Lucy remembered a time when she was young and her mother had taken her to a pumpkin patch. It had been a good harvest and the pumpkins had grown so densely that they were practically stacked on top of each other.
The scene she was looking at now reminded her of the day— except she wasn't looking at pumpkins.
It was bodies.
Hundreds of human corpses riddled the battlefield. Every so often there was a large dragon carcass, sticking out of the field like a bale of hay among her pumpkins. Soldiers were walking around in a daze. Some tried to help the injured while others prayed for the dead.
"Damn," she whispered. She didn't have a clue where to start. Looking for a necklace in this mess seemed impossible.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around.
Zeref stood there, looking a bit pale. She couldn't help but smile. The wimp had finally grown a backbone.
His eyes looked past her towards the field.
At that moment, Lucy knew she had done the right thing by not killing him. Zeref wasn't a monster. The look of pain on his face was too deep to belong to a monster. A person had to have a soul to be hurt like this.
He took a step forward and stumbled. She reached out and helped him regain his balance.
"Dammit," he whispered. "I've seen this place a hundred—no, a thousand times in my dreams but it still steals the warmth from my blood to see this."
"I'm sorry," said Lucy. She didn't know what else to say. There was no comfort for what they were looking at.
"It's okay. We came here to do a job, right?" Zeref straightened himself. "The location isn't far from here, let's go."
He led them as they began making their way past the bodies. A man in torn civilian clothes who had been walking around the field grabbed Lucy. "Do you know where Cuthbert is?" he asked.
"No, I'm sorry. I don't." She looked around and saw a man in a uniform with a sash across his shoulder giving directions to soldiers.
"Why don't you ask that man over there?" she said.
The civilian let go of her arm and started walking towards the man in uniform.
What happened next, didn't seem to make sense.
A woman with matted black hair and white eyes appeared next to the lost man. She looked as if she was blind but Lucy had a feeling it wasn't much of a disability. The woman waved her hand in front of the man's face and he abruptly changed the direction he was walking. The black haired woman then turned towards Lucy.
Lucy was instantly overcome with fear. The woman made no move to threaten her but somehow, a threat had been made.
Lucy blinked and the woman was gone. The encounter was so brief, she wondered if she had hallucinated.
Was that one of the fates?
"Let's keep moving," Zeref said, interrupting her thoughts. He wasn't acting like he had seen anything out of the ordinary.
They started walking again and approached the body of a dragon. "I think that one's still alive," she said. Its chest had moved slightly.
"Could be. Let's go the long way around just to be safe."
As they circled the dragon, Lucy was struck by how immense the beast was. She thought about the carving knife in her boot. It probably wouldn't even get past the beasts thick skin. She needed something bigger if she wanted to protect herself.
There was a sword lying on the ground. She picked it up.
"Good idea," said Zeref. He found another sword and did likewise. "I've never been much of a swordsman." He glanced at her. "I would have preferred my magic but I guess this will have to do."
Touche.
She could hear someone yelling in the direction they were heading. As they got closer, she saw that two men were arguing.
"He's going to end this war," one of the men shouted. His back was towards Lucy but she could see that he was a high ranking soldier.
"This is madness. You're brother shouldn't be trusted with that much power."
Lucy had a pretty good idea she knew who the soldier was. Sure enough, he turned and a familiar scowl was revealed.
The Zeref of X391 looked exactly like the Zeref of X791, right down to the bangs that were just a bit too long and constantly had to be swept back. He was arguing with another officer and didn't notice their presence.
"Aokiji, look around you." Ancient Zeref motioned to the field around them. In his other hand, was something that glinted in the sun. "There was no other choice. If we didn't do something, we were as good as dead."
"There are always options," the officer shot back. "You should have consulted your peers. At the very least, we could have picked someone else. Your brother isn't stable right now."
"He's depressed, not unstable. For God's sake you make it sound like he should be locked up." The ancient Zeref began walking away, right towards their location. Lucy and modern Zeref pretended to be examining one of the corpses at their feet.
"Don't you walk away from me!" Aokiji ran up behind Zeref and shoved him.
Zeref turned around and punched him.
The man's head snapped back and he flew through the air at least twenty feet before he hit the ground.
"What the hell?" Ancient Zeref dropped the necklace and ran after the soldier. He knelt beside him. "Aokiji, can you hear me? Aokiji?"
As soon as Zeref was preoccupied, Lucy ran to the spot where the necklace had fallen. She bent down and wrapped her fingers around the gold chain.
"I'd like to hold onto that."
She turned around and saw modern Zeref standing next to her with his palm outstretched.
She frowned but handed over the necklace. Zeref still needed her to get back so he couldn't double cross her yet.
"Thank you." He pulled a pouch out of his pocket and put the necklace inside. "I don't want to lose this again, now do I?"
"Yeah. Well, we got the necklace, let's get out of here," she said.
"I couldn't agree more."
The two of them started walking back.
"Your story is a little different," said Lucy.
"What do you mean?" asked Zeref.
"Well, you said you dropped the necklace while you were chasing Ancologia."
Zeref pressed his lips together. "I don't want to talk about that."
She decided to drop the subject but hoped Zeref wasn't telling any other little lies.
"Have you seen Cuthbert?" Lucy looked back and saw the man who had questioned them earlier speaking to another soldier. The soldier shook his head and the man looked crestfallen.
"Poor guy," muttered Lucy.
There were shouts and the man who had been looking for Cuthbert turned around. A dragon with a broken wing was running directly at him.
"Get out of the way!" screamed Lucy.
But it was already too late. The dragon opened his toothy maw and clamped down on the upper half of the man. He lifted his head and shook back and forth a couple times, snapping the man's bones like twigs.
There were shouts all around them and a few of the soldiers nearby began sticking the beast with their swords.
"Let's get out of here." Zeref grabbed her arm and started to pull her away.
"We should help them."
"This isn't our war, remember? At least not anymore..."
He had a point. They weren't supposed to get involved—just get in, get the necklace, and get out.
The dragon spit out what was left of the man and began knocking the other soldiers away with his claws and tail. He roared and then charged towards Lucy.
Zeref pushed her aside and swiped the dragon across the nose with his sword. It must have hurt because the dragon stopped his charge and shook his head. For a man who wasn't good at swordplay, Zeref had delivered a pretty good blow.
The dragon reared back and roared again. He snapped his jaws but Zeref was able to dodge them and counter the attack.
Lucy got up and swung her sword in front of her. She had never held a sword except for a few lessons from Erza but she had the feeling she was about to learn fast.
A couple other men joined the fight. They circled the dragon, stabbing him whenever there was an opening.
As the moved, the dragon became increasingly frustrated, snapping at anything that moved. He was strong, but clearly injured. The soldiers seemed to sense his weakness and gained confidence. The frequency and boldness of their attacks increased.
Lucy managed to catch Zeref's attention and pointed at her wrist, signaling that it was time to get going. He nodded and stepped back from the fight. Another solider stumbled and bumped into him, temporarily distracting Zeref just as he was about to withdraw.
It was poor timing for at that moment, the dragon decided to unleash a final weapon—fire.
A burst of flames engulfed Zeref and he fell to the ground screaming. The dragon's flames stopped pouring out of his mouth but Zeref was still on fire. He began flailing his arms, trying to beat out the flames.
For the second time that evening, Lucy tackled him. This time she forced him to roll. The flames were quickly put out except for his hair which she beat out with her hand. He was still screaming which terrified her.
"The fire's out. You're going to be okay," she said.
Zeref turned around and Lucy felt sick. Half of his hair was gone, leaving a nasty looking bald spot but that wasn't the worse part.
The worse part was the left side of his face. Half of his cheek was charred black and it looked like part of his ear was missing.
"When we get back, you can fix that right up," she added.
Zeref didn't speak but he had stopped screaming. He was staring at her with wide eyes.
"Okay, I think you're going into shock. That's okay—I'm going to help you get through this." She reached under his right arm, which was the one that seemed less burnt, and pulled Zeref to his feet. Once up, he swayed back and forth and would have probably toppled over if she had let go.
She draped his arm over shoulder. "Can you walk?" she asked.
He didn't respond.
Tentatively, Lucy took a step. At first, Zeref didn't respond and she had to support his entire weight, but then his instincts took over and his foot stepped forward.
"Okay, that was one step. Can you do it again?"
She took another step. After a moment, Zeref's body followed suit. They continued like that for another ten paces or so before Zeref picked up a slow shuffle.
The pace was excruciatingly slow and their progress was exacerbated by the fact that they had to maneuver around dead bodies. Lucy wasn't sure how much time they had but it felt like they must have been getting close to their limit.
When they got to the hill, Lucy briefly considered rolling Zeref down it but nixed the idea. Zeref was probably in a lot of pain it would be too cruel. Instead, she went in front of him and brought both his arms over her shoulders. She held onto his arms and walked quickly down the hill. Zeref's body was essentially being dragged behind her but the hill helped her handle his weight.
The mill was at just another thirty feet from the bottom of the hill so Lucy continued to drag Zeref there. Her passenger was assisting by taking an occasional step so she knew he was still conscience. When she reached the building, she set him down against the outer wall next to the river.
Her heart was racing. She took a moment to catch her breath and took a few sips of water from the river. She looked over at Zeref. His eyes were closed. She bent down to take a few more sips of water.
"We need to get moving."
Lucy looked up. Zeref's eyes were open now. He looked rough.
"Yeah. Do you think you can walk some?"
He coughed. "Not without assistance."
There were interrupted by another voice.
"Aokiji, please forgive me. I don't know what happened. It's like my strength tripled in an instant."
"It's okay Zeref. I know you didn't mean for this to happen."
Lucy's eyes widened. Ancient Zeref and the man who he had struck were inside the mill. They must have gone ahead of them while she and Zeref were fighting the dragon.
"We really need to get going," said the injured Zeref. There was a new urgency in his voice that got Lucy to her feet.
"Okay, here we go." She hoisted him up and slung his arm back over her shoulder. They began walking. he was able to help out more but they were still going slow.
"This is bad," he muttered.
"Why? I don't see the dragons yet."
He was quite for a moment. "I lied. It wasn't dragons who burnt the field at Crocus—it was me."
Her heart skipped a beat but she kept walking.
"That man… Aokiji… he was my friend. He's about to die and we don't want to be around when that happens."
He stumbled and fell to the ground. Lucy looked around and saw the shimmering outline of Eclipse. It was only a hundred yards away.
"This is going too slow," she said.
She crouched low and lifted Zeref over her back. With great effort, she stood up and began to walk.
"I can still walk. Put me down woman."
"Shut up. This is quicker and you know it." Her legs were burning. She knew she would only be able to keep this up for a short distance. It was time to use the Lucy-dig-deep button.
"You have taken the absolute last shred of my dignity. It is gone… vanquished… departed… evaporated…"
Lucy picked up the pace. It seemed that Zeref had found a new button—the Zeref-is-a-pain-in-the-ass-and-I-want-this-to-end button.
"dissolved… finished …" Zeref fell blessedly silent. It was just a bit further to the door.
"Run."
"What?" she asked.
"I said run!"
With shaky legs, Lucy picked up the pace again. She couldn't lift her legs up high enough to run but they were skimming the ground at a good clip.
"Faster!" said Zeref.
Lucy reached out and pushed the door. It opened and they stumbled through. As she was falling, she looked back in time to see a black mist covering the earth. Everything it touched was withering and turning black. The mist was so close it looked like it may follow them through the door. She had up her hands up to block her face but the door slammed shut.
"We made it," she panted. There were both lying in the dirt of the courtyard of Zeref's castle.
A green light shimmered across Zeref's body. The charred wounds disappeared, leaving clean, unmarked skin. He stood up and looked down at Lucy.
"Yes we certainly did," he said. "Now, I'd like to have a little chat about that stunt you just pulled."