Announcements: TSUNAMI (the Marvel/Ripples spin-off crossover) is up, with a few chapters already. I'd appreciate you guys giving it a look-sie.
ALSO: I am having a very hard time scraping up money for next semester of college. If some of you guys could give just a little bit (like honestly, even a penny, there's a reason I pick up change off the ground) that would be amazing and appreciated in every way shape and form. You can find it through my tumblr, in which my username is the-real-narnia (just add the dot_tumblr_dot_com and you're good to go).
(I know most of you guys won't donate and I don't blame you because I can't do it for others and I usually have to skip these messages).
But I'm asking anyway because I finally decided to screw my pride and ask for help. A reoccurring theme in both Ripples and Tsunami is about accepting people who offer help or asking for help themselves. It's okay to ask for help. I learned that the hard way, which is why I'm accepting this so easily now.
Sorry for the long AN. Here's the next chapter: Enjoy!
Chapter One Hundred and Ten – Dragneels and Demons, Part Two
So, funny story.
I got confused about August's name, as I learned while Zeref tried to placate Mavis by telling her that yes he found August in August, but he really named him that because the kid reminded him of her and that was the month they spent most of their time together.
She was a bit happier after that.
As for the rest of the guild; they just wanted to understand what was going on.
I told them not to worry.
They would.
…When we got back.
We left for Alvarez two days later.
'We' meaning Zeref and I.
"I still think this is a bad idea," Zeref muttered.
"I still think you're a coward," I said, glaring at him. "You're a father, deal with it. You're over four fucking hundred."
"Fine," Zeref muttered, sullen.
I sighed. Honestly, I wondered how Zeref and Mavis managed to make everything work. They were a mess.
But they were still and love, and still together, and I guess that makes it all the more impressive.
"Stop being a baby," I told him.
"I'm not being a baby," he said. "No, we're just kidnapping my minions and turning them into babies."
"They're your children and you need to raise them properly if you don't want to cause an apocalypse."
"You know, half the time I don't know whether or not I should believe the shit you say," he said.
I shrugged. "Your kids do some dangerous things. I don't even want to talk about it."
"Because it doesn't exist?"
"Because it's traumatic," I hissed at him. "I'm sorry I don't like remembering how everything went wrong. We have a chance to save things, to stop it from happening, and I'm taking that damn chance!"
I stomped off ahead of Zeref, more than a little upset.
I haven't been up long from the coma, but I still wasn't exactly in the best mood, considering all of the things that I learned.
Right now, I just really wanted to kidnap three people, go home, and climb into Laxus's arms.
Is that so hard to ask?
"Elle…" Zeref drawled out my name behind me, apologetic.
"I know," I snapped, before letting out another breath. "I know," I sighed. "Sorry."
"It's not your fault," Zeref said quietly. "You're not wrong. I've spent almost the last decade wallowing in misery and self-pity, and we both know I would've continued to do that until…"
"Something triggered your crazy side?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. "That. And while I did help with Hades and Grimoire Heart, Alvarez and Tartaros were my problem too. And I should've helped take care of that. Or at least brought it up."
"For now, it's enough," I said softly. "We're fixing it, alright? Come on."
I gave him a smile and he took my hand, dragging me around the castle.
It was cool, but I wasn't paying it too much attention.
"You realize you made Natsu royalty twice over, right?" I asked Zeref.
"How so?" he asked, as he led me down the empty halls.
"Well, by giving him to Igneel to raise, he became the son of the 'Fire Dragon King', which means that Natsu is the heir to a Fire Dragon Kingdom, if that's a thing. But then you also went and made a country. And made yourself emperor."
"I thought Lucy was the one who was supposed to be royalty," Zeref pointed out.
"You're an idiot, Zeref," I muttered.
"Quite possibly," he said, moving forward, before halting and throwing a hand out in front of me to stop me in my tracks.
The room was still as we waited.
Zeref sensed something I did not.
Apparently, it was his son.
"August?" he asked.
There was silence.
Zeref stepped forward. "August. I know you're here."
There was more silence.
Then, slowly (silently) the old man stepped out of the shadows.
"August," Zeref said.
August stared at Zeref. "You are different."
"Yes," Zeref admitted.
"Why?" August pressed.
"He's not here physically," I said, moving forward. "Zeref's real body is asleep, in a lacrima."
"Why would you do that to yourself?" he asked Zeref.
"I-"
"He can be with Mavis this way," I interrupted Zeref. "And we've got plans, August. Will you come with us?"
He still stared at us (mostly Zeref) before he nodded.
I smiled, and we moved forward.
"Larcade, do you want to come join a guild with your dad?" I asked, jerking a thumb over my shoulder at Zeref.
He nodded like a puppy.
Larcade might have followed us even more easily than August did…
But Irene did not.
"I gave her up for a reason!" Irene hissed. "And I'm not fit to be a mother."
Well, I wasn't necessarily going to argue on that.
But there was something else that had to be said.
"Irene," I said, looking at her. "We could give you a second chance."
"How?" she scoffed.
"We're going to shrink August and Larcade down to children, so Mavis and Zeref can raise them properly. While we can save their memories, they'll still end up forgetting time. So if you want, we could de-age you to before you became pregnant. We can make you forget. And we're not asking you to be Erza's mother. We're asking you to come and join the guild. And spend time with Erza. You can be like an older sister to her. Or something."
She stared at me, her jaw still clenched.
"Fine," she hissed.
And that was that.
It was a lot more simple than we thought it was going to be.
We waited in the basement of the guild.
Larcade and August wanted to grow at a faster rate until they hit a mature age. Doing the arithmetic with Zeref (I thought I had escaped Math, but apparently not), we found a way for them to grow at the rate of 1.5. (So for every two years, they aged three instead).
They'd be around ten in X784 (the regular timeline) and twenty in X791 (the post-Tenrou arc timeline). For them, seven years was actually ten.
They actually wanted to remember, so we spent a few hours transferring their memories onto Memory Cards. When they got older, they'd be able to review their older memories.
Irene didn't want to remember.
She only wanted to forget.
"You realize if we de-age you this far back, you'll lose control over your dragon powers?" I asked her. "You won't even have them."
"I know," she defended. "And I don't care. It'll be worth it to be able to feel again."
I stared at her. "Okay, but you need to write a letter to yourself."
"Why?" she asked.
"From your experience, you're going to be waking up 400 years in the future, without any dragons and no longer royalty; or royalty with a kingdom, anyway. Your fiancé is gone and you also have a child he didn't want. Write your past self a note, Irene, or it'll come as a huge shock when she wakes up."
Irene glared. "Fine."
Fucking hell, she's like a surly teenager. An arrogant, ridiculously powerful teenager.
I sighed and turned back to the group of four.
August was side-eyeing me. "This is likely a bad idea."
I shrugged. "Probably. But it'll still go better than it probably would if we didn't do it."
He turned to look at his parents. "They are still children."
"Yeah," I agreed. "But they're not alone. This guild is a family; they're not the only ones who will be raising you, August."
He met my eyes and slowly nodded.
"If you think it's a bad idea, why are you going to do it?" I asked him.
He looked at Mavis and Zeref longingly. "They may be children, but they are still my parents. And I…"
He didn't finish the sentence, but I could guess easily enough that it had to do with the fact that he was in his sixties or so. And they were immortal. And he never really had a childhood in the first place.
Yeah, I don't blame him for his choice.
"We're going to start setting up," Zeref said, coming up beside me. August left my other side and went over to his mother and soon-to-be brother. "We're going to be using the runes Freed put down to redirect some of the Lumen Histoire's power to charge up the spell. You should give the guild a heads up."
I nodded. We were actually using the Lumen Histoire to power everything in the guild (what? It saves money from bills), so the lights might go out depending on how much power needs to be diverted to the spell and how strong Freed's runes are. Currently, it's set up like a damn (a rushing damn, but still). Magic flows from a smaller sized opening, instead of letting it flood and rush all of us. Yeah, we can make it bigger, but it's probably not a good idea.
Unless there's an emergency. Then we should do it.
I headed upstairs as Larcade and August were giving Mavis and Zeref some heads up over things the liked. Irene was busy writing out a letter to her future/past self…to the new version of her past self…whatever.
I peeked my head in and caught Makarov's eye, moving over to him.
"We're going to be diverting power for the spell we're doing," I told him.
He sighed. "Are you going to tell me what you're doing?"
I blinked. "I didn't already tell you? Sorry. We're turning Zeref and Mavis's kids back into children. Well, babies."
He sighed. "If you didn't want to tell me, you could've said that instead."
I opened my mouth before shaking my head. He'd learn…eventually.
"Anyway, I thought I'd sit you guys down for a movie to watch while we do it," I said, handing him the Memory Card.
He sighed, before climbing up on the table. "LISTEN UP, YOU BRATS!"
The guild quieted. He looked at me.
"The power is probably going to go out for a bit so I've got a movie for you guys, alright?" I shouted.
There were some cheers, (mostly from the kids) and they ran for the training room, where we'd usually lay down on mats and watch together. I turned out the light for them (though it was still light outside so it wasn't too dark) and started up The Princess Bride for them from the card.
I went back into the basement and nodded to Zeref and Mavis. "We're ready to go."
"Alright," Zeref said. "We'll do Irene first."
"What?" Irene asked. "Why?"
"Because I'm not holding two babies while they de-age you," I said.
I turned and left the room they were casting in, and Larcade and August followed me.
They both waited impatiently.
"Are you excited?" I asked.
Larcade nodded, still bouncing, too excited for words right now.
I looked at the older one. "August?" I asked. "What about you?"
"Whatever I feel now will not exist in a few moments," he said, staring back at the door with an odd sort of wistful longing and dread.
I didn't know how to respond to that.
So instead I just stayed quiet and waited for Mavis and Zeref to finish the spell.
After the awkward moment was done, Larcade and August went to get de-aged, and I waited outside as Irene switched with them.
It took me several minutes to finally get her calmed down, before making sure she read the letter.
Finally, after she had staved off a panic attack (or what I think was about to be a panic attack, it's hard to tell with royalty), I managed to get her to sit down.
"I…I don't understand," she cried.
"Okay," I said, holding her hands. She was younger than I thought; probably twenty two at most. "Listen, I'm gonna explain what happened to you. But you gotta breathe for me, okay?"
With a gulp of air, she nodded one more time.
"Did you read the note?" I asked her.
She nodded.
"Okay, well, it's true."
"Wha-What?" she gasped, unable to breathe.
"It's true," I repeated. "The version of you that wrote the letter didn't let me read it, so let me go over some things, okay?"
She nodded urgently.
Don't nod your head off, jeez.
"Okay, so you ended up accepting a gift of Dragon Magic," I explained. "And it ends up turning you into a dragon, which is a side effect. You ended up being shunned by most of your people. And were frozen in dragon form for four hundred years. Zeref, the boy in there with dark hair, managed to turn you back human, and you gave birth to a baby girl. Her name is Erza, and she's also here."
"How old is she?" Irene asked.
"Twelve," I answered.
A shudder ran through her body, and I realized it was shame. "I can't believe…" she trailed off and took a deep breath, before saying, "I don't think I like the person I became."
"Maybe not," I admitted. "Maybe she wasn't a good person. But she's giving you a chance; she allowed you to start over, and to become someone you'd be proud of."
Irene bit her lip but nodded worriedly.
"I'm not going to say that Erza doesn't need a mother," I said. "Because I don't think you're ever too old to need a mother. But even if you don't become one for her that way, you can never have too many people as your family. So you can still be a part of hers."
"Thanks," she whispered.
Mavis and Zeref left the room, each one carrying a small child.
"You're good, Mavis?" I asked her.
She nodded. "We've been working on it. Zeref fixed my tangibility! Now I'm can touch things!"
"That's great," I said, smiling.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like any help?" Irene asked, looking at them and at the babies.
Mavis opened her mouth, but cut it off with a look from Zeref.
"Sure, we can take some help," Zeref said, nodding, and Irene followed the pair and their kids to the nursery section.
I left them and headed back to the training room, where the kids were watching the movie with awe.
I silently slipped in and sat next to Laxus.
"Hey," I said to him.
"Hey," he said back, smiling as I leaned into him. "Are you okay?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I murmured.
"Yes, you do," Laxus said. "Amber. I'm talking about how you reacted to Amber. Are you alright?"
"I don't want to talk about it," I said, tightening into his side and hiding my face into his chest.
"You can't keep putting it off," he said with an exasperated sigh.
I didn't answer, and we continued staring at the screen.
"Just..." I whispered. "Just let it go. For now, okay?"
He was quiet as we watched for a little longer.
"As you wish," he finally said, and that was that.