He had to pull himself out of bed. They would be leaving for home soon. Mira was already up and packing. He had not yet told her about Lisanna being alive. He just knew that when the time came, both sisters would be reunited. But right now wasn't the best time to bring it up. If Bickslow was changing, Lisanna was likely to return home. From how she had put it, she had grown to distrust her husband. The love he had seen all of those years ago, was almost gone from her eyes. He hoped that part of his brother was still alive in that body. That the demon that shared with him was only hanging on by a thread and was about to be over thrown. But he knew that wasn't the case. His brother was giving in to whatever the demon commanded. It would not be long before he disappeared entirely.

"Laxus?" He flinched as Mira touched his shoulder, bring him out of this thoughts. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. I'm just tired."

She frowned. "We just had a vacation. I don't think you should be so tired."

He put on a smile. "It's a different kind of tired."

That seemed to work as she gave him one of her signature smiles. "Just remember that we need to get out of here by midnight tonight. It's going to be a long ride back to Magnolia and I want to see my baby."

Finally, he smiled genuinely. "Yeah, I bet that Ever wants to get back to her son as well."

A steady knock on the door, forced them both to look at their visitor. Mrs. Modd stood there looking as happy as could be. "I know that you are all getting ready to leave. But I was hoping that you would come by and watch Fred's speech at the capitol building. I know politics can be boring, but looking at our numbers, we may have a shot."

"Have a shot at what?" He asked, wondering why the woman looked so excited.

"Fred has been hiding something from me. Apparently, his party has set him up to be the candidate to face Magnus Knud in the next election. We may have a chance to stop the oncoming war." She said happily.

He froze. What Lisanna said about Bickslow was starting to sink in. He would stop at nothing to get his war. Fredrick mod was in danger. There was no way that his brother could let him get into office.

"We'll be there." Mira gave him a confused look as Mrs. Modd smiled.

"I'll let him know that you are going." The older woman said, leaving the room.

"Laxus, I thought we were leaving." Mira asked.

He gave her a small smile. "We are, but after all of the hospitality that Modd has given us, I think it would be nice to at least show up and give him our support. We can leave after the speech is done."

With that she gave him a smile, showing that she agreed. He hated lying to her and he hoped that his instincts were wrong. He still didn't know what he was going to do if what Lisanna said was true. How would he even tell his grandfather?

He smiled down at his daughter as she played on the floor. Lisanna looked really happy to his right.

"She's gotten so big." He said, kind of shocked. Was this what she meant by him missing out on things?

His wife giggled. "Well children do grow like weeds." She stood up and started to head to the kitchen. "Remy and Ivan are going to over soon and I think Vik is bring his….well…I don't know what to call them."

He could tell that she was happy to have the entire family under their roof for this. He was always absent from these kinds of things. Sure, he got the occasional day off, but with this Modd stuff and the oncoming war, he didn't have much time anymore.

'Don't forget that you have to meet with Flare soon.' Cetus reminded him.

'We still have four hours before that.' He thought back.

The demon chuckled. 'Do you really think you can keep this from them? That they will not notice that the times will match up.'

'All they will know was that I was in the restroom, nothing more, nothing less.'

"Bickslow?" Lisanna called for him from the other room. "Can you go and change Xenia for the party?"

"Yeah. I'll get it." He called back. He reached down and picked up his daughter. She was 2 today. He really couldn't believe that she had grown this fast. From what he had heard, she already had her first power. In no time, she would be useful to him. He tensed up at the thought. He was doing all of this for her. She wasn't a weapon. She was his child.

'She's going to be a strong one. Imagine the possibilities.' Cetus started.

He almost dropped his daughter in shock. What was going on? It was almost like he had been drowning in darkness for months and he was coming up for air for the first time. Was this what he really thought of his family?

The demon growled in the back of his mind. 'Dammit, I was so close." Cetus said angrily. Suddenly, he could feel it, as the monster tried to tether him back in.

He barely had time to set his daughter down in her crib, before he was flown onto the floor. His head felt like it was going to explode. He wanted to cry out, but it was like there was a hand over his mouth, muffling any sound that he could make.

His skin felt hot, as he began to pull at his scalp. Trying as much as he could to remove the demon from his mind.

Xenia began to cry and he could hear Lisanna yelling at him form down stairs. The demon cursing the two of them.

His wife walked in angry, but her anger faded in seconds as she found him on the floor. "Bickslow, what is going on?!" He could hear the fear in her voice. She was scared.

"A knife." He barely got the words out as the monster began to close his airway. It wanted him gone. It wanted him out of the picture and under its spell.

His wife ran into the other room, as he began to scratch at his throat.

'After I did everything for you. Don't you want the power to destroy your enemies?! We could have ruled together. The three of us." Cetus said angrily.

'Three? You never planned for Lisanna and Xenia to be with us.' He yelled at the other in his mind.

It chuckled. 'No, why would I want someone as boring as Lisanna, when Flare is available.'

'You're a bastard! You planned this from the beginning, didn't you?!' He thought back, his mind was starting to slow down. He was having a hard time breathing now. It was almost like he was drowning in the darkness again. His body began to move of its own accord.

'That's it. Come.' Cetus chuckled darkly. His mind faded out completely as he went under. "We have an empire to create." With that Cetus, laughed aloud darkly for the first time in over a thousand years, before teleporting out with his new body.

She returned to find the room in a mess, her husband was nowhere to be seen.

She fell to her knees as her daughter cried. How had she not seen the signs earlier?

She heard the multiple knocks and some yelling from down stairs. Remy and Ivan had just entered the house with Vik and his two lovers in tow.

"Lisanna?" She could hear Remy call for her up the stairs. Her heart was breaking as she looked down at the knife in her hands. If only she had moved faster.

She heard movement up the stairs, not everyone was coming up the stairs.

She looked over to the door as Remy walked in, looking down at her in confusion. "Why are you and Xenia up here? And why are you on the floor?" Before she could answer, her father-in-law saw the knife. "Why do you have a knife?" He sounded as if he was trying to stay calm. He must have been thinking the worst.

"Remy….it's taken him." She said, not knowing how or what to say. How do you really tell someone that their son had become possessed by a demon? Tears burned her eyes as she remembered how panicked he looked before she ran off to grab the knife. She didn't know what he wanted with it, but for the first time in a long time, she had seen her husband. A few nights ago, she thought that maybe she had come across him, but that was real. The demon inside was now in control. It was probably too late to save him.

The man cocked his head to the side and raised his right eyebrow. "Lisanna, what has taken who?"

"Cetus….it's taken over him. It has been in control of his thoughts for months. It has to be. He looked so scared and I ran to grab the knife because he told me to. When I came back, he was gone. I don't know what it wants." It all came spilling from her mouth.

She could see his eyes flash. "So all this time, that monster has been manipulating him?"

She nodded, it felt as if her throat had closed up. Her head was pounding from all of the stress.

She shook as he scooped her up, taking her downstairs. She dropped the knife, leaving it on the floor of the bedroom. Xenia was safely in her crib so there were no worries about that.

"Lisanna! What happened?" Ivan was the first to her. All she could was cry into her hands, she felt so helpless.

"Cetus has fully possessed Bickslow." Remy said, putting her down on the couch. "He has run off and we don't know where he has gone."

Ivan looked at the both shocked and he wasn't the only one. Edvin and Kitt looked absolutely terrified at the idea.

"He's close to my dad, what if something happens to him?" Edvin said, sounding worried.

Kitt looked like he was trying to calm him down, but it wasn't working.

Vik on the other hand, seemed to have something else on his mind.

"Viktor, what is wrong with you?" Kitt asked, the whole room turned to stare at him.

"I think I know where he will go." Vik said, turning to his parents.

The two of them looked at their son in confusion as did she. "How do you know that?" She couldn't believe that she could speak. Her throat felt so scratched up.

"We started training together. Bickslow thought that we needed to learn how to use…that before everything went to hell." Vik answered.

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" Remy asked, she could hear the worry in his voice.

"That's not important right now. If that demon is in control of him, then it has access to that power." Unlike the others, Vik didn't sound as worried as everyone else. "Cetus will become a weapon and he won't stop until he has conquered everything for himself."

Kitt looked at Edvin alarmed. "Master Bickslow is a weapon? If he's that powerful, how can you be so confident? How can we stop him?"

She already knew what Vik was going to say, but Ivan beat her to it. "No…you're not doing that. We have already lost your brother. You think we want to lose you too?" The man pleaded.

"You know that it is the only way. Bickslow and I are what we are. I have trained myself on how to use it, be it is only for a short amount of time, but I have to try." Vik argued.

"You can't go in alone. Your brother is stronger than you. You would be walking to the gallows." Remy argued back.

She watched as the boy shook his face. "Who said that I would be going alone. Warner and Carma will be with me." He sighed. "I know you don't like it, but we are out of options. It may be the only way to save Bickslow from Cetus."

"Even if I go along with this plan, and I'm not saying that I will. How do we even find him?" Remy said.

"Didn't you hear me before. I know where he will run off to. In the end, Cetus will run to the cave." All eyes stared at the boy dumbfounded. "Where do you think we trained. Bickslow and Warner rebuilt it, most likely because Cetus wanted it."

"So what you're saying is that we need to teleport there." Remy said, sighing.

"Remy, you aren't going along with this are you?" Ivan said in shock.

"If we have a chance, we need to take it. Maybe Vik is right. If we can get Bickslow to fight it, we may be able to save him." Remy sighed. "Besides, I don't think that we can change his mind."

The whole room again was watching Vik. "I know you'll hate to hear me say this, but I am a weapon. Let me do my job." She could see that both Edvin and Kitt looked shocked at this revelation. Vik had never told them about this side of himself.

She looked around the room one last time, knowing that all of her hopes rested on whether her brother-in-law would succeed. She just wondered what Cetus could be doing now? Was he off in the old guild or was he somewhere else?

He laughed to himself as he reappeared. His plans would be completed as scheduled. Only Modd and Knud would fall this day. The country of Absolon would he his again.

But before that, he had other things to attend to.

He knocked on the door a couple of times, a wild smirk on his face.

The door opened and he looked down at her. "Master? I thought that we weren't meeting until later?" She asked.

He chuckled to himself, as he pushed himself into her apartment. "I figured that we could find a better way to pass the time." And with that the demon pinned her to the wall. She squirmed for a bit, looking slightly panicked, but melted as soon as he pulled her into a frantic kiss.

To Be Continued…

Author's Note

Sorry that this is late. I was sick as a dog and it took a little longer to get this finished. So Bickslow is kind of gone, for now. Cetus is in control now. This kind of explains Bickslow's behavior. Cetus was slowly taking over his body and mind. What is Cetus's link to Absolon and why does he think that it is his? Guess you well have to read to find out.

Paupus- I don't know about adding anymore characters at the moment, mainly because the cast is a little full. I may put them in sometime in the future though.