Note: I'm super excited for this verse, guys :D I really want to babble a lot right now, but there's a major twist halfway through the chapter and I don't want to give it away just yet, so we'll chat at the end. It's probably not what you think it is, but maybe you can figure it out faster than FT does X)
This story is a total overhaul of the Alvarez arc, even though I swore I'd never touch it since I hate it so much and find it so utterly ridiculous. I started writing this before all of Eileen's backstory was revealed and finished it long before the problem with Zeref was resolved, so a lot of this is my own fabrication (although I kept a lot of canon stuff vaguely intact). At that point I'd already hated Eileen and thought she was way OPed and regarded what we knew of her backstory as ridiculous, so I decided to get her out of the way first lol
Chapter 1-Revelation
They had been expecting some kind of retaliation from Alvarez, but they were still taken by surprise. After succeeding in reforming the guild and rescuing Makarov from Zeref's empire, Fairy Tail hadn't wasted any time. They had quickly spread the word of imminent trouble from Alvarez, and the immediate outpouring of support was incredible. Even though they'd been hesitant to ask for real help for what was shaping up to be a Fairy Tail problem, several other Fiore guilds had quickly mobilized and convened in Magnolia to figure out their strategy for the dawning war.
Not quickly enough, it seemed.
They had certainly been expecting these Spriggans to be powerful, but Magnolia had been thrown into utter chaos by only one. She had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and strolled into the gathering of mages as if she hadn't a care in the world, two younger girls following on her heels. It had been such a shock that no one could do anything besides stare at this crimson-haired stranger, surprised by her sudden appearance but also awed by the monstrous magical power emanating from her.
She had simply smiled mockingly and delivered her message into the stunned silence: she was Eileen, one of the strongest Spriggans, high enchantress, sent by Zeref as an emissary to prepare Fiore for the upcoming invasion by destroying every mage she could get her hands on. After all, Zeref had every intention of spreading destruction across the entire continent, but he was unimpressed with the weak magic offered by most of the native mages. There was very little here to interest him, and he was content to let his underlings take out the trash, even if he would supervise any invasion if it became necessary and was willing to take care of any worthy threats if they presented themselves. But while Alvarez's forces were mobilizing, Eileen had been given permission to send a message to Fiore's inhabitants—a message that she intended to write with blood and screams and death.
She was a charming woman.
Despite the amazing power coiled within her, it was hard to imagine that one woman could stand up to such a large gathering of mages and win. Unfortunately, just because no one could imagine it didn't mean that it couldn't be turned into reality anyway. She and her two tagalongs cut down mages in swathes, leaving destruction and carnage everywhere they went.
It wasn't that the battle had been entirely one-sided. Her sidekicks had been far weaker than her and defeated fairly quickly. The fact that they had apparently been enchanted swords all along was not entirely comforting, though. It was just one more show of strength to demonstrate exactly how incredible her magic was. And to be fair, Fiore's mages weren't making it easy on Eileen. They'd managed to land several attacks on her—although she appeared to sustain minimal damage—and had deflected or undone many of her enchantments.
The problem was that, aside from the immensity of her raw power, her magic was extremely versatile. She seemed to be able to enchant anything and everything, and it was, quite frankly, impossible for her to be performing all the different types of magic she was using. Well, it should have been impossible if she followed the normal laws of magic.
Gray wasn't sure that she followed the normal laws of magic.
He leaned against the crumbling wall of what had once been a perfectly good building, and winced as he iced over a particularly nasty gash in his side. Damn. Eileen hadn't actually decimated the assembled guilds yet, but it seemed like she was just playing with them now, a particularly cruel cat who already knew that she had won but was unwilling to put her prey out of its misery just yet. Everyone was out of magic by this point or getting there, some of their strongest reinforcements had yet to show up—why was Gildarts always late to the party?—and many mages were too drained or injured to even stand anymore.
Eileen stood in the midst of the carnage, a vicious half-smile tugging at one corner of her mouth and her eyes glinting coldly as she surveyed the scene.
"You truly thought that you could protect your country and find a way to stop Zeref and his armies?" she asked, her voice lilting upward slightly in amusement. "When you could not defeat even one of the twelve Spriggans? I'm actually a little disappointed. I was hoping you would be a bit more of a challenge."
Something inside Gray shivered in anticipation. He could almost feel the power trembling just outside his reach, behind the barrier he'd constructed long ago to contain it.
You could do it. Let it out and get rid of her before she kills someone.
I can't. It would ruin everything. I'd lose…everything. Everyone.
And that's worse than letting them all die? At least they'd still be alive, even if you lost them.
Gray shook his head sharply to banish his thoughts, determinedly pushing back against the monster inside him. It had become more unstable lately, starting during his stay with Avatar when he'd been forced to dabble in darkness and pick up old habits, and it was only a matter of time before the dam finally snapped.
Or not. He couldn't afford to let that happen, but he was worried that almost anything might be able to push him over the edge while he was so unstable. And watching Eileen prepare to kill his friends could very well be that catalyst, if he couldn't control himself.
Surely there were still other options, though. Eileen was powerful but she was hardly invincible, and not all of Fiore's mages were down for the count just yet. She had already had to use an incredible amount of magic to keep them down, so if they could just rally…
Gray's heart jumped into his throat as Zeref's emissary suddenly focused in on Lucy. The blonde was kneeling by Natsu, who was wincing and pulling himself into a sitting position as he clutched at his injured side. The flame-brained fool would be fine and back to fighting within moments, but Lucy was paying enough attention to him that she had become an easy target.
The spell moved fast enough that Gray couldn't even be certain what it was, but Natsu's head whipped up, and he grabbed Lucy and tugged her out of the way.
"Leave her alone," the dragon slayer growled.
Eileen paused, tilted her head to study the pair, and then smirked. "Oh, now this could be fun."
Her enchantment moved too quickly for even Natsu's heightened senses to detect this time, and it hit Lucy full on. Her shrill cry was quickly turned into a…squeak? Gray's eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the tiny mouse left in Lucy's place. Then he tore his gaze away and narrowed his eyes at Eileen.
Kill the bitch. Rip her to pieces. How dare she?
Something inside him threatened to snap, and he took an unconscious step forward.
Eileen just chuckled coldly and kept her eyes fixed on Natsu. "For all you lot go on and on about love and friendship and all that silly nonsense… Can you look at her and say that you still care about her even in such a pathetic form? Can you look her in the eyes and say that you truly love her anyway?"
"Of course," Natsu snapped, scooping Lucy's small form up in one hand as he glowered at the enemy mage. "She's still family. Now change her back right now!"
Too bad that won't apply to you, if they ever find out…
Eileen's smug smirk immediately flattened into a displeased frown, her eyes hardening. "How boring."
She lifted her staff and Natsu made to jump out of the way, but Erza managed to move first, requipping and swinging a sword at the enchantress. Eileen aborted her spell to defend herself. When she spotted Erza, her eyes widened slightly and then narrowed.
"Hm. I certainly wasn't expecting to see you here."
Erza frowned. "Should I know you or something?"
Eileen eyed her a moment longer before shrugging. "No, I suppose not. It doesn't matter. I'm going to kill you anyway."
Gray didn't know what was going on with that, but his eye had caught on Lyon sprawled a short distance away, near where Chelia and a few other Lamia Scale mages were halfheartedly trying to regroup. Erza and Eileen had started dueling and for now Erza seemed to be holding her own, so Gray limped over to Lyon. He'd keep an eye on Erza in case something went wrong, but everything was so chaotic over there that he was afraid he might injure her by accident if he aimed for Eileen.
"Lyon? Hey, Lyon, are you alright?" Gray asked, dropping to his knees and shaking the other man gently.
Lyon groaned but roused himself. "I'm fine," he mumbled as Gray helped him sit up. "Just give me a sec."
Gray eyed him critically, but quickly determined that his wounds weren't too severe. He would be alright for now, and perhaps could even rejoin the fight soon.
"Alright, we need to try getting everyone who can still fight to work together," Gray said. "It's the only way we have a chance."
"Of course," Lyon replied, despite the doubt flickering in his eyes.
It won't be enough. Break the seal.
Gray swallowed. He couldn't do that. There had to be another way.
"Lyon, I…" He trailed off and looked away, shaking his head. He could feel the seal weakening, cracking, and he was afraid that he was right on the edge of snapping. One wrong move on anyone's part could ruin it all, and nothing he said now could change that. There would be no damage control beforehand.
"What?"
"I… Nothing. Why don't you go see if you can get some of your guildmates up?"
Lyon studied him for a moment before nodding. "Alright. Don't die, Gray."
Gray smiled thinly at the irony of that—not that Lyon understood it—but then sighed. "Stay safe."
He pulled himself to his feet and started toward Natsu and Lucy, still more than half focused on Erza's fight. And because he was so focused on Erza's battle, he didn't make it even halfway to Natsu before it all went wrong.
He saw the moment when Erza slipped up and Eileen went in for the kill, grabbing the younger woman and beginning to weave an enchantment.
"It's too bad I'm not in much of a storytelling mood, or I'd tell you about who you are before I killed you," Eileen said, her smile unsettling. "But I suppose you'll have to die ignorant. And then I'll kill all your friends and destroy your guild, and when Zeref and the other Spriggans come, we'll lay waste to your entire continent. Silly girl, you never would have been strong enough to face me."
Kill her now.
It didn't matter that Erza was already pulling away and might still be able to deflect the spell at the last minute. Gray didn't care about that now. The seal snapped in half with a force that reverberated through his entire body, fury and darkness and power flooding through him. His eyes narrowed to slits, focused intently on the bitch threatening his guild.
Gray–
Not Gray, not really. But he couldn't stomach his old name either, didn't want to be that anymore. Two names that were only half his, so maybe it would be better to have none at all.
The brief internal debate was quickly lost in the swirling vortex of his mind, swallowed up by the darkness and wrath washing over him. Without thinking, He opened his mouth and sucked in a lungful of air to unleash an inhuman roar that blasted across the battlefield and froze everyone in their tracks. Lyon stopped breathing, the sound playing havoc with his memories; the rest of the team felt an uneasy jolt at the primal sound; and everyone's hearts shuddered painfully to a halt, fear flooding through them regardless of whether they recognized the noise.
He had eyes only for Eileen, who had finally taken notice of him. Ignoring everything else, He stalked toward her purposefully with an almost feline grace, everything about him screaming predator. His wrath manifested itself in his magic, ice exploding across the entire area in jagged sheets even though He had nearly been out of power only moments before. But this was different ice, frightening ice, shot through with roiling shadows that seeped out of him and spreading through the frozen wasteland.
Icy fractals crackled under his feet as He advanced on Eileen, so intent on his prey that He barely noticed his shadow fluctuating, spreading out behind him and morphing into something positively monstrous as it glided along behind him at his feet.
"I suggest that you step away from her," He hissed, the sound dark and inhuman, nothing like his usual voice.
His ice had already sliced through the narrow gap between the two battling mages and shattered Eileen's spell, but He was taking no chances. The enchantress arched an eyebrow, some of her instinctive fear melting into contemptuous disdain again. Foolish woman.
"Or you'll do what?" she asked mockingly.
He growled low in his throat, an animal-like sound that it shouldn't be possible for his vocal chords to make. His dark eyes gleamed with a faint red shine, his teeth suddenly seemed to lengthen into fangs, his fingers curved over like claws. He even seemed to stretch out slightly, almost towering over the others even though his physical height didn't truly change.
To everyone who thought they knew him, He didn't seem like Gray at all. He didn't even seem human.
"Silly human," He said, his voice echoing strangely off the ice. "I will destroy you."
"Gray?" Erza asked. Her voice wavered uncertainly as He approached. "Gray, what–?"
Not even really looking at her, He leaned down, wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her to her feet. "Go to Natsu," He said as he gently pushed her back, his eyes still fixed on Eileen.
She might have said something else, but He wasn't listening.
"Well, maybe one of you will actually be some fun after all," Eileen remarked, lips quirking upward. "Although I'm not sure where all this magic came from so suddenly—I should have sensed it."
He didn't know what enchantment she was weaving now, but He broke through it like it was nothing, blackened ice carving through her half-formed magic like butter. She was a powerful mage, but she'd already used up quite a bit of magic downing Fiore's guilds, and right now He was too strong. A terrible magic, one that had been bottled up for years but had now been unleashed in one fell torrent, swirled around him and made him impervious to all but the strongest spells. With everyone else so weakened, He was the most powerful player left on the field.
Doubt flickered in Eileen's eyes as she watched him destroy her magic before she'd even had the opportunity to use it. He could see the unease and dread starting to creep back in, and bared his teeth in sadistic satisfaction.
Good. Make her suffer. Make her pay.
"You dare attack my guild?" He asked, almost snarling out the words as his eyes flashed menacingly. "To threaten it? To challenge me? You foolish mortal."
She backed away slowly, staff jabbing at the air as she wove spells. He stalked onward, implacable, batting aside her magic effortlessly. His ice continued to spread, reaching out for her, its darkness clawing at her mercilessly. His shadow billowed out behind him, the once-human shape spreading outward in a mass of fearsome malice.
"I will kill you. I will rip your heart out of your chest, rend you limb from limb, paint the city in your blood, tear you screaming out of this world once and for all. You made a mistake challenging me, human. I was created for destruction, and destroy you I shall. By the time I'm through with you, there will be nothing left."
Eileen's eyes widened. "What are you?" she breathed, undisguised fear clouding her face.
He smiled coldly. "You really don't want to know."
She raised her staff to prepare for one last, desperate spell, but now He moved faster than thought, darting forward and slamming into her chest. Pushing her to the ground, He snatched her staff and carelessly snapped it in half before tossing it away. He glowered down at her, lips peeling back into a feral snarl.
"Die."
You can't do that. Don't do that. Don't go back again.
She deserves it. Kill. Destroy, destroy, destroy.
Please…not again.
He squeezed his eyes shut, claws curling tightly around the prone enchantress's wrists as He waged an internal battle against himself. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to kill this woman and then burn the world down, destroy everything like He had been created to do. But the small part of him not wholly consumed by fury and darkness beseeched him otherwise, whispering desperate pleas to the unleashed monster. One hand lifted to grasp the pendant hanging around his neck, and He let the point dig deeply into his skin.
With a groan, He rolled off Eileen and curled into himself, breathing heavily as He rocked back and forth and pressed his trembling hands against his eyes.
"You stupid, stupid human," He mumbled, half to himself. "You shouldn't have pushed me so far and broken the seal."
He took a few more seconds to collect himself and rein in the rage, before dropping his hands and fixing his eyes on the shaking enchantress sprawled across the ground. Her breaths were coming in small gasps as she stared at him wide-eyed, and He could sense the too-quick beating of her heart from here, could almost taste her blood and feel her flesh tearing beneath his fingers.
"Change Lucy back," He said finally, digging his nails into his arms in an attempt to ground himself.
Eileen hesitated for the briefest of seconds, but even that was too much for him and immediately whipped his fury back into a frenzy.
"Do not test me, woman!" He roared, rising to his feet and towering over her. His eyes flashed crimson, and the shadows and ice billowed outward in response to his emotion.
Eileen made an undignified whimpering noise and hurriedly undid her spell. Glancing backward, He confirmed that Lucy was back to her original form. For now He ignored the shocked and horrified looks on everyone's faces. He couldn't deal with them yet. Not when He was still so unstable.
"I suggest you don't try anything." He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes as He tried to get himself back under control again. "Not when I'm seconds away from snapping and killing you."
He couldn't say that He was particularly worried about her at this point. She was too frightened to dare make a move. Now that the threat was past, He should be able to calm down, lock the monster back up again.
Except that it was too late for that now. He had given himself away, and there was no going back.
"Gray?" Lucy asked from somewhere behind him, her voice still high-pitched and squeaky enough to be mistaken for a mouse.
Her voice, her fear, cut through the silence to assault him, and the barely-contained fury sprang to life again. He rounded on her, on all of them, his shadow flaring outward again as He bared his pointed teeth and growled.
"Gray?" He snarled. Something in his chest danced in vicious satisfaction as she shrank back in fear. There was something delightful about the horror and terror written across everyone's faces. They should be scared. "There is no Gray."
There was stunned silence for a long moment before Natsu suddenly straightened, anger taking the place of his shock. "What did you do to Gray?" he demanded.
He just laughed. "I killed him." His mouth stretched into a too-wide grin. "I killed him a long, long time ago."
Incomprehension flitted across Natsu's face, but then his eyes narrowed into slits and he clenched his hands into fists. "What the hell are you talking about? You had better give Gray back right now or I'll make you."
"You fool," He purred. "You never even met Gray. You only ever met me."
"Gray-sama?" Juvia asked. Her voice wavered as she wrapped her arms around herself and her eyes filled with tears. "What–?"
"Gray-sama isn't even human, you silly girl."
"Stop playing games," Erza hissed, knuckles white as she clutched the hilt of her sword. "Tell us how to get rid of you and get Gray back."
"Are you not listening?" He asked. His chuckle was menacing enough to make everyone's blood run cold. "You never met Gray. In fact…" His gaze drifted to rest contemplatively on Lyon. "He's the only one of you who ever met Gray."
Lyon stared back at him, face entirely drained of blood. They stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eternity, although it was only seconds.
"What did you do to my brother?" Lyon whispered finally, rage and grief and fear warring in his eyes.
He clicked his tongue in exasperation. "Have you still not figured it out? You aren't the smartest bunch, but I thought I'd made it pretty obvious by now."
"Tell us–"
"I'm not Gray and I never was." He leaned forward, lips stretching into a sadistic leer. "I'm the demon. Oh, you fools. You invited a demon into your guild and never even knew it. No, I'm not Gray. I'm Deliora."
The silence was heavy with disbelief and horror in response to the preposterous statement. Half of him, the half once chained but now suddenly unleashed, reveled in it. The other half, the half currently buried underneath the malice, shrank back. It was over now. There was no fixing this.
"That's impossible," Lucy choked out finally.
"Is it?" He asked. One eyebrow arched upward mockingly.
"Deliora is dead," Lyon said, his voice wavering slightly. "It's dead."
"Oh? Am I?"
"Of course. Ur's ice killed–"
"Your master never killed me," He hissed, eyes flashing. "Iced shell isn't meant to kill, is it? I know it isn't. I spent a lot of time finding out everything I could about that damn spell, back when I was still trying to figure out how to undo the mess your dear master put me in."
"But–"
"But nothing," He growled. "Let me tell you what her damn spell actually did, because it sure as hell didn't kill me. It severed my connection to my Book, which should be fucking impossible. But somehow her ice sliced right through my binding, and it had a lot of unexpected consequences. Maybe it would have actually killed me—I don't know.
"But by a miraculous coincidence of timing, your darling Gray managed to die at the exact same moment my connection was snapped. And by some godawful joke of fate, I somehow managed to get snagged by his soulless body and bound to it."
"That's impossible," Lyon interrupted, swaying as if he might suddenly keel over and pass out at any second. "It doesn't make sense. It's impossible."
"Impossible?" He pulled himself up to his full height and stared down the ice mage with burning eyes. "Impossible? Don't tell me what's impossible, human. As much as I'd like for it to be impossible, it's obviously not, is it?"
"It doesn't–"
"You still don't believe me? What do I have to do, draw you a pretty picture? Fine, let me explain it to you. Because it should be impossible, and I did an awful lot of digging while trying to figure out what the hell happened and how to reverse it. It's like this: when you cut a thread, you're left with two different pieces, aren't you? One end of Gray's thread stayed attached to his body after his soul was disconnected. It would have withered and shriveled up within moments, if I hadn't stumbled into it. And my thread was severed from my Book, and apparently from my old body too. So sure, maybe I would have died. Except that one end of my thread got tangled up in what was left of Gray's, and I got stuck.
"And even worse, there were pieces of him left behind in that last remnant of his soul-string. So not only did I get stuck with his body, but I got stuck with his memories, his values, his goals, his godawful feelings. I suppose that if there's any justice in this world, that's what I got. I sure managed to screw him up awful good before I killed him, didn't I? Well, you should be glad to know that I got saddled with it all, and God knows he had a lot of baggage."
The horror was more tangible now, more real. Because although He could still sense lingering doubts, see the questions and contradictions the others still couldn't resolve, they were starting to wonder if maybe He was actually telling the truth. Their darkest emotions made a satisfied feeling curl in his chest.
"But on Galuna, the demon fell apart," Natsu blurted out, still unconvinced. Poor fool was still holding on to the hope that his friend had just gotten temporarily possessed or something. "It was already dead."
He waved a hand dismissively. "My old body fell apart because there was nothing connected to it anymore. I was in Gray's body. My old one was empty and it decayed accordingly. You were never in any danger on Galuna."
"Then why were you going to use iced shell?"
Something deep inside warned him that was a dangerous question, although with all the darkness and wrath swirling around it was hard to remember exactly why He might not want to give them all the answers just yet. That uncomfortable itch only served to aggravate him again.
"Because I was going to try reuniting with my old body," He hissed, baring his fangs. "I spent years looking for a way to undo that spell, and Galuna gave me the perfect chance to try getting rid of this body and figure out a way to fix things."
"Then why," Natsu asked flatly, "did you change your mind and not cast the spell when I tried to stop you?"
He stared blankly at the dragon slayer, and then all the fight suddenly drained out of him in one fell swoop. He seemed to shrink, wrapping his arms around himself and hunching his shoulders. Suddenly He wasn't a wrathful demon anymore, just a tired and sad one.
Closing his eyes, He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out in a long sigh. He carefully gathered up all the hate and rage and darkness He had unleashed, and pulled them back to the dark corner of his mind where He had locked them up years and years ago. The old magic was next to go. Dissolving the blackened ice covering the area, He firmly packed the dark magic back into that corner as well, leaving only the normal magic—Gray's old magic—that He had used for the past years. Then He opened his eyes and unwrapped his arms from his torso. Reaching out to each side, his clawed fingers seemed to hook into the monstrous shadow flaring out behind him and He pulled it back into himself, reshaping it into something humanoid again.
Once everything was crammed back into the forbidden corner of his mind He put up a halfhearted barrier, tamping everything down and slapping a temporary seal on it. It wasn't nearly as strong as the old one had been, but then again, He no longer had any need to hide who He was. No seal was going to undo the damage now.
He absently noted that his features that had been exaggerated into demonic form had retreated back to their human appearance, although He wasn't sure if He truly looked human anymore.
Natsu was staring at him intently, hope flickering in his eyes. Desperate hope seemed to be plaguing the others too as they took in his sudden deflation and return to normalcy, but it was unfounded.
"Because I heard your voice," He said with a sigh, turning away. "Fool that I was."
"Gray–"
"Don't delude yourself," He interrupted, narrowing his eyes at the ground. "I wasn't lying to you. I'm not Gray, not really. But it's also true that you never met the real Gray. The person you knew as Gray was me all along."
"And you…are a demon?" Erza asked, swallowing. "You've been a demon this whole time?"
"Yes." His mouth twisted in distaste. "I was called Deliora once. The name no longer fits, but who I am hasn't changed. Well…it would be hard not to have changed, I suppose. A few years ago, I considered killing you all every other day. You have no idea how close the guild came to being wiped out. You've somehow managed to…domesticate me since then. But make no mistake: I'm still a demon and demons can't be tamed."
Lyon's eyes flashed belligerently. "If you didn't die, then maybe Gray–"
"Gray is dead," He said flatly. "I have the memories of it. I remember dying. I can feel it. He is gone."
There was an ugly silence.
"I told you that it wasn't your fault," Lyon whispered, betrayal and anger flickering in his eyes. "I told you that I forgave you."
He winced and looked away again. Yes, Lyon had come to him at one point to say that he didn't blame him for Ur's death. It had been an all-around awful experience, and He had nearly choked on the dreadful irony of it all.
"It was always my fault," He said with a sigh. "A lot of things are my fault."
He caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Eileen slowly trying to creep away amidst all the confusion and drama, limping heavily. When she realized He had noticed her, fear flashed in her eyes and she quickly tried to throw up another enchantment. Gray's ice-make couldn't stop something like that, so He reluctantly let a sliver of his own dark magic escape to reinforce the ice as He cut the enchantment off.
"Can someone find some magic-restraining cuffs for her before I snap again and rip her head off?" He asked tiredly.
Everyone was still eyeing him warily, but now they seemed to remember the other threat that had fallen by the wayside when his drama had started up. Some mage He didn't recognize hurried off, hopefully to find a way to restrain Eileen.
"Since when have you ever cared about killing anyone?" Lyon hissed. His hands tightened into fists as he glared daggers at the demon.
"Things have changed," He murmured, weariness creeping back into his voice. "For better or for worse."
"How dare you wear his face?" Lyon demanded, hatred twisting his features. "How dare you use their magic? How dare you walk around playing at being human?"
He stayed silent for a long moment. "Not that it makes it any better, but I didn't exactly have a choice. Trust me, I tried dozens of ways to get out of this mess because I didn't like it any more than you do."
"I still don't understand," Lucy whispered, staring at him with tear-filled eyes as she hugged herself tightly.
"Don't–" Don't cry, He wanted to say, but it wasn't his place anymore. "Of course you don't," He said instead, sighing again. "Well, I suppose I owe you some answers now that I've gone and lost it."
Bowing his head, He stared sightlessly at the ground. Somewhere in the back of his mind He had always known this day was coming, had tried to prepare himself for the anger and hatred and fear and grief and betrayal, but somehow that didn't seem to help him feel any less worse now.
"At first I was more raw demon," He said quietly. "Hate and darkness and destruction and all that. I didn't have much need of thinking or feeling in the old days. I simply was, and I was destruction. The problem was that Gray's thoughts and emotions wormed their way into my fledgling consciousness and wreaked havoc on it. I raged against it for a while, tried to stamp it out, but I could never get rid of it completely. If it wasn't for what was left of him, I probably would have gone on a rampage and destroyed everything many times over in those first few years.
"I started off looking for a way to undo iced shell, more to try fixing myself than to try saving Ur. I went west because Gray's memories told me to and it wasn't like it mattered to me where I went. I learned that Fairy Tail was known for its powerful mages, and I went to see if anyone knew a way to undo iced shell. When Jii–" He broke off and shook his head. "When Makarov didn't, I nearly just razed the guild since it was no longer useful to me. I don't doubt that the remnants of Gray's values saved it.
"I wasn't angry back then because I was grieving, because I wasn't Gray. Well, there was an element of that because his experiences still haunted me, but mostly I was just being a demon and that's what I knew. Eventually it occurred to me that blending in with humans had its advantages. For one, I wasn't entirely stupid and I knew that demons weren't welcome and would be hunted, which would inconvenience my goal of undoing the spell. I stayed with the guild because it gave me connections in my search for answers. I adopted Gray's magic to better blend in.
"On my journey west from Isvan, I hadn't bothered disguising my magic as much and had done feats no child should have been capable of. No one connected the dots, but I realized that they might if I seemed too powerful for who I was supposed to be. So I locked away most of my magic and used Gray's instead, which was a pain to get used to, given that my default setting is destruction and his magic is all about creation. If I hadn't inherited his knowledge and know-how, I never would have been able to master it.
"Over the years, I found it easier to also lock up my darker impulses and memories to help make myself seem more human. It's not that they were gone, but they were easier to handle. What happened just now was that the seal snapped and it was too much for me to control when it was unleashed all at once."
The mage from before returned and, with some backup from a few other mages with Blue Pegasus guild marks, began restraining Eileen. Still, He didn't fail to notice the second set of magic-restraining cuffs dangling from the man's arm, and He knew what it was for.
"I still don't understand Galuna," Natsu said bluntly, studying the demon with wary, torn eyes. "At first you acted like you didn't want to see the ice melted, but now you're saying that you did want it melted, except that you stopped before completing iced shell."
"I didn't know what would happen if the ice melted," He said with a shrug. "I wasn't sure I wanted to take that chance."
"But you said that you were looking for a way to undo the spell and melt the ice for years," Erza pointed out, eyes narrowing.
He sighed. "I also didn't have as much to lose back then."
He wasn't the demon He had once been, if only because as He had begun assimilating with humans, He had gradually become more humanlike himself. It had been a long time since He had been of the mind to destroy everything and everyone in his path. It hadn't started off easy, but He had gradually—very gradually—come to accept the guild and humans in general.
It was Gray's fault, really, because He had inherited that child's morals and emotions. And even his silly stripping habit, which was something He had found annoying enough to break, but then had relented and picked up again because it felt too much like He was killing Gray all over again. Which shouldn't matter to him, but it was hard not to sympathize with someone when you shared their dreams and nightmares and memories.
These days it was hard to tell where Gray ended and He began. Sometimes He could even ignore his darker side and feel almost human. It might always be there, lurking under the surface, but it wasn't something that He was constantly aware of anymore. That had made it easier to create a new identity and build new ties.
He had spent a great deal of time looking for ways to undo what had happened to him in the beginning, but once He had begun fitting into the guild and making friends, He had gradually abandoned the endeavor. For all the good that did, now that the guild had stumbled on part of his secret.
He could tell that they were having a hard time accepting this, that they still didn't truly understand. He supposed it would be hard to figure out how to treat someone who might have been your friend for years but was suddenly revealed to be a demon. Aside from Lyon, who already seemed to have accepted it, judging by the revulsion and hatred written across his face.
That hatred, along with the pain and horror on the rest of the mages' faces, shouldn't bother him. But again, He was a really screwed-up demon at this point, and damn if it didn't hurt anyway.
"I still don't get iced shell," Natsu grumbled. "And I saw how upset you were and…it seems hard to believe that it was all fake."
"Oh no, Galuna was difficult," He agreed, choosing to ignore the question of iced shell. "Just not necessarily for the reasons you thought it was. I'd already given up on reversing the spell and hadn't been up to Isvan in years, so it was a shock to stumble across my old body like that. Plus everything managed to kick up all of Gray's memories and emotions again, and it was also startling to see…" He gave Lyon a sidelong glance and shrugged. It had been odd to see such an emotionally-charged memory of Gray's suddenly coalesce into reality. "And anyway, who really wants to be confronted with who they used to be in the past? It was strange to have everything shoved back in my face all at once."
Galuna had actually really wrecked him for a while, but He felt it prudent not to make himself seem sympathetic. His one-time friends were already experiencing enough emotional turmoil trying to figure out how to reconcile the person they had thought they'd known with the information He was giving them now and what He had unwittingly shown them when He had taken out Eileen.
The mages from other guilds were also wearing frightened and horrified expressions, but He didn't much care about them. It was harder to look at the faces of his guildmates—former guildmates now, He supposed—and see what was written there.
"But Gray-sama cannot be a demon!" Juvia exclaimed, her face suddenly lighting up. He watched her warily, wondering what had possessed her to draw such a conclusion. "Gray-sama's father gave him devil slayer magic, yes? How could a demon use devil slayer magic?"
"Oh," He said, eyes dimming. "Gray's father. Right. I didn't have the heart to tell him that his son actually was dead, after he got so excited thinking he'd been alive this whole time. Funny, he actually tried telling me that he was Deliora. Something about helping Gray overcome his past demons or something." He smiled bitterly. "It was terribly ironic.
"In any case, the devil slayer magic didn't kill me." In fact, that magic had ended up being something of a disappointment to him, but they didn't need to know the details of that right now. "It's really painful to use, though, since it at least recognizes me as a demon. That's why I haven't used it very often."
The hope faded from Juvia's eyes, and the silence was deafening. She started crying quietly again, along with Lucy. Erza looked like she might pass out at any moment, which wasn't that different from Mira's reaction, although at least the takeover mage was surrounded by the rest of her equally-horrified siblings. Disbelief and confusion raged in Natsu's eyes, while Lyon's eyes were still filled with silent hatred and grief. Cana was white-faced and trembling from where she was standing beside the stunned Raijinshuu and Laxus, Happy hovering nearby with a heartbroken and horrified expression on his face. Makarov's expression was impossible to read, marred by indecision and a turbulent mix of emotions.
In short, Fairy Tail looked like it was suddenly faced with the end of the world.
"So…" Natsu said slowly, incomprehension still twisting his features, "my best friend is gone? And is now a demon?"
He stared back at the dragon slayer silently, biting his tongue to stop himself from protesting that He was still the one that Natsu had laughed with and teased and fought and grown up with. With everything in shambles, it was probably better to quietly bury that. Better to hate him than to grieve and constantly wonder 'what if'.
"Your best friend never existed," He said coldly, ignoring Natsu's flinch.
Out of the corner of his eye, He could see that one Blue Pegasus mage creeping closer and closer, cronies in tow. He could easily dispose of them, silly magic cuffs and all, but there wasn't much point now. It wasn't like He really had anything left to lose.
Turning back to Lyon, He forced a mocking smile. "Are you really just going to stand there and stare at me? Going to let me get away with it, are you?"
For a moment nothing moved, but then Lyon was finally goaded into action, shock evaporating and fury breaking free as he charged forward. As expected, the Blue Pegasus mages took the sudden window of opportunity to attack too, and everything devolved into a chaotic mess. He wasn't sure who was trying to subdue him and who was hanging back, but He also wasn't sure that He wanted to know.
So instead He fixed his eyes pointedly on the ground, kept tight control over his darkness, and offered no resistance as they attacked him and restrained him and dragged him away.
Note: ...Yeah, that just happened. I actually didn't get this idea from the whole Natsu/E.N.D. thing, but from another book and series that I was interested in and was trying to jigsaw into the FT context. And this happened lol Yes, the title is a not-so-clever play on Deliora's title of being the "demon of destruction".
FAQ:
Wait, is this Gray or Deliora? - Both. He's Deliora and not the original Gray, but he is, for all intents and purposes, still the same Gray we've seen throughout canon. So I'm going to refer to him as such in A/Ns, even if that's not what he calls himself anymore.
What's up with this "He" thing? It seems confusing. - I can't imagine calling him Deliora, nor do I think he'd call himself Gray at this point. "He" is capitalized in the fashion of a name, and I was pretty careful to mark when it was Gray and when it was someone else. If it's at the beginning of the sentence, it's almost definitely Gray. I was careful not to put it in contexts where it would have to be capitalized unless it was referring to Gray. Anything lowercase is not Gray, although it's possible I might have missed an instance or two. If you noticed that I slipped up, you can let me know and I'll fix it.
This doesn't make sense. How do canon events X, Y, and Z possibly fit into this? - Believe it or not, I actually fit this really well into canon up until where it diverges right here. I have explanations for childhood stuff (even Gray's OPness in Ice Trail lol), Galuna, E.N.D., devil slayer magic, the necklace, Tartaros, and a whole bunch of other things. Some things will be explained throughout the story, some in the sequel, and some of the more minor things might be left to the imagination unless someone specifically asks.
How are you going to do this when we don't know much about demons? - One of the most fun parts was that I got to make up a lot of demon lore :D I worked off of canon and elaborated a lot. I wrote this before E.N.D.'s Book was opened (which was disappointingly anticlimactic, tbh), so I went my own way with it. I also belatedly realized that Deliora is actually shown using some kind of weird green magic? Totally forgot about that somehow, so I went in a different direction with that too. But hey, it's better than making Gray puke up green magic beams. (You're welcome for that image.)
How closely does this follow canon? - Very little about canon events before this point has been altered, although some of the underlying explanations have shifted a bit. After this point...like I said, I wrote this before we knew how everything worked out. Most canon events in Alvarez that don't involve Gray go unchallenged (aside from Eileen, obviously). If canon didn't interfere with my plot, I left it alone and you can assume that it happens whether we see it or not. Some of Gray's things changed a bit, but I still followed along canon. When possible, I adapted canon rather than outright threw it away. And how I chose to get rid of Acnologia and Zeref is totally my own creation. On the other hand, there are a few things I didn't bother touching because they were either too nonsensical in canon or we hadn't gotten to that point yet and I didn't know what to do with them. Fairy Heart and the ridiculous time lapse thing are among them.
How long is this? - Eight chapters, unless I start messing with the structure. It covers Alvarez. There's also a sequel which I'm still working on, but we'll talk more about that when we get there.
A flower? Really? - ...Is that joke getting old yet? Sorry, I wasn't going to include it here, but ooone person decided to resurrect it so here it is. (You know who you are.)
emmahoshi: It's okay, you're not missing anything; Alvarez all sucks. I don't even consider it part of my headcanon, for the most part. Lol yeah, I've not been impressed, and I said right from the beginning that Makarov would survive. The tagalongs are canon, but I don't care enough to look up their names again. And yeah, Eileen is apparently Erza's mom, and I was unimpressed with her in general. She's super OPed and used way too many random kinds of magic that didn't make sense together. In canon, she actually turned Hisui (the princess) into a mouse, but I decided to adapt that to Lucy since the canon scene isn't going to happen in this verse. The original Gray died when he went back after Deliora and Ur used iced shell to try (and ultimately fail) to save him. So Lyon still had the opportunity to know him during that period between his parents' death and Ur's death. Honestly, I don't think it's so ridiculous to think that Gray could have gotten killed when he went back after Deliora lol Could've happened easily, I think. As for Lyon, it's both. He did have a rival/brotherly friendship with Gray during training, even if they also had issues with each other at that point. So Lyon has basically lost not only Ur, but the Gray he knew as a child and the Gray he thought he knew after Galuna. Poor guy lol Sorry, no flower, ha ha.