26

Recap: They looked up to see the ice has melted away from the demon's head and arms now, allowing it the ability to roar all it wants or even swing its arms.

Natsu, Harry, and Gray look to each other again and voiced, "This isn't good."

Harry pulls out his wand, getting ready to fight. Natsu does the same thing next to him, getting into a fighting stance with his fist up in front of him. Gray didn't follow their lead. He bent down, making the other two look at him, and he placed his hand into the melted ice, and held it.

"Thank you, Ur," Gray said softly and sadly. He turned back to Deliora, but he, Natsu, and Harry turned when they heard Lyon crawling from behind.

"Finally… I can finally surpass Ur…" Lyon said obsessively, having a crazed and excited look in his eyes. "You three stay out of it. I'll kill it." Harry and Natsu were not impressed.

"You can't fight it! You can't even stand!" Natsu exclaimed.

Harry turned to Fawkes. "You need to hurry and heal Gray," he said.

Fawkes gave him a look that says he's crazy. {I can't cry at a time like this!} the phoenix shouted in his head.

"You can't?!" Harry asked in surprised, having Natsu and Gray snap their heads toward him. He sees the question in their eyes, and answers, "Gray, you're going to have to heal the wound yourself for now, because Fawkes can't cry right now."

Gray nodded in understanding; this is after all not a time for tears. So, he incases his injury in his ice.

"We meet again, Deliora," they all heard Lyon say, making them turn their attention back to him. "You're the only monster that Ur couldn't defeat. I'll do what she couldn't with my own hand, right here, right now," he declared while struggling to get up. He was standing almost fully straight when Gray knocks him out.

Harry was glad that someone at least knocked Lyon out; otherwise, he would have gotten himself killed. Not long after this thought goes through his head does he feel like doing the same for Gray. The idiot stood in front of Deliora, and got into position to do Ice-Shell. Harry and Fawkes face-palmed – or in Fawkes' case, buried his face under his wing – when they saw this.

"Gray, what are you doing?!" Harry shouted. "If you use Ice-Shell, then these people will just undo it again!"

"At least it'll be for a long time before this thing attacks us again. No one is in condition to fight this demon," Gray answered.

"I am!" Harry pointed out loudly.

{He's being an idiot!} Fawkes squawked, and Harry knew that there was something that he wanted to say to Gray, so he gets ready to translate. {That thing is almost dead already! There is no need to seal it again, because it's taking its last breaths!} Harry shouted with the same amount of enthusiasm as his familiar in the hopes that it will knock some sense into the ice mage.

Gray doesn't show any indication that he heard them, because he didn't answer and was just about to cast the spell when Natsu decides to step in between him and Deliora.

"Natsu, get out of the way!" Gray demanded.

Natsu turned his head to the side and moved his eyes to focus on him. "I stopped you last time, because I didn't want you to die. So what makes you think I'm going to let you know?" he questioned, surprising Gray. "You can use it if you want to, but I'm not moving."

Deliora pulls his arm back, making Gray panic and worry for Natsu's safety. Harry was getting worried too, but Fawkes reassures him.

"Natsu, look out!" Gray shouted in fear for his friend.

Natsu doesn't listen; instead he pulls his own arm back. He waits for the demon's fist to start flying towards him, and when it was close enough Natsu threw his own punch. The two fists collide with each other, resulting Deliora's arm to crack and fall apart, proving that Fawkes was right all along.

Fawkes was laughing in pure glee when he saw Lyon, who is awake again, looking on in shock. Harry wanted to know why he was laughing, but then remembered that he said he was going to laugh when he was proven right about Deliora dying.

Harry turns to Lyon and says, "You shouldn't have questioned a millennia old Phoenix, because now Fawkes is going to be smug for a while."

Lyon was looking even more shocked by this news. "Fawkes is a phoenix?" Harry points to the laughing bird on his shoulder, telling the white-haired ice mage just what and who he is. "That's Fawkes? Where did you even get a phoenix?"

Harry shrugged in reply. "He found me."

Fawkes stops laughing, but Harry, and anyone else who were looking, could see the laughter in his eyes, and turns to face Lyon. He spreads his wings in joy, and trill a song. This normally is a soothing sound, but Lyon knows that he's being mocked. He grits his teeth together in anger.

Harry takes pity on Lyon and starts to pet Fawkes' chest feathers. "That's enough, he gets the idea. He won't question you again about if something is dying or not. Right…?" He turned his eyes to glare at the ice mage when he said the last word, making Lyon nod his head in answer.

Lyon was still furious about Deliora being dead due to the fact that he wasted ten years of his life training and later trying to free the demon, and he could no longer fulfill his dream of surpassing his master.

Harry turned back in time to hear Natsu say to Gray that his teacher was awesome, but both Harry and Fawkes noticed that Gray was crying. Fawkes looks into his mind and says to Harry. {He's remembering Ur telling him that she freed him from the darkness.}

Harry met his familiar's eyes. 'You shouldn't read the minds of people, who are crying, it's rude,' he scolded.

"Thank you, Ur," Gray sobbed, making Harry, Natsu, and Fawkes smile at him, knowing that they are not just sad tears.


Natsu, Harry, Fawkes, and Gray, who is helping Lyon, walked out of the temple. The moment they were outside, they heard Lucy's voice calling to them.

Natsu grinned. "Hey Lucy! You missed all the fun!" he told her.

"I wasn't all that fun…" Harry muttered to himself.

{That's because you didn't do any of the fighting since last night,} Fawkes reasoned.

'Was the fight with Toby really a fight?' Harry thought to himself with no amusement, but then a thought hit him again. He turned returned his focus back on his familiar. "Can you heal Gray?" Fawkes nodded to confirm, and flew over to the black-haired ice mage.

Lucy, Happy, and Erza are now in front of them. "What happened to Deliora?" the blond-haired girl asked.

Harry is the one to answer, "It was already dead like Fawkes told me yesterday, but Natsu's punch is what did it in." The reason he was the one to answer is because Natsu is trying to run away the moment he saw Erza. But he wasn't going anywhere, because she already caught him.

"What about Gray's friend?" Lucy asked another question.

Harry pointed over to Gray and Lyon; Gray was helping his old friends lean up on a rocky wall. After he was done that, he walked closer to them, and leaned on another rocky wall for Fawkes to heal his injury. "Gray defeated him, and then shortly after Deliora was unsealed. He was going to try and fight the demon, but Lyon couldn't even stand too well. So, now he thinks his dream in a lost cause."

"I get the feeling that you don't think so."

"You would be right. I know that there are stronger beings out there than that demon. So, this guy would have to find one of those, and he could still surpass his mentor. But don't tell him I said that," Harry told Lucy quietly. He felt that if Lyon heard what he said, he'll try to go after those creatures, and most likely get himself killed, because they would be S-Class level.

"Yeah!" Harry jumped, not expecting Natsu's shout of joy, and turned his green eyes to focus on him. "We've done it! We succeeded our first S-Class quest!" he exclaimed some more.

"Aye sir!" Happy joined in like he always does. Harry noticed that Lucy was smiling happily along with them, and he would have followed their lead if it wasn't for Fawkes, who is perched on a rock.

{In case you all forgotten, Erza is standing right over there giving you all a dark look.} Harry turned to face Erza and saw what his familiar was talking about. He cleared his throat to get the others' attention. When they looked over to him, he pointed to the red-haired mage with a nervous look on his face. When they saw Erza's expression, they feared for the worst.

"I forgot; we're going to be punished when we get back!" Lucy panicked.

"There is still something you need to do before that," Erza said. "You're job isn't quite finished yet. If I recall, your job was to save the villagers who turned into demons?"

Harry face-palmed. "Oh yeah, we got the wrong demon," he said, sounding like he was scolding himself.

"But wasn't the cures because of Deliora?" Lucy asked.

{If that were the case, then all the people that met the demon, like Gray for example, would have been a demon as well,} Harry translated what Fawkes said.

Erza nodded. "That's right; although, not in the way I would have said it," she confirmed. "What caused this curse was because of the moon drip."

"Then let's go heal them real quick!" Natsu exclaimed excitedly.

{I wouldn't want to fix them too quickly if we're going to be punished later. Wait, let's throw them under the bus,} Fawkes suggested.

'Why/How?" Harry asked thoughtfully to Fawkes, but Gray asked how they were going to fix the villagers at the same time as he did to Natsu.

{Let's throw them under the bus, because we didn't want to be here in the first place. We couldn't go back due to Natsu kidnapping you, and lack of a boat to get us back,} Fawkes explained. For the answer to Gray's question, Lyon told them that he didn't know how to fix the villagers.

"WHAT!?" everyone shouted in shock.

"But if you don't know who to fix them, then how are we going to break the curse?" Lucy questioned.

"We've known about the village since we got here three years ago. We didn't see any reason to bother with them. Not once have they visited us either," Lyon said.

"That was when the moon turned purple, isn't it?" Harry asked Fawkes, who has returned to his shoulder and nodded in answer to his question.

"I doubt the moon drip have anything to do with them turning into demons," Lyon added.

Natsu looked doubtful. "What…? Don't say 'it wasn't our fault' speech," he stated.

"Think about it," Lyon suggested. "We've been under the same light for three years as well, and we're still human."

Harry's eyes widened followed by everyone else on his team. "He's right… why are the villagers demons, but not you guys?" he asked.

{I believe I may have been right. Remember when we first got here? I told you that I don't think that those people were human to begin with,} Fawkes reminded.

Harry mused for a few moments, and then muttered, "So the moon drip doesn't affect humans, but it could on demons?" Erza heard him due to being the closest, and Natsu not paying attention.

"I believe that may be right, Harry," she said. "But, I want to make sure. So, we're going to go back and asked them some questions." She grabbed Natsu, who looked ready to fight Lyon. Harry wondered what was said to get Natsu to want to punch an already defeated man, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind and followed Erza and the other back to the village.


Harry and his team made it to the storage area that the villagers were staying at, only to find them not there. They wondered where they went, but shortly after this thought, one of the townspeople comes running up to them. He tells them that they wouldn't believe something, and that they needed to follow him. So they follow, and after a bit of walking they're in front of the village, that is now fixed.

Everyone's eyes widened in surprise or shock, but Natsu was the only one with his lower jaw hanging by a thread to his upper jaw. They wondered what happened, but Harry, Fawkes, and Natsu think they may have figured it out.

'Was it that Zalty guy?' Harry asked mentally.

{I believe so. He is the only one here that has the power to fix a whole village back to the way it was in such a short amount of time,} Fawkes replied after hearing Harry's thoughts, making him flinch in surprise.

'I forgot for a split second that you like to read my mind.' He glared at the phoenix. 'Warn me when you're going to answer a thought that was to myself next time,' he scolded, making Fawkes chuckle.

Harry noticed that Lucy walks over to where the chief is, which was sitting by his son's grave. Lucy told him what they did, and he seemed grateful for it, but then he demands when they are going to destroy the moon again. If he was looking, Harry would have seen Erza's interest being peaked.

The chief and Lucy were closer to them now, and Erza answers for Lucy, because she doesn't know what to say. "It'll be done shortly; destroying the moon is a simple task." Gray and Happy sweat drop, unimpressed, and Harry and Fawkes give Erza a look that says she's crazy. "I first would like to ask some questions first. Could you gather everyone for me?" Erza requested.

After all the villagers were gathered, Erza starts asking them some things. "So let me see if I have the story straight. You all started to turn into this demon form after the moon turned purple, is that right?"

"We only turn into this form when the moon is out," the chief answered her.

"From what I heard, this started three years ago?" All the villagers nodded their head in reply. "But…for three years, the moon drip was used. You should have been able to see a ray of purple light at the temple every day," Erza stated while walking, and didn't notice the pile of straw lying on the ground. She stepped on top of it and she fell through.

Everyone was shocked to hear such a girly scream coming from Erza when she fell, but Lucy was the only one panicking. "I DIDN'T DO IT!" she chanted.

Erza gets out of the hole, and crosses her arms. "The temple should have been the place to check out when this started happening," she stated, not even reacting to falling into the pitfall.

{She continues speaking like it was nothing…} Fawkes said softly impressed, and Harry nodded in agreement.

"Why didn't you investigate it?" she questioned.

The villagers all look to each other, not sure how to answer. "For many year, we were taught to never go anywhere near that temple," the chief was the one to answer.

"But wouldn't this make it an exception to go up there?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, with all the casualties, I would have gone up there to see what was going on," Lucy added.

"Can you tell us the truth?" Erza asked, but it sounded more like a demand.

The chief bowed his head in defeat. "To tell the truth, we don't know anything. We've tried to go to the temple many times," he answered. "Everyone would grab weapons, and I would fix my sideburns, and we would try to go up there. But every time we go, we can't even get close to it. We would walk straight to the temple only to be in front of the village gates again."

Harry was surprised by this, and looked over to his familiar for an explanation. Fawkes answers his silent question. {It would appear that I was right. That temple was a holy place. No creature of dark nature would be able to get close.} Harry nodded in acceptance to the answer, and turned his attention back on what's in front of him. He only heard Erza mutter something to herself, and he gets the feeling that she came to the same conclusion as he and Fawkes.

Erza's armor changes to her Giant's Armor, and she asks Natsu to go with her. "We're going to destroy the moon," she declared, making everyone shock, and Natsu very happy.

The two of them go to the watch tower, and since Harry wasn't up there with them, he couldn't hear what they were saying. He did hear Erza say what kind of armor she is using, and then equip a spear into her hand and say that it is the evil crushing spear that destroys darkness.

"You're going to throw that to destroy the moon? Neat!" Natsu exclaimed loudly.

'More like impossible…' Harry, Lucy, Gray, and Fawkes thought to themselves.

Erza started talking to Natsu again, but Harry could no longer hear them, but he does get the feeling it has something to do with the reason the dragon slayer is up there with her. 'He's there to give that spear a boost, isn't he?' he thought.

Even though none of them could hear what is being said between the two, they can all see that they are both into the plan.

"Please tell me they're not really going to break the moon…" Lucy worried.

{I don't think so…} Fawkes said more to himself than answering the female mage, so Harry didn't translate for him.

Erza and Natsu got ready to throw the spear, and when the moment was right, Natsu punch the back end of the weapon with a lot of his flames, giving it an extra boost. Everyone watched the spear fly for quite a bit before it hit and creating cracks.

"They did it?!" Lucy exclaimed in shock. The cracks in the moon spread out even more and beyond it, shocking everyone in the village.

A hole appeared in the sky, making the moon show that it's white again and not destroyed. Harry and all the people around him are staring in shock.

"The moon didn't break, but the sky did?" Harry and Lucy said at the same time.

"What is going on?" Natsu demanded to know.

"The island was covered in an evil layer," Erza started explaining, making sure everyone could hear her. "Think of it as gas that came from the moon drip. They crystallized and created a dome over the island. This is what made the moon look purple," she finished.

Magic started up around all the villagers, and the Fairy Tail mages except Harry, Fawkes and Erza thought that they were going to turn back into humans, but they didn't. The villagers are still very much demons. Gray, Natsu, Lucy, and Happy are all confused, until Erza told them that only their memories were affected by the evil layer, and that they were demons from the start.

The demons were still very confused, but after everything calmed down, they remember everything.

TBC


Deliora is dead, the village is fixed, and everyone remembers their identities. All that is left in this arc is for Bobo to show up, Lucy to get her new key, and then them leaving. I'm going to write the episode where everyone switched bodies in the next chapter as well, because I'm skimming over the party that is thrown for Fairy Tail.

Natsu: Sounds like a plan! XD But who are you going to switch with Harry? :/

Enj/Dark: I'm not telling. You can all guess though, I'm not stopping ya. Just be warned, I'm not going to deny or confirm you're guesses.

Harry: Why doesn't that surprise me? -_-

Voldy: Because that is something she would do.

Zeref: I have to agree with that one.

Harry: Right… Please review! :)