"Princess!" Yukino called out, her voice strangled in fear as Hisui tumbled from the balcony to the gardens below.
The smirk across Zeref's face was undeniable, though it was difficult to say exactly why it rested against his features. In part, it could be thought that he was happy that the royal lady and her bodyguard had fallen out of the way of his deadly curse, or perhaps there was a sickening pleasure from knowing that although they had avoided his Ankhesram, death had been inescapable as they had tumbled to the gardens below. In truth, he had gained quite a bit of his joy from the reassurance that his own powers were well within his grasp, even under the Eclipse gate. It meant that right now, as he had predicted, only two forms of magic could survive; Ankhesram and Celestial, the union which had created the divide in all parallel worlds and times.
His gaze fell back into the room, ignoring the celestial wizard's desperate curses as his attention turned to his new audience. In the immortal's long lifetime, it was rare for him to see so many familiar faces at once, but only one seemed to catch his attention. "I thought I had killed you already…" he breathed, staring at the impossible life before him.
Lyon's eyes were wide with terror, struggling to pick himself up from the ground even as the gravitational shift softened. He gritted his teeth. This time there would be no option to run, but he was determined that he would not die by these hands again. "Not well enough," he said defiantly, glancing back to the two sky sisters with yet more overflowing appreciation, no matter how close to their demise they may once again have been.
Zeref followed his gaze, seeing the two small girls pulling one another to their feet. He could feel the familiar energy, remembered the vague descriptions he had heard of their powers in his patient preparation for taking over the Eclipse once more. "I see," he nodded gently in understanding. He may have been impressed if he had not been convinced that they had saved Lyon's life due to a complete fluke. He assumed that they had no knowledge that his power came from the god of death, and that the amplification of a God Slayer's powers at the most opportune moment had been the only possible saviour that the immortal had seen through the last four hundred years. "Unfortunately, there is quite a difference between stopping a God and destroying one," his thoughts continued out loud, returning his gaze back to the gate.
"That's my job!" Natsu yelled as Happy flew him up over the banister, hurtling straight towards the dark lord with a powerful flaming fist.
At least, that was the attention.
Upon entering the vast hall, Happy's wings instantly disappeared from his back and were sucked straight into Eclipse. He panicked, gripping onto the dragon slayer tighter as the flames in Natsu's arms twisted away from his body and spiralled through the air straight towards the gate. The result was both the exceed and the dragon slayer tumbling and rolling straight towards the dark lord's feet.
"Natsu…" Wendy sighed in despair.
Zeref found himself smiling in the most genuine way as he leaned over his brother and the cat, resisting the urge to ask if they needed a hand. "The Eclipse Gate controls all magic except for my own and celestial. Did you not experience this last time…?" he asked.
Natsu jumped back to his feet, snarling as he knew that yes, this was exactly what had happened to him last time. Several times, in fact. The reminder did nothing to mend his wounded pride, as he defiantly pulled his fists in front of him. "I'll just have to kick your ass without magic then," he said, narrowing his eyes.
Interest sparkled in Zeref's eyes. Physical combat had not been his greatest ability, but the deadly god bestowed him with strength and speed while Natsu had no comforting flames to guide his blows. "I wonder. Are you finally ready to destroy me?" he asked, the slightest slither of hope lacing his voice.
"I promised you, didn't I?" Natsu said as he delivered his first punch, landing straight through the air and narrowly missing his deadly target. He didn't let his failure dissuade him, no matter how impressed he had been by the instincts and speed of the young looking man. "I told you I'm going to be your end. I'm not going to let you get away with this."
Zeref ducked from yet another blow, twisting his body through his own menacing shadows and slipping behind the pink-haired wizard, throwing his own fist straight into the back of Natsu's skull. "So, you finally remember, brother?" he asked curiously.
Natsu caught himself from falling forwards, twisting his body around and finally landing his fist attack in the form of a roundhouse kick sending the dark lord skidding backwards. "Yeah, I remember," he admitted, breathing heavily as he glared at Zeref. "I don't get it, but I remember that day now."
Zeref held his arms over his body protectively, giving Natsu a stern gaze. "Then you'll remember your failure," he said, seeing the look of surprise written across Natsu's face at the hissing tone. "Eclipse was designed for you to destroy me, and you failed that day four hundred years ago. Eclipse failed its sole purpose. I've given you a second chance now. The Eclipse Gate only needs to be awoken and you can do things right. It is the only way that you can destroy me."
"This is Arcadios," shouted a magically projected voice piercing through the sudden silence that had erupted between the fighting brothers, echoing through the entire palace grounds and unimaginably further through the capital city. "The castle is in danger. I repeat, everyone is in danger. Your responsibility now is to save the royal family and follow the evacuation process. This is not a drill. Evacuate as quickly as possible," the lacrima shivered with the words.
Completely ignoring the warning, Natsu's hands dropped, his defences lowered as he saw that Zeref was no longer attempting to place any attacks upon him. In fact, he was begging for the exact opposite. "You want me to destroy you?" he asked, unable to believe he had interpreted his riddles correctly.
Zeref looked almost disinterested, though this couldn't have been further from the truth. All he had been concerned about for the last several centuries had been his own demise, desperately searching for a way that he could disappear into the eternal slumber he had cast upon so many in his tortured life. "I have lived for too long. Either the world will be destroyed, or I will. Right now, I don't much care which happens first."
That only made Natsu angrier. There were two things that he simply couldn't stand in this world; threatening the people he loved, and giving up on yourself. Even if he had only just discovered that the man before him truly was his brother, a fact that still did not easily rest inside of him, he couldn't bring himself to feel any joy at his desperation to be destroyed. "I already told you," he hissed in anger, bringing his fists back up and gritting his teeth as he threw another new punch with a fiery determination pounding through his ears. "If I go through that thing, I lose this world. I'm not destroying you through Eclipse. This is my world. These are my friends. This is my Fairy Tail. I told you I'm going to end you one day and that day is today, Zeref. My way," he smirked as his fists flew through the air, pounding viciously straight towards the enemy of his past.
Ultear's eyes brushed over the console and the Eclipse, trying to pull back all her training and studies as she desperately ignored the chaos behind her. Yukino was giving fevered directions to Wendy and Lamia Scale as she explained what the evacuation process entailed and those that she believed to be in danger, giving the startled wizards a new sense of purpose as they disappeared through the maze of corridors to save the remaining royals and palace servants. It had been obvious that no one had could stand a chance between the dragon slayer and Zeref. Even though was not a flicker of magic in sight, the threat that Zeref could instantly explode into a familiar circle of death was enough to make them quickly realise spectating was not an option. Although she would not to evacuate, Ultear had no intention of spectating, desperately searching the Eclipse gate for some way of shutting down the dangerous magic before it had even begun. Confusion buried deeper the harder she looked, however, feeling the familiar time magic running through her fingers at the touch in the exact form that she would have attempted. "I don't understand…" she murmured. "Eclipse is… saving the world…?"
Zeref glanced back to her as he dodged out of the way of Natsu's attacks, only making his little brother even more annoyed at the ease with which he fought. "Eclipse is designed to restore the world to the way it is supposed to be. I have seen enough of this world to know that it will destroy itself."
"Oh yeah?" Gray asked, finally stepping forwards with a dangerous gleam in his eyes. He had heard the arguments between the Dragneel brothers, the absent explanations of the lost chapter of Eclipse, and it had not taken long for the Maker mage to realise the secret choice Natsu had made the last time Eclipse was activated. His first instinct was anger, feeling betrayed that the dragon slayer had turned his back on the Eclipse world, the thousands of lives lost and their fragile yet brotherly trust. He had rose to his feet, ready to fight against his nakama, filled with anger at knowing that Natsu had chosen to protect Earthland above Eclipse, but before he could even raise his fists the anger shifted into the biting realisation that he hadn't been trusted. Stubbornly, he was filled with a new determination to prove Natsu wrong. Something in the promise of fight and hope gave strength to the cold in a way that only the fire dragon slayer could rekindle. "You should try putting a little more faith in this world," the Ice Maker challenged Zeref, jacket flying off his shoulders as he poised himself into the fighting position beside his nakama, ready to earn back his trust.
Though he had no explanation to Gray's sudden personality shift, Natsu's eyes gleamed in recognition, a bright grin crossing his face as he unmistakably saw his friend for the first time since Eclipse. "Took you long enough," he teased, unwilling to admit the happiness he felt from his presence but knowing that once they had finished fighting against Zeref then he would be sending a few of these punches straight towards the ice maker.
"Whatever, dragon breath," Gray smirked, knowing exactly what Natsu's insulting words truly meant and understanding that would be the closest to 'I missed you' he would ever receive. He didn't know how he had known, or how long he'd been aware that there had been a battle between fire and ice within him, but it filled Gray with joy and the slightest part of relief to know that Natsu had been able to see the shift as soon as the battle had been won. Ice had won. He had felt every one of Natsu's words running through his soul. This world, these friends, this Fairy Tail. The Fire Maker hadn't dared to put up a fight as the Ice Maker's passion rekindled at the dragon slayer's glittering hope, though he would never admit that the combination of stubbornness and his rival's strength had been two of the final pieces to convince him that this world was anything but empty. Now all they had to do was to protect it.
"Pu-puuun"
There were looks of in disbelief as the small white creature stumbled into the hall, completely oblivious to the chaos and darkness around. It shivered with every step, surprisingly fast as it bounded across the room and straight into Libra's arms. The Zodiac leaned down, her hands gently taking the shaking creature as sadness filled her eyes to see his suffering. She did not hesitate as she picked him up, turning back to Yukino and explaining "I need to take him home, master, I am sorry," before disappearing back into her own world.
"WAIT!" Yukino yelled out quickly, taking a halting step forwards and stumbling. She did not have the energy to resummons a zodiac sign. There was now no power that could stand the against the Eclipse's hungry drain except for the deadly god's.
A breath of pain that had been trapped inside of Lucy's lungs had finally been able to escape. The desperate celestial wizard fell to her knees at the door of the hallway, watching as her final spirit disappeared into the other world and she could feel only relief. The overwhelming sadness would come soon, she knew, but for now she could finally feel her magic was no longer ebbing away at her life force. She could not revel in this moment, however, as the three battling boys at the far end of the hallway each had their eyes pinned on her. "Huh?"
"Lucy, run!" Natsu cried out, diving towards Zeref and toppling him from his feet in a desperate attempt to stop him from doing the predictable. "He's after your Zodiac keys! He's trying to restart Eclipse!"
Lucy blinked, thoughts coming painfully slowly. The word 'keys' registered something quick and instinctual in her mind, however, as she reached down to her side to take the familiar brown pouch. She panicked, staring down and seeing that it had already been snatched away from her. "My keys!" she yelled out in disbelief, looking around for a possible thief.
The black imp grinned to himself as he scuttled like a black shadow across the floor. It made a sound almost like a chuckling as it gripped the side of the Eclipse gate, climbing the huge steps as the pouch of keys hung from his badly crafted cape. He only seemed to grin wider as Yukino also cried out theft, the gates of Pisces and Libra also tucked away carefully within Lucy's absent pouch the moment that Libra had disappeared to her own world. Once at the top, it looked down to the panicked fools below, proudly pulling on the first golden key.
"Someone stop it!" Gray cried out, instinctively calling upon his iced bow and arrow before remembering his mistake, falling to one knee as the magic was sucked from his hands and eagerly taken by Eclipse. "We can't let Eclipse start!"
"Do you not have faith in the world?" Zeref challenged, eyes gleaming as he stared at his creation.
Ultear took a staggered step backwards, seeing the true situation that they had been placed into. "If Eclipse isn't activated, the world's will collapse…" she translated, with every step feeling the cold fear trembling down her back. She could feel the energy from the giant gate, feel the pulsating power running through the world and knitting together every loose end through time and space. One by one the black creature was placing the keys into the corresponding keyholes, twisting every latch with a terrifying 'click'. The Eclipse Gate was perfect, however, and almost identical to the craft and modifications that she would have made to it herself, but what worried her was not knowing exactly why Zeref was so keen. "If Eclipse isn't activated the world's will stay separated. Spatial magic will cease forever. Time will split apart. We need… we need Eclipse… We need it to work…"
Agreeing with Zeref was too terrifying to even consider.
Another Zodiac key slipped into place.
The ripples of Eclipse were felt throughout the entire castle, even in the deepest of catacombs. Hisui's steps were as quick as she could manage and Levy's short legs couldn't achieve much better, but it was painfully obvious that the huge dark dragon slayer was becoming irritated by their slowness as the world above crawled closer into danger. Arcadios's warning could be heard clearly over the lacrima dotted all over the palace but Hisui continued deeper underground with determination and the deepest of guilts inside her chest.
"When he arrived at the palace, he was talking so vividly about a 'King Jellal'…" Hisui offered her own explanation, as if begging for some kind of pardon to her mistakes. "We couldn't have known that he was from another world, or this 'Edolas' that you have mentioned. At first we believed that he may have lost his mind, and I barely recognised him as yourself, Gajeel," she said, glancing back at the iron dragon slayer beside her and shuddering.
Gajeel gritted his teeth tighter, wishing that she could focus on speed instead of apologies. "We don't look that different," he rolled his eyes.
Hisui looked down, taking yet another winding corner and pulling her torch higher. "Then I fear that time may have changed a lot for 'Edo-Gajeel'," she said with all seriousness, tracing the walls with her fingers as they drew closer. "It was only when-when Zeref explained that they were planning on using Eclipse to create a world without our royal family that I thought he must have been a traitor. I can't believe how naïve I was, how blind…" she whispered to herself, stopping in her tracks and pulling the light upon the iron bars.
The Edolas reporter looked up towards the glimmering light, his dark eyes narrowing at the sudden contrast to the shadows around him. His hair was wilder than ever, even with his scattered curls it seemed to resemble this world's Gajeel's more than ever but it was clear what Hisui had meant when she said she had barely recognised him. He had none of the tell-tale piercings of the dragon slayer, but instead his face was scarred and pale. He did, however, give the familiar grin that made Levy inexplicably blush as he looked up at his counterpart. "It has been a long time, dragon slayer."
Gajeel frowned, knowing there was so much that he wanted to ask this Gajeel, about the scars and the life that he had lived without magic, but he had already grown irritated at the delay. "You been getting yourself into trouble again?" he said gruffly as he twisted his hands over the bars, yanking the iron back and picking off a piece for his own snack.
Edo-Gajeel nodded as he stepped closer into the light. "A necessary risk to get closer to the truth," he decided, looking back at the princess curiously.
"Geehee, I told you that you'd like him, didn't I Squirt?" Gajeel grinned pointing his thumb back at him.
Levy's blush deepened, thankful for the dim light. "Um, it's, uh, nice to meet you?" she said nervously, holding out her hand for him to shake. She wasn't certain that Gajeel would be the sort of man that most would offer a hand to, but Edo-Gajeel, even with his dishevelled appearance, seemed very different. Just as her fingers were about to touch his, however, she let out a sudden gasp. The light of the torch bounded straight through his hand, his suddenly semi-translucent image fading before her very eyes.
Even he seemed to look at his own fingers with confusion. "What… What's happening…?" he questioned.
The palace trembled, the rippling energy of darkness and light twisting through the wizards. "Wh-what is that?" Levy asked, eyes wide as she stared at the ceiling warily, wondering how strong the thick stone walls around them could be.
Hisui looked up, recognising the familiar power as it coursed through her own body. "Eclipse is starting," she said, her mouth a thin straight line.
Levy let out an unintentional squeal, covering her mouth with her hand as she looked back at the Edolas reporter. He was fading quicker, and she was left desperately trying to remember each of her books and studies she had spent the last few weeks tirelessly exploring. "The disruptions in time and space must be correcting themselves. Edolas citizens are going back home," she realised, knowing that they had come so far from safety only to reveal that the captive was disappearing from the world. "We're running out of time then. We have to stop it!" she exclaimed desperately, staring back at Hisui and looking for the answers.
Hisui's heart raced in her chest, eyes brimming with guilty tears as she explained "After what happened last time, we couldn't risk… someone shutting Eclipse down. There is no way to stop Eclipse once it has been activated…"
"Levy, Gajeel…" Lily's voice spoke gruffly, his tone serious but troubled as he stared down at his own fading hand.
"Natsu…" Happy called out, shaking as he tried to pick himself up from the ground but finding himself suddenly weakened. The tiny ball of blue fur was flickering in time with the Eclipse gate, appearing and disappearing within the world and no one was more terrified than the cat's closest friend.
"Happy!" Natsu screamed as he realised, instantly blaming himself for not going back to the exceed's side sooner as he abandoned all conflicts with Zeref to kneel in front of his best friend. "Happy, what's wrong? What's happening to you?!" he demanded.
"I don't know! What's happening to me!?" he called out, eyes wide and filled with terrified tears as he looked up at Natsu in desperation.
Ultear, Gray, Lucy and Erza could only look on in concerned confusion, but Zeref was the only one with an explanation. "The Eclipse Gate is mending the world from all fractures and breakages. Everyone from another world is returning. Your friend is not from this world," he advised, his voice bordering on sympathy as he looked back at Natsu's panicked gaze.
Natsu shook his head, anger flaring inside of him. "Happy is from this world! I hatched him, I took care of him, he's as much a part of this world as anyone! You can't take him away! He's not going back there!" he yelled at the top of his voice, feeling the soft blue fur rubbing against his leg as Happy pulled himself closer, the sensation flickering in and out of existence as the gate hummed.
Zeref could only shake his head, genuinely powerless. "I haven't done anything. Eclipse decides who is from which world," he said, for a brief moment wishing that there was something that he could do to offer his brother one last moment of happiness before the world stole his goodness, as it stole all goodness.
"Then we have to stop it. Stop Eclipse! Stop it now!" Natsu yelled up at the tiny imp, pulling himself back onto his feet and glaring up at the haunting black eyes.
With a defiant grin, the creature turned the final key.
"Nats-" Happy began, his words carried away with him as he blinked out of Earthland.
"HAPPY!" Natsu screamed, his eyes wide and suddenly filled with tears as he took a staggered step back. His friend was out there, alone in a desperate world, the twisting and glowing light from the opening gate completely ignored in his desperation. There was nothing he could do to follow him, no one that he could beat sense into, nothing he could do to reclaim his very closest companion, and his body erupted into raging flames. It seemed that nothing could break him out of his fury. But even in his emotion fuelled chaos, even Natsu could not ignore the terrifying moment that the Eclipse opened.
And the first dragon stepped into the world.
So much is happening in these chapters it's unreal. I hope it makes sense and nothing really gets lost.
Apologies in advance for this and any chapters posted this week (which should be all of the remaining ones hopefully!). I'm away from home and writing on my iPad and it isn't the most reliable, not to mention it keeps flipping between English US and English UK - which probably bugs me way more than you!
Oh and a quick note to juststrolling23 and your Zeref obsession lol Zeref was actually quite a last minute addition to these chapters but he seemed to fit in so well I couldn't refuse, so thanks for the inspiration to add more Zeref!
And thank you always for everyone's reviews :D