Jambo fellow readers
This is the first fiction that I will be publishing so it's kind of a test run.
Be sure to read and review, I need all the advice that I can get.
P.S. I am probably throwing the order of events in the Tartaros story arc to hell, I'm not really sorry if that offends you (because you don't have to read this) but I'm using them in the order that suits my story best.
And now without further ado.
Memories
The battle was not going well for Fairy-Tail, not that it was going poorly either, sure Tartaros had them outnumbered one hundred to one but they were relatively low power foot soldiers compared to Fairy-Tails elite wizards. Even young Romeo, who was by no means a power house by Fairy-Tail standards, was pulling his own weight in the battle. The skill of his children wasn't what was worrying Makarov, it was the length of the battle that had him worried, they had been fighting for hours, and with no end of the soldiers in sight Makarov was worried that they wouldn't have the strength to defeat the Demon Gates, especially with such strong members as the Thunder Legion still out from an encounter with just one of them a few days ago. That was the other thing that was worrying the 6th master, those wounded during the battle had nowhere to go but Porlyusica, who was still on the battlefield herself, and they didn't have the manpower to spare anymore mages to guard the makeshift medical ward.
Makarov's hopes had soared when Erza had broken through the ground below (above?) them opening up a direct route to the fortress on the top of the cube. While Erza battled Kyôka in the skies above(below?) them, many Fairy-Tail mages had poured into the hole flooding the fortress of Tartaros, splitting up upon entering the structure and keeping in touch as best they could with Warren's telepathy, it had been about an hour since their last communication, in which Warren had informed them that Wendy had left the battle field in order to destroy the "Face" device that was supposedly able to remove all magic from the continent, with still no further information on Wendy Makarov was beginning to worry about her as well. He was more than relieved when he finally felt the familiar sensation of his mind being contacted by telepathy.
Those feelings of alleviation immediately vanished as an unfamiliar voice spoke in his, and the rest of the battle participants, minds'.
"Welcome to Tartaros Fairy-Tail, I am Master E.N.D. king of the demons of Zeref."
Makarov's blood ran cold, everything that they were trying to prevent had come to pass anyways. For the first time Makarov began to consider retreat, while that was still an option, just find his children and run as fast as they could. Unlike the majority of his children he was no fool, he knew that in their weakened state his guild members would be hard pressed to fight the Demon Gates, and now their king had entered the battle, obviously fresh and full of energy as someone who had just finished a week-long vacation.
He was not the only one intelligent enough to realize the gravity of their situation, he was in a group with Macao, Wakaba, and Romeo, and from the looks on their faces he could tell that they were having thoughts along the same lines as him.
He was about to use this moment while they were all connected via telepathy to give the order to retreat, evacuate the town of Magnolia and get as far from there as possible when E.N.D. made an announcement that suddenly left him frozen in shock and confusion.
"I respectfully request a cease-fire between our two guilds Makarov, I believe that there has been enough damage done today, and too much has been done to your people and family. I feel that you are all are owed a proper apology for, and explanation of, my guilds actions. I want to speak to all of you personally, as such I extend an invitation to all of you, asking that you would join me in my throne room that I may suitably attempt to make things right between us."
Makarov's eyebrows knit together as he thought on the words of the demon king.
Eventually coming up with an alternative Makarov spoke for the first time to E.N.D., "I will meet with you, but I do not want my children anywhere near you."
The monarch's sigh was heard before he said, "I would rather you come all at once 6th Master. You see the explanation is a bit lengthy and painful for me to recall, I would much rather not have to tell it more than once. As a show of good will, I have sent Tempester to your Madam Porlyusica with the orders to assist her in any way necessary to get your Thunder Legion back on their feet, this also helps me as it ensures that I won't have to tell the story, again, to them later."
Makarov had stopped listening after he was told that one of the Nine Demon gates had gone to the medical area, where his old friend was taking care of his children, and his biological grandson, all of who were ill, aside from Porlyusica.
"DON'T YOU DARE SEND ANY OF YOUR DEMONS ANYWHERE NEAR MY CHILDREN!"
"It's already been done Makarov." Came the gentle, if surly, voice of the great healer Porlyusica, she had been tempted to shout over the link, but she knew that Makarov didn't need her adding to his stress levels, not that she could be perfectly calm and caring as she drew blood from a demon. "I've already used some of his blood to help Laxus recover," She continued in order to aid him in his process of calming down.
Makarov was still livid when the voice of his grandson drifted to him through the telepathy, "Gramps, I just got here and I'm already done with this battle, and if you think that we'll just let you face this guy on your own you're crazy, if he's telling the truth than we got nothing to worry about, if he's lying than there's no chance we could get far enough away to make a difference, if we are going to die today than we would all rather die together fighting than all alone running." There was a chorus of mages voicing their agreement with the lightning dragon slayer, and E.N.D. also responded saying, "Well said Laxus."
Makarov nearly broke his fingers with how tightly he was clenching his fists, but slowly he relaxed them as he realized that his grandson had spoken the truth. He reluctantly replied to E.N.D.
"I will accept your invitation."
"Excellent! Seeing that you are all a great distance from my throne room I shall open a gate that shall transport you all here." As he finished speaking a large gate appeared in a flash of fire in front of Makarov's group, it was beautiful in a twisted sort of way, the gate seemed to be made of solid flames that twisted and danced around an invisible gate post. It pulsed with a deep red light the way a fire might actually give off light. Upon looking at the words engraved on a plaque over the gate Makarov raised an eyebrow, while all the other mages of Fairy-Tail raised their voices.
"What kind of trick do you think that you are pull?" Macao shouted over the rest of the wizards through the telepathy.
"What do you mean?" E.N.D asked sounding genuinely confused.
"The kanji over the gate!"
"What kanj…oh…"
"WELL!"
"You see, it's been many years since I've opened this gate and I completely forgot that its name was written over the opening…"
"THAT DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY YOU WANT US TO WALK THROUGH THIS 'GATE OF HELL'!"
Sure enough, the kanji on the plaque read "Gate of Hell"
"Well it's not…" E.N.D. started to explain, but he was quickly interrupted by a large number of angry mages.
"You seriously still trying to trick us?"
"That's a low blow getting our hopes up like that."
"And you actually thought we would fall for tha…"
"SHUT UP!" the demon king roared with such ferocity that even Erza was left quaking in her boots.
"Damnit," E.N.D. continued, "you made me break character. Look this is my gate, it can be used to summon me if you have enough power, kind of like celestial magic, but with demons instead of spirits. My gate is simply known as the Gate of Hell because… whoever named it, not me, had a sense of humor and thought that the fire devil's gate should be called that okay?
It doesn't have to lead to Hell, I can open it anywhere I want so long as I'm on one side of it."
There was still quite a bit of muttering and arguing over whether or not they should trust the word of a Demon King, when Laxus' voice cut through everyone's heads.
"Would you guys just shut up and get over here already?"
Silence fell on the guild for a brief moment, then Makarov, in a rather quiet voice asked, "Laxus, are you really already there?"
"Yeah Gramps, now will you hurry up and get moving? I'm getting tired of waiting."
"You sound pretty good for a guy who just got out of a poison induced coma…" Wakaba said.
"Wendy is here also," Freed spoke in everyone's heads, "she is currently healing Evergreen."
"Wait how did she get here?" Macao asked
"I was contacted with telepathy like everyone else, despite how far away I was, so after the gate appeared, and the name was explained I went through."
"Actually," E.N.D. said, "Wendy was the first one here, so all of you 'great, powerful and brave mages' of Fairy-Tail do realize that you were just outdone, by a TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL!"
The silence that followed the demon king's statement was so intense that everyone could just hear Wendy's slightly put off mutter of, "I'm thirteen…"
E.N.D. seemed to decide that it would be best if he ignored her correction for now.
The quiet was soon broken again, this time by the ice-make mage who was probably shirtless by now, "How do we know that you aren't just using your powers to speak to us in their voices? Brain of the Oracion Seis did that one time and fooled us all."
There were some murmurs of agreement from the other guild members, although Makarov did take notice of the fact that they weren't as loud or rambunctious as before.
E.N.D.'s exasperated sigh was heard before, after yet another moment of silence, he answered, sounding both tired of the whole ordeal and more than a little mad at the stubbornness of the mages.
"Because, Ice Dick, I don't have to resort to tricks to kill every single one of you without so much as leaving this room." His tone was low, and deadly serious as he continued, "I am Master E.N.D. the king of the demons of Zeref, and the only magic user on the planet who has enough power to finally kill the black mage. The power of ten wizard saints is nothing to mine, and the Spriggan 12 cower before me."
"The Spriggan 12..?" Wakaba asked along with the rest of Fairy-Tail.
"In the country across the sea called Alvarez, the Spriggan 12 are the personal bodyguards of the mighty Emperor Spriggan, to put their power in perspective the strongest of the wizard saints, a man so 'modestly' referred to as God Serena, would be the 4th most powerful should he join their ranks, and the rest could still stand toe to toe with him in battle."
It seemed that the guild was responding, to a lot of the information that the demon king was sharing with them, with silence quite a bit today.
"Honestly I could kill you all from where I sit by saying three words and flexing the muscles of my right arm, but I don't want to do that. I just want to end the useless fighting and destruction that has been going on recently. Now would you please go through the damn gate?"
Seeming to have been properly chastised and convinced all the mages of Fairy-Tail walked, rather begrudgingly, towards the portal that was nearest to them. As it should have been Makarov was the first to pass through the gate into the throne room.
It was a sizable room to say the least, having more than twice the floor space than the main room of the Fairy-Tail guild hall(assuming that the guild hall was still standing) and circular, torches lined the walls giving off plenty of light, as Makarov looked around and, to his relief, saw Laxus, the Thunder Legion, Wendy, her exceed and Mest all off to the side, Wendy still treating the wounded with Porlyusica the others either standing guard or helping to carry those with more serious injuries, Makarov also saw more of his children entering the room through gates identical to the one he had come from.
Continuing his inspection of the throne room Makarov saw that there was only one entrance through the solid walls, a set of massive double doors just behind him, with some of the Nine Demon Gates standing guard around them. If that was to be considered the back of the room than the front was most certainly where the throne was. The only other break in the uniform curve of the walls, other that the doors, was an alcove directly across from the entryway, while there were still torches lit in the alcove they were much dimmer than the others in the room, casting only enough light to see the silhouette of the throne, and the being who sat in it.
Master E.N.D. was indeed sitting in the throne when Makarov first entered the room, but as the rest of Fairy-Tail finished gathering he rose from his seat bringing himself to his full height. Makarov studied the demon king as best he could with the poor light of the alcove, he was tall, at least six feet, he wore loose fitting pants and that was it, the reason for his state of undress was fairly obvious though, for while he had feet that that were the same basic shape as a humans, they were taloned with rough skin that resembled scales and had a reddish tint to it, his hands had the same style as his feet, being overall the same shape as a humans but having talons instead of nails and rough, scaly skin with the same reddish hue. From his wrists up to his torso his skin was normal looking, if slightly tanned, and he was well muscled, but the attention grabbing details were the black marks that ran along his entire body. Like ink black tattoos, all in the shape of flames, they were all connected (as far as Makarov could see) and they were sparsely scattered across his body like light decorations. But by far the most interesting attribute that the master of Tartaros possessed (and the obvious reason for his lack of shirt) were the wings on his back, with a shape that resembled those of a dragons, they were just as rough and red as his hands and feet, and appeared to not want to fully fold up into his back, opting to relax, about a fifth of the way open.
The face of the demon king was obscured by the shadows of the alcove so Makarov could only see his mouth, which was grinning a fanged grin. As for the rest of his face, you could tell by the shadow that he had a lot of spiky hair and what looked like two horns atop his head. As he spoke for the first time since they entered the room, Makarov noticed that when E.N.D. "broken character" his voice had changed, becoming somewhat familiar, as he regained his composure, however, his voice returned to the unfamiliar one he had used while "in character".
"This, as you may have guessed, is my throne room Fairy-Tail," he said, bringing his right arm and a previously unseen pointed devil's tail towards his stomach as he bowed, though not enough to free his face from the shadows.
"I would like to welcome you here on behalf of my unfortunately absent queen, who is currently searching for more appropriate attire than what she was wearing when I was fully released. I apologize for…"
"QUEEN?!" all the Fairy-Tail mages shouted as one, after coming out of their initial shock at the demon king's statement, causing E.N.D. to bring his hands to his ears quite suddenly.
"I wasn't aware that you had a queen," stated Erza Scarlet, her brown eyes wide with shock.
Makarov turned around to look at the Demon Gates to see their reaction to their master's statement. They were all looking to one who resembled a man with long black hair and pale skin, Makarov guessed him to be the second in charge of the Tartaros guild. The man, or demon, seemed to be explaining something to them, but Makarov was unable to hear what he was saying due to the distance between them.
"Yes well," E.N.D. started speaking to the, again, silent fairies, "I didn't have a queen when I was sealed away. She is a human girl who has agreed to be my queen, and before you start throwing around accusations, no she was not blackmailed, threatened, or in any way pressured to accept my request, she was well aware of the facts and chose, of her own free will, to join me, as my queen and the one I love."
"Now as I was saying, I apologize for my state of undress, but the last time I was at full power I didn't have wings so none of my shirts are tailored to accommodate them. But I assure you that I shall deal with that as soon as possib…"
He was yet again interrupted by the confused, upset, and rather delayed, cries and questions of the Fairy-Tail mages.
"She was aware of all the facts and she still went with you?"
"Wait, so she's a human?"
"I thought that you saw humans as creatures inferior to insects…"
Makarov was both surprised and amused at the sight of the demon king raising his hand towards his head in a motion that looked like a face palm. Makarov was even more surprised at his own decision to help the master of Tartaros regain order.
"ALL RIGHT YOU BRATS THAT'S ENOUGH! LET HIM SPEAK FOR A LITTLE BIT AND MAYBE HE WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS!"
It was almost comical how quickly everyone quieted down. Except for one smartass, who sounded suspiciously like Max, saying, "I just wanna know how got a girl when he's only been awake for five minutes…"
Before Makarov or E.N.D. could respond, one of the Demon Gates, another vaguely humanoid figure with yellow hair and canine ears, spoke up for the first time, saying, "How dare you question our masters power and ability. Once he has set for himself a goal nothing will stop him from attain…"
"JACKAL BE SILENT!" Roared master E.N.D., "AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE ANY OF THE FAIRIES ARIVED HERE, I WISH, FOR YOUR SAKE, TO FORGET YOUR PRESENCE!"
The demon who had spoken, Jackal, shrunk back with a grimace on his face. Makarov raised an eyebrow at the demon king's actions but said nothing. As he looked back to the master of the demons he noticed that E.N.D. was still staring at the back of the room, head tilted to the side as if thinking something was off.
"There's someone missing." He said.
The black haired demon spoke up, "Mard Geer is afraid that Ezel has fallen in battle, my master, to the slayer of the sky dragons."
E.N.D.'s head swiveled towards the spot where Wendy was sitting, "you defeated Ezel?" he asked
Wendy, who was sporting a much shorter haircut than when Makarov had last seen her, stood from helping the injured and, with a confidence that few suspected her of possessing, nodded firmly saying, "yes sir,"
The much unexpected noise of clapping filled everyone's ears as the demon king slowly brought his hands together, "Well done, well done indeed, I must say that is no small feat that you have accomplished. Sadly I must undo it, for he needs to hear what I have to say just as much as the rest of you,"
"U-undo it sir?" Mirajane spoke up, "How? During my fight with Seilah I destroyed the lab that you need to stay immortal."
The demon king threw back his head and gave a short bark of laughter before explaining the situation.
"We do not need the lab to be immortal, we are immortal to begin with, the lab simply speeds up the process of our regeneration, without it we will still come back, but it could take years, or even decades to be fully restored. However I'm sure that you remember my comparing my gate to celestial magic, with enough power I can open Ezel's gate and revive him in the blink of an eye. I can do that with all my followers, they are the Demon Gates, and I am the gate keeper.
"Now," the demon king clapped his hands together in some strange symbol, with his left hand palm up, fingers slightly curled and his right hand opened in much the same way, but with his fingers jabbing downward into his left palm, "OPEN! GATE OF SWORDS! EZEL!"
There was a brief flash of light, and once it faded a light blue demon with four tentacles instead of legs was resting on his hands in front of his king.
"It is good to see you again Master E.N.D."
"Ezel I wish for you to stand guard at the door with the rest of your brethren, but stay in the room for I have a story to tell, and I have no desire to tell it more than once. Also no fighting any of the humans, what I have to say is for them too."
Without a word the demon got up and went to the back of the room with the other creations of Zeref.
"Now please, have a seat everyone," The master said snapping his fingers. Instantly several small fires rose up around the room, all of them blinking out of existence as quickly as they came to be. As soon as they all died down there were chairs across the room, all different in shape and size, specifically designed for the person closest to them.
"Like the fire god slayer I can make my flames into solid constructs, however mine don't have to be hot in solid form," the demon king said.
His reassurances didn't stop the fairies from doing a few test touches before sitting down.
"Now, I know you have many questions, probably ranging from 'Why are you acting so different from the stories?' to 'how can you land a girl in just five minutes?'," the second example was delivered with a glare at Max, "and I must first start by saying the E.N.D that you have heard of never existed, I was never that bad, although I was far from who I am now,
"I suppose the best place to start the story would be at the beginning, with my birth," there were some groans from his audience, to which he replied, "trust me every detail I tell you is important, and I will try my best to keep you interested.
"As I was saying, on July 7th, in the year X368 I was born, fully human, I did not become a demon until later, I never knew my father, he was killed in an accident before I was born, or mother, she died while in labor with me, actually, I wasn't even born until after she died, I was raised by my brother, who was only 6 at the time, but he was already a powerful mage, strong enough, and smart enough to provide for us and keep a roof over our heads. And so my life went, until five years later, on July 14th, in the year X372, I died."
E.N.D. paused there for a moment allowing his words to sink in before continuing.
"This drove my brother to obsession, as I said he was a powerful mage even at the age of six, after my death he went to Mildian Magic Academy to research the reason that people live, and the reason that people die. After less than a year there he was astounding the professors with his ideas and discoveries, he was holding lectures that were always filled to the brim with intellectuals from across the country, everyone wanted to hear what my brother, Zeref, had to say.
Makarov was impressed at his children's sudden ability to remain silent and not interrupt the demon king at every startling revelation.
"Yes all of Zeref's inventions, the Eclipse Gate, The R-System, even the demons, were made with the sole intention of reviving me. They never made it past the blueprint stages though, Zeref deemed the R-System as to barbaric and counterproductive when he realized that it would require multiple human sacrifices to resurrect one person, and it was while he was working on the Eclipse Gate that he was cursed. He himself was made immortal, but the more value he placed on human life, the more life that he destroyed.
"It was after this that he discovered how to create the demons, and after many attempts, he created the 9 demons who stand behind you now, trying and failing to make a being powerful enough to kill him. This is how I was revived, he found that the demons could be restored quite quickly in a lab similar to the one that you destroyed miss Mirajane, and so he took my body, which he had preserved through magic, and turned me into a demon myself, using the lab to bring me back to life.
"He accomplished more than he thought that he would though, for after I was fully restored it was discovered that, even though my body and mind were still that of a five year old's, I had power comparable to that of the nine Demon Gates. He had begun to hope that I would have enough power to end his suffering…"
There was an unexpected sound of snickering in the audience of the demon king, and everyone turned to look at Max and Warren, who each had their hands over their mouths.
The master of Tartaros sighed and said, "for those smartasses clever enough to see the pun there of 'E.N.D. bringing an end to Zeref,' I am so glad that it was funny enough for you to interrupt me by laughing, right after I said that I was brought back to life in the hopes that I could KILL MY BROTHER! THE ONE WHO RAISED ME! WHO PROVIDED FOR ME! WHO PROTECTED ME FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE! AND WHO SEARCHED FOR A WAY TO BRING ME BACK AFTER MY DEATH!"
Max and Warren shrank back at both the king's outrage and the glares that they were receiving from the guild. No one had expected to feel anything resembling sympathy for the master of Tartaros, but they did.
"Continuing my story, Zeref again began to raise me, but more than that, to train me. To train me to control my powers and grow in strength, we began to wander the continent, stopping at villages occasionally to resupply and gather information, he would always go around the village and meet up with me on the other side, due to the fact that the curse would cause him to kill anyone who came to close, and wasn't a demon. Whenever I had to enter a town I would pull up my hood and try to blend in, which is quite difficult when you are a seven year old with horns, many times I was discovered and would have to fight my way out, no one caring who I was beyond the fact that I was a demon.
"Many years later Zeref found, and took advantage of, an opportunity to fake his death, in order to bring some peace to the world of men, but we the demons knew that he was simply hiding. It was at this time that I officially started the dark guild known as 'Tartaros' and took on the responsibility of leading Zeref's creations, our mission was a simple one, we were going to return to Zeref. Not all of them followed me, some of the failed experiments, namely the two known as 'Lullaby' and 'Deliora' took more pleasure in the simple torment of people than in the idea of completing that which was our reason for living. I took it upon myself to hunt down the traitors personally. Deliora hid himself away somehow but Lullaby was much more foolish, believing that he could even hold a candle to my power proved to be a horrible mistake on his part. I was the one who sealed him away into that flute, the battle was rather short, an easy victory for me, but I'm sure that it was a spectacular sight for anyone to behold, for although he was weak when compared to me, he still had a respectable amount of power.
"After that battle was when things began to go wrong, before I could properly seal away the flute that now contained Lullaby, I was met by a mob of townspeople, I would presume to thank me for saving them form Lullaby, but when they saw me, with my demon horns, tail, and marks, they became afraid and attacked me on the spot, just like when I was a child, they neither knew or cared about me beyond the fact that I was a demon. That was when I first began to grow bitter towards the humans.
"This pattern continued, with the only differences being the town I saved, and the demon I hunted. Without fail I would be mobbed by the inhabitants of the area, and with each incident, my bitterness grew. It eventually came to the point where instead of simply fleeing the area, I would cause a great deal of property damage to the town, never attacking the people directly, but not really caring if they were caught in the blast.
"My infamy grew to the point where Igneel, the king of the fire dragons, came hunting me. It was when he caught up to me that his wisdom and experience shone through, for when he looked at me, what he saw was not an evil demon bent on destruction, but a twisted, tired, lonely, broken, soul. He saw through the anger, and the walls that I had put up, and instead of battling me as he originally intended, he spoke to me, he asked me questions about myself, where I came from, what I desired.
"For the first time in centuries someone spoke to me, not as though I was a demon, but as though I was a person with a soul. I spoke with Igneel for two days straight, neither eating nor drinking during that time. The longer we spoke the more comfortable I became, the more I grew to like this dragon king, until he made me an offer, he offered to seal away all of my demonic powers and memories, to give me a chance to see the world through the eyes of a human, the eyes of someone the world wouldn't automatically hate and despise.
"I accepted the offer with almost no hesitation. And so the deed was done, Igneel not only sealed my powers and memories, but somehow managed to seal everyone's memories of me, people still knew that I had existed, but no one remembered the look of my face, the sound of my voice, or even what my full name was. Not even the demons of Zeref were spared in that detail, only Igneel and Zeref remembered who I was.
"I realize now that as I wandered the world after that, I had been truly freed, I was no longer a victim of prejudice, I had no memories of the horrible treatment I had received at the hands of humans, and without the influence of my devil magic my personality became what it would have become on its own, a much more carefree, happy one than that which I had possessed prior to Igneel's gift."
"What do you mean 'without the influence of my devil magic'? What influence?" The question was voiced by Gray, though it seemed that all of Makarov's children were silently asking the same thing.
"Magic," E.N.D. started to explain, "has an influence on your personality, the type of magic you practice determines just what that influence will be."
"Seriously?" Gray asked.
Even through the shadows Makarov could see the demon king deadpan, "You are an ice make wizard. How would you describe yourself? Calm cool collected for the most part? A bit standoffish? Is that not how many people would describe your step-brother Lyon, who also uses ice magic? How about that fire dragon slayer that is a part of your guild? You would say that he is a hyperactive knucklehead who prefers actions to words, the same could be said of the fire god slayer Zancrow. Or how about the sky dragon and sky god slayers? They are both considered adorable little angels by their peers, both kind, generous, gentle and all around good natured. Most people who practice slayer magic also go through a time where they suffer from a superiority complex.
"This isn't to say that magic forces you to change, it's not like a master, it's more like a mother or father, if you live with them then they begin to rub off on you a little bit, you start to mimic them in some ways, but overall you are still your own person. Also the younger you are when you start, the stronger the influence is.
"Anyways, devil magic influences you to be more of a bitter person, or in my case, demon, so when Igneel sealed my power and memories, not only was my power no longer causing me to be spiteful, but I didn't remember having anything to be mad about. I was a clean slate, I was myself, and I was ready for anything the world had to throw at me,"
"Just to clarify," Makarov spoke up, "you weren't ever sealed away?"
"Not entirely," the demon king explained, "It's true that once Igneel sealed away my powers and memories I went into a magical hibernation of sorts, but once I awoke from that I went on to live life as a human.
"So how is it that you've been awakened now?" asked Makarov.
"Over time the seal began to weaken, and seven years ago during the Tenrou Island incident that the seal began to fall apart faster, caused by Zeref's reemergence. Then the activity of Tartaros in recent weeks had weakened it to the point that the essence of my memories returned to me, after that I did everything in my power to fully release my powers so that I could stop the foolish actions of my followers.
Throughout the entire story Makarov had been periodically glancing behind him at the demons standing guard in the back of the room. As he continued to do so he had noticed that one of them, the yellow haired one called Jackal, had been growing more and more restless, squirming where he stood, opening his mouth every now and then as if to say something only to be hushed by the others around him. It seemed however, that his master's last comment had been the last straw as he now boldly took a step forward, ignoring the words of his brethren as he addressed E.N.D.
"FOOLISH ACTIONS? WE DID ONLY WHAT WAS OUR DUTY! OUR MISSION! WHAT WE'VE BEEN CREATED TO DO! WE'VE ONLY DONE WHAT ZEREF- WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE ORDERED! IF YOU HADN'T GONE SOFT DURING YOUR TIME WITH THE HUMA…"
E.N.D., who had sat down sometime during his story, shot up from his chair and shouted, "FIRE DEVIL'S CHAIN!"
Then a chain appeared out of a flame, much in the same way that the chairs had earlier, one end flying across the room to wrap around Jackal's neck, the other end already securely around the demon king's hand. Once the chain had Jackal tightly held Tartaros' master flicked his wrist down causing the chain to slam to the ground in a wave-like motion that, once it reached him, brought Jackal to the floor with such force the solid stones beneath him gave way, leaving a perfect imprint of his face in the ground.
"YOU FOOL!" E.N.D. shouted, "DID I NOT TELL YOU TO REMAIN SILENT FOR YOUR OWN SAKE? I WAS HOPING TO LEAVE YOUR PUNISHMENT FOR A LATER TIME AFTER I HAD CALMED DOWN A BIT BUT I SEE NOW THAT THERE WOULD BE NO POINT TO THAT!
"AND NO! YOU DID NOT 'ONLY DO WHAT IS YOUR DUTY'! YOU WERE CREATED TO KILL ZEREF! NOT JUST TO GIVE HIM PEACE BUT TO SAVE PEOPLE FROM HIS OUT OF CONTROL POWER AS WELL! KILLING PEOPLE IN ORDER TO ACCOMPLISH THAT IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE! TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE NONE OF YOU EVEN LOOKED AT THE KILLINGS AS THOUGH THEY WERE NECESSARY EVILS! INSTEAD YOU LOOKED AT THEM WITH SADISTIC PLEASURE AND TOOK GREAT ENJOYMENT IN NOT ONLY THE DEATHS OF YOUR TARGET, BUT OF THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM AS WELL!"
The demon king then slammed the backs his hands together, palm up fingers bent perpendicular to his palms also pointed up.
"OPEN! GATE OF HELL!"
Said gate once again appeared out of fire the doors remaining shut.
"My lord," Mard Geer said, fear obvious in his voice, "is this truly what our punishment is?"
E.N.D. ignored him, "KEYES, YOU ARE EXCUSED FROM THIS BECAUSE YOU MUST USE YOUR NECROMANCY TO BRING BACK THAT TRAITOROUS COUNCILMAN, GRAN DOMA, AND HAVE HIM CONFESS HIS SINS TO THE WORLD! SILVER IS EXCUSED BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH HE HAD EVERY INTENTION OF KILLING ME ONCE I WAS REVIVED HE HELD ON TO HIS HUMANITY AS BEST AS HE COULD DURING HIS TIME IN MY GUILD! THE REST OF YOU SHALL SPEND TWO DAYS IN THE HELL THAT MY GATE NOW LEADS TO!"
"I thought that his gate didn't lead to Hell." Warren muttered to Max.
"I said it doesn't have to," the demon king said, displaying his superior hearing, "it can lead to wherever I want it to so long as I'm on one side of it. Now as for Mard Geer, Kyôka, and Jackal, because Mard Geer lead this movement, because Kyôka went to extremes in her torture and used her inability to tell when a woman was telling the truth as an excuse to continue to 'play' with her, and because Jackal, in all his assassination missions, not only killed his targets, but the entire town around them, going so far as to entertain himself by forcing one of the Fairy-Tail mages to choose between the life of a councilman who she was sent to protect, and the life of a pregnant woman, because your offenses are even greater than those committed by the rest of your brethren, you three shall spend the full three days in hell.
"Now GO! Before you give me cause to punish you again."
All the demons, aside from one who was wearing a suit of armor, left, either through the gate, though Jackal was dragged by the others, or the door behind them, the one who left by the door, Keyes, had a face that resembled a skeletons and carried a monks staff with rings on one end of it.
When they had gone E.N.D. remained standing, though his shoulders sagged.
"The full three days?" Makarov asked.
"Because they aren't dead they can only spend three days in Hell before it spits them back out to the world of the living where they belong," E.N.D explained with sorrow in his voice.
Everyone looked towards the throne at the front of the room and beheld a sight that, needless to say, no one was expecting to see, E.N.D. the almighty master of Tartaros and king of Zeref's demons,
.
.
.
Was crying... Not loud uncontrollable sobs, but a silent weeping, the only evidence that he was crying was the sorrow in his voice and the few tears that were making their way down past his mouth, which was pressed into a tight line, and towards his chin.
A rather long and uncomfortable silence stretched out as everyone pondered what to do about this unexpected development. Everyone except a certain little girl with black hair and a cowboy hat. Asuka, the young daughter of Bisca and Alzak, was just as confused as everyone else by the demon king's actions, and being very young, and therefore without fear on certain subjects, voiced her confusion.
"Why are you crying?"
All of the mages in the room visibly flinched, at both the sudden sound, and the question that was asked. Certain that E.N.D. would react poorly to such a question, they were surprised when he answered calmly, even if there was still a great deal of sadness in his voice.
"There are three reasons," he started, "the first is the punishment that I had to deal them. I'm supposed to lead them, to protect them, to show them how to live, and I failed them, as a result I have to give them pain, to show them the consequences of their actions. Tell me Makarov, is this how it feels to punish your children? Beyond those silly embarrassment games that you play."
Makarov nodded once, "Yes that is the pain that I feel when I must severely discipline my children."
The demon king's crying intensified slightly, his shoulders now shuddering slightly as he continued, "I'm also crying because of how far they have fallen in my absence, not to say that they were angels before I left, but while I was gone it seems that they have turned me into a symbol of superiority, they have forgotten not only my face, but who I was, why I was who I was.
"And lastly I'm crying because of all the people who died, but more than that," as he spoke he brought his hands out in front of him slightly, looking down at them, "the villagers, the council staff, the council members and former council members, Master Org, officer Lahar, all these people were killed by the Nine Gates, but they were killed in my name, meaning," E.N.D. had tears streaming down his face now, rolling off his chin and soaking the floor in front of him, his shoulders were now heaving in uncontrollable sobs, his hands trembling as he clenched them into fists and cried in a loud and defeated voice, "MY HANDS, ARE JUST AS BLOODY AS THEIRS!"
at the sound of his sorrow everyone was struck dumb and motionless, except for Asuka once again, who leapt from her mother's now limp arms and ran to the master of Tartaros, climbing the three steps to his slightly elevated platform, and threw her arms around his knees, which was as high as she could reach, and began to comfort him.
"It's not your fault, you didn't make them do that, and you stopped them as soon as you could. It's not your fault. It's not your fault."
She kept repeating this into the otherwise silent room, E.N.D. had even stopped crying as he stared in frozen shock, along with everyone else, at the girl hugging his knees. Suddenly another hand appeared from a hidden door in one side of the alcove, and took the demon's still clenched fist into its grasp.
And a very familiar voice spoke up saying, "See? Even little Asuka doesn't blame you. Despite how young she is, she's wise enough to know that you aren't the one at fault. She doesn't blame you, and neither do I, and I doubt that anyone else who knows the truth will either."
The hand and voice belonged to a woman, a woman who was wearing a black dress that was decorated with colored glass beads that were red and orange and arranged in a way that made it look like a fire was burning around her ankles and slowly climbing up her dress, she had blonde hair, chocolate brown eyes, and wore a kind and soft expression on her face.
None of the guild members noticed that though, for their eyes were still glued on her right hand, the hand which was holding E.N.D.'s, the hand that had a pink Fairy-Tail guild mark on it. It was at that point that everyone simultaneously realized that Lucy Heartfilia was never a part of the audience with them.
Lucy stood on her tip toes and kissed the demon king on the cheek, then she bent down and picked up Asuka and held her up to E.N.D., who took her and wrapped his arms around her in a grateful hug. When he relaxed hug he was still holding her in his arms close enough that she could look him in the eyes, Asuka's eyes widened in recognition, and she looked back to Lucy who nodded, still smiling softly. Asuka looked back at E.N.D. and then at Lucy again, this time an evil smile playing at her lips.
"Now will you kiss him?"
Lucy laughed and nodded, turning to the demon king, who grinned a rather boyish grin as shifted Asuka to one side so that she wasn't in the way, and used his now free arm to wrap around Lucy's waist, pulling her in for a deep, passionate kiss while Asuka raised her hands in victory.
It was at this time that all of Fairy-Tail came out of their collective shocks, the first being from Asuka's act of comforting the demon king, the second from the revelation that Lucy had agreed to be his queen, and as a group shouted one of two things.
"ASUKA!"
"LUCY!"
"Asuka why did you run away from your mother like that?"
"Lucy where were you? What happened?"
"Asuka come back here!"
"Lucy you're the queen that he talked about? What will Natsu say?"
That last question was asked by Mirajane, who immediately turned her head in search of Natsu, only to realize that he wasn't there either.
"QUITE!" E.N.D. bellowed, silencing the mages once again.
"Before you ask any more questions I have two more things to tell you. First, yes, Lucy is the woman who agreed to be my queen," as he spoke he held her left hand up to reveal a ring on one of her fingers, that looked like it was made out of his solid fire with a flawless ruby embedded in it.
"Second, I'm sure you remember me saying that E.N.D. isn't my real name, it is in fact, my initials," this time as he spoke he snapped his fingers causing the torches in the alcove to burn brighter revealing his face fully for the first time. One again, all the mages stared in stunned silence at the demon king, the whites of his eyes were in fact black, with his irises being green, he did have two horns, the bases of which were just below his hairline, that grew up to the point where they added at least six inches to his height, but the detail that everyone was transfixed on now, was his spiky, wild mop of pink hair.
"E.N.D. stands for Etherias Natsu Dragneel."
And that's it!
First off, thank you for reading this story, it really means a lot to me that you took the time to do so.
Second, I know I really changed some history here, and probably had some people out of character, especially Natsu, but he was acting the whole time that he told them the story so that they wouldn't guess it was him right away and then bombard him with question before he could tell his story, and if you think that he was being too smart, remember this was a Natsu with about 400 years life experience so you kind of expect him to be a little smarter. Also please no complaints about the dates I used, there was a lot of improvising on that part.
Third, I plan for this to be a three part story, with the next chapter detailing Lucy's reaction to Natsu's full release, and the third chapter describing the events after the battle.
Finally, please review, this story makes me smile at some parts and cringe at others, I want an unbiased opinion of how I did. I accept criticism, but if you just flame me I will block you. If I can't figure out how to do that I will just ignore you, I don't care either way.
Baadyae- Duma