The Scars That Make You Whole

By CrimsonStarbird

Thy Will Be Done, Part 3

-Scream For Me-

From the outset, Invel was fighting a losing battle on all fronts.

The fact that he was losing the physical battle didn't come as a surprise. He knew the strength of Fairy Tail and its allies better than anyone. He had been well aware, when he had chosen to throw himself between Jellal and his emperor, that the former Wizard Saint's combat skills far exceeded his own.

That didn't bother Invel. He'd probably be that good at fighting too, if he had nothing better to do all day than train with magic. Jellal was responsible for a guild of seven. Invel was responsible for a country of two hundred million.

And even calling Jellal responsible was generous. Invel suspected the independent mage wouldn't recognize social responsibility if it knocked on his front door brandishing a council tax bill. Instead, Jellal's mobile guildhall hurtled down roads to whose upkeep he contributed nothing, stole dark-mage-hunting jobs from legal guilds who would have paid income tax on their earnings, and deposited the captured criminals outside local prisons without stopping to wonder whose time and energy was going to be spent judging, imprisoning and rehabilitating them.

No, it was safe to say that Invel was not Crime Sorcière's biggest fan. Despite his concern at how easily Jellal was punching through his ice, a part of him was loftily maintaining the moral high ground.

The fact that Jellal was deliberately driving him further and further from His Majesty was yet another battle Invel was losing, though this wasn't a particular concern. After all, as much as he would have preferred to remain at his emperor's side in case someone else spontaneously decided to try and kill him, at least the separation was keeping Jellal away from His Majesty too.

Jellal wasn't a threat to His Majesty, of course – no one was – but that wasn't the point. Invel was here as his servant and his shield. Allowing this man to lay a hand upon His Majesty while he still breathed was unthinkable. Ideally, he would be threatening to strike down Jellal for even trying… but Invel was a pragmatist. Given their respective combat abilities, he'd settle for keeping Jellal out of the way until His Majesty had dealt with Fairy Tail and that bizarre cult.

No, it was the third simultaneous battle he was losing that irked Invel, and that was because it was the only one of the three which, under normal circumstances, he would have expected to have won.

"How could you choose to side with Zeref?" Jellal demanded, as the starlight around him ramped up in intensity.

Oh, let me count the reasons, Invel thought. First and foremost, because he is my emperor. Second, because he did not win that title by being born to some previous monarch, like your king, nor does he cling to it in the face of great public opposition, like your Council; he earnt it the hard way, and he continues to earn it with every day that passes. Third, because in your ignorance you are committing an act of war, and I have a duty to defend the citizens of my nation. Fourth, because you and he have a shared enemy in Avatar, and he has already achieved more against them in a few minutes than you have in ten months. It is simply more efficient to keep you out of it. Fifth…

There was no easy way of putting his fifth reason into words, but he thought of the man who had broken down in front of Fairy Heart, who had entrusted his secrets and his strength to Invel, and he thought there was not a single thing he would not do for that man right now.

Yet he could not say any of it. It was more frustrating than the chips flying from his strongest ice armour at Jellal's every strike. It was more frustrating even than the ease with which his enemy dodged, on the rare opportunities he found to launch a counterstrike of his own. Not only was Invel absolutely in the right, but he was also the Chief of Staff to the Emperor of Alvarez: winning verbal battles against political dissenters and troublesome opponents was what he did.

Only this time, he wasn't allowed.

His Majesty had been very clear, when he had briefed Invel on their flight to Malva, that keeping their true identities a secret was of the utmost importance. There were few enough people in Alvarez who would recognize their emperor on sight, just one of the many idiosyncrasies Invel had slowly come to tolerate over the years. In Fiore, there was no one. They might know him by other names, but Emperor Spriggan hadn't attended a single diplomatic engagement in person in over fifty years.

Invel was slightly better known – someone had to represent their empire abroad, after all – but ever since diplomatic relations with Fiore had been carefully permitted to disintegrate, there was no one outside the royal family and the upper echelons of the current Magic Council who would recognize him. Jellal was no exception; Invel knew from his research that he had not officially taken his position amongst the Twelve until the month after the old Magic Council had been destroyed by Jellal's own hand. As far as Jellal knew, Invel had already been in the city when His Majesty had arrived – another fanatical member of Avatar, worshipping the right man for all the wrong reasons.

Invel wanted nothing more than to shatter that illusion, and reveal the grandeur of His Majesty's plan to the world. There was an entire nation out there that made a mockery of every word that came out of Jellal's mouth. He just wasn't allowed to speak of it.

Instead, he communicated his distaste at this whole situation in the only way he could: by releasing more of his magic. The temperature fell lower still. Jellal's flight faltered, but he had no wings to freeze solid, and the bright passion radiating from his body rendered the frigid air useless against him. Mind-affecting magic was nothing against his single-minded obsession. Invel had learnt that the hard way.

"What did he promise you?" Jellal persisted. "Power? Forbidden knowledge? Freedom…?"

Invel bit back a laugh. Try 'alright, fine, I'll make an effort to come back to Vistarion at least once a month'.

"Because whatever it is," Jellal continued, "I can assure you that it is a lie."

"You can say that again," Invel muttered under his breath.

Dissatisfied, Jellal hopped backwards and thrust his right hand towards the sky, which answered with a roar of magic. Invel grimaced. Behold the might of a man who had nothing better to do than train all day. At least Ajeel attended some meetings of government. Usually ones where they were discussing the upcoming invasion and/or military funding, but still.

Abandoning his icy armour, Invel slipped down a ginnel between two buildings, putting an entire row of houses between him and his opponent. There was a flash, a bang, and suddenly there was an entire row of houses minus one between him and his opponent.

Invel didn't slow down as successive pulses of light vaporized the next six houses, not even to roll his eyes. Their battle had only accelerated the evacuation of the city, but even empty, Jellal's sheer lack of disrespect for other people's property was appalling. An ally of Fairy Tail, indeed. At least the impending war was going to take place on Fiorean soil.

As the wreckage settled, Jellal's voice came again, softer than before. "If you're being threatened, my guild can help."

Invel did not react. Not even to the implication that one would have to be forced to take on the position he had coveted even before he had met His Majesty.

"Then I don't understand," Jellal said shortly. "I don't think you're a member of Avatar. They're fanatical. You're not."

Despite himself, Invel winced. Perhaps staying calm had been a bad idea, after all.

"No member of Avatar would have protected Zeref in that moment," Jellal continued. "They were crushed beneath awe and fear. You were not. Are you simply a facilitator of chaos?"

That was not an accusation that had ever been put to Invel before. He was still trying to find his voice when Jellal answered his own question.

"No, I didn't think so. Your fighting style is too careful; you are trying to avoid collateral damage. And that's what I don't understand – if you are not being threatened, and you are not here to propagate mindless violence, why are you not ashamed to display loyalty towards such a-"

Invel chose that moment to strike because, strategically, it made sense to attack while his opponent was distracted. The fact that it prevented Jellal from finishing an insultingly disrespectful sentence was just a bonus.

This time, he managed to freeze his opponent solid. Jellal plummeted from the sky. The ice binding him did not crack when it hit the ground – rather, it spread over the surface, turning the wreckage of the road into a glassy prison.

Invel's own breath crystallized in the air as he focussed all the might of his magic. Ice erupted in his opponent's veins; the cold shrivelled his muscles and forced its way to his heart. Invel would incapacitate him here and hurry back to His Majesty's side-

A light blazed in the depths of the icy coffin. Invel barely had time to register the sinking feeling in his gut before his ice exploded outwards, revealing Jellal with his hand stretched to the heavens as if to call down divine judgement. The magic gathering above his palm would end the battle just as surely.

"If you do not understand the conclusion you have drawn, perhaps one of your premises is wrong," Invel said coolly.

Jellal hesitated.

It was a low trick, but fighting a losing battle was becoming tiresome. Not to mention, while Invel still didn't think His Majesty would be in any danger, he wanted to be by his side nonetheless… and that meant not being knocked out by the man in front of him.

Perhaps Jellal's earlier offer of assistance was sincere. If nothing else, he seemed willing to give convincing Invel another shot, rather than simply obliterating him where he stood.

With a calmness he did not feel, Invel pressed, "Why do you find it so hard to believe that I follow him because I choose to?" An image flashed through his mind of the man who had revealed the most fragile parts of himself instead of striking down the servant who doubted him. "Despite his best attempts to convince me otherwise?"

"Have any idea how many people have died because of him?"

"Have you any idea how many live for him?" Invel thought of the thousands who lined the streets whenever news of His Majesty's return was leaked, even though they knew that the larger the crowd, the more likely he would be to avoid it. He thought of the way he could always tell if His Majesty was in residence by listening to the tempo of the palace. He thought about the man who had seen the potential of a continent the rest of the world had abandoned, and who had shaped it into the mightiest nation in the world, outshining any other in fierce pride and patriotism.

"They live for him," Invel repeated. "They live because of him. You know nothing about him."

He stopped himself before he could give away anything concrete, and sure enough, the other's eyes only narrowed in suspicion.

"Perhaps you do not know as much as you think you do," Jellal warned. "Perhaps you did not stand in the fountain of blood and fire where the Council Headquarters had once stood, and hear the demons' laughter. Perhaps you did not lose count of how many grasping hands you pulled from the rubble, only to find that there was no longer a body attached. Perhaps you did not have to console anyone who was supposed to arrest you on sight, as you stood shoulder to shoulder at the grave of a Rune Knight you both respected. Perhaps you did not hear how close his demons came to wiping out all of humanity that day, or of the price that was paid to stop them."

"That had nothing to do with him," Invel retorted. His Majesty had been as surprised as anyone when news of the massacre at the Magic Council reached Vistarion. Yes, he had been willing to use it to their advantage and order the invasion… at least, right up until he had vanished without a word, sparking the unease between Invel and August that still persisted to this day.

"He made the demons as they were," Jellal rejected. "He taught them to kill. He could have stopped their actions with a word, but chose not to. Just as he released dark artefacts into the world without a care for where they ended up. Just as he did nothing to stop the lives lost and futures shattered by Grimoire Heart as they sought him in vain… just as he encouraged the growth of fanatical cults like Avatar."

"Encouraged?" Invel snapped. "We came here today to stop Avatar."

"You lie."

"Not at all. You would have seen it for yourself, had you not attacked him without provocation."

Light blazed in Jellal's eyes. "He is controlling Lucy! I have to fight, for her sake!"

"I don't know anything about that," Invel said, "but I do know that he abhors that kind of magic. He has enough willing followers. He doesn't even want Avatar; why would he create more for himself?"

"Because of who she is! He wants to use her against Fairy Tail!"

"Have you considered that she might be with him because she wants to be, like I am?" In truth, Invel had no idea whether Fairy Tail's Lucy Heartfilia showing up in Malva with Avatar was a coincidence, and to be quite frank, he didn't care – but he could see that his words were affecting Jellal, so he ran with it. "Did you consider talking to her and finding out, rather than assuming you knew best? Has it ever occurred to you to ask Zeref what it is that he wants?" His emperor's birth name felt strange upon his tongue, but he was too professional to falter. Not when he had the other exactly where he wanted him. "Or is it easier just to hate him?"

"He has done much to warrant my hatred," Jellal stated.

"Oh?" Invel smirked, goading the starlight that trembled around Jellal's body. "Tell me, what has he ever done to you? Personally, I mean? Did he order his servants to kidnap you as a child and force you into slavery? Oh no, wait, that wasn't him. Did he corrupt you and control your mind for eight years, ultimately forcing to kill your own childhood friend? No, that wasn't him either. You forgave the woman who did that."

Jellal's knuckles were white. The touch of a feather would have caused his magic to explode into a supernova.

Through it all, Invel's smile didn't slip. "Or are you jealous, seeing that your enemy is so loved, while you are shunned by those you protect?"

In all his years serving at the palace, Invel had only failed to wriggle out of Ajeel's never-ending challenges to training battles twice, and on both occasions he had won.

The first time, irritated at having been dragged away from his actual job, he had overwhelmed Ajeel with pure power and ended the fight in half a minute. Ajeel had complained that this was bad form. Invel thought that expecting the empire to last longer than half a minute without its Chief of Staff, when His Majesty was away again, was worse.

The other occasion, however, had been different. He hadn't been able to get out of it because His Majesty had insisted that he participate. To Invel's astonishment, he had found that Ajeel's experience and skill were becoming enough to bridge that gap in raw power. It was clear that Ajeel put far more effort into training than Invel could afford to spare… and yet Invel had still emerged victorious.

The reason was simple: he had baited Ajeel into acting recklessly. He had won by deliberately angering his opponent and causing him to make mistakes.

Unfortunately, Jellal was not like Ajeel.

In the moment when Ajeel would have lashed out with all the power he had, neglecting his defence and allowing Invel to finally succeed in freezing him fully, Jellal did not. He did not attack at all. In fact, he avoided Invel's last-ditch strike as if he had been expecting it.

And only when Invel was off-balance, staggering from the recoil of the attack that had failed to connect, did Jellal twist and gesture and slam Invel straight into unconsciousness.

Jellal let out a long, shuddering breath.

When that didn't work, he tried another, eyeing the body of his enemy with an unnecessary level of caution. He would live, but he wouldn't be back at Zeref's side any time soon.

Are you jealous, seeing that your enemy is so loved, while you are shunned by those you protect?

Jellal closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them again, they were as solemn as ever.

He should have expected something like this. Zeref was manipulative. It stood to reason that his most powerful followers would be the same. If Jellal hadn't remembered that at the last moment, he might have lost himself to that rage for the first time in eight years.

Are you jealous?

With a quick shake of his head, he dismissed those mocking words. Dark mages would stop at nothing in order to win. They would lie, they would cheat, they would try to shake his faith and make him vulnerable.

He should have known better than to listen. He definitely knew better than to believe.

His path was as clear as it had ever been. First, he would find Lucy, and make sure Zeref hadn't hurt her. Then he would put an end to Avatar and save Malva.

Are you jealous?

Then, once his friends and the city were safe, he was going to destroy Zeref and all who served him.

Zeref fell.

The sword's tip drew a ribbon of blood from his chest, tugging him forward, and when a twist of Arlock's wrist snapped it, he fell, and he died.

Then the screaming began.

Death triggered his curse, forcing him back to the world of the living. His curse triggered the power of that hateful blade, igniting the very magic keeping him alive, a fireball erupting inside his veins. This agonizing death was met by his curse's redoubled refusal to let him slip from this world… which only fed the flames further.

He died and didn't die and died again over and over. All the while, the vicious flames burned brighter, fuelled by the same limitless power that kept their victim alive, and their crackles and hisses seemed to laugh at Zeref's scream.

A whimper escaped Lucy's lips. Jerome said nothing at all, staring at the awful sight before them as if he had forgotten how to do anything except stare. Only Arlock watched because he wanted to, his pupils fully dilated, absorbing every single photon that the evil flames shed.

"Look at you burn, my beautiful little anomaly of magic," Arlock marvelled. "It would have been such a waste to kill you, wouldn't it?"

"K-Kill him?" Jerome stammered.

Arlock only smiled.

The not-quite-corpse at his feet twitched. Lucy caught a flash of red, and her heart leapt, but she wasn't the only one who had seen the spark.

It was almost casually that Arlock reversed his grip on the sword and drove it into Zeref's back. A fresh wave of screams twisted the air. The blade pinned Zeref's body to the ground; the clash of two opposing curses locked his rational mind in limbo. Arlock's hand rested loosely on the hilt as he surveyed Jerome and Lucy with confidence.

"The Balam Alliance fell," he told them. "The dark guilds were scattered and weak, driven to near-extinction by their own incompetence and greed. I am the one who united the underworld beneath a single banner. I am the one who found common ground for wanted criminals, respected scholars, and the public opinion of the magical world. I am the one destined to overthrow the Council and usher in a new age of magic. The only person who stood between me and absolute rulership of the underworld was Zeref."

A slow smile crept across the cult leader's lips as he regarded the man shrieking into the dirt at his feet. "No, it would be wrong to call him a person. Anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to current affairs must know that Zeref himself has no interest in ruling the underworld. The idea of Zeref, though – that is another matter entirely. While the name of the great and terrible Black Mage is still whispered with reverence amongst the outcast guilds, no one else can truly claim that throne. To obtain that power for myself, I would first have to shatter the legend, and bury the man who spawned it."

"You're lying," Jerome whispered, but the words with which he had refuted Lucy so many times held no power against his own ally. Still, he tried, "Lord Zeref is immortal… divine… he can't be…"

Arlock chuckled. "Did he not tell you himself he is no god, Jerome? He is nothing more than a fool. An immortal fool, but a fool nonetheless. He was given the power to rule the world, and instead he shunned it. Fate granted him immortality, and he did everything he could to try and get rid of it. Who else would spend years coming up with creative ways of ending his own life, and then leave them behind for others to find?"

As if to prove his point, he twisted the hilt of the sword. Zeref's back arched and he screamed again, thrashing in a pool of blood and fire. The sense of boiling magic thickened around him.

"Some were destroyed, I'll admit," Arlock resumed. "Some were scattered, some impractical, some completely incoherent… and then, after decades of searching, I came across Notes on the Manifestation of Divine Magic. It told me everything. Zeref created a fire demon, END, and gave it the power of a fire dragon, too. But even that wouldn't be enough to kill him, so he sought out the power of a fire god. A being made of pure fire magic, whose flames are superior even to those of the Fire Dragon King, should be able to burn away his immortality for good. He adapted his demon to be able to absorb a fire god's flames into its body… but he was unable to complete the ritual to summon the god itself. Four hundred years later, I retrieved his notes, and finally finished the ritual."

"I have told you before," Lucy whispered. Saying it wouldn't change anything, she knew that, but it still somehow mattered. "Zeref chose not to do the ritual back then. The cost was too high."

Arlock might have smiled at her; she could not drag her eyes away from her suffering friend long enough to notice. "He was weak. I am not. In Bishop's Lace, I assembled all the pieces. The sacrifices. The ritual circle. And of course, Zeref himself. My cult's actions would draw him out of hiding. Then, I would ask him to grant the stupid, trivial wishes of my followers, and when he inevitably refused, I would enact the ritual designed to kill him and take vengeance on my followers' behalf. The Black Mage would die; his legacy would be dethroned. Then, at last, all the underworld would see that I am a far better ruler than he."

A shiver ran down Lucy's spine. "But you failed."

"True." To her dismay, reminding Arlock of his failure only brought a spark of maniacal glee back to his eyes. "The Black Mage was the only one who did not follow the script. Rather than trying to destroy Avatar, he fought to save the city. He made no attempt to defend himself – he only protected you! That hardly matched the image of an ungrateful overlord I wanted to project to my followers. They might even have pitied him, the fools."

"It wouldn't have worked anyway," she told him firmly. "Zeref never really believed a fire god could kill him. And he's better at ritual magic than you will ever be. He foiled your attempt at summoning before you could even try to kill him."

"For a worthless legend, he had more fight in him than I expected," Arlock agreed. "And yet, thanks to his interference, I found something far more interesting in Bishop's Lace than an immortal fool."

There was something almost fond in the gaze he turned towards Zeref – something that didn't change even as he lazily plucked out the blade and found a new spot in Zeref's shoulder in which to bury it. The wound in his back tried to heal over, which only caused it to burn with far greater agony than before. "I found an anomaly. I found a source of true magic – immortality that didn't come from some cheating ritual or clever artefact, but a perfect singularity, unstoppable and infinite.

"You see, even three thousand sacrifices cannot maintain the manifestation of a god in this world for more than a few minutes. That would be enough to kill Zeref, but I would have to consolidate my reign as his rightful successor using my own power. And I thought to myself, what if I had a source of unlimited magic with which to fuel my fire god? Why merely borrow its power to kill Zeref, when I could use Zeref himself to sustain it indefinitely as my servant? Why should I stop at having absolute power over the underworld? With a god on my side, I could destroy this society that suppresses me and my kind in a single day, and remake everything as I saw fit!"

Arlock's gaze drifted across to Jerome, who was watching him wide-eyed, just as he had once beseeched Zeref. "I already had what I needed," he mused, delighting almost as much in his follower's shock as in Zeref's pain. "A cursed sword I had obtained many years ago. I had thought it useless. Yes, it was dangerous, but it also burned unendingly, using the magic of anyone it touched as fuel for their own demise. Jerome, born without a connection to his magical core, is the only man I have ever met who is capable of using it without harm, so I gave it to him… that was my sole error in this game. He let it be taken from him! That priceless, unique artefact, and he let them take it to save his own life!"

Amusement became hatred, before melting just as quickly back into satisfaction. "And worse, he did not even think to tell me until I had already gambled everything on a new strategy to which it was integral… but fate has a beautiful sense of irony. To think that Zeref himself would bring the instrument of his own demise back to me!

"Still, everything about this is poetic," Arlock concluded, leaning on the sword buried in Zeref's body and ignoring the heightened scream this brought. "Zeref possesses an infinite source of magic which keeps his body alive. I have a cursed blade which uses the magic of whoever it touches to burn them to death. Put them together, and what do you have? Two equal and opposite forces, locked in an endless battle, growing stronger and stronger without limit. If I can harness that power – and I have already prepared a runic array to do so – I have an infinite source of magic at my disposal."

"He is not a source of magic!" Lucy shouted. "He is a human being, and he's in pain!"

"The suffering of one man is a small price to pay for the rest of us to have our freedom, don't you think? Freedom that he had the power to grant us long ago, and chose not to."

"The freedom to do things like this, without regard for the cost," Lucy said bitterly. "He was right. Magic such as this should remain forbidden to people like you."

Bending down, Arlock seized the scruff of Zeref's robes. "Unfortunately for you, I am the one who makes the rules now. And once my god descends, the whole world will know it."

"But… but…" Jerome was still staring at the Black Mage who hung unresponsive in Arlock's grip, burning darkly in a too-bright day. "We- we need Lord Zeref! He's going to remake the world for us… that's what you always promised…"

"Oh, Jerome," Arlock said, almost kindly. "Can't you see that I am the one who is going to remake the world?"

"All this time, it was all for your own greed. Your own power."

"Do I not deserve it more than this washed-up figurehead? It wasn't him who took you in, was it, Jerome? It was me. I gave you a place to belong."

The swordsman shook his head. "It was never me you wanted, was it? You just wanted someone to hold that sword. Now that you have another purpose for it… what will become of me?"

"You will always be welcome in the world I create," Arlock assured him. His eyes danced in the light of Zeref's funeral pyre.

A tremulous smile touched Jerome's lips. "Have you ever told me the truth, Arlock?"

"You don't matter enough for the truth," Arlock scowled. "There are thousands of believers in this city alone who will accept me as the herald of a new age once they have seen my power. Those who follow my teachings have already evacuated. Those who do not will serve as my declaration of war."

With that, he began dragging Zeref's broken body away.

Lucy moved.

Ever since Arlock had started gloating, she had been waiting for him to let his guard down, and now she had her chance. She didn't think – she just acted. Celestial light formed around her of its own accord, granting her armour of starlight and blades like a comet's tail, ready to strike down the one who had committed such an atrocity-

Arlock seemed to sigh. Without even turning to look at her, he plucked the sword from Zeref's body and cut her down with a soldier's efficiency.

The sword was shoved back into Zeref's chest like some grotesque human sheath, and, trailing blood and charred flesh behind him, Arlock strode off towards the centre of the city.

Lucy froze, uncomprehending, as the slash that should have laid bare her organs cut through Jerome's chest instead.

He fell back against her, his weight forcing her back a step, and she still didn't understand. Warm blood soaked her clothes and it made no sense that it wasn't hers.

That was what she had to know, as her body's autopilot took over and lowered him gently to the ground: "Why?"

The swordsman's eyes were already closed, but he forced them back open. His pupils swayed back and forth, drunk on the sweet headiness of death, and he rasped, "Don't let him win."

She dropped to her knees as his eyes slid shut again, reaching for the gaping crimson grin in his shirt. What she was going to do, she didn't know, but he wasn't dead yet. He was a human being blocked off from the magic inside him, which made him perhaps the only man alive who wasn't affected by the sword's curse. If she could stop the bleeding then maybe- maybe-

"Just go." Jerome tried to snarl but it came out as a soft, fluttering breath. "We're even, now. So just… go."

Lucy hesitated, not wanting to let him drown in that hopelessness any more than she wanted to leave him to die alone, when it should have been her. "You… you were only trying to find a place where you would be accepted, weren't you?"

"It was supposed to be for all those like me," he murmured. "Not just for Arlock. This isn't Avatar; this is just him. Don't let him win."

"I won't. I promise."

And she had never meant anything so much in her life.

Lucy rose to her feet. The skies, which had been overcast since her arrival in Malva, were beginning to move. They swirled in on themselves, giving her the sudden claustrophobia of being trapped at the bottom of the sea, pushed down by the enormous whirlpool overhead.

The closer she got to the epicentre, the harder it became to move. The pressure of the storm. The whimpering of the earth. The air, thick and stifling, like contagion on her tongue. The silent buildings, full to bursting with an absence of life. Everything about this scene was wrong. Everything.

She wondered how such a manifestation of magic had ever become known as a god, when there was nothing sacred about its coming; nothing worshipful about the world's terrified scream.

And then its foot descended.

She called it a 'foot' because her language had no other words for it, but it was larger than her old guildhall and flattened a row of terraced houses as if they were made of sand. It did not stop at ground level, but sunk another few metres through dirt and sewers and rock. Every cavernous footprint filled with fire, baking the earth containing it with every experimental lick.

The being itself took the form of a giant: life and magic, magic and life, it flowed back and forth from one to the other, solid and insubstantial all at once. Its skin was a deep red. Flames licked around its chin, imitating a wise priest's beard. Arlock was not on the ground, amongst the mortals; he stood upon the shoulder of his living weapon.

The city below him reverberated with screams. Desperation. Tears. Prayers to other deities; if only all gods could have remained so distant!

A creature so inhuman should surely have been indifferent to their tiny lives, but it was Arlock's will that bound it, and he, it seemed, had more than enough hate to corrupt a god.

But it wasn't the fire god – or even the thought of having to fight such an alien being – that frightened Lucy the most.

She had to reach Zeref.

Finding him was easy enough. He was at the epicentre, the heart of that horrible power, radiating an energy that had ceased to grow stronger now that it was being siphoned off to sustain the god's existence, but which still beamed like radioactive heat through the air around him.

He lay alone in the street. The cursed sword protruded like Excalibur from his back. Five concentric circles of runes ensnared him in their pallid purple light. They may have prevented him from moving, but they did nothing to contain the smell of blood and vomit, nor the soft sound of sobbing.

"Zeref!" she shouted.

There was no response.

Gritting her teeth, she wrapped her hands around the blazing hilt of the sword and gave it a firm tug. It moved half a centimetre and stopped – but even that small movement was enough to send his body into convulsions, adding another scream to the hundred lingering in her ears.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" With that inadequate apology, she dropped to her knees beside him. Only then did she notice the chains of interlocking runes wrapped around his body, holding the burning blade in place. The swords of her Cancer form scraped along the glowing letters like they were concrete. She couldn't begin to unravel runic magic like that – no, if such magic could be unravelled, Zeref would have freed himself long ago.

Or would he? He still hadn't acknowledged her presence.

Tentatively – more so than she would have done if he were in the grip of a nightmare, for there was no waking up from this – she touched his shoulder. "Zeref? Can you hear me? Please… please say something…"

"Lucy…?"

His voice was the voice of a spectre. He tried to raise his upper body from the ground, jerking to a halt with a shuddering gasp whenever he moved too quickly. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Worst of all were his eyes – all the life had winked out from that beautiful blackness, a night without any promise of a dawn.

"Lucy?" he rasped. "Are… are you there?"

Something broke in her, then, and she pulled him into a tight embrace. "I'm here, Zeref. Oh, God, I'm right here…"

He was sobbing into her shoulder, and she was sobbing too, overwhelmed by the thought of what he was going through. She held him as he screamed silently against her, brushed back his sweat-soaked hair, wished she could do more. Wished she could do something.

"Hurts, Lucy. Hurts so much."

"It'll be okay," she whispered. "I'll get you out of this, I swear."

Her words had been meant to soothe him; they only succeeded in alarming him. "No. Leave me. You have to go."

She had to fight back the sudden urge to laugh. "Not a chance. Not without you."

"You have to," he begged. "Please… get away from the city…"

"Idiot," she said fondly, smiling through her tears. "I know we've been apart for a few days, but you haven't forgotten that you're partnered with a member of Fairy Tail, have you? Like I would ever leave a friend to suffer."

"It's already over," he wailed. "I lost to him, Lucy, I can't-"

"You're wrong, Zeref. Arlock may have you exactly where he wants you right now, but he's made one huge mistake."

"What…?"

"He's abandoned his team. He doesn't think he needs them any more. But you, Zeref – you still have yours."

Still holding him close, she thought for a moment, and then admitted, "I know it might not look like much of a team right now. I don't know what happened to Jellal and your friend, and I don't know if Natsu or Gray are even still alive… but you've got me, and you know I'll fight until the end for you. You may be beaten, Zeref, but we are not. I am going to get you out of this."

Silence.

And then, a whisper: "It hurts, Lucy."

Swallowing back the lump in her throat, she stroked his hair and said, "I know, but I need you to focus as much as you can, because I'm going to need your help. You're in no state to dispel these runes, and I don't know how, which means I've got to do this the old-fashioned way: by defeating the one who cast them. So, Zeref… how do you kill a god?"

"Can't," he mumbled. "It's a manifestation of magic. It can't be beaten while there's still magic to fuel it."

And the source of magic for this god was infinite.

Lucy would not accept defeat so easily. "There has to be a way. Is there not anything you've read about? Any old magic that might unsummon it?"

"Only one way," he rasped. Every word wrenched out a little more of his strength, his sanity. "Only a God Slayer's power can… can destroy it."

"Okay. That's okay. My Spirits can get in touch with Yukino, and ask her to send Sabertooth's God Slayer straight over-"

"Won't work." She had never known two words to carry so much despair. "Not like Dragon Slayers. Can't kill a god like you can a dragon. It will just re-form. Has to be… the right element. Turns its own magic against it. Disrupts the ritual binding the god to this plane…"

"But the only Fire God Slayer died on Tenrou Island," Lucy remembered. And Arlock knew it, didn't he? After all his scheming, he wouldn't have gambled his final plan upon summoning a monster any plucky hero could slay. He had only revealed his hand because he knew his god was unbeatable.

She couldn't tell if Zeref was nodding his head or just convulsing from the pain; she held him close and forced an optimism she didn't feel into her voice. "Well, that's okay. Making it up as we go along is Fairy Tail's specialty, after all."

As she tried to stand, however, feeble hands clutched at her own.

"Don't," Zeref begged. "Please don't, Lucy. You can't beat a god."

"Then I'll die trying," she rebuked him. "Because if I walk away while you're suffering, Lucy Heartfilia is dead anyway. I will never abandon you, Zeref. Ever."

A strange calmness settled over her as she spoke those words. It brought with it a single certainty: she was going to do this. All that remained was to work out how.

Natsu had beaten a God Slayer before, and that was close enough. If he could do it, so could she.

When his dragon's fire hadn't been enough, he had absorbed the god's fire instead, and used that to beat his opponent at his own game – just as Zeref implied a God Slayer would have to do to beat a god. She wasn't a Dragon Slayer; she didn't have inhuman lungs or the uncanny power to rewrite the laws of magic that fate seemed to have bestowed upon Natsu… but she was a Celestial Spirit mage. She had her own power. Her own versatility.

The only genuine smile this godforsaken purgatory had ever known blossomed like a rebellious rose upon her lips. "I can do it, Zeref. I know how to beat a god."

And then, like the giant's foot slamming down upon the city, her moment of elation vanished. "No. It won't work. I need magic… more magic than any person has."

Her heart twisted as she looked down at him, so helpless, so small. She hated herself for it, but she had to ask: "Zeref, is there any way to modify the rune circle so that I can- I can access the same power Arlock is using?"

He shook his head. She saw her own despair reflected back in every tear flung from his empty eyes. "He's keyed it to his presence."

"Okay," she said, trying to keep her voice level as the threads of her stolen calm seemed to spin away from her once again. "That's okay. I'll just… I'll think of something else, don't worry."

Silence, too much silence, and she thought she'd lost him again. "Zeref, I'm so sorry-"

He cut across her without warning. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course," she responded, startled.

"Think about it. Please. It's important."

"Don't insult me," she snapped. Then, more gently, she added, "Or yourself. Never doubt that you are dear to me." On impulse, she kissed the top of his head, and held him tighter. "I will get you out of this, Zeref."

"I know you will," said he.

He sucked in a shuddering breath, gathering his resolve – and then, without explanation, he reached up, pulled Lucy's head down, and slammed her forehead against his.

Mental lightning streaked out from the point of contact, slicing her brain into dysfunctional pieces that could process nothing but pain and panic. Yelping, she tried to pull away, but to no avail. Those fingers around her neck must have contained all the strength left in his body.

It hurt. It hurt like she remembered the cursed sword hurting her, and then worse, as it grew and grew with every passing microsecond. Was this on purpose? Why wouldn't he let her go? Was he trying to force the pain he was feeling onto her instead-?

No. He would never do that to her. He would never hurt her.

Just like she had bowed her head to the terrifying man who had come to kill her for stealing the Book of END, knowing that by doing so she was throwing away her only chance to escape, she let her barriers fall, let him in, trusted him.

The pain vanished.

The sudden absence of sensation left her disorientated. Nothing seemed real. She felt like she was floating, because not even gravity was real enough to pull her down.

Zeref slipped from her grip, dreamlike; the distant thud of him slumping upon the ground reached her like slow thunder. He curled up within himself, babbling incomprehensible prayers. There was nothing more she could do for him here-

I know you will.

-and she looked towards Arlock's towering god, determination crystallizing into a deadly blade inside her heart.

She was going to fight.

She was going to win.

She was going to slay a god.

Somewhere between the chaos in the city and the detachment of her senses, Lucy felt so calm.

In her mind, she was surrounded by an infinite sky-dark lake. No wind stirred its surface. It reflected back stars the naked eye could not see, secret constellations preserved and treasured deep within. If it had shores at all, they were shrouded by sheer distance.

The lake neither rocked nor murmured, but waited for her command – and she could command all of it, if she so desired. A single word, and the world would change in ways she could not even imagine.

She knew what Zeref had done. How he had done it, she doubted she would ever know, but she was connected to his magical core. The magic she could feel in her mind, that limitless possibility – it was all his. It was beautiful and it was pure. It was old and wonderful, vulnerable and sarcastic and smug; it was everything she loved about him.

And right now, thanks to Arlock's cruelty, it was infinite.

Her fear had fled; it could hold her no longer. Her eyes did not leave the gigantic beast of fire as her right hand reached for her keys. "Ready?" she murmured, and they vibrated faintly in her palm.

"Alright." She drew her keyring like a sword, angling the tip of Taurus's key towards the god bearing down upon her. "Let's do this! Open, Gate of the Bull! Open, Gate of the Ram!"

A ripple ran through the lake in her mind, and then it stilled once more. If not for the Spirits appearing at her side, she could not have said with any certainty that she had used magic at all. The sense of disorientation returned in full force. Her body didn't know what to make of the fact that using magic wasn't draining its own reservoir of power; she had to glance down to check that her feet were still on the ground.

She realized, suddenly, that she didn't have to stop at three Spirits. She could summon and keep summoning, throw open every Gate for which she held the key, and that infinite magic would make it happen without the slightest strain on her body. The possibility sent an electric tingle down her spine.

As if in response, a tremor ran through the lake in her mind.

Here, a bubble broke the surface; there, that perfect mirror stillness began to swell, and then to roil. The serenity was an illusion, disintegrating before her very eyes. The infinity she was feeling was not normal, but the product of two anomalies: a fragment of true magic, never meant to be accessible to man, intersecting with a cursed artefact that the world itself reviled. It was wrong. The greatest power was born from the most horrific pain.

No matter how hard Zeref tried to keep it from her, his agony was beginning to seep into their shared magic. Their connection wasn't like the one Arlock had opened, forced to serve his will by inviolable, unyielding runes. It was entirely voluntary. Zeref would never take it away from her by choice, but the ability to choose was being stripped from him as his conscious mind succumbed to the agony. She could already feel the link starting to crumble.

But, that was okay.

It would be enough.

Zeref had put his trust in her, and that was all the power she needed.

Taurus charged up his strength, and when Lucy leapt onto the flat of his axe, he catapulted her up into the air. The god's eyes blazed with an anger that was all Arlock's. Suddenly there was fire where there had only been air – and then there was air again, as an explosion of wool at Lucy's feet propelled her up and over the fireball. She gulped down the oxygen before his flaming breath could steal it.

More wool bombs lifted her up and over the barrage of flame. She was at the limit of Aries's range, now, high above the city. Irritated, the fire god snatched at her. Switching to her Scorpio form, she slipped between its fingers with a last burst of speed and hurtled up its arm to stand on the god's shoulder. Her tail dug into its wine-red skin and brought her to a halt.

"What do you think you're doing-?" Arlock demanded, from atop the creature's other shoulder.

Lucy just thrust one golden key towards the sky. "Open, Gate of the Twins! Gemini!"

They did not come with their usual chirps of, "Piri piri!"

They did not come as two playful blue creatures at all.

They came with a scream from the heavens and a sob from the battered earth, fire and brimstone incarnate.

Two identical fire gods glared at each other above a smouldering city.

Arlock's expression was priceless. "Im-impossible-"

Then the Gemini-god punched Arlock's god in the face.

Lucy had already jumped free from her perch on its shoulder. She did not pray to a non-existent god, but sent a silent request to her friends – and sure enough, a crash mat of pink wool broke her fall, and Taurus was there to help her to her feet. "Thank you, both," Lucy said. "I'll take it from here."

As they nodded and vanished back to their own world, she glanced upwards at the ashes raining down like blood from the battling giants. Arlock had recovered from his shock, and his god retaliated with a thunderous blow.

Gemini staggered back and kept falling. First they shed embers, and then sparkles of blue magic, a stark contrast to the world's grim pyre.

The magical link strained at Lucy's mind. That lake was rushing away from her fingertips, draining into a bottomless abyss as the mists of pain-induced delirium closed in. From the other side of the city, she felt Zeref losing consciousness, a snap in her mind, the snuffing of the candle that had led her this far.

And without access to Zeref's magic, Gemini could no longer sustain the fire god's form in this world.

"We're sorry, Miss Lucy," twin voices squeaked, before they too were gone.

"Don't apologize," Lucy smiled. "You've done perfectly."

Shaky, and then with growing strength, Arlock's laugh dived down upon her from above. "An impressive trick indeed, but nothing more. Only I possess a true unlimited source of magic. Only I have the power to reshape the world!"

"A battle of gods…" Lucy reflected. "It does sound poetic, doesn't it? But that's not the real reason why I summoned Gemini." She tossed their key to herself, and then twisted it to point at her heart. "Star Dress: Gemini Form!"

"What-?" Arlock demanded.

"Gemini copies the magic of anything I touch, as long as I have enough power to do it," Lucy explained. "Then, using Gemini's Star Dress form, I can absorb that magic into myself. Do you know what they call a human who acquires the magic of a god, Arlock?"

As the air itself began to burn around her, Lucy met the villain's horrified expression with a smile. "A God Slayer."