It was unclear who was more relieved to see who, but Erza Scarlet felt herself just about ready to scream in relief. She did not even object when Natsu grabbed her and strong armed her into a hug. Thank God I found my armour before I found them. He might latch on and never let go. Lucy seemed more relieved than him, if that were possible. She pried Natsu off Erza with surprising ease. Unlike him, she waited for Erza to move to hug her before she tried to herself. Gray and Juvia were the only ones who stood back, albeit only by about a foot. It only lasted about a minute before they all tried to take a look around. It was not quite dark in the Tower, but it could not be considered well lit by any means. Erza shivered a bit, less than she had before finding her armour again. This place. It sickened her to the core. Her life as a child, all those years she had lost, were gone because of this place, and those times were becoming more and more entwined with the life she had built for herself. How had things gotten so bad? This was everything she had tried to abandon. She swallowed hard. Took another look around. Footsteps. Closer, closer, and, then, a voice that had haunted her thoughts since she had woken up in the –

"Erza? What on earth are you doing here?"

Every bit of her stood up on end. She turned around, unsure if she were relieved or irate.

"Siegrain," She hissed. "What are you doing here?"

He hesitated. The Wizard Saint and Titania did not break their gaze at the other.

Do not give anything up. What if he's here for Jellal?

She narrowed her eyes.

Erza, please allow me to help. I am taking a risk enough for all I've worked for to be here, now. Do not get in my way.

Siegrain met her scowl with no hint of bother or emotion at all.

"Erza," He eventually said. "Your move."

She took a few steps towards him, her fists clenched.

"I was dragged here against my will by people I thought were my friends. My real friends came here and are risking their safety to try and rescue me. So, I ask again: what are you doing here?"

"Trying to buy time," He coldly replied. "I recommend you all get out of here."

Erza frowned. "And why is that?"

"Because –"

"Siegrain," She suddenly snapped, raising a finger to silence him. "Stop," She wavered, taking in a deep breath to calm herself when she looked back to Lucy, Natsu, Happy, Gray, and Juvia. "There's something wrong here. He's...Jellal is –"

"Planning something?"

They all startled. What appeared to be an apparition appeared before them, smirking until it set eyes on the twenty two year old Wizard Saint.

"Siegrain. My brother," Jellal's projection said disdainfully. "Funny to finally find you here when you should have been with us all along."

Erza turned towards him, eyes narrow.

You're not with him. Siegrain, what the hell are you playing at?

"We can resolve this peacefully, Jellal," He said with as much disdain for his twin as he had been shown. "There is no need to shed any blood today."

Jellal stiffened. In his head, he could hear the voices shrieking, subsuming him, and leaving no room for much of his own thoughts.

"Your freedom was never stripped from you," Jellal eventually got out through gritted teeth. "I suffered – we all suffered – for years because of –"

"You're asking for it!" Natsu shouted, summoning fire in the palm of his hands. "If you think killing people is –"

"Only one needs to die," Jellal impatiently told him. "But, as trespassers, I have a few for you to…intercept."

"Stop this, Jellal," Erza stepped forward to confront his illusion. "You have said it yourself. We all suffered enough, and none of us..." She sent Siegrain a dark and untrusting look. "...None of us want to kill you."

He shook his head, eyes falling on his brother again.

"A lie to your own ears."

The apparition vanished in a gust of wind, and the power of it nearly knocked all of them to the ground. Natsu began to fume incoherently, rambling some of what could be construed as swears that made little to no sense. Lucy pulled out her keys, and her hands clamped around them, the tips of her fingers tapping erratically. Happy started letting out war whoops along with Natsu. Gray, too, was pissed off. To no one's shock, he ripped off his shirt. Juvia briefly stared longingly at his abs. She quickly came back around. Things were bad. There was no levity that could be found. And they all reacted in a matter of seconds before falling deftly silent, turning to Erza. She could not hear or feel any of them, just about. Her mind was spinning. Seeing him vanish, clear, like glass was too much a reminder of how much had changed. The boy she had known was gone. What was worse was the feeling of abandonment that had been lingering in her thoughts since she had first woken up in the Tower. She had been abandoned by her mother. She had been abandoned by the system meant to protect young children. She had been abandoned by her friends when she had tried to help them escape with her. She had been abandoned by Jellal, then, when he decided to take up 'perfecting' the Tower. She felt abandoned by him, now, she told herself, because she had hoped, somehow, that Sho had been mistaken. He hadn't been.

Her eyes met Siegrain's again.

They both took a small step back when they realised they were equally shaken.

"Oh, God…" Lucy mumbled, rubbing her slightly pained head, and breaking into the brief silence that had befallen them. "What are we going to do against that?"

"We'll split up," Erza said with finality, bringing herself back. "Siegrain and I will try to find Jellal, and the rest of you –"

Lucy and Gray both shrieked upon a meteor falling out seemingly nowhere. It nearly hit them, and Juvia.

"Great," Siegrain said dryly, looking around. "It seems they've decided to send a bit of a welcoming party for this 'special' occasion."

Natsu snorted. "We're going to burn this place down!"

Lucy, feeling a change in the air, turned around, only to find a group of six standing across from them. Poised for the kill, and almost smug, they simply stood there in wait.

"No," She whispered. "He wasn't –"

Erza did not hear anything else when she and the others turned around, too. Lucy was visibly shaken, and reasonably so. Erza found herself feeling sick once again. Apart from one of the six, she recognised them all. Personal. It was all personal. Why? That was the only word she could consistently come up with. It was also the question that had assaulted her, left her without any ability to escape the nightmare for years. They had lost so much, all of them. Why did things have to get worse? Why did things only seem to get worse? Those had been the last words she had spoken to him the day she left when they had been children, too. Why? It was simple enough, but she had never gotten an answer. She would never get an answer, she was beginning to believe. Without warning, the world began to blur around them. She was only able to run up the stairs with Siegrain because of the magic circle he used to delay the impact of the magic the six unleashed upon them. For the others, however, they had no idea where they were when they no longer felt so disoriented by it all. Siegrain and Erza were gone. The others had become fractured, no strength in their almost equal numbers to their attackers.

The curse of the tower seemed to have been unleashed.

"It's probably up there, given what the job description said," Evergreen said dubiously, stepping into a library just behind her teammates. She pointed up at the shelves almost all the way up the forty foot ceilings. She frowned. "Which one of us is going to –"

"She's already starting up," Bickslow started laughing, his tongue sticking out with his babies squealing around him. "Hey, Riley! Don't fall!"

Riley, who had tied double foot locks and was swinging over towards the top of the shelving, flipped him off and, childishly, stuck out her own tongue.

"What are we looking for again?" Riley called down, her high pitched voice echoing across the room. "It's a book, right? But what kind?"

"It's a big one if that's what you're asking!" Freed called up with a frown. "Ornate, too! Probably has a leather cover, which –"

"Catch!" Riley pulled a book off the shelf, knocking off some rather creepy porcelain animals. "I'm coming down in just a few!"

Bickslow kicked the book instead of catching it, with both Freed and Evergreen stepping out of the way. Riley squeaked when she heard the book hit the ground with a thud. She squeaked again when the clash and cracking of porcelain hit the floor, too. Evergreen stepped over to the curtains Riley had scaled to watch her slide down. Bickslow had begun to flip through the book the second he pulled it up off the ground. Freed just about ripped it out of his hands. The two of them seemed, for a few seconds, about ready to play a painful and violent game of tug of war for the book. Bickslow gave up, instead taking the opportunity to look around. He sighed. The job had been a lot more enjoyable in theory than in practise. I thought breaking and entering would be a lot more crazy. The manor of a dead man was a lot less dilapidated than he had expected, which had been a bit of a letdown for him. There had been a brief thrill at finding alcohol in a wine cellar he had walked into by accident. The lecture Freed had given him about drinking on the job had been the second let down. He looked back over at the book tucked under one of Freed's arms with his sword held in the other. When he heard Riley hopping over towards them, albeit being dragged by Evergreen, he finally let go of his curiosity for a few seconds.

"Here are these back," He winked at the pale and bony pink haired Dreyar and tossed a purse, book, and pom pom pen to her. "Smart of you not to cling onto those while climbing thirty feet up in the air. Glad you kept your glasses on, though. I was worried you were going to swing into the window."

Riley rolled her eyes, rummaging through her bag for her communications lacrima and MP3 player.

"I've been doing stunts like that for a few years, now," She let out a sigh of relief upon finding them both in there. She dropped her book of shadows and pom pom pen in, too, before zipping her purse shut. "That better be the book, because I don't trust the curtain rods to hold."

"It is," Freed said shortly. "Shall we take our leave now?"

Riley and Bickslow shared a look and started to walk off with him. Evergreen stepped into the doorway to stop them, clearing her throat, and crossing her arms.

"Lord Greymatter is dead," She said pointedly. "So, why should we not take a look at what's in it?"

Riley grimaced. "I'm not convinced a live cockroach or something won't fall out of that book."

"Also, you broke things," Freed added, sending her a dark look. "On purpose."

"Sort of," She said, bobbing up and down on her toes. "What's the point of being in an abandoned place without making it feel abandoned?

"I kind of want to know what's in it," Bickslow shrugged. "Why don't we just open it and walk? The car isn't that far."

The four of them went briefly silent. Freed finally surrendered the book to Evergreen, and the four began to walk out. Her hands fluttered over the cover, and she turned around with a smile, kicking open the doors with them all sauntering out. Freed shot her a dark look this time, tugging Riley along with him. Bickslow was chattering on and on, and pulled out the car keys. He waved them in front of Freed's face before finally handing them over to their owner. Freed resisted the urge to snatch them back from Bickslow with his free hand. He twirled them in his hand for a few seconds, and then clicked them once the four of them were close enough to the car. The lights flashed and it beeped. Bickslow swung the doors open, and all but lunged into the passenger seat. Evergreen rolled her eyes, and she and Riley climbed into the back, shutting the doors. Freed took one last look around before getting into the car himself. He glanced between them after he shut the door, too nervous to start the car.

"Hey, Ever?" Bickslow said, turning around. "Can I take a closer look at the book?"

She raised an eyebrow but handed it to him nonetheless.

"Any particular reason?"

Bickslow was silent, frowning at the book. He started muttering something in a foreign language, and then, to his horror, the book let out what seemed to be either dust or smoke from the cover. Freed, Evergreen, and Riley all leaned over to try and get a better look at it, but Bickslow pushed them back.

"We can't give this book to whomever commissioned the job."

"What do you mean?" Freed sceptically replied. "It's just a book, Bickslow, albeit an odd one. It's nothing we haven't seen plenty before."

"I've seen this book before," Bickslow snapped when the cover became clearer and gold script appeared on the binding. "The only thing I want to know is how Greymatter got his hands on the book, and whether or not it killed him."

Evergreen rolled her eyes. "You're impossible, Bickslow, honestly –"

"It's called Grimane Landine Zarafa," Bickslow snapped again, setting the book down on the centre console and resisting the urge to assault it. "It's cursed, and meant to possess people until they douse out where the body of Zeref is. It's a piece meant to resurrect him."

Freed grimaced. "But why would it be in the possession of a lord? And how do you know about it?"

"My aunt was the last one to own this book before Greymatter, I think, at least, she was the last person I knew owned it until now. I would be willing to bet it killed her, but I hadn't really believed all of the crazy stuff about it until I saw her do that incantation. I must have been six or something," He explained. "I'm sure it passed through an auction house at some point, and was sold as an ancient treasure. I doubt Greymatter would have bought it if he had known what it was. More likely, it would have been taken into the Magic Council's possession."

"Is that what you're suggesting we do?" Evergreen reached for the book, attempting to open it, and instead was immediately stabbed by the book. She shrieked and Freed grabbed her hand and pulled a scarf off from around the mirror and tied it around her hand. "You know what? Let's do just that!"

"Era isn't far from here," Freed suddenly agreed. "Bickslow, can you –"

"I know how to hold onto dangerous things," He said, rather sharpish. "And, yes, let's get out of here. Something in that book wants to get out, and we'll all be better off if it doesn't."

A tiny, human form fell to the grass, a mess of blue hair, and a blanket-like dress. A flash of white hovered above, looking down sadly at the form it had set down. Its eyes fluttered open, looking up at the eyes above them. They came into focus, its wings, and tail still – the dragon. The dragon hovered above the form it had left on the grass. Brown eyes wide, the form reached up to touch the dragon. Human. The dragon came down a little bit to rest its head against the small girl's hand. This little girl, its foster child. A child it had to leave behind. The girl's hand pressed a little stronger into the dragon's head, trying to sense something, pick up a message. The dragon whispered into her hand and into her mind. I am sorry to have to leave you, but know that I love you. I have taught you all I can. The girl smiled up at the dragon, patting its head. I love you too, Grandeeny. I'll make you proud. The dragon nuzzled her, and the girl's hand fell down to the grass like the rest of her. She continued to stare at the dragon who had taken care of her for as long as she could remember. She did not hear footsteps drawing near, but her dragon did, turning into a soft and disappearing ball of light. Then, she was alone. She looked up at the sky. Sky. The one place she had always felt she belonged, up and aloft. Magic, too. The magic she had learnt from her dragon, the –

"Are you alright?"

A face she had never seen came into focus above her. The face came closer to her, laying down on the grass beside her. A hand brushed over her forehead. It took the girl back to her earliest memory. She had been so young, and she did not even know how old she had been. Her dragon had left her alone in the abandoned home they had taken up residence in. The little girl had stared out the window. She had been alone. But she had not been lonely. She had cried, a little bit. She had cried a lot. She also had stared. That had been what she always done. She had cried for the world she had never known. What was the world like? What were her parents like? Who had they been? Had they cared for her? Had they given her up willingly? Or had they been forced to give her away? Had she been taken? Her parents. They were something she was unsure she would ever understand. Grandeeny had not known much, only that her parents were not from the era the dragon had raised her in. They were from much, much, much further in the future. The world her dragon had lived with her in had been very much in the distant past. But what did that mean? What was the point of it all? She had travelled through so many eras that time did not mean much to her. She stared out at the world. Her hand – a hand – pressed against the window.

"Hello?" The unfamiliar face and its unfamiliar voice pressed into her consciousness again. "Are you alright? What's your name?"

The little girl nodded. "Wendy."

Hands reached over and wrapped around hers. She was pulled up with the unfamiliar person. The two began to walk.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere safe," They replied. "I have a friend who can help to care for you."

Wendy scrunched up her face, confused.

"Do you have a family you need to be brought back to?"

Wendy shook her head. "No. I don't have a family."

"Then let us care for you for awhile," They said with a smile. "How does that sound?"

"Good," Wendy smiled. "Who's your friend?"

"Her name is Irene," They said. "We won't keep you forever. Just until you feel ready to go out into the world, and explore it on your own."

Wendy considered that. "Where are we?"

"Alvarez," They wrapped an arm around the young girl when she started to stumble a little. "Haven't you heard of it?"

"No," Wendy's voice became small, embarrassed. "I hope that's not a bad thing."

"Of course it's not," They quickly reassured her. "I ought not be too surprised. You said you don't have a family. Why would you know where you are? I assume you've always been a carefree and gentle traunt?"

Wendy's brow furrowed in further confusion.

"Never mind," They said as suddenly as their words had come. "What matters, now, is that you are not left alone at dark. There's danger in the night, as I imagine you are well aware."

Wendy said nothing, giving no sign of her thoughts.

Grandeeny, why did I have to be left alone? Am I supposed to figure out the purpose for that myself?

"You know," They cut into the young girl's thoughts. "I'm curious: have you ever used magic?"

Wendy flinched.

Don't let them know. What if you're not so safe?

She said nothing again, still giving no sign or indication of her thoughts.

"You'll find strength if you cultivate it one day," They broke into Wendy's thoughts again, and smiled at the little girl, who awkwardly smiled back. "I know some may say that people learn magic because their normal or 'real' lives as they call them are tragic, but, what it is born of or not, the strength you can gain and find in yourself from it is well worth it."

Wendy hesitated. "Okay…"

"You have nothing to fear, dear," They went on. "I can promise you that."

"I don't enjoy this waiting game," Ultear said, filing her nails as she walked with Belno and Yajima. "Frankly, I think we should fire if this takes too long. For all we know, Jellal could have killed them."

Yajima frowned. "And where exactly would risking the lives of our own get us?"

"We are waiting until we hear from Siegrain," Belno put in with finality. "That is the situation, and we are not going to alter it."

Ultear sighed. "Are we even sure we can trust Siegrain? Couldn't he have been planning something — a betrayal of the worst kind — with his brother from the start?"

Yajima pursed his lips. "That is a terrible accusation to make, Ultear."

She said nothing in response but caught Belno's harrowing gaze. It seemed she sensed the attempt to sow doubt in the Council. From just the look on her face, it was clear she held little faith in her.

"Do not test my patience with you," Belno eventually said, her voice clipped. "We cannot afford to be so blatantly divisive with matters this serious."

Ultear raised an eyebrow and then stormed off, her heels clicking more dangerously than they had ever before.

"I wonder what she must be thinking," Yajima mused. "With this situation being already so dire, why would she…"

"You're the one that told her not to accuse other Council members of treason," Belno said coldly, crossing her arms and staring out the window. "Hypocrisy will get us nowhere. In the meantime...let's wait for Siegrain to communicate with us. After all… you said it yourself. To fire Etherion hastily would have terrible consequences for all of us."

An uneasy silence fell among them whilst they continued to walk.

"Might I take a brief moment of your time?"

The two Council members turned around, them each frowning when they saw a young intern standing a few feet away from them, fidgeting.

"What is it?" Yajima spoke calmly. "We are on the verge of a quite serious matter."

"This is serious, too," He uncomfortably replied. "Some wizards from Fairy Tail are here. They surrendered a book they said is likely cursed and possessed of Zeref's magic. I was told the severity of the matter warranted the Council speaking to them directly for statements. Is Master Siegrain around? I only ask as –"

"I'll handle this. It shouldn't be all that long," Belno said irritably. "Where are they? I sincerely hope they aren't causing trouble again, like they did the last time we had to speak with them directly."

She sent Yajima a pointed look. He nodded and walked off after Ultear, the two of them resuming their discussion again when he caught up to her. Belno's lips pressed into a thin line, and she gestured for the intern to show her to where the Fairy Tail wizards were waiting. Fairy Tail. Resourceful and occasionally useful as they may be, I still don't like them very much. I doubt that will change anytime soon. Etherion was the foremost concern. She briefly found herself wondering yet again why Siegrain had asked to go to the Tower himself. His brother or not, he had also voted to fire Etherion. It would be suicide if things got out of control, if he did not make contact within forty eight hours. She frowned. He was not one to be reckless, so why did he have any desire to attempt to go to the Tower? Surely he did not mean to reason with his brother. She set aside those thoughts on the matter. They were not the most pressing. The intern began to talk about the Fairy Tail wizards that had come again. She paid little attention, certain that whatever they knew was either an exaggeration from their own deductions or a misunderstanding of the situation entirely. Finally, they reached the hall in which the Fairy Tail wizards were waiting. The intern went silent once more, and opened the door for her. She stepped in. The intern closed the door behind her, and left.

"What is this about?" Belno raised an eyebrow when she finally took a look at the group. "I don't have time to be wasted."

One of them began to speak, but, for a few seconds, she did not hear them. Suddenly, she noticed an anxious, bespectacled, petite girl with them, hot pink hair and almost translucently pale skin.

What are you doing here?