Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or its characters; that right belongs to Hiro Mashima. Nor do I own the song that is used; that right belongs to the artist and their production studio.

Author's Note: This is an A.R. (Alternate Reality) that takes place in the Fairy Tail world. And will hit you in the feels. And I feel absolutely no remorse for it.

Song: Pretty Reckless - Heaven Knows

[Jimmy's in the back with a pocket of high.]

Cobra let his eye open to stare through the drug-induced haze barely able to make out the dull, yet colorful, blurs moving around. The noise they were making not quiet filtering through his mind, making him giggle as he pictured large cotton puffs seen on dandelions growing from them. He had to remember what his dealer gave him; shit was potent.

[If you listen close.]

[You can hear him cry.]

Pain. It was all he could feel, sending him spiraling downward — panic welling inside of him as he began to struggle. His brain logically telling him he shouldn't be feeling any pain, yet here his veins were on fire. Liquid heat rushing through his whole body as if trying to dry the precious blood inside of him.

Unable to stop himself, a soft whimper escaped his lips. The sounds of shouting and beeping, making his head throb as he once more opened his eye. He saw where he was a fucking hospital. He hated the damn places. Reaching over and grasping the tubing, he began to tug on it weakly and causing more pain to crawl thru every fiber of his person.

[Won't be pretty.]

[Won't be sweet.]

"Please state your name."

Lifting his head, hating how it was a struggle, he did his best to glare at the pink haired, old-bat, who was his assigned doctor for his rehabilitation — watching as she stared uncaring of what he thought. It'd been at least two weeks since he woke up in the hospital.

"Please state your name."

Every day was a bitter, ugly, and humiliating struggle for him to get better. And he knew if he fought her, he'd be hating life even more. The woman was the Devil incarnate. He would prefer the fire back in his veins to her.

"Erik 'Cobra' Venenare," He slurred.

"Good. Now that that is done it is time to introduce you to your physical therapy aide," the woman said.

Shifting his head a bit to look at the pink haired troll better, he heard the door open and close. Then a busty, bubbly looking blond was standing next to the doctor from hell. He could tell her innocent; unassuming appearance was a front that she'd be just as much of a pain in his ass as the pink-haired old bat.

[I've had better days, man.]

[I've seen better days.]

Grinding his teeth as he stared at the dancing eyes of the annoying blond before him. Erik grasped the two poles and forced his legs to move one at a time. Propelling himself forward to his aide. The damn bimbo was taunting him, mocking him openly with a level of snark that no one would believe him if he said a damn thing.

Of course, he was using that to help him get better a little faster. Because he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze until the life was gone from. Watching as those brown eyes of hers dulled in death. Poison was too good to use on her. She had a knack for pissing him off like only one other. Then again he never called her by her name, in turn angering her.

But Erik knew he would get better, and with his goal set, it was only a matter of time.

[One, two, three and four.]

[The Devil's knocking at your door.]

Erik narrowed his eye as he looked at the tall, tattooed man before him. Parts of his memory coming back in quick, painful flashes. Being held down, injected with his drug of choice. The mission he'd been set on, to kill children, was the one thing he would never do. So, he had to be made complacent for it.

Curling his lip, showing off his filed to point incisor teeth, he snarled at the leader of his mafia branch. All the hate, anger, and self-loathing at having become temporarily crippled welling up in him, causing red to flash across his vision.

"Excuse me, sir, but you are distressing my patient. You need to leave now."

He felt cold fear wash thru him as Brain, aka Zero, visage darkened becoming threatening as he turned to look at the dumb blond ho had been aiding in his rehabilitation. It was as if time slowed down to a crawl as Erik waited for the man before him to massacre the stupid woman. Who had the gall to stare up at his 'Boss' completely unperturbed. The silence as the two continued to stare at each other had the fine hairs on his arms raised. Before a snort of disgust came from Brain.

"Cobra, I'll be back."

Jaw going slack as he watched the man who had molded him into the murdering bastard he was stand down and leave. No threats, intimidating growls, nothing. Erik knew he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box; he had just witnessed something but had no clue what.

"Psh, Cobra? Really?"

The words drew him from his stupor to look at the blond, no Lucy, who radiated an aura that screamed kill! Impressively so since he'd lived with that feeling, she was giving off for as long as he could remember.

"Quit staring you, slithery fuckhead," She snapped at him. "Distressed or not, your ass is going to physical therapy. Now!"

Jumping where he sat on his bed, Erik wondered who Lucy was for the first time — and realizing that Brain wasn't the only Devil out there. Erik wondered which Devil would give him death quicker and more painless since he was now caught between the two of them.

[Caught in the eye of a dead man's lie.]

[Big man tells you where to go.]

Erik stayed silent as he stared up at the tall gray man standing over him. The look in the man's fathomless black eyes had him going over every decision he had ever made in his short thirty years of being alive. It was a strange feeling to have when the man hadn't even said a damn thing or gave off an air of being threatening. Lucy was standing beside him and eyeing him as if he was going to bite, which was the furthermost thing from his mind.

"So 'stache face, what do you think?"

Not wanting to break eye contact. But the casual way Lucy just talked to the giant behemoth of a man. A man that Erik was beginning to wonder might be some supernatural being.

"It is an uncanny resemblance to Kinana. As if he was the male version of my late granddaughter," the man spoke softly, though it boomed.

This left him confused as Lucy just sighed and smacked the man on the arm. Affectionately if he didn't mistake it as he looked away for a brief second. The warm, loving smile on her face was at odds from what he was used to. The only thing he got from her for the past month and a half was scowls, insults, and glares.

"Did his blood work come back yet?" the man asked.

"Yes, it is a familial match. Meaning that there is now proof to the Oracion Seis now has a connection to her disappearance," Lucy quipped.

"I cannot deny it if that bastard of a man was the one who took Kinana," the tall mustached man said.

Cobra let his eyes bounce back and forth between the two. He had vague memories of his mother. How he had her odd purple colored hair, his skin was a bit darker. The soft smile, warmth, and love she showered on him before she just vanished when he was five or six. Brain had told him that it was because he was a weak failure and needed to get stronger before she'd come back. Brain claimed it was his job to make him stronger.

If what he was sort of understanding from their conversation, Brain was a liar. It had him feeling cold as he closed his eyes and let his head sink into the pillow it rested on. It would explain so much, answer some of the questions he always had. But still, he couldn't just believe these people. Fuck that, who the hell was the tall man with the overgrown mustache? At that thought, Cobra opened his eye and leveled a hard glare at the man.

"Just who the fuck are you?" he asked.

This had the two stop their conversation, putting a look of shock mixed with fear on Lucy's face. While the tall man blinked his black eye and smiled at him. Not finding it funny, Cobra snorted in a rude, belligerent manner.

"Well, according to the blood test, you are my long lost great-grandson, Erik," the man said. "But if you are asking for my name, Sei-roo Celestial."

His jaw dropped. He had finally died. There was no other way to explain this shit. The man before him was a global Syndicate head. The one that Brain had major beef with. The children he had been drugged up to kill belonged to one of this man's thirteen branches. Though, why this man claimed he was his grandson was lost on him.

"I think you broke the poor snake boy, 'Stache Face," Lucy quipped.

Shooting a suspicious glare at Lucy, internally wondering how the hell she could call this man, a person of power, both legally and illegally, by such a nickname and not feel fear, Cobra didn't know.

"Why do you keep referring to him as such, Little Nova?" Sei-roo asked.

"Oh, because his code name in the Oracion Seis is Cobra," Lucy replied.

For some reason, when Lucy said that he expected the man before him to look just as disgusted as she had, not burst out laughing as if something was funny.

"Well, it is fitting, considering his mother Kinana was the head of the Opichuous branch. And their symbol is the eternal snake," Sei-roo spoke up.

This flabbergasted Cobra to the point he just groaned and mentally commanded them to vanish.

[Don't do a goddamn thing they say]

Cobra sat there on the bench outside the rehabilitation clinic, which he had come to learn belonged to the Zodiac Corporation, or Mafia depending on how much you knew. It had been three months since he first meets Sei-roo. And he had learned a lot about his mother, Kinana. The picture that Sei-roo brought in on his next visit had Cobra spazzing the fuck out. It was his mother. He'd remember that soft understanding smile anywhere. And in it, sitting next to her, arm draped over her shoulders was the old man himself.

Now he was waiting. It was time to decide on his future. Stay with the Oracion Seis and probably be killed in the future by Brain or one of the other members. Or jump ship and join the Zodiac, which would grant him protection and family rights. It was a hard choice. And his decision all rested on the answer of the man before him. Because he was not going to play games, he didn't want to die. He was rather partial to being alive now that he knew how to piss off the blond who had a rather foul and overly creative vocabulary.

"I told you that she would come back when you got stronger," Brain said. "But you are still weak if you almost go paralyzed from the waist down from doing a simple mission."

At this, Cobra stood up and gave a cold smile to the man who had tortured him in a variety of ways over the last twenty-two years. Shaking his head, Cobra turned and began to walk back into the rehabilitation facility. Knowing that if Brain did anything, he would be dead before he could even try and flee. It had been a point of contention when Brain showed up to talk at Cobra's behest.

That several guards made a show of arms. All with weapons locked and loaded, ready and waiting for the man to make a wrong move, or sneeze.

"You get back here, Cobra!"

Pausing, Cobra looked over his shoulder and bared his teeth in a snarl before flipping Brain the bird and continuing on his way. He was done with the group; this was his farewell. He didn't fucking care anymore. The man had openly lied to him. His choice now made, he was ready to shed the moniker Cobra and pick up his real name, Erik again. A new life was waiting, and he had a blond to go piss off. The wind was hopefully gonna be blowing in his favor from now on.

THE END!