Hello all! Sorry for the late update. i've been out of state. But I have two chapters today so I hope that makes up for it. These next two chapters I think are meant to be read one right after the other so that's why I'm doing a double update.

kurahieiritr JIO: I actually based God's Mercy on the lethal injection. I know before modern medicine they had to mercy killings for almost every patient because they didn't have the tools or knowledge to properly treat them. I feel Natsu in the manga/anime is almost exactly like the Natsu from the very beginning so I'm just trying to mature his character.

Thank you to Reaper495 and ladyparty123 for favoriting/following.

Chapter 19. Shades of Hate

Normus Netopia sat in his living room watching the Annual Wizard Celebration. The event had just turned sour. The demon Chaos had shown up and overtaken the coliseum with his gang of underlings. The Wizard Saints were fending him off best they could but their old age was showing. Not as graceful or powerful as they once were not to mention not participating in any major battles in years had taken a toll on their fighting ability. The younger member with them, Ophelia, the woman everyone was talking about wasn't much better herself. Chaos went after her, thinking her the weakest link as the others had the advantage of experience.

"She's a Spacetime wizard like us dad?" Normus's teenage son asked him.

"It seems so, son. Not as powerful as us however," Normus replied, not wasting a moment to boast about his powers.

They watched as Chaos used his most powerful thorn curse against the wizards and four of them fell from the assault. Normus mockingly smiled at the sight. If he were there, he wouldn't need the aid or protection of others. A true Spacetime wizard was one who could stand alone and defeat all enemies. Ophelia hesitated for a minute before shooting another red arrow at Chaos. Together, her and the three Gods of Ishgar walked over to the fallen Chaos and made the final steps to end the demon's life. Normus's eyes grew to an enormous size as his mouth fell open. Chaos had gone introverted in color before it faded, his still beating heart was inside of Reiki's palm. The sheer magnitude of the moment did not escape Normus as he got up from his seat and went to make a phone call. His son was still seated wide-eyed on the couch, rewinding the lacrima vision repeatedly. He would go on to rewatch the battle dozens of times after the disappearance of his father. That was the last time he ever saw Normus as he had to go away on 'business.' The weird weather patterns and strange occurrences kept him distracted long enough not to realize his father had disappeared into the same storm of mystery that made the entire planet freak out.

Normus sat at a round table along with a group of men in a dimly lit room. He had called the meeting out of urgency.

"She is Devi! There's no mistaking it," one member yelled.

The others nodded at his declaration. "I knew those spells of hers were too familiar but I couldn't place where I had heard of them before. It wasn't until the demon had frozen in time that it occurred to me," another spoke up.

Normus wrangled the group's attention. "It is clear she was using the illusion magic she learned from Mavis Vermillion to disguise her eye color when she used her Spacetime magic. A clear indication she is trying to blend into our civilized society before turning it into a living nightmare."

"And her use of the taboo. Spacetime wizards are not allowed to stop time. It is against the laws of-of… Space and time!" The men were vocal with their disgust of Lia's display of powers.

"I thought only the one with the Spacetime Scepter was allowed to stop time," the newest and youngest member of their group questioned.

"They are," Normus answered. "Although, others have been known to use the power. Zeref is the most well known example. His Ankhseram Black Magic or the Contradictory Curse is the result of breaking a taboo. Breaking a taboo of any of the three Holy Trinity of Black Magic will result in the curse. Just as only the owners of the Holy Grail and Soul Reaper Sword are allowed to resurrect the dead and extract the soul from any living thing respectively; only the owner of the scepter can stop time without any consequences."

"Ah, the Holy Trinity Treasures. Created and gifted by the Gods Chronos, Gaia and Tartarus to the users of Spacetime, Living and Soul magic. Only those deemed worthy by the Gods will gain ownership of either of the treasures. They have only ever been in the Ametsuchi, Wakahisa and Acnologia clans because they were the most proficient in their area of black magic. Of course, the grail and scepter disappeared long ago in ancient times and the Black Dragon Acnologia is said to have inherited the sword before he turned reptilian. Where the others went, I have no idea. They have not been documented since around the time Acnologia inherited the sword," explained a senior member of the group.

"What if Lia has the scepter. Maybe that is the reason she was able to stop the time on Chaos," suggested the youngest member. The others guffawed at his silly idea.

"Well," Normus said still chuckling. "I'm sorry to burst your idealistic bubble but that cannot be possible. It is true Lia is from ancient times but there is no way in hell she would have the scepter. First of all it would have to be on her person for her to be able to access it's power. Did you see her holding a scepter about her size? I think not. Second, she's clearly not strong or proficient enough in Spacetime to possess the scepter. Only masters have ever held the treasure. And lastly, it is clear that Lia has also broken a taboo. In one of the legends, she was described as having an abundant amount of black, creepy magic escaping from her body. Ankhseram Black Magic."

"She actually has the curse? It's confirmed?" The youngest member questioned

"Well no, not confirmed," Normus, admitted. "But, it has been a long standing theory. A theory soon to be proven. The people of today may see her as some fairy tale hero but she is nothing but a devious witch. She and the rest of the Seven Deadly willingly consorted and aligned themselves with Zeref. They are called 'deadly' for a reason. They never hesitated to kill and helped to plunge the ancient world into darkness. She is waiting for the perfect opportunity when everyone is unsuspecting because they are too busy celebrating her fake heroic acts. She pretends to care about humanity but she was known to be an excellent liar and actor in her time. She will likely align herself once again with Zeref and cloth the world into darkness. That is where this meeting comes in. I know in the past we have tried and failed to kill Zeref before he could reach his full height of power but Lia is an easier target. If we can take her out before she reaches this time period, we will be saviors of Earth-land. We must kill her before she kills us all.

"Why day is day, night night, and time is time, grant me not waste night, day and time. Allow me pass to where my destiny lies." A swirling black portal opened a few feet away from them. They had completed their visits to the local hospitals and were going back to Fairy Tail. They only liked to spend a few days at a time in the past as it grew draining to waste their energy fighting demons and dark guilds constantly.

Team Natsu and co. was excited and relieved to be leaving the ancient world, if only for a while, and go to surroundings that were more familiar. They stood at the entrance of the first Fairy Tail building and nostalgia rippled into their minds. They must have stood there too long as their escorts had left them to go inside.

"Daddy!" screamed a blond toddler as he noticed Yury. The chubby legged kid waddled over to his father who scooped him up in his arms. The young Dreyer yanked on his father's hair, trying to climb onto his head. The future Fairy Tail watched in fascination at seeing their master in baby form. "Whoa… that's gramps," Natsu eased out.

"The old man was actually pretty cute," Laxus admitted.

"You guys make yourselves comfortable," Mavis instructed. "We'll find places for you to sleep later. But first, a round of drinks for your first trip into the ancient world!" The guildhall cheered at their accomplishment and congratulated them of making it out of there alive.

The six present members of the Seven Deadly and Team Natsu and co. sat at three tables pushed together.

Natsu sniffed Reiki. The elder dragon slayer pushed him away. "Say Reiki. You smell familiar. Which dragon is yours?"

Reiki kept his head straight ahead as he answered, "Atlas Flame."

That caught the attention of Team Natsu and Co. who was familiar the dragon that came through the Eclipse Gate and was frozen in the Sun Village.

"Wow really?! That means we're technically cousins cause Igneel is my dragon. You know it was really sad seeing him die when we we're in the Sun Village. Right guys?"

"Yeah I remember," Wendy nodded.

"What happened in the Sun Village?" Reiki asked worried about his dragon master.

"Well Atlas Flame was worshipped by a village of giants as an Eternal Flame. An ice-devil slayer froze the entire village including Atlas Flame. Gray was able to unfreeze him and Natsu used his fire to reignite Atlas Flame as his flame was dying out," Lucy explained.

"He died shortly after when he used the last of his power to unfreeze the rest of the village," Erza finished.

"That sounds like him. Thanks for saving him," Reiki said.

"Reiki used to fight in the Dragon Civil War before we left," Lia said suddenly. "He was able to convince Atlas Flame to let him be his one and only disciple during his time in it."

"As the son of a bastard of the Tapia house and a shunned member of the Fermata clan, I wasn't a welcomed member of the military. The Fermata family runs the military of the Alakitasia Empire while the Tapia's handle medicine. The Dragon Civil War was just starting when I enlisted and they assigned me to participate although no other member of a major house was in it. They hoped I would get killed but Atlas Flame became my mentor and protected me along with the allied dragons," Reiki explained.

Reiki was the son of Hajima Fermata and Viola Tapia. Viola was one the many bastards of Ferdinand, the former leader of the Tapia clan, whose mistress was also a bastard from a branch family of the Ametsuchi. When Hajima fell in love with and married Viola, he was disowned by the Fermatas and lost all of the money and land he would have inherited. They lived in relative poverty on the outskirts of the Alakitasia capital city. Hajima was a decorated soldier but lost his right leg during his service and became a fisherman. Viola made money by being a midwife to middle class families and healing sick children with her medicinal herbs. When Reiki was six, there was an outbreak of a disease. Mainly the poor died from it, as they couldn't afford proper treatment. Viola tried seeking treatment at one of the upper class hospitals but was turned away. She died a slow death; the disease ate away at her body. Reiki caught the disease and in his desperation, Hajima showed up at the doorstep of the Ametsuchi household. Before he was disowned, he was friends with Ophelia and Shah, Lia's father. Ophelia was visiting her parents when he showed up. She took them to the palace where the royal doctors treated Reiki. Afterwards, Ophelia vowed to help care for Reiki, paying for him to go to school with the noble children and private lessons in Requip magic since he was not allowed to learn creation magic, the magic of the Fermatas, or Maguilty Sense, magic of the Tapias.

"As a bastard of one of the Ten Imperial Clans, my mother was only allowed to go to school with the middle class children but even there treated with disgust. When you're born a bastard of a major or minor house, the nobles and upper class shun you. They see you as a blemish on their perfect lives and do everything they can to ignore you and hope you go away. The normal folks are intimidated by you and look at you as an outsider," Reiki continued.

When Hajima's father died and his eldest brother took over the clan, Hajima was welcomed back into the family. He stopped working, receiving a monthly allowance from the clan, and started teaching a class on the mentality of war. Reiki grew to be a talented young boy, excelling at hand-to-hand combat and Requip. When he learned and mastered dragon slayer magic, he gained the respect of the noble families except the Tapias; they couldn't like anyone related to their bastard.

"He's especially hated by the Tapia's because the Three Holy Clans favored him and disliked them because they're a vile group of people," Lia added.

"Didn't a message come by while we were in past? Don't the Tapias want you to swing by their place?" Yury asked Lia.

"Yeah but I didn't feel like dealing with them then so we'll go to when we go back," she answered.

"If you guys hate them so badly, why are we going to see them?" Wendy asked.

"Because they said it was important. And I can't deny a request of a senior clan member. No matter how much I despise them," Lia grumbled.

"Remember how pissed they were when I was inducted into the Elite?" Reiki reminisced.

"The Elite?" Mira questioned.

"The Elite are the top 25 clan members under 25. It's difficult to get a chair; the Holy Three children take up most of the spots. I was in the top five before we had to leave Alvarez," Reiki stated.

"Alvarez?" Natsu asked. "Why were you even in Alvarez?"

"That's where we're from," Reiki answered.

"No, Lia told me you guys were from Caelum," Natsu stated referring to the future Lia.

Lia cocked her head to the side. "Well she must have told you that because Caelum is where we would often vacation. But Alvarez is where we're really from."

Future Fairy Tail wondered what else Lia had lied about. They thought back to everything she had told them, contemplating if it was truth or fiction.

"Tell me," Erza said breaking the silence. "Why go to the past? Was there a specific reason?"

"History told us to," Warrod said. "We too had grown up learning about the Seven Deadly. Little did we know it us all along. When Lia and Reiki arrived at the guild three years ago, they had only just arrived in our time as well. They knew nothing about the Seven Deadly. When they heard their names, it wasn't a big mystery for them who Devi and Prance were. We decided we were going to work hard and train so we could fight in the past as history would have it."

"Slaying demons?" Gajeel asked chugging down his third drink.

"Slay?" Pretch gave a boisterous laugh. He was already drunk and didn't realize the mistake he about to make until afterwards. "Not only did we slay demons, we created them."

"What?" Gray demanded. The rest of his team shared his shock and anger at the proclamation.

Pretch pointed to Lia who was nonchalantly pouring a drink for Yury. "Our little Lia over there, is so talented she has not one but TWO," he held up two fingers while stumbling into the table. "Black magic. With her fancy dancy living magic she can create demons. Now, she may not be very good doing it herself, actually she's shit at it. But anyway, it doesn't matter if she herself is good at it. Zeref is. But Zeref did not have enough living magic to create some of his more powerful demons. So he enlisted the help of Lia, and together they gave birth to demons like Chaos and Lullaby and Deliora… and we," he pointed to the rest of the Seven Deadly. "Get to go back and slay them! Talk about glory without having to work for it. We get to be legends for slaying demons but no one actually knows what we truly did back then to be legends. Cheers team. I wouldn't have it any other way." A deadly silence took over the guildhall. The present members of Fairy Tail knew about the things the Seven Deadly got up to in the ancient world. It was an unspoken topic in the guild. No one dared bring up their lack of morals, fearing their wrath.

"You fucking traitor! Ice-Devil's Rage!" Gray released a beam of cold air and ice from his mouth. Lia flew out of her seat and crashed into a wall.

"How could you! I trusted you! You dirty liar." Iced arrows pierced the wall above her as she ducked just in time. She casted Angel Wings around her.

Gray got into another stance.

"Stop! Stop Gray!" Laxus shoved his arms away before he could do more harm.

"You're protecting her?!" Gray's face contorted with unmasked revulsion.

"Yes," Laxus said. The two alpha dogs had a stare down.

"Don't tell me you knew about it this entire time!"

"I knew what the old man let me know." Gray blasted a table to wood chips in response.

Fairy Tail turned to the Spacetime mage with the founders and Reiki by her side. She looked like the relaxed Lia they knew. Even when just assaulted she still managed to keep her cool. But, when she killed Chaos, they saw a look on her face that scared them to their core. Unadulterated, hate and destruction.

Master Makarov, Laxus and probably Gildarts knew about her hidden power and what the founders did in the past. The four of them frequently sat separated from everyone else and had private conversations. They acted like they were doing nothing wrong but the rest of the guild could tell there was something they were hiding. There was always a veil of mystery around them they all desperately wanted to uncover.

Erza suspected even Jellal knew. When they were at the Annual Wizard Celebration, Jellal said the only black magic he could sense from Lia was Spacetime. Unless he was lying, which she realized he wasn't because of his perplexed expression as he said it, he must of known about her living magic as well and was stumped on how he couldn't sense it. Even when one's magic is sealed away, if you know the magic signature, a master sensor can usually feel an inkling of the sealed magic. Jellal sensed nothing, not a drop not anything. 'So why did past Lia have living magic and our Lia didn't?' Erza thought. She also found it suspicious how the older versions of the founders feigned lack of knowledge with Tartarus and Zeref but knew more about them than the rest of Fairy Tail ever would.

Team Natsu and Co. stood on Gray's side except Laxus. They might not fully understand the situation but they were fed up with being lied to and being the last ones to know about things. They didn't agree with the founders and their methods in 'helping' the world but didn't want to go against them in fear of their wrath. But they had to back Gray no matter what.

"After all I told you about what Deliora did to my family. How he ruined my life and hundreds of others, you stayed silent and played the innocent card. I don't see how we can all go associating with her after finding that out," Gray growled.

"You helped make him. You helped Zeref make this place even more a hell on Earth-Land."

"Gray, I'm so sorry about what happened to your loved ones. But I will not say I'm sorry or that I regret any of the decisions I have made because I know that I have helped the world in the end, not make it worse. And may I also remind you that I'm not the Lia you know. I have no purpose for lying to you. "

Little Makarov had made his way over to the scuffle as fast as his chubby legs could take him. He started pounding on the lower legs of Gray yelling "Why you hurt Aunt Lele?! Stop bad man!" Gray bent down to try and calm the miniature version of his master but his father swiftly scooped Makarov up. Gray held a pained expression. Seeing Makarov on their side confirmed the fact that the old man had always been on Lia's side, protecting and hiding her secrets and the dark origins of the guild. Even as a snot-nosed brat.

"Yeah you have no idea. Sure we had a hand in creating them but you don't know why or the good it will do. You guys are visitors to a time you know nothing about. Stop believing everyone in Fairy Tail didn't do something messed up to achieve something great," Yury stated.

Gray took off his jacket and pointed to the throne like markings that covered half his body. He was able to control them most of time but sometimes when he used too much of his demon slaying they popped up. "This is what your demons did to me."

"Maybe those Spacetime wizards were right with killing you," Gajeel said.

The two sides stared each other down.