Author's note:
Good Lord, I did it. I'm done with this monstrosity of a chapter. And if you're reading this, I even mustered enough courage to publish it.
Oh, sorry for my terrible manners. My name is Aetherish and welcome to the first chapter of *drumroll* Heartlines! I have been planning this fic for years, no joke. Long before FT had ended, I just never got around to writing it. But this summer I've decided to sit down on my ass and write it out.
I was a tad bit (translation: tremendously) disappointed with the ending of FT and how some characters, character arcs and relationships were treated. This fic is set three years after the manga left off and I've decided to turn this story into a sort of fix-it where I give some of the characters a more proper send-off. Yes, this also means an OC/Canon pairing, but it is not the main focus of the story. However, this story will contain numerous OC's and a lot of original content sewn into the canon lore. I did a lot of prior research and worked hard to make my characters canon-compliant, yet still different enough to be intriguing, so hopefully you will be able to enjoy the story just as much as I enjoy writing it.
This story will be dark. If you came for happy-go-lucky, friendship-saves-the-world kind of content, I think you should leave now. Also, the hundred year quest they are working on in this story has nothing to do with the one in the Hundred Year Quest spinoff. I know that manga is canon material, so traces of the lore from the it might make an appearance, but the plot itself is not canon in this fic.
As a warning I would like to tell you, that I am not a native speaker of English, therefore grammar, spelling and punctuation errors may occur throughout the story, for which I am terribly sorry. If the story reaches a bit of popularity, I will consider getting a beta-reader.
Anyways, thank you for being here and enjoy the ride!
Rating: T, may go up to M
Warnings: Gray tends to swear like a sailor in his POV chapters, graphic descriptions of violence, discussion of PTSD, might contain non-explicit sexual content and an OC/Canon pairing
Full Summary: X796. The conclusion of the war against Alvarez did not erase the battle-lines across the continent, only redrew them. Times are lawless and the Wizarding World is changing: Legal Guilds are spread thin, Dark Guilds are warring amongst themselves and the Council is in disarray.
In Magnolia, the team is struggling to find normalcy after failing the Hundred Year Quest. Lucy suffers from insecurity, Erza shoulders the blame and Gray is just not feeling like himself anymore. Burned out and self-doubting, Laxus navigates his newfound duties as Guild Master with the Council breathing down his neck and threatening to shut down Fairy Tail for good.
In Crocus, Sting and Lyon find themselves in the middle of a political scandal with no one to trust but each other, while Minerva and Rogue are confronted by shadows from both past and future.
In Era, disgraced soldier Rune Erandel tries to untangle the complex minutia of her private life from her obligations to the Council, meanwhile Jellal, seeking absolution, teams up with his former persecutors to uncover a plot of evil, that may very well bring an end to them all.
And somewhere, deep within the depths of Natsu's mind, a demon is stirring again.
HEARTLINES
A Fairy Tail story
written by Aetherish.
2018
"We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it."
—Richard Siken
CARD ONE: The Burning Tower
Scene I.
It wasn't even past noon yet and Gray Fullbuster was already balls-deep in trouble.
"Get the boy!" came a shout, a menagerie of howling thugs hot on his tail.
It should not have come as a surprise, getting into trouble, that is. A satirical twist on the Universal Law of Attraction. Gray Fullbuster gravitated towards trouble like a moth to a Lacryma, and in turn he attracted trouble just as equally. Simple as that. It was the curse of Fairy Tail mages: their touch unavoidably drove everything towards entropy and when suddenly given direct orders not to cause any destruction, even the most obedient ones would find it hard to forget their roots.
The ramshackle houses blurred into one as he took alleys and side streets, zigzagging his way across the slums. Black filled the edges of his vision; the only sound he could hear was his own heartbeat. The pain leeching on his muscles and lungs felt exquisite. He burned hotter in his adrenaline and ether high, than any flame a fire mage could conjure.
This was it. The home-stretch, the finish line, the light at the end of the tunnel. The pain, the sleepless nights and the all the times they'd risked life and limb—they were all boiling down to this day. They were threading metaphorical no man's land now. Fiore had not spit out a single wizard in three generations who managed to get this close to completing it: the hundred-year quest.
Whatever reward awaited them at the end of the road, it was within reach now, he could almost graze it with his fingers. And it would be rightfully theirs, gloriously soaked in three years' worth of their blood, sweat and tears.
Initially, the quest itself had sounded ridiculously easy, no frills. Hunt down and retrieve a long lost family heirloom —a book —for a powdered Fiorean dandy, who'd been so far up his own ass, that he refused to meet them in person, only through his couriers. Turns out that no one knew where fate had tossed the book since its disappearance, however a whole network of dark guilds and other illegal organizations was dead-set on finding it before them. Not a huge surprise, considering its ludicrous price on the black market. It had taken three years of searching, solving cryptic riddles, beating up and interrogating criminals who had come across it, trashing dark guilds for information and raking through black markets for them to ferret out the book's current location. Unsurprisingly enough, one of the better known crime-lord's been sitting on it for the better part of the century, but the old twat had kept it hidden well enough.
The only thing left had been to break into the crime lord's estate on a sheltered island town and steal it back. The crime lord was not even a wizard. And yet, there Gray was, fleeing from a town's worth of furious assailants under broad daylight.
Apparently he and his team, oh so conveniently forgot to take three facts into consideration: one, the crime lord lived within the walls of the most impregnable mansion on the continent, two, he'd amassed enough wealth to hire complete mercenary guilds to prowl the grounds of his estate, and three, every single person in this town, women and children included, was a pawn on the chessboard of one of Fiore's highest esteemed criminals. One could not start breaking the law young enough, it seemed.
A loud bang sent him careening into reality again. A building went up in flames a few blocks away.
Gray cursed and slid into an alley. Natsu, damn him, had no sense of discretion. But admittedly, that was exactly where the Dragon Slayer's talents lay. According to the plan, he merely had to divert attention from Gray by any means possible. The Ice Mage had to admit his friend did his part of the plan with admirable excellence. The town was in an uproar. The cacophony of gunshots and the clash of weapons crashed over the streets like a flood and somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled as well.
Sewage and puddles of excrement littered the alley and he tried not to puke from the smell. Smoke blossomed from the burning building, painting the sky a muddled grey. Darkness descended upon the town. He internally cursed Erza for choosing such a shithole for a meeting point and made a mental-note to give their self-proclaimed strategist a tongue-lashing later.
The Ice Mage sagged against a wall. Perhaps he could allow himself a minute of rest. He loosened the buttons of his coat, panting. Exhaustion was starting to catch up to him, he could feel it creep into his bones.
The Compact Communications Lacryma vibrated in his pocket, happily signaling he'd reached his destination. They'd decided on a place near the docks, a small square flanked by abandoned buildings. Once they left this island, they could return to Magnolia. To Fairy Tail.
Three years had passed since they embarked on the hundred year quest and they had not set foot in the guild since. They'd bid their farewells in high spirits, but Gray knew it was guilt that had forced them all to leave Magnolia, escape Magnolia really. Grief echoed in his chest, sustained on its own reverberations. His thoughts wandered to the town, to the people who had lost their homes in the war against Alvarez and the subsequent rampage of Acnologia.
Magnolia had been rendered to dust through it all. Not for the first time. And as long as his guild thrived, definitely not the last.
All because of them.
Sometimes he wondered if they deserved the public's overly-reverent lionization, if they truly were heroes. They did protect the country from Zeref and his dark forces, but at what cost? Restorations proceeded sluggishly and were time and money consuming. The country and the crown were spiraling into financial crisis, the king's health had been failing for the good part of the year while Queen Hisui was yet too untried to handle all of this alone.
Suddenly he became acutely aware of the object weighing down his other pocket. The book they'd stolen was the first handwritten copy of The Voyager of Worlds, a historic epoch. It was a heavy book, bound in deep blue leather, decorated with whorls and swirls and vines and spanning a good five-hundred pages. It was also an ancient book, a true masterpiece of wordsmithery, he hadn't the slightest inkling how old it could be. Surely a few hundred years had passed since its conception, yet its owner kept it in immaculate condition. Gray snorted. He found it oddly controversial for a crime lord to mollycoddle a book of all things. But honest to the gods, he too would pamper any book if it fetched as good a price as this one did.
He felt them before he heard them. Squelching footsteps echoed in the alleys. The next moment, all exits from the square were crowded with a few dozen scruffy swashbucklers.
Their cover had been blown.
Fucking hell. His life just had to be miserable this morning.
Gray took stock of his surroundings. The walls too slippery, any window too high for him to reach. Surely, he could summon something to lift himself with but that would open him up to attacks even more and these people were bound to carry weapons with them. No Maker Magic —not even Ur's —could match the speed of a gun utilized wisely.
"Yer cornered, boy." the one who seemed to be the leader of the group quipped. He was one hell of a despicable thing if Gray was honest with himself. Beard like wire, the puffy red nose of an alcoholic, grease and dirt stains all over a shirt that barely covered a belly most men get with age.
Briefly, he wondered how he would have turned out —a homeless, piss-poor, starving rat, not much unlike the vile residents of this abject little town —had not Ur and Lyon found him among the charred rubble that day. Had not Ur's paraeneses and sacrifice steered him onto the right path. He shook his head. No time to dwell on the things he was thankful to Ur for.
"Show yerself." the man demanded.
There was no need to hide any longer. Gray flipped back his hood. Recognition flared in those eyes. A whisper of his name shuddered across the crowd. They murmured anxiously among themselves, like a flock of unsettled animals. Seemed like they'd been unaware which pack of wizards they were up against.
"Pre'eh far from home, ain't ya, airy-fairy?" their leader spoke again. A local gang, probably. Brown-nosing pawns of the crime lord.
Gray shrugged. "By your leave gentlemen, I do not plan to stay long."
"All cloak 'n' dagger in an alley, wonder what ya been doin'." the man grinned.
A big slab of meat of a man said, a muscle-bound behemoth, really. Gray never considered himself a small kid, but this man was easily twice his size. "Got sticky fingers, this one. Ya ganked somethin' that's ours, ya lil' thievin' pixie."
"This?" Gray lifted the book with a grin. "Stealing something back from a criminal… what does that make me? A re-thief?" he pinched his chin in mock-contemplation. "I'll have to think about the nomenclature later."
The swarm of men grumbled as one, as if he had personally offended each of them.
"Ya got nerve, ya lil' book's belonged to the Boss' famileh for ovah a centureeh." their leader spoke again. His brogue of the common tongue was heavy, Gray could barely make sense of what he was saying. "Yer tossin' round a billion Jewels. Give it to us and there'll be no violence."
The Ice Mage sighed. His role in this heist had been to lay low, stay hidden, stay subtle. Smuggle the book out to the docks while the others bustled. Beating two dozen men into a bloody coma was not subtle in any sense of the word.
"Or, you know," he pocketed the book. "you could just let me go. And avoid paying half a million for medical bills."
The leader pulled out a knife from his belt. The Ice Mage rolled his eyes. Did he really want to stab him with a knife? Could these guys get any more mediocre?
"Are you sure you want to be using that?" Gray pointed at the flimsy weapon. "I thought you knew who I am."
In all its condescending nature, it was true. After the Grand Magic Games and the war against Alvarez, his face and those of his teammates had been exhibited throughout Fiore like five unflattering parade balloons. (And don't even get him started on the fucking action figures.) Little had changed in four years. Everyone and their mother knew who Gray Fullbuster was.
The gang leader spat on the ground. "Got a mouth on ya, lil' fairy. 'Course I know who ya are. Half my clients wanta' skin ya alive, the otha half wanta' fuck yer ass. Know a stuffed ma'am in Bosco who'd pay ackers for yer pre'eh face. Yer outnumbered, give up before we clip yer wings." He twirled the knife between his meaty fingers with the experience of the man who did not use it to cut pockets open.
His CCL* vibrated again, this time with increased frequency. It must be Erza calling. Damn it, he really should not be wasting time here. At noon, the ship will sail to Hargeon, either with them on board or without.
He clicked his tongue.
"I'm really not in the mood for this, guys." he pulled out the phone, grinning. "You see, I really should answer this. My friend, Erza gets pretty mad when she's ignored. You must be familiar with her: red hair, can change her armor at will, you know, can split a mountain with a slash. Not someone you want to anger. "
"Ya got spunk in ya. If ya won't give me the book, we'll take it by force. I'll make sure to wipe tha' cocky-ass smirk off yer face along the way."
In a blink a dozen men were on him like starved vultures grappling for their prey. They lunged at his legs, his chest, his neck. He dodged them with otherworldly calmness, blocking their punches and kicks with his bare fist. Magic, raw and unforgiving burst from his palms, leaving cool steam and hail and snow in its wake. The turbulent, fiercely primordial stream of it hummed under his skin, beneath his fingertips, behind his eyeballs, between his ribs.
With his magic he hurtled the men across the square. His ice lances tore through the air quickly, cutting through cloth and flesh and bone.
A growl came from behind him and Gray pivoted on his heels, slamming a fist into another attacker's jaw. It sent the man staggering back against one of his comrades, both of them tumbling over in a tangle of limbs.
He hit the damp ground before he felt the pain, only having seen his next assailant from the corner of his eye a second too late. A sharp kick to his back, easily knocking him over. Pain erupted behind his eyelids in a flurry of stars. He was no match against the man's bulk. Instinctively he rolled over, right before a meaty fist could bash his head in. The man swore, splintering his knuckles on the sharp, cracked cobblestones. Gray wasted no time to take the opportunity. Pressing his palms against the ground for support, he kicked the man in the belly, then gave his bollocks a generous boot as well.
He hummed in approval as the man collapsed, screaming in pain. "That should knock you out."
Catching him off-guard, the edge of a blade hurtled a hair's breadth away from his face. His magic —a sensing, feeling and very much alive thing inside him —noticed the threat before his mundane senses could, tugging on his muscles, screaming at him to move, move move. Gray cursed as another blade split the skin of his shoulder in a rush of blood. The world flashed red and agony tore at him.
The leader grinned, fiendish, several knives levitating in the air around him. His teeth reminded Gray of sweetcorn. A stark, vivid yellow even beneath the shade of the alley. The Ice Mage felt like vomiting.
"Telekinesis." Gray rasped. How original. "Honestly, I didn't have high expectations but that's just a new low." He pressed a hand against his shoulder to stall the bleeding with his ice. The kiss of the cold was familiar, a soothing salvation against the ache of the wound.
How pathetic. Natsu would give him hell for getting wounded by a petty telekinetic.
"Looks like we're alone. For now." He quipped, twirling another blade with his fingers and not paying any heed to the Ice Mage's mocking words. He had been right. His two-dozen men lay whimpering on the ground, nursing their wounds like stray dogs, the rest pinned immobile against the walls by his ice or unconscious. But for how long? Given the size of the town, reinforcements would come sooner rather than later. He had to make this quick or everything they had been working for in the past three years would go to shit.
Gray lifted his fists. His shoulder screamed in protest. "Run while you still can."
His shield was up before the knives rained down on him. The ice was thicker, sturdier and he almost felt a jolt of pity at the sheer ridiculousness of the knives bouncing off it like rubber balls. Gray released his hold on the ether and the shield shattered at his will.
With all his weapons proven useless, the man was stunned into silence. It was easy to land a punch in his face. His nose made a horrifying crunch when it broke. The man screamed in agony when a fountain of blood erupted from his nostrils.
"Ya fucken cunt, Imma cut ya up." He shrieked and staggered on his feet as if drunk. Spitting blood, he used his momentum to shoulder into Gray, sending him off-balance. His back hit the ground again and he groaned as the wound on his shoulder tore open. The man pinned him down with his weight easily, his ruined nose dripping blood over Gray's face. When he grinned at him triumphantly, his teeth were stained crimson. The Ice Mage flexed against his confinements but the man was bigger, broader, heavier.
"Not so strong now, pixie dust?" he laughed, spitting into Gray's face. The wounded arm throbbed excruciatingly.
Gray grinned in reply. Blue light erupted from his right hand.
"You must be a huge dumbass to underestimate a Fairy Tail mage." With a loud bang, a hammer made of ice plunked down upon the thug's head, rendering him unconscious. It was just in time that Gray whipped away his own head, narrowly missing the assault of the hammer himself. The weapon splintered into a million crystals as it hit the ground. He sighed in relief against the sagged body of the man.
One-handed maker magic really was a wild-card. Every time he'd been forced to use it, he almost ended up killing himself in the process, this time was no different. The ocean must be restless now, Ur turning in her grave upon seeing him use the blasphemous technique. How Lyon managed to get by with this half-baked hocus-pocus for years was beyond him.
Throwing the body off himself, he dusted his clothes off.
"Owned by a telekinetic? Perhaps it's time to renounce your S-class certificate, Fullbuster." The grin on Natsu Dragneel's mug was positively insufferable. The Dragon Slayer had doffed his vest, billowy trousers and precious scarf for the success of the heist, and crouched atop the wall attired in all black. Dressed in similar fashion, Erza, Lucy and Wendy stood next to him with Happy and Carla flapping their wings in the air.
Gray spat on the ground. "It was not a fair fight, asshole." This tosser had the audacity to taunt him despite having left him to his own devices against two dozen men while having known full well that Gray was not allowed to use his magic to its full extent, unless he wanted to attract attention and compromise the success of the mission thoroughly. "I fought two dozen men unarmed while you guys ran amok under broad daylight."
"Excuses." Natsu mocked. "But you're paying for dinner nevertheless. Can't wait for Mira's spicy chicken wings."
"Gray." Erza addressed. "I called you on CCL."
"As you can see, I was…preoccupied." He growled in retort and wiped the gang-leader's blood off his face with a grimace. "Thank you for the concern. You couldn't have chosen a shittier place to meet up, the enemy found me real quick."
"That's exactly why I'd called." A ship's horn boomed at the docks. Erza sheathed her sword. "Well, we'll all be thanking you for your tardiness if we miss our ride home. Now let's get going." His upbringing stopped Gray from flipping Erza the bird, but the look he gave her would've been enough to start a hailstorm.
Lucy clapped her hands eagerly. "Home, sweet home! I'm coming!"
A premonitory chill ran down Gray's spine at her words.
Home. The word sounded almost alien to his ears.
He wondered what awaited them across the sea. The guild would be a mess as always. Mirajane would be smiling kindly behind the counter, her sister expertly twirling around with steaming plates of food and foaming kegs of beer. Gajeel and Laxus would be arm-wrestling at a table with Shadow Gear and the Thunder God Tribe cheering them on. Reedus would be drawing a portrait of Laki and Cana would be running the table in Legenca, beating Macao and Wakaba to bankruptcy while getting hammered. And Juvia would be around his neck immediately, showering him with tears and kisses. And somewhere, in one of the forgotten, dusty corners of the hall, someone would be playing the gods damned fiddle.
Yes. He smiled fondly. Maybe it really is time to return to Fairy Tail.
A cold gust of wind swept across the streets. It carried with it a lingering scent of the sea.
Across that sea lay Fiore, lay Fairy Tail. It was the scent of home.
But the air was portentously heavy with something else, something he couldn't quite name, as if he'd inhaled lead powder. It reminded him of the uncanny pressure before a particularly massive downpour, the calm before the storm.
Then there was a reverberation in the back of his mind, a gentle susurrus at first, a white noise melting in on itself until it crescended into a distinct frequency. A disharmony tainted the vibration, a borderline-maddening oscillation of pressure-waves until it turned into one simple, defined command, melodiously archaic and violently raw. The words carried no meaning to him, but an eerie sort of familiarity tainted them, as though he'd heard them before.
"Ih rigoros."
Later, when Gray would recall the events for his mission report, he would not be able to tell which came first: the explosion or the screams.
The bodies of the men he'd rendered unconscious blew up at once. In a reflex innately ingrained within his nervous system, he threw himself to the ground. Blood and pieces of flesh splattered on his clothes. He tried cover his face but found to his slow, sedate horror that he was paralyzed to the bone.
A suffocating stillness suffused the small square. Smoke drifted by, and a rat scurried across the passage. A hooded figure came through the smoke, no more than a sliver of darkness.
The Ice Mage struggled to breathe under the pressure of the figure's ether. How couldn't any of them notice such a suffocating aura? Neither of them were Sensor Mages, but even the most incompetent wizard would have sensed a presence as prominent as this from the other side of the town.
Gray lay sprawled on the ground, curled in a near fetal position. His heart drummed deafeningly in his ears. The smell of cooking flesh was deceptively savory. It would sit snug in his nose for days afterward, teetering him to the brink of throwing up every now and then. There was a repulsive, mangled, thing in the back of his mind, a tiny malignant monster, clawing against his sanity: a deep, nauseating fear that threatened to snatch his breath away. He trembled at its touch, jounced to the very core. His magic roiled in return, in an arcanely intimate manner, run, run, run, while you still can. He found he couldn't, as if his legs were made of ice.
The figure spoke with a man's voice. "Thank you for tracking down and retrieving the book for me, Fairies. You saved me a great deal of work, you know." There was a white mask under that hood, devoid of any marks and expressions.
Erza, ever the quick to overcome her inertia, addressed the man, while Gray struggled to find his voice. The Ice Mage was stunned to see that the usually composed woman's face had gone chalk-white. Her voice was deceptively soft, so unlike her usually unwavering tone, barely a whisper. "What the hell did you just do to these people?"
The man spread his arms in a theatrical gesture. Gray did not fail to notice the leather gloves covering them. Not a single inch of the body beneath the garb was visible to the naked eye, if the Ice Mage did not know better, it could have been a demon plucked straight from one of Zeref's books. No, the distinct tremor of his right arm was absent, —that's where the power of his late father was nestled —the creature lurking beneath the mask could not be a demon. And Zeref Dragneel was dead, not an inch of his cursed, immortal body left behind.
No, it was the hands of a human that murdered all these men.
"Titania," the stranger addressed. "Your beauty is even more stunning in the flesh. Although I must say, seeing you scared out of your wits is a sight to behold. I will cherish this memory deeply." for a second Gray could have sworn he heard the smile in the man's voice. The masked face turned towards the charred carcasses on the ground.
"Such sad and weak creatures." he marveled. His mask did not alleviate the utter detachment he expressed towards death. "They had no place in the New World. They had to perish. Demolition must always precede reconstruction."
Despite all his efforts to avoid his eyes, the sight burned into Gray's mind like a brand. The combustion reduced the bodies to mere husks, their faces contorted in a ghastly rictus, all of them beyond recognition. The irrevocability and incontrovertibility of death propelled into him with the force of a shooting star. The men he had fought minutes ago were dead. Irrevocably and incontrovertibly dead. His vitriolic abhorrence to them evaporated in an instant. Suddenly he wished to know all of their long and tortured histories; he wanted to feel the pain of separation as they were torn from the physical world by their deaths, their souls streaming out of their bodies like tears.
He could not see this again… this inalterable one-sidedness, this unavoidable massacre… Not after his mother and father and Ur. Not after Deliora.
"What are you talking about? You sound like… like Zeref." breathed Gray, staring in horror at the man. He was taken aback by the weakness of his own voice. Indeed, the masked wizard's words bore a distinct similarity to the Black Wizard's teachings.
"Zeref was but a prophet. His life was as much of a proof of the One God's existence as it was an example for us to follow."
"You rotten bastard, what sort of shit-talk is that?" snarled Natsu, his green eyes flashing alarmingly. His voice did not lose its fire even in the face of death. "You torched dozens of innocent people for an idea?" Instantly, the Dragon Slayer was back on his feet, hurtling towards the man with a burning fist.
The man lifted a palm against Natsu's heedless onslaught. "Ih dernas." Natsu yelped as a muscle spasmed in his spine, sending him face-first into the ground. His body hit the cobblestones with a hollow thump that made Gray want to throw up. "My time's been cut short, so I will have to deal with you later, Etherious-boy. Although I must say your brother's work on you was impeccable, you truly were his magnum opus. But don't worry, I am not done with you just now. Behave until next time, okay?"
Gray's magic howled like a caged wolf deep within his core. But he could not move. Could not breathe.
The masked wizard had paralyzed them all with his wicked magic. Despite all his efforts to flex against the invisible binding, his body did not budge. The dark ether had slithered into his very core, tainting the marrow of his bones, the coating the fibres of his muscles and dissolving within the synovia of his joints.
Footsteps echoed in the alley. When the boots stopped in front of his face, the man crouched down. His long cape fanned out around him like a halo of darkness. A hand lifted Gray's face by the hair. Up close, the man's eyes were visible beneath the mask. But those eyes… they were dark but nothing like Gray's own. Undeniably human but also nothing akin to anything he'd ever seen. The dark irises reminded him of galaxies where all the stars had been snuffed out. Staring into them was a discovery in itself, a journey into an occult, primordial secret.
Those eyes closed in deadly mirth as he praised: "Devil Slayer. You guarded the book so well —good dog."
"Son of a bitch." spat Gray.
"Hush now, you." he chided. "That's not how you talk to your employer."
The realization broke over Gray in a crushing wave. A ripple of numb pain erupted from his heart and rushed to every part of his body, a rattling hollowness, voracious and all-consuming.
How did they not realize?
Of course. They had been led on. For three godforsaken years they'd been lied to and made fools of and neither of them realized.
In that moment, with a touch of dilatory regret, Gray realized —not for the first time in his life, and in retrospect, not for the last either —that the world did not operate on equilibrium. Even the planet itself spun on a tilted axis. Vanguard soldiers were the first to die for their bravery in times of war, sickness and misfortune came to those who followed their soul's desires, rightful judgement rarely came upon sinners, and no matter how much work and pain and effort you put into a goal, it can slip through your fingers in a blink of an eye. All that you've strived for can be reduced to nothing.
The cards had been stacked against them all along. They'd worked their asses off for three years for a lie.
"Who… who the hell are you?"
"That is of no significance to you, dog." came his answer. The Ice Wizard's mind pulsed again, the sound amplified from the flutter of a hummingbird's wings to the cacophony of a marching band in a span of a second. "Ih limnos." the man commanded.
As if hooked on strings, his body was lifted into the air by an invisible force. Air, sweet, merciful air rushed into his lungs but the claws that held his muscles captive did not ease.
The gloved hand reached into the pocket of Gray's coat. When he withdrew the book, his other hand clamped down on the Ice Mage's forehead, vice-like.
"I was only supposed to leave the demon-boy alive." he indicated towards Natsu with his head. "But you intrigue me. I've decided to spare your lives. Your souls are eclipsed in darkness. And when the Day of the Reckoning comes, use that darkness as your light to guide you home."
"Now scream."
And Gray screamed.
A/N: What do you think? Like it? Love it? Hate it? Leave a review. The OC you all most probably clicked for will appear in the next chapter.
CCL: Compact Communications Lacryma. It was really long and awkward to write out and I figured they would abbreviate it in canon anyway.