Earthland-2, Tower of Heaven, X776: Jellal

Jellal Fernandes couldn't scream any more. His throat hurt enough to notice, even amidst the agony. The magic tore into him without mercy. It reached past his flesh, digging into his mind, ravaging his spirit, scouring his very soul.

Somehow, he didn't regret any of it. Erza's okay, he told himself, when the ripping subsided. It's all that matters. I was never going to escape anyway, but Erza, she's strong. She'll make it, and save the others. Millianna, Shou, Wally, Simon, Uncle Rob...I'm so sorry. I tried, but I couldn't –

Agony returned. Thought vanished. Try as he might, Jellal couldn't help hating the Cult. This time, the tearing didn't go away, but at least it receded to become mere suffering. You're evil, he snarled, trembling against the post they'd tied him to. You and your Zeref. I wish you'd just disappear. All of you.

"Yes, yes, yes! Finally!" The voice was strange, almost childish, but without pity or shame. "You are just too much, you know that?" Dark energies formed before the helpless boy, and he stared up in terror as it formed a monster, one formed of shadow and runes the color of old blood. "We hurt your friends, beat up old men, take your innocent girlfriend and torture her, and then we torture you – for half a day, did you know that? – and only now do you really start to hate us. What are you made of, anyway, rainbows and bunnies?"

If there was any food left in Jellal's stomach, he would have thrown up. Oh, gods, they wanted me to hate them! I've failed, he despaired, falling to his knees. Erza, I failed you. Tears streamed down his face, the unbreakable Jellal Fernandes shattering to dust.

Then it got worse. The awful shadow demon became a thousand toxic streams, pouring onto Jellal, forcing its way into his eye. It pooled in the burning hatred they'd lit inside him, coiling and poisoning and eating away at who he was. No. No! I can't! I won't! He thought of his friends. He thought of Uncle Rob, who'd kept him sane when he thought he would break. He thought of Erza, who never lost hope when hope seemed as distant as the most forgotten lost magic.

Magic... That's when the formulas started to form in his mind. The signs of the zodiac, joining the one memory Jellal had of his father, a huge shadowy outline pointing out constellations to him. The movements of the stars, along with a vague memory of his mother telling him about Polaris, that always guided sailors home. Knowledge, that every one of them was a distant sun, some unimaginably greater than the one shedding life on Earthland. Understanding, of the power magic could draw down from them. As above, so below, echoed in his heart. The stars were like the soul. The soul shone like a star. The infinite was in every person. Every person was unique in all of forever.

The evil soaked into him. Yes, yes, yes, yes! Join us. Serve us. Lead us! You will be the greatest wizard in all the world, more powerful than Zeref himself! Jellal's horror redoubled. The words hadn't come from outside – they'd been like his own thoughts. I will make you into a dragon of stars, a god spreading your wings to cast the world in our shadow!

"No. I won't. You can't make me!" Speaking felt like jagged glass in his throat, but he defied the shadow anyway. "I am Jellal, and my magic is for my family!"

"You have no family," the darkness mocked, forming a head just so it could shake "no" at him. "You have cowards who hide behind you and an old man who pours all his burdens on you. They're not worth your smallest toenail. Join me, and take revenge – on those brats, on the failures who ruined this experiment, on the world that hurt and betrayed us! Avenge us!"

Jellal tried to shout back, but his throat seized up in agony. Never! Helping them wasn't about their fear! Helping my friends saved me more than it ever saved them!

The door, already damaged from where Jellal had burst in to rescue Erza, crumpled like stone beneath a pickaxe. Hope came in through the ruins, wearing scavenged armor, carrying a huge sword, and trailing scarlet hair. Erza! She has magic! She did it! She looked at the ravaged boy, her remaining eye widening in horror. "Jellal! Hang on, I'm here!"

The two overseers chose that moment to show up, rushing in and closing the opposite, undamaged door behind them. Three of the Tower dogs guarded them. "We're ruined!" the tall one lamented. "Riots inside, those damned wizards outside – we've lost!"

"No," the big one insisted. "We still have the boy – what are you doing here?" he demanded when he saw Erza. "Sic her!" he ordered, pointing at the newly-awakened mage. All three hounds charged. Jellal struggled again, but the manacles proved as inescapable as ever.

Erza howled with fury and threw her sword at the monsters. A dozen more formed around it as it flew, the barrage skewering the creatures. They twitched and whined, then were still. Jellal gaped in spite of himself. Wow.

"Zen!" the tall one swore, pointing a ring at Erza. He fired a blast at her, but Erza summoned a shield, blocking the spell. The big one snarled and pointed his staff, flames roaring around the shield. Erza flared with light, and more armor protected her from the assault. Then the armor began to glow with the heat.

No! Jellal struggled again, this time grasping for the divine power inside him, but his magic was still seething in that awful pool of Zeref-stuff, and his body was a savaged wreck. I can't reach it! ERZA!

Instead of boiling, though, Erza shot forward, slamming into the big cultist. Her searing-hot armor scalded his belly, and the vile man screamed, running in circles.

"Stupid brat!" the tall one snarled. He turned his ring on Erza again, but she brought the shield up once more, then overcame his blast magic and flew to slam the shield right in his face. The tall man crumpled, breathing but not moving.

While scalded-fat-guy ran around in pain, Erza rushed to Jellal's side, summoning a smaller knife to cut him free. "It's okay, Jellal. We're all fighting back – everyone, together, and it's working just like you said. We're going to be free again!"

"'Again'?" Jellal whispered. He blinked. My throat doesn't hurt now? Why not? He shook his head, barely able to hold it up. "Freedom...I don't remember it any more."

Erza put his arm over her shoulders and all but carried him. "You will. You've got to! Come on, Jellal, please, we're so close!" Tears streamed from her single eye. Jellal found the strength to stumble alongside her. Please don't cry, Erza. You'll be okay without me if you have to be. You've always been the strongest of us.

The childish shadow-demon sighed and slithered out of him, and Jellal convulsed, as much from what it left behind as what it tore from him. Erza's eye flickered from Jellal to the monster, then clutched him closer. Her armor was no longer scalding, just comfortably warm. "Oh, no you don't, you blood-haired brat," the thing said, flowing into the two overseers. The big one screamed once while the tall one thrashed. "You were useless trash, but little boy blue has the brains to be useful. He's mine!"

"Never!" Erza roared, and a sword bigger than she was formed in her hand. "You just want Jellal because he beat you. You can't have him!"

The demon-overseers laughed in the same childish voice. "It's cute and all that you want to protect your boyfriend, but you're a hammer – and I'm a genius." The staff magic and the ring magic combined, forming more shadow demons around them. Surrounded! Oh, no! Jellal trembled. "See?"

Erza gently laid Jellal on the ground, then stood up, forming a circle of swords around them. "You can make lots of stuff? So can I!" She started the ring of blades spinning, slowly at first, but quickly increasing in speed. "Everyone saved me, even when I was useless. Now I'm strong enough to protect them, and I won't ever be useless again!"

"Nope – because you'll be dead!" The demon child laughed while their enemies charged. The spinning sword-wheel brought the attack to a halt at first, but then they started pressing through. It was slow going, the blades carving through the monsters' bodies, but they were advancing. "Die! Yes! Yes!"

"No," Jellal whispered. Magic. My throat healed by magic. The remnants of the awful Zeref pool still hid his wizardry, but somehow he'd used it anyway. Erza's protecting me. If I don't do something, she'll die protecting me. Inside himself, he could feel more than see a deep blue sky glittering with golden stars, calling to him from beyond the demon stuff. I'm already tainted. Everyone needs me. Erza needs me.

The spirit-Jellal inside himself dove into the poison. It tore at the boy as he pressed through, but the torture had been far worse. This is – it's almost easy. I can do it. I can reach it. With all his heart, he believed in magic – and, for this first time in years, in himself.

Music Cue: Erza Advent

Golden fire-light erupted around Jellal's body. For just an instant, the sapphire-haired child felt a pure, incandescent joy unlike anything he'd ever known, and he realized how he'd felt a sky full of stars: magic began as a sense. Jellal could feel magic – through him, around him, inside him. It was as though he'd been blind his whole life until that single, ineffable moment.

The power didn't heal everything, but it was enough. "Meteor," he chanted. With that, he became a churning engine of speed and power, sheathed in protective light. Racing below Erza's circle of swords opposite to the direction they spun, he hammered at the monsters' legs. Unable to advance, they wailed, reaching for Erza above the sorcerous buzzsaw she'd created. Erza held up an arm, and yet another set of blades formed. This one tore at their chests and shoulders, and within seconds the whole lot collapsed.

"Zeref take you!" the demon child cursed. "If you want something done right!" Jellal screamed as the rest of the dark magic that had poured into him forced its way back out. He collapsed in a tumbling heap, Erza leaping to defend him as the demon-spell vomited itself from his mouth in a surge. It joined the other swirling runes and shadows in a corner, taking strangely bloodless bits of overseer with them. There, they formed a strange dragon-person hybrid. The monster roared at the heavens. "Fine, I'll do it myself!" it – she, Jellal realized – snarled.

Erza gasped and formed more swords, spears, and axes, adding three shields to protect them. Jellal raised a hand, calling on more star magic, but this time the corruption rose up with it. He collapsed against Erza, his stomach trying to empty in spite of having nothing to lose. It felt leaden, burning yet cold, evil and familiar, twisted but still him. "She won," he whispered.

"No!" Erza insisted, hauling him backwards towards the door the overseers had come through, and away from the dragon-demon. "We can make it!"

"I'm already bad, Erza," he said, slumping. Erza responded by holding on even more tightly. "It's inside me. The demon stuff. It's all through me, in my magic, in my heart. I'm sorry. You've got to leave me."

"You should be sorry, telling me that!" Erza wailed, more tears brimming in her eye. "She took it all out, can't you see? The only bad thing you're doing is telling me to go on without you!"

The dragon-woman crossed her arms. "Will you just die, you saccharine scarlet pimple!" The metal-and-rune maw breathed in, bloody shadows swirling in a sphere just below her snout.

Five figures rushed past them, racing in with a suddenness that left Jellal flatfooted. The two tallest and the shortest charged the dragon-woman, while the last two stopped just in front of him and Erza. The two kids were about Jellal's age, perhaps a little older, one a black-haired boy with a severe face, the other a girl with purple hair and a grim expression. As one, they chanted, "Ice-Make: Rampart!" Instantly, a lattice-reinforced wall of ice appeared between the four youngsters and the charging adults.

Purple-hair immediately turned to the ragged ex-slaves. "Are you all right?" she asked, then stared with wide eyes. "Zen, that is the stupidest thing I've ever said. Gray?"

"Ice-Make: Cold Excalibur," he chanted, and a sword bigger than any of Erza's formed in his hands. "I'll watch your back, Ultear." Gray braced himself as, on the other side of the barrier, the three mages battled the dragon-woman. The tallest of them cast a spell, and several walls behind his target exploded away, revealing the night sky.

Ultear looked the pair over as another girl-wizard appeared from a storm of cards. "Cana, back up Gray." Cana glanced at Ultear, then at Gray. The two girls nodded to each other, and after a moment's pause, the newcomer joined the ice wizard at the rampart. Ultear took a quick breath. "Okay. Red, I'm sure you've noticed the missing eye, but it's nothing Porlyusica can't fix."

Erza gaped. "Really?"

Ultear smiled and put a hand on Erza's shoulder. "Really really." Then she looked at Jellal and frowned. "I"m sorry, Blue, but you've got it worse." Erza dropped her remaining sword, wrapping both arms around Jellal in an inescapable grip. "Easy there, Red, I'm not saying it's hopeless. Fairy Tail doesn't believe in hopeless."

"You're from – Fairy Tail," Jellal gasped. "Uncle Rob. He's still downstairs. Forget me. Take Erza and go, you still might be able to..." he trailed off at Erza's sudden sniffles, more tears streaming from her eye.

"He's gone. Rob...died, saving me, finding my magic." Erza looked away. Her grip on Jellal shifted, and he realized she was leaning on him. "I wasn't strong enough." Somewhere in the distance, a man gasped. One of the adults fighting the monster? Jellal's jaw tightened, unable to let a puzzle go even in his current state. No, wrong direction. What's going on?

"Erza, right?" Ultear asked. That got their attention, and Erza nodded to the older girl, eyes wide. "Trust me, Erza, I know how awful it is to not be able to help your family, but right now Blue here needs you to keep going. Okay?" Erza sniffled, blinked the tears away and nodded.

"Good girl." Ultear draped one arm over their collective shoulders, then summoned a sphere of ice over her free hand. Images flashed by until the Tower's base appeared in it, a small army of wizards having cleared a beachhead on the side facing Fiore. "Hold still, now. Let's get you out of here. Arc of Space: Liberation!" Gray blurted in wordless alarm, and then the three of them vanished.