- When Zeref and Acnologia meet, a wager is made... Vessel vs vessel! As entertaining as it will be for Zeref and Acnologia, it won't be a good day for Acnologia's Vessel/Slayer, Lucy Heartfilia but it'll be an even worse day for those left behind when Fairy Tail's S-Class exams go sour! Rated M for a reason!

Be aware... There will be character deaths in this story! Who, when, where and why the story will dictate! So if I kill your favorite character, oops my bad!

Read and review! Thank you!

Disclaimer... I do not own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does!

Queen of Chaos

The Bay Man

As an old woman sat at a large table at the centre of an old guild hall, she sighed as she waited for the children to gather around. They had been hounding her for several hours to tell them a story but she was slowly loosing her patience with the unruly group, who failed to settle-down. Their actions caused her to think back to a time when she was younger and her friends were just as rowdy... She smiled fondly when thinking of those times but there was a period when things weren't so rosy and most certainly weren't worthy of bringing a smile to her face...

...That was nearly sixty years ago and yet it was as vivid as the day it had all started! ...Tenrou Island, the S-Class trials - that was the day the nightmare began!

Chapter 1 -The Wager!

Two days before the Tenrou incident...

North of Fiore a solemn figure glares out from his cave and laughs... For years he had lounged in his cave enjoying his daily routine of watching the worthless humans scurry from place to place, their dull and boring lives only interrupted by more bouts of monotonous and tedious labours. He could end it all if he so decided but they were bringing him a small degree of pleasure and until the day when that stopped being the case, he would strike and end it all!

'Stupid humans!... What a waste of flesh!' he thought as he caught sight of a lone cloaked figure in black approaching his cave. "Things may get interesting now!" He mumbled as he raised his head and bared his fangs.

With a low growl, dark transparent tendrils emerge from his back and slowly wrapped their way around his large monstrous form... They squeezed, twisted and contorted his dark-form - crushing it! Bones cracked and blood gushed forth scorching the ground below as his body was slowly reduced to a mere fraction of what it was a moment ago. Through-out the change a loud feral scream pierced the evening sky as the once mighty beast now lay on his hands and knees panting - sweat poured from his brow and pooled below. For now the beast of legends and myths was nothing more than a mere human, albeit an extremely powerful one!

The black mage laughed as he neared the mouth of the cave. "Oh how the mighty have fallen!"

Blood-shot eyes glared up at the dark-haired mage and a evil grin crossed his face. The more he glared at the cocky bastard the more he wanted to rip him apart but now wasn't the time for the mighty Acnologia to act, that time would come soon enough!

"ZEREF!" Acnologia snarled as that name, the mere word itself, seemed to stick to the back of his throat and rolled of his tongue like poison. Oh how he hated that name, the mere mention of the mage Zeref churned his insides into a fiery pit that even 'The Great Igneel' wouldn't dare tread. "So what do I owe the pleasure too or are you just slumming!" The beast growled as bile filled his mouth at the mere thought of conversing with 'him'.

"Tsk! Tsk! ...Someone got up on the wrong side of the cave!" Zeref shook his head and grinned. Acnologia on the other hand wasn't amused. He slowly pulled himself to his feet and leaned against the side of his cave. Crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes never once left their intended target.

"What do you want?" His teeth glistened as his brow curled. If looks could kill Zeref would be dead several times over at this point!

"With all of your power, you could easily rule this world!... Yet you lie here day in, day out watching the world go by!"

"...And what of it?" Acnologia snared at the mage before him. The mere sight of his greatest mistake sent shivers down Zeref's spine.

"This is what you have done with the gift I bestowed upon you all those years ago!" Tensions flared as Acnologia inched closer to the Black Mage. "Fool!" He spat!

"FOOL!..." Acnologia roared as he disappeared and reappeared behind the Black Mage. "Fool, you say!" Zeref could feel the heat as a hot breath caressed his neck and the cold flesh of the Chaos Dragon caressed his neck. The hairs on the back of his neck stood erect as a wet moist tongue inched up his neck and stopped at the base of his ear "Choose your next words wisely!" The beast snickered as he opened his mouth wide and bared his fangs - A feral growl rang through the Black Mages ear and he was starting to regret his decision to approach this dragon.

"J-Join m-me!..." Zeref stuttered but quickly he composed himself. Clearing his throat, he slowly turned around and was shocked when he came face to snout with the Dark Dragon. "I-I'm amassing an army to bring hell to this land!" 'How did he change form so quickly?' Zeref thought as he raised his head slightly and swallowed deeply, clearing the lump in his throat.

"And why would I join you... Besides wasn't your goal to die!" The dragon smirked.

"It was but E.N.D. isn't capable of doing what I created him for, so..." Acnologia reared back and opened his mouth. A magic circle formed in front of him as he focused his magic on the mage before him. Zeref closed his eyes for a moment and then they snapped open and a black mist seeped from his body turning everything in it's path to ash.

"...I guess its come to this then!" Zeref said as he shook his head. He knew getting the stubborn Dragon to follow his lead would be difficult but he didn't think it would escalate to this so quickly!

As the wave of death washed over Acnologia he laughed. Not a normal laugh but a bust-your-gut roll on the ground kind of laugh, one that left Zeref questioning the towering Dragon's sanity. ...But as quickly as the laughter had started it stopped as a focused beam of white energy wrapped in a blue spiral crashed into the Death Mage. When the smoke cleared, Zeref was still standing in the same spot he was prior to the attack but everything behind him was obliterated, including the cave Acnologia had earlier called, his home!

"Damn-it, that was my favourite jacket!" Zeref exclaimed as he tossed the charred piece of clothing aside and waved his hand in front of himself and a new coat formed. "You know my curse won't allow me to die, that was futile!"

"I disagree!" Acnologia snickered as Zeref looked on, perplexed. "I've always hated that coat!"

"Rock... Hard place..." Zeref raised one palm and then the other as he measured the weight of their predicament. "This is going to get us nowhere!"

"True!... So what do you suggest!"

"A wager!"

"..."

"You've piqued my interest, continue!" Zeref smirked as a thought burned through his mind. It was devilish... 'Absolutely perfect!' He laughed to himself. If he can't destroy Acnologia, then he would use one of his minions to do the job for him and he had the perfect candidate in mind.

"A vessel! ...Or in Dragon's terms, a Slayer!" Zeref grinned. 'This would be perfect', he thought.

The Dragon reared back on its hind legs and unleashed a mighty roar towards the heavens. He knew this black-hearted mage was bad news, he just didn't realize until now that he was stupid as well.

""A Slayer," you say!... Really!... I thought you were smarter than that!" Acnologia laughed and leaned forward until he was but a few inches from Zeref. "These weak humans couldn't house a fraction of what's contained in me! They would shrivel up and perish!"

"Perish!?... Yet here you stand!..." Zeref smirked. "...Perhaps the great Dragon King is nothing more than a snivelling coward!"

"I've bathed in the blood of countless Dragons and fed off their powers. I am all that remains of their kind and I will not give that foul species a chance, albeit a small one, to be reborn!... I owe it to him!"

"So I am to assume you will not accept my wager?" The dark mage tilted his head to the side and glared up at the towering beast.

"No!... I accept your wager but I will handle this in my own way, on my own terms!" He grinned.

"Acceptable!..." Zeref nodded his approval, turned around and walked towards the tree-line but stopped, paused for a moment and spoke again. "...The terms of the wager will be decided at a later date!" ...And he disappeared into the forest. A loud roar echoed through the hills as the Chaos Dragon took to the sky and disappeared into the clouds.

Two days later near Tenrou Island...

For two days straight Acnologia had not landed as his stress level was at max. His encounter with Zeref weighed heavily on his mind and he was in search of a vessel; a target to be more precise and his target, Fairy Tail was just ahead!

If he knew Zeref like he thought, then his younger brother would most assuredly be his avatar and Acnologia figured he would search out one of the young Dragneel's S-Class comrades in hopes that one of them would have a magic container large enough to house what he would give them. But there were no guarantees of that happening...

...He remembered the last encounter he had with a mage from Fairy Tail and it was like swatting flies. He hoped that among those that he could sense on Tenrou Island, there would be that one special person, who unlike the crash mage he fought years ago, could act as his vessel and survive not only the ritual but the training to come! He had little faith that he would find such a mage among that lowly guild because his earlier encounter many years ago did not impress him!

As he approached the island his senses were in overdrive as he searched for a candidate and then it happened... His senses detected a possible target! It was a surprise to say the least but the more he focused on the mage's power the more he realized he'd felt, 'no' feasted on this rare power before and it tasted divine! ...This would be a good day for him, a very good day indeed but it would be the beginning of a very bad day for his chosen vessel!

He released a mighty roar as he dove down towards the island. Just before he landed he caught sight of his intended target retreating to the other side of the clearing where he landed. He reared back and released a might ear-splitting roar...

It had begun!

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