The Scars That Make You Whole

By CrimsonStarbird

Sacrimony, Part 2

-Zeref and his Other Fan Club-

"Levy! Gajeel! Over here!"

Lucy's heart soared as she spotted her friends landing in the gardens, a safe distance from the bonfire which had once been an extravagant residence and then a dark guild's hideout. Still leaning heavily on Taurus, she staggered towards them, waving her hand over her head.

"You're alright!" she greeted them with a smile, as Levy dashed over and hugged her. "I was so worried when the building collapsed – what happened?"

"Natsu happened," Gajeel answered flatly, as if it explained everything. Which, to anyone who knew Natsu, it did. "I beat him, though. Piece of cake."

Lucy's eyebrows rose. "You collapsed the mansion on Natsu?"

"Nah, Natsu collapsed the mansion on himself. It still counts as my win, though," he added, clearly daring them to try and tell him otherwise.

Neither of them did. It wasn't that they agreed with him so much as they just didn't care enough to argue.

Lucy threw a glance over her shoulder, to where the wreckage of the mansion continued to burn merrily in the afternoon sunshine. "Do you think we should maybe dig him out of there?"

"We could," Gajeel voiced doubtfully. "Acting too friendly towards him is gonna ruin his plan to gain Avatar's trust, though." When Lucy hesitated, he folded his arms gruffly. "Hey, if his cover is so important that he'll leave me bleeding in the middle of nowhere in order to protect it, he can take being buried for a bit, that's all I'm saying."

"I'm sure Natsu will be fine, Lucy," Levy seconded. "Once he's got himself out of there, he'll be able to track us by scent and catch up to us in no time, if he wants. We're going to need him and Gray more than ever now that my own undercover position has been compromised."

"Yeah, what happened with that?" Lucy asked. "How did you get found out?"

"Well, Gajeel probably told you that I was spying on Avatar for the Council, right?" Levy checked, and received a quick nod in response. "Well, I ran into Erza on the way-"

"I know. She told me you were reporting to her as well."

"That's right. So… I thought the infiltration was going well, at first. The thing about Avatar is that it's a huge organization. It's not like a normal dark guild at all. Most of the- well, devotees, you could call them – are part-time. They're ordinary people, often not mages at all, who come to the cult's hideouts to attend sermons and learn about forbidden magic in their free time. So, as you can imagine, it's not hard to get in at that level. But those people don't know what the cult is really up to. They think it's, you know, a slightly illegal but ultimately harmless hobby."

She shook her head with a sigh. "In truth, everything is controlled by the inner circle, which is really tight. I've never even seen Arlock – he's the cult's so-called leader. I don't know how Gray managed to get into the inner circle. I tried to talk to him, but he said helping me too openly would risk his position, and that it would be better if I stayed away from him."

"That makes sense," Lucy commented. "It did take him six months to get that far."

"Yeah, I know. Anyway, I managed to get a position in the branch based in Bishop's Lace as a translator of old texts, and a couple of days later I overheard a conversation between Gray and one of the others in the inner circle. They were talking about how Natsu had stormed one of the other branches, been captured, and was now being held in the Mikage Branch and tortured for information. I honestly didn't think the Council would authorize a rescue mission for Natsu Dragneel, so I passed the information on to Erza instead."

"I was with Erza at the time. I went, but it was a trap. Natsu wasn't there."

Levy nodded, her lips drawn into an unhappy line. "I did think it was odd that they were having a conversation like that in the middle of the corridor, given how secretive the inner circle usually is, but I honestly thought Gray had done it on purpose as a sneaky way of getting information to me. I guess it was just an unlucky coincidence. They must have decided to put Natsu somewhere else."

Lucy remembered the conclusion Zeref had suggested after their failed attempt to rescue Natsu: assuming the suspect was too valuable to execute outright, I would set up a test – leak them false information upon which they would feel pressured to act, and monitor whether they did so.

But who had they been testing? Levy? Or Gray himself? Lucy didn't like it at all.

"Shortly after that," Levy resumed, "I was picked out of the congregation and thrown into captivity here. They had somehow found out that I was working for the Council. It wasn't too bad, though – Gray swung by to tell me that Natsu had been accepted as an Avatar mage with his help, so I knew he wasn't in any danger. Then you two arrived," she added, with a smile. "So I didn't even have to wait all that long to be rescued!"

"I'm glad about that," Lucy said, forcing a smile through her unease.

The flutter of wings drew their attention skyward – feathered wings this time, sleek and white where Gajeel's had been powerful and intimidating, but every bit as magical, belonging as they did to a black-furred Exceed.

"I could have sworn there was an abandoned mansion around here," Pantherlily muttered, swooping down for a landing which, unlike Gajeel's, didn't cause a miniature earthquake. "Alright, which of you do I need to arrest for destruction of property?"

"Yo, Lily!" Gajeel bear-hugged his teammate with even more enthusiasm than he had greeted Levy. "About time you got here! We've got a felon for you to secure!"

Noticing Lucy's mystified look, Levy informed her in an undertone, "After Gajeel goes overboard and arrests everyone in sight, Lily's usually the one who has to identify the actual criminals and take them to the nearest police station… Of course," she added, raising her voice pointedly, "you could actually help this time, now that Lily isn't the only member of our squad who can fly."

"I don't mind," the Exceed interjected. "It's the least I can do, since I missed the actual battle. She's the one, right?" He nodded towards the unconscious Briar, still slung over Taurus's shoulder. "I might be a while. The nearest Rune Knight facility is a good hour's flight from here."

"I thought there was one in Bishop's Lace," Levy interjected. "A really old one. No?"

"No, it was closed a few years ago. Funding cuts." At the surprised looks this earned the Exceed, he twitched uncomfortably. "Well, it's not like I had much else to do while I was waiting to hear from you, Levy. I did a bit of exploring. This town is really rather isolated. It has an army outpost, but that's only because they do a lot of training in the nearby mountains, and this is the closest settlement. Still, it's probably best to leave a mage this dangerous in the care of the Rune Knights – they're better equipped for dealing with magical criminals."

"Don't worry, it's not like you'll miss anything exciting," Gajeel reassured him. The Exceed nodded and took off, even as the others gave Gajeel blank looks. Perceiving everything to be an accusation, as usual, he defended, "Well, we're finished, right? We rescued Levy and destroyed the enemy base. What else is there to do here?"

There was silence as the others took this in.

Slowly, Lucy said, "I suppose we have achieved everything we came here to do, but… it doesn't feel right. It's not as though we've actually stopped Avatar or found their leader. All we did was destroy a hideout, and it was basically empty anyway."

She frowned as that made her think of the other thing Zeref had said about Avatar – how they'd removed all non-essential personnel from the black church in anticipation of an attempt to rescue Natsu, not to mention how readily they'd destroyed it to hide the evidence. Had they been expecting an attack on the mansion as well? Had they already written off that asset – both the hideout and the prisoner it held?

The others were still waiting expectantly for her to finish making her point, so she said, "It doesn't feel like a victory, that's all. We still don't know what Avatar are planning. Levy, did you discover anything while you were undercover?"

"To be honest, no," the Solid Script mage replied sadly. "They want to summon Zeref to them, and there's a lot of talk about a ritual supposedly capable of doing this – they call it Operation Purify. But I have no idea what it entails, let alone when or where it will take place. From what I've seen, they're exceptionally good at generating enthusiasm about Zeref's return amongst their followers to raise money and support, while withholding all the important information…"

Suddenly, she drove her heel into the ground, dust bursting up with her frustration. "What was the point of me going undercover, when I almost got Lucy killed, had to be rescued by Gajeel, and didn't find a single snippet of useful information-?"

"Hey," Gajeel interrupted, with such surprising softness that Lucy, whose own reassurance had been on the tip of her tongue, made the split-second decision to remain quiet. "We ain't out of leads yet. There's always that book they stole. Maybe that'll tell us what they're after."

"What book?" Levy queried, cheer returning to her voice as she fell for the obvious distraction.

Lucy accused Gajeel, "You told me you didn't know what that book was!"

"Course I don't know. That's why I memorized the runes on the front so I could ask Levy about them later!"

"I trained him to do that," Levy winked.

On any other day, Lucy would have smiled. On this particular day, she practically screeched, "Why did you not mention this back in Crocus?"

Taken aback, Gajeel defended, "Why would I? You wouldn't'a been able to read the runes either."

"No, but I could have asked-" Stopping herself in the nick of time, Lucy took a deep breath and slowly let it out again. "Well, better late than never…"

Gajeel scribbled the runes down on a crumpled page and handed it to Levy, who stared at it intently. "Hmm… I can translate the title, but I'm not familiar with this work at all…"

"May I see?" Lucy asked. Nodding, Levy added a translation under the runic symbols and passed the page over. "Notes on the Manifestation of Divine Magic," Lucy read out. "By someone called Helvidius… hang on, that name sounds familiar."

"Oh, you've heard of him?" Levy asked, eyes lighting up at once. "He writes the most incredible monographs on ritual magic – they're unbelievably insightful, and so much of his work can be applied to fields outside ritual magic itself! Not to mention how his commentaries have revolutionized the way we read Aenesidemus – and his magnum opus Magic in the Age of Empathy almost single-handedly revived the Myian school of magical philosophy, which is only the most important-"

She stopped herself with a sharp intake of breath. "Anyway," she stressed sheepishly. "All I'm trying to say is that I've read a lot of his works, but I've never heard of this one, so I'm guessing it was never officially published. I can't tell you if it's a manual for incredibly dangerous ritual magic or a perfectly innocent philosophical treatise – he's done plenty of both, along with everything in between. He's wonderfully mysterious like that."

Poor Gajeel was looking more jealous by the minute.

Heedless to her boyfriend's expression, Levy continued, "Hardly anything is known about him except his published books and discovered manuscripts, which pop up in the most inconsistent times and places. Personally, I've always believed that he and the famous translator Perrin Dragonborn are one and the same, but… why are you looking at me like that?"

Surprisingly, this was not addressed to Gajeel. She was probably used to him pulling that kind of face whenever a famous author made it into the conversation.

What she wasn't used to was the look of horror dawning upon Lucy's face.

"…Lucy?" Levy asked weakly.

"I know exactly who that is," Lucy sighed. "How is it that he manages to cause trouble for me when he's not even around?"

"What are you-?"

"Wait here!" Lucy instructed. "I mean it – don't follow me! I'll be right back!"

And with that enigmatic warning, she turned and sprinted in the direction of Bishop's Lace.

As she dashed through the old town's twisted streets, Lucy found herself wishing that she and Zeref had come up with some sort of signal before they had parted ways. How was she supposed to get in touch with him when she needed him?

Admittedly, she had stopped short of calling for him – running erratically down roads painted with archaic graffiti while shouting the name of the infamous Black Mage was too close to Avatar's style for comfort – but she couldn't have made it any more obvious that she was looking for him, and despite the fact that he had told her he would be keeping an eye on the situation, he had yet to appear. He hadn't come out when she'd tried to attract his attention at the station, either. She supposed that Selinon was behind them now, and he was back to his old, unhelpful ways.

Well, it would take more than that to put her off.

Now, if I were a Black Mage with time on my hands, where would I be hiding…? Lucy mused to herself.

Really, though, there was only one option, and as she skidded to a halt in the middle of a street lined with the most twisted, mysterious bookshops she had ever seen, she was thoroughly unsurprised to see Zeref emerging from a crooked archway.

By contrast, Zeref looked rather puzzled by her sudden appearance – especially when she bent over, trying to catch her breath. "Is there a problem, Lucy?"

"Yes. You're the problem. You do realize we're not here for book-shopping, don't you?"

He blinked. "We're not?"

"You know, it's cute when kids pretend to be innocent. Not so much when it's four-hundred-year-old villains." Lucy glowered at him, but rather than rising to the bait, he glanced away and said nothing. She huffed in annoyance. "Well, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that we've rescued Levy, apprehended one of Avatar's top mages, and destroyed several million jewels' worth of property… which, in Fairy Tail's books, means mission complete."

"So… what do you need me for?" Zeref asked uncertainly.

"Because we found out which book Avatar failed to steal from Alchemilla Town, and then successfully took from Gajeel last night."

She handed him the paper she had taken from Levy. Black eyes sharpened as they traced Gajeel's rough runes, no need for the translation underneath, and then his eyebrows rose. "That's something I haven't seen in a while."

"It is one of yours, then?" Lucy asked, her heart sinking.

"Yes. It's a set of notes detailing some research I did during a… difficult period of my life. I thought it had been lost."

"Or maybe it was hidden away in a small church in Alchemilla Town, watched over by generations of priests, and ultimately tracked down and stolen by Avatar despite the Royal Army's best attempts to protect it?" she suggested.

"It's possible. That is the kind of thing that tends to happen to my books."

"And now it's in Avatar's hands. Not to mention, they deliberately sought it out, so I bet they know exactly what it is." She hopped anxiously from foot to foot. "How bad are we talking here, Zeref? Like, 'manual for unleashing the apocalypse' bad? Or more of a 'changing how we view a popular ancient philosopher' kind of bad? Because I think we could deal with a few annoyed academics pretty easily…"

"Definitely towards the former end of that scale," Zeref replied absently, and Lucy heaved a sigh.

"What, exactly, is that book, Zeref?"

"I went through a phase of thinking that it would be advantageous if, as well as the powers of a fire demon and a fire dragon, I could give END the powers of a fire god. That book contains – amongst pages and pages of harmless research notes on the topic, might I add – instructions for a ritual that could theoretically manifest a being of pure fire magic, and bind it to the user's will. However, in the end, I never enacted the ritual."

"So there's a chance it might not work?" Lucy asked hopefully.

"Of course it will work." Affront laced his every word. "I decided not to perform the ritual because, even after studying it for three months, I could not find a way of bringing down the cost required to activate it. I knew that the odds of it truly affecting END's ability to kill me were miniscule. It wouldn't have been worth it."

"What was the cost?"

"Three thousand human sacrifices," Zeref said flatly.

"THREE THOUSAND-!" Lucy exploded. "HOW COULD YOU EVEN CONSIDER-?"

"This is precisely why I didn't go through with it!"

Lucy challenged, "And why you immediately destroyed all trace of your research, so that no unscrupulous fanatics would ever be able to find it…?"

Zeref muttered something that contained the words 'destroying research' and 'blasphemy'.

"You're unbelievable," Lucy sighed. "Well, I suppose knowing Avatar's aim is a start. I don't know what this has to do with their ultimate goal of summoning you, unless they're trying to impress you or something, but I think we can safely assume that they're going to try and enact this ritual. We'll find them before they can-"

Frantic footsteps signalled the end of her planning as someone entered the street at speed. Lucy's hand blurred to her keys, moved away again, and then seized the cool metal in frustration and dismay as the blur resolved itself into a shiny-eyed Levy. "So this is where you got to, Lucy!"

This was not good. Not good at all.

At her side, Lucy could practically feel the air crackle as Zeref tensed, black eyes narrowing as first Levy and then a panting Gajeel came to a halt in front of the unlikely teammates.

Lucy stepped forwards, consciously putting herself between Zeref and her friends. She didn't have a plan. She couldn't, in that moment, see an easy way out of this. Her brain froze, and all she could do was stammer, "Uh, Levy, this is…"

"Helvidius, right?" Levy interrupted brightly.

"…Huh?"

In one smooth motion, Levy stepped around her so that she was right in front of a startled Zeref. "I'm Levy," she announced. "I am a huge fan of yours. Magic in the Age of Empathy? Commentary on Periphanes? Incredible! Though, my personal favourite has to be that article you wrote last year on the prevalence of natural imagery in dark rituals – I've never read anything like it! You see patterns in the strangest of things, but when you put it into words, it suddenly makes so much sense!"

She held out her hand, and when he just stared at it, as if expecting it to bite him, she seized his hand in both of hers and shook it vigorously. "It's such an honour to meet you in person!"

"Right…" Zeref said weakly.

"Levy, I thought I told you not to follow me!" Lucy exclaimed.

"Lucy, you can't tell me that you know who Helvidius is and then run off!" Levy retorted. "Do you know how cruel that is? How long have you two been buddies? Have you been keeping this from me?"

"Umm…"

Thankfully, Gajeel chose that moment to interrupt. "You smell kinda familiar," he said to Zeref, and his voice was a low growl – though Lucy wasn't sure whether that was because his draconic senses could pick up black magic, or just because Levy was still clinging on to Zeref's hand. To Lucy, he added, "He was in your house last night, right?"

Levy's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"It's not like that!" Lucy shrieked, cheeks igniting faster than any fire magic. "He's helping me with my quest to get Fairy Tail back together, that's all!"

Levy didn't look like she was going to believe her, but fortunately, Lucy could rely on Gajeel to not be interested in gossip – or indeed, the complete lack of anything to gossip about. "Nah, even back then, there was something familiar about it," he grunted, eyes narrowing further with the Black Mage in their sights. "Have we met before?"

Levy waved her hand airily. "Oh, we've probably run into each other loads of times without ever actually meeting. You know, in crowds at book signings, or at some of the literary festivals I drag you along to- I mean, you graciously accompany me to. You probably smelled him there or something."

"I dunno…" Gajeel doubted, but Levy had already taken his slight hesitation as agreement and turned back to Zeref.

"Hey, that gives me an idea. Will you sign my…?" Her enthusiasm disappeared with a squeak. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no!" She turned a full revolution on the spot, patting herself down so frantically that a passer-by would have been forgiven for thinking she was on fire. "My bag! Avatar took it from me – it must have been in the mansion Natsu burnt down!"

"It's just a-" Gajeel started automatically.

"I had five books in there! And one of them was my first edition Age of Empathy!" Tears glittered in her eyes."Now I have a once in a lifetime opportunity to get it signed by the most elusive scholar in history, and it's wasted, because you two can't just fight like normal people; you have to destroy the entire battlefield and everything in it!"

Gajeel threw Lucy a pleading look, and received a helpless shrug in return.

"Ouch," Zeref said, voice soft with genuine sympathy. "It's not as though I don't have a first edition going spare… but I can't give it to you, because Lucy made me leave all my books behind."

"Lucy!" Levy wailed.

"I told you I might need those books," Zeref added smugly.

Stepping back, Lucy threw up her hands in defence of her common sense. "Hey, it was a perfectly reasonable request! Who embarks on an adventure with their Requip Space already so full of books that they can't pick up any quest items?"

"You've got books in your Requip Space?" Levy demanded of Zeref, having missed the point entirely. "I thought it was only for weapons and armour!"

"You can put anything you want in there, if you know how," he shrugged, and proceeded to demonstrate by summoning an impressively thick tome into his raised hand.

The signature flash of light reflected dazzlingly from Levy's eyes. "A portable library? I am so getting Erza to teach me how to do that… Hold on, is that volume three of Isilvar's Compendium of Extinct Magic?"

"Hmm? Yes, it is. Are you collecting them too?"

"I've got all except three, six and fourteen…"

"That's not bad. I'm only missing volume seven, myself. You can have this one if you want. I've got another volume three in- well, back at home. And I'm sure I saw a battered old copy of six while I was shopping earlier… it was over here, I believe."

"Brilliant!"

And, just like that, the two of them began walking off together down the street.

Lucy stared.

There was no turning round. No running back towards her. No assurances that they were only joking.

She was the one who had to break the surrealness herself, sprinting after them and skidding to a halt in their path, arms spread wide enough to block their way by force if necessary. "You're not actually doing this now, are you?"

Zeref looked at Levy. Levy looked at Zeref.

"Yes," they answered as one.

"So, we've just found out that Avatar are probably planning to massacre three thousand people in order to summon a fire god, and your response is to go shopping for books?" Lucy demanded.

"To be fair, Lucy," Zeref responded mildly, "there is very little to which that is not an appropriate response, and it has served me very well over the years."

Levy nodded twice. "Besides, what else can we do? We're out of leads on the Avatar thing. Without knowing their next move, all we can do is wait for Natsu or Gray to discover something – and if we're going to wait, we might as well do it in a bookshop."

"Precisely," Zeref seconded.

"There's loads we could be doing!" argued Lucy. "Like… gathering information, to try and learn more about our enemy!"

"And where do you propose starting this information-gathering?"

"Umm-"

"In a bookshop, perhaps?"

"There's got to be somewhere better!" Lucy protested.

"You let me know when you think of one," Zeref advised her. "I personally think that a seedy bookshop is exactly the kind of place where we're likely to find a lead on Avatar. And while we're there, Levy and I might as well raid these dusty shelves for anything that looks interesting."

"What he said," Levy chirped. "It would be a shame to let Avatar get their hands on these books, after all."

With that, they simultaneously ducked under Lucy's outstretched arms and went on their way.

"…Words fail me," Lucy said.

Gajeel placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "We've gotta go with 'em," he advised. "If he's anything like her and we let them out of our sight, it'll be weeks before we find 'em again."

"What have I unleashed…?" Lucy groaned.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

After ten minutes, Lucy had concluded that Zeref was not, as Gajeel had feared, like Levy. He was like a version of Levy who had been getting his own way for four hundred years, and saw no need to stop now. He was bad enough even without Levy encouraging him – and if Gajeel's resigned expression was anything to go by, Lucy wasn't the only one concerned that Levy was picking up all sorts of bad habits from the Black Mage. Just because those habits were more to do with choosing books over teammates than evil magic or the value of life didn't make them any less problematic, as far as Lucy was concerned.

After half an hour, she and Gajeel finally managed to drag the troublesome duo out of the shop they had gone into for one specific book.

After an hour, she was coming to see the merit in Gajeel's method of gripping Levy's arm as they walked between shops. "Is that really necessary?" she'd asked at first, cringing away from the looks this earnt them from passers-by.

"Yes," he'd replied flatly. "Look, you've lost yours again."

And indeed Zeref had managed to wander off in the three seconds she'd been distracted by Gajeel, and she'd had to backtrack to drag him out of a shop that hadn't been on the itinerary she'd forced them to make, but which he'd gone into anyway because he thought he'd seen something interesting…

After two hours, she realized that giving in to their just one more shop and then we'll stop routine had been a mistake. Those two could spend weeks in an old bookshop without noticing. In fact, she'd bet next month's rent on Zeref having literally done that in the past.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The end of the third hour found her rhythmically banging her head against the table of the café in which she and Gajeel were seated.

She'd been at this particular pastime for long enough now that the table no longer squelched beneath her forehead, the stickiness of a whole day's worth of syrup-laden coffee cups eroded by the repeated impacts. With her own drink finished long ago, every other customer already interrogated for any knowledge of Avatar (to no avail), and all conversation she could possibly make with Gajeel exhausted, Lucy had no better way to express her frustration.

Maybe, if she punished herself enough, it would serve as a reminder not to bring such a dangerous combination of people together ever again.

"Is he always like this, your scholar friend?" Gajeel wondered aloud, and Lucy gazed up at him wearily.

"To be honest, I've only known him for like a week. All I can say is that his attitude towards detours is extremely hypocritical."

"I know I've met him somewhere before." The Dragon Slayer rubbed at his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Why can't I remember?"

"I don't know." That was true, although even if Lucy had known, she might not have told him. It was far better for him to be worrying about that, rather than, say, wondering why the centuries-old book Avatar had stolen from him had apparently been written by a fourteen-year-old.

Gently trying to steer the conversation away, she asked, "Do you and Levy do this sort of thing a lot?"

"More often than I'd like. Though not as often as she'd like, I'm sure." With a scowl – probably to remind her that he was a fearsome Dragon Slayer and not a soppy romantic – he glanced down at the table. "But, yeah… I'm kinda used to it. Though usually I got Lily to keep me company, so it's not so bad, and it's nice to see her… well…"

But he tailed off without finishing.

On the floor above, a mezzanine overlooking the bookshop's café, Levy and Zeref looked to be engaged in an enthusiastic discussion. Levy and Lucy had both been keen to move the expedition into one of the modern, chain bookshops squeezed into the town (the former for the fiction section; the latter for the café downstairs), though Zeref had opposed it at first. It wasn't really his kind of thing, he'd said. But after discovering that he was still working from the fifth edition of The Complete Eridanian Grammar Handbook, Levy had lured him in with the promise of picking up the brand new sixth edition, and from there it had apparently been easy to get him into the rows of fantasy fiction on the floor above.

Now they were debating something quite intensely, by the looks of things, which wouldn't have been a problem except that both of them kept turning to look at Lucy – an observation which was making her both very curious and very nervous. What could they possibly be talking about that involved her?

If Zeref was telling Levy the plot of her novel, she was going to kill him.

That was to say, she was going to kill him an extra time on top of all the times she was already going to kill him for putting her through this afternoon.

He looked happy, though.

And if she pushed aside her own frustration for a moment, she thought she could see why Gajeel of all people had developed the patience necessary to accompany Levy on outings such as this.

She thought, also, that she could see why he hadn't been able to finish his sentence earlier. It had nothing to do with embarrassment. She'd have understood if he was a little bit shy about the fact that the mighty Iron Dragon Slayer was in a quaint, domestic relationship with Fairy Tail's bookworm, but he'd had several months to get used to it, and either way, she had a hunch that he'd be much more comfortable with it in front of her than Natsu or Gray.

Rather, she suspected that the reason for his reticence lay in the bubbly debate going on above them – or more precisely, in the knowledge that he would never be able to have a conversation like that with Levy.

Lucy thought she understood. Since their quest had begun, she had come to know Zeref quite well, but she would never be able to talk to him like Levy was doing. She couldn't debate ancient literature with him at a level that he would find engaging – she couldn't even hold a conversation with him about her own magic without feeling like an ignorant child, needing to have everything spelled out for her. He looked like he was having a lot of fun shopping with Levy, and seeing it made her feel… not jealous, exactly, but perhaps wistful.

Well, not that it mattered. He'd be back on his own side soon enough, and the laid-back days of their journey together would be nothing more than a memory.

"Think they'll be done before the café closes?" she wondered.

"Don't count on it," came the gloomy response.

For the first time in far too long, however, it seemed that some divine being was listening, because a distant boom echoed through the streets.

Lucy perked up at once. "Was that-?"

"An explosion, yeah," finished the Dragon Slayer, twisting to look over his shoulder, as if his enhanced vision could somehow see the source through several rows of shops.

"There's no chance it could have been a firework or something, right?"

"No. Too low down."

"Lucy!" Startled, she turned to see Zeref striding towards her, Levy jogging along behind. The books in his hands had disappeared. She hoped he had put them down somewhere and not sent them to his Requip Space without paying for them, although the severity flashing in his eyes sent all such trivial thoughts scurrying for their lives. "Did you sense that?"

"I heard it," she confirmed, before the implications of his word choice hit her. "It was caused by magic?"

He nodded. "I felt it."

"You don't think – Avatar?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he said, as non-committal as ever.

"If they've figured out the ritual already…"

"It isn't written in code. It's a set of private research notes. It was never supposed to end up in anyone's hands but mine."

"Then let's assume they know how to activate it. And that means…" She took a deep breath and let it out again. "The whole town could be in danger."

Another dull boom trembled through the air, loud enough this time that even the café patrons not versed in combat were starting to take notice.

"No, this is good," Lucy said firmly, more to convince herself than anything else. "We might not be ready, but there are four of us – five, if Pantherlily gets back – at exactly the right time and place to stop Avatar's plan." Then, second-guessing herself, she looked directly at Zeref and asked, "We can count on your help here, right?"

"I would very much like for Avatar to be destroyed," he assented. "And for all trace that they ever existed to be wiped from the face of the earth. I wouldn't mind so much if all my fans were like Levy," he added, and Levy beamed, "but as things stand, we have a common enemy here, Lucy. Tell me what you want me to do, and I will aid you to the best of my ability."

"Good. That means we've got a real chance to defend the town!"

Declaration made, Lucy glanced around awkwardly. Her three companions seemed to be waiting for her to continue. She was so used to having to do most of the legwork herself on this quest that she appeared to have automatically instated herself as leader. She recalled Zeref's words from the previous night – that she apparently had the qualities of a leader – and it was all she could do not to burst out laughing, just as she almost had back then. What a ridiculous thought. She didn't have the faintest idea what she was doing.

Just in case anyone still believed otherwise, she said, "So, umm… does anyone have any ideas? Apart from heading straight for the source of the explosion and taking out as many cultists as we can before they reach the townsfolk, I mean?"

Levy suggested, "Sounds good to me. I was wondering if we could evacuate the townsfolk first, but with only four of us, that might be a bit tricky…"

Zeref interjected, "If we pinpoint the locations of the enemies and predict their routes through the streets, we can greatly reduce the area we need to cover for both an evacuation and an attack. I could do that easily enough."

Gajeel said, "Or, we could alert the authorities."

All three of them turned to stare at him.

"…What?"

A/N: Bit of a silly chapter, because honestly, I need some silliness in my life at the moment. Tune in again in a fortnight as things start to kick off. Thank you for your kind words and guesses for what's to come, they're always fun to read! ~CS