I promise you guys, if you manage to find me somehow and want to kill me for updating like four months late, I won't protest! I'm sorry for the delay guys; too many tests and too much to do at school! I wrote a longer chapter to make up for it (not proofread, sorry, but I was too hyped to actually post it!) so...sowwy? *puppy eyes*

Hope you like it! Thanks loves, for all the reviews and the people following this story or having favorited it :)

Love from India, and shout-out to my buddy Kris 3

Chapter Six- Depths of Hell

The moon was pale against the dark, starless sky. Ash and smoke crept over silhouettes of tall, skyscraping buildings. Somewhere, in the centre of the smoke, a blinding white light burned.

A faint figure emerged on the roof of the tallest building. In the moonlight, his dark hair appeared silver. But darkness cornered around him, obscuring most of him.

The wind tugged at the black robes he was clad in. As the smoke cleared, the figure stepped forward unhesitatingly, and abruptly took another step and fell from the roof. In a graceful motion he fell, and the smoke rose up to greet him. The light grew brighter and brighter until the dark, lithe figure all but melted into it.

And then shadow and light burned together, until everything just fell way, shattering into dust and fading away into a crimson glow.

Somewhere in the distance, a voice screams his name. Zeref.

My strangled scream is stuck in my throat as I wake up from my nightmare, eyes suddenly flying open with a gasp. The ice I lie on all but burns my fingertips with the cold and I roll away until I fall to the ground.

It feels hard and unwelcoming, but I lie there, staring up at the lightless ceiling, thinking about my dream. I feel cold all over, and I start to realize it was probably not the ice.

It is not until a few more minutes that I understand why I am still panting and trying not to cry out. I am filled with fear.

Fear, not for myself. For the figure that had fallen forward and had been swallowed up by darkness in my dream. Fear, for him. For Zeref.

Anger rises up in my stomach, hot and strong, and my fear fades away. Memories of last night come to my mind and I try not to think about it. I don't have a minute to waste on him.

I prop myself up on my shoulders. Then I turn to look at Wendy, curled up against the ice, frowning in her sleep, calling out for Grandine. Guess I am not the only one with a nightmare.

The first thing I am aware of when I get back on my feet is that I am starving with hunger. How long have I not had proper food? Two days?

I move forward cautiously, and touch Gray's shoulder. To my surprise, he flips and sits up almost immediately. Doesn't he sleep at all?

I want to ask him about the Slayers. I had heard too much last night not to share with anyone, and what we both had guessed about the Alliance forcing us to be an army…I needed to talk to him about it.

But his eyes are hollow, pained. I remember with a jolt, that when I woke up in the middle of the night, Gray had been murmuring Lyon's name in his sleep. He was probably reminiscing…

"Are you okay?" he asks at last.

"I—" I hesitate, and then say, "I'm hungry."

He stares at me incredulously and then his eyes retain some colour. "Oh!" He looks sheepish. I forgot…yesterday we ate. When we went up at noon I mean, but you were injured so…"

I draw in a sharp breath and nod. "Fine. Could you give me some water?"

"Lucy I don't—"

"Gray," I say, as gently as possible. My throat feels parched. "You're an Ice Mage."

"What? Oh, right. Yeah." He slings his legs over the jagged edge of the makeshift ice bed and blows softly into my outstretched, cupped hands.

I try not to gag at the freezing temperature as I drink the clear water, gnashing together my protesting teeth. Then I glance to my left and ask, "Where's Sherry?"

"She came in at midnight last night," Gray tells me at once. "And she left again, at dawn."

Something is off in his tone, like he's not telling me something. I have known him long enough to understand that lingering uncertainty in his voice when he conceals something from me, though he is an excellent liar. But here, now, he wouldn't keep anything from me. We are together in this.

So I ask: "How do you know when dawn is, stuck here?" I gesture to the dark walls of rocks around us.

Gray shrugs. "I started counting hours off noon yesterday, and I've kept track. It's easier than trying to sleep."

I hesitate, and then sit down beside him. I lay a hand gingerly on his tense shoulder and say softly, "Nightmares?"

He focuses his deep blue eyes on me, and I stare into them. They're still the same, still pained. "Yes," he whispers back.

I nod slowly. "Me too."

"I know."

My startled gaze must have been strong, because he says again, "I was awake all night. You…were very restless while you slept."

"Well…you could have woken me up," I say a bit resentfully, raising an eyebrow at him. "If you knew, I mean."

"Sorry," he whispers again, and then something flickers in his eyes as he continues to look at me, his eyes boring into mine. I can't understand that look.

"It's alright, I—" I start to speak, but then Gray's hand suddenly reaches out and touches my neck, pulling me closer than I already was.

I am so shocked, I barely know what is happening until I feel his lips press against mine. They're soft, gentle, but fierce in a way. As he kisses me, his hand on my back now, I realize we taste of ashes and pain.

I am about to pull away, to tell him this is all, all wrong, when he does. He brushes his lips against mine once, before moving away ever so slightly. "Lucy, I'm—"

"Well, this is adorable guys, really." Sherry's nasal voice pierces the silent air and Gray lets go of me suddenly. I stand up hastily.

"But Zeref is outside. We need to go," Sherry continues. She fixes her large eyes on me. "Sorry to break you guys up while you're getting cozy, but—"

"Oh, shut up Sherry." Gray stands up too, and looks at her with a mixture of anger and disgust. His eyes turn to me instead. "Let's go, Lucy."

I hesitate yet again, staring at him with slightly wide eyes. He is my best friend…

"…I'll wake up Wendy," I say at last, and turn away from both Sherry and Gray in a clear indication of wanting to be alone.

Once Wendy is awake, the both of us walk out of the gilded, stone door. My mind flashes back to last night as I stare for a moment at the healed doorway—then I walk out quickly.

"Late."

Zeref's smooth, unruffled voice reaches my ears, and I look up. He has let go of his hood now, and his expressionless but cold eyes bore into me.

"I think we can start with the Celestial Mage again, today," Zeref continues. "Since obviously, discipline is something all Fairies need some work with." He tilts his head a bit, shifting his glance to Gray who stands there, motionless. "They're too callous."

I don't know why I feel so shocked all of a sudden, but I do. After last night...

I can feel my mouth slightly parted and my eyes startled even as I try to put on a nonchalant face. It's just that…after seeing that desperate, vulnerable side to Zeref last night—though I had to keep forcing myself to remember it was all an act—I don't know what I expected today. For him to be nice? To suddenly realize the wrongs going on because of the Alliance and just tell us everything they were planning? Save us?

I'm so busy struggling to get rid of this unwanted surprise, that I miss his next words. "…isn't it, Fairy?" I catch the last few.

Suddenly, I don't feel so taken aback at the lapse in his attitude again. Of course it was all an act. He's still just the insolent, merciless…creature he is.

So my eyes, I know, are cold with fury at being addressed as 'Fairy', as I raise my chin. "I have a name, in case you've forgotten," I hint at the first-name basis we had established yesterday, hoping he feels embarrassed. "It's Lucy."

Instead, he gives a small smile. "I don't care," he says.

I feel so damn frustrated as I try to get rid of the naked outrage in my eyes. I don't know why I expected him to drop that charade—if it is one—but for some reason his words sting me worse than anything he has ever said or done so far.

He doesn't. Even. Care.

I forget about my anger when I see Nicky suddenly step forward.

"Zeref," he says calmly. I raise an eyebrow, looking at his disheveled blonde hair, tousled more than usual, and his tired face. He looks as if he has not slept at all. "I know what you're doing."

Zeref is expressionless. Dark locks of his hair fall over most of his left eye, obscuring part of his face from me. I wonder vaguely if it is as soft as it looks, his hair…and I bite my tongue in irritation a second later.

"And what exactly is it that I'm doing, Phoenix?" He asks. It irritates me how he calls us by our Guild names after branding each of us with that of the Alliance.

A pulse hammers at the base of Nicky's throat. "Look, dude, you're one of us right? Why do you let that ass of a Jiemma and that other chick tell you what to do? You really think we don't realize why you're wasting time with us? You really think we don't understand you don't give a shit about training us—"

A gasp tears off my lips as Zeref flicks a long, cordlike structure at my friend, and Nicky lets out a startled cry as he's lifted up like a doll into the air.

My wide eyes focus on the whip in Zeref's hand. I realize it is the piece of cord I thought was attached to the white and gold garments he wore underneath his dark black cloak. It was a whip, that looked a lot like my Flueve D'etoile.

My attention goes back to Nicky, who gasps once as the whip coils around him, like a snake. His arms flail and it isn't until the rest of us hear the sizzling sound of something burning, that some of us gape in silent screams.

As abruptly as he attacked him, Zeref draws his whip back—'the Edolas Magic Whip?' someone whispers—and it recoils; Nicky falls, hard, to the grey stone floor. Wendy is the first to rush and help him up, but I'm too paralyzed to move.

"Language," Zeref reprimands lightly. "Phoenix Grave."

My hand tightens around my Flueve D'etoile. But I don't use the River of Stars—it's only going to bring more chaos.

"You will each face a demon today," Zeref announces after a while, when Nicky back up on his feet, his whole body trembling. My throat blocks up looking at him so I glance away at the familiar blue orb—it looks like a will o' the wisp, not that I ever saw one—while Zeref speaks.

"We're mages. You think we don't know how to deal with demons?" A girl says.

Our leader smirks. "Not one from the depths of hell itself."

My eyes are frozen wide; I'm unable to close them or even try to look away as all the mages stand on the edge of the chasm.

Our training ground is usually the grey floor below or the vast black ledges all around and in the chasm. The Alliance constantly uses illusions and glamours to drain us further of our magic, to make it even more terrifying. And as I watch each mage drop down into the chasm like our first day, I realize it's going to be worse.

Because, for every mage that wins and makes it to a ledge, there is a whirlwind of Dark Magic as it reforms itself. Twice, the chasm remained empty and dark. Not a sound as two died.

I step forward before Gray does. I don't think I can bear to wait and watch for that whirlwind. It's probably selfish, leaving him to worry about me getting out alive, but I can't bring myself to step back and let him go ahead.

As I stand on the edge, I don't hesitate, for once. My eyes involuntarily flit to Zeref for a brief second, and the anger I see in his face shocks me so much that I fall before I make a conscious decision to jump bravely.

His eyes had been cast low, his long lashes casting shadows over his pale cheeks in the light of the orbs. As if he had been angry at himself.

I forget about it as I suddenly feel like I am being deflected by the dark walls of the chasm, as if I'm being sucked up by a strong wind. Then a burning white light presses against me, too bright to look at.

My eyes squeeze shut.

When I can feel the glare gone at the back of my eyelids, I open them. There is a jolt in my stomach as I realize I'm not standing on battleground like last time.

I stand on uneven, muddy ground. In front of, as unmoving and smooth as glass, is a large lake. In the darkness—there are no stars in the smoky sky—the water looks as black as the feathers of ravens.

As I stand there, too nervous to move, something pierces the clear cold surface of the water. A vaguely humanoid figure, hunched as if freezing, rises from the ripples.

As it looms up in front of me, I see its hollow, sunken eyes. The demon is vast, and its bulky figure looks as if muscles have tore their way out of the tar-black skin of the creature. Its head is still bent down, and I notice blood red marks, vaguely familiar, all over its huge body.

I am frozen to the ground as it suddenly utters a wail. It's a blood-curdling, hoarse, broken sound; like its voice is made up of glass shards. Without warning its eyes lock on me, and the lake's water ripples again as it moves slightly forward.

Not one from the depths of hell itself.

With a jolt I realize the familiar marks covering the demon's skin. They are runes.

The runes of Tartarus.

A sickened feeling creeps over me when I realize how I recognize them. This creature looks like the demon that had killed Levy.

How many times? I scream furiously in my mind. How many times is the damned Alliance going to play with us by taunting us with the dead? By manipulating us? How is it that they can be cruel enough to make us feel the pain of battle even when not in one?

These illusions, I realize at last, have been designed to hit where it hurts. To show your darkest memories. Your most terrible fears.

I find no surprise within me as the demon's cry cuts off abruptly, and it lifts its foot to reveal a half-submerged, mangled body. Levy. Then, as it shifts towards me, I see Alzack and Bisca, their bodies intertwined and their hands still locked fiercely together, struggling to get out of the dark water.

My heart clenches as I hear them cry out, my fallen guild-mates; Lucy, save us.

I don't want to, but the words tear themselves free from my lips in unconscious desperation. "How?"

Please. He'll kill us. Save us.

I look up at the demon. One of the sharp claws on its disfigured hands swiped at Bisca and I heard a cry of pain. I flinch involuntarily, even as I realize that that scream sounds too…superficial to be my friend's. It sounds surreal, distant and detached from the voice of Bisca.

Zeref was right. We mages have encountered demons, but not one like this. Not one, which seems to have the diabolical intelligence of taunting me to come closer and defeat it. It doesn't just have the power of Tartarus, it has a cruel sense of knowledge about me.

But Levy and Alzack and Bisca are dead.

I have no reason to fight this creature, and I have a feeling I don't want to know how powerful it is.

Wondering if any of the mages had actually done this before me, I finally take a step.

A step back.

"I don't want to fight," I say simply.

Five words and the illusion melts away. I stand, unharmed but trembling, on a ledge. I watch as Gray jumps above me, before he is swallowed up by the magic. I look away and try to breathe.

When it's over, Gray stands on a ledge opposite me. His face is white as we stare at each other the whole time the others are forced into their little illusions. Bitter resentment bubbles in my stomach.

At last, Zeref calls everyone up for proper training. Some mages, who don't have the right powers, try climbing up to the edge. I summon Virgo, and when I see Gray unable to move, I ask her to carry us both up.

A little puzzled, I notice how most mages can't use their powers to get back up. Most of them, like normal humans, try to clamber up.

Once Gray collapses on the dark rim of the chasm, and Virgo leaves, I feel a strong hand on my arm, yanking me forward into the shadows of the doorway, where I had hidden last night to eavesdrop.

I know it's Zeref even before I look at him; his face is partly illuminated by the blue orb he always forms.

"You refused to fight?" He stares at me incredulously.

I shrug. "I didn't want to."

"You didn't—" He breaks off choking. "Lucy—"

Anger flares up in me, hot and uncontrollable by this point. "Oh, so it's Lucy now is it?" He is much taller than me, but I stand on my tip-toes and glare up at him. "So what is this, some sick play? It's all fanciful language and calling me 'the Fairy' in front of everyone else, and the minute you find me alone you become all 'Lucy, I'm not like this?'"

He looks speechless. His pale face is even whiter now, and his eyes are wide in surprise.

I continue, not caring. "Look, it's a stupid act okay? I don't know what you are! Do you realize how absolutely terrible it is to believe, for once, that you're a good person and then watch you strike down my friend the next day? It makes me think as if you actually are good somewhere inside, but you aren't. You seem to be the one from the depths of hell, Zeref, not that demon. So stop. Calling. Me. That." I grit my teeth. "You will never call me Lucy again. If it's 'that girl from Fairy Tail' out there, well, that's who I'll be."

I realize even as I finish my little venomous speech, the hurt he is feeling. I tell myself he is not capable of feeling that emotion, only giving it to others, but suddenly all my anger melts away and I feel a dull pain in my chest at the hurt in his dark eyes.

It's a long while before he speaks. When he does, his voice is composed again, cool and unruffled. "Will you fight again?"

I blink. "What?"

"Are you going to fight that demon?"

"No." My voice is flat.

Zeref looks down. "Fine."

And then, moving faster than I could have ever anticipated, his hand comes forward and strikes me in the head.

As I start to crumple to the ground, white-hot light burning against the back of my closing eyelids, I feel his arms catch me before I hit.

"Sorry," he whispers.

My eyes fall shut.

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