Prompt:You can't die. Please don't die.

(Warning: The emotion train can't pick a track to stay on. Be cautious of possible derailment.)

This was it. This was the end of everything that had happened. He felt his magic build up along side Natsu's. He felt the fire and ice intertwine as it headed straight for the famed Black wizard. The powerful slaying magic spells ripped through him like a hot knife through butter, and every trace of his magic began to dissipate. They walked over to his fallen body as seals appeared across him. They dissolved themselves off of him, peaking the curiosity of the ice mage.

After searching his memories, he recognized several of the runes that made up the seals, and Zeref began to speak. It wasn't the deep voice full of hatred he'd heard all the other times, but instead, a calm, almost childish voice, "Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" There were tears streaming down the dark mage's face, "I spent so long, so long, under Ankhseram's control. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore. " Several others had made their way over to listen, shocked at the revelation of Zeref's... innocence?

"You were... being controlled." Gray muttered. He couldn't believe it. The person he and most of the world had villainized their entire lives was the victim, not the enemy. Natsu grasped his arm, sensing Gray's discomfort immediately. The ice mage shot him a grateful glance.

"I'm not the only person Ankhseram wanted, though. That's why I built Eclipse." Zeref said quietly, "I sent them into the future to keep them safe, but it didn't work quite as well as I wanted it to. One of them was captured by another group of people, but now that I'm free it shouldn't be any trouble getting him out of there."

"The dragon slayers came from four hundred years ago." Gray realized. He turned to Natsu, but the pinkette looked just as shocked as he was.

"I had to seal away all of their memories as well," If it were possible, Zeref looked even more upset, "Hell, we were all so little. He tilted his head towards Wendy, and the people standing around her instinctively got closer, "You were just two." His turned his head back to the sky and glared at it, "Ankhseram is such a bitch."

By this point, the enormous hole in his chest had healed, and he sat up weakly. "If you want me to, I can re-purpose all of the Etherous I created to help us, or I can shut them down. Either is fine by me." Everyone continued to stare, shocked by the amount of humanity behind the darkest mage in history.

"I'm sorry." The words had come from Erza, and while they were sincere, there was also bubbling rage along side it, " But I cannot forgive someone who created something like the Tower or Heaven." She pointed one of her many swords directly at him, shooting it forward with her magic, but Zeref caught the blade between his palms like a child would a ball.

"I never used the Tower of Heaven," He said honestly. "I scrapped the idea as soon as I realized it would require more people to die. As a matter of fact, the instructions I left attached to it were incomplete in a way that would harm the person doing the spell and no one else." The sword stopped trying to move forward as his words began to reach the redhead. "Not to mention I was only five at the time, and I had a reason for want to build something with the ability to bring back the dead. If you want me to, I'll tell you the entire story, but I must warn you that it isn't very pleasant."

The entire area had gone quiet, and master Makarov decided it was time for him to take the initiative, " I believe we'd all benefit from hearing the truth." Zeref nodded, and they all gathered in what was left of the Fairy Tail guild hall.

"Four hundred and thirty some years ago," Zeref began quietly, "The dragons split into two factions. One of them hated humans with a passion, and he and his followers with to commit genocide on the entire race. The other group loved the humans and everything about them. They only wished great things upon us, and several devoted their lives to teaching the humans about all they could. In a clash between the two factions, a small village was destroyed. There were only three casualties. A couple who had stayed behind to wrap the wound of a fallen dragon made up two of them." He paused with a distant look on his face, waiting for the information to sink in before he continued, "There were three others who stayed behind with them. Those three were their children. The older two were four, almost five, and the youngest had just turned three. The youngest ran out in front of the blast, not realizing that it wouldn't be enough."

Most of the mages gasped, while others looked at him in horror. "The three of them died there, but the fallen dragon was able to save their bodies from being completely destroyed. He was a young dragon, barley ten years old, so I don't blame him for not being able to save my youngest brother. It wasn't his fault, even if I believed it was for a long time."

"For the next year, my twin and I came up with the idea of Heaven's Tower, but we scrapped it when we realized it wouldn't work. we struggled to come up with something that would give us back our precious brother, if not our parents along with him. About a month after that, we found a spell in our old family spell book. It was incomplete, and would most likely kill us, but we didn't realize that at the time. We agreed, or rather I told him, that I would be taking all of the rebound for the spell, and we went through with it."

"The spell caused Ankhseram himself to appear. When he looked into my eyes, I knew we had made a mistake. He asked if I was the one to summon him, and when I nodded, he appeared shocked. 'You're just a child.' he told me, 'What business could you have with the god of death?' At this point Larcade had slipped out of the room. I didn't want him to get caught up in any of it. It took a long time, but after a while, I managed to convince him to teach me how to bring back my little brother."

"With in the next few months, I had created eclipse, and I found all of the people Ankhseram had wanted me to, and I broke my promise. I sent them as far as my magic would allow me to, and I hid them from his view. After he realized I'd betrayed him, he took over my body and used me like a puppet to cause destruction. He didn't realize that five of the six people I sent, I had sent somewhere he wouldn't be able to reach anyways. After all, the dragons are very protective of those they consider their children."

A small smile had made it's way into the Black Wizard's face, "My twin is the one that's in captivity like three countries over. He's a bit of an idiot." A few laughs escaped the mages who were not as afraid of Zeref, "And the other five are all in this room."

While Erza still didn't trust him, most of her direct hatred had disappeared. There was a question she wanted to ask though, "If you got your youngest brother back, than didn't you send him into the future as well?"

Zeref nodded, "The older brother of the dragon my parents saved offered to take him in, which is where I got the idea to include the dragon anyways." Several of the mages glanced between the "Twin dragons" of Sabertooth, Kurogane Gajeel, and Fairy Tail's Salamander, choosing to linger on Gajeel most of all. When Zeref noticed, he burst out laughing, "I've called him 'precious' before, do you really think it's that asshole? No offence, Gajeel."

Gajeel looked slightly startled, but he replied anyways, "None taken."

Zeref pulled the locket off his neck and tossed it to Erza. "Open it." He tilted his head when he smiled, and suddenly the resemblance hit everyone in the room like a truck. When the locket popped open, Erza found herself to be correct. Inside was was a photo of two nearly identical people, one having white hair, the othe rblack, and in between them was a small, smiling pinkette.

Most of the room whipped their head towards Natsu, who didn't look all that shocked. "You smell kind of like me, and I genuinely don't think anything can surprise me anymore. That and Igneel's the only one of our dragon parents that has siblings." He shrugged nonchalantly.

"You are still the most low-key sassy child." Zeref commented.

Natsu raised an eyebrow, "Would you rather I not attempt to hide my sass?" His hand flew to his hip, "Because if you actually want me to start, the first thing we're doing is getting rid of that outfit." He eyed it up and down, and the guild burst into laughter. "Also, not a child."

Gray was staring at Natsu with an emotion that Erza couldn't recognize, and he slipped out of the back.

Gray had gone to sit by the river. It was a calm day, surprisingly, so it was flowing gently. After a while, he heard someone come up behind him.

"Hey, snowflake." Natsu plopped beside him, gently brushing his arm against Gray's as a form of comfort. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this mess, but I barely knew anything. I wanted to be positive when I told you."

The ice mage leaned into him slightly. "It's okay, Natsu. I just wasn't expecting it."

A small bark of laughter left the pinkette's lips and he shook his head, "You think I really did? It's weird and unusual, and that sort of thing makes people uncomfortable. It's best to act like nothing's wrong or at least like it doesn't bother you." Their sides were pressed completely together now, and the river water was louder than their voices.

"You're too selfless sometimes," Gray commented.

"Better than being a block of ice without emotions," Natsu teased. He poked Gray in the side, provoking him into tackling the pinkette.

Everyone was asking Zeref questions about that past and what Ankhseram did to him, though mostly about the past. Baby Natsu, to be specific.

A figure that seemed to be made of the shadows rushed past everyone, running straight through the dark mage's chest. When he came out the other side, the was a rapidly growing hole through his body, and the being vanished, leaving only one sentence to echo through the guild hall, "You shouldn't have betrayed me, boy."

They'd only been sparring. That was it. They did it all the time, so why?

Gray could only gape at the sight in front of him. The pinkette he'd known for more of his life than he hadn't was dissolving in front of him. " He's dying." Natsu refused to look him in the eyes, and that's honestly what was hurting him the most. The ice mage shot forward to catch Natsu's body as he became too weak to stand. "His body is turning into magic?"

"Natsu?" Gray shook him gently, not understanding what was going on. He tried to lift him, but his arms were beginning to pass right through the dragon slayer. "You can't die. Please don't die." Natsu attempted to grab onto Gray, but his hands slipped right through the fabric. Natsu's scarf fell through his body and into Gray's lap, and they both stared at it. "No. No no no no no. You can't. You can't leave me."

The sound of footsteps approached from behind him, but he didn't bother to turn around."Gray, move out of the way." It was Zeref, and when Gray finally did look at him, he had a hole through his chest. "Move!" Gray didn't.

The black wizard huffed. He pulled out a book with the word "END" on it, and he created a knife out of what looked like light. Thousands of strings appeared that were attached to both the book at Natsu. Zeref didn't hesitate. He swung the knife as hard as he could, cutting the strings clear through. He then grabbed a hold of them desperately. He sank to his knees and coughed up a bit of blood. He held them out to Gray, "Listen and listen carefully," He coughed up another mouthful of blood, "You care about him yeah?"Gray nodded, "Good. Ankhseram came for me, and to bring him back, I basically had to turn him into an Etherious. They aren created the way you think they are. They're only bound to their creator if they aren't bound to someone else."

"They're only bound to their creator if they aren't bound to someone else?" It took a moment, but Gray figured out what he was saying. "I'll do it."

Zeref placed the strings in Gray's hands, and they wrapped around his arms, then the rest of him before disappearing. All at once Natsu seemed to solidify, and Gray grabbed onto him. The pinkette sucked in a shaky breath and came out of his own mind. He held onto Gray and stared at his brother. Zeref leaned forward and buried one of his hands in his brother's hair. "I know what you're thinking. Wendy couldn't heal this. It'd hurt her."

"She could try."He protested.

"He's right," Gray agreed.

"Damn straight he's right!" Wendy came barreling through the trees with several others close behind. She knelt down beside the dark mage and began to use her healing magic, which was working surprisingly well.

"Oh." Zeref muttered once he realized he was wrong. He said something in what must have been his original language and let Wendy continue to heal him.

Natsu snorted. "That I can agree with." Gray poked him in the side, nearly making the pinkette jump out of his arms. "What?"

"Want to tell the rest of us what just happened?"

"Zeref said, 'Maybe I'm just super paranoid, or I still subconsciously have a death wish,' which is why I responded that I could agree with it."

Gray balked at him. "I'm assuming he gave you all you memories back?" Natsu nodded, "Good, I can actually ask you this. Have you always been assholes too each other?"

The siblings had an entire conversation with nothing but their eyes, then answered in perfect unison, "You should see it when all three of us are in one place."

A thought seemed to occur to everyone all at once.

"What are we going to do with three Natsus?"

Words: 2,579

Hi guys! I didn't know how to end this one, so I settled for a funny ending. I promise I did NOT plan for it to be this long... Oops? Anyways, I like how this one turned out, and it's also probably novel material. Sadly I have other things planned first.

A special thanks to mdelphin, SilverWhiteDragon, .oO, "Guest", and "Reader" for reviewing on the past five chapters!

As always:

Constructive criticism is always welcome, and if you find a typo, don't hesitate to point it out!

Reviews are my 90% motivation.

Love you guys, and have a good weekend!

-Jinx