With a clearer goal in mind, Laxus knew that things were going to get better. It was no longer them running around, blindly searching for the trail of a man who might have been gone for almost half a decade at that point. They had a real, tangible goal to work towards, a lead to look into, and that thought brought Laxus more hope than he was willing to admit.
It was slow, at first. Achingly slow, even though he wanted nothing more than to go run around destroying people until he got an answer.
They all trudged back to Magnolia with relatively high spirits from their return as the number one guild in Fiore, and then threw a rager lasting three days before settling back into things.
Laxus hadn't joined them.
Some part of him knew that he should. He'd been an integral part of their victory, after all, and his feat of taking down the fifth ranked Wizard Saint had earned him many stares as he walked down the street. There were toasts in his honor at the guild hall. Bixlow and Evergreen tried to drag him in, but he'd refused as politely as he was able to until they gave up.
All the dragon slayer could think about was the pain he knew his friend was in.
And that's why, as soon as the celebrations were over, he marched right up to Gramps and told him that he needed to use his connections to look into a drug. Makarov had, for a moment, appeared incredibly startled, at least until he figured out the reason.
Laxus hated using his grandfather's reputation for anything. He'd have preferred to get everything done himself, but this was too large for him to simply pick a direction and start harassing every dark guild in his path for information. Besides, Fairy Tail was already united in the desire to locate the missing water mage.
They should use all of their resources to find him as quickly as possible.
Makarov immediately called for a meeting the next day to go over what everyone had found out during the Grand Magic Games.
Really, there wasn't much information. Some whispers here and there that Laxus had missed, a mention or two of blue-haired men that had easily been proven to not be their target. Laxus was the only one with a large enough lead to be pursued.
He crossed his arms and looked at the group gathered in front of him. It wasn't the full guild, but it definitely was most of them, composed of both members of the Tenrou Team and those who had been left behind. Actually, the entirety of the Tenrou squad was there, he noted.
They were the mages closest to Mercury.
Another pang went through Laxus's chest as he thought about how these mages, the ones that Mercury felt close enough to actually give a glimpse into his life, had been gone for almost an entire decade. It wasn't their choice, but Mercury had been left behind.
(Again.)
"According to… a source from the capital," Laxus said, remembering that he'd promised to leave the identities of the Crime Sorciere mages out of any discussion. "There's a drug on the black market that promotes healing. Its source and maker are unknown, but there's reason to suspect that Mercury is involved somehow."
Everyone's faces were grim. They hadn't doubted the water mage as Meredy had – there was no way he was making a black market drug, and if he was involved… Well, that was anything but good. Mercury might have had a bit of a bad personality, but when it came down to things, he had an unshakable moral code. He didn't like drugs, and he didn't like dark guilds. There was no way in hell he'd be working with either of those.
"Have we located any samples of the drug?" Fried asked, a hand to his chin as he pondered the situation in a manner that made it clear to Laxus that he was forcing a facade of calm onto his face.
Laxus knew Fried. He was someone who wasn't afraid to show when he was worried; for him to be trying to mask it so hard, it meant that Fried's feelings were so intense that they threatened to overwhelm him. On the inside, the rune mage was likely raging the same way Laxus was.
The dragon slayer shook his head.
"It disappears or loses efficacy if it's not used fast enough," he explained. "We've got people looking into it from the Magic Council's side right now, but I doubt they know anything."
Inexplicably, the Magic Council didn't seem to care much about the situation. From what Laxus had heard from Jellal, the Council hadn't even bothered trying to track down the source, or to get their hands on any, which meant no leads from that side. Even if that was incredibly suspicious, there wasn't anything the guild could do about it until they confirmed it was true. And apparently, Gramps had an inside man in the council, which had come as a shock to everyone but Laxus himself.
Lucy raised her hand. It wasn't necessary, but Laxus nodded at her to speak; he'd apparently been unanimously voted the leader of "Operation Find Mercury."
"I can ask some of my father's old associates if they've heard anything. They're a merchant guild, so they might have heard about it."
"Good idea," Fried interjected. "They might be able to track down the source because we already know the clientele."
Laxus agreed, but wouldn't admit that he was grateful to the girl who, like himself, hated using family connections. Especially now that her father was…
"In the meantime," he started, "we should continue looking for dark guilds with associations to drugs and medicines."
"Look into light guilds, too," added Mira. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Wasn't that the truth?
Laxus doubted a light guild was producing anything – how would they be able to keep their connections a secret even from the Magic Council? He hated those bastards, but even he had to admit that they tried their best to keep mage guilds on a tight leash. The Council was prone to random audits and searches. They liked the maintain their reputation, and a "legal" guild doing illegal things would have been the worst possible thing for them.
Fairy Tail was the main exception to this rule, though that was mostly due to popular opinion.
"I'll look into the Magic Council," Makarov said as though he was thinking the same thing that Laxus was thinking.
Why had the Council not been interested in this mystery drug? They had a very strict process that they adhered to when it came to marketing items, and this one would surely need to be tested for it to be allowed on the market. Plus, why had no one in Fairy Tail heard of it? A drug so special would be making waves throughout the whole world. If the Council was n on it, that would make Mira's suggestion reasonable – someone within the Council was protecting a light guild, and that's why nothing had been discovered yet.
God.
This was all so fucked up – why the hell had Mercury gotten dragged into all of this? How had Mercury gotten dragged into this?
Either way, they'd soon find out.
It took a few days for any news to come back, and Laxus could hardly keep himself from running out of Magnolia and attacking the first guild that seemed moderately suspicious on sight. Everyone could tell that he was on edge. If not from the way he found himself pacing between the room that Mercury had been using in the guild and the second floor where Gramps' office was, waiting for news, then from the way he could hardly rein his magic in.
It was like he was a kid again. When he stopped paying attention to it, sometimes the air sparked, and if he wasn't careful, sometimes he'd catch the scent of something nearby burning.
When the Magic Council informant arrived two or three days later, Laxus could barely manage to keep from accosting the man. He didn't care all that much that it was Mest Gryder – or rather, Doranbolt – who was the mole, though he was curious as to why such a straight and narrow man such as him would be helping Fairy Tail with something like this.
They called a second meeting the moment Doranbolt teleported into the guild in regular, nondescript clothing.
"I didn't find much," Doranbolt admitted from one of Fairy Tail's meeting rooms. He had said that he didn't want to be in such an open area like the second floor's gathering space, so they'd decided to hold it in a nearly unused room, despite the fact that no one from the guild would out him to the Magic Council.
Then why are you here? Laxus almost snarked, until Gramps waved his hand for Doranbolt to continue.
"In fact, I found so little that it's clear that someone is intentionally withholding the information. I'm not sure who, but it's clear that they're someone with a higher position than a Rune Knight division captain. We've requested permission to look into the distribution of this drug a couple of times and someone keeps rejecting it."
It was just as Laxus had guessed – and for once, he wished he'd been wrong.
If they were dealing with a dark guild, there was no bureaucracy to go through because all of the light guilds had the 'green light' to handle them, no questions asked, as long as they handed off any captured mages to the Rune Knights. If even the Rune Knights were not of a high enough authority to pursue the distributor, that meant that someone high up in the Magic Council chain of authority was helping them.
Which meant that someone in the Magic Council was encouraging the sales of this mystery drug.
Several of the guild members gathered – only about half of the original number, because the rest were out searching for more leads – shook their heads, having come to the same conclusion as Laxus.
"That being said," Doranbolt unexpectedly continued, locking eyes with Laxus. "We have been pursuing an independent investigation without the Magic Council's knowledge…"
And by "we," everyone in the room knew that Doranbolt meant "I".
"The information we've come across suggests that one blocking our requests is Magic Council member Navio Furune. He's a relative newcomer to the Council, but he's risen among the ranks of the bureaucracy so quickly that it's suspicious."
"So, he has a lot of money?" Mira added after Doranbolt finished speaking.
He nodded.
It was an open secret that the Magic Council often sold positions in exchange for positions on the board; as long as the Council did nothing too egregious with this power, most of the light guilds ignored it. Even Fairy Tail hadn't seen a point in trying to change the system, if only because there was still someone on the actual council that always had their backs.
Now, however, Laxus nearly growled in displeasure.
They had a name – what were they waiting for?
Lucy chose then to slowly pad into the room with an opened letter in her hand, Natsu following closely behind. Happy was perched on her head. She took one look at Doranbolt, then handed the paper to Master Makarov and turned to the rest of the group to explain.
"I just heard from my father's old guild," she said. "They know of several customers that have purchased the drug, but there was one who apparently tried to sell it back to the guild. They've arrested him for fraud because it's already disappeared."
Laxus nodded along with her explanation, stomach soothed from churning anxiety for the moment. They now had two possible avenues to pursue information, and both seemed equally likely to hold answers.
The question was – which to pursue?
"Should we split into two groups? One for each lead?" Mira asked. She looked to Makarov for approval, who'd read the entirety of Lucy's letter by now and was deep in thought.
Laxus could tell from the way his brow was downturned that Gramps was not pleased. To learn of even more Magic Council corruption right after dealing with the corruption and misinformation in the royal capital was not a good look for Fiore in general, even if this occasion paled in comparison to the event that had taken place just a week and a half ago. And this time, too, it directly affected a member of the guild.
"Doranbolt, continue to find information on Furune. Places he goes often outside of headquarters, people he interacts with, and anything else that might be suspicious," Gramps ordered. Laxus had to wonder who exactly Doranbolt was to take orders from the Fairy Tail guildmaster; the memories he had of the man as Mest were blurry at best and absent at worst.
It wasn't something to consider now, though.
Doranbolt nodded. As a group, they discussed several courses of action, as well as others on the Council who might have been involved until the conversation turned back to the man who was sitting in prison.
The Council Mage then said, "I'm going to head out now. There are some things Magic Council ears should not hear."
In other words, he expected them to take violent action.
Laxus agreed. They should be as violent as possible – anyone who committed the sin of not only targeting a member of Fairy Tail, but Laxus's friend, if that was the right word to use, deserved to be beaten within an inch of his life.
That was what they were doing with Mercury, after all.
"Mira, I'm sending you to pay the bail of the one who had been arrested. Take him into our custody."
Laxus nearly exploded.
He did, however, manage to withhold any protests until after everyone else had already cleared the room to continue the search before he let the anger show on his face in the form of a deep frown. Before he'd even managed to ask Gramps why he'd chosen to send Mira instead of himself – because God knew Laxus could get there faster, and this was more important to him – Gramps had already spoken.
"Laxus," he said, "you will kill him."
The words actually shocked the dragon slayer only because he hadn't realized they were right.
Anyone who was making money off the suffering of others deserved to die. Anyone who was making money off of the suffering of a Fairy Tail mage deserved to wish they were dead.
Anyone who was making money off the suffering of Mercury?
Laxus had no idea what they deserved, but it would have been worse than death. Maybe a fraction of what had been done to the water mage, of what Laxus had felt firsthand through the life link.
He shuddered to think about what Mercury was still going through.
"I promise, I will put you front and center when we know where he's being kept. But for now, this man is as much a victim as anyone else. We have no way of knowing if he is aware of how it's being produced."
The man had attempted to sell it, after all.
Laxus wasn't quite appeased, but he did accept Gramps' words. It was true that they still needed more information, and that they didn't know what it had been purchased for. Hell, even they weren't even sure how it was being produced.
Laxus had an idea, though. A horrific idea – one he didn't want to linger on for too long just yet.
Mira brought the man back a day and a half later. Laxus never learned his name, and never cared to; as far as he was concerned, the pitiful, shadowed looking man in front of him was nothing more than a bug to be squashed underfoot.
He certainly looked like someone who would be involved in shady dealings.
The man had dark bags underneath his eyes, and his nose appeared to have been broken recently from the raw, red, angry tilt it had – though whether it was from the prison guards or the woman who'd brought him to Magnolia, Laxus wasn't sure. His clothing was even shabbier than the stubble on his face made him appear to be, with a jacket that had been worn to shreds and pants that were slightly too short for him.
On his arm were track marks. Small, pin-prick sized holes lined the man's wrists and elbows where the thick blue veins lay, swollen.
The man was a druggy.
Laxus had no doubts that he'd bought the mystery drug for himself. It didn't even appear to be a drug that caused the high that the man had surely been searching for, so he'd probably tried to sell it somewhere in order to get some of his money back.
"I – I'm sorry! I didn't know what it was, I swear!"
They had him cuffed in one of the guild's spare rooms, almost directly across the one where Mercury had been living. The dark lights made the bags under his eyes look even darker, more pathetic.
"It's okay," Mira said. The man flinched when she spoke, leaning closer to Laxus. "We just want to know where you bought it from."
Mira's voice was dangerously calm. It had lost any of its normal charm, and didn't sound nearly as sweet as usual. Only those familiar with her would know just how angry she was, fury that could rival even Erza brimming just below the surface of that calm exterior.
"There was a guy – uh, I'm not sure what his name was. He sold it to me, said it was some sort of miracle cure, and I've got this friend, see, who is really sick, so –"
"We don't care," Laxus interrupted. "Who sold it to you, and where'd they get it from?"
The man paused, eyes flicking between Mira and Laxus, the lone interrogators in a room without windows or real lights. He swallowed thickly. Clearly, neither one cared if he killed himself on drugs – they just wanted to know the source.
"He was a real shady lookin' guy. Said he was gonna move soon, and he couldn't take it with him, so he was tryin' to get rid of it. Told me I could sell it someplace else later if I didn't use it. I – I didn't see much about him, but he had one of those marks you see on mages, you know?" the druggie stuttered out.
Laxus bit back an angry retort that yes, they knew what guild marks were, and simply stared down at the man. He wasn't sure how much he trusted what was being said. It would be in the man's benefit to tell them exactly what they wanted, but he also probably wasn't sure whether they'd turn him over to the cops or not.
… Of course they weren't gonna give him to the police, though. Laxus wasn't even sure they'd be handing him over to anyone after this.
Mira left, then quickly came back with a couple sheets of paper and a pen. She slid it across the table towards the man.
"Draw it for us, please."
"Right away, uh, ma'am!"
Laxus did not recognize the guild marking. Actually, none of the Tenrou Team did, which made sense – they'd been gone for a long time, and in that time, many guilds had both sprung up and shut down.
The one who did recognize it was Laki.
Laxus hadn't really ever noticed the young woman before. At least, she was a young woman now; he could vaguely recall her as barely older than Natsu before they'd been trapped on that island, and now she appeared to be much more well developed. Her magic, Wood Make, had never really been strong or interesting enough for Laxus to care about her.
"I think this is that one medicine guild's logo," she said after a moment of staring at it, "but I'll have to check. I'll be right back."
Laki hurried out of the room, leaving the rough sketch from the druggie behind. They'd learned a couple of things from him, like the fact that it had taken two days for the drug to start disappearing from the time he'd purchased it, and two days after that for Love and Lucky to realize that it had disappeared completely.
And that the bottle he'd gotten it in had smelled mysteriously of the ocean. Like Mercury.
It wasn't a lot of information to go off of, but it was a start.
Laxus pondered over the fact that they hadn't heard anything back from Doranbolt about Furune. He'd likely not yet made a move. If Furune was aware that they were looking into his shady connections, he hadn't made any actions that tipped Doranbolt off about it, either.
When Laki returned, she had a large book in her hands, though Laxus couldn't make out the title.
"This was sold in stores a couple of years ago when a guild called 'Alchemist' first debuted. It was their introduction, so to speak." She flipped the first couple of pages where Laxus could see 'Acknowledgements' to land on a page with a giant, stylized 'A' that morphed into birds at the two feet of the letter.
The comparison was hazy, but there was no doubt that it matched what the drugged man had drawn out.
Laki explained that the guild specialized in making medicinal components, supposedly through the use of the long lost art of alchemy, their namesake. They were quite popular, and had connections to a lot of merchant guilds.
But they were a legal guild.
What would they even gain by distributing something that was likely made with human components? Why were they selling it to some random street urchin?
Laxus didn't bother pondering it for long. He didn't care. If anything, the suspiciousness of it made the most sense. They knew that someone in the Council was protecting the source of the drug, so for it to be a legal guild meant that the Council member was aware that it wasn't produced legally.
It was enough for them to move on.
Laxus hurried out of the room, barely managing to tell the woman "thanks" before he was out the door towards the Thunder God Tribe.
"Updates?" Evergreen asked. She could probably tell from Laxus's face that he had news to share – he wasn't smiling, but the frown on his face had lessened a lot, a small signal of relief.
He nodded. "We've got a name."
And with that, it was time to do what the Thunder God Tribe did best.
.
.
.
The Man in Purple came to visit him again today.
It had been a while since Mercury had seen him. A week, maybe, since that horrendous purple color that he'd begun to associate with that man had stepped out of the blindingly bright hallway, shoes clacking through the emptiness. Not long enough to forget him, of course, but just long enough that his presence as a threat had started to fade.
If Mercury never saw him again in his life, it would have been too soon. The Man never brought good news.
He was still the same man who had come to the guild seeking out Mercury. Still the same man who'd stood behind several layers of guards after baiting the water mage out with the promise of information on Laxus. The very same man who looked like he'd gotten in a fight with a carnivore and lost, the chunk of his ear still torn off, and faint scars visible on his neck – the only things marring his otherwise pristine visage.
Mercury wanted nothing more than to add to those scars.
He could imagine it – because imagining was all he could do these days. Tearing into that soft flesh on the Man's neck with his teeth, clawing through the layers and layers of clothes with his bare hands. If they were going to make him out to be a beast, a beast he would become. Mercury could almost feel skin giving way to muscle – the copper feel, coppery taste of blood spilling onto his lips.
That's what The Man's blood would taste like. Sweet like the sugar he couldn't taste, sweet like the pomegranates someone close to him loved.
(he was scared not because of the man in front of him, but because it was getting harder and harder to remember the faces that lived in the light.)
But all of that was a mere fantasy. Mercury had no strength in his body to stand, let alone tear out The Man's throat. He felt as though he was made of skin and bones, no muscle nor fat nor magic left behind in what was left to save himself. He was bound and chained like a slave – because that's almost what he was. A slave.
Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
And The Man in Purple, of course, was here to take even more from him, even if there was barely anything left to give. He always wanted things that Mercury couldn't provide for him – information, sometimes, but for the most part, his request was that he "behave." That he let himself be treated as a thing.
Mercury was not a thing.
He wanted to scream it, to growl at The Man as he stepped into the darkness from the lightened hallway that he was still living and still fighting, but his mouth wouldn't work. His lips were heavy. His throat was painfully dry. It was a struggle to even lift his head and glare.
He could feel it. The pulsating in his chest was slowly, day by day, getting weaker, fainter.
Mercury was close to death – closer than he'd ever been before.
(Would it mean anything if he died now? Would he care? Mercury himself was unsure, but knew one thing.)
(He didn't want to die miles and miles from home. From Magnolia. From Fairy Tail – even if the people who had made it into "home" were gone now, it was still the only place he wanted to return to.)
"I see you're still as feisty as ever, hmm?" The Man said. His voice was so elegant that Mercury had at one point thought him to be some sort of noble; he spoke with a lofty tone that suggested a privileged upbringing, or at least a higher education.
Mercury didn't say anything. Couldn't say anything – his throat felt thick, yet raw, and he hadn't had water in at least two days… One of the white-coat's latest attempts to get him to settle down.
"I get it. Your kind are just so obstinate," The Man said, then added with a small laugh, "For the record, I'm not talking about your species. Mages these days are too pigheaded to listen to reason, though I suppose you're not really a mage anymore, are you? I don't see a guild mark anymore."
That was right – his guild mark had long since been covered up by his slowly decaying body, the skin on the left half of his body almost entirely marred now.
That didn't matter, though. The will of Fairy Tail still thrummed in his veins, keeping him sane. Mercury wasn't done yet.
"At least they got you to quiet down a little bit. I was growing tired of listening to you scream. You're such a bad boy, aren't you?"
Mercury flinched. Infantilizing him aside, The Man's words still made his heart race, a stern reminder that there were more things they could do, more ways they could make it hurt – because all of this was painful, yes, but it was hardly ever torture. He should have been glad that The Man valued efficiency over cruelty.
"I see we'll have to figure out a way to increase your regenerative abilities again. I'll admit, I'm a bit surprised that you managed to last this long," The Man commented dryly, eying the way that Mercury's wrists were slowly bleeding. Small cuts had formed where the skin had rubbed itself raw on metal cuffs from the last time the white-coats had been down here – then, it hadn't been for experiments. It was for fun.
They thought him screaming was fun.
Just his luck that they were a bunch of psychos, and he was stuck with them.
"Don't give me that look. Would you rather I suggest they sedate you? Then you wouldn't be able to fight back, and what would be the fun in that?" The Man reached his hand out and ruffled Mercury's hair as though he was nothing more than a misbehaving child. "I wonder if that would pass from your blood into the medicine… Might make a good sleep aid. I might actually pass that on. Good job."
Fuck – he didn't want to be sedated. He didn't want to lose the last part of himself that could fight.
The Man got up, turning to leave. Then, as though something had occurred to him at the last moment, he turned back, but remained standing. He stared down at Mercury as though he were nothing more than a bug.
"Right, I forgot to mention. Something really interesting happened over in Crocus – I don't suppose you've heard of the Grand Magic Games, have you?"
Mercury opened his mouth to retort. The only words that came to his mind were the ones that seemed to repeat endlessly in his head whenever The Man or any of the white-coats were present.
He coughed once, The Man watching him amusedly. His mouth was dry as though it were a desert, his lips cracked and painful. Even moving his jaw was hard. Finally, he forced the words out –
"Fuck off." The words were dull and quiet. His voice wasn't quite his own anymore; it was quiet, barely able to make it above the level of a whisper. Some sort of damage had been done to his throat, somehow able to make it past his intense regeneration – though some part of Mercury knew that was, in fact, the issue. Just like the scar on his stomach had been the result of being stabbed over and over again, his throat had been scarred by screaming it raw far too many times.
It was hard to breathe.
It got harder when Mercury felt the dull thud of something against his face, an audible crack following later. His head hit the wall, and something wet dripped down his face. Something hot. Blood, he realized, from being kicked in the nose.
The Man had broken his nose.
What a pain.
Despite the physical pain, he smiled – a cruel, sickened smile as his face throbbed with a second heartbeat, what little magic power left in his body rushing to start the healing process.
"You are rather stubborn. Maybe it is a trait inherited by your species? Or perhaps you're just one of a kind. I should have the guild run more experiments on you. I'd love to know what keeps that head of yours ticking when it should have given up a long time ago."
(Mercury was so, so close. Please, just one more day – one more day in this hell, and then one more, and then another. He didn't want to die.)
(He didn't want to die.)
"Anyway," The Man continued, wiping the blood on his shoe off on Mercury's pants. "Your former guild entered again. I thought they'd come in last as usual, but somehow they made it all the way to the end – they won the whole thing. Our sponsor was quite upset. He lost a lot of money on it, so expect things to be rougher for the next couple of days."
Mercury rolled his eyes.
"I didn't tell you that just so that you could brace yourself, though. As you're probably aware, I don't care what happens to you, so long as you're still alive. You're just the means to an end," he reminded Mercury. To match his words, The Man's face was comfortably blank. It was true – he didn't care what happened to the man in the basement so long as he kept being able to produce that blood that the guild needed. "Those boys upstairs are going to be pretty stressed the next couple of weeks, you know? Who knows what they're going to want to do to you. But aren't you curious how the dead last guild managed to win?"
If Mercury said he wasn't curious, that would have been a lie. Sometimes, people from the upstairs guild came down for what they called "stress management" – AKA, treating Mercury as a punching bag that kept regenerating. They'd mentioned the Grand Magic Games before. The event had become a thing the year after Mercury had been brought down here, so he'd never experienced it, though with how often they regaled him with the tales of Fairy Tail's failure, it was almost like he had been.
Good for them if they did manage to win. Maybe that meant that things had turned around for the guild. Mercury hoped that they were back on their feet now.
"You see, my boy," The Man continued, "They had some new members this year – though for you, they'd probably be considered old members."
(What…?)
"Perhaps they might have even been your friends?"
Friends? Like… Laxus? Like Fried and Evergreen and Bixlow and Mira and Makarov?
(No, there was no way. They were – )
"Yes, that's the look I wanted to see on your face," The Man giggled. Giggled. Like he was a child and the chained man in front of him was just a toy. "It's just as you've thought – those Fairy Tail bastards have managed to come back from the dead after seven whole years. I was surprised, too."
He was just lying, right? Trying to get Mercury's hopes up so that he could crush them again, grinding him into a pit of despair. Trying to break him.
But…
Wouldn't that have been nice?
For his guildmates to have returned. For his friends to have come back. For his family to come looking for him.
They would, wouldn't they? Fairy Tail never gave up on their family. Mercury was sure that Macao and the others hadn't stopped looking for him, but if the Tenrou group had become involved as well, that meant that they'd surely find him, right?
Nothing could hold them back – not the Councilman who Mercury knew was backing this guild, nor this terrible man in front of him.
And even if The Man was lying… Mercury was dying. He knew it, as much as he wished to deny the ebbing in his chest, the way he couldn't feel half of his body. The end would be coming soon either way. So did it really matter if Mercury believed The Man?
He could choose not to, choose the more obvious choice of denial, spitting those words back in The Man's face with a horrendously fake laugh as he'd done so many times before, or he could choose to hold onto that dream, reaching, grasping onto that tiny ideal that made his chest throb in a way that wasn't painful for the first time in months.
Mercury laughed.
It was a real laugh.
He'd been delusional his whole life – thinking he could pretend to be human, thinking he could go unnoticed in a world where the "unknown" was locked up and put to the scalpel – and he wasn't going to stop now. Living in a delusion would be nicer than the world he was living in right now, anyway. He'd live hoping, grasping at that small ember of desire, even if it meant that he'd die a fool.
"There's no need for laughter, you know. It doesn't change anything. It's already been four years since I've handed you over to this dump, and they haven't so much as found one of your hairs yet. They're not going to get you out of here."
But The Man in Purple did not understand Fairy Tail.
They'd never stop searching. They hadn't given him his sendoff, after all, and they'd even given one to the prince of a parallel world that had the face of Erza Scarlet's worst nightmare. It simply wouldn't be Fairy Tail if they didn't try.
And Laxus… maybe he was with them, too. Or maybe the Thunder God Tribe knew him better than Mercury had thought he had, and could track down the dragon slayer.
If they did…
It would be over for the Man.
That was just who they were. Mercury knew it in his chest just like he knew that the life he'd been given was slowly coming to an end – Fairy Tail would come soon, and everything around them would burn.
For the first time in years, it wasn't hard to smile. It wasn't hard to slowly shift and stare up at The Man's oddly perfect, familiar face and grin in a way that felt almost obscene, so he did. That was all Mercury could do for the moment.
That, and choke out what would hopefully be his last words to The Man.
With a voice that was broken and a tongue that was dry, he forced out the words, "You're screwed."
(And if it ended with The Man's boot pressed painfully into the back of his head, nose aching as it fought to straighten itself with fading magic power, that was fine, too.)