HAIII GUIZEEE

No I ain't high lol. I am just proud of completing this chapter finally! :') #fuckwritersblock

But I just gotta say. I might go to a long-ish hiatus soon. This might be my last update till that. My exams are finally around the corner and I won't be able to write. :'( so I hope I don't disappoint with this cliffy-ish chapter. I won't waste much of your time now. Have fun!


Warning: Un-betaed. Angst.

Disclaimer: I do not own FT and accidental SAO.


Chapter 13

Hacking

"The game is hacked."

Natsu followed Erza into the guild hall. He looked around in hopes of finding Gray. He looked around skeptically, noticing the guild was uncharacteristically quiet. Except for quite murmurs and stares, the guild was basically at a standstill. Erza left him the moment they had entered to pursue the Master.

Natsu looked around the guildhall, in search for raven hair. He had to see him, talk to him, make him clarify, do something because it was eating him from the inside.

I can't lose you.

Gray had said that he had to confess because it was supposedly the only thought bombarding his mind when he was dying. No matter how morose it sounded, what scared him more was the fact that what else Gray had hidden in heart. Gray had thought he would lose Natsu, lose someone he… he loved, if he confessed his feelings. The very thought made Natsu uneasy.

Was that how Gray thought? Was this how he perceived the situations around him? Was this why he tended to stay away from people? Was he so terrified to lose someone that he prevented to let them close altogether? Or was it something else?

Suddenly, another fleeting thought came into his mind. Why did Gray lock himself away? The raven-haired male had lost everyone close to him, everyone he cared for, in one way or another. Was he perhaps under the assumption that he somehow ended up hurting the people he cared for, just because he happened to be around them?

Natsu shook his head. No, that can't be true. Gray wasn't…

Maybe Lyon was right.

Natsu gulped. Lyon had said some really horrible things to Gray. Hadn't he blamed the raven for the deaths of Gray's parents, and Ur?

As much as Natsu recalled, Gray had never denied him.

There was no way…

Was there?

He needed to find Gray.

Natsu frantically looked around the guild hall. He felt dread creeping inside him. Something was wrong with Gray. The real Gray was so different than the Gray he had presumed him to be. And with dread, he realized that Gray knew how to hide himself, and hide well. What else was he hiding? What other darkness was lurking inside him, locked away from the world?

Natsu ran out of the hall. Maybe Gray never came to the guild. He had to be somewhere around here, somewhere-

"Natsu!"

Natsu's gaze locked onto the speaker. The blonde haired player walked out of the guild hall, followed by her partner. Natsu grinned, feeling a burden lift from his chest he didn't even know had existed.

"Lucy," he sighed out in relief. He wrapped her up in a warm embrace. "I was so worried."

Lucy smiled up at him. "I know. I'm okay, Natsu." She then frowned and looked down. "Levy told me about… about the fight."

Natsu looked down, unable to meet anyone's eyes.

"It's alright, Natsu," Lucy whispered. "You couldn't have helped him."

Natsu bit his lip. Sensing the tension, Loke decided to intervene, "How's Black Ice?"

"He… He is… I don't know. He looks fine, but he sounds so…" Natsu gulped, "To be honest, he scares me a bit."

Lucy looked at him with anxiousness, but then her gaze locked behind him.

"Someone's logging in." Natsu turned around to find two distorting figures appearing out of nowhere. When the two players finally materialized, Natsu was, to put it mildly, shell-shocked.

The subject of Natsu's interest looked at him with equal amount of shock. "N-Natsu," Gray whispered, suddenly looking anywhere but at the pinkette. But all Natsu could do was stare.

"Y-You are Black Ice?" Natsu saw Lucy walking ahead. Gray acknowledged her with a slight nod, "I need to see the Master. Is he inside?"

"Wow," she said, "I thought you'd be, like, older."

Gray raised his eyebrows at her.

"Wow, you have some crazy dressing skills." Loke said, smirking. The moment Loke said so, Natsu couldn't keep it in anymore.

"What… are you… wearing?" Natsu said in between laughs. Gray was wearing a lose-fitting purple shirt and black leather pants. Headphones hung loosely around his neck. Over it all, he had a huge oversized fur coat, overwhelming his comparatively small body.

Gray gave him a cold glare, "Hey, I had to use Laxus' account and I don't have time to change all of its settings."

There was a pause.

Gray eyed Natsu's overly-amused form, and then his outfit skeptically. "Does it look that bad?"

Loke was suddenly in front of him. "Oh, not at all, Black Ice-kun," Loke said in a mildly teasing tone with a slight smirk. He nudged up Gray's chin, making Gray blink dumbly at him.

"It brings out your eyes perfectly," Loke winked.

Suddenly, he doubled over being simultaneously punched by Gray in the gut and by Lucy on the head. "Stop flirting with the kid." Lucy warned her boyfriend, threateningly activating her magic. Then a dopey smile replaced her glare, and, to everyone's surprise and Gray's shock, Lucy hugged the raven.

"You're so cuuuute~!"

"Mmmphmnhm!" Gray muttered unintelligibly from her chest.

"You're choking him, Lucy," Natsu muttered in amusement. The blonde squealed and left the raven, who gulped in the precious air.

"I'm older than you, you know." Gray muttered, in the middle of the process of removing his coat.

"Um," Natsu said, "What are you doing?"

Gray blinked at him and then looked at the coat in his hand, that, Natsu had a vague suspicion, he was about to throw away.

"Crap!" Gray exclaimed. Natsu could swear he would have been blushing.

"You… have a stripping problem?"

"I do not! I was just… nevermind!"

Gray made the coat disappear, and adjusted the sizes of the rest of his clothes. That left him in a form-fitting button-down shirt tucked inside a pair of skinny leather pants. Gray looked quite… promising. Natsu shook his head, getting rid of the wayward thoughts.

Natsu scoffed, "Well, you replied too fast, and that means you are guilty," he smirked, "stripper."

"Damn right, you are," The guy beside Gray chuckled, making Gray glare at him icily. Natsu look at the player. He had long green hair and an elaborate mask covering his upper face.

"And who is he?" Natsu asked Gray, eyeing the green haired man suspiciously.

"I am Freed," the green-haired man said. Gray glanced at Natsu for a fleeting second before averting his gaze again. Natsu frowned at the action. Lucy looked at him and Gray skeptically, who started towards the guild's doors.

"You must be Natsu." Freed interjected his thoughts, "Gray talks about you a lot."

Natsu narrowed his eyes. Somehow, every stranger he'd meet everyday seemed to be knowing him one way or the other. And a part of Natsu did not appreciate the fact that Freed knew Gray more than he did.

"And how exactly do you know him?"

"Oh, we aren't that close, I just sometimes work for the company."

"He is Laxus' boyfriend." Gray deadpanned, earning a protest from Freed. Loke whistled, making Lucy nudge him hard in the ribs.

"Enough, now," Gray deadpanned, looking at the guild's door. "I need to speak to the Master."

Freed's frowned. "A huge problem has come up."

"What kind of a problem?"

"We can't tell you till we talk to the Master fir- what's wrong, Gray?"

Gray stood in front of the guild door, unmoving. His arm was outstretched towards the door, as if frozen in the action of opening the door. Gray let out a hollow chuckle, making Natsu frown.

"Outsiders can't enter the Guild Safe House."

Beside Natsu, Lucy gasped slightly. "You're not an outsider, Black Ice. You're… You're one of us."

"Well," Gray relaxed his arm, that clenched into a fist soon after. "I'm not a member of the guild."

There was a long pause.

"Can't you, like, decode it or something?" Freed muttered, "I mean, you created it."

Gray shook his head, "And let them claim yet another handiwork of mine?"

"You need permission to enter the hall," Lucy spoke up, "Here." She tapped around her virtual menu and sent him a permission code. Gray nodded towards her, bangs covering his eyes slightly, and pushed the door open.

The moment Gray entered through the door, the guild seemed to spring to life. Half the crowd was confused and wary of the new face, while the others, who were present during the fight, crowded the raven haired male.

Gray feebly looked around, trying to make sense out of the chatter surrounding. Clearly overwhelmed by the guild members, he looked back at Natsu and the others helplessly.

"Stop it!" A voice rang through the hall. The members quieted down, looking towards the source of the voice. Wendy stood up from the faraway bar and turned around to face the guild, "Stay away from Gray-san. You don't deserve any forgiveness after what you made him go through."

The chatter started again.

"But we are sorry!"

"I don't know what took over me."

"We know he is innocent now!"

"We had never meant to hurt Black Ice!"

"ENOUGH!" Wendy threatened, glaring. The crowd seemed to back off by her outburst.

"Don't you dare tell me that you are not guilty, that you had never meant to hurt him? You all had always been wary of him. You had never trusted him! You had fed off of some baseless rumor and created this image in your mind that some little kid was some kind of an evil monster!"

"Hey," Macao said slowly, "It wasn't baseless. Wakaba and I saw that Lyon kid say-"

"Oh right, it was because of some scene you misinterpreted. And it included Lyon, the guy who had clearly tried to kill Gray-san this morning."

Macao looked down guiltily.

Wendy bit her lip, "I can't believe you let a rumor destroy his life. I can't believe… that based on a misunderstanding, you let someone feed off on your negativity, that you let her-" Wendy stopped speaking as she felt a hand grab her shoulder.

"Hey, that's enough, Wendy." Gray said. Wendy looked up to see the sad look on his face. She shook her head. Gray took her hand and steered her away from the crowd. Natsu followed them, as Gray took her to the back of the guild. Thankfully, Fairy Tail members kept their distance after Wendy's outburst.

Natsu stopped at the beginning of the hall. He watched from afar as Gray knelt down to talk to her. The moment Gray did so, she hugged him.

"They don't deserve it, Gray-san," she whispered, "They don't understand. Don't let them… don't let her fool you." Natsu watched as Gray soothingly ran his hand through her hair. He then leaned in to whisper something to her. She nodded mutely and smiled at him.

Natsu had observed that Gray had not once glanced at any other member of the guild, since the moment she had spoken up. He had been looking out for Wendy, had started wading towards her as soon as she screamed at the guild.

It was as if Gray was watching over her, as if waiting for the slightest sign to make her stop. Natsu recalled what Gray had told him about SkyGoddess. And it looked like Wendy shared Natsu's sentiment of them getting an easy way out of the humongous mess they had created out of Gray's life.

SkyGoddess.

How had she managed to control their minds anyway?

He doesn't deserve you.

Natsu realized with a chill down his spine. That was SkyGoddess' voice urging him to leave Gray that night. Natsu remembered vaguely doubting Gray's veracity after his little encounter with the Virus Scanners. But he certainly hadn't imagined it to lead him to disengage partnership with Gray. All he had wanted to do was talk to him. But instead, his doubt turned into spite. His wariness had turned into detachment and he had ended up doing something utterly unforgivable.

Natsu's bit his lip in realization. SkyGoddess had the power to aggravate the emotions.

Natsu watched as Gray smiled at Wendy, "You've grown up, little girl," he said, "You have your old armor back, eh?"

She nodded at him, looking at her sky blue armor. "Marvel suits me the best, after all."

"Gray," Natsu heard a voice behind him. He looked around to see Lucy, Loke and Freed. Freed gestured towards the end of the hall. "Master Makarov."

Natsu looked up to see where Freed was pointing, but all he could spot was a long hallway, at the end of which some kind of a mini ornamental black armor was stood. Suddenly, the armor pointed the stick he was holding towards Natsu and crew.

"It moves!" he exclaimed in awe.

Lucy gave him the stink look, "That's our master, genius."

Natsu looked at her in curiosity, "You mean it talks too?"

Lucy legitimately face-palmed.

Suddenly, a voice boomed throughout the hall. "Gray, Natsu, Lucy, come to my office." Master Makarov said. "Something bad has happened." Natsu spotted Erza standing beside Makarov.

"I'll return to Laxus," Freed started to say, before was interrupted by a white-haired beauty.

"Oh no, you don't, partner," Mirajane smiled sweetly at him, making him smile back nervously. "You have been away for a while now, Ecriture-kun. We have a lot to catch up on, especially about your boyfriend."

Freed looked at Gray, who nodded at him. He sighed and followed Mirajane Strauss towards the other end of the guild hall. Gray then smiled slightly at Wendy and ruffled her hair, making her giggle. "Think about what I said, okay?"

She nodded.

Natsu was distracted from the scene by a tug on his sleeve. "C'mon," Lucy said, urging him towards the back of the guild.


"Whoa!" Natsu exclaimed the moment he entered the Master's office. The office was curved in shape, with hundreds of virtual screens on the wall, each monitoring a specific location of the game. A round table, with chairs lined up around it, sat in the middle of the circular room. Natsu's eyes locked at the rotating drone at the centre of the table projecting different scenes, with the header, 'WARNING.' Makarov Dreyar sat on the desk with a scowl marring his face.

"What's going on, Master?" Erza frowned, her eyes fixed on the WARNING sign, "Has any suspicious activity been reported in the game? Did someone break our firewall? Is the enemy planning to attack us impromptu?"

The Master of Fairy Tail shook his head. A grave tone laced his voice, "My children, I say this with a heavy heart. A momentous crisis has occurred in our game.

"NeuroLink has been hacked."

There was silence.

And then, all hell broke loose.

"What?!"

"-how is that possible-"

"-Are you kidding me?"

"-who hacked the game, gramps?"

Every member perked up at Natsu's question. To Natsu's surprise, it was Gray who replied. "The rival company: Acno Cooperation."

Makarov frowned in horror, "Are you certain of this, son?"

"Affirmative," Gray replied, "I was only able to track down the location from which the process of hacking originated. I can state that the hacker did it from within the game. That makes any form of programming untraceable, as it doesn't point to the culprit in the real world." He looked up at the others. "We need to bring an end to all of this. And for defeating them, we need to find this hacker."

"But how?" Lucy asked.

Gray summoned a keypad and began typing at a rapid pace. "I might have an idea where the hacker might be from." He clicked in a few more buttons and a map materialized in front of the players.

"This is the map of NeuroLink. And that," Gray zoomed in to the mountain range on the top of the continent of Fiore, "is where our hacker resides."

"Awesome," Lucy muttered, immediately blushing after realizing she said it out loud.

Erza narrowed her eyes, "But that's the location of Lamia Scale."

"And that explains my current situation," Gray gritted his teeth and turned to Makarov, "They hacked into my armor, Master."

"What?" He said in alarm. "How is that possible, son?"

Gray bit his lip. "I don't know how they managed to reach everything. They hacked my armor, as well as my whole network of systems at my apartment. They broke through my firewall, Gramps! Che, I couldn't even protect my own data.

"But," Gray sighed, "But the only person who would have had a chance to do so is none other than the Master of Lamia Scale," Gray spat out.

"You mean Lyon is the hacker?" Natsu whispered, suddenly feeling sick.

"I'm just deducing it. We have to confirm this-"

Gray halted his typing and narrowed his eyes. Then suddenly, he disappeared into a bunch of pixels.

"Wha-?" Natsu uttered in shock, "He just logged out!"

"He tends to do that," muttered Erza, "We need to investigate. Master?"

The Master of Fairy Tail nodded, "All of you, I need you to do as I say."


"I can't believe Erza got to bail out of this," Loke muttered, cursing as a stone slipped from underneath his hand.

"Hey, someone had to monitor Gray, as Master had put it." Lucy said, putting her foot on a higher piece of rock. She pushed herself up and held onto the mountain's steep slope, climbing up expertly and, to the spectators, quite effortlessly. Natsu and Loke, on the other hand, struggled to keep up with the gold-armored player.

Loke cursed as he accidentally stepped onto another loose piece of rock. "I have a feeling those two got off easy."

Natsu looked down the hill towards the distant ground, clouded by the mist present at their extreme height. He suddenly felt nauseated. Gray and Erza definitely got off easy.

"Well." He uttered, looking up towards Loke and Lucy, "Are you sure this is the right way?"

"I hope so."

"Gee, Lucy, such solace."

Natsu watched as Lucy held onto the edge of the lines of rocks and swung herself off. She spun mid-air with the momentum and landed right onto the top of the mountain, disappearing from his sight.

"We're here," she declared from the top. Natsu and Loke sighed in relief and hurried to catch up.

Natsu found his footing and stood up. His eyes immediately fixed onto the area Lucy had pointed at. Multiple lights surrounded the valley, masking the white glow of the snow with orange. Small houses littered the scenery. A huge crystalline palace stood at the middle of the little village, as if carved out of ice itself. The enrapturing beauty nearly made them forget what the village signified.

"Let's go," Loke muttered, "And remember. Do not use any other application if you want to Transport out alive."

"Gee, thanks. As if the climb wasn't enough of an example."

"Undercover Mode: Activate." The three of them said together.

And together, the three trudged towards the guild of Lamia Scale.


"Get down," Lucy urgently whispered, dragging the boys towards the nearest pile of snow. Before Natsu's face was overwhelmed by snow, his eyes locked into the silver mane. He immediately glowered, nearly charging at the Master of Lamia Scale, before being tackled down by Lucy.

"Get off me, Lucy," Natsu growled. "You don't know what he did to Gray –"

"I know how you feel," Lucy's voice shook with effort to keep Natsu down, "But you need to stay calm – Loke, help me – Natsu, Lyon is with someone we don't know. And I don't wish to abandon our mission or put our guild and Gray in danger just because you couldn't control your emotions for two minutes."

Natsu growled in distaste for the final time before giving up. He then realized that the snow around him had melted. He turned around and looked at Lucy, who was half-sprawled on the snow, her gaze fixed at him.

"You… really have gotten stronger," she commented, a hint of pride in her voice.

"Hush, guys." Loke whispered. "They are coming this way."

Natsu locked his eyes onto the two figures approaching their direction. They stopped a few feet away from the huge pile of snow somehow successfully hiding the three.

"They don't look so friendly to each other," Lucy whispered. Natsu frowned and concentrated. The silver-haired man indeed looked uncomfortable in the presence of the other man. The huge man in bronze-and-black armor towered over him.

"… it's too soon to prepare the army…"

"… need you prepared by tomorrow…"

Natsu clicked his tongue in annoyance and opened up his inventory. He selected the hearing app, despite being warned by Lucy and activated it. Suddenly, the faint voices became clearer.

"… I did not come all the way down here to hear your excuses, Reitei. I want the attack to happen tomorrow morning."

"I am telling you, I don't have the forces prepared. I need time to gather enough players and I assure you –"

Suddenly, the man grabbed Lyon by his throat. "This is an order, boy. Not a request," the man said with mirth, "You were confident you could bring the whole guild down alone. What happened now?"

Natsu watched in mild delight as Lyon tried to force the words out, "I-I didn't mean to –"

"Oh, like you couldn't kill off that brat who possessed those precious little Ultimate Lives. What happened, huh? Your relationship came in between? You realized you wanted to go back on your promises the moment you saw his face?"

"I drove a beam through his heart!"

The bronze armored player dropped Lyon down, who nursed his neck, despite the fact that the chokehold couldn't hurt him in a game.

"I want you to gather forces," the man said in a slow menacing voice, "and attack that wretched guild tomorrow. I will take care of their Master. And if I don't hear from you that the boy you spared today lived to see another day, you will pay."

"I understand, Master."

"Master?" Natsu said out loud, realizing his mistake. Before he could react, a beam of light blinded him.

Lyon watched in awe as half the mountain had vaporized by a single beam. All that was left were charred remains of debris and a very startled village, hiding from whom he had decided to meet at such an inconspicuous area.

"Spies," the man beside him spat out, "That would teach their kind a lesson. Filter your village, boy, before I am presented with yet another reason to get rid of you." And with that, the bronze armored player logged out.

Lyon scowled and punched the ground. If only…

He stood up, adjusted his cape and walked away. He would deal with this later. He had a tracker to trace.


"Lucy? Lucy! Answer me!" Makarov gripped the table in anxiety as the audio had suddenly flickered and died out. The seconds ticked by, without any response. The Master gulped, and opened another window to connect to Gray. Suddenly, a noise developed in the channel and reduced into a clear connection.

"Master," Lucy said.

"Lucy! You had scared me, child." Makarov sighed in relief.

"I'm sorry, Master. It took a while to reboot my other applications. Natsu apparently decided to ignore my warning to not use any app while Undercover."

"Hey, at least I got the information!" Natsu protested in the background.

"Anyway," Lucy continued, ignoring Natsu's protests, "We successfully transported to Magnolia right before we could get roasted. Kudos to Gray for that."

"Well technically, I was the one who worked. So."

"Yeah, Laxus," Loke chuckled, "Thanks to you too."

"All we need to do now is warn the guild." Lucy murmured. "Lamia Scale would attack Fairy Tail tomorrow morning. They are going to target Gray."

"I won't let them even touch Gray." Natsu seethed in anger.

"There, there, lover boy."

"What the –? I'm not his –!"

"Enough, brats." Makarov sighed, "Go home and rest. We have a possible war to prepare for."

Makarov heard the players agree in unison on the other side of the line. He nearly disconnected when a final question popped up.

"They also wanted to target you, Master." Natsu muttered, "Who was that man?"

Makarov contemplated the answer. It was bad enough when he had realized who Reitei had been talking to. And Laxus' recognition wasn't a walk in the park either. But considering the circumstances, it wasn't wise to keep secrets from his team anymore.

"That man was the co-creator of NeuroLink, my son and Laxus' father: Ivan Dreyar."


"Gray?" Erza entered the dark house, with a dim light coming from the kitchen and Gray's bedroom. "You there?" Erza looked around the kitchen, only to find it empty.

Erza turned around to enter the room, but was surprised to see no one. Her surprise turned into worry when she saw that the monitors were switched off. An uneasy feeling settled in her gut. Where had Gray gone to?

"Gray?"

Then her gaze locked into the bathroom, emitting a beam of light through the slightly ajar door. She gulped. Her uneasiness increased. Erza pushed open the door slowly. A part of her didn't want to open the door, didn't want to contemplate what was inside. Fortunately, that part wasn't strong enough to override her.

The door swung open with a slight push and she was met by the sight of Gray, sitting on the floor of the bathroom, leaning on the wall dejectedly. Erza let out a guilty sigh of relief.

"You are evading my secret bubble, Erza."

The red-haired woman kneeled down beside Gray. The raven refused to look towards her. His crystal eyes stayed locked on the ceiling.

"Are you going to make me ask, Gray?"

Gray paused and then let out a sigh. "It feels useless. All the work I have done for the Dreyar Cooperation, my reformation, everything Dr Mest went through to keep me hidden from the one person I cared for the most…

"When I had asked Laxus to teach me hacking, I thought I could bring about a change; that my ideas could help someone; that I could bring an end to this… this vicious game. And yet, I was the reason they were able to crack through my firewall."

"Hey," Erza whispered, "It's not your fault. You didn't know Lyon could have used the Black Ice armor to this extent."

"Yeah, but the moment he saw me, he knew who I was, what I was capable of. My armor, my identity in the gaming world wasn't hidden from anyone. He just managed to do a two plus two; connect the fact that I am known to be different and the fact that I was capable enough to do this myself… I don't know how, but he just knew. I should have known –"

"Enough, Gray." Erza reprimanded slightly, "You have this uncanny ability to find one way or another to blame yourself for the things that are not your fault. You need to stop beating yourself over this.

"Do you remember what happened with Jellal?"

Gray paused and nodded slightly. "But he wasn't exactly… conscious when –"

"Exactly." Erza cut him off, avoiding the diversion of the topic to herself, "He wasn't conscious. That's why I was able to forgive him. And yet, you still can't find a way to trust him completely."

"He hurt you, Erza."

"He might have," Erza took in a shaky breath, "hurt me back then. But now I know who he is and what he is and isn't capable of.

"My point is, you couldn't forgive Jellal and yet, you keep trying to find ways in which you could excuse what Lyon has done to you."

"I am not trying to forgive him. I am not an idiot. I'm just… there just has to be…"

Erza grabbed Gray's shoulder, "Gray, Lyon isn't a good man. He isn't the person who kicked you out all those years ago. He isn't the child to whom you had promised avenging your mother. He changed the moment he decided to unite with Ivan Dreyar."

Gray frowned and tilted his head towards her. "Ivan?"

"Natsu, Lucy and Loke found out about it. Ivan Dreyar threatened Lyon to attack Fairy Tail. They might attack us tomorrow. Master informed me about it right before I entered your apartment."

"Huh," Gray muttered, processing the information, "Then that just solves another mystery for us." He stood up with a start, surprising Erza. The redhead walked out to find him typing away on his keyboard.

"Back at the guild, I had tracked down where the hacking had originated from. But I had an idea," Gray tapped a key, opening up a window showcasing a GPS location and another showing a building named "Acno Co Ltd."

"And look what else I found," Gray tapped a few more keys and another screen popped up. It seemed to be a CCTV footage of a corridor. A man walked down the corridor along with a guy hastily speaking to him while holding a file.

"That's the Acno Cooperation's CEO's floor and that," Gray zoomed in to the face of the man, "is Ivan Dreyar."

Erza gasped. The blurry image was still enough to show the signature mustache and the resembling features to the Dreyar family. "How did you manage to find him?"

"I traced back the tracking system I found on my armor." Gray smirked slightly. "One can only be so much careful."

"Anyway," Gray said, switching off the computer. His back remained turned towards Erza. "I will use my original armor tomorrow."

Erza looked at him in shock, "What? No, you can't! You don't have a partner, Gray! And all your progress –"

"– was linked to my previous armor –"

"– Still, Gray! That's careless, and you know it! Especially when Lyon plans to target you." Erza immediately recoiled, realizing she said something she wasn't supposed to say.

"He is targeting me, huh?" Gray shuffled around, straightening and replacing random objects on his table.

Erza bit her lip in exasperation, "Gray, it can kill you."

"Well, apparently half the world wants that to happen, so."

"Are you out of your mind?! Erza forcefully twisted him around, nearly making him fall. "Is this a joke to you? Do you really want to die? After all we have been through?!"

Gray looked down, refusing to look at her. Erza stepped back, nodding her head. "Fine, be stubborn. Do whatever you want until someone else ends up sacrificing themselves for you."

Gray looked up in shock, with a comeback at the tip of his tongue, but stopped dead, when he saw them.

Tears.

Before he could move, Erza stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Gray gulped, feeling heaviness in his throat. He had hurt Erza. He had made Erza cry.

Again.

But for some reason, what made him feel worse what that he didn't even feel guilty.

Gray's gaze fixed onto the drone sitting on the top of his table. A little red LED light glowed in the dark room. He had extracted the tracker from his Black Ice armor.

"One can only be so much careful, eh?"

He watched as the light slowly blinked away and turned green.

Lyon had finally tracked him down.

TBC


DAYUM SON.

The only reason I beat my writers block was this final scene lol

Anyway. Meet you all after the hiatus, that is, December. Hopefully I would be able to write something else.

AND I had said this when I last updated Dragonling. I can't seem to find a motivation to write until and unless an outside force forces me to do so. That applies to everything in my life: from studies to exercise to... you get the idea. :/

So please leave some feedback :)

Have a nice winter!

Kori