Chapter 37
Both Zeref and Gray reached the demon at the same time. Zeref immediately looked up at Deliora and wagged a finger, ready to ground him, when Gray's voice rose to a high pitch.
"Resurrection first, parenting later!"
Zeref looked slightly confused for a second. "Oh, yeah, right. Freeze that water."
Gray did as he was asked immediately, and the water that contained Ur's soul was frozen.
Zeref nodded approvingly. "Good. Now reshape that ice into a human body. Make sure to give it nerve endings, muscles and whatnot to allow your teacher to control it."
Gray closed his eyes, arms crossed in a position that was similar to, but not quite, Iced Shell. His brows were furrowed in concentration. This would take some time.
Happy with that, Zeref looked at Deliora with the Sad Eyes of Disappointment.
"I expected better, son. Don't you remember any of my lectures on the ecosystem? You cannot simply wipe out a lot of people from a species." Deliora looked down at his feet as Zeref continued, "Now, you are going to stay on this island and think about what you've done wrong, okay?"
Deliora broke down crying, his teardrops like buckets of water. Zeref patted his knee. "Now, now, don't cry, Deliora. Your mom and I still love you, but what you did was not nice. So, you're grounded for ten years. No talking to your friends, no internet, and absolutely no devouring souls."
"What?" Deliora looked at his dad with imploring eyes. "Ten years?! Dad, I was stuck in a block of ice for twelve years!"
Looking at those eyes, Zeref sighed. "I'll bring it down to three months if you can bribe him to forgive you", he said, pointing at Gray, who was still working on Ur's body.
"Bribe?", asked Deliora.
Zeref shrugged. "You killed his family, so I doubt he'll forgive you out of the goodness of his heart."
Nodding, Deliora waved a claw, turning the ice into an exact replica of Ur, made of ice, of course, complete with nerves, bones, muscles and everything else.
Ur did not wake up.
Gray opened his eyes, turning towards Deliora. He scowled at the demon, but didn't make a move to attack him.
"Now, Gray, Deliora has something he'd like to say to you."
Deliora lowered his head as he mumbled, "I'm sorry, Mr. Gray. Also, uh, I heard all that stuff you were venting out to me, and I really want to apologize for paining you. So, could you please tell me what I could bribe you with so that you forgive me?"
It could have been a great apology, Gray thought, if not for the phrasing of the last line.
"Bribe? Bribe?! What the hell do you mean? You killed my family, and you think you can bribe me with anything?"
Deliora would've given up, but he remembered his father's words from before.
'Remember, Deliora, when people say they can't be bribed, they're lying. They just don't know themselves what they can be bribed with.'
So he thought. This man had some issues, and he had told them all to Deliora while he was frozen. He had information! Now, what could he bribe him with- Ah! His inferiority complex!
"How about I teach you Devil Slayer Magic? Then you can bridge the power gap between you and Uncle Dragneel!"
"Nothing can bribe me- say what now?"
As they negotiated, Zeref grinned. He had taught his child well.
In the 'throne room', Erza and Ultear looked at each other. Then Ultear looked to the left, trying to avoid Erza's piercing gaze.
"I'm not going to kill you unfairly, you know?" said Erza, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, yeah, sure, I would love to cut you into pieces, but I'm not going to do it while the others are not there to stop me, because that's cheating."
"Th-that isn't reassuring", Ultear blurted out before she could stop herself.
"Oh, sweetheart", Erza said, not in the normal way people say sweetheart, but in the scary, British way, "It's not meant to be. I mean, breaking your mind just by talking isn't cheating, right?"
Ultear stepped back and whimpered softly. "Aren't you from Fairy Tail? I have a sort of adopted daughter who'll be sad if I die."
Erza waved it off. "Yeah, whatever. Adopted daughter. Probably killed her parents yourself, didn't you?" At Ultear's expression, her eyes widened. "Wait, seriously? That's despicable!"
On the beach, Natsu and Lucy were engrossed in a spar. Lucy was gripping a magic circle with her left hand, and her whip in the other, and was whirling through kicks and somersaults and pirouettes that Natsu thought she seemed like a Naruto character.
Ducking under another one of her whirlwind kicks, Natsu attempted an open handed uppercut, trying to push her out of the way. She tilted her head and narrowly dodged it, whirling into another kick that struck him directly below the ear.
"Ow, ow, ow!" said Lucy as she sat down, gripping her foot. "How?"
Natsu shrugged. "I doubt your foot has the structural integrity of a particularly large rock, so… this was the only possible outcome."
Lucy narrowed her eyes before moving to a particularly large rock. It shattered with a kick, and she looked at Natsu with raised eyebrows.
"Eh, what can I say? I'm just hard, I guess."
The unintentional innuendo was ignored, and they went back to sparring.
Back at the Bloody Fang guild, Wendy was stained as orange as a pile of oranges. The pile of oranges around her were as orange as a Wendy.
"Tho goo", she mumbled.
Her cat admonished her, "Wendy, child, you shouldn't make such a me- Ack!" Wendy lifted Carla up suddenly and started rubbing her behind the neck. Carla tried to look cross, but gave up and started purring.
So, Vlad noted, she has a guardian that's tiny and can easily be silenced by just a few rubs.
That explained a lot, actually.
He remembered the conversation they'd had with her a couple of days ago, about her powers.
Flashback
Wendy was going out in the rain, and Carla was doing her best to stop her. Feeling a little sorry for the cat, Vlad called out to the girl.
"Oi, Wendy, come here."
Wendy bounced over there with a grin. "What is it?"
Vlad cleared his throat. "Ahem. So, you said before that you were a Dragon Slayer. Can you tell us more about your magic?"
Wendy frowned, thinking. "I do Sky Dragon stuff."
"Yes, but what kind of stuff?"
"Spells, and all that."
Not sure whether the girl was being enigmatic on purpose or not, Vlad shot a look at Robin, who immediately took over.
"Oi, baby llama"- Wendy looked very confused at being called a baby llama- "I'm stronger than you."
That got through to the Dragon Slayer. It was a challenge to her abilities.
"No you aren't! I can do tons of stuff. Grandeeney taught me!"
"What sort of weak stuff didja learn?"
"It's not weak! Yeah, sure, first she only taught me weak healing stuff and support, but when big bro became too chicken mouthed, she taught me stuff like this!"
A cloud formed inside the guild hall, and it started raining.
"That's nothing."
"And this!" This time, a lightning strike came down from the cloud, blowing a hole into the table.
"Okay, that's not as weak as the rest."
Growing more and more agitated by the second, she said shrilly, "And I can also do this!" The sunlight that was coming through the window 'sharpened', for lack of a better word, melting the glass and burning a hole into the floor.
"Okay, kid that's great", said Robin, trying to placate Wendy before she caused any more damage.
It had no effect as Wendy started crying. "I'm not weak! I'm stronger than all of you! Grandeeney did not leave me because I was weaker than the rest of you! I'm stronger! I'm powerful, powerful, powerful, and I can beat all of you, you iron encrusted buffoon!"
The vampires had enough sense to realize that Wendy was referring to something else altogether. Helena shot a disapproving look at Robin, causing the beast like girl to look sad (Helena's disapproving looks often had that effect), and went closer to the girl, who had now begun flat-out bawling and screaming.
"A-and, I can even go pink-haired and do Dragon Force! None of you can do Dragon Force! I'M STRONGER THAN ALL OF YOU!" Wendy's hair started flashing pink, less like a Dragon Force and more like Goku's first ever Super Saiyan transformation.
"No, Wendy, child, stop that before anyone gets hu-"
"I'M NOT GOING TO GET HURT IF I DO MAGIC, MOM!"
It was at this point that Samael knocked her out with the hilt of his sword. Elizabeth made one joke about him using his 'sword' on a little girl. Just one.
The girl had issues. Then again, they all did.
"…and also, the revenue has gone down by 23 percent- Vlad, are you even listening to me?"
"Huh?" Vlad turned to Elizabeth, who was looking at him with a pout, several files held in front of her. "Oh, right, sorry. I got distracted."
Elizabeth sighed. "Pay attention, Vlad."
"Right", Vlad nodded. "You said it went down by… 20 percent?"
"Twenty-three."
"Okay, so how? I don't remember telling any of them they could stop paying."
"Yeah, around one-fifth of the dark guilds under us got destroyed, and some of the others want to stop giving the protection fee, seeing that we aren't protecting them."
Vlad frowned. "What happened to the twins and Serena?"
For context, Serena was Vlad's love interest. Their lack of relationship development was simply because she had been on guard detail for the past few months, since before their guild had become plot relevant.
"The twins were overwhelmed, but they managed to escape, and I don't know about Serena, but she probably escaped too."
Just then, Samael entered the guild hall and made a beeline for Vlad, his face unnaturally grim.
"What happened?"
"Serena was captured by Lamia Scale and handed over to the Magic Council for experimentation."
All of Soren's senses screamed ANXIETY RAGE RAGE RAGE a split second before Vlad gave a blood-curdling roar and stood up, the intent to maim and dissect the members of Lamia Scale apparent in every inch of his face. His teeth elongated and shrank repeatedly without control as he ripped the table apart with his fists.
The last time Vlad had ever been so mad was with Theodore. He took a deep breath and began barking orders.
"Sam, Liz, Soren, you guys are with me. We're on the rescue. Robin, Rueben Maria, Rumia, I expect to see the Lamia Scale guild obliterated by the time I'm back. If by any chance you find exactly who captured Serena, I want to kill them myself. Younger females and children below twelve are to be captured and added to the blood stock, and everybody else dies. Painfully." He turned to his sister. "The rest of you are to stay here, hold down the fort, and Helena, you're in charge, so, handle the meeting with the other Dark Guilds."
As the eight mages turned to the door, Wendy finally looked up from her oranges. "Yay, destruc- destru- destroying stuff! Can I come too?"
"Child, it is not a good idea-" Wendy simply rubbed Carla behind the ears as she looked at Vlad expectantly.
"You're with the Team Destroy Lamia Scale", said Vlad. He would have added something to the effect 'try to keep up', but he had some self-preservation.