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February 8th, X778

"Are you warm enough?" Lucy fretted, her own teeth chattering as the wind blew right through them. She'd long since given her coat to Wendy, who was also shivering violently. Natsu was still frowning at her in disapproval for it. He'd made her wear his in response, leaving him in nothing but a T-shirt she'd coerced him into wearing. Not that the cold seemed to bother him; Natsu didn't seem to feel the cold like they did, though he was trying to create some extra heat that was blown away the second he tried.

It didn't help that Gray had mentioned over and over that Natsu was losing more power with each passing day.

"Not really," admitted Wendy, impatiently shoving her wild strands of incredibly long hair from her dark eyes. She glared at the sky and suddenly threw a shockingly nasty curse at it, followed by a rude gesture that had Gray stifling laughter. Even Lucy tried to hide her smile as she tucked Wendy closer to her, wincing at another gust of freezing wind.

Another storm had whipped up, this one far worse than any other she'd seen. According to Gray, this one seemed to be Juvia's fault in part. Wherever the spirit of the sea was, she was furious about something, creating a tempest that had blown in from the ocean. Combining her rage-filled storm with the equivalent of an ice age had resulted in the perfect mix to torment them all with freezing temperatures and high-speed winds.

Natsu, no more than a few inches from Lucy, tried to ramp up the heat again for them and came up empty-handed. "Sorry," he managed to call over the wind, clearly frustrated with it.

Lucy patted his arm reassuringly, her gaze drifting to watch Gray as he worked. Lucy had feared the icy walls he'd created the last time, but now…they'd left forests and shelter behind for the open plains that would take them to the southern sea, and they needed something to protect them from the wind, or they'd freeze to death. Gray had commented that Juvia preferred the southern oceans, for they drew more people to them with their warm tides, but Lucy didn't find she believed the waters to be warm at the moment.

Lucy recalled a newspaper clipping she'd once found, describing a monstrous creature swimming beneath a fishing boat. She wondered if it was Juvia.

Wendy seemed to be as awed by the icy structures that finally began to rise brick-by-brick from the ground, helping to block the wind that seemed to hesitate before striking her. Grandeeney's protection wasn't one to take for granted right now, thought Lucy enviously. Lucy buried herself against Wendy, hoping she could leech off some of that protection until Gray was done.

Natsu stepped closer when Lucy gestured him over, bending his head so she could say in his ear, "There's no Vhalis, right? There's no way we can see them in this." It was nearly white out conditions, worse than the last time they'd encountered Vhalis in a snow storm.

He shook his head. "I don't think so," he muttered in her ear. He frowned when Lucy tried to hunch her shoulders to protect herself from the cold. He reached out to try and pull her hood further over her head, scowl deepening when it did no good. A smile danced across Lucy's lips when he suddenly snapped, "I am the sun. I should have been able to make this place so hot it was a desert. I can't even chase off a blizzard now!"

"You wouldn't have been able to stop it even if you wanted to," said Gray as he stepped back, craning his head to watch as he crafted a dome to shield their heads. "It's Juvia's storm, not a natural one. How's this for you two, Wendy?"

"Much better," chirped Wendy with a bright smile. "Thank you."

Lucy murmured her agreement. It was much better, even if the cold was still bone deep. Now that the wind wasn't shooing off what little heat Natsu was working overtime to produce, it didn't take long for her shivering to lesson. It wasn't toasty warm like she'd have liked, but it would keep them from freezing to death. Impatiently pushing her hood down, Lucy asked, "How long will this storm go on for?"

Gray dropped to sit, back to a frozen wall, and said, "A couple o' hours, probably. Juvia doesn't always know what she's mad at, and this one's not too bad."

Lucy muttered sarcastically under her breath, "'Not too bad,' says the god who can't feel the cold."

Natsu flinched.

She blinked, immediately backtracking then. She got the feeling she shouldn't have said that, though she wasn't a hundred percent sure of why – until Gray said quietly, albeit a little nicer than he needed to be, "I can't feel the cold anymore, Lucy, but it doesn't mean that I don't know what it's like to freeze to death."

Lucy was horrified by the realization, sputtering a hasty apology that Gray snickered at and waved off. She felt flustered now, and she was eternally grateful for Wendy when Wendy said hesitantly, tugging her fur-lined coat from her mouth, "Grandeeney told me that gods were once human, too. Is that how you become a god, Gray? By dying?"

Natsu's silence told Lucy that it wasn't a question that should have been asked. She remembered asking Natsu about his family, how he'd commented that they'd died a long time ago. Maybe they hadn't been the only ones then. Lucy winced at her rudeness, and as if reading her thoughts, Gray teased lightly, "That's a rude question, Wendy."

"Sorry," mumbled Wendy, blushing.

Gray shrugged then, amused, and then set back and answered her question, much to Lucy's surprise. "Yeah, that's part of it. Mavis decides who gets to become a god. She has a checklist of sorts, and if she thinks they're worthy, I bring their soul to her, and she turns them into a god like us. At least, that's what I think it's like. I'm the youngest, so I've not gotten to do that just yet." A wry, hateful smile appeared then, and he barked a bitter laugh. "Most of us never wanted it. I'm sure it's part of the criteria for some reason."

Natsu grunted in agreement, and Lucy glanced at him, wondering yet again how he'd become a god. He'd never told her, and she doubted he ever would. At least, not anytime in the near future.

Lucy turned her attention back on Gray, recalling what he'd said and his appearance. She studied the frost lacing his skin and hair, the black of his fingertips and his pale skin, even the slight blue of his lips. Quietly, she said, "I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have said that." It was clear that Gray probably knew better than the rest of them what the cold was like. Once again, she'd overstepped boundaries and been unintentionally nasty about it.

Gray's lips quirked then, and he said, "It's fine. It doesn't change anything. A lot of people have." He rocked back, heaving a massive sigh. "I was leading an expedition into the far north. I wanted to be the first one to do it. We were – we just happened to get our ship stuck in the ice and couldn't get back. There was no heat, and we ran out of food. One of my men went crazy and killed another. It wasn't pretty." His lips twisted into a grimace. Gray ran a hand through his hair, showering the space around him with sharp splinters of ice. "I killed them all. One with my own hands, the others with my actions. I've met with their souls in Hel and apologized, which is more than a lot of people get, and we all knew what we were getting into when we started our travels, but it changes nothing. I still killed them."

Lucy's stomach churned at the grief lacing his voice. It was the most human any of the gods had ever sounded, she thought. "That was nearly a hundred years ago, wasn't it?" she realized suddenly.

"Just about." Gray shook off the grief, seemingly grateful for the slight change in subject. His dark eyes lit with mirth. "We didn't have any of the fancy navigational tools you guys had before things went sideways. If we'd not gotten stuck, I'm sure we'd have gotten lost. I'm not from the northern countries either, which probably made my life more difficult than it ought to have been. I was born in the northern parts though. I remember that much."

Deciding she'd nosed around Gray's life far more than she probably should have, Lucy turned to Wendy and elbowed her gently, neatly tucking her legs beneath her as she joined Gray on the ground. Natsu and Wendy were quick to follow suit, as if they'd been waiting for her to make the decision, which only made her roll her eyes slightly. "What about you, Wendy? Before you were in the cave, where were you from?"

Wendy furrowed her brow. "I don't know a lot about it. I lived in a town a few days inland from the southern seas. Grandeeney lived with me until last year, and then I was on my own. She told me to leave when the sky fell though. I don't think the town exists anymore." Wendy bit her lip, upset by the idea, and Lucy leaned over to wrap her in a side hug.

"I'm from Magnolia," she told Wendy comfortingly, "and there isn't much left there, either. That's part of why I ended up traveling with Natsu. That, and he decided to wreck what little I had left."

"It was an accident, Lucy," hissed Natsu, kicking at her, and Lucy grinned playfully at him, snuggled into Wendy.

As they settled down, preparing themself for a chilly night ahead, Lucy longed for the days when she had a working generator in her apartment, pumping her home full of heat. At the very least, they'd reach the coast soon. Lucy just hoped that whoever occupied the supposed safehouse were nice people who had heat.

"We're close."

Gray's announcement made Lucy perk up excitedly as they walked, and she could see Wendy bouncing a bit, too. She'd settled into her new lifestyle with more ease than Lucy had, friendly and happy to be around them rather than alone in a cave with only the whisper of her mother's wind for company. Lucy thought she might even be a good luck charm; since they'd met Wendy, there'd only been one incident with the Vhalis, and it had been easily avoided.

But when neither Gray nor Natsu seemed as thrilled as they were, Lucy's excitement faded, and she asked, "What's wrong? That's a good thing, so why aren't you two as happy as we are?"

Wendy's smile vanished, and she looked anxiously to Natsu. He tried to force a reassuring smile to his face as he reached out to ruffle Wendy's hair, but failed miserably. "We're being tracked," he admitted quietly. "We have been for a while now."

Lucy's face paled. She looked over her shoulder instinctively, but didn't see anything amiss. She wondered just how Natsu and Gray could tell. Still, she trusted them both enough to know they wouldn't lie about something like that, no matter how rude Gray could sometimes be.

"I didn't want you to be worried," Natsu mumbled, troubled.

"How many?" asked Wendy anxiously, her voice pitched high in fear. Her eyes were wide as she looked between the pair of gods accompanying them. While she'd grown to realize they really were safer with the gods, it was still dangerous. Especially in such a rocky, cliff-filled area, where the nearby sea could even now be heard roaring against stony shores. Plains had long-since given away to rocky ground, filled with plenty of holes and places Vhalis could hide if they wished.

Gray and Natsu exchanged a swift glance, and Natsu shrugged. Nearly six weeks after finding Wendy, Natsu was nearly human with how little he could do. Gone were the moments in which there were tiny glowing suns in his eyes. No longer could Natsu do anything to fend off the Vhalis. He scarcely even hummed in recent times, and Lucy knew it frustrated him immensely. She could see the self-loathing even now, as he scowled and studied his hands, as if trying to summon heat and light that simply refused to come to him.

"At least two," said Natsu with a grimace. "Maybe three or four, and they're older, I'd guess. Smarter. They've been keeping their distance and trying to herd us to where they want us."

A chill ran down Lucy's spine. "Are they even Vhalis at this point then?" she whispered, and no one answered her. It was answer enough. "Gray, how close are we to the ocean, do you think? I mean, we can hear it, so…would Juvia help us?"

"Maybe. We'd have to get to the ocean first, and even then, Juvia might not be in the area or feel like showing up."

"Then let's at least try," said Lucy, hooking her arm around Wendy's shoulders and hauling her forward at a brisk pace. Gray and Natsu stuck closer, too, as they bustled into a small, but steep dip between two larger rocky ridges. Dread filled Lucy's chest. This was not a good place to go when being chased by Vhalis. "The more we stand around, the worse off we're going to–"

She broke off, stopping dead in her tracks as rocks scattered down the wall of slick rock to their right. Lucy's breath caught as the rocks tumbled to a halt by her feet, no bigger than her knuckle. Slowly, Lucy looked up at the top of the ridge to their right and choked on her gasp.

A Vhalis grinned back at her, rotten face twisted with malicious intent. Its sharp, broken teeth were rotting away. The Vhalis's skeletal body was covered in a thin layer of bruised, mottled dark gray skin bordering on black. Its milky white eyes peered down at them as it clacked its teeth together and crept along the ridge with frightening grace, spraying the earth around it with black spittle. Very little remained of the wound that had caused the Vhalis's death, but the sharp, rusted kitchen knife sticking out from between the Vhalis's ribs said enough. It scarcely seemed to notice as it skittered down the slope.

"Go," barked Gray, shoving Wendy forward and ripping her from Lucy's grip. "Go, go, go!"

Perhaps they'd avoid Gray, thought Lucy as she broke into a sprint, but they'd risk Gray to get at her, Natsu, and Wendy, who sobbed as she bolted forward. They had nowhere else to go but forward, in the direction they'd allowed themselves to be chased. Natsu barked a warning when another Vhalis came barreling down the incline from the ridge on their left, teeth bared. The first finally reached the path in front of them. The Vhalis had pinned the group between them.

Lucy could have sworn the Vhalis laughed.

Natsu whipped around to face it, gaze narrowed. He hummed in warning, but the sound was pathetically small compared to what it had once been. "Gray," he said, "can't you do something?!"

Gray ground his teeth together and retorted, "What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?" He reached for the Vhalis in front of them, ice creeping along his fingertips, but the Vhalis surprised them all when rather than retreating as Lucy and Natsu expected, it launched itself at him instead. Wendy screamed as Gray shoved her back, throwing her into Lucy.

Lucy barely caught her, keeping her on her feet as Gray went down, shouting. The Vhalis slammed Gray onto his back, sharp claw-like fingers ripping painfully at his shoulders. He just barely managed to shove his hands between its jaws and his face, slicing his fingers and spattering his face in golden ichor.

"Gray!" shrieked Wendy as Lucy pressed her back to Natsu's, trying to get away from the Vhalis. There was nowhere to go, not with the second only steps away, grinning maliciously at Natsu.

Lucy saw the moment Gray decided he couldn't save the demonic soul pinning him down, trying to rip out his throat. Grief and guilt raced over his features as he abandoned trying to shove it back and instead gripped either side of its head, whispering something.

It was as beautiful as it was horrifying to watch.

One moment, the Vhalis was writhing and screaming as it tried to kill him. The next, frost shot out over its flesh. Shards of glacial ice burst from beneath its skin, ripping it apart from the inside out. Lucy sputtered when black acidic blood struck them, burning wherever it touched her skin. Wendy stared soundlessly at where the Vhalis had been, stunned.

Natsu didn't wait for them to catch up with what had happened. He shoved Lucy forward with a snarl of her name, and Lucy dragged Wendy with her, promptly hopping over where Gray was still sprawled. Gray cursed at Natsu as Natsu hauled him to his feet, dragging him along, too. He didn't seem to care much for what Gray might think about running rather than trying to help the Vhalis behind them.

They burst free of the deadly valley and out onto a cliffside. Lucy blanched at the height, terrified. They were trapped–

"Lucy!" cried Wendy, pointing, and Lucy jerked her head around to look. There was a small path carved into the side of the cliff for hikers, wrapping around it until it reached a beach. To get to that beach though, they had to walk along a path with only the ocean beneath it. Fearless after walking such treacherous paths for so long, Wendy ran to it and began hurrying down the path.

Lucy faltered only until Gray and Natsu had caught up, then forced her legs to move. She felt shaken as she began to make her way down, slipping and sliding as the ocean roared to her left, spraying her with freezing mist and salt. "Keep going," Gray called, a step behind her. "It's not as steep as last time, Lucy."

"I know that!" Lucy snapped breathlessly, heaving for air as panic continued to surge through her. She forced herself to continue, to think only about the next step she needed to take. Her focus broke, however, when a Vhalis shrieked excitedly behind them. Grabbing the cliff beside her with white knuckles, Lucy dared to look back, ignoring Gray as he impatiently snapped at her to keep going, damn it!

Lucy was glad she looked back, if only because they might not have known what happened otherwise.

Maybe it happened because Gray was accidentally freezing a significant amount of things he touched as he ushered her down the dangerous cliffside. Wendy had already reached the bottom, nimble as a fawn. Maybe it was the ocean spraying the stone path, creating a treacherous series of steps for people fleeing a monster. Maybe it was even Natsu, being too careful for once even though Lucy often had to remind him to be more cautious. After all, one could never be too careful in a world full of creatures out to kill them.

Or maybe it was the Vhalis, too eager in its rush to get to its prey. It launched itself straight down the rocky path at them.

It crashed right into Natsu. Its spindly body slipped right over the side of the cliff, plunging the hundreds of feet into the crashing waves below. Natsu yelped as he slipped, too. He tried to grab something – anything – as his hand was ripped from the cliff wall, but he could only grasp the open air before he suddenly plummeted, too.

Lucy screamed Natsu's name as he plunged down, down, down, into the gray, churning waves that were so violent, Lucy couldn't even hear his splash as the surf crashed into the shores with no pity for those it had stolen.

Some drama! I absolutely love how this chapter turned out. :D

I took a detour on the chapter I'm currently writing. It's turning out difficult to write, but absolutely fun. Maybe it's my love of pysch bleeding in.

Thanks to reviewers (TheAngelicPyro, Sele de la Luna, and Rachel Maddison!) as well as those who favorited and followed!