Thank you all for waiting for this new update! And once again, thanks to Aquos35 for pointing out my mistake in the last chapter! Enjoy!
Wendy caught Juvia's body as it fell towards her and pulled it gently behind a tree to shield it from the battle that she could tell was about to begin.
"What game?" Gray hissed, tears burning in his eyes. He forced himself to look away from Juvia's limp body and focus instead on her murderer.
"Why, the game of Life, of course. But also, the game of Death. It's simple, really," Zeref laughed morbidly. "I Live, and all you mere mages Die and become my servants. My own demons." He raised the hand that did not hold Juvia's Soul and snapped his fingers, emitting a black spark. A pure black orb materialized into his palm, and it began to bounce in his hand and screech. Zeref lifted the orb and turned back to the Fairy Tail mages. "Do you know… whose Soul this is?" the Soul screamed and cackled, and flipped right out of his hand to whiz off into the dead forest. "It's the demon Deliora's. oh," he snickered at Gray's start. "Do you recognize that name?"
"Sh-shut up!" he snapped. "What did you send it to do? Why is it here?"
Zeref pulled the cerulean Soul to his chest and grinned wickedly. "To collect all those Souls of mine you scattered, especially that golden one you were so foolish as to leave it behind, without any means of protection…"
Natsu flinched at the dark mages statement and took a step back. Levy, too, glanced behind her as if contemplating running back and checking on Lucy but Gajeel blocked them both with his arms.
"Don't leave. He's just trying to send you away because he knows that with you here we have a better chance of winning the battle. Bunny Girl can take care of herself and the others. Stay here."
Natsu glared wildly at his comrade, but when Levy fell back he did too, casting an anxious glance back to where he knew the altar was.
"100 Souls… do you not know the power of 100?" Zeref asked, seemingly shocked. "A Soul of every type – water, fire, celestial, etc.—plus enough extras to make 100 can turn me into a God. A Shinigami, if you will. And then I will turn all of you into my slaves, starting… with…" he leaned close to Gray, a nasty smirk on his face, "you. And I'll especially enjoy letting you two watch me as I slowly, oh so slowly destroy those Souls that you find… precious."
Gray screamed gutturally and leapt at the dark mage with arms outstretched and fingers curled, as if he were simply a wild animal and not a trained mage. Anger and hate for this wicked person filled his entire being and his blood pumped blood colder than the temperature it was thanks to his ice-magic. Zeref nimbly stepped aside and brought his free hand down on Gray's head, violently smacking him away with a sneer. Gray bounced away and then it was Gajeel who sent his iron dragon's roar mixed with Natsu's fire dragon's roar spiraling at Zeref, who lifted Juvia's Soul to block the attack.
The combined mixture smashed into the dull orb and it screamed a sound so harsh and painful that Levy and Wendy began to cry, and the other two dragon-slayers covered their ears with hateful grimaces.
"It certainly wouldn't hurt to add a few more Souls to the count. You know, just in case one of the demons gets…" Zeref's eyes glinted, "… hungry. Although, I think they can spare just that one golden one… after all, I have you five to add if I happen to 'lose' it."
This time, Natsu broke free and ran away while roaring out the name of his dead partner. Zeref sneered, and tossed Juvia's Soul up into the air, as if it were a mere toy and not the remnant of the deceased water mage. Gajeel cursed under his breath, and motioned for Levy to go with Natsu. She didn't even hesitate, and was gone in seconds, leaving Gajeel, Wendy, and Gray to face off the dark wizard by themselves.
Until Deliora's inky orb floated back into the clearing, towing a thick black chain that was wrapped tightly around Lucy. Wendy gasped, and her two nakama tensed. The golden Soul was as dull and unresponsive as Juvia, and it hurt to see the globule once so bright and energetic now seeming so utterly void of life. Deliora led the Soul towards Zeref and he chuckled with evil mirth as he reached out and clasped it in his palm.
"Do you see this? I told you not to leave your friend alone. Now she gets to pay." He threw both Souls down and jumped away from them as the black Soul shot a stream of onyx goo all over them. Gray snapped when the two girls' Souls began to sizzle and scream and he lunged for them, almost able to reach until Zeref slammed his heel into the ice-mages skull, stopping him dead in his tracks and kicking him away again.
"Dammit!" Gray roared, tears starting to slide down his cheeks. He climbed to his feet and pressed his hands together to summon his magic. "Ice Make: Lance!" the ice weapon surged out of his palms and toward Zeref, with a burst of speed thanks to Wendy using her sky magic to make the lance fly faster. Zeref dodged the weapon, and was met face to blunt tip as Gajeel's metallic arm appeared from nowhere and smashed into his nose. The iron dragon-slayer shoved his arm into his face, frustrated when it was unable to break skin or at least cause any visible damage.
"What is this guy?" Gajeel whispered, but the wind whirling around from Wendy's futile attacks caught his words and whipped them to the very devil he was inquiring about.
"Easy, I'm your worst nightmare," He cackled. He thrust his hands together and pointed them downward, and to the three wizards' horror he began to rise. One fist rose, and when it was brought down, Deliora unleashed a new volley of obsidian poison at the two helpless and abused Souls crushed into the ground. Gray took advantage of the dark mage's lack of attention in him to reach out for them again.
He had to choose between saving Lucy and saving Juvia, because it was painfully obvious he wouldn't be able to snatch them both to safety in this one move, just as much as it was that he would be unlikely to sneak in and steal another one away again.
Gray…. Get…. Get Juvia…
Lucy's weak voice sounded in his head just before the new spurt of poison hit her and she screeched in agony.
"I'm sorry, Lucy, I'm so sorry," he whispered to her before extending his arm just in time to scoop the cerulean Soul into his grasp before Zeref's feet came down again, this time onto the golden Soul that he'd painfully decided to leave in favor of rescuing the other.
Pale hands twisted and grabbed at him from above, so that it was impossible to try and get Lucy now because there was no way Gray could even reach her at this point, so he careened back and let himself fall into foliage because his arms were wrapped tightly around Juvia and wiping away the poison with his bare arms—when had he lost his shirt again?—so that she was safe in his grasp and nothing could hurt her now. (Omg if that wasn't a major run-on sentence I have no clue what it was. Sorry all you O.C.D. peeps out there who probably just died from my lack of proper grammar!)
Gray barely had time to blink before that very same pale fist crashed into his jaw, throwing him up and out of the bush and into a conveniently placed tree, much like the one that….
Gray ducked under Zeref's agitated attacks, trusting his nakama to fend him off, and grabbed Juvia's body from where it lay, draped onto a root.
"Go take that to Levy!" Gajeel snorted, as he crossed both metallic arms over Zeref and used his fingers as a sort of iron cage as Wendy shot her Sky Dragon's Roar at him. "She's done a lot of research on Soul resuscitation!"
The ice wizard scrambled upright, not bothering to snap at the dragon-slayer for indirectly calling Juvia a "That", and running as fast as his weary feet could carry him and the dead body of his—hard as it is for him to say out loud but still the truth—best friend and stalker.
Juvia is dead.
Even though she had been dead for many minutes, it seemed that his mind only just now fully comprehended that. Which was terrible, because not only was he on the bridge of a panic attack because he was almost overwhelmed by grief, but he was also being chased down by an angry psychopath with the power to kill them all and his old best friend's Soul clamped and tortured in his grip. Top it all off with the impending fear that he wouldn't be in time to save Juvia or Lucy, and you had a very confused and desperate Gray running not only for his life, but in some weird sense also for Juvia's and Lucy's.
Even though they were both dead.
Gray was so deep in his horrible thoughts that he didn't notice he'd made it back to the clearing with the altar until he ran smack into it.
It was then that he noticed the battle raging behind him with Natsu and Levy fighting off a new horde of black demons and onyx Souls that were earnestly attacking the Souls of the mages Zeref had murdered.
"Levy!" Gray rasped, shocked by the coarseness of his voice. "I got Juvia's Soul back! Help me revive her!"
The solid-script mage whipped around with a relieved grin that withered in seconds.
"Behind you, Gray! Quick!" she urged him, so that he spun around on his toes and flattened himself to the ground just as Deliora flew over with its hide morphed into a ball with jutting spikes and squirting poison just where his chest would have been, had Levy not warned him in time.
Gray quickly fumbled back to his feet, and used his magic to form an ice box around the demon's Soul. Levy sighed in relief, and ran over to him.
"Juvia can be revived, but only when her Soul is returned to her body before she's been dead for two hours," she told him. "If she's been dead even a minute longer than those two hours, she cannot be revived."
"She's got time," Gray responded. "She's got time. It's been only minutes. Only minutes."
Levy nodded with a quick glance behind them to ensure Natsu was ok with fighting the demons by himself before crouching next to the cerulean Soul and cupping it in her tiny hands. Juvia's face slowly blinked, and then focused on Levy and Gray. He caught his breath in a jagged inhale when she smiled slightly, and couldn't help it. he pulled her onto his chest and hugged her, because although it was almost 100% guaranteed that they could bring Juvia back to her body, he would much rather have her as just a floating ball of blue light with her face and memories and personality than just an empty husk of a body without any form of life inside.
When Levy gently pulled Juvia out from Gray's grip, the ice wizard nodded his thanks, setting the body next to her and jumping off to go help Natsu fight.
"I can't find Lucy, have you seen her?" the fire wizard panted as he punched out one demon, and then spun around to kick his sandaled feet through two more.
Gray hesitated, which didn't go quite unnoticed to Natsu, as he let out his Roar and then turned to his rival once they were sure all the demons and bad Souls were charred to useless and harmless ash.
"Where is she? Tell me," Natsu demanded, stepping forward to glare threateningly at his rival. Guilt closed Gray's throat, and he looked away, unable to tell the rambunctious wizard how he'd basically traded Lucy for Juvia and because of him, the golden Soul was probably near death.
Or re-death. She was already dead, what would you call this?
Anyways, Lucy was incapacitated and it was his fault. Gray didn't want Natsu to know that, but it seemed that the obnoxious fire mage was close to figuring out as much, if the panicked look on his face was anything to go off of.
"Where is she, Gray? I know you know, so tell me!" Natsu's voice grew higher and more desperate with each word, until he was practically groveling.
"That weak little golden Soul? She's right here." Both boys (and Levy :D) turned simultaneously to see Zeref, standing with ripped clothing and bloody scrapes and injuries, holding up Lucy's very battered Soul in one blood-stained palm.
Natsu went rigid, and out of the corner of his eye Gray could see the dragon slayer blanch and stare at the Soul with a mixture of raw grief and fear. He reached out with trembling fingers, and when Natsu's hand was a mere hairsbreadth away, Zeref tightened his grip with a dastardly chuckle. His scarlet fingers pierced through Lucy, and the Soul screamed in pure agony. He lunged for the injured Soul with desperate fingers and each time Zeref cackled and tightened his hold. Each time Lucy squeaked in pain until finally the Soul was quiet.
"Pity," The dark mage mused, staring at the lump in his hand that was unrecognizable from its former glory. "I didn't mean to… kill it. Too bad. Like I said, though, I have five replacements for it, right under my nose."
Gray coiled his muscles, ready to spring forward but Natsu leapt first, with all the speed and ferociousness of a true dragon in his attack. With a start, Gray recognized Dragon Force, and watched as the livid dragon-slayer raked enhanced talons across Zeref's face with roars of fury, and scratched and bit at his entire body until the dark mage was as still and limp as the crushed Soul he held.
It was then that Natsu seemed to calm, before completely severing the hand that clutched brutally at his partner's Soul and gently prying it from his grip.
Zeref howled once, and then seemed to slump into the ground. Satisfied, Natsu pulled out of his rage to solemnly inspect Lucy with pained onyx eyes. She cracked one eye open the slightest, and Gray turned away, too guilty to really celebrate her well-being, instead wanting to see how Levy was doing with reviving Juvia.
His blood ran cold.
The solid-script mage was a mass of seething flaps of bloody skin, frothing and foaming with large pincer-like appendages grabbing at the air, now that it had thrown away its disguise. The real Levy was slightly visible as she clutched Juvia's body and Soul with bloody hands from where she lay in the beast's folds. It turned towards Gray with its mouthful of huge churning fangs that dripped and sprayed with blood and saliva as it twisted into a horrible grin.
Time to die, Fairy Tail.
Aaaaaaaaaand cut. Gomen ne everybody, I really apologize for leaving you with a cliffhanger as weird and creepy as this, especially since I feel like I promised to end this story with chapter 2, but it's just that I have no writing time left for today and my schedule is pretty packed for this week… like spending all of tomorrow writing a Christmas fic. So I wanted to just get this out so you all can have something to puzzle over for Winter Break! And I'm not going to promise anything, but I'm going to try and finally get the last chapter for Soul Song written and finished before New Year's….
:D…. anyways, Merry Christmas in advance in case I don't finish that Christmas fic in time! And thank you for being patient and continuing to read this!