dodged another punch aimed for his head. “H-hey!” Erik tried, deflecting the second blow with his forearm. “Whatever you think I’m here for, that’s not it!”

Trying to persuade me now? Hm. “Like you would tell me.”

Well damn, that was bitter. Simon just brought his knee up in attempt to crush his sternum, but Erik saw the appendage coming and slid out of the way. Not much he could do about the burst of dark magic that came for him moments after, but it was fine. Much weaker than Brain’s.

“I’m not with Brain anymore,” he tried again, attempting to deflect Simon’s next spell with his poison like Brain had been convinced he could do. Right after the surgery. Not that it was super successful this time either, but it saved his face in exchange for his arm.

“Erik!”

His attention turned to the cry from above, Erza swooping down to the flight he was on, white wings and a halo of swords around her. “Switch!” she called. I will handle Simon (my fault)—keeps regrowing hair anyway.

The thoughts were a little muddled in the moment of action, but Erik understood enough. Erza would confront Simon, and Erik’s toxic magic could perhaps stop the mostly-down assassin once and for all. “Got it.”

Erik used Erza’s entrance to cover him as he leaped to the opposite stairwell, craning his neck to find the long-haired bastard.

A warning hiss from Cubellios in his ear, Erik was able to spot the black tendril before it was too late, diving out of the way. It bent to follow, but Erik grabbed it once he had better preparation and poured his magic into the hair. It dissolved and burned, all the way to the source.

The assassin, as Erza’s thoughts indicated, stood on the railing of the flight diagonally above him. More lacerations joined his side-wound and shredded arm, and his guitar was nowhere to be seen. Erza must have finished it off. Good.

Honestly, the man looked like he was barely standing, but there was a rage and craziness in his eyes that burned fierce enough to keep him standing despite it all. “So, this is what hell feels like!” he laughed, loud enough to make his recovering ears pang again. “It’s invigorating!”

“Can-it, clown,” Erik growled, already sick of the man’s constant mental rambling now that he focused in on it. He was going on adrenaline alone, surely, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Erik grabbed the railing of the flight directly above him, swinging up onto it while twisting to avoid the sloppy hair attack. He might be a malnourished twig, but at least he was limber, damnit. Positioning his heel on the other side of the rail, he grabbed the hair and yanked.

As he suspected, the man was harried enough to fall for the simple movement, and he tumbled forward. It was a gamble whether or not he would correct himself on the ledge where he had the better vantage point or come over to where Erik was—and yep, he correctly ascertained that the guy was nuts and would come for Erik. Excellent.

“I’ll bring you to hell with me!” he screamed, hair growing around him.

“Hm, yeah, pass.”

He was far enough away from the other two now, and he really didn’t feel bad about hurting the screaming clown wacko. He wouldn’t be able to grow back his hair if it’s all gone. Erik let the poison burst out from within him, and everything turned red.

—o0o—

Erza was ready.

As intimidating as it had been, she was now thankful to whatever gods may be watching over her, even if it was just the Fairy Tail ancestors, that she had the opportunity to confront Simon. If there was anyone, besides Jellal, that could bring her closure, it was him. He had never been one to blindly follow Jellal, so if he was allied with him despite his insanity now, it proved that they changed. That…she didn’t need to take responsibility for their path.

It may be painful, but she had to do it. This was why she needed to come—Erik, too, for that matter. She knew, deep down, that Acnologia could have handled things just as well on his own, but she glad that he had given them this chance to see it for themselves.

Her fight with the man who named himself Vivaldus the assassin had been going nowhere. She could cut through his hair effortlessly, but he always grew it back. Even when she flirted with the idea of piercing his heart—he was dark guild scum anyway—he would protect his vitals over and over again. She needed to be faster with her blades, because evidently, she was still too slow.

Erik’s attack had damaged the hair, leading the assassin to bemoan absorbing toxic things into it. She wasn’t so prideful that she didn’t recognize that Erik would be better suited for this fight than she was—unfortunately, it seemed that her friend was occupied in another fight.

It didn’t take much to figure out that it had to be Simon. She recognized the dark magic he used already.

“Erik!” she called, deciding what she needed to do and fortifying herself for it. “Switch!”

He caught her intention instantly, and he cleared a path for her, and she swept him, having made sure to knock the assassin off balance on the way down.

Simon’s visible eye widened in surprise as she requipped midair, changing to her Armadura armor to meet Simon with a blade embedded to the wall to each side of his head.

“If you have problem with me,” she declared. “Then take it out on me.”

Simon simply stared for a moment, making no immediate move to attack her. “Erza…”

Her conviction wavered at the lack of anger in his voice. As much as she dreaded it, it would be easier if he hated her. If he was gone.

No! What was she thinking? She wanted to save them. She wanted them…to be happy.

“How did…?” she whispered, voice thick. Erza wasn’t even sure it was the right question to ask, but she wanted to know, and Simon was here, not attacking her for this moment, so she took her chance. Grip trembling on her blades, she stared him in the eye, refusing to allow herself to look away. “Why are you still with Jellal?”

Simon met her gaze, dark eye nearly expressionless. Simon had always been well-collected, but robbed of most of his facial features, she couldn’t read him at all. “How did Jellal convince us to stay, you mean?”

He snorted quietly in that little half-hearted laugh he always did at her bewilderment of having her initial question pulled out so easily. “You always wore your heart on your sleeve, Erza. Besides, I know how strange this must look.

“After Jellal burned the boats—”

“You knew that was him?” she interrupted sharply. Erik said Jellal blamed her, but Erik was a walking lie-detector, so he seemed to be an outlier for some reason.

Simon nodded once. “The others never figured it out, but Jellal was off. Besides, even if you did burn the boats, Jellal never would have blamed you. He never used to blame you for anything.”

Erza felt her eyes sting. Whether it was because Simon believed her, or the memory of how Jellal used to be so aggravatingly selfless, she didn’t know. Maybe both.

“Everyone followed him, no matter how bizarre the request,” Simon continued, voice soft but weary. “I thought he was up to something, but I was never in a position to put a stop to him. I’m sorry, Erza.”

“No,” she rebutted. “I should be apologizing to you. I never tried to come back. I— I was scared Jellal would hurt you because of me.”

“Then why are you here?” he asked, moving a hand to place on hers, still on her blade. He had grown, but he was still so gentle. “You never should have come back here.”

She froze. There was an edge to his voice, despite his usual sincerity, that cut deep. It seemed he didn’t want her here after all. To think, she had begun to hope that it wasn’t as she feared. However, it didn’t change her goal. It couldn’t. Erza wanted to save their hearts, but she would settle for their lives if it came down to it. “I came here to tear down the Tower.”

This time, she recognized the surprise that crossed his face. “But you were with that Erik kid. I had thought… I thought that they got to you, too.”

He thought that… The pieces clicked together, and Erza felt some level of horror and rage swell up inside of her. First, Millianna’s comment about Jellal getting “rid” of him, and then Simon thinking that she was dragged into whatever he had been… They knew that this Brain figure was malicious. They all did. Yet none of them were concerned—not even Simon and the concern he gave to her.

She tightened her grip on the blade underneath Simon’s hand and yanked it out of the wall, shaking his hand off in the process. “Erik is with me. He’s here to tear down the Tower with us, and he has nothing to do with that fiend you speak of. If anyone has ill intent for him, they will have to go through Fairy Tail first.” Because even if he had only just arrived, and he hadn’t accepted his guild mark yet, she knew that it was only a matter of time. He was already one of them in her book, and as a guildmate, she would stand up for him. No questions asked.

Simon held up his hands placatingly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just worried. I don’t know what deal Jellal made with them, but I didn’t trust that man from the start. It was too convenient. And…I just want you to be safe, Erza. It’s not safe for you here. Trust me. Please.”

“It’s not safe for anyone here,” she declared, softening at his worry, but not entirely. She was still mad. Not at Simon, necessarily, but at the injustice of it all. So many people had been hurt by this Tower. Even with the cultists gone, still, the Tower continued to hurt. To make anyone tainted by its shadow suffer, like a wraith only out for vengeance.

She wanted to free her friends from it once and for all. She wanted to make this ghost die.

“Now.” She yanked the second sword out of the wall, shifting back into her Blackwing armor. She saw that Erik’s fight was over, the sounds of it ceasing, and they still had to find Mest, unless Acnologia had already finished his fight and made it to Mest first. Erza held out her now free hand to Simon, still hoping to take him—and anyone—along with her to the light of freedom that she could. “I have friends to check up on.”

This time, his head tilted down to look at her better, Erza could see his mouth curl into a small smile as he took her hand.

Chapter Text

“Black and blue I crawl along
The wreckage of what now is gone
Back to you to fight another day
I’ll go on and on and on and on”

—CFO$, "Black and Blue"

Ultear was no stranger to patience.

She was patient when she learned magic. She was patient when she poured through texts to piece together the mysterious texts left behind by Zeref. She was patient when she waited in that hell as they made her stronger just so could raze the place to the ground.

The R-System was a tedious endeavor, needing vast amounts of resources and a careful guiding hand to ensure that every pawn worked as it should. It was not going to be difficult to manipulate these events to come to be: she just needed to push along these children and one day, the council, to do Grimoire Heart’s bidding when the time came.

And time was something Ultear had plenty of.

Still, it was annoying that somehow a group of pesky mages bypassed the sensor ring placed around the island’s perimeter to detect vessels that got too close. It was preposterous. Master Hades himself helped with those wards, and not even spatial mages could pinpoint the miniscule island without knowing exactly where it was.

“You’re sure you sense intruders at the bottom level?” she pressed Jellal once more, tone sharp.

He gave her a bewildered look, and Ultear remembered that she was supposed to be the starstruck Zeref worshipper that believed Jellal was the ‘chosen one’ for her lord’s resurrection. She softened her gaze and attempted to look more worried, even though she wasn’t. Just annoyed.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he snapped. “The— the Tower of Heaven is beginning to sustain damage.” Jellal held his hands to the wall, frowning in worry and displeasure at what he felt down below. “We have to stop them from destroying the Tower!”

“No, you stay here,” she retorted. Jellal, the dear little boy, aimed his clouded olive eyes at her, and with an internal sigh she realized she was going to have to convince him with flattery, or with what he believed to be the voice of Zeref. (Oh, poor fool, if only he knew how much of a blessing and a miracle it would truly be for Zeref to speak to them from the beyond.)

“But the Tower—”

“Will be fine, my lord.” Ultear molded a brilliant smile for the deranged boy. Oh, the spell Master Hades created to puppet the gifted little mage was masterful, but his forced hyper-fixation on Zeref and the R-System was irritating at times in its extremity. At least it allowed her and the other Baram Alliance members to easily use his enthusiasm to their various advantages, although it should be known that this was Grimoire Heart’s operation first and foremost, Brain’s funding aside.

“However, all of the vital components are up here. If anything gets cracked by some little squabbles down there, it’s easily replaceable. There is no need for someone as esteemed as yourself to get involved needlessly. Please, allow us to prove our dedication to the Tower of Heaven.”

Jellal was too valuable a pawn to lose over something unforeseen, on the slight chance that this was more than a minor inconvenience. Not only would it be a shame to waste such an intricate mind alteration spell, especially one that allowed her vocal access to his thoughts, but he was such a rare specimen. Not unlike herself, the boy was born with incredible magic. It wasn’t as strong or body breaking as hers had been, but Jellal’s was pure, able to grab onto the basest of magic. It would have been a waste to use him as a mere construction slave.

It was a good thing Master Hades noticed those peons’ project and devised a plan to take it from them, because they might have messed up the entire R-System in their lack of understanding. They took the plans and interpreted the activation cost as great magic and great bloodshed. It was clear that they intended to feed the remaining slaves to the system in the end, in hopes that it would be enough. However, not only did they have no plan for the sheer amount of magic truly needed, but their blood cost was not enough either. For Zeref’s texts made two mentions: one, for a great amount of life energy needed to imbue upon the gathered magical energy, and two, for a specific type of life energy to pull the project together. It was admittedly unclear what the great Black Mage meant by the cornerstone blood sacrifice, but in her studies, it was determined that it would have to be a link between the life energy of the sacrificed souls and the magic, meaning that the cornerstone sacrifice would have to be a mage of a very specific resonance. It was pure fate that Jellal had already been there, because it was clear from his magical presence that the boy could fulfill that final sacrifice.

She altered the plans as she saw fit. He and the lackies he brought with him could believe that only a single, powerful sacrifice was needed, and she would let him carry on with whatever plan he saw fit. It only mattered that she made sure that, in the end, it was his body broken over the control lacrima. They couldn’t afford to lose him any sooner.

Jellal drew his eyebrows together in thought, but the child accepted her words in the end. “Very well,” he conceded. “Vidaldus—if you will.”

The Trinity Raven assassin nodded, face splitting into a smile as he let his magic take him straight down through the floor. Those three might be overkill, but she was glad that Jellal agreed to bringing them here as added protection. Master Hades had been the one to pay them, truly, and menial as this task may seem, no dark guild would dare disappoint Grimoire Heart.

It was then that Ultear sensed the magic near them. In a flash, she empowered her orb and sent it hurtling toward every possibility where the intruder might be.

One timeline struck the intruder, and the others converged onto the first and exploded with energy. It knocked the mage out of the air and into her grasp.

The black-haired mage made eye contact with her and he pulled his face from the floor. “Oh shit.”

“Die for your interference, scum.” Ultear aimed her magic and prepared to let it rip the peeping mage apart, but he vanished from the air before it connected.

Damn it! There was a spatial mage!

“I’ll get him,” she growled, now ready for a true fight because he would be a slippery bastard. Jellal was half-way to action, and he looked ready to protest, but she simply ran from the room and let the doors shut behind her. As she climbed the scaffolding to get a better vantage point, she dug into the link and whispered “stay” in the voice he knew as Zeref to make sure he stayed put.

She had not faced teleporters, but she had prepared herself for the possibility. Not even space was immune to time. “Arc of Time, parallel worlds!” she cried, and she flung her orb into the air. It would follow all possible paths, and she felt for where he might have passed through.

There.

Ultear reversed the pocket and space, yanking the mage back to her location. She relished the shocked fear on his face as she met him with a barrage of attacks as soon as he reappeared.

“I said pay.”

“Damn, you really are crazy,” he shrieked, trying to teleport out of her barrage. It was hard to reverse the space’s time in each location, but she had her grip on this entire pocket, so even if he could dodge her attacks, he couldn’t escape.

And he couldn’t dodge forever.

The mage sprung out of the space on top of her, kicking her between the shoulder blades. She cried out—in nothing but surprise, assuredly—and rolled over to meet his smug face. “Infinite sphere!”

The orb struck the man’s stomach and exploded. Her magic was too fast for him to slip out of it, this time, and his body hit the ground listlessly. Good. Ultear readied herself to ensure his death with rewind of his heart, but she stopped herself. They needed to know how he and his crew made it here in the first place, so that they could prevent this from happening again.

It was his loss, really, not to die so painlessly.

She would come back for him, for she was sure that he would not wake up any time soon after a blow like that. For now, Ultear would go and ensure that Trinity Raven eradicated the rest of the intruders. If they hadn’t, yet, then she would finish the job.

She jumped down off of the top of the roof and headed for the scene of attack.

—o0o—

Acnologia knew a lot of magic. Not nearly as many complex spells as mystic mages like Zeref and the like, but he had had plenty of time to perfect techniques according to his elements. That said, he knew many ways to clear a large area when there were multiple enemies—and he could use precisely none of them.

Killing things was easy. Not killing things, especially when they were attacking both him and his kids, was significantly harder.

It didn’t help that the swordswoman, Ikaruga, was actually very skilled in magic and combat. One strike of her sword, and he sensed it was enchanted to the stars and back, and coupled with her fortification, she was a formidable opponent indeed. She even managed to cut him, which was a feat none but dragons had ever achieved. Zeref came close, in that one encounter over a hundred years ago, but he would never tell the Black Mage that. It was just a graze, but it was still impressive. He would guess that her sword would have been capable of striking anyone else down instantly. Too bad for her that it was aimed at a dragon, and it was hard to get the exact magic to disrupt their own.

If he wasn’t paranoid about the existence of manipulation in this situation, he would have killed her immediately, marking her as the biggest threat. However, he needed more information, and he was also loathed to drop a body so easily in front of young children. That was traumatic, theoretically.

“Who are you?” he asked gruffly. He was never one to talk in battle, but there was little else he could do but make her talk and discern her intentions from there. Erik was lucky that he could skip this step altogether and go for the thoughts, but he also didn’t envy the kid for struggling to be able to find quiet places.

“Ikaruga,” she replied easily, smiling as she repositioned her sword and lunged.

The movement was quick and fluid, but his eyes were trained for such matters, and it was easy to side-step the strike with minimal effort. When she repurposed the jab into a swing towards his side, he grabbed the blade and squeezed. Like he suspected, it did not break, not even under his grip, so it was likely made out of sturdier material than traditional swords. He simply yanked her off-balance instead, pulling it forward, but she was more graceful than he gave her credit for and took the movement in stride.

“And as I thought,” she continued, lifting her chin to appraise him. Her voice was calm, but her breath shook with poorly contained emotion. She was pissed. “You are no ordinary mage. Who, pray tell, are you?”

Ugh, as annoying as they were, he liked the gloaters better. Less interested in him and more ready to spill their intentions. However, as fate would have it, the room turned black with magic nearly instantly, spreading from a source somewhere behind him. One of the tower kids, he presumed, because the owl-man was elsewhere, and he didn’t believe anyone else had entered.

Darkness magic now engulfing the room notwithstanding, it was difficult to differentiate the smells of magics as he usually could. There was something hovering in the air, ever since they entered the tower, that muddled everything. It would say that the tower itself was magic, but there was nothing discernable beyond the wood and stone. Perhaps it was the underlying stench of death, of bodies buried under the surface of the island, not able to decompose in the sand. At least that smell wasn’t as distracting the higher up they went, but there was still something off-putting.

However, the darkness magic was not pervasive, as that magic typically was used. It simply cut out all light from the room, swallowing it before it could appear. Ikaruga was also offput by the spell, despite being cast by an ally, as she tensed, and a gasp stuttered in her throat. There were more sounds of hesitance across the room, though Erza’s fight continued and so did Erik’s.

Hmm. He could remove the spell given a moment—a moment he wasn’t too keen on giving the swordswoman, just in case—but it seemed to be more for their advantage than disadvantage. Erza was smart enough to compensate, and he and Erik did not need to rely on sight to navigate, though Erik was not as adept in smell or taste yet.

“This makes things interesting,” the woman remarked, faux confidence in her voice. “Where the sun doth not shine is the freest of all.”

She swept her blade in a wide attack. He felt the magic as it sliced through the air, hearing the blade whistling. It was too close. The little boy was in the path of the blade, if the magic that laid the path was any indication. It was rough, Acnologia was aware, but he sent a wave of magic into the air and let the resulting whirlwind push the kid back. In turn, he did the same with his other hand, aware that the sword was cutting magic itself and the attack would do little to stop her, but it would give the blade fodder in lieu of him. Or, his clothes, at least.

“Wha—?” she choked. The attack ended in only slicing wind, and he could hear the rage begin to settle in her voice.

“Are you not supposed to be their bodyguard?” he growled, positioning himself now between where the tower kids were and Ikaruga. It left his back open to their attacks, but they couldn’t see shit and their aim was bad. Occasionally, an ether bullet would bounce off of his shoulder blades, but it was of no consequence.

“Perhaps,” Ikaruga replied, her attempt at snideness poor in the midst of her ragged breathing. “But this is only a job. I am an assassin, and there isn’t a mark I haven’t killed.” She laughed unbidden, fingernails scratching against the hilt of her sword. “And you— Ohoho, you, were supposed to fall the first time. And my record is worth more than some brats.”

“Oh, shut up.” He had heard enough. She was not the mastermind but not a victim, just a willing accessory in this business. He could smell the tint of ink from her guild tattoo, and only dark guilds were assassins.

Ikaruga repositioned her blade. The magic gathering around it indicated a strong attack, but it would never come. Acnologia jabbed his palm forward, a straight shot of ether rolling from his body, and her heart was pierced before the attack even started. Her body hit the floor softly. At least nobody had to witness her dying moment in the darkness.

Next, there were the children. However, he could tell from their magic output that they had some fortification built up against magic attacks, as all mages had. Unfortunately, coupled with their alertness, it was not possible to simply down them with sleep magic, the nature of it ill suited against non-relaxed individuals. They wouldn’t go down without a fight, either, Erza having already failed to talk them down. Maybe he could scare them down. It worked with Gajeel, Sting, and Erik, at least.

There was also something else, however. Erza was holding her own against the beastman, and Erik was apparently engaging one of the kids, if the sounds of their battles were any indication. They weren’t making progress, but they were okay. But there was something else, some magic far off, that raised his hackles with pervasive unfamiliarity. It wasn’t in this room, but it was nearby, and Acnologia wanted to locate it before it became a problem.

“Acno!” Erik’s voice, desperate note and all, cut through to him. “They’re coming!”

The implications were instantly clear, and he remembered the unaccounted-for people on the top floor that everyone hoped to deal with later, or at least after these kids were secured.

Shit.

He sensed the incoming mage from the ceiling immediately after, magic present by body muffled. Phase magic. How irritating. Acnologia bent his knees and jumped for the location. He wasn’t sure if it was one of the outsiders or Jellal, but the magical presence dictated that it was likely the former, unless he was wrong about Jellal having an arcane alignment like Mystogan. Meaning that the phasing mage was probably involved in a manner like Ikaruga had been, and if they were a professional, then they could probably survive a single not-full powered punch from Acnologia. Probably. But he wasn’t going to risk the mage hurting his kids first.

A second before Acnologia would have connected the strike, the mage’s phasing magic shifting away to form flesh and blood, the mage’s magic resounded in a burst.

The shrieking noise pierced his ears and momentarily threw off his entire equilibrium, so much so that the shockwave through the air actually managed to toss him backwards. Skies above, he fucking hated sound magic. It didn’t matter that his body was highly resistant to magic if his senses were assaulted directly.

Unable to right himself, Acnologia hit the ground and rolled. He didn’t need to see or hear to rectify this, however.

He inhaled. The ether from the sound magic and the darkness spell was siphoned toward him and the spells dissolved to nothing. The energy the ether gave him helped to ease his ringing ears, but most importantly, it provided a moment of thought while the focus of the room shifted to him in shock.

There were now at least two fronts of this fight, both involving the tower kids and these third-party mages. Jellal and the mysterious girl were unaccounted. The phasing-sound mage was a (frankly, horrifying) adult, and so were Ikaruga and the beastman. If Ikaruga was an assassin hired as a bodyguard, it’s likely at least the beastman is in the same profession. The newcomer could be as well, or he could be higher up on the spectrum, but then if he was, he was either an idiot for coming down here himself or he was playing keep away with the other two. However, Mest was up there, and he would have gotten involved if the three of them got wind of the altercation here. So, either Mest was in active engagement or he was taken out. It hadn’t been long, and teleporters were slippery, so he was willing to bet the former. Still, it was unwise to leave a possibly possessed arcane-aligned teenager and whoever else was deemed important enough to be up there unsupervised, but Acnologia hadn’t properly determined if any tags or links were being used on the kids here, and the beastman and the sound mage were still active. Acnologia didn’t want to send them into danger, especially considering both Erza and Erik were afraid of Jellal, to some degree, but there were more factors on this side of the fight. Besides, if the kids were going to be targeted on behalf of Erza, he was better suited to protect them, and he wouldn’t want her to witness it in the first place. Not to mention that Erik was as susceptible to sound magic as he was, if not more so.

Acnologia would have liked for things to have gone smoother, but he hadn’t been foolish enough to expect it.

As the last bits of ether entered his magic reserves, he met Erza’s wide eyes. “Take Erik and go find Mest!” he called.

Erza nodded and ran. They were sensible kids. They would be fine, he told himself.

Now.

Acnologia summoned ether to his hand and swung his fist. The ether wing attack flew towards the beastman, and with a little conscious redirecting, the magic sliced into his jetpack and cleaved it in two, sending the beastman crashing to the ground before he could attack Erza’s exposed back.

Speaking of exposed backs, the little kids tried to take a shot at his. He could smell their growing fear, but their confidence in their magic proved that they truly had no idea what was happening while it was dark.

Three ether bullets bounced off of his back before something wrapped around his ankle. Damn. Even he was surprised by the use of bane particles in the magic binding, as his external use of magic was abruptly cut off.

A fourth bullet bounced off of his calf. Acnologia met the square-faced boy’s terrified eye as the realization that his magic wouldn’t work on him regardless of Acnologia’s access to magic dawned on him. The sealing effects of bane particles didn’t alter a mage’s resistance to magic, and too bad for them, dragons were highly, highly resistant.

Behind them, he saw the long-haired chalk-faced mage going for another strum of the guitar. Oh hell no. His ears were still ringing, and if something burst, he might get motion sick on his own two feet.

He pulled the captured ankle back, feeling bad as it flung the little girl to the ground, and he used his other foot to tear the binding now that it had been ripped from her hands. His magic released as the seal lost contact, Acnologia used it to propel himself over the kids and towards the guitar. Fingers spread, he swiped downwards in a claw attack. Was it overkill? Probably, but Acnologia made sure not to kill him. He managed to phase the guitar, but his arm was shredded. Worst case scenario, if the man backed down, Acnologia would make sure he wouldn’t bleed out on the floor—though the man’s unnerving laugh-shriek caused by his pain response made Acnologia doubt any hope for innocence.

“Not bad, ya’ bastard,” the man cackled. “But a little Hell isn’t gonna stop me.”

Acnologia narrowed his eyes, arm lighting in swirling ether. The pressure caused by the disruption in the room’s ether did well to make the man pause, but his make-up smeared eyes still shrunk in adrenaline.

“Tell me your business here, and maybe I won’t kill you.”

“Ha! You think you can scare a member of Death’s Head Caucus with death? Death? Shame Ikaruga beat me to Hell, though, but I ain’t gonna go easily!”

Wow, these guys were complete nutjobs. Why did dark guilds have to be so crazy? “Death’s Head Caucus?” he probed tiredly.

The beastman, now grounded, tried to aim a magic attack for him when he wasn’t looking, but the smell of the energy-concentrated heat magic was obvious as soon as the spell started. Acnologia fired an ether arrow at the beam without breaking eye contact with the crazy guitar mage.

“The dark guild with the best name!” he laughed, hair rising behind him. Oh, it was magic too. Body enhancement. Shame, Acnologia couldn’t stop that magic by ingesting it. Not that he was worried about hair, of all things. It wasn’t even coarse Minstrelian hair. That might have been a little worrisome. “And here I thought a long-term job to watch some snot-nosed brats would be boring. Killing guild mages is so much more satisfying.”

“Yeah, no.” Ether wing sliced through the hair that tried to fly towards him, and it would have sliced the dark mage in half if he hadn’t phased through the floor again.

“Who—” One of the kids behind him, the smallest boy, nearly choked on his voice as he addressed Acnologia with shaking knees. “Who are you?”

The beastman was still trying to catch his breath after his last failed magic attack, especially considering the lost of his implement. Acnologia kept an ear on him, as well as vigilance for the escaped guitar mage, while he turned to the kids.

They still had an air of defiance about them, but they were young, and the fear and unease were setting in quick. The oldest and tallest of them was gone, likely having went to engage Erik and Erza, leaving three kids who were all younger than Natsu. The younger boy was so small, he could have been Wendy’s age. Damn. How young had they been when this all started?

“I’m Acnologia,” he replied awkwardly. It had been much easier to reach out to the dragon slayers, because he hadn’t come as a warrior—just a concerned bystander. Sure, Erik had been a surprise, but aside from Erik’s attempt at scaring them away, there had been no battle. It would be harder to convince these three that he truly meant them no harm when there was a corpse behind him. He had been lucky, all those years ago, that Laxus hadn’t realized what he done until years later, when he had time to process it.

“The R-System is dangerous,” he decided to start with instead. “I’m not here to hurt you, or even arrest you. Just to tear down the tower.”

“No!” the girl cried, clenching her fists. “We’re the ones building it and you can’t stop us!”

Wow. What logic.

“And what do you want to do with it? Resurrect a warmonger? Kill hundreds? Blow yourselves up and put a crater in the ocean?” Acnologia prodded, aware that he was perhaps being too harsh to such young ones, but they were also old enough to grasp the concept of murder. Besides, questioning them gave him the pause to sniff them over. There didn’t seem to be any magic tags on them, or any magic but their own, really.

Whatever going on was purely mental.

“But we’re just getting back at the ones who hurt us,” the block-faced boy insisted, though he could tell that the imagery he put in their heads was disconcerting to them. “That’s what Jellal said. We’re building the Tower so we can be the ones in charge, not the people who left us here.”

“The cost will be high, though. And even if you succeed in gaining power, that won’t make you better than the bastards who abused it before you.”

A flash of movement alerted him of the beastman trying to do something again. Acnologia prepped an ether wing on his fist and aimed it for him. “And you! Stay down, or I won’t hold back anymore. I don’t know what a bunch like you are here at a place like this, but I’ll let you walk away alive if you drop this.”

“You-hoo killed Ikaruga,” the beastman remarked, eerily calm but hardened all the same.

“She was intent on killing me, but she sooner would have killed this whole room.” It wasn’t a chance he was willing to take, and between the two of them, her death only made one less murderer. Acnologia knew enough from their battle to know that there was no wool pulled over her eyes in this matter.

“You…” the little one spoke. “You’re with Erza and that other kid, right?” Whether it was Acnologia’s intimidation tactic sinking in, or the fight leaving him, the kid was more timid and curious than disdainful, though the scent of the latter emotion still permeated the room.

“I am. Erza was worried for you. For all of you. And both Erik and Erza don’t want to see this tower hurt anyone else, despite what happened to them. You could learn a thing or two from them.”

The little one bent his head in thought. The girl looked like she had another retort, but he heard the thump of a newcomer behind him. The scent of a potent but unfamiliar magic reached him. It was the same thing he felt briefly earlier. It almost reminded him of spatial magic except something far worse—far more off-putting. So when the mage sent an attack spiraling his way, he used an air blast to shove the kids to the side and dodged it instead.

It followed him.

Well shit.

Something about its smell indicated that an attempt to eat it would be a bad idea, though he couldn’t place what type it was. Even when he darted out of the way right next to the wall, some of the arcs still followed him. It wasn’t ideal, but it had surely lost energy to the air already, and it wasn’t slayer magic. He let it hit him.

Despite its odd properties, it was only magic power in the end, and the collision barely phased him. Even the swordswoman’s blade had done more.

The mage who fired it was a teenage girl, matching the description of the one Mest saw. She was bewildered and furious now, seeing him standing.

“I’ll say it again,” Acnologia sighed, growing weary of fighting all of these kids. “We’re only here for the R-System. It will bring nothing but death, and unless that is what you want, then back away now.”

The teenage girl laughed derisively. “But it’s the resurrection system. It doesn’t bring death; it brings life. And it will bring the greatest mage this wretched land had ever seen back to life to restore it to former glory.”

“There was nothing glorious about the days of old,” he retorted tiredly. It was only full of war. While this present era had its share of prejudice and strife, at least it wasn’t constantly bathed in blood. “And you can’t guarantee that you won’t make things worse. And you can’t pretend to know what you truly sacrifice or bring to life.”

The teenager growled. “What do you know of the ancient things, peon?” She summoned forth her strange magic again, imbuing it into her orb and launching another attack.

She was the only one, at this point. The kids were frozen in their place, eyes wide, and the beastman watched too with pensive gaze.

Acnologia sighed and faced the girl in lieu of answering, though the answer sat in his throat all the same.

Too much.

—o0o—

It was infuriating. The so-called best squad that Death’s Head Caucus had to offer, and they couldn’t handle a handful of guild mages.

There was only one in the room when she arrived. Jellal’s useless brats and Fukuro were doing nothing against him—they weren’t even trying. However, Ultear noticed Ikaruga motionless on the floor, a pool of blood beneath her. Huh. Besting Ikaruga was concerning, as she was easily the strongest of her squad, but she was also a prideful bitch. Must be a fluke, and if it wasn’t, Ultear was stronger still. Let them sit back and watch; they needed a lesson in fear anyway.

And then the dark-skinned mage took her attack to the chest like it was nothing but a child’s first spell.

What the hell?! That attack should have brought him to his knees.

Gritting her teeth, Ultear readied her parallel worlds spell, putting him on the run. He guarded each timeline of her orb with a forearm like they were marbles, but she wasn’t Master Hades’ second in command for nothing. The version of the orb she kept behind she used to channel her time magic, aiming for the ground beneath him. It was stone, and before stone, there was magma.

The mage’s feet sunk into the molten rock, and resistant though mages were, it should tear through him quickly.

His eyes widened as he suddenly sunk down, but instead of painfilled screaming, he only looked annoyed as he stepped out of the area, shoes gone but feet completely unharmed. In the lowlight caused by the molten rock, Ultear swore that his eyes glowed orange as he turned his gaze back to her, and a shiver slid down her spine unbidden. What the hell was he?

No. It must be some magic he was using—some protection spell. Yes, that must be it. She cast luminous minutes and let the mage busy himself with getting pelted while she searched for the cause. There was no visible aura, so it must be something else if he wasn’t constantly putting energy into and oh the bloody hell—!

He was on top of her, having moved through her spell without trouble—having crossed the room faster than she could comprehend. He grabbed her orb and crushed it in a single hand. “Calm down,” he growled. “This doesn’t have to be a fight.”

“Oh, it does, because you can’t leave this place alive,” Ultear laughed, stalling for time. She would use the mage’s sentiment—and his underestimation of her—to his disadvantage. She just needed to figure out how he was protecting himself.

His clothes were simple, though his dark cloak hid half of his body at any given time. There was a guild symbol underneath his arm, and even though it was hard to make out, it looked like Fairy Tail’s. Damnit! It was one of the largest legal mage guilds in the coalition. Their reputation preceded them, even though the guild hadn’t done much to earn immediate concern from Grimoire Heart. They were not as annoying as Phantom Lord, but they had been reported for poking their business in dark guild matters before. Another strike for them, she supposed sourly.

There were more markings, too. Tattoos, perhaps, but they were random and resembled no script, though it was still the closest lead she had in the short time she was given. His eyes were also shaped oddly, but Ultear tried not to look at them lest she give herself away. They were too sharp, and some childish part of her feared that they could read her soul if given the chance.

“Your weapon is gone,” the man sighed, mocking her. “There’s no reason to keep this up. There’s nothing to gain from this.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong,” she sneered. Like she has practiced hundreds of times, Ultear rewound her orb and made it whole again, reaching out to the man’s tattoos as she did so—only to find that they weren’t tattoos at all. It was skin. Like Jellal’s.

Interesting.

“Time magic,” he realized, watching her work with the terrified awe he should have worn from the beginning. Yet, those eyes hardened again, and he had the audacity to try to lecture her once more. “You don’t know the forces you tamper with.”

“How observant.” Her venom slipped out, but it quickly dissolved as she felt her lips pull back in satisfaction. He was observant, but not as much as she was. The mage thought he was clever, hiding a magic item underneath his cloak, but it was nothing she couldn’t reach. “But I know more than you think—like what makes you so strong!”

Ultear latched her magic onto the armband, and with a flick of wrist—a slightly longer one than she anticipated—she reduced the band to scraps and watched as they clattered to the floor. Without the charm, there would be nothing stopping her from tearing his body limb from limb. It was a clever trick on his part, and she understood why Jellal’s leeches didn’t see it, though she was a bit disappointed in the assassin, especially as he was renowned for his powers of planning and observation. Oh well. It was all over now.

The man grimaced, but to her great shock, his lips only twitched up into a simple smirk. “Sorry, but incorrect.”

Then it hit her.

Too late, Ultear realized that there had been no magical signature from the man until his presence poured out like a flood. It was greater than the magical energy of the R-System, and the change in the room’s pressure knocked the air out of her lungs, and her knees even threatened to buckle. Ultear, eyes trained for magic, could practically see the teal-ish blue tendrils burst forth from him, not able to be contained by his comparably small body.

She had never thought she would see a single being with more raw magic than Master Hades, or even herself, or…her mother…until she laid eyes on Lord Zeref himself. Yet, even she knew in that moment that she was outmatched.

With a shaking hand, she returned the armband to its present time, and she saw the runes inscribed on the inside. The language was old and esoteric, but she knew it from texts. It… It was a suppression rune. A fairly complex and sturdy one, but simple all the same.

It wasn’t boosting him or protecting him. It had been doing the opposite, in fact.

He had been holding back all this time.

For the first time since this unexpected attack began, Ultear felt fear. She had prepared for every contingency she could think of, and it had never crossed her mind that she could possibly be so useless. The R-System was ripped from her grasp, from right underneath her, and Ultear was just a child in the shadow of a monster.

The sentiment that held him back aside, Ultear had no doubt that he meant it when he told them that the tower was coming down.

All of those preparations, all of those resources—the planning, the hope. It all amounted to nothing. She had failed.

With an enraged scream, Ultear burst. This stupid tower was all a waste anyway, so she ripped down the walls and let the room dissolve into magma and dust. Telekinetically, she grabbed hold of one of the latent lacrimas within the walls, and she hurled it.

The beast of a mage released a bolt of magic from his hands and dissolved it without sparing a glance in its direction, too busy focusing on her and the horrors she was committing. Ha. Ha. The lacrimas meant to take 2.7 billion edeas of magical power, broken like glass. Sure, the system was incomplete, without a keystone to direct the magical energy evenly, but it all just drove home how useless this endeavor was.

He might have said something else. If he did, she wasn’t paying attention, and she didn’t care. His empty words meant nothing to her, all of his power wasted on killing her dreams. He would pay for this, one day. She would find a way to make him, she swore it.

At least his foolish sentiments were good for something, because Ultear was sooner going to kill herself than lay a scratch on him—so she ran. She felt terrible for doing it, like the coward she used to be when she was small, but it was only pragmatic.

“I will make sure the R-System doesn’t fail, Master.”

Hades looked down at the then twelve-year-old girl with a slight smile. “I’m sure it won’t, with you there. But remember: you are my greatest asset, Ultear. Pull out if you must. Don’t waste your talents on doomed projects.”

Ultear threw open the doors, her feet taking her all of the way to the outside of the tower. She hastily wiped away a tear from her stinging eyes, the heat she created from the stones still burning her vision, and she found her personal ship.

“This is not the end,” she promised. She would research more, learn more magic, and she would find a way. She was the second-hand of Grimoire Heart. They would not be stopped so easily. It would just take more time.

And Ultear was very patient.

—o0o—

Jellal paced the floor, restless.

It was taking longer than he had anticipated. The Tower was still shaking beneath his boots from the occasional attack, and he feared for its sanctity. Not to mention, he hadn’t heard back from any of the others. He wished he was better with telepathy, like Simon was. While his practice with thought projections allowed for easy use of broadcasting, it wasn’t much, as of yet. Unfortunately, it was a skill Ultear was much better at, which is why he was allowing her to teach him in the first place.

He understood the concept of not showing his hand, but the Tower was in peril. All of this work to bring the Tower, and one day Lord Zeref, to life would not be for naught. It couldn’t be. The Tower of Heaven was everything, and while Jellal would spend a thousand lifetimes to see it through if he could, he couldn’t bear to see progress lost on it.

Jellal had almost snapped and left to go check it out himself. The lack of response was troubling. However, he made it halfway across the room before he froze. He was no stranger to being watched, but the weight of a foreign presence set him on edge. It appeared suddenly, and there was something familiar yet so impossible to identify about the entity, though Jellal could only guess that they meant harm to the Tower with their unorthodox entry.

“Show yourself!” he demanded, calling forth magic to sit beneath his skin, waiting for a moment’s notice.

“So, this is the R-System,” the voice said, calm and male.

“The Tower of Heaven,” Jellal corrected automatically, still searching for the source of the voice. The shadows of the room seemed to close in on him, hiding his view, which was a preposterous thought because the Tower wouldn’t act against him like that.

“And you must be the child.”

Before Jellal could bristle at the designation, the figure emerged. He didn’t look like much, maybe an older teenager, with black hair and blacker eyes. He wore a tunic of sorts, and even with Jellal’s limited experience with mundane things like fashion, it looked out of place. The man looked far too calm and composed to be an intruder, but he could be nothing but. He knew of the system, but not the Tower. Jellal didn’t know what kind of threat he posed, but his sense of unease promised a threat. The voice of Zeref was quiet, however, so Jellal was left to deal with the mystery man alone.

“I’m not a child,” he insisted, unsure what else to say. Age was unimportant, useless to the construction of the Tower. He wasn’t even sure how old he was, at this point, but he knew that he wasn’t some insignificant child like the man implied. Yet, Jellal couldn’t help but feel small in his presence.

No. That was a silly feeling. Everyone was small in the shadow of the Tower.

“You must be why he asked. Interesting,” the man mused, and Jellal realized that he was completely ignoring his words in favor of studying him. “They did a number on you.”

“Nobody did anything to me except for the cult, and I killed them,” Jellal blurted, backing away from the strange man as he approached slowly. “I’m the one building this Tower now, for Lord Zeref. You will not get in the way!”

Jellal aimed a blast of magic, starbolt, at the man, but he was gone before the spell connected, appearing instantly on the other side of the room like nothing happened.

“How fascinating. An arcane child. Perhaps they could have made the R-System function after all.”

“I’m building the Tower now!” Jellal tried to shoot another starbolt, but the man simply teleported again.

“No, you’re not,” he chided smoothly. “And perhaps, no one ever will.”

Jellal cried in frustration, preparing a larger, more powerful spell to strike the intruder down. He had no idea the man’s intentions, or even how he got there. He barely knew what he was talking about, and it bothered him. The stranger was a threat to the Tower, and he would go down as such.

Then the man proved himself to be a mage and readied his own spell.

“Gather, o’ river of light guided by fairies…”

Jellal couldn’t move. The magic of the room inverted, and a bright light—brighter, it seemed, than even his own magic—gathered at the ceiling.

“…Shine, in order to perish the fangs of evil…”

He could only watch, mystified and horrified, as the immense magical energy gathered around the man’s raised fist. Then, he opened his thumb, forefinger, and pinky, keeping his middle two fingers down as he swung his hand toward Jellal.

“Fairy Glitter.”

There was a lapse of time, when only his vision was white. Then the energy hit him, coursing through his veins, and Jellal screamed. There was a shooting pain behind his right eye, and in a shuttering gasp, a weight pulled itself through his lungs and throat. Then everything stopped.

Jellal collapsed to the floor. The cold stone on his skin was the only thing he could feel besides the dull throbbing in his head. His breaths were icy, but clear. He could breathe. For some reason, the only thing Jellal could focus on was the fact that he could breathe.

What happened? What was he doing? Jellal pulled himself from the floor and looked around.

Oh. There had been a man there. He was…being attacked? No, he attacked the man. Why? He wasn’t sure. Except the man did do something to him, something terrifyingly powerful, but now its effects left him merely numb, not pained.

What had he been doing here? Jellal recognized the room, but he couldn’t remember what it was for, or why he was there in the first place. His brain processed slowly, as if he was underwater. He was alone, now, so there was no one to ask.

Wait, where were the others?! Were they alright? Had they been attacked too? Jellal pushed his own predicament to the side and made his way to the door on unbalanced legs. Simon, Wally, Millianna, and Shou were all downstairs, somewhere, and the Tower had been attacked—

They were still in the Tower.

They were still in the Tower, even though… Even though Erza had…

Years’ worth of memories clicked into place, sliding out of the fog and shoving out the water in his head. Jellal crashed to his knees.

Oh God. Oh God, what had he done?

Jellal remembered everything. Every bleak moment as a slave, every ray of hope his friends gave him… the time he nearly killed Erza, and then how he treated every survivor as trash and even his friends as pawns. It was like watching someone else. Jellal knew that he was him, that he did all of those things, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember why. What had he been feeling? What possessed him to hurt the ones he loved?

He remembered the disembodied voice in his head, and the eerie magic that bombarded him that day in the punishment chamber.

Jellal could barely turn away from himself as he hurled to the side, the chills of that memory wracking his body. He heaved in a shuddering breath, aware that he could barely breathe past the sobs, but that didn’t matter.

The memory of the voice wasn’t even the worst part.

It was… It was Erza. He… He tried to kill Erza.

He flung her into the sea. He probably had killed Erza.

He killed his best friend.

He killed her. He killed her, begging and innocent, and Jellal couldn’t even understand why. No, he didn’t need a reason. He just did it. He was guilty. He had finally gone mad, like everyone said he would if continued to be optimistic in that hell, and he was calling it heaven like he forgot what it did to him. What it did to his friends, because Jellal let himself be broken by it.

And his friends paid the price. He… How could he have done such things to them? How could he live with himself? How had he lived with himself?

If Jellal had done all of those things, then he didn’t have any remorse left, and that scared him, because he didn’t want to be a monster.

But it was too late for that.

He already turned into one, and it was too late.

Jellal curled in on himself, digging his fingers into his scalp. He might have dug his nails into his skin, but he would have deserved it anyway. He didn’t trust himself to stop. He couldn’t trust himself to do anything. He simply wasn’t to be trusted. He felt the crushing dread and remorse now, but Jellal didn’t know what made that go away in the first place, and he was scared it would happen again.

So Jellal didn’t let himself do anything. He only let himself scream.

Chapter Text

“See? See what you can do? Never mind you can’t tell one letter from another, never mind you born a slave, never mind you lose your name, never mind your daddy dead, never mind nothing. Here, this here, is what a man can do if he puts his mind to it and his back in it. Stop sniveling … Stop picking around the edges of the world. Take advantage, and if you can’t take advantage, take disadvantage. We live here. On this planet, in this nation, in this county right here. Nowhere else! We got a home on this rock, don’t you see! Nobody starving in my home; nobody crying in my home, and if I got a home you got one too!”

—Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (235)

“Uh, what should we do with Baldy, here?”

Erza shook her head, smiling in awe and disbelief. “I can’t believe you managed to take out all of his hair,” she remarked, feeling proud of the boy for some reason. Not that she knew what his magical prowess was before this; for all she knew, Erik could have been superior to her from the start.

She and Simon had finished their confrontation, and Erza had been ready to give Erik a second hand now that Simon wasn’t assaulting them from misunderstanding. But the moment she spotted which flight of stairs they were on, the dark mage dropped to the landing, unconscious and completely stripped of his magic hair, while Erik was still standing.

Erik just shrugged; however, she noticed he did look winded from the fight. She moved closer to him, and he leaned on her for a moment. Cubellios raised her body off of his shoulders and reached over to her; she didn’t know if snakes could smell or not, but she would have guessed that Cubellios was checking her over.

“I think his hair could absorb stuff. Turns out absorbing a poison cloud is bad for hair. Who knew?” he chuckled tiredly.

Simon squinted his one eye at Erik in confusion. “You never had magic before. At least not that,” he stated, an edge to his voice making it seem more like a question. However, Erza had gotten the distinct impression that they weren’t close before all of this, so she didn’t know why Simon would know. Although, Simon was observant, so then again, she wasn’t surprised that the two would watch each other and never speak, even over the span of four years. Honestly, she would have been more surprised if they had, from what she knew of the both of them.

“No, it’s new,” Erik answered. Huh. She would have never known, but perhaps that explained why he acted like he wasn’t ready to join the guild yet. Still, to surpass a foe that she could not, even with new magic, was quite the feat, and her pride in him was justified.

However, Erik frowned and looked down at his arms briefly. She followed his gaze, and even though he quickly shoved his coat back over his forearms, she spotted the burns. When did that happen?! Had it been the fight with the dark mage? She hadn’t thought he had that kind of magic, but still, she let Erik fight him alone with little experience when she hadn’t known—

“Hey,” Erik interjected, cutting off her rambling thoughts. “It’s just because my body is still getting used to my magic. Trust me, for the amount I used, those are minor. It’s getting better.”

She couldn’t help but to huff a laugh to herself. “Was I that obvious?” How Erik managed to know what she was thinking rivaled even Simon and…Jellal. And he only knew her for a week, though maybe that was just proof of how she changed because of Fairy Tail. It was hard to tell.

“Totally. Now…” Erik looked back at the downed opponent. “His heart is still beating so he should still be alive. Probably. I think his hair took the poison for him. I’m impressed he survived Acno, though.” It was true. The man was severely injured, though that hadn’t stopped him from fighting earlier.

“Was that your plan?” Simon asked with a raised brow.

“…If I said ‘yes’ would you believe me?”

“What matters is that he’s down,” Erza cut in, worried that Simon might get suspicious of Erik again for some reason. “Here, let’s just leave him for now. I don’t think he’ll get up anytime soon.”

Erik nodded at her in agreement, though he turned his head back to Simon. “Who were those guys anyway?” he asked.

Simon grunted, and she recognized his head shake as exasperation. “Trinity Raven. Jellal hired them to watch over the Tower for some reason,” he explained. “They’re a top tier team from some ‘dark guild’ apparently, though I’m still unsure what that means. That they’re Zeref supporters, I guess.”

“Dark guilds are mage guilds that got dropped from the coalition, or guilds that never wanted to be legal in the first place,” Erza said with a frown, eyeing the downed man again. “Usually because they insist on illegal activities, or because they broke the treaty and hurt another guild.” She really didn’t like the idea of Jellal getting mixed up with people like that, even though she knew that he already had.

Both of the boys were silent with that information, not that they were the talkative types to begin with.

With that, they kept heading upwards.

Erza, Erik, and Simon made it to the top floor without any more interruptions. For that, Erza was grateful, although it did little for her nerves. She had a little more time to stall, however, because they had yet to find Mest.

“Do you hear where Mest might be?” she asked Erik. He had that far-off concentrating look she often saw him with, back at the guild hall, but his eyebrows were sinking toward each other in either confusion or concern. Was it because of his ringing ears? She hoped they were better now—hers had eased with time—but his were more sensitive. Not to mention that he wasn’t in peak condition after his fight. “Erik?”

“I’m here, I’m here,” came another voice.

Simon jumped into a fighting stance, but Erza stopped him with an arm, relief filling her. “Mest!”

Mest was leaning on Acnologia, appearing winded but not terribly injured. Although, she realized that he could have been far worse off before the medic got to him. Erza was ashamed that they didn’t help him first, like Acnologia had requested, but she was glad that they all made it to the end alive and well.

“Who knew a teenage girl could hit so hard?” he joked, though he noticed her sour look and held up a hand. “I mean, I knew, of course I knew, but she surprised me, okay?”

“Teenage girl?” Erik questioned, pulling himself from whatever thought he was having with some difficulty. “The one from before?”

“Yeah, her.” Mest rolled his shoulder, trying to stand on his own weight but not straying far from Acnologia. “We fought on the roof, because somehow she managed to snag me outta’ subspace. Scary magic, hers is. I only got through a little of her memories, since I went through hers first on a hunch, but she’s really, uh, dedicated.”

“Ultear,” Simon supplied, eyes narrowing. “She’s some Zeref-follower that dumped herself at Jellal’s feet when we started contacting these other organizations and such,” he explained. “She wants to revive Zeref, too, for some reason. I don’t know much about her or her magic—she never associates with anyone but Jellal—but I know she’s strong.”

Erza frowned. She knew that Jellal was in contact with other people—with other bad people—but it hurt to think about, especially some girl throwing herself at him like that, encouraging that madness. It was sickening, and it left Erza winded. “You said she beat you?” she asked Mest instead, trying to focus more on this mysterious girl and less on what she was doing to Jellal—or what Jellal was doing to her…

“Yeah.” Mest grimaced. “I blacked out, too, so I don’t know where she is.”

“Gone,” Acnologia answered. “She attacked me down below. I…tried to calm her down, to get through to her, but she was stuck on the tower. Ran away when she figured out that she couldn’t beat me, though to be honest, she could have done a lot of damage with the way she applied her magic.”

Erza couldn’t imagine what this girl’s magic might be, to even have Acnologia acknowledge it, but she was glad that she at least was gone, for now. Though if she had attacked the room where they started in…

She and Simon must have realized it at the same time, Simon’s shoulders tensing, but Erza beat him to it. “Acnologia! The— The others—Wally, Millianna, and Shou—are they safe?” Even though Erza knew that Acnologia would never hurt them, the collateral had been great in that fight, and the darkness spell had made things even more difficult to control.

To her great relief, he nodded. “They are. A bit spooked, still, but they’re okay. The beastman left, too, so it’s just them down there. They might be coming, but I believe they needed time to process what happened. I… would have stayed and made sure, but I sensed—” Acnologia shut himself off with a shake of the head. “I came up here to find Mest laid out on the roof right after.”

“Yeah, thanks again for that,” Mest huffed, rubbing his stomach absently. There was a hole in his shirt, even though his skin was intact.

“You’re lucky you just suffered abrasions and that nothing ruptured.”

Erza wasn’t surprised that they were processing a great deal, and she wished that she could help some way, but she knew that she didn’t have that right anymore. Besides, Jellal…had always been the better comforter out of the two of them. Maybe Simon would be better suited, though she was not eager to see him leave her side anytime soon. Having him here was a constant reminder that not everything was out of reach for her.

Speaking of, Simon was eyeing Acnologia and Mest with that hardened gaze of his, and she jumped when she realized that she hadn’t told him who they were, or vice versa. “These are my guildmates, Mest and Acnologia,” Erza explained quickly. “They’re here to help. And this is Simon, he’s a friend.”

Acnologia scrutinized him for a beat but ended with a blink and single nod.

“You’re a healer?” Simon questioned.

“I am. My magic is mostly just good for mending wounds, however.”

Simon nodded thoughtfully, and Erza released a breath. At least that went smoothly. She knew Simon had been distrustful of Erik, but she believed he was calming down now that the immediate danger and misunderstanding was out of the way. Simon always was the most thoughtful out of all of them, though it was hard to get him to share his worries.

Now…there was just Jellal. Oh no! What if he left and made true on his promise to hurt the others? And they were alone, too. Panic gripped her throat, and she gripped her sword in turn. “We have to find Jellal. O-or get back to the others,” she said hastily, words jumbled.

“He was still in that room last I saw,” Mest remarked, “but there’s no guarantee he’s still there.”

Erik shook his head, still appearing dazed. “No… I think he’s still in there,” he whispered, eyes wide. “But…”

Erza grabbed Erik’s shoulders, worried by his tone. “‘But’ what? What happened?” Her mind raced with too many possibilities. He was planning something—casting a spell. He was hurt. He was with someone else. He was—

“H-he’s not okay,” was all Erik could manage, doing absolutely nothing to assuage Erza’s worries.

If he was not okay, he was either completely mad or seriously hurt. Had it been that girl? One of the assassins? Did they turn on Jellal, and leave him to die? Or did Jellal do something to himself? Erza was acutely aware, in that moment, of Acnologia’s theory about how something could have been happening to him from the start, and Erza cursed herself. She hadn’t wanted to hold onto hope that she could save Jellal if he was past saving, but if her fear of him had stopped her from getting to Jellal sooner, she would never be able to forgive herself.

“We should hurry,” Acnologia decided, and Erza realized that he was next to Erik now, a grounding hand on his shoulder. Meanwhile, Simon had moved to where she was, and she caught his worried gaze.

She squared her shoulders the best she could. “Of course.”

They made it through the halls and approached the room. It was large and foreboding from the outside alone, but what was worse, was that Erza could hear faint sounds from the other side. Sounds like…sobbing.

“You don’t have to do this,” Simon said softly. “You don’t have to face him.”

Erza managed a small smile. She appreciated his concern, and there was a part of her—still scared—that wanted to take his out. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and Jellal was in trouble. She needed to do this. She needed to know. “Yes, I do.”

She reached the door and pushed it open, beating Acnologia to it. Erza was absolutely terrified of what, or who, she would find on the other side, but Erza knew she had friends behind her, and if she hesitated any longer, she doubted she would find the resolve.

However, no amount of preparation could have readied her for what she saw. It took her fragile heart and snapped it in two, bypassing her armor and her fortitude.

Jellal, the boy she spent the last four years terrified of, was just a little ball on the floor, curled into himself and dry sobbing, his voice hoarse and nearly gone but full of raw anguish. It was such a wrenching sight, and it felt wrong, because Jellal didn’t break. He was always the stronger one.

Only once, had Erza seen him crack. Late at night, when everyone else was asleep, and she nearly had been too, she had woken up from a dream to find him staring into the wall. It had been a long day, and they lost another fellow slave to the pains of labor. He had used a shovel to impale himself, and even though Jellal claimed he hadn’t been there, she knew he saw it. Erza had found Jellal devoid of words for the first time since she had met him, and he had cried silently into her chest until morning came.

She had thought that that was what it looked like to see him broken, but now she knew how wrong she had been.

Erza took a step forward, but her legs froze mid-movement. What if it was a trick? An illusion? The last time that she had saw him, that she had touched him, he nearly killed her. Bile rose in her throat and her legs shook, but she wanted desperately to hold him, to stop his crying, and to wipe the tears from his eyes because they didn’t belong there. Simon’s hand lay on her shoulder, steadying her, and he moved partially in front of her. It was tempting to hide behind his large frame, but her eyes were glued on Jellal.

Jellal, with a shuddering breath, yanked his head upward as the room filled. Tears stained his face, and his eyes were red, and the dark olive eyes that met hers weren’t crazy, just anguished. “Erza?” he whispered, voice barely audible and cracking. “You’re alive?”

Her knees buckled, and it was only Simon’s grip that kept her standing. There was so much hope in his voice, so much pain, and Erza wondered how it ever went away in the first place. She couldn’t answer him, however, her throat swelling against her will.

Acnologia approached Jellal slowly, bare feet silent against the stone. Jellal didn’t look at him until he was crouched next to him, and Erza could see his muted fear.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Acnologia said softly. “I’m just checking you over.” The mage’s hand glowed a soft teal as he held it over Jellal’s body.

“Who’re…?” Jellal could barely finish the sentence.

“A Fairy Tail mage,” he responded, the glow in his hand ceasing. Acnologia met her eyes briefly, and past the sharp lines, they were gentle and sad. “I’m with Erza.”

Acnologia shifted his gaze to Mest and signaled for him to come over. Jellal didn’t move. Head bent, he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t resist. It…was the same way he used to accept punishment whenever the taskmasters got upset.

It looked wrong. All of this was wrong. She should have come sooner. She should have done something, during those four years, because no matter how much he scared her that day, Erza didn’t want to see him like this.

“Jellal,” she tried, the name she struggled to say coming out naturally—desperately. He tensed, but he didn’t look up. She felt the tears crawling up her throat to make it to her eyes. She should have noticed, that day. She should have realized what was wrong, not just that it was wrong.

She moved toward him, but Simon stopped her. “Erza.” Simon turned his eye from Jellal to her, and she could see the furrowed concern. “Be careful. He could be faking this—to try something. He’s good at that.”

“No.”

Erza turned to the person behind her, guilty that she almost forgot Erik was there at all. He was hovering by the door, eyes fixed ahead at the scene just like hers was. He shook his head, meeting her eyes and Simon’s. “He’s not faking that.”

“How would you know?” Simon questioned, and Erik flinched.

“Hey,” she cut in with a whisper, afraid that Jellal would hear them even though she knew how Jellal shut down when he was like this. “Now’s not the time for this.”

There were many what-ifs and regrets that she could juggle—that they all could. Yes, there was a chance that this was a trick, that Jellal was gone and the man in his place was going to rip her heart out this time, instead of just her throat, but what if Jellal had been messed up by something and no one noticed and no one tried to notice, and he was hurting now. Erza could accept her failure if she was wrong, and Jellal really was gone, but she couldn’t accept her failure if she never tried to help him in the first place.

She wasn’t the same scared child she was when this first happened, but she was still Erza Scarlet.

For better or for worse, nobody tried to stop her as she turned around and marched to Jellal. Acnologia watched, still crouched beside him, but he said nothing; in fact, he stood and moved out of the way. She fell to her knees in front of him, close enough to feel his breath, yet still hesitant to touch him. The last time… She could still feel his fingers around her throat, hear his deranged laugh, see his eyes reduced to nothing…

No. This was a second chance. She could get her Jellal back.

“Jellal,” she tried again, voice cracking with tears. “Look at me. Please.”

His fists clenched onto his knees, and for a moment, she was terrified he was going to look at her and she was just going to see those horrible eyes, even though she had just saw Jellal’s face moments ago, but that was from a distance and her anxious mind was already unsure. But when he did look up, his olive-brown eyes were bright and honest, full of tears and pain. It was Jellal.

“Erza, I hurt you,” he sobbed. “I— I-I don’t want to do i-it again. P-please, just—”

Erza lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding onto him like he might disappear. However, Jellal wasn’t an illusion, and his body was real and warm next to hers, and that was all she needed.

Jellal was alive.

Her dam cracked and the tightness that had settled into her throat won. Erza cried. She cried because of the fear she felt all those years; she cried because of the hopelessness she accepted; she cried because she had thought it was too late, that her friends were gone and it was all her fault, but they weren’t; she cried because, whether thanks to the lucky stars above or some God watching over her, she got them back.

For the first time in years, tears ran down both of her cheeks.

—o0o—

Erik was still reeling.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Acnologia when he talked about how magic could warp people’s minds—he just didn’t expect it to play out. Jellal had been crazy, yes, unlike the cunning cultists, but that’s what the Tower did to people. It sucked out their souls and left them empty, and once it was finished with you, it was finished.

Erik had never seen anyone come back from the edge before.

Though he supposed there was a first time for everything. Erik wouldn’t have believed it at all if he hadn’t heard it.

He heard the crying in the distance ever since they reached the top floor but being close had been another matter entirely. It was probably the fight he had beforehand, but it felt like that moment drained him, Jellal’s anguish and fear spilling over the edge in an unstoppable wave. Acnologia had mentioned his magic being empathetic in nature, and Erik hadn’t paid much attention to the implications of that until now.

Just a few days ago, Erik hated Jellal. His mannerisms left him nervous, and his methods were infuriating; not to mention that Erik knew how little they mattered to him. But now… His inner voice was different, and it was broken. It was hard to witness such a sight, to feel his regret and his terror so acutely, and not feel sorry for him. It was like an entirely different person in there.

There was also the matter of what happened. Acnologia promised that he would explain, but Erik couldn’t help but to wonder, especially since there was nothing else to do.

He sat at the back of the boat, on the deck staring back. Watching the Tower recede into the distance was both comforting and unnerving, like watching the forest Acnologia found him in shrink away from atop his back. He did admittedly feel a little queasy, like he had on the boat ride here, but watching the water helped. It was also quiet back there. Cubellios was asleep around his leg in her second favorite position. Mest was with Jellal, searching through his memories, and Erza was likely still glued to his side. Simon was with the three squirts at the helm, since Simon was the one sailing the ship. Acnologia was… well, he was making the last preparations needed to destroy the Tower.

It was still hard to believe that Zeref apparently un-mind-zapped Jellal. Acnologia had seemed sure of it, though, and Erik didn’t doubt his senses. He hadn’t spoken his theory aloud, and Erik knew why, but it was still baffling. Through his knowledge of Erik’s magic, Acnologia had mentally told him that he would confirm it later, but he also hadn’t been concerned about Zeref’s presence, so Erik wasn’t worried either.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. Everyone thought that Zeref either did possess him, or that Jellal just thought Zeref possessed him, but Zeref was actually the one to un-possess him instead. Anyone with two brain cells knew that Acnologia didn’t trust Zeref completely, but Erik also knew of the strange condition of the Black Mage because of Natsu, so it wasn’t like the stories made it out to be. It was still hella’ weird.

He didn’t envy Acnologia in having to explain to Mest and Jellal who the mystery man was. Or if he had to explain how exactly he destroyed the Tower and got back, because Erik knew he was likely going to do it as a dragon.

“I thought you might be out here.”

Erik was not surprised by Erza’s arrival. No, she might have crossed the majority of the deck without his notice, but he heard her before she spoke, so it counted.

“And I thought you would be with Jellal,” he blurted. It might have been blunt, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t understand. He had been her friend—still was, obviously. Erza managed to find people to care about in that hell hole, and he wouldn’t begrudge her for that. In fact, Erik thought it was impressive. Erik had managed to find Cubellios, though most people didn’t count her because she was a snake.

Erza didn’t seem bothered, however. “He wanted to relive some of the memories while Mest went through them,” she explained, looking out to the sea. “He remembers, but it’s fuzzy, though I think he just wants to find ways to blame himself. Mest said it would put him in a sleep-like trance, so I figured it would give me a moment to collect my thoughts.”

She stood beside him, leaning on the railing and staring off at the distance. He knew she spotted the fuzzy shape of the Tower and fixated on it, too.

Neither of them said anything. Erza wasn’t even thinking much. There was just some lingering worry over Jellal and Simon and the others, and thoughts of the Tower. They were both glad to see it go.

Erik was actually glad that Jellal was okay. A part of him had been hoping to smack him in the face, sure, but Jellal no longer being a Tower-obsessed freak meant that Erik had one less person to worry about coming back to bite him. It also…was another piece of proof that coming back from the edge was possible. Erik had been close himself, he knew, before Acnologia and Wendy yanked him from it. Besides, Erik knew what it was like to be manipulated, even though Brain wasn’t using any magic on him (and he would have been paranoid that he had been had Acno not checked him over), and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

He didn’t have the energy to be skeptical anyway. After hearing the stories of Acnologia and Zeref, Jellal wasn’t even that complicated. Simon could cover the skepticism quota by himself, Erik was sure, after catching only glimpses of his still rigid personality, before and after the incident. Not that Erik could blame him, because he had been closer to Jellal and had to spend more time with him being a raving maniac. Erik was fine sitting this one out, and simply letting the events play as they would. He didn’t doubt that Erza would drag Jellal back with her if she could; he knew she would bring all of them back, if she could.

“How do you know, anyway?” Erza asked suddenly, still watching the Tower in the distance.

“Hmm?” For once, Erik had not been paying attention to the person next to him, comfortable enough in the silence.

“About Jellal. You…you said he wasn’t faking it. I think Simon… I think Simon still thinks he is.” She took a deep breath, and the emotion that rolled off of her was too mixed to identify, though he recognized the grief. “A— A part of me worries about the same thing, but every time I see him, I see Jellal as he was, not like the last time I saw him. But how did you know?”

Erik exhaled a laugh. It figured that someone would ask eventually. It was a habit to keep his magic close to his chest, lest he be targeted for it, but the other dragon slayers knew, and they didn’t care, and Erza… Well, she would be his guildmate soon enough. “It’s my magic,” he admitted. “You already know my sense of hearing is above average, even for a dragon slayer, but I…can hear unspoken things, too. People’s thoughts.” At this, Erza turned to him, eyes wide in innocent surprise, and even though there was no judgement in the sound, he found himself backtracking. “It’s not something I do often, o-or on purpose, really. It’s hard to control. But, everyone has like…an inner voice. It’s not always thoughts. When people lie, their head says something different than what they say out loud. Sometimes it’s just…sounds, that create one feeling or another.”

It was hard to verbalize just how those sounds felt, and often, it was a case-by-case thing—something that would invoke an emotion of his own that would sit in his throat or rub against his chest even if it wasn’t his. The empathy-part, he supposed. It wasn’t strong by any means, and Erik didn’t know how much of that part was him and how much was the magic, but it…wasn’t bad. Maybe overwhelming, but not bad.

It was a frankly miserable experience back on the island—at the Tower—when he was suffocating all of the time and constantly hearing dueling voices in people’s heads and hearts, but since coming to Fairy Tail, he had already experienced so many more sounds, and even if it was loud and a lot, much of it was happier. Simpler.

“I heard…Jellal from the top of the stairs, actually,” he continued. “So, I heard it for a while, and before he knew where we were. Hell, he really didn’t notice us until we were in there. And… A-and what he was feeling… It was intense, but it was real. His mind was all over the place, but there was one conviction that was easy to hear, even through everything else.”

“What…what was it?” Erza asked quietly.

It felt like a private thing to share—even Erik felt uncomfortable with the information—but… Well, Erza already knew. Deep down, and on the surface of her thoughts, she already knew.

“He thought he was a monster. That he lost control, and that…it was too late.”

She hung her head, sad but not surprised. “I see.”

They sat in another beat of silence, and Erik just focused on the sound of the waves hitting the side of the ship. It was calming.

“Thank you,” she whispered after a while.

Erik just shrugged, making a noise of acknowledgement. He understood the need to confirm something, even if you already knew. Hell, he was still struggling with Jellal, worrying he was going to pop out somewhere and start ranting about the Tower, and Erik had just witnessed every honest emotion Jellal had like it was a blunt hammer to the face, and one third of those emotions involved a deep fear of the Tower, so that was a thing.

She hit him lightly in the shoulder, amused by his ‘humility’ or whatever it was that she was thinking, before turning back to the horizon. “How do you think he’s going to do it?” she asked instead.

Erik had a few ideas, but none that he would say. Still, he hadn’t actually seen Acnologia at his fullest, so he wasn’t completely sure himself. “Utterly and completely, if I had to guess,” he quipped in lieu of a real theory.

She hummed in amusement, and he realized that she was here, staring at that awful building, for the same reason he was: to watch it go down.

He knew that Acnologia was going to wait for their ship to be far away before doing anything drastic, but while the Tower was far in the distance, it wasn’t hard to spot when you knew what to look for.

Eventually, their patience was rewarded. Erik’s sharp eyes could barely make out the black mass moving against the quickly dimming sky. However, he knew that Erza could see the next part just as well as he could. A beam of bright magic split the sky and engulfed the entirety of Tower, lighting it like a white pyre as it burst within itself.

“Wow,” Erza breathed, eyes fixated on the light in the horizon.

“Yeah,” Erik agreed.

There was just something beautiful and freeing about seeing it go in a blaze.

—o0o—

They reached Hargeon as the sun set. Jellal had technically been there before, once or twice, but even after Mest helped him sort through his…memories, the harbor town seemed so foreign, yet so captivating as it lit up the dark waters and glowed softly in the cool air.

“Hargeon is beautiful at night,” Erza agreed from beside him, somehow knowing what was on his mind. Although, he had always been told by her that he was obvious about his thoughts.

Jellal swallowed. Between carefully combing through his own memories, and Mest showing him some of Ultear’s that he snagged when he spied on the room, Jellal knew that she did something to him. Put…something in him. The thought still made his throat crawl, and his stomach churned threateningly.

Still, he was the one who did those things. He made decisions, and he acted on them, based on the thoughts in his head. It was still him who lied and hurt people. It was still him that…that did that to Erza.

She shouldn’t be near him. He shouldn’t be near her, even though that Acnologia guy had been pretty certain that the mysterious mage, who no one seemed to know, had successfully removed the spell affecting his mind. Mest was too, after spending a while with him going through his head and his memories, but Jellal still couldn’t be sure. He still didn’t know how much of it was him, and how much of it was the spell, and he still didn’t trust himself.

However… He didn’t want to push her away. It was selfish, Jellal knew, but seeing her alive and well next to him was comforting. Heck, she seemed better than she was when he last saw her, and Erza had always been the strongest person he knew. Her eye, which he had been sure was a goner, shone firmly, and there was a radiance about her that spoke of her magical prowess. Most importantly, she was confident in the way she held herself, even if he caught her sending worried glances his way.

She was still scared of him, and he didn’t blame her. He just couldn’t believe that she was still near him. Simon, Wally, Shou, and Millianna didn’t want to. He knew that they were certainly told of what he did to them, and he wasn’t surprised that they had yet to even approach him. Glad, even. They should get away from him as soon as they had the chance, because they could have been lucky enough to receive their freedom while they were still young—younger, at least—and he took that from them. He took that from a lot of people, but even the ones that should have been his friends.

He saw the hard looks Simon kept giving him from the ground as he docked the ship. They were all justified, but he couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. Not yet. So, he positioned himself on the other side of Erza like the coward he was and stalled his thoughts best he could. Not that it was successful.

“What now?” Jellal asked, scanning his eyes over the dock as they pulled in. He couldn’t help but to feel nervous, even though he deserved it. “The Rune Knights?”

“What?” Erza squeaked, whipping around to face him. “No, of course not! Why would you—?”

She stopped when she saw what he did: a Rune Knight ship docked in the harbor. He could make out people moving to and from it in a hustle, like they were preparing it; their white uniforms really made them stand out.

“Aw, hell,” came Mest’s voice, walking up to the railing. “That’s just a coincidence, right?”

“Ummm…” Erik, whom he was also positive was avoiding him, walked up to the other side of Erza, eyeing the Rune Knights. Erik should hate him as much as the others did, if not more, because Erik never wanted to build the Tower and he had never been talked into it, for better or for worse, so Jellal jumped at the first chance he had to get rid of him. Yes, Erik had some choice in the matter, maybe, but Jellal was the one who made the deal with the man that was obviously bad news in hindsight but Jellal hadn’t cared at the time.

Honestly, Jellal was surprised that no one had shoved him into the ocean yet, but he supposed the Rune Knights were a better choice.

“No, they’re definitely looking into the Tower,” Erik confirmed somehow after a moment. “That’s irritating.”

Mest groaned. “Master is gonna be pissed…” The man glanced between all of them, hovering on Jellal but landing on Erik. “How’d they even know? It’s been, like, a few hours.”

Erik shrugged. “Maybe they noticed it go down,” he suggested sourly. “Really makes you wonder how they never noticed it in the first place.”

Jellal wanted to sink into his hoodie. Maybe into the sea. It was hard to tell, but he felt the building pressure of his faults on his chest, and it made it hard to breathe.

“We’ll sort it out,” Erza declared. She still did the thing where she would sound confident, but she gripped something—the railing, in this case—harder than what was natural to stifle her fear. Her grip had certainly gotten stronger, though, because he saw the wood begin to splinter. (Though her grip was always strong; he had gotten bruises to prove it.)

One of the Rune Knights approached Simon and Wally on the dock. He hoped they wouldn’t be accused of anything. There was a chance Simon would take it on himself, which worried him, but Simon was always the honest one, so no doubt he would direct all the blame on Jellal where it belonged.

“I’m on it,” Mest sighed, and suddenly he was gone. There was just a puff of magic in his wake, and he was now beside Simon talking to the Rune Knight.

Jellal mentally prepared himself. As scared as he was of the uncertainty, and of the possibility of being alone completely, he had to be honest. He had to face what he did, even if it was just letting himself be overtaken by the spell in the first place. He did the same thing the cultists did, and that was unforgivable, no matter the circumstance.

“Hey.” Erza grabbed his arm, squeezing it gently. “Stop that.”

“Wha—?” He snapped his head up to her, shrinking some more under her intense scowl. Was he too close? Should he have gone down to the Knights already…?

“You’re blaming yourself, aren’t you?”

“I—” Jellal blinked, unsure what to say. Was Erza going to try to take this on herself, because that was ridiculous. However, it was very clear that she was mad at him for blaming himself, and he didn’t want Erza to be mad. Well, she could be mad at him, of course, but he didn’t want to keep making her mad.

“He is,” Erik confirmed somehow, still watching the exchange below and not even sparing him a glance.

Erza’s scowl deepened.

Jellal swallowed. “But Erza, I— I hurt people. I started building a forbidden magic item just because—agh!”

He stopped midsentence, Erza’s knuckle coming down on his head. “Idiot!” she hissed. “You saw your memories! And what Mest saw from that…that bitch! She was the one who did that, not you! She— She did something to you. You can’t blame yourself for that!”

Erza’s eyes were brimming with tears again, and his voice stopped working for a moment. He hated seeing her like that. She wasn’t supposed to look so dejected, especially because of him. But… But Jellal couldn’t run away from what he did, no matter what…what Ultear did to him. The distinction made him uncomfortable, because he didn’t know where it was, or if there was one at all. There were so many things about that that didn’t make sense. She was there, and she…put something in him, a voice in his head, and then she left them there for four years? The voice had always been there, he realized, which meant that she was there, but nobody knew it.

He still wasn’t convinced he was imagining this, but Mest seemed like a competent mage, and everyone believed his interpretation of the memories and what happened, but… It was still hard to believe. It was like he was a passenger in his own body for the last four years. He was there, but he also wasn’t.

“But what if some part of it was me,” he replied, voice not above a whisper. He didn’t think he could force the words out any louder, even if they were pounding inside of his skull. “What if…what if I’m already that close to going mad, and what she did just pushed. What if I do it again? Please, Erza, let me take the fall for this. Don’t make me wonder if… if I will hurt you again. Any of you. Please.”

If he was locked away, then they would all be safe from him.

Erza slapped him across the cheek. His head snapped to the side, and he took in an involuntary gasp. For a moment, he thought she was finally going to take him down, like he needed to be, but she gripped him by the arms and pleaded. “And don’t make me lose you again!” she screamed, and Jellal looked back to see that she was crying again. He might have also been crying. Everything felt fuzzy at this point. “I— I thought I lost you, Jellal. To madness, o-or whatever th-that was, but—” She took in a shuddering breath. “Jellal, you’re you again, and I have you, and Simon, and Wally, and Shou, and Millianna, a-a-and I don’t want to have to lose any of you again. Please. Don’t… Don’t let them take you.”

The air was knocked from his lungs. He messed up again. “Erza, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… I don’t want any of you to suffer for what I did. If anyone should take the blame, it should be—”

“Ultear,” she insisted. “Jellal, everyone does things they’re not proud of. I’m not… I’m not saying that— that I wasn’t scared, or that people didn’t get hurt. But it’s not like you’re going to keep doing all of that.”

“But what if I do? Wh-what if the first spell isn’t gone, o-or if that man just made it worse, or put something else in me, or i-if I really do go mad?” Jellal couldn’t hardly bear the memories of the first time, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he did it again, no matter the reason.

“No.” Erza shook her head resolutely. “You would never do it again, not on purpose. You standing here beating yourself up is proof. You care, Jellal. You always have, and it’s my fault for believing that you would stop in the first place.”

“Hey, um… Guys?”

Both he and Erza stopped to turn to Erik. He blinked owlishly. He had forgotten that Erik was there. Not that it mattered, but he could see how awkward Erik was in the presence of their exchange.

He gestured with his chin over to the docks, eyes flitting over nervously as well. “I really hate to interrupt, but the Rune Knights want us to come down.”

—o0o—

It had a long time since he had used his roar, and knowledge of its carnage aside, it felt good to release it again—especially when it burned up Zeref’s shitty tower in the process.

It had taken a moment to ensure that none of the lacrimas would activate, and Acnologia searched the premises to ensure that there wasn’t a) any more dangerous artifacts lying about, and b) to look for the building plans for the tower. He also searched for any remaining people, of which he found none. The beastman, Fukuro, had verbally backed out of a fight after he fought the girl. The sound mage that Erik and Erza finished off had been reported alive, but Acnologia did not find anything but his blood and scent, so he was left to assume that Fukuro or Ultear took him, which was annoying, but fine.

He didn’t find any artifacts, thank the skies, and he found the plans in one of the outer buildings. It wasn’t the original journal, unfortunately, because it was translated, but there were indications that it was at least a direct translation, sloppy as it was, with snippets of original text written alongside it. It worried him that there could be other copies out there, but at least Zeref wrote his notes in a messy blend of Midian and Desian, so there weren’t many people alive who could read them well, if at all.

He flipped through it to make sure there wasn’t anything actually important in there before disintegrating the dusty pages in concentrated ether. After that, it was just a matter of making sure that the ship couldn’t obviously see him before he unleashed enough magic power to knock a hole in the ocean.

It was cathartic.

Acnologia circled the crater a few times, creating a few more ruptures in the sea in opposite directions so the displacement wouldn’t cause a tidal wave. He circled twice more just to appraise his work. Satisfied, the black dragon rose higher into the sky and headed for the mainland.

It was nearly dark at this point, which was convenient. The ship likely arrived at Hargeon by now, so he would just have to find them and hope they hadn’t had any trouble. Though he and Mest made it clear that they had been played from the beginning, the younger kids had been hung up on Jellal lying to them. Erza, or Erza’s friend Simon, did their best to explain, but Acnologia wasn’t sure of the result. They determined that it would be better to leave sooner rather than later in case that girl came back with reinforcements more willing to fight. He hoped that the explanation would appease them, and that no more animosity would spread, but he was aware that feelings were stronger than fact, especially when the fact was less than trustworthy at best.

Acnologia had already decided that revealing it had been Zeref to purge the boy was a disaster waiting to happen. It either wouldn’t be believed, or it would be seen as a worse thing than being mind-warped in the first place. The other person he trusted to tell was Erik, but that was because Erik already knew a good deal about the Dragneel drama and Zeref’s odd relationship with the world.

Honestly, he was still surprised that Zeref came at all. Sure, he beat that bastard into the ground for being negligent, but Zeref had been so against the concept of improvement that Acnologia thought that he might truly be a lost cause. However, the bipolar maniac managed to pull through, and Acnologia was begrudgingly proud. He felt Zeref’s presence, and the subsequent massive spell he unleashed, before he had been able to intervene. Perhaps he could have made it to the scene on time, but Mest had also been in need of help.

Zeref apparently explained nothing to the poor boy, and while his anonymity was a good thing, he also gave no indication of what he was doing and left a child scarred for life in his wake. Which wasn’t new to Zeref, necessarily, but it was still annoying. At least the bastard tried. If he kept this up, then maybe it wouldn’t be a world-ending experience to tell Natsu where he was, but Zeref was also still avoiding Natsu, clearly, and there was no need to tell Natsu that when it was already obvious.

He was probably going to have to come up with some bullshit to cover up his Black Mage ass though. Mest was clearly concerned, as much as he tried to deter him, so he might need to know, but hopefully he can redirect somehow. Maybe that it was the ghost of a Fairy Tail member past? Zeref might as well be. Ugh, this wouldn’t be as complicated if he hadn’t apparently used some sacred Fairy Tail spell, or something. Mest recognized the name, though it meant nothing to Acnologia. He would have to ask Makarov, or better yet, he could see if he could flag the spirit of the first master down because she would be easier to talk to, probably.

Acnologia saw the lights of Hargeon far below him, and he ascended higher into the clouds. He would need to land outside the town and run in, but that was fine. More time to think.

By the time Acnologia approached the harbor on foot, he was leaning toward the ghost idea because he had no better ones. Best case scenario, people stopped asking, but he doubted it. He especially doubted it when he made it to the docks just to see the Rune Knights milling about.

Shit.

He caught onto the scents of his people quickly, and he saw them next, scattered in different places with Knights scattered in between them. It looked like the Knights took over that entire section of the docks, which was unfortunate, because it meant that this was an incident.

“I’m sorry, sir,” one such Knight tried to tell him, “but you can’t come through here.”

“Like hell. Those are my guildmates.”

The officer faltered, catching sight of Acnologia’s guild mark that was just below his eye level, but he picked up the official tone again quickly. “The two Fairy Tail mages are simply part of the investigation. This need not concern you.”

“And what investigation is that?” he ground out, starting the pipsqueak of a man down. Damn politics. Information did not flow freely, but Acnologia would find out exactly what they were thinking.

“I am sorry, sir, but that is classified, for now.”

Acnologia growled. It was a completely involuntary reaction on his part, but the throat deep growl of a dragon was intimidating even in a human body. The Rune Knight nearly jumped out of his clothes, and Acnologia smelled the fear in his sweat. Good. The officer didn’t attempt to stop him as Acnologia walked past.

Erik and Erza were the first ones he spotted. They were sitting at the edge of a dock, not guarded, per se, but clearly told to stay put, because they were sulking and pissed. Erik noticed him first, of course, and looked over with palpable relief. “Oh thank the stars,” he sighed. “Acno, they found out about the Tower because you blew it up.”

“They took the others and started questioning them,” Erza fumed, “and they won’t let us explain.”

“On the bright side, they don’t think the two of us did anything,” Erik added dryly.

He didn’t look the least bit surprised when Erza threw her arms up. “They won’t let us do anything!”

Ah, well shit. “How much have they figured?”

“Let’s just say they think Jellal is the mastermind of everything and that we’re all meddling idiots,” Erik answered, voice low and flat.

Well, f̷̧̢̦͎̳̣̦̳͎̗͖͓̫͌̈́̌̓͋̿̔̈́͗͗͒̽͘͘͘ͅů̸̦̐͋͠͝c̶̟̦̖͖̭̜̲̦̿̿̈́͑̑̕̚ͅk̵̛̜̲̱̼̻͔̞̻͂̊͒͑͊͂̄͝ͅi̸̳̞̭̻͓͚̖̪̱̣͍̭͌̌͠n̷̟̤͍̞͋̒̈́̌͗̑̔̆̇͒̃͒́̚g̷͕̳̙̩͙̀̎ ̵̼̲̣̘̞̱̱̑̃́̔̏͑̅͊̅̋͌̑̈͠s̸̨̝͕͓̬̪̿̽͑̇͆̎̾̆̆̈́̀͋̚͝ť̴̨͉̳͖̦̻͚̰̈͝ͅä̷̩̭͎̹͎́̋r̴̢̭̜̩̚ ̶̢̰͔̗̙͕̾̍̇̒̀̏̽͊̀̈́̐̓̑̏ę̵̭͔̭̥͔͈̪̩̱͚̣̼̻̌̋̎̔̓́̎͑͝ͅa̷̧̨̫̟͎̰̻̪̮̹̙͔͊̏͛̿̇̅̾͆͝ͅt̴̢͔̗̺͕͎͉̳̞̝͚̥͌̏̄̊̄͜ȩ̷̨̝̍͘r̶̛̪̫̥̫̈̓̔̔̈́̀̔͆̚͠s̵̜͉͉͙̫̬̠̩̼̠͓̞͖͗̈́̒͑̋̈́͑͝ͅ!

Erik jumped, eyes wide, and Acnologia felt bad that Erik had to hear the angry draconic cursing in his head, but that was just his mood right now. A mood that these shitty Rune Knights were about to be subjected to right now.

He swiveled on his heel and marched up to where he heard the voices of Mest and some Knights. A few officers tried to stop him on the way there, but they were all twigs and could do nothing to deter him.

Mest and the man stopped mid argument as he approached. The Knight, likely the commander of this squad, crossed his arms. “Another Fairy Tail mage, I presume?” he asked, looking annoyed. “I don’t know how your guild got involved in this, but I understand it was happenstance. However, you can’t continue to obstruct this matter, or else your guild will face repercussions.”

“This is about the R-System, right?” Acnologia growled flatly. He saw Simon and the three smaller kids to the side, some Knights nearby, and he couldn’t see Jellal, but he could smell him, so he was probably around the corner on the other side of the ship.

“Yes. It is,” the Rune Knight replied testily but firmly. “If there is any information you have about the R-System, you would be strongly encouraged to divulge it immediately.”

Acnologia narrowed his eyes and weighed the costs of simply grabbing his people and the kids and leaving. It wasn’t a viable option, but he liked the idea of dumping the squad in the bay right then and there, because he knew Erza and Erik were stressed, the younger kids looked scared, and he could only imagine that Jellal had completely shut down.

Unfortunately, that would cause more trouble than it was worth, so he stayed his hand. For now. “You mean the R-System that went unnoticed for over ten years? That R-System?”

The Rune Knight opened his mouth and Mest jumped in. “Heeeeey, Acnologia, my man, lemme catch you up. Hey Captain Huffman? I’m just going to talk to him. Over there. Really quick.”

Mest shoved Acnologia to the side. Or, well, he tried to, but Acnologia simply walked to where he wanted to go.

“Um, so,” Mest started, laughing nervously. “They noticed the big ‘boom’ in the ocean and somehow mobilized really fast after that, and they questioned Simon about if he saw anything, and then the whole R-System mess got quickly uncovered, and even though I definitely explained the mind-zappy-thing, Jellal also didn’t deny that he built the tower after it all came out, aaaand now we’re in a stalemate. They want to take all the kids into custody, excluding Erza and Erik. They know they’re with Fairy Tail, at least. But hey, they’re not as pissed with us as they usually are, so that’s a plus. Well, Erza did yell at some people, so that’s debatable, but they’re not as mad. I think.”

Acnologia exhaled slowly. This really was a mess. He hadn’t expected the Council or any of their cronies to notice this quickly, though the fact that they have magic sensors that reached that far into the water was something to note. “They didn’t believe Ultear did it?”

“Maybe not. Or they don’t believe it’s gone. I’m not really sure, to be honest. Um, I could project the memories, actually. I think that Captain guy might believe that, buuut I know you weren’t sure about, um, the mystery guy?”

“Don’t show them that,” he reiterated. “If they get his description, that could be bad. Just…take my word on that one.” Even if they didn’t realize it was Zeref, if they kept an eye out for him, they could figure out it was Zeref, or at least a guy that hasn’t changed clothes in centuries. While Acnologia wasn’t going to bend over backwards to protect his secrecy, he didn’t want anything to get traced back to Fairy Tail, or worse, Natsu.

“Okay, got it,” Mest agreed easily. Master really meant it when he said this guy was easy-going. “What should I do then?”

“Show them the memory you pulled off of Ultear, then…” Acnologia paused. “How much do they know about the man? Any descriptions?”

Mest shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Just a guy who cast a spell.”

Acnologia had exactly zero clue how to cast ‘Fairy Glitter,’ or even precisely what it was, only that he felt it ripple through the ether when it happened, and Mest got the name from Jellal after. If he had to guess, because it was Zeref, it was a mystic art of some sort, so depending on how reality-bending it was, it was likely he could never cast it. But the Rune Knights didn’t need to know that. “Tell them I did it, then.”

“Wait, could you cast it? You’re a super powerful S-Class mage right? Is that a thing y’all get to do?” Mest asked curiously.

“No, it’s not a thing.”

Mest nodded. “Alright, gotcha’.”

He turned on his heel and raised his voice as he addressed the Rune Knight—Hustman or something. “Okay, so my guildmate is shy, but he agreed that the situation is indeed very serious and even though he doesn’t like the attention, he is willing to divulge his ability just this once.”

Mest inhaled dramatically, and the captain raised a brow as he continued. “You see, Fairy Tail is quite the old guild, and there are magics passed down to the top of the top. Acnologia here is an S-Class mage—very talented—and when we got lost and ended up on that island and saw that poor boy, he recognized what happened when the rest of us couldn’t, and when he was alone, Acnologia cast a sacred purge art and eliminated the malignant possession spell without a trace! It is definitely gone though. That boy still has all of his memories, though, so he’s still shaken up, but as I was saying, he’s innocent. They all are. Just minors, all of them, used as pawns by a dark mage. There’s nothing to prosecute them over.”

The captain frowned thoughtfully, scrutinizing the both of them. He looked to Acnologia and asked, “so you were with them? When your boat got pulled into the island’s current? Then why weren’t you returning with them?”

“I was the one who destroyed the system,” he responded truthfully. “I made sure to destroy the plans as well so this wouldn’t happen again. It’s my duty to stop malignant magic, after all.”

Was that last bit a jab? Maybe, but he didn’t regret it.

The captain’s brow shot up to the top of his forehead, giving him a hairline where he had none. “That was you? I doubt it.”

“Have you ever seen an S-Class mage in action before, sir?” Mest cut in.

“Well, not directly—”

“To disbelieve when he has not seen.” Mest shook his head sadly. “Captain Huffman, sir, I promise it was indeed Acnologia who performed this, and surely, you can believe that a mage of his stature can perform a purge spell, can you not?”

Huffman narrowed his eyes. “I’m still not convinced it wasn’t ancient destruction magic that—”

Acnologia normally didn’t show his hand in front of humans—or in front of anyone, really—because he liked his privacy, but damn it all, it was satisfying to charge an ether wing attack and shoot it out over the ocean. The beam of magic was nothing close to his roar, but it was concentrated and would likely travel a long way before dissipating.

The mild fear in the captain’s eyes was definitely worth it.

“I-I stand corrected,” the captain stuttered, eyes still wide, “but you claim this young lady who got away somehow…possessed him?”

“It was a mind warp spell,” Mest said with a tone that implied he said it several times before. “And if you would be so kind as to allow me to continue, I can show you. We did engage her and the Death’s Head Caucus mages on the island, and before she got away, I was able to scan her memories with my magic. I can show you what it was that she did.”

“And how do I know it’s not fake?” the captain asked skeptically.

Mest shrugged. “Memory magic is hard to prove, I know, but it’s a scanner more or less. Like archive magic. You believe it the same way you have to trust in that, but I can show you, nonetheless.”

Begrudgingly, the captain agreed. Acnologia had already seen it. Unfortunately, it didn’t give much as to how she did it, though it was clear from the fragment that Mest got from her that she had a prepared implement. It still bothered Acnologia that this was definitely part of a larger plot, with several parties involved, but the important part was that the kids were out for now.

The memory share ended, and the captain nodded slowly. “I see. That does look like troublesome magic… I’m afraid we’ll still have to monitor him, in case the fix wasn’t permanent.”

“How?” Mest asked before Acnologia had the chance to yell at him. Both of them realized how disastrous their ‘care’ would likely be to Jellal’s already fragile state of mind. “I’m sorry, but is there anyone in the Rune Knights that excels at memory magic?” The captain’s silence was invitation enough. “Fairy Tail can take him. Between me and the guy who purged him in the first place, who better to watch him? Besides, care of volatile magic individuals who have not violated any law falls under the jurisdiction of mage guilds, while the enforcement unit strictly cares for lawbreakers. As I mentioned, these kids are accessories, not perpetrators. They’re protected under the Magic Coercion Act. You know, the one you just passed.”

Huffman grimaced. “Yes, the act that banned charm magic, I am aware.” He sighed heavily. “You are right, as loathe as I am to admit it. But the other kids didn’t get charmed. We need to process them, too.”

Acnologia glared. “But they’re kids. You can’t treat them like a dark mage. Besides, technically, they didn’t do anything. What they built was aesthetic, not related to the system.”

There was no way of knowing with the tower decimated, but arguing for their guilt was a bad look for him at this point. Acnologia was glad Makarov talked him into bringing Mest, because in addition to his magic, he had a knack for talking their way out of trouble. No wonder he was Makarov’s personal spy.

“And I don’t mean that they will be prosecuted,” the captain argued tersely. “I just mean that they should be sent back to their homes. I am aware of what the cult did to those children. However, it is also imperative that they don’t mistakenly spread misinformation regarding what happened. And it is best that they do that away from the boy who was confirmed to have been under the influence of malignant magic.”

Acnologia’s glare deepened. It was fancy talk for ‘we don’t want anyone to know how badly we screwed up’ and everyone knew it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do about that without pissing off the Council too much. And… He did have a point. The others didn’t seem keen on being around Jellal after what happened, but Jellal was at the biggest risk of getting prodded for fear of being a magic time bomb. Acnologia also didn’t want the boy to face extra scrutiny on account of his magic; he had never seen a human born with an arcane alignment before, until Mystogan, and he doubted the Council and their scared little minds would take kindly to that.

“Fine. But they can’t be taken under your jurisdiction—just your care.”

The captain grunted. “Of course.”

“So tell your guards to shove off and let them breathe.”

The man bristled, and for a moment, it looked like he was about to argue, but he just turned on his heel and started relaying information to his crew.

“Thanks,” he muttered to Mest.

“No sweat big guy.”

“Acnologia! Mest!” Not long after the conversation ended, Erza and Erik came hurrying over. Erza especially looked frantic. “Is everyone okay? They’re not taking Jellal, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” Acnologia confirmed. They better not.

“And the others?”

“That’s…up to them. The Rune Knights are adamant in returning them to their homes, but if they made a case otherwise, then they would have to consider it. They don’t have any custody over them.”

Erik shot Erza a worried glance that she didn’t see, and Acnologia understood when he saw her determination.

Erza was going to do her best to take everyone home with her. He wished her the best, but sometimes, things weren’t that simple.

What was important at this point was that those kids had control of their own futures.

—o0o—

“Simon!”

He looked over when Erza called, and so did the others. Even though she knew they were unharmed in the process, the separation had worried her, because at the very least, the Rune Knights could have scared them even though they did nothing wrong. Nobody did anything wrong except those bastards that got away, but she knew from her experience in Fairy Tail that the Council liked to have someone to blame.

“Erza!” Shou shouted, and she bent down to scoop up the youngest as he ran forward. “I was worried they took you somewhere else because they thought you did stuff too,” he sniffled.

She smiled as she ruffled his hair, and Erza couldn’t possibly describe the happiness she felt to be able to hold him like this again. Shou was so small and so sweet, and she was glad that he would be able to recover from this. That they all would.

“No, they just made Erik and I wait somewhere else because they didn’t think we were involved at all. But we’re okay, I promise. They didn’t do anything to you, did they?”

Shou shook his head, and Wally agreed. “They just asked us questions.” His eyes sparkled in that familiar way. “It was dandy.”

Dandy? Before Erza could question it, Simon cleared his throat.

“The Rune Knights just want to ensure that this won’t happen again,” he explained lightly, though she supposed that they wouldn’t know how aggressively strict the Council and their enforcers could be at times.

“They’re…going to help us find our homes,” Millianna said quietly.

Oh. Yes. Erza had never had a real home before Fairy Tail, so the concept was lost on her. There had just been the orphanage, which wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the warm environment she knew ‘home’ was supposed to be either. The others didn’t talk much about theirs so… She hadn’t really known. She wanted to be together with them again, like a family, but…she couldn’t take them away from knowing their real ones.

“I hope you find it,” she said softly with a small smile, and she meant it. “But…I just want you to know that Fairy Tail would welcome you. All of you. If you ever needed a place to go.”

Shou opened his mouth, like he was thinking about saying something, but he changed his mind or forgot when Simon laid a gentle hand on his head.

“Thank you, Erza, but we can take it from here,” Simon said, and she tried to ignore how her heart felt heavy at the words, because it was a goodbye. At least…At least she got to say goodbye, properly, and it didn’t have to be goodbye forever. She was a mage. She traveled. And even if it wasn’t until later, when they were ready, they could become proper mages too. They already had magic. “Besides,” he continued, voice tight. “I need to go find my sister.”

She felt guilty for not remembering. Simon mentioned, once, that he hoped his sister made it out of the raid safe. After all of these years, she was sure it weighed on him.

“Of course,” she smiled, and impulsively, she reached over to hug him. Simon grunted in surprise but returned it. “Be safe.”

Erza took Shou up in her arms again, and he squeezed her around the shoulders. She pulled Wally and Millianna in as well, and they also squeaked at the sudden movement, but she was content enough. “All of you, be safe.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘goodbye,’ but at least it didn’t have to be one. Erza was certain she would see them again.

Her heart ached as they parted ways, but she knew it was only temporary.

Erza hurried to the next place she needed to go. The Rune Knights were mostly packed up to go back to their business now, though they had lingered to get all the statements they wanted from Acnologia. She was pretty sure they were mad that he destroyed everything instead of bringing it back to them for safe keeping, but Erza didn’t know why that made a difference. She was glad the books were burned and that their ashes were at the bottom of the ocean. Nobody could steal them again.

Still, she expected to find Jellal not far from where he was taken, and she was correct. The guards were gone, but Jellal was still sitting on the dock, though he was pulled up to the edge so his legs could dangle over the water.

Erza quietly sat beside him. “Are you okay?” she asked hesitantly, unsure if he would answer honestly if he wasn’t.

“I’m fine,” Jellal replied, and she didn’t know what she expected. She looked him over, though, and he seemed in one piece.

“Where…where are you going to go now?” The question burned her throat, because she was scared of his answer.

However, Jellal just shrugged. “They still want to watch me. I assumed that your guild was in charge of that now.”

“They just said that so the Rune Knights wouldn’t lock you away somewhere,” Erza told him, concerned that he took it literally. “You know you’re free, right? Your mind is clear. If Acnologia and Mest say so, then it is.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to be sure…” he muttered.

“Stop that,” she chastised, swinging a hand at his hanging head. “You’re just you, now. And you wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not on purpose.”

Jellal didn’t say anything to that, so she worried it hadn’t gotten through to him yet. She wanted nothing more than to drag him back with her to make sure he didn’t beat himself up unnecessarily, but Erza didn’t like the idea that he thought he had to.

“You can go find your family, if you want,” she suggested quietly, even if it hurt her to say goodbye one more time.

But Jellal shook his head. “I may have been young when it happened, but I remember it well enough. They shot my dad. A-and my mom was never there. That was all I had, and I know it’s… gone.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” It was true that she, Jellal, and Simon were all on the older side when they were taken. Still young, but old enough to remember some things. They just never talked about it because nobody wanted to, though she understood why.

They sat in a beat of silence, and Erza grabbed Jellal’s hand on impulse because she knew he was thinking about sad and depressing things, and even though Jellal was never one to ask, he did better when he wasn’t alone for that.

“You could still come with us to Fairy Tail,” Erza said after a while, though she added quickly, “but not because you have to, or because we need to watch you. Just as a mage. Fairy Tail is where Grandpa Rob was from, you know.”

At that, he looked up, surprised. “The same guild?”

She nodded. “The same guild. They are just as wonderful as I imagined, and they are very welcoming too. They don’t care where you came from, just how you use your second chance moving forward.”

Jellal hummed to himself, and she could tell he was still hesitating. “But…I didn’t do anything to deserve a second chance,” he whispered. “There was nothing I could have done or tried to do to remove that by myself. I… Without you, and your guildmates, I probably would have done worse things.”

“That didn’t happen, though. Sometimes, second chances are just lucky—that’s what Master says.”

“But—”

“No,” she interrupted, because Jellal was smart and he could find a million ways to blame himself. “If you don’t think you deserve it—which you do—then consider it a gift.”

Erza saw the stars twinkling above them, smiling down at them. It was late, but it was still today, and after all these years, Erza hadn’t forgotten that silly little conversation they had all that time ago. She squeezed his hand. “Happy Birthday, Jellal.”

Jellal’s eyes widened in pure surprise, and she found the expression hilarious, because of course he didn’t know. “It’s the second. Of April. That’s your birthday, remember?”

He laughed awkwardly. “I can’t believe you remembered. I barely know what day it is, anymore. I didn’t know.”

Only Jellal and Simon had remembered the dates when they were younger, and they were trying to figure out who was the oldest. Simon won easily, but Erza and Jellal were too close to tell by things like height and voice. She didn’t know her birthday, however, because the orphanage didn’t know. They just knew she was a little baby when she was put there.

Jellal had offered a truce and jokingly declared themselves the same age, since they were so close anyways. It was one of the things she held onto, even long after she thought she lost him, because that was the first birthday she ever had. However, magic was incredible, and she knew now, but it was still special.

“I’m older, by the way,” she declared with a sly grin. “By five months.”

Jellal laughed again, and this time, it wasn’t as sad. “Of course, you are. I’m not even surprised.”

They sat there for a little while longer. It was getting colder as the night fell, but she was still warm enough, so she didn’t care. Her heart felt lighter.

Acnologia found them eventually and informed them that it was time to go, if they wanted to catch the train. To Erza’s great delight, Jellal stood with her and smiled. “I’m ready.”

They were going together, and the realization filled her with joy. “Then let’s go!”

There had been a lot of goodbyes today; some were freeing, and some were hard, but with the goodbyes, there came new beginnings.

“If I’m the product of a self-fulfilling prophecy,
Then how did something good come unexpectedly?
Maybe fate is playing on my side this one time.

I wanna choose.
But if I choose,
I know I’ll just choose you.

We can’t change the color of our sky,
But we can rage against the night,
We can’t hold what falls apart,
But we make our stars.

We write our love, we choose our hearts,
We fight our fights, we make our stars.”

—House of Heroes, “We Make Our Stars”